The Buddhistic doctrine teaches that lust and ignorance are the two great causes of the misery of life, and that we should therefore suppress lust and remove ignorance. We read in the ‘Dhammika-Sutta’ that “a wise man should avoid married life as if it were a burning pit of live coals.”[900] Sensuality is altogether incompatible with wisdom and holiness. According to the legend, Buddha’s mother, who was the best and purest of the daughters of men, had no other sons, and her conception was due to supernatural causes.[901] And one of the fundamental duties of monastic life, by an infringement of which the guilty person brings about his inevitable expulsion from Buddha’s Order, is, that “an ordained monk may not have sexual intercourse, not even with an animal. The monk who has sexual intercourse is no longer a monk.”[902] Mr. Wilson, indeed, states that, in Tibet, some sects of the Lamas are allowed to marry; but those who do not are considered more holy. And in every sect the nuns must take a vow of absolute continence.[903] Again, the Chinese laws enjoin celibacy upon all priests, Buddhist or Taouist.[904]
In India, where, according to Sir Monier Williams, married life has been more universally honoured than in any other country of the world, celibacy has, nevertheless, in instances of extraordinary sanctity, always commanded respect.[905] “Those of their Sannyâsis,” says Dubois, “who are known to lead their lives in perfect celibacy, receive, on that account, marks of distinguished honour and respect.” But the single state, which is allowed to those who devote themselves to a life of contemplation, is not tolerated in any class of women.[906]
Among a small class of Hebrews, too, the idea that marriage is impure gradually took root. The Essenes, says Josephus, “reject pleasures as an evil, but esteem continence and the conquest over our passions to be virtue. They neglect wedlock.”[907] This doctrine exercised no influence upon Judaism, but probably much upon Christianity. St. Paul held celibacy to be preferable to marriage:—“He that giveth his virgin in marriage doeth well,” he says; “but he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better.”[908] Yet, as for most men continence is not possible, marriage is for them not only a right but a duty. “It is good for a man not to touch a woman; nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.... If they (the unmarried and widows) cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.”[909] A much stronger opinion as to the superiority of celibacy is expressed by most of the Fathers of the Church. Origen thought marriage profane and impure. Tertullian says that celibacy must be chosen, even if mankind should perish. According to St Augustine, the unmarried children will shine in heaven as beaming stars, whilst their parents will look like the dim ones.[910] Indeed, as Mr. Lecky observes, the cardinal virtue of the religious type became the absolute suppression of the whole sensual side of our nature, and theology made the indulgence of one passion almost the sole unchristian sin.[911] It was a favourite opinion among the Fathers that, if Adam had preserved his obedience to the Creator, he would have lived for ever in a state of virgin purity, and that some harmless mode of vegetation might have peopled paradise with a race of innocent and immortal beings. The use of marriage was in fact permitted to his fallen posterity only as a necessary expedient for the continuance of the human species, and as a restraint, however imperfect, on the natural licentiousness of desire.[912] But, though it may be marriage that fills the earth, says St. Jerome, it is virginity that replenishes heaven.[913]
These opinions led by degrees to the obligatory celibacy of the secular and regular clergy. The New Testament gives us no intimation that, during the lifetime of the apostles, monastic vows were taken by men of any age, or by unmarried women, and hardly any of the apostles themselves were celibates.[914] But gradually, as continence came to be regarded as a cardinal virtue, and celibacy as the nearest approach to the Divine perfection, a notion that the married state is not consistent with the functions of the clergy became general. As early as the end of the fourth century, the continence of the higher grades of ecclesiastics was insisted on by a Roman synod, but no definite punishment was ordered for its violation.[915] Gregory VII.—who “looked with abhorrence on the contamination of the holy sacerdotal character, even in its lowest degree, by any sexual connection”—was the first who prescribed with sufficient force the celibacy of the clergy. Yet, in many countries, it was so strenuously resisted, that it could not be carried through till late in the thirteenth century.[916]
As for the origin of this notion of sexual uncleanness, it may perhaps be connected with the instinctive feeling, to be dealt with later on, against intercourse between members of the same family or household. Experience, I think, tends to prove that there exists a close association between these two feelings, which shows itself in many ways. Sexual love is entirely banished from the sphere of domestic life, and it is reasonable to suppose, therefore, that when it appears in other relations, an association of ideas attaches a notion of impurity to the desire and a notion of shame to its gratification. Evidently, also, the religious enforcement of celibacy is intimately allied to the belief that sexual intercourse is the great transmitter of original sin, as well as to the abhorrence of every enjoyment which is considered to degrade the spiritual nature of man.
[CHAPTER VIII]
THE COURTSHIP OF MAN
Speaking of the male and female reproductive cells of plants, Professor Sachs remarks that, wherever we are able to observe an external difference between the two, the male cell behaves actively in the union, the female passively.[917] In this respect there is an analogy between plants and many of the lower animals. In the case of some lowly-organised animals, which are permanently affixed to the same spot, the male element is invariably brought to the female. There are other instances in which the females alone are fixed, and the males must be the seekers. Even when the males and females of a species are both free, it is almost always the males that first approach the females.[918]
As Mr. Darwin points out, we can see the reason why, in the first instance, the male plays the active part:—“Even if the ova were detached before fertilisation, and did not require subsequent nourishment or protection, there would yet be greater difficulty in transporting them than the male element because, being larger than the latter, they are produced in far smaller numbers.”[919] He adds, however, that, with respect to forms of which the progenitors were primordially free, it is difficult to understand why the males should invariably have acquired the habit of approaching the females, instead of being approached by them. Perhaps the explanation may be that the seeker is more exposed to danger than the one sought after, and that the death of a male at the pairing time is less disadvantageous for the existence of the species than the death of a female. At any rate, we may say with Mr. Darwin that it is necessary that the males should be endowed with strong passions in order that they may be efficient seekers; and the acquirement of such passions would naturally follow from the more eager males leaving a larger number of offspring than the less eager.[920]
The rule holds good for the human race, the man generally playing a more active, the woman a more passive, part in courtship. The latter, as it has been said, “requires to be courted.” Yet, curiously enough, there are a few peoples among whom the reverse seems to be the case, just as, among the lower animals also, there are some species of which the females are the courters.[921] Among the Moquis in New Mexico, according to Dr. Broeck, “instead of the swain asking the hand of the fair one, she selects the young man who is to her fancy, and then her father proposes the match to the sire of the lucky youth.”[922] In Paraguay, we are told, the women were generally endowed with stronger passions than the men,[923] and were allowed to make proposals;[924] and among the Garos, according to Colonel Dalton, it is not only the privilege but even the duty of the girl to speak first, any infringement of this rule being summarily and severely punished. “If a male makes advances to a girl,” he says, “and the latter, rejecting them, chooses also to tell her friends that such tenders of affection have been made to her, it is looked on as an insult to the whole ‘mahári’ (motherhood) to which the girl belongs, a stain only to be obliterated by the blood of pigs, and liberal libations of beer at the expense of the ‘mahári’ to which the man belongs.”[925] According to Mr. Batchelor, it constantly occurs among the Ainos that the proposal of marriage comes in the first place from the girl;[926] and in Polynesia,[927] as also among the Kafirs of Natal[928] and certain tribes in Oregon,[929] the same is sometimes the case.