[120] Marsden, _History of Sumatra_, pp. 225-227.
[121] Forbes, _Eleven Years in Ceylon_, Vol. I, p. 333.
In Africa where the _beena maternal marriage_ is usual, and the husband serves for his wife and lives with her family, it is said that families are usually more or less willing _for value received_ to give a woman to a man to take away with him, or to let him have his _beena_ wife to transfer to his own house. Among the Wayao and Mang'anja of the Shirehighlands, south of Lake Nyassa, a man on marrying leaves his own village and goes to live in that of his wife; but, as an alternative, he is allowed to pay a bride-price, in which case he takes his wife away to his home.[122] Again among the Banyai on the Zambesi, if the husband gives nothing the children of the marriage belong to the wife's family, but if he gives so many cattle to his wife's parents the children are his.[123] Similar cases may be found elsewhere. In the Watubela Islands between New Guinea and Celebes a man may either pay for his wife before marriage, or he may, without paying, live as her husband in her parents' house, working for her. In the former case, the children belong to him, in the latter to the mother's family, but he may buy them subsequently at a price.[124] Campbell records of the Limboo tribe (where the bride is usually purchased and lives with the husband), that if poverty compels the bridegroom to serve for his wife, he becomes the slave of her father, "until by his work he has redeemed his bride."[125] An interesting case occurs in some Californian tribes where the husband has to live with the wife and work, until he has paid to her kindred the full price for her and her child. So far has custom advanced in favour of father-right that the children of a wife not paid for are regarded as bastards and held in contempt.[126]
[122] Macdonald, _Africana_, Vol I, p. 136.
[124] Riedel, p. 205; cited by McLennan, _Patriarchal Theory_, p. 326.
[125] _Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal_, Vol. IX, p. 603.
Wherever we find the payment of a bride-price, in whatever form, there is sure indication of the decay of mother-right: woman has become property. Among the Bassa Komo of Nigeria marriage is usually effected by an exchange of sisters or other female relatives. The men may marry as many wives as they have women to give to other men. In this tribe the women look after the children, but the boys, when four years old, go to live and work with the fathers.[127] The husbands of the Bambala tribe (inhabiting the Congo states between the rivers Inzia and Kwilu) have to abstain from visiting their wives for a year after the birth of each child, but they are allowed to return to her on the payment to her father of two goats.[128] Among the Bassanga on the south-west of Lake Moeru the children of the wife belong to the mother's kin, but the children of slaves are the property of the father.