ABSTRACT
Every society has cultural rules and customary strategies whose intent is to ensure reproductive continuity from generation to generation. Viable methods of infant care, child rearing, and mate selection during adolescence are necessary for such continuity. In order to understand maidenhood strategies the probability of pregnancy occurring during the period must be determined. Premarital sex without penetration is encouraged. These societies employ a strategy for coping with maidenhood that is widespread among Bantu-speaking peoples of East and South Africa. Early marriage and a brief maidenhood makes use of the full female reproductive span and thus should be preferred by cultures in which large families are valued. Conversely, late marriage and prolonged maidenhood are more compatible with small family preference. An obvious and necessary accompaniment to further research on maidenhood is an investigation of bachelorhood. In some societies men and women marry at similar developmental or chronological ages.
