V. A CRITICISM OF THE HYPOTHESIS OF PROMISCUITY…

V. A CRITICISM OF THE HYPOTHESIS OF PROMISCUITY

(Continued)

We are indebted to Mr. Lewis H. Morgan for information as to the names of various degrees of kinship among no fewer than 139 different races or tribes. This collection shows that very many peoples have a nomenclature of relationships quite different from our own. Mr. Morgan divides the systems into two great classes, the descriptive and the classificatory, which he regards as radically distinct. “The first,” he says, “which is that of the Aryan, Semitic, and Uralian families, rejecting the classification of kindred, except so far as it is in accordance with the numerical system, describes collateral consanguinei, for the most part, by an augmentation or combination of the primary terms of relationship. These terms, which are those for husband and wife, father and mother, brother and sister, and son and daughter, to which must be added, in such languages as possess them, grandfather and grandmother, and grandson and granddaughter, are thus restricted to the primary sense in which they are here employed. All other terms are secondary. Each relationship is thus made independent and distinct from every other. But the second, which is that of the Turanian, American Indian, and Malayan families, rejecting descriptive phrases in every instance, and reducing consanguinei to great classes, by a series of apparently arbitrary generalizations, applies the same terms to all the members of the same class. It thus confounds relationships, which, under the descriptive system, are distinct, and enlarges the signification both of the primary and secondary terms beyond their seemingly appropriate sense.”[435]

The most primitive form of the classificatory group is the system of the “Malayan family,”[436] which prevails among the Hawaiians, Kingsmill Islanders, Maoris, and, presumably, also among several other Polynesian and Micronesian tribes.[437] According to this system, all consanguinei, near and remote, are classified into five categories. My brothers and sisters and my first, second, third, and more remote male and female cousins, are the first category. To all these without distinction I apply the same term. My father and mother, together with their brothers and sisters, and their first, second, and more remote cousins, are the second category. To all these without distinction I apply likewise the same term. The brothers, sisters, and several cousins of my grandparents I denominate as if they were my grandparents; the cousins of my sons and daughters, as if they were my sons and daughters; the grandchildren of my brothers and sisters and their several cousins, as if they were my own grandchildren. All the individuals of the same category address each other as if they were brothers and sisters. Uncleship, auntship, and cousinship being ignored, we have, as far as the nomenclature is considered, only grandchildren.[438]

From this system of nomenclature all the others belonging to the classificatory group have, according to Mr. Morgan, been gradually developed. The system of the Two-Mountain Iroquois differs from that of the Hawaiians essentially in two respects only, the mother’s brother being distinguished by a special term, and so also a sister’s children. The Micmac system is somewhat more advanced. Not only does a man call his sister’s son his nephew, but a woman applies the same term to her brother’s son; and not only is a mother’s brother termed an uncle, but also the father’s sister is distinguished by a special term, as an aunt. A father’s brother is called a “little father;” and a mother’s sister, a “little mother.” Still more advanced is the system of the Wyandots, which may be regarded as the typical system of the Indians.[439] A mother’s brother’s son and a father’s sister’s son are no longer called by the same terms as brothers, but are recognized as cousins; and women apply to their mother’s brother’s grandsons no longer the same term as to their sons, but call them nephews.

It is needless to enter into further details. Those who shrink from the trouble of reading through Mr. Morgan’s extensive tables, will find an excellent summary of them in the fifth chapter of Sir John Lubbock’s great work on ‘The Origin of Civilization.’ It may, however, be added that the most advanced system of the classificatory group is that of the Karens and Eskimo, which differs from our own in three respects only. The children of cousins are termed nephews; the children of nephews, grandchildren; and a grandfather’s brothers and sisters, respectively, grandfathers and grandmothers. “Hence,” says Sir John Lubbock, “though the Karens and Eskimo have now a far more correct system of nomenclature than that of many other races, we find, even in this, clear traces of a time when these peoples had not advanced in this respect beyond the lowest stage.”[440]

From these systems of nomenclature Mr. Morgan draws very far-reaching conclusions, assuming that they are necessarily to be explained by early marriage customs. Thus, from the “Malayan system,” he infers the former prevalence of “marriage in a group” of all brothers and sisters and cousins of the same grade or generation; or, more correctly, his case is, that if we can explain the “Malayan system” on the assumption that such a general custom once existed, then we must believe that it did formerly exist. “Without this custom,” he says, “it is impossible to explain the origin of the system from the nature of descents. There is, therefore, a necessity for the prevalence of this custom amongst the remote ancestors of all the nations which now possess the classificatory system, if the system itself is to be regarded as having a natural origin.”[441] The family resulting from this custom he calls, in his latest work, the “consanguine family,” and in this, consisting of a body of kinsfolk, within which there prevailed promiscuity, or “communal marriage,” between all men and women of the same generation, the family in its first stage is recognized.[442] Mr. Morgan believes, however, that as a necessary condition antecedent to this form of the family, promiscuity, in a wider sense of the term, may be theoretically deduced, though, as he says, “it lies concealed in the misty antiquity of mankind beyond the reach of positive knowledge.”[443]

It is needless here to consider whether the last conclusion holds good. I shall endeavour to prove that Mr. Morgan’s inference of a stage of promiscuous intercourse even within the prescribed limits is altogether untenable. All depends on the point whether the “classificatory system” is a system of blood-ties, the nomenclature having been founded on blood-relationship, as near as the parentage of individuals could be known. Mr. Morgan assumes this, instead of proving it.

Yet in the terms themselves there is, generally, nothing which indicates that they imply an idea of consanguinity. Professor Buschmann has given us a very interesting list of the names for father and mother in many different languages.[444] The similarity of the terms is striking. “Pa,” “papa,” or “baba,” for instance, means father in several languages of the Old and New World, and “ma,” “mama,” means mother. The Tupis in Brazil have “paia” for father, and “maia” for mother;[445] the Uaraguaçú, respectively, “paptko” and “mamko.”[446] In other languages the terms for father are “ab,” “aba,” “apa,” “ada,” “ata,” “tata”; those for mother, “ama,” “emä,” “ana,” “ena,” &c. According to Buschmann, there are four typical forms of words for each of these ideas: for father, “pa,” “ta,” “ap,” “at”; for mother, “ma,” “na,” “am,” “an.” Sometimes, however, the meaning of the types is reversed. Thus, in Georgian,[447] as well as in the Mahaga language of Ysabel,[448] “mama” stands for father; whilst the Tuluvas in Southern India call the father “amme,” and the mother “appe.”[449]

The terms used often fall outside of the types mentioned. In the Lifu tongue, for example, one term for father is “kaka;”[450] in the Duauru language of Baladea, “chicha”;[451] in the Maréan tongue, “chacha” or “cheche.”[452] Again, among the Chalcha Mongols and some related peoples, mother is “ekè.”[453] In the Kanúri language, of Central Africa, the mother is called “ya”;[454] while the Kechua in Brazil call the father “yaya.”[455] Among the Bakongo, as I am informed by Mr. Ingham, “se” means father; in Finnish, “isä.” Again, by the Brazilian Bakaĭri, the mother is called “ise”;[456] and, by the people of Aneiteum, New Hebrides, “risi.”[457]

Similar terms are often used for other relationships. The Greek, “πάππος” signifies grandfather, and “μάμμα” grandmother. In the Kanúri language, “yaya” stands for elder brother;[458] and, in Lifuan, “mama” and “dhina” are terms for brother, whilst mother is “thine.”[459]

The origin of such terms is obvious. They are formed from the easiest sounds a child can produce. “‘Pa-pa,’ ‘ma-ma,‘ 'tata,’ and ‘apa,’ ‘ama,’ ‘ata,’” Professor Preyer says, “emerge originally spontaneously, the way of the breath being barred at the expiration, either by the lips (p, m), or by the tongue (d, t).”[460] Yet the different races vary considerably with regard to the ease with which they produce certain sounds. Thus the pronunciation of the labials is very difficult to many Indians,[461] on account of which their terms for father, mother, or other near kinsfolk, often differ much from the types given by Professor Buschmann.

It is evident that the terms borrowed from the children’s lips have no intrinsic meaning whatever. Hence, if a Bakaĭri child calls its father and father’s brother “tsogo,” its mother and mother’s sister “tsego”;[462] if a Macúsi names his paternal uncle “papa” as well as his father, and an Efatese names his father and all the tribe brothers of his father “ava” or “tama”;[463] if the Dacotahs apply the term “ahta” not only to the father, but also to the father’s brother, to the mother’s sister’s husband, to the father’s father’s brother’s son, &c., and the term “enah” not only to the mother, but also to the mother’s sister, to the mother’s mother’s sister’s daughter, &c.;[464] if, among the New Caledonians, an uncle, taking the place of a father, is called “baba” like the father himself, and an aunt is called “gnagna” like a mother;[465] if, as Archdeacon Hodgson of Zanzibar, writes to me, a native of Eastern Central Africa uses the words “baba” and “mama” not only for father and mother respectively, but also, very commonly, for “any near relationship or even external connection;” if, finally, the Semitic word for father, “ab” (“abu”), is not only used in a wide range of senses, but, to quote Professor Robertson Smith, “in all dialects is used in senses quite inconsistent with the idea that procreator is the radical meaning of the word,”[466]—we certainly must not, from these designations, infer anything as to early marriage customs.

Of course there are other terms applied to kinsfolk besides words taken from the lips of children, or words derived from these. But though considerable, their number has been somewhat exaggerated. Thus, for instance, Professor Vámbéry, in his work upon the primitive culture of the Turko-Tartars, says that the terms for mother, “ana” or “ene” have originally the meaning of woman or nurse, being derived from the roots “an” and “en.”[467] Exactly the reverse seems to be the fact, the terms for mother being the primitive words. In the same way, I cannot but think that Professor Max Müller and several other philologists are in error in deriving “pitár,” “pater,” “father,” from the root “pa,” which means to protect, to nourish; and “mâtár,” “mater,” “mother,” from the root “ma,” to fashion.[468] It seems, indeed, far more natural, as has been pointed out by Sir J. Lubbock and others, that the roots “pa,” to protect, and “ma,” to fashion, come from “pa,” father, and “ma,” mother, and not vice versa.[469] I am the more inclined to accept this explanation, as Mr. A. J. Swann informs me, from Kavala Island, Lake Tanganyika, that among the Waguha, the words “baba,” and “tata,” which mean father, also have the meaning of protector, provider.

I do not deny that relationships—especially in the collateral and descending lines—are in some cases denoted by terms derived from roots having an independent meaning; but the number of those that imply an idea of consanguinity does not seem to be very great. Mr. Bridges writes that, among the Yahgans, “the names ‘imu’ and ‘dabi’—father and mother—have no meaning apart from their application, neither have any of their other very definite and ample list of terms for relatives, except the terms ‘macu’ and ‘macipa’ son and daughter. These terms refer to ‘magu’ which means parturition; ‘cipa’ (‘keepa’) signifies woman or female.” In Bakongo, according to Mr. Ingham, “se” and “tata” denote father; “mama,” “mbuta,” and “ngudi,” mother; “nfumu,” elder brother or sister; “mbunzi,” younger brother; and “mbusi,” younger sister. “Nfumu” means also Sir, chief; “mbuta” means “the one who bore,” from “buta,” or “wuta,” to beget; and “ngudi,” “the one we descended from.” Again, Mr. Radfield informs me that, in the language of Lifu, the term for father means root; the term for mother, foundation or vessel; the term for sister, forbidden or “not to be touched;” and the terms for eldest and younger brother, respectively, ruler and ruled. It is possible—I should even say probable—that, in these instances also, the designations for relationships are the radical words. Besides, it should be observed that, in Yahgan, “the terms for relatives are strictly reserved for such, neither are they interchanged,” and that in Bakongo, the terms “tata” and “mama” are used as signs of respect to any one, whilst the terms “mbuta” and “ngudi” seem to be applied exclusively to the mother.

Not only has Mr. Morgan given no evidence for the truth of his assumption that the “classificatory system” is a system of blood-ties, but this assumption is not even fully consistent with the facts he has himself stated. It is conceivable that uncertainty as regards fatherhood might have led a savage to call several men his fathers, but an analogous reason could never have induced him to name several women his mothers. Hence, if a man applies the same term to his mother’s sisters as to his mother, and he himself is addressed as a son by a woman who did not give birth to him, this evidently shows that the nomenclature, at least in certain cases, cannot be explained by the nature of descent.[470]

There can be scarcely any doubt that the terms for relationships are, in their origin, terms of address. “The American Indians,” says Mr. Morgan, “always speak to each other, when related, by the term of relationship, and never by the personal name of the individual addressed.”[471] From a psychological point of view, it would, indeed, be surprising if it could be shown that primitive men, in addressing all the different members of their family or tribe, took into consideration so complicated a matter as the degree of consanguinity. Can we really believe that a savage whose intelligence, perhaps, was so deficient that he was scarcely able to count his own fingers, applied the same term to his cousins as to his brothers, because he was not certain whether, after all, they were not his brothers and that, when he did make a distinction between them, he did so because they were begotten by different fathers? Facts show that savages generally denominate their kindred according to much simpler principles, the names being given chiefly with reference to sex and age, as also to the external or social, relationship in which the speaker stands to the person whom he addresses.

In every language there are different designations for persons of different sexes. In the rudest system of nomenclature, the Hawaiian, father and other kinsmen of the same generation are called “makua kana;” mother, mother’s sisters, father’s sisters, &c., “makua waheena,” “kana” and “waheena” being the terms for male and female. A son is called “kaikee kana,” a daughter “kaikee waheena,” whilst “kana” alone is applied to husband, husband’s brother, and sister’s husband, and “waheena” to wife, wife’s sister, brother’s wife, &c.

There are also separate terms in every language for relations belonging to different generations. Among the lower races especially, age, or, more exactly, the age of the person spoken to compared with that of the speaker, plays a very important part in the matter of denomination. According to Dr. Davy, the Veddahs appear to be without names; “a Veddah interrogated on the subject, said, ‘I am called a man: when young, I was called the little man: and when old, I shall be called the old man.’”[472] The Hawaiians, as we are informed by Judge Andrews, have no definite general word for brother in common use. But “kaikuaána” signifies any one of my brothers, or male cousins, older than myself, I being a male, and any one of my sisters, or female cousins, older than myself, I being a female; whilst “kaikaina” signifies a younger brother of a brother, or a younger sister of a sister.[473] Such distinguishing epithets applied to older and younger are, in fact, very frequently met with among uncivilized peoples. Thus, touching the Andamanese, Mr. Man states that “brothers and sisters speak of one another by titles that indicate relative age: that is, their words for brother and sister involve the distinction of elder or younger.” A like system is adopted by them in respect to half-brothers, half-sisters, cousins, brothers-in-law, and sisters-in-law.[474] In certain languages, too, there are special terms for an uncle on the father’s side older than the father, and for an uncle younger than he;[475] and in the Fulfúlde tongue, the age of the uncles is so minutely specified, that the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth uncle, on both the father’s and the mother’s side, are each called by a particular name.[476]

The wider meaning in which many terms for kinship are used bear witness in the same direction. The Rev. J. Sibree states that, in Hova, “ray,” father, does not take the sense the corresponding word in many Semitic languages has, of “maker” of a thing, but it is used in a wide sense as an elder or superior; and “rény,” mother, is also used in a wide sense as a respectful way of addressing an elderly woman.[477] Mr. Swann writes to me that, among the Waguha, West Tanganyika, men advanced in years are termed “baba,” father, whilst, in other parts of Equatorial Africa, according to Mr. Reade, old men are addressed as “rera,” father, and old women as “ngwe,” mother.[478] The Russian “batushka” and “matushka,” as also the Swedish “far” and “mor,” are often used in a similar way. Again, Mr. Cousins asserts that, among the natives of Cis-Natalian Kafirland, the terms for father, mother, brother, and sister, are not restricted to them only, but are applied equally to other persons of a similar age, whether related or otherwise. “‘Bawo,’ father,” he says, “means elder or older, ‘bawo-kulu’ means a big-father, one older than father.” Probably “bawo,” as belonging to the type “pa,” was originally used as a term of address, from which the sense of elder or older was derived; but this does not interfere with the matter in question. The Rev. E. Casalis, writing of the Basutos, states that “in addressing a person older than one’s self, one says, ‘My father, my mother;’ to an equal, ‘My brother;’ and to inferiors, ‘My children.’”[479] The Finnish “isä” and the Votyak “ai,” father, the Lappish “Aja,” and the Esthonian “äi,” grandfather, are evidently related to, and probably the roots of, the Finnish “iso” and “äijä” which mean big.[480] The Chukchi use, besides “atta” for father and “mámang” for mother, “empynátchyo” and “émpyngau” respectively, which obviously have the same root as “émpytchin,” elder or older.[481] The Brazilian Uainumá call a father “paii,” but also “pechyry,” i.e., old.[482] “Les jeunes Australiens,” says Bishop Salvado, “ont coutume d’appeler ‘mama’ ou ‘maman’ (c’est-à-dire-père) tous les vieillards, comme aussi ‘N-angan’ (ou mère) les femmes avancées en âge.”[483] According to Nicolaus Damascenus, the Galactophagi denominated “all old men fathers; young men, sons; and those of equal age, brothers.”[484] In German, the parents are “die Eltern,” the older (“die Aelteren”), and they are also called familiarly “die Alten;” the father, “der Alte;” and the mother, “die Alte” or “Altsche.”[485] Again, among the North American Indians, old people are very commonly named grandfathers and grandmothers;[486] whilst the Finnish “ämmä” does not signify grandmother only, but old woman in general.[487] Among the Tsuishikari Ainos, the maternal grandfather and grandmother of a child are called both by him, and his father, “henki” and “unarabe” respectively.[488]

As to the collateral line, it should be observed that, in Ćagatai, an elder sister is called “egeći,” which actually means old woman “ege,” old, big; “eći,” woman, sister.[489] In Hungarian, where “bátya” stands for elder brother, an uncle is “nagybátya,” i.e., a big elder brother.[490] Among many Ural-Altaic peoples, the same term is applied to an elder brother as to an uncle, to an elder sister as to an aunt.[491] Were we to follow Mr. Morgan’s way of reasoning, we should, from this nomenclature, come to very curious conclusions as to the early marriage customs of the peoples in question.

Again, in the Galibi language of Brazil, “tigami” signifies young brother, son, and little child indiscriminately;[492] and several languages have no other words for son and daughter than those for lad and girl.[493] Thus, in Hawaiian, a son is called male child, or more properly, little male; and a daughter, female child or girl.[494] Mr. George Bridgman states that, among the Mackay blacks of Queensland, the word for daughter is used by a man for any young woman belonging to the class which his daughter would belong to if he had one.[495] And, speaking of the South Australians, Eyre says, “In their intercourse with each other, natives of different tribes are exceedingly punctilious and polite; ... almost everything that is said is prefaced by the appellation of father, son, brother, mother, sister, or some other similar term, corresponding to that degree of relationship which would have been most in accordance with their relative ages and circumstances.”[496]

All those names, refer, as previously mentioned, not to the absolute, but to the relative, age of the person addressed. Often, too, there is a certain relativity in the use of words denominating sex. Mr. Dall remarks, for instance, that among the Eskimo, the form of the terms of relationship “appears to depend in some cases more on the sex of the speaker than on that of the person to whom the term refers.” In Eastern Central Africa, “if a man have a brother and a sister, he is called one thing by the brother, but quite a different thing by the sister.”[497] And several other instances of the same kind are to be found in Mr. Morgan’s tables.

As for the third factor influencing the terms of address—i.e., the social relationship which exists between the addresser and the one addressed,—it is obvious that different designations are applied to enemies and friends, to strangers and members of the family-circle, nay, generally, to persons to whom one stands in an altogether different external relationship. The importance of this factor is evident from several statements. Thus, among the Hovas, according to Mr. Sibree, the words for brother and sister “are also used widely for any person whom one meets and desires to act towards in a friendly manner.”[498] The Fuegians says Mr. Bridges, form certain kinds of friendships, and “speak of aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces and nephews, &c., which are only so through the friendships established.”[499] Among the Waguha, strangers are called “ndugu,” brother, if of the same tribe;[500] and Mr. Hartshorne tells us that the Veddahs applied to him the term “hura,” or cousin.[501] We can understand, then, why the same name, as a rule, is used by the savage to denote just the persons of the same sex and of like age who belong to his own family-circle; and why, as a consequence, the nomenclature is rich or poor according as that circle is small or large. The Yahgans, for instance, who live in families rather than in tribes, have a very definite list of terms for kinsfolk. They have different appellations for nephews and nieces on the brother’s side, and nephews and nieces on the sister’s side, and their words for uncle and aunt differ according as this relationship is paternal or maternal. They have also special terms for father-, mother-, son-and daughter-, brother-and sister-in-law.[502] On the other hand, the larger, the body of kinsfolk that keep closely together, and the less it is differentiated, as regards the functions of its various members, the more comprehensive are generally the terms of address. The “classificatory system of relationship” must, therefore, have emerged at a time when the separate families had already united in larger bodies.

The same principle explains how it happens that a maternal uncle is almost always distinguished from a father by a separate term, whilst this is not the case with an uncle on the father’s side, the former generally living in another community from his nephew, and, besides, very frequently standing to him in a quite peculiar relationship through the rules of succession. It may be fairly assumed, too, that a mother’s sister much oftener than a father’s sister is called a mother, because sisters, among savages, keep as a rule, far more closely together, when married, than brothers and sisters; sometimes even, especially among the North American Indians, they are the wives of the same man. If we add to this that a father’s brother’s son and a mother’s sister’s son are more commonly addressed as brothers than as father’s sister’s son and a mother’s brother’s son, it becomes obvious to how great an extent the nomenclature is influenced by external relations. But as a certain kind of external relationship is invariably connected with a certain degree, or certain degrees, of blood-relationship, the designations given with reference to the former have been taken as terms for the latter.

