The Maoris have a proverb, “As a kahawai (a fish which is very particular in selecting the hook that most resembles its food) selects the hook which pleases it best out of a great number, so also a woman chooses one man out of many.”[1329] Mariner supposed that, in Tonga, perhaps two-thirds of the girls had married with their own free consent.[1330] Concerning the natives of Arorae, Mr. Turner says, “In choosing a husband the lady sat in the lower room of the house, and over her head were let down through the chinks of the floor of the upper room two or three cocoa-nut leaflets, the ends of which were held by her lovers. She pulled at one, and asked whose it was. If the reply was not in the voice of the young man she wished to have, she left it and pulled at another leaf, and another, until she found him, and then pulled it right down. The happy man whose leaf she pulled down sat still, while the others slunk away.”[1331] In the Society Islands, the women of the middle and lower ranks had the power to choose husbands according to their own wishes; and that the women of the highest classes sometimes asserted the same right appears from the addresses a chief of Eimeo had to pay to the object of his attachment before she could be induced to accept his offer.[1332] In Radack, “marriages depend on a free convention,” as seems to be generally the case in Micronesia.[1333] 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.[1334] With reference to the New Caledonian girl, M. Moncelon remarks, “Elle est consultée quelquefois, mais souvent est forcée d’obéir. Alors elle fuit à chaque instant pour rejoindre l’homme qu’elle préfère.”[1335]
In the Indian Archipelago, according to Professor Wilken, most marriages are contracted by the mutual consent of the parties.[1336] Among the Dyaks, “the unmarried girls are at perfect liberty to choose their mates.”[1337] In some parts of Java, much deference is paid to the bride’s inclinations;[1338] and, among the Minahassers of Celebes, courtship or love-making “is always strictly an affair of the heart and not in any way dependent upon the consent or even wish of the parents.”[1339] Similar statements are made by Riedel with reference to several of the smaller islands.[1340] Among the Rejangs of Sumatra, if a young man runs away with a virgin without the consent of her father, he does not act contrary to the laws of the country; and, if he is willing to make the usual payments afterwards, the woman cannot be reclaimed by her father or other kinsfolk.[1341]