Part 37

[Footnote 120: Gregory III., _Judicia congrua p[oe]nitentibus_, ch. 24 (Labbe-Mansi, _op. cit._ xii. 293):--"In somno peccans, si ex cogitatione pollutus, viginti duos psalmos cantet: si in somno peccans sine cogitatione, duodecim psalmos cantet." _P[oe]nitentiale Pseudo-Theodori_, xxviii. 25 (Wasserschleben, _Bussordnungen der abendländischen Kirche_, p. 600):--"Qui in somno, non voluntate, pollutus sit, surgat, cantetque vii. psalmos p[oe]nitentiales." _Cf._ _ibid._ xxviii. 6, 33 (Wasserschleben, p. 559 _sq._).]

The idea of sexual defilement is particularly conspicuous in connection with religious observances. It is a common rule that he who performs a sacred act or enters a holy place must be ceremonially clean,[121] and no kind of uncleanness is to be avoided more carefully than sexual pollution. Among the Chippewyans, "if a chief is anxious to know the disposition of his people towards him, or if he wishes to settle any difference between them, he announces his intention of opening his medicine-bag and smoking in his {416} sacred stem. . . . No one can avoid attending on these occasions; but a person may attend and be excused from assisting at the ceremonies, by acknowledging that he has not undergone the necessary purification. The having cohabited with his wife, or any other woman, within twenty-four hours preceding the ceremony, renders him unclean, and, consequently, disqualifies him from performing any part of it."[122] Herodotus tells us that the Egyptians, like the Greeks, "made it a point of religion to have no converse with women in the sacred places, and not to enter them without washing, after such converse."[123] This statement is corroborated by a passage in the 'Book of the Dead.'[124] In Greece[125] and India[126] those who took part in certain religious festivals were obliged to be continent for some time previously. Before entering the sanctuary of Mên Tyrannos, whose worship was extended over the whole of Asia Minor, the worshipper had to abstain from garlic, pork, and women, and had to wash his head.[127] Among the Hebrews it was a duty incumbent upon all to be ritually clean before entering the temple--to be free from sexual defilement,[128] leprosy,[129] and the pollution produced by the association with corpses of human beings, of all animals not permitted for food, and of those permitted animals which had died a natural death or been killed by wild beasts;[130] and eating of the consecrated bread was interdicted to persons who had not been continent for some time previously.[131] A Muhammedan would remove any defiled garment before he commences his prayer, or otherwise abstain from praying altogether; he would not dare to approach the sanctuary of a saint in a state of sexual uncleanness; and sexual intercourse is forbidden for those who make the pilgrimage to Mecca.[132] {417} The Christians prescribed strict continence as a preparation for baptism[133] and the partaking of the Eucharist.[134] They further enjoined that no married persons should participate in any of the great festivals of the Church if the night before they had lain together;[135] and in the 'Vision' of Alberic, dating from the twelfth century, a special place of torture, consisting of a lake of mingled lead, pitch, and resin, is represented as existing in hell for the punishment of married people who have had intercourse on Sundays, church festivals, or fast-days.[136] They abstained from the marriage-bed at other times also, when they were disposed more freely to give themselves to prayer.[137] Newly married couples were admonished to practise continence during the wedding day and the night following, out of reverence for the sacrament; and in some instances their abstinence lasted even for two or three days.[138]

[Footnote 121: See _supra_, ii. 294, 295, 352 _sq._]

[Footnote 122: Mackenzie, _Voyages to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans_, p. cii. _sq._]

[Footnote 123: Herodotus, ii. 64.]

[Footnote 124: Wiedemann, _Herodots zweites Buch_, p. 269 _sq._]

[Footnote 125: Wachsmuth, _op. cit._ ii. 560.]

[Footnote 126: Oldenberg, _Die Religion des Veda_, p. 411.]

[Footnote 127: Foucart, _Des associations religieuses chez les Grecs_, pp. 119, 123 _sq._]

[Footnote 128: _Leviticus_, chs. xii., xv.]

[Footnote 129: _Ibid._ ch. xiii. _sq._]

[Footnote 130: _Ibid._ xi. 24 _sqq._; xvii. 15. _Numbers_, xix. 14 _sqq._ Montefiore, _Hibbert Lectures on the Religion of the Ancient Hebrews_, p. 476.]

[Footnote 131: _1 Samuel_, xxi. 4 _sq._]

[Footnote 132: _Koran_, ii. 193.]

[Footnote 133: St. Augustine, _De fide et operibus_, vi. 8 (Migne, _op. cit._ xl. 202).]

[Footnote 134: St. Jerome, _Epistola XLVIII._ 15 (Migne, _op. cit._ xxii. 505 _sq._).]

[Footnote 135: Lecky, _History of European Morals_, ii. 324. St. Gregory the Great, _Dialogi_, i. 10 (Migne, _op. cit._ lxxvii. 200 _sq._).]

[Footnote 136: Albericus, _Visio_, ch. 5, p. 17. Delepierre, _L'enfer décrit par ceux qui l'ont vu_, p. 57 _sq._ On this subject see also Müller, _Das sexuelle Leben der christlichen Kulturvölker_, pp. 52, 53, 120 _sq._]

[Footnote 137: St. Jerome, _Epistola XLVIII._ 15 (Migne, _op. cit._ xxii. 505). Fleury, _Manners and Behaviour of the Christians_, p. 75.]

[Footnote 138: Muratori, _Dissertazioni sopra le antichità italiane_, 20, vol. i. 347.]

Holiness is a delicate quality which is easily destroyed if anything polluting is brought into contact with the holy object or person. The Moors believe that if anybody who is sexually unclean enters a granary the grain will lose its _baraka_, or holiness. A similar idea probably underlies the belief prevalent among various peoples that incontinence, and especially illicit love, injures the harvest.[139] In Efate, _namim_, or uncleanness, supposed to be contracted in various emergencies, was especially avoided {418} by the sacred men, because it was believed to destroy their sacredness.[140] The priestly taboos, of which Sir J. G. Frazer has given such an exhaustive account in 'The Golden Bough,' have undoubtedly in a large measure a similar origin. Nay, it seems that pollution not only deprives the holy person of his holiness, but is also supposed to injure him in a more positive way. When the supreme pontiff in the kingdom of Congo left his residence to visit other places within his jurisdiction, all married people had to observe strict continence the whole time he was out, as it was believed that any act of incontinence would prove fatal to him.[141] In self-defence, therefore, gods and holy persons try to prevent polluted individuals from approaching them, and their worshippers are naturally anxious to do the same. But apart from the resentment which the sacred being would feel against the defiler, it appears that holiness is supposed to react quite mechanically against pollution, to the destruction or discomfort of the polluted individual. All Moors are convinced that anyone who in a state of sexual uncleanness dared to visit a saint's tomb would be struck by the saint; but the Arabs of Dukkâla, in Southern Morocco, also believe that if an unclean person rides a horse some accident will happen to him on account of the _baraka_ with which the horse is endowed. It should further be noticed that, owing to the injurious effect of pollution upon holiness, an act generally regarded as sacred would, if performed by an unclean individual, lack that magic efficacy which otherwise would be ascribed to it. Muhammed represented ceremonial cleanliness as "one-half of the faith and the key of prayer."[142] The Moors say that a scribe is afraid of evil spirits only when he is sexually unclean, because then his reciting of passages of the Koran--the most powerful weapon against such spirits--would be of no avail. The Syrian philosopher Jamblichus {419} speaks of the belief that "the gods do not hear him who invokes them, if he is impure from venereal connections."[143] A similar notion prevailed among the early Christians; with reference to a passage in the First Epistle of the Corinthians,[144] Tertullian remarks that the Apostle added the recommendation of a temporary abstinence for the sake of adding an efficacy to prayers.[145] To the same class of beliefs belongs the notion that a sacrificial victim should be clean and without blemish.[146] The Chibchas of Bogota considered that the most valuable sacrifice they could offer was that of a youth who had never had intercourse with a woman.[147]

[Footnote 139: Frazer, _Golden Bough_, ii. 209 _sqq._ This is in my opinion a more natural explanation than the one suggested by Sir J. G. Frazer, namely, that uncivilised man imagines "that the vigour which he refuses to expend in reproducing his own kind, will form as it were a store of energy whereby other creatures, whether vegetable or animal, will somehow benefit in propagating their species." This theory entirely fails to account for the fact that illicit love, by preference, is supposed to mar the fertility of the earth and to blight the crops--a belief which is in full accordance with my own explanation, in so far as such love is considered particularly polluting.]

[Footnote 140: Macdonald, _Oceania_, p. 181.]

[Footnote 141: Labat, _Relation historique de l'Ethiopie occidentale_, i. 259 _sq._]

[Footnote 142: Pool, _Studies in Mohammedanism_, p. 27.]

[Footnote 143: Jamblichus, _De mysteriis_, iv. 11.]

[Footnote 144: _1 Corinthians_, vii. 5.]

[Footnote 145: Tertullian, _De exhortatione castitatis_, 10 (Migne, _op. cit._ ii. 926).]

