Among the Samoiedes, says Klemm, “a man purchases a wife for a number of
reindeer, varying from five to twenty; the bride, as is the case also in
Greenland, struggles violently against leaving the paternal house, and
commonly she has to be caught forcibly and bound on the bridegroom’s
sledge.” In some of the Bedouin tribes the destined bride runs from tent
to tent to escape being brought to the bridegroom. When an Esquimaux
girl is asked in marriage, says Kranz (quoted by Mr. Spencer), she
“directly falls into the greatest apparent consternation and runs out of
doors, tearing her bunch of hair; for single women always affect the
utmost bashfulness and aversion to any proposal of marriage, lest they
should lose their reputation for modesty.” So among the Bushmen a
lover’s attentions “are received with an affectation of great alarm and
disinclination on her part”; while an Arab bride “defends herself with
stones, and often inflicts wounds on the young men, even though she does
not dislike the lover; for according to custom, the more she struggles,
bites, kicks, cries, and strikes, the more she is applauded ever after
by her own companions.”
Obviously these glacier, forest, and desert belles have a somewhat
cruder way than our city belles of hiding their feelings.
Mr. Spencer refers to the Coyness of these maidens as one motive or
cause of wife-capture, but he does not inquire into the origin of
Coyness itself, which is a much more interesting point in the psychology
of Love. The fear “lest they should lose their reputation for modesty,”
mentioned above, is the most obvious cause of this exaggerated
resistance, as it is of the excessive prudishness often encountered in
some European civilised countries of to-day. Again, the sight of the
harsh treatment to which her married sisters or friends are subjected,
would make the primitive bride naturally averse to exchange her maiden
freedom for conjugal slavery.
It seems, however, that in most cases, the Coyness is less real than
simulated; and for this form of Coyness—reversing Mr. Spencer’s
reasoning—we may say that Exogamy, or Capture, is responsible. For since
Capture implies courage and valour on the part of the husband, it may
have been to secure the “prestige of a foreign marriage”—as fashionable
novelists would say—that the form of Capture was imitated in cases where
there was no opposition, either on the part of the girl or her parents.
Another explanation of sham Coyness is afforded by the following case:
Among the inhabitants of the Volga region, in Russia, the bride is
occasionally captured and carried off, though here too there is no
opposition on her part or from her parents. The cause of this procedure
is the desire to avoid the expenses of the marriage ceremony, which in
that region are out of all proportion to the means of the lower classes.
Finally it may be suggested that Coyness, so far as it really exists in
the primitive maiden, owes its origin to the instinctive perception that
the men value them more if they do not throw themselves into their arms
on the first impulse. And more than anything else, this attitude of
reserve feeds the flames of Romantic Love by transferring its delights
and pangs to the imagination.
Yet, after all, manifestations of Coyness must be the exception and not
the rule in the lower races, inasmuch as in the vast majority of cases,
where no choice is allowed the bride, there is little or no opportunity
for the exercise of such a trait.
Of GALLANTRY I have not succeeded in discovering any traces in the
records of savage life, except possibly in the case of the natives of
Kamtchatka, where the wooer has to go into service for his bride, and
during this time endeavours constantly to lighten her labours and make
himself agreeable to her. So far as Gallantry occurs, it is more likely
to be a feminine trait—as among one of the North American Indian tribes,
where the maiden cooks her suitor’s game, and sends him back the best
morsels with presents; or as with another tribe, the Osages, where the
maidens pay court to the warriors by offering them ears of corn.
As for the remaining characters of Romantic Love, which require a vivid
imagination and persistent emotions for their realisation, it would be
useless to look for them in Savagedom—except perhaps in those
infinitesimal proportions in which various chemical substances are found
by analysts in mineral waters. The following may be offered as an
approximate list of the ingredients in the Love of savage and
semi-civilised peoples:—
Selfishness 25·7684
Inconstancy 20·3701
Jealousy 0 to 20·7904
Coyness ” 10·5523
Individual Preference ” 5·0073
Personal Beauty ” 5·7002
Monopoly ” 7·3024
Pride of Possession 4·5082
Sympathy 0·0000
Gallantry 0·0006
Self-Sacrifice Traces
Ecstatic Adoration ”
Mixed Emotions ”