The Eskimo community in sanitation or in sex matters has few reticences. This may be another way of saying it has no pruderies. The native attaches no more importance to the functions of sex than to those of eating, drinking or sleeping. It would, of course, be easier to attribute complete insouciance in these respects to the native mind if, instead of trapping some of them out with rather elaborate ceremonial, it kept them all much on a level. In most instances of insistence, however, a hygienic motive, conscious or unconscious, lies behind them. Although the people live under very crude conditions, crowded together in the igloo, without privacy or special quarters for women, they are not without a sense of the fitness of things or some idea of personal modesty. It is the height of ill-breeding to stare, for instance, at anyone whilst dressing or undressing. Like the Indians, and like most other uncivilised people, the Eskimo marry early, sometimes indeed at the age of twelve years. Unions are arranged by the mothers and grandmothers. A woman with a marriageable daughter is fully alive to the advantage of seeing a good hunter attach himself to the domestic circle. She looks round in good time, and noting some promising youth, makes overtures to his mother on the score of the cleverness, the docility and the industry of her girl. The whole thing at once becomes a fertile topic of discussion. Some amicable understanding having been reached, presents are interchanged and the young couple are informed that they are to be married. There is no ceremony. The girl is sent to her mother-in-law’s house, and for a month or more works there under a pair of sufficiently vigilant eyes. This gives the boy also an opportunity of making up his mind about her. And the prospective bride has a chance to do the same about him. As a rule, the whole thing works out quite satisfactorily, and even happily; but if the girl turns out lazy or careless or bad-tempered, a divorce is declared and she returns to her parents’ igloo, to be married elsewhere, with better luck next time. This sending of the bride to the hunter’s mother’s house scarcely amounts to an interval of probation. The girl certainly expects to stay. In all probability the young folk have known each other from childhood up, and there is no reason to suppose their marriage will be anything but a success. It is the Eskimo way of asserting the world-wide fact that you never know a person until you have to live with him—or her.