PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



hat-choosing festival." The name is derived from the 

 custom that a man may during the feast carry off the 

 cap of any girl or woman he meets in the temple 

 grounds, and she is obliged to come at night and 

 redeem the pledge. " Chinese are not admitted to 

 play at this game of forfeits, nor are they allowed any 

 of the privileges of this/tie d? amour" * 



Among the Maoris antenuptial intercourse was very 

 common. "As a general rule the girls had great 

 licence in the way of lovers. I don't think," says a 

 well-qualified observer, " the young woman knew 

 when she was a virgin, for she had love-affairs with 

 the boys from her cradle. This does not apply of 

 course to every individual case some girls are born 

 proud, and either kept to one sweetheart or had none, 

 but this was rare. When she married it became very 

 different ; she was then tapu to her husband, and woe 



1 Rockhill, 80. It may be well to mention here the customs of 

 certain Chinese provinces and dependencies recorded by Marco 

 Polo. In Poim where the people were Mohammedans, when the 

 husband left home on a journey for twenty days the wife at once 

 found another man with whom she lived until her husband came 

 home. In Camul if a stranger came the master of the house went 

 away, charging his wife to be complaisant in all things to their guest. 

 The Great Khan tried to abolish this custom, but the people were 

 too much attached to it. They sent ambassadors representing that 

 it was the custom of their fathers, that it was pleasing to [their idols 

 and that they wished to adhere to it. The Great Khan had to give 

 way. In Chelet men would not marry virgins. Mothers used to 

 offer their daughters to strangers, who kept them as long as they 

 pleased and then sent them away with a gift or token. This token 

 was worn round the neck ; and the more of such tokens a girl had, 

 the sooner she was married and the more her husband thought of 

 her. In Caindu the same custom was followed as that attributed 

 above to Camul. Finally in the city of Lazi it was a matter of 

 indifference to the men if other men slept with their wives (Marco 

 Polo, cc. 41, 45, 85, 86, 87). 