The basis on which Mr. Morgan has built his hypothesis must be considered, then, altogether untenable.[503] It cannot be proved that, where the “classificatory system” prevails, the nomenclature was intended to express the degree of consanguity so exactly as he assumes, or that it had originally anything whatever to do with descent. On the contrary, I have endeavoured to show that the case was probably just the reverse; so that no inference regarding early marriage customs is to be drawn from the terms for relationships. Even now, in Spanish, a brother’s great-grandson is called grandson; in Bulgarian, as also in Russian, a father’s father’s brother is termed a grandfather, and a father’s father’s sister a grandmother; the Greek “ἁνεψιός” appears to have been applied to a nephew, a grandson, and a cousin; “neef,” in Dutch, still expresses these three relationships indiscriminately; in Flemish and Platt Deutsch, “nichte” is applied to a female cousin as well as to a niece; and Shakspeare, in his will, describes his granddaughter, Susannah Hall, as “my niece.”[504] Surely, nobody would look upon these designations as relics of ancient times, when there really might have been some uncertainty as to kinship in the direction which the terms indicate. Mr. Morgan himself admits that, in Latin, “nepos” did not originally signify “either a nephew, grandson or cousin, but that it was used promiscuously to designate a class of persons next without the primary relationships.”[505]

* * * * *

Thirty years ago, in a work of prodigious learning,[506] the Swiss jurist, Dr. Bachofen, drew attention to the remarkable fact that a system of “kinship through mothers only” prevailed among several ancient peoples. Moreover, partly from actual statements of old writers, partly from traditions and myths, he came to the conclusion that such a system everywhere preceded the rise of “kinship through males.” A few years later, though quite independently of him, Mr. McLennan set forth exactly the same hypothesis, being led to it chiefly by extensive studies in modern ethnology. While, however, Bachofen explained the phenomenon as a consequence of the supremacy of women, Mr. McLennan regarded it as due to the uncertain paternity which resulted from early promiscuity. “It is inconceivable,” he says, “that anything but the want of certainty on that point could have long prevented the acknowledgment of kinship through males; and in such cases we shall be able to conclude that such certainty has formerly been wanting—that more or less promiscuous intercourse between the sexes has formerly prevailed. The connection between these two things—uncertain paternity and kinship through females only, seems so necessary—that of cause and effect—that we may confidently infer the one where we find the other.”[507]

It must be observed that the facts adduced as examples of what Mr. McLennan calls “kinship through females only” in most instances imply, chiefly, that children are named after their mothers, not after their fathers, and that property and rank succeed exclusively in the female line. If these customs were to be explained as relics of ancient promiscuity, we certainly should have to admit that such a state was formerly very prevalent in the human race. Yet we could not be sure that it prevailed universally. For, though the number of peoples among whom descent and inheritance follow the mother’s side only, is very considerable,[508] the number of those among whom the male line is recognized, is scarcely less—even apart from the civilized nations of Europe and Asia. At present, when anthropologists affirm with so much assurance that a system of exclusive “kinship through females” prevailed everywhere before the tie of blood between father and child had found a place in systems of relationships, it seems appropriate to give a list of peoples among whom such a system does not prevail—a list, however, which cannot pretend to completeness.

Starting, then, with North America, which is acknowledged to be, or to have been, one of the chief centres of “mother-right,” or metrocracy, we meet there with many aboriginal nations among whom a son, as a rule takes the father’s name and becomes his heir.[509] Thus Cranz states that, among the Eskimo of Greenland, “when a husband dies, his eldest son inherits his house, tent, and woman’s boat, and besides must maintain the mother and children, who share the furniture and clothes amongst themselves.”[510] Among the Indians bordering on the south-east coast of the river St. Lawrence, according to Heriot, the eldest son took the name of his father with the addition of one syllable.[511] The Californian tribes[512] and the Dacotahs[513] recognized chieftainship as hereditary in the male line; and, with reference to the latter, Mr. Prescott remarks that they cannot well forget relationships, as the names of father and mother are both recollected for three or four generations.[514] Among the Ahts, the eldest son takes all the property left by his father, and the head-chiefs rank is hereditary in the male line.[515] The paternal system prevails, moreover, in thirteen other tribes mentioned by Mr. Frazer in his essay on “Totemism.”[516]

In Mexico, Yucatan, San Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua, succession ran from father to son; and in Vera Paz, according to Las Casas, kinship was so exclusively recognized in the male line, that the people there thought the most remote kin in their own lineage to be more closely related than the daughter of their mother, provided she was not of the same father. On the other hand, Piedrahita tells us that, among the Chibchas, the sons of sisters, and, in default of such, the brothers of the king, were the heirs to the crown of Bogota, but that the sons had a right to the personal property of their father; whilst, according to Herrera, the property was inherited by the brothers, and if there were none living, by the sons of those who were dead.[517]

Among the Caribs, kinship was reckoned in the female line, but the authority of the chiefs was hereditary in the male line only, the children of sisters being excluded from the succession.[518] Among the Macas Indians in Ecuador, property descends from father to son;[519] among the Guaycurûs, Abipones, and Araucanians, nobility, or chieftainship, was hereditary in the male line;[520] and the Brazilian aborigines, or at least some of them, laid particular stress upon kinship through fathers.[521] Again, with reference to the Yahgans of Tierra del Fuego, Mr. Bridges writes, “A child belongs equally to the clan of its father and mother as regards duty of revenge, but is always reckoned a member of the father’s clan only. Children are generally named after their grandparents, paternal or maternal indifferently. They are quite as much attached to their mother’s relatives and these to them, as to their paternal relatives; the only difference is that they are integral parts of the father’s clan, not of the mother’s.” Speaking of the same people, M. Hyades remarks, “L’héritage se transmet à l’époux survivant, ou à défaut, au fils aîné.”[522] In short, the paternal system, so far as we know, predominates among the aborigines of South America.

Passing to the Pacific Islands, we find that, though rank and clan are commonly inherited there through the mother, property generally goes in the male line. In Tonga, the son succeeds his father in homage and title,[523] and here, as well as in Fiji, on the father’s death, his possessions descend to his children.[524] Ellis tells us that, in Tahiti, the child of a chief was invested, soon after its birth, with the name and office of its father,[525] and in the case of there being no children, the brother of the deceased assumed the government. In other families property always went to the eldest son.[526] Among the Hawaiians, the rank of the principal and inferior chiefs, the offices of the priests, as also other situations of honour and influence, descended from father to son,[527] although on the whole, the female line predominated.[528] In the Hervey Islands, children belonged either to the father’s or mother’s clan, according to arrangement; usually, however, the father had the preference.[529] In New Caledonia, kinship is reckoned in the male line,[530] and in Lifu, as Mr. Radfield informs me, children belong to the paternal clan. In the Caroline Group, landed property succeeds mostly from father to son, children are named after their father’s father or mother’s father, and, apparently, the rank of the father influences that of the son, at least if he be a chief.[531] Among the Rejangs[532] and Bataks[533] of Sumatra, as also in several other islands belonging to the Indian Archipelago,[534] and in New Guinea,[535] the male line prevails. In the Kingsmill Islands, “if a chief has several children by different wives, the son of the mother of the highest rank is the successor.”[536] And, in New Zealand, nobility was inherited both in the male and female line; but on the death of a man, his eldest son took the family name which his father had held before him.[537]

Australian children are generally named after their mother’s clan; but this is not the case in every tribe.[538] Among the Gournditch-mara, Turra, Moncalon, Torndirrup, and some other tribes, the male line prevails.[539] With reference to the Narrinyeri, the Rev. G. Taplin states that a man’s children belong to his tribe (i.e. clan), and not to their mother’s; that property descends from father to son, and that, in case of a man dying without issue of his own, his possessions are always transmitted to the brother’s children.[540] Again, in the Dieyerie tribe of South Australia, the sons take the father’s clan, the daughters the mother’s.[541] Even where children are named after their mother, inheritance may go from father to son. Thus, among the West Australians, the hunting ground or landed property descends in the male line, though “children of either sex always take the family name of their mother.”[542]

Among the Todas, all children belong to the father’s family, and inheritance runs through males only.[543] The same is the case with most of the Indian Hill Tribes: either all the sons dividing their father’s property equally, as among the Gonds, Bodo, and Dhimáls; or the eldest son getting the largest share, as among the Kandhs, Karens, and Nagas; or the youngest born male being the only heir, as among the Hos; or the favourite son succeeding without reference to age, as among the Mishmis.[544] Among the Pahárias, too, sons inherit, and nephews by sisters get no share.[545] The law of succession among the Singphos gives to the eldest son all the landed property of the father, to the youngest all his personal property, while the rest inherit nothing.[546] Among the Santals, children belong to the father’s clan;[547] and the same is the case with the offspring of intermarriages of Lepchas and Limbus and Butias.[548] Touching the Karens, Dr. A. Bunker writes to me, “A child takes a name of its own, and of neither of the parents; but usually the father, being the stronger, takes the child in case of separation. It is regarded as belonging to both parents, so far as blood goes.” If we add to this that the male line prevails in Arabia,[549] Tibet,[550] throughout Russian Asia,[551] and among the Ainos,[552] it must be admitted that the system of “kinship through females only” is of very rare occurrence in Asia, being restricted, so far as I know, to a few parts of India, Ceylon, and the Malay Archipelago.[553]

It is much more prevalent among the African races. Yet, even among them, there are many instances where succession runs in the male line. A king or chief of the Somals[554] and Ba-kwileh[555] is succeeded by his son. Among the Fulah, this dignity is transmitted to the brother, while, in other instances, succession goes from father to son.[556] Among the Negroes of the Gold Coast, according to Bosman, the eldest son succeeded his father in office, though kinship was reckoned through the mother all along this coast, except at Accra.[557] Dr. A. Sims writes that, among the Bateke, “the child is considered as belonging to the father and mother equally,” and takes the grandfather’s or grandmother’s name. Among the Waguha, according to Mr. Swann, children are generally named after the father. In Lánda, the eldest son inherits all his father’s possessions, wives included.[558] Among the Damaras, whose divisions into clans are derived from the mother, the eldest son of the chief wife, nevertheless, is the successor of his father;[559] and the same rule prevails among the Bechuanas.[560] The Rev. A. Eyles states that all Zulu children belong to the father’s tribe, and are called by his name or by the name of some of his ancestors.[561] According to Mr. Cousins,[562] this is essentially true of various Kafir tribes, the first son, however, never being named after the grandfather, but always after the father. Warner, Brownlee, and E. v. Weber assert also that, among the people, inheritance passes from father to son.[563] Le Vaillant and Kolben state the same with reference to the Hottentots and Bushmans;[564] and Andersson affirms that, among the Namaquas, daughters take the father’s name, sons the mother’s.[565] Finally, in the part of Madagascar where Drury was, kinship does not seem to have been, in every case, reckoned through the female, though in that island children generally follow the condition of the mother.[566]

As for ancient peoples, Bachofen has adduced from the works of classical writers evidence for the uterine line having prevailed among several of them. But, to quote Sir Henry Maine, “the greatest races of mankind, when they first appear to us, show themselves at or near a stage of development in which relationship or kinship is reckoned exclusively through males.”[567] Several writers have, it is true, endeavoured to prove that, among the primitive Aryans, descent was traced through females only;[568] but the evidence does not seem to be conclusive. Much importance has been attributed to the specially close connection which, according to Tacitus, existed between a sister’s children and their mother’s brothers;[569] but Dr. Schrader observes that, in spite of this prominent position of the maternal uncle in the ancient Teutonic family, the patruus distinctly came before the avunculus, the agnates before the cognates, in testamentary succession. He also suggests that, when the head of a household died, the women of his family passed under the guardianship of the eldest son, and that a woman’s children had therefore, quite naturally, a peculiarly intimate relation to their maternal uncle.[570] It is safe to say with Professor Max Müller, that we can neither assert nor deny that in unknown times the Aryans ever passed through a metrocratic stage.[571]

Even if it could be proved—which is doubtful—that, in former times, a system of “kinship through females only,” fully developed, prevailed among all the peoples whose children take the mother’s name and are considered to belong to her clan, though succession runs in the male line, we should still have to account for the fact that a large number of peoples exhibit no traces of such a system.[572] And to them belong many of the rudest races of the world—such as the aborigines of Brazil, the Fuegians, Hottentots, Bushmans, and several very low tribes in Australia and India. The inference that “kinship through females only” has everywhere preceded the rise of “kinship through males,” would, then, be warranted only on condition that the cause, or the causes, to which the maternal system is owing, could be proved to have operated universally in the past life of mankind. From Mr. McLennan’s point of view, such an inference would be inadmissible, as he cannot prove the former occurrence of a universal stage of promiscuity or polyandry, leading to uncertain paternity—the cause to which he attributes that system.

Yet it is far from being so inconceivable as Mr. McLennan assumes, that “anything but the want of certainty on that point could have long prevented the acknowledgment of kinship through males.”[573] Paternity, as Sir Henry Maine remarks, is “matter of inference, as opposed to maternity, which is matter of observation.”[574] Hence it is almost beyond doubt that the father’s participation in parentage was not recognized as soon as the mother’s.[575] Now, however, there does not seem to be a single people which has not made the discovery of fatherhood. In reply to my question whether the Fuegians consider a child to descend exclusively or predominantly from either of the parents, Mr. Bridges certainly writes that, according to his idea, they “consider the maternal tie much more important than the paternal, and the duties connected with it of mutual help, defence, and vengeance are held very sacred.” But it is doubtful whether this refers to the mere physiological connection between the child and its parents. Dr. Sims informs me that, among the Bateke, the function of both parents in generation is held alike important, and the Waguha of West Tanganyika, as Mr. Swann states, also recognize the part taken by both. The same is asserted by Archdeacon Hodgson concerning certain other tribes of Eastern Central Africa, though, among them, children take the name of the mother’s tribe. Again, the Naudowessies, according to Carver, had the very curious idea that their offspring were indebted to their father for their souls, the invisible part of their essence, and to the mother for their corporeal and visible part; hence they considered it “more rational that they should be distinguished by the name of the latter, from whom they indubitably derive their being, than by that of the father, to which a doubt might sometimes arise whether they are justly entitled.”[576] Moreover, it seems as if the father’s share in parentage, once discovered, was often exaggerated. Thus, referring to some tribes of New South Wales, Mr. Cameron tells us that, although the father has nothing to do with the disposal of his daughter, as she belongs to the clan of her mother’s brother, they “believe that the daughter emanates from her father solely, being only nutured by her mother.”[577] Indeed, Mr. Howitt has found in every Australian tribe, without exception, with which he has acquaintance, the idea that the child is derived from the male parent only. As a black fellow once put it to him, “The man gives the child to a woman to take care of for him, and he can do whatever he likes with his own child.”[578] Again, Mr. Cousins writes that, according to Kaffir ideas, a child descends chiefly, though not exclusively, from the father; and the ancient Greeks, as well as the Egyptians[579] and Hindus,[580] maintained a similar view. Nay, Euripides states distinctly that, in his day, the universally accepted physiological doctrine recognized only the share taken by the father in procreation, and Hippocrates, in combating this opinion, and contending that the child descended from both parents, seems to admit that it was a prevalent heresy.[581] Finally, it seems probable that the custom known under the name of “La Couvade”—that is, the odd rule, prevalent among several peoples in different parts of the world, requiring that the father, at the birth of his child, shall retire to bed for some time, and fast or abstain from certain kinds of food—implies some idea of relationship between the two.[582]

Admitting, however, that there was a time when fatherhood, in the physiological sense of the term, was not discovered, I do not think that the preference given to the female line is due to this fact. If the denomination of children and the rules of succession really were in the first place dependent on ideas of consanguinity, it might be expected that a change with reference to the latter would be followed by a change in the former respect also. But the ties of blood have exercised a far less direct influence on the matter in question than is generally supposed, the system of “kinship through females only” being, properly speaking, quite different from what the words imply.

There may be several reasons for naming children after the mother rather than after the father, apart from any consideration of relationship. Especially among savages, the tie between a mother and child is much stronger than that which binds a child to the father.[583] Not only has she given birth to it, but she has also for years been seen carrying it about at her breast. Moreover, in cases of separation, occurring frequently at lower stages of civilization, the infant children always follow the mother, and so, very often, do the children more advanced in years. Is it not natural, then, that they should keep the name of the mother rather than that of a father whom they scarcely know? Mr. Belt tells us that the men and women even of the christianised lower classes of Nicaragua often change their mates, and the children, in such cases remaining with the mother, take their surname from her.[584] According to Swann, the Creeks conferred the honour of a chief on the issue of the female line, because it was impossible to trace the right by the male issue, women only exceptionally having more than two children by the same father.[585] And touching the Khasias, one of the few tribes in India among whom the female line prevails, Dr. Hooker states that they have a very lax idea of marriage, divorce and exchange of wives being common and attended with no disgrace; “the son therefore often forgets his father’s name and person before he grows up, but becomes strongly attached to his mother.”[586]

Speaking of certain negro tribes, Winterbottom suggested long ago that the prevalence of the female line was to be explained by the practice of polygyny,[587] and Dr. Starcke has recently called attention to the same point.[588] The Rev. D. Macdonald likewise remarks, in his account of the Efatese of the New Hebrides, that the idea that children are more closely related to the mother than to the father is an idea perfectly natural among a polygynous people.[589] It is a customary arrangement in polygynous families that each wife has a hut for herself, where she lives with her children; but even where this is not the case, mother and children naturally keep together as a little sub-family. No wonder, then, if a child takes its name after the mother rather than after the father. This is the simplest way of pointing out the distinction between the issue of different wives, a distinction which is of special importance where it is accompanied by different privileges as to succession. It is worth noticing that, among the Negroes, who are probably the most polygynous race in the world, the female line is extremely prevalent; whereas, among the Hill Tribes of India, who are on the whole, monogamists, children, with few exceptions, take the name of the father. With reference to the Basutos, a Bechuana tribe, Mr. Casalis observes that the authority of the eldest maternal uncle preponderates to excess, especially in polygynous families, where the children have no strong affection for their father.[590]

Further, among several peoples a man, on marrying, has to quit his home, and go to live with his wife in the house of her father, of whose family he becomes a member. This is a common practice among several of the North American tribes,[591] and prevailed, in the southern part of the New World, among the Caribs.[592] In some parts of Eastern Central Africa, also, a man who marries a full grown girl “immediately leaves his own village and proceeds to build a house in the village of his wife.”[593] Among the Sengirese, according to Dr. Hickson, the man always goes to his wife’s house, unless he be the son of a rajah, in which case he may do as he pleases.[594] Dr. Hooker tells us that, among the Khasias, “the husband does not take his wife home, but enters her father’s household, and is entertained there.”[595] And in Sumatra, in the mode of marriage called “ambel anak,” the father of a virgin makes choice of some young man for her husband, who is taken into his house to live there in a state between that of a son and that of a debtor.[596]

According to Dr. Starcke, this custom is due to the great cohesive power of the several families, which causes them to refuse to part with any of their members. “Since men are more independent,” he says, “they are also less stationary; they can no longer attract the women to themselves, and are therefore attracted by them.[597] Under such circumstances, there is nothing astonishing in the fact that children are named after the mother’s tribe or clan, which is the case in all the instances just given of peoples among whom the husband has to settle down with his father-in-law. Indeed, Dr. Tylor has found that, whilst the number of coincidences between peoples among whom the husband lives with the wife’s family and peoples among whom the maternal system prevails, is proportionally large, the full maternal system never appears among peoples whose exclusive custom is for the husband to take his wife to his own home.[598] And it is a remarkable fact that where both customs—the woman receiving her husband in her own hut, and the man taking his wife to his—occur side by side among the same people, descent in the former cases is traced through the mother, in the latter through the father.[599] In Japan, should there be only daughters in the family, a husband is procured for the eldest, who enters his wife’s family, and, at the same time, takes its name.[600]

Again, as to the rules of succession, Dr. Starcke has set forth the hypothesis that they are dependent on local connections, those persons being each other’s heirs who dwell together in one place. Among the Iroquois, for instance, at the death of a man, his property is divided among his brothers, sisters, and mother’s brothers, whilst the property of a woman is transmitted to her children and sisters, but not to her brothers. “Owing to the faculty of memory,” Dr. Starcke says, “childhood and youth involve a young man in such a web of associations that he afterwards finds it hard to detach himself from them. The man who, when married, has lived as a stranger in the house of another, clings to the impressions of his former home, and his earlier household companions become his heirs. But the brother who has wandered elsewhere stands in a more remote relation to his sister than do the sisters and the children living with her in the parental home, and he is therefore excluded from the inheritance.”[601]

Though agreeing, in the main, with Dr. Starcke’s hypothesis, I do not think it affords a complete explanation of the matter. It certainly accounts for the fact that, under the maternal system, it is just the nearest relatives on the mother’s side who are a man’s heirs, to the exclusion of other members of the clan. But, if succession really depended upon local relations only, or upon the remembrance of such relations in the past, it would be the most natural arrangement, where father and children lived together till the latter were grown up, for the father to be succeeded by his son. It seems probable that the causes which make children take their mother’s name, have also directly exercised some influence upon the rules of succession; but I am inclined to believe that the power of the name itself has been of the highest importance in that respect.

By means of family names former connections are kept up, and the past is associated with the present. Even we ourselves are generally more disposed to count kin with distant relatives having our own surname than with those having another. And upon man in a savage state language exercises, in this matter, a much greater influence than upon us. With reference to the aborigines of Western Australia, Sir George Grey observes, “Obligations of family names are much stronger than those of blood;” and a “Saurian,” or a “Serpent,” from the East considers himself related to a “Saurian,” or a “Serpent,” from the West, though no such relationship may exist.[602] Among the Ossetes, according to Baron von Haxthausen, a man is considered more nearly related to a cousin a hundred times removed, who bears his name, than to his mother’s brother; and he is bound to take blood revenge for the former, while the latter is in fact not regarded as a relative at all.[603] Speaking of certain Bantu tribes, Mr. McCall Theal remarks that their aversion to incestuous marriages is so strong, that a man will not marry a girl who belongs to another tribe, if she has the same family name as himself, although the relationship cannot be traced.[604] Is it not a justifiable presumption that a similar association of ideas has influenced the rules of succession also,—all the more so, where community of name implies community of worship as well? It should be observed that in every case—at least so far as I know—where rank and property are inherited through females only, children are named after the mother,—but not vice versa, thanks to the direct influence of local and other connections. In China, a man is even strictly forbidden to nominate as his heir an individual of a different surname.[605]

It is a difficult, sometimes even a hopeless, task to try to find out the origin of savage laws and customs, and I do not pretend to have given an exhaustive explanation of those in question. But it seems to be sufficiently clear, from what has been said, that we have no right to ascribe them to uncertain paternity; nay, that such an assumption is not even probably true. No one has yet exhibited any general coincidence of what we consider moral and immoral habits with the prevalence of the male and female line among existing savages. Among the Barea, for instance, as among the Negroes of Loango, inheritance goes through mothers only, though adultery is said to be extremely rare;[606] whilst, on the other hand, among the wanton natives of Tahiti, possessions always descend to the eldest son. With the Todas and Tibetans, among whom paternity is often actually uncertain on account of their polyandrous marriage customs, succession runs through the male line only. “If one or more women,” Mr. Marshall says with reference to the former, “are in common to several men, each husband considers all the children as his—though each woman is mother only to her own—and each male child is an heir to the property of all of the fathers.”[607] Among the Reddies, a son—although it often happens that he does not know his real father—is the heir of his mother’s husband.[608] And, in India and Ceylon, female kinship is associated with polyandry of the beena type—where the husbands come to live with the wife in or near the house of her birth; and male kinship with that of the deega type—where the wife goes to live in the house and village of her husband.[609]

Lastly, as Mr. Spencer remarks, avowed recognition of kinship in the female line only, shows by no means an unconsciousness of male kinship. As a proof of this may be adduced the converse custom which the early Romans had of recognizing no legal relationship between children of the same mother and of different fathers. For, if it cannot be supposed that an actual unconsciousness of motherhood was associated with this system, neither is there any adequate warrant for the supposition that actual unconsciousness of fatherhood was associated with the system of “kinship through females only” among savages.[610]

The prevalence of the female line would not presuppose general promiscuity even if, in some cases, it were dependent on uncertainty as to fathers.[611] The separation of husband and wife, adultery on the woman’s side, and the practice of lending wives to visitors occurring very frequently among many savage nations, the proverb which says, “It is a wise child that knows his own father,” holds true for a large number of them. According to Mr. Ingham, the Bakongo, who trace their descent through the mother only, assert as a reason for this custom uncertain paternity; but nevertheless, as we have already seen, they would be horrified at the idea of promiscuous intercourse.

