One of the unfortunate consequences of Darwin's theory of sexual
selection was that it made him assume that
"in utterly barbarous tribes the women have more power in
choosing, rejecting, and tempting their lovers, or of
afterward exchanging their husbands than might have been
expected. As this is a point of importance,"
he adds, "I will give in detail such evidence as I have been able to
collect;" which he proceeds to do. This "evidence in detail" consists
of three cases in Africa, five among American Indians, and a few
others among Fijians, Kalmucks, Malayans, and the Korarks of
Northeastern Asia. Having referred to these twelve cases, he proceeds
with his argument, utterly ignoring the twelve hundred facts that
oppose his assumption--a proceeding so unlike his usual candid habit
of stating the difficulties confronting him, that this circumstance
alone indicates how shaky he felt in regard to this point. Moreover,
even the few instances he cites fail to bear out his doctrine. It is
incomprehensible to me how he could claim the Kaffirs for his side.
Though these Africans "buy their wives, and girls are severely beaten
by their fathers if they will not accept a chosen husband, it is
nevertheless manifest," Darwin writes, "from many facts given by the
Rev. Mr. Shooter, that they have considerable power of choice. Thus,
very ugly, though rich men, have been known to fail in getting wives."
What Shooter really does (50) is to relate the case of a man so
ill-favored that he had never been able to get a wife till he offered
a big sum to a chief for one of his wards. She refused to go, but "her
arms were bound and she was delivered like a captive. Later she
escaped and claimed the protection of a rival chief."
In other words, this man did _not_ fail to get a wife, and the girl
had _no_ choice. Darwin ignores the rest of Shooter's narrative
(55-58), which shows that while perhaps as a rule moral persuasion is
first tried before physical violence is used, the girl in any case is
obliged to take the man chosen for her. The man is highly praised in
her presence, and if she still remains obstinate she has to
"encounter the wrath of her enraged father ... the furious parent will
hear nothing--go with her husband she must--if she return she shall be
slain." Even if she elopes with another man she "may be forcibly
brought back and sent to the one chosen by her father," and only by
the utmost perseverance can she escape his tyranny. Leslie (whom
Darwin cites) is therefore wrong when he says "it is a mistake to
imagine that a girl is sold by her father in the same manner, and with
the same authority, with which he would dispose of a cow." Those who
knew the Kaffirs most intimately agree with Shooter; the Rev. W.C.
Holden, _e.g._, who writes in his elaborate work, _The Past and Future
of the Kaffir Races_ (189-211) that "it is common for the youngest,
the healthiest, ... the handsomest girls to be sold to old men who
perhaps have already half-a-dozen concubines," and whom the work of
these wives has made rich enough to buy another. A girl is in many
instances "compelled by torture to accept the man she hates. The whole
is as purely a business transaction as the bartering of an ox or
buying a horse." From Dugmore's _Laws and Customs_ he cites the
following: "It sometimes occurs that the entreaties of the daughter
prevail over the avarice of the father; but such cases, the Kaffirs
admit, are rare ... the highest bidder usually gains the prize."
Holden adds that when a girl is obstreperous "they seize her by main
strength, and drag her on the ground, as I have repeatedly seen;" and
in his chapter on polygamy he gives the most harrowing details of the
various cruelties practised on the poor girls who do not wish to be
sold like cows.
That Kaffir girls "have been known to propose to a man," as Darwin
says, does not indicate that they have a choice, any more than the
fact that they "not rarely run away with a favored lover." They might
propose to a hundred men and not have their choice; and as for the
elopement, that in itself shows they have no liberty of choice; for if
they had they would not be obliged to run away. Finally, how could
Darwin reconcile his attitude with the remark of C. Hamilton, cited by
himself, that with the Kaffirs "the chiefs generally have the pick of
the women for many miles round, and are most persevering in
establishing or confirming their privilege"?
I have discussed this case "in detail" in order to show to what
desperate straits a hopeless theory may reduce a great thinker. To
suppose that in this "utterly barbarous tribe" the looks of the race
can be gradually improved by the women accepting only those males who
"excite or charm them most" is simply grotesque. Nor is Darwin much
happier with his other cases. When he wrote that "Among the degraded
Bushmen of Africa" (citing Burchell) "'when a girl has grown up to
womanhood without having been betrothed, _which, however, does not
often happen_, her lover must gain her approbation as well as that of
her parents'"--the words I have italicized ought to have shown him
that this testimony was not for but against his theory. Burchell
himself tells us that Bushman girls "are most commonly betrothed" when
about seven years old, and become mothers at twelve, or even at ten.
To speak of choice in such cases, in any rational sense of the word,
would be farcical even if the girls were free to do as they please,
which they are not. With regard to the Fuegians, Darwin cites King and
Fitzroy to the effect that the Indian obtains the consent of the
parents by doing them some service, and then attempts to carry off the
girl; "but if she is unwilling, she hides herself in the woods until
her admirer is heartily tired of looking for her and gives up his
pursuit; _but this seldom happens_." If this passage means anything,
it means that it is customary for the parents to decide upon who is to
marry their daughters, and that, though she may frustrate the plan,
"this seldom happens." Darwin further informs us that "Hearne
describes how a woman in one of the tribes of Arctic America
repeatedly ran away from her husband and joined her lover." How much
this single instance proves in regard to woman's liberty of choice or
power to aid sexual selection, may be inferred from the statement by
the same "excellent observer" of Indian traits (as Darwin himself
calls him) that "it has ever been the custom among these people to
wrestle for any woman to whom they are attached; and, of course, the
strongest party always carries off the prize"--an assertion borne out
by Richardson (II., 24) and others. But if the strongest man "always
carries off the prize," where does woman's choice come in? Hearne adds
that "this custom prevails throughout all their tribes" (104). And
while the other Indian instances referred to by Darwin indicate that
in case of decided aversion a girl is not absolutely compelled, as
among the Kaffirs, to marry the man selected for her, the custom
nevertheless is for the parents to make the choice, as among most
Indians, North and South.
Whereas Darwin's claim that primitive women have "more power" to
decide their fate as regards marriage "than might have been expected,"
is comparatively modest, Westermarck goes so far as to declare that
these women "are not, _as a rule,_ married without having any voice of
their own in the matter." He feels compelled to this course because he
realizes that his theory that savages originally ornamented themselves
in order to make themselves attractive to the opposite sex
"presupposes of course that savage girls enjoy great liberty in the
choice of a mate." In the compilation of his evidence, unfortunately,
Westermarck is even less critical and reliable than Darwin. In
reference to the Bushmen, he follows Darwin's example in citing
Burchell, but leaves out the words "which, however, does not often
happen," which show that liberty of choice on the woman's part is not
the rule but a rare exception.[132] He also claims the Kaffirs,
though, as I have just shown, such a claim is preposterous. To the
evidence already cited on my side I may add Shooter's remarks (55),
that if there are several lovers the girl is asked to decide for
herself. "This, however, is merely formal," for if she chooses one who
is poor the father recommends to her the one of whom he calculated to
get the most cattle, and that settles the matter. Not even the widows
are allowed the liberty of choice, for, as Shooter further informs us
(86), "when a man dies those wives who have not left the kraal remain
with the eldest son. If they wish to marry again, they must go to one
of their late husband's brothers." Among the African women "who have
no difficulty in getting the husbands whom they may desire,"
Westermarck mentions the Ashantees, on the authority of Beecham (125).
On consulting that page of Beecham I find that he does indeed declare
that "no Ashantee compels his daughter to become the wife of one she
dislikes;" but this is a very different thing from saying that she can
choose the man she may desire. "In the affair of courtship," writes
Beecham, "the wishes of the female are but little consulted; the
business being chiefly settled between the suitor and her parents."
