Book Reading #9: Coming of Age in Samoa

Chapter 3
Summary
The focus of this chapter is what the girls learn as they’re growing up. As babies the girls are taken care of by children. They receive a simple education until about the age of five at which point they should, among other things, be housebroken and never address an adult in a standing position. They are then in charge of younger children and learn simple tasks including how to make pin-wheels and break open a coconut. Girls are often pushed aside, but boys are better tolerated and become good at making themselves useful. The girls take care of babies and young children until they are strong enough to work on the plantations. When the girls get older, they can also go on fishing expeditions.

The main focus for girls in the home is to weave, and it is important to be good at domestic tasks, because it will better ensure they will be married later in life. The first few years of a girl’s life is thought to be the worst due to them having to raise children, but her teen years are thought to be some of her best. As it says in the book, “What she loses in prestige, she gains in freedom.” It is also noted that women do not wish to marry young because in their teen years they have few responsibilities.

Discussion
I found so much of this chapter interesting with so many things to report on that I found it difficult to write a summary. I had to leave a lot of interesting facts out like how housekeeping is usually done by children under the age of fourteen, giving birth is not a private matter, and young men don’t wish to associate with unskilled young women for fear they may come to want to marry them. The culture is vastly different from ours and Margaret Mead captures it quite well – though somewhat briefly – in this chapter as she has also done in chapter 2.