t of his
little one."

This reference to the other wives ought to have opened Pajeken's eyes
as to the silliness of speaking of the "touching" tenderness of the
Crow chief to his latest favorite. In a few years she was doomed to be
discarded, like the others, in favor of a new victim of his carnal
appetite. Affection is entirely out of the question in such cases.

The Malayans of Sumatra have, as Carl Bock tells us (314), a local
custom allowing a wife to marry again if her faithless spouse has
deserted her for three months:

"The early age at which marriage is contracted is an
obstacle to any real affection between couples; for
girls to be wives at fourteen is a common occurrence;
indeed, that age may be put down as the average age of
first marriage. The girls are then frequently
good-looking, but hard work and the cares of maternity
soon stamp their faces with the marks of age, and spoil
their figures, and then the Malay husband forsakes his
wife, if, indeed, he keeps her so long."

Marriage with these people is, as Bock adds, a mere matter of pounds,
shillings, and pence. His servant had married a "grass-widow" of three
months' desertion. But

"before she had enjoyed her new title six weeks, a coolness
sprang up between her and her husband. I inquired the
reason, and she naively confessed that her husband had no
more rupees to give her, and so she did not care for him any
longer."

Concerning Damara women Galton writes (197):

"They were extremely patient, though not feminine,
according to our ideas: they had no strong affections
either for spouse or children; in fact, the spouse was
changed almost weekly, and I seldom knew without
inquiry who the _pro tempore_ husband of each lady was
at any particular time."

Among the Singhalese, if a wife is sick and can no longer minister to
her husband's comforts and pleasure he repudiates her. Bailey
says[123] that this heartless desertion of a sick wife is "the worst
trait in the Kandyan character, and the cool and unconcerned manner in
which they themselves allude to it shows that it is as common as it is
cruel."

"How can a man be contented with one wife," exclaimed an Arab sheik to
Sir Samuel Baker (_N.T.A._, 263). "It is ridiculous, absurd." And then
he proceeded to explain why, in his opinion, monogamy is such an
absurdity:

"What is he to do whe