... On these occasions the ordinary
social restrictions are destroyed, and the unbridled and
indiscriminate indulgence of every evil lust and passion completes the
scene of abomination" (43). Yet,
"voluntary breach of the marriage contract is rare in
comparison with that which is enforced, as, for
instance, when the chief gives up the women of a town
to a company of visitors or warriors. Compliance with
this mandate is compulsory, but should the woman
conceal it from her husband, she would be severely
punished" (147).
EMOTIONAL CURIOSITIES
When Williams adds to the last sentence that "fear prevents
unfaithfulness more than affection, though I believe that instances of
the latter are numerous," we must not allow ourselves to be deceived
by a word. Fijian "affection" is a thing quite different from the
altruistic feeling we mean by the word. It may in a wife assume the
form of a blind attachment, like that of a dog to a cruel master, but
is not likely to go beyond that, since even the most primitive love
between parents and children is confessedly shallow, transient, or
entirely absent. Williams (154, 142) "noticed cases beyond number
where natural affection was wanting on both sides;" two-thirds of the
offspring are killed, "such children as are allowed to live are
treated with a foolish fondness"--and fondness is, as we have seen,
not an altruistic but an egoistic feeling.
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