Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/274



We must now return to certain aspects of love-making, which had to be left out or barely touched upon in relating the life history of the native. The facts described in chapter iii have shown us that, subject to certain restrictions, everyone has a great deal of freedom and many opportunities for sexual experience. Not only need no one live with impulses unsatisfied, but there is also a wide range of choice and opportunity.

But wide as are the opportunities of ordinary love-making for a Trobriander, they do not exhaust all the possibilities of erotic life. In addition, seasonal changes in village life and festive gatherings stimulate sexual interest and provide for its satisfaction. Such occasions, as a rule, lead to intrigues beyond the limits of the village community; they loosen old ties and establish new acquaintanceships; they bring about short passionate affairs, which sometimes develop into more stable attachments.

Traditional usage allows, and even encourages, such extensions of ordinary erotic life. And yet we shall see that, though countenanced by custom and public opinion, they are felt to be an excess, to be something anomalous. Usually they produce a reaction, not in the community as a whole, but in the individuals offended by them. Rh