CHAPTER VI

A CRITICISM OF THE HYPOTHESIS OF PROMISCUITY

(_Concluded_)

Against the hypothesis of promiscuity Sir Henry Maine has urged that a good deal of evidence seems to show that promiscuous intercourse between the sexes tends to a pathological condition very unfavourable to fecundity; and “infecundity, amid perpetually belligerent savages, implies weakness and ultimate destruction.”[612]

Dr. Carpenter refers to the efforts of the American planters to form the negroes into families, as the promiscuity into which they were liable to fall produced infertility, and fertility had become important to the slave-owners through the prohibition of the slave-trade.[613] It is also a well-known fact that prostitutes very seldom have children, while, according to Dr. Roubaud, those of them who marry young easily become mothers.[614] “Il ne pousse pas d’herbe dans les chemins où tout le monde passe,” Dr. Bertillon remarks.[615] And, in a community where all the women equally belonged to all the men, the younger and prettier ones would of course be most sought after, and take up a position somewhat akin to that of the prostitutes of modern society.

It may perhaps be urged that the practice of polyandry prevails among several peoples without any evil results as regards fecundity being heard of. But polyandry scarcely ever implies continued promiscuous intercourse of many men with one woman. In Tibet, for example, where the brothers of a family very often have a common wife, more than one are seldom at home at the same time.[616] Mr. Talboys Wheeler has even suggested that polyandry arose among a pastoral people, whose men were away from their families for months at a time, so that the duty of protecting these families would naturally be undertaken by the brothers in turn.[617] Again, among the Kaniagmuts, the second husband was only a deputy who acted as husband and master of the house during the absence of the true lord;[618] and the same was the case in Nukahiva.[619] But especially remarkable is the following practice connected with polyandry. In the description given by Bontier and Le Verrier of the conquest and conversion of the Canarians in 1402 by Jean de Bethencourt we read that, in the island of Lancerote, most of the women have three husbands, “who wait upon them alternately by months; the husband that is to live with the wife the following month waits upon her and upon her other husband the whole of the month that the latter has her, and so each takes her in turn.”[620] Mr. Harkness tells us about a Toda who, having referred to his betrothal to his wife Pilluvāni and the subsequent betrothal of the latter to two others, Khakhood and Tūmbut, said, “Now, according to our customs, Pilluvāni was to pass the first month with me, the second with Khakhood, and the third with Tūmbut.”[621] Among the Kulus, in the Himalaya Mountains, when parents sell a daughter to several brothers, she belongs during the first month to the eldest brother, during the second to the next eldest, and so on;[622] whilst, as regards the Nairs, whose women, except those of the first quality, may marry twelve husbands if they pleased. Hamilton states that “all the husbands agree very well, for they cohabit with her in their turns, according to their priority of marriage, ten days, more or less, according as they can fix a term among themselves.”[623]

* * * * *

The strongest argument against ancient promiscuity is, however, to be derived from the psychical nature of man and other mammals. Mr. Darwin remarks that from what we know of the jealousy of all male quadrupeds, armed, as many of them are, with special weapons for battling with their rivals, promiscuous intercourse is utterly unlikely to prevail in a state of nature. “Therefore,” he continues, “looking far enough back in the stream of time, and judging from the social habits of man as he now exists, the most probable view is that he aboriginally lived in small communities, each with a single wife, or if powerful with several, whom he jealously guarded against all other men.”[624] Yet, according to the same naturalist, it seems certain, from the lines of evidence afforded by Mr. Morgan, Mr. McLennan, and Sir J. Lubbock, that almost promiscuous intercourse at a later time was extremely common throughout the world;[625] and a similar view is held by some other writers.[626] But if jealousy can be proved to be universally prevalent in the human race at the present day, it is impossible to believe that there ever was a time when man was devoid of that powerful feeling. Professor Giraud-Teulon[627] and Dr. Le Bon[628] assert, indeed, that it is unknown among almost all civilized peoples; but this assertion will be found to be groundless.

