Howitt informs us also that no man might marry before duly initiated; and then the old men of the tribe had to give their consent.[767] Obviously, therefore, the age at which men could get married was much later than that in which females were given away. [767] _Trans. R.S.V._, p. 116. Eyre found in the tribes with which he was in contact that women of between thirty and forty years of age were often cast off and given to young boys.[768] Young girls were often allotted to old men.[769] [768] _Loc. cit._, ii. p. 322. [769] _Ibid._, p. 319. Disparity of age is stated also by Angas. Old men get often the youngest and comeliest women; whilst the old and haggard females were left for the young men.[770] [770] _Loc. cit._, i. p. 82 (Murray River tribes). Among the Encounter Bay tribes the girls "are given in marriage at a very early age (ten or twelve years)." And as it is very often the father who exchanges his daughter for a wife, it is evident that a great disparity of age must prevail.[771] [771] Meyer in Woods, p. 190. Mrs. Parker says that among the Euahlayi baby girls were often betrothed to "some old chap" who might have even already as many as two or three wives.[772] Whereas quite a young man was often allotted to an old woman. Age is not a disqualification for a woman to marry.[773] [772] _Loc. cit._, p. 55. [773] _Ibid._, p. 56. In the Central tribes, owing to the Tualcha Mura institution,[774] "men very frequently have wives much younger than themselves, as the husband and the mother of a wife obtained in this way are usually of approximately the same age."[775] And it may be remembered that this is the "most usual method of obtaining a wife."[776] [774] See above, p. 41. [775] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 558. [776] _Nat. Tr._, p. 558. We are informed that among the tribes near Victoria River Downs[777] a man may marry at about thirty years of age, and the older he grows the younger girls he gets. Girls are married on reaching puberty; and usually to old men; whereas young men often receive old women. [777] Northern Territory, South Australia, _J.A.I._, xxiv. p. 181. In the answers to the _Questions_ of Prof. Frazer. In the Kabi and Wakka tribes "the elder men had sometimes a plurality of wives, while the young men had for a long time after reaching manhood to remain, perforce, single. I never knew a man to have more than two wives at the one time, and generally one sufficed. There was no minimum of age for the marriage of girls, and so it occasionally happened that a child of twelve became the wife of a man of sixty. I knew a case in point."[778] [778] Mathew, p. 162. Compare also Lumholtz, _loc. cit._, p. 192.