Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/66



ideas of the native concerning kinship and descent, with their assertion of the mother's exclusive part in propagation; the position of woman within the household, and her considerable share in economic life: these imply that woman plays an influential role in the community, and that her status cannot be low or unimportant. In this section it will be necessary to consider her legal status and her position in the tribe; that is, her rank, her power, and her social independence of man.

In the first section of the previous chapter we have discussed the kinship ideas of the natives, founded on the matrilineal principle that everything descends through the mother. We have also seen that the real guardianship of her family remains not with herself, but with her brother. This can be generalized into the formula that, in each generation, woman continues the line and man represents it; or, in other words, that the power and functions which belong to a family are vested in the men of each generation, though they have to be transmitted by the women.

Let us examine some of the consequences of this principle. For the continuation and very existence of the Rh