Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/181

Rh do so. For adultery, he has the right to kill her; but the usual punishment is a thrashing, or perhaps merely remonstrance or a fit of the sulks. If he has any other serious grievance against her, such as bad temper or laziness, the husband, who is little hampered by marriage ties, easily finds consolation outside his household, while he still benefits by the marriage tribute from his wife's relatives.

There are, on the other hand, several instances on record of a woman leaving her husband because of ill-treatment or infidelity on his part, or else because she had become enamoured of someone else. Thus, to take a case already described, when Bulubwaloga caught her husband, Gilayviyaka, in flagrante delicto with his father's wife, she left him and returned to her family (see ch. v, sec. 5). Again, a woman married to Gomaya, the ne'er-do-well successor to one of the petty chiefs of Sinaketa, left him because, in his own words, she found him an adulterer and also "very lazy." Bolobesa, the wife of the previous chief of Omarakana, left him because she was dissatisfied or jealous, or just tired of him (ch. v, sec. 2). Dabugera, the grand-niece of the present chief, left her first husband because she discovered his infidelities and found him, moreover, not to her taste. Her mother, Ibo'una, the chief's grand-niece, took as a second husband one Iluwaka'i, a man of Kavataria and at that time interpreter to the resident magistrate. When he lost his position she abandoned him, not only, we may presume, because he was less good-looking without his uniform, but also because power attracts the fair sex in the Trobriands Rh