They say that the last census gave half the people of marriageable age in Jamaica as married, but had I not been told that, I should have thought with Lady Nugent that the Jamaican woman did not think much of matrimony. What she does want is a child, and a child she very often has, no matter what teachers and preachers may say to the contrary. Sometimes a couple, when they have got over the flush and restlessness of youth, will live together peaceably and happily, either married or unmarried, but the average Jamaican peasant girl—I do not say all, but many certainly—will often have a child before she settles down. As in Africa, it is motherhood that counts first.
I discussed the matter with Christy, who presided over the forlorn stone-paved cavern called a kitchen when I first arrived in Jamaica. Christy was a wild-looking lady with her hair on end, bare feet of course, and a ragged skirt. She had been comely in her own way, but she was as dirty as she was unkempt, and decidedly as useless. She had, however, great dramatic powers and could tell a story. She had three children and she displayed them with pride.
No husband was in evidence, so I concluded rashly she was a widow.
“Oh no, missus. My husban' he get intelligence an' he leff me.”
I didn't wonder at his leaving her. I was only surprised that he did not “get intelligence” before she had three children.
“I got 'nother chile,” said she, as if fearing these three did not do her justice, “a white chile.”
I wasn't accustomed to Jamaican ways then and I was startled. The three before me could hardly have been blacker.
“Him's fader white colonel,” said she proudly, and she mentioned a well-known name in the island, “him's fader very good to me. Have him before I get married.”
I suppose I looked a little surprised.
“Not do that in England?” asked Christy, seeking information, and I mendaciously assured her that every woman in that favoured land waited till she went to church and wore a ring before she had a child.