104 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



and the man who marries a woman having one or more 

 illegitimate children apparently feels the same attach- 

 ment for these children as for those his wife bears him." 

 Some of the women boast of their relations with men 

 other than their husbands. Young maidens are set 

 up for sale (by no means necessarily for marriage), and 

 are often allotted to married men. Every birth is a 

 subject of rejoicing, especially if a girl, regardless 

 whether it be legitimate or not. 1 It is obvious that no 

 man can be reasonably sure of the paternity of any child 

 borne by his wife. The only thing that either party to 

 the marriage is concerned about is the avoidance of 

 open collision with the other. The actual practice is 

 well understood. Against the Hopis, another of the 

 Pueblo peoples, the dissolution of manners laid to the 

 account of the Sia is not charged. Yet even there, a 

 girl incurs no social penalties for admitting her accepted 

 lover to marital privileges before the formal marriage. 

 Nor will the birth of a child whose father she does not 

 marry in the end prevent her from wedding some one 

 else ; while the child has the same social position and 

 rights as a child lawfully begotten. Moreover the 

 facility of separation allows either husband or wife at 

 will to put an end to the relation and contract a new 

 marriage. 2 If the standard of sexual morality be some- 

 what higher at Zuni the difference is not unconnected 

 with the general advance.in civilisation characteristic of 

 that pueblo as compared with others. 3 



All the Pueblo Indians are matrilineal. Where 



1 Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 20. 2 Supra, p. 75. 



8 Even at Zuni licence is not unknown at the religious festivals, 

 though now frowned upon (Rep. Bur. Ethn. xxiii. 210); and the 

 mythical tales contain at least a trace of polyandry (Gushing, 

 ZuniF. T. 127). 



