w. It is instructive to find that
these marriages are usually successful. Although divorce is easy, it
is not frequent. "The Garos will not hastily make engagements,
because, when they do make them, they intend to keep them."[85]

[85] Dalton, _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_, pp. 64, 142.
See also Tylor, "The Matriarchal Theory," _Nineteenth
Century_, July 1896, p. 89.

In Paraguay, we are told, the women are generally endowed with
stronger passions than the men, and are allowed to make the
proposals.[86] So also among the Ahitas of the Philippine Islands,
where, if her clan-parents will not consent to a love match the girl
seizes the young man by the hair, carries him off, and declares she
has run away with him. In such a case it appears the marriage is held
to be valid whether the parents consent or not.[87] A similar custom
of a gentler character, is practised by the Tarrahumari Indians of
Northern Mexico, among whom, according to Lumboltz, the maiden is a
persistent wooer employing a _repertoire_ of really exquisite love
songs to soften the heart of a reluctant swain.[88] Again, in New
Guinea, where the women held a very independent position, "the girl is
always regarded as the seducer. Women steal men." A youth who
proposed to a girl would be making himself ridiculous, would be called
a woman, and laughed at by the girls. The usual method by which a girl
proposes is to send a present to the youth by a third party, following
this up by repeated gifts of food; the young man sometimes waits a
month or two, receiving presents all the time, in order to assure
himself of the girl's constancy, before decisively accepting her
advances.[89]

[86] Moore, _Marriage Customs: Modes of Courtship_, etc., p.
261. Rengger, _Naturgeschichte der Saeugelliere von Paraguay_,
p. 11, cited by Westermarck, _op. cit._, p. 158.

[87] J. M. Wheeler, "Primitive Marriage," an article in
_Progress_, 1885, p. 128.

[88] McGee, "The Beginning of Marriage," _American
Anthropologist_, Vol. IX.

[89] Haddon, "Western Tribes of the Torres States," _Journal
of the Anthropological Society_, Vol. XIX, Feb. 1890. Cited
by Havelock Ellis, _Psychology of Sex_, Vol. III, p. 185.

It is clear that these cases, which I have chosen from a number of
similar courtship customs, differ very much from what is our idea of
the customary role of the girl and her lover. To me they are very
instructive. The