495. Among so many barbaric customs, the universality of their vices prevailed; and they were infidel, tyrannical, and unchaste. They regarded virginity as an opprobrium, and there were men who received a salary for the office of deflowering [the girls] of their virginity. No woman, married or single, assured her honor and credit, unless she had some sweetheart; and although this was so honorable for the women, it was considered a dishonor to give the liberty of her body freely. Now the women are modest in their behavior, but easy, if they are sought, as the smoke from the fire of their beginnings still endures. At the birth of males, and even the females, the midwives themselves made easier for them the carnal act, by cutting off I know not what from their organs. And now that the midwives do not do it, there is no lack of the introduction of this abuse among the boys; but it is assured that this is not the circumcision of the Jews. The devil influenced them in other curious ways for the greater sensuality and duration in their carnal acts, methods which are now completely extinct. But they have sufficiently caught the plague of sodomy from the Japanese and Chinese; and I have already seen some persons burned, in my time. In short, men and women never think of being chaste, so that among the most holy all their thought is of their marriages. 496. At the present time we have always tried to see that the brides and grooms are always of equal rank and condition. It was not usual for them to have more than one own wife, and one own husband; but those who were chiefs and wealthy were allowed to have some slaves as concubines, especially if their own wives did not prove fruitful. Only among the Visayans did the first religious ministers of the gospel find established the custom of one man having many legitimate wives, and that of large dowries, which was no small obstruction to the planting of the gospel. The general rule was for each man to have one legitimate wife; and they tried to obtain one who was of their own family, and even very closely related to them, barring out the first degree, for that was always a direct impediment to their marriage. Their marriages were not indissoluble, as are those of Christians. For if the consorts returned the dowry, one to the other, the one at fault to the one without blame, that was sufficient for repudiation; and they could marry others, unless the couple had children, in which case all the dowry was given to these. If profits had been made with the lapse of time, while they had lived together, those profits were divided between them both, if the gains were in common. But if they were the secret gains of one of them, then that one kept them.