[Footnote 146: See _supra_, ii. 295 _sq._]

[Footnote 147: Simon, quoted by Waitz, _Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, iv. 363. See _infra_, Additional Notes.]

If ceremonial cleanliness is required even of the ordinary worshipper it is all the more indispensable in the case of a priest;[148] and of all kinds of uncleanness none is to be more carefully avoided than sexual pollution. Sometimes admission into the priesthood is to be preceded by a period of continence.[149] In the Marquesas Islands no one could become a priest without having lived chastely for several years previously.[150] Among the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast men and women, in order to become members of the priesthood, have to pass through a long novitiate, generally from two to three years, during which they live in retirement and are instructed by the priests in the secrets of the craft; and "the people believe that, during this period of retirement and study, the novices must keep their bodies pure, and refrain from all commerce with the other sex."[151] The Huichols of Mexico, again, are of opinion that a man who wishes to become a shaman must be faithful to his wife for five years, and that, if he violates this rule, he is sure to be taken ill and will lose the power of healing.[152] In ancient Mexico the priests, all {420} the time that they were employed in the service of the temple, abstained from all other women but their wives, and "even affected so much modesty and reserve, that when they met a woman they fixed their eyes on the ground that they might not see her. Any incontinence amongst the priests was severely punished. The priest who, at Teohuacan, was convicted of having violated his chastity, was delivered up by the priests to the people, who at night killed him by the bastinado."[153] Among the Kotas of the Neilgherry Hills the priests--who, unlike the "dairymen" of their Toda neighbours are not celibates--are at the great festival in honour of K[=a]matar[=a]ya forbidden to live or hold intercourse with their wives for fear of pollution, and are then even obliged to cook their meals themselves.[154] It seems that, according to the Anatolian religion, married _hieroi_ had to separate from their wives during the period they were serving at the temple.[155] The Hebrew priest should avoid all unchastity; he was not allowed to marry a harlot, or a profane, or a divorced wife,[156] and the high-priest was also forbidden to marry a widow.[157] Nay, even in a priest's daughter unchastity was punished with excessive severity, because she had profaned her father; she was to be burned.[158]

[Footnote 148: _Cf._ _supra_, ii. 352 _sq._]

[Footnote 149: _Cf._ Landtman, _op. cit._ p. 118 _sqq._]

[Footnote 150: Waitz-Gerland, _Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, vi. 387.]

[Footnote 151: Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples_, p. 120.]

[Footnote 152: Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, ii. 236.]

[Footnote 153: Clavigero, _op. cit._ i. 274.]

[Footnote 154: Thurston, in the Madras Government Museum's _Bulletin_, i. 193.]

[Footnote 155: Ramsay, _Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia_, i. 136, 137, 150 _sq._]

[Footnote 156: _Leviticus_, xxi. 7.]

[Footnote 157: _Ibid._ xxi. 14.]

[Footnote 158: _Ibid._ xxi. 9.]

Carried further, the idea underlying all these rules and practices led to the notions that celibacy is more pleasing to God than marriage,[159] and that it is a religious duty for those members of the community whose special office is to attend to the sacred cult. For a nation like the Jews, whose ambition was to live and to multiply, celibacy could never become an ideal; whereas the Christians, who professed the most perfect indifference to all earthly matters, found no difficulty in glorifying a state which, however opposed it was to the interests of the race and the nation, made men pre-eminently fit to approach their god. Indeed, {421} far from being a benefit to the kingdom of God by propagating the species, sexual intercourse was on the contrary detrimental to it by being the great transmitter of the sin of our first parents. This argument, however, was of a comparatively late origin. Pelagius himself almost rivalled St. Augustine in his praise of virginity, which he considered the great test of that strength of free-will which he asserted to be at most only weakened by the fall of Adam.[160]

[Footnote 159: _Cf._ _supra_, ii. 358.]

[Footnote 160: Milman, _op. cit._ i. 151, 153.]

Religious celibacy is, moreover, enjoined or commended as a means of self-mortification supposed to appease an angry god, or with a view to raising the spiritual nature of man by suppressing one of the strongest of all sensual appetites. Thus we find in various religions celibacy side by side with other ascetic observances practised for similar purposes. Among the early Christians those young women who took a vow of chastity "did not look upon virginity as any thing if it were not attended with great mortification, with silence, retirement, poverty, labour, fastings, watchings, and continual praying. They were not esteemed as virgins who would not deny themselves the common diversions of the world, even the most innocent."[161] Tertullian enumerates virginity, widowhood, and the modest restraint in secret on the marriage-bed among those fragrant offerings acceptable to God which the flesh performs to its own especial suffering.[162] Finally, it was argued that marriage prevents a person from serving God perfectly, because it induces him to occupy himself too much with worldly things.[163] Though not contrary to the act of charity or the love of God, says Thomas Aquinas, it is nevertheless an obstacle to it.[164] This was one, but certainly not the only, cause of the obligatory celibacy which the Christian Church imposed upon her clergy.

[Footnote 161: Fleury, _op. cit._ p. 128 _sq._]

[Footnote 162: Tertullian, _De resurrectione carnis_, 8 (Migne, _op. cit._ ii. 806).]

[Footnote 163: Vincentius Bellovacensis, _Speculum naturale_, xxx. 43. See also von Eicken, _op. cit._ p. 445.]

[Footnote 164: Thomas Aquinas, _Summa theologica_, ii.-ii. 184. 3.]

CHAPTER XLII

FREE LOVE--ADULTERY

HARDLY less variable than the moral ideas relating to marriage are those concerning sexual relations of a non-matrimonial character.

Among many uncivilised peoples both sexes enjoy perfect freedom previous to marriage, and in some cases it is considered almost dishonourable for a girl to have no lover.

The East African Barea and Kunáma do not regard it as in the least disreputable for a girl to become pregnant, nor do they punish nor censure the seducer.[1] Among the Wanyoro "it constantly happens that young girls spend the night with their lovers, only returning to their father's house in the morning, and this is not considered scandalous.**"[2] The Wadigo regard it as disgraceful, or at least as ridiculous, for a girl to enter into marriage as a virgin.[3] Among the Bakongo, "womanly chastity is unknown, and a woman's honour is measured by the price she costs."[4] Over nearly the whole of British Central Africa, says Sir H. Johnston, "before a girl is become a woman (that is to say before she is able to conceive) it is a matter of absolute indifference what she does, and scarcely any girl remains a virgin after about five years of age."[5] Among the Baronga "l'opinion publique se moque des gens continents plus qu'elle ne les admire."[6] According to Mr. Warner, "seduction of virgins, and cohabiting with unmarried women and {423} widows, are not punishable by Kafir law, neither does any disgrace attach to either sex by committing such acts."[7] In Madagascar "continence is not supposed to exist in either sex before marriage, . . . and its absence is not regarded as a vice."[8] Among the Maoris of New Zealand "girls were at perfect liberty to act as they pleased until married," and chastity in single women was held of little account.[9] In the Tonga Islands unmarried women might bestow their favours upon whomsoever they pleased without any opprobrium, although it was thought shameful for a woman frequently to change her lover.[10] In the Solomon Islands "female chastity is a virtue that would sound strangely in the ear of the native"; and in St. Christoval and the adjacent islands, "for two or three years after a girl has become eligible for marriage she distributes her favours amongst all the young men of the village."[11] In the Malay Archipelago intercourse between unmarried people is very commonly considered neither a crime nor a disgrace;[12] and the same is perhaps even more generally the case among the uncivilised races of India and Indo-China.[13] Among the Angami Nagas, for instance, "girls consider short hair, the symbol of virginity, a disgrace, and are anxious to become entitled to wear it long; men are desirous before marriage to have proof that their wives will not be barren. . . . Chastity begins with marriage."[14] The Jakuts see nothing immoral in free love, provided only that nobody suffers material loss by it.[15] Among the Votyaks it is disgraceful for a girl to be little sought after by the young men, and it is honourable for her to have children; she then gets a wealthier husband, and a higher price is paid for her to her father.[16] The Kamchadales set no great value on the virginity of their brides.[17] Of the Point Barrow Eskimo Mr. Murdoch writes:--"As to the relations between the sexes there seems to be the most complete absence of what we consider moral feelings. Promiscuous sexual {424} intercourse between married or unmarried people, or even among children, appears to be looked upon simply as a matter for amusement. As far as we could learn, unchastity in a girl was considered nothing against her. The immorality of these people among themselves, as we witnessed it, seems too purely animal and natural to be of recent growth or the result of foreign influence. Moreover, a similar state of affairs has been observed among Eskimo elsewhere."[18]

[Footnote 1: Munzinger, _Ostafrikanische Studien_, p. 524.]

[Footnote 2: _Emin Pasha in Central Africa_, p. 82. _Cf._ _ibid._ p. 208 (Monbuttu).]

[Footnote 3: Baumann, _Usambara_, p. 152.]

[Footnote 4: Johnston, _British Central Africa_, p. 405.]

[Footnote 5: _Ibid._ p. 409, note.]

