Young girls betrothed—The bespoke money—Marriage money—Dressing the new wife—A large looking-glass—A woman can choose her husband—Divorce—No great desire for children—Storage for baby spirits—Treatment of twins—Snake omen—Woman’s totem—The mother-in-law—Polygamy and its results—Monogamy and its results—Better morality—More children—Purer women—Better home-life.

Young girls and even babies are betrothed in marriage, and payments made for them long before they are old enough either to understand the contract or give their consent. On the marriage money being completed the man takes a brass bracelet, and in the presence of witnesses he puts it on the child’s arm, saying, “This is my wife.” When the girl arrives at a suitable age, and sometimes even before puberty, she is taken by her parents, together with some sugar-cane wine, to her husband, and handed over to him; and on the man giving the parents a present the transaction is completed. Should, however, the child die, another is put in her place; but if that is impossible, the money is returned. Sometimes a girl objects to being handed over in this way to a man whom she dislikes, and if her protests are disregarded she will run away to a neighbouring town and select her own husband, if she has not already done so, and the parents will have to make the best bargain they can in the way of marriage money with their new son-in-law. They would be at an obvious disadvantage, as their customer would already be in possession of the “goods.”

If a man in search of a wife sees an unattached young woman whom he likes he may speak to the girl or to her father first, and if they—the girl and her parents—are agreeable, he will call his friends as witnesses and go to the father’s house. The girl will then be called out, and the man will take his spear, and going into the centre of the crowd he will stick the spear in the ground, and say: “If the girl loves me, let her pull up the spear.” Thereupon the girl will step forward, and pulling up the spear she will carry it to her father, saying, “Namojinga” = I love him.

When the girl has pulled up the spear, the man has to pay the “bespoke” money—a hoe, an axe, a blanket, a looking-glass, a matchet, and a few other odds and ends—to the head of the girl’s family. The girl is then reserved for him until such time as he can pay the whole, or the larger part of the marriage money—equal to about £10, which is approximately the cost of two male and two female slaves. In the meantime he can give the girl small presents, and she may cook and send him an occasional dish of food, and often there is cohabitation before marriage, for the young man regards the girl, and speaks of her, as his wife.

A free man marrying a free woman will have to give her father or family two male and two female slaves, and neither brass rods nor barter goods will be taken in lieu of them; but as there are so many debts among them a person will sometimes (and it is not uncommon) pay this “marriage money” and marry without a single slave actually passing between them; i.e. B wants to marry A’s daughter, so he will go to C and D, who each owe him a slave, and will take them to A, who accepts them as his debtors; then B will go to E and F, who each owe him a female slave, and these debtors of B will be taken to A, who accepts them as his own debtors; now C, D, E, and F have no slaves they want to part with, so they, in their turn, will look up some debtors and take them to A, who will again accept these new parties as his own debtors. This was called bwaka nyungu = to pass on or throw over a debt (or credit as the case may be) from one to another. I have known more than one case in which the father of the girl has had the debt worked gradually back to himself, and in giving his daughter in marriage he has received nothing, but has paid some of his creditors.

When the time arrives for the marriage the parents take some plantain, cassava, fish, with various other kinds of food, and a calabash or jar of sugar-cane wine, and together with their daughter they go to the house of the bridegroom and hand over the girl by putting her hand in the man’s hand in the presence of witnesses. These latter, after drinking the wine and sharing in the feast, will dance in honour of the occasion, and the ceremony is completed. The food and wine, given by the parents, are a proof that the girl is not sold as a slave, but is given in marriage as a free woman.

During the time the man is collecting the marriage money he will build a house, if he does not already possess one, and the girl, under the supervision of her mother, will prepare a farm. After the ceremony described above is over, the girl borrows all the finery she can of her female friends, decorates herself with palm-oil and camwood powder, and for two or three weeks walks about the town with her husband—a sign to all that she is now his wife. If the man has already a few wives, they will help to “dress her” by the loan of their own trinkets, and will lead her about the town as a proof that she is now a fellow-wife and belongs to their husband.

