that for a day
and a night he lay groaning upon the mats.

"That is as it should be," said Malicious Gossip, sternly, while her
curving lips set in straight lines. Sex morality means conformity to
sex _tapus_, the world over.

Free polyandry still exists in many countries I have seen, and in
others its dying out leaves these fragmentary survivals. I have
visited the tribe of Subanos, in the west and north of the island of
Mindanao in the Philippine archipelago, where the rich men are
polygamists, and the poor still submit to polyandry. Economic
conditions there bring about the same relations, under a different
guise, as in Europe or America, where wealthy rakes keep up several
establishments, and many wage-earners support but one prostitute.

Polyandry is found almost exclusively in poor countries, where there
is always a scarcity of females. Thus we have polyandry founded on a
surplus of males caused by poverty of sustenance. The female is, in
fact, supposed to be the result of a surplus of nutrition; more boys
than girls are born in the country districts because the city diet
is richer, especially in meat and sugar. It is notable that the
families of the pioneers of western America bore a surprising
majority of males.

In the Marquesas, where living was always difficult and the diet poor,
there were always more men than women despite the frequent wars in
which men were victims. Another reason was that male children were
saved often when females were killed in the practice of infanticide,
also forced by famine. The overplus of men made them amenable to the
commands of the women, who often dominated in permanent alliances,
demanding lavishment of wealth and attention from their husbands.

Yet--and this is a most significant fact--the father-right in the
child remained the basis of the social system.

Throughout all Australia, Melanesia, and Papuasis on the east, and
America on the west, the mother-right prevailed among primitive
peoples. Children followed the mother, took their name from her, and
inherited property through her. I have known a Hawaiian nobleman who,
commenting on this fact, said that the system had merit in that no
child could be called a bastard, and that the woman, who suffered
most, was rewarded by pride of posterity. He himself, he said, was
the son of a chieftess, but his father, a king, was the son of a
negro cobbler.

The father-right, so familiar to our minds that it seems to-day
almos