If a woman does not know, or will not perform, her duties properly as a wife, i.e. will not farm, cook, etc., the man can take her back to her family and receive in return the marriage money he gave for her to her family; but not the “bespoke” money. Should she die within a few years of her marriage the husband can claim another woman, or the return of the marriage money, for his view is that a faulty article has been supplied to him. When a free woman wants to leave her husband, or have a divorce from him, she sends a “token” to the man of her choice, who, if desirous of possessing her, goes to the husband and tries to arrange the matter. If the husband acts unreasonably in his demands—wants too much marriage money, or desires the whole sum down at once—then she resorts to the expedient of escaping to a neighbouring chief (as mentioned above), and the husband is quickly brought to his senses. Should the “token” sent be returned, she knows that the man does not want her, and if her family are unwilling, or unable through poverty, to return the marriage money, or think she is unreasonable in seeking a divorce, she has to remain with her husband. To run away, without just cause, to another town, is to make her name a byword among her acquaintances, and the native is very sensitive to public opinion, as we tried to show in the chapter on Social Life. We have not found the same desire for children, on the part of the women, as we observed on the Lower Congo. This may be accounted for by the fact that on the Lower Congo the law of mother-right is in full force, and consequently all the children belong to the mother and her family; while on the Upper Congo father-right is the general custom, and the children belonging to the father, the mother has no particular interest in them. The beliefs of a tribe considerably affect their point of view, and this is seen in nothing more emphatically than in their beliefs about child-bearing. On the Lower Congo a non-child-bearing woman is the butt of the town’s ridicule, she is sneered at, pointed at by all the other women, and is the object of their scorn. She feels degraded in the eyes of all, and however much she may blame her husband, or may try to prove that she is bewitched, yet her shame is bitterly felt and resented. She has failed ignominiously in her one paramount duty to her family. Her sterility is the constant theme of her husband’s bickerings; and when everything else fails to quicken her or stop her nagging tongue, he has only to hint at this abnormal disability and she is choked with chagrin and almost ready to commit suicide.