The "settlement" is the same in kind, but has increased
during the last forty years, and specie has become much more
common.[FN#10]
After marriage there is a mutual accommodation system suggesting
the cicisbeo or mariage a trois school; hence we read that wives,
like the much-maligned Xantippe, were borrowed and lent, and that
not fulfilling the promise of a loan is punishable by heavy
damages. Where the husband acts adjutor or cavaliere to his
friend's "Omantwe"--female person or wife--and the friend is
equally complaisant, wedlock may hardly be called permanent, and
there can be no tie save children. The old immorality endures; it
is as if the command were reversed by accepting that misprint
which so scandalized the Star Chamber, "Thou shalt commit
adultery." Yet, unpermitted, the offence is one against property,
and Moechus may be cast in damages ranging from $100 to $200:
what is known in low civilization as the "panel dodge" is an
infamy familiar to almost all the maritime tribes of Africa. He
must indeed be a Solomon of a son who, sur les bords du Gabon,
can guess at his own sire; a question so impertinent is never put
by the ex-officio father.
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