Cases of frantic amorous infatuation occur, as
a matter of course. Brooke (II., 106) relates the story of a girl of
seventeen who, for the sake of an ugly, deformed, and degraded
workman, left her home, dressed as a man, and in a small broken canoe
made a trip of eighty miles to join her lover. In olden times death
would have been the penalty for such an act; but she, being a "New
Woman" in her tribe, exclaimed, "If I fell in love with a wild beast,
no one should prevent me marrying it." In this Eastern clime, Brooke
declares, "love is like the sun's rays in warmth." He might have added
that it is as fickle and transient as the sun's warmth; every passing
cloud chills it. The shallow nature of Dyak attachment is indicated by
their ephemeral unions and universal addiction to divorce. "Among the
Upper Sarawak Dyaks divorce is very frequent, owing to the great
extent of adultery," says Haughton (Roth, I., 126); and St. John
remarks:
"One can scarcely meet with a middle-aged Dayak who has
not had two, and often three or more wives. I have
heard of a girl of seventeen or eighteen years who had
already had three husbands. Repudiation, which is
generally done by the man or woman running away to the
house of a near relation, takes place for the slightest
cause--personal dislike or disappointments, a sudden
quarrel, bad dreams, discontent with their partners'
powers of labor or their industry, or, in fact, any
excuse which will help to give force to the expression,
'I do not want to live with him, or her, any longer.
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