Man’s appetite for youth and beauty often induces him to repudiate a wife who has grown old and ugly. According to Cook, it was much more common for a Tahitian to cast off the first wife and take a more youthful partner than to live with both.[3369] Among the Aleuts, when a wife “ceases to possess attractions or value in the eyes of her proprietor, she is sent back to her friends.”[3370] A Malay, in many cases, turns away his wife as soon as she becomes ugly from hard work and maternal cares.[3371] In Switzerland, marriage is much oftener dissolved through divorce when the wife is the husband’s senior, than when the reverse is the case.[3372]
Dr. Béringer-Féraud observes that the Moors in the region of the Senegal “divorcent avec une facilité extrême, non seulement sous le prétexte le plus futile, mais souvent, et même uniquement, pour le plaisir de changer.”[3373] According to v. Oettingen, the statistics of divorce and remarriage in Europe prove that the taste for variety is often the chief cause of the dissolution of marriage.[3374]
As the desire for offspring is a frequent cause of divorce,[3375] so the birth of children is generally the best guarantee for the continuance of the marriage tie. Speaking of some Indian tribes of North America, Schoolcraft says, “The best protection to married females arises from the ties of children, which, by bringing into play the strong natural affections of the heart, appeal at once to that principle in man’s original organization which is the strongest.”[3376]
Where women are regarded almost as beasts of burden, it often happens that a wife who is a bad worker is divorced. The Dyak husbands “coolly dismiss their helpmates when too lazy or too weak to work, and select partners better qualified to undergo the toils of life.”[3377] Among the Sinhalese, according to Mr. Bailey, sickness is perhaps the most common reason why a husband repudiates his wife. The heartless desertion of a sick wife, he says, is “the worst trait in the Kandyan character, and the cool and unconcerned manner in which they themselves allude to it, shows that it is as common as it is cruel.”[3378]
However desirable separation, in many cases, may be for the husband, there are various circumstances which tend to prevent him from recklessly repudiating his wife. In many instances divorce implies for the man a loss of fortune. Though not, as a rule,[3379] obliged to provide the divorced wife with the full means of subsistence, he must, as already mentioned, usually give her what she brought with her into the house, and, among several peoples, a certain proportion—often the half—of the common wealth.[3380] Among the Karens, if a man leaves his wife, the rule is that the house and all the property belong to her, nothing being his but what he takes with him.[3381] Among the Manipuris, according to Colonel Dalton, a wife who is put away without fault on her part, takes all the personal property of the husband, except one drinking cup and the cloth round his loins.[3382] Similar rules prevail among the Galela, and in the Marianne Group.[3383] As to the ancient Teutons, M. Glasson observes, “Les lois barbares voulaient d’ailleurs que, sauf le cas d’adultère, la femme répudiée eût son existence assurée. Le mari devait lui laisser la maison et tout ce qu’elle contenait; il était même obligé de lui abandonner l’équivalent du mundium et de payer une amende au fisc s’il répudiait sa femme sans aucun motif sérieux.”[3384]
The practice of purchasing wives forms a very important obstacle to frequent repudiation.[3385] If the wife proves barren, or is unfaithful, or otherwise affords sufficient cause of divorce, the husband generally receives back what he has paid for her;[3386] but, if he repudiates her without satisfactory grounds, the purchase sum is usually forfeited.[3387] “Cases of divorce are very frequent,” says Mr. Casalis, “where the price of the wife is of small value. Among the Basutos, where it is of considerable amount, the dissolution of marriage is attended with much difficulty.”[3388] And Dr. Finsch ascribes the frequency of divorce in Ponapé to the fact that wife-purchase does not exist there.[3389]
Moreover, when he divorces his wife, a man very often loses his children at the same time. Among several peoples they remain the property of the father.[3390] Among others, they are taken in some cases by the man, in others by the woman.[3391] In Samoa, the young children followed the mother, the more advanced the father;[3392] whilst, among the Sinhalese, boys are taken by the latter, girls by the former.[3393] But among many uncivilized peoples, all the children, if young, follow the mother,[3394] as Colden says, “according to the natural course of all animals.”[3395]
Another factor which has much influence upon the stability of marriage, is the position held by women. When some regard is paid to their feelings, a husband does not, of course, put his wife away for trivial reasons, divorce meaning for her, in many cases, misery and distress. Dr. Churcher informs me from Morocco that “the divorced woman too often goes to swell the ranks of the prostitutes.” And the same is the case in China and among the Arabs of the Sahara.[3396]
When a man and woman unite with one another from love, there is, of course, more security that the marriage contract will be lasting. The Mantras, says Father Bourien, “frequently marry without previously knowing one another, and live together without loving. Is it, then, astonishing that they part without regret, and that divorce is frequent among them?”[3397] The facility of Mohammedan divorce, as Mr. Bosworth Smith remarks, is the necessary consequence of the separation of the sexes. “A man would never embark in the hazardous lottery of Eastern marriage, if he had not the escape of divorce from the woman whom he has never seen, and who may be in every way uncongenial to him.”[3398] A union with a first cousin, among Mohammedans, is generally lasting, because early associations may have led to an attachment at a tender age.[3399] Separation is especially rare when the uniting passion is not merely of a sensual nature, but involves mutual sympathy depending upon mental qualities.
Many of the factors which influence the duration of marriage, so far as it depends upon the will of the husband, operate also in cases where marriage may be dissolved by the wife. But the woman’s subordinate position and her inability to support herself, makes separation more difficult for her than for the man.[3400] Moreover, if the woman claims a divorce, the purchase-sum paid for her has to be returned,[3401] and she may even, in certain cases, forfeit her dowry and whatever property she brought with her at marriage.[3402] If she must lose her children also, she will naturally shrink from the idea of separation.