[711] Wake, _Evolution of Morality_, vol. ii. p. 85. [712] _Institutes_, iv., tit. 18. [713] Friedländer, _Mœurs Romaines_, etc., t. I^{er.} p. 367. [714] Socrates, _Hist. Eccles._, lib. v., cap. xviii. [715] Friedländer, etc., _Mœurs_, t. I^{er.} p. 367. [716] Klaproth and Gamba, _Hist. Univ. des Voy._, t. xlv. p. 435. [717] Klaproth and Gamba, _Hist. Univ. des Voy._, t. xlv. p. 448. [718] Desmaze, _Curiosités_, etc. CHAPTER XIV. REPUDIATION AND DIVORCE. I. _In Savage Countries._--The right of repudiation in New Caledonia, among the Hottentots, the Bongos, the Soulimas, the Fantis, the Ashantees--Divorce in Polynesia--The right of repudiation in America. II. _Divorce and Repudiation among Barbarous Peoples._--In Abyssinia, at Hayti--The _nefir_ of the Djebel-Taggale--Repudiation among the Bedouins and the Touaregs--Repudiation among the Kabyles--The “prevented” Kabyle woman--The “insurgent” Kabyle woman--Repudiation among the Arabs--Divorce among the Arabs--Obligatory divorce--Repudiation on account of non-virginity--Divorce by mutual consent in Peru and Thibet--Repudiation among the Mongols--Repudiation in China--Obligatory divorce in China--Repudiation in ancient India--Repudiation among the Hebrews--Repudiation in Greece--Evolution of repudiation and divorce in ancient Rome--Divorce and Christianity--Repudiation in barbarous Europe, in France, in the Middle Ages. III. _The Evolution of Divorce._ I. _In Savage Countries._ I have no longer to demonstrate that woman has been treated with extreme brutality among nearly all primitive peoples. In the lowest stage of savagery--as, for example, in Australia and Tasmania--woman, being exactly assimilated to a domestic animal, who can be beaten, wounded, killed, and even eaten, her association with man does not merit the name of marriage, and consequently there is no question among these races of divorce, nor even of repudiation. The man, being able, as master, to dispose of the life of his wife, has, in addition, the right to send her away, or abandon her, if he chooses. In New Caledonia, where the stage of the most brutal savagery is past, where the wife is no longer carried off as in Australia, but bought from her legal owners, the dissolution of the conjugal union is still ill-regulated. The man can chase away or repudiate his wife. The couple can also part by mutual agreement, the children following sometimes the mother and sometimes the father; nothing is uniform.[719] But the purchase of the woman protects her already somewhat against murder. As she represents a capital, the husband often hesitates to kill her, or even to drive her away.