Starting from the very lowest races of men: we are told that the Fuegians “are exceedingly jealous of their women, and will not allow any one, if they can help it, to enter their huts, particularly boys.”[629] Several writers assert the same as regards the Australians.[630] Thus, according to Sir George Grey, “a stern and vigilant jealousy is commonly felt by every married man;”[631] and Mr. Curr states that, in most tribes, a woman “is not allowed to converse or have any relations whatever with any adult male, save her husband. Even with a grown-up brother she is always forbidden to exchange a word.”[632] With reference to the Veddahs of Ceylon, Mr. Bailey says that, with the very smallest cause, the men are exceedingly jealous of their most unattractive wives, and are very careful to keep them apart from their companions.[633]

According to a Thlinket myth, the jealousy of man is older than the world itself. There was an age, it is supposed, when men groped in the dark in search of the world. At that time a Thlinket lived who had a wife and sister; and he was so jealous of his wife, that he killed all his sister’s children because they looked at her.[634]

Great jealousy is met with among the Atkha Aleuts, according to Father Yakof; among the Kutchin Indians, according to Richardson and Hardisty; among the Haidahs, according to Dixon; among the Tacullis, according to Harmon; among the Crees, according to Richardson.[635] The Indians on the Eastern side of the Rocky Mountains visited by Harmon, in their fits of jealousy, “often cut off all the hair from the heads of their wives, and, not unfrequently, cut off their noses also; and should they not in the moment of passion have a knife at hand, they will snap it off at one bite, with their teeth.... The man is satisfied in thus revenging a supposed injury; and having destroyed the beauty of his wife, he concludes that he has secured her against all future solicitations to offend.”[636] In California, if a married native woman is seen even walking in the forest with another man than her husband, she is chastised by him, whilst a repetition of the offence is generally punished with speedy death.[637] Among the Creeks, “it was formerly reckoned adultery, if a man took a pitcher of water off a married woman’s head, and drank of it.”[638] The Moquis allow their wives to work only indoors, afraid of having rivals.[639] The Arawaks,[640] as also the Indians of Peru,[641] are stated to commit horrible crimes of jealousy. The Botocudos, who are known to change wives very frequently, are, nevertheless, much addicted to that passion.[642] And, regarding the Coroados of Brazil, v. Spix and v. Martius say that revenge and jealousy are the only passions that can rouse their stunted soul from its moody indifference.[643]

In the Sandwich Islands, according to Lisiansky, jealousy was extremely prevalent,[644] and, in Nukahiva, the men punish their wives with severity upon the least suspicion of infidelity.[645] The Areois of Tahiti, too, although given to every kind of licentiousness, are described by Ellis as utterly jealous.[646] The same is said of the New Caledonians and New Zealanders;[647] whilst, in the Pelew Islands, it is forbidden even to speak about another man’s wife or mention her name.[648] In short, the South Sea Islanders are, as Mr. Macdonald remarks, generally jealous of the chastity of their wives.[649]

Among the Malays of Sumatra, the husband jealously guards his wife as long as his affection lasts;[650] and, concerning several other tribes of the Indian Archipelago, Riedel says that the men are very much addicted to the same passion.[651] Captain Arnesen observed the great jealousy of the Samoyedes.[652] Dr. A. O. Heikel informs me that a Tartar may repudiate his wife if he sees her shaking hands with a man. Among the nomadic Koriaks, many wives are killed by passionate husbands. Hence their women endeavour to be very ugly: they refrain from dressing their hair or washing, and walk about ragged, as the husbands take for granted that, if they dress themselves, they do so in order to attract admirers.[653]

Among the Beni-Mzab, a man who speaks in the street to a married woman of quality is punished with a fine of two hundred francs and banishment for four years.[654] In the Nile countries and many other parts of Africa, it is customary for the men to preserve the fidelity of their wives in a way not unlike a method used in the age of the Crusades.[655] With reference to the inhabitants of Fida, Bosman tells us that a rich negro will not suffer any man to enter the houses where his wives reside, and on the least suspicion will sell them to the Europeans;[656] whilst in Dahomey, if a wayfarer meets any of the royal wives on the road, a bell warns him “to turn off or stand against a wall while they pass.”[657]

That jealousy is a powerful agent in the social life of civilized nations is a fact which it is unnecessary to dwell upon. In Mohammedan countries, a woman is not allowed to receive male visitors, or to go out unveiled,[658] it being unlawful for the Moslem to see the faces of any other women than those whom he is forbidden to marry and his own wives and female slaves.[659] A man who penetrates into the harem of another man may easily lose his life; and Dr. Polak states that, in Persia, a European physician cannot, without being considered indecent, even ask about the health of a Mohammedan’s wife and daughter, though they are ill.[660] Again, in Japan, as I am told by a native of the country, it was customary for women when getting married, to have their eyebrows shaved off, because thick and beautiful eyebrows are considered one of a woman’s greatest ornaments. At the same time, according to Mr. Balfour, their teeth are stained black, which can only have the effect of making the wife less attractive to the husband,—as well as to other men.[661] This reminds us of the wide-spread practice of depriving a woman of her ornaments as soon as she is married.

