Primitive Love and Love-Stories Part 77

And the near kinsman said, "I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I mar mine own inheritance; take then my right of redemption on thee; for I cannot redeem it. Buy it for thyself." And he drew off his shoe.

And Boaz called the elders to witness, saying,

"Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased to be my wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren, and from the gate of his place."

So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife.

How anyone can read this charmingly told, frank, and realistic tale of ancient Hebrew life and call it a love-story, pa.s.seth all understanding. There is not the slightest suggestion of love, either sensual or sentimental, on the part of either Ruth or Boaz. Ruth, at the suggestion of her mother-in-law, spends a night in a way which would convict a Christian widow, to say the least, of an utter lack of that modesty and coy reserve which are a woman's great charm, and which, even among the pastoral Hebrews, cannot have been approved, inasmuch as Boaz did not want it to be known that she had come to the threshing-floor. He praises Ruth for following "not young men, whether rich or poor." She followed him, a wealthy old man. Would love have acted thus? What she wanted was not a lover but a protector ("rest for thee that it may be well for thee," as Naomi said frankly), and above all a son in order that her husband's name might not perish. Boaz understands this as a matter of course; but so far is he, on his part, from being in love with Ruth, that he offers her first to the other relative, and on his refusal, buys her for himself, without the least show of emotion indicating that he was doing anything but his duty. He was simply fulfilling the law of the Levirate, as written in Deuteronomy (25:5), ordaining that if a husband die without leaving a son his brother shall take the widow to him to wife and perform the duty of an husband's brother unto her; that is, to beget a son (the first-born) who shall succeed in the name of his dead brother, "that his name be not blotted out of Israel." How very seriously the Hebrews took this law is shown by the further injunction that if a brother refuses thus to perform his duty,

"then the elders of his city shall call him, and speak unto him: and if he stand and say, I like not to take her; then shall his brother's wife come into him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe off his foot, and spit in his face; and she shall answer and say, so shall it be done unto the man that doth not build up his brother's house. And his name shall be called in Israel, the house of him that hath his shoe loosed."

Onan was even slain for thus refusing to do his duty (Gen. 38:8-10).

NO SYMPATHY OR SENTIMENT

The three R's of Hebrew love thus show how these people arranged their marriages with reference to social and religious customs or utilitarian considerations, buying their wives by service or otherwise, without any thought of sentimental preferences and sympathies, such as underlie modern Christian marriages of the higher order. It might be argued that the ingredients of romantic love existed, but simply are not dwelt on in the old Hebrew stories. But it is impossible to believe that the Bible, that truly inspired and wonderfully realistic transcript of life, which records the minutest details, should have neglected in its thirty-nine books, making over seven hundred pages of fine print, to describe at least one case of sentimental infatuation, romantic adoration, and self-sacrificing devotion in pre-matrimonial love, had such love existed. Why should it have neglected to describe the manifestations of sentimental love, since it dwells so often on the symptoms and results of sensual pa.s.sion? Stories of l.u.s.t abound in the Hebrew Scriptures; Genesis alone has five. The Lord repented that he had made man on earth and destroyed even his chosen people, all but Noah, because every imagination in the thoughts of man's heart "was only evil continually." But the flood did not cure the evil, nor did the destruction of Sodom, as a warning example. It is after those events that the stories are related of Lot's incestuous daughters, the seduction of Dinah, the crime of Judah and Tamar, the l.u.s.t of Potiphar's wife, of David and Bath-sheba, of Amnon and Tamar, of Absalom on the roof, with many other references to such crimes.[288]

A MASCULINE IDEAL OF WOMANHOOD

There is every reason to conclude that these ancient Jews, unlike many of their modern descendants, knew only the coa.r.s.er phases of the instinct which draws man to woman. They knew not romantic love for the simple reason that they had not discovered the charm of refined femininity, or even recognized woman's right to exist for her own sake, and not merely as man's domestic servant and the mother of his sons. "Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee," Eve was told in Eden, and her male descendants administered that punishment zealously and persistently; whereas the same lack of gallantry which led Adam to put all the blame on Eve impelled his descendants to make the women share his part of the curse too--"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread"; for they were obliged to do not only all the work in the house, but most of that in the fields, seething under a tropical sun. From this point of view the last chapter of the Proverbs (31:10-31) is instructive. It is often referred to as a portrait of a perfect woman, but in reality it is little more than a picture of Hebrew masculine selfishness. Of the forty-five lines making up this chapter, nine are devoted to praise of the feminine virtues of fidelity to a husband, kindness to the needy, strength, dignity, wisdom, and fear of the Lord; while the rest of the chapter goes to show that the Hebrew woman indeed "eateth not the bread of idleness," and that the husband "shall have no lack of gain"--or spoil, as the alternative reading is:

"She seeketh wool and flax and worketh willingly with her hands. She is like the merchant ships: she bringeth her food from afar. She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and their task to the maidens. She considereth a field and buyeth it; with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard....

