MARRIAGE

Summary

There is no such thing as marriage, in the proper sense of the word, amongst the Australians. The acts which precede matrimony are certainly not entitled to be regarded as rites. Men obtain wives by a convenient system of exchange, by conquest sometimes, and sometimes a woman is stolen. By what mode soever a man procures a bride, it is very seldom an occasion of rejoicing for the female.

The males engross the privilege of disposing of their female relations, and it often happens that an old man of sixty or seventy will add to his domestic circle a young girl of ten or twelve years of age. If the father be alive, he alone can dispose of his daughters; if he be dead, the eldest son can dispose of his sisters; and if there be no brothers, then the uncle or cousin steps in, and exchanges the women for others who become his wives. In rare cases the old men meet together and determine to whom a young woman shall be given.

A man having a daughter of thirteen or fourteen years of age arranges with some elderly person for the disposal of her, and, when all are agreed, she is brought out of the miam-miam, and told that her husband wants her. Perhaps she has never seen him, or has seen him but to loathe him. The father carries a spear and waddy, or a tomahawk, and, anticipating resistance, is thus prepared for it.