At Sackatoo the daughter is generally consulted by her parents as a matter of form only, for she never refuses. In the same district the young people first obtain a mutual consent, and then that of their parents. Among rich people the husband settles on his future wife a dowry consisting of female slaves, sculptured calabashes filled with millet, dourra, and rice, of cloth, bracelets, toilet articles, of stones for grinding the grain, mortars for pounding it, etc. All these presents are borne in great pomp, on the heads of female slaves, to the husband’s house when the wife enters it for the first time. At Kouranko the young girls are often sold by their parents as dearly as possible to rich old men. They are forced to submit, but, once widows, they resume their liberty and recoup themselves by choosing at will a young husband, on whom they lavish their care and attentions.[294] Now we shall find that in many civilisations relatively advanced, widowhood even does not gratify the woman with a liberty of which she is never thought worthy. At Wowow and at Boussa the emancipation of woman is markedly greater. It is no longer the father, it is the grandmother who gives or refuses her grand-daughter, and if the grandmother is dead, the girl is free to act as she likes.[295] This fact, if correct, is infinitely more curious than all the others, and it ought to rejoice the sociologists full of faith, who admit in a distant antiquity the existence of a matriarchal _régime_ assigning to woman the chief place in the family. But let us continue our inquiry. In Polynesia marriage by purchase was habitual. In New Zealand the man bought the girl, and offered presents to her parents.[296] Generally in Polynesia the suitor offered pigs, stuffs, etc. If his demand was granted, the bargain was quickly concluded; the girl was there and then delivered to the husband; a Polynesian bed was arranged in the house of the bride’s father, and the newly-married couple passed the night there. The next day a feast was celebrated, to which friends were invited, and which consisted of several pigs.[297] At Tahiti temporary marriages were also concluded, and in this case the presents of pigs, stuffs, pigeons, etc., varied in amount according to the length of the union.[298] But, in spite of the sale, the Polynesian father always retained over his daughter the prior right of ownership, and when the presents seemed to him to be insufficient, he took back the merchandise to let or sell it to a more generous lover. If a child was born, the husband was free to kill the infant, which was done by applying a piece of wet stuff to the mouth and nose, or to let it live, but in the latter case he generally kept the wife for the whole of her life. If the union was sterile, or the children put to death, the man had always the right to abandon the woman when and how it seemed good to him.[299] She was a slave that he had bought, and that he could get rid of at will.[300]