Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/113

Rh In the Trobriands two people about to be married must never have a meal in common. Such an act would greatly shock the moral susceptibility of a native, as well as his sense of propriety. To take a girl out to dinner without having previously married her — a thing permitted in Europe — would be to disgrace her in the eyes of a Trobriander. We object to an unmarried girl sharing a man's bed — the Trobriander would object just as strongly to her sharing his meal. The boys never eat within, or in front of, the bukumatula, but always join their parents or other relatives at every meal.

The institution of the bukumatula is, therefore, characterized by: (i) individual appropriation, the partners of each couple belonging exclusively to one another; (2) strict decorum and absence of any orgiastic or lascivious display; (3) the lack of any legally binding element; (4) the exclusion of any other community of interest between a pair, save that of sexual cohabitation. Having described the liaisons which lead directly to marriage, we end our survey of the various stages of sexual life previous to wedlock. But we have not exhausted the subject — we have simply traced the normal course of sexuality and that in its main outlines only. We have yet to consider those licensed orgies to which reference has already been made, to go more deeply into the technique and psychology of love-making, to examine certain sexual taboos, and to glance at erotic myth and folk-lore. But before we deal with these subjects, it will be best to carry our descriptive narrative to its logical conclusion — marriage. Rh