Page:The evolution of marriage and of the family ... (IA evolutionofmarri00letorich).pdf/228

 retaliation: the adult men of the village simply violate the wife of the delinquent. The wives of the chiefs being much more sacred than the others, the slightest attempt on the rights of their proprietors risks being cruelly punished. M. Moncelon has seen a man condemned to death merely for having looked at the wife of the chief while she was picking up shells; it was regarded as treason. This ferocity in the repression of adultery is not at all special to Melanesia. With some variations, it is found in all times and in all countries. It is worthy of remark also that even when the adulterous man is punished, it is simply because he has robbed another husband, and not because he has failed in conjugal faith.

III. Adultery in Black Africa.

We have previously seen that among the black populations of Africa marriage is a simple bargain, and that the negresses are only moderately chaste. Now, as the purchase of wives and the absence of chastity in the women are factors eminently suited to produce adultery, we shall not be surprised to find that it is very common in Africa; it is nevertheless very severely punished there, but only because it is a very grave outrage on property. Among the Hottentots, the husband, having the right of life and death over his wife or wives, and being allowed to kill them for the smallest offence, naturally enjoys the same right, with a much stronger reason, when they commit an unauthorised infidelity, for he can lend or let them to strangers if he likes.

In the tribes where polygamy already inclines to monogamy, and where there exists a chief wife ruling over the others, the gravity of the crime of adultery is in relation to the position occupied by the woman. Thus, at the Gaboon, Du Chaillu tells us, where the women are extremely dissolute, a distinction is made in their infidelities. The adultery of