MARITAL JEALOUSY 103 



due the social order enjoyed by the foremost nations 

 of Europe and America. We have now to consider 

 conditions in which the sense of ownership if not 

 absent is imperfect or developed in a manner diver- 

 gent from ours, jealousy operates feebly or within 

 limits, and chastity is not yet a virtue. Cases of sexual 

 liberty before marriage or during widowhood will not 

 as a rule detain us. 



One of the most striking examples is that of the 

 Sia. So little do they exhibit what we are accustomed 

 to regard as the ordinary feelings on sexual relations 

 that, as noted in the previous chapter, it is suggested 

 that the danger of extinction has caused a general 

 dissolution of manners. The disappearance of fifteen 

 clans out of twenty-one which formerly constituted the 

 tribe, and the reduction of three of the remaining six 

 each to a single member, a man advanced in years, 

 while one of the other clans is limited to a single 

 family, has undoubtedly broken down the rule of 

 exogamy. Whether the same cause has operated to 

 produce the state of things about to be described the 

 reader will be in a better position to judge after the 

 customs of some other peoples have been examined. 

 " Though the Sia," we are told, "are monogamists, it 

 is common for the married as well as the unmarried to 

 live promiscuously with one another, the husband 

 being as fond of his wife J s children as if he were sure 

 of his paternal parentage. That these people how- 

 ever have their share of latent jealousy is evident 

 from the secrecy observed on the part of a married 

 man or woman to prevent the anger of the spouse. 

 Parents are quite as fond of their daughter's illegiti- 

 mate offspring as if they had been bQrn in wedlock j- 



