WHAT IS MARRIAGE? 7 



that experimental marriage lias been very extensively 

 practised. In one of the aboriginal tribes of India 

 marriages take place at a fixed period of the year, 

 when all the candidates, male and female, live together 

 for six days and then pair off. The young Turcoman 

 carries off a girl and lives with her for six weeks, at 

 the end of which time, if she has found favour in his 

 eyes, his friends open negotiations with her parents 

 for a marriage in regular form. In Ceylon marriages 

 are provisional for a fortnight, and are then either 

 annulled or confirmed. In the Andaman Islands 

 marriage lasts only till a child is weaned, when each 

 party seeks a new engagement. The Hussaniyeh 

 Arabs have what Lubbock calls "three-quarters 

 marriage," a woman being expected to be faithful to 

 her husband for three days out of four, but on every 

 fourth day being free to do as she chooses. Among 

 the tribes of Southern India a young woman of 

 sixteen or twenty is married to a boy of five or six, 

 but lives with some other adult male, usually a rela- 

 tive. Her children are fathered upon the boy, but 

 he in turn, when he grows up, has the privilege of 

 begetting children for some other youthful husband. 

 In Japan it is no stain upon a girl's name, or any 

 impediment to her marriage, that she should hire 



