We have seen that an investigation of the instincts and habits of creatures lower in the scale is necessary to an understanding of the relations which must have existed between the sexes among primitive races.
Among birds and mammals, the greater differentiation of the nervous system and the higher pitch of the whole life is associated with the development of what pedantry alone can refuse to call love. Not only is there often partnership, co-operation, and evident affection beyond the limits of the breeding period, but there are abundant illustrations of a high standard of morality, of all the familiar sexual crimes of mankind, and every shade of flirtation, courtship, jealousy, and the like. There is no doubt that in the two highest classes of animals at least, the physical sympathies of sexuality have been enhanced by the emotional, if not also intellectual, sympathies of love.52
It has been observed that among the orders of life below mankind, except among polygamous species, the female chooses the individual which is best endowed—the one whose beauty appeals to her æsthetic taste, or which through his stronger development is best fitted to assist her in the office of reproduction.
Among the more intelligent species of birds, genuine affection has been observed, strict monogamy and life-long unions having been established between mated pairs. Among others, although the conjugal bond is not life-lasting, so long as the mother-bird is caring for her brood, constancy to one another is the undeviating rule. We are assured that with the female Illinois parrot, “widowhood and death are synonymous,” and that “when a wheatear dies, his companion survives him scarcely a month.”53
All eagles are monogamous. Golden eagles live in couples and remain attached to one another for a hundred or more years, without even changing their domicile.54 The conjugal unions of bald-headed eagles, although they are under no “legal restrictions,” last until the death of one of the partners. Among birds, although incubation rests with the mother, the father usually assists his companion. He not only takes her place if she desires to leave the nest for a moment, but also provides her with food.55 So perfect is the bird family life that Brehm declares that “real genuine marriage can only be found among birds.”56 Upon this subject we are informed that “examples of wandering fancy are for the most part rare among the birds, the majority of whom are monogamous, and even superior to most men in the matter of conjugal fidelity.”57
Concerning mammals, it is observed that although polygamy is frequent “it is far from being the conjugal regime universally adopted; monogamy is common, and is sometimes accompanied by so much devotion that it would serve as an example to human monogamists.”58 Bears, weasels, whales, and many other animals choose their mates and go in pairs. Several kinds of monkeys are strictly monogamous.59 Chimpanzees are sometimes polygamous and sometimes monogamous. It is stated what when a strong male has succeeded in driving away the other males of the group, the females, although in a position to subjugate him, are nevertheless kind and even tender toward him. They are doubtless too much occupied with their legitimate functions to rebel, but so soon as the young of the horde are grown, the usurper is driven from their midst. A little observation will show us that even among polygamous species, it is affection rather than strength which keeps the members of a group together. Although among most of the lower orders the female exercises a choice in the selection of her mate, still among animals of polygamous habits the female is said to manifest genuine affection for the father of her offspring.
The polygamic regime of animals is far from extinguishing affectionate sentiments in the females towards their husband and master. The females of the guanaco lamas, for example, are very faithful to their male. If the latter happens to be wounded or killed, instead of running away, they hasten to his side, bleating and offering themselves to the shots of the hunter in order to shield him, while, on the contrary, if a female is killed, the male makes off with all his troop; he only thinks of himself.60
Although among animals a stray male will sometimes drive away or kill all the other males of the group, and himself become the common mate of all the females, they peaceably accepting the situation, so far as I can find, female insects, birds, and mammals, although they generally control the sexual relation, have never been given to polyandry; the reason for this can be explained only through a careful analysis of the fundamental bias of the female constitution. We must bear in mind that although among the orders of life below mankind the male is ready to pair with any female, she, on the other hand, when free to choose, can be induced to accept the attentions only of the one which by his courage, bravery, or personal beauty has won her favours. We have noted the fact that in the earliest ages of the human race this choice was exercised by women, but we have no reason to believe that anything resembling “promiscuity” ever prevailed among primitive races. It is true that under earlier conditions the institution of marriage as it exists at the present time had not appeared; yet the law which had been impressed on the higher organism of the female, until overcome by males through means which will be treated of later in these pages, had sufficed to keep the animal instincts under subjection, or at least on a level with those of the lower species which structurally had been left behind.
From facts to be gathered, not alone from among the lower orders, but from observations among human beings as well, it would seem that any degree of affection for more than one individual at the same time is contrary to the female nature. A female insect, or bird, which feels a preference for a particular mate will pair with no other, hence, among orders where the female instincts control the relations between the sexes, “lawlessness” or promiscuity would not prevail.
