As to the king, the number of his wives is illimitable. Parents come humbly before him, and offer their daughters to him, only too proud if he will accept them, and asking no payment for them. The reverence for authority must be very strong in a Kaffir’s breast, if it can induce him to forego any kind of payment whatever, especially as that payment is in cattle. The king has perhaps twenty or thirty large kraals in different parts of the country, and in each of them he has a considerable number of wives, so that he is always at home whenever he changes his residence from one kraal to another. In fact, he never knows, within fifty or so, how many wives he has, nor would he know all his wives by sight, and in consequence he is obliged to keep a most jealous watch over his household, lest a neglected wife should escape and take a husband, who, although a plebeian, would be her own choice. In consequence of this feeling, none of the inhabitants of the royal harem ever leave their house without a strong guard at hand, besides a number of spies, who conceal themselves in unsuspected places, and who would report to the king the slightest indiscretion on the part of any of his wives. It is not even safe for a Kaffir to speak to one of these closely guarded beauties, for, even if no guards are openly in sight, a spy is sure to be concealed at no great distance, and the consequence of such an indiscretion would be, that the woman would certainly lose her life, and the man probably be a fellow sufferer.
That able and sanguinary chief Tchaka formed an exception to the ordinary rule. He would accept as many dark maidens as might be offered to him, but he would not raise one of them to the rank of wife. The reason for this line of conduct was his horror of seeing a successor to his throne. A Kaffir of rank always seems to think that he himself is exempt from the ordinary lot of humanity, and will never speak of the possibility of his own death, nor allow any one else to do so. In a dependent, such a piece of bad breeding would be looked upon as an overt act of treachery, and the thoughtless delinquent would instantly lose the power of repeating the offence by forfeiting his life. Even in an European, the offence would be a very grave one, and would jar gratingly on the feelings of all who heard the ill-omened words. This disinclination to speak of death sometimes shows itself very curiously. On one occasion, an Englishman went to pay a visit to Panda, after the contradiction of a report of that monarch’s death. After the preliminary greetings, he expressed his pleasure at seeing the chief so well, especially after the report of his death. The word “death” seemed to strike the king and all the court like an electric shock, and an ominous silence reigned around. At last Panda recovered himself, and, with a voice that betrayed his emotion, said that such subjects were never spoken of, and then adroitly changed the conversation.
Now, the idea of a successor implies the death of the present occupant of the throne, and therefore Tchaka refused to marry any wives, from whom his successor might be born. More than that, if any of the inmates of his harem showed signs that the population was likely to be increased, they were sure to be arrested on some trivial pretence, dragged out of their homes, and summarily executed. We may feel disposed to wonder that such a heartless monster could by any means have found any inmates of his harem. But we must remember that of all men a Kaffir chief is the most despotic, having absolute power over any of his subjects, and his orders being obeyed with an instantaneous obedience, no matter how revolting they might be. Parents would kill their children and children their parents at his command; and so strange a hold has obedience to the king upon the mind of a Kaffir, that men have been known to thank him and utter his praises while being beaten to death by his orders.
Therefore the parents of these ill-fated girls had no option in the matter. If he wanted them he would take them, probably murdering their parents, and adding their cattle to his own vast herds. By voluntarily offering them they might possibly gain his good graces, and there might be a chance that they would escape the fate that had befallen so many of their predecessors in the royal favor. These strange effects of despotism are by no means confined to Southern Africa, but are found among more civilized people than the Kaffirs. We all remember the opening story of the “Arabian Nights,” which furnishes the thread on which all the stories are strung. How a king found that his wife was unworthy of her position, and how he immediately rushed to the conclusion that such unworthiness was not the fault of an individual, but a quality inherent in the sex. How he reduced his principle to practice by marrying a new wife every evening, and cutting off her head next morning, until his purpose was arrested by the ingenious narrator of the tales, who originated the practice now prevalent in periodicals, namely, always leaving off unexpectedly in an interesting part of the story.
This extraordinary proceeding on the part of an Oriental monarch is told with a perfect absence of comment, and neither the narrator nor the hearer displays any signs that such a line of conduct was strange, or even culpable. The subjects who were called upon to supply such a succession of wives certainly grumbled, but they continued to supply them, and evidently had no idea that their monarch’s orders could be disobeyed.
