ABSTRACT
The act of getting married involves the adoption of new conventions, but the change is also so arranged as to seem more a gradual weaning than a sudden severance. If the girl must now adjust herself to living far from home, she is not expected to remain entirely aloof and never to visit it again. Husband and wife must conform to a tradition of conjugal fidelity, yet there is, none the less, an important qualification. At the Sohrae festival, married daughters are expected to return to their parents and a number of songs express the excitement of this visit. During this visit, rice-beer is brewed, household chores are forgotten and for a single charmed week, the code of sexual conduct is deliberately relaxed. Sohrae is a way of easing the shock of parting, of weaning a girl from her village lover, of reconciling the young of both sexes to the disciplines of marriage.
