“MANKIND IN THE MAKING”
The use of the term “Courtship”—Primitive Man and the Foundations
of Society—“Amorousness” as a motive force—Polygamy—Our half human
ancestors—Standards of Beauty—Disquieting signs.
Our ideas on the subject of the “Courtship” of animals are of necessity
largely framed on what has been observed by each of us in regard to our
own race; and without any very careful analysis of motives, or thought
of what lies behind. But no real insight into this most tremendous
subject can be gained which does not strive to penetrate beyond what is
actually seen; which does not endeavour to get at the source of conduct
in this regard.
“Courtship” is the word we commonly employ to describe the act of
wooing; and in civilized human society at any rate, the intensity of
the emotions which inspire the desire to woo are held in restraint by
a variety of causes—and hence the “Courtship.” In the lower animals it
is a moot point whether the term “Courtship” can be accurately applied.
They are governed by no conventions, for them there is neither modesty
nor immodesty. Desire with them is not made to walk delicately,
veiled according to custom; nor is it artificially fostered as among
civilized communities by stimulating food and the crowding together of
large numbers of both sexes in artificial surroundings. Rather it is
a natural, rhythmical, highly emotional state, which gathering force
inhibits the ordinary emotions, or, rather, overrides them, begetting
an intensity of passion which brooks no control. It demands, without
parleying, or mincing matters, what is really the object of courtship
among the civilized human communities—the consummation of the nuptial
ceremony. The term “Courtship” is a Euphemism. Nevertheless, bearing
this in mind, it may conveniently be used in these pages.
We cannot hope to understand the springs of courtship in the human race
from what we observe in present-day society, or even from what we have
gleaned thereon from the records of remote ages. We must get back, so
far as is possible, to the very dawn of the human race: to that period
of man’s evolution when his conduct was controlled by purely savage
instincts. But even then the mark of the beast must have been fading
out. His most valuable asset, his larger brain, even then gave him an
advantage over the Apes, his near relations, and over the beasts of
the field which he had begun to bring into subjection. We may assume
that like his anthropoid relations, he was of a solitary, nomadic
disposition, wandering in small parties from place to place as fancy
or food determined. His advance to this stage started when, by the
activity of his enlarging brain, he began to be oppressed by the gloom
of the forest, and drawn by the fascination of more open country, and
the ever-varying scenes which exploration brought him. But this life
begot new needs and new desires. Hitherto, hunger, self-preservation
and self-perpetuation were the only stimulants which roused his
activities; and they were also the three forces, and powerful forces,
which shaped his love of solitude. The proximity of his fellows
threatened his three most vulnerable points—they competed for his food,
they endangered his life, and threatened the possession of his family.
This more varied and adventurous existence roused new centres of
activity in his brain; he began to perceive, though dimly, the
possibilities of a larger life, though doubtless one which would
minister to his own comfort rather than to that of his family—the
natural and only road to better things. He began to devise more
expeditious means of securing food, and circumventing his enemies,
among whom the most formidable was his fellow-man, because in him he
met his match. In the course of his wanderings he had learned the use
of stones as weapons—which he could never have done in the forests—and
he had also discovered the value of his family as ministers to his
comfort, if only by setting them to collect such food as did not
require strength and cunning in its capture. An inherent love of the
chase for the sake of the excitement which this afforded probably made
him nothing loth to regard hunting as his own peculiar duty. A little
later the advantages of neighbourliness were borne in on him, largely
for the sake of the greater ease wherewith the animals of the chase
could be captured by their combined efforts; but this begat comradeship
and some of the graces which follow therefrom.
Thus was laid the foundation of Society and “civilization” with all its
attendant barbarities. Then, as now, whatever discordant notes were
heard, were those struck by the twin Demons Envy and Jealousy. These
disturbers of the peace are parasites on Society, their very existence
depends on it. They have played a larger part in fashioning its rules
and regulations than is generally realized. Their influence is as
powerful to-day as ever in the past. It expresses itself in varying
degrees in different individuals, and is roused by varying causes. But
the most potent of all is jealousy in regard to sexual matters.
