202 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



" sometimes up to five hundred," so that " there are 

 no women left for the young men of the village to 

 marry." 1 This, however, hardly agrees with the 

 accounts of Emin and Schweinfurth, and cannot 

 apply universally. The real reason must lie deeper. 



Not very different is the report of the Azandi or 

 Niam-niams, neighbours of the Monbuttu. They 

 practise polygyny. All women are said to be in 

 theory the property of the chiefs. " The woman's 

 feelings do not appear to be consulted very much in 

 matters matrimonial ; but if she is not happy in her 

 conjugal life she takes the law into her own hands, 

 which is usually by eloping with some spouseless man. 

 . . . Neither the men nor the women are particularly 

 faithful to one another, and absence from one another 

 for more than five or six days puts a great strain on 

 their powers of self-control." A man who had inter- 

 course with a chiefs wife would be punished severely, 

 by maiming or disfigurement. But in the case of 

 ordinary people "a present of cloth or beads or spears 

 invariably acts as a salve on the outraged feelings ot 

 the husband." Syphilis is very common. 2 We have 

 in a previous chapter considered the institutions of the 

 Dinkas. 3 



Among the Wadjagga marriage is easily dissolved. 

 A man will always send his wife away for sterility ; 

 and her father must then repay the bride-price. It 

 is however the woman who usually separates from her 

 husband and betakes herself to another, and that for 

 the most trifling causes. There are women who have 



1 Capt. Guy Burrows,/. A. I. xxviii. 46. 



2 Melland, Journ. Afr. Soc. iii. 240, 242, 



a^ vol, i. p. 313. 



