Part 35

We commonly find that savages who are clean in certain respects are dirty in others. The Wanyoro bathe frequently and always wash their hands before and after eating, but their dwellings are very filthy and swarm with vermin.[19] The Nagas of India[20] and the natives of the interior of Sumatra,[21] though cleanly in their persons, are very dirty in their apparel. The Mayas of Central America make frequent use of cold water, but neither in their persons nor in their dwellings do they present an appearance of cleanliness.[22] So also the Californian Indians, whilst exceedingly fond of bathing, are unclean about their lodges and clothing.[23] The Aleuts, though they wash daily, allow dirt to be piled up close to their dwellings, prepare their food very carelessly, and never wash their household utensils.[24] The New Zealander, again, whilst not over-clean in his person, is very particular respecting his food and also keeps his dwelling in as much order as possible.[25] On the other hand there are very many uncivilised peoples who are described as generally filthy in their habits--for instance, the Fuegians,[26] many {349} Indian tribes in the Pacific States,[27] several Eskimo tribes,[28] various Siberian peoples,[29] the Ainu of Japan,[30] most hill tribes in India,[31] many Australian tribes,[32] the Bushmans,[33] and, generally, the dwarf races of Africa.[34] But although these peoples never or hardly ever wash their bodies, or do not change their dress until it is worn to pieces, or eat out of the same vessels as their dogs without cleaning them, or feed on disgusting substances, or regard vermin as a delicacy--we may assume that their toleration of filth is not absolutely boundless.

[Footnote 19: Wilson and Felkin, _op. cit._ ii. 46. Baker, _Albert N'yanza_, ii. 58.]

[Footnote 20: Stewart, 'Northern Cachar,' in _Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal_, xxiv. 616.]

[Footnote 21: Marsden, _History of Sumatra_, p. 209**.]

[Footnote 22: Bancroft, _op. cit._ i. 654.]

[Footnote 23: Powers, _Tribes of California_, p. 403. Bancroft, _op. cit._ i. 377, 407.]

[Footnote 24: Veniaminof, quoted by Dall, _Alaska_, p. 398. See also Bancroft, _op. cit._ i. 267 (Flatheads).]

[Footnote 25: Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 58.]

[Footnote 26: Snow, _Two Years' Cruise off Tierra del Fuego_, i. 345.]

[Footnote 27: Bancroft, _op. cit._ i. 83, 102, 184, 231, 492, 626.]

[Footnote 28: _Ibid._ i. 51. Seemann, _Voyage of "Herald,"_ ii. 61 _sq._ (Western Eskimo). Kane, _Arctic Explorations_, ii. 116 (Eskimo of Etah). Cranz, _History of Greenland_, i. 155.]

[Footnote 29: Sarytschew, 'Voyage of Discovery to the North-East of Siberia,' in _Collection of Modern and Contemporary Voyages_, v. 67 (Kamchadales). Krasheninnikoff, _History of Kamschatka_, pp. 176 (Kamchadales), 226 (Koriaks). Sauer, _Expedition to the Northern Parts of Russia performed by Billings_, p. 125 (Jakuts). Georgi, _Russia_, ii. 398 (Jakuts); iii. 59 (Kotoftzes), 112 (Tunguses); iv. 37 (Kalmucks), 134 (Burats). Liadov, in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ i. 401; Bergmann, _Nomadische Streifereien unter den Kalmüken_, ii. 102, 123 _sq._; Pallas, quoted in Spencer's _Descriptive Sociology_, 'Asiatic Races,' p. 29 (Kalmucks).]

[Footnote 30: Batchelor, _Ainu of Japan_, p. 24 _sqq._ Mac Ritchie, _Ainos_, p. 12 _sq._]

[Footnote 31: Spencer, _Descriptive Sociology_, 'Asiatic Races,' p. 29. Grange, 'Expedition into the Naga Hills,' in _Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal_, ix. 962. Stewart, _ibid._ xxiv. 637 (Kukis). Mason, 'Physical Character of the Karens,' _ibid._ xxxv. pt. ii. 25. Butler, _Travels in Assam_, p. 98. Anderson, _Mandalay to Momien_, p. 131 (Kakhyens). Moorcroft and Trebeck, _Travels in the Himalayan Provinces_, i. 321 (Ladakhis).]

[Footnote 32: Breton, _Excursions in New South Wales_, p. 197. Barrington, _History of New South Wales_, p. 19 (natives of Botany Bay). Angas, _Savage Life in Australia_, i. 80 (South Australian aborigines). Chauncy, in Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, ii. 284 (West Australian aborigines).]

[Footnote 33: Moffat, _Missionary Labours in Southern Africa_, p. 15. Barrow, _Travels into the Interior of Southern Africa_, i. 288.]

[Footnote 34: Stuhlmann, _Mit Emin Pascha ins Herz von Afrika_, p. 451. For other instances of uncleanliness in savages see Crawfurd, _History of the Indian Archipelago_, i. 39; St. John, _Life in the Forests of the Far East_, i. 147 (some of the Land Dyaks); Andersson, _Lake Ngami_, pp. 50 (Herero), 470 (Bechuanas).]

The prevalence of cleanly or dirty habits among a certain people may depend on a variety of circumstances: the occupations of life, sufficiency or want of water, climatic conditions, industry or laziness, wealth or poverty, religious or superstitious beliefs. Castrén observes that filthiness is a characteristic of fishing peoples; among the Ostyaks only those who live by fishing are conspicuous for their uncleanliness, whereas the nomads and owners of {350} reindeer are not.[35] It has been observed that the inland negro is clean when he dwells in the neighbourhood of rivers.[36] In West Australia those tribes only which live by large rivers or near the sea are said to have an idea of cleanliness.[37] Concerning the filthy habits of the Kukis and other hill peoples in India, Major Butler remarks that they may probably be accounted for by the scarcity of water in the neighbourhood of the villages, as also by the coldness of the climate.[38] Dr. Kane believes that the indifference of many Eskimo to dirt or filth is largely due to the extreme cold, which by rapid freezing resists putrefaction and thus prevents the household, with its numerous dogs, from being intolerable.[39] Their well-known habit of washing themselves with freshly passed urine arises partly from scarcity of water and the difficulty of heating it, but partly also from the fact that the ammonia of the urine is an excellent substitute for soap in removing the grease with which the skin necessarily becomes soiled.[40] A cold climate, moreover, leads to uncleanliness because it makes garments necessary;[41] and among some savages the practice of greasing their bodies to protect the skin from the effects of a parching air produces a similar result.[42] Lord Kames maintains that the greatest promoter of cleanliness is industry, whereas its greatest antagonist is indolence. In Holland, he observes, the people were cleaner than all their neighbours because they were more industrious, at a time when in England industry was as great a stranger as cleanliness.[43] Kolben says that the general laziness of the Hottentots accounts for the fact that "they are in the matter of diet {351} the filthiest people in the world."[44] Of the Siberian Burats Georgi writes that "from their laziness they are as dirty as swine";[45] and the Kamchadales are described as a "dirty, lazy race."[46] Poverty, also, is for obvious reasons a cause of uncleanliness;[47] "a starving vulture neglects to polish his feathers, and a famished dog has a ragged coat."[48] Very commonly cleanliness is a class distinction.[49] Thus among the Point Barrow Eskimo the poorer people are often careless about their clothes and persons, whereas most of the wealthier individuals appear to take pride in being well clad, and, except when actually engaged in some dirty work, always have their faces and hands scrupulously clean and their hair neatly combed.[50] Dr. Schweinfurth maintains that domestic cleanliness and care in the preparation of food are everywhere signs of a higher grade of external culture and answer to a certain degree of intellectual superiority.[51] But already Lord Kames pointed out the fact indicated above, that "cleanness is remarkable in several nations which have made little progress in the arts of life."[52]

[Footnote 35: Castrén, _Nordiska resor och forskningar_, i. 319 _sq._]

[Footnote 36: Bastian, _Der Mensch in der Geschichte_, iii. 75. Mr. Torday, who speaks from extensive experience, tells me the same.]

[Footnote 37: Chauncy, quoted by Brough Smyth, _op. cit._ ii. 284.]

[Footnote 38: Butler, _Travels in Assam_, p. 98 _sq._ _Cf._ Stewart, in _Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal_, xxiv. 616.]

[Footnote 39: Kane, _Arctic Explorations_, ii. 116.]

[Footnote 40: Murdoch, 'Ethnol. Results of the Point Barrow Expedition,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ ix. 421. Dall, _op. cit._ p. 20.]

[Footnote 41: _Cf._ von Humboldt, _op. cit._ iii. 237.]

[Footnote 42: Burchell, _op. cit._ ii. 553 (Bachapins of Litakun).]

[Footnote 43: Kames, _Sketches of the History of Man_, i. 323, 327 _sqq._]

[Footnote 44: Kolben, _Present State of the Cape of Good Hope_, i. 47.]

[Footnote 45: Georgi, _op. cit._ iv. 134.]

[Footnote 46: _Ibid._ iii. 152. See also Sarytschew, in _Collection of Modern and Contemporary Voyages_, v. 67.]