Amorousness, a word with a deep meaning, was, and is, the underlying
factor which shaped, and is sustaining, human society; and is no
less powerful among the beasts that perish. The motive force in this
has not been the desire for offspring, but for the satisfaction of
the elemental animal passion, the gratification of the purely sexual
emotions which at their height are irresistible. There may be some
who will see in this contention a degrading aspect of life. But this
view will obtain only among those who prefer the man-made sophistries
of life to its Divine mysteries. This dominance of what are popularly
called the animal passions is the outcome of a perfectly natural
process, whereby those in which these passions were defective died
without offspring, while those who tended to excess were similarly
eliminated. The desire for offspring for its own sake may exist among
our own species to-day but, normally, offspring follows as an effect
not as a cause. Many of our social problems would straighten themselves
out if these facts were once faced and acknowledged; we are apt to
concern ourselves with what should be—according to our ideals—rather
than what is. Let it be granted that this rendering is true, and much
else that mystifies becomes clear.
Whether primitive man was monogamous or polygamous, or whether he
practised promiscuity, are themes which have exercised the minds of the
most ingenious since the custom of making books began, and the most
diverse conclusions have been arrived at. In coming to any conclusion
on this subject probability based on what we know of the higher apes
can be the only standard of argument. In these animals monogamy is
the rule, the male and female with their young roaming at large in a
family party. Occasionally, however, a male is seen accompanied by two
females, and this is only what we should expect. The Apes are not very
prolific animals nor are they numerous in individuals, hence, should
any male be killed either in combat with a rival or by any other means,
his mate probably wanders in search of another male, by whom, when
found, she is probably readily adopted even if he should be already
mated.
In like manner lived our half-human progenitors. But with them family
parties no longer wandered aimlessly searching for food, but with
a purpose. No longer forest dwellers, or vegetarians, food would
require more zeal and discrimination in collecting, and shelter of
some kind had probably to be devised, partly as a protection against
predatory animals, and partly for personal comfort, since it would
now have become apparent that this could be appreciably increased by
the exercise of a little effort and ingenuity. This appreciation of
creature comforts formed a cement holding the family together; a sense
of safety in Society helped still further. Rude tools chipped from
flints were among their earliest and most cherished possessions for
the sake of the advantages they secured. Here was the earliest form
of wealth and the birth of labour and a further step on the road to
progress. Little would now occur to derange the harmonious routine
of the daily life, save only the ever-present jealousy of the head of
the family which was assailable both from within and without. His sons
and daughters were probably now regarded as a portion of his wealth,
for they ministered to his comfort, and aided in the daily work which
had now become a necessity. As his sons attained to maturity, so they
became rivals to be watched with a jealous eye, and finally driven
off, while his daughters at the same time became potential mates.
This danger of close inter-marriage was a real one, though it cannot
be supposed that it was in any way realized. The risk was evaded by
perfectly natural means. The jealousy of the head of the family which
drove him to expel his sons as they attained maturity provided the
means. These young bachelors sought their mates from neighbouring
families, and it is probable that they would not be hard to lure from
their parental control, but in such matters force was able to effect
where persuasion failed.
These mate hunting excursions are to be regarded as extremely powerful
factors in securing the betterment of the race. They were adventures in
which all must fail who did not possess courage, cunning, and brawn,
for, paradoxical as it may seem, evolution depends, not so much on the
qualities of the individual as on the elimination of the unfit. As
yet might was right. But the strife of combat, fierce and merciless,
had its beneficial results not only in weeding out the physically and
mentally deficient, but in stimulating affection between the victor and
his prize.
As the advantages of neighbourliness dawned upon these children of
nature, rules and regulations, for the control of the individual on
behalf of the good order of the community, came into being; and among
the earliest laws to be framed, we may be certain, were those for
the regulation of marriage. These, as we may gather from the history
of savage races to-day, did not concern themselves with chastity, at
any rate before marriage, it was enough if they secured the right
of possession, and excluded the dangers of close intermarriage.
Promiscuity in the past was never the practice of any race, its
existence to-day, among both savage and civilized people, is due in part
to imperfections in the social scheme, and in part to the vagaries of
individuals.
That the sexual instincts form the bed-rock on which depends the
survival of all races of animals, which, for their propagation, require
the co-operation of separate sexes, is beyond dispute. And it is no
less certain that in so far as the evolution of man is concerned,
jealousy has been a powerful integrating factor.
