V.

[171]

L. da Vinci,Frammenti, selected by Solmi, pp. 177-180.

[172]

Westermarck, who accepts the "charm of disparity," gives references,History of Human Marriage, p. 354.

[173]

Descent of Man. Part II, Chapter XVIII.

[174]

Bloch (Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis, Teil II, pp. 260et seq.) refers to the tendency to admixture of races and to the sexual attraction occasionally exerted by the negress and sometimes the negro on white persons as evidence in favor of such charm of disparity. In part, however, we are here concerned with vague statements concerning imperfectly known facts, in part with merely individual variations, and with that love of the exotic under the stimulation of civilized conditions to which reference has already been made (p. 184).

[175]

In this connection the exceptional case of Tennyson is of interest. He was born and bred in the very fairest part of England (Lincolnshire), but he himself and the stock from which he sprang were dark to a very remarkable degree. In his work, although it reveals traces of the conventional admiration for the fair, there is a marked and unusual admiration for distinctly dark women, the women resembling the stock to which he himself belonged. See Havelock Ellis, "The Color Sense in Literature,"Contemporary Review, May, 1896.

[176]

It is noteworthy that in theRound-About, already referred to, although no man expresses a desire to meet a short woman, when he refers to announcements by women as being such as would be likely to suit him, the persons thus pointed out are in a notable proportion short.

[177]

It has been discussed by F. J. Debret,La Selection Naturelle dans l'espèce humaine(Thèse de Paris), 1901. Debret regards it as due to natural selection.

[178]

"Hérédité de la Couleur des Yeux dans l'espèce humaine,"Archives des Sciences physiques et naturelles, sér. iii, vol. xii, 1884, p. 109.

[179]

Revue Scientifique, Jan., 1891.

[180]

F. Galton,Natural Inheritance, p. 85. It may be remarked that while Galton's tables on page 206 show a slight excess of disparity as regards sexual selection in stature, in regard to eye color they anticipate Karl Pearson's more extensive data and in marriages of disparity show a decided deficiency of observed over chance results. InEnglish Men of Science(pp. 28-33), also, Galton found that among the parents parity decidedly prevailed over disparity (78 to 31) alike as regards temperament, hair color, and eye color.

[181]

Karl Pearson,Phil. Trans. Royal Society, vol. clxxxvii, p. 273, and vol. cxcv, p. 113;Proceedings of the Royal Society, vol. lxvi, p. 28;Grammar of Science, second edition, 1900, pp. 425et seq.;Biometrika, November, 1903. The last-named periodical also contains a study on "Assortative Mating in Man," bringing forward evidence to show that, apart from environmental influence, "length of life is a character which is subject to selection;" that is to say, the long-lived tend to marry the long-lived, and the short-lived to marry the short-lived.

[182]

For a summary of the evidence on this point see Havelock Ellis,Man and Woman, fourth edition, 1904, pp. 256-264.

[183]

"The Comparative Abilities of the Fair and the Dark,"Monthly Review, August, 1901.

[184]

The fact that even in Europe the abhorrence to incest is not always strongly felt is brought out by Bloch,Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis, Teil II, pp. 263et seq.

[185]

Westermarck,History of Marriage, Chapters XIV and XV.

[186]

Crawley (The Mystic Rose, p. 446) has pointed out that it is not legitimate to assume the possibility of an "instinct" of this character; instinct has "nothing in its character but a response of function to environment."

[187]

Fromentin, in his largely autobiographic novelDominique, makes Olivier say: "Julie is my cousin, which is perhaps a reason why she should please me less than anyone else. I have always known her. We have, as it were, slept in the same cradle. There may be people who would be attracted by this almost fraternal relationship. To me the very idea of marrying someone whom I knew as a baby is as absurd as that of coupling two dolls."

[188]

It may well be, as Crawley argues (The Mystic Rose, Chapter XVII), that sexual taboo plays some part among primitive people in preventing incestuous union, as, undoubtedly, training and moral ideas do among civilized peoples.

