Part 38

The punishment of the seducer often varies according to his rank, or according to that of the husband, or according to the relative rank of both, or according to the rank of the adulteress. Among the Monbuttu, if the guilty woman belongs to the royal household, the adulterer is put to death, whereas otherwise he is only compelled to pay an indemnity to the offended husband.[166] Among the E[(w]e-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast the fine imposed for adultery depends on the rank of the injured husband;[167] and the same principle is found in Anglo-Saxon law.[168] Among the Bakongo, again, the penalties for adultery "vary from capital punishment to a trifling fine, according to the station of the offender or the district he lives in."[169] Drury tells us that in the country of Anterndroea in Madagascar, "if a man lies with another man's wife who is superior to him, he forfeits thirty head of cattle besides beads and shovels a great number," whereas "if the men are of an equal rank, then twenty beasts are the fine."[170] According to the Chinese Penal Code, a slave who is guilty of criminal intercourse with the wife or daughter of a freeman, shall be punished at the least one degree more {449} severely than a freeman would have been under the same circumstances.[171] In India a man of one of the first three castes who committed adultery with a Sûdra woman was banished, but a Sûdra who committed adultery with a woman of one of the first three castes suffered capital punishment;[172] and an opinion is also quoted that for a Brâhmana who once was guilty of adultery with a married woman of equal class, the penance was one-fourth of that prescribed for an outcast.[173] In ancient Peru "an adulterer was punish'd with death, if the woman was of note, or else with the rack."[174]

[Footnote 166: Casati, _Ten Years in Equatoria_, i. 163.]

[Footnote 167: Ellis, _E[(w]e-speaking Peoples_, p. 202.]

[Footnote 168: _Laws of Alfred_, ii. 10.]

[Footnote 169: Johnston, _River Congo_, p. 404.]

[Footnote 170: Drury, _Journal_, p. 183.]

[Footnote 171: _Ta Tsing Leu Lee_, sec. ccclxxiii. p. 409.]

[Footnote 172: _Âpastamba_, ii. 10. 27. 8 _sq._]

[Footnote 173: _Ibid._ ii. 10. 27. 11.]

[Footnote 174: Herrera, _op. cit._ iv. 338.]

We find no difficulty in explaining all these facts. In early civilisation a husband has often extreme rights over his wife. The seducer encroaches upon a right of which he is most jealous, and with regard to which his passions are most easily inflamed. Adultery is regarded as an illegitimate appropriation of the exclusive claims which the husband has acquired by the purchase of his wife, as an offence against property.[175] It is said in the 'Laws of Manu' that "seed must not be sown by any man on that which belongs to another."[176] How closely the seducer is associated with a thief is illustrated by the fact that among some peoples he is punished as such, having his hands, or one of them, cut off.[177] Yet even among savages the offence is something more than a mere infringement of the right of ownership. The Kurile Islanders, says Krasheninnikoff, have an extraordinary way of punishing adultery: the husband of the adulteress challenges the adulterer to a combat. The result is generally the death of both the combatants; but it is held to be "as great dishonour to refuse this combat as to refuse an invitation to a duel among the people of Europe."[178] The passion of jealousy, the feeling of ownership, and the sense of honour, {450} thus combine to make the seducer's act an offence, and often a heinous offence, in the eyes of custom or law; and for the same reasons as in other offences the magnitude of guilt is here also influenced by the rank of the parties concerned. Modern legislation, on the other hand, does not to the same extent as early law and custom allow a man to give free vent to his angry passion; it regards the dishonour of the aggrieved husband as a matter of too private a character to be publicly avenged; and the faithfulness which a wife owes her husband is no longer connected with any idea of ownership. Moreover, the severity of earlier European laws against adultery was closely connected with Christianity's abhorrence of all kinds of irregular sexual intercourse; and secular legislation has more and more freed itself from the bondage of religious doctrine.

[Footnote 175: See, _e.g._, Casalis, _Basutos_, p. 225; Burton, _Two Trips to Gorilla Land_, i. 77; Monrad, _Skildring af Guinea-Kysten_, p. 5; Letourneau, _L'évolution de la morale_, p. 154 _sq._]

[Footnote 176: _Laws of Manu_, ix. 42.]

[Footnote 177: Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_, p. 130.]

[Footnote 178: Krasheninnikoff, _History of Kamschatka_, p. 238.]

Among some savage peoples it is the seducer only who suffers, whilst the unfaithful wife escapes without punishment.[179] Jealousy, in the first place, turns against the rival, and the seducer is the dishonourer and the thief. But, as a general rule, the unfaithful wife is also looked upon as an offender, and the punishment falls on both. She is discarded, beaten, or ill-treated in some way or other, and not infrequently she is killed. Often, too, she is disfigured by her enraged husband, so that no man may fall in love with her ever after.[180] Indeed, so strong is the idea that a wife belongs exclusively to her husband, that among several peoples she has to die with him;[181] and frequently a widow is prohibited from remarrying either for ever or for a certain period after the husband's death.[182] In ancient Peru widows generally continued to live single, as "this virtue was much commended in their laws and ordinances."[183] Nor is it in China considered proper {451} for a woman to contract a second marriage after her husband's death, and a lady of rank, by doing so, exposes herself to a penalty of eighty blows.[184] "As a faithful minister does not serve two lords, neither may a faithful woman marry a second husband"--this is to the Chinese a principle of life, a maxim generally received as gospel.[185] Among so-called Aryan peoples the ancient custom which ordained sacrifice of widows survived in the prohibitions issued against their marrying a second time.[186] Even now the bare mention of a second marriage for a Hindu woman would be considered the greatest of insults, and, if she married again, "she would be hunted out of society, and no decent person would venture at any time to have the slightest intercourse with her."[187] In Greece[188] and Rome[189] a widow's remarriage was regarded as an insult to her former husband; and so it is still regarded among the Southern Slavs.[190] The early Christians, especially the Montanists and Novatians, strongly disapproved of second marriages by persons of either sex;[191] a second marriage was described by them as a "kind of fornication,"[192] or as a "specious adultery."[193] It was looked upon as a manifest sign of incontinence, and also as inconsistent with the doctrine that marriage is an emblem of the union of Christ with the Church.[194]

[Footnote 179: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 122. Macpherson, _Memorials of Service in India_, p. 133 (Kandhs). Batchelor, _Ainu of Japan_, p. 189 _sq._ Scaramucci and Giglioli, 'Notizie sui Danakil,' in _Archivio per l'antropologia e la etnologia_, xiv. 26.]

[Footnote 180: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 122.]

[Footnote 181: _Ibid._ p. 125 _sq._ _Supra_, i. 472 _sqq._]

[Footnote 182: Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_, p. 127 _sqq._]

[Footnote 183: Garcilasso de la Vega, _op. cit._ i. 305.]

[Footnote 184: Gray, _China_, i. 215.]

[Footnote 185: de Groot, _Religious System of China_, (vol. ii. book) i. 745.]

[Footnote 186: Schrader, _Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples_, p. 391.]

[Footnote 187: Dubois, _People of India_, p. 132.]

[Footnote 188: Pausanias, ii. 21. 7.]

[Footnote 189: Rossbach, _Römische Ehe_, p. 262.]

[Footnote 190: Krauss, _Sitte und Brauch der Südslaven_, p. 578. _Cf._ Ralston, _Songs of the Russian People_, p. 115 (Bulgarians).]

[Footnote 191: Mayer, _Die Rechte der Israeliten, Athener und Römer_, ii. 290. Bingham, _op. cit._ vi. 427 _sq._; viii. 13 _sq._]

[Footnote 192: Tertullian, _De exhortatione castitatis_, 9 (Migne, _Patrologiæ cursus_, ii. 924).]

[Footnote 193: Athenagoras, _Legatio pro Christianis_, 33 (Migne, _op. cit._ Ser. Graeca, vi. 967).]

[Footnote 194: Gibbon, _History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, ii. 187. Lecky, _History of European Morals_, ii. 326.]

Conjugal fidelity, whilst considered a stringent duty in the wife, is not generally considered so in the husband. This is obviously the rule among savage and barbarous tribes; but there are interesting exceptions to the rule. The Igorrotes of Luzon are so strictly monogamous that {452} in case of adultery the guilty party can be compelled to leave the hut and the family for ever,[195] and among various other monogamous savages adultery is said to be unknown.[196] The Dyak husband "preserves his vow of fidelity with a rectitude which makes jealousy a farce."[197] The Toungtha, who marry only one wife, do not consider it right for a master to take advantage of his position even with regard to the female slaves in his house.[198] Nay, the duty of fidelity in the husband has been recognised even by some savage peoples who allow polygamy. The Abipones, we are told, thought it both wicked and disgraceful to have any illicit intercourse with other women than their wives; hence adultery was almost unheard of among them.[199] Among the Omaha Indians, "if a woman's husband be guilty of adultery with another woman she may strike him or the guilty female in her anger," though she cannot claim damages.[200] In several tribes of Western Victoria a wife whose husband has been unfaithful to her "may make a complaint to the chief, who can punish the man by sending him away from his tribe for two or three moons";[201] and among some aborigines in New South Wales similar complaints may be made to the elders of the tribe, with the result that the adulterous husband may have to suffer for his conduct.[202] The Kandhs of India deny the married man certain prerogatives which are granted to his wife: whilst constancy to her husband is so far from being required in a wife, "that her pretensions do not, at least, suffer diminution in the eyes of either sex when fines are levied on her convicted lovers," infidelity in a married man is held to be highly dishonourable, and {453} is often punished with deprivation of many social privileges.[203]

[Footnote 195: Meyer, in _Verhandl. Berliner Gesellsch. f. Anthrop._ 1883, p. 385.]

