tempered. I was foolish. But
now I know. Ah! the house is so lonely! I have but two ears, I have but
two eyes, and the house is so large.'

But the husband refused again.

'What is done, is done. Marriage is not to be taken off and put on like
a jacket. I have made up my mind.'

Then he went away, and after a little the woman went away too. She went
straight to the big, lonely house, and there she hanged herself.

You see, she loved him all the time, but did not know till too late.

Men do not often apply for divorce except for very good cause, and with
their minds fully made up to obtain it. They do obtain it, of course.

With this facility for divorce, it is remarkable how uncommon it is. In
the villages and amongst respectable Burmans in all classes of life it
is a great exception to divorce or to be divorced. The only class
amongst whom it is at all common is the class of hangers-on to our
Administration, the clerks and policemen, and so on. I fear there is
little that is good to be said of many of them. It is terrible to see
how demoralizing our contact is to all sorts and conditions of men. To
be attached to our Administration is almost a stigma of
disreputableness. I remember remarking once to a headman that a certain
official seemed to be quite regardless of public opinion in his life,
and asked him if the villagers did not condemn him. And the headman
answered with surprise: 'But he is an official;' as if officials were
quite _super grammaticam_ of morals.

And yet this is the class from whom we most of us obtain our knowledge
of Burmese life, whom we see most of, whose opinions we accept as
reflecting the truth of Burmese thought. No wonder we are so often
astray.

Amongst these, the taking of second, and even third, wives is not at all
uncommon, and naturally divorce often follows. Among the great mass of
the people it is very uncommon. I cannot give any figures. There are no
records kept of marriage or of divorce. What the proportion is it is
impossible to even guess. I have heard all sorts of estimates, none
founded on more than imagination. I have even tried to find out in small
villages what the number of divorces were in a year, and tried to
estimate from this the percentage. I made it from 2 to 5 per cent. of
the marriages. But I cannot offer these figures as correct for any large
area. Probably they vary from place to place and from year to year. In
the old time the queen was very strict upon