12 The Misston Fred. 
II. The family order is of God ; and the foundation of it is 
the law of marriage, which He ordained “in the beginning,” 
and which Christ re-enacted,—marriage between one man and 
one woman. Wherever the integrity of that ordinance is vio- 
lated the home loses its glory, and becomes a scene of discord 
and a nursery of vice. Aneityum furnished in its heathen 
times a pregnant proof of this. Polygamy was practised with- 
out limit. A woman, instead of becoming a wife by marriage, 
became a servant. Indeed the Aneityumese had no word for 
wife—they called a married woman “‘ Naheca,” which means a 
slave. She was treated with less humanity than we treat our 
beasts of burden. She had no rights, no rest from toil, no 
sweet happiness of home. While her husband was fighting or 
feasting, she was doing the work of the house or the plantation. 
So darkly and heavily did life press upon her, that not unfre- 
quently she flung herself from some beetling cliff into the sea. 
Even the death of her husband did not loose the woman from the 
law of her husband. When she was married, instead of the wed- 
ding ring being put upon her finger, the wedding cord was put 
round her neck—which she must always wear; for when her 
husband died— before his body was cold—she would be 
strangled with that cord, and sent swiftly after him to serve him 
in the other world and be his slave for ever, Alas! poor wo- 
man, who must work as well as weep—who, living or dying, . 
must be your husband’s Slave. 
“This practice,” says Mr. Murray, “had a strange hold upon 
the people. They clung to it with most determined pertinacity. 
The strangler was always the woman’s own son, if he was old 
enough; in some cases it was done by a daughter! And it must 
be done, else the whole family would incur lasting disgrace.” 
While the wife was working, her husband was fighting. He 
had no other serious occupation, except feasting. When the 
fight was over he and his companions sat down to feast—too 
often on the dead bodies of their slaughtered enemies. 
