Now I concede that natural selection must have developed at an early period in the history of man, as in the lower animals, some kind of an attachment between male and females. A wife could not seek her daily food in the forest and at the same time defend herself and her helpless babe against wild beasts and human enemies. Hence natural selection favored those groups in which the males attached themselves to a particular female for a longer time than the breeding-season, defending her from enemies and giving her a share of their game. But from this admitted fact to the inference that it is "affection" that makes the husband defend his wife, there is a tremendous logical skip not warranted by the situation. Instead of making such an assumption offhand, the scientific method requires us to ask if there is not some other way of accounting for the facts more in accordance with the selfish disposition and habits of savages. The solution of the problem is easily found. A savage's wife is his property, which he has acquired by barter, service, fighting, or purchase, and which he would be a fool not to protect against injury or rivals. She is to him a source of utility, comfort, and pleasure, which is reason enough why he should not allow a lion to devour her or a rival to carry her off. She is his cook, his slave, his mule; she fetches wood and water, prepares the food, puts up the camp, and when it is time to move carries the tent and kitchen utensils, as well as her child to the next place. If his motive in protecting her against men and beasts were affection, he would not thus compel her to do all the work while he walks unburdened to the next camping-place.
Apart from these home comforts there are selfish reasons enough why savages should take the trouble to protect their wives and rear children. In Australia it is a universal custom to exchange a daughter for a new wife, discarding or neglecting the old one; and the habit of treating children as merchandise prevails in various other parts of the world. The gross utilitarianism of South African marriages is illustrated in Dr. Fritsch's remarks on the Ama-Zulus. "As these women too are slaves, there is not much to say about love, marriage, or conjugal life," he says. The husband pays for his wife, but expects her to repay him for his outlay by hard work and by bearing children whom he can sell. "If she fails to make herself thus useful, if she falls ill, becomes weak, or remains childless, he often sends her back to her father and demands restitution of the cattle he had paid for her;" and his demand has to be complied with. Lord Randolph Churchill (249) was informed by a native of Mashonaland that he had his eye on a girl whom he desired to marry, because "if he was lucky, his wife might have daughters whom he would be able to sell in exchange for goats." Samuel Baker writes in one of his books of African exploration (Ism., 341):
"Girls are always purchased if required as wives. It would be quite impossible to obtain a wife for love from any tribe that I have visited. 'Blessed is he that hath his quiver full of them' (daughters). A large family of girls is a source of wealth to the father, as he sells each daughter for twelve or fifteen cows to her suitor."
Of the Central African, Macdonald says (I., 141):
"The more wives he has the richer he is. It is his wives that maintain him. They do all his ploughing, milling, cooking, etc. They may be viewed as superior servants, who combine all the capacities of male servants and female servants in Britain—who do all his work and ask no wages."
We need not assume a problematic affection to explain why such a man marries.
But the savage's principal marriage motive is, of course, sensualism. If he wants to own a particular girl he must take care of her. If he tires of her it is easy enough to get rid of her or to make her a drudge pure and simple, while her successor enjoys his caresses. Speaking of Pennsylvania Indians, Buchanan remarks naïvely (II., 95) that "the wives are the true servants of their husbands; otherwise the men are very affectionate to them." On another page (102) he inadvertently explains what he means by this paradox: "the ancient women are used for cooks, barbers, and other services, the younger for dalliance." In other words, Buchanan makes the common mistake of applying the altruistic word affection to what is nothing more than selfish indulgence of the sensual appetite. So does Pajeken when he tells us in the Ausland about the "touching tenderness" of a Crow chief toward a fourteen-year-old girl whom he had just added to the number of his wives.
"While he was in the wigwam he did not leave her a moment. With his own hands he adorned her with chains, and strings of teeth and pearls, and he found a special pleasure in combing her black, soft, silken hair. He gambolled with her like a child and rocked her on his knees, telling her stories. Of his other wives he demanded the utmost respect in their treatment of his little one."
This reference to the other wives ought to have opened Pajeken's eyes as to the silliness of speaking of the "touching" tenderness of the Crow chief to his latest favorite. In a few years she was doomed to be discarded, like the others, in favor of a new victim of his carnal appetite. Affection is entirely out of the question in such cases.
The Malayans of Sumatra have, as Carl Bock tells us (314), a local custom allowing a wife to marry again if her faithless spouse has deserted her for three months: