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Title: Folkways
A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals
Author: William Graham Sumner
Release Date: January 11, 2008 [eBook #24253]
Language: English
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[Illustration: WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER (1902)]
FOLKWAYS
A Study of the Sociological Importance
of Usages, Manners, Customs,
Mores, and Morals
by
WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER
Professor of Political and Social Science
in Yale University
Thus it is clearly seen that use, rather than
reason, has power to introduce new things amongst
us, and to do away with old things.--_Castiglione,
Il libro del Cortegiano_, I, § 1.
That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock or livery,
That aptly is put on.--_Hamlet_, III, 4.
What custom wills, in all things should we do't.
_Coriolanus_, II, 3.
Ginn and Company
Boston · New York · Chicago · London
Atlanta · Dallas · Columbus · San Francisco
Entered at Stationers' Hall
Copyright, 1906, by
William Graham Sumner
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
733.1
+The Athenæum Press+
Ginn and Company · Proprietors ·
Boston · U.S.A.
PREFACE
In 1899 I began to write out a text-book of sociology from material
which I had used in lectures during the previous ten or fifteen years.
At a certain point in that undertaking I found that I wanted to
introduce my own treatment of the "mores." I could not refer to it
anywhere in print, and I could not do justice to it in a chapter of
another book. I therefore turned aside to write a treatise on the
"Folkways," which I now offer. For definitions of "folkways" and "mores"
see secs. 1, 2, 34, 39, 43, and 66. I formed the word "folkways" on the
analogy of words already in use in sociology. I also took up again the
Latin word "mores" as the best I could find for my purpose. I mean by it
the popular usages and traditions, when they include a judgment that
they are conducive to societal welfare, and when they exert a coercion
on the individual to conform to them, although they are not coördinated
by any authority (cf. sec. 42). I have also tried to bring the word
"Ethos" into familiarity again (secs. 76, 79). "Ethica," or "Ethology,"
or "The Mores" seemed good titles for the book (secs. 42, 43), but
Ethics is already employed otherwise, and the other words were very
unfamiliar. Perhaps "folkways" is not less unfamiliar, but its meaning
is more obvious. I must add that if any one is liable to be shocked by
_any_ folkways, he ought not to read about folkways at all. "Nature her
custom holds, let shame say what it will" (_Hamlet_, IV, 7, _ad fin._).
I have tried to treat all folkways, including those which are most
opposite to our own, with truthfulness, but with dignity and due respect
to our own conventions.
Chapter I contains elaborate definitions and expositions of the folkways
and the mores, with an analysis of their play in human society. Chapter
II shows the bearing of the folkways on human interests, and the way in
which they act or are acted on. The thesis which is expounded in these
two chapters is: that the folkways are habits of the individual and
customs of the society which arise from efforts to satisfy needs; they
are intertwined with goblinism and demonism and primitive notions of
luck (sec. 6), and so they win traditional authority. Then they become
regulative for succeeding generations and take on the character of a
social force. They arise no one knows whence or how. They grow as if by
the play of internal life energy. They can be modified, but only to a
limited extent, by the purposeful efforts of men. In time they lose
power, decline, and die, or are transformed. While they are in vigor
they very largely control individual and social undertakings, and they
produce and nourish ideas of world philosophy and life policy. Yet they
are not organic or material. They belong to a superorganic system of
relations, conventions, and institutional arrangements. The study of
them is called for by their _social_ character, by virtue of which they
are leading factors in the science of society.
When the analysis of the folkways has been concluded it is necessary
that it should be justified by a series of illustrations, or by a
setting forth of cases in which the operation of the mores is shown to
be what is affirmed in the analysis. Any such exposition of the mores in
cases, in order to be successful, must go into details. It is in details
that all the graphic force and argumentative value of the cases are to
be found. It has not been easy to do justice to the details and to
observe the necessary limits of space. The ethnographical facts which I
present are not subsequent justification of generalizations otherwise
obtained. They are selections from a great array of facts from which the
generalizations were deduced. A number of other very important cases
which I included in my plan of proofs and illustrations I have been
obliged to leave out for lack of space. Such are: Demonism, Primitive
Religion, and Witchcraft; The Status of Women; War; Evolution and the
Mores; Usury; Gambling; Societal Organization and Classes; Mortuary
Usages; Oaths; Taboos; Ethics; Æsthetics; and Democracy. The first four
of these are written. I may be able to publish them soon, separately. My
next task is to finish the sociology.
W. G. SUMNER
YALE UNIVERSITY
With the reprinting of _Folkways_ it seems in place to inform the
admirers of this book and of its author concerning the progress of
Professor Sumner's work between 1907 and his death, in his seventieth
year, in April, 1910. Several articles bearing on the mores, and
realizing in part the programme outlined in the last paragraph of the
foregoing Preface, have been published: "The Family and Social Change,"
in the _American Journal of Sociology_ for March, 1909 (14: 577-591);
"Witchcraft," in the _Forum_ for May, 1909 (41: 410-423); "The Status of
Women in Chaldea, Egypt, India, Judea, and Greece to the time of
Christ," in the _Forum_ for August, 1909 (42: 113-136); "Mores of the
Present and the Future," in the _Yale Review_ for November, 1909 (18:
233-245); and "Religion and the Mores," in the _American Journal of
Sociology_ for March, 1910 (15: 577-591). Of these the first and last
were presidential addresses before the American Sociological Society.
All are included in Volume I (War and Other Essays) of a four-volume set
of Sumner's writings, published since his death by the Yale University
Press.
Regarding the treatise on the "science of society" (for he had decided
to call it that instead of "sociology") mentioned in the Preface, it
should be said that Professor Sumner left a considerable amount of
manuscript in the rather rough form of a first draft, together with a
great mass of classified materials. He wrote very little on this
treatise after the completion of _Folkways_, and not infrequently spoke
of the latter to the present writer as "my last book." It is intended,
however, that the _Science of Society_ shall be, at some time in the
future, completed, and in such form as shall give to the world the
fruits of Professor Sumner's intellectual power, clarity of vision, and
truly herculean industry.
The present revision of _Folkways_ incorporates but few and unimportant
corrections. Certain of these are from the hand of the author, and
others from that of the present writer.
A photograph of Professor Sumner has been chosen for insertion in the
present edition. It was taken April 18, 1902, and is regarded by many as
being the most faithful representation in existence of Sumner's
expression and pose, as he appeared in later years. This is the Sumner
of the "mores," with mental powers at ripe maturity and bodily vigor as
yet unimpaired by age. The Yale commencement orator of 1909 said of
Sumner, in presenting him for the Doctorate of Laws: "His intellect has
broadened, his heart has mellowed, as he has descended into the vale of
years." While advancing age weakened in no respect the sheer power and
the steady-eyed fearlessness of mind and character which made Sumner a
compelling force in the university and in the wider world, it seems to
some of us that the essential kindliness of his nature came out with
especial clearness in his later years. And it is the suggestion of this
quality which lends a distinctive charm, in our eyes, to the portrait
chosen to head this volume.
A. G. KELLER
YALE UNIVERSITY
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. FUNDAMENTAL NOTIONS OF THE FOLKWAYS AND OF THE
MORES 1
II. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MORES 75
III. THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 119
IV. LABOR, WEALTH 158
V. SOCIETAL SELECTION 173
VI. SLAVERY 261
VII. ABORTION, INFANTICIDE, KILLING THE OLD 308
VIII. CANNIBALISM 329
IX. SEX MORES 342
X. THE MARRIAGE INSTITUTION 395
XI. THE SOCIAL CODES 417
XII. INCEST 479
XIII. KINSHIP, BLOOD REVENGE, PRIMITIVE JUSTICE, PEACE
UNIONS 493
XIV. UNCLEANNESS AND THE EVIL EYE 509
XV. THE MORES CAN MAKE ANYTHING RIGHT AND PREVENT
CONDEMNATION OF ANYTHING 521
XVI. SACRAL HARLOTRY, CHILD SACRIFICE 533
XVII. POPULAR SPORTS, EXHIBITIONS, DRAMA 560
XVIII. ASCETICISM 605
XIX. EDUCATION, HISTORY 628
XX. LIFE POLICY, VIRTUE VS. SUCCESS 639
LIST OF BOOKS 655
(Titles are under the name of the author, or the leading word
of the title)
INDEX 671
FOLKWAYS
CHAPTER I
FUNDAMENTAL NOTIONS OF THE FOLKWAYS
AND OF THE MORES
Definition and mode of origin of the folkways.--The folkways are
a societal force.--Folkways are made unconsciously.--Impulse
and instinct; primeval stupidity; magic.--The strain of
improvement and consistency.--The aleatory element.--All
origins are lost in mystery.--Spencer on primitive custom.--
Good and bad luck; ills of life; goodness and happiness.--
Illustrations.--Immortality and compensation.--Tradition and
its restraints.--The concepts of "primitive society";
"we-groups" and "others-groups."--Sentiments in the in-group
towards out-groups.--Ethnocentrism.--Illustrations.--
Patriotism.--Chauvinism.--The struggle for existence and the
competition of life; antagonistic coöperation.--Four motives:
hunger, love, vanity, fear.--The process of making folkways.--
Suggestion and suggestibility.--Suggestion in education.--
Manias.--Suggestion in politics.--Suggestion and criticism.--
Folkways based on false inferences.--Harmful folkways.--How
"true" and "right" are found.--The folkways are right; rights;
morals.--The folkways are true.--Relations of world philosophy
to folkways.--Definition of the mores.--Taboos.--No primitive
philosophizing; myths; fables; notion of social welfare.--The
imaginative element.--The ethical policy and the success
policy.--Recapitulation.--Scope and method of the mores.--
Integration of the mores of a group or age.--Purpose of the
present work.--Why use the word "mores."--The mores are a
directive force.--Consistency in the mores.--The mores of
subgroups.--What are classes?--Classes rated by societal
value.--Class; race; group solidarity.--The masses and the
mores.--Fallacies about the classes and the masses.--Action of
the masses on ideas.--Organization of the masses.--Institutions
of civil liberty.--The common man.--The "people"; popular
impulses.--Agitation.--The ruling element in the masses.--The
mores and institutions.--Laws.--How laws and institutions
differ from mores.--Difference between mores and some cognate
things.--Goodness or badness of the mores.--More exact
definition of the mores.--Ritual.--The ritual of the mores.--
Group interests and policy.--Group interests and folkways.--
Force in the folkways.--Might and right.--Status.--
Conventionalization.--Conventions indispensable.--The "ethos"
or group character; Japan.--Chinese ethos.--Hindoo ethos.--
European ethos.
+1. Definition and mode of origin of the folkways.+ If we put together
all that we have learned from anthropology and ethnography about
primitive men and primitive society, we perceive that the first task of
life is to live. Men begin with acts, not with thoughts. Every moment
brings necessities which must be satisfied at once. Need was the first
experience, and it was followed at once by a blundering effort to
satisfy it. It is generally taken for granted that men inherited some
guiding instincts from their beast ancestry, and it may be true,
although it has never been proved. If there were such inheritances, they
controlled and aided the first efforts to satisfy needs. Analogy makes
it easy to assume that the ways of beasts had produced channels of habit
and predisposition along which dexterities and other psychophysical
activities would run easily. Experiments with newborn animals show that
in the absence of any experience of the relation of means to ends,
efforts to satisfy needs are clumsy and blundering. The method is that
of trial and failure, which produces repeated pain, loss, and
disappointments. Nevertheless, it is a method of rude experiment and
selection. The earliest efforts of men were of this kind. Need was the
impelling force. Pleasure and pain, on the one side and the other, were
the rude constraints which defined the line on which efforts must
proceed. The ability to distinguish between pleasure and pain is the
only psychical power which is to be assumed. Thus ways of doing things
were selected, which were expedient. They answered the purpose better
than other ways, or with less toil and pain. Along the course on which
efforts were compelled to go, habit, routine, and skill were developed.
The struggle to maintain existence was carried on, not individually, but
in groups. Each profited by the other's experience; hence there was
concurrence towards that which proved to be most expedient. All at last
adopted the same way for the same purpose; hence the ways turned into
customs and became mass phenomena. Instincts were developed in
connection with them. In this way folkways arise. The young learn them
by tradition, imitation, and authority. The folkways, at a time, provide
for all the needs of life then and there. They are uniform, universal in
the group, imperative, and invariable. As time goes on, the folkways
become more and more arbitrary, positive, and imperative. If asked why
they act in a certain way in certain cases, primitive people always
answer that it is because they and their ancestors always have done so.
A sanction also arises from ghost fear. The ghosts of ancestors would be
angry if the living should change the ancient folkways (see sec. 6).
+2. The folkways are a societal force.+ The operation by which folkways
are produced consists in the frequent repetition of petty acts, often by
great numbers acting in concert or, at least, acting in the same way
when face to face with the same need. The immediate motive is interest.
It produces habit in the individual and custom in the group. It is,
therefore, in the highest degree original and primitive. By habit and
custom it exerts a strain on every individual within its range;
therefore it rises to a societal force to which great classes of
societal phenomena are due. Its earliest stages, its course, and laws
may be studied; also its influence on individuals and their reaction on
it. It is our present purpose so to study it. We have to recognize it as
one of the chief forces by which a society is made to be what it is. Out
of the unconscious experiment which every repetition of the ways
includes, there issues pleasure or pain, and then, so far as the men are
capable of reflection, convictions that the ways are conducive to
societal welfare. These two experiences are not the same. The most
uncivilized men, both in the food quest and in war, do things which are
painful, but which have been found to be expedient. Perhaps these cases
teach the sense of social welfare better than those which are
pleasurable and favorable to welfare. The former cases call for some
intelligent reflection on experience. When this conviction as to the
relation to welfare is added to the folkways they are converted into
mores, and, by virtue of the philosophical and ethical element added to
them, they win utility and importance and become the source of the
science and the art of living.
+3. Folkways are made unconsciously.+ It is of the first importance to
notice that, from the first acts by which men try to satisfy needs, each
act stands by itself, and looks no further than the immediate
satisfaction. From recurrent needs arise habits for the individual and
customs for the group, but these results are consequences which were
never conscious, and never foreseen or intended. They are not noticed
until they have long existed, and it is still longer before they are
appreciated. Another long time must pass, and a higher stage of mental
development must be reached, before they can be used as a basis from
which to deduce rules for meeting, in the future, problems whose
pressure can be foreseen. The folkways, therefore, are not creations of
human purpose and wit. They are like products of natural forces which
men unconsciously set in operation, or they are like the instinctive
ways of animals, which are developed out of experience, which reach a
final form of maximum adaptation to an interest, which are handed down
by tradition and admit of no exception or variation, yet change to meet
new conditions, still within the same limited methods, and without
rational reflection or purpose. From this it results that all the life
of human beings, in all ages and stages of culture, is primarily
controlled by a vast mass of folkways handed down from the earliest
existence of the race, having the nature of the ways of other animals,
only the topmost layers of which are subject to change and control, and
have been somewhat modified by human philosophy, ethics, and religion,
or by other acts of intelligent reflection. We are told of savages that
"It is difficult to exhaust the customs and small ceremonial usages of a
savage people. Custom regulates the whole of a man's actions,--his
bathing, washing, cutting his hair, eating, drinking, and fasting. From
his cradle to his grave he is the slave of ancient usage. In his life
there is nothing free, nothing original, nothing spontaneous, no
progress towards a higher and better life, and no attempt to improve his
condition, mentally, morally, or spiritually."[1] All men act in this
way with only a little wider margin of voluntary variation.
+4. Impulse and instinct. Primeval stupidity. Magic.+ "The mores
(_Sitten_) rest on feelings of pleasure or pain, which either directly
produce actions or call out desires which become causes of action."[2]
"Impulse is not an attribute of living creatures, like instinct. The
only phenomenon to which impulse applies is that men and other animals
imitate what they see others, especially of their own species, do, and
that they accomplish this imitation the more easily, the more their
forefathers practiced the same act. The thing imitated, therefore, must
already exist, and cannot be explained as an impulse." "As soon as
instinct ceased to be sole ruler of living creatures, including inchoate
man, the latter must have made mistakes in the struggle for existence
which would soon have finished his career, but that he had instinct and
the imitation of what existed to guide him. This human primeval
stupidity is the ultimate ground of religion and art, for both come
without any interval, out of the magic which is the immediate
consequence of the struggle for existence when it goes beyond instinct."
"If we want to determine the origin of dress, if we want to define
social relations and achievements, e.g. the origin of marriage, war,
agriculture, cattle breeding, etc., if we want to make studies in the
psyche of nature peoples,--we must always pass through magic and belief
in magic. One who is weak in magic, e.g. a ritually unclean man, has a
'bad body,' and reaches no success. Primitive men, on the other hand,
win their success by means of their magical power and their magical
preparations, and hence become 'the noble and good.' For them there is
no other morality [than this success]. Even the technical dexterities
have certainly not been free from the influence of belief in magic."[3]
+5. The strain of improvement and consistency.+ The folkways, being ways
of satisfying needs, have succeeded more or less well, and therefore
have produced more or less pleasure or pain. Their quality always
consisted in their adaptation to the purpose. If they were imperfectly
adapted and unsuccessful, they produced pain, which drove men on to
learn better. The folkways are, therefore, (1) subject to a strain of
improvement towards better adaptation of means to ends, as long as the
adaptation is so imperfect that pain is produced. They are also (2)
subject to a strain of consistency with each other, because they all
answer their several purposes with less friction and antagonism when
they coöperate and support each other. The forms of industry, the forms
of the family, the notions of property, the constructions of rights, and
the types of religion show the strain of consistency with each other
through the whole history of civilization. The two great cultural
divisions of the human race are the oriental and the occidental. Each is
consistent throughout; each has its own philosophy and spirit; they are
separated from top to bottom by different mores, different standpoints,
different ways, and different notions of what societal arrangements are
advantageous. In their contrast they keep before our minds the possible
range of divergence in the solution of the great problems of human life,
and in the views of earthly existence by which life policy may be
controlled. If two planets were joined in one, their inhabitants could
not differ more widely as to what things are best worth seeking, or what
ways are most expedient for well living.
+6. The aleatory interest.+ If we should try to find a specimen society
in which expedient ways of satisfying needs and interests were found by
trial and failure, and by long selection from experience, as broadly
described in sec. 1 above, it might be impossible to find one. Such a
practical and utilitarian mode of procedure, even when mixed with ghost
sanction, is rationalistic. It would not be suited to the ways and
temper of primitive men. There was an element in the most elementary
experience which was irrational and defied all expedient methods. One
might use the best known means with the greatest care, yet fail of the
result. On the other hand, one might get a great result with no effort
at all. One might also incur a calamity without any fault of his own.
This was the aleatory element in life, the element of risk and loss,
good or bad fortune. This element is never absent from the affairs of
men. It has greatly influenced their life philosophy and policy. On one
side, good luck may mean something for nothing, the extreme case of
prosperity and felicity. On the other side, ill luck may mean failure,
loss, calamity, and disappointment, in spite of the most earnest and
well-planned endeavor. The minds of men always dwell more on bad luck.
They accept ordinary prosperity as a matter of course. Misfortunes
arrest their attention and remain in their memory.
Hence the ills of life are the mode of manifestation of the aleatory
element which has most affected life policy. Primitive men ascribed all
incidents to the agency of men or of ghosts and spirits. Good and ill
luck were attributed to the superior powers, and were supposed to be due
to their pleasure or displeasure at the conduct of men. This group of
notions constitutes goblinism. It furnishes a complete world philosophy.
The element of luck is always present in the struggle for existence.
That is why primitive men never could carry on the struggle for
existence, disregarding the aleatory element and employing a utilitarian
method only. The aleatory element has always been the connecting link
between the struggle for existence and religion. It was only by
religious rites that the aleatory element in the struggle for existence
could be controlled. The notions of ghosts, demons, another world, etc.,
were all fantastic. They lacked all connection with facts, and were
arbitrary constructions put upon experience. They were poetic and
developed by poetic construction and imaginative deduction. The nexus
between them and events was not cause and effect, but magic. They
therefore led to delusive deductions in regard to life and its meaning,
which entered into subsequent action as guiding faiths, and imperative
notions about the conditions of success. The authority of religion and
that of custom coalesced into one indivisible obligation. Therefore the
simple statement of experiment and expediency in the first paragraph
above is not derived directly from actual cases, but is a product of
analysis and inference. It must also be added that vanity and ghost fear
produced needs which man was as eager to satisfy as those of hunger or
the family. Folkways resulted for the former as well as for the latter
(see sec. 9).
+7. All origins are lost in mystery.+ No objection can lie against this
postulate about the way in which folkways began, on account of the
element of inference in it. All origins are lost in mystery, and it
seems vain to hope that from any origin the veil of mystery will ever be
raised. We go up the stream of history to the utmost point for which we
have evidence of its course. Then we are forced to reach out into the
darkness upon the line of direction marked by the remotest course of
the historic stream. This is the way in which we have to act in regard
to the origin of capital, language, the family, the state, religion, and
rights. We never can hope to see the beginning of any one of these
things. Use and wont are products and results. They had antecedents. We
never can find or see the first member of the series. It is only by
analysis and inference that we can form any conception of the
"beginning" which we are always so eager to find.
+8. Spencer on primitive custom.+ Spencer[4] says that "guidance by
custom, which we everywhere find amongst rude peoples, is the sole
conceivable guidance at the outset." Custom is the product of concurrent
action through time. We find it existent and in control at the extreme
reach of our investigations. Whence does it begin, and how does it come
to be? How can it give guidance "at the outset"? All mass actions seem
to begin because the mass wants to act together. The less they know what
it is right and best to do, the more open they are to suggestion from an
incident in nature, or from a chance act of one, or from the current
doctrines of ghost fear. A concurrent drift begins which is subject to
later correction. That being so, it is evident that instinctive action,
under the guidance of traditional folkways, is an operation of the first
importance in all societal matters. Since the custom never can be
antecedent to all action, what we should desire most is to see it arise
out of the first actions, but, inasmuch as that is impossible, the
course of the action after it is started is our field of study. The
origin of primitive customs is always lost in mystery, because when the
action begins the men are never conscious of historical action, or of
the historical importance of what they are doing. When they become
conscious of the historical importance of their acts, the origin is
already far behind.
+9. Good and bad luck; ills of life; goodness and happiness.+
There are in nature numerous antagonistic forces of growth or
production and destruction. The interests of man are between the
two and may be favored or ruined by either. Correct knowledge of
both is required to get the advantages and escape the injuries.
Until the knowledge becomes adequate the effects which are
encountered appear to be accidents or cases of luck. There is no
thrift in nature. There is rather waste. Human interests require
thrift, selection, and preservation. Capital is the condition
precedent of all gain in security and power, and capital is
produced by selection and thrift. It is threatened by all which
destroys material goods. Capital is therefore the essential means
of man's power over nature, and it implies the purest concept of
the power of intelligence to select and dispose of the processes
of nature for human welfare. All the earliest efforts in this
direction were blundering failures. Men selected things to be
desired and preserved under impulses of vanity and superstition,
and misconceived utility and interest. The errors entered into
the folkways, formed a part of them, and were protected by them.
Error, accident, and luck seem to be the only sense there is in
primitive life. Knowledge alone limits their sway, and at least
changes the range and form of their dominion. Primitive folkways
are marked by improvidence, waste, and carelessness, out of which
prudence, foresight, patience, and perseverance are developed
slowly, by pain and loss, as experience is accumulated, and
knowledge increases also, as better methods seem worth while. The
consequences of error and the effects of luck were always mixed.
As we have seen, the ills of life were connected with the
displeasure of the ghosts. _Per contra_, conduct which conformed
to the will of the ghosts was goodness, and was supposed to bring
blessing and prosperity. Thus a correlation was established, in
the faith of men, between goodness and happiness, and on that
correlation an art of happiness was built. It consisted in a
faithful performance of rites of respect towards superior powers
and in the use of lucky times, places, words, etc., with
avoidance of unlucky ones. All uncivilized men demand and expect
a specific response. Inasmuch as they did not get it, and indeed
the art of happiness always failed of results, the great question
of world philosophy always has been, What is the real relation
between happiness and goodness? It is only within a few
generations that men have found courage to say that there is
none. The whole strength of the notion that they are correlated
is in the opposite experience which proves that no evil thing
brings happiness. The oldest religious literature consists of
formulas of worship and prayer by which devotion and obedience
were to produce satisfaction of the gods, and win favor and
prosperity for men.[5] The words "ill" and "evil" have never yet
thrown off the ambiguity between wickedness and calamity. The two
ideas come down to us allied or combined. It was the rites which
were the object of tradition, not the ideas which they
embodied.[6]
+10. Illustrations.+ The notions of blessing and curse are
subsequent explanations by men of great cases of prosperity or
calamity which came to their knowledge. Then the myth-building
imagination invented stories of great virtue or guilt to account
for the prosperity or calamity.[7] The Greek notion of the
Nemesis was an inference from observation of good and ill fortune
in life. Great popular interest attached to the stories of
Croesus and Polycrates. The latter, after all his glory and
prosperity, was crucified by the satrap of Lydia. Croesus had
done all that man could do, according to the current religion, to
conciliate the gods and escape ill fortune. He was very pious and
lived by the rules of religion. The story is told in different
forms. "The people could not make up their minds that a prince
who had been so liberal to the gods during his prosperity had
been abandoned by them at the moment when he had the greatest
need of their aid."[8] They said that he expiated the crime of
his ancestor Gyges, who usurped the throne; that is, they found
it necessary to adduce some guilt to account for the facts, and
they introduced the notion of hereditary responsibility. Another
story was that he determined to sacrifice all his wealth to the
gods. He built a funeral pyre of it all and mounted it himself,
but rain extinguished it. The gods were satisfied. Croesus
afterwards enjoyed the friendship of Cyros, which was good
fortune. Still others rejected the doctrines of correlation
between goodness and happiness on account of the fate of
Croesus. In ancient religion "the benefits which were expected
from the gods were of a public character, affecting the whole
community, especially fruitful seasons, increase of flocks and
herds, and success in war. So long as the community flourished,
the fact that an individual was miserable reflected no discredit
on divine providence, but was rather taken to prove that the
sufferer was an evil-doer, justly hateful to the gods."[9] Jehu
and his house were blamed for the blood spilt at Israel, although
Jehu was commissioned by Elisha to destroy the house of Ahab.[10]
This is like the case of OEdipus, who obeyed an oracle, but
suffered for his act as for a crime. Jehovah caused the ruin of
those who had displeased him, by putting false oracles in the
mouths of prophets.[11] Hezekiah expostulated with God because,
although he had walked before God with a perfect heart and had
done what was right in His sight, he suffered calamity.[12] In
the seventy-third Psalm, the author is perplexed by the
prosperity of the wicked, and the contrast of his own fortunes.
"Surely in vain have I cleansed my heart and washed my hands in
innocency, for all day long have I been plagued, and chastened
every morning." He says that at last the wicked were cast down.
He was brutish and ignorant not to see the solution. It is that
the wicked prosper for a time only. He will cleave unto God. The
book of Job is a discussion of the relation between goodness and
happiness. The crusaders were greatly perplexed by the victories
of the Mohammedans. It seemed to be proved untrue that God would
defend His own Name or the true and holy cause. Louis XIV, when
his armies were defeated, said that God must have forgotten all
which he had done for Him.
+11. Immortality and compensation.+ The notion of immortality has
been interwoven with the notion of luck, of justice, and of the
relation of goodness and happiness. The case was reopened in
another world, and compensations could be assumed to take place
there. In the folk drama of the ancient Greeks luck ruled. It was
either envious of human prosperity or beneficent.[13] Grimm[14]
gives more than a thousand ancient German apothegms, dicta, and
proverbs about "luck." The Italians of the fifteenth century saw
grand problems in the correlation of goodness and happiness.
Alexander VI was the wickedest man known in history, but he had
great and unbroken prosperity in all his undertakings. The only
conceivable explanation was that he had made a pact with the
devil. Some of the American Indians believed that there was an
hour at which all wishes uttered by men were fulfilled.[15] It is
amongst half-civilized peoples that the notion of luck is given
the greatest influence in human affairs. They seek devices for
operating on luck, since luck controls all interests. Hence
words, times, names, places, gestures, and other acts or
relations are held to control luck. Inasmuch as marriage is a
relationship in which happiness is sought and not always found,
wedding ceremonies are connected with acts "for luck." Some of
these still survive amongst us as jests. The fact of the aleatory
element in human life, the human interpretations of it, and the
efforts of men to deal with it constitute a large part of the
history of culture. They have produced groups of folkways, and
have entered as an element into folkways for other purposes.
+12. Tradition and its restraints.+ It is evident that the "ways" of the
older and more experienced members of a society deserve great authority
in any primitive group. We find that this rational authority leads to
customs of deference and to etiquette in favor of the old. The old in
turn cling stubbornly to tradition and to the example of their own
predecessors. Thus tradition and custom become intertwined and are a
strong coercion which directs the society upon fixed lines, and
strangles liberty. Children see their parents always yield to the same
custom and obey the same persons. They see that the elders are allowed
to do all the talking, and that if an outsider enters, he is saluted by
those who are at home according to rank and in fixed order. All this
becomes rule for children, and helps to give to all primitive customs
their stereotyped formality. "The fixed ways of looking at things which
are inculcated by education and tribal discipline, are the precipitate
of an old cultural development, and in their continued operation they
are the moral anchor of the Indian, although they are also the fetters
which restrain his individual will."[16]
+13. The concept of "primitive society"; we-group and others-group.+ The
conception of "primitive society" which we ought to form is that of
small groups scattered over a territory. The size of the groups is
determined by the conditions of the struggle for existence. The internal
organization of each group corresponds to its size. A group of groups
may have some relation to each other (kin, neighborhood, alliance,
connubium and commercium) which draws them together and differentiates
them from others. Thus a differentiation arises between ourselves, the
we-group, or in-group, and everybody else, or the others-groups,
out-groups. The insiders in a we-group are in a relation of peace,
order, law, government, and industry, to each other. Their relation to
all outsiders, or others-groups, is one of war and plunder, except so
far as agreements have modified it. If a group is exogamic, the women in
it were born abroad somewhere. Other foreigners who might be found in it
are adopted persons, guest friends, and slaves.
+14. Sentiments in the in-group and towards the out-group.+ The relation
of comradeship and peace in the we-group and that of hostility and war
towards others-groups are correlative to each other. The exigencies of
war with outsiders are what make peace inside, lest internal discord
should weaken the we-group for war. These exigencies also make
government and law in the in-group, in order to prevent quarrels and
enforce discipline. Thus war and peace have reacted on each other and
developed each other, one within the group, the other in the intergroup
relation. The closer the neighbors, and the stronger they are, the
intenser is the warfare, and then the intenser is the internal
organization and discipline of each. Sentiments are produced to
correspond. Loyalty to the group, sacrifice for it, hatred and contempt
for outsiders, brotherhood within, warlikeness without,--all grow
together, common products of the same situation. These relations and
sentiments constitute a social philosophy. It is sanctified by
connection with religion. Men of an others-group are outsiders with
whose ancestors the ancestors of the we-group waged war. The ghosts of
the latter will see with pleasure their descendants keep up the fight,
and will help them. Virtue consists in killing, plundering, and
enslaving outsiders.
+15. Ethnocentrism+ is the technical name for this view of things in
which one's own group is the center of everything, and all others are
scaled and rated with reference to it. Folkways correspond to it to
cover both the inner and the outer relation. Each group nourishes its
own pride and vanity, boasts itself superior, exalts its own divinities,
and looks with contempt on outsiders. Each group thinks its own folkways
the only right ones, and if it observes that other groups have other
folkways, these excite its scorn. Opprobrious epithets are derived from
these differences. "Pig-eater," "cow-eater," "uncircumcised,"
"jabberers," are epithets of contempt and abomination. The Tupis called
the Portuguese by a derisive epithet descriptive of birds which have
feathers around their feet, on account of trousers.[17] For our present
purpose the most important fact is that ethnocentrism leads a people to
exaggerate and intensify everything in their own folkways which is
peculiar and which differentiates them from others. It therefore
strengthens the folkways.
+16. Illustrations of ethnocentrism.+ The Papuans on New Guinea
are broken up into village units which are kept separate by
hostility, cannibalism, head hunting, and divergences of language
and religion. Each village is integrated by its own language,
religion, and interests. A group of villages is sometimes united
into a limited unity by connubium. A wife taken inside of this
group unit has full status; one taken outside of it has not. The
petty group units are peace groups within and are hostile to all
outsiders.[18] The Mbayas of South America believed that their
deity had bidden them live by making war on others, taking their
wives and property, and killing their men.[19]
+17.+ When Caribs were asked whence they came, they answered, "We
alone are people."[20] The meaning of the name Kiowa is "real or
principal people."[21] The Lapps call themselves "men," or "human
beings."[22] The Greenland Eskimo think that Europeans have been
sent to Greenland to learn virtue and good manners from the
Greenlanders. Their highest form of praise for a European is that
he is, or soon will be, as good as a Greenlander.[23] The
Tunguses call themselves "men."[24] As a rule it is found that
nature peoples call themselves "men." Others are something
else--perhaps not defined--but not real men. In myths the origin
of their own tribe is that of the real human race. They do not
account for the others. The Ainos derive their name from that of
the first man, whom they worship as a god. Evidently the name of
the god is derived from the tribe name.[25] When the tribal name
has another sense, it is always boastful or proud. The Ovambo
name is a corruption of the name of the tribe for themselves,
which means "the wealthy."[26] Amongst the most remarkable people
in the world for ethnocentrism are the Seri of Lower California.
They observe an attitude of suspicion and hostility to all
outsiders, and strictly forbid marriage with outsiders.[27]
+18.+ The Jews divided all mankind into themselves and Gentiles.
They were the "chosen people." The Greeks and Romans called all
outsiders "barbarians." In Euripides' tragedy of _Iphigenia in
Aulis_ Iphigenia says that it is fitting that Greeks should rule
over barbarians, but not contrariwise, because Greeks are free,
and barbarians are slaves. The Arabs regarded themselves as the
noblest nation and all others as more or less barbarous.[28] In
1896, the Chinese minister of education and his counselors edited
a manual in which this statement occurs: "How grand and glorious
is the Empire of China, the middle kingdom! She is the largest
and richest in the world. The grandest men in the world have all
come from the middle empire."[29] In all the literature of all
the states equivalent statements occur, although they are not so
naïvely expressed. In Russian books and newspapers the civilizing
mission of Russia is talked about, just as, in the books and
journals of France, Germany, and the United States, the
civilizing mission of those countries is assumed and referred to
as well understood. Each state now regards itself as the leader
of civilization, the best, the freest, and the wisest, and all
others as inferior. Within a few years our own
man-on-the-curbstone has learned to class all foreigners of the
Latin peoples as "dagos," and "dago" has become an epithet of
contempt. These are all cases of ethnocentrism.
+19. Patriotism+ is a sentiment which belongs to modern states.
It stands in antithesis to the mediæval notion of catholicity.
Patriotism is loyalty to the civic group to which one belongs by
birth or other group bond. It is a sentiment of fellowship and
coöperation in all the hopes, work, and suffering of the group.
Mediæval catholicity would have made all Christians an in-group
and would have set them in hostility to all Mohammedans and other
non-Christians. It never could be realized. When the great modern
states took form and assumed control of societal interests, group
sentiment was produced in connection with those states. Men
responded willingly to a demand for support and help from an
institution which could and did serve interests. The state drew
to itself the loyalty which had been given to men (lords), and it
became the object of that group vanity and antagonism which had
been ethnocentric. For the modern man patriotism has become one
of the first of duties and one of the noblest of sentiments. It
is what he owes to the state for what the state does for him, and
the state is, for the modern man, a cluster of civic institutions
from which he draws security and conditions of welfare. The
masses are always patriotic. For them the old ethnocentric
jealousy, vanity, truculency, and ambition are the strongest
elements in patriotism. Such sentiments are easily awakened in a
crowd. They are sure to be popular. Wider knowledge always proves
that they are not based on facts. That we are good and others are
bad is never true. By history, literature, travel, and science
men are made cosmopolitan. The selected classes of all states
become associated; they intermarry. The differentiation by states
loses importance. All states give the same security and
conditions of welfare to all. The standards of civic institutions
are the same, or tend to become such, and it is a matter of pride
in each state to offer civic status and opportunities equal to
the best. Every group of any kind whatsoever demands that each of
its members shall help defend group interests. Every group
stigmatizes any one who fails in zeal, labor, and sacrifices for
group interests. Thus the sentiment of loyalty to the group, or
the group head, which was so strong in the Middle Ages, is kept
up, as far as possible, in regard to modern states and
governments. The group force is also employed to enforce the
obligations of devotion to group interests. It follows that
judgments are precluded and criticism is silenced.
+20. Chauvinism.+ That patriotism may degenerate into a vice is
shown by the invention of a name for the vice: chauvinism. It is
a name for boastful and truculent group self-assertion. It
overrules personal judgment and character, and puts the whole
group at the mercy of the clique which is ruling at the moment.
It produces the dominance of watchwords and phrases which take
the place of reason and conscience in determining conduct. The
patriotic bias is a recognized perversion of thought and judgment
against which our education should guard us.
+21. The struggle for existence and the competition of life;
antagonistic coöperation.+ The struggle for existence must be carried on
under life conditions and in connection with the competition of life.
The life conditions consist in variable elements of the environment, the
supply of materials necessary to support life, the difficulty of
exploiting them, the state of the arts, and the circumstances of
physiography, climate, meteorology, etc., which favor life or the
contrary. The struggle for existence is a process in which an individual
and nature are the parties. The individual is engaged in a process by
which he wins from his environment what he needs to support his
existence. In the competition of life the parties are men and other
organisms. The men strive with each other, or with the flora and fauna
with which they are associated. The competition of life is the rivalry,
antagonism, and mutual displacement in which the individual is involved
with other organisms by his efforts to carry on the struggle for
existence for himself. It is, therefore, the competition of life which
is the societal element, and which produces societal organization. The
number present and in competition is another of the life conditions. At
a time and place the life conditions are the same for a number of human
beings who are present, and the problems of life policy are the same.
This is another reason why the attempts to satisfy interest become mass
phenomena and result in folkways. The individual and social elements are
always in interplay with each other if there are a number present. If
one is trying to carry on the struggle for existence with nature, the
fact that others are doing the same in the same environment is an
essential condition for him. Then arises an alternative. He and the
others may so interfere with each other that all shall fail, or they may
combine, and by coöperation raise their efforts against nature to a
higher power. This latter method is industrial organization. The crisis
which produces it is constantly renewed, and men are forced to raise the
organization to greater complexity and more comprehensive power, without
limit. Interests are the relations of action and reaction between the
individual and the life conditions, through which relations the
evolution of the individual is produced. That evolution, so long as it
goes on prosperously, is well living, and it results in the
self-realization of the individual, for we may think of each one as
capable of fulfilling some career and attaining to some character and
state of power by the developing of predispositions which he possesses.
It would be an error, however, to suppose that all nature is a chaos of
warfare and competition. Combination and coöperation are so
fundamentally necessary that even very low life forms are found in
symbiosis for mutual dependence and assistance. A combination can exist
where each of its members would perish. Competition and combination are
two forms of life association which alternate through the whole organic
and superorganic domains. The neglect of this fact leads to many
socialistic fallacies. Combination is of the essence of organization,
and organization is the great device for increased power by a number of
unequal and dissimilar units brought into association for a common
purpose. McGee[30] says of the desert of Papagueria, in southwestern
Arizona, that "a large part of the plants and animals of the desert
dwell together in harmony and mutual helpfulness [which he shows in
detail]; for their energies are directed not so much against one another
as against the rigorous environmental conditions growing out of dearth
of water. This communality does not involve loss of individuality, ...
indeed the plants and animals are characterized by an individuality
greater than that displayed in regions in which perpetuity of the
species depends less closely on the persistence of individuals." Hence
he speaks of the "solidarity of life" in the desert. "The saguaro is a
monstrosity in fact as well as in appearance,--a product of
miscegenation between plant and animal, probably depending for its form
of life history, if not for its very existence, on its commensals."[31]
The Seri protect pelicans from themselves by a partial taboo, which is
not understood. It seems that they could not respect a breeding time, or
establish a closed season, yet they have such an appetite for the birds
and their eggs that they would speedily exterminate them if there were
no restraint. This combination has been well called antagonistic
coöperation. It consists in the combination of two persons or groups to
satisfy a great common interest while minor antagonisms of interest
which exist between them are suppressed. The plants and animals of the
desert are rivals for what water there is, but they combine as if with
an intelligent purpose to attain to a maximum of life under the
conditions. There are many cases of animals who coöperate in the same
way. Our farmers put crows and robins under a protective taboo because
the birds destroy insects. The birds also destroy grain and fruits, but
this is tolerated on account of their services. Madame Pommerol says of
the inhabitants of Sahara that the people of the towns and the nomads
are enemies by caste and race, but allies in interest. The nomads need
refuge and shelter. The townspeople need messengers and transportation.
Hence ties of contract, quarrels, fights, raids, vengeances, and
reconciliations for the sake of common enterprises of plunder.[32]
Antagonistic coöperation is the most productive form of combination in
high civilization. It is a high action of the reason to overlook lesser
antagonisms in order to work together for great interests. Political
parties are constantly forced to do it. In the art of the statesman it
is a constant policy. The difference between great parties and factions
in any parliamentary system is of the first importance; that difference
consists in the fact that parties can suppress minor differences, and
combine for what they think most essential to public welfare, while
factions divide and subdivide on petty differences. Inasmuch as the
suppression of minor differences means a suppression of the emotional
element, while the other policy encourages the narrow issues in regard
to which feeling is always most intense, the former policy allows far
less play to feeling and passion.
+22. Hunger, love, vanity, and fear.+ There are four great motives of
human action which come into play when some number of human beings are
in juxtaposition under the same life conditions. These are hunger, sex
passion, vanity, and fear (of ghosts and spirits). Under each of these
motives there are interests. Life consists in satisfying interests, for
"life," in a society, is a career of action and effort expended on both
the material and social environment. However great the errors and
misconceptions may be which are included in the efforts, the purpose
always is advantage and expediency. The efforts fall into parallel
lines, because the conditions and the interests are the same. It is now
the accepted opinion, and it may be correct, that men inherited from
their beast ancestors psychophysical traits, instincts, and dexterities,
or at least predispositions, which give them aid in solving the problems
of food supply, sex, commerce, and vanity. The result is mass phenomena;
currents of similarity, concurrence, and mutual contribution; and these
produce folkways. The folkways are unconscious, spontaneous,
uncoördinated. It is never known who led in devising them, although we
must believe that talent exerted its leadership at all times. Folkways
come into existence now all the time. There were folkways in stage coach
times, which were fitted to that mode of travel. Street cars have
produced ways which are suited to that mode of transportation in cities.
The telephone has produced ways which have not been invented and imposed
by anybody, but which are devised to satisfy conveniently the interests
which are at stake in the use of that instrument.
+23. Process of making folkways.+ Although we may see the process of
making folkways going on all the time, the analysis of the process is
very difficult. It appears as if there was a "mind" in the crowd which
was different from the minds of the individuals which compose it. Indeed
some have adopted such a doctrine. By autosuggestion the stronger minds
produce ideas which when set afloat pass by suggestion from mind to
mind. Acts which are consonant with the ideas are imitated. There is a
give and take between man and man. This process is one of development.
New suggestions come in at point after point. They are carried out. They
combine with what existed already. Every new step increases the number
of points upon which other minds may seize. It seems to be by this
process that great inventions are produced. Knowledge has been won and
extended by it. It seems as if the crowd had a mystic power in it
greater than the sum of the powers of its members. It is sufficient,
however, to explain this, to notice that there is a coöperation and
constant suggestion which is highly productive when it operates in a
crowd, because it draws out latent power, concentrates what would
otherwise be scattered, verifies and corrects what has been taken up,
eliminates error, and constructs by combination. Hence the gain from the
collective operation is fully accounted for, and the theories of
_Völkerpsychologie_ are to be rejected as superfluous. Out of the
process which has been described have come the folkways during the whole
history of civilization.
The phenomena of suggestion and suggestibility demand some attention
because the members of a group are continually affecting each other by
them, and great mass phenomena very often are to be explained by them.
+24. Suggestion; suggestibility.+ What has been called the psychology of
crowds consists of certain phenomena of suggestion. A number of persons
assembled together, especially if they are enthused by the same
sentiment or stimulated by the same interest, transmit impulses to each
other with the result that all the impulses are increased in a very high
ratio. In other words, it is an undisputed fact that all mental states
and emotions are greatly increased in force by transmission from man to
man, especially if they are attended by a sense of the concurrence and
coöperation of a great number who have a common sentiment or interest.
"The element of psychic coercion to which our thought process is subject
is the characteristic of the operations which we call suggestive."[33]
What we have done or heard occupies our minds so that we cannot turn
from it to something else. The consensus of a number promises triumph
for the impulse, whatever it is. _Ça ira._ There is a thrill of
enthusiasm in the sense of moving with a great number. There is no
deliberation or reason. Therefore a crowd may do things which are either
better or worse than what individuals in it would do. Cases of lynching
show how a crowd can do things which it is extremely improbable that the
individuals would do or consent to, if they were taken separately. The
crowd has no greater guarantee of wisdom and virtue than an individual
would have. In fact, the participants in a crowd almost always throw
away all the powers of wise judgment which have been acquired by
education, and submit to the control of enthusiasm, passion, animal
impulse, or brute appetite. A crowd always has a common stock of
elementary faiths, prejudices, loves and hates, and pet notions. The
common stock is acted on by the same stimuli, in all the persons, at the
same time. The response, as an aggregate, is a great storm of feeling,
and a great impulse to the will. Hence the great influence of omens and
of all popular superstitions on a crowd. Omens are a case of "egoistic
reference."[34] An army desists from a battle on account of an eclipse.
A man starting out on the food quest returns home because a lizard
crosses his path. In each case an incident in nature is interpreted as a
warning or direction to the army or the man. Thus momentous results for
men and nations may be produced without cause. The power of watchwords
consists in the cluster of suggestions which has become fastened upon
them. In the Middle Ages the word "heretic" won a frightful suggestion
of base wickedness. In the seventeenth century the same suggestions were
connected with the words "witch" and "traitor." "Nature" acquired great
suggestion of purity and correctness in the eighteenth century, which it
has not yet lost. "Progress" now bears amongst us a very undue weight of
suggestion. Suggestibility is the quality of liability to suggestive
influence.[35] "Suggestibility is the natural faculty of the brain to
admit any ideas whatsoever, without motive, to assimilate them, and
eventually to transform them rapidly into movements, sensations, and
inhibitions."[36] It differs greatly in degree, and is present in
different grades in different crowds. Crowds of different nationalities
would differ both in degree of suggestibility and in the kinds of
suggestive stimuli to which they would respond. Imitation is due to
suggestibility. Even suicide is rendered epidemic by suggestion and
imitation.[37] In a crisis, like a shipwreck, when no one knows what to
do, one, by acting, may lead them all through imitative suggestibility.
People who are very suggestible can be led into states of mind which
preclude criticism or reflection. Any one who acquires skill in the
primary processes of association, analogy, reiteration, and continuity,
can play tricks on others by stimulating these processes and then giving
them selected data to work upon. A directive idea may be suggested by a
series of ideas which lead the recipient of them to expect that the
series will be continued. Then he will not perceive if the series is
broken. In the Renaissance period no degree of illumination sufficed to
resist the delusion of astrology, because it was supported by a
passionate fantasy and a vehement desire to know the future, and because
it was confirmed by antiquity, the authority of whose opinions was
overwhelmingly suggested by all the faiths and prejudices of the
time.[38]
+25. Suggestion in education. Manias.+ Parents and teachers use
suggestion in rearing children. Persons who enjoy social
preëminence operate suggestion all the time, whether
intentionally or unintentionally. Whatever they do is imitated.
Folkways operate on individuals by suggestion; when they are
elevated to mores they do so still more, for then they carry the
suggestion of societal welfare. Ways and notions may be rejected
by an individual at first upon his judgment of their merits, but
repeated suggestion produces familiarity and dulls the effect
upon him of the features which at first repelled him. Familiar
cases of this are furnished by fashions of dress and by slang. A
new fashion of dress seems at first to be absurd, ungraceful, or
indecent. After a time this first impression of it is so dulled
that all conform to the fashion. New slang seems vulgar. It makes
its way into use. In India the lingam symbol is so common that no
one pays any heed to its sense.[39] This power of familiarity to
reduce the suggestion to zero furnishes a negative proof of the
power of the suggestion. Conventionalization also reduces
suggestion, perhaps to zero. It is a mischievous thing to read
descriptions of crime, vice, horrors, excessive adventures, etc.,
because familiarity lessens the abhorrent suggestions which those
things ought to produce. Swindlers and all others who have an
interest to lead the minds of their fellow-men in a certain
direction employ suggestion. They often develop great practical
skill in the operation, although they do not understand the
science of it. It is one of the arts of the demagogue and stump
orator. A man who wanted to be nominated for an office went
before the convention to make a speech. A great and difficult
question agitated the party. He began by saying that he would
state his position on that question frankly and fully. "But
first," said he, "let me say that I am a Democrat." This brought
out a storm of applause. Then he went on to boast of his services
to the party, and then he stopped without having said a word on
the great question. He was easily nominated. The witch
persecutions rested on suggestion. "Everybody knew" that there
were witches. If not, what were the people who were burned?
Philip IV of France wanted to make the people believe that the
templars were heretics. The people were not ready to believe
this. The king caused the corpse of a templar to be dug up and
burned, as the corpses of heretics were burned. This convinced
the people by suggestion.[40] What "they say," what "everybody
does," and what "everybody knows" are controlling suggestions.
Religious revivals are carried on by suggestion. Mediæval
flagellations and dances were cases of suggestion. In fact, all
popular manias are to be explained by it. Religious bodies
practice suggestion on themselves, especially on their children
or less enthusiastic members, by symbols, pictures, images,
processions, dramatic representations, festivals, relics, legends
of their heroes. In the Middle Ages the crucifix was an
instrument of religious suggestion to produce vivid apprehension
of the death of Jesus. In very many well-known cases the passions
of the crowd were raised to the point of very violent action. The
symbols and images also, by suggestion, stimulate religious
fervor. If numbers act together, as in convents, mass phenomena
are produced, and such results follow as the hysterical epidemics
in convents and the extravagances of communistic sects.[41]
Learned societies and numbers of persons who are interested in
the same subject, by meeting and imparting suggestions, make all
the ideas of each the common stock of all. Hyperboreans have a
mental disease which renders them liable to suggestion. The women
are afflicted by hysteria before puberty. Later they show the
phenomena of "possession,"--dancing and singing,--and still later
catalepsy.[42]
+26. Suggestion in politics.+ The great field for the use of the
devices and apparatus of suggestion at the present time is
politics. Within fifty years all states have become largely
popular. Suggestion is easy when it falls in with popular ideas,
the pet notions of groups of people, the popular common-places,
and the current habits of thought and feeling. Newspapers,
popular literature, and popular oratory show the effort to
operate suggestion along these lines. They rarely correct; they
usually flatter the accepted notions. The art of adroit
suggestion is one of the great arts of politics. Antony's speech
over the body of Cæsar is a classical example of it. In politics,
especially at elections, the old apparatus of suggestion is
employed again,--flags, symbols, ceremonies, and celebrations.
Patriotism is systematically cultivated by anniversaries,
pilgrimages, symbols, songs, recitations, etc. Another very
remarkable case of suggestion is furnished by modern
advertisements. They are adroitly planned to touch the mind of
the reader in a way to get the reaction which the advertiser
wants. The advertising pages of our popular magazines furnish
evidence of the faiths and ideas which prevail in the masses.
+27. Suggestion and criticism.+ Suggestion is a legitimate
device, if it is honestly used, for inculcating knowledge or
principles of conduct; that is, for education in the broadest
sense of the word. Criticism is the operation by which suggestion
is limited and corrected. It is by criticism that the person is
protected against credulity, emotion, and fallacy. The power of
criticism is the one which education should chiefly train. It is
difficult to resist the suggestion that one who is accused of
crime is guilty. Lynchers generally succumb to this suggestion,
especially if the crime was a heinous one which has strongly
excited their emotions against the unknown somebody who
perpetrated it. It requires criticism to resist this suggestion.
Our judicial institutions are devised to hold this suggestion
aloof until the evidence is examined. An educated man ought to be
beyond the reach of suggestions from advertisements, newspapers,
speeches, and stories. If he is wise, just when a crowd is filled
with enthusiasm and emotion, he will leave it and will go off by
himself to form his judgment. In short, individuality and
personality of character are the opposites of suggestibility.
Autosuggestion properly includes all the cases in which a man is
"struck by an idea," or "takes a notion," but it is more strictly
applied to fixed ideas and habits of thought. An irritation
suggests parasites, and parasites suggest an irritation. The fear
of stammering causes stammering. A sleeping man drives away a fly
without waking. If we are in a pose or rôle, we act as we have
heard that people act in that pose or rôle.[43] A highly trained
judgment is required to correct or select one's own ideas and to
resist fixed ideas. The supreme criticism is criticism of one's
self.
+28. Folkways due to false inference.+ Furthermore, folkways have been
formed by accident, that is, by irrational and incongruous action, based
on pseudo-knowledge. In Molembo a pestilence broke out soon after a
Portuguese had died there. After that the natives took all possible
measures not to allow any white man to die in their country.[44] On the
Nicobar islands some natives who had just begun to make pottery died.
The art was given up and never again attempted.[45] White men gave to
one Bushman in a kraal a stick ornamented with buttons as a symbol of
authority. The recipient died leaving the stick to his son. The son
soon died. Then the Bushmen brought back the stick lest all should
die.[46] Until recently no building of incombustible materials could be
built in any big town of the central province of Madagascar, on account
of some ancient prejudice.[47] A party of Eskimos met with no game. One
of them returned to their sledges and got the ham of a dog to eat. As he
returned with the ham bone in his hand he met and killed a seal. Ever
afterwards he carried a ham bone in his hand when hunting.[48] The
Belenda women (peninsula of Malacca) stay as near to the house as
possible during the period. Many keep the door closed. They know no
reason for this custom. "It must be due to some now forgotten
superstition."[49] Soon after the Yakuts saw a camel for the first time
smallpox broke out amongst them. They thought the camel to be the agent
of the disease.[50] A woman amongst the same people contracted an
endogamous marriage. She soon afterwards became blind. This was thought
to be on account of the violation of ancient customs.[51] A very great
number of such cases could be collected. In fact they represent the
current mode of reasoning of nature people. It is their custom to reason
that, if one thing follows another, it is due to it. A great number of
customs are traceable to the notion of the evil eye, many more to ritual
notions of uncleanness.[52] No scientific investigation could discover
the origin of the folkways mentioned, if the origin had not chanced to
become known to civilized men. We must believe that the known cases
illustrate the irrational and incongruous origin of many folkways. In
civilized history also we know that customs have owed their origin to
"historical accident,"--the vanity of a princess, the deformity of a
king, the whim of a democracy, the love intrigue of a statesman or
prelate. By the institutions of another age it may be provided that no
one of these things can affect decisions, acts, or interests, but then
the power to decide the ways may have passed to clubs, trades unions,
trusts, commercial rivals, wire-pullers, politicians, and political
fanatics. In these cases also the causes and origins may escape
investigation.
+29. Harmful folkways.+ There are folkways which are positively harmful.
Very often these are just the ones for which a definite reason can be
given. The destruction of a man's goods at his death is a direct
deduction from other-worldliness; the dead man is supposed to want in
the other world just what he wanted here. The destruction of a man's
goods at his death was a great waste of capital, and it must have had a
disastrous effect on the interests of the living, and must have very
seriously hindered the development of civilization. With this custom we
must class all the expenditure of labor and capital on graves, temples,
pyramids, rites, sacrifices, and support of priests, so far as these
were supposed to benefit the dead. The faith in goblinism produced
other-worldly interests which overruled ordinary worldly interests.
Foods have often been forbidden which were plentiful, the prohibition of
which injuriously lessened the food supply. There is a tribe of Bushmen
who will eat no goat's flesh, although goats are the most numerous
domestic animals in the district.[53] Where totemism exists it is
regularly accompanied by a taboo on eating the totem animal. Whatever
may be the real principle in totemism, it overrules the interest in an
abundant food supply. "The origin of the sacred regard paid to the cow
must be sought in the primitive nomadic life of the Indo-European race,"
because it is common to Iranians and Indians of Hindostan.[54] The
Libyans ate oxen but not cows.[55] The same was true of the
Phoenicians and Egyptians.[56] In some cases the sense of a food taboo
is not to be learned. It may have been entirely capricious. Mohammed
would not eat lizards, because he thought them the offspring of a
metamorphosed clan of Israelites.[57] On the other hand, the protective
taboo which forbade killing crocodiles, pythons, cobras, and other
animals enemies of man was harmful to his interests, whatever the
motive. "It seems to be a fixed article of belief throughout southern
India, that all who have willfully or accidentally killed a snake,
especially a cobra, will certainly be punished, either in this life or
the next, in one of three ways: either by childlessness, or by leprosy,
or by ophthalmia."[58] Where this faith exists man has a greater
interest to spare a cobra than to kill it. India furnishes a great
number of cases of harmful mores. "In India every tendency of humanity
seems intensified and exaggerated. No country in the world is so
conservative in its traditions, yet no country has undergone so many
religious changes and vicissitudes."[59] "Every year thousands perish of
disease that might recover if they would take proper nourishment, and
drink the medicine that science prescribes, but which they imagine that
their religion forbids them to touch." "Men who can scarcely count
beyond twenty, and know not the letters of the alphabet, would rather
die than eat food which had been prepared by men of lower caste, unless
it had been sanctified by being offered to an idol; and would kill their
daughters rather than endure the disgrace of having unmarried girls at
home beyond twelve or thirteen years of age."[60] In the last case the
rule of obligation and duty is set by the mores. The interest comes
under vanity. The sanction of the caste rules is in a boycott by all
members of the caste. The rules are often very harmful. "The authority
of caste rests partly on written laws, partly on legendary fables or
narratives, partly on the injunctions of instructors and priests, partly
on custom and usage, and partly on the caprice and convenience of its
votaries."[61] The harm of caste rules is so great that of late they
have been broken in some cases, especially in regard to travel over sea,
which is a great advantage to Hindoos.[62] The Hindoo folkways in regard
to widows and child marriages must also be recognized as socially
harmful.
+30. How "true" and "right" are found.+ If a savage puts his hand too
near the fire, he suffers pain and draws it back. He knows nothing of
the laws of the radiation of heat, but his instinctive action conforms
to that law as if he did know it. If he wants to catch an animal for
food, he must study its habits and prepare a device adjusted to those
habits. If it fails, he must try again, until his observation is "true"
and his device is "right." All the practical and direct element in the
folkways seems to be due to common sense, natural reason, intuition, or
some other original mental endowment. It seems rational (or
rationalistic) and utilitarian. Often in the mythologies this ultimate
rational element was ascribed to the teaching of a god or a culture
hero. In modern mythology it is accounted for as "natural."
Although the ways adopted must always be really "true" and "right" in
relation to facts, for otherwise they could not answer their purpose,
such is not the primitive notion of true and right.
+31. The folkways are "right." Rights. Morals.+ The folkways are the
"right" ways to satisfy all interests, because they are traditional, and
exist in fact. They extend over the whole of life. There is a right way
to catch game, to win a wife, to make one's self appear, to cure
disease, to honor ghosts, to treat comrades or strangers, to behave when
a child is born, on the warpath, in council, and so on in all cases
which can arise. The ways are defined on the negative side, that is, by
taboos. The "right" way is the way which the ancestors used and which
has been handed down. The tradition is its own warrant. It is not held
subject to verification by experience. The notion of right is in the
folkways. It is not outside of them, of independent origin, and brought
to them to test them. In the folkways, whatever is, is right. This is
because they are traditional, and therefore contain in themselves the
authority of the ancestral ghosts. When we come to the folkways we are
at the end of our analysis. The notion of right and ought is the same in
regard to all the folkways, but the degree of it varies with the
importance of the interest at stake. The obligation of conformable and
coöperative action is far greater under ghost fear and war than in other
matters, and the social sanctions are severer, because group interests
are supposed to be at stake. Some usages contain only a slight element
of right and ought. It may well be believed that notions of right and
duty, and of social welfare, were first developed in connection with
ghost fear and other-worldliness, and therefore that, in that field
also, folkways were first raised to mores. "Rights" are the rules of
mutual give and take in the competition of life which are imposed on
comrades in the in-group, in order that the peace may prevail there
which is essential to the group strength. Therefore rights can never be
"natural" or "God-given," or absolute in any sense. The morality of a
group at a time is the sum of the taboos and prescriptions in the
folkways by which right conduct is defined. Therefore morals can never
be intuitive. They are historical, institutional, and empirical.
World philosophy, life policy, right, rights, and morality are all
products of the folkways. They are reflections on, and generalizations
from, the experience of pleasure and pain which is won in efforts to
carry on the struggle for existence under actual life conditions. The
generalizations are very crude and vague in their germinal forms. They
are all embodied in folklore, and all our philosophy and science have
been developed out of them.
+32. The folkways are "true."+ The folkways are necessarily "true" with
respect to some world philosophy. Pain forced men to think. The ills of
life imposed reflection and taught forethought. Mental processes were
irksome and were not undertaken until painful experience made them
unavoidable.[63] With great unanimity all over the globe primitive men
followed the same line of thought. The dead were believed to live on as
ghosts in another world just like this one. The ghosts had just the same
needs, tastes, passions, etc., as the living men had had. These
transcendental notions were the beginning of the mental outfit of
mankind. They are articles of faith, not rational convictions. The
living had duties to the ghosts, and the ghosts had rights; they also
had power to enforce their rights. It behooved the living therefore to
learn how to deal with ghosts. Here we have a complete world philosophy
and a life policy deduced from it. When pain, loss, and ill were
experienced and the question was provoked, Who did this to us? the world
philosophy furnished the answer. When the painful experience forced the
question, Why are the ghosts angry and what must we do to appease them?
the "right" answer was the one which fitted into the philosophy of ghost
fear. All acts were therefore constrained and trained into the forms of
the world philosophy by ghost fear, ancestral authority, taboos, and
habit. The habits and customs created a practical philosophy of welfare,
and they confirmed and developed the religious theories of goblinism.
+33. Relation of world philosophy and folkways.+ It is quite impossible
for us to disentangle the elements of philosophy and custom, so as to
determine priority and the causative position of either. Our best
judgment is that the mystic philosophy is regulative, not creative, in
its relation to the folkways. They reacted upon each other. The faith in
the world philosophy drew lines outside of which the folkways must not
go. Crude and vague notions of societal welfare were formed from the
notion of pleasing the ghosts, and from such notions of expediency as
the opinion that, if there were not children enough, there would not be
warriors enough, or that, if there were too many children, the food
supply would not be adequate. The notion of welfare was an inference and
resultant from these mystic and utilitarian generalizations.
+34. Definition of the mores.+ When the elements of truth and right are
developed into doctrines of welfare, the folkways are raised to another
plane. They then become capable of producing inferences, developing into
new forms, and extending their constructive influence over men and
society. Then we call them the mores. The mores are the folkways,
including the philosophical and ethical generalizations as to societal
welfare which are suggested by them, and inherent in them, as they grow.
+35. Taboos.+ The mores necessarily consist, in a large part, of taboos,
which indicate the things which must not be done. In part these are
dictated by mystic dread of ghosts who might be offended by certain
acts, but they also include such acts as have been found by experience
to produce unwelcome results, especially in the food quest, in war, in
health, or in increase or decrease of population. These taboos always
contain a greater element of philosophy than the positive rules, because
the taboos contain reference to a reason, as, for instance, that the
act would displease the ghosts. The primitive taboos correspond to the
fact that the life of man is environed by perils. His food quest must be
limited by shunning poisonous plants. His appetite must be restrained
from excess. His physical strength and health must be guarded from
dangers. The taboos carry on the accumulated wisdom of generations,
which has almost always been purchased by pain, loss, disease, and
death. Other taboos contain inhibitions of what will be injurious to the
group. The laws about the sexes, about property, about war, and about
ghosts, have this character. They always include some social philosophy.
They are both mystic and utilitarian, or compounded of the two.
Taboos may be divided into two classes, (1) protective and (2)
destructive. Some of them aim to protect and secure, while others aim to
repress or exterminate. Women are subject to some taboos which are
directed against them as sources of possible harm or danger to men, and
they are subject to other taboos which put them outside of the duties or
risks of men. On account of this difference in taboos, taboos act
selectively, and thus affect the course of civilization. They contain
judgments as to societal welfare.
+36. No primitive philosophizing; myths; fables; notion of societal
welfare.+ It is not to be understood that primitive men philosophize
about their experience of life. That is our way; it was not theirs. They
did not formulate any propositions about the causes, significance, or
ultimate relations of things. They made myths, however, in which they
often presented conceptions which are deeply philosophical, but they
represented them in concrete, personal, dramatic and graphic ways. They
feared pain and ill, and they produced folkways by their devices for
warding off pain and ill. Those devices were acts of ritual which were
planned upon their vague and crude faiths about ghosts and the other
world. We develop the connection between the devices and the faiths, and
we reduce it to propositions of a philosophic form, but the primitive
men never did that. Their myths, fables, proverbs, and maxims show that
the subtler relations of things did not escape them, and that reflection
was not wanting, but the method of it was very different from ours. The
notion of societal welfare was not wanting, although it was never
consciously put before themselves as their purpose. It was pestilence,
as a visitation of the wrath of ghosts on all, or war, which first
taught this idea, because war was connected with victory over a
neighboring group. The Bataks have a legend that men once married their
fathers' sisters' daughters, but calamities followed and so those
marriages were tabooed.[64] This inference and the cases mentioned in
sec. 28 show a conception of societal welfare and of its relation to
states and acts as conditions.
+37. The imaginative element.+ The correct apprehension of facts and
events by the mind, and the correct inferences as to the relations
between them, constitute knowledge, and it is chiefly by knowledge that
men have become better able to live well on earth. Therefore the
alternation between experience or observation and the intellectual
processes by which the sense, sequence, interdependence, and rational
consequences of facts are ascertained, is undoubtedly the most important
process for winning increased power to live well. Yet we find that this
process has been liable to most pernicious errors. The imagination has
interfered with the reason and furnished objects of pursuit to men,
which have wasted and dissipated their energies. Especially the
alternations of observation and deduction have been traversed by vanity
and superstition which have introduced delusions. As a consequence, men
have turned their backs on welfare and reality, in order to pursue
beauty, glory, poetry, and dithyrambic rhetoric, pleasure, fame,
adventure, and phantasms. Every group, in every age, has had its
"ideals" for which it has striven, as if men had blown bubbles into the
air, and then, entranced by their beautiful colors, had leaped to catch
them. In the very processes of analysis and deduction the most
pernicious errors find entrance. We note our experience in every action
or event. We study the significance from experience. We deduce a
conviction as to what we may best do when the case arises again.
Undoubtedly this is just what we ought to do in order to live well. The
process presents us a constant reiteration of the sequence,--act,
thought, act. The error is made if we allow suggestions of vanity,
superstition, speculation, or imagination to become confused with the
second stage and to enter into our conviction of what it is best to do
in such a case. This is what was done when goblinism was taken as the
explanation of experience and the rule of right living, and it is what
has been done over and over again ever since. Speculative and
transcendental notions have furnished the world philosophy, and the
rules of life policy and duty have been deduced from this and introduced
at the second stage of the process,--act, thought, act. All the errors
and fallacies of the mental processes enter into the mores of the age.
The logic of one age is not that of another. It is one of the chief
useful purposes of a study of the mores to learn to discern in them the
operation of traditional error, prevailing dogmas, logical fallacy,
delusion, and current false estimates of goods worth striving for.
+38. The ethical policy of the schools and the success policy.+ Although
speculative assumptions and dogmatic deductions have produced the
mischief here described, our present world philosophy has come out of
them by rude methods of correction and purification, and "great
principles" have been deduced which now control our life philosophy;
also ethical principles have been determined which no civilized man
would now repudiate (truthfulness, love, honor, altruism). The
traditional doctrines of philosophy and ethics are not by any means
adjusted smoothly to each other or to modern notions. We live in a war
of two antagonistic ethical philosophies: the ethical policy taught in
the books and the schools, and the success policy. The same man acts at
one time by the school ethics, disregarding consequences, at another
time by the success policy, in which the consequences dictate the
conduct; or we talk the former and act by the latter.[65]
+39. Recapitulation.+ We may sum up this preliminary analysis as
follows: men in groups are under life conditions; they have needs which
are similar under the state of the life conditions; the relations of the
needs to the conditions are interests under the heads of hunger, love,
vanity, and fear; efforts of numbers at the same time to satisfy
interests produce mass phenomena which are folkways by virtue of
uniformity, repetition, and wide concurrence. The folkways are attended
by pleasure or pain according as they are well fitted for the purpose.
Pain forces reflection and observation of some relation between acts and
welfare. At this point the prevailing world philosophy (beginning with
goblinism) suggests explanations and inferences, which become entangled
with judgments of expediency. However, the folkways take on a philosophy
of right living and a life policy for welfare. Then they become mores,
and they may be developed by inferences from the philosophy or the rules
in the endeavor to satisfy needs without pain. Hence they undergo
improvement and are made consistent with each other.
+40. The scope and method of the mores.+ In the present work the
proposition to be maintained is that the folkways are the widest, most
fundamental, and most important operation by which the interests of men
in groups are served, and that the process by which folkways are made is
the chief one to which elementary societal or group phenomena are due.
The life of society consists in making folkways and applying them. The
science of society might be construed as the study of them. The
relations of men to each other, when they are carrying on the struggle
for existence near each other, consist in mutual reactions (antagonisms,
rivalries, alliances, coercions, and coöperations), from which result
societal concatenations and concretions, that is, more or less fixed
positions of individuals and subgroups towards each other, and more or
less established sequences and methods of interaction between them, by
which the interests of all members of the group are served. The same
might be said of all animals. The social insects especially show us
highly developed results of the adjustment of adjacent interests and
life acts into concatenations and concretions. The societal concretions
are due to the folkways in this way,--that the men, each struggling to
carry on existence, unconsciously coöperate to build up associations,
organization, customs, and institutions which, after a time, appear full
grown and actual, although no one intended, or planned, or understood
them in advance. They stand there as produced by "ancestors." These
concretions of relation and act in war, labor, religion, amusement,
family life, and civil institutions are attended by faiths, doctrines of
philosophy (myths, folklore), and by precepts of right conduct and duty
(taboos). The making of folkways is not trivial, although the acts are
minute. Every act of each man fixes an atom in a structure, both
fulfilling a duty derived from what preceded and conditioning what is to
come afterwards by the authority of traditional custom. The structure
thus built up is not physical, but societal and institutional, that is
to say, it belongs to a category which must be defined and studied by
itself. It is a category in which custom produces continuity, coherence,
and consistency, so that the word "structure" may properly be applied to
the fabric of relations and prescribed positions with which societal
functions are permanently connected. The process of making folkways is
never superseded or changed. It goes on now just as it did at the
beginning of civilization. "Use and wont" exert their force on all men
always. They produce familiarity, and mass acts become unconscious. The
same effect is produced by customary acts repeated at all recurring
occasions. The range of societal activity may be greatly enlarged,
interests may be extended and multiplied, the materials by which needs
can be supplied may become far more numerous, the processes of societal
coöperation may become more complicated, and contract or artifice may
take the place of custom for many interests; but, if the case is one
which touches the ways or interests of the masses, folkways will develop
on and around it by the same process as that which has been described as
taking place from the beginning of civilization. The ways of carrying on
war have changed with all new inventions of weapons or armor, and have
grown into folkways of commanding range and importance. The factory
system of handicrafts has produced a body of folkways in which artisans
live, and which distinguish factory towns from commercial cities or
agricultural villages. The use of cotton instead of linen has greatly
affected modern folkways. The applications of power and machinery have
changed the standards of comfort of all classes. The folkways, however,
have kept their character and authority through all the changes of form
which they have undergone.
+41. Integration of the mores of a group or age.+ In further development
of the same interpretation of the phenomena we find that changes in
history are primarily due to changes in life conditions. Then the
folkways change. Then new philosophies and ethical rules are invented to
try to justify the new ways. The whole vast body of modern mores has
thus been developed out of the philosophy and ethics of the Middle Ages.
So the mores which have been developed to suit the system of great
secular states, world commerce, credit institutions, contract wages and
rent, emigration to outlying continents, etc., have become the norm for
the whole body of usages, manners, ideas, faiths, customs, and
institutions which embrace the whole life of a society and characterize
an historical epoch. Thus India, Chaldea, Assyria, Egypt, Greece, Rome,
the Middle Ages, Modern Times, are cases in which the integration of the
mores upon different life conditions produced societal states of
complete and distinct individuality (ethos). Within any such societal
status the great reason for any phenomenon is that it conforms to the
mores of the time and place. Historians have always recognized
incidentally the operation of such a determining force. What is now
maintained is that it is not incidental or subordinate. It is supreme
and controlling. Therefore the scientific discussion of a usage, custom,
or institution consists in tracing its relation to the mores, and the
discussion of societal crises and changes consists in showing their
connection with changes in the life conditions, or with the readjustment
of the mores to changes in those conditions.
+42. Purpose of the present work.+ "Ethology" would be a convenient term
for the study of manners, customs, usages, and mores, including the
study of the way in which they are formed, how they grow or decay, and
how they affect the interests which it is their purpose to serve. The
Greeks applied the term "ethos" to the sum of the characteristic usages,
ideas, standards, and codes by which a group was differentiated and
individualized in character from other groups. "Ethics" were things
which pertained to the ethos and therefore the things which were the
standard of right. The Romans used "mores" for customs in the broadest
and richest sense of the word, including the notion that customs served
welfare, and had traditional and mystic sanction, so that they were
properly authoritative and sacred. It is a very surprising fact that
modern nations should have lost these words and the significant
suggestions which inhere in them. The English language has no derivative
noun from "mores," and no equivalent for it. The French _moeurs_ is
trivial compared with "mores." The German _Sitte_ renders "mores" but
very imperfectly. The modern peoples have made morals and morality a
separate domain, by the side of religion, philosophy, and politics. In
that sense, morals is an impossible and unreal category. It has no
existence, and can have none. The word "moral" means what belongs or
appertains to the mores. Therefore the category of morals can never be
defined without reference to something outside of itself. Ethics, having
lost connection with the ethos of a people, is an attempt to systematize
the current notions of right and wrong upon some basic principle,
generally with the purpose of establishing morals on an absolute
doctrine, so that it shall be universal, absolute, and everlasting. In a
general way also, whenever a thing can be called moral, or connected
with some ethical generality, it is thought to be "raised," and
disputants whose method is to employ ethical generalities assume
especial authority for themselves and their views. These methods of
discussion are most employed in treating of social topics, and they are
disastrous to sound study of facts. They help to hold the social
sciences under the dominion of metaphysics. The abuse has been most
developed in connection with political economy, which has been almost
robbed of the character of a serious discipline by converting its
discussions into ethical disquisitions.
+43. Why use the word mores.+ "Ethica," in the Greek sense, or
"ethology," as above defined, would be good names for our present work.
We aim to study the ethos of groups, in order to see how it arises, its
power and influence, the modes of its operation on members of the group,
and the various attributes of it (ethica). "Ethology" is a very
unfamiliar word. It has been used for the mode of setting forth manners,
customs, and mores in satirical comedy. The Latin word "mores" seems to
be, on the whole, more practically convenient and available than any
other for our purpose, as a name for the folkways with the connotations
of right and truth in respect to welfare, embodied in them. The analysis
and definition above given show that in the mores we must recognize a
dominating force in history, constituting a condition as to what can be
done, and as to the methods which can be employed.
+44. Mores are a directive force.+ Of course the view which has been
stated is antagonistic to the view that philosophy and ethics furnish
creative and determining forces in society and history. That view comes
down to us from the Greek philosophy and it has now prevailed so long
that all current discussion conforms to it. Philosophy and ethics are
pursued as independent disciplines, and the results are brought to the
science of society and to statesmanship and legislation as authoritative
dicta. We also have _Völkerpsychologie_, _Sozialpolitik_, and other
intermediate forms which show the struggle of metaphysics to retain
control of the science of society. The "historic sense," the
_Zeitgeist_, and other terms of similar import are partial recognitions
of the mores and their importance in the science of society. It can be
seen also that philosophy and ethics are products of the folkways. They
are taken out of the mores, but are never original and creative; they
are secondary and derived. They often interfere in the second stage of
the sequence,--act, thought, act. Then they produce harm, but some
ground is furnished for the claim that they are creative or at least
regulative. In fact, the real process in great bodies of men is not one
of deduction from any great principle of philosophy or ethics. It is one
of minute efforts to live well under existing conditions, which efforts
are repeated indefinitely by great numbers, getting strength from habit
and from the fellowship of united action. The resultant folkways become
coercive. All are forced to conform, and the folkways dominate the
societal life. Then they seem true and right, and arise into mores as
the norm of welfare. Thence are produced faiths, ideas, doctrines,
religions, and philosophies, according to the stage of civilization and
the fashions of reflection and generalization.
+45. Consistency in the mores.+ The tendency of the mores of a period to
consistency has been noticed (sec. 5). No doubt this tendency is greatly
strengthened when people are able to generalize "principles" from acts.
This explains the modern belief that principles are causative. The
passion for equality, the universal use of contract, and the sentiments
of humanitarianism are informing elements in modern society. Whence did
they come? Undoubtedly they came out of the mores into which they return
again as a principle of consistency. Respect for human life, horror at
cruelty and bloodshed, sympathy with pain, suffering, and poverty
(humanitarianism), have acted as "causes" in connection with the
abolition of slavery, the reform of the criminal law and of prisons, and
sympathy with the oppressed, but humanitarianism was a generalization
from remoter mores which were due to changes in life conditions. The
ultimate explanation of the rise of humanitarianism is the increased
power of man over nature by the acquisition of new land, and by advance
in the arts. When men ceased to crowd on each other, they were all
willing to adopt ideas and institutions which made the competition of
life easy and kindly.
+46. The mores of subgroups.+ Each class or group in a society has its
own mores. This is true of ranks, professions, industrial classes,
religious and philosophical sects, and all other subdivisions of
society. Individuals are in two or more of these groups at the same
time, so that there is compromise and neutralization. Other mores are
common to the whole society. Mores are also transmitted from one class
to another. It is necessary to give precision to the notion of classes.
+47. What are classes?+ Galton[66] made a classification of society by a
standard which he did not strictly define. He called it "their natural
gifts." It might be understood to be mental power, reputation, social
success, income from societal work, or societal value. Ammon took up the
idea and developed it, making a diagrammatic representation of it, which
is reproduced on the following page.[67]
+48.+ If we measure and classify a number of persons by any physical
characteristic (stature, weight) we find that the results always fall
under a curve of probable error. That they should do so is, in fact, a
truism. If a number of persons with different degrees of power and
resistance are acted on by the same influences, it is most probable that
the greatest number of them will reach the same and a mean degree of
self-realization, and others in proportion to their power and
resistance. The fact has been statistically verified so often, and for
such a great variety of physical traits, that we may infer its truth for
all traits of mind and character for which we have no units, and which
we cannot therefore measure or statistically classify.
X
|
*
*|*
* | * Genius
*--|--*
* | * Talent
* | *
P *-------|-------* Q
* | *
* | *
* | *
* | * M } T
* | * e } h
* | * d } e
* | * i }
* | * o } M
M---*--------------------|--------------------*-----c--N--} a
* |D * r } s
* |C * i } s
* |B * t } e
* R |A S * y } s
*---------------|---------------*
* |a *
Unskilled and * |b * Illiterate
* |c *
* |d *
*-----|-----*
* | * Proletariat
*--|--*
Defective, * | * Dependent and
*|*
Delinquent
*
|
x
+49. Classes rated by societal value.+ If we take societal value as the
criterion of the classification of society, it has the advantage of
being germane to the interests which are most important in connection
with classification, but it is complex. There is no unit of it.
Therefore we could never verify it statistically. It conforms, in the
main, to mental power, but it must contain also a large element of
practical sense, health, and opportunity (luck). On the simplest
analysis, there are four elements,--intellectual, moral, economic, and
physical; but each of these is composite. If one of them is present in a
high degree, and the others in a low degree, the whole is inharmonic,
and not highly advantageous. The highest societal value seems to go with
a harmonious combination, although it may be of lower grades. A man of
talent, practical sense, industry, perseverance, and moral principle is
worth more to society than a genius, who is not morally responsible, or
not industrious. Societal value also conforms, in a general way, to
worldly success and to income from work contributed to the industrial
organization, for genius which was not effective would have no societal
value. On the other hand, however, so long as scientific work and books
of the highest value to science and art pay the authors nothing, the
returns of the market, and income, only imperfectly measure societal
value. All these limitations being allowed for, nevertheless societal
value is a concrete idea, especially on its negative side (paupers,
tramps, social failures, and incompetents). The defective, dependent,
and delinquent classes are already fully differentiated, and are made
objects of statistical enumeration. The rest only differ in degree. If,
therefore, all were rated and scaled by this value, the results would
fall under a curve of probable error. In the diagram the axis _Xx_ is
set perpendicular and the ordinates are divided equally upon it in order
to make the divisions correspond to "up" and "down" as we use those
words in social discussion. Then _MN_ is the line of the greatest
number. From _O_ upwards we may cut off equal sections, _OA_, _AB_,
etc., to indicate grades of societal value above that of the greatest
number, and from _O_ downwards we may cut off equal sections of the same
magnitude to indicate grades of societal value less than that of the
greatest number. At the top we have a small number of men of genius.
Below these we may cut off another section which includes the men of
talent. At the bottom we find the dependent, defective, and delinquent
classes which are a burden on society. Above them is another stratum,
the proletariat, which serves society only by its children. Persons of
this class have no regular mode of earning a living, but are not, at the
moment at which the classification is made, dependent. These are the
only ones to whom the term "proletarian" could with any propriety be
applied. Next above these is another well-defined stratum,--the
self-supporting, but unskilled and illiterate. Then all who fall between
_PQ_ and _RS_ are characterized by mediocrity, and they constitute "the
masses." In all new countries, and as it would seem at the present time
also in central Europe, there is a very strong current upwards from the
lower to the upper strata of _PQRS_. Universal education tends to
produce such a current. Talented men of the period are very often born
in humble circumstances, but succeed in taking their true place in the
societal scale. It is true, of course, that there is a counter-current
of degenerate sons and grandsons. The present diagram is made
unsymmetrical with respect to _MN_ to express the opinion that the upper
strata of _PQRS_ (the lower professional and the semiprofessional
classes) are now, in any civilized society, larger in proportion than
symmetry would indicate.[68] The line _MN_ is therefore a mode, and the
class upon it is the modal class of the society, by means of which one
society might be compared with another.
+50.+ Galton estimated the number of men of genius in all history at
four hundred. An important fraction of these were related by blood. The
"men of the time" he rates at four hundred and fifty in a million, and
the more distinguished of them at two hundred and fifty in a million.
These latter he defines by saying that a man, to be included amongst
them, "should have distinguished himself pretty frequently, either by
purely original work, or as a leader of opinion." He finds that
illustrious men are only one in a million. On the other hand, idiots and
imbeciles in England and Wales are one in four hundred, of whom thirty
per cent can be educated so as to be equal to one third of a normal man
each; forty per cent can be made worth two thirds of a man; twenty-five
or thirty per cent pass muster in a crowd. Above these are silly persons
whose relatives shield them from public knowledge. Then above these come
the Dundreary type.[69]
+51. Class; race; group solidarity.+ If the group which is classified is
a large one, and especially if it is a genetic unit (race, tribe, or
nation), there are no gaps in the series. Each individual falls into his
place by virtue of his characteristic differences. Just as no two are
anthropologically alike, so we may believe that no two are alike or
equal in societal value. That all men should be alike or equal, by any
standard whatever, is contrary to all the facts of human nature and all
the conditions of human life. Any group falls into subdivisions, the
members of each of which are approximately equal, when measured by any
standard, because the classification is imperfect. If we make it more
refined, the subdivisions must be subdivided again. We are in a dilemma:
we cannot describe mankind at all without categories, and if we go on to
make our categories more and more exact, each one of them would at last
contain only one person. Two things result which are practically
important, and which furnish us with scientific concepts which we can
employ in further study: (1) The classification gives us the notion of
the relative position of one, or a subdivision, in the entire group.
This is the sense of "class."[70] (2) The characteristic differences
furnish the notion of individuality and personality. The concept of a
race, as the term is now used, is that of a group clustered around a
mean with respect to some characteristic, and great confusion in the use
of the word "race" arises from the attempt to define races by their
boundaries, when we really think of them by the mean or mode, e.g. as to
skin color. The coherence, unity, and solidarity of a genetic group is
a very striking fact. It seems to conceal a play of mystic forces. It
is, in fact, no more mysterious than the run of dice. The propositions
about it would all become, in the last analysis, identical propositions;
e.g. it is most probable that we shall meet with the thing which is
present in the greatest number; or, it is most probable that the most
probable thing will happen. In the middle of the nineteenth century,
when attention was first called to the solidarity and internal
correlations of groups, especially if they were large and genetic, it
was believed that occult and far-reaching laws had been discovered. That
opinion has long been abandoned. If there are four dice in a box, each
having from one to six dots on its faces, the chance of throwing four
sixes is just the same as that of throwing four ones. The mean of the
sums of the dots which may fall uppermost is fourteen, which can be
produced by one hundred and forty-six throws. Suppose that the
components of social value are four,--intellectual, moral, physical,
economic,--represented by the four dice, and that the degrees are
represented by the dots. We should get four sixes once in twelve hundred
and ninety-six throws. Of the one hundred and forty-six throws which
give the mean fourteen, seventy-two show one six up. That might be a
Hercules fit only for a dime museum. Seventy-eight of the combinations
are inharmonious, but have one strong element.[71] In societal matters
it is by no means indifferent whether the equal sums of societal value
are made up of very unequal, or of harmonious, components. So in a group
of a million persons the chance of a great genius, who would stand alone
towards _X_ is just the same as that of an utter idiot who would stand
alone towards _x_, and the reason why the number at the mode is so great
is that the societal value is the sum of components, of which many sums
may be equal, although the components are very unequal. Two strata at
equal distances above and below _O_ are equal in number, so far as their
useful powers and resistances go, but education introduces a new
component which destroys their equality and forces a redistribution.
Galton[72] suggests that, if people who would when adults fall in
classes _V_, _W_, or _X_ in our diagram could be recognized in infancy,
and could be bought for money, it would be a great bargain for a nation,
England for instance, to buy them for much money and rear them as
Englishmen. Farr estimated the baby of an agricultural laborer as worth
£5, capital value. A baby who could be reared to take a place in the
class _X_ would have a capital value of thousands of pounds. The capital
value would be like that of land of different degrees of natural
advantage, but none of it yet exploited.
+52. The masses and the mores.+ In connection with the mores the masses
are of very great importance. The historical or selected classes are
those which, in history, have controlled the activities and policy of
generations. They have been differentiated at one time by one standard,
at another time by another. The position which they held by inheritance
from early society has given them prestige and authority. Merit and
societal value, according to the standards of their time, have entered
into their status only slightly and incidentally. Those classes have had
their own mores. They had the power to regulate their lives to some
extent according to their own choice, a power which modern civilized men
eagerly desire and strive for primarily by the acquisition of wealth.
The historical classes have, therefore, selected purposes, and have
invented ways of fulfilling them. Their ways have been imitated by the
masses. The classes have led the way in luxury, frivolity, and vice, and
also in refinement, culture, and the art of living. They have introduced
variation. The masses are not large classes at the base of a social
pyramid; they are the core of the society. They are conservative. They
accept life as they find it, and live on by tradition and habit. In
other words, the great mass of any society lives a purely instinctive
life just like animals. We must not be misled by the conservatism of
castes and aristocracies, who resist change of customs and institutions
by virtue of which they hold social power. The conservatism of the
masses is of a different kind. It is not produced by interests, but it
is instinctive. It is due to inertia. Change would make new effort
necessary to win routine and habit. It is therefore irksome. The masses,
moreover, have not the power to reach out after "improvements," or to
plan steps of change by which needs might be better satisfied. The mores
of any society, at a period, may be characterized by the promptness or
reluctance of the masses to imitate the ways of the classes. It is a
question of the first importance for the historian whether the mores of
the historical classes of which he finds evidence in documentary remains
penetrated the masses or not. The masses are the real bearers of the
mores of the society. They carry tradition. The folkways are their ways.
They accept influence or leadership, and they imitate, but they do so as
they see fit, being controlled by their notions and tastes previously
acquired. They may accept standards of character and action from the
classes, or from foreigners, or from literature, or from a new religion,
but whatever they take up they assimilate and make it a part of their
own mores, which they then transmit by tradition, defend in its
integrity, and refuse to discard again. Consequently the writings of the
literary class may not represent the faiths, notions, tastes, standards,
etc., of the masses at all. The literature of the first Christian
centuries shows us scarcely anything of the mores of the time, as they
existed in the faith and practice of the masses. Every group takes out
of a new religion which is offered to it just what it can assimilate
with its own traditional mores. Christianity was a very different thing
amongst Jews, Egyptians, Greeks, Germans, and Slavs. It would be a great
mistake to suppose that any people ever accepted and held philosophical
or religious teaching as it was offered to them, and as we find it
recorded in the books of the teachers. The mores of the masses admit of
no such sudden and massive modification by doctrinal teaching. The
process of assimilation is slow, and it is attended by modifying
influences at every stage. What the classes adopt, be it good or ill,
may be found pervading the mass after generations, but it will appear as
a resultant of all the vicissitudes of the folkways in the interval. "It
was the most frightful feature of the corruption of ancient Rome, that
it extended through every class in the community."[73] "As in the
Renaissance, so now [in the Catholic reaction] vice trickled downward
from above, infiltrating the mass of the people with its virus."[74] It
is the classes who produce variation; it is the masses who carry forward
the traditional mores.
+53. Fallacies about the masses and classes.+ It is a fallacy to infer
that the masses have some occult wisdom or inspiration by virtue of
which they select what is wise, right, and good from what the classes
offer. There is, also, no device by which it is possible to obtain from
the masses, in advance or on demand, a judgment on any proposed changes
or innovations. The masses are not an oracle. If any answers can be
obtained on the problems of life, such answers will come rather from the
classes. The two sections of society are such that they may coöperate
with advantage to the good of all. Neither one has a right or a better
claim to rule the society.
+54. Action of the masses on thoughts.+ Fifty years ago Darwin put some
knowledge into the common stock. The peasants and artisans of his time
did nothing of the kind. What the masses do with thoughts is that they
rub them down into counters just as they take coins from the mint and
smooth them down by wear until they are only disks of metal. The masses
understand, for instance, that Darwin said that "men are descended from
monkeys." Only summary and glib propositions of that kind can ever get
currency. The learned men are all the time trying to recoin them and
give them at least partial reality. Ruskin set afloat some notions of
art criticism, which have penetrated all our cultivated classes. They
are not lost, but see what has become of them in fifty years by
popularization. A little later a new gospel of furniture and house
decoration was published. The masses have absorbed it. See what they
have made of it. Eastlake wanted no machine work, but machinery was not
to be defeated. It can make lopsided things if those are the fashion,
and it can make all the construction show if Eastlake has got the notion
into the crowd that the pegs ought to be on the outside. Thinking and
understanding are too hard work. If any one wants to blame the masses
let him turn to his own case. He will find that he thinks about and
understands only his own intellectual pursuit. He could not give the
effort to every other department of knowledge. In other matters he is
one of the masses and does as they do. He uses routine, set formulæ,
current phrases, caught up from magazines and newspapers of the better
class.
+55. Organization of the masses.+ Masses of men who are on a substantial
equality with each other never can be anything but hopeless savages. The
eighteenth-century notion that men in a state of nature were all equal
is wrong-side up. Men who were equal would be in a state of nature such
as was imagined. They could not form a society. They would be forced to
scatter and wander, at most two or three together. They never could
advance in the arts of civilization. The popular belief that out of some
such horde there has come by the spontaneous development of innate
forces all the civilization which we possess is entirely unfounded.
Masses of men who are approximately equal are in time exterminated or
enslaved. Only when enslaved or subjugated are some of them carried up
with their conquerors by organization and discipline (negroes and
Indians amongst us). A horde in which the only differences are those of
age and sex is not capable of maintaining existence. It fights because
only by conquering or being conquered can it endure. When it is
subjugated and disciplined it consists of workers to belabor the ground
for others, or tax payers to fill a treasury from which others may
spend, or food for gunpowder, or voting material for demagogues. It is
an object of exploitation. At one moment, in spite of its aggregate
muscle, it is helpless and imbecile; the next moment it is swept away
into folly and mischief by a suggestion or an impulse. Organization,
leadership, and discipline are indispensable to any beneficial action by
masses of men. If we ignore this fact, we see the machine and the boss
evolved out of the situation which we create.
+56. Institutions of civil liberty.+ Institutions also must be produced
which will hold the activities of society in channels of order,
deliberation, peace, regulated antagonism of interests, and justice,
according to the mores of the time. These institutions put an end to
exploitation and bring interests into harmony under civil liberty. But
where do the institutions come from? The masses have never made them.
They are produced out of the mores by the selection of the leading men
and classes who get control of the collective power of the society and
direct it to the activities which will (as they think) serve the
interests which they regard as most important. If changes in life
conditions occur, the interests to be served change. Great inventions
and discoveries, the opening of new continents, new methods of
agriculture and commerce, the introduction of money and financial
devices, improved state organization, increase the economic power of the
society and the force at the disposal of the state. Industrial interests
displace military and monarchical interests as the ones which the state
chiefly aims to serve, not because of any tide of "progress," but
because industrialism gives greater and more varied satisfactions to the
rulers. The increase of _power_ is the primary condition. The classes
strive with each other for the new power. Peace is necessary, for
without peace none of them can enjoy power. Compromise, adjustment of
interests, antagonistic coöperation (sec. 21), harmony, are produced,
and institutions are the regulative processes and apparatus by which
warfare is replaced by system. The historical process has been full of
error, folly, selfishness, violence, and craft. It is so still. The
point which is now important for us is that the masses have never
carried on the struggles and processes by which civilized society has
been made into an arena, within which exploitation of man by man is to
some extent repressed, and where individual self-realization has a large
scope, under the institutions of civil liberty. It is the historical and
selected classes which have done this, often enough without intending or
foreseeing the results of actions which they inaugurated with quite
other, perhaps selfish, class purposes in view. A society is a whole
made up of parts. All the parts have a legitimate share in the acts and
sufferings of the society. All the parts contribute to the life and work
of the society. We inherit all the consequences of all their acts. Some
of the consequences are good and some are bad. It is utterly impossible
to name the classes which have done useful work and made beneficial
sacrifices only, and the other classes which have been idle burdens and
mischief makers only. All that has been done has been done by all. It is
evident that no other view than this can be rational and true, for one
reason because the will and intention of the men of to-day in what they
do has so little to do with the consequences to-morrow of what they do.
The notion that religion, or marriage, or property, or monarchy, as we
have inherited them, can be proved evil, or worthy of condemnation and
contempt on account of the selfishness and violence interwoven with
their history, is one of the idlest of all the vagaries of the social
philosophers.
+57. The common man.+ Every civilized society has to carry below the
lowest sections of the masses a dead weight of ignorance, poverty,
crime, and disease. Every such society has, in the great central section
of the masses, a great body which is neutral in all the policy of
society. It lives by routine and tradition. It is not brutal, but it is
shallow, narrow-minded, and prejudiced. Nevertheless it is harmless. It
lacks initiative and cannot give an impulse for good or bad. It produces
few criminals. It can sometimes be moved by appeals to its fixed ideas
and prejudices. It is affected in its mores by contagion from the
classes above it. The work of "popularization" consists in bringing
about this contagion. The middle section is formed around the
mathematical mean of the society, or around the mathematical mode, if
the distribution of the subdivisions is not symmetrical. The man on the
mode is the "common man," the "average man," or the "man in the street."
Between him and the democratic political institutions--the pulpit, the
newspapers, and the public library--there is a constant reaction by
which mores are modified and preserved. The aim of all the institutions
and literature in a modern state is to please him. His aim is to get out
of them what suits him. The yellow newspapers thrive and displace all
the others because he likes them. The trashy novels pay well because his
wife and daughters like them. The advertisements in the popular
magazines are addressed to him. They show what he wants. The "funny
items" are adjusted to his sense of humor. Hence all these things are
symptoms. They show what he "believes in," and they strengthen his
prejudices. If all art, literature, legislation, and political power are
to be cast at his feet, it makes some difference who and what he is. His
section of society determines the mores of the whole.
+58. "The people." Popular impulses.+ In a democratic state the great
middle section would rule if it was organized independently of the rest.
It is that section which constitutes "the people" in the special
technical sense in which that expression is current in political use. It
is to it that the Jeffersonian doctrines about the "wisdom" of the
people would apply. That section, however, is never organized
independently; that is to say, "the people" never exist as a body
exercising political power. The middle section of a group may be
enthused by an impulse which is adapted to its ways and notions. It
clings to persons, loves anecdotes, is fond of light emotions, and
prides itself on its morality. If a man wins popularity in that section,
the impulse which his name can give to it may be irresistible
(Jefferson, Jackson). The middle section is greatly affected by
symbolism. "The flag" can be developed into a fetich. A cult can be
nourished around it. Group vanity is very strong in it. Patriotic
emotions and faiths are its favorite psychological exercises, if the
conjuncture is favorable and the material well-being is high. When the
middle section is stirred by any spontaneous and consentaneous impulses
which arise from its nature and ways, it may produce incredible results
with only a minimum of organization. "A little prosperity and some
ideas, as Aristotle saw, are the ferment which sets the masses in
ebullition. This offers an opportunity. A beginning is made. The further
development is unavoidable."[75]
+59. Agitation.+ Every impulse given to the masses is, in its nature,
spasmodic and transitory. No systematic enterprise to enlighten the
masses ever can be carried out. Campaigns of education contain a
fallacy. Education takes time. It cannot be treated as subsidiary for a
lifetime and then be made the chief business for six months with the
desired result. A campaign of education is undemocratic. It implies that
some one is teacher and somebody else pupil. It can only result in the
elucidation of popular interests and the firmer establishment of popular
prejudice. On the other hand, an agitation which appeals skillfully to
pet notions and to latent fanaticism may stampede the masses. The Middle
Ages furnished a number of cases. The Mahdis who have arisen in
Mohammedan Africa, and other Moslem prophets, have produced wonderful
phenomena of this kind. The silver agitation was begun, in 1878, by a
systematic effort of three or four newspapers in the middle West,
addressed to currency notions which the greenback proposition had
popularized. What is the limit to the possibilities of fanaticism and
frenzy which might be produced in any society by agitation skillfully
addressed to the fallacies and passions of the masses? The answer lies
in the mores, which determine the degree of reserved common sense, and
the habit of observing measure and method, to which the masses have been
accustomed. It follows that popular agitation is a desperate and
doubtful method. The masses, as the great popular jury which, at last,
by adoption or rejection, decides the fate of all proposed changes in
the mores, needs stability and moderation. Popular agitation introduces
into the masses initiative and creative functions which destroy its
judgment and call for quite other qualities.
+60. The ruling element in the masses.+ The masses are liable to
controlling influences from elements which they contain. When crises
arise in a democratic state attention is concentrated on the most
numerous strata nearest to _MN_ (see the diagram, p. 40), but they
rarely possess self-determination unless the question at issue appeals
directly to popular interest or popular vanity. Moreover, those strata
cannot rule unless they combine with those next above and below. So the
critical question always is, in regard to the masses _PQRS_, which parts
of it will move the whole of it. Generally the question is, more
specifically, What is the character of the strata above a line through
_A_ or _B_, and what is their relation to the rest of _PQRS_? If the
upper part of the section _PQRS_ consists of employers and the lower
part of employés, and if they hate and fight each other, coherence and
sympathy in the society will cease, the mores will be characterized by
discord, passion, and quarrelsomeness, and political crises will arise
which may reach any degree of severity, for the political parties will
soon coincide with the class sections. The upper part of _PQRS_ is made
up of the strata which possess comfort without luxury, but also culture,
intelligence, and the best family mores. They are generally disciplined
classes, with strong moral sense, public spirit, and sense of
responsibility. If we are not in error as to the movement in civilized
states of the present time from the lower into the upper strata of
_PQRS_, by virtue of ambition and education, then it follows that the
upper strata are being constantly reënforced by all the elements in the
society which have societal value, after those elements have been
developed and disciplined by labor and self-denial. The share which the
upper strata of the masses have in determining the policy of the masses
is therefore often decisive of public welfare. On the other hand, it is
when the masses are controlled by the strata next above _RS_ that there
is most violent impulsiveness in societal movements. The movements and
policies which are characterized as revolutionary have their rise in
these classes, although, in other cases, these classes also adhere most
stubbornly to popular traditions in spite of reason and fact. Trade
unionism is, at the present time, a social philosophy and a programme of
policy which has its origin in the sections of the masses next above
_RS_.
The French Revolution began with the highest strata of the masses, and
the control of it passed on down from one to another of the lower
strata, until it reached the lowest,--the mob gathered in the slums of a
great city.
+61. The mores and institutions.+ Institutions and laws are produced out
of mores. An institution consists of a concept (idea, notion, doctrine,
interest) and a structure. The structure is a framework, or apparatus,
or perhaps only a number of functionaries set to coöperate in prescribed
ways at a certain conjuncture. The structure holds the concept and
furnishes instrumentalities for bringing it into the world of facts and
action in a way to serve the interests of men in society. Institutions
are either crescive or enacted. They are crescive when they take shape
in the mores, growing by the instinctive efforts by which the mores are
produced. Then the efforts, through long use, become definite and
specific. Property, marriage, and religion are the most primary
institutions. They began in folkways. They became customs. They
developed into mores by the addition of some philosophy of welfare,
however crude. Then they were made more definite and specific as regards
the rules, the prescribed acts, and the apparatus to be employed. This
produced a structure and the institution was complete. Enacted
institutions are products of rational invention and intention. They
belong to high civilization. Banks are institutions of credit founded on
usages which can be traced back to barbarism. There came a time when,
guided by rational reflection on experience, men systematized and
regulated the usages which had become current, and thus created positive
institutions of credit, defined by law and sanctioned by the force of
the state. Pure enacted institutions which are strong and prosperous are
hard to find. It is too difficult to invent and create an institution,
for a purpose, out of nothing. The electoral college in the constitution
of the United States is an example. In that case the democratic mores of
the people have seized upon the device and made of it something quite
different from what the inventors planned. All institutions have come
out of mores, although the rational element in them is sometimes so
large that their origin in the mores is not to be ascertained except by
an historical investigation (legislatures, courts, juries, joint stock
companies, the stock exchange). Property, marriage, and religion are
still almost entirely in the mores. Amongst nature men any man might
capture and hold a woman at any time, if he could. He did it by superior
force which was its own supreme justification. But his act brought his
group and her group into war, and produced harm to his comrades. They
forbade capture, or set conditions for it. Beyond the limits, the
individual might still use force, but his comrades were no longer
responsible. The glory to him, if he succeeded, might be all the
greater. His control over his captive was absolute. Within the
prescribed conditions, "capture" became technical and institutional, and
rights grew out of it. The woman had a status which was defined by
custom, and was very different from the status of a real captive.
Marriage was the institutional relation, in the society and under its
sanction, of a woman to a man, where the woman had been obtained in the
prescribed way. She was then a "wife." What her rights and duties were
was defined by the mores, as they are to-day in all civilized society.
+62. Laws.+ Acts of legislation come out of the mores. In low
civilization all societal regulations are customs and taboos, the origin
of which is unknown. Positive laws are impossible until the stage of
verification, reflection, and criticism is reached. Until that point is
reached there is only customary law, or common law. The customary law
may be codified and systematized with respect to some philosophical
principles, and yet remain customary. The codes of Manu and Justinian
are examples. Enactment is not possible until reverence for ancestors
has been so much weakened that it is no longer thought wrong to
interfere with traditional customs by positive enactment. Even then
there is reluctance to make enactments, and there is a stage of
transition during which traditional customs are extended by
interpretation to cover new cases and to prevent evils. Legislation,
however, has to seek standing ground on the existing mores, and it soon
becomes apparent that legislation, to be strong, must be consistent with
the mores.[76] Things which have been in the mores are put under police
regulation and later under positive law. It is sometimes said that
"public opinion" must ratify and approve police regulations, but this
statement rests on an imperfect analysis. The regulations must conform
to the mores, so that the public will not think them too lax or too
strict. The mores of our urban and rural populations are not the same;
consequently legislation about intoxicants which is made by one of these
sections of the population does not succeed when applied to the other.
The regulation of drinking places, gambling places, and disorderly
houses has passed through the above-mentioned stages. It is always a
question of expediency whether to leave a subject under the mores, or to
make a police regulation for it, or to put it into the criminal law.
Betting, horse racing, dangerous sports, electric cars, and vehicles are
cases now of things which seem to be passing under positive enactment
and out of the unformulated control of the mores. When an enactment is
made there is a sacrifice of the elasticity and automatic
self-adaptation of custom, but an enactment is specific and is provided
with sanctions. Enactments come into use when conscious purposes are
formed, and it is believed that specific devices can be framed by which
to realize such purposes in the society. Then also prohibitions take the
place of taboos, and punishments are planned to be deterrent rather than
revengeful. The mores of different societies, or of different ages, are
characterized by greater or less readiness and confidence in regard to
the use of positive enactments for the realization of societal purposes.
+63. How laws and institutions differ from mores.+ When folkways have
become institutions or laws they have changed their character and are to
be distinguished from the mores. The element of sentiment and faith
inheres in the mores. Laws and institutions have a rational and
practical character, and are more mechanical and utilitarian. The great
difference is that institutions and laws have a positive character,
while mores are unformulated and undefined. There is a philosophy
implicit in the folkways; when it is made explicit it becomes technical
philosophy. Objectively regarded, the mores are the customs which
actually conduce to welfare under existing life conditions. Acts under
the laws and institutions are conscious and voluntary; under the
folkways they are always unconscious and involuntary, so that they have
the character of natural necessity. Educated reflection and skepticism
can disturb this spontaneous relation. The laws, being positive
prescriptions, supersede the mores so far as they are adopted. It
follows that the mores come into operation where laws and tribunals
fail. The mores cover the great field of common life where there are no
laws or police regulations. They cover an immense and undefined domain,
and they break the way in new domains, not yet controlled at all. The
mores, therefore, build up new laws and police regulations in time.
+64. Difference between mores and some cognate things.+ Products of
intentional investigation or of rational and conscious reflection,
projects formally adopted by voluntary associations, rational methods
consciously selected, injunctions and prohibitions by authority, and all
specific conventional arrangements are not in the mores. They are
differentiated by the rational and conscious element in them. We may
also make a distinction between usages and mores. Usages are folkways
which contain no principle of welfare, but serve convenience so long as
all know what they are expected to do. For instance, Orientals, to show
respect, cover the head and uncover the feet; Occidentals do the
opposite. There is no inherent and necessary connection between respect
and either usage, but it is an advantage that there should be a usage
and that all should know and observe it. One way is as good as another,
if it is understood and established. The folkways as to public decency
belong to the mores, because they have real connection with welfare
which determines the only tenor which they can have. The folkways about
propriety and modesty are sometimes purely conventional and sometimes
inherently real. Fashions, fads, affectations, poses, ideals, manias,
popular delusions, follies, and vices must be included in the mores.
They have characteral qualities and characteral effect. However
frivolous or foolish they may appear to people of another age, they have
the form of attempts to live well, to satisfy some interest, or to win
some good. The ways of advertisers who exaggerate, use tricks to win
attention, and appeal to popular weakness and folly; the ways of
journalism; electioneering devices; oratorical and dithyrambic
extravagances in politics; current methods of humbug and
sensationalism,--are not properly part of the mores but symptoms of
them. They are not products of the concurrent and coöperative effort of
all members of the society to live well. They are devices made with
conscious ingenuity to exert suggestion on the minds of others. The
mores are rather the underlying facts in regard to the faiths, notions,
tastes, desires, etc., of that society at that time, to which all these
modes of action appeal and of whose existence they are evidence.
+65. What is goodness or badness of the mores.+ It is most important to
notice that, for the people of a time and place, their own mores are
always good, or rather that for them there can be no question of the
goodness or badness of their mores. The reason is because the standards
of good and right are in the mores. If the life conditions change, the
traditional folkways may produce pain and loss, or fail to produce the
same good as formerly. Then the loss of comfort and ease brings doubt
into the judgment of welfare (causing doubt of the pleasure of the gods,
or of war power, or of health), and thus disturbs the unconscious
philosophy of the mores. Then a later time will pass judgment on the
mores. Another society may also pass judgment on the mores. In our
literary and historical study of the mores we want to get from them
their educational value, which consists in the stimulus or warning as to
what is, in its effects, societally good or bad. This may lead us to
reject or neglect a phenomenon like infanticide, slavery, or witchcraft,
as an old "abuse" and "evil," or to pass by the crusades as a folly
which cannot recur. Such a course would be a great error. Everything in
the mores of a time and place must be regarded as justified with regard
to that time and place. "Good" mores are those which are well adapted to
the situation. "Bad" mores are those which are not so adapted. The mores
are not so stereotyped and changeless as might appear, because they are
forever moving towards more complete adaptation to conditions and
interests, and also towards more complete adjustment to each other.
People in mass have never made or kept up a custom in order to hurt
their own interests. They have made innumerable errors as to what their
interests were and how to satisfy them, but they have always aimed to
serve their interests as well as they could. This gives the standpoint
for the student of the mores. All things in them come before him on the
same plane. They all bring instruction and warning. They all have the
same relation to power and welfare. The mistakes in them are component
parts of them. We do not study them in order to approve some of them
and condemn others. They are all equally worthy of attention from the
fact that they existed and were used. The chief object of study in them
is their adjustment to interests, their relation to welfare, and their
coördination in a harmonious system of life policy. For the men of the
time there are no "bad" mores. What is traditional and current is the
standard of what ought to be. The masses never raise any question about
such things. If a few raise doubts and questions, this proves that the
folkways have already begun to lose firmness and the regulative element
in the mores has begun to lose authority. This indicates that the
folkways are on their way to a new adjustment. The extreme of folly,
wickedness, and absurdity in the mores is witch persecutions, but the
best men of the seventeenth century had no doubt that witches existed,
and that they ought to be burned. The religion, statecraft,
jurisprudence, philosophy, and social system of that age all contributed
to maintain that belief. It was rather a culmination than a
contradiction of the current faiths and convictions, just as the dogma
that all men are equal and that one ought to have as much political
power in the state as another was the culmination of the political
dogmatism and social philosophy of the nineteenth century. Hence our
judgments of the good or evil consequences of folkways are to be kept
separate from our study of the historical phenomena of them, and of
their strength and the reasons for it. The judgments have their place in
plans and doctrines for the future, not in a retrospect.
+66. More exact definition of the mores.+ We may now formulate a more
complete definition of the mores. They are the ways of doing things
which are current in a society to satisfy human needs and desires,
together with the faiths, notions, codes, and standards of well living
which inhere in those ways, having a genetic connection with them. By
virtue of the latter element the mores are traits in the specific
character (ethos) of a society or a period. They pervade and control the
ways of thinking in all the exigencies of life, returning from the world
of abstractions to the world of action, to give guidance and to win
revivification. "The mores [_Sitten_] are, before any beginning of
reflection, the regulators of the political, social, and religious
behavior of the individual. Conscious reflection is the worst enemy of
the mores, because mores begin unconsciously and pursue unconscious
purposes, which are recognized by reflection often only after long and
circuitous processes, and because their expediency often depends on the
assumption that they will have general acceptance and currency,
uninterfered with by reflection."[77] "The mores are usage in any group,
in so far as it, on the one hand, is not the expression or fulfillment
of an absolute natural necessity [e.g. eating or sleeping], and, on the
other hand, is independent of the arbitrary will of the individual, and
is generally accepted as good and proper, appropriate and worthy."[78]
+67. Ritual.+ The process by which mores are developed and established
is ritual. Ritual is so foreign to our mores that we do not recognize
its power. In primitive society it is the prevailing method of activity,
and primitive religion is entirely a matter of ritual. Ritual is the
perfect form of drill and of the regulated habit which comes from drill.
Acts which are ordained by authority and are repeated mechanically
without intelligence run into ritual. If infants and children are
subjected to ritual they never escape from its effects through life.
Galton[79] says that he was, in early youth, in contact with the
Mohammedan ritual idea that the left hand is less worthy than the right,
and that he never overcame it. We see the effect of ritual in breeding,
courtesy, politeness, and all forms of prescribed behavior. Etiquette is
social ritual. Ritual is not easy compliance with usage; it is strict
compliance with detailed and punctilious rule. It admits of no exception
or deviation. The stricter the discipline, the greater the power of
ritual over action and character. In the training of animals and the
education of children it is the perfection, inevitableness,
invariableness, and relentlessness of routine which tells. They should
never experience any exception or irregularity. Ritual is connected with
words, gestures, symbols, and signs. Associations result, and, upon a
repetition of the signal, the act is repeated, whether the will assents
or not. Association and habit account for the phenomena. Ritual gains
further strength when it is rhythmical, and is connected with music,
verse, or other rhythmical arts. Acts are ritually repeated at the
recurrence of the rhythmical points. The alternation of night and day
produces rhythms of waking and sleeping, of labor and rest, for great
numbers at the same time, in their struggle for existence. The seasons
also produce rhythms in work. Ritual may embody an idea of utility,
expediency, or welfare, but it always tends to become perfunctory, and
the idea is only subconscious. There is ritual in primitive
therapeutics, and it was not eliminated until very recent times. The
patient was directed, not only to apply remedies, but also to perform
rites. The rites introduced mystic elements. This illustrates the
connection of ritual with notions of magical effects produced by rites.
All ritual is ceremonious and solemn. It tends to become sacred, or to
make sacred the subject-matter with which it is connected. Therefore, in
primitive society, it is by ritual that sentiments of awe, deference to
authority, submission to tradition, and disciplinary coöperation are
inculcated. Ritual operates a constant suggestion, and the suggestion is
at once put in operation in acts. Ritual, therefore, suggests
sentiments, but it never inculcates doctrines. Ritual is strongest when
it is most perfunctory and excites no thought. By familiarity with
ritual any doctrinal reference which it once had is lost by familiarity,
but the habits persist. Primitive religion is ritualistic, not because
religion makes ritual, but because ritual makes religion. Ritual is
something to be done, not something to be thought or felt. Men can
always perform the prescribed act, although they cannot always think or
feel prescribed thoughts or emotions. The acts may bring up again, by
association, states of the mind and sentiments which have been connected
with them, especially in childhood, when the fantasy was easily affected
by rites, music, singing, dramas, etc. No creed, no moral code, and no
scientific demonstration can ever win the same hold upon men and women
as habits of action, with associated sentiments and states of mind,
drilled in from childhood. Mohammedanism shows the power of ritual. Any
occupation is interrupted for the prayers and prescribed genuflections.
The Brahmins also observe an elaborate daily ritual. They devote to it
two hours in the morning, two in the evening, and one at midday.[80]
Monks and nuns have won the extreme satisfaction of religious sentiment
from the unbroken habit of repeated ritual, with undisturbed opportunity
to develop the emotional effects of it.
+68. The ritual of the mores.+ The mores are social ritual in which we
all participate unconsciously. The current habits as to hours of labor,
meal hours, family life, the social intercourse of the sexes, propriety,
amusements, travel, holidays, education, the use of periodicals and
libraries, and innumerable other details of life fall under this ritual.
Each does as everybody does. For the great mass of mankind as to all
things, and for all of us for a great many things, the rule to do as all
do suffices. We are led by suggestion and association to believe that
there must be wisdom and utility in what all do. The great mass of the
folkways give us discipline and the support of routine and habit. If we
had to form judgments as to all these cases before we could act in them,
and were forced always to act rationally, the burden would be
unendurable. Beneficent use and wont save us this trouble.
+69. Group interests and policy.+ Groups select, consciously and
unconsciously, standards of group well living. They plan group careers,
and adopt purposes through which they hope to attain to group
self-realization. The historical classes adopt the decisions which
constitute these group plans and acts, and they impose them on the
group. The Greeks were enthused at one time by a national purpose to
destroy Troy, at another time by a national necessity to ward off
Persian conquest. The Romans conceived of their rivalry with Carthage as
a struggle from which only one state could survive. Spain, through an
effort to overthrow the political power of the Moors in the peninsula
and to make it all Christian, was educated up to a national purpose to
make Spain a pure "Christian" state, in the dogmatic and ecclesiastical
sense of the word. Moors and Jews were expelled at great cost and loss.
Germany and Italy cherished for generations a national hope and desire
to become unified states. Some attempts to formulate or interpret the
Monroe doctrine would make it a national policy and programme for the
United States. In lower civilization group interests and purposes are
less definite. We must believe that barbarous tribes often form notions
of their group interests, and adopt group policies, especially in their
relations with neighboring groups. The Iroquois, after forming their
confederation, made war on neighboring tribes in order either to
subjugate them or to force them to come into the peace pact. Pontiac and
Tecumseh united the red men in a race effort to drive the whites out of
North America.
+70. Group interests and folkways.+ Whenever a group has a group purpose
that purpose produces group interests, and those interests overrule
individual interests in the development of folkways. A group might adopt
a pacific and industrial purpose, but historical cases of this kind are
very few. It used to be asserted that the United States had as its great
social purpose to create a social environment which should favor that
development of the illiterate and unskilled classes into an independent
status for which the economic conditions of a new country give
opportunity, and it was asserted that nothing could cause a variation
from this policy, which was said to be secured in the political
institutions and political ideas of the people. Within a few years the
United States has been affected by an ambition to be a world power. (A
world power is a state which expects to have a share in the settlement
of every clash of interests and collision of state policies which occurs
anywhere on the globe.) There is no reason to wonder at this action of a
democracy, for a democracy is sure to resent any suggestion that it is
limited in its functions, as compared with other political forms. At the
same time that the United States has moved towards the character of a
world power it has become militant. Other states in the past which have
had group purposes have been militant. Even when they arrived at
commerce and industry they have pursued policies which involved them in
war (Venice, Hansa, Holland). Since the group interests override the
individual interests, the selection and determination of group purposes
is a function of the greatest importance and an act of the greatest
effect on individual welfare. The interests of the society or nation
furnish an easy phrase, but such phrases are to be regarded with
suspicion. Such interests are apt to be the interests of a ruling clique
which the rest are to be compelled to serve. On the other hand, a really
great and intelligent group purpose, founded on correct knowledge and
really sound judgment, can infuse into the mores a vigor and consistent
character which will reach every individual with educative effect. The
essential condition is that the group purpose shall be "founded on
correct knowledge and really sound judgment." The interests must be
real, and they must be interests of the whole, and the judgment as to
means of satisfying them must be correct.
+71. Force in the folkways.+ Here we notice also the intervention of
force. There is always a large element of force in the folkways. It
constitutes another modification of the theory of the folkways as
expedient devices, developed in experience, to meet the exigencies of
life. The organization of society under chiefs and medicine men greatly
increased the power of the society to serve its own interests. The same
is true of higher political organizations. If Gian Galeazzo Visconti or
Cesare Borgia could have united Italy into a despotic state, it is an
admissible opinion that the history of the peninsula in the following
four or five hundred years would have been happy and prosperous, and
that, at the present time, it would have had the same political system
which it has now. However, chiefs, kings, priests, warriors, statesmen,
and other functionaries have put their own interests in the place of
group interests, and have used the authority they possessed to force the
societal organization to work and fight for their interests. The force
is that of the society itself. It is directed by the ruling class or
persons. The force enters into the mores and becomes a component in
them. Despotism is in the mores of negro tribes, and of all Mohammedan
peoples. There is an element of force in all forms of property,
marriage, and religion. Slavery, however, is the grandest case of force
in the mores, employed to make some serve the interests of others, in
the societal organization. The historical classes, having selected the
group purposes and decided the group policy, use the force of the
society itself to coerce all to acquiesce and to work and fight in the
determined way without regard to their individual interests. This they
do by means of discipline and ritual. In different kinds of mores the
force is screened by different devices. It is always present, and
brutal, cruel force has entered largely into the development of all our
mores, even those which we think most noble and excellent.
+72. Might and right.+ Modern civilized states of the best form are
often called jural states because the concept of rights enters so
largely into all their constitutions and regulations. Our political
philosophy centers around that concept, and all our social discussions
fall into the form of propositions and disputes about rights. The
history of the dogma of rights has been such that rights have been
believed to be self-evident and self-existent, and as having prevailed
especially in primitive society. Rights are also regarded as the
opposite of force. These notions only prove the antagonism between our
mores and those of earlier generations. In fact, it is a characteristic
of our mores that the form of our thinking about all points of political
philosophy is set for us by the concept of rights. Nothing but might has
ever made right, and if we include in might (as we ought to) elections
and the decisions of courts, nothing but might makes right now. We must
distinguish between the anterior and the posterior view of the matter in
question. If we are about to take some action, and are debating the
right of it, the might which can be brought to support one view of it
has nothing to do with the right of it. If a thing has been done and is
established by force (that is, no force can reverse it), it is right in
the only sense we know, and rights will follow from it which are not
vitiated at all by the force in it. There would be no security at all
for rights if this were not so. We find men and parties protesting,
declaiming, complaining of what is done, and which they say is not
"right," but only force. An election decides that those shall have power
who will execute an act of policy. The defeated party denounces the
wrong and wickedness of the act. It is done. It may be a war, a
conquest, a spoliation; every one must help to do it by paying taxes and
doing military service or other duty which may be demanded of him. The
decision of a lawsuit leaves one party protesting and complaining. He
always speaks of "right" and "rights." He is forced to acquiesce. The
result is right in the only sense which is real and true. It is more to
the purpose to note that an indefinite series of consequences follow,
and that they create or condition rights which are real and just. Many
persons now argue against property that it began in force and therefore
has no existence in right and justice. They might say the same of
marriage or religion. Some do say the same of the state. The war of the
United States with Mexico in 1845 is now generally regarded as
unjustified. That cannot affect the rights of all kinds which have been
contracted in the territory then ceded by Mexico or under the status
created on the land obtained by the treaty of peace with that country.
The whole history of mankind is a series of acts which are open to
doubt, dispute, and criticism, as to their right and justice, but all
subsequent history has been forced to take up the consequences of those
acts and go on. The disputants about "rights" often lose sight of the
fact that the world has to go on day by day and dispute must end. It
always ends in force. The end always leaves some complaining in terms of
right and rights. They are overborne by force of some kind. Therefore
might has made all the right which ever has existed or exists now. If it
is proposed to reverse, reform, or change anything which ever was done
because we now think that it was wrong, that is a new question and a new
case, in which the anterior view alone is in place. It is for the new
and future cases that we study historical cases and form judgments on
them which will enable us to act more wisely. If we recognize the great
extent to which force now enters into all which happens in society, we
shall cease to be shocked to learn the extent to which it has been
active in the entire history of civilization. The habit of using jural
concepts, which is now so characteristic of our mores, leads us into
vague and impossible dreams of social affairs, in which metaphysical
concepts are supposed to realize themselves, or are assumed to be real.
+73. Status in the folkways.+ If now we form a conception of the
folkways as a great mass of usages, of all degrees of importance,
covering all the interests of life, constituting an outfit of
instruction for the young, embodying a life policy, forming character,
containing a world philosophy, albeit most vague and unformulated, and
sanctioned by ghost fear so that variation is impossible, we see with
what coercive and inhibitive force the folkways have always grasped the
members of a society. The folkways create status. Membership in the
group, kin, family, neighborhood, rank, or class are cases of status.
The rights and duties of every man and woman were defined by status. No
one could choose whether he would enter into the status or not. For
instance, at puberty every one was married. What marriage meant, and
what a husband or wife was (the rights and duties of each), were fixed
by status. No one could alter the customary relations. Status, as
distinguished from institutions and contract, is a direct product of the
mores. Each case of status is a nucleus of leading interest with the
folkways which cluster around it. Status is determined by birth.
Therefore it is a help and a hindrance, but it is not liberty. In modern
times status has become unpopular and our mores have grown into the
forms of contract under liberty. The conception of status has been lost
by the masses in modern civilized states. Nevertheless we live under
status which has been defined and guaranteed by law and institutions,
and it would be a great gain to recognize and appreciate the element of
status which historically underlies the positive institutions and which
is still subject to the action of the mores. Marriage (matrimony or
wedlock) is a status. It is really controlled by the mores. The law
defines it and gives sanctions to it, but the law always expresses the
mores. A man and a woman make a contract to enter into it. The mode of
entering into it (wedding) is fixed by custom. The law only ratifies it.
No man and woman can by contract make wedlock different for themselves
from the status defined by law, so far as social rights and duties are
concerned. The same conception of marriage as a status in the mores is
injured by the intervention of the ecclesiastical and civil formalities
connected with it. An individual is born into a kin group, a tribe, a
nation, or a state, and he has a status accordingly which determines
rights and duties for him. Civil liberty must be defined in accordance
with this fact; not outside of it, or according to vague metaphysical
abstractions above it. The body of the folkways constitutes a societal
environment. Every one born into it must enter into relations of give
and take with it. He is subjected to influences from it, and it is one
of the life conditions under which he must work out his career of
self-realization. Whatever liberty may be taken to mean, it is certain
that liberty never can mean emancipation from the influence of the
societal environment, or of the mores into which one was born.
+74. Conventionalization.+ If traditional folkways are subjected to
rational or ethical examination they are no longer naïve and
unconscious. It may then be found that they are gross, absurd, or
inexpedient. They may still be preserved by conventionalization.
Conventionalization creates a set of conditions under which a thing may
be tolerated which would otherwise be disapproved and tabooed. The
special conditions may be created in fact, or they may be only a fiction
which all agree to respect and to treat as true. When children, in play,
"make believe" that something exists, or exists in a certain way, they
employ conventionalization. Special conditions are created in fact when
some fact is regarded as making the usual taboo inoperative. Such is the
case with all archaic usages which are perpetuated on account of their
antiquity, although they are not accordant with modern standards. The
language of Shakespeare and the Bible contains words which are now
tabooed. In this case, as in very many others, the conventionalization
consists in ignoring the violation of current standards of propriety.
Natural functions and toilet operations are put under conventionalization,
even in low civilization. The conventionalization consists in ignoring
breaches of the ordinary taboo. On account of accidents which may occur,
wellbred people are always ready to apply conventionalization to mishaps
of speech, dress, manner, etc. In fairy stories, fables, romances, and
dramas all are expected to comply with certain conventional understandings
without which the entertainment is impossible; for instance, when beasts
are supposed to speak. In the mythologies this kind of conventionalization
was essential. One of us, in studying mythologies, has to acquire a
knowledge of the conventional assumptions with which the people who
believed in them approached them. Modern Hindoos conventionalize the
stories of their mythology.[81] What the gods are said to have done is
put under other standards than those now applied to men. Everything in
the mythology is on a plane by itself. It follows that none of the
rational or ethical judgments are formed about the acts of the gods
which would be formed about similar acts of men, and the corruption of
morals which would be expected as a consequence of the stories and
dramas is prevented by the conventionalization. There is no deduction
from what gods do to what men may do. The Greeks of the fifth century
B.C. rationalized on their mythology and thereby destroyed it. The
mediæval church claimed to be under a conventionalization which would
prevent judgment on the church and ecclesiastics according to current
standards. Very many people heeded this conventionalization, so that
they were not scandalized by vice and crime in the church. This
intervention of conventionalization to remove cases from the usual
domain of the mores into a special field, where they can be protected
and tolerated by codes and standards modified in their favor, is of very
great importance. It accounts for many inconsistencies in the mores. In
this way there may be nakedness without indecency, and tales of adultery
without lewdness. We observe a conventionalization in regard to the
Bible, especially in regard to some of the Old Testament stories. The
theater presents numerous cases of conventionalization. The asides,
entrances and exits, and stage artifices, require that the spectators
shall concede their assent to conventionalities. The dresses of the
stage would not be tolerated elsewhere. It is by conventionalization
that the literature and pictorial representations of science avoid
collision with the mores of propriety, decency, etc. In all artistic
work there is more or less conventionalization. Uncivilized people, and
to some extent uneducated people amongst ourselves, cannot tell what a
picture represents or means because they are not used to the
conventionalities of pictorial art. The ancient Saturnalia and the
carnival have been special times of license at which the ordinary social
restrictions have been relaxed for a time by conventionalization. Our
own Fourth of July is a day of noise, risk, and annoyance, on which
things are allowed which would not be allowed at any other time. We
consent to it because "it is Fourth of July." The history of wedding
ceremonies presents very many instances of conventionalization. Jests
and buffoonery have been tolerated for the occasion. They became such an
annoyance that people revolted against them, and invented means to
escape them. Dress used in bathing, sport, the drama, or work is
protected by conventionalization. The occasion calls for a variation
from current usage, and the conventionalization, while granting
toleration, defines it also, and makes a new law for the exceptional
case. It is like taboo, and is, in fact, the form of taboo in high
civilization. Like taboo, it has two aspects,--it is either destructive
or protective. The conventionalization bars out what might be offensive
(i.e. when a thing may be done only under the conditions set by
conventionalization), or it secures toleration for what would otherwise
be forbidden. Respect, reverence, sacredness, and holiness, which are
taboos in low civilization, become conventionalities in high
civilization.
+75. Conventions indispensable.+ Conventionality is often denounced as
untrue and hypocritical. It is said that we ought to be natural.
Respectability is often sneered at because it is a sum of
conventionalities. The conventionalizations which persist are the
resultant of experiments and experience as to the devices by which to
soften and smoothen the details of life. They are indispensable. We
might as well renounce clothes as to try to abolish them.
+76. The ethos or group character.+ All that has been said in this
chapter about the folkways and the mores leads up to the idea of the
group character which the Greeks called the ethos, that is, the totality
of characteristic traits by which a group is individualized and
differentiated from others. The great nations of southeastern Asia were
long removed from familiar contact with the rest of mankind and
isolated from each other, while they were each subjected to the
discipline and invariable rule of traditional folkways which covered all
social interests except the interferences of a central political
authority, which perpetrated tyranny in its own interest. The
consequence has been that Japan, China, and India have each been molded
into a firm, stable, and well-defined unit group, having a character
strongly marked both actively and passively. The governing classes of
Japan have, within fifty years, voluntarily abandoned their traditional
mores, and have adopted those of the Occident, while it does not appear
that they have lost their inherited ethos. The case stands alone in
history and is a cause of amazement. In the war with Russia, in 1904,
this people showed what a group is capable of when it has a strong
ethos. They understand each other; they act as one man; they are capable
of discipline to the death. Our western tacticians have had rules for
the percentage of loss which troops would endure, standing under fire,
before breaking and running. The rule failed for the Japanese. They
stood to the last man. Their prowess at Port Arthur against the
strongest fortifications, and on the battlefields of Manchuria,
surpassed all record. They showed what can be done in the way of
concealing military and naval movements when every soul in the
population is in a voluntary conspiracy not to reveal anything. These
traits belong to a people which has been trained by generations of
invariable mores. It is apparently what the mediæval church wanted to
introduce in Europe, but the Japanese have got it without selfish
tyranny of the ruling persons and classes. Of course, it admits of no
personal liberty, and the consequences of introducing occidental notions
of liberty into it have yet to be seen. "The blacksmith squats at his
anvil wielding a hammer such as no western smith could use without long
practice. The carpenter pulls instead of pushing his extraordinary plane
and saw. Always the left is the right side, and the right side the
wrong. Keys must be turned, to open or close a lock, in what we are
accustomed to think the wrong direction." "The swordsman, delivering his
blow with both hands, does not pull the blade towards him in the moment
of striking, but pushes it from him. He uses it indeed, as other
Asiatics do, not on the principle of the wedge, but of the saw."[82] In
family manners the Japanese are gentle. Cruelty even to animals appears
to be unknown. "One sees farmers coming to town, trudging patiently
beside their horses or oxen, aiding their dumb companions to bear the
burden, and using no whips or goads. Drivers or pullers of carts will
turn out of their way, under the most provoking circumstances, rather
than overrun a lazy dog or a stupid chicken."[83] Etiquette is refined,
elaborate, and vigorous. Politeness has been diffused through all ranks
from ancient times.[84] "The discipline of the race was self-imposed.
The people have gradually created their own social conditions."[85]
"Demeanor was [in ancient times] most elaborately and mercilessly
regulated, not merely as to obeisances, of which there were countless
grades, varying according to sex as well as class, but even in regard to
facial expression, the manner of smiling, the conduct of the breath, the
way of sitting, standing, walking, rising."[86] "With the same merciless
exactitude which prescribed rules for dress, diet, and manner of life,
all utterance was regulated both positively and negatively, but
positively much more than negatively.... Education cultivated a system
of verbal etiquette so multiform that only the training of years could
enable any one to master it. The astonishment evoked by Japanese
sumptuary laws, particularly as inflicted upon the peasantry, is
justified, less by their general character than by their implacable
minuteness,--their ferocity of detail." "That a man's house is his
castle cannot be asserted in Japan, except in the case of some high
potentate. No ordinary person can shut his door to lock out the rest of
the world. Everybody's house must be open to visitors; to close its
gates by day would be regarded as an insult to the community, sickness
affording no excuse. Only persons in very great authority have the right
of making themselves inaccessible.... By a single serious mistake a man
may find himself suddenly placed in solitary opposition to the common
will,--isolated, and most effectively ostracized." "The events of the
[modern] reconstruction strangely illustrate the action of such
instinct [of adaptation] in the face of peril,--the readjustment of
internal relations to sudden changes of environment. The nation had
found its old political system powerless before the new conditions, and
it transformed that system. It had found its military organization
incapable of defending it, and it reconstructed that organization. It
had found its educational system useless in the presence of unforeseen
necessities, and it had replaced that system, simultaneously crippling
the power of Buddhism, which might otherwise have offered serious
opposition to the new developments required."[87] To this it must be
added that people who have had commercial and financial dealings with
Japanese report that they are untruthful and tricky in transactions of
that kind. If they cannot "reform" these traits there will be important
consequences of them in the developments of the near future.
+77. Chinese ethos.+ It is evident that we have in the Japanese a case
of an ethos, from the habits of artisans to the manners of nobles and
the military system, which is complete, consistent, authoritative, and
very different from our own. A similar picture of the Chinese might be
drawn, from which it would appear that they also have a complete and
firm ethos, which resembles in general the Japanese, but has its
individual traits and characteristic differences.[88] The ethos of the
Japanese, from the most ancient times, has been fundamentally militant.
That of the Chinese is industrial and materialistic.
+78. Hindoo ethos.+ The Hindoos, again, have a strongly marked ethos.
They have a name for it--_kharma_, which Nivedita says might be
translated "national righteousness." It "applies to that whole system of
complex action and interaction on planes moral, intellectual, economic,
industrial, political, and domestic, which we know as India, or the
national habit.... By their attitude to it, Pathan, Mogul, and
Englishman are judged, each in his turn, by the Indian peasantry."[89]
The ethos of one group always furnishes the standpoint from which it
criticises the ways of any other group.
+79. European ethos.+ We are familiar with the notion of "national
character" as applied to the nations of Europe, but these nations do not
have each an ethos. There is a European ethos, for the nations have so
influenced each other for the last two thousand years that there is a
mixed ethos which includes local variations. The European _kharma_ is
currently called Christian. In the ancient world Egypt and Sparta were
the two cases of groups with the firmest and best-defined ethos. In
modern European history the most marked case is that of Venice. In no
one of these cases did the elements of moral strength and societal
health preponderate, but the history of each showed the great stability
produced by a strong ethos. Russia has a more complete and defined ethos
than any other state in Europe, although the efforts which have been
made since Peter the Great to break down the traditions and limitations
of the national ethos, and to adopt the ethos of western Europe, have
produced weakness and confusion. It is clear what is the great power of
a strong ethos. The ethos of any group deserves close study and
criticism. It is an overruling power for good or ill. Modern scholars
have made the mistake of attributing to _race_ much which belongs to the
ethos, with a resulting controversy as to the relative importance of
nature and nurture. Others have sought a "soul of the people" and have
tried to construct a "collective psychology," repeating for groups
processes which are now abandoned for individuals. Historians, groping
for the ethos, have tried to write the history of "the people" of such
and such a state. The ethos individualizes groups and keeps them apart.
Its opposite is cosmopolitanism. It degenerates into patriotic vanity
and chauvinism. Industrialism weakens it, by extending relations of
commerce with outside groups. It coincides better with militancy. It has
held the Japanese people like a single mailed fist for war. What
religion they have has lost all character except that of a cohesive
agent to hold the whole close organization tight together.
[1] JAI, XX, 140.
[2] Lazarus in _Ztsft. für Völkerpsy_., I, 452.
[3] Preuss in _Globus_, LXXXVII, 419.
[4] _Princ. of Sociology_, sec. 529.
[5] Rogers, _Babyl. and Assyria_, I, 304; Jastrow, in
Hastings, _Dict. Bible_, Supp. vol., 554.
[6] Pietschmann, _Phoenizier_, 154.
[7] Pietschmann, _Phoenizier_, 115.
[8] Maspero, _Peuples de l'Orient_, III, 618.
[9] W. R. Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, 259.
[10] Hosea i. 4; 2 Kings ix. 8.
[11] 1 Kings xxii. 22; Judges ix. 23; Ezek. xiv. 9; 2 Thess. ii.
11.
[12] 2 Kings xx. 3.
[13] Reich, _Mimus_, 718.
[14] _Teuton. Mythol._, 1777.
[15] Leland and Prince, _Kuloskap_, 150.
[16] _Globus_, LXXXVII, 128.
[17] Martius, _Ethnog. Brasil._, 51.
[18] Krieger, _New Guinea_, 192.
[19] Tylor, _Anthropology_, 225.
[20] Martius, _Ethnog. Brasil._, 51.
[21] _Bur. Eth._, XIV, 1078.
[22] Wiklund, _Om Lapparna i Sverige_, 5.
[23] Fries, _Grönland_, 139.
[24] Hiekisch, _Tungusen_, 48.
[25] Hitchcock in _U. S. Nat. Mus._, 1890, 432.
[26] Ratzel, _Hist. Mankind_, II, 539.
[27] _Bur. Eth._, XVII (Part I), 154.
[28] Von Kremer, _Kulturgesch. d. Orients_, II, 236.
[29] Bishop, _Korea_, 438.
[30] _Amer. Anthrop._, VIII, 365.
[31] Cf. also _Bur. Eth._, XVII (Part I), 190.
[32] _Une Femme chez les Sahariennes_, 105.
[33] Stoll, _Suggestion und Hypnotismus_, 702.
[34] Friedmann, _Wahnideen im Völkerleben_, 222.
[35] Binet, _La Suggestibilité_, treats of its use in education.
[36] Lefevre, _La Suggestion_, 102.
[37] Funck-Brentano, _Le Suicide_, 117.
[38] Burckhardt, _Renaissance_, 512.
[39] Nivedita, _Web of Indian Life_, 212.
[40] Schotmüller, _Untergang des Templer-Ordens_, I, 136.
[41] Regnard, _Les Maladies Epidemiques de l'Esprit_.
[42] _Globus_, LXXXV, 262.
[43] Lefèvre, _Suggestion_, 98.
[44] Bastian, _San Salvador_, 104.
[45] Ratzel, _Anthropogeog._, II, 699.
[46] Lichtenstein, _South Africa_, II, 61.
[47] Sibree, _Great African Island_, 301.
[48] _Bur. Eth._, XVIII (Part I), 325.
[49] _Ztsft. f. Eth._, XXVIII, 170.
[50] Wilken, _Volkenkunde_, 546.
[51] Sieroshevski, _Yakuty_, 558.
[52] See Chapter XIV.
[53] Ratzel, _Hist. Mankind_, II, 276.
[54] W. R. Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, 299.
[55] Herodotus, IV, 186.
[56] Porphyry, _De Abstin._, II, 11; _Herodotus_, II, 41.
[57] W. R. Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, 88.
[58] Monier-Williams, _Brahmanism and Hinduism_, 324.
[59] _Ibid._, 101.
[60] Wilkins, _Hinduism_, 299.
[61] _Ibid._, 125.
[62] JASB, IV, 353.
[63] Fritsch, _Eingeborenen Südafr._, 57.
[64] _Bijdragen tot T. L. en V.-kunde_, XLI, 203.
[65] See Chapter XX
[66] _Hereditary Genius_, 34.
[67] Ammon, _Gesellschaftsordnung_, 53.
[68] Ammon made the diagram symmetrical.
[69] _Hereditary Genius_, 25, 47.
[70] Lapouge affirms that "in different historical periods, and
over the whole earth, racial differences between classes of the
same people are far greater than between analogous classes of
different peoples," and that "between different classes of the
same population there may be greater racial differences than
between different populations" (_Pol. Anth. Rev._, III, 220,
228). He does not give his definition of class.
[71] Ammon, _Gesellschaftsordnung_, 49.
[72] PSM, LX, 218.
[73] Lecky, _Morals_, I, 262.
[74] Symonds, _Catholic Reaction_, I, 455.
[75] Gumplowicz, _Soziologie_, 126.
[76] "In the reigns of Theodosius and Honorius, imperial edicts
and rescripts were paralyzed by the impalpable, quietly
irresistible force of a universal social need or
sentiment."--Dill, _Rome from Nero to M. Aurel._, 255.
[77] v. Hartmann, _Phänom. des Sittl. Bewusztseins_, 73.
[78] Lazarus in _Ztsft. für Völkerpsy._, I, 439.
[79] _Human Faculty_, 216.
[80] Wilkins, _Mod. Hinduism_, 195.
[81] Wilkins, _Mod. Hinduism_, 317.
[82] Hearn, _Japan_, 11.
[83] _Ibid._, 16.
[84] _Ibid._, 391.
[85] _Ibid._, 199.
[86] _Ibid._, 191.
[87] Hearn, _Japan_, 107, 187, 411.
[88] Williams, _Middle Kingdom_; Smith, _Chinese
Characteristics_.
[89] Nivedita, _Web of Indian Life_, 150.
CHAPTER II
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MORES
Introduction.--The mores have the authority of facts.--Whites
and blacks in southern society.--The mores are unrecorded.--
Inertia and rigidity of the mores.--Persistency of the mores.--
Persistency against new religion.--Roman law.--Effects of Roman
law on later mores.--Variability of the mores.--The mores of
New England.--Revolution.--The possibility of modifying the
mores.--Russia.--Emancipation in Russia and in the United
States.--Arbitrary change in the mores.--The case of Japan.--
The case of India.--The reforms of Joseph II.--Adoption of the
mores of another age.--What changes are possible.--Dissent from
the mores. Group orthodoxy.--Retreat and isolation to start new
mores.--Social policy.--Degenerate and evil mores.--The
correction of aberrations in the mores.--The mores of advance
and decline; cases.--The Greek temper in prosperity.--Greek
pessimism.--Greek degeneracy.--Sparta.--The optimism of
advance and prosperity.--Antagonism between an individual and
the mores of the group.--Antagonism of earlier and later
mores.--Antagonism between groups in respect to mores.--
Missions and mores.--Missions and antagonistic mores.--
Modification of the mores by agitation.--Capricious interest of
the masses.--How the group becomes homogeneous.--Syncretism.--
The art of administering society.
In this chapter we have to study the persistency of the mores with their
inertia and rigidity, even against a new religion or a new "law," i.e. a
new social system (secs. 80-87); then their variability under changed
life conditions or under revolution (secs. 88-90); then the possibility
of making them change by intelligent effort, considering the cases of
Japan, India, and the reforms of Joseph II (secs. 91-97); or the
possibility of changing one's self to adopt the mores of another group
or another age (secs. 98-99). We shall then consider the dissent of an
individual or a sect from the current mores, with judgment of
disapproval on them (secs. 100-104), and the chance of correcting them
(sec. 105). Next we shall consider the great movements of the mores,
optimism and pessimism, which correspond to a rising or falling economic
conjuncture (secs. 106-111). Then come the antagonisms between an
individual and the mores, between the mores of an earlier and a later
time, and between the groups in respect to mores, with a notice of the
problem of missions (secs. 112-118). Finally, we come to consider
agitation to produce changes in the mores, and we endeavor to study the
ways in which the changes in the mores do come about, especially
syncretism (secs. 119-121).
+80. The mores have the authority of facts.+ The mores come down to us
from the past. Each individual is born into them as he is born into the
atmosphere, and he does not reflect on them, or criticise them any more
than a baby analyzes the atmosphere before he begins to breathe it. Each
one is subjected to the influence of the mores, and formed by them,
before he is capable of reasoning about them. It may be objected that
nowadays, at least, we criticise all traditions, and accept none just
because they are handed down to us. If we take up cases of things which
are still entirely or almost entirely in the mores, we shall see that
this is not so. There are sects of free-lovers amongst us who want to
discuss pair marriage (sec. 374). They are not simply people of evil
life. They invite us to discuss rationally our inherited customs and
ideas as to marriage, which, they say, are by no means so excellent and
elevated as we believe. They have never won any serious attention. Some
others want to argue in favor of polygamy on grounds of expediency. They
fail to obtain a hearing. Others want to discuss property. In spite of
some literary activity on their part, no discussion of property,
bequest, and inheritance has ever been opened. Property and marriage are
in the mores. Nothing can ever change them but the unconscious and
imperceptible movement of the mores. Religion was originally a matter of
the mores. It became a societal institution and a function of the state.
It has now to a great extent been put back into the mores. Since laws
with penalties to enforce religious creeds or practices have gone out of
use any one may think and act as he pleases about religion. Therefore it
is not now "good form" to attack religion. Infidel publications are now
tabooed by the mores, and are more effectually repressed than ever
before. They produce no controversy. Democracy is in our American mores.
It is a product of our physical and economic conditions. It is
impossible to discuss or criticise it. It is glorified for popularity,
and is a subject of dithyrambic rhetoric. No one treats it with complete
candor and sincerity. No one dares to analyze it as he would aristocracy
or autocracy. He would get no hearing and would only incur abuse. The
thing to be noticed in all these cases is that the masses oppose a deaf
ear to every argument against the mores. It is only in so far as things
have been transferred from the mores into laws and positive institutions
that there is discussion about them or rationalizing upon them. The
mores contain the norm by which, if we should discuss the mores, we
should have to judge the mores. We learn the mores as unconsciously as
we learn to walk and eat and breathe. The masses never learn how we
walk, and eat, and breathe, and they never know any reason why the mores
are what they are. The justification of them is that when we wake to
consciousness of life we find them facts which already hold us in the
bonds of tradition, custom, and habit. The mores contain embodied in
them notions, doctrines, and maxims, but they are facts. They are in the
present tense. They have nothing to do with what ought to be, will be,
may be, or once was, if it is not now.
+81. Blacks and whites in southern society.+ In our southern states,
before the civil war, whites and blacks had formed habits of action and
feeling towards each other. They lived in peace and concord, and each
one grew up in the ways which were traditional and customary. The civil
war abolished legal rights and left the two races to learn how to live
together under other relations than before. The whites have never been
converted from the old mores. Those who still survive look back with
regret and affection to the old social usages and customary sentiments
and feelings. The two races have not yet made new mores. Vain attempts
have been made to control the new order by legislation. The only result
is the proof that legislation cannot make mores. We see also that mores
do not form under social convulsion and discord. It is only just now
that the new society seems to be taking shape. There is a trend in the
mores now as they begin to form under the new state of things. It is not
at all what the humanitarians hoped and expected. The two races are
separating more than ever before. The strongest point in the new code
seems to be that any white man is boycotted and despised if he
"associates with negroes" (sec. 114, at the end). Some are anxious to
interfere and try to control. They take their stand on ethical views of
what is going on. It is evidently impossible for any one to interfere.
We are like spectators at a great natural convulsion. The results will
be such as the facts and forces call for. We cannot foresee them. They
do not depend on ethical views any more than the volcanic eruption on
Martinique contained an ethical element. All the faiths, hopes,
energies, and sacrifices of both whites and blacks are components in the
new construction of folkways by which the two races will learn how to
live together. As we go along with the constructive process it is very
plain that what once was, or what any one thinks ought to be, but
slightly affects what, at any moment, is. The mores which once were are
a memory. Those which any one thinks ought to be are a dream. The only
thing with which we can deal are those which are.
+82. The mores are unrecorded.+ A society is never conscious of its
mores until it comes in contact with some other society which has
different mores, or until, in higher civilization, it gets information
by literature. The latter operation, however, affects only the literary
classes, not the masses, and society never consciously sets about the
task of making mores. In the early stages mores are elastic and plastic;
later they become rigid and fixed. They seem to grow up, gain strength,
become corrupt, decline, and die, as if they were organisms. The phases
seem to follow each other by an inherent necessity, and as if
independent of the reason and will of the men affected, but the changes
are always produced by a strain towards better adjustment of the mores
to conditions and interests of the society, or of the controlling
elements in it. A society does not record its mores in its annals,
because they are to it unnoticed and unconscious. When we try to learn
the mores of any age or people we have to seek our information in
incidental references, allusions, observations of travelers, etc.
Generally works of fiction, drama, etc., give us more information about
the mores than historical records. It is very difficult to construct
from the Old Testament a description of the mores of the Jews before the
captivity. It is also very difficult to make a complete and accurate
picture of the mores of the English colonies in North America in the
seventeenth century. The mores are not recorded for the same reason that
meals, going to bed, sunrise, etc., are not recorded, unless the regular
course of things is broken.
+83. Inertia and rigidity of the mores.+ We see that we must conceive of
the mores as a vast system of usages, covering the whole of life, and
serving all its interests; also containing in themselves their own
justification by tradition and use and wont, and approved by mystic
sanctions until, by rational reflection, they develop their own
philosophical and ethical generalizations, which are elevated into
"principles" of truth and right. They coerce and restrict the newborn
generation. They do not stimulate to thought, but the contrary. The
thinking is already done and is embodied in the mores. They never
contain any provision for their own amendment. They are not questions,
but answers, to the problem of life. They present themselves as final
and unchangeable, because they present answers which are offered as "the
truth." No world philosophy, until the modern scientific world
philosophy, and that only within a generation or two, has ever presented
itself as perhaps transitory, certainly incomplete, and liable to be set
aside to-morrow by more knowledge. No popular world philosophy or life
policy ever can present itself in that light. It would cost too great a
mental strain. All the groups whose mores we consider far inferior to
our own are quite as well satisfied with theirs as we are with ours. The
goodness or badness of mores consists entirely in their adjustment to
the life conditions and the interests of the time and place (sec. 65).
Therefore it is a sign of ease and welfare when no thought is given to
the mores, but all coöperate in them instinctively. The nations of
southeastern Asia show us the persistency of the mores, when the
element of stability and rigidity in them becomes predominant. Ghost
fear and ancestor worship tend to establish the persistency of the mores
by dogmatic authority, strict taboo, and weighty sanctions. The mores
then lose their naturalness and vitality. They are stereotyped. They
lose all relation to expediency. They become an end in themselves. They
are imposed by imperative authority without regard to interests or
conditions (caste, child marriage, widows). When any society falls under
the dominion of this disease in the mores it must disintegrate before it
can live again. In that diseased state of the mores all learning
consists in committing to memory the words of the sages of the past who
established the formulæ of the mores. Such words are "sacred writings,"
a sentence of which is a rule of conduct to be obeyed quite
independently of present interests, or of any rational considerations.
+84. Persistency.+ Asiatic fixity of the mores is extreme, but the
element of persistency in the mores is always characteristic of them.
They are elastic and tough, but when once established in familiar and
continued use they resist change. They give stability to the social
order when they are well understood, regular, and undisputed. In a new
colony, with a sparse population, the mores are never fixed and
stringent. There is great "liberty." As the colony always has traditions
of the mores of the mother country, which are cherished with respect but
are never applicable to the conditions of a colony, the mores of a
colony are heterogeneous and are always in flux. That is because the
colonists are all the time learning to live in a new country and have no
traditions to guide them, the traditions of the old country being a
hindrance. Any one bred in a new country, if he goes to an old country,
feels the "conservatism" in its mores. He thinks the people stiff, set
in their ways, stupid, and unwilling to learn. They think him raw,
brusque, and uncultivated. He does not know the ritual, which can be
written in no books, but knowledge of which, acquired by long
experience, is the mark of fit membership in the society.
+85. Persistency in spite of change of religion.+ Matthews saw votive
effigies in Mandan villages just like those which Catlin had seen and
put into his pictures seventy years before.[90] In the meantime the
Mandans had been nearly exterminated by war and disease, and the remnant
of them had been civilized and Christianized. The mores of the Central
American Indians inculcate moderation and restraint. Their ancient
religion contained prescriptions of that character, and those
prescriptions are still followed after centuries of life under
Christianity.[91] In the Bible we may see the strife between old mores
and a new religious system two or three times repeated. The so-called
Mosaic system superseded an older system of mores common, as it appears,
to all the Semites of western Asia. The prophets preached a reform of
the Jahveh religion and we find them at war with the inherited
mores.[92] The most striking feature of the story of the prophets is
their antagonism to the mores which the people would not give up.
Monotheism was not established until after the captivity.[93] The
recurrence, vitality, popularity, and pervasiveness of traditional mores
are well shown in the Bible story. The result was a combination of
ritual monotheism with survivals of ancient mores and a popular religion
in which demonism was one of the predominant elements. The New Testament
represents a new revival and reform of the religion. The Jews to this
day show the persistency of ancient mores. Christianity was a new
adjustment of both heathen and Jewish mores to a new religious system.
The popular religion once more turned out to be a grand revival of
demonism. The masses retained their mores with little change. The mores
overruled the religion. Therefore Jewish Christians and heathen
Christians remained distinguishable for centuries. The Romans never
could stamp out the child sacrifices of the Carthaginians.[94] The Roman
law was an embodiment of all the art of living and the mores of the
Roman people. It differed from the mores of the German peoples, and when
by the religion the Roman system was brought to German people conflict
was produced. In fact, it may be said that the process of remolding
German mores by the Roman law never was completed,[95] and that now the
German mores have risen against the Roman law and have accepted out of
it only what has been freely and rationally selected. Marriage amongst
the German nations was a domestic and family function. Even after the
hierocratic system was firmly established, it was centuries before the
ecclesiastics could make marriage a clerical function.[96] In the usages
of German peasants to-day may be found numerous survivals of heathen
notions and customs.[97] In England the German mores accepted only a
limited influence from the Roman law. The English have adopted the
policy of the Romans in dealing with subject peoples. They do not meddle
with local customs if they can avoid it. This is wise, since nothing
nurses discontent like interference with folkways. The persistency of
the mores is often shown in survivals,--senseless ceremonies whose
meaning is forgotten, jests, play, parody, and caricature, or
stereotyped words and phrases, or even in cakes of a prescribed form or
prescribed foods at certain festivals.
+86. Roman law.+ In the Roman law everything proceeds from the emperor.
He is the possessor of all authority, the fountain of honor, the author
of all legislation, and the referee in all disputes. Lawyers trained by
the study of this code learned to conceive of all the functions of the
state as acts, powers, and rights of a monarchical sovereign. They stood
beside the kings and princes of the later Middle Ages ready to construe
the institutions of suzerainty into this monarchical form. They broke
down feudalism and helped to build the absolutist dynastic state,
wherever the Roman law was in force, and wherever it had greatly
influenced the legal system. The church also had great interest to
employ the Roman law, because it included the ecclesiastical legislation
of the Christian emperors of the fourth and fifth centuries, and because
the canon law was imitated from it in spirit and form. In all matters of
private rights the provisions of the Justinian code were good and
beneficial, so that those provisions won their own way by their own
merit.[98] In the _Sachsenspiegel_ there was no distinction of property
between man and wife, but this meant that all which both had was a
joint capital for use in their domestic economy. When the marriage was
dissolved the property returned to the side from which it came. Later,
in many districts, this arrangement developed into a real community of
goods under various forms. "It was in regard to these adjustments of
property rights that the jurists of the Middle Ages did most harm by
introducing the Roman law, for it was especially in regard to this
matter that the Roman law stood in strongest contrast to the German
notions, and the resistance of the German people is to be seen in the
numerous local systems of law, which remained in use in most of Germany;
unfortunately not everywhere, nor uniformly."[99]
+87. The Roman law: its effect on later mores.+ Throughout the
north of Europe, upon conversion to Christianity, tithes were the
stumbling-block between the old mores and the new system.[100]
The authority for the tithe system came from the Roman system. It
was included in the Roman jurisprudence which the church adopted
and carried wherever it extended. After the civil code was
revived it helped powerfully to make states. This was a work,
however, which was hostile to the church. The royal lawyers found
in the civil code a system which referred everything in society
to the emperor as the origin of power, rights, and honor. They
adopted this standpoint for the kings of the new dynastic states
and, in the might of the Roman law, they established royal
absolutism, which was unfavorable to the church and the feudal
nobles. They found their allies in the cities which loved written
law, institutions, and defined powers. Stubbs[101] regards the
form of the Statute of Westminster (1275) as a proof that the
lawyers, who "were at this time getting a firm grasp on the law
of England," were introducing the principle that the king could
enact by his own authority. The spirit of the Roman law was
pitiless to peasants and artisans, that is, to all who were, or
were to be made, unfree. The Norman laws depressed the Saxon
ceorl to a slave.[102] In similar manner they came into war with
all Teutonic mores which contained popular rights and primary
freedom. Stammler[103] denies that the Roman law, in spite of
lawyers and ecclesiastics, ever entered into the flesh and blood
of the German people. That is to say, it never displaced
completely their national mores. The case of the property of
married persons is offered as a case in which the German mores
were never overcome.[104] A compromise was struck between the
ancient mores and the new ways, which the Roman Catholic religion
approved.
+88. Variability.+ No less remarkable than the persistency of the mores
is their changeableness and variation. There is here an interesting
parallel to heredity and variation in the organic world, even though the
parallel has no significance. Variation in the mores is due to the fact
that children do not perpetuate the mores just as they received them.
The father dies, and the son whom he has educated, even if he continues
the ritual and repeats the formulæ, does not think and feel the same
ideas and sentiments as his father. The observance of Sunday; the mode
of treating parents, children, servants, and wives or husbands;
holidays; amusements; arts of luxury; marriage and divorce; wine
drinking,--are matters in regard to which it is easy to note changes in
the mores from generation to generation, in our own times. Even in Asia,
when a long period of time is taken into account, changes in the mores
are perceptible. The mores change because conditions and interests
change. It is found that dogmas and maxims which have been current do
not verify; that established taboos are useless or mischievous
restraints; that usages which are suitable for a village or a colony are
not suitable for a great city or state; that many things are fitting
when the community is rich which were not so when it was poor; that new
inventions have made new ways of living more economical and healthful.
It is necessary to prosperity that the mores should have a due degree of
firmness, but also that they should be sufficiently elastic and flexible
to conform to changes in interests and life conditions. A herding or an
agricultural people, if it moves into a new country, rich in game, may
revert to a hunting life. The Tunguses and Yakuts did so as they moved
northwards.[105] In the early days of the settlement of North America
many whites "Indianized"; they took to the mode of life of Indians. The
Iranians separated from the Indians of Hindostan and became
agriculturists. They adopted a new religion and new mores. Men who were
afraid of powerful enemies have taken to living in trees, lake
dwellings, caves, and joint houses. Mediæval serfdom was due to the need
of force to keep the peasant on his holding, when the holding was really
a burden to him in view of the dues which he must pay. He would have run
away if he had not been kept by force. In the later Middle Ages the
villain had a valuable right and property in his holding. Then he wanted
security of tenure so that he could not be driven away from it. In the
early period it was the duty of the lord to kill the game and protect
the peasant's crops. In the later period it became the monopoly right of
the lord to kill game. Thus the life conditions vary. The economic
conjuncture varies. The competition of life varies. The interests vary
with them. The mores all conform, unless they have been fixed by dogma
with mystic sanctions so that they are ritual obligations, as is, in
general, the case now in southeastern Asia. The rights of the parties,
and the right and wrong of conduct, after the mores have conformed to
new life conditions, are new deductions. The philosophers follow with
their systems by which they try to construe the whole new order of acts
and thoughts with reference to some thought fabric which they put before
the mores, although it was found out after the mores had established the
relations. In the case in which the fixed mores do not conform to new
interests and needs crises arise. Moses, Zoroaster, Manu, Solon,
Lycurgus, and Numa are either mythical or historical culture heroes, who
are said to have solved such crises by new "laws," and set the society
in motion again. The fiction of the intervention of a god or a hero is
necessary to account for a reconstruction of the mores of the ancestors
without crime.
+89. Mores of New England.+ The Puritan code of early New England has
been almost entirely abandoned, so far as its positive details are
concerned, while at the same time some new restrictions on conduct have
been introduced, especially as to the use of spirituous liquors, so
that not all the changes have been in the way of relaxation. The mores
of New England, however, still show deep traces of the Puritan temper
and world philosophy. Perhaps nowhere else in the world can so strong an
illustration be seen both of the persistency of the spirit of the mores
and of their variability and adaptability. The mores of New England have
extended to a large immigrant population and have won large control over
them. They have also been carried to the new states by immigrants, and
their perpetuation there is an often-noticed phenomenon. The
extravagances in doctrine and behavior of the seventeenth-century
Puritans have been thrown off and their code of morals has been shorn of
its angularity, but their life policy and standards have become to a
very large extent those of the civilized world.
+90. Revolution.+ In higher civilization crises produced by the
persistency of old mores after conditions have changed are solved by
revolution or reform. In revolutions the mores are broken up. Such was
the case in the sixteenth century, in the French Revolution of 1789, and
in minor revolutions. A period follows the outburst of a revolution in
which there are no mores. The old are broken up; the new are not formed.
The social ritual is interrupted. The old taboos are suspended. New
taboos cannot be enacted or promulgated. They require time to become
established and known. The masses in a revolution are uncertain what
they ought to do. In France, under the old régime, the social ritual was
very complete and thoroughly established. In the revolution, the
destruction of this ritual produced social anarchy. In the best case
every revolution must be attended by this temporary chaos of the mores.
It was produced in the American colonies. Revolutionary leaders expect
to carry the people over to new mores by the might of two or three
dogmas of political or social philosophy. The history of every such
attempt shows that dogmas do not make mores. Every revolution suffers a
collapse at the point where reconstruction should begin. Then the old
ruling classes resume control, and by the use of force set the society
in its old grooves again. The ecclesiastical revolution of the sixteenth
century resulted in a wreck whose discordant fragments we have
inherited. It left us a Christendom, half of which is obscurantist and
half scientific; half is ruled by the Jesuits and half is split up into
wrangling sects. The English Revolution of the seventeenth century was
reversed when it undertook to reconstruct the mores of the English
people. The French revolutionists tried to abolish all the old mores and
to replace them by products of speculative philosophy. The revolution
was, in fact, due to a great change in conditions, which called for new
mores, and so far as the innovations met this demand they became
permanent and helped to create a conviction of the beneficence of
revolution. Napoleon abolished many innovations and put many things in
the old train again. Many other things have changed name and face, but
not character. Many innovations have been half assimilated. Some
interests have never yet been provided for (see sec. 165).
+91. Possibility of modifying mores.+ The combination in the mores of
persistency and variability determines the extent to which it is
possible to modify them by arbitrary action. It is not possible to
change them, by any artifice or device, to a great extent, or suddenly,
or in any essential element; it is possible to modify them by slow and
long-continued effort if the ritual is changed by minute variations. The
German emperor Frederick II was the most enlightened ruler of the Middle
Ages. He was a modern man in temper and ideas. He was a statesman and he
wanted to make the empire into a real state of the absolutist type. All
the mores of his time were ecclesiastical and hierocratic. He dashed
himself to pieces against them. Those whom he wanted to serve took the
side of the papacy against him. He became the author of the laws by
which the civil institutions of the time were made to serve
ecclesiastical domination. He carried the purpose of the crusades to a
higher degree of fulfillment than they ever reached otherwise, but this
brought him no credit or peace. The same drift in the mores of the time
bore down the Albigenses when they denounced the church corporation, the
hierarchy, and the papacy. The pope easily stirred up all Europe against
them. The current opinion was that every state must be a Christian state
according to the mores of the time. The people could not conceive of a
state which could answer its purpose if it was not such. But a
"Christian state" meant one which was in harmony with the pope and the
ecclesiastical organization. This demand was not affected by the faults
of the organization, or the corruption and venality of the hierarchy.
The popes of the thirteenth century rode upon this tide, overwhelming
opposition and consolidating their power. In our time the state is
charged with the service of a great number of interests which were then
intrusted to the church. It is against our mores that ecclesiastics
should interfere with those interests. There is no war on religion.
Religion is recognized as an interest by itself, and is treated with
more universal respect than ever before, but it is regarded as occupying
a field of its own, and if there should be an attempt in its name to
encroach on any other domain, it would fail, because it would be against
the mores of our time.
+92. Russia.+ When Napoleon said: "If you scratch a Russian you find a
Tartar," what he had perceived was that, although the Russian court and
the capital city have been westernized by the will of the tsars,
nevertheless the people still cling to the strongly marked national
mores of their ancestors. The tsars, since Peter the Great, have, by
their policing and dragooning, spoilt one thing without making another,
and socially Russia is in the agonies of the resulting confusion. Russia
ought to be a democracy by virtue of its sparse population and wide area
of unoccupied land in Siberia. In fact all the indigenous and most
ancient usages of the villages are democratic. The autocracy is exotic
and military. It is, however, the only institution which holds Russia
together as a unit. On account of this political interest the small
intelligent class acquiesce in the autocracy. The autocracy imposes
force on the people to crush out their inherited mores, and to force on
them western institutions. The policy is, moreover, vacillating. At one
time the party which favored westernizing has prevailed at court; at
another time the old Russian or pan-Slavic party. There is internal
discord and repression. The ultimate result of such an attempt to
control mores by force is an interesting question of the future. It
also is a question which affects most seriously the interests of western
civilization. The motive for the westernizing policy is to get influence
in European politics. All the interference of Russia in European
politics is harmful, menacing, and unjustifiable. She is not, in
character, a European power, and she brings no contribution to European
civilization, but the contrary. She has neither the capital nor the
character to enable her to execute the share in the world's affairs
which she is assuming. Her territorial extensions for two hundred years
have been made at the cost of her internal strength. The latter has
never been at all proportioned to the former. Consequently the debt and
taxes due to her policy of expansion and territorial greatness have
crushed her peasant class, and by their effect on agriculture have
choked the sources of national strength. The people are peaceful and
industrious, and their traditional mores are such that they would
develop great productive power and in time rise to a strong civilization
of a truly indigenous type, if they were free to use their powers in
their own way to satisfy their interests as they experience them from
the life conditions which they have to meet.
+93. Emancipation in Russia and the United States.+ In the time of Peter
the Great the ancient national mores of Russia were very strong and
firmly established. They remain to this day, in the mass of the
population, unchanged in their essential integrity. There is, amongst
the upper classes, an imitation of French ways, but it is unimportant
for the nation. The autocracy is what makes "Russia," as a political
unit. The autocracy is the apex of a military system, by which a great
territory has been gathered under one control. That operation has not
affected the old mores of the people. The tsar Alexander II was
convinced by reading the writings of the great literary coterie of the
middle of the nineteenth century that serfdom ought to be abolished, and
he determined that it should be done.[106] It is not in the system of
autocracy that the autocrat shall have original opinions and adopt an
independent initiative. The men whom he ordered to abolish serfdom had
to devise a method, and they devised one which was to appear
satisfactory to the tsar, but was to protect the interests which they
cared for. One is reminded of the devices of American politicians to
satisfy the clamor of the moment, but to change nothing. The reform had
but slight root in public opinion, and no sanction in the interests of
the influential classes; quite the contrary. The consequence is that the
abolition of serfdom has thrown Russian society into chaos, and as yet
reconstruction upon the new system has made little growth. In the United
States the abolition of slavery was accomplished by the North, which had
no slaves and enforced emancipation by war on the South, which had them.
The mores of the South were those of slavery in full and satisfactory
operation, including social, religious, and philosophical notions
adapted to slavery. The abolition of slavery in the northern states had
been brought about by changes in conditions and interests. Emancipation
in the South was produced by outside force against the mores of the
whites there. The consequence has been forty years of economic, social,
and political discord. In this case free institutions and mores in which
free individual initiative is a leading element allow efforts towards
social readjustment out of which a solution of the difficulties will
come. New mores will be developed which will cover the situation with
customs, habits, mutual concessions, and coöperation of interests, and
these will produce a social philosophy consistent with the facts. The
process is long, painful, and discouraging, but it contains its own
guarantees.
+94. Arbitrary change.+ We often meet with references to Abraham Lincoln
and Alexander II as political heroes who set free millions of slaves or
serfs "by a stroke of the pen." Such references are only flights of
rhetoric. They entirely miss the apprehension of what it is to set men
free, or to tear out of a society mores of long growth and wide reach.
Circumstances may be such that a change which is imperative can be
accomplished in no other way, but then the period of disorder and
confusion is unavoidable. The stroke of the pen never does anything but
order that this period shall begin.
+95. Case of Japan.+ Japan offers a case of the voluntary resolution of
the ruling class of a nation to abandon their mores and adopt those of
other nations. The case is unique in history. Humbert says that the
Japanese were in the first throes of internal revolution when
foreigners intervened.[107] Schallmeyer infers that the "adaptability of
an intelligent and disciplined people is far greater than we, judging
from other cases, have been wont to believe."[108] Le Bon absolutely
denies that culture can be transmitted from people to people. He says
that the ruin of Japan is yet to come, from the attempt to adopt foreign
ways.[109] The best information is that the mores of the Japanese masses
have not been touched. The changes are all superficial with respect to
the life of the people and their character.[110] "Iyéyasu was careful to
qualify the meaning of 'rude.' He said that the Japanese term for a rude
fellow signified 'an other-than-expected person'--so that to commit an
offense worthy of death it was only necessary to act in an 'unexpected
manner,' that is to say, contrary to prescribed etiquette."[111] "Even
now the only safe rule of conduct in a Japanese settlement is to act in
all things according to local custom; for the slightest divergence from
rule will be observed with disfavor. Privacy does not exist; nothing can
be hidden; everybody's vices or virtues are known to everybody else.
Unusual behavior is judged as a departure from the traditional standard
of conduct; all oddities are condemned as departures from custom, and
tradition and custom still have the force of religious obligations.
Indeed, they really _are_ religious and obligatory, not only by reason
of their origin, but by reason of their relation also to the public
cult, which signifies the worship of the past. The ethics of Shinto were
all included in conformity to custom. The traditional rules of the
commune--these were the morals of Shinto: to obey them was religion; to
disobey them impiety."[112] Evidently this is a description of a society
in which tradition and current usage exert complete control. It is idle
to imagine that the masses of an oriental society of that kind could, in
a thousand years, assimilate the mores of the Occident.
+96. Case of the Hindoos.+ Nivedita[113] thinks that the Hindoos have
adopted foreign culture easily. "One of the most striking features of
Hindoo society during the past fifty years has been the readiness of the
people to adopt a foreign form of culture, and to compete with those
who are native to that culture on equal terms." Monier-Williams tells
us, however, that each Hindoo "finds himself cribbed and confined in all
his movements, bound and fettered in all he does by minute traditional
regulations. He sleeps and wakes, dresses and undresses, sits down and
stands up, goes out and comes in, eats and drinks, speaks and is silent,
acts and refrains from acting, according to ancient rule."[114] As yet,
therefore, this people assumes competition with the English without
giving up its ancient burdensome social ritual. It accepts the handicap.
+97. Reforms of Joseph II.+ The most remarkable case of reform attempted
by authority, and arbitrary in its method, is that of the reforms
attempted by Joseph II, emperor of Germany. His kingdoms were suffering
from the persistence of old institutions and mores. They needed
modernizing. This he knew and, as an absolute monarch, he ordained
changes, nearly all of which were either the abolition of abuses or the
introduction of real improvements. He put an end to survivals of
mediæval clericalism, established freedom of worship, made marriage a
civil contract, abolished class privilege, made taxation uniform, and
replaced serfdom in Bohemia by the form of villanage which existed in
Austria. In Hungary he ordered the use of the German language instead of
Latin, as the civil language. Interferences with language act as counter
suggestion. Common sense and expediency were in favor of the use of the
German language, but the order to use it provoked a great outburst of
national enthusiasm which sought demonstration in dress, ceremonies, and
old usages. Many of the other changes made by the emperor antagonized
vested interests of nobles and ecclesiastics, and he was forced to
revoke them. He promulgated orders which affected the mores, and the
mental or moral discipline of his subjects. If a man came to enroll
himself as a deist a second time, he was to receive twenty-four blows
with the rod, not because he was a deist, but because he called himself
something about which he could not know what it is. No coffins were to
be used, corpses were to be put in sacks and buried in quicklime.