[Footnote 47: See Marshall, _A Phrenologist amongst the Todas_, p. 50; Veniaminof, quoted by Dall, _op. cit._ p. 398 (Aleuts).]

[Footnote 48: St. John, _Village Life in Egypt_, i. 187.]

[Footnote 49: Tickell, 'Memoir on the Hodésum,' in _Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal_, ix. 808 (Hos). Rowlatt, 'Expedition into the Mishmee Hills,' _ibid._ xiv. 489. Williams and Calvert, _Fiji_, p. 117. Waitz, _op. cit._ ii. 86 (Ashantees). Arnot, _Garenganze_, p. 76 (Barotse). Lane, _Modern Egyptians_, p. 299.]

[Footnote 50: Murdoch, in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ ix. 421.]

[Footnote 51: Schweinfurth, _Heart of Africa_, i. 156.]

[Footnote 52: Kames, _op. cit._ i. 321.]

The factors which determine the cleanliness of a people also naturally influence the moral valuation of it. Aversion to dirt not only leads to cleanly habits, but makes a filthy person an object of disgust and disapprobation; indeed, this aversion is generally stronger with reference to other individuals than with reference to one's own person. But where for some reason or other dirtiness becomes habitual, it at the same time ceases to be disgusting; and it is often astonishing how soon {352} people get used to filthy surroundings. Thus, when cleanliness is insisted upon it is so in the first instance because dirt is directly disagreeable to other persons, and when uncleanness is tolerated it is so because it gives no offence to the senses of the public. But at the higher stages of civilisation, at least, cleanliness is besides inculcated on hygienic grounds.

In many cases cleanliness, either temporary or habitual, is also practised and enjoined from religious or superstitious motives. A Lappish _noaide_, or wizard, had to wash all his body before he offered a sacrifice.[53] The Siberian shamans have compulsory water purifications once a year, sometimes every month, as also on special occasions when they feel themselves defiled by contact with unclean things.[54] The Shinto priests in Japan bathed and put on clean garments before making the sacred offerings or chanting the liturgies.[55] Herodotus speaks of the cleanliness observed by the Egyptian priests when engaged in the service of the gods.[56] As a preliminary to an act of worship the ancient Greeks washed their hands or bathed and put on clean clothes.[57] One of the legal maxims of the Romans required that men should approach the deity in a state of purity.[58] According to Zoroastrianism it is the great business of life to avoid impurity, and, when it is involuntarily contracted, to remove it in the correct manner as quickly as possible; and by impurity is then understood not an inward state of the soul, but mainly a physical state of the body, everything going out of the human body being considered polluting.[59] For a Brahmin bathing is the chief part of the minute ceremonial of daily worship, whilst further washings and aspersions enter into more solemn religious acts;[60] and not only Brahmins but most Hindus regard {353} it as a religious duty to bathe daily if this is at all convenient.[61] Lamaism enjoins personal ablution as a sacerdotal rite preparatory to worship, though the ceremony seldom extends to more than dipping the tips of the fingers in water.[62] Jewish Rabbis are compelled to wash their hands before they begin to pray.[63] Tertullian mentions that a similar ablution was practised by the Christians before prayer.[64] According to Islam, the clothes and person of the worshipper should be clean, and so also the ground, mat, carpet, or whatever else it be, upon which he prays; and every act of worship must be preceded by an ablution, though, where water cannot be got, sand may be used as a substitute.[65] But a polluting influence is not ascribed to everything which we regard as dirt. For instance, Muhammedans consider the excrements of men and dogs defiling, but not the dung of cows and sheep; cow-dung is even used as a means of purification.

[Footnote 53: Friis, _Lappisk Mythologie_, p. 145 _sq._ von Düben, _Lappland_, p. 256.]

[Footnote 54: _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxiv. 88.]

[Footnote 55: Griffis, _Religions of Japan_, p. 85.]

[Footnote 56: Herodotus, ii. 37. _Cf._ Wiedemann, _Herodots zweites Buch_, p. 154.]

[Footnote 57: _Iliad_, i. 449; iii. 270; vi. 266; ix. 171, 174; xvi. 229 _sq._; xxiii. 41; xxiv. 302 _sqq._ _Odyssey_, ii. 261; iv. 750; xvii. 58. Keller, _Homeric Society_, p. 141. Stengel, _Die griechischen Kultusaltertümer_, p. 106.]

[Footnote 58: Cicero, _De legibus_, ii. 10.]

[Footnote 59: Darmesteter, in _Sacred Books of the East_, iv. p. lxxii. _sqq._]

[Footnote 60: Ward, _View of the History, &c. of the Hindoos_, ii. 61 _sq._ Colebrooke, _Miscellaneous Essays_, ii. 142 _sqq._ Dubois, _People of India_, p. 113 _sq._]

[Footnote 61: Wilkins, _Modern Hinduism_, p. 201.]

[Footnote 62: Waddell, _Buddhism of Tibet_, p. 423.]

[Footnote 63: Chwolsohn, _Die Ssabier_, ii. 71.]

[Footnote 64: Tertullian, _De Oratione_, 13 (Migne, _Patrologiæ cursus_, ii. 1167 _sq._).]

[Footnote 65: Sell, _Faith of Islam_, p. 252 _sqq._ Lane, _Modern Egyptians_, i. 84 _sqq._]

These practices and rules spring from the idea that the contact of a polluting substance with anything holy is followed by injurious consequences--an idea which will be more fully discussed in connection with sexual abstinences. Such contact is supposed to deprive a deity or holy being of its holiness, or otherwise be detrimental to it, and therefore to excite its anger against him who causes the defilement. So also a sacred act is believed to lose its sacredness by being performed by an unclean individual. Moreover, as a polluting substance is itself held to contain mysterious energy of a baneful kind, it is looked upon as a direct danger even to persons who are not engaged in religious worship. We have previously noticed the rites of purification which a manslayer has to undergo in order to get rid of the blood-pollution.[66] We have also seen that ablutions and other purificatory ceremonies {354} are performed for the purpose of removing sins and misfortunes.[67] And bathing or sprinkling with water is a common method of clearing mourners or persons who have come in contact with a corpse from the contagion of death.[68]

[Footnote 66: _Supra_, i. 375 _sqq._]

[Footnote 67: _Supra_, i. 54 _sqq._]

[Footnote 68: Teit, 'Thompson Indians of British Columbia,' in _Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History_, 'Anthropology,' i. 331. Cruickshank, _op. cit._ ii. 218 (Negroes of the Gold Coast). Ellis, _E[(w]e-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast_, p. 160. Turner, _Samoa_, p. 145; _Idem_, _Nineteen Years in Polynesia_, p. 228 (Samoans). Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 403 (Society Islanders). Kloss, _In the Andamans and Nicobars_, p. 305 (Kar Nicobarese). Joinville, 'Religion and Manners of the People of Ceylon,' in _Asiatick Researches_, vii. 437 (Sinhalese). Iyer, 'Nay[=a]dis of Malabar,' in the Madras Government Museum's _Bulletin_, iv. 71; Thurston, _ibid._ iv. 76 _sq._ (Nay[=a]dis). Crooke, _Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh_, i. 83 (Arakh, a tribe in Oudh). Ward, _View of the History, &c. of the Hindoos_, ii. 147, iii. 275; Dubois, _Manners and Customs of the People of India_, p. 108 _sq._; Bose, _Hindoos as they are_, p. 257. Caland, _Die Altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche_, p. 79 _sq._]

But whilst religious or superstitious beliefs have thus led to ablutions and cleanliness, they have in other instances had the very opposite effect. Among Arabs young children are often left dirty and ill-dressed purposely, to preserve them from the evil eye.[69] The Obbo natives in Central Africa declare that if they do not wash their hands with cow's urine before milking, the cow will lose her milk; and with the same fluid they wash the milk-bowl, and even mix some of it with the milk.[70] The Jakuts "never wash any of their eating or drinking utensils; but, as soon as a dish is emptied, they clean it with the fore and middle finger; for they think it a great sin to wash away any part of their food, and apprehend that the consequence will be a scarcity."[71] A similar custom prevails among the Kirghiz[72] and Kalmucks. The latter "are forbidden by the laws of their faith" to wash their vessels in river-water, and therefore "do no more than wipe them with a piece of an old sheep-skin shube, which they use also for cleaning their hands upon when dirty."[73] They, moreover, abstain from washing their {355} clothes; and so did the Huns and Mongols.[74] The ancient Turks never washed themselves, because they believed that their gods punished ablutions with thunder and lightning; and the same belief still prevails among kindred peoples in Central Asia.[75] Among the Bahima of Enkole, in the Uganda Protectorate, a man may smear his body with butter or clay as often as he wishes, but "to wash with water is bad for him, and is a sure way of bringing sickness into his family and amongst his cattle."[76] The dread of water may be due partly to ill effects experienced after using it, partly to superstition. The Moors dare not wash their bodies with cold water in the afternoon and evening after the _[(]â[s.]ar_, because all such water is then supposed to be haunted by _jnûn_, or evil spirits. In various religions the odour of sanctity is associated with filth. Muhammedan dervishes are recognised by their appearance of untidiness and uncleanness. Among the rules laid down for Buddhist monks there is one which prescribes that their dress shall be made of rags taken from a dust or refuse heap.[77] In the early days of Christian monasticism "the cleanliness of the body was regarded as a pollution of the soul." The saints who were most admired were those who had become one hideous mass of clotted filth. St. Athanasius relates with enthusiasm how St. Antony, the patriarch of monachism, had never, to extreme old age, been guilty of washing his feet. A famous virgin, though bodily sickness was a consequence of her habits, resolutely refused, on religious principles, to wash any part of her body except her fingers. And St. Simeon Stylites, who was generally pronounced to be the highest model of a Christian saint, bound a rope round himself so that it became imbedded in his flesh and caused putrefaction; and it is said that "a horrible stench, intolerable {356} to the bystanders, exhaled from his body, and worms dropped from him whenever he moved, and they filled his bed."[78] In mediæval Christianity abstinence from every species of cleanliness was also enjoined as a penance, the penitent being required to go with foul mouth, filthy hands and neck, undressed hair and beard, unpared nails, and clothes as dirty as his person. In these cases uncleanliness is a form of asceticism, a subject which we have already touched upon in dealing with industry and fasting, but the principles of which still call for our consideration.

[Footnote 69: Blunt, _Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates_, ii. 214. Klunzinger, _Upper Egypt_, p. 391.]

[Footnote 70: Baker, _Albert N'yanza_, i. 381.]

[Footnote 71: Sauer, _op. cit._ p. 125.]

[Footnote 72: Valikhanof, &c., _Russians in Central Asia_, p. 80.]

[Footnote 73: Georgi, _op. cit._ iv. 37. Bergmann, _op. cit._ ii. 123.]

[Footnote 74: Neumann, _Die Völker des südlichen Russlands_, p. 27. For the excessive dirtiness of the present Mongols, see Prejevalsky, _Mongolia_, i. 51 _sq._]

[Footnote 75: Castrén, _op. cit._ iv. 61.]

[Footnote 76: Roscoe, 'Bahima,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxxvii. 111.]

[Footnote 77: Kern, _Manual of Indian Buddhism_, p. 75.]

[Footnote 78: Lecky, _History of European Morals_, ii. 109 _sqq._]

* * * * *

In various religions we meet with the idea that a person appeases or gives pleasure to the deity by subjecting himself to suffering or deprivation. This belief finds expression in all sorts of ascetic practices. We read of Christian ascetics who lived in deserted dens of wild beasts, or in dried-up wells, or in tombs; who disdained all clothes, and crawled abroad like animals covered only by their matted hair; who ate nothing but corn which had become rotten by remaining for a month in water; who spent forty days and nights in the middle of thorn-bushes, and for forty years never lay down.[79] Hindu ascetics remain in immovable attitudes with their faces or their arms raised to heaven, until the sinews shrink and the posture assumed stiffens into rigidity; or they expose themselves to the inclemency of the weather in a state of absolute nudity, or tear their bodies with knives, or feed on carrion and excrement.[80] Among the Muhammedans of India there are fakirs who have been seen dragging heavy chains or cannon balls, or crawling upon their hands and knees for years; others have been found lying upon iron spikes for a bed; and others, again, have been swinging for months before a slow fire with a {357} tropical sun blazing overhead.[81] Among modern Jews some of the more sanctimonious members of the synagogue have been known to undergo the penance of voluntary flagellation before the commencement of the fast of atonement, two persons successively inflicting upon each other thirty-nine stripes or thirteen lashes with a triple scourge.[82] According to the Zoroastrian Yasts, thirty strokes with the Sraoshô-karana is an expiation which purges people from their sins, and makes them fit for offering a sacrifice.[83] Herodotus tells us that the ancient Egyptians beat themselves while the things offered by them as sacrifices were being burned, and that the Carian dwellers in Egypt on such occasions cut their faces with knives.[84] Among the ancient Mexicans blood-drawing was a favourite and most common mode of expiating sin and showing devotion. "It makes one shudder," says Clavigero, "to read the austerities which they exercised upon themselves, either in atonement of their transgressions or in preparation for their festivals. They mangled their flesh as if it had been insensible, and let their blood run in such profusion, that it appeared to be a superfluous fluid of the body."[85] Self-mortification also formed part of the religious cult in many uncivilised tribes in North America.[86] "The Indian," Colonel Dodge observes, "believes, with many Christians, that self-torture is an act most acceptable to God, and the extent of pleasure that he can give his god is exactly measured by the amount of suffering that he can bear without flinching."[87]

[Footnote 79: _Ibid._ ii. 108 _sq._]

[Footnote 80: Barth, _Religions of India_, p. 214 _sq._ Hopkins, _Religions of India_, p. 352. Monier-Williams, _Br[=a]hmanism and Hind[=u]ism_, p. 395.]

[Footnote 81: Pool, _Studies in Mohammedanism_, p. 305. For similar practices among the modern Egyptians, see Lane, _Modern Egyptians_, p. 244.]

[Footnote 82: Allen, _Modern Judaism_, p. 407.]

[Footnote 83: _Yasts_, x. 122. Darmesteter, in _Sacred Books of the East_, xxiii. 151, n. 3.]

[Footnote 84: Herodotus, ii. 40, 61.]

[Footnote 85: Clavigero, _History of Mexico_, i. 284. See also Bancroft, _op. cit._ iii. 441 _sq._; Réville, _Hibbert Lectures on the Native Religions of Mexico and Peru_, p. 100.]

[Footnote 86: Domenech, _Seven Years Residence in the Great Deserts of North America_, ii. 380. Catlin, _North American Indians_, ii. 243. James, _Expedition to the Rocky Mountains_, i. 276 _sqq._ (Omahas). McGee, 'Siouan Indians,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ xv. 184.]

[Footnote 87: Dodge, _Our Wild Indians_, p. 149.]

The idea underlying religious asceticism has no doubt {358} been derived from several different sources. It should first be noticed that certain ascetic practices have originally been performed for another purpose, and only afterwards come to be regarded as means of propitiating or pleasing the deity through the suffering involved in them. This, as we have seen, is the case with certain fasts, and also with sexual asceticism.[88] When an act is supposed to be connected with supernatural danger, the evil (real or imaginary) resulting from it is readily interpreted as a sign of divine anger and the act itself is regarded as being forbidden by a god. If then the abstinence from it implies suffering, as is in some degree the case with fasting and sexual continence, the conclusion is drawn that the god delights in such suffering. The same inference is, moreover, made from the fact that such abstinences are enjoined in connection with religious worship, though the primary motive for this injunction was fear of pollution. Beating or scourging, again, was in certain cases originally a mode of purification, intended to wipe off and drive away a dangerous contagion either personified as demoniacal or otherwise of a magical character. And although the pain inflicted on the person beaten was at first not the object of the act but only incidental to it, it became subsequently the chief purpose of the ceremony, which was now regarded as a mortification well pleasing to the god.[89] This change of ideas seems likewise to be due both to the tendency of the supernatural contagion to develop into a divine punishment in case it is not removed by the painful rite, and also to the circumstance that purification is held to be a necessary accompaniment of acts of religious worship. The Egyptian sacrifice described by Herodotus was combined with purificatory fasting as well as beating.[90] Among the Jews, before the commencement of the fast of atonement, whilst a few very religious persons undergo the penance of flagellation, "some purify themselves by {359} ablutions."[91] And that the original object of the scourging mentioned in the Yasts was to purify the worshipper is suggested by the fact that he on the same occasion had to wash his body three days and three nights.[92] But it should also be remembered that religious exaltation, when it has reached its highest stage, may express itself in self-laceration;[93] and the deity is naturally supposed to be pleased with the outward expression of such an emotion in his devotees.

[Footnote 88: See _infra_, p. 420 _sq._]

[Footnote 89: Frazer, _Golden Bough_, iii. 217 _sq._]

[Footnote 90: Herodotus, ii. 40.]

[Footnote 91: Allen, _op. cit._ p. 407.]

[Footnote 92: _Yasts_, x. 122.]

[Footnote 93: See Hirn, _Origins of Art_, p. 64.]

An ascetic practice may also be the survival of an earlier sacrifice. We have seen that this is frequently the case with fasting and almsgiving, and the same may hold true of other forms of asceticism.[94] The essence of the act then no longer lies in the benefit which the god derives from it, but in the self-denial or self-mortification which it costs the worshipper. In the sacred books of India "austerity" is mentioned as a means of expiation side by side with sacrifice, fasting, and giving gifts.[95]

[Footnote 94: _Cf._ Tertullian, _De resurrectione carnis_, 8 (Migne, _op. cit._ ii. 806).]

[Footnote 95: _Gautama_, xix. 11. _Vasishtha_, xx. 47; xxii. 8. _Baudháyana_, iii. 10. 9.]

