tep the
traditional lines of behaviour than is felt by the ordinary member of a
European state, and this though there are penalties in the latter which
do not necessarily exist in the former case. But law, in the sense of a
rule of conduct, promulgated by a legislator and enforced by penalties
inflicted by law courts and carried out by the agents of the state, does
not necessarily exist, and, at most, exists only in a very inchoate
state. If therefore we read of marriage among such a people, we are left
in complete uncertainty whether it is a union corresponding to marriage
in civilised lands, or whether it belongs to a different category. The
difficulty of the case lies partly in the inability of the observer to
distinguish _de jure_ from _de facto_ unions, partly in the fact that
one may be transformed into the other, and no ceremony of any sort mark
the change. An Australian may, for example, have a wife who is
recognised as his by tribal custom and tradition; if she is abducted the
aggrieved husband may vindicate his rights but will not necessarily be
supported by even his own kin, and will certainly not find anything to
correspond to the tribunal before which an Englishman would sue for the
restitution of conjugal rights. If the aggrieved husband proves the
weaker, he necessarily abandons his wife, and she becomes _ipso facto_
the wife of the aggressor; divorce is in fact pronounced by the issue of
an ordeal by combat. So far the matter is clear to the observer.

But if the aggrieved husband take no steps to vindicate his rights, the
woman will equally pass to the aggressor, and in this case there will
be no customary ceremonial to mark for the benefit of the observer the
exact moment of the transition from a marriage, recognised by public
opinion, or tribal custom, with the first husband A to the same kind of
union with B.

Again, even where no second mate intervenes to complicate the question,
the observer may be confronted with delicate problems; at what point,
for example, does a mere liaison pass into something worthy of the name
of marriage? What is the status of a union in which the parties are more
or less permanently associated, but which confers no rights as against
aggressors? If by native custom the union is not of such a nature as to
confer on the male party to it any rights over the female, such as the
liberty to chastise or punish without fear of the intervention of the
woman's kin, are we to regard