Primitive Love and Love-Stories Part 13

If we must therefore reject Herbert Spencer's inference as to the existence of primitive coyness and its consequences, how are we to account for the comedy of mock capture? Several writers have tried to crack the nut. Sutherland (I., 200) holds that sham capture is not a survival of real capture, but "the festive symbolism of the contrast in the character of the s.e.xes--courage in the man and shyness in the woman"--a fantastic suggestion which does not call for discussion, since, as we know, the normal primitive woman is anything but shy.

Abercromby (I., 454) is another writer who believes that sham capture is not a survival of real capture, but merely a result of the innate general desire on the part of the men to display courage--a view which dodges the one thing that calls for an explanation--the resistance of the women. Grosse indulges in some curious antics (105-108). First he asks: "Since real capture is everywhere an exception and is looked on as punishable, why should the semblance of capture have ever become a general and approved custom?" Then he asks, with a sneer, why sociology should be called upon to answer such questions anyhow; and a moment later he, nevertheless, attempts an answer, on Spencerian lines. Among inferior races, he remarks, women are usually coveted as spoils of war. The captured women become the wives or concubines of the warriors and thus represent, as it were, trophies of their valor.

Is it not, therefore, inevitable that the acquisition of a wife by force should be looked on, among warlike races, as the most honorable way of getting her, nay, in course of time, as the only one worthy of a warrior? But since, he continues, not all the men can get wives in that way, even among the rudest tribes, these other men consoled themselves with investing the peaceful home-taking of a bride also with the show of an honorable capture.

In other words, Grosse declares on one page that it is absurd to derive approved sham capture from real capture because real capture is everywhere exceptional only and is always considered punishable; yet two pages later he argues that sham capture _is_ derived from real capture because the latter is so honorable! As a matter of fact, among the lowest races known, wife-stealing is not considered honorable.

Regarding the Australians, Curr states distinctly (I., 108) that it was not encouraged because it was apt to involve a whole tribe in war for one man's sake. Among the North American Indians, on the other hand, where, as we saw in the chapter on Honorable Polygamy, a wife-stealer is admired by both men and women, sham capture does _not_ prevail. Grosse's argument, therefore, falls to the ground.

WHY THE WOMEN RESIST

Prior to all these writers Sir John Lubbock advanced (98) still another theory of capture, real and sham. Believing that men once had all their wives in common, he declares that

"capture, and capture alone, could originally give a man the right to monopolize a woman to the exclusion of his fellow-clansmen; and that hence, even after all necessity for actual capture had long ceased, the symbol remained; capture having, by long habit, come to be received as a necessary preliminary to marriage."

This theory has the same shortcoming as the others. While accounting for the capture, it does not explain the resistance of the women. In real capture they had real reasons for kicking, biting, and howling, but why should they continue these antics in cases of sham capture?

Obviously another factor came into play here, which has been strangely overlooked--parental persuasion or command. Among savages a father owns his daughter as absolutely as his dog; he can sell or exchange her at pleasure; in Australia, "swapping" daughters or sisters is the commonest mode of marriage. Now, stealing brides, or eloping to avoid having to pay for them, is of frequent occurrence everywhere among uncivilized races. To protect themselves against such loss of personal property it must have occurred to parents at an early date that it would be wise to teach their daughters to resist all suitors until it has become certain that their intentions are honorable--that is, that they intend to pay. In course of time such teaching (strengthened by the girls' pride at being purchased for a large sum) would a.s.sume the form of an inviolable command, having the force of a taboo and, with the stubbornness peculiar to many social customs, persisting long after the original reasons have ceased to exist.

In other words, I believe that the peculiar antics of the brides in cases of sham capture are neither due to innate feminine coyness nor are they a direct survival of the genuine resistance made in real capture; but that they are simply a result of parental dictation which a.s.signs to the bride the role she must play in the comedy of "courtship." I find numerous facts supporting this view, especially in Reinsberg-Duringsfeld's _Hochzeitsbuch_ and Schroeder's _Hochzeitsgebrauche der Esten_.

Describing the marriage customs of the Mordvins, Mainow says that the bridegroom sneaks into the bride's house before daybreak, seizes her and carries her off to where his companions are waiting with their wagons. "Etiquette," he adds, "_demands_ she should resist violently and cry loudly, even if she is entirely in favor of the elopement."

Among the Votyaks girl-stealing (kukem) occurs to this day. If the father is unwilling or asks too much, while the young folks are willing, the girl goes to work in the field and the lover carries her off. _On the way to his house she is cheerful, but when they reach the lover's house she begins to cry and wail_, whereupon she is locked up in a cabin that has no window. The father, having found out where she is, comes and demands payment. If the lover offers too little, the parent plies his whip on him. Among the Ostyaks such elopements, to avoid payment, are frequent. Regarding the Esthonians, Schroeder says (40): "When the intermediary comes, the girl _must_ conceal herself in some place until she is either found, _with her father's consent_, or appears of her own accord."

In the old epic "Kalewipoeg," Salme hides in the garret and Linda in the bath-room, and refuse to come out till after much coaxing and urging.

QUAINT CUSTOMS

The words I have italicized indicate the pa.s.sive role played by the girls, who simply carry out the instructions given to them. The parents are the stage-managers, and they know very well what they want--money or brandy. Among the Mordvins, as soon as the suitor and his friends are seen approaching the bride's house, it is barricaded, and the defenders ask, "Who are you?" The answer is, "Merchants."

"What do you wish?" "Living goods." "We do not trade!" "We shall take her by force." A show of force is made, but finally the suitors are admitted, after paying twenty kopeks. In Little Russia it is customary to barricade the door of the bride's house with a wheel, but after offering a bottle of brandy as a "pa.s.s" the suitor's party is allowed to enter.

Among the Esthonians custom _demands_ (Schroeder, 36), that a comedy like the following be enacted. The intermediary comes to the bride's house and pretends that he has lost a cow or a lamb, and asks permission to hunt for it. The girl's relatives at first stubbornly deny having any knowledge of its whereabouts, but finally they allow the suitors to search, and the bride is usually found without much delay. In Western Prussia (Berent district), after the bridegroom has made his terms with the bride and her parents, he comes to their house and says: "We were out hunting and saw a wounded deer run into this house. May we follow its tracks?" Permission is granted, whereupon the men start in pursuit of the bride, who has hidden away with the other village maidens. At last the "hound"--one of the bridegroom's companions--finds her and brings her to the lover.

Similar customs have prevailed in parts of Russia, Roumania, Servia, Sardinia, Hungary, and elsewhere. In Old Finland the comedy continues even after the nuptial knot has been tied. The bridal couple return each to their home. Soon the groom appears at the bride's house and demands to be admitted. Her father refuses to let him in. A "pa.s.s" is thereupon produced and read, and this, combined with a few presents, finally secures admission. In some districts the bride remains invisible even during the wedding-dinner, and it is "good form" for her to let the guests wait as long as possible, and not to appear until after considerable coaxing by her mother. When a Votyak bridegroom comes after the bride on the wedding-day she is denied to him three times. After that she is searched for, dragged from her hiding-place, and her face covered with a cloth, while she screams and struggles. Then she is carried to the yard, placed on a blanket with her face down, and the bridegroom belabors her with a stick on a pillow which has been tied on her back. After that she becomes obedient and amiable. A Mordvin bride must try to escape from the wagon on the way to the church. In Old Finland the bride was barricaded in her house even after the wedding, and the Island Swedes have the same custom. This burlesque of bridal resistance after marriage occurs also among the wild tribes of India. "After remaining with her husband for ten days only," writes Dalton (192), "it is _the correct thing_ for the wife to run away from him, and tell all her friends that she loves him not and will see him no more." The husband's duty is to seek her eagerly.

"I have seen a young wife thus found and claimed, and borne away, screeching and struggling in the arms of her husband, from the midst of a crowded bazaar. No one interferes on these occasions."

More than enough has now been said to prove that in cases of sham capture the girls simply follow their village customs blindly. Left to themselves they might act very differently, but as it is, all the girls in each district _must_ do the same thing, however silly. About the real feelings of the girls these comedies tell us nothing whatever. With coyness--that is, a woman's concealment of her feelings toward a man she likes--these actions have no more to do than the man in the moon has with anthropology. Least of all do they tell us anything about love, for the girls must all act alike, whether they favor a man or not. Regarding the absence of love we have, moreover, the direct testimony of Dr. F. Kreutzwald (Schroeder, 233). That marriages are made in heaven is, he declares, true in a certain sense, so far as the Esthonians are concerned; for "the parties concerned usually play a pa.s.sive role.... Love is not one of the requisites, it is an unknown phenomenon." Utilitarianism, he adds, is the basis of their marriages. The suitor tries to ascertain if the girl he wants is a good worker; to find this out he may even watch her secretly while she is spinning, thrashing, or combing flax.

"Most of the men proceed at random, and it is not unusual for a suitor who has been refused in one place and another to proceed at once to a third or fourth.... Many a bridegroom sees his bride for the first time at the ceremony of the priestly betrothal, and he cannot therefore be blamed for asking: 'Which of these girls is my bride?'"

GREEK AND ROMAN MERCENARY COYNESS

So far our search for that coyness which is an ingredient of modern love has been in vain. At the same time it is obvious that since coyness is widely prevalent at the present day it must have been in the past of use to women, else it would not have survived and increased. The question is: how far down in the scale of civilization do we find traces of it? The literature of the ancient Greeks indicates that, in a certain phase and among certain cla.s.ses, it was known to them. True, the respectable women, being always locked up and having no choice in the selecting of their partners, had no occasion for the exercise of any sort of coyness. But the hetairai appear to have understood the advantages of a.s.sumed disdain or indifference in making a coveted man more eager in his wooing. In the fifteenth of Lucian's [Greek: Etairikoi dialogoi] we read about a wanton who locked her door to her lover because he had refused to pay her two talents for the privilege of exclusive possession. In other cases, the poets still feel called upon to teach these women how to make men submissive by withholding caresses from them. Thus in Lucian, Pythias exclaims:

"To tell the truth, dear Joessa, you yourself spoiled him with your excessive love, which you even allowed him to notice. You should not have made so much of him: men, when they discover that, easily become overweening. Do not weep, poor girl! Follow my advice and keep your door locked once or twice when he tries to see you again. You will find that that will make him flame up again and become frantic with love and jealousy."

In the third book of his treatise on the Art of Love, Ovid advises women (of the same cla.s.s) how to win men. He says, in substance:

"Do not answer his letters too soon; all delay inflames the lover, provided it does not last too long.... What is too readily granted does not long retain love. Mix with the pleasure you give mortifying refusals, make him wait in your doorway; let him bewail the 'cruel door;' let him beg humbly, or else get angry and threaten. Sweet things cloy, tonics are bitter."

MODESTY AND COYNESS

Feigned unwillingness or indifference in obedience to such advice may perhaps be called coyness, but it is only a coa.r.s.e primitive phase of that att.i.tude, based on sordid, mercenary motives, whereas true modern coyness consists in an impulse, grounded in modesty, to conceal affection. The germs of Greek venal coyness for filthy lucre may be found as low down as among the Papuan women who, as Bastian notes (Ploss, I., 460) exact payment in sh.e.l.l-money for their caresses. Of the Tongans, highest of all Polynesians, Mariner says (Martin, II., 174):

"It must not be supposed that these women are always easily won; the greatest attentions and fervent solicitations are sometimes requisite, even though there be no other lover in the way. This happens sometimes from a spirit of coquetry, at other times from a dislike to the party, etc."

Now coquetry is a cousin of coyness, but in whatever way this Tongan coquetry may manifest itself (no details are given) it certainly lacks the regard for modesty and chast.i.ty which is essential to modern coyness; for, as the writer just referred to attests, Tongan girls are permitted to indulge in free intercourse before marriage, the only thing liable to censure being a too frequent change of lovers.

That the anxious regard for chast.i.ty, modesty, decorum, which cannot be present in the coquetry of these Tongan women, is one of the essential ingredients of modern coyness has long been felt by the poets. After Juliet has made her confession of love which Romeo overhears in the dark, she apologizes to him because she fears that he might attribute her easy yielding to light love. Lest he think her too quickly won she "would have frowned and been perverse, and said him nay." Then she begs him trust she'll "_prove more true_ than those that have more cunning to be strange." Wither's "That coy one in the winning, _proves a true one_ being won," expresses the same sentiment.

UTILITY OF COYNESS

Man's esteem for virtues which he does not always practise himself, is thus responsible, in part at least, for the existence of modern coyness. Other factors, however, aided its growth, among them man's fickleness. If a girl did not say nay (when she would rather say yes), and hold back, hesitate, and delay, the suitor would in many cases suck the honey from her lips and flit away to another flower.

c.u.mulative experience of man's sensual selfishness has taught her to be slow in yielding to his advances. Experience has also taught women that men are apt to value favors in proportion to the difficulty of winning them, and the wisest of them have profited by the lesson.

Callimachus wrote, two hundred and fifty years before Christ, that his love was "versed in pursuing what flies (from it), but flits past what lies in its mid path"--a conceit which the poets have since echoed a thousand times. Another very important thing that experience taught women was that by deferring or withholding their caresses and smiles they could make the tyrant man humble, generous, and gallant. Girls who do not throw themselves away on the first man who happens along, also have an advantage over others who are less fastidious and coy, and by transmitting their disposition to their daughters they give it greater vogue. Female coyness prevents too hasty marriages, and the girls who lack it often live to repent their shortcomings at leisure.

Coyness prolongs the period of courtship and, by keeping the suitor in suspense and doubt, it develops the imaginative, sentimental side of love.

HOW WOMEN PROPOSE

Sufficient reasons, these, why coyness should have gradually become a general attribute of femininity. Nevertheless, it is an artificial product of imperfect social conditions, and in an ideal world women would not be called upon to romance about their feelings. As a mark of modesty, coyness will always have a charm for men, and a woman devoid of it will never inspire genuine love. But what I have elsewhere called "spring-chicken coyness"--the disposition of European girls to hide shyly behind their mammas--as chickens do under a hen at the sight of a hawk--is losing its charm in face of the frank confidingness of American girls in the presence of gentlemen; and as for that phase of coyness which consists in concealing affection for a man, girls usually manage to circ.u.mvent it in a more or less refined manner. Some girls who are coa.r.s.e, or have little control of their feelings, propose bluntly to the men they want. I myself have known several such cases, but the man always refused. Others have a thousand subtle ways of betraying themselves without actually "giving themselves away." A very amusing story of how an ingenious maiden tries to bring a young man to bay has been told by Anthony Hope.

Dowden calls attention to the fact that it is Juliet "who proposes and urges on the sudden marriage." Romeo has only spoken of love; it is she who asks him, if his purpose be marriage, to send her word next day. In _Troilus and Cressida_ (III., 2), the heroine exclaims:

But, though I loved you well, I woo'd you not; And yet, good faith, I wished myself a man, Or that we women had men's privilege Of speaking first.

In his _Old Virginia_ (II., 127) John Fiske tells a funny story of how Parson Camm was wooed. A young friend of his, who had been courting Miss Betsy Hansford of his parish, asked him to a.s.sist him with his eloquence. The parson did so by citing to the girl texts from the Bible enjoining matrimony as a duty. But she beat him at his own game, telling him to take his Bible when he got home and look at 2 Sam. xii.

7, which would explain her obduracy. He did so, and found this: "And Nathan said to David, _thou art the man._" The parson took the hint--and the girl.

V. HOPE AND DESPAIR--MIXED MOODS

_She never told her love_; But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought; And, with a green and yellow melancholy, She sat, like Patience on a monument, _Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed_?

asks Viola in _As You Like It_. It _was_ love indeed; but only two phases of it are indicated in the lines quoted--coyness ("She never told her love") and the mixture of emotions ("smiling at grief"), which is another characteristic of love. Romantic love is a pendulum swinging perpetually between hope and despair. A single unkind word or sign of indifference may make a lover feel the agony of death, while a smile may raise him from the abyss of despair to heavenly heights of bliss. As Goethe puts it:

Himmelhoch jauchzend Zum Tode betrubt, Glucklich allein Ist die Seele die liebt.

AMOROUS ANt.i.tHESES

When a Marguerite plucks the petals of a marguerite, muttering "he loves me--he loves me not," her heart flutters in momentary anguish with every "not," till the next petal soothes it again.

I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe; Under love's heavy burden do I sink,

wails Romeo; and again: