ly, among the North Queensland natives,156 among the Bengala natives, 157 among the Hawaiian natives,158 and among other peoples. Although a Bakongo girl, even if betrothed, is encouraged to have sexual relations with men,159 it must not be with her intended husband.160 If her intended husband has sexual relations with her, he forfeits all money he paid on her account.181 163 164 Though it is permissible among the Yakuts for young wives to live with their parents, and for a time to have many lovers,162 a wife's fidelity after marriage is, as a rule, strictly maintained among most tribes. Such is reported to be the case among the natives of Washington Islands,' among the Korak Indians,' among the Metabele,165 among the Radack166 natives, among the Northern California Indians,107 as especially among the Koniagas of the Hyperboreans.168 While among Eskimo women, it is reported, fidelity is not expected even after marriage when the husband is away from home,169 sexual promiscuity has to reckon with chastity after marriage, especially among women, among the Khyoungtha of the dwellers of the Hill Tracts of Chittagong,170 the Kachins of Upper Burma," the Maoris of New Zealand,172 the Madison Islanders on the Pacific,173 and so on. Among the Toungtha on the Hill Tracts of Chittagong, both husband and wife are chaste after marriage.174 Among the Angami Nagas of Assam, chastity begins with marriage, and conjugal infidelity is exceedingly rare.' 175 187 J. H. Weeks, op. cit., p. 417. Bakongo, pp. 106 ff. Ibid., loc. cit. 171 163 W. G. Sumner, op. cit., p. 96. G. Scott and J. P. Hardiman, op. cit., I, Part I, 407. 17 Edward Shorthand, Tradition and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, p. 120. 178 D. Porter, loc. cit. 176 174 T. H. Lewin, op. cit., p. 77. 'D. Prain, op. cit., p. 492; S. E. Peal, "On the Morong as Possibly a Relic of Pre-Marriage Communism," Jour. Anthr. Inst., XXII, 248. 176 The promiscuous sex practices among the tribes and peoples considered also evidence the presence of social control in the fact of the common group attitudes on the relations to exist between pregnancy and marriage. Most tribes and peoples have organized group attitudes, adverse to extra-wedlock pregnancy and the birth of fatherless children, clearly and cogently specifying that children be born only into family life. Thus the natives of the various tribes of New Guinea consider prenuptial motherhood reprehensible." It is not the custom among them for unmarried girls to have babies." Premarital pregnancy is tabooed among the Trobriand Islanders.178 The fecundity of unmarried girls is highly censured among them.179 A Trobriand youth will surely abandon his girl paramour with whom he may have cohabited for some time and may have lived a more or less exclusive sexual life if she gives birth,180 Illegitimates are rare among the Nagas of Assam.181 Among the Bairo natives, if an unmarried girl becomes pregnant, it is understood that means be taken to produce a miscarriage.182 Among the Masai-and also among the Nandi-natives, an unmarried mother strangles her child as soon as it is born.183 Ibo girls throw their children into the bush,184 and Yukaghir girls must not become pregnant.185 Illegitimates are rare also among the Pangwe natives.188 It is disgraceful for a girl of the Ibo natives of the Awka district to have a child if she does not have a permanent suitor.187 Among the Awemba natives an unmarried pregnant girl "becomes 176 B. Malinowski, "The Psychology of Sex and the Foundation of Kinship in Primitive Societies," in Psyche, IV, 119. 177 Ibid., p. 120. 178 B. Malinowski, "Baloma, Spirits of the Dead in the Trobriand Islands," in Jour. Anthr. Inst., XLIV, 404. 179 B. Malinowski, "The Psychology of Sex, etc.," p. 123. 180 B. Malinowski, "Baloma, Spirits of the Dead, etc.," p. 408. 181 A. W. Davis, op. cit., p. 250. 182 H. H. Johnson, op. cit., II, 610. 180 W. Jochelson, op. cit., p. 68. 186 G. Tessman, op. cit., p. 258. 187 N. W. Thomas, op. cit., p. 69. a byword in the village."188 She is made to walk round the huts, carrying a water-pot on her head, running the gauntlet of the older women.189 Unmarried girls among the Ibo natives of the Awka district avoid pregnancy before they have had their characteristic initiation body-marks cut.190 Should the promiscuous sexual relations among the boys and girls of the Ila-speaking peoples result in the pregnancy of one of the girls before she has gone through the pubertal initiation ceremony, she is considered to have conceived a "monstrosity." The man, if discovered, is then fined, the girl punished in some way, sometimes even being exposed to death,191 and the child killed as soon as it is born.192 In some of the foregoing tribes, however-as is the case among the Nagas of Assam 193-among the Tipperahs of the dwellers on the Hill Tracts of Chittagong10* and among the Ibo-speaking peoples of the Awaka natives,195 pregnancy on the part of an unmarried girl merely leads to her marriage.' 