The suggestion may be made that the procedure really indicates the girl's reluctance to be severed from her own clan and transferred to another; and that the sentiment is a survival of the resistance to marriage by capture which was at first imposed on the women by the men from loyalty to the clan totem and its common life, and had nothing to do with the conjugal relationship of marriage.

But out of this feeling the sexual modesty of women, which had been non-existent in the matriarchal condition of society, was perhaps gradually developed.

The Chamars of Bilaspur have sham fights on the approach of the wedding party, and in most Hindu castes the bridegroom on his arrival performs some militant action, such as striking the marriage-shed or breaking one of its festoons.

After the marriage the bride is nearly always sent home with the bridegroom's party for a few days, even though she may be a child and the consummation of the marriage impossible.

This may be in memory of her having formerly been carried off, and some analogous significance may attach to our honeymoon.