::.；.人心 The Traffic in Women167 The realm of human sex,gender,and procreation has been Other names have been,proposed for the sex/gender subjected to,and changed by,relentless social activity for system.The most common alternatives aremode of repro- millenniaSex as we know it-gender identity,sexual desire duction and"patriarchy It may be foolish to quibble and fantasy;concepts of childhood-is itself a social product. about terms,but both of these can lead to confusion.All We need to understand the relations of its production,and three proposals have been made in order to.introduce a dis- forget,for awhile,about food,.clothing,automobiles,and tinction between "economic"systems and"sexual"systems, transistor radios.In most Marxist tradition,and even in and to indicate that sexual systems have a certain autonomy Engels book,the concept of the "second aspect of material and cannot always be explained in terms of economic forces. life"has tended to fade into the background,or to be incor- "Mode of reproduction,"for instance,has been proposed in porated into the usual notions of"material life."Engels'sug. oppositionto the more familiar "mode of production."But gestion'has never been followed up and subjected to the re- this terminology links the"economy"to production,and the finement which it needs.But he does indicate the existence sexual system to "reproduction."It reduces the richness of dof the domain of social life which I want to either system,since"productions"and "reproductions"take call the sex/gender system. place in both.Every mode of production involves reproduc- Among the Banaro,marriage involves several socially sanctioned sexual tion-of tools,labor,and social relations.We cannot relegate partnerships When a woman is married,she is initiated into intercourse all of the multi-faceted aspects of.social reproduction to the by the sib-friend of her groom's father.After bearing a child by this sex.system.Replacement of machinery is an example.of man,.she begins to have intercourse with her husband.:She also has an reproduction in the economy.On the other hand,we cannot institutionalized:parthership with the sib-friend of her husband.A limit the sex system toreproduction"in either the social or man's partriers include his wife,the wife of his sib-friend,and the wife of his sib-friend's son (Thurnwald,1916).Multiple intercourse is a more biological sense of the term.A.sex/gender system is not pronounced custom among the Marind Anim:At the time of marriage, simply the reproductive moment of amode of production." the bride has intercourse with all of the members of the groom's clan, The formation of gender identity is an example of produc- the groom coming last Every major festival is accompanied by a prac. tion in the realm of the sexual system.And a sex/gender tice:known asgtiv-bombari,in which semen is collected for ritual pur system involves more than the "relations of procreation," poses.A few women have intercourse with,many men,and the resulting semen is collected in coconut-shell buckets.A Marind male is subjected reproduction in the biological sense. to multiple homosexual intercourse during initiation (Van Baal,1966). .The term "patriarchywas introduced to distinguish the Among the Etoro,heterosexual intercourse is taboo for between.205 forces maintaining sexism from other social forces,such as and 260 days a year (Kelly,1974).In much of New Guinea,men fear capitalism.But the use ofpatriarchy"obscures other dis- copulation and think that it will kill them if they engage in it without tinctions.Its use is analagous to using capitalism to refer to magical precautions (Glasse,1971;Meggitt,1970).Usually,such ideas of feminine pollution express the subordination of women.But sym. all modes of production,whereas the usefulness of the term bolic systems contain internal contradictions,whose logical extensions "capitalismlies precisely in that it distinguishes between the sometimes lead to inversions of the propositions on which a system is different systems by which societies are provisioned and or- based.In New Britain,men's fear of sex is so extreme that rape appears ganized.Any society will have some system of "political to be feared by men rather than women.Women run after the men, economy."Such a system may be egalitarian or socialist.It who flee from them,women are the sexual aggressors,and it is bride- grooms who 'are reluctant (Goodale and Chowning,1971).Other in- may be class stratified,in which case the oppressed class may teresting.sexual variations can be found in Yalmon (1963)and K. consist of serfs,peasants,or slaves.The oppressed class may Gough(1959).· consist of wage laborers,in which case the system is properly