Among the higher animals apart from Man, both polygamy and polyandry
are met with, and this with no apparent detriment to the race. It
is significant, however, that polyandry is never met with among the
mammals, and but rarely among the birds, when, as will be shown,
this form of sexual relationship has been accompanied by a profound
modification of the behaviour of the sexes in regard, not only to
courtship, but to the offspring. The male has lost his masculinity,
and the female her femininity. In human society both forms of marriage
prevail, and there can be no doubt, from the history of such customs,
that of the two types, polygamy is much to be preferred. It is certain
that no race which practices polyandry can do more than hold its
own, and that in a low grade of development. This cannot be said of
polygamy, which might indeed be commended as a solution of some of our
own social problems, were it not almost certain that the remedy would
prove as bad as the disease.
The subject of “Courtship” in so far as it applies to the human race
is one concerning which little can be said. Westermark, Letourneau,
Sutherland, and last but by no means least, Darwin, have brought
together a mass of facts bearing on the status of women among
communities, savage and civilized, ancient and modern, and from these
much may be inferred. To this harvest, however, Darwin himself still
remains the most important contributor on all that directly concerns
the “Sexual Selection” theory. Other writers seem to have paid more
attention to the laws governing the possession of women than to the
discussion of the motives which may have controlled the choice of
mates. Instances of amatory dalliance, such as are met with among
the inferior apes, and the birds, seem to be wanting. This negative
evidence seems to show that, even among the most ancient, the most
Ape-like, half-human races of man such dalliance was unknown. And this
because primitive man, in his love-making as in everything else, was
accustomed to take what he wanted, or die in the attempt. It is to
this forcefulness of character that the human race owes its progress
throughout the ages. But did he, when desire possessed him, exercise
any sort of choice, when this was possible? What were his standards?
These are unanswerable questions; at most we can but infer what his
behaviour may have been from observations on existing races of mankind.
These seem to demonstrate that while some races profess admiration for
certain of their physical peculiarities, these cannot be attributed to
the action of sexual selection.
It has been suggested that the low, beetling brows, protruding mouth,
and flat, broad nose which characterized the earliest human peoples,
were slowly eliminated by the æsthetic taste displayed by the females
in their choice of mates. Now in the first place, it is highly
improbable that they had any choice allowed them, and if they had,
these are just the characters which were most marked in the males and
might, or probably would, in consequence, have been deemed “manly” and
desirable, for it is hardly to be supposed that such people would be
capable of conceiving ideas of a possible refinement of their personal
appearance if they could but add to the height of their foreheads
and reduce the size of their faces. These graces settled down on
them as the brain enlarged and habits changed. But the process of
transformation must have been infinitely slow, and quite imperceptible
from one generation to another.
The absence of secondary sexual characters in man, such as the brightly
coloured areas which are so conspicuous a feature of many of the lower
apes, is to be explained by his fundamentally different mode of life.
Such vivid hues obtain only in species which live in troops, and
they serve as aphrodisiacs, ensuring mating to every female forming
a part thereof, which would be by no means certain were there no
external signs of her condition. Primitive man, like the higher apes,
was instinctively monogamous, and of necessity solitary, till he had
acquired a tolerable measure of self-control and neighbourliness. When
lust possessed him, he was obliged, in making his maiden venture to
scour the country in the search for the object of his desire. This
found, and won, probably only after desperate conflict with the head of
the family, the nuptial ceremonies would be short.
The greater physical strength of the male and his higher brain capacity
are probably the result of Natural, rather than of Sexual Selection.
The former would weed out all the weakly and dull-witted in the
ordinary course of the struggle for existence, the latter, during the
early days of man’s development, would award the prizes of life to the
most amorous and cunning, and to the most ambitious of the competitors.
The secondary sexual characters of the female are chiefly negative
characters, the absence of those which are conspicuous in the male. She
retains more of the primitive characters of the race. This is the rule
in regard to the animal kingdom. Wherever we desire to find the onward
tendency of evolution, the latest developments of the race, we turn
to the male; when we desire to learn something of the past history of
the species we turn to the female and young. This standard, of course,
yields by no means uniform results, for we find every gradation of
progress on the part of the latter, till male and female and young are
externally indistinguishable. But the order is almost invariably the
same—first the male, then the female, then the young. Thus progress is
more or less automatic or “Orthogenic,” as the scientific text books
have it, new characters, as they appear, tending to go on increasing
in amplitude till checked by Natural selection. It is to be noted,
however, that this transference is limited, for the female never
inherits characters which are concerned with aggressiveness to the same
degree as in the males, as witness, for example, the brow-ridges and
huge canines in the case of the gorilla.
