MARRIAGE 237 



the partnership, neither is there any custom by which the man 

 is compelled to place a certain amount of property at the 

 disposal of her parents. Each has a right to a certain proportion 

 of their common household possessions, and their worldly status 

 improves by inheritance and by their own efforts. 



Those marriages are most successful from which children 

 are numerous, for these make life easier by taking a large 

 amount of the daily and special work upon themselves, and 

 by acting as a support and provision to their parents in 

 old age. 



There is very little that is binding in the marriage state of 

 these people, cohabitation with its duties being co-existent with 

 mutual consent. So long as they like each other and are con- 

 tented with their position, the couple remain together ; but the 

 absence of children, illness, old age, and many extremely 

 trivial reasons are sufficient cause for separation,* The 

 divorce is a matter for the two most concerned only ; there 

 are no public proceedings to take place, no ceremonies to 

 undergo.-]- 



Most of the adult members of the population have been 

 married three or four times, a goodly number far more often. 

 The children of the partnership, if young, go with the more 



* (a) " A man may readily obtain a divorce without any better reason than 

 that he has fixed his heart on another woman." — " Customs of the Minahassers," 

 Hickson's North Celebes^ p. 281. 



(b) " Divorces are very common ; one can scarcely meet with a middle-aged 

 Dyak who has not had two and often three or more wives. Repudiation takes 

 place for the slightest cause — personal dislike or disappointments, a sudden 

 quarrel, bad dreams, discontent with the partner's powers of industry or labour, 

 in fact, any excuse. In fact, marriage is a business of partnership for the purpose 

 of having children, dividing labour, and by means of their offspring providing 

 for old age. It is therefore entered into and dissolved almost at pleasure. The 

 causes are innumerable, but incompatibility of temper is perhaps the most 

 common ; when they are tired of each other they do not say so, but put the 

 fault upon an unfavourable dream or a bad omen— either of which is allowed 

 to be a legitimate cause for separation." — St John. 



+ Side by side with this state of things, which is practically one of free love, 

 a licensed immorality exists among the natives, and there are several brothels 

 or houses of assignation in the village of Mus, population 530 1 



