Note 503 — Chapter IV · RISE OF THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT

Dargun's classification of peoples, among whom occurs so-called marriage by capture in its various forms, will be found useful (Mutterrecht und Raubehe, 78 ff., 92, 138, 139). They are divided into two major classes:

I. Peoples among whom wife-capture is an essential part of marriage. This class comprehends three grades according to the consent of the guardian (Gewalthaber) of the woman:

1. In the first grade fall peoples among whom wife-capture is customary without any regard to the guardian: East Indians, Slavs, Germans, and various non-Aryan peoples.

2. In the second grade fall peoples among whom it is the custom, after the capture is effected, to compound with the guardian by paying a penalty for the abduction or a price for the woman: including Slavs, Lithuanians, modern Greeks of the Ionian Isles, the Ossetes of the Caucasus, the Germans, and certain non-Aryan peoples.

3. In the third grade are peoples among whom the abduction of the bride, no longer accompanied by actual violence, is a legal requirement, though preceded by consent of the guardian. Besides non-Aryan examples, here are found the Romans, ancient Greeks, Slavs, possibly the Germans.

II. Peoples among whom wife-capture exists as a survival in merely symbolical form and without legal significance. Examples among nearly all peoples in every stage of advancement.

Cf. the similar classification of Post, Familienrecht, 139, 140.