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PRIMITIVE LOVE AND LOVE-STORIES
BY HENRY T. FINCK
1899
_DEDICATED TO ONE WHO TAUGHT THE AUTHOR THAT CONJUGAL AFFECTION IS NOT
INFERIOR TO ROMANTIC LOVE_
PREFACE
On page 654 of the present volume reference is made to a custom
prevalent in northern India of employing the family barber to select
the boys and girls to be married, it being considered too trivial and
humiliating an act for the parents to attend to. In pronouncing such a
custom ludicrous and outrageous we must not forget that not much more
than a century ago an English thinker, Samuel Johnson, expressed the
opinion that marriages might as well be arranged by the Lord
Chancellor without consulting the parties concerned. Schopenhauer had,
indeed, reason to claim that it had remained for him to discover the
significance and importance of love. His ideas on the relations
between love, youth, health, and beauty opened up a new vista of
thought; yet it was limited, because the question of heredity was only
just beginning to be understood, and the theory of evolution, which
has revolutionized all science, had not yet appeared on the horizon.
The new science of anthropology, with its various branches, including
sociology, ethnology, and comparative psychology, has within the last
two or three decades brought together and discussed an immense number
of facts relating to man in his various stages of
development--savagery, barbarism, semi-civilization, and civilization.
Monographs have appeared in great numbers on various customs and
institutions, including marriage, which has been discussed in several
exhaustive volumes. Love alone has remained to be specially considered
from an evolutionary point of view. My own book, _Romantic Love and
Personal Beauty_, which appeared in 1887, did indeed touch upon this
question, but very briefly, inasmuch as its subject, as the title
indicates, was modern romantic love. A book on such a subject was
naturally and easily written _virginibus puerisque_; whereas the
present volume, being concerned chiefly with the love-affairs of
savages and barbarians, could not possibly have been subjected to the
same restrictions. Care has been taken, however, to exclude anything
that might offend a healthy taste.
If it has been necessary in some chapters to multiply unpleasant
facts, the reader must blame the sentimentalists who have so
persistently whitewashed the savages that it has become necessary, in
the interest of truth, to show them in their real colors. I have
indeed been tempted to give my book the sub-title "A Vindication of
Civilization" against the misrepresentations of these sentimentalists
who try to create the impression that savages owe all their depravity
to contact with whites, having been originally spotless angels. If my
pictures of the unadulterated savage may in some cases produce the
same painful impression as the sights in a museum's "chamber of
horrors," they serve, on the other hand, to show us that, bad as we
may be, collectively, we are infinitely superior in love-affairs, as
in everything else, to those primitive peoples; and thus we are
encouraged to hope for further progress in the future in the direction
of purity and altruism.
Although I have been obliged under the circumstances to indulge in a
considerable amount of controversy, I have taken great pains to state
the views of my opponents fairly, and to be strictly impartial in
presenting facts with accuracy. Nothing could be more foolish than the
ostrich policy, so often indulged in, of hiding facts in the hope that
opponents will not see them. Had I found any data inconsistent with my
theory I should have modified it in accordance with them. I have also
been very careful in regard to my authorities. The chief cause of the
great confusion reigning in anthropological literature is that, as a
rule, evidence is piled up with a pitchfork. Anyone who has been
anywhere and expressed a globe-trotter's opinion is cited as a
witness, with deplorable results. I have not only taken most of my
multitudinous facts from the original sources, but I have critically
examined the witnesses to see what right they have to parade as
experts; as in the cases, for instance, of Catlin, Schoolcraft,
Chapman, and Stephens, who are responsible for many "false facts" that
have misled philosophers.
In writing a book like this the author's function is comparable to
that of an architect who gets his materials from various parts of the
world and fashions them into a building of more or less artistic
merit. The anthropologist has to gather his facts from a greater
variety of sources than any other writer, and from the very nature of
his subject he is obliged to quote incessantly. The following pages
embody the results of more than twelve years' research in the
libraries of America and Europe. In weaving my quotations into a
continuous fabric I have adopted a plan which I believe to be
ingenious, and which certainly saves space and annoyance. Instead of
citing the full titles of books every time they are referred to either
in the text or in footnotes, I merely give the author's name and the
page number, if only one of his books is referred to; and if there are
several books, I give the initials--say Brinton, _M.N.W_., 130; which
means Brinton's _Myths of the New World_, page 130. The key to the
abbreviations will be found at the end of the volume in the
bibliography, which also includes an author's index, separate from the
index of subjects. This avoids the repetition of titles or of the
customary useless "_loc. cit_.," and spares the reader the annoyance
of constant interruption of his reading to glance at the bottom of the
page.
Not a few of the critics of my first book, ignoring the difference
between a romantic love-story and a story of romantic love, fancied
they could refute me by simply referring to some ancient romantic
story. To prevent a repetition of that procedure I have adorned these
pages with a number of love-stories, adding critical comments wherever
called for. These stories, I believe, augment, not only the interest
but the scientific value of the monograph. In gathering them I have
often wondered why no one anticipated me, though, to be sure, it was
not an easy task, as they are scattered in hundreds of books, and in
scientific periodicals where few would look for them. At the same time
I confess that to me the tracing of the plot of the evolution of love,
with its diverse obstacles, is more fascinating than the plot of an
individual love-story. At any rate, since we have thousands of such
love-stories, I am perhaps not mistaken in assuming that _the story of
love itself_ will be welcomed as a pleasant change. H.T.F.
NEW YORK, October 27, 1899.
CONTENTS
HISTORY OF AN IDEA
Origin of a Book
Skeptical Critics
Robert Burton
Hegel on Greek Love
Shelley on Greek Love
Macaulay, Bulwer-Lytton, Gautier
Goldsmith and Rousseau
Love a Compound Feeling
Herbert Spencer's Analysis
Active Impulses Must be Added
Sensuality the Antipode of Love
The Word Romantic
Animals Higher than Savages
Love the Last, Not the First, Product of Civilization
Plan of this Volume
Greek Sentimentality
Importance of Love
HOW SENTIMENTS CHANGE AND GROW
No Love of Romantic Scenery
No Love in Early Religion
Murder as a Virtue
Slaughter of the Innocents
Honorable Polygamy
Curiosities of Modesty
Indifference to Chastity
Horror of Incest
WHAT IS ROMANTIC LOVE?
Ingredients of Love.
I. INDIVIDUAL PREFERENCE
All Girls Equally Attractive
Shallow Predilection
Repression of Preference
Utility versus Sentiment
A Story of African Love
Similarity of Individuals and Sexes
Primary and Secondary Sexual Characters
Fastidious Sensuality is not Love
Two Stories of Indian Love
Feminine Ideals Superior to Masculine
Sex in Body and Mind
True Femininity and its Female Enemies
Mysteries of Love,--An Oriental Love-Story
II. MONOPOLISM
Juliet and Nothing but Juliet
Butterfly Love
Romantic Stories of Non-Romantic Love
Obstacles to Monopolism
Wives and Girls in Common
Trial Marriages
Two Roman Lovers
III. JEALOUSY
Rage at Rivals
Women as Private Property
Horrible Punishments
Essence of True Jealousy
Absence of Masculine Jealousy
Persian and Greek Jealousy
Primitive Feminine Jealousy
Absence of Feminine Jealousy
Jealousy Purged of Hate
A Virtuous Sin
Abnormal States
Jealousy in Romantic Love
IV. COYNESS
Women Who Woo
Were Hebrew and Greek Women Coy?
Masculine Coyness
Shy but not Coy
Militarism and Mediaeval Women
What Made Women Coy?
Capturing Women
The Comedy of Mock Capture
Why the Women Resist
Quaint Customs
Greek and Roman Mercenary Coyness
Modesty and Coyness
Utility of Coyness
How Women Propose
V. HOPE AND DESPAIR--MIXED MOODS
Amorous Antitheses
Courtship and Imagination
Effects of Sensual Love
VI. HYPERBOLE
Girls and Flowers
Eyes and Stars
Locks and Fragrance
Poetic Desire for Contact
Nature's Sympathy with Lovers
Romantic but not Loving
The Power of Love
VII. PRIDE
Comic Side of Love
A Mystery Explained
Importance of Pride
Varieties and Germs
Natural and Artificial Symptoms of Love
VIII. SYMPATHY
Egotism, Naked or Masked
Delight in the Torture of Others
Indifference to Suffering
Exposing the Sick and Aged
Birth of Sympathy
Women Crueler than Men
Plato Denounces Sympathy
Sham Altruism in India
Evolution of Sympathy
Amorous Sympathy
IX. ADORATION
Deification of Persons
Primitive Contempt for Women
Homage to Priestesses
Kinship Through Females Only
Woman's Domestic Rule
Woman's Political Rule
Greek Estimate of Women
Man-Worship and Christianity
X. UNSELFISH GALLANTRY
The Gallant Rooster
Ungallant Lower Races of Men
Egyptian Love
Arabian Love
The Unchivalrous Greeks
Ovid's Sham Gallantry
Mediaeval and Modern Gallantry
"An Insult to Woman,"
Summary
A Sure Test of Love
XI. ALTRUISTIC SELF-SACRIFICE
The Lady and the Tiger
A Greek Love-Story
Persian Love
Hero and Leander
The Elephant and the Lotos
Suicide is Selfish
XII. AFFECTION
Erotic Assassins
The Wisdom of Solomon
Stuff and Nonsense
Sacrifices of Cannibal Husbands
Inclinations Mistaken for Affection
Selfish Liking and Attachment
Foolish Fondness
Unselfish Affection
XIII. MENTAL PURITY
German Testimony
English Testimony
Maiden Fancies
Pathologic Love
A Modern Sentiment
Persians, Turks, and Hindoos
Love Despised in Japan and China
Greek Scorn for Woman-Love
Penetrative Virginity
XIV. ADMIRATION OF PERSONAL BEAUTY
Darwin's Unfortunate Mistake
Decoration for Protection
War "Decorations,"
Amulets, Charms, Medicines
Mourning Language
Indications of Tribe or Rank
Vain Desire to Attract Attention
Objects of Tattooing
Tattooing on Pacific Islands
Tattooing in America
Tattooing in Japan
Scarification
Alleged Testimony of Natives, Misleading Testimony of
Visitors
"Decoration" at the Age of Puberty
"Decoration" as a Test of Courage
Mutilation, Fashion, and Emulation
Personal Beauty versus Personal Decoration
De Gustibus non est Disputandum?
Indifference to Dirt
Reasons for Bathing
Corpulence versus Beauty
Fattening Girls for the Marriage Market
Oriental Ideals
The Concupiscence Theory of Beauty
Utility is not Beauty
A New Sense Easily Lost Again
Moral Ugliness
Beautifying Intelligence
The Strange Greek Attitude
A COMPOSITE AND VARIABLE SENTIMENT
Definition of Love
Why called Romantic.
SENSUALITY, SENTIMENTALITY, AND SENTIMENT.
Appetite and Longing
Wiles of an Oriental Girl
Rarity of True Love.
MISTAKES REGARDING CONJUGAL LOVE
How Romantic Love is Metamorphosed
Why Savages Value Wives
Mourning to Order
Mourning for Entertainment
The Truth about Widow-Burning
Feminine Devotion in Ancient Literature
Wives Esteemed as Mothers Only
Why Conjugal Precedes Romantic Love
OBSTACLES TO ROMANTIC LOVE
I. Ignorance and Stupidity
II. Coarseness and Obscenity
III. War
IV. Cruelty
V. Masculine Selfishness
VI. Contempt for Women
VII. Capture and Sale of Brides
VIII. Infant Marriages
IX. Prevention of Free Choice
X. Separation of the Sexes
XI. Sexual Taboos
XII. Race Aversions
XIII. Multiplicity of Languages
XIV. Social Barriers
XV. Religious Prejudice
SPECIMENS OF AFRICAN LOVE
Bushman Qualifications for Love
"Love in all Their Marriages,"
False Facts Regarding Hottentots
Effeminate Men and Masculine Women
How the Hottentot Woman "Rules at Home,"
"Regard for Women"
Capacity for Refined Love
Hottentot Coarseness
Fat versus Sentiment
South African Love-Poems
A Hottentot Flirt
Kaffir Morals
Individual Preference for--Cows, Bargaining for Brides
Amorous Preferences
Zulu Girls not Coy
Charms and Poems
A Kaffir Love-Story
Lower than Beasts
Colonies of Free Lovers
A Lesson in Gallantry
Not a Particle of Romance
No Love Among Negroes
A Queer Story
Suicides
Poetic Love on the Congo
Black Love in Kamerun
A Slave Coast Love-Story
The Maiden who Always Refused
African Story-Books
The Five Suitors
Tamba and the Princess
The Sewing Match
Baling out the Brook
Proverbs about Women
African Amazons
Where Woman Commands
No Chance for Romantic Love
Pastoral Love
Abyssinian Beauty and Flirtation
Galla Coarseness
Somali Love-Affairs
Arabic Influences
Touareg Chivalry
An African Love-Letter
ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIAN LOVE
Personal Charms of Australians
Cruel Treatment of Women
Were Savages Corrupted by Whites?
Aboriginal Horrors
Naked and not Ashamed
Is Civilization Demoralizing?
Aboriginal Wantonness
Lower than Brutes
Indifference to Chastity
Useless Precautions
Survivals of Promiscuity
Aboriginal Depravity
The Question of Promiscuity
Why do Australians Marry?
Curiosities of Jealousy
Pugnacious Females
Wife-Stealing
Swapping Girls
The Philosophy of Elopements
Charming a Woman by Magic
Other Obstacles to Love
Marriage Taboos and "Incest"
Affection for Women and Dogs
A Horrible Custom
Romantic Affliction
A Lock of Hair
Two Native Stories
Barrington's Love-Story
Risking Life for a Woman
Gerstaecker's Love-Story
Local Color in Courtship
Love-Letters.
ISLAND LOVE ON THE PACIFIC
Where Women Propose
Bornean Caged Girls
Charms of Dyak Women
Dyak Morals
Nocturnal Courtship
Head Hunters A-Wooing
Fickle and Shallow Passion
Dyak Love-Songs
The Girl With the Clean Face
Fijian Refinements
How Cannibals Treat Women
Fijian Modesty and Chastity
Emotional Curiosities
Fijian Love-Poems
Serenades and Proposals
Suicides and Bachelors
Samoan Traits
Courtship Pantomime
Two Samoan Love-Stories
Personal Charms of South Sea Islanders
Tahitians and Their White Visitors
Heartless Treatment of Women
Two Stories of Tahitian Infatuation
Captain Cook on Tahitian Love
Were the Tongans Civilized?
Love of Scenery
A Cannibal Bargain
The Handsome Chiefs
Honeymoon in a Cave
A Hawaiian Cave-Story
Is this Romantic Love?
Vagaries of Hawaiian Fondness
Hawaiian Morals
The Helen of Hawaii
Intercepted Love-Letters
Maoris of New Zealand
The Maiden of Rotorua
The Man on the Tree
Love in a Fortress
Stratagem of an Elopement
Maori Love-Poems
The Wooing-House
Liberty of Choice and Respect for Women
Maori Morals and Capacity for Love
HOW AMERICAN INDIANS LOVE
The Red Lover
The Foam Woman
The Humpback Magician
The Buffalo King
The Haunted Grove
The Girl and the Scalp
A Chippewa Love-Song
How "Indian Stories" are Written
Reality versus Romance
Deceptive Modesty
Were Indians Corrupted by Whites?
The Noble Red Man
Apparent Exceptions
Intimidating California Squaws
Going A-Calumeting
Squaws and Personal Beauty
Are North American Indians Gallant?
South American Gallantry
How Indians Adore Squaws
Choosing a Husband
Compulsory "Free Choice"
A British Columbia Story
The Danger of Coquetry
The Girl Market
Other Ways of Thwarting Free Choice
Central and South American Examples
Why Indians Elope
Suicide and Love
Love-Charms
Curiosities of Courtship
Pantomimic Love-Making
Honeymoon
Music in Indian Courtship
Indian Love-Poems
More Love-Stories
"White Man Too Much Lie"
The Story of Pocahontas
Verdict: No Romantic Love
The Unloving Eskimo.
INDIA--WILD TRIBES AND TEMPLE GIRLS.
