Premarital Freedom on Truk: Theory and Practice

Goodenough, Ward H. (1949-10-12). "Premarital Freedom on Truk: Theory and Practice". American Anthropologist. Arlington, VA: American Anthropological Association. 51 (4): 615–620. doi:10.1525/aa.1949.51.4.02a00070. ISSN 1548-1433.

Abstract: Focus on Truk (Chuuk) in Micronesia, addressing premarital freedom in theory and in practice, with observations that the conversation of young men between sixteen and thirty often dwells on sex in ways comparable to American adolescents and to men in settings where women are relatively unavailable. The inquiry turns to sociological factors affecting the achievement of satisfactory sexual experiences when the moral code does not appear to be the source of frustration. Premarital freedom is stated to exist in theory but is difficult to realize in practice. For safety, young men are largely confined to their own community, and relationships with women from other communities were formerly cited as causes of warfare. Trukese communities are small; one community discussed consisted of 230 persons of all ages, generally comprising four to six exogamous matrilineal kin groups, with incest taboos extended bilaterally. In this community there were only ten women and eleven men aged fourteen to twenty. The average population density for all the islands of Truk, inhabited or uninhabited, is 233. Affairs with married women are described as a major preoccupation among men aged twenty to thirty, requiring patience and repeated tolerance of frustration. Even speaking with a married woman tends to arouse immediate suspicion, prompting close surveillance by her husband’s relatives. A matrilocal extended family structure, with women working together as a group, and a general lack of privacy in small settlements increase the difficulty of conducting such affairs. The account concludes with an explicit call for field workers to examine sociological factors that facilitate or hinder sexual expression rather than concentrating solely on culturally patterned attitudes and their relation to childhood training, with related comparative references in the bibliography to work by Esther S. Goldfrank, D. Leighton, C. Kluckhohn, and Margaret Mead.

Extra details:

PMID: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24536236
MAG: 1993507578
OpenAlex: W1993507578
QID: Q87308863