[Footnote 6: Junod, _Les Ba-Ronga_, p. 29.]

[Footnote 7: Warner, in Maclean, _Compendium of Kafir Laws_, p. 63.]

[Footnote 8: Ellis, _History of Madagascar_, i. 137 _sq._]

[Footnote 9: Taylor, _Te Ika a Maui_, p. 33. Gisborne, _Colony of New Zealand_, p. 27.]

[Footnote 10: Mariner, _Natives of the Tonga Islands_, ii. 174.]

[Footnote 11: Guppy, _Solomon Islands_, p. 43.]

[Footnote 12: Wilken, 'Plechtigheden en gebruiken bij verlovingen en huwelijken bij de volken van den Indischen Archipel,' in _Bijdragen tot de taal- land- en volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië_, ser. v. vol. iv. 434 _sqq._]

[Footnote 13: Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_, p. 71. Crooke, _Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh_, i. p. clxxxiv.]

[Footnote 14: Prain, 'Angami Nagas,' in _Revue coloniale internationale_, v. 491 _sq._]

[Footnote 15: Sumner, in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxxi. 96.]

[Footnote 16: Buch, 'Die Wotjäken,' in _Acta Soc. Scientiarum Fennicæ_, xii. 509.]

[Footnote 17: Georgi, _Russia_, iii. 156.]

[Footnote 18: Murdoch, 'Ethnological Results of the Point Barrow Expedition,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ ix. 419 _sq._ See also Turner, 'Ethnology of the the Ungava District,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ xi. 189 (Koksoagmyut); Parry, _Second Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage_, p. 529 (Eskimo of Igloolik and Winter Island).]

Yet however commonly chastity is disregarded in the savage world, we must not suppose that such disregard is anything like a universal characteristic of the lower races. In a previous work I have given a list of numerous savage and barbarous peoples among whom unchastity before marriage is looked upon as a disgrace or a crime for a woman, sometimes punishable with banishment from the community or even with death;[19] and it is noteworthy that to this group of peoples belong savages of so low a type as the Veddahs of Ceylon,[20] the Igorrotes of Luzon,[21] and certain Australian tribes.[22] I have also called attention to facts which seem to prove that in several cases the wantonness of savages is largely due to foreign influence. The pioneers of a "higher civilisation" are very frequently unmarried men who go out to make their living in uncivilised lands, and, though unwilling to contract regular marriages with native women, they have no objection to corrupting their morals.[23] Moreover, in many tribes the {425} free intercourse which prevails between unmarried people is not of a promiscuous nature, and leads necessarily to marriage should the girl prove with child.[24] Nay, among various uncivilised races not only the girl, but the man who seduces her is subject to punishment or censure.

[Footnote 19: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 61 _sqq._]

[Footnote 20: Nevill, 'Vaeddas of Ceylon,' in _Taprobanian_, i. 178.]

[Footnote 21: Meyer, 'Igorrotes von Luzon,' in _Verhandl. Berliner Gesellsch. f. Anthrop._ 1883, p. 384 _sq._ Blumentritt, _Ethnographie der Philippinen_, p. 27.]

[Footnote 22: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 64 _sq._ Holden, in Taplin, _Folklore of the South Australian Aborigines_, p. 19.]

[Footnote 23: It is strange to hear from a modern student of anthropology, and especially from an Australian writer, that in sexual licence the savage has never anything to learn and that "all that the lower fringe of civilised men can do to harm the uncivilised is to stoop to the level of the latter instead of teaching them a better way" (Sutherland, _Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct_, i. 186). Mr. Edward Stephens ('Aborigines of Australia,' in _Jour. & Proceed. Royal Soc. N. S. Wales_, xxiii. 480) has a very different story to tell with reference to the tribes which once inhabited the Adelaide Plains in South Australia and whose acquaintance he made more than half a century ago.]

[Footnote 24: Westermarck, _op. cit._ pp. 23, 24, 71.]

Among the East African Takue a seducer may have to pay the same sum as if he had killed the girl, although the fine is generally reduced to fifty cows.[25] Among the Beni Amer and Marea he is killed, together with the girl and the child.[26] In Tessaua a fine of 100,000 kurdi is imposed on the father of a bastard child.[27] Among the Beni Mzab a man who seduces a girl has to pay two hundred francs and is banished for four years.[28] Among the Tedâ he is exposed to the revenge of her father.[29] The Baziba look upon illegitimate intercourse between the sexes as the most serious offence, though no action is taken until the birth of a child; "then the man and woman are bound hand and foot and thrown into Lake Victoria."[30] Among the Bakoki, whilst the girl was driven from home and remained for ever after an outcast, the man was fined three cows to her father and one to the chief.[31] Certain West African savages described by Mr. Winwood Reade, who banish from the clan a girl guilty of wantonness, inflict severe flogging on the seducer.[32] In Dahomey a man who seduces a girl is compelled by law to marry her and to pay eighty cowries to the parent or master.[33] Among some Kafir tribes the father or guardian of a woman who becomes pregnant can demand a fine of one head of cattle from the father of the child;[34] whilst in the Gaika tribe the mere seduction of a virgin incurs the fine of three or four head of cattle.[35] Casalis mentions an interesting custom prevalent among the Basutos, which on the one hand illustrates the belief that sexual intercourse in certain circumstances exposes a person to supernatural danger, and on the other hand indicates that unchastity in unmarried men is not looked upon with perfect indifference:--Immediately after the birth of a child the fire of the dwelling was kindled afresh. "For this purpose it was necessary that a young man of chaste habits should rub two {426} pieces of wood quickly one against another, until a flame sprung up, pure as himself. It was firmly believed that a premature death awaited him who should dare to take upon himself this office, after having lost his innocence. As soon, therefore, as a birth was proclaimed in the village, the fathers took their sons to undergo the ordeal. Those who felt themselves guilty confessed their crime, and submitted to be scourged rather than expose themselves to the consequences of a fatal temerity."[36] Livingstone, speaking of the good name which was given to him by the Bakwains, observes:--"No one ever gains much influence in this country without purity and uprightness. The acts of a stranger are keenly scrutinised by both young and old, and seldom is the judgment pronounced, even by the heathen, unfair or uncharitable. I have heard women speaking in admiration of a white man, because he was pure, and never was guilty of any secret immorality. Had he been, they would have known it, and, untutored heathen though they be, would have despised him in consequence."[37]

[Footnote 25: Munzinger, _Ostafrikanische Studien_, p. 208.]

[Footnote 26: _Ibid._ p. 322.]

[Footnote 27: Barth, _Reisen in Nord- und Central-Afrika_, ii. 18.]

[Footnote 28: Chavanne, _Die Sahara_, p. 315.]

[Footnote 29: Nachtigal, _Sahara und Sudan_, i. 449.]

[Footnote 30: Cunningham, _Uganda_, p. 290.]

[Footnote 31: _Ibid._ p. 102.]

[Footnote 32: Reade, _Savage Africa_, p. 261.]

[Footnote 33: Forbes, _Dahomey_, i. 26.]

[Footnote 34: Warner, in Maclean, _op. cit._ p. 64.]

[Footnote 35: Brownlee, _ibid._ p. 112.]

[Footnote 36: Casalis, _Basutos_, p. 267 _sq._]

[Footnote 37: Livingstone, _Missionary Travels_, p. 513.]

Of the Australian Maroura tribe, Lower Darling, we are told that before the advent of the whites "their laws were strict, especially those regarding young men and young women. It was almost death to a young lad or man who had sexual intercourse till married."[38] Among various tribes in Western Victoria "illegitimacy is rare, and is looked upon with such abhorrence that the mother is always severely beaten by her relatives, and sometimes put to death and burned. Her child is occasionally killed and burned with her. The father of the child is also punished with the greatest severity, and occasionally killed."[39]

[Footnote 38: Holden, in Taplin, _Folklore of the South Australian Aborigines_, p. 19.]

[Footnote 39: Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_, p. 28.]

In Nias the pregnancy of an unmarried girl is punished with death, inflicted not only upon her but upon the seducer as well.[40] Among the Bódo and Dhimáls of India chastity is prized in man and woman, married and unmarried.[41] Among the Tunguses "in irregular amours only the men are punished," the seducer being obliged either to purchase the girl at a certain price or, if he refuses, to submit to corporal punishment.[42] Among the Thlinkets, "if unmarried women prove frail the partner of their guilt, if discovered, is bound to make reparation to the parents, soothing their wounded honour with handsome {427} presents."[43] In certain North American tribes the seducer is said to be viewed with even more contempt than the girl whom he has dishonoured.[44]

[Footnote 40: Wilken, in _Bijdragen tot de taal- land- en volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië_, ser. v. vol. iv. 444.]

[Footnote 41: Hodgson, _Miscellaneous Essays_, i. 123.]

[Footnote 42: Georgi, _op. cit._ iii. 84.]

[Footnote 43: Douglas, quoted by Petroff, _Report on Alaska_, p. 177.]

[Footnote 44: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 66.]

Passing to more advanced races, we find that chastity is regarded as a duty for unmarried women, whilst a different standard of morality is generally applied to men. "Confucianism," says Mr. Griffis, "virtually admits two standards of morality, one for man, another for woman. . . . Chastity is a female virtue, it is a part of womanly duty, it has little or no relation to man personally."[45] Yet it is held up as an ideal even to men. It is said that in youth, when the physical powers are not yet settled, the superior man guards against lust.[46] Though licentious in their habits, the Chinese exalt and dignify chastity as a means of bringing the soul and body nearer to the highest excellence;[47] one of their proverbs even maintains that "of the myriad vices, lust is the worst."[48] Chastity for its own sake, when defended by a woman at the expense of her life, meets with a reward at the hands of the Government. "If a woman"--so the Ordinances run--"be compelled by her husband to prostitute herself for money, and takes her own life in order to preserve her chastity, or if an unmarried virgin loses her life in defending herself against violation, an honorary gate shall be erected in each case near the door of the paternal dwelling."[49] According to the Chinese Penal Code, "criminal intercourse by mutual consent with an unmarried woman shall be punished with seventy blows," whilst the punishment for such intercourse with a married woman is eighty blows.[50]

[Footnote 45: Griffis, _Religions of Japan_, p. 149.]

[Footnote 46: _Lun Yü_, xvi. 7.]

[Footnote 47: Wells Williams, _Middle Kingdom_, ii. 193.]

[Footnote 48: Smith, _Proverbs of the Chinese_, p. 256.]

[Footnote 49: de Groot, _Religious System of China_, (vol. ii. book) i. 752 _sq._]

[Footnote 50: _Ta Tsing Leu Lee_, sec. ccclxvi. p. 404.]

Among the ancient Hebrews fornication was forbidden to women[51] but not to men. The action of Judah towards the supposed harlot on the way to Timnath is mentioned {428} as the most natural thing in the world,[52] even though the perpetrator was a man of wealth and position, a man whom his brethren "shall praise" and before whom his "father's children shall bow down."[53] Throughout the Muhammedan world chastity is regarded as an essential duty for a woman.[54] In Persia an unmarried girl who gave birth to a child would surely be killed.[55] Among the Fellaheen of Egypt a father or brother in most instances punishes an unmarried daughter or sister who has been guilty of incontinence by throwing her into the Nile with a stone tied to her neck, or cutting her to pieces, and then throwing her remains into the river.[56] Among the Jbâla and Rif Berbers of Morocco she is also frequently killed. For unmarried men, on the other hand, chastity is by Muhammedans at most looked upon as an ideal, almost out of reach. The Caliph Ali said that "with a man who is modest and chaste nobody should find fault."[57] We are told that the Muhammedans of India consider it inconceivable that a Moslem should have illicit intercourse with a free Muhammedan woman;[58] but connections with slave girls are regarded in a different light.

[Footnote 51: _Leviticus_, xix. 29. _Deuteronomy_, xxiii. 18.]

[Footnote 52: _Genesis_, xxxviii. 15 _sqq._]

[Footnote 53: _Ibid._ xlix. 8.]

[Footnote 54: Burton, _Sindh_, p. 295.]

[Footnote 55: Polak, _Persien_, i. 217.]

[Footnote 56: Lane, _Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians_, p. 209.]

[Footnote 57: Ameer Ali, _Ethics of Islâm_, p. 30.]

[Footnote 58: Lane-Poole, _Studies in a Mosque_, p. 106.]

Among the Hindus sexual impurity is scarcely considered a sin in the men, but "in females nothing is held more execrable or abominable. The unhappy inhabitants of houses of ill fame are looked upon as the most degraded of the human species."[59] In one of the Pahlavi texts continence is recommended from the point of view of prudence:--"Commit no lustfulness, so that harm and regret may not reach thee from thine own actions."[60] But in Zoroastrianism, also, chastity is chiefly a female duty. It is written in the Avesta, "Any woman that has given up her body to two men in one day is sooner to be killed than a wolf, a lion, or a snake."[61]

[Footnote 59: _Calcutta Review_, ii. 23. Dubois, _Description of the Character, &c. of the People of India_, p. 193. _Cf._ _Laws of Manu_, ix. 51 _sq._]

[Footnote 60: _Dînâ-î Maînôg-î Khirad_, ii. 23 _sq._]

[Footnote 61: Darmesteter, in _Sacred Books of the East_, iv. 206, n. 1.]

{429} Among the ancient Teutons an unmarried woman who belonged to an honourable family was severely punished for going wrong, and the seducer was exposed to the revenge of her family, or had to pay compensation for his deed.[62] The yet un-Romanised Saxons, down to the days of St. Boniface, compelled a maiden who had dishonoured her father's house, as well as an adulteress, to hang herself, after which her body was burned and her paramour hung over the blazing pile; or she was scourged or cut with knives by all the women of the village till she was dead.[63]

[Footnote 62: Brunner, _Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte_, ii. 659 _sqq._ Wilda, _Strafrecht der Germanen_, p. 799 _sqq._ Nordström, _Bidrag till den svenska samhälls-författningens historia_, ii. 67. Maurer, _Bekehrung des Norwegischen Stammes_, ii. 154.]

[Footnote 63: Milman, _History of Latin Christianity_, ii. 54.]

In Greece the chastity of an unmarried girl was anxiously guarded.[64] According to Athenian law, the relatives of a maiden who had lost her virtue could with impunity kill the seducer on the spot.[65] Virginity was an object of worship. Chastity was the pre-eminent attribute of sanctity ascribed to Athene and Artemis, and the Parthenon, or virgin's temple, was the noblest religious edifice of Athens.[66] It is true that a certain class of courtesans occupied a remarkably high position in the social life of Greece, being admired and sought after even by the principal men. But they did so on account of their extraordinary beauty or their intellectual superiority; to the Greek mind the moral standard was by no means the only standard of excellence. The Romans, on the other hand, regarded the courtesan class with much contempt.[67] In A.D. 19 the profligacy of women was checked by stringent enactments, and it was provided that no woman whose grandfather, father, or husband had been a Roman knight should get money by prostitution. [68] The names of prostitutes had to be published on the aedile's list, as Tacitus says, "according to a recognised custom {430} of our ancestors, who considered it a sufficient punishment on unchaste women to have to profess their shame."[69] But both in Rome and Greece pre-nuptial unchastity in men, when it was not excessive[70] or did not take some especially offensive form, was hardly censured by public opinion.[71] The elder Cato expressly justified it.[72] Cicero says:--"If there be any one who thinks that youth is to be wholly interdicted from amours with courtesans, he certainly is very strict indeed. I cannot deny what he says; but still he is at variance not only with the licence of the present age, but even with the habits of our ancestors, and with what they used to consider allowable. For when was the time that men were not used to act in this manner? When was such conduct found fault with? When was it not permitted? When, in short, was the time when that which is lawful was not lawful?"[73] Epictetus only went a little step further. He said to his disciples:--"Concerning sexual pleasures, it is right to be pure before marriage, as much as in you lies. But if you indulge in them, let it be according to what is lawful. But do not in any case make yourself disagreeable to those who use such pleasures, nor be fond of reproving them, nor of putting yourself forward as not using them."[74] Here chastity in men is at all events recognised as an ideal. But even in pagan antiquity there were a few who enjoined it as a duty.[75] Musonius Rufus emphatically asserted that no union of the sexes other than marriage was permissible,[76] and Dio Chrysostom desired prostitution to be suppressed by law.[77] Similar opinions grew up in connection with the Neo-Platonic and Neo-Pythagorean philosophies, and may be traced back to the ancient masters themselves. We are told that Pythagoras inculcated the virtue of {431} chastity so successfully that when ten of his disciples, being attacked, might have escaped by crossing a bean-field, they died to a man rather than tread down the beans, which were supposed to have a mystic affinity with the seat of impure desires.[78] Plato, again, is in favour of a law to the effect that "no one shall venture to touch any person of the freeborn or noble class except his wedded wife, or sow the unconsecrated and bastard seed among harlots, or in barren and unnatural lusts." Our citizens, he says, ought not to be worse than birds and beasts, which live without intercourse, pure and chaste, until the age for procreation, and afterwards, when they have arrived at that period and the male has paired with the female and the female with the male, "live the rest of their lives in holiness and innocence, abiding firmly in their original compact."[79]

[Footnote 64: See Denis, _Histoire des théories et des idées morales dans l'antiquité_, i. 69 _sq._]

[Footnote 65: Schmidt, _Die Ethik der alten Griechen_, ii. 193.]

[Footnote 66: See Lecky, _History of European Morals_, i. 105.]

[Footnote 67: _Ibid._ ii. 300.]

[Footnote 68: Tacitus, _Annales_, ii. 85.]

[Footnote 69: Tacitus, _Annales_, ii. 85.]

[Footnote 70: Valerius Maximus (_Facta dictaque memorabilia_, ii. 5. 6) praises "frugalitas" as "immoderato Veneris usu aversa."]

[Footnote 71: Lecky, _op. cit._ ii. 314.]

