oth in regard to the food supply and the women, and the younger
men are obstructed in their efforts to satisfy their desires in regard
to both. The following passages from the ethnological literature of
Australia indicate the nature of the Australian male in sexual life,
and the nature of the obstructions encountered by the youth in the
presence of the older men.[216]

It is noticeable, first of all, that among the Australian tribes the
older men have worked out or fallen into such habits regarding the
females that the younger men obtain wives with great difficulty and
usually not before waiting a long time. In fact, Spencer and Gillen,
in their invaluable works on the central Australian tribes state
that usually a man is married to a woman of another generation than
himself:

The most usual method of obtaining a wife is that which is
connected with the well-established custom in accordance with
which every woman of the tribe is made _Tualcha mura_ with
some man. The arrangement, which is often a mutual one, is
made between two men, and it will be seen that owing to a girl
being made _Tualcha mura_ to a boy of her own age the men very
frequently have wives much younger than themselves, as the
husband and the mother of the wife obtained in this way are
usually approximately of the same age. When it has been agreed
upon by two men that the relationship shall be established
between their own children, one a boy and the other a girl,
the two latter, who are generally of a tender age, are taken
to the _Erlukwirra_, or women's camp, and here each mother
takes the other child and rubs it over with a mixture of fat
and red ochre.... This relationship indicates that the man has
the right to take as wife the daughter of the woman; she is in
fact assigned to him, and this, as a rule, many years before
she is born.[217]

It will be noticed that this is in reality a modification of the
system of exchanging women, and has an advantage over capture,
elopement, and charming (all of which are methods in practice among
the same tribes) in the fact that it is of the nature of a business
transaction or social agreement, and provokes no bad feeling or
retaliation. It also shows considerable regard on the part of the
elders for the young; but practically it is a reluctant admission of a
youth to participation in sexual privileges, since marriage is delayed
until a g