Stealing Brides

We had been chatting on Skype for about half an hour when my older sister announced, as though in passing, “By the way, tomorrow I’m getting married.” In response to my dismay – “Married!? Why didn’t you tell me? What do you mean, tomorrow?” – she answered, just as calmly, “Tomorrow they’re coming to steal me. Wanted to do it today, but I asked for a one-day extension. I’ve got to do a manicure, and a pedicure, and get some important things taken care of.”

Good or Bad?

Bride kidnapping comes as no surprise in the Caucasus. In fact, in my family it was a matter of course: grandpa stole grandma, dad stole mom, my brother stole my sister-in-law. Many of my female friends faced the same thing, and they were quite happy with the situation. After all, being married in Kabardino-Balkaria, like elsewhere in the Caucasus, is a privileged position, and gives you a certain status in society.

Because I grew up knowing bride kidnapping as a normal aspect of life, I have been surprised by the consistent pattern of thought among foreigners who find the tradition “barbaric and criminal.” As I scan various articles on the subject, watch YouTube videos, and interact with people of other nationalities, I cannot help being amazed at the widespread opinion that the majority, if not everyone, holds: stealing brides is bad, the grooms are criminals, the brides are unfortunate girls whose relatives could not protect them.

Of course, there have been isolated cases of criminal grooms and unfortunate brides. And no one misses an opportunity to write about them. But I wanted to offer a look at the other side of the coin.

It is rare to see accounts of cases where the bride knows about the upcoming “theft” and impatiently counts down the days until it finally happens. In the end, feel-good stories and happy endings simply do not interest readers as much as tragic finales. If it bleeds, it leads, etc. Often enough, if the bride does not know about the impending theft, she may suspect it. Does she resist, when the time comes? Sure – those are the rules of the game. Are her relatives opposed, and do they threaten to punish the groom? Again, rules of the game!

Kabardino-Balkaria is a land steeped in equestrian traditions.

The Tradition’s Origins

Modern-day bride kidnapping in the Caucasus is a fashionable trend, passed down from our ancestors and now resurging, having acquired a few modern flourishes along the way.

How did the Adyghe people do things in the past? (Adyghe is a term – roughly synonymous with Circassian – encompassing a number of peoples of the northwest Caucasus, including the Kabardins) Back then, the umyk (theft) of the bride came in three forms: an abduction by force, against the will of the woman and her family; an abduction with the bride’s consent, but against the will of her parents; and a staged abduction by mutual agreement of all interested parties.

This form of marriage was motivated by both economic and moral or psychological factors. The prospective groom aimed to force the woman and her family to acquiesce to the marriage – because even if she were to be taken by force from the unfortunate groom, she would be considered “dishonored” and would not have another chance to get married.

At the same time, the abductor hoped to achieve a significant reduction in the uase (bride price) when the two sides made up, and in a staged umyk, he could avoid pre-marriage expenses. In addition, in Adyghe society, young people considered a bride kidnapping that involved an element of physical danger for the groom to be a demonstration of his courage.

In fact, in ancient times, the Adyghe, who thought of the umyk as an antisocial custom, were constantly trying to quash the practice, classifying it among the most severe crimes, punishable, under locally-accepted law, by an honor killing. However, due to objective social factors, they could not entirely get rid of umyk. Even during Soviet times, when the prescribed punishment was up to two years in prison, Caucasian grooms continued to abduct brides. Specifically, Article 233 of the USSR Criminal Code read, “Forcing a woman to marry or to continue a marital cohabitation, or preventing her from marrying, as well as abduction in order to marry, are punishable by up to two years imprisonment.” Before the revolution, the Criminal Code had a special section: “Crimes Constituting Holdovers of Local Customs,” a category for which this custom definitely qualified.

The umyk was not the only way to precipitate a marriage. Courtship was the more respected tradition, and was always preceded by the couple meeting at posidelki or courtship parties. Posidelki were gatherings organized at the houses of eligible women, often specifically because of requests from young men, so that the latter might have an opportunity to meet their future soul mates. Couples would also meet during shikhaf: collective labor for purposes of mutual aid. Young women would often get together at someone’s house to clean wool or do handicrafts, and young men would visit them there.

“We Don’t Like to Complicate Things”

Today, couples have other ways to meet. The story of how Inna and Zurab Alborov met begins in the Parliament House of Kabardino-Balkaria, where Zurab was a contractor and Inna worked as press secretary for the republic’s Ministry of Education.

The bride is welcomed into the home of her husband, where countless rituals ensue.

Inna said that when the issue of marriage came up, there was no question about whether or not it would be by theft. Zurab said from the beginning that he would abduct her, and Inna did not care one way or the other, so she agreed. She did not know the exact date, but since it had been two months since the marriage application had been submitted to the Department of Vital Records, she had a pretty good idea.

