Part 36

[Footnote 72: Frankel, _Grundlinien des mosaisch-talmudischen Eherechts_, p. xx. Ritter, _Philo und die Halacha_, p. 71.]

[Footnote 73: Andree, _Zur Volkskunde der Juden_, p. 48. Neubauer, 'Notes on the Race-Types of the Jews,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xv. 19.]

[Footnote 74: _1 Corinthians_, vii. 39.]

[Footnote 75: Tertullian, _Ad uxorem_, ii. 3 (Migne, _Patrologiæ cursus_, i. 1292 _sq._).]

[Footnote 76: _Concilium Eliberitanum_, cap. 15 _sq._ (Labbe-Mansi, _Sacrorum Conciliorum collectio_, ii. 8). See also Müller, _Das sexuelle Leben der christlichen Kulturvölker_, p. 54.]

[Footnote 77: Winroth, _op. cit._ p. 213 _sqq._]

[Footnote 78: _Ibid._ p. 220 _sq._]

The endogamous rules are in the first place due to the proud antipathy people feel to races, nations, classes, or religions different from their own. He who breaks such a rule is regarded as an offender against the circle to which he belongs. He hurts its feelings, he disgraces it at the same time as he disgraces himself. Irregular connections outside the endogamous circle are often looked upon with less intolerance than marriage, which places the parties on a more equal footing. A traveller relates that at Djidda, where sexual morality is held in little respect, a Bedouin woman may yield herself for money to a Turk or European, but would think herself for ever dishonoured if she were joined to him in lawful wedlock.[79] In Rome _contubernium_, but not marriage, could take place between freemen and slaves.[80] And among ourselves public opinion regards it as a much more lenient offence if a royal person keeps a woman of inferior rank as his concubine than if he marries her.

[Footnote 79: de Gobineau, _Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races_, p. 174, n. 1. _Cf._ d'Escayrac de Lauture, _op. cit._ p. 155.]

[Footnote 80: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 372.]

Modern civilisation tends more or less to pull down the barriers which separate races, nations, the various classes of society, and the adherents of different religions. The endogamous rules have thus become less stringent and less restricted. Whilst civilisation has narrowed the inner limit within which a man or woman must not marry, it has widened the outer limit within which a man or woman may marry, and generally marries. The latter of these processes has been one of vast importance in man's history. {382} Originating in race- or class-pride, or in religious intolerance, the endogamous rules have in their turn helped to keep up and to strengthen these feelings. Frequent intermarriages, on the other hand, must have the very opposite effect.

Like the rules referring to the choice of partners, so the modes of contracting marriage and the ideas as to what in this respect is right and proper have undergone successive changes. The practice of capturing wives prevails in certain parts of the world, and traces of it are met with in the marriage ceremonies of several peoples, indicating that it occurred more frequently in past ages.[81] This practice, as it seems to me, has chiefly sprung from the aversion to close intermarriage, together with the difficulty a savage man may have in procuring a wife in a friendly manner, without giving compensation for the loss he inflicts on her family. We may imagine that it chiefly occurred at a stage of social growth where family ties had become stronger, and man lived in small groups of nearly related persons, but where the idea of barter had scarcely presented itself to his mind. Yet there is no reason to think that capture was at any period the exclusive form of contracting marriage; its prevalence seems to have been much exaggerated by McLennan and his school.[82] It is impossible to believe that there ever was a time when friendly negotiations between families who could intermarry were altogether unknown. The custom prevalent among many savage tribes of a husband taking up his abode in his wife's family seems to have arisen very early in man's history.

[Footnote 81: Westermarck, _op. cit._ ch. xvii.]

[Footnote 82: Dr. Grosse (_Die Formen der Familie_, p. 105) goes so far as to believe that marriage by capture has never been a form of marriage recognised by custom or law, but only an occasional and punishable act of violence. But, as Dr. Havelock Ellis justly observes (_Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, 'Analysis of the Sexual Impulse,' p. 62, n. 2), this position is too extreme.]

Among most uncivilised peoples now existing a man has, in some way or other, to give compensation for his bride.[83] The simplest way of purchasing a wife is to give a kinswoman in exchange for her--a practice prevalent among {383} Australian tribes. Much more common is the custom of obtaining a wife by services rendered to her father, the man taking up his abode with the family of the girl for a certain time, during which he works as a servant. But the ordinary compensation for a girl is property paid to her father, or in some cases to her uncle, or to some other relatives as well as to the father. Marriage by exchange or purchase is not only general among existing lower races; it occurs, or formerly occurred, among semi-civilised nations of a higher culture as well--in Central America and Peru, in China and Japan, in the various branches of the Semitic race, in the past history of all so-called Aryan peoples. We have no evidence that it is a stage through which every race has passed; we notice its absence among some of the rudest races with whom we are acquainted. Yet with much more reason than marriage by capture, purchase of wives may be said to form a general stage in the social history of mankind. Although the two practices may occur simultaneously, the former seems more often to have succeeded the latter, as barter in general has followed upon robbery. It has been suggested that the transition from marriage by capture to marriage by purchase was brought about in the following way: abduction, in spite of parents, was the primary form; then there came the offering of compensation to escape vengeance; and this grew eventually into the making of presents or paying a sum beforehand.[84] The price was a compensation for the loss sustained in the giving up of the girl and a remuneration for the expenses incurred in her maintenance till the time of her marriage. The girl was regarded more or less in the light of property, to take her away from her owner without his consent was theft. To claim a compensation for her was his right, or even his duty. The Indians in Columbia consider it in the highest degree disgraceful to the girl's family if she is given away without a price;[85] and in certain tribes of California {384}"the children of a woman for whom no money was paid are accounted no better than bastards, and the whole family are condemned."[86]

[Footnote 83: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 390 _sqq._]

[Footnote 84: Koenigswarter, _Études historiques sur le developpement de la société humaine_, p. 53. Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_, i. 625.]

[Footnote 85: Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_, i. 277. _Cf._ von Weber, _Vier Jahre in Afrika_, ii. 215 _sq._ (Kafirs).]

[Footnote 86: Powers, _Tribes of California_, pp. 22, 56.]

With progressing civilisation, however, the practice of purchasing wives has been gradually abandoned, and come to be looked upon as infamous. The wealthier classes took the first step, and poorer and ruder persons subsequently followed their examples. Thus in India, in ancient times, the Âsura form, or marriage by purchase, was lawful for all the four castes. Afterwards it fell into disrepute, and was prohibited among the Brâhmanas and Kshatriyas, whereas it was still approved of in the case of a Vaisya and a Sûdra. But in the 'Laws of Manu' it is forbidden altogether.[87] It is said there, "No father who knows the law must take even the smallest gratuity for his daughter; for a man who, through avarice, takes a gratuity, is a seller of his offspring."[88] The Greeks of the historical age had ceased to buy their wives. In Rome _confarreatio_, which suggested no idea of purchase, was in the very earliest known time the form of marriage in force among the patricians; and among clients and plebeians, also, the purchase of wives came to an end in remote antiquity, surviving as a mere symbol in their _coëmptio_.[89] Among the Germans marriage by purchase was abolished only after their conversion to Christianity.[90] In the Talmudic law the purchase of wives appears as merely symbolical, the bride-price being fixed at a nominal amount.[91] In China, although marriage presents correspond exactly to purchase-money in a contract of sale, the people will not hear of their being called a "price";[92] which shows that here, too, some feeling of shame is attached to the idea of selling a daughter.

[Footnote 87: _Laws of Manu_, iii. 23 _sqq._]

[Footnote 88: _Ibid._ iii. 51. _Cf._ _ibid._ ix. 93, 98.]

[Footnote 89: Rossbach, _op. cit._ pp. 92, 146, 248, 250, &c.]

[Footnote 90: Grimm, _Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer_, p. 424.]

[Footnote 91: Gans, _Erbrecht_, i. 138.]

