SEXUAL SELECTION AS INFLUENCED BY AFFECTION AND SYMPATHY, AND BY
CALCULATION
Sexual love is the passion which unites the sexes. The stimulating
impressions produced by health, youth, and beauty, and ornaments
and other artificial means of attraction, are all elements of this
feeling. The antipathy to sexual intercourse with individuals of
another species, and the horror of incest, belong to the same
phenomenon. But the psychology of love is by no means exhausted by
this. “Simple et primitif comme toutes les forces colossales,” says
Professor Mantegazza, “l’amour paraît pourtant formé des éléments de
toutes les passions humaines.”[2065] Around the sexual appetite as the
leading element there are aggregated many different feelings, such as
admiration, pleasure of possession, love of freedom, self-esteem, and
love of approbation.[2066] A complete analysis of love would fill a
volume. Here I shall discuss only one of the most important elements of
this highly compound feeling, the sentiment of affection.
In the lower stages of human development sexual affection is much
inferior in intensity to the tender feelings with which parents
embrace their children; and among several peoples it seems to be almost
unknown. Thus, speaking of the Hovas in Madagascar, Mr. Sibree says
that, among them, until the spread of Christianity, there was “no lack
of strong affection between blood-relations—parents and children,
brothers and sisters, grandparents and grandchildren;” but the idea of
love between husband and wife was hardly thought of.[2067] On the Gold
Coast, says Major Ellis, “love, as understood by the people of Europe,
has no existence.”[2068] At Winnebah, according to Mr. Duncan, “not
even the appearance of affection exists between husband and wife;”
and almost the same is asserted by M. Sabatier with reference to the
Kabyles, by Signor Bonfanti with reference to the Bantu race.[2069]
Munzinger says that, among the Beni-Amer, it is considered even
disgraceful for a wife to show any affection for her husband.[2070]
The Chittagong Hill tribes, according to Captain Lewin, have “no idea
of tenderness, nor of chivalrous devotion.” Marriage is among them
regarded as merely a convenient and animal connection.[2071] In the
Island of Ponapé, according to Dr. Finsch, love in our sense of the
term is entirely unknown.[2072] As regards the Eskimo of Newfoundland,
Heriot asserts, “Like all other men in the savage state, they treat
their wives with great coldness and neglect, but their affection
towards their offspring is lively and tender.”[2073] In Greenland, a
man thought nothing of beating his wife, but it was an heinous offence
for a mother to chastise her children.[2074] Almost the same is said
of the Kutchin by Mr. Jones, and of the Eskimo of Norton Sound by Mr.
Dall.[2075] According to Mr. Morgan, the refined passion of love is
unknown to the North American Indians in general.[2076]
Such statements, however, may easily be misleading. The love of a
savage is certainly very different from the love of a civilized man;
nevertheless, we may discover in it traces of the same ingredients.
There are facts which tend to show that even very rude savages may have
conjugal affection; nay, that among certain uncivilized peoples it has
reached a remarkably high degree of development.
Among the wretched Bushmans, according to Mr. Chapman, there is love
in all their marriages.[2077] Among the races of the Upper Congo, love
is ennobled by a certain poetry;[2078] and with the Touaregs, there is
a touch of almost chivalrous sentiment in the relations between men
and women.[2079] Regarding the man-eating Niam-Niam, Dr. Schweinfurth
asserts that they display an affection for their wives which is
unparalleled among other natives of an equally low grade.[2080]
The Hos are good husbands and wives, and although they have no terms
in their own language to express the higher emotions, “they feel
them all the same.”[2081] The missionary Jellinghaus found tokens of
affectionate love between married people among the Munda Kols, Mr.
Fawcett among the Savaras, Sir Spenser St. John among the Sea Dyaks,
Mr. Man among the Andamanese.[2082] In New Caledonia, says M. Moncelon,
“l’amour existe, et j’ai vu des suicides par amour.”[2083] In Samoa,
stories of affectionate love between husband and wife are preserved
in song.[2084] In Tonga, according to Mariner, most of the women
were much attached to their husbands;[2085] and in Fiji, says Dr.
Seemann, “even widowers, in the depth of their grief, have frequently
terminated their existence, when deprived of a dearly beloved
wife.”[2086] In several of the Australian tribes, married people are
often much attached to each other, and continue to be so even when they
grow old.[2087] Concerning the aborigines of Victoria, Daniel Bunce
says it is an error to suppose that there exists no settled love or
lasting affection between the sexes; among the Narrinyeri, Mr. Taplin
has known as well-matched and loving couples as he has among Europeans;
and, according to Mr. Bonney, husband and wife among the natives of the
River Darling, rarely quarrel, and “they show much affection for each
other in their own way.”[2088]
Among the Eskimo of the north-east coast of North America, visited
by Lyon, “young couples are frequently seen rubbing noses, their
favourite mark of affection, with an air of tenderness.”[2089]
The Tacullies, as Harman informs us, are remarkably fond of their
wives.[2090] And Mr. Catlin goes even so far as to deny that the
North American Indians are “in the least behind us in conjugal, in
filial, and in paternal affection,”[2091]—a statement with which Mr.
