THE PRIMITIVE ATTITUDE TOWARD SEX AND WOMANHOOD

BY

IVA LOWTHER PETERS, PH.D

Primitive social control; Its rigidity; Its necessity; Universality of this control in the form of taboos; Connection between the universal attitude of primitive peoples towards woman as shown in the Institutionalized Sex Taboo and the magic-religious belief in Mana; Relation of Mana to Taboo; Discussion of Sympathetic Magic and the associated idea of danger from contact; Difficulties in the way of an inclusive definition of Taboo; Its dual nature; Comparison of concepts of Crawley, Frazer, Marett and others; Conclusion that Taboo is Negative Mana; Contribution of modern psychology to the study of Taboo; Freud’s analogy between the dualistic attitude toward the tabooed object and the ambivalence of the emotions; The understanding of this dualism together with the primitive belief in Mana and Sympathetic Magic explains much in the attitude of man toward woman; The vast amount of evidence in the taboos of many peoples of dualism in the attitude toward woman. Possible physiological explanation of this dualistic attitude of man toward woman found in a period before self-control had in some measure replaced social control, in the reaction of weakness and disgust following sex festivals.

A study of the elaborate, standardized, and authoritative systems of social control found among all primitive peoples gives a vivid impression of the difficulty of the task of compelling man to die to himself, that is, to become a socius. The rigors and rituals of initiation ceremonies at adolescence impressed the duties of sociality at that impressionable period. The individual who refused to bow his head to the social yoke became a vagabond, an outcast, an excommunicate. In view of the fierceness of the struggle for food and the attitude toward the stranger among all primitives, the outcast’s life chances were unenviable. It was preferable to adapt one’s self to the social order. “Bad” traits were the more easily suppressed in return for the re-enforcement of power which was the striking feature of group life; power over enemies, power over nature, and a re-enforcement of the emotional life of the individual which became the basis on which were built up the magico-religious ceremonies of institutionalized religion.

It is the purpose of this study to consider a phase of social life in which there can be traced a persistence into modern times of a primitive form of control which in a pre-rational stage of group life made possible the comparatively harmonious interplay of antagonistic forces. This form of control is called Taboo. A student of the phenomenon, a recognized authority on its ethnological interpretation, says of it: “To illustrate the continuity of culture and the identity of the elementary human ideas in all ages, it is sufficient to point to the ease with which the Polynesian word tabu has passed into modern language."[1, ]

We shall attempt to show that at least one form of taboo, the Institutionalized Sex Taboo, is co-extensive with human social experience, and exists to-day at the base of family life, the socialized form of sex relationship. The family as a social institution has been scarcely touched until a very recent historical period by the rationalizing process that has affected religious and political institutions. Economic changes resultant upon the introduction of an industrial era which showed the importance of women in diverse social relations were causes of this new effort at adaptation to changing conditions. It became apparent that taboos in the form of customs, cérémonials, beliefs, and conventions, all electrically charged with emotional content, have guarded the life of woman from change, and with her the functions peculiar to family life. There has doubtless been present in some of these taboos “a good hard common-sense element.” But there are also irrational elements whose persistence has resulted in hardship, blind cruelty, and over-standardization.

In order to comprehend the attitude of early man toward sex and womanhood, and to understand the system of taboo control which grew out of this attitude, it is only reasonable to suppose that the prehistoric races, like the uncivilized peoples of the present time, were inclined to explain all phenomena as the result of the action of spiritistic forces partaking of both a magical and religious nature. This supernatural principle which the primitive mind conceived as an all-pervading, universal essence, is most widely known as mana, although it has been discussed under other names.

Certain persons, animals and objects are often held to be imbued to an unusual degree with this mana, and hence are to be regarded as holy and held in awe. Inasmuch as man may wish to use this power for his own purposes, a ceremonial cult would naturally grow up by which this would become possible. Otherwise, to come in contact with these objects directly or indirectly, besides profaning their sanctity would be exceedingly dangerous for the transgressor, because of this same power of transmission of a dread and little understood force. Therefore, all such persons, animals or objects are taboo and must be avoided. Under these circumstances it can be seen that taboos are unanalyzed, unrationalized “Don’ts,” connected with the use and wont which have crystallized around the wish of man to manipulate the mysterious and often desirable features of his environment, notably those connected with possession, food, and sex.