* * * * *

Having now examined all the groups of social phenomena adduced as evidence for the hypothesis of promiscuity, we have found that, in point of fact, they are no evidence. Not one of the customs alleged as relics of an ancient state of indiscriminate cohabitation of the sexes, or “communal marriage,” presupposes the former existence of that state. The numerous facts put forward in support of the hypothesis do not entitle us to assume that promiscuity has ever been the prevailing form of sexual relations among a single people, far less that it has constituted a general stage in the social development of man, and, least of all, that such a stage formed the starting-point of all human history.

It may seem to the reader that this question has received more attention than it deserves. But I have discussed it so fully not only because of the importance of the subject, but because of the insight the customs mentioned give us into sexual and family relations very different from our own, and because the unscientific character of the conclusions we have tested shows most clearly that sociology is still a science in its infancy.

Even now my criticism is not finished. Having shown that the hypothesis of promiscuity has no foundation in fact, I shall endeavour, in the next chapter, to demonstrate that it is opposed to all the correct ideas we are able to form with regard to the early condition of man.

VI. A CRITICISM OF THE HYPOTHESIS OF PROMISCUITY

(Concluded)

Against the hypothesis of promiscuity Sir Henry Maine has urged that a good deal of evidence seems to show that promiscuous intercourse between the sexes tends to a pathological condition very unfavourable to fecundity; and “infecundity, amid perpetually belligerent savages, implies weakness and ultimate destruction.”[612]

Dr. Carpenter refers to the efforts of the American planters to form the negroes into families, as the promiscuity into which they were liable to fall produced infertility, and fertility had become important to the slave-owners through the prohibition of the slave-trade.[613] It is also a well-known fact that prostitutes very seldom have children, while, according to Dr. Roubaud, those of them who marry young easily become mothers.[614] “Il ne pousse pas d’herbe dans les chemins où tout le monde passe,” Dr. Bertillon remarks.[615] And, in a community where all the women equally belonged to all the men, the younger and prettier ones would of course be most sought after, and take up a position somewhat akin to that of the prostitutes of modern society.

It may perhaps be urged that the practice of polyandry prevails among several peoples without any evil results as regards fecundity being heard of. But polyandry scarcely ever implies continued promiscuous intercourse of many men with one woman. In Tibet, for example, where the brothers of a family very often have a common wife, more than one are seldom at home at the same time.[616] Mr. Talboys Wheeler has even suggested that polyandry arose among a pastoral people, whose men were away from their families for months at a time, so that the duty of protecting these families would naturally be undertaken by the brothers in turn.[617] Again, among the Kaniagmuts, the second husband was only a deputy who acted as husband and master of the house during the absence of the true lord;[618] and the same was the case in Nukahiva.[619] But especially remarkable is the following practice connected with polyandry. In the description given by Bontier and Le Verrier of the conquest and conversion of the Canarians in 1402 by Jean de Bethencourt we read that, in the island of Lancerote, most of the women have three husbands, “who wait upon them alternately by months; the husband that is to live with the wife the following month waits upon her and upon her other husband the whole of the month that the latter has her, and so each takes her in turn.”[620] Mr. Harkness tells us about a Toda who, having referred to his betrothal to his wife Pilluvāni and the subsequent betrothal of the latter to two others, Khakhood and Tūmbut, said, “Now, according to our customs, Pilluvāni was to pass the first month with me, the second with Khakhood, and the third with Tūmbut.”[621] Among the Kulus, in the Himalaya Mountains, when parents sell a daughter to several brothers, she belongs during the first month to the eldest brother, during the second to the next eldest, and so on;[622] whilst, as regards the Nairs, whose women, except those of the first quality, may marry twelve husbands if they pleased. Hamilton states that “all the husbands agree very well, for they cohabit with her in their turns, according to their priority of marriage, ten days, more or less, according as they can fix a term among themselves.”[623]

* * * * *

The strongest argument against ancient promiscuity is, however, to be derived from the psychical nature of man and other mammals. Mr. Darwin remarks that from what we know of the jealousy of all male quadrupeds, armed, as many of them are, with special weapons for battling with their rivals, promiscuous intercourse is utterly unlikely to prevail in a state of nature. “Therefore,” he continues, “looking far enough back in the stream of time, and judging from the social habits of man as he now exists, the most probable view is that he aboriginally lived in small communities, each with a single wife, or if powerful with several, whom he jealously guarded against all other men.”[624] Yet, according to the same naturalist, it seems certain, from the lines of evidence afforded by Mr. Morgan, Mr. McLennan, and Sir J. Lubbock, that almost promiscuous intercourse at a later time was extremely common throughout the world;[625] and a similar view is held by some other writers.[626] But if jealousy can be proved to be universally prevalent in the human race at the present day, it is impossible to believe that there ever was a time when man was devoid of that powerful feeling. Professor Giraud-Teulon[627] and Dr. Le Bon[628] assert, indeed, that it is unknown among almost all civilized peoples; but this assertion will be found to be groundless.

Starting from the very lowest races of men: we are told that the Fuegians “are exceedingly jealous of their women, and will not allow any one, if they can help it, to enter their huts, particularly boys.”[629] Several writers assert the same as regards the Australians.[630] Thus, according to Sir George Grey, “a stern and vigilant jealousy is commonly felt by every married man;”[631] and Mr. Curr states that, in most tribes, a woman “is not allowed to converse or have any relations whatever with any adult male, save her husband. Even with a grown-up brother she is always forbidden to exchange a word.”[632] With reference to the Veddahs of Ceylon, Mr. Bailey says that, with the very smallest cause, the men are exceedingly jealous of their most unattractive wives, and are very careful to keep them apart from their companions.[633]

According to a Thlinket myth, the jealousy of man is older than the world itself. There was an age, it is supposed, when men groped in the dark in search of the world. At that time a Thlinket lived who had a wife and sister; and he was so jealous of his wife, that he killed all his sister’s children because they looked at her.[634]

Great jealousy is met with among the Atkha Aleuts, according to Father Yakof; among the Kutchin Indians, according to Richardson and Hardisty; among the Haidahs, according to Dixon; among the Tacullis, according to Harmon; among the Crees, according to Richardson.[635] The Indians on the Eastern side of the Rocky Mountains visited by Harmon, in their fits of jealousy, “often cut off all the hair from the heads of their wives, and, not unfrequently, cut off their noses also; and should they not in the moment of passion have a knife at hand, they will snap it off at one bite, with their teeth.... The man is satisfied in thus revenging a supposed injury; and having destroyed the beauty of his wife, he concludes that he has secured her against all future solicitations to offend.”[636] In California, if a married native woman is seen even walking in the forest with another man than her husband, she is chastised by him, whilst a repetition of the offence is generally punished with speedy death.[637] Among the Creeks, “it was formerly reckoned adultery, if a man took a pitcher of water off a married woman’s head, and drank of it.”[638] The Moquis allow their wives to work only indoors, afraid of having rivals.[639] The Arawaks,[640] as also the Indians of Peru,[641] are stated to commit horrible crimes of jealousy. The Botocudos, who are known to change wives very frequently, are, nevertheless, much addicted to that passion.[642] And, regarding the Coroados of Brazil, v. Spix and v. Martius say that revenge and jealousy are the only passions that can rouse their stunted soul from its moody indifference.[643]

In the Sandwich Islands, according to Lisiansky, jealousy was extremely prevalent,[644] and, in Nukahiva, the men punish their wives with severity upon the least suspicion of infidelity.[645] The Areois of Tahiti, too, although given to every kind of licentiousness, are described by Ellis as utterly jealous.[646] The same is said of the New Caledonians and New Zealanders;[647] whilst, in the Pelew Islands, it is forbidden even to speak about another man’s wife or mention her name.[648] In short, the South Sea Islanders are, as Mr. Macdonald remarks, generally jealous of the chastity of their wives.[649]

Among the Malays of Sumatra, the husband jealously guards his wife as long as his affection lasts;[650] and, concerning several other tribes of the Indian Archipelago, Riedel says that the men are very much addicted to the same passion.[651] Captain Arnesen observed the great jealousy of the Samoyedes.[652] Dr. A. O. Heikel informs me that a Tartar may repudiate his wife if he sees her shaking hands with a man. Among the nomadic Koriaks, many wives are killed by passionate husbands. Hence their women endeavour to be very ugly: they refrain from dressing their hair or washing, and walk about ragged, as the husbands take for granted that, if they dress themselves, they do so in order to attract admirers.[653]

Among the Beni-Mzab, a man who speaks in the street to a married woman of quality is punished with a fine of two hundred francs and banishment for four years.[654] In the Nile countries and many other parts of Africa, it is customary for the men to preserve the fidelity of their wives in a way not unlike a method used in the age of the Crusades.[655] With reference to the inhabitants of Fida, Bosman tells us that a rich negro will not suffer any man to enter the houses where his wives reside, and on the least suspicion will sell them to the Europeans;[656] whilst in Dahomey, if a wayfarer meets any of the royal wives on the road, a bell warns him “to turn off or stand against a wall while they pass.”[657]

That jealousy is a powerful agent in the social life of civilized nations is a fact which it is unnecessary to dwell upon. In Mohammedan countries, a woman is not allowed to receive male visitors, or to go out unveiled,[658] it being unlawful for the Moslem to see the faces of any other women than those whom he is forbidden to marry and his own wives and female slaves.[659] A man who penetrates into the harem of another man may easily lose his life; and Dr. Polak states that, in Persia, a European physician cannot, without being considered indecent, even ask about the health of a Mohammedan’s wife and daughter, though they are ill.[660] Again, in Japan, as I am told by a native of the country, it was customary for women when getting married, to have their eyebrows shaved off, because thick and beautiful eyebrows are considered one of a woman’s greatest ornaments. At the same time, according to Mr. Balfour, their teeth are stained black, which can only have the effect of making the wife less attractive to the husband,—as well as to other men.[661] This reminds us of the wide-spread practice of depriving a woman of her ornaments as soon as she is married.

The prevalence of jealousy in the human race is best shown by the punishments inflicted for adultery; although it may be that the proprietary feeling here plays an important part. In a savage country a seducer may be thankful if he escapes by paying to the injured husband the value of the bride or some other fine, or if the penalty is reduced to a flogging, to his head being shaved, his ears cut off, one of his eyes destroyed, his legs speared, &c., &c. He must consider himself very lucky if he is merely paid in his own coin, or if the punishment falls on his wife, who, in that case, seems to be looked upon as the real cause of her husband’s unfaithfulness.[662] Most commonly, among uncivilized nations, the seducer is killed, adultery on the woman’s side being considered a heinous crime, for which nothing but the death of the offender can atone. Among the Waganda, it is, as a rule, punished even more severely than murder;[663] and, in parts of New Guinea, capital punishment is said to be almost unknown except for adultery.[664]

Mr. Reade remarks that, among savages generally, it is the seducer who suffers, not the victim.[665] Yet this holds good for certain peoples only,[666] the faithless wife being generally discarded, beaten, or ill-treated in some other way, and very frequently killed. Often, too, she is disfigured by her jealous husband, so that no man may fall in love with her in future. Thus, among several peoples of North America, India, and elsewhere, her nose is cut or bitten off,—a practice which also prevailed in ancient Egypt.[667] As late as the year 1120 the Council of Neapolis in Palestine decreed that an adulterer should be castrated, and the nose of an unfaithful wife cut off;[668] whilst, in the “Uplands-lag,” an old Swedish provincial law, it is prescribed that an adulteress who cannot pay the fine of forty marks, shall lose her hair, ears, and nose.[669] The Creeks and some Chittagong Hill tribes likewise cut off the ears of a woman who has been guilty of infidelity;[670] and many other people are in the habit of shaving her head.[671]

Among a large number of peoples, a husband not only requires chastity from his wife, but demands that the woman whom he marries shall be a virgin. There can be little doubt, I think, that this requirement owes its origin to the same powerful feeling that keeps watch over marital faithfulness.

Among the Ahts, for example, “a girl who was known to have lost her virtue, lost with it one of her chances of a favourable marriage.”[672] Among the Chippewas, according to Mr. Keating, no woman could expect to be taken as a wife by a warrior unless she had lived in strict chastity.[673] Statements to the same effect are made with reference to other Indian tribes.[674] Again, when one of the Chichimecs of Central Mexico marries, if the girl proves not to be a virgin, she may be returned to her parents.[675] A very similar custom prevailed among the Nicaraguans and Azteks,[676] and exist still among several tribes of the Indian Archipelago and in New Guinea;[677] whilst, in Samoa, valuable presents were given for a girl who had preserved her virtue, the bride’s purity being proved in a way that will not bear the light of description.[678]

“In many parts of Africa,” says Mr. Reade, “no marriage can be ratified till a jury of matrons have pronounced a verdict of purity on the bride;[679] it being customary to return a girl who is found not to have been entirely chaste, and to claim back the price paid for her.[680] Dr. Grade states that among the Negroes of Togoland, a much higher price is paid for a bride who is a virgin than for any other.[681] Among the Somals, a fallen girl cannot become a man’s legitimate wife;[682] whilst, in the Soudan and other parts of Africa where girls are subjected to infibulation, that incontinence may be made impossible, no young woman who is not infibulated can get a husband.[683]

The Jewish custom of handing “the tokens of the damsel’s virginity” to her parents, to be kept as evidence in case of a later accusation, is well-known.[684] A practice not very dissimilar to this prevails in China,[685] Arabia,[686] and among the Chuvashes,[687] with whom the signum innocentiae is exhibited even coram populo. In Persia,[688] as also in Circassia,[689] a girl who is not a virgin when she marries, runs the risk of being put away after the first night. Among several nations belonging to the Russian Empire, according to Georgi, the bridegroom may claim a fine in case of the bride being found to have lost her virtue;[690] and, among the Chulims, if the Mosaic testimony of chastity is wanting, the husband goes away and does not return before the seducer has made peace with him.[691] As to the ancient Germans, Tacitus states that, by their laws, virgins only could marry.[692]

A husband’s pretensions may reach even farther than this. He often demands that the woman he chooses for his wife shall belong to him, not during his lifetime only, but after his death.

The belief in another life is almost universal in the human race. As that life is supposed to resemble this, man having the same necessities there as here, part of his property is buried with him. And so strong is the idea of a wife being the exclusive property of her husband, that, among several peoples, she may not even survive him.

Thus, formerly, among the Comanches, when a man died, his favourite wife was killed at the same time.[693] In certain Californian tribes, widows were sacrificed on the pyre with their deceased husbands;[694] and Mackenzie was told that this practice sometimes occurred among the Crees.[695] In Darien and Panama, on the death of a chief, all his concubines were interred with him.[696] When one of the Incas died, says Acosta, the woman whom he had loved best, as well as his servants and officers, were put to death, “that they might serve him in the other life.”[697] The same custom prevailed in the region of the Congo, as also in some other African countries.[698] “It is no longer possible to doubt,” says Dr. Schrader, “that ancient Indo-Germanic custom ordained that the wife should die with her husband.”[699] In India, as is well known, widows were sacrificed, until quite recently, on the funeral pile of their husbands;[700] whilst, among the Tartars, according to Navarette, on a man’s death, one of his wives hanged herself “to bear him company in that journey.” Among the Chinese, something of the same kind seems to have been done occasionally in olden times.[701]

Turning to other quarters of the world: in Polynesia, and especially in Melanesia, widows were very commonly killed.[702] In Fiji, for instance, they were either buried alive or strangled, often at their own desire, because they believed that in this way alone could they reach the realms of bliss, and that she who met her death with the greatest devotedness, would become the favourite wife in the abode of spirits. On the other hand, a widow who did not permit herself to be killed was considered an adulteress.[703] In the New Hebrides, according to the missionary John Inglis, a wife is strangled, even when her husband is long absent from home.[704]

If the husband’s demands are less severe, his widow is not on that account always exempted from every duty towards him after his death. Among the Tacullies, she is compelled by the kinsfolk of the deceased to lie on the funeral pile where the body of her husband is placed, whilst the fire is lighting, until the heat becomes unbearable. Then, after the body is consumed, she is obliged to collect the ashes and deposit them in a small basket, which she must always carry about with her for two or three years, during which time she is not at liberty to marry again.[705] Among the Kutchin Indians, the widow, or widows, are bound to remain near the body for a year to protect it from animals, &c.; and only when it is quite decayed and merely the bones remain, are they permitted to remarry, “to dress their hair, and put on beads and other ornaments to attract admirers.”[706] Again, among the Minas on the Slave Coast, the widows are shut up for six months in the room where their husband is buried.[707] With the Kukis, according to Rennel, a widow was compelled to remain for a year beside the tomb of her deceased husband, her family bringing her food.[708] In the Mosquito tribe, “the widow was bound to supply the grave of her husband with provisions for a year, after which she took up the bones and carried them with her for another year, at last placing them upon the roof of her house, and then only was she allowed to marry again.”[709]

In Rotuma and the Marquesas Islands,[710] as well as among the Tartars and Iroquois,[711] a widow was never allowed to enter a second time into the married state. Among the ancient Peruvians, says Garcilasso de la Vega, very few widows who had no children ever married again, and even widows who had children continued to live single; “for this virtue was much commended in their laws and ordinances.”[712] Nor is it in China considered proper for a widow to contract a second marriage, and in genteel families such an event rarely, if ever, occurs. Indeed, a lady of rank, by contracting a second marriage, exposes herself to a penalty of eighty blows.[713] Again, the Arabs, according to Burckhardt, regard everything connected with the nuptials of a widow as ill-omened, and unworthy of the participation of generous and honourable men.[714]

Speaking of the Aryans, Dr. Schrader remarks that, when sentiments had become more humane, traces of the old state of things survived in the prohibitions issued against the second marriage of widows.[715] Even now, according to Dubois, the happiest lot that can befall a Hindu woman, particularly one of the Brahman caste, is to die in the married state. The bare mention of a second marriage for her would be considered the greatest of insults, and, if she married again, “she would be hunted out of society, and no decent person would venture at any time to have the slightest intercourse with her.”[716] Again, among the Bhills, when a widow marries, the newly-wedded pair, according to a long-established custom, are obliged to leave the house before daybreak and pass the next day in the fields, in a solitary place, some miles from the village, nor may they return till the dusk. The necessity of the couple passing the first day of their marriage in this way, like outcasts, is, writes Sir J. Malcolm, “to mark that sense of degradation which all the natives of Hindustan entertain against a woman marrying a second husband.”[717] The South Slavonians, says Krauss, regard a widow’s remarriage as an insult to her former consort;[718] and a similar view prevailed in ancient Greece, according to Pausanias,[719] and among the Romans.[720] The early Christians, also, strongly disapproved of second marriages by persons of either sex, although St. Paul had peremptorily urged that the younger widows should marry.[721] Indeed the practice of second nuptials was branded with the name of a legal adultery, and the persons who were guilty of so scandalous an offence against Christian purity were soon excluded from the honours and even from the alms of the Church.[722]

Much more commonly, however, the prohibition of a second marriage refers only to a certain period after the husband’s death. Thus, among the Chickasaws, widows were obliged to live a chaste single life for three years at the risk of the law of adultery being executed against the recusants;[723] whilst, among the Creeks, a widow was looked upon as an adulteress if she spoke or made free with any man within four summers after the death of her husband.[724] Among the Old Kukis, widowers and widows could not marry within three years, and then only with the permission of the family of the deceased.[725] Among the Kunáma, too, the period of widowhood must not be shorter than three years, in Saraë not less than two.[726] The Arawaks, British Columbians, and Mandans required that the head of the widow should be shaved, and she was not permitted to marry again before her shorn locks regained their wonted length.[727] Among the Hovas, Ainos, Patagonians, &c., the widow has to live a single life for a year at least after her husband’s death,[728] and among some other peoples for six months.[729]

It may perhaps be supposed that the object of these prohibitions is to remove all apprehensions as to pregnancy. But this cannot be the case when the time of mourning lasts for a year or more. In Saraë, where a widow is bound to celibacy for two years, a divorced wife is prevented from marrying within two months only, as Munzinger says, “in order to avoid all uncertainty as to pregnancy;”[730] and, among the Bedouins, a divorced woman has, for the same reason, to remain unmarried for no longer time than forty days.[731] Moreover, certain peoples, especially those among whom monogamy is the only recognized form of marriage, or among whom polygyny is practised as a rare exception, prohibit the speedy remarriage not only of widows but of widowers.[732]

The meaning of the interdict appears also from the common rule that a wife, after her husband’s death, shall give up all her ornaments, and have her head shaved, her hair cut short, or her face blackened. Among certain Indians, the law compels the widow through the long term of her mourning to refrain from all public company and diversions, under pain of being considered an adulteress, and, likewise to go with flowing hair without the privilege of oil to anoint it;[733] whilst, in Greenland tales, it is said of a truly disconsolate widow, “She mourns so, that she cannot be recognised for dirt.”[734]

Hence we see how deep-rooted is the idea that a woman belongs exclusively to one man. Savages believe that the soul of the deceased can return and become a tormentor of the living. Thus a husband, even after his death, may punish a wife who has proved unfaithful.

According to travellers’ statements, there are, indeed, peoples almost devoid of the feeling of jealousy, and the practice of lending or prostituting wives is generally taken as evidence of this. But jealousy, as well as love, is far from being the same feeling in the mind of a savage as in that of a civilized man. A wife is often regarded as not very different from other property, and an adulterer as a thief.[735] In some parts of Africa, he is punished as such, having his hands, or one of them, cut off.[736] The fact that a man lends his wife to a visitor no more implies the absence of jealousy than other ways of showing hospitality imply that he is without the proprietary feeling. According to Wilkes, the aborigines of New South Wales “will frequently give one of their wives to a friend who may be in want of one; but notwithstanding this laxity they are extremely jealous, and are very prompt to resent any freedom taken with their wives.”[737]

A married woman is never permitted to cohabit with any man but the husband, except with the husband’s permission; and this permission is given only as an act of hospitality or friendship, or as a means of profit. When we are told that a negro husband uses his wife for entrapping other men and making them pay a heavy fine;[738] that, among the Crees, adultery is considered no crime “provided the husband receives a valuable consideration for his wife’s prostitution;”[739] or that, in Nukahiva, husbands sometimes offer their wives to foreigners “from their ardent desire of possessing iron, or other European articles,”[740]—we must not infer from this profligacy that jealousy is unknown to man at early stages of civilization. On the contrary, such practices are due chiefly to contact with “higher culture,” which often has the effect of misleading natural instincts. “Husbands, after the degradation of a pseudo-civilization,” says Mr. Bonwick, “are sometimes found ready to barter the virtue of a wife for a piece of tobacco, a morsel of bread, or a silver sixpence.”[741] Mr. Curr observes that, among the Australian natives, “husbands display much less jealousy of white men than of those of their own colour,” and that they will more commonly prostitute their wives to strangers visiting the tribe than to their own people.[742] “Under no circumstances,” says Sir George Grey, “is a strange native allowed to approach the fire of a married man.”[743] According to Bosman, the Negroes of Benin were very jealous of their wives with their own countrymen, though not in the least with European foreigners;[744] and Lisiansky states exactly the same as regards the Sandwich Islanders.[745] In California, says Mr. Powers, “since the advent of the Americans the husband often traffics in his wife’s honour for gain, and even forces her to infamy when unwilling; though in early days he would have slain her without pity and without remorse for the same offence.”[746] The like is true of the Columbians about Puget Sound;[747] and Georgi remarks that the nomadic Koriaks torment their wives by their jealousy, sometimes even killing them from this passion; whereas those Koriaks who lead a stationary life, being far more advanced in civilization, are so little addicted to it, that they even have a relish for seeing foreigners make love to their wives, whom they dress accordingly.[748]

If the hypothesis of an annual pairing time in the infancy of mankind holds good, jealousy must at that stage have been a passion of very great intensity.

It may, however, be supposed that this feeling, though belonging to human nature, has been restrained by certain conditions which have made it necessary, or desirable, for a man to share his wife with other men. Thus polyandry now prevails in several parts of the world. But I shall endeavour to show, later on, that this practice is due chiefly to scarcity of women, and commonly implies an act of fraternal benevolence, the eldest and first married brother in a family giving his younger brothers a share in his wife, if they would otherwise be obliged to live unmarried. Hence polyandry can by no means, as Mr. McLennan suggests, be regarded as “a modification of and advance from promiscuity.” It owes its origin to causes, or a cause, which never would have produced general communism in women. Besides, it can be proved that polyandry is abhorrent to the rudest races of men.

It has been suggested, too, that man’s gregarious way of living made promiscuity necessary. The men of a group, it is said, must either have quarrelled about their women and separated, splitting the horde into hostile sections, or indulged in promiscuous intercourse. But it is hard to understand why tribal organization in olden times should have prevented a man having his special wife, since it does not do so among savages still existing. Primitive law is the law of might; and it is impossible to believe that the stronger men, who generally succeeded in getting the most comely women, voluntarily gave their weaker rivals a share in their precious capture. Regarding the aborigines of Queensland, Lumholtz states that as a rule, it is difficult for men to marry before they are thirty years of age, the old men having the youngest and best-looking wives, while a young man must consider himself fortunate if he can get an old woman.[749] It more commonly happens among savages, however, that almost every full-grown man is able to get a wife for himself; and when this is the case, there is still less reason for assuming communism in women.

It is not, of course, impossible that, among some peoples, intercourse between the sexes may have been almost promiscuous. But there is not a shred of genuine evidence for the notion that promiscuity ever formed a general stage in the social history of mankind. The hypothesis of promiscuity, instead of belonging, as Professor Giraud-Teulon thinks,[750] to the class of hypotheses which are scientifically permissible, has no real foundation, and is essentially unscientific.

VII. MARRIAGE AND CELIBACY

With wild animals sexual desire is not less powerful as an incentive to strenuous exertion than hunger and thirst. In the rut-time, the males even of the most cowardly species engage in mortal combats; and abstinence, or at least voluntary abstinence, is almost unheard of in a state of nature.[751]

As regards savage and barbarous races of men, among whom the relations of the sexes under normal conditions take the form of marriage, nearly every individual strives to get married as soon as he, or she, reaches the age of puberty.[752] Hence there are far fewer bachelors and spinsters among them than among civilized peoples. Harmon found that among the Blackfeet, Crees, Chippewyans, and other aboriginal tribes on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains, celibacy was a rare exception;[753] and Ashe noted the same fact among the Shawanese.[754] Prescott states of the Dacotahs, “I do not know of a bachelor among them. They have a little more respect for the women and themselves, than to live a single life.”[755] Indeed, according to Adair, many Indian women thought virginity and widowhood the same as death.[756] Among the Eastern Greenlanders, visited by Lieutenant Holm, only one unmarried woman was met with.[757]

The Charruas, says Azara, “ne restent jamais dans le célibat, et ils se marient aussitôt qu’ils sentent le besoin de cette union.”[758] As regards the Yahgans, Mr. Bridges writes that “none but mutes and imbeciles remained single, except some lads of vigour who did so from choice, influenced by licentiousness. But no woman remained unmarried; almost immediately on her husband’s death the widow found another husband.”

Among the wild nations of Southern Africa, according to Burchell, neither men nor women ever pass their lives in a state of celibacy;[759] and Bosman assures us that very few negroes of the Gold Coast died single, unless they were quite young.[760] Among the Mandingoes, Caillié met with no instance of a young woman, pretty or plain, who had not a husband.[761] Barth reports that the Western Touaregs had no fault to find with him except that he lived in celibacy; they could not even understand how this was possible.[762]

Among the Sinhalese there are hardly any old bachelors and old maids;[763] and Mr. Marshall says of the Todas, “No unmarried class exists, to disturb society with its loves and broils; ... it is a ‘very much married’ people. Every man and every woman, every lad and every girl is somebody’s husband or wife; tied at the earliest possible age.... With the exception of a cripple girl, and of those women who, past the child-bearing age, were widows, I did not meet with a single instance of unmarried adult females.”[764] Among the Toungtha, it is unheard of for a man or woman to be unmarried after the age of thirty, and among the Chukmas, a bachelor twenty-five years old is rarely seen.[765] The Muásís consider it a father’s duty to fix upon a bridegroom as soon as his daughter becomes marriageable.[766] Among the Burmese[767] and the Hill Dyaks of Borneo,[768] old maids and old bachelors are alike unknown. Among the Sumatrans, too, instances of persons of either sex passing their lives in a state of celibacy are extremely rare:—“In the districts under my charge,” says Marsden, “are about eight thousand inhabitants, among whom I do not conceive it would be possible to find ten instances of men of the age of thirty years unmarried.”[769] In Java, Mr. Crawfurd “never saw a woman of two-and-twenty that was not, or had not been, married.”[770] In Tonga, according to Mariner, there were but few women who, from whim or some accidental cause, remained single for life.[771] In Australia, “nearly all the girls are betrothed at a very early age;” and Mr. Curr never heard of a woman, over sixteen years of age, who, prior to the breakdown of aboriginal customs after the coming of the Whites, had not a husband.[772] As to the natives of Herbert River, Northern Queensland, Herr Lumholtz says that though the majority of the young men have to wait a long time before they get wives, it is rare for a man to die unmarried.[773]

Indeed, so indispensable does marriage seem to uncivilized man, that a person who does not marry is looked upon almost as an unnatural being, or, at any rate, is disdained.[774] Among the Santals, if a man remains single, “he is at once despised by both sexes, and is classed next to a thief, or a witch: they term the unhappy wretch ‘No man.’”[775] Among the Kafirs, a bachelor has no voice in the kraal.[776] The Tipperahs, as we are told by Mr. J. F. Browne, do not consider a man a person of any importance till he is married;[777] and, in the Tupi tribes, no man was suffered to partake of the drinking-feast while he remained single.[778] The Fijians even believed that he who died wifeless was stopped by the god Nangganangga on the road to Paradise, and smashed to atoms.[779]

It may also be said that savages, as a rule, marry earlier in life than civilized men. A Greenlander, says Dr. Nansen, often marries before there is any chance of the union being productive.[780] Among the Californians, Mandans, and most of the north-western tribes in North America, marriage frequently takes place at the age of twelve or fourteen.[781] In the wild tribes of Central Mexico, girls are seldom unmarried after the age of fourteen or fifteen.[782] Among the Talamanca Indians, a bride is generally from ten to fourteen years old, whilst a man seldom becomes a husband before fourteen.[783] In certain other Central American tribes, the parents try to get a wife for their son when he is nine or ten years old.[784]

Among the natives of Brazil, the man generally marries at the age of from fifteen to eighteen, the woman from ten to twelve.[785] According to Azara, the like was the case with the Guaranies of the Plata, whilst, among the Guanas, “celle qui se marie le plus tard, se marie à neuf ans.”[786] In Tierra del Fuego, as we are informed by Lieutenant Bove, a girl looks about for a husband when twelve or thirteen years old, and a youth marries at the age of from fourteen to sixteen.[787]

Many African peoples, e.g., the Abyssinians,[788] the Beni-Amer, the Djour tribes on the White Nile,[789] the Arabs of the Sahara, the Wakamba, and the Ba-kwileh,[790] are likewise said to marry very young. Marriage usually takes place, among the Bongos when they are from fifteen to seventeen years old, but in many other tribes at an earlier age.[791]

Among the Sinhalese, when a young man has reached the age of eighteen or twenty, it is the duty of his father to provide him with a proper wife.[792] Among the Bodo and Dhimáls, “marriage takes place at maturity, the male being usually from twenty to twenty-five years of age, and the female from fifteen to twenty.”[793] A Santal lad marries, as a rule, about the age of sixteen or seventeen, and a girl at that of fifteen;[794] whilst a Kandh boy marries when he reaches his tenth or twelfth year, his wife being usually about four years older.[795] The Khyoungtha,[796] Munda Kols,[797] Red Karens,[798] Siamese,[799] Burmese,[800] Mongols,[801] and other Asiatic peoples, are also known to marry early. Among the Ainos, the young women are considered marriageable at the age of sixteen or seventeen, and the men marry when about nineteen or twenty.[802] Again, among the Lake Dwellers of Lob-nor, girls enter into matrimony at the age of fourteen or fifteen, men at the same age, or a little later;[803] whilst, among the Malays, according to Mr. Bickmore, the boys usually marry for the first time when about sixteen, and the girls at the age of thirteen or fourteen, and occasionally still earlier.[804]

Passing to the Australian continent: among the natives of New South Wales, the parties are in most cases betrothed very early in life, the young man claiming his wife later on, as soon as he arrives at the proper age.[805] According to Mr. Curr, “girls become wives at from eight to fourteen years of age.”[806] At Port Moresby, New Guinea, “few men over twenty years of age remain single;” and the Maoris in New Zealand are stated to marry very young.[807]

Moreover, celibacy is comparatively rare not only among savage and barbarous, but among several civilized races.

Among the Azteks, no young man lived single till his twenty-second year, unless he intended to become a priest, and for girls the customary marrying-age was from eleven to eighteen. In Tlascala, according to Clavigero, the unmarried state was, indeed, so despised that a full-grown man who would not marry had his hair cut off for shame.[808] Again, among the ancient Peruvians, every year, or every two years, each governor in his district had to arrange for the marriage of all the young men at the age of twenty-four and upwards, and all the girls from eighteen to twenty.[809]

In Japan, as I am told by a Japanese friend, old maids and old bachelors are almost entirely unknown, and the same is the case in China.[810] “Almost all Chinese,” says Dr. Gray, “robust or infirm, well-formed or deformed, are called upon by their parents to marry so soon as they have attained the age of puberty. Were a grown-up son or daughter to die unmarried, the parents would regard it as most deplorable.” Hence a young man of marriageable age, whom consumption or any other lingering disease had marked for its own, would be called upon by his parents or guardians to marry at once.[811] Nay, so indispensable is marriage considered among this people, that even the dead are married. Thus the spirits of all males who die in infancy, or in boyhood, are in due time married to the spirits of females who have been cut off at a like early age.[812]

Marco Polo states the prevalence of the same practice among the Tartars.[813] In Corea, says the Rev. John Ross, “the male human being who is unmarried is never called a ‘man,’ whatever his age, but goes by the name of ‘yatow;’ a name given by the Chinese to unmarriageable young girls: and the ‘man’ of thirteen or fourteen has a perfect right to strike, abuse, order about the ‘yatow’ of thirty, who dares not as much as open his lips to complain.”[814]

Mohammedan peoples generally consider marriage a duty both for men and women.[815] “Nothing,” says Carsten Niebuhr, “is more rarely to be met with in the East, than a woman unmarried after a certain time of life.” She will rather marry a poor man, or become second wife to a man already married, than remain in a state of celibacy.[816] Among the Persians, for instance, almost every girl of good repute is married before her twenty-first year, and old bachelors are unknown.[817] In Egypt, according to Mr. Lane, it is improper and even disreputable to abstain from marrying when a man has attained a sufficient age, and when there is no just impediment.[818]

Among the Hebrews, celibacy was nearly unheard of, as it is among the Jews of our day. They have a proverb that “he who has no wife is no man.”[819] “To an ancient Israelite,” Michaelis remarks, “it would indeed have appeared very strange to have seen, though but in a vision, a period in the future history of the world, when it would be counted sanctity and religion to live unmarried.”[820] Marriage was by the Hebrews looked upon as a religious duty. According to the Talmud, the authorities can compel a man to marry, and he who lives single at the age of twenty is accursed by God almost as if he were a murderer.[821]

The ancient nations of the Aryan stock, as M. Fustel de Coulanges and others have pointed out, regarded celibacy as an impiety and a misfortune: “an impiety, because one who did not marry put the happiness of the Manes of the family in peril; a misfortune, because he himself would receive no worship after his death.” A man’s happiness in the next world depended upon his having a continuous line of male descendants, whose duty it would be to make the periodical offerings for the repose of his soul.[822]

Thus, according to the ‘Laws of Manu,’ marriage is the twelfth Sanskāra, and hence a religious duty incumbent upon all.[823] “Until he finds a wife, a man is only half of a whole,” we read in the ‘Brahmadharma’;[824] and, among the Hindus of the present day, a man who is not married is considered to be almost a useless member of society, and is, indeed, looked upon as beyond the pale of nature. It is also an established national rule, that women are designed for no other end than to be subservient to the wants and pleasures of men; consequently, all women without exception are obliged to marry, when husbands can be found for them, and those who cannot find a husband commonly fall into the state of concubinage.[825] Among the ancient Iranians, too, it was considered a matter of course that a girl should be married on reaching the years of puberty.[826]

The ancient Greeks regarded marriage as a matter not merely of private, but also of public interest. This was particularly the case at Sparta, where criminal proceedings might be taken against those who married too late, and against those who did not marry at all. In Solon’s legislation marriage was also placed under the inspection of the State, and, at Athens, persons who did not marry might be prosecuted, although the law seems to have grown obsolete in later times. But independently of public considerations, there were private reasons which made marriage an obligation.[827] Plato remarks that every individual is bound to provide for a continuance of representatives to succeed himself as ministers of the Divinity;[828] and Isaeus says, “All they who think their end approaching, look forward with a prudent care that their houses may not become desolate, but that there may be some person to attend to their funeral rites, and to perform the legal ceremonies at their tombs.”[829]

To the Roman citizen, as Mommsen observes, a house of his own and the blessing of children appeared the end and essence of life;[830] and Cicero’s treatise ‘De Legibus’—a treatise which generally reproduces, in a philosophic form, the ancient laws of Rome—contains a law, according to which the Censors had to impose a tax upon unmarried men.[831] But in later periods, when sexual morality reached a very low ebb in Rome, celibacy—as to which grave complaints were made as early as 520 B.C.—naturally increased in proportion, especially among the well-off classes. Among these, marriage came to be regarded as a burden which people took upon themselves at the best in the public interest. Indeed, how it fared with marriage and the rearing of children, is shown by the Gracchan agrarian laws, which first placed a premium thereon;[832] whilst, later on, the Lex Julia et Papia Poppæa imposed various penalties on those who lived in a state of celibacy after a certain age,[833]—but with little or no result.[834]

Again, the Germans, as described by Cæsar, accounted it in the highest degree scandalous to have intercourse with the other sex before the twentieth year.[835] Tacitus also asserts that the young men married late, and the maidens did not hurry into marriage.[836] But it seems probable that at a later age celibacy was almost unknown among the Germans, except in the case of women who had once lost their reputation, for whom neither beauty, youth, nor riches could procure a husband.[837] As for the Slavs, it should be observed that, among the Russian peasantry celibacy is even now unheard of.[838] When a youth reaches the age of eighteen, he is informed by his parents that he ought to marry at once.[839]

There are, however, even in savage life, circumstances which compel certain persons to live unmarried for a longer or shorter time. When a wife has to be bought, a man must of course have some fortune before he is able to marry. Thus, as regards the Zulus, Mr. Eyles writes to me that “young men who are without cattle have often to wait many years before getting married.”[840] When Major-General Campbell asked some of the Kandhs why they remained single, they replied that they did so because wives were too expensive.[841] Among the Munda Kols and Hos, in consequence of the high prices of brides, are to be found “what are probably not known to exist in other parts of India, respectable elderly maidens.”[842] In the New Britain Group, too, according to Mr. Romilly, the purchase sum is never fixed at too low a price, hence “it constantly happens that the intended husband is middle-aged before he can marry.”[843] Similar statements are made in a good many books of travels.[844]

Polygyny, in connection with slavery and the unequal distribution of property, acts in the same direction. In Makin, one of the Kingsmill Islands, a great number of young men were unmarried owing to the majority of the women being monopolized by the wealthy and powerful.[845] Among the Bakongo, according to Mr. Ingham, as also among the Australians,[846] polygyny causes celibacy among the poorer and younger men; and Dr. Sims says the like of the Bateke, Mr. Cousins of the Kafirs, Mr. Radfield of the inhabitants of Lifu. Among the Kutchin Indians, according to Hardisty, there are but few young men who have wives—unless they can content themselves with some old cast-off widow—on account of all the chiefs, medicine men, and those who possess rank acquired by property having two, three, or more wives.[847] For the same reason many men of the lower classes of the Waganda are obliged to remain single, in spite of the large surplus of women.[848] In Micronesia, also, it is common for the poorer class and the slaves to be doomed to perpetual celibacy.[849] Among the Thlinkets, a slave cannot acquire property, nor marry, except by consent of his master, which is rarely given;[850] and in the Soudan the case seems to be the same.[851]

But we must not exaggerate the importance of these obstacles to marriage. When the man is not able to buy a wife for himself, he may, in many cases, acquire her by working for some time with her parents, or by eloping with her. Moreover, as Sir John Lubbock remarks, the price of a wife is generally regulated by the circumstances of the tribe, so that nearly every industrious young man is enabled to get one.[852] Speaking of the Sumatrans, Marsden observes that the necessity of purchasing does not prove such an obstacle to matrimony as is supposed, for there are few families who are not in possession of some small substance, and the purchase-money of the daughters serves also to provide wives for the sons.[853] Again, polygyny is, as we shall see further on, almost everywhere restricted to a small minority of the people, and is very often connected with the fact that there is a surplus of women. Thus, among the polygynous Waguha, as I am informed by Mr. Swann, unmarried grown-up men do not exist, the women being more numerous than the men. At any rate, we may conclude that at earlier stages of civilization, when polygyny was practised less extensively and women were less precious chattels than they afterwards became, celibacy was a much rarer exception than it is now among many of the lower races.

Passing to the peoples of Europe, we find, from the evidence adduced by statisticians, that modern civilization has proved very unfavourable to the number of marriages. In civilized Europe, in 1875, more than a third of the male and female population beyond the age of fifteen lived in a state of voluntary or involuntary celibacy. Excluding Russia, the number of celibates varied from 25·57 per cent. in Hungary to 44·93 per cent. in Belgium. And among them there are many who never marry.[854] In the middle of this century, Wappäus found that, in Saxony, 14·6 per cent. of the unmarried adult population died single; in Sweden, 14·9 per cent.; in the Netherlands, 17·2 per cent.; and in France, 20·6 per cent.[855] Of the rest, many marry comparatively late in life. Thus, in Denmark, only 19·43 per cent. of the married men were under twenty-five, and in Bavaria (in 1870-1878), only 16.36, whilst the figures for England and Russia look more favourable, being respectively 51·90 per cent. (in 1872-1878), and 68·31 per cent. (in 1867-1875). Of the married women, on the other hand, only 5·09 per cent. are below the age of twenty in Sweden, 5·40 per cent. in Bavaria, 7·44 per cent. in Saxony, 14·86 per cent. in England, &c.; but in Hungary as many as 35·16 per cent., and in Russia even 57·27 per cent.[856] The mean age of the bachelors who enter into matrimony is 26 years in England and 28·48 in France, that of the spinsters respectively 24·07 and 25·3.[857]

As a rule, the proportion of unmarried people has been gradually increasing in Europe during this century,[858] and the age at which people marry has risen. In England we need not go further back than two decades, to find a greater tendency on the part of men to defer marriage to later age than was formerly the case.[859] Finally, it must be noted that in country districts single men and women are more seldom met with, and marriage is generally concluded earlier in life, than in towns.[860]

There are, indeed, several factors in modern civilization which account for the comparatively large number of celibates. In countries where polygyny is permitted, women have a better chance of getting married than men, but in Europe the case is reversed. Here, as in most parts of the world, the adult women outnumber the adult men. If we reckon the age for marriage from twenty to fifty years, a hundred men may, in Europe, choose amongst a hundred and three or four women, so that about three or four women per cent. are doomed to a single life on account of our obligatory monogamy.[861]

The chief cause, however, of increasing celibacy is the difficulty of supporting a family in modern society. The importance of this factor is distinctly proved by statistics. It has been observed that the frequency of marriages is a very sensible barometer of the hopes which the mass of people have for the future; hard times, wars, commercial crises, &c., regularly depressing the number of marriages, whilst comparative abundance has the opposite effect.[862]

In non-European countries into which a precocious civilization has not been introduced, the population is more nearly in proportion to the means of subsistence, and people adapt their mode of life more readily to their circumstances. In most cases a man can earn his living sooner;[863] and a wife far from being a burden to her husband, is rather a help to him, being his labourer or sometimes even his supporter. Moreover, children, instead of requiring an education that would absorb the father’s earnings, become, on the contrary, a source of income. Thus Mr. Bickmore asserts that, among the Malays, difficulty in supporting a family is unknown.[864] Carsten Niebuhr states that, in the East, men are as disposed to marry as women, “because their wives, instead of being expensive, are rather profitable to them.”[865] And, speaking of the American Indians, Heriot says that children form the wealth of savage tribes.[866]

To a certain extent, the like is true of the agricultural classes of Europe. A peasant’s wife helps her husband in the field, tends the cattle, and takes part in the fishing. She cooks and washes, sews, spins, and weaves. In a word, she does many useful things about which women of the well-off classes never think of troubling themselves. Hence in Russia, as we are informed by M. Pietro Semenow, the small agriculturists, who form an enormous proportion of the population, are in the habit of arranging for the marriage of their sons at as early an age as possible in order to secure an additional female labourer.[867]

Even in cities it is not among the poorest classes that celibacy is most frequent. A “gentleman,” before marrying, thinks it necessary to have an income of which a mere fraction would suffice for a married workman. He has to offer his wife a home in accordance with her social position and his own; and unless she brings him some fortune, she contributes but little to the support of the family. Professor Vallis has made out that, in the nobility and higher bourgeoisie of Sweden, only 32 per cent. of the male population and 26 per cent. of the female population are married, whilst the averages for the whole population amount to 34 and 32 per cent. respectively.[868] Some such disproportion must always exist when the habits of life are luxurious, and the amount of income does not correspond to them. And it is obvious that women have to suffer from this trouble more than men, the life of many of them being comparatively so useless, and their pretensions, nevertheless, so high.

Another reason why the age for marriage has been raised by advancing civilization is, that a man requires more time to gain his living by intellectual than by material work. Thus, miners, tailors, shoemakers, artisans, &c., who earn in youth almost as much as in later life, marry, as a rule, earlier than men of the professional class.[869] In most European countries the decrease in the number of married people is also partly due to the drafting of young men into the army, and their retention in it in enforced bachelorhood during the years when nature most strongly urges to matrimony.

Of course these conditions affect directly the marriage age only of men, but indirectly they influence that of women also. Many fall in love with their future wives long before they are able to form a home, and those who marry late generally avoid very great disparity of age.[870]

In one respect the average age at which women marry may be said to depend directly upon the degree of civilization. Dr. Ploss has justly pointed out that the ruder a people is, and the more exclusively a woman is valued as an object of desire, or as a slave, the earlier in life is she generally chosen;[871] whereas, if marriage becomes a union of souls as well as of bodies, the man claims a higher degree of mental maturity from the woman he wishes to be his wife.

At the lower stages of human development, the pleasures of life consist chiefly in the satisfaction of natural wants and instincts. Hence savages and barbarians scarcely ever dream of voluntarily denying themselves “domestic bliss.” But, as a writer in ‘The Nation’ says, “by the general diffusion of education and culture, by the new inventions and discoveries of the age, by the increase of commerce and intercourse and wealth, the tastes of men and women have become widened, their desires multiplied, new gratifications and pleasures have been supplied to them. By this increase of the gratifications of existence the relative share of them which married life affords has become just so much less. The domestic circle does not fill so large a place in life as formerly. It is really less important to either man or woman. Married life has lost in some measure its advantage over a single life. There are so many more pleasures, now, that can be enjoyed as well or even better in celibacy.”[872]

It has further been suggested that the development of the mental faculties has made the sexual impulse less powerful. That instinct is said to be most excessive in animals which least excel in intelligence, the beasts which are the most lascivious, as the ass, the boar, &c., being also the most stupid;[873] and M. Forel even believes that, among the ants, increase of mind-power may have led to the sterility of the workers.[874] Idiots, too, are known to display very gross sensuality.[875] Yet the suggestion that decrease of sexual desire is a necessary attendant upon mental evolution cannot, so far as I know, by any means be considered scientifically proved, though we may safely say that if, among primitive men, pairing was restricted to one season of the year, the sexual instinct became gradually less intense as it became less periodical. A higher degree of forethought and self-control has, moreover, to a certain extent put the drag on human passions.

Finally, there can be no doubt that the higher development of feeling has helped to increase the number of those who remain single. “By the diffusion of a finer culture throughout the community,” says the above-mentioned writer in ‘The Nation,’ “men and women can less easily find any one whom they are willing to take as a partner for life; their requirements are more exacting; their standards of excellence higher; they are less able to find any who can satisfy their own ideal, and less able to satisfy anybody else’s ideal. Men and women have, too, a livelier sense of the serious and sacred character of the marriage union, and of the high motives from which alone it should be formed. They are less willing to contract it from any lower motives.”[876]

In what direction is the civilized world tending with regard to these matters? Will the number of celibates increase as hitherto, or will there be some backward movement in that respect? A definite answer cannot yet be given, since much will depend on economical conditions which it is impossible at present to foresee.

* * * * *

Before this chapter is closed, it may be worth while to glance at the curious notion that there is something impure and sinful in marriage, as in sexual relations generally. The missionary Jellinghaus found this idea prevalent among the Munda Kols in Chota Nagpore. Once when he asked them, “May a dog sin?” the answer was, “If the dog did not sin how could he breed?”[877] In Efate, of the New Hebrides, according to Mr. Macdonald, sexual intercourse is regarded as something unclean;[878] and the Tahitians believed that, if a man refrained from all connection with women some months before death, he passed immediately into his eternal mansion without any purification.[879] It is perhaps for a similar reason that the Shawanese have a great respect for certain persons who observe celibacy,[880] and that, among the Californian Karok, a man who touches a woman within three days before going out hunting is believed to miss the quarry.[881] Among several peoples, as the Brazilian aborigines,[882] the Papuans of New Guinea,[883] certain tribes in Australia,[884] the Khyoungtha of the Chittagong Hills,[885] and the Khevsurs of the Caucasus,[886] continence is required from newly married people for some time after marriage. The same is the case with several peoples of Aryan origin; and Dr. v. Schroeder even believes that this custom can be traced back to the primitive times of the Indo-European race.[887] In ancient Mexico, the Mazatek bridegroom kept apart from the bride during the first fifteen days of his wedded life, both spending the time in fasting and penance.[888] In Greenland, according to Egede, if married couples had children before a year was past, or if they had large families, they were blamed, and compared to dogs.[889] In Fiji, husbands and wives do not usually spend the night together, except as it were by stealth; it is quite contrary to Fijian ideas of delicacy that they should sleep under the same roof. Thus a man spends the day with his family, but absents himself on the approach of night.[890] Speaking of certain American Indians, Lafitau remarks, “Ils n’osent aller dans les cabanes particulières où habitent leurs épouses, que durant l’obscurité de la nuit; ... ce seroit une action extraordinaire de s’y présenter de jour.”[891] Moreover, in spite of the great licentiousness of many savage races, a veil of modesty, however transparent, is generally drawn over the relations of the sexes.[892]

The same notion of impurity doubtless explains the fact that certain persons devoted to religion have to live a single life. In the Marquesas Islands, no one could become a priest without having lived chastely for several years previously.[893] In Patagonia, according to Falkner, the male wizards were not allowed to marry,[894] and the same prohibition applied to the priests of the Mosquito Indians and the ancient Mexicans.[895] In Peru, there were virgins dedicated to the Sun, who lived in seclusion to the end of their lives; and besides the virgins who professed perpetual virginity in the monasteries, there were other women, of the blood royal, who led the same life in their own houses, having taken a vow of chastity. “These women,” says Garcilasso de la Vega, “were held in great veneration for their chastity and purity, and, as a mark of worship and respect, they were called ‘Occlo,’ which was a name held sacred in their idolatry.”[896] In Mexico, also, certain religious women were bound to chastity, although their profession was but for one year. Speaking of these nuns, the pious Father Acosta remarks, “The devil hath desired to be served by them that observe Virginitie, not that chastitie is pleasing unto him, for he is an uncleane spirite, but for the desire he hath to take from the great God, as much as in him lieth, this glory to be served with cleanness and integrity.”[897] Justinus tells us of Persian Sun priestesses, who, like the Roman vestals and certain Greek priestesses, were obliged to refrain from intercourse with men;[898] and according to Pomponius Mela, the nine priestesses of the oracle of a Gallic deity in Sena were devoted to perpetual virginity.[899]

The Buddhistic doctrine teaches that lust and ignorance are the two great causes of the misery of life, and that we should therefore suppress lust and remove ignorance. We read in the ‘Dhammika-Sutta’ that “a wise man should avoid married life as if it were a burning pit of live coals.”[900] Sensuality is altogether incompatible with wisdom and holiness. According to the legend, Buddha’s mother, who was the best and purest of the daughters of men, had no other sons, and her conception was due to supernatural causes.[901] And one of the fundamental duties of monastic life, by an infringement of which the guilty person brings about his inevitable expulsion from Buddha’s Order, is, that “an ordained monk may not have sexual intercourse, not even with an animal. The monk who has sexual intercourse is no longer a monk.”[902] Mr. Wilson, indeed, states that, in Tibet, some sects of the Lamas are allowed to marry; but those who do not are considered more holy. And in every sect the nuns must take a vow of absolute continence.[903] Again, the Chinese laws enjoin celibacy upon all priests, Buddhist or Taouist.[904]

In India, where, according to Sir Monier Williams, married life has been more universally honoured than in any other country of the world, celibacy has, nevertheless, in instances of extraordinary sanctity, always commanded respect.[905] “Those of their Sannyâsis,” says Dubois, “who are known to lead their lives in perfect celibacy, receive, on that account, marks of distinguished honour and respect.” But the single state, which is allowed to those who devote themselves to a life of contemplation, is not tolerated in any class of women.[906]

Among a small class of Hebrews, too, the idea that marriage is impure gradually took root. The Essenes, says Josephus, “reject pleasures as an evil, but esteem continence and the conquest over our passions to be virtue. They neglect wedlock.”[907] This doctrine exercised no influence upon Judaism, but probably much upon Christianity. St. Paul held celibacy to be preferable to marriage:—“He that giveth his virgin in marriage doeth well,” he says; “but he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better.”[908] Yet, as for most men continence is not possible, marriage is for them not only a right but a duty. “It is good for a man not to touch a woman; nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.... If they (the unmarried and widows) cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.”[909] A much stronger opinion as to the superiority of celibacy is expressed by most of the Fathers of the Church. Origen thought marriage profane and impure. Tertullian says that celibacy must be chosen, even if mankind should perish. According to St Augustine, the unmarried children will shine in heaven as beaming stars, whilst their parents will look like the dim ones.[910] Indeed, as Mr. Lecky observes, the cardinal virtue of the religious type became the absolute suppression of the whole sensual side of our nature, and theology made the indulgence of one passion almost the sole unchristian sin.[911] It was a favourite opinion among the Fathers that, if Adam had preserved his obedience to the Creator, he would have lived for ever in a state of virgin purity, and that some harmless mode of vegetation might have peopled paradise with a race of innocent and immortal beings. The use of marriage was in fact permitted to his fallen posterity only as a necessary expedient for the continuance of the human species, and as a restraint, however imperfect, on the natural licentiousness of desire.[912] But, though it may be marriage that fills the earth, says St. Jerome, it is virginity that replenishes heaven.[913]

These opinions led by degrees to the obligatory celibacy of the secular and regular clergy. The New Testament gives us no intimation that, during the lifetime of the apostles, monastic vows were taken by men of any age, or by unmarried women, and hardly any of the apostles themselves were celibates.[914] But gradually, as continence came to be regarded as a cardinal virtue, and celibacy as the nearest approach to the Divine perfection, a notion that the married state is not consistent with the functions of the clergy became general. As early as the end of the fourth century, the continence of the higher grades of ecclesiastics was insisted on by a Roman synod, but no definite punishment was ordered for its violation.[915] Gregory VII.—who “looked with abhorrence on the contamination of the holy sacerdotal character, even in its lowest degree, by any sexual connection”—was the first who prescribed with sufficient force the celibacy of the clergy. Yet, in many countries, it was so strenuously resisted, that it could not be carried through till late in the thirteenth century.[916]

As for the origin of this notion of sexual uncleanness, it may perhaps be connected with the instinctive feeling, to be dealt with later on, against intercourse between members of the same family or household. Experience, I think, tends to prove that there exists a close association between these two feelings, which shows itself in many ways. Sexual love is entirely banished from the sphere of domestic life, and it is reasonable to suppose, therefore, that when it appears in other relations, an association of ideas attaches a notion of impurity to the desire and a notion of shame to its gratification. Evidently, also, the religious enforcement of celibacy is intimately allied to the belief that sexual intercourse is the great transmitter of original sin, as well as to the abhorrence of every enjoyment which is considered to degrade the spiritual nature of man.

VIII. THE COURTSHIP OF MAN

Speaking of the male and female reproductive cells of plants, Professor Sachs remarks that, wherever we are able to observe an external difference between the two, the male cell behaves actively in the union, the female passively.[917] In this respect there is an analogy between plants and many of the lower animals. In the case of some lowly-organised animals, which are permanently affixed to the same spot, the male element is invariably brought to the female. There are other instances in which the females alone are fixed, and the males must be the seekers. Even when the males and females of a species are both free, it is almost always the males that first approach the females.[918]

As Mr. Darwin points out, we can see the reason why, in the first instance, the male plays the active part:—“Even if the ova were detached before fertilisation, and did not require subsequent nourishment or protection, there would yet be greater difficulty in transporting them than the male element because, being larger than the latter, they are produced in far smaller numbers.”[919] He adds, however, that, with respect to forms of which the progenitors were primordially free, it is difficult to understand why the males should invariably have acquired the habit of approaching the females, instead of being approached by them. Perhaps the explanation may be that the seeker is more exposed to danger than the one sought after, and that the death of a male at the pairing time is less disadvantageous for the existence of the species than the death of a female. At any rate, we may say with Mr. Darwin that it is necessary that the males should be endowed with strong passions in order that they may be efficient seekers; and the acquirement of such passions would naturally follow from the more eager males leaving a larger number of offspring than the less eager.[920]

The rule holds good for the human race, the man generally playing a more active, the woman a more passive, part in courtship. The latter, as it has been said, “requires to be courted.” Yet, curiously enough, there are a few peoples among whom the reverse seems to be the case, just as, among the lower animals also, there are some species of which the females are the courters.[921] Among the Moquis in New Mexico, according to Dr. Broeck, “instead of the swain asking the hand of the fair one, she selects the young man who is to her fancy, and then her father proposes the match to the sire of the lucky youth.”[922] In Paraguay, we are told, the women were generally endowed with stronger passions than the men,[923] and were allowed to make proposals;[924] and among the Garos, according to Colonel Dalton, it is not only the privilege but even the duty of the girl to speak first, any infringement of this rule being summarily and severely punished. “If a male makes advances to a girl,” he says, “and the latter, rejecting them, chooses also to tell her friends that such tenders of affection have been made to her, it is looked on as an insult to the whole ‘mahári’ (motherhood) to which the girl belongs, a stain only to be obliterated by the blood of pigs, and liberal libations of beer at the expense of the ‘mahári’ to which the man belongs.”[925] According to Mr. Batchelor, it constantly occurs among the Ainos that the proposal of marriage comes in the first place from the girl;[926] and in Polynesia,[927] as also among the Kafirs of Natal[928] and certain tribes in Oregon,[929] the same is sometimes the case.

It often happens that the parents of both parties make up the match; and among several peoples the man pays his suit by proxy. But these instances are of no particular importance.

* * * * *

In most animal species courtship takes place in nearly the same way. During the season of love, the males even of the most timid animals engage in desperate combats with each other for the possession of the female, and she, although comparatively passive, nevertheless often exercises a choice, selecting one of the rivals. This fighting for a female occurs even among insects,[930] and is of universal prevalence in the order of the Vertebrata. We may, with Haeckel, regard it as a modification and a special kind of the struggle for existence.[931]

There can be no doubt that our primeval human ancestors had, in the same way, to combat for their brides. Even now this kind of courtship is far from being unknown. Speaking of the Northern Indians, Hearne states that “it has ever been the custom among those people for the men to wrestle for any woman to whom they are attached; and, of course, the strongest party always carries off the prize. A weak man, unless he be a good hunter and well-beloved, is seldom permitted to keep a wife that a stronger man thinks worth his notice.... This custom prevails throughout all their tribes, and causes a great spirit of emulation among their youth, who are upon all occasions, from their childhood, trying their strength and skill in wrestling.[932] Richardson also saw, more than once, a stronger man assert his right to take the wife of a weaker countryman. “Any one,” he says, “may challenge another to wrestle, and, if he overcomes, may carry off his wife as the prize.... The bereaved husband meets his loss with the resignation which custom prescribes in such a case, and seeks his revenge by taking the wife of another man weaker than himself.”[933] With reference to the Slave Indians, Mr. Hooper says, “If a man desire to despoil his neighbour of his wife, a trial of strength of a curious nature ensues: they seize each other by the hair, which is worn long and flowing, and thus strive for the mastery, until one or another cries peccavi. Should the victor be the envious man, he has to pay a certain number of skins for the husband-changing woman.”[934]

Among the Californians also, conflicting claims sometimes arise between two or more men in regard to a woman; and, among the Patwin, it occasionally happened that men who had a quarrel about a woman fought a duel with bows and arrows at long distances.[935] In Mexico, a duel often decided the conflict between two competing suitors.[936] Among the Guanas, according to Azara, the men frequently do not marry till they are twenty years old or more, as before that age they cannot conquer their rivals.[937] Among the Muras, the wives are most commonly gained in a combat with fists between all the lovers of the girl; and the same is the case with the Passés.[938]

Among the Australian aborigines, quarrels are perhaps for the most part occasioned by “the fair sex.”[939] Speaking of the natives near Herbert Vale, Northern Queensland, Herr Lumholtz says that, “if a woman is good-looking, all the men want her, and the one who is most influential, or who is the strongest, is accordingly generally the victor.”[940] Hence, the majority of the young men must wait a long time before they get wives, as they have not the courage to fight the requisite duel for one with an older man.[941] In the tribes of Western Victoria, described by Mr. Dawson, a young chief who cannot get a wife, and falls in love with one belonging to a chief who has more than two, can, with her consent, challenge the husband to single combat, and, if the husband is defeated, the conqueror makes her his legal wife.[942] Narcisse Peltier, who, during seventeen years, was detained by a tribe of Queensland Australians, states that the men “not unfrequently fight with spears for the possession of a woman.”[943]

In New Zealand, if a girl had two suitors with equal pretensions, a kind of “pulling match” was arranged in which the girl’s arms were dragged by each of the suitors in opposite directions, the stronger man being the victor;[944] and, according to the Rev. R. Taylor, there is in the Maori language even a special term for denoting such a struggle.[945] In Samoa, as also in the Fiji Islands, women have always been one of the chief causes of fighting;[946] and of the natives of Makin, of the Kingsmill Group, Mr. Wood assures us that “they have no wars, and very few arms, and seldom quarrel except about their women.”[947]

Among the South African Bushmans, the “stronger man will sometimes take away the wife of the weaker.”[948] The people of Wadaï are notorious for their desperate fights for women; and, among the young men of Baghirmi, bloody feuds between rivals are far from being of rare occurrence.[949]

In the islands outside Kamchatka there prevailed formerly a very curious custom, as reported by Steller. If a husband found that a rival had been with his wife, he would admit that the rival had at least an equal claim to her. “Let us try, then,” he would say, “which of us has the greater right, and shall have her.” After that they would take off their clothes and begin to beat each other’s backs with sticks; and he who first fell to the ground, unable to bear any more blows, lost his right to the woman.[950]

Among the ancient Hindus, says Mr. Samuelson, “it was a custom in royal circles, when a princess became marriageable, for a tournament to be held, and the victor was chosen by the princess as her husband.” This custom was known as the “Swayamvara,” or “Maiden’s Choice,” and it is often mentioned in the ancient legends.[951]

In Greek legends and myths, we meet with several instances of fighting or emulation for women. Pausanias tells us that Danaus established a race for his daughters, and that “he that outran all the rest was to have the first choice, and take her whom he most approved; he that was next in order was to have the second choice, and so on to the last; and those who had no suitors were ordered to wait till new ones came to the course.”[952] According to Pindar, Antæus, father of a fair-haired and greatly-praised daughter, who had many suitors, stationed the whole company of them at the end of the race-course, saying that he should have her for his bride who should prove foremost in the race and first touch her garments.[953] Icarus likewise proposed a race for the suitors of Penelope;[954] and, as Mr. Hamilton remarks, “the triumph of Odysseus over the Suitors is the real end of the Odyssey.”[955]

According to Dr. Krauss, the South Slavonian youths on Palm Sunday, the day for presentiments of love, wrestle with each other, believing that he who proves the stronger will get the prettier wife.[956] Arthur Young informs us of the following strange custom which prevailed in the interior of Ireland in his time:—“There is a very ancient custom here,” he says, “for a number of country neighbours among the poor people to fix upon some young woman that ought, as they think, to be married; they also agree upon a young fellow as a proper husband for her; this determined, they send to the fair one’s cabin to inform her that on the Sunday following ‘she is to be horsed,’ that is, carried on men’s backs. She must then provide whisky and cider for a treat, as all will pay her a visit after mass for a hurling match. As soon as she is horsed the hurling begins, in which the young fellow appointed for her husband has the eyes of all the company fixed on him: if he comes off conqueror, he is certainly married to the girl; but if another is victorious, he as certainly loses her, for she is the prize of the victor.... Sometimes one barony hurls against another, but a marriageable girl is always the prize.”[957]

* * * * *

The sexual struggle in the animal kingdom is not always of a violent kind. As Mr. Darwin has pointed out, males often try by peaceful emulation to charm the female. In many species of birds the male seems to endeavour to gain his bride by displaying his colours and ornaments before her, or exciting her by his love-notes, songs, and antics. But among the lower Mammals he wins her, apparently, much more through the law of battle than through the display of his charms.[958] There can scarcely be any doubt that the same was the case with primitive men; but we need not mount many steps of human progress to find that courtship involves something more than a mere act of strength or courage on the part of the male. It is not only in civilized countries that it often means a prolonged making of love to the woman. Mariner’s words with reference to the women of Tonga hold true for a great many, not to say all, savage and barbarous races now existing. “It must not be supposed,” he says, “that these women are always easily won; the greatest attentions and most fervent solicitations are sometimes requisite, even though there be no other lover in the way. This happens sometimes from a spirit of coquetry, at other times from a dislike to the party, &c.”[959]

Though generally playing the less active part in courtship, the woman does not by any means indulge in complete passivity. Mr. Hooper tells us that, among the Indians at James’s Bay, “two young Indian women were observed some years ago in violent conflict.... After a lengthened and determined struggle the weakest succumbed to the superior prowess of her fortunate adversary. It appeared that these girls were in love with the same man, and had self-instituted this mode of deciding their claims.”[960] Among the Wintun of California, according to Mr. Powers, when any man other than a chief attempts to introduce into his wigwam a second partner of his bosom, the two women dispute for the supremacy, often in a desperate pitched battle with sharp stones; “they maul each other’s faces with savage violence, and if one is knocked down her friends assist her to regain her feet, and the brutal combat is renewed until one or the other is driven from the wigwam.”[961] Peltier states that, in the Australian tribe already referred to, the women, of whom from two to five commonly belong to each man, fight among themselves about him, “their weapons being heavy staves, with which they beat one another about the head till the blood flows.”[962] In the Kingsmill Islands, women sometimes, from jealousy, carry a small weapon, watching an opportunity of making an attack upon their rivals, desperate fights being the consequence;[963] and, among the Kamchadales also, the females are said to have fought for the males.[964] But far more commonly women try to secure men’s love by coquetry or the display of their charms. Finally, whilst the men are generally the courters, the women may in many, perhaps most cases, accept or refuse their proposals at pleasure.

