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Cape Mount

Husbands and wives

As for the relationship between the sexes, Bosman noted, each man was allowed as many wives as he could maintain, which wasn’t very difficult since women maintained themselves through their own hard work! “They seem also to live very contentedly with their Wives.”

The husbands, he added condescendingly, were not “much concerned if they venture on unlawful Pleasures with other Men.”

This alleged willingness to overlook adultery might have selectively applied to European visitors, but Bosman wasn’t in a position to know that.

Footnote: Bosman, 1967, p. 474.