+464. Men dressed. Women not.+ Cases are very numerous in which men wear dress, while women do not.[1480] Such is the prevailing fact amongst the Indians of the Upper Amazon[1481] and in Central Africa.[1482] The women of the Apaporis (0 N., 70 W.) are said to wear nothing, but the men wear long aprons of fine bark string, broad bast girdles, and ornamental strings of teeth and seeds; also ornaments in the nose and lips, and some tribes below the lower lip.[1483] When women wear clothing and men do not the men think it womanish and beneath them to do so.[1484] When Livingston remonstrated with a negro for nakedness the latter "laughed with surprise at the thought of being at all indecent.

He evidently considered himself above such weak superstition."

All thought it a joke when told to wear something when Livingston's family should come.[1485]

+465. Dress for other purposes than decency. Excessive modesty.+ The Dyaks wear only a loin cloth of a greater or less number of folds to keep the abdomen warm, "a precaution which all travelers in the tropics must imitate day and night with flannel for fear of dysentery."[1486] "The women [of the western side of Torres Straits] frequently wear a kind of full chemise. They do not wear it for the sake of decency, but from luxury and pride, for I often saw a woman take off her garment and content herself with a tuft of grass before and behind."[1487] Some Papuan women are mentioned, who wear a petticoat on festival occasions, but they leave the right side of it open to show the tattooing on the hip.[1488] Since cotton cloth has become cheap in the Horn of Africa the natives wear a great deal of it out of luxury and ostentation, and also because it is a capital at all times easily realizable.[1489] The Rodias, an outcast people on Ceylon, were once compelled by the Kandyan kings to leave the upper part of the body uncovered; both sexes. The English have tried to reverse the rule, which has become a fixed habit. The Rodia women now wear a neckerchief, the ends of which cover the breast, when they meet English people, but they have not yet acquired the feeling that it is unseemly to uncover the breast.[1490]

Mantegazza met women on the Nilgherri hills who covered the breast on meeting him, but did not do so before men of their own race.[1491] It is the current idea on the Malabar coast that no respectable woman should cover the breast. Lately, those who have traveled and have learned that other people hold the contrary to be the proper rule feel some shame at the old custom.[1492] The Ainos are rated as displaced and outcast aborigines amongst the Japanese. An Aino woman refused to wash in order to be treated for a skin disease, because to wash was against Aino usage.[1493]

An Aino girl in a mission school who had a curved spine and was lame refused to allow a European physician to examine her with a view to diagnosis and treatment.

+466. Contrasted standards of decency.+ The Japanese do not consider nudity indecent. A Japanese woman pays no heed to the absence of clothing on workmen. European women in Japan are shocked at it, but themselves wear dinner and evening dress which greatly shock Orientals.[1494] Schallmeyer[1495] saw Japanese policemen note for punishment watermen who approached nearer to the wharf than the law allowed before covering the upper part of the body. The authorities are, therefore, trying to modify the usage. The Japanese regard daily hot baths as a necessity for everybody. Therefore bathing is unavoidable, and is put under the same conventionalization as that which surrounded latrines in the cities of Europe fifty years ago. Every one is expected to ignore what no one can help. Formerly, at least, the sexes were not separated and bathers might walk to and from the bath in a state of complete preparation for it.[1496] Before the "reformation"

people of the better classes in Japan went to the theater not at all, or secretly. The plays were coarse and outspoken. Japanese education permitted "both sexes indifferently to speak of everything without the slightest periphrasis, or any respect for persons, even children." Hence situations were described and presented on the stage which we should consider too licentious for toleration, although there were no actresses on the stage.

This was not due to laxity of morals, but to the fact that they had no taboos on reality. Yet "nothing appears more immoral to the Japanese than our drama." "They permit no intrigue [on the stage] by which the character of a married woman is compromised."[1497] The Europeans and Japanese, in contact with each other, find that it is not possible to infer each other's character from each other's folkways. Hearn says: "The ideas of this people are not our ideas; their sentiments are not our sentiments; their ethical life represents for us regions of thought and emotion yet unexplored, or perhaps long forgotten."[1498] The two cases in contrast, however, show the power of the folkways and their tremendous control. We know as to our own women that there is no conscious or unconscious purpose to stimulate sensuality. They wear what has been and is customary in their society. The Japanese get their customs in the same way and attribute to them the same authority. Neither has any reason to be amazed at or despise the other. Baelz quotes Mrs. Bishop, who after spending twenty years traveling in the East said, "I know now that one can be naked, yet behave like a lady." The above story of the crippled Aino girl gives credibility to Becke's story[1499] of a Polynesian woman, wife of a European, who died after child bearing rather than submit to treatment by a physician which would be attended by exposure of her person.

+467. Standards of decency as to natural functions, etc.+ The natives of New Georgia (Solomon Islands) "have the same ideas of what is decent with regard to certain acts and exposures that we ourselves have." They build retiring places over the water, "but their language is quite unlicensed."[1500] In Micronesia reserve as to natural functions is lacking.[1501] Amongst central African negroes the king alone had a hut for retirement. "The heathen negroes are generally more observant of decorum in this respect than any Mohammedan."[1502] In Lhasa, Tibet, there are no latrines either public or private. The street is used.[1503] The Andamanese women are modest and very careful about decency of dress and conversation. For the unmarried there is complete license.[1504] When Middendorf asked a Tungus girl to sing, she sang a song which was so indecent that he could not translate it.[1505] Children of the Eskimo on the eastern coast of Greenland go naked in the house until they are sixteen years old.

