Page:Margaret Mead - Coming of age in Samoa; a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation.pdf/284

 marriage-home-and-children plan of life versus inde-pendent spinsterhood by permitting marriages without children, earlier marriages, marriages and careers, sex relations without marriage and the responsibility of a home. And because the majority of girls still wish to marry and regard their occupations as stop-gaps, these problems not only influence their attitude towards men, but also their attitude towards their work, and prevent them from having a sustained interest in the work which they are forced to do.

Then we must add to the difficulties inherent in a new economic status and the necessity of adopting some standard of sex relations, ethical and religious issues to be solved. Here again the home is a powerful factor; the parents use every ounce of emotional pressure to enlist their children in one of the dozen armies of salvation. The stress of the revival meeting, the pressure of pastor and parent gives them no peace. And the basic difficultics of reconciling the teachings of authority with the practices of society and the findings of science, all trouble and perplex children already harassed beyond endurance.

Granting that society presents too many problems to her adolescents, demands too many momentous decisions on a few months' notice, what is to be done about it? One panacea suggested would be to postpone at least some of the decisions, keep the child economically dependent, or segregate her from all contact with the other sex, present her with only one set of religious