[Footnote 72: Horace, _Satiræ_, i. 2. 31 _sq._]

[Footnote 73: Cicero, _Pro C[oe]lio_, 20 (48).]

[Footnote 74: Epictetus, _Enchiridion_, xxxiii. 8.]

[Footnote 75: Denis, _op. cit._ ii. 133 _sqq._]

[Footnote 76: Musonius Rufus, quoted by Stobæus, _Florilegium_, vi. 61.]

[Footnote 77: Denis, _op. cit._ ii. 149 _sqq._]

[Footnote 78: Jamblichus, _De Pythagorica vita_, 31 (191). _Cf._ Jevons, in Plutarch's _Romane Questions_, p. lxxxviii. _sq._]

[Footnote 79: Plato, _Leges_, viii. 840 _sq._ _Cf._ Xenophon, _Memorabilia_, i. 3. 8.]

Much stronger was the censure which Christianity passed on pre-nuptial connections. While looking with suspicion even on the life-long union of one man with one woman, the Church pronounced all other forms of sexual intercourse to be mortal sins. In its Penitentials sins of unchastity were the favourite topic; and its horror of them finds an echo in the secular legislation of the first Christian emperors. Panders were condemned to have molten lead poured down their throats.[80] In the case of forcible seduction both the man and woman, if she consented to the act, were put to death.[81] Even the innocent offspring of illicit intercourse were punished for their parents' sins with ignominy and loss of certain rights which belonged to other, more respectable, members of the Church and the State.[82] Persons of different sex {432} who were not united in wedlock were forbidden by the Church to kiss each other; nay, the sexual desire itself, though unaccompanied by any external act, was regarded as sinful in the unmarried.[83] In this standard of purity no difference of sex was recognised, the same obligations being imposed upon man and woman.[84]

[Footnote 80: Lecky, _op. cit._ ii. 316.]

[Footnote 81: _Codex Theodosianus_, ix. 24. 1.]

[Footnote 82: _Concilium Claromontanum_, A.D. 1095, can. 11 (Labbe-Mansi, _Sacrorum Conciliorum collectio_, xx. 817):--"Ut nulli filii concubinarum ad ordines vel aliquos honores ecclesiasticos promoveantur, nisi monchaliter vel canonice vixerint in ecclesia." See also _supra_, i. 47.]

[Footnote 83: "Perit ergo et ipsa mente virginitas." Katz, _Grundriss des kanonischen Strafrechts_, p. 114 _sq._ For the subject of kissing see also Thomas Aquinas, _Summa theologica_, ii.-ii. 154. 4.]

[Footnote 84: Laurent, _Études sur l'histoire de l'Humanité_, iv. 114.]

In this, as in so many other points of morals, however, there is a considerable discrepancy between Christian doctrine and public opinion in Christian countries. The gross and open immorality of the Middle Ages indicates how little the idea of sexual purity entered into the manners and opinions of the people. The influence of the ascetic doctrine of the Church was in fact quite contrary to its aspirations. The institution of clerical celibacy lowered the estimation of virtue by promoting vice. During the Middle Ages unchastity was regarded as an object of ridicule rather than censure, and in the comic literature of that period the clergy are universally represented as the great corrupters of domestic virtue.[85] Whether the tenet of chastity laid down by the code of Chivalry was taken more seriously may be fairly doubted. A knight, it was said, should be abstinent and chaste;[86] he should love only the virtues, talents, and graces of his lady;[87] and love was defined as the "chaste union of two hearts by virtue wrought."[88] But whilst the knight had certain claims as regards the virtue of his lady, whilst he probably was inclined to draw his sword only for a woman of fair reputation, and whilst he himself professed to aspire only to her lip or hand, we have reason to believe that the amours in which he indulged with her were of a far less delicate kind. Sainte-Palaye observes, "Jamais {433} on ne vit les m[oe]urs plus corrompues que du temps de nos Chevaliers, et jamais le règne de la débauche ne fut plus universel."[89] For a mediæval knight the chief object of life was love. He who did not understand how to win a lady was but half a man; and the difference between a lover and a seducer was apparently slight. The character of the seducer, as Mr. Lecky remarks, and especially of the passionless seducer who pursues his career simply as a kind of sport, and under the influence of no stronger motive than vanity or a spirit of adventure, has for many centuries been glorified and idealised in the popular literature of Christendom in a manner to which there is no parallel in antiquity.[90]

[Footnote 85: Wright, _Essays on Archæological Subjects_, ii. 238. _Cf._ _Idem_, _History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England during the Middle Ages_, pp. 54, 281, 420.]

[Footnote 86: _Book of the Ordre of Chyualry_, fol. 40.]

[Footnote 87: Sainte-Palaye, _Mémoires sur l'ancienne Chevalerie_, ii. 17.]

[Footnote 88: Mills, _History of Chivalry_, i. 214 _sq._]

[Footnote 89: Sainte-Palaye, _op. cit._ ii. 19. _Cf._ Walter Scott, 'Essay on Chivalry,' in _Miscellaneous Prose Works_, vi. 48 _sq._]

[Footnote 90: Lecky, _op. cit._ ii. 346. _Cf._ Delécluze, _Roland ou la Chevalerie_, i. 356.]

The Reformation brought about some change for the better, if in no other respect at least by making marriage lawful for a large class of people to whom illicit love had previously been the only means of gratifying a natural desire, and by abolishing the monasteries. In fits of religious enthusiasm even the secular legislators busied themselves with acts of incontinence in which two unmarried adults of different sex were consenting parties. In the days of the Commonwealth, according to an act of 1650, in cases of less serious breach of chastity than adultery and incest, each man or woman was for each offence to be committed to the common gaol for three months, and to find sureties for good behaviour during a whole year afterwards.[91] In Scotland, after the Reformation, fornication was punished with a severity nearly equal to that which attended the infraction of the marriage vow.[92] But the fate of these and similar laws has been either to be repealed or to become inactive.[93] For ordinary acts of incontinence public opinion is, practically at least, the only judge. In the case of female unchastity its sentence is {434} severe enough among the upper ranks of society, whilst, so far as the lower classes are concerned, it varies considerably even in different parts of the same country, and is in many cases regarded as venial. As to similar acts committed by unmarried men, the words which Cicero uttered on behalf of C[oe]lius might be repeated by any modern advocate who, in defending his client, ventured frankly to express the popular opinion on the subject. It seems to me that with regard to sexual relations between unmarried men and women Christianity has done little more than establish a standard which, though accepted perhaps in theory, is hardly recognised by the feelings of the large majority of people--or at least of men--in Christian communities, and has introduced the vice of hypocrisy, which apparently was little known in sexual matters by pagan antiquity.

[Footnote 91: Pike, _History of Crime in England_, ii. 182.]

[Footnote 92: Rogers, _Social Life in Scotland_, ii. 242.]

[Footnote 93: See Pike, _op. cit._ ii. 582; Hume, _Commentaries on the Law of Scotland_, ii. 333.]

Why has sexual intercourse between unmarried people, if both parties consent, come to be regarded as wrong? Why are the moral opinions relating to it subject to so great variations? Why is the standard commonly so different for man and woman? We shall now try to find an answer to these questions.

If marriage, as I am inclined to suppose, is based on an instinct derived from some ape-like progenitor, it would from the beginning be regarded as the natural form of sexual intercourse in the human race, whilst other more transitory connections would appear abnormal and consequently be disapproved of. I am not certain whether some feeling of this sort, however vague, is not still very general in the race. But it has been more or less or almost totally suppressed by social conditions which make it in most cases impossible for men to marry at the first outbreak of the sexual passion. We have thus to seek for some other explanation of the severe censure passed on pre-nuptial connections.

It seems to me obvious that this censure is chiefly due to the preference which a man gives to a virgin bride. As I have shown in another place, such a preference is a {435} fact of very common occurrence.[94] It partly springs from a feeling akin to jealousy towards women who have had previous connections with other men, partly from the warm response a man expects from a woman whose appetites he is the first to gratify, and largely from an instinctive appreciation of female coyness. Each sex is attracted by the distinctive characteristics of the opposite sex, and coyness is a female quality. In mankind, as among other mammals, the female requires to be courted, often endeavouring for a long time to escape from the male. Not only in civilised countries may courtship mean a prolonged making of love to the woman. Mariner's words with reference to the women of Tonga hold true of a great many, if not all, savage and barbarous races of men. "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."[95] The marriage ceremonies of many peoples bear testimony to the same fact. One origin of the form of capture is the resistance of the pursued woman, due to coyness, partly real and partly assumed.[96] On the East Coast of Greenland, for instance, the only method of contracting a marriage is for a man to go to the girl's tent, catch her by her hair or anything else which offers a hold, and drag her off to his dwelling without further ado; violent scenes are often the result, as single women always affect the utmost bashfulness and aversion to any proposal of marriage, lest they should lose their reputation for modesty.[97] It is certainly not the woman who most readily yields to the desires of a man that is most attractive to him; as an ancient writer puts it, all men love seasoned dishes, not plain meats, or plainly dressed {436} fish, and it is modesty that gives the bloom to beauty.[98] Conspicuous eagerness in a woman appears to a man unwomanly, repulsive, contemptible. His ideal is the virgin; the libertine he despises.

