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reason that they cannot inherit from their father, and they cannot obtain an exchange wife from their father's group [44] . Female children born under this system can be used as marriage exchanges by their mother's male relatives but not by their father's. A son who is happy in his father's home may be provided with a wife by his father under the purchase system (but not, as already stated, under the exchange system). But a son who elects to remain with his father is liable to perform farm or other work for his mother's relatives when called upon[45] . Female children may remain in their father's home until claimed by their mother's relatives to be used as exchanges. But if there are several female children the father may be allowed to keep one or two and give them in marriage (by purchase), receiving the bride-price. But when these girls themselves bear female children those children can be claimed by the mother's relatives to be used as exchanges.
It may be noted finally that in former times a man could redeem himself from slavery by giving to his enslaver a child born to his sister under the purchase system of marriage [46] . He might even use for this purpose a sister's daughter who was married (under the purchase system). The husband, if he were devoted to his wife, might in such a case offer one of his own female relatives instead. If this offer were accepted the status of his wife would be altered to that of an exchange wife, i.e. all children borne by her would become his and she herself could not contract a secondary marriage.
Husbands can inherit from wives who had been married under the exchange system, but not from wives married under the purchase system. The property of the latter class is claimed by the wife's maternal relatives. Widows are heritable by brothers, sons, and sisters' sons; but widows married under the purchase system cannot be inherited against their will. Widows who had married under the exchange system can, of course, only be inherited by a man who is the son of a woman who had married under the exchange system, or of a woman who was married as a slave.
A further point as regards inheritance of property is that if the deceased had a son by an exchange marriage and a sister's son whose mother had been married under the purchase system the property would be divided between them, both being entitled to inherit.