that page of Beecham I find that he does indeed declare that “no Ashantee compels his daughter to become the wife of one she dislikes;” but this is a very different thing from saying that she can choose the man she may desire.  “In the affair of courtship,” writes Beecham, “the wishes of the female are but little consulted; the business being chiefly settled between the suitor and her parents.”  And in the same page he adds that “it is not infrequently the case that infants are married to each other ... and infants are also frequently wedded to adults, and even to elderly men,” while it is also customary “to contract for a child before it is born.”  The same destructive criticism might be applied to other negroes of Western Africa whom both Darwin and Westermarck claim on the very dubious evidence of Reade.[133]

Among other peoples to whom Westermarck looks for support of his argument are the Fijians, Tongans, and natives of New Britain, Java, and Sumatra.  He claims the Fijians on the peculiar ground (the italics are mine) that among them “forced marriages are comparatively rare among the higher classes.”  That may be; but are not the higher classes a small minority?  And do not all classes indulge in the habits of infant betrothal and of appropriating women by violence without consulting their wishes?  Regarding the Tongans, Westermarck cites the supposition of Mariner that perhaps two-thirds of the girls had married with their own free consent; which does not agree with the observations of Vason (144), who spent four years among them: 

“As the choice of a husband is not in the power of the daughters but he is provided by the discretion of the parents, an instance of refusal on the part of the daughter is unknown in Tonga.”

He adds that this is not deemed a hardship there, where divorce and unchastity are so general.

“In the New Britain Group, according to Mr. Romilly, after the man has worked for years to pay for his wife, and is finally in a position to take her to his house, she may refuse to go, and he cannot claim back from the parents the large sums he has paid them in yams, cocoa-nuts, and sugar-canes.”

This Westermarck guilelessly accepts as proof of the liberty of choice on the girl’s part, missing the very philosophy of the whole matter.  Why are girls not allowed in so many cases to choose their own husbands?  Because their selfish parents want to benefit by selling them to the highest bidder.  In the above case, on the contrary, as the italics show, the selfish parents benefit by making the girl refuse to go with that man, keeping her as a bait for another profitable suitor.  In all probability she refuses to go with him at the positive command of her parents.  What the real state of affairs is on the New Britain Group we may gather from the revelations given in an article on the marriage customs of the natives by the Rev. B. Danks in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute (1888, 290-93):  In New Britain, he says, “the marriage tie has much the appearance of a money tie.”  There are instances of sham capture, when there is much laughter and fun;