I will be master of what is mine own; She is my goods, my chattels; she’s my house,
My household stuff, my field, my barn,
My horse, my ox, my ass, my everything.
The Taming of the Shrew.
It is an obvious fact that so far as her sex relations are concerned the position of civilized woman is lower than that of the female animal.
 
The question which presents itself at this stage of our inquiry is: What were the causes which led to the overthrow of female supremacy or what were the processes by which man gained the undisputed right to the control of woman’s person? By contrasting the industrial position of women under gentile institutions with that of later times, after they had become the sexual slaves of men, it will be seen that the question of economics is deeply involved in this change. Although the early independence of women is now recognized, the fact of their industrial supremacy is for the most part ignored. Indeed the part performed160 by woman in originating and developing human industries is seldom referred to by those dealing with this subject.
 
As the activities best suited to the tastes of primitive man were confined to war and the chase, those occupations and pursuits which were necessary for the preservation of the group were carried on by women. The reason for this is obvious. Fathers were not regarded as being related to their offspring. The mother was the only recognized parent. As the land was held in common, women were economically free. They were absolutely independent of men for their support. Under these conditions the importance of women’s position may be easily perceived.
 
Not only did women establish the first industries, but they invented and constructed the tools and implements by which these industries were carried on. Women were the first tillers of the soil. It was they who conceived the idea of preserving seeds whereby farinaceous food might be produced. Corn was not only raised by them but by them it was ground and further prepared for use. They built clay granaries in which to store their food products and tamed the cat to protect them. Implements for tilling the soil, and devices for grinding the grain were invented by women. They were the first architects and the first builders. They first conceived the idea of making cloth with which to protect the body. They were the first spinners and the first weavers. They in161vented the first spindles and the first looms. Their attempts at decoration were the beginning of art.
 
As these pioneers in industry were without means of transportation other than their backs, some of the difficulties which they encountered may be readily perceived. It must be borne in mind that for primitive women there was no accumulated store of knowledge and no previous race-experiences; neither were there any established rules or precedents to guide them. All methods and utilities had to be worked out by woman’s unaided brain. When the conditions under which these pioneers in industry laboured are considered, and when one reflects on the obstacles which must have presented themselves at every step along their untried pathway, it would almost seem that their early achievements were quite as remarkable as are those which have since been accomplished by men.
 
The fact is observed that woman assumed the r?le of protector and provider, not as is commonly asserted because she was compelled by man to become a beast of burden, but because she was the recognized guardian not only of infant life but of the public welfare. Later, after the primitive groups began to coalesce to form the tribe, after wife-capture became prevalent and men thereby secured the right to the control and ownership of individual women, a right which they still claim, then and not till then did women become beasts of burden. Then and not till then did162 man gain the right to the control of woman’s person.
 
It is now known that wife-capture is the origin of our present form of marriage, and that the establishment of the family with man at its head rests on the same basis. It is also known that through forcible marriage and the economic conditions which it entailed, woman became a dependent, a mere appendage to her male mate. The dominion of man and the assumed inferiority of woman are the direct results of the authority which he was able to exercise over her in the marital relation.
 
We have seen that prior to the decline of female influence women taken prisoners in war were not regarded as the legitimate property of their captors. On the contrary, female captives were adopted into the gens and invested with the same status of personal independence enjoyed by the original members of the group. Later, however, female prisoners began to be regarded as the special booty of their captors, and as belonging exclusively to them; and although in primitive times marriage outside the limits of related groups was prohibited, owing to the esteem in which military chieftains came to be held, this claim was at length allowed them. Any courageous young warrior, conscious of his popularity, might gather about him a band of his clansmen and march against a neighbouring tribe, the women taken prisoners during such expeditions being the special prizes of their captors.
 
163
 
These prisoners were entitled to none of the privileges of the community into which they were taken; and as the hostility felt toward unrelated tribes had become so strong as to be shared by women, the captive woman could no longer look for pity even from her own sex.
 
From this time in the history of the race may be traced the decline of woman’s power and the subjection of the natural female impulses. As, at this stage, within the limits of their own tribe, women held the balance of power in their own hands, and as they still exercised unqualified control over their own persons, the acknowledged ownership of one woman, who, being a “stranger,” was without power or influence, would be an object much to be desired, and one for which a warrior would not hesitate to brave the dangers of a hostile camp. Hence, female captives were in demand, and the women of warring tribes were sought after singly and in groups. In process of time wars for wives became general and under the new regime women had the fear of captivity constantly before their view as a condition more to be dreaded than death.
 