[Footnote 92: Jamieson, 'Marriage Laws,' in _China Review_, x. 78 n.*]

We may discern two different ways in which this {385} gradual disappearance of marriage by purchase has taken place. On the one hand, the purchase became a symbol, appearing as a sham sale in the marriage ceremonies or as an exchange of presents; on the other hand, the purchase sum was transformed into the morning gift and the dotal portion, a part--afterwards the whole--being given to the bride either directly by the bridegroom or by her father. These transformations of marriage by purchase have taken place not only in the history of the civilised nations, but among several peoples who are still in a savage or semi-civilised state; and of a few of them it is expressly stated that they consider marriage by purchase a disgraceful practice.[93]

[Footnote 93: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 405 _sqq._]

From marriage by purchase we have thus come to the practice of dower, which is apparently the very reverse of it. But whilst the marriage portion partly derives its origin from the purchase of wives, it does not do so in every case. It serves different ends, often indissolubly mixed up together. It may have the meaning of a return gift. It may imply that the wife as well as the husband is expected to contribute to the expenses of the joint household. It is also very often intended to be a settlement for the wife in case the marriage be dissolved through the husband's death or otherwise.[94] In the social history of the civilised races the marriage portion has played so prominent a part, that, as we have spoken of a stage of marriage by purchase, we may speak of another and later stage where fathers are bound by custom or law to portion their daughters. The Jews[95] and Muhammedans[96] consider it a religious duty for a man to give a dower to his daughter. In Greece the dowry came to be thought almost necessary to make the distinction between a wife and a concubine.[97] Isaeus says that no decent man would give his legitimate daughter less than a tenth of his {386} property;[98] indeed, so great were the dowers given that in the time of Aristotle nearly two fifths of the whole territory of Sparta were supposed to belong to women.[99] In Rome, even more than in Greece, the marriage portion became a mark of distinction for a legitimate wife;[100] and though later on Justinian in several of his constitutions declares that _dos_ is obligatory for persons of high rank only,[101] the old custom did not fall into desuetude.[102] The Prussian 'Landrecht' still prescribes that the father, or eventually the mother, shall arrange about the wedding and fit up the house of the newly-married couple.[103] According to the 'Code Napoléon,' on the other hand, parents are not bound to give a dower to their daughters,[104] and the same principle is generally adopted by modern legislation. It is true that especially in the so-called Latin countries there is still a strong tendency to dotation,[105] but another feeling, in some measure opposed to it, is gaining ground everywhere. In a society where monogamy is prescribed by law, where the adult women outnumber the adult men, where many men never marry, and where married women too often lead an indolent life--in such a society the marriage portion in many cases becomes a purchase-sum by means of which a father buys a husband for his daughter, as formerly a man bought a wife from her father. But, as Mr. Sutherland observes, "that pecuniary interests, either on one side or on the other, should conspicuously enter into the motives which lead to marriage, becomes repulsive to the increasing delicacy of feeling; and so we find that in cultured communities the dowry dies out, just as the purchase-money declined in the civilised stages."[106]

[Footnote 94: _Ibid._ p. 411 _sqq._]

[Footnote 95: Mayer, _Rechte der Israeliten_, ii. 344.]

[Footnote 96: _Koran_, iv. 3.]

[Footnote 97: Cauvet, 'L'organisation de la famille à Athènes,' in _Revue de législation et de jurisprudence_, xxiv. 152. Potter, _Archæologia Græca_, ii. 268. _Cf._ Meier and Schömann, _Der attische Process_, p. 513 _sq._]

[Footnote 98: Isaeus, _Oratio de Pyrrhi hereditate_, 51, p. 43.]

[Footnote 99: Aristotle, _Politica_, ii. 9, p. 1270 a.]

[Footnote 100: Laboulaye, _Recherches sur la condition civile et politique des femmes_, p. 38 _sq._ Ginoulhiac, _Histoire du régime dotal_, p. 66. Meier and Schömann, _op. cit._ p. 513 _sq._]

[Footnote 101: Ginoulhiac, _op. cit._ p. 103.]

[Footnote 102: For _dos necessaria_ in Germany during the Middle Ages, see Mittermaier, _Grundsätze des gemeinen deutschen Privatrechts_, ii. 3.]

[Footnote 103: Eccius, in von Holtzendorff, _Encyclopädie der Rechtswissenschaft_, ii. 414.]

[Footnote 104: _Code Napoléon_, art. 204.]

[Footnote 105: See Maine, _Early History of Institutions_, p. 339.]

[Footnote 106: Sutherland, _Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct_, i. 243.]

{387} Whilst most of the lower animal species are by instinct either monogamous or polygynous, with man every possible form of marriage occurs. There are marriages of one man with one woman (monogamy), of one man with many women (polygyny), of many men with one woman (polyandry), and, in a few exceptional cases, of many men with many women.[107]

[Footnote 107: Westermarck, _op. cit._ ch. xx.]

Among the causes by which the forms of marriage are influenced the numerical proportion between the sexes plays an important part. Polyandry seems to be due chiefly to a surplus of men, though it prevails only where the circumstances are otherwise in favour of it.[108] It presupposes an abnormally feeble disposition to jealousy, and has probably at all times been exceptional in the human race. There is no solid evidence for the theory set forth by McLennan that it was the rule in early times.[109] On the contrary, this form of marriage seems to require a certain degree of civilisation; we have no trustworthy account of its occurrence among the lowest savages. In polyandrous families the husbands are most frequently brothers, and the eldest brother, at least in many cases, has the superiority. It seems a fair conclusion that in such instances polyandry was originally an expression of fraternal benevolence on the part of the eldest brother, or of urgent demands on the part of the younger ones, who otherwise, on account of the scarcity of women, would have to live unmarried. If additional wives were afterwards acquired, they would naturally be considered the common property of all the brothers; and in this way the group marriage of the Toda type seems to have evolved.[110] Polygyny, also, is to some extent dependent upon the proportion between the sexes. It has been observed in India that polyandry occurs in those parts of the country where the males outnumber the females, polygyny in those {388} where the reverse is the case.[111] Indeed, in countries unaffected by European civilisation polygyny is likely to prevail wherever there is a majority of women. But the proportion between the sexes is only one cause out of many to which polygyny is due.

[Footnote 108: _Ibid._ p. 482.]

[Footnote 109: McLennan, 'The Levirate and Polyandry,' in _Fortnightly Review_, N.S. xxi. 703 _sqq._ _Idem_, _Studies in Ancient History_, p. 112 _sq._]

[Footnote 110: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 510 _sqq._ See also Rivers, _Todas_, pp. 515, 519, 521.]

[Footnote 111: Goehlert, 'Die Geschlechtsverschiedenheit der Kinder in den Ehen,' in _Zeitschr. f. Ethnologie_, xiii. 127.]

There are several reasons why a man may desire to possess more than one wife.[112] Monogamy requires from him periodical continence, not only for a certain time every month, but among many peoples during the pregnancy of his wife, and as long as she suckles her child. One of the chief causes of polygyny is the attraction which female youth and beauty exercise upon a man; and at the lower stages of civilisation women generally become old much sooner than in more advanced communities. The liking of men for variety is also a potent factor; the Negroes of Angola asserted that they "were not able to eat always of the same dish."[113] We must further take into account men's desire for offspring, wealth, and authority. The barrenness of a wife is a very common reason for the choice of a new partner; the polygyny of the ancient Hindus seems to have been due chiefly to the fact that men dreaded the idea of dying childless, and even now in the East the desire for offspring is one of the principal causes of polygyny.[114] The more wives, the more children; and the more children, the greater power. In early civilisation a man's relations and connections are often his only friends; and where slavery does not prevail, next to a man's wives the real servant, the only to be counted upon, is the child. Moreover, a man's fortune is increased by a multitude of wives not only through their children, but through their work. Manual labour among savages is undertaken largely by women; and when neither slaves nor persons who will work for hire can be procured, {389} it becomes necessary for any man who requires many servants to have many wives.

[Footnote 112: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 483 _sqq._]

[Footnote 113: Merolla da Sorrento, 'Voyage to Congo,' in Pinkerton, _Collection of Voyages_, xvi. 299.]

[Footnote 114: Wallin, _Reseanteckningar från Orienten_, iii. 267. Le Bon, _La civilisation des Arabes_, p. 424. Gray, _China_, i. 184.]

Nevertheless, however desirable polygyny may be from the man's point of view, it is altogether prohibited among many peoples, and in countries where it is an established institution it is practised--as a rule to which there are few exceptions--only by a comparatively small class.[115] The proportion between the sexes partly accounts for this, but there are other causes of no less importance.[116] Where the amount of female labour is limited and no accumulated property exists, it may be very difficult for a man to keep a plurality of wives. Again, where female labour is of considerable value, the necessity of paying the purchase-sum for a wife is a hindrance to polygyny which can be overcome only by the wealthier men. There are, moreover, certain factors of a psychical character which are unfavourable to polygyny. When love depends on external attractions only, it is necessarily fickle; but when it implies sympathy arising from mental qualities, there is a tie between husband and wife which lasts long after youth and beauty are gone. As another obstacle to polygyny we have to note the true monogamous sentiment, the absorbing passion for one, which is not unknown even among savage races. Polygyny is finally checked by the respect in which women are held by men. Jealousy is not exclusively a masculine passion, and it is the ambition of every wife to be the mistress of her husband's house. Hence where women have succeeded in obtaining some power over their husbands, or where the altruistic feelings of men have become refined enough to lead them to respect the feelings of those weaker than themselves, monogamy is frequently the result.

