reached the age of puberty and its wide prevalence I have already
spoken (293), and reference will be made to it in many of the pages
following this. Here I may, therefore, confine myself to a few details
relating to one country, by way of showing vividly what a deadly
obstacle to courtship, free choice, love, and every tender and
merciful feeling, this cruel custom forms. Among all classes and
castes of Hindoos it has been customary from time immemorial to unite
boys of eight; seven, even six years, to girls still younger. It is
even prescribed by the laws of Manu that a man of twenty-four should
marry a girl of eight. Old Sanscrit verses have been found declaring
that "the mother, father, and oldest brother of a girl shall all be
damned if they allow her to reach maturity without being married;" and
the girl herself, in such a case, is cast out into the lowest class,
too low for anyone to marry her.[131] In some cases marriage means
merely engagement, the bride remaining at home with her parents, who
do not part with her till some years later. Often, however, the
husband takes immediate possession of his child-wife, and the
consequences are horrible. Of 205 cases reported in a Bengal
Medico-Legal Report, 5 ended fatally, 38 were crippled, and the
general effect of such cruelty is pathetically touched on by Mme.
Ryder, who found it impossible to describe the anguish she felt when
she saw these half-developed females, with their expression of
hopeless suffering, their skeleton arms and legs, marching behind
their husbands at the prescribed distance, with never a smile on their
faces.

It would be a mistake to seek a partial excuse for this inhumanity in
the early maturing effects of a warm climate. Mme. Ryder expressly
states that a Hindoo girl of ten, instead of seeming older than a
European girl of that age, resembles our children at five or six
years.


IX. PREVENTION OF FREE CHOICE

One of the unfortunate consequences of Darwin's theory of sexual
selection was that it made him assume that

"in utterly barbarous tribes the women have more power in
choosing, rejecting, and tempting their lovers, or of
afterward exchanging their husbands than might have been
expected. As this is a point of importance,"

he adds, "I will give in detail such evidence as I have been able to
collect;" which he proceeds to do. This "evidence in detail" consists
of three cases in Africa, five among American Indians, and a few
others among Fijians, Kalmucks, Malayans, and the Korarks of
Northeastern Asia. Having referred to these twelve cases, he proceeds
with his argument, utterly ignoring the twelve hundred facts that
oppose his assumption--a proceeding so unlike his usual candid habit
of stating the difficulties confronting him, that this circumstance
alone indicates how shaky he felt in regard to this point. Moreover,
even the few instances he cites fail to bear out his doctrine. It is
incomprehensible to me how he could claim the Kaffirs for his side.
Though these Africans "buy their wives, and girls are severely beaten
by their fathers if they will not accept a chosen husband, it is
nevertheless manifest," Darwin writes, "from many facts given by the
Rev. Mr. Shooter, that they have considerable power of choice. Thus,
very ugly, though rich men, have been known to fail in getting wives."
What Shooter really does (50) is to relate the case of a man so
ill-favored that he had never been able to get a wife till he offered
a big sum to a chief for one of his wards. She refused to go, but "her
arms were bound and she was delivered like a captive. Later she
escaped and claimed the protection of a rival chief."

In other words, this man did _not_ fail to get a wife, and the girl
had _no_ choice. Darwin ignores the rest of Shooter's narrative
(55-58), which shows that while perhaps as a rule moral persuasion is
first tried before physical violence is used, the girl in any case is
obliged to take the man chosen for her. The man is highly praised in
her presence, and if she still remains obstinate she has to
"encounter the wrath of her enraged father ... the furious parent will
hear nothing--go with her husband she must--if she return she shall be
slain." Even if she elopes with another man she "may be forcibly
brought back and sent to the one chosen by her father," and only by
the utmost perseverance can she escape his tyranny. Leslie (whom
Darwin cites) is therefore wrong when he says "it is a mistake to
imagine that a girl is sold by her father in the same manner, and with
the same authority, with which he would dispose of a cow." Those who
knew the Kaffirs most intimately agree with Shooter; the Rev. W.C.
Holden, _e.g._, who writes in his elaborate work, _The Past and Future
of the Kaffir Races_ (189-211) that "it is common for the youngest,
the healthiest, ... the handsomest girls to be sold to old men who
perhaps have already half-a-dozen concubines," and whom the work of
these wives has made rich enough to buy another. A girl is in many
instances "compelled by torture to accept the man she hates. The whole
is as purely a business transaction as the bartering of an ox or
buying a horse." From Dugmore's _Laws and Customs_ he cites the
following: "It sometimes occurs that the entreaties of the daughter
prevail over the avarice of the father; but such cases, the Kaffirs
admit, are rare ... the highest bidder usually gains the prize."
Holden adds that when a girl is obstreperous "they seize her by main
strength, and drag her on the ground, as I have repeatedly seen;" and
in his chapter on polygamy he gives the most harrowing details of the
various cruelties practised on the poor girls who do not wish to be
sold like cows.

