WOMEN UNDER POLYGAMY
these ladies a rather severe attack of indigestion, and he allayed their husband's fears.
This writer visited the slave-market where negresses were offered for sale. None of the women seemed in the least degree unhappy. They chatted and smiled vivaciously. Roscoe says that their features were not comely, but the women had beautiful forms and small hands and feet.[1] The slave-mart still exists in Morocco.
Disproportionate births in the sexes is, no doubt, a cause of polygamy in Morocco. Westermarck was told by a friend acquainted with the country that three females are born to one male. In the Monbuttu country, according to Emin Pasha, far more females than males are born.
Divorce is obtainable by men on the slightest pretext, and many husbands repudiate their wives again and again. It is considered fashionable to divorce one woman after another, and such repudiations are common among the Moors of the Sahara.[2]
Polygamy is the exception and not the rule in Northern Africa. It is not common among the Berbers. Mr. Foster Eraser found little polygamy among the Kabyles; but husbands often repudiate their
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