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female, which arrangement, if concluded, holds good if the child turns out to 
be of that sex. Or the betrothal may take place a few months after the 
female child is born, or when she is a little girl. Of course there are many 
instances when a young man will take a fancy to a young unmarried woman 
without any such previous arrangement and will, through his surety or god¬ 
father, apply for her hand in marriage. Whenever marriage is by an arrangement 
in this manner a certain value is paid for the wife. It may be as small as 
two dressed skins in Angoniland, or as high as several cows and a large 
quantity of trade goods in the case of a chief’s daughter or in wealthy cattle¬ 
keeping tribes. 
Then there is marriage by capture—one of the chief inducements to indulge 
in war and slave raiding. When the Administration first began to get into 
conflict with the slave traders and required an armed force to put them down, 
from first to last thousands of natives must have offered to volunteer for service 
on the understanding that they were to be allowed to carry off the enemy’s 
women. Naturally they were not accepted on those terms, but even in the case 
of our unarmed porters we had the greatest difficulty in restraining them from 
helping themselves to wives when marching with us into the enemy’s country. 
The women as a rule make no very great resistance on these occasions. It 
is almost like playing a game. A woman is surprised as she goes to get water 
at the stream, or when she is on her way to or from the plantation. The man 
has only got to show r her she is cornered and that escape is not easy or pleasant 
and she submits to be carried off. Of course there are cases where the woman 
takes the first opportunity of running back to her first husband if her captor 
treats her badly, and again she may be really attached to her first husband and 
make every effort to return to him for that reason. But as a general rule they 
seem to accept very cheerfully these abrupt changes in their matrimonial 
existence. 1 
Concubinage represents another form of marriage. The man may purchase 
one or more female slaves and it is always assumed that all the women folk 
of his household are his wives. In like manner a free woman, especially if she 
be a chieftainess, or daughter of a chief, may for motives of policy make no 
regular marriage but take a male slave to live with her. Polygamy is, of course, 
very general though at the same time poor men often confine themselves to one 
wife. Adultery 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. Yet in a way the natives are jealous 
of their women ; they are not at all anxious to encourage intercourse between 
their wives and white men, though they seem to be much more jealous about 
the white man than their brother negro. As a general rule it may be said that 
illicit intercourse with women on the part of Europeans causes great dissatisfac¬ 
tion in the native mind and invariably gives rise to acts of revenge on their 
part and even to serious risings. On the other hand if the European tries 
to obtain a wife in a legitimate manner by negotiation and purchase they are 
not at all unwilling to treat and no ill humour whatever results from his inter¬ 
marrying with them. In their eyes it is simply a matter of justice. They 
regard it with the same amount of emotion as they would the stealing of their 
1 The Rev. Duff Macdonald, a competent authority on Yao manners and customs, says in his 
book Africana: “I was told . . . that a native man would not pass a solitary woman and that her 
refusal of him would be so contrary to custom that he might kill her. Of course this would apply only 
to females that are not engaged.” 
