Along the coast of Benin manners, in most respects similar to these, prevail—public dancers acting as prostitutes in most of the native towns, and offering themselves for a wretched price. Every woman holds it an honour to be the king’s companion even for one night[47].
In Ashantee, where polygamy, as elsewhere in Africa, prevails, adultery is common, especially among the king’s wives, who, when discovered, are hewn to pieces. The manners of the people are profligate beyond anything of which in England we can realize an idea. In the country of the Kroomen, eastward on the Guinea Coast, where nearly all the labour devolves on women, men become independent by the possession of from twenty to forty wives. One practice prevailing there is characterized by an unusual depravity. The son, inheriting his father’s property, inherits also his wives, his own mother then becoming his slave. In the interior, on the banks of the Asinnee, we find a people among whom the men are industrious, and the women treated with respect. The consequence is a far higher standard of morality[48].
It is remarkable to find among the Edeeyahs of Fernando Po a strong contrast to these general characteristics of manners and morality in Western Africa. Generous, hospitable, humane, practising no murder, possessing no slaves, with only innocent rites, they treat their women with comparative consideration, and assign them far less than the usual amount of hard labour. To cook food, bear palm oil to market, and press the nuts, are their principal occupations. Polygamy is allowed, and when a man undertakes a journey, he is accompanied by one or more of his wives, who are much attached to their husbands and children.
The first wife taken by a man must be betrothed to him at least two years before marriage. During that period the lover must perform all the duties which otherwise would have been performed by her. He must go, indeed, through a probation resembling the servitude of Jacob for Rachel. Meanwhile the maiden is kept in a hut, concealed from the sight of the people. These courtships often begin while the girl is no more than thirteen or fourteen, and her lover only a youth; but if he seduces her before the two years are elapsed, he is severely punished. That time having expired the young wife is still kept in the hut, where she receives her husband’s visits until it is evident she is about to become a mother—or if not, for eighteen months. When she first appears publicly as a married woman, all the virgins of her tribe salute her and dance about her. These customs indicate far more purity and elevation of manners among the Edeeyahs than among any other people in Western Africa. They are only observed, however, with regard to the first wife, all the others being virtually no more than concubines governed by her. Some chiefs have upwards of a hundred, and the king more than twice that number.
Adultery is severely punished, but, nevertheless, not very rare. For the first offence both parties lose one hand. For the second the man, with his relatives, is heavily fined, and otherwise chastised, while the woman, losing the other hand, is driven as an outlaw into the woods. This exile is more terrible to the Edeeyahs than the mutilation[49].
In examining the condition of Africa, in the light we have chosen, it would entail a tiresome repetition to pass in review all the various groups of states sunk in barbarism. The natives are generally barbarian. Elevated slightly above the hunting or pure savage state, they have subdued some animals to their use, and practise some ingenious arts; but their manners are baser than those of any race below them in point of art and luxury. We have seen that in the West, with a few rare exceptions, profligacy is the universal feature of society. In the East it is almost equally so. Our knowledge of that coast, it is true, is less full than of the West; but travellers afford sufficient information to justify an opinion on the general state of manners. In Zulu, as an example of the rest, the king has a seraglio of fifteen hundred women, who are slaves to his caprice. His mother was in that condition when Isaacs visited the country. She endured corporal chastisement from her son. A number of women and boys, belonging to the royal harem, and suspected of illicit intercourse, were massacred by the prince’s orders. Adultery, indeed, was a thing of continual occurrence in the palace. Marriage is held among the people not as a sacred tie but as a state of friendship. All the people, however, are polygamists, and the laws of morality refer only to wives. With others the intercourse of the sexes is unrestrained. Men do not cohabit with their wives on the first night after their wedding. This ceremony among the rich is accompanied by a grand feast, though, as in other parts of Africa, the wife is bought—at the most for ten cows. A man cannot sell but may dismiss his wife, over whom also he has the power of life and death. Adultery is always capitally punished, that is, when discovered; for with eighty or ninety women in his possession, it is not always possible for the husband to watch their conduct—especially as they labour for his support. Girls are not allowed to marry or become concubines until the age of fourteen, until which period they go without clothing. The degrees of consanguinity, within which marriage is strictly prohibited, are very wide—an union being permitted only between the most distant relations.
It is necessary to observe that in the Zulu kingdom profligacy is more general among the men than among the women, for wives hold the marriage tie in great estimation. It is the unlimited power of the male sex over the other which forces it to become the prey of sensuality. Throughout the Eastern region, indeed, women are the mere instruments of pleasure, being bought and sold like cattle—forced to toil and live in drudgery for the benefit of their masters and husbands[50].
Among the nomade and stationary tribes of the Sahara, who are not aboriginal to that region, we have a different system of manners. In the Arabian communities you may find women ready to perform indecent actions, and even to prostitute themselves for money; but these are of the low classes. Cases of adultery are rare.
The Mohammedans believe that a man cannot have too many wives, or, at least, too many concubines. They declare it assists their devotion; but the feeling is one merely sensual. Pure sentiment is a thing in which they can scarcely believe. Rich men who are accustomed to travel in pursuit of trade, have one family at Ghadames, another, perhaps, at Ghat, and another at Soudan, and live with each of them by turns. These women stand in great fear of their husbands. The rich are veiled, and live in retirement; the poor do not; but all will unveil their faces to a stranger, if it can be done with safety. The white, or respectable women of Ghadames, never descend into the streets, or even into the gardens of their houses. The flat roof of their dwelling is their perpetual promenade, and a suite of two or three rooms their abode. It is said that in these retreats many of the women privately rule their husbands, though no men will confess the fact. Among the Marabouts it is held disgraceful to be unmarried, but shameful also to be under the wife’s control.
The negresses and half-castes who may be seen in the streets of the cities of the Sahara, are generally slaves. The women of the Touarik tribes, however, are by no means so. They belong to a fierce and warlike tribe, half vagrant, half stationary, and are bound by few restrictions. Their morals are described as superior to those of the lower class of women in Europe; though exceptions, of course, are found. One Touarik woman offered to prostitute herself to Richardson for a sum of money; or, as it was expressed, to become his wife.