In the Murray tribes "a widow could not marry any one she chose. She was the property of her husband's family, hence she must marry her husband's brother or near relative; and even if he had a wife she must become No. 2 or 3."
THE PHILOSOPHY OF ELOPEMENTS
The evidence, in short, is unanimously to the effect that the Australian girl has absolutely no liberty of choice. Yet the astonishing Westermarck, ignoring, more suo, the overwhelming number of facts against him, endeavors in two places (217, 223) to convey the impression to his readers that she does largely enjoy the freedom of choice, placing his sole reliance in two assertions by Howitt and Mathew.[173] Howitt says that among the Kurnai, women are allowed free choice, and Mathew "asserts that, with varying details, marriage by mutual consent will be found among other tribes, also, though it is not completed except by means of a runaway match." Now Hewitt's assertion is contradicted by Curr, who, in addition to his own forty years of experience among the natives had the systematized notes of a large number of correspondents to base his conclusions on. He says (I., 108) that "in no instance, unless Mr. Howitt's account of the Kurnai be correct, which I doubt, has the female any voice in the selection of a husband." He might have added that Hewitt's remark is contradicted in his own book, where we are told that among the Kurnai elopement is the rule. Strange to say, it seems to have occurred neither to Howitt, nor to Westermarck, nor to Mathew that elopement proves the absence of choice, for if there were liberty of choice the couple would not be obliged to run away. Nor is this all. The facts prove that marriage by actual elopement[174] is of rare occurrence; that "marriage" based on such elopement is nearly always adulterous (with another man's wife) and of brief duration—a mere intrigue, in fact; that the guilty couple are severely punished, if not killed outright; and that everything that is possible is done to prevent or frustrate elopements based on individual preference or liking. On the first of these points Curr gives us the most comprehensive and reliable information (I., 108):
"Within the tribe, lovers occasionally abscond to some corner of the tribal territory, but they are soon overtaken, the female cruelly beaten, or wounded with a spear, the man in most cases remaining unpunished. Very seldom are men allowed to retain as wives their partners in these escapades. Though I have been acquainted with many tribes, and heard matters of the sort talked over in several of them, I never knew but three instances of permanent runaway matches; two in which men obtained as wives women already married in the tribe, and one case in which the woman was a stranger."
William Jackman, who was held as a captive by the natives for seventeen months, tells a similar story. Elopements, he says (174), are usually with wives. The couple escape to a distant tribe and remain a few months—rarely more than seven or eight, so far as he observed; then the faithless wife is returned to her husband and the elopers are punished more or less severely. "At times," we read in Spencer and Gillen (556, 558)
"the eloping couple are at once followed up and then, if caught, the woman is, if not killed on the spot, at all events treated in such a way that any further attempt at elopement on her part is not likely to take place."
Sometimes the husband seems glad to have got rid of his wife, for when the elopers return to camp he first has his revenge by cutting the legs and body of both and then he cries "You keep altogether, I throw away, I throw away."
It is instructive to note with what ingenuity the natives seek to prevent matches based on mutual inclination. Taplin says (11) of the Narrinyeri that "a young woman who goes away with a man and lives with him as his wife without the consent of her relatives is regarded as very little better than a prostitute." Among these same Narrinyeri, says Gason, "it is considered disgraceful for a woman to take a husband who has given no other woman for her." (Bonwick, 245.) The deliberate animosity against free choice is emphasized by a statement in Brough Smyth (79), that if the owner of an eloping female suspects that she favored the man she eloped with, "he will not hesitate to maim or kill her." She must have no choice or preference of her own, under any circumstances. It must be remembered, too, that even an actual elopement by no means proves that the woman is following a special inclination. She may be merely anxious to get away from a cruel or superannuated husband. In such cases the woman may take the initiative. Dawson (65) once said to a native, "You should not have carried Mary away from her husband"; to which the man replied, "Bael (not) dat, massa; Mary come me. Dat husband wurry bad man: he waddy (beat) Mary. Mary no like it, so it leabe it. Dat fellow no good, massa."
Obviously, Australian elopement not only gives no indication of romantic feelings, but even as an incident it is apt to be prosaic or cruel rather than romantic, as our elopements are. In many cases it is hard to distinguish from brutal capture, as we may infer from an incident related by Curr (108-9). He was sleeping at a station on the Lachlan.
"During the night I was awoke by the scream of a woman, and a general yell from the men in the camp. Not knowing what could be the matter, I seized a weapon, jumped out of bed, and rushed outside. There I found a young married woman standing by her fire, trembling all over, with a barbed spear through her thigh. As for the men, they were rushing about, here and there, in an excited state, with their spears in their hands. The woman's story was soon told. She had gone to the river, not fifty yards off, for water; the Darling black had stolen after her, and proposed to her to elope with him, and, on her declining to do so, had speared her and taken to his heels."