"Whole Tracts of Feeling Unknown to Them"
Practical Promiscuity
"Marvellously Pretty and Romantic"
Liberty of Choice
Scalps and Field-Mice
A Topsy-Turvy Custom
Pahária Lads and Lasses
Child-Murder and Child-Marriage
Monstrous Parental Selfishness
How Hindoo Girls are Disposed of
Hindoos Far Below Brutes
Contempt in Place of Love
Widows and Their Tormentors
Hindoo Depravity
Temple Girls
An Indian Aspasia
Symptoms of Feminine Love
Symptoms of Masculine Love
Lyrics and Dramas
I. The Story of Sakuntala
II. The Story of Urvasi
III. Malavika and Agnimitra
IV. The Story of Savitri
V. Nala and Damayanti
Artificial Symptoms
The Hindoo God of Love
Dying for Love
What Hindoo Poets Admire in Women
The Old Story of Selfishness
Bayadčres and Princesses as Heroines
Voluntary Unions not Respectable
DOES THE BIBLE IGNORE ROMANTIC LOVE?
The Story of Jacob and Rachel
The Courting of Rebekah
How Ruth Courted Boaz
No Sympathy or Sentiment
A Masculine Ideal of Womanhood
Not the Christian Ideal of Love
Unchivalrous Slaughter of Women
Four More Bible Stories
Abishag the Shunammite
The Song of Songs
GREEK LOVE-STORIES AND POEMS.
Champions of Greek Love
Gladstone on the Women of Homer
Achilles as a Lover
Odysseus, Libertine and Ruffian
Was Penelope a Model Wife?
Hector and Andromache
Barbarous Treatment of Greek Women
Love in Sappho's Poems
Masculine Minds in Female Bodies
Anacreon and Others
Woman and Love in Aeschylus
Woman and Love in Sophocles
Woman and Love in Euripides
Romantic Love, Greek Style
Platonic Love of Women
Spartan Opportunities for Love
Amazonian Ideal of Greek Womanhood
Athenian Orientalism
Literature and Life
Greek Love in Africa
Alexandrian Chivalry
The New Comedy
Theocritus and Callimachus
Medea and Jason
Poets and Hetairai
Short Stories
Greek Romances
Daphnis and Chloe
Hero and Leander
Cupid and Psyche
UTILITY AND FUTURE OF LOVE.
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND INDEX OF AUTHORS
INDEX OF SUBJECTS
PRIMITIVE LOVE
AND
LOVE-STORIES
HISTORY OF AN IDEA
"Love is always the same. As Sappho loved, fifty years ago, so did
people love ages before her; so will they love thousands of years
hence."
These words, placed by Professor Ebers in the mouth of one of the
characters in his historic novel, _An Egyptian Princess_, express the
prevalent opinion on this subject, an opinion which I, too, shared
fifteen years ago. Though an ardent champion of the theory of
evolution, I believed that there was one thing in the world to which
modern scientific ideas of gradual development did not apply--that
love was too much part and parcel of human nature to have ever been
different from what it is to-day.
ORIGIN OF A BOOK
It so happened that I began to collect notes for a paper on "How to
Cure Love." It was at first intended merely as a personal experiment
in emotional psychology. Afterward it occurred to me that such a
sketch might be shaped into a readable magazine article. This, again,
suggested a complementary article on "How to Win Love"--a sort of
modern Ovid in prose; and then suddenly came the thought,
"Why not write a book on love? There is none in the English
language--strange anomaly--though love is supposed to be the
most fascinating and influential thing in the world. It will
surely be received with delight, especially if I associate
with it some chapters on personal beauty, the chief inspirer
of love. I shall begin by showing that the ancient Greeks
and Romans and Hebrews loved precisely as we love."
Forthwith I took down from my shelves the classical authors that I had
not touched since leaving college, and eagerly searched for all
references to women, marriage, and love. To my growing surprise and
amazement I found that not only did those ancient authors look upon
women as inferior beings while I worshipped them, but in their
descriptions of the symptoms of love I looked in vain for mention of
those supersensual emotions and self-sacrificing impulses which
overcame me when I was in love. "Can it be," I whispered to myself,
"that, notwithstanding the universal opinion to the contrary, love is,
after all, subject to the laws of development?"
This hypothesis threw me into a fever of excitement, without the
stimulus of which I do not believe I should have had the courage and
patience to collect, classify, and weave into one fabric the enormous
number of facts and opinions contained within the covers of _Romantic
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