128 VII. SOCIAL PROBLEMS IN THE FOREST 
make it compulsory. It is also a mistake, so far as I 
can judge, to identify the fight against immorality 
with that against polygamy. Under this system the 
relation of the wives to each other is usually good. A 
negress does not, in fact, like being the only wife, 
because then she has the care of the banana plot, which 
always falls to the wives, all to herself, and this is a 
laborious duty, as the plots are usually at a distance 
from the village in some well-concealed part of the 
forest. 
What I have seen in my hospital of life with many 
wives has not shown me, at any rate, the ugly side of 
the system. An elderly chief once came as a patient 
and brought two young wives with him. When his 
condition began to cause anxiety, a third appeared who 
was considerably older than the first two ; this was his 
first wife. From the day of her arrival she sat con- 
tinually on his bed, held his head in her lap, and gave 
him what he wanted to drink. The two young ones 
behaved respectfully to her, took orders from her, and 
looked after the cooking. 
One can have the experience in this land of a fourteen- 
year-old boy announcing himself as a paterfamilias. It 
comes about in the following way. He has inherited 
from some deceased relative a wife with children, and 
though the woman has contracted a marriage with 
another man, that does not touch his rights over the 
children nor his duty towards them. If they are boys, 
he will some day have to buy wives for them ; if they 
are girls, he will get the customary purchase price from 
those who wish to marry them. 
Should one declaim against the custom of wife- 
purchase, or tolerate it ? If it is a case of a young 
