The history of kissing, thus briefly sketched, shows that among
primitive men this art is unknown because they are incapable of
appreciating it. To the ancient civilised nations its charms were
revealed; but as usual in the intoxication of a new discovery, they
hardly knew what to do with it, and applied it to all sorts of stupid
ceremonial purposes. The tendency of civilisation, however, has been to
eliminate promiscuous kissing, and restrict it more and more to its
proper function as an expression of the affections. And even within this
sphere the circle becomes gradually smaller. Although in some parts of
Europe men still kiss one another as a token of relationship,
friendship, or esteem, yet the habit is slowly dying out, the example
having been set in England, where it was abandoned toward the close of
the seventeenth century. The senseless custom which women to-day indulge
in of kissing each other on the slightest provocation, often when they
would rather slap one another in the face, is also doomed to extinction.
The witticism that women kiss one another because they cannot find
anything better to kiss, differing herein from men, was not perpetrated
by a woman. The practice of kissing little children has been often
enough condemned on medical grounds, which also hold good in the case of
adults. That contagious diseases are thus often conveyed from one person
to another was already known to the ancient Romans, one of whose
emperors issued a special proclamation in consequence against
promiscuous kissing.
From a sentimental point of view, the most objectionable of modern
kisses are those which are allowed between cousins. As long as a man may
become a suitor for the hand of his cousin he should, both for the sake
of his own love-drama and in justice to a possible rival, be debarred
from this privilege. Imagine the feelings of a lover who knows that his
rival has been permitted to steal the virgin kiss from the lips of his
adored one simply because his father happens to be her uncle! Family
kisses should, therefore, be allowed only within that degree of
relationship which precludes the idea of Love and marriage. Cousins will
have to be satisfied in future with a warmer grasp of the hand and an
extra lump of sugar in a maiden’s smile.