272 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



marrying two years before reaching puberty," and as 

 we have seen they are not prolific. 1 The Creeks were 

 a polygamous people. Every man took as many 

 wives as he chose ; but they were only married for a 

 year, the relation being renewable at the end of that 

 time by the will of the parties. It was common for a 

 man of position who had already half a dozen wives to 

 marry a child of eight or nine years of age, if he found 

 one who pleased him and with whose family he could 

 arrange the matter. Since she entered his house on 

 marriage consummation presumably followed without 

 delay. 2 In one of the Bororo villages in Central 

 Brazil girls of eight and ten years were found already 

 married. There is some reason to think this an 

 exceptional case, due to the scarcity of women. It 

 shows however that there was no invincible re- 

 pugnance to such early unions. 3 Among the Guatos 

 about the confluence of the San Louren9o and the 

 Paraguay rivers it is the practice to marry girls of from 

 five to eight years, or at least to buy them from their 

 parents. A traveller quoted by Ploss was witness to 

 actual intercourse in one such case, while in every 

 camp little girls were to all appearance thus used. 4 



Thus without prolonging the list it would appear 

 that sexual intercourse before puberty is either fully 

 recognised by a formal marriage or tolerated as the 

 gratification of a natural instinct among a great variety 

 of peoples in all quarters of the world. The acts of 

 coition in such cases would not merely be unproductive 

 of children, they would, as noted by several observers 



1 Mrs. Stevenson, Rep. Bur. Ethn. xxiii. 303. 



2 Bartram, 513. 3 von den Steinen, 501. 

 4 Ploss, i. 399, citing vaguely Rohde. 



