ce no unhappiness, and are preceded by no
bickerings; for the simple reason, that an ill-used wife or a henpecked
husband is not obliged to file a bill in Chancery to obtain a divorce.
As nothing stands in the way of a separation, the matrimonial yoke sits
easily and lightly, and a Typee wife lives on very pleasant and sociable
terms with her husband. On the whole, wedlock, as known among these
Typees, seems to be of a more distinct and enduring nature than
is usually the case with barbarous people. A baneful promiscuous
intercourse of the sexes is hereby avoided, and virtue, without being
clamorously invoked, is, as it were, unconsciously practised.

The contrast exhibited between the Marquesas and other islands of the
Pacific in this respect, is worthy of being noticed. At Tahiti the
marriage tie was altogether unknown; and the relation of husband
and wife, father and son, could hardly be said to exist. The Arreory
Society--one of the most singular institutions that ever existed in any
part of the world--spread universal licentiousness over the island. It
was the voluptuous character of these people which rendered the disease
introduced among them by De Bougainville's ships, in 1768, doubly
destructive. It visited them like a plague, sweeping them off by
hundreds.

Notwithstanding the existence of wedlock among the Typees, the
Scriptural injunction to increase and multiply seems to be but
indifferently attended to. I never saw any of those large families in
arithmetical or step-ladder progression which one often meets with at
home. I never knew of more than two youngsters living together in the
same home, and but seldom even that number. As for the women, it was
very plain that the anxieties of the nursery but seldom disturbed the
serenity of their souls; and they were never seen going about the valley
with half a score of little ones tagging at their apron-strings, or
rather at the bread-fruit-leaf they usually wore in the rear.

The ratio of increase among all the Polynesian nations is very small;
and in some places as yet uncorrupted by intercourse with Europeans,
the births would appear not very little to outnumber the deaths; the
population in such instances remaining nearly the same for several
successive generations, even upon those islands seldom or never
desolated by wars, and among people with whom the crime of infanticide
is altogether unknown. This would seem expressively ordained by
Providence to preve