MARITAL JEALOUSY 201 



accordance with the facts. The daily witness of the 

 Nubians who were with him " only too plainly testified 

 that fidelity to the obligations of marriage was little 

 known. Not a few of the women were openly obscene. 

 Their general demeanour surprised me very much 

 when I considered the comparative advance of their 

 race in the arts of civilisation. Their immodesty far 

 surpassed anything that I had observed in the very 

 lowest of the Negro tribes." Towards their husbands 

 they exhibited " the highest degree of independence. 

 The position in the household occupied by the men 

 was illustrated by the reply which would be made if 

 they were solicited to sell anything as a curiosity : 

 ' Oh, ask my wife ; it is hers.' " 1 The polygyny, 

 which is practised on a large scale, does not seem to 

 have reduced these women to subjection. " Wives are 

 cheap and may be obtained even for nothing." They 

 are very prolific. " Sterility is a disgrace, and some- 

 times results in the wife being returned to her father. 

 Usually, however, the husband prefers to add to his 

 wives in the hope of obtaining children. . . . Cases of 

 flagrant adultery are brought under the notice of the 

 chief, who confiscates the property of the adulterer and 

 gives two-thirds of it to the woman's father and one- 

 third to the injured man." The father is required to 

 provide the husband with another wife, usually a sister 

 of the guilty woman. 2 A more recent writer speaks 

 more strongly still, going so far as to say that 

 "morality is practically non-existent among the 

 Mang-bettou." He ascribes this state of things to the 

 large number of wives monopolised by the chiefs, 



* Schweinfurth, ii. 91. 



2 Emin Pasha, 208, 209. The italics are mine. 