The idea of the transmission of mana through contact is concomitant with the notion of sympathetic magic, defined as the belief that the qualities of one thing can be mysteriously transferred to another. The most familiar illustration is that of the hunter who will not eat the heart of the deer he has killed lest he become timid like that animal, while to eat the heart of a lion would be to gain all the fierce courage of that beast. This belief becomes so elaborated that the qualities of one object are finally thought to be transferred to another which has never come into direct contact with the first, the transition being accomplished through the agency of a third object which has been in contact with both the others and thus acts as the conducting medium through which the qualities of one pass into the other.

Just as the holy thing, which is to be feared as the seat of a mystic, supernatural force, is to be avoided lest harm befall from contact with it, or lest it be denied by human touch and its divine essence be affected, so the unclean thing is also made taboo lest it infect man with its own evil nature. Even as the savage will not have his idol polluted by contact with his own personality, however indirect, so he would himself avoid pollution in similar fashion by shunning that which is unclean. Here also the avoidance of the tabooed person or thing is based on the principle of sympathetic magic understood as a method of transference of qualities, and on belief in the possibility of infection by contact.

The dual nature of taboo as the avoidance of both the sacred and the unclean is noted by authorities on the subject who differ in other respects as to the definition of taboo, such as in the relation of taboo to the magical ceremonies by which man undertook to mould his environment to his wishes. Whether the tabooed object be regarded in one light or the other, the breaking of taboo is associated with dread of the unknown besides the fear of infection with the qualities of the tabooed object according to the laws of sympathetic magic. There is also the fear of the mysterious and supernatural, whether conceived as the mana force or as a principle of “bad magic.”

Dr. J.G. Frazer has collected into the many volumes of “The Golden Bough” a mass of evidence concerning the taboos of primitive society. On the basis of his definition of magic as “a misapplication of the ideas of association by similarity and contiguity,” Dr. Frazer divided magic into “positive magic,” or charms, and “negative magic,” or taboo. “Positive magic says, ‘Do this in order that so and so may happen.’ Negative magic or taboo says ’Do not do this lest so and so should happen.’"[4, , v.I.]

But Dr. Frazer’s conclusion, which he himself considered only tentative, was not long left unassailed. Prof. R.R. Marett in his essay “Is Taboo a Negative Magic?" called attention to the very evident fact that Dr. Frazer’s definition would not cover the characteristics of some of the best known taboos, the food taboos of Prof. Tylor to which we have previously alluded in this study, as a consequence of which “the flesh of timid animals is avoided by warriors, but they love the meat of tigers, boars, and stags, for their courage and speed."[3, .] Are not these food taboos rather, Dr. Marett asks, a “misapplication of the ideas of association by similarity and contiguity” amounting to the sympathetic taboos so carefully described by such writers on Magic as MM. Hubert and Mauss of L’Annee Sociologique? Still another kind of taboos mentioned by Dr. Frazer but amplified by Mr. Crawley in “The Mystic Rose,” the taboos on knots at childbirth, marriage, and death, are much better described by the term “sympathetic taboo.” Moreover, if taboo were a form of magic as defined by Dr. Frazer, it would be a somewhat definite and measurable quantity; whereas the distinguishing characteristic of taboo everywhere is the “infinite plus of awfulness” always accompanying its violation. As Dr. Marett observes, there may be certain definite results, such as prescribed punishment for violations against which a legal code is in process of growth. There may be also social “growlings,” showing the opposition of public opinion to which the savage is at least as keenly sensitive as the modern. But it is the “infinite plus” always attached to the violation of taboo that puts it into the realm of the mystical, the magical. It would seem that Dr. Frazer’s definition does not include enough.

