Grosse's argument, therefore, falls to the ground.
WHY THE WOMEN RESIST
Prior to all these writers Sir John Lubbock advanced (98) still
another theory of capture, real and sham. Believing that men once had
all their wives in common, he declares that
"capture, and capture alone, could originally give a
man the right to monopolize a woman to the exclusion of
his fellow-clansmen; and that hence, even after all
necessity for actual capture had long ceased, the
symbol remained; capture having, by long habit, come to
be received as a necessary preliminary to marriage."
This theory has the same shortcoming as the others. While accounting
for the capture, it does not explain the resistance of the women. In
real capture they had real reasons for kicking, biting, and howling,
but why should they continue these antics in cases of sham capture?
Obviously another factor came into play here, which has been strangely
overlooked--parental persuasion or command. Among savages a father
owns his daughter as absolutely as his dog; he can sell or exchange
her at pleasure; in Australia, "swapping" daughters or sisters is the
commonest mode of marriage. Now, stealing brides, or eloping to avoid
having to pay for them, is of frequent occurrence everywhere among
uncivilized races.
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