When an ascetic practice develops out of a previous custom of a different origin, it may be combined with an idea which by itself has been a frequent source of self-inflicted pain, to wit, the belief that such pain is an expiation for sin, that it may serve as a substitute for a punishment which would otherwise be inflicted by the offended god; and almost inseparably connected with this belief there may be that desire to suffer which is so often, vaguely or distinctly, involved in genuine repentance.[96] The idea of expiation very largely underlies the penitential discipline of the Christian Church and the asceticism of its saints. From the days of Tertullian and Cyprian the Latins were familiar with the notion that the Christian has to propitiate God, that cries of pain, sufferings, and deprivations are means of appeasing his anger, that God takes strict account of the quantity of {360} the atonement, and that, where there is no guilt to have blotted out, those very means are regarded as merits.[97] According to the doctrine of the Church, penance should in all grave cases be preceded by sorrow for the sin and also by confession, either public or private; repentance, as we have noticed above, is the only ground on which pardon can be given by a scrupulous judge.[98] But the notion was only too often adopted that the penitential practice itself was a compensation for sin, that a man was at liberty to do whatever he pleased provided he was prepared to do penance afterwards, and that a person who, conscious of his frailty, had laid in a large stock of vicarious penance in anticipation of future necessity, had a right "to work it out," and spend it in sins.[99] The idea that sins may be expiated by certain acts of self-mortification is familiar both to Muhammedans[100] and Jews.[101] According to Zoroastrian beliefs, it is possible to wipe out by peculiarly severe atonements not only the special sin on account of which the atonement is performed, but also other offences committed in former times or unconsciously.[102] In the sacred books of the Hindus we meet with a strong conviction that pain suffered in this life will redeem the sufferer from punishment in a future existence. It is said that "men who have committed crimes and have been punished by the king go to heaven, being pure like those who performed meritorious deeds";[103] and the same idea is at the bottom of their penitential system.[104] But in Brahmanism, as in Catholicism, the effect of ascetic practices is supposed to go beyond mere expiation. They are regarded as means of accumulating religious merit or attaining superhuman powers. Brahmanical poems tell of marvellous self-mortifications {361} by which sages of the past obtained influence over the gods themselves; nay, even the power wielded by certain archdemons over men and gods is supposed to have been acquired by the practice of religious austerities.[105] How largely ascetic practices are due to the idea of expiation is indicated by the fact that they hardly occur among nations who have no vivid sense of sin, like the Chinese before the introduction of Taouism and Buddhism,[106] and the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Scandinavians. In Greece, however, people sometimes voluntarily sacrificed a part of their happiness in order to avoid the envy of the gods, who would not allow to man more than a moderate share of good fortune.[107]

[Footnote 96: See _supra_, i. 105 _sq._]

[Footnote 97: Tertullian, _De jejuniis_, 7 (Migne, _op. cit._ ii. 962). _Idem_, _De resurrectione carnis_, 8 (Migne, ii. 806 _sq._). Harnack, _History of Dogma_, ii. 110, 132; iii. 311.]

[Footnote 98: _Supra_, i. 85.]

[Footnote 99: See Thrupp, _The Anglo-Saxon Home_, p. 259.]

[Footnote 100: _Supra_, ii. 315, 317. Pool, _op. cit._ p. 264.]

[Footnote 101: _Supra_, ii. 315 _sqq._ Allen, _op. cit._ p. 130.]

[Footnote 102: Geiger, _Civilization of the Eastern Ir[=a]nians_, i. 163.]

[Footnote 103: _Laws of Manu_, viii. 318.]

[Footnote 104: _Ibid._ xi. 228.]

[Footnote 105: Monier-Williams, _Br[=a]hmanism and Hind[=u]ism_, pp. 231, 427. Oldenberg, _Buddha_, p. 302.]

[Footnote 106: Réville, _La religion Chinoise_, p. 221.]

[Footnote 107: Aeschylus, _Agamemnon_, 1008 _sqq._ Schmidt, _Die Ethik der alten Griechen_, i. 82.]

Self-mortification is also sometimes resorted to not so much to appease the anger of a god as rather to excite his compassion. In some of the Jewish fasts, as we have seen before, these two objects are closely interwoven.[108] The Jewish custom of fasting in the case of a drought is in a way parallel to the Moorish practice of tying holy men and throwing them into a pond in order that their pitiful condition may induce God to send rain. Mr. Williams tells us of a Fijian priest who, "after supplicating his god for rain in the usual way without success, slept for several successive nights exposed on the top of a rock, without mat or pillow, hoping thus to move the obdurate deity to send a shower."[109]

[Footnote 108: _Supra_, ii. 315.]

[Footnote 109: Williams and Calvert, _Fiji_, p. 196.]

Not only is suffering voluntarily sought as a means of wiping off sins committed, but it is also endured with a view to preventing the commission of sin. This is the second or, in importance, the first great idea upon which Christian asceticism rests. The gratification of every worldly desire is sinful, the flesh should be the abject slave of the spirit intent upon unearthly things. Man was created for a life in spiritual communion with God, {362} but he yielded to the seduction of evil demons, who availed themselves of the sensuous side of his nature to draw him away from the contemplation of the divine and lead him to the earthly. Moral goodness, therefore, consists in renouncing all sensuous pleasures, in separating from the world, in living solely after the spirit, in imitating the perfection and purity of God. The contrast between good and evil is the contrast between God and the world, and the conception of the world includes not only the objects of bodily appetites but all human institutions, as well as science and art.[110] And still more than any theoretical doctrine, the personal example of Christ led to the glorification of spiritual joy and bodily suffering.

[Footnote 110: Harnack, _op. cit._ ii. 214 _sqq._, iii. 258 _sqq._ von Eicken, _Geschichte der mittelalterlichen Weltanschauung_, p. 313 _sqq._]

The antithesis of spirit and body was not peculiar to Christianity. It was an old Platonic conception, which was regarded by the Fathers of the Church as the contrast between that which was precious and that which was to be mortified. The doctrine that bodily enjoyments are low and degrading was taught by many pagan philosophers; even a man like Cicero says that all corporeal pleasure is opposed to virtue and ought to be rejected.[111] And in the Neo-Platonic and Neo-Pythagorean schools of Alexandria an ascetic ideal of life was the natural outcome of their theory that God alone is pure and good, and matter impure and evil. Renunciation of the world was taught and practised by the Jewish sects of the Essenes and Therapeutæ. In India, Professor Kern observes, "climate, institutions, the contemplative bent of the native mind, all tended to facilitate the growth of a persuasion that the highest aims of human life and real felicity cannot be obtained but by the seclusion from the busy world, by undisturbed pious exercises, and by a certain amount of mortification."[112] We read in the Hitopadesa, "Subjection to the senses has been called the road to ruin, and {363} their subjugation the path to fortune."[113] The Jain regards pleasure in itself as sinful:--"What is discontent, and what is pleasure? One should live subject to neither. Giving up all gaiety, circumspect, restrained, one should lead a religious life."[114] According to Buddhism, there are two causes of the misery with which life is inseparably bound up--lust and ignorance; and so there are two cures--the suppression of lust and desire and the removal of ignorance.[115] It is said in the Dhammapada, "There is no satisfying lusts, even by a shower of gold pieces; he who knows that lusts have a short taste and cause pain, he is wise."[116] Penances, as they were practised among the ascetics of India, were discarded by Buddha as vexatious, unworthy, unprofitable. "Not nakedness, not platted hair, not dirt, not fasting, or lying on the earth, not rubbing with dust, not sitting motionless, can purify a mortal who has not overcome desires."[117] Where all contact with the earthly ceases, there, and there only, are deliverance and freedom.

[Footnote 111: Cicero, _De officiis_, i. 30; iii. 33.]

[Footnote 112: Kern, _Manual of Indian Buddhism_, p. 73.]

[Footnote 113: Hitopadesa, quoted by Monier-Williams, _Indian Wisdom_, p. 538.]

[Footnote 114: Hopkins, _op. cit._ p. 291.]

[Footnote 115: Oldenberg, _op. cit._ p. 212 _sq._ Monier-Williams, _Buddhism_, p. 99.]

[Footnote 116: _Dhammapada_, 186 _sq._]

[Footnote 117: _Ibid._ 141. See also Oldenberg, _op. cit._ p. 301 _sq._]

The idea that man ought to liberate himself from the bondage of earthly desires is the conclusion of a contemplative mind reflecting upon the short duration and emptiness of all bodily pleasures and the allurements by which they lead men into misery and sin. And separation from the material world is the ideal of the religious enthusiast whose highest aspiration is union with God conceived as an immaterial being, as pure spirit.

CHAPTER XL

MARRIAGE

MAN'S sexual nature gives rise to various modes of conduct on which moral judgments are passed. We shall first consider such relations between the sexes as are comprised under the heading Marriage.

In a previous work I have endeavoured to show that in all probability there has been no stage in the social history of mankind where marriage has not existed, human marriage apparently being an inheritance from some ape-like progenitor.[1] I then defined marriage as a more or less durable connection between male and female, lasting beyond the mere act of propagation till after the birth of the offspring. This is marriage in the natural history sense of the term. As a social institution, on the other hand, it has a somewhat different meaning: it is a union regulated by custom or law.[2] Society lays down rules relating to the selection of partners, to the mode of contracting marriage, to its form, and to its duration. These rules are essentially expressions of moral feelings.

