The Play of Man

by Karl Groos

This feeling may be involved in some of the positions and movements of tussling boys. Schaeffer has remarked in a short paper that in the belligerent plays of boys, especially ring fighting,[505] “the fundamental impulse of sexual life for the utmost extensive and intensive contact, with a more or less clearly defined idea of conquest underlying it,” plays a most conspicuous part. I do not believe that this is the rule, yet I am convinced that Schaeffer’s view is more often correct than would appear at a first glance, and especially so when the contestants are on the ground and laughingly struggle together.

Lastly, we must notice the absorbing friendships between children of the same sex. Here, too, the instinct, robbed of its proper aim, may assume a sportive, playful air. Even among students, friendships are not rare in which the unsatisfied impulse plays its part all unknown to the subjects. I content myself in this connection with the citation of a little-known passage of the highest poetic beauty, and evidently inspired by personal reminiscence. In it a light touch of sexuality is imparted with a delicacy equal to that of Keller. Wilhelm Meister writes to Natalie of his suddenly formed and tragically ended friendship with a village lad. The two boys, who had just become acquainted, were fishing together on the river bank. “As we sat there leaning together he seemed to grow tired, and called my attention to a flat rock which projected into the water from one side of the stream. It made the loveliest place to bathe. Pretty soon he sprang up, declaring that he could no longer withstand it, and before I knew it he was down there undressed and in the water. As he was a good swimmer he soon left the shallows, yielding his form to the water and coming toward me. I too began to be interested. Grasshoppers danced around me, ants swarmed about, bright-coloured insects hung from the boughs overhead, and gold gleaming sunbeams floated and glanced fantastically at my feet, and just then a huge crab pushed up between the roots to his old stand whence he had been driven by the necessity of hiding from the fishers. It was so warm and damp that one longed to get out of the sun into the shade, and then from the cool shade to the cooler water. So it was easy for my companion to lure me in with him. I found a mild invitation irresistible and, notwithstanding some fear of parental displeasure, and a vague terror of the unknown element, I was soon making active preparations. Quickly undressing on the rock I cautiously stepped into the water, but did not go far from the gently sloping bank. Here my friend let me linger, going off by himself in the buoyant waves. When he came back he stood upright to dry his body in the warm sunshine. I thought the glory of the sun was eclipsed by the noble manly figure which I had never seen nude before. He too seemed to regard me with equal attention. Though quickly dressed again, we now stood forever revealed to one another, and with the warmest kisses we swore eternal friendship.”

I suppose the general playfulness of the foregoing instances might be called in question on the ground that there is no consciousness that it is all a play, no sham activity. Yet we refer complacently enough to other things which display quite as little of such subconsciousness as play. Indeed, the rule is that it is absent from mental play, and, moreover, this is a case that more closely concerns the emotions. The plays which involve subjective sham activity overlap to a great extent the sphere of the objective ones where the man or animal takes pleasure in action which has no necessary actual aim, yet without being conscious of having turned aside from the life of cause and effect. If we admit that the boy careering aimlessly about is playing because he enjoys the movement for its own sake, or that gourmands who eat without hunger, and merely to tickle their palates, are playing, then we must also call it play when the child takes pleasure in the sexual sensations arising from touch stimuli without knowing that his activity, on account of the exclusion of their proper end, is all a sham. From a purely biological standpoint the conception of play goes much deeper, as we shall see later on. I have purposely selected such examples as (with the exception of the last citation) exhibit the sexual impulse in conjunction with other activity that is unmistakably playful, believing that this conjunction would strengthen the probability of its being playful in those cases which if given alone might appear doubtful.

With adults the subjective side of play is more prominent, especially when the proper end of the instinctive impulse for contact is held in abeyance by the will of the participants. Here belongs the dalliance of engaged couples. It is no play, of course, when the lovers, on the first revelation of their common feeling or after a long separation, indulge in a passionate embrace. But when in their daily intercourse that manifold trifling begins which is too familiar to need description, I see no reason why it should not be called play with touch stimuli. The more naïve the period or social class the more common this is. In the free intercourse of the sexes in mediæval baths the jesting caresses must often have been quite rough. While many of the pictorial representations of such bathing scenes are doubtless exaggerated, still they could not have been pure inventions. The description by the Florentine Poggio (1417) of Swiss bathing customs bears them out. He expressly says: “It is remarkable to see how innocent they are; how unsuspiciously men will look on while their wives are handled by strangers,... while they gambol and romp with each other and sometimes without other company; yet the husbands are not disturbed nor surprised at anything because they know that it is all done in an innocent, harmless way.” In feudal times it was the custom for noble gentlemen to be served in the bath by young women, to be washed by them, and afterward rubbed. At the spinning fêtes the young couples “played,” as a Christmas piece has it, with all sorts of hand clasping and stroking. But the most remarkable proceeding of this kind was the “lovers’ night of continence,” observed in various countries, including France, Italy, and Germany, by knightly devotees whose lady permitted them to pass one night at her side, trusting to their oath and honour not to take advantage of her kindness. This strange custom, so shocking to our ideas of propriety, was doubtless derived from similar practices of very ancient origin among the peasantry, the chastity of whose girls was rarely violated in spite of the utmost intimacies. It is interesting to find an ethnological analogue to this among the Zulus. According to Fritsch, the custom of Uku-hlobonga obtains there, “in which the young bachelors join the maidens of the neighbourhood, and these latter choose their mates, each according to her pleasure. The rejected swains have to bear the scorn of the whole company, while the chosen ones recline with their sweethearts, and an imitation of the sexual function is gone through with. Yet, as a rule, the girl by force and threats prevents anything more serious!”[506]

