INCIDENTS OF CAMBODIAN LIFE. jjg 



The Cambodian woman occnpies a dignified position in the 

 house of her husband. He owes her respect and gives it, and is 

 not rude or violent in her presence. He can put her away, but 

 she can also claim a divorce at law. She can go to law without 

 the consent of her husband, when she must be supported by a 

 relative, or, if she has none, by a respectable neighbor. If she is 

 summoned to court, she can oblige her husband to go with her, 

 under penalty, if he fails to go, of his losing his rights over her ; 

 and she can leave him without his having any right to complain 

 or to claim reparation. He can pawn her or sell her as a slave if 

 she consents, but he can not dispose of himself in such way with- 

 out her approval. The woman can have but one husband, and 

 he can not take a second wife or any additional one without the 

 consent of his first wife. The first wife is called the first wife, 

 the second the middle wife, and the third the end wife ; those that 

 follow are concubines. They are all hierarchically subordinated 

 one to the other, but the great wife, the true wife, is mistress of 

 the house, and the others are only her followers and servants. If 

 one of these encroaches upon her prerogatives, she can punish 

 her; if she seeks to seduce the husband and supplant the first 

 wife in his heart, she can call her guilty rival before the court 

 and get judgment against her. The first wives sometimes select 

 the other wives for their husbands, often choosing such as will be 

 agreeable companions to themselves ; and women are numerous 

 who have been able to exert such influence over their husbands 

 or exercise such power in the house as to prevent the introduction 

 of any other wives. 



Cambodian maidens rarely go astray, and infanticide is abso- 

 lutely unknown in the. country. Mothers are anxious to have 

 children, and are not afraid of any number of them. A woman 

 who has no children after several years of marriage is unhappy 

 over the fact, and her fellow-women sympathize with her for it. 



The people are brave, willing to run considerable dangers for 

 a small reward, and are valiant in action ; but they are supersti- 

 tious, and believe in ghosts, evil spirits, witches, and witchcraft. 

 They offer worship to genii and invoke them, good and bad alike, 

 when they are afraid or in need. It is not rare to find in the cor- 

 ner of a rice field a little straw mat inclosing a fragment of a 

 sculptured prayer from some ancient Khmer monument, or sim- 

 ply an ordinary stone. They believe that the arac dwells in this 

 stone, give it homage, and burn fragrant sticks before it, which 

 they plant in a piece of banana stem, or a small basin, or in half 

 a cocoanut filled with sand. They also render a secret worship to 

 lingartis derived from the Brahmanic epoch which have been con- 

 cealed for centuries in the depths of natural grottoes, without 

 knowing what these stones represent. 



