CHAPTER XLIII

208Leviticus, xx. 10.Deuteronomy, xxii. 22.

209Schrader,Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples, p. 388.

210Wilda,Strafrecht der Germanen, p. 821. Nordström,op. cit.ii. 67sq.Stemann,Den danske Retshistorie indtil Christian V.’s Lov, pp. 324, 633. Keyser,Efterladte Skrifter, vol. ii. pt. ii. 32sq.Brunner,Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, ii. 662.

211Vinnius,In quatuor libros institutionum imperialium commentarius, iv. 18. 4, p. 993.Cf.Digesta, l. 16. 101. 1; Mommsen,Römisches Strafrecht, p. 688sq.

212Oratio in Neæram, p. 1386.Cf.Schmidt,Die Ethik der alten Griechen, ii. 196sq.

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

213Lecky,op. cit.ii. 312sq.Schmidt,op. cit.ii. 195sq.

214Aristotle,Œconomica, p. 341, vol. ii. 679.Cf.Isocrates,Nicocles sive Cyprii, 40.

215Plutarch,Conjugalia præcepta, 16.

216Plautus,Mercator, iv. 5.

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

217Laurent,op. cit.iv. 114. Gratian,Decretum, ii. 35. 5. 23.

218Seesupra,ii. 397.

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

219Hunter,Exposition of Roman Law, p. 1071.

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

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

1Karsch, ‘Päderastie und Tribadie bei den Tieren,’ inJahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen, ii. 126sqq.Havelock Ellis,Studies in the Psychology of Sex, ‘Sexual Inversion,’ p. 2sqq.

2Ives,Classification of Crimes, p. 49. The statement that it is unknown among a certain people cannot reasonably mean that it may not be practised in secret.

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

3von Spix and von Martius,Travels in Brazil, ii. 246; von Martius,Von dem Rechtszustande unter den Ureinwohnern Brasiliens, p. 27sq.; Lomonaco, ‘Sulle razze indigene del Brasile,’ inArchivio per l’antropologia e la etnologia, xix. 46; Burton,Arabian Nights, x. 246 (Brazilian Indians). Garcilasso de la Vega,First Part of the Royal Commentaries of the Yncas, ii. 441sqq.; Cieza de Leon, ‘La crónica del Perú [primera parte],’ ch. 49, inBiblioteca de autores españoles, xxvi. 403 (Peruvian Indians at the time of the Spanish conquest). Oviedo y Valdés, ‘Sumario de la natural historia de las Indias,’ ch. 81, inBiblioteca de autores españoles, xxii. 508 (Isthmians). Bancroft,Native Races of the Pacific States, i. 585 (Indians of New Mexico); ii. 467sq.(ancient Mexicans). Diaz del Castillo, ‘Conquista de Nueva-España,’ ch. 208, inBiblioteca de autores españoles, xxvi. 309 (ancient Mexicans). Landa,Relacion de las cosas de Yucatan, p. 178 (ancient Yucatans). Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, ‘Naufragios y relacion de la jornada que hizo a la Florida,’ ch. 26, inBiblioteca de autores españoles, xxii. 538; Coreal,Voyages aux Indes Occidentales, i. 33sq.(Indians of Florida). Perrin du Lac,Voyage dans les deux Louisianes et chez les nations sauvages du Missouri, p. 352; Bossu,Travels through Louisiana, i. 303. Hennepin,Nouvelle Découverte d’un très Grand Pays Situé dans l’Amerique, p. 219sq.; ‘La Salle’s Last Expedition and Discoveries in North America,’ inCollections of the New-York Historical Society, ii. 237sq.; de Lahontan,Mémoires de l’Amérique septentrionale, p. 142 (Illinois). Marquette,Recit des voyages, p. 52sq.(Illinois and Naudowessies). Wied-Neuwied,Travels in the Interior of North America, p. 351 (Manitaries, Mandans, &c.). McCoy,History of Baptist Indian Missions, p. 360sq.(Osages). Heriot,Travels through the Canadas, p. 278; Catlin,North American Indians, ii. 214sq.(Sioux). Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ inAnn. Rep. Bur. Ethn.iii. 365; James,Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, i. 267 (Omahas). Loskiel,History of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Indians, 1.14 (Iroquois). Richardson,Arctic Searching Expedition, ii. 42 (Crees). Oswald, quoted by Bastian,Der Mensch in der Geschichte, iii. 314 (Indians of California). Holder, inNew York Medical Journal, December 7th, 1889, quoted by Havelock Ellis,op. cit.p. 9sq.(Indians of Washington and other tribes in the North-Western United States). See also Karsch, ‘Uranismus oder Päderastie und Tribadie bei den Naturvölkern,’ inJahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen, iii. 112sqq.

4Lafitau,Moeurs des sauvages ameriquains, i. 603, 607sqq.

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

5Dall,Alaska, p. 402; Bancroft,op. cit.i. 92; Waitz,Anthropologie der Naturvölker, iii. 314 (Aleuts), von Langsdorf,Voyages and Travels, ii. 48 (natives of Oonalaska). Steller,Kamtschatka, p. 289, n.a; Georgi,Russia, iii. 132sq.(Kamchadales).

6Davydow, quoted by Holmberg, ‘Ethnographische Skizzen über die Völker des russischen Amerika,’ inActa Soc. Scientiarum Fennicæ, iv. 400sq.Lisiansky,Voyage Round the World, p. 199. von Langsdorf,op. cit.ii. 64. Sauer,Billing’s Expedition to the Northern Parts of Russia, p. 176. Sarytschew, ‘Voyage of Discovery to the North-East of Siberia,’ inCollection of Modern and Contemporary Voyages, vi. 16.

7Bogoraz, quoted by Demidoff,Shooting Trip to Kamchatka, p. 74sq.

8Jochelson,Koryak Religion and Myth, pp. 52, 53 n. 3.

9Jochelson,op. cit.p. 52sq.

In the Malay Archipelago homosexual love is common,10though not in all of the islands.11It is widely spread among the Bataks of Sumatra.12In Bali it is practised openly, and there are persons who make it a profession.13Thebasirof the Dyaks are men who make their living by witchcraft and debauchery. They “are dressed as women, they are made use of at idolatrous feasts and for sodomitic abominations, and many of them are formally married to other men.”14Dr. Haddon says that he never heard of any unnatural offences in Torres Straits;15but in the Rigo district of British New Guinea several instances of pederasty have been met with,16and at Mowat in Daudai it is regularly indulged in.17Homosexual love is reported as common among the Marshall Islanders18and in Hawaii.19From Tahiti we hear of a set of men called by the nativesmahoos, who “assume the dress, attitude, and manners, of women, and affect all the fantastic oddities and coquetries of the vainest of females. They mostly associate with the women, who court their acquaintance. With the manners of the women, they adopt their peculiar employments…. The encouragement of this abomination is almost solelyconfined to the chiefs.”20Of the New Caledonians M. Foley writes:—“La plus grande fraternité n’est pas chez eux la fraternité uterine, mais la fraternité des armes. Il en est ainsi surtout au village de Poepo. Il est vrai que cette fraternité des armes est compliquée de pédérastie.”21

10Wilken, ‘Plechtigheden en gebruiken bij verlovingen en huwelijken bij de volken van den Indischen Archipel,’ inBijdragen tot de taal- land- en volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, xxxiii. (ser. v. vol. iv.) p. 457sqq.

11Crawfurd,History of the Indian Archipelago, iii. 139. Marsden,History of Sumatra, p. 261.

12Junghuhn,Die Battaländer auf Sumatra, ii. 157, n.*

13Jacobs,Eenigen tijd onder de Baliërs, pp. 14, 134sq.

14Hardeland,Dajacksch-deutsches Wörterbuch, p. 53sq.Schwaner,Borneo, i. 186. Perelaer,Ethnographische beschrijving der Dajaks, p. 32.

15Haddon, ‘Ethnography of the Western Tribe of Torres Straits,’ inJour. Anthr. Inst.xix. 315.

16Seligmann, ‘Sexual Inversion among Primitive Races,’ inThe Alienist and Neurologist, xxiii. 3sqq.

17Beardmore, ‘Natives of Mowat, Daudai, New Guinea,’ inJour. Anthr. Inst.xix. 464. Haddon,ibid.xix. 315.

18Hernsheim,Beitrag zur Sprache der Marshall-Inseln, p. 40. A different opinion is expressed by Senfft, in Steinmetz,Rechtsverhältnisse von eingeborenen Völkern in Afrika und Ozeanien, p. 437.

19Remy,Ka Mooolelo Hawaii, p. xliii.

20Turnbull,Voyage Round the World, p. 382. See also Wilson,Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific, pp. 333, 361; Ellis,Polynesian Researches, i. 246, 258.

21Foley, ‘Sur les habitations et les mœurs des Néo-Calédoniens,’ inBull. Soc. d’Anthrop. Paris, ser. iii. vol. ii. 606. See also de Rochas,Nouvelle Calédonie, p. 235.

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

22Hardman, ‘Notes on some Habits and Customs of the Natives of the Kimberley District,’ inProceed. Roy. Irish Academy, ser. iii. vol. i. 74.

23Ibid.pp. 71, 73.

24Purcell, ‘Rites and Customs of Australian Aborigines,’ inVerhandl. Berliner Gesellsch. Anthrop.1893, p. 287.

25Ravenscroft, ‘Some Habits and Customs of the Chingalee Tribe,’ inTrans. Roy. Soc. South Australia, xv. 122. I am indebted to Mr. N. W. Thomas for drawing my attention to these statements.

26Howitt, ‘Some Australian Ceremonies of Initiation,’ inJour. Anthr. Inst.xiii. 450.

