The feast (if it can be so-called) mentioned above as constituting the marriage ceremony is sometimes (or used to be) celebrated in a more elaborate form. In this case, it was the _entering the house_, as soon as it was finished, which was held to constitute the act of marriage. The woman would bring with her pots, baskets, a sleeping-mat, and some flour to cook the first meal with. The man would contribute an axe and a hoe to the common outfit. One of his wife’s first duties is to plaster the house he has built, though this will not always be needed. The meeting at which what we may call the marriage-contract is drawn up, takes place some time later; perhaps not till the first produce of their new garden is ready. The wife’s surety is said to ‘come to settle her’ in her home. She prepares two pots of beer for her husband’s surety or sureties and two for her own. The former contribute a cock to the banquet, the latter a laying hen. Both then lay down certain rules for the behaviour of the young couple, warning the wife against unfaithfulness, and binding both to resort to the diviner in case of illness or other trouble. [Illustration: WOMEN POUNDING MAIZE IN YAO VILLAGE Note the cooking-stones and pots in the foreground; also the square house (cf. p. 144)] The division of labour between husband and wife varies a good deal according to local circumstances. Where the husband goes away with trading caravans, or on hunting expeditions, or works on a plantation, or as a _tenga-tenga_ man (carrier), or where he is liable to be summoned away for weeks at a time (as he was under the Angoni and Makololo) to work for the chief, the field-work, of course, falls on the wife. This we shall describe more fully when treating of Agriculture. She also has to go to the bush to cut firewood, and to the stream or well for water; to plaster the floor and walls of the house with mud (which looks like grey stucco when dry); to fetch in supplies of food from the gardens, to pound and husk the grain, and to do the cooking. I have only once seen a man pounding at a mortar; this was a Ngoni who lived temporarily in one of the Blantyre villages, while working on a plantation, and, no doubt, he was lending a hand with the pounding by way of payment for his board.