WOMEN IN EARLY CIVILIZATION 415
When we become more closely acquainted with family conditions, we notice that there, as elsewhere, husbands are under petticoat government, and those most of all who like to pose before the outer world as masters of their house. The women, including the aunts, have on all accasions, important and unim- portant alike, a weighty word to contribute.
The Monbuttu women, according to Dr. Schweinfurth, maintain the highest degree of independence with regard to their husbands : The position in the household occupied by the men was illustrated by the reply which would be made if they were solicited to sell anything as a curiosity : " Ask my wife : it is hers."
Hahn writes of the Khoikoi ( Hottentots) :
In every Khoikoi's house the woman, or tar as, is the supreme ruler; the husband has nothing at all to say. While in public the men take the promi- nent part, at home they have not even such power as to take a mouthful of sour milk out of the tub, without the wife's permission. Should a man try to exert supreme domestic control his nearest female relations will levy a fair from him, consisting of cows and sheep, which is to be added to the stock of the wife.
All these statements certainly do not imply that the husband has no recognized power over his wife, but they prove that his power is by no means unlimited. And to these facts to which reference has just been made numerous others concerning matrimonial matters might be added. Thus, among many savage peoples the husband has the right to divorce his wife only under certain conditions, while the wife is allowed to separate for some special cause, or simply at will. In certain parts of eastern central Africa divorce may be effected if the husband neglects to sew his wife's clothes. Among the Shans of Burma the woman has the right to turn adrift a husband who takes to drinking or otherwise misconducts himself, and to retain all the goods or any money of the partnership. Among the Savaras, an aboriginal hill people in the south of India, " a woman may leave her husband whenever she pleases." Surely, all this is very different from the absolute dominion which hasty generalizes have attributed to savage husbands in general.
It will perhaps be argued that savages live in polygamy, and that polygamy is degrading to the wife. But to this may be answered that many savages are strictly monogamous, and that
