MARITAL JEALOUSY 247 



the more secure he is that the edifice of the family 

 will stand, and the duties on which tremendous issues 

 both here and hereafter hang will continue to be dis- 

 charged. Religion thus unites with economic and 

 social considerations to emphasise the importance of 

 children. They are not merely a source of power and 

 wealth and influence : without them a man's relation to 

 the invisible beings whose anger he dreads and from 

 whose favour he has everything to hope is uncertain 

 and at the peril of every blast. So long therefore as a 

 child is reckoned to his stock and will carry on his 

 name and property his traditions and worship, a 

 husband is content to accept the fact of birth without 

 making a fuss about the real paternity, provided 

 public opinion does not oblige him actively to prosecute 

 an inquiry. 



But he goes further. So great is the need for 

 children that he is not content to leave their produc- 

 tion to the chance of a guest or of his wives' voluntary 

 amours. He employs other men expressly to do 

 what he cannot do for himself. Customs consecrated and 

 sometimes enforced by tribal law enable him to obtain 

 children, in his lifetime or even after his death, to 

 inherit his position and property and to fulfil his duties 

 to the state or to religion. Examples are endless in 

 number. Perhaps the most striking is that which has 

 come most recently to light in the practice of the 

 Dinkas detailed in an earlier chapter. The post- 

 humous child of a Dinka husband is not as usual the 

 child of one of his own wives. It is the child of a 

 woman specially selected after his death, appropriated 

 for the purpose by means of a marriage ceremony in 

 his name and then united to a man with the choice of 



