As I have just intimated, a modern romantic lover would not exchange a
beloved beggar-maid for an heiress or princess; nor would he give her
for a dozen other girls, however charming, and with permission to
marry them all. Now if romantic love had always existed, the lower
races would have the same violent and exclusive preference for
individuals. But what are the facts? I assert, without fear of
contradiction from any one familiar with anthropological literature,
that a savage or barbarian, be he Australian, African, American, or
Asiatic, would laugh at the idea of refusing to exchange one woman for
a dozen others equally young and attractive. It is not necessary to
descend to the lowest savages to find corroboration of this view. Dr.
Zöller, an unusually intelligent and trustworthy observer, says, in
one of his volumes on German Africa (III., 70-71), that
"on the whole no distinction whatever is made between woman
and woman, between the good-looking and the ugly, the
intelligent and the stupid ones. In all my African
experiences I have never heard of a single young man or
woman who conceived a violent passion for a particular
individual of the opposite sex."
So in other parts of Africa. The natives of Borgou, we are told by R.
and J. Lander, marry with perfect indifference. "A man takes no more
thought about choosing a wife than he does in picking a head of
wheat." Among the Kaffirs, says Fritsch (112) it may occur that a man
has an inclination toward a particular girl; but he adds that "in
such cases the suitor is obliged to pay several oxen more than is
customary, and as he usually takes cattle more to heart than women,
such cases are rare;" and though, when he has several wives, he may
have a favorite, the attachment to her is shallow and transient, for
she is at any moment liable to displacement by a new-comer. Among the
Hottentots at Angra Pequena, when a man covets a girl he goes to her
hut, prepares a cup of coffee and hands it to her without saying a
word. If she drinks half of it, he knows the answer is Yes. "If she
refuses to touch the coffee, the suitor is not specially grieved, but
proceeds to another hut to try his luck again in the same way."
(Ploss, I., 454.)
Of the Fijians Williams (148) says: "Too commonly there is no express
feeling of connubial bliss, men speak of 'our women' and women of 'our
men' without any distinctive preference being apparent." Catlin,
speaking (70-71) of the matrimonial arrangements of the Pawnee
Indians, says that daughters are held as legitimate merchandise, and,
as a rule, accept the situation "with the apathy of the race." A man
who advertised for a wife would hardly be accused of individual
preference or anything else indicating love. From a remark made by
George Gibbs (197) we may infer that the Indians of Oregon and
Washington used to advertise for wives, in their own fashion:
"It is not unusual to find on the small prairies human
figures rudely carved upon trees. These I have
understood to have been cut by young men who were in
want of wives, as a sort of practical intimation that
they were in the market as purchasers."
It might be suggested that such a crude love-letter _to the sex in
general_, as compared with one of our own love-letters to a particular
girl, gives a fair idea of what Indian love is, compared with the love
of civilized men and women.