Part 85 (2/2)

[19] For ”love” read covet. We shall see in the chapter on Australia that love is a feeling altogether beyond the mental horizon of the natives.

[20] Rohde, 35, 28, 147. See his list of corroborative cases in the long footnote, pp. 147-148.

[21] Compare this with what Rohde says (42) about the Homeric heroes and their complete absorption in warlike doings.

[22] _Grundlage der Moral_, -- 14.

[23] _Wagner and his Works_, II., 163.

[24] In Burton the translator has changed the s.e.x of the beloved. This proceeding, a very common one, has done much to confuse the public regarding the modernity of Greek love. It is not Greek love of women, but romantic friends.h.i.+p for boys, that resembles modern love for women.

[25] A mult.i.tude of others may be found in an interesting article on ”s.e.xual Taboo” by Crawley in the _Journal of the Anthropological Inst.i.tute_, xxvi.

[26] New York _Evening Post_, January 21, 1899.

[27] Fitzroy, II., 183; _Trans. Ethn. Soc_., New Series, III., 248-88.

[28] That moral infirmities, too, were capable of winning the respect of savages, may be seen in Carver's _Travels in North America_ (245).

[29] Garcia _Origin de los Indios de el Nuevo Mondo_; McLennan; Ingham (Westermarck, 113) concerning the Bakongo; Giraud-Teulon, 208, 209, concerning Nubians and other Ethiopians.

[30] See Letourneau, 332-400; Westermarck, 39-41, 96-113; Grosse, 11-12,50-63, 75-78, 101-163, 107, 180.

[31] Charlevoix, V. 397-424; Letourneau, 351. See also Mackenzie, _V.

fr. M._, 84, 87; Smith, _Arauc._, 238; _Bur. Ethnol._, 1887, 468-70.

[32] How capable of honoring women the Babylonians were may be inferred from the testimony of Herodotus (I., ch. 199) that every woman had to sacrifice her chast.i.ty to strangers in the temple of Mylitta.

[33] It gives me great pleasure to correct my error in this place. Not a few critics of my first book censured me for underrating Roman advances in the refinements of love. As a matter of fact I overrated them.

[34] _Life Among the Modocs_ (228). It must be borne in mind that Joaquin Miller here describes his own ideas of chivalry. He did not, as a matter of course, find anything resembling them among the Modocs.

If he had, he would have said so, for he was their friend, and married the girl referred to. But while the Indians themselves never entertain any chivalrous regard for women, they are acute enough to see that the whites do, and to profit thereby. One morning when I was writing some pages of this book under a tree at Lake Tahoe, California, an Indian came to me and told me a pitiful tale about his ”sick squaw” in one of the neighboring camps. I gave him fifty cents ”for the squaw,” but ascertained later that after leaving me he had gone straight to the bar-room at the end of the pier and filled himself up with whiskey, though he had specially and repeatedly a.s.sured me he was ”d.a.m.ned good Indian,” and never drank.

[35] _Magazin von Reisebeschreibungen_, I., 283.

[36] The Rev. Isaac Malek Yonan tells us, in his book on _Persian Women_ (138), that most Armenian women ”are very low in the moral scale.” It is obvious that only one of the wanton cla.s.s could be in question in Trumbull's story, for the respectable women are, as Yonan says, not even permitted to talk loudly or freely in the presence of men. This clergyman is a native Persian, and the account he gives of his countrywomen, unbia.s.sed and sorrowful, shows that the chances for romantic love are no better in modern Persia than they were in the olden times. The women get no education, hence they grow up ”really stupid and childlike.” He refers to ”the low estimation in which women are held,” and says that the likes and dislikes of girls about to be married are not consulted. Girls are seldom betrothed later than the seventh to the tenth year, often, indeed, immediately after birth or even before. The wife cannot sit at the same table with her husband, but must wait on him ”like an accomplished slave.” After he has eaten she washes his hands, lights his pipe, then retires to a respectful distance, her face turned toward the mud wall, and finishes what is left. If she is ill or in trouble, she does not mention it to him, ”for she could only be sure of harsh, rough words instead of loving sympathy.” Their degraded Oriental customs have led the Persians to the conclusion that ”love has nothing to do with the matrimonial connection,” the main purpose of marriage being ”the convenience and pleasure of a degenerate people” (34-114). So far this Persian clergyman. His conclusions are borne out by the observations of the keen-eyed Isabella Bird Bishop, who relates in her book on Persia how she was constantly besieged by the women for potions to bring back the ”love” of their husbands, or to ”make the favorite hateful to him.”

She was asked if European husbands ”divorce their wives when they are forty?” A Persian who spoke French a.s.sured her that marriage in his country was like buying ”a pig in a poke,” and that ”a woman's life in Persia is a very sad thing.”

[37] _Magazin fur d. Lit. des In-und Auslandes_, June 30, 1888.

[38] The philosophy of widow-burning will be explained under the head of Conjugal Love.

[39] Willoughby, in his article on Was.h.i.+ngton Indians, recognizes the predominance of the ”animal instinct” in the parental fondness of savages, and so does Hutchinson (I., 119); but both erroneously use the word ”affection,” though Hutchinson reveals his own misuse of it when he writes that ”the savage knows little of the higher affection subsequently developed, which has a worthier purpose than merely to disport itself in the mirth of childhood and at all hazards to avoid the annoyance of seeing its tears.” He comprehends that the savage ”gratifies _himself_” by humoring the whims ”of his children.” Dr.

Abel, on the other hand, who has written an interesting pamphlet on the words used in Latin, Hebrew, English, and Russian to designate the different kinds and degrees of what is vaguely called love, while otherwise making clear the differences between liking, attachment, fondness, and affection, does not sufficiently emphasize the most important distinction between them--the selfishness of the first three and the unselfish nature of affection.

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