In the Mahabharata of India it is stated that formerly “women were unconfined and roved about at their pleasure, independent.” Finally, marriage was instituted and a woman was bound to a man for life. One of the eight forms of legalized marriage in the code of Manu was that of capture de facto and was called Racshasa. This particular164 form of conjugal union was practised exclusively by the military classes, among which, the women taken in battle were the acknowledged booty of their captors. A definition of this kind of marriage is as follows: “The seizure of a maiden by force from her house while she weeps and calls for assistance, after her kinsmen and friends have been slain in battle or wounded, and their houses broken open, is the marriage called Racshasa.”
 
Capture as the prescribed form of marriage for warriors may be traced through thousands of years and among various peoples. Of the three legalized forms of marital union in Rome, that by capture was the one in use among the plebeians, the patricians at the same time practising Confarreatio and Usus. In Arabia, as late as Mohammed’s time, the carrying off of women was recognized as a legal form of marriage.109
 
That capture constituted a legal form of marriage among the Israelites, or that women taken captives in war were appropriated as sexual slaves, is shown by their religious history, in which the instructions given to the Lord’s chosen people after they had taken a city was to “smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city” they were to take unto themselves. This, it will be noticed, is to be done165 “unto the cities which are very far off,” and which “are not of the cities of these nations.”110
 
When the Israelites 12,000 strong marched against the Midianites, they were commanded by Moses to slay all the males, adults and children, and all the women except the virgins. These virgins of whom there were 32,000 were to be spared and utilized as wives by the victorious Israelites. The fact will be noted that these women had been taken from their own people, hence they were wholly without influence or power. They were dependents and therefore subject to the will of their masters. They were sexual slaves or wives.
 
In Australia, among the North American Indians, the tribes of the Amazon and the Orinoco, in Hindustan and Afghanistan, marriage by actual capture is still practised, and many of the details connected with the modus operandi have been given by various writers. The following from Sir George Gray, relative to this form of marriage as it exists at the present time among some of the native Australian tribes, is quoted by Mr. J.?F. McLennan.
 
Although a woman give no encouragement to her admirers,
 
many plots are laid to carry her off, and in the encounters which result from these, she is almost certain to receive some violent injury, for each of the combatants166 orders her to follow him, and in the event of her refusing, throws a spear at her. The early life of a young woman at all celebrated for beauty is generally one continued series of captivity to different masters, of ghastly wounds, of wanderings in strange families, of rapid flights, of bad treatment from other females, amongst whom she is brought a stranger by her captor; and rarely do you see a form of unusual grace and elegance, but it is marked and scarred by the furrows of old wounds; and many a female thus wanders several hundred miles from the home of her infancy, being carried off successively to distant and more distant points.111
 
In an account describing the search for wives by the natives of Sydney, Collins says:
 
The poor wretch is stolen upon in the absence of her protectors. Being first stupefied with blows, inflicted with clubs or wooden swords, on the head, back, and shoulders, every one of which is followed by a stream of blood, she is then dragged through the woods by one arm, with a perseverance and violence that it might be supposed would displace it from its socket. This outrage is not resented by the relations of the female, who only retaliate by a similar outrage when they find an opportunity. This is so constantly the practice among them that even the children make it a play game, or exercise.112
 
By various travellers and explorers, the fact has been observed that certain symbols represent167ing force in their marriage ceremonies are in use among nearly if not all extant tribes which have reached a certain stage of growth. To such an extent, in an earlier age, has the forcible carrying-off of women prevailed, that among most of these tribes a valid marriage may not be consummated without the appearance of force in the nuptial ceremonies. In reference to these symbols, we have the following passage from Mr. McLennan:
 
Meantime, we observe that, whenever we discover symbolical forms, we are justified in inferring that in the past life of the people employing them, there were corresponding realities; and if, among the primitive races which we examine, we find such realities as might naturally pass into such forms on an advance taking place in civility, then we may safely conclude (keeping within the conditions of a sound inference) that what these now are, those employing the symbols once were.113
 
Among primitive tribes, the area controlled by each was small, therefore vigilance in maintaining their possessions was one of their chief duties, and hostility to surrounding tribes a natural condition. Subsequently, however, when friendly relations began to be established with hitherto hostile tribes, they are found entering into negotiations to furnish each other with wives. It was at this time that marriage by sale or contract was instituted, an arrangement by which the elder168 men in the tribe could be accommodated with foreign wives, at the same time that their own daughters and sisters became to them a source of revenue.
 
