 Typee.
    The males considerably outnumber the females. This holds true of many of the
islands of Polynesia, although the reverse of what is the case in most civilised
countries. The girls are first wooed and won, at a very tender age, by some
stripling in the household in which they reside. This, however, is a mere frolic
of the affections, and no formal engagement is contracted. By the time this
first love has a little subsided, a second suitor presents himself, of graver
years, and carries both boy and girl away to his own habitation. This
disinterested and generous-hearted fellow now weds the young couple - marrying
damsel and lover at the same time - and all three thenceforth live together as
harmoniously as so many turtles. I have heard of some men who in civilised
countries rashly marry large families with their wives, but had no idea that
there was any place where people married supplementary husbands with them.
Infidelity on either side is very rare. No man has more than one wife, and no
wife of mature years has less than two husbands - sometimes she has three, but
such instances are not frequent. The marriage tie, whatever it may be, does not
appear to be indissoluble; for separations occasionally happen. These, however,
when they do take place, produce no unhappiness, and are preceded by no
bickerings; for the simple reason, that an ill-used wife or a hen-pecked husband
is not obliged to file a bill in Chancery to obtain a divorce. As nothing stands
in the way of a separation, the matrimonial yoke sits easily and lightly, and a
Typee wife lives on very pleasant and sociable terms with her husbands. On the
whole, wedlock, as known among these Typees, seems to be of a more distinct and
enduring nature than is usually the case with barbarous people. A baneful
promiscuous intercourse of the sexes is hereby avoided, and virtue, without
being clamorouslys invoked, is, as it were, unconsciously practised.
    The contrast exhibited between the Marquesas and other islanders of the
Pacific in this respect, is worthy of being noticed. At Tahiti the marriage tie
was altogether unknown; and the relation of husband and wife, father and son,
could hardly be said to exist. The Arreory Society - one of the most singular
institutions that ever existed in any part of the world - spread universal
licentiousness over the island. It was the voluptuous character of these people
which rendered the disease introduced among them by De Bougainville's ships, in
1768, doubly destructive. It visited them like a plague, sweeping them off
