Adornment in the Two Sexes.—Vanity is older than man, for it is found in many animals. The lowest and most savage peoples adorn themselves. Tattooing, staining the skin, rings on the arms and feet, in the lips, nose and ears serve to attract one sex toward the other. A Santal woman may carry as much as fifteen kilogrammes of ornaments on her body. Vanity leads to incredible eccentricities, certain tribes, for example, pull out their teeth to increase their attractions. Absurdities of this kind are often associated with religious ideas, although the latter generally play a secondary part. The true origin of these customs lies in vanity, combined with the sexual desire to captivate. In hot climates, at any rate, the savages only commenced to cover their bodies with clothes with the object of pleasing by personal adornment. The religious observances attached to the custom of adornment are not primitive. The latter is derived from the sexual appetite and from vanity, and has only been incorporated in the dogmas of religious mysticism after being first established in the habits of the people.
Among savages the men are more inclined to personal adornment and to coquetry than the women. This is not due to the inferior social position of the women, for those who enjoy the greatest liberty are often less extensively tattooed than those who are reduced to slavery. The true reason is that the man risks much more than the woman by remaining celibate, and this obliges him to take more pains than the women to make himself fascinating. As a rule the wives of savages attach less importance to their personal appearance than to that of their husbands, and the vanity of the latter is guided chiefly by the taste of their wives. The objects with which savages adorn themselves are generally trophies.
Among civilized people, on the contrary, the men have a much wider choice and many women remain celibate. This is one of the reasons which compel women to study their personal appearance and the art of flirtation. In Europe, earrings represent the last vestige of the savage methods of adornment.
Sentiment of Shame of the Genital Organs. Nudity.—What is the origin of the fact that man is ashamed of his genital organs? Nothing of the kind occurs in animals. The psychologist, Wundt, maintains that man has always had a sexual sentiment of modesty. This is not correct, for many races present no trace of it, and sometimes cover all parts of their body except the genital organs. In some, the men, and in others the women go absolutely naked. Originally, clothes were only worn for adornment or for protection against the cold. The Massais would be ashamed to hide their penis, and it is their custom to exhibit it. Other savages cover the glans penis only with a small cap; they retire to pass water, but regard themselves as fully dressed so long as the glans penis is covered. The girdles and other garments of savage women are intended for ornament, and as a means of attraction; they have nothing to do with modesty. In a society where every one goes naked, nudity seems quite natural, and provokes neither shame nor eroticism. The custom of adorning the sexual organs then serves as a means of attraction, both in men and women. The short transparent skirts of a ballet dancer are in reality much more immodest than the nudity of the female savages. A great naturalist has said that veiled forms provoke the sexual appetite more than nudity. Snow remarks that association with naked savages excites much less sensuality than the society of fashionably dressed women in our salons. Read also remarks "Nothing is more moral or less calculated to excite the passions than nudity." It is needless to say that this statement is only correct when nudity is a matter of custom, for in sexual matters it is always novelty which attracts. Pious persons have tried to make savages modest by clothing them, but have only produced the contrary effect. Savage women regard it as shameful to cover their sexual organs. The naturalist, Wallace, found in one tribe a young girl who possessed a dress, but who was quite as much ashamed of clothing herself with it as one of our ladies would be of undressing before strangers.
It is only owing to the custom of wearing clothes that nudity provokes the sexual appetite. This custom develops artificially a sentiment of modesty with regard to nudity, which increases progressively in intensity and is especially marked in aged women. It is not so much habit, as to the feeling of progressive deterioration of their charms, which leads the latter to cover themselves as they grow older, and is part of the instinctive æsthetic sentiment of woman.
At the orgies and fêtes held among savages the women cover their sexual organs with certain objects, as a means to excite the men. Complete nudity is found more often in savage women than in the men.
Later on when it became the custom to wear clothes, nudity became attractive and was considered shameful. This is why the Chinese feel shame at exposing their feet, the Mahometans their faces, and some savages even the ends of their fingers.
Certain customs, like circumcision among the Jews, Polynesians and Australians; the artificial elongation of the lips of the vulva in Hottentots, Malays, and North American Indians, originated, according to Westermark, in the intention of exciting the sexual appetite, or of introducing variety into its satisfaction. Later on routine, which sanctions everything, transferred these customs into religious cult. It is possible, however, that among the Jews, who are a practical race, the hygienic advantage of circumcision took a part in its transformation into a rite.
To resume, everything derogatory to established custom excites the sentiment of shame or modesty, not only in sexual matters but in others. Most children are ashamed of not behaving exactly as their comrades or their brothers and sisters, and are very uncomfortable if they are obliged to behave otherwise. All sentiments of morality and modesty rest on conventionalities. The savage women burst into laughter when the naked companions of Livingstone turned their backs from modesty. The sentiment of modesty or shame thus depends only on exceptional violation of an old custom. This is why unconventional ways in one of the sexes (especially in woman) tend to offend the sentiments of modesty, and usually excite the sexual appetite of the other sex.