It is when we turn to the subject of this study that we see most clearly the deficiencies in these explanations to the “classic well-nigh universal major taboo” of the woman shunned. Dr. Marett uses her as his most telling argument against the inclusiveness of the concepts of Dr. Frazer and of MM. Hubert and Mauss. He says: “It is difficult to conceive of sympathy, and sympathy only, as the continuous, or even the originally efficient cause of the avoidance.” Mr Crawley had called attention to the fact that savages fear womanly characteristics, that is, effeminacy, which is identified with weakness. While noting with great psychological insight the presence of other factors, such as the dislike of the different, he had gone so far as to express the opinion that the fear of effeminacy was probably the chief factor in the Sex Taboo. This is probably the weakest point in Mr. Crawley’s study, for he shows so clearly the presence of other elements, notably mystery, the element that made woman the potential witch against whom suspicion concentrated in so tragical a fashion up to a late historical period.

Because of the element of mystery present in taboo we are led to conclude that taboo is more than negative magic if we accept so definite a concept as “a false association of ideas.” The presence of power in the tabooed object turns our attention to mana as giving us a better understanding of why man must be wary. Mana must however be liberally interpreted if we are to see to the bottom of the mystery. It must be thought of as including good as well as evil power, as more than the “black magic” of the witch-haunted England of the 17th century, as is shown by the social position of the magicians who deal with the Mana of the Pacific and with the Orenda of the Iroquois. It implies “wonder-working,” and may be shown in sheer luck, in individual cunning and power, or in such a form as the “uncanny” psychic qualities ascribed to women from the dawn of history. With this interpretation of mana in mind, taboo may be conceived as negative mana; and to break taboo is to set in motion against oneself mystic wonder-working power.

Our study thus far has made it clear that there are mystic dangers to be guarded against from human as well as extra-human sources. There is weakness to be feared as well as power, as shown by the food and sex taboos. And once again there is mystery in the different, the unusual, the unlike, that causes avoidance and creates taboos. Man’s dislike of change from the old well-trodden way, no matter how irrational, accounts for the persistence of many ancient folkways whose origins are lost in mystery. Many of these old and persistent avoidances have been expanded in the development of social relationships until we agree with Mr. Crawley that taboo shows that “man seems to feel that he is treading in slippery places.” Might it not be within the range of possibility that in the study of taboo we are groping with man through the first blind processes of social control?

It is worthy of note that the most modern school of analytical psychology has recently turned attention to the problem of taboo. Prof. Sigmund Freud, protagonist psychoanalysis, in an essay, Totem und Tabu, called attention to the analogy between the dualistic attitude toward the tabooed object as both sacred and unclean and the ambivalent attitude of the neurotic toward the salient objects in his environment. We must agree that in addition to the dread of the tabooed person or object there is often a feeling of fascination. This is of course particularly prominent in the case of the woman tabooed because of the strength of the sex instinct. As Freud has very justly said, the tabooed object is very often in itself the object of supreme desire. This is very obvious in the case of the food and sex taboos, which attempt to inhibit two of the most powerful impulses of human nature. The two conflicting streams of consciousness called ambivalence by the psychologist may be observed in the attitude of the savage toward many of his taboos. As the Austrian alienist cannily remarks, unless the thing were desired there would be no necessity to impose taboo restrictions concerning it.

It is by a knowledge of the mana concept and the belief in sympathetic magic, clarified by recognition of the ambivalent element in the emotional reaction to the thing tabooed, that we can hope to understand the almost universal custom of the “woman shunned” and the sex taboos of primitive peoples. This dualism appears most strongly in the attitude toward woman; for while she was the natural object of the powerful sexual instinct she was quite as much the source of fear because she was generally supposed to be endowed with spiritistic forces and in league with supernatural powers. During the long period when the fact of paternity was unrecognized, the power of reproduction which was thus ascribed to woman alone made of her a mysterious being. Her fertility could be explained only on the basis of her possession of an unusually large amount of mana or creative force, or by the theory of impregnation by demonic powers. As a matter of fact, both explanations were accepted by primitive peoples, so that woman was regarded not only as imbued with mana but also as being in direct contact with spirits. Many of the devices for closing the reproductive organs which abounded among savage tribes were imposed as a protection against spirits rather than against the males of the human species. The tradition of impregnation by gods or demons was not confined to savage tribes, but was wide-spread in the days of Greece and Rome and lasted into biblical times, when we read of the sons of heaven having intercourse with the daughters of men.