Hanging on the wall in my dining-room was a looking-glass 15 inches wide by 18 inches high; it was probably the largest looking-glass in that part of Africa, and it was one of the “sights” of the district. Frequently while sitting in my study I would hear the shuffling of many feet and much giggling. On going into the dining-room I would see perhaps eight or ten women all laughing and nudging one another, and there in the centre right before the glass would be a well-decorated woman wriggling about in her vain attempt to see both sides of herself at once. It was a new wife whom the older wives had brought to view herself in the white man’s looking-glass. In the “trade looking-glass” she could only see small sections of herself, but in this large one she had an expansive view of the whole “landscape,” and her remarks of wonder and surprise were causing the onlookers to giggle and to excite her to greater efforts to procure broader views of herself. They exhibited no jealousy, but regarded her as an acquisition—the new wife being one more to help keep the husband.

During this period the man buys all the food, but when the “honeymoon” is over the girl takes up her farm-work and settles down to ordinary life. From that time she brings home each afternoon some of her farm produce to prepare for her own and her husband’s evening meal. The husband, however, must find her the fish for such meals as he partakes with her, and should he have a quantity of meat he must be willing to share it with his wives.

For the poor slave woman there are no preliminary gifts, no “bespoke” money, no wedding feast and dance, and no “honeymoon.” The sum agreed upon is paid, and the slave woman is taken to her new owner’s house, or given as a farm help to his favourite wife. The children of such a marriage are called mbotela = semi-slave, indicating that one of the parents is a slave. If a man cannot afford to pay the marriage money for a free wife, or even to buy a slave, he can hire a slave as his wife, and any children born to them belong to the owner of the slave woman and not to the father and mother. Or a man will sometimes borrow a wife of another man for three or six months, and will pay a fixed sum according to the length of time he has her; but any children born of such an arrangement belong to the real husband of the woman.

A man can marry as many women as he can find the marriage money for, but to each he must give a house, and all his free wives have equal rights. His slave wives are simply slaves, and he can sell or kill them just as he pleases. Polygamy is very general, and monogamy is the result of poverty. Free men, as a rule, do not marry slaves; but the slave woman is given in marriage to the slave man, and she thus helps to make him contented with his lot in the town and tribe; she keeps him in food and increases the wealth of her master by bearing children, who are slaves and the property of her owner.

When a free woman does not want to marry the man who is trying to arrange for her, she will tell him frankly that if he persists in marrying her, she will run away from him. But if, in spite of this threat, he completes the arrangements, then a few days after the marriage she will escape to a neighbouring town and put herself under the protection of the chief by tearing his cloth. The chief then gives the husband notice of what has happened, and before he can claim his wife he has to pay the chief 600 brass rods = 39s. as compensation for his torn cloth. If the husband does not then permit her to marry the man she wants, she runs away again and again, and every time she runs it will cost her husband 600 brass rods. A sensible man will take warning by the first threat, and will not complete the marriage.

If a free woman is badly treated by her husband, she will resort to the above method of making him pay for his ill-treatment of her, and will thus force him to use her more kindly. There is also a more drastic way of punishing a husband for outrageous conduct towards his wife. After repeated complaints of his ill-usage she will run to the witch-doctor and smash his eboko, or saucepan of “medicine,” and in so doing she will commit a great offence. The witch-doctor will hold her until the husband redeems her by the gift of a slave, and the payment of a large sum to replace the eboko and make fresh “medicine.” Having paid the money—for she is worth more than the total value of the slave and the brass rods—he will treat his wife better in future, or she will again break the eboko. A slave woman who runs away to a chief will be brought back, and her master will beat, kill her, or sell her right out of the district, so it is wiser for her to run right beyond his reach in the first instance. I have known women who successfully carried out these various modes of punishing their abusive, bad-tempered husbands; and undoubtedly the fact that the women can and will make their husbands pay in this way renders life more tolerable for them. Without some such system the wife’s lot would be terrible and impossible.

