| caption: |
Chapter Three. Phases of Life |
| caption: |
way of speaking very different with permitted and forbidden marriage partners |
| text: |
The system of morung exogamy not only regulated marriage but also determined the attitude of individuals to other members of the village community. A young man of the Oukheang talked to the girls of the Balang or Bala in a tone quite different from that which he used when speaking to girls of the Oukheang and Thepong. When talking to the latter, whom he considered his classificatory sisters, he spoke with considerable restraint and avoided all allusions to sexual matters. With girls who were his potential lovers and wives, however, he conversed in a free and easy manner, and some of the jokes permissible in this context were of an unambiguously sexual nature. Though the girls of his own ward would live in the neighboring houses and, as friends of his sisters would go in and out of his parental house he would pay little attention to them and confine his conversation to a few factual remarks regarding the work in house and field. |
