108 
HOME LIFE OF THE AFRICAN. 
a wife, she early learns that any sort of a lie, and even marital 
infidelity, is a crime if it be discovered. 
As a woman, she is modest in deportment, as are most of the 
women, and somewhat chaste, but she has no particular reason to 
be virtuous either as a matter of education or of general practice. 
She expects, of course, to be a wife. 
To be unmarried would be reason for taunt, as if she were not 
pretty, or were otherwise disagreeable. But her wishes are not 
asked as to who the man shall be: that was settled in her childhood 
by the parents’ acceptance of a marriage fee from some rich adult 
man, whose claim on her was made surer yearly by paying on a 
“dowry’' price. 
IMMATURE CHILD WIVES. 
When this dowry is completed, the “husband” may take her to 
his own home as his “little” wife, even though she is only a child 
in years. Of course, she does not, nor never will, like him. He 
treats her kindly at first, as a daughter, to overcome her dislike. 
She takes a place with the older women as a little servant. They 
are not jealous of her. They welcome her as a fellow-servant, and 
push off upon her some of their own tasks. 
Some day the “husband” will die, and she will be inherited, 
along with his other goods, by some other man, perhaps a young 
man whom she may fancy. Or, if her position become unendurable, 
there is always some wifeless young fellow who is ready to comfort 
her, or with whom she is willing to elope if he has the energy and 
audacity to face the quarrel that will inevitably fall on his family, 
if they induce his act, and if they can induce the “injured husband” 
to accept a money satisfaction instead of the usual blood feud. 
If, under fortunate circumstances and older years, she becomes, 
by choice or promotion, the head-wife or “queen” (konde), her lot 
is a comparatively easy one, as far as her husband’s responsibility, 
and the ill-will, spite, jealousy, and even machinations against life, 
of the disappointed inferior wives. If the husband dies, her previous 
life must have been a judiciously guarded one in all its acts and 
words—even words spoken often in passion or under great provoca- 
