ii PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



are nominally Christians. Among them also the 

 women hold a position of much consideration. 

 Betrothal is procured by payment and is entered into 

 very early. At marriage the bride's father must give 

 the young couple five times the value of the sum 

 received by him at betrothal. The bridegroom how- 

 ever is supposed to pay him a small bride-price. The 

 actual payment is commonly postponed, and separation 

 renders the claim void. The wife, in addition to the 

 natural hold on her own family, has a special defender 

 and sureties to protect her from her husband. In her 

 earlier married life too she is accustomed to spend a 

 great part of the year in her father's house, and her 

 husband visits her there. 1 



Among the Wakamba the customary bride-price is 

 paid either in one sum or by poorer people in instal- 

 ments. Until it is all paid up the bridegroom cannot 

 enter publicly into possession of the bride. She 

 remains in the meantime in her father's custody, where 

 he is at liberty to visit her. Any children already born 

 are transferred to him by the public celebration of the 

 marriage. 2 So the Mosuto bridegroom after payment 

 of the first instalment or earnest of the bride-price is 

 entitled to conjugal intercourse with the bride in her 

 parents' house. This continues until he fetches her 

 home ; but any children born before the bride-price is 

 paid up, belongs to her father or his heirs. 3 The 

 Basuto, albeit in the stage of fatherright, preserve 

 many relics of matrilineal institutions, to which these 

 are to be reckoned. On the island of Fernando Po 



1 Munzinger, 387. 



2 J. M. Hildebrandt, Zeits.f. Ethnol. x. 401. 



3 Id. vi. 39. 



