The following text focuses on two interesting examples to demonstrate how sexuality and gender beliefs shape social life, made even more interesting by their geographical proximity, and by their stark contrast in social organisation, and how different beliefs about men, women and children and their roles in society can affect their politics, laws and regulations. 

The Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea organise their society in a matrilineal fashion, therefore, as Malinowski describes: ‘descent, kinship and every social relationship are legally reckoned through the mother only, and in which women have a considerable share in tribal life’ (1932, pg 2). The importance of women in Trobriand life is evident in the lack of recognition of paternity. Women provide everything needed for a child’s development and this directly affects how the Trobriand Islanders have established their laws and regulations concerning inheritance. Malinowski writes: ‘Social position is handed on in the mother-line from a man to his sister’s children’ (1932)  and this also includes ownership of land and materialities, and obligations of care. Women are fed by their brothers’ gardens, not their husband’s. Weiner writes; ‘because a woman and her husband receive yams from her brother every year, her husband must help her find bundles whenever someone dies who was a member of matrilineage.’ (1988 pg. 120) this highlights the obligation of men and their role in their society, but also the important exchanges occuring between the sexes, and the gender roles which the Islanders subject themselves to. The husband still has a pivotal  role to play within his household, and with his children, however their term for father, tama, which translates as ‘husband of my mother’ shows how the family dynamic is constructed, and also the importance of the matriarchal system. ‘The father is a close companion to his children; he takes an active part in the cares which are lavished upon them, invariably feels and shows a deep connection for them, and later has a share in their education’ (Malinowski, 1932, pg 5), however when a death occurs, those who are not ‘of the same flesh’, from the female line, are excluded from mourning, and this includes kin by marriage, and the relationship between fathers and children. (Malinowski, 1932).

Due to the Trobriand Islander’s ignorance of paternity, pregnancy is almost out of the control of the women themselves, and men. Malinowksi writes: ‘in Man, spirits are the cause of pregnancy’ (1932, pg. ) and this occurs through the medium of brackish seawater and by swimming in it. A woman knows she is pregnant from a prophetic dream which includes the baloma, a spirit who controls the spirits coming from the afterlife island of Tuma, to be reincarnated in the same clan through a woman’s womb. It is through the woman’s reaction that we may be able to understand that pregnancy is not something that a woman has done, but something that has happened spontaneously. ‘Already it (the child) has found me, already they (the spirits) have brought me the child’. (Malinowski, 1932, pg. 148).  From reading Malinowski, because of these beliefs about sexuality and procreation, there is no concept of female infidelity. ‘A man whose wife has conceived during his absence will cheerfully accept the fact and the child, and he will see no reason at all for suspecting her of adultery.’ (1932, pg. 164). This lack of belief in paternity and therefore, adultery, is an important part of their free love culture and their openness regarding sexuality of everyone in the village, regardless of gender. 
Part of their openness regarding sexuality, is their practice of polygyny. During harvest time, sex sprees occur, during which time anyone can have sexual relations with anyone, even if you’re married. During the yam festivals, the very themes of the festival, fertility and prosperity, are acted out throughout the village in provocative dances, lovemaking and ‘sexual revelries’ (Weiner, 1988). Death in a village is one time when ‘play’ as Weiner describes, is banned in respect for those mourning, and yam competitions that the men would have participated in are replaced by ‘wealth competitions’ between the women, in the form of the creation of banana leaf skirts as currency. (Weiner, 1988)

It is difficult not to compare and contrast the ways gender and sexuality shape life when you look at another group of people so geographically close to the Trobriand Islanders; the Sambia. Both groups live in Papua New Guinea, however the Sambia are a forest and mountain dwelling peoples, whereas the Trobriand Islanders inhabit coastal areas. Whereas the Trobriand Islanders are essentially a matriarchal society, the Sambia are very much patriarchal, taken to the extreme. Of particular interest to anthropologist Herdt, is the Sambia’s secret rituals subjected to the young boys of the tribe, of which he writes extensively. Daily life is influenced heavily by a theme of separation due to gender, a fear of femininity and hermaphroditism and a struggle to achieve and create masculinity. In reading Herdt you would be quick to assume that women have no power whatsoever in the Sambian society, however they do have some but only once they have become mothers and even then their only domain is becoming diplomats within family disputes. (Herdt, 2005, pg 81). The six stage masculinity ritual is by far the most confronting aspect of Sambian life. So much emphasis is placed upon the importance of semen ingestion that it even affects the women of the group, whom also have to ingest it to produce breast milk and to be strong enough to carry a child, however the most importance is placed upon the young initiates so that it can burn away the ‘wetness’ of femininity and make them strong and hard. (Herdt, 2005). 

By looking at these two examples, it is clear that construction of beliefs about gender roles and sexuality adversely affect how people are treated, and how a society functions. Geographical proximity doesn’t necessarily mean that societies will be similar in their belief systems and their treatment of their members, and it proves that there is no universal belief system about gender and sexuality throughout the human world. 


References
Herdt, G. (2005). Secrecy and Cultural Reality: Utopian Ideologies of the New Guinea Men's House (review). The Contemporary Pacific, 17(1), 240-243.

Malinowski, B. (1932). The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia : An ethnographic account of courtship, marriage and family life among the natives of the Trobriand Islands, British New Guinea (3rd ed.). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Weiner, A. (1987). The Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea. (Case studies in cultural anthropology). London: Harcourt Brace.