[754] Such local exogamy prevailed also in some of the North Central tribes, viz. in the Warramunga nation, owing to the local segregation of the two moieties. There the girl must always marry far away from her natal place. Compare _Nor. Tr._, pp. 28-30. Moreover, the mother-in-law taboo obtained well-nigh in all tribes, so that the husband was cut off from contact with his parents-in-law; therefore his wife was to some extent also handicapped in her relations with them. That when the married couple were in the same local group with the wife's parents there were some binding elements and forms of close intercourse between both parties appears in the description given below of the economics of the household. But in all probability the authority of the parents over the girl and the real intimacy of their relations ceased at the moment she was given over to her husband.[755] [755] Grey, ii. pp. 229, 231, and Parkhouse, _A.A.A.S._, vi. p. 641. There is another point connected with marriage and age. We saw that girls marry very early, at the age of about twelve years. The men on the other side do not marry so early. We do not possess very copious information on this point. It is certain that boys were not allowed to marry before they passed the initiation ceremonies. Now these began at puberty, and were extended probably over several years. So it appears, at least, from all the more exact and detailed descriptions we possess of these ceremonies.[756] And it seems that the males had to pass through a whole series of ceremonies before they were allowed to marry. We read in Salvado (p. 277) that it was a crime, severely punished, often by death, for a man to marry below the age of thirty. And he adds that they had a marvellous skill in ascertaining age by means of a series of ceremonies through which every male had to pass. The same is stated by Curr (_A.R._, i. p. 107), viz. that the men seldom marry under thirty. According to some statements from the South-Eastern area boys appear to be allowed to marry younger. [756] Compare the description of initiation ceremonies in the works of Spencer and Gillen, Howitt, Roth, and Mathew. From these few data it appears that males married much later and that consequently there must have been some disparity of age. But this disparity was much greater, owing to the circumstance that the young girls were as a rule allotted to old men, and the boys whenever they were allowed to marry got old _lubras_ as wives. We have a whole series of statements affirming this and reporting the difference of age to be usually about thirty years, if the female was younger; and at any rate stating that there was seldom a couple in which both partners were young. These statements refer to tribes scattered all over the continent, so that disparity of age in marriage seems to be quite a universal feature in Australia.