[Footnote 1: Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_, ch. iii. _sqq._]

[Footnote 2: The best definition of marriage as a social institution which I have met with is the following one given by Dr. Friedrichs ('Einzeluntersuchungen zur vergleichenden Rechtswissenschaft,' in _Zeitschr. f. vergl. Rechtswiss._ x. 255):--"Eine von der Rechtsordnung anerkannte und privilegirte Vereinigung geschlechtsdifferenter Personen, entweder zur Führung eines gemeinsamen Hausstandes und zum Geschlechtsverkehr, oder zum ausschliesslichen Geschlechtsverkehr."]

There is, first, a circle of persons within which marriage is prohibited. It seems that the horror of incest is well-nigh universal in the human race, and that the few cases in which this feeling is said to be absent can only be regarded {365} as abnormalities. But the degrees of kinship within which marriage is forbidden are by no means the same everywhere. It is most, and almost universally, abominated between parents and children. It is also held in general abhorrence between brothers and sisters who are children of the same mother as well as of the same father. Most of the exceptions to this rule refer to royal persons, for whom it is considered improper to contract marriage with individuals of less exalted birth; but among a few peoples incestuous unions are practised on a larger scale on account of extreme isolation or as a result of vitiated instincts.[3] It seems, however, that habitual marriages between brothers and sisters have been imputed to certain peoples without sufficient reason.[4] This is obviously true of the Veddahs of Ceylon, who have long been supposed to regard the marriage of a man with his younger sister as _the_ proper marriage.[5] "Such incest," says Mr. Nevill, "never was allowed, and never could be, while the Vaedda {366} customs lingered. Incest is regarded as worse than murder. So positive is this feeling, that the Tamils have based a legend upon the instant murder of his sister by a Vaedda to whom she had made undue advances. The mistake arose from gross ignorance of Vaedda usages. The title of a cousin with whom marriage ought to be contracted, that is, mother's brother's daughter, or father's sister's daughter, is _nagâ_ or _nangî_. This, in Sinhalese, is applied to a younger sister. Hence if you ask a Vaedda, 'Do you marry your sisters?' the Sinhalese interpreter is apt to say, 'Do you marry your nagâ?' The reply is (I have often tested it), 'Yes--we always did formerly, but now it is not always observed.' You say then, 'What? marry your own-sister-nagâ?' and the reply is an angry and insulted denial, the very question appearing a gross insult." The same writer adds:--"In no case did a person marry one of the same family, even though the relationship was lost in remote antiquity. Such a marriage is incest. The penalty for incest was death."[6]

[Footnote 3: Westermarck, _op. cit._ ch. xiv. _sq._]

[Footnote 4: This is apparently the case with various peoples mentioned by Sir J. G. Frazer (_Pausanias's Description of Greece_, ii. 84 _sq._) as being addicted to incestuous unions. Mr. Turner's short statement (_Samoa_, p. 341) that among the New Caledonians no laws of consanguinity were observed in their marriages, and that even the nearest relatives united, radically differs from M. de Rochas' description of the same people. "Les Néo-Calédoniens," he says (_Nouvelle Calédonie_, p. 232), "ne se marient pas entre proches parents du côté paternel; mais du côté maternel, ils se marient à tous les degrés de cousinage." Brothers and sisters, after they have reached years of maturity, are no longer permitted to entertain any social intercourse with each other; they are prohibited from keeping each other company even in the presence of a third person; and if they casually meet they must instantly go out of the way or, if that is impossible, the sister must throw herself on the ground with her face downwards. "Cet éloignement," M. de Rochas adds (_ibid._ p. 239), "qui n'est certes l'effet ni du mépris ni de l'inimitié, me parait né d'une exagération déraisonnable d'un sentiment naturel, l'horreur de l'inceste." Sir J. G. Frazer says that, according to Mr. Thomson, the marriage of brothers with sisters has been practised among the Masai; but a later and, as it seems, better informed authority tells us that "the Masai do not marry their near relations" and that "incest is unknown among them" (Hinde, _The Last of the Masai_, p. 76). Again, the statement that among the Obongos, a dwarf race in West Africa, sisters marry with brothers, is only based on information derived from another people, the Ashangos, who have a strong antipathy to them (Du Chaillu, _Journey to Ashango-Land_, p. 320). Liebich's assertion (_Die Zigeuner_, p. 49) that the Gypsies allow a brother to marry his sister is certainly not true of the Gypsies of Finland, who greatly abhor incest (Thesleff, 'Zigenarlif i Finland,' in _Nya Pressen_, 1897, no. 331 B).]

[Footnote 5: Bailey, 'Wild Tribes of the Veddahs of Ceylon,' in _Trans. Ethn. Soc._ N.S. ii. 294 _sq._]

[Footnote 6: Nevill, 'Vaeddas of Ceylon,' in _Taprobanian_, i. 178.]

As a rule, the prohibited degrees are more numerous among peoples unaffected by modern civilisation than they are in more advanced communities, the prohibitions in a great many cases referring even to all the members of the tribe or clan; and the violation of these rules is regarded as a most heinous crime.[7]

[Footnote 7: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 297 _sqq._]

The Algonquins speak of cases where men have been put to death by their nearest kinsfolk for marrying women of their own clan.[8] Among the Asiniboin, a Siouan tribe, a chief can commit murder with impunity if the murdered person be without friends, but if he married within his _gens_ he would be dismissed, on account of the general disgust which such a union would arouse.[9] The Hottentots used to punish alliances between first or second cousins with death.[10] A Bantu of the coast region considers similar unions to be "something horrible, something unutterably disgraceful."[11] The Busoga of the Uganda {367} Protectorate held in great abhorrence anything like incest even amongst domestic animals.[12] Among the Kandhs of India "intermarriage between persons of the same tribe, however large or scattered, is considered incestuous and punishable with death."[13] In the Malay Archipelago submersion is a common punishment for incest,[14] but among certain tribes the guilty parties are killed and eaten[15] or buried alive.[16] In Efate, of the New Hebrides, it would be a crime punishable with death for a man or woman to marry a person belonging to his or her mother's clan;[17] and the Mortlock Islanders are said to inflict the same punishment upon anybody who has sexual intercourse with a relative belonging to his own "tribe."[18] Nowhere has marriage been bound by more severe laws than among the Australian aborigines. Their tribes are grouped in exogamous subdivisions, the number of which varies; and at least before the occupation of the country by the whites the regular punishment for marriage or sexual intercourse with a person belonging to a forbidden division was death.[19]

[Footnote 8: Frazer, _Totemism_, p. 59.]

[Footnote 9: Dorsey, 'Siouan Sociology,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ xv. 224.]

[Footnote 10: Kolben, _Present State of the Cape of Good Hope_, i. 155 _sq._]

[Footnote 11: Theal, _History of the Boers in South Africa_, p. 16.]

[Footnote 12: Johnston, _Uganda Protectorate_, ii. 719.]

[Footnote 13: Macpherson, quoted by Percival, _Land of the Veda_, p. 345. _Cf._ Hunter, _Annals of Rural Bengal_, iii. 81.]

[Footnote 14: Wilken, _Huwelijken tusschen bloedverwanten_, p. 26 _sq._ Riedel, _De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua_, p. 460.]

[Footnote 15: Wilken, _Over de verwantschap en het huwelijks- en erfrecht bij de volken van het maleische ras_, p. 18.]

[Footnote 16: _Glimpses of the Eastern Archipelago_, p. 105.]

[Footnote 17: Macdonald, _Oceania_, p. 181 _sq._]

[Footnote 18: Kubary, 'Die Bewohner der Mortlock Inseln,' in _Mittheil. d. Geogr. Gesellsch. in Hamburg_, 1878-9, p. 251.]

[Footnote 19: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 299 _sq._ See, besides the authorities quoted there, Roth, _Ethnol. Studies among the North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines_, p. 182; Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 15.]

