These sanctions hold only so long as the wife carries out her duties satisfactorily. She must preserve her honour; she must do her share of household work, and she must bear sons. Failure in any of these duties destroys the reciprocity between her and her spouse, and removes the sanction of public opinion since he becomes justified in seeking to replace her. Sullied honour is in fact seldom a ground for divorce. A wronged husband should not divorce but kill. I knew of only one case, in another village, of a first wife divorced for adultery. Equally divorce for inefficiency is rare. One man of Elbashï divorced a wife because she went blind. More often a wife unable to work would be retained and supported either by a second wife or by a daughter-in-law. The failure to produce sons is a far commoner ground for the termination of a first marriage. Indeed a man is expected to take steps to ensure that he begets sons. He may of course take a second wife without divorcing his first, and if feasible this is in fact regarded as a better solution.
In Sakaltutan three men had divorced their wives for not producing sons, two of them one wife each, and one of them three. Two other men without sons had taken no steps and were extremely unlikely to do so, both being poor and old. A third man with one daughter had had two wives; he was old and sick, and clearly had no intention of making any further effort to beget. In two other cases the husband had taken a second wife without divorcing the first; one of these had deserted, leaving her son behind for her childless co-wife. Besides these, one man with a fairly long standing marriage had no children but clearly still had time to remedy the situation. No