Then they put on the _natit_, a simple band around the loins, and that is the only thing worn in the house by adults. It is the custom of wearing fur next the skin which compels them to go naked in the house. They are very unwilling, under any circumstances, to lay aside the _natit_. Their songs and games are exceedingly licentious, and their myths are obscene. They do not keep these from the children. A great number live crowded in a little house, as an insurance against accidents or lack of food. This mode of life makes decency impossible and lowers the standard of propriety. Children are married at four or five years of age, but the relationship does not become established until a child is born. In summer, in tent life, two men exchange wives and some property. If one of them wants to keep the other's property, he must keep the wife, too.[1506] The Fuegians observe great decorum as to subjects of conversation.[1507] The Seminoles of Florida observe a high sex taboo. The women are virtuous and modest, and no half-breeds with whites exist. The mother of a half-breed would be put to death.[1508] The Tehuelches of Patagonia pay great attention to decency. They do not like to see children naked.[1509] The Indians of northern Nicaragua think that whites do not bathe enough. They always retire to running water, and are disgusted with whites for not taking that care.[1510]

+468. Bathing. Customs of nudity.+ The natives of Rotuma never bathe without the loin cloth. To do so is thought low conduct.[1511] The people of Ponape rise early and bathe, the sexes always separating unless married.[1512] Bock[1513] says that the Dyaks, without hesitation, threw off their garments and bathed in the presence of himself and Malays, the sexes together. The sexes of the Yuroks in California bathe apart and the women never go into the sea without some garment.[1514] The women of the Mandans had a bathing place. Armed sentinels were set to prevent men from approaching it.[1515] In Hindostan the sexes now bathe together at certain times and places with very little clothing. Wilkins[1516] says, "I have never seen the slightest impropriety of gesture on these occasions." Although at an earlier period some clothing was worn in bed, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in Europe, both sexes slept nude. Better beds and separate bed clothes led to this custom, because it was such a relief to take off woolen and fur worn in the daytime. Then nudity became familiar, and the concealment taboo was broken down.[1517] The cities were soon compelled to pass ordinances forbidding any one to appear on the streets nude.[1518] In Denmark the historian tells us that people slept naked because linen was dear, and that the custom lasted into the seventeenth century. In the sixteenth century nobles began to wear nightshirts.[1519] Upon the entry of kings into cities, until the sixteenth century, mythological subjects were represented in the streets by nude women.[1520] From the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries it was the custom that girls served knights in the bath.[1521] Through the Middle Ages the sexes bathed together, and not innocently.[1522] The Germans were very fond of bathing and every village had its public bath house. The utility and pleasure of bathing were so great that bathing was forbidden as an ecclesiastical penance.[1523] "A practice of men and women bathing together was condemned by Hadrian, and afterwards by Alexander Severus, but was only finally suppressed by Constantine."[1524]

The Council of Trullanum in 692 forbade the sexes to bathe together.[1525]

Other councils repeated the prohibition. This shows that Constantine did not suppress the custom, nor did any other civil or ecclesiastical authority do so. The ecclesiastics in Germany, from the eighth century, condemned the custom of the sexes bathing together, but never could control it.[1526] Christian men and women bathed together at Tyre in the time of the crusades.[1527] All the authorities, beginning with Erasmus (in the Colloquy, _Diversoria_), agree that bathing at a common bath house was abandoned on account of syphilis. Leprosy, which was brought from the East by the crusaders, had had less effect in the same direction. In the sixteenth century there were other epidemics, and wood became dear.[1528] The use of body linen and bed linen which could be washed made bathing less essential to comfort and health.[1529] The habit of seeing nudity was broken, and as it became unusual it became offensive. Thus a concealment taboo grew up again. Rudeck[1530] is convinced by these facts that "it was not modesty which made dress and public decency, but that dress and the decay of objectionable customs made modesty." He seems to be astonished at this conclusion and a little afraid of it. It is undoubtedly correct. The whole history of dress depends on it.

+469. Bathing in rivers, springs, and public bath houses.+ In the fifteenth century it became the custom to bathe in rivers or at mineral springs. Wealth, luxury, fashion, and new forms of vice attended this change.[1531] The convents of the fifteenth century are described as places of debauch.[1532] An English globe trotter of the beginning of the seventeenth century describes the baths of Baden near Zurich, where the old custom of the sexes bathing together had been modified somewhat, but only for married women.[1533] If the custom of bathing together does not still exist throughout Northern Europe, it must have been abolished within a few years. Retzius[1534] describes it as existing in Finland in 1878, and many travelers have described the village bath houses of Northern Russia and Scandinavia. Retzius says that the bath house is a kind of sanctuary. Any misdemeanor committed there is considered far more wicked than the same fault elsewhere. Here we see the mores raising a special conventionalization to protect a custom which is expedient, but which transgresses the usual taboo. The fact is that the complete taboo on nudity in Central Europe is not over two centuries old. By itself, nudity was not regarded as shameful or indecent. Therefore in the bath, where it was in order, it was disregarded, just as now a workmen's dress, an athlete's dress, or a bathing dress is disregarded.

During the centuries when the ecclesiastical authorities endeavored in vain to stop the sexes from bathing together, it must be that public opinion did not recognize in that usage any serious evil which called for repression. The English now express surprise that the sexes at American watering places go into the sea together, to which Americans attach no importance at all. If Americans bathed in English bathing dresses the sexes would speedily separate.

