The wife has the chief part of the hoeing and _cultivation_ of the soil. The husband cuts down trees and may also hoe with her if he have not many wives, in which case he has less occasion to work. She has also to go to the forest with her axe and cut _firewood_ (_ngwi_). The husband may go with her. It is interesting to meet a couple returning from a journey for firewood. The man goes first carrying his gun or bow and arrows, while the woman carries the invariable bundle of firewood on her head. Mrs. Macdonald used to amuse such parties by taking the wife’s load and putting it on the husband, telling him ‘this is the custom of our country’. It is also the wife’s duty to go to the field for the supply of beans, potatoes, or pumpkins. One of the hardest parts of the woman’s work is the _pounding_ or milling of the corn. She breaks it down in a mortar by means of a large pestle, which is a weight in itself. The work is certainly hard and tedious, but results in the formation of a very fine flour. She looks to her husband to find her in clothing. When her clothes are torn it is his duty to sew them, and a very serious thing it is for a husband to neglect this work. It may cause a separation. But he finds that her wardrobe is not expensive. If he can get calico at 3d. a-yard she will really cost little more than 2s. per annum. No wonder that she expects her husband to show her some little attention since she does so much for him. The wife may be described as performing nearly the whole of the ploughing and sowing, the whole of the reaping and ingathering of the crop, the whole of the milling, the whole of the brewing, and the whole of the cooking, including the carrying of fire and water. When a woman has cooked her husband’s meal she does not sit down to enjoy it with him except they be quite alone. If they sit down together and a male stranger arrive she retires and takes her food apart, and he may do the same when a female comes to visit them (67). 58.—MARRIAGE CONTRACT (_chikulundine_). We have seen that there is no marriage ceremony on the day that they enter their house (56), but sometime after, perhaps when they get the first produce of their new field, there is a meeting to lay down certain rules as to their behaviour in their new relationship (_kuwika chikulundine_). The wife’s surety comes to ‘settle’ her (_ne kuja angoswe kwatula alumbuwao_). The young wife ‘cooks’ (_kuteleka_) or brews a great quantity of beer. Two pots are prepared for the surety or sureties of her husband, and two others for her own surety or sureties. Then there is a great feast at which these personages are present to offer their instructions. The sureties of the husband (_angoswe wa chilume_) may kill a cock, while the sureties of the wife (_angoswe wa chikongwe_) kill a laying hen. Very often a part of such fowls is carefully carried to an old surety that has not been able to come.