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Featured: Big
Nambas, Tanna, Mewun
Larcom (1980)[1]:
“While the wishes of men from a
given ples contracted the pool of
marriageable women for would-be suitors from another ples, the suitors tried to circumvent female infanticide and to
expand the pool of possible wives through pre-natal betrothal. Because of the
shortage of women, Mewun adult men frequently tried to betroth a wife before
the wife was born. The story goes that they would go up to a pregnant woman,
put their hand on her belly and claim the unborn child if it proved to be a
girl. The bargain was sealed with a gift of a pig to the parents, refundable
if they had a boy instead. Usually, affianced girls were left with their
mothers until they were weaned. At that time the future husband would claim
his bride by delivering the rest of the bridewealth and taking his adopted
wife home to his own ples. There
she would remain in the custody of one of his female relatives until she was
into puberty at which time her husband would build her her own house and
begin having intercourse with her” (p146-7).
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
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