Part 5 (1/2)
In a second cla.s.s of cases, where lower races have ideas similar to ours, I believe that the origin of domestic chast.i.ty must be sought in utilitarian practices. In the earlier stages of marriage, girls are usually bought of their parents, who profit by the sale or barter. Now when a man marries a girl to be his wife and maid of all work, he does not want to take her to his home hampered by a bevy of young children.
Fathers guilty of incestuous practices would therefore be unable to dispose of their daughters to advantage, and thus a prejudice in favor of domestic purity would gradually arise which a shrewd medicine man would some day raise to the rank of a religious or social taboo.
As regards modern society, Darwin, Brinton, h.e.l.lwald, Bentham, and others have advocated or endorsed the view that the reason why such a horror of incestuous unions prevails, is that novelty is the chief stimulus to the s.e.xual feelings, and that the familiarity of the same household breeds indifference. I do not understand how any thinker can have held such a view for one moment. When Bentham wrote (_Theory of Legislation_, pt. iii., chap. V.) that ”individuals accustomed to see each other from an age which is capable neither of conceiving desire nor of inspiring it, will see each other with the same eyes to the end of life,” he showed infinitely less knowledge of human nature than the author of _Paul and Virginia_, who makes a boy and a girl grow up almost like brother and sister, and at the proper time fall violently in love with one another. Who cannot recall in his own experience love marriages of schoolmates or of cousins living in intimate a.s.sociation from their childhood? To say that such bringing up together creates ”indifference” is obviously incorrect; to say that it leads to ”aversion” is altogether unwarranted; and to trace to it such a feeling as our horror at the thought of marrying a sister, or mother, is simply preposterous.
The real source of the horror of incest in civilized communities was indicated more than two thousand years ago by Plato. He believed that the reason why incestuous unions were avoided and abhorred, was to be found in the constant inculcation, at home and in literature, that
”They are unholy, hated of G.o.d, and most infamous....
Everyone from his earliest childhood has heard men speaking in the same manner about them always and everywhere, whether in comedy or in the graver language of tragedy. When the poet introduces on the stage a Thyestes or an Oedipus, or a Macareus having secret intercourse with his sister, he represents him, when found out, ready to kill himself as the penalty of his sin.” (_Laws,_ VIII., 838.)
Long before Plato another great ”medicine man,” Moses, saw the necessity of enforcing a ”taboo” against incest by the enactment of special severe laws relating to intercourse between relatives; and that there was no ”instinct” against incest in his time is shown by the fact that he deemed it necessary to make such circ.u.mstantial laws for his own people, and by his specific testimony that ”in all these things the nations are defiled which I cast out from before you, and the land is defiled.” Regarding his motives in making such laws, Milman has justly remarked (_H.J_., I., 220),
”The leading principle of these enactments was to prohibit near marriage between those parties among whom, by the usage of their society, early and frequent intimacy was unavoidable and might lead to abuse.”
If Moses lived now, he would still be called upon to enact his laws; for to this day the horror of incest is a sentiment which it is necessary to keep up and enforce by education, moral precept, religion, and law. It is no more innate or instinctive than the sentiment of modesty, the regard for chast.i.ty, or the disapproval of bigamy. Children are not born with it any more than with the feeling that it is improper to be seen naked. Medical writers bear witness to the wide prevalence of unnatural practices among children, even in good families, while in the slums of the large cities, where the families are herded like swine, there is a horrible indulgence in every kind of incest by adults as well as children.
Absolute proof that the horror of incest is not innate lies furthermore in the unquestionable fact that a man can escape the calamity of falling in love with his sister or daughter only if he _knows_ the relations.h.i.+p. There are many instances on record--to which the daily press adds others--of incestuous unions brought about by ignorance of the consanguinity. Oedipus was not saved by an instinct from marrying his mother. It was only after the discovery of the relations.h.i.+p that his mind was filled with unutterable horror, while his wife and mother committed suicide. This case, though legendary, is typical--a mirror of actuality--showing how potent _ideas_ are to alter _emotions_. Yet I am a.s.sailed for a.s.serting that the Greeks and the lower races, whose ideas regarding women, love, polygamy, chast.i.ty, and marriage were so different from ours, also differed from us in their feelings--the quality of their love. There were numerous obstacles to overcome before romantic love was able to emerge--obstacles so serious and diverse that it is a wonder they were ever conquered. But before considering those obstacles it will be advisable to explain definitely just what romantic love is and how it differs from the sensual ”love” or l.u.s.t which, of course, has always existed among men as among other animals.
