The romantic lover's dream is to marry one particular woman and her
alone; the sensual lover's dream embraces several women, or many. The
unromantic ideal of the ancient Hindoo is romantically illustrated in
a story told in the _Hitopadesa_ of a Brahman named Wedasarman. One
evening someone made him a present of a dish of barley-meal. He
carried it to the market hall and lay down in a corner near where a
potter had stored his wares. Before going to sleep, the Brahman
indulged in these pleasant reveries:
"If I sell this dish of meal I shall probably get ten
farthings for it. For that I can buy some of these
pots, which I can sell again at a profit; thus my money
will increase. Then I shall begin to trade in
betel-nuts, dress-goods and other things, and thus I
may bring my wealth up to a hundred thousand. With that
I shall be able to marry _four wives_, and to the
youngest and prettiest of them I shall give my
tenderest love. How the others will be tortured by
jealousy! But just let them dare to quarrel. They shall
know my wrath and feel my club!"
With these words he laid about him with his club, and of course broke
his own dish besides many of the potter's wares. The potter hearing
the crash, ran to see what was the matter, and the Brahman was
ignominiously thrown out of the hall.
The polygamous imagination of the Hindoos runs riot in many of their
stories. To give another instance: _The Kathakoça, or Treasury of
Stories_ (translated by C.H. Tawney, 34), includes an account of the
adventures of King Kánchanapura, who had five hundred wives; and of
Sanatkumara who beheld eight daughters of Mánavega and married them.
Shortly afterward he married a beautiful lady and her sister. Then he
conquered Vajravega and married one hundred maidens.
Hindoo books assure us that women, unless restrained, are no better
than men. We read in the same _Hitopadesa_ that they are like
cows--always searching for new herbs in the meadows to graze on. In
polyandrous communities the women make good use of their
opportunities. Dalton, in his book on the wild tribes of Bengal, tells
this quaint story (36):
"A very pretty Dophla girl once came into the station
of Luckimpur, threw herself at my feet and in most
poetical language asked me to give her protection. She
was the daughter of a chief and was sought in marriage
and promised to a peer of her father who had many other
wives. She would not submit to be one of many, and
besides she loved and she eloped with her beloved. This
was interesting and romantic. She was at the time in a
very coarse travelling dress, but assured of protection
she took fresh apparel and ornament from her basket and
proceeded to array herself, and very pretty she looked
as she combed and plaited her long hair and completed
her toilette. In the meantime I had sent for the
'beloved,' who had kept in the background, and alas!
how the romance was dispelled when a _dual_ appeared!
_She had eloped with two men!_"
Every reader will laugh at this denouement, and that laugh is eloquent
proof that in saying there can be no real love without absolute
monopolism of one heart by another I simply formulated and emphasized
a truth which we all feel instinctively. Dalton's tale also brings out
very clearly the world-wide difference between a romantic love-story
and a story of romantic love.
Turning from the Old World to the New we find stories illustrating the
same amusing disregard of amorous monopolism. Rink, in his book of
Eskimo tales and traditions, cites a song which voices the reveries of
a Greenland bachelor:
"I am going to leave the country--in a large ship--for
that sweet little woman. I'll try to get some beads--of
those that look like boiled ones. Then when I've gone
abroad--I shall return again. My nasty little
relatives--I'll call them all to me--and give them a
good thrashing--with a big rope's end. Then I'll go to
marry--_taking two at once_. That darling little
creature--shall only wear clothes of the spotted
seal-skins, and the other little pet shall have clothes
of the young hooded seals."
Powers (227) tells a tragic tale of the California Indians, which in
some respects reminds one of the man who jumped into a bramble-bush
and scratched out both his eyes.
"There was once a man who loved two women and wished to
marry them. Now these two women were magpies, but they
loved him not, and laughed his wooing to scorn. Then he
fell into a rage and cursed these two women, and went
far away to the North. There he set the world on fire,
then made for himself a tule boat, wherein he escaped
to sea, and was never seen more."
Belden, who spent twelve years among the Sioux and other Indians,
writes (302):
"I once knew a young man who had about a dozen horses
he had captured at different times from the enemy, and
who fell desperately in love with a girl of nineteen.
_She loved him in return_, but said she could not bear
to leave her tribe, and go to a Santee village, unless
her two sisters, aged respectively fifteen and
seventeen, went with her. Determined to have his
sweetheart, the next time the warrior visited the
Yankton village he took several ponies with him, and
bought all three of the girls from their parents,
giving five ponies for them."