Book Reading #22 - Coming of Age in Samoa

Title:
Chapter 7: Formal Sex Relations

Reference:
Mead, Margaret. Coming of Age in Samoa. Harper Perennial, 1928 (1971)

Summary:

This chapter explained the ways that the guy and girl interact concerning sex and marriage.  Up until the girl is at puberty, the relationships between boys and girls is antagonistic where they poke fun at each other.

For boys, courting is a matter that is necessitated by a soa, a friend who will give prays to the boy in pursuit of a girl in order to butter her up towards him.  This is a tricky person to find because the soa must be extremely loyal as to not interfere with affairs.  The best choice for a soa is in fact a female as she has the potential to be with the girl of interest all day whereas a boy has limited time with girls.

Mead points to three different types of relations: clandetsine "under the palm trees" encounters, elopement, and ceremonious courtship.  There is also moetotolo which is almost equivalent to rape - it is more sneaking into her bed while she is asleep.

Sexual relations are much less formal than our society as we look down upon promiscuity much more than Samoa.  Divorce is a simple matter.


Discussion:
This chapter was fairly informative toward the promiscuous relations of the young.  It did not go that deep into marriage though.  The chapter did touch on how many of these promiscuous encounters could lead to marriage, not all that unlike our culture.