204 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



" Adultery," he says, " is extremely common, and 

 in very few parts of British Central Africa is looked 

 upon as a very serious matter, as a wrong which 

 cannot be compensated by a small payment. The 

 natives regard it with the same amount of emotion 

 as they would the stealing of their fowls or corn 

 in lieu of buying them, even though the price charged 

 for them is very small." 1 



The Swahili of the east coast profess Islam, but 

 they have little of it beside the name and a few ritual 

 observances. Unmarried girls are free to all men. 

 After marriage a man is required to maintain his wife 

 by giving her rations. But "many women receive 

 no more than five pishi of corn for ten days' allowance. 

 This being very little they give themselves up to 

 harlotry for maintenance." 2 Chastity is unknown. 

 " Upon the coast, when an adulterer is openly detected, 

 he is fined according to the husband's rank ; mostly 

 however such peccadilloes are little noticed." 3 In the 

 Portuguese province of Sena on the lower Zambesi it 

 is not common for virginity to be preserved beyond 

 the age of twelve. After marriage adultery is 

 common. On discovery the husband may repudiate 

 his wife and receive from her paramour the amount 

 paid for her on marriage, together with a solatium 



1 Johnston, Brit. Cent. Afr. 412. Between the sentences quoted 

 are others which appear to be a note interpolated by accident in the 

 text. They describe the jealousy of the natives with regard to 

 Europeans. Other observations follow, ascribing to the native 

 women in general fidelity to the marriage-tie while it lasts. I find a 

 difficulty in reconciling these with the emphatic words I have 

 quoted. 



2 Krapf, Suahili Diet. svv. Munda, Posho, 



3 Burton, Zanzibar , i. 419. 



