Primitive Love and Love-Stories Part 6

"What! You expect my father to give me away for ten cows? That would be a fine sort of a bargain! Am I not worth more than Cilli, for whom the Tambuki chief paid twelve cows last week? I am pretty, I can cook, sew, crochet, speak English, and with all these accomplishments you want my father to dispose of me for ten miserable cows? Oh, sir, how little you esteem me!

No, no, my father is quite right in refusing to yield in this matter; indeed, in my opinion he might boldly ask thirty cows for me, for I am worth that much."

SIMILARITY OF INDIVIDUALS AND s.e.xES

It is not difficult to explain why among the lower races individual preference either does not occur at all or is so weak and utilitarian that the difference of a few cows more or less may decide a lover's fate. Like sunflowers in the same garden, the girls in a tribe differ so little from one another that there is no particular cause for discrimination. They are all brought up in exactly the same way, eat the same food, think the same thoughts, do the same work--carrying water and wood, dressing skins, moving tents and utensils, etc.; they are alike uneducated, and marry at the same childish age before their minds can have unfolded what little is in them; so that there is small reason why a man should covet one of them much more than another. A savage may be as eager to possess a woman as a miser is to own a gold piece: but he has little more reason to prefer one girl to another than a miser has to prefer one gold piece to another of the same size.

Humboldt observed (_P.E_., 141) that "in barbarous nations there is a physiognomy peculiar to the tribe or horde rather than to any individual." It has been noted by various observers that the lower the race is the more do its individuals thus resemble one another. Nay, this approximation goes so far as to make even the two s.e.xes much less distinct than they are with us. Professor Pritsch, in his cla.s.sical treatise on the natives of South Africa (407), dwells especially on the imperfect s.e.xual differentiation of the Bushmen. The faces, stature, limbs, and even the chest and hips of the women differ so little from those of the men that in looking at photographs (as he says and ill.u.s.trates by specimens), one finds it difficult to tell them apart, though the figures are almost nude. Both s.e.xes are equally lean and equally ugly. The same may be said of the typical Australians, and in Professor and Mrs. Aga.s.siz's _Journey in Brazil_ (530) we read that

"the Indian woman has a very masculine air, extending indeed more or less to her whole bearing; for even her features have rarely the feminine delicacy of higher womanhood. In the Negro, on the contrary, the narrowness of chest and shoulder characteristic of the woman is almost as marked in the man; indeed, it may well be said, that, while the Indian female is remarkable for her masculine build, the negro male is equally so for his feminine aspect."

In the _Jesuit Relations_ there are repeated references to the difficulty of distinguishing squaws from male Indians except by certain articles of dress. Burton writes of the Sioux _(C.O.S_., 59) that "the unaccustomed eye often hesitates between the s.e.xes." In Schoolcraft (V., 274) we are told concerning the Creek women that "being condemned to perform all the hard labor, they are _universally masculine in appearance_, without one soft blandishment to render them desirable or lovely." Nor is there anything alluringly feminine in the disposition which, as all observers agree, makes Indian women more cruel in torture than the most pitiless men. Equally decisive is the testimony regarding the similarity of the s.e.xes, physical and mental, in the islands of the Pacific. Hawkesworth (II., 446) found the women of New Zealand so lacking in feminine delicacy that it was difficult to distinguish them from the men, except by their voices. Captain Cook (II., 246) observed in Fiji differences in form between men and females, but little difference in features; and of the Hawaiians he wrote that with few exceptions they

"have little claim to those peculiarities that distinguish the s.e.x in other countries. There is, indeed, a more remarkable equality in the size, color, and figure of both s.e.xes, than in most places I have visited."

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY s.e.xUAL CHARACTERS

A most important inference may be deduced from these facts. A man does not, normally, fall in love with a man. He falls in love with a woman, because she is a woman. Now when, as in the cases cited, the men and women differ only in regard to the coa.r.s.est anatomical peculiarities known as the primary s.e.xual qualities, it is obvious that their "love"

also can consist only of such coa.r.s.e feelings and longings as these primary qualities can inspire. In other words they can know the great pa.s.sion only on its sensual side. Love, to them, is not a sentiment but an appet.i.te, or at best an instinct for the propagation of the species.