Probably this law was wise from a purely rational point of view, but it
touched upon a matter in regard to which popular sentiment is very
tender even when the usage is most irrational. "Many a usage and
superstition was so closely interwoven with the life of the people that
it could not be torn away by regulation, but only by education."
Non-Catholics were given full civil rights. None were to be excluded
from the cemeteries. The unilluminated Jews would have preferred that
there should be no change in the laws. Frederick of Prussia said that
Joseph always took the second step without having taken the first. In
the end the emperor revoked all his changes and innovations except the
abolition of serfdom and religious toleration.[115] Some of his measures
were gradually realized through the nineteenth century. Others are now
an object of political effort.
+98. Adoption of mores of another age.+ The Renaissance was a period in
which an attempt was made by one age to adopt the mores of another, as
the latter were known through literature and art. The knowledge was very
imperfect and mistaken, as indeed it necessarily must be, and the
conceptions which were formed of the model were almost as fantastic as
if they had been pure creations of the imagination. The learning of the
Renaissance was necessarily restricted to the selected classes, and the
masses either remained untouched by the faiths and fads of the learned,
or accepted the same in grotesquely distorted forms. A phrase of a
classical writer, or a fanciful conception of some hero of Plutarch,
sufficed to enthuse a criminal, or to upset the mental equilibrium of a
political speculator. The jumble of heterogeneous mores, and of ideas
conformable to different mores, caused numbers to lose their mental
equilibrium and to become victims either of enthusiasm or of
melancholy.[116] The phenomena of suggestion were astounding and
incalculable.[117] The period was marked by the dominion of dogmatic
ideas, accepted as regulative principles for the mores. The result was
the dominion of the phrase and the prevalence of hollow affectation. The
men who were most thoroughly interested in the new learning, and had
lost faith in the church and the religion of the Middle Ages, kept up
the ritual of the traditional system. The Renaissance never made any new
ritual. That is why it had no strong root and passed away as a temporary
fashion. Hearn[118] is led from his study of Japan to say that "We could
no more mingle with the old Greek life, if it were resurrected for us,
no more become a part of it, than we could change our mental
identities." The modern classicists have tried to resuscitate Greek
standards, faiths, and ways. Individuals have met with a measure of
success in themselves, and university graduates have to some extent
reached common views of life and well living, but they have necessarily
selected what features they would imitate, and so they have arbitrarily
overruled their chosen authority. They have never won wide respect for
it in modern society. The New England Puritans, in the seventeenth
century, tried to build a society on the Bible, especially the books of
Moses. The attempt was in every way a failure. It may well be doubted if
any society ever existed of which the books referred to were a
description, and the prescriptions were found ill adapted to
seventeenth-century facts. The mores made by any age for itself are good
and right for that age, but it follows that they can suit another age
only to a very limited extent.
+99. What changes are possible.+ All these cases go to show that changes
which run with the mores are easily brought about, but that changes
which are opposed to the mores require long and patient effort, if they
are possible at all. The ruling clique can use force to warp the mores
towards some result which they have selected, especially if they bring
their effort to bear on the ritual, not on the dogmas, and if they are
contented to go slowly. The church has won great results in this way,
and by so doing has created a belief that religion, or ideas, or
institutions, make mores. The leading classes, no matter by what
standard they are selected, can lead by example, which always affects
ritual. An aristocracy acts in this way. It suggests standards of
elegance, refinement, and nobility, and the usages of good manners,
from generation to generation, are such as have spread from the
aristocracy to other classes. Such influences are unspoken, unconscious,
unintentional. If we admit that it is possible and right for some to
undertake to mold the mores of others, of set purpose, we see that the
limits within which any such effort can succeed are very narrow, and the
methods by which it can operate are strictly defined. The favorite
methods of our time are legislation and preaching. These methods fail
because they do not affect ritual, and because they always aim at great
results in a short time. Above all, we can judge of the amount of
serious attention which is due to plans for "reorganizing society," to
get rid of alleged errors and inconveniences in it. We might as well
plan to reorganize our globe by redistributing the elements in it.
+100. Dissent from the mores; group orthodoxy.+ Since it appears that
the old mores are mischievous if they last beyond the duration of the
conditions and needs to which they were adapted, and that constant,
gradual, smooth, and easy readjustment is the course of things which is
conducive to healthful life, it follows that free and rational criticism
of traditional mores is essential to societal welfare. We have seen that
the inherited mores exert a coercion on every one born in the group. It
follows that only the greatest and best can react against the mores so
as to modify them. It is by no means to be inferred that every one who
sets himself at war with the traditional mores is a hero of social
correction and amelioration. The trained reason and conscience never
have heavier tasks laid upon them than where questions of conformity to,
or dissent from, the mores are raised. It is by the dissent and free
judgment of the best reason and conscience that the mores win
flexibility and automatic readjustment. Dissent is always unpopular in
the group. Groups form standards of orthodoxy as to the "principles"
which each member must profess and the ritual which each must practice.
Dissent seems to imply a claim of superiority. It evokes hatred and
persecution. Dissenters are rebels, traitors, and heretics. We see this
in all kinds of subgroups. Noble and patrician classes, merchants,
artisans, religious and philosophical sects, political parties,
academies and learned societies, punish by social penalties dissent
from, or disobedience to, their code of group conduct. The modern trades
union, in its treatment of a "scab," only presents another example. The
group also, by a majority, adopts a programme of policy and then demands
of each member that he shall work and make sacrifices for what has been
resolved upon for the group interest. He who refuses is a renegade or
apostate with respect to the group doctrines and interests. He who
adopts the mores of another group is a still more heinous criminal. The
mediæval definition of a heretic was one who varied in life and
conversation, dress, speech, or manner (that is, the social ritual) from
the ordinary members of the Christian community. The first meaning of
"Catholic" in the fourth century was a summary of the features which
were common to all Christians in social and ecclesiastical behavior;
those were Catholic who conformed to the mores which were characteristic
of Christians.[119] If a heretic was better than the Catholics, they
hated him more. That never excused him before the church authorities.
They wanted loyalty to the ecclesiastical corporation. Persecution of a
dissenter is always popular in the group which he has abandoned.
Toleration of dissent is no sentiment of the masses.
+101. Retreat and isolation to make new mores. Quakers.+ In the stage of
half-civilization and above there have been many cases of sects which
have "withdrawn from the world" and lived an isolated life. They were
dissenters from the world philosophy or the life policy current in the
society to which they belonged. The real issue was that they were at war
with its mores. In that war they could not prevail so as to change the
mores. They could not even realize their own plan of life in the midst
of uncongenial mores. The English Puritans of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries tried to transform the mores of their age. Many of
them emigrated to uninhabited territory in order to make a society in
which their ideal mores should be realized. Very many sects and parties
emigrated to North America in the seventeenth century with the same
purpose. The Quakers went to the greatest extreme in adopting dress,
language, manners, etc., which should be different from the current
usages. In all this they were multiplying ritual means of isolation and
of cultivation of their chosen ways of life. They were not strenuous
about theological dogmas. Their leading notions were really about the
mores and bore on social policy. In the Netherlands, in 1657, they
appeared as a militant sect of revolutionary communists and
levelers.[120] In New England they courted persecution. They wanted to
cultivate states of mind and traits of social character which they had
selected as good, and their ritual was devised to that end (humility,
simplicity, peacefulness, friendliness, truth). They are now being
overpowered and absorbed by the mores of the society which surrounds
them. The same is true of Shakers, Moravians, and other sects of
dissenters from the mores of the time and place.
+102. Social policy.+ In Germany an attempt has been made to develop
social policy into an art (_Socialpolitik_). Systematic attempts are
made to study demographical facts in order to deduce from them
conclusions as to the things which need to be done to make society
better. The scheme is captivating. It is one of the greatest needs of
modern states, which have gone so far in the way of experimental devices
for social amelioration and rectification, at the expense of tax payers,
that those devices should be tested and that the notions on which they
are based should be verified. So far as demographical information
furnishes these tests it is of the highest value. When, however, the
statesmen and social philosophers stand ready to undertake any
manipulation of institutions and mores, and proceed on the assumption
that they can obtain data upon which to proceed with confidence in that
undertaking, as an architect or engineer would obtain data and apply his
devices to a task in his art, a fallacy is included which is radical and
mischievous beyond measure. We have, as yet, no calculus for the
variable elements which enter into social problems and no analysis which
can unravel their complications. The discussions always reveal the
dominion of the prepossessions in the minds of the disputants which are
in the mores. We know that an observer of nature always has to know his
own personal equation. The mores are a societal equation. When the
mores are the thing studied in one's own society, there is an operation
like begging the question. Moreover, the convictions which are in the
mores are "faiths." They are not affected by scientific facts or
demonstration. We "believe in" democracy, as we have been brought up in
it, or we do not. If we do, we accept its mythology. The reason is
because we have grown up in it, are familiar with it, and like it.
Argument would not touch this faith. In like manner the people of one
state believe in "the state," or in militarism, or in commercialism, or
in individualism. Those of another state are sentimental, nervous, fond
of rhetorical phrases, full of group vanity. It is vain to imagine that
any man can lift himself out of these characteristic features in the
mores of the group to which he belongs, especially when he is dealing
with the nearest and most familiar phenomena of everyday life. It is
vain to imagine that a "scientific man" can divest himself of prejudice
or previous opinion, and put himself in an attitude of neutral
independence towards the mores. He might as well try to get out of
gravity or the pressure of the atmosphere. The most learned scholar
reveals all the philistinism and prejudice of the man-on-the-curbstone
when mores are in discussion. The most elaborate discussion only
consists in revolving on one's own axis. One only finds again the
prepossessions which he brought to the consideration of the subject,
returned to him with a little more intense faith. The philosophical
drift in the mores of our time is towards state regulation, militarism,
imperialism, towards petting and flattering the poor and laboring
classes, and in favor of whatever is altruistic and humanitarian. What
man of us ever gets out of his adopted attitude, for or against these
now ruling tendencies, so that he forms judgments, not by his ruling
interest or conviction, but by the supposed impact of demographic data
on an empty brain. We have no grounds for confidence in these ruling
tendencies of our time. They are only the present phases in the endless
shifting of our philosophical generalizations, and it is only proposed,
by the application of social policy, to subject society to another set
of arbitrary interferences, dictated by a new set of dogmatic
prepossessions that would only be a continuation of old methods and
errors.
+103. Degenerate and evil mores. Mores of advance and decline.+ The case
is somewhat different when attempts are made by positive efforts to
prevent the operation of bad mores, or to abolish them. The historians
have familiarized us with the notion of corrupt or degenerate mores.
Such periods as the later Roman empire, the Byzantine empire, the
Merovingian kingdom, and the Renaissance offer us examples of evil
mores. We need to give more exactitude to this idea. Bad mores are those
which are not well fitted to the conditions and needs of the society at
the time. But, as we have seen, the mores produce a philosophy of
welfare, more or less complete, and they produce taboos which are
concentrated inhibitions directed against conduct which the philosophy
regards as harmful, or positive injunctions to do what is judged
expedient and beneficial. The taboos constitute morality or a moral
system which, in higher civilization, restrains passion and appetite,
and curbs the will. Various conjunctures arise in which the taboos are
weakened or the sanctions on them are withdrawn. Faith in the current
religion may be lost. Then its mystic sanctions cease to operate. The
political institutions may be weak or unfit, and the civil sanctions may
fail. There may not be the necessary harmony between economic conditions
and political institutions, or the classes which hold the social forces
in their hands may misuse them for their selfish interest at the expense
of others. The philosophical and ethical generalizations which are
produced by the mores rise into a realm of intellect and reason which is
proud, noble, and grand. The power of the intelligence is a human
prerogative. If the power is correctly used the scope of achievement in
the satisfaction of needs is enormously extended. The penalty of error
in that domain is correspondingly great. When the mores go wrong it is,
above all, on account of error in the attempt to employ the
philosophical and ethical generalizations in order to impose upon mores
and institutions a movement towards selected and "ideal" results which
the ruling powers of the society have determined to aim at. Then the
energy of the society may be diverted from its interests. Such a drift
of the mores is exactly analogous to a vice of an individual, i.e.
energy is expended on acts which are contrary to welfare. The result is
a confusion of all the functions of the society, and a falseness in all
its mores. Any of the aberrations which have been mentioned will produce
evil mores, that is, mores which are not adapted to welfare, so that a
group may fall into vicious mores just as an individual falls into
vicious habits.
+104. Illustrations.+ This was well illustrated at Byzantium. The
development of courtesans and prostitutes into a great and flourishing
institution; the political rule, by palace intrigues, of favorites,
women, and eunuchs; the decisive interference of royal guards; the vices
of public amusements and baths; the miseries and calamities of talented
men and the consequent elimination of that class from the society; the
sycophancy of clients; the servitude of peasants and artisans, with
economic exhaustion as a consequence; demonism, fanaticism, and
superstition in religion, combined with extravagant controversies over
pedantic trifles,--such are some of the phenomena of mores disordered by
divorce from sober interests, and complicated by arbitrary dogmas of
politics and religion, not forgetting the brutal and ignorant measures
of selfish rulers. In the Merovingian kingdom barbaric and corrupt Roman
mores were intermingled in a period of turmoil. In the Renaissance in
Italy all the taboos were broken down, or had lost their sanctions, and
vice and crime ran riot through social disorder. As to the degeneracy of
mores, we meet with a current opinion that in time the mores tend to
"run down," by the side of another current opinion that there is, in
time, a tendency of the mores to become more refined and purer. If the
life conditions do not change, there is no reason at all why the mores
should change. Some barbarian peoples have brought their mores into true
adjustment to their life conditions, and have gone on for centuries
without change. What is true, however, is that there are periods of
social advance and periods of social decline, that is, advance or
decline in economic power, material prosperity, and group strength for
war. In either case all the mores fall into a character, temper, and
spirit which conform to the situation. The early centuries of the
Christian era were a period of decline. Tertullian[121] has a passage in
which he describes in enthusiastic terms the prosperity and progress of
his time (end of the second century). He did not perceive that society
was in a conjuncture of decline. Many, however, from the time of
Augustus saw evil coming. The splendors of the empire did not delude
them. Tacitus feared evil from the Germans; others from the
Parthians.[122] The population of the Roman empire felt its inferiority
to its ancestors. One thing after another gave way. Nothing could serve
as a fulcrum for resisting decline, or producing recovery. In such a
period despair wins control. The philosophy is pessimistic. The world is
supposed to be coming to an end. Life is not valued. Ascetic practices
fall in with the prevailing temper. Martyrdom has no great terrors; such
as it has can be overcome by a little enthusiasm. Inroads of barbarians
only add a little to the other woes, or hasten an end which is
inevitable and is expected with resignation. At such a time a religion
of demonism, other-worldliness, resignation, retirement from the world,
and renunciation appeals both to those who want a dream of escape and to
those who despair. Our own time, on the other hand, is one of advance on
account of great unoccupied territories now opened at little or no cost
to those who have nothing. Such a period is one of hope, power, and gain
for the masses. Optimism is the philosophy. All the mores get their
spirit from it. "Progress" is an object of faith. A philosophy of
resignation and renunciation is unpopular. There is nothing which we
cannot do, and will not do, if we choose. No mistake will cost much. It
can be easily rectified. In the Renaissance in Italy, besides the
rejection of religion and the disorder of the state, there was a great
movement of new power derived from the knowledge which was changing the
life conditions. Great social forces were set loose. Men of heroic
dimensions, both in good and ill, appeared in great numbers. They had
astounding ability to accomplish achievements, and appeared to be
possessed by devils, so superhuman was their energy in vice and crime as
well as in war, art, discovery, and literature. No doubt this phenomenon
of heroic men belongs to an age of advance with a great upbursting of
new power under more favorable conditions. It is to be noticed also that
reproduction responds to conditions of advance or decline. In decline
marriage and family become irksome. Celibacy arises in the mores. In
times of advance sex vice and excess reach a degree, as in the
Renaissance, which seems to constitute a social paroxysm. The sex
passion rises to a frenzy to which everything else is sacrificed. The
notion that mores grow either better or worse by virtue of some inherent
tendency is to be rejected. Goodness or badness of the mores is always
relative only. Their purpose is to serve needs, and their quality is to
be defined by the degree to which they do it. We have noticed that there
is in them a strain towards consistency, due to the fact that they are
more efficient when consistent. They are consistent also in aberration
and error when they fall under the dominion of any one of the false
tendencies above described. Hence we may have the phenomena of
degenerate mores characterizing a period; being a case of change in the
mores not due to any external and determinable cause, and analogous
either to vice or disease.
+105. The correction of aberrations.+ It is possible to arrest or avert
such an aberration in the mores at its beginning or in its early stages.
It is, however, very difficult to do so, and it would be very difficult
to find a case in which it has been done. Necessarily the effort to do
it consists in a prophecy of consequences. Such prophecy does not appeal
to any one who does not himself foresee error and harm. Prophets have
always fared ill, because their predictions were unwelcome and they were
unpopular. The pension system which has grown up in the United States
since the civil war has often been criticised. It is an abuse of extreme
peril in a democracy. Demagogues easily use it to corrupt the voters
with their own money. It is believed that it will soon die out by its
own limitations. There is, however, great doubt of this. It is more
likely to cause other evil measures, in order that it may not die out.
If we notice the way in which, in this case, people let a thing go on in
order to avoid trouble, we may see how aberrant mores come in and grow
strong.
+106. Mores of advance or decline.+ Seeck thinks that a general
weariness of life in the Greco-Roman world caused indifference to
procreation. It accounts for the readiness to commit suicide and for the
indifference to martyrdom. Life was hardly worth having. He says that
during the whole period of the empire there was no improvement in the
useful arts, no new invention, and no new device to facilitate
production. Neither was there any improvement in the art of war, in
literature, or the fine arts. As to transportation and commerce there
seems to have been gain in the first centuries of the Christian
era.[123] Such inventions as were made required a very long time to work
their way into general use. This sluggishness is most apparent in mental
labor. After the time of Hadrian science cannot be said to have existed.
The learned only cited their predecessors. Philosophy consisted in
interpreting old texts. The only gains were in religion, and those all
were won by Semites or other peoples of western Asia.[124] Both Greeks
and Romans exterminated the _élite_ of their societies, and pursued a
policy which really was a selection of the less worthy.[125] Men fled
from the world. They wanted to get out of human society. They especially
wanted to escape the state. The reason was that they suffered pain in
society, especially from the political institutions. The Christian
church gave to this renunciation of social rights and duties the
character of a religious virtue. "Pessimism took possession of the old
peoples at the beginning of the Christian era. This world is regarded as
delivered over to destruction. Men long for a better life and the
immortality of the gods, outside of this transitory existence. To this
sentiment corresponds the division of the universe into a world of light
above, the realm of the good, and a world of darkness below, where the
evil powers dwell. Men live in a middle space. Myths explained how our
world arose as a mixture of good and evil, between the two realms of
good and evil. Man belongs to both; to the world of light by his soul,
to the world of darkness by his body. Men struggle for redemption from
this world and from carnality, and long to soar through the series of
the heavens, so as to come before the face of the highest God, there to
live forever. This one can do after death, if he has during life
undergone the necessary consecration, and has learned the words which
can open heaven for him. In order to impart the consecration, and break
the powers of darkness, one of the higher gods, the Redeemer-God,
himself descended to earth. This religious theory is held by secret
sects. The folk religions are dead. They can no longer satisfy the wants
of men. Those of the same faiths and sentiments meet in secret
brotherhood. The East must have been full of such secret sects, which
corresponded to the petty states of the earlier period."[126] There was
a very widespread opinion that the world was old and used up so that it
could produce no more, just as a woman beyond her prime could no longer
bear children.[127] "Whenever in any people, consciousness of its
decline becomes vivid, a strange tendency to self-destruction arises in
it. This is not to be explained scientifically, although it has been
often observed." The best commit suicide first, for they do not fear
death.[128] Romans of wealth and rank committed suicide in the first and
second century with astonishing levity; Christians, of the masses, went
to martyrdom in the same way. Pliny expresses the feeling that life had
little or no value.[129]
+107. The Greek temper in prosperity.+ The Greeks, until the fourth
century before Christ, were characterized by the joy of life. They lived
in close touch with nature, and the human body was to them not a clog or
a curse, but a model of beauty and a means of participating in the
activities of nature. Their mores were full of youthful exuberance.
Their life philosophy was egoistic and materialistic. They wanted to
enjoy all which their powers could win, yet their notion of _olbos_ was
so elevated that our modern languages have no word for it. It meant
opulence, with generous liberality of sentiment and public spirit. "I do
not call him who lives in prosperity, and has great possessions, a man
of _olbos_, but only a well-to-do treasure keeper."[130] Such were the
mores of the age of advance in wealth, population, military art,
knowledge, mental achievement, and fine arts,--all of which evidently
were correlative and coherent parts of an expanding prosperity and
group life.
+108. Greek pessimism.+ It is true that this light-hearted, gay, and
artistic temper was boyish. Behind it there always was a pessimistic
world philosophy. The gods envied men any happiness and success, and
would cast down any one who was successful. The joyous temper always was
that of the man who has made up his mind to enjoy himself and forget,
since to take thought and care would do no good. This philosophy
embittered all prosperity. The epic heroes suffered painful ends, and
when the tragedians took up the stories again they heaped up crime and
woe.[131] Pessimism was in the myths. While things went well the life
policy of joyous carelessness overbore the pessimism, but when things
began to go ill the conviction arose that life is not worth living. The
abuses of democracy in the cities took away all the joy of success. It
was wisdom just to take things as they came. Life was not worth having,
for itself. If circumstances turned the balance of joy and pain so that
the latter predominated a little, suicide was a rational relief.
Religion did not cause this pessimism, but also it did not oppose it.
Suicide was no offense to the gods, because they did not give life.[132]
The Greeks held their doctrine of pessimism, the envy of the gods, etc.,
to be a correct induction from observation of life. Herodotus brought
back a conviction of it from his travels.[133] Tradition ascribed to
Solon the saying that "there is not a single happy mortal to be found
amongst all the sun shines on."[134]
+109. Greek degeneracy.+ The decline of the Greeks in the three
centuries before our era is so great and sudden that it is very
difficult to understand it. The best estimate of the population of the
Peloponnesus in the second century B.C. puts it at one hundred and nine
per square mile.[135] Yet the population was emigrating, and population
was restricted. A pair would have but one or two children. The cities
were empty and the land was uncultivated.[136] There was neither war
nor pestilence to account for this. It may be that the land was
exhausted. There must have been a loss of economic power so that labor
was unrewarded. The mores all sank together. There can be no achievement
in the struggle for existence without an adequate force. Our
civilization is built on steam. The Greek and Roman civilization was
built on slavery, that is, on an aggregation of human power. The result
produced was, at first, very great, but the exploitation of men entailed
other consequences besides quantities of useful products. It was these
consequences which issued in the mores, for, in a society built on
slavery as the form of productive industry, all the mores, obeying the
strain of consistency, must conform to that as the chief of the
folkways. It was at the beginning of the empire that the Romans began to
breed slaves because wars no longer brought in new supplies.[137] Sex,
vice, laziness, decline of energy and enterprise, cowardice, and
contempt for labor were consequences of slavery, for the free.[138] The
system operated, in both the classical states, as a selection against
the superior elements in the population. This effect was intensified by
the political system. The city became an arena of political struggle for
the goods of life which it was a shame to work for. Tyrannies and
democracies alternated with each other, but both alike used massacre and
proscription, and both thought it policy to get rid of troublesome
persons, that is, of those who had convictions and had courage to avow
them. Every able man became a victim of terrorism, exerted by idle
market-place loafers. The abuse of democratic methods by
those-who-had-not to plunder those-who-had must also have had much to do
with the decline of economic power, and with the general decline of joy
in life and creative energy. It would also make marriage and children a
great and hopeless burden. Abortion and sex vice both directly and
indirectly lessened population, by undermining the power of
reproduction, while their effect to destroy all virile virtues could not
fail to be exerted.[139] It was another symptom of disease in the mores
that the number of males in the Roman empire greatly exceeded the
number of females.[140] The Roman system used up women.
+110. Sparta.+ The case of Sparta is especially interesting because the
Spartan mores were generally admired and envied in the fourth century
B.C. They were very artificial and arbitrary. They developed into a
catastrophe. The population declined to such a point that it was like
group suicide. The nation incased itself in fossilized mores and
extremest conservatism, by which its own energies were crushed. The
institutions produced consequences which were grotesque compared with
what had been expected from them.[141]
+111. Optimism of prosperity.+ "I apprehend that the key to the joyful
character of the antique religions known to us [in western Asia] lies in
the fact that they took their shape in communities that were progressive
and, on the whole, prosperous." Weak groups were exterminated. Those
which survived "had all the self-confidence and elasticity that are
engendered by success in the struggle of life." "The religious gladness
of the Semites tended to assume an orgiastic character and become a sort
of intoxication of the senses, in which anxiety and sorrow were drowned
for the moment."[142]
+112. Antagonism between an individual and the mores.+ The case of
dissent from the mores, which was considered above (sec. 100), is the
case in which the individual voluntarily sets himself in antagonism to
the mores of the society. There are cases in which the individual finds
himself in involuntary antagonism to the mores of the society, or of
some subgroup to which he belongs. If a man passes from one class to
another, his acts show the contrast between the mores in which he was
bred and those in which he finds himself. The satirists have made fun of
the _parvenu_ for centuries. His mistakes and misfortunes reveal the
nature of the mores, their power over the individual, their pertinacity
against later influences, the confusion in character produced by
changing them, and the grip of habit which appears both in the
persistence of old mores and the weakness of new ones. Every emigrant is
forced to change his mores. He loses the sustaining help of use and
wont. He has to acquire a new outfit of it. The traveler also
experiences the change from life in one set of mores to life in another.
The experience gives him the best power to criticise his native mores
from a standpoint outside of them. In the North American colonies white
children were often stolen by Indians and brought up by them in their
ways. Whether they would later, if opportunity offered, return to white
society and white mores, or would prefer to remain with the Indians,
seems to have depended on the age at which they were captured.
Missionaries have often taken men of low civilization out of the society
in which they were born, have educated them, and taught them white men's
mores. If a single clear and indisputable case could be adduced in which
such a person was restored to his own people and did not revert to their
mode of life, it would be a very important contribution to ethnology. We
are forced to believe that, if a baby born in New England was taken to
China and given to a Chinese family to rear and educate, he would become
a Chinaman in all which belongs to the mores, that is to say, in his
character, conduct, and code of life.
+113. Antagonism of earlier and later mores.+ When, in the course of
time, changes occur in the mores, the men of a later generation find
themselves in antagonism to the mores of their ancestors. In the Homeric
poems cases are to be found of disapproval by a later generation of the
mores of a former one. The same is true of the tragedies of the fifth
century in respect to the mythology and heroism in Homer. The punishment
of Melantheus, the unfaithful goatherd, was savage in the extreme, but
when Eurykleia exulted over the dead suitors, Ulysses told her that it
was a cruel sin to rejoice over slain enemies.[143] In the _Iliad_
boastful shouts over the dead are frequent. In the _Odyssey_ such shouts
are forbidden.[144] Homer thinks that it was unseemly for Achilles to
drag the corpse of Hector behind his chariot.[145] He says that the gods
disapproved, which is the mystic way of describing a change in the
mores.[146] He also disapproves of the sacrifice of Trojan youths on the
pyre of Patroclus.[147] It was proposed to Pausanias that he should
repay on the corpse of Mardonius the insults which Xerxes had practiced
on the corpse of Leonidas at Thermopylæ, but he indignantly
refused.[148] In the _Eumenides_ of Æschylus the story of Orestes is
represented as a struggle between the mores of the father family and
those of the mother family. In the _Herakleidæ_ there is a struggle
between old and new mores as to the killing of captives. Many such
contrasts are drawn between Greek and barbarian mores, the latter being
old and abandoned customs which have become abominable to the Greeks
(incest, murder of strangers). In the fourth century the Greeks were so
humbled by their own base treatment of each other that this contrast
ceased to be drawn.[149] Similar contrasts between earlier and later
mores appear in the Bible. Our own mores set us in antagonism to much
which we find in the Bible (slavery, polygamy, extirpation of
aborigines). The mores always bring down in tradition a code which is
old. Infanticide, slavery, murder of the old, human sacrifices, etc.,
are in it. Later conditions force a new judgment, which is in revolt and
antagonism to what always has been done and what everybody does. Slavery
is an example of this in recent history.
+114. Antagonism between groups in respect to mores.+ When different
groups come in contact with each other their mores are brought into
contrast and antagonism. Some Australian girls consider that their honor
requires that they shall be knocked senseless and carried off by the men
who thereby become their husbands. If they are the victims of violence,
they need not be ashamed. Eskimo girls would be ashamed to go away with
husbands without crying and lamenting, glad as they are to go. They are
shocked to hear that European women publicly consent in church to be
wives, and then go with their husbands without pretending to regret it.
In Homer girls are proud to be bought and to bring to their fathers a
bride price of many cows. In India _gandharva_ marriage is one of the
not-honorable forms. It is love marriage. It rests on passion and is
considered sensual; moreover, it is due to a transitory emotion. If
property is involved in marriage the institution rests on a permanent
interest and is guaranteed. Kaffirs also ridicule Christian love
marriage. They say that it puts a woman on a level with a cat, the only
animal which, amongst them, has no value.[150] Where polygamy prevails
women are ashamed to be wives of men who can afford only one each; under
monogamy they think it a disgrace to be wives of men who have other
wives. The Japanese think the tie to one's father the most sacred. A man
who should leave father and mother and cleave to his wife would become
an outcast. Therefore the Japanese think the Bible immoral and
irreligious.[151] Such a view in the mores of the masses will long
outlast the "adoption of western civilization." The Egyptians thought
the Greeks unclean. Herodotus says that the reason was because they ate
cow's flesh.[152] The Greeks, as wine drinkers, thought themselves
superior to the Egyptians, who drank beer. A Greek people was considered
inferior if it had no city life, no agora, no athletics, no share in the
games, no group character, and if it kept on a robber life.[153] The
real reason for the hatred of Jews by Christians has always been the
strange and foreign mores of the former. When Jews conform to the mores
of the people amongst whom they live prejudice and hatred are greatly
diminished, and in time will probably disappear. The dislike of the
colored people in the old slave states of the United States and the
hostility to whites who "associate with negroes" is to be attributed to
the difference in the mores of whites and blacks. Under slavery the
blacks were forced to conform to white ways, as indeed they are now if
they are servants. In the North, also, where they are in a small
minority, they conform to white ways. It is when they are free and form
a large community that they live by their own mores. The civil war in
the United States was due to a great divergence in the mores of the
North and the South, produced by the presence or absence of slavery. The
passionate dislike and contempt of the people of one section for those
of the other was due to the conception each had formed of the other's
character and ways. Since the abolition of slavery the mores of the two
sections have become similar and the sectional dislike has disappeared.
The contrast between the mores of English America and Spanish America is
very great. It would long outlast any political combination of parts of
the two, if such should be brought about.
+115. Missions and mores.+ The contrasts and antagonisms of the mores of
different groups are the stumbling-blocks in the way of all missionary
enterprise, and they explain many of the phenomena which missions
present. We think that our "ways" are the best, and that their
superiority is so obvious that all heathen, Mohammedans, Buddhists,
etc., will, as soon as they learn what our ways are, eagerly embrace
them. Nothing could be further from the truth. "It is difficult to an
untraveled Englishman, who has not had an opportunity of throwing
himself into the spirit of the East, to credit the disgust and
detestation that numerous everyday acts, which appear perfectly harmless
to his countrymen, excite in many Orientals."[154] If our women are
shocked at polygamy and the harem, Mohammedan women are equally shocked
at the ball and dinner dresses of our ladies, at our dances, and at the
manners of social intercourse between the sexes. Negroes in East Africa
are as much disgusted to see white men eat fowl or eggs as we are at any
of their messes. Missions always offer something from above downwards.
They contain an assumption of superiority and beneficence.
Half-civilized people never admit the assumption. They meet it just as
we would meet a mission of Mohammedans or Buddhists to us. Savages and
barbarians dismiss "white man's ways" with indifference. The virtues and
arts of civilization are almost as disastrous to the uncivilized as its
vices. It is really the great tragedy of civilization that the contact
of lower and higher is disastrous to the former, no matter what may be
the point of contact, or how little the civilized may desire to do
harm.
+116. Missions and antagonistic mores.+ Missionaries always have to try
to act on the mores. The ritual and creed of a religion, and reading and
writing, would not fulfill the purpose. The attempt is to teach the
social ritual of civilized people. Missionaries almost always first
insist on the use of clothing and monogamy. The first of these has, in a
great number of cases, produced disease and hastened the extinction of
the aborigines. The second very often causes a revolution in the
societal organization, either in the family form, the productive
industry, or the political discipline. The Hawaiians were a people of a
very cheerful and playful disposition. The missionaries trained the
children in the schools to serious manners and decorum. Such was the
method in fashion in our own schools at the time. The missionary society
refused the petition of the Hawaiians for teachers who would teach them
the mechanic arts.[155] This is like the refusal of the English
missionary society to support Livingstone's policy in South Africa
because it was not religious. Until very recent times no white men have
understood the difference between the mother family and the father
family. Missionaries have all grown up in the latter. Miss Kingsley
describes the antagonism which arises in the mind of a West African
negro, brought up in the mother family, against the teaching of the
missionary. The negro husband and wife have separate property. Neither
likes the white man's doctrine of the community of goods. The woman
knows that that would mean that she would have none. The man would not
take her goods if he must take her children too. "White culture expects
a man to think more of his wife and children than he does of his mother
and sisters, which to the uncultured African is absurd."[156] Evidently
it is these collisions and antagonisms of the mores which constitute the
problems of missions. We can quote but a single bit of evidence that an
aboriginal people has gained benefit from contact with the civilized. Of
the Bantu negroes it is said that such contact has increased their vigor
and vitality.[157] The "missionary-made man" is not a good type,
according to the military, travelers, and ethnographers.[158] Of the
Basutos it is said that the converted ones are the worst. They are
dishonest and dirty.[159] In Central America it is said that the
judgment is often expressed that "an Indian who can read and write is a
good-for-nothing." The teachers in the schools teach the Indian children
to despise the ways of their race. Then they lose the virtues of
trustworthiness and honesty, for which the Indians were noteworthy.[160]
There is no such thing as "benevolent assimilation." To one who knows
the facts such a phrase sounds like flippant ignorance or a cruel jest.
Even if one group is reduced to a small remnant in the midst of a great
nation, assimilation of the residue does not follow. Black and white, in
the United States, are now tending to more strict segregation. The
remnants of our Indians partly retain Indian mores, partly adopt white
mores. They languish in moral isolation and homelessness. They have no
adjustment to any social environment. Gypsies have never adopted the
mores of civilized life. They are morally and physically afloat in the
world. There are in India and in the Russian empire great numbers of
remnants of aboriginal tribes, and there are, all over the world, groups
of pariahs, or _races maudites_, which the great groups will not
assimilate. The Jews, although more numerous, and economically far
stronger, are in the same attitude to the peoples amongst which they
live.
+117. Modification of the mores by agitation.+ To this point all
projects of missions and reform must come. It must be recognized that
what is proposed is an arbitrary action on the mores. Therefore nothing
sudden or big is possible. The enterprise is possible only if the mores
are ready for it. The conditions of success lie in the mores. The
methods must conform to the mores. That is why the agitator, reformer,
prophet, reorganizer of society, who has found out "the truth" and wants
to "get a law passed" to realize it right away, is only a
mischief-maker. He has won considerable prestige in the last hundred
years, but if the cases are examined it will be found that when he had
success it was because he took up something for which the mores were
ready. Wilberforce did not overthrow slavery. Natural forces reduced to
the service of man and the discovery of new land set men "free" from
great labor, and new ways suggested new sentiments of humanity and
ethics. The mores changed and all the wider deductions in them were
repugnant to slavery. The free-trade agitators did not abolish the corn
laws. The interests of the English population had undergone a new
distribution. It was the redistribution of population and political
power in the United States which made the civil war. Witchcraft and
trial by torture were not abolished by argument. Critical knowledge and
thirst for reality made them absurd. In Queen Anne's reign prisons in
England were frightful sinks of vice, misery, disease, and cruel
extortion. "So the prisons continued until the time of Howard,"[161]
seventy-five years later. The mores had then become humanitarian. Howard
was able to get a response.
+118. Capricious interest of the masses.+ Whether the masses will think
certain things wrong, cruel, base, unjust, and disgusting; whether they
will think certain pleas and demands reasonable; whether they will
regard certain projects as sensible, ridiculous, or fantastic, and will
give attention to certain topics, depends on the convictions and
feelings which at the time are dominant in the mores. No one can predict
with confidence what the response will be to any stimulus which may be
applied. The fact that certain American products of protected industries
are sold abroad cheaper than at home, so that the protective tariff
taxes us to make presents to foreigners, has been published scores of
times. It might be expected to produce a storm of popular indignation.
It does not do so. The abuses of the pension system have been exposed
again and again. There is no popular response in condemnation of the
abuse, or demand for reform. The error and folly of protection have been
very fully exposed, but the free-trade agitation has not won ground. In
truth, however, that agitation has never been carried on sincerely and
persistently. Many of those who have taken part in it have not aimed to
put an end to the steal, but to be taken into it. The notion of "making
something out of the government" in one way or another has got into the
mores. It is the vice of modern representative government. Civil-service
reform has won but little popular support because the masses have
learned that the successful party has a right to distribute the offices
amongst its members. That has become accepted doctrine in the mores. A
local boss said: "There is but one issue in the Fifth Maryland district.
It is this, Can any man get more from Uncle Sam for the hard-working
Republicans of the district than I can?"[162] This sentiment wins wide
sympathy. Prohibitory legislation accords with the mores of the rural,
but not of the urban, population. It therefore produces in cities deceit
and blackmail, and we meet with the strange phenomenon, in a
constitutional state, that publicists argue that administrative officers
in cities ought to ignore the law. Antipolygamy is in the mores;
antidivorce is not. Any injustice or arbitrary action against polygamy
is possible. Reform of divorce legislation is slow and difficult. We are
told that "respect for law" is in our mores, but the frequency of
lynching disproves it. Let those who believe in the psychology of crowds
write for us a logic of crowds and tell how the corporate mind operates.
+119. How the group becomes homogeneous.+ The only way in which, in the
course of time, remnants of foreign groups are apparently absorbed and
the group becomes homogeneous, is that the foreign element dies out. In
like manner people who live by aberrant mores die. The aberrant forms
then cease to be, and the mores become uniform. In the meantime, there
is a selection which determines which mores shall survive and which
perish. This is accomplished by syncretism.
+120. Syncretism.+ Although folkways for the same purpose have a great
similarity in all groups, yet they present variations and characteristic
differences from group to group. These variations are sometimes due to
differences in the life conditions, but generally causes for them are
unascertainable, or the variations appear capricious. Therefore each
in-group forms its own ways, and looks with contempt and abhorrence upon
the ways of any out-group (sec. 13). Dialectical differences in language
or pronunciation are a sufficient instance. They cannot be accounted
for, but they call out contempt and ridicule, and are taken to be signs
of barbarism and inferiority. When groups are compounded by
intermarriage, intercourse, conquest, immigration, or slavery,
syncretism of the folkways takes place. One of the component groups
takes precedence and sets the standards. The inferior groups or classes
imitate the ways of the dominant group, and eradicate from their
children the traditions of their own ancestors. Amongst Englishmen the
correct or incorrect placing of the _h_ is a mark of caste. It is a
matter of education to put an end to the incorrect use. Contiguity,
neighborhood, or even literature may suffice to bring about syncretism
of the mores. One group learns that the people of another group regard
some one of its ways or notions as base. This knowledge may produce
shame and an effort to breed out the custom. Thus whenever two groups
are brought into contact and contagion, there is, by syncretism, a
selection of the folkways which is destructive to some of them. This is
the process by which folkways are rendered obsolete. The notion of a
gradual refinement of the mores in time, which is assumed to go on of
itself, or by virtue of some inherent tendency in that direction, is
entirely unfounded. Christian mores in the western empire were formed by
syncretism of Jewish and pagan mores. Christian mores therefore contain
war, slavery, concubinage, demonism, and base amusements, together with
some abstract ascetic doctrines with which these things are
inconsistent. The strain of the mores towards consistency produced
elimination of some of these customs. The church embraced in its fold
Latin, Teutonic, Greek, and Slavonic nations, and it produced a grand
syncretism of their mores, while it favored those which were Latin. The
Teutonic mores suffered elimination. Those which were Greek and
Slavonic were saved by the division of the church. Those which now pass
for Christian in western Europe are the result of the syncretism of two
thousand years. When now western Christians come in contact with
heathen, Mohammedans, Buddhists, or alien forms of Christianity, they
endeavor to put an end to polygamy, slavery, infanticide, idolatry,
etc., which have been extruded from western Christian mores. In Egypt at
the present time the political power and economic prosperity of the
English causes the Mohammedans to envy, emulate, and imitate them in all
those peculiarities which are supposed to be causes of their success.
Hence we hear of movements to educate children, change the status of
women, and otherwise modify traditional mores. It is another case of the
operation by which inferior mores are rendered obsolete.
+121. The art of societal administration.+ It is not to be inferred that
reform and correction are hopeless. Inasmuch as the mores are a
phenomenon of the society and not of the state, and inasmuch as the
machinery of administration belongs to the state and not to the society,
the administration of the mores presents peculiar difficulties. Strictly
speaking, there is no administration of the mores, or it is left to
voluntary organs acting by moral suasion. The state administration fails
if it tries to deal with the mores, because it goes out of its province.
The voluntary organs which try to administer the mores (literature,
moral teachers, schools, churches, etc.) have no set method and no
persistent effort. They very often make great errors in their methods.
In regard to divorce, for instance, it is idle to set up stringent rules
in an ecclesiastical body, and to try to establish them by extravagant
and false interpretation of the Bible, hoping in that way to lead
opinion; but the observation and consideration of cases which occur
affect opinion and form convictions. The statesman and social
philosopher can act with such influences, sum up the forces which make
them, and greatly help the result. The inference is that intelligent art
can be introduced here as elsewhere, but that it is necessary to
understand the mores and to be able to discern the elements in them,
just as it is always necessary for good art to understand the facts of
nature with which it will have to deal. It belongs to the work of
publicists and statesmen to gauge the forces in the mores and to
perceive their tendencies. The great men of a great epoch are those who
have understood new currents in the mores. The great reformers of the
sixteenth century, the great leaders of modern revolutions, were, as we
can easily see, produced out of a protest or revulsion which had long
been forming under and within the existing system. The leaders are such
because they voice the convictions which have become established and
because they propose measures which will realize interests of which the
society has become conscious. A hero is not needed. Often a mediocre,
commonplace man suffices to give the critical turn to thought or
interest. "A Gian Angelo Medici, agreeable, diplomatic, benevolent, and
pleasure-loving, sufficed to initiate a series of events which kept the
occidental races in perturbation through two centuries."[163] Great
crises come when great new forces are at work changing fundamental
conditions, while powerful institutions and traditions still hold old
systems intact. The fifteenth century was such a period. It is in such
crises that great men find their opportunity. The man and the age react
on each other. The measures of policy which are adopted and upon which
energy is expended become components in the evolution. The evolution,
although it has the character of a nature process, always must issue by
and through men whose passions, follies, and wills are a part of it but
are also always dominated by it. The interaction defies our analysis,
but it does not discourage our reason and conscience from their play on
the situation, if we are content to know that their function must be
humble. Stoll boldly declares that if one of us had been a judge in the
times of the witch trials he would have reasoned as the witch judges
did, and would have tortured like them.[164] If that is so, then it
behooves us by education and will, with intelligent purpose, to
criticise and judge even the most established ways of our time, and to
put courage and labor into resistance to the current mores where we
judge them wrong. It would be a mighty achievement of the science of
society if it could lead up to an art of societal administration which
should be intelligent, effective, and scientific.
[90] _N. S. Amer. Anthrop._, IV, 3.
[91] _Globus_, LXXXVII, 130.
[92] "Religion of Israel," Hastings, _Dict._, Supp. vol.
[93] Tiele, _Relig. in Alterthum_, I, 295.
[94] _Ibid._, 242.
[95] Stammler, _Stellung der Frauen_, 3.
[96] Friedberg, _Recht der Eheschliessung_.
[97] _Ztsft. f. Volkskunde_, XI, 272.
[98] Scherr, _Deutsche Kultur-und Sittengesch._, 171.
[99] Stammler, _Stellung der Frauen_, 8.
[100] Wachsmuth, _Bauernkriege_, in Raumer, _Taschenbuch_, V.
[101] _Charters_, 449.
[102] Stubbs, _History_, II, 453.
[103] _Stellung der Frauen_, 3.
[104] Sec. 86.
[105] Hiekisch, _Tungusen_, 31; Sieroshevski, _Yakuty_, I, 415.
[106] Simkhovitsch, _Feldgemeinschaft in Russland_, Chap. XXIX.
[107] _Japan and the Japanese_, 360.
[108] _Vererbung und Auslese_, 282.
[109] _Pol. Anth. Revue_, III, 416.
[110] Brandt in _Umschau_, VIII, 722.
[111] Hearn, _Japan_, 193.
[112] _Ibid._, 112. Cf. sec. 76.
[113] _Web of Indian Life_, 125.
[114] _Brahmanism and Hinduism_, 352.
[115] Mayer, _Oesterreich_, II, 454-465.
[116] Gauthiez, _Lorenzaccio_, 230.
[117] _Ibid._, 227.
[118] _Japan_, 20.
[119] Harnack, _Dogmengesch._ (3rd ed.), I, 319.
[120] Van Duyl, _Beschavingsgeschiedenis van het Nederl. Volk_,
237.
[121] _De Anima_, 30.
[122] Boissier, _Relig. Rom._, I, 239.
[123] Pöhlmann, _Die Uebervölkerung d. Antiq. Grossstädte_, 12.
[124] Seeck, _Untergang der Antiq. Welt_, I, 258 ff., 278.
[125] _Ibid._, Chap. III.
[126] Gunkel, _Zum Religions-gesch. Verständniss d. N.T._, 19.
[127] Seeck, I, 353.
[128] _Ibid._, 364 ff.
[129] _Hist. Nat._, VII, 41, 44, 46, 51, 56.
[130] Euripides, _Antiope_, frag. 32.
[131] Burckhardt, _Griech. Kulturgesch._, II, 375 ff.
[132] _Ibid._, 391.
[133] _Ibid._, 395.
[134] _Ibid._, 397.
[135] Beloch, _Bevölkerung d. Griech.-Röm. Welt_, 157.
[136] Polybius, XXVII, 9, 5; Seeck, _Untergang d. Antiq. Welt_,
I, 325, 360.
[137] Seeck, I, 355.
[138] Seeck, II, Chap. IV; Beloch, _Griech. Gesch._, I, 226.
[139] Burckhardt, _Griech. Kulturgesch._, I, 222, 237, 259, 273;
II, 355, 367, 370.
[140] Seeck, I, 337.
[141] Burckhardt, I, 139 ff.; Beloch, _Griech. Gesch._, I, 283,
570; II, 362.
[142] W. Rob. Smith, _Relig. of the Semites_, 260.
[143] _Od._, XXII, 474 ff.
[144] _Ibid._, 412.
[145] _Iliad_, XXII, 395.
[146] _Iliad_, XXIV, 51.
[147] _Ibid._, XXIII, 164.
[148] Herodotus, IX, 78.
[149] Burckhardt, _Griech. Kulturgesch._, I, 327.
[150] _Globus_, LXXV, 271.
[151] Hubbard, _Smithson. Rep._, 1895, 673.
[152] Herodotus, II, 41.
[153] Burckhardt, _Griech. Kulturgesch._, I, 314.
[154] Galton, _Inquiries into Human Faculty_, 216.
[155] _Amer. Jo. Sociol._, VIII, 408.
[156] Kingsley, _West African Studies_, 377.
[157] _B. & M. Soc. d'Anthrop._, 1901, 362.
[158] Portman, _Station Studies_, 78.
[159] _Amer. Anthrop._, VI, 353, citing _Jo. Afr. Soc._, 1903,
208.
[160] _Globus_, LXXXVII, 129.
[161] Ashton, _Social Life in the Time of Queen Anne_, Chap. XLI.
[162] _N.Y. Times_, September 19, 1904.
[163] Symonds, _Catholic Reaction_, I, 144.
[164] Stoll, _Suggestion und Hypnotismus_, 248.
CHAPTER III
THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE
TOOLS, ARTS, LANGUAGE, MONEY
Processes and artifacts of the food supply.--Fishing.--Methods
of fishing.--The mystic element.--Religion and industry.--
Artifacts and freaks of nature.--Forms of stone axes.--How
stone implements are made.--How arrowheads are made.--How stone
axes are used.--Acculturation or parallelism.--Fire-making
tools.--Psychophysical traits of primitive man.--Language.--
Language and magic.--Language is a case of folkways.--Primitive
dialects.--Taking up and dropping language.--Pigeon dialects.--
How languages grow.--Money.--Intergroup and intragroup money.--
Predominant wares.--Intragroup money from property; intergroup
money from trade.--Shell and bead money.--Token money.--
Selection of a predominant ware.--Stone money in Melanesia.--
Plutocratic effects of money.--Money on the northwest coast of
North America.--Wampumpeag and roanoke.--Ring money. Use of
metal.--The evolution of money.--The ethical functions of
money.
+122. Processes and artifacts of the food supply.+ The processes and the
artifacts which are connected with food supply offer us the purest and
simplest illustrations of the development of folkways. They are not free
from the admixture of superstition and vanity, but the element of
expediency predominates in them. It is reported of the natives of New
South Wales that a man will lie on a rock with a piece of fish in his
hand, feigning sleep. A hawk or crow darts at the fish, but is caught by
the man. It is also reported of Australians that a man swims under
water, breathing through a reed, approaches ducks, pulls one under water
by the legs, wrings its neck, and so secures a number of them.[165] If
these stories can be accepted with confidence, they may well furnish us
a starting point for a study of the art of catching animals. The man
really has no tool, but must rely entirely on his own quickness and
dexterity. Birdlime is a device for which many plants furnish
material,[166] and which is available even against large game, which is
fretted and worn out by it until it becomes the prey of man. A Botocudo
hunter grates the eggs of an alligator together, when he finds them on
the bank, and so entices the mother.[167] The Yuroks of California
sprinkled berries on the shallow bottom of a river and stretched a net a
few inches below the surface of the water. Ducks diving for the berries
were caught by the neck in the meshes and drowned. As they hung quiet
they did not frighten away others.[168] The Tarahumari catch birds by
stringing corn kernels on a fiber which is buried underground. The bird
swallows the corn and cannot eject it.[169] Various animals were trained
to help man in the food quest and were thus drawn into the industrial
organization. The animals furnished materials (skin, bone, teeth, hair,
horns) and also tools, so that the food quest broadened beyond the
immediate supply of food into mechanical industrial forms. The Shingu
Indians, although they lived on the product of the ground, were obliged
to continue the chase because of the materials and implements which they
got from the animals. They used the jaw of a fish, with the teeth in it,
as a knife; the arm and leg bones of apes as arrow points; the tail
spike of a skate for the same; the two front claws of the armadillo to
dig the ground (a process which the animal taught them by the same use
of his claws); the shell of a river mussel as a scraper to finish wooden
tools. "These people were hunters without dogs, fishers without hooks,
and tillers without plow or spade. They show how much development life
was capable of in the time before metals."[170] The palometa is a fish
which weighs two or three pounds. It has fourteen teeth in each jaw so
sharp that the Abipones shear sheep with the jaw.[171] Such cases might
be pursued into great detail. They show acute observation, great
ingenuity, clever adaptation, and teachableness. The lasso, bola,
boomerang, and throw knife, as well as the throw stick, are products of
persistent and open-minded experience. The selection and adaptation of
things in nature to a special operation in the arts often show ingenuity
as great as that manifested in any of our devices.[172] This ingenuity
is of the same kind as that shown by many animals. Intelligent
experiment, however, is not wanting. It is reported of Eskimo that they
invent imaginary hard cases, such as might occur to them, and, by way of
sport, discuss the proper way to deal with the case.[173] Operations
similar to this in play show a mode in which ingenuity must have been
developed and inventions produced. In the higher grades of the hunting
stage, such as are presented by the North American Indians, buffalo
hunting, for instance, calls for the highest organization and skill, and
establishes inflexible discipline.[174]
+123. Fishing.+ Fishing furnishes a parallel case. A Thlinkit fisherman
puts on a cap which resembles the head of a seal, and hiding his body
between the rocks makes a noise like a seal. This entices seals towards
him and gives him opportunity to kill them.[175] The Australians had a
fish spear and a net made of fibers, which were chewed by the women to
make them soft. They had no hooks until they got them from the
whites.[176] Weirs for fishing were built of stone. One is described
which was a labyrinth of stone circles, of which some were connected
with each other. The walls are three or four feet high. The fish get
confused and are caught by hand.[177] Remains of weirs, consisting of
wattled work of reeds or saplings, are found in the rivers of northern
Europe. The device of putting into the water some poisonous or narcotic
substance in order to stupefy the fish is met with all over the globe.
It was employed by the aborigines on Lanzarote (Canary Islands). There
the fish were freshened in unpoisoned waters.[178] It is quite
impossible that this device should have spread only by contact. It must
have been independently invented. It secured a large amount of fish with
very little trouble. The Ainos dam the stream, leaving only a few
openings, opposite each of which, below, they build a platform. The fish
jump at the opening, but some miss it and fall on the platform where
they are caught.[179] The Polynesians depend largely on fish for their
food supply. They had nets a thousand ells long, which could be handled
only by a hundred men. They made hooks of shell, bone, and hard
wood.[180] The first fishhooks of prehistoric men in Europe and North
America were made of pieces of bone pointed at both ends, the cord being
attached in the middle.[181] The Shingu Indians fished with bow and
arrow, nets, scoop baskets, and weirs. Bait was used to make the fish
rise. Then they were shot with an arrow. The people had no hooks, but
eagerly adopted them when they became acquainted with them.[182] They
and other Brazilians set a long cylindrical basket in a stream in such a
way that when the fish enters it and seizes the bait, it tilts up into a
perpendicular position. The fish cannot then get out.[183]
+124. Methods of fishing.+ Nilsson remarks on the astonishing
resemblance between all the fishing apparatus of Scandinavians, Eskimo,
and North Americans.[184] The problem is solved in the same way, but the
materials within reach impose limiting conditions. The rod and hook
yield to the net when the fish are plentiful. Then, however, the spear
also is used. It is sometimes made so that the head will come off when
the fish is struck. By its buoyancy the spearhead, sticking in the body
of the fish, compels it to rise, when it is caught.[185] A peculiar
device is reported from Dobu, New Guinea. A string long enough to reach
to the ground is fastened to a kite. At the end of the string is a
tassel of spider's web. The kite is held at such a height that the
tassel just skims the water. The fish catching at it entangles its teeth
in the spider's-web tassel and is caught.[186] The Chinese have trained
cormorants to do their fishing for them.
+125. The mystic element.+ Although the food quest is the most
utilitarian and matter-of-fact branch of the struggle for existence, the
mystic element does not fail to present itself. No doubt it would be
found interwoven with many of the cases mentioned above, if the question
was raised and the investigation made. In the Caroline archipelago
fishing is combined with various rites and religious notions. The chief
medicine man owes the authority of his position, not to his knowledge of
the art of fishing, but to his knowledge of the formulæ of incantation
and exorcism employed in fishing. There must be abstinence from the sex
relation before a fishing expedition. The men start in silence.
Especially, the hoped-for success must not be mentioned. The boat must
have a formula of luck pronounced over it. Sacrifices of taro are
offered to win the favor of the god, lest the lines be broken by sharks
or become entangled in rocks. If the expedition fails to get a good
catch, the fault is laid to the men. Some one of them is thought to have
done something amiss.[187]
+126. Religion and industry.+ Here we meet with a familiar cycle of
notions and usages. We must assume them in all cases, whether they are
reported or not, for the element of supernatural intervention, or magic,
seems never to be wanting. At higher stages it gives way to religious
ritual or to priestly blessing. The Japanese sword maker formerly wore a
priestly garb when making a sword, which was a sacred craft. He also
practiced a purificatory ritual. The sacred rope of rice straw, the
oldest symbol of Shinto, was suspended before the smithy. The workman's
food was all cooked with holy fire, and none of his family might enter
the workshop or speak to him while he was at work.[188] There were also
ascetic practices in the Shinto religion, which an elected
representative of the community undertook each year for the prosperity
of the whole.[189] There is never a case of authority in human society
which does not go back, for its origin and explanation, to the influence
of the other world (ghosts, etc.) over this world.
+127. Artifacts and freaks of nature.+ In the Oxford University museum
may be seen a case full of natural stones, flints, etc., so like the
artifacts of the Chellean type that it would require a skilled observer
to determine whether they are artificial or not. The collection includes
apparent celts, rings, perforated stones, borers, scrapers, and flint
flakes, so that the objects are by no means such as would lie at the
beginning of the series of artifacts, in regard to which the doubt
whether they were artificial would arise from their rudeness and
consequent resemblance to stones broken by natural conjunctures. In the
museum at Dresden may be seen a collection of stones, natural products,
which might serve as models for artificial axes, celts, etc. One object
shows the possibility of freaks of nature of this class. It is a
water-worn stone which might be taken for a skull. In the Copenhagen
museum is a great collection of stone tools arranged in sequence of
perfection, beginning with the coarsest and rudest and advancing to the
highest products of art of this kind. That collection is arranged solely
with reference to the development of the flint and stone implements as
tools for a certain use. The sequence is very convincing as to the
interpretation put on the objects, and also as to the strain towards
improvement. Time and place are disregarded in the arrangement. The
earliest specimens in the series are very rude, and only expert opinion
could justify their place amongst artifacts. It reminds us of what we
are told about specimens of Australian "tomahawks." It is said of such a
weapon from West Australia that if it was "found anywhere divested of
the gum and handle, it is doubtful whether it could be recognized by any
one as a work of art. It is ruder in its fashioning, owing principally
to the material of which it is composed, than even the rude, unrubbed,
chipped cutting-stones of the Tasmanians."[190] With regard to these
stone implements of the Tasmanians Tylor said that some of them are
"ruder in make than those of the mammoth period, inasmuch as their edges
are formed by chipping only one surface of the stone, instead of both,
as in the European examples." The Tasmanians, when they needed a cutting
implement, caught up a suitable flat stone, knocked off chips from one
side, partly or all around the edge, and used it without more ado. This
they did under the eyes of modern Europeans. Tylor showed, "from among
flint instruments and flakes from the cave of le Moustier in Dordogne,
specimens corresponding in make with such curious exactness to those of
the Tasmanians that, were they not chipped from different stones, it
would hardly be possible to distinguish those of recent savages from
those of European cavemen. It is not strange that experienced
archæologists should have been at first inclined to consider a large
portion of the Tasmanian stone implements exhibited as wasters and
flakes, or chips, struck off in shaping implements." These stones had no
handle. They were grasped in the hand.[191] In the Oxford museum may be
seen side by side flint shapes from St. Acheul, Tasmania, India, and the
Cape of Good Hope: All the paleolithic implements which we possess, even
the oldest and rudest, belong far on in a series of which the antecedent
members are wanting, for the art, if recognized, is seen to be advanced
and artistic.[192] The Seri of southern California use a natural
cobblestone, which is shaped only by the wear of use, and is discarded
when sharp edges are produced by use or fracture. They use their teeth
and claws like beasts. They have not a knife-sense and need training
before they can use a knife. The stone selected is of an ovoid form
somewhat flattened. By use it is battered on the ends and ground on the
sides so that it becomes personal property and acquires fetishistic
import. It is buried with the corpse of the woman who owned and used
it.[193] Holmes, after experimenting with the manufacture of stone
implements, declared that "every implement resembling the final forms
and every blade-shaped projectile point made from a bowlder, or similar
bit of rock, not already approximate in shape, must pass through the
same or very nearly the same, stages of development, leaving the same
wasters, whether shaped to-day, yesterday, or a million years ago;
whether in the hands of the civilized, the barbarous, or the savage
man."[194] This conclusion is very important, for it recognizes a
certain constant determination of the art of stone-implement making by
the qualities of the material and the muscular activities of man. It has
been disputed whether the form called "turtle-backs" were one form in
the series of artifacts, or a misform produced by errors in manufacture.
"The American archæologists, who have labored long to repeat the
processes of the aborigines in stone work, find themselves unavoidably
making 'turtle-backs,' when they are really trying to make the
leaf-shaped blade."[195] The handicraftsmen of the Smithsonian Institute
have not been able to make a leaf-shaped blade such as may be seen in
the museums, and no Indian has been found who could make one. "This is
one of the lost arts."[196] Other pieces of rude form have been set
aside as chips, or rejects, but such are found in use as scrapers, or in
handles, and are to be recognized as products which belong to the
series.[197] Some rude implements found in the hill gravels of
Berkshire, England, have been offered as anterior to the paleolithic
implements as usually classified.[198] Lubbock said that he could not
find in the large Scandinavian collections "a single specimen of a true
paleolithic type."[199]
+128. Forms of stone axes.+ Stone axes are found all over the globe.
Chipped, sharpened, polished, grooved, pierced, handled, are different
kinds which may be set in a series of advancing improvement, and under
each grade local varieties may be distinguished, but the art is
essentially the same everywhere. "Probably no discovery is older than
the fact that friction would wear away wood or bone, or even
stone."[200] It was also learned that rawhide and sinew shrank in
drying, and this fact was very ingeniously used to attach handles, the
sinew or membrane being put on while fresh and wet. American stone axes
are grooved to receive a handle made by an ingenious adaptation of roots
and branches with pitch or bitumen. "Bored stone axes are found in the
tropical regions of America. Although they are very rare, they are well
executed."[201] The device of boring stone axes appears at the end of
the stone age in the lake dwellings of Switzerland. Perhaps they were
only decorative.[202] The Polynesians used stone axes which were
polished but not bored or grooved, and the edge was not curved.[203] The
Pacific islanders clung to the type of the adze, so that even when they
got iron and steel implements from the whites they preferred the knife
of a plane to an ax, because the former could be used adze-fashion.[204]
In the stone graves of Tennessee have been found implements superior to
all others found in the United States in size, variety, and workmanship.
Amongst these are a flint sickle-shaped tool, axes a foot long or more,
a flint sword twenty-two inches long, a flint needle eight inches long;
also objects supposed to be for ceremonial or decorative use. Stone axes
with handles all in one piece have been found in Tennessee, Arkansas,
and South Carolina.[205]
+129. How stone implements are made.+ What was the process by which
these stone implements were made? The artifacts bear witness directly to
two or three different operations, separate or combined, and to a great
development of the process. As above stated, Tasmanians, after they
became known to Europeans, made stone implements as they needed them,
giving to a stone a rude adaptation to the purpose by chipping off a few
flakes. Short sharp blows were struck by one stone upon another. The
blow must, however, fall upon just the right spot or it would not
produce the desired result. Therefore the flakes were often thrown off
by pressure. A stick or horn was set against the spot where the force
should be applied, and braced against the breast of the operator, while
he held the stone between his feet. This latter operation is described
as used by the Mexicans to get flakes of obsidian.[206] By carrying
further the process of chipping or pressing the stone could be shaped
more perfectly, and by rubbing it on another stone it could be given a
cutting edge. The rubbing process could also be applied to the surface
to make it smooth instead of leaving it as it was after the flaking
process. The processes of striking and pressing were also combined. The
pebble was broken by blows and the pieces were further reduced to shape
by the pressing process. Different devices were also invented for
holding the stone securely and in the proper position. Skill and
judgment in perceiving how and for what purpose each pebble could best
be treated was developed by the workers, and division of labor arose
amongst them as some acquired greater skill in one operation and others
in another. The operations of pressing and striking were also made
complex in order to accomplish what was desired. A sapling was cut off
so that the stump of a limb was left at the bottom of it. It was set
against the spot where the force was needed, and a blow struck in the
crotch of the limb caused the chip to fly. This apparatus was improved
and refined by putting a horn tip on the end point of contact. Another
device was to cut a notch in a tree trunk, which could be used as a
fulcrum. A long lever was used to apply the pressure to the stone laid
at the root of the tree, or on the horizontal space at the bottom of the
notch.[207] These variations show persistent endeavor to get control of
the necessary force and to apply it at the proper point with the least
chance for error and loss. Buckley reported about the "tomahawks" of the
aborigines of Victoria, that the stone was split into pieces, without
regard to their shape, but of convenient thickness. A piece was rubbed
on rough granite until "it is brought to a very fine thin edge, and so
hard and sharp as to enable them to fell a very large tree with it." The
handles are "thick pieces of wood, split and then doubled up, the stone
being in the bend and fixed with gum, very carefully prepared for the
purpose, so as to make it perfectly secure when bound round with
sinews."[208] The natives of the Admiralty Islands use obsidian which is
dug from layers in the ground. Only a few know the art of making axes,
and they prosecute it as a means of livelihood. Skill is required
especially to judge of the way in which the stone will split. The only
tool is a stone with which light, sharp blows are struck.[209] The axes
of the Swiss lake dwellings were made from bowlders of any hard stone.
By means of a saw of flint set in wood, with sand and water, a groove
was cut on one side and then on the other. With a single blow from
another stone the bowlder was made to fall in two. By means of a hard
stone the piece was rudely shaped and then finished by friction. A
modern student has made such an ax in this way in five hours. Sometimes
the stone was set in a handle of wood or horn.[210] It will be noticed
that this process was not possible until an auxiliary tool, the flint
saw, had already been made. The tools and processes were all rude and
great skill and dexterity were required in the operator. "Lafitau says
the polishing of a stone ax requires generations to complete. Mr. Joseph
D. McGuire fabricates a grooved jade ax from an entirely rough spall in
less than a hundred hours."[211]
+130. How arrowheads are made.+ As to arrowheads, "there are a dozen or
more authentic reports by eye-witnesses of the manufacture of arrowheads
in as many different ways."[212] The California Indians broke up a piece
of flint or obsidian to the proper-sized pieces. A piece was held in the
left hand, which was protected by a piece of buckskin. Pressure was put
upon the edge by a piece of a deer's antler, four to six inches long,
held in the right hand. In this way little pieces were chipped off until
the arrowhead was formed. Only the most expert do this successfully.[213]
Sometimes the stone to be operated on is heated in the fire, and slowly
cooled, which causes it to split in flakes. A flake is then shaped with
buck-horn pincers, tied together at the point with a thong.[214] In
another report it is the stone with which the operation is performed
which is said to be heated.[215] In a pit several hundred flint
implements were found stored away in regular layers with alternate
layers of sand between. Perhaps the purpose was to render them more easy
to work to the desired finish.[216] Catlin describes another process of
making arrowheads which required two workmen. One held the stone in his
left hand and placed a chisel-like instrument at the proper point. The
second man struck the blow. Both sang during the operation. The blows
were in the rhythm of the music, and a quick "rebounding" stroke was
said to be essential to good success.[217] A "lad" in Michigan made
arrowheads in imitation of Indian work, from flint, glass, and obsidian,
with a piece of oak stick five inches long as a tool.[218] Sophus
Müller[219] says of modern attempts to imitate stone-implement making
that an average workman can learn in fourteen days to make five hundred
to eight hundred arrowheads per day, but that no one of the best workmen
has been able to equal the fine chipping on the neolithic stone weapons,
although many have made the small implements on the types of the old
stone age.
+131. How stone axes were used.+ After stone axes were made it required
no little independent sense to use them for the desired result. A modern
archæologist used a stone ax of gray flint, with an edge six and a half
centimeters long, set in a handle after the prehistoric fashion, to cut
sticks of green fir, in order to test the ax. He held the stick upright
and chopped into it notchwise until he could break it in two. He cut in
two a stick eighteen centimeters in diameter in eighteen minutes. He
struck fifteen hundred and seventy-eight cuts. At the fourteen hundred
and eighty-fifth cut a piece flew from his ax.[220] A modern
investigator made a polished ax in eleven hours and forty-five minutes.
He cut down an oak tree 0.73 meter in circumference, with twenty-two
hundred blows of the ax, in an hour and thirteen minutes.[221] When
primitive men desired to cut down a tree, fire was applied to it and the
ax was used only to chop off the charred wood so that the fire would
attack the wood again. Canoes were hollowed out of tree trunks by the
same process. These processes are reported from different parts of the
world remote from each other.[222] Without these auxiliary devices the
stone ax can really be used only as a hammer, for, by means of it, the
wood is beaten into a fibrous condition and is not properly cut.[223]
Nevertheless, the Shingu Indians cleared forests, built houses and
canoes, and made furniture with the stone ax alone.[224] The Indians of
Guiana, with stone and bone implements, cut down big trees, cut out the
core of them, and made weapons and tools of great perfection and
beauty.[225] The same may be said of very many other peoples. Some
Australians value stone axes so much that they except them from the
custom to bury all a man's property with him. Axes are inherited by the
next of kin.[226]
+132. Acculturation versus parallelism.+ The facts in regard to making
and using stone implements bring up the question whether such arts have
a single origin and are spread by contagion (acculturation), or are
invented independently by many people who have the same tasks to
perform, and the same or similar materials at hand (parallelism).
Lippert[227] says that "the different modes of fashioning flint
arrowheads show us that we must not think of the earliest art as all
tied to a single tradition, and carried away from this. On the contrary,
human ingenuity has set about accomplishing the acts which are necessary
for the struggle for existence in different places, with the elements
there at hand." We have seen above that the materials may, from their
character, so limit and condition the operations of manufacture as to
set lines for the development of the art. If the processes of the men
are also limited and conditioned by the nature of human nerves and
muscles so that they must run on certain lines, it would follow that the
human mind also, in face of a certain problem, will fall into
conditioned modes of activity, and we should approach the doctrine that
men must think the same thoughts by way of mental reaction on the same
experiences and observations.
The facts, however, show that an art, beginning in the rudest way, is
produced along lines of concurrent effort, and is the common property
of the group. All practice it as it is, and all are unconsciously
coöperating to improve it. The processes are folkways. The artifacts are
tools and weapons which, by their utility, modify the folkways and
become components in them. The skill, dexterity, patience, ingenuity,
and power of combination which result are wider and higher possessions
which also modify the folkways at later stages of effort. The
generalizations of truth and right widen at every stage, and produce a
theory of welfare, which must be recognized as such, no matter how rude
it may be. It consists in the application of the notions of goblinism as
they are prevalent at the time in the group. The art itself is built up
by folkways according to their character as everywhere exhibited, for
arts are modes of providing for human necessities by processes and
devices which can be universally taught, and can be handed down forever.
The arts of an isolated group run against limits, even if the group has
great ingenuity, as we see in the case of China. It is when arts are
developed by give and take between groups that they reach their highest
development. The wider the area over which the coöperation and
combination are active, the higher will be the achievements. "Every art
is born out of the intelligence of its age."[228] It has been mentioned
above that Polynesians cannot use an ax. They want to set the blade
transverse to the handle. The negroes of the Niger Protectorate are very
clumsy at going up or down stairs. It is a dexterity, not to say an art,
which they have had no chance to acquire. They also find it very
difficult to understand or interpret a picture, even of the least
conventional kind.[229] The Seri of Tiburon Island have not the knife
habit. They draw a knife towards the body instead of pushing it
away.[230] Hence we see that the lack of a habit, or lack of opportunity
to see a dexterity practiced, constitutes a narrowing of the mental
horizon.
+133. Fire-making tools.+ Another art which would offer us parallel
phenomena to that of stone working is that of fire making. It must have
had several independent centers of origin. It existed all over the
globe. Its ultimate origin is unknown to us. It may have originated in
different ways at different centers. The simplest instruments for making
fire can be classified according to the mode of movement employed in
them as drilling, plowing, and sawing instruments. The fire drills have
also undergone very important development and improvement, so that they
have become very complicated machines. The ingenuity and inventive skill
which were required to make a fire drill which was driven by a bow were
as great as the same powers when manifested by an Edison or a Bessemer.
+134. Psychophysical traits of primitive men.+ All the artifacts were
made and all the arts were produced by the concurrent efforts of men to
serve their interests. We find that primitive men put patient effort and
astonishing ingenuity into their tools. They also attained to great
skill in the use of clumsy tools. It is true, in general, of primitive
men that they shirk all prolonged effort or patient application, but
they do use great patience and perseverance when they expect to
accomplish something of great importance to their interests. The same is
true if they expect to gratify their vanity. In hair dressing or
tattooing they submit to very irksome restraint prolonged through a long
time. Also in feather work, partly useful and partly ornamental, they
assorted feathers piece by piece, and enlaced the feathers in the meshes
of their hats and caps, or fastened them into scepters with pitch. They
could make houses, etc., with their axes only by long-continued
industry.[231] South American Indians made tools for printing tattoo
patterns on the body. They were blocks, on each face of which a pattern
was raised, perhaps a different one on each side.[232] It should be
noticed what prodigious power a large body of men can put forth when
they all work at the same task and are greatly interested in it. They
begin by the same process, but the process differentiates and improves
in their hands. Each gains skill and dexterity. They learn from each
other, and the product is multiplied.
+135. Language.+ Language is a product of the folkways which illustrates
their operation in a number of most important details. Language is a
product of the need of coöperative understanding in all the work, and in
connection with all the interests, of life. It is a societal phenomenon.
It was necessary in war, the chase, and industry so soon as these
interests were pursued coöperatively. Each group produced its own
language which held that group together and sundered it from
others.[233] All are now agreed that, whatever may have been the origin
of language, it owes its form and development to usage. "Men's usage
makes language." "The maxim that 'usage is the rule of speech' is of
supreme and uncontrolled validity in every part and parcel of every
human tongue."[234] "Language is only the imperfect means of men to find
their bearings in the world of their memories; to make use of their
memory, that is, their own experience and that of their ancestors, with
all probability that this world of memory will be like the world of
reality."[235] The origin of language is one of those origins which must
ever remain enveloped in mystery. "How can a child understand the
combinations of sound and sense when it must know language in order to
learn them? It must learn to speak without previously knowing how to
speak, without any previous suspicion that the words of its mother mean
more than the buzzing of a fly. The child learns to speak from an
absolute beginning, just as, not the original man, but the original
beast, learned to speak before any creature could speak."[236] The
beasts evidently did not learn to speak. They only learned to use the
beast cries, by which they transmitted warnings, sex invitations, calls
to united struggles, etc. The cries answered the purpose and went no
further. Men, by virtue of the expanding power in them which enthused
their zeal and their play, broke through the limitations of beast
language, and went on to use the sounds of the human speech instrument
for ever richer communications. Poetic power in blossom guides the
development of a child's language as it guided that of the men who made
the first languages.[237] "The original languages must be, in
comparison with our languages, like the wildest love-passion compared
with marital custom."[238] Every word has a history of accidents which
have befallen it, the beginnings of which are lost in the abyss of
time.[239] In the Middle Ages the word "Word" came to mean the Word of
God with such distinctness that the romance languages adopted parabola,
or derivatives from it, for "word."[240] The students of linguistics
recognize metaphor as another great mode of modifying the signification
of words. By metaphor they mean the assembling of like things, and the
selection and extirpation of unlike things.
+136. Language and magic.+ Preuss offers an explanation of the origin of
language which is interesting on account of its connection with the vast
operation of magic: "Language owes its origin to the magic of tones and
words. The difficulty of winning any notion about the beginnings of
human speech lies in the fact that we cannot think of any cause which
should give occasion for speech utterances. Such occasions are products
of education, after language already existed. They are effects of
language, not causes of it.... Language belongs, like play, dances, and
fine arts, to the things which do not come on a direct line of
development out of the instinctive satisfaction of life-needs and the
other activities which create things of positive value, but it is the
result of belief in magic, which prompted men to imitate noises made in
labor, and other natural sounds, through a wide range, in order thereby
to produce operations."[241]
+137. Language is a case of mores.+ Whitney said that language is an
institution. He meant that it is in the folkways, or in the mores, since
welfare is connected with the folkways of language, albeit by some
superstition. He adds: "In whatever aspect the general facts of language
are viewed, they exhibit the same absence of reflection and
intention."[242] "No one ever set himself deliberately at work to invent
or improve language,--or did so, at least, with any valuable and abiding
result. The work is all accomplished by a continual satisfaction of the
needs of the moment, by ever yielding to an impulse and grasping a
possibility, which the already acquired treasure of words and forms, and
the habit of their use, suggest and put within reach."[243] "Every
single item of alteration, of whatever kind, and of whatever degree of
importance, goes back to some individual or individuals who set it in
circulation, from whose example it gained a wider and wider currency,
until it finally won that general assent, which is alone required in
order to make anything in language proper and authoritative."[244] These
statements might be applied to any of the folkways. The statements on
page 46 of Whitney's book would serve to describe and define the mores.
This shows to what an extent language is a case of the operation by
which mores are produced. They are always devices to meet a need, which
are imperceptibly modified and unconsciously handed down through the
generations. The ways, like the language, are incorporeal things. They
are borne by everybody and nobody, and are developed by everybody and
nobody. Everybody has his little peculiarities of language. Each one has
his peculiarities of accent or pronunciation and his pet words or
phrases. Each one is suggesting all the time the use of the tricks of
language which he has adopted. "Nothing less than the combined effort of
a whole community, with all its classes and orders, in all its variety
of characters, circumstances, and necessities, is capable of keeping in
life a whole language."[245] "Every vocable was to us [children] an
arbitrary and conventional sign; arbitrary, because any one of a
thousand other vocables could have been just as easily learned by us and
associated with the same idea; conventional, because the one we acquired
had its sole ground and sanction in the consenting use of the community
of which we formed a part."[246] "We do not, as children, make our
language for ourselves. We get it by tradition, all complete. We think
in sentences. As our language forms sentences, that is, as our
mother-tongue thinks, so we learn to think. Our brain, our entire
thought-status, forms itself by the mother-tongue, and we transmit the
same to our children."[247] Nature men have only petty coins of speech.
They can express nothing great. They cannot compare, analyze, and
combine. They are overwhelmed by a flood of details, in which they
cannot discern the ruling idea. The material and sensual constitute
their limits. If they move they have to get a new language. The American
languages are a soft mass which changes easily if tribes separate, or as
time goes on, or if they move their habitat.[248] Sometimes measures are
adopted in order to make the language unintelligible, as the Bushmen
insert a syllable in a word to that end.[249] "The language of nature
peoples offers a faithful picture of their mental status. All is in
flux. Nothing is fixed or crystallized. No fundamental thoughts, ideas,
or ideals are present. There is no regularity, logic, principles,
ethics, or moral character. Lack of logic in thinking, lack of purpose
in willing or acting, put the mind of a nature man on a plane with that
of our children. Lack of memory, antilogic, paradox, fantasy in mental
action, correspond to capriciousness, levity, irresponsibility, and the
rule of emotions and passions in practical action."[250] "Man's language
developed because he could make, not merely passive and mechanical
associative and reproductive combinations of notions, like a beast, but
because he had active, free, and productive apperceptions, which appear
in creative fantasy and logical reflection."[251] "Man does not speak
because he thinks. He speaks because the mouth and larynx communicate
with the third frontal convolution of the brain. This material
connection is the immediate cause of articulate speech."[252] This is
true in the sense that speech is not possible until the vocal organs are
present, and are duly connected with the brain. "The specific cry,
somewhat modified by the vocal resources of man, may have been
sufficient for the humble vocabulary of the earliest ages, and there
exists no gulf, no impassable barrier, between the language of birds,
dogs, anthropoid apes, and human speech."[253] "The warning or summoning
cry, the germ of the demonstrative roots, is the parent of the names of
number, sex, and distance; the emotional cry of which our interjections
are but the relics, in combination with the demonstratives, prepares the
outlines of the sentence, and already represents the verb and the names
of states or actions. Imitation, direct or symbolical, and necessarily
only approximative to the sounds of external nature, i. e.
onomatopoeia, furnished the elements of the attributive roots, from
which arose the names of objects, special verbs, and their derivatives.
Analogy and metaphor complete the vocabulary, applying to the objects,
discerned by touch, sight, smell, and taste, qualifying adjectives
derived from onomatopoeia. Reason, then coming into play, rejects the
greater part of this unmanageable wealth, and adopts a certain number of
sounds which have already been reduced to a vague and generic sense, and
by derivation, combination, and affixes, which are the root sounds,
produces those endless families of words, related to each other in every
degree of kindred, from the closest to the most doubtful, which grammar
finally ranges in the categories known as the parts of speech."[254]
"That metaphor makes language grow is evident. It brings about
connection between place, time, and sound ideas."[255]
+138. Primitive dialects.+ The _cebus azarae_, a monkey of Paraguay,
makes six distinct sounds when excited, which causes its comrades to
emit similar sounds.[256] The island Caribs have two distinct
vocabularies, one of which is used by men and by women when speaking to
each other, and by men when repeating, in _oratio obliqua_, some saying
of the women. Their councils of war are held in a secret jargon into
which women are never initiated.[257] The men and women have separate
languages, a custom which is noted also amongst the Guycurus and other
peoples of Brazil.[258] Amongst the Arawaks the difference between the
languages of the sexes is not in regard to the use of words only, but
also in regard to their inflection.[259] The two languages are sometimes
differentiated by a constant change, e.g. where in the man's language
two vowels come together the woman's language intercalates a _k_.[260]
The Arawaks have words which only men may speak, and others which only
women may speak.[261] Dialectical variations are illustrated for us by
facts which come under observation and report. Christian[262] mentions
an American negro castaway, who settled on Raven's Island with a native
wife and children and a few relatives and servants. In forty years they
had produced "a new and peculiar dialect of their own, broadening the
softer vowels and substituting _th_ or _f_ for the original _t_ sound in
the parent ponapeian." Martius mentions that native boatmen in Brazil,
who had grown up together, had each some little peculiarity of
pronunciation. Such a difference would produce a dialect in case of
isolation. On the other hand, the ecclesiastics adopted the Tupi
language and made it a general language for the province of Gram Para,
so that it was used in the pulpit until 1757 and is now necessary for
intercourse in the interior.[263] The Gauchos of central Uruguay speak
Spanish with harsh rough accents. They change _y_ and _ll_ into the
French _j_.[264] Whitney and Waitz thought that all American languages
proceeded from a single original one. Powell thought that they were
"many languages, belonging to distinct families, which have no apparent
unity of origin."[265] Evidence is adduced, however, that "the same
aboriginal peoples who named the waters of North America coined also the
prehistoric geographical titles in South America."[266] The Finns and
Samoyeds are, from the standpoint of language, practically the same
race. The two tongues present the highest development of the
agglutinative process of the Ural-Altaic languages.[267]
+139. Taking up and dropping languages.+ The way in which languages are
taken up or dropped is also perplexing. Keane[268] gives a list of
peoples who have dropped one language and taken up another; he also
gives a list of those who have changed physical type but have retained
the same language. Holub[269] mentions the Makololo, who have almost
entirely disappeared, but their language has passed to their
conquerors. It became necessary to the latter from the spread of their
dominion and from their closer intercourse with the peoples south of the
Zambesi, on account of which, "without any intentional interference by
the rulers, a common and easily understood language showed itself
indispensable." Almost every village in New Guinea has its own language,
and it is said that in New Britain people who live thirty miles apart
cannot understand each other.[270]
+140. Pigeon dialects.+ The Germans find themselves at a disadvantage in
dealing with aborigines because they have no dialect like pigeon English
or the Coast Malay used by the Dutch.[271] Many examples are given, from
the Baltic region, of peasant dialects made in sport by subjecting all
words to the same modification.[272] Our own children often do this to
English in order to make a secret language.
+141. How languages grow.+ What we see in these cases is that, if we
suppose men to have joined in coöperative effort with only the sounds
used by apes and monkeys, the requirement of their interests would push
them on to develop languages such as we now know. The isolating,
agglutinative, incorporative, and inflectional languages can be put in a
series according to the convenience and correctness of the logical
processes which they embody and teach. The Semitic languages evidently
teach a logic different from that of the Indo-European. It is a
different way of thinking which is inculcated in each great family of
languages. They represent stages in the evolution of thought or ways of
thinking. The instance is one of those which best show us how folkways
are built up and how they are pulled down. The agglutination of words
and forms sometimes seems like a steady building process; again, the
process will not go forward at all. "In the agglutinative languages
speech is berry jam. In the inflectional languages each word is like a
soldier in his place with his outfit."[273] The "gooing" of a baby is a
case of the poetic power in its blossoming exuberance. The accidental
errors of pronunciation which are due to very slight individual
variations in the form of the vocal organs are cases of individual
contribution to the development of language. The baby words and
individual mispronunciations which are taken up by a family and its
friends, but never get further, show us how dialects grow. There are
changes in language which are, "in their inception, inaccuracies of
speech. They attest the influence of that immense numerical majority
among the speakers of English who do not take sufficient pains to speak
correctly, but whose blunders become finally the norm of the
language."[274] In analogy things which are alike are embraced in a
single term; in metaphor two or more things which seem alike, but may
not be so, are grouped together and are embraced in a single term. All
these modes of change in language attest the work of individuals on
language. Sometimes there is extension of influence to a group.
Sometimes the influence is only temporary and is rejected again.
Sometimes it falls in with a drift of taste or habit, when it is taken
up and colors the pronunciation or usage of the population of a great
district, and becomes fixed in the language. All this is true also on
the negative side, since usage of words, accent, timbre of the voice,
and pronunciation (drawling, nasal tones) expel older usages. Language
therefore illustrates well all the great changes of folkways under the
heads of coöperation and antagonism. We have an excellent chance to
study the operation in the case of slang. A people who are prosperous
and happy, optimistic and progressive, will produce much slang. It is a
case of play. They amuse themselves with the language. We may think the
new words and phrases vulgar and in bad taste, or senseless and
ridiculous. We may reject them, but the masses will decide whether they
shall be permanently rejected or not. The vote is informal. The most
confirmed purist will by and by utter a new slang word when he needs it.
One's objections are broken down. One's taste is spoiled by what he
hears. We are right in the midst of the operation of making folkways and
can perceive it close at hand.
+142. Money.+ Money is another primitive device which is produced in
the folkways. Money was not called into existence by any need
universally experienced and which all tried to satisfy as well as they
could. It was produced by developing other devices, due to other
motives, until money was reached as a result. Property can be traced to
portable objects which were amulets, trophies, and ornaments all at
once. These could be accumulated, and if they were thought to be the
abodes of powerful spirits, they were gifts which were eagerly sought,
or valuable objects for exchange. They led to hoarding (since the owner
did not like to part with them), and they served as marks of personal
distinction.[275] The interplay of vanity and religion with the love of
property demands attention. Religion also caused the aborigines of the
northwest provinces of South America to go to the rivers for gold only
in sufficient amount to buy what they needed. Any surplus they returned
to the stream. "They say that if they borrow more than they really need
the river-god will not lend them any more."[276] In later times and
higher civilization coins have been used as amulets to ward off or to
cure disease.[277] The Greenland Eskimo laughed when they were offered
gold and silver coins. They wanted objects of steel, for which they
would give anything which they had and which was desired.[278] The
Tarahumari of Sonora do not care for silver money. Their Croesus
raises three hundred or four hundred bushels of corn per annum. The
largest herd of cattle contains thirty or forty head. They generally
prefer cotton cloth to dollars.[279] "A Dyak has no conception of the
use of a circulating medium. He may be seen wandering in the Bazaar with
a ball of bee's wax in his hand for days together, because he cannot
find anybody willing to take it for the exact article which he
requires."[280] We meet with a case in which people have gold but live
on a system of barter. It is a people in Laos, north of Siam. They weigh
gold alone in scales against seeds of grain.[281] In the British Museum
(Case F, Ireland) may be seen bronze rings, to be sewn on garments as
armor or to be used as money, or both. The people along the west coast
of Hindostan, from the Persian Gulf to Ceylon, used as money the
fishhook which was their most important tool. It became degraded into a
piece of doubled wire of silver or bronze. If the degradation had gone
on, doubtless it would have resulted in a lump of metal, just as the
Siamese silver coins are the result of doubling up silver rings.[282]
The play of custom and convention is well shown by the use of the
Macedonian coins in England. The coins of Philip bore on the obverse a
head with a wreath, and on the reverse a chariot driver drawn by two
horses. In Britain this coin became a sign of value and lost its
reference to the sovereign. It is possible to show the order of the
reigns of the kings by the successive omissions of parts of the figures,
until only the wreath was left and four perpendicular strokes and two
circles for the legs of one horse and two chariot wheels. Each change
was a mark of value and then it was further changed to save
trouble.[283] On the Palau Islands there were seven grades of money,
determined by the size. Only three or four pieces exist of the first
grade. The second grade is of jasper. The third consists of agate
cylinders. These three grades are used only by nobles. They have the
same rank as gems amongst us. The people think of the money as coming
from an island where it lives a divine life, the lower ranks serving the
upper. They have myths of the coming of the money to Palau.[284] These
examples show to what a great extent other ideas than those of value
come into play in money.
+143. Intergroup and intragroup money.+ When money is used to overcome
the difficulties of barter two cases are to be distinguished,--the
intergroup and the intragroup uses, which are primarily distinguished by
a space relation. The intragroup use is here, in the we-group, close at
hand. The intergroup use is between our group and some out-group. It
will be found that all money problems include these two cases. "At least
we shall find that the current commonplace of the economists about the
succession of natural economy, money economy, and credit economy, is not
even remotely apt to the real problems."[285] What is true is that, on a
money economy, it is found that there is, or may be, a constant exchange
of money for goods and goods for money, from which gain or loss may
result; and furthermore that the risk (aleatory element) in this
exchange is intensified, if time is allowed to intervene. Inside the
we-group the first need for money is for fees, fines, amercements, and
bride price. In Melanesia pigs are not called money and there is shell,
feather, and mat money, but pigs are paid for fines, penalties,
contributions to feasts, fees in the secret society, pay for wives, and
in other societal relations. What is needed is a mobile form of wealth,
with which social dues can be paid. This is the function of money which
the paper-money projectors have in mind when they propose to issue paper
which the state shall take for taxes. It is evident that it is to be
distinguished from the economic function of money as a circulating
medium. The intragroup money needs to be especially a measure and store
of value, while the intergroup money needs to be a medium of exchange.
In the former case barter is easy; in the latter case it is regular. In
the former case a multiple standard is available; in the latter case
what is needed to discharge balances is a commodity of universal demand.
When credit is introduced its sphere is intragroup. The debtors would
like the money to be what every one can get. The creditors would like it
to be what every one wants.
+144. Various predominant wares.+ In the northeastern horn of Africa the
units of value which are used as money are salt, metal, skins, cotton,
glass, tobacco, wax, coffee beans, and korarima. Cattle and slaves are
also used as units of value from time to time amongst the Oromo. Salt is
used as money in prismatic pieces, twenty-two centimeters long and three
centimeters to five millimeters broad at the bottom, which weigh from
seven hundred and fifty grams to one and one half kilograms each. It is
carried in bundles of twenty to thirty pieces, wound in leaves.[286] The
Galla use rods of iron six to twelve centimeters long, somewhat thicker
in the middle, well available for lance ends, one hundred and thirty of
which are worth one thaler in Schoa; also pieces of copper, tin, and
zinc; calf-skins; black, printed, and unprinted cotton cloth; pieces of
cloth; coarse red cotton yarn (for knitting); and strings of beads. The
universal and intergroup money is the Maria Theresa thaler weighing
571.5 to 576 English grains.[287] Cameron mentions the exchange of
intergroup money for intragroup money at a fair at Kawile, on the
eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika. At the opening of the fair the money
changers gave out the local money of bugle beads, which they took in
again when the fair closed.[288] On the French Congo the boatmen were
paid with paper bons, which were superseded by metal ones in 1887. When
the recipient takes his bon to the station he obtains at first a number
of nails, beads, or other articles for it, which he can then exchange
for what he wants. Tokens of copper are issued at Franceville, stamped
"F," of different shapes and sizes, but always of the same shape and
size for the same value in French money.[289] At Grand Bassam in West
Africa the manilla (bracelet) serves as money. For six months the
natives give oil for these bracelets of metal mixed of copper, lead,
zinc, antimony, and iron, which can be closed around the arm or leg of a
slave by a blow of the hammer. Then for six months they exchange the
bracelets for the European goods which they want.[290] These bracelets
were a store of wealth for the black men.[291] The Kru have few cattle,
which pass from one to another in bride purchases, since these can be
made with nothing else. It is impossible to have wives and cattle too
until one's daughters grow up.[292] Since the seventeenth century
cylindrical (bugle) green-blue beads have been money on the ivory and
gold coasts. They come from an ancient cemetery on the Bokabo Mountains
and are of Egyptian origin. They were buried with the dead.[293] A local
money of stone is reported also from Avetime in Ehveland. It is said to
have been used as ornament. Pieces of quartz and sandstone, rudely
square but with broken corners, from four to five centimeters in
diameter and one and a half to two centimeters thick, rubbed down by
friction, have been found.[294]
+145. Intragroup money from property; intergroup money from trade.+
These cases already show us the distinction between intragroup money and
intergroup money. The effect of trade is to develop one or more
predominant wares. In the intragroup exchanges this is an object of high
desire to individuals for use. It may be an amulet ornament, or a thing
of great use in the struggle for existence, e.g. cattle, or a thing of
universal acceptance by which anything can be obtained. In intergroup
trade it is the chief object of export, the thing for which the trade is
carried on, e.g. salt, metal, fur. If this commodity is not easily
divisible, the money is something which can be given "to boot," e.g.
tobacco, sugar, opium, tea, betel.[295] That is money which will "pass."
This does not mean that which can be forced to pass ("legal tender"),
but that which will go without force. Amulet ornaments may be either a
whim which does not take, or fashion may seize upon something of this
kind and make it a tribe mark. Then it becomes group money, because it
is universally desired. The articles admit of accumulation, and
ostentation is a new joy; they also admit of change and variety. They
are available for gifts to the medicine man (to satisfy ghosts, get
rain, or thwart disease). They may be used to buy a wife, or to buy a
step in the secret society of the men, or to pay a fine or penalty to
the chief. The differentiation of goods starts emotion on the line of
least resistance, and the predominant goods are the ones of widest
demand. Often the predominant ware has a gain from taboo, probably on
account of relation to the dead.[296] A thing which is rare and hard to
get may become intragroup money. In Fiji the teeth of the spermaceti
whale are taken as a measure of value and sign of peace. In German New
Guinea the bent tusks of a boar are used as money. In California red
birds' heads are used in the same way. Trophy skulls of birds and beasts
become a store of wealth, and money with which trade can be carried on
with neighbors.[297] The first step seems to be to use the predominant
article as the third term of reference in barter. Intergroup money is
really a ware and so remains, as gold is now; but groups widen as
communication improves, and group money gets a very wide range. In
intergroup affairs, therefore, the relations sooner become impersonal
and mechanical. The things which are best for this purpose become
mobile. Some are better as stores of value, others as means of power,
others as measures of value. The last are on the way to become money.
The others are more like gems. Thus group money arose from property;
intergroup money from trade.
+146. Shell and beads.+ Shells had very great convenience for
money and their value was increased by the fact that ghosts dwelt
in them. Cowries were early used as money, 2200 of them equaling
in value one franc.[298] They are now losing currency. On
Fernando Po bits of achatectonia shells are made into belts and
used as currency.[299] A far less widespread shell of a sea snail
was used in northern Transvaal.[300] Other cases of the use of
shells will be given below. A dress pattern of cotton cloth,
seven ells, called a "tobe," is a unit of monetary reference
through the Sudan.[301] Another money in the same region is the
iron spade, with which tribute is paid to the petty rulers of
eastern Equatoria. The spades are made of native iron and are
used upon occasion to cut down the grass.[302] Expeditions into
the Niam Niam territories always have a smith with them whose
duty it is to make rings of copper and iron wire, with a square
section, for minor purchases.[303] The currency of beads has
greatly lessened wherever more useful objects of European
manufacture have become known.[304] Forms of the lance head are
used to buy a wife, who costs twenty or thirty of them.[305]
Further south von Götzen found brass wire, in pieces fifteen to
thirty-five centimeters long, in use as money, not being an
article of use, but a real money used to store value, to buy what
is wanted, and to pay taxes for protection against one's forest
neighbors.[306] Formerly, when beads were still used as money,
each district had its own preferred size, shape, and color.
Travelers found that the fashion in a district had changed since
the information was obtained, relying on which they had provided
themselves. This is, however, evidently a part of the operation
of differentiating the predominant ware.[307]
+147. Token money.+ Token money demands treatment by itself, as a
special development of the money-producing movement. If different groups
adopt different kinds of amulet ornaments as money, such intragroup
money may be token money. If one such group conquers another, the
conquerors may throw the money of the conquered out of use (whites and
Indians as to wampum). In Burma Chinese gambling counters are used as
money.[308] Guttapercha tokens issued by street-car companies in South
America are said to be used in the same way. Postage stamps, milk
tickets, etc., have been so used by us. In Massachusetts, in the
eighteenth century, pieces of paper were circulated which had no
redemption whatever. They bore the names of coins of silver which did
not exist, but which had a definition in a certain amount of silver of a
certain fineness. At Carthage pieces of leather which inclosed an
unknown object, probably one of the holy moneys, were circulated.[309]
The same is reported of bits of leather cut, like samples, from a skin
and circulated in place of it. The device succeeded for the in-group
money, but it led to the attempt to put copper tokens in the place of
silver coins, which resulted in disaster.[310] The cacao beans of Mexico
were wares, if of good quality. Larger ones of poorer quality were
money. A part of the value was imaginary. Cloth was formerly money in
Bohemia. A loosely woven variety of cloth was used for this purpose, the
cloth utilities as a textile fabric and as money being separated. On the
west coast of Africa little mats were used as money. They were stamped
by the Portuguese government. Mat money was also used on the New
Hebrides, especially to buy grades in the great secret society. The mats
are long and narrow and are more esteemed when they are old and black
from the smoke of the huts. They are kept in little houses where they
are smoked. "When they hang with soot they are particularly
valued."[311] Useless broken rice is used as money in Burma and
elsewhere in the East.[312] The use of token money, in which a part of
the value is imaginary, always implies the inclosure of a group and the
exclusion of foreign trade. Then, within the group, the value may be
said to be real and not imaginary. It depends on the monopoly law of
value and varies with the quantity but not proportionately to the
quantity. Kublai-Khan, using a Chinese device, got possession of all the
gold and silver and issued paper. His empire was so great that all trade
was intragroup trade, and his power made his paper money pass.[313]
The Andamanese made inferior pots to be used as a medium in barter.[314]
They have very little trade; are on a stage of mutual gift making.[315]
Token money is an aberration of the folkways, due to misapprehension of
the peculiarity of group money. At the same time it has been used with
advantage for subsidiary silver coinage.
+148. Selection of a predominant ware.+ Crawfurd, in his history
of the Indian Archipelago, mentions a number of different
articles used there as money,--cakes of beeswax, salt, gold dust,
cattle, and tin.[316] The tin coins are small irregular laminæ
with a hole in the center, 5600 of them being worth a dollar.
Brass coins which come down from the Buddhist sovereigns of Java
are still met with; also other brass coins introduced by the
Mohammedan sovereigns. In the museum at Vienna copper rings,
bound into a circle, inclosed in a fibrous envelope, are another
form of money. The selection of a predominant ware is shown in
such cases as the one described in Ling Roth.[317] When Low was
at Kiau, in 1851, beads and brass wire were wanted. When others
were there some years later the people all had their hearts set
on brass wire. The Englishmen "distributed a good deal of cloth,
at reasonable rates, in exchange for food and services rendered."
In 1858 they found that even brass wire, unless of very great
size, was despised, and cloth was eagerly desired.
One thing which helped the selection of a predominant ware was
that only a specified article would make peace, atone for a
wrong, compose a quarrel, or ransom a captive. Also various
articles obtained such prestige, on account of age and the glory
of ancestors, that the possession of them conferred authority and
social importance on their owners. Such are porcelain jars in
Borneo, bronze drums in Burma, bronze cannon in the East-Indian
Archipelago. Many African chiefs stored up ivory tusks for social
prestige long before the white men came and gave them value in
world commerce.[318]
+149. Stone money in Melanesia.+ We must, however, turn our
attention to Melanesia where the shell and stone money have been
pushed to a most remarkable development, quite out of line with
the rest of the Melanesian civilization. On the Solomon Islands
there are some petty reef communities which occupy themselves
solely with fishing and making shell-bead money.[319] On New
Britain divarra is made by boring and stringing fathoms of shell
money. A fathom is worth two shillings sterling, and two hundred
and fifty fathoms coiled up together looks like a life buoy.[320]
In the northwestern Solomon Islands the currency consists of
beasts' teeth of two kinds,--those of a kind of flying dog and of
a kind of dolphin. Each tooth is bored at the root and they are
strung on thin cords. These people also use the small disks of
shell, five millimeters in diameter and from one to one and a
half millimeters thick.[321] The shell money of New Britain has
very great influence on the lives of the people. It minimizes the
evil and fatality of war, in which every life and every wound
must be paid for. It establishes the right of property. It makes
the people frugal and industrious, and makes them a commercial
people. To it may also be attributed their selfishness and
ingratitude. "Its influence is supposed to extend even to the
next life. There is not a custom connected with life or death in
which this money does not play a great and leading part.... Take
away their money and their secret societies sink at once into
nothing, and most of their customs become nothing."[322]
Evidently the missionary testifies that the money stimulates
commercialism with all its good and ill. Coils of feathers which
are spoken of as money are also reported from the New Hebrides
and Santa Cruz. Feathers are attached with resin to the outside
of coils, inside of which are charms, each possessing a
protective property. This money is very rare and, if shown, may
be handled only by the owner.[323] Our information as to the
commercial uses and effects of these island shell moneys is very
imperfect. The money seems to be still on the stage of gems. It
is used to buy steps of rank in the secret society, which cost
pigs and money and mark social importance, which is, like other
forms of force, regarded as supernatural. Rank can be gained only
by the consent of those who already have it.[324]
+150. Plutocratic effects of money.+ It must not be understood that the
money, on the barbaric stage, enters into the struggle for existence, at
least for food. There is only slight organization of labor. Each one
produces what he needs. There is little luxury. "Nevertheless, money
plays the chief rôle in the life of the people. The man, regarded as an
animal, has enough to do to support life. If he wants a wife, wants to
found a family, wants to be a member of the state, he must have
money."[325] It is evident that the circulation of this money must
produce phenomena which are unfamiliar to us.
The estimate placed by the Solomon Islanders on great stones of
aragonite, obtained in the southern Palau islands, is such that
they incur great risks in going to get them in their frail
boats.[326] The pieces have the appearance of our own
grindstones. They are set in rows by the men's clubhouses, and
are in care of the chiefs. Christian mentions two of the Big
Houses on Yap with stone money piled against the foundations. One
piece was twelve feet in diameter and one and a half feet thick,
and had a hole in the center two and a half feet in
diameter.[327] A certain Captain O'Keefe, in 1882, fitted out a
Chinese vessel and brought thousands of pieces of money from
Palau to Yap. He brought the whole island in debt to himself.
Nowadays they want big stones. Such six feet in diameter are not
rare. This kind of money is the money of the men; that of the
women is of mussel shells strung on strings. The exchange of a
big piece for smaller kinds of money involves considerations of
rank. Two of equal rank, and well disposed, exchange by dignity;
if one is inferior, the good will of the other is requisite. The
glass and porcelain money on Yap must have come from China or
Japan. It has controlled the social development of the islands.
It is also noticeable that other things of high utility, e.g. the
wooden vessels in which yellow powder is prepared, or in which
food is set forth at feasts, are made the objects of exchange,
and, at the making of peace after a fight, or at other
negotiations, affect the relations of tribes.[328] At the present
time bags of dried cocoanut are employed as a medium of exchange,
probably in intergroup trade.[329] What Kubary[330] says about
the use of the money shows that it has no proper circulation. It
accumulates in the hands of the great men, since it is used to
pay fees, fines, gifts, tribute, etc. The armengol women,
marriages, and public festivals start it out again, and on its
way back it performs many social services. It is also reasonable
to suppose that, having got a footing on these islands, it spread
to others by social contagion. This explains the presence of a
general medium of exchange amongst people who are otherwise
barely out of the stone age.[331] The tales about the crimes
which have been connected with the history of great pieces of the
aragonite stone[332] remind us of the stories about the greatest
diamonds yet found.
+151. Money in northwestern North America.+ In South America
nothing served the purposes of money. There was none in Peru.
Metal, if they had any, was used by all for ornament.[333]
Martius, however, says of the Mauhes that they used seeds of
_paullinia sorbilis_ as money. They obtained from the seeds a
remedy for skin disease and diarrhoea.[334] The Nishinam of
California had two kinds of shell money, ullo and hawok. The
former consists of pieces, one or two inches long and one third
of that in width, strung on a fiber. The pieces of shell take a
high polish and make a fine necklace. The hawok is small money by
comparison. A string of the large kind was worth ten dollars. It
consisted of ten pieces. A string of one hundred and
seventy-seven pieces of the small kind sold for seven dollars. In
early days every Indian in California had, on an average, one
hundred dollars' worth of the shell money, the value of two women
(although they did not buy wives) or three average ponies.[335]
The Hupa of California will not sell to an American the flakes of
jasper or obsidian which they parade at their dances. They are
not knives, but jewelry and money amongst themselves. Nearly
every man has ten lines tattooed across the inside of his left
arm. A string of five shells is the standard unit. It is drawn
over the left thumb nail. If it reaches the uppermost tattooed
line it is worth five dollars per shell.[336] They also grind
down pieces of stone which looks like meershaum into cylinders
one to three inches long, which they wear as jewelry and use as
money.[337] The Eskimo of Alaska used skins as money. Here the
effect of intergroup trade has been to change the skin which was
taken as the unit. It is now the beaver. Other skins are rated as
multiples or submultiples of this.[338] In Washington Territory
dentalium and abelone shells were the money, also slaves, skins,
and blankets, until the closer contact with whites produced
changes.[339] The Karok use as money the red scalps of
woodpeckers which are rated at from $2.50 to $5.00 each, and also
dentalium shells of which they grind off the tip. The shortest
pieces are worth twenty-five cents, the longest about two
dollars. The strings are generally about the length of a man's
arm. They were worth forty or fifty dollars a string, but have
fallen in value, especially amongst the young.[340] The copper
plates which are so highly valued on the northwestern coast may
be esteemed holy on account of the ring in them. Slaves are
killed and their flesh is used as bait in catching the dentalium
snails, perhaps in order to get a mystic idea into the shells of
the snails.[341]
+152. Wampumpeag and roanoke.+ On the Atlantic coast shell money
was made on Long Island Sound and at Narragansett from the shell
of the round clam, in two colors, white and purple, the latter
from the dark spot in the shell. These were bugles, the hole
running in the thickness of the shell. They were called
wampumpeag, were sewed on deer or other fine skins, and the belts
thus made were used to emphasize points in negotiation or in
treaties, or in speeches. Farther down the coast beads were made
like flat button molds, with holes bored through them
perpendicularly to the plane of the shell, and called roanoke.
These beads, of both kinds, but especially of the former kind,
spread by exchange into the Mississippi Valley, and in the middle
of the nineteenth century they had reached the upper waters of
the Missouri River.
+153. Ring money; use of metal.+ The standpoint of the Vedic
hymns is that the cow is the real measure of value, but metal,
especially gold, is used for money in the payment of penalties
and weregild. The objects at stake in formulæ of oaths and of
duels were estimated in gold.[342] There was therefore a pure
gold currency. In ancient India, however, silver and copper were
also used and locally some coins of lead and mixed metals
occurred. In value one of gold equaled ten of silver, and one of
silver forty of copper.[343] The most ancient money of China
consisted of shells,[344] also of knives and dress patterns of
silk.[345] The knives had rings at the end of the handle and were
gradually reduced to rings of metal as money.[346] The same
ancient king who established measures of length and capacity is
the legendary author of money (2697 B.C.). He fixed the five
objects of exchange,--beads, jade, gold, knives, textiles. The
sign for money was combined of the signs for "shell" and "to
exchange."[347] We hear that the Chinese emperor, 119 B.C., gave
to his vassals squares of white deerskin, about one foot on a
side, embroidered on the hem. He who had one of these could get
an audience of the emperor.[348] We are inclined to connect with
that usage the use of a scarf of bluish-white silk in central
Asia, which was used in all greetings and ceremonies. A certain
quality of this scarf was used in places as the unit of
value.[349] Przewalsky mentions the chadak which is given to
every guest in southern Mongolia, for which another must be given
in return. In Chalcha chadaks are used as money, not as
gifts.[350] An intragroup money of copper or brass rings is also
reported from Korintji on Sumatra. They are cast of three sizes,
so that one hundred and twenty, three hundred and sixty, and four
hundred and eighty are required to equal a Dutch gulden.[351] In
the Old Testament the bride price and penalties were to be paid
in money.[352] Gifts and fees to the sanctuary were to be paid in
kind.[353] If the sacrificer wished to redeem his animal, etc.,
he must pay twenty per cent more than the priest's assessment of
it.[354] Until the Exile the precious metals were paid by
weight.[355] The rings represented on the Egyptian monuments were
of wire with a round section. Those found by Schliemann at Mykenæ
are similar, or they are spirals of wire.[356] In Homer cattle
are the unit of value, but metals are used as media. The talent
is mentioned only in reference to gold.[357] Possibly Schurz is
right in supposing that fluctuations in the value of cattle and
sheep forced the classical nations to use metal.[358] The metals
were in the shape of caldrons or tripods, in which fines were
imposed. They may have been accumulated because used as money, or
a great man who had many clients may have needed many for
meals.[359] "The transition from the old simple mode of exchange
to the use of currency can nowhere be better traced than amongst
the Romans." Fines were set in cattle or sheep, but copper was
used as well, weighed when sold. Then the state set the shape and
fineness of the bars and stamped them with the mark of a sheep or
ox. Later the copper was marked to indicate its value, and so
money was reached.[360] Amongst Germans and Scandinavians the cow
was the primitive unit of value.[361] It was superseded by metals
used in rings to make out the fractions.[362]
+154. The evolution of money.+ It is evident that money was developed
out of trade by instinctive operations of interest, and that money
existed long before the idea of it was formed. The separate operations
were stimulated only by the most immediate and superficial desires, but
they set supply and demand in motion and produced economic value
thousands of years before any man conceived of value. The rational
analysis of value and money is not yet satisfactorily made. There are,
therefore, points of view in which money is the most marvelous product
of the folkways. The unconsciousness of the operation and the secondary
results of it are here in the strongest contrast. Inside of the we-group
useful property was shared or exchanged in an infinite variety of ways,
according to variations of circumstances. We cannot follow the customs
which thence arose, because the phenomena have been reported to us
without distinction between intragroup and intergroup transactions. We
see groups of predominant wares set out in intergroup trade, and only
slowly is a smaller number segregated to be the general terms of every
trade. The inconvenience of barter was only slowly felt, and could not
have been a motive until trade was customary and familiar. In intragroup
exchanges the predominant ware was more easily differentiated. It was
the thing greatly desired. Here the amulet-trophy-ornament was important
for the elements of superstition, vanity, and magic which it bore. In
intergroup trade the utility of the object predominated. It was sought
in journeys only for its utility, and in that trade the transactions
first became impersonal. In the selection of leading wares individuals
could not experiment for their own risk. By taking what each wanted at a
time selection at last resulted, and when we are told that a certain
group uses this or that group of articles for money, we are told only
what articles predominate in their desires or transactions; in other
words, what stage in the selection of a money they have reached. It is
evident that this entire operation was an impersonal and unregulated
play of custom, which went through a long and varying evolution, but
kept its authority all the time and at every stage. The persistence of
the word "shilling" in our language is a striking proof of the power of
custom--above all, popular custom--in connection with money. The metric
system was invented to be a rational system, but the populace has
insisted on dividing kilograms and liters into halves and quarters.
Language, money, and weights and measures are things which show the
power of popular custom more than any others. The selection of
predominant wares reached its acme in the selection of _one_, not
necessarily the commodity most desired, but, after the function of money
is perceived, the one which performs it best. To return and take up a
greater number is to go backward on the path of civilization.
+155. The ethical functions of money.+ From shells to gold the ethics of
social relations has clung to money. There is more pure plutocracy in
Melanesia than in New York. The differentiation of men by wealth is
greatly aided by money, because money adds immensely to the mobility of
wealth and lets all forces reach their full effect in transactions. The
social effect of debt is best seen in barbarous societies which have
money. Debt and war together made slavery.[363] It is, however, an
entire mistake to regard a money-system as in itself a mischief-working
system. The effect of money is exhausted when we notice that it makes
wealth mobile and lets forces work out their full result by removing
friction. So soon as there is a money there is a chance for exchanges of
money for goods and goods for money, also for the loan and repayment of
money at different times, under which transactions interests may change
and speculation can arise. These facts have always interested the
ethical philosophers. "Naught hath grown current amongst mankind so
mischievous as money. This brings cities to their fall. This drives men
homeless, and moves honest minds to base contrivings. This hath taught
mankind the use of villainies, and how to give an impious turn to every
kind of act."[364] In such diatribes "money" stands for wealth in
general. Money, properly speaking, has no more character than axes of
stone, bronze, iron, or steel. It only does its own work impersonally
and mechanically. The ethical functions and character ascribed to it are
entirely false. There can be no such thing as "tainted money." Money
bears no taint. It serves the murderer and the saint with equal
indifference. It is a tool. It can be used one day for a crime, the next
day for the most beneficent purpose. No use leaves any mark on it. The
Solomon Islanders are expert merchants and "are fully the equal of white
men in cheating."[365] They do it with shell money as whites do it with
gold, silver, and banknotes. That is to say, the "money" is indifferent
because it has no ethical function at all and absolutely no character.
+156.+ There are other topics which might be brought under the struggle
for existence as a cluster of folkways, with great advantage. The
struggle for existence takes on many different forms and produces
phenomena which are cases of folkways. It speedily develops industrial
organization, which, in one point of view, is only the interaction of
folkways. Weights and measures, the measurement of time, the
communication of intelligence, and trade are primary folkways in their
earliest forms and deserve careful study as such.
[165] Smyth, _Aborig. of Victoria_, I, 194, 197.
[166] Mason, _Origin of Invention_, 252.
[167] Tylor, _Anthrop._, 208.
[168] Powers, _California Indians_, 50.
[169] Lumholtz, _Scribner's_, October, 1894, 448.
[170] Von den Steinen, _Berl. Mus._, 1888, 205.
[171] Southey, _Brazil_, I, 131.
[172] E.g. a rasp made from the skin of the palate of a kind of
ray, by Tahitians, Vienna Museum.
[173] Mason, _Origin of Invention_, 23.
[174] Grinnell, _Folk Tales_, 295.
[175] Dall, _Bur. Eth._, III, 122.
[176] Ratzel, _Völkerkunde_, II, 52.
[177] Smyth, _Aborig. of Victoria_, I, 202.
[178] _N. S. Amer. Anthrop._, II, 466.
[179] _U. S. Nat. Mus._, 1890, 471.
[180] Ratzel, _Völkerkunde_, II, 163.
[181] Smithson, _Contrib. to Knowledge_, XXV; Rau, _Prehist.
Fishing_.
[182] Von den Steinen, _Berl. Mus._, 1888, 209, 231, 235.
[183] Ehrenreich, _Völkerkunde Brasiliens; Berl. Mus._, 1891, 57.
[184] _Prim. Inhab. of Scandinavia_, 35.
[185] JAI, XXIII, 160.
[186] _Ibid._, XXVIII, 343.
[187] Kabary, _Karolinenarchipel._, 123-130.
[188] Hearn, _Japan_, 139.
[189] _Ibid._, 165.
[190] Smyth, _Aborig. of Victoria_, I, 340.
[191] Tylor, JAI, XXII, 137; JAI, XXIV, 336; _Early Hist. of
Mankind_, 195; Ling Roth, _Tasmania_, 158.
[192] JAI, XXIII, 276.
[193] _Bur. Eth._, XVII (Part I), 153, 245.
[194] _Ibid._, XV, 61.
[195] Mason, _Origin of Invention_, 132.
[196] _Ibid._, 123, 136.
[197] _Intern. Cong. Anthrop._, 1893, 67.
[198] JAI, XXIV, 44.
[199] _Ibid._, X, 316.
[200] Mason, _Origin of Invention_, 148.
[201] Ratzel, _Völkerkunde_, II, 586.
[202] Ranke, _Der Mensch_, II, 519.
[203] Ratzel, _Völkerkunde_, II, 149.
[204] Hagen, _Unter den Papuas_, 214; Pfeil, _Aus der Südsee_,
97.
[205] Thurston, _Antiq. of Tenn., etc._, 218, 230-240, 259; JAI,
XIII, XVI; _Bur. Ethnol._, XIII; _Smithson. Rep._, 1874, 1877,
1886, Parts I, II, III; _Peabody Mus._, No. 7.
[206] Lubbock, _Prehist. Times_, 90.
[207] _Smithson. Rep._, 1885, Part I, 874, 882; _Ibid._, 1887,
Part I, 601.
[208] Smyth, _Aborig. of Victoria_, I, 359.
[209] _Globus_, LXXXVII, 238.
[210] Ranke, _Der Mensch_, II, 517.
[211] Mason, _Origin of Invention_, 26.
[212] _U. S. Nat. Mus._, 1894, 658.
[213] Powers, _Calif. Indians_, 374.
[214] _Ibid._, 104; _Smithson. Rep._, 1886, Part I, 225.
[215] _Smithson. Rep._, 1887, Part I, 601.
[216] _Bur. Eth._, XII, 561.
[217] _Smithson. Rep._, 1885, Part II, 743.
[218] _Scient. Amer._, March 10, 1906.
[219] _Vor Oldtid_, 169.
[220] _Aarbøger f. Oldkyndighed_, 1891.
[221] _L'Anthropologie_, XIV, 417.
[222] JAI, XXVIII, 296; _Bur. Ethnol._, II, 205; Horn, _Mennesket
i den forhistoriske Tid_, 168.
[223] _Globus_, LXXVI, 79.
[224] Von den Steinen, _Berl. Mus._, 1888, 203.
[225] Schomburgk, _Britisch Guiana_, I, 424.
[226] Howitt, _S. E. Australians_, 455.
[227] _Kulturgesch._, I, 289.
[228] _Umschau_, VII, 184.
[229] JAI, XXVIII, 108.
[230] _Bur. Ethnol._, XVII, Part I, 152.
[231] Martius, _Ethnog. Brasil._, 405.
[232] Boggiani, _I Caduvei_, I, 168.
[233] Gumplowicz, _Sociol. und Politik_, 93.
[234] Whitney, _Language and the Study of Language_, 37, 40.
[235] Mauthner, _Kritik der Sprache_, III, 2.
[236] _Ibid._, II, 403.
[237] _Ibid._, II, 426, 427.
[238] Mauthner, 278.
[239] _Ibid._, 186.
[240] _Ibid._, 184.
[241] _Globus_, LXXXVII, 397.
[242] _Language_, 48, 51.
[243] Whitney, _Language_, 46.
[244] _Ibid._, 44.
[245] _Ibid._, 23.
[246] _Ibid._, 14.
[247] Schultze, _Psychologie der Naturvölker_, 96.
[248] Schultze, 86.
[249] _Ibid._, 89; _Am Urquell_, II, 22, 48.
[250] Schultze, 91.
[251] _Ibid._, 99.
[252] Lefevre, _Race and Language_, 3.
[253] _Ibid._, 27.
[254] Lefevre, 42.
[255] Mauthner, II, 468.
[256] Darwin, _Descent of Man_, 53.
[257] JAI, XXIV, 234.
[258] Martius, _Ethnog. Bras._, 106.
[259] _Ibid._, 704.
[260] Ehrenreich, _Berl. Mus._ (1891), II, 9.
[261] Schomburgk, _Brit. Guiana_, I, 227.
[262] _Caroline Isl._, 175.
[263] Spix and Martius, _Brasilien_, 927.
[264] JAI, XI, 41.
[265] _Bur. Ethnol._, VII, 44.
[266] PSM, XLIV, 81.
[267] JAI, XXIV, 393.
[268] _Ethnology_, 202.
[269] _Sieben Jahre in Süd-Afrika_, II, 173.
[270] Ratzel, _Völkerkunde_, II, 230.
[271] Krieger, _New Guinea_, 208.
[272] _Am Urquell_, II, 22, 48.
[273] Schultze, _Psychol. d. Naturvölker_, 93.
[274] Whitney, _Language_, 28.
[275] Schurz, _Entstehungsgesch. des Geldes, Deutsch. Geogr.
Blätter_, XX, 22.
[276] JAI, XIII, 245.
[277] JASB, I, 390.
[278] _Amer. Anthrop._, IX, 192.
[279] _Scribner's_, September, 1894, 298.
[280] Ling Roth, _Sarawak_, II, 231.
[281] Ridgeway, _Origin of Currency and Weight Standards_, 166.
[282] Ridgeway, 27.
[283] Evans, _Ancient British Coins_.
[284] Semper, _Palau Ins._, 61.
[285] Schurz, 3.
[286] Paulitschke, _Ethnog. N.O. Afrikas_, I, 317; Vannutelli e
Citerni, _L'Omo_, 463.
[287] Paulitschke, I, 318, 320.
[288] _Across Africa_, 176.
[289] Zay, _Hist. Monetaire des Colon. Franç._, 249.
[290] _Ibid._, 246.
[291] Kingsley, _West African Studies_, 82.
[292] Schurz, _Entstehungsgesch. des Geldes, Deutsch. Geogr.
Blätter_, XX, 14.
[293] _Anthropologie_ (1900), XI, 677, 680.
[294] _Globus_, LXXXI, 12.
[295] Schurz, _Entstehungsgesch. des Geldes_, 38.
[296] _Ibid._, 25.
[297] Schurz, 22.
[298] Foureau, _D'Alger au Congo_, 539.
[299] Kingsley, _Travels in West Africa_, 59.
[300] _Globus_, LXXVIII, 203; _Ibid._, LXXXII, 243.
[301] Peel, _Somaliland_, 102.
[302] Junker, _Afrika_, III, 52; _Ibid._, I, 341.
[303] Schweinfurth, _Heart of Africa_, I, 502.
[304] Junker, II, 245; _Ibid._, I, 295.
[305] Junker, I, 415.
[306] von Götzen, _Durch Afr._, 339.
[307] Schurz, 28; Volkens, _Kilimanjaro_, 221.
[308] Schurz, 17.
[309] Meltzer, _Carthage_, II, 106.
[310] Schurz, 19.
[311] Codrington, _Melanesians_, 323.
[312] _Amer. Anthrop._, XI, 285.
[313] Marco Polo, II, 18.
[314] JAI, XII, 373.
[315] _Ibid._, 339.
[316] _Indian Archipelago_, 280.
[317] _Sarawak_, II, 234.
[318] Schurz, 13.
[319] Woodford, _Naturalist amongst Head-Hunters_, 16.
[320] Cayley-Webster, _New Guinea and Cannibal Countries_, 93.
[321] Parkinson, _Ethnog. d. Nordwestl. Salomo Ins._, 22.
[322] JAI, XVII, 314, 316.
[323] JAI, XXVIII. 164.
[324] JAI, X, 287.
[325] Kubary, _Karolinenarchipel._, 2.
[326] Semper, _Palau Inseln_, 167.
[327] _Caroline Isl._, 259.
[328] Kubary, _Karolinenarchipel._
[329] Christian, _Caroline Isl._, 237.
[330] _Die Soc. Einrichtungen d. Pelauer._
[331] Pfeil, _Aus der Südsee_, 112.
[332] Semper, _Palau Ins._, 118.
[333] Martius, _Ethnog. Brasil._, 91.
[334] _Ibid._, 402.
[335] Powers, _Calif. Indians_, 335.
[336] _Ibid._, 76, 79.
[337] _Smithson. Rep._, 1886, Part I, 232.
[338] _Bur. Eth._, XVIII, Part I, 232.
[339] _Smithson. Rep._, 1887, Part I, 647.
[340] Powers, 21.
[341] Schurz, 25.
[342] Jolly, _Recht und Sitte_, 96.
[343] JASB, II, 214.
[344] Ridgeway, 21.
[345] Vissering, _Chinese Currency_.
[346] Ridgeway, 156.
[347] Puini, _Le Origine della Civiltà_, 64; _Century Dict._,
s.v. "Knife-money."
[348] Vissering, _Chinese Currency_, 38.
[349] _U. S. Nat. Mus._, 1893, 723.
[350] _First Journey_ (Germ.), 61.
[351] _Globus_, LXXVI, 372.
[352] Exod. xxii. 16; xxi. 36.
[353] Deut. xiv. 24.
[354] Levit. xxvii. 13, 15, 19.
[355] Buhl, _Soc. Verhält. der Isr._, 95.
[356] Ridgeway, _Origin of Currency and Weight Standards_, 36.
[357] Ridgeway, 3.
[358] Schurz, 15.
[359] Babelon, _Origines de la Monnaie_, 72.
[360] Schrader, _Prehist. Antiq. of Aryans_, 153; Ridgeway, 31.
[361] Weinhold, _D. F._, II, 52.
[362] Geijer, _Sveriges Historie_, I, 327; Sophus Müller, _Vor
Oldtid_, 409.
[363] See Chapter VI.
[364] Sophokles, _Antigone_, 292 (Campbell's trans.).
[365] JAI, XXVI, 405.
CHAPTER IV
LABOR, WEALTH
Introduction.--Notions of labor.--Classical and mediæval
notions.--Labor has always existed.--Modern view of labor.--
Movable capital in modern society; conditions of equality;
present temporary status of the demand for men.--Effect of the
facility of winning wealth.--Chances of acquiring wealth in
modern times; effect on modern mores; speculation involved in any
change.--Mores conform to changes in life conditions; great
principles; their value and fate.--The French revolution.--
Ruling classes; special privileges; corruption of the mores.--
The standard of living.
+157.+ The topics treated in Chapter III--tools, language, and
money--belong almost entirely in the folkways. The element of esteem for
tools is sometimes very great. They are made divine and receive worship.
Nevertheless, there is little reflection stimulated to produce a sense
of their importance to welfare. Therefore the moral element pertaining
to the mores is not prominent in them. When the moral element exists at
all in regard to tools, language, or money, it is independent and rises
to the conception of prosperity, its sense and conditions. There are
notions at all stages of civilization about productive labor and wealth,
as parts of the fate of man on earth and of the conditions of his
happiness and welfare. At this point they take the character of a
philosophy, and are turned back on the work, as regulative notions of
how, and how much, to work. The mores of the struggle for existence are
in those notions. From the time when men had any accumulated wealth they
seem to have been struck by its effect on the character of the
possessor. The creature seemed to be stronger than the creator. Here
ethical reflections began. They have been more actively produced since
it has been possible for men to acquire wealth in a lifetime by their
own efforts. Envy has been awakened, and has been gratified by
theoretical discussions of the power, rights, and duties of wealth. When
wealth was due to the possession of land or to the possession of rank
and political power, the facts about its distribution seemed to be like
the differences in health, strength, beauty, etc. It now appears that
the ethics of poverty are as well worth studying as those of wealth, and
that, in short, every man's case brings its own ethics, or that there
are no ethics at all in the matter. The ideas, however, which are
current in the society at the time are conditions for the individual,
and they are a part of the mores of the environment in which the
struggle for existence must be carried on.
+158. Notions of labor.+ Nature peoples generally regard productive
labor as the business of women, unworthy of men. The Jews believed in a
God who worked six days and rested on the seventh. He differed from the
Olympian gods of Greece, who were revelers, and from Buddha who tried to
do nothing, or from Brahma who was only Thought. The Sabbath of rest
implied other days of labor. In the book of Proverbs idleness is
denounced as the cause of poverty and want.[366] Many passages are cited
from the rabbinical literature in honor of productive labor and in
disapproval of idleness.[367] In Book II, Chapter 62, of the Apostolic
Constitutions, the basis of which is a Jewish work, it is taught that
gainful occupations should be incidental and that the worship of God
should be the main work of life. Hellenic shows and theaters are to be
avoided. To this the Christian editor added heathen shows and sports of
any kind. Young men ought to work to earn their own support. The
Zoroastrian religion was a developed form of the strife between good
forces and evil forces. The good men must enlist on the side of the good
forces. This religion especially approved all the economic virtues, and
productive efforts, like the clearing of waste land, or other labor to
increase favorable conditions and to overcome harmful or obstructive
influences, were religious, and were counted as help to the good forces.
+159. Classical and mediæval notions of labor.+ The Greeks and Romans
regarded all labor for gain as degrading. The Greeks seem to have
reached this opinion through a great esteem for intellectual pursuits,
which they thought means of cultivation. The gainful occupations, or any
occupations pursued for gain, were "banausic," which meant that they had
an effect opposite to that of cultivation. The Romans seem to have
adopted the Greek view, but they were prepared for it by militarism. The
Middle Ages got the notion of labor from the Roman tradition. They mixed
this with the biblical view. Labor was a necessity, as a consequence and
penalty of sin, and directly connected, as a curse, with the "Fall." It
was correlative to a curse on the ground, by which, also as a curse for
sin, it was made hard to win subsistence by agriculture. The mediæval
philosophers, being clerics, held a life of contemplation to be far
superior to one of labor or fighting. Labor was at best an evil
necessity, a hardship, a symptom of the case of man, alienated from God
and toiling to get back, if there was a way to get back, to the kingdom
of God. The church offered a way to get back, namely, by sacraments,
devotion, ritual, etc., that is, by a technically religious life, which
could be lived successfully only if practiced exclusively. It occupied
all the time of the "religious," technically so called. Labor was used
for penance and for ascetic purposes. Often it was employed for useful
results and with beneficial effect on useful arts. The purpose, however,
was to ward off the vices of leisure. The ascetic temper and taste made
labor sweet, so long as asceticism ruled the mores of the age.[368]
Labor for economic production was not appreciated by the church. The
production of wealth was not a religious purpose. It was even
discouraged, since disapproval of wealth and luxury was one of the deep
controlling principles of mediæval Christianity. The unreality of
mediæval world philosophy appeared most distinctly in the views of
marriage and labor, the two chief interests of everyday life. Marriage
was a concession, a compromise with human weakness. There was something
better, viz. celibacy. Labor was a base necessity. Contemplation was
better.
+160. Labor has always existed.+ +Wealth became possible.+ +Land.+ In
all these cases the view of labor was dogmatic. It was enjoined by
religion. There was some sense and truth in each view, but each was
incomplete. The pursuit of gainful effort is as old as the existence of
man on earth. The development of trade and transportation, slavery,
political security, and the invention of money and credit are steps in
it which have made possible large operations, great gains, and wealth.
Some men have seized these chances and have made a powerful class.
Rulers, chiefs, and medicine men have observed this power which might
either enhance or supplant their own, and have sought to win it. In all
primitive agricultural societies land is the only possession which can
yield a large annual revenue for comfort and power. The mediæval people
of all classes got as much of it as they could. It would be very
difficult indeed to mention any time when there were no rich men, and
still harder to mention a time when the power of wealth was not admired
and envied, and given its sway (sec. 150). Thus the religions and
philosophies may have preached various doctrines about wealth, and may
have found obedience, but the production of wealth, the love of wealth,
and the power of wealth have run through all human history. The
religions and philosophies have not lacked their effect, but they have
always had to compromise with facts, just as we see them do to-day. The
compromise has been in the mores. In so far as it was imperfect and only
partly effected there have been contradictions in the mores. Such was
the case in the Middle Ages. Wealth had great power. It at last won the
day. In the fifteenth century all wanted it, and were ready to do
anything to get it. Venality became the leading trait of the mores of
the age. It affected the interpretation of the traditional doctrines of
labor, wealth, the highest good, and of virtue, so that men of high
purpose and honest hearts were carried away while professing disregard
of wealth and luxury.
+161. Modern view of labor.+ It is only in the most recent times, and
imperfectly as yet, that labor has been recognized as a blessing, or, at
worst, as a necessity which has great moral and social compensations,
and which, if rightly understood and wisely used, brings joy and
satisfaction. This can only be true, however, when labor is crowned by
achievement, and that is when it is productive of wealth. Labor for the
sake of labor is sport. It has its limits, and lies outside of the
struggle for existence, which is real, and is not play. Labor in the
struggle for existence is irksome and painful, and is never happy or
reasonably attractive except when it produces results. To glorify labor
and decry wealth is to multiply absurdities. The modern man is set in a
new dilemma. The father labors, wins, and saves that his son may have
wealth and leisure. Only too often the son finds his inheritance a
curse. Where is the error? Shall the fathers renounce their labors?
+162. Movable capital in modern society.+ +Conditions of equality.+
+Present temporary status of the demand for men.+ In modern times
movable capital has been immensely developed and even fixed capital has
been made mobile by the joint-stock device. It has disputed and largely
defeated the social power of land property. It has become the social
power. While land owners possessed the great social advantage, they
could form a class of hereditary nobles. The nobles now disappear
because their social advantage is gone. The modern financiers, masters
of industry, merchants, and transporters now hold control of movable
capital. They hold social and political power. They have not yet formed
a caste of nobles, but they may do so. They may, by intermarriages,
absorb the remnants of the old nobility and limit their marriages
further to their own set. It is thus that classes form and reform, as
new groups in the society get possession of new elements of social
power, because power produces results. The dogmas of philosophers deal
with what ought to be. What is and shall be is determined by the forces
at work. No forces appear which make men equal. Temporary conditions
occur under which no forces are at work which any one can seize upon.
Then no superiority tells, and all are approximately equal. Such
conditions exist in a new colony or state, or whenever the ratio of
population to land is small. If we take into account the reflex effect
of the new countries on Europe, it is easy to see that the whole
civilized world has been under these conditions for the last two hundred
or three hundred years. The effect of the creation of an immense stock
of movable capital, of the opportunities in commerce and industry
offered to men of talent, of the immense aid of science to industry, of
the opening of new continents and the peopling of them by the poorest
and worst in Europe, has been to produce modern mores. All our popular
faiths, hopes, enjoyments, and powers are due to these great changes in
the conditions of life. The new status makes us believe in all kinds of
rosy doctrines about human welfare, and about the struggle for existence
and the competition of life; it also gives us all our contempt for
old-fashioned kings and nobles, creates democracies, and brings forth
new social classes and gives them power. For the time being things are
so turned about that numbers are a source of power. Men are in demand,
and an increase in their number increases their value. Why then should
we not join in dithyrambic oratory, and set all our mores to optimism?
The reason is because the existing status is temporary and the
conditions in it are evanescent. That men should be in demand on the
earth is a temporary and passing status of the conjuncture which makes
things now true which in a wider view are delusive. These facts,
however, will not arrest the optimism, the self-confidence, the joy in
life, and the eagerness for the future, of the masses of to-day.
+163. Effect of the facility of winning wealth.+ All the changes in
conditions of life in the last four hundred years have refashioned the
mores and given modern society new ideas, standards, codes,
philosophies, and religions. Nothing acts more directly on the mores
than the facility with which great numbers of people can accumulate
wealth by industry. If it is difficult to do so, classes become fixed
and stable. Then there will be an old and stiff aristocracy which will
tolerate no upstarts, and other classes will settle into established
gradations of dependence. The old Russian boyars were an example of such
an aristocracy. Certain mediæval cities ran into this form. In it the
mores of conservatism are developed,--unchangeable manners, fixed usages
and ideas, unenlightenment, refusal of new ideas, subserviency of the
lower classes, and sycophancy. The government is suspicious and cruel.
If it is easily possible to gain wealth, a class of upstart rich men
arises who, in a few years, must be recognized by the aristocracy,
because they possess financial power and are needed. Struggles and civil
wars may occur, as in the Italian cities, during this change, and the
old aristocracy may long hold aloof from the new. In time, the new men
win their way. The history of every state in Europe proves it. Old
fortunes decay and old families die out. The result is inevitable. Laws
and institutions cannot prevent it. Certain mores may have been
recognized as aristocratic and there may be lamentations over their
decline. They are poetic, romantic, and adventurous. Therefore they call
out regret for their loss from those who do not think what would come
back with them if they were recalled. Ethical philosophers may see ample
reason to doubt the benefit of new mores and the vulgarization of
everything. Society cannot stand still, and its movement will run the
course set by the forces which produce it. It must be accepted and
profit must be drawn from it, as best possible.
+164. Chances of acquiring wealth in modern times; effect on modern
mores; speculation involved in any change.+ The effect of the opening of
new continents, the application of new inventions, and the expansion of
commerce has been to make it easy for men with suitable talent to
increase wealth. These changes have cheapened all luxuries, that is,
have reduced them to common necessities. They have made land easily
accessible to all, even the poorest, in the new countries, while
lowering rent in old countries. They have raised wages and raised the
standard of living and comfort. They have lessened the competition of
life throughout civilized nations, and have made the struggle for
existence far less severe. It is the changes in life conditions which
have made slavery impossible and extended humanitarian sympathy. They
have lessened social differentiation (that is, they have democratized),
and they have intensified the industrial organization. In detail, and
for individuals, this has often caused hardship. For the petty
professional and semiprofessional classes it has been made harder to
keep up the externals of a certain social position. For those classes
the standard of living has risen faster than steam has cheapened
luxuries. Discontent, anxiety, care for appearances, desire to impose by
display, envy, and mean social ambition characterize the mores, together
with energy and enterprise. Envy and discontent are amongst the very
strongest traits of modern society. Very often they are only
manifestations of irritated vanity. It is in the nature of things that
classes of men and forms of property shall go through endless
vicissitudes of advantage and disadvantage. Nobody can foresee these and
speculate upon them with success. When it is proposed to "reorganize
society" on any socialistic theory, or on no theory, it should be
noticed that such an enterprise involves a blind speculation on the
vicissitudes of classes and forms of property in the future. "Wealth,
whether in land or money, has been increased by marriages and
inheritances, reduced to fragments by divisions, even in noble families
[in spite of settlements and entails], dissipated by prodigals,
reconstituted by men of economical habits, centupled by industrious and
competent men of enterprise, scattered by the indolent, the unfortunate,
and the men of bad judgment, who have risked it unwisely. Political
events have affected it as well as the favor of princes, advantageous
offices in the state, popular revolts, wars, confiscations, from the
abolition of serfdom in the fourteenth century until the abolition, in
1790, of the dues known as feudal, although they were, for the most
part, owned by members of the bourgeoisie."[369] So it will be in the
future, in spite of all that men can do. If two men had the same sum of
money in 1200, and one bought land while the other became a money
lender, anywhere in western Europe, the former would to-day be more or
less rich according to the position of his land. He might be a great
millionaire. The other would have scarcely anything left.[370] Shall we
then all buy land now? Let those do so who can foresee the course of
values in the next seven hundred years. The popular notion is that
nobles have always owned land. The truth is that men who have acquired
wealth have bought land and got themselves ennobled. In France, "in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, nineteen twentieths of those who
were called nobles were middle-class men enriched, decorated, and
possessed of land."[371] The middle class in western Europe has been
formed out of the labor class within seven hundred years. The whole
middle class, therefore, represents the successful rise of the serfs,
but, since a labor class still remains, it is asserted that there has
been no change. On the other hand, there has been a movement of nobles
and middle-class grandees downward into the labor class and the
proletariat. It was said, a few years ago, that a Plantagenet was a
butcher in a suburb of London. It is also asserted that representatives
of great mediæval families are now to be found as small farmers, farm
laborers, or tramps in modern England.[372]
+165. Mores conform to changes in life conditions; great principles;
their value and fate.+ For our purpose it suffices here to notice how
the mores have followed the changes in life conditions, how they have
reacted on the current faiths and philosophies, and how they have
produced ethical notions to justify the mores themselves. They have
produced notions of natural rights and of political philosophy to
support the new institutions. There are thousands in the United States
who believe that every adult male has a natural right to vote, and that
the vote makes the citizen. The doctrine of natural rights has received
some judicial recognition, and it has been more or less accepted and
applied in the constitutions of various states which were established in
the nineteenth century. The American doctrines of 1776 and the French
doctrines of 1789 are carried on and used in stump oratory until they
get in the way of some new popular purpose, but what produced both was
the fact that some new classes had won wealth and economic power and
they wanted political recognition. To get it they had to invent some new
"great principles" to justify their revolt against tradition. That is
the way in which all "great principles" are produced. They are always
made for an exigency. Their usefulness passes with the occasion. The
mores are forever adjusting efforts to circumstances. Sooner or later
they need new great principles. Then they obliterate the old ones. The
old jingle of words no longer wins a response. The doctrine is dead. In
1776 it seemed to every Whig in America that it was a pure axiom to say
that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the
governed. They clung to this as a sacred dogma for over a hundred years,
because it did not affect unfavorably any interest. It is untrue.
Governments get their powers from the historical fact of their
existence. They are all ephemeral, subject to change. When a change
takes place it is controlled by the ideas and interests of the time of
change, when the popular element in self-government may be much greater
than when the constitution was last previously established. In 1898 the
popular will, in the United States, was to take possession of the
Philippine Islands and to become rulers there, not ruled, as the fathers
were in the colonies of 1776. The great doctrine of the source of due
power was quickly trampled under foot. The same fate awaits all the rest
of the "great principles." The doctrine that all men are equal is being
gradually dropped, from its inherent absurdity, and we may at any time
find it expedient to drop the jingle about a government of the people,
by the people, and for the people. It was only good historically to
destroy the doctrine, "Everything for the people; nothing by them."
+166. The French Revolution.+ The French Revolution was due to the fact
that a great change had come about in the distribution of economic power
between classes and in the class mores which correspond to economic
power. All the political institutions of a modern state are conservative
in the sense that they retain and sustain what is and has been, and
resist interference or change. The historical picture is often such that
abuses are maintained and reform seems hopeless, on account of the power
of existing institutions and customs and the depth of convictions of
social welfare which have become traditional. The student of the history
is led to believe that any reform or revolution, as a dissolution of the
inherited system of repression and retention, is worth all that it may
cost. Hence some students of history become believers in "revolution" as
a beneficent social force or engine. In the case of the French
Revolution, the passions which were set loose destroyed the whole social
order, swept away all the institutions, and even destroyed all the
inherited mores. It is evident that this last is what the revolutionists
finally aimed at. The _ancien régime_ came to mean the whole fabric of
the old society, with its codes, standards, and ideas of right, wrong,
the desirable, etc. The revolutionists also undertook to invent new
mores, that is, new codes and standards, new conceptions of things
socially desirable, a new religion, and new notions of civil duty and
responsibility. During the Directory and the Consulate there was a gulf
between the ancient and the new in which there was anarchy of the mores,
even after the civil machinery was repaired and set in operation again.
Napoleon brought back institutions and forms of social order so far as
seemed desirable for his own interest. The historical continuity was
broken and has remained so. Of the _ancien régime_ there can be found
to-day only ruins and relics. Nevertheless, the ancient mores of social
faith and morality, of social well living, of religious duty and family
virtue, are substantially what they were before the great explosion.
This is the last and greatest lesson of the revolution: it is impossible
to abolish the mores and to replace them by new ones rationally
invented. To change a monarchy into a republic is trifling. Individuals
and classes can be guillotined. Institutions can be overturned. Religion
can be abolished or put out of fashion. The mores are in the habits of
the people, and are needed and practiced every day. The revolutionists
ordered changes in the social ritual, and they brought about a disuse of
"monsieur" and "madame." All their innovations in the ritual have fallen
into disuse, and the old fashions have returned, in obedience to common
sense. The new classes have not enjoyed their victory over the old as to
courtesy, social comity, and civil good-fellowship. They have abandoned
it, and have recognized the fact that the old aristocracy had well
solved all matters of this kind. As wealth has increased and artisans
and peasants have gained new powers of production and acquisition, they
have learned to laugh at the civil philosophy and enthusiasm of the
eighteenth-century philosophers, and have ordered their lives, as far as
possible or convenient, on the old aristocratic models. Sansculottism
is inconsistent with respect for productive labor, or with the
accumulation of wealth. No one who can earn great wages or who possesses
wealth will, out of zeal for philosophical doctrines, prefer to live in
squalor and want. The relation of modern mores to new feelings in
respect to labor and trade, and to the accumulation of wealth, are to be
easily perceived from the course of modern revolutions.
+167. Ruling classes.+ +Special privileges.+ +Corruption of the mores.+
In every societal system or order there must be a ruling class or
classes; in other words, a class gets control of any society and
determines its political form or system. The ruling class, therefore,
has the power. Will it not use the power to divert social effort to its
own service and gain? It must be expected to do so, unless it is checked
by institutions which call into action opposing interests and forces.
There is no class which can be trusted to rule society with due justice
to all, not abusing its power for its own interest. The task of
constitutional government is to devise institutions which shall come
into play at the critical periods to prevent the abusive control of the
powers of a state by the controlling classes in it. The ruling classes
in mediæval society were warriors and ecclesiastics, and they used all
their power to aggrandize themselves at the expense of other classes.
Modern society is ruled by the middle class. In honor of the bourgeoisie
it must be said that they have invented institutions of civil liberty
which secure to all safety of person and property. They have not,
therefore, made a state for themselves alone or chiefly, and their state
is the only one in which no class has had to fear oppressive use of
political power. The history of the nineteenth century, however, plainly
showed the power of capital in the modern state. Special legislation,
charters, and franchises proved to be easy legislative means of using
the powers of the state for the pecuniary benefit of the few. In the
first half of the century, in the United States, banks of issue were
used to an extravagant pitch for private interest. The history is
disgraceful, and it is a permanent degradation of popular government
that power could not be found, or did not exist, in the system to
subjugate this abuse and repress this corruption of state power. The
protective-tariff system is simply an elaborate system by which certain
interests inside of a country get control of legislation in order to tax
their fellow-citizens for their own benefit. Some of the victims claim
to be taken "into the steal," and if they can make enough trouble for
the clique in power, they can force their own admission. That only
teaches all that the great way to succeed in the pursuit of wealth is to
organize a steal of some kind and get inside of it. The pension system
in the United States is an abuse which has escaped from control. There
is no longer any attempt to cope with it. It is the share of the "common
man" in the great system of public plunder. "Graft" is only a proof of
the wide extent to which this lesson to get into the steal is learned.
It only shows that the corrupt use of legislation and political power
has affected the mores. Every one must have his little sphere of plunder
and especial advantage. This conviction and taste becomes so current
that it affects all new legislation. The legislators do not doubt that
it is reasonable and right to enact laws which provide favor for special
interests, or to practice legislative strikes on insurance companies,
railroads, telephone companies, etc. They laugh at remonstrance as out
of date and "unpractical." The administrators of life-insurance
companies, savings banks, trusts, etc., proceed on the belief that men
in positions of power and control will use their positions for their own
advantage. They think that that is only common sense. "What else are we
here for?" It is the supreme test of a system of government whether its
machinery is adequate for repressing the selfish undertakings of cliques
formed on special interests and saving the public from raids of
plunderers. The modern democratic states fail under this test. There is
not a great state in the world which was not democratized in the
nineteenth century. There is not one of them which did not have great
financial scandals before the century closed. Financial scandal is the
curse of all the modern parliamentary states with a wide suffrage. They
give liberty and security, with open chances for individual enterprise,
from which results great individual satisfaction and happiness, but the
political machinery offers opportunities for manipulation and corrupt
abuse. They educate their citizens to seek advantages in the industrial
organization by legislative devices, and to use them to the uttermost.
The effect is seen in the mores. We hear of plutocracy and tainted
money, of the power of wealth, and the wickedness of corporations. The
disease is less specific. It is constitutional. The critics are as
subject to it as the criticised. A disease of the mores is a disease of
public opinion as to standards, codes, ideas of truth and right, and of
things worth working for and means of success. Such a disease affects
everybody. It penetrates and spoils every institution. It spreads from
generation to generation, and at last it destroys in the masses the
power of ethical judgment.
+168. The standard of living.+ One of the purest of all the products of
current mores is the standard of living. It belongs to a subgroup and is
a product of the mores of a subgroup. It has been called a psychological
or ethical product, which view plainly is due to an imperfect analysis
or classification. The standard of living is the measure of decency and
suitability in material comfort (diet, dress, dwelling, etc.) which is
traditional and habitual in a subgroup. It is often wise and necessary
to disregard the social standard of comfort, because it imposes foolish
expenses and contemptible ostentation, but it is very difficult to
disregard the social standard of comfort. The standard is upheld by fear
of social disapproval, if one derogates from class "respectability." The
disapproval or contempt of one's nearest associates is the sanction. The
standards and code of respectability are in the class mores. They get
inside of the mind and heart of members of the class, and betray each to
the class demands.
+169.+ If, however, the standard of living which one has inherited from
his class is adopted as an individual standard, and is made the object
of effort and self-denial, the individual and social results are of
high value. One man said, "Live like a hog and you will behave like
one"; to which another replied, "Behave like a hog and you will live
like one." Both were right in about equal measure. The social standard
of a class acts like honor. It sustains self-respect and duty to self
and family. The pain which is produced by derogation produces effort and
self-denial. The social standard may well call out and concentrate all
there is in a man to work for his social welfare. Evidently the
standard of living never can do more than that. It never can add
anything to the forces in a man's own character and attainments.
[366] Prov. xxiv. 30.
[367] _Jewish Encyc._, s.v. "Labor." The same view is found in 2
Thess. iii. 10, and Eph. iv. 28.
[368] Thomas Aquinas, _Summa_, II, 2, qu. 82, 1, 2; qu. 187, 3.
[369] D'Avenel, _Hist. Econ._, 142.
[370] D'Avenel, 397.
[371] D'Avenel, 144.
[372] Hardy used this fact in _Tess of the D'Urbervilles_.
CHAPTER V
SOCIETAL SELECTION
Social selection by the mores.--Instrumentalities of
suggestion.--Symbols, pictures, etc.--Apparatus of
suggestion.--Watchwords, catchwords.--"Slave," "democracy."--
Epithets.--Phrases.--Pathos.--Pathos is unfavorable to
truth.--Analysis and verification as tests.--Humanity.--
Selection by distinction.--Aristocracies.--Fashion.--
Conventionalization.--Uncivilized fashions.--Ideals of
beauty.--Fashion in other things than dress.--Miscellaneous
fashions.--All deformations by fashion are irrational.--Satires
on fashion.--Fashion in faiths and ideals.--Fashion is not
trivial, not subject to argument.--Remoter effects of fashion.--
Slang and expletives.--Poses, fads, and cant.--Illustrations.--
Heroes, scapegoats, and butts.--Caricature.--Relation of fads,
etc., to mores.--Ideals.--Ideals of beauty.--The
man-as-he-should-be.--The standard type of man.--Who does the
thinking?--The gentleman.--Standards set by taboos.--Crimes.--
Criminal law.--Mass phenomena of fear and hope.--Manias,
delusions.--Monstrous mass phenomena.--Gregariousness in the
Middle Ages.--The mendicant orders.--Other mendicants.--
Popular mania for poverty and beggary.--Delusions.--Manias and
suggestion.--Power of the crowd over the individual.--
Discipline by pain.--The mediæval church operated societal
selection.--The mediæval church.--Sacerdotal celibacy.--The
masses wanted clerical celibacy.--Abelard.--The selection of
sacerdotal celibacy.--How the church operated selection.--Mores
and morals; social code.--Orthodoxy; treatment of dissent;
selection by torture.--Execution by burning.--Burning in North
American colonies.--Solidarity in penalty for fault of one.--
Torture in the ancient states.--Torture in the Roman empire.--
Jewish and Christian universality; who persecutes whom?--The
ordeal.--Irrationality of torture.--Inquisitorial procedure
from Roman law.--Bishops as inquisitors.--Definition of
heretic.--The Albigenses.--Persecution was popular.--Theory of
persecution.--Duties laid on the civil authority.--Public
opinion as to the burning of heretics.--The shares of the church
and the masses.--The church uses its power for selfish
aggrandizement.--The inquisition took shape slowly.--Frederick
II and his code.--Formative legislation.--Dungeons.--The
yellow crosses.--Confiscation.--Operation of the inquisition.--
Success of the inquisition.--Torture in civil and ecclesiastical
trials.--The selection accomplished.--Torture in England.--The
Spanish inquisition.--The inquisition in Venice.--The use of
the inquisition for political and personal purposes.--Stages of
the selection by murder.
+170. Social selection by the mores.+ The most important fact about the
mores is their dominion over the individual. Arising he knows not whence
or how, they meet his opening mind in earliest childhood, give him his
outfit of ideas, faiths, and tastes, and lead him into prescribed mental
processes. They bring to him codes of action, standards, and rules of
ethics. They have a model of the man-as-he-should-be to which they mold
him, in spite of himself and without his knowledge. If he submits and
consents, he is taken up and may attain great social success. If he
resists and dissents, he is thrown out and may be trodden under foot.
The mores are therefore an engine of social selection. Their coercion of
the individual is the mode in which they operate the selection, and the
details of the process deserve study. Some folkways exercise an unknown
and unintelligent selection. Infanticide does this (Chapter VII).
Slavery always exerts a very powerful selection, both physical and
social (Chapter VI).
+171. Instrumentalities of suggestion.+ Suggestion is exerted in the
mores by a number of instrumentalities, all of which have their origin
in the mores, and may only extend to all what some have thought and
felt, or may (at a later stage) be used with set intention to act
suggestively in extending certain mores.
Myths, legends, fables, and mythology spread notions through a group,
and from generation to generation, until the notions become components
of the mores, being interwoven with the folkways. Epic poems have
powerfully influenced the mores. They present types of heroic actions
and character which serve as models to the young. The _Iliad_ and
_Odyssey_ became text-books for the instruction of Greek youth. They set
notions of heroism and duty, and furnished all Greeks with a common
stock of narratives, ideas, and ideals, and with sentiments which
everybody knew and which could be rearoused by an allusion. Everybody
was expected to produce the same reaction under the allusion. Perhaps
that was a conventional assumption, and the reaction in thought and
feeling may have been only conventional in many cases, but the
suggestion did not fail of its effect even then. Later, when the ideals
of epic heroism and of the old respect for the gods were popularly
rejected and derided, this renunciation of the old stock of common ideas
and faiths marked a decline in the morale of the nation. It is a very
important question: What is the effect of conventional humbug in the
mores of a people, which is suggested to the young as solemn and sacred,
and which they have to find out and reject later in life? The
_Mahabharata_, the _Kalevala_, the _Edda_, the _Nibelungen Noth_, are
other examples of popular epics which had great influence on the mores
for centuries. Such poems present models of action and principle, but it
is inevitable that a later time will not appreciate them and will turn
them to ridicule, or will make of them only poses and affectations. The
former is the effect most likely to be produced on the masses, the
latter on the cultured classes. In the Greco-Roman world, at the
beginning of the Christian era, various philosophic sects tried to
restore and renew the ideals of Greek heroism, virtue, and religious
faith, so far as they seemed to have permanent ethical value. The
popular mores were never touched by this effort. In fact, it is
impossible for us to know whether the writings of Seneca, Plutarch,
Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and Pliny represent to us the real rules of
life of those men, or are only a literary pose. In the Renaissance, and
since then, men educated in the classics have been influenced by them in
regard to their standards of noble and praiseworthy character, and of
what should be cultivated in thought and conduct. Such men have had a
common stock of quotations, of accepted views in life philosophy, and of
current ethical opinions. This stock, however, has been common to the
members of the technical guild of the learned. It has never affected the
masses. Amongst Protestants the Bible has, in the last four hundred
years, furnished a common stock of history and anecdote, and has also
furnished phrases and current quotations familiar to all classes. It has
furnished codes and standards which none dared to disavow, and the
suggestion of which has been overpowering. The effect on popular mores
has been very great.
+172. Symbols, pictures.+ Before the ability to read became general art
was employed in the form of symbols to carry suggestion. Symbolic acts
were employed in trade and contracts, in marriage and religion. For us
writing has taken the place of symbols as a means of suggestion. Symbols
do not appeal to us. They are not in our habits. Illustrative pictures
influence us. The introduction of them into daily newspapers is an
important development of the arts of suggestion. Mediæval art in colored
glass, carving, sculpture, and pictures reveals the grossness and crass
simplicity of the mediæval imagination, but also its childish
originality and directness. No doubt it was on account of these latter
characteristics that it had such suggestive power. It was graphic. It
stimulated and inflamed the kind of imagination which produced it. It
found its subjects in heaven, hell, demons, torture, and the scriptural
incidents which contained any horrible, fantastic, or grotesque
elements. The crucifix represented a man dying in the agony of torture,
and it was the chief symbol of the religion. The suggestion in all this
art produced barbaric passion and sensuality. Any one who, in childhood,
had in his hands one of the old Bibles illustrated by wood cuts knows
what power the cuts had to determine the concept which was formed from
the text, and which has persisted through life, in spite of later
instruction.
+173. Apparatus of suggestion.+ In modern times the apparatus of
suggestion is in language, not in pictures, carvings, morality plays, or
other visible products of art. Watchwords, catchwords, phrases, and
epithets are the modern instrumentalities. There are words which are
used currently as if their meaning was perfectly simple, clear, and
unambiguous, which are not defined at all. "Democracy," the "People,"
"Wall Street," "Slave," "Americanism," are examples. These words have
been called "symbols." They might better be called "tokens." They are
like token coins. They "pass"; that is their most noteworthy
characteristic. They are familiar, unquestioned, popular, and they are
always current above their value. They always reveal the invincible
tendency of the masses to mythologize. They are personified and a
superhuman energy is attributed to them. "Democracy" is not treated as a
parallel word to aristocracy, theocracy, autocracy, etc., but as a
Power from some outside origin, which brings into human affairs an
inspiration and energy of its own. The "People" is not the population,
but a creation of mythology, to which inherent faculties and capacities
are ascribed beyond what can be verified within experience. "Wall
Street" takes the place which used to be assigned to the devil. What is
that "Wall Street" which is currently spoken of by editors and public
men as thinking, wanting, working for, certain things? There is a
collective interest which is so designated which is real, but the
popular notion under "Wall Street" is unanalyzed. It is a phantasm or a
myth. In all these cases there is a tyranny in the term. Who dare
criticise democracy or the people? Who dare put himself on the side of
Wall Street? The tyranny is greatest in regard to "American" and
"Americanism." Who dare say that he is not "American"? Who dare
repudiate what is declared to be "Americanism"? It follows that if
anything is base and bogus it is always labeled "American." If a thing
is to be recommended which cannot be justified, it is put under
"Americanism." Who does not shudder at the fear of being called
"unpatriotic"? and to repudiate what any one chooses to call "American"
is to be unpatriotic. If there is any document of Americanism, it is the
Declaration of Independence. Those who have Americanism especially in
charge have repudiated the doctrine that "governments derive their just
powers from the consent of the governed," because it stood in the way of
what they wanted to do. They denounce those who cling to the doctrine as
un-American. Then we see what Americanism and patriotism are. They are
the duty laid upon us all to applaud, follow, and obey whatever a ruling
clique of newspapers and politicians chooses to say or wants to do.
"England" has always been, amongst us, a kind of counter token, or token
of things to be resisted and repudiated. The "symbols," or "tokens,"
always have this utility for suggestion. They carry a coercion with them
and overwhelm people who are not trained to verify assertions and
dissect fallacies.
+174. Watchwords, catchwords.+ A watchword sums up one policy,
doctrine, view, or phase of a subject. It may be legitimate and useful,
but a watchword easily changes its meaning and takes up foreign
connotations or fallacious suggestions. Critical analysis is required to
detect and exclude the fallacy. Catchwords are acutely adapted to
stimulate desires. In the presidential campaign of 1900 we saw a
catchword deliberately invented,--"the full dinner pail." Such an
invention turns suggestion into an art. Socialism, as a subject of
popular agitation, consists almost altogether of watchwords, catchwords,
and phrases of suggestion: "the boon of nature," "the banquet of life,"
"the disinherited," "the submerged tenth," "the mine to the miner,"
"restore the land to the landless." Trades unionism consists almost
entirely, on its philosophical side, of suggestive watchwords and
phrases. It is said that "labor" creates all value. This is not true,
but the fallacy is complete when labor is taken in the sense of
"laborers," collectively and technically so called,--an abuse of
language which is now current. To say that wage-earners create all value
is to assert a proposition from which numerous and weighty consequences
follow as to rights and interests. "The interest of one is the interest
of all" is a principle which is as good for a band of robbers as for a
union of any other kind. "Making work" by not producing is the greatest
industrial fallacy possible.
+175. Slave, democracy.+ Since "democratic" is now a word to conjure
with, we hear of democracy in industry, banking, education, science,
etc., where the word is destitute of meaning or is fallacious. It is
used to prejudice the discussion. Since the abolition of slavery the
word "slave" has become a token. In current discussions we hear of "rent
slaves," "wages slavery," "debt slavery," "marriage slavery," etc. These
words bear witness to great confusion and error in the popular notions
of what freedom is and can be. For negroes emancipation contained a
great disillusion. They had to learn what being "free" did not mean.
Debt slavery is the oldest kind of slavery except war captivity. A man
in debt is not free. A man who has made a contract is not free. A man
who has contracted duties and obligations as husband and father, or has
been born into them as citizen, son, brother, etc., is not free. Can we
imagine ourselves "free" from the conditions of human life? Does it do
any good to stigmatize the case as "wages slavery," when what it means
is that a man is under a necessity to earn his living? It would be a
grand reform in the mores if the masses should learn to turn away in
contempt from all this rhetoric.
+176. Epithets.+ Works of fiction have furnished the language with
epithets for types of individuals (sec. 622). Don Quixote, Faust, Punch,
Reinecke Fuchs, Br'er Rabbit, Falstaff, Bottom, and many from Dickens
(Pickwick, Pecksniff, Podsnap, Turveydrop, Uriah Heep) are examples. The
words are like coins. They condense ideas and produce classes. They
economize language. They also produce summary criticisms and definition
of types by societal selection. All the reading classes get the use of
common epithets, and the usage passes to other classes in time. The
coercion of an epithet of contempt or disapproval is something which it
requires great moral courage to endure.
+177. Phrases.+ The educated classes are victims of the phrase. Phrases
are rhetorical flourishes adapted to the pet notions of the time. They
are artifices of suggestion. They are the same old tricks of the
medicine man adapted to an age of literature and common schools. Instead
of a rattle or a drum the operator talks about "destiny" and "duty," or
molds into easy phrases the sentiments which are popular. It is only a
difference of method. Solemnity, unction, and rhetorical skill are
needed. Often the phrases embody only visionary generalities.
"Citizenship," "publicity," "public policy," "restraint of trade," "he
who holds the sea will hold the land," "trade follows the flag," "the
dollar of the fathers," "the key of the Pacific," "peace with honor,"
are some of the recent coinages or recoinages. Phrases have great power
when they are antithetical or alliterative. Some opponents of the silver
proposition were quite perplexed by the saying: "The white man with the
yellow metal is beaten by the yellow man with the white metal." In 1844
the alliterative watchword "Fifty-four forty or fight" nearly provoked a
war. If it had been "Forty-nine thirty or fight," that would not have
had nearly so great effect. The "Cape to Cairo" railroad is another case
of alliteration. Humanitarianism has permeated our mores and has been a
fountain of phrases. Forty years ago the phrase "enthusiasm of humanity"
was invented. It inspired a school of sentimental philosophizing about
social relations, which has been carried on by phrase making: "the
dignity of labor," "the nobility of humanity," "a man is not a ware,"
"an existence worthy of humanity," "a living wage." "Humanity" in modern
languages is generally used in two senses: (_a_) the human race, (_b_)
the sympathetic sentiment between man and man. This ambiguity enters
into all the phrases which are humanitarian.
+178. Pathos.+ Suggestion is powerfully aided by _pathos_, in the
original Greek sense of the word. Pathos is the glamour of sentiment
which grows up around the pet notion of an age and people, and which
protects it from criticism. The Greeks, in the fourth century before
Christ, cherished pathos in regard to tyrannicide. Tyrants were bosses,
produced by democracy in towns, but hated by democrats. Tyrannicides
were surrounded with a halo of heroism and popular admiration.[373]
Something of the same sentiment was revived in the sixteenth century,
when it appeared that a tyrant was any ruler whose politics one did not
like. It cost several rulers their lives. Pathos was a large element in
the notions of woman and knighthood (twelfth and thirteenth centuries),
of the church (thirteenth century), of the Holy Sepulcher (eleventh and
twelfth centuries). In the thirteenth century there was a large element
of pathos in the glorification of poverty. A great deal of pathos has
been expended on the history and institutions of Greece and Rome in
modern times. Classical studies still depend largely on it for their
prestige. There is a pathos of democracy in the United States. In all
English-speaking countries marriage is an object of pathos. The pathos
is cultivated by poetry and novels. Humanitarianism is nourished by
pathos and it stimulates pathos. The "poor" and the "laborers" are
objects of pathos, on account of which these terms, in literature, refer
to a conventional and unreal concept. Consequently there is no honest
discussion of any topic which concerns the poor or laborers. Some people
make opposition to alcohol an object of pathos.
+179. Pathos is unfavorable to truth.+ Whenever pathos is in play the
subject is privileged. It is regarded with a kind of affection, and is
protected from severe examination. It is made holy or sacred. The thing
is cherished with such a preëstablished preference and faith that it is
thought wrong to verify it. Pathos, therefore, is unfavorable to truth.
It has always been an element in religion. It is an element now in
patriotism, and in regard to the history of one's own country. The
coercion of pathos on the individual comes in popular disapproval of
truth-telling about the matter in question. The toleration for forgery
and fraud in the Christian church until modern times, which to modern
people seems so shocking and inexplicable, was chiefly due to pathos
about religion and the church. If a forgery would help the church or
religion, any one who opposed it would seem to be an enemy of religion
and the church and willing to violate the pathos which surrounded them.
+180. The value of analysis and verification as tests.+ In all the cases
of the use of catchwords, watchwords, and phrases, the stereotyped forms
of language seem to convey thought, especially ascertained truth, and
they do it in a way to preclude verification. It is absolutely essential
to correct thinking and successful discussion to reject stereotyped
forms, and to insist on analysis and verification. Evidently all forms
of suggestion tend to create an atmosphere of delusion. Pathos increases
the atmosphere of delusion. It introduces elements which corrupt the
judgment. In effect, it continues the old notion that there are edifying
falsehoods and useful deceits. The masses always infuse a large
emotional element into all their likes and dislikes, approval and
disapproval. Hence, in time, they surround what they accept with pathos
which it is hard to break through.
+181. Humanity.+ The standard of humanity or of decent behavior,
especially towards the weak or those persons who may be at one's mercy,
or animals, is entirely in the mores of the group and time. To the
Gauchos of Uruguay "inhumanity and love of bloodshed become second
nature." Their customs of treating beasts habituate them to bloodshed.
"They are callous to the sight of blood and suffering and come to
positively enjoy it." They have no affection for their horses and dogs.
They murder for plunder.[374] It is very rarely that we meet with such a
description as that of any people. Polynesians were bloodthirsty and
cruel, perhaps because they had no chase of wild animals in which to
expend their energies.[375] North American Indians could invent
frightful tortures, but they were not bloodthirsty. They were not
humane. Suffering did not revolt them. Schomburgk[376] tells a story of
an Indian who became enraged at his wife because she groaned with
toothache. He cut down her hammock and caused her to fall so that she
suffered a dislocation of the arm. A European witness went to the chief
with a report and remonstrance, but the chief was astonished that any
one should take any notice of such an incident. The Assyrians cut in
stone representations of flaying, impaling, etc., and of a king with his
own royal hands putting out the eyes of prisoners. The Egyptians
represented kings slaying men (national enemies) in masses. The Romans
enjoyed bloodshed and the sight of suffering.[377] The Middle Ages
reveled in cruelty to men and beasts. It is in the Middle Ages that we
could find the nearest parallels to the Gauchos above. None of these
people felt that repulsive revolt of the whole nature at inhumanity
which characterizes modern cultivated people. The horrors have all
receded out of our experience, and almost out of our knowledge. The line
of familiarity is set far off. Therefore a little thing in the way of
inhumanity is strange and exerts its full repulsive effect. Things
happen, however, which show us that human nature is not changed, and
that the brute in it may awake again at any time. It is all a question
of time, custom, and occasion, and the individual is coerced to adopt
the mores as to these matters which are then and there current.
+182. Selection by distinction.+ One of the leading modes by which the
group exercises selection of its adopted type on the individual is by
distinction. Distinction is selection. It appeals to vanity. It acts in
two ways and has two opposite effects. One likes to be separated from
the crowd by what is admired, and dislikes to be distinguished for what
is not admired. Cases occur in which the noteworthy person is not sure
whether he ought to be proud or ashamed of that for which he is
distinguished. When a society gives titles, decorations, and rewards for
acts, it stimulates what it rewards and causes new cases of it. The
operation of selection is direct and rational. The cases in which the
application of distinction is irrational show most clearly its selective
effect. School-teachers are familiar with the fact that children will
imitate a peculiarity of one which marks him out from all the rest, even
if it is a deformity or defect. Why then wonder that barbarian mothers
try to deform their babies towards an adopted type of bodily perfection
which is not rationally preferable? A lady of my acquaintance showed me
one of her dolls which had wire attachments on its legs in imitation of
those worn by children for orthopedic effect. She explained that when
she was a child, another child who had soft bones or weak ankles, and
who wore irons for them, was brought into her group of playmates. They
all admired and envied her, and all wished that they had weak bones so
that they could wear irons. This lady made wire attachments for her doll
that it might reach the highest standard.
+183. Aristocracies.+ All aristocracies are groups of those who are
distinguished, at the time, for the possession of those things which are
admired or approved, and which give superiority in the struggle for
existence or in social power. In the higher civilization, until modern
times, the possession of land was the only social power which would
raise a man above sordid cares and enable him to plan his life as he
chose. By talent an income could be won which would give the same
advantage, but not with the same security of permanence and
independence. The fields for talent were war, civil administration, and
religion, the last including all mental activity. Men of talent had to
win their place by craft and charlatanism (sorcery, astrology,
therapeutics). Their position never was independent, except in church
establishments. They had to win recognition from warriors and
landowners, and they became comrades and allies of the latter. Merchants
and bankers were the aristocracy at Carthage, Venice, Florence, and
Genoa, and in the Hansa. Talented military men were aristocrats under
Napoleon, courtiers were such under Louis XIV, and ecclesiastics at
Rome. Since the fourteenth century capital has become a new and the
greatest and indispensable social power. Those who, at any time, have
the then most important social power in their hands are courted and
flattered, envied and served, by the rest. They make an aristocracy. The
aristocrats are the distinguished ones, and their existence and
recognition give direction to social ambition. Of course this acts
selectively to call out what is most advantageous and most valued in the
society.
+184.+ There are a number of mass phenomena which are on a lower grade
than the mores, lacking the elements of truth and right with respect to
welfare, which illustrate still further and more obviously the coercion
of all mass movements over the individual. These are fashion, poses,
fads, and affectations.
+185. Fashion.+ Fashion in dress has covered both absurdities and
indecencies with the ægis of custom. From the beginning of the
fourteenth century laws appear against indecent dress. What nobles
invented, generally in order to give especial zest to the costume of a
special occasion, that burghers and later peasants imitated and made
common.[378] In the fifteenth century the man's hose fitted the legs and
hips tightly. The latchet was of a different color, and was decorated
and stuffed as if to exaggerate still further the indecent obtrusiveness
of it.[379] Schultz[380] says that the pictures which we have do not
show the full indecency of the dress against which the clergy and
moralists of the fifteenth century uttered denunciations, but only those
forms which were considered decent, that is, those which were within the
limits which custom at the time had established. At the same time women
began to uncover the neck and bosom. The extent to which this may be
carried is always controlled by fashion and the mores. Puritans and
Quakers attempted to restrict it entirely, and to so construct the
dress, by a neckerchief or attachment to the bodice, that the shape of
the bust should be entirely concealed. The mores rejected this rule as
excessive. In spite of all the eloquence of the moral preachers, that
form of dress which shows neck and bosom has become established, only
that it is specialized for full dress and covered by conventionalization.
