MOTHERRIGHT 311 



that a stranger was the person appointed as the agent 

 to beget a child. 1 Moreover the ceremonies which 

 hedged round the accomplishment of the agent's duties, 

 whether appointed by the relatives after the husband's 

 death, or as it seems by the husband in his lifetime, 

 display an anxiety to reduce the act itself to a minimum. 

 And later law-books disclose an effort to get rid of it 

 altogether. 2 But as the law stands in Manu, not 

 merely sons begotten by an appointed sapinda on 

 a wife or widow are recognised as the husband's sons. 

 The illegitimate son of an unmarried girl who 

 afterwards marries, a son born of a bride already 

 pregnant at the time of her marriage, and even a son 

 born of a wife's adultery are also all deemed to be the 

 husband's sons. 3 In fact, as a recent commentator on 

 the Hindu law says, it is a law " in which twelve 

 sorts of sons are recognised, the majority of whom 

 have no blood-relationship to their own [nominal] 

 father." 4 The Chinese also esteem it so important 

 to have children that it is looked upon as somewhat 

 of an infamy to be destitute of them. There are 

 husbands, at least in the province of Fo-Kien and 

 doubtless elsewhere, who for this purpose force their 

 wives to entertain other men and invite or even pay 

 some friend to have intercourse with them. The girls 

 who are not already delivered over to their intended 

 father-in-law's custody at an early age are very dissolute. 

 A law-suit arising out of a claim by a family that a 

 girl on marriage is not found a virgin is no uncommon 

 event ; but money is always deemed a sufficient cdm- 



1 Wayne, 84. See also McLennan, Pat. Theory >, 269. 



2 Sac. Bks. ii. 130. 3 Ibid. xxv. 362, 363. 

 4 Mayne, 73; cf. 81. See also Jolly, 71. 



