The Sexual Question Part 15

SENTIMENT AND CALCULATION IN s.e.xUAL SELECTION

Youth, beauty, health, finery and flirtation excite the s.e.xual appet.i.te. Many other sentiments are accessory, such as admiration, the pleasure of possession, respect, pity, etc. Inclination is an important element, but in no way necessary to s.e.xual union.

In the lower stages of human development, tenderness toward children is much stronger than s.e.xual love. Among many savage races the love of a man for his wife is completely wanting, as well as that of the wife for her husband. In this case marriage depends on reciprocal convenience, on the desire to have children, and profits by personal comfort and the satisfaction of a purely animal s.e.xual appet.i.te.

However, among these people the parents have a tender regard for their children. The husband has the right to beat his wife, but the wife is considered as unnatural or even criminal if she beats her children.

Among the North American Indians, for example, conjugal love is, so to speak, unknown. On the other hand, in other savage races, such as the Touaregs, the Niam-Niams, the New Caledonians, the Tonganese and Australians, the conjoints have a deep affection for each other, and the husband often commits suicide on the death of his wife. On the whole, the sentiments of affection of the conjoints are the result of a long s.e.xual life in common, and they are especially strengthened by the love of the parents for their children.

As a rule, the mutual attachment of conjoints for each other among cultivated races is developed along with altruism. The tenderness and refinement of love as they exist at the present day among highly civilized races were unknown to most savages and to the older civilizations. In China it is considered good manners to beat the wife, and when a poor Chinaman treats his wife with consideration, it is to avoid having to buy another. What the Arab understands by love is only s.e.xual appet.i.te, and among the ancient Greeks it was nearly the same.

In civilized Europe mental culture progresses in the direction of equality of rights between the two s.e.xes, so that a man regards his wife more as a companion who is his equal and no longer a slave.

Community of interests, opinions, sentiments and culture const.i.tute a primary condition for sentiments of mutual sympathy and favors affection. No doubt, excitation of the s.e.xual appet.i.te by contrasts acts here as an antagonistic force. Contrast should not be so great as to exclude sympathy.

Too great difference in age is dangerous for attachment, for it causes too great a divergence in the aims and interests of life. Education and social equality also favors love, and this tends to preserve cla.s.s distinction. It is rare for a well-educated man to fall in love with a peasant, or a laboring man with an educated woman, except in a sensual way. Men generally avoid marriage with individuals of another race, or of another religion.

Endogamy and exogamy do not form such an absolute contrast as at first sight might appear. Even among exogamous races, there is a limit which must not be pa.s.sed. These races often prohibit marriage with individuals of another race. Among the Arabs, for example, the instinct of ethnical separation is so strong, that the same Bedouin wife who will prost.i.tute herself for money with Turks or Europeans, would think it dishonorable to marry one of them. In this way custom produces endogamy of caste and cla.s.s among the same people. The same with the n.o.bility; in ancient Rome it was forbidden for a patrician to marry a plebeian. Sometimes an endogamy of religious origin is met with, among the Jews for example.

Children are treasures for the man of low culture, while they become a burden to the cultivated man. In spite of this the natural man ardently desires children. In Switzerland, two-fifths of the divorces occur in sterile unions, although the latter only form one-fifth of all marriages.

Calculation often smothers sentiment when it becomes the basis of marriage. We live to-day under the sway of Mammon, with the result that the influence of love, strength, beauty, capacity for work, intelligence, skill, character and even health, count for little compared with money in the question of marriage. This sad sign is really a new form of marriage by purchase, hypocritically disguised.

MARRIAGE BY RAPE AND MARRIAGE BY PURCHASE

The rape of women is an established custom in some regions. Certain marriage ceremonies prove that rape was formerly much more common than at the present day. Among certain Indian tribes the simulation of rape and abduction of the woman form part of the marriage ceremonies; custom requiring that the woman must feign to resist.

According to Spencer, marriage by rape originated in the prudery of woman, while MacLennan attributes it to the predominance of exogamy; but, in reality, marriage by rape exists in races which are absolutely endogamous. Westermark believes it arose from the repugnance to unions contracted in a narrow circle. The savage has difficulty in procuring a wife without giving the father compensation; besides, his own repugnance to the companions of his childhood and the prejudices against unions between relations, as well as the enmity of other clans, all increase the difficulties to be overcome. This is why he often decides on rape. Marriage by rape has not, however, been the rule at any period, and on the whole, unions concluded by mutual agreement have always predominated.

Marriage by purchase has followed marriage by rape, and forms a slightly higher stage of civilization, developed by exchange of money or other symbols. It first appears, in Australia, for example, as marriage by exchange (exchange of a woman for a sister or a daughter).

Afterward young men gain their wives by working as servants for the father. In marriage by purchase the price is based on the beauty, health and social position of the woman. A young girl is generally worth more than a widow or a rejected woman. Skill in female manual labor also increases the price. Among the Indians of British Columbia a wife will cost from twenty to forty pounds sterling, while in Oregon they are exchanged for bisons' skins or blankets. Among the Kaffirs from three to ten cows is a low price, twenty to thirty a high price for a wife. When a wife was given gratis, her parents had a right to the children. Marriage by purchase and by exchange still exists among the lower races as it formerly ruled among civilized peoples. We still possess the rudiments.

Marriage by rape or by purchase has, however, never been in general usage. Certain races in India and Africa considered it a disgrace to pay a price for a wife.

From the historical point of view it is interesting to note that, in the ceremonies of marriage by purchase, a simulated and symbolical rape of the betrothed still recalls the old form of marriage by rape; also, in races where a higher form has replaced marriage by purchase, traces of the latter are still preserved in certain nuptial symbols.

DECADENCE OF MARRIAGE BY PURCHASE--THE DOT

The position of woman has undergone steady improvement in higher civilization by the progress of altruism. This is why culture, in India, China, Greece, Rome and Germany, etc., has gradually discredited marriage by purchase. This was at first replaced by the custom of giving wedding presents to the bride; afterward the opposite custom was introduced of the bride bringing her _dot_ to the bridegroom.

A singular transition between these two systems is const.i.tuted by simulated purchase, in which the bridegroom offers presents to the bride's parents, which are afterward returned to him. Among certain savages the bride's parents return the purchase money of their daughter to the bridegroom in another form. Such rest.i.tution was often the origin of the _dot_.

Among the Romans the _dot_ became the property of the husband, and from this is derived the modern custom which usually gives the husband the right to administer his wife's _dot_, which remains the property of the wife and her family.

Among the Mexicans, where divorce for conjugal discord is frequent, and among certain Mahometans, division of property exists in marriage, and the wife's property is returned to her when she is separated or divorced.

In Europe at the present time, especially under the influence of French customs, there is established a kind of marriage by inverse purchase (which already existed among the Greeks), in the sense that the parents of young girls obtain husbands for them by means of a large _dot_. Westermark concludes this subject with the following words: "If she does not possess special personal attractions, a young girl without a _dot_, at the present day, runs a great chance of not getting married. This state of things is quite naturally developed in a society where monogamy is legally enforced; where women are more numerous than men; where many men never marry, and where married women too often lead a life of idleness." If we add to this: "in a society where Mammon rules as absolute master," the picture will not be wanting in accuracy.

NUPTIAL CUSTOMS AND CEREMONIES

In primitive races where the wife is simply bought like merchandise, often after mutual agreement, nuptial ceremonies do not exist. They generally originate later from the symbols of a form of marriage since abandoned. The ceremony being concluded and the marriage recognized as legal, it is followed by feasting. Certain religious ceremonies are generally combined with marriage. The customs of our modern marriages arise from the same source. At the time of early Christianity there were no religious ceremonies and even up till the year 1563, the date of the end of the Council of Trent, religious benediction of marriage was not obligatory. Luther held that marriage should be purely civil, but legal civil marriage was only introduced among us by the French Revolution, while it had existed in remote times among the Peruvians, Nicaraguans and others. Among certain races, marriages concluded without _dot_, without ceremony, or without purchase, and even those between different castes, are often regarded as concubinage.

FORMS OF MARRIAGE

Leaving aside hermaphrodites, such as the snails, in which each individual has both kinds of s.e.xual organs and plays the part of both male and female, there are among animals with separate s.e.xes five forms of conjugal union:

(1). _Temporary or perpetual monogamy_, or marriage between one individual of one s.e.x and one of the other s.e.x. This is the case with most birds and mammals and many races of man.

(2). _Polygymy or polygamy_, or the marriage of one male with several females. This occurs in ruminants, stags, fowls, and other animals, as well as in some human beings; for example, the Islamites, negroes, American Indians, Mormons, etc.

(3). _Polyandry_, or the marriage of one female with several males.

This is met with chiefly in the ants, in which each female is generally fecundated successively by several males. In most of the higher animals, the jealousy of the males renders polyandry impossible. In man it is rare but exists among certain races.

(4). _Marriage in groups_, or marriage between several males and several females. This singular custom is rare but exists in the Togas, a tribe of savages. I am not aware of its existence among animals.

(5). _Promiscuity_, or free s.e.xual intercourse between males and females. This occurs in many animals, especially in the lower animals in which the s.e.xual instinct of the male is not a.s.sociated with any regard for the female or the progeny. Promiscuity is still more natural when the female does not look after her young after she has laid her eggs. Nevertheless, in most animals the female limits herself to s.e.xual intercourse before each brood, so that real promiscuity is not so frequent as would at first appear. In man, on the contrary, it attains its apogee in prost.i.tution, which is the only absolutely complete form of promiscuity. But the result of prost.i.tution as regards the preservation of the species, which is the proper object of all s.e.xual union, is absolutely destructive.

Polygamy or polygymy were licit among most ancient races, and is so still among most savages and among many civilized nations; but it has several varieties.

In Mexico, Peru, j.a.pan and China a man only possesses one legitimate wife, but has several concubines whose children are considered as legitimate as those of his wife. Polygamy existed legally among the Jews up to the Middle Ages. King Solomon possessed seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. In Islamite countries the Jews are still polygamous. The Koran allows them four wives and as many concubines as they please. The latter do not enjoy the protection of their father, but apart from this they have the same rights as the legitimate wives.

The Hindus and Persians are polygamous. The Romans were strictly monogamous, but they also had concubines.

In Christian Europe, polygamy has occasionally been allowed or tolerated: St. Augustus did not condemn it. Luther allowed Philip of Hesse to marry two wives; and after the treaty of Westphalia bigamy was allowed because of the depopulation of Germany. The mistresses of the present princes are a relic of polygamy. Jesus having said nothing concerning polygamy, Luther did not prohibit it.

The Mormons have introduced it into their religion. The negro king of Loango shows us what degree polygamy may reach among princes and chiefs, for he possesses seven thousand wives, while the chiefs of the Fiji Islands are content with twenty to one hundred.

Among savage races we find monogamy in the natives of the Andaman islands, among the Touaregs, the Weddas, the Iroquois, the Wyandottes, and even in some Australian tribes. With others, polygamy is only permitted to the chiefs. But most of the population are monogamous even among polygamous races, and there are very few peoples in which all the men possess several wives. In India, 95 per cent. of the Islamites are monogamous, and in Persia even 98 per cent. Polygamy is nearly everywhere a privilege of princes, chiefs, and rich men.

The two following facts also show a tendency to monogamy among polygamous races:

(1). One of the wives, generally the first, has prerogatives over the others.

(2). In reality, the polygamous man nearly always gives s.e.xual preference to one only, or to a few of his wives. There are, however, some polygamous races in which the husband has s.e.xual intercourse with each of his wives according to a regular programme, taking each of them in turn for several days, weeks or months. With others, on the contrary, a number of married women remain in reality virgins, because the husband does not desire them, and they are nothing more than domestics. Among these people the husband as a rule only takes a second wife when the first has grown old, so that bigamy becomes the ordinary form of marriage.

The Cingalese were polyandrous before the English conquest, and so many as seven men had one wife in common. Polyandry is especially the custom in Thibet. Among polyandrous peoples the husbands are not all on the same footing of equality, some hold an inferior position, corresponding nearly to that of concubines, another sign of the tendency to monogamy.

Among the Togas marriage in groups is const.i.tuted as follows: All the brothers are husbands of the wife of the elder brother, and all the sisters of this wife are at the same time wives of their brothers-in-law. If we except prost.i.tution, this is the only case in man which approaches promiscuity. Marriage in groups, however, is extremely restricted promiscuity.

To resume, monogamy is by far the most widespread form of marriage.

This is explained by the relative number of men to women. It has often been stated that the number of individuals of the two s.e.xes is nearly the same, and this has been used as an argument in favor of monogamy.

But this statement is incorrect; sometimes it is the men, but more often the women, who predominate. Among the natives of Oregon there are seven hundred men to eleven hundred and eighty-five women. Among the Punkas and other races the number of women is two or three times greater than that of the men. In Kotcha-Hamba there is only one man to five women. Among other races there are, on the contrary, more men than women, especially in Australia, Tasmania, and Hayti. In the latter island there is only one woman to five men. In Cashmere there are three men to one woman. Among the negroes, on the contrary, the women predominate, sometimes in the proportion of three to one, but more generally as three to two.

In Europe, more boys than girls are born on the average, but from the age of fifteen to twenty the numbers become equal, and after twenty the women predominate. This is due to the greater mortality among men, owing to war, the greater danger of masculine occupations, and also to alcoholism. In the fifteen largest towns in Switzerland alcoholism is the direct or indirect cause of death in 10.5 per cent. of men above the age of twenty.

Among savages the women often take part in war, for instance the Amazons of Dahomey. Drinking habits are also the same or absent in both s.e.xes, which equalizes matters. When the men predominate in these people, this is often due to infanticide committed on young girls, and also to overwork of the women. With the Cingalese the natality of boys is greater than that of girls, while in Asia Minor two girls, in Arabia even four girls, are born to one boy. The Arab says, "Allah has given us more women than men; it is, therefore, clear that polygamy is a divine commandment."

=Production of s.e.xes at Will.=--I will say a few words on the question of the causes of production of the s.e.xes. There is no want of hypotheses, a.s.sertions, nor even of experiments on this subject; but, we are obliged to admit that up to the present we know nothing certain. No one has yet succeeded in producing experimentally in animals males or females at will. According to one theory, which has created much impression, overfeeding produces females and underfeeding males. Although this appears to be true in certain cases among some animals, it is in no way proved in a positive manner.