Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/28

23 exchange their daughters for wives to themselves, even although they had two or three before, instead of allowing their sons to do so. Cases of this kind are very hard indeed, but, being aboriginal law, they cannot be controverted, nor will the elders of a tribe permit the young men to go off to other tribes to steal wives for themselves, as such measures would be the certain means of entailing endless feuds, and much bloodshed in the attempts that would surely be made with the view of recapturing the abducted women. Young men, therefore, not having any female relatives under their control must necessarily live all their lives in single blessedness, unless they choose to take up with withered old hags whom nobody owns, merely to have their fires cared for, their water-vessels filled, and their baggage carried from camp to camp. This ill-assorted kind of engagement, however, is not of very frequent occurrence, as the young men are too much afraid of the ridicule which their more fortunate fellows would surely shower upon their uxorious heads.

In their matrimonial alliances great deference is paid to consanguinity, the very slightest blood relationship being a definite barrier to that connexion. In their sexual intercourse, however, they are not in the least bit particular, consequently incest of every grade is continually being perpetrated. Chastity is quite unknown amongst them, and it is a hopeless task endeavouring to make them understand the value of that virtue. In speaking to them on this not very choice subject, they point to all the animals in nature, and say, "These are not restricted in any way, why then should we be?" They say all such trammels and