Page:Margaret Mead - Coming of age in Samoa; a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation.pdf/73

 to whom it is applied are full grown. The younger child in turn expends its enthusiasm upon a still younger one without manifesting any excessive affection for the fostering elders.

The word aiga is used roughly to cover all relationships by blood, marriage and adoption, and the emotional tone seems to be the same in each case. Relationship by marriage is counted only as long as an actual marriage connects two kinship groups. If the marriage is broken in any way, by desertion, divorce, or death, the relationship is dissolved and members of the two families are free to marry each other. If the marriage left any children, a reciprocal relationship exists between the two households as long as the child lives, for the mother’s family will always have to contribute one kind of property, the father’s family another, for occasions when property must be given away in the name of the child.

A relative is regarded as some one upon whom one has a multitude of claims and to whom one owes a multitude of obligations. From a relative one may demand food, clothing, and shelter, or assistance in a feud. Refusal of such a demand brands one as stingy and lacking in human kindness, the virtue most esteemed among the Samoans. No definite repayment is made at the time such services are given, except in the case of the distribution of food to all those who share in a family enterprise. But careful count of the value of the property given and of the service rendered is kept and a