POLYGAMY
From the writings of early travellers it might be inferred that the
Fijians practised polygamy to the same extent as the Arabs and other
Mahommedan nations, but a moment's reflection will show that this was
impossible. The high chiefs, it is true, were accustomed to cement
alliances by taking a daughter of every new ally into their households,
and these women with their handmaids, who were also the chief's
potential concubines, swelled their harems inordinately; and as
travellers were always the guests of the chiefs, and described things as
they found them, these exceptional households were taken as fair samples
of Fijian family life. But inasmuch as the Fijians could not draw upon
other races for women, and the sexes of the children born throughout the
group numbered about the same, to say nothing of the practice of female
infanticide, it is obvious that for every addition to the chief's harem,
some commoner had to go without a wife.
This view is borne out by the missionary, James Calvert, who, in
defending the abolition of polygamy by the missionaries, says: "Polygamy
is actually confined to comparatively few. It is only the wealthy and
powerful who can afford to maintain such an expensive indulgence."
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The actual facts were these: The highest chiefs had harems of from ten
to fifty women, counting concubines, according to their rank and
importance; the chiefs of the inland tribes had five or six wives, who
cultivated their plantations for them, and were more agricultural
labourers than wives; the chiefs of tributary tribes had seldom more
than two wives, and the bulk of the people were monogamists. Young men
of the lower orders married rather late in life for a primitive race,
rarely, it appears, before the age of twenty-five. Under these
conditions it might be expected that there would have been some form of
prostitution, but in fact there was nothing of the kind. The nearest
approach to it was to be found in the chief's kitchen, where the women
in attendance on the chief's wives, especially those nearing middle age,
were wont to sit and gossip with their lord's male retainers. In the
tributary villages the young men were too well watched in the _mbure_,
and the girls in the houses of their parents, for there to have been
much philandering. Thus, if it comes to a question of fact--and the
terms are to be applied in their most literal sense--the Fijians have a
better title to be called monogamists than the men of civilized Europe.
The action of the early missionaries in breaking down polygamy did not
result in as much hardship as might be supposed. Their policy is set
forth in the following instructions from the Society to its ministers:
"No man living in a state of polygamy is to be admitted a member, or
even on trial, who will not consent to live with one woman as his wife,
to whom you shall join him in matrimony, or ascertain that this rite has
been performed by some other minister; and the same rule is to be
applied in the same manner to a woman proposing to become a member of
the Society." The chiefs seem to have made little difficulty about this.
They were married to their principal wife, and the rest went home to
their friends, where they had not long to wait for husbands, since there
was a certain prestige in marrying a woman who had belonged to a high
chief. The discarded wives rarely complained of their dismissal, for
their lives in the harem had been unenviable. Exposed to the jealousy
and tyranny of the chief wife, they were subjected to daily
mortification, and if they had the misfortune to displease the great
lady, they were set upon and beaten and ill-treated by her attendants.
At the time of annexation in 1874 the Mission order quoted above had
been sufficient to stamp out the custom everywhere but in the hill
districts of Vitilevu, where the older chiefs still had from two to four
wives apiece. The Government wisely resolved to recognize all these
wives as legally married,[68] but not to allow any more polygamous
marriages, and in a few years the custom died out of itself. In the
polygamous households with which I came into contact the wives were all
stricken in years, and they lived harmoniously together, dividing the
labour of wood-cutting, water-carrying, and tilling their husband's
garden between them.
I do not think that the abandonment of polygamy has had any effect upon
the vitality of the race, for the simple reason that its practice was
very limited in extent. Then, as now, practically all the women were
appropriated. The evils arising from polygamy among the natives in South
Africa, cited by the Commission appointed in 1882 by the Governor of
Cape Colony to inquire into native customs--namely, idleness of the men,
enforced work by the women, immorality of young wives wedded to old men,
forced marriages of girls, strife and jealousy among the wives leading
to the practice of witchcraft and the sale of young girls--were not
prevalent in Fiji; nor had the reasons there adduced in its favour--that
polygamy is a provision against old age, since the children of the young
wives maintain their parents when the older children have left the
home--any application in the Pacific Islands.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 68: Native Regulation 12 of 1877 provided that "all marriages
performed and confirmed according to Fijian customs before the passing
of this Regulation" should be legal and binding.]