3 o 4 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



number thus paid." " Divorce is easy," he goes on 

 subsequently to say. " A man sells his wife or sends 

 her away. ... If a woman behaves very badly, and 

 her husband, although he dislikes her, cannot dispose 

 of her, he may send her back to her parents. I 

 remember an instance of this kind. The woman was 

 the prettiest I ever saw in Kafiristan, and would have 

 been considered a beauty anywhere ; but she was so 

 bad and troublesome that no one would take her. 

 She was sent back to her father's house. If any one 

 were found intriguing with her he would have to pay 

 the usual fine to the husband. If a girl were born to 

 her, the woman would keep her ; if a son, the husband 

 would claim him." 1 



In. many countries indeed where fatherright is well 

 settled as the juridical system husbands are far from 

 squeamish over what we should call their wives' virtue, 

 or over their children's paternity. As the general 

 subject of marital complacency will be more fully 

 treated in a subsequent chapter we will confine our 

 attention here to a few examples having regard more 

 particularly to the relation between the woman's 

 husband and the children she bears. I pass over the 

 jus primes noctis, of which examples are to be found in 

 Indian custom. 2 Subject to any uncertainty arising 

 from this cause, the husband might perhaps be able to 

 count upon begetting his wife's children. As a matter 

 of fact he is often quite careless on the subject. 

 The Bawariyas, a hunting and criminal tribe in the 



1 Robertson, Kafirs, 533, 536. 



* The last case I have met with is that of Zikrfs, an heretical 

 Mohammedan sect in Baluchistan, among whom the Mulla exercises 

 the right. His touch is supposed to sanctify and cleanse the bride 

 (Ituf. Ce*s. 1901, y. 45). 