That Kaffir girls "have been known to propose to a man," as Darwin
says, does not indicate that they have a choice, any more than the
fact that they "not rarely run away with a favored lover." They might
propose to a hundred men and not have their choice; and as for the
elopement, that in itself shows they have no liberty of choice; for if
they had they would not be obliged to run away. Finally, how could
Darwin reconcile his attitude with the remark of C. Hamilton, cited by
himself, that with the Kaffirs "the chiefs generally have the pick of
the women for many miles round, and are most persevering in
establishing or confirming their privilege"?

I have discussed this case "in detail" in order to show to what
desperate straits a hopeless theory may reduce a great thinker. To
suppose that in this "utterly barbarous tribe" the looks of the race
can be gradually improved by the women accepting only those males who
"excite or charm them most" is simply grotesque. Nor is Darwin much
happier with his other cases. When he wrote that "Among the degraded
Bushmen of Africa" (citing Burchell) "'when a girl has grown up to
womanhood without having been betrothed, _which, however, does not
often happen_, her lover must gain her approbation as well as that of
her parents'"--the words I have italicized ought to have shown him
that this testimony was not for but against his theory. Burchell
himself tells us that Bushman girls "are most commonly betrothed" when
about seven years old, and become mothers at twelve, or even at ten.
To speak of choice in such cases, in any rational sense of the word,
would be farcical even if the girls were free to do as they please,
which they are not. With regard to the Fuegians, Darwin cites King and
Fitzroy to the effect that the Indian obtains the consent of the
parents by doing them some service, and then attempts to carry off the
girl; "but if she is unwilling, she hides herself in the woods until
her admirer is heartily tired of looking for her and gives up his
pursuit; _but this seldom happens_." If this passage means anything,
it means that it is customary for the parents to decide upon who is to
marry their daughters, and that, though she may frustrate the plan,
"this seldom happens." Darwin further informs us that "Hearne
describes how a woman in one of the tribes of Arctic America
repeatedly ran away from her husband and joined her lover." How much
this single instance proves in regard to woman's liberty of choice or
power to aid sexual selection, may be inferred from the statement by
the same "excellent observer" of Indian traits (as Darwin himself
calls him) that "it has ever been the custom among these people to
wrestle for any woman to whom they are attached; and, of course, the
strongest party always carries off the prize"--an assertion borne out
by Richardson (II., 24) and others. But if the strongest man "always
carries off the prize," where does woman's choice come in? Hearne adds
that "this custom prevails throughout all their tribes" (104). And
while the other Indian instances referred to by Darwin indicate that
in case of decided aversion a girl is not absolutely compelled, as
among the Kaffirs, to marry the man selected for her, the custom
nevertheless is for the parents to make the choice, as among most
Indians, North and South.

Whereas Darwin's claim that primitive women have "more power" to
decide their fate as regards marriage "than might have been expected,"
is comparatively modest, Westermarck goes so far as to declare that
these women "are not, _as a rule,_ married without having any voice of
their own in the matter." He feels compelled to this course because he
realizes that his theory that savages originally ornamented themselves
in order to make themselves attractive to the opposite sex
"presupposes of course that savage girls enjoy great liberty in the
choice of a mate." In the compilation of his evidence, unfortunately,
Westermarck is even less critical and reliable than Darwin. In
reference to the Bushmen, he follows Darwin's example in citing
Burchell, but leaves out the words "which, however, does not often
happen," which show that liberty of choice on the woman's part is not
the rule but a rare exception.[132] He also claims the Kaffirs,
though, as I have just shown, such a claim is preposterous. To the
evidence already cited on my side I may add Shooter's remarks (55),
that if there are several lovers the girl is asked to decide for
herself. "This, however, is merely formal," for if she chooses one who
is poor the father recommends to her the one of whom he calculated to
get the most cattle, and that settles the matter. Not even the widows
are allowed the liberty of choice, for, as Shooter further informs us
(86), "when a man dies those wives who have not left the kraal remain
with the eldest son. If they wish to marry again, they must go to one
of their late husband's brothers." Among the African women "who have
no difficulty in getting the husbands whom they may desire,"
Westermarck mentions the Ashantees, on the authority of Beecham (125).
On consulting that page of Beecham I find that he does indeed declare
that "no Ashantee compels his daughter to become the wife of one she
dislikes;" but this is a very different thing from saying that she can
choose the man she may desire. "In the affair of courtship," writes
Beecham, "the wishes of the female are but little consulted; the
business being chiefly settled between the suitor and her parents."
And in the same page he adds that "it is not infrequently the case
that infants are married to each other ... and infants are also
frequently wedded to adults, and even to elderly men," while it is
also customary "to contract for a child before it is born." The same
destructive criticism might be applied to other negroes of Western
Africa whom both Darwin and Westermarck claim on the very dubious
evidence of Reade.[133]

