rents, compels her to do
so. Inasmuch as she _must_ resist whether she likes the man or not,
how could such sham "coyness" be a symptom of love? Moreover, it
appears that even this sham coyness is exceptional, since, as Burchell
informs us (II., 59), it is only when a girl grows up to womanhood
without having been betrothed--"which, however, seldom happens"--that
the female receives the man's attentions with such an "affectation of
great alarm and disinclination on her part."

Burchell also informs us that a Bushman will take a second wife when
the first one has become old, "not in years but in constitution;" and
Barrow discovered the same thing (I., 276): "It appeared that it was
customary for the elderly men to have two wives, one old and past
child-bearing, the other young." Chapman, too, relates that a Bushman
will often cast off his early wife and take a younger one, and as that
does not prevent him from finding affection in their conjugal unions,
we are enabled from this to infer that "love" means to him not
enduring sympathy or altruistic capacity and eagerness for
self-sacrifice, but a selfish, transient fondness continuing only as
long as a woman is young and can gratify a man's sexual appetite. That
kind of love doubtless does exist in all Bushman marriages.

Chapman further declares (II., 75) that these people lead
"comparatively" chaste lives. I had supposed that, as an egg is either
good or bad, so a man or woman is either chaste or unchaste. Other
writers, who had no desire to whitewash savages, tell us not only
"comparatively" but positively what Bushman morals are. A Bushman told
Theophilus Halm (_Globus_, XVIII., 122) that quarrels for the
possession of women often lead to murder; "nevertheless, the
lascivious fellow assured me it was a fine thing to appropriate the
wives of others." Wake (I., 205) says they lend their wives to
strangers, and Lichtenstein tells us (II., 48) that "the wife is not
indissolubly united to the husband; but when he gives her permission,
she may go whither she will and associate with any other man." And
again (42):

"Infidelity to the marriage compact is not considered a
crime, it is scarcely regarded by the offended
person.... They seem to have no idea of the distinction
of girl, maiden, and wife; they are all expressed by
one word alone. I leave every reader to draw from this
single circumstance his own inference with regard to
the nat