madonna bears children for her husband, who owns them until the girls are
given away in marriage or the boys come of age.

The Nordic tradition rejects the doctrine of the virgin bride and
the double standard. It is a system of sexual equalitarianism in which be-
trothal--not marriage--is the prominent ceremony. Betrothal commonly
takes place in the spring, because the long winter generally provides the oc-
casion for couples to become sexually intimate through the custom of bun-
dling. When they have begun to engage in sexual intercourse, it is customary
to announce their betrothal. Normally, marriage follows betrothal, but only
if pregnancy occurs. Marriage legitimates parenthood, not sexual relation-
ships. Money feels that this betrothal system can fill our society's need to
find an ethic for recreational sex prior to the responsibilities of procreational
sex.

The third legacy, the Amerafrican, accepts the notion of po-
lygamy, which is alien to the Nordic and the Mediterranean legacies. It is a
system strongly influenced by the experience of slavery, but has much that
is positive to offer. It accepts the erotic sexuality of adolescence and early
adulthood and supports a three-generational child-care system. However, this
rotational system of child care is not supported by our economic system and
therefore, in Money's view, tends to perpetuate poverty.

All three of these legacies are enjoined by some elements of
our society today and tend to order and organize our social interaction in
much the same way as the perspectives on sexuality described earlier. Indi-
viduals in one legacy define the world quite differently than those in another,
and this fact is not mutually celebrated in our society as a whole.

This chapter has attempted to reconstruct some of the major elements in
our changing beliefs about human sexuality. It could not be exhaustive, only
suggestive. The central threads that were traced were fundamentalist Chris-
tian asceticism, Romanticism, and the popularization of science through some
of the classic studies of human sexuality. These threads were partially woven
together at various critical times in our history, particularly in the first cen-
tury, the sixteenth century, the nineteenth century, and mid-twentieth cen-
tury.

While at all times it was possible to point to instances in which
we have placed a high positive value on sex in our belief system, the domi-
nant conviction has been that human sexuality, as such, was essentially bad,
at best a necessary evil. This conviction has been nurtured by the dominant
element of the Christian tradition that has been labeled fundamentalist
Christian asceticism. It has been supported by much of romanticism as well.
Even Freud, who, for all intents and purposes, can be said to have begun
the scientific study of human sexuality, thought of it throughout most of his

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