176 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



There were exceptions, especially among the daughters 

 of persons of rank ; but they were the exceptions and 

 not the rule. In these circumstances we are not 

 surprised to learn that adultery " was sadly prevalent." 

 It is said to have been often punished by private re- 

 venge ; but details are lacking to show how far this 

 was due to sexual jealousy properly so-called, how far 

 it was due to resentment at the invasion of a right of 

 property, and how far public opinion approved the 

 revenge. 1 



On the occasion of marriage in the Marquesas 

 Islands the bride was compelled to undergo public 

 intercourse with all the masculine guests. In the 

 families of chiefs however sometimes marriage was 

 provisionally arranged and entered into between chil- 

 dren, a practice more recently imitated by the class 

 below. In such cases the public ceremony was omitted. 

 The child-wife immediately went to live with her 

 child-husband. On arriving at puberty she was in 

 consequence never found to be a virgin. Notwith- 

 standing this, she withdrew into a special hut erected 

 near her husband's house for the purpose of observing 

 the puberty rites. There she was visited by all the 

 great chiefs of the same, or perhaps a higher rank. 

 After this, if both boy and girl agreed, the marriage 

 became definitive. If they did not agree they were 

 free to separate and marry others ; but in any case the 

 girl's first child was reputed to be that of the husband 

 she had espoused in infancy. From the moment of 

 marriage a man acquired marital rights over all his 

 wife's sisters. They became secondary wives to him, 

 though they might themselves have at that time or 



1 Turner, Samoa, 91, 94, 97. Cf. Rep. Austr. Ass. iv. 626. 



