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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 2 



diets, better health practices, or higher stan- 

 dards of community oi'ganization. Formal 

 education is still not geared to the needs and 

 problems of Cheran life and is and will remain 

 relatively ineffective until it becomes of obvious 

 utility to the average Cheran resident. In 

 other words, until the educational process is 

 conceived of first of all from tlie standpoint of 

 Cheran culture, instead of from the standpoint 

 of national needs or theories, it will not be 

 effective. And when education becomes geared 

 to Cheran needs, paradoxically, it can then be 

 effectively geared to national objectives. 



YOUTH 



The period of youth is very short in Cheran 

 for most persons and there is no clearly defined 

 lower limit to it. Boys seem to be regarded as 

 youths when they are able to do a man's work 

 or to be self-supporting but have not yet mar- 

 ried. Marriage puts a termination to the 

 period, although the young married man may 

 still be under the tutelage of his parents. Still, 

 after marriage a boy will be consulted in all 

 family affairs; before marriage he normally 

 will not be consulted unless he is much older 

 than the age at which most Cheran youths are 

 married. By 15 practically every Cheran 

 youth is either earning his own living in part 

 by working for wages or is working regularly 

 on the family estate, taking a full man's share 

 of the labors. In individual cases this may be 

 true of youths as young as 12. Unmarried 

 youths of 16 to 18 do not spend much of their 

 free time at home ; indeed, they may not even 

 eat at home regularly. They tend to hang 

 around the streets in gangs in their spare time. 

 They spend a good deal of time in one of the 

 two billiard parlors which modern civilization 

 has brought to Cheran, where they may gamble 

 on billiards at 50 centavos a game, or may be 

 drawn into card games, or may begin drinking. 

 However, few of the youngsters go around the 

 saloons very much, nor are many of them prone 

 to drink excessively. In such groups will be 

 concerted many of the "stealings" which are 

 the preliminaries to marriage. At this period 

 boys in general are rather antisocial and 

 appear to have some conflict with their parents. 

 They feel they are growing up very fast and are 

 impressed by the age gap which separates them 



from their parents. In an overheard conversa- 

 tion, two young men commented at length on 

 how fast people got old at their ages, while 

 people over 30 did not seem to age at all. 



The transition for girls is even less clearly 

 defined than that for boys. As girls are some- 

 times married even before their first men- 

 struation, this physiological transition hardly 

 seems to mark a status change. From the age 

 of 6 or 8, girls essentially perform adult labors 

 in assisting their mothers. Youth is essentially 

 a transition to adulthood and marriage. As a 

 general thing, girls are married soon after the 

 first men.struation. 



Informants were agreed that most girls ex- 

 perience the first menses at about 14 years of 

 age; whether this is the ideal age or the actual 

 age could not be determined. No cases of 

 failure to menstruate were known. Menstrual 

 disorders apparently do occur sometimes and 

 the aid of midwives is sought in such cases, but 

 no details could be secured. Men, at least, 

 believe that girls are generally ignorant of the 

 menstrual period until they experience the first 

 occurrence, and this belief coincides with a few 

 statements by women. Some girls are said to 

 be a little depressed or frightened, but the 

 experience is not severe. Mothers explain to 

 their daughters that the phenomenon is per- 

 fectly natural, and girls never become ill. 



The mother always informs her husband 

 when the first menstruation occurs. At this 

 time the father increases his admonitions to 

 his wife to watch over the girl. Careful 

 mothers from now on do not let the girls go 

 alone for water or to church or walk about the 

 streets. Care is taken that girls do not see 

 "bad" things. Well-brought-up girls, in fact, 

 are hardly allowed out of the house until they 

 are married, but if this ideal were really lived 

 up to, it is diflTicult to see how either marriages 

 could be arranged or "stealing" occur. Cheran, 

 though, feels its standards are much above 

 those of other towns and people mention some 

 of La Canada towns, especially Tacura, as 

 being very bad. The latter town is said even 

 to have many cases of sexual relations between 

 father and daughter, which is said never to 

 happen in Cheran. 



Most women early become regular in their 

 menstrual periods. No devices for keeping 