[Footnote 94: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 123 _sq._]

[Footnote 95: Mariner, _op. cit._ ii. 174. _Cf._ Fritsch, _Die Eingeborenen Süd-Afrika's_, p. 445 (Bushmans).]

[Footnote 96: _Cf._ Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_, i. 623 _sq._; _Idem_, in _Fortnightly Review_, xxi. 897 _sq._; Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 388; Grosse, _Die Formen der Familie_, p. 107; Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_, p. 305 _sq._]

[Footnote 97: Nansen, _First Crossing of Greenland_, i. 316 _sqq._]

[Footnote 98: Athenæus, _Deipnosophistæ_, xiii. 16.]

Where marriage is the customary form of sexual intercourse pre-nuptial incontinence in a woman, as suggesting lack of coyness and modesty, is therefore apt to disgrace her. At the same time it is a disgrace to, and consequently an offence against, her family, especially where the ties of kinship are strong. Moreover, where wives are purchased the unchaste girl, by lowering her market value, deprives her father or parents of part of their property. Among the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast, says Major Ellis, "chastity _per se_ is not understood. An unmarried girl is expected to be chaste because virginity possesses a marketable value, and were she to be unchaste her parents would receive little and perhaps no head-money for her."[99] Among the Rendile of Eastern Africa, we are told, the unchastity of unmarried girls meets with severe retribution, the girl invariably being driven out from her home, for the sole and simple reason that her market value to her parents has been decreased.[100] The same commercial point of view is expressed in the Mosaic rule:--"If a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife. If her father utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins."[101] But the girl is not the only offender. Whilst the disgrace of incontinence falls on her alone, the offence against her relatives is divided between her and the seducer. Speaking of the presents which, among the Thlinkets, a man is bound to give to the parents of the girl whom he has seduced, Sir James Douglas observes, "The offender is simply regarded as a robber, who has committed depredation on their merchandise, their only anxiety being to make the {437} damages exacted as heavy as possible."[102] Marriage by purchase has thus raised the standard of female chastity, and also, to some extent, checked the incontinence of the men. But it can certainly not be regarded as the sole cause of the duty of chastity where such a duty is recognised by savages. Among the Veddahs, who do not make their daughters objects of traffic,[103] the unmarried girls are nevertheless protected by their natural guardians "with the keenest sense of honour."[104] In many of the instances quoted above where a seduction is followed by more or less serious consequences for the seducer, the penalty he has to pay is evidently something else than the mere market value of the girl.

[Footnote 99: Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples_, p. 286.]

[Footnote 100: Chanler, _Through Jungle and Desert_, p. 317.]

[Footnote 101: _Exodus_, xxii. 16 _sq._]

[Footnote 102: Douglas, quoted by Petroff, _op. cit._ p. 177.]

[Footnote 103: Le Mesurier, 'Veddás of Ceylon,' in _Jour. Roy. Asiatic Soc. Ceylon Branch_, ix. 340. Hartshorne, 'Weddas,' in _Indian Antiquary_, viii. 320.]

[Footnote 104: Nevill, 'Vaeddas of Ceylon,' in _Taprobanian_, i. 178.]

Thus the men, by demanding that the women whom they marry shall be virgins, indirectly give rise to the demand that they themselves shall abstain from certain forms of incontinence. From my collection of facts relating to savages I find that in the majority of cases where chastity is required of unmarried girls the seducer also is considered guilty of a crime. But, as was just pointed out, his act is judged from a more limited point of view. It is chiefly, if not exclusively, regarded as an offence against the parents or family of the girl; chastity _per se_ is hardly required of savage men. Where prostitution exists they may without censure gratify their passions among its victims. Now, to anybody who duly reflects upon the matter it is clear that the seducer does a wrong to the woman also; but I find no indication that this idea occurs at all to the savage mind. Where the seducer is censured the girl also is censured, being regarded not as the injured party but as an injurer. Even in the case of rape the harm done to the girl herself is little thought of. Among the Tonga Islanders "rape, providing it be not upon a married woman or one to whom respect is due on the score of {438} superior rank from the perpetrator, is considered not as a crime but as a matter of indifference."[105] The same is the case in the Pelew Islands.[106] In the laws of the Rejangs of Sumatra referring to this offence, "there is hardly anything considered but the value of the girl's person to her relations, as a mere vendible commodity."[107] Among the Asiniboin, a Siouan tribe, the punishment for rape is based on the principle that the price of the woman has been depreciated, that the chances of marriage have been lessened, and that the act is an insult to her kindred, as implying contempt of their feelings and their power of protection.[108] Even the Teutons in early days hardly severed rape from abduction, the kinsmen of the woman feeling themselves equally wronged in either case.[109] If the girl's feelings are thus disregarded when she is an unwilling victim of violence, it can hardly be expected that she should be an object of pity when she is a consenting partner. Does not public opinion in the midst of civilisation turn against the dishonoured rather than the dishonourer?

[Footnote 105: Mariner, _op. cit._ ii. 107.]

[Footnote 106: Kubary, 'Die Verbrechen und das Strafverfahren auf den Pelau-Inseln,' in _Original-Mittheil. aus der ethnol. Abtheil. der königl. Museen Berlin_, i. 78.]

[Footnote 107: Crawfurd, _History of the Indian Archipelago_, iii. 130.]

[Footnote 108: Dorsey, 'Siouan Sociology,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ xv. 226.]

[Footnote 109: Brunner, _Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte_ ii. 666. Pollock and Maitland, _History of English Law before the Time of Edward I._ ii. 490. According to Salic law, the fine for the rape of an _ingenua puella_ was 62½ solidi, or only a little higher than the fine for a connection with her to which she herself consented (_Lex Salica_, Herold's text, xiv. 4; xv. 3); whereas the fine for adultery with a free woman was 200 solidi (_ibid._ xv. 1).]

There is yet another party to be considered, namely, the offspring. One would imagine that to every thinking mind, not altogether destitute of sympathetic feelings, the question what is likely to happen to the child if the woman becomes pregnant should present itself as one of the greatest gravity. But in judging of matters relating to sexual morality men have generally made little use of their reason and been guilty of much thoughtless cruelty. Although marriage has come into existence solely for the sake of the offspring, it rarely happens that in sexual relations much unselfish thought is bestowed upon unborn {439} individuals. Legal provisions in favour of illegitimate children have made men somewhat more careful, for their own sake, but they have also nourished the idea that the responsibility of fatherhood may be bought off by the small sum the man has to pay for the support of his natural child. Custom or law may exempt him even from this duty. We are told that in Tahiti the father might kill a bastard child, but that, if he suffered it to live, he was _eo ipso_ considered to be married to its mother.[110] This custom, it would seem, is hardly more inhuman than the famous law according to which "la recherche de la paternité est interdite."[111]

[Footnote 110: Cook, _Voyage to the Pacific Ocean_, ii. 157.]

[Footnote 111: _Code Napoléon_, § 340.]

The great authority on the ethics of Roman Catholicism tries to prove that simple fornication is a mortal sin chiefly because it "tends to the hurt of the life of the child who is to be born of such intercourse," or more generally, because "it is contrary to the good of the offspring."[112] But this tender care for the welfare of illegitimate children seems strange when we consider the manner in which such children have been treated by the Roman Catholic Church herself. It is obvious that the extreme horror of fornication which is expressed in the Christian doctrine is in the main a result of the same ascetic principle which declared celibacy superior to marriage and tolerated marriage only because it could not be suppressed.

[Footnote 112: Thomas Aquinas, _Summa theologica_, ii.-ii. 154. 2.]

Moral ideas concerning unchastity have also been influenced by the close association which exists in a refined mind between the sexual impulse and a sentiment of affection which lasts long after the gratification of the bodily desire. We find the germ of this feeling in the abhorrence with which prostitution is regarded by savage tribes who have no objection to ordinary sexual intercourse previous to marriage,[113] and in the distinction which among ourselves is drawn between the prostitute and the woman {440} who yields to temptation because she loves. To indulge in mere sexual pleasure, unaccompanied by higher feelings, appears brutal and disgusting in the case of a man, and still more so in the case of a woman. After all, love is generally only an episode in a man's life, whereas for a woman it is the whole of her life.[114] The Greek orator said that in the moment when a woman loses her chastity her mind is changed.[115] On the other hand, when a man and a woman, tied to each other by deep and genuine affection, decide to live together as husband and wife, though not joined in legal wedlock, the censure which public opinion passes upon their conduct seems to an unprejudiced mind justifiable at most only in so far as it may be considered to have been their duty to comply with the laws of their country and to submit to a rule of some social importance.

[Footnote 113: _E.g._, the Chittagong Hill tribes (Lewin, _Wild Races of South-Eastern India_, p. 348). _Cf._ Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 70 _sq._]

[Footnote 114: _Cf._ Simmel, _Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft_, i. 201; Paulsen, _System der Ethik_, ii. 274.]

