Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/141

Rh with his heir, which are, as we have seen, by no means so uniformly friendly and intimate as those with his own son.

The advantages of cross-cousin marriage were put to me from another point of view by Bagido'u, when I asked him why he had wanted his little son Purayasi to marry Kabwaynaya. "I wanted a daughter-in-law who would be my real kinswoman," he said. "I wanted, when I got old, to have someone of my family to look after me; to cook my food; to bring me my lime-pot and lime-stick, to pull out my grey hairs. It is bad to have a stranger to do that. When it is someone of my own people, I am not afraid." His fear was, of course, of sorcery. It should be realized that since marriage is patrilocal, and since the son, in the case of important people, often remains near the father, this latter has good reasons to be interested in his daughter-in-law. Since she is his kinswoman there is yet another justification for his son's residence in the father's community. Thus we are brought back to cross-cousin marriage as the reconciling compromise between the claims of father-love and matriliny. The man may have to rely, in his old age, on the attentions of his son and his son's wife, but neither of them are his real kindred unless the daughter-in-law is also his sister's child. In spite of his personal affection for his son, he prefers to have someone of his own veyola (maternal kindred) about him, and this can only be achieved if the son marries the right cross-cousin, that is the father's sister's daughter or her daughter.

Rh