Page:Margaret Mead - Coming of age in Samoa; a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation.pdf/179

 child of her age, but Fitu felt that their mother and their home were unusual and demanded more than the average service and devotion. She and her mother were like a pair of comrades, and Fitu bossed and joked with her mother in a fashion shocking to all Samoan onlookers. If Fitu was away at night, her mother went herself to look for her, instead of sending another child. Fitu was the eldest daughter, with a precocity bred of responsibility and an efficiency which was the direct outcome of her mother's laissez-faire attitude. Ula showed equally clearly the effect of being the prettier younger sister, trading upon her superior attractiveness and more meagre sense of duty. These children, as did the children in all three of the biological families in the three villages, showed more character, more sharply defined personality, greater precocity and a more personal, more highly charged attitude towards their parents.

It would be easy to lay too much stress on the differences between children in large households and children in small ones. There were, of course, too few cases to draw any final conclusions. But the small family in Samoa did demand from the child the very qualities which were frowned upon in Samoan society, based upon the ideal of great households in which there were many youthful labourers who knew their place. And in these small families where responsibility and initiative were necessary, the children seemed to develop