Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/146

Rh it was only after the required rites had been performed that she yielded. The marriage, however, was never completed, for in the end her parents dismissed him as a lazy good-for-nothing. The presents were not returned, for this is not customary when a cross-cousin betrothal is dissolved. We have also seen that the betrothal between Kalogusa and Dabugera never resulted in marriage. But in my opinion both these failures, which are of recent date, were largely due to the subversive influence of the white man on native custom.

In the foregoing sections we have given an account of the various inducements to marriage and of the two modes of contracting it. In the next chapter we shall pass to a description of the phases of wedded life itself, and of the sociological features of marriage as an institution.

Rh