+186. Conventionalization.+ Conventionalization also comes into play to
cover the dress of the ballet or burlesque opera and the bathing dress.
Conventionalization always includes strict specification and limits of
time, place, and occasion, beyond which the same dress would become
vicious. Amongst Moslems and Orientals this conventionalization as to
dress has never been introduced. We are familiar with the fact that when
a fashion has been introduced and has become common our eye is formed to
it, and no one looks "right" or stylish who does not conform to it. We
also know that after the fashion has changed things in the discarded
fashion look dowdy and rustic. No one can resist these impressions, try
as he may. This fact, in the experience of everybody, gives us an
example of the power of current custom over the individual. While a
fashion reigns its tendency is to greater and greater extravagance in
order to produce the desired and admired effect. Then the toleration for
any questionable element in the fashion is extended and the extension is
unnoticed. If a woman of 1860, in the dress of her time, were to meet a
woman of 1906, in the dress of her time, each would be amazed at the
indecency of the dress of the other. No dress ever was more, or more
justly, denounced for ugliness, inconvenience, and indecency than the
crinoline, but all the women from 1855 to 1865, including some of the
sweetest who ever lived, wore it. No inference whatever as to their
taste or character would be justified. There never is any rational
judgment in the fashion of dress. No criticism can reach it. In a few
cases we know what actress or princess started a certain fashion, but in
the great majority of cases we do not know whence it came or who was
responsible for it. We all have to obey it. We hardly ever have any
chance to answer back. Its all-sufficient sanction is that "everybody
wears it," or wears it _so_. Evidently this is only a special
application to dress of a general usage--conventionalization.
+187. Uncivilized fashions.+ Those "good old times" of simplicity and
common sense in dress must be sought in the time anterior to waistband
and apron. All the barbarians and savages were guilty of folly,
frivolity, and self-deformation in the service of fashion. They found an
ideal somewhere which they wanted to attain, or they wanted to be
distinguished, that is, raised out of the commonplace and universal. At
one stage distinction comes from being in the fashion in a high and
marked degree. Also each one flees the distinction of being out of the
fashion, which would not draw admiration. At another stage distinction
comes from starting a new fashion. This may be done by an ornament, if
it is well selected so that it will "take."[381] Beads have been a
fashionable ornament from the days of savagery until to-day. An Indian
woman in Florida "had six quarts (probably a peck) of the beads gathered
about her neck, hanging down her back, down upon her breasts, filling
the space under her chin, and covering her neck up to her ears. It was
an effort for her to move her head. She, however, was only a little, if
any, better off in her possessions than most of the others. Others were
about equally burdened. Even girl babies are favored by their proud
mammas with a varying quantity of the coveted neckwear. The cumbersome
beads are said to be worn by night as well as by day."[382] "A woman
sometimes hangs a weight of over five pounds around her neck, for
besides the ordinary necklaces the northern women wear one or more large
white, polished shells, which are brought from the western coast and
which weigh from half a pound upward."[383] "Fashions change in
Bechuanaland; one year the women all wear blue beads, but perhaps the
next (and just when a trader has laid in a supply of blue beads) they
refuse to wear any color but yellow. At the time of writing [1886] the
men wore small black pot hats, but several years ago they had used huge
felt hats, like that of Rip Van Winkle, and as a consequence the stores
are full of those unsalable ones."[384]
+188. Fashion in ethnography.+ The Carib women in Surinam think that
large calves of the leg are a beauty. Therefore they bind the leg above
the ankle to make the calves larger. They begin the treatment on
children.[385] Some Australian mothers press down their babies' noses.
"They laugh at the sharp noses of Europeans, and call them tomahawk
noses, preferring their own style."[386] The presence of two races side
by side calls attention to the characteristic differences. Race vanity
then produces an effort to emphasize the race characteristics. Samoan
mothers want the noses and foreheads of their babies to be flat, and
they squeeze them with their hands accordingly.[387] The "Papuan ideal
of female beauty has a big nose, big breasts, and a dark-brown, smooth
skin."[388] To-day the Papuans all smoke white clay pipes. Four weeks
later no one will smoke a white pipe. All want brown ones. Still four
weeks later no one wants any pipe at all. All run around with red
umbrellas.[389] On the Solomon Islands sometimes they want plain pipes;
then again, pipes with a ship or anchor carved on them; again, pipes
with a knob. Women wear great weights of metal as rings for
ornament.[390] The Galla women wear rings to the weight of four or six
pounds.[391] Tylor[392] says that an African belle wears big copper
rings which become hot in the sun, so that the lady has to have an
attendant, whose duty it is to cool them down by wetting them. The queen
of the Wavunias on the Congo wore a brass collar around her neck, which
weighed from sixteen to twenty pounds. She had to lie down once in a
while to rest.[393] The Herero wear iron which in the dry climate
retains luster. The women wear bracelets and leglets, and iron beads
from the size of a pea to that of a potato. They carry weights up to
thirty-five pounds and are forced to walk with a slow, dragging step
which is considered aristocratic. Iron is rare and worth more than
silver.[394] Livingstone says that in Balonda poorer people imitate the
step of those who carry big weights of ornament, although they are
wearing but a few ounces.[395] Some women of the Dinka carry fifty
pounds of iron. The rings on legs and arms clank like the fetters of
slaves. The men wear massive ivory rings on the upper arm. The rich
cover the whole arm. The men also wear leather bracelets and
necklaces.[396] In Behar, Hindostan, the women wear brass rings on their
legs. "One of these is heavy, nearly a foot broad, and serrated all
around the edges. It can only be put on the legs by a blacksmith, who
fits it on the legs of the women with his hammer, while they writhe upon
the ground in pain." Women of the milkman caste wear bangles of bell
metal, often up to the elbow. "The greater the number of bangles, the
more beautiful the wearer is considered."[397] The satirist could easily
show that all these details are shown now in our fashions.
+189. Ideals of beauty.+ In Melanesia a girdle ten centimeters wide is
worn, drawn as tight as possible. One cut from the body of a man
twenty-seven years old measured only sixty-five centimeters.[398] The
women of the Barito valley wear the _sarong_ around the thighs so tight
that it restricts the steps and produces a mincing gait which they think
beautiful.[399] The Rukuyenn of Guiana have an ideal of female beauty
which is marked by a large abdomen. They wind the abdomen with many
girdles to make it appear large. "The women of the Payaguas, in
Paraguay, from youth up, elongate the breasts, and they continue this
after they are mothers by means of bandages."[400] The southern Arabs
drop hot grease from a candle on a bride's fingers, and then plaster the
fingers with henna. Then the grease is taken off, and light-colored
spots (if possible, regular) are left where it was, while the rest of
the skin is colored brown by the henna. They put on the bride seventeen
garments, a silk one and a muslin one alternately; then a mantle over
all, and a rug on the mantle, and all possible ornaments.[401] Flinders
Petrie thinks that we must recognize a principle of "racial taste,"
"which belongs to each people as much as their language, which may be
borrowed like languages from one race by another, but which survives
changes and long eclipses even more than language."[402] The cases given
show that ideals of beauty are somehow formed, which call for a
deformation of the human body. The foreheads are flattened, the lips
enlarged, the ears drawn down, the skull forced into a sugar-loaf shape,
the nose flattened, etc., to try to reach a form approved by fashion.
There is an ideal of beauty behind the fashion, a selected type of
superiority, which must be assumed as the purpose of the fashion.
+190. Fashion in other things than dress.+ As will appear below, fashion
controls many things besides dress. It governs the forms of utensils,
weapons, canoes and boats, tools, etc., amongst savages. In the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there was a fashionable attitude or
pose in standing for women, in which the abdomen was thrown forward. It
is often seen in pictures and portraits.[403] It is inelegant and
destitute of meaning. The Venetians were luxurious and frivolous,
jealous and distrustful of women, and fond of pleasure and fashion. From
the end of the sixteenth century a shopkeeper in the Merceria adopted a
custom of showing the new fashions of Paris on Ascension Day by means of
a life-size doll dressed in them.[404] The Venetian women of that period
wore patins, shoes with blocks underneath, some of which were two feet
high. The women were unable to walk without a maid on each side to
support them.[405] Yriarte thinks that these patins were due to the
policy of the husbands. When an ambassador, in conversation with the
doge and his counselors, said that shoes would be far more convenient, a
counselor replied, "Only too convenient! Only too much so!" Under the
French Directory, a _demi-terme_ was the name of a framework worn by
women to look as if they would soon be mothers.[406] Thirty years ago
"poufs" were worn to enlarge the dress on the hips at the side. The
"Grecian bend," stooping forward, was an attitude both in walking and
standing. Then followed the bustle. Later, the contour was closely
fitted by the dress. No one thought that the human figure would be
improved if changed as the dress made it appear to be. No fashion was
adopted because it would have an indecent effect. The point for our
purpose is that women wore dresses of the appointed shape because
everybody did so, and for no other reason, being unconscious of the
effect.
Erasmus, in his colloquy on the Franciscans, makes one of the characters
say: "I think that the whole matter of dress depends upon custom and the
opinions which are current." He refers to some unnamed place where
adulterers, after conviction, are never allowed to uncover the private
parts, and says, "Custom has made it, for them, the greatest of all
punishments." "The fact is that nothing is so ridiculous that usage may
not make it pass."
Fashion has controlled the mode of dressing the hair and deforming the
body. It has determined what animals, or what special race of an animal
species, should be petted. It controls music and literature, so that a
composer, poet, or novelist is the rage or is forgotten. In mediæval
literature the modes of allegory were highly esteemed and very commonly
used. The writers described war and battles over and over again, and
paid little attention to nature. In fact, natural background, geography,
and meteorology were made as conventional as stage scenery, and were
treated as of no interest and little importance. Modern taste for
reality and for the natural details throws this mediæval characteristic
by contrast into strong relief.
+191. Miscellaneous fashions.+ Fashion rules in architecture. In the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in England, English Renaissance and
Gothic were regarded as barbaric, and palladian was admired. In France
the preference was for rococo and Mansard forms. At the present time the
English Renaissance and Gothic are in favor again, and palladian is
regarded with disfavor. Painting and sculpture undergo variations of
fashion as to standards and methods. The same is true of literature.
Poetry and novels follow phases of fashion. A successful novel makes
imitations and sets a fashion for a time. Types of heroes and ideals of
character come and go by fashion. The type of the man-as-he-should-be
varies by fashion, and this type exerts a great selection in the
education of the young. Educational methods run through fashions. Fads
in methods of teaching arise, are advocated with great emphasis, have
their run, decline, and disappear. There are fashions of standing,
walking, sitting, gesture, language (slang, expletives), pronunciation,
key of the voice, inflection, and sentence accent; fashions in shaking
hands, dancing, eating and drinking, showing respect, visiting, foods,
hours of meals, and deportment. When snuff was taken attitudes and
gestures in taking it were cultivated which were thought stylish.
Fashion determines what type of female beauty is at a time
preferred,--plump or _svelte_, blond or brunette, large or petite,
red-haired or black-haired. When was that "simple time of our fathers"
when people were too sensible to care for fashions? It certainly was
before the Pharaohs and perhaps before the glacial epoch. Isaiah (iii.
16) rebukes the follies of fashion. Chrysostom preached to the early
church against tricks and manners of gesture and walk which had been
learned in the theater. Since literature has existed moralists have
satirized fashion. Galton has noticed what any one may verify,--that old
portraits show "indisputable signs of one predominant type of face
supplanting another." "If we may believe caricaturists, the fleshiness
and obesity of many English men and women in the earlier years of this
century [nineteenth] must have been prodigious."[407] Part of this
phenomenon may be due to the fashion of painting. The portrait painter
warps all his subjects toward the current standard of "good looks," but
it is more probable that there is a true play of variation.
Platycnemism and the pierced olecranon run in groups for a time. Then
they run out. There are fashions in disease, as if fashion were really
in nature. This goes beyond the limits of our definition, but the rise
and passing away of variations in breeding plants and animals, and
perhaps in men, suggests that fashion may be an analogous play of
experiment, half caprice, half earnest, whose utility lies in selection.
If there was no reaching out after novelty except upon rational
determination, the case would be very different from what it is when
variation brings spontaneous suggestions. Our present modes of dress
(aside from the variations imposed by fashion) are the resultant of all
the fashions of the last two thousand years.
+192. All deformations by fashion are irrational.+ There is no guarantee
that fashions will serve expediency. Deformations of the skull may not
be harmful; they are not useful. The block inserted in the lip
interferes with eating and speaking. It alters the language. Saliva
cannot be retained, and flows over it. To those who are outside the
fashion it is extremely ugly and disgusting. To those inside the fashion
it is a standard of beauty and a badge of dignity and tribal position.
All fashions tend to extravagance because the senses become accustomed
to them, and it is necessary, in order to renew the impression of
distinction, to exaggerate. The extravagances of fashion run through all
grades of civilization. They show that fashion, coming from the whole to
the individual, adds nothing to the sense, judgment, or taste of the
latter, but imposes on him a coercion to conform. He who dissents is
thought rustic and boorish. He is more or less severely boycotted, which
means not only that he is made to suffer, but that he loses important
advantages and hurts his interests.
+193. Satires on fashion.+ Forty years ago a lady who swung her arms as
she walked was considered strong-minded. A lady who was young when the
present queen of England introduced the fashion of brushing up the hair
and uncovering the ears says that it seemed indecent. Fashion is
stronger than autocracy. Nicholas I of Russia disapproved of late hours
and ordered that court balls should be commenced early that they might
be finished early. He found himself almost alone until eleven o'clock,
and had to give up his reform.[408] In the height of the crinoline
fashion Leech published in _Punch_ a picture of two maiden ladies who
"think crinoline a preposterous and extravagant invention and appear at
a party in a simple and elegant attire." The shocked horror of the
bystanders is perfect, but the two ladies would to-day be quite in the
fashion. Du Maurier published in _Punch_ a skit in which a little girl
asked her mother how Eve knew, the first time that she saw Cain as a
baby, that he was not ugly. This is a very clever hit at the origin of
conventions. There was when Cain was born no established convention that
all babies are pretty.
+194. Fashion in faiths and ideals.+ There are also fashions in trading,
banking, political devices, traveling, inn keeping, book making, shows,
amusements, flowers, fancywork, carriages, gardens, and games. There
seem to be fashions in logic and reasoning. Arguments which are accepted
as convincing at one time have no effect at another (sec. 227, n. 4).
For centuries western Europe accepted the argument for the necessity of
torture in the administration of justice as convincing. At different
periods the satisfaction in allegory as a valid method of interpretation
has been manifested and the taste for allegory in the arts has appeared.
Philosophy goes through a cycle of forms by fashion. Even mathematics
and science do the same, both as to method and as to concepts. That is
why "methodology" is eternal. Mediæval "realism" ruled all thought for
centuries, and its dominion is yet by no means broken. It prevails in
political philosophy now. Nominalism is the philosophy of modern
thought. Scholasticism held all the mental outfit of the learned. Thomas
Aquinas summed up all that man knows or needs to know. A modern man
finds it hard to hold his own attention throughout a page of it, even
for historical purposes. "Phlogiston" and "vortices" had their day and
are forgotten. Eighteenth-century deism and nineteenth-century
rationalism interest nobody any more. Eighteenth-century economists
argued in favor of stimulating population in order to make wages low,
and thereby win in international competition. They never had a
compunction or a doubt about this argument. No wonder it has been
asserted that all truth, except that which is mathematically
demonstrable, is only a function of the age. When the earth is
underpopulated and there is an economic demand for men, democracy is
inevitable. That state of things cannot be permanent. Therefore
democracy cannot last. It contains no absolute and "eternal" truth.
While it lasts a certain set of political notions and devices are in
fashion. Certain moral standards go with them. Evolution is now accepted
as a final fact in regard to organic phenomena. A philosophy of nature
is derived from it. Is it only a fashion,--a phase of thought? For to
all but a very few such a philosophy has no guarantee except that it is
current. All accept it because all accept it, and for no other reason.
Narrower philosophies become the fashion in classes, coteries, and
cliques. They are really affectations of something which wins prestige
and comes to be a badge of culture or other superiority. A few are
distinguished because they know Greek, or because they are
"freethinkers," or because they are ritualists, or because they profess
a certain cultus in art, or because they are disciples of Ruskin,
Eastlake, Carlyle, Emerson, Browning, Tolstoi, or Nietsche, and
cultivate the ideas and practices which these men have advocated as true
and wise. Often such fashions of thought or art pass from a narrow
coterie to a wider class, and sometimes they permeate the mores and
influence an age. When men believed in witches they did so because
everybody did. When the belief in witches was given up it was because a
few men set the fashion, and it was no longer "enlightened" to believe
in them.
+195. Fashion not trivial; not subject to argument.+ Fashion is by no
means trivial. It is a form of the dominance of the group over the
individual, and it is quite as often harmful as beneficial. There is no
arguing with the fashion. In the case of dress we can sometimes tell
what princess or actress started the fashion, and we sometimes know, in
the case of ideas, who set them afloat. Generally, however, it is not
known who started a fashion in dress. The authority of fashion is
imperative as to everything which it touches. The sanctions are ridicule
and powerlessness. The dissenter hurts himself; he never affects the
fashion. No woman, whatever her age or position or her opinion about the
crinoline fashion, could avoid wearing one. No effort to introduce a
fashion of "rational dress" for women has ever yet succeeded. An artist,
novelist, poet, or playwright of a school which is out of fashion fails
and is lost. An opponent of the notions which are current can get no
hearing. The fashion, therefore, operates a selection in which success
and merit are often divorced from each other, but the selection is
pitiless. The canons of criticism are set by fashion. It follows that
there is no rational effect of fashion. There was a rule in goblinism:
Say naught but good of the dead. The rule was dictated by fear that the
ghost would be angry and return to avenge the dead. The rule has come
down to us and is an imperative one. Eulogies on the dead are,
therefore, conventional falsehoods. It is quite impossible for any one
to depart from the fashion. The principle is in fashion that one should
take the side of the weaker party in a contest. This principle has no
rational ground at all. There is simply a slight probability that the
stronger will be in the wrong. Fashion requires that we should all
affect nonpartisanship in discussion, although it is absurd to do so. Of
course these weighty rules on important matters go over into the mores,
but they are fashions because they are arbitrary, have no rational
grounds, cannot be put to any test, and have no sanction except that
everybody submits to them.
+196. Remoter effects of fashion.+ The selective effect of fashion, in
spite of its irrationality and independently of the goodness or badness
of its effect on interests, is a reflection on the intelligence of men.
It accounts for many heterogeneous phenomena in society. The fashions
influence the mores. They can make a thing modest or immodest, proper or
improper, and, if they last long enough, they affect the sense and the
standards of modesty and propriety. Fashions of banking and trading
affect standards of honesty, or definitions of cheating and gambling.
Public shows, dances, punishments, and executions affect, in time,
standards of decency, taste in amusement, sentiments of humanity, views
as to what is interesting and attractive. Methods of argument which are
fashionable may train people to flippancy, sophistry, levity of mind,
and may destroy the power to think and reason correctly. Scherr[409]
says that fashion served as a means to transfer to Germany the
depravation of morals which had corrupted the Latin nations in the
sixteenth century. Fashions now spread through all civilized nations by
contact and contagion. They are spread by literature.
+197. Slang and expletives.+ Slang and expletives are fashions in
language. Expletives are of all grades from simple interjections to the
strongest profanity. Many expletives are ancient religious formulas of
objurgation, obsecration, asseveration, anathema, etc. They express a
desire to curse or bless, invite or repel. Where the original sense is
lost they sink into interjections, the whole sense of which is in the
accent. Their use rises and falls with fashion in nations, classes,
groups, and families, and it controls the habits of individuals. Whether
certain persons use a pious dialect, a learned (pedantic) dialect, a
gambler's slang, a phraseology of excessive adjectives and silly
expletives, or profane expressions, oaths, and phrases which abuse
sacred things, depends on birth and training. In this sense each dialect
is the language for each group and corresponds to the mores of the
group. There may be some psychology of expletives,[410] but they seem to
be accounted for, like slang, by the expediency of expression, which is
the purpose of all language. There is a need for expression which will
win attention and impress the memory. A strong expletive shocks an
opponent, or it is an instinctive reaction on a situation which
threatens the well-being of the speaker. It is a vent to emotion which
gives relief from it when other relief is not possible. This last is one
of the chief useful reasons for expletives. However, even then they are
a vicious habit, for stronger and stronger expressions are required to
win the same subjective effects. Old expressions lose force. Slang is
the new coinage. The mintage is often graphic and droll; it is also
often stupid and vulgar. A selection goes on. Some of it is rejected and
some enters into the language. Expletives also go out of fashion. The
strain for effect can be satisfied only by constantly greater and
greater excess. It becomes a bad personal habit to use grotesque and
extravagant expressions. Slang and expletives destroy the power of clear
and cogent expression in speech or writing; and they must affect powers
of thinking. Although slang is a new coinage which reinvigorates the
language, the fashion of slang and expletives must be rated, like the
fashion of using tobacco and alcohol, as at best a form of play, a habit
and custom which springs from no need and conduces to no interest. The
acts result in an idle satisfaction of the doer, and the good or ill
effects all fall within his own organism. The prevalence of such
fashions in a society becomes a fact of its mores, for there will be
rational effects on interests. The selective effect of them is in the
resistance to the fashions or subjection to them. They are only to a
limited extent enforced by social sanctions. There is personal liberty
in regard to them. Resistance depends on independent judgment and
self-control, and produces independence and self-control; that is, it
affects character. Groups are differentiated inside the society of those
who resist and those who do not, and the effect on the mores (character
of the group) results. The selective effects appear in the competition
of life between the two groups.
+198. Poses, fads, and cant.+ When fashion seizes upon an idea or usage
and elevates it to a feature of a society at a period, it is, as was
said above, affected by those who cannot attain to the real type and who
exaggerate its external forms. The humanism of the Renaissance produced
an affectation of learning, dilettante interest in collecting
manuscripts, and zeal for style which was genuine in scholars, but was
an affectation of the followers. There was also an affectation of pagan
philosophy and of alienation from Christianity. The euphuists in England
in the sixteenth century, the _précieuses_ of Molière's time, the
_illuminati_ of the eighteenth century, are instances of groups of
people who took up a whim and exaggerated conduct of a certain type,
practicing an affectation. There are poses which are practiced as a
fashion for a time. Fads get currency. Dandyism, athleticism, pedantry
of various kinds, reforms of various kinds, movements, causes, and
questions are phenomena of fads around which groups cluster, formed of
persons who have a common taste and sentiment. Poses go with them. Poses
are also affected by those who select a type of character which is
approved. The dandy has had a score of slang names within two centuries
corresponding to varieties of the pose and dress which he affected. He
has now given way to the athlete, who is quite a different type. The
Byronic pose prevailed for a generation. Goethe's Werther inspired a
pose. They would both now be ridiculed. Favorite heroes in novels have
often set a pose. Carlyle inspired a literary pose ("hatred of shams,"
etc.). He and Ruskin set a certain cant afloat, for every fad and pose
which pretends to be sober and earnest must have a cant. Zola,
D'Annunzio, Wagner, Ibsen, Gorky, Tolstoi, Sudermann, are men who have
operated suggestion on the public mind of our time. They get a response
from a certain number who thus cluster into a self-selected union of
sympathy and propagate the cult of a view of life. Gloom and savagery,
passion and crime, luxury and lust, romance and adventure, adultery and
divorce, self-indulgence and cynicism, the reality of foulness and
decay, are so suggested as to become centers on which receptive minds
will organize and congenial ones will combine in sympathy. It is the
effect of a great and active literature of belles-lettres, which is
practically current throughout the civilized world, to multiply these
sects of sentimental philosophy, with the fads and poses which
correspond, and to provide them with appropriate cant. The cant of the
voluptuary, the cynical egoist, the friend of humanity, and all the rest
is just as distinct as that of the religious sectarian. Each of the
little groups operates its own selection, but each is small. They
interfere with and neutralize each other, but a general drift may be
imparted by them to the mores. Our age is optimistic by virtue of the
economic opportunities, power, and prosperity which it enjoys. The
writers above mentioned are all pessimistic. They do not affect the age
except upon the surface, by entertaining it, but they disturb its moral
philosophy, they confuse its standards and codes, and they corrupt its
tastes. They set fashions in literature which the writers of the second
class imitate. In general, they relax the inhibitions which have come
down to us in our mores without giving by suggestion an independence of
character which would replace the traditions by sound judgments. Their
influence will be greater when it has been diluted so as to reach the
great mass. It hardly can be worse than that of the literature which is
now used by that class.
+199. Illustrations.+ In the later days of Greece the study of Homer
became an affectation. Dio Chrysostom tells of a visit he made to a
colony on the Borysthenes, in which nearly all could read the _Iliad_,
and heard it more willingly than anything else.[411] The Athenians,
especially the gilded youth, affected Spartan manners and ways. The
dandies went about with uncut hair, unwashed hands, and they practiced
fist-fights. They were as proud of torn ears as German students are of
cuts on their faces.[412] The religious and social reforms of Augustus
were a pose. They lacked sincerity and were adopted for a political
purpose. Men took them up who did not conform their own conduct to them.
Hence a "general social falsehood" was the result.[413] In the fourth
and fifth centuries all the well-to-do classes spent their time in
making imitations of the ancient literature and philosophy. They tried
to imitate Seneca and Pliny, writing compositions and letters, and
pursuing a mode of life which they supposed the men of the period of
glory had lived.[414] The French of the fifteenth century had the
greatest fear of ridicule; the Italians feared most that they might
appear to be simpletons.[415] In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
the "chevaliers transis" wore furs in summer and summer mantles in
winter. They meant to prove that "love suffices for everything."[416]
Old pictures of the sixteenth century show that it was considered modest
to squint. A Spaniard thought that it showed friendship for any one to
squint at him. It was also considered a sign of probity to have the lips
primly closed and drawn.[417] The Italian _cicisbeo_ in the seventeenth
century was a _cavalier servente_, who attended a married lady. Such men
practiced extravagances and affectations, and are generally described as
effeminate.[418]
+200. Heroes, scapegoats and butts, caricature.+ Fashion sets, for any
group at any time, its pet likes and dislikes. The mass must have its
heroes, but also its victims and scapegoats and the butts of its
ridicule. Caricature is futile when it is destitute of point. The test
of it lies in the popular response which shows whether it has touched
the core of the thing or not. When it can do this it reveals the real
truth about the thing better than a volume of argument could do it.
Sometimes a popular conviction is produced by a single incident which is
a very important societal fact. The voyage of the Oregon from the
Pacific (1898) convinced the American people that they must cut a canal
through the isthmus. Probably this conviction was a _non sequitur_, but
argument cannot overcome it, and it will control action with all the
financial and other consequences which must ensue. A satire, an epigram,
or a caricature may suffice to produce such a conviction.
+201. Caricature.+ The mere rhetorical form may have the greatest
importance. A caricature often stings national vanity. A state may be
represented as afraid, as having "backed down," as having appeared
ridiculous. Group vanity is often a stronger motive than personal
vanity, and the desire to gratify it will prove stronger than any
rational conviction.
+202. Relation of fads, etc., to mores.+ Thus the vanities, desires,
prejudices, faiths, likes, and dislikes, which pervade a society, coerce
dissenters and become stronger and stronger mass phenomena. They then
affect interests. Then they wind strands of influence and control around
individuals and demand sacrifices. In their combination they weave webs
of action which constitute life and history. The selection which they
exert, drawing in some and repelling others, produces results on the
societal fabric of a later time. The consequences react on character,
moral tone, life philosophy, ethical principles, and ruling sentiments.
Thus they affect the mores, or even enter into them. The whole is handed
on to the rising generation to be their outfit of knowledge, faith, and
policy, and their rules of duty and well living.
+203. Ideals.+ An ideal is entirely unscientific. It is a phantasm which
has little or no connection with fact. Ideals are very often formed in
the effort to escape from the hard task of dealing with facts, which is
the function of science and art. There is no process by which to reach
an ideal. There are no tests by which to verify it. It is therefore
impossible to frame a proposition about an ideal which can be proved or
disproved. It follows that the use of ideals is to be strictly limited
to proper cases, and that the attempt to use ideals in social discussion
does not deserve serious consideration. An ideal differs from a model in
that the model is deduced from reality but within the bounds of reality.
It is subject to approved methods of attainment and realization. An
ideal also differs from a standard, for a standard must be real.
+204. When ideals may be used.+ What are the proper cases for the use of
ideals? Ideals can be useful when they are formed in the imagination of
the person who is to realize them by his own exertions, for then the
ideal and the programme of action are in the same consciousness, and
therefore the defects of an ideal are reduced or removed. Ideals are
useful (_a_) in homiletics, which are chiefly occupied with attempts at
suggestion. In limited cases a preacher or teacher can suggest ideals
which, if apprehended and adopted, become types toward which young
persons may train themselves. Even then these cases merge in the next
class. (_b_) Ideals are useful in self-education. The idea is then taken
up from books or from admired persons by suggestion and imitation, or
from autosuggestion, but generally from a combination of the two. An
ideal from autosuggestion produces enthusiasm. The fantastic character
of the ideal, if the person is young, is unimportant. His will is
enlisted to work for it. He can constantly compare the ideal with his
experience. The ideal is at last shorn down to reality and merges in
sober plans of effort. (_c_) A far larger field for ideals is afforded
by vanity. As vanity is itself a subjective affection, but one which can
be awakened only in society, it uses the imagination to suppose cases,
plan unlimited schemes, devise types of self-decoration and dreams of
superiority, distinction, power, success, and glory. The creations are
all phantasms. The ends are all ideals. These ideals may not be
extravagant. Vanity generally creates them by raising to a higher pitch
some treatment of the body or dress, some admired trait of character,
some action which has won glory, or given pleasure and won applause.
This whole field for ideals is largely influenced by suggestion from the
current tastes and fashionable standards in the group, but
autosuggestion is also very active in it. (_d_) Ideals also find a great
field in marriage. In this case ideals of happiness have powerfully
affected the institution at all its stages. Experience of marriage has
been partly pleasant and partly the contrary. The experience has
stimulated the reflection: How blessed it would be if only this or that
unpleasant detail could be corrected! This has led to idealization or
the imaginative conception of a modified institution. Our novels now
sometimes aid in this idealization. Men loved their daughters with
zealous and protective affection long before they loved their wives. The
father's love reached out to follow his daughter into matrimony and to
secure for her some stipulations which should free wedlock for her from
pain or care which other wives had to endure. These stipulations were
always guided by idealization. The rich and great were first able to
realize the modifications. These then passed into fashion, custom, and
the mores, and the institution was perfected and refined by them.
+205. Ideals of beauty.+ The educated ideals under the second and third
of the above heads become mass phenomena under the influence of fashion,
when they control many or all. Ideal types of beauty are adopted by a
group. Uncivilized people adopt such types of bodily beauty (sec. 189).
The origin of them is unknown. A Samoan mother presses her thumb on the
nose of her baby to flatten it.[419] An Indian mother puts a board on
the forehead of her baby to make it recede. Teeth are knocked out, or
filed into prescribed shapes, or blackened. The skin is painted, cut
into scars, or tattooed. Goblinism may have furnished the original
motives for some deformations, but the natural physical features of the
group which distinguish it from others, or the features produced by
goblinistic usages, come to be the standard of beauty for the group.
Those features are accentuated and exaggerated by the deformations which
are practiced. The aim is at an ideal perfection of physical beauty. All
fashion in dress has the same philosophy. In other cases, also, it seems
that fashion is pursuing a fleeting and impossible ideal of perfect
beauty, style, grace, dexterity, etc., which shall give distinction and
superiority or impose subjection.
+206. The man-as-he-should-be.+ Group ideals may be types of character.
In the Old Testament the ideal type is the "just man," who conformed to
ritual standards at all points. A Moslem is a man who is "faithful" to
Islam, which is self-surrender to the Omnipotent One.[420] The type of
the perfect man-as-he-should-be in the Mahabharata is one who will give
his all to a Brahmin. The god Siva, disguised as a Brahmin, came to a
hero. He ordered the hero to kill his own son and serve his corpse for
the Brahmin to eat. The hero obeyed at once. The Brahmin set the hero's
buildings on fire, but the latter served the dish without heeding the
fire. The Brahmin ordered him to eat of the dish. He prepared to obey,
but was excused from this trial. He had triumphantly stood the test.
There was nothing he would not do for a Brahmin.[421] The poem also
contains a type of female perfection in person and character,--Savitri.
[422] The Greeks had many standards of personal excellence and social
worth which entered to some extent into their mores. The ideal types
were noble and refined. They have affected the mores of the class
educated in the "humanities" since the Renaissance. They have never been
truly incorporated in the mores of any society. _Olbos_ was wealth, with
grace, opulence, elegance, and generosity, and so wealth when not sordid
or arrogant, the opposite of plutocratic. _Arete_ was capacity,
capability, and practical efficiency,--executive ability. _Aidos_ was
the opposite of "cheek." _Sophrosyne_ was continence, self-control.
_Kalokagathie_ contained notions of economic, æsthetic, and moral good,
fused into a single concept.[423] The _eleutheros_ was the gentleman
endowed with all admirable qualities.[424] The Greeks proved that people
could sink very low while talking very nobly. The ideals were in the
literature, not in the mores. "Their predisposition, their will, and
their fate formed a consistent whole, and their decline was a
consequence of the social and political life which they lived."[425] In
the sixth and seventh centuries A.D. the man-as-he-should-be was
religious,--a hermit or a monk. In any case he was an ascetic. In
Charlemagne's time the preferred type was changed. It became the warrior
and knight, and led up to chivalry. A new poetry flourished to develop
and propagate the new ideal. In mediæval society there were strongly
defined ideals of the man-as-he-should-be. _Milte_ was generosity of
heart and mind. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries it was the noble
desire of the lord to share all he had with his retainers, which desire
called out their devotion to him.[426] The minstrels meant by it
lavishness of gifts to themselves. _Maze_ was the cardinal virtue. It
meant observation of the limits in all actions and manifestations of
feeling, the opposite of excess and extravagance.[427] The church taught
admiration of arbitrary ideals of ecclesiastical virtues. The ideals
were ascetic. They seem to have been derived from the fathers of the
fourth and fifth centuries, but they offer an example of borrowed and
adopted ideals which were fully incorporated in the popular mores. The
age accepted ascetic standards of goodness and character. The religious
classes and the lay classes did not fall under the same standards of
conduct and duty. It was the business of the former to live by the full
standard. All classes, however, accepted the standards as valid, and the
layman conformed to them at times, or as far as worldly life would
permit. Elizabeth of Thuringia seems to be the ideal of the married
woman, but her saintliness interfered with her other duties, and even
her own time does not seem to have been sure in its judgment of her.
That she was flogged is a fact which has many relations to her character
and her age.[428] All admired men who practiced asceticism and
self-discipline. The types of the age were knightliness and saintliness.
They were both highly elaborated. The knightly type began to develop in
the time of Charlemagne and ran through the crusades. It contained
grotesque and absurd elements. The story of the crusades is a criticism
upon it. The knight was a fantastic person, who might do isolated deeds
of valor, but who could not make a plan, work persistently to a purpose,
coöperate with others, or either enforce or submit to discipline. Both
the knight and the saint were ideal types which exerted a controlling
power of selection through centuries.
+207. The standard type of man.+ Is the ideal of the man-as-he-should-be
to be found, for us, in the "common man," or in the highest product of
our culture? That is a most vital question for any society. It includes
the question whether the society has a discord in itself as to its own
ideal of the type of men it wants to produce. In the upper strata of the
masses, amongst the educated, industrious, sober-minded people of good
incomes, there exists the best family life. The children live constantly
with their parents, and the latter watch over the health, manners, and
morals of the children unceasingly from birth to maturity. The same
parents make great sacrifices for the education of their children,
although the class, as a class, has means to secure what is necessary
without hard sacrifice. The point is that they value education highly
and get it. We also multiply educational institutions. We feel sure that
all this is good work. The churches and all good literature constantly
inculcate good manners and morals according to the standards in the
present mores. Here is a set of objects to be prized and worked for in
families, schools, self-education, literature, and art, which go to the
production of a type of men as the highest product of our civilization.
Then suddenly we are told that the common man is wise beyond all the
philosophers. The man on the curbstone is the arbiter of our destinies,
and the standard man. "Culture" is derided and sneered at. This latter
view has great popularity. It brings up a serious question: whether we
are spoiling our children by educating them. Are we spoiling them for
political power? Are we putting them under disabilities for public
influence? It is related of an English statesman, that when asked by an
American mother whether she should send her son to Oxford, he replied:
"Why send him to Oxford? Send him to Washington, where he will learn
democracy. That is what he will need to know." Certainly it behooves us
to know whether we are spoiling our sons by sending them to the
universities, and whether we ought not rather to send them to Tammany
Hall. Either on one side or the other there is a great mass of empty
phrases and false but inflated rhetoric.
+208. Who does the thinking?+ The notion that "the group thinks"
deserves to be put by the side of the great freaks of philosophy which
have been put forth from age to age. Only the élite of any society, in
any age, think, and the world's thinking is carried on by them by the
transplanting of ideas from mind to mind, under the stress and strain of
clashing argument and tugging debate. If the group thinks, then thought
costs nothing, but in truth thought costs beyond everything else, for
thousands search and talk while only one finds; when he finds something,
a step is won and all begins over again. If this is so, it ought to be
universally known and recognized. All the mores would then conform to
it.
+209. The gentleman.+ In modern English-speaking society the "gentleman"
is the name for the man-as-he-should-be. The type is not fixed and the
definition is not established. It is a collective and social ideal.
Gentlemen are a group in society who have selected a code and standard
of conduct as most conducive to prosperous and pleasant social
relations. Therefore manners are an essential element in the type. A
gentleman is one who has been educated to conform to the type, and that
he has the _cachet_ is indicated by his admission to the group. Novels
develop and transmit the ideal; clubs are the tribunal of it. It is a
floating notion which varies with the mores. The modern reader finds
very few cases in Greek literature of what he can recognize as
gentlemen. Orestes in the _Electra_ of Euripides opens the discussion of
what makes the worth of a man, but after saying that it is not wealth or
poverty, and not valor in war, he flinches the question and says that it
is better to leave it untouched. The peasant, married to Electra,
certainly acts the gentleman. He also says of Orestes and Pylades, that
if they really are as noble as they seem, they will be as well satisfied
with humble fare as with grand fare. A gentleman of a century ago would
not be approved now. A gentleman of to-day in the society of a century
ago would be thought to have rowdy manners. Artificial manners are not
in the taste of our time; athletics are. The "gentleman" always tends to
an arbitrary definition. It appears now that he must have some skill at
sports and games. The selective force of the social type of the
gentleman is obvious in our own society. The sentiment _noblesse oblige_
was once the name for the coercive force exerted on a noble by the code
of his class. Now that fixed classes are gone and the gentleman is only
defined by the usage and taste of an informal class, it is a term for
the duties which go with social superiority of any kind, so far as those
duties are prescribed and sanctioned by public opinion.
+210. Social standard set by taboos.+ It may be still more important to
notice that the standard social type is defined by taboos with only
social sanctions. The negative side of _noblesse oblige_ is more
important than the positive. A gentleman is under more restraints than a
non-gentleman. In the eighteenth century he patronized cockfights and
prize fights, and he could get drunk, gamble, tell falsehoods, and
deceive women without losing caste. He now finds that _noblesse oblige_
forbids all these things, and that it puts him under disabilities in
politics and business.
A society exerts a positive selection on individuals by its definition
of crimes and by its criminal jurisprudence. The taboos are turned into
laws and are enforced by positive penalties.
+211. Crimes.+ The number and variety of crimes depends on the positive
action of the state. What things are crimes in a state, therefore,
indicates what the ruling authority desires to prevent. The motives have
often been entirely selfish on the part of a king or a ruling caste, or
they were dictated by a desire to further the vanity of such persons. By
judicial precedent at Rome it was made a crime to beat a slave, or to
undress near a statue of the emperor, or to carry a coin bearing his
image into a latrine or a lupanar.[429] Xiphilin, in his epitome of the
history of Dio Cassius, inserts a story that, in the reign of Domitian,
a woman was executed for undressing near the statue of that
emperor.[430] The notions in the mores of what ought to be prevented
have been very variable and arbitrary. Juvenal denounces a consul who
while in office drove his own chariot, although by night.[431] Seneca
was shocked at the criminal luxury of putting snow in wine.[432] Pliny
is equally shocked at the fashion of wearing gold rings.[433] Lecky,
after citing these cases, refers to the denunciations uttered by the
church fathers against women who wore false hair. Painting the face is
an old fault of women, against which moral teachers of all ages have
thundered. Very recently, amongst us, clergymen have denounced women for
not wearing bonnets in church, because Paul said that she "dishonoreth
her head, for that is even all one as if she were shaven."[434] These
were not indeed cases of crimes, but of alleged vices or sins. In
sumptuary laws we have cases of legislation which made fashions crimes.
In the eighteenth century there was little legislation against brothels,
drinking places, or gambling houses. We make it a crime to sell rum, but
not to drink it. On the other hand, until recently commercial
transactions and the lending of money for interest were so restricted
in accordance with ethical and economic faiths that they were environed
by crimes which are now obsolete. Heresy and sorcery were once very
great crimes. Witchcraft and usury were abominable crimes.
+212. Criminal law.+ In the original administration of justice it
appears that there was only one punishment for the violation of taboo,
sin and crime being coincident: that was death. Then, in cases,
banishment was substituted for death, although this was only a change in
form, since a banished man could not exist alone. In either case the
selection was of the simplest kind. The society extruded from itself one
who violated its rules. This is the fundamental sense of all
punishments, like execution, transportation, or imprisonment, which
remove the culprit from the society, permanently or for a time. Other
punishments contained originally a large element of vengeance, vengeance
being a primary impulse of great force to satisfy those whom the crimes
injured and to deter others from the same crime. The administration of
justice, therefore, bore witness to the judgment of the society as to
what conduct and character should be selected for preservation or caused
to cease. In all modern states the power to make acts crimes has been
abused, and the motive of punishment has been so lost that we wrangle as
to what it is. The ruling coterie uses the power to make things crimes
to serve its own interests. Protectionists make it criminal to import
goods. Governments do the same to further their fiscal purposes. They
also make it criminal to immigrate or emigrate, or to coin money, even
of full weight and fineness, or to carry letters and parcels. In England
it is made a crime to violate railroad regulations. In some cases
regulations for barber shops are enforced by making violations crimes.
Generally, sanitary rules are so enforced. In the latest case it has
been made a crime to spit in public places. The criminal law expresses
the mores of the time when they have reached very concrete and definite
formulæ of prohibition. Perhaps the administration of it expresses the
mores still more clearly. It is now recognized as true that frightful
penalties do not exert a proportionately deterrent effect. Our mores do
not permit us to inflict pain in order to compel men to confess, or to
put them in solitary confinement in dark and loathsome dungeons, or to
let our prisons become sinks of vice and misery or schools of crime. The
selective effect of punishment is the one which we seem to aim at,
although not very intelligently.
+213. Mass phenomena of fear and hope.+ Manias and delusions are mental
phenomena, but they are social. They are diseases of the mind, but they
are epidemic. They are contagious, not as cholera is contagious, but
contact with others is essential to them. They are mass phenomena.[435]
Some great hope (the good to be obtained by taking the heads of murdered
men or from appeasing the gods by sacrificing one's children) or some
great fear (drought, failure of food, purgatory), if common to the
whole, makes them adopt any suggestion of a means to realize the hope or
avert the feared calamity. Often there is no such quasi-rational reason
for common action. Hysteria, especially amongst women and children,
produces manias of falsehood, deceit (fasting women), trances, and
witchcraft. In mediæval convents sometimes half the inmates were
afflicted at the same time. Nervous depression and irritation produced
physical acts of relief. One irritated another, and one surpassed
another, until there was a catastrophe for the group.[436] Religious
enthusiasm has produced innumerable manias and delusions. Mediæval
Christianity, Mohammedanism, Persia, and modern Russia furnish cases.
Martyrdom proves nothing with regard to the truth or value of a
religion. All the sects have had martyrs. Martyrdom, even under torture,
has been sought, under the influence of religious enthusiasm, not only
by Christians[437] but by Donatists,[438] Manichæans, and other most
abominated heretics. Even the Adamites produced martyrs who went
joyously to death.[439] Quakers really provoked their own martyrdom in
early New England.
+214. Manias, delusions.+ The phenomena of manias, popular delusions,
group hallucinations, self-immolation, etc., show the possibilities of
mental contagion in a group. They are responses to hope or fear which
affect large numbers at the same time. They are often produced by
public calamities, or other ills of life. Those who suffer feel
themselves selected as victims, and they ask, Who has done this to us,
and why? Often people who are not victims interpret a natural incident
by egoistic reference. This is done not on account of the destruction
wrought by an earthquake or a tornado, but from pure terror at what is
not understood, e.g. an eclipse.[440] Pilgrimages and crusades were
cases of mania and delusion. The element of delusion was in the notion
of high merit which could be won in pursuing the crusades. Very often
manias and delusions are pure products of fashion, as in the case of the
children's crusades, when the children caught the infection of the
crusades, but did not know what they were doing, or why, and rushed on
their own destruction. Often manias are logical deductions from notions
(especially religious notions) which have been suggested, as in the case
of the flagellants. It is the ills of life which drive people to such
deductions, and they bear witness to excessive nervous excitement. The
mediæval dancing mania was more purely nervous. The demonism and
demonology of the Middle Ages was a fertile source for such deductions,
which went far to produce the witchcraft mania. The demonistic notions
taught by the church furnished popular deductions, which the church took
up and reduced to dogmatic form, and returned as such to the masses.
Thus the notions of sorcery, heresy, and witchcraft were developed.
+215. Monstrous mass phenomena of mediæval society.+ There must have
been a deep and strong anthropological reason for the development of
monstrous social phenomena in mediæval society. The Latin world was
disintegrated to its first elements between the sixth century and the
tenth. Such a dissolution of society abolished the inherited mores with
all their restraints and inhibitions, and left society to the control of
fierce barbaric, that is physical, forces. At the same period the Latin
world absorbed hordes of barbarians who were still on a low nomadic
warrior stage of civilization, and who adopted the ruins of Roman
culture without assimilating them. The Christian church contributed
crass superstitions about the other world and the relations of this
world to it. The product was the Merovingian and Carlovingian history.
Passion, sensuality, ferocity, superstitious ignorance, and fear
characterized the age. It is supposed that western Europe was
overpopulated and that the crusades operated a beneficial reduction of
numbers.[441] These facts may account for the gigantic mass phenomena in
the early Middle Ages. Every sentiment was extravagant. Men were under
some mighty gregarious instinct which drove them to act in masses, and
they passed from one great passion or enthusiastic impulse to another at
very short intervals. The passions of hatred and revenge were
manifested, upon occasion, to the extremity of fiendishness. Nothing
which the mind could conceive of seemed to be renounced as excessive
(Clement V, John XXII). Gregory IX pursued the heretics and the emperor
with an absorption of his whole being and a rancor which we cannot
understand. Poverty was elevated into a noble virtue and a transcendent
merit.[442] This was the height of ascetic absurdity, since poverty is
only want, and the next step would be a cult of suicide. The mendicant
orders fought each other malignantly. Every difference of opinion made a
war of extermination. Civil contests were carried on with extravagant
ferocity as to the means used and as to the exultation of success or the
penalty of failure. What was lacking was discipline. There was no
authority or doctrine which could set limits to private passion. Life
was held cheap. The gallows and the pit were in use all the time. The
most marked product of invention was instruments of torture. Men and
women were burned to death for frivolous reasons. Punishments taught
people to gloat over suffering. Torture was inflicted as idly as we take
testimony. With all this went deep faith in the efficacy of ritual and
great other-worldliness, that is, immediate apprehension of the other
world in this one. All the mores were adjusted to these features of
faith and practice. It all proceeded out of the masses of the people.
The church was borne along like a chip on the tide. The church hung back
from the crusades until the depth of the popular interest had been
tested. Then the crusades were declared to be the "will of God." This
gave their own idea back again to the masses with the approval of the
societal authority. The masses insisted on having acts and apparatus
provided by which to satisfy their application of dogma. The power of
the keys and the treasure of salvation were provided accordingly. The
souls of the people were torn by the antagonism between the wild
passions of the age and the ecclesiastical restraints on conduct. They
feared the wrath of God and hell to come. The ritual and sacramental
system furnished a remedy. The flagellants were a phenomenon of
seething, popular passion, outside of the church and unapproved by its
authority. Antony of Padua ([Symbol: cross] 1231) started the movement
by his sermons on repentance and the wrath of God. Processions of
weeping, praying, self-scourging, and half-naked penitents appeared in
the streets of all the towns of Christendom. "Nearly all enemies made
friends. Usurers and robbers made haste to restore ill-gotten goods, and
other vicious men confessed and renounced vanity. Prisons were opened.
Prisoners were released. Exiles were allowed to return. Men and women
accomplished works of pity and holiness, as if they feared the
all-powerful God would consume them with fire from heaven."[443] This
movement was altogether popular. It broke out again in 1349, in
connection with the Black Death. Flagellation for thirty-three and a
half days was held to purge from all sin. This was heresy and the
flagellants were persecuted. The theory was a purely popular application
by the masses of the church doctrine of penance, outside of the church
system. It reappeared from time to time. The dancing mania began at
Aix-la-Chapelle in 1373 and lasted for several years.[444] It was an
outlet for high nervous tension under which the population was suffering
on account of great calamities, social distress, and superstitious
interpretations of the same. In short, the period was one of monstrous
phenomena, extravagant passions, and unreasonable acts.
+216. Gregariousness of the Middle Ages.+ "To estimate fully the force
of these popular ebullitions in the Middle Ages, we must bear in mind
the susceptibility of the people to contagious emotions and enthusiasms
of which we know little in our colder day. A trifle might start a
movement which the wisest could not explain nor the most powerful
restrain. It was during the preaching of this crusade [of 1208, against
the Albigenses] that villages and towns in Germany were filled with
women who, unable to expend their religious ardor in taking the cross,
stripped themselves naked and ran silently through the roads and
streets. Still more symptomatic of the diseased spirituality of the time
was the crusade of the children, which desolated thousands of homes.
From vast districts of territory, incited apparently by a simultaneous
and spontaneous impulse, crowds of children set forth, without leaders
or guides, in search of the Holy Land; and their only answer, when
questioned as to their object, was that they were going to Jerusalem.
Vainly did parents lock their children up; they would break loose and
disappear; and the few who eventually found their way home again could
give no reason for the overmastering longing which had carried them
away. Nor must we lose sight of other and less creditable springs of
action which brought to all crusades the vile, who came for license and
spoil, and the base, who sought the immunity conferred by the quality of
crusader."[445] "To comprehend fully the magnitude and influence of
these movements we must bear in mind the impressionable character of the
populations and their readiness to yield to contagious emotion. When we
are told that the Franciscan Berthold of Ratisbon frequently preached to
crowds of sixty thousand souls, we realize what power was lodged in the
hands of those who could reach masses so easily swayed and so full of
blind yearnings to escape from the ignoble life to which they were
condemned. How the slumbering souls were awakened is shown by the
successive waves of excitement which swept over one portion of Europe
after another about the middle of the thirteenth century. The dumb,
untutored minds began to ask whether an existence of hopeless and brutal
misery was all that was to be realized from the promises of the gospel.
The church had made no real effort at internal reform; it was still
grasping, covetous, licentious, and a strange desire for something--they
knew not exactly what--began to take possession of men's hearts and
spread like an epidemic from village to village and from land to
land."[446]
What we see here is the power of mere gregariousness, the impulse of
acting in a crowd, without knowledge or purpose. The mere sense of being
in the current movement, or "in the fashion," is a pleasure. When the
movement is great in its compass and the numbers involved there is an
exhilaration about being in it. If the notions by which it is enthused
are great, or holy and noble, in form and pretense, even if not really
so, it may become demonic, and it may accomplish incredible things. We
had a grand illustration of this at the outbreak of the Civil War, in
1861, both in the North and South. Dissent on both sides was overwhelmed
and all were swept away into the prevailing current.
+217. The mendicant orders.+ The mendicant orders responded to the
deepest popular faiths and highest standards of the thirteenth century.
Francis of Assisi ([Symbol: cross] 1226) took up the notion that it was
wrong to own property, or at least meritorious to renounce it, and
affirmed that Christ and his apostles repudiated all property and lived
on alms. The Timotheists of the fifth century had held this notion, but
were rated as heretics.[447] Poverty, for Francis, did not mean a little
property, but absolute rejection of all property. This was necessarily
only a pose. He had to use other men's property, the use being right.
Therefore he could only renounce productive labor. The popular religious
temper of the time revered simplicity, humility, self-denial, and
renunciation of "the world" as especially evangelical virtues. They were
thought to be summed up in poverty. That Francis was a hero of this type
of religion has been universally admitted. The virtues were just the
ones which the Roman court did not show. Jacques de Vitry, an
enthusiastic preacher against the Albigenses, went through Italy to
Palestine in 1216. He left a journal[448] in which he recorded his
sadness at observing that, at the papal court, all were busy with
secular affairs, kings and kingdoms, quarrels and lawsuits, so that it
was almost impossible to speak about spiritual matters. He greatly
admired the Franciscans, who were trying to renew primitive Christianity
and save souls, thus shaming the prelates, who were "dogs who do not
bark." The Count of Chiusi gave to Francis the mountain La Verna for
retirement and meditation. Armed men were necessary to take possession
of it against the beasts and robbers who had possession of it.[449]
Carmichael believes that Francis received the stigmata, which he
describes in detail. The Francis of tradition is a fabulous person,
created out of the pet ideas of his time.[450] The historical person was
a visionary. Dominic was a zealot. He wanted to convert all heretics by
preaching or other means.
+218. Other mendicant orders.+ De Vitry found Humiliati in
Lombardy, who were living by ideas like those of Francis. The
Augustinian hermits were founded in 1256, the Carmelites in 1245,
and the Servites, or Servants of Mary, about 1275.[451] These
were all mendicants, and they bear witness to the character of
the notions of the time about poverty. It was a mania, and is
fully expressed in the _Romaunt de la Rose_. Perhaps Francis did
not mean to "found an order." He wanted to live in a certain way
with a few friends. The spontaneous and very rapid spread of his
order proves that it was concordant with a great popular taste.
Francis was a dreamer and enthusiast, not a politician or
organizer at all. In his testament he says: "After the Lord had
given me care of the brethren, no one showed me what I ought to
do, but the Highest Himself revealed to me that I ought to live
according to the mode of the Holy Gospel." He was not thwarted
and subjugated by the curia during his life, but his ideals were
not maintained by the men in the order. The man who was later
pope Gregory IX aided him to organize the order and to make it
practically efficient, that is, to take the enthusiasm out of it
and make it practical.[452] The popes of the thirteenth century
approved. There was in the principles of the order an antagonism
to the church as it was, and also an antagonism to common sense.
The church authorities wanted to bring the order into practical
use, and suspected it of the heresies of Florus. It therefore
split into "conventuals," who conformed to the methods of
conventual life, and the "spirituals," who clung to the doctrines
and rules of the founder. The latter became "observantines"
(1368) and "recollects" (1487).[453] The two branches hated each
other and fought on all occasions. In 1275 the spirituals were
treated as heretics, imprisoned in chains, and forbidden the
sacrament.[454] John XXII condemned their doctrine as heretical.
This put the observantines in the same position as other
heretical sects. They must be rebels and heretics or give up
ideas which seemed to them the sum of all truth and wisdom.
Generally they clung to their ideas like the heretics.[455] One
of their heroes was Bernard Delicieux ([Symbol: cross] 1320), who
is celebrated as the only man who ever dared to resist the
Inquisition. He was tortured twice, and condemned to imprisonment
in chains on bread and water. He lived only a few months under
this punishment.[456] Out of admiration immense sums were given
to the mendicants, and they became notorious for avarice and
worldly self-seeking.[457] As early as 1257 Bonaventura, the head
of the order, reproached them with these faults.[458] "Some of
the venomous hatred expressed by the Italian satirists for the
two great orders of St. Francis and St. Dominic may perhaps be
due to an ancient grudge against them as a papal police founded
in the interests of orthodoxy, but the chief point aimed at is
the mixture of hypocrisy with immorality, which rendered them
odious to all classes of society."[459] "In general the
Franciscans seem to us far less orthodox than the Dominicans.
They issued from a popular movement which was irregular,
unecclesiastical, very little conformed to the ideas of the
hierarchy about discipline." "The followers of St. Francis
continued to contain ardent-minded men who maintained that the
Franciscan reform had not produced all its due results; that that
reform was superior to popes and to the dispensations issued at
Rome; that the appearance of the seraphic Francis was neither
more nor less than the advent of a new Christianity and a new
Christ, like in all respects to the first, but superior to it by
poverty. Therefore all the democratic and communistic movements
of later times,--the third order of St. Francis, the Beghards,
Lollards, Bisocs, Fraticelli, Spiritual Brethren, Humiliati, and
Poor Men of Lyons [Waldenses], who were exterminated by the state
and the prisons of the Dominicans, have their origin in the old
leaven of Katharism, Joachimism, and the eternal gospel."[460]
+219. Popular mania for poverty and beggary.+ The strength of the
mendicant orders was in their popularity. They reconquered for the
church the respect of the masses. Then they became the inquisitors, and
the abusers of power for their own interests, and fell into great
disfavor. Their history shows well the course of interaction between the
masses and the rulers, and the course of institutions born in popular
mores but abused to serve private interests. The mendicant orders
furnished the army of papal absolutism. The Roman Catholic writers say
that the popes saved the world from the despotism of emperors. What is
true is that the pope and the emperor contended for the mastery, and the
masses gave it to the pope. What the popes did with it we know. That is
history. What the emperors would have done with it is matter for
conjecture. It is very probable that they would have abused the power as
badly as the popes did, but conjectural history is idle.
+220. Delusions.+ Of popular delusions one of the most striking and
recurrent examples is the belief that new and despised religious sects,
which are forced to meet in private, practice obscene and abominable
orgies. The early Christians were accused of such rites, and they
charged dissenting sects with the same.[461] The Manichæans, Waldenses,
Huguenots, Puritans, Luciferans, Brothers of the Free Spirit, and so on
through the whole list of heretical sects, have been so charged. Lea, in
his History of the Inquisition, mentions over a dozen cases of such
charges, some of which were true. Nowadays the same assertions are made
against freemasons by Roman Catholics.[462] Jews are believed by the
peasants of eastern Europe to practice abominable rites in secret. The
idea that secret sects use the blood of people not of their sect,
especially of babies, in base rites is only a variant of the broad idea
about secret rites. It is sometimes said that the charges were invented
to make sects unpopular, but it is more probable that they arose from
the secrecy of the meetings only. Christians are so charged now in
China.[463] The story of the discovery of such misbehavior always
contains the same explanation--a husband followed his wife to the
meeting and saw the proceedings.[464]
+221. Manias need suggestion.+ Manias and delusions are like fashions
and fads in that they always seem to need a suggestion from some outside
source, and often it is impossible to find such a source. A strong
popular belief, like the belief in Satan and demons, furnishes a ground
for a general disposition to hold some other people responsible for all
the ills which befall one's self. Then the disposition to act cruelly
against the suspected person arises to a mental disease, and by
coöperation of others under the same aberration makes a mania.[465] The
explanation lies in autosuggestion or fixed ideas with the development
loosely ranged under hysteria, which is the contagious form of nervous
affection. The term "epidemic" can be applied only figuratively. "Mental
disease occurs only on the ground of a specific constitutional and
generally hereditary predisposition. It cannot therefore be spread
epidemically, any more than diabetes or gout."[466] The epidemic element
is due to hysterical imitation. In like manner, epidemics or manias of
suicide occur by imitation, e.g. amongst the Circumcellions, a
subdivision of the Donatists, in Africa, in the middle of the fourth
century A.D.[467] Cognate with this was the mania for martyrdom which it
required all the authority of the church to restrain.[468] Josephus[469]
says of the Galileans, followers of Judas of Galilee, that they were
famous for their indifference to death. Convents were often seats of
frightful epidemics of hysteria. The accepted religious notions
furnished a fruitful soil for it. To be possessed by devils was a
distinction, and vanity was drawn into play.[470] Autosuggestion was
shown by actions which were, or were supposed to be, the actions proper
for "possessed" people. Ascetic practices prepared the person to fall a
victim to the contagion of hysteria. The predisposition was also
cultivated by the religious ecstasies, the miracle and wonder faiths,
and the current superstitions. Then there was the fact which nearly any
one may have experienced, that an old and familiar story becomes mixed
with memory, so that he thinks that what he heard of happened to
himself. Untrained people also form strong convictions from notions
which have been long and firmly held without evidence, and they offer to
others the firmness of their own convictions as grounds for accepting
the same faith without proof. Ritual acts and ascetic observances which
others can see, also conduct and zeal in prayer or singing, and the
odors of incense, help this transfer of faith without or against proof.
These appeals to suggestibility all come under the head of drama.
Nowadays the novels with a tendency operate the same suggestion. A
favorite field for it is sociological doctrine. In this field it is a
favorite process to proceed by ideals, but ideals, as above shown (secs.
203, 204), are fantastic and easily degenerate into manias when they
become mass phenomena. Mariolatry, the near end of the world, the coming
of the Paraclete, are subjects of repeated manias, especially for minds
unsettled by excessive ascetic observances. It follows from all these
cases of mental aberration that the minds of the masses of a society
cannot be acted on by deliberation and critical investigation, or by the
weight of sound reasoning. There is a mysticism of democracy and a
transcendentalism of political philosophy in the masses to-day, which
can be operated on by the old methods of suggestion. The stock exchange
shows the possibility of suggestion. What one ought to do is to perceive
and hold fast to the truth, but also to know the delusion which the mass
are about to adopt; but it is only the most exceptional men who can hold
to a personal opinion against the opinion of the surrounding crowd.
+222. Power of the crowd over the individual.+ The manias and delusions
therefore dominate the individual like the fashions, fads, and
affectations. It is the power of the crowd over the individual which is
constant. The truth and justice of the popular opinion is of very
inferior importance. The manias and delusions also operate selection,
but not always in the same way, or in any way which can be defined. He
who resists a mania may be trodden under foot like any other heretic.
There occur cases, however, in which he wins by dissent. If he can
outlive the mania, he will probably gain at a later time, when its folly
is proved to all.
+223. Discipline by pain.+ He who wants to make another do something, or
to prevent him from doing something, may, if the former is the stronger,
connect act or omission with the infliction of pain. This is only an
imitation of nature, in which pain is a sanction and a deterrent. Family
and school discipline have always rested on this artificial use of pain.
It is, apparently, the most primary application of force or coercion. It
combines directly with vengeance, which is a primary passion of human
nature. Punishment is of this philosophy, for by punishment we furnish,
or add, a painful consequence to acts which we desire to restrain, in
the hope that the consequence will cause reflection and make the victim
desist. The punishment may be imprisonment (i.e. temporary exclusion
from the society), or fine, or scourging, or other painful treatment.
The sense of punishment is the same whether the punishment be physical
pain or other disagreeable experience. Although we have come to adopt
modern ideas about the infliction of physical pain in punishment, we
cannot depart far from its fundamental theory and motive. In the past,
physical pain has been employed also, in lynching and in regular
proceedings, to enforce conformity, and to suppress dissent from the
current mores of the society. The physical proceedings are measures to
produce conformity which differ from boycotting and other methods of
manifesting disapproval and inflicting unpopularity in that they are
positive and physical. Then the selection is positive and is pursued by
external and physical sanctions.
+224. The mediæval church operated societal selection.+ It is evident
that the mediæval church was a machine to exert societal selection. The
great reason for its strength as such is that it never made the mores of
the age; it proceeded out of them. It contributed, through a thousand
previous years, phantasms about the other world and dogmas about the
relation of this world to that one. These dogmas became mixed with all
the experience of life in the days of civic decline and misery, and
produced the mores of the tenth and eleventh centuries. All the great
doctrines then took on the form of manias or delusions. In the early
centuries of the Christian era "catholic" meant Christendom in its
entirety, in contrast with the separate congregations, so that the
concepts "all congregations" and the "universal church" are identical.
However, the church over the whole world was thought to have been
founded by the apostles, so that that only could be true which was found
everywhere in Christendom. So "catholic" came to have a pregnant
meaning, and got dogmatic and political connotations.[471] In the
eleventh century all Christendom was reduced to civic fragments in which
tyranny, oppression, and strife prevailed. It was not strange that
"catholicity" was revived as an idea of a peace pact by means of which
the church might unite Christendom into a peace group for the welfare of
mankind (sec. 14). This was a grand idea. If the Christian church had
devoted itself to the realization of it, by forms of constitutional
liberty, the history of the world would have been different. The church,
however, used "catholicity" as a name for universal submission to the
bishop of Rome and for hierarchical discipline, and used all means to
try to realize that conception. By the Inquisition and other apparatus
it attempted to enforce conformity to this idea, and exercised a
societal selection against all dissenters from it. The ecclesiastics of
Cluny, in the eleventh century, gave form to this high-church doctrine,
and they combined with it a rational effort to raise the clergy to honor
for learning and piety, as a necessary step for the success of their
church policy. The circumstances and ideas of the time gave to these
efforts the form of a struggle for a monarchical constitution of the
church. In the thirteenth century this monarchy came into collision with
the empire as the other aspirant to the rule of Christendom. Already the
papacy was losing moral hold on its subjects. The clergy were criticised
for worldliness, arrogance, and tyranny, and the antagonism of the
dynastic states, so far as they existed, found expression in popular
literature. Walter von der Vogelweide is regarded as a forerunner of the
Reformation on account of his bitter criticisms of the hierarchy.[472]
It is, however, very noteworthy that, in spite of the popular language
of the writers and their appeals to common experience, they did not
break the people away from their ecclesiastical allegiance, and also
that the church authorities paid little heed to the criticisms of these
persons. The miracle and moral plays were in the taste of the age
entirely. Besides being gross, they were irreligious and blasphemous.
Ecclesiastics tolerated them nevertheless.[473] The authorities moved
only when "the faith" was brought in question. "The faith," therefore,
acquired a technical signification of great importance. It was elevated
to the domain of sentiment and duty and surrounded with pathos (sec.
178), while its meaning was undefined. In time it came to mean obedience
to papal authority. Thus all the circumstances and streams of faith and
sentiment of the eleventh and twelfth centuries concentrated in the
hands of the hierarchy the control of society, because there was no
other organ to accept the deposit. The Cluny programme was a programme
of reform in the church such as everybody wanted. It gathered all "the
good men" in a common will and purpose. The ideals and the means were
selected, and the advocates of the same became the selected classes in
society. They remained such long after the movement was spent and lost,
but the notion remained that every good man, or would-be good man, ought
to stand with the church.
+225. The mediæval church.+ In the crusades the church went to war with
Islam, another aspirant to rule mankind. It undoubtedly drilled and
disciplined its own adherents by the crusades and thus confirmed its
power. It is also certain that the crusades were popular and only put
into effect the wish of the great body of Christians. It was the masses,
therefore, who made the mediæval church. It possessed a corporate
organization and hierarchy which was a body of personal interests, in
which ambition, cupidity, and love of power were awakened. The church
was venal, sensual, gross, and inhuman, because the mores of the age
were such. How could the church be other than the age was? Where was it
to find inspiration or illumination from without which should make
ecclesiastics anything but men of their age? The men of that age left on
record their testimony that the church was in no way better than the
society.[474] From the end of the twelfth century man after man and sect
after sect arose, whose inspiration was moral indignation at the vices
and abuses in the church. Wycliffe denied transubstantiation on
rationalistic grounds, but his work all consisted in criticism of
hierarchical abuses and of the principles which made the abuses
possible. The church never was on the level of the better mores of any
time. Every investigation which we make leads us not to the church as
the inspirer and leader, but to the dissenting apostles of
righteousness, to the great fluctuations in the mores (chivalry, woman
service, city growth, arts, and inventions), to the momentum of
interests, to the variations in the folkways which travel (crusades and
pilgrimages), commerce, industrial arts, money, credit, gunpowder, the
printing press, etc., produced.
+226. Sacerdotal celibacy.+ The church rode upon the tide and tried to
keep possession of the social power and use it for the interest of
ecclesiastics. Asceticism was in the mores. Everybody accepted the
ascetic standard of merit and holiness as correct and just, whether he
lived by it or not. Sacerdotal celibacy was a case of asceticism. Every
one knew that it had come about in church history and was not scriptural
or primitive. It was in the notions of the age that there were stages in
righteousness, and that religious persons were bound to live by higher
stages than persons not technically religious. Renunciation of sex was
higher righteousness than realization of sex, as is taught in the
seventh chapter of First Corinthians. This notion existed amongst
heathen and pagans. The priests in the Melkart temple at Gades (Cadiz)
were bound to celibacy.[475]
The merit of celibacy is a very old religious idea in Hindostan. The
Todas have a celibate priesthood.[476] "It is one of the inconsistencies
of the Hindu religion that it enjoins the duty of marriage on all, yet
honors celibacy as a condition of great sanctity, and a means of
acquiring extraordinary religious merit and influence."[477] "All the
ascetic sects of the Saivas are celibates."[478] Lamas at Shang (98° E.
36° N.) are allowed to marry, but not in Tibet.[479] The Christian
notion of the third century was that clerics ought to come up to the
higher standard. This was the purest and highest reason for celibacy. It
had been a standard of perfection in the Christian church for six
hundred years before Hildebrand. Whatever motives of policy or
ecclesiastical ambition may have been mixed with it in the eleventh
century, it had the merit of bringing doctrine and practice into accord.
+227. The masses wanted clerical celibacy.+ It is to be noticed that
clerical celibacy was a demand of the masses amongst church members, and
that the demand came directly out of Christian mores. In the fourth
century this doctrine was derived from sacramentarianism. The notion
became fixed that there was an inherent and necessary incongruity
between marriage and the celebration of the sacrament of the mass. "In
the course of the fourth century it was a recognized principle that
clerical marriages were criminal. They were celebrated, however,
habitually, and usually with the greatest openness."[480] That means
that they were in antagonism with church opinion and its tendency at
that time. Sacerdotalism triumphed in the fifth century. "Throughout the
struggle the papacy had a most efficient ally in the people." Preachers
exhorted the people to holiness, and the people required this of the
clergy, and enforced it by riots and mob violence. Cases are cited which
"bring before us the popular tendencies and modes of thought, and show
us how powerful an instrument the passions of the people became, when
skilfully aroused and directed by those in authority."[481] The
fundamental notion which underlies all asceticism was here at work,
viz., that virtue has stages, that a man can be more than good, or worse
than bad. The council of Constantinople, in 680, made new rules against
the marriage of the clergy, because the old ones were neglected and
forgotten. The motive stated was the welfare of the people, who regarded
such marriages as scandalous. The excess in temper and doctrine was a
mark of the period. The learned would have held the doctrine as a
metaphysical truth only, but the masses turned it into a practical rule.
The share of the masses in the establishment of the rule is a very
important fact. Lea thinks that they were manipulated by the
ecclesiastics.[482] In the religious revival of the eleventh century the
marriage of the clergy was "popularly regarded as a heresy and a
scandal." There was no defense of it.[483] It was an undisputed fact
that celibacy was not scriptural or primitive.[484] At that time "all
orders, from bishops down, without shame or concealment, were publicly
married and lived with their wives as laymen, leaving their children
fully provided for in their wills.... This laxity prevailed throughout
the whole of Latin Christendom, sacerdotal marriage being everywhere so
common that it was no longer punished as unlawful and scarcely even
reprehended."[485] "Not a thought of the worldly advantages consequent
on the reform appears to have crossed the mind of Damiani. To him it was
simply a matter of conscience that the ministers of Christ should be
adorned with the austere purity through which alone lay the path to
salvation. Accordingly, the arguments which he employs in his endless
disputations carefully avoid the practical reasons which were the
principal motive for enforcing celibacy. His main reliance was on the
assumption that, as Christ was born of a virgin, so he should be served
and the eucharist be handled only by virgins."[486] This took up again
the fifth-century doctrine in its popular form, but it evidently led
directly up to the heresy that the validity or benefit of the sacrament
depended on the purity of the priest. In his zeal for celibacy
Hildebrand fell into this heresy, although a man was burned for it at
Cambrai in 1077.[487] Hildebrand also gave civil authorities power over
ecclesiastics in order to carry out his reform.[488] In the middle of
the twelfth century the "reform" was directed against the women (wives),
for fear of the resistance of the men. In Rome the women were enslaved
and given to the church of the Lateran. All bishops were ordered to
seize the women for the benefit of their churches.[489] In 1095 the
sacrament of marriage was declared by the lateran council less potent
than the religious vow, although the contrary had been the church
doctrine.[490] Thus what came out of the popular mores underwent the
growth of formulated dogma and deduction. In the thirteenth century
marriage of the clergy ceased, but concubinage continued, concubines
being a legitimate but inferior order of wives, whose existence was
tolerated on payment of a fee known as _cullagium_.[491] "Scarcely had
the efforts of Nicholas and Gregory put an end to sacerdotal marriage at
Rome when the morals of the Roman clergy became a disgrace to
Christendom."[492] "Those women [clerical concubines] came to be
invested with a quasi-ecclesiastical character, and to enjoy the dearly
prized immunities attached to that position."[493] Gerson (1363-1429)
paid admiration to virginity and celibacy, but he "saw and appreciated
its practical evils, and had no scruple in recommending concubinage as a
preventive, which, though scandalous in itself, might serve to prevent
greater scandals." In districts it became customary to require a new
parish priest to take a concubine.[494] "This was the inversion which
the popular opinion had undergone in four centuries."[495] "The
principles of the church led irrevocably to the conclusion, paradoxical
as it may seem, that he who was guilty of immorality, knowing it to be
wrong, was far less criminal than he who married, believing it to be
right."[496] At Avignon, when it was the seat of the papacy, sex license
and vice became proverbial. A speech of the most shameless cynicism is
attributed to Cardinal Hugo, in which he described the effect, in 1251,
of the residence of the papal court there for eight years. In the
fourteenth century that city became the most wicked, and especially the
most licentious, in Christendom.[497] The first case of the presence of
women at a feast in the Vatican is said to have been at the marriage of
Teodorina, daughter of Innocent VIII, in 1488. Comedies were played
before the mixed company.[498]
+228. Abelard.+ A cleric who married flinched from the standard of his
calling, in the view of the church. Hildebrand's decrees were like the
other crowning acts of great men,--they came at the culmination of a
great movement in the mores. They accorded with the will and wish of
the masses. In all ages acts are due to mixed motives, but in the Middle
Ages the good motives were kept for show and the bad ones controlled.
Clerics did not cease to have concubines until after the Council of
Trent, and the difference between law and practice (bridged over by
pecuniary penalties) called for special ethics and casuistry. The case
of Abelard (1079-1142) shows what tragedies were caused. He claimed to
be, and to some extent he was, a champion of reason and common sense,
and he was a skeptic as to the current philosophy. He was vain, weak,
and ambitious. He selected the loveliest woman he knew, and won her
love, which he used to persuade her to be his concubine, that she might
not hinder him in his career.[499] The treatment accorded to Heloise
shows that a woman could be a concubine of an ecclesiastic, but not his
wife, without condemnation. That was the allowance for human despair
under the ecclesiastical rules.[500] Thus the church first suggested
views of life and dogmas of religion, with which the masses combined
their mores and returned them to the church as a gift of societal power.
The church then formulated the mores and created disciplinary systems to
use the power and make it institutional and perpetual. Then the mores
revolted against the authority and the religion, and the ethics which it
taught. A Roman Catholic writer says that a study of the Middle Ages
will produce this result: "We shall have recognized in the church the
professional peacemaker between states and factions, as well as between
man and man, the equitable mediator between rulers and their subjects,
the consistent champion of constitutional liberty, the alleviator of the
inequalities of birth, the uninterested and industrious disseminator of
letters, the refiner of habits and manners, the well-meaning guardian of
the national wealth, health, and intellect, and the fearless censor of
public and private morality."[501] These are, indeed, the functions
which the church ought to have fulfilled, and about which ecclesiastics
said something from time to time. Also, the church did do something for
these interests when no great interest of the church was at stake on
the other side. No unbiased student of the Middle Ages has been
convinced that, in truth and justice, the work of the mediæval church
could be thus summed up. The one consistent effort of the church was to
establish papal authority. Its greatest crime was obscurantism, which
was war on knowledge and civilization. This nothing can palliate or
offset.
+229. The English church and the mores.+ The church, however, from 1000
A.D. on was a machine of societal selection, and it pursued its work,
suggesting and administering a work of that kind, grand results of which
have come down to us in the civilization we have inherited. Our work
largely consists in rational efforts to eliminate the elements which the
church introduced. In some respects the history of clerical celibacy in
England best illustrates the mores. In the sixteenth century the rule
and usage of the church had inculcated, as a deep popular prejudice, the
notion that a priest could not be married. Cranmer, in ordering a
visitation, directed investigation "whether any do contemn married
priests, and for that they be married will not receive the communion or
other sacrament at their hands."[502] This prejudice very slowly died
out, but it did die out and the popular judgment favored and required
clerical marriage. In the nineteenth century popular judgment rose in
condemnation of fox-hunting parsons, and also of pluralists, and it has
caused reforms and the disappearance of those classes.
+230. The selection of sacerdotal celibacy.+ If it had not been for
sacerdotal celibacy, there would have been ecclesiastical feudalization
and the ecclesiastical benefices would have become hereditary. The
children of priests inherited benefices and intermarried so long as the
marriage of priests was allowed. There would have been a priestly
caste.[503] The church as an institution would have been greatly
modified. The consequences we cannot imagine. If Hildebrand and the
other eleventh-century leaders foresaw the effect, it was statesmanship
on their part to establish the celibacy of the clergy. That institution
has molded the priesthood and the mores of all who have adhered to the
mediæval church. The Latin people of southern Europe are now horrified
at the notion of a married priest. The concubine of a priest is a wicked
woman, but she is not a social abomination. All protest and resistance
seems to have passed away and, since the sixteenth century, sacerdotal
celibacy has been accepted as a feature of the Romish Church, which all
its members are expected to accept. It is a grand triumph of social
selection.
+231. How the church operated selection.+ The church was a great
hierarchical organization for social power and control, which inherited
part of the intense integration of the Roman empire. Fra Paolo Sarpi
said of it, in the seventeenth century: "The interests of Rome demand
that there shall be no change by which the power of the pontiff would be
diminished, or by which the curia would lose any of the profits which it
wins from the states, but the novelties by which the profits of the
curia would be increased, or by which the authority of the states would
be diminished and that of the curia increased, are not abhorred, but are
favored. This we see every day."[504] The church decided all recognition
and promotion, and disposed of all rewards of ambition. The monarchical
and autocratic tendency in it was the correct process for attaining the
purposes by which it was animated. Its legitimacy as an organization for
realizing faiths and desires which prevailed in society is beyond
question. It drew towards itself all the talent of the age except what
was military. It crushed all dissenters and silenced all critics for
centuries. Its enginery was all planned for selection. It disposed of
the greatest prizes and the most dreadful penalties. All its methods
were positive and realistic, and whatever can be accomplished by
authority, tyranny, penalty, and repression it accomplished. In modern
times political parties offer the nearest parallels. They are
organizations for societal control, which distribute rewards and
penalties and coerce dissenters. The history of the papacy in the
fifteenth century reminds one of the history of Tammany Hall in the
nineteenth century. The strength of Tammany is due to the fact that it
fits the tastes and needs of a great modern city under democracy. When
Tammany won an election it was said that the people had put the city in
their hands and that they ought to profit by it. When Leo X was elected
pope he said, "God has given us the papacy; now let us enjoy it."[505]
+232. Mores and morals; social code.+ For every one the mores give the
notion of what ought to be. This includes the notion of what ought to be
done, for all should coöperate to bring to pass, in the order of life,
what ought to be. All notions of propriety, decency, chastity,
politeness, order, duty, right, rights, discipline, respect, reverence,
coöperation, and fellowship, especially all things in regard to which
good and ill depend entirely on the point at which the line is drawn,
are in the mores. The mores can make things seem right and good to one
group or one age which to another seem antagonistic to every instinct of
human nature. The thirteenth century bred in every heart such a
sentiment in regard to heretics that inquisitors had no more misgivings
in their proceedings than men would have now if they should attempt to
exterminate rattlesnakes. The sixteenth century gave to all such notions
about witches that witch persecutors thought they were waging war on
enemies of God and man. Of course the inquisitors and witch persecutors
constantly developed the notions of heretics and witches. They
exaggerated the notions and then gave them back again to the mores, in
their expanded form, to inflame the hearts of men with terror and hate
and to become, in the next stage, so much more fantastic and ferocious
motives. Such is the reaction between the mores and the acts of the
living generation. The world philosophy of the age is never anything but
the reflection on the mental horizon, which is formed out of the mores,
of the ruling ideas which are in the mores themselves. It is from a
failure to recognize the to and fro in this reaction that the current
notion arises that mores are produced by doctrines. The "morals" of an
age are never anything but the consonance between what is done and what
the mores of the age require. The whole revolves on itself, in the
relation of the specific to the general, within the horizon formed by
the mores. Every attempt to win an outside standpoint from which to
reduce the whole to an absolute philosophy of truth and right, based on
an unalterable principle, is a delusion. New elements are brought in
only by new conquests of nature through science and art. The new
conquests change the conditions of life and the interests of the members
of the society. Then the mores change by adaptation to new conditions
and interests. The philosophy and ethics then follow to account for and
justify the changes in the mores; often, also, to claim that they have
caused the changes. They never do anything but draw new lines of bearing
between the parts of the mores and the horizon of thought within which
they are inclosed, and which is a deduction from the mores. The horizon
is widened by more knowledge, but for one age it is just as much a
generalization from the mores as for another. It is always unreal. It is
only a product of thought. The ethical philosophers select points on
this horizon from which to take their bearings, and they think that they
have won some authority for their systems when they travel back again
from the generalization to the specific custom out of which it was
deduced. The cases of the inquisitors and witch persecutors who toiled
arduously and continually for their chosen ends, for little or no
reward, show us the relation between mores on the one side and
philosophy, ethics, and religion on the other. (See Chapters IX, XIV,
and XV.)
+233. Orthodoxy in the mores.+ +Treatment of dissent.+ +Selection by
torture.+ It has been observed above (sec. 100) that the masses always
enforce conformity to the mores. Primitive taboos are absolute. There is
no right of private judgment. Renegades, apostates, deserters, rebels,
traitors, and heretics are but varieties of dissenters who are all
subject to disapproval, hatred, banishment, and death. In higher stages
of civilization this popular temper becomes a societal force which
combines with civil arrangements, religious observances, literature,
education, and philosophy. Toleration is no sentiment of the masses for
anything which they care about. What they believe they believe, and they
want it accepted and respected. Illustrations are furnished by zeal for
political parties and for accepted political philosophy. The first
punishment for dissent less than death is extrusion from the society.
Next come bodily pains and penalties, that is, torture. Torture is also
applied in connection with the death penalty, or modes of death are
devised which are as painful as they can be made. The motive is to deter
any one from the class of acts which is especially abominated. In the
cases above cited (sec. 211), under criminal law, it will be observed
that death by burning was applied in the case of incest, or other very
abominable crime, in the laws of Hammurabi and other ancient codes (sec.
234). Such extreme penalties are first devised to satisfy public temper.
The ruler is sure of popularity if he shows rigor and ferocity. His act
will be regarded as just. It is now the popular temper, when any one
commits a crime which is regarded as very horrible, to think and say
what frightful punishment he deserves. It is a primary outpouring of
savage vengeance. When precedents have been established for frightful
punishments, the rulers apply the same in cases of disobedience against
themselves or their authority. Now torture and ferocious penalties have
reached another stage. They were invented by the masses, or in order to
appeal to the masses. They have now become the means of authority and
discipline. The history of torture is a long development of knowledge of
pain, and of devices to cause it. Then it becomes a means which is at
the disposal of those who have the power. The Dominican Izarn, in a
chant of triumph over the Albigenses, represents himself as arguing with
one of them to whom he says, "Believe as we do or thou shalt be
burned."[506] This is the voice of a victorious party. It is the
enforcement of uniformity against dissent. Systematic and legal torture
then becomes an engine of uniformity and it acts selectively as it
crushes out originality and independent suggestion. It is at the
disposal of any party in power. Like every other system of policy it
loses its effect on the imagination by familiarity, and that effect can
be regained only by intensifying it. Therefore where torture has been
long applied we find that it is developed to grades of incredible
horror.
+234. Execution by burning.+ In the ancient world execution by burning
was applied only when some religious abomination was included in the
crime, or when it seemed politically outrageous. In the laws of
Hammurabi an hierodule who opened a dramshop or entered one to get a
drink was to be burned.[507] One who committed incest with his mother
was to meet the same punishment,[508] also one who married a mother and
her daughter at the same time.[509] In Levit. xx. 14 if a man marries a
mother and her daughter together, all are to be burned, and in Levit.
xxi. 9 the daughter of a priest, if she becomes a harlot, is to be
burned. At the end of the seventh century b.c. some priestly families
connected with the temple of Amon at Napata, Egypt, by way of reform,
introduced the custom of eating the meat of sacrifices uncooked. They
were burned for heresy.[510] In the year 5 B.C., upon a rumor of the
death of Herod I, some Jews tore down the Roman eagle from the gate of
the temple. Herod caused forty-two of them to be burned.[511] Caligula
caused an atellan composer to be burned in the arena for a sarcasm on
the emperor.[512] Constantine ordered that if a free woman had
intercourse with a slave man, the man should be burned.[513] In all the
ancient and classical period, burning was reserved as a most painful
form of death for the most abominable criminals and the most extravagant
and rare crimes. By another law of Constantine it was ordered that if
Jews and heaven worshipers should stone those who were converted from
their sects to the Catholic faith, they should be burned.[514] In the
Theodosian Code, also, any slave who accused his master of any crime
except high treason was to be burned alive without investigation.[515]
Thus burning became the penalty for criminals of a despised class or
race.
+235. Burning in North American colonies.+ In the colonial laws of
Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, and Virginia it was
provided that negroes should be executed by burning. Here we have a
recrudescence of the idea that great penalties are deterrent. Modern
penologists do not believe that that is true. It is, however, the belief
of the masses, which they have recently shown in methods of lynching. It
might have been believed ten years ago that it would be impossible to
get a crowd of Americans to burn a man at the stake, but there have
been many cases of it.[516]
+236. Solidarity of group in penalty incurred by one.+ In primitive
society any one who departed from the ways of ancestors was supposed to
offend their ghosts; furthermore, he was supposed to bring down their
avenging wrath on the whole group of which he was a member. This idea
has prevailed until modern times. It aroused the sentiment of vengeance
against the dissenter, and united all the rest in a common interest
against him. Especially, if any misfortune befell the group, they turned
against any one who had broken the taboos. Thus goblinism was united to
the other reasons for disliking dissenters and gave it definite
direction and motive. At Rome, "in the days of the republic, every
famine, pestilence, or drought was followed by a searching investigation
of the sacred rites, to ascertain what irregularity or neglect had
caused the divine anger, and two instances are recorded in which vestal
virgins were put to death because their unchastity was believed to have
provoked a national calamity."[517] In the Roman law is found a
proposition which was often quoted in the Middle Ages: "That which is
done against divine religion is done to the harm of all."[518] Hale[519]
explains the tortures inflicted by the Iroquois, by their desire to mark
some kinds of Indian warfare as very abominable, and so to drive them
out of use. Torture always flatters vanity. He who inflicts it has
power. To reduce, plunder, and torment an enemy is a great luxury. The
lust of blood is a frightful demon when once it is aroused. A Hungarian
woman of noble birth, at the beginning of the seventeenth century,
tortured to death thirty or forty of her maidservants. She began by
inflicting severe punishments and developed a fiendish passion for the
sight of suffering and blood.[520] It is the combinations of the other
elements, religion, ambition, sex, vanity, and the lust of blood, with
the dislike of dissenters, which has caused the most frightful
developments of torture and persecution. This brings us to the case of
the mediæval inquisition. It is not to be expected that a phenomenon of
high civilization will be simple and uniform. So the motives of
Christian persecution to enforce conformity are numerous and mixed. It
was directly against some of the leading principles of Christianity, but
there are texts in the New Testament which were used to justify it.[521]
+237. Torture in ancient states.+ The Egyptians used torture in all
ordinary investigations to find out the facts.[522] The Greeks had used
torture. It was common in the Periclean age in the courts of Athens. The
accused gave his slaves to be tortured "to challenge evidence against
himself."[523] Plutarch[524] tells of a barber who heard of the defeat
of Nicias in Sicily and ran to tell the magistrates. They tortured him
as a maker of trouble by disseminating false news, until the story was
confirmed. Philotas was charged with planning to kill Alexander. He was
tortured and the desired proof was obtained.[525] Eusebius,[526]
describing the persecution under Nerva, says that Simeon, Bishop of
Jerusalem, being one hundred and twenty years old, was tortured for
several days and then crucified. Torture underwent a special development
in the Euphrates valley. The Assyrian stones show frightful tortures
which kings sometimes inflicted with their own hands. Maiming, flaying,
impaling, blinding, and smothering in hot ashes became usual forms in
Persia. They passed to the Turks, and the stories of torture and death
inflicted in southeastern Europe, or in modern Persia, show knowledge
and inventive skill far beyond what the same peoples have otherwise
shown. The motives have been religious contempt, hereditary animosity,
and vengeance, as well as political and warlike antagonism.
+238. Torture in the Roman empire.+ The Roman emperors lived in a great
fear of supernatural attack. There was a very great interest for many
people in the question: When will the emperor die? Many, no doubt, made
use of any apparatus of astrology or sorcery to find out. To the emperor
and his adherents this seemed to prove a desire that he should die, and
was interpreted as treasonable. The Christians helped to develop
demonism. They regarded all the heathen gods as demons. As they gained
power in society this notion spread, and there was a great revival of
popular demonism. By the _lex Julia de Majestate_ torture might be
applied to persons charged with treason, and the definition of treason
was greatly enlarged. Torture was used to great excess under Tiberius
and Nero. In the fourth century, after the emperors became Christians,
it was feared that persons who hated them would work them ill by sorcery
with the aid of the demons, formerly heathen gods. Sorcery and treason
were combined and strengthened by a great tide of superstition which
overspread the Roman world.[527] The first capital punishment for heresy
in the Christian church seems to have been the torture and burning of
Priscillian, a Manichæan, at Treves, in 385, with six of his adherents,
by the Emperor Maximus. This act caused a sensation of truly Christian
horror. Of the two bishops who were responsible, one was expelled from
his see; the other resigned.[528] In 579 King Chilperic caused
ecclesiastics to be tortured for disloyal behavior. About 580 the same
king, having married a servant maid, an act which caused family and
political trouble, upon the death of two of her children, caused a woman
to be tortured who was charged with murdering the children in the
interest of their stepbrother. She confessed, revoked her confession,
and was burned. Three years later another child of the queen died, and
several women were tortured and burned or broken on the wheel for
causing the death by sorcery.[529] Pope Nicholas I, in 866, opposed the
use of torture as barbaric, and the pseudo-Isidorian Decretals take the
same position in regard to it. Indeed, that was the orthodox Christian
view in the dark ages.
+239.+ Such was the course of descent by which torture came to the
Middle Ages. It was in connection with the revival of the eleventh
century that the Roman law of treason was made to apply to heresy by
construing it as treason to God.[530] It is, however, of the first
importance to notice that it was the masses which first applied death by
burning to heretics. The mob lynched heretics long before the church
began to persecute.[531] (See, further, sec. 253.)
+240. Jewish and Christian universality. Who persecutes whom?+ The Jews
held that their God was the only real God. The gods of other nations
were "vanity," that is, nullity. They held that their religion was the
only true one. When about the time of the birth of Christ they stepped
before the Greco-Roman world with this claim, it cost them great hatred
and abuse. In the history of religion it counts as a great fact of
advance in religious conceptions. Christianity inherited the idea and
applied it to itself. It has always claimed to be absolutely and alone
true as a religious system. Every other religion is an invader of its
domain. It was this attitude which gave a definition to heresy. Under
paganism "speculation was untrammeled. The notion of there being any
necessary guilt in erroneous opinion was unknown."[532] When once this
notion found acceptance it produced a great number of deductions and
corollaries and gave form to a great number of customs, such as they had
never had before. The effect on the selection of articles of faith out
of the doctrines of warring sects and philosophies is obvious, also the
effect on methods of controversy. The effects are important in the
fourth and fifth centuries, and the notion became one of the postulates
of all thinking. This is the ultimate reason for the wickedness of
heresy and for the abomination of all heretics. Certainly Christianity
did not, in this matter, improve on the philosophy of paganism. It was
this attitude of Christianity and its neglect of the existing political
authority which drew upon it the contempt, derision, and hatred of the
heathen. The persecution of Christians was popular. It expressed the
popular feeling, which was more constantly expressed in the popular
comedy and the improvised popular play.[533] The persecution in Nerva's
time was more popular than political.[534] In the following century the
Christians denounced heathenism as a worship of demons. "It is not
surprising that the populace should have been firmly convinced that
every great catastrophe that occurred was due to the presence of the
enemies of the gods."[535] "The history of the period of the Antonines
continually manifests the desire of the populace to persecute,
restrained by the humanity of the rulers."[536] In the third century the
Decian persecution was largely due to the "popular fanaticism caused by
great calamities, which were ascribed to the anger of the gods at the
neglect of their worship."[537] "The most horrible recorded instances of
torture were usually inflicted, either by the populace, or in their
presence, in the arena."[538] Frightful tortures were inflicted in the
attempt to make Christians sacrifice to the heathen gods. This effort
was due to the popular apprehension of solidarity in responsibility for
the neglect by the Christians of the state gods, to the decline of all
social welfare and the implied insult to the state. In the fourth
century Christianity became the religion of the state and took up the
task of persecuting the heathen. "The only question is: In whose hands
is the power to persecute?" That question alone determines who shall
persecute whom. Literature was produced which uttered savage hatred
against all who were not fully orthodox, and the sects practiced
violence and cruelty against each other to the full extent for which
they found opportunity. "Never, perhaps, was the infliction of
mutilation, and prolonged and agonizing forms of death, more common"
than in the seventh and eighth centuries.[539] "Great numbers were
deprived of their ears and noses, tortured through several days, and at
last burned alive or broken slowly on the wheel."[540] At Byzantium, in
the ninth century, a prefect of the palace was burned in the circus for
appropriating the property of a widow. It became the custom that capital
punishments were executed in the circus.[541] All this course of things
was due to popular tastes and desires, and it was a course of popular
education of the masses in cruelty, love of bloodshed, and gratification
of low hatred and other base passions. All the laws, the exhortations of
the clergy, and the public acts of torture and execution held out the
suggestion that heresy was a thing deserving the extremest horror and
abomination. What was heresy? No one knew unless he was an educated
theologian, and such were rare. The vagueness of heresy made it more
terrible. "The long-continued teaching of the church, that persistent
heresy was the one crime for which there could be no pardon or excuse,
seemed to deprive even the wisest and purest of all power of reasoning
where it was concerned."[542]
+241. The ordeal.+ The doctrines and sentiments of this early age were
seed planted to produce an immeasurable crop in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, when they were brought forth again and quoted with the
authority of the church fathers. The ordeal is a question addressed to
the superior powers in order to learn the truth. The question is always
categorical: Is this man guilty or not? The irrationality is that there
is a third possibility which cannot be tested; the superior powers may
not answer at all. In the early Middle Ages the ordeal was in common use
in all civil and ecclesiastical trials. Experience proved the fallacy of
it. We are led to believe that the people of the dark ages, not yet
being locked in dogmatism, although stupid and ignorant, were better
able to learn from experience than those of later times. Innocent III,
in 1212, forbade the use of the ordeal, the occasion being its use by
the Bishop of Strasburg against heretics.[543] The Lateran Council of
1215 forbade ecclesiastics to take any part in ordeals. It is perhaps
true that torture was introduced from the Roman law after the ordeal was
ruled out.[544]
+242. Irrationality of torture.+ Torture was far more irrational than
the ordeal. The Roman authorities had recorded warnings of its
fallacy.[545] Torture destroys nerve power, will, and consciousness.
There comes a point at which the victim will assent to anything to
escape pain, or to get a quick and easy death. Therefore "confessions"
under torture are of no value. Ulpian said of it, "_Res est fragilis et
periculosa et quae veritatem fallat_."[546] One of the templars said
that if he was tortured further he would confess that he had murdered
the Saviour. Another said that he would confess anything if he was
tortured further, although he was ready to suffer any death for the
Order of Templars. He would confess that he had killed the mother of
God.[547] A heretic under torture cried out that Christ, if so treated,
would be proved a heretic.[548] Bernard Delicieux declared before King
Philip that Peter and Paul could be convicted of heresy by the methods
of the inquisitors.[549] Count Frederick von Spee, a Jesuit who opposed
the witch persecutions, is quoted as saying, in 1631, "Treat the heads
of the church, the judges, or me, as you treat those unhappy ones
[accused of witchcraft], subject any of us to the same tortures, and you
will discover that we are all sorcerers."[550] He quoted an inquisitor
who boasted that if he could get the pope on the rack he would prove him
a sorcerer.[551] In the thirteenth century "judges were well convinced
of the failure of the procedure with its secret and subjective elements,
but they could not in any other way cope with crime."[552]
This means, of course, that by long and manifold suggestion certain
selected forms of crime had been stigmatized until the masses regarded
them with horror. Then the apparatus of the administration of justice
was brought to bear to exterminate all who could be charged with them,
and when the process was objected to as horrible, it was defended on
grounds of necessity to meet the horrible crime. By this action and
reaction a great body of interests was enveloped in a special
atmosphere, within which any excess of savagery was possible. The
societal selection was prosecuted by murder of all dissenters.
+243. Inquisitorial procedure from Roman law.+ The Roman criminal
procedure was, in part, inquisitorial.[553] In the later period of the
republic a private accuser, who must be an injured party, started and
conducted the prosecution, but the magistrates could proceed on their
own motion, upon denunciation, or by inquisitorial process. The last
method became the custom under the empire. Prosecutions for treason were
thus carried on, and by the end of the empire sorcerers and heretics, as
_hostes publici_, like traitors, were thus tried. All citizens were
bound to denounce such criminals. This procedure was taken up into the
canon law, so that the Christian church inherited a system of procedure
as well as the doctrines above stated.[554]
+244. Bishops as inquisitors.+ In the Carolingian period bishops were
instructed to seek out heretics and to secure their conversion, but they
rarely distinguished themselves by zeal in this matter. The procedure
was that of a grand jury set in motion by common report. Lucius III and
Barbarossa, acting together in 1184, prepared a decretal in which the
duty of bishops was reaffirmed and an attempt was made to give sharper
method to their proceedings. They were to seek out heretics, holders of
secret conventicles, or any who "in any way differed, in mode of life,
from the faithful in general." Those who refused to be disciplined and
to conform were to be abandoned to the secular arm for fitting
punishment. All civil officers were to swear to enforce laws against
heretics. Here we find the fundamental notions of the later Inquisition,
but zealous executioners were wanting. If the decretal had been "obeyed
strictly and energetically, it would have established an episcopal
instead of a papal Inquisition."
+245. Definition of heretic.+ The definition of a heretic just quoted
occurs often and is the only one which could be formulated. A person was
as liable to be charged with heresy if better than the crowd as if
worse. "In fact, amid the license of the Middle Ages ascetic virtue was
apt to be regarded as a sign of heresy. About 1220 a clerk of Spire,
whose austerity subsequently led him to join the Franciscans, was only
saved by the interposition of Conrad, afterwards Bishop of Hildesheim,
from being burned as a heretic, because his preaching led certain women
to lay aside their vanities of apparel and behave with humility.... I
have met with a case, in 1320, in which a poor old woman at Pamiers
submitted to the dreadful sentence for heresy simply because she would
not take an oath. She answered all interrogations on points of faith in
orthodox fashion, but though offered her life if she would swear on the
gospels, she refused to burden her soul with the sin, and for this she
was condemned as a heretic."[555] "Heretics who were admitted to be
patterns of virtue were ruthlessly exterminated in the name of Christ,
while in the same holy name the orthodox could purchase absolution for
the vilest of crimes for a few coins."[556] There could be no definition
of a heretic but one who differed in life and conversation from the
masses around him. This might mean strange language, dress, manners, or
greater restraint in conduct. Pallor of countenance was a mark of a
heretic from the fourth century to the twelfth.[557] In the thirteenth
century Franciscans were preëminently orthodox, but when John XXII
stigmatized as heretical the assertion that Christ and his Apostles
never had any property, they became criminals whom civil officers were
bound to send to the stake.[558] John was himself a heretic as to the
"beatific vision." He thought that the dead would not enter the presence
of God until the judgment day.[559] The Franciscans held that the blood
shed by Christ in the Passion lost its divinity, was separated from the
Logos, and remained on earth. This was heresy.[560] The Dominicans, with
Thomas Aquinas, were heretics as to the immaculate conception.[561] All
the disputants on all sides of these questions went into the dispute at
the risk of burning or being burned, as the tide should run.
+246. The Albigenses.+ For some reason which is not easy to understand,
the Manichæan doctrine took deep root in the Christian church from the
fourth century on. To us the doctrine seems ethically bad, but that only
shows how little religious dogmas make ethics. The enemies of the
Albigenses recognized their high purity of life.[562] They called
themselves kathari, or puritans. Popular fanaticism commenced
persecution against them in the eleventh century. They were in
antagonism to the hierarchy and the Catholic system, especially to papal
autocracy. "Even with those abhorred sectaries, the church was
wonderfully slow to proceed to extremities. It hesitated before the
unaccustomed task. It shrank from contradicting its teachings of
charity, and was driven forward by popular fanaticism. The persecution
of Orleans, in 1017, was the work of King Robert, the Pious. The burning
at Milan, soon after, was done by the people against the will of the
archbishop.... Even as late as 1144, the church of Liège congratulated
itself on having, by the mercy of God, saved the greater part of a
number of confessed and convicted kathari from the turbulent mob which
strove to burn them.... In 1145 the zealous populace seized the kathari
and burned them, despite the resistance of the ecclesiastical
authorities."[563] These cases of lynching are the first cases, in the
Middle Ages, of burning heretics. They show that the masses in the
Christian church thought that the proper treatment of enemies of God,
the church, and all men.
+247. Persecution popular.+ Innocent III began war on the Albigenses at
the beginning of the thirteenth century, as rebels and heretics. All
Catholics approved what he did, and thought that the Albigenses richly
deserved all the treatment they received. The age was not religious, but
it had intense religiosity, and the whole religiosity was heated to a
high pitch by the contest with the Albigenses. The pride, ambition, and
arrogance of the hierarchy and the basest greed and love of plunder of
the masses were enlisted against them. Lea's statement is therefore
fully justified that "the Inquisition was not an organization
arbitrarily devised and imposed upon the judicial system of Christendom
by the ambition or fanaticism of the church. It was rather a
natural--one may almost say an inevitable--evolution of the forces at
work in the thirteenth century, and no one can rightly appreciate the
process of its development and the results of its activity without a
somewhat minute consideration of the factors controlling the minds and
souls of men during the ages which laid the foundation of modern
civilization."[564] In the mind of the age "there was a universal
consensus of opinion that there was nothing to do with a heretic but to
burn him." This was one of those wide and popular notions upon which
mores grow, because the folkways are adjusted to it in all departments
of life as a rule of welfare. The courts of Toulouse at first, not
recognizing the forces against the Albigenses, tried to protect their
subjects, but "to the public law of the period [Raymond II of Toulouse]
was an outlaw, without even the right of self-defense against the
first-comer, for his very self-defense was rated among his crimes. In
the popular faith of the age he was an accursed thing, without hope,
here or hereafter. The only way of readmission into human fellowship,
the only hope of salvation, lay in reconciliation with the church
through the removal of the awful ban which had formed half of his
inheritance. To obtain this he had repeatedly offered to sacrifice his
honor and his subjects, and the offer had been contemptuously
spurned.... The battle of toleration against persecution had been fought
and lost; nor, with such a warning as the fate of the two Raymonds, was
there risk that other potentates would disregard the public opinion of
Christendom by ill-advised mercy to the heretic."[565]
+248.+ An annalist of Worms is quoted about Dorso's operations on the
upper Rhine in 1231. Dorso burned many persons of the peasant class. The
annalist adds, "The people, when they saw this, were favorable to the
inquisitors and helped them; and rightly, since those heretics deserved
death. Confident in the approval of the masses, they went on to make
arrests in towns and villages, as they pleased, and then they said to
the judges, without further evidence, 'These are heretics. We withdraw
our hands from them.' The judges were thus compelled to burn many. That
was not according to the sense of the Holy Scriptures, and the
ecclesiastics everywhere were greatly troubled. Since, however, the
people took sides with the unjust judges, their will was executed
everywhere." "The pitiless and incompetent judges later saw that they
could not maintain their conduct without the help of great men, whom
they won by saying that they would burn rich people, whose goods the
great men should have." "That pleased the great men, who helped them,
and called them to their cities and towns." "The people, when they saw
this, asked the reason, to which the persecutors answered, 'We would
burn a hundred innocent if there was one guilty amongst them.'"[566]
+249.+ It was also true of the persecutions of the philosophers in
Mohammedan Spain that they were popular. "The best educated princes
allowed themselves to be driven to persecute, in spite of their personal
preferences, as a means of winning popularity."[567]
+250. Theory of persecution.+ The public opinion of the ruling classes
of Europe demanded that heresy should be exterminated at whatever cost,
and yet with the suppression of open resistance the desired end seemed
as far off as ever.... Trained experts were needed, whose sole business
it should be to unearth the offenders and extort a confession of their
guilt.... Thus to the public of the thirteenth century the organization
of the Inquisition and its commitment to the children of Saint Dominic
and Saint Francis appeared a perfectly natural or rather inevitable
development arising from the admitted necessities of the time and the
instrumentalities at hand.[568]
+251. Duties laid on the civil authority.+ The secular authority
accepted the functions allotted to it out of the spirit of the age. To
fall into disfavor at Rome was, for a prince, to risk the loyalty of his
subjects, with whom it was a point of high importance to belong to a
"Christian" state, that is, one on good terms with the church. "We are
not to imagine, however, from these reduplicated commands that the
secular power, as a rule, showed itself in the slightest degree
disinclined to perform the duty. The teachings of the church had made
too profound an impression for any doubt in the premises to exist. As
has been seen above, the laws of all the states of Europe prescribed
concremation as the appropriate penalty for heresy, and even the free
commonwealths of Italy recognized the Inquisition as the judge whose
sentences were to be blindly executed."[569]
+252.+ "The practice of burning the heretic alive was thus not the
creature of positive law, but arose generally and spontaneously, and its
adoption by the legislator was only the recognition of a popular
custom."[570] "Confession of heresy became a matter of vital importance,
and no effort was deemed too great, no means too repulsive, to secure
it. This became the center of the inquisitorial process, and it is
deserving of detailed consideration, not only because it formed the
basis of procedure in the Holy Office, but also because of the vast and
deplorable influence which it exercised for five centuries on the whole
judicial system of continental Europe."[571] In the second half of the
twelfth century burning had become, by custom, the usual punishment for
heretics. The purpose was universally regarded as right and pious, and
the means was thought wise and correct. Therefore the whole procedure
went forward on a course of direct and consistent development.[572] It
was first decreed in positive law in the code of Pedro II, of Aragon, in
1197. In the laws of Frederick II, in 1224, the punishment was death by
burning or loss of the tongue. In 1231, in Sicily, burning was made
absolute. In 1238 the stake was made the law of the empire against
heresy. In 1270 Louis IX made it the law of France.[573] "Dominic and
Francis, Bonaventura and Thomas Aquinas, Innocent III and St. Louis,
were types, in their several ways, of which humanity, in any age, might
well feel proud, and yet they were as unsparing of the heretic as
Ezzelino da Romano was of his enemies. With such men it was not hope of
gain or lust of blood or pride of opinion or wanton exercise of power,
but sense of duty, and they but represented public opinion from the
thirteenth to the seventeenth century."[574] That is to say, that the
virtues of the individuals were overruled by the vices of the mores of
the age.
+253. The shares of the church and the masses.+ The steps of the process
by which the Christian church was made an organization to enforce
uniformity of confession by bodily pain, that is, in fact, by murder,
demand careful attention. Back of all the popular demands for
persecution there was the teaching of the church in antecedent periods
and a crude popular logic of detestation and destruction. Then the
outbreak of persecution appears as a popular act with lynching
executions. At this point the church, by virtue of its teaching and
leading functions, ought to have repressed excessive zeal and guided the
popular frenzy. It did not do so. It took the lead of the popular
movement and encouraged it. This was its greatest crime, but it must be
fairly understood that it acted with public opinion and was fully
supported by the masses and by the culture classes. The Inquisition was
not unpopular and was not disapproved. It was thought to be the proper
and necessary means to deal with heresy, just as we now think police
courts necessary to deal with petty crimes (see sec. 247). The system of
persecution went on to extravagances. The masses disapproved. They could
not be held to any responsibility. They turned against the
ecclesiastical authorities and threw all the blame on them.
+254. The church uses the power for selfish aggrandizement.+ Things now
advanced, therefore, to the second stage. The church authorities
accepted the executive duty in respect to the defense of the church and
society against heresy. The popular idea was that heresy would bring
down the wrath of God on all Christendom, or on the whole of the small
group in which it occurred.[575] The church authorities formulated
doctrines, planned programmes, and appointed administrative officers. To
them the commission laid upon them meant more social power, and they
turned it into a measure of selfish aggrandizement. This alienated first
all competent judges, and at last the masses.
+255. The Inquisition took shape slowly.+ The Inquisition took shape
very gradually through the first half of the thirteenth century. "In the
proceedings of this period the rudimentary character of the Inquisition
is evident." The mendicant orders furnished the first agents. They were
admired and honored by the masses. Gregory IX, in his first bulls
(1233), making the Dominicans the official inquisitors, seemed to be
uncertain as to the probable attitude which the bishops would adopt to
this invasion of their jurisdiction, "while the character of his
instructions shows that he had no conception of what the innovation was
to lead to." "As yet there was no idea of superseding the episcopal
functions." In fact, the mendicant orders supplanted the military orders
as papal militia, just as they were later supplanted by the Jesuits, and
they very greatly assisted the reorganization of the church into an
absolute monarchy under the pope.[576] Frederick II died in 1250. He was
the first modern man on a throne. He had aimed to rule all Christendom
by despotic methods which he perhaps learned from the Mohammedans. He
would have made a monarchy if he had succeeded, which would have
anticipated that of Charles V or Philip II by three hundred years.[577]
It was the mores of the age which decided between him and the pope. His
court was a center of Arabic culture and of religious indifference.
There were eunuchs, a harem, astrologers from Bagdad, and Jews richly
pensioned by the emperor to translate Arabic works. "All these things
were transmuted, in popular belief, into relations with Ashtaroth and
Beelzebub."[578] The saying that there had been three great
impostors--Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed--was attributed to him, and it
appears that his contemporaries generally believed that he first used
the statement. The only thing which he left behind was the code of laws
which he had made, by way of concession and attempt to buy peace from
the popes, by which all civil authorities were made constables and
hangmen of the church, to which all dissenters were sacrificed.
+256. Formative legislation.+ In 1252 Innocent IV issued a bull "which
should establish machinery for systematic persecution as an integral
part of the social edifice in every city and every state." He authorized
the torture of witnesses. "These provisions are not the wild imaginings
of a nightmare, but sober, matter-of-fact legislation, shrewdly and
carefully devised to accomplish a settled policy, and it affords us a
valuable insight into the public opinion of the day to find that there
was no effective resistance to its acceptance." There is evidence,
twenty years later, that the Inquisition "had not been universally
accepted with alacrity, but the few instances which we find recorded of
refusal show how generally it was submitted to." The institution was in
full vigor in Italy, but not beyond the Alps, "yet this was scarce
necessary so long as public law and the conservative spirit of the
ruling class everywhere rendered it the highest duty of the citizen of
every degree to aid in every way the business of the inquisitor, and
pious monarchs hastened to enforce the obligations of their subjects."
"It was not the fault of the church if a bold monarch like Philip the
Fair occasionally ventured to incur divine vengeance by protecting his
subjects."[579]
+257. Dungeons.+ It is evident that the lust of blood was educated into
the mores by public executions with torture, by obscene adjuncts, by
inhuman sports, and by public shows. Cruelty and inhumanity in civil
cases were as great as under the Inquisition. A person apprehended on
any charge was imprisoned in a frightful dungeon, damp, infested by rats
and vermin, generally in chains, and he was often forced to lie in a
constrained position. This was a part of the policy which prevailed in
the administration of justice. It was intended to break the spirit and
courage of the accused. Confinement was solitary, and various
circumstances besides pain and hunger were brought to bear on the
imagination. It was the rule that every accused person must fast for
eight or ten hours before torture. The dungeons were often ingenious
means of torture. There was one in the Bastille at Paris, the floor of
which was conical, with the point downwards so that it was impossible to
sit, or lie, or stand in it. In another, in the Châtelet, the floor was
all the time covered by water, in which the prisoners must stand.[580]
+258. The yellow crosses.+ One of the penalties inflicted by the
Inquisition causes astonishment and at the same time shows how
thoroughly the mass of the population were on the side of the
Inquisition until the fifteenth century. Persons convicted of heresy,
but coerced to penitence, were forced to wear crosses of cloth,
generally yellow, three spans long and two wide, sewed on their
garments. Thus the symbol of Christian devotion was turned into a badge
of shame.[581] It pointed out the wearer as an outcast. However, it
depended on the mass of the population to say what it should mean. How
did they treat persons thus marked? They boycotted them. The wearers of
crosses could not find employment, or human intercourse, or husbands, or
wives. They were actually unable to get the relations with other men and
women which are essential to existence.[582] If the people had pitied
them, or sympathized with them, they would have shown it by kindness, in
spite of ecclesiastical orders. In fact, the cross was a badge of infamy
and was enforced as such by public action. "The unfortunate penitent was
exposed to the ridicule and derision of all whom he met, and was heavily
handicapped in every effort to earn a livelihood."[583] It is evident
that the way in which the general public treated the cross-wearers can
alone account for the weight which those under this penalty attached to
it. "It was always considered very shameful." At Augsburg, in 1393, for
seventy gold gulden, the wearing of crosses could be escaped.[584]
+259. Confiscation.+ Another penalty of frightful effect was
confiscation. As soon as a man was arrested for heresy, his property was
sequestrated and inventoried. His family was thrown on the street. It
was out of the Roman law that "pope and king drew the weapons which
rendered the pursuit of heresy attractive and profitable." "The church
cannot escape the responsibility of naturalizing this penalty in
European law as a punishment for spiritual transgressions."[585] "It
would be difficult to estimate the amount of human misery arising from
this source alone." "The threats of coercion which at first were
necessary to induce the temporal princes to confiscate the property of
their heretical subjects soon became superfluous, and history has few
displays of man's eagerness to profit by his fellow's misfortunes more
deplorable than that of the vultures which followed in the wake of the
Inquisition to batten on the ruin which it wrought." In Italy the
confiscated property was divided into three parts by the pope's order.
One part went to the Inquisition for its expenses, one part to the papal
camera, and one part to the civil authority. Later, the civil authority
generally got nothing. About 1335 a Franciscan bishop of Silva
"reproached those of his brethren who act as inquisitors with their
abuse of the funds accruing to the Holy Office.... The inquisitors
monopolized the whole, spent it on themselves, or enriched their kindred
at their pleasure." "Avarice joined hands with fanaticism, and between
them they supplied motive power for a hundred years of fierce,
unremitting, unrelenting persecution which, in the end, accomplished its
main purpose." The confiscations did not concern the populace. They
furnished the motive of the great to support the administration of the
Inquisition.[586] "Persecution, as a steady and continuous policy,
rested, after all, upon confiscation. It was this which supplied the
fuel to keep up the fires of zeal, and when it was lacking the business
of defending the faith languished lamentably. When katharism disappeared
under the brilliant aggressiveness of Bernard Gui, the culminating point
of the Inquisition was passed, and thenceforth it steadily declined,
although still there were occasional confiscated estates over which
king, prelate, and noble quarreled for some years to come."[587] "The
earnest endeavors of the inquisitors were directed much more to
obtaining conversions with confiscations and betrayal of friends than to
provoking martyrdoms.... The really effective weapons of the Holy
Office, the real curses with which it afflicted the people, can be
looked for in its dungeons and its confiscations, in the humiliating
penances of the saffron crosses, and in the invisible police with which
it benumbed the heart and soul of every man who had once fallen into its
hands."[588] It is evident that these means of tormenting and coercing
dissenters went much further to cause them to disappear than autos-de-fe
and other executions. The selection of those who submitted, or played
the hypocrite, was accomplished in the fifteenth century.
+260. Operation of the Inquisition.+ The Inquisition acted effectively.
It kept detailed records and pursued its victims to the third
generation.[589] It covered Europe with a network of reports which would
rival the most developed modern police systems, "putting the authorities
on the alert to search for every stranger who wore the air of one
differing in life and conversation from the ordinary run of the
faithful." "To human apprehension, the papal Inquisition was well-nigh
ubiquitous, omniscient, and omnipotent." Inquisitors were set free from
all rules which had been found necessary to save judges from judicial
error,[590] and the formularies to guide inquisitors inculcated chicane,
terrorism, deception, and brow-beating, and an art of entangling the
accused in casuistry and dialectics. A new crime was invented for the
cases in which confession could not be obtained: suspicion of heresy,
which had three degrees, "light," "vehement," and "violent." Even papal
decretals which restrained the effort to destroy the accused could be
set aside.[591] Thus the Inquisition coöperated with the criminal law.
It operated on the society of Christendom for ten or twelve generations
a selection of those who would submit and obey, and an elimination of
those who dissented.
+261. Success of the Inquisition.+ That the Inquisition succeeded in its
purpose is certain. It forced at least external conformity and silence,
especially of the masses. The heterodoxy of the Middle Ages "is
divisible into two currents, of which one, called the 'eternal gospel,'
includes the mystical and communistic sects which, starting from Joachim
de Florus, after having filled the twelfth and thirteenth centuries ...
was carried on, in the fourteenth, by the German mystics; the other,
summed up in the blasphemy that there had been three great impostors
[Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed], represents materialistic infidelity, due
to a study of the Arabs, and skulking under the name of Averroes."[592]
Of these two schools of heretics the former was the more popular and
tenacious. It is not to be understood that the masses ever recognized
their own handiwork in the Inquisition, or the popes of the fifteenth
century. On the contrary, the sequence goes on to the fourth stage in
which the masses, seeing the operation of ambition, venality, and
despotism in the officers of the institution created to meet a popular
demand, denounce it and turn against it to destroy it.
+262. Torture in civil and ecclesiastical trials.+ (See sec. 237
ff.) In the course of its work the Inquisition had introduced
torture into the administration of Christian justice and into the
mores. The jurists were all corrupted by it. They supposed that,
without torture, no crimes could be detected or punished, and
this opinion ruled the administration of justice on the continent
until the eighteenth century.[593] Lea finds the earliest
instances of legal torture in the Veronese Code of 1228, and in
the Sicilian Constitutions of 1231;--work of the rationalist
emperor, Frederick II, but it was "sparingly and hesitatingly
employed." Innocent IV adopted it in 1252, but only secular
authorities were to use it. This was to save the sanctity of
ecclesiastics. In 1256 Alexander IV, "with characteristic
indirection," authorized inquisitors and their associates to
absolve each other, and grant dispensations for irregularities.
This gave them absolute liberty, and they could inflict or
supervise torture.[594] There were other "poses," such as the
prohibition to shed blood, i.e. to break the skin, and the rule
to ask the civil power, when surrendering the victim to it, not
to proceed to extremes, although it was bound to burn the victim.
As the system continued in practice its methods were refined and
its experts were trained. Any one who was charged must be
convicted if possible. The torture produced permanent crippling
or maiming. It would not do to release any one so marked with the
investigation and then acquitted. Hence more and more frightful
measures became necessary. Nevertheless cases occurred in which
the accused held out beyond the power of the persecutors.[595] At
Bamberg, in 1614, a woman seventy-four years old endured torture
up to the third grade. After three quarters of an hour on the
"Bock" she fell dead. The verdict was that she had cleared
herself, by enduring the torture, of the "evidence" against her,
and would have been freed if she had lived. She was to have
Christian burial, and a document attesting this finding was to be
given to her husband and children. Some jurists of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries were led to doubt about torture, but
they almost all agreed that it was necessary "in some cases."
These were the reformers who were careful not to be extremists.
We are told that Peter of Ravenna, in 1511, urged the abolition
of torture, and that Louis Vivez, a Spaniard, took the same
position a little later. Neither won any attention.[596] In the
Carolina, Charles V's law book of 1532, which was in general
savage in its penalties, torture was to be applied only in cases
punishable by death or life imprisonment, and only on strong
prima facie evidence of guilt. Confession under torture was to
have no weight unless confirmed after an interval. These
restrictions were not observed in practice.[597] There are very
many cases on record in which it was afterwards proved that many
persons had suffered torture and cruel execution, upon
confession, who were innocent of all crime.[598]
+263. The selection accomplished.+ Thus the apparatus and devices for
putting down dissent and enforcing submission to such authority as the
great number were willing to recognize had attained a superficial
success. Opposition was silenced. Dissent was made so dangerous that no
one dared express it, except here and there a hero, and outward
conformity to church discipline was almost universal. The mores also
underwent influence from a societal power which was great and pervading.
The external and artificial character of the conformity was so well
known that a name was given to it,--_implicita fides_,--and this was
discussed as to its nature and value. The mores are gravely affected by
_implicita fides_ when it is held by a great number of persons.[599] The
selection which had destroyed honest thinkers and sincere churchmen had
cultivated a class of smooth hypocrites and submissive cowards. In the
fifteenth century the whole of Christendom had accepted the church
system with its concepts of welfare and its dictates of duty, and had
adopted the ritual means of holiness and salvation which it prescribed.
In fact, at no other time were men ever so busy as then with "good
works," or so fussy about church ritual. Everybody was anxious not to be
a heretic. At the same time the whole mediæeval system was falling to
pieces, and the inventions and discoveries were disproving all received
and approved ideas about the world and welfare in it. Gross sensuality
and carnal lust got possession of society, and the church system was an
independent system of balancing accounts with the other world. The
theater declined into obscenity and coarseness, and the popular pulpit
was hardly better.[600] The learned world was returning to classical
paganism. The popes had their children in the Vatican and publicly
married them there. Under Sextus IV the courtesans at Rome paid a tax
which produced 20,000 ducats per annum. Prelates owned brothels.
Innocent VIII tried to stop the scandal. In 1490 his vicar published an
edict against all concubinage, but the pope forced him to recall it
because all ecclesiastics had concubines. There were 6800 public
meretrices at Rome besides private ones and concubines. Concubinage was
really tolerated, subject to the payment of an amercement.[601] The
proceedings under Alexander VI were only the culmination of the license
taken by men who were irresponsible masters of the world, and who showed
the insanity of despotism just as the Roman emperors did.[602] The
church had broken down under the reaction of its own efforts to rule the
world. It had made moral hypocrisy and religious humbug characteristic
of Christians, for he who indulges in sensual vice and balances it off
by ritual devices is morally subject to the deepest corruption of
character. The church system had corrupted the mores by adding casuistry
and dialectic smartness to the devices for regulating conduct and
satisfying interests. The men of the Renaissance, especially in Italy,
acted always from passionate motives and went to great excess. Their
only system of conduct was success in what they wanted to do, and so
they were often heroes of crime. Yet they all conformed to church ritual
and discipline.
+264.+ A great undertaking like the suppression of dissent by force and
cruelty cannot be carried out in a great group of states without local
differentiation and variation. To close the story, it is worth while to
notice these variations in England, Spain, and Venice.
+265. Torture in England.+ The Inquisition cannot be said to have
existed in the British Islands or Scandinavia. The laws of
Frederick II had no authority there. In England, in 1400, the
death penalty for heresy was introduced by the statute _de
heretico comburendo_. In 1414 a mixed tribunal of ecclesiastics
and laymen was established to search out heretics and punish
them. It was employed to suppress Lollardry. Under Edward VI
these laws were repealed; under Mary they were renewed. In the
first Parliament of Elizabeth they were repealed again, except
the statute of 1400, which was repealed in 1676, when Charles II
wanted toleration for Roman Catholics. Then the ecclesiastical
courts were restricted to ecclesiastical penalties.[603] Torture
was never legal in England. The use of it was pushed to the
greatest extreme when Clement V and Philip the Fair were seeking
evidence against the templars. Then the pope wrote a fatherly
letter of expostulation to Edward of England, because of the lack
of this engine in his dominions.[604] Cases of torture no doubt
occurred. The star chamber had an inquisitorial process in which
the rack seems to have been used. Barbaro, a Venetian ambassador
in the sixteenth century, reported the non-use of torture as an
interesting fact in English mores. He says the English think that
it often forces untrue confession, that it "spoils the body and
an innocent life; thinking, moreover, that it is better to
release a criminal than to punish an innocent man."[605] From the
thirteenth century it was forbidden to keep a prisoner in chains.
In other countries this was the rule, and ingenuity was expended
to fasten the prisoner in a most uncomfortable position.[606] The
last case of the rack in the star chamber was that of Peacham, in
1614.[607] The last execution for heresy in the British Islands
was that of a medical student at Edinburgh, eighteen years of
age, named Aikenhead, in 1696.[608] The greatest cruelty in
England was "pressing" prisoners to compel them to plead because,
if they did not plead, the trial could not go on.
It follows that the repressive system of the mediæval church did
not produce effects on the mores in England.
+266. The Spanish Inquisition.+ The Spanish Inquisition is an
offshoot and development of that of the mediæval church. The
latter was started in Aragon and Navarre in 1238.[609] In the
latter half of the fourteenth century Eymerich (author of the
_Directorium Inquisitorum_) conducted an inquisition in Aragon
against Jews and Moors. In Castile, in 1400, an inquisition was
in activity.[610] None of these efforts produced a permanent
establishment. In the reign of Isabella, Cardinal Mendoza
organized the Inquisition as a state institution to establish the
throne.[611] The king named the inquisitors, who need not be
ecclesiastics. The confiscated property of "heretics" fell to the
state. Ecclesiastics were subject to the tribunal. The church
long withheld approval from this inquisition, because it was
political in origin and purpose, and was created outside the
church organization and without church authorization. The
populace also opposed it. This union of church and populace
forced the grandees to support it.[612] The punishments "implied
confiscation of property. Thus whole families were orphaned and
consigned to penury. Penitence in public carried with it social
infamy, loss of civil rights and honors, intolerable conditions
of ecclesiastical surveillance, and heavy pecuniary fines.
Penitents who had been reconciled returned to society in a far
more degraded condition than convicts released on ticket of
leave. The stigma attached in perpetuity to the posterity of the
condemned, whose names were conspicuously emblazoned upon church
walls as foemen to Christ and to the state."[613] When "the
Spanish viceroys tried to introduce the Spanish Inquisition at
Naples and Milan, the rebellious people received protection and
support from the papacy, and the Holy Office, as remodeled in
Rome, became a far less awful engine of oppression than that of
Seville."[614] The Spanish Inquisition went on to a new form,
free from papal and royal control and possessing a "specific
organization."[615] "Like the ancient councils of the time of the
Goths, the Inquisition is an arm which serves, in the hands of
the monarch, to finish the subjugation of the numerous
semi-feudal nobles created by the conquest, because before the
faith there are no privileged persons, and no one is sheltered
from the ire of the terrible tribunal. Its intervention is so
absolute, and its dedication to its function so extravagant,
that, rendering itself more Catholic than the pope, it usurps his
authority and revolts against the orders of the pontiff, giving
to the peninsular church the character of a national church, with
the king at the head as pontiff, and the inquisitor by his side
as chief prelate."[616] The peculiar character of the Spanish
Inquisition as a state institution and a civil engine should
never be forgotten. It was very different from the papal
Inquisition. The creature also ruled its creator, for it
controlled the state in the direction of its own institutional
character and purposes. The Spanish Inquisition, therefore,
offers us the extreme development of the movement which started
in the popular tastes, ideas, and wishes of the twelfth century,
when it was employed for the selfish purposes of rulers. It
presents the extreme case of a positive institution, born from
the mores and winning independent power and authority over all
interests. It very deeply affected Spanish mores. It had no great
effect of societal selection.
+267. Inquisition in Venice.+ The Inquisition in Venice took on a
form which was to some extent peculiar. The Venetian political
system was secret, suspicious, and despotic. It would not admit
any interference from outside. Venice always pretended to hold
off church authority. In fact, however, she could not maintain
this attitude. The Inquisition won control of many subjects
beyond heresy or only constructively heresy.[617] Fra Paolo
Sarpi[618] made a collection of Venetian laws which show the
jealousy of ecclesiastical interference, or which nullified the
ordinances made in Rome. "The position of the republic was
indefensible under the public law of the period. It was so
administering its own laws as to afford an asylum to a class
universally proscribed, and refusing to allow the church to apply
the only remedy deemed appropriate to this crying evil. It
therefore yielded to the inevitable, but in a manner to preserve
its own autonomy and independence."[619] "The truth is that, in
regard both to the Holy Office and the index, Venice was never
strong enough to maintain the independence which she voted."[620]
In 1573 Paolo Veronese was summoned by the Holy Office to explain
and justify his picture of the Supper, now in the Louvre. He had
put in a man at arms, a greyhound, and other figures which the
inquisitors thought irrelevant and unfit. He was ordered to
change the picture within three months. He put Magdalen in the
place of the greyhound.[621] It is impossible to make a definite
statement of the results of the Venetian effort to resist the
church system, but that such an effort was made in Italy is an
important historical fact.
+268. Use of the Inquisition for political and personal
purposes.+ In spite of the religiosity of the age there were
princes and factions which cared more for political power than
for theological questions. When the power of the Inquisition was
established many ecclesiastical and civil persons desired to
employ its agency for their personal or party ends. Boniface
VIII, in the bull _Unam Sanctam_, laid down in full force the
doctrine of papal supremacy and independence. Any one who
resisted the power lodged by God in the church resisted God,
unless, like the Manichæans, he believed in two principles, in
which case he was a heretic. If the pope errs, he can be judged
by God alone. There is no earthly appeal. "We say, declare,
define, and pronounce, that it is necessary to salvation that
every human creature be subjected to the Roman pontiff." "It was
soon perceived that an accusation of heresy was a peculiarly easy
and efficient method of attacking a political enemy."[622] John
XXII, in his quarrel with Visconti, trumped up charges of heresy
which won public opinion away from Visconti, disassociated his
friends, and ruined him. Heresy and damnation were used to and
fro, as interest dictated, and only for policy.[623] This is the
extreme development of the action against dissenters in its third
stage, the abuse of power for selfish purposes. "Heretic" became
an epithet of immense power in factional quarrels, and the
Inquisition was a weapon which any one could use who could seize
it. Hence effects on the mores were produced in an age when
factions were numerous and their quarrels constant. In these
cases, however, the selectional effect was only against the
personal enemies of the powerful, and was not a societal effect
at all.
+269.+ We have distinguished four stages in the story of the attempt to
establish religious uniformity under papal control in the Middle Ages.
I. The church taught doctrines and alleged facts about the wickedness of
aberrant opinions. II. The masses, accepting these teachings, built
deductions upon them, and drew inferences as to the proper treatment of
dissenters. They put the inferences in effect by lynching acts. III. The
leaders of society accepted the leadership of these popular movements,
and the church went on to teach hatred of dissenters and extreme abuse
of them. It elevated persecution to a theory of social welfare by the
extermination of dissenters, reduced the views and notions of the masses
to dogmas, and led in selection by murder. IV. These ideas and practices
were then vulgarized by the masses again. Trial by torture, bloody
executions, and finally witchcraft persecutions were the results in the
next stage. Witchcraft persecutions were not selective. They are well
worth study as the greatest illustration of the degree of aberration
which the mores may undergo, but they lie aside from the present topic.
In savage life alleged witchcraft is punished with great torture and a
painful death,[624] but nothing of the kind is found in any of the
great religions except Latin Christianity.
[373] Burckhardt, _Kulturgesch. Griechenlands_, I, 211.
[374] JAI, XI, 44.
[375] Ratzel, _Völkerkunde_, II, 163.
[376] _Britisch Guiana_, II, 428.
[377] Grupp, _Kulturgesch. der Röm. Kaiserzeit_, I, 32.
[378] Scherr, _Kulturgesch._, 109.
[379] Rudeck, _Oeffentl. Sittlichkeit_, 45.
[380] _Deutsches Leben_, 285, 297, 332.
[381] Lippert, _Kulturgesch._, I, 370.
[382] _Bur. Ethnol._, V, 488.
[383] Cary and Tuck, _Chin Hills_, I, 173.
[384] JAI, XVI, 87; cf. Fritsch, _Eingeb. Süd-Afr._, 170.
[385] _Bijdragen tot T.L. en V.-kunde_, XXXV, 67.
[386] JAI, XIII, 280.
[387] _Austral. Assoc. Adv. Sci._, 1892, 622.
[388] Hagen, _Unter den Papuas_, 241.
[389] _Ibid._, 213.
[390] Woodford, _Naturalist among Headhunters_, 178.
[391] Paulitschke, _Ethnog. N.O. Afrikas_, I, 93.
[392] _Anthropology_, 243.
[393] JAI, XVII, 235.
[394] Büttner, _Das Hinterland van Walfischbai_, 235.
[395] _South Africa_, I, 298.
[396] Schweinfurth, _Heart of Afr._, I, 153.
[397] JASB, III, 370.
[398] Finsch, _Samoafahrten_, 90.
[399] Schwaner, _Borneo_, I, 221.
[400] Ratzel, _Völkerkunde_, II, 570.
[401] Pommerol, _Une Femme chez les Sahariennes_, 243.
[402] _Smithson. Rep._, 1895, 594.
[403] _Umschau_, IV, 789.
[404] Yriarte, _La Vie d'un Patricien de Venise_, 58.
[405] _Ibid._, 53.
[406] Du Camp, _Paris_, VI, 388.
[407] Galton, _Human Faculty_, 6, 8.
[408] _Century Magazine_, XLII, 89.
[409] _Deutsche Frauenwelt_, II, 65.
[410] Patrick in _Psych. Rev._, VIII, 113.
[411] _Orat._, XXXVI.
[412] Beloch, _Griech. Gesch._, II, 29.
[413] Boissier, _Relig. Rom._, I, 211.
[414] Dill, _Last Century of the Western Empire_.
[415] Gregorovius, _Lucret. Borgia_, 99.
[416] De Maulde la Clavière, _Les Femmes de la Renaissance_, 457.
[417] Erasmus, _De Civil. Morum Pueril._, I, i, 1.
[418] De Maulde, 470.
[419] _Austr. Ass. Adv. Sci._, 1892, 62; JAI, XIII, 280.
[420] Pischon, _Einfluss d. Islam_, 1.
[421] _Das Freie Wort_, II, 312.
[422] Holtzmann, _Indische Sagen_, I, 247.
[423] Burckhardt, _Griech. Kulturgeschichte_, I, 171; II, 365.
[424] Becker-Hermann, _Charikles_, III, 318.
[425] Burckhardt, II, 365.
[426] Uhlhand, _Dichtung und Sage_, 232.
[427] Weinhold, _Deutsche Frauen_, I, 162.
[428] Michael, _Gesch. d. Deutschen Volkes_, II, 209-214.
[429] Suetonius, _Tiberius_, 58.
[430] Manning, _Trans. of Xiphilin_, II, 83; _Xiphilin's
Epitome_, published in 1551.
[431] _Satires_, VIII, 146.
[432] _Nat. Quaest._, IV, 13; Ep., 78.
[433] _Hist. Nat._, XXXIII, 4.
[434] _N. Y. Times_, August 18, 1903. (Cf. sec. 483.)
[435] Achelis, _Die Ekstase_, 113.
[436] Regnard, _Sorcellerie_, 45.
[437] Lecky, _Eur. Morals_, I, 391.
[438] Gibbon, Chap. XXI.
[439] Lea, _Inquis._, II, 518
[440] Friedmann, _Wahnideen im Völkerleben_, 224.
[441] Kugler, _Kreuzzüge_, 7.
[442] Michael, _Gesch. d. Deutschen Volkes_, II, 80.
[443] Michael, _Gesch. d. Deutschen Volkes_, II, 255-258.
[444] Lea, _Inquis._, II, 381, 393.
[445] Lea, _Inquis._, I, 147.
[446] Lea, _Inquis._, I, 268.
[447] Lea, _Sacerd. Celib._, 377.
[448] _Nouv. Mem. de l'Acad. des Sciences, Lettres, et Beaux Arts
de Belgique_, XXIII, 30.
[449] Carmichael, _In Tuscany_, 224.
[450] See the _Fioretti de Francisco_.
[451] Michael, _Gesch. d. Deutschen Volkes_, II, 97.
[452] Goetz, in _Hist. Vierteljahrschrift_, VI, 19.
[453] Lea, _Inquis._, III, 172, 179.
[454] Lea, _Inquis._, III, 33.
[455] _Ibid._, 51, 59.
[456] Hauréau, _Bernard Delicieux_, 142.
[457] Lea, _Inquis._, III, 34.
[458] _Ibid._, 29.
[459] Symonds, _Renaissance_, I, 394.
[460] Renan, _Averroes_, 259 ff.
[461] Lecky, _Eur. Morals_, I, 414, 417.
[462] Hansen, _Zauberwahn_, etc., 227.
[463] _N. Y. Times_, January 9, 1898.
[464] Lea, _Inquis._, II, 373.
[465] Friedmann, _Wahnideen im Völkerleben_, 207.
[466] _Ibid._, 209.
[467] Gibbon, Chap. XXI.
[468] Lecky, _Eur. Morals_, I, 391.
[469] _Antiq._, XVIII, 1.
[470] Regnard, _Sorcellerie_, etc.
[471] Harnack, _Dogmengesch._ (3rd ed.), I, 319.
[472] Jastrow and Winter, _Gesch. d. Hohenstaufen_, II, 241.
[473] Scherr, _Deutsche Kultur und Sittengesch._, 183.
[474] Mayer, _Oesterreich_, I, 156.
[475] Pietschmann, _Phoenizier_, 223 note.
[476] Hopkins, _Religions of India_, 537.
[477] Monier-Williams, _Brahmanism and Hinduism_, 55.
[478] Wilkins, _Modern Hinduism_, 90.
[479] Rockhill, _Through Mongolia and Tibet_, 135.
[480] Lecky, _Eur. Morals_, II, 329.
[481] Lea, _Sacerd. Celibacy_, 81.
[482] _Ibid._
[483] _Sac. Celib._, 250, 252.
[484] _Canon Law_, can. XIII, dist. lvi.; Aquinas, _Sum._, II, 2,
qu. 186, art. 4, sec. 3.
[485] Lea, _Sac. Celib._, 187.
[486] _Ibid._, 213. This is a good example of the change in
notions of good arguments (sec. 194).
[487] _Ibid._, 244, 249.
[488] _Ibid._, 235.
[489] _Ibid._, 198.
[490] _Ibid._, 326; _Canon Law_, Gratian's Com. on can. I, dist.
xxvii.
[491] Lea, _Sac. Celib._, 271.
[492] _Ibid._, 356.
[493] _Ibid._, 350.
[494] _Ibid._, 355.
[495] _Ibid._, 416.
[496] _Ibid._, 209.
[497] _Ibid._, 356 ff.
[498] D'Ancona, _Orig. del teatro Ital._, II, 73.
[499] Deutsch, _Abelard_, 44, 106, 111.
[500] Hausrath, _Abelard_, 28, 32.
[501] Hall, _Elizabethan Age_, 103.
[502] Lea, _Sac. Celib._, 488.
[503] _Ibid._, 150.
[504] _Della Inquisizione di Venezia_, Opere IV, 51.
[505] Symonds, _Renaissance_, I, 372.
[506] Lenient, _La satire au M. A._, 41.
[507] Winckler, _Gesetze Hammurabis_, 19.
[508] _Ibid._, 26.
[509] Müller, _Hammurabi_, 131.
[510] Maspero, _Peuples de l'Orient_, III, 666.
[511] _Jewish Encyc._, VI, s.v. "Herod I."
[512] Suetonius, _Caligula_, 27.
[513] _Cod. Theod._, IX, 9.
[514] _Cod. Justin._, I, 9.
[515] _Cod. Theod._, VI, 2.
[516] In 1899 a German officer was condemned to death by a court
martial for killing a half-breed subordinate with great torture.
The emperor reduced the punishment to fifteen years'
imprisonment, and in May, 1902, granted the prisoner a full
pardon.--_Assoc. Press_, December 24, 1899; _N. Y. Times_, May
24, 1903.
[517] Lecky, _Morals_, I, 407.
[518] _Cod. Justin._, I, 5, sec. 4.
[519] _Iroquois Book of Rites_, 97.
[520] Elsberg, _Elizabeth Bathory_.
[521] 1 Cor. v. 1; 1 Tim. i. 20; Gal. i. 8.
[522] Maspero, _Peuples de l'Orient_, II, 539.
[523] Mahaffy, _Soc. Life in Greece_, 226.
[524] Nicias, _ad fin._
[525] Quint. Curt. Rufus, _Alexander_, VI, 11.
[526] _Hist. Eccles._, III.
[527] Gibbon, Chap. XVII; Hansen, _Zauberwahn_, etc., 108.
[528] Heyer, _Priesterschaft und Inquis._, 16-18; Lea,
_Inquis._, I, Chap. V.
[529] Hansen, _Zauberwahn, Inquisition, und Hexenprocess im M.
A._, 110, 113.
[530] Lea, _Inquis._, I, 421.
[531] _Ibid._, 308.
[532] Lecky, _Morals_, II, 190.
[533] Reich, _Der Mimus_, I, 90-96.
[534] Lecky, _Morals_, I, 437.
[535] _Ibid._, 408.
[536] _Ibid._, 436.
[537] _Ibid._, 455.
[538] _Ibid._, 466.
[539] _Ibid._, II, 238.
[540] _Ibid._
[541] Reich, _Der Mimus_, I, 192.
[542] Lea, _Inquis._, II, 493.
[543] _Ibid._, I, 306.
[544] _Ibid._, 421.
[545] Digest, XLVII, 18, espec. sec. 23.
[546] Digest, XLVII, 18, espec. sec. 23.
[547] Schotmüller, _Untergang der Templer_, 141, 311, 352.
[548] Flade, _Inquisitionsverfahren in Deutschland_, 84.
[549] Lea, _Inquis._, II, 87.
[550] Scherr, _Kulturgesch._, 383.
[551] Janssen, _Gesch. d. Deutschen Volkes_, VIII, 541.
[552] Hansen, _Zauberwahn_, 110.
[553] Mommsen, _Röm. Strafrecht_, 349.
[554] Hansen, _Zauberwahn_, etc., 100; Lea, _Inquis._,
I, 311.
[555] Lea, _Inquis._, I, 87.
[556] _Ibid._, III, 641.
[557] _Ibid._, I, 110, 371.
[558] _Ibid._, 541.
[559] _Ibid._, III, 454, 594.
[560] _Ibid._, II, 171.
[561] _Ibid._, III, 596.
[562] _Ibid._, I, 101.
[563] Lea, _Inquis._, I, 218.
[564] _Ibid._, iii.
[565] Lea, _Inquis._, I, 207.
[566] Michael, _Gesch. d. Deutschen Volkes_, II, 326.
[567] Renan, _Averroes_, 35.
[568] Lea, _Inquis._, I, 537.
[569] _Ibid._, 537.
[570] Lea, _Inquis._, I, 222.
[571] _Ibid._, 410.
[572] Hansen, _Zauberwahn_, etc., 223.
[573] Lea, _Inquis._, I, 220; Hansen, _Zauberwahn_,
etc., 223.
[574] Lea, _Inquis._, I, 234.
[575] Lea disputes this as to the educated clergy, while
admitting it as to the masses, which is the essential point here
(Lea, _Inquis._, I, 237).
[576] Burckhardt, _Renaissance_, 3.
[577] Jastrow and Winter, _Hohenstaufen_, II, 298.
[578] Renan, _Averroes_, 288.
[579] Lea, _Inquis._, I, 224, 309-313, 322, 327-330, 337-342.
[580] Lacroix, _Middle Ages_, I, 407; Flade,
_Inquisitionsverfahren_, 86.
[581] Lea, _Inquis._, I, 467.
[582] _Ibid._, 470.
[583] _Ibid._, 464, 467-470.
[584] Flade, _Inquisitionsverfahren_, 111.
[585] Lea, _Inquis._, I, 501.
[586] Lea, _Inquis._, I, 511-513, 519-521, 533.
[587] _Ibid._, 529.
[588] _Ibid._, 551.
[589] Lea, _Inquis._, I, 366.
[590] _Ibid._, 405.
[591] _Ibid._, 364-366, 405, 433, 493; II, 96.
[592] Renan, _Averroes_, 292.
[593] Lea, _Inquis._, I, 560.
[594] _Ibid._, 421.
[595] Cases given by Janssen, _Gesch. d. Deutschen Volkes_, VIII,
629.
[596] Janssen, VIII, 467.
[597] Scherr, _Kulturgesch. Deutschlands_, 624; Janssen, _Gesch.
d. Deutschen Volkes_, VIII, 467.
[598] Janssen, VIII, 467.
[599] Harnack, _Dogmengesch._, III, 453.
[600] Lenient, _La Satire en France_, 309, 315.
[601] Burchard, _Diarium_, II, 442.
[602] See Burchard, III, 167, 227.
[603] Lea, _Inquis._, I, 352.
[604] _Ibid._, III, 300; Schotmüller, _Untergang der Templer_, I,
388.
[605] _Venetian Ambass._, I, 11, 233.
[606] Lea, _Inquis._, I, 488.
[607] Inderwick, _The King's Peace_, 172.
[608] Lea, _Inquis._, I, 352.
[609] Hansen, _Zauberwahn_, etc., 338.
[610] _Ibid._, 338.
[611] Lea, _Inquis. in Spain_, 158.
[612] Heyer, _Priesterschaft und Inquis._, 42.
[613] Symonds, _Catholic Reaction_, I, 185.
[614] _Ibid._, 199.
[615] _Ibid._, 179.
[616] Oliveira Martins, _Civilisação Iberica_, 268.
[667] Symonds, _Catholic Reaction_, I, 205.
[618] Opere, IV, 7 ff.
[619] Lea, _Inquis._, II, 250.
[620] Symonds, _Catholic Reaction_, I, 207.
[621] Yriarte, _Patricien de Venise_, 162, 439.
[622] Lea, _Inquis._, III, 191-192, 238.
[623] _Ibid._, 198. Collected cases in Fra Paolo Sarpi, _Della
Inquis. de Venezia_, Opere, IV, 24.
[624] Fritsch, _Eingeb. Süd-Afr._, 99.
CHAPTER VI
SLAVERY
Origin and motives.--Slavery taught steady labor.--Servitude of
group to group.--Slavery and polygamy.--Some men serve
others.--Freedom and equality.--Figurative use of "slave."--
Ethnography of slavery.--Family slavery.--Slavery amongst North
American savages.--Slavery in South America.--Slavery in
Polynesia and Melanesia.--Slavery in the East Indies.--Slavery
in Asia.--Slavery in Japan.--Slavery in higher civilization.--
Slavery amongst Jews.--Slavery in the classical states.--
Slavery at Rome.--Slave revolts.--Later Roman slavery.--Slaves
in the civil wars; clientage.--Manumission. Natural liberty.--
Slavery as represented in the inscriptions.--Rise of freedom in
industry.--Freedmen in the state.--Philosophers opponents of
slavery.--The industrial colleges.--Laws changed in favor of
slaves.--Christianity and slavery.--The colonate.--
Depopulation.--Summary view of Roman slavery.--The
Therapeuts.--Slavery amongst the Germanic nations.--The sale of
children.--Slavery and the state.--Slavery in Europe. Italy in
the Middle Ages.--Slavery in France.--Slavery in Islam.--
Review of slavery in Islam.--Slavery in England.--Slavery in
America.--Colonial slavery.--Slavery preferred by slaves.--The
future of slavery.--Relation of slavery to the mores and to
ethics.
+270. Origin and motives.+ Slavery is a thing in the mores which
is not well covered by our definition. Slavery does not arise in
the folkways from the unconscious experimentation of individuals
who have the same need which they desire to satisfy, and who try
in separate acts to do it as well as they can. It is rather due
to ill feeling towards members of an out-group, to desire to get
something for nothing, to the love of dominion which belongs to
vanity, and to hatred of labor. "The simple wish to use the
bodily powers of another person, as a means of ministering to
one's own ease or pleasure, is doubtless the foundation of
slavery, and as old as human nature."[625] "There is an
extraordinary power of tyranny invested in the chiefs of tribes
and nations of men that so vastly outweighs the analogous power
possessed by the leaders of animal herds as to rank as a special
attribute of human society, eminently conducive to
slavishness."[626] The desire to get ease or other good by the
labor of another, and the incidental gratification to vanity,
seem to be the fundamental principles in slavery, when
philosophically regarded, after the rule of one man over others
has become established. The whole group, however, must approve of
the custom and must enforce it; otherwise it cannot exist. It
appears that slavery began historically with the war captive, if
he or she was not put to death, as he was liable to be by the
laws of war. Those laws put the defeated, with his wife,
children, and property, at the mercy of the victors. The defeated
might be tortured to death, as was done amongst the North
American Indians, or they might be saved from death by the women.
Then they were put to help the women and were rated as women.
Slavery, therefore, in its origin, was a humanitarian improvement
in the laws of war, and an alleviation of the status of women. It
seems to be established that it began where the economic system
was such that there was a gain in making a slave of a war captive
instead of killing him. It follows that slavery, wherever it has
existed, has affected all the mores of the society. It promised
great results gratis. It will appear below that it has been a
terrible afrit, a demon which promised service but which became a
master. When adopted into the folkways it has dominated and given
tone and color to them all. That is the reason for giving it a
place here.
+271. Slavery taught steady labor.+ It seems to be also right to
understand that slavery proved to be a great schoolmaster to
teach men steady work. If that view is correct, we must
understand that no men would do any hard, persistent work if they
could help it. The defeated were forced to it, and learned to
submit to it. Then they helped the whole society up to a higher
status, in which they also shared.[627] Von Götzen gives some
proof of this when he states that he and his troop of carriers
sat by the camp fire evenings and that one after another told his
life. "Nearly all had been, as children, brought from the inner
country to the coast by slave dealers. Now they were proud of
this slavery, proud of belonging to the 'cultivated' and of not
being any longer 'wild' men."[628] In that view slavery is a part
of the discipline by which the human race has learned how to
carry on the industrial organization. There are some tasks which
have been very hard and very disagreeable. Comrades in an
in-group have never forced these on each other. It seemed to be
good fun, as well as wise policy, to make members of a rival
out-group do these tasks, after defeating them in war. For women
the grinding of seeds (grain) always was a heavy burden until
modern machinery brought natural powers to do it. For men the
rowing of boats (galleys) has been a very hard kind of work.[629]
After slavery came to exist it was extended to other cases, even
to some classes of cases in the in-group. Of these cases the
first was that of debt. Amongst the Eveans a debtor who cannot
pay is put to death. This, however, is a very exceptional
rule.[630] The course of thought is, that a debtor has used
another man's product and is bound to replace it. He therefore
falls into servitude to his creditor in fact, whether it is so
expressed or not. He must live on and work for the creditor.
Another case in which slavery was introduced was that of crime.
The criminal fell under obligations of restitution of value to an
individual or to the whole (chief). Other cases of extension of
slavery will appear below. We have many cases of groups exploited
by other groups. The former are then inferior and despised groups
who are tyrannized over by others who have beaten them in war or
easily could do so.
+272. Servitude of group to group.+ Agriculture is a peaceful
occupation, the pursuit of which breeds out the physical strength
of nomadism. The cases in which nomads rule over tillers belong,
in general, under this head, more especially because such a
difference in the economy of life produces mutual contempt and
hatred. The Israelites entered Canaan as nomads, and their
relation to the Canaanites was that which is here described.
Another case is presented by the smiths, who generally appear as
the earliest handicraftsmen, but are regarded with doubt and
suspicion. They are not slaves, but they are treated as outcasts.
Very often, in case of conquest by an invading tribe, the smiths
remain under the invaders as a subject and despised caste. The
Masarva are descendants of Betchuanas and Bushmen. They stand in
a relation of slaves to the Betchuanas, Matabele, and Marutse, in
whose land they dwell, except that they may not be sold.[631] The
Vaganda are subject to the Vahuma.[632] The latter keep out of
sight, being inferior in civilization but greater in power. Von
Götzen also met with the Vahuma as rulers over the Vahuta, i.e.
"belongers," as they called them.[633] The Arabs hold the negroes
of Borku in subjection and rob them of the date harvest.[634] In
other parts of the same district a nomad section rules over a
settled section of the same population.[635] Nomads hold
themselves to be the proper ones to rule.[636] The Hyksos's
invasion of Egypt is a case of the subjection of tillers by
nomads, attended by all the contempt of men on one grade of
civilized effort for those on another.[637] The combination of
the two, the nomads forming the ruling caste of military nobles,
forms a strong state.[638] The Tuaregs of the Sahara do not allow
the inhabitants of Kauar to raise vegetables or grains, but force
them to buy the same of them (the Tuaregs), which they bring to
them from the Sudan to buy salt, which the Kauar dwellers must
have ready.[639] The Akarnanians, in 1350, sold themselves to the
barbarians, in a body, in order to escape want.[640] The Masai
are another group of warriors and raiders. The Varombutta do
their hunting and tilling for them.[641] The Makololo hold the
Makalaka in similar serfdom, but the subjection is easy and the
servitude light, because the subject individuals can easily run
away.[642] The Hupa of California hold their neighbors in similar
subjection and in tributary servitude.[643] Other cases are
furnished by the Vanyambo, west of the Victoria Nyassa,[644] and
the Djur, who long served the Nubians as smiths.[645] It gives us
pleasure to learn that, about sixty years ago, the inferior
tribes on Uvea (Tai), of the Loyalty group, revolted against the
dominant tribe and nearly exterminated it.[646]
+273. Slavery and polygamy.+ Such instances show us the existence
in human nature of a tendency of stronger groups to exploit
weaker ones in the struggle for existence; in other words,
slavery or forced labor is one way in which, in elementary
civilization, the survival of the fittest group is brought about.
The slavery of individuals has not the same definite result on
the competition of life. "We find polygamy and slavery
continually at work dissolving the cohesion of old political
institutions in the old civilized races of Asia and Africa. In an
uncivilized society, like that of Zululand, they prevent such
cohesion ever taking place. They help to keep the Kaffir tribes
in perpetual unrest and barbarism, by destroying the germs of
civilization and preventing its growth."[647] That the two have
this effect in common may very probably be true, but in many
respects they are antagonistic to each other. Slavery meets the
necessity for many laborers which may otherwise be a cause for
polygamy. Wherever slavery exists it affords striking
illustrations of the tendency of the mores towards consistency
with each other, and that means, of course, their tendency to
cluster around some one or two leading ones. Africa now furnishes
the leading proofs of this. The negro society is one in which
physical force is the chief deciding element. The negroes have
enslaved each other for thousands of years. Very few of them have
ever become slaves to whites without having been previously
slaves to other negroes. In 1875 it was reckoned that twenty
thousand persons, chiefly women and children whose male relatives
had generally been killed, were taken into slavery from around
Lake Nyassa. The difficulties and expense of the slave trade in
that region became so great that it could not be carried on
except by alliance with one tribe which defeated and enslaved
another and sold the survivors. The Arabs opened paths for ivory
hunting. The slave dealers used these means of communication.
They established garrisons in order to exploit the territory, and
ended by depopulating it.[648] Junker argues earnestly against
the impression which has been established in Europe that Arabs
are chiefly to blame for slavery. "There are places in Africa
where three men cannot be sent on a journey together for fear
two of them may combine and sell the third."[649]
+274. Some men serving others. Freedom and equality. Figurative
use of "slavery."+ Must we infer, then, that there is a social
necessity that some men must serve others? In the New Testament
it is taught that willing and voluntary service of others is the
highest duty and glory of human life. If one man's strength is
spent on another man's struggle for existence, the survival of
the former in the competition of life is impaired. The men of
talent are constantly forced to serve the rest. They make the
discoveries and inventions, order the battles, write the books,
and produce the works of art. The benefit and enjoyment go to the
whole. There are those who joyfully order their own lives so that
they may serve the welfare of mankind. The whole problem of
mutual service is the great problem of societal organization. Is
it a dream, then, that all men should ever be free and equal? It
is at least evident that here ethical notions have been
interjected into social relations, with the result that we have
been taught to think of free and equal units willingly serving
each other. That, at least, is an idealistic dream. Yet it no
more follows from the fact that slavery has done good work in the
history of civilization that slavery should forever endure than
it follows from the fact that war has done good work in the
history of civilization that war is, in itself, a good thing.
Slavery alleviated the status of women; the domestication of
beasts of draft and burden alleviated the status of slaves; we
shall see below that serfs got freedom when wind, falling water,
and steam were loaded with the heavy tasks. Just now the heavy
burdens are borne by steam; electricity is just coming into use
to help bear them. Steam and electricity at last mean coal, and
the amount of coal in the globe is an arithmetical fact. When the
coal is used up will slavery once more begin? One thing only can
be affirmed with confidence; that is, that as no philosophical
dogmas caused slavery to be abolished, so no philosophical dogmas
can prevent its reintroduction if economic changes should make
it fit and suitable again. As steam has had put upon it the hard
work of life during the last two hundred years, the men have been
emancipated from ancient hard conditions and burdens, and the
generalities of the philosophers about liberty have easily won
greater and greater faith and currency. However, the mass of
mankind, taught to believe that they ought to have easy and
pleasant times here, begin to complain again about "wages
slavery," "debt slavery," "rent slavery," "sin slavery," "war
slavery," "marriage slavery," etc. What men do not like they call
"slavery," and so prove that it ought not to be. It appears to be
still in their experience that a free man is oppressed by
contracts of wages, debt, rent, and marriage, and that the cost
of making ready for war and of warding off sin are very heavy.
Political institutions readjust and redistribute the burdens of
life over a population, and they change the form of the same
perhaps, but the burdens are in the conditions of human life.
They are always present, and political institutions never can do
away with them at all. Therefore slavery, if we mean by it
subjection to the conditions of human life, never can be
abolished.
+275. Ethnographical illustrations of slavery.+ In Togo male
slaves work in the fields where yams are cultivated. Each carries
a basket in which he has a chicken, which will live on worms and
insects in the field. The slave is soon married. He has two days
in the week to work for himself. One of his grown boys can
replace him on the other four. He can buy a slave to replace him.
Thus they often attain to wealth, freedom, and power. A female
slave, if married to a free man, becomes free. This form of
slavery is only a mode of service. The slave lives with the
family, and enjoys domestic consideration. There is also debt
slavery, the whole family being responsible for the debt of a
member.[650] Klose, however, describes the ruin wrought by slave
raids. "Murder and incendiarism are the orders in this business.
Great villages and districts are made deserts and are depopulated
by the raids." "It is not in negro nature to subject one's self
voluntarily to labor. The negro wants to be compelled to work."
The fetich priest gives him a harmless drink, which is to be
fatal to him if he tries to run away.[651] The Ngumba in south
Kamerun hold their slaves in huts near their own houses. A
mishandled slave can leave his master and demand the protection
of another. A debtor who cannot pay becomes slave of his creditor
until the debt is paid in value, but this does not free him. He
can pay also by his wife or daughter.[652] Amongst the
Ewe-speaking tribes a woman who is condemned to a fine may sell
or pawn her children, if her husband will not give her the amount
to be paid. The husbands often hold back until the women pawn the
children to them, whereby they obtain complete control of the
children.[653] Their slaves are criminals and debtors, or, if
foreigners, are victims of war or of kidnapping. They are not
regarded with contempt, are well treated, do not have as hard a
lot as an English agricultural laborer, and often attain to
wealth and honor. The master-owner may not kill a slave.[654] In
Bornu the women slaves find favor in the eyes of their masters,
and by amiability win affection. If they have children they win a
firm position, "for only the most stringent circumstances could
compel a Moslem, whose ideas are reasonably correct, to sell the
mother of his children."[655] The Somal and Afar do not deal much
in slaves. They use women and a pariah class. A Somal is never
slave to a Somal, and war captives are not made slaves. Also
amongst the Galla it appears that debtor slavery does not exist.
Criminal slavery does, however, exist, and is used by the chiefs.
It is honorable to treat slaves well. In Kaffa the slaves are
lazy and pretentious, because they know that their owners do not
look to them for labor, but speculate on their children, whom
they will sell.[656] In general, in East Africa, the master-owner
has not the power of life and death, and the slave has a right of
property. "A headman (of a village) in debt sells first his
slaves, then his sisters, then his mother, and lastly his free
wives, after which he has nothing left."[657] Stuhlmann[658] says
that slaves in Uganda are well treated, as members of the family.
Brunache[659] says the same of the Congo tribes so far as they
have not been contaminated by contact with whites. This may be
regarded as characteristic of African slavery. The Vanika of
eastern Africa are herding nomads. They cannot use slaves, and
make war only to steal cattle.[660] Bushmen love liberty. They
submit to no slavery. They are hunters of a low grade. They hate
cattle, as the basis of a life which is different from (higher
than) their own. They massacre cattle which they cannot steal or
carry away.[661] Mungo Park described free negroes reduced to
slavery by famine.[662] In Ashanti a man and a woman discovered
in the act in the bush, or in the open air, are slaves of him who
discovered them, but they are redeemable by their families.[663]
Ashanti slavery is domestic and very mild. The slave marries his
master's daughter and plays with the master. He also eats from
the same dish.[664] Slavery of this form is never cruel or
harsh. Debt slavery is harder, for the services of the pawn count
for nothing on the debt.[665] The effect of the abolition of
slavery in Algeria was stupor amongst master-owners and grief
amongst slaves. The former wondered how it could be wrong to care
for persons who would have been eaten by their fellow-countrymen
if they had succumbed to the hard struggle for existence at home.
The latter saw themselves free--really free--in the desert, with
no supply of food, clothing, or other supplies, and no human
ties.[666] In all families of well-to-do people little negroes
are found. The author saw one who told her that the lady of the
house had suckled him.[667] It is reported from eastern Borneo
that a white man could hire no natives for wages. They thought it
degrading to work for wages, but if he would buy them they would
work for him.[668] In spite of what has been said above about
slavery on the west coast of Africa it is to be remembered that
the master-owner has the power of life and death and that he
often uses it. If he is condemned to death for a crime, he can
give a slave to be executed in his place.[669] In eastern Angola,
if a woman dies in childbirth, her husband has to pay her
parents. If he cannot, he becomes their slave.[670] In South
Africa Holub found that the fiercest slave chasers were blacks,
who had slaves at home and treated them worse than Mohammedans
ever did.[671] Formerly a Kaffir would work in the diamond mines
for three marks a day until he got money enough to buy cattle and
to buy a woman at home, a European suit, a kettle, and a rifle.
Then he went home and set up an establishment. Then he would
return to earn more and buy more wives, who would support him to
his life's end.[672] The stronger Hottentot tribes hold classes
of their own population, or mountain Damara and Bushmen, in
servitude, although no law defines a "slave." Those people hold
the treatment they receive to be due to their origin. Amongst all
South African tribes the rich exert their power to subjugate the
poor, who hang upon them in a kind of clientage, hoping to
receive something. Cruelty and even murder are not punished by
the judges.[673]
+276. Family slavery.+ The savage form of slavery in Africa furnishes us
one generalization which may be adopted with confidence. Whenever slaves
live in a family, sharing in the family life and associating freely
with the male members of it in work, religion, play, etc., the slavery
is of a very light type and implies no hardship for the slave.
+277. Slavery in North America among savages.+ Slavery is
believed to have existed amongst the Indians of Virginia. "They
made war, not for land or goods, but for women and children, whom
they put not to death, but made them do service."[674] The young
men and slaves worked in the fields of the Mississippi valley.
The latter were not overworked.[675] The Algonquins made slaves
of their prisoners, especially of the women and children.[676]
The Illinois are represented as an intermediate party who got
slaves in the South and sold them in the West.[677] The Wisconsin
tribes used to make captives of Pawnees, Osages, Missouris, and
Mandans. When Pawnees were such captives (slaves) they were
treated with severity.[678] In the Gulf region of North America
slavery was common from the earliest times. That slaves might not
escape, a sinew in the leg was cut, by the Six Nations.[679] On
the northwestern coast of North America slavery was far more
developed than east of the Rocky Mountains. In Oregon and
Washington slavery was interwoven with the social polity. Slaves
were also harshly treated, as property, not within the limits of
humanity. For a man to kill a half dozen of his own slaves was a
sign of generous magnanimity on his part. One tribe stole
captives from its weaker neighbors. Hence the slave trade is an
important part of the commerce of all the tribes up to
Alaska.[680] In 1841 it was reckoned that one third of the entire
population from northern British Columbia to southern Alaska were
"slaves of the most helpless and abject description." "The great
supply was obtained by trade with the southern Indians, in which
the Tsimshian acted as middlemen. They were kidnapped or captured
by the southern Indians from their own adjacent tribes and sold
to the Tsimshian, who traded them to the northern Thlinkit and
interior Tinné tribes for furs." "Slaves did all the drudgery,
fished for their owner, strengthened his force in war, were not
allowed to hold property or to marry, and when old and worthless
were killed. The master's power was unlimited." The slave must
commit any crime at the command of the master. The slaves were
set free at some ceremonies, but they were put to death at the
funerals of chiefs, or as foundation sacrifices, or in reparation
for insults or wrongs. The northern Indians were more warlike and
would not make good slaves. The Oregon flatheads were docile and
industrious.[681] The Chinooks became the wealthiest tribe in the
region by acting as middlemen to sell war captives taken inland
as far from home as possible.[682] Amongst the Thlinkits slaves
are forbidden to wear the labret, and sex intercourse with a
slave woman disgraces a free man.[683] "Amongst the early Central
Americans the slave who achieved any feat of valor in war
received his liberty and was adopted by the Capulli, or
clan."[684] In Mexico there were slaves of three
classes,--criminals, war captives, and persons who had
voluntarily sold themselves or had been sold by their parents.
The captor generally sacrificed a prisoner, but might hold him as
a slave. Those who sold themselves did so to get a fund for
gambling. There was a public slave mart at Azcapuzalco. The
system is described as kind, but slaves might lose their lives
through the act of the master at feasts or funerals.[685] "Actual
slavery of the Indians in Mexico continued as late as the middle
of the seventeenth century."[686] It is evident that slavery
existed all over North and Central America, but was more
developed on the Pacific coast than in the Mississippi valley.
The meat eaters of the buffalo region had less opportunity to use
the institution.[687]
+278. Slavery in South America.+ In South America we also meet
with at least one case of a tribe, or part of a tribe, which is
in clientage to another tribe. This is a subdivision of the third
rank of the Mbaya, who voluntarily entered into a relation of
clientage to the Mbaya, giving them service under arms, and in
house and field, without being their slaves, being protected in
return by the powerful and feared tribe.[688] The Guykurus carry
on frequent wars to get captives, whom they keep in stringent
servitude. "There is, perhaps, no tribe of South American
Indians, among whom the state of slavery is so distinctly marked
as among them." Slaves and free do not intermarry, lest marriage
be profaned. There is no way in which a slave may become
free.[689] The Guykurus are the strongest tribe in the valley of
the Paraguay. They have horses and were called by the Portuguese
Cavalleiros.[690] In Brazil it was thought that the cultivation
of the country was impossible unless the Indians were made
slaves. The early laws and orders of the kings of Portugal seem
to reveal a sincere desire to control greed and cruelty. In 1570
private slave raids were forbidden and slavery was confined to
those captured in public and just war. Lisbon, however, became a
great slave mart by the law that slaves passing from one colony
(Africa) to another (America) must pass through Lisbon and pay a
tax there. Peter Martyr is quoted that slavery was necessary for
Indians who, if they had no master, would go on with their old
customs and idolatry. Slavery killed them, however. It did not
make them laborers.[691] In general, in the valley of the Yapura,
in the first half of the nineteenth century, slaves were war
captives who were very unkindly treated.[692] The aborigines
began to sell their war captives to Europeans soon after the
latter arrived. They wanted rosewood especially, and they took
Indians to Africa as slaves.[693] Boggiani[694] expresses the
opinion in regard to the savages of the Chaco, as the meadow
region on the Paraguay river is called, that slavery amongst a
people of more civilized mores, is, for them, "an incalculable
benefit," and that "to hinder slavery, in such circumstances,
would be a capital error." "It is necessary to force them to come
out of their brutelike condition, and to awaken their
intelligence, which is not wanting, if they receive practical and
energetic direction." Bridges[695] says that one Fuegian is
thrown into clientage to another by their mode of life. "For a
young man, with no wife and few relatives, must live with some
one who can protect him, and with whom he can live in comfort,
whose wife or wives can catch fish for him, etc."
+279. Slavery in Polynesia and Melanesia.+ Polynesia, Melanesia,
and the East Indies, especially the last, present us pictures of
a society which is old and whose mores have been worn threadbare,
while their stage of civilization is still very low.
Codrington[696] says: "There is no such thing as slavery,
properly so called. In head-hunting expeditions prisoners are
made for the sake of their heads, to be used when occasion
requires, and such persons live with their captors in a condition
very different from that of freedom, but they are not taken or
maintained for the purposes of slaves." Ratzel[697] says:
"Slavery prevailed everywhere in Melanesia, originating either in
war or debt. Sometimes it was hard; sometimes not." Somerville
says that "slaves are kept chiefly for their heads, which are
demanded whenever any occasion necessitates them, such as the
death of the owner." He is speaking of the Solomon Islands.[698]
What Finsch says of the Melanesians may be extended to all the
inhabitants of the South Sea islands.[699] They will not work
because they do not need to. They have few wants. Pfeil wants to
make the people of German Melanesia work, in order that they may
contribute to the tasks of the human race. The problem presents
one of the great reasons for slavery in history.
+280. Slavery in the East Indies.+ The chief of Chittagong[700]
wrote to the English governor, in 1774, that slavery in his
district was due to the sale of himself by any person who was
destitute, and had no friends or position. He and his wife must
serve the master and his wife in any desired way, including
services which a free servant would not perform, "through fear of
demeaning himself and disgracing his family." Abolition of this
slavery would produce complaints by the masters, and would not
please the servants who are used to it. "Until lately the
universal custom prevailed in the hills of having debtor slaves."
The debtor gave one of his children or a female relative to serve
as a menial until the debt should be paid. The pawned persons
"were treated as members of the creditor's family and never
exposed to harsh usage." The effect of interference by the
English was that the wives and daughters of the great men
suddenly had to do all the housework. "Debtor and creditor lost
confidence in each other."[701] "There is a detestable and actual
slavery in these hills, which is now only carried on by
independent tribes, beyond English jurisdiction. This is the
captivity to the bow and spear,--men and women taken prisoners by
force in war, and sold from master to master. The origin of this
custom was the want of women."[702] In the Chin hills there are
slaves who are war captives, or criminals, or debtors, and others
who are voluntary slaves, or slaves by birth. The master had full
power of life and death, but, in fact, slaves were well treated.
The people made raids on the Burmese lowlands and seized captives
who were held for ransom. A slave man cohabits with a slave woman
and brings up his children with affection "in the same humble,
but not necessarily unhappy, position as his own."[703] In Ceylon
there were slave persons of all ranks. Those of royal rank were
princes who were prisoners or criminals. Any one might obtain
slaves by purchase, or accept voluntary slaves who looked to him
for good support.[704] A Malay will buy of a chief a number of
war captives whom he takes to an island. Then he goes to a
Chinaman and tells him that the slaves want to work on that
island, but still owe the speaker the cost of transportation. The
Chinaman pays this and gives to the slaves, on credit, clothes,
etc., including money with which to gamble. Wages are low and
interest high. They never can pay their debts and get their
freedom again. This kind of slave trade has depopulated northern
Nias.[705] On Sumatra, when a debtor is called upon to pay and
cannot, or when he dies and does not leave enough property to pay
his debts, his children fall into semi-slavery. They can perhaps
persuade some one to pay their debts and accept their services.
