CHAPTER FOUR
s.e.x & RELIGION IN PRIMITIVE LIFE
The connection between s.e.xual feeling and religious belief is ancient, intimate, and sustained. It has impressed itself on many observers who have approached the subject from widely different points of view. Some have treated the connection as purely accidental, and as having no more than a mere historical interest. Others have used it as ill.u.s.trating the way in which so sacred a subject as religion may suffer degradation in degenerate hands. Others of a more scientific temper have dealt with the relations between s.e.xualism and religion as ill.u.s.trations of a mere perversion. A deal may be said in favour of this last point of view. We know, as a matter of fact, that such cases of perversion do exist, in what form and to what extent will be discussed later. We are also aware that strong feeling which cannot find vent in one direction will secure expression in another. The annals of Roman Catholicism contain accounts of numerous persons who have sought refuge in a monastery or a nunnery as the result of disappointment in love, and it would be foolish to conclude that strong amorous feelings are annihilated because there is a change in the object to which they are directed. Paul was not a different man from the Saul of pre-conversion days, but the same person with his energies directed into a new channel. Protestantism is without the obvious outlets for unsatisfied s.e.xual feeling such as is provided by Roman Catholicism, but it provides other outlets. Religious service as a whole remains, and intense religious devotion may very often owe its origin to sources undreamt of by the devotee.
Between religious beliefs and s.e.xual feelings the connection is, however, wider and deeper, than the relation expressed by mere perversion. Neither is the relation one of mere accident. An examination of the facts in the light of adequate scientific knowledge, combined with a due perception of primitive human psychology and sociology, have shown that the two things are united at their source. One eminent medical writer a.s.serts that "in a certain sense, the history of religion can be regarded as a peculiar mode of manifestation of the human s.e.xual instinct."[65] Another writer substantially endorses this by the remark that "in a certain sense the religious life is an irradiation of the reproductive instinct."[66] How easily one glides into the other very little observation of life or study of history will show. The language of devotion and of amatory pa.s.sion is often identical, and seems to serve equally well for either purpose. The significance of this fact is often obscured by our having etherealised the conception of love, and so losing sight of its physiological basis. And, having hidden it from sight, we, not unnaturally, fail to give it due consideration. This is, in its way, a fatal blunder. The s.e.x life of man and woman is too large a fact and too pervasive a force to be ignored with safety. Ignorance combined with prudery conspires to perpetuate what ignorance alone began; and the s.e.x life, in both its normal and abnormal manifestations, has been perpetually exploited in the interests of supernaturalism.
The evidence that may be adduced in favour of what has been said is vast, and covers a wide range. Historically it covers such facts as the relations between primitive religious beliefs and the s.e.xual life, and the multiplication of sects of a markedly erotic character during periods of religious enthusiasm. "Even the most casual students of religion," says Professor G. B. Cutten, "must have observed an apparently intimate connection between religious and s.e.xual emotions, and not a few have read with amazement the abnormal cults which have had the s.e.xual element as a foundation for their denominational dissent."[67] A phenomenon so striking as to force itself on the notice of the most "casual students" raises the presumption that the relation between the two sets of facts is rather more than that of "apparent"
intimacy. When in the course of history two things appear together over and over again, one is surely justified in a.s.suming that there is some underlying principle responsible for the a.s.sociation. The search for this principle leads to the next cla.s.s of evidence--the psychological.
In this we are concerned with the relation between the s.e.xual feelings and the religious idea, an a.s.sociation not always expressed through the comparatively harmless medium of language. And, finally, we have the evidence derived from pathology, where we are able to discern a perverted s.e.xuality masquerading as religious fervour.
In a previous chapter there has been pointed out the kind of mental environment in which primitive man moves. As one of the earliest forms of systematised thinking, religion dominates all other forms of mental activity. In savage culture there is hardly a single event into which religious considerations do not enter. The savage does not merely believe in a supernatural world, he lives in it; it is as real to him as anything around him, and far more potent in its action. Above all, it is important to bear in mind that although one is compelled to speak of the natural and the supernatural when dealing with early beliefs, no such separation is present to the primitive intelligence. The division between the natural and the supernatural in the external world is the reflection of a corresponding division in the world of thought, and this arises only at a subsequent stage. What is afterwards recognised as the supernatural pervades everything. In a sense it is everything, since most of what occurs is by the agency or connivance of animistic forces.
In such a world, where even the ordinary events of life have a supernatural significance, the strange and sometimes terrifying phenomena of s.e.xual life carry peculiarly strong evidences of supernatural activity. Events which are to the modern mind the most obvious consequences of s.e.x life are to the primitive mind proofs of supernatural or ghostly agency. Nothing, for example, would appear less open to misconception than the connection between s.e.xual relations and the birth of children. Yet, on this head, Mr. Sidney Hartland has produced a ma.s.s of evidence, gathered from all parts of the world, and leading to the conclusion that in the most primitive stages of human culture, conception and birth are ascribed to direct supernatural influence. Setting out from a study of the world-wide vogue of the belief in supernatural birth--contained in the author"s earlier work, _The Legend of Perseus_--Mr. Hartland finds in this a survival of a culture stage in which all birth is believed to be supernatural.
Survivals of this belief that birth is a phenomenon independent of the union of the s.e.xes are found in the existence of numerous semi-magical devices to obtain children, still practised in many parts of Europe, and which were practised on a much more extensive scale during the medieval period; in the ignorance of man concerning physiological functions in general, the existence of Motherright which appears to have universally antedated Fatherright--the origin of which he traces to economic causes, and to the animistic nature of primitive beliefs in general.[68]
Such a conclusion is not without verification from the beliefs of existing savages. The Bahau of Central Borneo have no notion of the real duration of pregnancy, and date its commencement only from the time of its becoming visible. The Niol-Niol of Dampier Land in North-Western Australia hold birth to be independent of s.e.xual intercourse. It is engendered by a pre-existing spirit through the agency of a medicine man. The North Queenslanders have a similar belief. They believe a child to be sent in answer to the husband"s prayer as a punishment to his wife when he is vexed with her. On the Proserpine River the Blacks believe that a child is the gift of a supernatural being called Kunya. In South Queensland the Euahlayi believe that spirits congregate at certain spots and pounce on pa.s.sing women, and so are born. On the Slave Coast of West Africa the Awunas say that a child derives the lower jaw from the mother; all the rest comes from the spirits. Among these people and others that might be named paternity exists in name, but it implies something entirely different to what it afterwards connotes. Mr.
Hartland gives numerous instances of this curious fact, and points out that "the attention of mankind would not be early or easily fastened upon the procreative process. It is lengthy, extending over months during which the observer"s attention would be inevitably diverted by a variety of objects, most of them of far more pressing import.... The s.e.xual pa.s.sion would be gratified instinctively without any thought of the consequences, and in an overwhelming proportion of cases without the consequence of pregnancy at all. When that consequence occurred it would not be visible for weeks or months after the act which produced it. A hundred other events might have taken place in the interval which would be likely to be credited with the result by one wholly ignorant of natural laws."
There seems, therefore, fair grounds for Mr. Hartland"s conclusion that:--
"for generations and aeons the truth that a child is only born in consequence of an act of s.e.xual union, that the birth of a child is the natural consequence of such an act performed in favouring circ.u.mstances, and that every child must be the result of such an act and of no other cause, was not realised by mankind, that down to the present day it is imperfectly realised by some peoples, and that there are still others among whom it is unknown."
This, however, is but one of the ways in which supernatural beliefs become a.s.sociated with s.e.xual phenomena. In truth, there is not a stage of any importance in the s.e.xual life of men and women where the same a.s.sociation does not transpire. There is, for example, the important phenomenon of p.u.b.erty--important from both a physiological and sociological point of view. Pubic ceremonies of some kind are found all over the world, and in all forms, from those current amongst savages up to the contemporary practice of confirmation in the Christian Church. At all stages the period of p.u.b.erty is the time of initiation. With uncivilised peoples a very general rule is the separation of the s.e.xes, with fasting. Mr. Stanley Hall in his elaborate work on _Adolescence_ has dealt very exhaustively with these customs, with which we shall be more closely concerned when we come to deal with the subject of conversion. At present it is only necessary to point out that the governing idea is that at p.u.b.erty the boy and the girl are brought into special relationship with the tribal spirits, the proof of which relationship lies in the s.e.xual functions originated.