[Footnote 196: Bailey, in _Trans. Ethn. Soc._ N. S. ii. 291 _sq._ Hartshorne, in _Indian Antiquary_, viii. 320 (Veddahs). Finsch, _Neu-Guinea_, p. 101; Earl, _Papuans_, p. 81 (Papuans of Dorey).]

[Footnote 197: Boyle, _Adventures among the Dyaks of Borneo_, p. 236. See also Low, _Sarawak_, p. 300 (Hill Dyaks).]

[Footnote 198: Lewin, _Wild Races of South-Eastern India_, p. 193 _sq._]

[Footnote 199: Dobrizhoffer, _Account of the Abipones_, ii. 138.]

[Footnote 200: Dorsey, 'Omaha Sociology,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ iii. 364.]

[Footnote 201: Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_, p. 33.]

[Footnote 202: Nieboer, _Slavery as an Industrial System_, p. 18.]

[Footnote 203: Macpherson, _Memorials of Service in India_, p. 133.]

The duty which savages thus in certain instances have imposed on the husband is hardly at all recognised in the archaic State. The Mexicans "did not consider, nor did they punish, as adultery the trespass of a husband with any woman who was free, or not joined in matrimony; wherefore the husband was not bound to so much fidelity as was exacted from the wife," adultery in her being inevitably punished with death.[204] In China, where adultery in a woman is branded as one of the vilest crimes and the guilty wife is oftentimes "cut into small pieces," concubinage is a recognised institution of the country.[205] In Corea "conjugal fidelity--obligatory on the woman--is not required of the husband. . . . Among the nobles, the young bridegroom spends three or four days with his bride, and then absents himself from her for a considerable time, to prove that he does not esteem her too highly. Etiquette dooms her to a species of widowhood, while he spends his hours of relaxation in the society of his concubines. To act otherwise would be considered in very bad taste, and highly unfashionable."[206] In Japan, "while the man is allowed a loose foot, the woman is expected not only to be absolutely spotless, but also never to show any jealousy, however wide the husband may roam, or however numerous may be the concubines in his family."[207] According to Hebrew law adultery was a capital offence, but it presupposed that the guilty woman was another man's wife.[208] The "Aryan" nations in early times generally saw nothing objectionable in the unfaithfulness of a married man, whereas an adulterous wife was subject to the severest penalties.[209] Until some time after the introduction of Christianity among the Teutons their {454} law-books made no mention of the infidelity of husbands, because it was permitted by custom.[210] The Romans defined adultery as sexual intercourse with another man's wife; on the other hand, the intercourse of a married man with an unmarried woman was not regarded as adultery.[211] The ordinary Greek feeling on the subject is expressed in the oration against Neæra, ascribed to Demosthenes, where the licence accorded to husbands is spoken of as a matter of course:--"We keep mistresses for our pleasures, concubines for constant attendance, and wives to bear us legitimate children and to be our faithful house-keepers."[212]

[Footnote 204: Clavigero, _History of Mexico_, i. 356.]

[Footnote 205: Doolittle, _op. cit._ i. 339. Griffis, _Religions of Japan_, p. 149.]

[Footnote 206: Griffis, _Corea_, p. 251 _sq._]

[Footnote 207: _Idem_, _Religions of Japan_, p. 320.]

[Footnote 208: _Leviticus_, xx. 10. _Deuteronomy_, xxii. 22.]

[Footnote 209: Schrader, _Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples_, p. 388.]

[Footnote 210: Wilda, _Strafrecht der Germanen_, p. 821. Nordström, _op. cit._ ii. 67 _sq._ Stemann, _Den danske Retshistorie indtil Christian V.'s Lov_, pp. 324, 633. Keyser, _Efterladte Skrifter_, vol. ii. pt. ii. 32 _sq._ Brunner, _Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte_, ii. 662.]

[Footnote 211: Vinnius, _In quatuor libros institutionum imperialium commentarius_, iv. 18. 4, p. 993. _Cf._ _Digesta_, l. 16. 101. 1; Mommsen, _Römisches Strafrecht_, p. 688 _sq._]

[Footnote 212: _Oratio in Neæram_, p. 1386. _Cf._ Schmidt, _Die Ethik der alten Griechen_, ii. 196 _sq._]

At the same time the idea that fidelity in marriage ought to be reciprocal was not altogether unknown in classical antiquity.[213] In a lost chapter of his 'Economics,' which has come to us only through a Latin translation, Aristotle points out that it for various reasons is prudent for a man to be faithful to his wife, but that nothing is so peculiarly the property of a wife as a chaste and hallowed intercourse.[214] Plutarch condemns the man who, lustful and dissolute, goes astray with a courtesan or maid-servant; though at the same time he admonishes the wife not to be vexed or impatient, considering that "it is out of respect to her that he bestows upon another all his wanton depravity."[215] Plautus argues that it is unjust of a husband to exact a fidelity which he does not keep himself.[216]

[Footnote 213: Lecky, _op. cit._ ii. 312 _sq._ Schmidt, _op. cit._ ii. 195 _sq._]

[Footnote 214: Aristotle, _[OE]conomica_, p. 341, vol. ii. 679. _Cf._ Isocrates, _Nicocles sive Cyprii_, 40.]

[Footnote 215: Plutarch, _Conjugalia præcepta_, 16.]

[Footnote 216: Plautus, _Mercator_, iv. 5.]

In its condemnation of adultery Christianity made no distinction between husband and wife.[217] If continence is a stringent duty for unmarried persons independently of {455} their sex, the observance of the sacred marriage vow must be so in a still higher degree. But here again there is a considerable discrepancy between the actual feelings of Christian peoples and the standard of their religion. Even in the laws of various European countries relating to divorce or judicial separation we find an echo of the popular notion that adultery is a smaller offence in a husband than in a wife.[218]

[Footnote 217: Laurent, _op. cit._ iv. 114. Gratian, _Decretum_, ii. 35. 5. 23.]

[Footnote 218: See _supra_, ii. 397.]

The judgment pronounced upon an unfaithful husband is of course influenced by the opinion about extra-matrimonial connections in general. Where it is considered wrong for a man to have intercourse with either an unmarried woman or another man's wife, adultery in a husband is _eo ipso_ condemned. But whether, or how far, infidelity on his part is stigmatised as an offence against his wife, chiefly depends upon the degree of regard which is paid to the feelings of women. That a married man generally enjoys more liberty than a married woman is largely due to the same causes as make him the more privileged partner in other respects; but there are also special reasons for this inequality between the sexes. It was a doctrine of the Roman jurists that adultery is a crime in the wife, and in the wife only, on account of the danger of introducing strange children to the husband.[219] Moreover, the temptation to infidelity and the facility in indulging in it are commonly greater in the case of the husband than in that of the wife; and, as we have often noticed before, actual practice is always apt to influence moral opinion. And a still more important reason for the inequality in question is undoubtedly the general notion that unchastity of any kind is more discreditable for a woman than for a man.

[Footnote 219: Hunter, _Exposition of Roman Law_, p. 1071.]

CHAPTER XLIII

HOMOSEXUAL LOVE

OUR review of the moral ideas concerning sexual relations has not yet come to an end. The gratification of the sexual instinct assumes forms which fall outside the ordinary pale of nature. Of these there is one which, on account of the _rôle_ which it has played in the moral history of mankind, cannot be passed over in silence, namely, intercourse between individuals of the same sex, what is nowadays commonly called homosexual love.

It is frequently met with among the lower animals.[1] It probably occurs, at least sporadically, among every race of mankind.[2] And among some peoples it has assumed such proportions as to form a true national habit.

[Footnote 1: Karsch, 'Päderastie und Tribadie bei den Tieren,' in _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, ii. 126 _sqq._ Havelock Ellis, _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, 'Sexual Inversion,' p. 2 _sqq._]

[Footnote 2: Ives, _Classification of Crimes_, p. 49. The statement that it is unknown among a certain people cannot reasonably mean that it may not be practised in secret.]

In America homosexual customs have been observed among a great number of the native tribes. In nearly every part of the continent there seem to have been, since ancient times, men dressing themselves in the clothes and performing the functions of women, and living with other men as their concubines or wives.[3] Moreover, between {457} young men who are comrades in arms there are _liaisons d'amitié_, which, according to Lafitau, "ne laissent aucun soupçon de vice apparent, quoiqu'il y ait, ou qu'il puisse y avoir, beaucoup de vice réel."[4]