Of the secondary s.e.xual qualities--those not absolutely necessary for the maintenance of the species--the first to appear prominently in women is _fat_; and as soon as it does appear, it is made a ground of individual preference. Brough Smyth tells us that in Australia a fat woman is never safe from being stolen, no matter how old and ugly she may be. In the chapter on Personal Beauty I shall marshal a number of facts showing that among the uncivilized and Oriental races in general, fat is the criterion of feminine attractiveness. It is so among coa.r.s.e men (_i.e._, most men) even in Europe and America to this day. Hindoo poets, from the oldest times to Kalidasa and from Kalidasa to the present day, laud their heroines above all things for their large thighs--thighs so heavy that in walking the feet make an impression on the ground "deep as an elephant's hoofs."

FASTIDIOUS SENSUALITY IS NOT LOVE

It is hardly necessary to say that the "love" based on _these_ secondary qualities is not sentimental or romantic. It may, however--and this is a very important point to remember--be extremely violent and stubborn. In other words, there may he a strong individual preference in love that is entirely sensual. Indeed, l.u.s.t may he as fastidious as love. Tarquinius coveted Lucretia; no other woman would have satisfied him. Yet he did not _love_ her. Had he loved _her_ he would have sacrificed his own life rather than offered violence to one who valued her honor more than her life. He loved only _himself_; his one object was to please his beloved ego; he never thought of her feelings and of the consequences of his act to her. The literature of ancient Rome, Greece, and Oriental countries is full of such cases of individualized "love" which, when closely examined, reduce themselves to cases of selfish l.u.s.t--eagerness to gratify an appet.i.te with a particular victim, for whom the "lover" has not a particle of affection, respect, or sympathy, not to speak of adoration or gallant, self-sacrificing devotion. Unless we have positive evidence of the presence of these traits of unselfish affection, we are not ent.i.tled to a.s.sume the existence of genuine love; especially among races that are coa.r.s.e, unsympathetic, and cruel.

TWO STORIES OF INDIAN LOVE

From this point of view we must judge two Indian love-stories related by Keating (II., 164-166):

I. A Chippewa named Ogemans, married to a woman called Demoya, fell in love with her sister. When she refused him he affected insanity. His ravings were terrible, and nothing could appease him but her presence; the moment he touched her hand or came near her he was gentle as they could wish. One time, in the middle of a winter night, he sprang from his couch and escaped into the woods, howling and screaming in the wildest manner; his wife and her sister followed him, but he refused to be calmed until the sister (Okoj) laid her hand on him, when he became quiet and gentle. This kind of performance he kept up a long time till all the Indians, including the girl, became convinced he was possessed by a spirit which she alone could subdue. So she married him and never after was he troubled by a return of madness.

II. A young Canadian had secured the favor of a half-breed girl who had been brought up among the Chippewas and spoke only their language. Her name was Nisette, and she was the daughter of a converted squaw who, being very pious, induced the young couple to go to an Algonquin village and get regularly married by a clergyman. Meanwhile the Canadian's love cooled away, and by the time they reached the village he cared no more for the poor girl. Soon thereafter she became the subject of fits and was finally considered to be quite insane. The only lucid intervals she had were in the presence of her inconstant husband. Whenever he came near her, her reason would return, and she would appear the same as before her illness. Flattered by what he deemed so strong an evidence of his influence over her, the Canadian felt a return of kindness toward her, and was finally induced to renew his attentions, which, being well received, they were soon united by a clergyman. Her reason appeared to be restored, and her improving health showed that her happiness was complete.

FEMININE IDEALS SUPERIOR TO MASCULINE

Keating's guide was convinced that in both these cases the insanity was feigned for the selfish purpose of working upon the feelings of the unwilling party. Even apart from that, there is no trace of evidence in either story that the feelings of the lovers rose above sensual attachment, though the girl, being half white, might have been capable of an approximation to a higher feeling. Indeed it is among women that such approximations to a higher type of attachment must be sought; for the uncivilized woman's basis of individual preference, while apt to be utilitarian, is less sensual than the man's. She is influenced by his manly qualities of courage, valor, aggressiveness, because those are of value to her, while he chooses her for her physical charms and has little or no appreciation of the higher feminine qualities. Schoolcraft (V., 612) cites the following as an Indian girl's ideal:

"My love is tall and graceful as the young pine waving on the hill---and as swift in his course as the stately deer. His hair is flowing, and dark as the blackbird that floats through the air, and his eyes, like the eagle's, both piercing and bright. His heart, it is fearless and great--and his arm it is strong in the fight."

