Premarital Pregnancy and Native Opinion. A Note on Social Change

In his recent writings on the subject of marriage and kinship, Malinowski has repeatedly emphasized what he terms the ‘principle legitimacy’. By this he means the rule, found in all human societies, that a woman has to be married before she is allowed legitimately to conceive. ‘Roughly speaking, an unmarried mother is under a ban, a fatherless child is a bastard. This is by no means only a European or Christian prejudice; it is the attitude found amongst most barbarous and savage peoples as well.’ Where prenuptial intercourse is regarded as illicit and immoral, marriage is obviously the essential prelude to the birth of legitimate children, i.e. children having full social status in the community. But even where prenuptial intercourse is tolerated, this tolerance does not extend to liberty of conception. The unmarried boys and girls may indulge freely in sex, but there must be no issue. An unmarried mother will be subjected to punishment and become the object of scorn, her child possibly killed or aborted, while often the putative father is also penalized unless he marries the girl. Almost universally, a child born out of wedlock has a different status from the legitimate offspring, usually very much to his disadvantage. Facts such as these show that the group of mother and child is considered incomplete in the eyes of the community, and that the sociological position of husband and father is everywhere felt to be indispensable.