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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 2 



occasionally. Payment, usually 50 centavos, is 

 given to the girls prostituting themselves, part 

 of which is given to the woman who lends her 

 house for the purpose and arranges the meeting. 



Despite the existence of prostitution, it is 

 claimed that most young people before marriage 

 have no sexual experience. Girls particularly 

 are believed to be relatively innocent, although 

 obviously all have knowledge of the nature of 

 the sexual act in a setting as full of animals as 

 is Cheran. Boys are believed to be somewhat 

 more sophisticated because, even though they 

 may not have visited houses of prostitution, 

 details are talked about among them. After 

 marriage, aside from the prohibitions on inter- 

 course during pregnancy and confinement and 

 during menstruation, there are no restrictions 

 on sexual relations between husband and wife. 

 There seem to be no ideas about a fixed interval 

 or ideal interval between sexual relations and 

 informants thought relations were "frequent" 

 but would not suggest any time periods. In 

 general, the subject of sex relations proved 

 embarrassing and informants seemed purposely 

 to avoid definite statements. 



The customary preliminary to marriage is 

 for the groom to "steal" (robar-) his bride. 

 Virtually everyone of the older and the more 

 articulate men in town deprecate the custom 

 and many assert that it is a recent develop- 

 ment. Nevertheless, no one could name a time 

 when the custom was not practiced. Moreover, 

 it is to be found in many other Tarascan towns, 

 perhaps in all of them, and is regarded as an 

 old form at Mestizo Chilchota, where most 

 marriages also begin by stealing. Although 

 occasionally the groom asks for the bride in- 

 stead of stealing her, such cases are exceptional 

 and seem more likely to be the innovation than 

 does the stealing of the bride. 



Only on very rare occasions is the bride 

 stolen without her consent. Generally the 

 entire performance, including setting the time 

 and place, has been arranged beforehand be- 

 tween the bride and groom, although it is good 

 form for the girl to struggle or at least to 

 pretend to do so. The groom enlists the 

 cooperation of some of his age mates and they 

 assist in carrying off the girl and in blocking 

 pursuit. The usual time for carrying off a girl 

 is on a Sunday when she comes out of church 



after the Rosary and when she is usually accom- 

 panied only by female relatives. The relatives 

 scream and create a disturbance. The male 

 relatives are summoned at once, either by the 

 female relatives or by any bystander who may 

 be interested enough to do so. The male rela- 

 tives go in pursuit of the girl and the groom's 

 friends interfere Avith the chase although they 

 must not use force. They try to block the 

 streets, and sometimes push or trip the male 

 relatives, but they do not hold on to them or 

 strike any blows. If the male relatives of the 

 girl catch the groom before he has gotten the 

 girl to the house of one of his relatives, he must 

 not resist, even, though the girl's relatives may 

 abuse him or beat him. 



Opportunities for courting and for making 

 arrangements are few. The boy may visit the 

 girl's house only on rare occasions, such as the 

 ntelchri.^ before Christmas, although he may 

 occasionally have accompanied his parents on a 

 visit. He also may speak to the girl at the door 

 of her courtyard or exchange a word or two 

 when she is on the streets with her mother 

 carrying water. The best opportunities are 

 the rare occasions when the girl may be allowed 

 on the streets alone in the daytime to visit a 

 relative or to run an errand nearby and espe- 

 cially wlicn she has been allowed to go some- 

 where with other girls. Sunday afternoon is 

 the main time for courting. A boy uses a 

 special whistle to attract the attention of a girl. 

 If she is with other girls, all stop, and the boy 

 uses signs to indicate which one he wishes to 

 talk to. The other girls go on slowly and the 

 indicated one, if she is interested, lingei's behind 

 for a few minutes' conversation. 



The standards for choice of spouse by a boy 

 are several. A boy wants an attractive-looking 

 girl who is fairly tall and of medium build and 

 who also is industrious and of good family. 

 This means her family is not completely 

 poverty-stricken, her father not a drunkard, 

 and her mother not "perverse" (apparently 

 meaning "immoral"). Also, the girl should be 

 either the same age or a year or two younger 

 than the boy. In a few instances the girl is a 

 year or two older. No cases were reported of 

 widows marrying younger men, but sometimes 

 a widower marries a younger woman. One 

 case cited is a man of over 65 who has a wife 



