In Shoa the king has one wife and five hundred concubines, the latter scattered in various parts of his dominions. He makes a present to the parents of any girl he may desire, and is usually well paid in return for the honor. The governors of provinces and cities follow his example. There are two kinds of marriage in Shoa: one a mere arrangement to cohabit, the other a holy ceremony. The former is almost invariably used, the man and woman declaring before witnesses that they mean to live together. Divorces are as easily obtained, only mutual consent being necessary. A wife is valued according to the amount of her property, and the owner of a hut, a field, and a bedstead is sure to get a husband. When they quarrel and part, a division of property takes place. Concubines are procured as well from the Christians as from Mohammedans and pagans, but the latter are forced to declare themselves converted, for Shoa is professedly a Christian kingdom. A favorite concubine holds the same position as a married woman, and no distinction is made between legitimate and illegitimate children. The court overflows with licentiousness, numerous adulteries take place, and the example is followed by the people, among whom a chaste married couple is rare. The sacerdotal class of Shoa is notoriously drunken and profligate; in a word, the morals of the country are of the lowest description. In the Mohammedan states of the neighborhood the condition of the female sex is also degraded, and if there is less general prostitution, it is because every woman is the slave of some man’s lust, and is closely watched by him.
In the provinces of Kordofan, south of the Nubian mountains, the sentiment of love is not altogether unknown, and men fight duels with whips of hippopotamus hide on account of a disputed mistress. The wife is, however, a virtual slave, and is still more degraded if she prove barren, the husband then solacing himself with a concubine, who is raised to the rank of a wife if she bear a child. The general demeanor of the girls of Kordofan is modest, and their lives are chaste, while the married women are addicted to intrigue, especially if neglected by their husbands. In some parts of the country men consider it an honor for their wives to have intercourse with strangers, and often assist the woman to this end. There is a class of pretty dancers who are usually prostitutes, and are celebrated for their successes in the latter vocation. Marriage is arranged without the woman’s consent; the man bargains for her, pays the price, and takes her home. A feast and dance sometimes celebrate the event. When a wife is ill treated she demands a divorce, and returns home, taking her female children with her. Trifles often produce these separations, an insufficient allowance of pomatum to grease her skin being a valid complaint. These remarks apply to the fixed population; the wandering tribes of Kordofan are a moral, modest race, naked, but not indecent.
A chief of the Berbers offered a late traveler his choice of two daughters for a temporary companion, both being already married. Many women there are ready to prostitute themselves for a present. A virgin may be purchased, either as a wife or a concubine, for a horse. A young Berber, who was asked why he did not marry, pointed to a colt and said, “When that is a horse I shall marry.”
The condition of women in Khartum, on the upper borders of the Nile, as described in Ferdinand Werne’s account of his voyage to discover the sources of the White Stream, is so degraded that it may be said with truth the female monkeys of the neighboring woods occupy a far nobler and more natural position. Farther up the river the morals are purer. The Keks are described as leading a blameless life. Marriageable girls and children are kept in seclusion, and during a considerable part of the year the women live in villages apart from the men, who possess only temporary huts, the substantial habitations of their wives being accessible to them during the rainy season. A man dare not approach the “harem village” at any other time, but some of the women occasionally creep into their husbands’ huts. Polygamy is allowed, but is too costly for any but the chiefs.
Among some of the tribes on the banks of the White Nile, women sell their children, if they can do so with profit. The maidens appear naked, but married women wear an apron. All experience shame at appearing unclothed before travelers. Beyond the Mountains of the Moon Werne found a people whom he describes as chaste and decent, where unmarried men and women were kept separate.
Our information is so limited that any inquiry into the morals of Africa must be incomplete, but enough has been stated to give a fair idea of the average morality. Statistics are of course impossible, but from a description in general terms we can not hesitate to form an opinion.
AUSTRALASIA.
In this division of the earth’s surface are generally included the great island of Australia, Papua or New Guinea, and some adjacent islands, comprising New Caledonia and Van Diemen’s Land. Politically and geographically the islands of New Zealand are also in this division, but there is some question as to the propriety of this distribution for ethnographical purposes. Opinions vary as to the state of the New Zealanders. There is much similarity between them and the inhabitants of some of the Polynesian Islands, while there are equally strong points of resemblance between them and the Australian aborigines. The New Zealander, when discovered by Cook, was far superior to the Australian in intelligence and in the arts of life. He inhabited a decent hut, could build a stockade fort, and lived upon cooked food. The Australian lived in a hollow tree, could put together a temporary hut made of bark and brush, and fed upon grubs, roots, and raw flesh. Among such a race as the Australian blacks it is needless to say that the position occupied by women was of the most degrading and brutal character.
The Australian savage does not even pay his future spouse the compliment of wooing her. Might makes right in their case. The woman is often betrothed by her parent or kinsman, and becomes her husband’s property by sale and bargain. If this has not been effected in the usual way, he acquires his marital privileges by an inroad on the grounds of another tribe, and then meeting a woman, he knocks her down with his waddy (a heavy club), and carries her to a place of security, where he makes himself master of her person by force. This, indeed, is so usual a course of procedure, that it has given rise to a belief that the Australian rival bachelors compete for a wife by knocking her on the head, and whoever fells her bears away the belle.