Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/159

Rh to leave her husband; or, in the last quoted incident, to return to him. In each, she was evidently prevented from adopting this easy solution by some strong attachment, or by amour propre and a sense of personal honour. Death was preferable to life in the village where she had been dishonoured, preferable too to life in any other village. It was unbearable to live with the man, and impossible to live without him, a state of mind which, though it might seem incredible among savages whose sexual life is so easy and carnal, yet can exercise real influence on their married life.

We now come to the most remarkable and, one might say, sociologically sensational feature of Trobriand marriage. It is so important that I have already had to anticipate my statement of it several times. Marriage puts the wife's family under a permanent tributary obligation to the husband, to whom they have to pay yearly contributions for as long as the household exists. From the moment when they signify by the first gift that they accept the marriage, they have to produce, year after year by their own labour, a quantity of yams for their kinswoman's family. The size of the offering varies with the status of both partners, but covers about half the annual consumption in an average household.

When, after their "honeymoon" in the boy's parental house, the couple set up for themselves, they have to erect a yam-store as well as a dwelling-hut, and the former, Rh