The next chapter will be devoted to an account of some of the most common means by which the sexes endeavour, or formerly endeavoured, to make themselves attractive to one another, and to stimulate each other’s passions. Then we shall see how far woman has the liberty of disposing of her own hand, and, at the same time, note cases in which the man also, with regard to his marriage, has to submit to some other’s will.

IX. MEANS OF ATTRACTION

The desire for self-decoration, although a specifically human quality, is exceedingly old. There are peoples destitute of almost everything which we regard as necessaries of life, but there is no people so rude as not to take pleasure in ornaments. The ancient barbarians who inhabited the south of Europe at the same time as the reindeer and the mammoth, brought to their caves brilliant and ornamental objects.[965] The women of the utterly wretched Veddahs in Ceylon decorate themselves with necklaces of brass beads, and bangles cut from the chank shell.[966] The Fuegians “are content to be naked,” but “ambitious to be fine.”[967] The Australians, without taking the slightest pride in their appearance, so far as neatness or cleanliness is concerned, are yet very vain of their own rude decorations.[968] And of the rude Tasmanians, Cook tells us that they had no wish to obtain useful articles, but were eager to secure anything ornamental.

“Great as is the vanity of the civilized,” says Mr. Spencer, “it is exceeded by that of the uncivilized.”[969] The predilection of savages for ornaments has been sufficiently shown by travellers in almost every part of the world. Feathers and beads of different colours, flowers, rings, anklets, and bracelets, are common embellishments. A fully-equipped Santal belle, for instance, carries two anklets, and perhaps twelve bracelets, and a necklace weighing a pound, the total weight of ornaments on her person amounting to thirty-four pounds of bell metal,—“a greater weight,” says Captain Sherwill, “than one of our drawing-room belles could well lift.”[970] Besides this, the body is transformed in various ways. The lips, the sides of the nose, and the lobes of the ear are especially ill-treated. Hardly any woman in Eastern Central Africa is without a lip-ring; they say it makes them look pretty, and “the bigger the ring, the more they value themselves!”[971] The Shulis bore a hole in the underlip and insert in it a piece of crystal three or four inches long, which sways about as they speak;[972] and similar customs are common among other African peoples,[973] as also in some parts of North and South America.[974] The Papuans perforate the septum of the nose and insert in the hole sticks, claws of birds, &c.[975] The most common practice is to pierce, enlarge, or somehow mutilate the ear-lobes. Certain North American Indians,[976] the Arecunas and Botocudos of South America,[977] and the East African Wa-taïta[978] pull them down almost to the shoulders. Among the Easter Islanders, says Beechey, “the lobe, deprived of its ear-ring, hangs dangling against the neck, and has a very disagreeable appearance, particularly when wet. It is sometimes so long as to be greatly in the way; to obviate which, they pass the lobe over the upper part of the ear, or more rarely, fasten one lobe to the other, at the back of the head.”[979]

Scarcely less subject to mutilations are the teeth. In the Malay Archipelago, the filing and blackening of the teeth are thought to produce a most beautiful result, white teeth being in great disesteem.[980] The Australians often knock out one or two front teeth of the upper jaw, and several tribes in New Guinea file their teeth sharp.[981] Again, the Damaras file the middle teeth in the upper jaw into the form of a swallow’s tail, and knock out four teeth in the lower jaw; whilst one of the Makalaka tribes, north of the Zambesi, and the Matongas, on its bank, “break out their top incisor-teeth from the sheerest vanity. Their women say that it is only horses that eat with all their teeth, and that men ought not to eat like horses.”[982]

Many savage men take most pride in the hair of the head. Now it is painted in a showy manner, now decorated with beads and tinsel, now combed and arranged with the most exquisite care. The Kandhs have their hair, which is worn very long, drawn forward and rolled up till it looks like a horn projecting from between the eyes. Around this it is their delight to wear a piece of red cloth, and they insert the feathers of favourite birds, as also a pipe, comb, &c.[983] The men of Tana, of the New Hebrides, wear their hair “twelve and eighteen inches long, and have it divided into some six or seven hundred little locks or tresses;”[984] and, among the Latúka, a man requires a period of from eight to ten years to perfect his coiffure.[985] In North America, Hearne saw several men about six feet high, who had preserved “a single lock of their hair that, when let down, would trail on the ground as they walked.”[986] Other Indians practise the custom of shaving the head and ornamenting it with the crest of deer’s hairs; and wigs are used by several savage peoples.[987] The Indians of Guiana, the Fuegians, Chavantes, Uaupés,[988] and other tribes are in the habit of pulling out their eyebrows.

Scarcely anything has a greater attraction for the savage mind than showy colours. “No matter,” says Dr. Holub, “how ill a traveller in the Marutse district may be, and how many bearers he may require, if he only has a good stock of blue beads he may always be sure of commanding the best attention and of securing the amplest services; his beads will prove an attraction irresistible to sovereign and subject, to man, woman, and child, to freeman and bondman alike.”[989] The practice of ornamenting one’s self with gaudy baubles and painting the body with conspicuous colours is, indeed, extremely prevalent. Of Santal men at a feast, Sir W. Hunter says that, “if all the colours of the rainbow were not displayed by them, certainly the hedgehog, the peacock, and a variety of the feathered tribe had been laid under contribution in order to supply the young Santal beaux with plumes.”[990] Especially does the savage man delight in paint. Red ochre is generally looked upon as the chief embellishment, whilst, of the other colours, black and white are probably most in use. The Naudowessies paint their faces red and black, “which they esteem as greatly ornamental.”[991] Among the Guaycurûs, many men paint their bodies half red, half white.[992] Throughout the Australian continent the natives stain themselves with black, red, yellow, and white.[993] In Fiji, a small quantity of vermilion is esteemed “as the greatest possible acquisition.”[994] In New Zealand, the lips of both sexes are generally dyed blue; and in Santa Cruz, or Egmont Island, Labillardière observed with surprise that “there was very much diffused a fondness for white hair, which formed a striking contrast to the colour of their skin.”[995]

“Not one great country can be named,” Mr. Darwin says, “from the Polar regions in the north to New Zealand in the south, in which the aborigines do not tattoo themselves.”[996] This practice was followed by the ancient Assyrians, Britons, and Thracians,[997] as it is followed by most savages still. And it may be said without exaggeration that there is no visible part of the human body, except the eyeball, that has escaped from being disfigured in this way. Some of the Easter Islanders tattoo their foreheads in arched lines, as also the edges of their ears, and the fleshy part of their lips.[998] The Abyssinian women occasionally prick their gums entirely blue.[999] The Mundrucûs tattooed even their eyelids.[1000] And, speaking of the tattooing of the Sandwich Islanders, Freycinet remarks, “Aucune partie de leur corps n’en est exempte; le nez, les oreilles, les paupières, le sommet de la tête, le bout de la langue même dans quelques circonstances, en sont surchargés non moins que la poitrine, le dos, les jambes, les bras et la paume des mains.”[1001]

Often cicatrices are made in the skin, without any colouring matter being used. Some tribes of Madagascar, for instance, are in the habit of making marks, “which are intended to be ornamental,” by slight incisions in the skin.[1002] The natives of Tana ornament themselves by “cutting or burning some rude device of a leaf or a fish on the breast, or upper part of the arm.”[1003] The Australians throughout the continent scar their persons, as Mr. Curr assures us, only as a means of decoration.[1004] And, in Fiji, “rows of wart-like spots are burned along the arms and backs of the women, which they and their admirers call ornamental.”[1005]

It has been suggested that many of these practices sprang from other motives than a desire for decoration; and some are said to have had a religious origin. The Australian Dieyerie, on being asked why he knocks out two front teeth of the upper jaw of his children, can answer only that, when they were created, the Muramura, a good spirit, thus disfigured the first child, and, pleased at the sight, commanded that the like should be done to every male or female child for ever after.[1006] The Pelew Islanders believe that the perforation of the septum of the nose is necessary for winning eternal bliss;[1007] and the Nicaraguans say that their ancestors were instructed by the gods to flatten the children’s heads.[1008] Again, in Fiji, it is supposed that the custom of tattooing is in conformity with the appointment of the god Dengei, and that its neglect is punished after death.[1009] A similar idea prevails among the Kingsmill Islanders and Ainos;[1010] and the Greenlanders formerly believed that the heads of those girls who had not been deformed by long stitches made with a needle and black thread between the eyes, on the forehead, and upon the chin, would be turned into train tubs, and placed under the lamps in heaven, in the land of souls.[1011] But such tales are not of much importance, as any usage practised from time immemorial may easily be ascribed to the command of a god.

Mr. Frazer suggests that several of the practices here mentioned are fundamentally connected with totemism.[1012] In order to put himself more fully under the protection of the totem, the clansman, according to Mr. Frazer, is in the habit of assimilating himself to it by the arrangement of his hair and the mutilation of his body; and of representing the totem on his body by cicatrices, tattooing, or paint. Thus the Buffalo clans of the Iowa and Omahas wear two locks of hair in imitation of horns; whilst the Small Bird clan of the Omahas “leave a little hair in front, over the forehead, for a bill, and some at the back of the head, for the bird’s tail, with much over each ear for the wings;” and the Turtle subclan cut off all the hair from a boy’s head, except six locks which are arranged so as to imitate the legs, head, and tail of a turtle. The practice of knocking out the upper front teeth at puberty, Mr. Frazer continues, is, or was once, probably an imitation of the totem; and so also the bone, reed, or stick which some Australian tribes thrust through the nose. The Haidahs of Queen Charlotte Islands have always, and the Iroquois commonly, their totems tattooed on their persons, and certain other tribes have on their bodies tattooed figures of animals, which Mr. Frazer thinks likely to be totem marks. According to one authority, the raised cicatrices of the Australians are sometimes arranged in patterns representing the totem; and, among a few peoples, the totem is painted on the person of the clansman.[1013]

Mr. Frazer’s theory is supported by exceedingly few facts whereas there is an enormous mass of cases in which we have no right whatever to infer a connection with totemism. It is, indeed, impossible to see how most of the practices considered in this chapter could have originated in this way. How is it possible to explain the knocking out of the upper front teeth or the thrusting of a stick through the nose as imitations of totem animals? And how are we to connect the mutilations of the ears and other parts of the body, and the various modes of self-decoration, with totemism? Since all such practices are universally considered to improve the appearance, and, as will be shown presently, take place at the same period of life, we may justly infer that the cause to which they owe their origin is fundamentally one and the same. As for tattooing, Professor Gerland assumes that the tattooed marks were originally figures of totem animals, though they are no longer so;[1014] but an assumption of that kind is not permissible in a scientific investigation. And even in those rare cases, where a connection between tattooing and totemism undoubtedly exists, we cannot be sure whether this connection is not secondary. At present tattooing is everywhere regarded exclusively, or almost exclusively, as a means of decoration, and Cook states expressly that, in the South Sea Islands, at the time of their discovery, it was in no way connected with religion.[1015] Nor can I agree with Mr. Spencer that tattooing and other kinds of mutilation were practised originally as a means of expressing subordination to a dead ruler or a god.[1016] Equally without evidence is Mr. Colquhoun’s opinion that the custom originated in the wish either to make a man more fearful in battle, or to render the body invulnerable by the tattooing of charms on it.[1017]

It is true, no doubt, that this practice subserves various ends. Mr. Keyser speaks of a chief in New Guinea who had sixty-three blue tattoo lines on his chest, which represented the number of enemies he had slain.[1018] Moreover, the tattooed marks make it possible for savages to distinguish their own clansmen from their enemies;[1019] though I cannot think, with Chenier,[1020] that this was their original object. Again, many ornaments are really nothing but trophy-badges, and many things used for ornaments were at first substitutes for trophies, having some resemblance to them;[1021] whilst others are carried as signs of opulence.[1022] I do not deny, either, that men may sometimes paint their bodies in order to inspire their enemies with fear in battle, or that the use of red ochre and fat is good as a defence against changes of weather, flies, and mosquitoes.[1023] Nevertheless, it seems to be beyond doubt that men and women began to ornament, mutilate, paint, and tattoo themselves chiefly in order to make themselves attractive to the opposite sex,—that they might court successfully, or be courted.

It is noteworthy that in all parts of the world the desire for self-decoration is strongest at the beginning of the age of puberty, all the above-named customs being practised most zealously at that period of life. Concerning the Dacotahs, Mr. Prescott states that both sexes adorn themselves at their courtships to make themselves more attractive, and that “the young only are addicted to dress.”[1024] The Oráon, according to Colonel Dalton, is likewise particular about his personal appearance “only so long as he is unmarried.”[1025] Among the Let-htas in Indo-China, it is the unmarried youths that are profusely bedecked with red and white bead necklaces, wild boars’ tusks, brass armlets, and a broad band of black braid below the knee.[1026] Speaking of the Encounter Bay tribe of South Australia, the Rev. A. Meyer says that “the plucking out of the beard and anointing with grease and ochre (which belong to the initiatory ceremony) the men may continue if they please till about forty years of age, for they consider it ornamental, and fancy that it makes them look younger, and gives them an importance in the eyes of the women.”[1027] In Fiji, says Mr. Anderson, the men, “who like to attract the attention of the opposite sex, don their best plumage;”[1028] and when Mr. Bulmer once asked an Australian native why he wore his adornments, the native answered “that he wore them in order to look well, and to make himself agreeable to the women.”[1029]

It is when boys or girls approach puberty that, in the north-west part of North America, they have their lower lip perforated for the labret;[1030] that, among the American Eskimo, the African Masarwas, and certain Australian natives, the cartilage between the nostrils is pierced for the reception of a piece of bone, wood, or shell.[1031] At the same age, among the Chibchas and the aborigines of the Californian Peninsula, holes were made in the ears.[1032] It is at this period of life, also, that the Chaymas of New Andalusia, the Pelew Islanders, and the natives of New Britain have their teeth blackened, as black teeth, both for men and women, are considered an indispensable condition of beauty;[1033] and that, in several parts of Africa and Australia, they knock out some teeth, knowing that otherwise they would run the risk of being refused on account of ugliness.[1034] Among the Nicobarese, among whom the men blacken their teeth from the period of puberty, this disfigurement is indeed so favourably regarded by the fair sex that a woman “would scorn to accept the addresses of one possessing white teeth, like a dog or pig.”[1035] Mr. Crawfurd tells us that, in the Malay Archipelago, the practice of filing and blackening the teeth, already referred to, is a necessary prelude to marriage, the common way of expressing the fact that a girl has arrived at puberty being that “she has had her teeth filed.”[1036] And, with reference to some of the natives of the Congo countries, Tuckey states that the two upper front teeth are filed by the men, so as to make a large opening, and scars are raised on the skin, both being intended by the men as ornamental, and “principally done with the idea of rendering themselves agreeable to the women.”[1037]

The important part played by the hair of the head as a stimulant of sexual passion appears in a curious way from Mr. Sibree’s account of King Radàma’s attempt to introduce European customs among the Hovas of Madagascar. As soon as he had adopted the military tactics of the English, he ordered that all his officers and soldiers should have their hair cut; but this command produced so great a disturbance among the women of the capital that they assembled in great numbers to protest against the king’s order, and could not be quieted till they were surrounded by troops and their leaders cruelly speared.[1038] Everywhere it is the young and unmarried people who are most anxious to dress their hair.[1039] Thus, among the Bunjogees, a Chittagong Hill tribe, the young men “stuff a large ball of black cotton into their topknot to make it look bigger.”[1040] In the Tenimber Group, the lads decorate their long locks with leaves, flowers, and feathers, as Riedel says, “only in order to please the women.”[1041] Among the Tacullies, “the elderly people neglect to ornament their heads, in the same manner as they do the rest of their persons, and generally wear their hair short. But the younger people of both sexes, who feel more solicitous to make themselves agreeable to each other, wash and paint their faces and let their hair grow long.”[1042] And in the Admiralty Islands, according to Professor Moseley, “only the young men of apparently from eighteen to thirty, or so, wear the hair long and combed out into a mop or bush,” whilst the boys or older men wear the hair short.[1043]

Passing to the practice of painting the body: Dr. Sparrman tells us that the two Hottentots whom he had in his service, when they expected to meet some girls of their own nation, painted their noses, cheeks, and the middle of the forehead with soot.[1044] On Flinders Island, whither the remnant of the Tasmanians were removed, a rebellion nearly burst out when orders were once issued forbidding the use of ochre and grease, for “the young men feared the loss of favour in the eyes of their countrywomen.”[1045] Among the Guarayos, the suitor, when courting, keeps for some days close to the cabin of the mistress of his heart, he being painted from head to foot, and armed with his battle club.[1046] In certain parts of Australia, when a boy arrives at the age of puberty, his hair, body, and limbs are profusely smeared with red ochre and fat, this being one of the rites by which he is initiated into the privileges of manhood.[1047] Again, with reference to the Ahts, Mr. Sproat remarks that “some of the young men streak their faces with red, but grown-up men seldom now use paint, unless on particular occasions.” The women cease to use it about the age of twenty-five.[1048]

The girls are generally painted when they arrive at the epoch of the first menstruation.[1049] Thus, among certain Equatorial Africans, they are rubbed with black, red, and white paints in the course of a ceremony which, according to Mr. Reade, is essentially of a Phallic nature.[1050] If a young maiden of the Tapoyers of Brazil “be marriageable, and yet not courted by any, the mother paints her with some red colour about the eyes.”[1051]

The act of tattooing, also, generally takes place at the age of puberty, in the case of men as well as in that of women. It is about that period that, in the underlip of all freeborn female Thlinkets, “a slit is made parallel with the mouth, and about half an inch below it;”[1052] that, among the Eskimo, pigments of various dye are pricked on the chin, at the angles of the mouth, and across the face over the cheek-bones;[1053] that, in some South American tribes, incisions are made from the shoulders of the girl to her waist, “when she is regarded as a delicious morsel for the arms of an ardent lover.”[1054] At the same age, either or both sexes are subject to tattooing among the Guarayos,[1055] Abipones,[1056] Baris,[1057] Gonds,[1058] Dyaks,[1059] Negritos of the Philippines,[1060] South Sea Islanders,[1061] Australians,[1062] &c. Among the Nagas of Upper Assam, it was the custom “to allow matrimony to those only who made themselves as hideous as possible by having their faces elaborately tattooed.”[1063] The Makalaka girls, before they could marry, had to submit to horrible torture, about four thousand stitches being made in the skin of the chest and stomach, and a black fluid being rubbed into the wounds.[1064] In New Zealand, according to the Rev. R. Taylor, it was the great ambition of the young to have fine tattooed faces, “both to render themselves attractive to the ladies, and conspicuous in war.”[1065] In Samoa, until a young man was tattooed, he could not think of marriage, but as soon as this was done, he considered himself entitled to all the privileges of mature years.[1066] “When it is all over,” says Mr. Pritchard, “and the youths thoroughly healed, a grand dance is got up on the first available pretext to display the tattooing, when the admiration of the fair sex is unsparingly bestowed. And this is the great reward, long and anxiously looked forward to by the youths as they smart under the hands of the ‘matai.’”[1067] Often, however, the operation is accomplished not at once, but at different times, that the patients may be able to bear the inflammation and pain at every stage of the process; and not unfrequently it begins when the girls are quite young children, being constantly added to until they marry.[1068]

The real object of the custom is shown also by several other statements. When Mertens asked the natives of Lukunor what was the meaning of tattooing, one of them answered, “It has the same object as your clothes, that is, to please the women.”[1069] Bancroft remarks that young Kadiak wives “secure the affectionate admiration of their husbands by tattooing the breast and adorning the face with black lines.”[1070] The raised cuts of the Australians, according to Mr. Palmer, are “merely ornamental and convey no idea of tribal connection,” the women marking themselves in this manner “to add to their looks, and to make themselves attractive.”[1071] Barrington assures us that, among the natives of Botany Bay, “scars are, by both sexes, deemed highly ornamental;”[1072] and, in the Eucla tribe, according to Mr. W. Williams, both sexes make horizontal scars on the chest and vertical scars on the upper arm “for the purpose of ornamentation.”[1073] In Ponapé, as we are informed by von Kubary and Finsch, tattooing is practised only as a means of improving the appearance;[1074] and, in New Guinea, the women tattoo themselves “to please the men.”[1075] Bock remarks, “As the Dyak women are tattooed to please their lovers, so the Laos men undergo the ordeal for the sake of the women.”[1076]

In Samoa, great licentiousness was connected with the custom of tattooing; and, in Tahiti, the chiefs prohibited it altogether on account of the obscene practices by which it was invariably accompanied in that island.[1077] The Tahitians have also a very characteristic tale of its origin. Taaroa, their god, and Apouvaru had a daughter, who was called Hinaeree-remonoi. “As she grew up, in order to preserve her chastity, she was made ‘pahio,’ or kept in a kind of enclosure, and constantly attended by her mother. Intent on her seduction, the brothers invented tattooing, and marked each other with the figure called Taomaro. Thus ornamented, they appeared before their sister, who admired the figures, and, in order to be tattooed herself, eluding the care of her mother, broke the enclosure that had been erected for her preservation, was tattooed, and became also the victim to the designs of her brothers. Tattooing thus originated among the gods, and was first practised by the children of Taaroa, their principal deity. In imitation of their example, and for the accomplishment of the same purposes, it was practised among men.... The two sons of Taaroa and Apouvaru were the gods of tattooing. Their images were kept in the temples of those who practised the art professionally, and every application of their skill was preceded by a prayer addressed to them, that the operation might not occasion death, that the wounds might soon heal, that the figures might be handsome, attract admirers, and answer the ends of wickedness designed.”[1078]

This legend is especially instructive because it shows how a custom which had originally nothing to do with religion may in time take a more or less religious character. Professor Wundt holds that, in most cases, religious ideas are the original sources from which customs flow;[1079] but it is far more probable that the connection between religion and custom is often secondary. Nearly every practice which for some reason or other has come into fashion and taken root among the people, is readily supposed to have a divine sanction; and this is one of the reasons why conservatism as to religion is so often accompanied by conservatism in other matters. This must especially be the case among savage men who identify their ancestors with their gods, and consequently look upon ancient customs as divine institutions.

