How The Hottentot Woman "Rules At Home"

________________________________________________
_ Jakobowski's assertion that a man's oldest sister may have him chained and punished is obviously a cock-and-bull story. It is diametrically opposed to what Peter Kolben says: "The eldest son has in a manner an absolute authority over all his brothers and sisters." "Among the Hottentots an eldest son may after his father's death retain his brothers and sisters in a sort of slavery." Kolben is now accepted as the leading authority on the aboriginal Hottentots, as he found them two centuries ago, before the missionaries had had time to influence their customs. What makes him the more unimpeachable as a witness in our case is that he is decidedly prejudiced in favor of the Hottentots.[138] What was the treatment of women by Hottentots as witnessed by Kolben? Is it true that, as Jakobowski asserts, the Hottentot woman rules at home? Quite true; most emphatically so. The husband, says Kolben (I., 252-55), after the hut is built,

"has absolutely nothing more to do with the house and
domestic affairs; he turns the care for them over to
his wife, who is obliged to procure provisions as well
as she can and cook them. The husband devotes himself
to drinking, eating, smoking, loafing, and sleeping,
and takes no more concern about the affairs of his
family than if he had none at all. _If he goes out to
fish or hunt, it is rather to amuse himself than to
help his wife and children...._ Even the care of his
cattle the poor wife, despite all her other work,
shares with him. The only thing she is not allowed to
meddle with is the sale. This is a prerogative which
constitutes the man's honor and which he would not
allow anyone to take away from him with impunity."

[FOOTNOTE 138: As Fritsch says "Kolben found them most excellent specimens of mankind and invested them with the most manifold virtues" (see also 312 and 328). A person thus biased is under suspicion when he praises, but not when he exposes shady sides. My page references are to the French edition of Kolben. The italics are mine.]

The wife, he goes on to say, has to cut the fire-wood and carry it to the house, gather roots and other food and prepare it for the whole family, milk the cows, and take care of the children. The older daughters help her, but need so much watching that they are only an additional care; and all this time the husband "lies lazily on his back." "Such is the wretched life of the Hottentot woman," he sums up; "she lives in a perpetual slavery." Nor is there any family life or companionship, they eat separately, and

"the wife never sets foot in the husband's room, which is
separated from the rest of the house; she seldom enjoys his
company. He commands as master, she obeys as slave, without
ever complaining." _

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