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Rh be welcomed and entertained as a relation by anyone who happened to bear the same name. As a general rule travellers were well treated, and many of the village chiefs kept open house, a custom which lasted on well into the days of the Spanish régime, as many poor white voyagers found to their advantage. The priests were the guardians of family tradition and genealogies. Similar surnames existed among the Kakchiquel, and each person bore, besides his personal name, the name of his clan or chinamitl.

As regards marriage, Landa states that the Maya in former times regarded twenty as a suitable age, but that the tendency in his time was to marry much younger. According to most authorities, the Maya were monogamous, but one states that polygyny was permitted. Probably a plurality of wives was exceptional and limited to chiefs. As in Mexico, a man never sought a wife for himself, but his father employed the services of a go-between. Marriage was not allowed with a deceased wife's sister or husband's brother, and no unions might be contracted between persons bearing the same name, since community of name implied blood-relationship. Further, a man might not marry his maternal aunt. The occasion of the marriage, which was performed by a priest, was celebrated by a banquet in the house of the bride's father, and the husband remained and worked for his wife's family for five or six years. Marriage was by purchase, that is to say the man's parents handed over certain property to the father-in-law, but the presents were not of great value, the real price being the personal service contributed by the bridegroom. We are told that divorce was both easy and frequent.

A somewhat similar system prevails to-day among the Lacandons, though the young man demands his wife in person. If her parents agree, the couple live as man and wife in the house of her father for a year on trial.