In the Yomba country courtship is carried on usually through female rather than male relatives, and either sex may make the first advances toward a minor. Among all uncivilized peoples, as indeed among many that are advanced in civilization, the early marriage is one of the most important elements in the backward condition of the people, if not indeed the most serious cause of deterioration. Women are forced into the arduous duties of motherhood at an age when they are neither physically nor in any other sense prepared for such an obligation. Children born of immature mothers can scarcely expect to be robust either in body or mind. The Kroomen, one of the native tribes of Liberia, hold marriage to be the highest ambition of life. They will marry as many wives as they can pay for, often leaving their homes in search of means whereby they may accumulate wealth enough to buy another wife. Enjoying for a few months the new relation, the ambitious husband goes off to seek again his fortune, returns, buys another companion, the marriage is again celebrated, and so the number of women who perform the drudgeries of life increases. At about middle life, usually, the Krooman has accumulated a sufficient fortune in the form of wives to enable him to retire from active labor. He now settles down to live upon the labor of his wives, who willingly support him. He is now known as a "big man," and enjoys not only the ease, but also the reputation and honor of one who has come into possession of a well-earned retirement. Another characteristic which marks woman's career among the lower races is the fact of her early and rapid physical deterioration after marriage. This is true not only of the women of Polynesia, but of the African tribes, with which they have much in common. At the age when European and American women are at the prime of their vigor and physical beauty, these women have not only seen their best days, but are broken, unsightly, and withered. This deterioration is chiefly due to two causes; one is the uniform early marriages among these races, and the other is the hard life which is early thrust upon the woman. For she not only becomes the childbearer, but the beast of burden, the farmer, too, it may be, and the mechanic and the "general utility man." It is true, especially where polygamy prevails, that there is a division of labor, but the labor is divided among the women; the men do only the lighter work. The several wives of the household take their servitude as a matter of course, and usually, especially in Kaffir land, they are so brought up that they regard a husband as degraded and effeminate if he takes any part in the ordinary labors of domestic life. The women are, generally, quite reconciled also to the polygamous relation, because a husband is regarded as possessing dignity and respectability in proportion as he is much or little married.