[189]

The remarks of the Marquis de Brisay, an authority on doves, as communicated to Giard (L'Intermédiare des Biologistes, November 20, 1897), are of much interest on this point, since they correspond to what we find in the human species: "Two birds from the same nest rarely couple. Birds coming from the same nest behave as though they regarded coupling as prohibited, or, rather, they know each other too well, and seem to be ignorant of their difference in sex, remaining unaffected in their relations by the changes which make them adults." Westermarck (op. cit., p. 334) has some remarks on a somewhat similar tendency sometimes observed in dogs and horses.

[190]

See Appendix to vol. lii of theseStudies, "The Sexual Impulse among Savages."

[191]

See, especially,ante, pp. 163et seq.

[192]

Kistemaecker, as quoted by Bloch (Beiträge, etc., ii. p. 340), alludes in this connection to the dark clothes of men and to the tendency of women to wear lighter garments, to emphasize the white underlinen, to cultivate pallor of the face, to use powder. "I am white and you are brown; ergo, you must love me"; this affirmation, he states, may be found in the depths of every woman's heart.

[193]

K. Pearson,Grammar of Science, second edition, p. 430.

[194]

InMan and Woman(fourth edition, p. 65) I have referred to a curious example of this tendency to opposition, which is of almost worldwide extent. Among some people it is, or has been, the custom for the women to stand during urination, and in these countries it is usually the custom for the man to squat; in most countries the practices of the sexes in this matter are opposed.

[195]

It is sufficient to quote one example. At the end of the sixteenth century it was a serious objection to the fashionable wife of an English Brownist pastor in Amsterdam that she had "bodies [a bodice or corset] tied to the petticoat with points [laces] as men do their doublets and their hose, contrary to I Thess., v, 22, conferred with Deut. xxii, 5; and I John ii, 16."

Summary of the Conclusions at Present Attainable in Regard to the Nature of Beauty and its Relation to Sexual Selection.

The consideration of vision has led us into a region in which, more definitely and precisely than is the case with any other sense, we can observe and even hope to measure the operation of sexual selection in man. In the conception of feminine beauty we possess an instrument of universal extension by which it seems possible to measure the nature and extent of such selection as exercised by men on women. This conception, with which we set out, is, however, by no means so precise, so easily available for the attainment of sound conclusions, as at first it may seem to be.

It is true that beauty is not, as some have supposed, a mere matter of caprice. It rests in part on (1) an objective basis of æsthetic character which holds all its variations together and leads to a remarkable approximation among the ideals of feminine beauty cherished by the most intelligent men of all races. But beyond this general objective basis we find that (2) the specific characters of the race or nation tend to cause divergence in the ideals of beauty, since beauty is often held to consist in the extreme development of these racial or national anthropological features; and it would, indeed, appear that the full development of racial characters indicates at the same time the full development of health and vigor. We have further to consider that (3) in most countries an important and usually essential element of beauty lies in the emphasis of the secondary and tertiary sexual characters: the special characters of the hair in woman, her breasts, her hips, and innumerable other qualities of minor saliency, but all apt to be of significance from the point of view of sexual selection. In addition we have (4) the factor of individual taste, constituted by the special organization and the peculiar experiences of the individual and inevitably affecting his ideal of beauty. Often this individual factor is merged intocollective shapes, and in this way are constituted passing fashions in the matter of beauty, certain influences which normally affect only the individual having become potent enough to affect many individuals. Finally, in states of high civilization and in individuals of that restless and nervous temperament which is common in civilization, we have (5) a tendency to the appearance of an exotic element in the ideal of beauty, and in place of admiring that kind of beauty which most closely approximates to the type of their own race men begin to be agreeably affected by types which more or less deviate from that with which they are most familiar.

