“A further fact,” Dr. Post says, “which speaks for sexual intercourse having originally been unchecked, is the wide-spread custom that the sexes may cohabit perfectly freely previous to marriage.”[302]
The immorality of many savages is certainly very great, but we must not believe that it is characteristic of uncivilized races in general. There are numerous savage and barbarous peoples among whom sexual intercourse out of wedlock is of rare occurrence, unchastity, at least on the part of the woman, being looked upon as a disgrace and even as a crime.
“A Kafir woman,” Barrow says, “is chaste and extremely modest;”[303] and Mr. Cousins writes to me that, between their various feasts, the Kafirs, both men and women, have to live in strict continence, the penalty being banishment from the tribe, if this law is broken. Proyart states that, among the people of Loango, “a youth durst not speak to a girl except in her mother’s presence,” and “the crime of a maid who has not resisted seduction, would be sufficient to draw down a total ruin on the whole country, were it not expiated by a public avowal made to the king.”[304] Among the Equatorial Africans, mentioned by Mr. Winwood Reade, a girl who disgraces her family by wantonness is banished from her clan; and, in cases of seduction, the man is severely flogged.[305] In Dahomey, if a man seduces a girl, the law compels marriage, and the payment of eighty cowries to the parent or master.[306] In Tessaua, according to Dr. Barth, a fine of 100,000 kurdi is imposed on the father of a bastard child—a sum which indicates how seldom such children are born there.[307] Among the Beni-Mzab, a man who seduces a young girl has to pay two hundred francs, and is banished for four years.[308] Among the Beni-Amer, according to Munzinger, the unmarried women are very modest, though the married women believe that they are allowed everything.[309] Among the Arab girls in Upper Egypt, unchastity is made impossible by an operation when they are from three to five years old;[310] and among the Marea, continence is a scarcely less necessary virtue, as a maiden or widow who becomes pregnant is killed together with the seducer and the child.[311] As regards the Kabyles, Messrs. Hanoteau and Letourneux assert, “Les mœurs ne tolèrent même aucune relation sexuelle en dehors du mariage.... L’enfant né en dehors du mariage est tué ainsi que sa mère.”[312]
Among the Central Asian Turks, according to Vámbéry, a fallen girl is unknown.[313] Among the Kalmucks,[314] as also the Gypsies,[315] the girls take pride in having gallant affairs, but are dishonoured if they have children previous to marriage. A seducer among the Tunguses is bound to marry his victim and pay the price claimed for her.[316] In Circassia, an incontinent daughter is generally sold as soon as possible, being a disgrace to her parents.[317] Among the wretched inhabitants of Lob-nor, “immorality is severely punished.”[318] And regarding the Let-htas, a Hill Tribe of Burma, Mr. O’Riley states that, until married, the youth of both sexes are domiciled in two long houses at opposite ends of the village, and “when they may have occasion to pass each other, they avert their gaze, so they may not see each other’s faces.”[319]
As to the aborigines of the Indian Archipelago, Professor Wilken states that side by side with peoples who indulge in great licentiousness, there are others who are remarkably chaste. Thus, in Nias, the pregnancy of an unmarried girl is punished with death, inflicted not only upon her but upon the seducer.[320] Among the Hill Dyaks, the young men are carefully separated from the girls, licentious connections between the sexes being strictly prohibited;[321] and the Sibuyaus, a tribe belonging to the Sea Dyaks, though they do not consider the sexual intercourse of their young people a positive crime, yet attach an idea of great indecency to irregular connections, and are of opinion that an unmarried woman with child must be offensive to the superior powers.[322]
By some of the independent tribes of the Philippines also, according to Chamisso, chastity is held in great honour, “not only among the women, but also among the young girls, and is protected by very severe laws;”[323]—a statement which is confirmed by Dr. Hans Meyer and Professor Blumentritt with reference to the Igorrotes of Luzon.[324]
In New Guinea, too, chastity is strictly maintained.[325] Mr. G. A. Robinson and the Catechist Clark, who lived for years with the aborigines, both declare their belief in the virtue of the young women;[326] and Dr. Finsch assures us that the natives of Dory are, in that respect, superior to many civilized nations in Europe.[327] The French naturalists and some English writers spoke highly of the morality of the young people among the Tasmanians.[328] The women of Uea, Loyalty Islands, are described by Erskine as “strictly chaste before marriage, and faithful wives afterwards.”[329] In Fiji, great continence prevailed among the young folk, the lads being forbidden to approach women till eighteen or twenty years old.[330] Speaking of the aborigines of Melanesia, Dr. Codrington remarks, “It is certain that in these islands generally there was by no means that insensibility in regard to female virtue with which the natives are so commonly charged.”[331] In Samoa, the girls were allowed to cohabit with foreigners, but not with their countrymen,[332] and the chastity of the chiefs’ daughters was the pride of the tribe. But Mr. Turner remarks that, though this virtue was ostensibly cultivated here by both sexes, it was more a name than a reality.[333]
With reference to the Australian natives, Mr. Moore Davis says, “Promiscuous intercourse between the sexes is not practised by the Aborigines, and their laws on the subject, particularly those of New South Wales, are very strict. When at camp, all the young unmarried men are stationed by themselves at the extreme ends, while the married men, each with his family, occupy the centre. No conversation is allowed between the single men and the girls or the married women.... Infractions of these and other laws were visited either by punishment by any aggrieved member of the tribe, or by the delinquent having to purge himself of his crime by standing up protected simply by his shield, or a waddy, while five or six warriors threw, from a comparatively short distance, several spears at him.”[334] Concerning several tribes in Western Victoria, Mr. Dawson likewise states that, at the corroborees and great meetings of the tribes, unmarried adults of both sexes are kept strictly apart from those of another tribe. “Illegitimacy is rare,” he says, “and is looked upon with such abhorrence that the mother is always severely beaten by her relatives, and sometimes put to death and burned. Her child is occasionally killed and burned with her. The father of the child is also punished with the greatest severity, and occasionally killed.”[335]
Turning to the American peoples: among the early Aleuts, according to Veniaminof, “girls or unmarried females who gave birth to illegitimate children were to be killed for shame, and hidden.”[336] Egede tells us that, among the Greenlanders, unmarried women observed the rules of modesty much better than married women. “During fifteen full years that I lived in Greenland,” he says, “I did not hear of more than two or three young women, who were gotten with child unmarried; because it is reckoned the greatest of infamies.”[337] According to Cranz, a Greenland maid would take it as an affront were a young fellow even to offer her a pinch of snuff in company.[338] Among the Northern Indians, girls are from the early age of eight or nine years prohibited by custom from joining in the most innocent amusements with children of the opposite sex. “When sitting in their tent,” says Hearne, “or even when travelling, they are watched and guarded with such an unremitting attention as cannot be exceeded by the most rigid discipline of an English boarding-school.”[339] Mr. Catlin asserts that, among the Mandans, female virtue is, in the respectable families, as highly cherished as in any society whatever.[340] Among the Nez Percés,[341] the Apaches,[342] and certain other North American peoples,[343] the women are described as remarkably chaste, the seducer being viewed by some of them with even more contempt than the girl he has dishonoured. And Dobrizhoffer praises the Abiponian women for their virtuous life.[344]