Among other peoples to whom Westermarck looks for support of his
argument are the Fijians, Tongans, and natives of New Britain, Java,
and Sumatra. He claims the Fijians on the peculiar ground (the italics
are mine) that among them "forced marriages are _comparatively_ rare
among the _higher classes_." That may be; but are not the higher
classes a small minority? And do not all classes indulge in the habits
of infant betrothal and of appropriating women by violence without
consulting their wishes? Regarding the Tongans, Westermarck cites the
supposition of Mariner that perhaps two-thirds of the girls had
married with their own free consent; which does not agree with the
observations of Vason (144), who spent four years among them:

"As the choice of a husband is not in the power of the
daughters but he is provided by the discretion of the
parents, an instance of refusal on the part of the daughter
is unknown in Tonga."

He adds that this is not deemed a hardship there, where divorce and
unchastity are so general.

"In the New Britain Group, according to Mr. Romilly, after
the man has worked for years to pay for his wife, and is
finally in a position to take her to his house, she may
refuse to go, and _he cannot claim back from the parents the
large sums he has paid_ them in yams, cocoa-nuts, and
sugar-canes."

This Westermarck guilelessly accepts as proof of the liberty of choice
on the girl's part, missing the very philosophy of the whole matter.
Why are girls not allowed in so many cases to choose their own
husbands? Because their selfish parents want to benefit by selling
them to the highest bidder. In the above case, on the contrary, as the
italics show, the selfish parents benefit by making the girl refuse to
go with that man, keeping her as a bait for another profitable suitor.
In all probability she refuses to go with him at the positive command
of her parents. What the real state of affairs is on the New Britain
Group we may gather from the revelations given in an article on the
marriage customs of the natives by the Rev. B. Danks in the _Journal
of the Anthropological Institute_ (1888, 290-93): In New Britain, he
says, "the marriage tie has much the appearance of a money tie." There
are instances of sham capture, when there is much laughter and fun;

"but in many cases which came under my notice it was not a
matter of form but painful earnestness." "It often happens
that the young woman has a liking for another and none for
the man who has purchased her. She may refuse to go to him.
In that case her friends consider themselves disgraced by
her conduct. She ought, according to their notions, to fall
in with their arrangements with thankfulness and gladness of
heart! They drag her along, beat her, kick and abuse her,
and it has been my misfortune to see girls dragged past my
house, struggling in vain to escape from their fate.
Sometimes they have broken loose and then ran for the only
place of refuge in all the country, the mission-house. I
could render them no assistance until they had bounded up
the steps of my veranda into our bedroom and hidden
themselves under the bed, trembling for their lives. It has
been my privilege and duty to stand between the infuriated
brother or father, who has followed close upon the poor
girl, spear in hand, vowing to put her to death for the
disgrace she has brought upon them." "Liberty of choice,"

indeed!

"In some parts of Java, much deference is paid to the bride's
inclinations," writes Westermarck. But Earl declares (58) that among
the Javanese "courtship is carried on entirely through the medium of
the parents of the young people, and any interference on the part of
the bride would be considered highly indecorous," And Raffles writes
(I., Ch. VII.) that in Java "marriages are invariably contracted, not
by the parties themselves, but by their parents or relations on their
behalf." Betrothals of children, too, are customary. Regarding the
Sumatrans, Westermarck cites Marsden to the effect that among the
Rejang a man may run away with a virgin without violating the laws,
provided he pays her parents for her afterward--which tells us little
about the girl's choice. But why does he ignore Marsden's full
account, a few pages farther on, of Sumatran marriages in general?
There are four kinds, one of which, he says, is a regular treaty
between the parties on a footing of equality; this is called marriage
by _semando_. In the _jujur_ a sum of money is given by one man to
another "as a consideration for the person of his daughter, whose
situation in this case differs not much from that of a slave to the
man she marries, and to his family." In other cases one virgin is
given in exchange for another, and in the marriage by _ambel anak_ the
father of a young man chooses a wife for him. Finally he shows that
the customs of Sumatrans do not favor courtship, the young men and
women being kept carefully apart.

