Of the horrible custom of marrying helpless girls before they are mature in body or mind—­often, indeed, before they have reached the age of puberty—­I have already spoken, instancing some Borneans, Javanese, Egyptians, American Indians, Australians, Hottentots, natives of Old Calabar, Hindoos; to which may be added some Arabs and Persians, Syrians, Kurds, Turks, natives of Celebes, Madagascar, Bechuanas, Basutos, and many other Africans, etc.  As for those who practise infant betrothal, Westermarck’s own list includes Eskimos, Chippewayans, Botocudos, Patagonians, Shoshones, Arawaks, Macusis, Iroquois; Gold Coast negroes, Bushmen, Marutse, Bechuanas, Ashantees, Australians; tribes of New Guinea, New Zealand, Tonga, Tahiti, and many other islands of the South Sea; some tribes of the Malay Archipelago; tribes of British India; all peoples of the Turkish stock; Samoyedes and Tuski; Jews of Western Russia.

As regards capture, good authorities now hold that it was not a universal practice in all parts of the world; yet it prevailed very widely—­for instance, among Aleutian Islanders, Ahts, Bonaks, Macas Indians of Ecuador, all Carib tribes, some Brazilians, Mosquito Indians, Fuegians; Bushmen, Bechuanas, Wakamba, and other Africans; Australians, Tasmanians, Maoris, Fijians, natives of Samoa, Tukopia, New Guinea, Indian Archipelago; wild tribes of India; Arabs, Tartars, and other Central Asians; some Russians, Laplanders, Esthonians, Finns, Greeks, Romans, Teutons, Scandinavians, Slavonians, etc.  “The list,” says Westermarck (387), “might easily be enlarged.”  As for the list of peoples among whom brides were sold—­usually to the highest bidder and without reference to feminine choice—­that would be much larger still.  Eight pages are devoted to it and two only to the exceptions, by Westermarck himself, who concludes (390) that “Purchase of wives may, with even more reason than marriage by capture, be said to form a general stage in the social history of mankind,” How nearly universal the practice is, or has been, may be inferred from the fact that Sutherland (I., 208), after examining sixty-one negro races, found fifty-seven recorded as purchasing their wives.

Widely prevalent also was the custom of allowing a man who had married a girl to claim all her sisters as soon as they reached a marriageable age.  Whatever their own preferences might be, they had no choice.  Among the Indian tribes alone, Morgan mentions forty who indulged in this custom.  As for the levirate, that is another very wide-spread custom which shows an utter disregard of woman’s preference and choice.  It might be supposed that widows, at any rate, ought always to be allowed, in case they wished to marry again, to follow their own choice.  But they are, like the daughters, regarded as personal property, and are inherited by their late husband’s brother or some other male relative, who marries them himself or disposes of them as he pleases.  Whether the acceptance of a brother’s widow or widows is a right or a duty (prescribed by the desire for sons and ancestor-worship) is immaterial for our purpose; for in either case the widow must go as custom commands, and has no liberty of choice.  The levirate prevails, or has prevailed, among a great number of races, from the lowest to those considerably advanced.