[Footnote 115: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 435 _sqq._]

[Footnote 116: _Ibid._ p. 493 _sqq._]

It is certain that polygyny has been less prevalent at the lowest stages of civilisation--where wars do not seriously disturb the proportion of the sexes, where life is chiefly supported by hunting and female labour is consequently of slight value, and where there is no accumulation of wealth {390} and no distinction of class--than it is at somewhat higher stages.[117] The more advanced savages and barbarians seem to indulge in this practice to a greater extent than the lower ones, many, or most, of whom are either little addicted to polygyny or strictly monogamous. Various forest tribes in Brazil are monogamous,[118] and so are several of the Californian tribes--"a humble and a lowly race, . . . one of the lowest on earth."[119] Thus the Karok do not allow bigamy even to a chief; and though a man may own as many women for slaves as he can purchase, he brings obloquy on himself if he cohabits with more than one.[120] Among the Veddahs[121] and Andaman Islanders[122] monogamy is as rigidly insisted upon as any where in Europe. The natives of Kar Nicobar "have but one wife, and look upon unchastity as a very deadly sin."[123] Among the Koch and Old Kukis polygyny and concubinage are forbidden;[124] whilst among some other aboriginal tribes in India a man, though not expressly forbidden to have many wives, is blamed if he has more than one.[125] Among the Karens of Burma[126] and certain tribes of Indo-China, the Malay Peninsula, and the Indian Archipelago, polygyny is said either to be prohibited or unknown.[127] The Hill Dyaks marry but one wife, and a chief who once broke through this custom lost all his influence.[128] In Australia there are said to be some truly monogamous tribes;[129] in the Birria tribe, for instance, "the possession of more than one wife is absolutely forbidden, or was so before the coming of the whites."[130] {391} Monogamy is all the more likely to have been the general rule among our earliest human ancestors as it seems to be so among the man-like apes. Darwin certainly mentions the gorilla as a polygamist;[131] but the majority of statements we have regarding this animal are to the opposite effect. Relying on the most trustworthy authorities, Professor Hartmann says, "The gorilla lives in a society consisting of male and female and their young of varying ages."[132]

[Footnote 117: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 505 _sqq._]

[Footnote 118: von Martius, _op. cit._ i. 274, 298. Wallace, _Travels on the Amazon_, pp. 509, 515 _sqq._ Waitz, _Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, iii. 472.]

[Footnote 119: Powers, _op. cit._ pp. 5, 56, 406. Wilkes, _U. S. Exploring Expedition_, v. 188.]

[Footnote 120: Powers, _op. cit._ p. 22.]

[Footnote 121: Bailey, in _Trans. Ethn. Soc._ N.S. ii. 291 _sq._ Hartshorne, in _Indian Antiquary_, viii. 320.]

[Footnote 122: Man, in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xii. 135.]

[Footnote 123: Distant, _ibid._ iii. 4.]

[Footnote 124: Dalton, _op. cit._ p. 91. Stewart, 'Notes on Northern Cachar,' in _Jour. As. Soc. Bengal_, xxiv. 621.]

[Footnote 125: Dalton, _op. cit._ pp. 28, 54. Jellinghaus, 'Munda-Kolhs in Chota Nagpore,' in _Zeitschr. f. Ethnol._ iii. 370.]

[Footnote 126: Smeaton, _Loyal Karens of Burma_, p. 81.]

[Footnote 127: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 436 _sq._]

[Footnote 128: Low, _Sarawak_, p. 300.]

[Footnote 129: Curr, _Australian Race_, i. 402; ii. 371.]

[Footnote 130: _Ibid._ ii. 378.]

[Footnote 131: Darwin, _Descent of Man_, pp. 217, 590 _sq._]

[Footnote 132: Hartmann, _Die menschenähnlichen Affen_, p. 214.]

Whilst civilisation is thus up to a certain point favourable to polygyny, it leads in its higher forms to monogamy. Owing to the decrease of wars, the death-rate of the men becomes less, and the considerable disproportion between the sexes which among many warlike peoples makes polygyny almost a law of nature no longer exists among the most advanced nations. No superstitious belief keeps the civilised man apart from his wife during her pregnancy and while she suckles her child; and the suckling time has become much shorter since the introduction of domesticated animals and the use of milk. To a cultivated mind youth and beauty are by no means the only attractions of a woman; and civilisation has made female beauty more durable. The desire for offspring becomes less intense. A large family, instead of being a help in the struggle for existence, is often considered an insufferable burden. A man's kinsfolk are no longer his only friends, and his wealth and power do not depend upon the number of his wives and children. A wife ceases to be a mere labourer, and manual labour is to a large extent replaced by the work of domesticated animals and the use of implements and machines. Moreover, the sentiment of love becomes more refined, the passion for one more absorbing. The feelings of the weaker sex are frequently held in higher regard. And the better education bestowed on women enables them to live comfortably without the support of a husband.

{392} As for the moral valuation of the various forms of marriage, it should be noticed that even among polygynous and polyandrous peoples monogamy is permitted by custom or law, although in some instances it is associated with poverty and considered mean, whereas polygyny, as associated with greatness, is thought praiseworthy.[133] Again, the notion that monogamy is the only proper form of marriage, and that any other form is immoral, is due either to the mere force of habit; or, possibly, to the notion that it is wrong of some men to appropriate a plurality of wives when others in consequence can get none; or to the feeling that polygyny is an offence against the female sex; or to the condemnation of lust. As regards the obligatory monogamy of Christian nations, we have to remember that monogamy was the only recognised form of marriage in the societies on which Christianity was first engrafted, and that it was the only form that could be tolerated by a religion which regarded every gratification of the sexual impulse with suspicion and incontinence as the gravest sin. In its early days the Church showed little respect for women but its horror of sensuality was immense.

[Footnote 133: Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_, i. 657.]

A few words still remain to be said of a form of marriage which has of late been the subject of much discussion in connection with Australian ethnology. Many years ago attention was drawn to the fact that the Kamilaroi tribes in South Australia are divided into four classes, in which brothers and sisters are respectively Ipai and Ip[=a]tha, K[)u]bi and Kub[)i]tha, M[)u]ri and M[=a]tha, Kumbu and B[=u]tha; and that the members of one class are forbidden to marry among themselves, but bound to marry into a certain other class. Thus Ipai may only marry Kub[)i]tha; K[)u]bi, Ip[=a]tha; Kumbu, M[=a]tha; and M[)u]ri, B[=u]tha. In a certain sense, we were told, every Ipai is regarded as married, not by any individual contract, but by organic law, to every Kub[)i]tha; every K[)u]bi to every Ip[=a]tha, and so forth. If, for instance, a K[)u]bi meet a stranger Ip[=a]tha, they address {393} each other as "spouse"; and "a K[)u]bi thus meeting an Ip[=a]tha, though she were of another tribe, would treat her as his wife, and his right to do so would be recognised by her tribe."[134] The institution according to which the men of one division have as wives the women of another division, the Rev. L. Fison called "group marriage." He contends that among the natives of South Australia it has given way in later times, in some measure, to individual marriage. But theoretically, he says, marriage is still communal: "it is based upon the marriage of all the males in one division of a tribe to all the females of the same generation in another division." The chief argument advanced by Mr. Fison in support of his theory is grounded on the terms of relationship in use in the tribes. These terms belong to the "classificatory system" of Mr. Morgan;[135] but he admits that he is not aware of any tribe in which the actual practice is to its full extent what the terms of relationship imply. "Present usage," he says, "is everywhere in advance of the system so implied, and the terms are survivals of an ancient right, not precise indications of custom as it is."[136] The same is granted by Mr. Howitt.[137] Yet I have pointed out, in my criticism of the classificatory system, to what absurd results we must be led if, guided by such terms, we begin to speculate upon early marriage.[138] Moreover, as I have said, "if a K[)u]bi and an Ip[=a]tha address each other as spouse, this does not imply that in former times every K[)u]bi was married to every Ip[=a]tha indiscriminately. On the contrary, the application of such a familiar term might be explained from the fact that the women who may be a man's wives, and those who cannot possibly be so, stand in a widely different relation to him."[139] This suggestion derives support from the following statement made by Dr. Codrington with reference to the Melanesians:--"Speaking {394} generally, it may be said that to a Melanesian man all women, of his own generation at least, are either sisters or wives, to the Melanesian woman all men are either brothers or husbands. . . . It must not be understood that a Melanesian regards all women who are not of his own division as, in fact, his wives, or conceives himself to have rights which he may exercise in regard to those women of them who are unmarried; but the women who may be his wives by marriage and those who cannot possibly be so, stand in a widely different relation to him."[140]

[Footnote 134: Ridley, _Kámilarói_, p. 161 _sq._ (edit. 1866, p. 35 _sqq._). Fison and Howitt, _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, pp. 36, 51, 53.]

[Footnote 135: Fison and Howitt, _op. cit._ p. 60.]

[Footnote 136: _Ibid._ p. 159 _sq._]

[Footnote 137: Howitt, 'Australian Group Relations,' in _Smithsonian Report_, 1883, p. 817.]

[Footnote 138: Westermarck, _op. cit._ ch. v.]

[Footnote 139: _Ibid._ p. 56.]

[Footnote 140: Codrington, _Melanesians_, p. 22 _sq._]

More recently Messrs. Spencer and Gillen have shown that a marriage system essentially similar to that of the South Australian natives prevails in Central Australia; and they, also, regard it as a later modification of genuine group marriage. Nowadays, they say, the system of individual wives prevails--"modified, however, by the practice of customs according to which, at certain times, much wider marital relations are allowed." But to this rule there is one exception:--"In the Urabunna tribe group marriage actually exists at the present day, a group of men of a certain designation having, not merely nominally but in actual reality, and under normal conditions, marital relations with a group of women of another special designation"; here "individual marriage does not exist either in name or in practice."[141] But, after all, it appears that even among the Urabunna every woman is the special _Nupa_ of one man, and that certain other men, her _Piraungaru_ only have a secondary right to her. Thus, if the Nupa man (the real, or at all events the chief, husband) be present, the Piraungaru (accessory husbands) are allowed to have intercourse with her only in case the Nupa man consents.[142] Is this modification of the Urabunna group marriage a later development from a previous system according to which all the men of a certain group had an equal right to all the {395} women of another group? Here we are on dangerous ground; nothing is more difficult than to decide whether certain customs are survivals or not. We find modifications resembling those connected with the group marriage of the Urabunna both in polyandry and in polygyny; the first husband in a polyandrous family is usually the chief husband, and the first wife in a polygynous family is very frequently the chief wife. We must certainly not conclude that these restrictions have been preceded by an earlier custom which gave equal rights to all the husbands or all the wives; on the contrary, it is more likely that the higher position granted to the first husband or to the first wife is due to the fact that monogamy was the usual form of marriage.[143] Similarly the Urabunna custom may very well have developed out of ordinary individual marriage,[144] and the cause of it may perhaps be, as Mr. N. W. Thomas has suggested,[145] the difficulties which an Australian native often experiences in getting a wife.[146] As for other facts which have been adduced as evidence of Australian group marriage in the past, such as the _jus primæ noctis_, &c., I only desire to emphasise the circumstance that extra-matrimonial intercourse is practised by the Australian natives in a variety of cases the real meaning of which seems obscure. In some instances at least, a magic significance appears to be attributed to it;[147] and that it is a survival of group marriage, in the strict sense of the term, is again only a conjecture.

[Footnote 141: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 140. _Iidem_, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 62 _sq._]

[Footnote 142: _Iidem_, _Native Tribes_, p. 110.]

[Footnote 143: Westermarck, _op. cit._ pp. 443-448, 457, 458, 508.]

[Footnote 144: _Cf._ Crawley, _op. cit._ p. 482; Lang, _Social Origins_, p. 105 _sq._]

[Footnote 145: Thomas, in a paper read before the Anthropological Institute in 1905. _Cf._ _Idem_, _Kinship and Marriage in Australia_, p. 138.]

[Footnote 146: See Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 132 _sq._; _infra_, p. 460.]

[Footnote 147: See, _e.g._, Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes_, p. 137 _sq._]

I must admit, therefore, that the facts produced by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, and the severe criticism which they have passed on my sceptical attitude towards Mr. Fison's group marriage theory have not been able to convince me that among the Australian aborigines individual marriage has evolved out of a previous system of marriage between groups of men and women. Nor has Mr. Howitt, {396} in his recent work on the 'Native Tribes of South-East Australia,' in my opinion, sufficiently proved that such an evolution has taken place.[148] He blames certain "ethnologists of the study" for not being willing "to take the opinion of men who have first-hand knowledge of the natives";[149] but I think we do well in distinguishing between statements based on direct observation and the observer's interpretation of the stated facts. Even suppose, however, that group marriage really was once common in Australia, would that prove that it was once common among mankind at large? Mr. Hewitt's supposition that the practice of group marriage "will be ultimately accepted as one of the primitive conditions of mankind"[150] is no doubt shared by a host of anthropologists. The group marriage theory will probably for some time to come remain the residuary legatee of the old theory of promiscuity; the important works which have lately been published on the Australian aborigines have made people inclined to view the early history of mankind through Australian spectacles. But even the most ardent advocate of Australian group marriage should remember that the existence of kangurus in Australia does not prove that there were once kangurus in England.

[Footnote 148: Mr. Thomas has come to the same result in his book on 'Kinship and Marriage in Australia,' which appeared when the present chapter was already in type. A detailed examination of the facts which have been adduced as evidence of Australian group marriage (p. 127 _sqq._) has led him to the conclusion (p. 147) that prevailing customs in Australia, far from proving the present or former existence of group marriage in that continent, do not even render it probable, and that on the terms of relationship no argument of any sort can be founded which assumes them to refer to consanguinity, kinship, or affinity. "It is therefore not rash to say that the case for group marriage, so far as Australia is concerned, falls to the ground." See _infra_, Addit. Notes.]

[Footnote 149: Howitt, 'Native Tribes of South-East Australia,' in _Folk-Lore_, xvii. 185.]

[Footnote 150: _Idem_, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, p. 281.]

* * * * *

The time during which marriage lasts varies extremely in the human race.[151] There are unions which, though legally recognised as marriages, do not endure long enough to deserve to be so called in the natural history sense of the term; there are others which are dissolved only by {397} death. As has already been pointed out, it is probable that among primitive men the union of the sexes lasted till after the birth of the offspring, and we have perhaps some reason to believe that the connection lasted for years. On the whole, progress in civilisation has tended to make marriage more durable. It is evident that at the early stage of development at which women first became valuable as labourers, a wife was united with her husband by a new bond more lasting than youth and beauty. The tie was strengthened by the bride-price and the marriage portion. And a higher development of the paternal feeling, better forethought for the children's welfare, in some instances greater consideration for women, and a more refined love passion have gradually made it stronger, until it has become in many cases indissoluble. Yet we must not conclude that divorce will in the future be less frequent and more restricted by law than it is now in European countries. It should be remembered that the laws of divorce in Christian Europe owe their origin to an idealistic religious commandment which, interpreted in its literal sense, gave rise to legal prescriptions far from harmonising with the mental and social life of the mass of the people. The powerful authority of the Roman Church was necessary to enforce the dogma that marriage is indissoluble. The Reformation introduced somewhat greater liberty in this respect, and modern legislation has gone further in the same direction. In those Christian states of Europe where absolute divorce is permitted the grounds on which it may be sued for are nearly the same for the man and the woman, except in England, where the husband must be accused of one or other of several offences besides adultery. In Italy, Spain, and Portugal, a judicial separation may always be decreed on the ground of the adultery of the wife, but, on the ground of the adultery of the husband, only if it has been committed under certain aggravating circumstances.[152] These laws imply that marriage is not yet a contract on the footing of perfect equality between the sexes; but there is {398} a growing opinion that, where it is not, it ought to be so. Again, when both husband and wife desire to separate, it seems to many enlightened minds that the State has no right to prevent them from dissolving the marriage contract, provided the children are properly cared for; and that for the children, also, it is better to have the supervision of one parent only than of two who cannot agree.

[Footnote 151: Westermarck, _op. cit._ ch. xxiii.]

[Footnote 152: Glasson, _Le mariage civil et le divorce_, pp. 291, 298, 304.]

CHAPTER XLI

CELIBACY

AMONG savage and barbarous races of men nearly every individual endeavours to marry as soon as he, or she, reaches the age of puberty.[1] Marriage seems to them indispensable, and a person who abstains from it is looked upon as an unnatural being and is disdained. Among the Santals a man who remains single "is at once despised by both sexes, and is classed next to a thief, or a witch: they term the unhappy wretch 'No man.'"[2] Among the Kafirs a bachelor has no voice in the kraal.[3] In the Tupi tribes of Brazil no man was suffered to partake in the drinking-feast while he remained single.[4] The natives of Futuna in the Western Pacific maintained that it was necessary to be married in order to hold a part in the happy future life, and that the celibates, both men and women, had to submit to a chastisement of their own before entering the _fale-mate_, or "home of the dead."[5] According to Fijian beliefs, he who died wifeless was stopped by the god Nangganangga on the road to Paradise, and smashed to atoms.[6]

[Footnote 1: Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_, p. 134 _sqq._]

[Footnote 2: Man, _Sonthalia_, p. 101.]

[Footnote 3: von Weber, _Vier Jahre in Afrika_, ii. 215.]

[Footnote 4: Southey, _History of Brazil_, i. 240.]

[Footnote 5: Percy Smith, 'Futuna.' in _Jour. Polynesian Soc._ i. 39 _sq._]

[Footnote 6: Pritchard, _Polynesian Reminiscences_, pp. 368, 372. Seemann, _Viti_, p. 399 _sq._ Fison, 'Fijian Burial Customs,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ x. 139. Williams and Calvert, _Fiji_, p. 206. For other instances see Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 136, n. 10.]

Among peoples of archaic culture celibacy is likewise a great exception and marriage regarded as a duty. In {400} ancient Peru marriage was compulsory at a certain age.[7] Among the Aztecs 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, we are told, the unmarried state was so despised that a grown-up man who would not marry had his hair cut off for shame.[8]

[Footnote 7: Garcilasso de la Vega, _First Part of the Royal Commentaries of the Yncas_, i. 306 _sq._]

[Footnote 8: Klemm, _Allgemeine Cultur-Geschichte der Menschheit_, v. 46 _sq._ Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_, ii. 251 _sq._]

"Almost all Chinese," says Dr. Gray, "robust or infirm, well-formed or deformed, are called upon by their parents to marry as 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 compelled by his parents or guardians to marry at once.[9] So indispensable is marriage considered by the Chinese, that even the dead are married, the spirits of all males who die in infancy or in boyhood being in due time married to the spirits of females who have been cut off at a like early age.[10] There is a maxim by Mencius, re-echoed by the whole nation, that it is a heavy sin to have no sons, as this would doom father, mother, and the whole ancestry in the Nether-world to a pitiable existence without descendants enough to serve them properly, to worship at the ancestral tombs, to take care of the ancestral tablets, and duly to perform all rites and ceremonies connected with the departed dead. For a man whose wife has reached her fortieth year without bringing him a son, it is an imperative duty to take a concubine.[11] In Corea "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 {401} perfect right to strike, abuse, order about the 'yatow' of thirty, who dares not as much as open his lips to complain."[12]

[Footnote 9: Gray, _China_, i. 186.]

[Footnote 10: _Ibid._ i. 216 _sq._]

[Footnote 11: Giles, _Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio_, i. 64, n. 10. de Groot, _Religious System of China_, (vol. ii. book) i. 617. _Indo-Chinese Gleaner_, iii. 58.]

[Footnote 12: Ross, _History of Corea_, p. 313.]

Among the Semites, also, we meet with the idea that a dead man who has no children will miss something in Sh[)e]ol through not receiving that kind of worship which ancestors in early times appear to have received.[13] The Hebrews looked upon marriage as a religious duty.[14] According to the Shulchan Aruch, he who abstains from marrying is guilty of bloodshed, diminishes the image of God, and causes the divine presence to withdraw from Israel; hence a single man past twenty may be compelled by the court to take a wife.[15] Muhammedanism likewise regards marriage as a duty for men and women; to neglect it without a sufficient excuse subjects a man to severe reproach.[16] "When a servant [of God] marries," said the Prophet, "verily he perfects half his religion."[17]

[Footnote 13: Cheyne, 'Harlot,' in Cheyne and Black, _Encyclopædia Biblica_, ii. 1964.]

[Footnote 14: Mayer, _Rechte der Israeliten_, pp. 286, 353. Lichtschein, _Ehe nach mosaisch-talmudischer Auffassung_, p. 5 _sqq._ Klugmann, _Die Frau im Talmud_, p. 39 _sq._]

[Footnote 15: _Schulchan Aruch_, iv. ('Eben haezer') i. 1, 3. See also _Yebamoth_, fol. 63 b _sq._, quoted by Margolis, 'Celibacy,' in _Jewish Encyclopedia_, iii. 636.]

[Footnote 16: Lane, _Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians_, i. 197.]

[Footnote 17: _Idem_, _Arabian Society in the Middle Ages_, p. 221.]

The so-called Aryan nations in ancient times, 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.[18] According to the 'Laws of Manu,' marriage is the twelfth Sansk[=a]ra, and as such a religious duty incumbent upon all.[19] Among the Hindus of the present day a {402} man who is not married is generally considered to be almost a useless member of the community, and is indeed looked upon as beyond the pale of nature;[20] and the spirits of young men who have died without becoming fathers are believed to wander about in a restless miserable manner, like people burdened with an enormous debt which they are quite unable to discharge.[21] Similar views are expressed in Zoroastrianism. Ahura Mazda said to Zoroaster:--"The man who has a wife is far above him who lives in continence; he who keeps a house is far above him who has none; he who has children is far above the childless man."[22] The greatest misfortune which could befall an ancient Persian was to be childless.[23] To him who has no child the bridge of Paradise shall be barred; the first question the angels there will ask him is, whether he has left in this world a substitute for himself, and if the answer be "No" they will pass by and he will stay at the head of the bridge, full of grief. The primitive meaning of this is plain: the man without a son cannot enter Paradise because there is nobody to pay him the family worship.[24] Ashi Vanguhi, a feminine impersonification of piety, and the source of all the good and riches that are connected with piety, rejects the offerings of barren people--old men, courtesans, and children.[25] It is said in the Yasts, "This is the worst deed that men and tyrants do, namely, when they deprive maids that have been barren for a long time of marrying and bringing forth children."[26] And in the eyes of all good Parsis of the present day, as in the time of king Darius and the contemporaries of Herodotus, the two greatest merits of a citizen are the begetting and rearing of a numerous family, and the fruitful tilling of the soil.[27]

[Footnote 18: Fustel de Coulanges, _La cité antique_, p. 54 _sq._ Hearn, _The Aryan Household_, pp. 69, 71. Mayne, _Treatise on Hindu Law and Usage_, p. 68 _sq._]

[Footnote 19: _Laws of Manu_, ii. 66 _sq._ Monier-Williams, _Indian Wisdom_, p. 246. _Cf._ Mayne, _op. cit._ p. 69.]

[Footnote 20: Dubois, _Description of the Character, &c. of the People of India_, p. 132.]

[Footnote 21: Monier-Williams, _Br[=a]hmanism and Hind[=u]ism_, p. 243 _sq._]

[Footnote 22: _Vendîdâd_, iv. 47.]

[Footnote 23: Rawlinson, in his translation of Herodotus, i. 262, n. 1. _Cf._ Herodotus, i. 133, 136; _Dînâ-î Maînôg-î Khirad_, xxxv. 19.]

[Footnote 24: Darmesteter, in _Sacred Books of the East_, iv. 47. _Cf._ _Idem_, _Ormazd et Ahriman_, p. 294.]

[Footnote 25: _Yasts_, xvii. 54.]

[Footnote 26: _Ibid._ xvii. 59.]

[Footnote 27: Darmesteter, in _Sacred Books of the East_, iv. p. lxii. _Cf._ Ploss-Bartels, _Das Weib_, i. 173.]

{403} The ancient Greeks regarded marriage as a matter both of public and private importance.[28] In various places criminal proceedings might be taken against celibates.[29] Plato remarks that every individual is bound to provide for a continuance of representatives to succeed himself as ministers of the Divinity;[30] and Isaeus says, "All those 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."[31] So also the conviction that the founding of a house and the begetting of children constituted a moral necessity and a public duty had a deep hold of the Roman mind in early times.[32] Cicero's treatise 'De Legibus'--which generally reproduces in a philosophical form the ancient laws of Rome--contains a law according to which the Censors had to impose a tax upon unmarried men.[33] 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 upper 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;[34] and later the Lex Julia et Papia Poppaea imposed various penalties on those who lived in a state of celibacy after a certain age,[35] though with little or no result.[36]

[Footnote 28: Müller, _History and Antiquities of the Doric Race_, ii. 300 _sq._ Fustel de Coulanges, _op. cit._ p. 55. Hearn, _op. cit._ p. 72. Döllinger, _The Gentile and the Jew_, ii. 234 _sq._]

[Footnote 29: Pollux, _Onomasticum_, iii. 48.]

[Footnote 30: Plato, _Leges_, vi. 773.]

[Footnote 31: Isaeus, _Oratio de Apollodori hereditate_, 30, p. 66. Rohde observes (_Psyche_, p. 228), however, that such a belief did not exist in the Homeric age, when the departed souls in Hades were supposed to be in no way dependent upon the survivors.]

[Footnote 32: Mommsen, _History of Rome_, i. 74.]

[Footnote 33: Cicero, _De legibus_, iii. 3. Fustel de Coulanges, _op. cit._ p. 55.]

[Footnote 34: Mommsen, _op. cit._ iii. 121; iv. 186 _sq._]

[Footnote 35: Rossbach, _Römische Ehe_, p. 418.]

[Footnote 36: Mackenzie, _Studies in Roman Law_, p. 104.]

Celibacy is thus disapproved of for various reasons. It {404} appears unnatural. It is taken as an indication of licentious habits. Where ancestors are worshipped after their death it inspires religious horror: the man who leaves himself without offspring shows reckless indifference to the religion of his people, to his own fate after death, and to the duties he owes the dead, whose spirits depend upon the offerings of their descendants for their comfort. The last point of view, as we have seen, is particularly prominent among peoples of archaic culture, but it is not unknown at a lower stage of civilisation. Thus the Eskimo about Behring Strait "appear to have great dread of dying without being assured that their shades will be remembered during the festivals, fearing if neglected that they would thereby suffer destitution in the future life"; hence a pair of childless Eskimo frequently adopt a child, so that when they die there will be some one left whose duty it will be to make the customary feast and offerings to their shades at the festival of the dead.[37] Finally, in communities with a keen public spirit, especially in ambitious states frequently engaged in war, celibacy is regarded as a wrong committed against the State.

[Footnote 37: Nelson, 'Eskimo about Bering Strait,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ xviii. 290.]

Modern civilisation looks upon celibacy in a different light. The religious motive for marriage has ceased to exist, the lot of the dead being no longer supposed to depend upon the devotion of the living. It is said, in a general way, that marriage is a duty to the nation or the race, but this argument is hardly applied to individual cases. According to modern ideas the union between man and woman is too much a matter of sentiment to be properly classified among civic duties. Nor does the unmarried state strike us as particularly unnatural. The proportion of unmarried people is gradually growing larger and the age at which people marry is rising.[38] The chief causes of this increasing celibacy are the difficulty of supporting a family under present conditions of life, and the luxurious {405} habits of living in the upper classes of society. Another reason is that the domestic circle does not fill so large a place in life as it did formerly; the married state has in some measure lost its advantage over the single state, and there are many more pleasures now that can be enjoyed as well or even better in celibacy. Moreover, by the diffusion of a finer culture throughout the community, 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, they have a livelier sense of the serious character of the marriage union, and they are less willing to contract it from any lower motives.[39]

[Footnote 38: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 146.]

[Footnote 39: _Ibid._ p. 147 _sqq._ 'Why is Single Life becoming more General?' in _The Nation_, vi. 190 _sq._]

Nay, far from enjoining marriage as a duty incumbent upon all, enlightened opinion seems to agree that it is a duty for many people never to marry. In some European countries the marriages of persons in receipt of poor-law relief have been legally prohibited, and in certain cases the legislators have gone further still and prohibited all marriages until the contracting parties can prove that they possess the means of supporting a family.[40] The opinion has also been expressed that the State ought to forbid the unions of persons suffering from certain kinds of disease, which in all probability would be transmitted to the offspring. People are beginning to feel that it entails a heavy responsibility to bring a new being into existence, and that many persons are wholly unfit for such a task.[41] Future generations will probably with a kind of horror look back at a period when the most important, and in its consequences the most far-reaching, function which has fallen to the lot of man was entirely left to individual caprice and lust.

[Footnote 40: Lecky, _Democracy and Liberty_, ii. 181.]

[Footnote 41: See Mr. Galton's papers on "Eugenics" and the discussions of the subject in _Sociological Papers_, vols. i. and ii.]

* * * * *

Side by side with the opinion that marriage is a duty for all ordinary men and women we find among many peoples {406} the notion that persons whose function it is to perform religious or magical rites must be celibates.[42] The Thlinkets believe that if a shaman does not observe continuous chastity his own guardian spirits will kill him.[43] In Patagonia the male wizards were not allowed to marry.[44] In some tribes of the Guaranies of Paraguay "the female Payes were bound to chastity, or they no longer obtained credit."[45] Celibacy was compulsory on the priests of the Chibchas in Bogota.[46] The Tohil priests in Guatemala were vowed to perpetual continence.[47] In Ichcatlan the high-priest was obliged to live constantly within the temple, and to abstain from commerce with any woman whatsoever; and if he failed in this duty he was cut in pieces, and the bloody limbs were given as a warning to his successor.[48] Of the women who held positions in the temples of ancient Mexico we are told that their chastity was most zealously guarded; during the performance of their duties they were required to keep at a proper distance from the male assistants, at whom they did not even dare to glance. The punishment to be inflicted upon those who violated their vow of chastity was death; whilst, if their trespass remained entirely secret, they endeavoured to appease the anger of the gods by fasting and austerity of life, dreading that in punishment of their crime their flesh would rot.[49] In Yucatan there was, connected with the worship of the sun, an order of vestals the members of which generally enrolled themselves for a certain time, but were afterwards allowed to leave and enter the married state. Some of them, however, remained for ever in the service of the temple and were apotheosised. Their duty was to attend to the sacred fire, and to keep strictly chaste, {407} those who broke their vows being shot to death with arrows.[50] In Peru there were likewise virgins dedicated to the sun, who lived in perpetual seclusion to the end of their lives, who preserved their virginity and were forbidden to converse or have sexual intercourse with or to see any man, or even any woman who was not one of themselves.[51] And besides the virgins who thus 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 continence. These women "were held in great veneration for their chastity and purity, and, as a mark of worship and respect, they were called _Ocllo_, which was a name held sacred in their idolatry"; but if they lost their virtue, they were burnt alive or cast into "the lake of lions."[52]

[Footnote 42: Some instances of this are stated by Landtman, _Origin of Priesthood_, p. 156 _sq._]

[Footnote 43: Veniaminof, quoted by Landtman, _op. cit._ p. 156.]

[Footnote 44: Falkner, _Description of Patagonia_, p. 117.]

[Footnote 45: Southey, _History of Brazil_, ii. 371.]

[Footnote 46: Simon, quoted by Dorman, _Origin of Primitive Superstitions_, p. 384.]

[Footnote 47: Bancroft, _op. cit._ iii. 489.]

[Footnote 48: Clavigero, _History of Mexico_, i. 274.]

[Footnote 49: _Ibid._ i. 275 _sq._ Torquemada, _Monarchia Indiana_, ii. 188 _sqq._ Bancroft, _op. cit._ iii. 435 _sq._ _Cf._ Acosta, _History of the Indies_, ii. 333 _sq._]

[Footnote 50: Bancroft, _op. cit._ iii. 473. Lopez Cogolludo, _Historia de Yucathan_, p. 198.]

[Footnote 51: Garcilasso de la Vega, _op. cit._ i. 291 _sqq._]

[Footnote 52: _Ibid._ i. 305.]

Among the Guanches of the Canary Islands there were virgins, called Magades or Harimagades, who presided over the cult under the direction of the high-priest, and there were other virgins, highly respected, whose function was to pour water over the heads of newborn children, and who could abandon their office and marry whenever they pleased.[53] The priestesses of the Tshi- and E[(w]e-speaking peoples on the West Coast of Africa are forbidden to marry.[54] In a wood near Cape Padron, in Lower Guinea, lives a priestly king who is allowed neither to leave his house nor to touch a woman.[55]

[Footnote 53: Bory de St. Vincent, _Essais sur les Isles Fortunées_, p. 96 _sq._]

[Footnote 54: Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples_, p. 121. _Idem_, _E[(w]e-speaking Peoples_, p. 142.]

[Footnote 55: Bastian, _Die deutsche Expedition an der Loango-Küste_, i. 287 _sq._]

In ancient Persia there were sun priestesses who were obliged to refrain from intercourse with men.[56] The nine priestesses of the oracle of a Gallic deity in Sena were devoted to perpetual virginity.[57] The Romans had their Vestal virgins, whose office, according to tradition, was instituted by Numa. They were compelled to continue {408} unmarried during thirty years, which time they employed in offering sacrifices and performing other rites ordained by the law; and if they suffered themselves to be debauched they were delivered up to the most miserable death, being placed in a subterraneous cell, in their funeral attire, without any sepulchral column, funeral rites, or other customary solemnities.[58] After the expiration of the term of thirty years they might marry on quitting the ensigns of their priesthood; but we are told that very few did this, as those who did suffered calamities which were regarded as ominous by the rest, and induced them to remain virgins in the temple of the goddess till their death.[59] In Greece priestesses were not infrequently required to be virgins, if not for their whole life, at any rate for the duration of their priesthood.[60] Tertullian writes:--"To the Achaean Juno, at the town Aegium, a virgin is allotted; and the priestesses who rave at Delphi know not marriage. We know that widows minister to the African Ceres; they not only withdraw from their still living husbands, but they even introduce other wives to them in their own room, all contact with males, even as far as the kiss of their sons, being forbidden them. . . . We have heard, too, of continent men, and among others the priests of the famous Egyptian bull."[61] There were eunuch priests connected with the cults of the Ephesian Artemis,[62] the Phrygian Cybele,[63] and the Syrian Astarte.[64]

[Footnote 56: Justin, quoted by Justi, 'Die Weltgeschichte des Tabari,' in _Das Ausland_, 1875, p. 307.]

[Footnote 57: Pomponius Mela, _De situ orbis_, iii. 6.]

[Footnote 58: Dionysius of Halicarnassus, _Antiquitates Romanæ_, ii. 64 _sqq._ Plutarch, _Numa_, x. 7 _sqq._]

[Footnote 59: Dionysius of Halicarnassus, ii. 67.]