+470. Nudity.+ In early Christian drama Christ was represented by a naked youth. Then he was represented by a youth who wore a breech cloth only. In the sixteenth century, at Naples, in a representation of the creation of Adam and Eve, the actors had only the privates covered. The stage fell and many were hurt, which was held to show God's displeasure at the show. The flagellants in the theater, in France, were represented naked, as penitents.[1535]

+471. Alleged motives of concealment taboo.+ Herodotus says of the Lydians and almost all barbarians that they considered it shameful for one man to be seen by another naked.[1536] The Jewish sect, the Essenes, concealed part of the body from the sun, as the "all-seeing eye of God,"

even in the bath. The Jew might not uncover the body in the face of the temple. The rules of the Essenes for bodily necessities were such that those necessities could not be satisfied on the Sabbath.[1537] At Rome "_oppedere_, _mingere_, _cacare_ towards persons or statues belonged to the grossest marks of contempt, and were so employed more than we think."[1538] Patursson[1539] bathed with aborigines near the mouth of the Ob. They would not bare the body below the waist and were shocked at his immodesty because he was not so scrupulous.

+472. Obscenity.+ Another topic in this group of subjects, obscenity, is still harder to treat within the limits set by our mores. It offers still more astounding proofs that the folkways can make anything "right," and that our strongest sentiments of approval or abhorrence are given to us by the age and group in which we live. The tabooed parts of the body are not to be seen. It is obscenity when they are exposed to sight. We have already noticed, under the head of decency, a great range of conventions in regard to things and acts which are set aside from all the common activities of life. We have seen that there is no ultimate and rational definition of the things to be tabooed, no universal agreement as to what they are, no philosophical principle by which they are selected; that the customs have had no uniformity or consistency, and that those usages which we might suppose to be referable to a taboo of obscenity have an entirely different motive, while the notion of obscenity does not exist. There is no "natural" and universal instinct, by collision with which some things are recognized as obscene. We shall find that the things which we regard as obscene either were not, in other times and places, so regarded, any more than we so regard bared face and hands, or else that, from ancient usage, the exhibition was covered by a convention in protection of what is archaic or holy, or dramatic, or comical. In primitive times goblinism and magic covered especially the things which later became obscene. Facts were accepted with complete navete. The fashion of thinking was extremely realistic.

The Japanese now cannot understand how facts can be made shameful. They have very exact and authoritative conventions which every one must obey, but the conventions are practical and realistic. They serve purposes; they do not create an unreal world of convention.[1540] This is the extreme view of realism and nature. As has been shown above, however, so soon as objects were attached to the body for any purpose whatever, the conventional view that bodies so distinguished were alone right and beautiful was started, and all the rest of the convention of ornament and dress followed.

+473. Obscene representations for magic.+ The Indians on the Shingu river, Brazil, wear little or no clothing.[1541] They have full suits for dancing, but the tabooed organs are represented on the outside of these artificially and of exaggerated size. Evidently it was not the purpose of the dress to conceal organs the sight of which was tabooed.[1542] In Central Borneo, in order to drive off evil spirits, rough figures of human beings are cut in wood, the tabooed organs being exaggerated. Those organs are the real amulets which exorcise demons, for they are often cut on the timbers of the houses without the rest of the figure. Then, by further derivation, such representations became purely ornamental on houses, weapons, etc.[1543] The Egyptians used representations of what were later tabooed organs as hieroglyphics, and in their conversation admitted no taboo. Pictures in the tombs of the Twentieth Dynasty (1180-1050 B.C.) show the lack of any taboo, and there are inscriptions by them which show an absence of any restriction on realism.[1544] This is evidently the nave realism of children who have not yet learned any conventions. Reproduction and growth have direct connection with food supply, and abundance of reproduction means joy of life and merriment, with good cheer for men. Consequently the most matter-of-fact interest of man was intertwined with all the reproductive energies in nature. The popular and comic _mimus_ of the Greeks is traced back to ritual acts of magic, in which the corn demons or growth demons are represented at work, making the reproduction and growth of the crops. The ritual was sympathetic magic, and it was securing the food supply. What was desired was success in agriculture, and the husbandman in his choice of rites, symbols, and emblems was entirely realistic. The growth demons, when they appear in art, are vulgar figures of an exaggerated sensual type. They were meant to suggest reproductive vigor, exuberance, and abundance. The tabooed organs are represented in various ways, but always obtrusively and with exaggeration. The demons wear an artificial phallus outside the dress, which fits the figure tightly.[1545] The ritual developed into the Dionysiac rites and orgies, the main idea of which was to rejoice with the reproductive agencies of nature, to present them dramatically to the mind, and to stimulate hope and industry. In Greece these primitive rites of sympathetic magic in agriculture developed into the comic drama, and the demons became stereotyped figures of comedy, always recognizable by their masks (faces of a vulgar type), exaggerated hips, and above all by the phallus. The demon turned into the clown or buffoon, but the phallus was kept as an emblem of his role, like the later cap and bells of the fool, until the fifth century of the Christian era in the West, and until the fall of the Byzantine empire.

In the Hellenistic period the clown took the role of the Olympic god, and wore the phallus. The Phlyakes in lower Italy had the same emblem and it was worn in the atellan plays of the Romans.[1546] In the early Christian centuries the Christian martyr wore the emblem in the comedy, since that role was always represented by the simpleton or clown.

Ecclesiastical persons also were represented with it, since the buffoon always wore it, whatever his role. It also passed to the _karagoz_ (shadow play) of the Turks and to the _pantin_ puppets of the Javans. In the comedy of Hindostan the phallus disappeared.[1547] In Egypt, at least as late as the first half of the nineteenth century, a masked figure marched at the head of the bride's procession at a wedding with the same symbol and indecent gestures.[1548]

+474. Infibulation.+ It appears that athletes in Greece bound the organ and tied it up to the girdle in a manner closely resembling the primitive suspensorium. The comedians wore a leathern apron with a large false organ of red leather on the outside. It became a sign of the trade of boxers, athletes, gymnasts, and comedians to bind the organ and tie it up, whereby it was twisted into a horn shape. The purpose was to protect it from injury, and it furnishes suggestion as to the purpose of the primitive suspensorium. The concealment was very imperfect and the notion grew up that the part concealed ought to be concealed, but no more. The Romans thought it indecent to lack the foreskin, and the Jews endeavored to conceal this lack. Infibulation was practiced in two ways,--by a ring through the prepuce or by a bandage around it. It was thought to prevent vice and preserve the voice of prophets, singers, etc. A seventeenth-century traveler, Walter Schultze of Haarlem, is quoted, who describes an ascetic sect in Persia who renounced wine, lived on gifts, and foreswore marriage. They were infibulated with a ring.[1549]

+475. Was the phallus offensive?+ For more than two thousand years the most obscene figure we know was used by the clown in popular farce and by athletes as an emblem of their profession. It raised a laugh, but was not otherwise noticed. An interesting question arises whether there ever was any protest against it, or any evidence that anybody thought it offensive. The passage in Aristophanes' _Clouds_ (530) has been so interpreted. It appears, however, that in that passage the author is comparing his comedy with that of others. He has admitted, he says, no low tricks appealing to vulgar tastes, no phallus which would make the boys laugh, no lascivious dance, no scurrilous stories, and no "knock-down business." This is not a criticism of the phallus on grounds of obscenity, but on grounds of buffoonery. In the _Acharnians_ (243 and 259) are matter-of-fact references to the phallus worn by the actor, as he might have referred to his mantle. Other cases occur which are not so outspoken. In the _Lysistrata_ the mention of the phallus in connection with the motive of the play is of the last degree of vulgarity. We cannot find that any Greeks, Romans, or Byzantines protested against these exhibitions of the phallus, which to us are so obscene. The _mimus_ was the lowest and most popular kind of theatrical exhibition, and it was in it that the use of the phallus was most constant. Even Christian preachers who denounced the _mimus_ as demoralizing, and who specified in detail what they found objectionable in it, never mention the display of obscene things. All people were accustomed to the phallus as the archaic symbol of the servants of Dionysus.[1550] Christian preachers would have made no allowance for it on that account,--rather the contrary,--and they would not have refrained from objecting to it on account of the archaic, or artistic, or traditional element, if they had disapproved of it. It must be that everybody was indifferent to it.

The twin pillars which were common in front of Semitic temples and which stood before the temple at Jerusalem are interpreted as phalli.[1551]

+476. Phallus as amulet.+ At Rome the phallus was an amulet and was worn by all children. The figure, therefore, cannot have been an obscene one.

In the Roman gardens also were ithyphallic figures which appear to bear witness to a survival of the growth-demon idea, or to usages which originated in the growth-demon idea, and were perpetuated traditionally without knowledge of the original meaning. On mediaeval churches figures were often carved, as an expression of nave ideas and faiths, and in pure realism, which were frankly obscene. Paintings and stained glass often represented similar objects. In the second half of the sixteenth century such objects were removed, or covered, or modified. It may be that the notion of obscenity developed sooner in respect to literature than in respect to art. Susemihl[1552] suggests that the lost tales of Miletus may have been obscene, and also the tales of Paxamos, and that their disappearance may be due to a war on them on this account.

Literature would furnish food to the mind. It would not deal with fact.

The popular judgment seems long to have refused to admit that facts of structure and function which were universally human could be put under a taboo and made improper to be known and seen. What is familiar tends to remain in our overconsciousness only. The same is true of what offends one's taste and from which one averts attention, although it cannot be caused to cease, like profane language. The cases of toleration of what would now be considered obscene are to be explained in this way.

+477. Symbols in Asia.+ "In ancient times obscene symbols were used without offense to denote sex."[1553] Such symbols were very common in western Asia. They are very common now in India. A Chinese woman's foot, an Arab woman's face, a Tuareg man's mouth, is obscene to persons educated in any one of those taboos, because it always is, and ought to be, concealed. It is not obscene to us. On the other hand, the lingam in India is obscene to us, but not to Hindoos who have never learned any taboo in regard to it. An egg or a seed might have been made obscene in some group on account of its connection with reproduction, if that connection had been developed in dogma and usage. An Englishman would never think of the garter as unseemly, but non-English men and women have thought it such. The crucifix shows us how conventionalization and familiarization set aside all the suggestion which an artifact really carries. The figure of a naked man dying in torture is purely horrible and repulsive. No one could get edification from an artistic representation of a man hanging on the gallows. Many people overlook so much of the crucifix and add so much in imagination that they get great edification from it. The language used in the communion about eating the body and drinking the blood of Christ refers to nothing in our mores, and appeals to nothing in our experience. It comes down from very remote ages, very possibly from cannibalism.[1554] If we heard that the Chinese or Mohammedans had a religious custom in which they used currently the figure of eating the body and drinking the blood of a man (or god), and if we had no such figure of speech in our own use, we should consider it shocking and abominable.

