Page:Margaret Mead - Coming of age in Samoa; a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation.pdf/100

 ally also a relative) as his companion and the experience shared binds them closer together. There were several pairs of boys in the village who had been circumcised together and were still inseparable companions, often sleeping together in the house of one of them. Casual homosexual practices occurred in such relationships. However, when the friendships of grown boys of the village were analysed, no close correspondence with the adolescent allegiance was found and older boys were as often found in groups of three or four as in pairs.

When a boy is two or three years past puberty, his choice of a companion is influenced by the convention that a young man seldom speaks for himself in love and never in a proposal of marriage. He accordingly needs a friend of about his age whom he can trust to sing his praises and press his suit with requisite fervour and discretion. For this office, a relative, or, if the affair be desperate, several relatives are employed. A youth is influenced in his choice by his need of an ambassador who is not only trustworthy and devoted but plausible and insinuating as a procurer. This soa relationship is often, but not necessarily, reciprocal. The expert in love comes in time to dispense with the services of an intermediary, wishing to taste to the full the sweets of all the stages in courtship. At the same time his services are much in demand by others, if they entertain any hope at all of his dealing honourably by his principal.