439. Meaning of "immoral." When, therefore, the ethnographers apply condemnatory or depreciatory adjectives to the people whom they study, they beg the most important question which we want to investigate; that is, What are standards, codes, and ideas of chastity, decency, propriety, modesty, etc., and whence do they arise? The ethnographical facts contain the answer to this question, but in order to reach it we want a colorless report of the facts. We shall find proof that "immoral" never means anything but contrary to the mores of the time and place. Therefore the mores and the morality may move together, and there is no permanent or universal standard by which right and truth in regard to these matters can be established and different folkways compared and criticised. Only experience produces judgments of the expediency of some usages. For instance, ancient peoples thought pederasty was harmless and trivial. It has been well proved to be corrupting both to individual and social vigor, and harmful to interests, both individual and collective. Cannibalism, polygamy, incest, harlotry, and other primitive customs have been discarded by a very wide and, in the case of some of them, unanimous judgment that they are harmful. On the other hand, in the Avesta spermatorrhea is a crime punished by stripes.[1381] The most civilized peoples also maintain, by virtue of their superior position in the arts of life, that they have attained to higher and better judgments and that they may judge the customs of others from their own standpoint. For three or four centuries they have called their own customs "Christian," and have thus claimed for them a religious authority and sanction which they do not possess by any connection with the principles of Christianity. Now, however, the adjective seems to be losing its force. The Japanese regard nudity with indifference, but they use dress to conceal the contour of the human form while we use it to enhance, in many ways, the attraction. "Christian" mores have been enforced by the best breechloaders and ironclads, but the Japanese now seem ready to bring superiority in those matters to support their mores. It is now a known and recognized fact that our missionaries have unintentionally and unwittingly done great harm to nature people by inducing them to wear clothes as one of the first details of civilized influence. In the usages of nature peoples there is no correlation at all between dress and sentiments of chastity, modesty, decency, and propriety.[1382]
440. Natural functions. The fact that human beings have natural functions the exercise of which is unavoidable but becomes harmful to other human beings, in a rapidly advancing ratio, as greater and greater numbers are collected within close neighborhood to each other, makes it necessary that natural functions shall be regulated by rules and conventions. The passionate nature of the sex appetite, by virtue of which it tends to excess and vice, forces men to connect it with taboos and regulations which also are conventional and institutional. The taboos of chastity, decency, propriety, and modesty, and those on all sex relations are therefore adjustments to facts of human nature and conditions of human life. It is never correct to regard any one of the taboos as an arbitrary invention or burden laid on society by tradition without necessity. Very many of them are due originally to vanity, superstition, or primitive magic, wholly or in part, but they have been sifted for centuries by experience, and those which we have received and accepted are such as experience has proved to be expedient.
441. The current code and character. It follows that, in history and ethnography, the mores and conduct in any group are independent of those of any other group. Those of any group need to be consistent with each other, for if they are not so the conduct will not be easily consistent with the code, and it is when the conduct is not consistent with the code which is current and professed that there is corruption, discord, and decay of character. So long as the customs are simple, naïve, and unconscious, they do not produce evil in character, no matter what they are. If reflection is awakened and the mores cannot satisfy it, then doubt arises; individual character will then be corrupted and the society will degenerate.
442. Definitions of chastity, decency, propriety, etc. Chastity, modesty, and decency are entirely independent of each other. The ethnographic proof of this is complete. Chastity means conformity to the taboo on the sex relation, whatever its terms and limits may be in the group at the time. Therefore, where polyandry is in the mores, women who comply with it are not unchaste. Where there are no laws for the conduct of unmarried women they are not unchaste. It is evidently an incorrect use of language to describe the unmarried women of a tribe as unchaste, unless there is a rule for them. It can only mean that they violate the rule of some other society, and that can be said always about those in any group. There are cases in which women wear nothing but are faithful to a strict sex taboo, and there are cases where they go completely covered but have no sex taboo. Decency has to do with the covering of the body and with the concealment of bodily functions. Modesty is reserve of behavior and sentiment. It is correlative to chastity and decency, but covers a far wider field. It arrests acts, speech, gestures, etc., and repels suggestions at the limit of propriety wherever that may be set by the mores. Propriety is the sum of all the prescriptions in the mores as to right and proper behavior, or as to the limit of degree which prevents excess or vice. It is not dictated in laws. It is a floating notion. From time to time, however, dictates of propriety are enacted into police regulations. Propriety is guaranteed by shame, which is the sense of pain due to incurring disapproval because one has violated the usage which the mores command every one to observe. It is narrated of Italian nuns who had been veiled even from each other for half a lifetime that when turned out of their convents they suffered from exposing their faces the same shame that other women would suffer from far greater exposure. It could not be otherwise. Mohammedan women, if surprised when bathing, cover first the face. They are distinguished from non-Mohammedan women by the veil; therefore this covering is to them most important. Chinese women, whose feet have been compressed, consider it indecent to expose them. Within a generation the public latrines in the cities of continental Europe have been made far more secluded and private than they formerly were. Within ten years there has been a great change of standard as to the propriety of spitting. Beyond the domain of propriety lie the domains of politeness, courtesy, good manners, seemliness, breeding, and good form. The definition depends on where the line is drawn. That point is always conventional. It is a matter of tradition and social contact to learn where it lies. It never can be formulated. Habit must form a feeling or taste by which new cases can be decided. There are persons and classes who possess such social prestige that they can alter the line of definition a small distance and get the change taken up into the mores, but it is the mores which always contain and carry on the definitions and standards. Therefore it is to the mores that we must look to find the determining causes or motives, the field of origin, the corrective or corrupting influences, and the educative operations, which account for all the immense and contradictory variety of the folkways, under chastity, decency, modesty, propriety, etc.
443. Chastity. An Australian husband assumes that his wife has been unfaithful to him if she has had opportunity. In most tribes women are not allowed to converse or have any relations whatever with any men but their husbands, even with their own grown-up brothers.[1383] Veth[1384] thinks that the observance of the sex taboo by Dyak wives has been exaggerated, but that, at least on the west coast, it is better than that of the Malay women. The young unmarried women among the sea Dyaks take great license, and the custom of lending daughters exists, but such customs are unknown on the west coast. On the Andaman Islands there is no sex taboo for the unmarried and they use license. The girls are modest, and when married conform to the taboo of marriage. Their husbands "do not fall far short of them." The women will not renew their leaf aprons in the presence of each other.[1385] The Yakuts use leather guarantees of their wives and daughters, similar to the mediæval device,[1386] which always implies that the wife will make use of any opportunity. The Yakut women wore garments even in bed.[1387] The Eskimo of eastern Greenland do not disapprove of a husbandless mother but of a childless wife.[1388] Bushmen women observe a stricter taboo than their Kaffir neighbors. They refuse illicit relations with the latter, although the Kaffirs are a superior race.[1389] The Zulu women observe a strict taboo with noteworthy fidelity.[1390] Madame Pommerol[1391] represents the Arab women of the nomadic or semi-nomadic tribes of southern Algiers as destitute of moral training. They have no code of morals or religion. [What she means is that they have no character by education.] They shun men, but handle the veil in a coquettish manner according to artificial and excessive usages. They act only between impulses of desire and fear of fathers or husbands. Fidelity has no sense, since they do not feel the loyalty either of duty or affection. The Mayas of the lowest classes sent out their daughters to earn their own marriage portions.[1392] On the Palau Islands mothers train their daughters to make gain of themselves in the local shell money and bring the same to their parents. The girls become armengols; that is, they live in the clubhouses which are the residences of the young men, where they do domestic work and win influence. An insult to such a woman is an insult to the club. The origin of the custom was in war; the women were captives. Some are now given in tribute. "The custom is not a pure expression of sensuality." As there is no family life this is the woman's chance to know men and influence them. It is rated as education.[1393] Semper[1394] quotes native justification of the custom. A man's young last-wedded wife complained to his older wife that he made her serve the armengols. The older wife told her to remember that she had herself enjoyed this life and had been served by the married women. All girls liked to earn the money by which, when they came home, they got husbands. It was ancient custom and must be obeyed. If the married women refused to do their duty, the men would not be served, for a married woman might never show the world that she was on intimate terms with her husband. That would be mugul, and when once that word lost its force the whole island would perish. A woman argued to Semper that the custom was a good one because it gave the women a chance to see the other islands, and because they learned to serve and obey the men. It was, she said, their sacred duty. Any girl who did not go abroad as an armengol would get the reputation of being stupid and uncultivated, and would get no husband.[1395] Cases in which husbands are indifferent to the fidelity of wives to the marriage taboo occur, but they are rare.[1396] In some Arabic tribes of Sahara, even those in which the struggle for existence is not severe, fathers expect daughters to ransom themselves from the expense of their rearing by prostitution. The notion of sex honor has not yet overcome the sense of pecuniary loss or gain. The more a woman gains, the more she is sought in marriage afterwards. Tuareg married women enter into relations with men not their husbands like those of women with their lovers in the woman cult of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in central Europe. These women have decent and becoming manners, with much care for etiquette.[1397] A thirteenth-century writer says of the Mongol women that they are "chaste, and nothing is heard amongst them of lewdness, but some of the expressions they use in joking are very shameful and coarse." The same is true now.[1398] An Arab author is cited as stating that at Mirbat women went outside the city at night to sport with strange men. Their own husbands and male relatives passed them by to seek other women.[1399] Amongst the Gowane people in Kordofan (who seem now to be Moslems)[1400] a girl cannot marry without her brother's consent. To get this she must give to her brother an infant. She finds the father where she can.[1401]
444. Pagan life policy. Very naturally the pagan inference or generalization from the above customs was that a husband must be under continual anxiety about his wife, or he must divorce her, or he must cultivate a high spirit of resignation and indifference. The last was the highest flight of Stoic philosophy about marriage. Plutarch says: "How can you call anything a misfortune which does not damage either your soul or your body, as for example, the low origin of your father, the adultery of your wife, the loss of a crown or seat of honor, none of which affect a man's chances of the highest condition of body and mind."[1402]
445. Modesty. Shame. Aristotle[1403] hardly rated shame as a virtue. He said that it is only a passing emotion, "an apprehension of dishonor." In his view virtues were habits trained in by education. He deduced them from philosophy and sought to bring them to act on life. He did not regard them as products of life actions. Wundt[1404] says that shame is a specific human sentiment, because men alone of animals wear a concealing dress on one part of the body when they wear nothing else. He thinks that men began to cover the body in obedience to the sentiment of decency. The facts here alleged are all incorrect. There are many people who wear something on the body but do not cover the parts referred to (sec. 447). It is certain that pet animals manifest shame when caught doing what they have been taught not to do,—just like children. As to dress, it would be an interesting experiment to let pet dogs play together for a month, dressed in coats and blankets, and then to bring one of them to the meeting without his dress while the others wore theirs. Would he not show shame at not being like the others? A lady made a red jacket for a Javanese ape. He was greatly pleased, buttoned and unbuttoned the jacket, and showed displeasure when it was taken off. He showed that it aroused his vanity.[1405] People who deal with high-bred horses say that they show shame and dissatisfaction if they are in any way inferior to others. It was recently reported in the newspapers that the employés in a menagerie threw some of the beasts into great irritation by laughing in chorus near their cages in such a way that the beasts thought that they were being laughed at. Shame is a product of wounded vanity. It is due to a consciousness, or a fear, of disapproval. It is not limited to exposure of the body, but may be due to disapproval for any reason whatever.
446. The line of decency in dress. The line of decency, for instance in dress, is always paradoxical. No matter where it may be drawn, decency is close to it on one side and indecency on the other. A Moslem woman on the street looks like a bundle of bedclothes. Where all women so look one woman who left off her mantle would seem indecent, and the comparative display of the outlines of the figure would seem shameless. Where low-necked dresses are commonly worn they are not indecent, but they may become so at a point which varies according to custom from place to place and from class to class. The women in modern Jerusalem regard it as very indecent to show themselves décolletées. They sit, however, in postures which leave their legs uncovered.[1406] A peasant woman could not wear the dress of a lady of fashion. Where men or women wear only a string around the waist, their dress is decent, but it is indecent to leave off the string. The suggestive effect of putting on ornaments and dress at one stage is the same as that of leaving them off at another stage. Barbarians put on dress for festivals, dances, and solemn occasions. Civilized people do the same when they wear robes of office or ceremony. When Hera wanted to stimulate the love of Zeus she made an elaborate toilet and put on extra garments, including a veil.[1407] Then taking off the veil was a stimulus. On the other hand, the extremest and most conventional dress looks elegant and stylish to those who are accustomed to it, as is now the case with ourselves and the current dress, which makes both sexes present an appearance far removed from the natural outline of human beings. Then, at the limit, that is at to-day's fashions, coquetry can be employed again, and a sense stimulus can be exerted again, by simply making variations on the existing fashions at the limit. It is impossible to eliminate the sense stimulus, or to establish a system of societal usage in which indecency shall be impossible. The dresses of Moslem women, nuns, and Quakeresses were invented in order to get rid of any possible question of decency. The attempt fails entirely. A Moslem woman with her veil, a Spanish woman with her mantilla or fan, a Quakeress with her neckerchief, can be as indecent as a barbarian woman with her petticoat of dried grass.
447. Present conventional limits. In our own society decency as to dress, words, gestures, etc., is a constant preoccupation. That is not the case with naked savages or half-naked barbarians. The savages put on ornament to be admired and to exert attraction or produce effect. The same effect is won by words, gestures, dress, etc. Our æsthetic arts all exert the same influence. We expel all these things from our artificial environment down to a limit, in order to restrain and control the stimulus. Then we think that we are decent. That is because we rest at peace in a status which is conventional and accustomed. Variation from it one way is fastidious; the other way is indecent, just as it would be at any other limit whatever. It is the comparison of the mores of different times and peoples which shows the arbitrariness and conventionality. It would be difficult to mention anything in Oriental mores which we regard with such horror as Orientals feel for low-necked dresses and round dances. Orientals use dress to conceal the contour of the form. The waist of a woman is made to disappear by a girdle. To an Oriental a corset, which increases the waist line and the plasticity of the figure, is the extreme of indecency—far worse than nudity. It seems like an application of the art of the courtesan to appeal to sensuality.[1408] Perhaps the most instructive case of all is that of the Tuareg men, who keep the mouth always covered. The cloth has a utilitarian purpose,—to prevent thirst by retarding evaporation from the air passages. "They never remove the veil, on a journey, or in repose, not even to eat, much less to sleep." "A Tuareg would think that he committed an impropriety if he should remove his veil, unless it was in extreme intimacy or for a medical investigation." "At Paris I strove in vain to induce three Tuaregs to remove their veils for the purpose of being photographed."[1409] No superstitious reason for this veil is known. Madame Pommerol[1410] reports that a Tuareg man told her that men keep the mouth covered lest the play of it should expose their feelings to another man. Women, he said, had no such need, since enemies never approach them. Evidently we have here a case of an ancient fact that men are never seen with the mouth uncovered, which has produced a feeling that a man ought never to be seen with it uncovered, and rational and utilitarian reasons or explanations have been invented later. Those who paint the body are ashamed to be seen unpainted. In the tribes which are tattooed one would be ashamed who was not tattooed.
448. Decency and vanity. It is another case of shame or offended modesty if the taboo in the mores on acts, words, postures, etc., is broken in one's presence. It is a breach of the respect which one expects, that is, it wounds vanity.