Feigned unwillingness or indifference in obedience to such advice may
perhaps be called coyness, but it is only a coarse primitive phase of
that attitude, based on sordid, mercenary motives, whereas true modern
coyness consists in an impulse, grounded in modesty, to conceal
affection. The germs of Greek venal coyness for filthy lucre may be
found as low down as among the Papuan women who, as Bastian notes
(Ploss, I., 460) exact payment in shell-money for their caresses. Of
the Tongans, highest of all Polynesians, Mariner says (Martin, II.,
174):
"It must not be supposed that these women are always
easily won; the greatest attentions and fervent
solicitations are sometimes requisite, even though
there be no other lover in the way. This happens
sometimes from a spirit of coquetry, at other times
from a dislike to the party, etc."
Now coquetry is a cousin of coyness, but in whatever way this Tongan
coquetry may manifest itself (no details are given) it certainly lacks
the regard for modesty and chastity which is essential to modern
coyness; for, as the writer just referred to attests, Tongan girls are
permitted to indulge in free intercourse before marriage, the only
thing liable to censure being a too frequent change of lovers.
That the anxious regard for chastity, modesty, decorum, which cannot
be present in the coquetry of these Tongan women, is one of the
essential ingredients of modern coyness has long been felt by the
poets. After Juliet has made her confession of love which Romeo
overhears in the dark, she apologizes to him because she fears that he
might attribute her easy yielding to light love. Lest he think her too
quickly won she "would have frowned and been perverse, and said him
nay." Then she begs him trust she'll "_prove more true_ than those
that have more cunning to be strange." Wither's "That coy one in the
winning, _proves a true one_ being won," expresses the same sentiment.