Kinship I

In reality, however, sexual freedom is an entirely different mat ter from the liberty of parenthood, and between the two there enter some interesting institutions and legal rules.

XIII. The Principle of Legitimacy.

In fact the tolerance Xiii. The Principle of Legitimacy.—In fact the tolerance of free intercourse wherever this exists is not extended to the liberty of conception. The rule in most savage tribes which allow pre-nuptial relations is that unmarried boys and girls may enjoy themselves as much as they like, provided that there be no issue. At times, as among the Areoi (q.v.), the untrammelled artistic fraternities of Polynesia, heavy penalties are inflicted on the un married mother, and illegitimate children are killed or aborted (see INFANTICIDE). At times the putative father is penalised un less he marries the girl, or again important economic and social pressure make it advantageous for him to marry her. Almost universally the child born before wedlock has a different status from the legitimate offspring, usually very much to his disad vantage. Very interesting are the cases where, as among the Todas, one of the physiologically possible fathers of a polyandrous house hold has to perform a special rite in order to assume the legal position of fatherhood. A child deprived of such a legal father is disgraced for life, even though born in wedlock.

And this brings us to the important point. Physiological pater nity, the begetting of a child, is not, as a rule, sufficient and may even be irrelevant in determining social fatherhood. In fact native peoples have naturally but an imperfect idea of the mechan ism of procreation. Some (Central Australians, certain Mela nesians, a few African tribes) attribute the child to the agency of spiritual beings; others again (Ba-Ila, Rossel Islanders, some Australian tribes) over-emphasize the man's share. But in all cases, where the subject has been competently investigated, we find that the mechanism of procreation is conceived in a manner in which some biological knowledge is arbitrarily mixed up with animistic beliefs. This doctrine stands in a definite relation to the kinship ideas and legal principles of a community. Invariably

also the bond of kinship, believed to be established by the act of procreation, bodily or spiritual, is of an individual nature and fatherhood has at times to be reaffirmed by a special legal cere mony, also individual.

XIV. Natural and Sociological Maternity.

Maternity is obviously as much involved in native doctrines of conception as is fatherhood. Indeed, the ban on prenuptial children hits the mother harder than the father, and it penalises always an indi vidual, not a group. An individual woman suffers the disadvan tages of an illegitimate child, unless there is a man legally united to her who individually shares her responsibility.

Wherever there is an attempt to cause or prevent conception by religious and magical rites, these refer always to an individual mother and child. The mother becomes usually subject to tabus during gestation which she keeps individually and of which her husband of ten takes a share. The welfare of the child concerns its own mother and father even before it is born. At birth again various social, magical and moral rules separate the mother from her husband and isolate her with her child. The few female relatives who of ten assist her are her nearest individual kins women. There is no transformation of an individual birth into a group birth—by legal fiction or ritual—but on the contrary there is a social imposition of individual burdens, responsibilities and sentiments upon the real mother. The father, though very much in the shadow, participates through customs of the couvade (q.v.) type, vigils and tabus in his wife's confinement, and this he also does individually.

XV. No Group Parenthood.

The ideas and institutions which control conception, pregnancy and birth, show that these cannot be regarded by the anthropologist as mere physiological facts, but as facts deeply modified by culture and social organiza tion. Conception is not left to the chance of free intercourse, even where this is allowed, but its necessary condition is marriage.