With boys, once p.u.b.erty is attained, the s.e.xual development is orderly and un.o.btrusive. In the case of girls certain recurring phenomena make the essential fact of s.e.x much more impressive to the primitive mind, with far-reaching sociological consequences. "Ignorance of the nature of female periodicity," says A. E. Crawley, "leads man to consider it as the flow of blood from a wound, naturally, or more usually, supernaturally produced."[69] In Siam an evil spirit is believed to be the cause of the wound. Amongst the Chiriguanas the girl fasts, while women beat the floor with sticks in order to drive away "the snake that has wounded the girl." Similar beliefs are found very generally among people in a low stage of culture, and customs and beliefs still surviving among people more advanced point to the conclusion that convictions of the same kind were once fairly universal. It is this function, combined with the function of childbirth, that brings woman into close contact with the supernatural world, makes her an object of fear and wonder to primitive man, accounts for a number of the customs and beliefs a.s.sociated with her, and finally helps to determine her social position. It is because her periodicity is taken as evidence of her communion with spiritual forces that special precautions have to be taken concerning her. She becomes spiritually contagious. Thus, the natives of New Britain, while engaged in making fish-traps, carefully avoid all women. They believe that if a woman were even to touch a fish-trap, it would catch nothing. Amongst the Maoris, if a man touched a menstruous woman, he would be taboo "an inch thick." An Australian black fellow, who discovered that his wife had lain on his blanket at her menstrual period, killed her, and died of terror himself within a fortnight. In Uganda the pots which a woman touches while the impurity of childbirth or menstruation is on her, are destroyed. With many North American Indians the use of weapons touched by women during these times would bring misfortune. A menstruating woman is with them the object they dread most. In Tahiti women are secluded. In some cases she is too dangerous to be even touched by others, and food is given her at the end of a stick. With the Pueblo Indians contact with a woman at these times exposes a man to attacks from an evil spirit, and he may pa.s.s on the infection to others.[70]
It is needless to multiply instances; the same general reason governs all, and this has been clearly expressed by Dr. Frazer:--
"The object of secluding women at menstruation is to neutralise the dangerous influence which is supposed to emanate from them at such times. The general effect of these rules is to keep the women suspended, so to say, between heaven and earth. Whether enveloped in her hammock and slung up to the roof, as in South America, or elevated above the ground in a dark and narrow cage, as in New Zealand, she may be considered to be out of the way of doing mischief, since being shut off both from the earth and from the sun, she can poison neither of these great sources of life by her deadly contagion. The precautions thus taken to isolate and insulate the girl are dictated by regard for her own safety as well as for the safety of others.... In short, the girl is viewed as charged with a powerful force which, if not kept within bounds, may prove the destruction both of the girl herself and all with whom she comes in contact. To repress this force within the limits necessary for the safety of all concerned is the object of the taboos in question."
The savage is far too logical in his methods to allow such an idea to end here. If a woman is so highly charged with spiritual infection as to be dangerous at certain frequently recurring periods, she may be more or less dangerous between these periods. As Havelock Ellis says: "Instead of being regarded as a being who at periodic intervals becomes the victim of a spell of impurity, the conception of impurity becomes amalgamated with the conception of woman; she is, as Tertullian puts it, _Janua diaboli_; and this is the att.i.tude which still persisted in medieval days."[71] This is to be expected from what one knows of the workings of the primitive intelligence, but it is surprising to find Mr.
Ellis continue by saying, on apparently good grounds, that "the belief in the periodically recurring impurity of women has by no means died out to-day. Among a very large section of the women of the middle and lower cla.s.ses of England and other countries it is firmly believed that the touch of a menstruating woman will contaminate; only a few years since, in the course of a correspondence on this subject in the _British Medical Journal_ (1878), even medical men were found to state from personal observation that they had no doubt whatever on this point.
Thus, one doctor, who expressed surprise that any doubt could be thrown on the point, wrote, after quoting cases of spoiled hams, etc., presumed to be due to this cause, which had come under his own personal observation: "For two thousand years the Italians have had this idea of menstruating women. We English hold to it, the Americans have it, also the Australians. Now, I should like to know the country where the evidence of any such observation is unknown."" Evidently animism is a more persistent frame of mind than most people are inclined to believe.
It is certain, however, that this conception of woman"s nature is dominant in the lower stages of culture. She is spiritually dangerous, and the principle of "taboo" is made to cover a great many of her relations to man. In Tahiti a woman was not allowed to touch the weapons or fishing implements of men. Amongst the Todas women are not permitted to touch the cattle. If a wife touches the food of her husband, among the Hindus, the food is unfit to be eaten. An Eskimo wife dare not eat with her husband. In New Zealand wives were not allowed to eat with the males lest their taboo should kill them. Many tribes are careful to refrain from contact with women before going to fight. They believe that this would rob them and their weapons of strength. Other practices followed by savages before going to war forbid one a.s.suming that this abstention is due to any rational fear of dissipating their energies.
Instead of conserving their strength they weaken themselves by the many privations they undergo before fighting, in order to ensure victory.