And in the same page he adds that "it is not infrequently the case
that infants are married to each other ... and infants are also
frequently wedded to adults, and even to elderly men," while it is
also customary "to contract for a child before it is born." The same
destructive criticism might be applied to other negroes of Western
Africa whom both Darwin and Westermarck claim on the very dubious
evidence of Reade.[133]
Among other peoples to whom Westermarck looks for support of his
argument are the Fijians, Tongans, and natives of New Britain, Java,
and Sumatra. He claims the Fijians on the peculiar ground (the italics
are mine) that among them "forced marriages are _comparatively_ rare
among the _higher classes_." That may be; but are not the higher
classes a small minority? And do not all classes indulge in the habits
of infant betrothal and of appropriating women by violence without
consulting their wishes? Regarding the Tongans, Westermarck cites the
supposition of Mariner that perhaps two-thirds of the girls had
married with their own free consent; which does not agree with the
observations of Vason (144), who spent four years among them:
"As the choice of a husband is not in the power of the
daughters but he is provided by the discretion of the
parents, an instance of refusal on the part of the daughter
is unknown in Tonga."
He adds that this is not deemed a hardship there, where divorce and
unchastity are so general.
"In the New Britain Group, according to Mr. Romilly, after
the man has worked for years to pay for his wife, and is
finally in a position to take her to his house, she may
refuse to go, and _he cannot claim back from the parents the
large sums he has paid_ them in yams, cocoa-nuts, and
sugar-canes."
This Westermarck guilelessly accepts as proof of the liberty of choice
on the girl's part, missing the very philosophy of the whole matter.
Why are girls not allowed in so many cases to choose their own
husbands? Because their selfish parents want to benefit by selling
them to the highest bidder. In the above case, on the contrary, as the
italics show, the selfish parents benefit by making the girl refuse to
go with that man, keeping her as a bait for another profitable suitor.
In all probability she refuses to go with him at the positive command
of her parents. What the real state of affairs is on the New Britain
Group we may gather from the revelations given in an article on the
marriage customs of the natives by the Rev. B. Danks in the _Journal
of the Anthropological Institute_ (1888, 290-93): In New Britain, he
says, "the marriage tie has much the appearance of a money tie." There
are instances of sham capture, when there is much laughter and fun;
"but in many cases which came under my notice it was not a
matter of form but painful earnestness." "It often happens
that the young woman has a liking for another and none for
the man who has purchased her. She may refuse to go to him.
In that case her friends consider themselves disgraced by
her conduct. She ought, according to their notions, to fall
in with their arrangements with thankfulness and gladness of
heart! They drag her along, beat her, kick and abuse her,
and it has been my misfortune to see girls dragged past my
house, struggling in vain to escape from their fate.
Sometimes they have broken loose and then ran for the only
place of refuge in all the country, the mission-house. I
could render them no assistance until they had bounded up
the steps of my veranda into our bedroom and hidden
themselves under the bed, trembling for their lives. It has
been my privilege and duty to stand between the infuriated
brother or father, who has followed close upon the poor
girl, spear in hand, vowing to put her to death for the
disgrace she has brought upon them." "Liberty of choice,"
indeed!
"In some parts of Java, much deference is paid to the bride's
inclinations," writes Westermarck. But Earl declares (58) that among
the Javanese "courtship is carried on entirely through the medium of
the parents of the young people, and any interference on the part of
the bride would be considered highly indecorous," And Raffles writes
(I., Ch. VII.) that in Java "marriages are invariably contracted, not
by the parties themselves, but by their parents or relations on their
behalf." Betrothals of children, too, are customary. Regarding the
Sumatrans, Westermarck cites Marsden to the effect that among the
Rejang a man may run away with a virgin without violating the laws,
provided he pays her parents for her afterward--which tells us little
about the girl's choice. But why does he ignore Marsden's full
account, a few pages farther on, of Sumatran marriages in general?
There are four kinds, one of which, he says, is a regular treaty
between the parties on a footing of equality; this is called marriage
by _semando_. In the _jujur_ a sum of money is given by one man to
another "as a consideration for the person of his daughter, whose
situation in this case differs not much from that of a slave to the
man she marries, and to his family." In other cases one virgin is
given in exchange for another, and in the marriage by _ambel anak_ the
father of a young man chooses a wife for him. Finally he shows that
the customs of Sumatrans do not favor courtship, the young men and
women being kept carefully apart.