Morgan does not agree. Mr. Brett asserts that, among the natives of
Guiana, instances of conjugal attachment are very frequent.[2092] Azara
and Mantegazza found tokens of it among some other South American
tribes;[2093] and the rude Fuegians are said to “show a good deal of
affection for their wives.”[2094]
It is, indeed, impossible to believe that there ever was a time when
conjugal affection was entirely wanting in the human race. Though
originally of far less intensity than parental love, especially on the
mother’s side, as being of less importance for the existence of the
species, yet it seems, in its most primitive form, to have been as
old as marriage itself. It must be a certain degree of affection that
induces the male to defend the female during her period of pregnancy;
but often it is the joint care of the offspring, more than anything
else, that makes the married couple attached to each other. With
reference to the Dacotahs, Mr. Prescott remarks that “as children
increase, the parents appear to be more affectionate.”[2095]
Of course it is impossible to suppose that mutual love can generally
be the motive which leads to marriage when the wife is captured or
purchased from a foreign tribe. In the main, Mr. Hall’s assertion
as to the Eskimo visited by him, that “love—if it come at all—comes
after the marriage,”[2096] holds good for many savage peoples. Among
the Australians, for instance, according to Mr. Brough Smyth, love
has often no part in the preparations for marriage. “The bride is
dragged from her home—she is unwilling to leave it; and if fears are
entertained that she will endeavour to escape, a spear is thrust
through her foot or her leg. A kind husband will, however, ultimately
evoke affection, and fidelity and true love are not rare in Australian
families.”[2097]
The affection accompanying the union of the sexes has gradually
developed in proportion as altruism in general has increased. Thus
love has only slowly become the refined feeling it is in the heart of
a highly civilized European. In Eastern countries with their ancient
civilization there exists even now but little of that tenderness
towards the woman which is the principal charm of our own family life.
In China, up to recent times, it was considered “good form” for a
man to beat his wife, and, if the Chinaman of humble rank spared her
a little, he did so only in order not to come under the necessity of
buying a successor.[2098] In Hindu families, according to Dubois,
sincere mutual friendship is rarely met with. “It is in vain,” he
says, “to expect, between husband and wife, that reciprocal confidence
and kindness which constitute the happiness of a family. The object for
which a Hindu marries is not to gain a companion to aid him in enduring
the evils of life, but a slave to bear children and be subservient to
his rule.”[2099] The love of which the Persian poets sing has either
a symbolic or a very profane meaning.[2100] Among the Arabs, says
Burckhardt, “the passion of love is, indeed, much talked of by the
inhabitants of towns; but I doubt whether anything is meant by them
more than the grossest animal desire.”[2101] Mr. Finck remarks that
in the whole of the Bible there is not a single reference to romantic
love.[2102] And even in Greece, according to some authorities, the love
of the sexes was little more than sexual instinct.[2103]
It is also obvious that marriage cannot be contracted from affection
where the young women before marriage are kept quite apart from the
men, as is done in Eastern countries. In China it often happens that
the parties have not even seen each other till the wedding-day; and,
in Greece, custom was scarcely less rigorous in this respect.[2104] In
vain Plato urged that young men and women should be more frequently
permitted to meet one another, so that there should be less enmity and
indifference in the married life.[2105] Plutarch hopes that love will
come after marriage.[2106]
The feeling which makes husband and wife true companions for better and
worse can grow up only in societies where the altruistic sentiments
of man are strong enough to make him recognize woman as his equal,
and where she is not shut up as an exotic plant in a green-house, but
is allowed to associate freely with men. In this direction European
civilization has been advancing for centuries, and there can be no
reason to fear that it will ever be permanently diverted from the path
by which alone some of the most important of its ends can be attained.
When affection came to play a more prominent part in human sexual
selection, higher regard was paid to intellectual, emotional, and moral
qualities, through which the feeling is chiefly provoked. Later on, we
shall see how great are the consequences which spring from this fact.
For the present it may be enough to say that the preference given
to higher qualities by civilized men contributes much to the mental
improvement of the race. Dr. Stark observes that the intemperate,
profligate, and criminal classes do not commonly marry; and the like is
to a large extent true of persons who are very inferior in intellect,
emotions, and will.[2107]
Affection depends in a very high degree upon sympathy. Though distinct
aptitudes, these two classes of emotions are most intimately connected:
affection is strengthened by sympathy, and sympathy is strengthened by
affection. Community of interests, opinions, sentiments, culture, and
mode of life, as being essential to close sympathy,[2108] is therefore
favourable to warm affection. If love is excited by contrast, it is so
only within certain limits. The contrast must not be so great as to
exclude sympathy.
Great difference of age is fatal to close sympathy. Wieland noted that
most people who fall in love do so with persons of about their own
age;[2109] and statistics prove the observation to be correct. Men who
marry comparatively late in life usually avoid too great difference in
age.[2110] The foundation of this admiration and preference, modified
by age, says Mr. Walker, “appears to be the similarity of objects
and interests which are inseparable from similar periods of life, the
association of these with a similar intensity of sexual desire, the
consequent production of similar sympathy, and the resolve that it
shall be permanent.”[2111]
A very important factor is similarity in the degree of cultivation. It
seldom happens that a “gentleman” falls in love with a peasant-girl,
or an artizan with a “lady.” This does more than almost anything else
to maintain the separation of the different classes, and to preserve
the existing distribution of wealth among the various groups of society.
