ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how marriage, initiation, and the relations between the land-owning groups are mutually interdependent and that an appreciation of the reciprocal relations between them takes one a considerable way to understanding the organization of aboriginal society as a whole. An ever-recurring theme of cult life and of art throughout Australia, north, central, and south, is the fertility of nature and of man. The chapter explores the distribution of marriage gerontocracy inside Australia. The evidence for polygyny-gerontocracy is complicated by the fact that it can disappear very rapidly under contact situations. The chapter reviews the question of male initiation and its relation to marriage and to the cooperation between the land-owning groups. The discussion on marriage gerontocracy has shown that the Australian aboriginal society is on the horns of a dilemma. The contradiction in Australian society has been resolved by the older men controlling the younger through the elaborate system of male initiation found in Australia.
