Many authorities believe that the regard for women as property furnishes the true reason for the widespread insistence on virginity in brides.

Thus A.B.Ellis, speaking of the West Coast of Africa (_Yoruba-Speaking Peoples_, pp.

183 _et seq._), says that girls of good class are betrothed as mere children, and are carefully guarded from men, while girls of lower class are seldom betrothed, and may lead any life they choose.

"In this custom of infant or child betrothals we probably find the key to that curious regard for ante-nuptial chastity found not only among the tribes of the Gold and Slave Coasts, but also among many other uncivilized peoples in different parts of the world." In a very different part of the world, in Northern Siberia, "the Yakuts," Sieroshevski states (_Journal Anthropological Institute_, Jan.-June, 1901, p.

96), "see nothing immoral in illicit love, providing only that nobody suffers material loss by it.