1 78 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



seducer has nothing to pay even though pregnancy 

 result. It is superfluous to say that virginity is not 

 expected in a bride. Bastards have no disadvantage 

 in law, and socially very little. If the father of a 

 bastard does not take it, it enters into its mother's 

 family and inherits in due course from her father. 

 Divorce is easy and without special formalities ; but 

 some cause must be alleged, though it may be a mere 

 excuse. Adultery abortion or barrenness is sufficient 

 for the man to dismiss his wife, or even if she be a 

 scold. He may sell her if she commit adultery or be 

 impertinent to her mother-in-law. On the woman's 

 side her husband's adultery or ill-treatment enables her 

 to quit him. The definition of adultery however by 

 no means coincides with ours. No bride-price is paid. 

 The result is that there is hardly a pair of middle age 

 who have not been divorced, though it is constantly 

 observed that after various conjugal changes in the 

 meantime they ultimately return to one another. A 

 special custom of the island is that a number of men 

 form a kind of club and build a club-house called a 

 falu, where they spend their evenings and nights. In 

 these houses girls are kept for the use of the members, 

 each of whom has his appointed day. Girls are 

 obtained for thefatu by agreement with their parents 

 or by force. They are held for a year, or sometimes 

 for several years, and well rewarded for their service, 

 and their parents receive presents also. Some reproach 

 attaches to a girl who voluntarily enters a falu, and 

 for that reason the capture of a girl is preconcerted 

 between herself and her captors, in order that though 

 willing to go she may appear to be forced. Yet once 

 in the/a/# their social position is little affected : they 