In addition to this fear of the woman as in possession of and in league with supernatural powers, there was an additional motive to avoidance in the fear of transmission of her weakness through contact, a fear based on a belief in sympathetic magic, and believed with all the “intensely realized, living, and operative assurance” of which the untutored mind is capable. Crawley masses an overwhelming amount of data on this point, and both he and Frazer show the strength of these beliefs. Indeed, in many cases violation proved to be “sure death,” not by the hand of man, but from sheer fright. As a result, just as woman was considered to have both the tendency and power to impart her characteristics through contact, so the sexual act, the acme of contact, became the most potent influence for the emasculation of the male.

If we wish for proof that the primitive attitude toward women was essentially that which we have outlined, we have only to glance at the typical taboos concerning woman found among ancient peoples and among savage races of our own day. Nothing could be more indicative of the belief that the power to bring forth children was a manifestation of the possession of mana than the common avoidance of the pregnant woman. Her mystic power is well illustrated by such beliefs as those described by the traveller Im Thurn, who says that the Indians of Guiana believe that if a pregnant woman eat of game caught by hounds, they will never be able to hunt again. Similarly, Alfred Russell Wallace wrote of the aborigines of the Amazon: “They believe that if a woman during her pregnancy eats of any meat, any other animal partaking of it will suffer; if a domestic animal or tame bird, it will die; if a dog, it will be for the future incapable of hunting; and even a man will be unable to shoot that particular kind of game for the future." In Fiji a pregnant wife may not wait upon her husband. In the Caroline Islands men may not eat with their wives when pregnant, but small boys are allowed to do so.

The avoidance of the menstruous woman is an even more widespread custom than the shunning of pregnancy, probably because this function was interpreted as a symptom of demonic possession. Primitive man had no reason to know that the phenomenon of menstruation was in any way connected with reproduction. The typical explanation was probably very much like that of the Zoroastrians, who believed that the menses were caused by the evil god Ahriman. A woman during the period was unclean and possessed by that demon. She must be kept confined and apart from the faithful, whom her touch would defile, and from the fire, which her very look would injure. To this day there is in the house of the Parsee a room for the monthly seclusion of the women, bare of all comforts, and from it neither sun, moon, stars, fire, water, nor any human being can be seen.

All the ancient civilizations had such taboos upon the menstruous woman. According to Pliny, the Romans held that nothing had such marvellous efficacy as, or more deadly qualities than, the menstrual flow. The Arabs thought that a great variety of natural powers attached themselves to a woman during the menstrual period.[12, ] Rabbinic laws demand that “a woman during all the days of her separation shall be as if under a ban.” The epithet Niddah, applied to a woman at that time, means “to lay under a ban.” The reconstruction of the ancient Assyrian texts shows that the law of the unclean taboo on the woman in her courses holds for them. Up to the present time the Semitic woman is carefully segregated from the rest of the tribe, often for a long time, and becomes taboo again on each successive occasion. Peoples in the eastern Mediterranean region will not permit a woman in her courses to salt or pickle; whatever she might prepare would not keep. This belief survives among the folk to-day in America, and was evidently brought early in the history of the country, for it is common among pioneer stock.

There are very similar taboos among the savage races. Among the Tshi peoples of West Africa women are not allowed to remain even in the town but retire at the period to huts erected for the purpose in the neighbouring bush, because they are supposed to be offensive to the tribal deities at that time. The Karoks of California have a superstition like that of the Israelites. Every month the woman is banished without the village to live in a booth by herself. She is not permitted to partake of any meat, including fish. If a woman at this time touches or even approaches any medicine which is about to be given to a sick man, it will cause his death. Amongst other Indian tribes of North America women at menstruation are forbidden to touch men’s utensils, which would be so defiled by their touch that their subsequent use would be attended by certain misfortune. The Canadian Denes believe that the very sight of a woman in this condition is dangerous to society, so that she wears a special skin bonnet to hide her from the public gaze. In western Victoria a menstruous woman may not take anyone’s food or drink, and no one will touch food that has been touched by her. Amongst the Maoris, if a man ate food cooked by a menstrous woman, he would be “tapu an inch thick." Frazer quotes the case of an Australian blackfellow who discovered that his wife had lain on his blanket at her menstrual period, and who killed her and died of terror himself within a fortnight. Australian women at this time are forbidden on pain of death to touch anything that men use or even to walk on a path that men frequent. Among the Baganda tribes a menstruous woman is not permitted to come near her husband, cook his food, touch any of his weapons, or sit on his mats, bed, or seat.

By some twist in the primitive way of thinking, some “false association by similarity and contiguity,” the function of childbirth, unlike that of pregnancy, where the emphasis seems to have been placed in most cases on the mana principle, was held to be unclean and contaminating, and was followed by elaborate rites of purification. It may be that the pains of delivery were ascribed to the machinations of demonic powers, or possession by evil spirits, we know that this has sometimes been the case. The use of charms and amulets, and the chanting of sacred formulae at this dangerous time all point to such beliefs. At any rate, although the birth of the child would seem in every respect except in the presence of blood to be more closely connected with the phenomena of pregnancy than with that of menstruation, as a matter of fact the taboos on the woman in child-bed were intimately associated with those on menstruous women.

Among the ancients, the Zoroastrians considered the woman unclean at childbirth as at menstruation. In the Old Testament, ritual uncleanness results from contact with a woman at childbirth.

Likewise among savage tribes the same customs concerning childbirth prevail. Among the Australian aborigines women are secluded at childbirth as at menstruation, and all vessels used by them during this seclusion are burned. The Ewe-speaking people think a mother and babe unclean for forty days after childbirth. At menstruation and childbirth a Chippeway wife may not eat with her husband; she must cook her food at a separate fire, since any one using her fire would fall ill.[10, v. ii, ] The Alaskan explorer Dall found that among the Kaniagmuts a woman was considered unclean for several days both after delivery and menstruation; in either case no one may touch her and she is fed with food at the end of a stick. Amongst the tribes of the Hindu Kush the mother is considered unclean for seven days after the birth of her child, and no one will eat from her hand nor will she suckle her infant during that period. In the Oxus valley north of the Hindu Kush the period is extended to forty days.

This attitude which primitive man takes toward woman at the time of her sexual crises menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth are but an intensification of the feeling which he has toward her at all times. Conflicting with his natural erotic inclinations are the emotions of awe and fear which she inspires in him as the potential source of contagion, for there is always some doubt as to her freedom from bad magic, and it is much safer to regard her as unclean. Thus the every-day life of savage tribes is hedged in by all manner of restrictions concerning the females of their group. The men have their own dwelling in many instances, where no woman may enter. So, too, she may be barred out from the temples and excluded from the religious ceremonies when men worship their deity. There are people who will not permit the women of their nation to touch the weapons, clothing, or any other possessions of the men, or to cook their food, lest even this indirect contact result in emasculation. The same idea of sympathetic magic is at the root of taboos which forbid the wife to speak her husband’s name, or even to use the same dialect. With social intercourse debarred, and often no common table even in family life, it is veritably true that men and women belong to two castes.

Of the primitive institution known as the “men’s house,” Hutton Webster says: “Sexual separation is further secured and perpetuated by the institution known as the men’s house, of which examples are to be found among primitive peoples throughout the world. It is usually the largest building in a tribal settlement ... Here the most precious belongings of the community, such as trophies and religious emblems, are preserved. Within its precincts ... women and children ... seldom or never enter ... Family huts serve as little more than resorts for the women and children."

Many examples among uncivilized peoples bear out this description of the institution of the men’s house. Amongst the Indians of California and in some Redskin tribes the men’s clubhouse may never be entered by a squaw under penalty of death. The Shastika Indians have a town lodge for women, and another for men which the women may not enter. Among the Fijis women are not allowed to enter a bure or club house, which is used as a lounge by the chiefs. In the Solomon Islands women may not enter the men’s tambu house, and on some of the islands are not even permitted to cross the beach in front of it. In the Marquesas Islands the ti where the men congregate and spend most of their time is taboo to women, and protected by the penalty of death from the pollution of a woman’s presence.