In Madagascar there are certain boys who live like women and have intercourse with men, paying those men who please them.27In an old account of that island, dating from the seventeenth century, it is said: “II y a … quelques hommes qu’ils appellent Tsecats, qui sont hommes effeminez et impuissans, qui recherchent les garçons, et font mine d’en estre amoureux, en contrefaisans les filles et se vestans ainsi qu’elles leurs font des presents pour dormir auec eux, et mesmes se donnent des noms de filles, en faisant les honteuses et les modestes…. Ils haïssent les femmes et ne les veulent point hanter.”28Men behaving like women have also been observed among the Ondonga in German South-West Africa29and the Diakité-Sarracolese in the French Soudan,30but as regards their sexual habits details are wanting. Homosexual practices are common among the Banaka and Bapuku in the Cameroons.31But among the natives of Africa generally such practices seem to be comparatively rare,32except among Arabic-speakingpeoples and in countries like Zanzibar,33where there has been a strong Arab influence. In North Africa they are not restricted to the inhabitants of towns; they are frequent among the peasants of Egypt34and universal among the Jbâla inhabiting the Northern mountains of Morocco. On the other hand, they are much less common or even rare among the Berbers and the nomadic Bedouins,35and it is reported that the Bedouins of Arabia are quite exempt from them.36

27Lasnet, inAnnales d’hygiène et de médecine coloniales, 1899, p. 494, quoted by Havelock Ellis,op. cit.p. 10.Cf.Rencurel, inAnnales d’hygiène, 1900, p. 562, quotedibid.p. 11sq.See also Leguével de Lacombe,Voyage à Madagascar, i. 97sq.Pederasty prevails to some extent in the island of Nossi-Bé, close to Madagascar, and is very common at Ankisimane, opposite to it, on Jassandava Bay (Walter, in Steinmetz,Rechtsverhältnisse, p. 376).

28de Flacourt,Histoire de la grande isle Madagascar, p. 86.

29Rautanen, in Steinmetz,Rechtsverhältnisse, p. 333.

30Nicole,ibid.p. 111.

31Ibid.p. 38.

32Munzinger,Ostafrikanische Studien, p. 525 (Barea and Kunáma). Baumann, ‘Conträre Sexual-Erscheinungen bei der Neger-Bevölkerung Zanzibars,’ inVerhandl. der Berliner Gesellsch. für Anthropologie, 1899, p. 668. Felkin, ‘Notes on the Waganda Tribe of Central Africa,’ inProceed. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, xiii. 723. Johnston,British Central Africa, p. 404 (Bakongo). Monrad,Skildring af Guinea-Kysten, p. 57 (Negroes of Accra). Torday and Joyce, ‘Ethnography of the Ba-Mbala,’ inJour. Anthr. Inst.xxxv. 410. Nicole, in Steinmetz,Rechtsverhältnisse, p. 111 (Muhammedan Negroes). Tellier,ibid.p. 159 (Kreis Kita in the French Soudan). Beverley,ibid.p. 210 (Wagogo). Kraft,ibid.p. 288 (Wapokomo).

33Baumann, inVerhandl. Berliner Gesellsch. Anthrop.1899, p. 668sq.

34Burckhardt,Travels in Nubia, p. 135.

35d’Escayrac de Lauture,Afrikanische Wüste, p. 93.

36Burckhardt,Travels in Arabia, i. 364. See also von Kremer,Culturgeschichte des Orients, ii. 269.

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

37Burton,Arabian Nights, x. 232.

38Kovalewsky,Coutume contemporaine, p. 340.

39Polak, ‘Die Prostitution in Persien,’ inWiener Medizinische Wochenschrift, xi. 627sqq.Idem,Persien, i. 237. Burton,Arabian Nights, x. 233sq.Wilson,Persian Life and Customs, p. 229.

40Malcolm,Sketch of the Sikhs, p. 140. Havelock Ellis,op. cit.p. 5, n. 2. Burton,Arabian Nights, x. 236.

41Wilson,Abode of Snow, p. 420. Burton,Arabian Nights, x. 236.

42Stavorinus,Voyages to the East-Indies, i. 456. Fryer,New Account of East-India, p. 97. Chevers,Manual of Medical Jurisprudence for India, p. 705.

43Chevers,op. cit.p. 708.

44Indo-Chinese Gleaner, iii. 193. Wells Williams,The Middle Kingdom, i. 836. Matignon, ‘Deux mots sur la pédérastie en Chine,’ inArchives d’anthropologie criminelle, xiv. 38sqq.Karsch,Das gleichgeschlechtliche Leben der Ostasiaten, p. 6sqq.

45Jwaya, ‘Nan sho k,’ inJahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen, iv. 266, 268, 270. Karsch,op. cit.p. 71sqq.

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

46Dionysius of Halicarnassus,Antiquitates Romanæ, vii. 2. Athenæus,Deipnosophistæ, xii. 14, p. 518 (Etruscans). Rein,Criminalrecht der Römer, p. 863.

47Polybius,Historiæ, xxxii. 11. 5.

48Buret,La syphilis aujourd’hui et chez les anciens, p. 197sqq.Catullus,Carmina, lxi. (‘In Nuptias Juliæ et Manlii’), 128sqq.Cf.Martial,Epigrammata, viii. 44. 16sq.

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