150 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



rather than to the relation of individuals. Thus, men of one group 

 have more or less free access to all the women of a certain other group. 

 Within the rules prescribed by custom, breach of marital relations was 

 severely punished. No one would think of having sexual relations 

 with one in a class forbidden to himself or to those of his own class. 

 It would thus appear that, within the bounds of their own customs, 

 they were extremely upright. When under certain conditions, chiefly 

 ceremonial, wives were loaned, it was always to those belonging to the 

 group within which the woman might lawfully marry. 3 Among the 

 natives of north central Queensland a competent observer (Roth, p. 

 184) holds that there is no evidence of the practise of masturbation 

 or of prostitution. The camp as a body punished incest and promis- 

 cuity. Howitt, writing of the natives of southeastern Australia, says 

 that the complicated marriage restrictions expressed in a very definite 

 way their sense of proper tribal morality. Here also looseness of sex- 

 ual relations was punished, although at certain times it was proper to 

 exchange wives and at other times there was unrestricted license among 

 those who were permitted to marry (cf. Fraser). 



Of the treatment of wives and children there are conflicting reports, 

 the more recent investigators holding that there was less cruelty than 

 was at first represented. There was, however, doubtless much differ- 

 ence in this respect in different tribes. One early observer (Earp, 

 p. 127) affirms that wives were always secured by force, the girl being 

 seized from ambush, beaten until senseless, and thus carried off by her 

 " lover." Others, in like manner, emphasize the brutality of obtaining 

 wives (Angas, p. 225). Lumholtz says that stealing was and is the 

 most common method. The researches of Spencer and Gillen do not 

 confirm these statements as far as the natives of central Australia are 

 concerned, while Eoth refers to the commonness of the practise of steal- 

 ing wives and eloping among the north central Queensland natives. 

 According to Spencer and Gillen, wives may have been so secured, but 

 such was assuredly not the customary method in central Australia at 

 least. They know of no instances of girls being beaten and dragged 

 away by suitors. It is probable that cases of exceptional cruelty more 

 easily came to the notice of the first travelers and they inferred that 

 such cases were characteristic. The last named authors affirm that the 

 method of securing wives among these tribes was definitely fixed by 

 tribal usage and involved no cruel practises whatsoever. Howitt, the 

 authority upon the southeastern tribes, says that cruelty was often 

 practised upon elopers, but this is manifestly because they had them- 

 selves been guilty of breach of tribal morality. Looseness of sexual 

 relations among these tribes originally always met with severe 

 punishment. 



3 See also Cameron, Journal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 14, p. 353. 



