Since this chapter was written a new book on Australia has appeared
which bears out the views here taken so admirably that I must insert a
brief reference to its contents. It is Spencer and Gillen's _The
Native Tribes of Central Australia_ (1899), and relates to nine tribes
over whom Baldwin Spencer had been placed as special magistrate and
sub-protector for some years, during which he had excellent
opportunities to study their customs. The authors tell us (62, 63)
that
"In the Urabunna tribe every woman is the special
_Nupa_ of one particular man, but at the same time he
has no exclusive right to her, as she is the
_Piraungaru_ of certain other men who also have the
right of access to her.... There is no such thing as
one man having the exclusive right to one woman....
Individual marriage does not exist either in name or in
practice in the Urabunna tribe."
"Occasionally, but rarely, it happens that a man
attempts to prevent his wife's _Piraungaru_ from having
access to her, but this leads to a fight, and the
husband is looked upon as churlish. When visiting
distant groups where, in all likelihood, the husband
has no _Piraungaru_, it is customary for other men of
his own class to offer him the loan of one or more of
their _Nupa_ women, and a man, besides lending a woman
over whom he has the first right, will also lend his
_Piraungaru_."
In the Arunta tribe there is a restriction of a particular woman to a
particular man, "or rather, a man has an exclusive right to one
special woman, though he may of his own free will lend her to other
men," provided they stand in a certain artificial relation to her
(74). However (92):
"Whilst under ordinary circumstances in the Arunta and
other tribes one man is only allowed to have marital
relations with women of a particular class, there are
customs which allow at certain times of a man having
such relations with women to whom at other times he
would not on any account be allowed to have access. We
find, indeed, that this holds true in the case of all
the nine different tribes with the marriage customs of
which we are acquainted, and in which a woman becomes
the private property of one man."
In the southern Arunta, after a certain ceremony has been performed,
the bride is brought back to camp and given to her special _Unawa_.
"That night he lends her to one or two men who are _unawa_ to her, and
afterward she belongs to him exclusively." At this time when a woman
is being, so to speak, handed over to one particular individual,
special individuals with whom at ordinary times she may have no
intercourse, have the right of access to her. Such customs our authors
interpret plausibly as partial promiscuity pointing to a time when
still greater laxity prevailed--suggesting rudimentary organs in
animals (96).
Among some tribes at corrobboree time, every day two or three women
are told off and become the property of all the men on the corrobboree
grounds, excepting fathers, brothers, or sons. Thus there are three
stages of individual ownership in women: In the first, whilst the man
has exclusive right to a woman, he can and does lend her to certain
other men; in the second there is a wider relation in regard to
particular men at the time of marriage; and in the third a still wider
relation to all men except the nearest relatives, at corrobboree time.
Only in the first of these cases can we properly speak of wife
"lending"; in the other cases the individuals have no choice and
cannot withhold their consent, the matter being of a public or tribal
nature. As regards the corrobborees, it is supposed to be the duty of
every man at different times to send his wife to the ground, and the
most striking feature in regard to it is that the first man who has
access to her is the very one to whom, under normal conditions, she is
most strictly taboo, her _Mura_. [All women whose daughters are
eligible as wives are _mura_ to a man.]
Old and young men alike must give up their wives on these occasions.
"It is a custom of ancient date which is sanctioned by public opinion,
and to the performance of which neither men nor women concerned offer
any opposition" (98).