S.A. NATIVES AND PRIMITIVE FOLK CUSTOM. 4I3 



with cattle to offer. But there is a tradition that the Basnto 

 also stole. The captor's people would say: " The leopard has 

 carried off a s^irl," but then sent cattle to appease the robbed, 

 this being', of course, a later development. To this day some 

 of the marriage oxen are at first driven away when sent, a 

 survival of the original refusal to be appeased imavenged. Still, 

 in Homer we get the " cattle-bringing bride," while in the 

 North the bride was espoused with a morgengave of jewels (as 

 at Rome with a ring), both which stu'vive in the old English 

 service, which savs. " With this ring I thee wed. this gold and 

 silver I thee give," which latter is now. however, usefully rele- 

 gated to the priest and clerk as their accustomed duty, without 

 the bride feeling" defrauded. I presume the mention of Isaac 

 and Rebecca in the following collect is largely due to the re- 

 miniscence of her espousal by proxy with the nose ring and 

 bracelets, for her conduct in deceiving" old Isaac was not very 

 wifely or faithful. Lycurgus' code allowed return of dower to a 

 wife divorced causelessly, as the Basuto also allow such innocent 

 party's family to retain .the cattle paid for her. The Spartan 

 code also strangelv preserved something" like the guestright, 

 still surviving to some extent in South Africa, for a man to lend 

 his wife if he were childless. ( )ne more detail is that in Greek 

 marriage the gall of the victim was removed, that bitterness 

 might be absent. The gall also plays an important part in 

 Sesuto weddings, for the bride and bridegroom are crowned 

 with it. One suspects some connection between the customs. 

 As to departures from monogamy, it is by no means proved, 

 as seem^ to have been for some tinie thought, that the earlv con- 

 dition of man was a mere promiscuous horde, with the mother 

 as the only known element in descent. It has been pointed out 

 that this state of things is rather characteristic of a decadent 

 so-called civilisation than of the healthy jealousy which we 

 find in some of the higher mammals, and may not imreasonably 

 expect in the primitive human male, if not female. We need 

 not enter into this vexed question, except to point out that on 

 the latter theory adolescent sons were driven out, like Cain, as 

 disturbing the family peace, and scattered in search of wives. 

 This state of things has long passed away among" the Basuto, 

 Avhose custom represents a much more compact and stable con- 

 dition of the family. In it the woman is the property, not of 

 the individual bridegroom, but of the brethren, lent to the indi- 

 vidual for life. This is made clear by the fact that the widow 

 passes to the deceased husband's brother, not as in 

 the Old Testament, "to raise up seed" to the child- 

 less dead, but normally, though reckoning children to 

 the first husband as in Moses' law. One cannot help 

 noticing" that this state of things verges on the poly- 

 andry, which is practised, as someone has said, " bv thirtv 

 nu'llion respectable people " to-day. Xot to embark on the 

 troubled sea of matriarchal controversv, or to dive into the 

 mysteries of Sesuto relationship-names thus affected, we must 

 note that not only in the far Indian branch of our Indo-European 

 race do the five brothers Pandava all marry the fair Draaupali in 

 the Mahabharata, but Caesar savs of Britain in his Galic War 



