Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/148

Rh " under the parental roof. This must seem a most unsatisfactory state of affairs to the European reader. But he must avoid drawing too close a parallel to our own conditions. The young people have left the passionate stages of their life together behind them in the bukumatula, and the initial months of matrimony, on which they now enter, are not of predominantly sexual interest to them. Now it is the change in their social status, and the alteration which their relations undergo, both towards their own families and towards the other people in the village, which mainly preoccupy them.

Although there is no definite sexual taboo at this time, the newly wedded couple probably think less of lovemaking during the stage which corresponds to our honeymoon than they have done for a long time previously. I have heard this statement volunteered: "We feel ashamed in the house of our mother and father. In the bukumatula a man has intercourse with his sweetheart before they marry. Afterwards they sleep on the same bunk in the parental house, but they do not take off their garments." The young couple suffer from the embarrassment of new conditions. The earlier nights of marriage are a natural period of abstinence. When the pair move on to their own hut, they may or may not share the same bunk; there seems to be no rule in this matter. Some of my native authorities specifically informed me that married couples always sleep in the same bed at first, but later on they separate and come together only for intercourse. I suspect, however Rh