In Colombia I made the acquaintance of a French explorer, Le Comte de Brettes, who has studied closely the Goajires Indians by becoming himself a member of the tribe. The country of the Goajires is a peninsula of Colombia bordering on Venezuela. Polygamy among these people is very interesting. When a young Goajire wishes to marry he has to pay the bride's parents a number of cattle, but the consent of the bride is necessary. Besides this the husband has to clear a certain area of forest, plant vegetables and build a hut. He must then make a present of all this to his wife and add to it the necessary cattle. The wife thus becomes the legal proprietor of the house and land, and it is she who rules over the domain. The husband only has authority over the male children; but the wife is strictly enforced to be faithful. If he wishes to marry a second wife, he is obliged to buy her also and present her with similar property as the first, in another district. The two wives can never dwell together in the same house nor in the same district; each of them is thus a proprietor on her own account. In this manner the different wives of a Goajire are not only independent, but separated from each other and have no communication; this excludes all jealousy, especially as these women have a deep respect for the laws of their country. Under such conditions polygamy can hardly extend to more than two women without exhausting the forces a man requires to cultivate each of the domains. We thus see that certain forms of polygamy, combined with matriarchism, are compatible with high social position of the wife, for among the Goajires and other Indian tribes the man passes from one wife to the other, while it is the wife who is mistress of the house, the children and the domain. However, we may say that on the whole monogamy reigns where there is more altruism, respect for women and sentiment for family life; for instance, in Nicaragua, among the Dyaks, the Andamanese, etc., in whom the wife is highly esteemed and possesses political influence. The wife is also proprietor of the house among the Santalese and Mounda-Kols.