A little observation and reflection, I think, will show us that the affection of the female is a character differing widely from the sex instinct of the male—that, while selfishness constitutes the underlying principle of the latter, the former involves not only care for the young and the unity of the group, but, when human conditions are reached, it involves also country, civilization, and the ultimate brotherhood of mankind.
If we bear in mind the conditions surrounding the orders of life from which the human race has sprung, and if we remember the nature of the characters inherited by mankind from these orders, together with the important fact that the lower instincts among them were under subjection to the higher faculties, we shall be enabled to see that the more degraded of the extant savage tribes cannot represent the primitive race as it emerged from the animal type.
Mr. Tylor must have been mindful of the altruistic character of early races when he remarked: “Without some control beyond the mere right of the stronger, the tribe would break up in a week, whereas in fact savage tribes last on for ages.”61
Concerning the relations of the sexes under unorganized society nothing may be known from actual observation, as, at the present time, no tribe or race is to be found under absolutely primitive conditions. Perhaps from no extant people is there so little information in reference to the earliest human state to be gleaned as from the lowest existing races. Among many of these tribes the rules which it has been necessary to establish for the regulation of the relations between the sexes are rigorously enforced, while among others a laxity prevails which would seem to indicate an almost total lack of those higher instincts which are observed among nearly all the lower orders of beings. The following fact, however, in regard to these races, has been observed: the more primitive they are, or the less they have come in contact with civilization, the more strictly do they observe the rules which have been established for the governance of the sexual relation. On this subject Mr. Parkyns says:
I don’t believe that there exists a nation, however high in the scale of civilization, that can pick a hole in the character of the lowest, without being in danger of finding one nearly, if not quite, as big in its own. The vices of the savage are, like his person, very much exposed to view. Our own nakedness is not less unseemly than his, but is carefully concealed under the convenient cloak which we call “civilization,” but which I fear he, in his ignorance, poor fellow, might, on some occasions, be led to look upon as hypocrisy.62
In the West Indian Islands where Columbus landed, lived tribes which are represented as having been “the most gentle and benevolent of the human race.” Regarding these Mr. Tylor remarks:
Schomburgk, the traveller, who knew the warlike Caribs well in their home life, draws a paradise-like picture of their ways, where they have not been corrupted by the vices of the white men; he saw among them peace and cheerfulness and simple family affection, unvarnished friendship, and gratitude not less true for not being spoken in sounding words; the civilized world, he says, has not to teach them morality, for, though they do not talk about it, they live in it.63
The men who with Captain Cook first visited the Sandwich Islands reported the natives as modest and chaste in their habits; but, later, after coming in contact with the influences of civilization, modesty and chastity among them were virtues almost entirely unknown. The same is true of the people of Patagonia.
Barrow says of the Kaffir woman that she is “chaste and extremely modest,” and we are told that among this people banishment is the penalty for incontinence for both women and men. Of the reports which from time to time come from the aborigines of certain portions of Australia relative to the lewdness of the women, Mr. Brough Smyth says that they are irreconcilable with the severe penalties imposed for unchastity in former times amongst the natives of Victoria.64 This writer is of the opinion that the lewd practices reported are modern, and that they are the result of communication with the poor whites. We are assured that the women of Nubia are virtuous, that public women are not tolerated in the country.65 Also that in Fiji adultery is one of the crimes generally punished with death.66
Marsden observes that in Sumatra “the old women are very attentive to the conduct of the girls, and the male relations are highly jealous of any insults that may be shown them.”67 The same writer says that prostitution for hire is unknown in the country; adultery is punishable by fine, but the crime is rare. Regarding the conduct of men toward women he remarks: “They preserve a degree of delicacy and respect toward the sex which might justify their retorting on many of the polished nations of antiquity the epithet of barbarism.”68
Crantz says that among the Greenlanders single persons have rarely any connection.69 According to the testimony of St. Boniface, the punishment for unchastity among the early Germans was death to the man, while the woman was driven naked through the streets.70
Among the Central Asian Turks we are assured that a fallen girl is unknown. Mr. Westermarck, quoting from Klemm, states that although among the Kalmucks and gypsies the girls take pride in having gallant affairs, they are “dishonoured if they have children previous to marriage.” The same writer quotes also from Winwood Reade, who says that among the Equatorial Africans “a girl who disgraces her family by wantonness is banished from her clan; and, in cases of seduction, the man is severely flogged.”71
Mr. Westermarck adduces much testimony going to show that the “lawlessness” of lower races is due not to inherent vicious tendencies, but to the evil associations of civilized peoples. He is of the opinion that the licentiousness among many of the South Sea Islanders owes its origin to the intercourse of the natives with Europeans; and of the tribes who once inhabited the Adelaide Plains, quoting from Mr. Edward Stephens who went to Australia half a century ago, he says:
Those who speak of the natives as a naturally degraded race, either do not speak from experience, or they judge them by what they have become when the abuse of intoxicants and contact with the most wicked of the white race have begun their deadly work. As a rule, to which there are no exceptions, if a tribe of blacks is found away from the white settlement, the more vicious of the white men are most anxious to make the acquaintance of the natives, and that, too, solely for purposes of immorality.... I saw the natives and was much with them before those deadly immoralities were well known ... and I say it fearlessly, that nearly all their evils they owed to the white man’s immorality and to the white man’s drink.72
We are informed that wherever certain vices prevail among the lower races in America, Africa, or Asia, they have been carried to them by the whites. Were it necessary to do so, scores of examples could be adduced going to show that among primitive tribes, until corrupted by our later civilization, chastity is the universal rule.
Although many of the writers who have dealt with this subject have discoursed freely on the laxity of the conjugal bond among so-called primitive tribes, and the lawlessness which characterizes lower races in their sexual relations, they have failed to account satisfactorily for some of the customs and usages which appear connected with many of the early forms of marriage,—forms which would seem to indicate a degree of modest reserve on the part of these peoples which fail to comport with the popular theory concerning their lawlessness and innate indecency.
We have seen that although among the orders of life below mankind there are no arbitrary laws governing the relations of the sexes, there nevertheless exists a system of natural marriage which in no wise resembles promiscuity. Now it was under this natural system controlled by the higher instincts developed within the female organism, that the extreme “lawlessness” indicated by the savants prevailed—lawlessness seeming to denote that state of female independence in which women were personally free, or in which they were not held in actual bondage as captive wives. In the reasoning of many of our guides in this matter it is implied, if not actually asserted, that the freedom of women which is now known to have prevailed in earlier times denotes a state of laxity in morals, a condition of society directly contrary to the facts which they themselves have recorded relative to existing tribes under less advanced conditions of life, and which would seem to argue for these peoples a sense of decency which among the masses in civilized countries is almost entirely wanting. At the dawn of human existence, had no higher instincts been developed than passion, or the desire for selfish gratification, whence could have arisen this reserve, and these ideas of chastity and modesty which are observed among many of the less developed peoples, notably those which have not come in contact with the higher races? Upon this subject Mr. Tylor remarks: “Yet even among the rudest clans of men, unless depraved by vice or misery and falling to pieces, a standard of family morals is known and lived by.”73
Observing the habits of the lower animals, Mr. Darwin cannot believe that promiscuous intercourse prevailed among the early races of mankind.
At a very early period, before man attained to his present rank in the scale, many of his conditions would be different from what now obtains amongst savages. Judging from the analogy of the lower animals he would then either live with a single female, or be a polygamist.74
We have much evidence going to prove that the marriage contracts among the lower races are well kept. According to Cook, in Tahiti, although nothing more is necessary for the consummation of a valid marriage than an agreement between the parties, these contracts are usually well kept. In case of the disaffection of either party, a divorce is easily obtained. We are assured, however, that although the Tahiti women have the undisputed right to dissolve the marriage contract at will, they are nevertheless “as faithful to their husbands as in any part of the world.” The Veddahs, who are ranked among the most primitive races, are a strictly monogamous people.75 Of the extreme modesty of married pairs among many of the lower races we have much proof. Among the Fijians, husbands and wives do not usually spend the night together, except as it were by stealth, and it is said to be contrary to their ideas of delicacy that they should sleep under the same roof.76 Wholly from a sense of reserve or modesty, the Arab wife remains for months, possibly for a whole year, with her mother before taking up her abode in her husband’s tent. The extreme delicacy of the customs regulating the behaviour of married pairs in ancient Sparta are well understood. According to Xenophon and Strabo, it was the custom, not only among the Spartans but among the Cretans also, for married pairs to meet clandestinely. The same custom prevailed in ancient Lycia. Lafitau says that among the North American Indians the husband visits his wife only by stealth.77
It is stated by trustworthy authorities that among various tribes, during the period of gestation and lactation, the person of the wife is sacred; that the rule of chastity, or continence, between married pairs, during this season, is absolutely inviolate. In Fiji, women furnish natural nourishment to their children for three or four years, during which time their persons are respected.
The relatives of the women take it as a public insult if any child should be born before the customary three or four years have elapsed, and they consider themselves in duty bound to avenge it in an equally public manner.
Mr. Seeman says:
I heard of a white man, who, being asked how many brothers and sisters he had, frankly replied, “ten.” “But that could not be,” was the rejoinder of the natives, “one mother could scarcely have so many children.”
When told that these children were born at annual intervals, and that such occurrences were common in Europe, they were very much shocked, and thought it explained sufficiently why so many white people were “mere shrimps.” After childbirth, among the Fijians, husband and wife separate and live apart for three and even four years, “so that no other baby may interfere with the time considered necessary for suckling the children, in order to make them strong and healthy.”78
Through such wise regulations as these, governing the sexual relations, the drain on the vital forces observed among the women of civilized countries is avoided, and it was doubtless to these rules and others of a similar character that women, throughout untold ages of human existence, were enabled to maintain a position of independence and supremacy. We are informed that among the Fijians the birth of a child is cause for a perfect jubilee; that parental and filial affection is among the manifest virtues of this people. After referring to the truthfulness and honesty of the Dyaks of Borneo, Mr. Wallace says that “in several matters of morality they rank above most uncivilized, and even above many civilized, nations. They are temperate in food and drink, and the gross sensuality of the Chinese and Malays is unknown among them.”79 Although the usual checks to population are absent among the Dyaks—namely, starvation, disease, war, infanticide, and vice,—still the women in the Dyak tribe rarely had more than three or four children. In a village in which there were one hundred and fifty families, in only one of them were there six children, and only six with five children.
In whatever direction we turn, evidences are abundant going to prove that under simpler and more natural conditions, and before corrupted by our later civilization, mankind were governed largely by the instincts developed within the female constitution, and that long after her supremacy over the male was lost, the effects of these purer conditions were manifest in the customs, forms, and usages of the people.
From the evidence at hand it seems more than likely that many of the extant tribes have at some remote period been civilized, and that through some natural catastrophe, the unfavourable conditions of climate and soil, or some other equally disadvantageous cause, they have again sunk to a low plane of existence from which they have been unable to rise. From available facts one is almost led to believe that at a period in the remote past, and while living under purer conditions, a high stage of civilization was reached, a civilization which in many respects was equal if not superior to that of the present. Be this as it may, whenever the environment of a people is such that after having reached a certain stage it is unable to advance, it does not remain stationary, but on the contrary follows a line of retrogression; or, whenever the conditions of a race or tribe are such that the higher faculties which tend towards progress lie dormant, the lower forces which incline toward retrogression and which are peculiarly active in low organisms still continue in operation.
Although the social arrangement of the native Australians seems to be founded on classes based on sex—the earliest form of society—still we find them practising polygamy and monogamy side by side, at the same time securing their wives by capture in exactly the same fashion as did the early Greeks and Romans. It is apparent, therefore, that although this people have not been able to advance in the arts of life, as far as the relations of the sexes are concerned they have taken about the same course as have all the other tribes and races in which the supremacy of the male has been gained. For unknown reasons, during thousands of years, the developing agencies have been quiescent, hence no check to the animal instincts has been interposed; the Australians have therefore departed widely from the conditions which surrounded early human society—conditions under which the maternal instincts developed in the lower orders of life were still sufficiently strong to guard the constructive processes and to continue the chain of uninterrupted progress.
As among the lowest existing tribes—peoples which during countless ages have been unable to advance—only the ruder elements in the human composition have been developed, it is plain that from these tribes little if any information concerning an earlier or more natural age, when the animal instincts were controlled by the higher characters developed in human nature, may be obtained; but from those peoples within the several successive stages of development whose environment has been such as to admit of some degree of improvement in the arts of life, and in whom therefore the higher characters developed in their mute progenitors have not been in a state of retrogression, may be obtained a clue to many of the processes by which our present social fabric has been raised. Among such peoples will be retained certain symbols, habits, and traditions representing former modes of life, from which may be reconstructed much of the previous history of the race. For instance, by means of the symbol of wife-capture, a form of marriage which is universal among tribes in a certain stage of development, has been furnished much trustworthy information relative to the institution of marriage and the development of the modern family. It matters not that the origin of these symbols is so remote that their true significance is lost by the peoples who practise them, they nevertheless repeat with unerring fidelity the past experiences of the race and reveal the origin of later institutions.
As the various tribes and races of mankind have probably sprung from a common progenitor, and as the “nerve cells in the brain of all classes and orders have had the same origin,” their development, although not identical as to time and manner of detail, has been similar in outline and in general results; so it is thought that a correct knowledge of the development of any tribe or race from savagery to civilization must necessarily involve the general history of all the tribes and races of mankind.