Darwin believed that the beards of men have developed by the selective
choice of the women who preferred bearded men, while the secondary
sexual characters of the women indicate the lines of male choice.
There is, however, no evidence to show that in the past—for these
characters are as old as man himself—woman had any choice whatever in
the choice of her mate, save under exceptional circumstances. He was
led to this conclusion by one or two striking instances apparently
demonstrating this choice, and on these he seems to have based his
version of the influence of sexual selection in man. The first of
them is furnished by the Hottentots wherein, in both sexes, there is
a marked “Steatopygy,” or accumulation of fat on the buttocks. In the
female this is excessively developed, and it is said that such females
are highly prized by the males. Darwin cites an instance of a woman
in which this accumulation was so enormous, that she could only rise
with the greatest difficulty from a sitting position. But there is no
evidence to show that less favoured females remained unmarried.
In other tribes the breasts attain excessive proportions, so much so
that they can be slung over the shoulder to feed the infant strapped
to her back. These may have been increased by sexual selection, the
preference of the males for such mates as possessed this feature in
the most marked degree; but there is good reason to believe that such
characters, which, it must be remembered, are the outward manifestation
of germinal variations, once having appeared, would of themselves, of
their own inherent vitality, have gone on developing. They won favour
from long familiarity, which has imparted a semblance of increment
from choice. These increments of growth in any given generation would
be imperceptible, but variations in excess of the average would be
conspicuous, and excite admiration from their very strangeness.
The part which sexual selection has played in determining the physical
characters of the human race has without doubt been overestimated.
Its influence may be said to have ceased with the development of the
emotional side of his nature. This momentous process began with the
male and had its roots in the ebullitions of his inherently amorous
nature which has been the dominating factor in his career, and will be
to the end, however much its influence may be disguised by the complex
conditions of civilization.
These emotions, varying in kind and intensity, are such as are embraced
in the term “Love” in the highest sense. They control the selection
of mates, but this selection takes no account, save by accident, of
qualities which have any value as factors of race-survival. In the
lower animals these are determined by natural selection, and sexual
selection adopts as it were the material furnished thereby. It
“selects” only in so far as it eliminates the non-sexually inclined,
and those which lack the qualities essential to ensure reproduction,
such as weapons for example. In human communities natural selection
is largely avoided, and “mate-hunger” seems now to be swayed by more
than the mere desire for its satisfaction. With the development of
human faculty new factors have been introduced, complex emotions have
come into being, whose influences are as yet only vaguely understood.
Whither are they tending? What will be their effect on race-progress?
These are matters of grave importance to us all, and to the student of
Eugenics in particular.
Of man’s higher emotions, which, it is contended, now govern his
conduct, probably the earliest to assert itself was the æsthetic. His
quickening mentality could not fail to be captivated by the bright
hues of birds and butterflies, and flowers, the glorious colour-effects
of dawn and sunset, the seasons in their changes and so forth. And as
this sense of the beautiful slowly gathered force he would seek to
decorate his naked body with such of the more brightly-coloured objects
around him as were suitable or rather with such as could be affixed
thereto.
As a signal mark of his favour and affection, he would occasionally
transfer some one, or another, of his most lasting ornaments to
his mate, and the additional charm this would give her ensured a
continuance of such gifts, and paved the way for tribal fashions. But
then, as now among savages, the males take the lead in this matter
of ornamentation, but in proportion as affection grows, they are
transferred from him to her, so that among civilized races to-day,
the custom is entirely reversed, the women, not the men, wearing the
finery. So soon as families began to be neighbourly and to combine
for the sake of company and mutual help, the spirit of rivalry, so
essential to progress everywhere, would tend to increase the number
of such gifts, and to set “fashions.” With the foundation of society
“selection”—by the elimination of the unsocial, would ensure, not
only the survival of such fashions, but their multiplication and
diversification, producing results which, to our eyes, have often been
hideous. The immediate effect of this form of selection, however, was
not a change in physical characteristics, but in the evolution of
personal ornaments and development of the æsthetic sense. Progress
in this direction must have been infinitely slow, and the lower races
of to-day furnish us with instructive object-lessons in its course.