Want of sympathy prevents great divisions of human beings—such
as different races or nations, hereditary castes, classes, and
adherents of different religions—from intermarrying, even where
personal affection plays no part in the choice of the mate. Thus many
uncivilized peoples carefully avoid marrying out of their own tribe,
the chief reason being, I think, the strong dislike which distinct
savage and barbarous nations have for one another. Mr. McLennan called
such peoples “endogamous,” in contradistinction to peoples who are
“exogamous,” _i.e._, do not marry within their own tribe or clan.
But this classification has caused much confusion, “exogamy” and
“endogamy” not being real contraries. For there exists among every
people an outer circle—to use Sir Henry Maine’s very appropriate
terminology—out of which marriage is either prohibited, or generally
avoided; as well as an inner circle, including the clan, or, at any
rate, the very nearest kinsfolk, within which no marriage is allowed.
Like the inner circle, the outer circle varies considerably in extent.
Rengger states that many of the Indian races of Paraguay are too
proud to intermarry with any race of a different colour, or even of a
different stock.[2112] In Guiana and elsewhere, Indians do not readily
intermix with negroes, whom they despise.[2113] Among the Isthmians
of Central America, “marriage was not contracted with strangers or
people speaking a different language”;[2114] and in San Salvador,
according to Palacio, a man who had intercourse with a foreign woman
was killed.[2115] Mr. Powers informs us of a Californian tribe who
would put to death a woman for committing adultery with or marrying a
white man;[2116] and among the Barolongs, a Bechuana tribe, the same
punishment was formerly inflicted on any one who had intercourse with a
European.[2117] Among the Kabyles, “le mariage avec une négresse n’est
pas défendu en principe; mais la famille s’opposerait à une pareille
union.”[2118]
The Chinese, according to Mr. Jamieson, refuse marriage with the
surrounding barbarous tribes, with whom, as a rule, they have no
dealings, either friendly or hostile.[2119] The black and fairer
people of the Philippines have from time immemorial dwelt in the same
country without producing an intermediate race;[2120] the Bugis of
Perak have kept themselves very distinct from the people among whom
they live;[2121] and, in Sumatra, it is a rare thing for a Malay man to
marry a Kubu woman.[2122] The Munda Kols severely punish a girl who is
seduced by a Hindu, whereas intercourse with a man of their own people
is regarded by most of them as quite a matter of course.[2123] And,
in Ceylon, even those Veddahs who live in settlements, although they
have long associated with their neighbours, the Sinhalese, have not yet
intermarried with them.[2124]
Count de Gobineau remarks that not even a common religion and country
can extinguish the hereditary aversion of the Arab to the Turk, of
the Kurd to the Nestorian of Syria, of the Magyar to the Slav.[2125]
Indeed, so strong, among the Arabs, is the instinct of ethnical
isolation, that, as a traveller relates, at Djidda, where sexual
morality is held in little respect, a Bedouin woman may yield herself
for money to a Turk or European, but would think herself for ever
dishonoured if she were joined to him in lawful wedlock.[2126]
Marriages between Lapps and Swedes very rarely occur, being looked upon
as dishonourable by both peoples. They are equally uncommon between
Lapps and Norwegians, and it hardly ever happens that a Lapp marries
a Russian.[2127] At various times, Spaniards in Central America,
Englishmen in Mauritius, Frenchmen in Réunion and the Antilles, and
Danish traders in Greenland, have been prevented by law from marrying
natives.[2128] Among the Hebrews, during the early days of their
power and dominion, marriages with aliens seem to have been rare
exceptions.[2129] The Romans were prohibited from marrying barbarians;
Valentinian inflicted the penalty of death for such unions.[2130]
Tacitus was of opinion that the Germans refused marriage with foreign
nations,[2131] and the like seems to have been the case with the
Slavs.[2132]
Among several peoples marriage very seldom, or never, takes place even
outside the territory of the tribe or community. This is the case
with many tribes of Guatemala,[2133] the Ahts,[2134] Navajos,[2135]
and Pueblos.[2136] In the village of Schawill, in Southern Mexico,
according to Mr. Stephens, “every member must marry within the rancho,
and no such thing as a marriage out of it had ever occurred. They
said it was impossible, it could not happen.... This was a thing so
little apprehended that the punishment for it was not defined in their
penal code; but being questioned, after some consultations, they said
that the offender, whether man or woman, would be expelled.”[2137]
Speaking of the Chaymas in New Andalusia, among whom marriages are
contracted between the inhabitants of the same hamlet only,[2138]
v. Humboldt says, “Savage nations are subdivided into an infinity
of tribes, which, bearing a cruel hatred toward each other, form no
intermarriages, even when their languages spring from the same root,
and when only a small arm of a river, or a group of hills, separates
their habitations.”[2139] This holds good especially for several of
the Brazilian tribes.[2140] In ancient Peru it was not lawful for the
natives of one province or village to marry those of another.[2141]
In Equatorial Africa, according to Mr. Du Chaillu, the non-cannibal
tribes do not intermarry with their cannibal neighbours, whose peculiar
practices are held in abhorrence.[2142] Barrow states that the
Hottentots always marry within their own kraal;[2143] and a Bushman
woman would regard intercourse with any one out of the tribe, no matter
how superior, as a degradation.[2144] Among the Hovas, the different
tribes, clans, and even families as a rule do not intermarry, as Mr.
Sibree says, “in order to keep landed property together, as well as
from a strong clannish feeling.”[2145] Mr. Swann informs me that, among
the Waguha, of West Tanganyika, marriages out of the tribe are avoided,
though not prohibited; and Archdeacon Hodgson writes that this is very
often the case in Eastern Central Africa.
In India there are several instances of tribe-or clan-endogamy.[2146]
The Tipperahs and Abors, for example, view with abhorrence the idea of
their girls marrying out of their own clan,[2147] and Colonel Dalton
was gravely assured that, “when one of the daughters of Pádam so
demeans herself, the sun and the moon refuse to shine, and there is
such a strife in the elements that all labour is necessarily suspended,
till by sacrifice and oblation the stain is washed away.”[2148] The
Ainos not only despise the Japanese as much as the Japanese despise
them, but are not very sociable even among themselves: one village
does not like to marry into another.[2149] The same may be said of
the Sermatta Islanders;[2150] whilst the Minahassers,[2151] the
Dyaks,[2152] and the natives of New Guinea[2153] and New Britain,[2154]
as a general rule, marry within their own tribe. Among the New
Zealanders, according to Mr. Yate, “great opposition is made to any
one taking, except for some political purpose, a wife from another
tribe,” and marriage generally takes place between relatives.[2155]
In Australia there are groups of tribes, so-called associated tribes,
generally speaking the same dialect, who are in the habit of uniting
for common defence and other purposes. Marriage between the members
of associated tribes is the rule,[2156] but many tribes are mostly
endogamous.[2157]
In ancient Wales, according to Mr. Lewis, marriage was to be within
the clan.[2158] At Athens, at least in its later history, if an alien
lived as a husband with an Athenian woman, he was liable to be sold
as a slave, and to have his property confiscated; and, if an Athenian
lived with a foreign woman, she was liable to like consequences, and he
to a penalty of a thousand drachmæ.[2159] Marriage with foreign women
was unlawful for all Spartans, and was made unlawful for the Heraclidæ
by a separate rhetra.[2160] At Rome, any marriage of a citizen with
a woman who was not herself a Roman citizen, or did not belong to a
community possessing the privilege of _connubium_ with Rome—which was
always expressly conferred—was invalid; no legitimate children could
be born of such a marriage.[2161] In early times it was even customary
for a father to seek, for his daughter, a husband from his own _gens_,
marriage out of it being mentioned as an extraordinary thing.[2162]
Prohibitions of intermarriage do not refer only to persons belonging
to different nations or tribes; very often they relate also to persons
belonging to different classes or castes of the same community. Yet
in many, perhaps most, cases these prohibitions originally coincided.
Castes are frequently, if not always, the consequences of foreign
conquest and subjugation, the conquerors becoming the nobility, and the
subjugated the commonalty or slaves. Thus, before the Norman conquest,
the English aristocracy was Saxon; after it, Norman. The descendants of
the German conquerors of Gaul were, for a thousand years, the dominant
race in France; and until the fifteenth century all the higher nobility
were of Frankish or Burgundian origin.[2163] The Sanskrit word for
caste is “varna,” _i.e._, colour, which shows how the distinction
of high and low caste arose in India. That country was inhabited by
dark races before the fairer Aryans took possession of it; and the
bitter contempt of the Aryans for foreign tribes, their domineering
spirit, and their strong antipathies of race and of religion, found
vent in the pride of class and caste distinctions. Even to this day
a careful observer can distinguish the descendants of conquerors and
conquered. “No sojourner in India,” says Dr. Stevenson, “can have
paid any attention to the physiognomy of the higher and lower orders
of natives without being struck with the remarkable difference that
exists in the shape of the head, the build of the body, and the colour
of the skin between the higher and the lower castes into which the
Hindu population is divided.”[2164] This explanation of the origin
of Indian castes is supported by the fact that it is in some of the
latest Vedic hymns that we find the earliest references to those four
classes—the Brahmans, the Kshatriyas, the Vaiśyas, and the Śudras—to
which all the later castes have been traced back.[2165] The Incas
of Peru were known as a conquering race; and the ancient Mexicans
represented the culture-heroes of the Toltecs as white.[2166] Among the
Beni-Amer, the nobles are mostly light coloured, while the commoners
are blackish.[2167] The Polynesian nobility have a comparatively fair
complexion,[2168] and seem to be the descendants of a conquering
or superior race. “The chiefs, and persons of hereditary rank and
influence in the islands,” says Ellis, “are, almost without exception,
as much superior to the peasantry or common people, in stateliness,
dignified deportment, and physical strength, as they are in rank
and circumstances; although they are not elected to their station
on account of their personal endowments, but derive their rank and
elevation from their ancestry. This is the case with most of the
groups of the Pacific, but particularly so in Tahiti and the adjacent
islands.”[2169] Among the Shans, according to Dr. Anderson, “the
majority of the higher classes seemed to be distinguished from the
common people by more elongated oval faces and a decidedly Tartar type
of countenance.”[2170] In America, at the time of the earliest European
immigration, a kind of caste distinction arose, white blood being
synonymous with nobility; and, in La Plata, Spaniards, Mestizoes, and
Indians were separated from each other even in church.[2171]
As descendants of different ancestors, members of noble families
