WHEN SAVAGES MARRY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 40017, 31 October 1929, Page 4

WHEN SAVAGES MARRY.

'PURCHASING A WIPE. AGES-OLD CUSTOM, It has just , been reported from the South Seas that certain missionary bodies are embarking upon a wide-spread campaign to induce the natives to abandon their agesold custom of marriage by purchase and adop't the European way, writes Jack M‘Laren, in the Daily Mail.

This has been tried before, and is a most difficult task. For one thing, fathers of eligible daughters object to being deprived of 'the very considerable quantities of trade goods—necklaces, tobacco, blankets, sheath knives, and so forth — which it is the, custom of husbands to pay for their wives. In the Solomon Islands I know an old savage who furnished his thatched house and obtained so many shell necklaces and other ornaments that he was the m'ost decorated person in the district, purely from the proceeds of marrying off his daughters —of whom he had five.

On the other hand, in the same region I once came across a man abusing his wife terribly because she had given birth to a son —the third in succession. The substance of his abuse was that if she went on like this they would have no provision for 'their old age. 'Other natives object to the European marriage ceremony because they consider it sad. As one who had seen a European wedding at a settlement he had visited put it to me in his own tongue: “The men they all had straight and solemn faces, and many of the women they, wept.” 'Certainly there is nothing sad or solemn about the native way of marrying. There is just a mad outburst of dancing and feasting on the beach beneath the palms, prolonged perhaps all day and night for a week or more. The employer of native labour who allows his men to go to a wedding, may as well abandon hope of getting 1 any wo ilk out of them for a fortnight. They need at least a week 'to recover.

In one island I knew a man who got himself into a dreadful mess through allowing himself to be married in the civilised way. It appeared that he had already three wives liq had obtained in the usual native fashion, which ladies the missionary declared he mast now give up.

But the three wives objected so strongly and made the man’s life such a misery that he was driven finally to imploring the missionary to undo the marriage. On learning this was impossible he fled the district, taking a job on a distant plantation, where, I understand, he still is.

Many would-be husbands, however, are very much in favour of the civilised way of taking a wife, because of its ease and economy. In these days of high prices, it may 'take <a young man two or more years of labouring on a plantation, The while he carefully saves his wages, before he has money enough to obtain the trade goods wherewith 'to purchase a wife. But the civilised way means only a -trifling present to the missionary who performs the ceremony. This makes a great appeal' to the savage mind. Savages have quite an aptitude for economics.