scene, as we do at Brighton and other English bathing
towns."

In his work on German Africa (II., 123) Zöller says that in Togoland

"the young girls did not hesitate in the least to remove
their only article of clothing, a narrow strip of cloth, rub
themselves with a native soap and then take a dip in the
lagoon, before the eyes of white men as well as black."

A page would be required merely to enumerate the tribes in Africa,
Australia, and South America which never wear any clothing.

Max Buchner (352-4) gives a graphic description (1878) of the nude
female surf swimmers in the Hawaiian Islands. Nor is this indifference
to nudity manifested only by these primitive races. In Japan, to the
present day, men and women bathe in the same room, separated merely by
a partition, two or three feet high.[8] Zöller relates of the Cholos
of Ecuador (_P. and A_., 364) that "men and women bathe together in
the rivers with a naïveté surpassing that of the South Sea Islanders."
A writer in the _Ausland_ (1870, p. 294) reports that in Paraguay he
saw the women washing their only dress, and while they waited for the
sun to dry it, they stood by naked calmly smoking their cigars.

But natural indifference to nudity is the least of the curiosities of
modesty. Sometimes nakedness is actually prescribed by law or by
strict etiquette. In Rohl all women who are not Arabic are forbidden
to wear clothing of any sort. The King of Mandingo allowed no women,
not even princesses, to approach him unless they were naked (Hellwald,
77-8). Dubois (I., 265) says that in some of the southern provinces of
India the women of certain castes must uncover their body from the
head to the girdle when speaking to a man: "It would be thought a want
of politeness and good breeding to speak to men with that part of the
body clothed."

In his travels among the Cameroon negroes Zöller (II., 185) came
across a strange bit of religious etiquette in regard to nudity. The
women there wear nothing but a loin cloth, except in case of a death,
when, like ourselves, they appear all in black--with a startling
difference, however. One day, writes Zöller,

"I was astounded to see a number of women and girls
strolling about stark naked before the house of a man who
had died of diphtheria. This, I was told, was their mourning
dress.... The same custom prevails in other parts of West
Africa."

Modesty is as fickle as fashion and assumes almost as many different
forms as dress itself. In most Australian tribes the women (as well as
the men) go naked, yet in a few they not only wear clothes but go out
of sight to bathe. Stranger still, the Pele islanders were so
innocent of all idea of clothing that when they first saw Europeans
they believed that their clothes were their skins. Nevertheless, the
men and women bathed in different places. Among South American Indians
nudity is the rule, whereas some North American Indians used to place
guards near the swimming-places of the women, to protect them from
spying eyes.

According to Gill (230), the Papuans of Southwestern New Guinea "glory
in their nudeness and consider clothing fit only for women." There are
many places where the women alone were clothed, while in others the
women alone were naked. Mtesa, the King of Uganda, who died in 1884,
inflicted the death penalty on any man who dared to approach him
without having every inch of his legs carefully covered; but the women
who acted as his servants were stark naked (Hellwald, 78).

While the etiquette of modesty is thus subject to an endless variety
of details, every nation and tribe enforces its own ideal of propriety
as the only correct thing. In Tahiti and Tonga it would be considered
highly indecent to go about without being tattooed. Among Samoans and
other Malayans the claims of propriety are satisfied if only the navel
is covered. "The savage tribes of Sumatra and Celebes have a like
feeling about the knee, which is always carefully covered"
(Westermarck, 207). In China it is considered extremely indecent if a
woman allows her bare feet to be seen, even by her husband, and a
similar idea prevails among some Turkish women, who carefully wrap up
their feet before they go to bed (Ploss, I., 344). Hindoo women must
not show their faces, but it is not improper to wear a dress so gauzy
that the whole figure is revealed through it. "In Moruland," says Emin
Bey,

"the women mostly go about absolutely naked, a few only
attaching a leaf behind to their waistband. It is curious to
note, on meeting a bevy of these uncovered beauties carrying
water, that the first thing they do with their free hand is
to cover the face."