[Footnote 3: von Spix and von Martius, _Travels in Brazil_, ii. 246; von Martius, _Von dem Rechtszustande unter den Ureinwohnern Brasiliens_, p. 27 _sq._; Lomonaco, 'Sulle razze indigene del Brasile,' in _Archivio per l'antropologia e la etnologia_, xix. 46; Burton, _Arabian Nights_, x. 246 (Brazilian Indians). Garcilasso de la Vega, _First Part of the Royal Commentaries of the Yncas_, ii. 441 _sqq._; Cieza de Leon, 'La crónica del Perú [primera parte],' ch. 49, in _Biblioteca de autores españoles_, xxvi. 403 (Peruvian Indians at the time of the Spanish conquest). Oviedo y Valdés, 'Sumario de la natural historia de las Indias,' ch. 81, in _Biblioteca de autores españoles_, xxii. 508 (Isthmians). Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_, i. 585 (Indians of New Mexico); ii. 467 _sq._ (ancient Mexicans). Diaz del Castillo, 'Conquista de Nueva-España,' ch. 208, in _Biblioteca de autores españoles_, xxvi. 309 (ancient Mexicans). Landa, _Relacion de las cosas de Yucatan_, p. 178 (ancient Yucatans). Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, 'Naufragios y relacion de la jornada que hizo a la Florida,' ch. 26, in _Biblioteca de autores españoles_, xxii. 538; Coreal, _Voyages aux Indes Occidentales_, i. 33 _sq._ (Indians of Florida). Perrin du Lac, _Voyage dans les deux Louisianes et chez les nations sauvages du Missouri_, p. 352; Bossu, _Travels through Louisiana_, i. 303. Hennepin, _Nouvelle Découverte d'un très Grand Pays Situé dans l'Amerique_, p. 219 _sq._; 'La Salle's Last Expedition and Discoveries in North America,' in _Collections of the New-York Historical Society_, ii. 237 _sq._; de Lahontan, _Mémoires de l'Amérique septentrionale_, p. 142 (Illinois). Marquette, _Recit des voyages_, p. 52 _sq._ (Illinois and Naudowessies). Wied-Neuwied, _Travels in the Interior of North America_, p. 351 (Manitaries, Mandans, &c.). McCoy, _History of Baptist Indian Missions_, p. 360 _sq._ (Osages). Heriot, _Travels through the Canadas_, p. 278; Catlin, _North American Indians_, ii. 214 _sq._ (Sioux). Dorsey, 'Omaha Sociology,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ iii. 365; James, _Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains_, i. 267 (Omahas). Loskiel, _History of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Indians_, 1.14 (Iroquois). Richardson, _Arctic Searching Expedition_, ii. 42 (Crees). Oswald, quoted by Bastian, _Der Mensch in der Geschichte_, iii. 314 (Indians of California). Holder, in _New York Medical Journal_, December 7th, 1889, quoted by Havelock Ellis, _op. cit._ p. 9 _sq._ (Indians of Washington and other tribes in the North-Western United States). See also Karsch, 'Uranismus oder Päderastie und Tribadie bei den Naturvölkern,' in _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, iii. 112 _sqq._]

[Footnote 4: Lafitau, _Moeurs des sauvages ameriquains_, i. 603, 607 _sqq._]

Homosexual practices are, or have been, very prominent among the peoples in the neighbourhood of Behring Sea.[5] In Kadiak it was the custom for parents who had a girl-like son to dress and rear him as a girl, teaching him only domestic duties, keeping him at woman's work, and letting him associate only with women and girls. Arriving at the age of ten or fifteen years, he was married to some wealthy man and was then called an _achnuchik_ or _shoopan_.[6] Dr. Bogoraz gives the following account of a {458} similar practice prevalent among the Chukchi:--"It happens frequently that, under the supernatural influence of one of their shamans, or priests, a Chukchi lad at sixteen years of age will suddenly relinquish his sex and imagine himself to be a woman. He adopts a woman's attire, lets his hair grow, and devotes himself altogether to female occupation. Furthermore, this disowner of his sex takes a husband into the _yurt_ and does all the work which is usually incumbent on the wife in most unnatural and voluntary subjection. Thus it frequently happens in a _yurt_ that the husband is a woman, while the wife is a man! These abnormal changes of sex imply the most abject immorality in the community, and appear to be strongly encouraged by the shamans, who interpret such cases as an injunction of their individual deity." The change of sex was usually accompanied by future shamanship; indeed, nearly all the shamans were former delinquents of their sex.[7] Among the Chukchi male shamans who are clothed in woman's attire and are believed to be transformed physically into women are still quite common; and traces of the change of a shaman's sex into that of a woman may be found among many other Siberian tribes.[8] In some cases at least there can be no doubt that these transformations were connected with homosexual practices. In his description of the Koriaks, Krasheninnikoff makes mention of the _ke'yev_, that is, men occupying the position of concubines; and he compares them with the Kamchadale _koe'k[vc]u[vc]_, as he calls them, that is, men transformed into women. Every _koe'k[vc]u[vc]_, he says, is regarded as a magician and interpreter of dreams; but from his confused description Mr. Jochelson thinks it may be inferred that the most important feature of the institution of the _koe'k[vc]u[vc]_ lay, not in their shamanistic power, but in their position with regard to the satisfaction of the {459} unnatural inclinations of the Kamchadales. The _koe'k[vc]u[vc]_ wore women's clothes, did women's work, and were in the position of wives or concubines.[9]

[Footnote 5: Dall, _Alaska_, p. 402; Bancroft, _op. cit._ i. 92; Waitz, _Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, iii. 314 (Aleuts), von Langsdorf, _Voyages and Travels_, ii. 48 (natives of Oonalaska). Steller, _Kamtschatka_, p. 289, n. _a_; Georgi, _Russia_, iii. 132 _sq._ (Kamchadales).]

[Footnote 6: Davydow, quoted by Holmberg, 'Ethnographische Skizzen über die Völker des russischen Amerika,' in _Acta Soc. Scientiarum Fennicæ_, iv. 400 _sq._ Lisiansky, _Voyage Round the World_, p. 199. von Langsdorf**, _op. cit._ ii. 64. Sauer, _Billing's Expedition to the Northern Parts of Russia_, p. 176. Sarytschew, 'Voyage of Discovery to the North-East of Siberia,' in _Collection of Modern and Contemporary Voyages_, vi. 16.]

[Footnote 7: Bogoraz, quoted by Demidoff, _Shooting Trip to Kamchatka_, p. 74 _sq._]

[Footnote 8: Jochelson, _Koryak Religion and Myth_, pp. 52, 53 n. 3.]

[Footnote 9: Jochelson, _op. cit._ p. 52 _sq._]

In the Malay Archipelago homosexual love is common,[10] though not in all of the islands.[11] It is widely spread among the Bataks of Sumatra.[12] In Bali it is practised openly, and there are persons who make it a profession.[13] The _basir_ of the Dyaks are men who make their living by witchcraft and debauchery. They "are dressed as women, they are made use of at idolatrous feasts and for sodomitic abominations, and many of them are formally married to other men."[14] Dr. Haddon says that he never heard of any unnatural offences in Torres Straits;[15] but in the Rigo district of British New Guinea several instances of pederasty have been met with,[16] and at Mowat in Daudai it is regularly indulged in.[17] Homosexual love is reported as common among the Marshall Islanders[18] and in Hawaii.[19] From Tahiti we hear of a set of men called by the natives _mahoos_, who "assume the dress, attitude, and manners, of women, and affect all the fantastic oddities and coquetries of the vainest of females. They mostly associate with the women, who court their acquaintance. With the manners of the women, they adopt their peculiar employments. . . . The encouragement of this abomination is almost solely {460} confined to the chiefs."[20] Of the New Caledonians M. Foley writes:--"La plus grande fraternité n'est pas chez eux la fraternité uterine, mais la fraternité des armes. Il en est ainsi surtout au village de Poepo. Il est vrai que cette fraternité des armes est compliquée de pédérastie."[21]

[Footnote 10: 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_, xxxiii. (ser. v. vol. iv.) p. 457 _sqq._]

[Footnote 11: Crawfurd, _History of the Indian Archipelago_, iii. 139. Marsden, _History of Sumatra_, p. 261.]

[Footnote 12: Junghuhn, _Die Battaländer auf Sumatra_, ii. 157, n.*]

[Footnote 13: Jacobs, _Eenigen tijd onder de Baliërs_, pp. 14, 134 _sq._]

[Footnote 14: Hardeland, _Dajacksch-deutsches Wörterbuch_, p. 53 _sq._ Schwaner, _Borneo_, i. 186. Perelaer, _Ethnographische beschrijving der Dajaks_, p. 32.]

[Footnote 15: Haddon, 'Ethnography of the Western Tribe of Torres Straits,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xix. 315.]

[Footnote 16: Seligmann, 'Sexual Inversion among Primitive Races,' in _The Alienist and Neurologist_, xxiii. 3 _sqq._]

[Footnote 17: Beardmore, 'Natives of Mowat, Daudai, New Guinea,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xix. 464. Haddon, _ibid._ xix. 315.]

[Footnote 18: Hernsheim, _Beitrag zur Sprache der Marshall-Inseln_, p. 40. A different opinion is expressed by Senfft, in Steinmetz, _Rechtsverhältnisse von eingeborenen Völkern in Afrika und Ozeanien_, p. 437.]

[Footnote 19: Remy, _Ka Mooolelo Hawaii_, p. xliii.]

[Footnote 20: Turnbull, _Voyage Round the World_, p. 382. See also Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific_, pp. 333, 361; Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 246, 258.]

[Footnote 21: Foley, 'Sur les habitations et les m[oe]urs des Néo-Calédoniens,' in _Bull. Soc. d'Anthrop. Paris_, ser. iii. vol. ii. 606. See also de Rochas, _Nouvelle Calédonie_, p. 235.]

Among the natives of the Kimberley District in West Australia, if a young man on reaching a marriageable age can find no wife, he is presented with a boy-wife, known as _chookadoo_. In this case, also, the ordinary exogamic rules are observed, and the "husband" has to avoid his "mother-in-law," just as if he were married to a woman. The _chookadoo_ is a boy of five years to about ten, when he is initiated. "The relations which exist between him and his protecting _billalu_" says Mr. Hardman, "are somewhat doubtful. There is no doubt they have connection, but the natives repudiate with horror and disgust the idea of sodomy."[22] Such marriages are evidently exceedingly common. As the women are generally monopolised by the older and more influential men of the tribe, it is rare to find a man under thirty or forty who has a wife; hence it is the rule that, when a boy becomes five years old, he is given as a boy-wife to one of the young men.[23] According to Mr. Purcell's description of the natives of the same district, "every useless member of the tribe" gets a boy, about five or seven years old; and these boys, who are called _mullawongahs_, are used for sexual purposes.[24] Among the Chingalee of South Australia, Northern Territory, old men are often noticed with no wives but accompanied by one or two boys, whom they jealously guard and with whom they have sodomitic intercourse.[25] {461} That homosexual practices are not unknown among other Australian tribes may be inferred from Mr. Hewitt's statement relating to South-Eastern natives, that unnatural offences are forbidden to the novices by the old men and guardians after leaving the initiation camp.[26]

[Footnote 22: Hardman, 'Notes on some Habits and Customs of the Natives of the Kimberley District,' in _Proceed. Roy. Irish Academy_, ser. iii. vol. i. 74.]

[Footnote 23: _Ibid._ pp. 71, 73.]

[Footnote 24: Purcell, 'Rites and Customs of Australian Aborigines,' in _Verhandl. Berliner Gesellsch. Anthrop._ 1893, p. 287.]

[Footnote 25: Ravenscroft, 'Some Habits and Customs of the Chingalee Tribe,' in _Trans. Roy. Soc. South Australia_, xv. 122. I am indebted to Mr. N. W. Thomas for drawing my attention to these statements.]

[Footnote 26: Howitt, 'Some Australian Ceremonies of Initiation,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xiii. 450.]

In Madagascar there are certain boys who live like women and have intercourse with men, paying those men who please them.[27] In an old account of that island, dating from the seventeenth century, it is said: "II y a . . . quelques hommes qu'ils appellent Tsecats, qui sont hommes effeminez et impuissans, qui recherchent les garçons, et font mine d'en estre amoureux, en contrefaisans les filles et se vestans ainsi qu'elles leurs font des presents pour dormir auec eux, et mesmes se donnent des noms de filles, en faisant les honteuses et les modestes. . . . Ils haïssent les femmes et ne les veulent point hanter."[28] Men behaving like women have also been observed among the Ondonga in German South-West Africa[29] and the Diakité-Sarracolese in the French Soudan,[30] but as regards their sexual habits details are wanting. Homosexual practices are common among the Banaka and Bapuku in the Cameroons.[31] But among the natives of Africa generally such practices seem to be comparatively rare,[32] except among Arabic-speaking {462} peoples and in countries like Zanzibar,[33] where there has been a strong Arab influence. In North Africa they are not restricted to the inhabitants of towns; they are frequent among the peasants of Egypt[34] and universal among the Jbâla inhabiting the Northern mountains of Morocco. On the other hand, they are much less common or even rare among the Berbers and the nomadic Bedouins,[35] and it is reported that the Bedouins of Arabia are quite exempt from them.[36]

[Footnote 27: Lasnet, in _Annales d'hygiène et de médecine coloniales_, 1899, p. 494, quoted by Havelock Ellis, _op. cit._ p. 10. _Cf._ Rencurel, in _Annales d'hygiène_, 1900, p. 562, quoted _ibid._ p. 11 _sq._ See also Leguével de Lacombe, _Voyage à Madagascar_, i. 97 _sq._ Pederasty prevails to some extent in the island of Nossi-Bé, close to Madagascar, and is very common at Ankisimane, opposite to it, on Jassandava Bay (Walter, in Steinmetz, _Rechtsverhältnisse_, p. 376).]

[Footnote 28: de Flacourt, _Histoire de la grande isle Madagascar_, p. 86.]

[Footnote 29: Rautanen, in Steinmetz, _Rechtsverhältnisse_, p. 333.]

[Footnote 30: Nicole, _ibid._ p. 111.]

[Footnote 31: _Ibid._ p. 38.]

[Footnote 32: Munzinger, _Ostafrikanische Studien_, p. 525 (Barea and Kunáma). Baumann, 'Conträre Sexual-Erscheinungen bei der Neger-Bevölkerung Zanzibars,' in _Verhandl. der Berliner Gesellsch. für Anthropologie_, 1899, p. 668. Felkin, 'Notes on the Waganda Tribe of Central Africa,' in _Proceed. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh_, xiii. 723. Johnston, _British Central Africa_, p. 404 (Bakongo). Monrad, _Skildring af Guinea-Kysten_, p. 57 (Negroes of Accra). Torday and Joyce, 'Ethnography of the Ba-Mbala,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxxv. 410. Nicole, in Steinmetz, _Rechtsverhältnisse_, p. 111 (Muhammedan Negroes). Tellier, _ibid._ p. 159 (Kreis Kita in the French Soudan). Beverley, _ibid._ p. 210 (Wagogo). Kraft, _ibid._ p. 288 (Wapokomo).]

[Footnote 33: Baumann, in _Verhandl. Berliner Gesellsch. Anthrop._ 1899, p. 668 _sq._]

[Footnote 34: Burckhardt, _Travels in Nubia_, p. 135.]

[Footnote 35: d'Escayrac de Lauture, _Afrikanische Wüste_, p. 93.]

[Footnote 36: Burckhardt, _Travels in Arabia_, i. 364. See also von Kremer, _Culturgeschichte des Orients_, ii. 269.]

Homosexual love is spread over Asia Minor and Mesopotamia.[37] It is very prevalent among the Tartars and Karatchai of the Caucasus,[38] the Persians,[39] Sikhs,[40] and Afghans; in Kaubul a bazaar or street is set apart for it.[41] Old travellers make reference to its enormous frequency among the Muhammedans of India,[42] and in this respect time seems to have produced no change.[43] In China, where it is also extremely common, there are special houses devoted to male prostitution, and boys are sold by their parents about the age of four, to be trained for this occupation.[44] In Japan pederasty is said by some to have prevailed from the most ancient times, whereas others are of opinion that it was introduced by Buddhism about the sixth century of our era. The monks used to live with handsome youths, to whom they were often passionately devoted; and in feudal times nearly every knight had as {463} his favourite a young man with whom he entertained relations of the most intimate kind, and on behalf of whom he was always ready to fight a duel when occasion occurred. Tea-houses with male _gheishas_ were found in Japan till the middle of the nineteenth century. Nowadays pederasty seems to be more prevalent in the Southern than in the Northern provinces of the country, but there are also districts where it is hardly known.[45]

[Footnote 37: Burton, _Arabian Nights_, x. 232.]

[Footnote 38: Kovalewsky, _Coutume contemporaine_, p. 340.]

[Footnote 39: Polak, 'Die Prostitution in Persien,' in _Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift_, xi. 627 _sqq._ _Idem_, _Persien_, i. 237. Burton, _Arabian Nights_, x. 233 _sq._ Wilson, _Persian Life and Customs_, p. 229.]

[Footnote 40: Malcolm, _Sketch of the Sikhs_, p. 140. Havelock Ellis, _op. cit._ p. 5, n. 2. Burton, _Arabian Nights_, x. 236.]

[Footnote 41: Wilson, _Abode of Snow_, p. 420. Burton, _Arabian Nights_, x. 236.]

[Footnote 42: Stavorinus, _Voyages to the East-Indies_, i. 456. Fryer, _New Account of East-India_, p. 97. Chevers, _Manual of Medical Jurisprudence for India_, p. 705.]

[Footnote 43: Chevers, _op. cit._ p. 708.]

[Footnote 44: _Indo-Chinese Gleaner_, iii. 193. Wells Williams, _The Middle Kingdom_, i. 836. Matignon, 'Deux mots sur la pédérastie en Chine,' in _Archives d'anthropologie criminelle_, xiv. 38 _sqq._ Karsch, _Das gleichgeschlechtliche Leben der Ostasiaten_, p. 6 _sqq._]

[Footnote 45: Jwaya, 'Nan sho k,' in _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, iv. 266, 268, 270. Karsch, _op. cit._ p. 71 _sqq._]

No reference is made to pederasty either in the Homeric poems or by Hesiod, but later on we meet with it almost as a national institution in Greece. It was known in Rome and other parts of Italy at an early period;[46] but here also it became much more frequent in the course of time. At the close of the sixth century, Polybius tells us, many Romans paid a talent for the possession of a beautiful youth.[47] During the Empire "il était d'usage, dans les families patriciennes, de donner au jeune homme pubère un esclave du même âge comme compagnon de lit, afin qu'il pût satisfaire . . . 'ses premiers élans' génésiques";[48] and formal marriages between men were introduced with all the solemnities of ordinary nuptials.[49] Homosexual practices occurred among the Celts,[50] and were by no means unknown to the ancient Scandinavians, who had a whole nomenclature on the subject.[51]

[Footnote 46: Dionysius of Halicarnassus, _Antiquitates Romanæ_, vii. 2. Athenæus, _Deipnosophistæ_, xii. 14, p. 518 (Etruscans). Rein, _Criminalrecht der Römer_, p. 863.]

[Footnote 47: Polybius, _Historiæ_, xxxii. 11. 5.]

[Footnote 48: Buret, _La syphilis aujourd'hui et chez les anciens_, p. 197 _sqq._ Catullus, _Carmina_, lxi. ('In Nuptias Juliæ et Manlii'), 128 _sqq._ _Cf._ Martial, _Epigrammata_, viii. 44. 16 _sq._]

[Footnote 49: Juvenal, _Satiræ_, ii. 117 _sqq._ Martial, _op. cit._ xii. 42.]

[Footnote 50: Diodorus Siculus, _Bibliotheca historica_, v. 32. 7. Aristotle, _Politica_, ii. 9, p. 1269 b.]

[Footnote 51: 'Spuren von Konträrsexualität bei den alten Skandinaviern,' in _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, iv. 244 _sqq._]

Of late years a voluminous and constantly increasing literature on homosexuality[52] has revealed its frequency in modern Europe. No country and no class of society is free from it. In certain parts of Albania it even exists as a popular custom, the young men from the age of sixteen {464} upwards regularly having boy favourites of between twelve and seventeen.[53]

[Footnote 52: See _infra_, Additional Notes.]

[Footnote 53: Hahn, _Albanesische Studien_, i. 168.]

The above statements chiefly refer to homosexual practices between men, but similar practices also occur between women.[54] Among the American aborigines there are not only men who behave like women, but women who behave like men. Thus in certain Brazilian tribes women are found who abstain from every womanly occupation and imitate the men in everything, who wear their hair in a masculine fashion, who go to war with a bow and arrows, who hunt together with the men, and who would rather allow themselves to be killed than have sexual intercourse with a man. "Each of these women has a woman who serves her and with whom she says she is married; they live together as husband and wife."[55] So also there are among the Eastern Eskimo some women who refuse to accept husbands, preferring to adopt masculine manners, following the deer on the mountains, trapping and fishing for themselves.[56] Homosexual practices are said to be common among Hottentot[57] and Herero[58] women. In Zanzibar there are women who wear men's clothes in private, show a preference for masculine occupations, and seek sexual satisfaction among women who have the same inclination, or else among normal women who are won over by presents or other means.[59] In Egyptian harems every woman is said to have a "friend."[60] In Bali homosexuality is almost as common among women as among men, though it is exercised more secretly;[61] and the same seems to be the case in India.[62] From Greek antiquity we {465} hear of "Lesbian" love. The fact that homosexuality has been much more frequently noticed in men than in women does not imply that the latter are less addicted to it. For various reasons the sexual abnormalities of women have attracted much less attention,[63] and moral opinion has generally taken little notice of them.

[Footnote 54: Karsch, in _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, iii. 85 _sqq._ Ploss-Bartels, _Das Weib_, i. 517 _sqq._ von Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopathia sexualis_, p. 278 _sqq._ Moll, _Die Conträre Sexualempfindung_, p. 247 _sqq._ Havelock Ellis, _op. cit._ p. 118 _sqq._]

[Footnote 55: Magalhanes de Gandavo, _Histoire de la Province de Sancta-Cruz_, p. 116 _sq._]

[Footnote 56: Dall, _op. cit._ p. 139.]

[Footnote 57: Fritsch, quoted by Karsch, in _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, iii. 87 _sq._]

[Footnote 58: Fritsch, _Die Eingeborenen Süd-Afrika's_, p. 227. _Cf._ Schinz, _Deutsch-Südwest-Afrika_, pp. 173, 177.]

[Footnote 59: Baumann, in _Verhandl. Berliner Gesellsch. Anthrop._ 1899, p. 668 _sq._]

[Footnote 60: Havelock Ellis, _op. cit._ p. 123.]

[Footnote 61: Jacobs, _Eenigen tijd onder de Baliërs_, p. 134 _sq._]

[Footnote 62: Havelock Ellis, _op. cit._ p. 124 _sq._]

[Footnote 63: See _ibid._ p. 121 _sq._]

Homosexual practices are due sometimes to instinctive preference, sometimes to external conditions unfavourable to normal intercourse.[64] A frequent cause is congenital sexual inversion, that is, "sexual instinct turned by inborn constitutional abnormality toward persons of the same sex."[65] It seems likely that the feminine men and the masculine women referred to above are, at least in many instances, sexual inverts; though, in the case of shamans, the change of sex may also result from the belief that such transformed shamans, like their female colleagues, are particularly powerful.[66] Dr. Holder affirms the existence of congenital inversion among the North-Western tribes of the United States,[67] Dr. Baumann among the people of Zanzibar;[68] and in Morocco, also, I believe it is common enough. But as regards its prevalence among non-European peoples we have mostly to resort to mere conjectures; our real knowledge of congenital inversion is derived from the voluntary confessions of inverts. The large majority of travellers are totally ignorant of the psychological side of the subject, and even to an expert it must very often be impossible to decide whether a certain case of inversion is congenital or acquired. Indeed, acquired inversion itself presupposes an innate disposition which under certain circumstances develops into actual inversion.[69] Even between inversion and normal sexuality {466} there seem to be all shades of variation. Professor James thinks that inversion is "a kind of sexual appetite, of which very likely most men possess the germinal possibility."[70] This is certainly the case in early puberty.[71]

[Footnote 64: Another reason for such practices is given by Mr. Beardmore (in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xix. 464), with reference to the Papuans of Mowat. He says that they indulge in sodomy because too great increase of population is undesired amongst the younger portion of the married people. _Cf._ _infra_, p. 484 _sqq._]

[Footnote 65: Havelock Ellis, _op. cit._ p. 1.]

[Footnote 66: Jochelson, _op. cit._ p. 52 _sq._]

[Footnote 67: Holder, quoted by Havelock Ellis, _op. cit._ p. 9 _sq._]

[Footnote 68: Baumann, in _Verhandl. Berliner Gesellsch. Anthrop._ 1899, p. 668 _sq._]

[Footnote 69: Féré, _L'instinct sexuel_, quoted by Havelock Ellis, _op. cit._ p. 41.]

[Footnote 70: James, _Principles of Psychology_, ii. 439. See also Ives, _op. cit._ p. 56 _sqq._]

[Footnote 71: Dr. Dessoir ('Zur Psychologie der Vita sexualis,' in _Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie_, l. 942) even goes so far as to conclude that "an undifferentiated sexual feeling is normal, on the average, during the first years of puberty." But this is certainly an exaggeration (_cf._ Havelock Ellis, _op. cit._ p. 47 _sq._).]

A very important cause of homosexual practices is absence of the other sex. There are many instances of this among the lower animals.[72] Buffon long ago observed that, if male or female birds of various species were shut up together, they would soon begin to have sexual relations among themselves, the males sooner than the females.[73] The West Australian boy-marriage is a substitute for ordinary marriage in cases when women are not obtainable. Among the Bororó of Brazil homosexual intercourse is said to occur in their men-houses only when the scarcity of accessible girls is unusually great.[74] Its prevalence in Tahiti may perhaps be connected with the fact that there was only one woman to four or five men, owing to the habit of female infanticide.[75] Among the Chinese in certain regions, for instance Java, the lack of accessible women is the principal cause of homosexual practices.[76] According to some writers such practices are the results of polygamy.[77] In Muhammedan countries they are no doubt largely due to the seclusion of women, preventing free intercourse between the sexes and compelling the unmarried people to associate almost exclusively with members of their own sex. Among the mountaineers of Northern Morocco the excessive indulgence in pederasty thus goes hand in hand with great isolation of the women {467} and a very high standard of female chastity, whereas among the Arabs of the plains, who are little addicted to boy-love, the unmarried girls enjoy considerable freedom. Both in Asia[78] and Europe[79] the obligatory celibacy of the monks and priests has been a cause of homosexual practices, though it must not be forgotten that a profession which imposes abstinence from marriage is likely to attract a comparatively large number of congenital inverts. The temporary separation of the sexes involved in a military mode of life no doubt accounts for the extreme prevalence of homosexual love among warlike races,[80] like the Sikhs, Afghans, Dorians, and Normans.[81] In Persia[82] and Morocco it is particularly common among soldiers. In Japan it was an incident of knighthood, in New Caledonia and North America of brotherhood in arms. At least in some of the North American tribes men who were dressed as women accompanied the other men as servants in war and the chase.[83] Among the Banaka and Bapuku in the Cameroons pederasty is practised especially by men who are long absent from their wives.[84] In Morocco I have heard it advocated on account of the convenience it affords to persons who are travelling.

[Footnote 72: Karsch, in _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, ii. 126 _sqq._ Havelock Ellis, _op. cit._ p. 2 _sq._]

[Footnote 73: Havelock Ellis, _op. cit._ p. 2.]

[Footnote 74: von den Steinen, _Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens_, p. 502.]

[Footnote 75: Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 257 _sq._]

[Footnote 76: Matignon, in _Archives d'anthropologie criminelle_, xiv. 42. Karsch, _op. cit._ p. 32 _sqq._]

[Footnote 77: Waitz, _Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, iii. 113. Bastian, _Der Mensch in der Geschichte_, iii. 305 (Dahomans).]

[Footnote 78: _Supra_, ii. 462. Karsch. _op. cit._ pp. 7. (China), 76 _sqq._ (Japan), 132 (Corea).]

[Footnote 79: See Voltaire, _Dictionnaire philosophique_, 'Amour Socratique' (_[OE]uvres_, vii. 82); Buret, _Syphilis in the Middle Ages and in Modern Times_, p. 88 _sq._]

[Footnote 80: _Cf._ Havelock Ellis, _op. cit._ p. 5.]

[Footnote 81: Freeman, _Reign of William Rufus_, i. 159.]

[Footnote 82: Polak, in _Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift_, xi. 628.]

[Footnote 83: Marquette, _op. cit._ p. 53 (Illinois). Perrin du Lac, _Voyage dans les deux Louisianes et chez les nations sauvages du Missouri_, p. 352. _Cf._ Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, _loc. cit._ p. 538 (concerning the Indians of Florida):--" . . . tiran arco y llevan muy gran carga."]

[Footnote 84: Steinmetz, _Rechtsverhältnisse_, p. 38.]

Dr. Havelock Ellis justly observes that when homosexual attraction is due simply to the absence of the other sex we are not concerned with sexual inversion, but merely with the accidental turning of the sexual instinct into an abnormal channel, the instinct being called out by an approximate substitute, or even by diffused emotional excitement, in the absence of the normal object.[85] But it seems to me probable that in such cases the homosexual {468} attraction in the course of time quite easily develops into genuine inversion. I cannot but think that our chief authorities on homosexuality have underestimated the modifying influence which habit may exercise on the sexual instinct. Professor Krafft-Ebing[86] and Dr. Moll[87] deny the existence of acquired inversion except in occasional instances; and Dr. Havelock Ellis takes a similar view, if putting aside those cases of a more or less morbid character in which old men with failing sexual powers, or younger men exhausted by heterosexual debauchery, are attracted to members of their own sex.[88] But how is it that in some parts of Morocco such a very large proportion of the men are distinctly sexual inverts, in the sense in which this word is used by Dr. Havelock Ellis,[89] that is, persons who for the gratification of their sexual desire prefer their own sex to the opposite one? It may be that in Morocco and in Oriental countries generally, where almost every individual marries, congenital inversion, through the influence of heredity, is more frequent than in Europe, where inverts so commonly abstain from marrying. But that this could not be an adequate explanation of the fact in question becomes at once apparent when we consider the extremely unequal distribution of inverts among different neighbouring tribes of the same stock, some of which are very little or hardly at all addicted to pederasty. I take the case to be, that homosexual practices in early youth have had a lasting effect on the sexual instinct, which at its first appearance, being somewhat indefinite, is easily turned into a homosexual direction.[90] In Morocco inversion is most prevalent among the scribes, who from childhood have lived in very close association with their fellow-students. Of course, influences of this kind "require a favourable organic predisposition to act on";[91] but this predisposition is probably no abnormality at all, only a {469} feature in the ordinary sexual constitution of man.[92] It should be noticed that the most common form of inversion, at least in Muhammedan countries, is love of boys or youths not yet in the age of puberty, that is, of male individuals who are physically very like girls. Voltaire observes:--"Souvent un jeune garçon, par la fraîcheur de son teint, par l'éclat de ses couleurs, et par la douceur de ses yeux, ressemble pendant deux ou trois ans à une belle fille; si on l'aime, c'est parce que la nature se méprend."[93] Moreover, in normal cases sexual attraction depends not only on sex, but on a youthful appearance as well; and there are persons so constituted that to them the latter factor is of chief importance, whilst the question of sex is almost a matter of indifference.

[Footnote 85: Havelock Ellis, _op. cit._ p. 3.]

[Footnote 86: Krafft-Ebing, _op. cit._ p. 211 _sq._]

[Footnote 87: Moll, _op. cit._ p. 157 _sqq._]

[Footnote 88: Havelock Ellis, _op. cit._ p. 50 _sq._ _Cf._ _ibid._ p. 181 _sqq._]

[Footnote 89: _Ibid._ p. 3.]

[Footnote 90: _Cf._ Norman, 'Sexual Perversion,' in Tuke's _Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_, ii. 1156.]

[Footnote 91: Havelock Ellis, _op. cit._ p. 191.]

[Footnote 92: Dr. Havelock Ellis also admits (_op. cit._ p. 190) that, if in early life the sexual instincts are less definitely determined than when adolescence is complete, "it is conceivable, though unproved, that a very strong impression, acting even on a normal organism, may cause arrest of sexual development on the psychic side. It is a question," he adds, "I am not in a position to settle."]

[Footnote 93: Voltaire, _Dictionnaire Philosophique_, art. 'Amour Socratique,' (_[OE]uvres_, vii. 81). _Cf._ Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, x. 84 _sq._]

In ancient Greece, also, not only homosexual intercourse but actual inversion, seems to have been very common; and although this, like every form of love, must have contained a congenital element, there can be little doubt, I think, that it was largely due to external circumstances of a social character. It may, in the first place, be traced to the methods of training the youth. In Sparta it seems to have been the practice for every youth of good character to have his lover, or "inspirator,"[94] and for every well-educated man to be the lover of some youth.[95] The relations between the "inspirator" and the "listener" were extremely intimate: at home the youth was constantly under the eyes of his lover, who was supposed to be to him a model and pattern of life;[96] in battle they stood near one another and their fidelity and affection were often shown till death;[97] if his relatives were absent, the youth {470} might be represented in the public assembly by his lover;[98] and for many faults, particularly want of ambition, the lover could be punished instead of the "listener."[99] This ancient custom prevailed with still greater force in Crete, which island was hence by many persons considered to be the place of its birth.[100] Whatever may have been the case originally, there can be no doubt that in later times the relations between the youth and his lover implied unchaste intercourse.[101] And in other Greek states the education of the youth was accompanied by similar consequences. At an early age the boy was taken away from his mother, and spent thenceforth all his time in the company of men, until he reached the age when marriage became for him a civic duty.[102] According to Plato, the gymnasia and common meals among the youth "seem always to have had a tendency to degrade the ancient and natural custom of love below the level, not only of man, but of the beasts."[103] Plato also mentions the effect which these habits had on the sexual instincts of the men: when they reached manhood they were lovers of youths and not naturally inclined to marry or beget children, but, if at all, they did so only in obedience to the law.[104] Is not this, in all probability, an instance of acquired inversion? But besides the influence of education there was another factor which, co-operating with it, favoured the development of homosexual tendencies, namely, the great gulf which mentally separated the sexes. Nowhere else has the difference in culture between men and women been so immense as in the fully developed Greek civilisation. The lot of a wife in Greece was retirement and ignorance. She lived in almost absolute seclusion, in a separate part of the house, together with her female slaves, deprived of all the educating influence of male society, and having no place at those public spectacles {471} which were the chief means of culture.[105] In such circumstances it is not difficult to understand that men so highly intellectual as those of Athens regarded the love of women as the offspring of the common Aphrodite, who "is of the body rather than of the soul."[106] They had reached a stage of mental culture at which the sexual instinct normally has a craving for refinement, at which the gratification of mere physical lust appears brutal. In the eyes of the most refined among them those who were inspired by the heavenly Aphrodite loved neither women nor boys, but intelligent beings whose reason was beginning to be developed, much about the time at which their beards began to grow.[107] In present China we meet with a parallel case. Dr. Matignon observes:--"Il y a tout lieu de supposer que certains Chinois, raffinés au point de vue intellectuel, recherchent dans la pédérastie la satisfaction des sens et de l'esprit. La femme chinoise est peu cultivée, ignorante même, quelle que soit sa condition, honnête femme ou prostituée. Or le Chinois a souvent l'âme poétique: il aime les vers, la musique, les belles sentences des philosophes, autant de choses qu'il ne peut trouver chez le beau sexe de l'Empire du Milieu."[108] So also it seems that the ignorance and dullness of Muhammedan women, which is a result of their total lack of education and their secluded life, is a cause of homosexual practices; Moors are sometimes heard to defend pederasty on the plea that the company of boys, who have always news to tell, is so much more entertaining than the company of women.

[Footnote 94: Servius, _In Vergilii Æneidos_, x. 325. For the whole subject of pederasty among the Dorians see Mueller, _History and Antiquities of the Doric Race_, ii. 307 _sq._]

[Footnote 95: Aelian, _Varia historia_, iii. 10.]

[Footnote 96: Mueller, _op. cit._ ii. 308.]

[Footnote 97: Xenophon, _Historia Græca_, iv. 8. 39.]

[Footnote 98: Plutarch, _Lycurgus_, xxv. 1.]

[Footnote 99: _Ibid._ xviii. 8. Aelian, _op. cit._ iii. 10.]

[Footnote 100: Aelian, _op. cit._ iii. 9. Athenaeus, _Deipnosophistæ_, xiii. 77, p. 601.]

[Footnote 101: _Cf._ Symonds, 'Die Homosexualität in Griechenland,' in Havelock Ellis and Symonds, _Das konträre Geschlechtsgefühl_, p. 55.]

[Footnote 102: _Ibid._ p. 116. Döllinger, _The Gentile and the Jew_, ii. 244.]

[Footnote 103: Plato, _Leges_, i. 636. _Cf._ Plutarch, _Amatorius_, v. 9.]

[Footnote 104: Plato, _Symposium_, p. 192.]

[Footnote 105: 'State of Female Society in Greece,' in _Quarterly Review_, xxii. 172 _sqq._ Lecky, _History of European Morals_, ii. 287. Döllinger, _op. cit._ ii. 234.]

[Footnote 106: Plato, _Symposium_, p. 181. That the low state of the Greek women was instrumental to pederasty has been pointed out by Döllinger (_op. cit._ ii. 244) and Symonds (_loc. cit._ pp. 77, 100, 101, 116 _sqq._).]

[Footnote 107: Plato, _Symposium_, p. 181.]

[Footnote 108: Matignon, in _Archives d'anthropologie criminelle_, xiv. 41.]

We have hitherto dealt with homosexual love as a fact; we shall now pass to the moral valuation to which it is subject. Where it occurs as a national habit we may assume that no censure, or no severe censure, is passed on it. Among the Bataks of Sumatra there is no punishment {472} for it.[109] Of the _bazirs_ among the Ngajus of Pula Patak, in Borneo, Dr. Schwaner says that "in spite of their loathsome calling they escape well-merited contempt."[110] The Society Islanders had for their homosexual practices "not only the sanction of their priests, but the direct example of their respective deities."[111] The _tsekats_ of Madagascar maintained that they were serving the deity by leading a feminine life;[112] but we are told that at Ankisimane and in Nossi-Bé, opposite to it, pederasts are objects of public contempt.[113] Father Veniaminof says of the Atkha Aleuts that "sodomy and too early cohabitation with a betrothed or intended wife are called among them grave sins";[114] but apart from the fact that his account of these natives in general gives the impression of being somewhat eulogistic, the details stated by him only show that the acts in question were considered to require a simple ceremony of purification.[115] There is no indication that the North American aborigines attached any opprobrium to men who had intercourse with those members of their own sex who had assumed the dress and habits of women. In Kadiak such a companion was on the contrary regarded as a great acquisition; and the effeminate men themselves, far from being despised, were held in repute by the people, most of them being wizards.[116] We have previously noticed the connection between homosexual practices and shamanism among various Siberian peoples; and it is said that such shamans as had changed their sex were greatly feared by the people, being regarded as very powerful.[117] Among the Illinois and Naudowessies the {473} effeminate men assist in all the juggleries and the solemn dance in honour of the _calumet_, or sacred tobacco pipe, for which the Indians have such a deference that one may call it "the god of peace and war, and the arbiter of life and death"; but they are not permitted either to dance or sing. They are called into the councils of the Indians, and nothing can be decided upon without their advice; for because of their extraordinary manner of living they are looked upon as _manitous_, or supernatural beings, and persons of consequence.[118] The Sioux, Sacs, and Fox Indians give once a year, or oftener if they choose, a feast to the _Berdashe_, or _I-coo-coo-a_, who is a man dressed in woman's clothes, as he has been all his life. "For extraordinary privileges which he is known to possess, he is driven to the most servile and degrading duties, which he is not allowed to escape; and he being the only one of the tribe submitting to this disgraceful degradation, is looked upon as 'medicine' and sacred, and a feast is given to him annually; and initiatory to it, a dance by those few young men of the tribe who can . . . . dance forward and publicly make their boast (without the denial of the Berdashe) . . . . Such, and such only, are allowed to enter the dance and partake of the feast."[119] Among some American tribes, however, these effeminate men are said to be despised, especially by the women.[120] In ancient Peru, also, homosexual practices seem to have entered in the religious cult. In some particular places, says Cieza de Leon, boys were kept as priests in the temples, with whom it was rumoured that the lords joined in company on days of festivity. They did not meditate, he adds, the committing of such sin, but only the offering of sacrifice to the demon. If the Incas by chance had some knowledge of such proceedings in the temple, they might have {474} ignored them out of religious tolerance.[121] But the Incas themselves were not only free from such practices in their own persons, they would not even permit any one who was guilty of them to remain in the royal houses or palaces. And Cieza heard it related that, if it came to their knowledge that somebody had committed an offence of that kind, they punished it with such a severity that it was known to all.[122] Las Casas tells us that in several of the more remote provinces of Mexico sodomy was tolerated, if not actually permitted, because the people believed that their gods were addicted to it; and it is not improbable that in earlier times the same was the case in the entire empire.[123] But in a later age severe measures were adopted by legislators in order to suppress the practice. In Mexico people found guilty of it were killed.[124] In Nicaragua it was punished capitally by stoning,[125] and none of the Maya nations was without strict laws against it.[126] Among the Chibchas of Bogota the punishment for it was the infliction of a painful death.[127] However, it should be remembered that the ancient culture nations of America were generally extravagant in their punishments, and that their penal codes in the first place expressed rather the will of their rulers than the feelings of the people at large.[128]

[Footnote 109: Junghuhn, _op. cit._ ii. 157, n.]

[Footnote 110: Schwaner, _op. cit._ i. 186.]

[Footnote 111: Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 258. _Cf._ Moerenhout, _Voyages aux îles du Grand Océan_, ii. 167 _sq._]

[Footnote 112: de Flacourt, _op. cit._ p. 86.]

[Footnote 113: Walter, in Steinmetz, _Rechtsverhältnisse_, p. 376.]

[Footnote 114: Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, _Report on Alaska_, p. 158.]

[Footnote 115: _Ibid._ p. 158:--"The offender desirous of unburdening himself selected a time when the sun was clear and unobscured; he picked up certain weeds and carried them about his person; then deposited them and threw his sin upon them, calling the sun as a witness, and, when he had eased his heart of all that had weighed upon it, he threw the grass or weeds into the fire, and after that considered himself cleansed of his sin."]

[Footnote 116: Davydow, quoted by Holmberg, _loc. cit._ p. 400 _sq._ Lisianski, _op. cit._ p. 199.]

[Footnote 117: Bogoraz, quoted by Demidoff, _op. cit._ p. 75. Jochelson, _op. cit._ p. 52 _sq._]

[Footnote 118: Marquette, _op. cit._ p. 53 _sq._]

[Footnote 119: Catlin, _North American Indians_, ii. 214 _sq._]

[Footnote 120: 'La Salle's Last Expedition in North America,' in _Collections of the New-York Historical Society_, ii. 238 (Illinois). Perrin du Lac, _Voyage dans les deux Louisianes et chez les nations sauvages du Missouri_, p. 352. Bossu, _op. cit._ i. 303 (Chactaws). Oviedo y Valdés, _loc. cit._ p. 508 (Isthmians). von Martius, _Von dem Rechtszustande unter den Ureinwohnern Brasiliens_, p. 28 (Guaycurús).]

[Footnote 121: Cieza de Leon, _Segunda parte de Crónica del Perú_, ch. 25, p. 99. See also _Idem_, _Crónica del Perú [primera parte]_, ch. 64 (_Biblioteca de autores españoles_, xxvi. 416 _sq._).]

[Footnote 122: _Idem_, _Segunda parte de Crónica del Perú_, ch. 25, p. 98. See also Garcilasso de la Vega, _op. cit._ ii. 132.]

[Footnote 123: Las Casas, quoted by Bancroft, _op. cit._ ii. 467 _sq._ _Cf._ _ibid._ ii. 677.]

[Footnote 124: Clavigero, _History of Mexico_, i. 357.]

[Footnote 125: Squier, 'Archæology and Ethnology of Nicaragua,' in _Trans. American Ethn. Soc._ iii. pt. i. 128.]

[Footnote 126: Bancroft, _op. cit._ ii. 677.]

[Footnote 127: Piedrahita, _Historia general de las conquistas del nuevo reyno de Granada_, p. 46.]

[Footnote 128: See _supra_, i. 186, 195.]

Homosexual practices are said to be taken little notice of even by some uncivilised peoples who are not addicted to them. In the Pelew Islands, where such practices occur only sporadically, they are not punished, although, if I understand Herr Kubary rightly, the persons committing them may be put to shame.[129] The Ossetes of the Caucasus, {475} among whom pederasty is very rare, do not generally prosecute persons for committing it, but ignore the act.[130] The East African Masai do not punish sodomy.[131] But we also meet with statements of a contrary nature. In a Kafir tribe Mr. Warner heard of a case of it--the only one during a residence of twenty-five years--which was punished with a fine of some cattle claimed by the chief.[132] Among the Ondonga pederasts are hated, and the men who behave like women are detested, most of them being wizards.[133] The Washambala consider pederasty a grave moral aberration and subject it to severe punishment.[134] Among the Waganda homosexual practices, which have been introduced by the Arabs and are of rare occurrence, "are intensely abhorred," the stake being the punishment.[135] The Negroes of Accra, who are not addicted to such practices, are said to detest them.[136] In Nubia pederasty is held in abhorrence, except by the Kashefs and their relations, who endeavour to imitate the Mamelukes in everything.[137]

[Footnote 129: Kubary, 'Die Verbrechen und das Strafverfahren auf den Pelau-Inseln,' in _Original-Mittheilungen aus der ethnologischen Abtheilung der königlichen Museen zu Berlin_, i. 84.]

[Footnote 130: Kovalewsky, _Coutume contemporaine_, p. 340.]

[Footnote 131: Merker, _Die Masai_, p. 208. The Masai, however, slaughter at once any bullock or he-goat which is noticed to practise unnatural intercourse, for fear lest otherwise their herds should be visited by a plague as a divine punishment (_ibid._ p. 159).]

[Footnote 132: Warner, in Maclean, _Compendium of Kafir Laws_, p. 62.]

[Footnote 133: Rautanen, in Steinmetz, _Rechtsverhältnisse_, p. 333 _sq._]

[Footnote 134: Lang, _ibid._ p. 232.]

[Footnote 135: Felkin, in _Proceed. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh_, xiii. 723.]

[Footnote 136: Monrad, _op. cit._ p. 57.]

[Footnote 137: Burckhardt, _Travels in Nubia_, p. 135.]

Muhammed forbade sodomy,[138] and the general opinion of his followers is that it should be punished like fornication--for which the punishment is, theoretically, severe enough[139]--unless the offenders make a public act of penitence. In order to convict, however, the law requires that four reliable persons shall swear to have been eye-witnesses,[140] and this alone would make the law a dead letter, even if it had the support of popular feelings; but such support is certainly wanting. In Morocco active {476} pederasty is regarded with almost complete indifference, whilst the passive sodomite, if a grown-up individual, is spoken of with scorn. Dr. Polak says the same of the Persians.[141] In Zanzibar a clear distinction is made between male congenital inverts and male prostitutes; the latter are looked upon with contempt, whereas the former, as being what they are "by the will of God," are tolerated.[142] The Muhammedans of India and other Asiatic countries regard pederasty, at most, as a mere peccadillo.[143] Among the Hindus it is said to be held in abhorrence,[144] but their sacred books deal with it leniently. According to the 'Laws of Manu,' "a twice-born man who commits an unnatural offence with a male, or has intercourse with a female in a cart drawn by oxen, in water, or in the day-time, shall bathe, dressed in his clothes"; and all these are reckoned as minor offences.[145]

[Footnote 138: _Koran_, iv. 20.]

[Footnote 139: Sachau, _Muhammedanisches Recht nach Schafiitischer Lehre_, pp. 809, 818:--"Sodomita si _mu[h.][s.]an_ (that is, a married person in possession of full civic rights) est punitur lapidatione, si non est _mu[h.][s.]an_ punitur et flagellatione et exsilio."]

[Footnote 140: Burton, _Arabian Nights_, x. 224.]

[Footnote 141: Polak, in _Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift_, xi. 628 _sq._]

[Footnote 142: Baumann, in _Verhandl. Berliner Gesellsch. Anthrop._ 1899, p. 669.]

[Footnote 143: Chevers, _op. cit._ p. 708. Burton, _Arabian Nights_, x. 222 _sqq._]

[Footnote 144: Burton, _Arabian Nights_, x. 237.]

[Footnote 145: _Laws of Manu_, xi. 175. _Cf._ _Institutes of Vishnu_, liii. 4; _Âpastamba_, i. 9. 26. 7; _Gautama_, xxv. 7.]

Chinese law makes little distinction between unnatural and other sexual offences. An unnatural offence is variously considered according to the age of the patient, and whether or not consent was given. If the patient be an adult, or a boy over the age of twelve, and consent, the case is treated as a slightly aggravated form of fornication, both parties being punished with a hundred blows and one month's cangue, whilst ordinary fornication is punished with eighty blows. If the adult or boy over twelve resist, the offence is considered as rape; and if the boy be under twelve, the offence is rape irrespective of consent or resistance, unless the boy has previously gone astray.[146] But, as a matter of fact, unnatural offences are regarded as less hurtful to the community than ordinary immorality,[147] and pederasty is not looked down upon. "L'opinion publique reste tout à fait indifférente à ce genre de distraction et la {477} morale ne s'en émeut en rien: puisque cela plaît à l'opérateur et que l'opéré est consentant, tout est pour le mieux; la loi chinoise n'aime guère à s'occuper des affaires trop intimes. La pédérastie est même considérée comme une chose de bon ton, une fantaisie dispendieuse et partout un plaisir élégant. . . . La pédérastie a une consécration officielle en Chine. Il existe, en effet, des pédérés pour l'Empereur."[148] Indeed, the only objection which Dr. Matignon has heard to be raised to pederasty by public opinion in China is that it has a bad influence on the eyesight.[149] In Japan there was no law against homosexual intercourse till the revolution of 1868.[150] In the period of Japanese chivalry it was considered more heroic if a man loved a person of his own sex than if he loved a woman; and nowadays people are heard to say that in those provinces of the country where pederasty is widely spread the men are more manly and robust than in those where it does not prevail.[151]

[Footnote 146: Alabaster, _Notes and Commentaries on Chinese Criminal Law_, p. 367 _sqq._ _Ta Tsing Leu Lee_, Appendix, no. xxxii. p. 570.]

[Footnote 147: Alabaster, _op. cit._ p. 369.]

[Footnote 148: Matignon, in _Archives d'anthropologie criminelle_, xiv. 42, 43, 52.]

[Footnote 149: _Ibid._ p. 44.]

[Footnote 150: Karsch, _op. cit._ p. 99.]

[Footnote 151: Jwaya, in _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, iv. 266, 270 _sq._]

The laws of the ancient Scandinavians ignored homosexual practices; but passive pederasts were much despised by them. They were identified with cowards and regarded as sorcerers. The epithets applied to them--_argr_, _ragr_, _blandr_, and others assumed the meaning of "poltroon" in general, and there are instances of the word _arg_ being used in the sense of "practising witchcraft." This connection between pederasty and sorcery, as a Norwegian scholar justly points out, helps us to understand Tacitus' statement that among the ancient Teutons individuals whom he describes as _corpore infames_ were buried alive in a morass.[152] Considering that drowning was a common penalty for sorcery, it seems probable that this punishment was inflicted upon them not, in the first place, on account of their sexual practices, but in their capacity of wizards. It is certain that the opprobrium which the pagan Scandinavians attached to homosexual love was chiefly restricted to him who played the woman's part. In one of the poems {478} the hero even boasts of being the father of offspring borne by another man.[153]

[Footnote 152: Tacitus, _Germania_, 12.]

[Footnote 153: 'Spuren von Konträrsexualität bei den alten Skandinaviern (Mitteilungen eines norwegischen Gelehrten),' in _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, iv. 245, 256 _sqq._]

In Greece pederasty in its baser forms was censured, though generally, it seems, with no great severity, and in some states it was legally prohibited.[154] According to an Athenian law, a youth who prostituted himself for money lost his rights as a free citizen and was liable to the punishment of death if he took part in a public feast or entered the _agora_.[155] In Sparta it was necessary that the "listener" should accept the "inspirator" from real affection; he who did so out of pecuniary considerations was punished by the ephors.[156] We are even told that among the Spartans the relations between the lover and his friend were truly innocent, and that if anything unlawful happened both must forsake either their country or their lives.[157] But the universal rule in Greece seems to have been that when decorum was observed in the friendship between a man and a youth, no inquiries were made into the details of the relationship.[158] And this attachment was not only regarded as permissible, but was praised as the highest and purest form of love, as the offspring of the heavenly Aphrodite, as a path leading to virtue, as a weapon against tyranny, as a safeguard of civic liberty, as a source of national greatness and glory. Phaedrus said that he knew no greater blessing to a young man who is beginning life than a virtuous lover, or to the lover than a beloved youth; for the principle which ought to be the guide of men who would lead a noble life cannot be implanted by any other motive so well as by love.[159] The Platonic Pausanias argued that if love of youths is held in ill repute it is so only because it is inimical to tyranny; "the interests of rulers require that their subjects should {479} be poor in spirit, and that there should be no strong bond of friendship or society among them, which love, above all other motives, is likely to inspire."[160] The power of the Athenian tyrants was broken by the love of Aristogeiton and the constancy of Harmodius; at Agrigentum in Sicily the mutual love of Chariton and Melanippus produced a similar result; and the greatness of Thebes was due to the Sacred Band established by Epaminondas. For "in the presence of his favourite, a man would choose to do anything rather than to get the character of a coward."[161] It was pointed out that the greatest heroes and the most warlike nations were those who were most addicted to the love of youths;[162] and it was said that an army consisting of lovers and their beloved ones, fighting at each other's side, although a mere handful, would overcome the whole world.[163]

[Footnote 154: Xenophon, _Lacedæmoniorum respublica_, ii. 13. Maximus Tyrius, _Dissertationes_, xxv. 4; xxvi. 9.]

[Footnote 155: Aeschines, _Contra Timarchum_, 21.]

[Footnote 156: Aelian, _Varia historia_, iii. 10. _Cf._ Plato, _Leges_, viii. 910.]

[Footnote 157: Aelian, _op. cit._ iii. 12. _Cf._ Maximus Tyrius, _op. cit._ xxvi. 8.]

[Footnote 158: _Cf._ Symonds, _loc. cit._ p. 92 _sqq._]

[Footnote 159: Plato, _Symposium_, p. 178.]

[Footnote 160: Plato, _Symposium_, p. 182.]

[Footnote 161: Hieronymus, the Peripatetic, referred to by Athenaeus, _op. cit._ xiii. 78, p. 602. See also Maximus Tyrius, _op. cit._ xxiv. 2.]

[Footnote 162: Plutarch, _Amatorius_, xvii. 14.]

[Footnote 163: Plato, _Symposium_, p. 178.]

Herodotus asserts that the love of boys was introduced from Greece into Persia.[164] Whether his statement be correct or not, such love could certainly not have been a habit of the Mazda worshippers.[165] In the Zoroastrian books "unnatural sin" is treated with a severity to which there is a parallel only in Hebrewism and Christianity. According to the Vendîdâd, there is no atonement for it.[166] It is punished with torments in the other world, and is capital here below.[167] Even he who committed it involuntarily, by force, is subject to corporal punishment.[168] Indeed, it is a more heinous sin than the slaying of a righteous man.[169] "There is no worse sin than this in the good religion, and it is proper to call those who commit it worthy of death in reality. If any one comes forth to them, and shall see {480} them in the act, and is working with an axe, it is requisite for him to cut off the heads or to rip up the bellies of both, and it is no sin for him. But it is not proper to kill any person without the authority of high-priests and kings, except on account of committing or permitting unnatural intercourse."[170]

[Footnote 164: Herodotus, i. 135.]

[Footnote 165: Ammianus Marcellinus says (xxiii. 76) that the inhabitants of Persia were free from pederasty. But see also Sextus Empiricus, _Pyrrhoniæ hypotyposes_, i. 152.]

[Footnote 166: _Vendîdâd_, i. 12; viii. 27.]

[Footnote 167: Darmesteter, in _Sacred Books of the East_, iv. p. lxxxvi.]

[Footnote 168: _Vendîdâd_, viii. 26.]

[Footnote 169: _Dînâ-î Maînôg-î Khirad_, xxxvi. 1 _sqq._]

[Footnote 170: _Sad Dar_, ix. 2, _sqq._]

Nor are unnatural sins allowed to defile the land of the Lord. Whosoever shall commit such abominations, be he Israelite or stranger dwelling among the Israelites, shall be put to death, the souls that do them shall be cut off from their people. By unnatural sins of lust the Canaanites polluted their land, so that God visited their guilt, and the land spued out its inhabitants.[171]

[Footnote 171: _Leviticus_, xviii. 22, 24 _sqq._; xx. 13.]