keep up their separate position, and remain almost as foreigners to
the people among whom they live. Speculating on the want of sympathy
among the various classes in societies in which such distinctions
are recognized, Count de Tocqueville says, “Each caste has its own
opinions, feelings, rights, manners, and modes of living. Thus the
men of whom each caste is composed do not resemble the mass of their
fellow-citizens; they do not think or feel in the same manner, and they
scarcely believe that they belong to the same human race.... When the
chroniclers of the Middle Ages, who all belonged to the aristocracy by
birth or education, relate the tragical end of a noble, their grief
flows apace; whereas they tell you at a breath, and without wincing,
of massacres and tortures inflicted on the common sort of people. Not
that these writers felt habitual hatred or systematic disdain for the
people; war between the several classes of the community was not yet
declared. They were impelled by an instinct rather than by a passion;
as they had formed no clear notion of a poor man’s sufferings, they
cared but little for his fate.” Then, in proof of this, the writer
gives extracts from Madame de Sévigné’s letters, displaying a cruel
jocularity which, in our day, “the harshest man writing to the most
insensible person of his acquaintance” would not venture wantonly to
indulge in; and yet Madame de Sévigné was not selfish or cruel: she was
passionately attached to her children, and ever ready to sympathize
with her friends, and she treated her servants and vassals with
kindness and indulgence.[2172]
It is to this want of affection and sympathy between the different
layers of society, together with the vain desire of keeping the blood
pure, that the prohibition of marriage out of the class, or the general
avoidance of such marriages, owes its origin. Among the Ahts, for
instance, who take great pride in honourable birth, a patrician loses
caste unless he marries a woman of corresponding rank, in his own or
another tribe.[2173] Among the Isthmians of Central America, the lords
married only the daughters of noble blood; and, in Guatemala, marriage
with a slave reduced the freeman to a slave’s condition.[2174] The
tribes of Brazil also consider such alliances highly disgraceful.[2175]
Nowhere are the different orders of society more distinctly separated
from each other than in the South Sea Islands. In the Marianne group,
it was the common belief that only the nobles were endowed with an
immortal soul; and a nobleman who married a girl of the people was
punished with death.[2176] In Polynesia also, the commoners were looked
upon by the nobility almost as a different species of beings.[2177]
Hence in the higher ranks marriage was concluded only between persons
of corresponding position; and if, in Tahiti, a woman of condition
chose an inferior person as a husband, the children he had by her were
killed.[2178] In the Indian Archipelago, marriages between persons
of different rank are, as a rule, disapproved, and in some places
they are prohibited.[2179] Among the Hovas of Madagascar, the three
great divisions—the nobles, the commoners, and the slaves,—with few
exceptions, cannot intermarry; neither do the three different classes
of slaves marry each other.[2180] Almost the same rule holds good for
the different orders of the Beni-Amer and Marea;[2181] whilst, among
the Tedâ, the smiths form an hereditary and utterly despised caste by
themselves, being obliged to marry solely with members of their own
caste.[2182] By several African peoples, however, slaves and freemen
are allowed to intermarry.[2183]
The Aenezes of Arabia never intermarry with the “szona,”
handicraftsmen or artizans; nor do they ever marry their daughters to
Fellahs, or to inhabitants of towns.[2184] In India, intermarriage
between different castes was in Manu’s time permissible, but is now
altogether prohibited. Of the original four castes, the Brahmans
alone have retained their purity to any extent, but there is an almost
endless number of trade-castes, resulting chiefly from associations
of men engaged in the same occupation.[2185] Moreover, as Sir Monier
Williams remarks, “we find castes within castes, so that even the
Brahmans are broken up and divided into numerous races, which again
are subdivided into numerous tribes, families, or sub-castes ... which
do not intermarry.”[2186] Class-endogamy prevails in Ceylon,[2187]
Siam,[2188] and Corea;[2189] and in the Chittagong district, when a
slave marries, the person chosen must be a slave.[2190] In China,
play-actors, policemen, boatmen, and slaves are not allowed to
marry women of any other class than that to which they respectively
belong.[2191] And in Japan, before the year 1868, when a new order
of things was introduced, the different classes of nobles were not
permitted to intermarry with each other or with common people.[2192]
In Europe there have been similar prohibitions. In Rome, plebeians
and patricians could not intermarry till the year 455 B.C., nor were
marriages allowed between patricians and clients. Cicero himself
disapproved of intermarriages of _ingenui_ and freedmen, and, though
such alliances were generally permitted under the Emperors, yet a
senator could not marry a freed-woman, nor a patroness her liberated
slave. Between freemen and slaves _contubernium_ could take place, but
not marriage.[2193] Among the Teutonic peoples, in ancient times, any
freeman who had intercourse with a slave was punished with slavery, and
a woman guilty of such a crime might be killed. In the Scandinavian
countries, slavery came to an end at a comparatively early period, but
in Germany it was succeeded by serfdom; and equality of birth continued
to be regarded as an indispensable condition of lawful marriage. As
late as the thirteenth century any German woman who had intercourse
with a serf lost her liberty.[2194] From the class of freemen, both