Not only is woman barred from the men’s club house, but she is also often prohibited from association and social intercourse with the opposite sex by many other regulations and customs. Thus no woman may enter the house of a Maori chief, while among the Zulus, even if a man and wife are going to the same place they never walk together. Among the Baganda wives are kept apart from the men’s quarters. The Ojibway Indian Peter Jones says of his people: “When travelling the men always walk on before. It would be considered a great presumption for the wife to walk by the side of her husband." In many islands of the South Seas the houses of important men are not accessible to their wives, who live in separate huts. Among the Bedouins a wife may not sit in any part of the tent except her own corner, while it is disgraceful for a man to sit under the shadow of the women’s roffe (tent covering). Among the Hindus, no female may enter the men’s apartments. In the Society and Sandwich Islands the females were humiliated by taboo, and in their domestic life the women lived almost entirely by themselves. The wife could not eat the same food, could not eat in the same place, could not cook by the same fire. It was said that woman would pollute the food. In Korea a large bell is tolled at about 8 p.m. and 3 a.m. daily, and between these hours only are women supposed to appear in the streets. In the New Hebrides there is a curious segregation of the sexes, with a dread among the men of eating anything female.

Among many tribes this segregation of the women and the separation of the sexes begin at an early age, most often at the approach of puberty, which is earlier in primitive peoples than in our own race. The boys usually go about with the father, while the girls remain with the mother. This is true in Patagonia, where the boys begin to go with the father at ten, the daughters with the mother at nine. In Korea boys and girls are separated at seven. From that time the Korean girl is absolutely secluded in the inner court of her father’s home. Mrs Bishop says: “Girl children are so successfully hidden away that ... I never saw one girl who looked above the age of six ... except in the women’s rooms." Among the northern Indian girls are from the age of eight or nine prohibited from joining in the most innocent amusements with children of the opposite sex, and are watched and guarded with such an unremitting attention as cannot be exceeded by the most rigid discipline of an English boarding-school. Similar arrangements are reported among the Hill Dyaks, certain Victorian tribes, and many others. As already instanced, the separation of the sexes extends even to brothers and sisters and other close relatives. Thus in Fiji brothers and sisters are forbidden by national and religious custom to speak to each other. In Melanesia, according to Codrington, the boy begins to avoid his mother when he puts on clothing, and his sister as soon as she is tattooed. In the exclusive Nanburi caste of Travancore brothers and sisters are separated at an early age.

Women are more often than not excluded also from religious worship on account of the idea of their uncleanness. The Arabs in many cases will not allow women religious instruction. The Ansayrees consider woman to be an inferior being without a soul, and therefore exclude her from religious services. In the Sandwich Islands women were not allowed to share in worship or festivals. The Australians are very jealous lest women should look into their sacred mysteries. It is death for a woman to look into a Bora. In Fiji women are kept away from worship and excluded from all the temples. The women of some of the Indian hill-tribes may not sacrifice nor appear at shrines, nor take part in religious festivals. In New Ireland women are not allowed to approach the temples. In the Marquesas Islands the Hoolah-hoolah ground, where festivals are held, is taboo to women, who are killed if they enter or even touch with their feet the shadow of the trees. Women are also excluded from the sacred festivals of the Ahts. In the Amazon region, the women are not even permitted to see the objects used in important ceremonies. If any woman of the Uaupes tribe happens to see the masks used in the tribal ceremony she is put to death.

Crawley has explained the taboos on the sexes eating together and on the cooking of food by women for men as due to the superstitious belief that food which has come in contact with or under the influence of the female is capable of transmitting her properties. Some southern Arabs would die rather than accept food from a woman. Among the old Sémites it was not the custom for a man to eat with his wife and children. Among the Motu of New Guinea when a man is helega, he may not eat food that his wife has cooked. South Australian boys during initiation are forbidden to eat with the women, lest they “grow ugly or become grey.”

