Studies in the Psychology of Sex Volume I Part 5

[22]

Monsieur Nicolas, vol. i, p. 94.

[23]

???pt?d?a, vol. ii, p. 26, 31. Ib. vol. iii, p. 162.

[24]

"Modesty is, at first," said Renouvier, "a fear which we have of displeasing others, and of blushing at our own natural imperfections." (Renouvier and Prat, La Nouvelle Monadologie, p. 221.)

[25]

C. Richet, "Les Causes du Degot," L'Homme et l'Intelligence, 1884. This eminent physiologist's elaborate study of disgust was not written as a contribution to the psychology of modesty, but it forms an admirable introduction to the investigation of the social factor of modesty.

[26]

It is interesting to note that where, as among the Eskimo, urine, for instance, is preserved as a highly-valuable commodity, the act of urination, even at table, is not regarded as in the slightest degree disgusting or immodest (Bourke, Scatologic Rites, p. 202).

[27]

Hawkesworth, An Account of the Voyages, etc., 1775, vol. ii, p. 52.

[28]

Journal of the Anthropological Inst.i.tute, vol. vi, p. 173.

[29]

Stevens, "Mittheilungen aus dem Frauenleben der Orang Belendas," Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie, Heft 4, p. 167, 1896. Crawley, (Mystic Rose, Ch. VIII, p. 439) gives numerous other instances, even in Europe, with, however, special reference to s.e.xual taboo. I may remark that English people of lower cla.s.s, especially women, are often modest about eating in the presence of people of higher cla.s.s. This feeling is, no doubt, due, in part, to the consciousness of defective etiquette, but that very consciousness is, in part, a development of the fear of causing disgust, which is a component of modesty.

[30]

Shame in regard to eating, it may be added, occasionally appears as a neurasthenic obsession in civilization, and has been studied as a form of psychasthenia by Janet. See e.g., (Raymond and Janet, Les Obsessions et la Psychasthenie, vol. ii, p. 386) the case of a young girl of 24, who, from the age of 12 or 13 (the epoch of p.u.b.erty) had been ashamed to eat in public, thinking it nasty and ugly to do so, and arguing that it ought only to be done in private, like urination.

[31]

"Desire and disgust are curiously blended," remarks Crawley (The Mystic Rose, p. 139), "when, with one's own desire unsatisfied, one sees the satisfaction of another; and here we may see the altruistic stage beginning; this has two sides, the fear of causing desire in others, and the fear of causing disgust; in each case, personal isolation is the psychological result."

[32]

Hohenemser argues that the fear of causing disgust cannot be a part of shame. But he also argues that shame is simply psychic stasis, and it is quite easy to see, as in the above case, that the fear of causing disgust is simply a manifestation of psychic stasis. There is a conflict in the woman's mind between the idea of herself which she has already given, and the more degraded idea of herself which she fears she is likely to give, and this conflict is settled when she is made to feel that the first idea may still be maintained under the new circ.u.mstances.

[33]

We neither of us knew that we had merely made afresh a very ancient discovery. Casanova, more than a century ago, quoted the remark of a friend of his, that the easiest way to overcome the modesty of a woman is to suppose it non-existent; and he adds a saying, which he attributes to Clement of Alexandria, that modesty, which seems so deeply rooted in women, only resides in the linen that covers them, and vanishes when it vanishes. The pa.s.sage to which Casanova referred occurs in the Paedagogus, and has already been quoted. The observation seems to have appealed strongly to the Fathers, always glad to make a point against women, and I have met with it in Cyprian's De Habitu Feminarum. It also occurs in Jerome's treatise against Jovinian. Jerome, with more scholarly instinct, rightly presents the remark as a quotation: "Scribit Herodotus quod mulier c.u.m veste deponat et verecundiam." In Herodotus the saying is attributed to Gyges (Book I, Chapter VIII). We may thus trace very far back into antiquity an observation which in English has received its cla.s.sical expression from Chaucer, who, in his "Wife of Bath's Prologue," has:-

"He sayde, a woman cast hir shame away, When she cast of hir smok."

I need not point out that the a.n.a.lysis of modesty offered above robs this venerable saying of any sting it may have possessed as a slur upon women. In such a case, modesty is largely a doubt as to the spectator's att.i.tude, and necessarily disappears when that doubt is satisfactorily resolved. As we have seen, the Central Australian maidens were very modest with regard to the removal of their single garment, but when that removal was accomplished and accepted, they were fearless.

[34]

The same result occurs more markedly under the deadening influence of insanity. Grimaldi (Il Manicomio Moderno, 1888) found that modesty is lacking in 50 per cent, of the insane.

[35]

For some facts bearing on this point, see Houssay, Industries of Animals, Chapter VII. "The Defence and Sanitation of Dwellings;" also P. Ballion, De l'Instinct de Proprete chez les Animaux.

[36]

Thus, Stevens mentions (Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie, p. 182, 1897) that the Dyaks of Malacca always wash the s.e.xual organs, even after urination, and are careful to use the left hand in doing so. The left hand is also reserved for such uses among the Jekris of the Niger coast (Journal of the Anthropological Inst.i.tute, p. 122, 1898).

[37]

Lombroso and Ferrero-who adopt the derivation of pudor from putere; i.e., from the repugnance caused by the decomposition of the v.a.g.i.n.al secretions-consider that the fear of causing disgust to men is the sole origin of modesty among savage women, as also it remains the sole form of modesty among some prost.i.tutes to-day. (La Donna Delinquente, p. 540.) Important as this factor is in the const.i.tution of the emotion of modesty, I need scarcely add that I regard so exclusive a theory as altogether untenable.

[38]

Das Weib, Ch. VI.

[39]

For references as to a similar feeling among other savages, see Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, p. 152.

[40]

See e.g., Bourke, Scatologic Rites, pp. 141, 145, etc.

[41]

Crawley, op. cit., Ch. VII.

[42]

S, Reinach, Cultes, Mythes et Religions, p. 172.

[43]

Tertullian, De Virginibus Velandis, cap. 17. Hottentot women, also (Fritsch, Eingeborene Sudafrika's, p. 311), cover their head with a cloth, and will not be persuaded to remove it.

[44]

Wellhausen, Reste Arabischen Heidentums, p. 196. The same custom is found among Tuareg men though it is not imperative for the women (Duveyrier, Les Touaregs du Nord, p. 291).

[45]

Quoted in Zentralblatt fur Anthropologie, 1906, Heft I, p. 21.

[46]

Or rather, perhaps, because the sight of their nakedness might lead the angels into sin. See W. G. Sumner, Folkways, p. 431.

[47]

In Moruland, Emin Bey remarked that women are mostly naked, but some wear a girdle, with a few leaves hanging behind. The women of some negro tribes, who thus cover themselves behind, if deprived of this sole covering, immediately throw themselves on the ground on their backs, in order to hide their nakedness.

[48]

E.g., Letourneau, L'Evolution de la Morale, p. 146.

[49]

Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 683.

[50]

J. R. Forster, Observations Made During a Voyage Round the World, 1728, p. 395.

[51]

Westermarck (History of Human Marriage, Ch. IX) ably sets forth this argument, with his usual wealth of ill.u.s.tration. Crawley (Mystic Rose, p. 135) seeks to qualify this conclusion by arguing that tattooing, etc., of the s.e.x organs is not for ornament but for the purpose of magically insulating the organs, and is practically a permanent amulet or charm.

[52]

Iliad, II, 262. Waitz gives instances (Anthropology, p. 301) showing that nakedness is sometimes a mark of submission.

[53]

The Celtic races, in their days of developed barbarism, seem to have been relatively free from the idea of proprietorship in women, and it was probably among the Irish (as we learn from the seventeenth century Itinerary of Fynes Moryson) that the habit of nakedness was longest preserved among the upper social cla.s.s women of Western Europe.

[54]