interest taken in it by Mr. Havelock Ellis, whose work and whose example as a pioneer in honest thought and outspoken research I have always admired and revered. His preface materially enhances the value of this book.
The group of my friends, pupils, and colleagues who have been associated with Anthropological Research Work and Teaching at the London School of Economics for the last few years, have helped me greatly to clarify my ideas and to present my material, more especially on the subject of family life, kinship organization, and marriage law. The names of Mrs. Robert Aitken (Miss Barbara Freire-Marecco), of Dr. R. W. Firth (now in the Solomons), of Mr. E. E. Evans-Pritchard (now among the Azande), of Miss Camilla Wedgwood (now in Australia), of Dr. Gordon Brown (now in Tanganyika), of Dr. Hortense Powdermaker (now on the way to Papua), of Mr. I. Schapera (late of South Africa), of Mr. T. J. A. Yates (late of Egypt), of Miss Audrey Richards, will in my mind be always gratefully remembered in association with the drafting of the more difficult sociological chapters of this book.
My greatest debt in this book, as in most I have written, is to my wife. Her counsel and practical co-operation have made the writing of the Argonauts of the Western Pacific and of this an agreeable task instead of a drudgery. If there is any value and interest in these books for me personally, it comes from her share in the common work.
London.
January, 1929.
