Wives of men not well-to-do have stalls in public places, peddle or trade by travelling fairly long distances. When the women are their own capitalists the money earned is by no means handed over to the husband. He, too, must work and pay towards the housekeeping. Women of the Hausa and kindred tribes have decided wills of their own. The profits from their trading go to maintain aged relatives or to obtain for themselves cloths and other articles of adornment which the husband’s wages will not procure.

Wives of what may be styled the upper-class do not trade. Nor do they perform housework. That is done by hired servants or by domestic slaves. These wives are not kept in seclusion, but they seldom go out of the compound adjoining the husband’s house except on Fridays—the Mohamedan Sabbath—and then only to visit intimate female friends.

Although many women have affixed to the head, suspended round the neck or attached to the arm little leather cases containing selections from the Koran, unless advanced in years, they do not attend a mosque for prayers. Their religious worship is fulfilled at home. Why only elderly ladies at the mosque? Because, say the Mallamai—teachers; literally, wise men—presence of the younger feminine element would be likely to deflect the thoughts of the male portion of the congregation from the sacred purpose for which they go to a mosque.

Polygamy is general, as with all Mohamedans. Among the native friends made in the course of the journey I count Abigah one of the most illuminating on domestic problems. Abigah’s father, also that name, is King of Lokoja. Abigah junior speaks English fluently. For 12 years he was an attentive pupil at the Church Missionary Society school at Lokoja, becoming a teacher there in secular subjects. Outside the school strong pressure was put upon him by an official then high in the public service of the Protectorate to forswear Mohamedanism. Immediate reward and alluring prospects were offered. The young man was firm. He would not, as he expressed himself to me, “be false to the faith of my people.” He is now at full manhood, and, like all his brothers, has been sent by the father to learn the world in the best manner of tuition, namely, by having to earn a livelihood away from home.

Abigah junior has two wives. Now, there are tribes much lower in the scale of civilisation than the Mohamedans of Northern Nigeria when the more wives a man has the prouder each of them is to be one, as the larger the number the greater the husband’s importance. They are not reciprocally jealous. It is different with the Fulani, the Hausa, the Beri-Beri and cognate folk. A man has to be both tactful and firm to maintain peace in the domestic circle. Abigah told me he determined to start with that object in view, and therefore directly he put on double matrimonial harness he informed his spouses, in kindly but decisive tones, “Remember, there must be no wrangling. If either of you want to quarrel, quarrel with me.” His admonition has been effective.

In the higher castes wives do not sit at meals with the husband, though in some cases they cook for him. It would not be considered dignified for him to be seen by them eating. The food is carried to him by a male servant. Where wives are on good terms together the husband’s cooking is done co-operatively. When strained relations make that course impracticable, wives take in turns culinary duty two or three days each.

“Never,” Abigah warned me, “tell one she is a better cook than the other in the hearing of that other.”

“Why?” I innocently asked.

“Because,” he replied, “there is nothing so likely to make a woman bad-tempered and spiteful to her own sex than being inferentially belittled by praise of someone she knows well.”

At times Abigah has to leave on business for weeks. He takes one wife. I enquired, “But is there no rivalry as to which shall be with you?”

“Oh, yes,” he exclaimed, “and I manage it in this way. For several days previous to going I am very soothing to the one to be left, reminding her she is to go next and promising to bring her a present of a fine piece of cloth.”

“You keep your promise?”

“Certainly.”

“Does the wife who has been your companion regard your company as preferable to a length of cloth?”

“Well,” said Abigah, confidentially, “I give her a little present, too; something small, so as to make matters as nearly equal as possible to both. Never,” he added, advising as though I were about to plunge into polygamy, “let any wife believe you like another better. Make each think she is the one.” A domestic diplomat is Abigah.

Reference has just been made to domestic slaves. As the subject may not be fully understood at home a short explanation is offered. Under British suzerainty the capture of any person as a slave, as well as sale, exchange or gift of a slave have been prohibited; and all children born of slave parents after the promulgation of that declaration were to be free. It may be asked by worthy individuals at home, who only England know, why Great Britain should assent to the status of slavery in any shape or degree?

The answer is, first, that in Northern Nigeria slavery was a recognised and integral part of the social organism, and had an enactment been put into effect that all slaves were forthwith at liberty to discard control there would have been crowds of workless, loafing gangs roaming over the country, a misery to themselves and a danger to peaceable, industrious inhabitants. Secondly, such an enactment would have brought to ruin many rich and middle-class families whose herds, farms, and businesses were carried on by slaves.

That would inevitably have created an uprising which local troops would not have resisted. Even had England herself found money to remunerate owners, the first-mentioned peril would have occurred and the entire basis of society and commerce thrown out of gear.

What the British Governors did, in addition to what has been stated, was to get the Emirs to agree that any slave might claim his freedom by payment to the master. The roads, the railway and other public works then being put in hand by means of the grant-in-aid from Imperial funds enabled a slave by exertion of his muscle to gain the wherewithal for complete independence.

The method was a simple one. He would go to an Alkali’s Court and make his desire known. The Alkali gave a certificate which enabled the man to move without restraint and at the same time intimated the position to the department under which the man wished to serve. The department deducted in weekly amounts from the man’s earnings the recoupment to his former master, which was remitted through the Alkali.

The fact should not be overlooked that domestic slavery—i.e., slaves born in a household and remaining there with parents—is a very different thing to the barbarous raiding, with its attendant bloodshed, which was in full swing previous to British influence making itself felt.

Even in the earlier period a man could be prosecuted for ill-treating a slave, who by law was entitled to food, housing, care in sickness and release from all control for several days in the year. That the practice of domestic slavery did not bear hardly is shown by the large number who voluntarily remained, notwithstanding the facilities for independent employment. There is generally mutual trust and confidence between master and domestic slaves. It is not unusual for the former to supply the latter with goods for trading and to send him or her on a journey of several days’ duration. On returning and handing over the takings the slave will be given a proportion of the profits. Were slavery the servitude which some folks view it, nothing would be easier than the oppressed to go off with sufficient endowment of the master’s property to give a sound start in an unreined career.