Runaway By MARK VAN DOREN I saw a white-haired child Go through the sunny grass; I heard the under-noises Stop to let him pass ; Deciding then that never A thing so silent was
As this white head in the wheat
Upon this windless day, Moving as if all childhood Marched with it awayLeaving UB our wisdom And nothing a t all to say.
This Week
Sex in the South Seas
OMEWHERE in each of us, hidden among our more
obscure desires and our impulses of escape, is a palm-
fringedSouth Seaisland that looks verylikethe
pictureonthe butchers calendar-sea, sand, sun, a languorous atmosph,ere promising freedom and irresponsibility. It is to that island that we retire when we grow bored and confused by jobs o r politicalcampaigns or city life ormore particularly-with husbands, wives, o r children. Thither we run to escape conflicting standards, the difficulties of a n age without faith; to find love which is free, easy, andsatisfying. When you fead Coming of Age in Samoa+-asyou should do-you will probably be astonished to discover how like a South Sea island that South Sea island can be. Sea, sand, sun-all are there, and simplicity and absence of conflict. It is a world inwhichlife is gayandchildrenase not very troublesome and love is kind and uncomplicated; wherefoodand clothes arefewandeasyto get. Sex experience is frequent before marriage, almost to the point of promiscuity.Jealousyis rare. Violent and possessive emotion is held to be in poor taste, but frigidity does not exist.Theroutine of life is simple,quiet, andunhurried. Margaret Mead, the author of this book, spenteight months in the island of Taii in the Manua Archipelago of Samoa studying the psychology of the adolescent girl. She lived for much of the time as an adopteddaughterin a Samoan household and became intimately acquainted with the behavior andfeelings of a group of girls in asocial structure fundamentally different from our own. She wished to discover whether the Samoan adolescent was subjecttothe mentaldisturbances which are considered in Western civilizations the inevitableconcomitant of the physicalchanges of puberty.Shefound thatthe young girls in that particular island group live through no period of stress.They experience love fromthetimetheyare physicallyandmentally ready for it.They swallow, without pain or ecstasy, a pleasantly diluted dom of the Chris-
tian religion. They assume adult
family responsibilities as a matter of course. The Western conception of the family unit composedof father, mother, andchildren does not exist.Instead,children arebrought up inrather casual, shifting congeries of relativeslivingtogether. single passionateparent-childrelationship has an opportunity to spring up. Everyadultinthe household is more o r less in loco parentis to every child. The olderchildren are shouldered with the actual care of the younger ones. Thus the Samoan girl leadsabusy, unconscious existence in which impulse and duty appear to play pleasantly correlative roles. Her life as well as her environmentapparently fits the fantasy that hasbecome a symbol of relaxation and release to the harried child of the machine-made West. Would we then exchange our unsatisfied desires and complicated choices for hermore even progress in the world? Probably not. On closer inspection several flaws appear in that picture of warm, idyllic simplicity.The discrepancies between fantasy and fact lie at the very heart of Samoan sex freedom. Inthefirst place personalityand individual differences, the objects of such tender consideration in most Western lands, are ignored-both publicly and privately.Skill is admired;but precocity is frowned upon. Inthefamily children have no opportunityeither t o become spoiled or to feel neglected and misunderstood; they are simplymembers of a groupwithcertainfunctions to perform. Only in the dance do virtuosity and individualpeculiarities win applause. Humanrelationships a r e formalized and depend little on the appeal of one personality for another. Boys and girls are so severelyseparated before puberty that a keen antagonism-not personal but sexual-develops and continues until it melts inthe warmth of adolescent desire-again not personal but sexual. Love is expressed in the formulae of romantic attachment; but a deeply personal feeling between a man and a woman haslittle chanceto flower. The whole basisfor emotional intensity is lacking. Fidelity is treated with humor; jealousywithcontempt. Even close friendships based on personal preference are absent. A Samoan philosopher might maintain that a balanced emotional life either in adolescence o r after can be achieved only through freedom from the strain that arises whenindividuals stresstheimportance of their personal feelingsandpreferencesandabilities.Emotionscanbe freely expressed only when they are not intense; with intensity come conflict and jealousy and a frequent inability to express anythingat all. George A. Dorsey,biologist and author of WhyWeBehave Like Human Beings, is quoted on the jacket of Miss Meads book as wondering if we shall ever be as sensible about sex as the Samoans are. Miss Mead herself is less sweeping. She believes that children inWesterncountries should be loosed fromthe entanglements of toointenseparental love. Butshe expresses a reasonable and civilized doubt of the Samoan attitudetowardpersonalityandtowardadult emotions. If love can be freed from conflict and life made simple only at the price of our cherished personal relationships, who of us is ready to pay it? Let Ms. Dorsey set out for Samoa if he will. Most of us probably will read Miss Meads impressivestudyandthen continue as before to cling to our difficulties andourdelights,with occasional impulses of escape to the expensive simplicity of the South Seas.
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