WHAT IS ROMANTIC LOVE?
How does it feel to be in love?
When a man loves a girl, he feels such an overwhelming _individual preference_ for her that though she were a beggar-maid he would scorn the offer to exchange her for an heiress, a princess, or the G.o.ddess of beauty herself. To him she seems to have a monopoly of all the feminine charms, and she therefore monopolizes his thoughts and feelings to the exclusion of all other interests, and he longs not only for her reciprocal affection but for a monopoly of it. ”Does she love me?” he asks himself a hundred times a day. ”Sometimes she seems to treat me with cold indifference--is that merely the instinctive a.s.sertion of feminine _coyness_, or does she prefer another man?” The pangs, the agony of _jealousy_ overcome him at this thought. He hopes one moment, despairs the next, till his _moods_ become so _mixed_ that he hardly knows whether he is happy or miserable. He, who is usually so bold and self-confident, is humbled; feels utterly unworthy of her.
In his fancy she soars so far above all other women that calling her an angel seems not a _hyperbole_, but a compliment to the angel.
Toward such a superior being the only proper att.i.tude is _adoration_.
She is spotless as an angel, and his feelings toward her are as _pure_, as free from coa.r.s.e cravings, as if she were a G.o.ddess. How royally _proud_ a man must feel at the thought of being preferred above all mortals by this divine being! In _personal beauty_ had she ever a peer? Since Venus left this planet, has such grace been seen?
In face of her, the strongest of all impulses--selfishness--is annihilated. The lover is no longer ”number one” to himself; his own pleasures and comforts are ignored in the eager desire to please her, to show her _gallant_ attentions. To save her from disaster or grief he is ready to _sacrifice_ his life. His cordial _sympathy_ makes him share all her joys and sorrows, and his _affection_ for her, though he may have known her only a few days--nay, a few minutes--is as strong and devoted as that of a mother for the child that is her own flesh and blood.
INGREDIENTS OF LOVE
No one who has ever been truly in love will deny that this description, however romantic it may seem in its apparent exaggeration, is a realistic reflection of his feelings and impulses.
As this brief review shows, Individual Preference, Monopolism, Coyness, Jealousy, Mixed Moods of Hope and Despair, Hyperbole, Adoration, Purity, Pride, Admiration of Personal Beauty, Gallantry, Self-sacrifice, Sympathy, and Affection, are the essential ingredients in that very composite mental state, which we call romantic love.
Coyness, of course, occurs only in feminine love, and there are other s.e.xual differences which will be noted later on. Here I wish to point out that the fourteen ingredients named may be divided into two groups of seven each--the egoistic and the altruistic. The prevailing notion that love is a species of selfishness--a ”double selfishness,” some wiseacre has called it--is deplorably untrue and shows how little the psychology of love has heretofore been understood.
It has indeed an egoistic side, including the ingredients I have called Individual Preference, Monopolism, Jealousy, Coyness, Hyperbole, Mixed Moods, and Pride; and it is not a mere accident that these are also the seven features which may be found in sensual love too; for sensuality and selfishness are twins. But the later and more essential characteristics of romantic love are the altruistic and supersensual traits--Sympathy, Affection, Gallantry, Self-sacrifice, Adoration, Purity, and Admiration of Personal Beauty. The two divisions overlap in some places, but in the main they are accurate.
It is certain that the first group precedes the second, but the order in which the ingredients in each group first made their appearance cannot be indicated, as we know too little of the early history of man. The arrangement here adopted is therefore more or less arbitrary.
I shall try in this long chapter to answer the question ”What is Romantic Love?” by discussing each of its fourteen ingredients and tracing its evolution separately.
I. INDIVIDUAL PREFERENCE
If a man pretended to be in love with a girl while confessing that he liked other girls equally well and would as soon marry one as another, everybody would laugh at him; for however ignorant many persons may be as to the subtler traits of sentimental love, it is known universally that a decided and obstinate preference for one particular individual is an absolute condition of true love.
ALL GIRLS EQUALLY ATTRACTIVE