At first sight Westermarck's chapter on the Liberty of Choice seems
rather imposing, as it consists of twenty-seven pages, while Darwin
devoted only two to the subject. In reality, however, Westermarck has
filled only eight pages with what he considers proofs of his theory,
and after scouring the whole world he has not succeeded in bringing
together thirty cases which stand the test of critical examination. I
grant him, though in several instances with suspicions, some American
Indian tribes, natives of Arorae, of the Society Islands, Micronesians
in general (?), Dyaks, Minabassers of Celebes, Burmese, Shans,
Chittagong Hill tribes, and a few other wild tribes of India, possibly
some aboriginal Chinese tribes, Ainos, Kamchadales, Jakuts, Ossetes,
Kalmucks, Aenezes, Touaregs, Shulis, Madis, the ancient Cathaei and
Lydians. My reasons for rejecting his other instances have already
been given in part, and most of the other cases will be disposed of in
the pages relating to Australians, New Zealanders, American Indians,
Hindoos, and Wild Tribes of India. In the chapter on Australia, after
commenting on Westermarck's preposterous attempt to include that race
in his list in the face of all the authorities, I shall explain also
why it is not likely that, as he maintains, still more primitive races
allowed their women greater freedom of choice than modern savages
enjoy in his opinion.
To become convinced that the women of the lower races do not "as a
rule" enjoy the liberty of choice, we need only contrast the meagre
results obtained by Darwin and Westermarck with the vast number of
races and tribes whose customs indicate that women are habitually
given in marriage without being consulted as to their wishes. Among
these customs are infant marriage, infant betrothal, capture,
purchase, marrying whole families of sisters, and the levirate. It is
true that some of these customs do not affect all members of the
tribes involved, but the very fact of their prevalence shows that the
idea of consulting a woman's preference does not enter into the heads
of the men, barring a few cases, where a young woman is so
obstreperous that she may at any rate succeed in escaping a hated
suitor, though even this (which is far from implying liberty of
choice) is altogether exceptional. We must not allow ourselves to be
deceived by appearances, as in the case of the Moors of Senegambia,
concerning whom Letourneau says (138) that a daughter has the right to
refuse the husband selected for her, on condition of remaining
unmarried; if she marries another, she becomes the slave of the man
first selected for her. Of the Christian Abyssinians, Combes and
Tamisier say (II., 106) that the girls are never "seriously"
consulted; and "at Sackatou a girl is usually consulted by her
parents, but only as a matter of form; she never refuses."
(Letourneau, 139.) The same may be said of China and Japan, where the
sacred duty of filial obedience is so ingrained in a girl's soul that
she would never dream of opposing her parents' wishes.
Of the horrible custom of marrying helpless girls before they are
mature in body or mind--often, indeed, before they have reached the
age of puberty--I have already spoken, instancing some Borneans,
Javanese, Egyptians, American Indians, Australians, Hottentots,
natives of Old Calabar, Hindoos; to which may be added some Arabs and
Persians, Syrians, Kurds, Turks, natives of Celebes, Madagascar,
Bechuanas, Basutos, and many other Africans, etc. As for those who
practise infant betrothal, Westermarck's own list includes Eskimos,
Chippewayans, Botocudos, Patagonians, Shoshones, Arawaks, Macusis,
Iroquois; Gold Coast negroes, Bushmen, Marutse, Bechuanas, Ashantees,
Australians; tribes of New Guinea, New Zealand, Tonga, Tahiti, and
many other islands of the South Sea; some tribes of the Malay
Archipelago; tribes of British India; all peoples of the Turkish
stock; Samoyedes and Tuski; Jews of Western Russia.