+478. The notion of obscenity is modern.+ It is evident that the notion of obscenity is very modern. It is due to the modern development of the arts of life and the mode of life under steam and machinery. The cheapening and popularization of luxury have made houses larger, plumbing cheaper, and all the apparatus of careful living more accessible to all classes. The consequence is that all the operations and necessities of life can be carried on with greater privacy and more observation of conventional order and decorum. Then the usages and notions grow more strict and refined. It is only in poverty that exposures and collisions occur which violate decency and involve obscenity. Therefore the standards and codes of all classes have risen, and the care about dressing, bathing, and private functions, for the sexes and for children, has been intensified. Out of this has come the notion of what is obscene, as the extreme of indecency and impropriety.

What we call obscene was, in ancient times, either a matter of superstition or a free field for jest. The conventionalization in favor of what is amusing must always be recognized. It has always entered into comedy in the theater. A jest will not cover as much now as it once would, but it still goes far. The ancient mythology long covered obscenity in drama. When Hephaestus caught Ares and Aphrodite in his net the gods all enjoyed the joke. The goddesses did not come to see the sight.[1555] The difference between the masculine and feminine judgment as to whether a thing is funny or shameful is well drawn. Hera insisted to Zeus that their conjugal familiarity should not be seen.[1556] The young women served the men in the bath, but Odysseus feared to anger Nausikaa if he exposed himself to her (although it is not certain that this was on account of his nakedness), and when she walked through the town with him she knew well what would shame her.[1557] Odysseus also asked the women to withdraw while he bathed.[1558] The mores were in flux and were contradictory. The interpretation of the text is not beyond question. It may not have been nakedness which caused shame, but the dirt and disorder of person produced by shipwreck. Various philosophies claim to have brought in the greater care and refinement of more recent times, but not one of them can show the documentary proof that the men of a time, at that time, showed revolt against the mores of that time in regard to this matter. What has happened is that, in modern times, steam and machinery, with the increase of capital and of power over nature which they have produced, have given social power to the lower middle class, as the representatives of the masses. This has brought into control the mores of those classes, which were simple, unluxurious, philistine, and comparatively pure, because those classes were forced to be frugal, domestic, careful of their children, self-denying, and relatively virtuous, on account of their limited means. The arts of life never can be the same for the poor and the rich.

Wealth is often charged with introducing luxury and vice, but that tendency is offset by its giving command over the conditions of life, which makes refined usages possible.

+479. Propriety.+ The rules of propriety apply to all the acts of life, but especially to those which take place in the presence or neighborhood of others; still more especially to those which affect others. A large section of such rules deals with the ordinary intercourse of persons of the two sexes, and regulates details of the sex taboo which are less important. Crawley gives a list of cases[1559] in which brother and sister, father and daughter, are separated by the sex taboo. A woman of the Omaha tribe, whether married or not, if she walked or rode alone would ruin her reputation as a virtuous woman. She may ride or walk only with her husband or near kinsman. In other cases she gets another woman to go with her. Young men are forbidden to speak to girls, if they meet two or more on the road, unless they are akin.[1560] A chief never ate with his guests amongst the tribes on the upper Missouri. He sat by and served them, meanwhile preparing the pipe to be smoked afterwards.[1561]

Junker[1562] was warned that, in passing a princess in Buganda, he must not touch her robe of oxhide, for that would be an insult to her. If a woman of the Mongbottu gives coloring matter to a man, that is undue familiarity and will occasion the wrath of an offended husband.[1563] An Andaman Islander, if he has occasion to speak to a married woman older than himself, must do it through a third person. He must not touch his younger brother's or cousin's wife, or his wife's sister. Women are restricted in the same way as to the husband's elder brother, or male cousin, or his brother-in-law.[1564] The relations of relatives in law are a chapter in propriety.

+480. Seclusion of women.+ In modern Korea women are secluded. It is not proper to ask for them. Women have been put to death by fathers or husbands, or are reported to have committed suicide, when strange men, by accident or design, have touched their hands. A servant woman gave as a reason for not saving her mistress from a fire in the house that she had been touched by a man, in the confusion, and was not worth saving.[1565] In China, if a foreigner asks about the ladies, he is taken to refer to the mother, not the wife, of the Chinaman.[1566] A young wife is not allowed, amongst the southern Slavs, to address comrades in the great-family house by their names, "out of modesty." She gives them special names, adopted for her intercourse with them. She is guilty of great impropriety if she chats with her husband in the presence of her parents-in-law.[1567]

