Besides the exact and detailed data about ceremonial (or ritual) defloration that are given by Spencer and Gillen and Roth, these ceremonies are mentioned also by Willshire, Beveridge, Moore Davis, Mathew, and Oldfield. But the short notes of those latter authors are hardly sufficient to allow any further discussion; they may be considered as a confirmation of the more exact evidence, but the latter, and especially Spencer and Gillen's data, must serve as material for all analyses. These ceremonies, on the one hand, seem to correspond to the initiation ceremonies of the males. It is only in this light that they are represented by Roth, who does not mention any close connection between these ceremonies and marriage, but represents them as the condition of marriageability. The said ceremonies possess, as a matter of fact, many points of analogy with the male initiation ceremonies. They are performed on arrival at puberty; Roth states that the girl then acquires a new name and new status. The operation performed then upon the initiated is also to some extent analogous in both cases.[301] On the other hand Spencer and Gillen represent these ceremonies as directly connected with marriage. What the underlying ideas in this connection are, it is difficult to say. It has been suggested that such ceremonies express a kind of expiation for marriage.[302] But as this idea is not directly embodied in this institution, and as it is not necessarily a condition of its existence, and, moreover, as it has not been directly affirmed by the natives, it may be treated merely as an assumption. [301] See Spencer and Gillen, _Nor. Tr._, p. 133, where this is explicitly mentioned. The names of both ceremonies in the Arunta seem to indicate this analogy; _atna--ariltha--kuma_ and _pura--ariltha--kuma_ (for their meaning see the place just quoted). [302] _Idem_, p. 96, apply this concept, due to Lord Avebury, to this special case.