Note 520 — Chapter IV · RISE OF THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT

McLennan, op. cit., I, 38 ff., maintains the prevalence of capture de facto, especially in the form of violent abduction; and he is followed by Lubbock, op. cit., 111-13. According to Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, 343 ff., women are sometimes (1) stolen from kindred groups; (2) seized in war between related clans; or (3) captured from alien tribes, elopement being of more frequent, and marriage by exchange or gift of less frequent, occurrence. But it should be remembered that elopement and purchase often go together. Mr. Curr, The Australian Race, I, 108, states that women are very seldom captured from other tribes, the practice being discouraged for fear of stirring up incessant attacks. Cf. Westermarck, Human Marriage, 384, 385; and Kohler, "Das Recht der Australneger," ZVR., VII, 350 ff.

Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Cent. Australia, 104, 105, 554-60, name four methods of obtaining wives among these aborigines: (1) charming by means of magic; (2) capture, being of "much rarer occurrence;" (3) elopement, a form "intermediate" between the method of charming and that of capture, often leading to bloody fights; (4) the custom "in accordance with which every woman in the tribe is made Tualcha mura [prospective mother-in-law] with some man. This relation is entered into while the male and female are in tender years; so that the boy is thus betrothed to the prospective, unborn daughter of his Tualcha mura. This is the usual method of obtaining a wife in the Arunta and Ilpirra tribes.