in Germany and in Scandinavia, the nobility gradually emerged as a
distinct order, and marriages between persons of noble birth and
persons who, although free, were not noble, came to be considered
misalliances.[2195] In Sweden, in the seventeenth century, such
marriages were punished.[2196]
Modern civilization tends to pull down the barriers which separate
the various classes of society, just as it tends to diminish the
differences in interests, habits, sentiments, and knowledge. Birth no
longer determines to the same extent as before a man’s social position,
and nobility has become a shadow of what it was. Thus there survive
but few traces of the former class-endogamy. According to German Civil
Law, the marriage of a man belonging to the high nobility with a woman
of inferior birth is still regarded as a _disparagium_; and the woman
is not entitled to the rank of her husband, nor is the full right of
inheritance possessed by her or by her children.[2197] Although in
no way prevented by law, marriages out of the class are generally
avoided by custom. “The outer or endogamous limit, within which a man
or woman must marry,” says Sir Henry Maine, “has been mostly taken
under the shelter of fashion or prejudice. It is but faintly traced in
England, though not wholly obscured. It is (or perhaps was) rather more
distinctly marked in the United States, through prejudices against the
blending of white and coloured blood. But in Germany certain hereditary
dignities are still forfeited by a marriage beyond the forbidden
limits; and in France, in spite of all formal institutions, marriages
between a person belonging to the _noblesse_ and a person belonging
to the _bourgeoisie_ (distinguished roughly from one another by the
particle ‘de’) are wonderfully rare, though they are not unknown.[2198]
Different nations, like the different classes of society, have been
gradually drawing nearer to each other. National prejudices have
diminished, and international sympathy has increased. During the
Middle Ages a foreigner was called in Germany “ein Elender,” because
he stood outside the law;[2199] to-day he enjoys the protection of
the law in all civilized countries, and is not as a foreigner an
object of prejudice. This widening of sympathy, and improved means of
communication, have of course made intermarriages between the several
nations much more common than they used to be.
Religion, finally, has formed a great bar to intermarriage. In British
India, the descendants of all the Mohammedan races—Arab, Iranian,
Turanian, Mongol, and Hindu converts—intermarry, but there are few
unions between Christian men and Mohammedan women.[2200] Indeed,
according to Mr. Lane, such a marriage is not permitted under any
circumstances, and cannot take place otherwise than by force. On the
other hand, it is held lawful for a Mohammedan to marry a Christian or
a Jewish woman, if induced to do so by excessive love of her, or if he
cannot obtain a wife of his own religion. In this case, however, the
offspring must follow the father’s faith, and the wife does not inherit
when the husband dies.[2201] Marriage with a heathen woman is never
permitted to a Mussulman.[2202]
It is mainly religion that has kept the Jews a relatively pure race.
“The Jew,” says Dr. Neubauer, “has no preference for, or any aversion
from, one race or another, provided he can marry a woman of his
religion, and _vice versa_.”[2203] Indeed, the Jewish law does not
recognize marriage with a person of another belief,[2204] though there
are instances of such marriages in the early days of Israel.[2205]
During the Middle Ages, marriage between Jews and Christians was
prohibited by the Christians also, and universally avoided.[2206]
“The folk-lore of Europe,” Mr. Jacobs remarks, “regarded the Jews as
something infra-human, and it would require an almost impossible amount
of large toleration for a Christian maiden of the Middle Ages to regard
union with a Jew as anything other than unnatural.” Mr. Jacobs thinks
it may be doubted whether even at the present day there is one mixed
marriage to five hundred pure Jewish marriages.[2207]
St. Paul indicates that a Christian was not allowed to marry a
heathen,[2208] and Tertullian calls such an alliance fornication.[2209]
In early times, the Church often encouraged marriages of this sort as
a means of propagating Christianity, and it was only when its success
was beyond doubt that it actually prohibited them.[2210] The Council
of Elvira expressly forbade Christian parents to give their daughters
in marriage to heathens, ordering that those who did so should be
excommunicated.[2211]
Even the adherents of different Christian confessions have been
prohibited from intermarrying. In the Roman Church the prohibition of
marriage with heathens and Jews (_impedimentum cultus disparitatis_)
was soon followed by the prohibition of “mixed marriages”
(_impedimentum mixtae religionis_); and the Protestants also originally
forbade such unions. The Greek Church, on the other hand, made in this
respect a distinction between _schismatici_, or those who dissent from
the Church in non-essential points only, and _haeretici_, or those who
dissent from its fundamental doctrines.[2212] Mixed marriages are not
now contrary to the civil law either in Roman Catholic or in Protestant
countries; but in countries belonging to the Orthodox Greek Church the
ecclesiastical restrictions have been adopted by the State. In Russia,
Greece, and Servia, Roman Catholics and Protestants are regarded as
_schismatici_ but in the Turkish countries as _haeretici_.[2213] It is
noteworthy that, in countries which are partly Roman Catholic, partly
Protestant, mixed marriages form only a comparatively small percentage
of the whole number of marriages.[2214]
In no respect has modern civilization acted more beneficently than as
a promoter of religious toleration. In our time difference of faith
discourages sympathy to a much less extent than it did in former ages.
