The facts thus seem to indicate that among primitive peoples, while the
magical, ceremonial, and traditional restraints on sexual intercourse are
very numerous, very widespread, and nearly always very stringent, there
is, underlying this prevalence of restraints on intercourse, a fundamental
weakness of the sexual instinct, which craves less, and craves less
frequently, than is the case among civilized peoples, but is liable to be
powerfully manifested at special seasons. It is perfectly true that among
savages, as Sutherland states, "there is no ideal which makes chastity a
thing beautiful in itself"; but when the same writer goes on to state that
"it is untrue that in sexual license the savage has everything to learn,"
we must demand greater precision of statement.[196] Travelers, and too
often would-be scientific writers, have been so much impressed by the
absence among savages of the civilized ideal of chastity, and by the
frequent freedom of sexual intercourse, that they have not paused to
inquire more carefully into the phenomena, or to put themselves at the
primitive point of view, but have assumed that freedom here means all that
it would mean in a European population.
In order to illustrate the actual circumstances of savage life in this
respect from the scanty evidence furnished by the most careful observers,
I have brought together from scattered sources a few statements concerning
primitive peoples in very various parts of the world.[197]
Among the Andamanese, Portman, who knows them well, says that sexual
desire is very moderate; in males it appears at the age of 18, but, as
"their love for sport is greater than their passions, these are not
gratified to any great extent till after marriage, which rarely takes
place till a man is about 26."[198]
Although chastity is not esteemed by the Fuegians, and virginity is lost
at a very early age, yet both men and women are extremely moderate in
sexual indulgence.[199]
Among the Eskimo at the other end of the American continent, according to
Dr. F. Cook, the sexual passions are suppressed during the long darkness
of winter, as also is the menstrual function usually, and the majority of
the children are born nine months after the appearance of the sun.[200]
Among the Indians of North America it is the custom of many tribes to
refrain from sexual intercourse during the whole period of lactation, as
also D'Orbigny found to be the case among South American Indians, although
suckling went on for over three years.[201] Many of the Indian tribes have
now been rendered licentious by contact with civilization. In the
primitive condition their customs were entirely different. Dr. Holder, who
knows many tribes of North American Indians well, has dealt in some detail
with this point. "Several of the virtues," he states, "and among them
chastity, were more faithfully practised by the Indian race before the
invasion from the East than these same virtues are practised by the white
race of the present day.... The race is less salacious than either the
negro or white race.... That the women of some tribes are now more careful
of their virtue than the women of any other community whose history I
know, I am fully convinced."[202] It is not only on the women that sexual
abstinence is imposed. Among some branches of the Salish Indians of
British Columbia a young widower must refrain from sexual intercourse for
a year, and sometimes lives entirely apart during that period.[203]
In many parts of Polynesia, although the sexual impulse seems often to
have been highly developed before the arrival of Europeans, it is very
doubtful whether license, in the European sense, at all generally
prevailed. The Marquesans, who have sometimes been regarded as peculiarly
licentious, are especially mentioned by Foley as illustrating his
statement that sexual erethism is with difficulty attained by primitive
peoples except during sexual seasons.[204] Herman Melville's detailed
account in _Typee_ of the Marquesans (somewhat idealized, no doubt)
reveals nothing that can fairly be called licentiousness. At Rotuma, J.
Stanley Gardiner remarks, before the missionaries came sexual intercourse
before marriage was free, but gross immorality and prostitution and
adultery were unknown. Matters are much worse now.[205] The Maoris of New
Zealand, in the old days, according to one who had lived among them, were
more chaste than the English, and, though a chief might lend his wife to a
friend as an honor, it would be very difficult to take her (_private
communication_).[206] Captain Cook also represented these people as modest
and virtuous.
Among the Papuans of New Guinea and Torres Straits, although intercourse
before marriage is free, it is by no means unbridled, nor is it carried to
excess. There are many circumstances restraining intercourse. Thus,
unmarried men must not indulge in it during October and November at Torres
Straits. It is the general rule also that there should be no sexual
intercourse during pregnancy, while a child is being suckled (which goes
on for three or four years), or even until it can speak or walk.[207] In
Astrolabe Bay, New Guinea, according to Vahness, a young couple must
abstain from intercourse for several weeks after marriage, and to break
this rule would be disgraceful.[208]
As regards Australia, Brough Smyth wrote: "Promiscuous intercourse between
the sexes is not practised by the aborigines, and their laws on the
subject, particularly those of New South Wales, are very strict. When at
camp all the young unmarried men are stationed by themselves at the
extreme end, while the married men, each with his family, occupy the
center. No conversation is allowed between the single men and the girls or
the married women. Infractions of these laws were visited by punishment;
... five or six warriors threw from a comparatively short distance several
spears at him [the offender]. The man was often severely wounded and
sometimes killed."[209] This author mentions that a black woman has been
known to kill a white man who attempted to have intercourse with her by
force. Yet both sexes have occasional sexual intercourse from an early
age. After marriage, in various parts of Australia, there are numerous
restraints on intercourse, which is forbidden not merely during
menstruation, but during the latter part of pregnancy and for one moon
after childbirth.[210]
Concerning the people of the Malay Peninsula, Hrolf Vaughan Stevens
states: "The sexual impulse among the Belendas is only developed to a
slight extent; they are not sensual, and the husband has intercourse with
his wife not oftener than three times a month. The women also are not
ardent.... The Orang Lâut are more sensual than the Dyaks, who are,
however, more given to obscene jokes than their neighbors.... With the
Belendas there is little or no love-play in sexual relations".[211] Skeat
tells us also that among Malays in war-time strict chastity must be
observed in a stockade, or the bullets of the garrison will lose their
power.[212]
It is a common notion that the negro and negroid races of Africa are
peculiarly prone to sexual indulgence. This notion is not supported by
those who have had the most intimate knowledge of these peoples. It
probably gained currency in part owing to the open and expansive
temperament of the negro, and in part owing to the extremely sexual
character of many African orgies and festivals, though those might quite
as legitimately be taken as evidence of difficulty in attaining sexual
erethism.
A French army surgeon, speaking from knowledge of the black races in
various French colonies, states in his _Untrodden Fields of Anthropology_
that it is a mistake to imagine that the negress is very amorous. She is
rather cold, and indifferent to the refinements of love, in which respects
she is very unlike the mulatto. The white man is usually powerless to
excite her, partly from his small penis, partly from his rapidity of
emission; the black man, on account of his blunter nervous system, takes
three times as long to reach emission as the white man. Among the
Mohammedan peoples of West Africa, Daniell remarks, as well as in central
and northern Africa, it is usual to suckle a child for two or more years.
From the time when pregnancy becomes apparent to the end of weaning no
intercourse takes place. It is believed that this would greatly endanger
the infant, if not destroy it. This means that for every child the woman,
at all events, must remain continent for about three years.[213] Sir H.H.
Johnston, writing concerning the peoples of central Africa, remarks that
the man also must remain chaste during these periods. Thus, among the
Atonga the wife leaves her husband at the sixth month of pregnancy, and
does not resume relations with him until five or six months after the
birth of the child. If, in the interval, he has relations with any other
woman, it is believed his wife will certainly die. "The negro is very
rarely vicious," Johnston says, "after he has attained to the age of
puberty. He is only more or less uxorious. The children are vicious, as
they are among most races of mankind, the boys outrageously so. As regards
the little girls over nearly the whole of British Central Africa, chastity
before puberty is an unknown condition, except perhaps among the A-nyanja.
Before a girl is become a woman it is a matter of absolute indifference
what she does, and scarcely any girl remains a virgin after about 5 years
of age."[214] Among the Bangala of the upper Congo a woman suckles her
child for six to eighteen months and during all this period the husband
has no intercourse with his wife, for that, it is believed, would kill the
child.[215]
Among the Yoruba-speaking people of West Africa A.B. Ellis mentions that
suckling lasts for three years, during the whole of which period the wife
must not cohabit with her husband.[216]
Although chastity before marriage appears to be, as a rule, little
regarded in Africa, this is not always so. In some parts of West Africa, a
girl, at all events if of high birth, when found guilty of unchastity may
be punished by the insertion into her vagina of bird pepper, a kind of
capsicum, beaten into a mass; this produces intense pain and such acute
inflammation that the canal may even be obliterated.[217]
Among the Dahomey women there is no coitus during pregnancy nor during
suckling, which lasts for nearly three years. The same is true among the
Jekris and other tribes on the Niger, where it is believed that the milk
would suffer if intercourse took place during lactation.[218]
In another part of Africa, among the Suaheli, even after marriage only
incomplete coitus is at first allowed and there is no intercourse for a
year after the child's birth.[219]
Farther south, among the Ba Wenda of north Transvaal, says the Rev. R.
Wessmann, although the young men are permitted to "play" with the young
girls before marriage, no sexual intercourse is allowed. If it is seen
that a girl's labia are apart when she sits down on a stone, she is
scolded, or even punished, as guilty of having had intercourse.[220]
Among the higher races in India the sexual instinct is very developed, and
sexual intercourse has been cultivated as an art, perhaps more elaborately
than anywhere else. Here, however, we are far removed from primitive
conditions and among a people closely allied to the Europeans. Farther to
the east, as among the Cambodians, strict chastity seems to prevail, and
if we cross the Himalayas to the north we find ourselves among wild people
to whom sexual license is unknown. Thus, among the Turcomans, even a few
days after the marriage has been celebrated, the young couple are
separated for an entire year.[221]
All the great organized religions have seized on this value of sexual
abstinence, already consecrated by primitive magic and religion, and
embodied it in their system. It was so in ancient Egypt. Thus, according
to Diodorus, on the death of a king, the entire population of Egypt
abstained from sexual intercourse for seventy-two days. The Persians,
again, attached great value to sexual as to all other kinds of purity.
Even involuntary seminal emissions were severely punishable. To lie with a
menstruating woman, according to the _Vendidad_, was as serious a matter
as to pollute holy fire, and to lie with a pregnant woman was to incur a
penalty of 2000 strokes. Among the modern Parsees a man must not lie with
his wife after she is four months and ten days pregnant. Mohammedanism
cannot be described as an ascetic religion, yet long and frequent periods
of sexual abstinence are enjoined. There must be no sexual intercourse
during the whole of pregnancy, during suckling, during menstruation (and
for eight days before and after), nor during the thirty days of the
Ramedan fast. Other times of sexual abstinence are also prescribed; thus
among the Mohammedan Yezidis of Mardin in northern Mesopotamia there must
be no sexual intercourse on Wednesdays or Fridays.[222]
In the early Christian Church many rules of sexual abstinence still
prevailed, similar to those usual among savages, though not for such
prolonged periods. In Egbert's Penitential, belonging to the ninth
century, it is stated that a woman must abstain from intercourse with her
husband three months after conception and for forty days after birth.
There were a number of other occasions, including Lent, when a husband
must not know his wife.[223] "Some canonists say," remarks Jeremy Taylor,
"that the Church forbids a mutual congression of married pairs upon
festival days.... The Council of Eliberis commanded abstinence from
conjugal rights for three or four or seven days before the communion. Pope
Liberius commanded the same during the whole time of Lent, supposing the
fast is polluted by such congressions."[224]