+481. Customs of propriety.+ A native of the Naga Hills told an Englishman that it was not the correct thing to use a poisoned arrow except to shoot it at a woman.[1568] On the Palau Islands, and amongst all Moslems,[1569] it is an insult to a man to ask him about the health of his wife, and any man may strike with a stick or a stone, not with a cutting weapon, any one who utters the former's wife's name. Women are treated with extreme formality. A man who surprises one bathing is fined. This occurs very rarely, since the men utter cries of warning when approaching the place.[1570] In German Melanesia a visitor is at once presented with betel and food, but he immediately gives some of it back to the inmates of the house as security against poison.[1571] The Indians of Central America are shocked at the quick actions and loud talking habitual to Europeans, and think them signs of a lack of breeding and of the low level of European culture. Some tribes allow no singing, which they consider a sign of drunkenness.[1572] An Ossetin (Caucasus) will never take his child on his arm or caress it in the presence of another, especially of an older person, or his own father or mother. If he did do so, no one would shake hands with him, and any one might with impunity spit in his face. Propriety forbids the Tushins (of the same region) to manifest tenderness, even when old, towards husband or wife, parent or child, in the presence of others; especially is it improper to show tenderness towards sons.[1573]

An Ossetin man may see his betrothed only in secret and incidentally, or in the house of one of his own relatives. It is a gross insult to ask him about her health, or when the wedding will be. A married woman may not address her husband or male relatives by their names. If she does so, the other women will ridicule her. Other people in the same region have similar excessive rules. An Armenian woman, after marriage, is veiled.

She must not talk with any one but her husband, sisters, or little children. She answers her parents-in-law by signs. Her husband ought not to call her by her name before others. A Cherkess wife may talk with her husband only at night. His presence in her room by day is thought improper, and it is improper for man and wife to be seen together outside the house, or to be seen talking together. A newly married woman, among the Grusians, must not speak to her husband's father, mother, or brothers until she has borne a child. A childless wife is not treated with respect by her husband, or his family, or even by outsiders.[1574] Darinsky explains that the community used to buy the wives, who were costly, and not equal in number to the men.

Now, if a man gets a wife and children of his own, he commits a crime against the old order. He must be well off, and he leaves his poorer brethren in the lurch. They envy and annoy him. To escape this he conceals or ignores his relation to his wife and children.

+482. Moslem rules of propriety.+ To a great extent the legislation of Mohammed consisted in accomplishing reforms and innovations for which the Arabs were almost ready. When he tried to introduce ideas of his own, changing the mores, he failed. He tried many times to put a stop to the usages of mourning which were violent and excessive,--loud outcries, destruction of clothes and furniture, blackening the walls of the house and one's face, and shearing the beard. He did not succeed. These were ancient and popular customs and they were maintained.[1575] It is improper for any Moslem, male or female, to uncover the head.[1576] They uncover the feet to show respect. This was Semitic and is Oriental.[1577] Robertson Smith[1578] thinks that the reason was that the shoes could not be washed, unless they were mere linen socks, such as were used in the Phoenician sacred dress. By Moslem rules strangers should never see or hear a man's wives. Physicians may see only the affected parts of a woman. A traveler returning home may not enter his own house at night. Two persons of the same sex must never bare the body between the waist and the knee in presence of each other. The Koran[1579] contains elaborate rules for women as to the concealment of parts of the body, and as to movements of the body and gestures as limited by propriety. Neatness, care, and order are religious duties; also devices to preserve and enhance beauty.[1580] To an Arab, a blow on the back of the neck is more insulting than one on the face.[1581] It is not proper for a man to look any Moslem woman in the face. When Vambery, talking to a lady, raised his eyes to her face she sternly told him to behave with propriety.[1582]

+483. Hatless women.+ In contrast with the Moslem rule not to uncover the head is the Christian rule that men should uncover the head in church but that women should cover it. In 1905 Cranstock church in Newquay, Cornwall, England, was closed on account of the "irreverence of numbers of women, who, walking uncovered, presume to enter God's house with no sign of reverence or modesty upon their heads." A rule was adopted at Canterbury, in the same year, that no hatless women should be allowed in the cathedral. A reason or authority for this rule is said to be found in 1 Cor. xi. 4-7. An American church paper said that such a rule would half empty some American churches in the warmer latitudes.[1583] A rector at Asbury Park, August 17, 1905, rebuked women for coming to church without hats, and said that the bishop of the diocese had asked the clergy to enforce the rule that "women should not enter the consecrated building with uncovered heads." Russian Jewish women at Jerusalem, being forbidden to wear veils, wear wigs, lest they may "dishonor" their heads by uncovering them.[1584]

+484. Rules of propriety.+ The Kabyles of northern Africa are warlike, but have little political organization. Although they are Moslems, they have, by an ingenious use of Moslem law about pious gifts for charitable uses, preserved their own ancient mores about women's property, against the Moslem law. A bride, on leaving her home, is lifted on her mule by a negro, if there is one in the village. There is great rejoicing at the birth of a boy, and the mother is congratulated and decorated. When a girl is born there is silence. A man is fined if he slaughters an animal and eats meat except on a market day, because it would pain his neighbors to see him eat meat when they could not get it.[1585] The Kabyles have very strict rules as to sex propriety and decency of language. Any violation of propriety in the presence of a woman, or of a man accompanied by one of his female relatives, calls for especial punishment. The presence of a woman protects her husband from violence by a creditor, and in general imposes peace and decorum.[1586] As a mark of respect for a man with whom she is talking, a Tuareg woman will turn her back to him, or draw a fold of her garment over her mouth.[1587] The Kalmucks consider that a man without his girdle is in extreme undress. He never shows himself before old people without his girdle.[1588]

+485. Hindoo ritual of the toilet, etc.+ According to ancient Hindoo custom, younger brothers should in all matters yield to elder brothers.[1589] Brahmins use only the left hand for all acts of the bodily toilet. They have a very elaborate ritual for all such acts, and consider their houses defiled by the presence of Europeans who do not observe any such ritual. They remove shoes on entering a house on account of the impurity of leather.[1590] It is not good manners amongst them to address the women of the house, or to ask for them. If a woman takes a man's arm in public she is supposed to be his mistress.

Gallantry is never displayed. A wife would resent it as disrespectful, fit only for a woman of another grade. Only courtesans, dancers, and harlots are taught to read, sing, or dance. An honest woman would be ashamed to know how to read. Brahmins regard the use of the pocket handkerchief with the same disgust which a European feels for the Hindoo use of the fingers which European laborers practice. Hindoos clean the teeth with a fresh twig every day, and are horrified that Europeans do it with a brush made of the hair of an animal, and do it frequently with the same brush. There are days on which one must not brush the teeth on pain of hell. "Saliva is of all things the most utterly polluting."[1591] For a woman to have to part with her hair is one of the greatest of degradations and the most terrible of all trials. Hindoo women never use false hair if they lose their own.[1592] Women are safe and are treated with respect in public. The honor of a Hindoo requires that he look no higher than the ankles of a passing woman.[1593] He must not touch a woman. If many men and women meet, for instance in traveling, they may lie down side by side to sleep without impropriety.[1594] Not one man in a hundred in India ever tasted liquor, "but a Hindoo beggar may not eat bread made with yeast or baked by any but Hindoos of his own or a better caste."[1595] The Angharmi of northeastern India consider it a reproach for a woman to bear a child before her hair is long enough to be tied behind. Until marriage the women shave the head. Spouses are therefore separated for a year after marriage.[1596]

Modern Egyptians think it improper for a man to "describe the features or person of a female (as that she has a straight nose or large eyes) to one of his own sex, by whom it is unlawful that she should be seen."[1597] Modern Sicilian peasants at their balls dance in couples of men and couples of women, "such an idea as a man putting his arm around a woman's waist in a waltz being considered indecent."[1598]

+486. Greek rules of propriety.+ Nausikaa disregarded the lack of dress of the shipwrecked when they needed help, but she had a complete code of propriety and good manners with which she compelled them to comply.[1599] In the Greek tragedies modest and proper behavior for women is characterized by reserve, retirement, reluctance. They ought not to talk publicly with young men or to expose themselves to the gaze of men. They may not run out into the street with hair and dress disordered, or roam about the country, or run to look at sights.

Clytemnestra told Iphigenia to be reserved with Achilles if she could be so and win her point, but to win her point. Iphigenia considered it a cause of shame to her that her proposed marriage was broken off.

+487. Erasmus's rules.+ Erasmus wrote a book of manners for a youth, his pupil. He said that the teeth should be cleaned, but that it was girlish to whiten them with powder. He thought it excessive to rinse the mouth more frequently than once in the morning. He thought it lazy and thieflike to go with one's hands behind one's back. It was not well-mannered to sit or stand with one hand in the other, although some thought it soldierly.[1600]

+488. Eating.+ Special occasion for rules of propriety is offered by eating. In Melanesia and Polynesia men and their wives remain in a great measure strangers to each other. They lead separate lives. Women have their lodgings, meals, work, and property separate.[1601] Perhaps it is a consequence that the rule becomes established that men and women should never see each other eat.[1602] The Varua of Central Africa put a cloth before the face while drinking, in order not to be seen, especially by any woman.[1603] On Tanna (New Hebrides) a woman may not see a man drink _kava_.[1604] A man on the Andaman Islands may not eat with any women except those of his own household, until he is old. The unmarried of each sex eat by themselves.[1605] Amongst the old Semites it was not the custom for a man to eat with his wife and children. In northern Arabia "no woman will eat before men." Some Southern Arabs "would rather die than accept food at the hands of a woman."[1606] There is also a widespread notion that one should not be seen to eat by anybody. The Bakairi are ashamed to see or to be seen eating.[1607] In northern Abyssinia people when eating are concealed. At a wedding feast the guests break up into little groups of four to six, who eat separately, each group covered by a sheet.[1608] The king of Loango covers his mouth with a garment to eat or drink, in order to keep up an ancient rule that no one may see him eat or drink.[1609] The Sudanese think that disease or death would follow if any one should see them take food.[1610] No Hindoos like to be looked at while eating. "I never once saw a single Hindoo, except of the lowest caste, either preparing or eating cooked food of any kind."[1611] If a man of inferior caste enters the kitchen where food is being prepared all must be thrown away. If food thus contaminated was eaten it would taint the souls as well as the bodies of the eaters, and would cost long and painful expiation.

Schwaner[1612] reports that the Dyaks withdrew "modestly" when he was about to eat. That the cycle of variation may be complete, we find one case of people (Kafans) who may not take food or drink without the presence of a legal witness, an adult of the same people duly authorized. The chief has a slave who discharges the duty of witness. He must be called at night if the chief has to take medicine. A stranger must conform to the rule. Spouses must eat and drink together, from the same dish or cup. To violate this rule is a reason for divorce.[1613] The best explanation of the rules about eating in private is the fear of the evil eye, i.e. the envious or admiring eye of a hungry man, which would bewitch the food.