Hence the number of mixed marriages everywhere tends to increase. In
Bavaria, for instance, they amounted in 1835-1850 to 2·8 per cent.
of the whole number of marriages, in 1850-1860 to 3·6 per cent., in
1860-1870 to 4·4 per cent., in 1870-1875 to 5·6 per cent., and in
1876-1877 to 6·6 per cent.[2215]
While, therefore, civilization has narrowed the inner limit, within
which a man or woman must not marry, it has widened the outer limit
within which a man or woman _may_ marry, and generally marries.
The latter of these processes has been one of vast importance in
man’s history. Originating in race-or caste-pride, or in religious
intolerance, the endogamous rules have, in their turn, helped to keep
up and strengthen these feelings. Law is by nature conservative,
maintaining sentiments developed under past conditions. It is only
by slow degrees that the ideas of a new time become strong enough to
release mankind from ancient prejudices.
* * * * *
We have hitherto dealt only with the poetry of sexual selection—love;
now something is to be said of its prose—dry calculation. And we may
conveniently begin with man’s appreciation of woman’s fertility,
as this has some of the characteristics of an instinct. Desire for
offspring is universal in mankind. Abortion, indeed, is practised now
and then, and infanticide frequently takes place among many savage
peoples; but these facts do not disprove the general rule.
Speaking of the Crees, Chippewyans, and other Indians on the eastern
side of the Rocky Mountains, Harmon says that “all Indians are
very desirous of having a numerous offspring.”[2216] Among the
Ingaliks, “children are anxiously desired, even when women have
no husbands.”[2217] Among the Mayas, disappointed couples prayed
earnestly, and brought many offerings to propitiate the god whose
anger was supposed to have deferred their hopes.[2218] “Be numerous
in offspring and descendants,” is a frequent marriage benediction or
salutation in Madagascar; for to die without posterity is looked upon
as a great calamity, and is termed “dead as regards the eye.”[2219] A
negro considers childlessness the greatest disaster which can happen
to him;[2220] Bosman once asked one of the king’s captains in Fida how
many children he had, and he answered, sighing, that he was so unhappy
as not to have many—he could not pretend to have had above seventy,
including those who were dead. Among the Waganda and Wanyoro, great
rejoicings take place in the case of the birth of twins.[2221] The
Shaman heathens of Siberia regarded an abundance of children and cattle
as the most essential condition of a man’s happiness.[2222] “Honest
people have many children,” a Japanese proverb says;[2223] the Chinese
regard a large family of sons as a mark of the divine favour;[2224]
and to become the father of a son is described in Indian poems as the
greatest happiness which may fall to the share of a mortal.[2225] In
Persia, childlessness is considered the most horrible calamity.[2226]
One of the chief blessings that Moses in the name of God promised the
Israelites was a numerous progeny; and the ancient Romans regarded the
procreation of legitimate children as the real end of marriage.[2227]
“He who has no children, has no happiness either,” the South
Slavonians say;[2228] and German folk-lore compares a marriage without
offspring with a world without sun.[2229]
A woman therefore is valued not only as a wife but as a mother.
Nowhere has greater stress been laid on this idea than in ancient
Lacedaemon. A husband, if he considered that the unfruitfulness of
the marriage was owing to himself, gave his matrimonial rights to a
younger man, whose child then belonged to the husband’s family; and
to the wives of men who, for example, fell in battle before having
children, other men, probably slaves, were assigned, that there might
be heirs and successors to the deceased husband.[2230] Among many
peoples the respect in which a woman is held is proportionate to
her fecundity,[2231] and a barren wife is frequently despised as an
unnatural and useless being.[2232] In Angola, according to Livingstone,
in the native dances, “when any one may wish to deride another, in the
accompanying song a line is introduced, 'So and so has no children, and
never will get any.’” The offended woman feels the insult so keenly
that it is not uncommon for her to rush away and commit suicide.[2233]
Among the Creeks, a man always calls his wife his son’s mother;[2234]
and, among the Todas, in addressing a man with the casual question,
“Are you married?” the ordinary way of putting it would be to say,
“Is there a son?”[2235]
It is obvious, then, that fecundity must be one of the qualities which
a man most eagerly requires from his bride. Mr. Reade tells us that,
in certain parts of Africa, especially in malarious localities, where
women are so frequently sterile, no one cares to marry a girl till she
has borne a child; and among the Votyaks, according to Dr. Buch, a girl
gets married sooner if she is a mother.[2236]
We have seen several instances of husband and wife not living together
as married people before the birth of a child. Among the Creeks,
marriages were contracted for a year, but if they proved fruitful,
they were, as a rule, renewed.[2237] Again, with regard to an order of
the Essenes, Josephus states that, considering succession to be the
principal part of human life, they tried their spouses for three years,
and then married them only if there was a prospect of the union being
fruitful.[2238] Among many peoples it is the practice for a man to
repudiate a barren wife.
