Bride robbery

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Bride robbery , girl robbery or woman robbery refers to the kidnapping of a girl or a woman for the purpose of marriage .

Occurrence and forms

In a bride robbery, also known as a predatory marriage, the future bride is " robbed " of her family or her guardian in order to marry her off to the kidnapper or a male member of the group of perpetrators. The practice of such kidnapping of female victims for marriage purposes is historically documented in large parts of the world; In the oldest Indo-European sources, predatory marriage is mentioned as one of the possible forms of marriage. An example of the robbery of entire groups of women, which has often been handed down in the course of acts of war , is the Roman robbery of the Sabine women . Nothing is historically known of an analogous “robbery of men” for marriage purposes, but the Greek Amazon legend , which has been handed down in many variants, contains such motifs in some versions.

If the kidnapping takes place against the will of the bride, the resulting marriage is a forced marriage . Accordingly, the kidnapper can be prosecuted for coercion , kidnapping and / or deprivation of liberty . In this criminal “ custom ”, women’s right to self-determination is fundamentally ignored. In Catholic canon law , such a "woman robbery" ( raptio ) constitutes an obstacle to marriage , which excludes the canonically valid entering into a marriage.

On the other hand, a kidnapping marriage that is not a forced marriage comes about when the woman either subsequently voluntarily agrees to marry the kidnapper or consented to the kidnapping from the outset or even participated in it. Such a "kidnapping" with the will of the bride can sometimes also take place with the tacit tolerance of her family. In cultures in which arranged marriages are common or the marriage of the ideal candidate of those willing to marry is made more difficult by family participation rights, bridal couples often choose the path of sham robbery, which in principle is a mutual escape. 5% of all marriages in Turkey are said to be the result of kız kaçırma (“girl robbery ”). If the family does not tolerate the marriage, the couple often has to fear subsequent persecution by relatives of the bride. Sometimes a kidnapping against the will of the bride family is even used as an occasion for an “ honor killing ”.

In the wedding customs of many cultures there are echoes of a predatory marriage, for example in playful mock fights between the group of the bride and the groom, played crying and screaming of the bride or resistance to leave her parents' home. Even in traditional wedding customs of the western cultural area, playful “ bride kidnapping ” has been preserved to this day. The bride is secretly taken to another location by guests during the wedding celebration , then the groom has to look for her and redeem her with a symbolic price or a promise.

Ethnological interpretations

The ethnosociology knows the bride robbery in some ethnic groups and indigenous peoples as a ritualistic form of foreign marriage ( Exogamy ) between different lineages or clans , by appropriate customs secured. But it can also be an element of warfare . The French neo-Marxist economic anthropologist Claude Meillassoux assumed in 1975 that the practice of exchanging women had developed out of a system of stealing women.

The early anthropologists John Ferguson McLennan and John Lubbock asserted around 1870 from an evolutionist point of view customary at the time that "predatory marriage" was common at the early stages of humanity. Later, an exogamy was created to make the robbery of wives superfluous. Today this assumption by evolutionists is rejected.

distribution

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Western Europe

In the European Middle Ages , in the then most common form of marriage, the Muntehe , the guardianship of the bride was officially transferred from her father to the husband; often a bride price was asked of him. If the groom was unwilling to pay the bride's money, he sometimes stole the bride, with or without her consent. However, this type of marriage was illegal and was severely punished. Since the kidnapping or robbery did not in itself have any effect on the marriage, a legal marriage had to be carried out without the official transfer of guardianship. Since the abduction marriage violated the rights of the family and the bride's guardian, feuds between the families of the bride and groom were common.

A mythological example of a bride robbery and a kidnapping marriage is Helena , who at the age of twelve is kidnapped by Theseus but freed again; later, their amicable kidnapping by Paris triggers the Trojan War .

A Germanic example of a kidnapping marriage against the will of the family is Thusnelda , daughter of the Cheruscan prince Segestes and already promised to another man: She was kidnapped and married by the Cheruscan prince Arminius around 15 AD with her consent .

Russia

In pre-revolutionary Russia , young women were stolen by their lovers with their consent if their parents were fundamentally against marriage. Usually, the couple was then by a priest secretly married and asked the parents with a fait accompli.

In Soviet times , the robbery of the bride was prosecuted as kidnapping and deprivation of liberty . The payment of a bride price was also forbidden. However, gifts to the bride's family were tolerated, even if, strictly speaking, it was a form of bride money. With the collapse of the Soviet Union , the criminal bride robbery revived.