If their master formally three times demands payment of them
which they cannot give, they fall into full slavery. Slavery
exists in the Malay seaport towns, but not in the rural
districts, where life is too simple.[706] In times of famine and
want parents sell their children into slavery for a little rice.
Children, especially daughters, constitute a large part of the
fortune of a house father.[707]
At Koetei, on the Mahakkam in Borneo, all well-to-do people have
debtors in pawn, whose position is somewhat better than that of
slaves. The debtors seem content and submissive. Captives taken
on head-hunting expeditions are held as slaves until human
sacrifices are wanted.[708] The souls of all those who are put to
death at the death of a Dyak rajah become his servants in the
other world. In this world the killer can command, as his fetich,
the soul of the killed. On the death of a great man his debtor
slaves are bound to the carved village post, which indicates the
glory of head-hunting, and are tortured to death.[709] "Slavery
is greatly practiced" on Timorlaut. A thief, debtor, slanderer,
or defamer may become the slave of the one he has wronged. The
slave trade is also active between the islands.[710] The slaves
of the sea Dyaks adopt their customs and become contented.
Sometimes they win affection and are adopted, freed, and married
to free women. Slaves and masters eat together the same food in
the rural villages.[711] Among the land Dyaks slaves, by
destitution and debt, "are just as happy as if perfectly free,
enjoying all the liberty of their masters, who never think of
ill-using them."[712] In old times one who set a house on fire
was liable to become the slave of any one who was burned
out.[713] Slaves on Timor do not seem to care for liberty. Their
livelihood would not be so certain. There is a kind of slavery to
the kingdom, not to any individual, but the slave cannot be sold
by the king.[714] In the Barito valley a debtor slave has to do
any kind of work. He may be punished by blows, or fines added to
his debt, which may also be increased by any breaches of customs,
or by the value of broken tools or vessels. A month after a child
is born to him ten gulden are added, also expenses of education
when the child is ready to go to work. He may be slain at a feast
of the dead by his master. The owner can torment the debtor by
new fines, and keep up the debt or even increase it.[715] In the
Katingan valley there are no debtor slaves, because after three
years a debtor who cannot pay becomes an hereditary slave, and
cannot get his liberty even if he should get the means to pay his
debt.[716] If he ever gets the means to pay and attempts to free
himself he is compelled to pay fees, taxes, and customary dues to
the "spirits of the house," etc. When he leaves his master's
house he must not return to it for a year or two, nor eat
anything brought from it--"to prove his independence." Then he
gives a feast and becomes free.[717] "Slavery and pawnship are,
in the nature of the case, the same."[718] The Dyaks put their
Eden on a cloud island. They have a myth that the daughters of
the great Being let down seven times seven hundred cords of gold
thread in order to lower mortals upon a mountain, but the mortals
were overhasty and tried to lower themselves by bamboos and
rattans. The god, angry at this, condemned them to slavery. The
myth, therefore, accounts for a caste of slaves. Formerly also
war captives and criminals who could not pay fines became slaves.
Debts cause men to fall into pawnship. Extravagant living, and
gambling, lead to this condition. If a man becomes pawn for a
debt his whole household goes with him. All have to work very
hard to try to satisfy a greedy master. The pawn is entitled to
one tenth of the harvest, or of the gain by trade. Free men
despise pawns.[719] Wilken[720] says of the Bataks that a slave,
by diligence and thrift, can always buy himself. In addition to
all the ill chances of gambling, extravagance, making love to
another man's wife, etc., by which a man may become a debtor
slave, customs exist which are traps for the unwary. Sago and
rice are left in the woods, in some islands, until wanted. If a
man passes the store, he is supposed to take away the spirit of
the goods. If caught, he and all his family become slaves. If a
man dies who was wont to fish at a certain place, the place
becomes taboo to his ghost. Any one who fishes there becomes a
slave to his family. Also, if a district is in mourning, any one
who breaks the mourning customs is made a slave.[721] The
education of the Chinese in ethical doctrines has made slavery
amongst them slight and mild. It is attributed to poverty, which
forces parents to sell their daughters.[722] The owners must
provide female slaves with husbands, and the law forbids the
separation of husband and wife, or of parents and little
children.[723] It appears that slavery is forbidden by law, but
is tolerated in the case where the parents are poor. Boys once
enslaved continue in bondage and their children follow them, but
there is no legal possession. Girls become free at marriage.[724]
+281. Slavery in Asia.+ Slavery in Asia is of a kind which puts the
slave largely at the mercy of his owner, but the mores have taught the
slave owner to use his power with consideration. This is generally, not
universally, true. Nivedita says[725] that "slavery in Asia, under the
régime of great religious systems, has never meant what Europe and
America have made of it.... It is a curious consequence of this humanity
of custom [or rather, of the judgment in the mores as to the wisest
course of conduct in a class of cases] that the word 'slave' cannot be
made to sting the Asiatic consciousness as it does the European."
+282. Slavery in Japan.+ In Japan slavery was a common punishment, in
early times, for crime. Debtors unable to pay became slaves of their
creditors, and thieves were made slaves of those whom they had robbed.
The attempt to introduce Christianity into Japan and the resistance to
it led to the slavery of many Christian converts, if they refused after
torture to recant. This was an alternative to death. Slaves were
tattooed with marks to show ownership. "Slaves were bought and sold like
cattle in early times, or presented as tribute by their owners,--a
practice constantly referred to in the ancient records." Their sex
unions were not recognized. "In the seventh century, however, private
slaves were declared state property, and great numbers were then
emancipated, including nearly all,--probably all, who were artisans, or
followed useful callings. Gradually a large class of freedmen came
into existence, but until modern times the great mass of the common
people appear to have remained in a condition analogous to
serfdom."[726]
+283. Slavery in higher civilization.+ It appears quite clear that men
in savagery and barbarism used each other, if they could, to serve their
interests, and slavery resulted. The hardships of life caused it. The
rules of war were "Woe to the vanquished!" and "To the victors the
spoils." Debt was a relation which might come about between two men from
incidents in the struggle for existence, or from loans of money and
goods. All mischance might be converted into lack of resources (money
and goods), and he who borrowed fell into dependence and servitude. All
violations of custom and law led to fines; all need of civil authority
made it necessary to pay fees. The debtor pledged his future working
time. His relation to his creditor was personal. That he was a borrower
proved that he had nothing which could form a property security. The
laws of Hammurabi provide that a debtor may give his wife and children
as pawn slaves, but only for three years. In the fourth year the
creditor was to set them free. The pawn persons were to be well
treated. A slave given in pawn might be sold, but not if it was a female
slave with children.[727] To aid or conceal a fugitive slave was a
capital offense.[728] Many Chaldean contracts have been found in which
the debtor bound himself to work for the creditor until he should pay
the debt.[729] It appears that the Babylonian slaves could form a
_peculium_ and carry on business with it as a capital, paying their
owners a tax upon it.[730]
+284. Slavery amongst Jews.+ The Jewish law had a provision like that in
the law of Hammurabi, except that the limit was six years instead of
three. A debtor was not to be a slave, but to give service until the
year of jubilee.[731] In 2 Kings iv. 1 the widow tells Elisha that her
husband's creditors will come and take her two sons to be bondmen. The
creditors of some of the Jews who returned from exile threatened to make
them debtor slaves. Nehemiah appealed to them not to do so.[732] In
Matt. xviii. 25 the man who could not pay was to be sold with his wife
and children. Kidnapping was punishable by death.[733] In Job xxxi. 15
we find the ultimate philosophico-religious reason for repudiating
slavery: "Has not He who made me made him [the slave] also in his
mother's womb?" The laws of the "Book of Covenants" begin with laws
about slaves.[734] A male slave, with his wife, is to be freed in the
seventh year, unless he prefers to remain a slave. A man may sell his
daughter into slavery, i.e. to be a concubine. There was no difference
in principle between a daughter given to wife and one sold to be a
concubine. In Deut. xv. 12 the female slave is also set free in the
seventh year, and persons so freed are to be given gifts when they
depart. The slaves were war captives, or bought persons, or
criminals.[735] The lot of slaves was not hard. The owners had not the
power of life and death. The slave could acquire property.[736] If the
slave was an Israelite he was protected by especial restrictions on the
master in behalf of fellow-countrymen.[737]
+285. Slavery in the classical states.+ Slavery came to the two great
classical states from the antecedent facts of savage and barbaric life.
When Aristotle came to study slavery he could not find a time when it
was not. We have seen how it had become one of the leading institutions
of uncivilized society, and how it had been developed in different forms
and degrees. The two great classical states, more especially Rome, built
their power on slavery. Both states pursued their interests with little
care for the pain they might inflict on others, or the cost in the
happiness of others. The Roman state began by subjugating its nearest
neighbors. It used its war captives as slaves, increased its power,
conquered more, and repeated the process until it used up all the known
world. The Phoenicians were merchants, who kidnapped men, women, and
children, if they found opportunity, and sold them into slavery far from
home. The Ionians, who grew rich by commerce, bought slaves and
organized states in which slaves did all the productive work. In both
Greece and Rome productive work came to be despised. One is amazed to
find how easily any one who went on a journey might fall into slavery,
or how recklessly the democracy of one city voted to sell the people of
a defeated city into slavery, yet how unhesitatingly everybody accepted
and repeated the current opinions about the baseness of slave character.
Homer says that a slave has only half the soul of a man.[738] The love
stories in the _Scriptores Erotici_ very often contain an incident of
kidnapping. The story of Eumæus must have been that of many a
slave.[739] It is also only rarely and very incidentally that the
classical writers show any pity for slaves, although they often speak of
the sadness of slavery.[740] If any man, especially a merchant, who went
on a journey incurred a great risk of slavery, why was not slavery a
familiar danger of every man, and therefore a matter for pity and
sympathy? In the great tragedies the woes of slavery, especially the
contrasts for princes and princesses, heroes and heroines, are often
presented. Polyxena, in Euripides's _Hekuba_, 360, bewails her
anticipated lot as a slave. A fierce master will buy her. She will have
to knead bread for him, to sweep and weave, leading a miserable life,
given as wife to some base slave. She prefers to be sacrificed at
Achilles's tomb. When the Greeks were going to kill her, she asked them
to keep their hands off. She would submit. Let her die free. "It would
be a shame to me, royal, to be called a slave amongst the dead." In the
_Trojan Women_ the screams of the Trojan women are heard, as they are
distributed by lot to their new Greek masters. The play is full of the
woes of slavery. At Athens slaves enjoyed great freedom of manners and
conduct. They dressed like the poorest freedmen. No one dare misuse the
slave of another simply because he was a slave. If the master abused a
slave, the latter had an asylum in the temple and could demand to be
sold. Slaves could pursue any trade which they knew, paying a stipulated
sum to their owners, and could thus buy their manumission. Their
happiness, however, depended on the will of another.[741] In the law
they were owned as things were, and could be given, lent, sold, and
bequeathed. They could not possess property, nor have wives in assured
exclusive possession against masters. Their children belonged to their
masters. Plato thought that nature had made some to command, others to
serve.[742] He thought the soul of a slave base, incapable of good,
unworthy of confidence.[743] Aristotle thought that every well-appointed
house needs animate and inanimate tools. The animate tools are slaves,
who have souls, but not like those of their masters. They lack will.
Slaves are like members of the master, ruled by his will. Their virtue
is obedience.[744] He says that there were men in his time who said that
slavery was an injustice due to violence and established by law.[745]
+286. Slavery at Rome.+ It is in ancient Rome that we find slavery most
thoroughly developed. Any civilization which accomplishes any great
results must do so by virtue of force which it has at its disposal. The
Romans conquered and enslaved their nearest neighbors. By virtue of
their increased power they extended their conquests. They repeated this
process until they had consumed all the known world. The city of Rome
was a center towards which all the wealth of the world was drawn. There
was no reverse current of goods. What went out from Rome was
government,--peace, order, and security. The provinces probably for a
time made a good bargain, although the price was high. In the earliest
times slaves were used for housework, but were few in number per
household. In 150 B.C. a patrician left to his son only ten. Crassus had
more than five hundred. C. Caec. Claudius, in the time of Augustus, had
4116.[746] In the early days a father and his sons cultivated a holding
together. Slaves were used when more help was needed. There was one
slave to three sons and they lived in constant association of work and
play. When conquest rendered slaves numerous and cheap, free laborers
disappeared.[747] Ti. Semp. Gracchus, in 177 B.C., after the war in
Sardinia, sold so many Sardinian slaves that "cheap as a Sardinian"
became a proverb.[748] His son Tiberius is reported to have been led
into his agrarian enterprise by noticing that the lands of Etruria were
populated only by a few slaves of foreign birth.[749] Bücher[750] puts
together the following statistics of persons reduced to slavery about
200 B.C.: after the capture of Tarentum (209 B.C.), 30,000; in 207 B.C.,
5400; in 200 B.C., 15,000.[751] Roman slaves were not allowed to marry
until a late date. They were systematically worked as hard as it was
possible to make them work, and were sold or exposed to perish when too
old to work. Such was the policy taught by the older Cato.[752] The
number on the market was always great; the price was low; it was more
advantageous to work them so hard that they had no time or strength to
plot revolts. This is the most cynical refusal to regard slaves as human
beings which can be found in history. They were liable to be tortured in
their owners' cases in court. They might be given over to the
gladiatorial shows and set to fight each other, or wild beasts.
Seventy-eight gladiators condemned to fight to the death revolted in 74
B.C. under Spartacus, who defeated five armies. Crassus was sent
against him with eight legions. Lucullus was recalled from Thrace and
Pompey from Spain. Spartacus was cut to pieces in his last battle.
Crassus crucified six thousand prisoners along the road from Capua to
Rome.[753]
+287. Slave revolts.+ The severity of the Roman system of slavery
is shown by the number of revolts and the severe proceedings in
each of them. There was such a revolt in 499 B.C. The guilty were
crucified. The following year there was another.[754] In 416
there was another. The aim always was to take the citadel and
burn the city.[755] Sicily was covered with a swarm of slaves at
the beginning of the second century B.C. They were especially
Syrians, very tough and patient. They were managed under Cato's
plan: "Work or sleep!" In 196 B.C. the slaves in Etruria revolted
and were suppressed with great severity.[756] In 104 those of
Sicily revolted. They were subdued four years later and the last
remnant were sent to Rome to fight beasts. They killed themselves
in the arena.[757] The later Roman system was that the mob of the
city put the world in the hands of one or another, and he gave
them bread and games as their part of the plunder. The
_frumentaria_ were the permanent and steady pay of the "world
conquerors." They made herding the best use of Italian land.
"Where before industrious peasants prospered in glad contentment,
now unfree herdsmen, in wide wastes, drove the immense herds of
Roman senators and knights."[758] The Sicilian landowners left
their shepherds to steal what they needed, so that they were
educated to brigandage. The greatest sufferer was the small
freeman.[759] There is a story in Diodorus,[760] of Damophilos,
an owner of great _latifundia_, whose slaves came to him to beg
clothes. He replied: "Do the travelers, then, go naked through
the country? Are they not bound to pay toll to him who needs
clothes?" He caused them to be flogged and sent them back to
work. The misery of the slave population seems to have reached
its acme at Enna where two roads across the island cross each
other. The town lies 3000 feet high. It was a great fortress down
into the Middle Ages.[761] At this place began a slave revolt,
led by a Syrian skilled in sorcery. The slaves took the city and
engaged in rapine and murder. A band was sent to capture
Damophilos. The men killed him, and the women his wife. Their
daughter was sent in security to her relatives.[762] It was ten
years before peace was restored to the island.
+288. Later Roman slavery. Slaves in the civil wars. Clientage.+ Down to
about 200 B.C. slavery, although mechanical and cruel, was domestic. The
slave was a member of the household, on intimate terms with the master
or his children, shared in the religious exercises, and the graves of
slaves were under religious protection.[763] In the second century B.C.
Roman expansion gained momentum and produced power and wealth. The
factions of the city were fighting for control of the booty. Roman
character became mechanical and hard. This affected the type of slavery.
By 100 B.C. Carthaginians, Greeks, and Romans had developed a system of
holding slaves which was cruel and reckless, and slaves had acquired a
character of hatred, venom, and desire for revenge. They were malignant,
cunning, and hypocritical.[764] In the civil wars each leader sought the
help of slaves. Sulla set free 10,000 of them, whom he put in the tribes
of the city.[765] After the battle of Cannæ the Romans armed 8000 slaves
whom they enfranchised.[766] Æmilius Paulus sold 15,000 Epirotes. Marius
made 90,000 Teutons captives at Aquæ Sextiæ and 60,000 Cimbrians at
Vercellæ. When Marius offered liberty to slaves only three followed
him.[767] Sulla promised liberty to the slaves of the proscribed, if
they would bear testimony against their masters. One did so. Sulla freed
him, but then put him to death. Thus the slaves were the sport of
political factions and leaders. The Roman conquests caused everywhere a
certain servile temper. All conquered people were depressed into
quasi-slavery. All had to pay a head tax, which was a mark of servitude.
The Roman system reduced all to servitude. A late emperor called the
senators "slaves in the toga." When all were rendered _nil_ under the
emperor the slaves gained. They were not in worse case than the
rest.[768] During the conquests entire peoples became clients. If any
one did not attach himself as client to a great family he was lost.
Freed women, for this reason, almost always fell into vice.[769]
Clientage became the refuge of loafers. "Romans did not give anything
gratis." All who were outside the social system had to seek the
patronage of a great man. For his protection he took pay in money or
service. The status was a modified slavery.
+289. Manumission. Natural liberty.+ The slave dealers developed tricks
far surpassing those of horse dealers in modern times.[770] By
enfranchisement the owner got rid of the worst worry of slavery, and
tied the freedman to himself by a contract which it was for the interest
of the freedman to fulfill. The owner made a crafty gain.[771]
Tacitus[772] says that, in his time, the Roman people was almost
entirely freedmen. If that is so, we must notice that the "people,"
under the empire, are a different set from what they were under the
republic. When the Romans got an educated artisan as a slave they set
him to teach a number of others. When no more outsiders were conquered
and enslaved the slaves taught each other. The work then became gross
and ran down.[773] This was another of the ways in which Rome consumed
the products and culture of the world. Very few instances, real or
fictitious, of sympathy with slaves can be cited. In the story of
_Trimalchio_, Encolpius and his friends beg off a slave who is to be
whipped for losing the garment of another slave in the bath. At a supper
at which Augustus was present a slave broke a vase. His master ordered
him cast to the _murenae_ in a tank. The slave begged Augustus to obtain
for him an easier death, which Augustus tried to do. The master refused.
Augustus then gave the slave complete grace, broke the host's other
vases himself, and ordered the tank filled up.[774] Under Nero, Pedanius
having been murdered, his slaves, four hundred in number, were all
condemned to death, according to law. The populace rose against this
sentence, which was fulfilled, but it shows that there was a popular
judgment which would respond upon occasion.[775] "Not once, in all
antiquity, does a serious thought about the abolition of slavery
arise."[776] It was the basis of the entire social and political order.
They were in terror of the slaves and despised them, but could not
conceive of a world without them. Probably we could not either, if we
had not machines by means of which we make steam and electricity work
for us. Individuals were manumitted on account of the gain to the
master. The owner said, in the presence of a magistrate, "I will that
this man be free, after the manner of the Quirites." The magistrate
touched the head of the slave with his rod, the master boxed his ears,
and he was a free man.[777] The law provided a writ, "resembling in some
respects the writ of _habeas corpus_, to compel any one who detained an
alleged freedman to present him before a judge."[778] The Roman lawyers
also, if they could find a moment during gestation when the mother had
been free, employed legal fiction to assume that the child had been born
at that moment.[779] Florentinus defined slavery as "a custom of the law
of nations by which one man, contrary to the law of nature, is subjected
to the dominion of another."[780] Ulpian likewise said that, "as far as
natural law is concerned, all men are equal."[781]
+290. Slavery as represented in the inscriptions.+ "The inscriptions
reveal to us a better side of slave life, which is not so prominent in
our literary authorities." They show cases of strong conjugal affection
between slave spouses, and of affection between master and slave.[782]
In the first century the waste of the fortunes won by extortion from the
provinces, and the opening of industrial opportunities by commerce, with
security, gave great stimulus to free industry. The inscriptions "show
the enormous and flourishing development of skilled handicrafts," with
minute specialization. "The immense development of the free proletariat,
in the time of the early empire, is one of the most striking social
phenomena which the study of the inscriptions has brought to light." The
time was then past when Roman society depended entirely on slave labor
for the supply of all its wants.[783] Dill thinks that "the new class of
free artisans and traders had often, so far as we can judge by stone
records, a sound and healthy life, sobered and dignified by honest toil,
and the pride of skill and independence."[784] The slave acted only
under two motives, fear and sensuality. Both made him cowardly,
cringing, cunning, and false, and at the same time fond of good eating
and drinking and of sensual indulgence. As he was subject to the orders
of others, he lacked character, and this suited his master all the
better. The morality of slaves extended in the society, and the society
was guided by the views of freedmen in its intellectual activity. The
strongest symptom of this was the prevalence of a morality of tips,
which put on the forms of liberality. It was no more disgrace to take
gifts than to give them. Senators took gifts from the emperor, and all,
including the emperor, reckoned on legacies. Thus the lack of character
spread.[785] Slavery proved a great corrupter of both slaves and owners.
It was the chief cause of the downfall of the state which had been
created by it. It made cowards of both owners and slaves. "The woes of
negro slaves were insignificant, like a drop to an ocean, in comparison
with the sufferings of ancient slaves, for the latter generally belonged
to civilized peoples."[786]
+291. Rise of the freedmen in industry.+ The freedmen were the ones who
were free from the old Roman contempt for productive labor. They seized
the chances for industry and commerce and amassed wealth. "Not only are
they crowding all the meaner trades [in the first and second centuries
of the Christian era], from which Roman pride shrank contemptuously,
but, by industry, shrewdness, and speculative daring, they are becoming
great capitalists and landowners on a senatorial scale."[787] "The
plebeian, saturated with Roman prejudice, looking for support to the
granaries of the state or the dole of the wealthy patron, turned with
disdain from the occupations which are in our days thought innocent, if
not honorable."[788] "After all reservations, the ascent of the freedmen
remains a great and beneficent revolution. The very reasons which made
Juvenal hate it most are its best justification to a modern mind. It
gave hope of a future to the slave. By creating a free industrial class
it helped to break down the cramped social ideal of the slave owner and
the soldier. It planted in every municipality a vigorous mercantile
class, who were often excellent and generous citizens. Above all, it
asserted the dignity of man."[789] But for the freedmen the society
seems to have contained but two classes,--"a small class of immensely
wealthy people, and an almost starving proletariat."[790]
+292. The freedmen in the state.+ Every despot needs ministers. The
history of all despotisms shows that they find those best suited to
their purpose in persons of humble rank. They can use such ministers
against nobles or other great men, and can command their complete
loyalty. Julius Cæsar made some of his freedmen officers of the mint. It
was simply an extension of the usage of aristocratic households. The
emperor employed freedmen to write letters and administer the finances
of the empire as he would have used them to manage his private estate.
"Under Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, the imperial freedmen attained
their greatest ascendancy. Callistus, Narcissus, and Pallas rose to the
rank of great ministers, and, in the reign of Claudius, were practically
masters of the world. They accumulated enormous wealth by abusing their
power, and making a traffic in civic rights, in places, or
pardons."[791] The freedmen favorites carried the evil effects of
slavery on character to another stage and were agents of the corruption
of the new form of the state by the inheritance of slavery. "The women
of the freedmen class, for generations, wielded, in their own way, a
power which sometimes rivaled that of the men." They often had great
charms of person and mind. "Their morals were the result of an uncertain
social position, combined with personal attractions, and education."
Some of them did great mischief. Panthea, mistress of Lucius Verus, is
celebrated as one of the most beautiful women who ever lived. She had a
lovely voice, was fond of music and poetry, and had a very superior
mind. She "never lost her natural modesty and simple sweetness."[792] In
the first century some freedmen married daughters of senatorial houses.
They were very able men. No others could have performed the duties of
the three great secretaryships,--appeals, petitions, and correspondence.
The fortunes of these men were often adventurous in the extreme, like
those of the ministers of sultans in the Arabian Nights. A slave,
advanced to a higher position in a household, then to a position of
confidence, where he proved his ability and devotion, got a great office
and became master of the world. Men of this kind have always been
refused social status.[793] In the second century the system was
changed, and knights became the great officers of administration.
+293. Philosophers opponents of slavery.+ The great neostoics of the
first century first denounced slavery and uttered the great humanitarian
doctrines. The real question in regard to Roman slavery was this: Is a
slave not a man? If he was one, he was either the victim of misfortune
or the inheritor of the misfortune of an ancestor. If he did not thereby
lose human status as a member of the race he deserved pity and help. The
humanitarian philosophy, therefore, had the simplest task and the most
direct application. Dio Chrysostom declared the evil effects of slavery
on the masters, sensuality, languor, and dependence. He pointed out the
wide difference between personal status and character,--the possible
nobility of a slave and the possible servility of a freeman.[794] Seneca
especially taught the abstract philosophy of liberalism, kindness, and
humanity. He represented a movement in public opinion. Pliny cultivated
all the graces of the debonair gentleman. Dill compares him to a "kindly
English squire." The inscriptions show that "his household was by no
means a rare exception."[795] Slaves had such perquisites and chances
that "the slave could easily purchase his own freedom." "The trusted
slave was often actually a partner, with a share of the profits of an
estate, or he had a commission on the returns."[796] Plutarch's whole
philosophy of life is gentle and kindly. It is unemotional and
nonstimulating. The neostoics had the character of an esoteric sect. We
never are sure that their writings are any more than rhetorical
exercises, or that they act or expect others to act by their precepts.
Slavery was such a fact in the social order that no one could conceive
of the abolition of it, or propose abolition as a thing within the scope
of statesmanship.
+294. The industrial colleges.+ The Romans had a genius for association
and organization. Under the republic artisans began to unite in
colleges. In the last century of the republic the political leaders took
alarm at these unions and forbade them. Cæsar and Augustus abolished the
right of association. In the second century a certain number of
societies existed, in spite of prohibitions,--miners, salt workers,
bakers, and boatmen. Until Justinian all such unions were carefully
watched as dangerous to public peace and order. In the civil law they
were authorized, and made like natural persons.[797] The fashion of them
became very popular. "The colleges in which the artisans and traders of
the Antonine age grouped themselves are almost innumerable, even in the
records which time has spared. They represent almost every conceivable
branch of industry, or special skill, or social service."[798] "Men
formed themselves into these groups for the most trivial or whimsical
reasons, or for no reason at all, except that they lived in the same
quarter and often met. From the view which the inscriptions give us of
the interior of some of these clubs, it is clear that their main purpose
was social pleasure."[799] "And yet, many an inscription leaves the
impression that these little societies of the old pagan world are
nurseries, in an imperfect way, of gentle charities and
brotherliness."[800] They had many honorary members from among the
richer classes. Wandering merchants and military veterans, as well as
young men fond of sport, formed clubs on the same type. Alexander
Severus organized all the industrial colleges and assigned them
_defensores_. In the colleges all were equal, so that they were
educational in effect. "But these instances cannot make us forget the
cruel contempt and barbarity of which the slave was still the victim,
and which was to be his lot for many generations yet to run. Therefore
the improvement in the condition of the slave, or of his poor plebeian
brother, by the theoretical equality in the colleges may be easily
exaggerated."[801] The statesmen had feared that the artisans might use
their organization to interfere in politics. What happened in the fourth
century was that the state used the organizations to reduce the artisans
to servitude, and to subject them to heavy social obligations by law.
+295. Laws changed in favor of slaves.+ When the conquests ceased and
the supply of new slaves was reduced those slaves who were born in the
households or on the estates came into gentler relations to their
owners. Slaves rose in value and were worth more care. The old plan of
Cato became uneconomical. All sentiments were softened in the first
century as war became less constant, less important, and more remote.
The empire was an assumption by the state of functions and powers which
had been family powers and functions, and part of the _patria potestas_.
Women, children, and slaves shared in emancipation until the state made
laws to execute its jurisdiction over them. Hadrian took from masters
the power of life and death over slaves. Antoninus Pius confirmed this,
and provided that he who killed his own slave should suffer the same
penalty as he who killed the slave of another.[802] This brought the
life of every slave into the protection of the state. Under Nero a judge
was appointed to hear the complaints of slaves and to punish owners who
misused them. Domitian forbade castration. Hadrian forbade the sale of
slaves to be gladiators. The right to sell female slaves into brothels
was also abolished.[803]
+296. Christianity and slavery.+ In 1853 C. Schmidt published an essay
on the "Civil Society of the Roman World and its Transformation by
Christianity," in which he thought it right to attribute all the
softening of the mores in the first three Christian centuries to
Christianity. Lecky, on the other hand, says: "Slavery was distinctly
and formally recognized by Christianity, and no religion ever labored
more to encourage a habit of docility and passive obedience."[804]
Schmidt is obliged to take the ground that Christianity received and
accepted slavery as a current institution, in which property rights
existed, and that it suffered these to stand. If that is true, then
Christianity could not exert much influence on civil society. What
Christianity did was to counteract to a great extent the sentiment of
contempt for slaves and for work. It did this ritually, because in the
church, and especially in the Lord's Supper, all participated alike and
equally in the rites. The doctrine that Christ died for all alike
combined with the philosophical and humanitarian doctrine that men are
of the same constitution and physique to produce a state of mind hostile
to slavery. In the fourth century the church began to own great
possessions, including slaves, and it accepted the standpoint of the
property owner.[805] In the Saturnalia of Macrobius (fl. 400 A.D.)
Prætextatus reaffirms the old neostoic doctrine about slavery, of Seneca
and Dio Chrysostom. Dill[806] takes the doctrine to be the expression of
the convictions of the best and most thoughtful men of that time. It is
not to be found in Jerome, Augustine, or Chrysostom. Nevertheless the
church favored manumission and took charge of the ceremony. It
especially favored it when the manumitted would become priests or monks.
The church came nearest to the realization of its own doctrines when it
refused to consider slave birth a barrier to priesthood. In all the
penitential discipline of the church also bond and free were on an
equality. The intermarriage of slave and free was still forbidden.
Constantine ordered that if a free woman had intercourse with her slave
she should be executed and he should be burned alive.[807] The pagan law
only ordered that she should be reduced to slavery. The manumissions
under Constantine were believed, in the sixteenth century, to have
caused almshouses and hospitals to be built, on account of the great
numbers of helpless persons set adrift.[808] Basil the Macedonian
([Symbol: cross] 886) first enacted that slaves might have an
ecclesiastical marriage, but the prejudice of centuries made this
enactment vain.[809] The abolition of crucifixion had special value to
the slave class. There was no longer a special and most infamous mode of
execution for them. A law of Constantine forbade the separation of
members of a family of slaves.[810] These are the most important changes
in the law of slavery until the time of the codex of Justinian. Lecky
thinks that Justinian advanced the law beyond what his predecessors had
done more in regard to slavery than on any other point. His changes
touched three points: (1) He abolished all the restrictions on
enfranchisement which remained from the old pagan laws, and encouraged
it. (2) He abolished the freedmen as an intermediate class, so that
there remained only slave and free, and a senator could marry a freed
woman, i.e. a slave whom he had already freed. (3) A slave might marry a
free woman, if his master consented, and her children, born in slavery,
became free if the father was enfranchised. The punishment for the rape
of a slave woman was made death, the same as for the rape of a free
woman.[811] Isidore of Seville ([Symbol: cross] 636) said: "A just God
alloted life to men, making some slaves and some lords, that the liberty
of ill-doing on the part of slaves might be restrained by the authority
of rulers." Still he says that all men are equal before God, and that
Christ's redemption has wiped away original sin, which was the cause of
slavery.[812]
+297. The colonate.+ At the end of the empire population was declining,
land was going out of use and returning to wilderness, the petty
grandees in towns were crushed by taxes into poverty, artisans were
running away and becoming brigands because the state was immobilizing
them, and peasants were changed into colons. The imperial system went on
until the man, the emperor, was above all laws, the senate were slaves,
and the provinces were the booty of the emperor. The whole system then
became immobilized. What the colons were and how they came into
existence has been much disputed. They were immobilized peasants. We
find them an object of legislation in the _codex Theodosianus_ in the
fourth century. They were personally free (they could marry, own
property, could not be sold), but they were bound to the soil by birth
and passed with it. They cultivated the land of a lord, and paid part of
the crops or money.[813] Marquardt thinks that they arose from
barbarians quartered in the Roman empire.[814] Heisterbergk[815] thinks
that there are three possible sources, between which he does not
decide,--impoverished freemen, emancipated slaves, barbarian prisoners.
Wallon[816] ascribes the colonate to the administration. As society
degenerated it became harder and harder to get the revenue, and the
state adopted administrative measures to get the property of any one who
had any. This system impoverished everybody. To carry it out it was
necessary to immobilize everybody, to force each one to accept the
conditions of his birth as a status from which he could not escape. What
made the colonate, then, was misery.[817] Emancipated slaves and
impoverished peasants met in the class of colons, in state servitude.
The proprietors were only farmers for the state. The tribute was the due
of the state. Laborers were enrolled in the census and held for the
state. The interest of the _fiscus_ held the colon to the soil.[818] The
words "colon" and "slave" are used interchangeably in the _codex
Justinianus_.
+298. Depopulation.+ The depopulation of Italy under the empire is amply
proved. Vespasian moved population from Umbria and the Sabine territory
to the plain of Rome.[819] Marcus Aurelius established the Marcomanni in
Italy.[820] Pertinax offered land in Italy and the provinces to any one
who would cultivate it.[821] Aurelian tried to get land occupied.[822]
He sent barbarians to settle in Tuscany.[823] As time went on more and
more land was abandoned and greater efforts were made to secure
settlers. Valentinian settled German prisoners in the valley of the
Po.[824] In the time of Honorius, in Campania five hundred thousand
arpents were discharged from the _fiscus_ as deserted and waste. In the
third century, if the colon ran away from land which no one would take
he was pursued by all the agencies of the law and brought back like a
criminal.[825] The colons ran away because the _curiales_, their
masters, put on them the taxes which the state levied first on the
_curiales_.[826] What was wanted was men. The Roman imperial system had
made men scarce by making life hard. Pliny said that the _latifundia_
destroyed Italy. The saying has been often quoted in modern times as if
it had some unquestionable authority. It is a case of the common error
of confusing cause and consequence. The _latifundia_ were a consequence
and a symptom. Heisterbergk[827] thinks that the _latifundia_ were not
produced by economic causes, but by vanity and ostentation. The owners
did not look to the land for revenue. He asks[828] how a strictly
scientific system of grand culture with plenty of labor could ruin any
country. Rodbertus[829] thinks that the _latifundia_ went from a grand
system to a petty system between the times of the elder and the younger
Pliny by the operation of the law of rent. He thinks that there must
have been garden culture in Italy at the beginning of the empire, and
that the colonate arose from big estates with petty industry and from
the law of mortgage. He thinks, further, that the colons, until the
fourth century, were slaves, and that their status was softened by the
legislation of the fourth century. Heisterbergk thinks that the colonate
began in the corn provinces, and that it was, at the beginning of the
fourth century, on the point of passing away, but the legislation of the
fourth century perpetuated it. He thinks that it was injured, as an
institution, by the great increase of taxation after Diocletian. Then
legislation was necessary to keep the colons on the land.[830]
+299. Summary on Roman slavery.+ Chrysostom describes the misbehavior of
all classes, about 400 A.D.[831] The colons were overburdened. When they
could not pay they were tortured. A colon was flogged, chained, and
thrown into prison, where he was forgotten. His wife and child were left
in misery to support themselves, and get something for him if they
could. The Roman system, after consuming all the rest of the world,
began to consume itself. The Roman empire at last had only substituted
one kind of slaves for another. Artisans and peasants were now slaves of
the state. Slavery was at first a means. By it the subjugated countries
were organized into a great state. Then it developed its corruption. It
was made to furnish gladiators and harlots. Nowhere else do we see how
slavery makes cowards of both slaves and owners as we see it at Rome in
the days of glory. Slavery rose to control of the mores. The free men
who discussed contemporary civilization groaned over the effects of
slavery on the family and on private interests, but they did not see any
chance of otherwise getting the work done. Then all the other social
institutions and arrangements had to conform to slavery. It controlled
the mores, prescribed the ethics, and made the character. In the last
century of the Western empire the protest against it ceased. It seemed
to be accepted as inevitable, and one of the unavoidable ills of life.
It ruled society. Scarcely a man represented the old civilization who
can command our respect. The social and civic virtues were dead.
+300.+ In all the ancient world we meet with distinct repudiation of
slavery only amongst the Therapeuts, a communistic association amongst
the Jews in the last century before Christ. They were ascetics, each of
whom lived in a cell. We first hear of them through Philo Judæus (_The
Contemplative Life_) about the time of the birth of Christ. They had no
slaves. They regarded slavery as absolutely contrary to nature. Nature
produced all in a state of freedom, but the greed of some had vested
some with power over others.[832] The Therapeuts, who included women,
did their own work. They carried on no productive industry the products
of which they could give in exchange. Their system could not endure
without an endowment.[833] Bousset[834] thinks that, "if they ever
existed, they can never have had more than a limited and ephemeral
significance." Their central home was on a hill near lake Marea. Their
place of meeting, on the seventh day, was divided by a wall, three or
four cubits high, into two compartments, one for the women, the other
for the men. They reduced the consumption of food and drink as much as
possible. Sometimes they abstained for three or four days. They had a
very simple feast on the forty-ninth day, the men and women sitting
separately on coarse mattresses.[835]
+301. Slavery amongst the Germanic nations.+ According to the most
primary view, the one which we might call natural, a war captive's due
fate was to be killed in sacrifice to the god of the victor. During some
interval of time before his public execution he was set at work, and the
convenience of his services was learned. He was kept alive in order to
be employed in the labors which were the most irksome and disagreeable.
The joke of letting him live on to perform these tasks was not lost.
When, now, we turn our attention to the Germanic invaders of the Roman
empire, we are carried back to primitive barbarism. In the heroic age of
Scandinavia we find that thralls are sacrificed at Upsala at solemn
feasts in honor of the heathen gods. They were thrown from the cliffs,
or into a hole in the ground, or tortured and hung up in the clear air,
or the spine was broken.[836] In the prehistoric period of German
history the unfree were tenderly handled. "A well-born youth, who grew
up amongst the same herds and on the same land with an unfree youth,
eating and drinking together, and sharing joy and sorrow, could not
handle shamefully the comrades of the unfree man."[837] In the
Scandinavian _Rigsmal_, Rig, the hero, begets a representative of each
of three ranks,--noble, yeoman, laborer,--the first with the mother, the
second with the grandmother, and the third with the great-grandmother,
as if they had come from later and later strata of population.[838] Rig
slept between man and wife when he begot the yeoman and thrall, but not
when he begot the noble. The thrall has no marriage ceremony. The food,
dwelling, dress, furniture, occupations, and manners of the three
classes are carefully distinguished, also the physique, as if they were
racially different, and the names of the children are in each case
characteristic epithets. The great-grandfather wears the most ancient
dress; his wife provides an ash-baked loaf, flat, heavy, mixed with
bran. She bore Thrall, who was swarthy, had callous hands, bent
knuckles, thick fingers, an ugly face, a broad back, long heels.
Toddle-shankie also came sunburnt, having scarred feet, a broken nose,
called Theow. Their children were named: the boys,--Sooty, Cowherd,
Clumsy, Clod, Bastard, Mud, Log, Thickard, Laggard, Grey Coat, Lout, and
Stumpy; the girls,--Loggie, Cloggie, Lumpy [= Leggie], Snub-nosie,
Cinders, Bond-maid, Woody [= Peggy], Tatter-coatie, Crane-shankie. The
story seems to present the three classes or ranks as founded in natural
facts. Slaves were such by birth, by sale of themselves to get
maintenance (esteemed the worst of all, debtors, war captives, perhaps
victims of shipwreck), and free women who committed fornication with
slave men.[839] If a debtor would not pay he was brought into court, and
the creditor might cut off a piece [of his body] above or below.[840] A
free man would not allow his slave to be buried by his side, even if the
slave had lost his life in loyalty to his master. Slaves, criminals, and
outlaws were buried dishonorably in a place by themselves on one side.
They were harnessed to plows when there were no oxen at hand. When
Eisten, king of Opland, wanted to annihilate the Ernds, he gave them
their choice of his slave or his dog for a king. They chose the
dog.[841] The sister of King Canute bought in England most beautiful
slave men and women, who were sent to Denmark, and were sold for use
chiefly in vice.[842] Here we see again the great contempt for slaves.
It was a proverb in Scandinavia: "Put no trust in the friendship of a
thrall,"[843] although in the sagas there are many cases in which the
heroes profited by trusting them. Yet the sagas are also full of stories
of persons who fell into slavery, e.g. Astrid, widow of King Trygve
Olafson, who was found by a merchant in the slave market of Esthonia and
redeemed.[844] A thrall was despised because he feared death, and when
it impended over him hid, whimpered, begged, wept, lamented to leave his
swine and good fare, and offered to do the meanest work if he might
live. A hero bore torture bravely and met death laughing.[845] When hero
children and thrall children were changed at birth, the fraud was
discovered by the cowardice of the latter and the courage of the former,
when grown.[846] In the heroic age a conqueror could set a princess to
work at the _qvern_. In Valhalla the hero set thralls to work for his
conquered victim, to give him footbath, light fire, bind dogs, groom
horses, and feed swine. Thrall women became concubines. They worked at
the _qvern_, and wove. Love could raise them to pets. Thralls were
obtained in the lands raided, but even after they became Christians the
Scandinavians raided and enslaved each other. The Roman law system, as
the church employed it, and especially tithes, were means of reducing
the masses to servitude.[847] Beggars could be arrested and taken before
the _Thing_, where, if they were not ransomed by their relatives, they
were at the mercy of the captor.[848] Magnus Erikson ascended the throne
of Sweden, Norway, and Skona in 1333. Two years later he decreed that no
one born of Christian parents should thereafter be, or be called, a
thrall.[849]
+302. The sale of children.+ In the Germanic states it remained lawful
until far down in the Middle Ages for a man to sell his wife or child
into servitude, or into adoption in another family in time of famine or
distress. The right fell into disuse.[850]
+303. Slavery and the state.+ The reason why there was little slavery in
the Middle Ages is that slavery needs a great state to return fugitives
or hold slaves to work. The feudal lord was at odds with such a state
as existed, and could not get its aid to restore his slaves. Hence the
extension of the state made the slaves worse off, e.g. in Russia and
parts of Germany.[851] Amongst the Franks "slavery took many forms." The
vicissitudes of life produced the strongest contrasts of fortune.
Freeman[852] mentions a case in which a boy king reigned, but his
mother, formerly a slave woman, reigned as queen in rank and authority,
and the power was really exercised by the man who was once her owner.
"In the system of a Frankish kingdom a slave-born queen could play, with
more of legal sanction, the part often played in Mohammedan courts by
the mother of the sultan, son of a slave." The Franks had a peculiar
ceremony of manumission. The lord struck a coin from the hand of his
slave to the ground, and the slave became free.[853] Philippe le Bel,
enfranchising the serfs of Valois, in the interest of the _Fiscus_,
uttered a generality which Louis le Hutin reiterated: "Seeing that every
human creature who is formed in the image of our Lord, ought, generally
speaking, to be free by natural right,--no one ought to be a serf in
France." In the eighth and ninth centuries serfs were sold to Jews who
sold them to Mohammedans. Montpelier carried on a slave trade with the
Saracens. The clergy joined in this trade in the twelfth century, and it
is said to have lasted until the fifteenth century.[854] The Romance of
Hervis (of about the beginning of the thirteenth century) turns on the
story of a youth who ransomed a girl who had been kidnapped by some
soldiers. They proposed to take her to Paris and sell her at the fair
there. The Parliament of Bordeaux, in 1571, granted liberty to
Ethiopians and other slaves, "since France cannot admit any servitude."
Still slavery existed in the southern provinces, including persons of
every color and nationality.[855] Biot[856] thinks that the slave trade
in the Middle Ages was carried on chiefly by pirates, so that slave
markets existed on the coast only, not inland. The Council of Armagh,
in 1171, forbade the Irish to hold English slaves and mentions the sale
of their children by the English.[857] Thomas Aquinas is led by
Aristotle to approve of slavery. Like Aristotle he holds it to be in the
order of nature.[858] A society was founded in Spain at the beginning of
the thirteenth century to redeem Christian captives from Moorish
slavery. The pious made gifts to this society to be used in its work.
Christians sold kidnapped persons to the Moors that they might be
redeemed again. In 1322 the Council of Valladolid imposed
excommunication on the sale of men. In the fourteenth century the
Venetians and Genoese were selling young persons from all countries in
Egypt.[859] Pope Nicholas V, in 1454, gave Portugal the right to
subjugate western Africa, supposed to be lands which belonged to the
Saracens, and "to reduce the persons of those lands to perpetual
servitude," expressing the hope that the negroes would be thoroughly
converted. Margry puts in the year 1444 the first sale of negroes as
slaves, under the eyes of Don Enrique of Portugal.[860] As early as 1500
Columbus suggested to the king of Spain to use negroes to work the mines
of Hispaniola. The king decreed that only such negroes should be taken
to Hispaniola as had been Christianized in Spain. In 1508 the Spaniards
took negroes to the mines to work with Indian slaves. The slave trade
was authorized by Charles V in 1517.[861] Christian slaves existed in
Spain until the seventeenth, perhaps until the eighteenth, century. If
blacks and Moors are included, slavery has existed there until the most
recent times.[862]
+304. Slavery in Europe. Italy in the Middle Ages.+ Slavery existed in
Italy in the thirteenth century, by war, piracy, and religious hatred.
The preaching friars, by preaching against all property, helped to break
it down, and it began to decline.[863] The religious hatred is
illustrated by the act of Clement V ([Symbol: cross] 1314). When he
excommunicated the Venetians for seizing Ferrara he ordered that
wherever they might be caught they should be treated as slaves.[864]
Not until 1288 was a law passed at Florence forbidding the sale of serfs
away from the land. Such a law was passed at Bologna in 1256, and
renewed in 1283. Such laws seem to have been democratic measures to
lessen the power of nobles in the rural districts.[865] A man who made a
slave woman a mother must pay damages to her owner. In a contract of
1392 a man in such a case confesses a debt, as for money borrowed. By a
statute of Lucca, in 1539, a man so offending must buy the woman at
twice her cost and pay to the state a fine of one hundred lire. By a
statute of Florence, 1415, it was affirmed that the quality of Christian
would not exempt from slavery.[866] In a contract of sale of a woman at
Venice, 1450, it is specified that the seller sells _purum et merum
dominium_.[867] The Italian cities continued to protect the slave trade
until the middle of the sixteenth century.[868] The Venetians and
Genoese carried on the trade actively, except in times of great public
or general calamity, when they suspended it to appease the wrath of
God.[869] The intimate connection of the great commercial republics with
the Orient, and hatred for Greek heretics, are charged with causing them
to keep up the trade.[870] Conjugal life at Venice was undermined by the
desire for variety in pleasure, and by the easy opportunity to get
beautiful slaves in the markets of the Orient. From the most ancient
times laws, as fierce as inefficacious, punished with death merchants
who traded in men, but the trade did not cease until the end of the
sixteenth century. The national archives contain contracts from the
twelfth century to the sixteenth about slaves. Priests were the notaries
in these contracts, in spite of the state, the popes, and the councils.
Slaves were brought from every country in the Levant, including
Circassian and Georgian girls of twelve and fourteen. Slaves passed
entirely under the will of the buyer.[871] Biot[872] finds evidence of
slavery in Italy until the middle of the seventeenth century.
+305. Slavery in France.+ When the Armagnacs captured two men, in 1445,
who could not pay ransom, they threatened to sell them to the Spanish
Jews.[873] Bodin[874] admits that it is better to hold captives as
slaves than to kill them, but his argument is all against slavery. He
mentions cases in which it had been decided, apparently on the ground of
the dictum of Philippe le Bel, that slaves who set foot in France became
free.
+306. Slavery in Islam.+ Islam is more favorable to the emancipation of
slaves than Christianity is, as the Visigothic bishops understood it.
Mohammed set free his own slaves and ordered that all slaves should have
the right to redeem themselves. He taught that it is a good work to
emancipate a slave, which will offset many sins.[875] In his last sermon
he said: "Know that every Moslem is the brother of every other Moslem.
Ye are all a fraternity; all equal."[876] The law recognizes only two
ways in which a human being may become a slave,--(1) by birth, (2) by
war. A debtor cannot become a slave, and parents in distress cannot sell
their children. Slaves cannot be so sold that a mother and her child
under seven years of age are separated. Any slave woman may be made a
concubine, but may not be married. Children of slave women are
legitimate and free. A woman who has borne her master a child becomes
free at the master's death, and may not be sold or pawned by him while
he lives. Slaves are in many respects inferior to free persons as to
rights and powers. They have no right of property against their owners.
They are under milder criminal law than their owners. All this is to be
understood of slaves who are Moslems.[877] The Koran often inculcates
kindness to slaves.[878] Slaves are goods given to the free by the grace
of God. Mohammedans would consider the abolition of slavery a triumph of
Christianity over Islam.[879] An unbelieving slave has no guarantees at
all against the will of his owner. In the eighth century the serfs in
the Asturias rose _en masse_ against their Mohammedan lords, and we are
told that under the wealth and glory of Grenada the peasants hated the
lords with great intensity.[880] In the great days of Abdurrahman III
slaves were very numerous. They possessed land and slaves and the sultan
charged them with "important military and civil functions, and pursued
the policy of all despots in making them his ministers and favorites, in
order to humiliate the aristocrats."[881] They were also armed. The late
Romans put colons in the army. The Visigoths inherited the usage,
although the lords would not give them up. At last the levy arose to one
half of the serfs and they became a majority of the army.[882]
Schweinfurth[883] says that "wherever Islamism has sway in Africa it
appears never to be the fashion for any one to allow himself to be
carried." "A strict Mohammedan reckons it an actual sin to employ a man
as a vehicle, and such a sentiment is very remarkable in a people who
set no limits to their spirit of oppression. It is a known fact that a
Mohammedan, though he cannot refuse to recognize a negro, denying the
faith, as being _a man_, has not the faintest idea of his being entitled
to any rights of humanity." The jurists early set up the doctrine that
the life of a Mohammedan slave was worth as much as that of a Mohammedan
freeman, but this doctrine rarely was fulfilled in practice, never
inside of the harem. The jurists pronounced against the right of life
and death on the part of the slave owner, but it was exercised.[884] It
is not law, but custom, to emancipate an adult slave after from seven to
nine years' service. In most Moslem families slaves are well treated, as
members of the household. Their children are educated as those of their
masters are.[885] Pischon says that Moslems cannot live without slavery.
No free woman will do the menial housework, and no woman may be seen
unveiled by a free man.[886] This is a repetition of the opinion of the
ancients that slavery was indispensable (sec. 285). If all the women
were free, some of them would do the housework. A modern Turk is a
tyrant inside his own dwelling. For his wife he has a proverb that she
should have "neither mouth nor tongue." The girls are not educated to
be such wives. They find some support at home against their husbands.
Hence nearly all Turks entertain feelings of dislike and ill will
towards their parents-in-law, and prefer slave concubines, whose
relatives they welcome, if the wife is pretty, or wins their affection.
Great ladies buy promising girls of seven or eight and train them, and
sell them again.[887]
+307. Review of slavery in Islam.+ The injunctions of Mohammedanism
sound just and humane; the practice of Mohammedans is cruel and
heartless. The slave is not a thing or ware; he is a man entitled to
treatment worthy of a man. A man may take his slave as a concubine, but
he must not sell her to vice. A free man may marry a slave, if she is
not his own. A free woman may marry a slave, with the same restriction.
If a slave woman bears a child to her master, the child is free, and the
mother cannot be sold or given away. At the death of her owner she
becomes free. A slave man and woman may marry, with the consent of the
owner, to which they have a claim if they have behaved well. A slave man
is limited to two wives. Emancipation is a religious and meritorious act
on the part of a slave owner.[888] "In general, it must be acknowledged
that neither amongst the people of antiquity, nor amongst Christians,
have slaves enjoyed such good treatment as amongst Moslems."[889] The
provision about a slave woman who becomes a mother by her master is the
one to arouse most Christian shame. Still, the Moslems have so many
special pleas and technical interpretations by which to set aside
troublesome laws that we can never infer that the mores conform to the
laws. It is against the law for a Moslem to reduce a Moslem to slavery,
but the Turks rob the Kurds and other tribes of their women, or buy them
from the barbarous Tcherkess.[890]
+308. Slavery in England.+ Sir Thomas More[891] provided for some of the
troubles of life by slavery. Slaves were to do "all laborsome toil,"
"drudging," and "base business." They were to be persons guilty of debt
and breakers of marriage.[892] Garnier quotes a law of 1547 (I Ed. VI,
c. 3), in which a vilein is mentioned as a slave. "Long after this date
there are mentioned instances of a slave's emancipation, and such
philanthropic writers as Fitzherbert lament the possibility of slavery
and its actual existence, as a disgrace both to legislation and
religion."[893]
+309+. Slavery in America.+ In the Anglo-American colonies which did not
have a plantation system for tobacco or indigo the great reason for
slavery was to hold the laborer to the place where the owner wanted him
to work. In New England the negro slave lived in close intimacy with his
owner and the latter's sons. In Connecticut he was allowed to go to the
table with the family, "and into the dish goes the black hoof as freely
as the white hand."[894] In that colony the creditor might require the
debtor, by a law of 1650, to pay by service, and might sell his due
service to any one of the English nation. The law remained in force into
the nineteenth century.[895]
+310. Colonial slavery.+ France reopened the slave trade by a law of May
20, 1802. One of the reasons for this law submitted by Buonaparte to the
legislature was: "The commercial prosperity of France renders it
necessary that a certain quantity of the produce of the country, in wine
and cereals, should be sent to the Antilles for consumption by the
blacks. Now these negroes, were they free, would prefer manioc to wheat,
and the juice of the sugar cane to our wines. It is, therefore,
indispensable that they should be slaves."[896]
+311. Slavery preferred by slaves.+ It appears, therefore, that the
subjection of one man's muscles and nerves to another man's will has
been in the mores of all people from the beginning of human societal
organization until now. Now it exists, as an institution, only in
barbarism and half-civilization. In English North Borneo slavery is
traditional. Any slave may be free for £4, "but in most cases they have
been brought up as ordinary members of the family, and have no wish to
leave their home. Cases of unkind treatment are very few and far
between."[897] In fact, the purely sentimental objections to slavery
have reached, in Africa, many people who are on a grade of civilization
where slavery is an advantage to the slave (sec. 275). Schweinfurth
tells us, of the Sudanese, that numbers of them often "voluntarily
attach themselves to the Nubians, and are highly delighted to get a
cotton shirt and a gun of their own. They will gladly surrender
themselves to slavery, being attracted also by the hope of finding
better food in the seribas than their own native wilderness can produce.
The mere offer of these simple inducements in any part of the Niam-niam
lands would be sufficient to gather a whole host of followers and
vassals."[898] He goes on to show how the mode of grinding durra corn
used in Africa keeps women in slavery. They pound it on a big stone by
means of a little stone. One woman's day's work will grind enough for
five or six men. It has been shown above (sec. 275) how badly the
abolition of slavery has been received in Algeria and Sahara. Gibson is
quoted "that voluntary and hereditary slavery might well be permitted to
continue" in West Africa.[899] In that region "a slave man could hold
property of his own. If he were a worthy, sensible person, he could
inherit." He could take part in discussions and the palaver, and could
defend himself against abuse. There are now no slaves bought or sold,
but there are "pawns" for debt, who are not free.[900] On the one hand,
the slave trade in Africa has required for its successful prosecution
that the slaves should first be war captives or raid captives of other
negroes. This has led to the wildest and most cruel devastation of the
territory. On the other hand, the question arises whether savages must
be left to occupy and use a continent as they choose, or whether they
may be compelled to come into coöperation with civilized men to use it
so as to carry on the work of the world. Many who think the latter view
sound are arrested by the fact that no one has ever been found great or
good enough to be a slave owner. On the other hand, a humanitarian
doctrine which orders that a slave be turned out of doors, in spite of
his own wish, is certainly absurd.
+312. Future of slavery.+ In the eighteenth century, in western Europe,
there was a moral revolt against slavery. None of the excuses, or
palliatives, were thought to be good. The English, by buying the slaves
on their West India islands, took the money loss on themselves, but they
threw back the islands to economic decay and uncultivation. When the
civilized world sees what its ideas and precepts have made of Hayti, it
must be forced to doubt its own philosophy. The same view has spread.
Slavery is now considered impossible, socially and politically evil, and
so not available for economic gain, even if it could win that. It is the
only case in the history of the mores where the so-called moral motive
has been made controlling. Whether it will remain in control is a
question. The Germans, in the administration of their colonies, sneer at
humanitarianism and eighteenth-century social philosophy. They incline
to the doctrine that all men must do their share in the world and come
into the great modern industrial and commercial organization. They look
around for laborers for their islands and seem disposed to seek them in
the old way. In South Africa and in our own southern states the question
of sanitary and police control is arising to present a new difficulty.
Are free men free to endanger peace, order, and health? Is a low and
abandoned civilization free to imperil a high civilization, and entitled
to freedom to do so? The humanitarians of the nineteenth century did not
settle anything. The contact of two races and two civilizations cannot
be settled by any dogma. Evidence is presented every day that the
problems are not settled and cannot be settled by dogmatic and
sentimental generalities. Is not a sentiment made ridiculous when it is
offered as a rule of action to a man who does not understand it and does
not respond to it? In general, in the whole western Sahara district
slaves are as much astonished to be told that their relation to their
owners is wrong, and that they ought to break it, as boys amongst us
would be to be told that their relation to their fathers was wrong and
ought to be broken.
+313. Relation of slavery to the mores and to ethics.+ Inasmuch as
slavery springs from greed and vanity, it appeals to primary motives and
is at once intertwined with selfishness and other fundamental vices. It
is not, therefore, a cause which gradually produces and molds the mores,
nor is it an ethical product of folkways and mores. It is characteral.
It rises into an interest which overrules everything else. This appears
most clearly in the history of Roman slavery (see sec. 288). The due
succession of folkways, mores, character, and ethics is here broken. The
motive of slavery is base and cruel from the beginning. Later, there are
many people of high character who accept it as an inheritance, and are
not corrupted by it. The due societal relation of interests and mores is
broken, however. It is an evil thing that that relation should be
broken. All which is moral (pertaining to mores) or ethical is thrown
out of sequence and relation. The interests normally control life. It is
not right that ethical generalizations should get dogmatic authority and
be made the rule of life. Ethical generalizations are vague and easy.
They satisfy loose thinkers, and it is a matter of regret when, in any
society, they get the currency of fashion and are cherished by great
numbers. Interests ought to control, being checked and verified by
ethical principles of approved validity. Slavery is an interest which is
sure to break over all restraints and correctives. It therefore becomes
mistress of folkways and dictates the life policy. It is a kind of
pitfall for civilization. It seems to be self-evident and successful,
but it contains a number of forms of evil which are sure to unfold. The
Moslems have suffered from the curse of it, although in entirely other
ways than the Christians. It intertwines with any other great social
evil which may be present. There it has combined with polygamy. It is,
in any case, an institution which radically affects the mores, but it
is to be noticed that its effect on them is not normal and not such as
belongs to the prosperous development of civilization.
[625] Maine, _Anc. Law_, 164.
[626] Galton, _Human Faculty_, 79.
[627] Gumplowicz, _Soziologie_, 121.
[628] _Durch Afrika_, 207.
[629] Gumplowicz (_Soziol._, 118) quotes a seventeenth-century
author who said that high wages could get soldiers and sailors
for a galley, but not oarsmen, who would allow themselves to be
bound by a chain, bastinadoed, etc. Gumplowicz explains that if
the galley was to manoeuver with exactitude, chains, the
bastinado, etc., must be used to regulate the service.
[630] Ratzel, _Völkerkunde_, I, Introd., 83.
[631] Holub, _Maschukalumbe_, I, 477; JAI, X, 9.
[632] Ratzel, I, 477, 481.
[633] _Durch Afrika_, 162.
[634] Nachtigal, _Sahara und Sudan_, II, 110.
[635] _Ibid._, 104.
[636] _Ibid._, I, 315.
[637] Ratzel, III, 91.
[638] _Ibid._, 7.
[639] Rohlfs, _Petermann's Mittlgn, Erg. heft_, XXV, 23.
[640] Cantacuzene, _Hist._, IV, 20.
[641] JAI, XXI, 380.
[642] Livingstone, _Travels in South Africa_, I, 204.
[643] _Smithson. Rep._, 1886, Part I, 207.
[644] Stuhlmann, _Mit Emin Pascha_, 242.
[645] Ratzel, III, 143.
[646] _Austral. Assoc. Adv. Sci._ 1892, 634.
[647] JAI, XII, 266.
[648] Ratzel, I, 404; III, 145 ff.
[649] JAI, XXII, 103; Junker, _Afrika_, II, 462, 477.
[650] _Globus_, LXXXIII, 314.
[651] Klose, _Togo_, 383.
[652] _Globus_, LXXXI, 334.
[653] Ellis, _Ewe-speaking Peoples_, 221.
[654] _Ibid._, 218, 220.
[655] Nachtigal, _Sahara und Sudan_, I, 684 ff.
[656] Paulitschke, _Ethnog. Nordost-Afr._, I, 260; II, 139.
[657] JAI, XXII, 101.
[658] _Mit Emin Pascha_, 186.
[659] _Cen. Afr._, 111.
[660] Ratzel, I, 449.
[661] _Ibid._, 57.
[662] _Pinkerton's Voy._, XVI, 885.
[663] Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples_, 285.
[664] _Ibid._, 290.
[665] Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples_, 294.
[666] Pommerol, _Une Femme chez les Sahariennes_, 194; cf.
Junker, _Afrika_, III, 477.
[667] _Ibid._, 201.
[668] Ling Roth, _Sarawak_, II, 215.
[669] Kingsley, _Travels in West Africa_, 497; _West Afr. Stud._,
479.
[670] Serpa Pinto, _Como Eu Atravassei Afr._, I, 116.
[671] _In's Land der Maschukalumbe_, I, 536.
[672] _Ztsft. f. Ethnol._, VI, 472.
[673] Fritsch, _Eingeb. Süd-Afr._, 364.
[674] _Smithson. Rep._, 1891, 524. Cf. Hostmann, _De Beschaving
van Negers in Amer._, I, Chap. IV.
[675] _Smithson. Rep._, 1891, 525.
[676] _Ibid._, 520.
[677] _Ibid._, 532.
[678] _Bur. Ethnol._, XIV, 35.
[679] _Smithson. Rep._, 1891, 528.
[680] _Ibid._, 1887, Part II, 331.
[681] _U. S. Nat. Mus._, 1888, 252 ff.
[682] Strong, _Wakeenah_, 126.
[683] _Bur. Ethnol._, III, 81.
[684] Nadaillac, _Prehist. America_, 313.
[685] Bancroft, _Native Races_, II, 217-223.
[686] Brinton, _Nagualism_, 28 note.
[687] See Hamilton, _The Panis, an Histor. Outline of Canadian
Indian Slavery in the 18th cent., Proc. Canad. Instit._, Toronto,
1897, n.s., I, 19-27.
[688] Koch, _Die Guaikuru-Stämme, Globus_, LXXXI, 44.
[689] Koch (p. 45) says that they become free and set up
prosperous households.
[690] Spix and Martius, _Brasil._, II, 73; v. Martius, _Ethnog.
Brasiliens_, 71.
[691] Varnhagen, _Hist. Geral do Brasil_, I, 115, 178, 181, 269,
273.
[692] v. Martius, 72.
[693] Varnhagen, _Hist. do Brasil_, I, 431; v. Martius, 131.
[694] _Caduvei_, I, 100.
[695] _Voice for South Amer._, XIII, 201.
[696] _Melanesians_, 346.
[697] _Völkerkunde_, II, 279.
[698] JAI, XXVI, 400.
[699] _Samoafahrten_, 170.
[700] Lewin, _Wild Races of S. E. India_, 85.
[701] Lewin, _Wild Races of S. E. India_, 86.
[702] _Ibid._, 91.
[703] Carey and Tuck, _The Chin Hills_, I, 203 ff.
[704] Schmidt, _Ceylon_, 273.
[705] Raap in _Globus_, LXXXIII, 174.
[706] Marsden, _Sumatra_, 252.
[707] Wilken in _Bijdragen tot T. L. en V.-kunde_, XL, 175.
[708] Bock, _Reis in Borneo_, 9, 78, 94.
[709] _Ibid._, 92.
[710] JAI, XIII, 15.
[711] Ling Roth, _Sarawak_, II, 209.
[712] _Ibid._, 209.
[713] _Ibid._, 213.
[714] JAI, XIII, 417.
[715] Schwaner, _Borneo_, I, 205.
[716] _Ibid._, II, 149.
[717] Ling Roth, _Sarawak_, CLXXXV; JAI, XXII, 32.
[718] Perelaer, _Dajaks_, 153.
[719] Perelaer, _Dajaks_, 155.
[720] _Volkenkunde_, 423.
[721] JAI, XVI, 142.
[722] Williams, _Middle Kingdom_, I, 413.
[723]_ Ibid._, 277.
[724] Medhurst in _China Br._, RAS, IV, 17
[725] _Web of Indian Life_, 69.
[726] Hearn, _Japan_, 256, 258, 353.
[727] Winckler, _Gesetze Ham._, 21.
[728] Laws 15 and 16.
[729] Kohler und Peiser, _Aus d. Babyl. Rechtsleben_, IV, 47. Cf.
I, 1 and II, 6.
[730] _Ibid._, I, 1.
[731] Levit. xxv. 39.
[732] Nehem. v. 5.
[733] Exod. xxi. 16.
[734] Exod. xxi.
[735] Exod. xxii. 2.
[736] Levit. xxv. 49; Buhl, _Soc. Verhält. d. Israel._, 35, 106.
[737] Deut. xv. 12-18; Exod. xxi. 2 ff.; Levit. xxv. 39-46.
[738] _Od._, XVII, 322.
[739] _Ibid._, XV, 403.
[740] Buchholz, _Homer. Realien_, II, 63.
[741] Beloch, _Griech. Gesch._, I, 469.
[742] _De Repub._, I, 309.
[743] _De Legibus_, VI, 376.
[744] _Polit._, I, ii, 7; _Nich. Ethics_, VIII, 10.
[745] _Polit._, I, 2.
[746] Drumann, _Arbeiter und Communisten_, 155.
[747] _Bender_, Rom, 150, 159.
[748] Livy, XLI, 28, 8.
[749] Plutarch, _Ti. Gracchus_, 8.
[750] _Aufstände d. Unfreien Arbeiter_, 36.
[751] Livy, XXVII, 16; XXVIII, 9; XXXI, 21.
[752] _De Agri Cultura_, 2, 7; Plutarch, _Cato_, 5; Schmidt,
_Société Civile dans le Monde Romain_, 93.
[753] Plutarch, _Crassus_, 9; Appianus, I, c. 120.
[754] Dion. Halic., V, 51; X, 16; Livy, III, 15.
[755] Livy, IV, 45.
[756] _Ibid._, XXXII, 36.
[757] Neumann, _Gesch. Roms_, I, 382.
[758] Bücher, _Aufstände d. Unfreien Arbeiter_, 31.
[759] _Ibid._, 45.
[760] XXXIV, frag. 2, 8-11.
[761] Bücher, 52.
[762] _Ibid._, 56.
[763] Rossbach, _Röm. Ehe_, 23; Plutarch, _Coriolanus_.
[764] Wallon, _L'Esclavage_, I, 406; II, 262.
[765] Plutarch, _Sulla_, 9.
[766] Livy, XXII, 57.
[767] Plutarch, _Marius_, 35.
[768] Grupp, _Kulturgesch. der Röm. Kaiserzeit_, I, 306.
[769] _Ibid._, 271.
[770] Dezobry, _Rome au Siècle d'Auguste_, I, 260.
[771] Wallon, _L'Esclavage_, III, Chap. X.
[772] _Annals_, XIII, 26.
[773] Moreau-Christophe, _Droit à l'Oisiveté_, 257.
[774] Seneca, _De Ira_, III, 40.
[775] Tacitus, _Annals_, XIV, 42.
[776] Bücher, _Aufstände_, 17.
[777] Blair, _Slavery amongst the Romans_, 164.
[778] _Ibid._, 32.
[779] _Ibid._, 48.
[780] _Digest_, I, 1, 4.
[781] _Ibid._, L, 17, 32.
[782] Dill, _Nero to M. Aurel._, 117.
[783] _Ibid._, 251-252.
[784] Dill, _Nero to M. Aurel._, 253.
[785] Grupp, _Kulturgesch. der Röm. Kaiserzeit_, I, 312-314.
[786] _Ibid._, 301.
[787] Dill, _Nero to M. Aurel._, 100.
[788] _Ibid._, 102.
[789] Dill, _Nero to M. Aurel._, 105.
[790] _Ibid._, 94.
[791] _Ibid._, 106.
[792] Dill, _Nero to M. Aurel._, 114-116.
[793] _Ibid._, 112.
[794] _Orat._, X, 13; XV, 5.
[795] Dill, _Nero to M. Aurel._, 182.
[796] _Ibid._, 117.
[797] _Digest_, III, tit. 4, 1.
[798] Dill, 265.
[799] _Ibid._, 254, 266, 268.
[800] _Ibid._, 271.
[801] Dill, 282.
[802] _Instit._, I, 8; _Digest_, I, 6, 2.
[803] Wallon, _L'Esclavage_, III, 51 ff.
[804] _Eur. Morals_, II, 65.
[805] Muratori (_Dissert._ XV) thinks that all ecclesiastics were
bound not to allow the income of their places to be reduced
during their tenancy. This duty set their attitude to slavery.
[806] _Roman Society in the Last Century of Rome_, 161.
[807] _Cod. Theod._, IX, 9.
[808] Bodin, _Republic_, Book I, Chap. V.
[809] Lecky, _Eur. Morals_, II, 64.
[810] _Cod. Theod._, II, 25.
[811] Lecky, _Eur. Morals_, II, 65.
[812] _Sentent._, lib. III, cap. 47.
[813] Marquardt, _Röm. Staatsverwaltung_, II, 233.
[814] _Ibid._, 234.
[815] _Entstehung des Colonats_, 11.
[816] _L'Esclavage_, III, 282.
[817] _Ibid._, 313.
[818] _Ibid._, 308.
[819] Suetonius, _Vespas._, 1.
[820] Jul. Capitol., _M. Aurel._, 22.
[821] Herodianus, II, 4, sec. 12.
[822] _Cod. Just._, XI, LVIII.
[823] Vopisc., _Aurelian_, 48.
[824] Am. Marcel., XXVIII, 5.
[825] Moreau-Christophe, _Le Droit à l'Oisiveté_, 274.
[826] Rodbertus, _Hildeb. Ztsft._, II, 241.
[827] _Colonat_, 67.
[828] _Ibid._, 63.
[829] _Hildeb. Ztsft._, 206.
[830] _Colonat_, 143.
[831] _Hom. on Matthew_, 62; Migne, _Patrol. Graec._, LVIII, 591.
[832] Cook, _Fathers of Jesus_, II, 25.
[833] Achelis, _Virg. Subintrod._, 29-31.
[834] _Relig. des Judent._, 447.
[835] Cook, _Fathers of Jesus_, II, 18-28.
[836] Estrup, _Skrifter_, I, 261.
[837] Weinhold, _D. F._, I, 104.
[838] _Corpus Poet. Bor._, I, 235.
[839] Rothe, _Nordens Staatsvrfssg._, I, 35.
[840] _Ibid._, 17.
[841] _Ibid._, 18.
[842] _Ibid._, II, 266.
[843] Estrup, _Skrifter_, I, 263.
[844] _Heimskringla_, II, 77.
[845] _Corpus Poet. Bor._, I, 340.
[846] _Ibid._, 361.
[847] Wachsmuth, _Bauernkriege_, in Raumer, _Taschenbuch_, V.
[848] Gjessing, _Ann. f. Nordiske Oldkyndighed_, 1862, 85 ff.
[849] Geijer, _Svenska Folkets Hist._, I, 206.
[850] Grimm, _Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer_, 461.
[851] Vinogradoff, _Vileinage_, 152.
[852] _West. Europe in the Eighth Century_, 11.
[853] Grimm, _Rechtsalt._, 178.
[854] Bourquelot, _Foires de Champagne, Acad. d. Belles Lettres
et Inscrip._, 1865, 307.
[855] D'Avenel, _Hist. Econ._, I, 186.
[856] _Abol. de l'Esclav._, 264.
[857] Wilkins, _Conc. Mag. Brit._, I, 471.
[858] _Opusc._, XX, ii, 10.
[859] Heyd, _Levanthandel_, II, 442.
[860] _Navig. Françaises_, 19.
[861] Mason in _Amer. Anthrop._, IX, 197.
[862] Biot, _Abol. de l'Esclav._, 422.
[863] _Ibid._, 431.
[864] Libri, _Sciences Mathématiques en Italie_, II, 509.
[865] _Ibid._, 510.
[866] _Ibid._, 515.
[867] _Ibid._, 513.
[868]_ Ibid._, 511.
[869] Cibrario, _Econ. Polit._, III, 274.
[870] Biot, _Abol. de l'Esclav._, 426.
[871] Molmenti, _Venezia nella Vita Privata_, I, 280.
[872] _Abol. de l'Esclav._, 441.
[873] Raumer, _Hist. Taschenbuch_, 2 ser., III, 111.
[874] _Repub._, Book I, Chap. V.
[875] Dozy, _Musulm. d'Espagne_, II, 43; _Koran_, IV, 94; V, 91;
LVIII, 4.
[876] Hauri, _Islam_, 84.
[877] Juynboll, _Moham._ Wet., 231.
[878] Suras II, IV, XXIV.
[879] Hauri, _Islam_, 155.
[880] Dozy, II, 25.
[881] _Ibid._, III, 61.
[882] _Ibid._, II, 29.
[883] _Heart of Africa_, I, 374.
[884] Von Kremer, _Kulturgesch. d. Orients_, II, 128.
[885] Pischon, _Einfluss d. Islam_, 25-29.
[886] _Ibid._, 31.
[887] _Globus_, XXX, 127; Vambery, _Sittenbilder aus dem
Morgenlande_, 25.
[888] Hauri, _Islam_, 149.
[889] _Ibid._, 150.
[890] _Ibid._, 153.
[891] _Utopia_, II, 53.
[892] _Utopia_, II, 132, 144, 147.
[893] _Brit. Peasantry_, 71.
[894] Mad. Knight's _Journey_ (1704).
[895] Hildreth, _Hist. U. S._, I, 372.
[896] Fauriel, _Last Days of the Consulate_, 31.
[897] Cator, _Head-hunters_, 198.
[898] _Heart of Africa_, II, 421.
[899] _N. S., Amer. Anthrop._, VI, 563.
[900] Nassau, _Fetishism in West Afr._, 14 ff.
CHAPTER VII
ABORTION, INFANTICIDE, KILLING THE OLD
The able-bodied and the burdens.--The advantages and
disadvantages of the aged. Respect and contempt for them.--
Abortion and infanticide.--Relation of parent and child.--
Population policy.--The burden and benefit of children.--
Individual and group interest in children.--Abortion in
ethnography.--Abortion renounced.--Infanticide in
ethnography.--Infanticide renounced.--Ethics of abortion and
infanticide.--Christian mores as to abortion and infanticide.--
Respect and contempt for the aged.--The aged in ethnography.--
Killing the old.--Killing the old in ethnography.--Special
exigencies of the civilized.--How the customs of infanticide and
killing the old were changed.
+314. The competent part of society; the burdens.+ The able-bodied and
competent part of a society is the adults in the prime of life. These
have to bear all the societal burdens, among which are the care of those
too young and of those too old to care for themselves. It is certain
that at a very early time in the history of human society the burden of
bearing and rearing children, and the evils of overpopulation, were
perceived as facts, and policies were instinctively adopted to protect
the adults. The facts caused pain, and the acts resolved upon to avoid
it were very summary, and were adopted with very little reasoning.
Abortion and infanticide protected the society, unless its situation
with respect to neighbors was such that war and pestilence kept down the
numbers and made children valuable for war. The numbers present,
therefore, in proportion to the demand for men, constituted one of the
life conditions. It is a life condition which is subject to constant
variation, and one in regard to which the sanctions of wise action are
prompt and severe.
+315. The advantages and disadvantages of the aged. Mores of respect
and contempt.+ Those who survive to old age become depositaries of all
the wisdom of the group, and they are generally the possessors of power
and authority, but they lose physical power, skill, and efficiency in
action. In time, they become burdens on the active members of the group.
"As a man grows old and weak he loses the only claim to respect which
savages understand; but superstitious fear then comes to his protection.
He will die soon and then his ghost can take revenge."[901] That is to
say that the mores can interfere to inculcate duties of respect to the
old which will avert from them the conclusion that they ought to die. In
respect to the aged, therefore, we find two different sets of mores:
(_a_) those in which the aged are treated with arbitrary and
conventional respect; and (_b_) those in which the doctrine is that
those who become burdens must be removed, by their own act or that of
their relatives. In abortion, infanticide, and killing the old there is
a large element of judgment as to what societal welfare requires,
although they are executed generally from immediate personal
selfishness. The custom of the group, by which the three classes of acts
are approved as right and proper, must contain a judgment that they are
conducive, and often necessary, to welfare.
+316. Abortion and infanticide.+ Abortion and infanticide are two
customs which have the same character and purpose. The former prevents
child bearing; the latter child rearing. They are folkways which are
aggregates of individual acts under individual motives, for an
individual might so act without a custom in the group. The acts,
however, when practiced by many, and through a long time, change their
character. They are no longer individual acts of resistance to pain.
They bear witness to uniform experiences, and to uniform reactions
against the experiences, in the way of judgments as to what it is
expedient to do, and motives of policy. They also suggest to, and teach,
the rising generation. They react, in the course of time, on the welfare
of the group. They affect its numbers and its quality, as we now
believe, although we cannot find that any group has ever been forced by
its experience to put these customs under taboo.[902]
+317. Relation of parent and child.+ Children add to the weight of the
struggle for existence of their parents. The relation of parent to
child is one of sacrifice. The interests of children and parents are
antagonistic. The fact that there are, or may be, compensations does not
affect the primary relation between the two. It may well be believed
that, if procreation had not been put under the dominion of a great
passion, it would have been caused to cease by the burdens it entails.
Abortion and infanticide are especially interesting because they show
how early in the history of civilization the burden of children became
so heavy that parents began to shirk it, and also because they show the
rise of a population policy, which is one of the most important
programmes of practical expediency which any society ever can adopt.
+318. Population policy.+ At the present moment the most civilized
states do not know whether to stimulate or restrict population; whether
to encourage immigration or not; whether emigration is an evil or a
blessing; whether to tax bachelors or married men. These questions are
discussed as if absolute answers to them were possible, independently of
differences in life conditions. In France the restriction of population
has entered into the mores, and has been accomplished by the people,
from motives which lie in the standard of living. In New England the
same is true, perhaps to a greater extent. There are many protests
against these mores, on the ground that they will produce societal
weakness and decay, and ethical condemnation is freely expended upon
them by various schools of religious and philosophical ethics. What is
certain, however, is that in the popular ethics of the people who
practice restriction it is regarded as belonging to elementary common
sense. The motives are connected with economy and social ambition. The
restriction on the number of children, in all modern civilized society,
issues in an improvement of the quality of the children, so far as that
can be improved by care, education, travel, and the expenditure of
capital (sec. 320). Thus the problem of rearing children has pressed
upon mankind from the earliest times until to-day. It is a problem of
the last degree of simplicity and reality,--a problem of a task and the
strength to perform it, of an expenditure and the means to meet it. For
the group, also, population has always presented, as it now does, a
problem of policy. That group interests are involved in it is
unquestionable. It is one of the matters in regard to which it would be
most proper to adopt a careful and well-digested programme of policy. A
great many of the projects which are now urged upon society are really
applications of population philosophy assumed to be wise without
adequate knowledge, or they set population free from all restraints on
behalf of certain beneficiaries, while a sound population policy,
according to the best knowledge we have, would be the real solution of a
number of the most serious evils (alcoholism, sex disease, imbecility,
insanity, and infant mortality) which now exhaust the vigor of society.
+319. Burden or benefit of children.+ Abortion and infanticide are, as
already stated, the earliest efforts of men to ward off the burden of
children and the evils of overpopulation by specific devices of an
immediate and brutal character. The weight of the burden of children
differs greatly with the life conditions of groups, and with the stage
of the arts by which men cope with the struggle for existence. If a
territory is underpopulated, an increase in numbers increases the output
and the dividend per capita. If it is overpopulated, the food quest is
difficult and children cause hardship to the parents. On the other hand,
the demand for children will be great, if the group has strong neighbors
and needs warriors. The demand may be greater for boys than for girls,
or contrariwise. Girls may be needed in order that wives may be obtained
in exchange for them, but the greater demand for girls is generally due
to the mores which have been established. The demand may be so great as
to offset the burden of rearing children and make it a group necessity
that that burden shall be endured. From the standpoint of the individual
father or mother this means that there are compensations for the toil
and cost of rearing children. When girls bring a good bride price to the
father, it is evident that he at least receives compensation. As to the
mothers, if they receive no compensation, that accords with all the rest
of their experience. It is a well-known fact that they often show
resentment when a daughter is given (sold) in marriage. That fact has
never been adequately explained, but it seems to be anything but strange
if the husband sells the girl and takes the bride price, although the
wife bore and reared the child. Amongst the Marathas of India, on the
contrary, "even to the well-to-do, to have many daughters is a curse."
The bride's father has to give a big dowry to the groom. If the fathers
have rank, but are poor, the girls often have to marry men who are
inferior in age or rank.[903]
+320. Individual and group interest.+ It follows that, in all variations
of the life conditions, in all forms of industrial organization, and at
all stages of the arts, conjunctures arise in which the value of
children fluctuates, and also the relative value of boys and girls turns
in favor, now of one, now of the other. In the examination of any case
of the customs of abortion and infanticide chief attention should be
directed to these conjunctures. On the stage of pastoral-nomadic life,
or wherever else horde life existed, it appears that numerous offspring
were regarded as a blessing and child rearing, in the horde, was not
felt as a burden. It was in the life of the narrower family, whatever
its form, that children came to be felt as a burden, so that "progress"
caused abortion and infanticide. Further progress has made children more
and more expensive, down to our own times, when "neomalthusianism,"
although unavowed, exists in fact as a compromise between egoism and
child rearing. All the folkways which go to make up a population policy
seem to imply greater knowledge of the philosophy of population than can
be ascribed to uncivilized men. The case is one, however, in which the
knowledge is simple and the acts proceed from immediate interest, while
the generalization is an unapprehended result. The mothers know the
strain of child bearing and child rearing. They refuse to undergo it,
for purely egoistic reasons. The consequent adjustment of the population
to the food supply comes of itself. It was never foreseen or purposed by
anybody. The women would not be allowed by the men to shirk motherhood
if the group needed warriors, or if the men wanted daughters to sell as
wives, so that the egoistic motive of mothers never could alone suffice
to make folkways. It would need to be in accord with the interest of the
group or the interest of the men. Abortion and infanticide are primary
and violent acts of self-defense by the parents against famine, disease,
and other calamities of overpopulation, which increase with the number
which each man or woman has to provide for. In time, the customs get
ghost sanction, but it does not appear that they are in any way directly
due to goblinism or to the aleatory element. They become ritual acts and
are made sacred whenever they are brought into connection with societal
welfare, which implies some reflection. The customs begin in a primary
response to pain and the strain of life. Doctrines of right and duty go
with the customs and produce a code of conduct in connection with them.
Sometimes, if a child lives a specified time, its life must be spared.
Sometimes infanticide is practiced only on girls, of whom a smaller
number suffices to keep up the tribe. Sometimes it is confined to the
imperfect infants, in obedience to a great tribal interest to have
able-bodied men, and to spend no strength or capital in rearing others.
Sometimes infanticide is executed by exposure, which gives the infant a
chance for its life if any one will rescue it. Sometimes the father must
express by a ritual act (e.g. taking up the newborn infant from the
ground) his decision whether it is to live or not. With these customs
must be connected that of selling children into slavery, which, when
social hardship is great, is an alternative to infanticide. The Jews
abominated infanticide but might sell their children to Jews.[904]
Abortion by unmarried women is due to the penalties of husbandless
mothers, and is only in form in the same class with abortion by the
married. Cases are given below in which abortion is not due to misery,
but to the egoistic motive only; also cases in which abortion and
infanticide are actually carried to the degree of group suicide. Finally
we may mention in this connection superstitious customs or ancient and
senseless usages to prevent child bearing, since they bear witness to
the dominion of the same ideas and wishes to which abortion and
infanticide are due (see sec. 321).
+321. Illustrations from ethnography.+ The Papuans on Geelvink
Bay, New Guinea, say that "children are a burden. We become tired
of them. They destroy us." The women practice abortion to such an
extent that the rate of increase of the population is very small
and in some places there is a lack of women.[905] Throughout
Dutch New Guinea the women will not rear more than two or three
children each.[906] In fact, it is said of the whole island that
the people love their children but fear that the food supply will
be insufficient, or they seek ease and shirk the trouble of
rearing children.[907] In German Melanesia the custom is current.
Although many Europeans live with native women, few crossbreeds
are to be seen.[908] Codrington[909] gives as reasons: "If a
woman did not want the trouble of bringing up a child, desired to
appear young, was afraid her husband might think the birth before
its time, or wished to spite her husband." Ling Roth[910] quotes
Low that the Dyaks never resort to wilful miscarriage, but this
statement must be restricted to some of them. Perelaer[911] says
that even married women do it and employ harmful means. The
Atchinese practice abortion both before marriage and in marriage.
It is a matter of course.[912] The women of Central Celebes will
not bear children, and use abortion to avoid it, lest the
perineum be torn,--"a thing which they consider the greatest
shame for a woman."[913] If an unmarried woman of the Djakun, on
the peninsula of Malacca, used abortion, she lost all standing in
the tribe. Women despised her; no man would marry her, and she
might be degraded by a punishment inflicted by her parents.
Married women practiced it sometimes to avoid the strain of
bearing children, but, if detected, they might be beaten by the
husbands, even to death. In the neighboring tribe of the Orang
Laut no means of abortion was known. "Such an abomination was not
regarded as possible."[914] These tribes on Malacca are very low
in grade of civilization. They are aborigines who have been
displaced and depressed. The people of Nukuoro are all of good
physique, large, and well formed. They have a food supply in
excess of their wants and are well nourished. The population has
decreased in recent years, by reason of the killing of children
before or after birth.[915] On the New Britain islands the women
dislike to become mothers soon after marriage. Generally it is
from two to four years before a child is born.[916] On the New
Hebrides the women employ abortion for egoistic reasons, and
miscarriage is often produced by climbing trees and carrying
heavy loads.[917] The inhabitants of the New Hebrides are
diminishing in number, especially on the coasts, because they
flee inland before the whites. Ten years ago there were at Port
Sandwich, on Mallicolo, six hundred souls. To-day there are only
half so many. In the last years there have been five births and
thirty deaths. Abortion is very common. If a malformed child is
born, it and the mother are killed. The nations raid each other
to get slaves or cannibal food.[918] These citations seem to
represent the general usage throughout the Pacific islands.
+322.+ Oviedo said of the women "of the main land" of South
America, when first discovered, that they practiced abortion in
order not to spoil their bodies by child bearing.[919] The
Kadiveo of Paraguay are perishing largely through abortion by the
women, who will not bear more than one child each.[920] They are
a subdivision of the Guykurus, who were reported sixty or seventy
years ago to be decreasing in number from this cause. The women,
"until they are thirty, procure abortion, to free themselves from
the privations of pregnancy and the trouble of bringing up
children."[921] Martius[922] gave as additional reasons, that the
tribe lived largely on horseback, and the women did not want to
be hindered by greater difficulties in this life, nor did they
want to be left behind by their husbands. The Indians of the
plains of North America were driven to similar limitations. "It
has long been the custom that a woman should not have a second
child until her first is ten years old."[923] Infants interfere
very seriously with their mode of life.
Neither abortion nor infanticide is customary in the Horn of
Africa unless it be in time of famine.[924] In South Africa
abortion is a common custom.[925] Abortion and infanticide are so
nearly universal in savage life, either as egoistic policy or
group policy, that exceptions to the practice of these vices are
noteworthy phenomena.
+323. Abortion renounced.+ In ancient India abortion came to be
ranked with the murder of a Brahmin as the greatest crimes.[926]
Plato's idea of right was that men over fifty-five, and women
over forty, ought not to procreate citizens. By either abortion
or infanticide all offspring of such persons should be
removed.[927] Aristotle also thought that imperfect children
should be put to death, and that the numbers should be limited.
If parents exceeded the prescribed number, abortion should be
employed.[928] These two philosophers evidently constructed their
ideals on the mores already established amongst the Greeks, and
their ethical doctrines are only expressions of approval of the
mores in which they lived. The Jews, on the other hand, regarded
abortion and infanticide as heathen abominations. Both are
forbidden in the "Two Ways," sec. 2. In the laws of the German
nations the mother was treated as entitled to decide whether she
would bear a child. Abortion produced on her by another was a
crime, but not when she produced it on herself. Only in the law
of the West Goths was abortion by the mother made criminal,
because it was the view that the state was injured.[929] In
modern Hungary, at a marriage, the desire to have no children is
expressed by a number of ancient and futile usages to prevent
child bearing for years, or altogether. Abortion is practiced
throughout Hungary by women of all the nationalities. Women
rejoice to be barren, and it is not thought creditable to have an
infant within two or three years of marriage.[930] Nevertheless
the birth rate is very high (thirty-nine per thousand).
+324. Illustrations of infanticide.+ The Australians practiced
infanticide almost universally. A woman could not carry two
children. Therefore, if she had one who could not yet march, and
bore another, the latter was killed. One or both twins were
killed. The native men killed half-white children.[931]
Australian life was full of privations on account of limited
supplies of food and water. The same conditions made wandering a
necessity. If a woman had two infants, she could not accompany
her husband.[932] One reporter says that the fate of a child
"depended much on the condition the country was in at the time
(drought, etc.), and the prospect of the mother's rearing it
satisfactorily."[933] Sickly and imperfect children were killed
because they would require very great care. The first one was
also killed because they thought it immature and not worth
preserving.[934] Very generally it was eaten that the mother
might recover the strength which she had given to it.[935] If
there was an older child, he ate of it, in the belief that he
might gain strength. Very rarely were more than four children of
one woman allowed to grow up.[936] Curr[937] says that before the
whites came women bore, on an average, six children each, and
that, as a rule, they reared two boys and a girl, the maximum
being ten. All authorities agree that if children were spared at
birth they were treated with great affection. On the Andaman
Islands infanticide was unknown.[938] It was not common on New
Zealand. Boys were wanted as warriors, girls as breeders.[939] A
missionary reports a case in New Guinea where the parents of a
sickly, peevish child, probably teething, calmly decided to kill
it.[940] In British New Guinea there is more or less infanticide,
the father strangling the infant at birth to avoid care and
trouble. Daughters are preserved by preference because of the
bride price which the father will get for them.[941] On Nukuoro
the civil ruler decides long before a birth whether the child is
to be allowed to live or not. If the decision is adverse, it is
smothered at birth.[942] On the Banks Islands girls are
preferred, because the people have the mother family, and because
of the marriageable value of girls.[943] On the Murray Islands in
Torres Straits all children beyond a prescribed number are put to
death, "lest the food supply should become insufficient." "If the
children were all of one sex, some were destroyed from shame, it
being held proper to have an equal number of boys and
girls."[944] On some islands of the Solomon group infanticide is
not practiced, except in cases of illegitimate births. On others
the coast people kill their own children and buy grown-up
children from the bush people of the interior, that being an
easier way to get them.[945] There is no infanticide on Samoa.
The unmarried employ abortion.[946] Throughout Polynesia
infanticide was prevalent for social selection, all of mixed
blood or caste being put to death. Only two boys in a family were
allowed to live, but any number of girls.[947] In Tahiti they
killed girls, who were of no use for war, service of the god,
fishing, or navigation.[948] The Malagassans on Madagascar kill
all children who are born on unlucky days.[949]
+325.+ The women of the Pima (Arizona) practice infanticide,
because, if their husbands die, they will be poor and will have
to provide by their own exertions for such children as they
have.[950] All Hyperboreans practice infanticide on account of
the difficulty of the food supply.[951]
+326.+ The Bondei of West Africa strangle an infant at birth if
any of the numerous portents and omens for which they watch are
unfavorable. An infant is also killed if its upper teeth come
first.[952] Until very recently it was customary in parts of
Ahanta for the tenth child born of the same mother to be buried
alive.[953] In Kabre (Togo) there is a large population and
little food. The people often sell their own children, or kidnap
others, which they sell in order to provide for their own.[954]
The Vadshagga put to death illegitimate children and those whose
upper incisors come first. The latter, if allowed to live, would
be parricides.[955] On the Zanzibar coast weak and deformed
children are exposed. The Catholic mission saved many, but the
natives then exposed more to get rid of them.[956] The Hottentots
expose female twins.[957] The Kabyls put to death all children
who are illegitimate, incestuous, or adulterine. If the mother
should spare the infant she would insure her own death.[958]
There is said to be no infanticide in Cambodia.[959] "Widows
among the Moghiahs [a criminal tribe of central India] are
allowed to remarry. The murder of female infants has, therefore,
never prevailed amongst them."[960] The Chinese on Formosa
practice female infanticide, "in cases of a succession of girls
in a family." "The aborigines, both civilized and savage, looked
with horror upon the Chinese for their inhumanity in this
respect." They brought the custom from China, where in the
overpopulated southeastern provinces it is current custom.[961]
The Khonds of India are a poor, isolated hill tribe, who put
female infants to death because they regard marriage in the same
tribe as incest.[962] All tribes in their status who refuse to
practice endogamy have a peculiar problem to deal with.
Wilkins[963] says that six sevenths of the population of India
have for ages practiced female infanticide. Buddhism is declared
to be inhuman and antisocial. It palliates everything which is
done to limit population--polygamy and infanticide in China,
concubinage in Japan, and prostitution in both. It started and
developed in countries which had for generations suffered from
overpopulation, with its regular consequences of famine,
pestilence, and war.[964]
+327. Revolt against infanticide.+ The ancient Egyptians
revolted, in their mores, against infanticide and put an end to
it.[965] Strabo[966] thought it a peculiarity of the Egyptians
that every child must be reared. The Greeks regarded infanticide
as the necessary and simply proper way to deal with a problem
which could not be avoided. Dissent was not wanting. At Thebes
infanticide was forbidden.[967] Sutherland[968] points out the
effect of infanticide to bring the Greek and Latin races to an
end. They neglected their own females and begot offspring with
foreign and slave women, thus breeding out their own race blood.
The Romans do not appear to have had any population policy until
the time of the empire, when the social corruption and egoism so
restricted reproduction that the policy was directed to the
encouragement of marriage and parenthood. Therefore infanticide
was disapproved by the jurists and moralists. Ovid, Seneca,
Plutarch, Favorinus, and Juvenal speak of abortion as general and
notorious, but as criminal.[969] Tacitus praised the Germans
because, as he erroneously asserted,[970] they did not allow
infanticide, and he knew that the Jews prohibited it.[971] In the
cases of Greece and Rome we have clear instances to prove the
opposite tendencies of the mores, with their attendant
philosophies and ethical principles, on the conjuncture of the
conditions and interests. At Rome children were exposed either on
account of poverty, which was the ancient cause, or on account of
luxury, egoism, and vice. "Pagan and Christian authorities are
united in speaking of infanticide as a crying vice of the
empire."[972] These protests show that the custom was not fully
protected by the mores. Pliny thought it necessary.[973] Seneca
refers to the killing of defective children as a wise and
unquestioned custom which he can use for illustration.[974] For
the masses, until the late days of the empire, infanticide was,
at the worst, a venial crime. "What was demanded on this subject
was not any clearer moral teaching, but rather a stronger
enforcement of the condemnation long since passed upon
infanticide, and an increased protection for exposed infants....
The church labored to deepen the sense of the enormity of the
crime."[975] Evidently infanticide was a tradition with serious
approval from one state of things to another in which it was
harmful and not needed in any view. In 331 A.D. Constantine gave
title to those who rescued exposed children against the parents
of the children.[976] This was in favor of the children, since it
increased the chances that they would be rescued, if we must
assume that it was their interest that their lives should be
spared, even if they were reared by men who speculated on their
future value as slaves or prostitutes. As a corollary of the
legislation against infanticide, institutions to care for
foundlings came into existence. Such institutions rank as
charitable and humanitarian. Their history is such as to make
infanticide seem kind. In 374 infanticide was made a crime
punishable by death. Justinian provided that foundlings should be
free.[977] Infanticide continued to be customary. The church
worked against it by the introduction of the mystic religious
element. The infants died unbaptized. As the religion took a more
and more ritualistic character this fact affected the minds of
the masses more than the suffering or death of the infants ever
had. In a cold estimate of facts it was also questionable whether
the infants suffered any great harm, and the popular estimate of
the crime of extinguishing a life before any interests had
clustered around it was very lenient. "The criminality of
abortion was immeasurably aggravated when it was believed to
involve not only the extinction of a transient life, but also the
damnation of an immortal soul."[978] The religious interest was
thus brought to reënforce the love of children in the struggle
against the old custom. The canon law also construed it as
murder. Through the Middle Ages the sale of children was not
common, but the custom of exposure continued.[979] The primitive
usages of the Teutons included exposure of infants. The father by
taking the child up from the ground ordained that it should live.
It was then bathed and named. Rulers exposed infants lest
dependent persons should be multiplied. Evil dreams also caused
exposure. When the Icelanders accepted Christianity a minority
stipulated that they should still be allowed to eat horseflesh
and to practice exposure of infants.[980] In old German law
infanticide was treated as the murder of a relative. The guilty
mother was buried alive in a sack, the law prescribing, with the
ingenious fiendishness of the age, that a dog, a cat, a rooster,
and a viper should also be placed in the sack.[981] In ancient
Arabia the father might kill newborn daughters by burying them
alive. The motive of the old custom was anxiety about provision
for the child and shame at the disgrace of having become the
father of a daughter.[982] In the Koran it is forbidden to kill
children for fear of starvation. In modern countries infanticide
has been common or rare according to the penalties, in law or the
mores, upon husbandless mothers. In the sixteenth century, in
Spain, illegitimate births were very common. Infanticide was very
uncommon, but abandonment (foundlings) took its place. The
foundlings became vagabonds and rogues.[983]
+328. Ethics of abortion and infanticide.+ Abortion and infanticide are
at war with the attachment of parents to children, which is a sentiment
common, but not universal, amongst animals while the offspring are
dependent. It might seem that these customs have been abolished by
speculative ethics. In fact, they have not been abolished. They have
been modified and have been superseded by milder methods of
accomplishing the same purpose. It is evidently a question at what point
parental affection begins to attach to the child. We think that we have
gained much over savage people in our notion of murder, but it appears
that primitive men did not dare to take anything out of nature without
giving an equivalent for it, and that they did not dare to kill anything
without first sacrificing it to a god, or afterwards conciliating the
spirit of the animal or of its species. If it is murder to prevent a
life from coming into existence, it would be a question of casuistry at
what point such a crime would ensue. It might be murder to remain
unmarried.
+329. Christian mores as to abortion and infanticide.+ The tradition
against abortion and infanticide came down into our mores from the Jews.
It never got strength in the mores of Christianity until each of those
acts was regarded as a high religious crime because the child died
unbaptized. The soul was held to belong to it from the moment of
conception. In reality nothing has put an end to infanticide but the
advance in the arts (increased economic power), by virtue of which
parents can provide for children. Neomalthusianism is still practiced
and holds the check by which the population is adjusted to the economic
power. There is shame in it. No one dare avow it or openly defend it. A
"two-child system" is currently referred to in French and German
literature as an established family policy, and restriction is certainly
a fact in the mores of all civilized people. It is certain that the
masses of those people think it right and not wrong. They do not accept
guidance from any speculative ethics, but from expediency. Their
devotion to their children is greater than a similar virtue ever has
been at any previous time, and they prove their willingness to make the
utmost sacrifices for them. In fact, very many of them are unwilling to
have more children because it would limit what they can do for those
they have. In short, the customs and their motives have changed very
little since the days of savagery.
+330. Mores of respect or contempt for the aged.+ In the introductory
paragraph to this chapter it was observed that there are two sets of
mores as to the aged: (_a_) in one set of mores the teaching and usages
inculcate conventional respect for the aged, who are therefore
arbitrarily preserved for their wisdom and counsel, perhaps also
sometimes out of affection and sympathy; (_b_) in the other set of mores
the aged are regarded as societal burdens, which waste the strength of
the society, already inadequate for its tasks. Therefore they are
forced to die, either by their own hands or those of their relatives. It
is very far from being true that the first of these policies is
practiced by people higher up in civilization than those who practice
the second. The people in lower civilization profit more by the wisdom
and counsel of the aged than those in higher civilization, and are
educated by this experience to respect and value the aged. "The
introduction of the father-right won more respect for the aged
man."[984] In some cases we can see the two codes in strife. Amongst the
ancient Teutons the father could expose or sell his children under age,
and the adult son could kill his aged parents.[985] There was no fixed
duty of child to parent or of parent to child.
+331. Ethnographical illustrations of respect to the aged.+ "The
people of Madagascar pay high honor to age and to parents. The
respect to age is even exaggerated." The Hovas always pay formal
respect to greater age. If two slaves are carrying a load
together, the younger of them will try to carry it all.[986] In
West Africa, "all the younger members of society are early
trained to show the utmost deference to age. They must never come
into the presence of aged persons or pass by their dwellings
without taking off their hats and assuming a crouching gait. When
seated in their presence it must always be at a 'respectful
distance,'--a distance proportioned to the difference in their
ages and position in society. If they come near enough to hand an
aged man a lighted pipe or a glass of water, the bearer must
always fall upon one knee."[987] "Great among the Oromo is the
veneration for the old. Failure in respect to age is considered
an injury to the customs of the country. The aged always sit in
the post of honor, have a voice in public councils, in
discussions, and controversies which arise amongst citizens. The
young and the women are taught to serve them on all
occasions."[988] The Hereros respect the old. Property belongs to
an old man even after his son assumes the care of it. Milk pails
and joints of meat are brought to him to be blessed.[989] The old
are well treated in Australia. Certain foods are reserved for
them.[990] Amongst the Lhoosai, on the Chittagong hills of
southeastern India, "parents are reverenced and old age honored.
When past work the father and mother are cared for by the
children."[991] The Nicobarese treat the old kindly and let them
live as long as they can.[992] The Andamanese also show great
respect to the old and treat them with care and
consideration.[993] The tribes in central Australia have no such
custom "as doing away with aged or infirm people; on the
contrary, such are treated with especial kindness, receiving a
share of the food which they are unable to procure for
themselves."[994] The Jekris, in the Niger Protectorate, "have
great respect for their fathers, chiefs, and old age generally.
Public opinion is very strong on these points."[995] The Indians
on the northwest coast of North America "have great respect for
the aged, whose advice in most matters has great weight."[996]
"Great is the respect for the aged" amongst the Chavantes, a Ges
tribe of Brazil.[997] Cranz[998] says that the Greenland Eskimo
take care of their old parents. "The Ossetines [of the Caucasus]
have the greatest love and respect for their parents, for old age
in general, and for their ancestors. The authority of the head of
the family, the grandfather, father, stepfather, uncle, or older
brother is unconditionally recognized. The younger men will never
sit down in the presence of elders, will not speak loudly, and
will never contradict them."[999] "A young Kalmuck never dares
show himself before his father or mother when he is not sober. He
does not sit down in the presence of old people, drawing his legs
under him, which would be a gross familiarity, but he squats on
his knees, supporting himself with his heels in the ground. He
never shows himself before old people without his girdle. To be
without a girdle is extreme negligé."[1000] Maine[1001] says: "A
New Zealand chief, when asked as to the welfare of a
fellow-tribesman, replied, 'He gave us so much good advice that
we put him mercifully to death.'" This gives a good idea of the
two views which barbarous men take of the aged. At first they are
considered useless and burdensome, and fare accordingly; later a
sense of their wisdom raises them to a place of high honor. It
is evident that the statement here made, of the relation in time
of the two ways of treating the old, is not correct. The cases
above cited are nearly all those of savages and barbarians. The
people of higher civilization will be found amongst those of the
other mores to be cited below (see sec. 335).
+332.+ "The position of the Roman father assured him respect and
obedience as long as he lived. His unlimited power of making a will kept
his fate in his own hands."[1002] The power in his family which the law
gave him was very great, but his sons never paid him affectionate
respect. "It is remarkable that we do not hear so often of barbarous
treatment of old women as of old men. Could love for mothers have been
an effective sentiment? Under mother right the relation of child to
parent was far stronger, and the relation to the maternal uncle was
secondary and derivative with respect to that to the mother."[1003]
+333. Killing the old.+ The custom of killing the old, especially one's
parents, is very antipathetic to us. The cases will show that, for
nomadic people, the custom is necessary. The old drop out by the way and
die from exhaustion. To kill them is only equivalent, and perhaps
kinder. If an enemy is pursuing, the necessity is more acute.[1004] All
this enters into the life conditions so primarily that the custom is a
part of the life policy; it is so understood and acquiesced in. The old
sometimes request it from life weariness, or from devotion to the
welfare of the group.
+334. Killing the old in ethnography.+ The "Gallinomero sometimes
have two or three cords of wood neatly stacked in ricks about the
wigwam. Even then, with the heartless cruelty of the race, they
will dispatch an old man to the distant forest with an ax, whence
he returns with his white head painfully bowed under a back-load
of knaggy limbs, and his bare bronzed bowlegs moving on with that
catlike softness and evenness of the Indian, but so slowly that
he scarcely seems to get on at all."[1005] An old squaw, who had
been abandoned by her children because she was blind, was found
wandering in the mountains of California.[1006] "Filial piety
cannot be said to be a distinguishing quality of the Wailakki, or
any Indians. No matter how high may be their station, the aged
and decrepit are counted a burden. The old man, hero of a hundred
battles, when his skill with the bow and arrow is gone, is
ignominiously compelled to accompany his sons into the forest,
and bear home on his shoulders the game they have killed."[1007]
Catlin describes his leave-taking of an old Ponca chief who was
being deserted by the tribe with a little food and water, a
trifling fire, and a few sticks. The tribe were driven on by
hunger. The old chief said: "My children, our nation is poor, and
it is necessary that you should all go to the country where you
can get meat. My eyes are dimmed and my strength is no more.... I
am a burden to my children. I cannot go. Keep your hearts stout
and think not of me. I am no longer good for anything."[1008]
This is the fullest statement we can quote, attributed to one of
the abandoned old men, of the view of the proceeding which could
make him acquiesce in it. The victims do not always take this
view of the matter. This custom was common to all the tribes
which roamed the prairies. Every one who lived to decrepitude
knew that he must expect it. A more recent authority says that
Poncas and Omahas never left the aged and infirm on the prairie.
They were left at home, with adequate supplies, until the hunting
party returned.[1009] That shows that they had a settled home and
their cornfields are mentioned in the context. The old watched
the cornfields, so that they were of some use. By the law of the
Incas the old, who were unfit for other work, drove birds from
the fields, and they were kept at public cost, like the
disabled.[1010] The Hudson's Bay Eskimo strangle the old who are
dependent on others for their food, or leave them to perish when
the camp is moved. They move in order to get rid of burdensome
old people without executing them.[1011] The central Eskimo kill
the old because all who die by violence go to the happy land;
others have not such a happy future.[1012] Nansen[1013] says that
"when people get so old that they cannot take care of themselves,
especially women, they are often treated with little
consideration" by the Eskimo. Many tribes in Brazil killed the
old because they were a burden and because they could no longer
enjoy war, hunting, and feasting. The Tupis sometimes killed a
sick man and ate the corpse, if the shaman said that he could not
get well.[1014] The Tobas, a Guykuru tribe in Paraguay, bury the
old alive. The old, from pain and decrepitude, often beg for
death. Women execute the homicide.[1015] An old woman of the
Murray River people, Australia, broke her hip. She was left to
die, "as the tribe did not want to be bothered with her." The
helpless and infirm are customarily so treated.[1016] In West
Victoria the old are strangled by a relative deputed for the
purpose and the body is burned. One reason given is that, in
cases of attack by an enemy, the old would be captured and
tortured to death. The victims often beg for delay, but always in
vain.[1017] The Melanesians buried alive the sick and old. "It is
certain that, when this was done, there was generally a kindness
intended." Even when the younger hastened the end, for selfish
reasons, the sick and aged acquiesced. They often begged to be
put out of their misery.[1018] On the Easter Islands the aged
were treated with little respect. The sick were not kindly
treated, unless they were near relatives.[1019] The Solomon
Islanders are described as "a community where no respect whatever
is shown by youth to age."[1020] Holub[1021] mentions a great
cliff from which some South African tribes cast the old when
tired of caring for them. Hottentots used to put decrepit old
people on pack oxen and take them out into the desert, where they
were left in a little hut prepared for the purpose with a little
food. They now show great heartlessness towards helpless old
people.[1022] Bushmen abandon the aged with a little food and
water.[1023] In the Niger Protectorate the old and useless are
killed. The bodies are smoked and pulverized and the powder is
made into little balls with water and corn. The balls are dried
and kept to be used as food.[1024] The Somali exploit the old in
work to the last point, and then cast them out to die of
hunger.[1025] The people of the Arctic regions generally put the
aged to death on account of the hard life conditions. The aged of
the Chuckches demand, as a right, to be put to death.[1026] Life
is so hard and food so scarce that they are indifferent to death,
and the acquiescence of the victim is described as complete and
willing.[1027] A case is also described[1028] of an old man of
that tribe who was put to death at his own request by relatives,
who thought that they performed a sacred obligation. The Yakuts
formerly had a similar custom, the old man begging his children
to dispatch him. They thrust him into a hole in the forest, where
they left him with vessels, tools, and a little food. Sometimes a
man and his wife were buried together. There was no such thing as
respect for the aged or for aged relatives amongst the Yakuts.
Younger men plundered, scolded, and abused the elder.[1029]
+335.+ "The custom of putting a violent end to the aged and
infirm survived from the primeval period into historic times not
infrequently amongst the Indo-European peoples. It can be
authenticated in Vedic antiquity, amongst the Iranians (Bactrians
and Caspian peoples), and amongst the ancient Germans, Slavs, and
Prussians."[1030] The Bactrians cast the old and sick to the
dogs.[1031] The Massagetæ made a sacrifice of cattle and of an
old man, and ate the whole. This was a happy end. Those who died
of disease were buried and were thought less fortunate.[1032] "As
far as I know no mention is made among the Aryans of the putting
to death of old people in general (we first meet with it in the
migratory period), nor of the putting to death of parents by
their children; but their casting out is mentioned."[1033] The
Greeks treated the old with neglect and disrespect.[1034]
Gomme[1035] quotes a fifteenth-century MS. of a Parsifal episode
in which the hero congratulates himself that he is not like the
men of Wales, "where sons pull their fathers out of bed and kill
them to save the disgrace of their dying in bed." He also cites
mention of the "holy mawle which (they fancy) hung behind the
church door, which, when the father was seventy, the son might
fetch to knock his father on the head as effete and of no more
use."[1036] Once in Iceland, in time of famine, it was decided by
solemn resolution that all the old and unproductive should be
killed. That determination was part of a system of legislation by
which, in that country, the society was protected against
superfluous and dependent members.[1037]
+336. Special exigencies of the civilized.+ Civilized men in certain
cases find themselves face to face with the primitive circumstances, and
experience the primeval necessity, which overrides the sentiments of
civilization, whatever may be the strength of the latter. Colonel
Fremont, in 1849, in a letter to his wife, tells how in crossing the
plains he and his comrades left the weak and dying members of their
party, one by one, to die in the snow, after lighting a little fire for
him.[1038] Many other such cases are known from oral narratives. The
question is not one of more or less humanity. It is a question of the
struggle for existence when at the limit of one of its conditions. Our
civilization ordinarily veils from us the fact that we are rivals and
enemies to each other in the competition of life. It is in such cases as
the one just mentioned, or in shipwrecks, that this fact becomes the
commanding one. The only alternative to the abandonment of one is the
loss of all. Abortion, infanticide, and the killing of the old began at
times when the competition of life was so direct and pitiless that it
left no room for kindly sentiment. The latter is a product of
civilization. It could be cultivated only by men for whom the struggle
for existence was so easy, and the competition of life so moderate, that
the severity was all taken out of them. Then there was a surplus and the
conditions of life were easy. The alternative was not murder or suicide.
Such a state of ease was reached by migration or by advance in the
arts,--in short, by greater command of man over nature. The fundamental
elements in the case were altered.
+337. How the mores were changed.+ Abortion, infanticide, and killing
the old are primary folkways which respond to hard facts of life in the
most direct and primitive manner. They are not blamed when they become
ruling customs which everybody observes. They rise into mores more
easily than other primitive usages because the superficial reasons for
believing that they are conducive to welfare appear so simple and
obvious. When a settled life took the place of a wandering life some
immediate reasons for these customs were removed. When peace took the
place of war with neighboring tribes other causes were set aside. The
cases would then become less frequent, especially the cases of
infanticide and killing the old. Then, if cases which seemed to call for
reëmployment of old customs arose, they could be satisfied only against
some repugnance. Men who were not hard pressed by the burden of life
might then refrain from infanticide or killing the old. They yielded to
the repugnance rather than to the dislike of hardship. Later, when
greater power in the struggle for existence was won the infants and the
old were spared, and the old customs were forgotten. Then they came to
be regarded with horror, and the mores protected the infants and the
old. The stories of the French peasantry which come to us nowadays show
that the son is often fully ready in mind and will to kill his old
father if the mores and the law did not restrain him.
[901] Lippert, _Kulturgesch._, I, 229.
[902] Ancient India may be an exception.
[903] _Ethnog. of India_, I, 95.
[904] Exod. xxi. 7.
[905] Rosenberg, _Geelvinkbaai_, 91.
[906] Krieger, _Neu-Guinea_, 390.
[907] _Ibid._, 165.
[908] Pfeil, _Aus der Südsee_, 31.
[909] _Melanesians_, 229.
[910] _Sarawak_, I, 101.
[911] _Dajaks_, 37.
[912] Snouck-Hurgronje, _De Atjehers_, I, 73.
[913] _Bijdragen tot T. L. en V.-kunde_, XXXV, 79.
[914] _Ztsft. f. Ethnol._, XXVIII, 186.
[915] Kubary, _Nukuoro_, 9, 12, 14.
[916] JAI, XVIII, 291.
[917] _Austral. Assoc. Adv. Sci._, 1892, 704.
[918] _Globus_, LXXXVIII, 164, after Joly.
[919] _Three First English Books about America_, 237.
[920] _Globus_, LXXXI, 4.
[921] Spix and Martius, _Travels in Brazil_, II, 77.
[922] _Ethnog. Brasil._, 231.
[923] Grinnell, _Cheyenne Woman Customs_, 15; _N.S. Amer.
Anthrop._; IV, 13.
[924] Paulitschke, _Ethnog. N. O. Afr._, I, 172.
[925] Fritsch, _Eingeb. Süd-Afr._, 96.
[926] Zimmer, _Altind. Leben_, 333.
[927] _Republic_, V, 9.
[928] _Politics_, VII, 16.
[929] Rudeck, _Oeffentl. Sittlichkeit in Deutschland_, 181.
[930] Temesvary, _Volksbräuche und Aberglauben in der
Gebürtshilfe in Ungarn_, 12-14.
[931] Ratzel, _Völkerkunde_, II, 59.
[932] Eyre, _Cent. Aust._, II, 324; Spencer and Gillen, _Cent.
Aust._, 51, 264.
[933] JAI, XIII, 137.
[934] Smyth, _Victoria_, I, 52.
[935] _Novara-Reise_, I, 32.
[936] Dawson, _West Victoria_, 39.
[937] _Austr. Race_, I, 70.
[938] JAI, XII, 329.
[939] _Ibid._, XIX, 99.
[940] Abel, _New Guinea_, 43.
[941] Krieger, _Neu-Guinea_, 292.
[942] Kubary, _Nukuoro_, 35.
[943] Codrington, _Melanesians_, 229.
[944] JAI, XXVIII, 11.
[945] JAI, XVII, 93.
[946] _Austr. Assoc. Adv. Sci._, 1892, 621.
[947] Waitz, _Anthrop._, V, 139.
[948] Ratzel, _Völkerkunde_, II, 126.
[949] Waitz, _Anthrop._, II, 441.
[950] _Smithson. Rep._, 1871, 407; quoted, _Bur. Eth._, I, 99.
[951] Ratzel, II, 769; _Bur. Eth._, XVIII, 289.
[952] PSM, L, 100.
[953] Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples_, 234.
[954] _Globus_, LXXXIII, 314.
[955] Volkens, _Kilimandscharo_, 252.
[956] Stuhlmann, _Mit Emin Pascha_, 38.
[957] Ratzel, _Völkerkunde_, I, 104.
[958] Hanoteau et Letourneux, _La Kabylie_, III, 220.
[959] PSM, XLIV, 779.
[960] JASB, I, 283.
[961] Pickering, _Formosa_, 61.
[962] Hopkins, _Relig. of India_, 531.
[963] _Mod. Hinduism_, 431.
[964] Humbert, _Japan_, 311.
[965] Lippert, I, 205.
[966] _Geog._, VIII, 24.
[967] Aelian, _Var. Hist._, II, 7.
[968] _Moral Instinct_, I, 134, 136.
[969] Cf. Lecky, _Eur. Morals_, II, 20.
[970] Weinhold, _D. F._, I, 91.
[971] _Germania_, 19; _Hist._, V, 5.
[972] Lecky, _Eur. Morals_, II, 27.
[973] _Nat. Hist._, IV, 29.
[974] _De Ira_, I, 15.
[975] Lecky, _Eur. Morals_, II, 29.
[976] _Cod. Theod._, V, 7.
[977] Blair, _Slavery amongst the Romans_, 44.
[978] Lecky, _Eur. Morals_, II, 23.
[979] _Polyptique de Irminon_, I, 287.
[980] Weinhold, _D. F._, I, 93, 96; II, 93.
[981] Rudeck, _Oeffentl. Sittlichkeit_, 182.
[982] Wellhausen, _Ehe bei den Arabern_, 458.
[983] Chandler, _Romances of Roguery in Spain_, 30.
[984] Lippert, _Kulturgesch._, I, 240.
[985] Grimm, _Deutsche Rechtsalt._ 461, 487.
[986] Ratzel, _Völkerkunde_, II, 511.
[987] Nassau, _Fetishism in West Afr._, 159.
[988] Vannutelli e Citerni, _L'Omo_, 448.
[989] Ratzel, _Hist. of Mankind_, II, 468.
[990] Ratzel, _Völkerkunde_, II, 22.
[991] Lewin, _Wild Races of S. E. India_, 256.
[992] JAI, XVIII, 384.
[993] _Ibid._, XII, 93.
[994] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes, Cent. Austr._, 51.
[995] JAI, XXVIII, 109.
[996] _U.S. Nat. Mus._, 1888, 240.
[997] Martius, _Ethnog. Brasil._, 274.
[998] _Hist. von Grönland_, 197.
[999] von Haxthausen, _Transkaukasia_, II, 35.
[1000] _Russian Ethnog._ (_Russ._), II, 445.
[1001] _Early Law and Custom_, 23.
[1002] Lippert, _Kulturgesch._, I, 241.
[1003] Lippert, _Kulturgesch._, I, 325.
[1004] Powers, _Calif. Indians_, 319.
[1005] _Ibid._, 176; Bancroft, _Native Races_, I, 390.
[1006] _Ibid._, 112.
[1007] _Ibid._, 118.
[1008] _Smithson. Rep._, 1885, Part II, 429.
[1009] _Bur. Eth._, III, 274.
[1010] Martius, _Ethnog. Brasil._, 126, n.
[1011] _Bur. Eth._, XI, 178, 186.
[1012] _Ibid._, VI, 615.
[1013] _Eskimo_, 178.
[1014] Martius, _Ethnog. Bras._, 126.
[1015] _Globus_, LXXXI, 108.
[1016] Eyre, _Cent. Australia_, I, 321.
[1017] Dawson, _West Victoria_, 62.
[1018] Codrington, _Melanesians_, 347.
[1019] Geiseler, _Oster-inseln_, 31.
[1020] Woodford, _Head-hunters_, 25.
[1021] _Sieben Jahre in S. Afr._, I, 409.
[1022] Kolben, _Hist. Good Hope_, I, 324; Fritsch, _Eingeb. S.
Afr._, 334.
[1023] _Globus_, XVIII, 122.
[1024] Kingsley, _West Afr. Studies_, 566.
[1025] Paulitschke, _Ethnog. N.O. Afr._, I, 205.
[1026] _N.S. Amer. Anthrop._, III, 106.
[1027] De Windt in _N.Y. Times_, May 10, 1897.
[1028] _Russ. Ethnog._ (_russ._), II, 578.
[1029] Sieroshevski, _Yakuty_ (_russ._), 511, 621.
[1030] Schrader, _Prehist. Antiq. of the Aryans_, 379; Zimmer,
_Altind. Leben_, 327.
[1031] Strabo, XI, 517; Spiegel, _Eran. Alterthumskunde_, III,
682.
[1032] Herodotus, I, 216.
[1033] Ihering, _Evol. of the Aryan_, 33.
[1034] Mahaffy, _Soc. Life in Greece_, 229.
[1035] _Ethnol. in Folklore_, 136.
[1036] In the national museum at Stockholm is a large collection
of flat clubs from all the churches in Sweden, the use of which
is described with discretion. That the clubs were kept in the
churches denotes that the act was put under religious sanction.
[1037] Weinhold, _D.F._, II, 92.
[1038] Thayer, _Marvels of the New West_, 231.
CHAPTER VIII
CANNIBALISM
Cannibalism.--Origin in food supply.--Cannibalism not
abominable.--In-group cannibalism.--Population policy.--
Judicial cannibalism.--Judicial cannibalism in ethnography.--
Out-group cannibalism.--Cannibalism to cure disease.--
Reversions to cannibalism.--Cannibalism in famine.--Cannibalism
and ghost fear.--Cannibalism in sorcery and human sacrifice.--
Cult and cannibalism.--Superstitions about cannibalism.--Food
taboos in ethnography.--Expiation for taking life.--Philosophy
of cannibalism.
+338. Cannibalism.+ Cannibalism is one of the primordial mores. It dates
from the earliest known existence of man on earth. It may reasonably be
believed to be a custom which all peoples have practiced.[1039] Only on
the pastoral stage has it ceased, where the flesh of beasts was common
and abundant.[1040] It is indeed noticeable that the pygmies of Africa
and the Kubus of Sumatra, two of the lowest outcast races, do not
practice cannibalism,[1041] although their superior neighbors do. Our
intense abomination for cannibalism is a food taboo (secs. 353-354), and
is perhaps the strongest taboo which we have inherited.
+339. Origin in food supply.+ It is the best opinion that cannibalism
originated in the defects of the food supply, more specifically in the
lack of meat food. The often repeated objection that New Zealanders and
others have practiced cannibalism when they had an abundant supply of
meat food is not to the point. The passion for meat food, especially
among people who have to live on heavy starch food, is very strong.
Hence they eat worms, insects, and offal. It is also asserted that the
appetite for human flesh, when eating it has become habitual, becomes a
passion. When salt is not to be had the passion for meat reaches its
highest intensity. "When tribes [of Australians] assembled to eat the
fruit of the bunya-bunya they were not permitted to kill any game [in
the district where the trees grow], and at length the craving for flesh
was so intense that they were impelled to kill one of their number, in
order that their appetites might be satisfied."[1042] It follows that
when this custom has become traditional the present food supply may have
little effect on it. There are cases at the present time in which the
practice of using human flesh for food is customary on a large and
systematic scale. On the island of New Britain human flesh is sold in
shops as butcher's meat is sold amongst us.[1043] In at least some of
the Solomon Islands human victims (preferably women) are fattened for a
feast, like pigs.[1044] Lloyd[1045] describes the cannibalism of the
Bangwa as an everyday affair, although they eat chiefly enemies, and
rarely a woman. The women share the feast, sitting by themselves. He
says that it is, no doubt, "a depraved appetite." They are not at all
ashamed of it. Physically the men are very fine. "The cannibalism of the
Monbutto is unsurpassed by any nation in the world."[1046] Amongst them
human flesh is sold as if it were a staple article of food. They are "a
noble race." They have national pride, intellectual power, and good
judgment. They are orderly, friendly, and have a stable national
life.[1047] Ward[1048] describes the cannibalism on the great bend of
the Congo as due to a relish for the kind of food. "Originating,
apparently, from stress of adverse circumstances, it has become an
acquired taste, the indulgence of which has created a peculiar form of
mental disorder, with lack of feeling, love of fighting, cruelty, and
general human degeneracy, as prominent attributes." An organized traffic
in human beings for food exists on the upper waters of the Congo. It is
thought that the pygmy tribe of the Wambutti are not cannibals because
they are too "low," and because they do not file the lower incisors. The
latter custom goes with cannibalism in the Congo region, and is also
characteristic of the more gifted, beautiful, and alert tribes.[1049]
None of the coast tribes of West Africa eat human flesh, but the
interior tribes eat any corpse regardless of the cause of death.
Families hesitate to eat their own dead, but they sell or exchange them
for the dead of other families.[1050] In the whole Congo region the
custom exists, especially amongst the warlike tribes, who eat not only
war captives but slaves.[1051]
It is noteworthy that a fork[1052] was invented in Polynesia for this
kind of food, long before the fork was used for any other.
+340. Cannibalism not abominable.+ Spix and Martius[1053] asked a chief
of the Miranhas why his people practiced cannibalism. The chief showed
that it was entirely a new fact to him that some people thought it an
abominable custom. "You whites," said he, "will not eat crocodiles or
apes, although they taste well. If you did not have so many pigs and
crabs you would eat crocodiles and apes, for hunger hurts. It is all a
matter of habit. When I have killed an enemy it is better to eat him
than to let him go to waste. Big game is rare because it does not lay
eggs like turtles. The bad thing is not being eaten, but death, if I am
slain, whether our tribal enemy eats me or not. I know of no game which
tastes better than men. You whites are really too dainty."
+341. In-group cannibalism.+ Cannibalism was so primordial in the
mores that it has two forms, one for the in-group, the other for
the out-group. It had a theory of affection in the former case
and of enmity in the latter. In the in-group it was so far from
being an act of hostility, or veiled impropriety, that it was
applied to the closest kin. Mothers ate their babies, if the
latter died, in order to get back the strength which they had
lost in bearing them. Herodotus says that the Massagetæ
sacrificed the old of their tribe, boiling the flesh of the men
with that of cattle and eating the whole. Those who died of
disease before attaining old age were buried, but that they
thought a less happy fate. He says that the Padeans, men in the
far east of India, put a sick man of their tribe to death and ate
him, lest his flesh should be wasted by disease. The women did
the same by a sick woman. If any reach old age without falling
victims to this custom, they too are then killed and eaten. He
mentions also the Issidones, in southeastern Russia, who cut up
their dead fathers, mingle the flesh with that of sacrificed
animals, and make a feast of the whole. The skull is cleaned,
gilded, and kept as an emblem, to which they make annual
sacrifices. They are accounted a righteous people. Amongst them
women are esteemed equal with men.[1054] Strabo[1055] says that
the Irish thought it praiseworthy to eat their deceased parents.
The Birhors of Hazaribag, Hindostan, formerly ate their parents,
but "they repudiate the suggestion that they ate any but their
own relations" [i.e. each one ate his own relatives and no
others?][1056]. Reclus[1057] says that in that tribe "the parents
beg that their corpses may find a refuge in the stomachs of their
children rather than be left on the road or in the forest." The
Tibetans, in ancient times, ate their parents, "out of piety, in
order to give them no other sepulcher than their own bowels."
This custom ceased before 1250 A.D., but the cups made of the
skulls of relatives were used as memorials. Tartars and some "bad
Christians" killed their fathers when old, burned the corpses,
and mingled the ashes with their daily food.[1058] In the gulf
country of Australia only near relatives partake of the dead,
unless the corpse is that of an enemy. A very small bit only is
eaten by each. In the case of an enemy the purpose is to win his
strength. In the case of a relative the motive is that the
survivors may not, by lamentations, become a nuisance in the
camp.[1059] The Dieyerie have the father family. The father may
not eat his own child, but the mother and female relatives must
do so, in order to have the dead in their liver, the seat of
feeling.[1060] The Tuaré of Brazil (2 S. 67 W.) burn their dead.
They preserve the ashes in reeds and mix them with their daily
meals.[1061] The Jumanas, on the head waters of the Amazon,
regard the bones as the seat of the soul. They burn the bones of
their dead, grind them to powder, mix the powder with
intoxicating liquor, and drink it, "that the dead may live again
in them."[1062] All branches of the Tupis are cannibals. They
brought the custom from the interior.[1063] The Kobena drink in
their _cachiri_ the powdered bones of their dead relatives.[1064]
The Chavantes, on the Uruguay, eat their dead children to get
back the souls. Especially young mothers do this, as they are
thought to have given a part of their own souls to their children
too soon.[1065] In West Victoria "the bodies of relatives who
have lost their lives by violence are alone partaken of." Each
eats only a bit, and it is eaten "with no desire to gratify or
appease the appetite, but only as a symbol of respect and regret
for the dead."[1066] In Australian cannibalism the eating of
relatives has behind it the idea of saving the strength which
would be lost, or of acquiring the dexterity or wisdom, etc., of
the dead. Enemies are eaten to win their strength, dexterity,
etc. Only a bit is eaten. There are no great feasts. The fat and
soft parts are eaten because they are the residence of the soul.
In eating enemies there appears to be ritual significance.[1067]
It may be the ritual purpose to get rid of the soul of the slain
man for fear that it might seek revenge for his death.
+342.+ Some inhabitants of West Australia explained cannibalism
(they ate every tenth child born) as "necessary to keep the tribe
from increasing beyond the carrying capacity of the
territory."[1068] Infanticide is a part of population policy.
Cannibalism may be added to it either for food supply or
goblinism. When children were sacrificed in Mexico their hearts
were cooked and eaten, for sorcery.[1069]
+343. Judicial cannibalism.+ Another use of cannibalism in the in-group
is to annihilate one who has broken an important taboo. The notion is
frequently met with, amongst nature peoples, that a ghost can be got rid
of by utterly annihilating the corpse, e.g. by fire. Judicial
cannibalism destroys it, and the members of the group by this act
participate in a ritual, or sacramental ceremony, by which a criminal is
completely annihilated. Perhaps there may also be the idea of collective
responsibility for his annihilation. To take the life of a tribe comrade
was for a long time an act which needed high motive and authority and
required expiation. The ritual of execution was like the ritual of
sacrifice. In the Hebrew law some culprits were to be stoned by the
whole congregation. Every one must take a share in the great act. The
blood guilt, if there was any, must be incurred by all.[1070] Primitive
taboos are put on acts which offend the ghosts and may, therefore, bring
woe on the whole group. Any one who breaks a taboo commits a sin and a
crime, and excites the wrath of the superior powers. Therefore he draws
on himself the fear and horror of his comrades. They must extrude him by
banishment or death. They want to dissociate themselves from him. They
sacrifice him to the powers which he has offended. When his comrades eat
his corpse they perform a duty. They annihilate him and his soul
completely.
+344. Judicial cannibalism in ethnography.+ "A man found in the
harem of Muato-jamvos was cut in pieces and given, raw and warm,
to the people to be eaten."[1071] The Bataks employ judicial
cannibalism as a regulated system. They have no other
cannibalism. Adulterers, persons guilty of incest, men who have
had sex intercourse with the widow of a younger brother,
traitors, spies, and war captives taken with arms in their hands
are killed and eaten. The last-mentioned are cut in pieces alive
and eaten bit by bit in order to annihilate them in the most
shameful manner.[1072] The Tibetans and Chinese formerly ate all
who were executed by civil authority. An Arab traveler of the
ninth century mentions a Chinese governor who rebelled, and who
was killed and eaten. Modern cases of cannibalism are reported
from China. Pith balls stained with the blood of decapitated
criminals are used as medicine for consumption. Cases are also
mentioned of Tartar rulers who ordered the flesh of traitors to
be mixed with the rulers' own food and that of their barons.
Tartar women begged for the possession of a culprit, boiled him
alive, cut the corpse into mince-meat, and distributed it to the
whole army to be eaten.[1073]
+345. Out-group cannibalism.+ Against members of an out-group,
e.g. amongst the Maori, cannibalism "was due to a desire for
revenge; cooking and eating being the greatest of insults."[1074]
On Tanna (New Hebrides) to eat an enemy was the greatest
indignity to him, worse than giving up his corpse to dogs or
swine, or mutilating it. It was believed that strength was
obtained by eating a corpse.[1075] A negro chief in Yabunda,
French Congo, told Brunache[1076] that "it was a very fine thing
to enjoy the flesh of a man whom one hates and whom one has
killed in a battle or a duel." Martius attributes the cannibalism
of the Miranhas to the enjoyment of a "rare, dainty meal, which
will satisfy their rude vanity, in some cases also, blood revenge
and superstition."[1077] Cannibalism is one in the chain of
causes which keeps this people more savage than their neighbors,
most of whom have now abandoned it. "It is one of the most
beastly of all the beastlike traits in the moral physiognomy of
man." It is asserted that cannibalism has been recently
introduced in some places, e.g. Florida (Solomon Islands). It is
also said that on those islands the coast people give it up [they
have fish], but those inland retain it. The notion probably
prevails amongst all that population that, by this kind of food,
_mana_ is obtained, _mana_ being the name for all power, talent,
and capacity by which success is won.[1078] The Melanesians took
advantage of a crime, or alleged crime, to offer the culprit to a
spirit, and so get fighting _mana_ for the warriors.[1079] The
Chames of Cochin China think that the gall of slain enemies,
mixed with brandy, is an excellent means to produce war courage
and skill.[1080] The Chinese believe that the liver is the seat
of life and courage. The gall is the manifestation of the soul.
Soldiers drink the gall of slain enemies to increase their own
vigor and courage.[1081] The mountain tribes of Natal make a
paste from powder formed from parts of the body, which the
priests administer to the youth.[1082] Some South African tribes
make a broth of the same kind of powder, which must be swallowed
only in the prescribed manner. It "must be lapped up with the
hand and thrown into the mouth ... to give the soldiers courage,
perseverance, fortitude, strategy, patience, and wisdom."[1083]
+346. Cannibalism to cure disease.+ Notions that the parts of the human
body will cure different diseases are only variants of the notion of
getting courage and skill by eating the same. Cases are recorded in
which a man gave parts of his body to be eaten by the sick out of love
and devotion.[1084]
+347. Reversions to cannibalism.+ When savage and brutal emotions are
stirred, in higher civilization, by war and quarrels, the cannibalistic
disposition is developed again. Achilles told Hector that he wished he
could eat him. Hekuba expressed a wish that she could devour the liver
of Achilles.[1085] In 1564 the Turks executed Vishnevitzky, a brave
Polish soldier who had made them much trouble. They ate his heart.[1086]
Dozy[1087] mentions a case at Elvira, in 890, in which women cast
themselves on the corpse of a chief who had caused the death of their
relatives, cut it in pieces, and ate it. The same author relates[1088]
that Hind, the mother of Moavia, made for herself a necklace and
bracelets of the noses and ears of Moslems killed at Ohod, and also that
she cut open the corpse of an uncle of Mohammed, tore out the liver, and
ate a piece of it. It is related of an Irish chief, of the twelfth
century, that when his soldiers brought to him the head of a man whom he
hated "he tore the nostrils and lips with his teeth, in a most savage
and inhuman manner."[1089]
+348. In famine.+ Reversion to cannibalism under a total lack of other
food ought not to be noted. We have some historical cases, however, in
which during famine people became so familiarized with cannibalism that
their horror of it was overcome. Abdallatif[1090] mentions a great
famine in Egypt in the year 1200, due to a failure of the inundation of
the Nile. Resort was had to cannibalism to escape death. At first the
civil authorities burned alive those who were detected, being moved by
astonishment and horror. Later, those sentiments were not aroused. "Men
were seen to make ordinary meals of human flesh, to use it as a dainty,
and to lay up provision of it.... The usage, having been introduced,
spread to all the provinces. Then it ceased to cause surprise.... People
talked of it as an ordinary and indifferent thing. This indifference was
due to habit and familiarity." This case shows that the horror of
cannibalism is due to tradition in the mores. Diodorus says that the
ancient Egyptians, during a famine, ate each other rather than any
animal which they considered sacred.[1091]
+349. Cannibalism and ghost fear.+ Human sacrifice and cannibalism are
not necessarily conjoined. Often it seems as if they once were so, but
have been separated.[1092] Whatever men want ghosts want. If the former
are cannibals, the latter will be the same. Often the notion is that the
gods eat the souls. In this view, the men eat the flesh of sacrificed
beasts and sacrifice the blood, in which is the life or soul, to the
gods. This the Jews did. They also burned the kidneys, the fat of the
kidneys, and the liver, which they thought to be the seat of life. These
they might not eat.[1093] When men change, the gods do not. Hence the
rites of human sacrifice and cannibalism continue in religion long after
they disappear from the mores, in spite of loathing. Loathing is a part
of the sacrifice.[1094] The self-control and self-subjugation enter into
the sacrament. All who participate, in religion, in an act which gravely
affects the imagination as horrible and revolting enter into a
communion with each other. Every one who desires to participate in the
good to be obtained must share in the act. As we have seen above, all
must participate that none may be in a position to reproach the rest.
Under this view, the cannibal food is reduced to a crumb, or to a drop
of blood, which may be mixed with other food. Still later, the cannibal
food is only represented, e.g. by cakes in the human form, etc. In the
Middle Ages the popular imagination saw a human body in the host, and
conjured up operations on the host which were attributed to sorcerers
and Jews, which would only be applicable to a human body. Then the New
Testament language about the body and blood of Christ took on a
realistic sense which was cannibalistic.
+350. Cannibalism, sorcery, and human sacrifice.+ Among the West
African tribes sacrificial and ceremonial cannibalism in fetich
affairs is almost universal.[1095] Serpa Pinto[1096] mentions a
frequent feast of the chiefs of the Bihe, for which a man and
four women of specified occupations are required. The corpses are
both washed and boiled with the flesh of an ox. Everything at the
feast must be marked with human blood. Cannibalism, in connection
with religious festivals and human sacrifice, was extravagantly
developed in Mexico, Central America, and British Columbia. The
rites show that the human sacrifice was sacramental and
vicarious. In one case the prayer of the person who owned the
sacrifice is given. It is a prayer for success and prosperity.
Flesh was also bitten from the arm of a living person and eaten.
A religious idea was cultivated into a mania and the taste for
human flesh was developed.[1097] Here also we find the usage that
shamans ate the flesh of corpses, in connection with fasting and
solitude, as means of professional stimulation.[1098] Preuss
emphasizes the large element of sorcery in the eating of parts of
a human sacrifice, as practiced in Mexico.[1099] The combination
of sorcery, religious ritual, and cannibalism deserves very
careful attention. The rites of the festival were cases of
dramatic sorcery. At the annual festival of the god of war an
image of the god was made of grain, seeds, and vegetables,
kneaded with the blood of boys sacrificed for the purpose. This
image was broken into crumbs and eaten by males only, "after the
manner of our communion."[1100] The Peruvians ate sacrificial
cakes kneaded with the blood of human victims, "as a mark of
alliance with the Inca."[1101] In Guatemala organs of a slain
war captive were given to an old prophetess to be eaten. She was
then asked to pray to the idol which she served to give them many
captives.[1102] Human sacrifices and sacramental cannibalism
exist amongst the Bella-coola Indians in northwestern British
America. Children of the poor are bought from their parents to be
made sacrifices. The blood is drunk and the flesh is eaten raw.
The souls of the sacrificed go to live in the sun and become
birds. When the English government tried to stop these sacrifices
the priests dug up corpses and ate them. Several were thus
poisoned.[1103]
+351. Cult and cannibalism.+ The cases which have been cited show how
cult kept up cannibalism, if no beast was substituted. Also, a great
number of uses of blood and superstitions about blood appear to be
survivals of cannibalism or deductions from it. The same may be said of
holiday cakes of special shapes, made by peasants, which have long lost
all known sense. In one part of France the last of the harvest which is
brought in is made into a loaf in human shape, supposed to represent the
spirit of corn or of fertility. It is broken up and distributed amongst
all the villagers, who eat it.[1104]
A Mongolian lama reported of a tribe, the Lhopa of Sikkim or Bhutan,
that they kill and eat the bride's mother at a wedding, if they can
catch no wild man.[1105]
+352.+ A burglar in West Prussia, in 1865, killed a maid-servant and cut
flesh from her body out of which to make a candle for use in later acts
of theft. He was caught while committing another burglary. He confessed
that he ate a part of the corpse of his first-mentioned victim "in order
to appease his conscience."[1106]
+353. Food taboos.+ It is most probable that dislike to eat the human
body was a product of custom, and grew in the mores after other foods
became available in abundance. Unusual foods now cost us an effort.
Frogs' legs, for instance, repel most people at first. We eat what we
learned from our parents to eat, and other foods are adopted by
"acquired taste." Light is thrown on the degree to which all food
preferences and taboos are a part of the mores by a comparison of some
cases of food taboos. Porphyrius, a Christian of Tyre, who lived in the
second half of the second century of the Christian era, says that a
Phoenician or an Egyptian would sooner eat man's flesh than cow's
flesh.[1107] A Jew would not eat swine's flesh. A Zoroastrian could not
conceive it possible that any one could eat dog's flesh. We do not eat
dog's flesh, probably for the same reason that we do not eat cat's or
horse's, because the flesh is tough or insipid and we can get better,
but some North American Indians thought dog's flesh the very best food.
The Banziris, in the French Congo, reserved dog's flesh for men, and
they surround meals of it with a solemn ritual. A man must not touch his
wife with his finger for a day after such a feast.[1108] The inhabitants
of Ponape will eat no eels, which "they hold in the greatest horror."
The word used by them for eel means "the dreadful one."[1109] Dyaks eat
snakes, but reject eels.[1110] Some Melanesians will not eat eels
because they think that there are ghosts in them.[1111] South African
Bantus abominate fish.[1112] Some Canary Islanders ate no fish.[1113]
Tasmanians would rather starve than eat fish.[1114] The Somali will eat
no fish, considering it disgraceful to do so.[1115] They also reject
game and birds.[1116] These people who reject eels and fish renounce a
food supply which is abundant in their habitat.
+354. Food taboos in ethnography.+ Some Micronesians eat no
fowl.[1117] Wild Veddahs reject fowl.[1118] Tuaregs eat no fish,
birds, or eggs.[1119] In eastern Africa many tribes loathe eggs
and fowl as food. They are as much disgusted to see a white man
eat eggs as a white man is to see savages eat offal.[1120] Some
Australians will not eat pork.[1121] Nagas and their neighbors
think roast dog a great delicacy. They will eat anything, even an
elephant which has been three days buried, but they abominate
milk, and find the smell of tinned lobster too strong.[1122]
Negroes in the French Congo "have a perfect horror of the idea of
drinking milk."[1123]
+355. Expiation for taking life.+ The most primitive notion we
can find as to taking life is that it is wrong to kill any living
thing except as a sacrifice to some superior power. This dread of
destroying life, as if it was the assumption of a divine
prerogative to do so, gives a background for all the usages with
regard to sacrifice and food. "In old Israel all slaughter was
sacrifice, and a man could never eat beef or mutton except as a
religious act." Amongst the Arabs, "even in modern times, when a
sheep or camel is slain in honor of a guest, the good old custom
is that the host keeps open house for all his neighbors."[1124]
In modern Hindostan food which is ordinarily tabooed may be eaten
if it has been killed in offering to a god. Therefore an image of
the god is set up in the butcher's shop. All the animals are
slaughtered nominally as an offering to it. This raises the
taboo, and the meat is bought and eaten without scruple.[1125]
Thus it is that the taboo on cannibalism may be raised by
religion, or that cannibalism may be made a duty by religion.
Amongst the ancient Semites some animals were under a food taboo
for a reason which has two aspects at the same time: they were
both offensive (ritually unclean) and sacred. What is holy and
what is loathsome are in like manner set aside. The Jews said
that the Holy Scriptures rendered him who handled them unclean.
Holy and unclean have a common element opposed to profane. In the
case of both there is devotion or consecration to a higher power.
If it is a good power, the thing is holy; if a bad power, it is
unclean. He who touches either falls under a taboo, and needs
purification.[1126] The tabooed things could only be eaten
sacrificially and sacramentally, i.e. as disgusting and unusual
they had greater sacrificial force.[1127] This idea is to be
traced in all ascetic usages, and in many mediæval developments
of religious usages which introduced repulsive elements, to
heighten the self-discipline of conformity. In the Caroline
Islands turtles are sacred to the gods and are eaten only in
illness or as sacrifices.[1128]
+356. Philosophy of cannibalism.+ If cannibalism began in the interest
of the food supply, especially of meat, the wide ramifications of its
relations are easily understood. While men were unable to cope with the
great beasts cannibalism was a leading feature of social life, around
which a great cluster of interests centered. Ideas were cultivated by
it, and it became regulative and directive as to what ought to be done.
The sentiments of kinship made it seem right and true that the nearest
relatives should be eaten. Further deductions followed, of which the
cases given are illustrations. As to enemies, the contrary sentiments
found place in connection with it. It combined directly with ghost fear.
The sacramental notion seems born of it. When the chase was sufficiently
developed to give better food the taboo on human flesh seemed no more
irrational than the other food taboos above mentioned. Swans and
peacocks were regarded as great dainties in the Middle Ages. We no
longer eat them. Snakes are said to be good eating, but most of us would
find it hard to eat them. Yet why should they be more loathsome than
frogs or eels? Shipwrecked people, or besieged and famine-stricken
people, have overcome the loathing for human flesh rather than die.
Others have died because they could not overcome it, and have thus
rendered the strongest testimony to the power of the mores. In general,
the cases show that if men are hungry enough, or angry enough, they may
return to cannibalism now. Our horror of cannibalism is due to a long
and broad tradition, broken only by hearsay of some far-distant and
extremely savage people who now practice it. Probably the popular
opinion about it is that it is wicked. It is not forbidden by the rules
of any religion, because it had been thrown out of the mores before any
"religion" was founded.
[1039] See Andrée, _Anthropophagie_; Steinmetz, _Endokannibalism,
Mitt. Anthrop. Ges. in Wien_, XXVI; Schaffhausen in _Archiv für
Anthrop._, IV, 245. Steinmetz gives in tabular form known cases
of cannibalism with the motives for it, p. 25.
[1040] Lippert, _Kulturgesch._, II, 275.
[1041] Globus, XXVI, 45; Stuhlmann, _Mit Emin Pascha_, 457; JAI,
XXVIII, 39.
[1042] Smyth, _Victoria_, I, xxxviii.
[1043] _Aust. Ass. Adv. Sci._, 1892, 618.
[1044] JAI, XVII, 99.
[1045] _Dwarf-land_, 345.
[1046] Schweinfurth, _Heart of Africa_, II, 94.
[1047] Keane, _Ethnology_, 265.
[1048] JAI, XXIV, 298.
[1049] _Globus_, LXXXV, 229.
[1050] Nassau, _Fetishism in West Africa_, 11.
[1051] _Globus_, LXXII, 120; LXXXVII, 237.
[1052] Specimen in the Dresden Museum.
[1053] _Brasilien_, 1249.
[1054] Herod., I, 216; III, 99; IV, 26.
[1055] IV, 5, 298.
[1056] JASB, II, 571.
[1057] _Prim. Folk_, 249.
[1058] Rubruck, _Eastern Parts_, 81, 151.
[1059] JAI, XXIV, 171.
[1060] JAI, XVII, 186.
[1061] _Globus_, LXXXIII, 137.
[1062] Martius, _Ethnog. Bras._, 485.
[1063] Southey, _Brazil_, I, 233.
[1064] _Ztsft. f. Ethnol._, XXXVI, 293.
[1065] Andree, _Anthropophagie_, 50.
[1066] Dawson, _West Victoria_, 67.
[1067] Smyth, _Victoria_, I, 245.
[1068] Whitmarsh, _The World's Rough Hand_, 178.
[1069] _Globus_, LXXXVI, 112.
[1070] W. R. Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, 284.
[1071] Oliveira Martins, _Raças Humanas_, II, 67.
[1072] Wilken, _Volkenkunde_, 23, 27.
[1073] Marco Polo, I, 266 and Yule's note, 275.
[1074] JAI, XIX, 108.
[1075] _Austral. Ass. Adv. Sci._, 1892, 649-663.
[1076] _Cent. Afr._, 108.
[1077] _Ethnog. Bras._, 538.
[1078] JAI, X, 305.
[1079] Codrington, _Melanesians_, 134.
[1080] _Bijdragen tot. T. L. en V.-kunde_, 1895, 342.
[1081] _Globus_, LXXXI, 96.
[1082] JAI, XX, 116.
[1083] JAI, XXII, 111; cf. Isaiah lxv. 4.
[1084] _Intern. Arch. f. Ethnol._, IX, _Supplem._ 37.
[1085] _Iliad_, XXII, 346; XXIV, 212.
[1086] Evarnitzky, _Zaporoge Kossacks_ (_russ._), I, 209.
[1087] _Mussulm. d'Espagne_, II, 226.
[1088] _Ibid._, I, 47.
[1089] Gomme, _Ethnol. in Folklore_, 149.
[1090] _Relation de l'Egypte_, 360.
[1091] Diodorus, I, 84.
[1092] Ratzel, _Völkerkunde_, II, 124; Martius, _Ethnog. Bras._,
129; _Globus_, LXXV, 260.
[1093] W. R. Smith, _Relig. of the Semites_, 379.
[1094] Lippert, _Kulturgesch._, II, 292.
[1095] Kingsley, _Travels in W. Afr._, 287.
[1096] _Como Eu Atravassei Afr._, I, 148.
[1097] Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific Coast_, I, 170
(III, 150); II, 176, 395, 689, 708; III, 413.
[1098] _Ibid._, III, 152.
[1099] _Globus_, LXXXVI, 109, 112.
[1100] _Bur. Ethnol._, IX, 523.
[1101] _Ibid._, 527.
[1102] Brinton, _Nagualism_, 34.
[1103] _Mitt. Berl. Mus._, 1885, 184.
[1104] PSM, XLVIII, 411.
[1105] Rockhill, _Mongolia and Thibet_, 144.
[1106] PSM, LIV, 217.
[1107] _De Abstinentia_, II, 11.
[1108] Brunache, _Cent. Afr._, 69.
[1109] Christian, _Caroline Isl._, 73.
[1110] Perelaer, _Dyaks_, 27.
[1111] Codrington, _Melanesians_, 177.
[1112] Fritsch, _Eingeb. Südafr._, 107.
[1113] _N. S. Amer. Anthrop._, II, 454.
[1114] Ling Roth, _Tasmanians_, 101.
[1115] Paulitschke, _Ethnog. N.O. Afr._, I, 155.
[1116] _Ibid._, II, 27.
[1117] Finsch, _Ethnol. Erfahr._, III, 53.
[1118] _N. S. Ethnol. Soc._, II, 304.
[1119] Duveyrier, _Touaregs du Nord_, 401.
[1120] Volkens, _Kilimandscharo_, 244.
[1121] Smyth, _Victoria_, I, 237.
[1122] JAI, XI, 63; XXII, 245.
[1123] Kingsley, _West Afr. Studies_, 451.
[1124] W. R. Smith, _Relig. of Semites_, 142, 283.
[1125] Wilkins, _Mod. Hinduism_, 168.
[1126] Bousset, _Relig. des Judenthums_, 124.
[1127] W. R. Smith, _Relig. of Semites_, 290; Isaiah lxv. 4;
lxvi. 3, 17; swine, dog, and mouse.
[1128] Kubary, _Karolinen Archipel_, 168.
CHAPTER IX
SEX MORES
Meaning of sex mores.--The sex difference.--Sex difference and
evolution.--The sex distinction; family institution; marriage in
the mores.--Regulation is conventional, not natural.--Egoistic
and altruistic elements.--Primary definition of marriage; taboo
and conventionalization.--Family, not marriage, is the
institution.--Endogamy and exogamy.--Polygamy and polyandry.--
Consistency of the mores under polygamy or polyandry.--Mother
family and father family.--Change from mother family to father
family.--Capture and purchase become ceremonies.--Feminine
honor and virtue; jealousy.--Virginity.--Chastity for men.--
Love marriage; conjugal affection; wife.--Heroic conjugal
devotion.--Hindoo models and ideals.--Slavonic sex mores.--
Russian sex mores.--Tribes of the Caucasus.--Mediæval sex
mores.--The standard of the "good wife"; pair marriage.--"One
flesh."--Pair marriage.--Marriage in modern mores.--Pair
marriage, its technical definition.--Ethics of pair marriage.--
Pair marriage is monopolistic.--The future of marriage.--The
normal type of sex union.--Divorce.--Divorce in ethnography.--
Rabbis on divorce.--Divorce at Rome.--Pair marriage and
divorce.--Divorce in the Middle Ages.--Refusal of remarriage.--
Child marriage.--Child marriage in Hindostan.--Child marriage
in Europe.--Cloistering women.--Second marriages; widows.--
Burning of widows.--Difficulty of reform of suttee in India.--
Widows and remarriage in the Christian church.--Remarriage and
other-worldliness.--Free marriage.--The Japanese woman.
+357. Meaning of sex mores.+ The sex mores are one of the greatest and
most important divisions of the mores. They cover the relations of men
and women to each other before marriage and in marriage, with all the
rights and duties of married and unmarried respectively to the rest of
the society. The mores determine what marriage shall be, who may enter
into it, in what way they may enter into it, divorce, and all details of
proper conduct in the family relation. In regard to all these matters it
is evident that custom governs and prescribes. When positive
institutions and laws are made they always take up, ordain, and
regulate what the mores have long previously made facts in the social
order. In the administration of law also, especially by juries, domestic
relations are controlled by the mores. The decisions rendered by judges
utter in dogmatic or sententious form the current notions of truth and
right about those relations. Our terms "endogamy," "mother family,"
"polyandry," etc., are only descriptive terms for a summary of the
folkways which have been established in different groups and which are
capable of classification.
+358. The sex difference.+ The economy and advantage of sex
differentiation are primarily physical. "As structural complexity
increases, the female generative system becomes more and more complex.
All this involves a great expenditure of energy, and we can clearly see
how an ovum-producing organism would benefit by being spared the
additional effort required for seeking out and impregnating another
organism, and how, on the other hand, organisms whose main reproductive
feature is simply the production of spermatozoa would be better fitted
for the work of search and impregnation if unhampered by a cumbersome
female generative system. Hence the advantage of the sexes being
separate."[1129] Here we have the reason why the sexes are independent
and complementary, but why "equality" can never be predicated of them.
Power in the family, in industry, in civil affairs, war, and religion is
not the same thing and cannot be. Each sex has more power for one
domain, and must have less power for another. Equality is an incongruous
predicate. "Under the influence of the law of battle the male has become
more courageous, powerful, and pugnacious than the female.... So, too,
the male has, in the struggle, often acquired great beauty, success on
his part depending largely, in many cases, upon the choice of the
females who are supposed to select the most beautiful mates. This is
thought to be notably the case with birds."[1130] In some few cases the
female seeks the male, as in certain species of birds. Some male fish
look after the eggs, and many cock-birds help to build the nest, hatch
the eggs, and tend the young.[1131] When the females compete for the
males the female is "endowed with all the secondary characters of the
polygamous male; she is the more beautiful, the more courageous, the
more pugnacious." This seems to show that the secondary characters are
due to sex selection.[1132] Men are held to be polygamous by descent and
in their "instincts as at present developed." "The instinct for
promiscuous intercourse is much stronger among men than women, and
unquestionably the husband is much more frequently all in all to the
wife than she to him."[1133]
+359. Sex difference and evolution.+ According to the current
applications of the evolution philosophy it is argued that "inheritable
characters peculiar to one sex show a tendency to be inherited chiefly
or solely by that sex in the offspring."[1134] Women are said to be
mentally more adaptable.[1135] This is shown in their tact, which is
regarded as a product of their desire to adapt themselves to the
stronger sex, with whose muscular strength they cannot cope. If a woman
should resist her husband she would provoke him, and her life would be
endangered. Passive and resigned women would survive. "Here at any rate
we may have _one_ of the reasons why women are more passive and resigned
than men."[1136] Their tact is attributed to their quicker perception
and to their lack of egoism. "The man, being more self-absorbed than the
woman, is often less alive than she to what is going on around."[1137]
The man has a more stable nervous system than the woman. Combativeness
and courage produce that stability; emotional development is
antagonistic to it. "In proportion as the emotions are brought under
intellectual control, in that proportion, other things being equal, will
the nervous system become more stable."[1138] Ages of subjection are
also said to have produced in women a sense of dependence. Resignation
and endurance are two of women's chief characteristics. "They have been
educated in her from the remotest times."[1139] Throughout the animal
kingdom males are more variable than females. Man varies through a wider
scale than woman. Dwarfs and giants, geniuses and idiots, are more
common amongst men than amongst women.[1140] Women use less philosophy;
they do not think things out in their relations and analysis as men do.
Miss Kingsley said that she "had met many African men who were
philosophers, thinking in the terms of fetich, but never a woman so
doing."[1141]
On the facts of observation here enumerated nearly all will agree. The
traits are certainly handed down by tradition and education. Whether
they are evolutionary is far more doubtful. They are thought to be such
by virtue of applications of some generalizations of evolutionary
philosophy whose correctness, and whose application to this domain, have
never been proved.
+360. The sex distinction; family institution; marriage in the mores.+
The division of the human race into two sexes is the most important of
all anthropological facts. The sexes differ so much in structure and
function, and consequently in traits of feeling and character, that
their interests are antagonistic. At the same time they are, in regard
to reproduction, complementary. There is nothing in the sex relation, or
in procreation, to bring about any continuing relation between a man and
a woman. It is the care and education of children which first calls for
such a continuing relation. The continuing relation is not therefore "in
nature." It is institutional and conventional. A man and a woman were
brought together, probably against their will, by a higher interest in
the struggle for existence. The woman with a child needed the union
more, and probably she was more unwilling to enter it. It is almost
impossible to find a case of a group in which marriage does not exist,
and in which the sex relation is one of true promiscuity. We are told
that there is no family institution amongst the Bako, dwarfs in Kamerun.
They obey animal instincts without restriction.[1142] This means that
the origin of the family institution lies in the period before any group
formations now open to our study, and promiscuity is an inference as to
what preceded what we can find. A woman with a child entered into an
arrangement with a man, whether the father or not was immaterial, by
which they carried on the struggle for existence together. The
arrangement must have afforded advantages to both. It was produced by an
agreement. The family institution resulted and became customary by
imitation. Marriage was the form of agreement between the man and the
woman by which they entered into the family institution. In the most
primitive form of life known to us (Australians and Bushmen) the man
roams abroad in search of meat food. His wife or wives stay by the fire
at a trysting place, care for the children, and collect plant food. Thus
the combination comes under the form of antagonistic coöperation. It
presents us the germ of the industrial organization. It is a product of
the folkways, being the resultant custom which arises, in time, out of
the ways of satisfying interests which separate individuals, or pairs,
invent and try. It follows that marriage in all its forms is in the
mores of the time and place.
+361. Regulation is conventional, not natural.+ The sex passion affects
the weal or woe of human beings far more than hunger, vanity, or ghost
fear. It has far more complications with other interests than the other
great motives. There is no escaping the good and ill, the pleasure and
pain, which inhere in it. It has two opposite extremes,--renunciation
and license. In neither one of these can peace and satisfaction be
found, or escape from the irritation of antagonistic impulses. There is
no ground at all for the opinion that "nature" gave men an appetite the
satisfaction of which would be peaceful and satisfactory, but that human
laws and institutions have put it under constraints which produce
agony.[1143] The truth is that license stimulates desire without limit,
and ends in impotent agony. Renunciation produces agony of another kind.
Somewhere between lies temperance, which seems an easy solution, but
there is no definition of temperance which is generally applicable, and,
wherever the limit may be set, there, on either side of it, the
antagonistic impulses appear again,--one of indulgence, the other of
restraint,--producing pitfalls of vice and ruin, and ever renewing the
strain and torment of the problem of right and duty. Therefore
regulation is imperatively called for by the facts of "nature," and the
regulation must come from intelligence and judgment. No determination
of what the regulation should be has ever yet been found in law or
ethics which does not bear harshly on great numbers, and in all stages
of civilization numbers are found who violate the regulations and live
outside of them.
+362. Egoistic and altruistic elements.+ Here, then, is the case: the
perpetuation of the species requires the coöperation of two
complementary sexes. The sex relation is antagonistic to the struggle
for existence, and so arouses egoistic sentiments and motives, while it
is itself very egoistic. It is sometimes said that the struggle for
existence is egoistic and reproduction altruistic, but this view rests
upon a very imperfect analysis. It means that a man who has won food may
eat it by himself, while reproduction assumes the coöperation of others.
So far, well; but the struggle for existence assumes and demands
co-operation in the food quest and a sharing of the product in all but a
very small class of primitive cases; and the sex passion is purely
egoistic, except in a very small class of cases of high refinement, the
actuality of which may even be questioned. The altruistic element in
reproduction belongs to the mores, and is due to life with children,
affection for them, with sacrifice and devotion to them, as results
produced by experience. It is clear that a division between the food
quest as egoistic and reproduction as altruistic cannot be made the
basis of ethical constructions. To get the good and avoid the ill there
is required a high play of intelligence, good sense, and of all
altruistic virtues. Under such a play of interests and feelings, from
which no one is exempt, mass phenomena are produced by the ways of
solving the problem which individuals and pairs hit upon. The wide range
and contradictoriness of the folkways in regard to family life show how
helpless and instinctive the struggle to solve the problem has been. Our
own society shows how far we still are from a thorough understanding of
the problem and from a satisfactory solution of it. It must be added
that the ruling elements in different societies have molded the
folkways to suit their own interests, and thus they have disturbed and
confused the process of making folkways, and have spoiled the result.
+363. Primary definition of marriage; taboos and conventionalization.+
The definition of marriage consists in stating what, at any time and
place, the mores have imposed as regulations on the relations of a man
and woman who are coöperatively carrying on the struggle for existence
and the reproduction of the species. The regulations are always a
conventionalization which sets the terms, modes, and conditions under
which a pair may cohabit. It is, therefore, impossible to formulate a
definition of marriage which will cover all forms of it throughout the
history of civilization. In all lower civilization it is a tie of a
woman to a man for the interests of both (or of the man). It follows
that the sex relation has been a great arena for the use and perfection
of the mores, since personal experience and reflection never ceased, and
a great school for the education of the race in the use of intelligence,
the development of sympathetic sentiments, and in a sense of the utility
of ethical regulations. The sex taboo is the set of inhibitions which
control and restrain the intercourse of the sexes with each other in
ordinary life. At the present time, in civilized countries, that
intercourse is limited by taboo, not by law. The nature and degree of
the taboo are in the mores. Spanish, French, English, and American
women, in the order named, are under less and less strict limitations in
regard to ordinary social intercourse with men. The sex taboo could,
therefore, be easily pursued and described through the whole history of
civilization and amongst all nations. It seems to be arbitrary, although
no doubt it has always been due, in its origin, to correct or incorrect
judgments of conditions and interests. It is always conventional. That
it has been and is recognized is the sum of its justification. When
Augustine met the objection that Jacob had four wives he replied that
that was no crime, because it was under the custom (_mos_) of Jacob's
time.[1144] This was a complete answer, but it was an appeal to the
supreme authority of the mores.
+364. Family, not marriage, is the institution.+ Although we speak of
marriage as an institution, it is only an imperfect one. It has no
structure. The family is the institution, and it was antecedent to
marriage. Marriage has always been an elastic and variable usage, as it
now is. Each pair, or other marital combination, has always chosen its
own "ways" of living within the limits set by the mores. In fact the use
of language reflects the vagueness of marriage, for we use the word
"marriage" for wedding, nuptials, or matrimony (wedlock). Only the last
could be an institution. Wedlock has gone through very many phases, and
has by no means evolved along lines of harmonious and advancing
development. In the earliest forms of the higher civilization, in
Chaldea and Egypt, man and wife were, during wedlock, in a relation of
rational free coöperation. Out of this two different forms of wedlock
have come, the harem system and pair marriage. The historical sequences
by which the former has been produced could be traced just as easily as
those which have led up to the latter. There is no more necessity in one
than in the other. Wedlock is a mode of associated life. It is as
variable as circumstances, interests, and character make it within the
conditions. No rules or laws can control it. They only affect the
condition against which the individuals react. No laws can do more than
specify ways of entering into wedlock, and the rights and duties of the
parties in wedlock to each other, which the society will enforce. These,
however, are but indifferent externals. All the intimate daily play of
interests, emotions, character, taste, etc., are beyond the reach of the
bystanders, and that play is what makes wedlock what it is for every
pair. Nevertheless the relations of the parties are always deeply
controlled by the current opinions in the society, the prevalent ethical
standards, the approval or condemnation passed by the bystanders on
cases between husbands and wives, and by the precepts and traditions of
the old. Thus the mores hold control over individual taste and caprice,
and individual experience reacts against the control. All the problems
of marriage are in the intimate relations. When they affect large
numbers they are brought under the solution of the mores. Therefore the
history of marriage is to be interpreted by the mores, and its
philosophy must be sought in the fact that it is an ever-moving product
of the mores.
+365. Endogamy and exogamy.+ Although it seems, at first consideration,
that savages could not have perceived the alleged evils of inbreeding,
yet a full examination of the facts is convincing that they did do so.
In like manner, they were led to try to avert overpopulation by
folkways. They acted "instinctively," or automatically, not rationally.
Inbreeding preserves a type but weakens the stock. Outbreeding
strengthens the stock but loses the type. In our own mores each one is
forbidden to marry within a certain circle or outside of another circle.
The first is the consanguine group of first cousins and nearer. The
latter is the race to which we belong. Royal and noble castes are more
strictly limited within the caste. Amongst savage peoples there were two
ideas which were in conflict: (1) all the women of a group were regarded
as belonging to all the men of that group; (2) a wife conquered abroad
was a possession and a trophy. Endogamy and exogamy are forms of the
mores in which one of these policies has been adopted to the exclusion
of the other. Of that we have an example in civilized society, where
royal persons, in order to find fitting mates, marry cousins, or uncles,
or nieces, and bring on the family the evils of close inbreeding
(Spain); or they take slave women as wives and breed out the blood of
their race (Athenians, Arabs). The due adjustment of inbreeding and
outbreeding is always a difficult problem of policy for breeders of
animals. It is the same for men. The social interests favor inbreeding,
by which property is united or saved from dispersion, and close
relationship seems to assure acquaintance. At Venice, in the time of
glory and luxury, great dowers seemed to threaten to dissipate great
family fortunes. It became the custom to contract marriages only between
families which could give as much as they got. "This was not the least
of the causes of the moral and physical decline of the Venetian
aristocracy."[1145]
+366. Polygamy and polyandry.+ Polygamy and polyandry are two cases of
family organization which are expedient under certain life conditions,
and which came into existence or became obsolete according to changes
in the life conditions, although there are also cases of survival, due
to persistence of the mores, after the life conditions have so changed
that the custom has become harmful. Population, so far as we know,
normally contains equal numbers of the two sexes, except that there are
periods in which, for some unknown reason, births of one sex greatly
preponderate over those of the other.[1146] There are also groups in
which the food quest, or other duty, of the men is such that many lives
are lost and so the adults of the two sexes are unequal in number.[1147]
Therefore, in a normal population, polygamy would compel many men, and
polyandry many women, to remain unmarried. Polyandry might then be
supplemented by female infanticide. That any persons in a primitive
society should be destined to celibacy is so arbitrary and strange an
arrangement that strong motives for it must be found in the life
conditions. Two forms of polygamy must be distinguished. (_a_) In
primitive society women are laborers, and the industrial system is often
such that there is an economic advantage in having a number of women to
one man. In those cases polygamy becomes interwoven with the whole
social and political system. Other customs will also affect the
expediency of polygamy. Every well-to-do man of the Bassari, in Togo,
has three wives, because children are suckled for three years.[1148]
(_b_) In higher civilization, with surplus wealth, polygamy is an affair
of luxury, sensuality, and ostentation. It is only in the former case
that polygamy is socially expedient, and that women welcome more wives
to help do the work and do not quarrel with each other. In the latter
case, polygamy is an aberration of the mores, due to selfish force.
There are very many examples of polygamy in which the two motives are
combined. These are transition stages. Polyandry is due to a hard
struggle for existence or to a policy of not dividing property. A
Spartan who had a land allotment was forced to marry. His younger
brothers lived with him and sometimes were also husbands to his wife.
Wives were also lent out of friendship or in order to get vigorous
offspring.[1149] Here state policy or the assumed advantage of physical
vigor overrode the motives of monogamy which prevailed in the
surrounding civilization. In Plautus's comedy _Stichus_ a case is
referred to in which two slaves have one woman (wife). Roman epitaphs
are cited in which two men jointly celebrate a common wife.[1150] These
are cases of return to an abandoned usage, under the stress of poverty.
An emigrating group must generally have contained more men than women.
Polyandry was very sure to occur. It is said that immigrant groups can
be found in the United States in which polyandry exists, being produced
in this way. Many aboriginal tribes in India, amongst which the Todas
are the best known, practice polyandry. Przewalsky says that in Tibet
polyandry is attributed to a tax on houses in which there is a married
woman.[1151] Primarily it is due to poverty and a hard habitat. Two,
three, or even four brothers have a wife in common. The Russian traveler
adds that rich men have a wife each, or even two, and Cunningham[1152]
confirms this; that is to say, then, that the number of wives follows
directly the economic power of the man. The case only illustrates the
close interdependence of capital and marriage which we shall find at
every stage. In the days of Venetian glory "often four or five men
united to maintain one woman, in whose house they met daily to laugh,
eat, and jest, without a shadow of jealousy. If, however, the cleverness
of a woman brought a young patrician into a mesalliance, the state
promptly dissolved the bond in its own way."[1153] The polyandry of the
Nairs, on the Malabar coast, has been cited to prove that polyandry is
not due to poverty. It is due to the unwillingness to subdivide the
property of the family, which is of the modified mother-family form, all
the immediate kin holding together and keeping the property undivided.
Subdivisions of this people differ as to details of the custom and it is
now becoming obsolete. Of course "moral doctrines" have been invented to
bring the custom under a broad principle.[1154] It appears, however,
that the husbands, in the Nair system, are successive, not
contemporaneous. The custom is due to the Vedic notion that every virgin
contains a demon who leaves her with the nuptial blood, causing some
risk to her husband. Hence a maiden was married to a man who was to
disappear after a few hours, having incurred the risk.[1155] Here, then,
we have a case of aberrant mores due to a superstitious explanation of
natural facts. Polygamy of the second form above defined is limited by
cost. Although polygamy is allowed under Mohammedan law, it is not
common for a Mohammedan to have more than one wife, on account of
expense and trouble. Lane estimated at not more than one in twenty the
number of men in Egypt, in the first half of the nineteenth century, who
had more than one wife. If a woman is childless, her husband may take
another wife, especially if he likes the first one too well to divorce
her.[1156] That is to say, polygamy and divorce are alternatives. Other
authorities state that polygamy is more common and real amongst
Mohammedans than would appear from Lane's statement. In the cities of
Arabia more than one wife is the rule, and the Arabs in Jerusalem take
three or four wives as soon as they have sufficient means. The poorest
have at least two.[1157]
+367. Consistency of the mores under polygamy or polyandry.+ When the
life conditions, real or imagined, produce polygamy, monogamy, or
polyandry, all the mores conform to the one system or the other, and
develop it on every side. All the concepts of right and wrong--rights,
duties, authority, societal policy, and political interest--are implicit
in the mores. They must necessarily all be consistent. A Nair woman is
no more likely to overstep the mores of her society than an English
woman is to overstep the mores of hers. "The relations between the sexes
in Malabar are unusually happy."[1158] Tibetan men are said to be
courteous to women.[1159] Tibetan women like polyandry. They sneer at
the dullness and monotony of monogamic life.[1160] Thus the ethics
follow the customs.