Not less intense is the horror of incest among nations that have passed beyond savagery and barbarism. Among the Chinese incest with a grand-uncle, a father's first cousin, a brother, or a nephew, is punishable by death, and a man who marries his mother's sister is strangled; nay, punishment is inflicted even on him who marries a person with the same surname as his own, sixty blows being the penalty.[20] So also incest was held in the utmost horror by the so-called Aryan peoples in ancient times.[21] In the 'Institutes of Vishnu' it is said that sexual intercourse {368} with one's mother or daughter or daughter-in-law is a crime of the highest degree, for which there is no other atonement than to proceed into the flames.[22]

[Footnote 20: Medhurst, 'Marriage, Affinity, and Inheritance in China,' in _Trans. Roy. Asiatic Soc. China Branch_, iv. 21 _sqq._]

[Footnote 21: Leist, _Alt-arisches Jus Gentium_, p. 394 _sq._]

[Footnote 22: _Institutes of Vishnu_, xxxiv. 1 _sq._]

Various theories have been set forth to account for the prohibition of marriage between near kin. I criticised some of them in my book on the 'History of Human Marriage,' and ventured at the same time on an explanation of my own.[23] I pointed out that there is an innate aversion to sexual intercourse between persons living very closely together from early youth, and that, as such persons are in most cases related by blood, this feeling would naturally display itself in custom and law as a horror of intercourse between near kin. Indeed, an abundance of ethnographical facts seem to indicate that it is not in the first place by the degree of consanguinity, but by the close living together, that prohibitory laws against intermarriage are determined. Thus many peoples have a rule of "exogamy" which does not depend on kinship at all, but on purely local considerations, all the members of a horde or village, though not related by blood, being forbidden to intermarry.[24] The prohibited degrees are very differently defined in the customs or laws of different nations, and it appears that the extent to which relatives are prohibited from intermarrying is nearly connected with their close living together. Very often the prohibitions against incest are more or less one-sided, applying more extensively either to the relatives on the father's side or to those on the mother's, according as descent is reckoned through men or women. Now, since {369} the line of descent is largely connected with local relationships, we may reasonably infer that the same local relationships exercise a considerable influence on the table of prohibited degrees. However, in a large number of cases prohibitions of intermarriage are only indirectly influenced by the close living together.[25] Aversion to the intermarriage of persons who live in intimate connection with one another has called forth prohibitions of the intermarriage of relations; and, as kinship is traced by means of a system of names, the name comes to be considered identical with relationship. This system is necessarily one-sided. Though it will keep up the record of descent either on the male or female side, it cannot do both at once;[26] and the line which has not been kept up by such means of record, even where it is recognised as a line of relationship, is naturally more or less neglected and soon forgotten. Hence the prohibited degrees frequently extend very far on the one side--to the whole clan--but not on the other. It should also be remembered that, according to primitive ideas, the name itself constitutes a mystic link between those who have it in common. "In Greenland, as everywhere else," says Dr. Nansen, "the name is of great importance; it is believed that there is a spiritual affinity between two people of the same name."[27] Generally speaking, the feeling that two persons are intimately connected in some way or other may, through an association of ideas, give rise to the notion that marriage or sexual intercourse between them is incestuous. Hence the prohibitions of marriage between relations by alliance and by adoption. Hence, too, the prohibitions of the Roman and Greek Churches on the ground of what is called "spiritual relationship."

[Footnote 23: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 310 _sqq._]

[Footnote 24: Herr Cunow (_Die Verwandtschafts-Organisationen der Australneger_, p. 187) finds this argument "rather peculiar," and offers himself a different explanation of the rule in question. He writes:--"In der Wirklichkeit erklärt sich das Verbot einfach daraus, dass sehr oft die Lokalgruppe mit dem Geschlechtsverband beziehungsweise dem Totemverband kongruirt, und demnach das was für die Gens gilt, zugleich auch für die Lokalgruppe Geltung hat." This, however, is only Herr Cunow's own inference. And it may be asked why it is more "peculiar" to suppose that the prohibition of marriage between near kin has sprung from aversion to sexual intercourse between persons living closely together, than to assume that the rule which forbids marriage between unrelated persons living in the same community has sprung from the prohibition of marriage between kindred.]

[Footnote 25: I do not understand how any reader of my book can, like Herr Cunow (_op. cit._ p. 186 _sqq._), attribute to me the statement that the group within which intermarriage is prohibited is identical with the group of people who live closely together. If he had read a little more carefully what I have said, he might have saved himself the trouble he has taken to prove my great ignorance of early social organisations.]

[Footnote 26: _Cf._ Tylor, _Early History of Mankind_, p. 285 _sq._]

[Footnote 27: Nansen, _Eskimo Life_, p. 230.]

{370} The question arises:--How has this instinctive aversion to marriage and sexual intercourse in general between persons living closely together from early youth originated? I have suggested that it may be the result of natural selection. Darwin's careful studies of the effects of cross- and self-fertilisation in the vegetable kingdom, the consensus of opinion among eminent breeders, and experiments made with rats, rabbits, and other animals, seem to have proved that self-fertilisation of plants and close inter-breeding of animals are more or less injurious to the species; and it is probable that the evil chiefly results from the fact that the uniting sexual elements were not sufficiently differentiated. Now it is impossible to believe that a physiological law which holds good of the rest of the animal kingdom, as also of plants, would not apply to man as well. But it is difficult to adduce direct evidence for the evil effects of consanguineous marriages. We cannot expect very conspicuous results from other alliances than those between the nearest relatives--between brothers and sisters, parents and children,--and the injurious results even of such unions would not necessarily appear at once. The closest kind of intermarriage which we have opportunities of studying is that between first cousins. Unfortunately, the observations hitherto made on the subject are far from decisive. Yet it is noteworthy that of all the writers who have discussed it the majority, and certainly not the least able of them, have expressed their belief in marriages between first cousins being more or less unfavourable to the offspring; and no evidence which can stand the test of scientific investigation has hitherto been adduced against this view. Moreover, we have reason to believe that consanguineous marriages are much more injurious in savage regions, where the struggle for existence is often very severe, than they have proved to be in civilised societies, especially as it is among the well-to-do classes that such marriages occur most frequently.

Taking all these facts into consideration, I am inclined to think that consanguineous marriages are in some way or {371} other detrimental to the species. And here I find a quite sufficient explanation of the horror of incest; not because man at an early stage recognised the injurious influence of close intermarriage, but because the law of natural selection must inevitably have operated. Among the ancestors of man, as among other animals, there was no doubt a time, when blood-relationship was no bar to sexual intercourse. But variations, here as elsewhere, would naturally present themselves--we know how extremely liable to variations the sexual instinct is; and those of our ancestors who avoided in-and-in breeding would survive, while the others would gradually decay and ultimately perish. Thus a sentiment would be developed which would be powerful enough, as a rule, to prevent injurious unions. Of course it would display itself, not as an innate aversion to sexual connections with near relatives as such, but as an aversion on the part of individuals to union with others with whom they lived; but these, as a matter of fact, would be blood-relations, so that the result would be the survival of the fittest. Whether man inherited this sentiment from the predecessors from whom he sprang, or whether it was developed after the evolution of distinctly human qualities, we cannot know. It must have arisen at a stage when family ties became comparatively strong, and children remained with their parents until the age of puberty or even longer. And exogamy, resulting from a natural extension of this sentiment to a larger group, would arise when single families united into hordes.

This attempt to explain the prohibition of marriage between kindred and exogamy has not lacked sympathetic support,[28] but more commonly, I think, it has been rejected. Yet after a careful consideration of the various objections raised against it I find no reason to alter my opinion. Some of my opponents have evidently failed to grasp the {372} argument on which the theory is based. Thus Professor Robertson Smith argued that it begins by presupposing the very custom which it professes to explain, the custom of exogamy; that "it postulates the existence of groups which through many generations (for the survival of the fittest implies this) avoided wiving within the group."[29] But what my theory postulates is not the existence of exogamous groups, but the spontaneous appearance of individual sentiments of aversion. And if, as Mr. Andrew Lang maintains, my whole argument is a "vicious circle,"[30] then the theory of natural selection itself is a vicious circle, since there never could be a selection of qualities that did not exist before.

[Footnote 28: A. R. Wallace, in his 'Introductory Note' to my _History of Human Marriage_, p. vi. Giddings, _Principles of Sociology_, p. 267. Howard, _History of Matrimonial Institutions_, i. 125 _sqq._ Sir E. B. Tylor (in _Academy_, xl. 289) says with regard to my theory that, at any rate, I am "well on the track." See also Crooke, _Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh_, i. pp. clxxix, clxxx, ccii.]

[Footnote 29: Robertson Smith, in _Nature_, xliv. 271.]

[Footnote 30: Lang, _Social Origins_, p. 33.]

It has been argued that if close living together calls forth aversion to sexual intercourse, such aversion ought to display itself between husband and wife as well as between near relatives.[31] But these cases are certainly not identical. The feeling of which I have spoken is aversion associated with the idea of sexual intercourse between persons who have lived in a long-continued intimate relationship from a period of life when the action of sexual desire is naturally out of the question.[32] On the other hand, when a man marries a woman his feeling towards her is of a very different kind, and his love impulse may remain, nay increase, during the conjugal union; though even in this case long living together has undoubtedly a tendency to lead to sexual indifference and sometimes to positive aversion. The opinion that the home is kept free from incestuous intercourse only by law, custom, and education,[33]{373} shows lack of discrimination. Law may forbid a son to marry his mother, a brother to marry his sister, but it could not prevent him from _desiring_ such a union. Have the most draconic codes ever been able to suppress, say, homosexual love? As Plato observed, an unwritten law defends as sufficiently as possible parents from incestuous intercourse with their children, brothers from intercourse with their sisters; "nor does the thought of such a thing ever enter at all into the minds of most of them."[34] Considering the extreme variability to which the sexual impulse is subject, it is not astonishing that cases of what we consider incestuous intercourse sometimes do occur. It seems to me more remarkable that the abhorrence of incest should be so general, and the exceptions to the rule so few.

[Footnote 31: Durkheim, 'La prohibition de l'inceste et ses origines,' in _L'année sociologique_, i. 64. Professor Durkheim refers in this connection to an article by Dr. Simmel, 'Die Verwandtenehe,' in _Vossische Zeitung_, June 3rd and 10th, 1894. But I cannot find that Dr. Simmel is really opposed to my view. He only says, "Das intime Beisammenleben wirkt keineswegs nur abstumpfend, sondern in vielen Fällen gerade anreizend, sonst würde die alte Erfahrung nicht gelten, dass die Liebe, wo sie beim Eingehen der Ehe fehlte, oft im Laufe derselben entsteht."]

[Footnote 32: _Cf._ Bentham, _Theory of Legislation_, p. 220:--"Individuals accustomed to see each other and to know each other, from an age which is neither capable of conceiving the desire nor of inspiring it, will see each other with the same eyes to the end of life."]

[Footnote 33: For advocates of such a view see Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 310 _sqq._ More recently it has been expressed by Krauss, in _Am Ur-Quell_, iv. 151, and Finck, _Primitive Love_, p. 49.]

[Footnote 34: Plato, _Leges_, viii. 838. Among the Maoris of New Zealand, according to Mr. Colenso (_Maori Races_, p. 47 _sq._), adult brothers and sisters slept together, as they had always done from their birth, "not only without sin, but without thought of it."]

Dr. Havelock Ellis, again, objects that my theory assumes the existence of a kind of instinct which can with difficulty be accepted. "An innate tendency," he says, "at once so specific and so merely negative, involving at the same time deliberate intellectual processes, can only with a certain force be introduced into the accepted class of instincts. It is as awkward and artificial an instinct as would be, let us say, an instinct to avoid eating the apples that grew in one's own orchard. The explanation of the abhorrence of incest is really, however, exceedingly simple. . . . The normal failure of the pairing instinct to manifest itself in the case of brothers and sisters, or of boys and girls brought up together from infancy, is a merely negative phenomenon due to the inevitable absence under those circumstances of the conditions which evoke the pairing impulse. . . . Between those who have been brought up together from childhood all the sensory stimuli of vision, hearing, and touch have been dulled by use, trained to the calm level of affection, and deprived of their potency to {374} arouse the erethistic excitement which produces sexual tumescence."[35] I think that Dr. Ellis has considerably exaggerated the difference between my theory and his own. The "instinct" of which I have spoken is simply aversion to sexual intercourse with certain persons, and this is a no more complicated mental phenomenon than, for instance, an animal's aversion to eating certain kinds of substances. Indeed, Dr. Ellis himself, in his excellent 'Studies in the Psychology of Sex,' gives us many instances not only of sexual indifference, but of sexual aversion, quite instinctive in character.[36] Thus the largest proportion of male inverts described by him experience what is called _horror feminæ_, that is to say, "woman as an object of sexual desire is disgusting" (not merely indifferent) to them.[37] And Dr. Ellis also repeatedly speaks of the "abhorrence" of incest.

[Footnote 35: Havelock Ellis, _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, 'Sexual Selection in Man,' p. 205 _sq._]

[Footnote 36: I have been blamed for making an illegitimate use of the word "instinct" (Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_ p. 446). But if, as Dr. Ellis says, "an instinct is fundamentally a more or less complicated series of reflexes set in action by a definite stimulus," or as Mr. Crawley puts it (_op. cit._ p. 446), instinct "has nothing in its content except response of function to environment," then the aversion I speak of may certainly be called an instinct.]

[Footnote 37: Havelock Ellis, _op. cit._ p. 164.]

The objection has been raised that, if my explanation of the prohibition of incest were correct, connections between unrelated persons who have been brought up together should be as repulsive as connections between near kin; whereas, as a matter of fact, the two cases are regarded in a very different light, the latter, only, being held incestuous.[38] Much, of course, depends on the closeness of the union, and Dr. Steinmetz's argument that "the very sensual Frenchmen often seem to marry the lady friends of their earliest youth,"[39] is certainly not to the point. I believe that sexual love between a man and his foster-daughter is almost as great an abnormality as sexual love between a father and his daughter; and among some peoples marriages between persons who have been brought up together in the same family or who {375} belong to the same local group, without being related to each other by blood, are held blamable or are actually prohibited.[40] Even between lads and girls who have been educated in the same school there is a remarkable absence of erotic feelings, as appears from an interesting communication by a person who has for many years been the head-mistress of such a school in Finland. One youth assured her that neither he nor any of his friends would ever think of marrying a girl who had been their school fellow;[41] and I heard of a lad who made a great distinction between girls of his own school and other, "real," girls, as he called them. Yet however objectionable and unnatural unions between foster-parents and foster-children or between foster-brothers and foster-sisters may appear to us, I do not deny that unions between the nearest blood-relatives inspire a horror of their own; and it seems natural that they should do so considering that from earliest times the aversion to sexual intercourse between persons living closely together has been expressed in prohibitions against unions between kindred. Such unions have been stigmatised by custom, law, and religion, whilst much less notice has been taken of intercourse between unrelated persons who may occasionally have grown up in the same household. The belief in the supernatural, especially, has played a very important part in the ideas referring to incest, as in other points of sexual morality, owing to the mystery which surrounds everything connected with the function of reproduction.[42] The Aleuts in early times believed that incest, which they considered the gravest crime, was always followed by the birth of monsters with walrus tusks, beards, and other disfigurations.[43] The Kafirs {376} likewise maintain that the offspring of an incestuous union will be a monster, as "a punishment inflicted by the ancestral spirit."[44] The Bataks of Sumatra regard a long drought as a decisive proof that two cousins have had criminal intercourse with each other.[45] The Galelarese think that incest calls forth alarming natural phenomena, such as earthquakes, the eruption of a volcano, or torrents of rain.[46] So also the higher religions have branded incest as a heinous sin. As for Christianity's views on the subject, it is sufficient to notice that the prohibited degrees were extended by the Church,[47] and that the jurisdiction over incest, as over all sexual offences, was exercised by the ecclesiastical courts.[48]

[Footnote 38: Steinmetz, 'Die neueren Forschungen zur Geschichte der menschlichen Familie,' in _Zeitschr. f. Socialwiss._ ii. 818 _sq._]

[Footnote 39: _Ibid._ ii. 818.]

[Footnote 40: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 321 _sqq._ Among the Western Islanders of Torres Straits marriage was forbidden, "with a remarkable delicacy of feeling, to the sister of a man's particular friend" (Haddon, 'Ethnology of the Western Tribe of Torres Straits,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xix. 315).]

[Footnote 41: Lucina Hagman, 'Från samskolan,' in _Humanitas_, ii. 188 _sq._]

[Footnote 42: For the connection between religious feelings and the sexual impulse, see Vallon and Marie, 'Des psychoses religieuses,' in _Archives de Neurologie_, ser. ii. vol. iii. 184 _sq._; Gadelius, _Om tvångstankar_, p. 120 _sq._; Starbuck, _Psychology of Religion_, p. 401 _sqq._]

[Footnote 43: Veniammof, quoted by Petroff, _Report on Alaska_, p. 155.]

[Footnote 44: Shooter, _Kafirs of Natal_, p. 45.]

[Footnote 45: von Brenner, _Besuch bei den Kannibalen Sumatras_, p. 212.]

[Footnote 46: van Baarda, 'Fabelen, verhalen en overleveringen der Galelareezen,' in _Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië_, xlv. (ser. vi. vol. 1.) p. 514. See also Frazer, _Golden Bough_, ii. 212 _sq._]

[Footnote 47: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 308. Katz, _Grundriss des kanonischen Strafrechts_, p. 116 _sq._]

[Footnote 48: Stephen, _History of the Criminal Law of England_, ii. 411.]

It has, finally, been argued that my theory utterly fails to explain the fact that prohibitions of intermarriage frequently refer to all the members of a clan, even those who live in different localities.[49] In addition to what I have previously observed on this point, I desire to emphasise that every hypothesis pretending to give a full explanation of prohibitions of incest must assume the operation of the very same mental law--that of association--which in my opinion accounts for clan-exogamy. Thus Professor Durkheim, while maintaining that my theory as regards the horror of incest could not apply to exogamy because the members of the same totem do not live together, is himself quite ready to resort to analogy to explain prohibitions extending outside the totem clan. He tries to show that clan-exogamy is the source of all other prohibitions against incest, and that clan-exogamy itself springs from totemism.[50] According {377} to him the rule of clan-exogamy has been extended to near relatives belonging to different clans, because they are in no less intimate contact with each other than are the members of the same clan. According to my own theory, again, the prohibition of marriage between near relatives living closely together has been extended to all the members of the clan on account of the notion of intimacy connected with the idea of a common descent and with a common name. If I consider Professor Durkheim's hypothesis extremely unsatisfactory,[51] it is certainly not because he has called in the law of association to explain the rules against incest. How could anybody deny the operation of this law for instance in the Roman Catholic prohibition of marriage between co-sponsors, or in the rule prevalent in Eastern Europe according to which the groomsman at the wedding is forbidden to intermarry with the family of the bride,[52] or in laws prohibiting marriage between relatives by alliance? And why might not the {378} same law be applied to other relationships also, such as those constituted by a common descent or a common name?

