The Marriage Institution

83:2.1Prim­i­tive mar­riages were al­ways planned by the par­ents of the boy and girl. The tran­si­tion stage be­tween this cus­tom and the times of free choos­ing was oc­cu­pied by the mar­riage bro­ker or pro­fes­sional match­maker. These match­mak­ers were at first the bar­bers; later, the priests. Mar­riage was orig­i­nally a group af­fair; then a fam­ily mat­ter; only re­cently has it be­come an in­di­vid­ual ad­ven­ture.

83:2.2Co­er­cion, not at­trac­tion, was the ap­proach to prim­i­tive mar­riage. In early times woman had no sex aloof­ness, only sex in­fe­ri­or­ity as in­cul­cated by the mores. As raid­ing pre­ceded trad­ing, so mar­riage by cap­ture pre­ceded mar­riage by con­tract. Some women would con­nive at cap­ture in or­der to es­cape the dom­i­na­tion of the older men of their tribe; they pre­ferred to fall into the hands of men of their own age from an­other tribe. This pseudo elope­ment was the tran­si­tion stage be­tween cap­ture by force and sub­se­quent court­ship by charm­ing.

83:2.3An early type of wed­ding cer­e­mony was the mimic flight, a sort of elope­ment re­hearsal which was once a com­mon prac­tice. Later, mock cap­ture be­came a part of the reg­u­lar wed­ding cer­e­mony. A mod­ern girl’s pre­ten­sions to re­sist “cap­ture,” to be ret­i­cent to­ward mar­riage, are all relics of olden cus­toms. The car­ry­ing of the bride over the thresh­old is rem­i­nis­cent of a num­ber of an­cient prac­tices, among oth­ers, of the days of wife steal­ing.

83:2.4Woman was long de­nied full free­dom of self-dis­posal in mar­riage, but the more in­tel­li­gent women have al­ways been able to cir­cum­vent this re­stric­tion by the clever ex­er­cise of their wits. Man has usu­ally taken the lead in court­ship, but not al­ways. Woman some­times for­mally, as well as covertly, ini­ti­ates mar­riage. And as civ­i­liza­tion has pro­gressed, women have had an in­creas­ing part in all phases of court­ship and mar­riage.

83:2.5In­creas­ing love, ro­mance, and per­sonal se­lec­tion in pre­mar­i­tal court­ship are an And­ite con­tri­bu­tion to the world races. The re­la­tions be­tween the sexes are evolv­ing fa­vor­ably; many ad­vanc­ing peo­ples are grad­u­ally sub­sti­tut­ing some­what ide­al­ized con­cepts of sex at­trac­tion for those older mo­tives of util­ity and own­er­ship. Sex im­pulse and feel­ings of af­fec­tion are be­gin­ning to dis­place cold cal­cu­la­tion in the choos­ing of life part­ners.

83:2.6The be­trothal was orig­i­nally equiv­a­lent to mar­riage; and among early peo­ples sex re­la­tions were con­ven­tional dur­ing the en­gage­ment. In re­cent times, re­li­gion has es­tab­lished a sex taboo on the pe­riod be­tween be­trothal and mar­riage.