+489. Kissing.+ Kissing is another occasion for special rules of propriety. In China and Japan kissing is regarded with disgust. It is unknown amongst Polynesians, Malays, negroes, and Indians of South America.[1614] They rub noses, or bite, or smell, instead. It is said of a Samoan girl, also, that she "looks upon kissing with disgust."[1615]

So far apart may human beings be racewise in their judgment of what is pleasant or disgusting! In Europe, in the Middle Ages, the custom of kissing was very extended. Newcomers were saluted with kisses; also partners in the dance. A bishop kissed the wife of Rudolf of Hapsburg when receiving her, but he was banished until Rudolf died.[1616] From a fifteenth-century sermon it is learned that a young lady of rank in France, at that time, would rise in the midst of divine service, incommoding everybody, in order to kiss on the mouth a cavalier who entered the church at that time.[1617] The custom of kissing became more general in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but discussion about it shows that there was some doubt whether it was expedient. "The mores won a victory over philosophy."[1618] In modern times Europeans have taught half-civilized and barbarian peoples the custom of kissing. The Hottentots, for instance, in their zeal to imitate Europeans, have adopted this custom.[1619]

+490. Politeness, etiquette, manners.+ Politeness, courtesy, and good manners are usages, but they rise to the level of the mores when they become a part of the character of a people, for then they produce characteristic traits which affect all societal relations.[1620]

Uncivilized people often pay punctilious attention to rules of etiquette about salutations, visits, meetings, the aged, etc. As all their rules are imperative and admit of no discussion or exception, they constitute a social ritual which may educate in certain sentiments, although it is by no means sure to do so. The functions of politeness and etiquette exist in order to make things go smoothly in all social contact.

Orientals have very thorough training in this department. They have systems of good manners which have been practiced for thousands of years. The Chinese Li-ki ("Ritual of Propriety") dates from the beginning of the Christian era. It is an elaborate text-book of correct conduct in all affairs of life. It is of universal application, except for details of the mode of life in China, and it shows the value of such a code and the use of the habits it inculcates. Chinese and Japanese are well-disciplined people in all the matters of conduct and social contact which are controlled by the mores.

From this point on it will be noticed that the codes to be mentioned are further removed from the sex mores.

+491. Good manners.+ The Andamanese of all classes show great consideration for the very young, weak, aged, or helpless.[1621] A white man gave liquor to a native man on the Chittagong hills. The latter insisted on giving some of it to the women first, but they required much urging before they would take it.[1622] The Samoans have very polished manners. They had a court language.[1623] The Betsileo on Madagascar have a careful etiquette about the houses of their chiefs, about proper conduct in those houses, and about the utensils there; also words are reserved for chiefs which others may not utter.[1624] In East Africa any violation of etiquette towards a chief is summarily and severely punished, sometimes by death.[1625] Many an A-Sande has lost a finger or his life for an innocent word spoken to the wife of a chief.[1626] The Tunguses of Siberia have so much habitual politeness that Wrangell called them "the French of the tundra."[1627] The Yakuts think it bad manners to give a big piece of meat to a poor guest and a little piece to a rich one. Good breeding, according to their code, calls for the opposite conduct.[1628] A Fuegian husband, giving an order to his wife, out of courtesy tells her to give the order to some one else, although there is no one else.[1629] Amongst North American Indians the modes of sitting or squatting for each sex are strictly prescribed.[1630] Sapper says of the Central American Indians that when the white man asks a question he often gets no answer because he has neglected something required by etiquette. He once on a journey asked a Kekchi Indian to ask the way of an Indian whom they saw coming. This was improper, because not any one in the company might ask that question, according to Kekchi etiquette, but only the leader of the company.[1631] Schweinfurth[1632]

rates the Dinka above Turks and Arabs in respect to table manners and decorum of eating. All recline on the ground around a bowl of food, each with a gourd cup in his hand, but they manage this primitive arrangement with constant care for propriety.

+492. Etiquette of salutation, etc.+ The modes of expressing good will and the etiquette of meeting or visiting would be another large section under this head. What things are possible is shown by the report that a Tibetan host at a feast "expressed his respect for us and his appreciation of our remarks by rising to his feet and extending his tongue at full length."[1633]

+493. Literature of manners and etiquette.+ Denecke[1634] is able to trace an indigenous cultivation of good manners by literature from the eleventh century, when there was taught courtesy to women, although not the woman cult of a later time. He mentions a series of books down to the nineteenth century, which inculcated good manners according to the changing notions and standards of the times. In the second half of the thirteenth century it was taught in von Lichtenstein's _Frauenbuch_, a manual of manners and morals for women, that a woman should not salute a knight at his approach lest he infer favor. She was to be covered like a nun; she did not share in banquets and did not kiss guests whom she received; she shunned outside festivities and kept a good name. Knights then neglected women because they cared only for rude pleasures, drink, and hunting. Later, rules were made for the conduct of men.[1635] The history of manners shows that what was inculcated in books never became real practice. The conquest of the art of eating with propriety was accomplished by the introduction of forks. Before that the bread was a tool with which to eat, and it required cultivated skill to handle it properly. Salt and mustard still presented problems,--knife or fingers?

Each one brought his own knife.

+494. Honor, seemliness, common sense, conscience.+ Honor, common sense, seemliness, and conscience seem to belong to the individual domain. They are reactions produced in the individual by the societal environment.

Honor is the sentiment of what one owes to one's self. It is an individual prerogative, and an ultimate individual standard. Seemliness is conduct which befits one's character and standards. Common sense, in the current view, is a natural gift and universal outfit. As to honor and seemliness, the popular view seems to be that each one has a fountain of inspiration in himself to furnish him with guidance.