Note (return) — SEX AND PRIMITIVE SOCIAL CONTROL
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So long as a wife remained in her group, she could rely upon her kindred for protection against ill-usage from her husband, but she forfeited this advantage when she passed to his group. An Arabian girl replies to her father, when a chief seeks her in marriage: "No! I am not fair of face, and I have infirmities of temper, and I am not his bint'amm (tribeswoman), so that he should respect my consanguinity with him, nor does he dwell in thy country, so that he should have regard for thee; I fear then that he may not care for me and may divorce me, and so I shall be in an evil case."146 The Hassanyeh Arabs of the White Nile region in Egypt afford a curious example of the conflict of male and female interests in connection with marriage, in which the female passes by contract for only a portion of her time under the authority of the male: