MARITAL JEALOUSY 159 



is a well-recognised institution by which a woman 

 becomes the formal mistress of a man who is not her 

 husband. It is true that the consent of the husbands 

 is required, but that is usually arranged without 

 difficulty. A woman may have more than one of 

 these lovers, and a man may have more than one 

 mistress. Any children born of such unions are in 

 law children of the regular marriage. 



But we have not yet reached the limit of Toda 

 licence. It is unnecessary here to discuss the dairy- 

 cult which forms so large a part of Toda life, or to 

 distinguish and describe the different ranks of officials 

 who minister in that cult. Suffice it to say that 

 although some of these officials are restricted from 

 intercourse at certain places or on certain days with 

 their own wives, on other occasions they are free to 

 have commerce with any woman, or with any woman 

 of the Tarthar group, one of the two endogamous 

 groups or phratries into which the Todas are divided. 

 Indeed, after the dairyman of a Tarthar dairy has 

 served the office for eighteen years without a break, it 

 is an indispensable condition of his continuance that 

 he have ritual intercourse with a girl or young woman 

 of the clan. She is brought for that purpose to a wood 

 near the village whither he goes at the appointed time 

 to meet her. When he is first inducted into office an 

 old Tarthar woman takes part in the ceremony. She 

 must be past the age of child-bearing and must never 

 have had intercourse with one of her own clan. There 

 seems some doubt as to the exact meaning of this 

 qualification ; but at any rate according to the evidence 

 it is by no means easy to find a woman who fulfils the 

 requirement. Dr. Rivers, in summing up the results 



