SOCIETY 147 
unite in wedlock. The modern Tinggian absolutely 
bar such unions, and regard the marriage of second 
cousins assomewhat scandalous. The Ifugao are allowed 
to break the prohibition against the marriage of second 
or third cousins by making a payment; the Subanun 
do the same between those of the first degree. The 
Bontok forbid only first cousins. The Bisaya always 
tried to procure a wife closely connected in relationship. 
The Tagalog insisted less on this point, but according to 
Father Chirino both nationalities permitted the marriage 
not only of first cousins but of uncle and niece, although 
Colin, a century later, while alluding to the fondness for 
marriage with remoter kin, specifies these degrees as 
prohibited. It would seem that the most primitive 
tribes were the most rigorous, and that with the growth 
of wealth and distinctions of rank the bars had been 
gradually let down in order to consolidate family proper- 
ty and prestige as much as possible. It is however 
rather significant that even the wildest of the Filipino 
do not enforce the widely spread and absolute rule of 
many primitive peoples against wedlock with any 
person that is demonstrably akin. 
There is nowhere any distinction, in these matters, 
between cross and parallel cousins, that is, the children 
of brother and sister as contrasted with the children of 
brother and brother or sister and sister. This is what 
might be expected from the fact that the Filipino looks 
upon his relatives through males and through females as 
identical. Only the Subanun say that if the son of a 
brother wishes to marry the daughter of a sister, he 
must pay a heavier fine than other cousins. 
It may be added that restrictions on women before 
and after childbirth are of no great moment among the 
Filipinos, and even among the wilder tribes are as much 
hygienic in character as of the nature of taboos; and 
