MARITAL JEALOUSY 119 



in force." If pregnancy result from any of these 

 amours the woman is said to declare the paternity of 

 the child before it is born. 1 A husband among the 

 Brames, we are told, reckons it a special merit in his 

 wife to have many lovers. 2 The Mbres about Lake 

 Tchad (if I am right in supposing them to be a 

 matrilineal people) practise fraternal polyandry. 3 



Among the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold 

 Coast " chastity per se is not understood. An un- 

 married girl is expected to be chaste because virginity 

 possesses a marketable value, and were she to be 

 unchaste her parents would receive little and perhaps 

 no head-money for her. It is therefore a duty she 

 owes to them to remain continent. A man who 

 seduces a virgin is compelled to marry her, or if her 

 parents will not consent to the marriage to pay the 

 amount of the head-money. In the latter case, her 

 marketable value having been received, any excesses 

 she may commit are regarded as of no importance. 

 A married woman is the property of her husband, and 

 consequently may not bestow her favours without his 

 permission. But a married man can and does lend his 

 wife, and the wife submits to be lent, without either of 

 them supposing that they are committing an offence 

 against morality. Many husbands, moreover, en- 

 courage frailty on the part of their wives, hoping to 

 profit by the sums which they will be able to extract 

 from their paramours. Throughout, the woman is re- 

 garded as property. The daughter is the property of 



1 Matthews, Voyage^ 119. 



2 Post, Afr. Jur. i. 468, citing Waitz. 



3 V Anthropologie^ xiv. 229, citing and reviewing an article by 

 Capt. Truffert in Rev. Generate des Sciences, Jan. 30, 1902. 