As regards capture, good authorities now hold that it was not a
universal practice in all parts of the world; yet it prevailed very
widely--for instance, among Aleutian Islanders, Ahts, Bonaks, Macas
Indians of Ecuador, all Carib tribes, some Brazilians, Mosquito
Indians, Fuegians; Bushmen, Bechuanas, Wakamba, and other Africans;
Australians, Tasmanians, Maoris, Fijians, natives of Samoa, Tukopia,
New Guinea, Indian Archipelago; wild tribes of India; Arabs, Tartars,
and other Central Asians; some Russians, Laplanders, Esthonians,
Finns, Greeks, Romans, Teutons, Scandinavians, Slavonians, etc. "The
list," says Westermarck (387), "might easily be enlarged." As for the
list of peoples among whom brides were sold--usually to the highest
bidder and without reference to feminine choice--that would be much
larger still. Eight pages are devoted to it and two only to the
exceptions, by Westermarck himself, who concludes (390) that "Purchase
of wives may, with even more reason than marriage by capture, be said
to form a general stage in the social history of mankind," How nearly
universal the practice is, or has been, may be inferred from the fact
that Sutherland (I., 208), after examining sixty-one negro races,
found fifty-seven recorded as purchasing their wives.
Widely prevalent also was the custom of allowing a man who had married
a girl to claim all her sisters as soon as they reached a marriageable
age. Whatever their own preferences might be, they had no choice.
Among the Indian tribes alone, Morgan mentions forty who indulged in
this custom. As for the levirate, that is another very wide-spread
custom which shows an utter disregard of woman's preference and
choice. It might be supposed that widows, at any rate, ought always to
be allowed, in case they wished to marry again, to follow their own
choice. But they are, like the daughters, regarded as personal
property, and are inherited by their late husband's brother or some
other male relative, who marries them himself or disposes of them as
he pleases. Whether the acceptance of a brother's widow or widows is a
right or a duty (prescribed by the desire for sons and
ancestor-worship) is immaterial for our purpose; for in either case
the widow must go as custom commands, and has no liberty of choice.
The levirate prevails, or has prevailed, among a great number of
races, from the lowest to those considerably advanced.
The list includes Australians, many Indians, from the low Brazilians
to the advanced Iroquois, Aleuts, Eskimos, Fijians, Samoans, Caroline
Islanders, natives of New Caledonia, New Guinea, New Britain, New
Hebrides, the Malay Archipelago, Wild tribes of India, Kamchadales,
Ostiaks, Kirghiz, Mongolians in general, Arabs, Egyptians, Hebrews,
natives of Madagascar, many Kaffir tribes, negroes of the Gold Coast,
Senegambians, Bechuanas, and a great many other Africans, etc.
Twelve pages of Westermarck's chapter on the Liberty of Choice are
devoted to peoples among whom not even a son is, or was, allowed to
marry without the father's consent. The list includes Mexicans,
Guatemalans, Nicaraguans, Chinese, Japanese, Hebrews, Egyptians,
Romans, Greeks, Hindoos, Germans, Celts, Russians, etc. In all these
cases the daughters, of course, enjoyed still less liberty of
disposing of their hand. In short, the argument against Darwin and
Westermarck is simply overwhelming--all the more when we look at the
numbers of the races who do not permit women their choice--the
400,000,000 Chinese, 300,000,000 Hindoos, the Mohammedan millions, the
whole continent of Australia, nearly all of aboriginal America and
Africa, etc.
A drowning man clings to a straw. "In Indian and Scandinavian tales,"
Westermarck informs us,
"virgins are represented as having the power to dispose of
themselves freely. Thus it was agreed that Skade should
choose for herself a husband among the Asas, but she was to
make her choice by the feet, the only part of their persons
she was allowed to see."
Obviously the author of this tale from the _Younger Edda_ had more
sense of humor than some modern anthropologists have. No less
topsy-turvy is the Hindoo _Svayamvara_ or "Maiden's Choice," to which
Westermarck alludes (162). This is an incident often referred to in
epics and dramas. "It was a custom in royal circles," writes
Samuelson, "when a princess became marriageable, for a tournament to
be held, and the _victor was chosen_ by the princess as her husband."
If the sarcasm of the expression "Maiden's Choice" is unconscious, it
is all the more amusing. How far Hindoo women of all classes were and
are from enjoying the liberty of choice, we shall see in the chapter
on India.