*45
[Footnote 45: Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms. - Garcilasso, Com.
Real., Parte 1, lib. 4, cap.4. - Montesinos, Mem Antiguas, Ms.,
lib 2, cap. 19.]
The great nobles of Peru were allowed, like their sovereign, a
plurality of wives. The people, generally, whether by law, or by
necessity stronger than law, were more happily limited to one.
Marriage was conducted in a manner that gave it quite as original
a character as belonged to the other institutions of the country.
On an appointed day of the year, all those of a marriageable age
- which, having reference to their ability to take charge of a
family, in the males was fixed at not less than twenty-four
years, and in the women at eighteen or twenty - were called
together in the great squares of their respective towns and
villages, throughout the empire. The Inca presided in person
over the assembly of his own kindred, and taking the hands of the
different couples who were to be united, he placed them within
each other, declaring the parties man and wife. The same was
done by the curacas towards all persons of their own or inferior
degree in their several districts. This was the simple form of
marriage in Peru. No one was allowed to select a wife beyond the
community to which he belonged, which generally comprehended all
his own kindred; *46 nor was any but the sovereign authorized to
dispense with the law of nature - or at least, the usual law of
nations - so far as to marry his own sister.
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