A boy is regarded as having reached a marriageable age at about 16, 17, or 18, and the age for a girl is a few years younger. They do not as a rule marry before they have received their perineal bands; but there does not appear to be any definite custom against their doing so; nor are there any acts which must be performed to qualify for marriage, nor any indications by dress or ornament or otherwise that a boy or girl has attained a marriageable age.

Marriages are usually contracted with women of another community, though sometimes the wife will belong to a village of another clan in the same community. Very rarely only is she of another village of the same clan, and still more rarely is she of the same village, clan exogamy being the rule, and marriages within the clan, and still more within the village, being regarded as irregular and undesirable, and people who have contracted them being considered as having done wrong.

There does not appear to be any system of special matrimonial relationship between any communities; and the mode described below, by which a youth will by lighting a fire decide in which direction he must travel to seek a wife, would be hardly consistent with any such system.

They have their prohibitive rules of consanguinity; but these are based merely upon the number of generations between either party and the common ancestor. The number of degrees within which prohibition applies in this way is two, thus taking it to the grandparent; and the result is that no man or woman may properly marry any descendant of his or her paternal or maternal grandfather or grandmother, however distant the actual relationship of the persons concerned may be.1 Marriages within the prohibited degree do in fact occur; but they are discountenanced, and are rare.

Polygyny is usual, and is largely practised. A man will often have two or three, or sometimes even four, wives; and a chief or rich man may have as many as six. In the case of an ordinary person the wives all live with their husband in the same house; but a chief or rich person may have two or more houses. A man who is already married, and then marries again, goes through a formality, if it may be so called, similar to that of a first marriage. Opposition from the first wife sometimes occurs, but this is unusual.

Infant betrothals are common; but they are quite informal, and not the subject of any ceremony. The parents in such cases, whether of the same or different communities, are usually intimate friends, and are thus led to offer their children to each other for intermarriage. There is a known case of a girl of 16 or 17 years of age, who was what I can only call betrothed to the unborn son of a chief. A curious element in this case was that at the date, prior to the birth of the proposed husband, of what I call the betrothal, the price for the girl was actually paid—a thing which is never done till the marriage—and that, as I was most solemnly assured, the living girl and the unborn boy were in fact regarded, not merely as betrothed, but as actually married, and that, when the boy died, which he did in infancy, long before marital relationship between them was possible, the girl was regarded as being a widow. I could not ascertain what happened as regards the price which had been paid for the girl. A couple betrothed in childhood are not subject to any restrictions as to meeting and mutual companionship, nor is there any mutual avoidance, nor any increased probability, based on their betrothal, of immorality between them; though in the more usual case of betrothal between children of different communities they in ordinary course are not likely to be constantly seeing each other.

A young man will speak of his sweetheart, present or prospective, as his ojande, which means his “flower”; and this is so even if he does not yet know her; and, when asked where he is going, he will reply that he is going to seek an ojande. If he is not already betrothed, and is matrimonially inclined, he has various expedients for accomplishing his desires. A boy who wants to marry, and does not know where to seek a wife, will sometimes light a fire in the bush, or better still in an open space (not in the village), when the air is still, and wait until a slight breeze blows the flame or smoke a little in some one direction; and he will then select a community or village which lies in that direction as the spot in which to seek a wife.

A boy will often carry in a small bag (this does not refer to the special small charm bag already described) some pieces of wood and stone, and will rub a piece of tobacco between two of these, and send this tobacco to the girl of his choice through a female relative of hers or some other friend; and he believes that in some mysterious way this will draw her heart towards him, and make her accept him. The pieces of wood and stone need not be of any particular kind; but he will have carried them for a considerable time, until they have, as he thinks, acquired the specific odour of his body; and it is then that they have obtained their special power. It is impossible to induce a boy to part with a piece of wood or stone which has been so seasoned by time, and would take long to replace. Sometimes a boy will acquire these things by purchase from a magic man, who professes to be able to impart to them a more effective power.

A proposal of marriage is usually made by the boy through some female relative of the girl, or other suitable person, and not directly by him to the girl herself.

Another custom may be mentioned here, though it only relates to a man who is already married, but wants another wife or wives. In clearing the bush for yam gardens it is usual, as regards the smaller trees, to cut away the side branches only, leaving the main trunks for posts up which the yams will climb; but the man in question will in the case of one (only one) of these smaller trees leave uncut one, two, or three of the upper branches, the number so left being the number of the wives he desires; and everyone understands its meaning.

As regards the relationship of unmarried boys and girls generally, they are allowed to associate together, without any special precautions to prevent misconduct, and a good deal of general immorality exists.

The marriage ceremony, following a parental betrothal, or with parental acquiescence, is a very informal matter, and in fact both the bargaining for the wife and the ceremony of the marriage are in striking contrast to the elaborate system of bargaining and mock raiding by the girl’s family, and the wedding ceremonies, which are adopted in Mekeo. A day is fixed for the marriage, and on that day the boy goes to the house of the girl’s parents, after which he and she and her parents go to the house of the boy’s parents, and the girl is paid for then and there. After this the young people immediately live together as a married couple in the house of either his or her parents, until he has been able to build a house for himself. Neither are there any special ceremonies in connection with the fixing of the price. This is generally very small. Dogs’ teeth, pearl shell, necklaces, adzes, etc., are the usual things in which it is paid; but there is always a pig, which has been killed under, or on the site of, the grave platform above referred to. The price, in fact, depends upon the position and wealth of the girl’s parents, except that there is always only one pig. The price is paid to the father of the girl, or, if dead, to her eldest brother or other nearest male paternal relative.

A runaway marriage is still simpler. The boy has proposed to the girl through her friend, and she has consented; and they simply run off into the bush together, and remain in the bush, or the gardens, or a distant village, until the boy’s friends have succeeded in propitiating the girl’s father, and the price has been paid; and then the couple return to the village.

After marriage, the husband and wife are not as a rule faithful to each other, the marriage tie being only slight. Adultery on the part of the wife, but not of the husband, is regarded as a serious offence, if discovered. The injured husband will beat the guilty wife, and is entitled to kill the man with whom she has misconducted herself, and will usually do so; though nowadays he often dares not do so in districts where he fears Government punishment. Sometimes he will be content if the adulterer pays him a big price, say a pig; and this compensation is now commonly accepted in districts where the husband dares not kill. In either case, the husband generally keeps the wife.

Formal divorce or separation does not exist. A husband who wants to get rid of his wife will make her life so miserable that she runs away from him. But more usually the separation originates with the wife, who, not liking or being tired of her husband, or being in love elsewhere, will run away and elope altogether with another man. In such a case, the husband may retaliate on that other man in the way already mentioned; but that is rather the method adopted in cases of incidental adultery, and as a rule, when the wife actually elopes, she and her paramour go off to some other community, and the husband submits to the loss. He will, however, claim from the wife’s people the price which he paid for her on his marriage. This is sometimes paid, but not always; and, as the wife almost always belongs to another clan, and generally to another community, the refusal to pay this claim is one of the frequent causes of fighting, the members of the husband’s clan, and often the whole community, joining him in a punitive expedition.

When a man dies, or at all events after the removal by the widow of her mourning, she goes back to her own people, generally taking with her any of their young children who are then living in the house. There is no devolution of the wife to the husband’s brother, or anything of that nature. Nor, in case of the death of the wife, does the husband marry her sister.

Speaking of the people generally, it may certainly be said that sexual morality among men, women, boys and girls is very low; and there is no punishment for immorality, except as above stated.