[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]
5
t
i:
MARRIAGE AND RELATIONS OF SEXES 'r65
and at other women’s labours; because of sexual desire; and
in order to have a woman to tend the pigs, which are man’s most
valuable p0SS€SSi.ODS.1 Where a man marries only one woman,
the two ï¬Årst causes are principally operative. It is said that a
man who has a constant desire for a woman, a ndmur nen m'mo-
mogh, seldom marries more than two wives. In these two he is
absorbed; he desires them constantly and intensely, and goes
about with them everywhere for fear of someone "stealing"
them. In fact it seems that the “ monogamous " type of desire,
with its intense preoccupation with one woman, can and does
extend to two, but seldom further. On the other hand there is
the adventurous, warrior type, mimm 1/aal, who will generally
have a number of wives. Psychologically he differs from the
mï¬Åmur new nimomagh, for while his desire is equally frequent,
it is not so intimately bound to, and wrapped up in, one object.
He shares himself equally among his many wives, all of whom,
with one exception, stand to him somewhat in the relation
of privileged concubines. A man of this type will take
additional wives partly because he is attracted, successively, by
new and younger women, but principally because of his desire
for a great pig farm, each wife looking after ï¬Åve or six pigs.
This desire to possess a. large number of pigs outweighs the trouble
which an extra wife involves, arising out of the jealousies
and antagonisms between the women.
. _ Where a man marries several wives, and usually if he has
only-two,'one wife is the chief wife. The husband will take the
earliest opportunity of celebrating a nelemew I/ughlughian for
her; and thereby giving her a high title in the ranks of the women
_who.,bear- the honoriï¬Åc preï¬Åx Vwiiar, a position superior to that
'0f‘any of the other wives, and investing her with the privilege
_of wearing a special shell armlet called ninsum. This chief wife
is described as being “ close up " to her husband ; she helps her
husband to rule the other wives, and acts as intermediary between
them and him, receiving his orders and passing them on to the
other women.
Each subsidiary wiie has a house of her own, with its pigsty
at the back, but the chief wife lives always in her husband’s hut.
Round this, if the man is a person of importance, as he almost
‘certainly would be if he had more than two wives, is a fence,
1 These three reasons are not given in any order of importance.—A. B. D.