We may point to the circumstance that this disparity of age stands in connection with the very prevalent form of betrothal, viz. the promising of a girl in infancy usually to a mature man. Other modes of obtaining wives, as exchange of a daughter for a wife, and levirate, stand also in connection with the disparity of age. _Statements._--We read in Curr: "The Australian male almost invariably obtains his wife or wives either as a survivor of a married brother, or in exchange for his sisters, or later on in life for his daughters." An old widow often falls to the lot of some young bachelor.[757] On the other hand young girls are allotted to old men. "One often sees a child of eight the wife of a man of fifty." And we read further: "The marriage rules of the blacks result in very ill-assorted unions as regards age; for it is usual to see old men with mere girls as wives and men in the prime of life married to old widows. As a rule women are not obtained by the men unless they are at least thirty years of age. Women have very frequently two husbands during their lifetime, the first older and the second younger than themselves."[758] "I never heard of a female over sixteen years of age, who, prior to the breakdown of aboriginal customs after the coming of the Whites, had not a husband."[759] [757] Curr, _A.R._, i. p. 107. This is said about the Australians in general. [758] _Ibid._, p. 110. [759] _Ibid._ Speaking again on marriage among the Bangerang, Curr says: "As a rule, girls would be about twelve or fourteen years of age, and their husbands-elect some five-and-thirty years older, and already the lords of one or two spouses." "In this way it happened that one seldom saw a couple in which both the parties were young."[760] And further on we read, "Few men under thirty have lubras." But in the age between fifty and sixty men usually possess two or three wives. The difference between the spouses is usually twenty years; sometimes much more.[761] [760] _Recollections_, p. 129. [761] _Recollections_, p. 171. We find the disparity of age in marriage mentioned by Howitt in several places. So we learn that old men were often betrothed to young girls among the Wolgal.[762] We read that in Australia old men secure the young females for themselves.[763] And that young men obtain for wives some old repudiated wife of one of the old men.[764] Among the Geawe Gal "girls were affianced to men much older than themselves."[765] Speaking of the Dieri and other South Central tribes he says that old wives of old men are handed over to young boys.[766] [762] _Nat. Tr._, p. 197. [763] _Kam. and Kurn._, p. 354. [764] _Trans. R.S.V._ (1888), p. 126. [765] _Kam. and Kurn._, p. 280. [766] _J.A.I._, xx. p. 55.