a curious device for the preservation of domestic peace.[329] All these tribes "guard with great caution against, and some even punish with death, the union of the two sexes before the complete puberty of the woman.... Friar Francisco assured me that the virginity of the man was strictly maintained until the epoch of his marriage, and this was not allowed before he was twenty-five years of age, without even this being the ordinary thing: marriage is commonly after thirty." As a principal reason for this usage are assigned the "force and energy of the offspring."[330] [324] For general criticism of the hypothesis of promiscuity compare with WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, chaps. iv-vi, 51-133; WAKE, _op. cit._, 14-53; LETOURNEAU, _op. cit._, 46 ff.; STARCKE, _op. cit._, 121 ff., 241 ff., _passim_; SPENCER, _Principles of Sociology_, I, 661-71, 641 ff., _passim_; GROSSE, _Die Formen der Familie_, 41 ff. [325] WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 52, 53; BELCHER, "Notes on the Andaman Islands," _Trans. Eth. Soc._, N. S., V, 45. [326] _Journal Anth. Inst._, XII, 135; WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 57. [327] MAGALHÃES, _op. cit._, 108 ff. [328] Compare the somewhat analogous "communism" of the Sia: STEVENSON, "The Sia," _XI. Rep. of Bureau of Eth._, 19-26. [329] There are in the villages "men destined to be _viri viduarum_. These individuals have no other duty; they are supported by the tribe and do not, like the others, engage in the exercises of long trips which they all make annually, each in his turn." This indulgence was justified on the ground that "the peace which the families enjoyed, and which they would not enjoy without these individuals, or rather without this institution, compensated largely for the work that fell upon the others in supporting them."--MAGALHÃES, _loc. cit._ [330] MAGALHÃES, _loc. cit._ Savage tribes are often extremely licentious; but it is significant that the most immoral are not always lowest in the scale of development. Besides, it is well known that "contact with a higher culture, or more properly, the dregs of it, is pernicious to the morality of peoples living in a more or less primitive condition."[331] Nor can promiscuity as a general social stage be assumed from the existence of some tribes whose sexual relations are but slightly restrained, since, as just seen, there are others, not otherwise more advanced, remarkable for the chastity of the wedded as well as the unwedded life.[332] [331] WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 66 ff., where examples are given. See the quotation from Magalhães above. [332] _Ibid._, 61 ff.