1464 



HORMONAL REGULATION OF BEHAVIOR 



One widespread solution of this delay in 

 maturation is the relative isolation of small 

 boys from the age of 6 to puberty from their 

 parents and from female children of their 

 own age. The boys play in gangs, and what 

 sexual play exists will be with a same-sex 

 partner or will take some form of group 

 auto-eroticism and exhibitionism, often with 

 a strong emphasis on horseplay and rough- 

 house (Manus, Bali, Samoa, Mead, 1949b). 

 The separation of this group from the un- 

 attainable adult females, the dangerous 

 adult male rivals, and the unsatisfactory 

 and usually slightly more precocious fe- 

 males of the same age is frequently empha- 

 sized by the young males' unkemptness, 

 their refusal to wash or observe social forms 

 of etiquette (Bali, Bateson and Mead, 1942; 

 Mead, 1949b). They form a slightly outlaw 

 society within a society, which, significantly 

 enough, is the very type of society in which 

 very young males are able to function al- 

 most like adults (Balint, 1952). Another 

 solution is the insistence that the adult male 

 curb all expression of hostile rivalry toward 

 the son or nephew, as among the Arapesh 

 who move about in small family groups 

 which often contain only one boy of this age 

 (Mead, 1935). Sometimes two methods of 

 control are found together, as in large lat- 

 mul villages (Mead, 1939b I, where the 

 small boys spend a good deal of time as a 

 play group (away from the older men into 

 whose activities they have not yet been 

 initiated) mimicking social activities which 

 involve sex play with slightly older girls. 

 But also a certain constraint on a father's 

 relationship to his son, particularly his old- 

 est son, is imposed by elaborate etiquette. 

 A father may not, for instance, take drink- 

 ing water from the river forward of the 

 place in the canoe where his small son is 

 sitting. Among the Mundugumor (Mead, 

 1935), father and son do not belong to the 

 same kinship "rope," nor does a boy belong 

 to that of his maternal vmcle, and relations 

 between own brothers are stiff and formal. ^^ 



Human societies, therefore, deal in a va- 

 riety of ways with this "latency" period in 

 boys: isolation into groups, stylized sex 

 play, relationships to adults which are sat- 



^'The Mimdgugumor "rope" is a descent line 

 with change of sex in each generation. See above. 



isfying but are also designed to prevent 

 competition, introduction of strong controls 

 into the rivalry behavior of adult males or 

 of systems of etiquette which prevent open 

 conflict. 



For females, the problem is rather differ- 

 ent. The human female is unique among 

 higher mammals in having a hymen (Ford 

 and Beach, 1951 ) , and the hymen itself may 

 be regarded as discouraging complete sex 

 relations with immature males incapable of 

 rupturing it or as making first intercourse 

 for the female sufficiently conspicuous and 

 recognizable so that social regulation is 

 possible. There is the additional complica- 

 tion that the hymen is highly variable. In 

 some females, it is unrecognizable; in many, 

 it can be ruptured by physical exercise of 

 various sorts; in a few, it is so tough that 

 rupture can be accomplished only by a 

 surgical operation. It is possible that this 

 variation may actually have a survival 

 value, the possible presence of a hymen that 

 is thick and painful to rupture acting as a 

 social deterrent on the precocious, at the 

 same time that the relative ease of first in- 

 tercourse, in most cases, prevents the estab- 

 lishment of too much fear in either sex. 



Human societies have institutionalized 

 the hymen in many ways. Some identify 

 the bleeding of menstruation with the bleed- 

 ing from the rupture of the hymen, so that 

 menstruation is regarded as being due to 

 intercourse (Manus, Mead, 1930; Lepcha, 

 Gorer, 1938) . In societies wiiere sexuality 

 is actively valued, older women may stretch 

 the hymen and distend the labia of little 

 girls, or train little girls to do so. Attempts 

 at preservation of an intact hymen so that 

 the tokens of virginity can be ceremonially 

 taken at marriage or so that officiating rel- 

 atives can verify the virginity is also wide- 

 spread (Westermarck, 1921). 



The existence of the hymen does, how- 

 ever, give a clue as to the functional value 

 of prolonging the childhood period well be- 

 yond puberty, although there is a strong 

 suggestion that a second, and possibly a sec- 

 ondary, control has been introduced in the 

 form of a postpubertal female sterility 

 (summarized in Montagu, 1957). Ability to 

 conceive does not follow directly after the 

 menarche, although many societies permit 

 sex relations to begin, or even insist on mar- 



