Divorce was known among the Araucanians, and the discarded wife was sent back to her father's house with full liberty to marry whom else she would; but in such case the second husband was compelled to pay to the first the full price which the woman originally cost him. When a man died his widow became independent, except where there were surviving sons by another wife, who in such case could claim their father's widow as a concubine to be held in common. This singular custom doubtless arose from the theory of the woman being a chattel of the estate and reverting by right to the heirs. Adultery was punished on the woman by death, while if the outraged husband took the guilty paramour in _flagrante delicto_ he could slay him without incurring any penalty; if, however, the man escaped, he could not afterward be killed with impunity, but could be made to pay to the injured husband the original cost of the wife. It seems highly probable, however, that among the early Araucanians female virtue was of a high standard, though among their descendants it is not quite so highly esteemed.
A somewhat curious custom, still in force among the Araucanians, was that of borrowing children. A sterile woman was an object of reproach, as has been the case among all primitive peoples, and she was likely to forfeit the consideration of her husband and to be supplanted by a new wife who might bear him children. It was to guard against this as far as possible--as well as for protection, since sterility was cause for divorce--that the barren Araucanian wife would often borrow from some complacent and prolific kinswoman one or more of her children, whom the sterile wife would rear as her own. The exact status of these children in the household is not clear; they would seem to have been attributed by courtesy, as it were, to the wife, but not to have stood as heirs to the husband unless in default of heirs of his body, nor even then except by express testamentary act, or that which bore the value of such act, on his part. Yet the fact that the custom existed and still exists is sufficient to show that it must in some way have assured the position of the barren wife. The Araucanians, by the way, notwithstanding a statement to the contrary by Molinos, swathe their children as do most Indian tribes, and they even tie their infants to a bamboo frame so tightly that the little unfortunates have no control over any portion of their bodies save their eyes, and in this state they are hung upon the walls when it is desirable to get them out of the way an occurrence so frequent that the infants pass nearly their whole existence hung upon pegs like unhappy _lares_.