444. Pagan life policy. Very naturally the pagan inference or generalization from the above customs was that a husband must be under continual anxiety about his wife, or he must divorce her, or he must cultivate a high spirit of resignation and indifference. The last was the highest flight of Stoic philosophy about marriage. Plutarch says: "How can you call anything a misfortune which does not damage either your soul or your body, as for example, the low origin of your father, the adultery of your wife, the loss of a crown or seat of honor, none of which affect a man's chances of the highest condition of body and mind."[1402]

445. Modesty. Shame. Aristotle[1403] hardly rated shame as a virtue. He said that it is only a passing emotion, "an apprehension of dishonor." In his view virtues were habits trained in by education. He deduced them from philosophy and sought to bring them to act on life. He did not regard them as products of life actions. Wundt[1404] says that shame is a specific human sentiment, because men alone of animals wear a concealing dress on one part of the body when they wear nothing else. He thinks that men began to cover the body in obedience to the sentiment of decency. The facts here alleged are all incorrect. There are many people who wear something on the body but do not cover the parts referred to (sec. 447). It is certain that pet animals manifest shame when caught doing what they have been taught not to do,—just like children. As to dress, it would be an interesting experiment to let pet dogs play together for a month, dressed in coats and blankets, and then to bring one of them to the meeting without his dress while the others wore theirs. Would he not show shame at not being like the others? A lady made a red jacket for a Javanese ape. He was greatly pleased, buttoned and unbuttoned the jacket, and showed displeasure when it was taken off. He showed that it aroused his vanity.[1405] People who deal with high-bred horses say that they show shame and dissatisfaction if they are in any way inferior to others. It was recently reported in the newspapers that the employes in a menagerie threw some of the beasts into great irritation by laughing in chorus near their cages in such a way that the beasts thought that they were being laughed at. Shame is a product of wounded vanity. It is due to a consciousness, or a fear, of disapproval. It is not limited to exposure of the body, but may be due to disapproval for any reason whatever.

446. The line of decency in dress. The line of decency, for instance in dress, is always paradoxical. No matter where it may be drawn, decency is close to it on one side and indecency on the other. A Moslem woman on the street looks like a bundle of bedclothes. Where all women so look one woman who left off her mantle would seem indecent, and the comparative display of the outlines of the figure would seem shameless. Where low-necked dresses are commonly worn they are not indecent, but they may become so at a point which varies according to custom from place to place and from class to class. The women in modern Jerusalem regard it as very indecent to show themselves decolletees. They sit, however, in postures which leave their legs uncovered.[1406] A peasant woman could not wear the dress of a lady of fashion. Where men or women wear only a string around the waist, their dress is decent, but it is indecent to leave off the string. The suggestive effect of putting on ornaments and dress at one stage is the same as that of leaving them off at another stage. Barbarians put on dress for festivals, dances, and solemn occasions. Civilized people do the same when they wear robes of office or ceremony. When Hera wanted to stimulate the love of Zeus she made an elaborate toilet and put on extra garments, including a veil.[1407] Then taking off the veil was a stimulus. On the other hand, the extremest and most conventional dress looks elegant and stylish to those who are accustomed to it, as is now the case with ourselves and the current dress, which makes both sexes present an appearance far removed from the natural outline of human beings. Then, at the limit, that is at to-day's fashions, coquetry can be employed again, and a sense stimulus can be exerted again, by simply making variations on the existing fashions at the limit. It is impossible to eliminate the sense stimulus, or to establish a system of societal usage in which indecency shall be impossible. The dresses of Moslem women, nuns, and Quakeresses were invented in order to get rid of any possible question of decency. The attempt fails entirely. A Moslem woman with her veil, a Spanish woman with her mantilla or fan, a Quakeress with her neckerchief, can be as indecent as a barbarian woman with her petticoat of dried grass.

447. Present conventional limits. In our own society decency as to dress, words, gestures, etc., is a constant preoccupation. That is not the case with naked savages or half-naked barbarians. The savages put on ornament to be admired and to exert attraction or produce effect. The same effect is won by words, gestures, dress, etc. Our aesthetic arts all exert the same influence. We expel all these things from our artificial environment down to a limit, in order to restrain and control the stimulus. Then we think that we are decent. That is because we rest at peace in a status which is conventional and accustomed. Variation from it one way is fastidious; the other way is indecent, just as it would be at any other limit whatever. It is the comparison of the mores of different times and peoples which shows the arbitrariness and conventionality. It would be difficult to mention anything in Oriental mores which we regard with such horror as Orientals feel for low-necked dresses and round dances. Orientals use dress to conceal the contour of the form. The waist of a woman is made to disappear by a girdle. To an Oriental a corset, which increases the waist line and the plasticity of the figure, is the extreme of indecency—far worse than nudity. It seems like an application of the art of the courtesan to appeal to sensuality.[1408] Perhaps the most instructive case of all is that of the Tuareg men, who keep the mouth always covered. The cloth has a utilitarian purpose,—to prevent thirst by retarding evaporation from the air passages. "They never remove the veil, on a journey, or in repose, not even to eat, much less to sleep." "A Tuareg would think that he committed an impropriety if he should remove his veil, unless it was in extreme intimacy or for a medical investigation." "At Paris I strove in vain to induce three Tuaregs to remove their veils for the purpose of being photographed."[1409] No superstitious reason for this veil is known. Madame Pommerol[1410] reports that a Tuareg man told her that men keep the mouth covered lest the play of it should expose their feelings to another man. Women, he said, had no such need, since enemies never approach them. Evidently we have here a case of an ancient fact that men are never seen with the mouth uncovered, which has produced a feeling that a man ought never to be seen with it uncovered, and rational and utilitarian reasons or explanations have been invented later. Those who paint the body are ashamed to be seen unpainted. In the tribes which are tattooed one would be ashamed who was not tattooed.

448. Decency and vanity. It is another case of shame or offended modesty if the taboo in the mores on acts, words, postures, etc., is broken in one's presence. It is a breach of the respect which one expects, that is, it wounds vanity.

We are ashamed to go barefoot, probably because it is an ordinary evidence of poverty. Von den Steinen has well suggested that some day it may be said that shoes were invented on account of "innate" shame at exposing the feet.[1411] In recent years fashion has allowed young people to leave off all head-covering. It could permit them to go barefooted if the whim should take that turn. There is now a "cure" in which men and women walk barefoot in the grass. The cost to their modesty is probably very slight.

449. Modesty the opposite of impudence. Another sense of modesty is the opposite of impudence, shrinking from making demands or otherwise putting one's self forward in a way which bystanders might think in excess of one's social position or ability. In these cases vanity becomes its own punishment. The Kajans of the Mandalam refrain from injuring private or group interests from fear of public opinion. "Such a sentiment can exist only amongst those who have a feeling of shame strongly developed. Such is the case amongst these people, not only as to punishable offenses, but also in connection with their notions of propriety."[1412] "Modesty was an unknown virtue to the bards of Vedic India. They bragged and begged without shame."[1413] The same might be said of the troubadours of the Middle Ages.

450. Shame. Shame is felt when one is inferior, or is conscious of being, or of being liable to be, unfavorably regarded. Modesty is the reserve which keeps one from coming into judgment. One of the greatest reasons for covering the body is the conviction that it would not be admired if seen. One of us is ashamed if he is in excellent morning dress when the others wear evening dress, or ungloved when all the rest are gloved. A woman is ashamed to be without a crinoline or a bustle when all the rest wear them. A man, when men wore wigs, could not appear before a lady without his wig. An elderly lady says that when the present queen of England brought in, at her marriage, the fashion of brushing up the hair so as to uncover the ears, which had long been covered, it seemed indecent. No woman now is ashamed to be a woman, but in the first Christian centuries what they heard about their sex might well have made them so. A woman is not ashamed to be a widow in the Occident, but she may well be so in India. A woman may be ashamed to be an old maid, or that she has no children, or has only girls. It depends on the view current in the mores, and on the sensitiveness of the person to unfavorable judgments. "Shame, for Arabs, occupies the place which we ascribe to conscience. 'The tree lives only so long as its bark lives; and the man only so long as he feels shame.' Arabs, however, are not ashamed in abstracto, but before father and mother, before relatives, and before common talk. 'Be ashamed before Allah, as an honorable man is ashamed before his own people,' said Mohammed to a new convert, in order to make clear to him the unknown from the known, and to enlarge the morals of the village to that of the world."[1414]

451. The first attachments on the body. Ethnographical studies have established the fact that things were first hung on the body as amulets or trophies, that is, for superstition or vanity, and that the body was painted or tattooed for superstition or in play. The notion of ornament followed. The skull and body have been deformed and mutilated, and the hair has been dressed or removed, in order to vary it and produce effect. Savages lie in ashes, dust, clay, sand, or mud, for warmth, or coolness, or indolence, and they could easily find out the advantage of a coating on the skin to protect them from insects or the sun. Three things resulted which had never been foreseen or intended. (1) It was found that there was great utility in certain attachments to the body which protected it when sitting on the ground or standing in the water. Play seized upon the markings, and the men of a group at last came to use the same markings, from which resulted a group sign. The marks came to be regarded as ornamental. Some attachments had great utility for males in fishing, hunting, fighting, running, and some kinds of work. (2) Goblinism seized upon the custom and gave it new and powerful motives. The group mark became hereditary and maintained group unity with goblinistic sanctions. Some hanging objects were thought to ward off the evil eye. Others were amulets and prevented sorcery. (3) The objects hung on the body might be trophies taken from animals or enemies. These things consciously, and the others unconsciously, acted on vanity. When all wore things attached to the body a man or woman did not look dressed, or "right" without such attachments. He or she looked bare or naked. They were ashamed. This is the shame of nakedness. The connection of dress with warmth and modesty is derived and remote.

