Page:Margaret Mead - Coming of age in Samoa; a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation.pdf/269

 quiring leisure; where every household produces its own food and clothes and furniture, where there is no large amount of fixed capital and households of high rank are simply characterised by greater industry in the discharge of greater obligations, our whole picture of saving, of investment, of deferred enjoyment, is completely absent. (There is even a lack of clearly defined seasons of harvest, which would result in special abundance of food and consequent feasting. Food is always abundant, except in some particular village where a few weeks of scarcity may follow a period of lavish entertaining.) Rather, work is something which goes on all the time for every one; no one is exempt; few are overworked. There is social reward for the industrious, social toleration for the man who does barely enough. And there is always leisure—leisure, be it noted, which is not the result of hard work or accumulated capital at all, but is merely the result of a kindly climate, a small population, a well-integrated social system, and no social demands for spectacular expenditure. And play is what one does with the time left over from working, a way of filling in the wide spaces in a structure of unirksome work.

Play includes dancing, singing, games, weaving necklaces of flowers, flirting, repartee, all forms of sex activity. And there are social institutions like the ceremonial inter-village visit which partake of both work and play. But the distinctions between work as something one has to do but dislikes, and play as something