general desire to earn as {228} much of it and as soon as possible.[228.1] All this may be very true; but seeing that the widow who marries prematurely must die, she will not be likely to run so serious a risk for the chance of making a little money. If we are right in supposing that the death-penalty is one exacted by the deceased, the conjecture will not be deemed unreasonable that hanging is believed to inflict such injuries on the ghost that its interference is not to be dreaded. The mode of death and the mutilations (if any) inflicted on the corpse are widely held to affect the departed in the future life. Jealousy is a passion by no means confined to the male sex. In the lower culture it is believed to continue to inspire women as well as men, even after death. If not so prominent a superstition as the belief in masculine jealousy, this is perhaps to be accounted for partly by the generally dominant position in the household and in society of the man, partly to the widespread habit of polygamy, and partly to the physiological rule that the decay of sexual impulse makes its appearance earlier in women than in men. We have already found examples of customs pointing to posthumous feminine jealousy among various races in both hemispheres. One or two other examples may be given. Among the Bantu tribes of North-Eastern Rhodesia, when a married woman dies her husband sends to her father for another wife in her stead. A sister or some such relative of the deceased is the proper person to take her place. If there be none unmarried and therefore available, a married sister of the deceased must spend one or two nights with the widower “to take the death from off his body.”[228.2] This is so much in harmony with {229} the Bantu practices previously considered, that we can only suppose the deceased would acquiesce in her sister’s succession to her rights, but would feel jealous and angry at the intrusion of another woman. The women of these tribes are high-spirited and jealous, those of the Awemba being proverbially fierce. Among most of the tribes it is imperative for the bridegroom to move into the bride’s parents’ village, where he will always be under the eye of his mother-in-law, and where, no doubt, in case of the wife’s death, a sister or other relation would be conveniently handy to step into her shoes. Indeed, among the Awemba the wife often relinquishes her position voluntarily to another member of the family. When she “has presented her husband with two or three children she considers that she has fulfilled her marriage obligations towards him. With his consent, which as a rule is not difficult to obtain, she hands over her niece as a substitute. The niece inherits her aunt’s position, and cares for her children, while the aunt retires to the peace of a single life, or very often finds a new partner.”[229.1] Thus it may be presumed that a dead wife, if she returned and found a relative of her own in her husband’s arms, would submit to a