At first sight Westermarck's chapter on the Liberty of Choice seems
rather imposing, as it consists of twenty-seven pages, while Darwin
devoted only two to the subject. In reality, however, Westermarck has
filled only eight pages with what he considers proofs of his theory,
and after scouring the whole world he has not succeeded in bringing
together thirty cases which stand the test of critical examination. I
grant him, though in several instances with suspicions, some American
Indian tribes, natives of Arorae, of the Society Islands, Micronesians
in general (?), Dyaks, Minabassers of Celebes, Burmese, Shans,
Chittagong Hill tribes, and a few other wild tribes of India, possibly
some aboriginal Chinese tribes, Ainos, Kamchadales, Jakuts, Ossetes,
Kalmucks, Aenezes, Touaregs, Shulis, Madis, the ancient Cathaei and
Lydians. My reasons for rejecting his other instances have already
been given in part, and most of the other cases will be disposed of in
the pages relating to Australians, New Zealanders, American Indians,
Hindoos, and Wild Tribes of India. In the chapter on Australia, after
commenting on Westermarck's preposterous attempt to include that race
in his list in the face of all the authorities, I shall explain also
why it is not likely that, as he maintains, still more primitive races
allowed their women greater freedom of choice than modern savages
enjoy in his opinion.

To become convinced that the women of the lower races do not "as a
rule" enjoy the liberty of choice, we need only contrast the meagre
results obtained by Darwin and Westermarck with the vast number of
races and tribes whose customs indicate that women are habitually
given in marriage without being consulted as to their wishes. Among
these customs are infant marriage, infant betrothal, capture,
purchase, marrying whole families of sisters, and the levirate. It is
true that some of these customs do not affect all members of the
tribes involved, but the very fact of their prevalence shows that the
idea of consulting a woman's preference does not enter into the heads
of the men, barring a few cases, where a young woman is so
obstreperous that she may at any rate succeed in escaping a hated
suitor, though even this (which is far from implying liberty of
choice) is altogether exceptional. We must not allow ourselves to be
deceived by appearances, as in the case of the Moors of Senegambia,
concerning whom Letourneau says (138) that a daughter has the right to
refuse the husband selected for her, on condition of remaining
unmarried; if she marries another, she becomes the slave of the man
first selected for her. Of the Christian Abyssinians, Combes and
Tamisier say (II., 106) that the girls are never "seriously"
consulted; and "at Sackatou a girl is usually consulted by her
parents, but only as a matter of form; she never refuses."
(Letourneau, 139.) The same may be said of China and Japan, where the
sacred duty of filial obedience is so ingrained in a girl's soul that
she would never dream of opposing her parents' wishes.

Of the horrible custom of marrying helpless girls before they are
mature in body or mind--often, indeed, before they have reached the
age of puberty--I have already spoken, instancing some Borneans,
Javanese, Egyptians, American Indians, Australians, Hottentots,
natives of Old Calabar, Hindoos; to which may be added some Arabs and
Persians, Syrians, Kurds, Turks, natives of Celebes, Madagascar,
Bechuanas, Basutos, and many other Africans, etc. As for those who
practise infant betrothal, Westermarck's own list includes Eskimos,
Chippewayans, Botocudos, Patagonians, Shoshones, Arawaks, Macusis,
Iroquois; Gold Coast negroes, Bushmen, Marutse, Bechuanas, Ashantees,
Australians; tribes of New Guinea, New Zealand, Tonga, Tahiti, and
many other islands of the South Sea; some tribes of the Malay
Archipelago; tribes of British India; all peoples of the Turkish
stock; Samoyedes and Tuski; Jews of Western Russia.

