Sufficient evidence has now been adduced to make it clear that the
first of the two questions posed at the outset of this chapter must be
answered in the negative. Coyness is _not_ an innate or universal
trait of femininity, but is often absent, particularly where man's
absorption in war and woman's need of protection prevent its growth
and induce the females to do the courting. This being the case and war
being the normal state of the lower races, our next task is to
ascertain what were the influences that induced woman to adopt the
habit of repelling advances instead of making them. It is one of the
most interesting questions in sexual psychology, which has never been
answered satisfactorily; it and gains additional interest from the
fact that we find among the most ancient and primitive races phenomena
which resemble coyness and have been habitually designated as such. As
we shall see in a moment, this is an abuse of language, confounding
genuine resistance or aversion with coyness.
Chinese maidens often feel so great an aversion to marriage as
practised in their country that they prefer suicide to it. Douglas
says (196) that Chinese women often ask English ladies, "Does your
husband beat you?" and are surprised if answered "No." The gallant
Chinaman calls his wife his "dull thorn," and there are plenty of
reasons apart from Confucian teachings why "for some days before the
date fixed, the bride assumes all the panoply of woe, and weeps and
wails without ceasing." She is about to face the terrible ordeal of
being confronted for the first time with the man who has been chosen
for her, and who may be the ugliest, vilest wretch in the
world--possibly even a leper, such cases being on record. Douglas
(124) reports the case of six girls who committed suicide together to
avoid marriage. There exist in China anti-matrimonial societies of
girls and young widows, the latter doubtless, supplying the experience
that serves as the motive for establishing such associations.
Descending to the lowest stratum of human life as witnessed in
Australia, we find that, as Meyer asserts (11), the bride appears
"generally to go very unwillingly" to the man she has been assigned
to. Lumholtz relates that the man seizes the woman by the wrists and
carries her off "despite her screams, which can be heard till she is a
mile away." "The women," he says, "always make resistance; for they do
not like to leave their tribe, and in many instances they have the
best of reasons for kicking their lovers." What are these reasons? As
all observers testify, they are not allowed any voice in the choice of
their husbands. They are usually bartered by their father or brothers
for other women, and in many if not most cases the husbands assigned
to them are several times their age. Before they are assigned to a
particular man the girls indulge in promiscuous intercourse, whereas
after marriage they are fiercely guarded. They may indeed attempt to
elope with another man more suited to their age, but they do so at the
risk of cruel injury and probable death. The wives have to do all the
drudgery; they get only such food as the husbands do not want, and on
the slightest suspicion of intrigue they are maltreated horribly.
Causes enough surely for their resistance to obligatory marriage. This
resistance is a frank expression of genuine unwillingness, or
aversion, and has nothing in common with real coyness, which signifies
the mere _semblance_ of unwillingness on the part of a woman who is at
least _half-willing_. Such expressions as Goldsmith's "the coy maid,
half willing to be pressed," and Dryden's
When the kind nymph would coyness feign,
And hides but to be found again,
indicate the nature of true coyness better than any definitions. There
are no "coy looks," no "feigning" in the actions of an Australian girl
about to be married to a man who is old enough to be her grandfather.
The "cold disdain" is real, not assumed, and there is no "dissemblance
of feminine affection."