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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. The Negro woman.—Her social condition.—Marriage.—The wife purchased by the husband.— Vanity of the women who fetch high prices. — Marriage ceremonies.— Constancy of the Negress.— The wives of the Sharpshooters. —Their inconstancy.— Their virtues.— Polygamy amongst the Blacks. — The chief mistress of the house. —Jealousy unknown to the Negress. — Divorce. The Social Condition of Woman. Travellers who dash helter-skelter through the country, represent the Negro woman as a kind of domestic animal, obedient and hard-working, and the property of her husband, who has purchased her, and may purchase several other wives besides. To an impartial observer, however, who studies matters closely, this custom of the husband purchasing his wife, or wives, does not involve social inferiority to the latter. When we understand the manners and customs of the Blacks, we see that woman is not in such a miserable condition as is said, and that, relatively at all events, she enjoys some measure of liberty. Let us select as an example the household of the Negro of Saint Louis. The husband brings in the wood, cultivates a patch of land, fishes, or hunts. The native traders, who serve the European merchants, ascend the river to trade. These last form a rather high caste, and quickly obtain a good position. In the interior of Senegal, the man goes where he likes, but very often squats on the door sill and tells his beads, if he is a good Mussulman; sometimes he makes his own clothes,—a task which not being veryfatiguing he reserves to himself. Meanwhile his wife slaves at all the heavy work; she cultivates the field, gets in the harvest, looks after the animals, grinds at the mill, and prepares the couscous. The operation of grinding is very hard work, and often the woman is obliged to ris...