Part 25 (1/2)

Mediaeval theologians had a special name for this faculty--Penetrative Virginity--which McClintock and Strong's _Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature_ defines as

”such an extraordinary or perfect gift of chast.i.ty, to which some have pretended that it overpowered those by whom they have been surrounded, and created in them an insensibility to the pleasures of the flesh. The Virgin Mary, according to some Romanists, was possessed of this gift, which made those who beheld her, notwithstanding her beauty, to have no sentiments but such as were consistent with chast.i.ty.”

In the eyes of refined modern lovers, every spotless maiden has that gift of penetrative virginity. The beauty of her face, or the charm of her character, inspires in him an affection which is as pure, as chaste, as the love of flowers. But it was only very gradually and slowly that human beauty gained the power to inspire such a pure love; the proof of which a.s.sertion is to be unfolded in our next section.

XIV. ADMIRATION OF PERSONAL BEAUTY

”When beauty fires the blood, how love exalts the mind,” exclaimed Dryden; and Romeo asks:

Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!

For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.

In full-fledged romantic love of the masculine type the admiration of a girl's personal beauty is no doubt the most entrancing ingredient.

But such love is rare even to-day, while in ordinary love-affairs the sense of beauty does not play nearly so important a role as is commonly supposed. In woman's love, as everybody knows, the regard for masculine beauty usually forms an unimportant ingredient; and a man's love, provided sympathy, adoration, gallantry, self-sacrifice, affection, and purity enter into it, may be of the genuine romantic type, even though he has no sense of beauty at all. And this is lucky for the prospects of love, since, even among the most civilized races to-day, the number of men and women who, while otherwise refined and estimable, have no real appreciation of beauty, personal or otherwise, is astonis.h.i.+ngly large.

DARWIN'S UNFORTUNATE MISTAKE

This being true of the average man and woman among the most cultured races, we ought to be able to conclude, as a matter of course and without the necessity of argumentation, that the admiration of personal beauty has still less to do with the motives that lead a savage to marry this or that girl, or a savage girl to prefer this or that suitor. Strange to say, this simple corollary of the doctrine of evolution has been greatly obscured by Darwin himself, by his theory of s.e.xual selection, which goes so far as to attribute the beauty of the male _animals_ to the continued preference by the females of the more showy males, and the consequent hereditary transmission of their colors and other ornaments. When we bear in mind how unimportant a role the regard for personal beauty plays even among the females of the most advanced human beings, the idea that the females of the lower animals are guided in their pairing by minute subtle differences in the beauty of masculine animals seems positively comic. It is an idea such as could have emanated only from a mind as unesthetic as Darwin's was.

So far as animals are concerned, Alfred Russell Wallace completely demolished the theory of s.e.xual selection,[46] after it had created a great deal of confusion in scientific literature. In regard to the lower races of man this confusion still continues, and I therefore wish to demonstrate here, more conclusively than I did in my first book (60, 61, 327-30), that among primitive men and women, too, the sense of beauty does not play the important role attributed to it in their love-affairs. ”The Influence of Beauty in determining the Marriages of Mankind” is one of the topics discussed in the _Descent of Man_. Darwin tries to show that, ”especially” during the earlier period of our long history, the races of mankind were modified by the continued selection of men by women and women by men in accordance with their peculiar standards of beauty. He gives some of the numerous instances showing how savages ”ornament” or mutilate their bodies; adding:

”The motives are various; the men paint their bodies to make themselves appear terrible in battle; certain mutilations are connected with religious rites, or they mark the age of p.u.b.erty, or the rank of the man, or they serve to distinguish the tribes. Among savages the same fas.h.i.+ons prevail for long periods, and thus mutilations, from whatever cause first made, soon come to be valued as distinctive marks. _But self-adornment, vanity, and the admiration of others seem to be the commonest motives_.”

