Here it is no longer a question of divorce by mutual consent, nor of protective measures for the wife. If she is legally replaced without being repudiated, and then if she abandons with anger the conjugal abode, she must be imprisoned or repudiated in the presence of witnesses.[787] The prolonged absence of the husband does not set free the wife, even when she has been left without resources. She must patiently await the return of the absent master, during eight years if he is gone for a pious motive; six years if he is travelling for science or glory; three years if he is roaming the world for his pleasure. When these delays have expired, the deserted one is none the less married; she has only the power to go to seek the traveller.[788] Like the writers of the Code of Manu, those of the Bible have thought very little of the rights of woman in legislating on divorce and repudiation. The book of Deuteronomy, very accommodating for the husband, authorises him to repudiate his wife “when she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her;” he has only to put a “letter of divorce” in her hand, and may not take her again, either if she is repudiated by another husband or becomes a widow.[789] With much stronger reason a man can repudiate an immodest wife.[790] As for the wife, she could only demand a divorce for very grave causes: if the husband was attacked by a contagious malady (leprosy); if his occupations were too repugnant; if he deceived her; if he _habitually_ ill-treated her; if he refused to contribute to her maintenance; and if, after ten years of marriage, his impotence was well established, especially if the woman declared she needed a son to sustain her in her old age.[791] But even then it was the husband who was reputed to have sent away his wife, and she lost her dowry. All these antique legislations bear on the woman with shameful iniquity. The most humane have confined their efforts to placing a few slight restrictions on the brutal good pleasure of man, which nothing holds back in savage societies. But it is important to notice that certain tribes, still more or less buried in savagery, have regulated divorce with humanity enough and equity enough to put to shame the theocratic legislators of the great barbarian societies.