Note 1066 — Chapter I · THE NEGATIVE CULT AND ITS FUNCTIONS THE ASCETIC RITES

One may compare these ascetic practices with those used at the initiation of a magician. Just like the young neophyte, the apprentice magician is submitted to a multitude of interdictions, the observation of which contributes to his acquisition of his specific powers (see L'Origine des pouvoirs magiques, in Hubert and Mauss, Mélanges d'histoire des religions, pp. 171, 173, 176). The same is true for the husband and wife on the day before and the day after the wedding (taboos of the betrothed and newly married); this is because marriage also implies a grave change of condition. We limit ourselves to mentioning these facts summarily, without stopping over them; for the first concern magic, which is not our subject, and the second have to do with that system of juridico-religious rules which relates to the commerce of the sexes, the study of which will be possible only in conjunction with the other precepts of primitive conjugal morality.