Chapter 116

89Sainte-Palaye,op. cit.ii. 19.Cf.Walter Scott, ‘Essay on Chivalry,’ inMiscellaneous Prose Works, vi. 48sq.

90Lecky,op. cit.ii. 346.Cf.Delécluze,Roland ou la Chevalerie, i. 356.

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that which attended the infraction of the marriage vow.92But the fate of these and similar laws has been either to be repealed or to become inactive.93For ordinary acts of incontinence public opinion is, practically at least, the only judge.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

91Pike,History of Crime in England, ii. 182.

92Rogers,Social Life in Scotland, ii. 242.

93See Pike,op. cit.ii. 582; Hume,Commentaries on the Law of Scotland, ii. 333.

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

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

It seems to me obvious that this censure is chiefly due to the preference which a man gives to a virgin bride. As I have shown in another place, such a preference is afact of very common occurrence.94It partly springs from a feeling akin to jealousy towards women who have had previous connections with other men, partly from the warm response a man expects from a woman whose appetites he is the first to gratify, and largely from an instinctive appreciation of female coyness. Each sex is attracted by the distinctive characteristics of the opposite sex, and coyness is a female quality. In mankind, as among other mammals, the female requires to be courted, often endeavouring for a long time to escape from the male. Not only in civilised countries may courtship mean a prolonged making of love to the woman. Mariner’s words with reference to the women of Tonga hold true of a great many, if not all, savage and barbarous races of men. “It must not be supposed,” he says, “that these women are always easily won; the greatest attentions and most fervent solicitations are sometimes requisite, even though there be no other lover in the way.”95The marriage ceremonies of many peoples bear testimony to the same fact. One origin of the form of capture is the resistance of the pursued woman, due to coyness, partly real and partly assumed.96On the East Coast of Greenland, for instance, the only method of contracting a marriage is for a man to go to the girl’s tent, catch her by her hair or anything else which offers a hold, and drag her off to his dwelling without further ado; violent scenes are often the result, as single women always affect the utmost bashfulness and aversion to any proposal of marriage, lest they should lose their reputation for modesty.97It is certainly not the woman who most readily yields to the desires of a man that is most attractive to him; as an ancient writer puts it, all men love seasoned dishes, not plain meats, or plainly dressedfish, and it is modesty that gives the bloom to beauty.98Conspicuous eagerness in a woman appears to a man unwomanly, repulsive, contemptible. His ideal is the virgin; the libertine he despises.

94Westermarck,op. cit.p. 123sq.

95Mariner,op. cit.ii. 174.Cf.Fritsch,Die Eingeborenen Süd-Afrika’s, p. 445 (Bushmans).

96Cf.Spencer,Principles of Sociology, i. 623sq.;Idem, inFortnightly Review, xxi. 897sq.; Westermarck,op. cit.p. 388; Grosse,Die Formen der Familie, p. 107; Crawley,The Mystic Rose, p. 305sq.

97Nansen,First Crossing of Greenland, i. 316sqq.

98Athenæus,Deipnosophistæ, xiii. 16.

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

99Ellis,Tshi-speaking Peoples, p. 286.

100Chanler,Through Jungle and Desert, p. 317.

101Exodus, xxii. 16sq.

102Douglas, quoted by Petroff,op. cit.p. 177.

103Le Mesurier, ‘Veddás of Ceylon,’ inJour. Roy. Asiatic Soc. Ceylon Branch, ix. 340. Hartshorne, ‘Weddas,’ inIndian Antiquary, viii. 320.

104Nevill, ‘Vaeddas of Ceylon,’ inTaprobanian, i. 178.

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

105Mariner,op. cit.ii. 107.

106Kubary, ‘Die Verbrechen und das Strafverfahren auf den Pelau-Inseln,’ inOriginal-Mittheil. aus der ethnol. Abtheil. der königl. Museen Berlin, i. 78.

107Crawfurd,History of the Indian Archipelago, iii. 130.

108Dorsey, ‘Siouan Sociology,’ inAnn. Rep. Bur. Ethn.xv. 226.

109Brunner,Deutsche Rechtsgeschichteii. 666. Pollock and Maitland,History of English Law before the Time of Edward I.ii. 490. According to Salic law, the fine for the rape of aningenua puellawas 62½ solidi, or only a little higher than the fine for a connection with her to which she herself consented (Lex Salica, Herold’s text, xiv. 4; xv. 3); whereas the fine for adultery with a free woman was 200 solidi (ibid.xv. 1).

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

110Cook,Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, ii. 157.

111Code Napoléon, § 340.

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

112Thomas Aquinas,Summa theologica, ii.-ii. 154. 2.

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

113E.g., the Chittagong Hill tribes (Lewin,Wild Races of South-Eastern India, p. 348).Cf.Westermarck,op. cit.p. 70sq.

114Cf.Simmel,Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft, i. 201; Paulsen,System der Ethik, ii. 274.

115Lysias, quoted by Schmidt,Die Ethik der alten Griechen, i. 273.

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

116Seesupra,ii. 423.

117See,e.g., Tutuila, ‘Line Islanders,’ inJour. Polynesian Soc.i. 270; Powell,Wanderings in a Wild Country, p. 261 (natives of New Britain); Davis,El Gringo, p. 221 (Indians of New Mexico); Ploss-Bartels,Das Weib, i. 536, 540sqq.

118Codrington,Melanesians, p. 234sqq.

119Emin Pasha in Central Africa, p. 88.

120Reade,Savage Africa, p. 547sq.

121Emin Pasha in Central Africa, p. 87. Wilson and Felkin,Uganda, ii. 49.

122Egede,Description of Greenland, p. 141.

123Cranz,History of Greenland, i. 176.

124Carver,Travels through the Interior Parts of North America, p. 375.

125Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ inAnn. Rep. Bur. Ethn.iii. 365.

126Bancroft,Native Races of the Pacific States, ii. 676, 659.

127Garcilasso de la Vega,First Part of the Royal Commentaries of the Yncas, i. 321sq.

128Herrera,General History of the West Indies, iv. 340.

129Dufour,Histoire de la prostitution,passim. Doolittle,Social Life of the Chinese, i. 348. Wilkins,Modern Hinduism, p. 412. Polak, ‘Die Prostitution in Persien,’ inWiener Medizinische Wochenschrift, xi. 516, 517, 563sqq.Lane,Modern Egyptians, i. 150. Weinhold,Altnordisches Leben, p. 259 (ancient Scandinavians). Desmaze,Les pénalités anciennes, p. 61sq.n. 4; Mackintosh,History of Civilisation in Scotland, i. 428 (Middle Ages); &c. Since the thirteenth century even the Church tolerated the establishment of brothels in the larger cities (Müller,Das sexuelle Leben der christlichen Kulturvölker, p. 149).

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

130Ellis,Ew̔e-speaking Peoples, p. 141.

131Ellis,Tshi-speaking Peoples, p. 121sq.

132Strabo,Geographica, xvii. i. 46.Cf.Wiedemann,Herodots zweites Buch, p. 269.

133Warneck, quoted by Ploss-Bartels,op. cit.i. 534.

134Ward,View of the History, &c. of the Hindoos, ii. 134.

135Driver,Commentary on Deuteronomy, p. 264. Cheyne, ‘Harlot,’ in Cheyne and Black,Encyclopædia Biblica, ii. 1965.

136Hosea, iv. 14.Cf.Cheyne, inEncyclopædia Biblica, ii. 1965.

137Deuteronomy, xxiii. 17sq.

138See Westermarck,The Moorish Conception of Holiness (Baraka), p. 85.

Of a somewhat different character was the religious prostitution which prevailed in ancient Babylonia, in connection with the worship of Ishtar. Herodotus says that every woman born in that country was obliged once in herlife to go and sit down in the precinct of Aphrodite, and there consort with a stranger. A woman who had once taken her seat was not allowed to return home till one of the strangers threw a silver coin into her lap, and took her with him beyond the holy ground. The silver coin could not be refused because, since once thrown, it was sacred. The woman went with the first man who threw her money, rejecting no one. When she had gone with him, and so satisfied the goddess, she returned home, and from that time forth no gift, however great, would prevail with her.139Several allusions in cuneiform literature to the sacred prostitution carried on at Babylonian temples confirm Herodotus’ statement in general.140A cult very similar to this was also found in certain parts of the island of Cyprus,141at Heliopolis in Syria,142and at Byblus.143In the worship of Anaitis the Armenians even of the highest families prostituted their own daughters at least once in their lives, nor was this regarded as any bar to an honourable marriage afterwards.144Although such practices were generally excluded from the ordinary Greek worships of Aphrodite, unchastity in the temple cult of that goddess is reported to have occurred at Corinth145and in the city of the Locri Epizephyrii, who, according to the story, vowed to consecrate their daughters to this service in order to gain the goddess’s aid in a war.146

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