The prevalence of jealousy in the human race is best shown by the punishments inflicted for adultery; although it may be that the proprietary feeling here plays an important part. In a savage country a seducer may be thankful if he escapes by paying to the injured husband the value of the bride or some other fine, or if the penalty is reduced to a flogging, to his head being shaved, his ears cut off, one of his eyes destroyed, his legs speared, &c., &c. He must consider himself very lucky if he is merely paid in his own coin, or if the punishment falls on his wife, who, in that case, seems to be looked upon as the real cause of her husband’s unfaithfulness.[662] Most commonly, among uncivilized nations, the seducer is killed, adultery on the woman’s side being considered a heinous crime, for which nothing but the death of the offender can atone. Among the Waganda, it is, as a rule, punished even more severely than murder;[663] and, in parts of New Guinea, capital punishment is said to be almost unknown except for adultery.[664]

Mr. Reade remarks that, among savages generally, it is the seducer who suffers, not the victim.[665] Yet this holds good for certain peoples only,[666] the faithless wife being generally discarded, beaten, or ill-treated in some other way, and very frequently killed. Often, too, she is disfigured by her jealous husband, so that no man may fall in love with her in future. Thus, among several peoples of North America, India, and elsewhere, her nose is cut or bitten off,—a practice which also prevailed in ancient Egypt.[667] As late as the year 1120 the Council of Neapolis in Palestine decreed that an adulterer should be castrated, and the nose of an unfaithful wife cut off;[668] whilst, in the “Uplands-lag,” an old Swedish provincial law, it is prescribed that an adulteress who cannot pay the fine of forty marks, shall lose her hair, ears, and nose.[669] The Creeks and some Chittagong Hill tribes likewise cut off the ears of a woman who has been guilty of infidelity;[670] and many other people are in the habit of shaving her head.[671]

Among a large number of peoples, a husband not only requires chastity from his wife, but demands that the woman whom he marries shall be a virgin. There can be little doubt, I think, that this requirement owes its origin to the same powerful feeling that keeps watch over marital faithfulness.

Among the Ahts, for example, “a girl who was known to have lost her virtue, lost with it one of her chances of a favourable marriage.”[672] Among the Chippewas, according to Mr. Keating, no woman could expect to be taken as a wife by a warrior unless she had lived in strict chastity.[673] Statements to the same effect are made with reference to other Indian tribes.[674] Again, when one of the Chichimecs of Central Mexico marries, if the girl proves not to be a virgin, she may be returned to her parents.[675] A very similar custom prevailed among the Nicaraguans and Azteks,[676] and exist still among several tribes of the Indian Archipelago and in New Guinea;[677] whilst, in Samoa, valuable presents were given for a girl who had preserved her virtue, the bride’s purity being proved in a way that will not bear the light of description.[678]

“In many parts of Africa,” says Mr. Reade, “no marriage can be ratified till a jury of matrons have pronounced a verdict of purity on the bride;[679] it being customary to return a girl who is found not to have been entirely chaste, and to claim back the price paid for her.[680] Dr. Grade states that among the Negroes of Togoland, a much higher price is paid for a bride who is a virgin than for any other.[681] Among the Somals, a fallen girl cannot become a man’s legitimate wife;[682] whilst, in the Soudan and other parts of Africa where girls are subjected to infibulation, that incontinence may be made impossible, no young woman who is not infibulated can get a husband.[683]