In Uganda many men obtain wives by exchanging daughters and sisters with each other. Of this practice C. Staniland Wake says:
 
This is not an unusual mode of proceeding in different parts of the world. The perpetuation of the monopoly of women enjoyed to a great extent by the older men of the tribe among the Australians is, according to Mr. Howitt, encouraged by those having sisters or daughters to exchange with each other for wives.114
 
Not unfrequently actual capture is practised side by side with fiction—violent seizure being in active operation among the same tribes at the same time with the symbol, the frequency of actual violence depending partly on the extent to which hostility prevails between the tribes, and partly on the degree of “uniformity established by usage in the prices paid for wives.” Among certain tribes, when a dispute arises concerning the price to be paid for a bride, if the man is able to seize the woman and carry her off to his tent, the law recognizes her as his wife and nothing is left for the relations to do in the matter but to accept his terms as to the price.
 
The peoples among which actual capture is at169 present practised, and those among which wives are procured by sale or contract, represent two different stages in the development of the institution of marriage, and it is owing to this fact that the symbols used among the latter may be traced to the realities in which they originated.
 
Of the Bedouins of Mt. Sinai, Burckhardt says that marriage is a matter of sale and purchase, in which the inclination of the girl is disregarded.
 
The young maid comes home in the evening with the cattle. At a short distance from the camp she is met by the future spouse and a couple of his young friends, and carried off by force to her father’s tent. If she entertains any suspicion of their designs she defends herself with stones, and often inflicts wounds on the young men, even though she does not dislike the lover, for, according to custom, the more she struggles, bites, kicks, cries, and shrieks, the more she is applauded ever after by her own companions.115
 
In reference to the Mezeyne Arabs the same writer observes that a similar custom prevailed within the limits of the Sinai Peninsula, but not among the other tribes of that province.
 
A girl having been wrapped in the Abba at night, is permitted to escape from her tent, and fly into the neighbouring mountains. The bridegroom goes in search of her next day, and remains often many days before he can find her out, while her female friends are apprised of her hiding-place, and furnish her with170 provisions. If the husband finds her at last (which is sooner or later, according to the impression that he has made upon the girl’s heart), he is bound to consummate the marriage in the open country, and to pass the night with her in the mountains. The next morning the bride goes home to her tent, that she may have some food; but again runs away in the evening and repeats these flights several times, till she finally returns to her tent. She does not go to live in her husband’s tent until she is far advanced in pregnancy; if she does not become pregnant, she may not join her husband till a full year from the wedding-day.116
 
Cranz says that in Greenland “some females, when a husband is proposed to them will fall into a swoon, elope to a desert place, or cut off their hair.... In the latter case they are seldom troubled with further addresses.” The refractory bride is dragged
 
forcibly into her suitor’s house, where she sits for several days disconsolate, with dishevelled hair, and refuses nourishment. When friendly exhortations are unavailing, she is compelled by force and even with blows to receive her husband. Should she elope, she is brought back and treated more harshly than before.117
 
Wherever friendly relations have been established between the tribe of the wife and that of171 the husband, he pays a price to her relatives for the privilege of removing her to his camp. This purchase price, together with the simulated hatred of the woman’s friends, signifies a sacrifice on the part of the wife and her family. In Nubia when a man marries he presents his wife with a wedding-dress, and gives her also a pledge for three or four hundred piastres, half of which sum is paid her in case of a divorce. Divorces, however, are very rare.118
 
Among the Circassians, after the preliminaries have been settled by the parents, the lover meets his bride-elect by night in some secluded spot, and with the assistance of two or three of his best friends seizes her and carries her away. Sometimes the pretended capture takes place in the midst of a noisy feast. The woman is usually conducted into the presence of a mutual friend, where, on the following day, her friends, simulating anger, seek her and demand a reason for her abduction. Although the affair is usually settled at once by the bridegroom paying the accustomed price for his bride, custom requires that there shall be still further manifestations of anger on the part of her friends; so, on the following day, all the relatives of the bride, armed with sticks, proceed to the place where the bride is in waiting, there to meet the bridegroom and his friends who have come to carry off the bride. A sham fight ensues, in which the bridegroom and his party172 are always victorious. Among certain of the Arabian tribes the bridegroom must force his bride to enter his tent, and in France, as late as the seventeenth century, a similar custom prevailed.
 
In describing a wedding dance in Abyssinia, Parkyns observes:
 
This dance is performed by men armed with shields and lances, who with bounds, feints, and springs attack others armed with guns, so as to approach them, and at the same time avoid their fire, while the gunners make similar demonstrations, and at last fire off their guns either in the air or into the earth, and then, drawing their swords, flourish them about as a finish.
 
