Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/259

V be in the girls' camp for several evenings talking, before she will consent to his wishes. This practice is not thought to be wrong unless it is done so openly that it is patent to the other people, when the young couple are subject to ridicule. Any girl may join this camp, but many of them do not do so, and numbers remain perfectly virtuous, until their promised husband fetches them. This is certain, because such things are the subject of conversation.

Of course the young man and woman must be of the proper marriageable class and eligible on the score of relationship. Otherwise it would be considered very disgraceful. All this is pretty well known, because they talk over their amours with their particular friends.

A man is ruled in his desire for a particular woman by being of the class, sub-class, and totem from which he may lawfully take a wife. On his persisting in a contrary course, the influence of the members of the tribe would be brought to bear on him, and on these occasions of debate, each man interested would make a speech, sometimes very ably, and standing near the opening of his hut, grasping his spear with one hand as it rested on the ground.

In some cases a girl will run off with a favoured lover, rather than become the wife of the promised husband. If the couple are then captured, or if they return voluntarily, the young man has to fight all her male relatives who choose to take the matter up. The girl is at the same time severely beaten by her kindred. But a young man, who has thus carried off a girl, may placate her relations, and also her promised husband, if he sends presents to them before he returns.

If it were a married woman who eloped with some man, they would be followed, and if caught would be both nearly killed. Such women as these, who, as the blacks say, are always "looking out for men," and who become notorious for their immorality, are looked down upon as the prostitutes of the tribe, and are lent to visitors as temporary wives.

There is a curious ceremonial practice connected with marriage which occurs at the termination of the Dora ceremonies. At the end of the dancing corrobboree, held