196 Nor can it be said that the boys and girls among these tribes have no socially required and individually exampled modesty, sentiments of propriety,197 and so on, in their sexual life. The fact is clearly that the form that the modesty takes is set by the group in which the boys and girls live. The particular decorum of these young people demonstrates unmistakably how entrenched 198 is the 189 Ibid. 188 G. Gouldsbury and H. Sheane, op. cit., p. 157. 180 N. W. Thomas, op. cit., p. 69. 199 Ibid. 191 E. W. Smith and A. M. Dale, op. cit., II, 39. 193 S. E. Peal, op. cit., p. 248. 194 T. H. Lewin, op. cit., p. 80. 196 'N. W. Thomas, loc. cit. 196 J. Roscoe, op. cit., p. 281; H. S. Stannus, op. cit., p. 312; J. H. Weeks, Among the Primitive Bakongo, p. 108; W. G. Sumner, "The Yakuts,” in Jour. Anthr. Inst., XXXI, 97; W. Munzinger, op. cit., p. 524; L. M. Turner, op. cit., p. 189; M. Buch, op. cit., p. 45. 197 Cf. J. Kubary, op. cit., p. 252; W. G. Sumner, op. cit., p. 96; Otto von Kotzebue, op. cit., p. 172; W. Mariner, op. cit., p. 177. 198 This subject is considered in somewhat greater detail in the completed essay referred to above. control of the group over the individuals constituting it. Thus, though what might be called the attire of Trobriand women is much too scanty to satisfy our notions of decency in dress, and, in addition, notwithstanding the fact that, according to their notions of propriety, they need have no special way of dressing during the menstrual period, and have no particular modesty between the sexes on that subject,' 199 it is said that no one of them will ever strip in the presence of another; 200 the girls, it is reported, "even when most desirous that a young man should have connection with them, never make the least attempt to incite by exposure. No Melanesian man, similarly, will be so indelicate as ever to take off his perineal bandage, even when bathing.202 Neither sex of the North Queensland natives will exhibit their fundaments,203 a woman with a specially enlarged clitoris doing her best to hide it.201 Among the same natives a young girl will invariably wear a small apron-belt which she will discard only after sufficient pubic hairs have grown, which, in her group way of thinking, serves the purpose adequately." 205 99201 The various native peoples considered have, thus, even in their "free" sex conduct, definitely characteristic group ideas of decency, propriety, and so on. Moreover, it is reported that a breach of these ingrained habits of thought and action is sure to constitute disappointment, insult, or outrage, inviting, to say the least, illwill, contempt, derision, disgrace, and antagonistic feeling. The following may serve as examples of these. Mortlock Islanders consider it very indelicate for one even to mention the names of the sexual organs, or the navel, the abdomen, and so on.206 A Mortlock native, especially if a woman is present, will, accordingly, blush at such indecencies of behavior on the part of a white man, and even 199 B. Malinowski, "The Psychology of Sex and the Foundation of Kinship," in Psyche, IV, 104. 205 203 W. E. Roth, op. cit., p. 7. 204 Ibid. W. E. Roth interprets the wearing of the apron, etc., in this way, loc. cit. 206 J. Kubary, op. cit., p. 252. despise him for indulging in them.207 In the eyes of the Ba-ilaspeaking peoples it is strictly tonda, or taboo, for the father of a girl to protect his daughter in her sex life. If he did, he would be vilified, and people would say, "He makes his child his wife."208 The Mailu natives on the seaboard of Cape Rodney, British New Guinea, in contrast to other Melanesian natives209 and other peoples210 do not allow a stranger to approach their women.2 Among them a white man can neither win the favors of a girl,212 nor, if insistent in his desire he should continue in his attempt, escape the wrath of a native man." 213 211 The invariable presence of social control in the promiscuous sexual practices among the tribes and peoples being considered is seen further in the presence among many of them of characteristically tribal forms of courtship. Cohabitation, in even a "free" system of sexual living, must, among men, have some preliminary mode of choice or selection of partners. And this distinctly mental phase, like all the mental life of men, shows the invariable presence of social factors. Choosing a partner for the night is thus not altogether a privately individual matter among these tribes. It is among some of them a rather elaborate group affair. Among the Trobriand Islanders this is often done, according to Dr. Malinowski, through "ceremonial arrangements"214 in which the girls of the village, decorated peculiarly according to the characteristically tribal mode,215 repair in a body216 to some other place217 to enter upon a sexual spree. And when there, "they publicly range themselves for inspection, 207 J. Kubary, loc. cit. 211 B. Malinowski, “The Natives of Mailu," in Trans. Roy. Soc. So. Australia, XXXIX, 559. |