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 CHAPTER XIV.

REPUDIATION AND DIVORCE.

I. In Savage Countries.—The right of repudiation in New Caledonia, among the Hottentots, the Bongos, the Soulimas, the Fantis, the Ashantees—Divorce in Polynesia—The right of repudiation in America. II. Divorce and Repudiation among Barbarous Peoples.—In Abyssinia, at Haïti—The nefir of the Djebel-Taggale—Repudiation among the Bedouins and the Touaregs—Repudiation among the Kabyles—The "prevented" Kabyle woman—The "insurgent" Kabyle woman—Repudiation among the Arabs—Divorce among the Arabs—Obligatory divorce—Repudiation on account of non-virginity—Divorce by mutual consent in Peru and Thibet—Repudiation among the Mongols—Repudiation in China—Obligatory divorce in China—Repudiation in ancient India—Repudiation among the Hebrews—Repudiation in Greece—Evolution of repudiation and divorce in ancient Rome—Divorce and Christianity—Repudiation in barbarous Europe, in France, in the Middle Ages. III. The Evolution of Divorce.

I. In Savage Countries.

I have no longer to demonstrate that woman has been treated with extreme brutality among nearly all primitive peoples. In the lowest stage of savagery—as, for example, in Australia and Tasmania—woman, being exactly assimilated to a domestic animal, who can be beaten, wounded, killed, and even eaten, her association with man does not merit the name of marriage, and consequently there is no question among these races of divorce, nor even of repudiation. The man, being able, as master, to dispose of the life of his wife, has, in addition, the right to send her away, or abandon her, if he chooses.