Growing Up Sexually

 


 

HUNSA, Hunza (Himalayas)


 

 

Conception and birth are processes known from an early age (Bircher, 1942 [1948:p77])[1]. Children hear adult conversations on these issues, and therefore are not in the need of further education “when the capacities of procreation awake”. No child marriages [p78]. Marriage taking place at age 16-18; in case of a low age of the bride, the mother of the groom would sleep between the married ones until the girl is “ripe enough” for the marital act. A girl is marriageable from age 15 [2].

 

“In Hunza formerly daughters and sons married according to the wishes of the parents. Some marry their sons in childhood when they are young and some when they are grown up. Tose who have no land and people with many sons mostly delay in marrying their sons. A man with only one son marries his son in childhood” (p182).

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

Janssen, D. F., Growing Up Sexually. VolumeI. World Reference Atlas. 0.2 ed. 2004. Berlin: Magnus Hirschfeld Archive for Sexology, Berlin

Last revised: Sept 2004

 



[1] Bircher, R. (1942) Hunsa, Ein Volk, Daß keine Krankheit Kennt. Bern: Huber. Dutch transl., 2nd ed., 1948

[2] Müller-Stellrecht, I. (1979) Materialien zur Ethnographie von Dardistan (Pakistan). Vol. I. Austria: Graz, p159