2. Passing now to the other point: how far does the husband make use of his power? in other words, how does he usually _treat_ his wife? Without entering more in detail into the motives that regulate his conduct, it is clear that even if we know his authority, we by no means know how he usually used or misused it. Here our impression when reading the evidence is undoubtedly that the general way in which wives are treated in aboriginal Australia is a very barbarous one. In fact, out of our thirty statements, fourteen speak more or less explicitly of barbarism, slavery, wounds and scars, etc. Only seven assert that the average treatment is a fairly good one and that bad treatment is only a consequence of certain trespasses, which are considered punishable and consequently punished. The remaining nine statements say that treatment is sometimes good, sometimes bad, or do not say anything about the subject. But in this case it is apparently needful to give a more careful consideration of the quality of the information than of its quantity. In fact, four[210] out of the seven of the authorities who affirm good treatment are very clear and explicit, and their statements are consequently quite consistent with themselves; two of them are, besides, our best authorities. Schultze and Bonney seem also in general to be quite trustworthy. From the other part of our evidence (that which asserts barbarous ill-treatment) only three are fairly reliable (Curr, Salvado, and, to a certain extent, Eyre). But even these are not so consistent with themselves: they affirm, that in spite of the barbarous ill-treatment, the women seem to be rather happy. If they were happy as a rule, it means that this ill-treatment did not appear to them cruel, and that they did not suffer under its atrocity. Consequently that it was only apparently bad (the same expression is used by Dawson, _loc. cit._) in the eyes of the observers, and was not bad as measured by the standard of native sensitiveness. The statement of Spencer and Gillen confirms this view explicitly. The statements affirming bad treatment (Curr, Salvado, Eyre, etc.) do not distinguish the important point whether this ill-treatment was a punishment or not; whether it was inflicted only in definite cases where, according to the unwritten tribal law, the wife was guilty of an offence, or whether it was inflicted in fits of bad temper and ungracious mood. This distinction is very important; in the first case the husband would have only, so to say, an executive power of the collective, customary will, and his bad treatment would be only an act of justice; in the second case he would have been a real tyrant and his ill-treatment a mere act of brutality. This remark has also an important connection with the problem of authority discussed above. Howitt's statement, as well as Spencer and Gillen's, points very clearly to the fact that the ill-treatment was only an act of justice (from the aboriginal point of view).