Zurab stole Inna seven days before their wedding. As Inna remembered it, the most difficult part was the feeling of being in a completely alien environment.

“I wanted to run home, huddle under the covers, and cry,” Inna said. “But I think that had more to do with marriage in general than with kidnapping specifically. And it doesn’t matter how you marry. It’s hard to have so many strangers come and look at you. I did like the fact that, by the day of the marriage ceremony, many of these strangers had become family, and I felt comfortable with them. And another significant factor in favor of kidnapping: all the expenses, for the gown and many other things, become the responsibility of the groom and his family. And I’m not just saying that because I’m cheap!” she laughed.

Zurab’s brother also stole his future wife, and Zurab’s friends generally followed this tradition. He had talked it over with them in advance, because in a bride kidnapping friends are everything – in fact, they are the ones who organize the whole thing.

His friends later recounted that Inna cried non-stop during the abduction. “I think her tears are understandable,” Zurab said. “After all, it was much harder for her to accept it, because girls have to change their lives much more radically than guys.”

On the way home, the young men frequently stopped their cars to dance in the road, shot guns into the air, and offered champagne to anyone who wasn’t driving.

“For me, abducting a bride is more advantageous than courtship,” Zurab said. “First of all, you don’t have to wait. When everything is done with mutual consent, after the theft the bride becomes your legal wife. And there are fewer snags with organizing the ceremony, which is always better for men. We don’t like to complicate things.”

It cannot be denied that bride kidnapping has not always had a positive connotation in society, including in Adyghe society. Brides were certainly stolen against their will, and there are numerous examples where a girl would have to remain in a hated man’s family in order to avoid dishonor. At the center of this, as noted, is the belief that a girl who had spent the night in the home of a potential husband could no longer be “pure” and “unsullied.”

While elsewhere in the Caucasus and Central Asia there have been many notorious instances of bride stealing that was true kidnapping or even trafficking, there have been almost no such cases in modern Adyghe society. Bride “kidnapping” to the Adyghe has become a tradition cultivated by youth as an expression of traditional Caucasian romanticism.

The key here is the family’s trust: if the bride’s parents support their daughter and protect her, no kidnapping can change that. When an umyk takes place, the first order of business is to notify the bride’s relatives. They arrive the same day and ask the bride if she wants to remain. If not, she is taken home, and there’s no talk of “dishonor.” – M.M.

A young girl in Nalchik who one day may have to decide whether to be kidnapped or not.

A Modern Interpretation of an Old Custom

One rainy summer day I witnessed a bride kidnapping – along with everyone else who happened to be looking out the window at the House of the Press, where many state TV channels and newspapers are located. Down in the parking lot, a large number of white cars were lined up in a perfect row; a person with a camera was leaning out of one of the sunroofs. All the headlights were on, despite it being broad daylight. I glanced out the window and knew something was about to happen.

And it did: two young men in traditional Adyghe coats (cherkeski) burst out of the neighboring building – which, by the way, was a government edifice, complete with security – holding something large wrapped in a burka. The bundle was thrown into one of the cars, and the procession set off through the city.

We had been public witnesses to a custom that is supposed to happen in secret. Later, the video was posted on YouTube, where it joined a popular collection of clips showing bride kidnappings in the Caucasus (e.g. bit.ly/rl-stealing). In the Internet Age, this formerly private, intimate act has become like a music video contest, to see who can stage the showiest, most interesting abduction.

Raul S., 29, said that he had not planned to abduct his future wife – it just happened that way.

“Imagine: a guy wants to get married, the girl also appears to be into it, but the parents are opposed. Why? Who knows? Sometimes there’s no apparent reason, they’re just against it, and that’s that. You can imagine what that did to my self-esteem. When I found out, abducting my future wife became a matter of honor. I talked to my friends, and they were ready to help.”

And so it was done. The future bride got into the car willingly. Raul brought her home and waited through the night. Tradition states that, if a woman stays the night with the person who kidnaps her, she is obligated to marry him, even if nothing happens between them.

Today, things can be settled amicably. If the bride does not want to marry the man, her relatives are quickly contacted, and they come and take the bride-not-to-be without much fuss. Raul and his girlfriend took advantage of the ancient interpretation of the custom to “avoid shame,” and the marriage went ahead. Now Raul is a beloved son-in-law in his wife’s family. And this is not a unique case.

The Criminal Code treats the theft of a bride as “kidnapping.” In all seriousness, Article 126 of the Russian Criminal Code prescribes four to eight years of jail time. But despite this, kidnappings persist, because there are certain loopholes that allow the perpetrators to avoid punishment, in spite of calls for harsher punishments. And really, what can the criminal code do if the abduction is staged, or done with the bride’s consent?