[Footnote 115: Lysias, quoted by Schmidt, _Die Ethik der alten Griechen_, i. 273.]

Sexual intercourse between unmarried persons of opposite sex is thus regarded as wrong from different points of view under different conditions, social or psychical, and all of these conditions are not in any considerable degree combined at any special stage of civilisation. Sometimes the opinions on the subject are greatly influenced by the institution of marriage by purchase, sometimes they are influenced by the refinement of love; and between such causes there can be no co-operation. This is one reason for the singular complexity which characterises the evolution of the duty of chastity; but there is another reason perhaps even more important. The causes to which this duty may be traced are frequently checked by circumstances operating in an opposite direction. Thus the preference which a man is naturally disposed to give to a virgin bride may be overcome by his desire for offspring, inducing him to marry a woman who has proved capable of gratifying this desire.[116] It may also be ineffective for the simple reason that no virgin bride is to be found. Nothing has more generally prevented chastity {441} from being recognised as a duty than social conditions promoting licentious habits. Even in savage society, where almost every man and every woman marry and most of them marry early in life, there are always a great number of unmarried people of both sexes above the age of puberty; and, generally speaking, the number of the unmarried increases along with the progress of civilisation. This state of things easily leads to incontinence in men and women, and where such incontinence becomes habitual it can hardly incur much censure. Again, where the general standard of female chastity is high, the standard of male chastity may nevertheless be the lowest possible. This is the case where there is a class of women who can no longer be dishonoured, because they have already been dishonoured, whose virtue is of no value either to themselves or their families because they have lost their virtue, and who make incontinence their livelihood. Prostitution, being a safeguard of female chastity, has facilitated the enforcement of the rule which enjoins it as a duty, but at the same time it has increased the inequality of obligations imposed on men and women. It has begun to exercise this influence already at the lower stages of culture. Prostitution is by no means unknown in the savage world.[117] It is a recognised institution in many of the Melanesian islands; "at Santa Cruz," says Dr. Codrington, "where the separation of the sexes is so carefully maintained, there are certainly public courtesans."[118] Prostitution prevails in many or most Negro countries;[119] and so favourably, we are told, is this institution sometimes regarded, that rich Negro ladies on their death-beds buy female slaves and present them to the public, "in the same manner as in England they would have left a legacy to some public charity."[120] The Wanyoro even have a {442} definite system of prostitution, governed by stringent laws which seem to be very old.[121] In Greenland, where it was "reckoned the greatest of infamies" for an unmarried woman to become pregnant,[122] there were professional harlots already in early times;[123] and the same was the case among many of the North American Indians.[124] Thus among the Omahas extra-matrimonial intercourse is, as a rule, practised only with public women, called _minckeda_; and "so strict are the Omahas about these matters, that a young girl or even a married woman walking or riding alone, would be ruined in character, being liable to be taken for a _minckeda_, and addressed as such."[125] Public prostitution was tolerated, if not encouraged, among all the Maya nations, whilst intercourse with other unmarried women was punished with a fine or, if the affronted relatives insisted, with death.[126] "In order to avoid greater evils," the Incas of Peru permitted public prostitutes, who were treated with extreme contempt;[127] but, with this exception, "to be lewd with single women was capital."[128] Among all the civilised nations of the Old World prostitution has existed, and still exists, as a tolerated institution, even where legislators have endeavoured to suppress it.[129] Its prevalence in our modern society greatly increases the perplexity of public opinion in regard to sexual morality. Its victims are degraded and despised beyond description. At the same time their male customers {443} are tacitly allowed to support the trade. That the demand for a merchandise increases the production of it is in this case seldom thought of. But secrecy must be observed. In sexual matters openness is indecent, and the chief crime is to be found out.

[Footnote 116: See _supra_, ii. 423.]

[Footnote 117: See, _e.g._, Tutuila, 'Line Islanders,' in _Jour. Polynesian Soc._ i. 270; Powell, _Wanderings in a Wild Country_, p. 261 (natives of New Britain); Davis, _El Gringo_, p. 221 (Indians of New Mexico); Ploss-Bartels, _Das Weib_, i. 536, 540 _sqq._]

[Footnote 118: Codrington, _Melanesians_, p. 234 _sqq._]

[Footnote 119: _Emin Pasha in Central Africa_, p. 88.]

[Footnote 120: Reade, _Savage Africa_, p. 547 _sq._]

[Footnote 121: _Emin Pasha in Central Africa_, p. 87. Wilson and Felkin, _Uganda_, ii. 49.]

[Footnote 122: Egede, _Description of Greenland_, p. 141.]

[Footnote 123: Cranz, _History of Greenland_, i. 176.]

[Footnote 124: Carver, _Travels through the Interior Parts of North America_, p. 375.]

[Footnote 125: Dorsey, 'Omaha Sociology,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ iii. 365.]

[Footnote 126: Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_, ii. 676, 659.]

[Footnote 127: Garcilasso de la Vega, _First Part of the Royal Commentaries of the Yncas_, i. 321 _sq._]

[Footnote 128: Herrera, _General History of the West Indies_, iv. 340.]

[Footnote 129: Dufour, _Histoire de la prostitution_, _passim_. Doolittle, _Social Life of the Chinese_, i. 348. Wilkins, _Modern Hinduism_, p. 412. Polak, 'Die Prostitution in Persien,' in _Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift_, xi. 516, 517, 563 _sqq._ Lane, _Modern Egyptians_, i. 150. Weinhold, _Altnordisches Leben_, p. 259 (ancient Scandinavians). Desmaze, _Les pénalités anciennes_, p. 61 _sq._ n. 4; Mackintosh, _History of Civilisation in Scotland_, i. 428 (Middle Ages); &c. Since the thirteenth century even the Church tolerated the establishment of brothels in the larger cities (Müller, _Das sexuelle Leben der christlichen Kulturvölker_, p. 149).]

There is, moreover, a form of religious prostitution, just as there is religious celibacy. In fact, the two customs are sometimes very closely connected with one another. Among the E[(w]e-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast the chief business of the female _kosi_, or wife of the god to whom she is dedicated, is prostitution. "In every town there is at least one institution in which the best-looking girls, between ten and twelve years of age, are received. Here they remain for three years, learning the chants and dances peculiar to the worship of the gods, and prostituting themselves to the priests and the inmates of the male seminaries; and at the termination of their novitiate they become public prostitutes. This condition, however, is not regarded as one for reproach; they are considered to be married to the god, and their excesses are supposed to be caused and directed by him. Properly speaking, their libertinage should be confined to the male worshippers at the temple of the god, but practically it is indiscriminate. Children who are born from such unions belong to the god."[130] So also the priestesses on the Gold Coast, though not allowed to marry, are by no means debarred from sexual intercourse. They "are ordinarily most licentious, and custom allows them to gratify their passions with any man who may chance to take their fancy. A priestess who is favourably impressed by a man sends for him to her house, and this command he is sure to obey, through fear of the consequences of exciting her anger. She then tells him that the god she serves has directed her to love him, and the man thereupon lives with her until she grows tired of him, or a new object takes her fancy. Some priestesses have as many as half a dozen men in their train at one time, and may on great occasions be seen walking {444} in state, followed by them. Their life is one continual record of debauchery and sensuality, and when excited by the dance they frequently abandon themselves to the wildest excesses."[131] It seems that the "wife" of the Egyptian god at Thebes also in time became a libertine; Strabo tells us that the beautiful woman who was dedicated to him had sexual intercourse with any man she chose "till the natural purification of her body took place," after which she was given to a man.[132] In India every Hindu temple of any importance has its dancing girls, whose position is inferior only to that of the sacrificers.[133] Thus at J[)u]g[)u]nnat'h[)u]-ksh[)u]tr[)u] in Orissa a number of women of infamous character are employed to dance and sing before the god. They live in separate houses, not at the temple. The Brahmins who officiate there continually have adulterous connections with them, and these women also prostitute themselves to visitors.[134] In the Canaanitish cults there were women, called _[k.]ed[=e]sh[=o]th_, who were consecrated to the deity with whose temple they were associated, and who at the same time acted as prostitutes.[135] At the local shrines of North Israel the worship of Yahveh itself was deeply affected by these practices;[136] but they were forbidden in the Deuteronomic code.[137] Perhaps this temple prostitution may be accounted for by a belief that it bestowed blessings upon the worshippers. According to notions which prevail to this day in countries with Semitic culture, sexual intercourse with a holy person is regarded as beneficial to him or her who indulges in it.[138]

[Footnote 130: Ellis, _E[(w]e-speaking Peoples_, p. 141.]

[Footnote 131: Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples_, p. 121 _sq._]

[Footnote 132: Strabo, _Geographica_, xvii. i. 46. _Cf._ Wiedemann, _Herodots zweites Buch_, p. 269.]

[Footnote 133: Warneck, quoted by Ploss-Bartels, _op. cit._ i. 534.]

[Footnote 134: Ward, _View of the History, &c. of the Hindoos_, ii. 134.]