It was probably some fear of the charm-weaving power of woman which lay at the root of the rules which forbade her to speak her husband’s name, the implication being that she might use it in some incantation against him. For instance, a Zulu woman was forbidden to speak her husband’s name; if she did so, she would be suspected of witchcraft. Herodotus tells us that no Ionian woman would ever mention the name of her husband, nor may a Hindu woman do so.

Frazer says that the custom of the Kaffir woman of South Africa not to speak the name of her own or husband’s relations has given rise to an almost entirely different language from that of the men through the substitution of new words for the words thus banned. Once this “women’s speech” had arisen, it would of course not be used by the men because of the universal contempt for woman and all that pertained to her. This may have been the origin of the use of different dialects in some tribes, such as the Japanese, the Arawaks, some Brazilian tribes, and others.

Although the division of labour between the sexes had a natural biological basis, and indeed had its beginning in the animal world long before man as such came into existence, the idea of the uncleanness of woman was carried over to her work, which became beneath the dignity of man. As a result, there grew up a series of taboos which absolutely fixed the sphere of woman’s labour, and prohibited her from encroaching on the pursuits of man lest they be degraded by her use, quite as much as they barred man from her specific activities. In Nicaragua, for example, it is a rule that the marketing shall be done by women. In Samoa, where the manufacture of cloth is allotted to the women, it is taboo for a man to engage in any part of the process. Among the Andamanese the performance of most of the domestic duties falls to the lot of the women and children. Only in cases of stern necessity will the husband procure wood or water. An Eskimo even thinks it an indignity to row in an umiak, the large boat used by women.

They also distinguish very definitely between the offices of husband and wife. For example, when a man has brought a seal to land, it would be a stigma on his character to draw it out of the water, since that is the duty of the female. In the Marquesas Islands, the use of canoes in all parts of the islands is rigorously prohibited to women, for whom it is death even to be seen entering one when hauled on shore; while Tapa-making, which belongs exclusively to women, is taboo to men. Among the Betchuanas of South Africa the men will not let women touch the cattle. The Baganda think that if a woman steps over a man’s weapons they will not aim straight or kill until they have been purified. Among many South African tribes, if a wife steps over her husband’s assegais, they are considered useless from that time and are given to the boys to play with. This superstition rings many changes and is current among the natives of all countries.

The taboos which have thus been exemplified and reviewed are based on the feeling that woman is possessed of a demonic power, or perhaps of a mana principle which may work injury; or else upon the fear that she may contaminate man with her weakness. It is very probable that many of these taboos originated even as far back as the stage of society in which the line of descent was traced through the mother. There seems little doubt that the framework of ancient society rested on the basis of kinship, and that the structure of the ancient gens brought the mother and child into the same gens. Under these circumstances the gens of the mother would have some ascendancy in the ancient household. On such an established fact rests the assumption of a matriarchate, or period of Mutterrecht. The German scholar Bachofen in his monumental work “Das Mutterrecht” discussed the traces of female “authority” among the Lycians, Cretans, Athenians, Lemnians, Lesbians, and Asiatic peoples. But it is now almost unanimously agreed that the matriarchal period was not a time when women were in possession of political or economic power, but was a method of tracing descent and heritage. It is fairly well established that, in the transition from metronymic to patronymic forms, authority did not pass from women to men, but from the brothers and maternal uncles of the women of the group to the husbands and sons. Such a method of tracing descent, while it doubtless had its advantages in keeping the woman with her child with her blood kindred, would not prevent her from occupying a degraded position through the force of the taboos which we have described.

With the development of the patriarchal system and the custom of marriage by capture or purchase, woman came to be regarded as a part of man’s property, and as inviolate as any other of his possessions. Under these circumstances virginity came to be more and more of an asset, since no man wished his property to be denied by the touch of another. Elaborate methods for the preservation of chastity both before and after marriage were developed, and in many instances went so far as to consider a woman defiled if she were accidentally touched by any other man than her husband. Here we have once more the working of sympathetic magic, where the slightest contact works contamination.