Among those who were led astray by these views of Darwin is Westermarck, who declares (257, 172) that ”in every country, in every race, beauty stimulates pa.s.sion,” and that

”it seems to be beyond doubt that men and women began to ornament, mutilate, paint, and tattoo themselves chiefly in order to make themselves attractive to the opposite s.e.x--that they might court successfully, or be courted”

--an opinion in which Grosse follows him, in his interesting treatise on the _Beginnings of Art_ (111, etc.), thereby marring his chapter on ”Personal Decoration.” In the following pages I shall show, on the contrary, that when we subject these primitive customs of ”ornamentation” and mutilation to a critical examination we find in nearly every case that they are either not at all or only indirectly (not esthetically), connected with the relations of the s.e.xes; and that neither does personal beauty exist as a rule among savages, nor have they the esthetic sense to appreciate its exceptional occurrence.

They nearly always paint, tattoo, decorate, or mutilate themselves without the least reference to courts.h.i.+p or the desire to please the other s.e.x. It is the easiest thing in the world to fill page after page--as Darwin, Westermarck, Grosse, and others have done--with the remarks of travellers regarding the addiction of savages to personal ”ornamentation”; but this testimony rests, as we shall see, on the unwarranted a.s.sumptions of superficial observers, who, ignorant of the real reasons why the lower races paint, tattoo, and otherwise ”adorn”

themselves, recklessly inferred that they did it to ”make themselves beautiful.” The more carefully the customs and traditions of these races are studied, the more obvious becomes the non-esthetic and non-erotic origin of their personal ”decorations.” In my extensive researches, for every single fact that seemed to favor the s.e.xual selection theory I have found a hundred against it; and I have become more and more amazed at the extraordinary _sang froid_ with which its advocates have ignored the countless facts that speak against it while boosting into prominence the very few that at first sight appear to support it. In the following pages I shall attempt to demolish the theory of s.e.xual selection in reference to the lower races of man as Wallace demolished it in reference to animals; premising that the ma.s.s of c.u.mulative evidence here presented is only a very small part of what might be adduced on my side. Let us consider the different motives for personal ”decoration” in succession.

”DECORATION” FOR PROTECTION

Many of the alleged personal ”decorations” of inferior races are merely measures to protect themselves against climate, insects, etc.

The Maoris of New Zealand besmear themselves with grease and red ochre as a defence against the sand-flies.[47] The Andaman islanders plaster themselves with a mixture of lard and colored earth to protect their skins from heat and mosquitoes.[48] Canadian Indians painted their faces in winter as a protection against frost-bite. In Patagonia

”both s.e.xes smear their faces, and occasionally their bodies with paint, the Indians alleging as the reasons for using this cosmetic that it is a protection against the effects of the wind; and I found from personal experience that it proved a complete preservative from excoriation or chapped skin.”[49]

C. Bock notes that in Sumatra rice powder is lavishly employed by many of the women, but ”not with the object of preserving the complexion or reducing the color, but to prevent perspiration by closing the pores of the skin.”[50] Baumann says of the African Bakongo that many of their peculiar ways of arranging the hair ”seem to be intended less as ornamental head-dresses than as a bolster for the burdens they carry on their heads;”[51] and Squier says that the reason given by the Nicaraguans for flattening the heads of their children is that they may be better fitted in adult life to bear burdens.[52]

WAR ”DECORATIONS”

Equally remote as the foregoing from all ideas of personal beauty or of courts.h.i.+p and the desire to inspire s.e.xual pa.s.sion is the custom so widely prevalent of painting and otherwise ”adorning” the body for war. The Australians diversely made use of red and yellow ochre, or of white pigment for war paint.[53] Caesar relates that the ancient Britons stained themselves blue with woad to give themselves a more horrid aspect in war. ”Among ourselves,” as Tylor remarks, ”the guise which was so terrific in the Red Indian warrior has comedown to make the circus clown a pattern of folly,”[54] Regarding Canadian Indians we read that

”some may be seen with blue noses, but with cheeks and eyebrows black; others mark forehead, nose, and cheeks with lines of various colors; one would think he beheld so many hobgoblins. They believe that in colors of this description they are dreadful to their enemies, and that otherwise their own line of battle will be concealed as by a veil; finally, that it hardens the skin of the body, so that the cold of the winter is easily borne.”[55]

The Sioux Indians blackened their faces when they went on the warpath.

They