Читать книгу Sex and Repression in Savage Society - Bronislaw 1884-1942 Malinowski - Страница 8

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It is a general characteristic of the mammals that the offspring is not free and independent at birth, but has to rely for its nourishment, safety, warmth, cleanliness and bodily comfort on the care of its mother. To this correspond the various bodily arrangements of mother and child. Physiologically there exists a passionate instinctive interest of the mother in the child, and a craving of the suckling for the maternal organism, for the warmth of her body, the support of her arms and, above all, the milk and contact of her breast. At first the relation is determined by the mother’s selective passion—to her only her own offspring is dear, while the baby would be satisfied with the body of any lactant woman. But soon the child also distinguishes, and his attachment becomes as exclusive and individual as that of the mother. Thus birth establishes a link for life between mother and child.

This link is first founded on the biological fact that young mammals cannot live unaided, and thus the species depends for its survival on one of the strongest instincts, that of maternal love. But society hastens to step in and to add its at first feeble decree to the powerful voice of nature. In all human communities, savage or civilized, custom, law and morals, sometimes even religion, take cognizance of the bond between mother and offspring, usually at as early a stage as the beginning of gestation. The mother, sometimes the father also, has to keep various taboos and observances, or perform rites which have to do with the welfare of the new life within the womb. Birth is always an important social event, round which cluster many traditional usages, often associated with religion. Thus even the most natural and most directly biological tie, that between mother and child, has its social as well as its physiological determination, and cannot be described without reference to the influence exercised by the tradition and usage of the community.

Let us briefly summarize and characterize these social co-determinants of motherhood in our own society. Maternity is a moral, religious and even artistic ideal of civilization, a pregnant woman is protected by law and custom, and should be regarded as a sacred object, while she herself ought to feel proud and happy in her condition. That this is an ideal which can be realized is vouched for by historical and ethnographical data. Even in modern Europe, the orthodox Jewish communities of Poland keep it up in practice, and amongst them a pregnant woman is an object of real veneration, and feels proud of her condition. In the Christian Aryan societies, however, pregnancy among the lower classes is made a burden, and regarded as a nuisance; among the well-to-do people it is a source of embarrassment, discomfort, and temporary ostracism from ordinary social life. Since we thus have to recognize the importance of the mother’s pre-natal attitude for her future sentiment towards her offspring, and since this attitude varies greatly with the milieu and depends on social values, it is important that this sociological problem should be studied more closely.

At birth, the biological patterns and the instinctive impulses of the mother are endorsed and strengthened by society, which, in many of its customs, moral rules and ideals, makes the mother the nurse of the child, and this, broadly speaking, in the low as in the high strata of almost all nations of Europe. Yet even here in a relation so fundamental, so biologically secured, there are certain societies where custom and laxity of innate impulses allow of notable aberrations. Thus we have the system of sending the child away for the first year or so of its life to a hired foster mother, a custom once highly prevalent in the middle classes of France; or the almost equally harmful system of protecting the woman’s breasts by hiring a foster mother, or by feeding the child on artificial food, a custom once prevalent among the wealthy classes, though to-day generally stigmatized as unnatural. Here again the sociologist has to add his share in order to give the true picture of motherhood, as it varies according to national, economic and moral differences.

Let us now turn to consider the same relation in a matrilineal society on the shores of the Pacific. The Melanesian woman shows invariably a passionate craving for her child, and the surrounding society seconds her feelings, fosters her inclinations and idealizes them by custom and usage. From the first moments of pregnancy, the expectant mother is made to watch over the welfare of her future offspring by keeping a number of food taboos and other observances. The pregnant woman is regarded by custom as an object of reverence, an ideal which is fully realized by the actual behaviour and feelings of these natives. There exists an elaborate ceremony performed at the first pregnancy, with an intricate and somewhat obscure aim, but emphasizing the importance of the event and conferring on the pregnant woman distinction and honour.

After the birth, mother and child are secluded for about a month, the mother constantly tending her child and nursing it, while certain female relatives only are admitted into the hut. Adoption under normal circumstances is very rare, and even then the child is usually given over only after it has been weaned, nor is it ever adopted by strangers, but by nearest relatives exclusively. A number of observances, such as ritual washing of mother and child, special taboos to be kept by the mother, and visits of presentation, bind mother and child by links of custom superimposed upon the natural ones.^[1]

Thus in both societies, to the biological adjustment of instinct there are added the social forces of custom, morals and manners, all working in the same direction of binding mother and child to each other, of giving them full scope for the passionate intimacy of motherhood. This harmony between social and biological forces ensures full satisfaction and the highest bliss. Society co-operates with nature to repeat the happy conditions in the womb, broken by the trauma of birth. Dr. Rank, in a work which has already proved of some importance for the development of psycho-analysis,^[2] has indicated the significance for later life of intra-uterine existence and its memories. Whatever we might think about the ‘trauma’ of birth, there is no doubt that the first months after birth realize, by the working of both biological and sociological forces, a state of bliss broken by the ‘trauma’ of weaning. The exceptional aberrations from this state of affairs are to be found only among the higher strata of civilized communities.

We find a much greater difference in the fatherhood of the patriarchal and matrilineal family at this period, and it is rather unexpected to find that in a savage society, where the physical bonds of paternity are unknown, and where mother right obtains, the father should yet stand in a much more intimate relation to the children than normally happens among ourselves. For in our own society, the father plays a very small part indeed in the life of a young infant. By custom, usage, and manners, the well-to-do father is kept out of the nursery, while the peasant or working man has to leave the child to his wife for the greater part of the twenty-four hours. He may perhaps resent the attention which the infant claims, and the time which it takes up, but as a rule he neither helps nor interferes with a small child.

Among the Melanesians ‘fatherhood,’ as we know, is a purely social relation. Part of this relation consists in his duty towards his wife’s children; he is there ‘to receive them into his arms’, a phrase we have already quoted; he has to carry them about when on the march the mother is tired, and he has to assist in the nursing at home. He tends them in their natural needs, and cleanses them, and there are many stereotyped expressions in the native language referring to fatherhood and its hardships, and to the duty of filial gratitude towards him. A typical Trobriand father is a hard-working and conscientious nurse and in this he obeys the call of duty, expressed in social tradition. The fact is, however, that the father is always interested in the children, sometimes passionately so, and performs all his duties eagerly and fondly.

Thus, if we compare the patriarchal and the matrilineal relation at this early stage, we see that the main point of difference lies with the father. In our society, the father is kept well out of the picture, and has at best a subordinate part. In the Trobriands, he plays a much more active rôle, which is important above all because it gives him a far greater scope for forming ties of affection with his children. In both societies there is found with a few exceptions, little room for conflict, between the biological trend and the social conditions.

[1]	An important form of the taboo observed by a mother after birth is the sexual abstinence enjoined upon her. For a beautiful expression of the high moral view of natives concerning this custom see The Contact of Races and Clash of Culture, by G. Pitt-Rivers, 1927, chap. viii, sec. 3.

[2]	Das Trauma der Geburt (1924). Needless to say, the conclusions of Dr. Rank’s book are entirely unacceptable to the present writer, who is not able to adopt any of the recent developments of psycho-analysis nor even to understand their meaning.