Page:The evolution of marriage and of the family ... (IA evolutionofmarri00letorich).pdf/68

 *sidered as a compensation to the community for damage to its ancient rights.

Admitting that the jus primæ noctis of relatives and friends does not imply simple polyandry, it may very naturally be explained by primitive laxity of morals. Among the greater number of peoples who are very slightly or not at all civilised, the women are free to give or sell themselves before marriage as they please, and as it does not entail any disgrace, they use the liberty largely. Besides, in many countries the husband had, or still has, over his wife or wives all the rights of a proprietor over the thing possessed. Now, considering he is a stranger to all modesty and sexual restraint, nothing seems more natural, if he has some instinct of sociability, than to lend his wife to his friends, just as he would do them an act of politeness, make them a present, or invite them to a feast, all without thinking any evil. This view of the practice is supported by many facts.

Doubtless it is the great sexual licence accorded to young girls in so many countries which has led many observers and travellers to conclude that promiscuity has been systematically established. In Australia the girls cohabit from the age of ten with young boys of fourteen or fifteen, without rebuke from any one, and there are even great sexual orgies in which the signal is given to the young people for liberty to unite freely in open day.

In the greater number of savage countries these customs are common. At Nouka-Hiva, or more generally all over Polynesia, the young girls did not marry, that is to say, did not become the chattel of a man, before the age of nineteen or twenty, and until then they contracted a great number of capricious unions, which became lasting only in case of the birth of children.

In all these islands, moreover, modesty was unknown, and the members of each family passed the night side by side on mats, and entirely naked. The place of honour, in the centre, was occupied by the master of the house, flanked by his wife or wives.