+368. Mother family and father family.+ The ultimate reasons for the
mother family and for a change to the father family are in the life
conditions, industrial arts, war, pressure of population, etc. In fact,
our terms are only names for a group of mores which cover some set of
interests, and we need to be on our guard against the category fallacy,
that is, against arguing from the contents of the classification which
we have made. The term "matriarchate" encouraged this fallacy and has
gone out of use. By the mother family we mean the system in which
descent and kin are reckoned through women, not through men. In that
form of the family the relation of man and wife is one of contract. The
woman must be thought of as at her home, with her kin, and the husband
comes to her. She has great control of the terms on which he is
accepted, and she and her kin can drive him away again, if they see fit.
The children will be hers and will remain with her. The property will
remain hers, while her husband must abandon his property when he comes
to her. The next male friend of a woman will be her brother, not her
husband, and the next male guardian of a child will be his mother's
brother, not his father. Words of relationship, address, etc., must all
conform to the fundamental notion which rules the family. Religion,
political control, modes of warfare and alliance, and education are all
constructed to fit the family-form. At puberty boys are taken into the
political organization (tribe) to which the father belongs and get
political status from that. By birth each one is a member of a blood-kin
group (clan) on which depend blood revenge and other duties and by which
marriage is regulated. All this grows up as a part of the folkways,
instinctively, without plan or guidance of intelligent control. Yet it
has been wrought out, along the same logical lines of custom and rule,
all over the world by savage peoples. We meet with many variations of it
in transitional forms, or in combination with later institutions, but
they belong to the time when this arrangement is breaking down, and
passing into the father family. The mother family system is definite
and complete when flourishing and normal. By the totem device the mother
family is made capable of indefinite extension, and a verification is
provided for its essential facts. The status of women, in the mother
family, was strong and independent. Often important societal functions
were entrusted to them, and their influence was so high that it produced
great results, like the conferring of glory on braves, and the election
of war chiefs. In cases, as for instance the ancient Lycians, the men
were treated with harshness and abuse. The distribution of social power
between the sexes gave opportunity for this, and the opportunity was
seized.[1161]
+369. Change from mother family to father family.+ It may well be
believed that the change from the mother family to the father family is
the greatest and most revolutionary in the history of civilization. By
changes in the life conditions it becomes possible for the man to get
his wife to himself away from her kin, and to become the owner of his
children. In the mother family those arrangements could only be
suggested to him as modifications of his experience which would be
eagerly to be desired, i.e. as objects of idealization. When the life
conditions so changed that it became possible, the father family
displaced the mother family. All the folkways followed the change.
Family arrangements, kin, industry, war, political organization,
property, rights, must all conform to the change. The wife is obtained
by capture, purchase, or later by contract. By capture or purchase she
passes under her husband's dominion, and she may not be a consenting
party. She loses status by the change. In the earlier period the man
might get a wife by capture. She would be either a work-wife or a
love-wife. Now a real status-wife would be obtained by real or
fictitious capture and get her status from that fact; that is, she
becomes very much at the mercy of her husband. The same is true of a
purchased wife. The relation of a wife to her husband is analogous to
property. The same is true of the relation of children to their father.
The husband gives, sells, or lends wife or daughters as he sees fit,
although an interference with his dominion over them without his consent
would be a thing to be earnestly resented. Loyalty and fidelity to
husband became the highest duties of wives, which the husband enforced
by physical penalties. Female honor, for wives, consisted in chastity,
which meant self-submission to the limitations which men desired in
wives and which the mores had approved, for the mores teach the women
what conduct on their part is "right," and teach them that it is "right"
that they should be taken as wives by capture or purchase. Female virtue
and honor, therefore, acquire technical definitions out of the mores,
which are not parallel to any definitions of virtue and honor as applied
to males. In Deut. xxi. 10 the case of a man enamored of a captive woman
is considered, and rules are set for it. The woman may not be sold for
money after she has been "humbled." It is evident that the notions of
right and wrong, and of rights in marriage and the family, are
altogether contingent and relative. In the mores of any form of the
family the ideas of rights, and of right and wrong, will conform to the
theory of the institution, and they may offer us notions of moral things
which are radically divergent or antagonistic.
+370. Capture and purchase become ceremonies.+ As population increases
and tribes are pushed closer together, capture loses violence and is
modified by a compromise, with payment of money as a composition, and by
treaty, until it becomes a ceremony. Then purchase degenerates into a
ceremony, partly by idealization, i.e. the purchase ceremony is
necessary, but the arrangement would seem more honorable if some other
construction were put on it. The father, if he takes the customary bride
price but is rich and loves his daughter, so that he wants to soften for
her the lot of a wife as women generally find it, gives a dowry and by
that binds her husband to stipulations as to the rights and treatment
which she shall enjoy. In Homer's time, no man of rank and wealth gave
his daughter without a dowry, although he took gifts for her, even, if
she was in great demand, to a greater value.[1162] What the rich and
great do sets the fashion which others follow as far as they can. In the
laws of Manu we see purchase not yet obsolete, but already regarded as
shameful, if it really is a sale, and so subjected to idealization; that
is, they try to put another construction on it. The ceremonies of
purchase and capture lasted for a very long time, because there was no
other way to indicate the _bond_ of wedlock until the promise came into
use. That has never furnished a bond of equal reality to that of capture
or purchase.
+371. Feminine honor and virtue. Jealousy.+ As the old ceremonies become
obsolete the property idea fades out of the marital relation, and the
woman's exclusive devotion to her husband is no longer a rational
inference from capture or purchase by him, but becomes a sentiment of
sex. Idealization comes into play again and sets a standard of female
honor and duty which rests on womanhood only, and therefore does not
apply to men. It is the lot of every woman to stand beside some man, and
to give her strength and life to help him in every way which
circumstances offer opportunity for. Out of this relation come her ideas
of her honor, duties, and virtue. Jealousy on the part of the husband
also changes its sense. He thinks it an abomination to lend, sell, or
give his wife. Jealousy is not now the sentiment of a property owner,
but it is a masculine sex sentiment which corresponds to the woman's sex
honor and duty. What she gives to him alone he accepts on the same basis
of exclusiveness.
Darwin[1163] argued from the strength of jealousy amongst animals
"as well as from the analogy of the lower animals, more
particularly of those which come nearest to man," that
promiscuity could not have prevailed shortly before man "attained
his present rank in the zoölogical scale." Then he refers to the
anthropoid apes, which are either monogamous, or pair off for a
limited time, or are polygamous in separate families, or still
again polygamous but living in a society. The jealousy of the
males, and their special weapons for battling with their rivals,
make promiscuity in a state of nature extremely improbable. "It
does not seem possible for us to apprehend the emotion here
called 'jealousy' when shown by an animal. Amongst uncivilized
men the sentiment is that of the property holder. To lend or give
a wife is consistent with that sentiment, not a violation of it.
Hence it does not prove that jealousy does not exist."[1164] The
Veddahs are very careful of their wives. They will not allow
strangers in their villages, and do not even let their brothers
approach their wives or offer them food.[1165] They have pure
marital customs. Their neighbors, the Singhalese, have not pure
marital customs and are not jealous.[1166] In the East Indies,
not in all tribes but in many, betrothed persons are separated
until their marriage.[1167] Kubary says that the jealousy of the
Palau Islanders is less a sign of wounded feelings than of care
for external propriety.[1168] An oa ape (a gibbon) showed
jealousy whenever a little Malay girl, his playmate, was taken
away from him.[1169] Wellhausen[1170] says that "the suspicious
jealousy, not of the love of their wives, but of their own
property rights, is a prominent characteristic of the Arabs, of
which they are proud." The blood kin guard their property right
in the maiden as jealously as the man guards his property right
in his wife. A Papuan kills an adulterer, not on account of his
own honor, but to punish an infringement of his property rights.
The former idea is foreign to him. He does, however, show
jealousy of a handsome young man who captivates the women.[1171]
In 1898 a pair of wolves were kept as public pets in the Capitol
at Rome. The male killed a cub, his own offspring, out of
jealousy of the affection of the female for it. Then the female
died of grief.[1172] These cases show very different forms of
jealousy. The jealousy of husband and wife is similar, but not
the same as any one of them, and it differs at different stages
of civilization. It depends on the exclusiveness and intenseness
of devotion which spouses are held to owe each other. Beasts do
not manifest an emotion of jealousy so uniform or universal as
Darwin assumes in his argument, nor any sentiment like that of a
half-civilized man. The latter can always coerce the woman to
himself, but jealousy arises when the woman is left free to
dispose of her own devotion or attention, and she is supposed to
direct it to her husband, out of affection and preference. It is
the breach of this affection and preference which constitutes the
gravamen.
+372. Virginity.+ We have many examples of peoples amongst whom girls
are entirely free until married, on the rational ground that they are
under obligations to nobody. They are under no taboo, marriage being the
first application of the sex taboo. Farnell[1173] says that the first
sense of _parthenos_ was not "virgin," but unmarried. The Oriental
goddess of impure love was parthenos. Artemis was perhaps, at first, a
goddess of people who had not yet settled marriage mores, but had the
mother family, amongst whom women were powerful. In the development of
the father family fathers restricted daughters in order to make them
more valuable as wives. Here comes in the notion of virginity and
pre-nuptial chastity. This is really a negative and exclusive notion. It
is an appeal to masculine vanity, and is a singular extension of the
monopoly principle. His wife is to be his from the cradle, when he did
not know her. Here, then, is a new basis for the sex honor of women and
the jealousy of men. Chastity for the unmarried meant--no one; for the
married--none but the husband. The mores extended to take in this
doctrine, and it has passed into the heart of the mores of all civilized
peoples, to whom it seems axiomatic or "natural." It has often been
declared absurd that sex honor, especially for women, should be made to
depend on a negative. It seems to make an ascetic and arbitrary standard
for everyday life. In fact, however, the negation is imposed by the
nature of the sex passion and by the conditions of human life. The
passion tends to excess. What is "natural" is therefore evil. Negation,
restraint, renunciation, are imposed by expediency. Perhaps it is the
only case in which man is driven to error and evil by a great force in
his nature, and is thus forced, if he would live well, to find a
discipline for himself in intelligent self-control and in arbitrary
rules. This would justify the current usage of language in which
"morals" refers especially to the sex relation.
+373. Chastity for men.+ In modern times there is a new extension of
idealization, by which it is attempted to extend to men the same
standard of chastity and duty of chastity as to women. Two questions are
here confused: (_a_) whether unmarried men and women are to be bound by
the same obligation of chastity; (_b_) whether married men and women are
to be bound by the same rule of exclusion. The Hindoo lawgivers demand
the same fidelity from husband and wife.[1174] In the treatise on
_Economics_ which is ascribed to Aristotle,[1175] although there is no
dogmatic statement of law or duty, all the prescriptions for the husband
and wife are the same, and the man is said to injure the wife by
infidelity. Aristotle[1176] propounds the rule of taboo on all sex
relations except in marriage, which is the doctrine of pair marriage
(sec. 383). In the _Economicus_ of Xenophon[1177] the relations of
husband and wife are expounded at length in terms of great respect and
esteem for a wife. The work seems to be rhetorical and dramatic, not
actual, and it is represented as very exceptional and astonishing that
such relations should exist between any man and his wife. In Plutarch's
_Morals_ the tract on "Conjugal Precepts" is written in an elevated
tone. It is not specific and seems open to the suspicion of being a
"pose." However, the doctrine is that of equal duty for husband and
wife, and it may be taken to prove that that was the doctrine of the
neostoics. Seneca wrote, "You know that it is a base thing that he who
demands chastity of his wife should himself corrupt the wives of
others."[1178] And again, "Let him know that it will be the worst kind
of an injury to his wife for him to have a mistress."[1179] Augustine
tells a story that Antoninus Pius granted a man a divorce for adultery
of his wife, provided the man could show that he had, by his mode of
life, maintained fidelity to his wife, and that the emperor added the
dictum that "it would be unjust that a man should be able to exact a
fidelity which he did not himself observe."[1180] Augustine himself
maintained the full equality of spouses in rights and duties. Ulpian
said that "it seems to be very unjust that a man demands chastity of his
wife while he himself does not show an example of it." This dictum got
into the _Digest_ where the jurists of all succeeding ages could have it
before their eyes.[1181] It did not often arrest their attention. These
utterances, so far as they are sincere expressions of convictions, do
not represent the conduct of any school, and perhaps not even that of
the men who recorded them. They belong to a period of great corruption
of the sex mores of the upper classes, and of rapid extension of such
corruption to the lower classes. A character in Plautus's comedy of _The
Merchant_[1182] complains of the difference in codes for unchaste
husbands and unchaste wives. If every woman has to be content with one
husband, why should not every man be forced to be content with one wife?
Jerome made the most explicit statement of the Christian rule: "Amongst
us [Christians] what is not permitted to women is not permitted to men.
The same obligation is held to rest on equal conditions."[1183] This is
the assertion of a celibate and an ascetic. Perhaps it may be held to
apply to pre-marital duty, but it is doubtful whether he had that in
mind. All the other statements quoted apply only to the mutuality of
conjugal duty. Of all of them it must be said that they are isolated
flights of moral enthusiasm, and by no means present the prevailing code
or the mores of the time. They do not express the life rules which have
ever yet been observed by any but selected and limited classes in any
society. The writings of Chrysostom and Augustine show plainly that the
Christians of Jerome's time did not practice the doctrine which he
uttered. It has never yet been a part of the mores of any society that
the same standards of chastity should be enforced against both sexes
before marriage. "At the present day, although the standard of morals is
far higher than in pagan Rome, it may be questioned whether the
inequality of the censure which is bestowed on the two sexes is not as
great as in the days of paganism."[1184] Conjugal affection has been the
great cause of masculine fidelity in marriage. Laertes refused to take
Eurykleia lest he should hurt his wife's feelings.[1185] Plutarch, in
his tract on "Love," dwells upon its controlling power, its
exclusiveness, and the devotion it cultivates. Observation and
experience of this kind may have produced the modern conviction that a
strong affection between spouses is the best guarantee of happiness and
truth. This conviction, with the code which belongs with it, have spread
further and further, through wider and wider classes, and it is now the
accepted moral principle that there ought to be no sex gratification
except inside of pair marriage. What that means is that no one could
formulate and maintain in public discussion any other rule as more
reasonable and expedient to be the guiding principle of the mores,
although it has not yet become such. Also, "the fundamental truth that
the same act can never be at once venial for a man to demand and
infamous for a woman to accord, though nobly enforced by the early
Christians, has not passed into the popular sentiment of
Christendom."[1186] Passing by the assertion that the early Christians
enforced any such rule, which may well be questioned, we ask: Why are
these views not in the mores? Undoubtedly it is because they are
dogmatic in form, invented and imposed by theological authority[1187] or
philosophical speculation. They do not grow out of the experience of
life and cannot be verified by it. Woman bears an unequal share of the
responsibilities and duties of sex and reproduction just as certainly
and justly as man bears an unequal share of the responsibilities and
duties of property, war, and politics. The reasons are in ultimate
physiological facts by virtue of which one is a woman and the other is a
man.
+374. Love marriage. Conjugal affection. "Wife."+ It must be assumed
that even in the lowest form of society a man may have preferred one
woman to others, but love between a man and a woman is not a phenomenon
of uncivilized society. It begins with wealth and luxury. Love stories
can be found in very early folklore, legends, and poetry, but they
belong to idealization, to romance and unreality. Realistic love stories
are now hardly a century old. It is evident that they lead idealization.
They put cases and solve them, and every reader forms a judgment whether
the case has actuality and whether the solution is correct. Love in
half-civilization and in antiquity was erotic only. The Greeks conceived
of it as a madness by which a person was afflicted through the caprice
or malevolence of some god or goddess. Such a passion is necessarily
evanescent. The ancient peoples in general, and the Semites in
particular, did not think this passion an honorable or trustworthy basis
of marriage. The Kaffirs think that a Christian wife, married for love,
is shameful. They compare her to a cat, the only animal which, amongst
them, has no value, but is obtained as a gift.[1188] The _gandharva_
marriage of the Hindoos was a love marriage, and was not honorable. It
was free love and became, in practice, an entirely informal union
without institutional guarantees.[1189] This would be, at best, a
conscience marriage, to which a man would adhere from a sense of duty,
the strength of which would depend on personal character only.
In all these cases the views entertained were justified, if love meant
only erotic passion. On the other hand, we have seen (sec. 362) that
conjugal love controls the will by the highest motives. It is based on
esteem, confidence, and habit. It presents all varieties and degrees,
from exploitation on one side and servility on the other, to
good-fellowship on both sides. It depends on the way in which each pair
arranges its affairs, develops its sentiments, and forms its habits.
Conjugal affection makes great demands on the good sense, spirit of
accommodation, and good nature of each. These are very great
pre-conditions. It is no wonder that they often fail. In no primitive or
half-civilization does the word "wife" bear the connotations which it
bears to us. In Levit. xxi. 1 a case may be seen in which a man's blood
kin takes precedence of his wife. Arabs, in the time of Mohammed, did
not think that the conjugal tie could be as serious and strong as the
kin tie, because the former is institutional only; that is, it is a
product of convention and contract.[1190] Public demonstrations of love
they thought offensive and insulting to the woman. People of rank often
admitted no suitors for their daughters. It was thought a disgrace to
give a daughter into the power of an outsider. They killed female
infants, not, like the poor, because they could not afford to rear them,
but from fear of incurring disgrace from them.[1191] By veiling the
women are excluded from all social intercourse with men and from any
share in intellectual interests.[1192] They cannot win conjugal
affection--certainly not from educated men. Erotic passion fills
Mohammedan poetry and is cultivated at home. The few cultivated women of
the higher classes emancipate themselves from moral restraints, often
without concealment.[1193] In Mohammed's last sermon he said: "You have
rights against your wives and they have rights against you. They are
bound not to violate marital fidelity and to commit no act of public
wrong. If they do so, you have the power to beat them, yet without
danger to their lives."[1194] Islam is not a field in which conjugal
affection could be expected to develop.[1195] "A Japanese who should
leave his father and mother for his wife would be looked upon as an
outcast." Therefore the Bible "is regarded as irreligious and
immoral."[1196] The notion that a man's wife is the nearest person in
the world to him is a relatively modern notion, and one which is
restricted to a comparatively small part of the human race.
+375. Heroic conjugal devotion.+ In general, the European analogy for
the relation of husband and wife in the rest of the world, now or in
past ages, would be rather that of master and servant. The erotic
sentiment has generally been thought of as independent of marriage,
possible in it, generally outside of it; and it has often been thought
of as improper and disgusting between husband and wife. There is a
poetical suggestion in Homer that marriages are made in heaven. Zeus is
said to select a man's wife with a view to the fate allotted to
him.[1197] Achilles says that every wise and noble man cherishes his
wife.[1198] Ulysses says, "Nothing is better or more conducive to
prosperity than that husband and wife should live together in
concord."[1199] Hector and Andromache manifested faultless conjugal
affection. Penelope was a type of the devoted wife, a type which must be
ranked lower than that of Andromache, because it does not imply equality
of the spouses. Valerius Maximus (fl. 25 A.D.)[1200] gave a chapter to
"Conjugal Love." He found a few cases in which spouses, both male and
female, had died for or on account of each other. They do not represent
the mores. There is a tragic or heroic element in them all. That is the
way in which conjugal love would strike the mind of an ancient man in
his most serious moments. Apuleius[1201] gives the case of Charites who
had intense love for her husband. Her base lover was a victim of erotic
passion. Stobæus (fifth or sixth century A.D.) collected and classified
passages from Greek authors on various topics. Titles 63 to 73 are
about women and marriage. The views expressed run to both extremes of
approval and disapproval. No one of the writers has apparently any
notion of conjugal affection. In some cases under the tyrannical Roman
emperors of the first century women showed extreme wifely
devotion.[1202] Roman tombstones (not unimpeachable witnesses) testify
to conjugal affection between spouses.[1203] In the Icelandic sagas
women show heroic devotion to their husbands, although they make their
husbands much trouble by self-will and caprice.[1204] The barbarian
invaders of the Roman empire are reported to have been remarkable for
conjugal fidelity. Salvianus excepts the Alemanni.
+376. Hindoo models and ideals.+ In the Mahabharata, the heroic poem of
Brahminism dating from about the beginning of the Christian era, much
attention is given to beauty and love. Many marriages are made for love,
which is regarded as the best motive. A love relation needed the
approval of the girl's parents, otherwise it ran down to the _gandharva_
form. A hero, who abducted a girl for his brother, released her when she
pleaded that she loved another to whom she had given her promise,
although her father did not yet know it. The favored lover renounced her
on account of the abduction, but she said that she would never choose
another. "Whether he lives long or only a short time, whether he is rich
in virtue or poor, the husband is chosen once for all. When once the
heart has decided and the word has been spoken, let the thing be
done."[1205] These words are now regarded in Hindostan as the completest
and noblest possible expression of marriage and the woman's attitude to
it. A model wife in the heroic period was amiable to all, and made
herself beloved by politeness and friendliness, and by her virtue and
proper behavior. She gave great attention to her parents-in-law. She was
reserved in speech and submissive, and she charmed her husband by her
grace, wit, and tenderness.[1206] The Mahabharata contains episodes of
strong devotion of men to their wives and of heroic self-sacrifice of
wives for their husbands. In Hindostan now the relations of husband and
wife are not mutual. The man's mother must always be the first to him.
"This is in full accordance with the national sentiment which stigmatizes
affection which asks for equal return as shop-keeping."[1207] "Who talks
of vulgar equality," asks the Hindoo wife, "when she may instead have
the unspeakable blessedness of offering worship."[1208]
+377. Slavonic sex mores.+ The southern Slavs and people of the Caucasus
have allowed their sex mores to run into some extreme forms which to
outsiders seem vicious. Young married women contract a very intimate
relation to their bride attendants, of whom two attend a bride on her
wedding day. She is but a girl, and is given to a man whom she never saw
before, does not like, and never can like; she comes into a strange
house where it is of the first importance for the rest of her life that
she shall please her parents-in-law by the greatest humility and
submission; she is forbidden by custom to approach her husband freely;
she scarcely sees him during the day; yet she may freely converse with
his brothers, who were her bride attendants. The elder one, if he is
married, and if he is polite to her, becomes her best friend. An
Albanian who has been away at work will not bring back a gift for his
wife. He shows more attention to the wife of his elder brother. The
Servian bride is ashamed of her marital relation, and thinks it indecent
to address her husband in public, even after she has borne him children.
He remains a stranger to her, and her relation to him is scarcely more
than that of sex. Her brother she loves beyond any other. She will mourn
for him with the deepest sorrow, but it would be a shame for a woman to
mourn for her husband, much more for a bride to mourn for her
bridegroom. In former times it was improper for a man to begin conjugal
life immediately after marriage. The bride attendants, brothers of the
groom, spent the first night by the side of the bride, and for the next
three nights the mother or sister of the groom slept with the bride. The
groom is reluctant. A Servian woman is derided if she has a child within
a year after marriage. In some districts sex morality is very high, in
others very low. In Carinthia it is worst. There, in the Gurkthal, the
illegitimate births are twice as numerous as the legitimate, so that the
marriage institution hardly exists. In Slavonic Croatia persons who
marry are indifferent to each other's previous conduct with others.
Amongst other southern Slavs, at a wedding, the groom must neither talk
nor eat, out of shame, and the bride must weep while being dressed. It
is reported from Bocca di Cattaro, in the Balkan peninsula, that public
contempt is so severe against illicit acts by men before marriage that
such acts are very rare amongst those who have any reputation or
position to lose.[1209]
+378. Russian sex mores.+ A custom widely prevalent through parts of
Great Russia and the adjacent Slavonic regions, until the nineteenth
century, was that the father married his son, as a boy, to a
marriageable young woman, whom the father then took as his own
concubine. When the son grew up his wife was advanced in life and the
mother of several children. He then did what his father had done. The
large house and joint family offered temptation to this custom, and has
generally been believed to be to blame for it. Rhamm contradicts that
opinion.[1210] The same custom existed amongst the Bulgarians.[1211]
Another motive for it is suggested, that the father wanted to increase
the number of laborers in the big house. In 1623, in Poland, the death
penalty was provided for a man who should so abuse his daughter-in-law.
[1212] The same custom is reported from the Tamils of southeast
India.[1213] In the mountains on the southwestern frontier of Russia
there was, in the eighteenth century, an almost entire lack of sex
mores. Amongst all the Slavonic peoples females are in a very inferior
status and owe formal deference to males. In Bulgaria the wives are from
five to ten years older than the husbands, because boys of fourteen
begin to make love, but to adult marriageable women.[1214] All these
facts make it a phenomenon worthy of special mention that the people of
the Ukrain are very continent, cherish a high ideal of love between the
sexes, and greatly dislike all improprieties in language and
conversation.[1215] The popular Russian wedding songs are sad. The bride
is addressed as a happy child, free in her father's house, with a sad
future before her, of which she is blissfully ignorant.[1216] In Karelia
"a bride radiant with happiness is an unknown sight. With the betrothal
begins the time of tears, which lasts until the marriage feast in the
house of the bridegroom. Even if she is happy and contented the mores
require that she shall shed tears and affect sadness."[1217] The
"wailer" is a functionary in a Russian village. She teaches the bride to
bewail the loss of her "maiden freedom."[1218]
+379. Tribes of the Caucasus and Sahara.+ The Cherkess of the Caucasus
live in big houses, in a joint family, under the authority of a
patriarch. Wives were bought or captured in common, but so many as the
men. Darinsky thinks that those who could, and wanted to, buy separate
wives threatened the arrangement. Hence the men, in a body, opposed
monogamic unions. Such unions were a crime against the crowd. Hence the
customs arose which are now prevalent,--the concealment of all marital
relations, the public ignoring of each other by the spouses, and the
practical jokes and horseplay at weddings by boys and neighbors. It is a
survival of old manifestations of opposition and disapproval.[1219] The
men of the tribes in Sahara are often absent for days together. This
gives the women liberty. The men begrudge this and punish the women for
assumed infidelity. Some of the women are famous prostitutes.[1220]
+380. Mediæval sex mores.+ The mediæval sex mores were produced out of
two opposite currents of thought,--that women were evil and dangerous
and to be shunned, and that women were lovely and adorable, and worthy
of reverence and worship. Both of these sets of ideas degenerated into
folly and vice, and became modes of selfishness and luxury. Elaborate
hypocrisy and insincerity became common. Technical definitions of terms
were used to obscure their ethical significance. _Minne_ came to have a
bad meaning and was used for erotic passion. _Courtoisie_ became a term
for base solicitation.[1221] Gower, in the _Vox Clamantis_ (1382), tried
to distinguish and specify sensual love. He inclines to the monkish view
of women, but he describes good and noble women. Alanus ab Insulis
([Symbol: cross] 1203) in his _De Planctu Naturae_[1222] bewailed the
vices of mankind and the vicious relations of men and women. His aim is
to distinguish between good and evil love. He wrote at the height of the
woman cult. In the _Romaunt de la Rose_ the thing discussed seems to be
positive vice. It is said that the way to win women is by lavish gifts.
The meretriciousness of women and their love of luxury are denounced. If
a marriage turns out badly, the men say that God made it, but God is
good, and evil is due to man.[1223] In the _Paston Letters_ (fifteenth
century) marriage appears to be entirely mercenary.[1224] A girl tells
her lover what her father will give with her. If he is not satisfied he
must discontinue his suit.[1225] "My master asked mockingly if a man
might not beat his own wife."[1226] The one love match in the book is
that of Margaret Paston with a man who was a servant in the family.
Margaret's mother, the most interesting person in the _Letters_,
although she left £20 to her grandson by this marriage, left nothing to
her daughter. Schultz[1227] thinks that marriages turned out as well in
the Middle Ages as now, and that adultery was no more frequent; also
that ecclesiastics were not then more licentious than now. He quotes
freely from Geiler and Murner, who were leading moral preachers of the
fifteenth century. Geiler preached in Strasburg Cathedral. Murner was a
Franciscan. Geiler is incredibly coarse and outspoken. He pretended to
state cases within his knowledge of men who made gain of their wives,
and of wives who entered into arrangements with their husbands to make
gain for both. He preached from these as illustrative cases and tried to
dissuade both men and women from matrimony.[1228] Chateau life was
monotonous and stupid, especially for women, who were moreover partly
secluded in special apartments. The young men and women had very little
chance to meet. The hope of happiness for women was in marriage.[1229]
Although the woman's consent was necessary, she was controlled by her
male relatives, even if a widow, but she had little individuality and
generally welcomed a suitor at once.[1230] The jongleurs of the twelfth
century were vulgar vagabonds. Love, in their conception, is sensual,
and women are treated by them with great levity. The women, in their
songs, woo the men. In the thirteenth century women are described as
more dignified and self-respecting. Siegfried flogged his wife black and
blue.[1231] Brunhild was also beaten by her husband. The women manifest
great devotion to their husbands, especially in adversity, even fighting
for them like men.[1232] We are constantly shocked at the bad taste of
behavior. At Lubeck, if a young widow was married, the crowd made an
uproar in front of the house and the bridegroom was forced to stand at
show on a certain four-cornered stone in the midst of noisy music "in
order to establish the good name of himself and wife."[1233] The
carnival was an occasion of license for all the grossness and obscenity
in the popular taste.[1234] The woman cult was a cult of free love and
was hostile to honorable marriage. Even in the twelfth century there
were complaints of corruption by bad literature. The nobles and knights
degenerated in the crusades and in the Italian wars of the
Hohenstaufen.[1235] "The doctrine of the church appeared to be a support
of the family, but it was not such. On the contrary, the bonds of the
family were more loosened than strengthened by the ascetic-hierarchical
religiosity of the church."[1236] Dulaure[1237] quotes Gerson and
Nicolas de Clemangis that convents in the fifteenth century were places
of debauch. Geiler, in a sermon in Strasburg Cathedral, gave a shocking
description of convents.[1238] A convent is described as a brothel for
neighboring nobles.[1239] At the end of the fifteenth century the revolt
and change in the mores which produced the Protestant schism caused the
social confusion on which Janssen lays such stress in his seventh and
eighth volumes. It was a case of revolution. The old mores broke down
and new ones were not yet formed. The Protestants of the sixteenth
century derided and denounced the Roman Catholics for the contradictions
and falsehoods of celibacy, and the Catholics used against the
Protestants the looseness as to marriage. Both were right.
+381. The standard of the "good wife." Pair marriage.+ It is safe to
believe that if any woman ever entered into a marriage which was not
repugnant to her she entered it with a determination to be a "good
wife." Her education under the mores of the society around her gave her
the notion and standard of a good wife. The modern sentiments of love
and conjugal affection have been produced in the middle class. They
probably have their roots in the mores of the bourgeoisie of the Middle
Ages and in those of the lowest class of free people in the Greco-Roman
empire. This middle class is the class which has taken control of modern
society, and whose interests are most favored by modern economic
developments. They have set aside the old ideas of male dominion and of
ascetic purity. In the middle of the nineteenth century the poems of
Coventry Patmore and the novels of Anthony Trollope perhaps best
expressed the notions of conjugal affection which English-speaking
people entertained at that time. It seems that now those notions are
thought to be philistine, and there is a reaction towards the old
aristocratic standards. The "good husband," as correlative to the good
wife, belongs to modern pair marriage. The erotic element has been
refined and suppressed, or at least disavowed. The ideals which have
been accepted and favored have disciplined and concentrated masculine
waywardness, and they have made the sex sentiments more durable. All
this has integrated the family more firmly, and the family mores have
cultivated and preserved the sentiments. We have seen many cases in
which, out of the unconscious and unpremeditated action of the mores,
results have been produced which have been most important for the weal
or woe of men, but it is one of the most marvelous of these cases that
conjugal affection, perhaps the noblest of all sentiments, should have
been developed out of the monopolistic tyranny of men over women, and
out of the ascetic negation of sex, the common element in which is a
prurient and unhealthy sensuality.
+382. "One flesh."+ The notion or figure of "one flesh" is not peculiar
to the Jewish or Christian religion. In the Old Testament it clearly
refers to carnal union. It has been used to express the ideal that
marriage should be the fusion of two lives and interests. It is
instructive to notice, in all the discussions of marriage which are to
be found in all ages, how few and commonplace are the things which have
been said, and how largely refuge has been taken in figures of speech.
"One flesh," if not carnal, is only ritual, but ritual conceptions are
only conventional conceptions,--good amongst those who agree to repeat
the formulas and perform the ritual acts. They are not realities. The
problem of marriage is that two human beings try to live together. They
are two and not one. Since they are two, their tastes, desires,
characters, and wills are two. Ethical philosophers or jurists may be
able to define the "one-flesh" idea by translating it into rights and
duties, but no state authority can enforce such a definition. Therefore
it is nugatory. The idea belongs in an arena beyond state or family,
where two make a world. It is beyond the mores also, except so far as
the mores have educated the man and woman to a sense of the conduct
which is necessary to marital harmony, by the judgments which are
current on the hundreds of cases, real or imaginary, which come up for
discussion. How then shall two wills be one will? The old way was that
one will (the woman's) always was bound to yield. Since that no longer
seems right, the modern way is endless discussion, a defeat for one, and
all the inevitable consequences in daily experience and effect on
character.
+383. Pair marriage.+ Pair marriage is the union of one man and one
woman in which all the rights, duties, powers, and privileges are equal
and alike for both, the relationship being mutual and reciprocal in all
points. It therefore produces a complete fusion of two lives and
interests. Pair marriage and all its attendant mores are products of
monopoly. Herodotus[1240] says of the Agathyrsi that they practiced
communalism of women in order that they might all be brethren, without
envy or enmity to each other. That is one solution. In it peace and
harmony are given a higher place than sex interests. Pair marriage aims
at the highest satisfaction of sex interests by monopoly. It sacrifices
peace and harmony. Any monopoly exists for the benefit of those who are
embraced in it. Its evil effects are to be found by turning to those who
fail to get entrance to it. While our mores now require that a man and
woman shall come together through love, and therefore make a selection
of the most special and exclusive kind, we have no apparatus or
intelligent method for making such a selection. The notion that such a
selection is necessary, therefore, adds a new difficulty and obstacle.
Pair marriage also, partly on account of the intenser sentiment of
parenthood and the more integrated family institution, increases
expense, and makes the economic conditions of marriage more severe. Pair
marriage forces a large fraction of the population to celibacy, and it
is they who are the excluded who suffer by that arrangement. This bears
chiefly on women. Everything which violates the taboo in the mores is
vice, and is disastrous to all who participate in it. The more real pair
marriage is, the more disastrous is every illicit relation. The harm is
infinitely greater for women than for men. Within the taboo, unmarried
women lead aimless existences, or they are absorbed in an effort to earn
a living which is harassed by especial obstacles and difficulties. This
is the price which has to be paid for all the gain which women get from
pair marriage as compared with any other form of sex relation. It
assumes that every man and woman can find a mate, which is not true.
Very little serious attention is paid to this offset to the advantages
of pair marriage. The mores teach unmarried women that it is "right"
that things should be so, and that any other arrangement would contain
abominations which are not to be thought of. Probably the unmarried
women rarely think of themselves as victims of the arrangement by which
their married sisters profit. They accept a life career which is
destitute of self-realization, except for those few who are so gifted
that they can make independent careers in the struggle for existence.
Nearly all our discussions of our own social order run upon questions of
property. It is under the sex relation that all the great problems
really present themselves.
+384. Marriage in modern mores.+ It is very remarkable that marriage
amongst us has become the most distinct example there is, and the most
widespread, of ritual (what is said in the marriage ceremony, in its
rational sense, is of little importance, and people rarely notice it.
What force attaches to "obey"?), of religious intervention in private
affairs, and of the importance attached to a ceremony. If two people
cohabit, the question of right and wrong depends on whether they have
passed through a certain ceremony together or not. That determines
whether they are "married" or not. The reason is, because if they have
passed through the ceremony together, no matter what was said or done,
they have expressed their will to come into the status of wedlock, as
the mores make it and as the state enforces it, at the time and place.
The woman wants to "feel that she is married." Very many women would not
feel so in a civil marriage; others want a "fully choral" ceremony;
others want the communion with the wedding ceremony. Perhaps the
daughter of a great nobleman might not feel married without a marriage
settlement. Thus the active effect of the mores may be observed in
contemporary custom, and it is seen how completely the notion of being
duly married is produced by the mores of the society, or of a class or
sect in it.
+385. Pair marriage; its technical definition.+ Polyandry passed over
into polygamy when sufficient property was at command.[1241] There was a
neutral middle point where one man had one wife. It follows that
monogamy is not a specific term. It might be monogamy if one man had one
wife but also concubines and slaves, or he might have but one wife in
fact, although free to have more if he chose. The term "pair marriage"
is needed as a technical term for the form of marriage which is as
exclusive and permanent for the man as for the woman, which one enters
on the same plane of free agreement as the other, and in which all the
rights and duties are mutual. In such a union there may be a complete
fusion of two lives and interests. In no other form of union is such a
fusion possible. This pair marriage is the ideal which guides the
marital usages of our time and civilization, gives them their spirit and
sense, and furnishes standards for all our discussions, although it is
far from being universally realized. The ideal is made an object of
"pathos"[1242] in our popular literature. Whence did it come? In truth,
we can hardly learn. It existed, by necessity of poverty and humble
social status, in the classes amongst whom Christianity took root. It
found expression in the canon law. It resisted, in the lower classes,
the attempt of the church to suppress it in order to aggrandize the
corporation. It resisted, in the same classes, the corruption of the
Renaissance. It has risen with those classes to wealth and civil power.
In modern times "moral" has been used technically for what conforms to
the code of pair marriage.
+386. Ethics of pair marriage.+ Pair marriage has excluded every other
form of sex relation. To modern people it is hard to understand how
different forms of sex relation could exist side by side and all be
right. The explanation is in the mores. A concubine may be a woman who
has a defined and legally guaranteed relation to one man, if the mores
have so determined. Her circumstances have not opened to her the first
rank, that of a wife, but she has another which is recognized in the
society as honorable. The same may be said of a slave woman, or of a
morganatic wife. Amongst the Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans of the empire
concubines were a recognized class. A concubine was not a woman who had
cast off her own honor until after the thirteenth century,[1243] and
although her position became doubtful, it was not disreputable for two
or three centuries more. Morganatic marriages for princes have continued
down to our own time. Whatever is defined and provided for in the mores
as a way of solving the problem of life interests is never wrong. Hence
the cases of sacral harlotry, of temporary marriage (as in China, Korea,
Japan, and ancient Arabia), of royal concubines (since the king was
forced to accept a status wife of prescribed rank, etc.), and all the
other peculiar arrangements which have existed in history are accounted
for. Pair marriage, however, has swept all other forms away. It is the
system of the urban-middle-capitalist class. It has gained strength in
all the new countries where all men and women were equal within a small
margin and the women bore their share of the struggle for existence. The
environment, in the new countries, favored the mores of the class from
which the emigrants came. In the old countries the mores of the middle
class have come into conflict with the mores of peasants and nobles. The
former have steadily won. The movement has been the same everywhere,
although the dates of the steps in it have been different. As to women,
the countries which are at the rear of the modern movement keep the old
mores; those which are at the head of it have emancipated women most,
and have swept away from their legislation all toleration for anything
but pair marriage. Vice, of course, still affects facts, and the growth
of wealth and luxurious habits seems to be developing a tendency to take
up again some old customs which bear an aristocratic color. It must be
expected that when the economic facts which now favor the lower middle
classes pass away and new conditions arise the marriage mores will
change again. Democracy and pair marriage are now produced by the
conditions. Both are contingent and transitory. In aristocratic society
a man's family arrangements are his own prerogative. When life becomes
harder it will become aristocratic, and concubinage may be expected to
arise again.
It seems clear that pair marriage has finally set aside the notion
which, in the past, has been so persistently held,--that women are bad
by nature, so that one half of the human race is permanently dragging
down the other half. The opposite notion seems now to be gaining
currency,--that all women are good, and can be permanently employed to
raise up the men. These fluctuations only show how each sway of
conditions and interests produces its own fallacies.
+387. Pair marriage is monopolistic.+ It has been shown that pair
marriage is monopolistic. It produces an exclusive family, and nourishes
family pride and ambition. It is interwoven with capital, and we have
hardly yet reached the point where we can see what it will become with
great wealth, and under the treatment of a plutocratic class. From what
has been said it is evidently most important that man and wife should
have been educated in the same mores. Pair marriage is also
individualistic. It is the barrier against which all socialism breaks
into dust. As the cost of a family increases, the connection between
family and capital becomes more close and vital. Every socialist who can
think is forced to go on to a war on marriage and the family, because he
finds that in marriage and the family lie the strongholds of the
"individualistic vices" which he cannot overcome. He has to mask this
battery, however, because he dare not openly put it forward.
+388. The future of marriage.+ It is idle to imagine that our mores
about marriage have reached their final stage. Since marriage is free
and individualistic as it exists in our mores, there is little care or
pity for those who cannot adapt themselves to it, or it to their
circumstances. They are allowed divorce, but not without some feeling of
annoyance with them if they use it. It is also idle to imagine that
those who are now satisfied will alone control the changes which the
future will bring in the mores. It is not difficult to make marriage
such that men will refuse it. Women have revolted against it in the
past.[1244] It is not beyond imagination that they might do so again.
+389. Normal type of sex union.+ It may be, as Lecky says,[1245] that
"we have ample grounds for maintaining that the lifelong union of one
man and one woman should be the normal or dominant type of intercourse
between the sexes. We can prove that it is, on the whole, most conducive
to the happiness, and also to the moral elevation, of all parties. But
beyond this point it would, I conceive, be impossible to advance, except
by the assistance of a special revelation. It by no means follows that
because this should be the dominant type, it should be the only one, or
that the interests of society demand that all connections should be
forced into the same die."
+390. Divorce.+ In the mother family the woman could dismiss her
husband. This she could also do in all the transition forms in which
the husband went to live with the wife at her childhood home. In the
father family the wife, obtained by capture or purchase, belonged to her
husband on the analogy of property. The husband could reject or throw
away his property if he saw fit. It is clear that the physical facts
attendant on the two customs--one that the man went to live with his
wife, the other that he took her to his home--made a great difference in
the status of the woman. In the latter case she fell into dependence and
subjection to the dominion of her husband. She could not divorce him.
+391.+ In Chaldea a man could divorce his wife by saying, "Thou
art not my wife," by repaying her dowry, and giving her a letter
to her father. If she said to him, "Thou art not my husband," she
was drowned. An adulterous woman was driven into the street
clothed only in a loin cloth, at the mercy of the passers.[1246]
In this view, which ran through the Jewish system and came down
into that of Mohammed, a wife has duties, to which her husband
has no correlative obligations. She must do her duty or be thrust
out. There is no adultery for a man and no divorce for a woman.
The most complete negation of divorce is in Hindostan, where a
woman (perhaps a child of five or six), if married to a man, is
his only, for time and eternity, no matter what may happen. He is
hers until she dies, but then he can have another wife. Romulus
allowed divorce to the man, if the woman poisoned infants, drank
strong wine, falsified keys, or committed adultery.[1247] By a
law of Numa a man who had as many children as he wanted could
cede his wife, temporarily or finally, to another.[1248] These
laws seem to have been forgotten. If they ever really existed
they did not control early Roman society. By the later law a
sentence for crime which produced civil death set free the other
spouse. In the last century B.C. divorce became very easy and
customary. The mores gradually relaxed to allow it. Augustus
compelled the husband of Livia to divorce her because he wanted
her himself. She was about to become a mother.[1249] Cato the
younger gave his wife to his friend Hortensius, and took her back
after Hortensius's death.[1250] Sempronius Sophus divorced his
wife because she went to the games without his consent.[1251]
Women also divorced their husbands in the first century of the
Christian era. Juvenal mentions a woman who had eight husbands in
five years.[1252] Tertullian, writing from the standpoint of a
Christian ascetic, said that "divorce is the product of
marriage."[1253] Jerome knew of a woman who had married her
twenty-third husband, she being his twenty-first wife.[1254]
Seneca said that the women reckoned the years by their husbands,
not by the consuls.[1255] The women got equality by leveling
downwards. "The new woman of Juvenal boldly claims a vicious
freedom equal to her husband's."[1256] These cases belong to the
degeneration of the mores at the period. As they are astonishing,
we are in danger of giving them too much force in the notion we
form of the mores of that time. All the writers repeat them. "In
the _Agricola_, and in Seneca's letters to Marcia and Helvia, we
can see that, even at the darkest hour, there were homes with an
atmosphere of old Roman self-restraint and sobriety, where good
women wielded a powerful influence over their husbands and sons,
and where the examples of the old republic were used, as Biblical
characters with us, to fortify virtue."[1257]
+392. Rabbis on divorce.+ The school of the Rabbi Shammai said, "A man
must not repudiate his wife unless he find in her actual immodesty."
Rabbi Jochanan said, "Repudiation is an odious thing." Rabbi Eliezer
said, "When a first wife is put away the very altar sheds tears."[1258]
+393.+ The early Roman mores about marriage were very rigid and
pitiless. It was in the family, and therefore under the control of the
head of the family. No law forbade divorce, because such a law would
have been an invasion of the authority of the male head of the family,
but the censors, in the name of public opinion, long prevented any
frivolous dissolution of marriage. Few divorces occurred, and then only
for weighty reason, after the family council had found them sufficient.
There was some stain attaching to a second marriage, after the death of
the first spouse. Even men were subject to this stain.[1259]
+394. Pair marriage and divorce.+ With the rise of pair marriage came
divorce for the woman, upon due reason, as much as for the man. Hence
freer divorce goes with pair marriage. Such must inevitably be the case,
if it be admitted that any due reason for divorce ever can exist. The
more poetical and elevated the ideas are which are clustered around
marriage, the more probable it is that experience will produce
disappointment. If one spouse enters wedlock with the belief that the
other is the most superlative man or woman living, the cases must be
very few in which disappointment and disillusion will not result.
Moreover, pair marriage, by its exclusiveness, risks the happiness of
the parties on a very narrow and specific condition of life. The
coercion of this arrangement for many persons must become intolerable.
In the ancient German law there was absolute freedom of divorce by
agreement. The pair could end the relation just as they formed it. In
the laws of the German nations there was little provision for divorce
upon the complaint of the woman. The law of the Langobards allowed it to
her for serious bodily injury.[1260]
+395. Divorce in the Middle Ages.+ It is pretended that the mediæval
church allowed no divorce. This is utterly untrue. Under the influence
of asceticism the church put marriage under more and more arbitrary
restrictions, going far beyond any rules to be found in the Scriptures,
or in the usages of the early church. Divorce was made more and more
difficult. These two tendencies contradicted each other, for the greater
the restrictions on marriage, the greater the probability that any
marriage would be found to have violated one of them, and therefore to
be _ab initio_ void. This set it aside more absolutely than any divorce
_a vinculo_ could undo it. Also, when there was an ample apparatus of
dispensation by which the rich and great could have their marriages
dissolved, by the use of money or political power, the "law of the
church" was no law. Still further, the mediæval church, while it had a
doctrine of perfection and ideality for marriage, had also a practical
system of concession to human weakness, by which it could meet cases of
unhappy marriage. In the canon law, divorce and remarriage of the
innocent party has been allowed to the man, in case of adultery,
physical incapacity, leprosy, desertion, captivity, disappearance, and
conspiracy to murder the husband, on the part of the wife; and to the
wife, when the husband's misconduct rendered living with him impossible.
However, a dispensation from the ecclesiastical authority was
required.[1261]
+396.+ The point of this is that no society ever has existed or ever can
exist in which no divorce is allowed. In all stages of the father
family it has been possible for a man to turn his wife out of doors, and
for a wife to run away from her husband. They divorce themselves when
they have determined that they want to do so. It would be an easy
solution of marriage problems to assert that the society will use its
force to compel all spouses who disagree, or for whom the marriage
relation has become impossible through the course of events,
nevertheless to continue to live in wedlock. Such a rule would produce
endless misery, shame, and sin. There are reasons for divorce. Adultery
is recognized as such a reason in the New Testament. It is a rational
reason, especially under pair marriage. There are other rational
reasons. Some of them are modern forms of the reasons allowed in the
canon law, as above cited. The exegesis of the New Testament is not
simple. It does not produce a simple and consistent doctrine, and
therefore inference and deduction have been applied to it. 2 Cor. vi. 14
contradicts 1 Cor. vii. 12. The mores decide at last what causes shall
be sufficient. The laws in the United States once went very far in an
attempt to satisfy complaining married people. They were no better
satisfied at last than at first. Scandalous cases produced a conviction
that "we have gone too far," and the present tendency is to revoke
certain concessions. The fact that a divorce has been legally obtained
does not satisfy some former friends of the divorced so that they will
continue social intimacy. A code grows up to fit the facts. Sects help
to make such codes. Perhaps they make a code which is too stringent. The
members of the sect do not live by it. They seek remarriage in other,
less scrupulous sects, or by civil authority, or they change domicile in
order to get a divorce. Thus the mores control. When the law of the
state or of ecclesiastical bodies goes with the mores it prevails; when
it departs from the mores it fails. The mores are also sure to act in
regard to a matter which presents itself in a large class of cases, and
which calls for social and ethical judgments. At last, comprehensive
popular judgments will be formed and they will get into legislation.
They will adjust interests so that people can pursue self-realization
with success and satisfaction, under social judgments as to the rules
necessary to preserve the institutions of wedlock and the family. The
pursuit of happiness, either in the acquisition of property or in the
enjoyment of family life, is only possible in submission to laws which
define social order, rights, and duties, and against which the
individual must react at every point. It is the mores which constantly
revise and readjust the laws of social order, and so define the social
conditions within which self-realization must go on.
+397. Refusal of remarriage.+ The laws of every State in the United
States, except South Carolina, allow marriage by a minister of religion
or by magistrates. This does not mean that the legislatures meant to
endow ministers of religion with authority to say who may marry and who
may not. Ministers who agree not to marry divorced persons assume
authority which does not belong to them. In England, with an established
church, the fact has recently been ascertained that a clergyman cannot
refuse to marry persons who may marry by the civil law as it stands.
With us the number of sects and denominations is such that no hardship
arises if one sect chooses to adopt stricter laws for the sake of making
a demonstration or exercising educational influence, and decides to run
the risk of driving its own members to other sects. What the next result
of such action will be remains to be learned.
+398. Child marriage.+ Child marriage illustrates a number of points in
regard to the mores, especially the possibility of perversity and
aberration. Wilutzky[1262] thinks that child marriage amongst savages
began in the desire of a man to get a wife to himself (monandry) out of
the primitive communalism, without violating the customs of ancestors.
Girls of ten or twelve years are married to men of twenty-five or thirty
on the New Britain Islands. The missionary says, "The result of such an
early union, for the girl, has been dreadful."[1263] On Malekula girls
are married at six or eight.[1264] Similar cases are reported from
Central and South America where girls of ten are mothers.[1265] Rohlfs
reports mothers of ten or twelve at Fesan.[1266] The Eskimo practice
child betrothal, so that wedlock begins at once at puberty.[1267]
Schwaner reports,[1268] from the Barito Valley, that children are often
betrothed and married by the fathers when the latter are intoxicated.
The motives of the match are birth, kinship, property, and social
position, and the marriage is hastened, lest the parents should see
their plans to satisfy these motives frustrated by the children if they
should delay. The intimacy of the children is left to chance. Wilken
says that child marriage seems to be, in the Dutch East Indies, an
exercise of absolute paternal authority, especially seeing that they
have marriage by capture. The father wants to secure, in time, the
realization of plans which he has made. Especially, the purpose is to
make the man take the status-wife appointed for him by the marriage
rule,--his mother's brother's daughter. Wilken also explains child
betrothal and marriage by the fact that girls have entire liberty until
betrothed, and the future husband wants to put an end to this. Girls are
often betrothed at birth and married at six, although they remain with
their parents. In some parts of the East Indies the custom is declining;
in others it is extinct. In some places it continues, although marriage
by capture is extinct. Where marriage by capture exists, the reason for
child marriage is the fear that the girl may be stolen by another than
the desired husband.[1269]
+399. Child marriage in Hindostan.+ By the laws of Manu[1270] a man may
give his daughter in marriage before she is eight years old to a man of
twenty-four, or a girl of twelve to a man of thirty, and he loses his
dominion over her if he has not found a husband for her by the time that
she might be a mother; yet intercourse before puberty is especially
forbidden.[1271] The Hindoos, including Mohammedans, practice child
marriage and cling to it, in spite of the efforts of the English to
dissuade them from it, and in spite of the opinion of their own most
enlightened men that it is a harmful custom. It is deeply rooted in
their mores. The modern Hindoo father or brother considers it one of the
gravest faults he can commit to allow a daughter or sister to arrive at
puberty (generally eight years) before a husband has been found for her.
It is a disgrace for a family to have in it an unmarried marriageable
girl. What is proper is that, from five to sixteen days after puberty,
the previously married husband shall beget with her a child in a solemn
ceremonial which is one of the twelve (or sixteen) sacraments of Hindoo
life.[1272] The idea of child marriage was that the woman should be
already married to her chosen husband, so that she might be given to him
at the proper time.[1273] Moreover, "marriage completes, for the man,
the regenerating ceremonies, expiatory, as is believed, of the sinful
taint which every child is supposed to contract in the mother's womb;
and being, for sudras and for women, the only [ceremony for this
purpose] which is allowed, its obligatoriness is, as to the latter, one
of the ordinances of the Veda."[1274]
+400.+ The wife of the missionary Gehring was present at the marriage of
a girl of ten to an adult man amongst the Tamil Mohammedans. The story
of the child's shrinking terror is very pathetic. When her veil was
withdrawn she fainted from nervousness and excitement. Those present
showed no pity for her, but crowded around to enjoy the opportunity of
gazing at her. They saw no reason why she was to be pitied.[1275]
+401.+ If a girl has had no husband provided for her by her responsible
male relative, she may act for herself, but then she forfeits her share
in the family property. She may be abducted with impunity. In Manu[1276]
it is said that three years must elapse before she gets the right of
self-disposition. The right is long since a dead letter. The "Law of
Manu" can lose its authority where it is favorable to women! or when it
runs counter to the mores, for Hindoo women have no training to take up
self-disposition, if the case occurs.[1277] Female virtue is rated low,
and must be secured by marriage. Independent action by a boy and girl is
against the mores and could only lead to inferior forms of marriage, by
love or capture.[1278] Finally, religion bears its share in furnishing
motives for child marriage. The souls of ancestors cannot stay in heaven
unless there are male descendants to keep up the sacrifices. It is,
therefore, impossible to provide male descendants too soon. Among the
Tamil-speaking Malaialis of the Kollimallais hills a man takes an adult
wife for his little son, and with her he begets a son who will perform
this religious duty for himself and his son. This goes on from
generation to generation.[1279]
+402.+ Nevertheless, it is held to be proved that in ancient India child
marriages were unknown and that women were often far beyond puberty
before they were married. The human husband was also held to be the
fourth. Three gods had preceded him in each case.[1280] The custom of
child marriage has now spread to the lowest classes, and in the lowlands
of the Ganges cohabitation follows at once upon child marriage, with
very evil results on the physique of the population.[1281]
There was child marriage in Chaldea 2200 years B.C.[1282]
+403. Child marriage in Europe.+ The marriage of children was not in the
mores of the ancient Germans. The mediæval church allowed child marriage
for princes, etc. The motive was political alliance, or family or
property interest.[1283] The fable was that Joseph was an old man and
the Virgin Mary only a girl. This story was invented to make the notion
of a virgin wife and mother easier. The marriage was only a child
marriage. In England, from the end of the thirteenth to late in the
seventeenth century, cases of child marriage occurred, at first in the
highest classes, later in all classes, and finally most frequently in
the highest and lowest classes. In Scotland premature marriages were so
common that, in 1600, they were forbidden, the limits being set at
fourteen and twelve years for males and females respectively. The chief
motive was to avoid feudal dues on the part of tenants in chief of the
crown, if the father should die and leave infants who would become
wards liable to forced marriages or to mulcts to avoid the same.[1284]
+404.+ Child marriage is due, then, to the predominance of worldly
considerations in marriage, especially when the interests considered are
those of the parents, not of the children; also to abuse of parental
authority through vanity and self-will; also to superstitious notions
about the other world and the interests of the dead there; also to
attempts, in the interest of the children, to avoid the evil
consequences of other bad social arrangements.
+405. Cloistering.+ The custom of cloistering women has spread, within
historic times, from some point in central Asia. The laws of Hammurabi
show that, 2200 years B.C., men and women, in the Euphrates Valley,
consorted freely and equally in life. Later, in the Euphrates Valley, we
find the custom of cloistering amongst the highest classes. It became
more and more vigorous amongst the Persians and spread to the common
people. It was not an original custom of the Arabs and was not
introduced by the Mohammedan religion. It was learned and assumed from
the Persians.[1285] Seclusion of women, to a greater or less degree, has
prevailed in the mores of many nations. In fact, there is only a
question of degree between an excessive harem system and our own code of
propriety which lays restraints on women to which men are not subject.
The most probable explanation of the customs of veiling and cloistering
is that they are due to the superstition of the evil eye. Pretty women
attracted admiration, which was dangerous, as all prosperity, glory, and
preëminence were dangerous under that notion. When _pretty_ women were
veiled or secluded, the custom was sure to spread to others. The wives
and daughters of the rich and great were secluded in order to shield
them from easy approach, and to pet and protect them. This set the
fashion which lesser people imitated so far as they could. The tyranny
of husbands and fathers also came into play, and another force acting in
the same direction was the seduction exerted on women themselves by the
flattering sense of being cared for and petted. Lane[1286] tells us
that "an Egyptian wife who is attached to her husband is apt to think,
if he allows her unusual liberty, that he neglects her, and does not
sufficiently love her; and to envy those wives who are kept and watched
with greater strictness." "They look on the restraint [imposed by
husbands] with a degree of pride, as evincing the husband's care for
them, and value themselves on being hidden as treasures." Women who earn
their own living have to go into the streets and the market and to come
in contact with much from which other classes of women are protected.
The protected position is aristocratic, and it is consonant with
especial feminine tastes. The willingness to fall into it has always
greatly affected the status of women.
+406. Second marriages. Widows.+ Second marriages affect very few people
beyond those immediately concerned, and they are not connected with any
social principle or institution so as to create what is sometimes called
a "societal interest," unless there is current in the society some
special notion about ghosts and the other world. Nevertheless, the
bystanders have, until very recent times, pretended to a right to pass
judgment and exert an influence on the remarriage of widows, and less
frequently of widowers. The story of the status of widows is one of the
saddest in the history of civilization. In uncivilized society a widow
is considered dangerous because the ghost of her husband is supposed to
cleave to her. Under marriage by capture or purchase she is the property
of her husband, and, like his other property, ought to accompany him to
the other world. When she is spared she has no rational place in the
society; therefore widows were a problem which the mores had to solve.
In no other case have societies shown so much indifference to misfortune
and innocent misery. If a widow has value for any purpose, she falls to
the heir and he may exploit her. On the Fiji Islands a wife was
strangled on her husband's grave and buried with him. A god lies in wait
on the road to the other world who is implacable to the unmarried.
Therefore a man's ghost must be attended by a woman's ghost to pass in
safety.[1287] Mongol widows could find no second husbands, because they
would have to serve their first husbands in the next world. The youngest
son inherited the household and was bound to provide for his father's
widows. He could take to wife any of them except his own mother, and he
did so because he was willing that they should go to his father in the
next world.[1288] In the laws of Hammurabi the widow was secured a share
in her husband's property and was protected against the selfishness of
her sons. If she gave up to her sons what she had received from her
husband, she could keep what her father gave her and could marry again.
In later Chaldea annuities were provided for widows by payments to
temples.[1289] In the Mahabharata the morning salutation to a woman is,
"May you not undergo the lot of a widow."[1290]
+407. Burning of widows.+ It appears certain that the primitive Aryans
practiced the burning of widows, perhaps by the choice of the widows,
and that the custom declined in the Vedic period of India. The burning
of widows and the levirate could not exist together.[1291] As Manu[1292]
gives rules for the behavior of widows (not name any man but the
deceased husband; not remarry), he assumes that they will live. The
custom of suttee was strongest in the lower castes.[1293] Akbar, the
Mogul emperor, forbade suttee about 1600.[1294] He acted from the
Mohammedan standpoint. His ordinance had no effect on the usage. The
English put an end to the custom in 1830. This did not affect the native
states, where the latest instance reported took place in 1880.[1295] A
man who knows India well says that it was no kindness to widows to put a
stop to suttee because, if they live on, their existence is so wretched
that death would be better. Wilkins[1296] quotes a Hindoo widow's
description of the treatment she received, which included physical abuse
and moral torture. She was addressed as if she was to blame for the
death of her husband. The head of a widow is shaved, although Hindoo
women care very much for their hair. She is allowed but one meal a day
and must fast frequently. She is shunned as a creature of ill omen.
Inasmuch as girls are married at five or six, all this may happen to a
child of ten or twelve, if her husband dies, although she never has
lived with him. In 1856 the English made a law by which widows might
remarry, but the higher classes very rarely allow it. If they do allow
it, the groom is forced to marry a tree or a doll of cotton, so that he
too may be widowed. The mores resist any change which is urged, although
not enforced, by people of other mores. The reforms proposed in the
treatment of widows have no footing at all in the experience and the
judgment of Hindoos, if we except a few theists in Calcutta, and they
have never taken a united and consistent position. Monier-Williams[1297]
describes the case of a man who married a widow. He was boycotted so
completely that all human fellowship was denied him. He had to go to a
distant place and take a position under the government. Among the lower
castes of the Bihari Hindoos a widow may marry the younger brother of
her deceased husband, to whom her relation is always one of especial
intimacy and familiarity.[1298]
+408. Difficulty of reform.+ It appears that the difficulty about the
remarriage of widows is due to the fact that it runs counter to
fundamental religious ideas. The Hindoo reformers are charged with using
forms of wedding ceremony which are inconsistent with facts. Some widows
are virgins, but there is not always a father or mother to give them
away by the formula of "virgin gift." The women all have a notion, taken
from the words of a heroine in the Mahabharata, that a woman can be
given but once.[1299] They cling to the literal formula. By the form of
first marriage also a woman passes into the kin of her husband for seven
births (generations), the limit of degrees of consanguinity. It is
irreligious and impossible to change the kin again, because consequences
have been entailed which run seven generations into the future.[1300]
This is all made to depend, not on the consummation of the marriage, but
on the wedding or even betrothal. The census shows that the taboo on the
remarriage of widows and the custom of child marriage extend and
increase together.[1301] Where husbands are scarce girls are married in
childhood in order to secure them, and widows are not allowed to
remarry.[1302] By the remarriage of widows rajpoots and rajpoot families
lose their rank and precedence.[1303] In Homer the remarriage of men is
rare, and only one stepmother is mentioned.[1304] The prejudice against
second marriages continued amongst the Greeks, even for men, for whom
second marriage was restrained, in some parts of Greece by political
disabilities, if the man had children. The reason given was that a man
who had so little devotion to his family would have little devotion to
his country.[1305] In the classical period widows generally married
again. Sometimes the dying husband bequeathed his widow. In later times
some widows contracted their own second marriages.[1306] Marcus Aurelius
would not take a second wife as a stepmother for his children. He took a
concubine. Julian, after the death of his wife, lived in
continence.[1307] On Roman tombstones of women the epithet "wife of one
husband" was often put as praise.[1308]
+409. Widows and remarriage in the Christian church.+ The pagan emperors
of Rome encouraged second marriages as they encouraged all marriage, but
the Christian emperors of the fourth century took up the ascetic
tendency. About 300 the doctrine was, "Every second marriage is
essentially adultery."[1309] Augustine, in his tract on "Continence,"
uttered strong and sound doctrine about self-control and discipline of
character. In the tract on the "Benefit of Marriage" he defended
marriage, intervening in a controversy between Jerome and Jovinian, in
which the former put forth the most extravagant and contradictory
assertions about virginity. Augustine's formula is: "Marriage and
fornication are not two evils of which the second is worse, but marriage
and continence are two goods, of which the second is better." Although
this statement is very satisfactory rhetorically, it carries no
conclusion as to the rational sense of regulation of the sex passion, or
as to the limit within which regulation is beneficial. Augustine laid
great stress on 1 Cor. vii. 36. In a tract on "Virginity" he glorified
that state according to the taste of the period. In a tract on
"Widowhood" (chaps. 13 and 14), he repudiated the extreme doctrine about
second and subsequent marriages, but he exhorted widows to continence.
The church fathers, like the mediæval theologians, had a way of
admitting points in the argument without altering their total position
in accordance with the admissions or concessions which they had made.
The positions taken by Augustine in these tracts about the sex mores
cannot be embraced in an intelligible and consistent statement. "At a
period of early, although uncertain, date the rule became firmly and
irrevocably established, that no digamus, or husband of a second wife,
was admissible to Holy Orders; and although there is no reason for
supposing that marriage after taking orders was prohibited to a
bachelor, it was strictly forbidden to a widower."[1310] So it came
about that, inasmuch as marriage was, in any case, only a concession and
a compromise, and in so far a departure from strict rectitude, a second
marriage was regarded with disfavor, and any subsequent ones were
regarded with reprobation which increased in a high progression. This
has remained the view of the Eastern church, in which a fourth marriage
is unlawful. The Western church has not kept the early view, and has set
no limit to remarriage, but orthodox and popular mores have frowned upon
it after the second or, at most, the third. In Arabia, before the time
of Mohammed, widows were forced into seclusion and misery for a year,
and they became a class of forlorn, almost vagabond, dependents. It was
a shame for a man if his mother contracted a second marriage.[1311] In
the Middle Ages popular reprobation was manifested by celebrations
which were always grotesque and noisy, and sometimes licentious. They
were called charivaris. They were enacted in case of the remarriage of
widows and sometimes in the case of widowers. They are said to have
been a very ancient custom in Provence.[1312] This might mean that
opposition to second marriages was due to Manichæan doctrines which were
widely held in that region. The customs of popular reprobation were,
however, very widespread, and nowadays amongst us the neighbors
sometimes express in this way their disapproval of any sex relations
which are in any way not in accord with the mores. In the Salic law it
was provided that any woman who married a second time must do so at
night.[1313] The other laws of the barbarian nations contain evidence of
disapproval.[1314] Innocent III ruled, in 1213, that a man did not incur
the ecclesiastical disabilities of second marriage, "no matter how many
concubines he might have had, either at one time or in succession."[1315]
The mediæval _coutumes_ of northern France are indifferent to second
marriages.[1316] The ancient German custom approved of the self-immolation
of a widow at her husband's death, but did not require it. The
remarriage of widows was not approved and the widows did not desire it.
This was a consequence of the ancient German notion of marriage,
according to which a wife merged her life in that of her husband for
time and for eternity.[1317] The usage, however, was softened gradually.
The widow got more independence, and more authority over her children
and property, over the marriage of her daughters, and at last the right
to contract a second marriage after a year of mourning.[1318] In
England, in the eleventh century, a widow's dower could not be taken to
pay her husband's taxes, although the exchequer showed little pity for
anybody else. The reason given is that "it is the price of her
virginity."[1319] The later law also exempted a wife's dower from
confiscation in the case of any criminal or traitor.[1320] In the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in France, "a period in which,
perhaps, people supported widowhood less willingly than in any other,"
the actual usages departed from the acknowledged standards of right and
propriety.[1321] The same was true in a greater or less degree elsewhere
in Europe, and the widowed probably destroyed the prejudice against
remarriage by their persistency and courage in violating it. In the
American colonies it was by no means rare for a widow or widower to
marry again in six or even in three months.
+410. Remarriage and other-worldliness.+ It is evident that the customs
in regard to the treatment of widows, second marriages, etc., are
largely controlled by other-worldliness. If the other world is thought
of as close at hand, and the dead as enjoying a conscious life, with
knowledge of all which occurs here, then there is a rational reluctance
to form new ties by which the dead may be offended. If the other world
and its inhabitants are not so vividly apprehended, the living pursue
their own interests, and satisfy their own desires.
+411. Tree marriage.+ In several cases which have been presented, we
have seen how the folkways devise means of satisfying interests in spite
of existing (inherited) institutions which bear injuriously on
interests. A remarkable case of this kind is tree marriage amongst the
Brahmins of southern India. The established opinion is that a younger
brother ought not to marry before an older one. The latter may be
willing. That is immaterial. The device is employed of marrying the
older brother to a tree, or (perhaps the idea is) to a spirit which
resides in the tree. He is then out of the way and the younger brother
may marry.[1322]
+412. The Japanese woman.+ The Japanese woman has been formed in an
isolated state, of a militant character, with strong and invariable
folkways. "Before this ethical creature, criticism should hold its
breath; for there is here no single fault, save the fault of a moral
charm unsuited to any world of selfishness and struggle.... How
frequently has it been asserted that, as a moral being, the Japanese
woman does not seem to belong to the same race as the Japanese man!...
Perhaps no such type of woman will appear again in this world for a
hundred thousand years: the conditions of industrial civilization will
not admit of her existence.... The Japanese woman can be known only in
her own country,--the Japanese woman as prepared and perfected by the
old-time education for that strange society in which the charm of her
moral being,--her delicacy, her supreme unselfishness, her childlike
piety and trust, her exquisite tactful perception of all ways and means
to make happiness about her,--can be comprehended and valued.... Even if
she cannot be called handsome according to western standards, the
Japanese woman must be confessed pretty,--pretty like a comely child;
and if she be seldom graceful in the occidental sense, she is at least
in all her ways incomparably graceful: her every motion, gesture, or
expression being, in its own oriental manner, a perfect thing,--an act
performed, or a look conferred, in the most easy, the most graceful, the
most modest way possible.... The old-fashioned education of her sex was
directed to the development of every quality essentially feminine, and
to the suppression of the opposite quality. Kindliness, docility,
sympathy, tenderness, daintiness,--these and other attributes were
cultivated into incomparable blossoming. 'Be good, sweet maid, and let
who will be clever; do noble things, not dream them, all day
long,'--those words of Kingsley really embody the central idea in her
training. Of course the being, formed by such training only, must be
protected by society; and by the old Japanese society she was
protected.... A being working only for others, thinking only for others,
happy only in making pleasure for others,--a being incapable of
unkindness, incapable of selfishness, incapable of acting contrary to
her own inherited sense of right,--and in spite of this softness and
gentleness ready, at any moment, to lay down her life, to sacrifice
everything at the call of duty: such was the character of the Japanese
woman."[1323]
[1129] Campbell, _Differences in the Nervous Organization of Men
and Women_, 29.
[1130] _Ibid._, 43.
[1131] _Ibid._, 34.
[1132] Campbell, _Differences in the Nervous Organization of Men
and Women_, 46.
[1133] _Ibid._, 45.
[1134] _Ibid._, 68.
[1135] _Ibid._, 66.
[1136] _Ibid._, 53 f.
[1137] _Ibid._, 223.
[1138] _Ibid._, 84.
[1139] _Ibid._, 90.
[1140] _Ibid._, 133.
[1141] _West Afr. Studies_, 375.
[1142] _Globus_, LXXXIII, 285.
[1143] Bebel, _Die Frau_, 73.
[1144] _Decret. Gratiani_, II, c. XXXII, qu. iv, c. 7.
[1145] Molmenti, _Venezia nella Vita Privata_, 393.
[1146] For cases see JAI, XXIII, 364.
[1147] _Globus_, LXXXVII, 179 (Caroline Isl.).
[1148] _Globus_, LXXXIII, 312.
[1149] Xenophon, _Lacedæmon_, I, 7, 8; Plutarch, _Lycurgus_, 15.
[1150] Pellison, _Roman Life in Pliny's Time_, 100.
[1151] _Third Journey_ (_russ._), 259.
[1152] _Ladak_, 306.
[1153] Molmenti, _Venezia nella Vita Privata_, 386.
[1154] _Madras Gov. Mus._, III, 227.
[1155] Zimmer, _Altind. Leben_, 313; JASB, II, 316, 319; JAI,
XII, 291.
[1156] Lane, _Modern Egyptians_, I, 274, Cf. Snouck-Hurgronje,
_Mekka_, II, 106 ff.
[1157] Hauri, _Islam_, 135.
[1158] _Madras Gov. Mus._, III, 229.
[1159] Rockhill in _U. S. Nat. Mus._, 1893, 677.
[1160] Bishop, _Among the Thibetans_, 92.
[1161] Herod., I, 173.
[1162] Schoemann, _Griech. Alterthümer_, I, 51.
[1163] _Descent of Man_, 590.
[1164] Westermarck, _Marriage_, 130.
[1165] Sarasin, _Veddahs_, 462.
[1166] Schmidt, _Ceylon_, 277.
[1167] _Bijdragen tot T. L. en V.-kunde_, XXXV, 215.
[1168] _Soc. Einrichtungen der Pelauer_, 59.
[1169] _Umschau_, VI, 52, after Haeckel, _Aus Insulinde_.
[1170] _Ehe bei den Arabern_, 447.
[1171] Krieger, _Neu Guinea_, 300, 321.
[1172] _London Graphic_, 1902, 534.
[1173] _Cults of the Greek States_, 448.
[1174] Strange, _Hindu Law_, I, 57.
[1175] _Economica_, I, 4.
[1176] _Politics_, VII, 16.
[1177] VII-IX.
[1178] _Epist._, XCIV, 26.
[1179] _Ibid._, XCV, 39.
[1180] _Opera_ (Paris, 1635), VI, 358.
[1181] _Digest_, XLVIII, 13, 5.
[1182] Act IV, scene 8.
[1183] Migne, _Patrol. Latina_, XXII, 691.
[1184] Lecky, _Eur. Morals_, II, 346.
[1185] _Od._, I, 433.
[1186] Lecky, _Eur. Morals_, II, 347.
[1187] _Ibid._, 135.
[1188] _Globus_, LXXV, 271.
[1189] Wilkins, _Modern Hinduism_, 159.
[1190] Wellhausen, _Ehe bei den Arabern_, 450.
[1191] _Ibid._, 432.
[1192] Hauri, _Islam_, 124.
[1193] _Ibid._, 131.
[1194] Hauri, _Islam_, 121.
[1195] Cf. Snouck-Hurgronje, _Mekka_, II, 110 ff.
[1196] _Smithson. Rep._, 1895, 673.
[1197] _Od._, XVI, 392; XX, 74; XXI, 162.
[1198] _Iliad_, IX, 341.
[1199] _Od._, VI, 180.
[1200] _Factorum et Dictorum Memorabilium libri novem_, IV, 6.
[1201] _Metamor._, VIII.
[1202] Pliny, _Letters_.
[1203] Friedländer, _Sittengesch._, II, 410.
[1204] E.g. _Burnt Njal_, 238.
[1205] Holtzmann, _Ind. Sagen_, I, 253.
[1206] _Ibid._, 256.
[1207] Nivedita, _Web of Indian Life_, 33.
[1208] _Ibid._, 45.
[1209] _Globus_, LXXXII, 104, 187-194, 279.
[1210] _Ibid._, 322.
[1211] Strausz, _Die Bulgaren_, 309.
[1212] _Globus_, LXXIX, 155.
[1213] _Madras Gov. Mus._, II, 162.
[1214] _Globus_, LXXXII, 323.
[1215] _Globus_, LXXXII, 321.
[1216] Ralston, _Songs of the Russ. People_, 7.
[1217] _Globus_, LXXVI, 316.
[1218] Ralston, as above, 65.
[1219] _Ztsft. f. vergl. Rechts-wsnsft._, XIV, 180.
[1220] _Ecole d'Anthrop. de Paris_, XIV, 411.
[1221] Schultz, _Höf. Leben_, I, 581, and the whole of Chap. VII;
Scherr, _D.F.W.I._, 220.
[1222] Migne, _Patrol. Lat._, Vol. 210.
[1223] Line 18,580.
[1224] I, 90, 92, 251; III, 103, 104 (in spite of love), 109,
167, 278.
[1225] III, 171.
[1226] I, 150.
[1227] _D. L._, 271, 276, 277.
[1228] Schultz, _D. L._, 259, 271-277.
[1229] Lichtenberger, _Poeme des Nibelungen_, 380.
[1230] _Ibid._, 390.
[1231] _Nibelungen_, line 837.
[1232] Lichtenberger, 368, 375, 391, 400; Uhland, _Dichtung und
Sage_, 315.
[1233] Barthold, _Hansa_, III, 178.
[1234] Schultz, _D. L._, 414.
[1235] Weinhold, _D. F._, II, 209.
[1236] Eicken, _Mittelalt. Weltanschauung_, 467.
[1237] _Hist. de Paris_, 268.
[1238] Schultz, _D. L._, 277.
[1239] _Ibid._, 283; cf. Janssen, VIII, 391.
[1240] Herod., IV, 104.
[1241] See sec. 366.
[1242] See sec. 178.
[1243] Lea, _Sacerd. Celibacy_, 203, note.
[1244] JAI, XXIV, 119.
[1245] _Eur. Morals_, II, 348.
[1246] Maspero, _Peuples de l'Orient_, I, 736.
[1247] Plutarch, _Romulus_, 22.
[1248] Plutarch, _Comp. of Numa and Lykurgus_.
[1249] Tacitus, _Annals_, I, 10.
[1250] Plutarch, _Cato_.
[1251] Valer. Maxim., VI, 3, 12.
[1252] _Sat._, VI, 230.
[1253] _Apolog._, 6.
[1254] _Epist._, 2.
[1255] _Epist._, 95; _Consolation to his Mother_, 16.
[1256] Dill, _Nero to M. Aurel._, 87.
[1257] _Ibid._, 188.
[1258] Cook, _Fathers of Jesus_, II, 142.
[1259] Grupp, _Kulturgesch. der Röm. Kaiserzeit_, 113.
[1260] Heusler, _Deut. Privatrecht_, II, 291.
[1261] Reichel, _Canon Law_, I, 343.
[1262] _Mann und Weib_, 32.
[1263] JAI, XVIII, 288.
[1264] _Austral. Assoc. Adv. Sci._, 1892, 704.
[1265] Schomburgk, _Brit. Guiana_, I, 122, 164; JAI, XXIV, 205.
[1266] _Peterm. Mittlgen, Erg. heft_, XXV, 9.
[1267] Holm, _Angmagslikerne_, 52; Nelson in _Bur. Eth._, XVIII,
Part i, 292.
[1268] _Borneo_, I, 194.
[1269] _Bijdragen tot T.L. en V.-kunde_, XXXV, 161, 165; Wilken,
_Volkenkunde_, 277.
[1270] IX, 88, 93, 94.
[1271] XI, 59, 171.
[1272] Jolly, _Recht und Sitte der Indo-Arier_, 54, 58.
[1273] Jolly, _Stellung der Frauen bei den allen Indern_, 425.
[1274] Strange, _Hindu Law_, I, 35.
[1275] Gehring, _Süd-Indien_, 78, 80.
[1276] IX, 90.
[1277] _Jo. Soc. Comp. Legisl., N. S._, VIII, 253.
[1278] Jolly, _Recht und Sitte_, 54.
[1279] _Madras Gov. Mus._, II, 162.
[1280] Monier-Williams, _Brahmanism and Hinduism_, 354.
[1281] _Pol.-Anth. Rev._, III, 711.
[1282] Winckler, _Gesetze des Hammurabi_, 22.
[1283] Grimm, _Rechts-Alt._, 436.
[1284] Furnival, _Child-marriages_, XXVII, XXXIX, XL.
[1285] Hauri, _Islam_, 131.
[1286] _Modern Egyptians_, I, 268, 466.
[1287] JAI, X, 138.
[1288] Rubruck, _Eastern Parts_, 78.
[1289] Kohler and Peiser, II, 9.
[1290] Holtzmann, _Ind. Sagen_, I, 258.
[1291] Zimmer, _Altind. Leben_, 328-331.
[1292] V, 157, 161-164.
[1293] Jolly, _Stellung der Frauen_, 448.
[1294] _Nineteenth Cent._, XLV, 769.
[1295] Wilkins, _Modern Hinduism_, 391.
[1296] _Ibid._, 365.
[1297] _Brahmanism and Hinduism_, 472.
[1298] JASB, VI, 119.
[1299] Cf. sec. 376.
[1300] JASB, VI, 376.
[1301] Jolly, _Recht und Sitte_, 61.
[1302] JAI, XII, 290.
[1303] _Ethnol. App. Census of India_, 1901, 74-75.
[1304] Keller, _Homeric Society_, 227; _Iliad_, XXII, 477; V,
389.
[1305] Diodorus Siculus, XII, 12.
[1306] Becker-Hermann, _Charikles_, III, 289.
[1307] Lecky, _Eur. Morals_, II, 316.
[1308] Friedländer, _Sittengesch._, I, 411.
[1309] Athenagoras, _Apolog._, 28; _Constit. Apost._, III, 2.
[1310] Lea, _Sacerd. Celibacy_, 35.
[1311] Wellhausen, _Ehe bei den Arabern_, 433, 455.
[1312] Jolly, _Seconds Mariages_, 194.
[1313] _Ibid._, 177.
[1314] _Ibid._, 193.
[1315] Lea, _Sacerd. Celib._, 283.
[1316] Jolly, _Seconds Mariages_, 193.
[1317] Tacitus, _Germ._, 19.
[1318] Stammler, _Stellung der Frauen im alten Deutschen Recht_,
37.
[1319] _Dialog. of the Exchequer, B_ 2, XVIII.
[1320] Pike, _Crime in England_, I, 428.
[1321] Jolly, _Seconds Mariages_, 202.
[1322] Jolly, _Recht und Sitte der Indo-Arier_, 59; Hopkins,
_Religions of India_, 541; Kohler, _Urgesch. der Ehe_, 28.
[1323] Hearn, _Japan_, 393 ff.
CHAPTER X
THE MARRIAGE INSTITUTION
Mores lead to institutions.--Aleatory interest in marriage and
the function of religion.--Chaldean demonism and marriage.--
Hebrew marriage before the exile.--Jewish marriage after the
exile.--Marriage in the New Testament.--The merit of
celibacy.--Marriage in early Christianity.--Marriage in the
Roman law.--Roman "free marriage."--Free marriage.--Transition
from Roman to Christian marriage.--Ancient German marriage.--
Early mediæval usage.--The place of religious ceremony.--The
mode of expressing consensus.--Marriage at the church door.--
Marriage in Germany, twelfth century.--The canon law.--Mediæval
marriage.--Conflict of the mores with the church programme.--
Church marriage; concubines.--The church elevated the notion of
marriage.--The decrees of Trent about marriage.--Puritan
marriage.
+413. Mores lead to institutions.+ We have seen in Chapter IX that the
sex mores control and fashion all the relations of the sexes to each
other. Marriage, under any of its forms (polygamy, polyandry, etc.), is
only a crystallization of a set of these mores into an imperfect
institution, because the relation of a woman, or of women, to a husband
becomes more or less enduring, and so the mores which constitute the
relation get a stability and uniformity of coherence which makes a
definable whole, covering a great field of human interest and life
policy. It is not a complete specimen of an institution (sec. 63). It
lacks structure or material element of any kind, but the parties are
held to make good the understandings and coöperative acts which the
mores prescribe at all the proper conjunctures, and thus there arises a
system of acts and behavior such as every institution requires. In
civilized society this cluster of mores, constituting a relationship by
which needs are satisfied and sentiments are cherished, is given a
positive form by legislation, and the rights and duties which grow out
of the relationship get positive definition and adequate guarantees.
This case is, therefore, a very favorable one for studying the operation
of the mores in the making of institutions, or preparing them for the
final work of the lawmaker.
+414. Aleatory interest in marriage and the function of religion.+ The
positive history of marriage shows that it has been always made and
developed by the mores, that is to say, by the effort of adjustment to
conditions in such a way that self-realization may be better effected
and that more satisfaction may be won from life. The aleatory element
(sec. 6) in marriage is very large. Marriage is an interest of every
human being who reaches maturity, and it affects the weal and woe of
each in every detail of life. Passing by the forms of the institution in
which the wife is under stern discipline and those in which the man can
at once exert his will to modify the institution, it may be said of all
freer forms that there is no way in which to guarantee the happiness of
either party save in reliance on the character of the other. This is a
most uncertain guarantee. In the unfolding of life, under ever new
vicissitudes, it appears that it is a play of luck, or fate, what will
come to any one out of the marital union with another. Women have been
more at the sport of this element of luck, but men have cared much more
for their smaller risk in it. Therefore, at all stages of civilization,
devices to determine luck have been connected with weddings, and in many
cases acts of divination have been employed to find out what the future
had in store for the pair. Marriage is a domestic and family affair. The
wedding is public and invites the coöperation of friends and neighbors.
Wedlock is a mode of life which is private and exclusive. The civil
authority, after it is differentiated and integrated, takes cognizance
and control of the rights of children, legitimacy, inheritance, and
property. Religion, in its connection with marriage, takes its function
from the aleatory interest. It is not of the essence of marriage. It
"blesses" it, or secures the favor of the higher powers who distribute
good and bad fortune. In a very few cases amongst savage tribes
religious ceremonies "make" a marriage; that is, they give to it (to
the authority of the husband) a superstitious sanction which insures
permanence and coercion as long as the husband wants permanence and
coercion. These cases are rare. The notion that a religious ceremony
makes a marriage, and defines it, had no currency until the sixteenth
Christian century.
+415. Chaldean demonism and marriage.+ Chaldean demonism affected
wedding ceremonies. The belief was that demons found their opportunities
at great crises in life, when interest and excitement ran high. Then the
demons rejoiced to exert their malignity on man to produce frustration
and disappointment. Cases are not rare in which the consummation of
marriage was deferred, in barbarism and half-civilization, to ward off
this interference of demons. The Chaldean groom's companions led him to
the bride, and he repeated to her the formulas of marriage: "I am the
son of a prince. Silver and gold shall fill thy bosom. Thou shalt be my
wife and I thy husband. As a tree bears abundant fruit, so great shall
be the abundance which I will pour out on this woman." A priest blessed
them and said: "All which is bad in this man do ye [gods] put far away,
and give him strength. Do thou, man, give thy virility. Let this woman
be thy spouse. Do thou, woman, give thy womanhood, and let this man be
thy husband." The next morning a ritual was used to drive away evil
spirits.[1324]
+416. Hebrew marriage before the exile.+ In the canon of the Old
Testament we get no information at all about wedding ceremonies, or the
marriage institution. The reason for this must be that marriage was
altogether a family and domestic affair. It was controlled by very
ancient mores, under which marriage and the family were conducted, as
beyond question correct. It is in the nature of the case, in all forms
of the father family, that a girl until marriage was under the care and
authority of her father or nearest male relative. The suitor must ask
him to give her, and must induce him to give her by gifts. The transfer
was made publicly that it might be known that she was the wife of such
an one. The old Hebrew marriage seems to have consisted in this form of
giving a daughter, in all its simplicity. We find a taboo on the union
of persons related by consanguinity or affinity. Later there was a taboo
on exogamic marriage. In the prophets there are metaphors and
symbolical acts relating to marriage, which show a development of the
mores in regard to it. The formulas which are attached to the
prohibitions in Levit. xviii are in the form of explanations of the
prohibitions or reasons for them, but they furnish no real explanations.
Their sense is simply: For such is the usage in Israel, or in the Jahveh
religion. That was the only and sufficient reason for any prescription.
"After the consent of the parents of the bride had been obtained, which
was probably attended by a family feast, the bridegroom led the bride to
his dwelling and the wedding was at an end. No mention is made anywhere
of any function of a priest in connection with it. It is not until after
the Babylonian exile, after the Jews had become more fully acquainted
with the mores and usages of other civilized peoples of that age, that
weddings amongst them were made more solemn and ceremonial. After a
betrothal a full year (if the bride was a widow, one month) was allowed
the pair, after the captivity, to prepare their outfit, in imitation of
the Persian custom (Esther ii. 12)." "At the end of the delay, the bride
was led or carried to the house of the groom, in a procession, with
dancing and noisy rejoicing, as is now the custom in Arabia and Persia.
Ten guests must be present in the groom's house, as witnesses, where
prayer formulas were recited and a feast was enjoyed." There were also
prayers by all present at a betrothal "in order to give the affair a
religious color." The pair retired then to a room where they first made
each other's acquaintance. Then two bridesmen led them to the nuptial
chamber where they watched over them until after the first conjugal
union. This last usage was not universal, and after some experience of
its ambiguous character it was abolished. The purpose was that there
might be witnesses to the consummation of the marriage, not merely to
the wedding ceremony. The whole proceeding was a domestic and family
affair, in which no priest or other outsider had any part, except as
witness, and there was no religious element in it.[1325] The prayer
formulas were uttered by the participants and their friends, and they
were formulas of invoking blessing, prosperity, and good fortune.
+417. Jewish marriage after the exile.+ The Jewish idea of marriage was
naïve and primitive. The purpose was procreation. Every man was bound to
marry, after the exile, and could be compelled to do so, and to beget at
least one son and one daughter. By direct inference sterility made
marriage void. It had failed of its purpose. It was the naïveté of this
notion of marriage which led to the provision of witnesses for the
consummation of the marriage. Marriage meant carnal union under
prescribed conditions, and nothing else. In Deut. xxii. 28 f. the rule
is laid down that a man who violated a maid must remain her husband.
This is another direct inference from the view of marriage. The
_ketubah_ was the document of a "gift on account of nuptials to be
celebrated." It made the bride a wife and not a concubine or maid
servant, for the distinction depended on the intention of the
bridegroom. In the rabbinical period the betrothal and wedding were
united. The wedding was made by a gift (a coin or ring), by a document
(_ketubah_), or by the fact of _concubitus_.[1326] The man took the
woman to wife by the formula: "Be thou consecrated to me," or later, "Be
thou consecrated to me by the law of Moses and Israel." These
formalities took place in the presence of at least ten witnesses, who
pronounced blessings and wishes for good fortune. The third mode of
wedding was forbidden in the third century A.D. In the Jewish notions of
marriage we see already the beginning of the later casuistry.
Procreation being the sense and purpose of marriage, the carnal act was
the matter of chief importance. At the same time the Jews thought that
copulation and childbirth rendered unclean. They must be rectified by
purification and penance. Thus the act had a double character; it was
both right and wrong. It was a conjugal duty not to be sensual.[1327]
All this contributed to the modern notion of pair marriage, for at last
no sex indulgence was allowed outside of legal marriage. When the custom
of the presence of witnesses in the bride chamber produced
dissatisfaction a tent was substituted for the chamber. Later a scarf,
ceremoniously spread over the heads of the pair, took the place of the
tent. The custom arose that the pair retired to a special room and took
a meal together there. "The ceremony had no ecclesiastical character....
The blessings only gave publicity to the ceremony. They were not
priestly blessings and were not essential to the validity of the
marriage."[1328] So we see that, even amongst a people so attached to
tradition as the Jews, when one of the folkways did not satisfy an
interest, or outraged taste, the mores modified it into a form which
could give satisfaction.
+418. Marriage in the New Testament.+ According to the New Testament
marriage is a compromise between indulgence and renunciation of sex
passion. A compromise is always irrational when it bears upon concepts
of right and truth, and not on mere expediency of action. The concept of
right and truth on either hand may be correct; it is certain that the
compromise between them is not correct. The compromise can be maintained
only by disregarding its antagonism to the concepts on each side of it.
For fifteen hundred years the Christian church fluttered, as in a moral
net, in the inconsistencies of the current view of marriage. The
procreation of children was recognized as the holiest function and the
greatest responsibility of human beings, but it was considered to
involve descent into sensuality and degradation. It was the highest
right and the deepest wrong to satisfy the sex passion, and the two
aspects were reconciled partially in marriage, by a network of intricate
moral dogmas which must be inculcated by long and painful education. In
the sixteenth century the problem was solved by repudiating the doctrine
of celibacy as a meritorious and superior state, and making marriage a
rational and institutional regulation of the sex relation, in which the
aim is to repress what is harmful, and develop what is beneficial, to
human welfare. This change was produced by and out of the mores. The
Protestants denounced the falsehood and vice under the pretended respect
for celibacy. The new view of marriage could not be at once fully
invented and introduced. Therefore the Romanists pointed with scorn to
the careless marriage and loose divorce amongst the Protestants (sec.
380).
+419. Merit of celibacy.+ No reasons are ascertainable why Paul should
maintain that celibacy is to be preferred to wedlock as a more worthy
mode of life. In 1 Cor. vii. 32-34 he argues that the unmarried, being
free from domestic cares, can care for the things of God. He speaks
often of the degree of certainty he feels that he has with him the
Spirit of God. This shows that he often lacked self-confidence in regard
to his teachings. He does not seem to hold the ascetic view. In Ephes.
v. 22 the marriage institution is accepted and regulated, with some
mystical notions, which it is impossible to understand. Marriage and
Christ's headship of the church are said to explain each other or to be
parallel, but it is not possible to understand which of them is
represented as simple and obvious, so that it explains the other. The
apostle sometimes seems to lay stress on the vexations and cares of
wedlock. If that is his motive, he announces no principle or religious
rule, but only a consideration of expediency which is not on a high
plane. Tertullian and Jerome (in anticipation of the end of the world)
regarded virginity as an end in itself; that is to say, that they
thought it noble and pious to renounce the function on which the
perpetuation of the species depends. The race (having left out of
account the end of the world) cannot commit suicide, and men and women
cannot willfully antagonize the mores of existence--economic, social,
intellectual, and moral, as well as physical--which are imposed on them
by the fact that the human race consists of two complementary sexes.
Jerome, in his tracts against Jovinianus, wanders around and around the
absurdities of this contradiction. The ascetic side of it became the
cardinal idea of religious virtue in the Middle Ages. "Monkish
asceticism saw woman only in the distorting mirror of desire suppressed
by torture."[1329] "Woman" became a phantasm. She was imaginary. She
appeared base, sensual, and infinitely enchanting, drawing men down to
hell; yet worth it. In truth, there never has been any such creature. In
the replies of Gregory to Augustine (601 A.D.)[1330] arbitrary rules
about marriage and sex are laid down with great elaboration. They are
prurient and obscene. The mediæval sophistry about the birth of Christ
is the utmost product of human folly in its way. Joseph and Mary were
married, but the marriage was never consummated. Yet it was a true
marriage and Mary became a mother, but Joseph was not the father. Mary
was a virgin, nevertheless. This might all pass, as it does in modern
times, as an old tradition which is not worth discussing, but the
mediæval people turned it in every possible direction, and were never
tired of drawing new deductions from it. At last, it consists in simply
affirming two contradictory definitions of the same word at the same
time. There are, in the mythologies, many cases of virgin birth. The
Scandinavian valkyre was the messenger of the god to the hero and the
life attendant of the latter. He loved her, but she, to keep her
calling, must remain a virgin. Otherwise she gave up her divine position
and deathlessness in order to live and die with him.[1331] The notion of
merit and power in renunciation is heathen, not Christian, in origin.
The most revolting application of it was when two married people
renounced conjugal intimacy in order to be holy.
+420. Marriage in early Christianity.+ In the earliest centuries of
Christianity very little attention seems to have been paid to marriage
by the Christians. It was left to the mores of each national group,
omitting the sacrifices to the heathen gods. It is not possible to trace
the descent of Christian marriage from Jewish, Greek, or Roman marriage,
but the best authorities think that its fundamental idea is Jewish
(carnal union), not Roman (jural relations).[1332] "The church found the
solemn ceremonies for concluding marriage existing [in each nation]. No
divine command in regard to this matter is to be found" [in the New
Testament].[1333] The church, in time, added new ceremonies to suit its
own views. Hence there was the same variety at first inside the church
as there had been before Christianity. There can, therefore, be no doubt
that, throughout the Latin branch of the church, the usages and theories
of Roman marriage passed over into the Christian church. Lecky says that
at Rome monogamy was from the earliest times strictly enjoined; and it
was one of the greatest benefits that have resulted from the expansion
of Roman power, that it made this type dominant in Europe.[1334]
Although the Romans had strict monogamy in their early history, they
had abandoned it before their expansion began to have effect, and
monogamy was the rule, in the civilized world, for those who were not
rich and great, quite independently of Roman influence, at the time of
Christ. The Roman marriage of the time of the empire, especially in the
social class which chiefly became Christians, was "free marriage,"
consisting in _consensus_ and delivery of the bride. Richer people added
_instrumenta dotalia_ as documents to regulate property rights, and as
proofs of the marital affection of the groom by virtue of which he meant
to make the bride his wife, not his concubine. The marriage of richer
people, therefore, had a guarantee which had no place between those who
had no occasion for such documents. Life with a woman of good reputation
and honorable life created a presumption of marriage. The church
enforced this as a conscience marriage, which it was the man's duty to
observe and keep.
+421. Marriage in Roman law.+ In the _corpus juris civilis_ there are
two passages which deserve especial attention. In Dig., I, xxiii, 2, it
is said: "Nuptials are a conjunction of a male and a female and a
correlation (_consortium_) of their entire lives; a mutual interchange
(_communicatio_) of rights under both human and divine law." In the
_Institutes_ (sec. I, i, 9) it is said: "Nuptials, or matrimony, is a
conjunction of a man and a woman which constitutes a single course of
life (_individuam vitae consuetudinem_)." These are formulas for very
high conceptions of marriage. They would enter easily into the notion of
pair marriage at its best. The former formula never was, amongst the
Romans, anything but an enthusiastic outburst. Roman man and wife had no
common property; they could make no gifts to each other lest they should
despoil each other; their union, in the time of the empire, was
dissoluble almost at pleasure; the father and mother had not the same
relation to their children; the woman, if detected in adultery, was
severely punished; the man, in the same case, was not punished at all.
The "correlation of their entire lives" was, therefore, very imperfect.
The sense of _individuam vitae consuetudinem_ is very uncertain. It
could not have meant merely the exclusive conjugal relation of each to
the other, although such was the sense given to the words in the church.
The law contained no specification of the mutual rights and duties of
the spouses. These were set by the mores and varied very greatly in
Roman history. _Affectus maritalis_ (the disposition of a husband to a
wife) and _honore pleno deligere_ (to distinguish with complete honor)
are alone emphasized as features of marriage which distinguished it from
concubinage.[1335] Roman jurists took marriage as a fact, for at Rome
from the earliest times, it had been a family matter, developed in the
folkways. The civil law defined the rights which the state regarded as
its business in that connection, and which it would, therefore,
enforce.[1336]
+422. Roman "free marriage."+ The passages quoted in the last paragraph
refer to "free marriage" after the _manus_ idea had been lost. They
could be applied also to the German notion of marriage after the Germans
abandoned the _mund_ idea. They also correspond to the Greek view of
marriage, for in Greece the authority of the father early became
obsolete in its despotic form. From the time of Diocletian the woman who
was _sui juris_ was a subject of the state without intermediary, just as
her brother or husband was, and she enjoyed free disposition of herself.
The same view of marriage passed into the Decretals of Gratian and into
our modern legislation.[1337]
+423. Free marriage.+ At the end of the fourth century A.D. the church
set aside the Roman notions of the importance of the _dos_ and _donatio
propter nuptias_, and made the _consensus_ the essential element in
marriage. This was an adoption of that form of "free marriage" of the
time of the empire which the class from which Christians came had
practiced. That is to say, that the church took up the form of marriage
which had been in the class mores of the class from which the church was
recruited. This is really all that can be said about the origin of
"Christian marriage." It is a perpetuation of the mores of the lowest
free classes in the Roman world. Justinian reintroduced the _dos_ and
_donatio_ for persons of the higher classes who were, in his time,
included in the church. People of the lower class were to utter the
_consensus_ in a church before three or four clergymen, and a
certificate was to be prepared.[1338] The lowest classes might still
neglect all ceremony. This law aimed to secure publicity, a distinct
expression of consent, and a record. There is no reference to any
religious blessing or other function of the clergy. They appear as civil
functionaries charged to witness and record an act of the parties.[1339]
In another novel[1340] all this was done away with except the written
contract about the dower, if there was one.[1341]
+424. Transition from Roman to Christian marriage.+ The ideal of
marriage which has just been described came into the Christian church
out of the Roman world. Roman wedding sacrifices were intended to obtain
signs of the approval of the gods on the wedding. They were domestic
sacrifices only, since the sacred things of the spouses were at home
only. The auspices ceased to be taken at marriages from the time of
Cicero. It became customary to declare that nothing unfavorable to the
marriage had occurred. There are many relief representations of late
Roman marriages on which Juno appears as _pronuba_, a figure of her
standing behind the spouses as protectress or patroness. Rossbach[1342]
thus interprets such a relief: "The bethrothed, with the assistance of
Juno, goddess of marriage, solemnly make the covenant of their love, to
which Venus and the Graces are favorable, by prayer and sacrifices
before the gods. By the aid of Juno love becomes a legitimate marriage."
Rossbach mentions exactly similar reliefs in which Christ is the
_pronuba_, and the transition to Christianity is distinctly presented.
In a similar manner ideas and customs about marriage were brought under
Christian symbol or ceremony, and handed down to us as "Christian
marriage." The origin of them is in the mores of the classes who
accepted Christianity, which were subjected to a grand syncretism in the
first centuries of Christianity.
+425. Ancient German marriage.+ No documents were necessary until the
time of Justinian (550 A.D.), an oral agreement being sufficient, if
probable. There were essential parts of the Roman wedding usages which
were independent of paganism and which were necessarily performed at
home. In the Eastern empire concubinage was abolished at the end of the
ninth century. The heathen Germans had two kinds of marriage, one with,
the other without, jural consequences. Both were marriage. The
difference was that one consisted in betrothal, endowment, and a solemn
wedding ceremony; the other lacked these details. Here, again, it is
worth while to notice that property and rank would very largely control
the question which of these two forms was more suitable. Consequences as
to property followed from the former form which were wanting in the
latter. If the pair had no property, the latter form was sufficient. In
mediæval Christian Germany the canon law obliterated the distinction,
but then morganatic marriage was devised, by which a man of higher rank
could marry a woman of lower rank without creating rights of property or
rank in her or her children. In such a form of marriage the Roman law
saw lack of _affectus maritalis_ and of _deligere honore pleno_; hence
the union was concubinage, not marriage. The German law held that the
intention to marry made marriage, and that property rights were another
matter.[1343] The ancient mores lasted on and kept control of marriage,
and the church, in its efforts to establish its own theories of
marriage, property, legitimacy, rank, etc., was at war with the old
mores.
+426. Early church usage.+ In the Decretals of Gratian[1344] are
collected the earliest authorities about marriage in the Christian
church, some of which are regarded now as ungenuine. "Nevertheless it is
impossible to say that, in the early times of Christianity, there was
any church wedding. Weddings were accomplished before witnesses
independently of the church, or perhaps in the presence of a priest by
the _professiones_." Then followed the pompous home bringing of the
bride. Afterwards the spouses took part in the usual church service and
the sacrament and gave oblations.[1345] Later special prayers for the
newly wedded were introduced into the service. Later still special
masses for the newly wedded were introduced. Such existed probably
before the ninth century.[1346] The declaration of _consensus_ still
took place elsewhere than in church, and not until the rituals of the
eleventh and twelfth centuries does the priest ask for it, or is it
asked for in his presence. In the Greek ritual there has never yet been
any declaration of _consensus_.[1347]
+427. The usage as to religious ceremony.+ The more pious people were,
the more anxious they were to put all their doings under church
sanction, and they sought the advice of honored ecclesiastics as to
marriage. Such is the sense of Ignatius to Polycarp, chapter 5.
Tertullian was a rigorist and extremist, whose utterances do not
represent fact. In our own law and usage a common-law marriage is valid,
but people of dignified and serious conduct, still more people of
religious feeling, do not seek the minimum which the law will enforce.
They seek to comply with the usages in their full extent, and to satisfy
the whole law of the religious body to which they belong. In like
manner, there was a great latitude from the fourth to the sixteenth
century, while the Christian church was trying to mold the barbarian
mores to its own standards in the usages which were current, but an
ecclesiastical function was not necessary to a valid marriage until the
Council of Trent. In fact a wedding in church never was an unconditional
requirement for a valid marriage among German Roman Catholics until the
end of the eighteenth century.[1348] Somewhat parallel cases of the
addition of religious ceremonies to solemn public acts which had been
developed in the mores are the emancipation of a slave, and the making
of a knight.[1349]
+428. Mode of expressing _consensus_.+ If the consent of the parties is
regarded as essential, then the public proceedings must bring out an
expression of will. The ancient German usage was that the friends formed
a circle in which the persons to be married took their place, and the
woman's guardian, later her most distinguished friend, asked them (the
woman first) whether it was their will to become man and wife,--these
terms being defined in the mores. This was a convenient and rational
proceeding, of primitive simplicity and adaptation to the purpose. In
Scandinavia and Iceland the ancient laws contained exact prescriptions
as to the person who might officiate as the conductor of this ceremony.
Relatives of the bride, first on her father's side, then on her
mother's, were named in a series according to rank.[1350] Such a
prolocutor is taken for understood in the _Constitutio de Nuptiis_
(England).[1351] To him the man promises to take the woman to wife "by
the law of God and the customs of the world, and that he will keep her
as a man ought to keep his wife." Evidently these statements convey no
idea of wedlock unless the mores of the time and place are known. They
alone could show how a man "ought to keep his wife." The man also
promises to show due provision of means of support, and his friends
become his sureties. Through the Middle Ages great weight was given to
the provision for the woman throughout her life, especially in case of
widowhood. In fact, a "wife" differed from a mistress by virtue of this
provision for her life. In the _Constitutio de Nuptiis_ it is added,
"Let a priest be present at the nuptials, who is to unite them of right,
with the blessing of God, in full plenitude of felicity."
+429. Marriage at the church door.+ In a French ritual of 700 A.D. the
priest goes to the church door and asks the young pair (who appear to be
walking and wooing in the street) whether they want to be duly married.
The proceedings all concern the marriage gifts, after which there is a
benediction at the church door, and then the pair go into the church to
the mass. A hundred years later the priest asked for the _consensus_,
and statement of the gift from the groom to the bride, and for a gift
for the poor. Then the woman was given _by her father_ or friends.[1352]
+430. Marriage in Germany in the early Middle Ages.+ In the Frank,
Suabian, Westphalian, and Bavarian laws "the woman was entitled to her
dower when she had put her foot in the bed." The German saying was,
"When the coverlet is drawn over their heads the spouses are equally
rich," that is, they have all property of either in common.[1353] Hence,
in German law and custom, _consensus_ followed by _concubitus_ made
marriage. Hence also arose the custom that the witnesses accompanied the
spouses to their bedchamber and saw them covered, or visited them later.
Important symbolic acts were connected with this visit. The spouses ate
and drank together. The guests drove them to bed with blows.[1354] The
witnesses were not to witness a promise, but a fact. In the Carolingian
period, except in forged capitularies, there is very little testimony to
the function of priests in weddings.
The custom of the Jews has been mentioned above (sec. 417).
Selected witnesses were thought necessary to testify at any time
to the consummation of the marriage. In the third century B.C.
this custom was modified to a ceremony.[1355] In ancient India
and at Rome newly wedded spouses were attended by the guests when
they retired.[1356] The Germans had this custom from the earliest
times and they kept it up through the Middle Ages. The jural
consequences of marriage began from the moment that both were
covered by the coverlet. This was what the witnesses were to
testify to. Evidently the higher classes had the most reason to
establish the jural consequences. Therefore kings kept up this
custom longest, although it degenerated more and more into a mere
ceremony.[1357] The German Emperor Frederick III met his bride, a
Portuguese princess, at Naples. The pair lay down on the bed and
were covered by the coverlet for a moment, in the presence of the
court. They were fully dressed and rose again. The Portuguese
ladies were shocked at the custom.[1358] The custom can be
traced, in Brandenburg, as late as the beginning of the
eighteenth century.[1359] English customs of the eighteenth
century to seize articles of the bride's dress were more
objectionable.
The church ceremony, however, won its way in popular usage. It consisted
in blessing the ring and the gifts, and the interest of ecclesiastics
began to be centered on the question whether the persons to be married
were within the forbidden degrees of relationship.[1360] In the _Petri
Exceptiones_ (between 1050 and 1075)[1361] it is expressly stated,
amongst other statements of what does _not_ make a marriage, that it is
not the benediction of the priest, but the mental purpose of the man and
woman. Other things only establish testimony and record. Weinhold[1362]
cites a poem of the eleventh century in which a wedding is described.
After the betrothal is agreed upon by the relatives, and property
agreements have been made, the groom gives to the bride a ring on a
sword hilt, saying, "As the ring firmly incloses thy finger, so do I
promise thee firm and constant fidelity. Thou shalt maintain the same to
me, or thy life shall be the penalty." She takes the ring, they kiss,
and the bystanders sing a wedding song. In a Suabian document of the
twelfth century, the bridegroom is the chief actor.[1363] He lays down
successively seven gloves, the glove being the symbol of the man himself
in his individual responsibility and authority. Each glove is a pledge
of what he promises according to the prescriptions of the Suabian mores,
for which his formula is, "As by right a free Suabian man should do to a
free Suabian woman." He enumerates the chief kinds of Suabian property
and promises to write out his pledges in a _libellus dotis_, if the
bride will provide the scribe. Then the woman's guardian, having
received these pledges, delivers her, with a sword (on the hilt of which
is a finger ring), a penny, a mantle, and a hat on the sword, and says:
"Herewith I transfer my ward to your faithfulness, and to your grace,
and I pray you, by the faith with which I yield her to you, that you be
her true guardian, and her gracious guardian, and that you do not become
her direful guardian." "Then," it is added, "let him take her and have
her as his." This must be a very ancient form, of German origin. There
is no _consensus_ expressed in it and the symbolism is elaborate. The
_libellus dotis_ is evidently an innovation. It has a Latin name and is
a contingent, not a substantive part of the man's acts. The old German
form shows that the Latin church usage had not yet overturned the German
tradition.
+431. The canon law.+ In the Decretals of Gratian[1364] the doctrine of
nuptials is that they begin with the public ceremony and are completed
by _concubitus_. Agreement to cohabit, followed by cohabitation,
constituted marriage by the canon law. This is the common sense of the
case. It was the doctrine of the canon law and is the widest modern
civilized view.
+432. Mediæval marriage.+ In the thirteenth century began the
astonishing movement by which the church remodeled all the ideas and
institutions of the age, and integrated all social interests into a
system of which it made itself the center and controlling authority. The
controlling tendency in the mores of the age was religiosity,--a desire
to construe all social relations from the church standpoint and to set
all interests in a religious light. Marriage fell under this influence.
The priests displaced the earlier prolocutors, and strove to make
marriage an ecclesiastical function and their own share in it essential,
although they did not make the validity of marriage depend on their
share in it.[1365] In different places and amongst different classes the
custom of church marriage was introduced at earlier or later times, and
the doctrine of priestly function in connection with marriage became
established with greater or less precision. Friedberg[1366] considers
the ordinance of the Synod of Westminster[1367] (1175) the first
ordinance which distinctly prescribed church marriage in England, but
from that to the establishment of a custom was a long way. Pollock and
Maitland[1368] think that marriage, in England, belonged to the
ecclesiastical forum by the middle of the twelfth century. Rituals of
Salisbury and York of the thirteenth century show the early church
customs, only rendered more elaborate and more precise in detail.[1369]
There is also ritual provision for an ecclesiastic to bless the bed of
the spouses after they are in it, in order to drive away the evil
spirits. In 1240, in the constitutions of Walter de Cantelupe, marriage
is called a sacrament, because it prefigures the sacrament between
Christ and the church. Marriage was to precede _concubitus_. There was
to be no divination or use of devices for luck. By synodal statutes of
1246 it was ordered that priests should teach that betrothal and
consummation would constitute irrevocable marriage.[1370] If people
treated church ordinances and forms with neglect they were punished by
church discipline, but the marriage was not declared invalid. Hence the
system was elastic and could not be abruptly changed.
+433. Conflict of mores and church programme. Betrothal and wedding.+ In
Germany the popular resistance to a change of the mores about marriage
was more stubborn than elsewhere. Although ecclesiastics were present at
marriages, until the thirteenth century, they sometimes took no
part.[1371] In the poems, from the beginning of the twelfth century,
mention is made of priestly benediction; still it remains uncertain
whether this took place before or after _concubitus_. In the great epics
of the thirteenth century the old custom of the circle of friends and
the interrogatories by a distinguished relative appears. The couple
spend the night together and on the following morning go to church where
they are blessed.[1372] This is the proceeding in Lohengrin. In the
thirteenth century the prolocutor was going out of fashion and the
ecclesiastic got a chance to take his place.[1373] Evidently there was
here an ambiguity between the betrothal and the wedding. It took two or
three centuries to eliminate it. When the man said, "I will take," did
he mean, "It is my will to take now," or did he mean, "I will take at a
future time"? Sohm[1374] says that betrothal was the real conclusion of
a marriage, and that the wedding was only the confirmation (_Vollzug_)
of a marriage already consummated. Friedberg[1375] says that the wedding
was the conclusion of a projected marriage and not the consummation of
one already concluded. When there was a solemn public betrothal and then
a wedding after an interval of time, the latter was plainly a repetition
which had no significance. What happened finally was that the betrothal
fell into insignificance, or was united with the wedding as in the
modern Anglican service, and _concubitus_ was allowed only after the
wedding. The wedding then had importance, and was not merely a blessing
on a completed fact. It was then a custom in all classes to try life
together before marriage (_Probenächte_). In the fifteenth century, if
kings were married by proxy, the proxy slept with the bride, with a
sword between, _before_ the church ceremony.[1376] The custom to
celebrate marriages without a priest lasted, amongst the peasants of
Germany, until the sixteenth century.[1377] "It was, therefore,
customary [in the thirteenth century] to have the church blessing, but
generally only after consummated marriage. The blessing was not
essential, but was considered appropriate and proper, especially in the
higher classes. In the fourteenth century the ecclesiastical form won
more and more sway over the popular sentiment."[1378]
+434. Church marriage. Concubines.+ It is necessary to notice that there
is never any question of the status of men. They satisfy their interests
as well as they can and the result is the stage of civilization. The
status of women is their position with respect to men in a society in
which men hold the deciding voice. Men bear power and responsibility.
Women are the coadjutors, with more or less esteem, honor, coöperative
function, and joint authority. There has never until modern times been a
law of the state which forbade a man to take a second wife with the
first. A man could not commit adultery because he was not bound, by law
or mores, to his wife as she was to him. A man and woman marry
themselves and lead conjugal life in a world of their own. Church and
state would be equally powerless to marry them. The church may "bless"
their union. The state may define and enforce the civil and property
rights of themselves or their children. It cannot enforce conjugal
rights. Therefore it cannot divorce two spouses. They divorce
themselves. The state can say what civil and property right shall be
affected by the divorce, and how the force of the state shall enforce
the consequences. The marriage relation is domestic and private, where
the wills of the individuals prevail and where the police cannot act.
The Christian church, about the thirteenth century, introduced a
marriage ritual in which the spouses promised exclusive fidelity, the
man as much as the woman. As fast and as far as church marriage was
introduced, the promise set the idea of marriage. If either broke the
promise, he or she was liable to church censure and penance. In England
the first civil law against bigamy was I James I, chapter 11. Never
until 1563 (Council of Trent) was any ecclesiastical act necessary to
the validity of a marriage even in the forum of the church. Marriage was
in the mores. The blessing of the church was edifying and contributory.
It was not essential. Marriage was popular and belonged to the family.
In the ancient nations sacrifices were made for good fortune in wedlock.
In the Middle Ages Christian priests blessed marriages which had been
concluded by laymen and had already been consummated. The relation of
husband and wife varied, at that time, in the villages of Germany or
northern France of the same nationality. Until modern times concubinage
has existed as a recognized institution. It was an inferior form of
marriage, in which the woman did not take the rank of her husband, and
her children did not inherit his rank or property, but her status was
permanent and defined. Sometimes it was exclusive. Then again slaves
have been at the mercy of a master and in ancient times they were always
proud to "find favor in his eyes." Thus wives, concubines, and slave
women form three recognized ranks of female companions.
+435. The church elevated the notion of marriage.+ In all the ancient
civilized states marriage was an affair of property interests and rank.
The public ceremony was needed in order to establish rights of property
and inheritance, legitimacy, and civil rights. The Christian church of
the Middle Ages had to find a ground for its own intervention. This it
did by emphasizing the mystic element in marriage, and developing all
the symbolism of the Bible which could be applied to this subject and
all the biographical details which touched upon it,--Adam and Eve,
Tobias, Joseph and Mary, the one-flesh idea, the symbolism of Christ and
the church, etc. Thus a sentimental-poetical-mystical conception of
marriage was superimposed on the materialistic-sensual conception of
it. The church affirmed that marriage was a "sacrament." A half-dozen
different explanations of "sacrament" in this connection could be
quoted. It is impossible to tell what it means. The church, however, by
its policy, contributed greatly to the development of the nobler
conception of marriage in modern mores. The materialistic view of it has
been left decently covered, and the conception of wedlock as a fusion of
two lives and interests into affectionate coöperation, by the sympathy
of character and tastes, has become the ideal. The church did much to
bring about this change. For an age which attributed a vague and awful
efficacy to a "sacrament," and was familiar, in church matters, with
such parallelisms as that alleged between marriage and the union of
Christ with his church, it is very probable that the church "fostered a
feeling that a lifelong union of one man and one woman is, under all
circumstances, the single form of intercourse between the sexes which is
not illegitimate; and this conviction has acquired the force of a primal
moral intuition."[1379] What has chiefly aided this effect has been the
rise to wealth and civil power of the middle class of the later Middle
Ages, in whose mores such views had become fixed without much direct
church influence.
+436. The decrees of Trent about marriage.+ It was not until the decrees
of Trent (1563) that the church established in its law the sacerdotal
theory of marriage in place of the theory of the canon law. The motive
at Trent was to prevent clandestine marriages, that is, marriages which
were not made by a priest or in church. These marriages were common and
they were mischievous because not to be proved. They made descent and
inheritance uncertain when the parties belonged to families of property
and rank. In form, the decrees of Trent provided for publicity. Marriage
was to be celebrated in church, by the parish priest, and before two
witnesses. This action was not in pursuance of a change in the mores. It
was a specific device of leading churchmen to accomplish an object. In
view of the course of the mores, it may be doubted if any effect ought
to be attributed to the decrees of Trent for their immediate purpose,
but two effects have been produced which the churchmen probably did not
foresee. First, it became the law of the church that the consent of a
man and a woman, expressed in a church before the parish priest,
constituted a marriage without any voluntary participation of the
priest. The Huguenots in France, for more than a century, married
themselves in this way, a notary being employed to make a record and
certificate. Secondly, this law became the great engine of the church to
hold its children to their allegiance and prevent mixed marriages. To
win the consent of the parish priest to perform the ceremony the parties
must conform to church requirements,--confession and communion. The
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were occupied by struggles of
living men to regulate their interests in independence of these
restraints.
+437. Puritan marriage.+ The Puritan sects made marriage more secular,
as the Romish Church made it more ecclesiastical. Although they liked to
give a religious tone to all the acts of life, the Puritans took away
from marriage all religious character. It was performed by a civil
magistrate. Such was the rule in New England until the end of the
seventeenth century. However, there was, in this matter, an
inconsistency between the ruling ideas and the partisan position, and
the latter gave way. There has been a steady movement of the mores
throughout the Protestant world in the direction of giving to marriage a
religious character and sanction. It has become the rule that marriages
shall be performed by ministers of religion, and the custom of
celebrating them in religious buildings is extending. The authority and
example of the church of Rome have had nothing to do with this tendency.
They are not even known. It has been purely a matter of taste,
sentiment, and popular judgment as to what is right and proper; also it
has been due to the ideas of women in regard to suitable pomp and glory.
The mores have once more taken full control of the matter, and the
religious ceremony is used to satisfy the interests, and fulfill the
faiths, of the population. Such is the effect of civil marriage as
established in the nineteenth century. At the present time the
ministers of religion seem disposed to use their lawful position as the
proper ones to celebrate marriage, that they may impose restrictions on
divorce, and on marriage after divorce.
[1324] Maspero, _Peuples de l'Orient_, I, 736.
[1325] Bergel, _Eheverhält. der Juden_, 19.
[1326] Deut. xxii. 29.
[1327] Freisen, _Gesch. des kanon. Eherechts_, 848.
[1328] Freisen, _Gesch. des kanon. Eherechts_, 23, 47, 92-96.
[1329] Lippert, _Kulturgesch._, II, 520.
[1330] Wilkins, _Concilia_, 20.
[1331] Wisen, _Qvinnan i Nordens Forntid_, 7.
[1332] Freisen, _Gesch. des kanon. Eherechts_, 154.
[1333] _Ibid._, 121.
[1334] _Eur. Morals_, II, 298.
[1335] Cf. Freisen, 26.
[1336] Rossbach, _Röm. Ehe._, 9.
[1337] _Ibid._, 62.
[1338] _Novel._, LXXIV, c. 4, sec. 1 (537 A.D.).
[1339] Cf. _Nov._, XXII, c. 3.
[1340] CXVII, c. 4.
[1341] Friedberg, 14-16.
[1342] _Röm. Hochzeits und Ehedenkmäler_, 49, 107.
[1343] Freisen, 48, 103; Grimm, _D. R. A._, 420.
[1344] II, c. XXX, qu. 5, c. 1.
[1345] Pullan, _Hist. Book of Common Prayer_, 217.
[1346] Friedberg, _Recht der Eheschliessung_, 8.
[1347] _Ibid._, 9.
[1348] Stammler, _Stellung der Frauen_, 27.
[1349] Jenks, _Law and Politics in the Middle Ages_, 251.
[1350] Lehmann, _Verlobung und Hochzeit nach den nordgermanischen
Rechten des früheren M. A._, 31.
[1351] Wilkins, _Concilia_, I, 216 (644 A.D.).
[1352] Friedberg, 61.
[1353] Freisen, 118.
[1354] Friedberg, 23.
[1355] Freisen, _Kanon. Eherecht_, 92, 96; Bergel, _Eheverhält.
der Juden_, 19.
[1356] Rossbach, _Röm. Ehe_, 370.
[1357] Weinhold, _D. F._, I, 399.
[1358] _Gesch. Fried. III_, by Æneas Silvius, trans. Ilgen, II,
95.
[1359] Friedberg, _Recht der Eheschliessung_, 23.
[1360] Friedberg, 58.
[1361] Savigny, _Gesch. des Röm. Rechts im M. A._, II, _Append._
[1362] _Deutsche Frauen_, I, 341.
[1363] _Rhein. Mus._, 1829, 281.
[1364] II, c. XXVII, qu. 2, and c. XXXIV.
[1365] Friedberg, 98.
[1366] _Ibid._, 39.
[1367] Wilkins, _Concilia_, I, 478.
[1368] _Hist. Eng. Law_, I, 109; II, 365.
[1369] Surtees Soc., _Man. et Pont. Ecc. Ebor._, 157, and App.
17.
[1370] Wilkins, I, 668, 690.
[1371] Friedberg, 79.
[1372] _Nibelungen_, 568-597.
[1373] Weinhold, _D. F._, I, 373.
[1374] _Trauung und Verlobung_, 37.
[1375] _Verlobung und Trauung_, 23.
[1376] Friedberg, 90.
[1377] Hagelstange, _Bauernleben im M. A._, 61.
[1378] Friedberg, 85; cf. Weinhold, _D. F._, I, 378; Grimm, _D.
R. A._, 436.
[1379] Lecky, _Eur. Morals_, II, 347.
CHAPTER XI
THE SOCIAL CODES
Specification of the subject.--Meaning of "immoral."--Natural
functions.--The current code and character.--Definitions of
chastity, decency, propriety, etc.--Chastity.--Pagan life
policy.--Modesty and shame.--The line of decency in dress.--
Present conventional limits of decency.--Decency and vanity.--
Modesty is the opposite of impudence.--Shame.--The first
attachments to the body.--The fear of sorcery.--What functions
should be concealed.--Restraint of expression within limits.--
Violation of rule.--The suspensorium.--The girdle and what it
conceals.--Modesty and decency not primitive.--What parts of
the body are tabooed?--Notion of decency lacking.--Dress and
decency.--Ornament and simplest dress.--The evolution of
dress.--Men dressed; women not.--Dress for other purposes than
decency; excessive modesty.--Contrasted standards of decency.--
Standards of decency as to natural functions, etc.--Bathing;
customs of nudity.--Bathing in rivers, springs, and public bath
houses.--Nudity.--Alleged motives of concealment taboo.--
Obscenity.--Obscene representations for magic.--Infibulation.--
Was the phallus offensive?--Phallus as amulet.--Symbols in
Asia.--The notion of obscenity is modern.--Propriety.--
Seclusion of women.--Customs of propriety.--Moslem rules of
propriety.--Hatless women.--Rules of propriety.--Hindoo ritual
of the toilet, etc.--Greek rules of propriety.--Erasmus's
rules.--Eating.--Kissing.--Politeness, etiquette, manners.--
Good manners.--Etiquette of salutation, etc.--Literature of
manners and etiquette.--Honor, seemliness, common sense,
conscience.--Seemliness.--Cases of unseemliness.--Greek
tragedies and notions of seemliness.--Greek conduct.--
Seemliness in the Middle Ages.--Unseemly debate.--Unseemliness
of lynching, torture, etc.--Good taste.--Whence good taste is
derived.--The great variety in the codes.--Morals and
deportment.--The relation of the social codes to morals and
religion.--Rudeck's conclusions.
+438. Specification of the subject.+ The ethnographers write of a tribe
that the "morality" in it, especially of the women, is low or high, etc.
This is the technical use of morality,--as a thing pertaining to the sex
relation only or especially, and the ethnographers make their
propositions by applying our standards of sex behavior, and our form of
the sex taboo, to judge the folkways of all people. All that they can
properly say is that they find a great range and variety of usages,
ideas, standards, and ideals, which differ greatly from ours. Some of
them are far stricter than ours. Those we do not consider nobler than
ours. We do not feel that we ought to adopt any ways because they are
more strict than our traditional ones. We consider many to be excessive,
silly, and harmful. A Roman senator was censured for impropriety because
he kissed his wife in the presence of his daughter.[1380]
+439. Meaning of "immoral."+ When, therefore, the ethnographers apply
condemnatory or depreciatory adjectives to the people whom they study,
they beg the most important question which we want to investigate; that
is, What are standards, codes, and ideas of chastity, decency,
propriety, modesty, etc., and whence do they arise? The ethnographical
facts contain the answer to this question, but in order to reach it we
want a colorless report of the facts. We shall find proof that "immoral"
never means anything but contrary to the mores of the time and place.
Therefore the mores and the morality may move together, and there is no
permanent or universal standard by which right and truth in regard to
these matters can be established and different folkways compared and
criticised. Only experience produces judgments of the expediency of some
usages. For instance, ancient peoples thought pederasty was harmless and
trivial. It has been well proved to be corrupting both to individual and
social vigor, and harmful to interests, both individual and collective.
Cannibalism, polygamy, incest, harlotry, and other primitive customs
have been discarded by a very wide and, in the case of some of them,
unanimous judgment that they are harmful. On the other hand, in the
_Avesta_ spermatorrhea is a crime punished by stripes.[1381] The most
civilized peoples also maintain, by virtue of their superior position in
the arts of life, that they have attained to higher and better judgments
and that they may judge the customs of others from their own standpoint.
For three or four centuries they have called their own customs
"Christian," and have thus claimed for them a religious authority and
sanction which they do not possess by any connection with the principles
of Christianity. Now, however, the adjective seems to be losing its
force. The Japanese regard nudity with indifference, but they use dress
to conceal the contour of the human form while we use it to enhance, in
many ways, the attraction. "Christian" mores have been enforced by the
best breechloaders and ironclads, but the Japanese now seem ready to
bring superiority in those matters to support their mores. It is now a
known and recognized fact that our missionaries have unintentionally and
unwittingly done great harm to nature people by inducing them to wear
clothes as one of the first details of civilized influence. In the
usages of nature peoples there is no correlation at all between dress
and sentiments of chastity, modesty, decency, and propriety.[1382]
+440. Natural functions.+ The fact that human beings have natural
functions the exercise of which is unavoidable but becomes harmful to
other human beings, in a rapidly advancing ratio, as greater and greater
numbers are collected within close neighborhood to each other, makes it
necessary that natural functions shall be regulated by rules and
conventions. The passionate nature of the sex appetite, by virtue of
which it tends to excess and vice, forces men to connect it with taboos
and regulations which also are conventional and institutional. The
taboos of chastity, decency, propriety, and modesty, and those on all
sex relations are therefore adjustments to facts of human nature and
conditions of human life. It is never correct to regard any one of the
taboos as an arbitrary invention or burden laid on society by tradition
without necessity. Very many of them are due originally to vanity,
superstition, or primitive magic, wholly or in part, but they have been
sifted for centuries by experience, and those which we have received and
accepted are such as experience has proved to be expedient.
+441. The current code and character.+ It follows that, in history and
ethnography, the mores and conduct in any group are independent of those
of any other group. Those of any group need to be consistent with each
other, for if they are not so the conduct will not be easily consistent
with the code, and it is when the conduct is not consistent with the
code which is current and professed that there is corruption, discord,
and decay of character. So long as the customs are simple, naïve, and
unconscious, they do not produce evil in character, no matter what they
are. If reflection is awakened and the mores cannot satisfy it, then
doubt arises; individual character will then be corrupted and the
society will degenerate.
+442. Definitions of chastity, decency, propriety, etc.+ Chastity,
modesty, and decency are entirely independent of each other. The
ethnographic proof of this is complete. Chastity means conformity to the
taboo on the sex relation, whatever its terms and limits may be in the
group at the time. Therefore, where polyandry is in the mores, women who
comply with it are not unchaste. Where there are no laws for the conduct
of unmarried women they are not unchaste. It is evidently an incorrect
use of language to describe the unmarried women of a tribe as unchaste,
unless there is a rule for them. It can only mean that they violate the
rule of some other society, and that can be said always about those in
any group. There are cases in which women wear nothing but are faithful
to a strict sex taboo, and there are cases where they go completely
covered but have no sex taboo. Decency has to do with the covering of
the body and with the concealment of bodily functions. Modesty is
reserve of behavior and sentiment. It is correlative to chastity and
decency, but covers a far wider field. It arrests acts, speech,
gestures, etc., and repels suggestions at the limit of propriety
wherever that may be set by the mores. Propriety is the sum of all the
prescriptions in the mores as to right and proper behavior, or as to the
limit of degree which prevents excess or vice. It is not dictated in
laws. It is a floating notion. From time to time, however, dictates of
propriety are enacted into police regulations. Propriety is guaranteed
by shame, which is the sense of pain due to incurring disapproval
because one has violated the usage which the mores command every one to
observe. It is narrated of Italian nuns who had been veiled even from
each other for half a lifetime that when turned out of their convents
they suffered from exposing their faces the same shame that other women
would suffer from far greater exposure. It could not be otherwise.
Mohammedan women, if surprised when bathing, cover first the face. They
are distinguished from non-Mohammedan women by the veil; therefore this
covering is to them most important. Chinese women, whose feet have been
compressed, consider it indecent to expose them. Within a generation the
public latrines in the cities of continental Europe have been made far
more secluded and private than they formerly were. Within ten years
there has been a great change of standard as to the propriety of
spitting. Beyond the domain of propriety lie the domains of politeness,
courtesy, good manners, seemliness, breeding, and good form. The
definition depends on where the line is drawn. That point is always
conventional. It is a matter of tradition and social contact to learn
where it lies. It never can be formulated. Habit must form a feeling or
taste by which new cases can be decided. There are persons and classes
who possess such social prestige that they can alter the line of
definition a small distance and get the change taken up into the mores,
but it is the mores which always contain and carry on the definitions
and standards. Therefore it is to the mores that we must look to find
the determining causes or motives, the field of origin, the corrective
or corrupting influences, and the educative operations, which account
for all the immense and contradictory variety of the folkways, under
chastity, decency, modesty, propriety, etc.
+443. Chastity.+ An Australian husband assumes that his wife has been
unfaithful to him if she has had opportunity. In most tribes women are
not allowed to converse or have any relations whatever with any men but
their husbands, even with their own grown-up brothers.[1383] Veth[1384]
thinks that the observance of the sex taboo by Dyak wives has been
exaggerated, but that, at least on the west coast, it is better than
that of the Malay women. The young unmarried women among the sea Dyaks
take great license, and the custom of lending daughters exists, but such
customs are unknown on the west coast. On the Andaman Islands there is
no sex taboo for the unmarried and they use license. The girls are
modest, and when married conform to the taboo of marriage. Their
husbands "do not fall far short of them." The women will not renew their
leaf aprons in the presence of each other.[1385] The Yakuts use leather
guarantees of their wives and daughters, similar to the mediæval
device,[1386] which always implies that the wife will make use of any
opportunity. The Yakut women wore garments even in bed.[1387] The Eskimo
of eastern Greenland do not disapprove of a husbandless mother but of a
childless wife.[1388] Bushmen women observe a stricter taboo than their
Kaffir neighbors. They refuse illicit relations with the latter,
although the Kaffirs are a superior race.[1389] The Zulu women observe a
strict taboo with noteworthy fidelity.[1390] Madame Pommerol[1391]
represents the Arab women of the nomadic or semi-nomadic tribes of
southern Algiers as destitute of moral training. They have no code of
morals or religion. [What she means is that they have no character by
education.] They shun men, but handle the veil in a coquettish manner
according to artificial and excessive usages. They act only between
impulses of desire and fear of fathers or husbands. Fidelity has no
sense, since they do not feel the loyalty either of duty or affection.
The Mayas of the lowest classes sent out their daughters to earn their
own marriage portions.[1392] On the Palau Islands mothers train their
daughters to make gain of themselves in the local shell money and bring
the same to their parents. The girls become _armengols_; that is, they
live in the clubhouses which are the residences of the young men, where
they do domestic work and win influence. An insult to such a woman is an
insult to the club. The origin of the custom was in war; the women were
captives. Some are now given in tribute. "The custom is not a pure
expression of sensuality." As there is no family life this is the
woman's chance to know men and influence them. It is rated as
education.[1393] Semper[1394] quotes native justification of the custom.
A man's young last-wedded wife complained to his older wife that he
made her serve the _armengols_. The older wife told her to remember that
she had herself enjoyed this life and had been served by the married
women. All girls liked to earn the money by which, when they came home,
they got husbands. It was ancient custom and must be obeyed. If the
married women refused to do their duty, the men would not be served, for
a married woman might never show the world that she was on intimate
terms with her husband. That would be _mugul_, and when once that word
lost its force the whole island would perish. A woman argued to Semper
that the custom was a good one because it gave the women a chance to see
the other islands, and because they learned to serve and obey the men.
It was, she said, their sacred duty. Any girl who did not go abroad as
an _armengol_ would get the reputation of being stupid and uncultivated,
and would get no husband.[1395] Cases in which husbands are indifferent
to the fidelity of wives to the marriage taboo occur, but they are
rare.[1396] In some Arabic tribes of Sahara, even those in which the
struggle for existence is not severe, fathers expect daughters to ransom
themselves from the expense of their rearing by prostitution. The notion
of sex honor has not yet overcome the sense of pecuniary loss or gain.
The more a woman gains, the more she is sought in marriage afterwards.
Tuareg married women enter into relations with men not their husbands
like those of women with their lovers in the woman cult of the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries in central Europe. These women have decent and
becoming manners, with much care for etiquette.[1397] A
thirteenth-century writer says of the Mongol women that they are
"chaste, and nothing is heard amongst them of lewdness, but some of the
expressions they use in joking are very shameful and coarse." The same
is true now.[1398] An Arab author is cited as stating that at Mirbat
women went outside the city at night to sport with strange men. Their
own husbands and male relatives passed them by to seek other
women.[1399] Amongst the Gowane people in Kordofan (who seem now to be
Moslems)[1400] a girl cannot marry without her brother's consent. To get
this she must give to her brother an infant. She finds the father where
she can.[1401]
+444. Pagan life policy.+ Very naturally the pagan inference or
generalization from the above customs was that a husband must be under
continual anxiety about his wife, or he must divorce her, or he must
cultivate a high spirit of resignation and indifference. The last was
the highest flight of Stoic philosophy about marriage. Plutarch says:
"How can you call anything a misfortune which does not damage either
your soul or your body, as for example, the low origin of your father,
the adultery of your wife, the loss of a crown or seat of honor, none of
which affect a man's chances of the highest condition of body and
mind."[1402]
+445. Modesty. Shame.+ Aristotle[1403] hardly rated shame as a virtue.
He said that it is only a passing emotion, "an apprehension of
dishonor." In his view virtues were habits trained in by education. He
deduced them from philosophy and sought to bring them to act on life. He
did not regard them as products of life actions. Wundt[1404] says that
shame is a specific human sentiment, because men alone of animals wear a
concealing dress on one part of the body when they wear nothing else. He
thinks that men began to cover the body in obedience to the sentiment of
decency. The facts here alleged are all incorrect. There are many people
who wear something on the body but do not cover the parts referred to
(sec. 447). It is certain that pet animals manifest shame when caught
doing what they have been taught not to do,--just like children. As to
dress, it would be an interesting experiment to let pet dogs play
together for a month, dressed in coats and blankets, and then to bring
one of them to the meeting without his dress while the others wore
theirs. Would he not show shame at not being like the others? A lady
made a red jacket for a Javanese ape. He was greatly pleased, buttoned
and unbuttoned the jacket, and showed displeasure when it was taken
off. He showed that it aroused his vanity.[1405] People who deal with
high-bred horses say that they show shame and dissatisfaction if they
are in any way inferior to others. It was recently reported in the
newspapers that the employés in a menagerie threw some of the beasts
into great irritation by laughing in chorus near their cages in such a
way that the beasts thought that they were being laughed at. Shame is a
product of wounded vanity. It is due to a consciousness, or a fear, of
disapproval. It is not limited to exposure of the body, but may be due
to disapproval for any reason whatever.
+446. The line of decency in dress.+ The line of decency, for instance
in dress, is always paradoxical. No matter where it may be drawn,
decency is close to it on one side and indecency on the other. A Moslem
woman on the street looks like a bundle of bedclothes. Where all women
so look one woman who left off her mantle would seem indecent, and the
comparative display of the outlines of the figure would seem shameless.
Where low-necked dresses are commonly worn they are not indecent, but
they may become so at a point which varies according to custom from
place to place and from class to class. The women in modern Jerusalem
regard it as very indecent to show themselves _décolletées_. They sit,
however, in postures which leave their legs uncovered.[1406] A peasant
woman could not wear the dress of a lady of fashion. Where men or women
wear only a string around the waist, their dress is decent, but it is
indecent to leave off the string. The suggestive effect of putting on
ornaments and dress at one stage is the same as that of leaving them off
at another stage. Barbarians put on dress for festivals, dances, and
solemn occasions. Civilized people do the same when they wear robes of
office or ceremony. When Hera wanted to stimulate the love of Zeus she
made an elaborate toilet and put on extra garments, including a
veil.[1407] Then taking off the veil was a stimulus. On the other hand,
the extremest and most conventional dress looks elegant and stylish to
those who are accustomed to it, as is now the case with ourselves and
the current dress, which makes both sexes present an appearance far
removed from the natural outline of human beings. Then, at the limit,
that is at to-day's fashions, coquetry can be employed again, and a
sense stimulus can be exerted again, by simply making variations on the
existing fashions at the limit. It is impossible to eliminate the sense
stimulus, or to establish a system of societal usage in which indecency
shall be impossible. The dresses of Moslem women, nuns, and Quakeresses
were invented in order to get rid of any possible question of decency.
The attempt fails entirely. A Moslem woman with her veil, a Spanish
woman with her mantilla or fan, a Quakeress with her neckerchief, can be
as indecent as a barbarian woman with her petticoat of dried grass.
+447. Present conventional limits.+ In our own society decency as to
dress, words, gestures, etc., is a constant preoccupation. That is not
the case with naked savages or half-naked barbarians. The savages put on
ornament to be admired and to exert attraction or produce effect. The
same effect is won by words, gestures, dress, etc. Our æsthetic arts all
exert the same influence. We expel all these things from our artificial
environment down to a limit, in order to restrain and control the
stimulus. Then we think that we are decent. That is because we rest at
peace in a status which is conventional and accustomed. Variation from
it one way is fastidious; the other way is indecent, just as it would be
at any other limit whatever. It is the comparison of the mores of
different times and peoples which shows the arbitrariness and
conventionality. It would be difficult to mention anything in Oriental
mores which we regard with such horror as Orientals feel for low-necked
dresses and round dances. Orientals use dress to conceal the contour of
the form. The waist of a woman is made to disappear by a girdle. To an
Oriental a corset, which increases the waist line and the plasticity of
the figure, is the extreme of indecency--far worse than nudity. It seems
like an application of the art of the courtesan to appeal to
sensuality.[1408] Perhaps the most instructive case of all is that of
the Tuareg men, who keep the mouth always covered. The cloth has a
utilitarian purpose,--to prevent thirst by retarding evaporation from
the air passages. "They never remove the veil, on a journey, or in
repose, not even to eat, much less to sleep." "A Tuareg would think that
he committed an impropriety if he should remove his veil, unless it was
in extreme intimacy or for a medical investigation." "At Paris I strove
in vain to induce three Tuaregs to remove their veils for the purpose of
being photographed."[1409] No superstitious reason for this veil is
known. Madame Pommerol[1410] reports that a Tuareg man told her that men
keep the mouth covered lest the play of it should expose their feelings
to another man. Women, he said, had no such need, since enemies never
approach them. Evidently we have here a case of an ancient fact that men
are never seen with the mouth uncovered, which has produced a feeling
that a man _ought_ never to be seen with it uncovered, and rational and
utilitarian reasons or explanations have been invented later. Those who
paint the body are ashamed to be seen unpainted. In the tribes which are
tattooed one would be ashamed who was not tattooed.
+448. Decency and vanity.+ It is another case of shame or offended
modesty if the taboo in the mores on acts, words, postures, etc., is
broken in one's presence. It is a breach of the respect which one
expects, that is, it wounds vanity.
We are ashamed to go barefoot, probably because it is an ordinary
evidence of poverty. Von den Steinen has well suggested that some day it
may be said that shoes were invented on account of "innate" shame at
exposing the feet.[1411] In recent years fashion has allowed young
people to leave off all head-covering. It could permit them to go
barefooted if the whim should take that turn. There is now a "cure" in
which men and women walk barefoot in the grass. The cost to their
modesty is probably very slight.
+449. Modesty the opposite of impudence.+ Another sense of modesty is
the opposite of impudence, shrinking from making demands or otherwise
putting one's self forward in a way which bystanders might think in
excess of one's social position or ability. In these cases vanity
becomes its own punishment. The Kajans of the Mandalam refrain from
injuring private or group interests from fear of public opinion. "Such a
sentiment can exist only amongst those who have a feeling of shame
strongly developed. Such is the case amongst these people, not only as
to punishable offenses, but also in connection with their notions of
propriety."[1412] "Modesty was an unknown virtue to the bards of Vedic
India. They bragged and begged without shame."[1413] The same might be
said of the troubadours of the Middle Ages.
+450. Shame.+ Shame is felt when one is inferior, or is conscious of
being, or of being liable to be, unfavorably regarded. Modesty is the
reserve which keeps one from coming into judgment. One of the greatest
reasons for covering the body is the conviction that it would not be
admired if seen. One of us is ashamed if he is in excellent morning
dress when the others wear evening dress, or ungloved when all the rest
are gloved. A woman is ashamed to be without a crinoline or a bustle
when all the rest wear them. A man, when men wore wigs, could not appear
before a lady without his wig. An elderly lady says that when the
present queen of England brought in, at her marriage, the fashion of
brushing up the hair so as to uncover the ears, which had long been
covered, it seemed indecent. No woman now is ashamed to be a woman, but
in the first Christian centuries what they heard about their sex might
well have made them so. A woman is not ashamed to be a widow in the
Occident, but she may well be so in India. A woman may be ashamed to be
an old maid, or that she has no children, or has only girls. It depends
on the view current in the mores, and on the sensitiveness of the person
to unfavorable judgments. "Shame, for Arabs, occupies the place which we
ascribe to conscience. 'The tree lives only so long as its bark lives;
and the man only so long as he feels shame.' Arabs, however, are not
ashamed _in abstracto_, but before father and mother, before relatives,
and before common talk. 'Be ashamed before Allah, as an honorable man is
ashamed before his own people,' said Mohammed to a new convert, in
order to make clear to him the unknown from the known, and to enlarge
the morals of the village to that of the world."[1414]
+451. The first attachments on the body.+ Ethnographical studies have
established the fact that things were first hung on the body as amulets
or trophies, that is, for superstition or vanity, and that the body was
painted or tattooed for superstition or in play. The notion of ornament
followed. The skull and body have been deformed and mutilated, and the
hair has been dressed or removed, in order to vary it and produce
effect. Savages lie in ashes, dust, clay, sand, or mud, for warmth, or
coolness, or indolence, and they could easily find out the advantage of
a coating on the skin to protect them from insects or the sun. Three
things resulted which had never been foreseen or intended. (1) It was
found that there was great utility in certain attachments to the body
which protected it when sitting on the ground or standing in the water.
Play seized upon the markings, and the men of a group at last came to
use the same markings, from which resulted a group sign. The marks came
to be regarded as ornamental. Some attachments had great utility for
males in fishing, hunting, fighting, running, and some kinds of work.
(2) Goblinism seized upon the custom and gave it new and powerful
motives. The group mark became hereditary and maintained group unity
with goblinistic sanctions. Some hanging objects were thought to ward
off the evil eye. Others were amulets and prevented sorcery. (3) The
objects hung on the body might be trophies taken from animals or
enemies. These things consciously, and the others unconsciously, acted
on vanity. When all wore things attached to the body a man or woman did
not look dressed, or "right" without such attachments. He or she looked
bare or naked. They were ashamed. This is the shame of nakedness. The
connection of dress with warmth and modesty is derived and remote.
+452. The fear of sorcery.+ The reason for retiring to perform bodily
functions was the fear of sorcery, if an enemy should get possession of
anything which ever was a part of the body. Hence the best plan was to
go to running water. Once more, important but unanticipated and even
unperceived consequences followed. The customs played the part of
sanitary regulations. When it became the custom to retire it became
indecent not to retire. Then it became a tradition from ancestors that
one always must retire, and the ghosts would be angry if this rule was
not observed. It was disrespectful to them, and would offend them to
expose the body or not to retire. The Greeks said that it offended the
gods. In the books of Moses the sanction for all the rules of decency
is, "For it is an abomination unto the Lord." That is only an expression
of the disapproval in the mores which God also was supposed to feel.
+453. What functions should be concealed?+ What is the limit of the
bodily functions to be concealed? A member of the Jewish sect of the
Essenes, who were all celibate men, always wore an apron, even when
alone in the bath. The genitals were impure and must not be uncovered to
the eye of God. The same sect had elaborate rules like those in Deut.
xxiii. 12 ff. When the Medes elected Deioces king he made a rule that no
one should laugh or spit in his presence.[1415] The Zulu king Chaka
punished with death sneezing or clearing the throat in his
presence.[1416] At Bagdad, in the tenth century, the court of the
caliphs had become luxurious, and a very severe and minute etiquette had
been introduced. It was forbidden to spit, clear the throat or nose,
gape, or sneeze in the presence of the sovereign. The nobles imitated
this etiquette and adopted rules to regulate salutations, entrance into
company, reception of visitors, table manners, and approach to one's
wife. "If any one refused to conform to this etiquette, he exposed
himself to universal blame as an eccentric person, or even as an enemy
of Islam."[1417] In the Italian novel _Niccolo dei Lapi_ it is said in
honor of the heroine that she never saw herself nude. It was a custom
observed by many to wear a garment which covered the whole body even
when alone in the bath. Erasmus gives the reason for this. The angels
would be shocked at nakedness. He made it a rule for men. One should
never, he says, bare the body more than necessary, even when alone. The
angels are everywhere and they like to see decency as the adjunct of
modesty.[1418] The angels are here evidently the Christian
representatives of the ghosts of earlier times. In 1 Cor. xi. 10 it is
said: The woman was created for the man. "For this cause ought the woman
to have a sign of authority on her head, because of the angels." It
seems to be believed that the angels might be led into sin by seeing the
women. For this idea there is abundant antecedent in the _Book of
Henoch_ and the _Book of Jubilees_.
+454. Restraint of expression within limits.+ It is the rule of good
breeding everywhere to restrict all bodily functions and to conceal
them, such as gaping, sneezing, coughing, clearing the throat and nose,
and to restrain all exuberant expressions of joy, pain, triumph, regret,
etc., but the limits cannot be defined. They lie in the current practice
of the society in which one lives. They are not rational. At the same
time they are logical. They are correctly deduced from a broad view of
policy. Orientals cover their heads to show respect; Occidentals bare
the head for the same purpose. Each custom has its philosophy of
respect. We think it disrespectful to turn the back on any one.
Orientals generally think it respectful to pretend not to be able to
look another in the face. If ladies are thought to have the right to
decide whether to continue acquaintances or not, they salute first. If
it is thought unbecoming for them to salute first, then men do it. Which
of the great premises is correct it would be impossible to say. The
notion of correctness fails, because it implies the existence of a
standard outside of and above usage, and no such standard exists. There
is an assumed principle which serves as a basis for the usage, and the
usage refers back to the principle, but the two are afloat together.
+455. Violation of rule.+ It results from the study of the cases that
nakedness is never shameful when it is unconscious.[1419] The same is
true of everything under the head of decency. It is consciousness of a
difference between fact and the rule set by the mores which makes
indecency and produces harm, for that difference, if disregarded, is
immorality.
+456. The suspensorium.+ The device known as the suspensorium,
represented by von den Steinen,[1420] is obviously invented solely for
the convenience of males in activity. It is not planned for concealment
and does not conceal. By a development of the device it becomes a case,
made of leaf, wood, bone, clay, shell, leather, bamboo, cloth, gourd,
metal, or reed. It is met with all over the world.[1421] Perhaps its
existence in ancient Egypt is proved.[1422] In almost every case, but
not always, there is great disinclination to remove it, or part with it,
or to be seen without it. The sentiment attaches only to the part which
is covered by the apparatus. To be seen without it would do harm to the
man. Women wear a pubic shield, held in place by a string. The
conjecture immediately suggests itself that the girdle or string about
the loins was anterior to any covering for the genitals. This conjecture
is confirmed by the cases in which the girdle is used to cover the
umbilicus, while nothing else is covered, for which there is a reason on
account of the connection of the umbilicus with birth, life, and
ancestry.[1423] The primitive notion about the genitals is that they are
the seat of involuntary phenomena which are to be referred to superior
agents. Hence, more than any other part of the body, they are daimonic
and sacred (mystery, passion, reproduction). This notion is an
independent cause of rules about the organs, and of superstitious ways
in reference to them, including concealment.[1424] Waitz recognized in
this idea the reason for covering the organ, or the part of it which was
believed to be efficient. "Perhaps," he says, "we stand here at the
first stage of human clothing,"--a suggestion which deserves more
attention than it has received.[1425]
+457. The girdle and what it conceals.+ Very many cases can be cited in
which a girdle is worn, but nothing for concealment, unless it be of the
umbilicus. In the Louvre (S. 962) may be seen a statue of a deformed
primitive god of the Egyptians, Bes, who wears a string around the waist
and nothing else. A girdle is often used as a pocket, without any
reference to decency.[1426] Convenience would then lead to the
suspensorium arrangement or the pubic shell. Also from the girdle was
hung any swinging glittering object to avert the evil eye from the
genitals. There was no concealment and could be no motive of modesty.
The aborigines of Queensland never cover the genitals except on special
public occasions, or when near white settlements. The men wear the case
only at corroborees and other public festivals.[1427] On Tanna (New
Hebrides) it is thought dangerous for a man to see another without any
concealment.[1428] The Indians on the Shingu show that such covering as
they wear has no purpose of concealment, for it conceals nothing.[1429]
The device of the East Greenland Eskimo is also evidently for utility,
not for modesty.[1430] In order to escape flies, Brunache and his
companions took refuge under a tree which is shunned by flies. It is
from this tree that the women pluck the bunches of leaves which they
wear dangling before and behind.[1431]
+458. Modesty and decency not primitive.+ At the earliest stage of the
treatment of the body we find motives of utility and ornament mixed with
superstition and vanity and quickly developing connections with magic,
kin notions, and goblinism. Modesty and decency are very much later
derivatives.
+459. What parts of the body are tabooed?+ Cases may be adduced to prove
that the taboo of concealment does not always attach to the parts of the
body to which it attaches in our traditions. Hottentot women wear a head
cloth of gay European stuff. They will not take this off. The Herero
"think it a great cause of shame if a married woman removes this
national head covering in the presence of strangers." They wear very
little else. A woman who stood for her photograph "would more readily
have uncovered all the rest of her body than her head."[1432] The
Guanches thought it immodest for a woman to show her breasts or
feet.[1433] Yakut women roll cord on the naked thigh in the presence of
men who do not belong to the house, and allow themselves to be seen
uncovered to the waist, but they are angry if a man stares at their
naked feet. In some places the Yakuts attach great importance to the
rule that young wives should not let their husband's male relatives see
their hair or their feet.[1434] In mediæval Germany a respectable woman
thought it a great disgrace if a man saw her naked feet.[1435] The
Indian woman of those tribes of the northwestern coast of North America
which wear the labret are as much embarrassed to be seen without it as a
white woman would be if very incompletely dressed.[1436] The back and
navel are sometimes under a special taboo of concealment, especially the
navel, which is sacred, as above noticed, on account of its connection
with birth. Peschel[1437] quotes private information that a woman in the
Philippine Islands put a shirt on a boy in order to cover the navel and
nothing more. In her view nothing more needed to be covered. Many
peoples regard the navel as of erotic interest. Instances occur in the
_Arabian Nights_. It is very improper for a Chinese woman who has
compressed feet to show them. Thomson[1438] gives a picture which shows
the feet of a woman, but it was very difficult, he says, to persuade the
woman to pose in that way. Chinese people would consider the picture
obscene. No European would find the slightest suggestion of that kind in
it. An Arab woman, in Egypt, cares more to cover her face than any other
part of her body, and she is more careful to cover the top or back of
her head than her face.[1439] It appears that if any part of the body is
put under a concealment taboo for any reason whatever, a consequence is
that the opinion grows up that it never ought to be exposed. Then
interest may attach to it more than to exposed parts, and erotic
suggestion may be connected with it. The tradition in which we are
educated is one which has a long history, and which has embraced the
Aryan race. To us it seems "natural" and "true in itself." It includes
some primitive and universal ideas of magic and goblinism which have
been held far beyond the Aryan race. Shame and modesty are sentiments
which are consequences produced in the minds of men and women by
unbroken habits of fact, association, and suggestion in connection with
dress and natural functions. It does not seem "decent" to break the
habits, or, decency consists in conforming to the habits. However, the
whole notion of decency is held within boundaries of habit. Orientals
and Moslems now have such different habits from Occidentals that
latrines are very differently constructed for them and for Occidentals.
+460. Notion of decency lacking.+ There are cases of groups in which no
notions of decency can be found. It is reported of the Kubus of Sumatra
that they have acquired a sense of shame within very recent times.
"Formerly they knew none and were the derision of the villagers into
whose neighborhood they might come."[1440] Stevens never saw an
Orang-hutan girl blush. Those girls have no feeling about their
nakedness which could cause a blush.[1441] The Bakairi show no sense of
shame as to any part of the body. They are innocent in respect to any
reserve[1442] [i.e. no taboo of concealment exists amongst them]. A few
cases are reported in which the awakening of shame has been observed. A
bystander threw a cloth over a nearly naked man on the Chittagong hills.
"He was seen to blush, for it was the first time in his life that he
realized that he was committing a breach of decency in appearing
unclothed."[1443] No doubt the more correct explanation is that he felt
that in some way he was not approved by the English visitors. Semon
tells how he posed a Papuan girl for her photograph, in the midst of a
native crowd. She was "proud of the distinction and attention." Suddenly
she was convulsed with shame and abandoned the pose, blushing and
refusing.[1444] This explanation may not be correct. The feeling of one
accustomed to be naked, if his attention is called to it, cannot be
paralleled with that of one accustomed to be clothed, if he finds
himself unclothed. The Nile negroes and the Masai manifest a "complete
absence of any conventional ideas of decency." The men, at least, have
no feeling of shame in connection with the pudenda. Complete nudity of
males, where it occurs in Africa, seems almost always traceable to
Hamitic influence.[1445]
+461. Dress and decency.+ If the description of the Tyrrhenians given by
Athenæus[1446] can be taken as real, they would have to be classed
amongst the people who had no notions of decency. Curr says of the
Australians[1447] that the tribes who wear clothing are more decent than
those who are naked. The women of the former retire to bathe and the men
respect their privacy. Evidently the dress makes the decency. If there
was no dress, there would be no need to retire and no privacy. Wilson
and Felkin[1448] say of the negroes that their "morals" are inversely as
their dress. The Australians practice no indecent dances.[1449] The
central Australians hold a man in contempt if he shows excessive
amorousness.[1450] The natives of New Britain are naked, but modest and
chaste. "Nudity rather checks than stimulates." The same is observed in
English New Guinea. The men wear a bandage which does not conceal, but
they attach to this all the importance which we attach to complete
dress, and they speak of others who do not wear it as "naked wild
men."[1451] In the Palau Islands women may punish summarily, even with
death, a man who approaches their bathing place, but that place is,
therefore, the safest for secret meetings.[1452] The Dyaks, except the
hill tribes, conceal the body with care, but they do not observe a
careful sex taboo.[1453] We are told of the Congo tribes, some of whom
wear nothing, that there exists "a marked appreciation of the sentiment
of decency and shame as applied to private actions."[1454] Some of the
women repelled the advances of men in Brunache's expedition.[1455]
Nachtigal[1456] found the Somrai in Baghirmi modest and reserved. They
proved "the well-known fact that decorum and chastity are independent of
dress." On the Uganda railroad, near Lake Victoria, coal-black people
are to be seen, of whom both sexes are entirely naked, except ornaments.
They are "the most moral people in Uganda." The Nile negroes and Masai
are naked. In the midst of them live the Baganda who wear much clothing.
The women are covered from the waist to the ankles; the men from the
neck to the ankles, except porters and men working in the fields. They
provide decent latrines and have good sanitary usages as to the
surroundings of their houses. They are very polite and courteous. This
character and their dress are accounted for by their long subjection to
tyranny. They are "profoundly immoral," have indecent dances, and are
dying out on account of the "exhaustion of men and women by premature
debauchery."[1457] The Kavirondo are naked, but are, "for negroes, a
moral race, disliking real indecency and only giving way to lewd actions
in their ceremonial dances, where indeed the intention is not immodest,
as the pantomime is a kind of ritual."[1458]
+462. Ornament and simplest dress.+ The notion of ornament is
extremely vague. Things were attached to the body as amulets or
trophies. Then the bodies which had nothing of this kind on them
seemed bare and naked. Next objects were worn in order to comply
with a type, without the character of amulets or trophies. These
were ornaments. Hagen[1459] noticed, in his own experience, that
ornament did away with the appearance of nakedness. The same
effect of tattooing may be noticed, even in pictures. The oldest
Chinese tradition asserts that dress was originally for
ornament.[1460] "To the grass-land negroes of North Kamerun dress
of any kind is only ornament or protection against severe
weather." Their conversation on certain subjects is gross,
perhaps because they are entirely unclothed.[1461] The Doko women
wear a few strings of beads hanging from a girdle, and the girls
of the Dime wear one, two, or three ivory cylinders hanging from
the waist, but nothing more.[1462] The Xosa wear an ornamented
girdle, but no apron.[1463] The unmarried women in the Temu
districts of Togo wear strings of beads but no dress. The Moslem
women make triangular aprons, worn by men over the suspensorium.
The women meet suitors with grace and coquetry, in spite of the
lack of clothing.[1464] The Mashukalumbe wear no dress, but the
women wear little iron bells on a strap around the waist.[1465]
The women of the Longos near Foweira wear anklets, waistbands,
and bracelets of beads, but nothing else.[1466] The Herero have a
horror of the nudity of adults.[1467] The Tasmanians wore no
dress but decorated themselves with feathers, flowers, etc.[1468]
Papuans on the Fly River fasten things through the nose and hang
objects around the neck. Some wear a pubic shell, but most have
not even that.[1469] On the island of New Britain both sexes are
unclothed, although tapa cloth in very beautiful patterns is made
on the island for other purposes.[1470] On the Banks Islands the
men wear nothing, although they formerly made very beautiful
dresses which were worn in the dance.[1471] Some of the Indians
on the Shingu wear necklaces and ear pendants, but nothing
else.[1472]
+463. The evolution of dress.+ The above-mentioned girdle with
objects hanging from it turned from an ornament into a garment
when it became a kilt of fringed grass or leather. Arab women
wore the girdle of thongs with lappets until it was superseded by
a kilt of leather cut into a fringe. The primitive apron of the
ancient Egyptians was continued underneath the later more
elaborate dress. The ancient primitive dress got a sacred
character and was worn by everybody, whatever else he wore. It
was worn by girls, by women monthly, and also, "it is said, by
worshipers at the Caaba." Then the ancient thongs and lappets got
the character of amulets.[1473] In some Papuan tribes those who
had learned all the religious secrets were allowed to wear the
girdle as a sign of honor and dignity.[1474] Sometimes a skin or
mat is worn hanging from the waist behind. It really is worn to
be sat upon, upon occasion. Nothing else is worn.[1475] In this
case, and in some of those mentioned above from Central Africa, a
consciousness is sometimes manifested that there is something to
conceal, and a posture or mode of walking is adopted which
accomplishes the concealment. Amongst the Ja-luo (northeast
corner of Lake Victoria) both sexes when unmarried go naked. A
man, when he is a father, wears a cape of goatskin "inadequate
for decency." Married women wear only a "tail of strings
behind."[1476] The Nandi wear clothing "only for warmth or
adornment, not for purposes of decency."[1477] The Acholi, in
Uganda, think it beneath masculine dignity to wear
anything.[1478] The Vanyoro men are generally clothed in skins.
The women, until marriage, wear nothing; after marriage, bark
cloth. The Bari men never wear anything. They think it womanish
to do so. The unmarried women wear a pendant of fringe behind and
five or six iron bars six inches long, the whole three and a half
inches broad, in front. Married women wear a fringe in front and
a leather apron behind.[1479]
+464. Men dressed. Women not.+ Cases are very numerous in which
men wear dress, while women do not.[1480] Such is the prevailing
fact amongst the Indians of the Upper Amazon[1481] and in Central
Africa.[1482] The women of the Apaporis (0° N., 70° W.) are said
to wear nothing, but the men wear long aprons of fine bark
string, broad bast girdles, and ornamental strings of teeth and
seeds; also ornaments in the nose and lips, and some tribes below
the lower lip.[1483] When women wear clothing and men do not the
men think it womanish and beneath them to do so.[1484] When
Livingston remonstrated with a negro for nakedness the latter
"laughed with surprise at the thought of being at all indecent.
He evidently considered himself above such weak superstition."
All thought it a joke when told to wear something when
Livingston's family should come.[1485]
+465. Dress for other purposes than decency. Excessive modesty.+
The Dyaks wear only a loin cloth of a greater or less number of
folds to keep the abdomen warm, "a precaution which all travelers
in the tropics must imitate day and night with flannel for fear
of dysentery."[1486] "The women [of the western side of Torres
Straits] frequently wear a kind of full chemise. They do not wear
it for the sake of decency, but from luxury and pride, for I
often saw a woman take off her garment and content herself with a
tuft of grass before and behind."[1487] Some Papuan women are
mentioned, who wear a petticoat on festival occasions, but they
leave the right side of it open to show the tattooing on the
hip.[1488] Since cotton cloth has become cheap in the Horn of
Africa the natives wear a great deal of it out of luxury and
ostentation, and also because it is a capital at all times easily
realizable.[1489] The Rodias, an outcast people on Ceylon, were
once compelled by the Kandyan kings to leave the upper part of
the body uncovered; both sexes. The English have tried to reverse
the rule, which has become a fixed habit. The Rodia women now
wear a neckerchief, the ends of which cover the breast, when
they meet English people, but they have not yet acquired the
feeling that it is unseemly to uncover the breast.[1490]
Mantegazza met women on the Nilgherri hills who covered the
breast on meeting him, but did not do so before men of their own
race.[1491] It is the current idea on the Malabar coast that no
respectable woman should cover the breast. Lately, those who have
traveled and have learned that other people hold the contrary to
be the proper rule feel some shame at the old custom.[1492] The
Ainos are rated as displaced and outcast aborigines amongst the
Japanese. An Aino woman refused to wash in order to be treated
for a skin disease, because to wash was against Aino usage.[1493]
An Aino girl in a mission school who had a curved spine and was
lame refused to allow a European physician to examine her with a
view to diagnosis and treatment.
+466. Contrasted standards of decency.+ The Japanese do not
consider nudity indecent. A Japanese woman pays no heed to the
absence of clothing on workmen. European women in Japan are
shocked at it, but themselves wear dinner and evening dress which
greatly shock Orientals.[1494] Schallmeyer[1495] saw Japanese
policemen note for punishment watermen who approached nearer to
the wharf than the law allowed before covering the upper part of
the body. The authorities are, therefore, trying to modify the
usage. The Japanese regard daily hot baths as a necessity for
everybody. Therefore bathing is unavoidable, and is put under the
same conventionalization as that which surrounded latrines in the
cities of Europe fifty years ago. Every one is expected to ignore
what no one can help. Formerly, at least, the sexes were not
separated and bathers might walk to and from the bath in a state
of complete preparation for it.[1496] Before the "reformation"
people of the better classes in Japan went to the theater not at
all, or secretly. The plays were coarse and outspoken. Japanese
education permitted "both sexes indifferently to speak of
everything without the slightest periphrasis, or any respect for
persons, even children." Hence situations were described and
presented on the stage which we should consider too licentious
for toleration, although there were no actresses on the stage.
This was not due to laxity of morals, but to the fact that they
had no taboos on reality. Yet "nothing appears more immoral to
the Japanese than our drama." "They permit no intrigue [on the
stage] by which the character of a married woman is
compromised."[1497] The Europeans and Japanese, in contact with
each other, find that it is not possible to infer each other's
character from each other's folkways. Hearn says: "The ideas of
this people are not our ideas; their sentiments are not our
sentiments; their ethical life represents for us regions of
thought and emotion yet unexplored, or perhaps long
forgotten."[1498] The two cases in contrast, however, show the
power of the folkways and their tremendous control. We know as
to our own women that there is no conscious or unconscious
purpose to stimulate sensuality. They wear what has been and is
customary in their society. The Japanese get their customs in the
same way and attribute to them the same authority. Neither has
any reason to be amazed at or despise the other. Baelz quotes
Mrs. Bishop, who after spending twenty years traveling in the
East said, "I know now that one can be naked, yet behave like a
lady." The above story of the crippled Aino girl gives
credibility to Becke's story[1499] of a Polynesian woman, wife of
a European, who died after child bearing rather than submit to
treatment by a physician which would be attended by exposure of
her person.
+467. Standards of decency as to natural functions, etc.+ The
natives of New Georgia (Solomon Islands) "have the same ideas of
what is decent with regard to certain acts and exposures that we
ourselves have." They build retiring places over the water, "but
their language is quite unlicensed."[1500] In Micronesia reserve
as to natural functions is lacking.[1501] Amongst central African
negroes the king alone had a hut for retirement. "The heathen
negroes are generally more observant of decorum in this respect
than any Mohammedan."[1502] In Lhasa, Tibet, there are no
latrines either public or private. The street is used.[1503] The
Andamanese women are modest and very careful about decency of
dress and conversation. For the unmarried there is complete
license.[1504] When Middendorf asked a Tungus girl to sing, she
sang a song which was so indecent that he could not translate
it.[1505] Children of the Eskimo on the eastern coast of
Greenland go naked in the house until they are sixteen years old.
Then they put on the _natit_, a simple band around the loins, and
that is the only thing worn in the house by adults. It is the
custom of wearing fur next the skin which compels them to go
naked in the house. They are very unwilling, under any
circumstances, to lay aside the _natit_. Their songs and games
are exceedingly licentious, and their myths are obscene. They do
not keep these from the children. A great number live crowded in
a little house, as an insurance against accidents or lack of
food. This mode of life makes decency impossible and lowers the
standard of propriety. Children are married at four or five years
of age, but the relationship does not become established until a
child is born. In summer, in tent life, two men exchange wives
and some property. If one of them wants to keep the other's
property, he must keep the wife, too.[1506] The Fuegians observe
great decorum as to subjects of conversation.[1507] The Seminoles
of Florida observe a high sex taboo. The women are virtuous and
modest, and no half-breeds with whites exist. The mother of a
half-breed would be put to death.[1508] The Tehuelches of
Patagonia pay great attention to decency. They do not like to see
children naked.[1509] The Indians of northern Nicaragua think
that whites do not bathe enough. They always retire to running
water, and are disgusted with whites for not taking that
care.[1510]
+468. Bathing. Customs of nudity.+ The natives of Rotuma never bathe
without the loin cloth. To do so is thought low conduct.[1511] The
people of Ponape rise early and bathe, the sexes always separating
unless married.[1512] Bock[1513] says that the Dyaks, without
hesitation, threw off their garments and bathed in the presence of
himself and Malays, the sexes together. The sexes of the Yuroks in
California bathe apart and the women never go into the sea without some
garment.[1514] The women of the Mandans had a bathing place. Armed
sentinels were set to prevent men from approaching it.[1515] In
Hindostan the sexes now bathe together at certain times and places with
very little clothing. Wilkins[1516] says, "I have never seen the
slightest impropriety of gesture on these occasions." Although at an
earlier period some clothing was worn in bed, in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, in Europe, both sexes slept nude. Better beds and
separate bed clothes led to this custom, because it was such a relief to
take off woolen and fur worn in the daytime. Then nudity became
familiar, and the concealment taboo was broken down.[1517] The cities
were soon compelled to pass ordinances forbidding any one to appear on
the streets nude.[1518] In Denmark the historian tells us that people
slept naked because linen was dear, and that the custom lasted into the
seventeenth century. In the sixteenth century nobles began to wear
nightshirts.[1519] Upon the entry of kings into cities, until the
sixteenth century, mythological subjects were represented in the streets
by nude women.[1520] From the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries it
was the custom that girls served knights in the bath.[1521] Through the
Middle Ages the sexes bathed together, and not innocently.[1522] The
Germans were very fond of bathing and every village had its public bath
house. The utility and pleasure of bathing were so great that bathing
was forbidden as an ecclesiastical penance.[1523] "A practice of men and
women bathing together was condemned by Hadrian, and afterwards by
Alexander Severus, but was only finally suppressed by Constantine."[1524]
The Council of Trullanum in 692 forbade the sexes to bathe together.[1525]
Other councils repeated the prohibition. This shows that Constantine did
not suppress the custom, nor did any other civil or ecclesiastical
authority do so. The ecclesiastics in Germany, from the eighth century,
condemned the custom of the sexes bathing together, but never could
control it.[1526] Christian men and women bathed together at Tyre in the
time of the crusades.[1527] All the authorities, beginning with Erasmus
(in the Colloquy, _Diversoria_), agree that bathing at a common bath
house was abandoned on account of syphilis. Leprosy, which was brought
from the East by the crusaders, had had less effect in the same
direction. In the sixteenth century there were other epidemics, and wood
became dear.[1528] The use of body linen and bed linen which could be
washed made bathing less essential to comfort and health.[1529] The
habit of seeing nudity was broken, and as it became unusual it became
offensive. Thus a concealment taboo grew up again. Rudeck[1530] is
convinced by these facts that "it was not modesty which made dress and
public decency, but that dress and the decay of objectionable customs
made modesty." He seems to be astonished at this conclusion and a little
afraid of it. It is undoubtedly correct. The whole history of dress
depends on it.
+469. Bathing in rivers, springs, and public bath houses.+ In the
fifteenth century it became the custom to bathe in rivers or at mineral
springs. Wealth, luxury, fashion, and new forms of vice attended this
change.[1531] The convents of the fifteenth century are described as
places of debauch.[1532] An English globe trotter of the beginning of
the seventeenth century describes the baths of Baden near Zurich, where
the old custom of the sexes bathing together had been modified somewhat,
but only for married women.[1533] If the custom of bathing together does
not still exist throughout Northern Europe, it must have been abolished
within a few years. Retzius[1534] describes it as existing in Finland in
1878, and many travelers have described the village bath houses of
Northern Russia and Scandinavia. Retzius says that the bath house is a
kind of sanctuary. Any misdemeanor committed there is considered far
more wicked than the same fault elsewhere. Here we see the mores raising
a special conventionalization to protect a custom which is expedient,
but which transgresses the usual taboo. The fact is that the complete
taboo on nudity in Central Europe is not over two centuries old. By
itself, nudity was not regarded as shameful or indecent. Therefore in
the bath, where it was in order, it was disregarded, just as now a
workmen's dress, an athlete's dress, or a bathing dress is disregarded.
During the centuries when the ecclesiastical authorities endeavored in
vain to stop the sexes from bathing together, it must be that public
opinion did not recognize in that usage any serious evil which called
for repression. The English now express surprise that the sexes at
American watering places go into the sea together, to which Americans
attach no importance at all. If Americans bathed in English bathing
dresses the sexes would speedily separate.
+470. Nudity.+ In early Christian drama Christ was represented by a
naked youth. Then he was represented by a youth who wore a breech cloth
only. In the sixteenth century, at Naples, in a representation of the
creation of Adam and Eve, the actors had only the privates covered. The
stage fell and many were hurt, which was held to show God's displeasure
at the show. The flagellants in the theater, in France, were represented
naked, as penitents.[1535]
+471. Alleged motives of concealment taboo.+ Herodotus says of the
Lydians and almost all barbarians that they considered it shameful for
one man to be seen by another naked.[1536] The Jewish sect, the Essenes,
concealed part of the body from the sun, as the "all-seeing eye of God,"
even in the bath. The Jew might not uncover the body in the face of the
temple. The rules of the Essenes for bodily necessities were such that
those necessities could not be satisfied on the Sabbath.[1537] At Rome
"_oppedere_, _mingere_, _cacare_ towards persons or statues belonged to
the grossest marks of contempt, and were so employed more than we
think."[1538] Patursson[1539] bathed with aborigines near the mouth of
the Ob. They would not bare the body below the waist and were shocked at
his immodesty because he was not so scrupulous.
+472. Obscenity.+ Another topic in this group of subjects, obscenity, is
still harder to treat within the limits set by our mores. It offers
still more astounding proofs that the folkways can make anything
"right," and that our strongest sentiments of approval or abhorrence are
given to us by the age and group in which we live. The tabooed parts of
the body are not to be seen. It is obscenity when they are exposed to
sight. We have already noticed, under the head of decency, a great range
of conventions in regard to things and acts which are set aside from all
the common activities of life. We have seen that there is no ultimate
and rational definition of the things to be tabooed, no universal
agreement as to what they are, no philosophical principle by which they
are selected; that the customs have had no uniformity or consistency,
and that those usages which we might suppose to be referable to a taboo
of obscenity have an entirely different motive, while the notion of
obscenity does not exist. There is no "natural" and universal instinct,
by collision with which some things are recognized as obscene. We shall
find that the things which we regard as obscene either were not, in
other times and places, so regarded, any more than we so regard bared
face and hands, or else that, from ancient usage, the exhibition was
covered by a convention in protection of what is archaic or holy, or
dramatic, or comical. In primitive times goblinism and magic covered
especially the things which later became obscene. Facts were accepted
with complete naïveté. The fashion of thinking was extremely realistic.
The Japanese now cannot understand how facts can be made shameful. They
have very exact and authoritative conventions which every one must obey,
but the conventions are practical and realistic. They serve purposes;
they do not create an unreal world of convention.[1540] This is the
extreme view of realism and nature. As has been shown above, however, so
soon as objects were attached to the body for any purpose whatever, the
conventional view that bodies so distinguished were alone right and
beautiful was started, and all the rest of the convention of ornament
and dress followed.
+473. Obscene representations for magic.+ The Indians on the Shingu
river, Brazil, wear little or no clothing.[1541] They have full suits
for dancing, but the tabooed organs are represented on the outside of
these artificially and of exaggerated size. Evidently it was not the
purpose of the dress to conceal organs the sight of which was
tabooed.[1542] In Central Borneo, in order to drive off evil spirits,
rough figures of human beings are cut in wood, the tabooed organs being
exaggerated. Those organs are the real amulets which exorcise demons,
for they are often cut on the timbers of the houses without the rest of
the figure. Then, by further derivation, such representations became
purely ornamental on houses, weapons, etc.[1543] The Egyptians used
representations of what were later tabooed organs as hieroglyphics, and
in their conversation admitted no taboo. Pictures in the tombs of the
Twentieth Dynasty (1180-1050 B.C.) show the lack of any taboo, and there
are inscriptions by them which show an absence of any restriction on
realism.[1544] This is evidently the naïve realism of children who have
not yet learned any conventions. Reproduction and growth have direct
connection with food supply, and abundance of reproduction means joy of
life and merriment, with good cheer for men. Consequently the most
matter-of-fact interest of man was intertwined with all the reproductive
energies in nature. The popular and comic _mimus_ of the Greeks is
traced back to ritual acts of magic, in which the corn demons or growth
demons are represented at work, making the reproduction and growth of
the crops. The ritual was sympathetic magic, and it was securing the
food supply. What was desired was success in agriculture, and the
husbandman in his choice of rites, symbols, and emblems was entirely
realistic. The growth demons, when they appear in art, are vulgar
figures of an exaggerated sensual type. They were meant to suggest
reproductive vigor, exuberance, and abundance. The tabooed organs are
represented in various ways, but always obtrusively and with
exaggeration. The demons wear an artificial phallus outside the dress,
which fits the figure tightly.[1545] The ritual developed into the
Dionysiac rites and orgies, the main idea of which was to rejoice with
the reproductive agencies of nature, to present them dramatically to the
mind, and to stimulate hope and industry. In Greece these primitive
rites of sympathetic magic in agriculture developed into the comic
drama, and the demons became stereotyped figures of comedy, always
recognizable by their masks (faces of a vulgar type), exaggerated hips,
and above all by the phallus. The demon turned into the clown or
buffoon, but the phallus was kept as an emblem of his rôle, like the
later cap and bells of the fool, until the fifth century of the
Christian era in the West, and until the fall of the Byzantine empire.
In the Hellenistic period the clown took the rôle of the Olympic god,
and wore the phallus. The Phlyakes in lower Italy had the same emblem
and it was worn in the atellan plays of the Romans.[1546] In the early
Christian centuries the Christian martyr wore the emblem in the comedy,
since that rôle was always represented by the simpleton or clown.
Ecclesiastical persons also were represented with it, since the buffoon
always wore it, whatever his rôle. It also passed to the _karagoz_
(shadow play) of the Turks and to the _pantin_ puppets of the Javans. In
the comedy of Hindostan the phallus disappeared.[1547] In Egypt, at
least as late as the first half of the nineteenth century, a masked
figure marched at the head of the bride's procession at a wedding with
the same symbol and indecent gestures.[1548]
+474. Infibulation.+ It appears that athletes in Greece bound the organ
and tied it up to the girdle in a manner closely resembling the
primitive suspensorium. The comedians wore a leathern apron with a large
false organ of red leather on the outside. It became a sign of the trade
of boxers, athletes, gymnasts, and comedians to bind the organ and tie
it up, whereby it was twisted into a horn shape. The purpose was to
protect it from injury, and it furnishes suggestion as to the purpose of
the primitive suspensorium. The concealment was very imperfect and the
notion grew up that the part concealed ought to be concealed, but no
more. The Romans thought it indecent to lack the foreskin, and the Jews
endeavored to conceal this lack. Infibulation was practiced in two
ways,--by a ring through the prepuce or by a bandage around it. It was
thought to prevent vice and preserve the voice of prophets, singers,
etc. A seventeenth-century traveler, Walter Schultze of Haarlem, is
quoted, who describes an ascetic sect in Persia who renounced wine,
lived on gifts, and foreswore marriage. They were infibulated with a
ring.[1549]
+475. Was the phallus offensive?+ For more than two thousand years the
most obscene figure we know was used by the clown in popular farce and
by athletes as an emblem of their profession. It raised a laugh, but was
not otherwise noticed. An interesting question arises whether there ever
was any protest against it, or any evidence that anybody thought it
offensive. The passage in Aristophanes' _Clouds_ (530) has been so
interpreted. It appears, however, that in that passage the author is
comparing his comedy with that of others. He has admitted, he says, no
low tricks appealing to vulgar tastes, no phallus which would make the
boys laugh, no lascivious dance, no scurrilous stories, and no
"knock-down business." This is not a criticism of the phallus on grounds
of obscenity, but on grounds of buffoonery. In the _Acharnians_ (243 and
259) are matter-of-fact references to the phallus worn by the actor, as
he might have referred to his mantle. Other cases occur which are not so
outspoken. In the _Lysistrata_ the mention of the phallus in connection
with the motive of the play is of the last degree of vulgarity. We
cannot find that any Greeks, Romans, or Byzantines protested against
these exhibitions of the phallus, which to us are so obscene. The
_mimus_ was the lowest and most popular kind of theatrical exhibition,
and it was in it that the use of the phallus was most constant. Even
Christian preachers who denounced the _mimus_ as demoralizing, and who
specified in detail what they found objectionable in it, never mention
the display of obscene things. All people were accustomed to the phallus
as the archaic symbol of the servants of Dionysus.[1550] Christian
preachers would have made no allowance for it on that account,--rather
the contrary,--and they would not have refrained from objecting to it on
account of the archaic, or artistic, or traditional element, if they had
disapproved of it. It must be that everybody was indifferent to it.
The twin pillars which were common in front of Semitic temples and which
stood before the temple at Jerusalem are interpreted as phalli.[1551]
+476. Phallus as amulet.+ At Rome the phallus was an amulet and was worn
by all children. The figure, therefore, cannot have been an obscene one.
In the Roman gardens also were ithyphallic figures which appear to bear
witness to a survival of the growth-demon idea, or to usages which
originated in the growth-demon idea, and were perpetuated traditionally
without knowledge of the original meaning. On mediæval churches figures
were often carved, as an expression of naïve ideas and faiths, and in
pure realism, which were frankly obscene. Paintings and stained glass
often represented similar objects. In the second half of the sixteenth
century such objects were removed, or covered, or modified. It may be
that the notion of obscenity developed sooner in respect to literature
than in respect to art. Susemihl[1552] suggests that the lost tales of
Miletus may have been obscene, and also the tales of Paxamos, and that
their disappearance may be due to a war on them on this account.
Literature would furnish food to the mind. It would not deal with fact.
The popular judgment seems long to have refused to admit that facts of
structure and function which were universally human could be put under a
taboo and made improper to be known and seen. What is familiar tends to
remain in our overconsciousness only. The same is true of what offends
one's taste and from which one averts attention, although it cannot be
caused to cease, like profane language. The cases of toleration of what
would now be considered obscene are to be explained in this way.
+477. Symbols in Asia.+ "In ancient times obscene symbols were used
without offense to denote sex."[1553] Such symbols were very common in
western Asia. They are very common now in India. A Chinese woman's foot,
an Arab woman's face, a Tuareg man's mouth, is obscene to persons
educated in any one of those taboos, because it always is, and ought to
be, concealed. It is not obscene to us. On the other hand, the lingam in
India is obscene to us, but not to Hindoos who have never learned any
taboo in regard to it. An egg or a seed might have been made obscene in
some group on account of its connection with reproduction, if that
connection had been developed in dogma and usage. An Englishman would
never think of the garter as unseemly, but non-English men and women
have thought it such. The crucifix shows us how conventionalization and
familiarization set aside all the suggestion which an artifact really
carries. The figure of a naked man dying in torture is purely horrible
and repulsive. No one could get edification from an artistic
representation of a man hanging on the gallows. Many people overlook so
much of the crucifix and add so much in imagination that they get great
edification from it. The language used in the communion about eating the
body and drinking the blood of Christ refers to nothing in our mores,
and appeals to nothing in our experience. It comes down from very remote
ages, very possibly from cannibalism.[1554] If we heard that the Chinese
or Mohammedans had a religious custom in which they used currently the
figure of eating the body and drinking the blood of a man (or god), and
if we had no such figure of speech in our own use, we should consider it
shocking and abominable.
+478. The notion of obscenity is modern.+ It is evident that the notion
of obscenity is very modern. It is due to the modern development of the
arts of life and the mode of life under steam and machinery. The
cheapening and popularization of luxury have made houses larger,
plumbing cheaper, and all the apparatus of careful living more
accessible to all classes. The consequence is that all the operations
and necessities of life can be carried on with greater privacy and more
observation of conventional order and decorum. Then the usages and
notions grow more strict and refined. It is only in poverty that
exposures and collisions occur which violate decency and involve
obscenity. Therefore the standards and codes of all classes have risen,
and the care about dressing, bathing, and private functions, for the
sexes and for children, has been intensified. Out of this has come the
notion of what is obscene, as the extreme of indecency and impropriety.
What we call obscene was, in ancient times, either a matter of
superstition or a free field for jest. The conventionalization in favor
of what is amusing must always be recognized. It has always entered into
comedy in the theater. A jest will not cover as much now as it once
would, but it still goes far. The ancient mythology long covered
obscenity in drama. When Hephæstus caught Ares and Aphrodite in his net
the gods all enjoyed the joke. The goddesses did not come to see the
sight.[1555] The difference between the masculine and feminine judgment
as to whether a thing is funny or shameful is well drawn. Hera insisted
to Zeus that their conjugal familiarity should not be seen.[1556] The
young women served the men in the bath, but Odysseus feared to anger
Nausikaa if he exposed himself to her (although it is not certain that
this was on account of his nakedness), and when she walked through the
town with him she knew well what would shame her.[1557] Odysseus also
asked the women to withdraw while he bathed.[1558] The mores were in
flux and were contradictory. The interpretation of the text is not
beyond question. It may not have been nakedness which caused shame, but
the dirt and disorder of person produced by shipwreck. Various
philosophies claim to have brought in the greater care and refinement of
more recent times, but not one of them can show the documentary proof
that the men of a time, at that time, showed revolt against the mores of
that time in regard to this matter. What has happened is that, in modern
times, steam and machinery, with the increase of capital and of power
over nature which they have produced, have given social power to the
lower middle class, as the representatives of the masses. This has
brought into control the mores of those classes, which were simple,
unluxurious, philistine, and comparatively pure, because those classes
were forced to be frugal, domestic, careful of their children,
self-denying, and relatively virtuous, on account of their limited
means. The arts of life never can be the same for the poor and the rich.
Wealth is often charged with introducing luxury and vice, but that
tendency is offset by its giving command over the conditions of life,
which makes refined usages possible.
+479. Propriety.+ The rules of propriety apply to all the acts of life,
but especially to those which take place in the presence or neighborhood
of others; still more especially to those which affect others. A large
section of such rules deals with the ordinary intercourse of persons of
the two sexes, and regulates details of the sex taboo which are less
important. Crawley gives a list of cases[1559] in which brother and
sister, father and daughter, are separated by the sex taboo. A woman of
the Omaha tribe, whether married or not, if she walked or rode alone
would ruin her reputation as a virtuous woman. She may ride or walk only
with her husband or near kinsman. In other cases she gets another woman
to go with her. Young men are forbidden to speak to girls, if they meet
two or more on the road, unless they are akin.[1560] A chief never ate
with his guests amongst the tribes on the upper Missouri. He sat by and
served them, meanwhile preparing the pipe to be smoked afterwards.[1561]
Junker[1562] was warned that, in passing a princess in Buganda, he must
not touch her robe of oxhide, for that would be an insult to her. If a
woman of the Mongbottu gives coloring matter to a man, that is undue
familiarity and will occasion the wrath of an offended husband.[1563] An
Andaman Islander, if he has occasion to speak to a married woman older
than himself, must do it through a third person. He must not touch his
younger brother's or cousin's wife, or his wife's sister. Women are
restricted in the same way as to the husband's elder brother, or male
cousin, or his brother-in-law.[1564] The relations of relatives in law
are a chapter in propriety.
+480. Seclusion of women.+ In modern Korea women are secluded. It is not
proper to ask for them. Women have been put to death by fathers or
husbands, or are reported to have committed suicide, when strange men,
by accident or design, have touched their hands. A servant woman gave as
a reason for not saving her mistress from a fire in the house that she
had been touched by a man, in the confusion, and was not worth
saving.[1565] In China, if a foreigner asks about the ladies, he is
taken to refer to the mother, not the wife, of the Chinaman.[1566] A
young wife is not allowed, amongst the southern Slavs, to address
comrades in the great-family house by their names, "out of modesty." She
gives them special names, adopted for her intercourse with them. She is
guilty of great impropriety if she chats with her husband in the
presence of her parents-in-law.[1567]
+481. Customs of propriety.+ A native of the Naga Hills told an
Englishman that it was not the correct thing to use a poisoned
arrow except to shoot it at a woman.[1568] On the Palau Islands,
and amongst all Moslems,[1569] it is an insult to a man to ask
him about the health of his wife, and any man may strike with a
stick or a stone, not with a cutting weapon, any one who utters
the former's wife's name. Women are treated with extreme
formality. A man who surprises one bathing is fined. This occurs
very rarely, since the men utter cries of warning when
approaching the place.[1570] In German Melanesia a visitor is at
once presented with betel and food, but he immediately gives some
of it back to the inmates of the house as security against
poison.[1571] The Indians of Central America are shocked at the
quick actions and loud talking habitual to Europeans, and think
them signs of a lack of breeding and of the low level of European
culture. Some tribes allow no singing, which they consider a sign
of drunkenness.[1572] An Ossetin (Caucasus) will never take his
child on his arm or caress it in the presence of another,
especially of an older person, or his own father or mother. If he
did do so, no one would shake hands with him, and any one might
with impunity spit in his face. Propriety forbids the Tushins (of
the same region) to manifest tenderness, even when old, towards
husband or wife, parent or child, in the presence of others;
especially is it improper to show tenderness towards sons.[1573]
An Ossetin man may see his betrothed only in secret and
incidentally, or in the house of one of his own relatives. It is
a gross insult to ask him about her health, or when the wedding
will be. A married woman may not address her husband or male
relatives by their names. If she does so, the other women will
ridicule her. Other people in the same region have similar
excessive rules. An Armenian woman, after marriage, is veiled.
She must not talk with any one but her husband, sisters, or
little children. She answers her parents-in-law by signs. Her
husband ought not to call her by her name before others. A
Cherkess wife may talk with her husband only at night. His
presence in her room by day is thought improper, and it is
improper for man and wife to be seen together outside the house,
or to be seen talking together. A newly married woman, among the
Grusians, must not speak to her husband's father, mother, or
brothers until she has borne a child. A childless wife is not
treated with respect by her husband, or his family, or even by
outsiders.[1574] Darinsky explains that the community used to buy
the wives, who were costly, and not equal in number to the men.
Now, if a man gets a wife and children of his own, he commits a
crime against the old order. He must be well off, and he leaves
his poorer brethren in the lurch. They envy and annoy him. To
escape this he conceals or ignores his relation to his wife and
children.
+482. Moslem rules of propriety.+ To a great extent the legislation of
Mohammed consisted in accomplishing reforms and innovations for which
the Arabs were almost ready. When he tried to introduce ideas of his
own, changing the mores, he failed. He tried many times to put a stop to
the usages of mourning which were violent and excessive,--loud outcries,
destruction of clothes and furniture, blackening the walls of the house
and one's face, and shearing the beard. He did not succeed. These were
ancient and popular customs and they were maintained.[1575] It is
improper for any Moslem, male or female, to uncover the head.[1576] They
uncover the feet to show respect. This was Semitic and is
Oriental.[1577] Robertson Smith[1578] thinks that the reason was that
the shoes could not be washed, unless they were mere linen socks, such
as were used in the Phoenician sacred dress. By Moslem rules strangers
should never see or hear a man's wives. Physicians may see only the
affected parts of a woman. A traveler returning home may not enter his
own house at night. Two persons of the same sex must never bare the body
between the waist and the knee in presence of each other. The
Koran[1579] contains elaborate rules for women as to the concealment of
parts of the body, and as to movements of the body and gestures as
limited by propriety. Neatness, care, and order are religious duties;
also devices to preserve and enhance beauty.[1580] To an Arab, a blow on
the back of the neck is more insulting than one on the face.[1581] It is
not proper for a man to look any Moslem woman in the face. When Vambery,
talking to a lady, raised his eyes to her face she sternly told him to
behave with propriety.[1582]
+483. Hatless women.+ In contrast with the Moslem rule not to uncover
the head is the Christian rule that men should uncover the head in
church but that women should cover it. In 1905 Cranstock church in
Newquay, Cornwall, England, was closed on account of the "irreverence of
numbers of women, who, walking uncovered, presume to enter God's house
with no sign of reverence or modesty upon their heads." A rule was
adopted at Canterbury, in the same year, that no hatless women should be
allowed in the cathedral. A reason or authority for this rule is said to
be found in 1 Cor. xi. 4-7. An American church paper said that such a
rule would half empty some American churches in the warmer
latitudes.[1583] A rector at Asbury Park, August 17, 1905, rebuked women
for coming to church without hats, and said that the bishop of the
diocese had asked the clergy to enforce the rule that "women should not
enter the consecrated building with uncovered heads." Russian Jewish
women at Jerusalem, being forbidden to wear veils, wear wigs, lest they
may "dishonor" their heads by uncovering them.[1584]
+484. Rules of propriety.+ The Kabyles of northern Africa are
warlike, but have little political organization. Although they
are Moslems, they have, by an ingenious use of Moslem law about
pious gifts for charitable uses, preserved their own ancient
mores about women's property, against the Moslem law. A bride, on
leaving her home, is lifted on her mule by a negro, if there is
one in the village. There is great rejoicing at the birth of a
boy, and the mother is congratulated and decorated. When a girl
is born there is silence. A man is fined if he slaughters an
animal and eats meat except on a market day, because it would
pain his neighbors to see him eat meat when they could not get
it.[1585] The Kabyles have very strict rules as to sex propriety
and decency of language. Any violation of propriety in the
presence of a woman, or of a man accompanied by one of his female
relatives, calls for especial punishment. The presence of a woman
protects her husband from violence by a creditor, and in general
imposes peace and decorum.[1586] As a mark of respect for a man
with whom she is talking, a Tuareg woman will turn her back to
him, or draw a fold of her garment over her mouth.[1587] The
Kalmucks consider that a man without his girdle is in extreme
undress. He never shows himself before old people without his
girdle.[1588]
+485. Hindoo ritual of the toilet, etc.+ According to ancient Hindoo
custom, younger brothers should in all matters yield to elder
brothers.[1589] Brahmins use only the left hand for all acts of the
bodily toilet. They have a very elaborate ritual for all such acts, and
consider their houses defiled by the presence of Europeans who do not
observe any such ritual. They remove shoes on entering a house on
account of the impurity of leather.[1590] It is not good manners amongst
them to address the women of the house, or to ask for them. If a woman
takes a man's arm in public she is supposed to be his mistress.
Gallantry is never displayed. A wife would resent it as disrespectful,
fit only for a woman of another grade. Only courtesans, dancers, and
harlots are taught to read, sing, or dance. An honest woman would be
ashamed to know how to read. Brahmins regard the use of the pocket
handkerchief with the same disgust which a European feels for the Hindoo
use of the fingers which European laborers practice. Hindoos clean the
teeth with a fresh twig every day, and are horrified that Europeans do
it with a brush made of the hair of an animal, and do it frequently with
the same brush. There are days on which one must not brush the teeth on
pain of hell. "Saliva is of all things the most utterly
polluting."[1591] For a woman to have to part with her hair is one of
the greatest of degradations and the most terrible of all trials. Hindoo
women never use false hair if they lose their own.[1592] Women are safe
and are treated with respect in public. The honor of a Hindoo requires
that he look no higher than the ankles of a passing woman.[1593] He must
not touch a woman. If many men and women meet, for instance in
traveling, they may lie down side by side to sleep without
impropriety.[1594] Not one man in a hundred in India ever tasted liquor,
"but a Hindoo beggar may not eat bread made with yeast or baked by any
but Hindoos of his own or a better caste."[1595] The Angharmi of
northeastern India consider it a reproach for a woman to bear a child
before her hair is long enough to be tied behind. Until marriage the
women shave the head. Spouses are therefore separated for a year after
marriage.[1596]
Modern Egyptians think it improper for a man to "describe the features
or person of a female (as that she has a straight nose or large eyes) to
one of his own sex, by whom it is unlawful that she should be
seen."[1597] Modern Sicilian peasants at their balls dance in couples of
men and couples of women, "such an idea as a man putting his arm around
a woman's waist in a waltz being considered indecent."[1598]
+486. Greek rules of propriety.+ Nausikaa disregarded the lack of dress
of the shipwrecked when they needed help, but she had a complete code of
propriety and good manners with which she compelled them to
comply.[1599] In the Greek tragedies modest and proper behavior for
women is characterized by reserve, retirement, reluctance. They ought
not to talk publicly with young men or to expose themselves to the gaze
of men. They may not run out into the street with hair and dress
disordered, or roam about the country, or run to look at sights.
Clytemnestra told Iphigenia to be reserved with Achilles if she could be
so and win her point, but to win her point. Iphigenia considered it a
cause of shame to her that her proposed marriage was broken off.
+487. Erasmus's rules.+ Erasmus wrote a book of manners for a youth, his
pupil. He said that the teeth should be cleaned, but that it was girlish
to whiten them with powder. He thought it excessive to rinse the mouth
more frequently than once in the morning. He thought it lazy and
thieflike to go with one's hands behind one's back. It was not
well-mannered to sit or stand with one hand in the other, although some
thought it soldierly.[1600]
+488. Eating.+ Special occasion for rules of propriety is offered
by eating. In Melanesia and Polynesia men and their wives remain
in a great measure strangers to each other. They lead separate
lives. Women have their lodgings, meals, work, and property
separate.[1601] Perhaps it is a consequence that the rule
becomes established that men and women should never see each
other eat.[1602] The Varua of Central Africa put a cloth before
the face while drinking, in order not to be seen, especially by
any woman.[1603] On Tanna (New Hebrides) a woman may not see a
man drink _kava_.[1604] A man on the Andaman Islands may not eat
with any women except those of his own household, until he is
old. The unmarried of each sex eat by themselves.[1605] Amongst
the old Semites it was not the custom for a man to eat with his
wife and children. In northern Arabia "no woman will eat before
men." Some Southern Arabs "would rather die than accept food at
the hands of a woman."[1606] There is also a widespread notion
that one should not be seen to eat by anybody. The Bakairi are
ashamed to see or to be seen eating.[1607] In northern Abyssinia
people when eating are concealed. At a wedding feast the guests
break up into little groups of four to six, who eat separately,
each group covered by a sheet.[1608] The king of Loango covers
his mouth with a garment to eat or drink, in order to keep up an
ancient rule that no one may see him eat or drink.[1609] The
Sudanese think that disease or death would follow if any one
should see them take food.[1610] No Hindoos like to be looked at
while eating. "I never once saw a single Hindoo, except of the
lowest caste, either preparing or eating cooked food of any
kind."[1611] If a man of inferior caste enters the kitchen where
food is being prepared all must be thrown away. If food thus
contaminated was eaten it would taint the souls as well as the
bodies of the eaters, and would cost long and painful expiation.
Schwaner[1612] reports that the Dyaks withdrew "modestly" when he
was about to eat. That the cycle of variation may be complete, we
find one case of people (Kafans) who may not take food or drink
without the presence of a legal witness, an adult of the same
people duly authorized. The chief has a slave who discharges the
duty of witness. He must be called at night if the chief has to
take medicine. A stranger must conform to the rule. Spouses must
eat and drink together, from the same dish or cup. To violate
this rule is a reason for divorce.[1613] The best explanation of
the rules about eating in private is the fear of the evil eye,
i.e. the envious or admiring eye of a hungry man, which would
bewitch the food.
+489. Kissing.+ Kissing is another occasion for special rules of
propriety. In China and Japan kissing is regarded with disgust. It is
unknown amongst Polynesians, Malays, negroes, and Indians of South
America.[1614] They rub noses, or bite, or smell, instead. It is said of
a Samoan girl, also, that she "looks upon kissing with disgust."[1615]
So far apart may human beings be racewise in their judgment of what is
pleasant or disgusting! In Europe, in the Middle Ages, the custom of
kissing was very extended. Newcomers were saluted with kisses; also
partners in the dance. A bishop kissed the wife of Rudolf of Hapsburg
when receiving her, but he was banished until Rudolf died.[1616] From a
fifteenth-century sermon it is learned that a young lady of rank in
France, at that time, would rise in the midst of divine service,
incommoding everybody, in order to kiss on the mouth a cavalier who
entered the church at that time.[1617] The custom of kissing became more
general in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but discussion about
it shows that there was some doubt whether it was expedient. "The mores
won a victory over philosophy."[1618] In modern times Europeans have
taught half-civilized and barbarian peoples the custom of kissing. The
Hottentots, for instance, in their zeal to imitate Europeans, have
adopted this custom.[1619]
+490. Politeness, etiquette, manners.+ Politeness, courtesy, and good
manners are usages, but they rise to the level of the mores when they
become a part of the character of a people, for then they produce
characteristic traits which affect all societal relations.[1620]
Uncivilized people often pay punctilious attention to rules of etiquette
about salutations, visits, meetings, the aged, etc. As all their rules
are imperative and admit of no discussion or exception, they constitute
a social ritual which may educate in certain sentiments, although it is
by no means sure to do so. The functions of politeness and etiquette
exist in order to make things go smoothly in all social contact.
Orientals have very thorough training in this department. They have
systems of good manners which have been practiced for thousands of
years. The Chinese Li-ki ("Ritual of Propriety") dates from the
beginning of the Christian era. It is an elaborate text-book of correct
conduct in all affairs of life. It is of universal application, except
for details of the mode of life in China, and it shows the value of such
a code and the use of the habits it inculcates. Chinese and Japanese are
well-disciplined people in all the matters of conduct and social contact
which are controlled by the mores.
From this point on it will be noticed that the codes to be mentioned are
further removed from the sex mores.
+491. Good manners.+ The Andamanese of all classes show great
consideration for the very young, weak, aged, or helpless.[1621] A white
man gave liquor to a native man on the Chittagong hills. The latter
insisted on giving some of it to the women first, but they required much
urging before they would take it.[1622] The Samoans have very polished
manners. They had a court language.[1623] The Betsileo on Madagascar
have a careful etiquette about the houses of their chiefs, about proper
conduct in those houses, and about the utensils there; also words are
reserved for chiefs which others may not utter.[1624] In East Africa any
violation of etiquette towards a chief is summarily and severely
punished, sometimes by death.[1625] Many an A-Sande has lost a finger or
his life for an innocent word spoken to the wife of a chief.[1626] The
Tunguses of Siberia have so much habitual politeness that Wrangell
called them "the French of the tundra."[1627] The Yakuts think it bad
manners to give a big piece of meat to a poor guest and a little piece
to a rich one. Good breeding, according to their code, calls for the
opposite conduct.[1628] A Fuegian husband, giving an order to his wife,
out of courtesy tells her to give the order to some one else, although
there is no one else.[1629] Amongst North American Indians the modes of
sitting or squatting for each sex are strictly prescribed.[1630] Sapper
says of the Central American Indians that when the white man asks a
question he often gets no answer because he has neglected something
required by etiquette. He once on a journey asked a Kekchi Indian to ask
the way of an Indian whom they saw coming. This was improper, because
not any one in the company might ask that question, according to Kekchi
etiquette, but only the leader of the company.[1631] Schweinfurth[1632]
rates the Dinka above Turks and Arabs in respect to table manners and
decorum of eating. All recline on the ground around a bowl of food, each
with a gourd cup in his hand, but they manage this primitive arrangement
with constant care for propriety.
+492. Etiquette of salutation, etc.+ The modes of expressing good will
and the etiquette of meeting or visiting would be another large section
under this head. What things are possible is shown by the report that a
Tibetan host at a feast "expressed his respect for us and his
appreciation of our remarks by rising to his feet and extending his
tongue at full length."[1633]
+493. Literature of manners and etiquette.+ Denecke[1634] is able to
trace an indigenous cultivation of good manners by literature from the
eleventh century, when there was taught courtesy to women, although not
the woman cult of a later time. He mentions a series of books down to
the nineteenth century, which inculcated good manners according to the
changing notions and standards of the times. In the second half of the
thirteenth century it was taught in von Lichtenstein's _Frauenbuch_, a
manual of manners and morals for women, that a woman should not salute a
knight at his approach lest he infer favor. She was to be covered like a
nun; she did not share in banquets and did not kiss guests whom she
received; she shunned outside festivities and kept a good name. Knights
then neglected women because they cared only for rude pleasures, drink,
and hunting. Later, rules were made for the conduct of men.[1635] The
history of manners shows that what was inculcated in books never became
real practice. The conquest of the art of eating with propriety was
accomplished by the introduction of forks. Before that the bread was a
tool with which to eat, and it required cultivated skill to handle it
properly. Salt and mustard still presented problems,--knife or fingers?
Each one brought his own knife.
+494. Honor, seemliness, common sense, conscience.+ Honor, common sense,
seemliness, and conscience seem to belong to the individual domain. They
are reactions produced in the individual by the societal environment.
Honor is the sentiment of what one owes to one's self. It is an
individual prerogative, and an ultimate individual standard. Seemliness
is conduct which befits one's character and standards. Common sense, in
the current view, is a natural gift and universal outfit. As to honor
and seemliness, the popular view seems to be that each one has a
fountain of inspiration in himself to furnish him with guidance.
Conscience might be added as another natural or supernatural "voice,"
intuition, and part of the original outfit of all human beings as such.
If these notions could be verified, and if they proved true, no
discussion of them would be in place here, but as to honor it is a
well-known and undisputed fact that societies have set codes of honor
and standards of it which were arbitrary, irrational, and both
individually and socially inexpedient, as ample experiment has proved.
These codes have been and are imperative, and they have been accepted
and obeyed by great groups of men who, in their own judgment, did not
believe them sound. Those codes came out of the folkways of the time and
place. Then comes the question whether it is not always so. Is honor, in
any case, anything but the code of one's duty to himself which he has
accepted from the group in which he was educated? Family, class,
religious sect, school, occupation, enter into the social environment.
In every environment there is a standard of honor. When a man thinks
that he is acting most independently, on his personal prerogative, he is
at best only balancing against each other the different codes in which
he has been educated, e.g. that of the trades union against that of the
Sunday school, or of the school against that of the family. What we
think "natural" and universal, and to which we attribute an objective
reality, is the sum of traits whose origin is so remote, and which we
share with so many, that we do not know when or how we took them up, and
we can remember no rational selection by which we adopted them. The same
is true of common sense. It is the stock of ways of looking at things
which we acquired unconsciously by suggestion from the environment in
which we grew up. Some have more common sense than others, because they
are more docile to suggestion, or have been taught to make judgments by
people who were strong and wise. Conscience also seems best explained as
a sum of principles of action which have in one's character the most
original, remote, undisputed, and authoritative position, and to which
questions of doubt are habitually referred. If these views are accepted,
we have in honor, common sense, and conscience other phenomena of the
folkways, and the notions of eternal truths of philosophy or ethics,
derived from somewhere outside of men and their struggles to live well
under the conditions of earth, must be abandoned as myths.
+495. Seemliness.+ Honor, common sense, and conscience can never be
predicated of groups except by a figure of speech. The case with
seemliness is different. That also is an individual trait. It is lighter
and less definable than honor and propriety. The individual alone must
decide what it is fitting for him to do or refuse to do. He will get his
standards for this decision from his nearest social environment.
Seemliness, however, can be predicated of a society. A civilized state
may act in a seemly or unseemly manner, that is, in a way worthy of its
history and character, or the contrary. Also the people of a group, in
their unorganized acts, can obey unworthy motives and yield to impulses,
groupwise, which are beneath the level of culture which they really have
obtained, or belong to policies which are narrower than those by which
they pretend to act.
+496. Cases of unseemliness.+ The Assyrians were fierce, cruel,
bloodthirsty, and pitiless. They have left, cut in the hardest
stone,--it must have been by immense labor,--pictures of cruel tortures
and executions and of immense slaughters. A king is represented putting
out the eyes of prisoners. What the pictures reveal is the lust of
conquest, the delights of revenge, and the ecstasy of tyranny. After
Assurbanipal took Susa he broke open the tombs of the old heroes of
Elam, who had in their day defeated the Assyrians. He desecrated the
tombs, insulted the monuments, and carried the bones away to Nineveh. It
was believed that the ghosts of these dead heroes would suffer the
captivity inflicted on their bones, and sacrifices were made to them
just sufficient to prolong their existence and suffering. This policy
was pursued with all the ingenious refinements which the dogmas
suggested, in order to glut the vengeance of the Assyrian king.[1636]
The Babylonians were peaceful and industrial, but the Persians combined
with great luxury and licentiousness a fiendish ingenuity in torture and
painful modes of execution. It is very interesting to notice in Homer
criticism of conduct from the standpoint of taste and judgment as to
what is seemly.[1637] Homer thought it unseemly for Achilles to drag the
corpse of Hector behind his chariot. He says that the gods thought so
too.[1638] He disapproved of the sacrifice of twelve Trojan youths on
the pyre of Patroclus.[1639] In the poems there are recorded many
unseemly acts. Achilles spurned the prayer of Hector that his body might
be redeemed, and wished that he could eat part of the body of his
conquered foe. The Greeks mutilated the corpse with their weapons.[1640]
Agamemnon and Ajax Oileus cut off the heads of the slain.[1641] Odysseus
ordered twelve maidens who had been friends to the suitors to be put to
the sword. Telemachus hanged them. Melantheus, who had traitorously
taken the suitors' side, was mutilated alive, member by member.[1642]
Odysseus tells Eurykleia that it is a cruel sin to exult over a dead
enemy, but the heroes often did it. This doctrine expresses the better
sense of the age, but a doctrine which was beyond their self-control
when their passions were aroused. The Olympian household must be taken
to represent the society of the time, especially if we throw out the
stories of the violations of the sex taboo which were often myths of
nature processes or survivals of earlier mores. The Olympian gods show
no dignity, magnanimity, or moral earnestness. They entertain mean
sentiments of jealousy, envy, offended vanity, resentment, and rancor.
They are divided by enmities and feuds. The females are frivolous and
shallow; their fathers and husbands are often angry with them for
levity, folly, disobedience, and self-will; but they have to remember
that the goddesses are females and make the best of it with a groan and
a laugh. The gods have great weakness for feminine grace and charm. They
make allowances for the women, pet them, and despise them. There is some
recognition of a possibly nobler relation of men to women, but it is
only a transitory ideal. The goddesses get into difficulties by their
intrigues and follies, but they avail themselves to the utmost of their
feminine privileges to escape the penalties. They fool the gods. It
reminds us of a modern French novel. We meet with the same sentiments,
maxims, and philosophy. What were the gods for? They were superfluous
and useless, or mischievous, but theology taught that they kept the
whole thing going. They dealt meanly with men. Athena took the form of
Deïphobus in order to persuade Hector to meet Achilles and be
killed.[1643] They sent dreams to men to mislead them. What can men do
against that? They mixed in the fights of men, but availed themselves of
their godship, if things went against them, and especially in order to
get revenge for defeat. There was no chivalry or nobility of mind or
behavior. It is plain that the gods are not idealized men. They are
worse than the men. Von der March[1644] has collected evidence that the
heroes were savage, cruel, cowardly, venal, rancorous, vain, and lacking
in fortitude, when compared with German epic heroes. It is far more
important to notice that this evidence proves that the Greeks did not
have, and therefore could not ascribe to the gods, a standard of
seemliness above what these traits of the picture disclose. Since that
is so, it follows that the standard of what is fit, seemly, becoming,
good form, is a function of the folkways, or rather of class ways, since
it is only selected classes who cultivate seemliness. Seemliness is a
light, remote, and less important form of propriety. It is a matter of
taste, and taste is cultivated by the folkways.
+497. Greek tragedies and notions of seemliness.+ We think it unseemly
to criticise the ways of Divine Providence, and we refrain from it,
whatever we may think. Since Christianity is no longer imposed by pains
and penalties, we think it unseemly to assail Christianity in the
interest of a negative or destructive philosophy. The Greeks of the
fifth century B.C. had not these notions. They upbraided the gods for
their ways to men and for their vices. The antagonisms of the mores were
antagonisms of gods. In the _Eumenides_ the most tragic consequences
follow from the antagonism of the mores of the mother and father family.
The Furies do not insist on the duty of Orestes to kill his mother, in
blood revenge for the murder of his father, because they belong to the
old system, in which the son was of the mother's blood; but Apollo, the
god of the new system, orders it. A new doctrine of procreation has to
be promulgated. "The mother does not procreate the son; she only bears
and cherishes the awakened life." [Here we see how the doctrines are
invented afterwards to fit the exigencies of new folkways.] Orestes
obeys Apollo and is a victim. Since the command comes from a god, how
shall the man not obey? To us it is a simple case of a common tragedy,
that an individual is the victim of a great social movement. In the
_Herakleidæ_, Alcmena urges that a war captive be slain. The king of
Athens forbids that any one be slain who was taken alive. The former
prevailed. The Athenian doctrine was new and high and not yet current.
In the _Ion_ Ion tells Zeus and Poseidon that if they paid the penalties
of all their adulteries they would empty their temple treasuries. They
act wrongly when they do not observe due measure in their pursuit of
pleasure. It is not fair to call men wicked when they imitate the gods.
Let the evil examples be blamed. In the _Andromache_ horror is expressed
of the folkways of the barbarians, in which incest is not prevented. In
the _Medea_ Jason, who is a scoundrel and a cur, prates to Medea about
her gain in coming to Greece: "Thou hast learned what justice means, and
how to live by law, not by the dictates of brute force." She had not
learned it at all--quite the contrary. In the _Hekuba_ it is said to be
a disgrace to murder guests in Greece, and in _Iphigenia amongst the
Taurians_ the same doctrine is stated when Greeks are to be the victims
of the contrary rule. "Barbarian" was a cultural category. To be Greek
was to have city life with market place, gymnastic training, and a share
in the games.[1645] These were arbitrary marks of superiority such as
the members of an esoteric corporation always love, but the time came
when the Greek history contained so many shameful things that the Greeks
ceased to talk of the contrast with barbarians. It was proposed to
Pausanias that he should repay on the corpse of Mardonius the insults
inflicted by Xerxes on the body of Leonidas. He indignantly
refused.[1646] The old laws of war put the life and property of the
vanquished, and their wives and children, at the mercy of the
conquerors, but the Greeks, when the Peloponnesian war began, felt the
shame of this law as between Greeks. Therefore they sinned against their
own better feeling when in that war they enslaved and slaughtered the
vanquished. That they knew better is shown by the conduct of the
Athenians towards Mytilene, in 427. At first all adult males were
sentenced to death, and the women and children to slavery, but later
this sentence was revoked. Cases also occurred in which the law of war
was not followed, but the conquered were spared. By retaliation they
inflamed their own passions and went on from bad to worse until there
was a revulsion of pure shame. Lysander put to death three thousand
Athenians, captives, after the battle of Ægospotami, as reprisals for
the barbarities executed by the Athenians against Sparta and her allies.
The allies wanted to exercise war law on Athens, but Sparta would not
consent. To her then belongs the honor of fixing a new precedent. It was
her duty to do so after the act of Lysander. Beloch thinks that science
made the greater humanity of the fourth century.[1647] It is more
probable that it was due to a perception of the horror and shame of the
other course. The parties in the cities, in the later centuries, were
also guilty of excess, rancorous passion, revenge, and oppression. These
cases come under the head of unseemliness in so far as they show a lack
of sense of where to stop. That sense, especially in the political acts
of democracies, must be a resultant, in the minds of men of the most
numerous classes, from the spirit and temper of the folkways.
+498. Seemliness in the Middle Ages.+ In the Middle Ages very great
attention was given to seemliness in the private conduct of individuals.
Moderation especially was to be cultivated. Women were put under minute
rules of dress, posture, walk, language, tone of voice, and attitude.
The guiding spirit of the regulations was restraint and limit.[1648]
Public life, however, was characterized by great unseemliness, and the
examples of it are especially valuable because they show how necessary a
sense of seemliness is to prevent great evils, although the virtue
itself is vague and refined, and entirely beyond the field of positive
cultivation by education or law. When the crusaders captured Mohammedan
cities they showed savage ferocity. A case is recorded of a quarrel
between a man of rank and a cook. The former proceeded to very extreme
measures, and the cook, since he was a cook, could get no redress or
attention.[1649] In the fifteenth century a rage for indecent conduct
arose. The type which the Germans call the _Grobian_ was affected.
Rudeness of manners in eating, dancing, etc., was cultivated as a pose.
This fashion lasted for more than a century. In 1570 a society was
formed of twenty-seven members, who swore to be nasty, not to wash or
pray, and to practice blasphemy, etc. When drunk such persons committed
great breaches of order, decency, etc.[1650]
+499. Unseemly debate.+ The folkways of the Middle Ages were fantastic
and extravagant. The people had their chief interest in the future
world, about which there could be no reality. They lived in a world of
phantasms. The phantasms were dictated to them upon authority in the
shape of dogmas of world philosophy and precepts of conduct. In
discussing the world philosophy and its application they attained to
extremes of animosity and ferocity. Whether Jesus and his apostles lived
in voluntary beggary; whether any part of the blood of Jesus remained on
earth; whether the dead went at once, or only at the judgment day, into
the presence of God,--are specimens of the questions they debated. The
unseemliness was in the mode of discussion, not in the absurdity of the
subject. They all went into the debate understanding that the defeated
or weaker party was to be burned. That was the rule of the game. All the
strife of sects and parties was carried on in unseemly ways and with
scandalous incidents. The lack of control, measure, due limit, was due
to the lack of reality. Torture, persecution, violent measures, would
all have been impossible if there had been a sense of seemliness. The
punishments, executions, and public amusements grossly outraged any
human and civilized taste. The treatment of the Templars, although it
was no doubt good statecraft to abolish the order, was a scandalous
outrage. In the face of Christendom torture was used to extort the
evidence which was wanted to destroy the order, without regard to truth
and justice.[1651] The crusades were extravagant and fantastic, and were
attended by incidents of shameful excess, gross selfishness, venality,
and bad faith. It is one of the most amazing facts about witch
persecutions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that jurists did
not see the unseemliness of their acts compared with the civilization of
the period and the character claimed by their states. How was it
possible for grave, learned, and honest men to go on torturing and
burning miserable old women? It is not until the end of the seventeenth
century that we hear of sheriffs in England who refused to burn witches.
One of the most unseemly incidents in history is the execution of
Damiens for attempting to kill Louis XV. The authorities of the first
state in Christendom multiplied tortures of the extremest kind, and
caused them to be executed in public on the culprit. The treatment of
the Tories in the American Revolution was unseemly. It left a deep stain
on our history.
+500. Unseemliness of lynching, torture, etc.+ It is an unseemly thing
and unworthy of our age and civilization that persons should be lynched
for alleged crime, without the trial and proof which our institutions
provide for. The arguments in defense of lynching (except on the
frontier, where civil institutions do not yet exist) never touch on this
point. It is unseemly that any one should be burned at the stake in a
modern civilized state. It is nothing to the purpose to show what a
wicked wretch the victim was. Burning alive has long been thrown out of
the folkways of our ancestors. The objection to reviving it is not an
apology for the bad men or a denial of their wickedness: it is the
goodness of the lynchers. They fall below what they owe to themselves.
Torture has also long been thrown out of our folkways. It might have
been believed a few years ago that torture could not be employed under
the jurisdiction of the United States, and that, if it was employed,
there would be a unanimous outburst of indignant reprobation against
those who had so disgraced us. When torture was employed in the
Philippines no such outburst occurred. The facts and the judgment upon
them were easily suppressed. The recognition of Panama was unseemly. It
was unworthy of the United States. It was defended and justified by the
argument that we got something which we very earnestly wanted.
+501. Good taste.+ Finally we may notice here also the matter of taste.
Good taste is the most subtle of all the codes of judgment which are
cultivated by the mores. What we now consider good taste was violated in
the dramas of the Greeks and Romans. This is entirely aside from
obscenity or vulgarity. For instance, it does not appear that the author
of the _Medea_ appreciated the dastardly conduct of Jason. De
Julleville[1652] says that in the thirteenth century no one knew the
distinction between good and bad taste. The assertion is fully
justified. The mediæval people may have had good taste in architecture,
stained glass, and hammered iron (as we are told), but their literature,
administration of justice, and politics show that they lacked good
taste, and also the case shows what a high protection against folly and
error good taste is. This last office it shares with the sense of humor.
The sports of that age were cruel. People found fun in the sufferings of
the weak under derision and abuse. "The Middle Ages did not shrink from
presenting as funny situations which were painful or atrocious, the
horror of which we to-day could not endure." Although the age was full
of religiosity, the extravagances of which ought to have been restrained
by good taste, if it had existed, there was, on the other hand, no true
reverence for what were "sacred things." The churches were put to uses
which would to-day be considered improper. Parodies and caricatures of
ecclesiastical persons, institutions, and ritual called out no
remonstrance. Mock sermons were a favorite form of monologue in a
theatrical entertainment. In a morality produced late in the fifteenth
century, called _Les Blasphémateurs_, the actors tortured and wounded
the figure on a crucifix. The Virgin and two angels came down to catch
in a cup the blood which miraculously flowed from the body, but the
actors kept on. "The hideous scene is interminable." Personalities were
employed beyond all decent toleration, not only in theological disputes,
but in political conflicts of all kinds. Of course the fanaticism of the
age accounts for the extravagance of the acts and doctrines, and good
taste seems to be only a trivial defense against fanaticism, but good
taste consists largely in a sense of due limits, and if there had been a
good code of social usage tempered by taste, it would have prevented
many of the greatest scandals in the history, especially the church
history, of the period. Buffoons had a share in the great "moralities,"
although they did not have a rôle in the action. Their function was to
interject comical comments from time to time. The comments aimed to be
witty, but were generally gross, coarse, and obscene. Late in the
fifteenth century, in France, a buffoon recited a prelude containing
licentious jests to an edifying morality called _Charity_.[1653]
+502. Whence good taste is derived.+ Good taste is a more delicate and
refined philosophy of action than any which have been mentioned above.
It would escape from any attempt to formulate it, more completely than
propriety or politeness. It floats in the ways of the group, and is
absorbed by those who grow up in it. It is a product of breeding. We
have a well-worn saying that there is no disputing about it. That is
true, but for equal reason there is no disputing about decency,
propriety, obscenity, or sex taboo. Good taste is a product of the
group. It is absorbed from the group. Like honor, however, it calls for
an individual reaction of assent and dissent, and becomes an individual
trait or possession in the form which it ultimately takes.
+503. The great variety in the codes.+ All the topics which have been
treated in this chapter are branches or outreachings of the social code.
They show how deep is the interest of human beings in the sex taboo, and
in the self-perpetuation of society. Men have always tried, and are
trying still, to solve the problem of well living in this respect. The
men, the women, the children, and the society have joint and several
interests, and the complication is great. At the present time
population, race, marriage, childbirth, and the education of children
present us our greatest problems and most unfathomable mysteries. All
the contradictory usages of chastity, decency, propriety, etc., have
their sense in some assumed relation to the welfare of society. To some
extent they have come out of caprice, but chiefly they have issued from
experience of good and ill, and are due to efforts to live well. Thus we
may discern in them policies and philosophies, but they never proceed to
form any such generalities as do rationally adopted motives. There is
logic in the folkways, but never rationality. Given the premises, in a
notion of kin, for instance, and the deductions are made directly and
generally correctly, but the premises could never be verified, and they
were oftener false than true. Each group took its own way, making its
own assumptions, and following its own logic. So there was great variety
and discord in their policies and philosophies, but within the area of a
custom, during its dominion, its authority is absolute; and hence,
although the usages are infinitely various, directly contradictory, and
mutually abominable, they are, within their area of dominion, of equal
value and force, and they are the standards of what is true and right.
The groups have often tried to convert each other by argument and
reason. They have never succeeded. Each one's reasons are the tradition
which it has received from its ancestors. That does not admit of
argument. Each tries to convince the other by going outside of the
tradition to some philosophic standard of truth. Then the tradition is
left in full force. Shocking as it must be to any group to be told that
there is no rational ground for any one of them to convert another group
to its mores (because this seems to imply, although it does not, that
their folkways are not better than those of other groups), yet this must
be said, for it is true. By experience and science the nations which by
name are Christian have reached ways which are better fitted, on the
whole, for well living than those of the Mohammedan nations, although
this superiority is not by any means so complete and sweeping as current
opinion in Christian countries believes. If Christians and Mohammedans
come together and argue, they never make the slightest impression on
each other. During the crusades, in Andalusia, and in cities of the near
East where they live side by side, they have come to peace, mutual
respect, and mutual influence. Syncretism begins. There is giving and
taking. In Egypt at present the Moslems see the power of the English to
carry on industry, commerce, and government, and this observation
produces effect on the folkways. That is the chief way in which folkways
are modified or borrowed. It was by this process that Greeks and Romans
influenced the folkways of barbarians, and that white men have
influenced those of negroes, Indians, Polynesians, Japanese, etc.
+504. Morals and deportment.+ Different groups and different ages have
differed much in the place in the social codes in which certain subjects
have been placed; that is, for instance, as to whether the treatment of
women by men should be put under morals, or under manners, or under good
taste; whether public exhibitions deserved more attention than
deportment, etc. For instance: "There is hardly a word, in the
instructions of Plutarch, upon schools and schooling, but he alludes
casually to the strange scenes which boys were allowed to
witness,--criminals dressed up with robes and crowns, and presently
stripped and publicly tortured; paintings of subjects so objectionable
that we should carefully explain to the child the distinction between
art as such and art as a vehicle of morals. On the other hand,
deportment was strictly watched: for example, it was the rule not to use
the left hand unless it were to hold bread at dinner, while other food
was taken with the right; to walk in the street without looking up; to
touch salt fish with one finger; fresh fish, bread, and meat, with two;
to scratch yourself thus; to fold your cloak thus."[1654]
+505. The relation of the social codes to philosophy and religion.+
Amongst the widest differences of opinion would be that on the question
whether the social codes issue out of and are enthused by philosophy or
religion. We are told that "for most men, actions stand in no necessary
connection with any theoretical convictions of theirs, but are, on the
contrary, independent of the same, and are dominated by inherited and
acquired motives."[1655] Why is this not true? Also, "the antagonism
between the principles of our religion and our actual behavior, even of
the faithful, as well as the great difference in the ethical views of
different peoples who profess the same religion, sufficiently proves
that the motives of our acts, and our judgments on the acts of others,
proceed primarily from practical life [i.e. from the current mores], and
that what we believe has comparatively little influence on our acts and
judgments."[1656] Religion and philosophy are components of the mores,
but not by any means sources or regulators of them.
+506. Rudeck's conclusions.+ A recent German writer on the history of
public morality[1657] says of the moral development of the German people
that one cannot bear to contemplate it, because the people face the
facts with absolute indifference. There is not a trace of moral
initiative or of moral consciousness. Existing morality presents itself
to us as a purely accidental product of forces which act without sense
or intelligence. We can find all kinds of forces in history except
ethical forces. Those are entirely wanting. There is no development, for
development means the unfolding and growth of a germ according to the
elements which it contains. The people allow all kinds of mores to be
forced on them by the work of their own hands, that is, by the economic
and political arrangements which they have adopted. The German people
has no subjective notion of public morality and no ethical ideal for
public morality. They distinguish only between good and bad mores
(_Sitten und Unsitten_), without regard to their origin.
+507.+ Rudeck's book is really a chapter in the history of the mores.
The above are the conclusions which seem to be forced upon him, but he
recoils from them in dismay. The conclusions are unquestionably correct.
They are exactly what the history teaches. They ought to be accepted and
used for profit. The fact that people are indifferent to the history of
their own mores is a primary fact. We can only accept it and learn from
it. It shows us the immense error of that current social discussion
which consists in bringing "ethical" notions to the criticism of facts.
The ethical notions are figments of speculation. Criticism of the mores
is like criticising one's ancestors for the physique one has inherited,
or one's children for being, in body and mind, one's children. If it is
true of the German people that there is no moral initiative or
consciousness in their tone and attitude towards their mores, they are
to be congratulated, for they have kept out one great influx of
subjective and dogmatic mischief. Other nations have a "nonconformist
conscience" or a party of "great moral ideas," which can be caught by a
phrase, or stampeded by a catching watchword with a "moral" suggestion.
"Existing morality _does_ present itself as a purely accidental [i.e.
not to be investigated] product of forces which act without sense or
intelligence," but the product is in no true sense accidental. It is
true that there are no ethical forces in history. Let us recognize the
fact and its consequences. Some philosophers make great efforts to
interpret ethical forces into history, but they play with words. There
is no development of the mores along any lines of logical or other
sequence. The mores shift in endless readjustment of the modes of
behavior, effort, and thinking, so as to reach the greatest advantage
under the conditions. "The people allow all kinds of mores to be forced
on them by the work of their own hands," that is, by the economic and
political arrangements which have been unconsciously forced on them by
their instinctive efforts to live well. That is just what they do, and
that is the way in which mores come to be. "The German people has no
subjective notion of public morality and no ethical ideal for public
morality." Nor has any other people. A people sometimes adopts an ideal
of national vanity, which includes ambition, but an ethical ideal no
group ever has. If it pretended to have one it would be a humbug. That
is why the introduction of "moral ideas" into politics serves the most
immoral purposes and plays into the hands of the most immoral men. All
ethics grow out of the mores and are a part of them. That is why the
ethics never can be antecedent to the mores, and cannot be in a causal
or productive relation to them. "The German people distinguishes only
between customs and abuses [_Sitten und Unsitten_] without regard to
their origin." They are quite right to do so, because the origin is only
a matter for historians. For the masses the mores are facts. They use
them and they testify that they are conducive to well living (_Sitten_),
or the contrary (_Unsitten_). The men, women, and children who compose a
society at any time are the unconscious depositaries and transmitters of
the mores. They inherited them without knowing it; they are molding them
unconsciously; they will transmit them involuntarily. The people cannot
make the mores. They are made by them. Yet the group is at once makers
and made. Each one may put into the group life as much as he can, but
the group will give back to him order and determination from which he
cannot escape. The mores grow as they must grow under the conditions.
They are products of the effort of each to live as well as he can, and
they are coercions which hold and control each in his efforts to live
well. It is idle to try to get outside of this operation in order to
tell which part of it comes first and makes the other. "Our age presents
us the incredible spectacle that the dependence of the higher social
culture on the economic development is not only clearly recognized by
social science, but is proclaimed as the ideal." Social science does not
proclaim this as an ideal. It does not deal in ideals. It accepts the
dependence of culture on economic development as a fact. In fact, Rudeck
is not justified in saying (p. 426) that "culture is the unity of the
moral will in all the life phenomena of a people," and that "that people
alone is a culture people which sets before itself, as the purpose of
its entire existence, the production of the greatest possible amount of
specified moral qualities." These are notions of culture and of a
culture people which an ethical philosopher might think it fine should
be. Rudeck has just found that no such things ever have existed in
Germany; yet Germany possesses culture and the Germans are a culture
people. He is really complaining that these fine ethical notions have
never had any place in history. Such being the case, the true inference
would be that they are unrealities and ought to be discarded altogether.
Rudeck can find, in the eighteenth century, only one act of the state
which had an improving effect on "external morals." That was the
abolition of obscene playing cards, and this improving effect was not
won intentionally, but as an incidental consequence of a tax which was
imposed for revenue. The case is interesting and instructive. It is thus
alone that the state acts. It needs revenue and lays a tax. Other
consequences follow. Sometimes "moral" consequences follow. The Methuen
treaty caused Englishmen to drink port instead of claret for a hundred
and fifty years, to the great increase of gout and drunkenness. The
statesman might well be appalled if he should realize that he probably
never can lay a tax without effects on industry, health, education,
morals, and religion which he cannot foresee and cannot control. In the
case of the cards, the consequence was favorable to good morals. That
consequence was the purest accident. The state went on its way and got
its revenue. The people met the effect through the mores and made the
best of it, just as they did with the effects of the Methuen treaty. The
cases are useful for a statesman to consider, when he needs to get
revenue and the question by what taxes to get it is yet in his mind and
_before_ him. When he has decided and acted it remains only to take the
consequences, for, through the mores, they will enter into the web of
life which the people are weaving and must endure. That web contains
all the follies and errors, just as well as all the wisdom and all the
achievements, of the past. The whole inheritance passes on together,
including all the luck.
[1380] Ammianus Marcellinus, XXVIII, 4.
[1381] Darmstetter, _Zend-Avesta_, I, 100.
[1382] Marsden, _Sumatra_, 52.
[1383] Curr, _Austr. Race_, I, 109.
[1384] _Borneo's Wester-Afdeeling_, 251.
[1385] JAI, XII, 94, 135.
[1386] Schultz, _D. L._, 283.
[1387] Sieroshevski, _Yakuty_ (_Polish_), 342.
[1388] Holm, _Angmagslikerne_, 54.
[1389] Fritsch, _Eingeb. Süd-Afr._, 444.
[1390] _Amer. Antiq._, XXIV, 77.
[1391] _Une Femme chez les Sahariennes._
[1392] Bancroft, _Races of the Pacific_, I, 123; II, 676.
[1393] Kubary, _Soc. Einricht. der Pelauer_, 51, 55, 91.
[1394] _Palau_, 65, 324.
[1395] Cf. Christian, _Caroline Isl._, 290.
[1396] JAI, XV, 8; _U. S. Nat. Mus._, 1888, 339.
[1397] Duveyrier, _Touaregs du Nord_, 340, 429.
[1398] Rubruck, _Eastern Parts_, 79, Rockhill's note.
[1399] Sprenger, _Geographie Arabiens_, 97.
[1400] Probably 31° E. 13½° N.
[1401] Wilson and Felkin, _Uganda and Sudan_, II, 309.
[1402] _On Tranquil._, 17.
[1403] _Nich. Ethics._, IV, 9.
[1404] _Ethik_, 127.
[1405] _Umschau_, VI, 52, after Haeckel, _Aus Insulinde_.
[1406] Goodrich-Frear, _Inner Jerusalem_, 257.
[1407] _Il._, XIV, 179; cf. _Od._, XVI, 416; XVIII, 210.
[1408] Vambery, _Sittenbilder aus dem Morgenlande_, 49.
[1409] Duveyrier, _Les Touaregs du Nord_, 391.
[1410] _Une Femme chez les Sahariennes_, 310.
[1411] _Berl. Mus._, 1888, 199.
[1412] Nieuwenhuis, _In Centraal Borneo_, I, 48.
[1413] Zimmer, _Altind. Leben_, 196.
[1414] Wellhausen, _Skizzen und Vorarbeiten_, III, 194.
[1415] Herodotus, I, 100.
[1416] Ratzel, _Hist. of Mankind_, II, 444.
[1417] Von Kremer, _Kulturgesch. des Orients_, II, 247, 250, 269.
[1418] _De Civilit. Morum Pueril._, I, 3, 9, 10.
[1419] Genesis iii. 7.
[1420] _Berl. Mus._, 1888, 431; cf. 191, 192, 195; also _Globus_,
LXXV, 6; Ratzel, _Völkerkunde_, I, 225, 298; _Berl. Mus._, II,
Plates II, III, XIII, XIV; Hutchinson, _Living Races_, 59; _Jhrb.
d. Dtschen Archeolog. Instit._, 1886, 295.
[1421] Waitz (_Anthrop._, VI, 567 ff.) gives a number of cases
from the islands of the Pacific.
[1422] _Globus_, LXXIX, 197.
[1423] Krieger, _Neu Guinea_, 373.
[1424] No ethnographic evidence is known to exist to prove that
there is an original sentiment of disgust in regard to the organs
(Ellis, "Evolution of Modesty," _Psychol. Rev._, VI, 134).
[1425] _Anthrop._, VI, 575-576.
[1426] Budge, _Gods of the Egyptians_, II, 284.
[1427] Roth, _Queensland Aborig._, 114.
[1428] JAI, XXIII, 368.
[1429] _Berl. Mus._, 1888, 173.
[1430] Holm, _Angmagslikerne_, Plates VII, XX, XXII.
[1431] _Afr. Cent._, 155.
[1432] Fritsch, _Eingeb. Süd-Afr._, 230, 311, 349.
[1433] _N. S. Amer. Anthrop._, II, 470.
[1434] Sieroshevski, _Yakuty_ (_russ._), 562, 570.
[1435] Weinhold, _D. F._, I, 164.
[1436] _U. S. Nat. Mus._, 1888, 257.
[1437] _Races of Man_, 172.
[1438] _Illustrations of China_, II, No. 39.
[1439] Lane, _Mod. Egyptians_, I, 69, 266.
[1440] JAI, XIV, 123.
[1441] _Ztsft. für Ethnol._, XXVIII, 170.
[1442] _Berl. Mus._, 1888, 65.
[1443] Lewin, _Wild Races of S. E. India_, 87.
[1444] _Austral. Bush_, 350.
[1445] Johnston, _Uganda Protect._, 765.
[1446] _Deipnosophists_, XII, 14.
[1447] _Austral. Race_, 99, 183.
[1448] _Uganda and Sudan_, I, 223.
[1449] JAI, XIII, 290.
[1450] Spencer and Gillen, _Cent. Austral._, 471.
[1451] Finsch, _Ethnol. Erfahr._, I, 92; II, 298.
[1452] Semper, _Palau Ins._, 68.
[1453] Ling Roth, _Sarawak_, I, 133.
[1454] JAI, XXIV, 292.
[1455] _Afr. Cent._, 55, 264.
[1456] _Sahara and Sudan_, II, 590.
[1457] Johnston, _Uganda Protect._, 37, 114, 642, 685.
[1458] _Ibid._, 728, 730.
[1459] _Papuas_, 169.
[1460] Puini, _Origine della Civiltà_, 147.
[1461] _Globus_, LXXVI, 306.
[1462] Vannutelli e Citerni, _L'Omo_, 294, 305.
[1463] Fritsch, _Eingeb. Süd-Afr._, 59.
[1464] _Globus_, LXXXV, 73, 311.
[1465] Holub, _Sieben Jahre in Süd-Afr._, II, 293.
[1466] Wilson and Felkin, _Uganda and Sudan_, II, 53.
[1467] Ratzel, _Hist. of Mankind_, II, 469.
[1468] Ling Roth, _Tasmanians_, 21, 144.
[1469] JAI, XXI, 200.
[1470] _Berl. Mus._, 1885, 60.
[1471] Codrington, _Melanesians_, 321.
[1472] _Berl. Mus._, 1888, 193.
[1473] W. R. Smith, _Relig. of Semites_, 437. Whatever the
purpose of the loin cloth of the ancient Egyptians may have been,
it cannot have been decency. The monuments show men at work with
the loin cloth turned hindside foremost as if to save it from
wear (Meyer, _Egypt_, II, 116).
[1474] _Globus_, LXXVIII, 5.
[1475] Brunache, _Afr. Cent._, 207.
[1476] Johnston, _Uganda Protect._, 781.
[1477] Johnston, _Uganda Protect_, 853.
[1478] _Ibid._, 220.
[1479] Wilson and Felkin, _Uganda and Sudan_, II, 49, 96.
[1480] E.g. JAI, XXIV, 255, 281.
[1481] Spix and Martius, _Brasilien_, 1224; Martius, _Ethnog.
Brasil._, 388.
[1482] Schweinfurth, _Heart of Afr._, II, 104.
[1483] _Globus_, LXXXVIII, 89.
[1484] Schweinfurth, _Heart of Afr._, I, 152.
[1485] _South Africa_, II, 590.
[1486] Bock, _Reis in Borneo_, 78.
[1487] JAI, XIX, 391.
[1488] JAI, XXVIII, 208.
[1489] Paulitschke, _Ethnog. N. O. Afr._, I, 80.
[1490] Schmidt, _Ceylon_, 37.
[1491] _Gli Amori degli Uomini_, 40.
[1492] _Madras Gov. Mus._, II, 198.
[1493] _Ztsft. für Ethnol._, XIV, (181).
[1494] Baelz in _Ztsft. für Ethnol._, XXXIII, 178.
[1495] _Vererbung und Auslese_, 281.
[1496] Humbert, _Japan_, 269.
[1497] _Ibid._, 295, 334.
[1498] _Japan_, 13.
[1499] _Pacific Tales_, 276.
[1500] JAI, XXVI, 394.
[1501] Finsch, _Ethnol. Erfahr._, III, 26.
[1502] Schweinfurth, _Heart of Afr._, II, 98.
[1503] _Century Mag._, January, 1904.
[1504] JAI, XII, 135.
[1505] _Reisen in Siberien_, IV, 1429.
[1506] Holm, _Angmagslikerne_, 34, 50-56, 112, 117, 162.
[1507] _Scribner's Mag._, February, 1895.
[1508] _Bur. Ethnol._, V, 479.
[1509] Ratzel, _Völkerkunde_, II, 663.
[1510] _Globus_, LXXVIII, 272.
[1511] JAI, XXVII, 410.
[1512] Pereiro, _La Isla de Ponape_, 112.
[1513] _Reis in Borneo_, 39.
[1514] Powers, _Calif. Indians_, 55.
[1515] _Smithson. Rep._, 1885, Part II, 86.
[1516] _Hinduism_, 219.
[1517] Weinhold, _D. F._, II, 259; Schultz, _Höf. Leben_, II,
168.
[1518] Scherr, _D. F. W._, I, 191.
[1519] Lund, _Norges Historie_, II, 246, 380.
[1520] Scherr, _D. F. W._, I, 191.
[1521] Weinhold, _D. F._, II, 115.
[1522] D'Aussy, _Fabliaux_, IV, passim.
[1523] Weinhold, _D. F._, II, 114.
[1524] Lecky, _Eur. Morals_, II, 311.
[1525] Hefele, _Conciliengesch._, III, 310.
[1526] Weinhold, _D. F._, II, 117.
[1527] Prutz, _Kulturgesch. der Kreuzzüge_, 528 note.
[1528] Zappert in _Arch. für Kunde der Oester. Gesch.-Quellen_,
XXI, 41, 82, 132.
[1529] The queen of Charles VII of France (1422-1461) said that
she owned but two chemises of linen (Clement, _Jacques Coeur_,
246).
[1530] _Oeffentl. Sittlichkeit_, 399.
[1531] Schultz, _D. L._, 136.
[1532] Dulaure, _Hist. de Paris_, 268; Schultz, _D. L._, 277,
283; cf. Janssen, VIII, 391.
[1533] Coryate's _Crudities_, II, 244.
[1534] _Finska Kranier_, 118.
[1535] D'Ancona, _Origine del Teatro in Italia_ (1st ed.), I,
213, 218, 280, 375.
[1536] Herodotus, I, 10.
[1537] Lucius, _Essenismus_, 62, 68.
[1538] Grupp, _Kulturgesch. der Röm. Kaiserzeit_, I, 24; cf. sec.
211.
[1539] _Siberien i Vore Dage_, 146.
[1540] Hearn, _Japan_, 188-200.
[1541] Cf. sec. 462.
[1542] _Berl. Mus._, 1888, 199, 302.
[1543] Nieuwenhuis, _Centraal Borneo_, I, 146.
[1544] Erman, _Aegypten_, I, 223.
[1545] _Jhrb. des Dtschen Archaeolog. Instit._, 1886, 260; _Arch.
für Anthrop._, XXIX, 136.
[1546] On the connection of these see Bethe, _Gesch. des Theaters
im Alt._, 299 ff.
[1547] Reich, _Der Mimus_, I, 17, 29, 58, 93, 95, 258, 321, 496,
498, 626, 691, 733.
[1548] Burckhardt, _Arabic Proverbs_, 115.
[1549] Stieda, _Infibulation_, 23, 25, 36, 40, 44, 56, 66.
[1550] Reich, 503.
[1551] W. R. Smith, _Relig. of the Semites_, 457.
[1552] _Griech. Lit. in der Alexandrinerzeit_, II, 574.
[1553] W. R. Smith, _Relig. of the Semites_, 457.
[1554] _Bull., Soc. d'Anthrop. de Paris_, 1904, 404.
[1555] _Od._, VIII, 332.
[1556] _Il._, XIV, 334.
[1557] _Od._, III, 464; IV, 49; VI, 15, 109, 276; Keller, _Hom.
Soc._, 209.
[1558] _Od._, VI, 136.
[1559] JAI, XXIV, 444.
[1560] _Bur. Eth._, III, 365.
[1561] _Smithson. Rep._, 1885, Part II, 457.
[1562] _Afrika_, III, 633.
[1563] Burrows, _Land of Pygmies_, 85.
[1564] JAI, XII, 355.
[1565] Bishop, _Korea_, 341.
[1566] _Globus_, LXXVIII, 263.
[1567] _Ibid._, LXXXII, 192 ff.
[1568] JAI, XI, 199.
[1569] Pischon, _Einfluss des Islam_, 17.
[1570] Kubary, _Soc. Einrichtungen der Pelauer_, 73, 90.
[1571] Pfeil, _Aus der Südsee_, 48, 74.
[1572] _Globus_, LXXXVII, 129, 130.
[1573] Darinsky in _Ztsft. für vergleich. Rechtswssnsft._, XIV,
189.
[1574] _Russ. Ethnog._ (_russ._), 219, 225, 291, 340, 355, 358.
[1575] Von Kremer, _Kulturgesch. des Orients_, II, 250.
[1576] _Ibid._, 215.
[1577] Exod. iii. 5; Josh. v. 15.
[1578] _Relig. of the Semites_, 453.
[1579] Sura XXIV.
[1580] Tornauw, _Mosl. Recht._, 86.
[1581] Burckhardt, _Arabic Proverbs_, 1.
[1582] _Sittenbilder aus dem Morgenlande_, 16.
[1583] _The Churchman_, September 2, 1905, 343.
[1584] Goodrich-Frear, _Inner Jerusalem_, 57.
[1585] This explanation is no doubt a product of later
rationalization. The rule is a very ancient Semitic one, due to
the old connection between sacrifice and commensality. W. Rob.
Smith, _Relig. of the Semites_, 283.
[1586] Hanoteau et Letourneux, _La Kabylie_, II, and III, 190,
237, 240.
[1587] Duveyrier, _Les Touaregs du Nord_, 430.
[1588] _Russ. Ethnog._ (_russ._), II, 445.
[1589] Holtzmann, _Ind. Sagen_, II, 267.
[1590] Monier-Williams, _Brahmanism and Hinduism_, 396.
[1591] _Ibid._, 376.
[1592] _Ibid._, 375.
[1593] Nivedita, _Web of Indian Life_, 14.
[1594] Dubois, _Moeurs de l'Inde_ (1825), II, 280, 329, 332,
334, 441, 476, 480.
[1595] Nivedita, _Web of Indian Life_, 11.
[1596] JAI, XXVII, 27.
[1597] Lane, _Mod. Egyptians_, I, 265.
[1598] Alec-Tweedie, _Sunny Sicily_, 265.
[1599] _Od._, VI, 285.
[1600] _De Civilitate Morum Puerilium_, I, 1, 3, 5, 52, 54.
[1601] JAI, XXIV, 231.
[1602] Crawley gives a list of cases (JAI, XXIV, 435).
[1603] _Ibid._, 433.
[1604]_ Austral. Assoc. Adv. Sci._, 1892, 660.
[1605] JAI, XII, 344.
[1606] W.R. Smith, _Relig. of the Semites_, 279.
[1607] _Berl. Mus._, 1888, 66.
[1608] Bent, _Ethiopia_, 32.
[1609] Bastian, _Loango-Küste_, I, 262.
[1610] Junker, _Afrika_, I, 156.
[1611] Monier-Williams, _Brahmanism and Hinduism_, 128.
[1612] _Borneo_, II, 168.
[1613] Paulitschke, _Ethnog. N.O. Afr._, I, 248.
[1614] Martius, _Ethnog. Brasil._, 96.
[1615] Becke, _Pacific Tales_, 179.
[1616] Denecke, _Anstandsgefühl in Deutschland_, VII.
[1617] Lenient, _La Satire en France au M. A._, 310.
[1618] De Maulde la Clavière, _Femmes de la Renaissance_, 320.
[1619] _Globus_, LXXXV, 80.
[1620] See Mallory in _Amer. Anthrop._, III, 201.
[1621] JAI, XII, 93.
[1622] Lewin, _Races of S. E. India_, 311.
[1623] _Austral. Assoc. Adv. Sci._, 1892, 630.
[1624] JAI, XXI, 223.
[1625] _Ibid._, XXII, 119.
[1626] Junker, _Afr._, II, 481.
[1627] Hiekisch, _Tungusen_, 68.
[1628] Sieroshevski, _Yakuty_, (_russ._), I, 440.
[1629] _Scribner's Mag._, February, 1895.
[1630] _Globus_, LXXIII, 253.
[1631] _Globus_, LXXXVII, 128.
[1632] _Heart of Africa_, I, 157.
[1633] _Century Mag._, January, 1904.
[1634] _Anstandesgefühl in Deutschland._
[1635] Denecke, XII.
[1636] Maspero, _Peuples de l'Orient_, III, 436-439.
[1637] Professor Keller calls my attention to a number of words
used by Homer to subject conduct to this test of seemliness. It
seems to be for him the standard of right.
[1638] _Il._, XXII, 395; XXIV, 51.
[1639] _Ibid._, XXIII, 164.
[1640] _Ibid._, XXII, 338.
[1641] _Ibid._, XI, 147; XIII, 102.
[1642] _Od._, XXII, 441, 447.
[1643] _Il._, XXII, 226.
[1644] _Völkerideale_, I, Chap. I.
[1645] Burckhardt, _Griech. Kulturgesch._, I, 314.
[1646] Herodotus, IX, 78.
[1647] Beloch, _Griech. Kulturgesch._, I, 470, 594; II, 103, 107,
364, 441.
[1648] Weinhold, _D. F._, I, 159-168.
[1649] Schultz, _Höf. Leben_, II, 448.
[1650] Denecke, _Anstandsgefühl in Deutschland_, XXI.
[1651] Lea, _Inquis._, III, 238, 260, 319; Schotmüller, _Der
Untergang des Templer-Ordens_, I, 625.
[1652] _Comédie en France au M. A._, 21.
[1653] De Julleville, 21, 74, 86, 89, 107, 304.
[1654] Mahaffy, _The Greek World under Roman Sway_, 324.
[1655] Schultze-Gävernitz in Ammon, _Gesellschaftsordnung_, 117.
[1656] Schallmeyer, _Vererbung und Auslese_, 231.
[1657] Rudeck, _Gesch. der Oeffentl. Sittlichkeit in
Deutschland_, 422.
CHAPTER XII
INCEST
Definition.--Incest notion was produced from the folkways.--The
notion that inbreeding is harmful.--Status-wife, work-wife,
love-wife.--The abomination of incest.--The incest taboo is
strongest in the strongest groups.--Incest in ethnography.--
Incest in civilized states.--Where the line is drawn, and why.--
Human self-selection.--Restriction by biological doctrine not
sufficiently warranted.--Summary of the matter now.
+508. Definition of incest.+ Incest is the marital union of a man and a
woman who are akin within the limits of a prohibition current at the
time in the laws or mores of the group. The primitive notion of kinship
did not divide kinship into grades of remoteness as we do. Very often it
was counted by classes or age strata. In the totem system all the women
of his mother's totem were tabooed to a man, although their cousinship
to himself might be very remote. At the same time, he could marry his
father's sister's daughter, or his mother's brother's daughter, unless
his father and his uncle had married women of the same totem. Inasmuch
as a man and his wife must have different totems and the children took
the totem of their mother, a man might marry his own daughter. Generally
this was forbidden by supplementary rules, but in Buka and North
Bougainville it occurs not infrequently.[1658] The varieties of the
consanguinity taboo are very numerous. They are entirely different in
theory under the mother family and the father family. They are now very
different in different states of our Union.[1659] If the taboo on
marriage is not defined in terms of "blood" or assumed kinship,
violation of it is not incest. For instance, in the mediæval church, two
persons who had been sponsors in baptism to the same child might not
marry. Also, if two persons are debarred by affinity, violation is not
incest. In England a man may not marry his deceased wife's sister. If he
does it, his marriage is unlawful, but it is not incest. The definition
of incest must include the notion of a blood connection as blood
connection is understood in that group at the time. Other prohibitions
may be expedient, or may seem required by propriety (e.g. the marriage
of a man with his father's widow), but they do not come under incest.
Restrictions on marriage by kinship, as the people in question construed
kinship, go back to the most primitive society. Some very primitive
people have intricate restrictions, and they maintain them by the
severest social sanctions.
+509. Incest notion produced from the folkways.+ It is evident that
primitive people must have received a suggestion or impression of some
important interest at stake in this matter. They adopted taboos and
established folkways to protect interests. In time these taboos and
folkways won very great force and high religious sanction; also a sense
of abomination was produced which seemed to be a "natural" feeling.
There certainly is no natural feeling. The abomination is conventional
and traditional. The Pharaohs, Ptolemies, and Incas, also the
Zoroastrians, are sufficient to show that there is no reason for the
abomination in any absolute or universal facts. The sanctions by which
savage people sustained the taboo were the strongest possible,--exile
and death. Here we have, therefore, a social limitation of the greatest
force, sanctioned by religion and group consent and growing into an
abomination which has come down to us and which we all feel, but which
is a product of the most primitive folkways; and yet we do not know the
motive for it in the minds of primitive men. In the matter of
cannibalism we saw (Chapter VIII) that with advancing civilization a
taboo has been set up against a food custom which appears to have been
universal amongst primitive men; that is, we have reversed and hold in
abomination what they did. In regard to incest we have accepted and
fully ratified their taboo.
+510. Notion that inbreeding is harmful.+ This taboo and the reasons for
it are a complete enigma unless the primitive people had observed the
evils of close inbreeding. Inbreeding maintains the excellence of a
breed at the expense of its vigor. Outbreeding (unless too far out)
develops vigor at the expense of the characteristic traits. It is very
probable, but not absolutely certain, that inbreeding is harmful. Any
marriage between persons who have the same faults of inheritance causes
the offspring to accumulate faults and to degenerate. Close kinship
creates a probable danger that faults will be accumulated. This is a
logical deduction. Embryology, at present, seems to teach that there is
a combination and extrusion of germ units of such a kind that the
physiological process conforms only in a measure to this logical
deduction, and the historical-statistical verification of the harm of
inbreeding remains very imperfect. It is possible that at first, and
within limits, inbreeding is not harmful, but becomes such if repeated
often. Is it possible that the lowest savages can have perceived this
and built a policy on it? Morgan[1660] thinks that it is possible.
Westermarck[1661] thinks it beyond the mental power of the lowest races.
He thinks that, by natural selection, those groups which practiced
inbreeding for any reason died out or were displaced by those who
followed the other policy. He goes on to propose a theory that persons
who grew up, or who now grow up, in intimacy develop an instinctive
antipathy to sex relations with each other.[1662] While it is true that
primitive savages do not observe and reflect, it is also true that, in
their own blundering way, when their interests are sharply at stake,
they do observe, and they change their ways accordingly. Therefore they
appear to us at one time hopelessly brutish; at another time we are
amazed at their ingenuity and their mental activity (myths, legends,
proverbs, maxims). If the loss or pain is great enough, the savage man
is capable of astounding cleverness to escape it. After animal breeding
began men had ample opportunity to observe the effects of close
inbreeding. There is more doubt now about the penalties of inbreeding
than there is about the power of savage men to perceive them and try to
escape them, if they exist.
+511. Status-wife, work-wife, love-wife.+ In the primitive horde it
appears that there was a prescribed wife for each man, or the
classification was such that his choice was restricted to a very small
number. The prescribed wife was a status-wife. She alone could hold the
position of a true "wife." The man might also capture a woman abroad who
would be a worker, or work-wife, and she might win the man, so that she
became a love-wife. There would often be a comparison between the
children of the status-wife and the children of a work-wife or
love-wife, in which the latter would appear the more vigorous. If so,
there would be a school in which the advantages of outbreeding would
appear as a fact, although not explained.
+512. Abomination of incest.+ The taboos in the mores contain
prescriptions as to the allowable consanguinity of spouses. There is a
great horror of violating them. This sentiment is met with amongst
people who have scarcely any other notion of crime, or of right and
wrong. The rules are enforced by death or banishment as penalties of
violation. The notion of harm in inbreeding has spread all over the
earth. It has come down to ourselves. In the form in which it was held
by savage people it was mistaken to such a degree that they might, in
spite of it, practice close inbreeding. Our study of the mores teaches
us that there must have been, antecedent to this state of the mores in
regard to this matter, a long development of interests, folkways, rites,
and superstitions.[1663] It is believed, not without reason, that the
horde life would tend to run into grooves in which the prescribed wife
would be a close relative, in the final case a sister. Experience of
this might produce the rules of prohibition. The captured wife was also
a trophy, and the play of this fact on vanity would always tend to
disintegrate the system of endogamy. There are many reasons why endogamy
seems more primitive than exogamy, and it required force of interest,
superstition, or vanity to carry a society over from the former to the
latter. A calamity might come to reënforce the interest,[1664] but can
hardly be postulated to explain a custom so widespread. All the ultimate
causes of the law of incest, therefore, lie beyond our investigation.
They are open only to conjecture and speculation. The case is very
important, however, to show the operation of the mores on facts
erroneously assumed, and their power to work out their effects, as an
independent societal operation, without regard to error in the material
to which they are applied.
+513. Incest taboo strongest in the strongest groups.+ We shall see, in
the cases to be presented, that incest has a wider definition and a
stricter compulsion in great tribes, and in prosperity or wealth, than
in small groups and poverty. The definiteness of this taboo, and the
strictness with which it is enforced, seem to be correlative with the
energy of the tribal discipline in general and the vigor of the
collective life of the group. Wives can be got abroad, either by capture
or contract, only by those who command respect for their power or who
use power. On the other hand, endogamy is both cause and effect of
weakness and proceeds with decline. Some cases will be given below in
which incestuous marriages occur where the parties are unable to obtain
any other wives. Neglect of the incest taboo is rather a symptom than a
cause of group decline.
+514. Incest in ethnography.+ Martius says of the tribes on the
upper Amazon, in general, that incest in all grades is frequent
amongst them. In the more southern regions the taboo is stricter
and better observed. Amongst the former it is shameful for a man
to marry his sister or his brother's daughter. The usages are the
more strict the larger the tribe is. In small isolated groups it
frequently happens that a man lives with his sister. He heard of
two tribes, the Coërunas and the Uainumus, who observed little
rule on the subject. They were dying out.[1665] "Not seldom an
Indian is father and brother of his son."[1666] Effertz writes
that, amongst the Indians of the Sierra Madre, Mexico, incest
between father and daughter "is of daily occurrence," although
incest between brother and sister is entirely unknown. The former
unions are due to economic interest. The Indian tills small bits
of land scattered in the hills. He cannot exist without a woman
to grind corn for him. When he goes to a distant patch of land he
takes his daughter with him. He has but one blanket and the
nights are cold. If he has no daughter he must take another
woman, but then he must share his crop with her.[1667]
+515.+ The tribes of South Australia are "forbidden to have
intercourse with mothers, sisters, and first or second cousins.
This religious law is strictly carried out and adhered to under
penalty of death." The most opprobrious epithet for an opponent
in a quarrel is one which means a person who has sex intercourse
with kin nearer than second cousins.[1668] Some Dyaks are
indifferent to the conduct of their wives, and both sexes
practice sex vice, but they insist on drowning any one who
violates the taboo of incest.[1669] Other Dyaks (the Ot Danom)
have no notion of incest. The former are on the coast, the latter
inland. Hence it seems probable that the notion of incest came to
the Dyaks from outside.[1670] The Khonds practice female
infanticide, from a feeling that marriage in the same tribe is
incest.[1671] Cucis are allowed to marry without regard to
relationship of blood, except mother and son.[1672] The Veddahs
think marriage with an older sister abominable, but marriage with
a younger sister is prescribed as the best. Sometimes a father
marries his daughter; in other subdivisions a first cousin
(daughter of the father's sister or mother's brother) is the
prescribed wife.[1673] Mantegazza reports that father and
daughter, mother and son, are not rarely united amongst the
Anamites and that Cambodian brothers and sisters marry.[1674]
Amongst the Kalongs on Java sons live with mothers, and luck and
prosperity are thought to be connected with such unions. Not long
ago, on Minahasa in the Tonsawang district, the closest blood
relatives united in marriage; also on Timorlaut. The Balinese had
a usage that twins of different sex, in the highest castes, were
united in marriage. They could have no notion of incest at
all.[1675] The Bataks have a tradition that marriage between a
man and his father's sister's daughter was formerly allowed, but
that calamities occurred which forced a change of custom.[1676]
+516.+ The people of Teita, in East Africa, who are very dirty
and low, marry mothers and sisters because they cannot afford to
buy wives. They have been in touch with whites for fifty
years.[1677] The chiefs of the Niam Niam take their daughters to
wife.[1678] The Sakalava, on Madagascar, allow brother and sister
to marry, but before such a marriage the bride is sprinkled with
consecrated water and prayers are recited for her happiness and
fecundity, as if there were fears that the union was not pleasing
to the higher powers, and as if there was especial fear that
there might be no offspring. Such marriages are contracted by
chiefs who cannot find other brides of due rank.[1679]
+517.+ The Ossetes think a marriage with a mother's sister right,
but marriage with a father's sister is severely punished. They
have the strictest father family. Marriage with a father's
relative to the remotest cousinship is forbidden, but
consanguinity through the mother they do not notice at all.[1680]
The Ostiaks also have strict father family, and allow marriage
with any relative on the female side, but with none on the male
side. It is an especially fortunate marriage to take two sisters
together.[1681]
+518.+ Amongst the Tinneh, men sometimes marry their mothers,
sisters, or daughters, but this is not approved by public
opinion.[1682] As the Yakuts had no word for uterine brother and
sister but only for tribal brother and sister, the statements
about the taboo lack precision, but they care nothing for incest,
and it occurs. They laugh at the Russian horror of it. They
formerly had endogamy, and it is stated that brothers and sisters
married. Now they have exogamy between subdivisions of the
nation, but a girl's brothers never let her depart as a virgin,
lest she take away their luck.[1683] A Hudson Bay Eskimo took his
mother to wife, but public opinion forced him to discard
her.[1684] Marriages of brothers and sisters appear to have been
allowed formerly amongst the Mordvin, in central Russia. A case
is mentioned of a girl who was sent from home for a time, and on
her return given to her brother as his wife.[1685]
Langsdorff[1686] reported of the Aleuts on the island of Kodiak,
at the beginning of the nineteenth century, that parents and
children, brothers and sisters, cohabited there.
+519. Incest in civilized states.+ The ancient kings of Teneriffe, if
they could not find mates of equal rank, married their sisters to
prevent the admixture of plebeian blood.[1687] In the Egyptian mythology
Isis and Osiris were sister and brother as well as wife and husband. The
kings of ancient Egypt married their sisters and daughters. The doctrine
of royal essence was very exaggerated, and was applied with quantitative
exactitude. A princess could not be allowed to transmit any of it away
from the possessor of the throne. There is said to be evidence that
Ramses II married two of his own daughters and that Psammetik I married
his daughter. Artaxerxes married two of his daughters.[1688] The
Ptolemies adopted this practice. The family married in and in for
generations, especially brothers and sisters, although sometimes of the
half-blood. "Indicating the Ptolemies by numbers according to the order
of their succession, II married his niece and afterwards his sister; IV
his sister; VI and VII were brothers and they consecutively married the
same sister; VII also subsequently married his niece; VIII married two
of his own sisters consecutively; XII and XIII were brothers and
consecutively married their sister, the famous Cleopatra." "The line of
descent was untouched by these intermarriages, except in the two cases
of III and VIII." The close intermarriages were sterile. The line was
continued by others.[1689] The Peruvian Incas, but not other Peruvians,
married their sisters.[1690] In the Vedic mythology the first man and
king of the dead, Yama, had his sister, Yami, to wife. In a hymn these
two are represented as discussing the propriety of marriage between
brother and sister. This shows the revolt of later mores against what
once was not tabooed.[1691] The scholars think that Herodotus (III, 31),
by his story of the question whether Cambyses could marry his sister,
shows that such marriages were not allowed amongst the ancient Persians.
They are mentioned as a usage of the magi. In the Avesta they are
prescribed as holy and meritorious. They are enjoined by religion. They
were practiced by the Sassanids,[1692] although in the Dinkart version
of the law they are apologized for and to some extent disavowed.[1693]
After the time of Cambyses such marriages occurred, especially in the
royal family. They now occur amongst the Persians.[1694]
+520.+ In the Chaldean religion the gods and goddesses were fathers,
sons, brothers, sisters, and mothers, as well as husbands and wives, to
each other. The notions of "son of god" and "mother of god" were very
current. Marduk is son of Ea and intercessor for men with him.[1695] In
the laws of Hammurabi, if a man consorts with his mother after the death
of his father, both are to be burned. Incest with a daughter is punished
only by banishment. This light punishment may be only a concession to
public opinion, since the culprits injured no interest but their
own.[1696]
+521.+ In the Old Testament Abraham married his half-sister by the same
father. In 2 Sam. xiii. 13 it is shown that such a marriage was
allowable in David's time, but Ezek. xxii. 11 refers to such a marriage
as an abomination. Nahor's wife was his niece by his brother. Jacob
married two sisters at the same time, both his cousins. Esau married his
cousin. Judah took to wife his son's widow, but disapproval of that is
expressed. Amram, the father of Moses, married his paternal aunt. These
unions were all in contravention of the Levitical law. There are
statements of the law which differ: Levit. xviii and xx; Deut. xxi. 20;
xxvii. 20-23. In Ezek. xxii. 10 and 11 incest is charged as a special
sin of the Jews. In the post-exilic and rabbinical periods the law
varied from the old law. In general it was extended to include under the
taboo more distant relatives.[1697]
Marriages between brothers and sisters were allowed in Phoenicia, but
were contracted probably only when the woman had inherited something in
which her brother had no share.[1698]
+522.+ In Homer Zeus and Hera are brother and sister. Union of mother
and son is regarded as shocking, but not that of brother and
sister.[1699] Arete was niece and wife of Alcinous, and was especially
respected.[1700] In the case of OEdipus the union of mother and son,
by error, was terribly punished.[1701] In the tragedy of _Andromache_
marriages between mother and son, father and daughter, brother and
sister, are mentioned as characteristic of barbarians. Dionysius of
Syracuse, having lost his wife, married Doris and Aristomache on the
same day. With Doris he had three children and with Aristomache four.
His son by Doris, Dionysius, married Sophrosyne, his daughter by
Aristomache. Dion, the brother of Aristomache, married a daughter of
Aristomache.[1702] Whether these marriages were extraordinary in Sicily
we do not know. They may not represent the current mores as to marriage,
but only the shamelessness possible to a Sicilian tyrant. At Athens the
only limitations were on the ascending and descending relationships,
but it appears that in later times marriages between brother and sister
were disapproved.[1703]
+523.+ The term "incest" was applied at Rome to the case of a man
present at the purification of women, on the feast of the _Bona Dea_,
May 1.[1704] The sense of the word is, then, nearly equal to "profane."
The emperor Claudius married his niece Agrippina and made such marriages
lawful. Gaius[1705] restricted this precedent to its exact form,
marriage of a brother's daughter, not sister's daughter, and further
restricted it, if the brother's daughter was in any forbidden degree of
affinity.
+524.+ In the Ynglinga saga Niord takes his sister to wife, because the
law of Van-land allowed it, although that of the Ases did not.[1706]
Other cases in the _Edda_ go to show that the taboo on such marriages
was not in the ancient mores of Scandinavia.[1707] In the German poems
of the twelfth century it belongs to the description of the heathen
kings that they are fierce and suspicious towards all who woo their
daughters, and that they sometimes intend to marry their own daughters
after the death of their queens.[1708]
+525.+ Those Arabs of Arabia Felix who practiced fraternal polyandry
also formed unions with their mothers.[1709] Robertson Smith thinks that
this means their fathers' wives.[1710] The Arabs were convinced of the
evil of marriage between cousins.[1711]
+526.+ A mediæval traveler reports of the Mongols that they paid no heed
to affinity in marriage. They took two sisters at once or in succession.
The only limitation was that they must not marry mothers, daughters, or
sisters by the same mother.[1712] In Burma and Siam, at least until very
recent times, in the royal families of the different subdivisions
brothers and sisters married.[1713]
+527.+ In Russia, in the seventeenth century, men in the government
service who were often sent out on duty and had no homes, and whose
incomes were small, were reproached by an ecclesiastic with the fact
that they lived in vice with their mothers, sisters, and
daughters.[1714] Marriages between persons related by blood are frequent
in Corsica and are considered the most auspicious marriages.[1715]
+528.+ The Kabyles stone to death those who voluntarily commit incest
and the children born of incestuous unions. The taboo, in their usage,
includes parents and children-in-law, brothers and sisters-in-law, and
foster brothers and sisters.[1716]
+529.+ In 1459 there died at Arras a canon, eighty years old, who had
committed incest with his daughters and with a granddaughter whom he
had had by one of them.[1717]
+530. Where the line is drawn, and why.+ The instances show that the
notion of incest is by no means universal or uniform, or attended by the
same intensity of repugnance. It is not by any means traceable to a
constant cause. Plutarch[1718] discussed the question why marriages
between relatives were forbidden by the traditional mores of his time.
He conjectured various explanations. Fear of physical degeneration is
not one of them. We must infer that such consequences had not then been
noticed or affirmed. We have found cases in which no taboo existed and
cases in which close intermarriages are especially approved. An
operation of syncretism, when different usages and ideas have been
brought together by conquest and state combinations, must be allowed
for. In some cases a great interest was thought to be at stake; in other
cases no importance was attached to the matter. The mores developed
under the notions which got control by accident or superstition. There
was no rational ground for the taboo, and none even blindly connected
with truth of fact, until the opinion gained a footing that close
intermarriage was unfavorable to the number or vigor of the offspring.
Unless that opinion is accepted as correct there is no reason for the
taboo now.[1719] Incest is, for us, a thing so repugnant that we
consider the feeling "natural." We may test the feeling by our feeling
as to the marriage of first cousins. First cousins are very commonly
married in England. Such marriages are under no civil or ecclesiastical
prohibition, and although many persons disapprove of them on grounds of
expediency, and parents might refuse to consent to them, they do not
come under the abomination of incest. In many states of the United
States marriages of first cousins are illegal. In Kansas they are put
under heavy penalties. We hear no preaching against close in-marriage.
The matter is not discussed. The limitations are set in the current
mores and are accepted without dispute. Evidently the only question is
where the line should be drawn. If it was proposed to forbid the
marriage of first cousins some discussion might be aroused. If it was
decided wise to forbid such marriages, it would take long for such a
sentiment of repugnance to be developed in regard to them as we now feel
in regard to the marriage of sisters, or even of aunts and nieces. In
history the movement must have been in the other direction. The
repugnance arose first and then became a ground for the rules.
+531. Human self-selection by taboo and other-worldliness.+ Laws against
incest and all caste rules which arbitrarily limit the number of persons
whom a given individual may marry may be regarded as blind attempts of
mankind to practice some kind of self-selection. Sex selection inside
the human race is the highest requirement which life now addresses to
man as an intelligent being, and the very highest result which our
sciences could produce would be to give us trustworthy guidance in a
policy of sex selection. It is not possible for some persons to dispose
of the life determination of others, as breeders control the union of
beasts. What is needed is that individuals, in making their own
decisions for their own self-realization, shall understand the whole
range of interests which are involved, and shall do what it is expedient
or necessary to do to satisfy them all. In times past men and women
have thus limited themselves by rules about incest, group and class
marriage, rank or caste, religion, wealth, and other considerations. In
every society there are traits which are approved and others which are
disapproved in each sex. In marrying, people are influenced by these
appreciations and they select for or against them. Thus marriage is
controlled by a complicated selection according to a number of standards
which prevail at the time and place. At present the popular view seems
to be that all standards are false, and that the limitations ought to be
trampled on as representing abandoned ideals. It is thought that the
whole matter ought to be left to the control of an unintelligent
impulse, which is capable of any caprice, but whose authority is
imperative. Perverse as the old restrictions often were, they had in
them a notion of self-selection such as is needed now, if only the
criteria and standards which are correct can be ascertained. The old
restrictions contained a notion of breeding up, a notion which is by no
means false, if we can get a rational idea of what is "up." No marriage
ought now to be contracted without full application of all we know about
heredity and selection. If, in any society, marriages were thus
contracted, the effect would be most favorable on posterity, and on the
power in action and the perpetuity of the group, for the net result
would be that those who are least fit to propagate the race would be the
ones who would be left unmarried or would marry each other. In the
latter case their posterity would soon disappear, and the evil factors
would be eliminated. A father now refuses his daughter to a drunkard, a
criminal, a pauper, a bankrupt, an inefficient man, one who has no
income, etc. Some men refuse their daughters to irreligious men, or to
men who are not of their own sect or subsect. Some allow inherited
wealth, or talent, or high character, etc., to outweigh disadvantages.
In short, we already have selection. It always has existed. The law of
incest was an instinctive effort in the same direction. The problem is
the same now as it always has been,--to refine and correct the standards
and to determine their relative importance.
+532. Restrictions by biological facts as yet too uncertain.+ As yet,
undoubtedly, the great reason why people are reluctant to construct a
policy of marriage and population on biological doctrines is that those
doctrines are too uncertain. The reluctance is well justified. Hasty
action, based on shifting views of fact and law, would simply add new
confusion and trouble to that produced by the customs and legislative
enactments which we have inherited from the past and which were based on
transcendental doctrines. So long as we do not know whether acquired
modifications are inheritable or not, we are not prepared to elaborate a
policy of marriage which can be dogmatically taught or civilly enforced.
This much, however, is certain,--the interests of society are more at
stake in these things than in anything else. All other projects of
reform and amelioration are trivial compared with the interests which
lie in the propagation of the species, if those can be so treated as to
breed out predispositions to evils of body and mind, and to breed in
vigor of mind and body. It even seems sometimes as if the primitive
people were working along better lines of effort in this matter than we
are, when we allow marriage to be controlled by "love" or property; when
our organs of public instruction taboo all which pertains to
reproduction as improper; and when public authority, ready enough to
interfere with personal liberty everywhere else, feels bound to act as
if there was no societal interest at stake in the begetting of the next
generation.
+533.+ It is self-evident that there ought to be no restriction on
marriage except such as is necessary to protect some interest of the
parties, their children, or the society. The necessity must also be real
and not traditional or superstitious. The evils of inbreeding are so
probable as to justify strong prejudice against consanguine marriages.
If primitive men set up the taboo on incest without knowing this, they
acted more wisely than they knew. We who have inherited the taboo now
have knowledge which gives a rational and expedient reason for it. The
mores, therefore, still have a field of useful action to strengthen and
reaffirm the taboo. There is also a practical question still
unsettled,--whether the marriage of first cousins should be included in
the taboo.
[1658] Parkinson, _Ethnog. d. Nordwestl. Salomo Ins._, 6.
[1659] Snyder, _Geog. of Marriage_.
[1660] _Anc. Soc._, 424.
[1661] _Marriage_, 317.
[1662] _Ibid._, 319, 334, 352.
[1663] Durkheim in _L'Année Sociologique_, I, 59-65.
[1664] Starcke, _Prim. Fam._, 230.
[1665] _Ethnog. Brasil._, 115.
[1666] _Ibid._, 334 note.
[1667] _Umschau_, VIII, 496.
[1668] JAI, XXIV, 169.
[1669] Perelaer, _Dyaks_, 59.
[1670] Wilken, _Volkenkunde_, 267.
[1671] Hopkins, _Relig. of India_, 531.
[1672] Lewin, _Wild Races of S. E. India_, 276.
[1673] _N. S. Ethnol. Soc., London_, II, 311; Sarasin, _Veddahs_,
466.
[1674] _Gli Amori degli Uomini_, 272.
[1675] _Bijdragen tot T. L. en V.-kunde_, XXXV, 151.
[1676] _Ibid._, XLI, 203.
[1677] JAI, XXI, 361.
[1678] Junker, _Afrika_, III, 291.
[1679] Sibree, _Great Afr. Island_, 252.
[1680] von Haxthausen, _Transkaukasia_, II, 27.
[1681] Pallas, _Voyages_ (French), IV, 69.
[1682] _Smithson. Rep._, 1866, 310.
[1683] Sieroshevski, _Yakuty_ (_russ._), I, 560.
[1684] _Bur. Eth._, XI, 180.
[1685] Abercromby, _Finns_, I, 182.
[1686] _Voyages and Travels_, 358.
[1687] _N. S. Amer. Anthrop._, II, 478.
[1688] Maspero, _Peuples de l'Orient_, I, 50.
[1689] Galton, _Hered. Genius_, 151.
[1690] Prescott, _Peru_, I, 117.
[1691] Hopkins, _Relig. of India_, 131; Zimmer, _Altind. Leben_,
333.
[1692] Darmstetter, _Zend-Avesta_, Introd., xlv.
[1693] Justi, _Persien_, 225.
[1694] Geiger, _Ost-Iran. Kultur_, 245-247.
[1695] Tiele, _Gesch. der Relig. im Alterthum_, I, 174.
[1696] Müller, _Hammurabi_, 129.
[1697] _Jewish Encyc._, s.v. "Incest," VI, 571.
[1698] Pietschmann, _Phoenizier_, 237.
[1699] _Il._, IV, 58; XIV, 296; XI, 223; _Od._, X, 7; cf. VIII,
267; XI, 271; VIII, 306; VII, 65.
[1700] _Od._, XII, 338; XIII, 57.
[1701] Keller, _Homer. Soc._, 205, 232.
[1702] Burckhardt, _Griech. Kulturgesch._, I, 197.
[1703] Becker-Hermann, _Charikles_, III, 288.
[1704] Rossbach, _Röm. Ehe_, 266.
[1705] _Instit._, I, 62.
[1706] Laing, _Sagas of the Norse Kings_, I, 273.
[1707] Weinhold, _D. F._, I, 235.
[1708] Lichtenberger, _Nibelungen_, 334
[1709] Strabo, XVI, 4, 25, or 783.
[1710] _Jo. Philol._, IX, 86.
[1711] Wellhausen, _Ehe bei den Arabern_, 441.
[1712] Rubruck, _Eastern Parts_, 77.
[1713] Yule, _Court of Ava_, 86.
[1714] Kostomarow, _Dom. Life and Customs of Great Russia_
(_russ._), 154.
[1715] Gubernatis, _Usi Nuziali_, 273.
[1716] Hanoteau et Letourneux, _Les Kabyles_, III, 206.
[1717] Lea, _Inquis._, III, 639.
[1718] _Quaest. Rom._, 108.
[1719] Starcke, _Prim. Fam._, 211.
CHAPTER XIII
KINSHIP, BLOOD REVENGE, PRIMITIVE JUSTICE, PEACE
UNIONS
Kinship.--Forms of kinship.--Family education.--Kinds of
kinship.--How family mores are formed.--Family and marriage.--
Goblinism and kinship; blood revenge.--Procreation; forms of the
family.--Notions about procreation and share in it.--Blood
revenge and the in-group--Institutional ties replace the blood
tie.--Peace in the in-group.--Parties to blood revenge.--Blood
revenge in ethnography.--Blood revenge in Israel.--Peace units
and peace pacts.--The instability of great peace unions.--The
Arabs.--The development of the philosophy of blood revenge.--
Alleviations of blood revenge.--The king's peace.--The origin
of criminal law.
+534. Kinship.+ Kinship is a fact which, in the forms of heredity and
race, is second to none in importance to the interests of men. It is a
fact which was concealed by ignorance from primitive men. It is yet
veiled in much mystery from us. Nevertheless the notion of kinship was
one of the very first notions formed by primitive men as a bond of
association, and they based folkways upon their ideas about it. They
deduced the chief inferences and handed the whole down to succeeding
generations. Therefore the assumed knowledge of the facts of kinship was
used as the basis of a whole series of societal conventions. The first
construction was the family, which was a complete institution. Of course
marriage was a relationship which was controlled and adjusted by the
family ideas. From the folkways as to kinship all the simplest
conceptions of societal rights and duties were derived, societal
institutions were constructed, and societal organization has grown up.
+535. Forms of kinship.+ That a certain child was born of a certain
woman, after having been for some time in physical connection with her
body, is an historical and physical fact. That another child was born of
the same mother is another fact, of the same order. It may be believed
that these facts produce permanent life relations between the mother and
children, and between the children, or it may be believed that the facts
have no importance for duties, interests, or sympathies. The relations,
if recognized, may be defined and construed in many different ways and
degrees. They could also be carried further by including more
generations, or wider collateral branches, until kinship would include a
sib, or family in the widest sense,--those related within some limit of
descent and cousinship on a system decided on (mother family, father
family, etc.) and traditional. Kinship is purely matter of fact and
history, and therefore rational. There is no "natural affection." There
is habit and familiarity, and the example and exhortations of parents
may inculcate notions of duty. Sentiments and sympathies will then be
produced out of familiarity in life, or out of use and wont. The
construction and limits of kinship in any society are products of the
folkways, or--inasmuch as the system is built up with notions of welfare
and rights and duties--of the mores. In fact, since the folkways in
regard to this matter begin at a very primitive stage of human life, run
up to the highest civilization, and are interwoven with the most tender
sympathies and ethical convictions at all stages, kinship is one of the
most important products of the folkways and mores. It is, in fact, the
most important societal concept which the primitive man thought out, and
it would be such even if we were now compelled to reject it as
erroneous.
+536. Family education.+ No doubt the folkways about kinship are
produced in connection with views about interests, and in connection
with faiths about procreation, and impressions produced by experience.
The mother and children live in constant contact and intimacy. The
family grows into an institution which takes its nature from the
traditional and habitual behavior of its members to each other in daily
life. Use and wont have here a great field for their constructive
operation. Each family (mother and children) is independent and makes
its own world, in which nearly all its interests are enfolded. There are
constantly recurring occasions for acts of a reciprocal character, and
such acts especially build up institutions. The family is also an arena
in which sympathies are cultivated, which does not mean that they are
always nourished and developed. Habits are formed and discipline is
enforced. Rules are accepted from custom and enforced by authority and
force. Rights and duties are enforced as facts long before they are
apprehended as concepts.
+537. Kinds of kinship.+ The sib, or large family, including all those
who are known to be related at all, is a group of very varying
importance in different societies. In some societies the common bond is
strong and produces important social consequences. In other cases no
heed is paid to relationship beyond first and second cousins. Although
the Yakuts keep up the _rod_, or great family, for some purposes, we are
told that often "nothing unites the members of the rod but a vague
tradition of common descent."[1720] Whether individuals can break the
ties of kin, by voluntary act, is answered differently in different
societies. The Salic Franks allowed a man to do it by breaking his staff
(which was his personal symbol) in a ceremonial act.[1721] If kinship
depends on connection of the body of the child with that of the mother,
his nourishment by her milk is another ground of kinship. The Arabs
recognize this tie of a child to its foster mother. Later the child is
nourished by food shared with commensals. Hence the tie of commensality
forms a basis of social union like kinship.[1722]
+538. How mores are formed.+ The family groups which are in local
neighborhood have, in general, the same folkways as an inheritance, but
variations occur from varieties of character and circumstances. The
variations are life experiments, in fact, and they lead to selection. In
the community as a whole the mores of family life are selected,
approved, and established, and then handed down by tradition. It may be
believed that there is a common interest of the entire larger group in
the education and treatment of children, and that all the adults
recognize that interest more or less completely. The big group,
therefore, molds notions of consanguinity, and the sanctions of tribal
authority and public opinion coerce all to observe the modes of family
life which the ruling authority thinks most expedient for the group
interests.
+539. Family and marriage.+ The family institution must have preceded
marriage. In fact, marriage appears, in ethnography and history, as the
way of founding a family and as molded by the family mores existing in
the society.
+540. Goblinism and kinship. Blood revenge.+ Integration of kin
relations was produced by goblinism. This furnished an interest which
impelled to development of the kin idea. If a man was murdered, his
ghost would seek revenge, just as a man while alive would have sought
revenge for a smaller injury. The ghost was dangerous to two persons or
classes of persons, the murderer and those near the corpse. The latter
would be, almost always, his kinsmen. It behooved the latter, therefore,
if they wanted to appease the ghost and save themselves, to find the
murderer and to punish him. Hence the custom of blood revenge. It was
not due to kin notions, but to goblinistic notions. Kin only defined
those who came under the obligation. In this way kin became a tie of
mutual offense, defense, and assistance, and kin groups were formed into
societies,--we-groups or in-groups,--inside of which there was
comradeship, peace, law, and order, while the relation to all out-groups
was one of suspicion, hostility, plunder, and subjugation if possible.
The primary notion of kin was embodied in formulæ about blood,--which
were only figures of speech,--which have come down to us, so that
propositions about blood are used now to express our notions of kinship,
heredity, etc. In fact, according to modern embryology, not a drop of
blood passes from either parent to the offspring. Superstitions about
blood (seat of the soul or life, etc.) helped to develop the notion of
kin. The primitive idea is that the ghost of a murdered man can be
appeased only by blood. The blood of Abel cried unto God from the
ground. Some peoples go out to kill anything, in order that blood may be
shed and so the ghost may be satisfied.
+541. Procreation. Forms of the family.+ The notion of kin was so
elastic that various conceptions of procreation have been grafted upon
it, and various ways of organizing the family, or of reckoning kinship,
have been connected with it. Mores grow upon the notions of kinship.
They dictate modes of behavior and ideas of right and duty, and train
all members of the society in the same. The relation of father and child
is known to few persons, perhaps only to two. Kinship through the
father, therefore, seems to uncivilized people far less important than
kinship through the mother. When the father relationship is regarded as
the real tie and is made the norm of kin groups, great changes are
produced in the mores of the mother family.
+542. Notions about procreation and share in it.+ It is difficult
to see how savage men could have got any idea of procreation. The
ethnographical evidence is that they have no idea, or only a most
vague and incorrect idea, of the functions of the parents. The
Australians think that an ancient spirit enters into a baby at
birth, enlivens it, and is its fate. This notion interferes with
ideas of sexual conception. So we are told that the Dieyerie
women do not admit that a child has only one father, and say that
they do not know whether the husband or the _pirauru_ is the
father.[1723] The highest tribes in Australia say that "the
daughter emanates from her father solely, being only nurtured by
her mother."[1724] The father, however, is always known or
assumed. How else could the father move up one grade in tribal
position when the boy is initiated?[1725] Amongst several tribes
of central Australia it is believed that "the child is not the
direct result of intercourse, that it may come without this,
which merely, as it were, prepares the mother for the reception
and birth of an already formed spirit child who inhabits one of
the local totem centers."[1726] Melanesian women feel severely
the strain of child rearing. They seem to have less love for the
children than the fathers have. They often kill the babes. If an
unmarried girl becomes pregnant, she says that some man who hates
her got the help of spirits, who caused her situation.[1727] The
Indians in British Columbia think that a woman conceives by
eating, and this belief is introduced into their folk
tales.[1728] The rules about the food of women are often
connected with notions about sex relations and procreation. The
Seri of California thought that fire is bestial, not physical,
and is produced similarly to sexual reproduction.[1729] In
ancient Greece "the inferiority of women to men was strongly
asserted, and it was illustrated and defended by a very curious
physiological notion that the generative power belonged
exclusively to men, women having only a very subordinate part in
the production of their children."[1730] This notion is
expressed in the _Eumenides_, where it is said to lessen the
crime of Orestes. His mother did not generate him. She received
and nursed the germ. In Islam this same opinion prevails. It is a
father family doctrine, exactly opposite to that of the mother
family, where the function of the mother was thought far more
important.[1731] It is a good example of the way in which the
philosophy follows the view taken in the mores of the leading
interest.
+543. Blood revenge and the in-group.+ Blood revenge is out of place in
the in-group. It would mean self-extermination of the group. It would
serve the interests of the enemies in the out-groups. Hence the double
interest of harmony and coöperation in the in-group and war strength
against the out-groups forces the invention of devices by which to
supersede blood revenge in the in-group. Chiefs and priests administered
group interests, especially war and other collisions with neighbors, and
they imposed restraints, arbitration, or compensation in internal
quarrels. Cities of refuge and sanctuaries secured investigation and
deliberation to prove guilt and determine compensations. The chiefs and
priests thus modified or set aside kin law by inchoate civil forms. Then
criminal law and penalty took the place of retaliation. Between groups
blood revenge was only a detail of the normal relations of hostility and
violence. Out-groups, however, sometimes made agreements with each other
to limit blood revenge and vendetta. White men have had trouble with red
men and black men because their customs as to relationship were not on
the same level. The whites in New York and Pennsylvania colonies could
not understand why the Indians were indifferent to their demands for the
surrender of an Indian who, in time of peace, had killed a white man.
According to Indian ideas the bloodshedding did not concern the civil
body (tribe), but the kin group (clan).[1732] A wife was not included in
blood revenge. Her relation to her husband was not one of "blood." It
was institutional. Therefore it was not so strong as the tie of sister
to brother by the same mother.
+544. Institutional ties replace the blood tie.+ In the history of
civilization several institutional ties have become stronger than the
blood tie, but the primitive man, who has not yet accepted any tie as
equal to the blood tie, always resists this change. Kinship was lost by
separation, and fire superseded it as a bond of association. Fire being
kept and lent became a unifying force, because, in effect, all united in
a common effort to get and keep it.[1733] Common religion (sacrifices)
also became a bond of union. The common sacrifices at Upsala held the
scattered Swedes in unity, and served also as a peace bond, although not
a sufficient one.[1734] It is said also of the Brahuis, in Baluchistan,
that the two bonds which unite the confederacy are common land and
common good and ill, "which is another name for common blood
feud."[1735] Changes in the numbers in the group, or in life conditions,
make some other element more important than kin. Then that element
becomes the societal bond. Then the folkways, ideas, and sentiments
change to adapt themselves to the new center of interest. Throughout the
Occident the institutional tie of man and wife is rated higher than any
tie of kinship.
+545. Peace in the in-group.+ Government, law, order, peace, and
institutions were developed in the in-group. So far as sympathy was
developed at all, it was in the in-group, between comrades. The custom
of blood revenge was a protection to all who were in a group of kinsmen.
It knit them all together and served their common interest against all
outsiders. Therefore it was a societalizing custom and institution.
Inside the kin-group adjudication, administration of justice by
precedents and customs, composition for wrongs by payments or penalties,
amercements by authority for breach of orders or violations of petty
taboo, and exile took the place of retaliation. In the in-group it was
the murderer who had to fear the ghost of the murdered. Religious rites
absolved the murderer from the ghosts or gods and delivered him from the
furies, who demanded revenge. The Hebrew law provided cities of refuge
for those who were guilty of accidental homicide.[1736] The manslayer
could go home at the death of the high priest.[1737] In 2 Sam. iii and
iv are cases of blood revenge and of efforts to suppress it. The
homicide in chapter iv is not a case of blood revenge but of partisan
murder.
+546. Parties to blood revenge.+ It was a very serious modification of
blood revenge when it was extended so that any kinsman of the murdered
man was bound to kill any kinsman of the murderer. Hagen[1738] says: "No
regulated societal common life is possible where blood revenge is in
full operation; not even on the primitive stage of the Bogjadim state,"
a village in German New Guinea. This is true if blood revenge is allowed
in the in-group, or if the in-group has very low integration, for blood
revenge sets every man against his neighbor and makes society
impossible. Krieger[1739] says of the same people: "The comradeship of
clansmen with each other in respect to their attitude towards out-groups
is most definite in blood revenge during the stage between the kin-group
organization and the lowest state organization." If a nation stops in
that stage, or even degenerates a little, blood revenge becomes a
symptom of a state of societal disease. It becomes firmly fixed, is
elaborated, continues beyond the stage of other things at which it can
be useful, and, as an institution, becomes a caricature. What is lacking
is an authority which can impose commands on the in-group and extrude
blood revenge from it. The Naga, in northeastern India, fifty years ago
lived in villages in which, if two men quarreled, all the others took
sides with one or the other and civil war ensued. The experience of
these quarrels and of blood revenge produced "a reluctance to enter into
quarrels which entailed consequences so disastrous, and hence a society
living in general peace and honesty." The situation, however, was
unstable, and once or twice a year they had grand fights in which the
entire village participated by way of clearing off all old scores.
Evidently they had no adequate government or administration of justice.
Revenge is still, in case of a murder, "a sacred duty, never to be
neglected or forgotten," although English rule has modified the old
usages and may bring those people into a better political organization.
Revenge is still a kin affair, not a civil affair. It is handed down
from generation to generation, including innocent victims, women and
children, and devastating whole villages. It becomes fanatical and men
will sacrifice their most serious interests to it. If the male kinsmen
die out or are unable to keep up the feud, others may be hired to
fulfill the duty.[1740]
+547. Blood revenge in ethnography.+ The Eskimo have no civil
organization outside of the family. All justice depends on the
immediate coercion of wrongdoers by force. Hence death often
results. Retaliation is the sacred duty of every kinsman.[1741]
That the deceased was in the wrong is quite immaterial. Blood
revenge was almost universal amongst the American aborigines. In
some tribes the stage had been reached where it was set aside by
compensation.[1742] Amongst the Brazilian tribes it was a
question to be decided in each case whether retaliation should be
executed against the wrongdoer only or against all his kin.[1743]
The Arawaks practiced blood revenge, like nature peoples, as late
as 1830. Generally the cases were those of jealousy and
adultery.[1744] The Australians of Victoria kill the elder
brother of a murderer or his father. If these are not living they
kill him. He is not allowed to defend himself. In some tribes the
nearest relative of the murdered must take the life of a
tribesman of the murderer. All deaths are attributed to human
agency, and it is ascertained by divination to what tribe the
murderer belonged. Public opinion enforces the duty of blood
revenge. Any one who should neglect it would be despised.[1745]
The Dyaks keep an account current of the number of lives which
one tribe "owes" to another. The hill Dyaks, whose wars are
constant and bloody, are very scrupulous about this account of
heads due. They are more so than the sea Dyaks, who have perhaps
been influenced by contact with outside peoples.[1746] Amongst
the Ewe-speaking peoples of West Africa[1747] a family is
collectively responsible for crimes and wrongs of which any one
of its members is guilty, and each one is assessed for his share
of the composition to be paid. Each member of a family also gets
his share of any payment paid to it for wrongs to its members.
Ellis says that formerly the village was the collective unit for
paying or receiving compensation. This is noteworthy because, in
general, composition by payment is later than the custom of equal
retaliation, while civil units come later than kin units as the
collective units which are responsible. The Somali attribute the
duty of blood revenge to the kin, not to the tribe. They have a
tariff for bodily injuries less than murder, and for age and sex.
The blood money goes to the kin. Blood revenge is executed
against any kinsman of the murderer. The Galla do not accept
compensation for blood guilt, "no doubt on account of the density
of population."[1748] In the _Eumenides_ of Æschylus it is said
(line 520), "Not all the wealth of the great earth can do away
with blood guilt." In Japan blood revenge continued until very
recently. The person who meant to seek it had to give notice in
writing to the criminal court. He was then free to execute his
purpose, but he must not make a riot. The Japanese father family
is a religious corporation, and the family bond is that of a
cult.[1749] The Japanese view is the half-civilized view, where
the kin sentiment is highly developed and the civil interest is
only imperfectly apprehended. In Scandinavia the feeling that it
is base to take compensation for blood continued until a late
time. We find in the saga of Grettir the Strong[1750] that
banishment is used instead of blood revenge. This was thought to
be a letting down of honor. Life and honor as well as property
were under the protection of kin. Blood revenge was a holy duty.
The son could not take his inheritance until he had avenged his
father. Attempts were made to introduce the weregild. The fine
for killing an old man or a woman was twice as much as for an
able-bodied man. The slayer with twelve of his kin must swear
that he would be content with the payment if the case were his,
and the friends of the deceased must swear to let the matter
drop.[1751] Amongst the tribes of the Caucasus, who live by
custom, blood revenge is now a living institution. The Ossetes
have the father family in its extremest development. The surname
is the mark of kinship, and the duty of blood revenge falls on
those with the same surname to the hundredth cousin. One's
mother's brother is not in one's kin, and there is no duty of
blood revenge for him. Sometimes blood revenge is superseded by
the arbitration of a tribunal which is voluntarily
accepted.[1752]
+548. Blood revenge in Israel.+ The law of Israel was, "Ye shall
take no ransom for the life of a manslayer, which is guilty of
death; but he shall surely be put to death."[1753] This law
upheld blood revenge by forbidding the first and most obvious
alleviation of it, but verses 22 and 23 distinguished accidental
from intentional homicide and verse 27 provided that the avenger
of blood should not be guilty of blood. This arrested any feud.
The institution of cities of refuge was derived from the
Canaanites and developed in Israel.[1754] Blood revenge was a
duty of the whole family and was originally directed against the
entire family of the slayer.[1755] This the later law
forbade.[1756] At first also every beast or inanimate object
which caused death was guilty. In Deut. xxi provision is made
for the case of a murdered man whose corpse is found, with
customs of wide range for performing rites of purification, and
washing hands to put away guilt or suspicion.
+549. Peace units and peace pacts.+ The in-group when it is merged in a
state by conquest and compounding becomes a peace unit. All in the same
civil body are united by a peace pact. If the central authority cannot
suppress local war and private war, it is inadequate, and the state is
liable to disruption. The Roman empire was a peace unit of high
integration and complete efficiency. It could not, however, maintain
itself, and broke up by internal strife which the central authority
could not suppress. The Roman law was the peace pact of that peace unit.
It was so good a solution of the collisions of human interests that it
has been borrowed, or used by modern states as a model. The Romish
church in the Middle Ages tried to rule the world, not by force but by
dogmas like catholicity. Catholicity was an attempt to build a peace
pact on ideals, and big ideas, and sympathies. Islam also tries to serve
as a peace pact, but Moslem states have freely fought with each other.
Islam does not contain an adequate philosophy. Its theories of society
are theocratic and do not meet the actual facts and problems. If a union
of two or more states is made, even for the purpose of aggregating more
force for war, it will necessarily be a peace union when regarded from
within. A confederation is the highest organization yet invented for the
purpose of making a great peace union without interfering with domestic
autonomy. Norway and Sweden, Austria and Hungary, are states united in
couples under a rational peace pact. The former couple has been
disrupted; the latter is convulsed by quarrels between its members. The
United States is a great peace unit, with a rational peace pact as a
bond of union. It has gone through one great convulsion, from which it
issued with the peace pact greatly strengthened. It tends to become a
consolidated empire. This can be seen in the propositions to turn over
various subjects of domestic importance to the federal authority.
Happiness and prosperity have been due to the peace pact, valid over a
continent, with immunity from powerful neighbors. We now think that we
will renounce all this and go out after world power and glory so as to
be like the other nations.
+550. The instability of great peace unions.+ Now that we have the laws
of Hammurabi we can see that the Euphrates valley was organized into a
peace unit with a very complete and highly finished peace pact
twenty-five hundred years before Christ. All the ordinary cases of
discord and diverse interest were provided for under an elaborate system
of laws as good as that of a modern European state. The later states of
western Asia were involved in war by conflicting interests, ambition,
and jealousy until the time of Alexander the Great. The smaller states
were at last all submerged in the Roman empire. All the constructive
work has been overthrown again and again. Only within a century or two
has a structure been set up which has more stability, but it is all in
jeopardy now. A union of the existing groups could not be brought about
but by conquest, and that would mean very great wars, yet all are ready,
by virtue of their institutions and ideas, to merge in a confederation
in which peace would reign and incalculable blessings would result.
+551. The Arabs.+ The Arabs in the time of Mohammed were a nation
inhabiting a territory which kept them from feeling any national
sentiment of unity.[1757] The tribe and kin group were their strongest
societal units. At the time of Mohammed's birth blood revenge between
the kin groups was so destructive that all were instinctively struggling
towards devices which might supersede it. In the century preceding
Mohammed's birth the nation had been agitated by social movements in
which the old was falling and the new was pushing out to acceptance and
establishment. "It seemed as if the persons were too big for the
circumstances."[1758] If a tribe ever was a peace group amongst the
Arabs, we have no proof of it. Islam was an attempt to unite the whole
nation into a peace group by religion. The attempt succeeded, and the
nation, in the élan of its new unity and energy, set out to conquer its
neighbors. It had no state organization. The caliph was theological as
well as civil head. The Arabs had no political experience. The leaders
in the kin groups were the only chiefs they had, and they established a
kind of aristocracy in Persia, but the first caliphs were pure despots,
like negro heads of states. The Arabs plundered the conquered states.
The greatest duty known to the Arabs was blood revenge. It was their
only social engine by which to restrain crime and secure some measure of
order. Blood was, in their view, more holy than anything else. It put
religion in the background. The kin group was the realized ideal. The
gods were comparatively insignificant.[1759] In old Arabia a man engaged
in a blood feud must abstain from women, wine, and unguents.[1760]
Within the kin group there was no blood revenge, but a guilty person was
held personally responsible. A guest friend ("stranger within thy
gates") was not liable to blood revenge with his own kin. His status was
in the tribe in which he was a guest, by which he must be defended
against his tribe of origin, if the case arose.[1761] The Arabs thought
it dishonorable to take money for blood guilt. It was, they thought,
like selling the blood of one's kin. Bedouin tribes in the nineteenth
century refused to settle blood feuds by payments. Arbitration was
admitted in the time of Mohammed, at Medina, where old blood feuds had
become intolerable by their consequences.[1762] In Egypt, in the first
half of the nineteenth century, blood revenge was still observed. Third
cousins of the murderer and his victim were the limits of responsibility
on either side.[1763]
+552. Development of the philosophy of blood revenge.+ Blood revenge was
nothing but an exercise of revenge and it had all the limitations of
revenge. It produced a rude fear of consequences and had some of the
effects of the administration of justice. However, it had no process of
proof, no due notion of guilt, no means of following up responsibility.
Therefore it could not infuse fear into the hearts of the guilty. It was
entirely irrational. Therefore it ran into extravagance without due
connection of guilt and punishment, and it cost very many lives of the
innocent. In primitive society injuries consist in the invasion of a
man's interests through his property, his wife, and his children, or by
maiming or killing himself. Each one, when he considers himself injured,
tries to redress himself. If he is not able to do it he falls back on
others for aid. The kin group is the only body which has ties of
sympathy and obligation to him. The kin group may be bound to give help
without any regard to the justness of the quarrel, or it gets the
function of a jury. Evidently the latter case is more reasonable and
civilized than the former. In the original institution of blood revenge
the individual was called on to sacrifice himself for others. He was a
bad man if he began an inquiry into the conduct of the man who called
for the sacrifice. He ought to obey the call whether it came from one
who had done right or wrong.[1764] Evidently, in this view, the
institution was a case of social duty, not of goblinistic service to the
dead. It was a further application of rationalism and justice when the
behavior of the deceased was weighed before decreeing blood revenge. If
the kin group decides that the injury is real and that it is properly
called on to interfere, routine of method of investigation will be
developed, rights will be defined, the duty of blood revenge will be
defined and limited, and proceedings of redress will be invented. All
this work is done in the folkways and by the methods of folkways. The
steps lie along the line of advancing civilization. The notion that a
man who had committed a murder and had been killed for it had got what
he deserved is a very recent and civilized notion. That would not keep
his ghost from demanding to be laid by blood atonement. This was the
root idea out of which the custom of blood revenge arose. Blood
atonement was a notion in goblinism. It was one of the very earliest
cases we can find in which there was a notion of duty and social
obligation. The kin were those on whom the duty fell. The strong
sympathy of men of the same kin was a consequence, not a cause, but it
superseded, later, the original cause. At first, the play of revenge
gave satisfaction to wounded vanity, but that could only last while the
case was personal and close, not when the cases and the obligations were
remote and institutional. Another remoter, and perhaps unforeseen,
consequence was the deterrent effect on crime. The law of retaliation
also, "an eye for an eye," was a _law_. It had a primitive and crude
justice in it. It has come down to our own time in "reprisals" as
practiced in international quarrels, which include also the solidarity
of responsibility of all in a group for the torts of each member of it.
By producing a solidarity of interest on both sides blood revenge helped
to produce a social philosophy. It also made each interest group a peace
group inside, because only by being a peace group could it conserve all
its force. Thus the war interest against outsiders and the interest of
concord inside worked together to produce order, government, law, and
rights.
+553. Alleviations of blood revenge.+ The Arabs, in their efforts to
supersede blood revenge, tried compurgation, tribunals, payments in
composition, banishment, and arbitration. Many tribes which have adopted
Mohammedanism still practice blood revenge.[1765] Amongst the Kabyles a
man falls under it if he kills another by accident, or by the fault of
the victim, or in preventing a crime.[1766]
+554. The king's peace.+ In the history of civilization the devices to
do away with blood revenge are those which have been incidentally
mentioned. The last means of suppressing all forms of private war was
the king's peace. In modern states due respect to the king required that
there should be no quarreling or fighting in his presence. His presence
was interpreted to mean in or near his residence, his court, and his
environs. Then his peace was interpreted to cover his highroads, and his
jurisdiction was presently held to go as far as his peace, because he
must have authority to enforce his peace. When small states were united
into big ones the peace bond had to be extended over the larger unit.
Gradually all petty jurisdictions were absorbed, all justice and redress
came from the king or in his name, and private redress was forbidden.
For a long time it seemed that the freeman's prerogative was being taken
from him. As long as the duel survives the movement is incomplete.
+555. Origin of criminal law.+ When the state took control of injuries
and acts of violence and undertook to revenge them on behalf of the
victims, as well as in vindication of public authority and order,
injuries became crimes and revenge became punishment. Crimes were
injuries which could be compensated for, and also violations of the
king's peace, that is, of public welfare. In the latter point of view
they brought the king's vanity into play. The German emperor Frederick
II, by his ferocity against rebels, showed how potent wounded vanity is,
as a motive, even in an able man. The crime of treason or rebellion
always excites the vanity and fierce revenge of civil authority. It is
beyond question that the state in its penalties simply took over the
usages of kin groups in inflicting retaliation or gratifying revenge. It
did not philosophize. It assumed functions, and with them it took the
methods of procedure and the instrumentalities which it found in use for
those functions. Criminal law, therefore, and criminal administration
were developed out of blood revenge when it was rendered rational and
its traditional processes were subjected to criticism.
[1720] Sieroshevski, _Yakuty_ (_Polish version_), 248.
[1721] Clement, _Das Recht der Salischen Franken_, 243.
[1722] W. R. Smith, _Relig. of the Semites_, 274.
[1723] JAI, XX, 53.
[1724] _Ibid._, XIV, 352.
[1725] Cunow, _Verwandtschafts-organization der Austral._, 126.
[1726] Spencer and Gillen, _Cent. Austral._, 265.
[1727] Pfeil, _Aus der Südsee_, 18, 143.
[1728] _U. S. Nat. Mus._, 1888, 379.
[1729] _Bur. Eth._, XVII, Part I, 199.
[1730] Lecky, _Eur. Morals_, II, 280.
[1731] Wilutzky, _Mann und Weib_, 121.
[1732] _Smithson. Rep._, 1893, 595.
[1733] Lippert, _Kulturgesch._, I, 265.
[1734] Geijer, _Svenska Folkets Hist._, I, 112.
[1735] Risley, _Ethnog. of India_, I, 67.
[1736] Deut. xix; Josh. xx.
[1737] Num. xxxv.
[1738] _Unter den Papuas_, 256.
[1739] _Neu Guinea_, 199.
[1740] JAI, XI, 67; XXVI, 174; XXVII, 25, 36.
[1741] _Bur. Eth._, VI, 582; XI, 186; XVIII, Part I, 292.
[1742] Powers, _Calif. Indians_, 21.
[1743] Martius, _Ethnog. Brasil._, 127.
[1744] _Ibid._, 693; Schomburgk, _Brit. Guiana_, II, 460.
[1745] Smyth, _Aborig. of Vict._, I, 129; II, 229.
[1746] Veth, _Borneo's Wester Afdeeling_, II, 283.
[1747] Ellis, _Ewe-speaking Peoples_, 208.
[1748] Paulitschke, _Ethnog. N.O. Afrikas_, I, 262; II, 151, 156.
[1749] Hearn, _Japan_, 321.
[1750] P. 250.
[1751] Geijer, _Svenska Folkets Hist._, I, 300.
[1752] von Haxthausen, _Transkaukasia_, 26, 29, 50.
[1753] Num. xxxv. 31.
[1754] Maurer, _Völkerkunde, Bibel, und Christenthum_, I, 164.
[1755] 2 Sam. xiv. 7.
[1756] Deut. xxiv. 16; 2 Kings xiv. 6; Ezek. xviii. 19.
[1757] Wellhausen, _Skizzen und Vorarbeiten_, III, 182.
[1758] _Ibid._, 196.
[1759] Wellhausen, _Skizzen und Vorarbeiten_, III, 194.
[1760] W. R. Smith, _Relig. of the Semites_, 482.
[1761] The Hebrew law was, "The stranger that sojourneth with you
shall be unto you as the home-born among you" (Levit. xix. 34).
[1762] Proksch, _Blutrache bei den Arabern_, 18, 30, 33, 36, 51,
54.
[1763] Lane, _Mod. Egypt._, I, 295.
[1764] Wellhausen, _Skizzen und Vorarbeiten_, III, 194.
[1765] Proksch, _Blutrache bei den Arabern_.
[1766] Hanoteau et Letourneux, _La Kabylie_.
CHAPTER XIV
UNCLEANNESS AND THE EVIL EYE
Demonism and the aleatory interest.--Universality of primitive
demonism.--Uncleanness.--Female uncleanness.--Uncleanness in
ethnography.--Uncleanness in higher religions.--Uncleanness
amongst Jews.--Uncleanness amongst Greeks.--These customs
produced modesty and the subordination of women.--Uncleanness,
holiness, devotedness.--The evil eye; _jettatura_.--The evil
eye in ethnography.--Amulets against the evil eye.--Devices
against the evil eye.--Insult and vituperation against the evil
eye.--Interaction of the mores and the evil eye.
+556. Demonism and the aleatory interest.+ Uncleanness and the evil eye
are dogmatic notions, products of demonism. The dogmas are arbitrary. A
corpse is unclean and makes any one unclean who touches it. A baby is
not unclean. The evil eye brings bad luck, not pain or disease.
Uncleanness and the evil eye have each a field. Neither is of universal
application. The mores, starting out from primitive demonism, produced
these two dogmas as an adjustment of experience and observation to
demonism. Uncleanness is a very rude and primary expression of the
unsanitary and contagious. It undoubtedly often happens that calamity
befalls in the hour of success and rejoicing. A number of people were
trodden to death on the Brooklyn bridge when it was opened. A few
centuries ago, and in all ancient times, such an incident would have
been accepted as the obvious chastisement of the superior powers on the
overweening pride of men. The same might be said of the death of Mr.
Huskisson at the opening of the first railroad. The sum of such
incidents stands in some relation to fundamental superstitions about
demons, if such are believed. The incidents can be fitted into the
doctrines very easily. The whole aleatory interest is a field for this
kind of general dogmas of the application of fundamental principles to
classes of cases. The folkways, deeply concerned in the aleatory
interest, work out the applications.
+557. Universality of primitive demonism.+ Demonism is the broadest and
most primitive form of religion. All the higher religions show a
tendency to degenerate back to it. Brahminism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism,
Mohammedanism, and mediæval Christianity show this tendency. Greek
religion is most remarkable because we find in Homer very little
demonism. It appears, therefore, that in his time primitive demonism had
been overcome. In the fifth century B.C. we find it coming in again, and
in the fourth century it became the ruling form of popular religion. It
predominated in late Greek religion, mixed with demonism from western
Asia and Egypt, and passed to Rome, where it entered into primitive
Christianity, combining with highly developed demonism from rabbinical
Judaism. Religion always arises out of the mores. Changes in religion
are produced by changes in the mores. Religious ideas, however, in the
next stage, are brought back to the mores as controlling dogmas. The
product of the first stage becomes the seed in the second. Goblinism and
demonism have great effect on the mores, probably because demonism is so
original and universal in all religions, and so popular in its hold on
the minds of all. Demonism furnishes devices of magic, sorcery,
sortilege, divination, augury, oracles, etc., by which it is believed
that men can get from the superior powers (spirits, demons, etc.) what
they want, and can learn what is to be in the future. It therefore has
the greatest apparatus by which to satisfy human needs, as they appear
under the demonistic interpretation of the world and human life.
The most important immediate and direct consequences of demonism in the
second stage, when it is brought back to the work of life as a normative
system, are the notions of uncleanness and of the evil eye.
+558. Uncleanness.+ The notion of uncleanness is ritual. It is not
entirely irrational. Contagious diseases and diseases which are the
result of ignorance and neglect of sanitation give sense to the notion.
The interpretation of those phenomena as due to the intervention of
superior powers is like the interpretation of other diseases as due to
demons. In fact, uncleanness is a step towards a rational view of
disease, because it brings in secondary causes, and puts the action of
demons one step further off. The effect of uncleanness was that it made
the affected person unfit and unable to perform ritual acts on which
human welfare was supposed to depend. The affected person became
dangerous to others, and was forced to banish himself from societal
contact with them. He was also cut off from access to the superior
powers. It was therefore indispensable that he should recover cleanness
in order to carry on his life. The recovery was accomplished through
ritual acts and devices, and chiefly through the intervention of
shamans, who were experts in the rites and devices required.
+559. Female uncleanness.+ The ritual notion of uncleanness, being a
product of deduction from demonistic world philosophy, was arbitrary,
and was capable of indefinite extension. It was not a disease, was not
held to facts by symptoms of pain, etc. Women were held to be unclean,
and causes of uncleanness by contact, at marriage, menstruation, and
childbirth. They were always possessed by demons, which accounted for
their special functions as mothers. The periods mentioned were periods
of special activity of the demonistic function. The belief was common in
the Orient that a woman was dangerous to her husband at marriage. A
demon left her at that time in the nuptial bloodshed. At menstruation
women were dangerous to men. The ritual idea of uncleanness was so
extended that women were put under a kind of imprisonment for a time,
especially in the Zoroastrian system (sec. 561), in order to remove them
from social contact. At child bearing also they were forced into
retirement for a specified period.[1767] Corpses also were unclean and
made all those unclean who came into contact with them. There are
numerous other and comparatively trifling causes of ritual
uncleanness.[1768]
+560. Uncleanness in ethnography.+ The Macusi of British Guiana
forbid women to bathe during the period, and also forbid them to
go into the forest, for they would risk bites from enamored
snakes.[1769] If a woman of the Ngumba, in Kamerun, bears a dead
child, the uncleanness is double. She may not touch the hand of
a man until she is unwell again.[1770] In Madagascar no one who
had been at a funeral might enter the palace, or approach the
sovereign, for a month, and no corpse might be buried in the
capital city. The mourners washed their dresses, or dipped a
portion of them in running water, as a ritual purification.[1771]
The Tshi peoples of West Africa cause women to retire, at the
period, to huts prepared for the purpose in the bush, because
they are at that time offensive to the deities.[1772] The
Ewe-speaking peoples think a mother and baby unclean for forty
days after childbirth.[1773] The Bechuanas, when they have
touched a corpse, dug a grave, or are near relatives of a
deceased person,--the ritual uncleanness being thus extended to a
wider circle of those in any way concerned in a burial,--purify
themselves by prescribed ritualistic washings, put on new
garments and cut their hair, or purify themselves with the smoke
of a fire into which magic-working materials have been cast. On
returning from battle they ceremonially wash themselves and their
weapons.[1774] The Karoks of California think that if a
menstruating woman approaches any medicine which is about to be
given to a sick man she will cause his death.[1775] The Tamils
think that saliva renders ritually unclean whatever it touches.
Therefore, in drinking, they pour the liquid down the throat
without touching the cup to the lips.[1776] The Romans held that
nothing else had such marvelous efficacy as, or more deadly
qualities than, the menstrual flow.[1777] Here we find that which
is, in one view, evil and contemptible, regarded, in another
view, as powerful and worthy of respect. The Arabs thought that
"a great variety of natural powers" attached themselves to a
woman during the period.[1778] The gum of the acacia was thought
to be a clot of menstrual blood. Therefore it was an amulet. The
tree is a woman.[1779] At the great feast of the dead amongst the
Eskimo on Bering Straits the feast makers make wiping motions,
stamp, and slap the thighs, in order to "cast off all uncleanness
that might be offensive to the shades," and thus to render their
sacrifices acceptable.[1780] The spirits amongst the Kwakiutl,
Chinooks, and their neighbors kill an unclean man. These people
have fastings and washings for purification.[1781]
+561. Uncleanness in higher religions.+ In the higher religions
the same notions of ritual cleanness were retained and developed.
Pious Zoroastrians could not travel by sea without great
inconvenience, because they could not help defiling the natural
element water, which they were forbidden to do.[1782] They were
forbidden to blow a fire with the breath, lest they should
defile the element fire, and they wore a covering over the mouth
when they approached the fire for any purpose. Parings of the
nails and cuttings of the hair were unclean. They would be
weapons for demons if they were not covered by rites and spells.
The menses of women were caused by the evil god Ahriman. A woman,
during the period, was "unclean and possessed by the demon. She
must be kept confined and apart from the faithful, whom her touch
would defile, and from the fire, which her very look would
injure. She was not allowed to eat as much as she wanted, as the
strength which she might acquire would accrue to the fiends. Her
food was not given to her from hand to hand, but passed to her
from a distance in a long leaden spoon." At childbirth, the
mother was unclean, in spite of the logic of the religion,
according to which she should be pure because she has increased
life. "The strength of old instincts overcame the drift of new
principles." [The old mores were too strong for the new
religion.] A woman who bears a dead child is a grave, and must be
ritually purified as such. Only to save her from death can she
drink water, which she would defile, and if it is given to her
she must undergo a penalty. These views go back to the notion
that she has been near death and has had the death fiend in her.
A great fire is lighted to drive off the demons.[1783] At this
day there is in the house of a Parsee a room for the monthly
seclusion of women. It is bare of all comforts and from it
neither sun, moon, stars, fire, water, or sacred implements, nor
any human being, can be seen. The first ceremony performed on a
newborn child is washing its hands, to purify it, since it also
is unclean.[1784]
+562. Uncleanness amongst the Jews.+ Ritual uncleanness is
represented in the Old Testament as due to contact with carcasses
of unclean cattle and other unclean things;[1785] to contact with
a woman in childbirth, with a longer period if the infant is a
girl than a boy.[1786] Care about clean and unclean things was
praised as a high religious virtue,[1787] and the prophets used
the distinction for the difference between virtue and vice.[1788]
The food taboo is expressed by declaring forbidden animals
unclean.[1789] Plague and leprosy are cases of ritual
uncleanness, also issues.[1790] Distinctions of this kind
(cleanness and uncleanness), enforced by ritual, depend on clear
facts of observation and prescribe simple acts. They include no
dogmas. They prescribe things to be done. They produce notions
and habits. They enter so deeply into ways of living that it
takes long counter-education to eradicate them. The strength of
the adherence to this distinction, in the rabbinical period, is
well shown in the New Testament.
+563. Uncleanness amongst Greeks.+ The Greeks had similar
conceptions of uncleanness. Marriage was surrounded by rites of
purification and precaution, the marriage bath being one of the
most essential acts in the wedding rites.[1791] Death and the
dead produced uncleanness, and purification by water, fire, or
smoke was required.[1792]
+564. These mores produced modesty and subordination of women.+ Two
things of great social importance in respect to women are traceable to
these mores: (_a_) The sex modesty of women. The usages of
Zoroastrianism are cruel. They treat women as base, not on the same
plane with men, affected by a natural inferiority, and therefore as
having something to be ashamed of. Inasmuch as these usages were all in
the mores, the women accepted them as true and right, and probably never
rebelled against them even in thought. The mores therefore taught them
sex modesty, and especial shame of the sex function. (_b_) The
subordination of women. They never were subordinated because they are
weaker, because in savagery and barbarism they often are not so, but
because of their feminine disabilities and the correlative
inferiorities. They accepted the facts and the interpretation which the
mores put on them. Then they acquiesced in the treatment they received
which was reasonable upon that state of facts.
+565. Uncleanness, holiness, devotedness.+ Uncleanness was an
application of taboo. It had a double aspect. It was at once repelling
and protective. If corpses were unclean they were put out of contact
with the living as far as possible, and this was done to protect the
living. The things which were excluded by taboo because they were bad
came into parallelism with the things which were tabooed because they
were holy and were not to be treated carelessly as common and
insignificant. The holy things were in contrast with the profane things;
unclean things were in contrast with all which concerned the cult.[1793]
Nelson says of the Eskimo that at a feast the "wiping motion followed by
the stamping and the slapping on the thighs indicated that the
feast-makers thus cast off all uncleanness that might be offensive to
the shades, and thus render their offerings acceptable."[1794] This
purification was ritual and produced ritual or cult cleanness. Any one
who touched a holy thing was raised to a disagreeable amount of
holiness, which he must maintain or undergo the ritual uncleanness of a
profaned holy thing. Special offerings and atonements were necessary to
remove the danger from being holy, which might prove fatal.[1795] The
Jewish Scriptures which were canonical were distinguished as "those
which defile the hands." This shows the original identity of "unclean"
and "holy." Both are under taboo, devoted to higher powers. Whatever
touches the devoted thing becomes likewise devoted. The high priest has
to wash, on the day of atonement, after he has worn the holy
vestment.[1796] The Sadducees scoffed at the saying of the Pharisees
that the Holy Scriptures defile the hands.[1797]
+566. The evil eye. _Jettatura._+ Another direct and immediate product
of primitive demonism is the notion of the evil eye. This is a concrete
dogma and a primary inference from demonism. It is often confounded with
the _jettatura_ of the Italians. The evil eye is an affliction which
befalls the fortunate and prosperous in their prosperity. It is the
demons who are irritated by human luck and prosperity who inflict
calamity, pain, and loss, at the height of good luck. The _jettatura_ is
a spell of evil cast either voluntarily or involuntarily by persons who
have the gift of the evil eye and can cast evil spells, perhaps
unconsciously and involuntarily. It follows from the notion of the evil
eye that men should never admire, praise, congratulate, or encourage
those who are rich, successful, prosperous, and lucky. The right thing
to do is to vituperate and scoff at them in their prosperity. That may
offset their good luck, check their pride, and humble them a little.
Then the envy of the superior powers may not be excited against them to
the point of harming them. It is the most probable explanation of the
cloistering and veiling of women that it was intended to protect them,
especially if they were beautiful, from the evil eye. The admiration
which they would attract would be fatal to them. The notion of the evil
eye led to covering some parts of the body and so led to notions of
decency (sec. 459). It is assumed that demons envy human success and
prosperity and so inflict loss and harm on the successful. Hence
admiration and applause excite their malignity.
+567. Ethnographical illustrations.+ Of the following cases many
are cases of jettatura. In the Malagasy language many proper
names of persons are coarse and insulting because a
pleasant-sounding name might cause envy.[1798] In Bornu when a
horse is sold, if it is a fine one, it is delivered by night, for
fear of the evil eye (covetous and envious eyes) of
bystanders.[1799] Schweinfurth[1800] tells an incident of a man
who, going through a Nubian village, noticed that the limb of a
tree was rotten and ready to fall. He warned some people who were
standing under it. Immediately afterwards it did fall, but the
fall was attributed to the evil eye of the person who first
noticed the danger. The Dinka are mentioned as free from this
superstition.[1801] In the Sudan food is usually covered by a
conical straw cover to prevent the evil eye [viz. of the hungry
people who might admire and long for it].[1802] Customs of eating
and drinking in private, and of covering the mouth when eating or
drinking, belong here. All along the north coast of Africa the
belief in the evil eye prevails. A hen's-egg shell upon which
three small leaden horseshoes have been riveted is an amulet
against it.[1803] At Katanga, Central Africa, only the initiated
may watch the smelting of copper, for fear of the evil eye, which
would spoil the process.[1804] In the Caroline Islands a canoe,
while being built, is enclosed in a building for fear of the evil
eye.[1805] This represents a class of cases in which a high and
refined art is being practiced. In parts of Melanesia, and often
elsewhere, a shell or leaf is fastened on the end of the
masculine organ to ward off the evil eye. The same is the purpose
of hanging strips of leather, etc., which catch attention, to
divert it from the organ which is sensitive to the evil eye.
Hence arose the taboo on parts of the body. In some groups in
India, at weddings, women of the bride's and bridegroom's parties
sing songs, each deriding and decrying the other. This is for
luck. "Praise is risky; abuse and blame are safe."[1806] In
Behar, on a certain day, sisters abuse brothers, in the belief
that this will cause them long life and good luck.[1807] In the
Horn of Africa magicians who want to get rid of a man stupefy him
with drugs and sell him into slavery as having the evil eye
(jettatura).[1808] Amongst the Kabyles a husband left alone with
his bride first strikes her three light blows on the shoulder
with the back of his knife to ward off from her the evil
eye.[1809] In India a small object of iron is hung on a cradle
because iron wards off the evil eye.[1810] The jettatura belongs
to persons born at certain periods in the year, or a woman's
behavior during pregnancy may cause her child to have it.[1811]
People are held to be in danger of the evil eye in prosperity and
on festive occasions when they put on fine dress and ornaments.
Witches, beggars, and people of the lowest class have the evil
eye. Diseases of decline are attributed to the jettatura. Cattle
cease to give milk and trees lose leaves on account of it.
Flowers and fruit wither untimely. Gems break or lose
brilliancy.[1812]
+568. Amulets against the evil eye.+ In the Dutch East Indies the
phallus, or the symbol of it, is a charm against the evil eye
which is cast in quarrels.[1813] Roman boys wore a symbol of this
kind. Obscene gestures were supposed to ward off the evil
eye.[1814] In some parts of India a tiger's tooth or claw is an
amulet for the same purpose, also obscene symbols or strings of
cowries. Whatever dangles and flutters attracts attention to
itself and away from the thing to be protected.[1815] Hindoo
parents give their children ugly and inauspicious names,
especially if they have lost some children.[1816] The notion of
the evil eye was very strong amongst the Arabs, with the notion
that beauty attracted it.[1817] Mohammed himself believed in the
evil eye. The superstition came down from the heathen period when
rags and dirty things were hung on children to protect them from
the evil eye.[1818] The veiling of women amongst the Arabs was
probably due to it. Beautiful women also painted black spots on
their cheeks.[1819] Children, horses, and asses are now
disfigured amongst Moslems to protect them from the risk they
would run if beautiful. To save a child from the evil eye they
say "God be good to thee" and spit in its face.[1820] Amongst the
Bedouins, whenever one utters praises he must add: "Mashallah,"
that is, God avert ill! The only other way to avert ill is to
give the praised object to him who praised it.[1821] Glittering
and waving objects are much used by Moslems on dress and horse
caparisons to distract attention. They put texts of the Koran on
streamers on their houses for the same purpose.
+569. Devices against the evil eye.+ Homer has the idea that the
gods curb the pride of prosperity and are jealous of it. His
heroes are taught as a life policy to avert envy.
Self-disparagement is an approved pose.[1822] Plutarch[1823]
explains the efficiency of objects set up to avert witchcraft on
the theory that by their oddity they draw the evil eye from
persons and objects. Fescennine verses of the Romans, which were
used at weddings and triumphs, were intended to ward off ill
luck. Soldiers followed the chariot of the triumphing general and
shouted to him derisive and sarcastic verses to avert the ill to
which he was then most liable. The Greeks used coarse jests at
festivals for the same purpose.[1824] Modern Egyptians have
inherited this superstition. Mothers leave their children ragged
and dirty, especially when they take them out of doors, for fear
of admiration and envy. Boys are greatly envied. They are kept
long in the harem and dressed in girl's clothes for the same
protection.[1825] Amongst the richer classes at Cairo chandeliers
are hung before a bridegroom's house. If a crowd collects to look
at a fine chandelier, a jar is purposely broken to distract
attention from it, lest an envious eye should cause it to
fall.[1826] When the Pasha gave up his monopoly of meat, butchers
hung up carcasses in full view on the street. This was complained
of, since every beggar could see the meat and envy it, "and one
might, therefore, as well eat poison as such meat."[1827] An
antidote is to burn a bit of alum, with the recital of the first
and the last three chapters of the Koran.[1828] The Jews of
Southern Russia do not allow their children to be admired or
caressed. If it is done, the mother will order the child to "make
a fig gesture" behind the back of the one who did it.[1829]
The evil eye is mentioned in Proverbs xxiii. 6 and xxviii. 22,
and perhaps in Matt. xx. 15. The emphasis in Proverbs seems to be
on envy and covetousness, not on magical evil.
In China children are often named "dog," "hog," "flea," etc., to
ward off the evil eye.[1830]
+570. Insult and vituperation for luck and against evil eye.+
Amongst the southern Slavs the evil eye acts by bringing evil
spirits into action as the agents, and they "decry" the person or
thing. No doubt this mode of operation is to be generally
understood when not mentioned. The beautiful suffer most. One may
unwittingly do the harm by admiration. One should never say,
"What a beautiful child!" but "What an ugly child!" if one
admires it. The language has become inverted by this usage.[1831]
The superstition is popular in Hungary. A child is never to be
praised or admired. If one looks at a child for a while in
admiration, he should then spit on it three times.[1832] Possibly
the custom of throwing an old shoe after a bride is to be traced
to the same superstition. It is a contemptible and derisory gift
for luck, like vituperative outcries. The fear of the evil eye
and the _jettatura_ is now very strong in southern Italy.[1833]
+571. Interaction of the mores and the evil eye.+ The doctrine of the
evil eye is plainly an immediate deduction from demonism. If the
atmosphere is full of demons, surrounding us all, agents of all things
which happen and affect our interests, human welfare depends either on
their uncontrollable caprice, or on devices by which they can be
controlled. In the former case human beings need to have omens, oracles,
rites of divination, etc., to find out what is to be. In the latter case
all devices of magic and sorcery are of the highest value to men. This
is why magic is so ultimate and original in the history of civilization.
It teaches men _not_ to look for any rational causation in the order of
things, and to believe in the efficacy of ritual proceedings which
contain no rational relation of means to ends. Then it costs no effort
to believe that one person can bewitch another, and do it unconsciously.
Any relation of responsibility can be invented and believed, since there
are no tests of agency. It follows that a new function is opened for the
mores. They have to select and establish those relations of agency and
responsibility which are to be believed in; that is, they define crimes
and criminal responsibility. Ordeals as tests fall in with the same
system. They touch no actual relations and therefore prove nothing. It
is the mores which establish faith in them and give them the sanction of
the society. As to the evil eye, as the evil result of envy and of
prosperity, it is an _a posteriori_ inference from observed facts,
exaggerated into a dogma. Cases of disaster in the hour of triumph
occur, both as consequences of overweening self-confidence and by pure
chance (Cæsar, Cæsar Borgia, Napoleon). The aleatory interest always
averages up, but the successful, who have enjoyed good fortune for a
time, believe that it must last for them, and forget that the balance
requires bad luck. The lookers-on, however, form their philosophy from
what they see. They believe in Nemesis, or other doctrine of offsets,
and try by vituperation to make artificial offsets which will avert
greater and more real calamities. In all steps of these doctrines and
acts the mores are called into play. They are the only limits to the
applications of the doctrines. They are of little use. They are afloat
in and with the faiths and doctrines. They never can make definitions or
set limits. They only enthuse customs, which may change from day to day
in their definitions and limits and carry the mores with them. No doubt
primitive religion here had excellent effect, for as it arose out of
demonism it brought in authority and fixed dogma, which, although
erroneous and in itself bad, was a great deal better than the floating
superstitions of demonism.
[1767] Levit. xii.
[1768] _Ibid._, xiii, xiv, xv.
[1769] Schomburgk, _Brit. Guiana_, II, 316.
[1770] _Globus_, LXXXI, 337.
[1771] Sibree, _Great Afr. Island_, 290.
[1772] Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples_, 94.
[1773] Ellis, _Ewe-speaking Peoples_, 153.
[1774] Fritsch, _Eingeb. Süd-Afr._, 201.
[1775] Powers, _Calif. Indians_, 31.
[1776] Gehring, _Süd-Indien_, 96.
[1777] Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, VII, 64.
[1778] W. R. Smith, _Relig. of the Semites_, 448.
[1779] _Ibid._, 133.
[1780] _Bur. Eth._, XVIII, Part I, 371.
[1781] _U. S. Nat. Mus._, 1895, 393.
[1782] Darmsteter, _Zend-Avesta_, I, xxxiv.
[1783] Darmsteter, _Zend-Avesta_, xcii.
[1784] Geiger, _Ostiran. Kultur_, 236, 259.
[1785] Levit. v. 2; xi. 26.
[1786] _Ibid._ xii.
[1787] _Ibid._ x. 10; xi. 47
[1788] Isaiah. vi. 5; Ezek. xxxiii. 17.
[1789] Levit. xi.
[1790] _Ibid._ xiv, xv.
[1791] Rohde, _Psyche_, II, 72.
[1792] Guhl und Koner, _Leben der Griechen und Römer_, 367.
[1793] Maurer, _Völkerkunde, Bibel, und Christenthum_, I, 105.
[1794] _Bur. Ethnol._, XVIII, Part I, 371.
[1795] Hastings, _Dict. Bible_, "Relig. of Israel."
[1796] Levit., xvi. 4, 24.
[1797] Bousset, _Relig. des Judenthums_, 124.
[1798] Sibree, _Great Afr. Island_, 167.
[1799] Nachtigal, _Sahara und Sudan_, I, 607.
[1800] _Heart of Africa_, II, 406.
[1801] _Ibid._, I, 157.
[1802] Junker, _Afrika_, I, 69.
[1803] _Globus_, LXXV, 19.
[1804] _Ibid._, LXXII, 164.
[1805] Kubary, _Karolinenarchipel._, 292.
[1806] JASB, IV, 63.
[1807] _Ibid._, II, 598.
[1808] Paulitschke, _Ethnog. N.O. Afr._, II, 140.
[1809] Hanoteau et Letourneux, _La Kabylie_, II, 219.
[1810] JASB, II, 170.
[1811] _Ibid._, I, 120.
[1812] _Ibid._
[1813] Wilken in _Bijdragen tot T. L. en V.-kunde_, XXXV, 399.
[1814] _Jewish Encyc._, s.v. "Evil Eye."
[1815] Monier-Williams, _Brahmanism and Hinduism_, 254.
[1816] _Ibid._, 371.
[1817] Lane, _Arabian Nights_, I, 67.
[1818] W. R. Smith, _Relig. of the Semites_, 448.
[1819] Von Kremer, _Kulturgesch. des Orients_, II, 212, 253.
[1820] Pischon, _Einfluss des Islam_, 110.
[1821] _Globus_, LXXV, 193.
[1822] Keller, _Hom. Soc._, 114.
[1823] _Symposium_, V, 9.
[1824] Smith, _Antiq._, I, 839; II, 831.
[1825] Lane, _Mod. Egypt._, I, 77.
[1826] _Ibid._, 384
[1827] _Ibid._, 385.
[1828] _Ibid._, 381.
[1829] _Globus_, LXXXIII, 316.
[1830] Williams, _Middle Kingdom_, I, 797.
[1831] Krauss, _Volksglaube der Südslaven_, 41-43.
[1832] Temesvary, _Aberglaube in der Geburtshilfe_, 75.
[1833] _Bur. Ethnol._, III, 297.
CHAPTER XV
THE MORES CAN MAKE ANYTHING RIGHT AND PREVENT
CONDEMNATION OF ANYTHING
The mores define the limits which make right and wrong.--Public
punishments.--Prisons in England in the eighteenth century.--
Wars of factions; penalties of defeat.--Bundling.--Two forms of
bundling.--Mediæval bundling.--Poverty and wooing.--Night
wooing in the North American colonies.--Reasons for it.--Public
lupanars.--The end of the lupanars.--Education needed to
clarify the judgment.
+572. Mores define the limits which make anything right.+ At every turn
we find new evidence that the mores can make anything right. What they
do is that they cover a usage in dress, language, behavior, manners,
etc., with the mantle of current custom, and give it regulation and
limits within which it becomes unquestionable. The limit is generally a
limit of toleration. Literature, pictures, exhibitions, celebrations,
and festivals are controlled by some undefined, and probably
undefinable, standard of decency and propriety, which sets a limit of
toleration on the appeals to fun, sensuality, and various prejudices. In
regard to all social customs, the mores sanction them by defining them
and giving them form. Such regulated customs are etiquette. The
regulation by the mores always gives order and form, and thus surrounds
life with limits within which we may and beyond which we may not pursue
our interests (e.g. property and marriage). Horseplay and practical
jokes have been tolerated, at various times and places, at weddings.
They require good-natured toleration, but soon run to excess and may
become unendurable. The mores set the limits or define the disapproval.
The wedding journey was invented to escape the "jokes." The rice and
old shoes will soon be tabooed. The mores fluctuate in their
prescriptions. If the limits are too narrow, there is an overflow into
vice and abuse, as was proved by seventeenth-century puritanism in
England. If the limit is too remote, there is no discipline, and the
regulation fails of its purpose. Then a corruption of manners ensues. In
the cases now to be given we shall see the power of the mores to give
validity to various customs. The cases are all such that we may see in
them sanction and currency given to things which seem to us contrary to
simple and self-evident rules of right; that is, they are contrary to
the views now inculcated in us by our own mores as axiomatic and beyond
the need of proof.[1834]
+573. Punishments for crime.+ Mediæval punishments for criminals,
leaving out of account heretics and witches, bore witness to the
grossness, obscenity, inhumanity, and ferocity of the mores of that age.
The punishments were not thought wrong or questionable. There was no
revolt against them in any one's mind. They were judged right, wise, and
necessary, by full public opinion. They were not on the outer boundary
of the mores, but in the core of them. Schultz[1835] says that the
romancers have not exaggerated the horrors of mediæval dungeons. Many of
them still remain and are shown to horrified tourists. There was no
arrangement for having them cleaned by anybody, so that in time they
were sure to become horribly dangerous to health. They were small, dark,
damp, cold, and infested by vermin, rats, snakes, etc.[1836] Several
dungeons in the Bastille were so constructed that the prisoners could
neither sit, stand, nor lie, in comfort.[1837] Fiendish ingenuity was
expended on the invention of refinements of suffering, and executions
offered public exhibitions in which the worst vices in the mores of the
time were fed and strengthened. Many punishments were not only cruel,
but obscene, the cruelty and obscenity being destitute of moral or civil
motive and only serving to gratify malignant passion. A case is
mentioned of a law in which it was provided that if a criminal had no
property, his wife should be violated by a public official as a
penalty.[1838] In the later Middle Ages, after torture was introduced
into civil proceedings, ingenuity and "artistic skill" were manifested
in inventing instruments of torture.[1839] A case is given of
extravagant cruelty and tyranny on the part of a man of rank towards a
cook who had displeased him. It was impossible to obtain protection or
redress. The standpoint of the age was that a man of rank must be
allowed full discretion in dealing with a cook.[1840] In many cases
details were added to punishments, which were intended to reach the
affections, mental states, faiths, etc., of the accused, and add mental
agony to physical pain. "Use and wont" exercised their influence on
people who saw or heard of these acts of the authorities until cruelties
and horrors became commonplace and familiar, and the lust of cruelty was
a characteristic of the age.
+574. Prisons in England in the time of Queen Anne.+ The prisons of
England, in Queen Anne's time, were sinks of misery, disease, cruelty,
and extortion, from which debtors suffered most, on account of their
poverty. Women contributed to the total loathsomeness and suffered from
it. The Marshalsea prison was "an infected pest house all the year
long." There were customs by which jailers and chaplains extorted fees
from the miserable prisoners. In the country the prisons were worse than
in London. Pictures are said to exist in which debtor prisoners are
shown catching mice for food, dying of starvation and malaria, covered
with boils and blains, assaulted by jailers, imprisoned in underground
dungeons, living with hogs, with clogs on their legs, tortured with
thumbscrews, etc. "Nobody ever seems to have bothered their heads about
it. It was not their business." In 1702 the House of Commons ordered a
bill to be brought in for regulating the king's bench and fleet prisons,
"but nobody took sufficient interest in it, and it never became an
act."[1841] If the grade and kind of humanity which the case required
did not exist in the mores of the time, there would be no response. It
was on the humanitarian wave of the latter half of the century that
Howard succeeded in bringing about a reform. The prisons in the American
colonies were of the same kind as those in the old country. The Tories,
in the revolution, suffered most from their badness. It is not known
that personal abuse was perpetrated in them.
+575. Wars of factions. Penalties of defeat.+ Political factions and
religious sects have always far surpassed the criminal law in the
ferocity of their penalties against each other. Neither the offenses nor
the penalties are defined in advance. As Lea says,[1842] the treatment
of Alberico, brother of Ezzelino da Romano, and his family (1259) shows
the ferocity of the age. Ezzelino showed the same in many cases, and the
hatred heaped up against him is easily understood, but the gratification
of it was beastly and demonic.[1843] Great persons, after winning
positions of power, used all their resources to crush old rivals or
opponents (Clement V, John XXII) and to exult over the suffering they
could inflict.[1844] In the case of Wullenweber, at Lubeck,[1845]
burgesses of cities manifested the same ferocity in faction fights. The
history of city after city contains similar episodes. At Ghent, in 1530,
the handicraftsmen got the upper hand for a time and used it like
savages.[1846] All parties fought out social antagonisms without reserve
on the doctrine: To the victors the spoils; to the vanquished the woe!
If two parties got into a controversy about such a question as whether
Christ and his apostles lived by beggary, they understood that the
victorious party in the controversy would burn the defeated party. That
was the rule of the game and they went into it on that understanding.
In all these matters the mores of the time set the notions of what was
right, or those limits within which conduct must always be kept. No one
blamed the conduct on general grounds of wrong and excess, or of broad
social inexpediency. The mores of the time were absolutely imperative as
to some matters (e.g. duties of church ritual), but did not give any
guidance as to the matters here mentioned. In fact, the mores prevented
any unfavorable criticism of those matters or any independent judgment
about them.
+576. Bundling.+ One of the most extraordinary instances of what the
mores can do to legitimize a custom which, when rationally judged, seems
inconsistent with the most elementary requirements of the sex taboo, is
bundling. In Latin Europe generally, especially amongst the upper
classes, it is not allowed that a young man and a young woman shall be
alone together even by day, and the freer usage in England, and still
more in the United States, is regarded as improper and contrary to good
manners. In the latter countries two young people, if alone together, do
not think of transgressing the rules of propriety as set by custom in
the society. Such was the case also with night visits. Although the
custom was free, and although better taste and judgment have abolished
it, yet it was _defined_ and regulated, and was never a proof of
licentious manners. It is found amongst uncivilized people, but is
hardly to be regarded as a survival in higher civilization. Christians,
in the third and fourth centuries,[1847] practiced it, even without the
limiting conditions which were set in the Middle Ages. Having determined
to renounce sex, as an evil, they sought to test themselves by extreme
temptation. It was a test or proof of the power of moral rule over
natural impulse.[1848] "It was a widely spread custom in both the east
and the west of the Roman empire to live with virgins. Distinguished
persons, including one of the greatest bishops of the empire, who was
also one of the greatest theologians, joined in the custom. Public
opinion in the church judged them lightly, although unfavorably."[1849]
"After the church took on the episcopal constitution, it persecuted and
drove out the _subintroductae_. They were regarded as a survival from
the old church which was disapproved. The custom that virgins dwelt in
the house with men arose in the oldest period of the Christian
church."[1850] "They did not think of any evil as to be apprehended."
"In fact, we have only a little clear evidence that the living together
did not correspond in the long run to the assumptions on which it was
based."[1851] The custom was abolished in the sixth century.[1852]
"Spiritual marriage" was connected with the monastic profession and both
were due to the ascetic tendency of the time. "From the time when we can
clearly find monastic associations in existence, we find hermits living
in comradeship with nuns."[1853] We are led back to Jewish associations.
The custom is older than Christianity. The custom at Corinth[1854] was
but imitation of Jewish "God worshipers" or "Praying women."[1855] The
Therapeuts had such companions. Their houses of worship were arranged to
separate the sexes. Their dances sometimes lasted all night.[1856] In
the Middle Ages several sects who renounced marriage introduced tests of
great temptation.[1857] Individuals also, believing that they were
carrying on the war between "the flesh" and "the spirit" subjected
themselves to similar tests.[1858] These are not properly cases in the
mores, but they illustrate the intervention of sectarian doctrines or
views to traverse the efforts to satisfy interests, and so to disturb
the mores.
+577. Two forms of bundling.+ Two cases are to be distinguished: (1)
night visits as a mode of wooing;[1859] (2) extreme intimacy between two
persons who are under the sex taboo (one or both being married, or one
or both vowed to celibacy), and who nevertheless observe the taboo.
+578. Mediæval bundling.+ The custom in the second form became common in
the woman cult of the twelfth century and it spread all over
Europe.[1860] As the vassal attended his lord to his bedchamber, so the
knight his lady. The woman cult was an aggregation of poses and
pretenses to enact a comedy of love, but not to satisfy erotic passion.
The custom spread to the peasant classes in later centuries, and it
extended to the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Switzerland, England,
Scotland, and Wales, but it took rather the first form in the lower
classes and in the process of time. In building houses in Holland the
windows were built conveniently for this custom. "In 1666-1667 every
house on the island of Texel had an opening under the window where the
lover could enter so as to sit on the bed and spend the night making
love to the daughter of the house." The custom was called _queesten_.
Parents encouraged it. A girl who had no _queester_ was not esteemed.
Rarely did any harm occur. If so, the man was mobbed and wounded or
killed. The custom can be traced in North Holland down to the eighteenth
century.[1861] This was the customary mode of wooing in the low
countries and Scandinavia. In spite of the disapproval of both civil and
ecclesiastical authorities, the custom continued just as round dances
continue now, in spite of the disapproval of many parents, because a
girl who should refuse to conform to current usage would be left out of
the social movement. The lover was always one who would be accepted as a
husband. If he exceeded the limits set by custom he was very hardly
dealt with by the people of the village.[1862] The custom is reported
from the Schwarzwald as late as 1780. It was there the regular method of
wooing for classes who had to work all day. The lover was required to
enter by the dormer window. Even still the custom is said to exist
amongst the peasants of Germany, but it is restricted to one night in
the month or in the year.[1863] Krasinski[1864] describes kissing games
customary amongst the Unitarians of the Ukrain. He says that they are a
Greek custom and he connects them with bundling.
+579. Poverty and wooing.+ Amongst peasants there was little opportunity
for the young people to become acquainted. When the cold season came
they could not woo out of doors. The young women could not be protected
by careful rules which would prevent wooing. They had to take risks and
to take care of themselves. Poverty was the explanation of this custom
in all civilized countries, although there was always in it an element
of frolic and fun.
+580. Night wooing in North American colonies.+ All the emigrants to
North America were familiar with the custom. In the seventeenth century,
in the colonies, the houses were small, poorly warmed, and inconvenient,
allowing little privacy. No doubt this is the reason why the custom took
new life in the colonies. Burnaby[1865] says that it was the custom
amongst the lower classes of Massachusetts that a pair who contemplated
marriage spent the night together in bed partly dressed. If they did not
like each other they might not marry, unless the woman became pregnant.
The custom was called "tarrying." It was due to poverty again. Modern
inhabitants of tenement houses are constrained in their customs by the
same limitation, and the effect is seen in their folkways. The custom of
bundling had a wide range of variety. Two people sitting side by side
might cover themselves with the same robe, or lie on the bed together
for warmth. Peters[1866] defended the custom, which, he said, "prevails
amongst all classes to the great honor of the country, its religion, and
ladies." The older women resented the attempts of the ministers to
preach against the custom. Sofas were introduced as an alternative. The
country people thought the sofa less proper. In the middle of the
eighteenth century the decline in social manners, which was attributed
to the wars, caused the custom to produce more evil results.[1867] Also
the greater wealth, larger houses, and better social arrangements
changed the conditions and there was less need for the custom. It fell
under social disapproval and was thrown out of the folkways.
Stiles[1868] says that "it died hard" after the revolution. In 1788 a
ballad in an almanac brought the custom into popular ridicule. Stiles
quotes the case of Seger _vs._ Slingerland, in which the judge, in a
case of seduction, held that parents who allowed bundling, although it
was the custom, could not recover.[1869]
+581. Reasons for bundling.+ A witness before the Royal Commission on
the Marriage Laws, 1868,[1870] testified that night visiting was still
common amongst the laboring classes in some parts of Scotland. "They
have no other means of intercourse." It was against custom for a lover
to visit his sweetheart by day. As to the parents, "Their daughters must
have husbands and there is no other way of courting." This statement
sums up the reasons for this custom which, not being a public custom,
must have varied very much according to the character of individuals who
used it. Attempts were always made to control it by sanctions in public
opinion.
+582. Public lupanars.+ Perhaps the most incredible case to illustrate
the power of the mores to extend toleration and sanction to an evil
thing remains to be mentioned,--the lupanars which were supported by the
mediæval cities. Athenæus[1871] says that Solon caused female slaves to
be bought by the city and exposed in order to save other women from
assaults on their virtue. In later times prostitution was accepted as
inevitable, but it was not organized by the city. Salvianus (fifth
century, A.D.) represents the brothels as tolerated by the Roman law in
order to prevent adultery.[1872] Lupanars continued to exist from Roman
times until the Middle Ages. Those in southern Europe were recruited
from the female pilgrims from the north who set out for Rome or
Palestine and whose means failed them.[1873] It is another social
phenomenon due to poverty and to a specious argument of protection to
women in a good position. This argument came down by tradition with the
institution. The city council of Nuremberg stated, as a reason for
establishing a lupanar, that the church allowed harlots in order to
prevent greater evils.[1874] This statement, no doubt, refers to a
passage in Augustine, _De Ordine_:[1875] "What is more base, empty of
worth, and full of vileness than harlots and other such pests? Take away
harlots from human society and you will have tainted everything with
lust. Let them be with the matrons and you will produce contamination
and disgrace. So this class of persons, on account of their morals, of a
most shameless life, fills a most vile function under the laws of
order." The bishop had laid down the proposition that evil things in
human society, under the great orderly scheme of things which he was
trying to expound, are overruled to produce good. He then sought
illustrations to prove this. The passage quoted is one of his
illustrations. Everywhere else in his writings where he mentions harlots
he expresses the greatest abomination of them. His general proposition
is fallacious and extravagant, and he had to strain the cases which he
alleged as illustrations, but he was a church father, and five hundred
years later no one dared criticise or dissent from anything which he had
said. It went far beyond the incidental use of an illustration made by
him, to cite the passage, with his authority, for a doctrine that cities
might wisely establish lupanars in order to prevent sex vice, especially
in the interest of virtuous women.[1876] Such houses were maintained
without secrecy or shame. Queen Joanna of Naples made ordinances for a
lupanar at Avignon, in 1347, when it was the papal residence. Generally
the house was rented to a "host" under stipulations as to the food,
dress, and treatment of the inmates, and regulations as to order,
gambling, etc.[1877] The inmates, like the public executioners, were
required to wear a distinctive dress. Frequenters did not need to
practice secrecy. The houses were free to persons of rank, and were
especially prepared by the city when it had to entertain great persons.
Women who were natives of the city were not admitted. This is the only
feature which is not entirely cynical and shameless.[1878] In 1501 a
rich citizen of Frankfurt am Main bequeathed to the city a sum of money
with which to build a large house into which all the great number of
harlots could be collected,[1879] for the number increased greatly. They
appeared at all great concourses of men, and were sent out to the Hansa
stations.[1880] In fact, the people of the time accepted certain social
phenomena as "natural" and inevitable, and they made their arrangements
accordingly, uninterfered with by "moral sense." In Wickliffe's time the
bishop of Winchester obtained a handsome rent from the stews of
Southwark.[1881] Probably he and his contemporaries thought no harm.
Never until the nineteenth century was it in the mores of any society to
feel that the sacrifice of the mortal welfare of one human being to the
happiness of another was a thing which civil institutions could not
tolerate. It could not enter into the minds of men of the fifteenth
century that harlots, serfs, and other miserable classes had personal
rights which were outraged by the customs and institutions of that time.
+583. The end of the lupanars.+ All the authorities agree that the thing
which put an end to the city lupanars was syphilis.[1882] It was not due
to any moral or religious revolt, although there had been individuals
who had criticised the institution of harlots, and some pious persons
had founded convents, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, for
repentant harlots. Protestants and Catholics tried, to some extent, to
throw the blame of the lupanars on each other. Luther urged the
abolition of them in 1520. They reached their greatest development in
the fifteenth century.[1883] The mere existence of an article so
degrading to both husband and wife as the girdle[1884] is significant of
the mores of the period, and shows how far the mores can go to make
anything "right," or properly customary.
+584. Judgment is beclouded by the atmosphere formed by the mores.
Education.+ Witch persecutions are another case of the extent to which
familiarity with the customs prevents any rational judgment of phenomena
of experience and observation. How was it possible that men did not see
the baseness and folly of their acts? The answer is that the ideas of
demonism were a part of the mental outfit of the period. The laws were
traditions from generations which had drawn deductions from the
doctrines of demonism and had applied them in criminal practice. The
legal procedure was familiar and corresponded to the horror of crimes
and criminals, of which witchcraft and witches were the worst. The mores
formed a moral and civil atmosphere through which everything was seen,
and rational judgment was made impossible. It cannot be doubted that, at
any time, all ethical judgments are made through the atmosphere of the
mores of the time. It is they which tell us what is right. It is only by
high mental discipline that we can be trained to rise above that
atmosphere and form rational judgments on current cases. This mental
independence and ethical power are the highest products of education.
They are also perilous. Our worst cranks are those who get the
independence and power, but cannot stand alone and form correct
judgments outside of the mores of the time and place. It must be
remembered that the mores sometimes becloud the judgment, but they more
often guide it.
[1834] See secs. 184-188, on Fashion.
[1835] _Höf. Leben_, I, 37.
[1836] Scherr, _Kulturgesch._, 377.
[1837] Lacroix, _Moyen Age_, I, 430.
[1838] Schultz, _D. L._, 160.
[1839] Lecky, _Rationalism_, I, 332.
[1840] Schultz, _Höf. Leben_, II, 448.
[1841] Ashton, _Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne_.
[1842] _Inquis._, II, 228.
[1843] _Rerum Ital. Script._, IX, 134.
[1844] Lea, _Inquis._, II, 452.
[1845] Barthold, _Hansa_, III, 291.
[1846] Räumer, _Hist. Taschenbuch_, 2 ser., III, 413.
[1847] Achelis, _Virgines Subintroductae_, 4.
[1848] Harnack, _Pseudo-Clement. Briefe de Virginitate_; Cyprian,
_Epist. IV ad Pompon_ (c. 250 A.D.); Achelis, _Virgines
Subintroductae_; Julicher in _Archiv für Religionswssnsft._, VII,
372.
[1849] Achelis, 12.
[1850] _Ibid._, 74.
[1851] Achelis, 67.
[1852] _Ibid._, 58.
[1853] _Ibid._, 47.
[1854] 1 Cor. vii. 36-40.
[1855] Achelis, 32.
[1856] _Ibid._, 31.
[1857] Lea, _Inquis._, II, 357; III, 109; _Sacerd. Celibacy_,
167.
[1858] Todd, _Life of St. Patrick_, 91.
[1859] This custom existed amongst uncivilized people. Fritsch,
_Eingeb. Süd.-Afr._, 140; Gomme, _Folklore_, 220; Ling Roth,
_Sarawak_, I, 109; JAI, XXI, 120; _Globus_, LXXVIII, 228; La
Hontan, _Voyages dans l'Amer._, II, 133; Masson, _Balochistan_,
III, 287.
[1860] Weinhold, _D. F._, I, 260, ff.
[1861] Wilken in _Bijdragen tot T. L. en V.-Kunde_, XXXV, 205.
[1862] Scheltema, _Frijen en Trouwen_, 59; Schotel, _Het
Oud-Holland. Huisgezin_, 228; _Globus_, LXXXII, 324.
[1863] Rudeck, _Gesch. der Sittlichkeit_, 146, 404.
[1864] _Cossacks of the Ukrain_, 281.
[1865] _Travels in the Middle Settlements of N. Amer._
(1759-1760), 144.
[1866] _Hist. of Connecticut_, 325.
[1867] Stiles, _Bundling_, 80.
[1868] Stiles, _Bundling_, 75.
[1869] Stiles, _Bundling_, 112.
[1870] Page 172.
[1871] _Deipnosophists_, XIII, 25.
[1872] _De Gubernat. Dei_, VII, 99.
[1873] Weinhold, _D. F._, II, 22.
[1874] Schultz, _D. L._, 73.
[1875] Migne, _Patrol. Latina_, XXXII, 1000.
[1876] Scherr, _Deutsches Frauenleben_, I, 275.
[1877] Jaeger, _Ulms Leben im M. A._, 544.
[1878] Rudeck, _Oeffentl. Sittlichkeit_, 26-35.
[1879] Westerhout, _Geslachtsleven onzer Voorouders_, 198.
[1880] Scherr, _Kulturgesch._, 223.
[1881] Trevelyan, _England in the Age of Wickliffe_, 280.
[1882] The origin of this disease being unknown, it has been
suggested that it was due to vice and excess in the Middle Ages
(_Umschau_, VII, 71).
[1883] See _Cambridge Hist. of Mod. Europe_, I, especially Lea's
chapter; Janssen, _Deutsches Volk_, VIII; Schultz, _Höf. Leben_,
I, 452; same author, _Deutsch. Leben_, 254, 257, 277, 283; Du
Laure, _Paris_, 268; Scherr, _Kulturgesch._, 222, on the
fifteenth century.
[1884] Schultz, _D. L._, 283.
CHAPTER XVI
SACRAL HARLOTRY. CHILD SACRIFICE
Men's clubhouses.--Consecrated women.--Relation of sacral
harlotry and child sacrifice.--Reproduction and food supply.--
The Gilgamesh epic.--The Adonis myth.--Religious ritual,
religious drama, and harlotry.--The Babylonian custom; its
relation to religion.--Religion and the mores.--Cases of sacral
harlotry.--The same customs in the Old Testament.--The
antagonism of abundance and excess.--Survivals of sacral
harlotry; analogous customs in Hindostan.--Lingam and yoni.--
Conventionalization.--Criticism of the mores of Hindostan.--
Mexican mores; drunkenness.--Japanese mores.--Chinese religion
and mores.--Philosophy of the interest in reproduction;
incest.--The archaic is sacred.--Child sacrifice.--Beast
sacrifice substituted for child sacrifice.--Mexican doctrine of
greater power through death.--Motives of child sacrifice.--
Dedication by vows.--Degeneration of the custom of consecrating
women.--Our traditions come from Israel.--How the Jewish view
of sensuality prevailed.
The topics treated in this chapter are further illustrations of the
power of the mores to make anything right, and to protect anything from
condemnation. See also Chapter XVII.
+585. Men's clubhouses.+ It is a very common custom in barbaric society
that the men have a clubhouse in which they spend much of their time
together and in which the unmarried men sleep. Such houses are centers
of intrigue, enterprise, amusement, and vice. The men work there, carry
on shamanistic rites, hold dances, entertain guests, and listen to
narratives by the elders. Women are excluded altogether or at times. In
the Caroline Islands such houses are institutions of social and
religious importance. While the women of the place may not enter them,
those from a neighboring place live in them for a time in license, but
return home with payment which is used partly for religious purposes and
partly for themselves.[1885]
+586. Consecrated women.+ It may even be said to be the current view of
uncivilized peoples, up to the full development of the father family,
that women have free control of their own persons until they are
married, when they pass under a taboo which they are bound to observe.
Therefore before marriage they may accumulate a dowry. Very many cases
also occur of men-women and women-men, persons of either sex who assume
the functions and mode of life of the other. Cases also occur in
barbarism of women consecrated to the gods. Among the Ewe-speaking
peoples of West Africa[1886] girls of ten or twelve are received and
educated for three years in the chants and dances of worship, serving
the priests. At the end of the time they become public women, but are
under no reproach, because they are regarded as married to the god and
acting under his direction. Properly they should be restricted to the
worshipers at the temple, but they are not. Probably such was the
original taboo which is now relaxed and decayed. Children whom such
women bear belong to the god. The institution "is essentially religious
in its origin and is intimately connected with phallic worship."
+587. Sacral harlotry and child sacrifice.+ These observations may serve
to introduce a study of the phenomena, so incomprehensible to us, of
sacral prostitution and child sacrifice. That study is calculated to
show us that the mores define right and wrong. It would be a great
mistake to regard the above cases as mere aberrations of sex appetite.
The usages had their origin in interests. Sacral harlotry was a
substitute for the child sacrifice of females. The other incidental
interests found advantage in it. It was an attempt to solve problems of
life. It was regarded as conducive to welfare, and was connected with
religion. It was kept up by the conservatism and pertinacity of
religious usage until a later time and another set of conditions, when
it became vicious.
+588. Reproduction and food supply.+ The operations of nature by which
plants and animals reproduce are of great interest and importance to
man, because on them depends the abundance of his food supply. It is
impossible to tell when this interest would "begin," but it would become
intense whenever the number of men was great in proportion to the food
supply. Hence the rainfall, the course of the seasons, the prevalence of
winds, the conjunction of astronomical phenomena with spawning or fruit
seasons, and the habits of plants and animals caught the feeble
attention of savage man and taught him facts of nature, through his
eagerness to get signs of coming plenty or suggestions as to his own
plans and efforts. Attention has been called to a very interesting fact
about the fructification of the domesticated date palm wherever oasis
cultivation prevailed in western Asia.[1887] The fructification must be
artificial. Men carry the pollen to the female plant and adopt devices
to distribute it on the wind or by artificial contact. At the present
time this is done by attaching a bunch of the male seed on a branch to
windward.[1888] Tylor first suggested that certain ancient pictorial
representations are meant to depict the work of artificial
fructification as carried on by mythological persons,--cherubim, who
represent the winds.[1889] The function of the wind distributing the
seed is divine work. The tree is of such supreme value[1890] that the
well living of men depends on this operation. The sex conjunction
therefore was the most important and beneficent operation in nature, and
correct knowledge of it was the prime condition of getting an abundant
food supply. Man followed the operation with all the interest of the
food supply and all the awe of religion. It is certain that his interest
in it was "innocent." He began to mythologize about it on account of the
grand elements of welfare, risk, and skill which were in it. A parallel
case is furnished by the treatment accorded to rice by the Javanese. It
is to them the great article of food supply. They endow it with a soul
and ascribe to it sex passion. They have ceremonies by which to awaken
this passion in the rice as a means of increasing their own food supply.
The ceremonies consist in sympathetic magic by men and women at
night.[1891]
+589. The Gilgamesh epic.+ The Gilgamesh epic which originated in the
Euphrates valley more than 2000 years B.C.[1892] consists of a number of
episodes which were later collected and coördinated into a single work
like other great epics. Jastrow[1893] construes it as a variation of the
story of Adam and Eve. Gilgamesh is a hero admired by all women. The
elders of Uruk beg his mother, the mother-goddess Aruru (a form of
Ishtar), to restrain him. In order to comply she makes of clay Eabani, a
satyr-like, hairy wild man, with a tail and horns, who lives with the
beasts. Jastrow thinks that this means that he consorted with female
beasts, having as yet no female of his own species. No one could capture
him, so the god Shamash assailed him by lust, sending to him a priestess
of Ishtar who won him to herself (woman) away from beasts. She said to
him: "Thou shalt be like a god. Why dost thou lie with beasts?" "She
revealed his soul to Eabani." She was, therefore, a culture heroine, and
the myth means that, with the knowledge of sex, awoke consciousness,
intelligence, and civilization. Eabani followed the priestess to Uruk,
where he and Gilgamesh became comrades,--heroes of war and slayers of
monsters. Ishtar fell in love with Gilgamesh, but he refused her because
all men and beasts whom she loved she reduced to misery. Her vengeance
for this rejection brings woe and death on the two friends. The Mexicans
had a similar myth that the sun god and the maize goddess produced life
in vegetation by their sex activity. The sun god contracted venereal
disease so that they probably connected syphilis with sexual
excess.[1894] In the worship of Ishtar at Uruk there were three grades
of harlot priestesses, and there the temple consecration of women was
practiced in recognition of the connection between the service of Ishtar
and civilization. At first the goddesses of life and of love were the
same. The Venus of reproduction and the Venus of carnal lust were later
distinguished. At some periods the distinction was sharply maintained.
At other times the former Venus was only an intermediary to lead to the
latter. The Mexicans had two goddesses,--one of chaste, the other of
impure, love. The festivals of the former were celebrated with obscene
rites; those of the latter with the self-immolation of harlots, with
excessive language and acts. The goddess was thought to be rejuvenated
by the death of the harlots. The obscene rites were at war with the
current mores of the people at the time. The demons of license became
the guardians of good morals. They concealed the phallus. Sins of
license were confessed to the gods of license.[1895] Teteoinnan, the
maize-mother, also became a harlot through the work of furthering
growth, but in the service of the state she punished transgressions of
the sex taboo.[1896] This is as if the need of the taboo having been
learned by the consequences of license and excess, the goddess of the
latter became the guardian of the former. In the Semitic religions the
beginning and end of life were attributed to supernatural agencies
dangerous to man.[1897] The usages to be mentioned below show that this
was not an abstract dogma, but was accepted as the direct teaching of
experience.
+590. The Adonis myth.+ There was in the worship of Ishtar wailing for
Tammuz (Adonis). He was either the son or the husband of Ishtar. She
went to Hades to rescue him. His death was a myth for the decay of
vegetation, and his resurrection was a myth for its revival. The former
was celebrated with lamentations; the latter with extravagant rejoicings
and sex license.[1898] This legend, which under local modifications and
much syncretism existed until long after Christianity was introduced in
the Greco-Roman world, coincides with the laws of Hammurabi as to harlot
priestesses.
+591. Sacral harlotry.+ Three things which later reached strong
independent development are here united,--religious ritual, religious
drama (with symbols, pantomime, and mysteries which later came to be
considered indecent), and harlotry. Sacral harlotry was the only
harlotry. It was normal and was not a subject of ethical misgiving. It
was a part of the religious and social system. When, later,
prostitution became an independent social fact and was adjudged bad,
sacral harlotry long continued under the conventionalization and
persistence of religious usage (sec. 74), but then the disapproval of
prostitution in the mores produced an ethical war which resulted in the
abolition of harlotry. Sacral harlotry, while it lasted, was practiced
for one of two purposes,--to collect a dowry for the women or to collect
money for the temple.
+592. The Babylonian custom; its relation to religion.+ Herodotus[1899]
states that the women of the Lydians and of some peoples on the island
of Cyprus collected a dowry by freedom before marriage; that a woman
chosen by the god from the whole nation remained in the little cell on
top of the eight-storied tower at Babylon, and was said by the priests
to share the couch of the god; that the Thebans in Egypt tell a similar
story of their god; that at Patara, in Lycia, the priestess who gave the
oracle consorted with the god; and that at Babylon every woman was
compelled once to sacrifice herself to the first comer in the temple of
Mylitta. The last statement was long considered so monstrous that it was
not believed. That incredulity arose from modern mores, in which
religion and sex license are so strongly antagonized that religion seems
to us an independent force, of "divine origin," which is sent into the
world with an inherent character of antisensuality, or as a revelation
of the harm and wickedness of certain sex acts. That notion, however, is
a part of our Jewish inheritance. The fact stated by Herodotus is no
longer doubted. It is only one in a series of parallel cases, all of
which must have originated in similar ideas and have been regarded as
contributing in the same way to human welfare. Preuss[1900] attempts to
explain it. "It is only to be understood if men earlier, in order to
make natural objects prosper, had practiced sex usages of a kind which
later, according to the mores of daily life, seemed to them to be
prostitution. From this development came the fact that the Germans
called the Corn-mother the 'Great Harlot.'" We know that men have
sacrificed their children and other human beings, the selected being
the bravest or most beautiful; that they have mutilated themselves in
all ways from the slightest to the most serious; that they have
celebrated the most extravagant orgies; and that they have acted against
their own most important interests,--all in the name of religion. There
is nothing in religion itself which antagonizes sensuality, cruelty, and
other base elements in human nature. Religion has its independent origin
in supposed interests, and makes its own demands on men. The demands of
religion are sacrifices and ritual observances. The whole religious
system is evolved within the circle of interests, ideas, and mores which
the society possesses at the time. Religion also finds adjustment and
consistency with all other interests and tastes of the group at the
time. A father of many daughters would use the temple service as a way
to provide for one of them.[1901] Religion is also extremely persistent.
Therefore it holds and carries over to later ages customs which once
were beneficial, but which at the later time are authoritative but
harmful. If parents threw their children into the furnace to Molech, why
should they not devote their daughters to Ishtar? If they once practiced
sympathetic magic to make rice grow, religion might carry the customs
over to a time when they would be shocking and abominable. Although the
survival of these customs became sensual and corrupting, it is certain
that it was not their original purpose to serve sensuality. They were
not devices to cultivate or gratify licentiousness. We know of no case
of a primitive custom with such a purpose. The provisions in the laws of
Hammurabi are as simple and matter-of-fact as possible. They are
provisions for actual interests which, it seemed, ought to be provided
for. Another proof of the innocence of the customs is that in
independent cases the same customs were established. The customs were
responses of men to the great agents who (as they thought they
perceived) wrought things in nature. The methods and means used by the
agents were revered. They could not be despised or disapproved by men.
Therefore reproduction was religious and sex was consecrated. The whole
realm was one of mystery and wonder. Men became as gods by knowledge of
it. From that knowledge they acquired power to make things grow and so
got food and escaped want. The interest in sex, and the customs
connected with it, was revivified in connection with agriculture. The
mode of fructifying the date palm was a very great discovery in natural
science. Primitive men would turn it into a religious fact and rule. The
inference that women should be consecrated to the goddess of life and
that in her service reproduction should be their sacred duty was in the
logic of primitive people. Ishtar was polyandrous, but she turned into
Astarte, the wife of the chief Baal, or else she became androgyne and
then masculine. There is a virgin mother and a mother of the gods. The
idea of the latter continued with invincible persistency. She may be
unmarried, choosing her partners at will, or "queen, head, and first
born of all gods."[1902] In these changes we see the religious notions
and the mores adjusting themselves to each other. As long as the
underlying notions were true and sincere and the logic was honest, the
usages were harmless. When the original notions were lost, or the logic
became an artificial cover for a real ethical inconsistency, and the
customs were kept up, perhaps to give gain to priests, the usages served
licentiousness.
+593. Religion and the mores.+ Religion never has been an independent
force acting from outside creatively to mold the mores or the ideas of
men. Evidently such an idea is the extreme form of the world philosophy
in which another (spiritual) world is conceived of as impinging upon
this one from "above," to give it laws and guidance. The mores grow out
of the life as a whole. They change with the life conditions, density of
population, and life experience. Then they become strange or hostile to
traditional religion. In our own experience our mores have reached views
about ritual practices, polygamy, slavery, celibacy, etc., which are
strange or hostile to those in the Bible. Since the sixteenth century we
have reconstructed our religion to fit our modern ideas and mores. Every
religious reform in history has come about in this way. All religious
doctrines and ritual acts are held immutable by strong interests and
notions of religious duty. Therefore they fall out of consistency with
the mores, which are in constant change, being acted on by all the
observation or experience of life. Sacral harlotry is a case, the
ethical horror of which is very great and very obvious to us, of old
religious ideas and customs preserved by the religion into times of
greatly changed moral (i.e. of the mores) and social codes.
+594. Cases of sacral harlotry.+ Survivals of sacral harlotry are found
in historic Egypt. Even under the Cæsars the most beautiful girl of the
noble families of Thebes was chosen to be consecrated in the temple of
Ammon. She gained honor and profit by the life of a courtesan, and
always found a grand marriage when she retired on account of age. In all
the temples there were women attached to the service of the gods. They
were of different grades and ranks and were supposed to entertain the
god as harem women entertained princes. In the temples of goddesses
women were the functionaries and obtained great honor and power.[1903]
Constantine demolished the temples of impure cult in Phoenicia and
Egypt and caused the priests to be scattered by soldiers. Farnell[1904]
thinks that the Babylonian custom (especially because it was required
that the man should be a stranger) was due to fear of harm from the
nuptial blood. The attendants in the temples are known as "hierodules."
Otto[1905] says that the hierodules were not temple slaves, or harlots,
but he finds evidence that the temples had income from temple harlots.
The Phoenicians who settled Carthage took the religion of western Asia
with them. Perhaps there was an element of sensuality in the antecedent
religion of north Africa which united with that of the imported
religion. This would account for the cultus at Sicca, in Numidia. There
was there a temple of Astarte or Tanith in which women lived who never
went forth except to collect a dowry by harlotry.[1906] At Byblos
(Gebal), in Phoenicia, there was a great temple of the same goddess
at which there were elaborate celebrations of the Adonis myth. There was
sacral harlotry for strangers only, the money going as a sacrifice to
the goddess. Every woman must have her head shaved in mourning for
Adonis, or sacrifice herself under this custom.[1907] Tanith has been
identified with Artemis, and the later cults of Punic Africa give great
prominence to the "celestial virgin," or "virginal _numen_." "The
identification of the mother-of-the-gods with the heavenly virgin, that
is, the unmarried goddess, is confirmed, if not absolutely demanded, by
Augustine.[1908] At Carthage she seems also to be identical with
Dido."[1909] "The Arabian Lat was worshiped by the Nabatæans as
mother-of-the-gods and must be identified with the virgin-mother whose
worship at Petra is described by Epiphanius."[1910] In the worship of
Anaitis in Armenia male and female slaves were dedicated to the goddess,
but men of rank also consecrated their daughters. After long service
they married, no one considering them degraded. They were not mercenary,
being well provided for by their families. Therefore they received only
their social equals.[1911] Baal Peor seems also to have been a case of
sacral harlotry.[1912] The strongest reason for thinking so is Hosea ix.
10. Rosenbaum[1913] interprets the pestilence as venereal. The
_kedeshim_ (male prostitutes) were expelled from Judah by Asa.[1914]
They had been there since Rehoboam.[1915] They are heard of again.[1916]
They were under vows and brought their earnings to Jahveh.[1917]
Farnell[1918] interprets a fragment of Pindar as proof of sacral
harlotry at Corinth. At a temple of the Epizephyrian Locri it was
practiced in fulfillment of a vow made by the people, under some ancient
insult, to consecrate their daughters if the goddess would help
them.[1919] Farnell also[1920] directs attention to a case in Sicily
where the connection is with the Carthaginian Eryx. In the
_Cistellaria_ of Plautus the usage is referred to as Tuscan.[1921]
Augustus rebuilt Carthage and it appears that the old usages had
survived the interval of one hundred and fifty years. The temple of
Tanith was rebuilt and called that of the celestial virgin. The Romans
forbade sacral harlotry, which was in strong antagonism to their sex
mores. Hahn has called attention[1922] to a passage which proves the
existence of sacral harlotry in Scandinavia just before the introduction
of Christianity in the tenth century. The hero remains through the
winter with the woman who was the consecrated attendant of the god Frey
and who traveled about with his wooden image. The people take the hero
to be the god, and rejoice when the priestess becomes a mother by
him.[1923] The Mexicans, with the same interests, under like conditions
evolved the same customs and similar ideas. Mayas of the lowest classes
sent out their daughters to earn their own marriage portions.[1924]
+595. The same customs in the Old Testament.+ In 1 Sam. i Hannah vowed
that if God would give her a son she would devote him to the Lord, in
sign of which no razor should touch him. She gave him to be an
_ædituus_, who lived in the temple awaiting divine instructions and
commissions. In Josh. ix. 23, 27 we have a case of war captives
condemned to menial service in the temple. In Ezek. xliv. 8, 9, the
people are blamed for putting heathen in the temple service instead of
doing it themselves. The _kedeshim_, temple prostitutes of both sexes,
are frequently mentioned in the Old Testament, especially at every
reformation of the religion. They seem to become objects of condemnation
within the period of the history.
+596. Antagonism of abundance and excess.+ The Germans had a
Corn-mother, a goddess of agricultural growth and fertility. The
Mexicans also had a mother-of-the-gods, Teteoinnan. The former became a
harlot. The latter, by her sex activity, brought about growth and
abundant reproduction, and became a goddess of lewdness.[1925] Thus
wherever the agricultural interest controls this set of ideas we see
the struggle between the idea that unrestrained sex indulgence produces
abundance and the idea that it produces excess, lewdness, and harm. We
can still trace to the metaphorical use of "mother," "father," and
"son," and also to the use of the same words to express the possession
of a quality in a high degree, or a tie of destiny, some of the most
important concepts of our own religion.
+597. Survivals of sacral harlotry. Analogous customs in Hindostan.+ The
early Portuguese travelers to the East found sacral harlotry in Cochin
China. All virgins of noble birth were bound by vows from infancy.
Otherwise no honorable man would marry them.[1926] Modern Egyptian
dancing girls, Ghowazy or Barmeky, had a tradition that they belonged to
a race by themselves. They kept up isolation and peculiar customs. Each
was compelled to surrender to a stranger and then to marry a man of her
own group.[1927] "Probably Heaven and Earth are the most ancient of all
Vedic gods, and from their fancied union, as husband and wife, the other
deities and the whole universe were at first supposed to spring." "The
whole world is embodied in the woman.... Women are gods. Women are
vitality," say the Vedic Scriptures. In Manu[1928] "the self-existent
god is described as dividing his own substance and becoming half male
and half female."[1929] A competent author, who wrote at the beginning
of the nineteenth century, says that the women attached to the temples
in Hindostan sang and danced twice a day, the songs being about
mythological subjects and indecent according to the current mores of
everyday life. Vows play a very important part in the Hindoo system of
sacral harlotry. A woman, with the consent of her husband, vowed her
unborn child, if a girl, to the temple, in order to get an easy
confinement. It was no disgrace to a family to have a daughter living
this life. Barren women visited remote temples, under a vow of
self-devotion, in order to bear children. They were victimized by the
priests. At festivals of Vishnu priests tried to enlist girls in the
attendant multitude. The line between the sacral usage and
licentiousness was broken down at some remote resorts, but in the great
temples the conduct of the women was not at all shameless, although they
were trained to please. They observed perfect decorum. No one could
venture on any impropriety with them. The bystanders would not allow it,
and the proceedings were all controlled by strict rules. The Brahmins
propounded a doctrine that intercourse with the consecrated women would
free from sin.[1930] The vows show us the motive which maintained this
usage, and these statements clearly show the conventionalization which
enveloped the whole. Although the practices in the temples have
undergone some modification, they still exist. There are secret
mysteries, and dramatic representations of mythological incidents, which
seem like survivals of the ancient usages above mentioned.[1931] There
are courtesans at the temples near which pilgrims congregate, and they
pay part of their earnings to the temple.[1932] The holy festival of
Jugganatha, at Puri, which is a spring festival of Vedic origin, is a
kind of Saturnalia, in which the bonds of social order are loosened and
the standards of decency are laid aside. There are rites in which "words
are uttered by persons who, on other occasions, would think themselves
disgraced by the use of them."[1933] The Phalgun festival in northern
India commemorates Krishna's voluptuous amusements. The rites are
indecent.[1934] The mythological stories about the gods have to be
converted by interpretation or special pleas into something which modern
mores can tolerate.[1935] Songs, dances, pantomimes, and mythological
dramas are represented in front of the image of a deity by men, but in
the presence of a general company of men and women.[1936] The Sakta
worshipers are a sect who worship Sakta, the mighty, mysterious,
feminine force recognized in nature, and which they personify as the
Mother of the Universe, like the ancient Mother-goddess. This goddess is
manifested, for Hindoos, in natural appetites, in highly developed
faculties by which one exalts one's self and defeats one's enemies. The
rites of the sect are horrible and obscene, and have for their purpose
to violate and outrage the restrictions in the mores. By those rites men
and women obtain union with the Supreme Being. The members of the sect
call themselves "perfect ones" and all others "beasts." They use mystic
texts and secret orgies, at which they drink strong drinks, eat meat and
fish, and practice sex license. They recognize no caste.[1937] There are
also other sects which have inverted all conceptions of decency,
propriety, and expediency. They practice self-torture, crime, and
uncleanliness, and use loathsome food, etc. In all these matters they
show great ingenuity of invention. They are dying out.[1938] There are
also sects which are cannibal, incestuous, and practicers of secret
license and obscenity.[1939] In some parts of the Madras presidency,
girls are made _basivis_ by a vow of the parents, in order to give them
the privileges of males. This custom may be derived from the institution
of the "appointed daughter," that is, a daughter selected in order that
her son may perform the rites for her father (who had no son) and may
carry on the line. Modern _basivis_ "live in their father's house. They
do not marry, yet they bear children, the father of whom they may choose
at pleasure, and the children inherit their family name." It is a device
to insure male descendants, and is so regulated by religious
consecration and rules that it is recognized in the mores. If a _basivi_
breaks the rules she falls to a status which is very different. Men are
also dedicated and wear female dress, if they are born imperfect or
malformed.[1940]
+598. Lingam and yoni.+ The lingam symbol is to be seen all over India,
alone or with the yoni. In some parts of India the lingam is worn as an
amulet.[1941] The word "lingam" is said to mean "symbol."[1942] To
Europeans the object seems indecent and obscene. If it is of phallic
origin, "the Hindus are no more conscious of the fact than we of the
similar origin of the maypole."[1943] It is no more erotic than an egg
or a seed. It is a symbol of Siva, the eternal reproductive power of
nature, reintegrating after disintegration. One form of Siva is
androgyne. The dualism of the male, spirit, and the female, matter, is
essential to all creation. "To one imbued with these dualistic
conceptions the lingam and the yoni are suggestive of no improper
ideas."[1944]
+599. Conventionalization.+ In all these cases it is evident that the
mores extend their protection over archaic and sacred things, and
preserve them instead of forbidding them. The great means of preserving
them is by conventionalization. They are put under a conventional
understanding, different from the everyday usages with their ethics, and
are judged by an arbitrary standard. In the English translation of the
Bible words and phrases are used which are archaic and now under taboo
in everyday life. Our children have to be taught that "that is in the
Bible," that is, they have to learn the conventionalization by which the
archaic forms are covered. The words in the Bible are not subject to
criticism, and they cannot be cited to justify similar usage in common
life.
+600. Mores of Hindostan.+ The phenomena which are presented in
Hindostan, when studied from our standpoint, show how completely
different may be the estimate of things according to use and wont. The
phenomena are very different in character. Some of them are cases of
degeneracy and aberration of customs, after they have been discarded by
the mores, have become vicious, and have fallen into the hands of
abandoned persons who have given up all position inside the mores.
Others of these customs show how old usages, when brought in question,
lose innocence. Consciousness and reflection produce doubt and then
shame. Sometimes things which are private or secret by convention come
in contact with things which are secret by vice. All the phenomena in
Hindostan show how completely the moral effect depends on the integrity
or decay of conventionalization. The conventionalization is still so
strong that the effects on public morals which we might expect are not
produced. Public manners are marked by decency and propriety and the
society is not vicious.[1945] Things which exist under conventionalization
never furnish grounds for an ethical judgment on the group which
practices them.
+601. Mexican mores. Drunkenness.+ In Mexico also there were goddesses
of erotic passion to whom men and women were consecrated. Courtesans
sometimes immolated themselves in the service of the goddess. The notion
of virtue in resistance to passion existed, but the goddess, like the
Greek Venus, resented any effort to escape her sway and exerted herself
to defeat it.[1946] The Mayas did not maintain a severe form of sex
taboo and they had festivals at which that taboo was entirely
suspended.[1947] Pederasty also existed under the sanction of religion.
Young men in the training house, which was a house of lamentation and
penance, were allowed license which was contrary to the current mores of
the society, but was an old privilege of soldiers. The dances which they
performed daily were obscene. The persons in the dance represented
vegetation demons, and the dances helped to get good crops.[1948] The
notion was not to employ sympathetic magic, but the men, by parallel
operations, were supposed to help in the work of fructification which
the demons were accomplishing in the plant. Hence a great drama of human
coöperation was carried on in the dances. Snakes and frogs were eaten
because they were demons of rain and growth. The obscene dances were
"not consequences of sex desire, but, on account of their antiquity,
they were accepted as a matter of course."[1949] At the time of the
Spanish conquest public opinion about the dances was not fixed, but they
lasted on through the force of ancient religious tradition. We may be
sure that the case of Mexico throws light on the ancient usages of
sacral harlotry. In comparatively recent times there were cases in
Russia of sex license on the eve of great Christian festivals.[1950]
There is a parallel also, amongst the Mexicans, in the case of
drunkenness. Religion controlled and forbade drunkenness, but then again
allowed it on specified occasions. To drink _pulque_ was forbidden,
under penalty of death, except to prescribed persons at certain
festivals, but on the festival of the fire god all intoxicated
themselves by custom and tradition.[1951] Kings in Central America were
expressly allowed to intoxicate themselves at festivals, and
functionaries were appointed to perform their duties while they were
incapacitated. It is nowadays considered not dishonorable to become
intoxicated during festivals, and "it may be observed that Indians now
thank God for the gift of drunkenness."[1952] That is a case of the
persistence of ideas born of old mores long after another religion and
social system have displaced the folkways themselves.
+602. Japanese mores.+ In Japan the government formerly bought girls of
fourteen from their parents and caused them to be educated in feminine
accomplishments. For ten years they lived as courtesans to the profit of
the state. They were then discharged with a sum of money. The number of
them at one time was twenty thousand. They furnished at the tea houses
afternoon entertainments at which families were present, but men alone
remained later.[1953] When a people, through acquaintance with mores
different from its own, is led to philosophize about the latter, or is
made conscious of them and uncertain about them, then the old mores of
that people lose their innocence. The Japanese have had much experience
of this within fifty years.
+603. Chinese religion and mores.+ For contrast it may be worth while to
notice the evidence collected by Schallmeyer[1954] that the specifically
Chinese religions are free from all immoral notions and usages. Indeed
the Chinese religions are said to be hostile to indecency. Meadows is
quoted as saying that any sentence of the canonical writings of China
could be read in any English family without offense, and that there is
nothing in Chinese religious rites resembling the immoral rites which
are met with elsewhere. Chinese lyric poetry is said to be pure.
+604. Philosophy of interest in reproduction. Incest.+ Some reserve in
regard to the interpretation of myths is proper and necessary, but the
absorbing interest of sex production for man, after he begins to depend
upon it and coöperate with it for his food supply, is a product of the
study of myths which may be accepted with confidence. That interest was
no more sensual than interest in the rainfall, and the mythologizing
about it was no more depraved than mythologizing about creation or
language. Men were sure to apply all which they learned about
reproduction in food plants and animals to their own reproduction. If
Chaldean civilization goes back five or six thousand years before
Christ, then the Chaldeans had had ample time, even before Hammurabi, to
experience the evils of overpopulation and of sex vice. In the Chaldean
mythology Ishtar, goddess of all sex attraction and repulsion, destroyed
all the lovers whom she selected. She had the double character, which
appears in all myths and philosophy, of sex license and sex renunciation
together. She was a goddess of the mother family and polyandric.[1955]
The two policies, sex license and sex renunciation, were both advocated
at the same time in the early centuries of the Christian era and in the
Middle Ages. Men found out that the problem of reproduction for them was
far more complicated than the multiplication of dates to the utmost
limit. At this point of knowledge instinctive or intelligent regulations
had to be put on physical appetites. For primitive men the reproductive
function is as simple a function as eating or sleeping. It is not in
itself wicked or base. It is naïve until knowledge comes. Then it is
found that rules must be made to regulate the interest. If there are
rules, there is the sense of wrongdoing in the breach of them. A thing
which is tabooed becomes interesting and more or less awful. The numbers
of the sexes are never exactly equal, and the proportion is further
disturbed by polygamy. Therefore experience of evil and inconvenience
forced some reflection and some judgments as to life policy. Regulations
were devised behind which there was a philosophy of the satisfaction of
interests; that is to say, mores were developed to cover the case. There
seems also to be some connection between sacral harlotry and the
prevention of incest. The poorest who cannot marry or buy slaves have
always practiced incest (sec. 516). Sacral harlotry won another
religious sanction from these cases. In the laws of Hammurabi we find
two classes of women attached to the temple. If the interpretations of
the specialists may be trusted, the arrangement was in one class of
cases in the nature of a life annuity, and those who had no husband had
the god for a husband,--an idea which, with one or another new coloring,
has come down to our own time. That any one should renounce the sex
function was not within the mental horizon of early times. When the
women lived in the temple that fact established conventionalization
about them and gave to their life that regulation which has made decency
and order in all ages. Their case was defined and sanctioned in the
mores. The couples retired outside the temple.[1956] When marriage was
accompanied by very easy divorce and could not be defined except as a
form of property right of the husband, when there were concubines who
were not wives only because they had no property, and slaves who had no
defined relation to the household until they had borne children to the
head of it, the women in the temple might be surrounded by other special
forms of taboo which would give them a status within the mores. They
were "holy" by virtue of their consecration to the goddess.[1957] So far
as we know, their lives were not spent in dissipation. The accounts in
Herodotus and Baruch vi. 43, of the later usage at Babylon show that
there was method and decorum in the institution, and that it was carried
on with conventional dignity. It is our custom to think out the
consistency of all our doctrines and usages. It is certain that ancient
peoples did not do that, just as the masses now do not. They accepted
and lived in unquestioned usage. Therefore we know of cases in classic
society in which maidens and matrons on special occasions shared in
functions which seem totally repugnant to their character. The
explanation lies in conventionalization within the mores for an
occasion or under a conjuncture of circumstances. It is unquestionably
possible that in that way lewdness can be set aside and thus corrupting
effect on character can be prevented.
+605. The archaic is sacred.+ In the minds of primitive people all which
is archaic is sacred and all which is novel is questionable. Therefore
religion holds and consecrates whatever is archaic and traditional. The
appetites of men were anterior to any mores regulative of them, and the
goddess Ishtar, Astarte, Aphrodite, or Venus is a goddess of erotic
passion and reproduction. The folkways devised to prevent experienced
ills are an invasion of her domain and a rebellion against her sway. The
regulations cannot be made absolute for a long time. There must be a
compromise. Some females must be given to the goddess as devotees, at
least under conditions, or there must be set times and places within
which her sway shall be unhampered by human rules. The conditions
establish conventionalization around an institution. It is by this
process and by changing the conditions that marriage has been made what
it now is. Concubinage, slave women, harlotry, and all other forms but
the prescribed one have been put under taboo. It is very possible that
some future generation will look back in wonder at our self-complacency,
which feels no care or responsibility for the women who are forced, in
our system, to renounce sex. It is safe to say that the Chaldeans of
2500 B.C. would have been as much shocked at the inhumanity of our
arrangement as we can be at the lewdness of theirs.
+606. Child sacrifice.+ The temple consecration of women must be
connected with child sacrifice. The latter is logically anterior. Their
historical relation we do not know. To dedicate a girl to the goddess
would be an alternative to the sacrifice of her. All forms of child
sacrifice and sacral suicide go back to the pangs and terrors of men
under loss and calamity. Something must be found which would wring pity
and concession from the awful superior powers who afflict mankind.
Every one born under this human lot must perish if he is not redeemed.
His first vicarious sacrifice is his firstborn, but if he can get a war
captive from a foreign group this substitute may be accepted. The
Mexican human sacrifices were of this kind. The people stood around
assenting and rejoicing, because the rite meant salvation to themselves
and their children. A man who took a captive in war gave him to the
priest to be sacrificed, and he might not eat of the flesh, "since the
victim was in a sense his son," that is, took the place of his son as a
vicarious sacrifice for himself. They also sacrificed their own
infants.[1958] Child sacrifice expresses the deepest horror and
suffering produced by experience of the human lot. Men must do it. Their
interests demanded it, however much it might pain them. Human sacrifices
may be said to have been universal. They lasted down to the
half-civilized stage of all nations and sporadically even later,[1959]
and they have barely ceased amongst the present half-civilized
peoples.[1960] They are not primarily religious. They are a reaction of
men under the experience of the ills of life, inventing a world
philosophy and putting agents behind it, in order to have something, if
it be only a delusion, to which hope of escape can attach. Human
sacrifices are based on an inference or deduction. There is behind them
an assumption as to the character and logic of the superior powers who
rule the aleatory interest. It is not until skepticism arises as to this
assumption that the usage can be given up.
+607. Beast sacrifice substituted for human sacrifice.+ In the case of
Abraham and Isaac, the former was "tried" by God, apparently meaning
that he underwent some doubt whether he ought not to sacrifice his son
as other west Semites did theirs, and whether a beast would not suffice
(Gen. xxii. 7). For his descendants the legend fixed the usage and
doctrine (verse 13), different from that of the other west Semites, that
a beast was a due substitute. The Chaldees followed the same
reasoning.[1961] According to the mythology of the Egyptians there was a
great destruction of men in the reign of the god Ra, but when he mounted
to the sky he replaced the sacrifice of men by that of beasts.[1962] In
the tragedy of _Iphigenia_, Iphigenia is not slain. Artemis snatches her
away and puts a hind in her place. Robertson Smith[1963] thinks that the
notion of the ancients that the sacrifice of human beings was anterior
to that of beasts, and that the latter were substitutes, was a "false
inference from traditional forms of ritual that had ceased to be
understood." At Hierapolis sacrificed children were called oxen.[1964]
All the Baals demanded human sacrifices.[1965] In every case in which
the mores had overcome the terror which made human sacrifices, the
mythology invented explanations. It was forbidden to the Jews to make
their children "pass through the fire" to Molech.[1966] They often did
it. This shows that their mores had not yet outgrown it, but that
religious teachers were trying to forbid it.[1967] They held the same
doctrine as the neighboring nations, that the firstborn belonged to
God.[1968] The firstborn must be sacrificed or redeemed.[1969] They had
doctrines of ransom by beasts, as above, or by money,[1970] or by
circumcision, if the incoherent text is rightly interpreted.[1971]
Nevertheless, they never were sure enough of their position before the
captivity to _hold to it_ against the faith and usage of neighboring
nations.[1972] The doctrine in Micah vi. 6-8, as early as the end of the
eighth century B.C., raised the real issue about the sense and utility
of all sacrifices in its widest form, but that doctrine was much too far
beyond the mores of the time to have any effect.
+608. Mexican doctrine of greater power through death.+ Preuss says: "In
the ancient Mexican cultus I recognized, to my astonishment, that really
spirits were killed in the sacrificed men, in order that they [the
spirits] might thus be rendered capable of being born again, and
rendering greater services to men."[1973] Death was believed to enhance
the power of the spirits who ruled meteorological phenomena. The notion
was that insects caused meteorological phenomena; then they were gods;
the insects and beasts gave to the gods the magic power which they
(insects and beasts) once had over rainfall, etc. The humming bird which
hibernates and wakes again in spring was thought to cause the heat of
summer. Therefore it was taken to be an envelope of the war god. Free
flow of blood lets loose magic power. Hence the great bloodshedding in
the Mexican cultus. "Human sacrifice is in Mexico the same in sense as
beast sacrifice. In both cases, magic powers, magic beasts and spirits,
are killed." By death new birth with greater magic power becomes
possible.[1974]
+609. Motives of child sacrifice.+ The Semites adopted the world
philosophy which lies back of human sacrifice and incorporated it with
their religion, which thereby became gloomy and ferocious. What a man
must sacrifice was what he loved most, and that was his firstborn child.
It was rationalizing to argue that a beast could be substituted with
equal effect, and we often find that people who had advanced to that
point of philosophy, when face to face with a great calamity showed that
they did not believe that the effect was equal. They went back to child
sacrifice.[1975] The Hebrews in the seventh century thought that they
felt the wrath of God and they tried to avert it in this way.[1976]
Tiele thinks that there is no evidence of child sacrifice or of the
temple consecration of women in the Euphrates valley in historical
times, but in Syria and Arabia child sacrifice lasted on in spite of the
culture of the Aramæans and Phoenicians. In old Arabia fathers burned
their little daughters as sacrifices to the goddess.[1977] Human
sacrifices were used for auguries before any important enterprise, and
as thank offerings for victory or success. Every year a number of
children of the foremost families were sacrificed as an expiation for
the sins of the nation, "while fiendish music drowned their cries and
the lamentations of their mothers."[1978] The Carthaginians kept up the
custom. The leading families were bound to furnish the sacrifice as
representatives of the commonwealth. The children to be sacrificed were
selected by lot from those who were liable. Children were exchanged in
order to be saved. The parents might not lament, for to do so would
deprive the sacrifice of its efficacy.[1979] The custom was an
abomination to the Romans, but it was so firmly fixed in the mores of
the Carthaginians that the conquerors could not stop it. The proconsul
Tiberius put an end to it by hanging the priests of the cult to the
trees of their own temple grove.[1980] As Tertullian says that soldiers
who executed this order were still living when he wrote, the order of
Tiberius must have been issued about the middle of the second century
A.D. or a little later.
+610. Dedication by vows.+ The connection between child sacrifice and
the temple consecration of girls is in the substitution of the latter
for the former, as a ransom. The girl devoted to death belonged to the
goddess in one way, if not in the other. Vows made in illness sometimes
included such substitution. In the historic period, after child
sacrifice had ceased in the Euphrates valley, many variations occurred.
Barren women made vows. Children were vowed to the goddess for life or
for a time. They were redeemed by money which they earned in the temple
life. The accumulation of a dowry was only a variation.[1981] In later
times (second century A.D.) we find the sacrifice of a woman's hair as a
substitute for herself.[1982] Men were also dedicated in sex perversion.
+611. Degeneration of the customs of consecrating women.+ Evidently
vicarious sacrifice and expiatory sacrifice are very ancient heathen
ideas. They contain deductions and assumptions about the nature of the
deity which are of the first theological importance. The cases of custom
which have been described also show the power and persistency of
theological dogma to override for centuries the strongest interests and
sentiments. Evidently the variations in the custom marked the breaking
down of the boundaries which held it firm in the religious mores. The
Babylonian custom described by Herodotus seems to be a variation by
which every woman was held bound to the goddess. Then sensuality,
priestcraft, greed, and frivolity easily used such a custom until it
became a root of corruption. This is what happened, and forms of the
custom which had no sense but the gratification of licentiousness spread
around the Mediterranean. The old female sex mores were very simple and
austere, but they were corrupted after the middle of the second century
B.C. Those of Roman Carthage, if we can trust Salvianus, became more
corrupt than those of Punic Carthage ever had been. They were less
ferocious and more frankly voluptuous. Salvianus's description of
southern Gaul makes it as bad as Africa. According to him the Vandals
were pure-minded, and their mores were so pure and firm that they
successfully resisted the Roman corruption and put the sex relation back
again on the basis of the "law of God."[1983]
+612. Our traditions from Israel.+ If now we turn back to the Israelites
we can see the stream by which our own mores have come down to us. There
arose amongst the Israelites, in the tenth century B.C., an opposition
to the religion which was common to the west Semites. It was like the
reform of the Iranian religion by the magi, who produced a religion
which was too severe and exacting for any but priests to live by it.
There have also been many attempts to reform Islam from within. They
have taken the form of throwing off later additions and returning to
primitive purity, that is, to the mode of life of Arabs in Mohammed's
time. In some cases (e.g. the Wahabees of the nineteenth century) the
reforms have originated with people who were on a lower grade of life
than the mass of Moslems. Present-day scholars find the origin of the
resistance of Israelitish prophets to the prevailing religion of western
Asia in the hostility of a rustic population, with a primitive mode of
life and archaic mores, to the luxury of Tyre and Sidon, wealthy cities
of commerce and industry.[1984] The conflict was between two sets of
mores. The biblical scholars now tell us that Jahveh was a Baal amongst
other Palestinian Baals until this antagonism arose. Then he was made
the god in whose name the ancient mores of Israel were defended against
the introduction of luxury and licentiousness. The antagonism was
between simple, rustic, largely pastoral modes of life and the ways of
cities with wealth, culture, and luxury. This is a permanent social
antagonism, but it carried with it the antagonism of simplicity to
sensuality, materialism, formal manners, and luxury. For four or five
centuries a succession of "prophets" developed the antagonism between
the Jahveh religion and heathenism. They maintained that Jahveh was not
only the single god of the Hebrews but the sole God of all the earth.
Other gods were nullities. The prophets condemned idolatry, and all
sensuality, licentiousness, and bestiality, with which they connected
all sorcery and divination. They insisted on a broad and firm sex taboo
and denounced sacral harlotry and child sacrifice together. It must be
remembered that the peoples of that age generally regarded sex usages
which seem to us the most abominable as trivial, unworthy of notice,
matters of personal liberty and choice. Brahmins, a century ago, held
that view of pederasty.[1985] The prophets also set in opposition to
their own traditional ritual religion a doctrine of righteousness, by
which religion was made ethical. It was a marvelous product for an
insignificant hill people. It is, however, to be noticed that in the
_Zend-Avesta_ there was also a great revolt against sex vice.[1986]
+613. How the Jewish view of sensuality came to prevail.+ The religious
system of the Jewish prophets never has become the actual popular
religion of any people. The Old Testament contains the story of the
protests and failures of the prophets. Their work did not issue from the
mores of the Jewish nation, and did not influence the mores before the
captivity. The prophets were trying to introduce a new world philosophy
by virtue of its ethical value and by interpretations of current
political history. In Jer. xliv we see the latter argument turned
against the prophet. The people cite their own experience. When they
served the Queen of Heaven they fared well. In the rabbinical period
the Jews emphasized everything which could differentiate them from
heathen, and in the New Testament we find that idolatry and sensuality
are presented as the two great heathen characteristics which Christians
are to avoid. It is impossible for us to know to what extent the mores
of the masses, in the western Roman empire, were marked by the ancient
Roman austerity in the sex mores. It is, however, reasonable to believe
that the ancient mores prevailed most in the class amongst whom
Christian converts were found. Salvianus also gives to the German
nations very remarkable testimony as to their freedom from sensuality
and sex vice. The experience of societies also went to prove that such
vice can corrupt the finest brain and the most cultivated character;
also that, if it becomes current in a society, as pederasty and
prostitution did in the Greco-Roman world, it will eat out all manly
virtues, all coöperative devotion, the love of children, the energy of
invention and production, of an entire population. Thus by the
syncretism of the mores of the nations, and by experience, the
conviction was produced that the view of sensuality and sex vice which
the Jewish prophets taught was true, and that that view was the most
important part of the mores and of religion for the welfare of mankind.
[1885] Snouck-Hurgronje, _De Atjehers_, I, 64-66; _Bur. Eth._,
XVIII, 285; _Amer. Anthrop._, XI, 56; Codrington, _Melanesians_,
102, 299; Serpa Pinto, _Como eu Atravassei Africa_, I, 82;
Kubary, _Karolinenarchipel._, 47, 226, 244; Powers, _Calif.
Indians_, 24.
[1886] Ellis, _Ewe-speaking Peoples_, 141.
[1887] Barton, _Semitic Origins_, 78.
[1888] Wellsted, _Arabia_, II, 12.
[1889] _Proc. Soc. Bibl. Archeol._, 1890, XII, 383.
[1890] Herodotus, I, 193.
[1891] Wilken, _Volkenkunde_, 550.
[1892] Maspero, _Peuples de l'Orient_, I, 576, 589.
[1893] _Amer. Jo. Semit. Lang. and Lit._, XV, 201.
[1894] _Archiv f. Anthrop._, XXIX, 156.
[1895] _Archiv f. Anthrop._, XXIX, 150.
[1896] _Ibid._, 183.
[1897] W. R. Smith, _Relig. of the Semites_, 447.
[1898] Lucian, _De Syria Dea_, 6.
[1899] Herodotus, I, 93, 181, 199.
[1900] _Globus_, LXXXVI, 360.
[1901] Maurer, _Völkerkunde, Bibel, und Christenthum_, 95.
[1902] W. R. Smith, _Relig. of the Semites_, 56-59.
[1903] Maspero, _Peuples de l'Orient_, I, 50, 126.
[1904] _Archiv f. Religionsgesch._, VII, 88.
[1905] _Priester und Tempel im Hellen. Aeg._, I, 316.
[1906] Valer., Max., II, 6, 15.
[1907] Lucian, _De Syria Dea_, 6; Pietschmann, _Phoenizier_, 229.
[1908] _De Civit. Dei_, II, 4.
[1909] W. R. Smith, _Relig. of the Semites_, 56.
[1910] _Ibid._
[1911] Strabo, XI, 14, 16.
[1912] Num. xxiii. 28; xxv. 1; Josh. xxii. 17.
[1913] _Die Lustseuche im Alterthum_, 77.
[1914] 1 Kings xv. 12.
[1915] 1 Kings xiv. 24.
[1916] 1 Kings xxii. 46; 2 Kings xxiii. 7.
[1917] Deut. xxiii. 18.
[1918] _Cults of the Greek States_, 635.
[1919] Athenæus; XII, 11.
[1920] _Cults of the Greek States_, 641.
[1921] II, 3, 20.
[1922] _Globus_, LXXV, 286.
[1923] _Scripta Hist. Islandorum_, II, 67.
[1924] Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific Coast_, I, 123; II,
676.
[1925] _Archiv f. Anthrop._, XXIX, 138, 150.
[1926] Oliveira Martins, _As Racas Humanas_, II, 181.
[1927] Burckhardt, _Arabic Proverbs_, 145.
[1928] _Laws_, I, 5.
[1929] Monier-Williams, _Brahmanism and Hinduism_, 181-183.
[1930] Dubois, _Moeurs de l'Inde_, I, 434-439; 478-480; II,
353, 366, 370, 377.
[1931] Wilkins, _Modern Hinduism_, 94, 216, 290; Monier-Williams,
_Brahmanism and Hinduism_, 451.
[1932] Wilkins, 242.
[1933] _Jo. Roy. As. Soc._, 1841, 239; Wilkins, 286.
[1934] Wilkins, 235.
[1935] _Ibid._, 317.
[1936] _Ibid._, 216.
[1937] Monier-Williams, 185, 190.
[1938] JASB, I, 477; III, 200; JAI, XXVI, 341; Monier-Williams,
87; Hopkins, _Relig. of India_, 491.
[1939] Hopkins, _Relig. of India_, 456; JASB, I, 477, 492; III,
201.
[1940] JASB, II, 322, 349; cf. JASB, I, 502.
[1941] Monier-Williams, 254.
[1942] Nivedita, _Web of Indian Life_, 212.
[1943] Nivedita, 212.
[1944] Monier-Williams, 78, 183, 224.
[1945] Dubois, I, 439.
[1946] Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific Coast_, II, 336;
III, 377.
[1947] _Ibid._, II, 676.
[1948] _Archiv f. Anthrop._, XXIX, 153, 158, 164.
[1949] _Ibid._, 173.
[1950] Petri, _Anthropology_ (_russ._), 435.
[1951] _Archiv f. Anthrop._, XXIX, 169.
[1952] _Globus_, LXXXVII, 130.
[1953] Oliphant, _China and Japan_, II, 494.
[1954] _Vererbung und Auslese_, 200.
[1955] Tiele-Gehrich, _Relig. in Alterthume_, I, 169.
[1956] Herod., I, 199; Hosea iv. 14; W. R. Smith, _Relig. of the
Semites_, 454.
[1957] W. R. Smith, _Relig. of the Semites_, 141.
[1958] Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific Coast_, II, 305,
308-309.
[1959] Schrader, _Prehist. Antiq. of the Aryans_, 422.
[1960] Hopkins, _Relig. of India_, 363, 450.
[1961] Maspero, _Peuples de l'Orient_, I, 680.
[1962] Maspero, _Peuples de l'Orient_, I, 123.
[1963] _Relig. of the Semites_, 365.
[1964] _Ibid._, 366, 375.
[1965] Cf. Deut. xviii. 10; 2 Kings xvi. 3; xxi. 6.
[1966] Levit. xviii. 21; Deut. xviii. 10. Molech is a false word.
It has the consonants of the word for "king" and the vowels of
the word for "shameful thing" (W. R. Smith, _Relig. of the
Semites_, 67).
[1967] 2 Kings xvi. 3; xvii. 7; xxi. 6; xxiii. 10.
[1968] Ex. xxii. 29.
[1969] Ex. xxxiv. 20.
[1970] Num. xviii. 15.
[1971] Ex. iv. 24.
[1972] Jer. xxxii. 35; Ezek. xx. 26, 31. According to 2 Chron.
xxviii. 3, Ahaz offered his son in the stress of war (Hastings,
Dict. of the Bible, _Relig. of Israel_).
[1973] _Globus_, LXXXVI, 321.
[1974] _Globus_, LXXXVI, 117-119.
[1975] Possibly 2 Kings iii. 27; 2 Chron. xxviii. 3; Pietschmann,
_Phoenizier_, 167.
[1976] W. R. Smith, _Relig. of the Semites_, 465.
[1977] _Ibid._, 370.
[1978] Tiele-Gehrich, _Relig. im Alterthum_, I, 212, 240;
Maspero, _Peuples de l'Orient_, I, 680; Sanchuniathon apud
Euseb., _Prep. Evang._, I, 10.
[1979] Pietschmann, _Phoenizier_, 229.
[1980] Tertullian, _Apol._, 9.
[1981] Pietschmann, _Phoenizier_, 222.
[1982] Lucian, _De Syria Dea_, 6.
[1983] _De Gubernat. Dei_, VII, 72-77; cf. VII, 15-16, 27, 86,
97-100.
[1984] Barton, _Semitic Origins_, 300.
[1985] Dubois, _Moeurs de l'Inde_, 439.
[1986] Darmstetter, _Zend-Avesta_, I, 100, 102.
CHAPTER XVII
POPULAR SPORTS, EXHIBITIONS, AND DRAMA
Limits of the study, Introduction.--Literature and drama in
ethology.--Public amusements of the uncivilized; reversion to
archaic, "natural" ways.--Chaldean and Mexican myths of
reproduction dramatically represented.--Limit of toleration for
propriety in exhibitions.--Origin of the Athenian drama.--Drama
and worship; customs derived from the mysteries.--The word
"God."--Kinship yields to religion as social tie.--Religion and
drama; syncretism.--Beginnings of the theater at Rome.--
Gladiatorial exhibitions.--Spread of gladiatorial exhibitions.--
The folk drama.--The popular taste; realism; conventionality;
satire.--Popular exhibitions.--Ancient popular festivals.--The
_mimus_.--Modern analogies.--Biologs and ethologs.--Dickens as
a biolog.--Early Jewish plays.--The Roman _mimus_.--_The
Suffering Christ_; _Pseudo-querolus_.--The _mimus_ and
Christianity.--Popular phantasms.--Effects of vicious
amusements.--Gladiatorial games.--Compromise between the church
and popular customs.--The _cantica_.--Passion for the games.--
German sports.--The _mimus_ from the third to the eighth
century.--The drama in the Orient.--Marionettes.--The drama in
India.--Punch in the West.--Resistance of the church to the
drama.--Hrotsvitha.--The jongleurs; processions.--Adam de la
Halle.--The flagellants.--Use of churches for dramatic
exhibitions.--Protest against misuse of churches.--Toleration
of jests by the ecclesiastics.--Fictitious literature.--
Romances of roguery.--Picaresque novels.--Books of beggars.--
At the beginning of the sixteenth century.--The theater at
Venice.--Dancing; public sports.--Women in the theater and on
the stage.--The _commedia del arte_.--Jest books; Italian
comedy at Paris.--_Commedia del arte_ in Italy.--Summary and
review.--Amusements need the control of educated judgment and
will.--Amusements do not satisfy the current notions of
progress.
+Limits.+ The cases of public amusement and entertainment which shall
here be mentioned are such as were within the limits of usage and
accepted propriety at the time. They are not cases of vice or of
disputed propriety at the time. Drunkenness, gambling, bull baiting,
cockfighting, and prize fighting are amusements which have entered into
the mores of groups and subgroups, as bullfighting still does in Spain,
but they were limited to classes or groups, or they were important on
account of the excess, or they were disapproved by great numbers or by
the ecclesiastical authorities. They would, therefore, lie outside the
mores, to which the cases to be noticed belonged. The theater in England
in Charles II's time testified to a depraved taste and a low standard of
morals, but it was temporary and indeed limited in time. In different
groups also the moral standards are unequal at the same time, and the
mores are on different levels. There is a wider limit now for romances
and dramas in France than in English-speaking countries. The cases which
now interest us are those of long and wide currency, which the mores
have firmly established according to current standards, even though
moralists may have inveighed against them sometimes, as the same class
now sometimes denounces all dancing.
The cases here to be noticed are further illustrations of the fact that
the mores can make anything right, and can protect anything from
condemnation, in addition to those in the last two chapters.
+614. Literature and drama in ethology.+ Poetry, drama, and literary
fiction are useful to ethology in one or the other of two ways: (1) they
reveal facts of the mores; (2) they show the longings and ideals of the
group,--in short, what the people like and wish for. The second division
includes mythology, fairy tales, and extravaganzas. The taste for them,
if it exists, is a feature of the mores, but in fact such a taste is
hardly ever popular. It is a product of culture. Myths, legends,
proverbs, fables, riddles, etc., are popular products.
+615. Public amusements of the uncivilized. Reversion to archaic,
"natural" ways.+ We find in savage life, almost universally unless the
group has been crushed by conquest or misfortune, festivals, games,
dances, and orgies, which are often celebrated with masks and dramatic
action. The motives are fidelity to the traditions of ancestors,
entertainment, sex excitement, war enthusiasm, and occult influence in
aid of the food quest. The dramatic representation of sex attraction and
of the ways of animals is often intensely graphic, and it gives great
pleasure to the spectators. An occult effect, to bring about what is
desired in war or the chase by enacting it in a dance or play, involves
demonism, the existing form of religion. Therefore religion, dramatic
dances, music, songs, emotional suggestion, and sex stimulation are
intertwined from low barbarism or savagery. Experience of the perils and
pains of sexual excess and overpopulation force the development of
folkways of restraint, which are customary and conventional regulations
of primary natural impulses. At the recurring points of time at which
the festivals are held there is often a reversion from the moral status
created by the later mores to the ancient "natural" ways, because the
later ways are a reflection on the ancestors who were "uncultivated."
Their ghosts will be displeased at the new ways and will inflict ill
fortune on the group. The festival is not a time at which to emphasize
the novelty, but to set it aside and revert to old ways. How far back
shall the reversion go? What is "natural"? As no one ever has known from
what depths of beastliness, rendered more acute by some intelligence,
man came, no one has ever known what "nature" would be. Men reverted
actually to some ancient custom of their ancestors beyond which they
knew nothing, and which therefore to them seemed primitive and original.
The festivals were always outside of the routine of regular life. We,
for a holiday frolic, relax, for ourselves and our children, the
discipline of ordinary life; for instance, on the Fourth of July. In the
theater we make allowances for what we would not tolerate in the street
or parlor. That a thing is in jest is, and always has been, an excuse
for what is a little beyond the limit otherwise observed. It was a
favorite Arab jest to fasten the train of a woman's dress, while she was
sitting, to the waist of it, so that when she arose her dress would be
disordered.[1987] She must learn to guard herself.
+616. Chaldean and Mexican myths of reproduction dramatically
represented.+ In the mythical period of Chaldea the worship of the Great
Mother Ishtar (the patroness of sex attraction, but a goddess whose love
was a calamity to all her husbands,[1988] perhaps a mythical
representation of the perils and pains of sex) was a setting loose of
sex passion from the later societal ("moral") regulations, in favor of
the original passionate impulse of sex and reproduction. The festival
was, therefore, a period of license. The seat of the licentious rites,
and of sacral prostitution, was Uruk, the city of the dead (i.e. of
ancestors), where men liked to be buried (in order to join their
ancestors).[1989] The Tammuz (Adonis) worship was connected with the
worship of Ishtar, the relation between the god and the goddess being
different in different myths. The Tammuz worship was a dramatic
enactment of the death and resurrection of the god (connected with the
decay and renewal of the world of vegetation), with corresponding
lamentations and rejoicings of the worshipers.[1990] In Mexico we find a
parallel pantomime of the nature process at a religious harvest
festival, the pantomime being used for occult magic, in order to get
good crops in the next season. Obscene figures and rites were used.
There is a maize goddess who is the "Mother of the Gods." The union of
the sun god with the earth gives fertility, so that the food supply is
at stake in these rites and notions.[1991] This most absorbing interest
of mankind drove men's minds along the same lines of world philosophy.
The "Mother of the Gods," by her sex activity, brought about growth on
earth and became goddess of lewdness and filth, just as the German
Corn-mother became a harlot. So the goddess by whose activity the earth
bears flowers was honored at a festival at which boys and girls nine or
ten years old became senselessly drunk and perpetrated sex vice. This
was at a _religious_ festival.[1992] Here then we find reversion to more
primitive sex mores, and dramatic representation of a myth, conjoined in
religion, on the very threshold of the higher civilization. The
reversion to primitive sex mores to satisfy notions of duty to religion
and ancestors comes to us as an incomprehensible violation of "primary
instincts," which we have inferred from ideas that we can trace back
beyond any known origin, which we suppose to be universally accepted,
and which seem to us axiomatic as to social welfare. The only way to
understand the case is to take the standpoint of the mores of that time.
The mores contained the answer to the questions: How far back shall we
go? What shall be the degree of license at the festival? At the limit
fixed by custom the mores extend their sanction over the function and
make it "right." Another source of barbaric festivals may be noticed.
Men won victories over the elements and over beasts before they won
victories over each other. This is true of remote antiquity and of
primitive society. It is also true of the Middle Ages. The destruction
of great beasts, demons, and other monsters led to dramatic and
religious festivals. Magnin[1993] thinks that he could make a cycle of
beasts, of which Reineke Fuchs would be the last link, anterior to the
cycles of Arthur and Charlemagne.
+617. Limit of toleration for propriety in exhibitions.+ Therefore: What
shall be the limit of toleration in theatrical and other exhibitions
with respect to dress, language, gesture, etc., in order to define
propriety, is altogether a matter of the mores. It is not conceivable
that the _Lysistrata_ of Aristophanes could be presented on any public
stage in Christendom. The whole play is beyond the toleration of modern
mores. We meet with jugglers in Homer,[1994] also mountebanks and
tumblers.[1995] The _kubisteteres_ spun around on the perpendicular axis
of the body, and are compared to the wheel of the potter. Then they
pitched down head-foremost, like plungers or tumblers turning
somersaults. Some archæologs have thought that the play of these persons
had some analogy with that of the cubic stones which were so prominent
in the cult of the Phrygian Cybele. If that analogy is accepted, then
the pyramidal dance must be regarded as originally hieratic and
consecrated to Cybele. That dance was at first aristocratic, but
speedily became popular and descended to the mountebanks.[1996]
+618. Origin of Athenian drama.+ The theater originated in the Dionysiac
mysteries of the Greeks, in which dramatic action and responsive
choruses were employed. Sex symbols were used without reserve.
Intoxication and ecstasy belonged to due performance. In later mysteries
dramatic action was employed to present myths and legends, or religious
doctrines, in order to get the powerful effects in suggestion which
dramatic action exerts. Many myths presented acts such as later mores
could not tolerate. Allowance had to be made for the representations, as
we now make allowances for Bible stories and Shakespeare. We know that
the mysteries were often in bad repute for their indecency and realism,
even in an age of low standards. Anybody who is not in the convention
can scoff at it, however low his own code may be. The Greeks described
the Phrygian mysteries as abominable and immoral, while they praised and
admired the Eleusinian. "The former were introduced by slaves and
foreigners, and participated in by the superstitious and ignorant. They
were celebrated for money by strolling priests, and any one who paid a
fee was initiated without preparation, except some ritual acts. There
was no solemnity in the surroundings, and no dignity in the ceremonial,
but all was vulgar and sordid."[1997] The Athenian drama, in the fifth
century B.C., went through an amazing development and reached high
perfection. The art of the theater was especially cultivated. As to the
effect of the dramas on the character of the spectators, it is to be
noticed that they were presented only once in the year, at the greater
festival of Dionysus in the spring, and that then a large number of
plays were represented. The spectators, at Athens, were a very mixed
assemblage and included the populace, "who remained populace in spite of
any beautiful verses which they might chance to hear." They cared only
to be amused, "just like modern audiences."[1998]
+619. Dramatic taste and usage in worship. Customs derived from the
mysteries.+ About the time of Christ, by syncretism all the religions
took on a dramatic form in their ritual, with liturgies and responses,
on account of the attractiveness of that form for worshipers. The
Christian year was built up as a drama of the life of Christ. The
ceremony of the mass was produced by an application of modes of worship
which, so far as we can learn, were devised and used in the mysteries.
"There is unmistakable evidence that a marriage ceremony of a religious
nature existed, and that this ceremony stood in close relation to a
part of the ritual of the mysteries. In fact, the marriage was, as it
were, a reproduction by the bride and bridegroom of a scene from the
divine life, i.e. from the mystic drama. The formula, 'I escaped evil: I
found better,' was repeated by the celebrant who was initiated in the
Phrygian mysteries; and the same formula was pronounced as part of the
Athenian marriage ceremony. Another formula, 'I have drunk from the
_kymbalon_,' was pronounced by the initiated; and drinking from the same
cup has been proved to have formed part of a ceremony performed in the
temple by the betrothed pair." "It is an extremely important fact that
the human marriage ceremony was thus celebrated by forms taken from the
mysteries; and the conclusion must be that the human pair repeat the
action in the way in which the god and goddess first performed and
consecrated it, and that, in fact, they play the parts of the god and
goddess in the sacred drama. This single example is, as we may be sure,
typical of a whole series of actions."[1999]
+620. The word "god."+ "That man when he dies becomes a god was
considered already in the fourth century B.C. to be part of the teaching
conveyed in the mysteries."[2000] This meant no more than the earlier
notion that when a man died he became a ghost. The word "god" was used
in senses very strange to our ears,[2001] and to quote an expression of
any writer of the beginning of the Christian era in which he uses the
word "god," and to give to that word our sense of it, is to be led into
great error. The age was one which put all its religion in dramatic form
and acted it out. It was an age with a gift for manufacturing rites and
liturgies.
+621. Kin yields to religion as social tie.+ This was due to a great
ethnological change which was then coming to its culmination. The kin
tie, which had been the primitive mode of association and coherence of
groups, began to break down in the sixth century B.C. in Greece. It was
superseded by the social tie of a common religious faith and ritual. The
Pythagorean and Orphic sects developed this tie. They had a revelation
of the other world, a system of mystic and cathartic rites, which
cleared men of ritual uncleanness, purified them, and "saved" them. The
cathartic rites were a means of warding off evil spirits and did the
work of the old shamans.[2002] The sectarian brotherhood of the
initiated, the "church," the faith, the contrast of ordinary life with
the ecstatic emotions of the mysteries, the consequent antagonism of the
"flesh" or the "world," and the "spirit," were easy deductions from the
teaching and ritual of the sects.[2003] It was all concentrated in the
godlikeness, divinity, or immortality of the human soul, with the mystic
notions of union between the soul and God. "Mysticism, as doctrine and
theory, grew up from the soil of a more ancient practice in worship."
"The worship of Dionysus must have furnished the first germ of the
belief in the immortality of the soul."[2004] The idea of the Orphic
mysteries was that humanity is suffering and sinful, and must be
initiated in order to wash away its stains and be redeemed from its
sins. Initiation puts a man in communication with the divinity. The soul
is raised by ecstasy to feel its own divinity, which is the deepest
element in all mystic religion. In all this compound of rites and
notions the great antecedent philosophy was not the same as ours. It was
demonism, superstitious anxiety about the world of demons, who floated
around men and stretched their hands out of the surrounding darkness to
seize them. It was from these that men wanted to be "saved." Atonement
was to be made to the chthonic gods, for they were displeased at ritual
uncleanness, and the chthonic cults had the other world in view.[2005]
The uncleanness was ritual, and hence it came from anything far out of
the regular order, either by abomination or holiness. The rabbis held
that the handling of the Scriptures defiled the hands and called for
ceremonial washing (Num. xix. 8, 10).[2006]
+622. Combination of religion and drama. Syncretism.+ The interest of
all this for our present purpose is the combination of religious ideas
with dramatic representation. Processions of all kinds easily turn into
such representations. Rites and ceremonies are but a form of drama.
Symbols and emblems have the same character. The old religions were
subjected to criticism, which means that they had lost their authority.
They did not verify when the attempt was made to use them for societal
needs. Slaves, merchants, soldiers, etc., afloat in the world,
associated from choice and contributed traditions from the whole known
world. Then syncretism began, and a body of sectarian notions was
formed. There was a new totemism, a breaking down of national religion,
a spirit of propaganda, and a setting forth of the whole in all dramatic
forms.[2007] In the sects women were admitted, a fact of double
significance. It was an emancipation for the women and a peril for the
sect. The doubt with which the mysteries are now regarded is due to the
uncertainty as to the relations of the sexes in them. The word "orgy"
originally meant worship, or rites, then secret rites, that is,
mysteries. The sense in which the word has come down to us shows the
notion about secret meetings which became commonly accepted.
The customs which had grown out of religious interest had reached the
desire for entertainment and pleasure. They satisfied it and stimulated
it, and the religious element might be forgotten.
+623. Beginnings of the theater at Rome.+ The Floralia were instituted
at Rome in 240 B.C. They were celebrated by courtesans with processions,
lascivious pantomimes, etc. They are said to have come from
Greece.[2008] In the same year Livius Andronicus presented at Rome the
first play translated from the Greek. In 154 the first permanent theater
was established there against great opposition. In 146 the first theater
outside the circus, with seats, was provided.[2009] All mimic actions
were foreign to the austere mores of the early Romans, but in the second
century B.C. the mores changed through the growth of wealth and contact
with other nations. Young Romans learned from actors to sing and dance,
acts which their ancestors thought unworthy of free persons. The
earliest plays were called _saturae_, because they were mixed
dialogues, music, and dances. The sense of the word was closely that of
"farce" in the Middle Ages,[2010] i.e. an episode or intermezzo of a
comic character interjected into a drama. The _saturae_ contained an
Etruscan element, but atellans were entirely Etruscan. They were comic
and grotesque, and got their name from Atella (i.e. Aversa or Santo
Arpino) in Campania. They could be played by persons who did not on that
account lose their places in their tribes or their right to serve in the
legion. No personalities at all were allowed on the Roman stage.
Cynicism and obscenity characterized the Oscan style.[2011] In 55 B.C.
the younger Cato was present at the Floralia. The populace hesitated to
call, in his presence, for the stripping of the _mimae_. He left in
order not to hinder the celebration from taking its usual course.[2012]
Valerius Maximus[2013] says that the pantomime was brought to Rome from
Etruria, the Etruscans having brought it from their old home in Lydia.
We see from the epigrams in the first book of Martial that at the Roman
theater in the first century of the Christian era incidents of the Roman
mythology were made into dramas and represented in pantomime.
+624. Gladiatorial exhibitions.+ The gladiatorial exhibitions are
supposed to have been of Etruscan origin in the form of funeral games.
Games to rejoice the ghosts, sacrifices of prisoners, a chance given to
a prisoner to fight for his life, are steps of a development of which we
find many examples. The Romans showed the pitilessness and inhumanity of
their mores in the development they gave to the gladiatorial
exhibitions. "Campanian hosts used to entertain their guests at dinner
with them in the days before the Second Punic War. It was in Campanian
towns that in the first century was displayed most glaringly the not
unusual combination of cruelty and voluptuousness."[2014] Some murmurs
of dissent arose from the philosophers of the first and second centuries
of the Christian era,--Plutarch, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius,[2015]--but at
that time the popular sentiment had not faltered at all in its love and
zeal for the gladiatorial shows and beast contests on account of any
doubt whether the exhibitions were "right." Tertullian, at the end of
the second century, wrote a tract, _Ad Nationes_, in which he criticised
the theater, and also another, _De Spectaculis_, against the public
entertainments. Although the latter is chiefly controversial against
heathen and heathenism, it contains direct and noble arguments against
the games of the arena on account of their inhumanity. He says that the
games were at first connected with funerals, and that the theater was a
temple of Venus, under cover of which the games won a footing. That
would mean, then, that they were at first under a convention of time,
place, occasion, and religion. Correctly understood, therefore, what
happened at Rome was that the convention was broken over and the
exceptional rite was made the everyday usage, the religious sentiment
being disregarded and the sensual entertainment alone being valued. When
we have reached this point we can understand the original place of the
games within the intellectual horizon of the nation, and also the deep
demoralization which they caused in later times. They were consonant
with early Roman mores which were warlike. Cicero thought them an
excellent school to teach contempt for pain and death. He cited
gladiators as examples of bodily exercise, courage, and discipline. He
seems to have known that some disapproved of the exhibitions, and he was
disposed to agree with them if the gladiators were others than criminals
condemned to death.[2016] A usage which is consonant with the tastes,
mores, and world philosophy of a people need work no corruption on them,
for it is under taboos and conventions; but if all the restraints are
taken away it enters into their life for just what it is in its
character,--sensual, cruel, bloody, obscene, etc. What had been savage
and bloodthirsty when the Romans were warriors became base and cowardly
when they never risked their own blood in any way. Condemned criminals
were compelled to take rôles in which they suffered torture and a
frightful death, in order to entertain the Roman crowd. Such rôles were
Prometheus, Dædalus, Orpheus, Hercules, and Attys; Pasiphae and the
bull, and Leda and the swan were also enacted. In Martial's _Epigrams_,
Book I, the cases are mentioned where a woman fought with a lion;
Laureolus, a robber, was crucified and torn, as he hung on the cross, by
a bear; Dædalus, when his wing broke, was precipitated amongst bears who
tore him to pieces; and Orpheus was torn by a bear. These exhibitions
were recognized as indecencies.[2017] Later the exhibitions had no
limit.[2018] "From father to son, for nearly seven centuries, the Roman
character became more and more indurated under the influence of licensed
cruelty. The spectacle was also surrounded by the emperors, even the
greatest and best, for politic reasons, with ever growing
splendor."[2019] "It is a grave deduction from the admiring judgment of
the glory of the Antonine age, that its most splendid remains are the
stately buildings within whose enclosure for centuries the populace were
regaled with the sufferings and the blood of the noblest creatures of
the wild animal world and of gallant men. The deserts and forests of
Africa and the remotest East contributed their elephants and panthers
and lions to these scenes."[2020]
+625. Spread of gladiatorial exhibitions.+ The Romans carried
gladiatorial exhibitions wherever their conquests extended. "The
Teutonic regions of the North and Greece were almost the only provinces
in which the bloody games were not popular. The one Greek town where the
taste for them was fully developed was the mongrel city of Corinth,
which was a Roman colony. In the novel of Apuleius we meet a high
Corinthian magistrate traveling through Thessaly to collect the most
famous gladiators for his shows. Plutarch urges public men to banish or
to restrain these exhibitions in their cities. When the Athenians, from
an ambition to rival the splendor of Corinth, were meditating the
establishment of a gladiatorial show, the gentle Demonax bade them first
to overturn their altar of Pity. The apostles of Hellenism,--Dion,
Plutarch, and Lucian,--were unanimous in condemning an institution which
sacrificed the bravest men to the brutal passions of the mob."[2021] At
Byzantium the lack of any standard of decency and propriety in the
exhibitions was even more complete, and they lasted indefinitely.[2022]
Constantine in 325 A.D. absolutely forbade gladiatorial exhibitions,
because bloody shows were unfit for a time of peace. He forbade the
condemnation of criminals to be gladiators. His laws, however, failed of
effect.[2023] At the end of the fourth century Symmachus, "who was
regarded as one of the most estimable pagans of his age," collected some
prisoners to fight in honor of his son. They committed suicide to escape
the destiny for which he designed them. He lamented the misfortune which
had befallen him from their "impious hands," but endeavored to calm his
feelings by recalling the patience of Socrates and the precepts of
philosophy. He will not, he says, use such people any more, but Libyan
lions, more docile than men.[2024] He serves to point a moral on the
mores of his age.
+626. The folk drama.+ The culture classes pass by the sports of the
"vulgar" with contempt; but the student of the mores cannot do so. The
tastes of the crowd are manifested in them. We read the great dramas
which have become a part of the world literature, and we form from them
our ideas of the current intellectual interest of the time of their
origin and of the society in which they were produced. Such inferences
need to be corrected. They are certainly erroneous. The Greeks were not
all of them, nor any of them all the time, on a plane of classical
severity and correctness. Far from it. They were realistic, egoistic,
cold, cruel, and fond of sensual pleasure.[2025] The great dramas,
epics, etc., were enjoyed only by the real upper strata of the society,
just as is the case in regard to Shakespeare amongst us. The great
populace of no society has ever found its amusement in purely
intellectual suggestions. With us popular amusement is found in the
circus, negro minstrels, the variety show, opera bouffe, the spectacle,
and ballet, and it attaches to parody and burlesque, "knock-down
business," buffoonery, and broad allusion. Stupidity is always funny.
Everything which breaks over the social taboo is funny. A violation of
propriety, accidental disorder of the dress, grotesque postures, vulgar
gestures of derision or defiance, blows, painful accidents and
mishaps,--if not too serious,--deformations of the body (humpbacks),
epithets and nicknames, slang and other abuses of language (like
mispronunciation by foreigners), vituperation, caricature and burlesque
of respectable types like the pedant, dandy, Puritan, imbecile, or the
rich and great, always raise a laugh in the crowd and are relished by
the crowd. They are constant elements of farce and fun. They have been
so for three thousand years. Jugglery and feats of strength and skill
excite wonder until they become familiar. They are proofs of individual
capacity. They do not give amusement like the points which have just
been mentioned and which have been repeated to generation after
generation. The crowd always delights in any degradation of the things
which the selected classes prefer and try to impose on all. They rejoice
to see the restrictions trampled upon which they hear preached as the
rules of life. In opera bouffe classical heroes, gods of the classical
mythology, royalty, nobles of the mediæval type, feudalism, dominies,
are turned to ridicule. The crowd worships its heroes fanatically while
they are in fashion, but it likes to turn about and roll them in the mud
of satire, in order to teach them who made them and how easily it can
unmake them. Aristophanes derided all which was serious in the Athenian
social system. Long before Don Quixote was written chivalry was treated
with derision. Satire is a reversal of respect and admiration.
+627. The popular taste. Realism. Conventionality. Satire.+ That which
is realistic and graphic appeals to the popular and uneducated taste,
not that which is conventional, regulated, and refined according to rule
and standard. That which is realistic reproduces all the facts of life.
If the mirror is held up to nature it will show some nasty things. The
social taboos began in superstitious fear, but they formed a series of
conventional folkways under which some acts and facts of life were
veiled from sight, knowledge, speech, and publicity. Other lesser
conventions were grafted on these, and produced the great mass of usages
within which our lives are passed. That which is artistic is the highest
form of conventional refinement. Realism antagonizes and breaks through
all these conventions and taboos, which are always a strain upon those
who are not brought up in them from infancy. Therefore we hear demands
for realism and naturalness from those who weary of the strain and do
not want to submit to it. The conventionalities define respectability,
and respectability has always been sneered at. In all comedy it is made
ridiculous. The husband was possessed of conventional rights in which he
was protected by society so that he had a secured and uneventful status.
In comedy his rights have been violated and his security has been
broken. The crowd has always enjoyed this. It rejoiced to see the wife
deceive the husband, and the adulterer fool him. The latter represented
freedom and cleverness at war with philistinism. On the other hand, all
the taboos and conventions which have penetrated the masses and become
familiar to them from infancy are fiercely defended by them (e.g. female
dress and the taboo on man's dress for females). The popular magazines
and the "great moral shows" religiously respect the standards of the
crowd. That which is broad is funny, but there is always a limit of
toleration. What is prudish, puritanical, fastidious, affected,
pharisaical, etc.? These adjectives are in use, and they apply to things
which are beyond a line which is undefined and indefinable. It depends
on the codes and standards of the group. Realism presents everyday
experience, no humbug, the world as it is. It must, therefore, be
cynical and ruthless to all conventions. It shows the meanness of
greatness, the other side of virtue, the weakness of heroes. No doubt it
is great fun to pour scorn and ridicule on all who assume to be better
than we are, and to look down on us. The easiest way to do it is to show
up their weaknesses, follies, and sins. Here is another task for the
satirists. Satire in comedy may be a gratification of envy. The rôle of
Pierrot is dangerous to him who exercises it. In fact no man is fit for
it. Where does any one get a charter to be censor of all the rest? He
will certainly become proud, arrogant, self-seeking, and tyrannical.
Each one satirizes follies which are not to his taste, or sins to which
he is not tempted. Satire to be artistic and permanently effective must
be marked by light and shade. It always exaggerates what it wants to
impress on the attention, but to do this artistically it must subdue
other elements. This is very difficult to accomplish when for popular
effect it must use big brushes and glaring colors.
+628. Popular exhibitions.+ From the time of Homer we can trace popular
exhibitions which accompanied the theatrical forms above described as an
inferior class of the same species. The popular exhibitions were marked
by the features which have been described (sec. 626), to which we may
add bloodshed and cruel rites.
+629. Ancient popular festivals.+ The _thargelia_ were ancient
sanguinary festivals celebrated in Greece in honor of Apollo and Diana.
Two men, or a man and a woman, were immolated in Attica, to expiate the
sins of the people. "The circular dances of the Greeks around the
victims, or later around the altar, can only be compared with the songs
and furious dances of the Iroquois and Brazilians around their
prisoners."[2026] At Athens also the _kronia_ were festivals of Saturn.
The notion that there was a period of original liberty and equality "at
the beginning" was entertained at that time, and this festival was held
to represent it. Also on Crete there were festivals of Mercury. In
Thessaly the _peloria_ were a festival, the name of which was derived
from Pelor, the man that brought news that an earthquake had drained the
valley of Tempe. The _sacea_ were a festival at Babylon similar to the
_saturnalia_. A slave in each house, including the palace of the king,
ruled as a house sovereign for five days. The leading idea was to
reverse or invert everything in ordinary life. The _kordax_ was an
ancient dance of the old comedy, with indecent gestures, in which the
human figure was caricatured according to all the deformations which it
underwent by vice or sensuality. All the effects of gluttony and Bacchic
excess were caricatured in the figure of Silenus. The old woman fond of
wine lost all modesty under the influence of wine.[2027] The leaders of
the choruses, in a later time at Athens, offered reminders of primitive
barbarism and of the immolation of human beings, and a representation of
savage nudity, but they presented no image which was ridiculous or base.
Tragedy had a long struggle to become separate from lyric forms, but
Æschylus at last accomplished the separation. This was really the
separation of the high literary drama from the popular _mimus_. After
ten centuries of glory in Greece tragedy was lost again under the lyric
form.[2028] The popular drama, however, lasted on until to-day, and it
has never changed its characteristic elements.
+630. The _mimus_.+ The essence of the _mimus_ is in pantomime as the
name denotes. It imitates facts of life and behavior and is, therefore,
essentially realistic. It may well be derived from the mimetic dances of
nature peoples, in which beasts, warriors, and lovers are imitated, with
jest and satirical exaggeration of characteristic traits. In the folk
drama in its simplest forms nothing has ever been written. The actor,
assumed a rôle and improvised all which he had to say in trying to act
it out. His responsibility for the rôle was far greater than that of an
actor in a culture drama. The actor, by repeating a rôle, produced a
representation of it which was personal to himself and which he
perfected. The most interesting and marked characters became fixed. A
large number of them are now established in literature and have become
known all over the world. The latest instance of such a type is,
perhaps, Lord Dundreary. The word _mimus_ appears in Greece in the fifth
century B.C. The _mimus_ was a picture of life or, more exactly, an
unwritten parody of life. It was divided into grades and the actors into
castes. Women had previously appeared as jugglers and mountebanks. They
now appeared amongst the actors of the popular drama. This made the
exhibitions questionable according to Greek standards. The exhibitions
were given by wandering companies. While actors of the culture drama
always wore masks, those of the _mimus_ were the first to appear
unmasked;[2029] later others imitated them. At the present day the
theatrical exhibitions which may be seen on the outskirts of a fair in
central Europe well represent the ancient _mimus_. The marionettes were
an early offshoot of the _mimus_, and the modern Punch-and-Judy show is
a descendant in part of both. For the mores the _mimus_ and the
marionette theater are a thousandfold more important than the great
tragedies, but the former have left no mark on history. They never were
written down; the actors are dead; their reputation is forgotten. The
mores contain the effect as a fact but no explanation of it. From the
time of Alexander the Great that which is common, popular, realistic
prevailed in politics and literature. The heroic and ideal-poetic
declined and was made an object of satire in the _mimus_. "The trivial,
prosaic, and libertine taste of the Macedonian princes of Egypt and
Syria at last reigned alone in enslaved Greece." Then, under different
forms and names, nothing remained but mimes, realistic representation of
common life.[2030] The Olympian gods and Homeric heroes were burlesqued
for fun. The _mimus_ won acceptance at courts and in higher circles. It
was developed into the so-called "hypothesis" and won a place on the
stage. The most distinguished maker of hypotheses was Philistion,[2031]
who lived at the beginning of the Christian era. They became popular
throughout the Greco-Roman world in the first centuries of the Christian
era.[2032] The emperor Tiberius caused actors to be expelled from Italy
as disturbers of the peace, and because the old Oscan farce, once
amusement for the common people, had become indecent.[2033] Out of the
common origin of all dramatic exhibitions (sec. 616) the _mimus_ kept
the corn demons, or growth demons, which always commanded the interest
of husbandmen. The actors of this rôle wore masks in which the features
of a low and sensual countenance were greatly exaggerated. An artificial
phallus (sec. 473) was worn outside of the dress, and the entire region
of the hips was enlarged so as to produce a conventional, extravagant,
and stereotyped figure, like the modern clown, punch, or Mephisto,
being, in fact, in some measure, their ancestor.[2034] Greek vases
represent these figures. The same set of ideas and course of thought has
been traced in Mexico in connection with crop interests and growth
demons.[2035] There also the public rites at festivals passed by
imperceptible steps into dramatic representations with dogmatic meaning
or magical significance.
+631. Modern analogies.+ The end man of the negro minstrel troupe is a
modern creation like the Greek _phlyax_, for he is a buffoon of the
plantation-negro type, with every feature exaggerated to the utmost, so
that he is unreal and a caricature; but the exaggerations direct
attention to familiar facts and display characteristic features which
are a cause of merriment. The rise, development, and decline of negro
ministrelsy illustrate, within our observation, many features in the
history of popular comedy. It originated in fun making by the imitation
of a foreign group, whose peculiar ways appeared to be ridiculous
antics. Then the negro was used to burlesque and satirize the
weaknesses, follies, and affectations of whites. The negro plantation
hand is a type which is disappearing and interest in him is declining.
He is no longer available for direct study or derived satire.
+632. Biologs and ethologs.+ The Greek _phlyax_ (the play) passed to
southern Italy in the fourth century B.C., whence it was transmitted to
Rome and confused with the atellan. It became very popular, and lasted
until the fifth century A.D.[2036] Reich divides the mimes into two
classes: (1) biologs, i.e. those who represent individual types, e.g. an
unfaithful wife, an imbecile husband, a fatuous nobleman, a physician,
etc.; (2) ethologs, i.e. those who impersonate some feature in the mores
of the time and satirize it, e.g. faith in miracles, fondness for drink
or gambling, sycophancy to the rich, or "getting on in the world." This
is a very important distinction and one which illuminates the connection
between the drama and the mores. Socrates was an etholog, although not
an actor. He spent sarcasm, irony, and humor on the ways of the
Athenians of his time.[2037] Aristophanes was another, Rabelais was
another, Erasmus was an inferior one. In his _Colloquies_ and _Praise of
Folly_ he is more of a preacher, but his aim is to influence by graphic
satirical description. In our day the comic papers attempt the task of
the etholog. They try to satirize manners and men. A comic paper owned
or subsidized by a political party is the sorriest representative of
Pierrot that the world has yet seen. The biolog personates an individual
type, like an aberration of human nature, which may be found anywhere
and at any time. The etholog personates a specimen of a class which
helps to characterize a period. Dandies exist at all times, but vary in
detail. The fatuity and vanity of all dandies are features for the
etholog; the follies of the dandy of a period belong to the biolog. Beau
Brummel would be a model for a biolog. The etholog is apt to overlook
his best subjects. He cannot himself escape from his own times enough to
recognize them. He never satirizes the reigning features. The American
etholog never satirizes democracy, or the politician, or the newspaper.
The etholog wants a big party or a strong sentiment behind him. It is
not until after skepticism about a ruling "way" has formed in the minds
of a large section of the masses that the etholog makes himself the
mouthpiece of it. We have no satire yet on militarism, or imperialism,
or the Monroe doctrine. A protective tariff is a grand object for
satire, but so long as the masses believe in it satire is powerless. The
same is true of any folkway so long as it is not yet doubted. Satire is
then blasphemy. While a way is prevalent there is pathos about it (sec.
178), as there is now amongst us about democracy, but there never can be
satire, and pathos at the same time, in the same society, about the same
thing. One might have believed that nothing need be sacred to the
theaters of Paris, but a few years ago a play was written which set the
French Revolution in a different light from the now consecrated
commonplace in regard to it. It was found impossible to produce it. A
marionette player and his wife made fun of Père Duchesne on the
boulevard during the Revolution. Both were guillotined.[2038] These
facts limit very much the high moral function sometimes ascribed to
satire. It never gets into action until the mischief is done. It never
squelches a folly at its commencement. That function belongs to educated
reason, but educated reason is not in the masses.
+633. Dickens as a biolog.+ Charles Dickens was a biolog. His novels
contain very little evidence of the manners and customs of his time, and
what they do contain is forced and untrue. He invented characters whose
names have become common nouns and adjectives for individual types which
are found in all societies at all times (Pecksniff, Micawber,
Turveydrop, Uriah Heep, etc.), but which may, at a time, be especially
common and produce fine specimens.
+634. Early Jewish plays.+ Ezekiel (an Alexandrian Jew, fl. c. 200 B.C.)
is said to have written a play on the exodus from Egypt, with the same
motive as the mystery plays,--the edification of the faithful. Herod
Atticus ([Symbol: cross] c. 180 A.D.), having caused the death of his
wife, Regilla, was not satisfied with the expiations in the usual
funeral rites. He built, as a monument to her, a theater with a
roof.[2039] Ezekiel's play on the exodus was presented in Herod's
theater. Nicholas of Damascus (b. 74 B.C.) is said to have written a
play on the story of Susanna.[2040]
+635. Roman _mimus_.+ The _mimus_, in the Greco-Roman empire,
stereotyped its figures for a period, since of course they did not
change suddenly or greatly. In the Roman _mimus_ the recurring features
were the pursuit of legacies, the impotency of men, the stupidity of the
clown, blows and other physical violence. The fixed types were: old
women as drunkards, sorceresses, go-betweens, peddlers, and panders; men
as _scholasticus_ (the pedant and learned imbecile), Ardalio (a
character introduced by Philistion), the fatuous, fussy old man, and
then the Christian, a type which was kept up for several
centuries.[2041] These personages, remaining unchanged in character,
were put in various assumed positions and conjunctures. The actors had
to invent the dialogue and work out the situation. The characters have
come down to us as Punch, Harlequin, Pantaloon, etc.[2042] Punch
(=Pulcino, Pulcinella) is only a Neapolitan rendering of Maccus, a
character in the atellans. "Maccus," in Etruscan, meant a little
cock.[2043] Christian antiphonal singing, like the Greek mystery acts of
Dionysus, helped to develop the drama.[2044] In the first centuries of
the Christian era "obscenity dominated the theater." "It was no longer a
school of patriotism, recalling the heroes of the early ages or
criticising the misdoings of contemporaries. It was a scene of vice and
corruption for actors and spectators. There was nothing represented but
the adventures of deceived husbands, adulteries, intrigues of
libertines, incidents in lupanars. The only characters represented were
shameless women and effeminate men. The most shameful things were
exhibited. Everything which ought to be respected was there degraded.
Virtue was mocked and the gods were derided. The actor caused the taste
for evil things to penetrate the mind of the spectator; he stimulated
ignoble and criminal passions, and, familiar as he was with vice, he
blushed sometimes at the shameful rôle which he was forced to play
before the crowd."[2045]
+636. "The Suffering Christ." "Pseudo-Querolus."+ In the fourth century
the Christians tried to use the theater for their purposes. The drama
_The Suffering Christ_ is attributed to Gregory of Nazianz. It
represents the passion of Jesus as understood by the Nicene theologians.
It consists of twelve hundred and seventy-three verses taken more or
less exactly from the tragedies of Euripides and patched together.
Lintilhac[2046] says it is now the accepted opinion that it cannot be of
remoter origin than the eleventh century, so that the most noteworthy
fact about it would be that it is a Greek liturgical play of even date
with the earliest western plays of that class. In it the Virgin Mary is
a pagan woman, who uses verses of Hecuba and Medea, and thinks of
suicide.[2047] Another play of the fourth century, which is mentioned as
important in the history of the drama, is the _Pseudo-Querolus_. It is
an imitation of Plautus. Querolus is the forerunner of Molière's
Misanthrope and so a biolog,--a permanent type of person.[2048] Dramas
representing martyrdom and other Christian incidents were presented with
very great realism.[2049]
+637. The _mimus_ and Christianity.+ The _mimus_ opened war on
Christianity. The religion was unpopular and hated. It set itself
against the mores of the society at the time. It was scoffed at just as
Puritans, Quakers, Mormons, and Christian Scientists have been scoffed
at since and for the same reasons. It shared the unpopularity of the
Jews, who came before the heathen world claiming the isolation of
superiority, exclusive favor of God, ascendancy by rights over all the
world. To the pagans the Christians seemed to make a great fuss about
nothing. The _mimus_ seized the popular sentiment and gave it
expression. The Christian became the clown and simpleton. Christian
rites were parodied and ridiculed. Martyrdoms were represented on the
stage, the martyr being the buffoon. The heathen gods were taken under
the protection of the _mimus_, instead of being burlesqued as they had
been for several centuries. This mockery ran through the Roman empire
until the end of the fourth century, when the church got the protection
of the state against public insult, but Christianity fell under the
dominion of heathen mores. The great ecclesiastics of the fifth century
preached fiercely against the theater, not because of the insults of the
theater against the church, for they were silenced, but on account of
the action of the theater upon Christian mores. Chrysostom denounced the
theater on account of the manners of actresses in the _mimus_, on
account of false hair, paint, exposed bodies, uncovered heads, melodies,
gross language, gestures, strife, representations of adultery and other
sex vice, and because it was the school of intrigue and seduction. This
became the attitude of the church towards the theater.[2050]
+638. Popular phantasms.+ Although the crowd likes to see realistic
representations of life, and also likes to see in the drama that
ridicule of the cultured classes which seems like a victory over them,
yet it also loves fantastic scenes, and acts in which the limitations of
reality are left behind and imaginary luck and joy are represented,--such
as magical transformations, fairy tales, and realms of bliss. Extremes
of realism and phantasm meet in the folk drama. After the fifth century
the sense of societal decline and loss was strong in the popular mind.
It was felt that the world was failing. There was a contempt for
life.[2051] Pagan society was ennuyé. "It wanted to laugh. It wanted
games and dances to make gay the last hours which separated it from its
fall."[2052] Salvianus says that the Roman world died laughing.[2053]
+639. Effects of vicious amusements.+ Vicious amusements provoke all
kinds of vicious passions. Excitement, sensuality, frivolity, and
meanness go together. Lecky[2054] points out the contrast between the
conduct of the Romans of the time of Marius, who refused to plunder the
houses of the opposing faction when Marius threw them open, and that of
the Romans of the time of Vespasian, who enjoyed the fun and plunder of
his war with Vitellius in the streets of Rome. "The moral condition of
the empire is, indeed, in some respects one of the most appalling
pictures on record."
+640. Gladiatorial games.+ The mores of the Romans of the third century
B.C. (sec. 624) seized upon the gladiatorial contests as something
suited to the genius of the Roman people, and, as the Romans gained
wealth and power by conquest and plunder, with numerous war captives,
they developed the sport of the arena to a very high point. Then the
sport reacted on the mores and made them more cruel, licentious, and
cowardly. It required more and more extravagant inventions to produce
the former degree of pleasure. The Romans were fond of all torture and
showed great invention in connection with it, both for beasts and men.
Children amused themselves by torturing beasts and insects, making them
draw loads, and making fowls and birds fight. They loved the sight of
pain and bloodshed and found their greatest pleasure in it.[2055] Under
Nero women fought in the arena. This was forbidden under Severus. A law,
probably of the time of Nero, forbade masters to give their slaves to
fight beasts. Hadrian forbade the sale of slaves to be gladiators.
Marcus Aurelius forbade the condemnation of criminals to be gladiators,
and he tried to limit the gladiatorial exhibitions. They were far too
popular.[2056] It is thus that amusements and mores react on each other
to produce social degeneration. The whole social standard of "right"
moves down with the moral degeneracy, and at no stage is there a sense
of shame or wrongdoing in the public mind in connection with what is
customary and traditional at the time. There is no contrast between
facts and standards. The great Christian ecclesiastics of the fourth and
fifth centuries denounced the public amusements and tried to keep the
Christians away from them. They tried to convert actors. They pointed
out the subtle corruption of character produced by feigning vice.
Gladiators were not admitted to baptism unless they repented and
renounced their profession.[2057] In 325 Constantine forbade
gladiatorial combats as unfit for a time of peace. He forbade the use of
condemned criminals in the arena. These laws were powerless.[2058]
+641. Compromise between church and customs.+ The _maiuma_ (mock sea
fight on the Tiber in May) was forbidden, probably under Constance, a
prohibition which was repeated by Theodosius. Arcadius tried to allow it
again, under conditions that propriety be observed, but it was
impossible, and he forbade all immodest exhibitions. Theodosius forbade
magistrates to be present at exhibitions after midday, when the most
obscene and bloody were presented, except on the anniversaries of his
own birth and accession. He also forbade actresses to use fine clothes
and jewels, and forbade Christians to be actors. Leo I ([symbol: cross]
461) forbade that any Christian woman, free or slave, should be
compelled to be an actress or meretrix.[2059] Salvianus describes,[2060]
in very emphatic but general terms, the public exhibitions in Gaul and
Africa in the second half of the fifth century. There was, he says,
scarcely a crime or outrage which was not represented on the stage, and
the spectators enjoyed seeing a man killed or cruelly lacerated. All the
earth was ransacked for beasts. All the senses were outraged by
indecencies. Nevertheless, on any day on which performances occurred the
churches were empty. The Christians, as we see, lived in the mores of
their age, and all these things had centuries of tradition behind them.
Salvianus and other ecclesiastics were not heeded because they derived
their standards from Christian dogmas, and those standards were far
removed from the current mores. The church was forced to compromise. It
allowed feasts, fairs, and games near the churches. It converted heathen
festivals, with processions, lights, and garlands, into Christian
festivals and usages. It borrowed the attractions of the worship of
Isis, Mithra, and Cybele, and adopted all the means of suggestion
employed in their rites. The great ecclesiastics were divided as to this
policy. Augustine put an end, so far as his jurisdiction went, to the
feasts in the churches in honor of martyrs, with singing, dancing, and
drinking, although they were very popular.[2061] He complained earnestly
of the indecency of the exhibitions of his time.[2062] "Especially at
the festivals in honor of the heathen gods, and in civil celebrations,
the ancient religious practices were renewed, not infrequently
degenerating into shameless immorality, yet protecting civil usages. The
patriot, the philosopher, the skeptic, and the pious man had to make a
capitulation with those ancient religious practices, for they were not,
in truth, emancipated from them at heart, and they did not know of
anything better to replace what those practices did for society."[2063]
So the philosopher, patriot, skeptic, and pious man always have to
compromise with the ancient and existing mores. Salvianus[2064] says
that poverty caused the great exhibitions to cease. It was advancing
poverty and misery which put an end to all the old forms of amusement.
It was not the church or Christianity. The Christian rites and
festivals alone remained. Modern Spanish bullfights appear to be a
survival of the old sports of the arena. Bullfights were introduced into
Italy in the fourteenth century. They were general in the fifteenth
century. The Aragonese brought them to Naples and the Borgias to
Rome.[2065] We hear of a kind of gladiatorial exhibition at some
festivals in India early in the nineteenth century.[2066] There were
gladiators also in Japan[2067] and in Mexico.[2068]
+642. The _cantica_.+ Roman drama ran down to pantomime with explanatory
recitation, that is, _cantica_. From the seventh to the tenth century
few dramas were produced with dialogue. Some biblical narratives,
legends of saints, and profane compositions from that time exist, which
are probably _cantica_, to be accompanied by pantomime at fairs or in
church porches.
+643. Passion for the games.+ It certainly was not on account of any
decline in the taste for amusement that the games declined. In the fifth
century, when the Vandals were besieging Carthage, "the church of
Carthage was crazy for the games," and the cries of those dying in
battle were confused with those of the applauding spectators at the
games. The leading men of Treves were gratifying their love of feasting
when the barbarians entered their city.[2069] The people of Antioch were
in the theater when the Persians surprised them, about 265 A.D.[2070]
+644. German sports.+ Amongst the Germanic nations, from a very early
period, popular amusements consisted in pantomimes, mummery with animal
masks, horseplay by clowns, etc. The feast of Holda, or Berchta, during
the first twelve days of January, was an especial period for those
sports. From the sixth century there was also a pantomime of the strife
of winter and spring.[2071]
+645. The _mimus_ from the third to the eighth century.+ As the culture
drama fell into neglect the _mimus_ was left in possession of the field.
The culture drama, as we have seen, was built upon and above the
_mimus_, and has the character of a high product which could be
maintained only in a peaceful and prosperous society whose other
literary and artistic products were of a high grade. With a failure of
societal power the highest products disappeared first, but the low and
vulgar _mimus_, which had been disregarded but had amused the crowd
during prosperity, continued to exist. In the third, fourth, and fifth
centuries the _mimus_ existed throughout the Roman world and was very
popular. In the fifth century it flourished at Ravenna, and perhaps it
continued later in the same form as in the East. It can be traced in
Italy in the sixth century, after which its existence is doubtful. In
the seventh century the theater was a thing of the past, but the _mimus_
still existed. The ascetics of Charlemagne's time disapproved of it and
got legislation against it, but the laws were of no avail. The
ecclesiastics were fond of the _mimus_. It was in the hands of strolling
players of the humblest kind. It coarsened with the general decay. All
court festivals needed the _mimus_ for the festivities.[2072]
+646. Drama in the Orient.+ There is no drama in Mohammedan literature
and it appears that there is no original drama in the Orient.[2073] The
_mimus_ declined in the West in the disaster of the fifth century, but
in the Byzantine empire it lasted until the Turkish conquest, so that it
appears that if there is any historical connection between modern and
ancient drama it must be through Byzantium.[2074] The actors at
Byzantium kept a certain traditional license in the face of the emperor
and court which was not without social and political value.[2075]
+647. Marionettes.+ Marionettes are mentioned in Xenophon's _Symposium_.
They were of more ancient origin. The puppet play was used as a means of
burlesquing the legitimate theater and drama. It passed to the Turks as
the puppet shadow play, in which the hero Karagöz is the same as Punch
in figure, character, and acts. This puppet play spread all over the
Eastern world. Lane[2076] says of it in Egypt, in the first half of the
nineteenth century, that it was very indecent. Reich[2077] describes an
indecent shadow play. A special form of it was developed in Java, the
_wajang-poerva_, with figures of the _pantin_ type, operated by strings
and levers. This amusement is very popular in Java and very
representative of the mores. Whether these oriental forms of the _mimus_
were derived from the Greco-Roman world is uncertain. The _mimus_ is so
original and of such spontaneous growth that it does not need to be
borrowed.
+648. The drama in India.+ In India, at the beginning of the Christian
era, there was a development of drama of a high character. The one
called the _Clay-waggon_ (a child's toy) is described as of very great
literary merit,--realistic, graphic, and Shakespearean in its artistic
representation of life.[2078] Every drama which has that character must
be in and of the mores. In the _Clay-waggon_ the story is that of a
Brahmin of the noblest character, who marries a courtesan, she having
great love for him. The courtesan gives to the Brahmin's son a toy wagon
of gold for his own made of clay. The name of the play comes from this
trivial incident in it. A wicked, vain, and shallow-pated prince
intervenes and is taken as a biolog, or standing type of person. Modern
Hindoo dramas require a whole night for the representation. They
represent the loves and quarrels of the gods and other mythological
stories. "The actors are dressed and painted in imitation of the deities
they represent, and frequently the conversations are rendered attractive
by sensual and obscene allusions, whilst in the interludes boys dressed
in women's clothes dance with the most indecent gestures. The worst
dances that I have ever seen have been in front of an image and as a
part of the rejoicings of a religious festival. Crowds of men, women,
and children sit to watch them the whole night through."[2079] The
history of Ram is also enacted in pantomime in northern India. The text
of the _Ramayana_ is read and days are spent in acting it, by a great
crowd, which moves from place to place, and naïvely plans to act city
incidents in cities, forest incidents in forests, boat episodes on
ponds, and war episodes or battles on great fields.[2080]
+649. Punch in the West.+ Punch was brought to Italy in the fifteenth
century.[2081] Polichinelle, as developed in France, is distinctly
French. The model is Henri IV. The hump is an immemorial sign of the
French _badin-ès-farces_. "Polichinelle seems to me to be a purely
national (French) type, and one of the most spontaneous and vivacious
creations of French fantasy."[2082] The puppet play of Punch and Judy
has enjoyed immense popularity in western Europe. The Faust legend has
been developed by the puppets.[2083] With the improvements in the arts
people became more sophisticated. The puppets were left to children and
to the simplest rural population, not because the mores improved, but
because people were treated to more elaborate entertainments and the
puppets became trivial. Punch is now a blackguard and criminal, who is
conventionally tolerated on account of his antiquity. He is not in
modern mores and is almost unknown in the United States. He is generally
popular in southern Europe. To the Sicilians "a puppet play is a book, a
picture, a poem, and a theater all in one. It teaches and amuses at the
same time."[2084] Then it still is what it has been for three thousand
years.
+650. Resistance of the church to the drama.+ The council in the palace
of Trullo, at Constantinople in 692,[2085] adopted canons forbidding
clerics to attend horse races or theatrical exhibitions, or to stay at
weddings after play began, also pantomimes, beast combats, and
theatrical dances, also heathen festivals, vows to Pan, bacchanal rites,
public dances by women, the appearance of men dressed as women, or of
women dressed as men, and the use of comic, tragic, or satyric masks.
All the Dionysiac rites had been forbidden long before. These canons
prove that those rites were still observed. These clerical rules and
canons do not represent the mores and they never overruled the mores at
Constantinople. They only bear witness to what existed in the mores late
in the seventh century, and they were an attempt to purify the usages
which had been taken over by compromise from heathenism. In the sixth
century in the West dances in church were often forbidden. The only
stock of ideas in the eighth and ninth centuries were fantastic notions
of nature, heaven and hell, history, supernatural agents, etc., which
notions the ecclesiastics had an interest to teach. Dramatic
representation was a means of teaching. The external action corresponded
closely with the mental concept or story. From the time of Charlemagne
pantomimes, tableaux, etc., set forth incidents of biblical stories and
the resurrection, ascension, etc. The mores of the age seized on these
modes of representation and gave method and color to them. All the
grossness, superstition, and bad taste of the age were put into them.
Satan and his demons were realistically represented, and the mass was
travestied by ecclesiastics in a manner which we should think would be
deeply offensive to them.[2086] It was another case of conventionality
for a limited time and place. Some of the clergy no doubt enjoyed the
fun; others had to tolerate what was old and traditional. The folk drama
reawakened as burlesque, parody, satire. The evil characters in the
Scripture stories (Pharaoh, Judas, Caiaphas, the Jews) all fed this
interest. All persons and institutions which pretended to be great and
good and were not such provoked satire (clergy, nobles, warriors,
women). The drama, introduced to show forth religious notions, served
also to set forth others (social, political, city rivalry, class
antagonisms). The "mass of fools" was a complete parody of the mass,
with mock music and vestments and burlesque ceremony. In the "mass of
innocents" children took the place of adults and carried out the
ceremony as a parody. At the "feast of the ass" an ass was led into
church and treated with mock respect. This last degenerated into
obscenity, indecency, and disorder. Bulls and edicts against it were
long vain. It was popular as a relief from restraint.[2087] It continued
the function of the Saturnalia, which had been a grand frolic and
relaxation. The ecclesiastics tolerated these outbursts, perhaps because
they saw that the lines could not be drawn very tightly without such
relaxation. From the eleventh century the ecclesiastics opposed any
automatic figure. They construed the making of such a figure as an
attempt to call the saints, etc., to life again. The skill employed also
seemed to them like sorcery.[2088] "There was not an ecumenic, national,
or diocesan council in whose canons may not be found severe and
peremptory reproofs of all sorts and qualities of drama, of actors, and
of those who run to see plays."[2089] This became the orthodox attitude
of the church to the theater. There were complaints of the attendance of
clerics and people at theatrical exhibitions until the tenth century.
Then they cease because the church ceremonies were more interesting and
better done.[2090] The Christian drama reached the height of its
hieratic development between the ninth and twelfth centuries.[2091]
+651. Hrotsvitha.+ Klein[2092] puts as the next important literary work
of dramatic composition after the _Pseudo-Querolus_ the works of the nun
Hrotsvitha. In the tenth century she wrote six comedies in Latin, in
imitation of Terence, her purpose being to show the superiority of the
conventual conception of love to the worldly theory, and of religious
passion to erotic passion. In the introduction she apologizes for her
realistic descriptions of erotic passion, which she says was necessary
for the argument implicit in her plays. She introduces God as a
character, and miracles as a means of bringing about the dénouement at
which she wants to arrive. It became the custom in mediæval drama to
reach, by introducing a miracle, the moral result which current dogma
required.[2093] The situations and intrigue are generally very
unedifying. To our taste the plays seem very unfit to be acted by nuns
before nuns.
+652. Jongleurs. Processions.+ In the eleventh century abbeys and
cathedrals were built. At the beginning of the century the basilicas of
the churches were repaired throughout Latin Christendom.[2094] The
Jongleurs of the twelfth century were the popular minstrels. "Poet,
mountebank, musician, physician, beast showman, and to some extent
diviner and sorcerer, the jongleur is also the orator of the public
market place, the man adored by the crowd to whom he offers his songs
and his couplets. Questions of morals and politics, toothache, pious
legends, scandalous tales about priests, noble ladies, and cavaliers,
gossip of grog shops, and news from the Holy Land were all in his
domain."[2095] In the second third of the twelfth century the vulgar
language began to displace the Latin in church, especially in
dramas.[2096] Processions were in the taste and usage of the Middle Ages
and Renaissance for both civil and religious pomp and display. The
dresses, banners, arches, etc., contributed to the spectacle, and all
took on a dramatic character for, on a saint's day or other occasion,
the exhibition had a second sense of reference to the story of the
saint, or the success in war of the king or potentate. The latter sense
might be dramatically set forth, and generally was at least suggested.
Tableaux and dramatic pantomime in the streets were combined with the
processions. Mythological subjects as well as incidents of Christian
history were so represented. All classes coöperated in these functions.
Poets and artists of the first rank assisted. The contribution of these
functions to the development of the drama is obvious. In modern times
the taste for processions is lost, and the cultivated classes refuse to
participate, but when the whole population of a city took part in
setting forth something they all cared for, the social effect was great,
and the whole proceeding nourished dramatic taste and power. In Italy
the pantomime with song and dance, or ballet, had its origin in the
procession.[2097] In the churches arrangements were made, with elaborate
machinery, for exhibiting representations of Scripture incidents.
Godfrey, Abbot of St. Albans ([Symbol: cross] 1146) wrote a play on the
life of St. Catharine "such as was afterwards called a miracle." The
Annunciation was represented in St. Mark's, Venice, in 1267. In Germany
the mysteries were partly in German from the end of the thirteenth
century.[2098]
+653. Adam de la Halle.+ De Julleville[2099] puts Adam de la Halle as
the first comic writer in France, in point of time. He wrote the _Jeu de
la Feuillée_ about 1262. It is described as a "scenic satire rather than
a comedy." It is local, personal, and satirical, and includes miracles
and capricious inventions without much regard to probability. It stands
by itself and is not the first of a series. The notion of a connection
between comedy and bodily deformity was now so firmly established that
Adam was called the "Humpback of Arras," although he was not humpbacked
at all.[2100] Association of acts and ideas is always very important in
all folkways and popular mores. At Florence, in 1304, on boats on the
Arno, devils were represented at work. The bridge on which the
spectators stood broke down under the crowd, and it was said that "many
went to the real hell to find out about it."[2101] At Paris, in 1313, at
the celebration of the knighting of the sons of Philippe le Bel, devils
were represented tormenting souls.[2102]
+654. Flagellants.+ The flagellants exerted some of the suggestions of
the processions, and they used dramatic devices to set forth their
ideas, to say nothing of the dramatic element in the self-scourging.
They were outside of the church system, and acted on their own
conception of sin and discipline, like modern revivalists. They
reappeared from time to time through the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. They meant to declare that the asserted correlation between
goodness and blessing did not verify, and they were at a loss for a
doctrine to replace it. Their antiphonal singing turned into dialogue,
and then became drama at the end of the thirteenth century.[2103]
+655. Use of churches for dramatic exhibitions.+ The mediæval plays were
presented in churches or on the open spaces on the streets in front of
them, at Florence. Later this became customary in all cities.[2104] The
old idea had been that churches were common public property, a universal
rendezvous for every common interest. Dedications of churches and feasts
of martyrs had been general merrymakings. D'Ancona collects dicta of
councils and popes condemning dramatic actions in churches, and the
singing of lewd songs and dancing by women.[2105] The language used
implies that the songs, gestures, acts, and suggestions connected with
the performances in the churches were lewd and indecent. The populace,
while using the license, well perceived its incongruity and impropriety,
and this stimulated the satire, which was so strong a feature of the
late Middle Ages and which produced the farce. The mysteries and
moralities for a time gave entertainment, but they became tedious. The
farce was at first "stuffing," put in to break up the dullness by fun
making of some kind and to give spice to the entertainment, just as
meats were _farcies_ to give them more savor. It grew until it surpassed
and superseded the sober drama. The populace did not want more preaching
and instruction, but fun and frolic, relief from labor, thought, and
care. The take-off, caricature, burlesque, parody, discerns and sets
forth the truth against current humbug, and the pretenses of the
successful classes. The fool comes into prominence again, not by
inheritance but by rational utility. The fifteenth century offered him
plenty of material. As a fool he escaped responsibility. This
rôle,--that of the _badin_ in France, the _gracioso_ in Spain,
_arlequino_ in Italy, _Hanswurst_ in Germany,--becomes fixed like the
buffoon (_maccus_) in the classical comedy. In France, from the
beginning of the fourteenth century, the _basochiens_ were young clerks
and advocates who were studying law and who made fun of law proceedings.
They met with only limited toleration. Their satire was not relished by
the legal great men. In the fourteenth century they took up moralities
overweighted with allegory but broken up by farces. In the fifteenth
century the _Enfans sans Souci_ were another variety of _comédiens_.
Their emblem was the cap with two horns or ass's ears.[2106] The life of
St. Louis was represented in tableaux at Marseilles in 1517.[2107] The
Passion was represented in the Coliseum until 1539, when Paul III
forbade it. Riots against the Jews had been provoked by the
exhibition.[2108]
+656. Protest against misuse of churches.+ It may be said that there was
never wanting a dissenting opinion and protest amongst the ecclesiastics
about the folk drama in the churches. In 1210 Innocent III forbade such
exhibitions by ecclesiastics. Then the fraternities began to represent
them on public market places. The "festival of fools" at Christmas time
was originally invented to turn the heathen festivals into ridicule.
When there were no more heathen it degenerated into extreme popular
farce. Thomas Aquinas consented to the _mimus_, if it was not
indecent.[2109] The synod of Worms, in 1316, forbade plays in churches.
Such plays seem to have reached their highest perfection in the
fourteenth century.[2110] Plays of this type gave way in the fifteenth
century to "moralities," with allegorical characters, which prevailed
for a long time, the taste for allegory marking the mental fashion of
the time. The council of Basle forbade plays in churches (1440).[2111]
+657. Toleration of jests by the ecclesiastics.+ The ecclesiastical
authorities were very patient with the folk theater for its satires on
the clergy, the church, and religion. They heeded only attacks on "the
faith." "We are astonished to meet, in a time which we always think of
as crushed under authority, with such incredibly bold expressions
against the papacy, the episcopate, chivalry, and the most revered
doctrines of religion such as paradise, hell, etc."[2112] Lenient
suggests as reasons the divisions and factions in church and state and
the current contempt for popular poetry. In the fifteenth century, in
France, the popular drama expressed the class envy of the poor against
the rich. In the mystery play _Job_ (1478) the "Pasteur" says: "The
great lords have all the goods. The poor people have nothing but pain
and adversity. Who would not be irritated [at such a state of things]?"
The passion plays of the Rhine valley followed those of France. Those
of the fourteenth century lacked the rude jests and ghoulish interest of
those of France in the fifteenth. The street public never tired of the
horrors of executions, or of the low gaiety of funerals, etc. The "sot"
first appeared in the _Passion de Troyes_ at the end of the fifteenth
century. He was long popular.[2113]
+658. Fictitious literature.+ Fictitious literature, after printing
became common, was greatly increased, especially in Italy and Spain.
Through the dialogued story it led up to the drama. At the end of the
fifteenth century F. de Rojas wrote a dialogued story, _Calisto e
Meliboea_, about two distressed lovers. The heroine is Celestina, a
bawd who helped them out of their troubles. The book is generally named
after her, and she became a fixed character in drama and fiction. The
noble bawd, however, is an artificial creation of literature and never
could be a biolog. It is not true enough. The Spaniards also developed a
new form of the mystery play,--the _autos sacramentales_. These plays
represented some Scriptural incident, but the rôles were taken by
allegorical figures. They were regularly represented on the festival of
Corpus Christi, in the afternoon, on the public square. They satisfied
the taste of the people for religiosity, if not religion. Machiavelli
(1469-1527) wrote a story, _Mandragore_, which in its day enjoyed great
popularity. A man in Paris heard of the beauty of a lady at Florence. He
went to the latter place to see her and fell in love with her. Her
husband was an imbecile who greatly desired a child. He persuaded his
wife to receive the stranger. She and the lover contracted an enduring
relation. Cardinal Bibbiena wrote a comedy at the beginning of the
sixteenth century, _Calandra_, which was esteemed as a great work. The
intrigue consists of _quiproquos_ produced by twins, a male and a
female, who exchange dress. Many classical stories are introduced. Lope
de Vega (1562-1635) wrote autos and comedies. He wrote eighteen hundred
comedies, four hundred autos, and a great number of other pieces,--in
all, it is said, twenty-one million verses.[2114] Calderon (1600-1681)
continued on the same lines. The servant-buffoon was the time form of
the buffoon. All these productions furnished models and material for the
poets and dramatists of other countries. The comedies are always long
and wordy and generally tedious. They run in fixed molds, and have
unyielding conventions to obey. Rarely have they ethological value.
+659. Romances of roguery.+ The "romances of roguery" were closely akin
to the popular drama as exponents of popular tastes and standards. It is
very possible that the romances were derived from the tastes.[2115] The
clever hero has been a very popular type in all ages and countries. He
easily degenerates into the clever rogue. The rogue is an anti-hero to
offset the epic hero. There was in France, in the thirteenth century, "a
bold rogue, Eustache le Moine, who became the central hero of a _roman_,
which set forth his life and deeds as thief and pirate."[2116] In
Germany Till Eulenspiegel was a rascal who lived in the first part of
the fourteenth century and around whose name anecdotes clustered until
he became an anti-hero. There were in Germany popular tales which were
picaresque novels in embryo. Those about Eulenspiegel were first reduced
to a coherent narrative in 1519. Hemmerlein was an ugly and sarcastic
buffoon of the fourteenth century. Hanswurst was a fat glutton of the
fifteenth century who aimed to be clever but made blunders.
Pickelhering, in Holland, was of the same type.[2117] In England, in the
sixteenth century, Punch began to degenerate. He took away the rôle of
"Old Vice," and became more and more depraved,--a popular Don Juan, a
type of physical and moral deformity.[2118] The play was popular. The
marionettes, being only dolls and sexless, escaped the onslaught of the
Puritans.[2119]
+660. Picaresque novels.+ The picaresque novels do not deal with love,
but with intrigues for material gain in the widest sense. _Lazarillo de
Tormes_ is counted as the first of these. It is attributed to Diego
Hurtado de Mendoza and is thought to have been produced about 1500. The
best known of the class is _Gil Blas_. The hero lives by his wits, has
many vicissitudes, and plays and suffers many cruel practical jokes.
The Spanish stories of Quevedo and Perez are coarse but never obscene.
The view of women, however, is low. They are fickle, shallow, vain, and
cunning. The church is "gingerly handled," but the clergy are derided
for immorality, hypocrisy, and trickiness.
+661. Books of beggars.+ A variety of the picaresque species was the
"books of beggars." An English specimen of this variety is Audley's
_Fraternity of Vagabonds_ (1561). Mediæval social ways produced armies
of vagabonds, beggars, and outcasts, who practiced vice and evil ways
and cultivated criminal cleverness. The picaresque stories illustrate
their ways.
+662. At the beginning of the sixteenth century.+ Isabella d'Este
describes a play at Ferrara, in 1503, in which the Annunciation was
represented, angels descending from heaven by concealed machinery, etc.
There was also a _moresca_, a ballet or pantomime dance, with clowns and
beasts, and blows and other clown tricks. Another very noteworthy
incident is the enactment, at Urbino in 1504, of a "comedy," in which
the recent history of that city was represented, including the marriage
of Lucrezia Borgia, the conquest of Urbino by Cesar Borgia, the death of
Alexander VI, and the return of the Duke of Urbino. This application of
the dramatic method to their own recent history, which had been indeed
dramatic, shows the high development of graphic and artistic power,
which is also shown by the other arts of the time. Ladies did not then
abdicate their prerogative to judge and condemn the propriety of
artistic products offered to them. Isabella declared the _Cassaria_
"lascivious and immoral beyond words," and forbade her ladies to attend
the performance of it at the marriage of Lucrezia Borgia to her
(Isabella's) brother.[2120] In France, in the sixteenth century,
imitations of classical dramas held the stage. The Protestants sought to
use the drama for effect on the populace.[2121] St. Charles Borromeo
(1538-1584), as Archbishop of Milan, carried on a war against
exhibitions of all kinds. He maintained that they were indecent.[2122]
+663. The theater at Venice.+ The first tragedy produced in Italy was
written by Albertino Mussato, a Paduan, early in the fourteenth century
in imitation of Latin dramas. The subject was the conflicts of Padua
with Ezzelino da Romano. Albertino's work was not imitated, for the
mysteries held the stage until the end of the fifteenth century. They
were represented on stages erected in public places of the cities. At
Venice were invented _momaria_, in which there was no theatrical
illusion, but _brio_, joviality, and irony. They began at weddings,
where after the wedding feast some one, impersonating an heroic
personage, narrated the great deeds of the ancestors of the spouses,
with numberless exaggerations and jest, from which the name _momaria_,
or _bombaria_, was derived. The companies of the _calza_ figured in all
gay assemblies at Venice from 1400 to the end of the sixteenth century.
They renewed the Latin comedies and "carried festivity and good taste
even into the churches." Theatrical exhibitions became the favorite
amusement of the Venetians, and were presented not only in private
houses but also in monasteries, although secular persons were not
present.[2123]
+664. Dancing. Public sports.+ From the early Middle Ages the
ecclesiastical authorities disapproved of dancing, but the people were
very fond of it and never gave it up. The poems and romances are full of
it.[2124] Some usages of dancing in Germany were very gross. The man
swung his partner off the floor as far as he could. If any woman refused
to dance with any man, it occurred sometimes that he slapped her face,
but it was disputed whether this was not beyond the limit.[2125] The
usages at the carnival were very gross and obscene.[2126] All popular
sports were coarse and cruel. It seemed to be considered good fun to
torment the weak and to watch their helpless struggles. Birds were shot,
and beasts baited, in a way to give pain and prolong it. At Nuremberg
the "cat knight" fought with a cat hung about his own neck, which he
must bite to death in order to be knighted by the _bürgermeister_.
Blind people were shut in an inclosed space in the market place with a
pig as a prize, which they were to beat with sticks. The fun was
greatest when they struck each other. This amusement is reported from
many places in central Europe.[2127] "Nothing amused our ancestors more
than these blind encounters. Even kings took part at these burlesque
representations." At Paris they were presented every year at
mid-lent.[2128]
+665. Women in the theater and on the stage.+ No young women were
allowed to be present at the _commedia del arte_ in the first times of
the principate at Florence. Masi[2129] says that this was true in
general of all Italy. Later they were addressed in the prologue, which
became customary, and so they must have been present. Popular opinion
still held that they ought to stay at home, as of old. They were never
on the stage. De Julleville says[2130] that women in France in the
Middle Ages were present at the freest farces. In the middle of the
sixteenth century, in Italy, wandering players began to employ women for
female parts. The Italian comedians, when they went to Paris, continued
this custom there.[2131] Philip II of Spain forbade women on the
stage.[2132] French actresses appeared at London in 1629; they were
allowed in 1659.[2133] Innocent XI, in 1676, forbade the employment of
women on the stage.[2134]
+666. The "commedia del arte."+ In Italy the _commedia del arte_ was the
continuation or revival of the _mimus_. The speeches were impromptu; the
characters and rôles were stereotyped. The action and speeches must have
grown by the contributions of talented men who played the parts from
generation to generation. The characters have become traditional and
universal.[2135] Such were Maccus (later Polichinella) of Naples,
Manducus or the French Croquemitaine, Bucco, a half-stupid,
half-sarcastic buffoon, Pappus (the later Venetian Pantalon) the fussy
old man, and Casnar, the French Cassandre. Scaramucca or Fracassa was
added to satirize the Spanish soldier. He was recognized as the Miles
Gloriosus of Plautus.[2136] The Spanish trooper was a boastful coward.
He called himself the son of the earthquake and lightning, cousin of
death, or friend of Beelzebub.[2137] At the marriage of Alphonso d'Este
comedies of Plautus were acted for effect and conventional pretense, but
they were considered tiresome, and interludes of pantomime, ballet,
clown tricks, peasant farce, mythology, and fireworks were introduced to
furnish entertainment.[2138]
+667. Jest books. Italian comedy at Paris.+ In the sixteenth century the
theater became entirely secular, and amusement and religion were
separated as a consequence of the general movement of the Renaissance.
In the Middle Ages serious men collected jests and published jest books,
which were collections of the jokes made by the _mimus_, just as modern
jests have been made by negro minstrels, circus clowns, and variety
actors.[2139] At the end of the sixteenth century the Italians,
"suffocated by Spanish etiquette, and poisoned by Jesuitical hypocrisy,
sought to expand healthy lungs in free spaces of open air, indulging in
dialectical niceties, and immortalizing street jokes by the genius of
masked comedy."[2140] The _commedia del arte_ took this course. It was
open to every chance of political and social influence. It became the
recognized Italian comedy and was transported to the north as such. In
each province of Italy the fixed characters were independently
developed, so that variations were produced. The type of play reached a
climax in the middle of the seventeenth century. Then it declined for
lack of competent actors. It was the realism of everyday life. It tended
always back again to the mountebanks, jugglers, rope dancers, etc.[2141]
The _lazzi_ were "business" which gave the actors time to improvise. In
the sixteenth century Italian comedians began to play at Paris in
Italian. The Italian actresses undressed on the stage much and often, so
that "Italian comedy" came to mean vulgar and licentious comedy. The
Parlement of Paris held that the plays were immoral. Many of them are
said to have been obscene.[2142] Madame de Maintenon having heard that
they were immoral, they were forbidden in 1697.[2143] The Italian comedy
struggled on, however. For a long time no women visited it, but in the
eighteenth century a comedy called _Arlequin, Empereur dans la Lune_
became celebrated. It was a satire on the France of the time. Women
ignored the grossness for the sake of the satire.[2144] The plays of the
Italians were all either farces for pure fun or satires on the mores of
the time. "Many were satires on women." In one of these last, the saying
was ascribed to Aristotle, upon seeing a tree from the limbs of which
four women were hanging, "How happy men would be, if all trees bore that
fruit." Women were currently represented as empty-headed, vain, fond of
pleasure, frivolous, and fickle. Lawyers were also a favorite object of
satire.[2145] In the Italian theater écriteaux were hung up, on which
the speeches were written and the audience joined in singing the
couplets.[2146]
+668. "Commedia del arte" in Italy.+ In Italy the _commedia del arte_
went through many vicissitudes. At Venice, late in the eighteenth
century, Gozzi undertook to revive it by composing what he called
"fables." They were fairy extravaganzas, based on Mother Goose stories
or fairy tales. They were in part improvised, but in part written,
either in prose or verse, in order to make sure of the essential points
of the action. The older custom had been to prepare only a _scenario_,
in which the story was told in brief outline, with the allotment of
parts in the production.[2147] Pantaleone, in the _commedia del arte_,
is sad,--an imbecile, dissolute old man. Gozzi gave him _brio_ and
_bonarietà_, with cordiality and humor. Goldoni, who got into a war with
Gozzi, made Pantaleone a philistine, who used good sense against the
follies of fashion. No women were present at these comedies at Venice at
this time.[2148]
Scherillo[2149] quotes Perucci, that at the end of the seventeenth
century the folk theater was obscene in word and act beyond the ancient
comedies. If that is true, it is only a detail of the degeneracy of
Italy from the middle of the sixteenth century.
+669. Summary and review.+ It is evident that amusement and relaxation
are needs of men. The fondness for exhibitions and theatrical
representations can be traced through history. The suggestion is direct
and forcible. It can be made to play upon harmful tastes as well as upon
good ones. There is nothing to guide it or decide its form and direction
except the mores,--the consenting opinion of the masses as to what is
beneficial or harmful. The leading classes try to mold this opinion. The
history shows that the mores can make anything right, and protect any
violation of the sex taboo or of ordinary propriety. There is no subject
in regard to which the mores need more careful criticism than in regard
to amusements. The standard and the usage degenerate together unless
there is control by an active and well-trained taste and sense. The
popular taste and sense are products of inherited mores. It is this
reflex action of habitual acts and experiences which makes the subject
difficult. All the primary facts and the secondary or remoter
reflections are intertwined as in an organic growth, and all go
together. The facts exert constant education, and every positive effort
to interfere with the course of things by primitive education must be
content to exert slight effects for a long time. Wealth and luxury exert
their evil effects through amusement. Poverty cuts down these products
of wealth and brings societies back to simplicity and virtue. Men
renounce when they cannot get. The periods of economic and social decay
have cut off the development of forms of amusement, arrested vice, and
forced new beginnings.
+670. Amusements need the control of educated judgment and will.+ The
history shows that amusements are a pitfall in which good mores may be
lost and evil ones produced. They require conventional control and good
judgment to guide them. This requirement cannot be set aside. Amusements
always present a necessity for moral education and moral will. This fact
has impressed itself on men in all ages, and all religions have produced
Puritan and ascetic sects who sought welfare, not in satisfying but in
counteracting the desire for amusement and pleasure. Their efforts have
proved that there is no solution in that direction. There must be an
educated judgment at work all the time, and it must form correct
judgments to be made real by a cultivated will, or the whole societal
interest may be lost without the evil tendency being perceived.
+671. Amusements do not satisfy the current notions of progress.+ It is
clear from the history that amusements have gone through waves upward
and downward, but that the amplitude of the waves is very small. It is
true that the shows of the late Roman empire were very base, and that
the great drama has gone very high by comparison, but the oscillation
between the two entirely destroys anything like a steady advance in
dramatic composition or dramatic art. This is a very instructive fact.
It entirely negatives the current notion of progress as a sort of
function of time which is to be expected to realize itself in a steady
improvement and advance to better and better. The useful arts do show an
advance. The fine arts do not. They return to the starting point, or
near it, again and again. The dramatic art is partly literary and partly
practical handicraft. Theater buildings improve; the machinery, lights,
scenery, and manipulation improve. The literary products are like other
artistic products: they have periods of glory and periods of decay. It
is the literary products which are nearest to the mores. They lack all
progress, or advance only temporarily from worse to better literary
forms.
[1987] Wellhausen, _Skizzen und Vorarbeiten_, III, 85.
[1988] Maspero, _Peuples de l'Orient_, I, 580.
[1989] Tiele-Gehrich, _Relig. im Altert._, I, 160.
[1990] Barton, _Semitic Origins_, 85.
[1991] _Archiv für Anthrop._, XXIX, 129.
[1992] _Ibid._, 138, 150.
[1993] _Origines du Théâtre Moderne_, 60.
[1994] _Il._, XVI, 750; XVIII, 604.
[1995] _Il._, XVIII, 601.
[1996] Magnin, _Origines du Théâtre Moderne_, 178.
[1997] Ramsay, _Relig. of Greece and Asia Minor_, Hastings's
Dict., Addit. vol., 120.
[1998] Beloch, _Griech. Gesch._, I, 579, 592.
[1999] Ramsay in Hastings's Dict., Addit. vol., 129-130.
[2000] _Ibid._, 125.
[2001] Boissier, _Religion Romaine_, I, 132.
[2002] Rohde, _Psyche_, II, 70.
[2003] _Ibid._, 34.
[2004] _Ibid._, 3.
[2005] Wobbermin, _Beeinflussung des Urchristenthums durch das
Mysterienwesen_, 21
[2006] W. R. Smith, _Relig. of the Semites_, 426. See sec. 565.
[2007] W. R. Smith, _Relig. of the Semites_, 357-359.
[2008] Wissowa, _Relig. of the Romans_, 163.
[2009] Magnin, _Origines du Théâtre Moderne_, 324, 463.
[2010] Magnin, _Origines_, 304.
[2011] _Ibid._, 304-317.
[2012] Val. Max., II, x, 8.
[2013] II, IV, 7.
[2014] Dill, _Nero to M. Aurel._, 236.
[2015] Cf. Lecky, _Eur. Morals_, I, 285; Dill, _Nero to M.
Aurel._, 235.
[2016] _Tusc. Disp._, II, 17.
[2017] Martial, II, Introd.
[2018] Scherr, _Kult. Gesch._, 181.
[2019] Dill, _Nero to M. Aurel._, 235.
[2020] _Ibid._, 238.
[2021] _Ibid._, 240.
[2022] Gibbon, Chap. XL, i.
[2023] Schmidt, _La Société Civile dans le Monde Romain et sa
Transformation par le Christianisme_, 469.
[2024] _Ep._, II, 46; Migne, _Patrol. Latina_, XVIII, 190.
[2025] Reich, _Der Mimus_, 32.
[2026] Magnin, _Origines, du Théâtre Moderne_, 30.
[2027] _Ibid._, 51.
[2028] Magnin, _Origines_, 33, 38-40.
[2029] Reich, _Der Mimus_, 527.
[2030] Magnin, _Origines_, 161.
[2031] Reich, _Der Mimus_, 12.
[2032] _Ibid._, 27-29.
[2033] Tacitus, _Annales_, IV, 14.
[2034] Preuss (_Archiv für Anthrop._, XXIX, 182) suggests that
Falstaff's fatness may be a survival of one of the physical
features of the stereotyped buffoon.
[2035] _Archiv für Anthrop._, XXIX, 133.
[2036] Reich, _Der Mimus_, 679, 682.
[2037] _Ibid._, 360.
[2038] Magnin, _Marionettes_, 188.
[2039] Lucian, _Demonax_, 33.
[2040] D'Ancona, _Origine del Teatro in Italia_, I, 15.
[2041] Reich, _Der Mimus_, 58, 436, 470, 505.
[2042] Magnin, _Origines du Théâtre Moderne_, 321.
[2043] Magnin, _Origines_, 47.
[2044] D'Ancona, I, 45.
[2045] Schmidt, _La Société Civile dans le Monde Romain_, 98.
[2046] _Théâtre Serieux du M. A._, 13 note.
[2047] D'Ancona, I, 372.
[2048] Klein, _Gesch. des Dramas_, III, 599, 638.
[2049] D'Ancona, I, 372.
[2050] Reich, 80, 93, 95, 107, 117.
[2051] Schmidt, _La Société Civile dans le Monde Romain_, 113.
[2052] _Ibid._, 101.
[2053] _De Gubernat. Dei._, VII.
[2054] _Eur. Morals_, I, 264.
[2055] Grupp, _Kulturgesch. der röm. Kaiserzeit_, I, 200.
[2056] Magnin, _Origines_, 435.
[2057] Schmidt, 251-253.
[2058] _Ibid._, 469.
[2059] _Ibid._, 451, 466, 477.
[2060] _De Gubernat. Dei_, VI, 10, 15, 38, 44-55.
[2061] McCabe, _St. Aug._, 238.
[2062] _De Civit. Dei_, II, 27.
[2063] Harnack, _Dogmengesch._, I, 116.
[2064] _De Gubernat. Dei_, VI, 42.
[2065] Gregorovius, _Lucret. Borgia_, 220.
[2066] Dubois, _Moeurs de l'Inde_, II, 331.
[2067] JAI, XII, 222.
[2068] Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific Coast_, II, 305.
[2069] Salvianus, _De Gubernat. Dei_, VI, 69, 71, 77.
[2070] Ammianus Marcel., XXIII, v, 3.
[2071] Grimm, _Deutsche Mythol._, 166, 440.
[2072] Reich, _Der Mimus_, 785-810.
[2073] _Ibid._, 622.
[2074] _Ibid._, 48, 133.
[2075] _Ibid._, 191.
[2076] _Mod. Egypt_, II, 125.
[2077] _Der Mimus_, 656.
[2078] Klein, _Gesch. des Dramas_, III, 84.
[2079] Wilkins, _Modern Hinduism_, 225.
[2080] _Globus_, LXXXVII, 60.
[2081] Reich, _Der Mimus_, 669, 673, 676.
[2082] Magnin, _Marionettes_, 121-122.
[2083] _Ibid._, 343.
[2084] Alec-Tweedie, _Sunny Sicily_, 173, and Chap. XI.
[2085] Hefele, _Conciliengesch._, III, 304.
[2086] Scherr, _D. F. W._, I, 245.
[2087] Lenient, _La Satire en France au M. A._, 422; Du Cange, s.
v. "Festum Asinorum."
[2088] Magnin, _Marionettes_, 58.
[2089] D'Ancona, _Origini del teatro in Italia_, I, 12.
[2090] _Ibid._, I, 49.
[2091] Magnin, _Origines du Théâtre Moderne_, XXV.
[2092] _Gesch. des Dramas_, III, 646.
[2093] Magnin, _Théâtre de Hrotsvitha_.
[2094] Lintilhac, _Théâtre Sérieux du M. A._, 18.
[2095] Lenient, _La Satire_, 23.
[2096] Lintilhac, _Théâtre Sérieux du M. A._, 34.
[2097] Burckhardt, _Renaissance_, 401.
[2098] D'Ancona, I, 62, 78, 86.
[2099] _La Comédie en France au M. A._, 19.
[2100] Magnin, _Marionettes_, 121.
[2101] D'Ancona, I, 88.
[2102] _Ibid._, 89.
[2103] _Ibid._, 98-107.
[2104] D'Ancona, _Origini del Teatro in Italia_, I, 344.
[2105] _Ibid._, I, 47.
[2106] Lenient, _La Satire en France au M. A._, 324-340.
[2107] Scherr, _D. F. W._, II, 124.
[2108] D'Ancona, I, 282.
[2109] Summa, II, 2, qu. 168, art. 3.
[2110] von Schack, _Gesch. der Dramat. Lit._, I, 35.
[2111] Session XXI, sec. 11.
[2112] Lenient, _La Satire en France au M. A._, 29.
[2113] Lintilhac, _Théâtre Serieux du Moyen Age_, 106, 123, 133,
167.
[2114] Zarate, _Liter. Españ._, II, 308, 423, 451.
[2115] Chandler, _Romances of Roguery_, 191.
[2116] _Ibid._, 9.
[2117] Magnin, _Marionettes_, 298.
[2118] _Ibid._, 255-265.
[2119] _Ibid._, 233.
[2120] Gregorovius, _Isabella d'Este_, 212, 251, 255, 264;
Burckhardt, _Renaissance_, 316.
[2121] De Julleville, _La Comédie en France au M. A._, 183, 331.
[2122] Scherillo, _La Commedia del Arte_, Chap. VI.
[2123] Molmenti, _Venezia nella Vita Privata_, 297-299.
[2124] Lacroix, _Manners, Customs, and Dress of M. A._, 241.
[2125] Angerstein, _Volkstänze_, 30.
[2126] Schultz, _D. L._, 414.
[2127] Barthold, _Hansa_, III, 177.
[2128] Lacroix, _Manners, Customs, and Dress of M. A._, 220;
Schultz, _D. L._, 409; Scherr, _Kult. Gesch._, 623.
[2129] _Teatro Ital. nel Sec. XVIII_, 232.
[2130] _Comédie en France au M. A._, 23.
[2131] Scherillo, _La Commedia del Arte_, 72.
[2132] Chandler, _Romances of Roguery_, 159.
[2133] Magnin, _Marionettes_, 233.
[2134] D'Ancona, _Origine del Teatro in Italia_, I, 341.
[2135] Burckhardt, _Die Renaissance_, 318. In Gozzi's _Memoirs_
(ed. Symonds) may be seen good colored plates representing these
fixed characters of the _commedia del arte_.
[2136] Scherillo, _La Commedia del Arte_, 90, 114.
[2137] _Ibid._, 95.
[2138] Burckhardt, 316.
[2139] Reich, _Der Mimus_, 473.
[2140] Symonds, _Catholic Reaction_, I, 55.
[2141] Masi, _Teatro Ital. nel Sec._, XVIII, 229.
[2142] Bernardin, _Comédie Ital. en France_, 9, 12, 13.
[2143] _Ibid._, 52.
[2144] Bernardin, _Com. Ital. en France_, 27.
[2145] _Ibid._, 42.
[2146] _Ibid._, 90.
[2147] Gozzi's _Memoirs_ (_Symond's trans._).
[2148] Masi, _Teatro Ital._, 89, 232, 264.
[2149] _La Commedia del Arte_, 50.
CHAPTER XVIII
ASCETICISM
The exaggeration of opposite policies.--Failure of the mores and
revolt against expediency.--Luck and welfare; self-discipline to
influence the superior powers.--Asceticism in Japan.--
Development of the arts; luxury; sensuality.--The ascetic
philosophy.--Asceticism is an aberration.--The definitions
depend on the limits.--Asceticism in India and Greece; Orphic
doctrines.--Ascetic features in the philosophic sects.--Hebrew
asceticism.--Nazarites, Rechabites, Essenes.--Roman
asceticism.--Christian asceticism.--Three traditions united in
Christianity.--Asceticism in the early church.--Asceticism in
Islam.--Virginity.--Mediæval asceticism.--Asceticism in
Christian mores.--Renunciation of property; beggary.--Ascetic
standards.--The Mendicant Friars.--The Franciscans.--Whether
poverty is a good.--Clerical celibacy.--How Christian
asceticism ended.
+672. The exaggeration of opposite policies.+ It is not to be expected
that all the men in a society will react in the same way against the
same experiences and observations. If they draw unanimously the same
conclusions from the same facts, that is such an unusual occurrence that
their unanimity gives great weight to their opinion. In almost all cases
they are thrown into parties by their different inferences from the same
experiences and observations. There is nothing about which they differ
more than about amusement, pleasure, and happiness, and as to the degree
in which pleasure is worth pursuing. Those who feel deceived by pleasure
and duped by the pursuit of happiness revolt from it and denounce it.
Inasmuch as others not yet disillusioned still pursue pleasure as the
most obviously desirable good, there are two great parties who divide on
fundamental notions of life policy. Two such parties, face to face, tend
to exaggerate their distinctive doctrines and practices. Each party
goes to extremes and excess. We have seen in the last chapter (secs. 624
ff.) that at the beginning of the Christian era moral restraints were
thrown aside and that all living men seemed to plunge into vice, luxury,
and pleasure, so far as their means would allow. There were, however, a
number of sects and religions in the Greco-Roman world that held
extremely pessimistic views as to the worth of human life and of those
things which men care for most. They renounced the ordinary standards of
welfare and happiness, and sought welfare and happiness in merely
denying the popular standards. The old world philosophies no longer
commanded faith, and they seemed to be rejected with active hatred, not
with mere indifferent unbelief. The poor and those who were forced to
live by self-denial joined these sects of philosophy or religion. The
age which saw extremes of luxury and vicious excess was also the age
which saw great phenomena of ascetic philosophy and practice. Each
school or tendency developed its own mores to treat the problems of life
in its own way. An ascetic policy never is a primary product of the
"ways" in which unreflecting men meet the facts of life. It is
reflective and derived. It is a secondary stage of faith built on
experience and reflection. It is, therefore, dogmatic. It must be
sustained by faith in the fundamental pessimistic conviction. It never
can be verified by experience. It purposely runs counter to all the
sanctions which are possible in experience. If any one declares evil
good and pain pleasure, he cannot find proof of it in any experiment.
The mores produced out of asceticism are therefore peculiar and in many
ways instructive.
+673. Failure of the mores and revolt against expediency.+ We have seen
that the mores are the results of the efforts of men to find out how to
live under the conditions of human life so as to satisfy interests and
secure welfare. The efforts have been only very imperfectly successful.
The task, in fact, never can be finished, for the conditions change and
the problem contains different elements from time to time. Moreover,
dogmas interfere. They dictate "duty" and "right" by authority and as
virtue, quite independently of any verification by experience and
expediency. All the primitive taboos express the convictions of men that
there are things which must not be done, or must not be done beyond some
limited degree, if the men would live well. Such convictions came either
from experience or from dogma. The former class of cases were those
things which were connected with food and the sex relation. The latter
class of cases were those things which were connected with the doctrine
of ghosts. There are also a great many primitive customs for coercing or
conciliating superior powers,--either men or spirits,--which consist in
renunciation, self-torture, obscenity, bloodshedding, filthiness, and
the performance of repugnant acts or even suicide. These customs all
imply that the superior powers are indifferent, or angry and malevolent,
or justly displeased, and that the pain of men pleases, or appeases and
conciliates, or coerces them, or wins their attention. Thus we meet with
a fundamental philosophy of life in which it is not the satisfaction of
needs, appetites, and desires, but the opposite theory which is thought
to lead to welfare. Renounce what you want; do what you do not want to
do; pursue what is repugnant; in short, invert the relations of pleasure
and pain, and act by your will against their sanctions, so as to seek
pain and flee pleasure. A doctrine of due measure and limit upon the
rational satisfaction of needs and desires is turned into an absolute
rule of well-being. Within narrower limits the same philosophy
inculcates acts of labor, pain, and renunciation, which produce no
results in the satisfaction of wants but are regarded as beneficial or
meritorious in themselves, as a kind of gymnastic in self-control and
self-denial. It is not to be denied that such a gymnastic has value in
education, especially in the midst of luxury and self-indulgence, if it
is controlled by common sense and limited within reason. Nearly all men,
however, are sure to meet with as much necessity for self-control and
self-denial as is necessary to their training, without arbitrarily
subjecting themselves to artificial discipline of that kind.
+674. Luck and welfare. Self-discipline to influence the superior
powers.+ The notion of welfare through acts which upon their face are
against welfare is directly referable to experience of the
impossibility of establishing sure relations between positive efforts
and satisfactions. The lowest civilization is full of sacrifices,
renunciation, self-discipline, etc. It is the effect of the aleatory
element and of the explanation of the same by goblinism (secs. 6, 9).
The acts of renunciation or self-discipline have no rational connection
with the interests which they aim to serve. Those acts can affect
interests only by influencing the ghosts or demons who always interfere
between efforts and results and make luck. Soldiers, fishermen, hunters,
traders, agriculturists, etc., are bidden to practice continence before
undertaking any of their enterprises. Hence arises the notion of a
"state of grace," not the state produced by work in the workday world,
but a state produced by abstinence from work, from enjoyment, and from
the experience of good and ill. Abstention from wine, meat, other
luxuries of food and drink, and from women gives power which is magical,
because it has no real causal connection with desired results in war or
industry. Uncivilized people almost always have some such notion of
reaching a higher plane of power, or more especially of luck, by
self-discipline. Acts of self-discipline, e.g. fasting, gashing,
mutilating one's self, also enter into mourning. In some tribes parents
who expect a child engage in acts of the same kind.[2150] Asceticism in
higher civilization is a survival of the life philosophy of an earlier
stage, in which the pain of men was believed to be pleasant to the
superior powers. The same sentiment revives now in times of decline or
calamity, when the wrath of God is recognized or apprehended. We appoint
a fast when we are face to face with calamity. The same sentiment is at
work in sects and individuals when they desire "holiness," or a "higher
life," or mystic communion with higher powers, or "purity" (in the
ritual sense), or relief from "sin," or escape from the terror of ghosts
and demons, or power to arise to some high moral standard by crushing
out the natural appetites which according to that standard are base and
wicked.
+675. Asceticism in Japan.+ The Shinto religion of the Japanese "is not
an essentially ascetic religion; it offers flesh and wine to its gods;
and it prescribes only such forms of self-denial as ancient custom and
decency require. Nevertheless, some of its votaries perform
extraordinary austerities on special occasions,--austerities which
always include much cold-water bathing. But the most curious phase of
this Shinto ascetism is represented by a custom still prevalent in
remote districts. According to this custom a community yearly appoints
one of its citizens to devote himself wholly to the gods on behalf of
the rest. During the term of his consecration this communal
representative must separate from his family, must not approach women,
must avoid all places of amusement, must eat only food cooked with
sacred fire, must abstain from wine, must bathe in fresh cold water
several times a day, must repeat particular prayers at certain hours,
and must keep vigil upon certain nights. When he has performed these
duties of abstinence and purification for the specified time he becomes
religiously free, and another man is then elected to take his place. The
prosperity of the settlement is supposed to depend upon the exact
observance by its representative of the duties prescribed; should any
public misfortune occur, he would be suspected of having broken his
vows. Anciently, in the case of a common misfortune, the representative
was put to death."[2151]
+676. Development of the arts. Luxury. Sensuality.+ In the development
of the arts there has been an increase of luxury in the ways of living.
This has seemed to be a good. It has seemed like successful
accomplishment of what man must do to win and enjoy power over nature.
Luxury, however, has brought vice and ill, and has wrought decay and
ruin. It is the twin sister of sensuality, which is corruption. Is
luxury a good or not? Men have lost faith in it, and have declared that
the triumphs of the arts were delusions, "snares to the soul,"
corruption of the individual and society. They have turned back to the
"old simple ways," and have renounced the enjoyments which were within
their reach by the power of the arts. Such renunciation has always been
popular. The crowd has always admired it. It is certainly a noteworthy
feature in the history of civilization that there has always been
present in it a reaction, a movement of fear and doubt about the
innovations of every kind by which it is attended, which has caused
sects of philosophers and religious persons to refuse to go on, to
renounce luxurious novelties, and to prefer the older and inferior ways.
+677. The ascetic philosophy.+ Here then we have a life philosophy, or a
life standpoint, from which the things to be done are presented
inverted. It is ill luck, loss, calamity, etc., which have inverted
human nature. The element of luck crossed and cut off the relations
between effort and satisfaction, and disturbed all the lessons of
industry. All effort would be vain if the ghosts who control luck were
not propitiated. If they were friendly, labor was of no importance.
Self-discipline, therefore, entered into everything. This is asceticism.
It is always irrational or magical, addressed directly or remotely to
the superior powers, as an appeal to their will and favor, their
mystical friendship, and a prayer for the transcendental communications
which they give. Pater[2152] says that asceticism is a sacrifice of one
part of human nature to another, that the latter may survive; or a
harmonious development of all parts to realize an ideal of culture. If
the first sentence of this statement could be accepted as a fair
definition, the second cannot. Asceticism does not aim at a harmonious
development and never could produce it. It selects purposes and pushes
towards their accomplishment. The selection has often been made with the
purpose to attain to holiness, or a higher realization of religious
ideals. The ideals are necessarily arbitrary and are very sure to be
extravagant. They do not have good effect on character, and they produce
moral distortion. They are, however, an outflow of honest religious
emotion.
+678. Asceticism is only an aberration.+ The great viewpoints and the
great world philosophies are found logically at the end of a long study
of life, if anywhere. If one is found or adopted, it furnishes leading
for the notions of ways to be employed in all details of life. This is
equally true if it is reached on a slight, superficial, or superstitious
view of life. The ascetic philosophy produces contradiction and
confusion in the acts of men, because some of them work for expediency
and others for inexpediency at the same time. Therefore also the mores,
if they are affected by asceticism, are inconsistent and contradictory.
Nevertheless asceticism is only an aberration which starts from a highly
virtuous motive. We must do what is right and virtuous because it is so.
It is right and virtuous to fight sensuality in personal character and
social action. The fight will often consist in acts which have no
further relation to interests. By zeal the work of this fight absorbs
more and more of life, and it may engage a large number associatively.
It becomes the great purpose by which mores are built. Then the notion
of pleasing superior powers by self-inflicted pain is thrown out, and
all the primitive superstition is eliminated. We find a vast network of
mores, which may characterize a generation or a society, which are due
to the revolt against sensuality, either in the original purity of the
revolt (which is very rare) or in some of its thousands of variations
and combinations.
+679. The definitions depend on the limit.+ Especially in connection
with food, drink, and sex the asceticism of one age becomes the virtue
of another. The ideas of temperance and moderation of one age are often
clearly produced by previous ascetic usages. The definitions are all
made by the limit. A stricter observance than the current custom is
ascetic, but it may become the custom and set the limit. Then it is only
temperance. It is often impossible to distinguish sharply between taboos
which only impose respect for gods, temples, etc. (cleanliness, quiet,
good clothing), and those which are ascetic. When the ascetic temper and
philosophy assumes control it easily degenerates into a mania. Acts are
regarded as meritorious in proportion as they are painful, and they are
pushed to greater and greater extravagances because what becomes
familiar loses the subjective force from which the ascetic person wins
self-satisfaction. Asceticism then becomes a mental aberration and a
practical negation of the instinct of self-preservation. It leads to
insanity.[2153] If it takes a course against other persons, it explains
the conduct of great inquisitors like Conrad of Marburg.[2154]
+680. Asceticism in India and Greece. Orphic doctrines.+ In India
ascetic acts were supposed to produce not only holiness but also power,
which might arise to superhuman degrees or even avail to overcome gods.
Rohde[2155] finds that the theological ascetic morality of the later
history of Greece, which was not a determination of the will in a given
direction but a mode of defending the soul from an external evil
influence which threatened to soil it, had its first impulse in the
notion of the antagonism between soul and body, because that notion
would cause the body to be regarded as a base constraint from which the
soul would need to be "purified." The notion of the pure soul imprisoned
in a material sensual body, and stained by the base appetites of the
latter, was current amongst the Greeks for five centuries before Christ.
Hence the antagonism between the soul and the "body," the "flesh," or
the "world." The soul passed from one body to another, according to the
Orphic sects, with intervals in which it underwent purification. In each
incarnation it underwent punishment for the misdeeds of the last
previous existence. The soul is immortal. The soul of the bad man goes
on forever in reincarnations from which it cannot escape. The soul which
is purified by the Orphic rites and Orphic mode of life is redeemed from
this eternal round and returns to God. Orpheus gives salvation by his
rites, but it is a work of grace by the redeeming gods. Orpheus provides
by his revelations and intercessions the way to salvation, and he who
would walk in this way must carefully obey his ordinances. This is a
life which must be lived. It is not ritual only. Here asceticism comes
in, for the thing to be renounced is not the errors and faults of
earthly life, but earthly life itself (worldliness). The man must turn
away from everything which would entangle him in the interests of mortal
life and the appetites of the body. Renunciation of meat food was one of
the leading forms of this asceticism; sex restraint was another. The
rites do not free men from the touch of demons. They purify the soul
from the unclean contact with the body and from the dominion of death.
Mysticism is conjoined with this doctrine of purification. The soul came
from God and seeks to return to him. It is released by the rites and
practices from everything on earth, including morals, which are only
petty attempts to deal with details, and therefore are of no interest to
a soul which is released. The dead are led to the place of the dead. The
Orphic priests described this "intermediate state" with graphic
distinctness, surpassing that of the Eleusinian mysteries. Probably this
was the most popular, although not the most original, part of their
teaching. The doctrine was not a folk notion; it was "holy doctrine"
that there would be in Hades a judgment and a retribution. Then woe to
him who had not been purified in the Orphic orgies! The Orphic sects
also had a doctrine that the living, by the rites, could act upon the
fate of deceased relatives in the other world.[2156] These sects began
in the second half of the sixth century before Christ. We do not know
the course or mode by which they spread. They formed close associations
or conventicles to practice the cult of Dionysus.[2157]
+681. Ascetic features in the philosophic sects.+ The Pythagoreans also
formed, in the sixth century, at Crotona, an association to practice
moderation and simplicity. The use of meat food was limited, and by some
it was renounced entirely.[2158] Our knowledge of this sect is very
slight and vague, although the tradition of its doctrines was certainly
very strong in later times. It is believed that there was included in
its teachings disapproval of prenuptial unchastity by men.[2159] This
would not be considered ascetic by us, but it appeared so to ancient
Greeks. The Cynics were ascetics. They renounced the elegances and
luxuries of life, and their asceticism became more and more the essence
of their sectarianism. Some Greek priests were married, but others were
bound to be chaste for life or while engaged in priestly duties.
Sometimes some foods were forbidden to them, and this taboo might be
extended to all who entered the temple. All must be clean in body and
dress.[2160] In the tragedies we find mention of the ascetic notion of
virginity.[2161] In the _Elektra_ (250-270) the heroine lays great
stress on the fact that her peasant husband has never taken conjugal
rights. Orestes asks whether the husband has taken a vow of chastity, so
that a vow of chastity was not an unknown thing. The notion of virginity
was very foreign to the mores of the Greeks, but it existed amongst
them. It gained ground in the later centuries. At the time of Christ it
is certain that a wave of asceticism was running through the Hellenistic
world.[2162] It may have been due to the sense of decline and loss in
comparison with the earlier times. It seems to bear witness to a feeling
that the world was on a wrong path, in spite of Roman glory and luxury.
If they could not correct the course of things, they could at least
renounce the luxury. That seemed like an effort to stem the tide. More
commonly the sentiment was less defined and less morally vigorous. It
was only world sickness. Cases occurred of individuals who renounced
marriage, or lived in it without conjugal intimacy.[2163] The Stoics,
Cynics, Neopythagoreans, and Neoplatonists all had ascetic elements in
their doctrines. The wandering preachers of these sects were rarely men
of any earnest purpose, and their speeches were empty rhetorical
exercises, but they popularized the doctrines of the sects. Simon
Stylites only continued a pagan custom. There were in front of the
temple at Hierapolis two columns one hundred and eighty feet high. Twice
a year a man climbed one of these and remained on top of it for seven
days to pray and commune with the gods, or in memory of Deukalion and
the flood. He drew up supplies with a rope. People brought him gifts of
money and he prayed for them, swinging a brazen instrument which made a
screaming sound.[2164]
+682. Hebrew asceticism.+ The Jewish tradition was that at Sinai all the
people were ordered to refrain from women for the time, but that for
Moses this injunction was unlimited (Exod. xix. 15). In the rabbinical
period it was established doctrine that any one who desired to receive a
revelation from God must refrain from women.[2165] Other cases in the
Old Testament show that persons who were under a renunciation of this
kind were in a state of grace. The ritual of uncleanness was ascetic
and it enforced ascetic views of sex and marriage.[2166]
+683. Nazarites, Rechabites, Essenes.+ The Nazarites were Hebrew
ascetics by temporary vow (Num. vi.). They did not cut their hair or
drink wine, and never touched a corpse.[2167] The Rechabites were a
Jewish ascetic association of the ninth century B.C. They renounced the
civilized life of the nation at that time and reverted to the
pre-Canaanite life. They adopted wild dress and coarse food, and
renounced wine. They lived in tents and cultivated Bedouin mores. The
Essenes of the last century before Christ were an ascetic community with
puritan and rigoristic tenets and practices. The laws of Antiochus
Epiphanes that unclean animals might be brought to Jerusalem opened a
chance that faithful Jews might eat of such. The attempt to guard one's
self was made easier if a number had meals in common. This may be the
origin of the custom of the Essenes to have common meals.[2168] The
company cultivated holiness by set rules of life, ritual, washings, etc.