[Footnote 135: Driver, _Commentary on Deuteronomy_, p. 264. Cheyne, 'Harlot,' in Cheyne and Black, _Encyclopædia Biblica_, ii. 1965.]

[Footnote 136: _Hosea_, iv. 14. _Cf._ Cheyne, in _Encyclopædia Biblica_, ii. 1965.]

[Footnote 137: _Deuteronomy_, xxiii. 17 _sq._]

[Footnote 138: See Westermarck, _The Moorish Conception of Holiness (Baraka)_, p. 85.]

Of a somewhat different character was the religious prostitution which prevailed in ancient Babylonia, in connection with the worship of Ishtar. Herodotus says that every woman born in that country was obliged once in her {445} life to go and sit down in the precinct of Aphrodite, and there consort with a stranger. A woman who had once taken her seat was not allowed to return home till one of the strangers threw a silver coin into her lap, and took her with him beyond the holy ground. The silver coin could not be refused because, since once thrown, it was sacred. The woman went with the first man who threw her money, rejecting no one. When she had gone with him, and so satisfied the goddess, she returned home, and from that time forth no gift, however great, would prevail with her.[139] Several allusions in cuneiform literature to the sacred prostitution carried on at Babylonian temples confirm Herodotus' statement in general.[140] A cult very similar to this was also found in certain parts of the island of Cyprus,[141] at Heliopolis in Syria,[142] and at Byblus.[143] In the worship of Anaitis the Armenians even of the highest families prostituted their own daughters at least once in their lives, nor was this regarded as any bar to an honourable marriage afterwards.[144] Although such practices were generally excluded from the ordinary Greek worships of Aphrodite, unchastity in the temple cult of that goddess is reported to have occurred at Corinth[145] and in the city of the Locri Epizephyrii, who, according to the story, vowed to consecrate their daughters to this service in order to gain the goddess's aid in a war.[146]

[Footnote 139: Herodotus, i. 199.]

[Footnote 140: Jeremias, _Izdubar-Nimrod_, p. 59 _sq._ Jastrow, _Religion of Babylonia and Assyria_, p. 475 _sq._ Mürdter-Delitzsch, _Geschichte Babyloniens_, p. 41.]

[Footnote 141: Herodotus, i. 199. Athenæus, _Deipnosophistæ_, xii. 11, p. 516 a.]

[Footnote 142: Socrates, _Historia ecclesiastica_, 18 (Migne, _op. cit._ Ser. Græca, lxvii. 123). Sozomen, _Historia ecclesiastica_, v. 10 (Migne, Ser. Græca, lxvii. 1243). Eusebius, _Vita Constantini_, iii. 58 (Migne, Ser. Græca, xx. 1124).]

[Footnote 143: Lucian, _De Syria Dea_, 6.]

[Footnote 144: Strabo, xi. 14. 16.]

[Footnote 145: _Ibid._ viii. 6. 20.]

[Footnote 146: Farnell, _Cults of the Greek States_, ii. 636. Athenæus, xii. 11, p. 516 a.]

Various theories have been set forth to explain the religious prostitution of the Babylonian type. It has been interpreted as an expiation for individual marriage, as a temporary recognition of pre-existing communal rights at a time when "communal marriage" in the full sense of the term had already ceased to exist.[147] It {446} has been supposed to be nothing but ordinary immorality practised under the cloak of religion.[148] It has been represented as a form of sacrifice, either as a first-fruit offering[149] or as an act by which a worshipper sacrifices her most precious possession to the deity.[150] To Dr. Farnell it seems to be "a special modification of a wide-spread custom, the custom of destroying virginity before marriage so that the bridegroom's intercourse should be safe from a peril that is much dreaded by men in a certain stage of culture; and here, as in other ritual," he adds, "it is the stranger that takes the peril upon himself."[151] But why should the stranger have been more willing than the bridegroom to expose himself to this danger? Considering that the act was performed at the temple of the goddess of fecundity, I think its object most probably was to ensure fertility in the woman; this, in fact, is directly indicated by the words which the stranger, according to Herodotus, uttered when he threw the silver coin into her lap:--"The goddess Mylitta prosper thee!"[152] And from what has been said in a previous chapter about the semi-supernatural character ascribed to strangers, about the efficacy of their blessings and the benefits expected from their love,[153] we can see why a stranger was appointed to confer the blessing upon the girl.[154]

[Footnote 147: Avebury, _Origin of Civilisation_, p. 559.]

[Footnote 148: Jeremias, _Izdubar-Nimrod_, p. 60.]

[Footnote 149: Wiedemann, _Herodots zweites Buch_, p. 267 _sq._]

[Footnote 150: Curtiss, _Primitive Semitic Religion To-day_, p. 155.]

[Footnote 151: Farnell, 'Sociological Hypotheses concerning the Position of Women in Ancient Religion,' in _Archiv f. Religionswiss._ vii. 88.]

[Footnote 152: Herodotus, i. 199.]

[Footnote 153: _Supra_, i. ch. xxiv.]

[Footnote 154: Since the present chapter was in type, some fresh attempts have been made to explain this religious prostitution. Sir J. G. Frazer (_Adonis Attis Osiris_, p. 23 _sq._) regards it as a rite intended to ensure the fruitfulness of the ground and the increase of man and beast on the principle of hom[oe]opathic magic. A very similar opinion has been expressed by Dr. Havelock Ellis ('Ursprung und Entwicklung der Prostitution,' in _Mutterschutz_, iii. fasc. 1 _sq._). According to Mr. Hartland, again ('Concerning the Rite at the Temple of Mylitta,' in _Anthropological Essays presented to E. B. Tylor_, p. 189 _sqq._), it was a puberty rite involving a sacrifice of virginity to which every woman was subjected. [My own theory has subsequently been accepted by van Gennep, _Les rites de passage_, p. 242 _sq._]]

Among ourselves an act of incontinence assumes a {447} different aspect if one of the parties, either the man or the woman, is married. Involving a breach of faith, adultery is an offence against him or her to whom faith is due, and at the same time the seducer commits an offence against the husband of the adulteress. But here again our own views are not universally shared.

Although it is hard to understand that the seducer could ever be regarded as guiltless, we are told that among a few peoples adultery is not held to be wrong;[155] and Mr. Morgan states that among the Iroquois "punishment was inflicted upon the woman alone, who was supposed to be the only offender."[156] But these cases are certainly quite exceptional. In a savage tribe 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, or his legs speared. Very commonly he has to pay with his life. We have seen that even among many peoples who generally prohibit self-redress an adulterer may be put to death by the aggrieved husband, especially if he be caught _flagrante delicto_;[157] and in other cases he may be subject to capital punishment, in the proper sense of the word.[158] In Albania, even in our days, custom not only allows, but compels, the injured husband to kill the adulterer.[159] Hebrew law enjoined the man who committed adultery with another man's wife to be put to death;[160] and Christian legislators followed the example. Constantine celebrated his new zeal for the sacramental idea of marriage by establishing the punishment of death for the seducer;[161] adultery was in point of {448} heinousness assimilated to murder, idolatry, and sorcery.[162] Various mediæval law-books punished the seducer with death;[163] whilst in Scotland notorious and manifest adultery was made capital as late as 1563.[164] This extreme severity, however, has been followed by extreme leniency. In Scotland, though adultery kept its place in the statute-book as a heinous and in some cases a capital crime, prosecution for it had ceased for many years before the time of Baron Hume;[165] and in England it is no crime at all in the eyes of the law, only an ecclesiastical offence.

[Footnote 155: Davis, _El Gringo_, p. 221 _sq._ (Indians of New Mexico). Adair, _History of the American Indians_, p. 146 (Cherokees). Krasheninnikoff, _History of Kamschatka_, p. 204. Prejevalsky, _Mongolia_, i. 70 (Mongols). Colquhoun, _Amongst the Shans_, p. 75 (Yendalines, one of the Karen tribes). Chanler, _op. cit._ p. 317 (Rendile in Eastern Africa). Lichtenstein, _Travels in Southern Africa_, ii. 48 (Bushmans).]

[Footnote 156: Morgan, _League of the Iroquois_, p. 331.]

[Footnote 157: _Supra_, i. 290 _sqq._]

[Footnote 158: _Supra_, i. 189.]

[Footnote 159: Hahn, _Albanesische Studien_, i. 177.]

[Footnote 160: _Leviticus_, xx. 10. _Deuteronomy_, xxii. 22.]

[Footnote 161: _Codex Justinianus_, ix. 9. 29. 4.]

[Footnote 162: _Codex Theodosianus_, xi. 36. i. St. Basil, quoted by Bingham, _Works_, vi. 432 _sq._]

[Footnote 163: Du Boys, _Histoire du droit criminel des peuples modernes_, ii. 606. _Idem_, _Histoire du droit criminel de l'Espagne_, p. 391.]

[Footnote 164: Erskine-Rankine, _Principles of the Law of Scotland_, p. 563.]

[Footnote 165: Hume, _Commentaries on the Law of Scotland_, ii. 302.]