We know that a plurality of wives, or the repudiation of them, was familiar to the Hebrews and other nations, and that it is tolerated even now amongst the Mahometans and Chinese. The Greeks and Romans did not universally, nor at all times object to it. What wonder then that the custom of polygamy and divorce should be common to many savages of America, since it is upheld by the practice of the ancients? You should not however imagine that the whole nation of the Abipones follow after the steps of the other nations in that respect. The major part are contented with one and the same wife, though I cannot deny that divorce is as frequent amongst them as the changing of the dress in Europe; yet I have known many who kept the same wife all their lives. But if any Abipon marries several women, he settles them in separate hordes, many leagues distant from one another, and visits first one, then the other, at intervals of a year. If he keeps many in the same house, which is very seldom the case, endless quarrels, blows, and battles, are sure to ensue, about the prerogative of governing the family, and the favour of their husband. _Nejetenta_, as I said before, is a word appropriated to express a contest between two wives about their husband; any other sort of fight is called _Roélakitápegeta_. Let us now speak of the reason that occasions divorce. It is very common amongst them to reject wives to whom they have formerly united themselves, at their own pleasure, and with impunity, so that divines have very properly doubted the reality of the marriage of savages, as it seems to want the perpetuity of the nuptial tie. If their wives displease them, it is sufficient; they are ordered to decamp. No farther cause or objection is sought for; the will of the husband, who dislikes his wife, stands in the place of reason. Should the husband cast his eyes upon any handsomer woman, the old wife must remove merely on this account, her fading form or advanced age being her only accusers, though she maybe universally commended for conjugal fidelity, regularity of conduct, diligent obedience, and the children she has born. None of the men of most authority have either the right or the inclination to defend the divorced, or control the divorcer. But, appointing a drinking-party, wherein the memory of injuries is refreshed in the minds of the intoxicated guests, the relations fiercely avenge the dishonour done to the repudiated wife. Often, too, women just cast off by one man are immediately married by another. I have observed elsewhere that the younger women highly approve the law of Christ, and are anxious that themselves and their husbands should be baptized, because the perpetuity of their marriage is thereby secured, and their husbands prevented from changing or increasing the number of their wives. This licence of divorce produces, as I have already related, bloody murders of children, and the incredible diminution of the whole nation.