Now it is true that Schoolcraft is a very unreliable witness in such matters, as we shall see in the chapter on Indians. He had a way of taking coa.r.s.e Indian tales, dressing them up in a fine romantic garb and presenting them as the aboriginal article. An Indian girl would not be likely to compare a man's hair to a blackbird's feathers, and she certainly would never dream of speaking of a "tall and graceful pine waving on the hill." She might, however, compare his swiftness to a deer's, and she might admire his sharp sight, his fearlessness, his strong arm in a fight; and that is enough to ill.u.s.trate what I have just said--that her preference, though utilitarian, is less sensual than the man's. It includes mental elements, and as moreover her duties as mother teach her sympathy and devotion, it is not to be wondered at that the earliest approximations to a higher type of love are on the part of women.

s.e.x IN BODY AND MIND

As civilization progresses, the s.e.xes become more and more differentiated, thus affording individual preference an infinitely greater scope. The stamp of s.e.x is no longer confined to the pelvis and the chest, but is impressed on every part of the body. The women's feet become smaller and more daintily shaped than the men's, the limbs more rounded and tapering and less muscular, the waist narrower, the neck longer, the skin smoother, softer, and less hairy, the hands more comely, with more slender fingers, the skeleton more delicate, the stature lower, the steps shorter, the gait more graceful, the features more delicately cut, the eyes more beautiful, the hair more luxuriant and l.u.s.trous, the cheeks rounder and more susceptible to blushes, the lips more daintily curved, the smile sweeter.

But the mind has s.e.x as well as the body. It is still in process of evolution, and too many individuals still approximate the type of the virago or the effeminate man; but the time will come for all, as it has already come for many, when a masculine trait in a woman's character will make as disagreeable an impression as a blacksmith's sinewy arm on the body of a society belle would make in a ball-room.

To call a woman pretty and sweet is to compliment her; to call a man pretty and sweet would be to mock or insult him. The ancient Greeks betrayed their barbarism in amorous matters in no way more conspicuously than by their fondness for coy, effeminate boys, and their admiration of masculine G.o.ddesses like Diana and Minerva.

Contrast this with the modern ideal of femininity, as summed up by Shakspere:

Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth, Unapt to toil and trouble in the world, But that our soft conditions and our hearts Should well agree with our external parts?

TRUE FEMININITY AND ITS FEMALE ENEMIES

A woman's voice differs from a man's not only in pitch but in timbre; its quality suggests the s.e.x. There is great scope for variety, from the lowest contralto to the highest soprano, as there is in man's from the lowest ba.s.s to the highest tenor; a variety so great that voices differ as much as faces and can be instantly recognized; but unless it has the proper s.e.xual quality a voice affects us disagreeably. A coa.r.s.e, harsh voice has marred many a girl's best marriage chances, while, on the other hand, it may happen that "the ear loveth before the eye." Now what is true of the male and female voice holds true of the male and female mind in all its diverse aspects. We expect men to be not only bigger, stronger, taller, hardier, more robust, but more courageous and aggressive, more active, more creative, more sternly just, than women; while coa.r.s.eness, cruelty, selfishness, and pugnacity, though not virtues in either s.e.x, affect us much less repulsively in men than in women, for the reason that the masculine struggle for existence and compet.i.tion in business foster selfishness, and men have inherited pugnacious instincts from their fighting ancestors, while women, as mothers, learned the lessons of sympathy and self-sacrifice much sooner than men. The distinctively feminine virtues are on the whole of a much higher order than the masculine, which is the reason why they were not appreciated or fostered at so early an epoch. Gentleness, modesty, domesticity, girlishness, coyness, kindness, patience, tenderness, benevolence, sympathy, self-sacrifice, demureness, emotionality, sensitiveness, are feminine qualities, some of which, it is true, we expect also in gentlemen; but their absence is not nearly so fatal to a man as it is to a woman. And as men gradually approach women in patience, tenderness, sympathy, self-sacrifice, and gentleness, it behooves women to keep their distance by becoming still more refined and feminine, instead of trying, as so many of them do, to approach the old masculine standard--one of the strangest aberrations recorded in all social history.

Men and women fall in love with what is unlike, not with what is like them. The refined physical and mental traits which I have described in the preceding paragraphs const.i.tute some of the secondary s.e.xual characters by which romantic love is inspired, while sensual love is based on the primary s.e.xual characters. Havelock Ellis (19) has well defined a secondary s.e.xual character as "one which, by more highly differentiating the s.e.xes, helps to make them more attractive to each other," and so to promote marriages. And Professor Weissmann, famed for his studies in heredity, opens up deep vistas of thought when he declares (II., 91) that

"all the numerous differences in form and function which characterize s.e.x among the higher animals, all the so-called 'secondary s.e.xual characters,' affecting even the highest mental qualities of mankind, are nothing but adaptations to bring about the union of the hereditary tendencies of two individuals."

Nature has been at work on this problem of differentiating the s.e.xes ever since it created the lowest animal organisms, and this fact, which stands firm as a rock, gives us the consoling a.s.surance that the present abnormal attempts to make women masculine by giving them the same education, employments, sports, ideals, and political aspirations as men have, must end in ignominious failure. If the viragoes had their way, men and women would in course of time revert to the condition of the lowest savages, differing only in their organs of generation. How infinitely n.o.bler, higher, more refined and, fascinating, is that ideal which wants women to differ from men by every detail, bodily and mental; to differ from them in the higher qualities of disposition, of character, of beauty, physical and spiritual, which alone make possible the existence of romantic love as distinguished from l.u.s.t on one side and friendship on the other.

MYSTERIES OF LOVE

If these secondary s.e.xual characters could be destroyed by the extraordinary--one might almost say criminal--efforts of uns.e.xed termagants to make all women ape men and become like them, romantic love, which was so slow in coming, would disappear again, leaving only sensual appet.i.te, which may be (selfishly) fastidious and intense, but has no depth, duration, or altruistic n.o.bility, and which, when satiated, cares no more for the object for which it had temporarily hungered. It is these secondary s.e.xual characters, with their subtle and endless variations, that have given individual preference such a wide field of choice that every lover can find a girl after his heart and taste. A savage is like a gardener who has only one kind of flowers to choose between--all of one color too; whereas we, with our diverse secondary characters, our various intermixtures of nationalities, our endless shades of blonde and brunette, and differences in manners and education can have our choice among the lilies, roses, violets, pansies, daisies, and thousands of other flowers--or the girls named after them. Samuel Baker says there are no broken hearts in Africa. Why should there be when individuals are so similar that if a man loses his girl he can easily find another just like her in color, face, rotundity, and grossness? A civilized lover would mourn the loss of his bride--though he were offered his choice of the beauties of Baltimore--because it would be _absolutely impossible to duplicate her_.

In that last line lies the explanation of one of the mysteries of modern love--its stubborn fidelity to the beloved after the choice has been made. But there is another mystery of individual preference that calls for an explanation--its capriciousness, apparent or real, in making a choice--that quality which has made the poets declare so often that "love is blind." On this point much confusion of ideas prevails.

Matters are simplified if we first dispose of those numerous cases in which the individual preference is only approximate. If a girl of eighteen has the choice between a man of sixty and a youth of twenty, she will, if she exercises a _personal_ preference, take the youth, as a matter of course, though he may be far from her ideal. Such preference is generic rather than individual. Again, in most cases of first love, as I have remarked elsewhere (_R.L.P.B_., 139) "man falls in love with woman, woman with man, not with a particular man or woman." Young men and women inherit, from a long series of ancestors, a disposition to love which at p.u.b.erty reveals itself in vague longings and dreams. The "b.u.mp of amativeness," as a phrenologist might say, is like a powder magazine, ready to explode at a touch, and it makes no great difference what kind of a match is applied. In later love affairs the match is a matter of more importance.

Robert Burton threw light on the "capriciousness" and accidentally of this kind of (apparent) amorous preference when he wrote that "it is impossible, almost, for two young folks equal in years to live together and not be in love;" and further he says, sagaciously:

"Many a serving man, by reason of this opportunity and importunity, inveigles his master's daughter, many a gallant loves a dowdy, many a gentleman runs after his wife's maids; many ladies dote upon their men, as the queen in Aristo did upon the dwarf, many matches are so made in haste and they are compelled, as it were by necessity, so to love, which had they been free, come in company with others, seen that variety which many places afford, or compared them to a third, would never have looked upon one another."

Such pa.s.sions are merely pent-up emotions seeking to escape one way or another. They do not indicate real, intense preference, but at best an approach to it; for they are not properly individualized, and, as Schopenhauer pointed out, the differences in the intensity of love-cases depend on their different degrees of individualization--an _apercu_ which this whole chapter confirms. Yet these mere approximations to real preference embrace the vast majority of so-called love-affairs. Genuine preference of the highest type finds its explanation in special phases of sympathy and personal beauty which will be discussed later on.

What is usually considered the greatest mystery of the amorous pa.s.sion is the disposition of a lover to "see Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt." "What can Jack have seen in Jill to become infatuated with her, or she in him?" The trouble with those who so often ask this question is that they fix the attention on the beloved instead of on the lover, whose lack of taste explains everything. The error is of long standing, as the following story related by the Persian poet Saadi (of the thirteenth century) will show (346):

AN ORIENTAL LOVE-STORY

"A king of Arabia was told that Mujnun, maddened by love, had turned his face toward the desert and a.s.sumed the manners of a brute. The king ordered him to be brought in his presence and he wept and said: 'Many of my friends reproach me for my love of her, namely Laila; alas! that they could one day see her, that my excuse might be manifest for me.' The king sent for her and beheld a person of tawny complexion, and feeble frame of body. She appeared to him in a contemptible light, inasmuch as the lowest menial in his harem, or seraglio, surpa.s.sed her in beauty and excelled her in elegance. Mujnun, in his sagacity, penetrated what was pa.s.sing in the king's mind and said: 'It would behove you, O King, to contemplate the charms of Laila through the wicket of a Mujnun's eye, in order that the miracle of such a spectacle might be ill.u.s.trated to you.'"

This story was referred to by several critics of my first book as refuting my theory regarding the modernity of true love. They seemed to think, with the Persian poet, that there must be something particularly wonderful and elevated in the feelings of a lover who is indifferent to the usual charms of femininity and prefers ugliness.

This, indeed, is the prevalent sentiment on the subject, though the more I think of it, the more absurd and topsy turvy it seems to me. Do we commend an Eskimo for preferring the flavor of rancid fish oil to the delicate bouquet of the finest French wine? Does it evince a particularly exalted artistic sense to prefer a hideous daub to a t.i.tian or Raphael? Does it betoken a laudable and elevated taste in music to prefer a vulgar tune to one that has the charms of a romantic or cla.s.sical work of acknowledged beauty? Why, then, should we specially extol Mujnun for admiring a woman who was devoid of all feminine charms? The confusion probably arises from fancying that she must have had mental charms to offset her ugliness, but nothing whatever is said about such a notion, which, in fact, would have been utterly foreign to the Oriental, purely sensual, way of regarding women.

Fix the attention on the man in the story instead of on the woman and the mystery vanishes. Mujnun becomes infatuated with an ugly woman simply because he has no taste, no sense of beauty. There are millions of such men the world over, just as there are millions who cannot appreciate choice wines, good music, and fine pictures. Everywhere the majority of men prefer vulgar tunes, glaring chromos, and coa.r.s.e women--luckily for the women, because most of them are coa.r.s.e, too.

"Birds of a feather flock together"--there you have the philosophy of preference so far as such love-affairs are concerned. How often do we see a bright, lovely girl, with sweet voice and refined manners, neglected by men who crowd around other women of their own rude and vulgar caste! Most men still are savages so far as the ability to appreciate the higher secondary s.e.xual qualities in women is concerned. But the exceptions are growing more numerous. Among savages there are no exceptions. Romantic love does not exist among them, both because the women have not the secondary s.e.xual qualities, and because, even if they had them, the men would not appreciate them or be guided by them in their choice of mates.

II. MONOPOLISM