The Hindoo may have fewer uncultivated traits of emotion than the wild tribesmen, but they are in the same field. Hindoo civilization rose to splendid heights, in some respects, and even the great moral principle of altruism was cultivated; but it was not applied to the relations between the sexes, and thus we see once more that the refinement of the affections—especially the sexual affections—comes last in the evolution of civilization. Masculine selfishness and sensuality have prevented the Hindoo from entering the Elysian fields of romantic love. He has always allowed, and still allows, the minds of women to lie fallow, being contented with their bodily charms, and unaware that the most delightful of all sexual differences are those of mind and character. To quote once more the Abbé Dubois (I., 271), the most minute and philosophic observer of Indian manners and morals:
"The Hindoos are nurtured in the belief that there can be nothing disinterested or innocent in the intercourse between a man and a woman; and however Platonic the attachment might be between two persons of different sex, it would be infallibly set down to sensual love."
DOES THE BIBLE IGNORE ROMANTIC LOVE?
My assertion that there are no cases of romantic love recorded in the Bible naturally aroused opposition, and not a few critics lifted up their voices in loud protest against such ignorant audacity. The case for the defence was well summed up in the Rochester Post-Express:
"The ordinary reader will find many love-stories in the Scriptures, What are we to think, for instance, of this passage from the twenty-ninth chapter of Genesis: 'And Laban had two daughters: the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah was tender-eyed; but Rachel was beautiful and well-favored. And Jacob loved Rachel; and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel thy younger daughter. And Laban said, It is better that I give her to thee, than that I should give her to another man: abide with me. And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had for her,' It may be said that after marriage Jacob's love was not of the modern conjugal type; but certainly his pre-matrimonial passion was self-sacrificing, enduring, and hopeful enough for a mediaeval romance. The courtship of Ruth and Boaz is a bold and pretty love-story, which details the scheme of an old widow and a young widow for the capture of a wealthy kinsman. The Song of Solomon is, on the surface, a wonderful love-poem. But it is needless to multiply illustrations from this source."
A Chicago critic declared that it would be easy to show that from the moment when Adam said,
"This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh"
—from that moment unto this day "that which it pleases our author to call romantic love has been substantially one and the same thing…. Has this writer never heard of Isaac and Rebekah; of Jacob and Rachel?" A Philadelphia reviewer doubted whether I believed in my own theory because I ignored in my chapter on love among the Hebrews "the story of Jacob and Rachel and other similar instances of what deserves to be called romantic love among the Hebrews." Professor H.O. Trumbull emphatically repudiates my theory in his Studies in Oriental Social Life (62-63); proceeding:
"Yet in the very first book of the Old Testament narrative there appears the story of young Jacob's romantic love for Rachel, a love which was inspired by their first meeting [Gen. 29: 10-18] and which was afresh and tender memory in the patriarch Jacob's mind when long years after he had buried her in Canaan [Gen. 35: 16-20] he was on his deathbed in Egypt [Gen. 48: 1-7]. In all the literature of romantic love in all the ages there can be found no more touching exhibit of the true-hearted fidelity of a romantic lover than that which is given of Jacob in the words: 'And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days for the love he had to her.' And the entire story confirms the abiding force of that sentiment. There are, certainly, gleams of romantic love from out of the clouds of degraded human passion in the ancient East, in the Bible stories of Shechem and Dinah [Gen. 34: 1-31], of Samson and the damsel of Timnath [Judg. 14: 1-3], of David and Abigail [I. Sam. 25: 1-42], of Adonijah and Abishag [I. Kings 2: 13-17], and other men and women of whom the Scriptures tell us."
Cénac Moncaut, who begins his Histoire de l'Amour dans l'Antiquité with Adam and Eve, declares (28-31) that the episode of Jacob and Rachel marks the birth of perfect love in the world, the beginning of its triumph, followed, however, by relapses in days of darkness and degradation. If all these writers are correct then my theory falls to the ground and romantic love must be conceded to be at least four thousand years old, instead of less than one thousand. But let us look at the facts in detail and see whether there is really no difference between ancient Hebrew and modern Christian love.