As regards capture, good authorities now hold that it was not a
universal practice in all parts of the world; yet it prevailed very
widely--for instance, among Aleutian Islanders, Ahts, Bonaks, Macas
Indians of Ecuador, all Carib tribes, some Brazilians, Mosquito
Indians, Fuegians; Bushmen, Bechuanas, Wakamba, and other Africans;
Australians, Tasmanians, Maoris, Fijians, natives of Samoa, Tukopia,
New Guinea, Indian Archipelago; wild tribes of India; Arabs, Tartars,
and other Central Asians; some Russians, Laplanders, Esthonians,
Finns, Greeks, Romans, Teutons, Scandinavians, Slavonians, etc. "The
list," says Westermarck (387), "might easily be enlarged." As for the
list of peoples among whom brides were sold--usually to the highest
bidder and without reference to feminine choice--that would be much
larger still. Eight pages are devoted to it and two only to the
exceptions, by Westermarck himself, who concludes (390) that "Purchase
of wives may, with even more reason than marriage by capture, be said
to form a general stage in the social history of mankind," How nearly
universal the practice is, or has been, may be inferred from the fact
that Sutherland (I., 208), after examining sixty-one negro races,
found fifty-seven recorded as purchasing their wives.

Widely prevalent also was the custom of allowing a man who had married
a girl to claim all her sisters as soon as they reached a marriageable
age. Whatever their own preferences might be, they had no choice.
Among the Indian tribes alone, Morgan mentions forty who indulged in
this custom. As for the levirate, that is another very wide-spread
custom which shows an utter disregard of woman's preference and
choice. It might be supposed that widows, at any rate, ought always to
be allowed, in case they wished to marry again, to follow their own
choice. But they are, like the daughters, regarded as personal
property, and are inherited by their late husband's brother or some
other male relative, who marries them himself or disposes of them as
he pleases. Whether the acceptance of a brother's widow or widows is a
right or a duty (prescribed by the desire for sons and
ancestor-worship) is immaterial for our purpose; for in either case
the widow must go as custom commands, and has no liberty of choice.
The levirate prevails, or has prevailed, among a great number of
races, from the lowest to those considerably advanced.

The list includes Australians, many Indians, from the low Brazilians
to the advanced Iroquois, Aleuts, Eskimos, Fijians, Samoans, Caroline
Islanders, natives of New Caledonia, New Guinea, New Britain, New
Hebrides, the Malay Archipelago, Wild tribes of India, Kamchadales,
Ostiaks, Kirghiz, Mongolians in general, Arabs, Egyptians, Hebrews,
natives of Madagascar, many Kaffir tribes, negroes of the Gold Coast,
Senegambians, Bechuanas, and a great many other Africans, etc.

Twelve pages of Westermarck's chapter on the Liberty of Choice are
devoted to peoples among whom not even a son is, or was, allowed to
marry without the father's consent. The list includes Mexicans,
Guatemalans, Nicaraguans, Chinese, Japanese, Hebrews, Egyptians,
Romans, Greeks, Hindoos, Germans, Celts, Russians, etc. In all these
cases the daughters, of course, enjoyed still less liberty of
disposing of their hand. In short, the argument against Darwin and
Westermarck is simply overwhelming--all the more when we look at the
numbers of the races who do not permit women their choice--the
400,000,000 Chinese, 300,000,000 Hindoos, the Mohammedan millions, the
whole continent of Australia, nearly all of aboriginal America and
Africa, etc.

A drowning man clings to a straw. "In Indian and Scandinavian tales,"
Westermarck informs us,

"virgins are represented as having the power to dispose of
themselves freely. Thus it was agreed that Skade should
choose for herself a husband among the Asas, but she was to
make her choice by the feet, the only part of their persons
she was allowed to see."

Obviously the author of this tale from the _Younger Edda_ had more
sense of humor than some modern anthropologists have. No less
topsy-turvy is the Hindoo _Svayamvara_ or "Maiden's Choice," to which
Westermarck alludes (162). This is an incident often referred to in
epics and dramas. "It was a custom in royal circles," writes
Samuelson, "when a princess became marriageable, for a tournament to
be held, and the _victor was chosen_ by the princess as her husband."
If the sarcasm of the expression "Maiden's Choice" is unconscious, it
is all the more amusing. How far Hindoo women of all classes were and
are from enjoying the liberty of choice, we shall see in the chapter
on India.


