Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/115

Rh on the members of the wife's family: for they have to contribute substantially towards the maintenance of the new household. Instead of having to buy his wife, the man receives a dowry, often relatively as tempting as that of a modern European or American heiress. This fact makes marriage among the Trobrianders a pivot in the constitution of tribal power, and in the whole economic system; a pivot, indeed, in almost every institution. Moreover, as far as our ethnological records go, it sets aside their marriage customs as unique among those of savage communities.

Another feature of Trobriand marriage which is of supreme importance to the sociologist is the custom of infant betrothal. This is associated with cross-cousin marriage, and will be seen to have interesting implications and consequences.

The gradual strengthening of the bonds between two partners in a liaison, and the tendency to marry displayed at a certain stage of their mutual life in the bukumatula, have already been described in the foregoing chapter. We have seen how a couple who have lived together for a time and found that they want to marry, as it were advertise this fact by sleeping together regularly, by showing themselves together in public, and by remaining with each other for long periods at a time.

Now this gradual ripening of the desire for marriage Rh