of these wives, each of them living in her own house, or in the culture state of Calabar, in her own yard in his house, having her own farm away in the country, where she goes at planting and harvest times. She possesses her own slaves and miscellaneous property, which includes her children, and the main part of this property is really the property of her family, just as most people's property is in West Africa. The husband will reside with each of these wives in turn, yet he has a home of his own, with his slave wives, and his children properly so called, similarly having his own farm and miscellaneous property, which similarly belongs mainly to his family, and this house is usually presided over by his mother, or failing her a favourite sister.
The immediate rule of a husband over his wife may be likened to that of a constitutional monarch, that of a man or woman over a slave to that of an absolute monarch, though true absolutism is in the Negro State-form not to be found in any individual man. The nearest approach to it is, very properly, in the hands of the cult of the Law God, the tribal secret society, but even from that society the individual can appeal, if he dare, to Long Ju Ju.
The other forms of wealth possessed by an African, his true wealth, are market rights, utensils, canoes, arms, furniture, land, and trade goods. It is in his capacity to command these things in large quantities that his wealth lies, it is his wives and slaves who enable and assist him to do this thing. So take the whole together and you will see how you can have a very rich African, rich in the only way it is worth while being rich in, power, yet a man who possibly could not pay you down £20, but a real millionaire for all that.
