A circumstance which seems to have puzzled some naive
writers: that Australians and Africans have been known to show less
"jealousy" of whites than of their own countrymen, finds an easy
explanation in the greater ability of the white man to pay for the
husband's complaisance. In some cases, in the absence of a fine, the
husband takes his revenge in other ways, subjecting the culprit's wife
to the same outrage (as among natives of Guiana and New Caledonia) or
delivering his own guilty (or rather disobedient) wife to young men
(as among the Omahas) and then abandoning her. The custom of accepting
compensation for adultery prevailed also among Dyaks, Mandingoes,
Kaffirs, Mongolians, Pahari and other tribes of India, etc. Falkner
says (126) that among the Patagonians in cases of adultery the wife is
not blamed, but the gallant is punished
"unless he atones for the injury by some valuable
present. They have so little decency in this respect,
that oftentimes, at the command of the wizards, they
superstitiously send their wives to the woods to
prostitute themselves to the first person they meet."
PERSIAN AND GREEK JEALOUSY
Enough has been said to prove the incorrectness of Westermarck's
assertion (515) that the lack of jealousy is "a rare exception in the
human race." Real jealousy, as a matter of fact, is unknown to the
lower races, and even the feeling of revenge that passes by that name
is commonly so feeble as to be obliterated by compensations of a more
or less trifling kind.
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