[Footnote 60: Strabo, xiv. i. 23. Müller, _Das sexuelle Leben der alten Kulturvölker_, p. 44 _sqq._ Blümner, _Home Life of the Ancient Greeks_, p. 325. Götte, _Das Delphische Orakel_, p. 78 _sq._]

[Footnote 61: Tertullian, _Ad uxorem_, i. 6 (Migne, _Patrologiæ cursus_, i. 1284). _Idem_, _De exhortatione castitatis_, 13 (Migne, ii. 928 _sq._). _Cf._ _Idem_, _De monogamia_, 17 (Migne, ii. 953).]

[Footnote 62: Strabo, xiv. 1. 23.]

[Footnote 63: Arnobius, _Adversus gentes_, v. 7 (Migne, _op. cit._ v. 1095 _sqq._). Farnell, 'Sociological Hypotheses concerning the Position of Women in Ancient Religion,' in _Archiv f. Religionswiss._ vii. 78.]

[Footnote 64: Lucian, _De dea Syria_, 15, 27, 50 _sqq._]

Among the Todas of the Neilgherry Hills the "dairy man" or priest is bound to a celibate existence;[65] and {409} among the Hindus, in spite of the great honour in which marriage is held, celibacy has always commanded respect in instances of extraordinary sanctity.[66] Those of the Sanny[=a]sis who are known to lead their lives in perfect celibacy receive on that account marks of distinguished honour and respect.[67] Already the time-honoured Indian institution of the four [=A]['s]ramas contained the germ of monastic celibacy, the Brahmac[=a]rin, or student, being obliged to observe absolute chastity during the whole course of his study.[68] The idea was further developed in Jainism and Buddhism. The Jain monk was to renounce all sexual pleasures, "either with gods, or men, or animals"; not to give way to sensuality; not to discuss topics relating to women; not to contemplate the forms of women.[69] Buddhism regards sensuality as altogether incompatible with wisdom and holiness; it is said that "a wise man should avoid married life as if it were a burning pit of live coals."[70] 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.[71] 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."[72] 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.[73] The Buddhist priests of Ceylon are totally debarred from women.[74] Chinese law enjoins celibacy on all priests, Buddhist or Taouist.[75] And among the immortals of {410} Taouism there are some women also, who have led an extraordinarily ascetic life.[76]

[Footnote 65: Thurston, 'Anthropology of the Todas and Kotas,' in the Madras Government Museum's _Bulletin_, i. 169, 170, 193. Rivers, _Todas_, pp. 80, 99, 236.]

[Footnote 66: Monier-Williams, _Buddhism_, p. 88.]

[Footnote 67: Dubois, _op. cit._ p. 133. _Cf._ Monier-Williams, _Br[=a]hmanism and Hind[=u]ism_, p. 261.]

[Footnote 68: Kern, _Manual of Indian Buddhism_, p. 73.]

[Footnote 69: Hopkins, _Religions of India_, p. 294.]

[Footnote 70: Dhammika-Sutta, 21, quoted by Monier-Williams, _Buddhism_, p. 88.]

[Footnote 71: Rhys Davids, _Hibbert Lectures on Buddhism_, p. 148.]

[Footnote 72: Oldenberg, _Buddha_, p. 350 _sq._]

[Footnote 73: Wilson, _Abode of Snow_, p. 213.]

[Footnote 74: Percival, _Account of the Island of Ceylon_, p. 202.]

[Footnote 75: _Ta Tsing Leu Lee_, sec. cxiv. p. 118. Medhurst, 'Marriage in China,' in _Trans. Roy. Asiatic Soc. China Branch_, iv. 18. Davis, _China_, ii. 53.]

[Footnote 76: Réville, _La Religion Chinoise_, p. 451 _sq._]

A small class of Hebrews held the idea that marriage is impure. The Essenes, says Josephus, "reject pleasure as an evil, but esteem continence and the conquest over our passions to be virtue. They neglect wedlock."[77] This doctrine exercised no influence on Judaism, but probably much upon Christianity. St. Paul considered celibacy to be preferable to marriage. "He that giveth her (his virgin) in marriage doeth well; but he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better."[78] "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."[79] If the unmarried and widows cannot contain let them marry, "for it is better to marry than to burn."[80] These and other passages[81] in the New Testament inspired a general enthusiasm for virginity. Commenting on the words of the Apostle, Tertullian points out that what is better is not necessarily good. It is better to lose one eye than two, but neither is good; so also, though it is better to marry than to burn, it is far better neither to marry nor to burn.[82] Marriage "consists of that which is the essence of fornication";[83] whereas continence "is a means whereby a man will traffic in a mighty substance of sanctity."[84] The body which our Lord wore and in which He carried on the conflict of life in this world He put on from a holy virgin; and John the Baptist, Paul, and all the others "whose names are in the book of life"[85] cherished and loved virginity.[86] Virginity works miracles: Mary, the sister of Moses, leading the female band, passed on {411} foot over the straits of the sea, and by the same grace Thecla was reverenced even by lions, so that the unfed beasts, lying at the feet of their prey, underwent a holy fast, neither with wanton look nor sharp claw venturing to harm the virgin.[87] Virginity is like a spring flower, always softly exhaling immortality from its white petals.[88] The Lord himself opens the kingdoms of the heavens to eunuchs.[89] If Adam had preserved his obedience to the Creator he would have lived for ever in a state of virgin purity, and some harmless mode of vegetation would have peopled paradise with a race of innocent and immortal beings.[90] It is true that, though virginity is the shortest way to the camp of the faithful, the way of matrimony also arrives there, by a longer circuit.[91] Tertullian himself opposed the Marcionites, who prohibited marriage among themselves and compelled those who were married to separate before they were received by baptism into the community.[92] And in the earlier part of the fourth century the Council of Gangra expressly condemned anyone who maintained that marriage prevented a Christian from entering the kingdom of God.[93] But, at the end of the same century, a council also excommunicated the monk Jovinian because he denied that virginity was more meritorious than marriage.[94] The use of marriage was permitted to man only as a necessary expedient for the continuance of the human species, and as a restraint, {412} however imperfect, on the natural licentiousness of desire.[95] The procreation of children is the measure of a Christian's indulgence in appetite, just as the husbandman throwing the seed into the ground awaits the harvest, not sowing more upon it.[96]

[Footnote 77: Josephus, _De bello Judaico_, ii. 8. 2. See also Solinus, _Collectanea rerum memorabilium_, xxxv. 9 _sq._]

[Footnote 78: _1 Corinthians_, vii. 38.]

[Footnote 79: _Ibid._ vii. 1 _sq._]

[Footnote 80: _Ibid._ vii. 9.]

[Footnote 81: _St. Matthew_, xix. 12. _Revelation_, xiv. 4; &c.]

[Footnote 82: Tertullian, _Ad uxorem_, i. 3 (Migne, _op. cit._ i. 1278 _sq._). _Idem_, _De monogamia_, 3 (Migne, ii. 932 _sq._).]

[Footnote 83: _Idem_, _De exhortatione castitatis_, 9 (Migne, _op. cit._ ii. 925).]

[Footnote 84: _Idem_, _De exhortatione castitatis_, 10 (Migne, _op. cit._ ii. 925).]

[Footnote 85: _Philippians_, iv. 3.]

[Footnote 86: St. Clement of Rome, _Epistola I. ad virgines_, 6 (Migne, _op. cit._ Ser. Græca, i. 392).]

[Footnote 87: St. Ambrose, _Epistola LXIII._ 34 (Migne, _op. cit._ xvi. 1198 _sq._).]

[Footnote 88: Methodius, _Convivium decem virginum_, vii. 1 (Migne, _op. cit._ Ser. Græca, xviii. 125).]

[Footnote 89: Tertullian, _De monogamia_, 3 (Migne, _op. cit._ ii. 932).]

[Footnote 90: This opinion was held by Gregory of Nyssa and, in a later time, by John of Damascus. It was opposed by Thomas Aquinas, who maintained that the human race was from the beginning propagated by means of sexual intercourse, but that such intercourse was originally free from all carnal desire (von Eicken, _Geschichte der mittelalterlichen Weltanschauung_, p. 437 _sq._; see also Gibbon, _History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, ii. 186).]

[Footnote 91: St. Ambrose, _Epistola LXIII._ 40 (Migne, _op. cit._ xvi. 1200).]

[Footnote 92: Tertullian, _Adversus Marcionem_, i. 1, 29; iv. 11; &c. (Migne, _op. cit._ ii. 247, 280 _sqq._, 382). _Idem_, _De monogamia_, 1, 15 (Migne, ii. 931, 950). _Cf._ Irenaeus, _Contra Hæreses_, i. 28. 1 (Migne, _op. cit._ Ser. Græca, vii. 690 _sq._); Clement of Alexandria, _Stromata_, iii. 3 (Migne, _op. cit._ Ser. Græca, viii. 1113 _sqq._).]

