Note 77 — Chapter VI
Reading edition
Marriage by capture. 16. Something has already been said on the subject of marriage by capture. It may be well to consider if there are any facts which indicate that the people of Upper India in early times procured brides by force. Mr. McLennan, as we have seen, in his theory of marriage, starts with the stage of communal marriage next to polyandry, merging in the levirate. This stage attained, some tribes branched off into endogamy, some to exogamy. Exogamy was based on infanticide, and led to marriage by capture.77 We have already seen the weakness of the evidence for the existence of a general stage of polyandry or communal marriage.