Page:The Way of a Virgin.djvu/26

Rh them. A young girl was expected to have at least twenty presents earned by such prostitutions before she could hope to find a husband. This did not prevent them from being very virtuous after marriage, nor their virtue from being much appreciated.

"Waitz assures us that in several countries of Africa a young girl is preferred for wife when she has made herself remarked by several amours and by much fecundity. (C.f. Havelock Ellis, op. cit., vol. 6: 'Equally unsound is the notion that the virgin bride brings her husband at marriage an important capital which is consumed in the first act