Matrimony is, like all other human institutions, the result of
evolution. In the dim past, after the ape-man had evolved to true man,
it was not known at all. Most probably all the females were the common
property of the males, the strongest of whom took hold of several women,
leaving the rest to their inferior chums.
With the evolution of property rights these mates as well as their
offspring came to be regarded as the absolute property of the husband
and father, who could dispose of them at his pleasure by barter or
otherwise. So it was among primitive men a hundred thousand years ago
and so it is customary among aboriginal peoples to-day. At the death of
the husband his rights generally go to the oldest son or to the person
who becomes the head of the family.
Accordingly as girls are not masters of their own bodies, so the barter
for women is customary among all aboriginal tribes. If a man sees a girl
to his liking he bargains with the head of her family about the price.
Among pastoral tribes it is generally paid in cattle; among hunters in
skins or other objects of value.
Among the Zulu Kaffres the price for good-looking girls ranges from five
to thirty cows. In Uganda it is three or four oxen; among the Samoyedes
and Ostiaks of Siberia a number of reindeer; among the Sioux Indians two
to twenty horses; among the Bedouins a number of camels; in Samoa pigs
or canoes; among the Tatars sheep and several pounds of butter; among
the Bongo twenty pounds of iron and twenty spear-heads; among other
tribes a certain quantity of gold dust, beads, shells, and so on in
endless variety. As soon as the price is paid the girl, without being
asked her consent, is obliged to follow her new master.
As among aborigines women have no will of their own, they cannot object
if their husbands exchange, trade or loan them to other men. So it is
customary among many tribes that if persons of importance come visiting,
the daughters or the wives of the host are assigned to comfort them over
night.
If among the inhabitants of the Fiji Islands men became tired of their
“better halves,” they killed and boiled them and arranged cannibal
feasts in which all neighbors participated.
Aboriginal women also must gracefully assent to their husbands’ taking
several wives. Their number depends on the man’s means. While poor men
satisfy themselves with one wife, chiefs generally buy numbers. The
despots of Dahomey in West Africa, for instance, filled their houses
with hundreds of women, who were obliged not only to amuse these kings
during their lifetime, but also to follow them in death. When such an
autocrat was assembled to his ancestors, his body was deposited in a
large cave. But in order that he should not travel alone through
eternity, his wives as well as all the members of his court were led
into the cave and provided with food for several days, whereupon the
entrance of the cave was closed and the occupants were left to their
fate.
[Illustration:
CARRYING OFF A WOMAN IN AUSTRALIA
]
If among the aborigines a man is too poor to buy a wife, he generally
tries to steal one. But as he must not do so within his own clan, as he
would trespass upon the property rights of his fellow-men, nothing
remains but to kidnap a girl of some neighboring tribe. So he lurks
around the villages till some day a girl, while gathering berries or
edible roots, unfortunately happens to come too near his hiding place.
In this case the manner of his proposal is sudden, but effective. A blow
with his war club makes the damsel unconscious, whereupon he drags her
to some secure place. Here he keeps her till she has recovered her
senses and is able to follow him to his lodge.
George Gray, who has written about the natives of Australia, states that
the life of young and attractive women among those tribes is a
continuous chain of capture by different men, terrible wounds and long
wanderings to unknown bands. In addition, such unfortunate females must
suffer very often extremely bad treatment by other women, to whom they
are brought as prisoners by their capturers.
But women have been kidnapped not merely for sexual reasons, but also
for their ability to work. Herewith we open the darkest chapter in
woman’s history: Slavery, a word which has not lost its terrible meaning
for women up to the present day.
Slavery has been practiced in all parts of the world in some form. But
Africa was the continent where it prevailed from time immemorial to the
greatest extent and assumed the most cruel forms. Phœnicians, Greeks,
Romans, Arabs, Turks, Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, Frenchmen,
Dutchmen, Englishmen and Americans sailed to its coasts, to capture men
as well as women and children, to sell and use them for slaves.
It is impossible for human imagination to conceive the horrors and
misery, caused here by heartless pirates for thousands of years.
Imagine a peaceful village, approached stealthily in the night by cruel
enemies, who surround it and then set fire to the huts. As the
inhabitants rush out in terror, those who resist capture are killed, and
those who have escaped the blessing of immediate death are fettered and
marched off. Imagine long columns of such unfortunate and often severely
wounded men, women and children chained together and driven by ruthless
brutes through pathless jungles and arid deserts, to far away markets.
No matter how hot the sun burns down, they must move on. Woe to those
who break down! They are left where they have dropped, to perish of
hunger and thirst, or to be torn by wild beasts. Or, as a warning to the
others, they are butchered in cold blood by their drivers. For those who
reach their destination, where they are traded like cattle, an existence
is waiting that will have fewer moments of joy than there are oases in
an endless desert.
For time immemorial women also fell prey to religious superstition. To
keep evil demons in good humor, or to thank some imaginary gods for
victories and other blessings, human beings have been sacrificed by
thousands. The “Dark Continent” again holds the record in this respect.
And again the autocrats of Dahomey were those who, in religious frenzy,
spilled the blood of hundreds and thousands of men as well as of women.
[Illustration: