Note 22 — Chapter I · DEFINITION AND DISTINCTION FROM KINDRED PHENOMENA.

Sometimes, for punishing and divorcing her, he must have the consent of the tribe. So in N. S. Wales, in case of adultery “he may complain to the elders of the tribe, and they, on cause shown, decree a divorce; but not if she has children.” According to another writer “the husband who suspects another of seducing his wife, either kills one or both. The affair is taken up by the tribe, if the party belongs to another, who inflict punishment on him.” In W. Victoria “a man can divorce his wife for serious misconduct, and can even put her to death; but in every case the charge against her must be laid before the chiefs of his own and his wife’s tribes, and their consent to her punishment obtained. If the wife has children, however, she cannot be divorced”. Here we find also some slight traces of protection of the wife by her relatives: “A man is allowed to marry his brother’s widow, or his own deceased wife’s sister, or a woman of her tribe; but he is not permitted to do so, if he has divorced or killed his wife”. In N. W. Central Queensland the wife is avenged by her relations. “In the case of a man killing his own gin [wife], he has to deliver up one of his own sisters for his late wife’s friends to put to death, he personally escaping punishment.… A wife has always her “brothers” to look after her interests”. At the initiation-feasts “each woman can exercise the right of punishing any man who may have ill-treated, abused or “hammered” her … the delinquent not being allowed to retaliate in any way whatsoever”. If these women are slaves, they at least have their saturnalia22.