Chechnya

With Chechens and some other Caucasian peoples, bride robbery was common up into the Soviet era. One of the reasons for this was the high bridal money demanded from the future husband. For certain reasons, families also sometimes had excessive expectations of their future son-in-law . If he wanted to marry his chosen one anyway, he had to kidnap her.

According to the Chechens' strict code of honor , the kidnapped woman was first to be asked whether she had already been taken and whether she intended to marry someone other than the kidnapper. In this case he had to hand the woman over to her chosen husband. It is not known how often this custom was used.

Roma

Among the Roma , especially in Eastern Europe, there is still ritualized bride robbery, which takes place with the consent of the bride and her family.

Turkey

In Turkey , the “one night kidnapping” still offers the possibility of getting married that the families do not want. After the woman has been withdrawn from her parents' supervision for one night, she is considered “ dishonored ”, and sexual intercourse does not need to have taken place. As a rule, the families then consent to the marriage in order to avoid a loss of honor. The previous bride robbery is kept secret from the neighborhood.

Kyrgyzstan

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the custom revived in Kyrgyzstan , mostly in a criminal way. Reports say that around 15,000 women are kidnapped and forced to marry each year. A corresponding law against this “match making crime” should be in preparation.

Bride robbery in art and literature

The robbery of women and the coercion of women have been frequent motifs in world literature since the beginning and can also be found as scenes of women raping in the visual arts (example: Pablo Picasso , women robbery from 1968).

fairy tale

The robbery of the bride is a strikingly common motif in Russian folk tales , but it is rare in Western European fairy tales. In African fairy tales, too, it is not uncommon for a woman to be robbed for the purpose of marriage, which (in contrast to European fairy tales) is often committed by mythical creatures . The Greek mythology knows cases of bride kidnapping, mostly committed here by gods.

Opera

In Richard Wagner's opera Die Walküre from 1870 Hunding is the husband of Sieglinde, who was once stolen .

Trivial literature

Since EM Hull's adventure and romance novel The Sheik (1919), the motif of the robbery and coercion of women has been taken up time and again in trivial literature , especially in the Bodice Ripper novels of the 1970s and 1980s, in which the kidnapping of the main female character is systematically considered more dramatic Artifice is used that allows this figure to experience a variety of erotic adventures without having to characterize it as lustful or sexually initiative.

Movie

In Indian films hardly, however, it is often about refugee couples to the bride kidnapping as such. In the western world , bride robbery is mostly addressed by the film industry in fairy tale films .

In the 1960s, the issue was in several Italian films picked up, so in 1963 by Pietro Germi in his comedy seduction in Italian (Sedotta e abbandonata) , or 1970 by Damiano Damiani in on the true story of Franca Viola based drama Law and passion ( La moglie più bella ).

The Soviet comedy The Caucasian Prisoner is about the robbery of the bride. The student Nina is kidnapped in order to marry off a friend of her uncle's . With the help of a friend and thanks to the clumsiness of the kidnappers, however, she manages to escape. The film from the 1960s is now considered a classic in Russia.

See also

literature

  • Dagmar Grassinger : robbery of women on a sarcophagus from Asia Minor. In: Taner Korkut u. a. (Ed.): Anadolu'da Doğdu. 60th Yaşında Fahri Işık'a Armagăn / Festschrift for Fahri Işık on his 60th birthday . Ege Yayınları, Istanbul 2004, pp. 321–329.

Web links

Commons : Bride robbery  - collection of images, videos and audio files
  • Lukas, Schindler, Stockinger: Bride robbery, groom robbery. In: Online Interactive Glossary: ​​Marriage, Marriage, and Family. Institute for Cultural and Social Anthropology, University of Vienna, 1997 (detailed notes with references).
  • Gabriele Rasuly-Paleczek: Predatory marriage. (PDF: 853 kB, 52 pages) (No longer available online.) In: Introduction to the forms of social organization (Part 3/5). Institute for Cultural and Social Anthropology, University of Vienna, 2011, p. 110/111 , archived from the original on October 17, 2013 (documents from her lecture in the summer semester 2011).;

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ On Franconian tribal rights from the 5th century see Edward Schramm : Ehe und Familie im Strafrecht. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2011, ISBN 978-3-16-150929-2 , p. 41/42 ( page views in the Google book search);
    Quotation: “In the Franconian tribal law , which was fixed in writing from the 5th century AD, there was a convergence of the elements of paternal and maternal law on the» family law «level. However, robbery, for example, "the forcible repatriation of women against the will of their rulers", [Mikat, HRG, Sp. 815], was recognized as a legally valid grounds for marriage (under family law) (apparently until the 11th century), although the The abduction of women has been a criminal offense in some tribal rights since the 7th century. "
  2. ↑ a b c Gabriele Rasuly-Paleczek: Robbery marriage. (PDF: 853 kB, 52 pages) (No longer available online.) In: Introduction to the forms of social organization (Part 3/5). Institute for Cultural and Social Anthropology, University of Vienna, 2011, p. 111 , archived from the original on October 17, 2013 ; accessed on June 10, 2019 (documents for your lecture in the summer semester 2011). Quote: “In the 19th century, predatory marriage was e.g. B. by McLENNAN considered the archetype of marriage par excellence. (see BARNARD / SPENCER 1997: p. 597, SEYMOUR-SMITH 1986: p. 28 and PANOFF / PERRIN 1982: p. 57). It was argued, among other things, that predatory marriage is closely related to the female infanticide practiced by early humans. Since the girls in their own group were killed, the early humans were forced to look for their wives through armed conflict in other groups. (SEYMOUR-SMITH 1986: p. 28) Today, this assumption of the evolutionists of the 19th century. rejected. (see PANOFF / PERRIN 1982: p. 57). […] On the other hand, the flight of the two future spouses or the kidnapping of the bride, which takes place with the consent of the bride and / or group, occurs much more frequently. (cf. PANOFF / PERRIN 1982: p. 57f) (reference to Fevziye and Turkey, e.g. 5% of all marriages in Turkey come about as a result of the Kiz kacirma ). It should be noted in connection with predatory marriage, however, that echoes of predatory marriage can be found in the wedding customs of many societies. B. Sham fights between the group of bride and groom, crying and screaming on the part of the bride, resistance of the bride to leave her parents' home. (cf. PANOFF / PERRIN 1982: p. 57f) (cf. various ethnological monographs) ”.
  3. ↑ Reinhard Eckert, Patricia Hladschik: Forced marriage: bride robbery - kidnapping marriage. In: polis aktuell. Zentrum polis - Political Learning in School, Vienna, February 19, 2009, p. 11 , accessed on June 10, 2019 (edition 1/2006).
  4. ^ Gabriele Rasuly-Paleczek: Robbery marriage. (PDF: 853 kB, 52 pages) (No longer available online.) In: Introduction to the forms of social organization (Part 3/5). Institute for Cultural and Social Anthropology, University of Vienna, 2011, pp. 110/111 , archived from the original on October 17, 2013 ; accessed on June 10, 2019 (documents for your lecture in the summer semester 2011). Quote: “A predatory marriage is a marriage in which the groom or his relatives take the bride from her family by force. (cf. BARNARD / SPENCER 1997: p. 597; SEYMOUR-SMITH 1986: p. 28 and PANOFF / PERRIN 1982: p. 57) According to SEYMOUR-SMITH, predatory marriage is an element of warfare among traditionally warring groups. The best-known ethnographic one An example are the Yanömamo Indians on the Amazon, which were examined by N. CHAGON (1968). (SEYMOUR-SMITH 1986: p. 28) ".
  5. ↑ Claude Meillassoux: The wild fruits of women. About domestic production and the capitalist economy. Syndikat, Frankfurt 1976, ISBN 3-8108-0010-4 , pp. 42-44.
  6. ↑ Hans-Rudolf Wicker: Anthropological explanations. (PDF: 387 kB, 47 pp.) In: Guide for the introductory lecture in social anthropology, 1995–2012. Institute for Social Anthropology, University of Bern, July 31, 2012, p. 10, accessed on March 13, 2020 (revised version).
  7. ↑ Frank Nienhuysen: bride kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan: Criminal wedding custom. In: Süddeutsche.de. February 22, 2013, accessed June 10, 2019 . Quote: “A match making crime: Every year around 15,000 women are kidnapped in Kyrgyzstan and forced to marry. Now a new law should finally stop the widespread tradition of the still young democracy. "
  8. ^ Elisabeth Frenzel : Motives of world literature. A lexicon of longitudinal sections of the history of poetry (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 301). 5th, revised and expanded edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-520-30105-9 , pp. 170-185.
  9. ↑ Lykke Aresin , Helga Hörz , Hannes Hüttner , Hans Szewczyk (eds.): Lexikon der Humansexuologie. Verlag Volk und Gesundheit, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-333-00410-0 , p. XXXVI.