One of the unfortunate consequences of Darwin’s theory of sexual selection was that it made him assume that

“in utterly barbarous tribes the women have more power in choosing, rejecting, and tempting their lovers, or of afterward exchanging their husbands than might have been expected.  As this is a point of importance,”

he adds, “I will give in detail such evidence as I have been able to collect;” which he proceeds to do.  This “evidence in detail” consists of three cases in Africa, five among American Indians, and a few others among Fijians, Kalmucks, Malayans, and the Korarks of Northeastern Asia.  Having referred to these twelve cases, he proceeds with his argument, utterly ignoring the twelve hundred facts that oppose his assumption—­a proceeding so unlike his usual candid habit of stating the difficulties confronting him, that this circumstance alone indicates how shaky he felt in regard to this point.  Moreover, even the few instances he cites fail to bear out his doctrine.  It is incomprehensible to me how he could claim the Kaffirs for his side.  Though these Africans “buy their wives, and girls are severely beaten by their fathers if they will not accept a chosen husband, it is nevertheless manifest,” Darwin writes, “from many facts given by the Rev. Mr. Shooter, that they have considerable power of choice.  Thus, very ugly, though rich men, have been known to fail in getting wives.”  What Shooter really does (50) is to relate the case of a man so ill-favored that he had never been able to get a wife till he offered a big sum to a chief for one of his wards.  She refused to go, but “her arms were bound and she was delivered like a captive.  Later she escaped and claimed the protection of a rival chief.”

In other words, this man did not fail to get a wife, and the girl had no choice.  Darwin ignores the rest of Shooter’s narrative (55-58), which shows that while perhaps as a rule moral persuasion is first tried before physical violence is used, the girl in any case is obliged to take the man chosen for her.  The man is highly praised in her presence, and if she still remains obstinate she has to “encounter the wrath of her enraged father ... the furious parent will hear nothing—­go with her husband she must—­if she return she shall be slain.”  Even if she elopes with another man she “may be forcibly brought back and sent to the one chosen by her father,” and only by the utmost perseverance can she escape his tyranny.  Leslie (whom Darwin cites) is therefore wrong when he says “it is a mistake to imagine that a girl is sold by her father in the same manner, and with the same authority, with which he would dispose of a cow.”  Those who knew the Kaffirs most intimately agree with Shooter; the Rev. W.C.  Holden, e.g., who writes in his elaborate work, The Past and Future of the Kaffir Races (189-211) that “it is common for the youngest, the healthiest, ... the handsomest