Natalia M., 35, shared her story.

“The issue of stealing me, as a bride, came up in quite a few fights Albert [now her husband] and I had. He insisted that it be a kidnapping, but I was against it. I had several reasons. First of all, I was 30, and this kind of thing felt childish at my age. Second, even at 20 I didn’t want to be stolen – the expression itself grates. And third, it was probably a bit of a matter of principle by then, because I’d already made a whole bunch of compromises, and I just wanted him to compromise on something, too! Once, we even put off the wedding because of such a fight.”

Now, having been married to Albert five years, Natalia said she understands why he was so insistent on a kidnapping, even a staged one. Various trifles aside, there were constant deaths on both sides of the family, and in Kabardino-Balkaria it is inappropriate to marry within the six-month mourning period.

“And with that, if it’s one of the groom’s relatives that dies, it’s worse, because the wedding will definitely be postponed,” Natalia said. “But if it’s in the bride’s family, the issue can actually be resolved by kidnapping. Then you can say: ‘It wasn’t my fault, he stole me.’ What usually happened, was that around the time mourning was coming to an end, we’d be involved in such a fight that a wedding was out of the question.”

After six years of this back and forth, Natalia and Albert were in the midst of yet another postponement; Natalia said that they just wanted to put an end to this situation somehow. And when, while taking her home during one of their fights, Albert suddenly suggested they go to his place and finally marry, she understood that it was a “now or never” kind of suggestion.

“My grandmother had died less than half a year before, so I had to agree to a kidnapping. The next day he just drove over with a female relative, a mutual friend of ours, and I rode off with them.

“By the way,” Natalia continued, “it was kind of funny with my dad. According to our custom, when a bride is stolen, messengers have to be sent to the parents that same evening, to say: ‘We have your daughter, we want her to be a bride.’ Then her relatives – a brother, uncle, or someone else – go to see her, to find out if she consents or not, whether it was done willingly. After that either she gets taken home, or left there.

“That evening, Albert’s brothers went to my house to deliver the message. My dad is a sound sleeper, and my mom was on a trip. In any case, they couldn’t wake my dad, and so they had to go find my uncle. That same night we had a Muslim marriage, a nikah. In the morning, my dad woke up and saw that his daughter hadn’t spent the night at home. So he called me, all stern: ‘Where’ve you been?!’ And I told him: ‘Dad, I got married, and they couldn’t wake you.’ Then my dad, being a Caucasian man of few words, paused for a long moment and finally said: ‘Well, congratulations.’”

Astemir Shebzuho, a Kabardin blogger and student in Business Administration, Marketing, and Tourism at the Kabardino-Balkar State University, said in an interview with Alex Markus, another blogger from Kabardino-Balkaria, that he thinks of bride kidnapping not as an Adyghe tradition, but as something people used to do out of necessity.

“These days a bride kidnapping is a way for young people to show off,” Shebzuho commented. “It’s just too pretentious and formalized. Personally, I don’t want other men to manhandle my wife, even if they are my friends.”

Why don’t Adyghe brides Steal grooms?

That would be like asking why crocodiles do not fly and fish do not sing. Caucasian culture, colored in all aspects by patriarchy, does not allow the bride to even entertain such a thought. While feminism gained traction in the West over the past half century, a completely different mentality, passed down from our ancestors, strengthened its foothold in Kabardino-Balkaria: the man must make the move. The twenty-first century has done nothing to change that, internet or no internet. – M.M.

Shebzuho believes that this tradition has been corrupted due to young people’s ignorance and a desire to copy something that has been made to look impressive on social media.

“Someone posted a video of their bride kidnapping ceremony on the internet. Another person liked it, thought it was cool. And so it began. The guy and the girl walk showily hand in hand, everyone knows what’s about to happen, and the girl is usually dressed inappropriately. Now I look at all those videos and, to be perfectly honest, it makes me sad.”

The Future

To abduct or not to abduct – that is the question. Ancient customs, reinvented in modern ways, may not be to the older generation’s liking, because of certain new aspects, but they bring joy to youth. On one hand, it helps them respect and remember their customs; on the other, it turns an event like a marriage into a dramatized production.

One can only hope that the rules of the modern interpretation remain in force: that is, the bride must always remember that she has a choice – to remain or to leave, to marry this person or not. The groom must always remember that you can’t force love. The groom has the first word, but the bride always has the last. No exceptions. And when all the words have been spoken, when a consensus has been reached, all you can add is the Adyghe wish: “Tḥăm žə fəzdiṧ! (“May God let you grow old together!”) RL

The rugged terrain of Kabardino-Balkaria.

The Kidnapping of Princess Atazhukina

A 1902 account by an English traveler to the Caucasus, John F. Baddeley, published in his travel diary, The Rugged Flanks of the Caucasus.

