Woman physiologically considered as to mind, morals, marriage, matrimonial slavery, infidelity and divorce / by Alexander Walker.

  • Walker, Alexander, 1779-1852.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Woman physiologically considered as to mind, morals, marriage, matrimonial slavery, infidelity and divorce / by Alexander Walker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The favours accorded to Europeans, we are informed, were always remunerated by presents, and the coarsest hardware of Europe was as valuable as jewels on these distant shores, and easily gained the favours of the most distinguished beauties. “ Even the chiefs could not with- stand their temptation . . . The islanders themselves appear to purchase the favours of the women, for the poorest of them are' generally unmarried . . The same custom seems to exist in almost all the islands inhabited by the Malay race. In New Holland, wives sell themselves even to their husbands, and the wife of Ben-nil-long, who visited England in 1795, came to him when he returned, for a pair of European stays and a rose-coloured bonnet.” “ If,” says Kotzebue, “ the modesty which conceals the mysteries of love among civilised nations be the offspring only of their intellectual culture, it is not surprising that a wholly uninstructed people should be insensible to such a feeling, and, in its unconsciousness, should even have estab- lished public solemnities which would strike us as exces- sively indelicate.” In fact, they think it as unnecessary to conceal their pleasures as their persons. “ The women, however, who distributed their favours indiscriminately, were almost always of the lowest class. “ Among the higher classes a most licentious associa- tion called Ehrioi, including both sexes, existed. [This consisted of about a hundred males and a hundred females, ’ who formed one promiscuous marriage.] Renouncing the hopes of progeny, its members rambled about the island, leading the most dissolute lives ; and if a child was born among them, the laws of the society compelled its murder 0 4 1 7. 'u~ L