The connections formed in the South Sea islands hardly deserve the name of marriage. They take place with very little ceremony, and are dissolved whenever the husband wishes for a change. A woman often has five or six husbands in succession, without the slightest disparagement to her character; but whether she continues to like her companion or not, she is bound to remain with him till he consents to a separation. The first time a daughter is married, her parents present a hog, a fowl, or a plantain tree, to their son-in-law, before it is allowable for them to eat of his provisions; but this is not customary when the woman has previously had a husband. In some places the lover offers the bride’s father a present of fruit, fish, or other articles, the value of which depends upon his rank. Chieftains of the higher classes generally give a feast on the occasion of a daughter’s marriage. The bride is loaded with mats of the finest workmanship, anointed with fragrant oil, and veiled in delicate white gnatoo. The guests wear wreaths of flowers, and floating red ribands, resembling silk, made of the fine membrane of a tree. When the father gives his daughter to the bridegroom, he reminds her that she is now _tabooed_, or belongs solely and sacredly to her husband. The entertainment concludes with singing, dancing, and wrestling. If a powerful chief takes a fancy to a girl, he often carries her off by force, and in spite of her resistance; ambitious parents not unfrequently betroth their daughters in infancy to some man of rank, and the contract must afterward be fulfilled; female captives taken in war are always at the disposal of their conquerors; but, generally speaking, mutual inclination constitutes the sole bond of union in all the islands of the Pacific. At Nukuhiva it is the custom for every woman to have two husbands. Some favorite of a girl’s father becomes her husband, while she is yet very young, and remains under the paternal roof, until she is contracted in marriage to another individual. On this occasion, the wife and her first companion remove to their new residence, and are both supported by the second husband. In the other islands, polygamy prevails under the more usual form of a plurality of wives. The number varies according to circumstances; the poor seldom have more than one or two; the chiefs sometimes have twelve or fifteen. She who is of the best family is the principal wife; the others are subordinate to her, and her children take precedence of theirs. If the mothers are not noble, the children are never so, whatever may be the rank of their father.