'An instrument of joy'

Sisterly advice from Margaret Mead

The following letter can be found in both More Letters of Note and Letters of Note: Sex. It was also, in 2020, read for us at Letters Live by Gillian Anderson. Scroll to the bottom for video.

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Margaret Mead was for many years the leading anthropologist on the planet, thanks largely to Coming of Age in Samoa, a groundbreaking and controversial book she wrote after a research trip in 1925 in which a light was shone on the previously alien lives and relaxed sexual attitudes of adolescent Samoan girls. Although since contested, Mead’s findings were a revelation, and in fact have been credited with influencing the sexual revolution of the 1960s. In 1926, a year after setting foot on the Samoan island of T’au, Mead learnt of a sexual awakening much closer to home: that of her younger sister, Elizabeth. This letter of advice was her response.