In fairy tales it is not surprising that the hero should be forbidden to
see his wife on certain days, or whilst she is washing, or at night, and
that he should be required to take precautions lest he should take her
unawares in one of the forbidden moments.[78] But it is surprising to find
that the prosaic Roman punctiliously observed fairy etiquette in these
matters, and habitually behaved like an inhabitant of fairy-land. See _R.
Q._ 9 and 65. It is also surprising to discover that in Italy, where, owing
to "the vigorous development of the marital authority, regardless of the
natural rights of persons as such," the wife's "moral subjection became
transformed into legal slavery,"[79] the wife was "exempted from the tasks
of corn-grinding and cooking," because, according to Mommsen, those tasks
were menial.[80] The exemption is mentioned by Plutarch in _R. Q._ 85; but
we must take leave to question Mommsen's explanation. The exemption is not
an exemption, but a prohibition: it is identical with the taboo laid on the
Flamen Dialis (_R. Q._ 109), and has the same object. Doubtless if a Roman
ate food touched by a woman, "it would swell and inflame his mouth or
throat," or have some disastrous effect. For that even indirect contact
with women at certain periods, _e.g._ child-birth, &c., is highly
dangerous, is a belief found amongst the Australian blacks and the Eskimo,
the Indians of North America, and the Kafirs of South Africa. An Australian
blackfellow, having been brought accidentally into this dangerous contact,
died of terror within a fortnight.[81] It is not strange, therefore, that
the Romans, returning home after absence, _if their wives were at home,
used to send a messenger unto them before, for to give warning and
advertisement of their comming_. And we can understand that the primitive
public for whom the fairy tales in question were composed found the
incident of the violated taboo as thrilling and as full of "actuality" as a
modern reader finds the latest sensational novel.
The belief that a mother and her new-born babe are peculiarly at the mercy
of malevolent spirits is world-wide. In the fairy tales of Christian Europe
the period of danger is terminated by baptism, until which time various
precautions, such as burning a light in the chamber, must be observed.[82]
In ancient Italy the danger ended when the child received its name, which,
as Plutarch (_R. Q._ 103) informs us, was on the ninth day after birth in
the case of boys, on the eighth in the case of girls. Until that day a
candle was to be kept lighted, and the spirit Candelifera was to be
invoked. On that day the child was purified (which indicates an original
taboo), and received the _bulla_, mentioned by Plutarch (_R. Q._ 102), to
preserve him henceforth from evil spirits and the evil eye. Whether the
_bulla_ derived its virtue from the substances which were enclosed in it,
as in a box, or from its moon shape, is uncertain. If the latter be the
true explanation, we may compare the fact recorded by Plutarch (_R. Q._
76), _that those who are descended of the most noble and auncient houses of
Rome carried little moones upon their shoes_. The daughters of Sion also
wore as amulets "round tires like the moon" (Isaiah, iii. 18). The
moon-spirit sends disease or takes possession of the person who is
"lunatick" or "moon-struck." But the spirit may be deluded, and will enter
any moon-shaped object which the person attacked is wearing. The Chaldæans
diverted the spirit of disease from the sick man by providing an image in
the likeness of the spirit to attract the plague.[83]