While we have these various and to some extent conflicting elements in a man's ideal of feminine beauty, the question is still further complicated by the fact that sexual selection in the human species is not merely the choice of the woman by the man, but also the choice of the man by the woman. And when we come to consider this we find that the standard is altogether different, that many of the elements of beauty as it exists in woman for man have here fallen away altogether, while a new and preponderant element has to be recognized in the shape of a regard for strength and vigor. This, as I have pointed out, is not a purely visual character, but a tactile pressure character translated into visual terms.

When we have stated the sexual ideal we have not yet, however, by any means stated the complete problem of human sexual selection. The ideal that is desired and sought is, in a large measure, not the outcome of experience; it is not even necessarily the expression of the individual's temperament and idiosyncrasy. It may be largely the result of fortuitous circumstances, of slight chance attractions in childhood, of accepted traditions consecrated by romance. In the actual contacts of life the individual may find that his sexual impulse is stirred by sensory stimuli which are other than those of the ideal he had cherished and may even be the reverse of them.

Beyond this, also, we have reason for believing that factors of a still more fundamentally biological character, to some extent deeper even than all these psychic elements, enter into the problemof sexual selection. Certain individuals, apart altogether from the question of whether they are either ideally or practically the most fit mates, display a greater energy and achieve a greater success than others in securing partners. These individuals possess a greater constitutional vigor, physical or mental, which conduces to their success in practical affairs generally, and probably also heightens their specifically philogamic activities.

Thus, the problem of human sexual selection is in the highest degree complicated. When we gather together such scanty data of precise nature as are at present available, we realize that, while generally according with the results which the evidence not of a quantitative nature would lead us to accept, their precise significance is not at present altogether clear. It would appear on the whole that in choosing a mate we tend to seek parity of racial and individual characters together with disparity of secondary sexual characters. But we need a much larger number of groups of evidence of varying character and obtained under varying conditions. Such evidence will doubtless accumulate now that its nature is becoming defined and the need for it recognized. In the meanwhile we are, at all events, in a position to assert, even with the evidence before us, that now that the real meaning of sexual selection is becoming clear its efficacy in human evolution can no longer be questioned.

Manifestations resembling the kiss, whether with the object of expressing affection or sexual emotion, are found among various animals much lower than man. The caressing of the antennæ practiced by snails and various insects during sexual intercourse is of the nature of a kiss. Birds use their bills for a kind of caress. Thus, referring to guillemots and their practice of nibbling each other's feet, and the interest the mate always takes in this proceeding, which probably relieves irritation caused by insects, Edmund Selous remarks: "When they nibble and preen each other they may, I think, be rightly said to cosset and caress, the expression and pose of the bird receiving the benefit being often beatific."[196]Among mammals, such as the dog, we have what closely resembles a kiss, and the dog who smells, licks, and gently bites his master or a bitch, combines most of the sensory activities involved in the various forms of the human kiss.

As practiced by man, the kiss involves mainly either the sense of touch or that of smell. Occasionally it involves to some extent both sensory elements.[197]

The tactile kiss is certainly very ancient and primitive. It is common among mammals generally. The human infant exhibits, in a very marked degree, the impulse to carry everything to the mouth and to lick or attempt to taste it, possibly, as Compayre suggests,[198]from a memory of the action of the lips protrudedto seize the maternal nipple. The affectionate child, as Mantegazza remarks,[199]not only applies inanimate objects to its lips or tongue, but of its own impulse licks the people it likes. Stanley Hall, in the light of a large amount of information he obtained on this point, found that "some children insist on licking the cheeks, necks, and hands of those they wish to caress," or like having animals lick them.[200]This impulse in children may be associated with the maternal impulse in animals to lick the young. "The method of licking the young practiced by the mother," remarks S. S. Buckman, "would cause licking to be associated with happy feelings. And, further, there is the allaying of parasitical irritation which is afforded by the rubbing and hence results in pleasure. It may even be suggested that the desire of the mother to lick her young was prompted in the first place by a desire to bestow on her offspring a pleasure she felt herself." The licking impulse in the child may thus, it is possible, be regarded as the evanescent manifestation of a more fundamental animal impulse,[201]a manifestation which is liable to appear in adult life under the stress of strong sexual emotion. Such an association is of interest if, as there is some reason to believe, the kiss of sexual love originated as a development of the more primitive kiss bestowed by the mother on her child, for it is sometimes found that the maternal kiss is practiced where the sexual kiss is unknown.

The impulse to bite is also a part of the tactile element which lies at the origin of kissing. As Stanley Hall notes, children are fond of biting, though by no means always as a method of affection. There is, however, in biting a distinctly sexual origin to invoke, for among many animals the teeth (and among birds the bill) are used by the male to grasp the female more firmly during intercourse. This point has been discussed in theprevious volume of theseStudiesin reference to "Love and Pain," and it is unnecessary to enter into further details here. The heroine of Kleist'sPenthesilearemarks: "Kissing (Küsse) rhymes with biting (Bisse), and one who loves with the whole heart may easily confound the two."

The kiss, as known in Europe, has developed on a sensory basis that is mainly tactile, although an olfactory element may sometimes coexist. The kiss thus understood is not very widely spread and is not usually found among rude and uncultured peoples. We can trace it in Aryan and Semitic antiquity, but in no very pronounced form; Homer scarcely knew it, and the Greek poets seldom mention it. Today it may be said to be known all over Europe except in Lapland. Even in Europe it is probably a comparatively modern discovery; and in all the Celtic tongues, Rhys states, there is no word for "kiss," the word employed being always borrowed from the Latinpax.[202]At a fairly early historic period, however, the Welsh Cymri, at all events, acquired a knowledge of the kiss, but it was regarded as a serious matter and very sparingly used, being by law only permitted on special occasions, as at a game called rope-playing or a carousal; otherwise a wife who kissed a man not her husband could be repudiated. Throughout eastern Asia it is unknown; thus, in Japanese literature kisses and embraces have no existence. "Kisses, and embraces are simply unknown in Japan as tokens of affection," Lafcadio Hearn states, "if we except the solitary fact that Japanese mothers, like mothers all over the world, lip and hug their little ones betimes. After babyhood there is no more hugging or kisses; such actions, except in the case of infants, are held to be immodest. Never do girls kiss one another; never do parents kiss or embrace their children who have become able to walk." This holds true, and has always held true, of all classes; hand-clasping is also foreign to them. On meeting after a long absence, Hearn remarks, they smile, perhaps cry a little, they may even stroke each other, but that is all. Japanese affection "is chiefly shown inacts of exquisite courtesy and kindness."[203]Among nearly all of the black races of Africa lovers never kiss nor do mothers usually kiss their babies.[204]Among the American Indians the tactile kiss is, for the most part, unknown, though here and there, as among the Fuegians, lovers rub their cheeks together.[205]Kissing is unknown to the Malays. In North Queensland, however, Roth states, kissing takes place between mothers (not fathers) and infants, also between husbands and wives; but whether it is an introduced custom Roth is unable to say; he adds that the Pitta-pitta language possesses a word for kissing.[206]

It must be remarked, however, that in many parts of the world where the tactile kiss, as we understand it, is usually said to be unknown, it still exists as between a mother and her baby, and this seems to support the view advocated by Lombroso that the lovers' kiss is developed from the maternal kiss. Thus, the Angoni Zulus to the north of the Zambesi, Wiese states, kiss their small children on both cheeks[207]and among the Fuegians, according to Hyades, mothers kiss their small children.

