Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/166

Rh and morality, works with a will. When his sister's husband is a man of higher rank than himself, then all the weight of the latter's prestige is added to the stimulus of ambition; and if the husband is of a rank lower than himself, then the sister's status must be the more enhanced. In short, the sense of what is right, the pressure of public opinion, and inequalities of rank in either direction, produce strong psychological incentives which only in very rare and exceptional cases fail in their effect.

From the point of view of tribal economy, this system of annual marriage endowment introduces extraordinary elements of complication: there is all the additional work associated with display and ceremonial offering; there is the sorting, cleaning, and arrangement of the heaps; there is the building of an arbour. In addition there is the work of transport, which is sometimes very considerable; for a man has to make his garden in the place where he lives and to transport the produce to his brother-in-law's village, perhaps six or eight miles away at the other end of the district. Sometimes, where the distance is exceptionally great, a few hundred basketfuls of yams have to be carried in relays to a coastal village, transported thence by canoe, and afterwards carried again. It is easy to see the enormous amount of waste involved in all this. But if a benevolent white reformer, and there are, alas, many such at work even in the Trobriands, tried to break down the native system, the good would be very doubtful and the harm most certain. In general, the destruction of any tribal custom is subversive of order and morals. And Rh