The Truth About Woman

by C. Gasquoine Hartley

In the adjacent continent of Africa we find similar privileges enjoyed by royal women. A delightful example is given by Frazer[179] in Central Africa, where a small state, near to the Chambezi river, is governed by a queen, who belongs to the reigning family of Ubemba. She bears the title Mamfumer, "Mother of Kings." The privileges attached to this dignity are numerous; the husbands may be chosen at will and from among the common people.

"The chosen man becomes prince consort, without sharing in the government of affairs. He is bound to leave everything to follow his royal and often little accommodating spouse. To show that in these households the rights are inverted and that a man may be changed into a woman, the queen takes the title of Monsieur and the husband that of Madame." A visitor to this state,[180] who had an interview with the queen, reports that, "she was a woman of gigantic stature, wearing many amulets."

Battle reported that "Loango was ruled by four princes, the sons of a former king's sister, since the sons of a king never succeed.[181] Frazer gives an account of the tyrannical authority of the princesses in this state.[182]

"The princesses are free to choose and divorce their husbands at pleasure, and to cohabit at the same time with other men. The husbands are nearly always plebeians. The lot of a prince consort is not a happy one, for he is rather the slave and prisoner than the mate of his imperious princess. In marrying her he engages never more to look at a woman; when he goes out he is preceded by guards whose duty it is to drive all females from the road where he is to pass. If, in spite of these precautions, he should by ill-luck cast his eyes on a woman, the princess may have his head chopped off, and commonly exercised, or used to exercise, the right. This sort of libertinism, sustained by power, often carries the princesses to the greatest excesses, and nothing is so much dreaded as their anger."

In Africa descent through women is the rule,[183] though there are exceptions, and these are increasing. The amusing account given by Miss Kingsley[184] of Joseph, a member of the Batu tribe in French Congo, strikingly illustrates the prevalence of the custom. When asked by a French official to furnish his own name and the name of his father, Joseph was wholly nonplussed. "My fader?" he said. "Who my fader?" Then he gave the name of his mother.

The case is the same among the Negroes. The Fanti of the Gold Coast may be taken as an example. Among them an intensity of affection (accounted for partly by the fact that the mothers have exclusive care of the children) is felt for the mother, while the father is hardly known, or disregarded, notwithstanding that he may be a wealthy and powerful man and the legal husband of the mother.[185] The practice of the Wamoima, where the son of a sister is preferred in legacies, "because a man's own son is only the son of his wife," is typical.[186] The Bush husband does not live with his wife, and often has wives in different places. The maternal uncle supplies his place in the family.

Wherever mother-right has progressed towards father-right, as is the condition, broadly speaking, in the African continent, the supreme authority is vested in the maternal uncle. The tribal duty of blood-revenge falls to him, even against the father. Thus, in some cases, if a woman is murdered, the duty of revenge is undertaken by her kinsman.[187] In the state of Loango among the common people the uncle is addressed as tate (father). He has even the power to sell his sister's children.[188] The child is so entirely the property of the kin that he may be given in pledge for their debts. Among the Bavili the mother has the right to pawn the child, but she must first consult the father, so that he may have a chance of giving her goods to save the pledging.[189] This is very plainly a step towards father-right. There is no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children. Similar conditions prevail among the Alladians of the Ivory Coast, but here the mother cannot pledge her children without the consent of her brother or other male head of the family. The father has the right to ransom the child.[190] An even stronger example of the property value of children is furnished by the custom found among many tribes, by which the father has to make a present to the wife's kin when a child dies: this is called "buying the child."[191]

These cases, with the inferences they suggest, show that though mother-descent may be strongly established in Africa, this does not confer (except to the royal princesses) any special distinction upon women. This is explained if we recognise that a transitional period has been reached, when, under the pressure of social, and particularly of military activities, the government of the tribe has passed to the male kindred of the women. It wants but a step further for the establishment of father-right.

There are many cases pointing to this new father-force asserting itself and pushing aside the earlier order. Again I can give one or two examples only. Among Wayao and Mang'anja of the Shire highlands, south of Lake Nyassa, a man on marrying leaves his own village and goes to live in that of his wife; but, as an alternative, he is allowed to pay a bride-price, in which case he takes his wife away to his home.[192] Whenever we find the payment of a bride-price, there is sure indication of the decay of mother-right: woman has become property. Among the Bassa Komo of Nigeria marriage is usually effected by an exchange of sisters or other female relatives. The women are supposed to be faithful to their husbands. If, however, as frequently happens, there is a preliminary courtship period, during which the marriage is considered as provisional, considerable licence is granted to the woman. Chastity is only regarded as a virtue when the woman has become the property of the husband. The men may marry as many wives as they have sisters or female relatives to give in exchange. In this tribe the women look after the children, but the boys, when four years old, go to work and live with their fathers.[193] The husbands of the Bambala tribe (inhabiting the Congo states between the rivers Inzia and Kwilu) have to abstain from visiting their wives for a year after the birth of each child, but they are allowed to return to her on the payment to her father of two goats.[194] Among the Basanga on the south-west of Lake Moeru the children of the wife belong to the mother's kin, but the children of slaves are the property of the father.[195]

It is rendered clear by such cases as these, that the rise of father-right was dependent on property and had nothing to do with blood relationship. The payment of a bride-price, the giving of a sister in exchange, as also marriage with a slave, gained for the husband the control over his wife and ownership of her children. I could bring forward much more evidence in proof of this fact did the limits of my space allow me to do this; such cases are common in all parts of the world where the transitional stage from mother-right to father-right has been reached. But I believe that the causes by which the father gained his position as the dominant partner in marriage must be clear to every one from the examples I have given. I will, therefore, quote only one final and most instructive case. It illustrates in a curious way the conflict between the old rights of the woman and the rising power of the male force in connection with marriage. It occurs among the Hassanyeh Arabs of the White Nile, where the wife passes by contract for only a portion of her time under the authority of her husband.