[693] Among the Kaniagmuts, Thlinkets, Nutkas, and the South American Guanás: WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 215, 216. Divorce is free among the South American Charuas: DARWIN, _op. cit._, 598. For evidence of courtship and consent among the California Indians see BANCROFT, _Native Races_, I, 398, 411, 412. SPENCER, _op. cit._, I, 722, 723, 754, 755, discusses the favorable position of women among the American aborigines and elsewhere, due in part to "likeness of occupations between the sexes." For further illustrations of freedom of choice or of liberty in the family see PRATZ, _Hist. de la Louisiane_, II, 385, 389; WAITZ, _Anthropologie_, III, 101, 103; RATZEL, _Hist. of Mankind_, II, 125, 128. [694] RIGGS, "Dakota Grammar," _Cont. N. A. Eth._, IX, 206, gives an example. _Cf._ also the cases mentioned by WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 215. Free marriage, very often in connection with wife-purchase, prevails widely throughout the African peoples. Accounts differ as to the Kafirs. According to Fritsch, a woman is bought like any chattel.[695] But Leslie declares that generally the man first tries to win her consent; for it is "a mistake to imagine that a girl is sold by her father in the same manner, and with the same authority, with which he would dispose of a cow."[696] On the other hand, Fritsch shows that the heart of the Bechuana, and especially that of the despised Bushman, "is not so full of his oxen," the woman having some liberty of choice.[697] Winwood Reade informed Darwin, with respect to the negroes of western Africa, that "the women, at least among the more intelligent pagan tribes, have no difficulty in getting the husbands whom they may desire, although it is considered unwomanly to ask a man to marry them. They are quite capable of falling in love, and of forming tender, passionate, and faithful attachments."[698] [695] FRITSCH, _Die Eingeborenen Süd-Afrikas_, 112, 113; with whom WAKE, _op. cit._, 213, 215, agrees. [696] WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 220; LESLIE, _Among the Zulus and Amatongas_, 194; _cf._ also PLOSS, _Das Weib_, I, 54; DARWIN, _op. cit._, 598. The despotic power of the husband is modified in practice through influence of the wife's friends: REHME, in _ZVR._, X, 39, 40, 41, 42; RATZEL, _Hist. of Mankind_, II, 434. [697] FRITSCH, _Die Eingeborenen Süd-Afrikas_, 192, 444, 445. [698] DARWIN, _op. cit._, 599. Freedom of choice in varying degrees, often with wife-purchase, prevails among the Ashantees, Loangos, Sognos, Shulis, Mádis, Marutses, Hottentots, and Gold Coast negroes: WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 220, 221; PLOSS, _op. cit._, I, 54. _Cf._ WAKE, _op. cit._, 214, 215; MUNZINGER, _Ostaf. Studien_, 146, 207, 324; WAITZ, _Anthropologie_, II, 116, 117.