MARITAL JEALOUSY 177 



afterwards during the marriage primary husbands. 

 In the same way all the husband's brothers were 

 secondary husbands of the wife and had corresponding 

 privileges. Polygyny and polyandry thus coexisted. 

 Nor were they limited to the brothers and sisters of 

 the consort. The husband had a right to provide 

 himself with other secondary wives. The population, 

 as might be expected from some of the practices 

 mentioned, was not very prolific ; and children were 

 greatly in request, especially by the chiefs. In order 

 to obtain offspring, a pregnant woman would some- 

 times be carried off, probably with the consent of 

 herself and her husband, who followed her and became 

 a secondary, instead of a principal, husband to her. 

 The principal wife in her turn could also take a 

 secondary husband ; and this was done in effect when- 

 ever she desired it. Well might it have been believed 

 by Europeans that marriage did not exist in the 

 Marquesas. As if this were not enough, there was 

 also a class of women who instead of marrying kept 

 open house, and had the right of calling in any man 

 who happened to pass without his being able to refuse. 

 They were by no means a despised class, and it only 

 depended upon their volition to marry any man who 

 pleased them. 1 



On the island of Yap, one of the Pelew Islands, 

 agnatic kinship prevails. Yet continence is not 

 required of man or woman. After the first menstrua- 

 tion sexual intercourse is free to every girl, and a 



I Tautain, L'Anthrop. vi. 641 sqq. The revolting and almost 

 incredible details given by Dr. Tautain of the marriage ceremony 

 led, as he himself remarks, to physical disorders, which must have 

 had a detrimental influence on the fertility of the population ; but 

 he is of opinion that it was not naturally prolific (Id. ix. 420). 



II M 