Professor Frazer well says:--
"When we observe what pains these misguided savages took to unfit themselves for the business of war by abstaining from food, denying themselves rest, and lacerating their bodies, we shall probably not be disposed to attribute their practice of continence in war to a rational fear of dissipating their bodily energies by indulgence in the l.u.s.ts of the flesh."[72]
The conception of woman as one heavily charged with supernatural potentialities, and, therefore, a source of danger to the community, seems to lie at the basis of the widespread belief in the religious "uncleanness" of women. The real significance of the word "unclean" in religious ritual has been obscured by our modern use of it in a hygienic or ethical sense. In reality it is but an ill.u.s.tration of the principle of "taboo," and "taboo" may extend to anything, good or bad, useful or useless, hygienically clean or unclean. The primary meaning of "taboo,"
a Polynesian word, is something that is set aside or forbidden. The field covered by this word among savage and semi-savage races is, as Robertson Smith points out, "very wide, for there is no part of life in which the savage does not feel himself surrounded by mysterious agencies and recognise the need of walking warily."[73] Anything may thus become the object of a "taboo." Weapons, food, animals, places, special relations of one person to another at certain times and under certain conditions. It is enough that some special or particular degree of supernatural influence is a.s.sociated with the object in question. The ancient Jews, for example, in prohibiting the eating of swine"s flesh, were as far as possible removed in their thought from any connection with dietetics. They were simply following the well-known savage custom that the totem of a tribe is sacred. The pig was a totem with many of the Semitic tribes, and must not, therefore, be eaten.[74] It was not an unclean animal, in the modern sense, it was a "holy" animal. With the Syrians the dove was so holy that even to touch it made a man "unclean"
for a whole day. No North American Indian will eat of the flesh of an animal that is a tribal totem, except under grave necessity, and even then with elaborate religious ceremonies. So, "a prohibition to eat the flesh of an animal of a certain species, that has its ground not in natural loathing but in religious horror and reverence, implies that something divine is ascribed to every animal of the species. And what seems to us to be a natural loathing often turns out, in the case of primitive peoples, to be based on a religious _taboo_, and to have its origin not in feelings of contemptuous disgust, but of reverential dread."[75]
The real significance of "unclean" in connection with religious ritual is "holy", something that partakes in a special manner of supernatural influence and therefore involves a certain danger in contact. As the writer just cited observes:--
"The acts that cause uncleanness are exactly the same which among savage nations place a man under taboo.... These acts are often involuntary, and often innocent, or even necessary to society. The savage, accordingly, imposes a taboo on a woman in childbed, or during her courses ... simply because birth and everything connected with the propagation of the species on the one, and disease and death on the other hand, seem to involve the action of supernatural agencies of a dangerous kind. If he attempts to explain, he does so by supposing that on these occasions spirits of deadly power are present; at all events the persons involved seem to him to be sources of mysterious danger, which has all the characters of an infection, and may extend to other people unless due precautions are observed.... It has nothing to do with respect for the G.o.ds, but springs from mere terror of the supernatural influences a.s.sociated with the woman"s physical condition."[76]
It is interesting to observe the manner in which this notion of the sacramentally "unclean" nature of woman has affected her religious status, and by inference, her social status likewise. Among the Australians women are shut out from any part in the religious ceremonies. In the Sandwich Isles a woman"s touch made a sacrifice unclean. If a Hindu woman touches a sacred image the divinity is destroyed. In Fiji women are excluded from the temples. The Papuans have the same custom. The Ainus of j.a.pan allow a woman to prepare the sacrifice, but not to offer it. Women are excluded from many Mohammedan mosques. Among the Jews women have no part in the religious ceremonies.
In the Christian Church women were excluded from the priestly office. A Council held at Auxerre at the end of the sixth century forbade women touching the Eucharist with their bare hands, and in various churches they were forbidden to approach the altar during Ma.s.s.[77] In the gospels Jesus forbids the woman to touch Him, after the resurrection, although Thomas was allowed to feel His wounds. "The Church of the Middle Ages did not hesitate to provide itself with eunuchs in order to supply cathedral choirs with the soprano tones inhering by nature in women alone."[78] The "Churching" of women still in vogue has its origin in the same superst.i.tion that childbirth endows woman with a supernatural influence which must be removed in the interests of others.