[Footnote 49: Cunow, _op. cit._ p. 185. Durkheim, in _L'année sociologique_, i. 39, n. 2. Steinmetz, in _Zeitschr. f. Socialwiss._ ii. 819.]

[Footnote 50: Prof. Durkheim says (_L'année sociologique_, i. 50):--"Le sang est tabou d'une manière générale et il taboue tout ce qui entre en rapports avec lui. . . . La femme est, d'une manière chronique, le théâtre de manifestations sanglantes. . . . La femme est donc, elle aussi, et d'une manière également chronique, tabou pour les autres membres du clan." However, the taboo is not restricted to the members of the clan, but refers also to near relatives belonging to different clans, and this has to be explained. M. Durkheim writes (_ibid._ p. 19):--"Quand on a pris l'habitude de regarder comme incestueux et abominables les rapports conjugaux de sujets qui sont nominalement du même clan, les rapports similaires d'individus qui, tout en ressortissant verbalement à des clans différents, sont pourtant en contact aussi ou plus intime que les précédents, ne peuvent manquer de prendre le même caractère." And further (_ibid._ p. 58):--"Quand le totémisme disparaît, et avec lui la parenté spéciale au clan, l'exogamie devient solidaire des nouveaux types de famille qui se constituent et qui reposent sur d'autres bases, et comme ces families sont plus restreintes que n'était le clan, elle se circonscrit, elle aussi, dans un cercle moins étendu; le nombre des individus entre lesquels le mariage est prohibé diminue. C'est ainsi que, par une évolution graduelle, elle en est arrivée à l'état actuel où les mariages entre ascendants et descendants, entre frères et s[oe]urs, sont à peu près les seuls qui soient radicalement interdits."]

[Footnote 51: Professor Durkheim tries to explain a phenomenon of universal prevalence through an institution which has been proved to exist among certain peoples only. How does Professor Durkheim know that totem clans once prevailed among all peoples who now prohibit the intermarriage of near relatives? If the rules which prevent parents from marrying their children and brothers from marrying their sisters are survivals of ancient totemism, how shall we explain the normal aversion to such unions? Ancient totemism can certainly not account for this. But then the coincidence between these two facts--the legal prohibition of incest and the psychical aversion to it--is merely accidental; and this seems to me a preposterous supposition. See _infra_, Additional Notes.]

[Footnote 52: Maine, _Dissertations_, p. 257 _sq._]

* * * * *

There is not only an inner circle within which no marriage is allowed, but also an outer circle outside of which marriage is either prohibited or at least disapproved of. Like the inner circle, the outer one varies greatly in extent.[53] Probably every people considers it a disgrace, if not a crime, for its men, and even more so for its women, to marry within a race very different from its own, especially if it be an inferior race. The Romans were prohibited from marrying barbarians--the emperor Valentinian inflicted the penalty of death for such unions;[54] and a modern European girl who married an Australian native would no doubt be regarded as an outcast by her own society. Among many peoples marriage very seldom or never takes place outside the limits of the tribe or community. In India there are several instances of this. The Tipperahs and Abors view with abhorrence the idea of their girls marrying out of their clan;[55] and Colonel Dalton was gravely assured that, "when one of the daughters of Pádam so demeans herself, the sun and moon refuse to shine, and there is such a strife in the elements that all labour is necessarily suspended, till by sacrifice and oblation the stain is washed away."[56] In ancient Peru it was not lawful for the natives of one province or village to intermarry with those of another.[57] Marriage with foreign women was unlawful at Sparta and Athens.[58] At Rome any marriage of a citizen with a woman who was not herself a Roman citizen, or did not belong to a community possessing the privilege of _connubium_ with Rome, was invalid, and no legitimate children could be born of such a union.[59]

[Footnote 53: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 363 _sqq._]

[Footnote 54: Rossbach, _Römische Ehe_, p. 465.]

[Footnote 55: Lewin, _Wild Races of South-Eastern India_, p. 201.]

[Footnote 56: Dalton, _Ethnology of Bengal_, p. 28.]

[Footnote 57: Garcilasso de la Vega, _First Part of the Royal Commentaries of the Yncas_, i. 308.]

[Footnote 58: Müller, _History of the Doric Race_, ii. 302. Hearn, _The Aryan Household_, p. 156 _sq._]

[Footnote 59: Gaius, _Institutiones_, i. 56.]

{379} Prohibitions of intermarriage also very often relate to persons belonging to different classes or castes of the same community.[60] To mention a few instances. The wild tribes of Brazil consider alliances between slaves and freemen highly disgraceful.[61] In Tahiti, if a woman of condition chose an inferior person as her husband, the children he had by her were killed.[62] In the Malay Archipelago marriages between persons of different rank are, as a rule, disapproved of, and in some places prohibited.[63] In India intermarriage between different castes, though formerly permissible, is now altogether prohibited.[64] In Rome plebeians and patricians could not intermarry till the year 445 B.C., nor were marriages allowed between patricians and clients; and Cicero himself disapproved of intermarriages of _ingenui_ and freedmen.[65] Among the Teutonic peoples in ancient times any freeman who married a slave became a slave himself.[66] As late as the thirteenth century a German woman who had intercourse with a serf lost her liberty;[67] and both in Germany and Scandinavia, when the nobility emerged as a distinct order from the class of freemen, marriages between persons of noble birth and persons who, although free, were not noble came to be considered misalliances.[68] Even in modern Europe there survive traces of the former class endogamy. According to German Civil Law, the marriage of a man belonging to the high nobility with a woman of inferior birth is still regarded as a _disparagium_, and the woman is not entitled to the rank of her husband, nor is the full right of inheritance possessed by her or her children.[69] Although in no way prevented by law, marriages out of {380} the class are generally avoided by custom. As Sir Henry Maine observes, "the outer or endogamous limit, within which a man or woman must marry, has been mostly taken under the shelter of fashion or prejudice. It is but faintly traced in England, though not wholly obscured. It is (or perhaps was) rather more distinctly marked in the United States, through prejudices against the blending of white and coloured blood. But in Germany certain hereditary dignities are still forfeited by a marriage beyond the forbidden limits; and in France, in spite of all formal institutions, marriages between a person belonging to the noblesse and a person belonging to the _bourgeoisie_ (distinguished roughly from one another by the particle 'de') are wonderfully rare, though they are not unknown."[70]

[Footnote 60: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 368 _sqq._]

[Footnote 61: von Martius, _Beiträge zur Ethnographie Amerika's_, i. 71. von Spix and von Martius, _Travels in Brazil_, ii. 74.]

[Footnote 62: Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 256. Cook, _Voyage to the Pacific Ocean_, ii. 171 _sq._]

[Footnote 63: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 371.]

[Footnote 64: Monier-Williams, _Hinduism_, p. 155.]

[Footnote 65: Mommsen, _History of Rome_, i. 371. Rossbach, _op. cit._ pp. 249, 456 _sq._]

[Footnote 66: Winroth, _Äktenskapshindren_, p. 227.]

[Footnote 67: _Ibid._ p. 230 _sq._ Weinhold, _Deutsche Frauen in dem Mittelalter_, i. 349, 353 _sq._]

[Footnote 68: Weinhold, _op. cit._ i. 349 _sq._]

[Footnote 69: Behrend, in von Holtzendorff, _Encyclopädie der Rechtswissenschaft_, i. 478.]

[Footnote 70: Maine, _Dissertations on Early Law and Custom_, p. 224 _sq._]

Religion, also, has formed a great bar to intermarriage. Among Muhammedans a marriage between a Christian man and a Muhammedan woman is not permitted under any circumstances, whereas it is held lawful for a Muhammedan to marry a Christian or a Jewish, but not a heathen, woman, if induced to do so by excessive love of her, or if he cannot obtain a wife of his own religion.[71] The Jewish law does not recognise marriage with a person of another belief;[72] and during the Middle Ages marriage between Jews and Christians was prohibited by the Christians also.[73] St. Paul indicates that a Christian was not allowed to marry a heathen.[74] Tertullian calls such an alliance fornication;[75] and in the fourth century the Council of Elvira forbade Christian parents to give their daughters in marriage to heathens.[76] Even the adherents of different Christian confessions have been prohibited from intermarrying. In {381} the Roman Catholic Church the prohibition of marriage with heathens and Jews was soon followed by the prohibition of "mixed marriages," and Protestants likewise forbade such unions.[77] Mixed marriages are not now contrary to the civil law either among Roman Catholic or Protestant nations, but in countries belonging to the Orthodox Greek Church ecclesiastical restrictions have been adopted, and are still recognised, by the State.[78]

[Footnote 71: Lane, _Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians_, i. 123. d'Escayrac de Lauture, _Die afrikanische Wüste_, p. 68.]