The husbands do not expect them to be
chaste; they take no cognizance of their temporary
liaisons so long as they are not deprived of their
services. If a man is dispossessed of one of his wives,
he has a private injury to avenge, and takes the
earliest opportunity of retaliating, but he cannot see
that a woman is a bit the worse for a little
incontinency."
In many cases not only was there complete indifference to chastity,
but virginity in a bride was actually looked on with disfavor. The
Finnish Votyaks considered it honorable in a girl to be a mother
before she was a wife. The Central American Chibchas were like the
Philippine Bisayos, of whom a sixteenth century writer, quoted by
Jagor, said that a man is unhappy to find his bride above suspicion,
"because, not having been desired by anyone, she must have some bad
quality which will prevent him from being happy with her."
The wide prevalence in all parts of the world of the custom of lending
or exchanging wives, or offering wife or daughter to a guest,[11] also
bears witness to the utter indifference to chastity, conjugal and
maiden; as does the custom known as the _jus primae noctis._ Dr. Karl
Schmidt has tried very hard to prove that such a "right" to the bride
never existed. But no one can read his treatises without noting that
his argument rests on a mere quibble, the word _jus_.
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