This ceremony was formerly called "The Order of the Purification of Women," and was read at the church door before the woman entered the building. Its connection with the ideas indicated above is obvious. The Tahitian practice of excluding women from intercourse with others for two or three weeks after childbirth, with similar practices amongst uncivilised peoples all over the world, led with various modifications up to the current practice of churching. They show that in the opinion of primitive peoples "a woman at and after childbirth is pervaded by a certain dangerous influence which can infect anything and anybody she touches; so that in the interests of the community it becomes necessary to seclude her from society for a while, until the virulence of the infection has pa.s.sed away, when, after submitting to certain rites of purification, she is again free to mingle with her fellows."[79] The gradual change of this ceremony, from a getting rid of a dangerous supernatural infection to returning thanks for a natural danger pa.s.sed, is on all fours with what takes place in other directions in relation to religious ideas and practices.
The important part played by this conception of woman"s nature may be traced in the fierce invective directed against her in the early Christian writings. Of course, by that time society had reached a stage when the primitive form of this belief had been outgrown, but ideas and att.i.tudes of mind persist long after their originating conditions have disappeared. In this particular case we have the primitive idea expressed in a form suitable to altered circ.u.mstances, and the primitive feeling seeking new warranty in ethical or social considerations. But in the main the old notion is there. Woman is a creature threatening danger to man"s spiritual welfare.[80] In this connection we may note an observation of Westermarck"s during his residence among the country people of Morocco. He was struck, he says, with the superst.i.tious fear the men had of women. They are supposed to be much better versed in magic, and therefore one ran greater danger in offending them. The curses of women are, generally, much more feared than those of men. To this we have a parallel in Christianity which so often revived and strengthened the lower religious beliefs. During the witch mania an overwhelming proportion of those charged with and executed for sorcery were women. As a matter of fact, women were more p.r.o.ne than men to credit themselves with possessing supernatural power. But the theological explanation was that the devil had more power over women than men. This was, obviously, a heritage from the primitive belief above described.[81]
Another way in which religion becomes closely a.s.sociated with s.e.xualism is through the widely diffused phallic worship. The worship of the generative power in the form of stones, pillars, and carved representations of the male and female s.e.xual organs plays an unquestionably important part in the history of religion, however hardly pressed it may have been by some enthusiastic theorisers. "The farther back we go," says Mr. Hargrave Jennings, "in the history of every country, the deeper we explore into all religions, ancient as well as modern, we stumble the more frequently upon the incessantly intensifying distinct traces of this supposedly indecent mystic worship."[82] On the lower Congo, says Sir H. H. Johnston:--
"Phallic worship in various forms prevails. It is not a.s.sociated with any rites that might be called particularly obscene; and on the coast, where manners and morals are particularly corrupt, the phallus cult is no longer met with. In the forests between Manyanga and Stanley Pool it is not rare to come upon a little rustic temple, made of palm fronds and poles, within which male and female figures, nearly or quite life size, may be seen, with disproportionate genital organs, the figures being intended to represent the male and female principle. Around these carved and painted statues are many offerings, plates, knives, and cloth, and frequently also the phallic symbol may be seen dangling from the rafters. There is not the slightest suspicion of obscenity in all this, and anyone qualifying this worship of the generative power as obscene does so hastily and ignorantly. It is a solemn mystery to the Congo native, a force but dimly understood, and, like all mysterious natural manifestations, it is a power that must be propitiated and persuaded to his good."[83]
The Egyptian religion was permeated with phallicism. In India phallic worship is widely scattered. In Benares, the sacred city, "everywhere, in the temples, in the little shrines in the street, the emblem of the Creator is phallic." Symbols of the male and female s.e.xual organs, the Lingam and the Yoni, have been objects of worship in India from the earliest times. With the Sakti ceremonies, Hindu religion dispenses with symbols, and devotion is paid to a naked woman selected for the occasion.[84] This worship of a nude female is a very familiar phenomenon in the history of religion. Some of the early Christian sects were said to have practised it, and it is a feature of some Russian religious sects to-day. The subject will be dealt with more fully hereafter.
In ancient Rome, in the month of April, "when the fertilising powers of nature begin to operate, and its powers to be visibly developed, a festival in honour of Venus took place; in it the phallus was carried in a cart, and led in procession by the Roman ladies to the temple of Venus outside the Colline gate, and then presented by them to the s.e.xual part of the G.o.ddess."[85] In the Greek Bacchic religious processions huge phalli were carried in a chariot drawn by bulls, and surrounded by women and girls singing songs of praise. Phallic worship was also a.s.sociated with the cults of Dionysos and Eleusis. It is met with among the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians, and also among the North American tribes. The famous Black Stone of Mecca, to which religious honours are paid, is also said by authorities to be a phallic symbol. The stone set up by Jacob (Gen. xxviii. 18-9) falls into the same category. References to phallic worship may be found in many parts of the Bible, and authoritative writers like Mr. Hargrave Jennings and Major-General Forlong have not hesitated to a.s.sert that the G.o.d of the Jewish Ark was a s.e.xual symbol. Seeing the extent to which phallic worship exists in other religions, it would be surprising did this not also exist in the early Jewish religion.
