A sense of sexual justice exhibits itself among these simple folks in that, in the matter of inheritance, sex is allowed to play no part. Not only at the death of parents is property equally divided between children of both sexes, but that subtler and much more common and grave injustice which in nineteenth-century societies exhibits itself in the large sums expended on the higher education of sons, while the daughters go often more slightly instructed, in the Boer's primitive condition does not exist. This initial act of sexual justice renders the Boer woman in marriage free and equivalent to the male. As a rule she not only brings to the common household an equal share of material goods, but, and this is infinitely of more importance, she brings to the common life an equal culture. The fiction of a common possession of all material goods which exists in many nineteenth-century societies, notably the English, is not a fiction but a reality among the Boers; and justly so, seeing that the female as often as the male contributes to the original household stock. But far more important than the fact that she holds an equal right over the material things of life is the fact that she takes an equally large and valuable share in the common work of life. While the man counts in his sheep and rounds up his cattle and attends to the shearing, or goes a-hunting, or at intervals builds a house, or dam, or kraal; the woman, in addition to the bearing of the common children, and feeding them at her breast, and rearing them with her own hands, tends to the feeding of her household. It is she who with her own hands shapes its clothing, she who trains and teaches her sons and daughters all that in many cases they ever know of the religion and the tradition of their people:--in the old days this was always so, and still to-day is often true. It was she who in those days, when conflicts with savage men and wild beasts were a part of daily life, faced death side by side with the man, who stood always shoulder to shoulder with him; and it is she who still to-day--and rightly, considering her past and present--has a determining influence in peace or war.[59] [59] Speaking of the Boer insurrection of 1815, Sir Andries Stockenstrom in his _Autobiography_ says of two families of Boers, who were surrounded by British soldiers: "They placed themselves in a position of defence under their wagons. One of the soldiers by whom they were surrounded having ventured within range, entreating them to surrender, was shot dead on the spot. The fire was, of course, returned. Bezuidenhout's wife, reloading the guns as they were discharged, kept encouraging her husband and brother Fabre not to surrender; until at last Bezuidenhout fell dead, riddled with bullets, and she and Fabre were seized dangerously wounded, as well as her son, a boy of twelve, slightly."