Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/425

 WOMEN IN EARLY CIVILIZATION 409

for punishing or divorcing his wife. As Dr. Nieboer has pointed out, there are even cases in which a wife, whose husband has been unfaithful to her, may complain of his conduct to the elders of the tribe, and the husband may have to suffer for his fault. In north- west central Queensland the women themselves are on one special occasion allowed to inflict punishment upon the men : at a certain stage of the initiation ceremony

each woman can exercise her right of punishing any man who may have illtreated, abused, or "hammered" her, and for whom she may have waited months or perhaps years to chastise.

These facts ill agree with Mr. Curr's broad statement that among the Australian natives " the husband is the absolute owner of his wife."

Other instances may be added to show that the so-called absolute authority of husbands over their wives is not to be taken too literally. Of the Guiana Indians Mr. I. Thurn observes : " The woman is held to be as completely the property of the man as is his dog. He may sell her if he chooses." But in another place the same writer admits that the women not only influence the men in a quiet way, but that " even if the men were inclined to treat them cruelly though this is in fact quite contrary to their nature public opinion would prevent this." Among the Chippewas in North America the women are said to be "as much in the power of the men as any other articles of their prop- erty ; " yet, at the same time, " they are always consulted, and possess a very considerable influence in the traffic with Europeans, and other important concerns." The Russian traveler Prejevalsky states that among the Mongols a woman is "entirely dependent on her husband ; " but on a following page he adds that " in the household the rights of the wife are nearly equal to those of the husband." In Dr. Paulitschke's great monograph on the Somals. Danakil, and Gallas of northeastern Africa the confusion reaches its height. A wife, he observes, has no rights whatever in rela- tion to her husband, being a mere piece of property; and subse- quently we learn that she is his equal and " a mistress of her own will."

Among many uncivilized peoples the hardest drudgeries of