Finally the bridegroom fires off a gun and immediately rushes across to where the bride and her female relations are stationed.119
 
Tylor informs us that a Scandinavian warrior generally sought to gain his bride by force, that he conceived it beneath his dignity to win her by pacific means. That the affair might appear more heroic, he waited until the object of his choice was about to wed another, and was actually on her way to the nuptial ceremony, when with his friends he would surprise the wedding cortege, seize the bride, and carry her off. It has been said of Scandinavian marriages that they were matters of deep anxiety to the friends both of the bride and groom, who, until the wedding was over,173 remained at home in suspense fearing an attack of the kind already mentioned. It was customary for a party of young men to station themselves at the church door, and, as soon as the ceremony was completed, to carry the news to the homes of the wedded pair. “Within a few generations the same old practice was kept up in Wales, where the bridegroom and his friends, mounted and armed as for war, carried off the bride,” and in Ireland they used even to hurl spears at the bride’s people, though at such a distance that no one was hurt.120
 
In the Amazon valley the bride is always carried away by violence. Among the Zulus, although a purchase price is paid for a woman, custom requires that a wife, after having been captured, shall make three attempts to return to her own home.
 
Of the marriage customs in ancient Sparta, Plutarch says: “In their marriages the bridegroom carried off the bride by violence.”121 In Rome we have the familiar example of the Sabine women, who were captured or carried off by force.
 
A notable fact in connection with the subject of capture is, that the mother of the bride, or, in case the mother is dead, the nearest female relative, is the individual who assumes the part of the principal defender in this ceremony. She it is who attempts to rescue the bride, and who more than any other mourns the fate of the captured wife. Among primitive peoples, with the exception of the symbol of wife-capture in marriage174 ceremonies, there is perhaps none more significant than that typifying the hatred of the mother for the captor of her daughter. Customs indicating estrangement or, actual aversion to sons-in-law, usually, if not always, accompany marriage by capture.
 
The fact that the change in the relative positions of the sexes, as indicated by the sadica and ba’al forms of marriage in Arabia, was not easily or speedily accomplished, is apparent not only in the symbols of wife-capture everywhere practised among peoples in a certain stage of development, but is strongly suggested also by the aversion found to exist among these same peoples between mothers-in-law and sons-in-law, whether appearing as a reality or as a symbol.
 
Among the Arawaks of South America, it is unlawful for the son-in-law to look upon the face of his mother-in-law. If they live in the same house a partition separates them, and if by chance they must enter the same boat, she must precede him so as to keep her back toward him.
 
Among the Caribs, all the women talk with whom they will, but the husband dare not converse with his wife’s relations except on extraordinary occasions.122 Mr. Tylor refers to the fact that
 
In the account of the Floridian expedition of Alvar Nu?ez, commonly known as Cabeca de Vaca, or Co175w’s Head, it is mentioned that the parents-in-law did not enter the son-in-law’s house, nor he theirs, nor his brother-in-law’s, and if they met by chance, they went a buckshot out of their way, with their heads down and eyes fixed on the ground, for they held it a bad thing to see or speak to one another.
 
It is observed by Richardson, an author quoted by Tylor, that among the Crees, while an Indian lives with his wife’s family, his mother-in-law must not speak to or look at him. In some portions of Australia, “the mother-in-law does not allow the son-in-law to see her, but hides herself if he is near, and if she has to pass him makes a circuit, keeping carefully concealed within her cloak.”
 
Among some of the tribes in Central Africa, from the moment a marriage is contracted, the lover may not behold the parents of his future bride. When a young man wishes to marry a girl, he dispatches a messenger to negotiate with her parents regarding the presents required and the number of oxen demanded. This being arranged, he may not again look upon the father and mother of his intended wife; “he takes the greatest care to avoid them, and if by chance they perceive him they cover their faces as if all ties of friendship were broken.” We are told, however, that this indifference is only feigned, that they feel the same friendship as before, and in conversation extol one another’s merit. Mr. Caillie says that this custom extends beyond the relations; if the lover is of a different camp, he176 must avoid all the inhabitants of the lady’s camp, except a few intimate friends who are permitted to assist him in his love-making. A little tent is set up for him in the neighbourhood, under which he is to remain during the day. If he has occasion to cross the camp he must cover his face. He may not see the face of his intended throughout the day, but at nightfall he may creep silently to her tent and remain with her until the dawn. These clandestine visits are continued for a month or two when the marriage is solemnized. At the wedding festival the women collect round the bride singing her praises and extolling her virtues.123
 
