死の禁忌の社会的機能 : 社会的人格残存と募婦規則の問題

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FORTES (1949) has mentioned the correlation between the survival of a dead man's social personality and the prohibition on his widows' sexual intercourse until the end of the final funeral of the husband. He argues that up to the time of the final funeral, widows continue to belong sexually to their dead husband and so they should refrain from remarrying during the period. A correlation of this sort seems to deserve further consideration, for it raises the following questions : (1) Why does the social personality have to be kept existing for a considerable length of time, even after the man's death? (2) Why should a man's social personality be symbolized in the prohibition of his former wives' sexual acts? (3) Why is control over the widow's behavior exercised not by legal sanctions but by means of supernatural ones, particularly in the form of taboo? First of all in a unilineal society in which the control over political, economic, religious and domestic affairs is vested only in a senior member of a kin group, an elder's death results in considerable confusion. Since the occupant of one position in the social network must be replaced by a new person, and since the successor to the dead man may have performed many different roles, this confusion may be due. Thus it would seem better to transfer the complex of roles after a considerable length of time since the death. Meanwhile such roles may be fulfilled by a proxy under the dead man's name. In this way the social personality, which means the complex of roles vested in one person, should survive until the succession is completed. The dead man's social personality is said to be symbolized in two things : his property and his wife, or wives. In a corporate society being characterized by joint ownership of main properties, i. e., land and cattle, and by mutual responsibility in legal matters, a man is not an owner but a caretaker of these properties. They do not belong to him but are in his charge. On the other hand he can exercise his full authority exclusively over his wife's sexual acts. A wife, then, seems to characterize her husband's individuality in full. This might be the reason why one's social personality is symbolized in his wife or wives. A husband, however, should never severely punish his wife, for in such a corporate society. the right to give a legal sanction to a person belongs solely to one's descent group. The husband's kin secure such a right over children if they have completed paying the bride wealth to wife's group. But the former achieves no right from the latter to exercise any legal authority over the married-in women. Thus after a husband's death nobody out of his kin can rightfully force his widows to refrain from having sexual intercourse with other men. The widows, meanwhile, need to be sexually faithful to their dead husbands for a period of time for the reason indicated above. The sanction over the widows' sexual acts should, then, be enforced not by legal punishments but by supernatural ones. Among African peoples, ancestor worship and witchcraft beliefs are both very active. Ancestors, however, influence only their direct descendants and so wives are not under the power of their husband's ancestors. On the other hand witchcraft accusations are often found in marital relations, between affinal relatives and between cowives, though, it is always associated with definite reasons such as the troubles accompanying property inheritance, competition for a status of high privilege, or refunding of bride wealth.
日本文化人類学会の論文
1967-06-30

死の禁忌の社会的機能 : 社会的人格残存と募婦規則の問題

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