Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/466

 446 Reviews.

It would have been more to Mr. Potter's purpose if he had directed his inquiry more particularly to the discussion of Temporary Marriages, on which his theory mainly depends. Thus he appears not to be aware that an early authority on Musulman rites lays down that among Shiah Mahomedans the child begotten by a Mufah or temporary marriage is considered preferable to all others {The Dabistdn, quoting the Koran, Surah, iv., 28), and that the historian Badaoni {A'ln-i-Akbarl, ed. Blochmann, i., 174) describes the curious discussion on the subject before the Emperor Akbar, where " the 'Ulamas, having collected every tradition on the subject, decreed, firstly, that by Mufah a man might marry any number of wives he pleased ; and, secondly, that Mufah marriages were allowed by the Imam Malik. The Shiahs, as was well known, loved children born in Mufah wedlock more than those born by Nikah wives {i.e. those married by the regular ritual), contrary to the Sunnis and the Ahl-i-Jama'at." Again, he does not appear to have investigated wdth sufficient care the widespread custom of taking wives on trial, or leasing them to a person other than the original husband. He quotes with hesitation the assertion of Bunsen that there are even at the present day in Yorkshire cases where the people live on probation, and marriage takes place only if a child is likely to born, or born. The custom, of course, is common in rural England and Scotland. Thus Smeaton, in his Account of the Building of Eddy stone Light- house (second edition, 1793, p. 65), states that this has been the custom on that island from time immemorial. A writer in the Contemporary Review (May, 1899, pp. 720 stqq^ asserts that in rural Prussia a large proportion of marriages occur only after the consequences of an irregular connection become obvious. This and the custom of " handfasting " were or are common in Scotland (Dalyell, Darker Superstitions, p. 283). Readers of Sir Walter Scott will remember the rebuke given by the reformed preacher, Henry Warden, to the Baron of Avenel, in the Monastery, for the latter's opinions on the practice. Even at the present time, in Central England, cases of leasing wives may be met with. At Stone, in Staffordshire, a few years ago, a woman was asked in a police court if she was married or single, and replied, "No, I'm not married, I'm on a lease " ; adding, " I suppose it's all the same."

The obvious objection to Mr. Potter's conclusions, and one which he himself fully recognises, is that in none of the stories