The Jewish custom of handing “the tokens of the damsel’s virginity” to her parents, to be kept as evidence in case of a later accusation, is well-known.[684] A practice not very dissimilar to this prevails in China,[685] Arabia,[686] and among the Chuvashes,[687] with whom the _signum innocentiae_ is exhibited even _coram populo_. In Persia,[688] as also in Circassia,[689] a girl who is not a virgin when she marries, runs the risk of being put away after the first night. Among several nations belonging to the Russian Empire, according to Georgi, the bridegroom may claim a fine in case of the bride being found to have lost her virtue;[690] and, among the Chulims, if the Mosaic testimony of chastity is wanting, the husband goes away and does not return before the seducer has made peace with him.[691] As to the ancient Germans, Tacitus states that, by their laws, virgins only could marry.[692]

A husband’s pretensions may reach even farther than this. He often demands that the woman he chooses for his wife shall belong to him, not during his lifetime only, but after his death.

The belief in another life is almost universal in the human race. As that life is supposed to resemble this, man having the same necessities there as here, part of his property is buried with him. And so strong is the idea of a wife being the exclusive property of her husband, that, among several peoples, she may not even survive him.

Thus, formerly, among the Comanches, when a man died, his favourite wife was killed at the same time.[693] In certain Californian tribes, widows were sacrificed on the pyre with their deceased husbands;[694] and Mackenzie was told that this practice sometimes occurred among the Crees.[695] In Darien and Panama, on the death of a chief, all his concubines were interred with him.[696] When one of the Incas died, says Acosta, the woman whom he had loved best, as well as his servants and officers, were put to death, “that they might serve him in the other life.”[697] The same custom prevailed in the region of the Congo, as also in some other African countries.[698] “It is no longer possible to doubt,” says Dr. Schrader, “that ancient Indo-Germanic custom ordained that the wife should die with her husband.”[699] In India, as is well known, widows were sacrificed, until quite recently, on the funeral pile of their husbands;[700] whilst, among the Tartars, according to Navarette, on a man’s death, one of his wives hanged herself “to bear him company in that journey.” Among the Chinese, something of the same kind seems to have been done occasionally in olden times.[701]

Turning to other quarters of the world: in Polynesia, and especially in Melanesia, widows were very commonly killed.[702] In Fiji, for instance, they were either buried alive or strangled, often at their own desire, because they believed that in this way alone could they reach the realms of bliss, and that she who met her death with the greatest devotedness, would become the favourite wife in the abode of spirits. On the other hand, a widow who did not permit herself to be killed was considered an adulteress.[703] In the New Hebrides, according to the missionary John Inglis, a wife is strangled, even when her husband is long absent from home.[704]

If the husband’s demands are less severe, his widow is not on that account always exempted from every duty towards him after his death. Among the Tacullies, she is compelled by the kinsfolk of the deceased to lie on the funeral pile where the body of her husband is placed, whilst the fire is lighting, until the heat becomes unbearable. Then, after the body is consumed, she is obliged to collect the ashes and deposit them in a small basket, which she must always carry about with her for two or three years, during which time she is not at liberty to marry again.[705] Among the Kutchin Indians, the widow, or widows, are bound to remain near the body for a year to protect it from animals, &c.; and only when it is quite decayed and merely the bones remain, are they permitted to remarry, “to dress their hair, and put on beads and other ornaments to attract admirers.”[706] Again, among the Minas on the Slave Coast, the widows are shut up for six months in the room where their husband is buried.[707] With the Kukis, according to Rennel, a widow was compelled to remain for a year beside the tomb of her deceased husband, her family bringing her food.[708] In the Mosquito tribe, “the widow was bound to supply the grave of her husband with provisions for a year, after which she took up the bones and carried them with her for another year, at last placing them upon the roof of her house, and then only was she allowed to marry again.”[709]

In Rotuma and the Marquesas Islands,[710] as well as among the Tartars and Iroquois,[711] a widow was never allowed to enter a second time into the married state. Among the ancient Peruvians, says Garcilasso de la Vega, very few widows who had no children ever married again, and even widows who had children continued to live single; “for this virtue was much commended in their laws and ordinances.”[712] Nor is it in China considered proper for a widow to contract a second marriage, and in genteel families such an event rarely, if ever, occurs. Indeed, a lady of rank, by contracting a second marriage, exposes herself to a penalty of eighty blows.[713] Again, the Arabs, according to Burckhardt, regard everything connected with the nuptials of a widow as ill-omened, and unworthy of the participation of generous and honourable men.[714]