Breaking the eboko, or “medicine” saucepan, answers another purpose: a man’s wife has been stolen from him, and all other means having failed to regain her, he goes to the witch-doctor, tears his cloth and breaks the eboko. This action calls attention to the case and arouses widespread interest. The witch-doctor must now take up the case, or he will lose his dignity as a witch-doctor, and folk will lose their respect and fear for his eboko. So he places himself at the head of a movement to punish the wife-stealer, and the men who would not help the husband volunteer to fight under the witch-doctor; and when the woman is captured the husband has to pay heavy damages for tearing the cloth, breaking the eboko, and for the help of the witch-doctor in the fight. The husband will then try to recover all the damages from the stealer of his wife. It is interesting to note that, both to the husband and to the wife, there is such a force available in their utter need. Here and there a man treats his wife with kindness and consideration, and he sometimes displays an affection for her that is pleasing to the onlooker and an encouragement to those who are working for the uplifting of the race, for it shows of what the men are capable; but to the majority of the men the wife is a passing fancy, a brief passion which is quickly extinguished, and all that remains to warm their hearts, and keep them faithful to each other, are the cold, charred embers of a bare toleration for one another.

Above the age of five years it is impossible to find a girl who is a virgin, and it has been difficult to find a word for virgin in the Congo languages. The only thing a man can do is to see that his wife does not commit adultery after he has married her, without his consent and receiving due compensation for it. Should she do so, then the adulterer is punished, but the woman goes free. If she were punished she would not confess, and without her confession the husband is not able to enforce the fine on the lover. A woman’s word is always taken against the man’s most solemn oath. I have a very strong suspicion that this power is often abused, (a) by the woman to pay off a grudge against someone who has slighted her, and also to be regarded by the other women of the town as one after whom the men run; (b) by the husband as a means of replenishing an empty purse—the fine being shared by the husband and wife. There are undoubtedly women who remain faithful to their husbands; and there are men who treat their wives with kindness and consideration, but from what I observed they are very few indeed. Sometimes in anger two men will exchange their wives, especially if one man’s wife is continually running after the other man.

If a woman does not know, or will not perform, her duties properly as a wife, i.e. will not farm, cook, etc., the man can take her back to her family and receive in return the marriage money he gave for her to her family; but not the “bespoke” money. Should she die within a few years of her marriage the husband can claim another woman, or the return of the marriage money, for his view is that a faulty article has been supplied to him.

When a free woman wants to leave her husband, or have a divorce from him, she sends a “token” to the man of her choice, who, if desirous of possessing her, goes to the husband and tries to arrange the matter. If the husband acts unreasonably in his demands—wants too much marriage money, or desires the whole sum down at once—then she resorts to the expedient of escaping to a neighbouring chief (as mentioned above), and the husband is quickly brought to his senses. Should the “token” sent be returned, she knows that the man does not want her, and if her family are unwilling, or unable through poverty, to return the marriage money, or think she is unreasonable in seeking a divorce, she has to remain with her husband. To run away, without just cause, to another town, is to make her name a byword among her acquaintances, and the native is very sensitive to public opinion, as we tried to show in the chapter on Social Life.

We have not found the same desire for children, on the part of the women, as we observed on the Lower Congo. This may be accounted for by the fact that on the Lower Congo the law of mother-right is in full force, and consequently all the children belong to the mother and her family; while on the Upper Congo father-right is the general custom, and the children belonging to the father, the mother has no particular interest in them.

The beliefs of a tribe considerably affect their point of view, and this is seen in nothing more emphatically than in their beliefs about child-bearing. On the Lower Congo a non-child-bearing woman is the butt of the town’s ridicule, she is sneered at, pointed at by all the other women, and is the object of their scorn. She feels degraded in the eyes of all, and however much she may blame her husband, or may try to prove that she is bewitched, yet her shame is bitterly felt and resented. She has failed ignominiously in her one paramount duty to her family. Her sterility is the constant theme of her husband’s bickerings; and when everything else fails to quicken her or stop her nagging tongue, he has only to hint at this abnormal disability and she is choked with chagrin and almost ready to commit suicide.