Gubernatis is authority for the statement that, in many parts of Italy the bride is compelled to go through the process of weeping on her wedding-day, also for the fact that one of the marriage customs prevalent in Sardinia is identical with that which appeared among the plebeians at Rome, namely, the pretence of tearing the bride from the arms of her mother.124
 
From the facts which have been obtained relative to the practice of wife-capture, it is only natural to suppose that the mother of the captured wife would be her chief ally and defender; that such has been the case seems to be clearly shown by the symbols of distrust and aversion everywhere manifested between mothers-in-law and sons-in-law among the various existing uncivilized177 races. The practice of wife-capture exists either as a reality or as a symbol entering into the marriage ceremonies among the tribes of Central Africa, the Indians of North and South America, in Australia, in New Zealand, in Arabia, in the hill tracts of India, among the Fuegians, and in the islands of the Pacific Ocean, and wherever this system is found the symbol of hatred between mother-in-law and son-in-law also prevails.
 
The simulated anger and sham violence connected with marriage ceremonies among friendly peoples, which are so far removed from a time when actual capture was practised as to be ignorant of the true significance of these symbols, show the extent to which marriage is based on the idea of force on the one side and unwilling submission on the other.
 
As the numerous Arabian clans in the time of Mohammed represented the varying stages of advancement from the second period of barbarism to civilization, the constitution of Arab society at that time affords an excellent opportunity for observing the growth of the institution of marriage, and the various processes by which the former supremacy of women was overthrown.
 
One of the principal objects of war at the time of the Prophet is said to have been the capture of women for wives, a practice which was recognized as lawful. Under Islam the custom of forcibly carrying off women for wives was universal and was carried on side by side with the system of178 marriage by contract or sale. The position of the captured woman, however, differed somewhat from that of the purchased wife. The former, having been forcibly carried away from her home, lost the protection of her friends, while the purchased wife, although she relinquished the authority which had formerly been exercised by women within the gens, and although she surrendered her person to her “lord,” did not forfeit her right to the protection of her own family in case of abuse.
 
Although in Arabia, under the form of marriage by sale or contract, the wife lost the right to the control of property belonging to her own gens, she did not, as in Rome, forfeit her claim to the protection of her kindred. If she received ill treatment within the home of her husband, her relatives, who were still her natural protectors, were bound to redress her wrongs. In Rome, on the contrary, under a system representing a later stage in the development of marriage, the wife was adopted into the stock of her husband whose rights over her person were supreme, at the same time that her kindred renounced the right to interfere in her behalf.
 
It is to the fact, that in early Arabia the wife never relinquished her hold upon her own relations, that we are to look for an explanation of the high social position of Arabian women. We are assured that it is “an old Arab sentiment, and not Moslem,” that women are entitled to the179 highest respect, and that as mothers of the tribe they “are its most sacred trust.”
 
According to Professor W.?R. Smith in Mohammed’s time, in addition to the two forms of marriage mentioned, namely, that by capture and that by sale or contract, there existed also a more ancient form known as the sadica—a form of conjugal union which was a remnant of the matriarchal system. By observing the facts connected with this last-named institution, we shall be enabled to understand something of the position occupied by women during the earlier ages of human existence before wife-capture became prevalent.
 
Among certain tribes just prior to Islam, upon the event of marriage, the man presented the woman with a sum of money, which offering was simply an acknowledgment of the favour which she was conferring upon him. The husband went to live with the wife in her tent, and as the contract was for no specified length of time, he was at liberty to go whenever he tired of the conditions imposed on him by his wife and her relations. Any children, however, that were born as a result of this union belonged to the mother and became members of her hayy. If she desired him to go, she simply turned the tent around, “so that if the door had faced east it now faced west, and when the man saw this he knew that he was dismissed and did not enter.” In relation to these marriage customs Professor Smith says:180 “Here, therefore, we have the proof of a well-established custom of that kind of marriage which naturally goes with female kinship in the generation immediately before Islam.” Of this kind of marriage the same writer observes:
 
The mot? marriage was a purely personal contract, founded on consent between a man and a woman, without any intervention on the part of the woman’s kin.... Now the fact that there was no contract with the woman’s kin—such as was necessary when the wife left her own people and came under the authority of her husband—and that, indeed, her kin might know nothing about it, can have only one explanation: in mot? marriage the woman did not leave her home, her people gave up no rights which they had over her, and the children of the marriage did not belong to the husband. Mot? marriage, in short, is simply the last remains of that type of marriage which corresponds to a law of mother-kinship, and Islam condemns it, and makes it “the sister of harlotry,” because it does not give the husband a legitimate offspring, i. e., an offspring that is reckoned to his own tribe and has rights of inheritance............