Self-exhibition will occupy us only so far as it does not relate to art. Every lover desires to present himself in the most favourable light to the object of his affections, and to this end he plays a part, to a certain extent; he “does as though” he were braver, stronger, more skilful, handsomer, of finer feeling, and more intelligence than he actually and habitually is. Fliegende Blatter said once, “A lover always tries to be as lovable as he can, and is therefore always ridiculous.” Such self-display is not necessarily playful, but it becomes so as soon as the lover’s vanity is involved, and he aims not only at the desired effect on his mistress, but also enjoys for its own sake the exploitation of his charms. Here, as in so many psychic phenomena, the complexity of the field is important. We are able to see ourselves over our own shoulders, and behind the wooing I stands a higher consciousness which looks on with satisfaction at the display of its own attractions. Hence arise the frequent cases where a sort of tacit understanding between a man and woman prohibits all serious intercourse, so that they can have only such relations as depend on the sexual stimulus (flirting).

As the first form of courtship by self-exhibition I mention those fighting plays in which the combatants engage in the ladies’ presence. I have noticed incidentally that human combat, as well as that between animals, is often connected with the sexual life, but now we will consider the subject from its proper standpoint. That a martial bearing is a means not only of terrifying enemies, but also of delighting females, all experience goes to show, and war paint and feathers become adornments as well. Here as with animals, says Colin A. Scott, the terrible approaches the beautiful, and as modesty in women has a peculiar charm to the other sex, so does a warlike spirit appeal to the feminine nature. “In some tribes a man dare not marry, and indeed no woman would have him, until he has slain a certain number of foes.”[507] The conquest of rivals then becomes a means of self-exhibition before the loved one. Westermarck, in his history of human marriage, gives numerous instances of such courtship contests, from which I shall borrow. Heame states that “it is a universal custom among the North American Indians for the men who are wooing a woman to fight for her, and naturally the strongest among them gets the prize. This practice prevails among all their tribes, and is the occasion of passionate rivalry among their youths, who from childhood, and on every possible occasion, make a point of displaying their strength and skill in fighting.” Lumholtz writes from North Queensland: “If a woman is beautiful all the men want her, and the strongest and most influential is usually the lucky man. Consequently, the younger men must wait a long time to get a wife, especially if they are not brave enough to risk a fight with one stronger than themselves. Among the West Victorian tribes described by Dawson a young chief who can not find a wife for himself and is inclined to another man’s, may, if the latter has more than two wives, challenge the husband to combat, and if victorious make the lady of his choice his lawful spouse. In New Zealand when a girl has two suitors of equal merit a contest is arranged in which the damsel is dragged by the arms in different directions by the wooers, and the stronger carries off the bride.” Arthur Young tells of a strange custom which was at one time general in the Arran Islands. “A number of the poorer village folk confer together respecting some young girl who according to their opinion ought to be married, and select an eligible peasant. This settled, they send a message to the fair one that next Sunday she will be ‘beritten gemacht’—that is, carried on the men’s shoulders. She then prepares burned wine and cider for the feast, and after mass all pay her a visit to watch the sling contest. After she is ‘beritten gemacht’ the rivalry begins, and general attention is skilfully directed toward the chosen swain. If he is victor he surely marries the maiden; but if another overcomes him he loses her, for she is the prize of the champion.”[508] There is surely something playful about such contests, at least in the preparation and in the awards, if not in the struggle itself. But it is not always by combat with other suitors that the lover displays his courage, strength, and dexterity. By boldly taking risks and engaging in tests of strength and trials of skill which have so strong an attraction for the young, he claims the attention and admiration which women bestow on such acts. I do not assert that such exhibitions would never take place without feminine spectators, but as a rule they would be pursued with much less enthusiasm if the only onlookers were to be men. Most herdsmen would be indifferent to the Edelweiss growing on the almost inaccessible rocks did not a sprig of it in their hats advertise them to the village beauties as men fearless of danger. We have seen that the adventurous knight’s readiness for the fray and hearty welcome to danger in any form were usually prompted by his wish to lay the trophies of his victories at his lady’s feet. Nowhere is this sort of courtship more naïvely expressed than in Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, where Richard Cœur de Lion sings beneath his lady’s window:

“Joy to the fair! My name unknown,

Each deed and all its praise thine own;

Then, oh, unbar this churlish gate!