RISE OF FATHERRIGHT 23 



the first wife (for the people are polygynists) is obtained 

 by two years' service. During this period the girl 

 remains in a hut concealed as much as possible from 

 public gaze. Though courtship goes on, conjugal 

 intimacy is not permitted until the two years have 

 expired. The girl as bride is still further detained in 

 the hut until unequivocal symptoms of motherhood 

 appear, or failing them for eighteen months. At last 

 she makes her appearance in public as wife, surrounded 

 by a troop of singing and dancing maidens, and a 

 feast is held. 1 



For a polygamous people reckoning kinship through 

 the mother it is almost a matter of course, where the 

 political conditions permit, that a man who can afford 

 it should have wives in different places with whom 

 he lives by turns. Among the Babwende in the 

 neighbourhood of Stanley Pool on the Congo, the 

 wife remains at her own town among her kinsfolk ; the 

 husband sojourns with her for awhile and then goes 

 on to another, returning from time to time as he feels 

 inclined. The missionary who records the custom at- 

 tributes it to the peculiarly excitable character of the 

 tribe, which renders it dangerous for a woman to live 

 where she has not the protection of her relatives. 2 

 The custom is found however among other tribes of 

 West Africa. Miss Kingsley records it as a charac- 

 teristic of the native trader, and ascribes it to the 

 necessity of an alliance in every village he is accus- 

 tomed to visit. " I know myself," she says, " one 

 gentleman whose wives stretch over three hundred 

 miles of country, with a good wife base in a coast town 

 as well. This system of judiciously conducted alliances 

 1 Allen and Thomson, ii. 203. 2 Bentley, ii. 44. 



