Andersson (Ngami, 332) says of the Namaqua Hottentots: 

“If a man becomes tired of his wife, he unceremoniously returns her to the parental roof, and however much she (or the parents) may object to so summary a proceeding, there is no remedy.”

In Kolben’s time wives convicted of adultery were killed, while the men could do as they chose.  In later times a lashing with a strap of rhinoceros hide was substituted for burning.  Kolben thought that the serious punishment for adultery prevalent in his time argued that there must be love among the Hottentots, though he confessed he could see no signs of it.  He was of course mistaken in his assumption, for, as was made clear in our chapter on Jealousy, murderous rage at an infringement on a man’s conjugal property does not constitute or prove love, but exists entirely apart from it.

CAPACITY FOR REFINED LOVE

The injuriousness of “false facts” to science is illustrated by a remark which occurs in the great work on the natives of South Africa by Dr. Fritsch, who is justly regarded as one of the leading authorities on that subject.  Speaking of the Hottentots (Namaqua) he says (351) that “whereas Tindall indicates sensuality and selfishness as two of their most prominent characteristics, Th.  Hahn lauds their conjugal attachment independent of fleshly love.”  Here surely is unimpeachable evidence, for Theophilus Hahn, the son of a missionary, was born and bred among these peoples.  But if we refer to the passage which Fritsch alluded to (Globus, XII., 306), we find that the reasons Hahn gives for believing that Hottentots are capable of something higher than carnal desires are that many of them, though rich enough to have a harem, content themselves with one wife, and that if a wife dies before her husband, he very seldom marries again.  Yet in the very next sentence Hahn mentions a native trait which sufficiently explains both these customs.  “Brides,” he says, “cost many oxen and sheep, and the men, as among other South African peoples, the Kaffirs, for instance, would rather have big herds of cattle than a good-looking wife.”  Apart from this explanation, I fail to see what necessary connection there is between a man’s being content with one wife and his capacity for sentimental love, since his greed for cattle and his lack of physical stamina and appetite fully account for his monogamy.  This matter must be judged from the Hottentot point of view, not from ours.  It is well known that in regions where polygamy prevails a man who wishes to be kind to his wife does not content himself with her, but marries another, or several others, to share the hard work with her.  These Hottentots have not enough consideration for their hard-worked wives to do even that.

HOTTENTOT COARSENESS