In many cases uglification rather than refinement has attended their
efforts.
It is indeed more than probable that the various types of ornamentation
obtaining among savage races had their origin in outbursts of sexual
exaltation. One of the earliest methods of personal decoration was
probably to daub the body with paint, as is the custom during the
performance of various religious and semi-religious rites among the
Australian aborigines. A desire to find a permanent substitute for
paint led to the practice of cicatrization, and the later and more
refined custom of tattooing. But personal mutilation has taken many and
strange forms, such as knocking out the front teeth, filing them to
saw-like points, inserting gold or jewels, or staining them. No less
extraordinary are the various types of lip and ear ornaments, and the
suspension of ornaments from the nose. The various fashions of dressing
the hair are also traceable to this origin.
That these modes of personal decoration designed for special occasions
should in course of time become permanent, and should, in many cases,
have lost their original associations is but natural. To-day among
savage and barbaric races many of these modes of transfiguration have
become associated with religious and semi-religious ceremonies, but
many have been retained solely to enhance the personal appearance, even
though in our eyes an exactly opposite effect has been attained. Among
the natives of the Congo, for instance, the face is covered with raised
patterns formed by cicatrization; that is to say, by cuts made with
a knife, which are made to form scars on healing by means of pungent
juices or heated iron. Further, the teeth are filed to form saw-like
cutting edges, producing a revolting effect according to European
ideals, but charming according to the standards of those thus patterns
which adorn the tattooed face of the Maori present a result more nearly
pleasing. Many of the natives of East Africa pierce the lobes of the
ear and hang ornaments therein so heavy, that in due course a hole
large enough to run the arm through results. These are mutilations of a
purely ornamental character. Curiously enough, precisely similar forms
of mutilation occur among people dwelling in different continents, as
in the case of the lip and ear ornaments worn by natives of Africa and
South America. There can have been no means of communication between
these races, and hence we must conclude they were independently derived.
More striking still is the practice of deforming the head which
prevailed among the Peruvians, the Caribs of the West Indies, and the
natives of Vancouver, and the Chinook Indians, wherein it attained
its maximum. Among some tribes, the head was depressed from above
downwards, giving the skull a cone-shape, the apex pointing backwards;
among others the pressure was applied to the back and front of the
head, giving a more or less globular shape, and causing the sides of
the head to bulge ominously. Now these distortions are to be attributed
solely to the whim of Fashion. But how could this have arisen? No adult
could have started it, for the form of the skull cannot be altered
once its growth is completed. The conception of this diabolical custom
apparently then arose in the brain of some fiendishly ingenious person,
who realized that to effect its realization pressure must be applied
to the head of the infant at its birth and for some considerable
time after, by squeezing the head between boards, or tying it round
with thongs of hide. That disastrous results would follow from this
tampering with the brain would seem an unavoidable conclusion; yet
such was not the case. During the moulding process, travellers who
have witnessed it tell us, children display no sign of suffering, even
though their eyes seemed to be starting from their sockets from the
pressure. But they cried when the thongs were loosened. On attaining
to man’s estate, such victims to parental folly seemed to be in every
way as intelligent as the men of neighbouring tribes which had no such
insane customs.
How deeply rooted was the prejudice in favour of this extraordinary
fashion is shown by the fact that when, during infancy, from sickness,
or other cause, the bandaging was neglected or omitted, and the child,
in consequence, attained to man’s estate with a head of the shape
designed by nature, he was seriously hampered in the struggle for
existence, for no honours among his tribe were possible. Indeed, as
often as not he was sold as a slave. But thus did Public Opinion bring
disaster on its advocates, for those misguided people have been swept
off the face of the earth by their own folly. Those who survived the
ordeal, it is true, seemed in no way mentally deficient, but the infant
mortality must have been great, and none of the adults could ever have
attained to their full potentiality.