In Christendom we have evidence of the perpetuation of the phallic cult in the decree of Mans, 1247, and of the Synod of Tours, 1396, against its practice. Quite unsuccessfully, however. Indeed, the architecture of medieval churches bear in their ornamentation numerous evidences of the failure at suppression. Of course, much of this ornamentation may have been due to mere imitation, but often enough it was deliberate. "The scholar," says Bonwick, "who gazed to-day at the roof of Temple Church, London, had the ill.u.s.tration before him. A symbol there, repeatedly displayed, is the popular Hindu one to express s.e.x worship."[86] The belief found expression in other ways than ornamentation. When Sir William Hamilton visited Naples in 1781 he found in Isernia a Christian custom in vogue which he described in a letter to Sir William Banks, and which admitted of no doubt as to its Priapic character. Every September was celebrated a festival in the Church of SS. Cosmus and Damia.n.u.s.
During the progress of the festival vendors paraded the streets offering small waxen phalli, which were bought by the devout and placed in the church, much as candles are still purchased and given. At the same time, prayers are offered to St. Como by those who desire children. In Midlothian, in 1268, the clergy instructed their flock to sprinkle water with a dog"s phallus in order to avert a murrain. The same practice existed in Inverkeithing, and in Easter week priest and people danced round a wooden phallus.[87] Mr. Westropp, quoting an eighteenth-century writer,[88] says: "When the Huguenots took Embrun, they found among the relics of the princ.i.p.al church a Priapus, of three pieces in the ancient fashion, the top of which was worn away from being constantly washed with wine." The temple of St. Eutropius, destroyed by the Huguenots, is said to have contained a similar figure. From Mr. Sidney Hartland"s collection of practices for obtaining children I take the following:--
"At Bourg-Dieu, in the diocese of Bourges, a similar saint" (similar to the priapean figure previously described) "was called Guerlichon or Greluchon. There after nine days" devotions women stretched themselves on the horizontal figure of the saint, and then sc.r.a.ped the phallus for mixture in water as a drink. Other saints were worshipped elsewhere in France with equivalent rites. Down to the Revolution there stood at Brest a chapel of Saint Guignolet containing a priapean statue of the holy man. Women who were, or feared to be, sterile used to go and sc.r.a.pe a little of the prominent member, which they put into a gla.s.s of water from the well and drank. The same practice was followed at the Chapel of Saint Pierre-a-Croquettes in Brabant until 1837, when the archaeologist Schayes called attention to it, and thereupon the ecclesiastical authorities removed the cause of scandal. Women have, however, still continued to make votive offerings of pins down almost, if not quite, to the present day. At Antwerp stood at the gateway to the Church of Saint Walburga in the Rue des Pecheurs a statue, the s.e.xual organ of which had been entirely sc.r.a.ped away by women for the same purpose."[89]
From what has been said, it will not be difficult to understand the existence of the custom of religious prost.i.tution. Considering the s.e.xual impulse as specially connected with a supernatural force, man pays it religious honour, and comes to identify its manifestations as an expression of the supernatural and also as an act of worship towards it.
In India the practice existed, when most temples had their "bayaderes."
In ancient Chaldea every woman was compelled to prost.i.tute herself once in her life in the temple of the G.o.ddess Mylitta--the Chaldean Venus.
This custom existed elsewhere, and by it the woman was compelled to remain within the temple enclosures until some man chose her, from whom she received a piece of money. The money, of course, belonged to the temple.[90] In Greece, Carthage, Syria, etc., we find the same custom.
Among the Jews, so orthodox a commentary as Smith"s _Bible Dictionary_ admits that the "Kadechim" attached to the temple were prost.i.tutes. The frequent references to the service of the "groves" surrounding the temple irresistibly suggest their likeness to the groves around the temples of Mylitta, and their use for the same purpose.
There is no necessity to prolong the subject,[91] nor is it necessary to my purpose to discuss the origin of phallic worship. It is enough to have shown the manner in which, from the very earliest times, religious belief and s.e.xual phenomena have been connected in the closest possible manner. In this respect it is only on all fours with the relation of religion to phenomena in general, but here the att.i.tude of mind is accentuated and prolonged by the startling facts of s.e.xual development.