It is, indeed, difficult to believe that the motives which gave rise to tattooing can have been different from those which led to the painting of the body. The chief distinction between the two is, that the tattooed marks are indelible, being neither extinguished nor rendered fainter by lapse of time. Hence the prevalence of tattooing may be explained by a general desire among savages to make the decorations of the body permanent. Sometimes, too, the custom seems to be kept up as a test of courage.[1080]

Even to European tastes the incised lines and figures have in many cases a certain beauty. Thus, speaking of the Gambier Islanders, Beechey assures us that the tattooing undoubtedly improves their appearance; and Yate remarks that “nothing can exceed the beautiful regularity with which the faces and thighs of the New Zealanders are tattooed,” the volutes being perfect specimens, and the regularity mechanically correct.[1081] Forster observed that, among the natives of Waitahoo (Marquesas Islands), the punctures were disposed with the utmost care, so that the marks on each leg, arm, and cheek and on the corresponding muscles were exactly similar.[1082] Among the Tahitians, according to Darwin, the ornaments follow the curvature of the body so gracefully, that they have a very pleasing and elegant effect; and, among the Easter Islanders, “all the lines were drawn with much taste, and carried in the direction of the muscle.”[1083] The fact that the tattooed lines follow closely the natural forms of the body in order to render them more conspicuous, has been observed in the case of other peoples also,[1084] and it would be ridiculous to regard such marks as transformed images of gods.

The facts stated seem to show that the object of tattooing,[1085] as well as of other kinds of self-decoration or mutilation, was to stimulate the sexual desire of the opposite sex. To us it appears strange that such repugnant practices as that of perforating the septum of the nose or removing teeth should owe their origin to coquetry, but we must not judge of the taste of savages by our own. In this case the desire for self-decoration is to a great extent identical with the wish to attract attention, to excite by means of the charm of novelty.[1086] At all stages of civilization people like a slight variety, but deviations from what they are accustomed to see must not be too great, nor of such a kind as to provoke a disagreeable association of ideas. In Cochin China, where the women blacken their teeth, a man said of the wife of the English Ambassador contemptuously that “she had white teeth like a dog;”[1087] and the Abipones in South America, who carefully plucked out all the hairs with which our eyes are naturally protected, despised the Europeans for their thick eyebrows, and called them brothers to the ostriches, who have very thick brows.[1088] We, on the other hand, would dislike to see a woman with a crystal or a piece of wood in her lip.

It is a common notion that women are by nature vainer and more addicted to dressing and decorating themselves than men. This certainly does not hold good for savage and barbarous peoples in general. It is true that, among many of them, tattooing is exclusively or predominantly limited to the women, and that the men sometimes wear fewer ornaments. But several travellers, as for instance Dr. Schweinfurth[1089] and Dr. Barth,[1090] who have a vast experience of African races, agree that the reverse is usually the case. The women of all the tribes of Indians Richardson saw on his route through the northern parts of the fur countries, adorned their persons less than the men of the same tribes; and the like is said of the Comanches.[1091] Among the Uaupés, Mr. Wallace observed “that the men and boys appropriated all the ornaments.”[1092] The native women of Orangerie Bay of New Guinea, except that they are tattooed, adorn themselves less than the men, and none of them paint their faces and bodies, as the men frequently do.[1093] In the Admiralty Islands, young girls “sometimes have a necklace or two on, but they never are decorated to the extent to which the men are,” it being evidently not considered good taste for them to adorn their persons.[1094] Among the aborigines of the New Hebrides, New Hanover, New Ireland,[1095] and Australia,[1096] adornments are almost entirely monopolised by the men, the “fair sex” being content with their natural charms.

It has been suggested that the plainer appearance of the women depends upon their oppressed and despised position, as well as upon the selfishness of the men.[1097] But it is doubtful whether this is the true explanation. Savage ornaments, generally speaking, are not costly things, and even where the state of women is most degraded a woman may, if she pleases, paint her body with red ochre or put a piece of wood through her lip or a feather through the cartilage of the nose. In Eastern Central Africa, for instance, the women are more decorated than the men, although they hold an inferior position, being viewed as beasts of burden, and doing all the harder work. “A woman,” says Mr. Macdonald, “always kneels when she has occasion to talk to a man.”[1098] Almost the same is said of the female Indians of Guiana;[1099] whereas in the Yule Island, on the Coast of New Guinea, and in New Hanover, the women are less given to personal adornment than the men, although they are held in respect, have influence in their families, and exercise, in some villages, much authority, or even supremacy.[1100]

Of all the various kinds of self-ornamentation tattooing is the most laborious. Yet, in Melanesia, it is chiefly women that are tattooed, though they are treated as slaves; whilst in Polynesia, where the status of women is comparatively good, this practice is mainly confined to the men.[1101] In Fiji, where women were fearfully oppressed, genuine tattooing was found on them only.[1102]

It is expressly stated of the women of several savage peoples that they are less desirous of self-decoration than the men. Speaking of the Aleuts on the Fur-Seal Islands of Alaska, Mr. Elliott says, “In these lower races there is much more vanity displayed by the masculine element than the feminine, according to my observation; in other words, I have noticed a greater desire among the young men than among the young women of savage and semi-civilised people to be gaily dressed, and to look fine.”[1103] Among the Gambier Islanders, according to Beechey, the women “have no ornaments of any kind, and appeared quite indifferent to the beads and trinkets which were offered them.”[1104] In Tierra del Fuego, Lieutenant Bove found the men more desirous of ornaments than the women; and Proyart made a similar observation with regard to the people of Loango.[1105] Again, touching the Crees, Mackenzie remarks that “the women, though by no means inattentive to the decoration of their own persons, appear to have a still greater degree of pride attending to the appearance of the men, whose faces are painted with more care than those of the women.”[1106]

It is difficult, then, to believe that the inferior position of the weaker sex accounts for the comparative scarcity of female ornaments. The fact may to some extent be explained by Mr. Spencer’s suggestion, that ornaments have partly originated from trophy-badges, and Professor Wundt’s, that they indicate rank and fortune: but these explanations apply only to a few cases. If it be true that man began to decorate himself chiefly in order to stimulate the passions of the opposite sex, we may conclude that the vanity of the men is, in the first place, due to the likings of the women, and that the plainer appearance of the women is a consequence of the men’s greater indifference to their ornaments. Mr. Darwin has shown that, among our domesticated quadrupeds, individual antipathies and preferences are exhibited much more commonly by the female than by the male,[1107] and the same, as we shall see, is in some measure the case with man also. It is the women rather than the men that have to be courted. Thus, with reference to the natives of Gippsland, Mr. Brough Smyth, on the authority of Mr. Bulmer, states, “The ornaments worn by the females were not much regarded by the men. The woman did little to improve her appearance; ... if her physical aspect was such as to attract admirers she was content.”[1108]

It should also be noted that among savages it is, as a rule, the man only that runs the risk of being obliged to lead a single life. Hence it is obvious that to the best of his ability he must endeavour to be taken into favour by making himself as attractive as possible. In civilized Europe, on the other hand, the opposite occurs. Here it is the woman that has the greatest difficulty in getting married—and she is also the vainer of the two.

The hypothesis as to the origin of the customs in question, set forth in this chapter, presupposes of course that savage girls enjoy great liberty in the choice of a mate. It will be seen subsequently that there can be no doubt as to the accuracy of that presumption.

At a higher stage of civilization the tendency of mankind is to give up savage ornaments, and no longer to regard mutilations of the body as improving the appearance. In Persia, women still wear the nose-ring through one side of the nostril,[1109] but to a European such a custom would be extremely displeasing. In the Western world the ear-ring is the last vanishing relic of savage taste.

* * * * *

From the naked body the ornaments were transferred to clothing, partly because climate made clothes necessary, partly for another reason. “A savage begins,” Professor Moseley says, “by painting or tattooing himself for ornament. Then he adopts a movable appendage, which he hangs on his body, and on which he puts the ornamentation which he formerly marked more or less indelibly on his skin. In this way he is able to gratify his taste for change.”[1110]

It is usually said that man began to cover his body for two reasons: first, to protect himself from frost and damp; secondly, on account of a feeling of shame.

There can be no doubt that, when man emigrated from his warm native home and settled down in less hospitable zones, it became necessary for him to screen himself from the influences of a raw climate. The Eskimo wrap themselves up in furs, and the wretched natives of Tierra del Fuego throw a piece of sealskin over one of their shoulders, “on the side from which the wind blows.”[1111]

The second motive, too, seems acceptable at first sight. The savage men of the tropics, though otherwise entirely naked, commonly wear a scanty dress which Europeans might readily suppose to be used for the sake of decency. Nothing of the sort is found in any other animal species; hence Professor Wundt concludes that shame is “a feeling specifically peculiar to man.”[1112]

But why should man blush to expose one part of the body more than another? This is no matter of course, but a problem to be solved.

The feeling in question cannot be regarded as originally innate in mankind. There are many peoples, who, though devoid of any kind of dress, show no trace of shame, and others who, when they dress themselves, pay not the least regard to what we consider the first requirements of decency.

Thus, in the northern parts of the Californian Peninsula, both men and women have been found in a state of nudity.[1113] Among the Miwok, according to their own confession, persons of both sexes and of all ages were formerly absolutely naked.[1114] Lyman found the same to be the case with the Paiuches in northern Colorado, Columbus with the aborigines of Hispaniola, Pizarro with the Indians of Coca, v. Humboldt with the Chaymas, Wallace with the Purupurús, v. Schütz-Holzhausen with the Catamixis, Prince Maximilian with the Puris at St. Fidelis, Azara with certain Indians in the neighbourhood of the river Paraguay.[1115] In some Indian tribes the men alone go naked,[1116] in others the women.[1117] Again, in North America, Mackenzie met a troop of natives, of whom the men wore many ornaments and much clothing, but had, apparently, not the slightest notion of bashfulness. And of the Fuegians we are told that, although they have the shoulder or the back protected by a sealskin, the rest of the body is perfectly naked.[1118]

The men of most Australian tribes, and in many cases the women, wear no clothes except in cold weather, when they throw a kangaroo skin about their shoulders. “They are as innocent of shame,” says Mr. Palmer, “as the animals of the forests.”[1119] In Tasmania, too, the aborigines were usually naked, or, when they covered themselves, they showed that the idea of decency had not occurred to them.[1120] The same is said of some tribes in Borneo[1121] and Sumatra,[1122] the people of Jarai, bordering upon the empire of Siam,[1123] the inhabitants of the Louisiade Archipelago,[1124] Solomon Islands,[1125] Penrhyn Island, and some other islands of the South Sea;[1126] whilst, in others, only the men generally go naked.[1127] The Papuans of the south-west coast of New Guinea “glory in their nudeness, and consider clothing to be fit only for women.”[1128] In one part of Timor, on the other hand,[1129] as also in a tribe of the Andamanese,[1130] it is the women that are devoid of any kind of covering.

Passing to Africa, we meet with instances of the same kind. Concerning the Wa-taveita of the eastern equatorial region, Mr. Johnston remarks that “both sexes have little notion or conception of decency, the men especially seeming to be unconscious of any impropriety in nakedness. What clothing they have is worn as an adornment or for warmth at night and early morning.”[1131] The Wa-chaga and Mashukulumbe generally go about naked,[1132] and so do the Bushmans, except when they use a piece of skin barely sufficient to cover the back.[1133] Again, among the Bubis of Fernando Po[1134] and the natives of Balonda[1135] and Loango,[1136] the women have no sort of covering, whilst, among the Negroes of the Egyptian Soudan,[1137] the Baris,[1138] Shilluk,[1139] Dinka,[1140] Watuta,[1141] and Masai,[1142] this is the case with the men only. Apud Masaios membrum virile celare turpe existimatur, honestum expromere, atque etiam ostentare.[1143] In Lancerote also, according to Bontier and Le Verrier, the men used no covering; and, in Teneriffe, “the inhabitants went naked, except some few who wore goatskins.”[1144]

It might perhaps be supposed that the feeling of modesty, though not originally innate, appeared later on, at a certain stage of civilization, either spontaneously or from some unknown cause. This seems, indeed, to be the opinion of Professor Wundt, who says that man began to cover himself from decency.[1145] But let us see what covering savages often use.

A fashionable young Wintun woman, says Mr. Powers, wears a girdle of deer-skin, the lower edge of which is slit into a long fringe with a polished pine-nut at the end of each strand, while the upper border and other portions are studded with brilliant bits of shell.[1146] The Botocudos use a covering which has little resemblance to a garment; and their neighbours, the Patachos and Machacaris, make this trifle still smaller, a thread being sufficient clothing, according to their notion of modesty.[1147] When a Carib girl attained the age of ten or twelve years, she assumed around the waist “a piece of cotton cloth worked and embroidered with minute grains of shells of different colours, decorated in the lower part with fringe.”[1148] Similar ornamental skirts are in use among the Macusís, Arawaks, and other South American peoples.[1149] Among the Guaycurûs, the men had no covering, except a narrow bandage round the loins, which was of coloured cotton, and often adorned with glass beads.[1150] The Australians of Port Essington occasionally wear girdles of finely twisted human hair, and the men sometimes add a tassel of the hair of the opossum or flying squirrel, suspended in front.[1151] The women on the Lower Murray manufacture round mats of grass or reeds, which they fasten upon their backs, “tying them in front, so that they almost resemble the shell of a tortoise.”[1152] In Tahiti, a “maro,” composed of red and yellow feathers, was considered a present of very great value, and the women thought it “most ornamental” to enfold their loins with many windings of cloth.[1153] Dr. Seemann states that, in Fiji, the girls “wore nothing save a girdle of hibiscus-fibres, about six inches wide, dyed black, red, yellow, white, or brown, and put on in such a coquettish way, that one thought it must come off every moment.”[1154] A similar practice is common in the islands of the Pacific, fringes made of cocoa-nut fibre or of leaves slit into narrow strips or filaments of bark, frequently dyed with gaudy colours, being, in most of these islands, the only garment of the natives. This costume, with its conspicuous tint and mobile fringe, has a most graceful appearance and a very pretty effect, but is far from being in harmony with our ideas of modesty. In the island of Yap, according to Cheyne, “the dress of the males, if such it may be called, is slovenly in the extreme. They wear the ‘maro’ next them, and, by way of improvement, a bunch of bark fibres dyed red, over it.”[1155] In New Caledonia, in Forster’s time, the natives only tied “a string round the middle and another round the neck;”[1156] whilst, in some other groups, the costume of the men consisted of nothing but a leaf,[1157] a mussel,[1158] or a shell.[1159]

In Sumatra, according to Marsden, young women, before they are of an age to be clothed, have a plate of silver in the shape of a heart hung in front by a chain of the same metal.[1160] Among the Garos of Bengal, the women wear merely a very short piece of striped blue cotton round the waist. The men have a very narrow waist-cloth tied behind and then brought up between the legs; the portion hanging over in front is sometimes adorned with brass boss-like ornaments, and white long-shaped beads.[1161] In Lukungu, the entire covering of most of the women consists of a narrow string with some white china beads threaded on it.[1162] The Hottentot women, according to Barrow, bestowed their largest and most splendid ornaments upon the little apron, about seven or eight inches wide, that hung from the waist. “Great pains,” he says, “seem to be taken by the women to attract notice towards this part of their persons. Large metal buttons, shells of the cypræa genus, with the apertures outwards, or anything that makes a great show, are fastened to the borders of this apron.”[1163] The Bushman women of South Africa, met with by the same traveller, had as their only covering a belt of springbok’s skin, the part which was intended to hang in front being cut into long threads. But the filaments, he says, “were so small and thin that they answered no sort of use as a covering; nor, indeed, did the females, either old or young, seem to feel any sense of shame in appearing before us naked.”[1164] And among the Negroes of Benin, according to Bosman, the girls had no other garment than some strings of coral twisted about the middle.[1165]

It seems utterly improbable that such “garments” owe their origin to the feeling of shame. Their ornamental character being obvious, there can be but little doubt that men and women originally, at least in many cases, covered themselves not from modesty, but on the contrary, in order to make themselves more attractive—the men to women, and the women to men.

In a state where all go perfectly nude, nakedness must appear quite natural, for what we see day after day makes no special impression upon us. But when one or another—whether man or woman—began to put on a bright-coloured fringe, some gaudy feathers, a string with beads, a bundle of leaves, a piece of cloth, or a dazzling shell, this could not of course escape the attention of the others; and the scanty covering was found to act as the most powerful attainable sexual stimulus.[1166] Hence the popularity of such garments in the savage world.

Several travellers have noticed that there is nothing indecent in absolute nakedness when the eyes have got accustomed to it. “Where all men go naked, as for instance in New Holland,” says Forster, “custom familiarizes them to each other’s eyes, as much as if they went wholly muffled up in garments.”[1167] Speaking of a Port Jackson woman who was entirely uncovered, Captain Hunter remarks, “There is such an air of innocence about her that clothing scarcely appears necessary.”[1168] With reference to the Uupés, Mr. Wallace records his opinion that “there is far more immodesty in the transparent and flesh-coloured garments of our stage-dancers, than in the perfect nudity of these daughters of the forest.”[1169] In his ‘Africa Unveiled’ Mr. Rowley remarks, “When the sight becomes accustomed to the absence of raiment, your sense of propriety is far less offended than in England, where ample clothing is made the vehicle for asserting defiance, if not of actual law, yet of the wishes and feelings of the more virtuous part of the community.”[1170] And, speaking of the Fuegians, Captain Snow says, “More harm, I think, is done by false modesty,—by covering and partly clothing, than by the truth in nature always appearing as it is. Intermingling with savages of wild lands who do not clothe, gives one, I believe, less impure and sensual feelings than the merely mixing with society of a higher kind.”[1171]

The same view is taken by Dr. Zimmermann,[1172] and by Mr. Reade, who, with reference to the natives of Central Africa, remarks that there is nothing voluptuous in the excessive déshabillé of an equatorial girl, nothing being so moral and so unlikely to excite the passions as nakedness.[1173] Speaking of the Wa-chaga, Mr. Johnston observes, “We should be apt to call, from our point of view, their nakedness and almost unconsciousness of shame indelicate, but it is rather, when one gets used to it, a pleasing survival of the old innocent days when prurient thoughts were absent from the mind of man.”[1174] As a careful observer remarks,[1175] true modesty lies in the entire absence of thought upon the subject. Among medical students and artists the nude causes no extraordinary emotion; indeed, Flaxman asserted that the students in entering the academy seem to hang up their passions along with their hats.

On the other hand, Forster says of the natives of Mallicollo, that “it is uncertain whether the scanty dress of their women owes its origin to a sense of shame, or to an artful endeavour to please;” and of the men of Tana, that “round their middle they tie a string, and below that they employ the leaves of a plant like ginger, for the same purpose and in the same manner as the natives of Mallicollo. Boys, as soon as they attain the age of six years, are provided with these leaves; which seems to confirm what I have observed in regard to the Mallicollese, viz., that they do not employ this covering from motives of decency. Indeed, it had so much the contrary appearance, that in the person of every native of Tana or Mallicollo, we thought we beheld a living representation of that terrible divinity who protected the orchard and gardens of the ancients.”[1176] Speaking of the very simple dress worn by the male Hottentot, Barrow says, “If the real intent of it was the promotion of decency, it should seem that he has widely missed his aim, as it is certainly one of the most immodest objects, in such a situation as he places it, that could have been contrived.”[1177] Among the Khyoungtha, there is a native tradition worth mentioning in this connection. “A certain queen,” Captain Lewin tells us, “noticed with regret that the men of the nation were losing their love for the society of the women, and were resorting to vile and abominable practices, from which the worst possible results might be expected. She therefore prevailed upon her husband to promulgate a rigorous order, prescribing the form of petticoat to be worn by all women in future, and directing that the male should be tattooed, in order that, by thus disfiguring the males, and adding piquancy to the beauty of the women, the former might once more return to the feet of their wives.”[1178]

Moreover, we know that some tribes who go perfectly naked are ashamed to cover themselves, looking upon a garment as something indecent. The pious father Gumilla was greatly astonished to find that the Indians on the Orinoco did not blush at their nakedness. “Si les Missionnaires” he says, “qui ignorent leurs coutumes s’avisent de distribuer des mouchoirs, surtout aux femmes, pour qu’elles puissent se couvrir, elles les jettent dans la rivière, où elles vont les cacher, pour ne point être obligées de s’en servir; et lors qu’on leur dit de se couvrir, elles répondent: ... ‘Nous ne couvrons point, parce que cela nous cause de la honte.’”[1179] That this is no “traveller’s tale” merely, appears from the following statement made by v. Humboldt with reference to the New Andalusian Chaymas, who, like most savage peoples dwelling in regions excessively hot, have an insuperable aversion to clothing:—“Under the torrid zone,” he asserts, “ ... the natives are ashamed, as they say, to be clothed; and flee to the woods when they are too soon compelled to give up their nakedness.”[1180] Again, in an Indian hut at Mucúra in Brazil, Mr. Wallace found the women entirely without covering, and apparently quite unconscious of the fact. One of them, however, possessed a “saía,” or petticoat, which she sometimes put on, and seemed then, as Mr. Wallace says, “almost as much ashamed of herself as civilized people would be if they took theirs off.”[1181]

There are several instances of peoples who, although they generally go perfectly naked, sometimes use a covering. This they always do under circumstances which plainly indicate that the covering is worn simply as a means of attraction. Thus Lohmann tells us that, among the Saliras, only harlots clothe themselves; and they do so in order to excite through the unknown.[1182] In many heathen tribes in the interior of Africa, according to Barth, the married women are entirely nude, whilst the young marriageable girls cover their nakedness,—a practice analogous to that of a married woman being deprived of her ornaments and her hair.[1183] Mr. Mathews states that, in many parts of Australia, “the females, and more especially young girls, wear a fringe suspended from a belt round the waist.”[1184] Concerning the natives of Botany Bay (New South Wales), Barrington remarks that “the females at an early age wear a little apron, made from the skin of the opossum or kangaroo, cut into slips, and hanging a few inches from the waist; this they wear till they grow up and are taken by men, and then they are left off.”[1185] Collins says the same of the girls at Port Jackson;[1186] Mr. Palmer of some other Australians;[1187] and Captain Snow of all those tribes among whom he had been for several weeks.[1188] Again, on Moreton Island, according to Macgillivray, both men and women went about altogether unclothed, but the female children wore a small fringe in front. The same naturalist reports that, in almost all the tribes of Torris Strait, the women wear a petticoat of fine shreds of pandanus leaves, the ends worked into a waistband, upon the construction of which much labour is expended; but it is only “sometimes put on, especially by the young girls, and when about to engage in dancing.” Under this, however, another covering is usually worn.[1189] Among the Tupi tribes of Brazil, as soon as a girl became marriageable “cotton cords were tied round her waist and round the fleshy part of both arms; they denoted a state of maidenhood, and, if any one but a maiden wore them, they were persuaded that the Anhanga would fetch her away.... It cannot,” Mr. Southey adds, “have been invented for the purpose of keeping the women chaste till marriage, for these bands were broken without fear, and incontinence was not regarded as an offence.”[1190] Among the Narrinyeri of Southern Australia, girls wear a sort of apron of fringe until they bear their first child, and, if they have no children, it is taken from them and burned by the husband while they are asleep.[1191] In the Koombokkaburra tribe also, the young women wear in front an apron of spun opossum fur, which is generally given up after the birth of the first or second child.[1192]