A Kabardan gentleman, Tiazhikoff by name, fell in love, it seems, with the princess, who was young and beautiful, but out of all measure proud. The suitor could make no way with her at all, though well matched in age and looks, and of noble, if not princely, birth. It was not that she altogether disdained him, but she repelled his advances and would give him no hope, so that, driven to desperation, he exclaimed one day: ”Well, if you won’t have me one way, you shall another. I will carry you off!”

Now, that might well be the fate of any ordinary Kabardan maiden; it very often was. But that the Princess Atazhukina should be carried off against her will from the midst of her powerful family and their many retainers, seemed to touch on the fantastic. The princess thought so, no doubt, and answered scornfully enough, though not, perhaps, without just the shadow of a shade of encouragement in what was too slight, too evanescent, to be called a smile, “Carry me off and I’ll marry you!”

“You shall!” cried Tiazhikoff, and with that they parted.

For months nothing happened. Life at Kogolkino went its accustomed round; autumn wore away, winter came with more snow than usual, though not to lie long. March was cold and cheerless, but by the middle of April spring was at the full, flowers abloom, the birds in song. Then, one day, there was a wedding in the village; the bride was a friend of the princess, who graced the ceremony with her presence, and towards evening, danced with the rest on the village green, the pride and queen of them all.

In those days there was a fort on the far bank of the Ouroukh river and stationed there, as it happened, were two or three squadrons of a famous regiment, the Nizhni Novgorod (Nizhigorodsky) dragoons; and some of the officers, naturally enough, came over by invitation to the wedding, their handsome uniforms adding color to a scene already brilliant. Presently, one of them, Lieutenant Evstafieff, bowing low, solicited the honor of a waltz with the princess. He was a notably good dancer, and the lady adored dancing; she gave herself up without thought to the enchantment of the moment, heeding not at all the fact that, little by little, with many a dexterous turn and twist, now fast, now slow, her partner kept edging her nearer and nearer to the point where the street debouched on the green. She gave no heed – why should she? But suddenly there was a dull thunder of galloping hoofs, and the dance came to an abrupt end as, on Shanlokh horses swift as the wind, Tiazhikoff and Ourousbi dashed out. In less time than it takes to tell, the princess was seized, swung to her lover’s saddle-bow – and away!

Then, indeed, there was ‘mounting ‘mong Graemes of the Netherby clan, in other words, amid shouting of men and shrieking of women, the Atazhukin brothers with their friends and retainers, mad with anger, got to horse as quick as might be; gripped revolver and rifle, sword or kinjal, and in another moment or two would have been hot in pursuit with, apparently, every chance in their favor for they were many, the ravishers few – two only – and burdened with an unwilling victim. A stumble, a check of any kind, might be fatal; the recovery of the princess, the bloody death of her captors, seemed inevitable – when a strange thing happened.

The Russian colonel, it seems, had taken of late to drilling his men with marked assiduity, in the cool of each evening, on the green. On this particular day his squadrons were out as usual, but, the open ground being occupied by the merry-makers, what more natural than that they should use as a substitute the grassy street? There, at least, they were, and it so fell out that at the very moment when Tiazhikoff and Ourousbi fled by, a word of command rang out and the troopers drew up in close order across the street, blocking it completely! The commanding officer had his back to the mob of frantic horsemen who soon surged up and around him, vociferating wildly, and demanding instant passage, professing the utmost amazement, and a failure, natural enough in the circumstances – for he spoke no Circassian – to understand what all the noise was about, he managed to delay pursuit no very long time, indeed, but sufficiently, with the initial gain, to enable the ravishers to put a very considerable distance between themselves and their pursuers. Darkness and cunning did the rest – a short cut here and there, false information volunteered by apparently innocent passers-by, deepening doom in the forests. For everything to the minutest detail had been carefully thought out, the whole scheme planned and prepared for during the long months of waiting. Tiazhikoff and Ourousbi, the latter keeping a little to the rear, rifle in hand, ready to shoot down the leading enemies’ horses if necessary or help to master the lady (in no very gentle manner) should she prove obstreperous, rode fifty miles hardly drawing rein – the princess after the first shock making little or no resistance – and caught an express-train northward-bound that had, in a strangely convenient manner, broken down at a minor station not far from Gheorghievsk, to start again even more providentially as soon as the fugitives had boarded it. The princess realized that the wager was lost and won. Hers was a royal nature as well as name; she had given her word; she possessed too, possibly, a pretty full share of what we now, I believe, call the cave-woman’s feelings. She gave in and was wedded that night—or next morning. Tiazhikoff, after all, as to means and position, was a suitable if not quite a brilliant match, while, as a lover, he had proved himself, in her eyes at least, well worthy of the royalest princess ever bred on “the rugged flanks of Caucasus.”