The connection becomes consequently so close it is not surprising to find that the a.s.sociation has persisted down to the present time, and moods that have their origin in the s.e.xual life are frequently attributed to religious influences. The primitive intelligence, frankly seeing in the phenomena of s.e.x a manifestation of the supernatural, sees here a continuous endors.e.m.e.nt of religious life. The more sophisticated mind raised above this point of view continues, with modifications, the primitive practices, and in ignorance of the physiological causes of its own states is only too ready to interpret ebullitions of s.e.x feeling as evidence of the divine.
NOTE TO PAGE 104.
It is strange that so little attention has been paid to these primitive beliefs as important factors in determining the social position of women. It is too generally a.s.sumed that because woman is physically weaker than man it is her weakness that has determined her subordination. Both the advocates and the opponents of "Woman"s Rights" appear to have reached a common agreement on this point. During some of the debates in the House of Commons, for example, it was openly stated by prominent politicians, as an axiom of political philosophy, that all laws rest upon a basis of force, and if men say they will not obey woman-made laws there is no power that can compel them to do so. On the other side, women, while appealing to what they properly call higher considerations, themselves dwell upon the physical weakness of woman as the reason for her subordination in the past. Both parties are helped in their arguments by the facile division of social history into two periods, an earlier one in which club law plays the chief part, and a later period when mental and moral qualities a.s.sume a dominating position. The consequence is, runs the argument, that each s.e.x has to battle with the dead weight of tradition and custom. The woman is oppressed by the tradition of subordination to the male; the man is inspired by that of dominance over the female.
It is when we ask for evidence of this that we see how flimsy the case is. Social phenomena in either civilised or uncivilised society furnishes no proof that inst.i.tutions and customs rest upon a basis of physical force. The rulership of a tribe often rests with the old men of a tribe; with some tribes the women are consulted, and invariably custom and tradition plays a powerful part. The notion that the primitive chief is the primitive strong man of the tribe is as baseless as the belief in an original social contract, and owes its existence to the same kind of fanciful speculation. As Frazer says, "it is one of those facile theories which the arm-chair philosopher concocts with his feet on the fender without taking the trouble to consult the facts." The primitive chief may be a strong man. The tribal council or chief may use force or rely upon physical force to enforce certain decrees, just as the modern king or parliament may call on the help of policeman or soldier, but this no more proves that their rule is based upon force than Mr. Asquith"s premiership proves his physical superiority to the rest of the Cabinet.
All political life, and to a smaller degree all social life, involves the direction of force, but neither appeal to force for an ultimate justification, nor do social inst.i.tutions originate in an act of force.
It is one of the commonplaces of historical study that when an inst.i.tution is actually forced upon a people it very quickly becomes inoperative. Other things equal, one group of people may overcome another group because of physical superiority, but the conquest over, the question as to which group shall really rule, or which set of inst.i.tutions shall survive, is settled on quite different grounds. The history of almost any country will give examples of the absorption of the conqueror by the conquered, and the bringing of imported inst.i.tutions into line with native life and feeling. Fundamentally the relations binding people together into a society are not physical, but psychological. Society rests upon the foundations of a common mental life--upon sympathy, beliefs, the desire for companionship, etc. As Professor J. M. Baldwin puts it, the fundamental social facts are not _things_, but _thoughts_.[92] As a member of a social group man is born into an environment that is essentially psychological, and his att.i.tude not only towards his fellow human beings, but towards nature in general, is determined by the psychological contents of the society to which he belongs.
Now if the relation of one man to another is not determined by physical superiority and inferiority, if the relations of cla.s.ses within a society are not determined in this manner, why should it be a.s.sumed that as a s.e.x woman"s position is fixed by this means? It seems more reasonable to a.s.sume that some other principle than that of club law, a principle set in operation very early in the history of civilisation, fixed the main lines upon which the relations of the s.e.xes were to develop, however much other forces helped its operation. I believe this desired factor is to be found in the superst.i.tious notions savages develop concerning the nature and function of woman, and which society only very slowly outgrows. For, as Frazer says: "The continuity of human development has been such that most, if not all, of the great inst.i.tutions which still form the framework of a civilised society have their roots in savagery, and have been handed down to us in these later days through countless generations, a.s.suming new outward forms in the process of transmission, but remaining in their inmost core substantially unchanged."
In considering the play of primitive ideas as determining the lines of human evolution several things must be kept clearly in mind. One is that the course of biological development has made woman, as a s.e.x, dependent upon man, as a s.e.x, for protection and support. This is true quite apart from economic considerations or from those arising from the relative physical strength of the s.e.xes. The prime function of woman, biologically, is that of motherhood. She is, so to speak, mother in a much more important and more pervasive sense than man is father. In the case of woman, her functions are of necessity subordinated to this one.
