[135] Strabo, II, 515; Lubbock, op. cit., 131; Giraud-Teulon, op. cit., 3; Post, Geschlechtsgenoss., 29, 43 ff; Anfänge, 21; especially Hellwald's chapter entitled "Zeitehen und wilde Ehen," Die mensch. Familie, 438 ff.; and Kulischer, "Communale Zeitehen," Archiv für Anthropologie, XI, 228 ff.; Waitz, Anthropologie, III, 105 (proof and temporary marriages among American Indians); II, 114 (same in Africa); Klemm, Kulturgeschichte, II, 78 (N. A. Indians); Turner, in XI. Rep. of Bureau of Eth., 189 (Innuit); McGee, The Seri Indians, in XVII. Rep. of Bureau of Eth., Part I, 280.
[136] Plutarch, Lycurgus, c. 15 (Sparta); Friedrichs, "Ursprung des Matriarchats," ZVR., VIII, 372, 373; Post, Anfänge, 25; Geschlechtsg., 34 ff.; Nadaillac, L'évolution du mariage, 17 ff.; Lubbock, Origin of Civilization, 131, 132, who mentions the well-known case of Cato's lending his wife Marcia to his friend Hortensius; Buch, Die Wotjäken, 48; Kohler, in ZVR., III, 398, note (India), 399 (Germans); V, 336 (Wotjäken), 342 (Alaska), 353 (Creeks); VII, 326 (Australia); VIII, 84 (Birma); XI, 422 (Kamerun); Jolly, in ZVR., IV, 331, 332 (Hindus); Smith, Kinship and Marriage, 116; Waitz, Anthropologie, II, 114 (Africa); Nelson, "The Eskimo about Bering Strait," in XVIII. Rep. of Bureau of Eth., Part I, 292; McGee, in XV. Rep. of Bureau of Eth., 178 (Sioux); Westermarck, op. cit., 74 n. 1, mentions, with the sources of information, many tribes among whom wife-lending prevails.
"Exchange of wives" is common among the Eskimo. "For instance, one man of our acquaintance planned to go to the rivers deer hunting in the summer of 1882, and borrowed his cousin's wife for the expedition, as she was a good shot and a good hand at deer hunting, while his own wife went with his cousin on the trading expedition to the eastward. On their return the wives went back to their respective husbands." Sometimes in such cases the women are better pleased with their new mates and remain with them. "According to Gilder (Schwatka's Search, 197) it is a usual thing among friends in that region to exchange wives for a week or two almost every two months." Egede (Greenland, 139) says such temporary exchanges take place at festivals. So also at Repulse Bay, at certain times there is said to be a "general exchange of wives throughout the village, each woman passing from man to man till she has been through the hands of all, and finally returned to her husband."—Murdoch, "Point Barrow Expedition," IX. Rep. of Bureau of Eth., 413. Cf. Turner, "Ethnology of Ungava Dist.," ibid., 189. The loaning of wife or daughter to a guest, or the prostitution of the wife for hire, appears among some South American tribes: Martius, Ethnographie, I, 118; idem, Rechtszustande, 65.
[137] Lubbock, Origin of Civilization, 130-32, 536 ff.; Giraud-Teulon, Les origines du mariage, 5 ff., who says: "Le mariage (en prenant ce mot dans son sense étroit) apparaît chez les races inférieures comme une infraction aux droits de la communauté, et partant, comme la violation d'une loi naturelle: de là, à le considérer comme la violation d'une loi religieuse, il n'y avait qu'un pas." See the criticism by McLennan, Studies, I, 335 ff., who rejects the theory of expiation for violation of communal right; because usually the woman does not belong to the husband's tribe, and because often the privileges are exercised by friends of both bridegroom and bride. Cf. Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, 149-56; Wake, Marriage and Kinship, 17, 34, 65, 245 ff.; Lippert, Geschichte der Familie, 169; Kohler, in ZVR., VII, 327 (Australia); Mucke, Horde und Familie, 138-40, who rejects the theory; and Kovalevsky, Mod. Customs and Anc. Laws of Russia, 10, 11, who refers to the promiscuous intercourse practiced at various festivals, resembling the assemblies on the Roumanian Gainaberg which Kohler has discussed in ZVR., VI, 398 ff. These may be compared with the license practiced at certain gatherings among the Arunta and several other Australian tribes: Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, 96 ff.
