"are married and are soon divorced, and are married again
perhaps three, four, or five times in their lives." "No man
is understood to be bound to conjugal fidelity; it is no
reproach to him to intermix his amours." "Neither have they
any word expressive of chastity except _nofo mow_, remaining
fixed or faithful, and which in this sense is only applied
to a married woman to signify her fidelity to her husband."
Even the married women of the lower classes had to yield to the wishes
of the chiefs, who did not hesitate to shoot a resisting husband.
(Waitz-Gerland, VI., 184.)
While these details show that Captain Cook overrated the civilization
of the Tongans, there are other facts indicating that they were in
some respects superior to other Polynesians, at any rate. The women
are capable of blushing, and they are reproached if they change their
lovers too often. They seem to have a dawning sense of the value of
chastity and of woman's claims to consideration. In Mariner's
description (I., 130) of a chief's wedding occurs this sentence:
"The dancing being over, one of the old matabooles (nobles)
addressed the company, making a moral discourse on the
subject of chastity--advising the young men to respect, in
all cases, the wives of their neighbors, and never to take
liberties even with an unmarried woman against her free
consent."
The wives of chiefs must not go about without attendants. Mariner
says, somewhat naïvely, that when a man has an amour, he keeps it
secret from his wife,
"not out of any fear or apprehension, but because it is
unnecessary to excite her jealousy, and make her perhaps
unhappy; for it must be said, to the honor of the men, that
they consult in no small degree, and in no few respects, the
happiness and comfort of their wives."
If Mariner tells the truth, it must be said in this respect that the
Tongans are superior to all other peoples we have so far considered in
this book. Though the husband's authority at home is absolute, and
though one girl in every three is betrothed in her infancy, men do
not, he says, make slaves or drudges of their wives, or sell their
daughters, two out of every three girls being allowed to choose their
own husbands--"early and often." The men do most of the hard work,
even to the cooking. "In Tonga," says Seemann (237), "the women have
been treated from time immemorial with all the consideration demanded
by their weaker and more delicate constitution, not being allowed to
perform any hard work." Cook also found (II., 149) that the province
allotted to the men was "far more laborious and extensive than that of
the women," whose employments were chiefly such as may be executed in
the house.