The Charruas, says Azara, “ne restent jamais dans le célibat, et ils se marient aussitôt qu’ils sentent le besoin de cette union.”[758] As regards the Yahgans, Mr. Bridges writes that “none but mutes and imbeciles remained single, except some lads of vigour who did so from choice, influenced by licentiousness. But no woman remained unmarried; almost immediately on her husband’s death the widow found another husband.”
Among the wild nations of Southern Africa, according to Burchell, neither men nor women ever pass their lives in a state of celibacy;[759] and Bosman assures us that very few negroes of the Gold Coast died single, unless they were quite young.[760] Among the Mandingoes, Caillié met with no instance of a young woman, pretty or plain, who had not a husband.[761] Barth reports that the Western Touaregs had no fault to find with him except that he lived in celibacy; they could not even understand how this was possible.[762]
Among the Sinhalese there are hardly any old bachelors and old maids;[763] and Mr. Marshall says of the Todas, “No unmarried class exists, to disturb society with its loves and broils; ... it is a ‘very much married’ people. Every man and every woman, every lad and every girl is somebody’s husband or wife; tied at the earliest possible age.... With the exception of a cripple girl, and of those women who, past the child-bearing age, were widows, I did not meet with a single instance of unmarried adult females.”[764] Among the Toungtha, it is unheard of for a man or woman to be unmarried after the age of thirty, and among the Chukmas, a bachelor twenty-five years old is rarely seen.[765] The Muásís consider it a father’s duty to fix upon a bridegroom as soon as his daughter becomes marriageable.[766] Among the Burmese[767] and the Hill Dyaks of Borneo,[768] old maids and old bachelors are alike unknown. Among the Sumatrans, too, instances of persons of either sex passing their lives in a state of celibacy are extremely rare:—“In the districts under my charge,” says Marsden, “are about eight thousand inhabitants, among whom I do not conceive it would be possible to find ten instances of men of the age of thirty years unmarried.”[769] In Java, Mr. Crawfurd “never saw a woman of two-and-twenty that was not, or had not been, married.”[770] In Tonga, according to Mariner, there were but few women who, from whim or some accidental cause, remained single for life.[771] In Australia, “nearly all the girls are betrothed at a very early age;” and Mr. Curr never heard of a woman, over sixteen years of age, who, prior to the breakdown of aboriginal customs after the coming of the Whites, had not a husband.[772] As to the natives of Herbert River, Northern Queensland, Herr Lumholtz says that though the majority of the young men have to wait a long time before they get wives, it is rare for a man to die unmarried.[773]
Indeed, so indispensable does marriage seem to uncivilized man, that a person who does not marry is looked upon almost as an unnatural being, or, at any rate, is disdained.[774] Among the Santals, if a man remains single, “he is at once despised by both sexes, and is classed next to a thief, or a witch: they term the unhappy wretch ‘No man.’”[775] Among the Kafirs, a bachelor has no voice in the kraal.[776] The Tipperahs, as we are told by Mr. J. F. Browne, do not consider a man a person of any importance till he is married;[777] and, in the Tupi tribes, no man was suffered to partake of the drinking-feast while he remained single.[778] The Fijians even believed that he who died wifeless was stopped by the god Nangganangga on the road to Paradise, and smashed to atoms.[779]
It may also be said that savages, as a rule, marry earlier in life than civilized men. A Greenlander, says Dr. Nansen, often marries before there is any chance of the union being productive.[780] Among the Californians, Mandans, and most of the north-western tribes in North America, marriage frequently takes place at the age of twelve or fourteen.[781] In the wild tribes of Central Mexico, girls are seldom unmarried after the age of fourteen or fifteen.[782] Among the Talamanca Indians, a bride is generally from ten to fourteen years old, whilst a man seldom becomes a husband before fourteen.[783] In certain other Central American tribes, the parents try to get a wife for their son when he is nine or ten years old.[784]
Among the natives of Brazil, the man generally marries at the age of from fifteen to eighteen, the woman from ten to twelve.[785] According to Azara, the like was the case with the Guaranies of the Plata, whilst, among the Guanas, “celle qui se marie le plus tard, se marie à neuf ans.”[786] In Tierra del Fuego, as we are informed by Lieutenant Bove, a girl looks about for a husband when twelve or thirteen years old, and a youth marries at the age of from fourteen to sixteen.[787]
Many African peoples, e.g., the Abyssinians,[788] the Beni-Amer, the Djour tribes on the White Nile,[789] the Arabs of the Sahara, the Wakamba, and the Ba-kwileh,[790] are likewise said to marry very young. Marriage usually takes place, among the Bongos when they are from fifteen to seventeen years old, but in many other tribes at an earlier age.[791]
Among the Sinhalese, when a young man has reached the age of eighteen or twenty, it is the duty of his father to provide him with a proper wife.[792] Among the Bodo and Dhimáls, “marriage takes place at maturity, the male being usually from twenty to twenty-five years of age, and the female from fifteen to twenty.”[793] A Santal lad marries, as a rule, about the age of sixteen or seventeen, and a girl at that of fifteen;[794] whilst a Kandh boy marries when he reaches his tenth or twelfth year, his wife being usually about four years older.[795] The Khyoungtha,[796] Munda Kols,[797] Red Karens,[798] Siamese,[799] Burmese,[800] Mongols,[801] and other Asiatic peoples, are also known to marry early. Among the Ainos, the young women are considered marriageable at the age of sixteen or seventeen, and the men marry when about nineteen or twenty.[802] Again, among the Lake Dwellers of Lob-nor, girls enter into matrimony at the age of fourteen or fifteen, men at the same age, or a little later;[803] whilst, among the Malays, according to Mr. Bickmore, the boys usually marry for the first time when about sixteen, and the girls at the age of thirteen or fourteen, and occasionally still earlier.[804]
Passing to the Australian continent: among the natives of New South Wales, the parties are in most cases betrothed very early in life, the young man claiming his wife later on, as soon as he arrives at the proper age.[805] According to Mr. Curr, “girls become wives at from eight to fourteen years of age.”[806] At Port Moresby, New Guinea, “few men over twenty years of age remain single;” and the Maoris in New Zealand are stated to marry very young.[807]
Moreover, celibacy is comparatively rare not only among savage and barbarous, but among several civilized races.