8 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



as a permanent, privileged guest. Ultimately, among 

 some peoples he succeeds to the headship of the house- 

 hold ; more often he is allowed to remove his wife and 

 children to his own dwelling. 



Before proceeding to illustrate this process it may 

 be observed that the story of Cupid and Psyche is 

 founded on the custom by which a husband visits his 

 wife only in secret and by night. Breach of the taboo 

 results in separation and a series of adventures ending 

 in the open and permanent union of the lovers. 

 Variants of the story are found all over the eastern 

 continent and are not unknown on the western. I 

 do not propose to examine them now. I only wish to 

 refer to them in general terms as evidence of the wide 

 extension of the custom of secret relations between 

 husband and wife. For though tales may travel very 

 far from their place of origin, they are unlikely to 

 obtain any great popularity still less to root them- 

 selves in the form of sagas, as many of these stories 

 have done, among widely sundered peoples unless 

 they are in some measure consonant with custom and 

 therefore capable of being understood in their essential 

 details. 



I have already mentioned the matrimonial arrange- 

 ments of the Nayars of South Malabar. Among 

 other examples in the Indian Empire may be cited the 

 Syntengs of the Jaintia Hills in Assam. The Synteng 

 husband visits his wife at her mother's house. " In 

 Jowai," says Major Gurdon, " some people admitted 

 to me that the husband came to his mother-in-law's 

 house only after dark, and that he did not eat, smoke, 

 or even partake of betel-nut there, the idea being that 

 because none of his earnings go to support this house, 