[138] "Thus Herodotus states, in Babylonia, every woman was obliged once in her life to give herself up, in the temple of Mylitta, to strangers, for the satisfaction of the goddess; and in some parts of Cyprus, he tells us, the same custom prevailed. In Armenia, according to Strabo, there was a very similar law. The daughters of good families were consecrated to Anaitis, a phallic divinity like Mylitta, giving themselves, as it appears, to the worship of the goddess indiscriminately."—Westermarck, Human Marriage, 72; Herodotus, I, c. 199; Strabo, XI, 532. As to Babylon Herodotus may have been mistaken; cf. chap. iv, below. See further illustrations in Bernhöft, op. cit., 169 ff.; Giraud-Teulon, op. cit., 7 ff.; Ploss, Das Weib, I, 383 ff.; Lippert, Geschichte der Familie, 171; Friedrichs, in ZVR., VIII, 373, who enumerates the peoples where the custom has existed; idem, ibid., X, 215, 216; Hellwald, Die mensch. Familie, 356 ff.; and Howard, Sex Worship, 103-16, 201, passim, who holds that sacred prostitution, and many of the other sexual practices usually assigned as survivals of promiscuity, are evidences of phallicism.
[139] The monograph of Dr. Karl Schmidt, Jus primae noctis, is the most elaborate work on the subject. The author denies (41 ff., 365 ff., 379) that the custom existed in feudal Europe or elsewhere as a right; and he holds that the practices so called are not evidences of promiscuity. His views are sharply criticised by Hellwald, Die mensch. Familie, 349 n. 4; and especially by Kohler, in ZVR., IV, 279-87. Schmidt has a supplementary discussion in ZFE., XVI, 44 ff.; and is reviewed unfavorably by Kohler, ZVR., V, 397-406. See also Schmidt's Slavische Geschichtsquellen zur Streitfrage über das Jus Primae Noctis; Kohler, Urgeschichte der Ehe, 140; idem, in ZVR., VII, 350, 351; VIII, 85; Schneider, Die Naturvölker, II, 471-73; Giraud-Teulon, op. cit., 32-41; Weinhold, Die deutschen Frauen, I, 300, 301; Letourneau, L'évolution du mariage, 56-62; Suggenheim, Geschichte der Aufhebung der Leibeigenschaft, 104, who believes the "right of the lord" existed in France far down into the Middle Ages; Bachofen, Mutterrecht, 12, 13, 17, 18, passim; Post, Anfänge, 17, 18; idem, Geschlechtsgenoss., 37; Kulischer, "Die communale Zeitehe," in Archiv für Anthropologie, XI, 228 ff., who refers to the recent existence of the alleged custom in Russia; Friedrichs, in ZVR., X, 214, 215; Starcke, op. cit., 124-26. There is a learned discussion in the quaint De uxore theotisca, cap. i, of Grupen; the literature cited in Bibliographical Note II should be consulted; and Schmidt has appended a very full bibliography to his book. The term jus primae noctis is especially applied to the alleged "right of the lord" in feudal times; but the existence of even this custom as a legal privilege is still an unsettled question.
[140] The custom is for the men "to buy the women whom they marry of their fathers and relatives at a high price, and then to take them to a chief, who is considered to be a priest, to deflower them and see if she is a virgin; and if she is not, they have to return the whole price, and he can keep her for his wife or not, or let her be consecrated, as he chooses." In the same connection, Castañeda says, "among them are men dressed like women who marry other men and serve as their wives;" and he describes also a curious kind of legal or consecrated prostitution existing among the same people: see the translation of Castañeda's account in Winship's "Coronado Expedition, 1540-2," XIV. Rep. of Bureau of Eth., 513, 514. Cf. Fawcett, "On Basivis: Women, Who, through Dedication to a Deity, Assume Masculine Privileges," Jour. Anth. Soc. (Bombay), II (1891), 322-54.
[141] Westermarck, Human Marriage, 73, 74; Wake, Marriage and Kinship, 81, 82. The custom may possibly be accounted for by the slow growth of the sentiment upon which "conjugal attachment depends:" McLennan, Studies, I, 341. For an alleged "survival" see Schmidt, Hochzeiten in Thüringen, 31. For the strictly regulated form of wife-lending among certain Australian tribes see the reference to the work of Spencer and Gillen below.
[142] Westermarck, op. cit., 72; McLennan, Studies, I, 341, 342. This is also the view of Clifford Howard in his Sex Worship, chaps. v, ix, x.
[143] Westermarck, op. cit., 78; Schmidt, Jus primae noctis, 41.