"The women as a rule make no very great resistance on these occasions. It is almost like playing a game. A woman is surprised as she goes to get water at the stream, or when she is on her way to or from the plantation. The man has only got to show her she is cornered and that escape is not easy or pleasant and she submits to be carried off. Of course there are cases where the woman takes the first opportunity of running back to her first husband if her captor treats her badly, and again she may be really attached to her first husband and make every effort to return to him for that reason. But as a general rule they seem to accept very cheerfully these abrupt changes in their matrimonial existence."
In a footnote he adds:
"The Rev. Duff Macdonald, a competent authority on Yao manners and customs, says in his book Africana: 'I was told … that a native man would not pass a solitary woman, and that her refusal of him would be so contrary to custom that he might kill her.' Of course this would apply only to females that are not engaged."
COLONIES OF FREE LOVERS
Of the Taveita forest region Johnston says:
"After marriage the greatest laxity of manners is allowed among the women, who often court their lovers under their husband's gaze; provided the lover pays, no objection is raised to his addresses."
And regarding the Masai (415):
"The Masai men rarely marry until they are twenty-five nor the women until twenty. But both sexes, avant de se ranger, lead a very dissolute life before marriage, the young warriors and unmarried girls living together in free love."
The fullest account of the Masai and their neighbors we owe to
Thomson. With the M-teita marriage is entirely a question of cows.
"There is a very great disproportion between the sexes, the female predominating greatly, and yet very few of the young men are able to marry for want of the proper number of cows—a state of affairs which not unfrequently leads to marriage with sisters, though this practice is highly reprobated."