X. SEPARATION OF THE SEXES

I have given so much space to the question of choice because it is one
of exceptional importance. Where there is no choice there can he no
real courtship, and where there is no courtship there is no
opportunity for the development of those imaginative and sentimental
traits which constitute the essence of romantic love. It by no means
follows, however, that where choice is permitted to girls, as with the
Dyaks, real love follows as a matter of course; for it may be
prevented, as it is in the case of these Dyaks, by their sensuality,
coarseness, and general emotional shallowness and sexual frivolity.
The prevention of choice is only one of the obstacles to love, but it
is one of the most formidable, because it has acted at all times and
among races of all degrees of barbarism or civilization up to modern
Europe of two or three centuries ago. And to the frustration and free
choice was added another obstacle--the separation of the sexes. Some
Indians and even Australians tried to keep the sexes apart, though
usually without much success. In their cause no harm was done to the
cause of love, because these races are constitutionally incapable of
romantic love; but in higher stages of civilization the strict
seclusion of the women was a fatal obstacle to love. Wherever
separation of the sexes and chaperonage prevails, the only kind of
amorous infatuation possible, as a rule, is sensual passion, fiery but
transient. To love a girl sentimentally--that is, for her mental
beauty and moral refinement as well as her bodily charms--a man must
get acquainted with her, be allowed to meet her frequently. This was
not possible until within a few generations. The separation of the
sexes, by preventing all possibility of refined and legitimate
courtship, favored illicit amours on one side, loveless marriages on
the other, thus proving one of the most formidable obstacles to love.
"It is not enough to give time for mutual knowledge and affection
after marriage," wrote the late Henry Drummond.

"Nature must deepen the result by extending it to the time
before marriage.... Courtship, with its vivid perceptions
and quickened emotions, is a great opportunity for
evolution; and to institute and lengthen reasonably a period
so rich in impression is one of its latest and brightest
efforts."


XI. SEXUAL TABOOS

If a law were passed compelling every man living in Rochester, N.Y.,
who wanted a wife to get her outside of that city, in Buffalo,
Syracuse, Utica, or some other place, it would be considered an
outrageous restriction of free choice, calculated to diminish greatly
the chances of love-matches based on intimate acquaintance. If such a
law had existed for generations and centuries, sanctioned by religion
and custom and so strictly enforced that violation of it entailed the
danger of capital punishment, a sentiment would have grown up in
course of time making the inhabitants of Rochester look upon marriage
within the city with the same horror as they do upon incestuous
unions. This is not an absurd or fanciful supposition. Such laws and
customs actually did prevail in this very section of New York State.
The Seneca tribe of the Iroquois Indians was divided into two
phratries, each of which was again subdivided into four clans, named
after their totems or animals; the Bear, Wolf, Beaver, and Turtle
clans belonging to one phratry, while the other included the Deer,
Snipe, Heron, and Hawk clans. Morgan's researches show that originally
an Indian belonging to one phratry could marry a woman belonging to
the other only. Subsequently the line was drawn less strictly, but
still no Indian was allowed to marry a squaw of his own clan, though
there might be no blood, relationship between them. If an Algonkin
married a girl of his clan he committed a crime for which his nearest
relatives might put him to death. This law has prevailed widely among
the wild races in various parts of the globe. McLennan, who first
called attention to its prevalence and importance, called it exogamy,
or marrying-out.

What led to this custom is not known definitely; nearly every
anthropologist has his own theory on the subject.[134] Luckily we are
not concerned here with the origin and causes of exogamy, but only
with the fact of its existence. It occurs not only among barbarians of
a comparatively high type, like the North American Indians, but among
the lowest Australian savages, who put to death any man who marries or
assaults a woman of the same clan as his. In some Polynesian islands,
among the wild tribes of India as well as the Hindoos, in various
parts of Africa, the law of exogamy prevails, and wherever it exists
it forms a serious obstacle to free choice--_i.e._, free love, in the
proper sense of the expression. As Herbert Spencer remarks,

"The exogamous custom as at first established [being
connected with capture] implies an extremely abject
condition of women; a brutal treatment of them; an entire
absence of the higher sentiments that accompany the
relations of the sexes."

While exogamy thwarts love by minimizing the chances of intimate
acquaintance and genuine courtship, there is another form of sexual
taboo which conversely and designedly frustrates the tendency of
intimate acquaintance to ripen into passion and love. Though we do not
know just how the horror of incest arose, there can be no doubt that
there must be a natural basis for so strong and widely prevalent a
sentiment.
In so far as this horror of incest prevents the marriage of near
relatives, it is an obstacle to love that must be commended as
doubtless useful to the race. But when we find that in China there are
only 530 surnames, and that a man who marries a woman of the same
surname is punished for the crime of "incest"; that the Church under
Theodosius the Great forbade the union of relatives to the seventh
degree; that in many countries a man could not wed a relative by
marriage; that in Rome union with an adopted brother or sister was as
rigidly forbidden as with a real sister or brother;--when we come
across such facts we see that artificial and foolish notions regarding
incest must be added to the long list of agencies that have retarded
the growth of free choice and true love. And it should be noted that
in all these cases of exogamy and taboos of artificial incest, the
man's liberty of choice was restricted as well as the woman's. Thus
our cumulative evidence against the Darwin-Westermarck theory of free
choice is constantly gaining in weight.