Speaking of the Aryans, Dr. Schrader remarks that, when sentiments had become more humane, traces of the old state of things survived in the prohibitions issued against the second marriage of widows.[715] Even now, according to Dubois, the happiest lot that can befall a Hindu woman, particularly one of the Brahman caste, is to die in the married state. The bare mention of a second marriage for her would be considered the greatest of insults, and, if she married again, “she would be hunted out of society, and no decent person would venture at any time to have the slightest intercourse with her.”[716] Again, among the Bhills, when a widow marries, the newly-wedded pair, according to a long-established custom, are obliged to leave the house before daybreak and pass the next day in the fields, in a solitary place, some miles from the village, nor may they return till the dusk. The necessity of the couple passing the first day of their marriage in this way, like outcasts, is, writes Sir J. Malcolm, “to mark that sense of degradation which all the natives of Hindustan entertain against a woman marrying a second husband.”[717] The South Slavonians, says Krauss, regard a widow’s remarriage as an insult to her former consort;[718] and a similar view prevailed in ancient Greece, according to Pausanias,[719] and among the Romans.[720] The early Christians, also, strongly disapproved of second marriages by persons of either sex, although St. Paul had peremptorily urged that the younger widows should marry.[721] Indeed the practice of second nuptials was branded with the name of a legal adultery, and the persons who were guilty of so scandalous an offence against Christian purity were soon excluded from the honours and even from the alms of the Church.[722]

Much more commonly, however, the prohibition of a second marriage refers only to a certain period after the husband’s death. Thus, among the Chickasaws, widows were obliged to live a chaste single life for three years at the risk of the law of adultery being executed against the recusants;[723] whilst, among the Creeks, a widow was looked upon as an adulteress if she spoke or made free with any man within four summers after the death of her husband.[724] Among the Old Kukis, widowers and widows could not marry within three years, and then only with the permission of the family of the deceased.[725] Among the Kunáma, too, the period of widowhood must not be shorter than three years, in Saraë not less than two.[726] The Arawaks, British Columbians, and Mandans required that the head of the widow should be shaved, and she was not permitted to marry again before her shorn locks regained their wonted length.[727] Among the Hovas, Ainos, Patagonians, &c., the widow has to live a single life for a year at least after her husband’s death,[728] and among some other peoples for six months.[729]

It may perhaps be supposed that the object of these prohibitions is to remove all apprehensions as to pregnancy. But this cannot be the case when the time of mourning lasts for a year or more. In Saraë, where a widow is bound to celibacy for two years, a divorced wife is prevented from marrying within two months only, as Munzinger says, “in order to avoid all uncertainty as to pregnancy;”[730] and, among the Bedouins, a divorced woman has, for the same reason, to remain unmarried for no longer time than forty days.[731] Moreover, certain peoples, especially those among whom monogamy is the only recognized form of marriage, or among whom polygyny is practised as a rare exception, prohibit the speedy remarriage not only of widows but of widowers.[732]

The meaning of the interdict appears also from the common rule that a wife, after her husband’s death, shall give up all her ornaments, and have her head shaved, her hair cut short, or her face blackened. Among certain Indians, the law compels the widow through the long term of her mourning to refrain from all public company and diversions, under pain of being considered an adulteress, and, likewise to go with flowing hair without the privilege of oil to anoint it;[733] whilst, in Greenland tales, it is said of a truly disconsolate widow, “She mourns so, that she cannot be recognised for dirt.”[734]

Hence we see how deep-rooted is the idea that a woman belongs exclusively to one man. Savages believe that the soul of the deceased can return and become a tormentor of the living. Thus a husband, even after his death, may punish a wife who has proved unfaithful.