The effect of polygamy among the wives themselves is rather curious. In the first place, they are accustomed to the idea, and have never been led to expect that they would bear sole rule in the house. Indeed, none of them would entertain such an idea, because the very fact that a man possessed only one wife would derogate from his dignity, and consequently from her own. There is another reason for the institution of polygamy, namely, the division of labor. Like all savages, the Kaffir man never condescends to perform manual labor, all real work falling to the lot of the women. As to any work that requires bodily exertion, the Kaffir never dreams of undertaking it. He would not even lift a basket of rice on the head of his favorite wife, but would sit on the ground and allow some woman to do it. One of my friends, when rather new to Kaffirland, happened to look into a hut, and there saw a stalwart Kaffir sitting and smoking his pipe, while the women were hard at work in the sun, building huts, carrying timber, and performing all kinds of severe labor. Struck with a natural indignation at such behavior, he told the smoker to get up and work like a man. This idea was too much even for the native politeness of the Kaffir, who burst into a laugh at so absurd a notion. “Women work,” said he, “men sit in the house and smoke.”
The whole cares of domestic life fall upon the married woman. Beside doing all the ordinary work of the house, including the building of it, she has to prepare all the food and keep the hungry men supplied. She cannot go to a shop and buy bread. She has to till the ground, to sow the grain, to watch it, to reap it, to thrash it, to grind it, and to bake it. Her husband may perhaps condescend to bring home game that he has killed, though he will not burden himself longer than he can help. But the cooking falls to the woman’s share, and she has not only to stew the meat, but to make the pots in which it is prepared. After a hard day’s labor out of doors, she cannot go home and rest, but is obliged to grind the maize or millet, a work of very great labor, on account of the primitive machinery which is employed—simply one stone upon another, the upper stone being rocked backward and forward with a motion like that of a chemist’s pestle. The Kaffirs never keep flour ready ground, so that this heavy task has to be performed regularly every day. When she has ground the corn she has either to bake it into cakes, or boil it into porridge, and then has the gratification of seeing the men eat it. She also has to make the beer which is so popular among the Kaffirs, but has very little chance of drinking the product of her own industry.
It will be seen, therefore, that the work of a Kaffir wife is about twice as hard as that of an English farm laborer, and that therefore she is rather glad than otherwise when her husband takes another wife, who may divide her labors. Moreover, the first wife has always a sort of preëminence over the others, and retains it unless she forfeits the favor of her husband by some peculiarly flagrant act, in which case she is deposed, and another wife raised to the vacant honor. When such an event takes place, the husband selects any of his wives that he happens to like best, without any regard for seniority, and, as a natural consequence, the youngest has the best chance of becoming the chief wife, thus causing much jealousy among them. Did all the wives live in the same house with their husband, the bickerings would be constant; but, according to Kaffir law, each wife has her own hut, that belonging to the principal wife being on the right hand of the chief’s house.
Sometimes, however, jealousy will prevail, in spite of these preventives, and has been known to lead to fatal results. One case of poisoning has already been mentioned ([page 51]), and others occur more frequently than is known. One such case was a rather remarkable one. There had been two wives, and a third was afterward added. The other two wives felt themselves injured by her presence, and for a year subjected her to continual persecution. One day, when the husband returned to his house, he found her absent, and asked from the others where she was. They replied that they did not know, and that when they went to fetch firewood, according to daily custom, they had left her in the kraal. Dissatisfied with the answer, he pressed them more closely, and was then told that she had gone off to her father’s house. At the first dawn he set off to the father’s kraal, and found that nothing had been heard of her. His next step was to go to one of the witch doctors, or prophets, and ask him what had become of his favorite wife. The man answered that the two elder wives had murdered her. He set off homeward, but before he reached his kraal, the dead body of the murdered wife had been discovered by a herd boy. The fact was, that she had gone out with the other two wives in the morning to fetch firewood, a quarrel had arisen, and they had hanged her to a tree with the bush-rope used in tying up the bundles of wood.
As to minor assaults on a favorite wife, they are common enough. She will be beaten, or have her face scratched so as to spoil her beauty, or the holes in her ears will be torn violently open. The assailants are sure to suffer in their own turn for their conduct, their husband beating them most cruelly with the first weapon that happens to come to hand. But, in the mean time, the work which they have done has been effected, and they have at all events enjoyed some moments of savage vengeance. Fights often take place among the wives, but if the husband hears the noise of the scuffle he soon puts a stop to it, by seizing a stick, and impartially belaboring each combatant.