Now on the Upper Congo among the Boloki it appears that every family has what is called a liboma, it may be a pool in the bush, or in the forest, or on an island; it may be a creek, or it may be a Bombax cotton tree; but wherever the liboma may be it is regarded as the preserve of the unborn children of the family. The disembodied spirits (mingoli) of the deceased members of the family performed the duty of supplying these preserves with spirit-children to keep their families strong and numerous. They have very misty ideas as to how these liboma are supplied with the spirit-children (or bingbongbo), but I have a suspicion that underlying the liboma is some idea of reincarnation—some thought there was a rebirth of certain deceased members of the family, and others thought that the disembodied spirits had spirit-children, and these were sent to the liboma to be endowed in due time with bodies.

Now if a man does not have a child by his wife, then she is simply barren (they always think it is the fault of the woman), but there are no sneers, and no shame. The woman takes her sister to her husband, that he may have a child by her. But if a man has one child by a wife, and no more, he thinks someone has bewitched his liboma by taking the family’s stock of children from it and hiding them; or, it may be that the other members of the family have bewitched her so that she may not be able to procure another child from the liboma, that there might be more for themselves; if, however, none of the family have more than one child by their wives, then some other family, through hatred or jealousy, has taken by witchcraft the children from their liboma and concealed them, for only the family to which the liboma belongs can give birth to the unborn infant spirits there.

Twins are not frequent, but when they do arrive they demand proper treatment and entail more than ordinary care in the observance of certain duties. Three days after the birth of twins (masa) the mother takes them in her arms and dances in front of her house before her neighbours, who join in a chorus in which they sing over and over again: “Masa e maolela” = the twins cry for you. The mother is decorated with leaves, sprays, and twigs, the same as for an ordinary birth. These are made into garlands for her head, stuck into her waist-belt, and fixed on her wherever it is possible. At this ceremony the names are given, which are the same for every pair of twins, and these names are retained through life. Other folk may change their names according to fancy, but twins never. The first-born is always known as Nkumu, and the second as Mpeya, and whenever you hear either of these names you know at once that the bearer is one of twins.

The first-born of twins is always carried on the right arm, and the second on the left arm. Whenever the mother replies to a salutation she must give two answers, one for each child; and should she greet anyone she must duplicate her greeting, that each child may be recognized. She carries the dual idea further than that, for she must eat, not with one hand, but with both, that each child may be properly nourished. Presents are given in duplicate, or the child not receiving a present will fret, become ill, and die; and the sickness or death of either child is supposed to arise from carelessness in the observance of these rules. The twins are expected to cry together, rejoice together, and should they lack unanimity in either of these functions of rejoicing or sorrowing together, it is because one is sulky on account of one or other of the above rules having been broken. When one of the twins dies the mother borrows a baby of the same age, and puts it with the living twin that it may not fret.

When a man finds a snake (called Mwaladi, a snake with red marks on it) lying by his side when he awakes, he regards it as a sign that he will have a child by his wife; and if a woman lying or sitting observes the same snake approaching her, she remains quietly in her position, and if it passes near her she sprinkles a little camwood powder over it, and regards it as an omen that she will soon become a mother. The child born after such an augury is not treated with any special respect or interest, and no special name is given to it as on the Lower Congo.

I found that when a woman married she brought her totem with her, and then not only observed her own totem but her husband’s also; and the child born to them took the totems of both parents until there was a council of both families—the paternal and maternal branches—and then it was generally arranged that the child should observe the father’s totem.