XII. RACE AVERSION

Max O'Rell once wrote that he did not understand how there could be
such a thing as mulattoes in the world. It is certainly safe to say
that there are none such as a consequence of love. The features,
color, odor, tastes, and habits of one race have ever aroused the
antagonism of other races and prevented the growth of that sympathy
which is essential to love. In a man strong passion may overcome the
aversion to a more or less enduring union with a woman of a lower
race, just as extreme hunger may urge him to eat what his palate would
normally reject; but women seem to be proof against this temptation to
stoop: in mixed marriages it is nearly always the man who belongs to
the superior race. At first thought it might seem as if this racial
aversion could not do much to retard the growth of free choice and
love, since in early times, when facilities for travel were poor, the
races could not mix anyway as they do now. But this would be a great
error. Migrations, wars, slave-making and plundering expeditions have
at all times commingled the peoples of the earth, yet nothing is more
remarkable than the stubborn tenacity of racial prejudices.

"Count de Gobineau remarks that not even a common
religion and country can extinguish the hereditary
aversion of the Arab to the Turk, of the Kurd to the
Nestorian of Syria, of the Magyar to the Slav. Indeed,
so strong, among the Arabs, is the instinct of ethnical
isolation that, as a traveller relates, at Djidda,
where sexual morality is held in little respect, a
Bedouin woman may yield herself for money to a Turk or
European, but would think herself forever dishonored if
she were joined to him in lawful wedlock."[135]

We might suppose that the coarser races would be less capable of such
aversions than the half-civilized, but the contrary is true. In
Australia nearly every tribe is the deadly enemy of every other tribe,
and according to Chapman a Bushman woman would consider herself
degraded by intercourse with anyone not belonging to her tribe.
"Savage nations," says Humboldt, in speaking of the Chaymas of New
Andalusia,

"are subdivided into an infinity of tribes, which, bearing a
cruel hatred toward each other, form no intermarriages, even
when their languages spring from the same root, and when
only a small arm of a river, or a group of hills, separates
their habitation."

Here there is no chance for Leanders to swim across the waters to meet
their Heros. Poor Cupid! Everybody and everything seems to be against
him.


XIII. MULTIPLICITY OF LANGUAGES

Apart from racial prejudice there is the further obstacle of language.
A man cannot court a girl and learn to love her sentimentally unless
he can speak to her. Now Africa alone has 438 languages, besides a
number of dialects. Dr. Finsch says (38) that on the Melanasian island
of Tanua nearly every village has a dialect of its own which those of
the next village cannot understand; and this is a typical case.
American Indians usually communicate with each other by means of a
sign language. India has countless languages and dialects, and in
Canton the Chinamen from various parts of the Empire have to converse
with each other in "pidjin English." The Australians, who are perhaps
all of one race, nevertheless have no end of different names for even
so common a thing as the omnipresent kangaroo.[136] In Brazil, says
von Martins, travellers often come across a language

"used only by a few individuals connected with each other by
relationship, who are thus completely isolated, and can hold
no communication with any of their other countrymen far or
near";

and how great was the confusion of tongues among other South American
Indians may be inferred from the statement (Waitz, III., 355) that the
Caribs were so much in the habit of capturing wives from different
tribes and peoples that the men and women of each tribe never spoke
the same language. Under such circumstances a wife might become
attached to her husband as a captured, mute, and maltreated dog might
to his master; but romantic love is as utterly out of the question as
it is between master and dog.


XIV. SOCIAL BARRIERS

Not content with hating one another cordially, the different races,
peoples, and tribes have taken special pains at all times and
everywhere to erect within their own limits a number of barriers
against free choice and love. In France, Germany, and other European
countries there is still a strong prejudice against marriages between
nobles and commoners, though the commoner may be much nobler than the
aristocrat in everything except the genealogical table. Civilization
is gradually destroying this obstacle to love, which has done so much
to promote immorality and has led to so many tragedies involving a
number of kings and princes, victims to the illusion that accident of
birth is nobler than brains or refinement. But among the ancient
civilized and mediaeval peoples the social barrier was as rigidly held
up as the racial prejudices. Milman remarks, in his _History of Latin
Christianity_ (I., 499, 528), that among the ancient Romans

