Page:The evolution of marriage and of the family ... (IA evolutionofmarri00letorich).pdf/78

 "Virtue," says Porter, "such as we understand it, was unknown among them, and they attached no shame to acts which they regarded not only as natural, but as an inoffensive amusement. Many parents thought themselves honoured by the preference given to their daughters, and showed their satisfaction by presents of pigs and fruits, which, on their part, was an extreme of munificence."

In Polynesia public opinion forbade married women to yield themselves without the authorisation of their owners, and this was almost the only strict rule of morals existing; but the husbands trafficked in their wives without scruple. "Tawee," says Porter, "was one of the handsomest men of the island, and loved to adorn his person; a bit of red stuff, some morsels of glass, or a whale's tooth, had irresistible charms for him, and in order to procure these objects he would offer any of the most precious things he possessed. Thus, though his wife was of remarkable beauty, and he was the tenderest of husbands, Tawee offered his wife more than once for a necklace."

To offer a woman to a visitor to whom one would do honour was, for that matter, a simple act of courtesy in Polynesia, and the same courtesy prescribed the immediate acceptance of the offer, coram populo (Bougainville). It was frequently his own wife that the husband thus gave up to his guest, and the case of Porter, which I have just quoted, had nothing exceptional in it. A similar thing happened to Captain Beechey, and to many other travellers. This conjugal liberality was one of the customs of the country; the friend, or tayo, acquired conjugal rights over the wife or wives of his friend. Between brothers and relations the exchange of wives was frequent, to such a degree that at Toubouai, etc., Moerenhout tells us the women were nearly held in common, and that in the Marquesas a woman had sometimes as many as twenty lovers.

For the Polynesians the pleasures of sensual love were the chief business of life; they neither saw evil nor practised