The Kurmis and other sudras celebrate marriage by a pretended combat. Sometimes the bridegrooms mark their foreheads with blood, which seems, indeed, to be the origin of the singular and nearly universal custom in India of the sindradan,[1] consisting of marking the forehead of the bride with vermilion. The vermilion has apparently replaced the blood, and the blood may, and doubtless does, symbolise a violent rape.
With the Mecks and the Kacharis, the bridegroom, accompanied by his friends, goes to the house of his future bride; he there meets the friends of the latter, and the two troupes simulate a combat, in which the future husband is always victor; the bride finishes by being carried off, and her husband has only to feast the friends of both parties, and pay the father the price of the girl.[2]
With the Soligas, the man carries away the young girl with her consent, and goes, like the Mongols, to a neighbouring village to pass the time of the honeymoon, after which the couple return home and give a feast.[3]
The custom of simulated capture still exists among other aboriginal tribes of India, the Khonds, Badagas, etc.
It is evident that in primitive humanity, to carry off a woman with armed violence was considered a glorious exploit, since in the most diverse races pacific marriage assumes, with such good will, the pretence of violent conquest.
In New Zealand, in order to marry a girl, a man applied either to her father or nearest relation; then, consent being obtained, he ravished his future bride, who was bound to resist energetically. As the New Zealand women were robust, the contest, however courteous it might be, was severe; the clothes of the girl were generally torn to shreds, and it sometimes took hours to drag her a hundred yards.[4]
Sometimes the mother of the bride interfered. Mr. Yate mentions a case of this kind. It relates to a mother quite content with the marriage of her daughter, but obliged by custom to make a show of violent opposition.
