PHYSIOLOGICAL IGNORANCE 261 



her previous playfellows. The object of doing so 

 however is rather to secure her instruction in her 

 duties as house-wife than to prevent accidents arising 

 from sexual indulgence, for she is quite free to sleep in 

 a small separate hut and there to receive her lovers at 

 night. She is speedily married, and the husband 

 troubles very little about her previous life : girls are 

 said to be few, and there is not much choice. 1 The 

 same want of women is felt on the Gazelle Peninsula 

 in the Bismarck Archipelago. To secure a girl the 

 bride-price is paid for her while she is still a child. 

 As soon as she is a little bigger she is delivered over 

 to her husband, and whether she has reached maturity 

 or not is quite unimportant. 2 In the New Hebrides 

 on the island of Malekula there seems to be no 

 betrothal, but girls are married when about six or eight 

 years of age. 3 In New Caledonia little regard is paid 

 to virginity : a girl loses it in playing about at a very 

 early age. 4 On the Murray Islands, Torres Straits, 

 " absence of the menstrual function was not considered 

 a hindrance to marriage." 5 Across the Straits in 

 Queensland it is the rule in at least all the northern 

 tribes that a little girl may be given to and will live 

 with her spouse long before she reaches the age of 

 puberty. Outside formal marriage the elder men may in 

 some tribes tamper with young girls of the proper 



1 Kohler, Zeits. vergl. Rechtsw. xiv. 345, quoting report of a 

 missionary. 



2 Meier, Anthropos, ii. 380. A similar report is given by a 

 missionary writing about the New Britain group in general terms and 

 giving instances within his own knowledge (/. A. I. xviii. 288). 



3 Rep. Austr. Ass. iv. 704. 



4 Ploss, op. cit. i. 309. 

 ^ J. A. I. xviii. 1 1 . 