[Footnote 93: _Concilium Gangrense_, can. 1 (Labbe-Mansi, _Sacrorum Conciliorum collectio_, ii. 1106).]

[Footnote 94: _Concilium Mediolanense_, A.D. 390 (Labbe-Mansi, _op. cit._ iii. 689 _sq._).]

[Footnote 95: St. Justin, _Apologia I. pro Christianis_, 29 (Migne, _op. cit._ Ser. Græca, vi. 373). Clement of Alexandria, _Stromata_, ii. 23 (Migne, _op. cit._ Ser. Græca, viii. 1089). Gibbon, _op. cit._ ii. 186.]

[Footnote 96: Athenagoras, _Legatio pro Christianis_, 33 (Migne, _op. cit._ Ser. Græca, vi. 966).]

These opinions led by degrees to the obligatory celibacy of the secular and regular clergy. The conviction that a second marriage of a priest, or the marriage of a priest with a widow, is unlawful, seems to have existed from the earliest period of the Church;[97] and as early as the beginning of the fourth century a synod held in Elvira in Spain insisted on the absolute continence of the higher ecclesiastics.[98] The celibacy of the clergy in general was prescribed by Gregory VII., who "looked with abhorrence on the contamination of the holy sacerdotal character, even in its lowest degree, by any sexual connection." But in many countries this prescription was so strenuously resisted, that it could not be carried through till late in the thirteenth century.[99]

[Footnote 97: Lea, _Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church_, p. 37. Lecky, _History of European Morals_, ii. 328 _sq._]

[Footnote 98: _Concilium Eliberitanum_, A.D. 305, ch. 33 (Labbe-Mansi, _op. cit._ ii. 11):--"Placuit in totum prohiberi episcopis, presbyteris, et diaconibus, vel omnibus clericis positis in ministerio, abstinere se a conjugibus suis, et non generare filios: quicumque vero fecerit, ab honore clericatus exterminetur."]

[Footnote 99: Gieseler, _Text-Book of Ecclesiastical History_, ii. 275. Milman, _History of Latin Christianity_, ii. 150.]

The practice of religious celibacy may be traced to several sources. In many cases the priestess is obviously regarded as married to the god whom she is serving, and is therefore forbidden to marry anybody else. In ancient Peru the Sun was the husband of the virgins dedicated to him.[100] They were obliged to be of the same blood as their consort, that is to say, daughters of the Incas. "For though they imagined that the Sun had children, they considered that they ought not to be bastards, with mixed divine and human blood. So the {413} virgins were of necessity legitimate and of the blood royal, which was the same as being of the family of the Sun."[101] And the crime of violating the virgins dedicated to the Sun was the same and punished in the same severe manner as the crime of violating the women of the Inca.[102] Concerning the priestesses of the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast, Major Ellis remarks that the reason for their celibacy appears to be that "a priestess belongs to the god she serves, and therefore cannot become the property of a man, as would be the case if she married one."[103] So also the E[(w]e-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast regard the women dedicated to a god as his wives.[104] In the great temple of Jupiter Belus, we are told, a single woman used to sleep, whom the god had chosen for himself out of all the women of the land; and it was believed that he came down in person to sleep with her. "This," Herodotus says, "is like the story told by the Egyptians of what takes place in their city of Thebes, where a woman always passes the night in the temple of the Theban Jupiter. In each case the woman is said to be debarred all intercourse with men."[105] In the Egyptian texts there are frequent references to "the divine consort," _neter [h.]emt_, a position which was generally occupied by the ruling queen, and the king was believed to be the offspring of such a union.[106] As Plutarch states, the Egyptians thought it quite possible for a woman to be impregnated by the approach of some divine spirit, though they denied that a man could have corporeal intercourse with a goddess.[107] Nor was the idea of a nuptial relation between a woman and the deity foreign to the early Christians. St. Cyprian speaks of women who had no husband and lord but Christ, with whom they lived in a spiritual matrimony--who had "dedicated themselves to Christ, and, retiring from carnal {414} lust, vowed themselves to God in flesh and spirit."[108] In the following words he condemns the cohabitation of such virgins with unmarried ecclesiastics, under the pretence of a purely spiritual connection:--"If a husband come and see his wife lying with another man, is he not indignant and maddened, and does he not in the violence of his jealousy perhaps even seize the sword? What? How indignant and angered then must Christ our Lord and Judge be, when He sees a virgin, dedicated to Himself, and consecrated to His holiness, lying with a man! and what punishments does He threaten against such impure connections. . . . She who has been guilty of this crime is an adulteress, not against a husband, but Christ."[109] According to the gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, the Virgin Mary had in a similar manner dedicated herself as a virgin to God.[110] The idea that the deity is jealous of the chastity of his or her servants may also perhaps be at the bottom of the Greek custom according to which the hierophant and the other priests of Demeter were restrained from conjugal intercourse and washed their bodies with hemlock-juice in order to kill their passions,[111] as also of the rule which required the priests of certain goddesses to be eunuchs.[112]

[Footnote 100: Garcilasso de la Vega, _op. cit._ i. 297.]

[Footnote 101: _Ibid._ i. 292.]

[Footnote 102: _Ibid._ i. 300.]

[Footnote 103: Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples_, p. 121.]

[Footnote 104: _Idem_, _E[(w]e-speaking Peoples_, pp. 140, 142.]

[Footnote 105: Herodotus, i. 181 _sq._]

[Footnote 106: Wiedemann, _Herodots zweites Buch_, p. 268. _Cf._ Erman, _Life in Ancient Egypt_, p. 295 _sq._]

[Footnote 107: Plutarch, _Numa_, iv. 5. _Idem_, _Symposiaca problemata_, viii. 1. 6 _sq._]

[Footnote 108: St. Cyprian, _De habitu virginum_, 4, 22 (Migne, _op. cit._ iv. 443, 462). _Cf._ Methodius, _Convivium decent virginum_, vii. 1 (Migne, _op. cit._ Ser. Græca, xviii. 125).]

[Footnote 109: St. Cyprian, _Epistola LXII., ad Pomponium de virginibus_, 3 _sq._ (Migne, _op. cit._ iv. 368 _sqq._). See also Neander, _General History of the Christian Religion and Church_, i. 378. The Council of Elvira decreed that such fallen virgins, if they refused to return back to their former condition, should be denied communion even at the moment of death (_Concilium Eliberitanum_, A.D. 305, ch. 13 [Labbe-Mansi, _op. cit._ ii. 8]).]

[Footnote 110: _Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew_, 8 (_Ante-Nicene Christian Library_, xvi. 25). See also _Gospel of the Nativity of Mary_, 7 (_ibid._ xvi. 57 _sq._).]

[Footnote 111: Wachsmuth, _Hellenische Alterthumskunde_, ii. 560.]

[Footnote 112: _Cf._ Lactantius, _Divinæ Institutiones_, i. 17 (Migne, _op. cit._ vi. 206):--"Deum mater et amavit formosum adolescentem, et eumdem cum pellice deprehensum exsectis virilibus semivirum reddidit; et ideo nunc sacra ejus a Gallis sacerdotibus celebrantur."]

Religious celibacy is further connected with the idea that sexual intercourse is defiling. In Efate, of the New Hebrides, it is regarded as something unclean.[113] The Tahitians believed that if a man refrained from all connections with women some months before death, he passed {415} immediately into his eternal mansion without any purification.[114] Herodotus writes:--"As often as a Babylonian has had intercourse with his wife, he sits down before a censer of burning incense, and the woman sits opposite to him. At dawn of day they wash; for till they are washed they will not touch any of their common vessels. This practice is also observed by the Arabs."[115] Among the Hebrews both the man and woman had to bathe themselves in water, and were "unclean until the even."[116] The idea that sexual intercourse is unclean implies that some degree of supernatural danger is connected with it;[117] and, as Mr. Crawley has pointed out, the notion of danger may develop into that of sinfulness.[118] Where woman is regarded as an unclean being[119] it is obvious that intercourse with her should be considered polluting, but this is not a sufficient explanation of the idea of sexual uncleanness. A polluting effect is ascribed to any discharge of sexual matter[120]--originally no doubt on account of its mysterious propensities and the veil of mystery which surrounds the whole sexual nature of man.

[Footnote 113: Macdonald, _Oceania_, p. 181.]

[Footnote 114: Cook, _Voyage to the Pacific Ocean_, ii. 164.]

[Footnote 115: Herodotus, i. 198.]

[Footnote 116: _Leviticus_, xv. 18.]

[Footnote 117: The danger attributed to sexual intercourse has been much emphasised by Mr. Crawley in _The Mystic Rose_. See also Westermarck, _Marriage Ceremonies in Morocco_.]

[Footnote 118: Crawley, _op. cit._ p. 214.]

[Footnote 119: See _supra_, i. 663 _sqq._]