Primitive Love and Love-Stories Part 11

Anguish of mind is infinitely more intense than mere physical pain, and the more cultivated the mind, the deeper is its capacity for such "agony unmix'd." Mental anguish doth, like a poisonous mineral, gnaw the inwards, and create a condition in which "not poppy, nor mandragora, nor all the drowsy syrups of the world shall ever medicine" the victim to that sleep which he enjoyed before. His heart is turned to stone; he strikes it and it hurts his hand. Trifles light as air are proofs to him that his suspicions are realities, and life is no longer worth living.

O now for ever Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!

Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars That make ambition virtue!

ABNORMAL STATES

The a.s.sertion that modern jealousy is a n.o.ble pa.s.sion is of course to be taken with reservations. Where it leads to murder or revenge it is a reversion to the barbarous type, and apart from that it is, like all affections of the mind, liable to abnormal and morbid states. Harry Campbell writes in the _Lancet_ (1898) that

"the inordinate development of this emotion always betokens a neurotic diathesis, and not infrequently indicates the oncoming of insanity. It is responsible for much useless suffering and not a little actual disease."

Dr. O'Neill gives a curious example of the latter, in the same periodical. He was summoned to a young woman who informed him that she wished to be cured of jealousy: "I am jealous of my husband, and if you do not give me something I shall go out of my mind." The husband protested his innocence and declared there was no cause whatever for her accusations:

"The wife persisted in reiterating them and so the wrangle went on till suddenly she fell from her chair on the floor in a fit, the spasmodic movements of which were so strange and varied that it would be almost impossible to describe them. At one moment the patient was extended at full length with her body arched forward in a state of opisthotonos. The next minute she was in a sitting position with the legs drawn up, making, while her hands clutched her throat, a guttural noise. Then she would throw herself on her back and thrust her arms and legs about to the no small danger of those around her. Then becoming comparatively quiet and supine she would quiver all over while her eyelids trembled with great rapidity. This state perhaps would be followed by general convulsive movements in which she would put herself into the most grotesque postures and make the most unlovely grimaces. At last the fit ended, and exhausted and in tears she was put to bed.

The patient was a lithe, muscular woman and to restrain her movements during the attack with the a.s.sistance at hand was a matter of impossibility, so all that could be done was to prevent her injuring herself and to sprinkle her freely with cold water. The after-treatment was more geographical than medical. The husband ceased doing business in a certain town where the object of his wife's suspicions lived."

I have been told by a perfectly healthy married woman that when jealous of her husband she felt a sensation as of some liquid welling up in her throat and suffocating her. Pride came into play in part; she did not want others to think that her husband preferred an ignorant girl to her--a woman of great physical and mental charm.

Such jealousy, if unfounded, may be of the "self-harming" kind of which one of Shakspere's characters exclaims "Fie! beat it hence!" Too often, however, women have cause for jealousy, as modern civilized man has not overcome the polygamous instincts he has inherited from his ancestors since time immemorial. But whereas cause for feminine jealousy has existed always, the right to feel it is a modern acquisition. Moreover, while Apache wives were chaste from fear and Greek women from necessity, modern civilized women are faithful from the sense of honor, duty, affection, and in return for their devotion they expect men to be faithful for the same reasons. Their jealousy has not yet become retrospective, like that of the men; but they justly demand that after marriage men shall not fall below the standard of purity they have set up for the women, and they insist on a conjugal monopoly of the affections as strenuously as the men do. In due course of time, as Dr. Campbell suggests, "we may expect the monogamous instinct in man to be as powerful as in some of the lower animals; and feminine jealousy will help to bring about this result; for if women were indifferent on this point men would never improve."

JEALOUSY IN ROMANTIC LOVE

The jealousy of romantic love, preceding marriage, differs from the jealousy of conjugal love in so far as there can be no claim to a monopoly of affection where the very existence of any reciprocated affection still remains in doubt. Before the engagement the uncertain lover in presence of a rival is tortured by doubt, anxiety, fear, despair, and he may violently hate the other man, though (as I know from personal experience) not necessarily, feeling that the rival has as much claim to the girl's attention as he has. Duels between rival lovers are not only silly, but are an insult to the girl, to whom the choice ought to be submitted and the verdict accepted manfully. A man who shoots the girl herself, because she loves another and refuses him, puts himself on a level below the lowest brute, and cannot plead either true love or true jealousy as his excuse. After the engagement the sense of monopoly and the consciousness of plighted troth enter into the lover's feelings, and intruders are properly warded off with indignation. In romantic jealousy the leading role is played by the imagination; it loves to torture its victim by conjuring visions of the beloved smiling on a rival, encircled by his arm, returning his kisses. Everything feeds his suspicions; he is "dwelling in a continual 'larum of jealousy." Oft his jealousy "shapes faults that are not" and he taints his heart and brain with needless doubt. "Ten thousand fears invented wild, ten thousand frantic views of horrid rivals, hanging on the charms for which he melts in fondness, eat him up." Such pa.s.sion inflames love but corrodes the soul. In perfect love, as I said at the beginning of this chapter, jealousy is potential only, not actual.

IV. COYNESS

When a man is in love he wears his heart on his sleeve and feels eager to have the beloved see how pa.s.sionately it throbs for her. When a girl is in love she tries to conceal her heart in the innermost recesses of her bosom, lest the lover discover her feelings prematurely. In other words, coyness is a trait of feminine love--the only ingredient of that pa.s.sion which is not, to some extent, common to both s.e.xes. "The cruel nymph well knows to feign, ... coy looks and cold disdain," sang Gay; and "what value were there in the love of the maiden, were it yielded without coy delay?" asks Scott.

'Tis ours to be forward and pus.h.i.+ng; 'Tis yours to affect a disdain,

Lady Montagu makes a man say, and Richard Savage sings:

You love; yet from your lover's wish retire; Doubt, yet discern; deny, and yet desire.

Such, Polly, are your s.e.x--part truth, part fiction, Some thought, much whim, and all a contradiction.

"Part truth, part fiction;" the girl romances regarding her feelings; her romantic love is tinged with coyness. "She will rather die than give any sign of affection," says Bened.i.c.k of Beatrice; and in that line Shakspere reveals one of the two essential traits of genuine modern coyness--_dissemblance of feminine affection_.

Was coyness at all times an attribute of femininity, or is it an artificial product of modern social conditions and culture? Is coyness ever manifested apart from love, or does its presence prove the presence of love? These two important questions are to be answered in the present section.

WOMEN WHO WOO

The opinion prevails that everywhere and always the first advances were made by the men, the women being pa.s.sive, and coyly reserved.

This opinion--like many other notions regarding the relations of the s.e.xes--rests on ignorance, pure ignorance. In collecting the scattered facts bearing on this subject I have been more and more surprised at the number of exceptions to the rule, if, indeed, rule it be. Not only are there tribes among whom women _must_ propose--as in the Torres Straits Islands, north of Australia, and with the Garos of India, concerning whom interesting details will be given in later chapters; but among many other savages and barbarians the women, instead of repelling advances, make them.

"In all Polynesia," says Gerland (VI., 127), "it was a common occurrence that the women wooed the men." "A proposal of marriage,"

writes Gill (_Savage Life in Polynesia_, II.), "may emanate with propriety from a woman of rank to an equal or an inferior." In an article on Fijian poetry (731-53), Sir Arthur Gordon cites the following native poem:

The girls of Vunivanua all had lovers, But I, poor I, had not even one.

Yet I fell desperately in love one day, My eye was filled with the beauty of Vasunilawedua.

She ran along the beach, she called the canoe-men.

She is conveyed to the town where her beloved dwells.

Na Ulumatua sits in his canoe unfastening its gear.

He asks her, "Why have you come here, Sova.n.a.lasikula?"

"They have been falling in love at Vunivanua," she answers; "I, too, have fallen in love. I love your lovely son, Vasunilawedua."

Na Ulumatua rose to his feet. He loosened a tambua whale's tooth from the canoe.

"This," he said, presenting it to her, "is my offering to you for your return. My son cannot wed you, lady."

Tears stream from her eyes, they stream down on her breast.

"Let me only live outside his house," she says; "I will sleep upon the wood-pile. If I may only light his seluka [cigarrette] for him, I shall rejoice.

If I may only hear his voice from a distance, it will suffice. Life will be pleasant to me."

Na Ulumatua replied, "Be magnanimous, lady, and return.

We have many girls of our own. Return to your own land.

Vasunilawedua cannot wed a stranger."

Sova.n.a.lasikula went away crying.

She returned to her own town, forlorn.

Her life was sadness.

Ia nam bosulu.

Tregear (102) describes the "wooing house" in which New Zealand girls used to stand up in the dark and say: "I love so-and-so, I want him for a husband;" whereupon the chosen lover, if willing, would say yes, or cough to signify his a.s.sent. Among the Pueblo Indians

"the usual order of courts.h.i.+p is reversed; when a girl is disposed to marry, she does not wait for a young man to propose to her, but selects one to her own liking and consults her father, who visits the parents of the youth and acquaints them with his daughter's wishes. It seldom happens that any objections to the match are made" (Bancroft, I., 547);

and concerning the Spokane Indians the same writer says (276) that a girl "may herself propose if she wishes." Among the Moquis, "instead of the swain asking the hand of the fair one, she selects the young man who is to her fancy, and then her father proposes the match to the sire of the lucky youth" (Schoolcraft, IV., 86). Among the Dariens, says Heriot (325), "it is considered no mark of forwardness" in a woman "openly to avow her inclination," and in Paraguay, too, women were allowed to propose (Moore, 261). Indian girls of the Hudson River region

"were not debarred signifying their desire to enter matrimonial life. When one of them wished to be married, she covered her face with a veil and sat covered as an indication of her desire. If she attracted a suitor, negotiations were opened with parents or friends, presents given, and the bride taken" (Ruttenber).

A comic mode of catching a husband is described in an episode from the tale "Owa.s.so and Wayoond" (Schoolcraft, _A.R._ II., 210-11):

"Manjikuawis was forward in her advances toward him.

He, however, paid no attention to it, and shunned her.

She continued to be very a.s.siduous in attending to his wants, such as cooking and mending his moca.s.sins. She felt hurt and displeased at his indifference, and resolved to play him a trick. Opportunity soon offered.

The lodge was s.p.a.cious, and she dug a hole in the ground, where the young man usually sat, covering it very carefully. When the brothers returned from the chase the young man threw himself down carelessly at the usual place, and fell into the cavity, his head and feet remaining out, so that he was unable to extricate himself. 'Ha! ha!' cried Manjikuawis, as she helped him out, 'you are mine, I have caught you at last, and I did it on purpose.' A smile came over the young man's face, and he said, 'So be it, I will be yours;' and from that moment they lived happily as man and wife."

It was a common thing among various Indian tribes for the women to court distinguished warriors; and though they might have no choice in the matter, they could at any rate place themselves temptingly in the way of these braves, who, on their part, had no occasion to be coy, since they could marry all the squaws they pleased. The squaws, too, did not hesitate to indulge, if not in two husbands, in more than one lover. Commenting on the Mandans, for instance, Maximilian Prinz zu Wied declares (II., 127) that "coyness is not a virtue of the Indian women; they often have two or three lovers at a time." Among the Pennsylvania Indians it was a common thing for a girl to make suit to a young man.

"Though the first address may be by the man, yet the other is the most common. The squaws are generally very immodest in their words and actions, and will often put the young men to the blush. The men commonly appear to be possessed of much more modesty than the women." (Bancroft, II., 140.)

Even a coating of culture does not seem to curb the young squaw's propensity to make the first advances. Captain R.H. Pratt (_U.S. Geol.

and G.S_., IX., 260), of the Carlisle School, relates an amusing story of a Kiowa young man who, under a variety of circ.u.mstances, "never cared for girl. 'But when Laura say she love me, then I began to care for girl.'"

In his _First Footsteps_ (85, 86) Burton gives a glimpse of the "coyness" of Bedouin women:

"We met a party of Esa girls, who derided my color and doubted the fact of my being a Moslem. The Arabs declared me to be a shaykh of shaykhs, and translated to the prettiest of the party an impromptu proposal of marriage. She showed but little coyness and stated her price to be an Andulli or necklace, a couple of Tobes--she asked one too many--a few handfuls of beads, and a small present for her papa. She promised, navely enough, to call next day and inspect the goods. The publicity of the town did not deter her, but the shamefacedness of my two companions prevented our meeting again."

In his book on Southern Abyssinia Johnston relates how, while staying at Murroo, he was strongly recommended to follow the example of his companions and take a temporary wife. There was no need of hunting for helpmates--they offered themselves of their own accord. One of the girls who presented herself as a candidate was stated by her friends to be a very strong woman, who had already had four or five husbands.

"I thought this a rather strange recommendation," he adds, "but it was evidently mentioned that she might find favor in my eyes." He found that the best way out of such a dilemma was to engage the first old hag that came along and leave it to her to ward off the others.