[128] Hahn, The Supreme Being of the Khoi-Khoi, p. 19.
[129] Bory de St. Vincent, Essais sur les Isles Fortunées, p. 105. Mantegazza, Rio de la Plata e Tenerife p. 630.
[130] Dyveyrier, Exploration du Sahara, p. 339. Cf. Chavanne, Die Sahara, p. 181; Hourst, Sur le Niger et au pays des Touaregs, p. 209.
[131] Munzinger, Ostafrikanische Studien, p. 325.
[132] Nachtigal, Sahara und Sudan, ii. 93.
[133] Chavanne, op. cit. p. 397.
[134] Wallin, Reseanteckningar från Orienten, iii. 151, 152, 269. Blunt, Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates, ii. 214, 226, 228.
All these statements certainly do not imply that the husband has no recognised power over his wife, but they prove that his power is by no means unlimited. It is true that many of our authorities speak rather of liberties that the woman takes herself than of privileges granted her by custom; but, as we have seen before, customary rights are always more or less influenced by habitual practice. It should be added that among many savage peoples the husband has a right to divorce his wife only under certain conditions;[135] and among a very considerable number custom or law permits the wife to separate either for some special cause or, simply, at will.[136] In certain parts of Eastern Central Africa divorce may be effected if the husband neglects to sew his wife’s clothes, or if the partners do not please each other.[137] Among the Shans of Burma the woman has a right to turn adrift a husband who takes to drinking or otherwise misconducts himself, and to retain all the goods and money of the partnership.[138] Among the Irulas of the Neilgherries the option of remaining in union, or of separating, rests principally with the woman.[139] Among the Savaras, an aboriginal hill people of the Madras Presidency, “a woman may leave her husband whenever she pleases.”[140] This is surely something very different from that absolute dominion which hasty generalisers have attributed to savage husbands in general.
[135] Westermarck. op. cit. p. 523 sq.
[136] Ibid. p. 526 sqq.