“Marriage ceremony there is, I believe, none; it is simply an affair of purchase, and the women thus obtained, if they can be called wives, are not much bound by the tie.  The husbands do not expect them to be chaste; they take no cognizance of their temporary liaisons so long as they are not deprived of their services.  If a man is dispossessed of one of his wives, he has a private injury to avenge, and takes the earliest opportunity of retaliating, but he cannot see that a woman is a bit the worse for a little incontinency.”

In many cases not only was there complete indifference to chastity, but virginity in a bride was actually looked on with disfavor.  The Finnish Votyaks considered it honorable in a girl to be a mother before she was a wife.  The Central American Chibchas were like the Philippine Bisayos, of whom a sixteenth century writer, quoted by Jagor, said that a man is unhappy to find his bride above suspicion, “because, not having been desired by anyone, she must have some bad quality which will prevent him from being happy with her.”

The wide prevalence in all parts of the world of the custom of lending or exchanging wives, or offering wife or daughter to a guest,[11] also bears witness to the utter indifference to chastity, conjugal and maiden; as does the custom known as the jus primae noctis. Dr. Karl Schmidt has tried very hard to prove that such a “right” to the bride never existed.  But no one can read his treatises without noting that his argument rests on a mere quibble, the word jus.  There may have been no codified law or “right” allowing kings, bishops, chiefs, landlords, medicine men, and priests to claim brides first, but that the privilege existed in various countries and was extensively made use of, there can be no doubt.  Westermarck (73-80), Letourneau (56-62), Ploss (I., 400-405), and others have collected abundant proofs.  Here I have room for only a few instances, showing that those whom we would consider the victims of such a horrible custom, not only submitted to it with resignation, but actually looked on it as an honor and a highly coveted privilege.

“The aboriginal inhabitants of Teneriffe are represented as having married no woman who had not previously spent a night with the chief, which was considered a great honor.”

“Navarette tells us that, on the coast of Malabar, the bridegroom brought the bride to the King, who kept her eight days in the palace; and the man took it ’as a great honor and favor that the King should make use of her.’”

“Egede informs us that the women of Greenland thought themselves fortunate if an Angekokk, or prophet, honored them with his caresses; and some husbands even paid him, because they believed that the child of such a holy man could not but be happier and better than others.” (Westermarck, 77, 80.)

“In Cumana the priests, who were