According to travellers’ statements, there are, indeed, peoples almost devoid of the feeling of jealousy, and the practice of lending or prostituting wives is generally taken as evidence of this. But jealousy, as well as love, is far from being the same feeling in the mind of a savage as in that of a civilized man. A wife is often regarded as not very different from other property, and an adulterer as a thief.[735] In some parts of Africa, he is punished as such, having his hands, or one of them, cut off.[736] The fact that a man lends his wife to a visitor no more implies the absence of jealousy than other ways of showing hospitality imply that he is without the proprietary feeling. According to Wilkes, the aborigines of New South Wales “will frequently give one of their wives to a friend who may be in want of one; but notwithstanding this laxity they are extremely jealous, and are very prompt to resent any freedom taken with their wives.”[737]

A married woman is never permitted to cohabit with any man but the husband, except with the husband’s permission; and this permission is given only as an act of hospitality or friendship, or as a means of profit. When we are told that a negro husband uses his wife for entrapping other men and making them pay a heavy fine;[738] that, among the Crees, adultery is considered no crime “provided the husband receives a valuable consideration for his wife’s prostitution;”[739] or that, in Nukahiva, husbands sometimes offer their wives to foreigners “from their ardent desire of possessing iron, or other European articles,”[740]—we must not infer from this profligacy that jealousy is unknown to man at early stages of civilization. On the contrary, such practices are due chiefly to contact with “higher culture,” which often has the effect of misleading natural instincts. “Husbands, after the degradation of a pseudo-civilization,” says Mr. Bonwick, “are sometimes found ready to barter the virtue of a wife for a piece of tobacco, a morsel of bread, or a silver sixpence.”[741] Mr. Curr observes that, among the Australian natives, “husbands display much less jealousy of white men than of those of their own colour,” and that they will more commonly prostitute their wives to strangers visiting the tribe than to their own people.[742] “Under no circumstances,” says Sir George Grey, “is a strange native allowed to approach the fire of a married man.”[743] According to Bosman, the Negroes of Benin were very jealous of their wives with their own countrymen, though not in the least with European foreigners;[744] and Lisiansky states exactly the same as regards the Sandwich Islanders.[745] In California, says Mr. Powers, “since the advent of the Americans the husband often traffics in his wife’s honour for gain, and even forces her to infamy when unwilling; though in early days he would have slain her without pity and without remorse for the same offence.”[746] The like is true of the Columbians about Puget Sound;[747] and Georgi remarks that the nomadic Koriaks torment their wives by their jealousy, sometimes even killing them from this passion; whereas those Koriaks who lead a stationary life, being far more advanced in civilization, are so little addicted to it, that they even have a relish for seeing foreigners make love to their wives, whom they dress accordingly.[748]

If the hypothesis of an annual pairing time in the infancy of mankind holds good, jealousy must at that stage have been a passion of very great intensity.

It may, however, be supposed that this feeling, though belonging to human nature, has been restrained by certain conditions which have made it necessary, or desirable, for a man to share his wife with other men. Thus polyandry now prevails in several parts of the world. But I shall endeavour to show, later on, that this practice is due chiefly to scarcity of women, and commonly implies an act of fraternal benevolence, the eldest and first married brother in a family giving his younger brothers a share in his wife, if they would otherwise be obliged to live unmarried. Hence polyandry can by no means, as Mr. McLennan suggests, be regarded as “a modification of and advance from promiscuity.” It owes its origin to causes, or a cause, which never would have produced general communism in women. Besides, it can be proved that polyandry is abhorrent to the rudest races of men.

It has been suggested, too, that man’s gregarious way of living made promiscuity necessary. The men of a group, it is said, must either have quarrelled about their women and separated, splitting the horde into hostile sections, or indulged in promiscuous intercourse. But it is hard to understand why tribal organization in olden times should have prevented a man having his special wife, since it does not do so among savages still existing. Primitive law is the law of might; and it is impossible to believe that the stronger men, who generally succeeded in getting the most comely women, voluntarily gave their weaker rivals a share in their precious capture. Regarding the aborigines of Queensland, Lumholtz states that as a rule, it is difficult for men to marry before they are thirty years of age, the old men having the youngest and best-looking wives, while a young man must consider himself fortunate if he can get an old woman.[749] It more commonly happens among savages, however, that almost every full-grown man is able to get a wife for himself; and when this is the case, there is still less reason for assuming communism in women.

It is not, of course, impossible that, among some peoples, intercourse between the sexes may have been almost promiscuous. But there is not a shred of genuine evidence for the notion that promiscuity ever formed a general stage in the social history of mankind. The hypothesis of promiscuity, instead of belonging, as Professor Giraud-Teulon thinks,[750] to the class of hypotheses which are scientifically permissible, has no real foundation, and is essentially unscientific.