Not only is it impossible to admit that mankind has, in all times and places, passed through a necessary stage of promiscuity, but we must go further, and also renounce a theory which has had some degree of success lately—the theory of obligatory primitive hetaïrism. According to this theory, when the instinct of holding feminine property arose in man, some individuals arrogated the right to keep for themselves one or more of the women hitherto common. The community then protested, and while tolerating this derogation from ancient usage, exacted that the bride, or purchased woman, should make an act of hetaïrism, or prostitution, before belonging to one man only.
It is Herodotus who has transmitted to us the most striking example of this kind, the one invoked by all the theorists of hetaïrism. I shall, therefore, quote it at length: “The most disgraceful of the Babylonian customs is the following. Every native woman is obliged, once in her life, to sit in the temple of Venus and have intercourse with some stranger. And many, disdaining to sit with the rest, being proud on account of their wealth, come in covered carriages, and take up their station at the temple with a numerous train of servants attending them. But the far greater part do this: many sit down in the temple of Venus, wearing a crown of cord round their heads; some are continually coming and others are going out. Passages marked out in a straight line lead in every direction through the women, along which strangers pass and make their choice. When a woman has once seated herself, she must not return home till some stranger has thrown a piece of silver into her lap and lain with her outside the temple. He who throws the silver must say thus: ‘I beseech the goddess Mylitta to favour thee;’ for the Assyrians call Venus Mylitta. The silver may be ever so small, for she will not reject it, inasmuch as it is not lawful for her to do so, for such silver is accounted sacred. The woman follows the first man that throws, and refuses no one. But when she has had intercourse, and has absolved herself from her obligations to the goddess, she returns home; and after that time, however great a sum you may give her, you will not gain possession of her. Those that are endowed with beauty and symmetry of shape are soon set free; but the deformed are detained a long time, from inability to satisfy the law, for some wait for a space of three or four years. In some parts of Cyprus there is a custom very similar.”[84]
After having read this passage, we are surprised at the import that has been attributed to it. Even admitting the obligation and universality of the custom in ancient Babylon, it is only an example of religious prostitution, with traces of exogamy. The Babylonians honoured Mylitta, just as the Armenians, according to Strabo,[85] venerated the goddess Anaïtis. “They have erected temples to Anaïtis in various places, especially in the Akilisenus, and have attached to these temples a good number of hierodules, or sacred slaves, of both sexes. So far, indeed, there is no ground for astonishment; but their devotion goes further, and it is the custom for the most illustrious personages to consecrate their virgin daughters to the goddess. This in no way prevents the latter from easily finding husbands, even after they have prostituted themselves for a long time in the temples of Anaïtis. No man feels on this account any repugnance to take them as wives.”
I quote in full these venerable passages, which have been so much used and abused, in order that it may not be possible to mistake their signification. Once more we repeat that they merely relate to erotico-religious aberrations. The procreative need, or delirium, has inspired men with many foolish ideas, and probably will continue to do so. A very slight knowledge of mythology is enough to show us that numerous cults have been founded on the sexual instinct, and these cults are naturally accompanied by special practices, little in accordance with our European morality. Religious prostitution, which was widely spread in Greek antiquity, has been also found in India, where every temple of renown had its bayadères, the only women in India to whom, until quite recently, any instruction was given.
The far more peculiar custom of Tchin-than, or religious defloration, formerly in use in Cambodia[86] and in Malabar, is evidently akin to religious prostitution. But this custom is nothing else than a mystic transformation of what was called the jus primæ noctis, of which I must first speak. It is important to distinguish several varieties of it. The first and most simple was the custom by which every newly-married woman, before belonging to her husband, was obliged to give herself, or be given, to a certain number of men, either relatives, friends, or fellow-citizens. This was the custom among the Nasamons, according to Herodotus: “When a Nasamon marries, custom requires that his bride should yield herself on the first night to all his guests in turn; each one who has had commerce with her makes her a present, which he has been mindful to bring with him.”[87]
A similar custom is said to have existed in various countries of the globe, in ancient times in the Balearic Isles, more recently among the ancient Peruvians, in our own times among several aboriginal tribes of India; in Burmah, in Cashmere, in the south of Arabia, in Madagascar, and in New Zealand;[88] but always as an exceptional practice, in use only in a small group or tribe. It is not impossible that here and there this usage, which is rare enough, may have been derived traditionally from an ancient marriage by classes, analogous to that still found among the Kamilaroi of Australia; but it may have been simply a mark of good-fellowship, or of conjugal generosity on the part of the bridegroom.
The seignorial jus primæ noctis, the right of the lord, is much more widely spread, and its existence cannot be contested. Among the Kaffirs, says Hamilton,[89] the chiefs have the choice of the women for several leagues round. So also, until lately, in New Zealand, every pretty girl was taboo for the vulgar, and had to be first reserved for the chief.[90] In New Mexico, with the Tahous, as Castañeda informs us, it is necessary, after having purchased the girl from her parents, to submit her to the seignorial right of the cacique, or to a priest of high rank. Religion already begins to insinuate itself into this singular right.[91]
According to Marco Polo, the same custom existed in the thirteenth century in Cochin-China. “Know,” says the old chronicler, “no woman can marry without the king first seeing her. If she pleases him, he takes her to wife; if she does not please him, he gives her enough from his own property to enable her to marry.
“In the year 1280 of Christ, when Messire Marco Polo was in that country, the king had three hundred and eighty-six children, male and female.”[92]
Under the feudal system in Europe this right of prelibation, or marquette (designated in old French by the expressive term droit de culage), has been in use in many fiefs, and until a very recent epoch. Almost in our own days certain lords of the Netherlands, of Prussia, and of Germany, still claimed it. In a French title-deed of 1507 we read that the Count d’Eu has the right of prelibation in the said place when any one marries.[93] More than this, ecclesiastics, and even bishops, have been known to claim this right in their quality of feudal lords. “I have seen,” says Boetius, “in the court at Bourges, before the metropolitan, an appeal by a certain parish priest, who pretended to claim the first night of young brides, according to the received usage. The demand was rejected with indignation, the custom unanimously proscribed, and the scandalous priest condemned to pay a fine.”