In the southern provinces of Kordofan, under the government of Egypt, south of the Nubian Mountains, immense labour is imposed on the unmarried girls; yet the sentiment of love is not altogether unknown to them, and men fight duels with whips of hippopotamus hide on account of a disputed mistress. The wife is nevertheless a virtual slave, and still more degraded should she prove barren; the husband, in that case, solaces himself with a concubine, who, if she bears a child, is elevated to the rank of wife. It is common among the rich for a man to make his wife a separate allowance after the birth of her second child, when she goes to live in a separate hut. All their bloom is gone by the time they are twenty-four years old, and thenceforward they enjoy no estimation from the men. Yet, improvident in their hearts, the young girls of Kordofan are merry; and, whether at work or idle, spend the day in songs and laughter; while in the evening they assemble and dance to the music of the Tarabuka drum. Their demeanour, in general, is modest, and their lives are chaste. Married women, on the contrary, especially those who are neglected by their husbands, occupy themselves in gossip, and find solace in criminal intrigues. In some parts of the country, indeed, men consider it an honour for their wives to have intercourse with others; and the women are often forwarded in their advances. Female slaves often have liberty when they bear children to their proprietors.
Women eat when the men have done, and pretty dancers attend at the feasts to amuse their employers. These girls, like the Ghawazee of Lower Egypt, are usually prostitutes, and very skilful in the arts of seduction. Numbers of this class fled from Egypt into Kordofan, on one occasion, when Mohammed Ali, in one of his affected fits of morality, endeavoured to suppress their calling altogether.
Marriage, it may be scarcely necessary to say, is concluded without the woman’s consent. The man bargains for her, pays her price, takes her home, strips off her virginal girdle, which is the only garment of unmarried girls, and covers her with a cloth about her loins; a feast and a dance occasionally celebrate the event. When a wife is ill-treated beyond endurance, she demands a divorce; and, taking her female offspring, with her dowry, returns home. Trifles often produce these separations. That her husband has not allowed her sufficient pomatum to anoint her person with, is not unfrequently the ground of complaint. Few men in Kordofan have more than two wives; but most have concubines besides, whom the more opulent protect by a guard of eunuchs.
These remarks apply to the agricultural or fixed population. The Baghaira, or wandering pastoral tribes of Kordofan, are a modest, moral race—naked, but not on that account indecent[55].
A chief of the Berbers offered a late traveller the choice of his two daughters for a bedfellow. They were already both married. Women there, however, as well as in Dongola, are, many of them, ready to prostitute themselves for a present. A virgin, whether as wife or concubine, may be purchased for a horse. “Why do you not marry?” said a traveller to a young Berber. He pointed to a colt and answered “When that is a horse I shall marry.”[56]
The condition of women and state of manners on the upper borders of the Nile, we find described in Ferdinand Werne’s account of his recent voyage to discover the sources of the White Stream. The system in Khartum may be indicated by one sentence in the traveller’s own language. He speaks of desiring that the pay might be advanced to prevent starvation from visiting the soldiers’ families, “which, from the low price of female slaves, were numerous.” It may, without resort to hyperbole, be said, that the female monkeys peopling the neighbouring woods occupy a far nobler and more natural position. Among the barbarians on the banks of the river further up, the state of manners is in a great degree more pure. The Keks, for example, are described as leading a blameless life. The travellers saw no marriageable maidens or children, married women alone appearing. The most singular social economy prevails among them. The women live, during a considerable part of the year, in villages apart from the men, who possess only temporary huts. Their wives have regular substantial habitations, which are common to both sexes during the rainy season. A man dare not approach the “harem village,” except at the proper period, though some of the women occasionally creep into their husbands’ village. Polygamy is allowed, but only practised by the chiefs, since all the wives are bought, which renders the indulgence costly.
Among some of the tribes on the banks of the White Nile women will sell their children if they can do so with profit. Everywhere in that region the maidens mingle naked with the men, but appear by no means immodest. When married they wear an apron. All exhibit a sense of shame at exhibiting themselves unclothed before strangers. Beyond the Mountains of the Moon, however, Werne found people, among whom the unmarried men and women were separated. They were completely naked, but chaste and decent nevertheless. A heavy price was always asked for a girl, which prevented common polygamy, though their social code permitted it[57].
It must be evident that, in an inquiry like the present, a view of the manners and morals of Africa with regard to the female sex must be incomplete. In the first place, our information is very limited; in the second, we are confined for space—for otherwise these sketches could be extended to an indefinite extent. We have, however, taken observations in Southern, in Western, in Eastern, in Northern, and Central Africa. Kingdoms and communities, indeed, there are which we have not included in our description. Of these some wear features so similar to others we have noticed, that to particularise them is unnecessary in a general view. Of others, such as Egypt, Nubia, Barca, Tripoli, Algiers, and Morocco, we shall treat in a future division of the subject, because they are not included, by the character of their civilization, among the communities of which we have hitherto spoken. The reader will, we trust, have been enabled to form a fair idea of the average of morals among the savages and semi-savages of Africa. With modern barbarians, as with ancient states, tabular statistics are impossible: but from a description in general terms, we cannot always refuse to ground a confident opinion.
Women in Australia.
In Australia we have a family of the human race still more uneducated, though not more barbarous, than that which inhabits the woods of the African continent. There is among them less approach to the arts of civilization, less ingenuity, less intelligence, but there is more simplicity. Their customs are not so brutal as those prevailing on the banks of the Joliba or the Senegal. Nevertheless they are true savages, and the condition of their women is consistent with all the other features of their irreclaimed state. Of the Australians, however, as of all races imperfectly known, there obtains in this country a vulgar idea drawn from the old accounts, which are little better than caricatures. They have been represented as a hideous race, scarcely elevated above the brute, blood-thirsty, destitute of human feeling, without any redeeming characteristics, and, moreover, incapable of civilization. Such a description is calculated only to mislead. The aborigines of Australia are certainly a low, barbarous, and even a brutal race, but the true picture of their manners, which form the expression of their character, is not without encouraging traits.