声临
THE CHINA MAILTM SATURDAY, JULY 21, 1957.
Begining today... RETURN TO THE ISLANDS
AUSTRAL
THE ISLANDS OF MAGIC
Page
-a voyage of enchantment
A stubborn maiden danced
for
one
A carefree life by a palm-fringed lagoon. the music of guitars, the sunlit coral beaches and flaming hibiscus blooms
Who has not dreamed of going to live in such a place?
• For one man the dream came true- Sir Arthur Grimble. He spent a lifetimo as a Colonial administrator among the gay and lovable islanders of the Gilbert and Ellice islands of the Pacific. He wrote a
N the days before British to the least attractive of her
I the
the son of a freeborn isfand
family would usually take The spinsters
himself a wife when he was
about 20 and she 15. It of twenty
WANN part of the normal marriage contract that
wife's
females
book
man alone..
about his experience that sold 370,000 copies in Britain alone.
One question was left in the minds of those who read it and fell under its spall. Would there ever be another book like it? There is, Sir Arthur was completing it when he died. He called it RETURN TO THE ISLANDS. As you read it you will hear
the Pacific breakers beating on those friendly shores.
you too will find the magic of the islands."
-by
Sir ARTHUR GRIMBLE
entourage uf surplus also forbade her husband, for had, in the last resort, to eve and sterling himself, shame and pity, to deny it. The her younger sisters from becom- honest soul, to cater personally island romancers of old delighting the mere chattels of men. for their Julfilment as women ed in tales of beautiful girls whenever Fortune or his wife who, risking all for true love's
some of the ceremonial BUT the wife's choice was not, as a matter of fact, inspired bride's younger sisters by anything so unpredictable as female cussedness. On the con- or, if she had none, perhaps fery, it was dictated to her by might decide that nobody else sake, and saved from death by
centuries of sensible usage,
a chosen cousin or two → would accompany
her 214 confidantes and helpers into her new home,
The ugly duckling of any group of unmarried girls was obviously the one least rely to make an independent match of In principle, their duty her own. She, therefore, was of loving-kindness towards the girl to be endowed as soon her extended, when
as possible with a permanent, they ofcial Shore of her eldest reached maturily, as far as sister's domestic felicity. helping her to give nightiy
Her morg nitractive comfort to her lord and bear pastors could afford to wait him children as he willed. End were preserved al mint In practice, however, the value, so to speak, by this ar average husband's initiative
in this direction was severe. ly crippled by his wife's.
to
Not that she could blankly rofuse him if after several years of marriage he proposed elevale one of her companions to the honourable and permanent status of secondary wife in his
cum-
genient--for offers of cere moalat marriage from onside.
It was not until these reached an advanced stage of spinster hood (say, at 20 years old, when all hope of their achieving primary alliances Was lost) their elder sister allowed them to become the secondary wives of her own husband.
The husband's function.
in
household: only 1 was she, not short, was to hang about in the
wanted them.
The pleading of devoted sisters, won through by this dangerous road to wifehood at last with swains of humbler birth, to live happily ever after.
The only unqualitied relief that custom offered a husband in the long un was the right to refuse secondary witchood 10 my wie sister who had ceased to be a maiden. It seemed to 100. him unreasonable that any young woman who had rendered her-
self umnarketable by private adventure should expect him, the cluer loser, to reward her in the end with a position of cignity on his own permanent establishment, Indeed. usage gave him the theoretical right to kill her out of hand ifto borrow the Gilbertese phrase she squandered 112 vested interest in her virginity,
But here again his wife had the last word, it only the hurried to intervide at once for her sister.
Custom not only prescribed a
he, who did the choosing, and background of The marriage form of abject prayer for her nomination ordinarily went market, faithfully fattening
his use in such an extremity
ber
but
A
her
But real life had its romances
'I will not
marry him”
REGAL out lady of Tarawa, Net Teururu, surrounded by unce told me how she, as a girl of great-great-grandchildren, perhaps 15, had won happiness with the mate of her own undaunted choice,
It was a drama 80 years old and more as slid spoke, and death in faction warfare had robbed her of her man long since. But the triumph of it was still fresh for her.
I had said something about amazing power đ whic
“Yes,” she answered with a
smile, it was a strong power.
Here I alt nive to witness it,
who would have died but for the prayer of a loving sister. Listen
this was the way of it....
was
"I was the youngest daughter of my father. We were a large family of girls. So when my eldest sister married taken by her with two others into her husband's house.
"Afjer
C time
my sister's husband arranged a marriage for me with a friend of his. That rich in land, and he was will- ing to pay a great price for me. But he was old; his first wife was dead,
"I said to my sister, "This man la too old to give me children.' She answered, Be quiet. He will pay a big price for you.'
"I cald, 'I do not love him," but she closed her cars to every word of mine. And so it went on unill the season of my marri- age drew near.
(Continued on Page 6)
⚫. This series is adapted from RETURN TO THE ISLANDS by Sir Arthur Grimble, which is 10 be published by John Murray.
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