She perceiveth that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp goeth not out by night. She layeth her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle.... She maketh for herself carpets of tapestry.... She maketh linen garments and selleth them; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant."

As for the husband, he "is known in the gates, When he sitteth among the elders of the land," which is an easy and pleasant thing to do; hardly in accordance with the curse the Lord p.r.o.nounced on Adam and his male descendants. The wife being thus the maid of all work, as among Indians and other primitive races, it is natural that the ancient Hebrew ideal of femininity should he masculine: "She girdeth her loins with strength, and maketh strong her arms;" while the feminine charms are sneered at: "Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain."

NOT THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL OF LOVE

Not only feminine charms, but the highest feminine virtues are sometimes strangely, nay, shockingly disregarded, as in the story of Lot (Gen. 19:1-12), who, when besieged by the mob clamoring for the two men who had taken refuge in his house, went out and said:

"I pray you, my brethren, do not so wickedly. Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes; only unto these men do nothing, forasmuch as they are come under the shadow of my roof."

And this man was saved, though his action was surely more villainous than the wickedness of the Sodomites who were destroyed with brimstone and fire. In Judges (19: 22-30) we read of a man offering his maiden daughter and his concubine to a mob to prevent an unnatural crime being committed against his guest: "Seeing that this man is come into my house, do not this folly." This case is of extreme sociological importance as showing that notwithstanding the strict laws of Moses (Levit. 20: 10; Deut. 22: 13-30) on s.e.xual crimes, the law of hospitality seems to have been held more sacred than a father's regard for his daughter's honor. The story of Abraham shows, too, that he did not hold his wife's honor in the same esteem as a modern Christian does:

"And it came to pa.s.s, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, 'Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon; and it shall come to pa.s.s, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife; and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive. Say, I pray thee, Thou art my sister; that it may be well with me for thy sake, and that my soul may live because of thee."

And it happened as he had arranged. She was taken into Pharaoh's house and he was treated well for her sake; and he had sheep, and oxen, and other presents. When he went to sojourn in Gerar (Gen. 20:1-15) Abraham tried to repeat the same stratagem, taking refuge, when found out, in the double excuse that he was afraid he would be slain for his wife's sake, and that she really was his sister, the daughter of his father, but not the daughter of his mother. Isaac followed his father's example in Gerar:

"The man of the place asked him of his wife; and he said, She is my sister: for he feared to say, My wife; lest (said he) the men of the place should kill me for Rebekah; because she was fair to look upon."

Yet we were told that Isaac loved Rebekah. Such is not Christian love.

The actions of Abraham and Isaac remind one of the Blackfoot Indian tale told on page 631 of this volume. An American army officer would not only lay down his own life, but shoot his wife with his own pistol before he would allow her to fall into the enemy's hands, because to him her honor is, of all things human, the most sacred.

UNCHIVALROUS SLAUGHTER OF WOMEN

Emotions are the product of actions or of ideas about actions.

Inasmuch as Hebrew actions toward women and ideas about them were so radically different from ours it logically follows that they cannot have known the emotions of love as we know them. The only symptom of love referred to in the Hebrew Scriptures is Amnon's getting lean from day to day and feigning sickness (II. Sam. 13: 1-22); and the story shows what kind of love that was. It would be contrary to all reason and psychological consistency to suppose that modern tenderness of romantic feeling toward women could have existed among a people whose greatest and wisest man could, for any reason whatever, chide a returning victorious army, as Moses did (Numbers 31: 9-19), for saving all the women alive, and could issue this command:

"Now, therefore, kill every male among the living ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children that have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves."

The Arabs were the first Asiatics who spared women in war; the Hebrews had not risen to that chivalrous stage of civilization. Joshua (8:26) destroyed Ai and slew 12,000, "both of men and women:" and in Judges (21:10-12) we read how the congregation sent an army of 12,000 men and commanded them, saying,

"Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the little ones.

And this is the thing ye shall do; ye shall utterly destroy every male and every woman that hath lain by man."

And they did so, sparing only the four hundred virgins. These were given to the tribe of Benjamin, "that a tribe be not blotted out from Israel;" and when it was found that more were needed they lay in wait in the vineyards, and when the daughters of Shiloh came out to dance, they caught them and carried them off as their wives; whence we see that these Hebrews had not advanced beyond the low stage of evolution, when wives are secured by capture or killed after battle. Among such seek not for romantic love.

FOUR MORE BIBLE STORIES

Dr. Trumbull's opinion has already been cited that there are certainly "gleams of romantic love from out of the clouds of degraded human pa.s.sions in the ancient East," in the stories of Shechem and Dinah, Samson and the damsel of Timnah, David and Abigail, Adonijah and Abis.h.a.g. But I fail to find even "gleams" of romantic love in these stories. Shechem said he loved Dinah, the daughter of Jacob and Leah, but he humbled her and dealt with her "as with an harlot," as her brothers said after they had slain him for his conduct toward her.

Concerning Samson and the Timnah girl we are simply told that he saw her and told his father, "Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well"

(literally, "she is right in my eyes"). And this is evidence of romantic love! As for Abigail, after her husband has refused to feed David's shepherds, and David has made up his mind therefore to slay him and his offspring, she takes provisions and meets David and induces him not to commit that crime; she does this not from love for her husband, for when David has received her presents he says to her, "See, I have hearkened to thy voice, and have accepted thy person."

Ten days later, Abigail's husband died, and when David heard of it he

"sent and spake concerning Abigail, to take her to him to wife.... And she rose and bowed herself with her face to the earth, and said, Behold, thine handmaid is a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord. And Abigail, hasted, and arose, and rode upon an a.s.s, with five damsels of hers that followed her; and she went after the messengers of David, and became his wife."

And as if to emphasize how utterly unsentimental and un-Christian a transaction this was, the next sentence tells us that "David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel; and they became both of them his wives."

ABIs.h.a.g THE SHUNAMMITE

The last of the stories referred to by Dr. Trumbull, though as far from proving his point as the others, is of peculiar interest because it introduces us to the maiden who is believed by some commentators to be the same as the Shulamite, the heroine of the _Song of Songs_.

After Solomon had become king his elder brother, Adonijah, went to the mother of Solomon, Bath-sheba, and said:

"Thou knowest thy kingdom was mine, and that all Israel set their faces on me, that I should reign: howbeit the kingdom is turned about, and is become my brother's: for it was his from the Lord. And now I ask one pet.i.tion of thee, deny me not.... Speak, I pray thee, unto Solomon the king (for he will not say thee nay) that he give me Abis.h.a.g the Shunammite to wife."

But when Solomon heard this request he declared that Adonijah had spoken that word against his own life; and he sent a man who fell on him and killed him.

Who was this Abis.h.a.g, the Shunammite? The opening lines of the First Book of Kings tell us how she came to the court:

"Now King David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat. Wherefore his servants said unto him, Let there be sought for my lord the king, a young virgin, and let her stand before the king and cherish him; and let her lie in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get heat. So they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts of Israel, and found Abis.h.a.g the Shunammite, and brought her to the king. And the damsel was very fair; and she cherished the king, and ministered to him; but the king knew her not."

THE SONG OF SONGS

Now it is plausibly conjectured that this Abis.h.a.g of Shunam or Shulam (a town north of Jerusalem) was the same as the Shulamite of the _Song of Songs_, and that in the lines 6:11-12 she tells how she was kidnapped and brought to court.

I went down into the garden of nuts, To see the green plants of the valley, To see whether the vine budded, And the pomegranates were in flower, Or ever I was aware, my soul [desire] set me Among the chariots of my princely people.

She also explains why her face is tanned like the dark tents of Kedar: "My mother's sons were incensed against me, They made me keeper of the vineyards." The added words "mine own vineyard have I not kept" are interpreted by some as an apology for her neglected personal appearance, but Renan (10) more plausibly refers them to her consciousness of some indiscretion, which led to her capture. We may suppose that, attracted by the glitter and the splendor of the royal cavalcade, she for a moment longed to enjoy it, and her desire was gratified. Brought to court to comfort the old king, she remained after his death at the palace, and Solomon, who wished to add her to his harem, killed his own brother when he found him coveting her. The maiden soon regrets her indiscretion in having exposed herself to capture. She is "a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valley," and she feels like a wildflower transplanted to a palace hall. While Solomon in all his glory urges his suit, she, tormented by homesickness, thinks only of her vineyard, her orchards, and the young shepherd whose love she enjoyed in them. Absent-minded, as one in a revery, or dreaming aloud, she answers the addresses of the king and his women in words that ever refer to her shepherd lover:[289]

"Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest thy flock." "My beloved is unto me as a cl.u.s.ter of henna flowers in the vineyards of En-gedi." "Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea pleasant: Also our couch is green." "As the apple-tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste." "The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh, leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills." "My beloved is mine, and I am his: He feedeth his flock among the lilies," "Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field, let us lodge in the villages.

Let us get up early to the vineyards.... There will I give thee my love."

The home-sick country girl, in a word, has found out that the splendors of the palace are not to her taste, and the thought of being a young shepherd's darling is pleasanter to her than that of being an old king's concubine. The polygamous rapture with which Solomon addresses her: "There are three-score queens and four-score concubines, and maidens without number," does not appeal to her rural taste. She has no desire to be the hundred and forty-first piece of mosaic inlaid in Solomon's palanquin (III., 9-10), and she stubbornly resists his advances until, impressed by her firmness, and unwilling to force her, the king allows her to return to her vineyard and her lover.