Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/131

Rh which will subsequently obtain for the whole duration of the marriage: that the girl's family provide the newly established household with food, being occasionally repaid with valuables. The small initial gifts (1, 2, and 3), express the consent of the girl's family, and are a sort of earnest of their future and more considerable contributions. The return offering of food (4), made immediately by the boy's family, is a characteristically Trobriand answer to a compliment. And the only really substantial gifts from the bridegroom's family to the bride's (5, or 8, or both) exert a definitely binding force on the husband, for if the marriage be dissolved, he does not recover them save in exceptional cases. They are about equivalent in value to all the other first year's gifts put together. But this present from the husband must emphatically not be considered as purchase money for the bride. This idea is utterly opposed both to the native point of view and to the facts of the case. Marriage is meant to confer substantial material benefits on the man. These he repays at rare intervals with a gift of valuables, and it is such a gift that he has to offer at the moment of marriage. It is an anticipation of the benefits to follow, and by no means a price paid for the bride.

It may be mentioned that not all of this series of gifts are equally indispensable. Of the first three, only one (either 1 or 2) must be given at all costs. Of the rest, 6 and 7 are never omitted, while either 5 or 8 is absolutely obligatory.

It is necessary, as I have already said, to enter into such minute details as these if we would approximate Rh