Note 835 — Chapter V · EARLY HISTORY OF DIVORCE
Reading edition
On the conservative influence of wife-purchase see Westermarck, op. cit., 532, 535, 536; and for curious and instructive illustrations of the effects of purchase read especially the detailed account of the law of divorce among the Kabyles of Algiers in Letourneau, op. cit., 292-96. The man has the sole right of divorce. As a condition of setting the woman free he may demand the lefdi, or price of redemption, and fix such other terms as he pleases; as that the lefdi shall be double or triple, if she marry such or such a man. The sum may thus be so large as to amount to a prohibition of marriage. On the other hand, a liberal price may be an inducement to free the woman. Among some of these tribes the amount of the lefdi is fixed by law, usually at a sum higher than the thâmanth, or purchase price of a virgin or a widow, so as by working upon the cupidity of the husband to induce him to pronounce the triple formula and thus suffer the woman to contract a new marriage. The children under all circumstances follow the father.