MARRIAGE. 451 



Though they are apparently fond of their children, even 

 Eyre admits that there is little affection between husband and 

 wife. " After a long absence," he says, " I have seen natives 

 upon their return, go to their carnp, exhibiting the most stoical 

 indifference, never take the least notice of their wives, but sit 

 down, and act and look as if they had never been out of the 

 encampment."* Women, in fact, are regarded as mere pro- 

 perty. There is no ceremony of marriage, and chastity is 

 entirely disregarded, wives being valued principally for their 

 services as slaves, and terribly ill-treated. "No one/' says 

 Eyre, " ever attempts to take the part of a female.' J f Beauty 

 only makes matters worse. "The early life," says Captain 

 Grey, " of a young woman at all celebrated for beauty is gene- 

 ' rally one continued series of captivity to different masters, of 

 ghastly wounds, rapid flights, and bad treatment from other 

 females"! jealous of her superior attractions. Few women in 

 Australia, it is said, live to thirty. Yet with all this lawless- 

 ness and tyranny, marriage is regulated by certain very curious 

 prohibitions. Thus a man may steal another man's wife if he 

 can, but, as already mentioned, he may not under any circum- 

 stances marry a woman of the same clan, even though not 

 related in the remotest degree. There are certain great fami- 

 lies, such as the Ballaroke, Tdondarup, Ngotak, Nagarnook, 

 Nogonyuk, Mongalmy, and Narrangur, which occur over a 

 great portion of the continent, and within which marriage is 

 not permitted. Indeed, it appears that every tribe is divided 

 into clans, and that no man may marry a woman belonging to 

 his own clan. In one sense every man is regarded as a husband 

 of every woman belonging to any clan into which he might 

 legally marry. These " communal marriages," however, as I 

 have elsewhere proposed to call them, are often more or less 



* 1. c. pp. 2, 215. See also p. 320. Eyre, voL ii. p. 329. For fur- 

 t 1. c. vol. ii. p. 387. ther particulars, see my " Origin of 



J 1. c. vol. ii. p. 249. Civilisation." 



2o2 