"there could be no marriages with slaves [though
slaves, being captives, were not necessarily of a lower
rank, but might be princesses].... The Emperor
Valentinian further defined low and abject persons who
might not aspire to lawful union with
freemen--actresses, daughters of actresses,
tavern-keepers, the daughters of tavern-keepers,
procurers (leones) or gladiators, or those who had kept
a public shop.... Till Roman citizenship had been
imparted to the whole Roman Empire, it would not
acknowledge marriage with barbarians to be more than a
concubinage. Cleopatra was called only in scorn the
wife of Antony. Berenice might not presume to be more
than the mistress of Titus. The Christian world closed
marriages again within still more and more jealous
limits. Interdictory statutes declared marriages with
Jews and heathens not only invalid but adulterous."

"The Salic and Ripuarian law condemned the freeman
guilty of this degradation [marrying a slave] to
slavery; where the union was between a free woman and a
slave, that of the Lombards and of the Burgundians,
condemned both parties to death; but if her parents
refused to put her to death, she became a slave of the
crown. The Ripuarian law condemned the female
delinquent to slavery; but the woman had the
alternative of killing her base-born husband. She was
offered a distaff and a sword. If she chose the distaff
she became a slave; if a sword she struck it to the
heart of her paramour and emancipated herself from her
degrading connection."

In mediaeval Germany the line was so sharply drawn between the social
classes that for a long time slavery, or even death, was the
punishment for a mixed marriage. In course of time this barbarous
custom fell into disuse, but free choice continued to be discouraged
by the law that if a man married a woman beneath him in rank, neither
she nor her children were raised to his rank, and in case of his death
she had no claim to the usual provisions legally made for widows.

In India the caste prejudices are so strong and varied that they form
almost insuperable barriers to free love-choice. "We find castes
within castes," says Sir Monier Williams (153), "so that even the
Brahmans are broken up and divided into numerous races, which again
are subdivided into numerous tribes, families, or sub-castes," and all
these, he adds, "do not intermarry." In Japan, until three decades
ago, social barriers as to marriage were rigidly enforced, and in
China, to this day, slaves, boatmen, actors, policemen, can marry
women of their own class only. Nor are these difficulties eliminated
at once as we descend the ladder of civilization. In Brazil, Central
America, in the Polynesian and other Pacific Islands and elsewhere we
find such barriers to free marriage, and among the Malayan Hovas of
Madagascar even the slaves are subdivided into three classes, which do
not intermarry! It is only among those peoples which are too low to be
able to experience sentimental love anyway that this formidable
obstacle of class prejudice vanishes, while race and tribal hatred
remain in full force.


XV. RELIGIOUS PREJUDICE

Among peoples sufficiently advanced to have dogmas, religion has
always proved a strong barrier in the way of the free bestowal of
affection. Not only have Mohammedans and Christians hated and shunned
each other, but the different Christian sects for a long time detested
and tabooed one another as cordially as they did the heathen and the
Jews. Tertullian denounced the marriage of a Christian with a heathen
as fornication, and Westermarck cites Jacobs's remark that

"the folk-lore of Europe regarded the Jews as something
infra-human, and it would require an almost impossible
amount of large toleration for a Christian maiden of
the Middle Ages to regard union with a Jew as anything
other than unnatural."

There are various minor obstacles that might be dwelt on, but enough
has been said to make it clear why romantic love was the last of the
sentiments to be developed.

Having considered the divers ingredients and different kinds of love
and distinguished romantic love from sensual passion and
sentimentality, as well as from conjugal affection, we are now in a
position to examine intelligently and in some detail a number of races
in all parts of the world, by way of further corroborating and
emphasizing the conclusions reached.


SPECIMENS OF AFRICAN LOVE

What is the lowest of all human races? The Bushmen of South Africa,
say some ethnologists, while others urge the claims of the natives of
Australia, the Veddahs of Ceylon, or the Fuegians of South America. As
culture cannot be measured with a yardstick, it is impossible to
arrive at any definite conclusion. For literary and geographic
reasons, which will become apparent later on, I prefer to begin the
search for traces of romantic love with the Bushmen of South Africa.
And here we are at once confronted by the startling assertion of the
explorer James Chapman, that there is "love in all their marriages."
If this is true--if there is love in all the marriages of what is one
of the lowest human races--then I have been pursuing a
will-o'-the-wisp in the preceding pages of this book, and it will be a
waste of ink and paper to write another line. But _is_ it true? Let us