marriages are always settled by inclination; ‘if the parents make a match contrary to the daughter’s will, she refuses, and is never compelled to comply.’ In Tierra del Fuego a young man first obtains the consent of the parents by doing them some service, and then he attempts to carry off the girl; ‘but if she is unwilling, she hides herself in the woods until her admirer is heartily tired of looking for her, and gives up the pursuit; but this seldom happens.’ ”
PERSONAL BEAUTY AND SEXUAL SELECTION
Evidence proving that primitive women are influenced in their choice of a mate by æsthetic considerations appears to be almost as scant as among animals. Darwin, however, tries to prove that men owe their beards to sexual or female selection; and the following more general instances may be cited for what they are worth: Azara “describes how carefully a Guana woman bargains for all sorts of privileges before accepting some one or more husbands; and the men in consequence take unusual care of their personal appearance.” Among the Kaffirs “very ugly, though rich men, have been known to fail in getting wives. The girls, before consenting to be betrothed, compel the men to show themselves off first in front and then behind, and ‘exhibit their paces.’ ”
In general, however, it seems that the women choose, not the handsomest men, but those whose boldness, pugnacity, and virility promise them the surest protection against enemies, and general domestic delights. Thus, we read that “before he is allowed to marry, a young Dyack must prove his bravery by bringing back the head of an enemy;” and that when the Apaches warriors return unsuccessful, “the women turn away from them with assured indifference and contempt. They are upbraided as cowards, or for want of skill and tact, and are told that such men should not have wives.”
It must be remembered, however, that (as we have seen in the case of plants and animals) the greatest amount of health, vigour, and courage generally coincide with the greatest physical beauty; hence the continued preference of the most energetic and lusty men by the superior women who have a choice, has naturally tended to evolve a superior type of manly beauty.
In the case of men it seems much more probable that they frequently select their wives in accordance with an æsthetic standard. The chiefs of almost every tribe throughout the world have more than one wife; and Mr. Mantell informed Darwin that until recently almost every girl in New Zealand who was pretty, or promised to be pretty, was tapu to some chief; while among the Kaffirs, according to Mr. C. Hamilton, “the chiefs generally have the pick of the women for many miles round, and are most persevering in establishing or confirming their privilege.” In the lower tribes, where “communal marriage” and marriage by Capture alone prevail, æsthetic choice is of course out of the question, and cannot make its appearance till we come to less pugnacious tribes, such as the Dyacks, whose children “have the freedom implied by regular courtship,” or the Samoans, whose children “have the degree of independence implied by elopements when they cannot obtain parental assent to their marriage” (Spencer).
In general, however, among the lower races, Sexual or æsthetic Selection leads to sorry results, owing to the bad taste of the selectors. The standard of primitive taste is not harmonious proportion and capacity for expression, but Exaggeration. The negro woman has naturally thicker lips, more prominent cheek-bones, and a flatter nose than a white woman; and in selecting a mate, preference is commonly given to the one whose lips are thickest, nose most flattened, and cheek-bones most prominent: thus producing gradually that monster of ugliness—the average negro woman. What right we have to set ourselves up as judges, and claim that our taste is superior to the negro’s, is a question which will be discussed in a subsequent section of this treatise.
One other point, however, may be referred to here, namely, that although the æsthetic overtone of Love—the Admiration of Personal Beauty—may enter into a savage’s amorous feelings, it is only the sensuous aspect of it that affects him, the intellectual and moral sides being unknown to him. His admiration is purely physical. He marries his chosen bride when she is a mere child, and before the slightest spark of mental charm can illumine her features and impart to them a superior beauty; and subsequently, when experience has somewhat sharpened her intellectual powers, hard labour has already destroyed all traces of her physical beauty so that the combination of physical and mental charms which alone can inspire the highest form of Love is never to be found in primitive woman.
JEALOUSY AND POLYGAMY
The moral mission of Jealousy, as stated on a preceding page, is, by means of watchfulness and the inspiring of fear, to ensure fidelity and chastity. Darwin says that from the strength of the feeling of jealousy all through the animal kingdom, as well as from the analogy of the lower animals, especially those which come nearest to man, he “cannot believe that absolutely promiscuous intercourse prevailed in times past, shortly before man attained to his present rank in the zoological scale.” This may be true, yet it is astonishing to find how many of the lower tribes are utterly unconcerned regarding the morals both of married and unmarried women. A vast number of cases illustrating this absence of jealousy are collected in Waitz’s Anthropology, Spencer’s Sociology, the works of Lubbock, and especially in Ploss’s Das Weib, i. 205–214. In some cases girls are allowed to do as they please until after marriage, when they are jealously guarded; in other cases the reverse is true. In some parts of Africa a breach of faith on the wife’s part is regarded as an attack not on the husband’s honour but on his property; hence a pecuniary compensation is all that is required. Lubbock enumerates a large number of races among whom the lending of a wife or daughter is a common and obligatory form of hospitality. And the Chibchas of South America went so far in their indifference to virginity that they considered a virgin bride to be unfortunate, “as she had not inspired affection in men.”
Jealousy for the possession of a woman, however, was much sooner developed than jealous regard for her conduct. The statement of Sir John Lubbock about the men of an Indian tribe, that they “fight for the possession of the women, just like stags,” and similar statements regarding other savages, imply that, just like stags, these men feel the pangs of primitive Jealousy.
Among polygamous nations the women, too, often fight for the men, whose favourites in their absence are apt to suffer much at the hands of jealous rivals. It is among the polygamous semi-civilised nations in general that Jealousy asserts itself in the most shrill and dissonant manner. It is not that bitter-sweet romantic Jealousy which by its constant fluctuations between hope and doubt fans a modern lover’s passion into brighter flames; it is a more vicious kind of conjugal Jealousy which destroys domestic peace and plots the ruin of rivals. In Madagascar, Mr. Spencer tells us, “the name for Polygyny—‘fampovafesana’—signifies ‘the means of causing enmity’ ”enmity’ ”; and that kindred names are commonly applicable to it we are shown by their use among the Hebrews: in the Mishna a man’s several wives are called ‘tzârot,’ that is, troubles, adversaries, or rivals. In modern Persia, where polygamy prevails, the same state of affairs is encountered. Says Ploss: “If there are several women in the house, each one inhabits a separate division; in the houses of the wealthy each wife, moreover, has her own servants. Constantly apprehending evil intentions, no woman touches the dishes of a rival.”
It is among the polygamous nations of the East, too, that history records such a profusion of bloody wars of succession waged by half-brothers; for how could fraternal or any other kind of domestic affection flourish in families where the mothers are constantly goaded by Jealousy into deadly hatred of one another?
MONOPOLY AND MONOGAMY
