Let us recall the distinguishing features of the pirrauru union.  They are (1) consent of the husband (?); (2) recognition by the totem-kin through its head-man; (3) temporary character[176]; (4) priority of the tippa-malku union in the case of the woman; (5) purchase of pirrauru rights by (a) the brother who becomes a widower, and (b) visitors or others without pirraurus of their own, the rights being in the latter case for a very short period and not dependent on recognition by the totem-kin, so far as Dr Howitt’s narrative is a guide.  Now unless “group marriage” was very different from what it is commonly represented to be, the essence of it was that all the men of one class had sexual rights over the women of another class.  How far does this picture coincide with the features of the pirrauru, which is regarded as a survival of it?  In the first place pirrauru is created by a ceremony, which is performed, not by the head, nor even in the Wakelbura tribe, by a member of the supposed intermarried classes of the earlier period; but by the heads of the totem-kins of the individual men concerned.  Now it is quite unthinkable that the right of class promiscuity, to use the correct term, should ever have been exercised subject to any such restriction; even were it otherwise the performance of the ceremony would more naturally fall into the hands of tribal, phratriac, or class authorities than of the heads of totem-kins.  Then too if pirrauru is a survival of group marriage we should expect the ceremony to be performed for the tippa-malku union and not for the pirrauru.

Again if tippa-malku is later and pirrauru earlier, what is the meaning of the regulation that the woman must first be united in tippa-malku marriage before she can enter into the pirrauru relationship?  On the “group marriage” theory this fact demands to be explained, no less than the different position of men and women in this respect.  We have seen that freedom in sexual matters is accorded to both bachelors and spinsters.  It is therefore from no sense of the value of chastity, from no jealousy of the future tippa-malku husband’s rights, that the female is excluded from the pirrauru relation until she has a husband.

Again, if pirrauru is a relic of former rights, now restricted to a few of the group which formerly exercised them, why is the husband’s consent needed before the pirrauru relation is set up, and why is the pirrauru relation, once established, not permanent (assuming that my reading of Dr Howitt is right)?

Once more, if pirrauru is a right, how comes it that a brother has to purchase the right, when he becomes a widower[177]?  What too is the meaning of the transference of pirrauru women to strangers in return for gifts?