Note 106.3 — PSYCHE’S TASK

Wife’s infidelity at home thought to endanger the absent husband in the chase or the war. Again, it appears to be a common notion with savages that the infidelity of a wife prevents her husband from killing game, and even exposes him to imminent risk of being himself killed or wounded by wild beasts. This belief is entertained by the Wagogo and other peoples of East Africa, by the Moxos Indians of Bolivia, and by Aleutian hunters of sea-otters. In such cases any mishap that befalls the husband during the chase is set down by him to the score of his wife’s misconduct at home; he returns in wrath and visits his ill-luck on the often innocent object of his suspicions even, it may be, to the shedding of her blood.106.3 While the Huichol Indians of Mexico are away seeking for a species of cactus which they regard as sacred, their women at home are bound to be strictly chaste; otherwise they believe that they would be visited with illness and would endanger the success of the men’s expedition.106.4 An old writer on Madagascar tells us that though Malagasy women are voluptuous they will not allow themselves to be drawn into an intrigue while their husbands are absent at the wars, for they believe that infidelity at such a time would cause the absent spouse to be wounded or slain.106.5 The Baganda of Central Africa held similar views as to the fatal effect which a wife’s adultery at home might have on her absent husband at the wars; they thought that the gods resented her misconduct and withdrew their favour and protection from her warrior spouse, thus punishing the innocent instead of the guilty. Indeed, it was believed that if a woman were even to touch a man’s clothing while her husband was away with the army, it would bring misfortune on her husband’s weapon, and might even cost him his life. The gods of the Baganda were most particular about women strictly observing the taboos during their husbands’ absence and having nothing to do with other men all that time. On his return from the war a man tested his wife’s fidelity by drinking water from a gourd which she handed to him before he entered his house. If she had been unfaithful to him during his absence, the water was supposed to make him ill; hence should it chance that he fell sick after drinking the draught, his wife was at once clapped into the stocks and tried for adultery; and if she confessed her guilt and named her paramour, the offender was heavily fined or even put to death.107.1 Similarly among the Bangala or the Boloki of the Upper Congo, “when men went to fight distant towns their wives were expected not to commit adultery with such men as were left in the town, or their husbands would receive spear wounds from the enemy. The sisters of the fighters would take every precaution to guard against the adultery of their brothers’ wives while they were on the expedition.”107.2 So among the Haida Indians of the Queen Charlotte Islands, while the men were away at the wars, their wives “all slept in one house to keep watch over each other; for, if a woman were unfaithful to her husband while he was with a war-party, he would probably be killed.”107.3 If only King David had held this belief he might have contented himself with a single instead of a double crime, and need not have sent his Machiavellian order to put the injured husband in the forefront of the battle.107.4