We have in other connections alluded to the seclusion of young girls in Korea, among the Hindus, among the North American Indians, and in the South Seas. One of the most beautiful examples of this custom is found in New Britain. From puberty until marriage the native girls are confined in houses with a bundle of dried grass across the entrance to show that the house is strictly taboo. The interior of these houses is divided into cells or cages in each of which a girl is confined. No light and little or no air enters, and the atmosphere is hot and stifling.

The seclusion of women after marriage is common among many peoples. In the form in which it affected western civilization it probably originated among the Persians or some other people of central Asia, and spread to the Arabs and Mohammedans. That it did not originate with the Arabs is attested by students of their culture. It was common among the Greeks, whose wives were secluded from other men than their husbands. In modern Korea it is not even proper to ask after the women of the family. Women have been put to death in that country when strange men have accidentally touched their hands.[36, ]

The saddest outcome of the idea of woman as property was the status of widows. In uncivilized society a widow is considered dangerous because the ghost of her husband is supposed to cling to her. Hence she must be slain that his spirit may depart in peace with her, as well as with the weapons and other possessions which are buried with him or burned upon his funeral pyre. The Marathi proverb to the effect that “the husband is the life of the woman” thus becomes literally true.

The best known case of widow slaying is of course the custom of “suttee” in India. The long struggle made against this custom by the British government is a vivid illustration of the strength of these ancient customs. The Laws of Manu indicate that the burning of widows was practised by primitive Aryans. In the Fiji Islands, where a wife was strangled on her husband’s grave, the strangled women were called “the carpeting of the grave." In Arabia, as in many other countries, while a widow may escape death, she is very often forced into the class of vagabonds and dependents. One of the most telling appeals made by missionaries is the condition of child widows in countries in which the unfortunates cannot be killed, but where the almost universal stigma of shame is attached to second marriages. A remarkable exception to this, when in ancient Greece the dying husband sometimes bequeathed his widow to a male friend, emphasized the idea of woman as property.

Although the taboos which are based on the idea of ownership are somewhat aside from the main theme of our discussion, they nevertheless reinforce the other taboos of the seclusion and segregation of woman as unclean. Moreover, as will be shown in a later chapter, the property idea has certain implications which are important for the proper understanding of the status of woman and the attitude toward her at the present time.

In the face of the primitive aversion to woman as the source of contamination through sympathetic magic, or as the seat of some mystic force, whether of good or evil, it may well be asked how man ever dared let his sexual longings overcome his fears and risk the dangers of so intimate a relationship. Only by some religious ceremonial, some act of purification, could man hope to counteract these properties of woman; and thus the marriage ritual came into existence. By the marriage ceremonial, the breach of taboo was expiated, condoned, and socially countenanced.[1, ] This was very evident in the marriage customs of the Greeks, which were composed of purification rites and other precautions. The injunctions to the Hebrews given in Leviticus illustrate the almost universal fact that even under the sanction of marriage the sexual embrace was taboo at certain times, as for example before the hunt or battle.

We are now prepared to admit that throughout the ages there has existed a strongly dualistic or “ambivalent” feeling in the mind of man toward woman. On the one hand she is the object of erotic desire; on the other hand she is the source of evil and danger. So firmly is the latter feeling fixed that not even the sanction of the marriage ceremony can completely remove it, as the taboos of intercourse within the marital relationship show.

There are certain psychological and physiological reasons for the persistence of this dualistic attitude in the very nature of the sex act itself. Until the climax of the sexual erethism, woman is for man the acme of supreme desire; but with detumescence the emotions tend to swing to the opposite pole, and excitement and longing are forgotten in the mood of repugnance and exhaustion. This tendency would be very much emphasized in those primitive tribes where the corroboree with its unlimited indulgence was common, and also among the ancients with their orgiastic festivals. In the revulsion of feeling following these orgies woman would be blamed for man’s own folly. In this physiological swing from desire to satiety, the apparent cause of man’s weakness would be looked upon as the source of the evil a thing unclean. There would be none of the ethical and altruistic element of modern “love” to protect her. Students agree that these elements in the modern sentiment have been evolved, “not from the sexual instinct, but from the companionship of the battlefield." It is therefore probable that in this physiological result of uncontrolled sex passion we shall find the source of the dualism of the attitude toward sex and womanhood present in taboo.