sex, money, and the status of women in aboriginal south Bougainville

Abstract

Although Morgan (1887) did not stress the point, his work in Ancient Society proposed that one of the concomitants of the evolution of human society was a modification in the way that marriage controls the expression of sexuality, especially (but not exclusively) female sexuality. According to Morgan's (1887:384) scheme, during the stage of "consanguine marriage" parents and children were the only categories in which marriage and sexual intercourse were forbidden. During the "punaluan" stage, brothers and sisters were excluded as possible mates. In the stage of the "pairing family," couples were joined in marriage but there was no requirement of fidelity. The transition to the "patriarchal family" meant that women must be monogamous and faithful, while men still married polygamously. Finally, "monogamian marriage" required "exclusive cohabitation" for both husband and wife. Engels (1975 [1884]), drawing upon Morgan's data, dealt briefly but more explicitly with the question of sexuality and gave special attention to the position of women. In his scenario, woman's sexual capacities were her residual ones, and after the development of malecontrolled private property, when her economic contributions lost their public worth, these sexual abilities came to the forefront: "woman was degraded and reduced to servitude; she became the slave of [man's] lust and a mere instrument for the production of children . . ." (Engels 1975:lZO-121).Most modern assessors of women's status dwell on the second of these outcomes rather than the first: not the sexual services, but the constraints imposed by reproductive biology and the timeconsuming nature of child rearing serve to make women secondary to men (e.g., Chodorow 1974; Ortner 1974; Rosaldo 1974). In the present paper, I wish to reconsider the topic of sexuality to which Engels and Morgan made brief reference. To some extent, this topic has been neglected as a patterned feature of social organization influencingComparison of three societies of aboriginal south Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, shows an increasing exchange value placed on the sexual services of women, as seen in marriage exchanges, fines for adultery and fornication, gifts between lovers, and prostitution. This increase is in direct relation to the development and use of general-purpose money. Implications for the comparative status of women and the evolution of society are noted. [Bougainville, status of women, economics of sex, social evolution, money]

Le désir d’enfant et la transmission dans le projet migratoire de femmes capverdiennes

“…13. Concernant l'utilisation par les femmes de la sexualité, voir Nash (1981) ; Tabet (2004) ; Mazzocchetti (2009) ;Laurent (2010). lorsque Maïsa aura immigré aux États-Unis.…”

Marriage Exchanges: A Melanesian Comment

“…I do not mean simply in terms of control of a spouse's labor power (cf 121), but as integral to affinal exchange based on perceptions of differentiated male and female activity (see 12, 22b, 87). Damon (40) labor, "the hand of the man," in a matrilineal context (143), even as the "hand" of the wife is significant in certain patrilineal ones (120). Young (unpublished) describes a patrilineal Massim equation between men's labor and food.…”

“…Gardening rights will be allocated to the iricoming spouse (e.g. 142), or he or she is "endowed" with stock (99,196) or wealth (143) , but kin groups are not on the whole engaged in major property transfers. Unless magic is owned, "inheritance" is also of less significance at death than the finalizing of debt Secondly, there is the way in which household arrangements facilitate the accumulation of wealth (63,91,137,195).…”

Frozen Assets in Nagovisi

“…Nagovisi distinguish between a land tract as an entity and the tract as a place where certain things are growing (and certain activities may thus be carried out). As entities, the tracts, human beings, and shell valuables are intricately intertwined : there are strong connections, even identifications or equations, of one with another , Nash 1981. In some contexts, especially funerary activities and marriages, these can significantly affect any intergroup and intragroup rivalries and tensions that may exist.…”