There are several cases in which only the married women are clothed, the unmarried going entirely naked.[1193] But such instances do not conflict with the hypothesis suggested. Through long-continued use covering loses its original character and becomes a sign of modesty, whilst perfect nakedness becomes a stimulus. Usually, where nudity is considered indecent, the garments of the girls of barbarous peoples are restricted as much as possible, whilst those of the older women are comparatively seemly. Thus, among the African Schulis, the married women wear a narrow fringe of string in front, the unmarried wearing nothing but bead ornaments.[1194] Among the natives of Tassai, New Guinea, the former use a larger and thicker kind of petticoat of pandanus leaf, divided into long grass-like shreds, reaching to the knee; while that worn by the latter consists merely of single lengths made fast to a string which ties round the waist.[1195] In Fiji, the liku—a kind of band made from hibiscus-bark—is before marriage worn very short, but after the birth of the first child is much lengthened;[1196] and a similar practice occurs in other islands of the South Sea.[1197]

The dances and festivals of many savage peoples are notoriously accompanied by the most hideous licentiousness. Then the young men and women endeavour to please each other in various ways, painting themselves with brilliant colours, and decorating themselves with all sorts of ornaments.[1198] On such occasions many tribes who go naked in everyday life put on a scanty covering. Mr. Bonwick states that, among the Tasmanians, a fur string or band of emu feathers was used by some tribes, but only on great festivities; and the women wore in the dance a covering of leaves or feathers, which, as among the Australians on similar occasions, was removed directly afterwards. Tasmanian dances were performed “with the avowed intention of exciting the passions of the men, in whose presence one young woman had the dance to herself.”[1199] Among the Australian Pegulloburras, who generally go entirely naked, the women on festive occasions wear round the middle small fringes.[1200] Speaking of the Brazilian Uaupés, Mr. Wallace asserts that, “while dancing in their festivals, the women wear a small ‘tanga,’ or apron, made of beads, prettily arranged. It is only about six inches square, but is never worn at any other time, and immediately the dance is over, it is taken off.” Besides, their bodies are painted.[1201] The same was the case with the Tahitian Areois—a sort of privileged libertines, leading a most licentious life, and practising lewd dances and pantomimes,—who also sometimes, on public occasions, put on a girdle of the yellow “ti” leaves, which, in appearance, resembled the feather girdles of the Peruvians or other South American tribes.[1202] As to the South African Basutos, Mr. Casalis states that marriageable girls “frequently indulge in grotesque dances, and at those times wear, as a sort of petticoat, long bands composed of a series of rushes artistically strung together.”[1203]

Very generally in the savage world, where climate does not put obstacles in the way, both sexes go naked till they reach manhood, covering being resorted to at the same period of life as other ornaments.[1204] A South Australian boy, for instance, when fourteen or sixteen years old, has to undergo the initiatory rites of manhood as follows:—he is smeared all over with red ochre and grease, the hair is plucked from his body, and all his friends gather green gum bushes, which they place under his armpits and over the os pubis, after which the boy is entitled to marry.[1205]

In conformity with other ornaments, what we consider decent covering is said to be more common with savage men than with women. “If dress were the result of a feeling of shame,” Professor Waitz observes, “we should expect it to be more indispensable to woman than to man, which is not the case.”[1206] In America, according to v. Humboldt—among the Caribs, for instance—the men are often more decently clothed than the women.[1207] The same is stated of the Nagas of Upper Assam;[1208] and Barth, who had a vast experience of African savages, remarks, “I have observed that many heathen tribes consider a covering, however poor and scanty it may be, more necessary for man than woman.”[1209] Whether this is the rule among savage peoples is doubtful. At any rate, the egoism of the men cannot be blamed for the nakedness of the women. For a savage Eve may pluck her clothes from the trees.

In support of the psychological presumption which underlies the hypothesis here adduced, it may be added that some peoples are in the habit of covering other parts of the body also, in order to “excite through the unknown.” Thus, among the Tipperahs, the married women wear nothing but a short petticoat, while the unmarried girls cover the breast with a gaily-dyed cloth with fringed ends.[1210] Among the Toungtha, the bosoms of women are left uncovered after the birth of the first child, but the unmarried girls wear a narrow breast cloth.[1211] The Chinese consider small feet to be the chief charm of their women, and the girls have to undergo horrible torture while their feet are being compressed to the smallest possible size. It might be supposed that they would at least have the pleasure of fascinating the men by a beauty so painfully acquired. But Dr. Stricker assures us that, in China, a woman is considered immodest if she shows her artificially distorted foot to a man. It is even improper to speak of a woman’s foot, and in decent pictures this part is always concealed under the dress.[1212] The women of Agades, according to Barth, generally go unveiled, and if they sometimes cover their heads, this is done rather from coquetry than from a feeling of shame.[1213] Mr. Man remarks that a Hindu woman who attempts to hide her face, while she wears a gauze which displays her whole form, in her simulated modesty always appears as if attempting to convey an arrière pensée.[1214] Among the Tacullies, it is customary for the girls to have over their eyes a kind of veil or fringe, made either of strung beads or of narrow strips of deer skin garnished with porcupine quills;[1215] and, among the Chawanons, according to Moore, those young women who have any pretensions to beauty, as soon as they become marriageable, “muffle themselves up so that when they go abroad it is impossible to see anything but their eyes. On these indications of beauty they are eagerly sought in marriage.”[1216]

Finally, it is worth noting that this covering, or half covering, is only one of the means by which savage men and women endeavor to direct attention to that which civilized man conceals from a sense of shame. Among the Admiralty Islanders, the only covering is a shell, which shell is often tastefully engraved with the usual zigzag patterns, whilst its dazzling whiteness forms a very striking contrast with the blackness of the skin.[1217] On reaching puberty, the Tankhul Nagas assume, instead of a shell, a horn or ivory ring from an eighth to a quarter of an inch in breadth; being apparently of opinion that exposure, if so attended, is not a matter to be ashamed of.[1218] Some of the Brazilian Tupis, according to Castlenau, “mentulam inserunt in annulum ligneum, unde appellantur Porrudos, i.e. mentulati;”[1219] and, in several of the South Sea Islands, those parts of the body which civilized people are most anxious to conceal, are decorated with tattoos.[1220] De indigenis Tanembaris et Timorlaonis dum loquitur Reidel, adulescentes et puellas dicit saepe consulto abradere pilos pubis nulla alia mente, nisi ut illæ partes alteri sexui magis conspicuæ fiant.[1221]

Above all the practice of circumcision should be noticed in this connection, since, as I believe, it owes its origin to the same cause. It is by no means a specifically Jewish custom, but is widely spread over the earth. It is in use among all the Mohammedan peoples, among most of the tribes inhabiting the African West Coast, among the Kafirs, among nearly all the peoples of Eastern Africa, among the Christian Abyssinians, Bogos, and Copts,[1222] throughout all the various tribes inhabiting Madagascar,[1223] and, in the heart of the Black Continent, among the Monbuttu and Akka. Moreover, it is practised very commonly in Australia, in many islands of Melanesia,[1224] and in Polynesia universally. It has also been met with in some parts of America: in Yucatan,[1225] on the Orinoco,[1226] and among certain tribes in the Rio Branco in Brazil.[1227] The Jews, Mohammedans,[1228] Abyssinians,[1229] and some other peoples being excepted, it is always performed when the boy attains manhood—i.e., at the same age as that at which he is tattooed or painted, or begins to dress or adorn himself. Indeed, through the operation of circumcision, the boy becomes a man, and, where it is wanting, some other operation or deformation of the body supplies its place.[1230] Thus, in Australia, some tribes practise circumcision, others knock out teeth, when the youth becomes virile.[1231] Where circumcision is in use it is generally considered an indispensable preliminary to marriage, “uncircumcised” being a bad word, and the women often refusing all intercourse with such a man.[1232]

Several different explanations of this custom have been suggested.[1233] Some authors believe that it is due to hygienic motives. But circumcised and uncircumcised peoples live under the same conditions in the same neighbourhood side by side, without any difference in their physical condition.[1234] Mr. Sturt remarks that, in Australia, “you would meet with a tribe with which that custom did not prevail, between two with which it did.”[1235] Moreover, as Mr. Spencer observes, while the usage does not exist among the most cleanly races in the world, it is common among the most uncleanly.[1236] Among the Damaras and Bechuanas, the boys are circumcised, though these peoples are described as exceedingly filthy in their habits,[1237] and so also among the people of Madagascar and the Malays, who are far from being so cleanly as might be desired.[1238]

Again, according to Mr. Spencer, circumcision involves an offering to the gods. He suggests that in the first instance vanquished enemies were mutilated in order that a specially valuable trophy after a battle might be presented to the king Then, “in a highly militant society governed by a divinely-descended despot, ... we may expect that the presentation to the king of these trophies taken from enslaved enemies, will develop into the offering to the god of like trophies taken from each generation of male citizens in acknowledgment of their slavery to him.”[1239] This conclusion Mr. Spencer draws from the single fact that, “among the Abyssinians, the trophy taken by circumcision from an enemy’s dead body is presented by each warrior to his chief.” But there is no evidence whatever that this curious custom is of common occurrence. Circumcision is spread over a very large part of the earth, and prevails even in societies which are not “governed by a divinely-descended despot,” who could require all his subjects to bear this badge of servitude. With regard to the Australian aborigines, many tribes of whom practise circumcision, Mr. Curr says, “On the subject of government (by which I mean the habitual exercise of authority, by one or a few individuals, over a community or a body of persons) I have made many inquiries and received written replies from the observers of about a hundred tribes to the effect that none exists. Indeed, no fact connected with our tribes seems better established.”[1240] Since there is nothing to indicate that there ever was a different state of things in Australia, how are we to reconcile these facts with the interpretation offered by Mr. Spencer?

In the Book of Genesis the practice of circumcision is presented as a religious rite, deriving its origin from a command of God. But among most peoples it appears to have little, if any, religious significance.[1241] Sometimes, indeed, it is performed by a priest of the community, but, as Herr Andree justly remarks, this has no necessary relation to the question, the priests generally being the physicians of savage tribes.[1242] Moreover, as has already been pointed out, almost every ancestral custom may by degrees take a religious character. Thus, the ancient Peruvians’ habit of enlarging the lobe of the ear, so as to enable it to carry ear-tubes of great size, is supposed to have been connected with sun-worship; for Spanish historians mention that elaborate religious ceremonies were held at the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco, on the occasion of the boring of the ears of young Peruvian nobles.[1243] But we should not be warranted in inferring that this custom had originally anything to do with religion. With regard to circumcision among the Jews, I agree with Herr Andree that its religious character was almost certainly of a comparatively late date.[1244]

The peoples among whom this practice prevails are themselves unable to give any adequate account of its origin. With reference to the circumcision of the Southern Africans, the Rev. H. H. Dugmore says that they do not know how it began and that they have no traditionary remembrances about it, except that it has prevailed as a national custom from generation to generation. “Our forefathers did so, and therefore we do the same,” is all that the present generation can say about the matter.[1245]

That the practice of circumcision arose from the same desire as that which led to other kinds of mutilation, is rendered more probable by the fact that disfiguration is sometimes effected in quite a different way. Novae Zealandiae incolas Cook narrat non solum se non circumcidere, sed contra tam necessarium habere praeputium, ut anteriorem eius partem redimire soleant ligamento, quo glandem penis tegant.[1246] The same curious usage is met with in some other Islands of the South Sea;[1247] and in Brazil, according to Dr. Karl von den Steinen, among the Trumaí.[1248] Indigenae Portus Lincoln pueros pubertatem ingressos mirum in modum secant: quarzi fragmento penem ex ore secundum inferiorem partem usque ad scrotum incidunt itaque totum longitudinis spatium detegunt.[1249] In defence of this practice, says Mr. Schürmann, the natives had nothing to suggest except that “it was observed by their forefathers, and must therefore be upheld by themselves.”[1250] In Ponapé, boys are always subjected to semi-castration, as Dr. Finsch remarks, in order to prevent the possibility of orchitis, and, further, because the girls consider men thus disfigured handsomer and more attractive than others. According to Captain Wright, the same custom prevails in Niutabutabu, of the Tonga Islands.[1251]

Among many peoples of Africa, and in certain tribes of the Malay Archipelago and South America, the girls also undergo a sort of circumcision, and this is looked upon as an indispensable preliminary to marriage.[1252] Sunt autem gentes, quarum contrarius mos est, ut clitoris et labia minora non exsecentur, verum extendantur, et saepe longissime extendandur. Atque ista etiam deformatio insigne pulchritudinis existimatur.[1253] De indigenis Ponapéis haec adnotat Dr. Finsch; labia interna longius extenta et pendentia puellis et uxoribus singulare sunt incitamentum, quae res eodem modo se habet apud alias gentes, ut apud Hottentottas.[1254]

It certainly seems strange that such deformities should have been originally intended to improve the appearance. But we must remember the rough taste of savages, and the wish for variety so deeply rooted in human nature. These practices evidently began at a time when man went in a state of perfect nudity. The mutilations, as the eyes became accustomed to them, gradually ceased to be interesting, and continued to be inflicted merely through the force of habit, or from a religious motive. A new stimulus was then invented, parts of the body which had formerly been exposed being hidden by a scanty covering: as the Chinese women at first had their feet pressed in order to excite admiration, but afterwards began to conceal them from coquetry, or as the Tassai beauties, though entirely naked otherwise, wear two or three petticoats one over another.[1255]

* * * * *

How, then, are we to explain the connection which undoubtedly exists between nakedness and the feeling of shame? The hypothesis here set forth cannot be regarded as fully established until this question is answered.

“The ideas of modesty,” Forster truly says, “are different in every country, and change in different periods of time.”[1256] As v. Humboldt remarks, “A woman in some parts of Asia is not permitted to show the ends of her fingers; while an Indian of the Caribbean race is far from considering herself naked, when she wears a ‘guajuco’ two inches broad. Even this band is regarded as a less essential part of dress than the pigment which covers the skin. To go out of the hut without being painted with arnotta, is to transgress all the rules of Caribbean decency.”[1257] In Tahiti, a person not properly tattooed would “be as much reproached and shunned, as if with us he should go about the streets naked;”[1258] and, in Tonga also, the men would think it very indecent not to be tattooed.[1259]

M. Letourneau reports that, at Basra on the Euphrates, it was the duty of a woman, if surprised when taking her bath, to turn her face; no further concealment was considered necessary.[1260] The same habit prevailed among the fellah women in Egypt;[1261] while, in Arabia, according to Ebers, a woman acts even more indecorously in uncovering the back of the head than in uncovering the face, though this also is carefully hidden.[1262]

The Tubori women in Central Africa wear only a narrow strap, to which is attached a twig hanging down behind; but they feel greatly ashamed if the twig happens to fall off.[1263] A Chinese woman, as previously stated, is not permitted by the law of modesty to show her feet; and the Samoans considered it most disgraceful to expose the navel.[1264] The savage tribes of Sumatra and Celebes have a like feeling about the exposure of the knee, which is always carefully covered.[1265] Speaking of the horrible mouth adornment worn by the women of Port des Français (Alaska), which makes the lower part of the mouth jut out two or three inches, La Pérouse remarks, “We sometimes prevailed on them to pull off this ornament, to which they with difficulty agreed; they then testified the same embarrassment, and made the same gestures, as a woman in Europe who discovers her bosom.”[1266] Et Polynesios, quamquam eum tenent morem, nullam ut aliam corporis partem nisi glandem penis tegant, hanc tamen nudare vehementer pudet. Ita Lisiansky animadvertit indigenas Nukahivae, qui praeputium peni abductum habent et extremam eius partem lino constrictam, linum illud magni aestimare manifesto apparere. “Accidit enim,” inquit, “ut frater regis, ubi navem meam ascendit, linum amitteret, qua occasione mala quam maxime angebatur. Qui cum constratum navis ingrederetur, illa re commotus partem non redimitam manibus velavit.”[1267] Dr. Mosely asserts that the Admiralty Islanders, who wear nothing but a shell, always cover themselves hastily on removing the shell for barter, and evidently consider that they are exposing themselves either indecently or irreligiously, if they show themselves perfectly nude.[1268] The Kubus of Sumatra have a tradition that they are descendants of the youngest of three brothers, the first and second of whom were circumcised in the usual way, while it was found that no instruments would circumcise the third. This so ashamed him that he betook himself to the woods.[1269]

Ideas of modesty, therefore, are altogether relative and conventional. Peoples who are accustomed to tattoo themselves are ashamed to appear untattooed; peoples whose women are in the habit of covering their faces consider such a covering indispensable for every respectable woman; peoples who for one reason or another have come to conceal the navel, the knee, the bosom, or other parts, blush to reveal what is hidden. It is not the feeling of shame that has provoked the covering, but the covering that has provoked the feeling of shame.

This feeling, Dr. Bain remarks, “is resolved by a reference to the dread of being condemned, or ill-thought of, by others.”[1270] Such dread is undoubtedly one of the most powerful motives of human action. Speaking of the Greenlanders, Cranz says that the mainspring of all that they do is their fear of being blamed or mocked by other men.[1271] Among savages, custom is a tyrant as potent as law has ever been in civilized societies, every deviation from a usage which has taken root among the people being laughed to scorn, or regarded with disdain. The young ladies of Balonda, wholly unconscious of their own deficiency, could not maintain their gravity at the sight of the naked backs of Livingstone’s men. “Much to the annoyance of my companions,” he says, “the young girls laughed outright whenever their backs were turned to them, for the Balonda men wear a dress consisting of skins of small animals, hanging before and behind from a girdle round the loins.”[1272] By degrees a custom is associated with religion, and then becomes even more powerful than before. Mr. Williams tells us of a Fijian priest, who, like all his countrymen, was satisfied with a “masi,” or scanty hip-cloth, but on hearing a description of the naked inhabitants of New Caledonia and of their idols, exclaimed, contemptuously, “Not have a ‘masi,’ and yet pretend to have gods!”[1273] And, as Peschel remarks, “were a pious Mussulman of Ferghana to be present at our balls, and see the bare shoulders of our wives and daughters, and the semi-embraces of our round dances, he would silently wonder at the long-suffering of Allah, who had not long ago poured fire and brimstone on this sinful and shameless generation.”[1274]

Covering the nakedness has, for the reason already pointed out, become a very common practice among savage peoples; among those of the tropics, no other sort of clothing is generally in use. Hence, through the power of custom, the feeling of shame aroused by the exposure of the nakedness. If this is the true explanation, some may be disposed to infer that savages who, for the sake of cold, cover almost the entire body, will feel ashamed to bare even such parts as may elsewhere be shown without compunction. But this would be to overlook the essential fact that the heat of their dwellings, where they spend most of the winter, and the warmth of the summer sun, in many cases make it necessary for them, as they think, to throw off all their clothes. When this is done, they seem to be devoid of any sense of shame. Thus, the Aleuts undress themselves completely in their warm jurts, and men and women have for ages been accustomed to bathe together in the sea; “they do not think of there being any immodesty in it, yet, any immorality is exceedingly rare among them.”[1275] The Tacullies, who usually take off their clothes in summer, though they are well clad in winter, manifest, according to Harmon, as little sense of shame in regard to uncovering “as the very brute creation.”[1276] The Eskimo of Etah, who in the winter are enveloped to the face in furs, nevertheless, according to Kane’s description, completely put aside their garments in their subterranean dwellings;[1277] and the demeanour of the wife of Hans the Eskimo on board Hayes’s ship, plainly showed that she had no idea of decency.[1278]

On the other hand, we know that peoples living in warm climates who cover only the nakedness are utterly ashamed to expose it. The Andamanese, although they wear as little clothing as possible, exhibit a delicacy that amounts to prudishness, the women of the tribes of South Andaman being so modest that they will not remove their small apron of leaves, or put anything in its place, in the presence of any person, even of their own sex.[1279] Speaking of the Fijians, Wilkes asserts that, “though almost naked, these natives have a great idea of modesty, and consider it extremely indelicate to expose the whole person. If either a man or woman should be discovered without the ‘maro,’ or ‘liku,’ they would probably be killed.”[1280] The female natives of Nukahiva have only one small covering, but are so tenacious of it that the most licentious will not consent to take it off.[1281] Among those Australian tribes, in which a covering is worn by the women, they will retire out of sight to bathe.[1282] In Lukunor and Radack, men and women never appear naked together;[1283] and among the Pelew Islanders, according to Semper, the women have an unlimited privilege of striking, fining, or, if it be done on the spot, killing any man who makes his way in to their bathing-places.[1284]

These facts appear to prove that the feeling of shame, far from being the original cause of man’s covering his body, is, on the contrary, a result of this custom; and that the covering, if not used as a protection from the climate, owes its origin, at least in a great many cases, to the desire of men and women to make themselves mutually attractive.[1285] To some readers it may perhaps seem probable that the covering of the nakedness was originally due to the feeling which makes intimate relations between the sexes, even among savages, a more or less secret matter. But, whilst this feeling is universal in mankind, there are, as we have seen, a great many peoples who attach no idea of shame to the entire exposure of the body, and these peoples are otherwise not less modest than those who cover themselves. Their number is, indeed, so great that we cannot regard the absence of shame as a reversion or perversion; and it may be asserted with perfect confidence that the modesty which shows itself in covering is not an instinct in the same sense as that in which the aversion to incest, for example, is an instinct,—an aversion to which sexual bashfulness seems to be very closely related. Travellers have observed that, among various naked tribes, women exhibit a strong sense of modesty through various attitudes. But these attitudes may, like concealment by clothing, have been originally due to coquetry. They imply a vivid consciousness of certain facts, and the exhibition of this consciousness is far from being a mark of modesty. It may, further, be supposed that decent covering was adopted for the protection of parts specially liable to injury. This may hold good for some cases; but the general prevalence of circumcision even among naked tribes shows that savages are not particularly anxious about the safety of their persons.