Sex Control
Overall, the Tiwi are super demanding when it comes to sex control. Since the Tiwi have the betrothal system they don’t favor men seducing women, they just lack that romanticism. As explained before, the Tiwi promise wives to each other thus they cannot just pick the person they like or fall in love with. Maybe the Tiwi don’t believe in love at all, who knows. Anyways, parents restrict their daughters from having romantic adventures with other man other than their designated husband because then the betrothal contract would be terminated. Of course that the father of the female would hate to have his contract terminated because then he would not have the benefits from giving his daughter in betrothal. In the case that the female is already married, sex outside of the marriage would be deem adultery. This would probably bring some punishment to the young female. Overall, young males distance themselves from having sexual relationships with women that don’t belong to them. But as we all know there is always that guy that wants some.
“He was a fighting man, but also, as he confided to me after a night of sexual conquests, a ‘thief’. ‘Little thief’ was the nickname given to him as an infant by a paternal aunt (whose daughter was an occasional lover). He confided his personal name to me with a kind of pride after spending a night with another young woman at the beach. He had broken into a building and stolen two new mattresses, one for sex with the woman at the beach, the other for his mother, who, he said, had complained that she had no mattress of her own. This occurred when his father was away from the community” [5]
In these particular cases, the male who in this case owns the female would challenge the young male in front of all the community. For example, if a young male is seen with a young wife of another man the husband will approach the young male to challenge him in front of everyone. We must note that if there is very little people at that time, the husband would not challenge the young male until there is enough people to witness the challenge. In these cases these events mainly take place during the feast time which happens to be in the afternoon. By this time, the young male usually runs away from the challenge and stays outside the community until the issue has been forgotten. In the case that the husband does not forget the issue, he would paint himself all white (which is the color they paint themselves when they go to war) and he would look for the young male to challenge him; we must note that all of this only happens in public noting occurs by these two guys alone. Overall, the Tiwi protect their females a lot and don’t like sexual relationships outside the marriage.