These people were, however, not the only lunatics at large. For this
extraordinary practice found its devotees in many other widely sundered
parts of the world. Deformed heads of various types have been found
in rock-tombs near Tiflis, in the Crimea, Hungary, Silesia, in South
Germany, Switzerland, and even in France, Belgium and England! How did
it spread from one nation to another? Since means of communication
were extremely limited centuries ago, one can only suppose that in
most cases it arose independently. It is possible that the idea
started with the unintentional deformations of the head which follow
the practice of carrying the child during early infancy. It is well
known that if a child be constantly carried on one arm, so that one
side of the head continuously presses against the shoulder, a more or
less marked asymmetry of the skull results. It would be enough for
the head of one of the chief’s children to show a rather unusually
marked asymmetry of this kind for every mother to endeavour to copy the
defect, for imitation ever was the sincerest form of flattery!
To place these superficial, non-transmissible, artificially created
features, such as deformed heads, mutilated teeth and ears, and so
on, in the same category as the “secondary sexual characters” of the
lower animals which are physical, inherent and transmissible features,
is to ensure confusion of thought. The one represents a physical, the
other an emotional development. The persistence of certain forms of
mutilation esteemed beautiful in human society is not to be attributed
to Sexual selection, or to “preferential mating,” for these things
are not only non-transmissible features, but outside the sway of the
amorous instincts, as is shown by the case of those individuals who,
living in a community where deformed heads are _de rigueur_, have heads
of normal shape. So soon as such perversions become a part and parcel
of everyday life, they become essential to the general well-being and
comfort of their possessors, enabling them to follow their normal
avocations without exciting the dislike or wounding the prejudices of
their neighbours. The absence of the “tribal sign” alienates the esteem
and comradeship of his neighbours and brings an unenviable notoriety.
In like manner albinos among birds, for example, are hunted down by
their fellows and killed, and birds of exotic species conspicuous by
reason of their unfamiliar appearance are treated in the same manner.
The sexual instincts have no part in this.
It will have become obvious in the course of this chapter that Sexual
selection as a factor in shaping the evolution of the human race has
not played a very conspicuous part. Nevertheless, the balance of
opinion to-day is probably in favour of the view that the physical
peculiarities by which we distinguish one race from another are, for
the most part, due to the influence of this form of selection. A more
careful survey of the facts will show that this view is untenable.
And there is no more striking demonstration thereof than that it has
been inconsequently applied to account for features in one race, which
in another are attributed to environment or to Natural Selection.
It may safely be asserted that colour, the shape of the nose, the
prominence of the jaws, and the character of the hair, are no more the
result of “Sexual Selection” than stature, for example. These are the
manifestations of inherent growth forces, or “tendencies,” which owe
their survival, and development, to the influence of Natural selection.
Sexual selection has brought about the dominance of the male, by
the struggle between males for mastery, originally for females. It
“selected” for survival, in primitive races, those males with the
thickest skulls and the strongest physique; it determined the survival
of the keenest witted and most aggressive and most amorous males, and
it eliminated those in which the latter features were too active. It
assured victory, in short, to those only who possessed just those
qualities on which life or death depend in moments of conflict. In the
case of the females, it assured survival only to those who possessed
strongly developed maternal instincts and submissiveness.
It is by no means realized that the incidence of moulding forces
has changed and is changing with the environment of the race. So
long as physical force, as between man and man, determined survival,
as among savage races to-day, so long does it ensure to such races
strong men and strong children, for in conflict with neighbouring
tribes victory rests with the most powerful of physique and endurance
and the most prolific. This last is an all-important concomitant if
repeated conflicts are to be successfully waged. Among civilized
peoples such contests began to lose their value in this regard when,
by the introduction of arms, physical personality became a steadily
diminishing factor. Victory now rests rather with those peoples who are
most skilful in devising engines of destruction. The brain, not brawn,
tells. But man cannot live by brains alone. With the inevitable decline
in his physical nature man’s hold on existence is seriously imperilled.
Civilization is making for extinction as much as over-specialization in
the case of the lower animals. Hitherto, save in the case of decaying
nations, women have played but a minor part in what we may call the
“tribal” affairs of the race. Among the civilized nations of to-day,
in proportion as the “maleness” of the community becomes more and more
effete, the victims of sophistry, and the slaves of shibboleths, so
the influence of the females asserts itself. And recent events among
us show plainly enough that that influence is the reverse of good.
Having its roots in personal vanity, and the love of notoriety, it is
intolerant alike of reason and self-restraint, and that way madness
lies.