[65] Espinas, loc. cit. p. 453.
CHAPTER III.
PROMISCUITY.
I. Has there been a Stage of Promiscuity?—Promiscuity rare among the superior vertebrates—It has been exceptional in mankind.
II. Cases of Human Promiscuity.—Promiscuity among the Troglodytes, the ancient Arabs, the Agathyrses, the Anses, the Garamantes, the ancient Greeks, in the Timæus, in China, in India, among the Andamanites, in California, among the aborigines of India, among the Zaporogs, and the Ansarians—Insufficience of these proofs.
III. Hetaïrism.—Jus primæ noctis—Religious hetaïrism at Babylon, in Armenia—Religious prostitution—Religious defloration—The jus primæ noctis with the Nasamons, in the Balearic Isles, in ancient Peru, in Asia, etc.—The right of the chief with the Kaffirs, in New Zealand, in New Mexico, in Cochin-China, in feudal Europe—The right of religious prelibation—Religious defloration in Cambodia—The reason of the right of prelibation—The jus primæ noctis confounded with the simple licence of unmarried women—Shamelessness of girls in Australia, Polynesia, America, Malaya, Abyssinia, etc.—The indotata in primitive Rome—Loan and barter of women in America and elsewhere, and among the ancient Arabs—Actual promiscuity has been rare in humanity.
I. Has there been a Stage of Promiscuity?
Having made our preliminary investigation of love, sexual unions, marriage, or what corresponds to it, and the family in the animal kingdom, we are now in a position to approach the examination of corresponding social facts in regard to man. The method of evolution requires us to begin our inquiry with the lowest forms of sexual association, and there is none lower, morally and intellectually, than promiscuity; that is to say, a social condition so gross that within a group, a horde, or a tribe, all the women belong, without rule or distinction, to all the men. In a society so bestial there is surely no room for what we call love, however grossly we may understand this sentiment. There is no choice, no preference; the sexual need is reduced to its simplest expression, and absolutely debased to the level of the nutritive needs; love is no more than a hunger or thirst of another kind; there is no longer any distinction between the man and the tatoway.
Some sociologists have affirmed, without hesitation, that community of women represented a primitive and necessary stage of the sexual associations of mankind. Surely they would have been less dogmatic on this point if, before approaching human sociology, they had first consulted animal sociology, as we have done. We have seen that many vertebrated animals are capable of a really exclusive and jealous passion, even when they are determined polygamists. As a matter of fact, the vertebrates with whom love is merely a need, like any other, seem to be a very small minority. Some among them, especially birds, are models of fidelity, constancy, and devoted attachment, which may well inspire man with feelings of modesty. Mammals, while less delicate in their love than many birds, are, however, for the most part, already on a moral level incompatible with promiscuity. The mammals nearest to man, those whom we may consider as the effigies of our nearest animal ancestors, the anthropoid apes, are sometimes monogamous and sometimes polygamous, but, as a rule, they cannot endure promiscuity. Now, this fact manifestly constitutes a very strong presumption against the basis of the theory according to which promiscuity has been, with the human species, the primitive and necessary stage of sexual unions. Do we thus mean to say that there is no example of promiscuity in human societies, primitive or not? Far from it. It would be impossible to affirm this without neglecting a large number of facts observed in antiquity or observable in our own day. But we are warranted in believing that the very inferior stage of promiscuity has never been other than exceptional in humanity. If it has existed here and there, it is that by the very reason of the relative superiority of his intelligence, man is less rigorously subject to general laws, and that he knows sometimes how to modify or infringe them; there is more room for caprice in his existence than in the life of the animals.
II. Some Cases of Human Promiscuity.
Human groups have, then, practised promiscuity, and it is not quite impossible that some of them practise it still. Exceptional as these facts may be, they are interesting to sociologists, and it is important to mention and to criticise them also. We are indebted for our knowledge of a certain number of them to the writers of Greco-Latin antiquity. I will give them in full, at least those that deserve or have obtained more or less credit.