With man this is not the case. It is with the woman that the nutrition of the child rests before birth, and a large portion of her strength is expended in the discharge of this function. The same is true for some period immediately after birth. Again to use a biological ill.u.s.tration, during the period of child-bearing and child-rearing the relation of the man to the woman may be likened to that which exists between the germ cells and the somatic cells. As the latter is the medium of protection and the conveyer of nutrition in relation to the former, so it falls to the male to protect and in some degree to provide for the woman as child-bearer. It would not, of course, be impossible for woman to provide for herself, but it would detract so considerably from social efficiency that any group in which it was done would soon disappear. It is the nature and supreme function of woman that makes her dependent upon man. And even though the dreams of some were realised, and society as a whole cared for woman in the discharge of this function, the issue would not be changed. It would mean that instead of a woman being dependent upon one man she would be dependent upon all men. Nor are the substantial facts of the situation changed by anyone pointing out that all women do not and cannot under ordinary circ.u.mstances become wives and mothers. Human nature will always develop on the lines of the normal functions of men and women, and there can be no question in this case as to what these are.
I have used the word "dependence," but this does not, of necessity, involve either subordination or subjection. It may provide the condition of either or of both, but the dependence of the woman on the man is, as I have said, biologically inescapable. Her subjection is quite another question. Dependence may be mutual. One cla.s.s of society may be dependent upon another cla.s.s, but the two may move on a perfect level of equality. And with uncivilised peoples the evidence goes to prove that, while the spheres of the s.e.xes are more clearly differentiated than with us, this difference is seldom if ever expressed in terms of superior and inferior. Savages would say, as civilised people still say, there are many things that it is wrong for a woman to do, and they would add there are also things that a man must not do. They would be as shocked at woman doing certain things as some people among ourselves were when women first began to speak at public meetings. Their disapproval would not rest on the ground that these things were "unwomanly", nor upon any question of weakness or strength, of inferiority or superiority, but for another and, to the savage, very urgent reason.
One can very easily exaggerate the extent of the subjection of women among uncivilised people. As a matter of fact, it usually is exaggerated. Not all travellers are capable of accurate observation, and very many are led astray by what are really superficial aspects of savage life. They are so impressed by the contemplation of a state of affairs different from our own that they mistake mere lines of demarcation for a moral valuation. Many travellers, for example, observing that women are strictly forbidden to do this or that, conclude that the woman has no rights as against the man. As in nearly all these cases the man is as strictly forbidden to encroach on the woman"s sphere, one might as reasonably reverse the statement and dwell upon male subjection. As a matter of fact, both furnish examples of the all-powerful principle of "taboo." Some things are taboo to the man, others to the woman. And the key to the problem lies in the nature and origin of these taboos. But taboo does not extinguish rights; it confirms them. Under its operation, far from its being the truth that women are without status or rights or power, her position and rights are clearly marked, generally recognised, and quickly enforced. Some examples of this may be noted.
A Kaffir woman when ill-treated possesses the right of asylum with her parents, and remains there until the husband makes atonement. The same thing holds of the West African Fulahs. In the Marquesas a woman is prohibited the use of canoes; on the other hand, men are prohibited frequenting certain places belonging to the women. In Nicaragua no man may enter the woman"s market-place under penalty of a beating. With most of the North-American tribes a woman has supreme power inside the lodge.
The husband possesses no power of interference. In most cases the husband cannot give away anything belonging to the lodge without first getting the consent of his wife. With the Nootkas, women are consulted on all matters of business. Livingstone relates his surprise on finding that a native would not accompany him on a journey because he could not get his wife"s consent. He found this to be one of the customs of the tribe to which the man belonged. Among the Kandhs of India nothing public is done without consulting the women. In the Pellew Islands the head of the family can do nothing of importance without consulting the oldest female relative. Among the Hottentots women have supreme rule in the house. If a man oversteps the line, his female relatives inflict a fine, which is paid to the wife. With the Bechuanas the mother of the chief is present at all councils, and he can hardly decide anything without her consent. These are only a few of the cases that might be cited, but they are sufficient to show that the common view of women among savages as without recognised status, or power, needs very serious qualification. Of course, ill-treatment of women does occur with uncivilised as with civilised people, and she may suffer from the expression of brutal pa.s.sion or superior strength, but an examination of the facts justifies Starcke"s opinion that "we are not justified in a.s.suming that the savage feels a contempt for women in virtue of her s.e.x."