Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/152

Rh people in Oburaku frequently indulged in lengthy quarrels, to such a degree that the matter became a serious nuisance to me and disturbed my field-work. As their hut was next door to my tent, I could hear all their domestic differences — it almost made me forget that I was among savages and imagine myself back among civilized people. Morovato, a reliable informant and friend of mine, was ordered about by his wife and badly henpecked, and I could cite perhaps one more really unfortunate marriage in Sinaketa. That there are fewer matches in which the man, and not the woman, is the aggressor in the quarrel is probably due to the fact that it is a rather more serious loss to a man to break up a good home than it is to a woman (see next chapter). A couple living in Liluta used to have difficulties owing to the man's aggressive and jealous temper. Once, when he scolded and ill-treated his wife very brutally for making kula (ceremonial exchange) of aromatic wreaths of the butia flower with another man, she went away to her own village. I saw an embassy of several men come from the husband to the wife, bringing her reconciliation presents (lula). This was the only case of wife-beating which actually occurred during my stay in Kiriwina, and it was done in a fit of jealousy.

Jealousy, with or without adequate reason, and adultery are the two factors in tribal life which put most strain on the marriage tie. In law, custom and public opinion, Rh