Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/215

 The Romance of Mdlusine. 199

in India by which a bridegroom agrees never to scold his wife, under penalty of divorce, and to allow her to go to iicr father's house as often as she likes, giving her a right to enforce her liberty in this respect by an action against him for unlawful confinement.^'-' Among many peoples, however, the actual freedom of women is much greater than the letter of the social organization would secure them. It depends, in fact, on the strength of women's individual wills and influence, or on their power of combination to counter- balance the marital authorit)-. The Beni Amer of Ab\-ssinia, Mohammedans though they are by profession, are unable to reduce their women to the condition of dependence envisaged by the Prophet. A wife has the right to return to her mother's house at any time. She exercises the right and stays for months, kindly letting her husband know that if he cares for her he may come and see her. Even at his own home, if he scolds her, she will exact a penalty, and perhaps keep him out of doors a whole night in the rain until he purchases peace with a camel or a cow. Man)' a husband has been thus ruined by his wife, who has tlien calmly left him for ever. The women all understand one another. Whenever there is a family disagreement, the wife calls her friends together ; the husband is, of course, always in the wrong ; and the whole village is speedily in an uproar. It is a point of honour with a woman, even if she love her husband, not to express it, but to treat him with contempt ; and it would be deemed a shame to her to show him any afifection.-*^ This is, no doubt, an extreme case ; but it shows what may be done by determination in the teeth of institutions as hostile as possible to the rights of women.

Somewhat nearer to the stipulation made by Melusine^ but even more exacting, are the marriage customs of the Hassanyeh Arabs of the White Nile, also followers of Islam.

^' Indian Notes and Queries (Allahabad, 18S7), vol. iv., p. 147.

20 W. Munzinger, Ostafrikanische Studien{2x\A ed., Basel, 1883), p. 324.