These customs prevail in all Moslem countries. Mariti relates in his
_Viaggi_ (II., 288):

"Travelling in summer across the fields of Syria I
repeatedly came across groups of women, entirely naked,
washing themselves near a well. They did not move from the
place, but simply covered the face with one hand, their
whole modesty consisting in the desire not to be
recognized."

Sentimental topsy-turviness reaches its climax in those cases where
women who usually go naked are ashamed to be seen clothed. Such cases
are cited by several writers,[9] and appear to be quite common. The
most amusing instance I have come across is in a little-known volume
on Venezuela by Lavayasse, who writes (190):

"It is known that those [Indians] of the warm climates
of South America, among whom civilization has not made
any progress, have no other dress than a small apron,
or kind of bandage, to hide their nakedness. A lady of
my acquaintance had contracted a kindness for a young
Paria Indian woman, who was extremely handsome. We had
given her the name of Grace. She was sixteen years old,
and had lately been married to a young Indian of
twenty-five, who was our sportsman. This lady took a
pleasure in teaching her to sew and embroider. We said
to her one day, 'Grace, you are extremely pretty, speak
French well, and are always with us: you ought not
therefore to live like the other native women, and we
shall give you some clothes. Does not your husband wear
trousers and a shirt?' Upon this she consented to be
dressed. The lady lost no time in arranging her dress,
a ceremony at which I had the honor of assisting. We
put on a shift, petticoats, stockings, shoes, and a
Madras handkerchief on her head. She looked quite
enchanting, and saw herself in the looking-glass with
great complacency. Suddenly her husband returned from
shooting, with three or four Indians, when the whole
party burst into a loud fit of laughter at her, and
began to joke about her new habiliments. Grace was
quite abashed, blushed, wept, and ran to hide herself
in the bed-chamber of the lady, where she stript
herself of the clothes, went out of the window, and
returned naked into the room. A proof that when her
husband saw her dressed for the first time, she felt a
sensation somewhat similar to that which a European
woman might experience who was surprised without her
usual drapery."

Another paradox remains to be noted. Anthropologists have now proved
beyond all possibility of doubt that modesty, far from having led to
the use of clothing, was itself merely a secondary consequence of the
gradual adoption of apparel as a protection. They have also shown[10]
that the earliest forms of dress were extremely scanty, and were
intended not to cover certain parts of the body, but actually and
wantonly to call attention to them, while in other cases the only
parts of the body habitually covered were such as we should consider
it no special impropriety to leave uncovered. But enough has been said
to demonstrate what we started out to prove: that the strong sentiment
of modesty in our community--so strong that many insist it must be
part and parcel of human nature (like love!)--has, like all the other
sentiments here discussed, grown up slowly from microscopic
beginnings.


INDIFFERENCE TO CHASTITY

Closely connected with modesty, and yet entirely distinct from it, is
another and still stronger sentiment--the regard for chastity. Many an
American officer whose brave wife accompanied him in a frontier war
has been asked by her to promise that he would shoot her with his own
revolver rather than let her fall into the clutches of licentious
Indians. Though deliberate murder is punishable by death, no American
jury has ever convicted a man for slaying the seducer of his wife,
daughter, or sister. Modern law punishes rape with death, and its
victim is held to have suffered a fate worse than death. The brightest
of all jewels in a bride's crown of virtues is chastity--a jewel
without which all the others lose their value. Yet this jewel of
jewels formerly had no more value than a pebble in a brook-bed. The
sentiment in behalf of chastity had no existence for ages, and for a
long time after it came into existence chastity was known not as a
virtue but only as a necessity, inculcated by fear of punishment or
loss of worldly advantages.

In support of this statement a whole volume might be written; but as
abundant evidence will be given in later chapters relating to the
lower races in Africa, Australia, Polynesia, America, and Asia, only a
few instances need be cited here. In his recent work on the _Origin
and Growth of the Moral Sense_ (1898), Alexander Sutherland, an
Australian author, writes (I., 180):

"In the House of Commons papers for 1844 will be found
some 350 printed pages of reports, memoranda, and
letters, gathered by the standing committee appointed
in regard to the treatment of aboriginals in the
Australian colonies. All these have the same unlovely
tale to tell of an absolute incapacity to form even a
rudimentary notion of chastity. One worthy missionary,
who had been for some years settled among tribes of New
South Wales, _as yet brought in contact with no other
white men_, writes with horror of what he had observed.
The conduct of the females, even young children, is
most painful; they are cradled in prostitution and
fostered in licentiousness. Brough Smith (II., 240)
quotes several authorities who record that in Western
Australia the women in early youth were almost
prostitutes. 'For about six months after their
initiation into manhood the youths were allowed an
unbounded licence, and there was no possible blame
attached to the young unmarried girl who entertained
them'" (179).

In Lewis and Clark's account of their expedition across the American
Continent they came to the conclusion that there was an utter absence
of regard for chastity "among all Indians," and they relate the
following as a sample (439):

"Among all the tribes, a man will lend his wife or
daughter for a fish-hook or a strand of beads. To
decline an offer of this sort is indeed to disparage
the charms of the lady, and therefore gives such
offence, that, although we had occasionally to treat
the Indians with rigor, nothing seemed to irritate both
sexes more than our refusal to accept the favors of the
females. On one occasion we were amused by a Clatsop,
who, having been cured of some disorder by our medical
skill, brought his sister as a reward for our kindness.
The young lady was quite anxious to join in this
expression of her brother's gratitude, and mortified we
did not avail ourselves of it."

De Varigny, who lived forty years in the Hawaiian Islands, says (159)
that

"the chief difficulty of the missionaries in the Sandwich
Islands was teaching the women chastity; they knew neither
the word nor the thing. Adultery, incest, fornication, were
the common order of things, accepted by public opinion, and
even consecrated by religion."

The same is true of other Polynesians, the Tahitians, for instance, of
whom Captain Cook wrote that they are

"people who have not even the idea of decency, and who
gratify every appetite and passion before witnesses, with no
more sense of impropriety than we feel when we satisfy our
hunger at a social board with our friends."

Among the highest of all these island peoples, the Tongans, the only
restriction to incontinence was that the lover must not be changed too
often.

What Dalton says of the Chilikata Mishmis, one of the wild tribes of
India, applies to many of the lower races in all parts of the world:

"Marriage ceremony there is, I believe, none; it is
simply an affair of purchase, and the women thus
obtained, if they can be called wives, are not much
bound by the tie. The husbands do not expect them to be
chaste; they take no cognizance of their temporary
liaisons so long as they are not deprived of their
services. If a man is dispossessed of one of his wives,
he has a private injury to avenge, and takes the
earliest opportunity of retaliating, but he cannot see
that a woman is a bit the worse for a little
incontinency."

In many cases not only was there complete indifference to chastity,
but virginity in a bride was actually looked on with disfavor. The
Finnish Votyaks considered it honorable in a girl to be a mother
before she was a wife. The Central American Chibchas were like the
Philippine Bisayos, of whom a sixteenth century writer, quoted by
Jagor, said that a man is unhappy to find his bride above suspicion,
"because, not having been desired by anyone, she must have some bad
quality which will prevent him from being happy with her."

The wide prevalence in all parts of the world of the custom of lending
or exchanging wives, or offering wife or daughter to a guest,[11] also
bears witness to the utter indifference to chastity, conjugal and
maiden; as does the custom known as the _jus primae noctis._ Dr. Karl
Schmidt has tried very hard to prove that such a "right" to the bride
never existed. But no one can read his treatises without noting that
his argument rests on a mere quibble, the word _jus_. There may have
been no codified _law_ or "right" allowing kings, bishops, chiefs,
landlords, medicine men, and priests to claim brides first, but that
the _privilege_ existed in various countries and was extensively made
use of, there can be no doubt. Westermarck (73-80), Letourneau
(56-62), Ploss (I., 400-405), and others have collected abundant
proofs. Here I have room for only a few instances, showing that those
whom we would consider the _victims_ of such a horrible custom, not
only submitted to it with resignation, but actually looked on it as an
_honor_ and a highly coveted privilege.

"The aboriginal inhabitants of Teneriffe are
represented as having married no woman who had not
previously spent a night with the chief, which was
considered a great honor."

"Navarette tells us that, on the coast of Malabar, the
bridegroom brought the bride to the King, who kept her
eight days in the palace; and the man took it 'as a
great honor and favor that the King should make use of
her.'"

"Egede informs us that the women of Greenland thought
themselves fortunate if an Angekokk, or prophet,
honored them with his caresses; and some husbands even
paid him, because they believed that the child of such
a holy man could not but be happier and better than
others." (Westermarck, 77, 80.)

"In Cumana the priests, who were regarded as holy,
slept only with unmarried women, 'porque tenian por
honorosa costumbre que ellos las quitassen la
virginidad.'" (Bastian, _K.A.A._, II., 228.)

From this lowest depth of depravity it would be interesting, if space
and the architectural plan of this volume permitted, to trace the
growth of the sentiment which demands chastity; noting, in the first
place, how married women were compelled, by the jealous fury of their
masters, to practise continence; how, very much later, virginity began
to be valued, not, indeed, at first, as a virtue having a value and
charm of its own, but as a means of enhancing the market value of
brides. Indifference to masculine chastity continued much longer
still. The ancient civilized nations had advanced far enough to value
purity in wives and maidens, but it hardly occurred to them that it
was man's duty to cultivate the same virtue. Even so austere and
eminent a moral philosopher as Cicero declared that one would have to
be very severe indeed to ask young men to refrain from illicit
relations. The mediaeval church fathers endeavored for centuries to
enforce the doctrine that men should be as pure as women, with what
success, every one knows. A more powerful agency in effecting a reform
was the loathsome disease which in the fifteenth century began to
sweep away millions of licentious men, and led to the survival of the
fittest from the moral point of view. The masculine standard is still
low, but immense progress has been made during the last hundred years.
The number of prostitutes in Europe is still estimated at seven
hundred thousand, yet that makes only seven to every thousand females,
and though there are many other unchaste women, it is safe to say that
in England and America, at any rate, more than nine hundred out of
every thousand females are chaste, whereas among savages, as a rule,
nearly all females are prostitutes (in the moral sense of the word),
before they marry. In view of this astounding progress there is no
reason to despair regarding man's future. It would be a great triumph
of civilization if the average man could be made as pure as the
average woman. At the same time, since the consequences of sin are
infinitely more serious in women, it is eminently proper that they
should be in the van of moral progress.

Chastity, modesty, polygamy, murder, religion, and nature have now
furnished us an abundance of illustrations showing the changeableness
and former non-existence of sentiments which in us are so strong that
we are inclined to fancy they must have been the same always and
everywhere. Before proceeding to prove that romantic love is another
sentiment of which the same may be said, let us pause a moment to
discuss a sentiment which presents one of the most difficult problems
in the psychology of love, the Horror of Incest.


HORROR OF INCEST

A young man does not fall in love with his sister though she be the
most attractive girl he knows. Nor does her father fall in love with
her, nor the mother with the son, or the son with the mother. Not only
is there no sexual love between them, but the very idea of marriage
fills their mind with unutterable horror, and in the occasional cases
where such a marriage is made through ignorance of the relationship,
both parties usually commit suicide, though they are guiltless of
deliberate crime. Here we have the most striking and absolute proof
that circumstances, habits, ideas, laws, customs, can and do utterly
annihilate sexual love in millions of individuals. Why then should it
be so unlikely that the laws and customs of the ancient Greeks, for
instance, with their ideas about women and marriage, should have
prevented the growth of sentimental love? Note the modesty of my
claim. While it is certain that both the sensual and the sentimental
sides of sexual love are stifled by the horror of incest, all that I
claim in regard to ancient and primitive races is that the sentimental
side of love was smothered by unfavorable circumstances and hindered
in growth by various obstacles which will be described later on in
this volume. Surely this is not such a reckless theory as it seemed to
some of my critics.

Like the other sentiments discussed in this chapter, the horror of
incest has been found to be absent among races in various stages of
development. Incestuous unions occurred among Chippewas and other
American Indians. Of the Peruvian Indians, Garcilasso de la Vega says
that some cohabited with their sisters, daughters, or mothers; similar
facts are recorded of some Brazilians, Polynesians, Africans, and wild
tribes of India. "Among the Annamese, according to a missionary who
has lived among them for forty years, no girl who is twelve years old
and has a brother is a virgin" (Westermarck, 292). Gypsies allow a
brother to marry a sister, while among the Veddahs of Ceylon the
marriage of a man with his younger sister is considered _the_ proper
marriage. In the Indian Archipelago and elsewhere there are tribes who
permit marriage between parents and their children. The legends of
India and Hindoo theology abound in allusions to incestuous unions,
and a nation's mythology reflects its own customs. According to Strabo
the ancient Irish married their mothers and sisters. Among the
love-stories of the ancient Greeks, as we shall see later on, there
are a surprising number the subject of which is incest, indicating
that that crime was of not infrequent occurrence. But it is especially
by royal personages that incest has been practised. In ancient Persia,
Parthia, Egypt, and other countries the kings married their own
sisters, as did the Incas of Peru, for political reasons, other women
being regarded as too low in rank to become queens; and the same
phenomenon occurs in Hawaii, Siam, Burma, Ceylon, Madagascar, etc. In
some cases incestuous unions for kings and priests are even prescribed
by religion. At the licentious festivals common among tribes in
America, Africa, India, and elsewhere, incest was one of the many
forms of bestiality indulged in; this gives it a wide prevalence.

Much ingenuity has been expended in attempts to account for the origin
of the horror of incest. The main reason why it has so far remained
more or less of a mystery, is that each writer advanced a single
cause, which he pressed into service to explain all the facts, the
result being confusion and contradiction. In my opinion different
agencies must be assumed in different cases. When we find among
Australians, American Indians (and even the Chinese), customs,
enforced by the strongest feelings, forbidding a man to marry a woman
belonging to the same clan or having the same surname, though not at
all related, while allowing a marriage with a sister or other near
blood relative, we are obviously not dealing with a question of incest
at all, but with some of the foolish taboos prevalent among these
races, the origin of which they themselves have forgotten. Mr. Andrew
Lang probably hit the nail on the head when he said (258) in regard to
the rule which compels savages to marry only outside of the tribe,
that these prohibitions "must have arisen in a stage of culture when
ideas of kindred were confused, included kinship with animals and
plants, and were to us almost, if not quite, unintelligible." To speak
of instinct and natural selection teaching the Veddahs to abhor
marriage with an elder sister while making union with a younger sister
_the_ proper marriage (Westermarck, 292) is surely to assume that
instinct and natural selection act in an asinine way, which they never
do--except in asses.

In a second class of cases, where lower races have ideas similar to
ours, I believe that the origin of domestic chastity must be sought in
utilitarian practices. In the earlier stages of marriage, girls are
usually bought of their parents, who profit by the sale or barter. Now
when a man marries a girl to be his wife and maid of all work, he does
not want to take her to his home hampered by a bevy of young children.
Fathers guilty of incestuous practices would therefore be unable to
dispose of their daughters to advantage, and thus a prejudice in favor
of domestic purity would gradually arise which a shrewd medicine man
would some day raise to the rank of a religious or social taboo.

As regards modern society, Darwin, Brinton, Hellwald, Bentham, and
others have advocated or endorsed the view that the reason why such a
horror of incestuous unions prevails, is that novelty is the chief
stimulus to the sexual feelings, and that the familiarity of the same
household breeds indifference. I do not understand how any thinker can
have held such a view for one moment. When Bentham wrote (_Theory of
Legislation_, pt. iii., chap. V.) that "individuals accustomed to see
each other from an age which is capable neither of conceiving desire
nor of inspiring it, will see each other with the same eyes to the end
of life," he showed infinitely less knowledge of human nature than the
author of _Paul and Virginia_, who makes a boy and a girl grow up
almost like brother and sister, and at the proper time fall violently
in love with one another. Who cannot recall in his own experience love
marriages of schoolmates or of cousins living in intimate association
from their childhood? To say that such bringing up together creates
"indifference" is obviously incorrect; to say that it leads to
"aversion" is altogether unwarranted; and to trace to it such a
feeling as our horror at the thought of marrying a sister, or mother,
is simply preposterous.

The real source of the horror of incest in civilized communities was
indicated more than two thousand years ago by Plato. He believed that
the reason why incestuous unions were avoided and abhorred, was to be
found in the constant inculcation, at home and in literature, that

"They are unholy, hated of God, and most infamous....
Everyone from his earliest childhood has heard men
speaking in the same manner about them always and
everywhere, whether in comedy or in the graver language
of tragedy. When the poet introduces on the stage a
Thyestes or an Oedipus, or a Macareus having secret
intercourse with his sister, he represents him, when
found out, ready to kill himself as the penalty of his
sin." (_Laws,_ VIII., 838.)

Long before Plato another great "medicine man," Moses, saw the
necessity of enforcing a "taboo" against incest by the enactment of
special severe laws relating to intercourse between relatives; and
that there was no "instinct" against incest in his time is shown by
the fact that he deemed it necessary to make such circumstantial laws
for his own people, and by his specific testimony that "in all these
things the nations are defiled which I cast out from before you, and
the land is defiled." Regarding his motives in making such laws,
Milman has justly remarked (_H.J_., I., 220),

"The leading principle of these enactments was to
prohibit near marriage between those parties among
whom, by the usage of their society, early and frequent
intimacy was unavoidable and might lead to abuse."

If Moses lived now, he would still be called upon to enact his laws;
for to this day the horror of incest is a sentiment which it is
necessary to keep up and enforce by education, moral precept,
religion, and law. It is no more innate or instinctive than the
sentiment of modesty, the regard for chastity, or the disapproval of
bigamy. Children are not born with it any more than with the feeling
that it is improper to be seen naked. Medical writers bear witness to
the wide prevalence of unnatural practices among children, even in
good families, while in the slums of the large cities, where the
families are herded like swine, there is a horrible indulgence in
every kind of incest by adults as well as children.

Absolute proof that the horror of incest is not innate lies
furthermore in the unquestionable fact that a man can escape the
calamity of falling in love with his sister or daughter only if he
_knows_ the relationship. There are many instances on record--to which
the daily press adds others--of incestuous unions brought about by
ignorance of the consanguinity. Oedipus was not saved by an instinct
from marrying his mother. It was only after the discovery of the
relationship that his mind was filled with unutterable horror, while
his wife and mother committed suicide. This case, though legendary, is
typical--a mirror of actuality--showing how potent _ideas_ are to
alter _emotions_. Yet I am assailed for asserting that the Greeks and
the lower races, whose ideas regarding women, love, polygamy,
chastity, and marriage were so different from ours, also differed from
us in their feelings--the quality of their love. There were numerous
obstacles to overcome before romantic love was able to
emerge--obstacles so serious and diverse that it is a wonder they were
ever conquered. But before considering those obstacles it will be
advisable to explain definitely just what romantic love is and how it
differs from the sensual "love" or lust which, of course, has always
existed among men as among other animals.


WHAT IS ROMANTIC LOVE?

How does it feel to be in love?

When a man loves a girl, he feels such an overwhelming _individual
preference_ for her that though she were a beggar-maid he would scorn
the offer to exchange her for an heiress, a princess, or the goddess
of beauty herself. To him she seems to have a monopoly of all the
feminine charms, and she therefore monopolizes his thoughts and
feelings to the exclusion of all other interests, and he longs not
only for her reciprocal affection but for a monopoly of it. "Does she
love me?" he asks himself a hundred times a day. "Sometimes she seems
to treat me with cold indifference--is that merely the instinctive
assertion of feminine _coyness_, or does she prefer another man?" The
pangs, the agony of _jealousy_ overcome him at this thought. He hopes
one moment, despairs the next, till his _moods_ become so _mixed_ that
he hardly knows whether he is happy or miserable. He, who is usually
so bold and self-confident, is humbled; feels utterly unworthy of her.
In his fancy she soars so far above all other women that calling her
an angel seems not a _hyperbole_, but a compliment to the angel.
Toward such a superior being the only proper attitude is _adoration_.
She is spotless as an angel, and his feelings toward her are as
_pure_, as free from coarse cravings, as if she were a goddess. How
royally _proud_ a man must feel at the thought of being preferred
above all mortals by this divine being! In _personal beauty_ had she
ever a peer? Since Venus left this planet, has such grace been seen?
In face of her, the strongest of all impulses--selfishness--is
annihilated. The lover is no longer "number one" to himself; his own
pleasures and comforts are ignored in the eager desire to please her,
to show her _gallant_ attentions. To save her from disaster or grief
he is ready to _sacrifice_ his life. His cordial _sympathy_ makes him
share all her joys and sorrows, and his _affection_ for her, though he
may have known her only a few days--nay, a few minutes--is as strong
and devoted as that of a mother for the child that is her own flesh
and blood.


INGREDIENTS OF LOVE

No one who has ever been truly in love will deny that this
description, however romantic it may seem in its apparent
exaggeration, is a realistic reflection of his feelings and impulses.
As this brief review shows, Individual Preference, Monopolism,
Coyness, Jealousy, Mixed Moods of Hope and Despair, Hyperbole,
Adoration, Purity, Pride, Admiration of Personal Beauty, Gallantry,
Self-sacrifice, Sympathy, and Affection, are the essential ingredients
in that very composite mental state, which we call romantic love.
Coyness, of course, occurs only in feminine love, and there are other
sexual differences which will be noted later on. Here I wish to point
out that the fourteen ingredients named may be divided into two groups
of seven each--the egoistic and the altruistic. The prevailing notion
that love is a species of selfishness--a "double selfishness," some
wiseacre has called it--is deplorably untrue and shows how little the
psychology of love has heretofore been understood.

It has indeed an egoistic side, including the ingredients I have
called Individual Preference, Monopolism, Jealousy, Coyness,
Hyperbole, Mixed Moods, and Pride; and it is not a mere accident that
these are also the seven features which may be found in sensual love
too; for sensuality and selfishness are twins. But the later and more
essential characteristics of romantic love are the altruistic and
supersensual traits--Sympathy, Affection, Gallantry, Self-sacrifice,
Adoration, Purity, and Admiration of Personal Beauty. The two
divisions overlap in some places, but in the main they are accurate.
It is certain that the first group precedes the second, but the order
in which the ingredients in each group first made their appearance
cannot be indicated, as we know too little of the early history of
man. The arrangement here adopted is therefore more or less arbitrary.
I shall try in this long chapter to answer the question "What is
Romantic Love?" by discussing each of its fourteen ingredients and
tracing its evolution separately.


I. INDIVIDUAL PREFERENCE

If a man pretended to be in love with a girl while confessing that he
liked other girls equally well and would as soon marry one as another,
everybody would laugh at him; for however ignorant many persons may be
as to the subtler traits of sentimental love, it is known universally
that a decided and obstinate preference for one particular individual
is an absolute condition of true love.


ALL GIRLS EQUALLY ATTRACTIVE

As I have just intimated, a modern romantic lover would not exchange a
beloved beggar-maid for an heiress or princess; nor would he give her
for a dozen other girls, however charming, and with permission to
marry them all. Now if romantic love had always existed, the lower
races would have the same violent and exclusive preference for
individuals. But what are the facts? I assert, without fear of
contradiction from any one familiar with anthropological literature,
that a savage or barbarian, be he Australian, African, American, or
Asiatic, would laugh at the idea of refusing to exchange one woman for
a dozen others equally young and attractive. It is not necessary to
descend to the lowest savages to find corroboration of this view. Dr.
Zöller, an unusually intelligent and trustworthy observer, says, in
one of his volumes on German Africa (III., 70-71), that

"on the whole no distinction whatever is made between woman
and woman, between the good-looking and the ugly, the
intelligent and the stupid ones. In all my African
experiences I have never heard of a single young man or
woman who conceived a violent passion for a particular
individual of the opposite sex."

So in other parts of Africa. The natives of Borgou, we are told by R.
and J. Lander, marry with perfect indifference. "A man takes no more
thought about choosing a wife than he does in picking a head of
wheat." Among the Kaffirs, says Fritsch (112) it may occur that a man
has an inclination toward a particular girl; but he adds that "in
such cases the suitor is obliged to pay several oxen more than is
customary, and as he usually takes cattle more to heart than women,
such cases are rare;" and though, when he has several wives, he may
have a favorite, the attachment to her is shallow and transient, for
she is at any moment liable to displacement by a new-comer. Among the
Hottentots at Angra Pequena, when a man covets a girl he goes to her
hut, prepares a cup of coffee and hands it to her without saying a
word. If she drinks half of it, he knows the answer is Yes. "If she
refuses to touch the coffee, the suitor is not specially grieved, but
proceeds to another hut to try his luck again in the same way."
(Ploss, I., 454.)

Of the Fijians Williams (148) says: "Too commonly there is no express
feeling of connubial bliss, men speak of 'our women' and women of 'our
men' without any distinctive preference being apparent." Catlin,
speaking (70-71) of the matrimonial arrangements of the Pawnee
Indians, says that daughters are held as legitimate merchandise, and,
as a rule, accept the situation "with the apathy of the race." A man
who advertised for a wife would hardly be accused of individual
preference or anything else indicating love. From a remark made by
George Gibbs (197) we may infer that the Indians of Oregon and
Washington used to advertise for wives, in their own fashion:

"It is not unusual to find on the small prairies human
figures rudely carved upon trees. These I have
understood to have been cut by young men who were in
want of wives, as a sort of practical intimation that
they were in the market as purchasers."

It might be suggested that such a crude love-letter _to the sex in
general_, as compared with one of our own love-letters to a particular
girl, gives a fair idea of what Indian love is, compared with the love
of civilized men and women.


SHALLOW PREDILECTION

Even where there is an appearance of predilection it is apt to be
shallow and fragile. In the _Jesuit Relations_ (XVIII., 129) we read
how a Huron youth came to one of the missionaries and said he needed a
wife to make his snow-shoes and clothes. "I am in love with a young
girl," said he. "I beg you to call my relatives together and to
consider whether she is suitable for me. If you decide that it is for
my good, I will marry her; if not, I will follow your advice." Other
young Indians used to come to the missionaries to ask them to find
wives for them. I have been struck, in reading Indian love-stories, by
the fact that their gist usually lies not in an exhibition of decided
preference for one man but of violent _aversion_ to another--some old
and disagreeable suitor. It is well known, too, that among Indians, as
among Australians, marriage was sometimes considered an affair of the
tribe rather than of the individual; and we have some curious
illustrations of the way in which various tribes of Indians would try
to crush the germs of individual preference.


REPRESSION OF PREFERENCE

Thus Hunter relates (243) of the Missouri and Arkansas tribes that "It
is considered disgraceful for a young Indian publicly to prefer one
woman to another until he has distinguished himself either in war or
in the chase." Should an Indian pay any girl, though he may have known
her from childhood, special attention before he has won reputation as
a warrior, "he would be sure to suffer the painful mortification of a
rejection; he would become the derision of the warriors and the
contempt of the squaws." In the _Jesuit Relations_ (III., 73) we read
of some of the Canadian Indians that

"they have a very rude way of making love; for the
suitor, as soon as he shows a preference for a girl,
does not dare look at her, nor speak to her, nor stay
near her unless accidentally; and then he must force
himself not to look her in the face, nor to give any
sign of his passion, otherwise he would be the
laughing-stock of all, and his sweetheart would blush
for him."

Not only must he show no preference, but the choice, too, is not left
to him; for the relatives take up the matter and decide whether his
age, skill as a hunter, reputation, and family make him a desirable
match.

In the face of such facts, can we agree with Rousseau that to a savage
one woman is as good as another? The question is very difficult to
answer, because if a man is to marry at all, he must choose a
particular girl, and this choice can be interpreted as preference,
though it may be quite accidental. It is probable, as I have
suggested, that with a people as low as the Australians it would be
difficult to find a man having sufficient predilection for one young
woman to refuse to exchange her for two others. Probably the same is
true of the higher savages and even of the barbarians, as a rule.


UTILITY VERSUS SENTIMENT