One day I was interested in watching the following ceremony: The women of the village had rubbed themselves well with camwood powder, they had also decorated their bodies with leaves, and tied on sashes of a creeper with small leaves (nkokolemba), and danced for a considerable time to the sound of drums, then the lobe of the right ear of the child was pierced. It was a boy, for if it had been a girl the left lobe would have been pierced (the left is always a token of inferiority). This ceremony took place during the morning, and was a sign to the boweya spirit that that child belonged to a family in whose totem the spirit was specially interested. The pierced ear indicated to the spirit that the owner had a claim on its help and protection. These rites were only observed when the family possessed a totem that had a boweya spirit to preside over its interests and health, and always took place on the fifth day after the birth of the child.

The father during the pregnancy of his wife is prohibited certain foods, and he is neither to hunt nor fish during the pregnancy and confinement of his wife, unless she goes to a medicine man and is marked with different coloured pigments on the breast, abdomen, shoulders, temple, and forehead, and wears two or three charms; these ensure for her a good delivery and a healthy child, and also allow her husband to go hunting and fishing. The food prohibitions vary considerably, and while the man is observing these taboos he is said to be in a state of liboi, a noun derived from the verb bwa = to be confined, to deliver of a child. It is very probably a remnant of la couvade. They have, however, no tradition of the man ever having taken the place of the woman by lying in bed during confinement.

There is no adoption into a family, but there is milk-brotherhood, and the milk-brother often receives a portion of the estate; and there is also milk-sisterhood, and when a woman is a milk-sister it is permissible, but is regarded as very irregular, for her milk-brother to marry her.

There are two names given to illegitimate children—mwana wa ngangi = child of a mistress, i.e. a woman who has been hired from her husband or family for a fixed period at a certain price; and mpampoka = a child whose father is not known. In the former case the child will eventually be owned by the proper husband or guardian of the woman, unless the lover made other arrangements, that is, paid a larger fee, at the time of hiring his mistress; in the latter case the child will belong to the woman, and hence to her family, and in both cases the child will remain with its mother until it is ten or twelve years of age.

Abortion is produced by the drinking of a decoction made by boiling kungubololo leaves, which is said to be very bitter, like quinine. Abortion is practised to avoid the trouble incurred by having children, or from hatred towards the husband, whom the woman may desire to divorce; for if she has any children by him, her relationship to her husband is so complicated thereby that she cannot easily leave him for another man.

When a man divorces a wife who has a child of tender years, the child is allowed to remain with her until he or she is about ten or twelve years of age, and then is given up to the father, but is permitted to visit the mother should she be living in a neighbouring town or district. The father has the right to kill his own child, and although the act may be strongly condemned by his neighbours and his family, yet they have no power to punish him, though it may be a clear case of murder. I may say that I never heard of a father killing his child while I lived amongst them; but the natives assured me that there had been such cases. A father, however, would not hesitate to pawn his children, or even to sell them into slavery, if he were in dire straits. As a rule they are fairly kind to their children, even to over-indulgence, for it is rarely that they punish them.

Perhaps this will be the best place in which to make a few remarks on the mother-in-law. She and her son-in-law may never look on each other’s face. I have often heard a man say, “So-and-so, your mother-in-law is coming,” and the person addressed would run into my house and hide himself until his wife’s mother had gone by. They can sit at a little distance from each other, with their backs to one another, and talk over affairs when necessary. Bokilo means mother-in-law, daughter-in-law, brother-in-law, father-in-law, sister of mother-in-law, brother of father-in-law, wife of wife’s brother, and in fact any relation-in-law. Bokilo, the noun, is derived from kila = to forbid, prohibit, taboo, and indicates that all bearing the relationship of bokilo can have no intimate relationship with one another, for it is regarded as incestuous; and it is according to native ideas just as wrong for a daughter-in-law to speak or look at her husband’s father, as for the son-in-law to speak or look at his wife’s mother. Some have told me that this was to guard against all possibility of cohabitation, “For a person you never look at you never desire.” Others have said, “Well, don’t you see, my wife came from her womb.” I am strongly inclined to the opinion that the former is the real reason.

I knew a case in which a man married his mother-in-law by marriage. The woman was not his wife’s mother, but his wife’s father’s wife, and as such was his mother-in-law. I had seen him avoid her many times, and it was thus evident that all the wives of the wife’s father are regarded as joint-mothers of the children, and hence mothers-in-law. His wife’s father died, and the man wanted to have one of the wives (i.e. one of his mothers-in-law) as his own wife, so he arranged with a friend to pay the marriage money and take her as his wife, then she, by that marriage, being no longer his mother-in-law, he was able to take her as his own wife. He thereupon paid the money for her and took her to his house.

I cannot close this chapter on marriage and child-birth without putting on record my observations regarding polygamy and its effects on the Congo. Polygamy means monopoly in women, and causes great immorality among the natives practising it; and it is now fast dying out within the sphere of our influence upon the Lower Congo, and in the neighbourhood of our stations upon the Upper. The effect of polygamy was to tie up the women to a comparatively small number of men who were fortunate (?) enough to inherit them, or had procured the wealth with which to pay their marriage money. There was a constant complaint amongst the young and vigorous men of the middle and lower orders that it was almost impossible for them to procure wives. Thus we found a small number of men possessing nearly all the women in a town, having from four or five up to twenty-five and thirty each, and a large number of young men who could not secure wives. Moreover, these wealthy men, besides having all these wives, had bespoken most of the young girls, many almost infants; for it was no uncommon thing for girls of three or four years to be betrothed to men of forty and fifty years of age; and as soon as they reached puberty the marriage money was completed, and they were passed over to their already very much married husbands.

Now my observations of polygamy, both on the Lower and Upper Congo, have led me to form a decided opinion that it does not conduce to productivity, but the contrary. Under this system I have never known a large family. One man had eight wives, and he had five children by one and none by the others; another had ten wives and no children; another had twenty-three wives and only one child; another twenty-five wives and three children only; another who had eight wives had three children. Mapwata, chief of Ntenta in French Congo, had forty wives, but only five children. In Mfumu Ngoma’s village there were 87 men, 67 married women, and only 37 children. In the village of Mbela there were about 60 married women, as shown by the number of houses, and only 28 children, and so on ad lib.

If you ask a native chief, husband of many wives, how many children he has, he will state an absurd number, not because he desires to deceive you, but for the following reasons: All the children, of his brothers and sisters, and all their children’s children, are spoken of as the chief’s children, as he is the head of the family, i.e. all the nephews and nieces, the grand-nephews and grand-nieces are regarded as a man’s own off-spring, besides his own children and grandchildren; many of us could make up large families in this way. And again, the native has a very strong superstition and prejudice against counting his children, for he believes that if he does so, or if he states the proper number, the evil spirits will hear it and some of his children will die; hence when you ask him such a simple question as, “How many children have you?” you stir up his superstitious fears, and he will answer: “I don’t know.” If you press him, he will tell you sixty, or one hundred children, or any other number that jumps to his tongue; and even then he is thinking of those who, from the native view of kinship, are regarded as his children, and desiring to deceive, not you, but those ubiquitous and prowling evil spirits, he states a large number that leaves a wide margin. I have been introduced by young men to men, much older than themselves, as “my children,” and there was a twinkle in their eyes, showing that they appreciated the humorous absurdity of the situation.

Among the Congo languages there is no proper word for virgin, for there was not in the old days a pure girl above the age of five. I would, therefore, most emphatically dissent from the oft-repeated fallacious statement that polygamy promotes morality among native tribes; that it has caused widespread immorality on the Congo is truer to the facts.

After carefully reviewing all the data I am forced to the conclusion that polygamy is not necessitated by the climate, but is the natural outcome of their customs, mode of thought, and view of life. A Congo man will fight, trade, carry heavy loads for long distances, and work, but he will not hoe the ground, that is infra dig. to him. He will dig the white man’s farm, but he will not work land in his own village, so, to use his own words, he “hires” or “borrows” a woman to do this for him, and the more women he has the less likely is he to go hungry. Again, the more women he has the more important he is, the greater his influence and social standing; when a native wants to impress you with the greatness of his chief or the importance of the head of his family, he tells you the number of his wives, and he does not mind adding a dozen to the sum total.

