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.