1 126 POPULATION, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS.
2 in-law to wife. The offspring by the connection
3 are legitimate, and entitled to succeed to a share
4 of all the landed and personal property. It is
5 optional with the widow to take either the eldest
6 (Jeth) or the youngest, who is generally preferred
7 and deemed most suitable. Should she determine
8 to relinquish worldly ideas, and to reside chaste
9 in her father-in-law’s house, she may adopt this
10 course ; but such instances are very rare, particu-
11 larly in the case of young females, and are not to
12 be looked for in a society and amongst tribes
13 notorious for the laxity of their morals, and for
14 the degeneracy of their conceptions.
15 “ In default of surviving brothers, and in accord-
16 ance with acknowledged usage, the widow is at
17 the disposal of her father-in-law’s family. From
18 the moment she has quitted the paternal roof,
19 she is considered to have been assigned as the
20 property of another, and ceases to have a free
21 will. Where the hymeneal bond is so loosely
22 and irrationally knit, it is not a matter of sur-
23 prise that the feeble tie and servile obligation
24 which unite the wife to the husband should
25 make but an insecure and heartless impression.
26 Females are daily accused before chiefs and their
27 officers of breaches of conjugal virtue, and of
28 having absconded to evade the claims of a father
29 or mother-in-law, or the established rights of a
30 jeth or a daiwur. When they have fled into the