Again, chiefs in receiving visits from other chiefs and their retinues had to give free hospitality for long periods. This required a large amount of food and several women to prepare it daily. Then again, for generations the women have believed that if they allowed their husbands to have intercourse with them between the time of pregnancy and the weaning of their children, those children would die. This superstitious belief has been a potent factor in keeping polygamy alive, if it did not originate it. Remember how they procure their wives, and that the woman’s family must replace her in the event of death, consequently the family has been careful to see that she has not been weakened by frequent child-bearing, lest they should have to give another woman in her place. Among some tribes the man had to wait until his wife’s family took him a calabash of palm-wine, and renewed their permission to him.

Some writers think, judging by the tone of their articles, that we missionaries rush pell-mell into a country, and delight in upsetting the institutions and customs of a place whether they are good, bad, or indifferent. This, however, is not true to the facts as I know them.

Our Mission on the Congo commenced its operations in 1878, and it was well on in the eighties before churches were formed, with rules and regulations for the guidance of converts. In the meantime a language had been reduced to writing, much translation work had been done, and a mass of information collected about the habits, customs, and view of life taken by the native. “Many men, many minds” is an old saying, and we found it a true one when the time came to deal with native marriage customs and polygamy in relation to church membership. There was not a single aspect of this great question but had its exponents; and it was not until after mature consideration, and a careful study of all the pros and cons, that we came to the conclusion that monogamy was the only wise rule to adopt, and we therefore laid it down as a condition of church membership that one man should have one wife only.

It is also a rule of the church that no Christian shall receive marriage money for his daughter, niece, or ward; and no Christian is permitted to give marriage money for his wife, except to a heathen if he asks for it. The reasons for this exception are obvious. We also insist that all Christians shall marry either by civil law or “holy matrimony.” We are interested in the natives and, rightly or wrongly, we devote our lives to them; and if we had desired numbers on the church roll to quote in reports rather than the moral and physical well-being of our parishioners, we should have made these restrictions less rigorous, and entrance to church membership more easy and pleasant for them. Our Society gives us a free hand in dealing with these great problems.

Now we find that Christian teaching and monogamy have conduced to stricter morality among the people, and also to an increase in the birth-rate. In the old days there was in every village on the Lower Congo a house called Mbongi, or Nzo-a-matoko (house for young men), where the lads and unmarried men slept. Girls from an early age had free ingress to these houses, and their mothers encouraged them to go. These houses have been cleared out of all the villages where there is any Christian influence at work, and even from heathen villages also, for they have been greatly influenced by the purer public opinion of recent years. Now that monogamy is practised by so many, the young men know that in due time they will be able to secure a wife, and they desire to receive her as pure as possible, hence the closing of these village bachelor houses even in the heathen towns. Christian parents also use their best endeavour to preserve their daughters in innocency.

We have within a stone’s-throw of Wathen Station a Christian village where monogamy is the rule without exception. There are twenty-four married women living there with their husbands, and they have between them fifty-seven children now living (noted in 1908), and five have died, making in all sixty-two births. Some of these have only been married eighteen months or two years, and there is no doubt that as the years go by there will be many more children born to these twenty-four wives. Now the same number of women tied to one man would not have had a tenth of the children. Again, we have throughout our districts a large number of teachers, many of whom are married, and most of them have children—one, two, or three, according to the length of time they have been married. There is another noticeable thing, that in the Christian villages, i.e. the monogamous villages, there are plenty of children, while the same cannot be said of the heathen in polygamous villages. Some seem to think that polygamy spells large families and a fair state of morality; but on the Congo, and I speak of what I know, polygamy means a very low birth-rate and an absolute lack of morality and common decency. Polygamy is giving place to monogamy, and that means a higher morality, a purer and more self-respecting womanhood, and the introduction of a truer affection between the husband and the wife which will result in a better and more healthy home-life for the children, and will lead to the coming of a brighter day on dark, oppressed Africa.