Even in Europe the kiss in early mediæval days was, it seems probable, not widely known as an expression of sexual love; it would appear to have been a refinement of love only practiced by the more cultivated classes. In the old ballad of Glasgerion the lady suspected that her secret visitor was only a churl, and not the knight he pretended to be, because when he came in his master's place to spend the night with her he kissed her neither coming nor going, but simply got her with child. It is only under a comparatively high stage of civilization that the kiss has been emphasized and developed in the art of love. Thus the Arabic author of thePerfumed Garden, a work revealingthe existence of a high degree of social refinement, insists on the great importance of the kiss, especially if applied to the inner part of the mouth, and he quotes a proverb that "A moist kiss is better than a hasty coitus." Such kisses, as well as on the face generally, and all over the body, are frequently referred to by Hindu, Latin, and more modern erotic writers as among the most efficacious methods of arousing love.[208]

A reason which may have stood in the way of the development of the kiss in a sexual direction has probably been the fact that in the near East the kiss was largely monopolized for sacred uses, so that its erotic potentialities were not easily perceived. Among the early Arabians the gods were worshiped by a kiss.[209]This was the usual way of greeting the house gods on entering or leaving.[210]In Rome the kiss was a sign of reverence and respect far more than a method of sexual excitation.[211]Among the early Christians it had an all but sacramental significance. It retains its ancient and serious meaning in many usages of the Western and still more the Eastern Churches; the relics of saints, the foot of the pope, the hands of bishops, are kissed, just as the ancient Greeks kissed the images of the gods. Among ourselves we still have a legally recognized example of the sacredness of the kiss in the form of taking an oath by kissing the Testament.[212]

So far we have been concerned mainly with the tactile kiss, which is sometimes supposed to have arisen in remote times to the east of the Mediterranean—where the vassal kissed his suzerain and where the kiss of love was known, as we learn from the Songs of Songs, to the Hebrews—and has now conquerednearly the whole of Europe. But over a much larger part of the world and even in one corner of Europe (Lapland, as well as among the Russian Yakuts) a different kind of salutation rules, the olfactory kiss. This varies in form in different regions and sometimes simulates a tactile kiss, but, as it exists in a typical form in China, where it has been carefully studied by d'Enjoy, it may be said to be made up of three phases: (1) the nose is applied to the cheek of the beloved person; (2) there is a long nasal inspiration accompanied by lowering of the eyelids; (3) there is a slight smacking of the lips without the application of the mouth to the embraced cheek. The whole process, d'Enjoy considers, is founded on sexual desire and the desire for food, smell being the sense employed in both fields. In the form described by d'Enjoy, we have the Mongolian variety of the olfactory kiss. The Chinese regard the European kiss as odious, suggesting voracious cannibals, and yellow mothers in the French colonies still frighten children by threatening to give them the white man's kiss. Their own kiss the Chinese regard as exclusively voluptuous; it is only befitting as between lovers, and not only do fathers refrain from kissing their children except when very young, but even the mothers only give their children a rare and furtive kiss. Among some of the hill-tribes of south-east India the olfactory kiss is found, the nose being applied to the cheek during salutation with a strong inhalation; instead of saying "Kiss me," they here say "Smell me." The Tamils, I am told by a medical correspondent in Ceylon, do not kiss during coitus, but rub noses and also lick each other's mouth and tongue. The olfactory kiss is known in Africa; thus, on the Gambia in inland Africa when a man salutes a woman he takes her hand and places it to his nose, twice smelling the back of it. Among the Jekris of the Niger coast mothers rub their babies with their cheeks or mouths, but they do not kiss them, nor do lovers kiss, though they squeeze, cuddle, and embrace.[213]Among the Swahilis a smell kiss exists, and very young boys are taught to raise their clothes before women visitors, who thereupon playfullysmell the penis; the child who does this is said to "give tobacco."[214]Kissing of any kind appears to be unknown to the Indians throughout a large part of America: Im Thurn states that it is unknown to the Indians of Guiana, and at the other end of South America Hyades and Deniker state that it is unknown to the Fuegians. In Forth America the olfactory kiss is known to the Eskimo, and has been noted among some Indian tribes, as the Blackfeet. It is also known in Polynesia. At Samoa kissing was smelling.[215]In New Zealand, also, thehongi, or nose-pressing, was the kiss of welcome, of mourning, and of sympathy.[216]In the Malay archipelago, it is said, the same word is used for "greeting" and "smelling." Among the Dyaks of the Malay archipelago, however, Vaughan Stevens states that any form of kissing is unknown.[217]In Borneo, Breitenstein tells us, kissing is a kind of smelling, the word for smelling being used, but he never himself saw a man kiss a woman; it is always done in private.[218]

The olfactory kiss is thus seen to have a much wider extension over the world than the European (or Mediterranean) tactile kiss. In its most complete development, however, it is mainly found among the people of Mongolian race, or those yellow peoples more or less related to them.

The literature of the kiss is extensive. So far, however, as that literature is known to me, the following list includes everything that may be profitably studied: Darwin,The Expression of the Emotions; Ling Roth, "Salutations,"Journal of the Anthropological Institute, November, 1889; K. Andree, "Nasengruss,"Ethnographische Parallelen, second series, 1889, pp. 223-227; Alfred Kirchhoff, "Vom Ursprung des Küsses,"Deutsche Revue, May, 1895; Lombroso, "L'Origine du Baiser,"Nouvelle Revue, 1897, p. 153; Paul d'Enjoy, "Le Baiser en Europe et en Chine,"Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie, Paris, 1897, fasc. 2.Professor Nyrop's book,The Kiss and its History(translated from the Danish by W. F. Harvey), deals rather with the history of the kiss in civilization and literature than with its biological origins and psychological significance.

[196]

E. Selous,Bird Watching, 1901, p. 191. This author adds: "It seems probable indeed that the conferring a practical benefit of the kind indicated may be the origin of the caress throughout nature."

[197]

Tylor terms the kiss "the salute by tasting," and d'Enjoy defines it as "a bite and a suction"; there seems, however, little evidence to show that the kiss contains any gustatory element in the strict sense.

[198]

Compayre,L'Evolution intellectuelle et morale de l'enfant, p. 9.

[199]

Mantegazza,Physiognomy and Expression, p. 144.

[200]

G. Stanley Hall, "The Early Sense of Self,"American Journal of Psychology, April, 1898, p. 361.

[201]

In some parts of the world the impulse persists into adult life. Sir S. Baker (Ismailia, p. 472) mentions licking the eyes as a sign of affection.

[202]

Book of Common Prayer in Manx Gaelic, edited by A. W. Moore and J. Rhys, 1895.

[203]

L. Hearn,Out of the East, 1895, p. 103.

[204]

See,e.g., A. B. Ellis,Tshi-speaking Peoples, p. 288. Among the Swahili the kiss is practiced, but exclusively between married people and with very young children. Velten believes they learned it from the Arabs.

[205]

Hyades and Deniker,Mission Scientifique du Cap Horn, vol. vii, p. 245.

[206]

W. Roth,Ethnological Notes Among the Queensland Aborigines, p. 184.

[207]

Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 1900, ht. 5, p. 200.

[208]

E.g., theKama Sutraof Vatsyayana, Bk. III, Chapter I.

[209]

Hosea, Chapter xiii, v. 2; I Kings, Chapter xix, v. 18.

[210]

Wellhausen,Reste Arabischen Heidentums, p. 109.

[211]

The Romans recognized at least three kinds of kiss: theosculum, for friendship, given on the face; thebasium, for affection, given on the lips; thesuavium, given between the lips, reserved for lovers.

[212]

In other parts of the world it would appear that the kiss sometimes has a sacred or ritual character. Thus, according to Rev. J. Macdonald (Journal of the Anthropological Institute, November, 1890, p. 118), it is part of the initiation ceremony of a girl at her first menstruation that the women of the village should kiss her on the cheek, and on the mons veneris and labia.

[213]

Journal of the Anthropological Institute, August and November, 1898, p. 107.

[214]

Velten,Sitten und Gebraüche der Suaheli, p. 142.

[215]

Turner,Samoa, p. 45.

[216]

Tregear,Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 1889.

[217]

Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 1896, ht. 4, p. 272.

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