Their philosophy was that fate controls all which affects man.[2169]
They performed no sacrifices in the temple, but had rites of their own
which seemed to connect them with the Pythagoreans. They were "the best
of men," and "employed themselves in agriculture." They thought evil of
all women, and educated children whom they adopted. All who joined the
society gave their property to it and all property was held in
common.[2170] They used rites of worship to the sun. Their asceticism
was derived from their doctrine of the soul's preëxistence and its
warfare with the body.[2171] They were stricter than the Pharisees. They
rejected wealth, oaths, sensual enjoyment, and slavery.[2172] They
renounced all occupations which excite greed and injustice, such as inn
keeping, commerce, weapon making.[2173] Sex intercourse was so
restricted that they could not fulfill the primary duties which the law
laid on every man to beget children. Often they were persons who
entered the society after having fulfilled this duty.[2174] They had
extreme rules of Sabbath keeping, food taboo, purification, and extreme
doctrines of renunciation of luxury and pleasure. They either died out
or coalesced with Christians.[2175]
+684. Roman asceticism.+ The primitive Roman mores were very austere,
not ascetic, and the institutions of the family and sex were strictly
controlled by the mores. The Vestal Virgins might be cited as a proof
that virginity was considered a qualification for high religious
functions, so that it seemed meritorious and pure and a nobler estate
than marriage.
+685. Christian asceticism.+ Christianity is ascetic in its attitude
towards wealth, luxury, and pleasure. It inherited from Judaism
hostility to sensuality, which was thought by the Jews to be a mark of
heathenism and an especial concomitant of idolatry. We distinguish
between luxury and pleasure on the one side and sensuality on the other,
and repress the last for rational, not ascetic, reasons.
+686. Three traditions united in Christianity.+ The three streams of
tradition which entered into Christianity brought down ascetic notions
and temper. The antagonism of flesh and spirit is expressed, Galat. v.
16, and the evil of the flesh, Romans vii. 18, 25; Eph. v. 29. Yet
ascetics are denounced, 1 Tim. iv. 3, "forbidding to marry, and
commanding to abstain from meats, which God created to be received with
thanksgiving by them that believe and know the truth." In 1 Tim. iii. 2
and Titus i. 6 it is expressly stated that a priest or bishop is to be
the husband of one wife. In Revelation xiv. 4 a group are described as
"they who were not defiled with women, for they are virgins." The notion
that procreation is "impure" and that renunciation of it is "purity" is
present here. Cf. Levit. xv. 16-18. In 1 Cor. vii the doctrine is that
renunciation of marriage is best; that marriage is a concession to human
frailty; that all sex relation outside of marriage is sin. If there is a
technical definition of sin, virtue, purity, etc., it can only be
satisfied by arbitrary acts which are ascetic in character. The
definitions also produce grades of goodness and merit beyond duty and
right. The "religious" become a technical class, who cultivate holiness
beyond what is required of simple Christians. Saints are heroes of the
same development. In general, the methods of attaining to holiness and
saintliness must be arbitrary and ascetic,--fasting, self-torture,
loathsome acts, excessive ritual, etc.
+687. Asceticism in the early church.+ It has been sufficiently shown
that the Greco-Roman world, at the birth of Christ, was penetrated by
ascetic ideas and streams of ascetic usage. In the postapostolic period
there was a specific class of ecclesiastical ascetics. There were many
different fields of origin for such a class in the different
provinces.[2176] Epictetus (b. 60 A.D.) had a spirit and temper which
have always been recognized as closely Christian. He thought the aim
should not be to endure pain and calamity with fortitude, but to
suppress evil desires and to cultivate discipline. There were
congregations in the earliest days of Christianity which were composed
of persons who wanted to lead a purer life than was common amongst
Christians. They adopted rules, as "counsels of perfection," such as
renunciation of marriage and of eating meat.[2177] The ascetic tendency
got strong sway in the church in the second half of the second century,
but the practices were voluntary, suggested by the religious impulses of
the individual, and the leaders tried to hold the ruling tendency in
reason. They held it to be absurd that self-inflicted pain could please
God.[2178] The tendency, however, could not be arrested. It was in the
age. All the philosophies except Epicureanism, and all the sects in the
mysteries, had encouraged it. The Christians had doctrines which were
not hostile to it. It therefore flourished amongst them. In the second
century there was a deep desire for a moral reformation, and to further
it moral discipline was formulated in rules and made a system. The
individual was taught to endure hardships, to drink water rather than
wine, to sleep on the ground oftener than on a bed. In some cases they
submitted to corporal cruelty, being scourged and loaded with chains.
The converse error here appeared, for they made a display of their
powers of endurance.[2179] The moral gymnastics could be best practiced
in solitary life. Many philosophers urged their disciples to leave home
and to practice elsewhere,--in another town or in loneliness.[2180] At
the end of the third century the ascetic party, in spite of the
withdrawal of the puritans, was very powerful. The ascetic sentiment was
stimulated and was spreading on account of the ideas of neoplatonism,
the increasing confusion in the Christian body, the excitement and
anxiety of a period of social decline, and finally on account of the
need to provide other means of expending the passionate love of God
which had formerly driven Christians to martyrdom. When the church
became a religion recognized by the state there was no more martyrdom. A
similar tendency marked the sects of philosophy at the same time. The
author of the _Letters on Virginity_ ascribed to Clement (about 300
A.D.) is a strong admirer of celibacy. He has heard of shameless
Christian men and women who consort, eat, drink, gossip, slander, and
visit each other, although unmarried persons. The ascetics were forced
to separate themselves entirely from the rest. They wandered, praying
and preaching and casting out devils, having no means. The motives of
asceticism were the apprehension of the end of the world, enthusiasm,
dualistic philosophy, fear of sensuality, and gnostic doctrines. In 300
A.D. the ascetics were corrupt and venal and needed more complete
isolation (monasticism).[2181] In the fourth century an ascetic life,
instead of a form of life for Christians inside the church, came to be
thought of as an independent form of life. It was thought of as a
"philosophy," most closely related to Cynicism. In externals Cynics and
Christian ascetics were alike. The coarse garments and uncut hair gave
them the same appearance.[2182] In the fourth century the ethics of Paul
were abandoned by Christians. The average Christians were average
citizens. They held the current ethical ideas of the society. The
intellectual scaffolding built by current culture was stronger than the
new ideas which were accepted. The mores held sway against the new
influences. In place of the notions of justice and holiness the old
notion of "virtue" prevailed. Instead of the law "Love thy neighbour as
thyself," the old enumeration of virtues constituted ethical reflection.
At the end of the fourth century this transformation was recognized by
the leaders of the church.[2183] The Manichæan sects practiced
asceticism even more zealously than the orthodox. Renunciation of "the
world" was selfish. The period was one of turmoil. The burdens of the
state were excessive. It was an evil that the best men renounced the
duties of the state and civil society. Virginity was praised as
Christlike and taught in opposition to society and the family. Marriage
was not forbidden, but a special mystery attached to it, to explain how
it might be honored, although it was so depreciated. The body of that
soul which desired to be the bride of Christ must be virgin.[2184] If
any one turned to a home and family he must understand that he descended
to something inferior and doubtful. The Roman state had been trying for
three hundred years to stimulate marriage and increase population.
Constantine repealed all the laws against celibacy. Later emperors
liberated ecclesiastics from the "municipal burdens which were eating
out the heart of the empire." All were eager to become clerics, and as
the number of settled priests was limited, they became monks. The wealth
of the church also attracted them.[2185] The situation produced
hypocrites, false ascetics, and vicious clerics. After the middle of the
fourth century the church began to legislate that those who took vows
must keep them. The penalty of death was to be inflicted on any man who
should marry a sacred virgin. Pope Siricius, in 384, described the
shameless license of both sexes in violation of vows.[2186] In part this
was due to another logical product of the conception of purity as
negation, especially of sex. Men and women exposed themselves to
temptation and risk by sensual excitement, holding themselves innocent
if they were not criminal.[2187] These tricks of the human mind upon
itself are familiar now in the history of scores of sects, and in the
phenomena of revivalism. Ritual asceticism is consistent with sensual
indulgence. The sophistry necessary to reconcile the two is easily spun.
+688. Asceticism in Islam.+ Islam, at the beginning, had an ascetic
tendency, which it soon lost. Mohammed and his comrades practiced night
watches with prayer.[2188] Jackson found in the modern Yezidi community
a "sort of ascetic order of women," _fakiriah_, corresponding to fakirs
amongst men.[2189] The dervishes are the technically religious Moslems,
and in the history of Islam there have been frequent temporary
appearances of sects and groups which regarded pain as meritorious.
+689. Virginity.+ Virginity is negative and may be a renunciation. It
then falls in with the ascetic way of thinking, and the notion that
virginity, as renunciation, is meritorious is a prompt deduction.
Christian ecclesiastics made this deduction and pushed it to great
extremes. The renunciation was thought to be more meritorious if
practiced in the face of opportunity and temptation. The ascetics
therefore created opportunity in order to put themselves in the midst of
the war of sense and duty.[2190]
+690. Mediæval asceticism.+ In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the
ascetic temper underwent a revival which was like an intellectual storm.
It was nourished by reading the church fathers of the fourth and fifth
centuries. It entered into mediæval mores. It was in the popular taste,
and the church encouraged and developed it. It was connected with
demonism and fetichism which had taken possession of the Christian
church in the ninth and tenth centuries. Relics were fetiches. The Holy
Sepulcher and the Holy Land were fetiches; that is, they were thought
to have magical power on account of the spirits of the great dead in
them. Transubstantiation was the application of magic and fetich ideas
to the ceremony of the mass. All the mediæval religiosity ran to forms
of which asceticism and magic were the core. Cathedral building was a
popular mania of ascetic religion. Pilgrimages had the same character.
We may now regard it as ascertained fact that asceticism, cruelty to
dissenters, fanaticism, and sex frenzy are so interlaced in the depths
of human nature that they produce joint or interdependent phenomena.
That an ascetic who despises pain, or even thinks it a good, should
torture others is not hard to understand. That the same age should
produce a wild outburst of sex passion and a mania of sex renunciation
is only another case of contradictory products of the same cause of
which human society offers many. That the same age should produce
sensual worldlings and fanatical ecclesiastics is no paradox.
+691. Asceticism in Christian mores.+ The ascetic standards and
doctrines passed into the mores of Christianity and so into the mores of
Christendom, both religious and civil. In the popular notion it was the
taboos which constituted Christianity, and those were the best
Christians who construed the taboos on wealth, luxury, pleasure, and sex
most extremely, and observed them most strictly. Such persons were
supposed to be able to perform miracles. In the Middle Ages the casuists
and theologians seemed never to tire of multiplying distinctions and
antitheses about sex.[2191] In fact their constant preoccupation with it
was the worst departure from the reserve and dignity which are the first
requirements in respect to it. A document of the extremest doctrine is
_Hali Meidenhad_,[2192] of the thirteenth century. The aim of the book
is to persuade women to renounce marriage. Marriage is servitude. God
did not institute it. Adam and Eve introduced it by sin. Our flesh is
our foe. Virginity is heaven on earth. Happy wedlock is rare. Motherhood
is painful. Family life is full of trials and quarrels. Virginity is not
God's command but his counsel. Marriage is only a concession (1 Cor.
vii.). This was the orthodox doctrine of the time. Among the religious
heroes of the age not a few were irresponsible from lack of food, lack
of sleep, and the nervous exaltation which they forced upon themselves
by ascetic practices.[2193]
+692. Renunciation of property. Beggary.+ Those who did not practice
asceticism accepted its standards and applied them. A special case and
one of the most important was the admiration which was rendered in the
thirteenth century to the renunciation of property and the consequent
high merit attributed to beggary for the two following centuries. The
social consequences were so great that this view of poverty and beggary
is perhaps the most important consequence in the history of the mores
which go with the ascetic philosophy of life.
+693. Ascetic standards.+ All who were indifferent or hostile to the
church and religion maintained the ascetic standards for ecclesiastics
in their extremest form. All the literature of the Middle Ages contains
scoffing at priests, monks, and friars. In part, they were scoffed at
because they did not fulfill that measure of asceticism which the
scoffers chose to require, and which the clerics taught and seemed bound
to practice.
+694. The mendicant friars.+ The notion that poverty is meritorious and
a good in itself was widely entertained but unformulated at the
beginning of the thirteenth century. Jacques de Vitry, who was in Italy
in 1216, and who left a journal of his journey,[2194] met with an
association in Lombardy, the Umiliati, who held the doctrines of the
later Franciscans. The ideas which were current at that time about the
primitive church were entirely fantastic. They had no foundation in
fact. They were in fact deductions from ascetic ideals. The church of
the thirteenth century was the opposite in all respects of what the
primitive church was supposed to have been. Francis of Assisi and a few
friends determined (1208) to live by the principles of the primitive
church as they supposed that it had been. It is certain that they were
only one group, which found favorable conditions of growth, but that
there were many such groups at the time. De Vitry was filled with
sadness by what he saw at the papal court. All were busy with secular
affairs, kings and kingdoms, quarrels and lawsuits, so that it was
almost impossible to speak about spiritual matters. He greatly admired
the Franciscans, who were trying to live like the early Christians and
to save souls, and who shamed the prelates, who were "dogs who do not
bark." The strongest contrasts between the gospel ideals and the church
of that time were presented by wealth and the hierarchy. Francis
renounced all property. Poverty was idealized and allegorized. Since he
would not produce or own things, he had to beg or borrow them from
others who were therefore obliged to sin for him. The first corollary
from the admiration of poverty was the glorification of beggary and its
exaltation above productive labor.[2195] There is a rhapsody on poverty
in the _Roman de la Rose_. If it is base and corrupting to admire
wealth, it is insane to admire poverty. It never can be anything more
than a pose or affectation. The count of Chiusi gave to Francis the
mountain La Verna as a place of retirement and meditation. Armed men
were necessary to take possession of this place on account of beasts and
robbers.[2196] Here, then, we have all the crime, selfishness, and
violence of "property." The legendary story of Francis is fabulous. It
is a product of the popular notions of the time. He was said to perform
miracles. Crowds flocked to him. His order spread with great rapidity
and without much effort on his part. Evidently it just met the temper,
longings, and ideals of the time. Its strength was that it suited the
current mores. Unlimited money and property were given to it. Francis
died in 1226 and was canonized in 1228. Dominic (1170-1221) aimed to
found an order of preachers in order to oppose the Albigenses and other
heretics. He wanted to found a learned and scholarly order which should
be able to preach and teach. He made it a mendicant order in order to
preserve it from the corruptions to which the conventual life was
exposed. The two orders of friars became fierce enemies to each other
and fought upon all occasions.[2197] In their theory and doctrines they
exactly satisfied the notions of the time as to what the church ought to
be, and "they restored to the church much of the popular veneration
which had become almost hopelessly alienated from it."[2198] The age
cherished ideals and phantasms on which it dwelt in thought, developing
them. Suffering was esteemed as a good, and self-denial with suffering
made saintliness. Francis and his comrades cherished all these ideals
and had all these ways of thinking. Francis became the ideal man of his
time.[2199]
+695. The Franciscans.+ Other mendicant orders prove the dominant ideas
of the time. These were the Augustinian hermits (1256), the Carmelites
(1245), and the Servites, or Servants of Mary (c. 1275). The mendicants
did not live up to their doctrine for a single generation. In the middle
of the century Bonaventura had to reprove the Franciscans for their
greed of property, their litigation and efforts to grasp legacies, and
for the splendor and luxury of their buildings.[2200] The two great
orders of friars became an available power by virtue of their hold on
the tastes and faiths of the people. They became the militia of the pope
and helped to establish papal absolutism. They "were perfectly adapted
to the world conditions of the time."[2201] The doctrines of poverty
were at war with the character, aims, and ambitions of the church. The
Franciscans, in order to establish the primitive character of their
system, asserted that Christ and his disciples lived by beggary in
absolute renunciation of property. This was a Scriptural and historical
doctrine and question of fact, on which fierce controversy arose. It
divided the order into two schools, the conventuals and the spirituals.
In 1275 the spirituals, who clung to the original ideals and rules of
Francis, were treated as heretics and persecuted. They rated Francis as
another Christ, and the rule as a new revelation. They always were
liable to fall into sympathy with enthusiastic sects which were rated as
heretical.[2202] The Franciscans also, in their origin, were somewhat
independent of hierarchical authority and of established discipline. It
was necessary that the order should be brought into the existing
ecclesiastical system. The popes of the thirteenth century until
Boniface VIII accepted the standards of the age and approved of the
mendicant friars. In 1279, in the bull _Exiit qui seminat_, the
Franciscan rule was ascribed to revelation by the Holy Ghost, and the
renunciation of property was approved. The use of property was right,
but the ownership was wrong.[2203] Boniface was of another school. He
was a practical man who meant to increase the power of the hierarchy.
Absurd as was the notion of non-property, it was at least germane to the
doctrine of Christianity that Christians ought to renounce the pomps and
vanities of wealth and the struggle for power, and to live in frugality,
simplicity, and mutual service. The papal hierarchy was in pursuit of
pomp and luxury and, above all, of power and dominion. Boniface ordered
the spiritual Franciscans to conform to the rule of the conventuals.
Some would not obey and became heretics and martyrs. Their zeal for the
ideas and rule of Francis was so great that they welcomed martyrdom for
their adherence.[2204] The most distinguished of the martyrs of the
spirituals was Bernard Delicieux, who found himself at war with the
Inquisition and the pope, and who, after a trial in which all the arts
of browbeating and torture were exhausted, died a prisoner, in chains,
on bread and water.[2205] The other party also had its martyrs, who were
willing to die for the doctrine that Christ and his apostles did not
live by beggary.[2206] Any doctrine that the apostles lived in poverty,
by begging, was a criticism of the hierarchy as it then was. John XXII,
another non-sentimental pope, declared that the doctrine that Christ and
his apostles lived in negation of property was a heresy. Then Francis of
Assisi and all who had held the same opinions as he became
heretics.[2207] In 1368 the strict Franciscans split off and formed the
order of the Observantines, and in 1487 the Recollects, another order of
strict observers of the rule, was founded in Spain, with the
authorization of Innocent VIII. The stricter orders were always more
enthusiastically devoted to the service of the papacy.[2208]
+696. Whether poverty is a good.+ The history of the mendicant orders is
an almost incomprehensible story of wrongheadedness. That poverty is a
good is an inversion of common sense. That men do not want what they
must have to live is a denial of all philosophy. The mendicants did not
invent these dogmas. They were in the mores, and they made the
mendicants. That the mendicants at once became greedy, avaricious, and
luxurious, emissaries of tyranny and executioners of cruelty, was only
an instance of the extravagances of human nature.
+697. Clerical celibacy.+ If according to Christian standards virginity
was the sole right rule and marriage was only a concession, it might
justly be argued that the clergy ought to live up to the real standard,
not the conventional concession. This was the best argument for
sacerdotal celibacy. It was well understood, and not disputed, that
celibacy was a rule of the church, and not an ordinance of Christ or the
Gospel. It was an ascetic practice which was enjoined and enforced on
the clergy. They never obeyed it. The rule produced sin and vice, and
introduced moral discord and turpitude into the lives of thousands of
the best men of the Middle Ages. In the baser days of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries the current practice was a recognized violation of
professed duty and virtue, under money penalties or penances. Yet the
notion of celibacy for the clergy had been so established by discipline
in the usage of priests and the mores of Christendom that a married
priest was a disgusting and intolerable idea. At the same time usage had
familiarized everybody with the concubinage of priests and prelates, and
all Christendom knew that popes had their bastards living with them in
the Vatican, where they were married and dowered by their fathers as
openly as might be done by princes in their palaces. The falsehood and
hypocrisy caused deep moral corruption, aside from any judgment as to
what constituted the error or its remedy. Pope Pius II was convinced
that there were better reasons for revoking the celibacy of the clergy
than there ever had been for imposing it,[2209] but he was not a man to
put his convictions into effect. The effect on character of violation of
an ascetic rule, acknowledged and professed, was the same as that of the
violation of one of the Ten Commandments.
+698. How Christian asceticism ended.+ By the beginning of the sixteenth
century the ascetic views and tastes were all gone, overwhelmed by the
ideas and tastes of a period of commerce, wealth, productive power,
materialism, and enjoyment. In the new age the pagan joy in living was
revived. Objects of desire were wealth, luxury, beauty, pleasure,--all
of which the ascetics scorned and cursed. The reaction was favorable to
a development of sensuality and materialism; also of art. Modern times
have been made what they are by industry on rational lines of effort,
with faith in the direct relation of effort to result. The aleatory
element still remains, and it is still irrational, but the attitude of
men towards it is changed. All the ground for asceticism is taken away.
We work for what we want with courage, hope, and faith, and we enjoy the
product as a right. If the luck goes against us, we try again. We are
very much disinclined to any increase of pain or of fruitless labor.
There is a great change in the mores of the entire modern society about
the aleatory element. That change accounts for a great deal of the
modern change of feeling about religion.
[2150] Spix and Martius, _Brasil_, 1318.
[2151] Hearn, _Japan_, 165.
[2152] _Marius the Epicurean_, 357.
[2153] Galton, _Hered. Genius_, 239.
[2154] Lea, _Inquisition_, II, 330.
[2155] _Psyche_, II, 101.
[2156] Rohde, _Psyche_, II, 121-130.
[2157] _Ibid._, 104.
[2158] Ueberweg, _Hist. Philos._, I, 45.
[2159] Lecky, _Eur. Morals_, II, 314.
[2160] Stengel, _Griech. Kultusalterthümer_, 35.
[2161] Euripides, _Hippolytus_, 1300; _Trojan Women_, 38, 975.
[2162] Mahaffy, _The Grecian World under Roman Sway_, 180.
[2163] Lecky, _Eur. Morals_, II, 315.
[2164] Lucian, _De Syria Dea_, sec. 28.
[2165] _Jewish Encyc._, V, 226.
[2166] Levit. xv. 16, 18; Deut. xxiii. 11; Josephus, _Cont. Ap._,
II, 24.
[2167] Judges xiii. 4-14; Amos ii. 11.
[2168] Lucius, _Essenismus_, 102.
[2169] Josephus, _Antiq._, XIII, 5, 9.
[2170] Cook, _Fathers of Jesus_, II, 30, 38.
[2171] Hastings, Dict. Bib., _Devel. of Doct. in Apoc. Period_;
Supp. Vol. 292, a.
[2172] Lucius, _Essenismus_, 54, 59, 68.
[2173] _Ibid._, 52.
[2174] _Jewish Encyc._, V, s. v. "Essenes."
[2175] Cook, _Fathers of Jesus_, II, 48; Lucius, _Essenismus_,
131; Graetz, _Gesch. der Juden_, III, 92 ff.
[2176] Harnack, _Pseudoclement. Briefe de Virg._, 3.
[2177] Hatch, _Griechenthum und Christenthum_, 121.
[2178] Lea, _Sacer. Celib._, 29.
[2179] Hatch, _Griechenthum und Christenthum_, 108.
[2180] _Ibid._, 109.
[2181] Harnack, _Pseudo-Clement. Briefe de Virg._, 19, 21, 22.
[2182] Hatch, 122.
[2183] Hatch, 123.
[2184] Harnack, _Dogmengesch._, I, 747.
[2185] _Ibid._, 59.
[2186] _Ibid._, 60.
[2187] Such perversions have been very frequent. See Todd, _Life
of St. Patrick_, 91, for a case; also, Lea, _Inquisition_, III,
109. Sometimes the test was to show that the temptation was
powerless. Lea, _Inquis._, II, 357; _Sacerd. Celib._, 167.
[2188] Wellhausen, _Skizzen und Vorarbeiten_, III, 210.
[2189] _Hist. of Religions_, section of the _Amer. Orient. Soc._,
VII, 22.
[2190] Achelis, _Virgines Subintroductae_. The author thinks that
the relationship was one of Platonic comradeship.
[2191] See Peter Lombard, _Sentent._, IV, 31.
[2192] _Early Eng. Text Soc._, 1866.
[2193] Cf. Lea, _Inquis._, II, 214, about Peter Martyr.
[2194] _Nouveaux Mem. de l'Acad. des Sciences, lettres et beaux
arts de Belgique_, XXIII, 30.
[2195] The ideas of Francis had been promulgated by the
Timotheists in the fifth century. They were then declared
heretical (Lea, _Sacerd. Celib._, 377).
[2196] Carmichael, _In Tuscany_, 224.
[2197] Lea, _Inquis._, I, 302.
[2198] Lea, _Sacerd. Celib._, 377.
[2199] Little, _St. Francis of Assisi_, 138. Carmichael (_In
Tuscany_, 228) is satisfied that Francis received the stigmata.
He says: "No serious person any longer seeks to dispute the
fact." The stigmata were imparted by an angel and consisted in
"long nails of a black, hard, fleshy substance. The round heads
of the nails showed close against the palms, and from out the
backs of the hands came the points of the nails, bent back as if
they had pierced through wood and then been clinched." The wounds
caused pain so great that Francis could not walk. Little does not
reject all the fabulous details in the life of the saint as the
legends have brought it down.
[2200] Lea, _Inquis._, III, 29.
[2201] Michael, _Gesch. des Deutschen Volkes_, II, 78.
[2202] Lea, _Inquis._, III, 33.
[2203] _Ibid._, 30.
[2204] _Ibid._, 51.
[2205] _Ibid._, II, 75, 99.
[2206] _Ibid._, 59.
[2207] Lea, _Inquis._, I, 541.
[2208] _Ibid._, III, 172, 179.
[2209] Burckhardt, _Renaissance in Italien_, 465.
CHAPTER XIX
EDUCATION, HISTORY
The superstition of education.--The loss from education;
"missionary-made men."--Schools make persons all on one pattern;
orthodoxy.--Criticism.--Reactions of the mores and education on
each other.--The limitations of the historian.--Overvaluation
of history.--Success and the favor of God.--Philosophic faiths
and the study of history.--Democracy and history.--The study of
history and the study of the mores.--The most essential element
of education.--The history of the mores is needed.
+Introduction.+ The one thing which justifies popular education for all
children is the immense value of men of genius to the society. We have
no means of discerning and recognizing, in their early childhood, the
ones who have genius. If we could do so it would be a good bargain to
pay great sums for them, and to educate them at public expense. Our
popular education may be justly regarded as a system of selecting them.
The pupils retire from the schools when they think that "they do not
want any more schooling." Of course thousands withdraw for one who keeps
on. It is a very expensive system, and the expense all falls on the
taxpayers. The beneficiaries are left entirely free to spend their lives
wherever they please. If the system is sound and just it must be so by
virtue of some common interest of all the people of the United States in
the social services of men of talent and genius in any part of the
United States.
+699. The superstition of education.+ Popular education and certain
faiths about popular education are in the mores of our time. We regard
illiteracy as an abomination. We ascribe to elementary book learning
power to form character, make good citizens, keep family mores pure,
elevate morals, establish individual character, civilize barbarians,
and cure social vice and disease. We apply schooling as a remedy for
every social phenomenon which we do not like. The information given by
schools and colleges, the attendant drill in manners, the ritual of the
mores practiced in schools, and the mental dexterity produced by school
exercises fit individuals to carry on the struggle for existence better.
A literate man can produce wealth better than an illiterate man. Avenues
are also opened by school work through which influences may be brought
to bear on the reason and conscience which will mold character. Not even
the increased production of wealth, much less the improvement of
character, are assured results. Our faith in the power of book learning
is excessive and unfounded. It is a superstition of the age. The
education which forms character and produces faith in sound principles
of life comes through personal influence and example. It is borne on the
mores. It is taken in from the habits and atmosphere of a school, not
from the school text-books. School work opens an opportunity that a
thing may be, but the probability that it will be depends on the
persons, and it may be _nil_ or contrary to what is desired. High
attainments in school enhance the power obtained, but the ethical value
of it all depends on how it is used. These facts are often misused or
exaggerated in modern educational controversies, but their reality
cannot be denied. Book learning is addressed to the intellect, not to
the feelings, but the feelings are the spring of action.
+700. The loss from education. Missionary-made men.+ Education has
always been recognized as a means of individual success and group
strength. In barbarism the children are educated by their elders,
especially the little boys by the big ones, but the whole mental outfit
possessed by the group is transmitted to the children, and all the mores
pass by this tradition. It is to be noticed, therefore, that in our
modern education the sense of the term has been much narrowed, since we
mean by it book learning or schooling. Teachers are not wanting who
teach manners and mores out of zeal and ambition, and families and
churches can be found which duly supplement the work of schools, but
the institutions follow no set plan of coöperation, and one or another
of them fails in its part. The modern superstition of education contains
a great error. It is forgotten that there is always a loss and offset
from education in its narrow sense. Petrie, speaking from observation
and experience of Egyptian peasants, says: "The harm is that you
manufacture idiots. Some of the peasantry are taught to read and write,
and the result of this burden, which their fathers bore not, is that
they become fools. I cannot say this too plainly: An Egyptian who has
had reading and writing thrust on him is, in every case that I have met
with, half-witted, silly, or incapable of taking care of himself. His
intellect and his health have been undermined by the forcing of
education."[2210] Petrie's doctrine is that each generation of men of
low civilization can be advanced beyond the preceding one only by a very
small percentage. He does not lay stress on the stimulation of vanity
and false pride. If he is right, his doctrine explains the complaints of
"missionary-made men" which we hear from Miss Kingsley and others, and
such social results as are described by Becke.[2211] Amongst ourselves
also the increase of insanity, nervous diseases, crime, and suicide must
be ascribed in part to the constant and more intense brain strain,
especially in youth. Women also, as they participate more in the
competition of life, have to get more education, and they fall under the
diseases also. The cases of child suicide are the most startling product
of our ways of education. These personal and social diseases are a part
of the price we pay for "higher civilization." They are an offset to
education and they go with it. It would be great ignorance of the course
of effort in societal matters not to know that such diseased reactions
must always be expected.
+701. Schools make persons all on one pattern. Orthodoxy.+ School
education, unless it is regulated by the best knowledge and good sense,
will produce men and women who are all of one pattern, as if turned in a
lathe. When priests managed schools it was their intention to reach just
this result. They carried in their heads ideals of the Christian man and
woman, and they wanted to educate all to this model. Public schools in a
democracy may work in the same way. Any institution which runs for years
in the same hands will produce a type. The examination papers show the
pet ideas of the examiners. It must not be forgotten that the scholars
set about the making of folkways for themselves, just as members of a
grown society do. In time they adopt codes, standards, preferred types,
and fashions. They select their own leaders, whom they follow with
enthusiasm. They have their pet heroes and fashion themselves upon the
same. Their traditions become stereotyped and authoritative. The type of
product becomes fixed. It makes some kind of compromise with the set
purposes of the teachers and administrators, and the persons who issue
from the schools become recognizable by the characteristics of the type.
It is said that the graduates of Jesuit colleges on the continent of
Europe are thus recognizable. In England the graduates of Oxford and
Cambridge are easily to be distinguished from other Englishmen. In the
continental schools and barracks, in newspapers, books, etc., what is
developed by education is dynastic sentiment, national sentiment,
soldierly sentiment; still again, under the same and other
opportunities, religious and ecclesiastical sentiments, and by other
influences, also class and rank sentiments.[2212] In a democracy there
is always a tendency towards big results on a pattern. An orthodoxy is
produced in regard to all the great doctrines of life. It consists of
the most worn and commonplace opinions which are current in the masses.
It may be found in newspapers and popular literature. It is intensely
provincial and philistine. It does not extend to those things on which
the masses have not pronounced, and by its freedom and elasticity in
regard to these it often produces erroneous judgments as to its general
character. The popular opinions always contain broad fallacies,
half-truths, and glib generalizations of fifty years before. If a
teacher is to be displaced by a board of trustees because he is a
free-trader, or a gold man, or a silver man, or disapproves of a war in
which the ruling clique has involved the country, or because he thinks
that Hamilton was a great statesman and Jefferson an insignificant one,
or because he says that he has found some proof that alcohol is not
always bad for the system, we might as well go back to the dominion in
education of the theologians. They were strenuous about theology, but
they let other things alone. The boards of trustees are almost always
made up of "practical men," and if their faiths, ideas, and prejudices
are to make the norm of education, the schools will turn out boys and
girls compressed to that pattern. There is no wickedness in any
disinterested and sincere opinion. That is what we all pretend to admit,
but there are very few of us who really act by it. We seem likely to
have orthodox history (especially of our own country), political
science, political economy, and sociology before long.[2213] It will be
defined by school boards who are party politicians. As fast as physics,
chemistry, geology, biology, bookkeeping, and the rest come into
conflict with interests, and put forth results which have a pecuniary
effect (which is sure to happen in the not remote future), then the
popular orthodoxy will be extended to them, and it will be enforced as
"democratic." The reason is because there will be a desire that children
shall be taught just that one thing which is "right" in the view and
interest of those in control, and nothing else. That is exactly the view
which the ecclesiastics formerly took when they had control. Mathematics
is the only discipline which could be taught under that rule. As to
other subjects we do not know the "right answers," speaking universally
and for all time. We only know how things look now on our best study,
and that is all we can teach. In fact, this is the reason why the
orthodox answers of the school boards and trustees are mischievous. They
teach that there are absolute and universal facts of knowledge, whereas
we ought to teach that all our knowledge is subject to unlimited
verification and revision. The men turned out under the former system,
and the latter, will be very different agents in the face of all
questions of philosophy, citizenship, finance, and industry.
+702. Criticism.+ Criticism is the examination and test of propositions
of any kind which are offered for acceptance, in order to find out
whether they correspond to reality or not. The critical faculty is a
product of education and training. It is a mental habit and power. It is
a prime condition of human welfare that men and women should be trained
in it. It is our only guarantee against delusion, deception,
superstition, and misapprehension of ourselves and our earthly
circumstances. It is a faculty which will protect us against all harmful
suggestion. "We are all critical against the results reached by others
and uncritical against our own results."[2214] To act by suggestion or
autosuggestion is to act by impulse. Education teaches us to act by
judgment. Our education is good just so far as it produces
well-developed critical faculty. The thirteenth century had no critical
faculty. It wandered in the dark, multiplying errors, and starting
movements which produced loss and misery for centuries, because it dealt
with fantasies, and did not know the truth about men or their position
in the world. The nineteenth century was characterized by the
acquisition and use of the critical faculty. A religious catechism never
can train children to criticism. "Patriotic" history and dithyrambic
literature never can do it. A teacher of any subject who insists on
accuracy and a rational control of all processes and methods, and who
holds everything open to unlimited verification and revision is
cultivating that method as a habit in the pupils. In current language
this method is called "science," or "scientific." The critical habit of
thought, if usual in a society, will pervade all its mores, because it
is a way of taking up the problems of life. Men educated in it cannot be
stampeded by stump orators and are never deceived by dithyrambic
oratory. They are slow to believe. They can hold things as possible or
probable in all degrees, without certainty and without pain. They can
wait for evidence and weigh evidence, uninfluenced by the emphasis or
confidence with which assertions are made on one side or the other. They
can resist appeals to their dearest prejudices and all kinds of
cajolery. Education in the critical faculty is the only education of
which it can be truly said that it makes good citizens. The operation of
the governmental system and existing laws is always "educating" the
citizens, and very often it is making bad ones. The existing system may
teach the citizens to war with the government, or to use it in order to
get advantages over each other. The laws may organize a big "steal" of
the few from the many, and they may educate the people to believe that
the way to get rich is to "get into the steal." "Graft" is a reaction of
the mores on the burdens and opportunities offered by the laws, and
graft is a great education. It educates faster and deeper than all the
schools. The people who believe that there is a big steal, and that they
must either get into it or be plundered by it, have nothing to learn
from political economy or political science.
+703. Reactions of the mores and education on each other.+ Every one
admits that education properly means much more than schooling or book
learning. It means a development and training of all useful powers which
the pupil possesses, and repression of all bad prepossessions which he
has inherited. The terms "useful" and "bad" in this proposition never
can mean anything but the currently approved and disapproved traits and
powers; that is, what is encouraged or discouraged by the mores. The
good citizen, good husband and father, good business man, etc., are only
types which are in fashion at the time. In New England they are not the
same now as fifty years ago. The mores and the education react on each
other. They are not as likely to settle into grooves in a new country as
in old countries. In Spain and Portugal, and to a less extent in Italy
and Russia, the mores have taken rigid form, and they control schools
and universities so that the types of educated men vary little from
generation to generation. When the schools are not too rigidly
stereotyped they become seats of new thought, of criticism of what is
traditional, and of new ideas which remold the mores. The young men are
only too ready to find fault with what they find existing and
traditional, and the students of all countries have been eager
revolutionists. Of course they make mistakes and do harm, but the
alternative is the reign of old abuse and consecrated error. The
folkways need constant rejuvenation and refreshment if they are to be
well fitted to present cases, and it is far better that they be
revolutionized than that they be subjected to traditional
changelessness. In the organization of modern society the schools are
the institutional apparatus by which the inheritance of experience and
knowledge,--the whole mental outfit of the race,--is transmitted to the
young. Through these institutions, therefore, the mores and morality
which men have accepted and approved are handed down. The transmission
ought to be faithful, but not without criticism. The reaction of free
judgment and taste will keep the mores fresh and active, and the schools
are undoubtedly the place where they should be renewed through an
intelligent study of their operation in the past.
+704. The limitations on the historian.+ If the schools are to prosecute
this study, history is the chief field for it. No historian ever gets
out of the mores of his own society of origin. He may adopt a party in
church, politics, or social philosophy. If he does, his standpoint will
be set for him, and it is sure to be sectarian. Even if he rises above
the limitations of party, he does not get outside of the patriotic and
ethical horizon in which he has been educated, especially when he deals
with the history of other countries and other times than his own. Each
historian regards his own nation as the torchbearer of civilization; its
mores give him his ethical standards by which he estimates whatever he
learns of other peoples. All our histories of antiquity or the classical
nations show that they are written by modern scholars. In modern Russian
literature may be found passages about the "civilizing mission" of
Russia which might be translated, _mutatis mutandis_, from passages in
English, French, or German literature about the civilizing mission of
England, France, or Germany. Probably the same is true of Turkish,
Hindoo, or Chinese literature. The patriotism of the historian rules his
judgment, especially as to excuses and apologies for things done in the
past, and most of all as to the edifying omissions,--a very important
part of the task of the historian. A modern Protestant and a Roman
Catholic, or an American and a European, cannot reach the same view of
the Middle Ages, no matter how unbiased and objective each may aim to
be. There is a compulsion on the historian to act in this way, for if he
wrote otherwise, his fellow-countrymen would ignore his work. It follows
that a complete and unbiased history hardly exists. It may be a moral
impossibility. Every student during his academic period ought to get up
one bit of history thoroughly from the ultimate sources, in order to
convince himself what history is not. Any one who ever lived through a
crisis in the history of a university must have learned how impossible
it is to establish in memory and record a correct literary narrative of
what took place, the forces at work, the participation of individuals,
etc. Monuments, festivals, mottoes, oratory, and poetry may enter
largely into the mores. They never help history; they obscure it. They
protect errors and sanctify prejudices. The same is true of literary
commonplaces which gain currency. It is commonly believed in the United
States that at some time in the past Russia showed sympathy and extended
aid to the United States when sympathy and aid were sorely needed. This
is entirely untrue. No specification of the time and circumstances can
be made which will stand examination. Nevertheless the popular belief
cannot be corrected.
+705. Overvaluation of history.+ Never was history studied as it is now.
Amongst scholars there is a disposition to overvalue it, and to develop
out of it something which must be called "historyism." Jurisprudence has
passed through the dominion of this tendency. Political economy is now
lost in it. When has anybody ever been governed by "the teachings of
history" when he was philosophizing or legislating? The teachings of
history can always be set aside, if they are a hindrance, by alleging
that the times have changed and that new conditions exist. This
allegation may be true, and the possibility that it is true must always
be taken into account. No two cases in history ever are alike.
+706. Success and the favor of God.+ Sects and parties have claimed
God's favor and power. They have boldly declared that they would accept
success or failure as proof of his approval on their doctrines and
programme. No one of them ever stood by the test. There were some in the
crusades who argued that the Moslems must be right on account of their
successes. The Templars were charged with making this deduction when
grounds for burning them were sought. It was a heresy. If the Christians
had any success, the deduction might be made against the Moslems, but
not contrariwise. All nations have treated in this way the deductions
about the approval of the superior powers. If there are any superior
powers which meddle with history, it is certain that men have never yet
found out how their ways and human ways react on each other, nor any
means of interpreting their ways.
+707. Philosophic faiths and the study of history.+ In a similar manner
other philosophic faiths interfere with the study of history. The mores
impose the faiths on the historian, and the faiths spoil his work. "It
is not difficult to understand how a people imbued with the idea that
the world is an illusion should have neglected all historical
investigations. No such thing as genuine history or biography exists in
Sanskrit literature. Historical researches are, to a Hindoo, simple
foolishness."[2215]
+708. Democracy and history.+ Democracy is almost equally indifferent to
history, and the dogmas of democracy make history unimportant. If "the
people" always know what is right and wise, then we have the supreme
oracle always with us and always up to date. In the report of a
civil-service examination which got into the newspapers, it was said
that one candidate for a position on the police answered the question,
Who was Abraham Lincoln? by saying that he was a distinguished general
on the Southern side in the Civil War. Nevertheless, if appointed, he
might have made an excellent policeman. His ludicrous ignorance of
American biography proved nothing to the contrary. The question brought
into doubt the intelligence of the examiners. If all policemen were
examined on American history, it is fair to believe that incredible
ignorance and errors would be displayed. No amount of study of American
history would make them better policemen. The same may be said of the
masses as a whole. A knowledge of history is a fine accomplishment, but
ignorance of it does not hinder the success of men in their own lines
of industry. They do not, therefore, care about history or appreciate
it. Its rank in school studies is an inheritance of European tradition.
Popular opinion does not recognize its position as fit and just. Its
effect on the minds and mores of the pupils is almost _nil_, unless the
history deals directly with the mores.
+709. The study of history and the study of the mores.+ There is,
therefore, great need for a clearer understanding of the relation
between the study of history and the study of the mores. Abraham
Lincoln's career illustrated in many ways the mores of his time, and the
knowledge of some of the facts about the mores would have been by no
means idle or irrelevant for a policeman. In like manner it may well be
that other branches of study pursued in our schools contain valuable
instruction or discipline, but it does not lie on the surface, and it is
an art to get it out and bring it to the attention of the scholar.
+710. The most essential element in education.+ A man's education never
stops as long as he lives. All the experience of life is educating him.
In school days he is undergoing education by the contact of life, and by
what he does or suffers. This education is transferring to him the
mores. He learns what conduct is approved or disapproved; what kind of
man is admired most; how he ought to behave in all kinds of cases; and
what he ought to believe or reject. This education goes on by minute
steps, often repeated. The influences make the man. All this constitutes
evidently the most essential and important education. If we understand
what the mores are, and that the contact with one's fellows is all the
time transmitting them, we can better understand, and perhaps regulate
to some extent, this education.
+711. The history of the mores is needed.+ The modern historians turn
with some disdain away from the wars, intrigues, and royal marriages
which the old-fashioned historians considered their chief interest, and
many of them have undertaken to write the history of the "people."
Evidently they have perceived that what is wanted is a history of the
mores. If they can get that they can extract from the history what is
most universal and permanent in its interest.
[2210] _Smithson. Rep._, 1895, 596.
[2211] _Pacific Tales._
[2212] Schallmeyer, _Vererbung und Auslese_, 265.
[2213] According to a German newspaper the parliament of Bavaria,
in 1897, expressed a wish that the government of that state would
not appoint any more Darwinians to chairs in the universities of
the kingdom.
[2214] Friedmann, _Wahnideen im Völkerleben_, 219.
[2215] Monier-Williams, _Brahmanism and Hinduism_, 39.
CHAPTER XX
LIFE POLICY. VIRTUE VS. SUCCESS
Life policy.--Oaths; truthfulness vs. success.--The clever
hero.--Odysseus, Rother, Njal.--Clever heroes in German
epics.--Lack of historic sense amongst Christians.--Success
policy in the Italian Renaissance.--Divergence between
convictions and conduct.--Classical learning a fad.--The
humanists.--Individualism.--Perverted use of words.--
Extravagance of passions and acts.--The sex relation and the
position of women.--The cult of success.--Literature on the
mores.--Moral anarchy.
+712. Life policy.+ Some primitive or savage groups are very truthful,
both in narrative and in regard to their promises or pledged word. Other
groups are marked by complete neglect of truthfulness. Falsehood and
deceit are regarded as devices by which to attain success in regard to
interests. The North American Indians generally regarded deceit by which
an enemy was outwitted as praiseworthy; in fact it was a part of the art
of war. It is still so regarded in modern civilized warfare. It is,
however, limited by rules of morality. There was question whether the
deception by which Aguinaldo was captured was within the limit. In sport
also, which is a sort of mimic warfare, deception and "jockeying" are
more or less recognized as legitimate. Samoan children are taught that
it is "unsamoan" to tell the truth. It is stupid, because it sacrifices
one's interest.[2216] It does not appear that the experience of life
teaches truthfulness on any of the lower stages. The truthful peoples
are generally the isolated, unwarlike, and simple. Warfare and strength
produce cunning and craft. It is only at the highest stage of
civilization that deceit is regarded with contempt, and is thought not
to pay. That honesty is the best policy is current doctrine, but not
established practice now. It is a part of a virtue policy, which is
inculcated as right and necessary, but whether it is a success policy
is not a closed question.
+713. Oaths. Truthfulness vs. success.+ It is evident that truthfulness
or untruthfulness, when either is a group characteristic, is due to a
conviction that societal welfare is served by one or the other.
Truthfulness is, therefore, primary in the mores. It does not proceed
from the religion, but the religion furnishes a sanction for the view
which prevails in the mores. Oaths and imprecations are primitive means
of invoking the religious sanction in promises and contracts. They
always implied that the superior powers would act in the affairs of men
in a proposed way, if the oath maker should break his word. This
implication failed so regularly that faith in oaths never could be
maintained. Since they have fallen into partial disuse the expediency of
truthfulness has been perceived, and the value of a reputation for it
has been recognized. Thus it has become a question whether a true
success policy is to be based on truth or falsehood. The mores of groups
contain their answer, which they inculcate on the young.
+714. The clever hero. Krishna.+ The wily and clever hero, who knows
what to do to get out of a difficulty, or to accomplish a purpose, is a
very popular character in the great epics. In the _Mahabharata_ Krishna
is such a hero, who invents stratagems and policies for the Panduings in
their strife with the Kuruings. The king of the latter, when dying,
declares that the Panduings have always been dishonorable and tricky,
while he and his party have always adhered to honorable methods.
However, he is dying and his party is almost annihilated. The victors
are somewhat affected by his taunts, which refer to Krishna's inventions
and suggestions, but Krishna shows them the booty and says: "But for my
stratagems you would have had none of these fine things. What do you
care that you got them by tricks? Do you not want them?" They applaud
and praise him. Then the surviving Kuruings, weary of virtue and defeat,
surprise and murder the Panduings in the night, an act which was
contrary to the code of honorable war. The antagonism of a virtue
policy and a success policy could not be more strongly presented.[2217]
In the same poem Samarishta says that five lies are allowed when one's
life or property is in danger. The wicked lie is one uttered before
witnesses in reply to a serious question, and the only real lie is one
uttered of set purpose for selfish gain. Yayati, however, says, "I may
not be false, even though I should be in direst peril."[2218] The heroes
fear to falsify, and the Vedas are quoted that a lie is the greatest
sin.[2219] The clever hero has remained the popular hero. At the present
day we are told that Ganesa, or Gana-pati, son of Siva, really
represents "a complex personification of sagacity, shrewdness, patience,
and self-reliance,--of all those qualities, in short, which overcome
hindrances and difficulties, whether in performing religious acts,
writing books, building houses, making journeys, or undertaking
anything. He is before all things the typical embodiment of success in
life, with its usual accompaniments of good living, plenteousness,
prosperity, and peace."[2220] The Persians, from the most ancient times,
have been noted liars. They used truth and falsehood as instruments of
success. The relation of king and subject and of husband and wife
amongst them were false. They were invented and maintained for a
purpose.[2221]
+715. Odysseus.+ The Greeks admired cunning and successful stratagem.
Odysseus was wily. He was a clever hero. His maternal grandfather
Autolykos was, by endowment of Hermes (a god of lying and stealing), a
liar and thief beyond all men.[2222]
+716. Clever hero in German epics.+ In the German poems of the twelfth
century Rother is a king who accomplishes his ends by craft. In the
_Nibelungen_, Hagen is the efficient man, who, in any crisis, knows what
to do and can accomplish it by craft and strength combined. The heroes
are noteworthy for tricks, stratagems, ruses, and perfidy.[2223] In all
the epic poems the princes have by their side mentors who are crafty,
fertile in resource, and clever in action.[2224] In the Icelandic saga
of Burnt Njal, Njal is the knowing man, peaceful and friendly. His
crafty devices are chiefly due to his knowledge of the law, which was
full of chicane and known to few. These clever heroes, developed out of
the mores of one period and fixed in the epics, became standards and
guides for the mores of later times, in which they were admired as types
of what every one would like to be.
+717. Lack of historic sense amongst Christians.+ In the first centuries
of the Christian era no school of religion or philosophy thought that it
was an inadmissible proceeding to concoct edifying writings and
attribute them to some great authority of earlier centuries, or to
invent historical documents to advance a cause or support the claims of
a sect. This view came down to the Middle Ages. The lack of historic
feeling is well shown by the crusaders who, after Antioch was taken, in
the next few days and on the spot, began to write narratives of the
deeds of their respective commanders which were not true, but were
exaggerated, romantic, and imaginary. They were not derived from
observation of facts, but were fashioned upon the romances of
chivalry.[2225] This was not myth making. It was conscious reveling in
poetic creation according to the prevailing literary type. It was not
falsehood, but it showed an entire absence of the sense of historic
truth. In the case of the canon law, "the decretals were intended to
furnish a documentary title, running back to apostolic times, for the
divine institution of the primacy of the pope, and for the teaching
office of bishops; a title which in truth did not exist."[2226] There
was probably lacking in the minds of the men who invented the decretals
all consciousness of antagonism between fact and their literary work. If
they could have been confronted with the ethical question, they would
probably have said that they knew that the doctrines in question were
true, and that if the fathers had had occasion to speak of them they
would have said such things as were put in their mouths. Mediæval
history writing was not subject to canons of truth or taste. It included
what was edifying, to the glory of God and the church. Legends and
history were of equal value, since both were used for edification. The
truth of either was unimportant.
+718. Success policy in the Italian Renaissance.+ The historical period
in which the success policy was pursued most openly and unreservedly was
the Italian Renaissance. The effect on all virtue, especially on
truthfulness of speech and character, was destructive, and all the mores
of the period were marked by the choice of the code of conduct which
disregards truth. The most deep-lying and far-reaching cause of societal
change was the accumulation of capital and the development of a
capitalistic class. New developments in the arts awakened hope and
enterprise, and produced a "boundless passion for discovery" in every
direction.[2227] The mediæval church system did not contain as much
obscurantism in Italy as in some other countries, and the interests of
the Italians were intertwined with the hierarchical interests of Rome in
many ways. It flattered Italian pride and served Italian interests that
Rome should be the center of the Christian world. Every person had ties
with the church establishment either directly or by relatives. In spite
of philosophic freedom of thought or moral contempt for the clergy, "it
was a point of good society and refined taste to support the church."
"It was easy for Germans and Englishmen to reason calmly about
dethroning the papal hierarchy. Italians, however they might loathe the
temporal power, could not willingly forego the spiritual primacy of the
civilized world." Thus the Renaissance pursued its aims, which were
distinctly worldly, with a superficial good-fellowship towards the
church institution.[2228] "The attitude of the upper and middle classes
of Italy towards the church, at the height of the Renaissance, is a
combination of deep and contemptuous dislike with accommodation towards
the hierarchy as a body deeply interwoven with actual life, and with a
feeling of dependence on sacraments and ritual. All this was crossed,
too, by the influence of great and holy preachers."[2229]
+719. Divergence between convictions and conduct.+ This means that faith
in Christian doctrine was gone, but that the ecclesiastical system was a
tolerated humbug which served many interests. Burckhardt quotes[2230] a
passage from Guicciardini in which the latter says that he had held
positions under many popes, which compelled him to wish for their
greatness, on account of his own advantage. Otherwise he would have
loved Martin Luther, not in order to escape the restraints of the
current church doctrine, but in order to see the corrupt crew brought to
order, so that they must have learned to live either without power or
without vices. Thus the conduct of men was separated from their most
serious convictions by considerations of interest and expediency, and a
moral inconsistency was developed in character. Churches were built and
foundations were multiplied, so that the masses seemed more zealous than
the popes, but at the beginning of the sixteenth century there were
bitter complaints of the decline of worship and the neglect of the
churches.[2231] We have all the phenomena of a grand breaking up of old
mores and the beginning of new ones. "It required the unbelief of the
fifteenth century to give free rein to the rising commercial energies,
and the craving for material improvement, that paved the way for the
overthrow of ascetic sacerdotalism."[2232] The new class of burghers
with capital produced a new idea of liberty to be set against the feudal
idea of liberty of nobles and ecclesiastics, and that new class became
the founders of the modern state.
+720. Classical learning a fad.+ Whatever may have been the origin of
the zeal for classical study of the late Middle Ages, it was a
remarkable example of a fad which became the fashion and very strongly
influenced the mores. It was strengthened by the revolt against the
authority of the church, and the humanism which it produced took the
place of the mental stock which the church had offered. "Humanism
effected the emancipation of intellect by culture. It called attention
to the beauty and delightfulness of nature, restored man to a sense of
his dignity, and freed him from theological authority. But in Italy, at
any rate, it left his conscience, his religion, his sociological ideas,
the deeper problems which concern his relation to the universe, the
subtler secrets of the world in which he lives, untouched."[2233] That
means that it was a fad and was insincere. There were men who were great
scholars within the standards of humanism, but the enthusiasm for art,
the zeal for Latin and Greek literature, the coöperative struggle for
exhumations and specimens, were features of a reigning fad. The
Renaissance was an affair of the upper and middle classes. It never
could spread to the masses. Classical learning came to be valued as a
caste mark. Then it became still more truly an affectation, and was
tainted with untruth. The masses were superior in the sincerity and
truthfulness of their mores by the contrast. The humanists were pagan
and profane, but did not follow their doctrines into a reformation of
the church. They exaggerated the knowledge of the ancients and the
prestige of classical opinion until it seemed to them that anything
ancient must be true and authoritative. They transferred to what was
ancient the irrational reverence which had been paid to the doctrines of
the church, and paid to the great classical authors the respect which
had been paid to saints.[2234] In the sixteenth century they fell into
discredit for their haughtiness, their shameful dissipation, and for
their unbelief.[2235]
+721. The humanists.+ The humanists of Italy are a class by themselves,
without historical relations. They had no trade or profession and could
make no recognized career. Their controversies had a large personal
element. They sought to exterminate each other. Three excuses have been
suggested for them. The excessive petting and spoiling they met with
when luck favored them; the lack of a guarantee for their physical
circumstances, which depended on the caprice of patrons and the malice
of rivals; and the delusive influence of antiquity, or of their notions
about it. The last destroyed their Christian morality without giving
them a substitute. Their careers were such generally that only the
strongest moral natures could endure them without harm. They plunged
into changeful and wearing life, in which exhaustive study, the duties
of a household tutor, a secretary, or a professor, service near a
prince, deadly hostility and danger, enthusiastic admiration and
extravagant scorn, excess and poverty, followed each other in confusion.
The humanist needed to know how to carry a great erudition and to endure
a succession of various positions and occupations. To these were added
on occasion stupefying and disorderly enjoyment, and when the basest
demands were made on him he had to be indifferent to all morals.
Haughtiness was a certain consequence in character. The humanists needed
it to sustain themselves, and the alternation of flattery and hatred
strengthened them in it. They were victims of subjectiveness. The
admiration of classical antiquity was so extravagant and mistaken that
all the humanists were subject to excessive suggestion which destroyed
their judgment.[2236]
+722. "Individualism."+ Recent writers on the period have emphasized the
individualism which was produced. By this is meant the emancipation of
men of talent from traditional morality, and the notion that any man
might do anything which would win success for his purposes. There was no
grinding of men down to an average.[2237] This code was very widely
applied in statecraft and social struggles. A smattering knowledge of
Plutarch, Plato, and Virgil furnished heroic examples which could
justify anything.[2238] Machiavelli's _Prince_ was only a text-book of
this school of action for statesmen. Given the existing conditions in
Italy, he assumed a man of ability and asked how he should best act. "He
said that, to such a man, undertaking such a task, moral considerations
were of subsidiary importance, and success was the one criterion by
which he was to be judged. The conception was one forced on him by the
actual facts of Italian history in his own time. The methods which he
codified were those which he saw being actually employed."[2239]
Gobineau[2240] supposes a dialogue between Michael Angelo, Machiavelli,
and Granacci about Francis I, Henry VIII, Charles V, and Leo X, in which
the speakers attempt to foresee the development of events. They do not
rightly estimate the royal personages, do not foresee the Reformation,
and do not at all correctly judge the future. It was impossible that any
one could do the last at a time when great historical movements and
efforts of personal vanity and desire were mixing in gigantic struggles
to control the world's history. Italy offered a narrower arena for
personal ambition. Creighton[2241] describes Gismondo Malatesta of
Rimini. He "thoroughly mastered the lesson that to man all things are
possible. He trusted to himself, and to himself only. He pursued his
desires, whatever they might be. His appetites, his ambition, his love
of culture, swayed his mind in turns, and each was allowed full scope.
He was at once a ferocious scoundrel, a clear-headed general, an
adventurous politician, a careful administrator, a man of letters and of
refined taste. No one could be more entirely emancipated, more free from
prejudice, than he. He was a typical Italian of the Renaissance,
combining the brutality of the Middle Ages, the political capacity which
Italy early developed, and the emancipation brought by the new
learning." This might serve as a description of any one of the great
secular men of the period. "Capacity might raise the meanest monk to the
chair of St. Peter, the meanest soldier to the duchy of Milan. Audacity,
vigor, unscrupulous crime, were the chief requisites of success."[2242]
"In Italy itself, where there existed no time-honored hierarchy of
classes and no fountain of nobility in the person of a sovereign, one
man was a match for another, provided he knew how to assert himself....
In the contest for power, and in the maintenance of an illegal
authority, the picked athletes came to the front."[2243]
+723. Perverted use of words.+ Many words were given a peculiar and
technical meaning in the use of the period. _Tristezza_ often meant
wickedness. It was a duty to be cheerful and gay.[2244] "Terribleness
was a word which came into vogue to describe Michael Angelo's grand
manner. It implied audacity of imagination, dashing draughtsmanship,
colossal scale, something demonic and decisive in execution."[2245]
_Virtù_ meant the ability to win success. Machiavelli used it for force,
cunning, courage, ability, and virility. "It was not incompatible with
craft and dissimulation, or with the indulgence of sensual vices."[2246]
Cellini used _virtuoso_ to denote genius, artistic ability, and
masculine force.[2247] "The Italian _onore_ consisted partly of the
credit attaching to public distinction and partly of a reputation for
_virtù_" in the above sense.[2248] It was objective,--"an addition
conferred from without, in the shape of reputation, glory, titles of
distinction, or offices of trust."[2249] "The _onesta_ of a married
woman is compatible with secret infidelity, provided she does not expose
herself to ridicule and censure by letting her amour be known."[2250] A
_virago_ meant a bluestocking, but was a term of respect for a learned
woman. Modesty was "the natural grace of a gifted woman increased by
education and association."[2251] The tendency of words to special uses
is an index of the character of the mores of a period. The development
of equality, when the restraints of traditional morality are removed,
ought not to be passed without notice.
+724. Extravagance of passions and acts.+ It followed from the "ways" of
the period that the human race "was bastardized" "by the physical
calamities, the perpetual pestilences, the constant wars, the moral
miseries, the religious conflicts, and the invasion of ancient ideas
only half understood." The men died young in years, old in vice,
decrepit and falling to pieces when not beyond the years of youth.[2252]
The emancipation of men with inordinate ambition and lust meant a grand
chance of crime. Pope Paul III (Farnese) said that men like Cellini,
"unique in their profession, are not bound by the laws." Cellini had
committed a murder. He committed several others, to say nothing of minor
crimes. After he escaped from St. Angelo, he was in the hands and under
the protection of Cardinal Cornaro. The pope, Clement VII, wanted to get
possession of him and Cornaro wanted a bishopric for a friend, so the
pope and cardinal made a bargain and Cellini was surrendered.[2253]
"Italian society admired the bravo almost as much as imperial Rome
admired the gladiator. It also assumed that genius combined with force
of character released men from the shackles of ordinary morality."[2254]
Cellini was a specimen man of his age. He kept religion and morality far
separated from each other.[2255] Varchi wrote a sonnet on him which is
false in fact and in form, and displays the technical and conventional
insincerity of the age.[2256] The augmentative form of the name
Lorenzaccio expresses the notion that he was great, awful, and
wicked.[2257] His biographer says that he was a "mattoid."[2258] He
missed success because his antagonists were stronger than he, but his
career was typical of the age. He was in part a victim of the classical
suggestion. He expected to be glorified as a tyrannicide. This taste for
the imaginative element was an important feature in the Italian
Renaissance and helped to make it theatrical and untrue. "In gratifying
his thirst for vengeance [the Italian] was never contented with mere
murder. To obtain a personal triumph at the expense of his enemy by the
display of superior cunning, by rendering him ridiculous, by exposing
him to mental as well as physical anguish, by wounding him through his
affections or his sense of honor, was the end which he pursued."[2259]
"However profligate the people might have been, they were not contented
with grossness unless seasoned with wit. The same excitement of the
fancy rendered the exercise of ingenuity, or the avoidance of peril, an
enhancement of pleasure to the Italians. This is perhaps the reason why
all the imaginative compositions of the Renaissance, especially the
_novellae_, turn upon adultery."[2260] The false standards, aims, codes,
and doctrines required this play of the fantasy to make them seem worth
while. The fantastic element gave all the zest. When the mediæval
imaginative element failed the classical learning furnished a new one
with suggestions, examples for imitation, and unlimited maxims and
doctrines. Hence the passions become violent and upon occasion
criminal,[2261] that is to say, they violated the code recognized by all
men in all ages. "Force, which had been substituted for Law in
government, became, as it were, the mainspring of society. Murders,
poisoning, rapes, and treasons were common incidents of private as of
public life. In cities like Naples blood guilt could be atoned for at an
inconceivably low rate. A man's life was worth scarcely more than that
of a horse. The palaces of the nobles swarmed with professional
cutthroats, and the great ecclesiastics claimed for their abodes the
right of sanctuary. Popes sold absolution for the most horrible
excesses, and granted indulgences beforehand for the commission of
crimes of lust and violence. Success was the standard by which acts were
judged; and the man who could help his friends, intimidate his enemies,
and carve a way to fortune for himself by any means he chose was
regarded as a hero."[2262] If we should follow the manners and morals of
the age into detail we should find that they were all characterized by
the same fiction and conventional affectation, and by the same
unrestrainedness of passion. Caterina Sforza avenged the murder of her
lover with such atrocities that she shocked the Borgia pope.[2263] The
artists of the late Renaissance were absorbed in admiration of carnal
beauty. There was vulgarity and coarseness on their finest work.
Cellini's work is marked by "blank animalism."[2264] There was a great
lack of all sentiment. "Parents and children made a virtue of repressing
their emotions." "No period ever exhibited a more marked aversion from
the emotional or the pathetic."[2265] There was no shame at perfidy or
inconsistency, and very little notion of loyalty. It shocks modern taste
that Isabella d'Este should have bought eagerly the art treasures of her
dearest friend when they had been stolen and put on the market, and that
after warm adherence to her brother-in-law, Ludovico il Moro, until he
was ruined, she should have turned to court the victor.[2266] It is not
strange that the age became marked by complete depravity of public and
private morals, that the great men are enigmas as to character and
purpose, and that they are demonic in action. The sack of Rome put an
end to the epoch by a catastrophe which was great enough to strike any
soul with horror, however hardened it might be.[2267] That event seems
to show how the ways of the time would be when practiced by brutal
soldiers.
+725. The sex relation and position of women.+ In such a period the sex
relation is sure to be degraded and the position of woman is sure to be
compromised. They can only be defined by the restraints which are
observed or enforced. When all restraints are set aside sensuality is
set free. Women were not suppressed. They took their place by the men
and only demanded for themselves a liberty equal to that assumed by the
men. The opinion has been expressed that Isabella d'Este "may be
regarded as the most splendid realization of the Renaissance ideal of
woman."[2268] Vittoria Colonna has been more generally accorded that
position. She is doubly interesting for her Platonic relation to Michael
Angelo, who was fifteen years her senior,[2269] and for her personal
character. The title "bastard" was often worn with pride. In royal
houses it happened often that the illegitimate branch took the throne on
the failure of the other, so that the existence of the former was a
recognized and useful fact, not a shameful one.[2270] Although it was
true that woman "occupied a place by the side of man, contended with him
for intellectual prizes, and took part in every spirited movement,"
although many of them became celebrated for humanistic attainments, and
were intrusted with the government of states,[2271] yet it was not
possible that they could maintain womanly honor and dignity side by
side with the concubines and bastards of their husbands. The love of men
for men was a current vice which was hardly concealed and which degraded
the sex relation.[2272] The individualism of the period is interpreted
as a motive for making love to the wife of another, that is, to another
fully developed individual.[2273] Adultery also appealed to the love of
intrigue and the appreciation of the imaginative element. Lewd stories
and dramas were produced in great numbers in which the cunning and
deception of adultery were developed in all imaginable combinations of
circumstances. In real life a woman's relatives showed great ferocity in
enforcing against her all the current conventions about her conduct.
That was because she might bring disgrace and ridicule on them by
marrying beneath her, or by a liaison which was known and avenged by her
husband. The assassination of the husband in such cases was only a
trifling necessity which might be called for.[2274] A physician having
married a widowed duchess, born a princess of Aragon, her brothers
murdered her and her children and caused the physician to be
assassinated by hired bravos.[2275] In the comedies marriage was derided
and marital honor treated with contempt. Downright obscenity was not
rare. Some of the comedies would not now be tolerated anywhere before an
audience of men only.[2276] It seems trifling that objection was made to
the nakedness of some figures in Michael Angelo's "Last Judgment." "As
society became more vicious, it grew nice."[2277]
+726. The cult of success.+ This deep depravation of all social
interests by the elevation of success to a motive which justified itself
has the character of an experiment. Amongst ourselves now, in politics,
finance, and industry, we see the man-who-can-do-things elevated to a
social hero whose success overrides all other considerations. Where that
code is adopted it calls for arbitrary definitions, false conventions,
and untruthful character.
+727. Literature.+ There were several books published in the Renaissance
period which aimed to influence the mores. In the middle of the
fifteenth century was written Pandolfini's _Governo della Famiglia_. An
old man advises his two sons and three grandsons on the philosophy and
policy of life. He urges thrift and advises to stay far removed from
public life. It is, he says, a "life of insults, hatreds,
misrepresentations, and suspicions." He advises not to come into the
intimacy of great nobles and not to lend them money. He has a low
opinion of all women and would not trust a wife with secrets. Della
Casa, in the first half of the sixteenth century, wrote _Il Galateo_, a
treatise on manners and etiquette. He lays great stress on cleanliness
of person and house, and he forbids all impropriety, for which he has a
very positive code. Castiglione's _Courtier_ inculcates what the age
considered sound ideas on all social relations, rights, and duties. In
the dialogue different views are put forward and discussed, from which
it results that the views to be regarded as correct often lack point and
definiteness. Symonds thinks that the type presented with approval
differs little from the modern gentleman.[2278] Cornaro wrote at the age
of eighty-three a book called _Discorsi della Vita sobria_, which is
said to set forth especially the diet by which the writer overcame
physical weakness and reached a hale old age. When ninety-five he wrote
another book to boast of the success of the first. He died in 1565, over
a hundred years old.[2279]
+728. Moral anarchy.+ The antagonism between a virtue policy and a
success policy is a constant ethical problem. The Renaissance in Italy
shows that although moral traditions may be narrow and mistaken, any
morality is better than moral anarchy. Moral traditions are guides which
no one can afford to neglect. They are in the mores and they are lost in
every great revolution of the mores. Then the men are morally lost.
Their notions, desires, purposes, and means become false, and even the
notion of crime is arbitrary and untrue. If all try the policy of
dishonesty, the result will be the firmest conviction that honesty is
the best policy. The mores aim always to arrive at correct notions of
virtue. In so far as they reach correct results the virtue policy proves
to be the only success policy.
[2216] _Globus_, LXXXIII, 374.
[2217] Holtzmann, _Indische Sagen_, I, 170.
[2218] Holtzmann, _Indische Sagen_, I, 105.
[2219] _Ibid._, 23, 37, 119.
[2220] Monier-Williams, _Brahmanism and Hinduism_, 216.
[2221] Hartmann, _Ztsft. d. V. f. Volkskunde_, XI, 247.
[2222] _Od._, XIX, 394.
[2223] Lichtenberger, _Nibelungen_, 334, 354.
[2224] Uhland, _Dichtung und Sage_, 232.
[2225] Kugler, _Kreuzzüge_, 52.
[2226] Eicken, _Mittelalterl. Weltanschauung_, 656.
[2227] Symonds, _Renaissance_, III, 320.
[2228] _Ibid._, I, 390-405.
[2229] Burckhardt, _Renaissance_, 458.
[2230] Burckhardt, _Renaissance_, 465.
[2231] _Ibid._, 490.
[2232] Lea, _Sacerd. Celibacy_, 364.
[2233] Symonds, _Catholic Reaction_, II, 137.
[2234] Burckhardt, 184.
[2235] _Ibid._, 267.
[2236] Burckhardt, _Renaissance_, 268-271.
[2237] Symonds, _Renaissance_, I, 423.
[2238] Gauthiez, _Lorenzaccio_, 71.
[2239] Creighton, _Hist. Essays and Reviews_, 336.
[2240] _La Renaissance_, 377.
[2241] _Hist. Essays and Reviews_, 138.
[2242] Symonds, _Renaissance_, I, 52.
[2243] _Ibid._, 53.
[2244] Gauthiez, _Lorenzaccio_, 92.
[2245] Symonds, _Catholic Reaction_, II, 392.
[2246] Symonds, _Renaissance_, I, 416.
[2247] Symonds, _Autobiog._, I, 74.
[2248] Symonds, _Renaissance_, I, 416.
[2249] _Ibid._, 420.
[2250] _Ibid._, 420.
[2251] Gregorovius, _Lucretia Borgia_, 28.
[2252] Gauthiez, _Lorenzaccio_, 230.
[2253] Symonds, _Renaissance_, III, 467.
[2254] Symonds, _Autobiog. of Cellini_, I, XI, 196.
[2255] _Ibid._, XIV.
[2256] _Ibid._, 227.
[2257] Gauthiez, _Lorenzaccio_, 104.
[2258] _Ibid._, 79.
[2259] Symonds, _Renaissance_, I, 413.
[2260] _Ibid._, 410.
[2261] Burckhardt, 175, 432, 445.
[2262] Symonds, _Renaissance_, I, 101.
[2263] Creighton, _Essays_, 344.
[2264] Symonds, _Renaissance_, III, 453-455.
[2265] Müntz, _Leonardo da Vinci_, I, 12.
[2266] Cartwright, _Isabella d'Este_, I, 145.
[2267] Geiger, _Renaissance_, 318.
[2268] Opdyke, trans. of Castiglione, _Courtier_, 398.
[2269] Lannau-Rolland, _Michel Ange et Vittoria Colonna_, Chap.
VI.
[2270] Heyck, _Die Mediceer_, 70; Symonds, _Renaissance_, I, 37.
[2271] Gregorovious, _Lucretia Borgia_, 27.
[2272] Gauthiez, _Lorenzaccio_, 65.
[2273] Burckhardt, _Renaissance_, 455.
[2274] _Ibid._, 441.
[2275] _Ibid._, 442.
[2276] Gregorovius, _Lucretia Borgia_, 96.
[2277] Symonds, _Renaissance_, III, 425.
[2278] _Renaissance_, I, 118.
[2279] Burckhardt, 335, 338.
LIST OF BOOKS CITED
Full titles of all books cited are given below in the alphabetical order
of the authors' names or of the leading word of the title. Numbers after
the title are the pages in the present volume on which the book is cited
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Alec-Tweedie, Mrs., Sunny Sicily (New York, no date), 458, 589
Am Urquell, 137
Ameer Ali, The Influence of Woman in Islam (Nineteenth Century,
XLV, 755)
American Anthropologist, 17, 121, 142, 149, 305, 315, 326, 339, 460,
485, 533
American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literature, 536
American Journal of Sociology, 112
Ammianus Marcellinus, Rerum Gestarum (libri 18, out of 31), 418, 586
Ammon, O., Die Gesellschaftsordnung und ihre natürlichen Grundlagen
(Jena, 1896), 39, 475, 541
d'Ancona, A., Le Origini del Teatro in Italia (2 tomes. Firenze, 1877 e
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Andree, R., Ethnographische Parallele und Vergleiche (2 Folgen. Leipzig,
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Angerstein, W., Volkstänze im Deutschen Mittelalter (2te Aufl. Berlin,
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l'Année Sociologique, 482.
See Durkheim
l'Anthropologie, 130, 146.
See Bulletins
Apostolic Constitutions. Die Syrischen Didaskalia übersetzt und erklärt
von A. Achelis und J. Fleming (Leipzig, 1904) contains the "Two Ways,"
316
Appianus, Historia Romana, 281
Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 364, 571
Arabian Nights, 287, 434.
See Lane
Archiv für Anthropologie, 329, 447, 536-537, 543, 548-549, 563, 577-578
Archiv für Kunde der OEsterreichischen Geschichtsquellen, 443
Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, 525
Ashton, J., Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne (London, 1883), 523
Athenæus, Deipnosophistorum libri, 15, 436, 529, 542
Athenagoras, Apologia (on the resurrection of the dead), 390
Augustine, Opera (Paris, 1635), 290, 348, 360-361, 390-391, 529, 542,
585
d'Aussy. See Legrand
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317, 330, 334, 382, 459, 461
d'Avenel, G., Histoire Economique de la Propriété, des Salaires, des
Denrées, et de tous les Prix en général, depuis l'an 1200 jusqu'en
l'an 1800 (2 tomes. Paris, 1894-1898), 165-166, 298
Babelon, E. C. F., Les Origines de la Monnaie (Paris, 1897), 154
Bancroft, H. H., The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America
(New York, 1875-1876), 271, 324, 337, 422, 543, 548, 553, 586
Barthold, F. W., Die Geschichte der Hansa (Leipzig, 1862), 370, 524
Barthold, F. W., Jürgen Wüllenweber von Lübeck (Räumer, Histor.
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Barton, G. A., Semitic Origins (New York, 1902), 535, 557, 563
Bastian, A., Die Deutsche Expedition an der Loango-Küste (Jena, 1874),
459
Bebel, A., Die Frau (Zurich, 1883), 346
Becke, L., Pacific Tales (New York), 441, 460, 630
Becker, W. A., und Hermann, K. F., Charikles (3 Bände. Leipzig, 1854),
204, 390, 488
Beloch, J., Die Bevölkerung der Griechisch-Römischen Welt (Leipzig,
1886), 105, 279
Beloch, J., Griechische Geschichte (4 Bände. Strassburg, 1904), 106-107,
199, 279, 468, 565
Bender, H., Rom und Römisches Leben im Alterthum geschildert (Tübingen,
1880), 280
Bent, J. T., The Sacred City of the Ethiopians (London, 1893), 459
Bergel, J., Die Eheverhältnisse der alten Juden im Vergleiche mit den
Griechischen und Römischen (Leipzig, 1881), 398, 409
Berlin Museum, 427, 432-433, 435, 438, 446, 459
Bernardin, N-M., La Comédie Italienne en France, 1570-1791 (Paris,
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Bethe, E., Die Geschichte des Theaters im Alterthume (Leipzig, 1896),
447
de Bethencourt, J., Le Canarien livre de la Conquête et Conversion des
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Binet, A., La Suggestibilité (Paris, 1900), 21
Biot, E. C., De l'Abolition de l'Esclavage ancien en Occident (Paris,
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Bishop, Mrs. (Isabella Bird), Among the Thibetans (New York, 1894), 353,
441
Bishop, Mrs., Korea and her Neighbors (New York, 1898), 453
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Boggiani, G., I Caduvei (Roma, 1895), 272
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Bourquelot, Foires de Champagne (Acad. de Belles Lettres et
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Century Magazine, 193, 441, 462
Ch. Br. R. A. S. = China Branch, Royal Asiatic Society
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Curtius Rufus, Quintus, De Rebus Gestis Alexandri, 236
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Dionysus Halicarnessensis, Antiquitatum Romanorum quae supersunt, 281
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RAS = Royal Asiatic Society
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Tertullian, de Anima, 100;
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Thomae Aquinatis Opera Omnia jussu impensaque Leonis XIII, P. M. (Rome,
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Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 25, 269, 314, 332, 435, 440
Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft, 368, 454
Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie, 4
Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, 82
Zimmer, H., Altindisches Leben (Berlin, 1879), 315, 326, 353, 388, 428,
486
INDEX
_A posteriori_, 519
Abandonment, of infants, 320;
of old things, 324, 326;
of the weak, 327
Abduction, 365, 384
Abelard, 228
Aberrations, 100, 102, 115, 149, 219, 220, 260, 534, 547, 579, 611
Abolition, 89-90, 92-93, 99, 111, 114, 165, 168, 178, 211, 478
Abomination, 109, 230, 233, 235, 238, 240, 314, 329, 336, 339, 357, 373,
430, 451, 473, 480, 487, 490, 530, 539, 556, 567, 628
Aborigines, 109, 112, 121, 126, 128, 139, 140, 314, 433, 440, 445, 501
Abortion, 106, 308-320, 327-328
Abuse, 58, 77, 92, 99, 102, 105-106, 114, 167, 170-171, 209, 218, 223,
238, 252, 259-260, 355, 367, 388, 471, 521-524, 634
Accident, 9, 24, 68, 135, 441, 445, 489, 573
Accursed man, 245
Accused, the, 250, 254, 523
Achievement, 99, 101, 106, 118, 132, 162, 478
Adaptation, 58, 73, 90, 95, 100, 120-121, 127
Adjustment, 58-59, 78-79, 81, 83, 100, 113, 312, 396, 419, 539;
of inbreeding and outbreeding, 350
Admired, desire to be, 426;
not to be, 428
Adoption, 12, 110, 118, 122, 615
Adultery, 69, 190, 334, 358, 360, 369, 378, 380-381, 390, 403, 424, 467,
501, 529, 574, 581-582, 652;
of man, 378, 403, 413
Advance, 100-102, 604, 630;
or decline, 99, 102
Affectation, 57, 93, 175, 194, 197, 199-200, 220
Affection, 182, 219, 268, 284, 320, 331, 358, 422, 523;
conjugal, 361-366, 371, 403, 461
Affinity, 397, 480, 488
Aged, the, 308-309, 322-327, 460;
two mores as to, 321-323;
respect for, 321, 326;
beg for death, 325;
beg for delay, 325-326;
are spared, 328
Agency, 25, 432, 501, 519, 537
Agitation, 51-52, 76, 113-114, 178
Aleatory element, the, 6, 11, 144, 313, 321-322, 396, 509, 519
Alexander of Macedon, 236, 504, 577
Alexander Severus, 288, 443
Alexander II, 89-90
Alexander IV, 254
Alexander VI, 11, 255, 598, 650
Ambassador, 189.
See Alberi in List of Books Cited
America, 111, 113, 126, 167, 271, 275, 382, 434, 454, 460, 528, 549
Amulets, 142, 146, 148, 155, 429, 437-438, 446, 449, 512, 516-517, 546
Amusement, 35, 84, 100, 116, 193, 195, 470, 533, 545, 560, 572-573, 577,
583-586, 599, 600, 603-605;
a pitfall, 603;
and religion, 607;
renounced, 609;
vicious, 583
Ancestors, 13, 35, 55, 79, 85, 88, 101, 116, 134, 235, 382, 385, 430,
476, 561-563
Andamanese, 149, 316, 322, 421, 453, 459, 461
Anglo-American colonies, 304, 393
"Animalism, blank," 650
Animals, 181-182, 190, 357;
sacred, 336;
trained for the chase, 120
Antagonistic coöperation, 16-18, 49, 346
Antidivorce, 115
Anti-hero, 597
Antiochus Epiphanes, 615
Antipolygamy, 115
Antisensuality, 538
Antisocietal, 500
Apostles, 215, 221, 224, 243, 469, 524, 626
Appetite, 21, 31, 99, 329-330, 346, 545, 550, 552, 607-608, 612, 647
Arabs, 14, 188, 264-265, 334, 340, 350, 358, 363, 386, 391, 398, 423,
428, 455, 459, 462, 488, 495, 505, 507, 512, 517, 555, 557, 562
Arbitrariness, 92, 94, 107, 113, 115, 426
Arguments, fashion in, 193
Aristocracy, 45, 77, 94-95, 163-164, 168, 176, 183-184, 188, 286, 302,
376, 387, 505, 564
Aristotle, 51, 278-279, 299, 315, 359, 424, 602
Armengol, 152, 422-423
Arms swinging, 192
Art, 5, 24, 39, 41, 70, 93, 97, 101-104, 117-118, 124-128, 131-132, 201,
206, 232, 266, 638, 645;
æsthetic, 426, 447, 450, 474, 516;
of living, 45, 81, 418, 451-452;
of criticism, 47;
of the theater, 565
Artifacts, 119, 123-124, 126-127, 132-133, 450
Artisans, 35, 47, 73, 83, 95, 100, 168, 276, 283, 285, 288-289, 291, 294
Arts, 111, 121, 131-133, 160, 175-176, 193-194, 224, 589, 598, 609, 643;
lost, 126;
mechanic, 112, 604;
fine, 135604, 627;
of fishing, 123;
the stage of the, 311-312;
advance in the, 321, 327;
ecclesiastical, 617
Asceticism and Ascetics, 101, 116, 160, 204-205, 212, 219-220, 224-225,
242, 294-295, 340, 378, 380, 390, 401, 604, 606, 608, 610-622, 626-627
Association, 57, 60-62, 110, 171, 288, 435, 493, 499, 526, 566, 593,
613, 648
Atellan, 234, 447, 569, 578, 581
Augustinian Hermits, 216, 624
Augustus, 101, 199, 280, 283, 288, 378, 543
Australia and Australian, 109, 119, 121, 124, 131, 187, 316, 322, 330,
332, 339, 346, 421, 436, 483, 497
Autocracy, 77, 88-89, 192, 244
Autos-de-fe, 252
Auto-suggestion, 19, 24, 201, 219, 633
Babylon, 465, 538, 541, 551, 575
Bagdad, 249, 430
Baluchistan, 499
Banishment, 209, 232, 333, 482, 486, 502, 507
Banking, 54, 169, 178, 193, 195
Barbarian, 14, 54, 100-101, 111, 116, 125, 397, 425-426, 445, 460,
467-468, 474, 487, 534, 562, 576, 586, 629
Barbaro, 186, 211, 257, 264-265, 276, 292, 295. See Alberi in List of
Books Cited
Barbers of Bombay, 172
Bareheaded, improper for women, 456
Barter, 142-144, 147, 149, 155
Basivis. See Fawcett in List of Books Cited
Basochiens, 594
Bastardizing, 648
Bath, Bathing, 70, 100, 185, 420, 430, 436, 440, 442-445, 451-452, 454,
511, 514
"Beasts," 546
Beat wives, 364, 370
Beauty, 159, 187-189, 191-192, 343, 365, 394, 446, 455, 518, 627, 644,
650;
attracts evil eye, 517
Beget, compelled to, 399
Beghards, 217
"Benefit of marriage," 390
Bernard Delicieux, 217
Berry jam, 140
Betrothal, 358, 360, 382-383, 389, 398-399, 406, 410-412, 454
Bible, 68-69, 81, 94, 109-110, 117, 154, 175-176, 234, 236, 277, 313,
335, 340, 356, 363-364, 377, 391, 398-399, 401, 414, 430-431, 455-456,
487, 499, 502-503, 513, 515, 518, 526, 540, 542-543, 551, 553-555,
565, 567, 614-616
Bigamy, 414
Biologs, 578-580, 582, 588, 596
Birth, 67, 196, 317, 320, 354, 383, 389, 432, 434
Bishops, 226, 237, 242, 249, 460, 616, 642
Black Death, 213
Blood, 218, 235, 243, 254, 337-338, 353-354, 451, 469, 472, 479-480,
484, 491, 496, 502, 505, 511, 541, 555, 570, 575, 583, 607, 650;
lust of, 247, 250;
seat of the soul or life, 336;
avenger of, 502;
nuptial, 511, 541;
atonement, 506;
feud, 499, 501-502, 504-508;
guilt, 333, 502, 505, 650;
money, 502;
revenge, 334, 467, 496, 498-500, 501-502, 504-508
Bloodthirst, 182, 464, 570
Body, the, 103-104, 189, 315, 424, 428-429, 431-434, 440, 443, 445-446,
451, 455, 515, 582, 612-613
_Bombaria_, 599
Bonaventura, 217, 247, 624
Bond, 352, 357
Boniface VIII, 259, 625
Book of Covenants, 277
Book of Henoch, 431
Book of Jubilees, 431
Books of beggars, 598
Borgia (see Alexander VI, 586);
Cesare, 64, 519, 598;
Lucrezia, 598
Borneo, 150, 269, 274, 304, 439, 442, 446
Boss, 48, 180
Boys, 354, 367;
vs. girls, 456, 518
Brazil, 122, 138-139, 271, 323, 325, 332, 446, 501
Breed in and out, 116, 492
Breeding, 17, 60, 106-108, 192, 316, 350, 421, 431, 454, 461, 472, 481,
490
Bride, 188-189, 366, 367, 397-398, 408, 410, 413, 456, 484-486, 516,
518;
must weep, 367-368;
attendants of the, 366;
blows on a, 516;
her mother killed and eaten, 338
Bridegroom, 366, 370, 397-398, 408, 410, 518;
is ashamed, 367
Bride-price, 154, 311-312, 317
Brothels, 208, 256, 370, 529-530
Brothers of the Free Spirit, 218
Buckley, 128
Buddhism, 73, 111, 117, 149, 159, 318, 510
Bull-baiting, 560, 586
Bulls of popes, 248-249, 259, 590
Bundling, 525-529
Burlesque, 572-573, 578, 582, 590, 594;
opera, 185
Burning, as penalty, 59, 212, 233-234, 237-239, 243-247, 254, 290, 336,
470-471, 486, 524, 555, 637;
the dead, 332;
widows, 388
Bushmen, 24-26, 137, 264, 268-269, 326, 346, 422
Bustle, 190, 428
Byzantine empire, 99-100, 239, 449, 571, 587
_Cacare_, 445
Cæsar, Julius, 286, 288, 519
Calamity, 100, 210-211, 213, 235, 239, 300, 313, 482, 486, 515, 519,
552, 555, 608, 610, 617, 648
_Calandra_, 596
Caligula, 234, 286
Caliphs, 430, 504-505
_Calisto e Meliboea_, 596
Cannibalism, 13, 316, 325-326, 329, 336-341, 418, 451, 480, 546
Cantelupe, Walter de, 411
_Cantica_, 586
Capital, 8, 9, 26, 83, 89, 162-163, 169, 184, 285, 310, 352, 376-377,
439, 643-644
Carolina, the, 254
Caroline Archipelago, 123, 340, 516, 533
Carthage, 62, 81, 148, 183, 282, 541-543, 556, 559, 586
Cat knight, 599
Catholicity, 15, 221-222, 244, 258, 503, 531
Cato the younger, 378, 569
_Cavalier servente_, 200
Cellini, 650
Centuries (before Christ):
twenty-third, 504, 552;
twelfth, 446;
tenth, 557;
ninth, 615;
eighth, 554;
seventh, 234, 555;
sixth, 566, 613;
fifth, 108, 467-468, 510, 565, 576, 612;
fourth, 104, 107, 109, 180, 468, 510, 566, 578, 612;
third, 409, 568, 580, 583, 612;
second, 105, 281, 468, 557, 568, 580, 612;
first, 281, 288, 294, 468, 569, 580, 612, 615;
time of Christ, 565-566, 614, 617;
(after Christ): first, 104, 284, 287, 289, 365, 569, 588, 617, 642;
second, 101, 104, 239, 285, 287-289, 339, 550, 556, 569-570, 605, 617,
642;
third, 224, 239, 293, 399, 525, 550, 577, 581, 586, 618, 642;
fourth, 82, 96, 199, 204, 219, 225, 237-239, 243, 289, 292-294, 319,
390, 404, 525, 550, 572, 577, 581-582, 618-620;
fifth, 82, 108, 199, 204, 215, 225-226, 238, 294, 447, 529, 578,
582-583, 620, 623;
sixth, 204, 211, 405, 526, 586-587, 590;
seventh, 204, 211, 239, 276, 443, 587, 589;
eighth, 211, 239, 298, 301, 408, 443, 586, 590;
ninth, 211, 239, 298, 334-335, 406-408, 530, 586, 590-591, 620;
tenth, 211, 221, 430, 543, 591, 620;
eleventh, 180, 221-222, 225, 229, 238, 240, 244, 392, 407, 409-410,
462, 581, 591, 620;
twelfth, 180, 223, 238, 240, 244, 247, 253, 258, 298, 335, 370, 407,
410-411, 412-413, 423, 488, 526, 591-592, 620, 641;
thirteenth, 88, 180, 214-216, 222, 226-227, 231, 241, 243-246,
248-249, 257, 298-300, 332, 336, 369-370, 413, 442-444, 460, 462,
471, 524, 531, 593, 595, 597, 621-625;
fourteenth, 165, 180-181, 227, 251-253, 257, 264, 299-300, 369, 413,
442, 530-531, 586, 593-597, 599, 626, 633;
fifteenth, 118, 161, 184, 189, 199, 230, 250, 252-253, 255-256,
298-300, 369-370, 413, 442, 469, 472, 531, 586, 589, 593-597, 599,
626, 644, 653;
sixteenth, 86, 96, 118, 180, 189, 196-197, 199, 229-231, 254, 257,
271, 290, 299-300, 304, 320, 335, 371, 397, 400, 413-415, 442-444,
450, 460, 469-470, 524, 530-531, 540, 595-598, 600-602, 603, 627,
644-645, 653;
seventeenth, 21, 79, 86-87, 94, 96, 165, 190, 200, 230, 235, 254, 263,
299-300, 367, 385, 388, 392, 416, 442, 444, 448, 470, 488, 521,
527-528, 601-603;
eighteenth, 21,48, 148, 165, 168, 190, 197, 207-208, 254, 272, 299,
306, 367, 392, 407, 409, 416, 478, 523, 527-528, 602;
nineteenth, 44, 59, 89, 153, 166, 169-170, 191, 229-230, 270, 272,
304, 306, 338, 353, 358, 367, 371, 388-389, 416, 448, 462, 485, 505,
529, 531, 544, 557, 586-587, 632-633;
twentieth, 455
Centuries, 221, 230;
the fourth to the twelfth, 243;
the thirteenth to the seventeenth, 247;
the last three before Christ, 105;
the early Christian, 100, 103;
the fourth to the sixteenth, 407
Ceylon, 143, 273, 439
Chaldea, 36, 349, 378, 388, 397, 550, 552-553, 562
Charles II, 257, 561
Charles V, 249, 647
Charles VII, 443
Charms, 150, 393-394, 466, 517
Chastity, 231, 356, 360-361, 418-421, 473, 613-614;
pre-nuptial, 359;
for men, 359, 361
Chauvinism, 15, 74
_Chevaliers transis_, 199
Child, 315, 317, 366, 384, 394, 441, 454, 479, 511, 513, 544
Child bearing, 269, 313, 315-316, 331, 366, 399, 441, 458, 473, 493,
497, 511-513
Children, 11-12, 30, 60, 84, 105-106, 108, 112, 116, 136, 183, 187, 205,
210-211, 214, 268-270, 273, 308-319, 345-354, 378, 383, 390, 396, 406,
424, 428, 440-441, 447-449, 451-452, 473-476, 492-497, 506-518, 534,
551-556, 559, 562, 583, 589-590, 615-616, 628-629, 632;
of priests, 229;
of popes, 256;
of slaves, 273, 301-302;
the owner of one's own, 355, 428, 440-441, 447, 449, 451-452
China, 14, 71, 73, 108, 122, 132, 151, 153, 218, 273, 275, 318, 334-335,
375, 451, 453, 459-461, 518, 549
Chiusi, the Count of, 216, 623
Chosen people, 14
Chrysostom, John, 191, 290, 294, 361, 582
Church, 69, 71, 82-83, 87-88, 94, 103, 116-117, 160, 180-181, 183, 191,
204-230, 237-238, 242-260, 290, 297, 319, 370, 375, 380, 382, 385,
391, 400, 402, 404, 406, 411-416, 449, 460, 567, 582, 585, 590-592,
595, 598-599, 617-620, 622-624, 626, 629, 635, 643-644;
plays in, 593, 595;
said to allow harlots, 529;
teachings of the, 240, 246, 248, 260;
what it accomplished, 230;
the Spanish, 258;
character and corruption of the, 256;
fathers of the, 208, 240, 530;
policy of the, 222;
at the church door, 326
_Cicisbeo_, 200
_Cistellaria_, 543
Civilization, 6, 14, 26, 31, 35, 48, 54-55, 66, 78, 81, 86, 89, 99,
106-108, 110-111, 123, 156, 158, 164, 183, 192, 206, 211, 229-232,
236, 244, 264-266, 272, 294, 307, 310, 314, 322-327, 347-352, 355-358,
375, 387, 394-396, 413, 470, 480, 494, 498, 506-507, 519, 525, 536,
550, 563, 590, 592, 609, 630-632, 635-639
Clan, 354, 498
Class, and classes, 39-53, 65-78, 86, 95-99, 107, 116, 163-179, 194-207,
223, 229, 266-288, 294-295, 361-385, 403-425, 440, 451, 461-479,
518-528, 559-579, 592, 644;
ruling, 165, 175-179, 246-250;
upper and lower, 360, 376, 386, 389, 404, 409-413, 526-527, 645;
middle, 166, 169, 371, 376, 415, 452;
envy, 595;
the lowest has the evil eye, 517;
the cultured and leading, 45-49, 62-65, 71, 88-100, 572-573, 582, 592,
594, 603;
the lowest free, 371, 385, 404-405, 422, 543
Clay-waggon, 588
Clean and unclean, 509, 511-513, 515, 611, 653
Clement V, 212, 257, 299, 524
Clement VII, 649
Cloistering women, 386, 515
Cluny, 222-223
Code, 59-78, 85-86, 95-109, 163-175, 198-207, 234-249, 313, 322,
360-375, 381-386, 408-422, 451-463, 471-475, 541, 565, 574, 631-653
Colonies, 78, 86, 108, 162, 167, 523, 528, 571
Colonna, Vittoria, 651
Combination, 17-20, 111, 132-134, 200, 354, 489, 611
Comedy, 38, 227, 238, 448-451, 574-575, 591-602, 652;
classical, 594, 599, 603
_Commedia del arte_, 600-602
Commensality, 456, 495
Commerce, 49, 63, 74, 163-164, 216, 224, 228, 270, 278, 284-285, 474,
615, 627
Common man, the, 170
Competition, 17, 29, 92, 193;
of life, 16, 29, 39, 85, 163-164, 197, 265-266, 327
Composition, 356;
of quarrel, 150;
by payments, 499, 501, 507
Concubinage, 116, 227, 256, 318, 376, 404-406, 414, 626
Concubines, 227-228, 277, 297, 301-303, 367, 374-375, 390-399, 403, 551,
652;
clerical, 227, 230, 256
Conditions, 38-55, 63-68, 72-80, 84-90, 95-102, 109-118, 131, 158-166,
178, 258, 267, 292, 319-327, 348-359, 373-382, 396-399, 419, 424, 543,
552, 624, 636, 646;
of human life, 464, 499, 540
Congo, 145, 187, 268, 330-331
Congo, the French, 334, 339
Conjugal love, 364
Conjuncture, 51, 53, 75, 85, 99, 101, 124, 163, 312, 319, 395, 552, 580
Conrad, Bishop of Hildesheim, 242
Conrad of Marburg, 611
Conservatism, 45, 80, 107, 163, 250, 534
Constantine, 234, 290-291, 319, 443, 541, 572, 584, 618
Constantinople, 589;
Council of, 225
_Constitutio de Nuptiis_, 408
Constitution, 50, 65, 166, 222, 525
Consummation of marriage, 389, 397-399, 401, 409, 412-414, 458;
deferred, 366
Contagion, 50, 116, 131, 152, 196, 210, 219, 509-510
Conventionalization, 22, 68-70, 185, 348, 538, 545, 547-548, 551-552
Conventions, 143, 193, 363, 419, 421, 445-447, 493, 565, 570, 574, 597,
652
Conventuals, 216, 625
Convictions, 29, 32, 59, 98, 105-106, 114-118, 170, 200, 219, 250, 361,
475, 494, 559, 606-607, 627, 644
Coöperation, 15-20, 28, 35, 47, 53, 61, 79, 90, 132-134, 140-141, 205,
219, 231, 305-306, 347, 349, 396, 415, 548, 629
Corporation, 96, 375, 468, 502
Correlation, 9-12, 403;
of dress and chastity, 419;
of goodness and happiness, 593
Corruption, 69, 88, 102, 170, 181, 318, 360, 370, 375, 420, 552-557,
570, 581, 584, 609, 623, 627
Council of Trent, 407, 414-415
Council of Trullanum, 443
Counter suggestion, 92
Country, new, 80, 162, 164, 376, 634
Courtesan, 100, 256, 426, 457, 541, 545, 548-549, 568, 588
Cranmer, Thomas, 229
Credit, 36, 54, 144, 161, 224, 263, 267, 276, 296, 304, 456
Criticism, 22-24, 55, 73-74, 76, 95, 102, 108, 118, 171, 179-180, 185,
195, 205, 222-223, 230, 449, 465-467, 476, 508, 524, 530, 547, 568,
603, 625, 632-635
Crosses, yellow, 251-252
Crowd, 15-21, 24, 47, 214-215, 220, 242, 368, 370, 570, 572-574,
581-582, 587-588, 592-593, 609, 623
Crucifix, 23, 176, 450-451, 472
Cruelty, 72, 182, 239-240, 250, 256-257, 269, 271, 324, 471, 522-523,
539, 569-571, 583, 618, 621, 626
Crusades, 10, 58, 87, 205-214, 223-224, 370, 443, 469-470, 474, 636,
642;
children's, 214
_Cullagium_, 227
Custom, 4-12, 25, 30, 35, 45, 54-58, 76-82, 90-91, 109, 116, 131, 135,
143, 184-185, 190, 197, 202, 238, 242, 247
Cynicism, 198, 227, 569, 618
Dance, 111, 135, 152, 191, 195, 211-213, 425-426, 436-438, 446, 449,
457-458, 469, 526-527, 533-534, 545, 548, 561-564, 568-569, 575, 583,
588-599
Dandy, 188-189, 573, 579
Darwin, Charles, 47
Darwinians, 632
Daughter-in-law, 367
Daughters, 27, 145, 202, 234, 320, 358, 363, 397, 418, 421-423, 483-489,
491, 497, 542, 546, 555;
love for, 356;
are wealth, 273, 317;
are sold, 275, 277, 312, 355;
many are a curse, 312
Dead, the, 26, 29, 108, 146, 195, 243, 393, 469, 506, 512, 514, 613, 621
Debt, 89, 144, 151, 156, 178, 263-269, 272-276, 300;
slavery, 267-269, 273
Deceased wife's sister, 480, 501-502, 506
Decency, 57, 69, 171, 195, 231, 418-445, 451-456, 469-473, 521, 544-545,
575-577, 595-598;
and dress, 436, 443;
lacking, 435-436;
impossible, 441
Decent and indecent, 545-551, 565-572, 585-590, 608
Decrees of Trent, 415
Decretals of Gratian. See Corpus Juris Canonici in List of Books Cited
Decretals, the pseudo-Isidorian, 237
Deformation, 183, 189-192, 203, 429, 573, 575, 597
Degrees of suspicion, 253
Deioces, 430
Deities, women offensive to, 512
Delicieux, Bernard, 217, 241, 625
Delusion, 32, 57, 101, 163, 181, 210-221, 231, 553, 633
Democracy, 63, 76, 88, 98, 102-106, 163, 176-180, 194, 206, 220, 230,
278, 300, 376, 468, 579, 630-632, 637
Demonax, 571
Demonism, 81, 100-101, 116, 211, 237, 397, 509-519, 520, 531-532, 562,
567, 620
Demons, 176, 218, 237-239, 262, 353, 397, 446-447, 548, 564, 567, 577,
590, 608, 612
Density of population, 502, 540
Desires, 146, 154, 178, 200, 204, 208, 214, 230, 237, 240, 346, 355,
393, 401, 422, 607, 617, 627, 632, 647
Despotism, 64, 218, 249, 254, 286, 302, 505
Dexterities, 2, 5, 119, 129, 132, 203, 629
Dickens, Charles, 179
Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, 597
Digest in the Corpus Juris Civilis, 240, 284-289, 293, 360
Dionysus, servants of, 449
_Directorium inquisitorum_, 257
Discipline, 12-13, 47-48, 53, 60-72, 92, 112, 121, 205, 212, 217,
220-222, 231-233, 242, 255-256, 390, 396, 483, 495, 522, 532, 562,
593, 607, 617, 625-626, 638
Disease, 27, 50, 80-81, 102, 112, 114, 142, 146, 152, 171, 192, 210,
219, 440, 500, 509-511, 523, 531, 536, 628, 630
Disillusion, 178, 380
Disorder, 56, 90, 100-101, 590
Dissent, 75, 95-96, 107, 174, 192, 215, 220-221, 232-233, 255-256, 530,
569
Dissenter, 95-97, 195, 200, 222, 230, 232, 235, 241-249, 255, 259-260,
621
Distinction, 142, 182-183, 186, 192, 202-203, 219, 648
District, the Fifth, of Maryland, 115
Dithyrambics, 77, 163
Divarra, 150
Divorce, 84, 115, 117, 198, 342, 353, 360, 377-381, 400, 413, 416, 424,
551
Doctrines and mores, 46;
Jeffersonian, 51
Documents, 403, 405, 642
Dogma, 59, 65, 84-86, 93-94, 97, 100, 118, 213, 221, 227-228, 260, 266,
306, 400, 450, 465, 469, 503, 509-510, 513, 515, 519-520, 537, 585,
591, 605, 607, 626
Dogmatism, political, 59, 240
Dominic, 216, 246-247, 623
Dominicans, 217, 243, 249
Dominion, 114, 116, 118;
spread of,140, 261, 284, 300, 625, 631, 636;
of man over wife and daughters, 355, 371;
of custom, 473
Domitian, 208, 289
Don Juan, 597
_Donatio propter nuptias_, 404
Donatists, 210, 219
_Dos_, 404
Drama, 61, 68, 70, 78, 220, 227, 239, 471, 537, 545-608, 613.
See Mimus; folk drama, 583, 590, 595
Dresden Museum, 331
Dress, 5, 69-72, 92, 96, 111, 171, 184-186, 190-198, 203, 243, 419,
424-426, 429, 432-447, 469, 521, 530, 564, 577, 615;
pattern, 147, 153;
left off, 424-425, 439;
relation of, to decorum and chastity, 437;
the bride's, 409;
evening, 428, 440
Drift of the mores, 87, 99, 141
Drink, a, 84, 234, 267, 462, 546, 585, 611
Drinking, not to be seen, 459
Drunkenness, 454, 469, 478, 549, 560
Du Maurier, 193
Duels, 153, 508
Dundreary, Lord, 43, 576
Dyak, 142, 274, 314, 339, 421, 436, 439, 442, 459, 484, 501
Eabani, 536
East, the, 104, 111, 149, 441, 443, 474, 544, 571, 587
Eating and drinking, 191, 334, 427, 458-459, 462-463, 469, 497, 513,
516;
spouses together, 409;
unclean things, 615
Ecclesiastics, 82-92, 117, 139, 169, 184, 222-226, 228, 237, 240, 245,
254-257, 290, 369, 407-412, 448, 472, 489, 582-595, 619-622, 632,
644, 650
Economy, 37
Edward II, 257;
Edward VI, 256
Effigies, votive, 80
Egoistic reference, 21
Egypt, 36, 74, 117, 234, 264, 299, 336, 349, 353, 432, 434, 448, 474,
485, 505, 510, 538, 541, 577, 580, 587
Egyptians, 26, 110, 182, 236, 318, 336, 339,433, 438, 446, 458, 485,
518, 544, 553, 630
Elisha, 10, 277
Elite, the, 103, 206
Elizabeth of England, 257
Elizabeth of Thuringia, 205
Embryology, 481, 496
Emigration, 36, 96, 105, 108, 209, 310, 528
Empire, 82-83, 92-93, 101, 103, 106, 116, 208-218, 222, 234-237, 242,
254-256, 282-295, 318-319, 360, 365, 371, 390, 406, 447, 503, 525,
559, 580-587, 590
Endogamy, 318, 343, 350, 482-485
_Enfans sans Souci_, 594
England, 45, 82, 114, 126, 143, 166, 177, 190, 197, 209, 229, 256-257,
273, 306, 382, 385, 392, 411, 414, 455, 470, 490, 522-524, 527, 561,
597, 631, 635
Englishman, 73, 82, 87, 92, 111, 116-117, 383-389, 435-444, 450, 454,
474, 478, 643
Enslavement, 226, 279, 283, 297, 300, 468
Environment, 17, 19, 63, 68, 73, 113, 159, 376, 463-464, 507
Envy, 105, 117, 158, 165, 184, 373, 466, 515-519, 574, 595
Epic poems, 174-175, 536, 640, 642
Epidemics, 23, 210, 215, 219, 443
Epiphanius, 542
Epithet names, 296
Epithets, 13, 176, 179, 484, 573
Equal, all are, 164, 284;
all members are, 288-289;
all Moslems are, 301-302
Equality, 39, 43-44, 48, 59, 92, 162, 290-291, 366, 372, 376, 379, 542,
575, 648
Error, 9, 32-33, 49, 58, 95, 99, 102, 114, 117, 126, 128, 140, 162, 359,
471, 476, 478, 483, 627, 633-634, 636-637;
curve of probable, 40
Eskimo, 14, 25, 109, 121-122, 142, 152, 323, 325, 382, 422, 433, 441,
485, 501, 512, 514
Essenes, 430, 445, 615
d'Este, Alphonso, 601
Ethics, 33-38, 78, 91, 114, 137, 158-164, 174, 201, 228, 232, 243, 310,
320-321, 347-353, 464, 477, 547, 618
Ethnocentrism, 13-15
Ethology, 36-37, 59, 70-74, 561, 597
Eulenspiegel, see Till, 597
Euphrates valley, 236, 386, 504, 536, 555-556
Eve, 193, 414, 444
Evil, 58, 76, 99, 101, 227, 259, 307, 359, 420, 444, 469, 481, 488,
491-492, 525, 529-530, 550, 552, 606
Evil eye, the, 25, 386, 429, 433, 459, 509-510, 515-519
Eveans, 263, 268
Exaggeration, 184, 192, 197, 203, 231, 485, 575-578, 599, 642, 645
Excess, 102, 197, 204, 212, 225, 256, 359, 419-420, 428, 468-470, 521,
531, 536-537, 544, 560, 562, 575, 605-606, 646, 650
Excluded, the, from a monopoly, 373
Execution, 195, 209, 234, 240, 242-246, 250-260, 295, 464-465, 470, 522,
530, 596
_Exiit qui seminat_, 625
Exogamy, 12, 350, 397, 482, 485
Exorcism, 123, 446
Expediency, 19, 56, 60-61, 68, 76, 80, 92, 99, 119, 192, 309-310, 321,
400-401, 418-419, 490, 546, 606, 610, 640, 644
Experiment, 2, 3, 70, 121, 125, 130, 155, 192, 261, 419, 424, 463, 495,
606, 652
Exposure of infants, 313, 318-320, 322, 420-421, 425, 427, 430, 434,
441, 451-452, 458
Extermination, 17, 212, 241, 243, 246, 260, 264
Extravagances, 57, 86, 185, 192, 200, 202, 204, 212, 248, 275, 469-470,
472, 506, 530, 561, 602, 610-611, 626
Eymerich, 257
Ezzelino da Romano, 247, 524, 599
Fabulous story of Francis, 624
Factions, 18, 228, 259, 282, 524, 583, 595
Faculty, critical, 633
Fads, 57, 78, 93, 191, 197-198, 218, 220, 644-645
"Faith," the, 595
Falsehood, 181, 195, 199, 207, 210, 371, 627, 639-642
Familiar, 450, 574, 611
Familiarity, 22, 35, 61, 80, 233, 389, 452-453, 494, 531
Family, 8, 35, 102, 112, 123, 140-141, 151, 164-166, 172, 196, 205-206,
234, 251, 258, 342-343, 345-356, 366-368, 376-379, 381-382, 463,
493-496, 501, 549-556, 616, 619-621, 628-629
Fanaticism, 52, 100, 239, 243-244, 252, 472, 621
Fashion, 22, 47. 57, 94, 112, 124, 130, 146, 148, 168, 184-186, 188-191,
194-220, 307, 356, 386, 426-428, 444-446, 522, 573, 595, 603, 631,
634, 644
Father family, 109, 112, 322, 332, 354-358, 378, 380, 397, 467, 479,
484-485, 494, 502, 533
Fear, 18, 33, 210, 212, 285, 309, 320, 333, 383, 422, 425, 428, 484,
573, 609
Fecundity, 484
Feet, 127, 421, 427, 434, 455;
of Chinese women, 450
Female, 466, 535-536;
seeks male, 343;
characteristics, 343, 394;
infants killed, 363
Ferocity, 212, 231, 233, 469, 508, 522, 524, 557, 563, 652
Fetich, 51, 125, 274, 337, 345, 620-621
Fiendishness, 212
Fig gesture, 518
Figures, 448-451;
of speech, 468, 496;
stereotyped, of comedy, 447, 577, 580, 591
Fire, 130-133, 203, 213, 346, 497, 499, 512-513, 554
Fiscus, 292-293, 298
Fish, 119-123, 429, 608
Fit, that which is, 466;
the least, 491
Flagellation, 23, 211, 213, 445, 593
"Flesh," the, 567, 612
"Flesh, one," 414
Floralia, 568-569
Florus, Joachim de, 216, 253
Folkways, 106, 119, 132-133, 157, 224, 245, 261, 309, 312-313, 328, 343,
346-347, 350, 354-355, 393, 400, 417-418, 421, 440, 445, 463-474,
480-482, 493-494, 499, 506, 509, 528, 549, 552, 562, 573, 593, 631,
634
Food quest, 3, 21, 31, 120, 123, 311, 347, 351, 561
Food supply, 26, 30, 119-120, 122, 210, 269, 305, 312-317, 330, 333,
337-341, 447, 450, 459, 535, 550, 563, 613, 622
Foods, 82, 151, 191, 357, 474, 497, 513, 530, 540, 546, 607, 611, 615
Fool, the theatrical, 594
Forces of social regeneration, 224
Foreskin, 448
Fork, 331, 462
Formality, 454;
of marriage, 67
Formula for luck, etc., 123, 372, 389, 397-399, 403, 566
Formularies of the Inquisition, 253
Foundations, pious, 644
Foweira, 438
France, 14, 86, 165, 190, 247, 298, 301, 304, 310, 338, 392, 414, 416,
460, 472, 561, 589, 593-598, 602, 635
Francis d'Assisi, 215-216, 246-247, 622-626
Franciscans, 216-217, 242-243, 252, 622-626
Franks, 298;
the Salic, 495
Fraternities, 595, 598
Frederick II, emperor, 87, 247-249, 254-256, 508
Frederick III, 409
Frederick the Great, 93
Free trade, 114, 631
Friars, the preaching, 299, 622, 624-625
Friendship, mystical, 610
Frivolity, 45, 57, 186, 189, 212, 557, 583
Fructification of the date palm, 535, 540, 548
Frugality, 150, 452, 625
_Frumentaria_, 281
Fun, 263, 471, 521, 528, 534, 573-574, 577-578, 583, 590, 594, 599, 600,
602
Funny or shameful, 451, 574
Fusion of two lives, 372, 375, 415
Fuss about nothing, 582
Fussy old man, 601
Future, the, 59, 73, 88, 165, 368, 510
Gambling, 195, 207, 271, 273, 275, 530, 560, 578;
places, 55, 208
Game, 25, 84-85, 120, 193, 207, 324, 339, 378, 441, 468, 470, 524, 527,
561, 569-571, 583, 585-586
_Gandharva_ marriage, 362, 365
Garter, 450
Gaul, 557, 585
Geelvinkbai, 314
General in triumph, 518
Genitals, 430-433
Genius, 41-42, 44, 344, 628, 648-649;
of the Romans, 583
Gentiles, 14
Gentleman, 204-207, 603
Germ units, 481
Germans, 81-83, 101, 140, 154, 293, 295, 297, 306, 318, 326, 385,
409-410, 443, 469, 475-478, 538, 543, 559, 586, 632, 641, 643
Germany, 14, 63, 92, 97, 196, 214, 298, 406, 412, 414, 434, 443, 478,
527, 593, 597, 599, 635
Gerson, 227, 370
Gesture, 191, 420, 426, 442, 448, 455, 564, 573, 575, 582, 588
Ghost fear, 3, 7, 28-30, 67, 79, 346
Ghosts, 3, 9, 13, 28-32, 123, 146-147, 195, 235, 275, 309, 313, 333,
336, 387, 430-431, 465, 496, 499, 506, 562, 566, 569, 607-608, 610
Gilgamesh story, 536
Girdle, 188, 323, 426, 432-433, 437-439, 448, 456, 531
Girls, 303, 313-318, 358, 382-384, 397, 421, 428, 440-443, 453, 497,
513, 534, 541, 544, 549
Gladiators, 570-572, 584, 586, 649
Gladness, religious, 107
Glass, 130, 151, 176, 471
Glory, 54, 150, 202, 266, 355, 386, 504, 571, 576, 614, 648
Go-betweens, 580
Goblinism, 7, 26, 30, 33-34, 132, 195, 203, 235, 313, 333, 429, 433,
435, 446, 496, 506, 510, 608
God, the highest, 103;
the true, 159-160, 213, 216, 231, 238, 243, 259, 275, 291, 301, 401,
430, 445, 466-467, 469, 496, 513, 526, 536, 540, 543, 553-558, 582,
591, 614-617, 621
God, the word, 566
Goddess, 358, 362, 451, 466, 536, 541-542, 543, 548, 550-552, 556, 563
Gods, heathen, 69, 103-108, 123, 159, 174, 210, 237-239, 275, 295, 362,
385, 397, 402, 405, 430, 433, 451, 465, 505, 536, 538, 541, 545, 549,
555, 581-588, 608-609, 611-618, 643;
intervention of, 85;
teaching of, 28
Gods eat souls, 336
Gold, 142, 147, 149, 153-157
Good, 204;
say naught but, 195;
the highest, 161;
and ill, 101, 159, 231, 346-347
Good cheer, 447;
fellowship, 168, 363,643;
living, 641;
looks, 191;
nature, 363;
sense, 347, 363;
woman, 394;
works, 255
Goodness and badness, 58, 79, 102, 471
Goodness and happiness, 8, 10-11, 204
Gospel, 214-217, 626;
the eternal, 253
Government, 12, 115, 164, 167-170, 177, 209, 280, 338, 474, 499-500,
507, 650
_Gracioso_, 594
Graft, 170, 634
Graves, 26, 127, 512-513
Great, the, 252, 573
Great men, 152, 154
Great Mother, the, 562
Grecian bend, 190
Greece, 36, 159, 180, 199, 447-448, 467, 497, 568, 571, 575-577, 612
Greek civilization, 106-116, 203-204, 236, 468
Greeks, 11, 14, 62, 94, 103, 105, 160, 174, 180, 194, 279, 282, 318,
326, 362, 375, 390, 430, 447, 449, 465-468, 471, 474, 513, 518
Gregory I, 401
Gregory VII. See Hildebrand
Gregory IX, 212, 216, 248
Growth demons, 447, 449, 577-578
Guardian, next male, 354, 407, 410
Guest friend, 12, 505, 533
Gui, Bernard, 252
Guicciardini, 644
Guycurus, 138, 271, 315, 325
Gyges, 10
H, 116
Habit, 2, 3, 24, 28, 34, 46, 60-62, 77, 90, 100, 107, 132, 136, 141,
165, 168, 171, 176, 196-197, 331, 363, 421, 424, 435, 439, 443, 461,
494-495, 513, 535, 629, 633
Habitat, 137, 352
Hair, a woman's, sacrificed for herself, 556
Half-civilization, 96, 111, 362-363, 397
Hamilton, Alexander, 631
Hammurabi, 233, 276-277, 486, 550
Hand, only the left used, 457
Hansa, 63, 183, 530
Hanswurst, 594, 597
Hardship, 160, 164, 276, 311, 313, 328, 617
Harem, 111, 249, 334, 349
Harlot, 234, 457, 529-531, 537
"Harlot, the Great," 538
Harlotry, sacral, 375, 418, 534-548, 551-552, 558
Hate, 95, 110, 212, 217, 231-232, 238-240, 263, 299, 302, 524, 646, 653
Head, 208, 210, 431, 433-434, 465, 505;
woman's, in church, 455-456, 582
Head-hunting, 13, 272, 274
Heathen, 111, 117, 224, 238-239, 488, 543, 558-559, 570, 590, 595, 616
Heloise, 228
Heredity, 84, 461, 493, 496
Heresy, 209-217, 225-251, 253-259, 626, 637
Heretic, 21, 23, 95-96, 210-220, 231-238, 240-247, 253-259, 300, 522,
623, 625-626;
definition of a, 242-253
Hero, 90, 93, 95, 101, 105, 118, 174-175, 180, 198, 200, 203, 217,
255-256, 297, 324, 326, 402, 464-466, 517, 536, 543, 573, 577-581,
597, 617, 622, 631, 640-642, 650-652
Heroine, 430, 536, 613
Hervis, Romance of, 298
Hildebrand, or Gregory VII, 225-227, 229
Hindoos, 27, 73, 91-92, 362, 383, 389, 450, 457, 459, 417, 545, 588;
wife, 365
Hindostan, 143, 188, 224, 332, 340, 366, 378, 442, 448, 544, 547
Historyism, 636
Hohenstaufen, 370
Holiness, 70, 213, 224-225, 255, 515, 567, 608-619
Holy, 340, 446, 505, 551;
fire, 123;
Ghost, 625;
Land, 214, 592, 620;
Office, 247, 252-259 (see Inquisition);
Scriptures, 245, 340
Homer, 108-109, 154, 199, 278, 335, 465-466, 487, 510, 517, 564, 641
Honor, 82, 109, 172, 245, 258, 322-323, 356, 364, 390, 425, 438,
451-452, 457-458, 463-464, 473, 502, 541, 652
Horde, 48, 481
Horn, 120, 127, 128-129
Horses, 271, 425, 516-517
Hottentots, 269, 318, 325, 433, 460
House of Commons, 523
Howard, 114, 523
Hrotsvitha, 591
Humanitarianism, 39, 78, 98, 114, 179-181, 195-198, 203, 239, 262, 270,
287, 290, 306, 327, 468, 523
Humbug, 57, 175, 256;
no, 574
Humiliati, 216-217, 622
Humility, 97, 215, 243, 366
Hungary, 92, 316, 503, 518
Hunger, 18, 33, 250, 324, 326, 331, 341, 346, 459
Huskisson, Mr., 509
Hyksos, 264
Hypocrisy, 217, 252, 255-256, 368, 601, 619, 627
Hysteria, 23, 210, 219
Ibsen, 198
Iceland, 320, 326, 408
Ideal, 32, 57, 96, 99, 137, 174-175, 186-191, 201-207, 216, 220, 223,
286, 315, 367, 371-375, 405, 415, 417, 466, 476-477, 491, 503, 505,
561, 610, 624-625, 630
Ideal man of his time, the, 624
Idealization, 202, 355-359, 362
Ignatius, 407
Ill, how to avert, 517
Ills of life, 6-8, 211, 218, 553
_Illuminati_, 197
Imagination, 32-33, 93, 98, 176, 201-202, 233, 250, 336-337
Imaginative element, 32, 649-650, 652
Imitation of the rich and great, 386
Immigrants, 86, 116, 209, 310
Immodesty, 379, 434, 437, 445
Immoral, 110, 217, 227, 418, 432, 440, 549, 585, 598
Impaling, 182, 236
Imperialism, 98, 579
_Implicita fides_, 255
Impostors, the three great, 249, 253
Improper to be seen and known, 450, 492
Impropriety, 331, 368, 418, 427, 434, 442, 451, 453-455, 458, 545, 594,
653
Inbreeding, 350, 481-482, 485-486, 492
Inca, 337, 480, 486
Incest, 109, 233-234, 318, 334, 418, 479, 483-487;
what is not, 479-480, 488-489, 490-492, 551
Incestuous sects, 546
Indecent, 366, 421, 425, 428, 430, 439-440, 444, 448, 458.
See Decent
India, 22, 27, 36, 71-75, 109, 113, 125, 153, 309, 315, 318, 322, 331,
352, 367, 383-385, 388, 393, 409, 428, 450, 457, 500, 516-517,
545-546, 586, 588, 611
Indians, American, 11, 48, 84, 108, 113, 121, 126, 129-131, 133, 152,
182, 186, 262, 270-272, 315, 323-324, 339, 433, 438-439, 442, 446,
454, 459, 461, 474, 483, 497-498, 549, 639
Indians of Central America, 81
Indians of Hindostan, 26, 84
Indianizing, 84
Individual, 73, 100, 107, 141, 159, 174, 181-185, 192, 194, 196, 200,
208, 220, 309, 346, 382, 463-464, 467, 469, 473
Individualism, 98, 646, 652
Individuality, 24, 43, 73, 370
Individualization, 70, 74
Industriousness, 150, 465
Inertia, 46, 75, 79
Infamy, 258, 361
Infanticide, 58, 109, 117, 174, 308-312, 316-321, 327-328, 333, 484, 553
Infibulation, 448
Ingenuity, 120-121, 126, 131-133, 481, 522, 546, 649;
in torture, 465
In-group, 12, 15, 29, 116, 148, 263, 331, 333, 496, 498-500, 503
Inheritance, 76, 131, 162, 165, 245, 305, 396, 414-415, 478, 481, 495,
502, 538
Innocent III, 240, 244, 247, 392, 595
Innocent IV, 249, 254
Innocent VIII, 227, 256
Innocent XI, 600
Innovations, 87, 93, 168, 455, 609
Inquisition, 217, 222, 236, 242, 244, 246, 248, 250, 252-259, 625
Inquisitorial process, 242
Inquisitors, 231-232, 241, 245, 249-259, 611
Inscriptions, Roman, 284, 287, 446
Institution, 15, 24-25, 35, 45-56, 67, 76-77, 82-83, 87-103, 107, 110,
118, 135, 164-169, 171, 180, 202, 205, 217, 229, 258, 267, 278, 290,
304, 342-363, 393-397, 411, 414, 470, 472, 492-506, 531-552, 571, 590,
629-635
Insult, 72, 239, 422, 453-454, 468, 542, 582, 653
Integration, 36, 230, 496, 500, 503
Intercourse, social, 111, 116, 140, 251, 344, 363, 545
Interest, aleatory, 553, 607, 627
Interest and interests, _passim_
Interest (on a loan), 273
Intergroup, 143-152, 154-155
Intermarriage, 116, 162, 486-490
"Intermediate state," the, 613
Intermezzo, 569
Intimacy, conjugal, 614
Intragroup, 143-144, 146-149, 155
Investigation, 54, 57, 123, 220, 235 236, 427, 498, 506, 637
Iphigenia, 14, 458, 467, 554
Iranians, 26, 84, 326
Irish, 143, 299, 332, 335
Iron, 187-188, 471, 517
Iroquois, 63, 235, 575
Isaiah, 191
Ishtar, 536-540, 550, 552, 562-563
Isis, 485, 585
Islam, 203, 223, 301-302, 364, 498, 503-504, 557, 620
Israel, 10, 398-399, 502, 558
Italy, 63-64, 101, 199, 215, 246, 250, 252, 256, 258-259, 292-293, 299,
447, 515, 518, 577-578, 586-589, 592, 596, 599-603, 622, 634, 643-647,
653
J, French, 139
Jahveh, 81, 398, 542, 557-558
JAI = _Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain._
See List of Books Cited
Japan, 71-75, 90, 94, 110, 123, 151, 276, 318, 364, 375, 419, 440-441,
446, 459, 461, 474, 502, 549, 586, 608
JASB = _Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay._
See List of Books Cited
Java, 149, 424, 448, 484, 535, 588
Jefferson, T., 51, 631
Jerome, 290, 360-361, 378, 390, 401
Jests, 70, 82, 113, 295, 423, 451, 472, 518, 521, 562, 576, 599, 601
Jettatura, 515-518
Jews, 14, 62, 79, 81, 93, 110, 113, 159, 218, 234, 238, 249, 257, 294,
298, 301, 313-321, 336-340, 398-400, 409, 445, 448, 456, 487, 518,
554, 559, 580, 582, 590, 595, 614-616
Joachim, Abbot of Flores, 216, 253
Jongleurs, 370, 592
Joseph II, 75, 92-93
Joy, in religion, 107;
in success, 105;
and pain, 105
Judas of Galilee, 219
Jugganatha, 545
Jurists, 83, 254, 302, 318, 360, 372, 470
Justice, 49, 66, 169, 209, 220, 241, 250, 254, 467, 470-471, 501,
506-507, 619
Justinian, 55, 288, 291, 319, 404-405;
code of, 82.
See Corpus Juris Civilis in List of Books Cited
K, 139
Kabyls, 318, 456, 489, 507, 516
Kadiveo, 315
Kaffirs, 110, 265, 269, 362, 422
_Kalevala_, the, 175
Kamerun, 345, 437, 511
_Karagoz_, 448, 587
_Kedeshim_, 542-543
_Ketubah_, 399
Killing the old, 322-331, 506-507
Kin group, 68, 131
Kingsley, Charles, 394
Kinship, 340, 352-358, 363, 383, 389, 433, 473, 479-481, 495-502,
505-590, 566
Kiss, 410, 418, 459-460;
tabooed, 462
Knife, 120, 125, 127, 132, 153;
sense, 125, 132;
or fingers, 463
Koran, 301, 320, 455, 518
Korarima, 144
Krishna, 545, 640
_Kubisteteres_, 564
Kubus, 329, 435
Kwakiutl, 512
Labor, 26, 35, 53, 61, 105-106, 114, 118, 126, 135, 158-162, 168-169,
178, 215, 261, 268, 285, 295, 533, 594, 607, 610, 623, 627
Laborers, 178, 180, 265, 268, 272, 280, 292, 295, 304, 306, 367
Labret, 271, 434
Lamas, 224, 338
Land, 39, 45, 88, 114, 159, 161-165, 178, 183, 281, 291, 293, 351
Lateran church, 226
Lateran council, 226, 240
_Latifundia_, 281, 290, 293
Law, Roman, 81-83, 235, 238, 240, 251;
canon, 82, 226, 242, 375, 380-381;
Moslem, 456
_Lazarillo de Tormes_, 597
La Verna, 215, 623
Left hand, the, 474
Legends, 174, 481, 553, 561, 564, 643
Leisure, 160, 162
Leo I, 584
Leo X, 231, 647
Levant, 300
Levelers, 97, 379
Levity, 104, 137, 196, 466
Lewdness, 69, 423, 437, 543-544, 552, 652
_Lex Julia de Majestate_, 237
_Libellus dotis_, 410
Libyans, 26
License, 70, 214, 242, 346, 370, 441, 533, 537-538, 546, 548, 550,
563-564, 587, 594, 619
Lies, five allowed, 641;
are great sins, 641
Life conditions, 16, 29, 32, 33, 36, 39, 49, 56, 58, 68, 75, 79, 84-85,
89, 94, 100-103, 115, 308, 310-312, 324, 326-327, 350-351;
policy, 16, 29, 33-34, 59, 67, 79, 86, 96, 105, 324;
problems, 79
Life, the seat of, 332-336
Li-ki, 461
Limb of tree about to fall, 516
Lincoln, Abraham, 90, 637-638
Line, where drawn, 421, 425
Lingam, 22, 450, 546-547
Liturgies, 565-566
Loafer, 106, 283
Lohengrin, 412
Loss, 58, 71, 128, 144, 423, 481, 515-516, 552, 583, 610, 614, 629, 633,
653
Louis le Hutin, 298
Louis IX, 247
Louis XIV, 11, 184
Louis XV, 470
Love, 110, 135, 199, 228, 297, 358, 361-367, 369, 371, 373, 425, 492,
526-527, 536, 555, 562, 588, 591, 596-597, 619, 652
Love stories, 278, 362
Lovers, 550, 562, 576, 596, 650
Love-wife, 355
Loyalty, 13, 15, 96, 246, 286, 296, 355, 422, 650
Luciferans, 218
Lucius III, 242
Lucius Verus, 286
Luck, 6, 7, 8, 11, 41, 396, 411, 478, 484, 485, 509, 515-516, 518-519,
583, 608, 610, 627, 645
Ludovico il Moro, 651
Lupanar, 208, 529-531, 581
Lust, 198, 235, 255, 529, 536, 648-650;
of conquest, 464;
of cruelty, 523
Luxury, 45, 53, 151, 160, 164-165, 189, 198, 208, 235, 319, 351, 362,
368-369, 444, 451-452, 465, 558, 603, 606-607, 609, 613-614, 616, 621,
625-627
Lynching, 20, 24, 115, 221, 234, 238, 244, 248, 260, 470
_Lysistrata_, 564
Madagascar, 25, 317, 322, 461, 484, 512
Magic, 4, 5, 7, 61, 123, 135, 419, 433, 435, 446-447, 510, 519, 535,
539, 548, 555, 563, 621
Mahabharata, the, 175, 203, 365, 388-389, 640
Maintenon, Madame de, 602
_Maiuma_, 584
Malatesta, Gismondo, 647
Malay, 273, 358, 442, 459
Males, 343, 367, 370, 429, 432, 436, 468, 535, 546
Males and females, proportion of, 107;
traits of, 344
Man, the common, 50, 205-206;
and wife, 349, 403, 407, 410, 413;
the modern, 87;
of talent, 163, 183-184, 266;
on-the-curbstone, 14, 98, 206;
as-he-should-be, 174, 191, 203-206
Manias, 22-23, 57, 210-211, 216-221, 337, 611, 621, 626, 638, 652
Manichæans, 210, 218, 237, 243, 259, 392
Man-woman and woman-man, 534
Marcus Aurelius, 175, 292, 390, 569, 584
Marduk, 486
Marius, 282, 404, 583
Marks of ownership, 276, 468
Marriage, child, 382-386, 389, 390;
clerical, 225-229, 391;
pair, 359, 361, 371-373, 377;
with a tree, 393
Married, duly, 374, 408, 479, 484-485, 490;
not, 479-490
Mass phenomena, 2, 8, 16, 19-20, 23, 34-35, 184, 200, 202, 210-212, 347
Matrimony, 67, 202, 349, 369, 403
Mawl, the holy, 326
Mbayas, 13, 271
Meaning, 578, 647;
lacking, 178, 189
Meat food, 329, 340, 346, 456, 546, 608, 612-613, 616-617
Medea, 467, 471, 581
Medici, Gian Angelo, 118
Medicine men, 64, 123, 146, 161, 179
Melanesia, 144, 150, 156, 188, 272, 314, 325, 334, 339, 454, 458, 516
Memory, 78, 80, 134, 219
Mendicant orders, 212, 215-217, 248, 623-624, 626
Menstruation, 511-512
Merceria, 189
Meretrices, 256, 369, 584
Merovingians, 99-100
Meteorology, 190, 555
Mexicans, 127, 536-537, 543, 548, 553-554
Mexico, 66, 148, 271, 337, 483, 548, 555, 563, 578, 586
Michael Angelo, 647-648, 651-652
Micronesians, 339, 341
Middle Ages, 15-52, 82-94, 135, 160-161, 182, 211-235, 240-259, 281,
297-298, 320, 337, 340-341, 371, 391, 401, 408-428, 443, 460, 469,
503, 522-531, 550, 564-569, 592-601, 621-647
_Miles gloriosus_, 601
Militancy, 63, 66, 73-74, 88, 98, 104, 113, 160, 393, 579
Milk, 322, 339, 495, 517
_Milte_, 204
Mimus, 447, 449, 577-578, 580, 582, 586-588, 595, 600-601
Minne, 368
Miracles, 591, 593, 621, 623
Misery, 100, 114, 210, 214, 221, 251, 281, 292, 313, 381, 387, 391, 523,
536, 585, 633, 648
Misfortune, 6, 107, 235, 251, 287, 387, 424, 561, 572, 609
"Missionary-made man," 112, 629
Missions, 76, 108, 111-113, 317
Mithra, 585
Mob, 53, 238, 244, 571
Mockery of Christianity, 582
Mode, mathematical, 42, 44, 50
Modesty, 57, 195, 199, 287, 394, 418-427, 429-435, 441, 443, 453-459,
575, 648
_Moeurs_, 37
Mohammed, 26, 249, 301, 363, 378, 391, 428, 455, 504-505, 517, 620;
uncle of, 335
Mohammedanism, 61, 111, 117, 149, 210, 303, 383-384, 388, 435, 441, 451,
454, 456, 507, 510
Mohammedans. See Moslems
_Momaria_, 599
Monks, 62, 204, 619, 622, 647
Monogamy, 110, 112, 352-353, 357, 368, 374, 402-403
Mores, _passim_
Moses, 85, 94, 249, 399, 430, 487
Moslems, 185, 203, 249, 269, 297, 303, 474, 503, 557, 620, 636-637
Mother, goddess, 545;
of the gods, 542-543, 563;
becomes a wife, 484-489
Mother family, 109, 112, 317, 324, 343, 354-355, 358, 377, 467, 479,
494, 550
Mourning, 366, 455, 512, 608
Mungo Park, 268
Murder, 182, 241, 267, 269, 320, 325, 467, 496, 498, 500, 506, 648-650;
of strangers, 109
Murderer, 156, 496, 499-502
Murner, T., 369
Museum, 123-125, 126, 131, 149, 338
Mutilation, 239, 429, 465, 608
Mystery, 7, 44, 432, 481, 536-537, 540, 545, 564-568, 593-599, 613, 617;
plays, 580-581
Mystics, 108, 153, 220, 253, 319, 567, 612
Myth, 10, 14, 31, 35, 103, 105, 143, 174, 177, 275, 441, 464-465, 536,
550, 561, 563-565;
making, 642
Nagas, 339, 454, 500
Nairs, 353;
polyandry amongst the, 352
Naked, 214, 429, 436-438, 441;
to sleep, 442, 445, 450;
until marriage, 438-439;
a lady, 441
Nakedness, 69, 429-431, 435-440, 452, 455, 652
Name, 14, 139, 370, 453-454, 462, 516-518;
of Christ, 243
Naples, 258, 409, 444, 530, 581, 586, 600, 650
Napoleon, 87-88, 168, 184, 519
Nation, 43, 68, 107, 113, 154, 196, 500, 635
_Natit_, 441
Nature and nurture, 74
Nature peoples. See Primitive man
Nazarites, 615
Necessity, 160, 179, 241, 522
Needs, 2, 6, 33-35, 46, 55, 59, 73, 95, 99, 102, 117, 132-136, 140, 142,
164, 197, 230, 246, 261, 265-266, 311, 324, 327, 349, 395, 445, 451,
510, 568, 603
Negroes, 48, 64, 78, 110-112, 132, 139, 234, 265-269, 299, 305, 436,
441, 456, 459, 474, 572, 578, 601
Neighbor, 147-148, 308, 311, 456, 498, 504
Nero, 237, 283, 286, 289, 584
Netherlands, 97, 526-527
New Britain, 140, 150, 314, 330, 382, 436, 438
New countries, 42
New England, 85, 97, 108, 210, 304, 310, 416, 634
New Guinea, 13, 122, 140, 147, 314-317, 436, 500
New Hebrides, 149-150, 314, 334, 433, 459
New South Wales, 119
New Testament, 81, 236, 266, 337, 381, 400, 402, 513, 559
New York, 156, 234, 498
New Zealand, 316, 323, 329
Newspapers, 48, 50, 52, 176-177, 425, 579, 631-632
Newquay, 455
Nibelungen, 175, 370, 412, 641
Niccolo de' Lapi, 430
Nicholas I of Russia, 192
Nicholas I, pope, 237
Nicholas II, pope, 227
Nicholas V, pope, 299
Night visits, 525-526, 529
Njal, 642
Nobles, 73, 83, 92, 94, 143, 162-166, 184, 264, 286, 295, 300, 370, 374,
376, 442, 573, 590, 644, 650, 653
Nomads rule tillers, 203, 264
Novels, 180, 191, 198, 202, 207, 220;
picaresque, 597-598
Nullification, 258
Nuns, 62, 420, 426, 462, 526, 591
Oasis cultivation, 535
Oaths, 153, 196, 243, 615, 640
Ob river, 445
Obscene, 434, 441, 446-450, 472, 517, 546, 548, 570, 584, 598-599,
602-603
Obscenity, 250, 255, 370, 445, 449-451, 471-472, 522, 569, 581, 590,
607, 652
Obtrusiveness, 184, 447
Occident, 6, 71, 91, 428, 431, 435, 499
Offal eaten, 339
Offspring, to get vigorous, 351, 481, 484, 489, 496
Olbos, 104, 204
Old, the, 11, 602, 653;
murder of, 109, 502
Old Testament, 69, 79, 154, 203, 372, 397, 487, 513, 543, 558, 614
Olecranon, pierced, 191
Omissions, 143;
edifying, 635
Opera bouffe, 572-573
Opportunity, 41, 108, 111, 118, 121, 132, 163, 171, 198, 239, 284, 355,
357, 397, 421-422, 481, 620, 629, 634
Optimism, 75, 101, 107, 141, 163, 198
Opulence, 104, 204
Ordeal, 240, 519
Orders, Holy, 391
Orestes, 109, 207, 467, 498, 614
Orgiastic religion, 107
Orient, 6, 91, 511
Orientals, 57, 111, 185, 426, 431, 435, 440, 455, 460
Origins, 7, 14, 25-26, 54-55, 123, 131-135, 146, 176, 202, 217, 421, 463
Ornament, 133, 142, 146-152, 186-189, 425-429, 433, 437, 439, 446, 517
Orthodoxy, 95, 217, 237, 239, 243, 631-632
Osiris, 485
Ossetes, 484, 502
Ossetin, 454
Ostracism, 72
Other-than-expected person, an, 91
Others-group, 12
Other-worldliness, 26, 29, 101, 212, 393
Outbreeding, 481-482
Out-group, 12, 116, 143, 263, 331, 334, 498, 500
Overconsciousness, 450
Overpopulation, 212, 550, 562
Ox, 554
Paganism, 116, 224, 238, 256, 361, 405, 424, 582, 645
Pair marriage, 76, 357, 363
Palau Islands, 143, 151, 358, 422, 436, 454
Pantaleone, 580, 602-603
_Pantins_, 448, 588
Papacy, 87, 222, 225, 227, 230-231, 258-259, 595
Papuans, 13, 187, 314, 358, 435, 438-439
Paraguay, 138, 188, 325
Parenthood, 373
Parents and children, 11, 22, 84, 205, 214, 322-324, 328, 332, 454, 494
Parents-in-law, 365-366, 453-454
Pariahs, 113
Paris, 189, 250, 298, 427, 579, 593, 596, 600, 602
Parsee, 513
Party, 18, 22-23, 53, 88, 95-96, 115, 230, 232-233, 242, 355, 468, 470,
524, 579, 605, 618, 635-636, 640
Passion, 99, 110, 118, 168, 176, 198, 212-213, 221, 235, 240, 362-364,
368, 432, 465, 468, 522, 526, 571, 581, 595
Paston, Margaret, 369
Pathos, 180-181, 223, 375, 579
Patins, 189
Patmore, Coventry, 371
_Patria potestas_, 289
Paul III, 595
Paul the Apostle, 208, 400
Pawn slave, 269, 273-276, 305
Peace, 12, 29, 48-49, 66, 77, 147, 150-151, 222, 228, 249, 280-281, 288,
328, 346, 373, 456, 474, 496-500, 504, 572, 577, 584;
the king's, 507-508
Peace bond, 499, 503-504, 507
Peace group, 13
Peace pact, 63
Peasants, 47, 83-89, 100, 140, 168, 184, 207, 218, 245, 281, 291, 294,
302, 328, 338, 376, 413
_Peculium_, 277
Pederasty, 418
Pedro II of Aragon, 247
Penance, 160, 213, 399, 414, 443, 548
People, the, 51, 86-89, 98, 116, 161, 167, 176-177, 189, 222, 225, 231,
245-246, 251, 283, 475, 480, 492, 501, 525-526, 534, 540, 637
Peoples, 82, 91, 113, 362, 418-419, 425
Persecution, 95-97, 236, 238-241, 243-248, 252, 260, 470
Persia, 62, 210, 236, 398, 448, 465, 486, 586, 641
Persistency, 75, 79-87, 92, 107, 114, 121, 125, 393, 538-540
Peru, 152
Peruvians, 337, 486
Perversions, 620
Pessimism, 75, 101, 103, 198, 606
Pestilence, 24, 32, 105, 235, 308, 318, 648
Peter and Paul, 241
Peter of Ravenna, 254
Peter the Great, 74, 88-89
Pets, 190, 424;
women as, 297, 358, 466
Phallus, 447-449, 517, 537, 547, 577
Phantasms, 7, 22, 61, 93, 114, 137, 177, 201-202, 205, 221, 231,
469-470, 583, 589, 633, 649
Pharaohs, 191, 480, 590
Philip of Macedon, 143
Philip IV of France, 23, 241, 250, 257, 298, 301, 593
Philip II of Spain, 249, 600
Philistion, 577, 580
Play, 197
Powers, superior, 240, 333, 340, 396, 484, 509-511, 515
Prayers, 62, 220, 337, 406, 465, 484, 609-610, 620
Preaching, 95, 201, 214, 216, 225, 242, 449, 594, 614, 618, 623, 643
_Précieuses_, 197
Prejudice, 25, 50-52, 97-98, 110, 200, 229, 492, 521, 633, 636, 647
Prelates, 216, 256, 623, 626
Prerogative, 99, 340, 376, 463, 508
Priest, 226-227, 229-230, 267, 338, 397-398, 406-416, 534, 541, 544,
557, 565, 592, 613, 616, 622, 626, 630
Priestess, harlot, 536-537, 543
Primitive man, 5, 6, 25-26, 29, 54, 122, 133, 136, 224, 226, 492-493,
499, 562
Primitive society, 2, 12, 60, 65
Priscillian, 237
Prisoners, 569, 572, 575, 625;
made slaves, 270, 272-273
Privileged persons, 258, 372
Privileges, of women, 466;
of soldiers, 548
_Probenächte_, 413
Procedure, 242, 247, 508, 532;
Roman criminal, 241
Procreation, 103, 310, 315, 345, 399-400;
notions about, 467, 494, 496-497, 616
Profanity, 196, 340, 488, 645
Progress, 4, 21, 49, 101, 103, 141, 312, 604
Prohibitory laws, 115
Proletariat, 42, 284, 286
Promiscuity, 345, 357
Promise, 639-640; marriage, 357, 409
Property, 50, 54, 64-65, 68, 76, 82-83, 85, 110, 112, 125, 131-132, 142,
215, 239, 243, 251, 270, 299, 322, 350-355, 362, 374, 378, 381,
384-388, 396, 403, 406-415, 441, 458, 492, 502, 506, 521-522, 551,
594, 615, 622-625
Prophet, 52, 81, 102, 397, 448, 513, 558-559
Proportion, numerical, of the sexes, 550
Proportion of men to food, 535
Propriety, 57, 69, 231, 358, 386, 393, 418-421, 428, 441, 452-455, 458,
462-466, 472-473, 480, 521, 525, 546-547, 560, 564, 572, 584, 598, 603
Prosperity, 6, 51, 84, 100-107, 117, 123, 141, 198, 364, 386, 398,
483-484, 503, 515-516, 519, 538, 609, 641
Prostitutes, 100, 318, 368, 423, 529, 534, 538, 542-543, 549, 563
Protestant, 371, 400, 531, 598, 635
Provence, 392
Provision for children, 317, 320-321, 539
_Pseudo-Querolus_, 581, 591
PSM = _Popular Science Monthly_
Ptolemies, 480, 485-486
Puberty, 67, 354, 383-385
Publicity, 400, 405, 415, 573
Pudenda, 436
Pulchinella, 581
Punch, 580-581, 587, 589, 597
Punch-and-Judy show, 577, 589
Punishments, 56, 108, 209-210, 212, 217, 221, 232-235, 237-240, 251,
283, 314, 428, 440, 456, 461, 470, 486, 506, 508, 522-523, 612
Purchase in marriage, 109, 355-357
Purificatory ritual, 123, 503, 512-515
Purity, 226, 371, 557, 611;
ritual, 608, 617, 619
Pygmies, 329
Pythagoreans, 566, 613, 615
Quakers, 96, 184, 210, 426, 582
Quarrel, 150, 215, 484, 498, 500, 503, 506-507, 517, 621
Queen Anne, 114, 523
Queen of Heaven, the, 558
Queen Joanna, 530
_Queesten_, 527
Quiet, 611
_Qvern_, 297
Rabelais, 578
Race, 43, 74-78, 118, 139, 187, 190, 263, 422, 473, 490, 493, 544
_Races maudites_, 113
_Ramayana_, 588
Ramses II, 485
Rank, 11, 143, 151, 159, 363, 375, 406, 408, 414-415, 490
RAS = Royal Asiatic Society
Ratio of population to land, 162
Rationalism, 193, 223, 506, 555
Rationality, 80, 105, 473
Raymond of Toulouse, 245
Reactions, 34, 95, 131, 174, 196, 231, 256, 309, 371, 463, 473, 553,
605, 627, 630, 634-635
Reality, 32, 47, 57, 114, 190, 198, 201-202, 463, 469, 470, 583, 632
Reason and conscience, 15, 95, 118
Rechabites, 615
Recollects, 216, 626
Reconstruction of religion, 540
Redeemer-God, 104
Redemption, 103, 148, 154, 554, 556-557
Redistribution of population, 114
Reference, egoistic, 211
Refinement, 45, 94, 116, 347, 452, 465, 511, 522, 573-574
Reform, 66, 73, 81, 86, 89, 92, 113-117, 167, 179, 193, 198-199, 214,
217, 223, 226, 229, 234, 389, 455, 492, 523, 540
Reformation, 222, 543, 557, 617, 645, 647
Reinecke Fuchs, 179, 564
Relations, of the sexes, 353, 369, 373, 422-423, 460;
of man and wife, 354-358, 366-368, 372-373, 381, 403, 454-455
Relics, 138, 168, 620
Religion, folk, 104
Religion, the, of Jahveh, 81
Religions, 160, 163, 224, 617, 620
Remarriage, 380-381, 387, 389-393, 416
Renaissance, the, 22, 47, 93-101, 175, 197, 203, 256, 375, 592, 601,
643-653
Rent, 36, 178, 267, 293
Reprobation of second marriage, 391-392, 471
Reproduction, 102, 106, 347-348, 362, 432, 447, 450, 492, 497, 534,
539-540, 543, 550, 552, 562
Resentment of the mother, 312
Residue assimilated, 113
Responsibility, 41, 53-54, 168, 185, 239, 248, 333, 400, 410, 501, 505,
507, 519, 594
Restrictions, 255, 277, 310, 321, 345, 380, 416, 480, 491-492, 573
Revenge, 212, 309, 333-334, 464, 466, 468, 496, 499, 500, 505-508
Revival, 23, 81, 225, 237-238, 471, 537, 593, 620
Revolt, 109, 165, 182, 258, 264, 280-281, 318-319, 370, 377, 522, 531,
558, 611, 644
Revolution, 75, 86, 90, 112, 118, 167, 169, 286, 371, 634, 653;
the French, 53, 86, 167-168, 579;
the English, 87;
the American, 470, 523, 528;
ecclesiastical, 86;
beneficence of, 87
Rich and great, 202, 380, 403, 409
Rich and poor, 269, 452, 595
Rich men, 161, 164, 188, 245, 251, 515, 573, 578, 634
Right and left sides, 71
Right and wrong, 27-29, 38, 58, 65-66, 79, 85, 94-95, 115, 132, 168,
170-171, 184-185, 215, 231, 313, 353, 356, 372-375, 393-394, 399-420,
427, 446, 473, 482, 522, 524, 531-534, 564, 570, 584, 606, 611, 617,
632
Rights and duties, 8, 28-29, 55, 65-68, 77, 82-85, 93, 103, 159, 166,
178, 232, 258, 346, 349, 353-356, 372, 382, 384, 395-396, 403-404,
413-414, 431, 493-495, 497, 506-507, 531, 551, 574, 582, 614, 627, 653
Ritual, 31, 60-65, 80-87, 92-97, 112, 123, 160, 168, 194, 212, 219,
255-256, 290, 313, 333, 337, 339, 372, 374, 397, 407-411, 437, 447,
457, 460-461, 472, 511-515, 524, 537, 539-540, 554, 565-567, 612, 615,
617, 629, 643
Roman Catholics, 218, 257, 371, 400, 407
Roman system, 81, 100
Romans, 81-82, 103-104, 106, 154, 160, 182, 282-283, 288, 302, 318, 375,
447-449, 543, 556, 569-571, 583
Rome, 36, 62, 99, 101, 107, 180, 184, 208, 217, 222, 226-227, 230, 235,
246, 256, 258, 278-279, 281, 283, 292, 319, 358, 361, 390, 402, 409,
449, 471, 474, 510, 512, 518, 529, 568-570, 578, 583, 586, 643, 649,
651
Rope dancers, 601
Routine, 46, 48, 50, 62, 562
Royalty, 350, 573, 651
Rubbing, 127-128
Rudolf of Hapsburg, 460
Rural population, 55, 300
Russia, 14, 71, 74, 88-90, 113, 192, 210, 298, 332, 367, 488, 518, 548,
634-636
Sacerdotalism, 225, 644
_Sachsenspiegel_, 82
Sacrament, 160, 217, 226, 229, 336, 340, 384, 406, 411, 414-415, 643
Sacrifice, human, 274, 336-337, 534, 538-539, 553-555;
and cannibalism, 336-338;
sacramental and vicarious, 337-338;
foundation, 270
Sadducees, 515
Sahara, 18, 264, 305-306, 368, 423
Saint, 156, 205, 586, 591-592, 617, 645;
Acheul, 125;
Albans, 592;
Angelo, 648;
Catharine, 592;
Louis, 594;
Mark, 593
Saliva, 192, 457, 512
Sanitation, 209, 306, 510
Sansculottism, 169
Satan, 218, 590
Satire, 191-192, 200, 573-579, 590, 593-595, 602
_Saturae_, 568-569
Saturnalia, 70, 545, 575, 590
Savages, 48, 111, 125, 189, 198, 241, 309, 323, 350, 354, 382, 396, 426,
429, 481-482, 497, 524, 535, 570
Savitri, 203
Scandinavians, 122, 154, 256, 295, 297, 408, 488, 502, 526-527, 543
_Scenario_, 602
Scholar, 98, 197, 557
_Scholasticus_, 580
Science, 15, 27, 29, 41, 69, 86, 103, 136-137, 163, 178, 193, 201, 232,
468, 474, 490, 540
Science of society, 34, 38, 118
Scotland, 385, 527, 529
Scriptures, the Holy, 380, 515, 567
Scriptures, Jewish canonical, 515
Scriptures, Vedic, 544
Sect, 39, 75, 87, 95-97, 104, 175, 198, 210, 217-218, 223-224, 234,
238-239, 288, 381-382, 416, 430, 448, 463, 470, 524, 526, 546,
566-568, 604-609, 613-620, 625, 636, 642
Seduction, 386, 528, 582
Seemliness, 421, 463-471
Seger _vs._ Slingerland, 528
Selection, 2, 6, 9, 31, 49, 94, 97, 103, 106, 115-116, 121, 135,
173-174, 179, 182-184, 191-192, 195-200, 205, 207-211, 220-223,
229-233, 238, 241, 252, 255, 258-260, 317, 373, 464, 481, 490-491,
495, 610, 628, 631
Self-absorption, 344
Self-confidence, 107, 163, 401, 519
Self-control, 197, 204, 336, 359, 390, 465
Self-decoration, 202
Self-defense a crime, 245
Self-deformation, 186
Self-denial, 171, 215, 606-608, 624
Self-discipline, 205, 340, 359, 379, 593, 607-610
Self-education, 201, 206
Self-government, 167
Self-immolation, 210, 548
Self-indulgence, 198, 607
Self-perpetuation, 473
Self-realization, 7, 40, 49, 62, 68, 373, 381-382, 396, 490
Self-seeking, 217, 466, 574
Sell wife or child, 297, 299, 301, 317, 320, 322
Semites, 81, 103, 107, 340, 362, 455, 459, 553, 555, 557
Seneca, 175, 199, 208, 283, 287, 290, 318-319, 569
Sensuality, 110, 137, 212, 223, 255, 285, 351, 372, 399, 400, 422, 426,
441, 447, 521, 539, 541, 550, 557-559, 570, 575, 583, 609, 611, 616,
618, 627, 651
Sequence, 33-34, 124, 349
Seri, 14, 17, 125, 132, 497
Servites, 216, 624
Sextus IV, 256
Sforza, Caterina, 650
Shaman, 325, 337, 511, 567
Shame, 109-110, 116, 251, 314, 320-321, 381, 391, 420, 424-428, 433-435,
440, 452, 468, 530, 547, 554, 581, 584, 650
Shamelessness, 487, 530, 545, 618
Shield, pubic, 432-433, 438
Shinto, 91, 123, 608
Shows, 159, 193, 195, 250, 574, 604
Siam, 142-143, 488
Siberia, 88, 461
Sicily, 236, 247, 281, 487, 542, 589
Sikkim, 338
Simeon of Jerusalem, 236
Sister, 112, 484;
becomes wife, 482-485, 489-490;
two taken to wife, 485, 487-488;
abuses brother for good luck, 516
Sitting or squatting, 191, 323, 461
Six Nations, 270
Slap the thigh, 512, 514
Slave owner, no one fit to be, 305
Slave trade, 265, 270, 273-274, 298-300, 304;
suspended in time of calamity, 300
Slavery, 58, 64, 90, 106, 109-111, 114-117, 156, 161, 164, 174, 178,
261-280, 282-307, 516, 540, 615
Slaves, 4, 12, 14, 83, 90, 144-145, 152-153, 176, 178, 188, 208, 234,
236, 266, 269-270, 272-273, 277, 280, 293, 298, 300, 315, 352,
374-375, 414, 529, 541-542, 551-552, 565, 568, 575, 584
Slavs, 326, 366-367, 453, 518
Snakes as food, 339, 341, 511, 522, 548
"Snares to the soul," 609
_Sozialpolitik_, 38, 97-98
Socrates, 572, 578
Solicitation, base, 369
Solomon Islands, 150-151, 157, 187, 272, 325, 330, 441
Son, 367, 388, 454, 486, 544, 553-554
Sorcery, 183, 209, 211, 237, 241-242, 281, 333, 337, 429, 510, 558, 591
_Sot, le_, 596
Soul, 74, 103, 216, 243, 274, 321, 332-333, 338, 424, 535-536, 566-567,
612-613, 615, 623
Southern states of the United States, 77, 90, 306
Spain, 62, 139, 246, 256-257, 281, 299, 320, 350, 560, 596, 626, 634
Spectacle, 571-572, 592
Spee, Count Frederick von, 241
Spermatorrhea, 418
Spirits, 397, 411, 446, 468-469, 497, 510, 512, 518, 547, 554, 567, 617
Spirituals, 216, 625
Spit, 209, 421, 430, 454, 517-518
Sport, 70, 121, 140
Sports, 56, 159, 162, 207, 250, 471, 572, 583, 586, 599, 639
Spouses, 358, 360-361, 364-365, 368, 379, 381, 397, 404-406, 409, 411,
413, 458-459, 482, 599
Staff, breaking one's, 495
Stairs, going up or down, 132
Standard of living, 164, 171-172, 310
State, 8, 15, 36, 49, 51-52, 54, 63, 66, 68, 83, 87-88, 97-98, 101, 103,
115, 117, 144, 151, 154, 162, 166-167, 169, 208-209, 217, 222, 228,
230, 239, 246, 264, 278, 289, 292, 297-298, 316, 352, 372, 374, 382,
393, 400, 404, 413-414, 464, 470-471, 478, 503-508, 537, 549, 582,
618-619, 644
Statecraft, 59, 470, 646
Statesman, 64, 87, 97, 117, 206, 229, 289, 478, 646
Status, 13, 55, 63, 66-67, 163, 287, 292-293, 354-355, 375, 413-414,
503, 551, 562, 574;
of women, 117
Status-wife, 355
Statute _de heretico comburendo_, 256-257
Steal, get into the, 115, 170, 634
Steam, 266, 284, 451-452
Stews, 531
Stone-implement making, 125, 130, 132
Stranger, 505, 541-542, 544
Strife, 222, 246, 470, 503, 582
Struggle, 49, 106, 134, 164, 393, 416, 423, 464, 647;
for existence, 2, 7, 12, 16, 29, 34, 61, 106, 107, 123, 131, 146, 151,
157-159, 162-164, 183, 265-266, 269, 276, 309, 311, 327-328, 345,
347-348, 351, 629
Stupidity, 4, 80, 423, 573, 580
Success, 5, 7, 39, 41, 105, 107, 113-114, 117, 123, 130, 161, 170, 174,
195, 202, 212, 253, 255-256, 334, 447, 509, 516, 555, 629, 636-639,
641, 646-652
Suffering, 181-182, 212, 235, 471, 522, 524, 553, 624
_Suffering Christ, the_, 581
Suicide, 21, 103-105, 107, 212, 219, 313, 327, 401, 453, 572, 581, 607,
630
Sumatra, 154, 273, 329, 435
Superstition, 21, 25, 32-33, 93, 100, 119, 135, 155, 211, 219, 237, 334,
338, 353, 419, 427, 429, 432-433, 439, 451, 482, 489, 492, 496, 509,
516-518, 520, 562, 565, 572, 585, 593, 603, 633, 640, 646, 649-650
Surname, 502
Sweden, 297, 503
Switzerland, 127, 129, 527
Sycophancy, 100, 163
Symbiosis, 17
Syncretism, 76, 115-116, 405, 474, 489, 537, 559, 565, 568
Synod of Westminster, 411
Syphilis, 443, 531, 536
System of philosophy, 85, 262, 271, 304, 334, 343, 354, 378, 386,
411-412, 460, 467, 469, 539, 549, 593, 625, 628, 633-634, 643-644
Taboo, 17-18, 26, 28-31, 35, 55-56, 68, 70, 80, 84, 86, 99, 100, 146,
207-209, 232, 235, 309, 333, 343, 348, 465-472, 479-492, 499, 510-514,
521-526, 534, 537, 547, 551-552, 558, 570, 573-574, 603, 606, 611,
613, 616, 621
Tacitus, 100, 318
Talent, 19, 40-41, 154, 183, 230, 334, 491
Taro, 123
Tartar, 88, 332, 334
Tarrying, 528
Tasmania, 124-125, 127, 339
Tattoo, 133, 152, 202
Taxpayers, 48, 99, 628
Teacher and pupil, 52, 112-113, 117, 201, 545, 631, 633
Teeth, 120, 125, 150, 203, 317
Templars, 23, 241, 257, 470, 637
Temples, 234, 541, 611, 613-615
Tenth child eaten, 333
Terence, 591
Terrorism, 106, 253
Teutons, 116, 282, 320, 322, 571
Theater, 69, 159, 191, 255, 561-570, 580-582, 591-595, 601-603
Theologians, the Nicene, 581
Therapeuts, 294, 526
Those-who-have-not, 101, 106
Thrall, 295, 297
Tiberius, the emperor, 237, 577;
the proconsul, 556
Tie, sacred, 110, 269, 498-499, 506;
of a woman to a man, 348
Till Eulenspiegel, 597
Timotheists, 215, 623
Tobacco, 197, 304
Togo, 267, 317, 351, 437
Toleration, 68-70, 93, 96, 185, 232, 245, 257, 450, 472, 521, 529, 531,
565, 574, 594
Toothbrush, 457
Torres Straits, 317, 439
Torture, 114, 118, 176, 182, 193, 210, 212, 217, 232-241, 245, 250,
254-255, 255, 260, 262, 274, 276, 280, 294, 297, 323, 388, 401, 450,
464, 470-474, 522-523, 570, 583, 625
Totem, 440-441, 497
Totemism, 26, 354, 568
Trade, 146-147, 149, 154-155, 157, 161, 169, 175, 193, 195, 285, 608
Trades union, 53, 96, 178, 463
Training, 60, 71-72, 120, 125, 196, 394, 460, 468, 633-634
Traitor, 21, 95, 232, 242, 392;
eaten, 334
Transcendentalism, 220
Transgressions, 251
Transmission of culture, 91, 635
Transubstantiation, 223
Travel, 15, 27, 78, 108, 112, 195, 224, 310, 433, 440, 455, 457, 512
Treasure of salvation, 213
Tree felled with stone ax, 128-131
Tree married, 389
Trent, Council of, 228
Tribe, 43, 68, 146, 151, 331, 354, 356, 358, 422, 498, 504-505
Tricks, 136, 179, 191, 283, 449, 640
Trullo, 589
Truth, 27-28, 38, 79, 97, 113, 132, 171, 181, 184, 194, 200, 210, 217,
220, 225, 238, 240-241, 343, 361, 400, 418, 435, 464, 470, 473, 489,
616, 640-642, 643
Truth = fidelity, 361
Truthfulness, 639-640, 643, 645
Trygve Olafson, 297
Tsar, 88
Tshi-speaking peoples, 512
Tuaregs, 264, 339, 423, 426-427
Tunguses, 14, 84, 441, 461
Tupis, 13, 325, 332
Turks, 236, 302-303, 335, 448, 462, 587
Tuscany, 292, 543
Twins, 316, 318, 484, 596
"Two-child system," 321
Tyrannicide, 180, 649
Tyranny, 71, 106, 221, 230, 261, 372, 437, 464, 523, 575, 626
Tyre, 339, 443, 557
Ukrain, the, 367, 527
Ulpian, 241, 284, 360
_Unam sanctam_, the bull, 259
Uncle, maternal, 324
Unclean beasts, 615
Unclean, ritually, 512-515
Uncleanness, 25, 110, 340, 399, 509-511, 513-515, 546, 567, 615
Uncultivated land, 80, 105, 306, 562
Underpopulation, 194, 311
Unedifying plays, 591
Unfree, the, 83, 281, 295
United States, 14, 63, 66, 86-90, 102, 110, 113, 127, 167, 169-170, 180,
352, 471, 479, 503, 525, 589, 628, 636;
National Museum of the, 14, 323, 353, 423, 434, 479, 512
Unity of a group, 429, 477, 504
Universities, 206, 632, 634, 636
Unmarried, 358, 401, 421, 438;
compelled to remain, 351
Unreality, 160, 232, 362, 478, 578
Unsanitary, 509
_Unsitten_, 476-477
Upsala, 295, 499
Upstarts, 163-164
Urban population, 55
Urbino, 598
Uriah Heep, 179, 580
Usage, 57
Use, 116, 125, 127, 130, 146, 169-170, 176, 215-216, 235;
use and wont, 8, 35, 62, 79, 108, 494, 523, 547
Useful, not shameful, 651
Usury, 209
Utopia, 303-304
Vagabonds, 320, 370, 598
Valentinian, 293
Valois, 298
Value, 39, 40-41, 43-44, 53, 58, 97, 101, 104, 110, 131, 135, 143-144,
147-148, 154-155, 163, 165, 171, 175-176, 178, 210, 241, 263, 356,
359, 362, 461, 473, 535, 558, 628-629, 638, 640, 650
Vandals, 557, 586
Vanity, 119, 133, 142, 155, 165, 182, 187, 200, 202, 208, 213, 219, 235,
238, 242, 261-262, 293, 334, 346, 359, 387, 419, 424-429, 433, 466,
482, 507-508, 579, 630, 647
Varieties, 126-127, 146, 208, 300, 363, 417, 421, 473
Vatican, 227, 627
Veddahs, 339, 357, 484
Vedic age, 326, 486, 545, 641
Veil and veiling, 363, 386, 420-422, 425-427, 454, 456, 515, 517
Vengeance, 209, 221, 233-236, 250, 334-335, 465, 502, 536, 649
Venice, 63, 74, 183, 189, 256, 258-259, 300, 350, 352, 593, 599, 602-603
Verification, 55, 84, 97, 177, 181, 201, 354, 473, 481, 606, 632-633
Vespasian, 292, 583
Viceroys, Spanish, 258
View, the anterior and posterior, 65-66
Views of life, 228, 428, 475, 534
Village, Russian, 368
Villanage, 85, 92
Violate, 399, 546, 563, 574, 626-627
Virago, 648
Virgin and virginity, 226-227, 235, 353, 358-359, 389-390, 392, 401-402,
485, 525, 616
Virgin Mary, the, 385, 401-402, 414, 472
Virgin wife and mother, 385, 540
_Virtù_, 648
Visconti, Gian Galeazzo, 64
Visit to newly married, 409
Visits, 229, 430, 462
Vivez, Louis, 254
Void _ab initio_, 380
Voluptuous, 198, 557, 569
Vow, 226, 542, 544-546, 609, 614-615, 619
Vulgar and Vulgarity, 141, 164, 260, 447-449, 471, 572, 650
Wages, 36, 164, 169, 178-179, 193, 263, 267, 269, 273
Waldenses, 217-218
Wall Street, 176-177
War, 5, 12-13, 28, 32, 35, 49, 54, 63, 65-66, 71, 74, 77, 80, 83, 88,
90, 95-96, 100-101, 103-106, 116, 134, 150, 156, 164-165, 178, 183,
190, 212, 229, 231, 235, 244, 263, 266-272, 289, 299, 301, 308, 318,
325, 328, 335, 343, 354-355, 362, 422, 468, 498, 500-504, 508, 526,
538, 554, 561, 568, 582, 598, 608, 615-621, 638, 648
War captive, 262, 268, 270-278, 295, 305, 338, 467, 543, 552-553, 583
Watchwords, 15, 21, 176-179, 181, 476
Ways, 108-111, 114-118, 129, 235, 349, 464, 470, 472, 474, 481, 561-562,
578-579, 598, 609-610, 648
Wealth, 45, 104, 145, 147, 158-166, 168-171, 204, 207, 285-286, 362,
375-377, 415, 444, 452, 483, 490-491, 502, 528, 558, 568, 583, 603,
615-616, 619, 621, 623, 625, 627, 629;
current of, to Rome, 280
Wedding, 67, 70, 349, 374, 389, 397-398, 400, 402, 406, 454, 516, 518,
521, 565-566, 589, 599;
day, 366-367;
songs, 410;
Russian, 368
We-group, 12, 143-144, 155.
See In-group
Weights and measures, 155, 157
Welfare, 3, 9, 15, 18-38, 53-64, 79, 95, 99-100, 132, 135, 158, 163,
167, 172, 184, 222, 225, 239, 245, 255, 260, 266, 309, 313, 323-324,
328, 400, 473, 494, 508-519, 531-538, 559, 563, 604-607, 633, 640
Well living, 17, 32, 38, 57, 59, 62, 94, 168, 201, 473-474, 476-477, 535
West Africa, 145, 317, 322, 331, 337
Westminster, Statute of, 83
Wheel (for execution), 237, 239
White men, 24, 77-78, 90, 108, 110-113, 121, 127, 150, 157, 179, 442,
578
Widow, 27, 80, 239, 318, 370, 388-389, 390-393, 408, 480, 487
Wife, 13, 55, 67, 109-112, 146-152, 202, 218, 226-228, 269, 302-303,
311-313, 339, 344-351, 352, 355-377, 396-399, 403, 408, 422, 424,
453-461, 468, 481-488, 498, 506, 511, 522, 551, 578, 596, 653;
model wife, 365
Winchester, Bishop of, 531
Wine, 110, 208, 378, 505, 608-609, 615, 618
Wisdom, 31, 47, 51, 105, 308, 323, 478, 522
Witch, 21, 23, 59, 194, 231-232, 241, 470, 517, 522, 532;
persecution, 59, 118, 260, 531
Witchcraft, 58, 114, 209-211, 241, 518, 532
Woe to the vanquished, 276, 333
Woman, 12, 23, 31, 54-55, 100, 104-112, 121, 125, 138, 159, 180, 184,
185-190, 195-208, 210, 214, 228, 230, 237, 243, 262-270, 273, 286,
314, 322, 325-331, 344-352, 379-390, 393-396, 413, 421-423, 430, 434,
441-454, 462-483, 497-517, 523-545, 551-557, 562-581, 584, 589, 594,
598-603, 608-609, 614, 620-621, 630, 648, 651-652
Womanish to wear clothes, 439
Wooing, 408, 526-529
Words, 104, 122, 126-129, 134, 135, 138, 426-427, 461, 547, 639-640;
tabooed, 68, 545
Work, 61, 70, 96, 123, 129-130, 134, 158-159, 205, 262, 267, 272, 278,
294-295, 297, 303, 305, 422-424, 429, 458, 504, 535, 608, 629, 642
World, the, 84, 86, 89, 102-104, 113, 123, 130, 134, 162, 198, 211, 218,
221, 228, 237-238, 255, 278-281, 286-287, 294, 306, 494, 503-504, 510,
537, 574-577, 582, 608, 614, 618, 633, 645, 647-648
"World," the, 567, 612, 619
World, end of the, 101;
two make a, 372;
of fact, 53, 59;
of light, 103;
commerce, 36, 150;
philosophy, 33-34, 67, 79, 86, 96, 105, 553, 555, 558, 563, 570,
610-612
"World, getting on in the," 578
World, the other, 29, 31, 211-212, 221, 255, 386-388, 393, 469, 567
Worship, 159, 239, 366, 534, 562-565, 567-568, 615, 644
Wrath, of superior powers, 333;
of God, 213, 248, 300, 555, 608
Writings, Chinese sacred, 549
Writings, edifying concocted, 642
Wullenweber, 524
Wycliffe, 223, 531
Xenophon, 360
Xerxes, 109, 468
Yakuts, 25, 84, 326, 422, 433, 461, 485, 495
Yama and Yami, 486
Yayati, 641
Yezidi community, 620
Ynglinga saga, 488
Yoni, 546-547
York, 411
Young, the, 67, 104, 153, 159, 191, 309, 314, 322, 325, 335, 343, 648
Zambesi, 140
Zeal, 134, 219, 232, 242, 248, 252, 460, 611, 625, 629, 644-645
_Zend Avesta_, 418, 486, 558
Zeus, 364, 425, 452, 467, 487
Zoroastrian religion, 159, 339, 480, 510-512, 514
Zulus, 265, 422, 430
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