The desire for offspring, with its consequence, the appreciation of
female fecundity, is due to various causes. First, there is in man
an instinct for reproduction. Mr. Marshall remarks, “Of this desire
for progeny I have seen many examples amongst the Todas, so strongly
marked, but to all appearances apart from the sense of personal
ambition, and separate from any demands of religion or requirements for
support in old age, as to give the impression that it was the primitive
faculty of Philoprogenitiveness, acting so insensibly, naturally, as
to have the character more of a plain instinct, than of an intelligent
human feeling.”[2239] With this instinct a feeling of parental pride
is associated. “Children,” says Hobbes, “are a man’s power and his
honour.”[2240]
Among the Hebrews and the ancient Aryan nations, the desire for
offspring, particularly sons, had its root chiefly in religious belief,
being a natural outcome of the idea that the spirits of the dead were
made happy by homage received at the hands of their male posterity.
The same is the case with the Chinese[2241] and Japanese,[2242] and
perhaps, to a certain extent, with some peoples at a lower stage of
civilization. The savage believes that the life which goes on after
death, differs in nothing from this life, that wants and pursuits
remain as before, that consequently the dead man’s spirit eats and
drinks, and needs fire for warmth and cooking. It is, of course, his
surviving descendants who have to see that he is well provided for in
these respects. Hence the offerings to deceased ancestors for various
periods after death and the feasts for the dead.[2243] Among the
Thlinkets according to Holmberg, it sometimes happens that a man spends
his whole fortune as well as his wife’s marriage portion on such a
feast, and has to live as a poor man for the rest of his life.[2244]
But no doubt children are most eagerly longed for by savage men because
they are of use to him in his lifetime. They are easily supported when
young, and in times of want they may be left to die or be sold. When
a few years old, the sons become able to hunt, fish, and paddle, and
later on they are their father’s companions in war. The daughters help
their mother to provide food, and, when grown up, they are lucrative
objects of trade. Finally, when old, the parents would often suffer
want had they not their children to support them.[2245] Hence, in
a savage condition of life, children are the chief wealth of the
family. And the same is the case at somewhat higher stages of social
development. Mr. Lane remarks that, in Egypt, “at the age of five or
six years, the children become of use to tend the flocks and herds; and
at a more advanced age, until they marry, they assist their fathers in
the operations of agriculture. The poor in Egypt have often to depend
entirely upon their sons for support in their old age; but many parents
are deprived of these aids, and consequently reduced to beggary, or
almost to starvation.”[2246] To a certain extent, this holds good for
the uneducated classes in Europe also.
With the progress of civilization the desire for offspring has
become less intense. The religious motive has of course died out in
the Christian world, and, in proportion as social life becomes more
complicated, and a professional education becomes more necessary for
success in the struggle for existence, children, at least in “the
upper classes” and among towns-people, put their parents to expense
instead of being a source of wealth. A childless couple may indeed,
deplore the absence of children; but a woman is no longer held in
respect only, or principally, as a mother; and marriage, according to
modern ideas, is something more than an institution for the procreation
of legitimate offspring. Yet it is remarkable that, in Switzerland,
although barrenness is no sufficient reason for a man to repudiate his
wife, two-fifths of the total number of divorces take place between
married people who have no children whilst the sterile marriages amount
only to one-fifth of the number of marriages.[2247]
A wife is of use to her husband not merely because she gives him
labourers, but also because she herself is a labourer. Drying
and preparing fish and meat, lighting and attending to the fire,
transporting baggage, picking berries, dressing hides and making
clothes, cooking food and taking care of the children—these are, in
the savage state, the chief pursuits of a wife. Among agricultural
and cattle-farming peoples, she has besides, to cultivate the soil
and to tend the cattle. A wife, therefore, is chosen partly because
of her ability to perform such duties. Thus, among the Greenlanders,
cleverness in sewing and skill in the management of household affairs
are the most attractive qualities of a woman.[2248] Among other Eskimo
tribes and in Tierra del Fuego, middle-aged men will connect themselves
with old women who are best able to take care of their common
comforts.[2249] The Inland Columbians, according to Mr. Bancroft, make
“capacity for work the standard of female excellence;”[2250] and,
among the Turkomans, young widows fetch double the price of spinsters,
because they are more accustomed to hard labour, and more experienced
in household concerns.[2251]
A husband’s function is to protect his family from enemies and to
prevent them falling into distress. A woman, as we have already seen,
even instinctively prefers a courageous and strong man to one who is
cowardly and feeble. But reflection also makes her choose a man who
is well able to defend her and to provide food. Among the Comanches,
says Mr. Parker, “young girls are not averse to marry very old men,
particularly if they are chiefs, as they are always sure of something
to eat.”[2252]
At more advanced stages of civilization, money and inherited property
often take the place of skill, strength, and working ability. Thus,
wife-purchase and husband-purchase, still persist in modern society,
though in disguised forms.