A most pleasant, tender, but, at the same time, perplexing salute, is that bestowed upon one by the women of Norway, who, after having put you to bed and tucked you up well between the sweet-smelling sheets, bend their fresh, fair faces, and kiss you honestly upon the beard, without a shadow even of shame or doubt.
In Finland, contrary to the usual custom, the women object to the practice of osculation. A Finnish matron, on hearing that it was a common thing in England for man and wife to kiss, expressed great disgust thereat, declaring emphatically that if her husband dared to take such a liberty, she would give him a box on the ears he would feel for a month!
In Iceland illegitimate and illicit kissing has had deterrent penalties of great severity. For kissing another man’s wife, with or without her consent, the punishment of exclusion, or its pecuniary equivalent, was awarded. A man rendered himself liable for kissing an unmarried woman under legal guardianship without her consent; and, even if the lady consented, the law required that every kiss should be wiped out by a fine of three marks, equivalent to 140 ells of wadmal, a quantity sufficient to furnish a whole ship’s crew with pilot jackets.
In Paraguay you are by force of custom obliged to kiss every lady you are introduced to, though this is not such an inestimable privilege as one would suppose, for there all the females above thirteen chew tobacco! But one-half of the young women you meet are really tempting enough to render you happy regardless of the consequences, and you would sip the dew of the proffered lip in the face of a tobacco factory—even in the double distilled honey-dew of old Virginia.
Under the notorious “blue laws” of Connecticut, no woman was allowed to kiss even her child on the Sabbath, or fasting day, under heavy penalties. Only a few years ago it was considered remarkable that a Western magistrate should impose a heavy fine and a term of incarceration upon an unfortunate fellow who had kissed a pretty girl on the ears without her consent, but police justices in New York have quite frequently imposed the same punishment for similar offenses that have occurred in recent years. In the eyes of the law, kissing a lady without her will and permission is a common assault, punishable by a fine and imprisonment. Some one of an inquiring turn of mind has tried to definitely determine the average money value of a stolen kiss in the United States. Court rulings show that the act of forced osculation in Pennsylvania costs $750, while in New York it is placed at $2,500. New Jersey, with a shocking disregard to the merits of the stolen sweets to be drawn from the ruby lips of her lovely lasses, puts the value of a kiss at $1.15. Kissing goes by favor is a trite saying, but the figures submitted indicate that the sands of Jersey offer the greatest inducements to indulge in this delightful diversion.
From the medical point of view there is danger in kissing. The spread of diphtheria, it is said, is largely due to the practice of kissing children. It is hard to conceive of any mode of propagation more directly suited to the spread of the infection or more general in its operation. It stands to diphtheria in about the same relation that promiscuous hand-shaking formerly did to the itch. A physician in explaining to a third party the warning he gave his wife not to let the children kiss any one, said: “I tell you it wasn’t Judas alone who betrayed with a kiss. Hundreds of lovely, blooming children are kissed into their graves every year. There is death in a kiss. The beloved and lamented Princess Alice, of Hesse, took diphtheria from the kiss of her child, and followed it to the grave. Diphtheria, malaria, scarlet fever, blood poison, death lurk in the kisses!”
There are superstitions about kissing. There is a man living at Luray, Virginia, who became convinced when young that kissing was wicked because Christ was betrayed with a kiss. He resolved never to kiss anybody. He has been married twenty years and is the father of eleven children, but has never kissed his wife or one of his offspring.
Among the quaint customs wherein kissing is involved is the surprisal of any person asleep by one of the opposite sex. In such a situation the drowsy party may be kissed with impunity, and must, in addition, pay the saluting party the forfeit of a pair of gloves.
St. Valentine has also a good deal of kissing to answer for. The osculatory customs of this holiday are capitally and graphically illustrated by Sir Walter Scott in “The Fair Maid of Perth,” where the heroine kisses her stalwart lover, Harry, on St. Valentine’s morning, and they afterwards exchange their betrothal gifts prepared on such occasions with much forethought and circumspection as to their suitability and appropriateness.
It was the custom among the Romans to give the dying a last kiss, in order, as they thought, to catch the parting breath. Spenser, in his pastoral elegy on the death of Sir Philip Sidney, mentions it as a circumstance which renders the loss of his illustrious friend more to be lamented, that no one was nigh to close his eyelids “and kiss his lips.” A little after he notices the “dearest love” of the deceased weeping over him.