The husband had complete control over his wife; she was his property, for he had paid for her. In spite of the wife having asked her husband to marry her, he could kill her should she cause trouble in the house, and that without any penal consequence to himself. The payment of a husband to his wife’s father gave him all rights over her, and at the same time annulled those of her father or of her family.
A rich man might have several wives, but the wife first married was chief; she was “master” over the others, and issued orders to the last married wife who conveyed the same to the intermediate wives. If the wives would not work or were inattentive to the commands of the first wife, the husband was laughed at by his friends and told he should not have so many wives. The wives all lived together.
A man might divorce his wife, in which case she returned to her parents. Incompatibility of temper was the common cause for such a step. The husband had no control over a divorced wife, who might marry again; but the new husband would have to pay the old one, and he would share the purchase goods with the woman’s parents. In the case of divorce the father kept the children, but he might allow the mother temporarily to retain one, or even more, especially if they were very young.
One day during my former visit to Mabuiag there was a wedding; a widow with a baby boy had proposed to and been accepted by a young man from the island of Badu. The ceremony commenced at 7 a.m. with a full ordinary service in the church, which lasted over an hour. When this was concluded a messenger was sent to me, and I repaired to the church to witness the marriage. The bride and bridegroom were seated among their friends in different parts of the church, and on their names being called, they met and stood up in front of the Communion table. After they had repeated certain sentences and a charge had been given by the teacher, the bride and bridegroom again retired to their former places.
At the conclusion of the ceremony a Church Meeting was held, which the bridegroom attended, and afterwards he went out dugong fishing with his friends to furnish the wedding feast. They were in luck that day, as they caught three dugong and two turtle. In the meantime I called on the bride and gave her a looking-glass, and left some tobacco for her husband. Following the usual custom, the man remained in Mabuiag and lived with his wife’s people.
About the same time a native girl, who was employed as cook by the chief of the island, repeatedly asked a Loyalty Islander, Charley Lifu by name, to marry her; but he did not wish to marry a Mabuiag woman, as he would in that case have to remain permanently on the island, and he wanted to return to the South Seas. At last they arranged to have a talk in the bush to settle matters finally. The man was obdurate; and the girl was so chagrined that when she returned to the village she accused Charley of attempting to “steal” her, hoping that he would thus be forced to marry her in restitution. This caused considerable excitement, as Charley Lifu was the brother of the teacher’s wife. The matter came before the chief in his capacity as judge, and after long deliberation on the part of the “old men,” it was decided that the charge was unfounded, and was merely trumped up by the girl, who thus over-reached herself. I believe this was a true bill, as Charley Lifu was the gentlest and most obliging of my numerous coloured friends—a man who, I believe, would not do anyone an injury, and who would even perform a friendly act without waiting for the ordinary douceur of tobacco, but he was an incorrigible loafer.
The custom of a girl proposing marriage to a young man did not commend itself to the traditions of the missionaries, and they have tried to stop it, though I did not discover that it was necessarily at all an objectionable arrangement. It has certain definite advantages, and I was certainly given to understand that properly brought-up young men behaved with becoming bashfulness, and showed due deference to the wishes of their parents or elders.
The remarkable change that has come over the natives owing to the influence of missionary teaching is well exemplified in the fact that the girls frequently propose marriage to the men by writing; sometimes this is done by means of a letter, but I have known of a school slate being employed and sent to the young man.
I managed to secure one or two examples of such love-letters. The two first were written for me by Peter when I asked him what had occurred in his own case. They purport to be Magena’s proposal and his acceptance; both of them are natives of Mabuiag. The following is a transcription and literal translation:—