452. The fear of sorcery. The reason for retiring to perform bodily functions was the fear of sorcery, if an enemy should get possession of anything which ever was a part of the body. Hence the best plan was to go to running water. Once more, important but unanticipated and even unperceived consequences followed. The customs played the part of sanitary regulations. When it became the custom to retire it became indecent not to retire. Then it became a tradition from ancestors that one always must retire, and the ghosts would be angry if this rule was not observed. It was disrespectful to them, and would offend them to expose the body or not to retire. The Greeks said that it offended the gods. In the books of Moses the sanction for all the rules of decency is, "For it is an abomination unto the Lord." That is only an expression of the disapproval in the mores which God also was supposed to feel.

453. What functions should be concealed? What is the limit of the bodily functions to be concealed? A member of the Jewish sect of the Essenes, who were all celibate men, always wore an apron, even when alone in the bath. The genitals were impure and must not be uncovered to the eye of God. The same sect had elaborate rules like those in Deut. xxiii. 12 ff. When the Medes elected Deioces king he made a rule that no one should laugh or spit in his presence.[1415] The Zulu king Chaka punished with death sneezing or clearing the throat in his presence.[1416] At Bagdad, in the tenth century, the court of the caliphs had become luxurious, and a very severe and minute etiquette had been introduced. It was forbidden to spit, clear the throat or nose, gape, or sneeze in the presence of the sovereign. The nobles imitated this etiquette and adopted rules to regulate salutations, entrance into company, reception of visitors, table manners, and approach to one's wife. "If any one refused to conform to this etiquette, he exposed himself to universal blame as an eccentric person, or even as an enemy of Islam."[1417] In the Italian novel Niccolo dei Lapi it is said in honor of the heroine that she never saw herself nude. It was a custom observed by many to wear a garment which covered the whole body even when alone in the bath. Erasmus gives the reason for this. The angels would be shocked at nakedness. He made it a rule for men. One should never, he says, bare the body more than necessary, even when alone. The angels are everywhere and they like to see decency as the adjunct of modesty.[1418] The angels are here evidently the Christian representatives of the ghosts of earlier times. In 1 Cor. xi. 10 it is said: The woman was created for the man. "For this cause ought the woman to have a sign of authority on her head, because of the angels." It seems to be believed that the angels might be led into sin by seeing the women. For this idea there is abundant antecedent in the Book of Henoch and the Book of Jubilees.

454. Restraint of expression within limits. It is the rule of good breeding everywhere to restrict all bodily functions and to conceal them, such as gaping, sneezing, coughing, clearing the throat and nose, and to restrain all exuberant expressions of joy, pain, triumph, regret, etc., but the limits cannot be defined. They lie in the current practice of the society in which one lives. They are not rational. At the same time they are logical. They are correctly deduced from a broad view of policy. Orientals cover their heads to show respect; Occidentals bare the head for the same purpose. Each custom has its philosophy of respect. We think it disrespectful to turn the back on any one. Orientals generally think it respectful to pretend not to be able to look another in the face. If ladies are thought to have the right to decide whether to continue acquaintances or not, they salute first. If it is thought unbecoming for them to salute first, then men do it. Which of the great premises is correct it would be impossible to say. The notion of correctness fails, because it implies the existence of a standard outside of and above usage, and no such standard exists. There is an assumed principle which serves as a basis for the usage, and the usage refers back to the principle, but the two are afloat together.

455. Violation of rule. It results from the study of the cases that nakedness is never shameful when it is unconscious.[1419] The same is true of everything under the head of decency. It is consciousness of a difference between fact and the rule set by the mores which makes indecency and produces harm, for that difference, if disregarded, is immorality.

456. The suspensorium. The device known as the suspensorium, represented by von den Steinen,[1420] is obviously invented solely for the convenience of males in activity. It is not planned for concealment and does not conceal. By a development of the device it becomes a case, made of leaf, wood, bone, clay, shell, leather, bamboo, cloth, gourd, metal, or reed. It is met with all over the world.[1421] Perhaps its existence in ancient Egypt is proved.[1422] In almost every case, but not always, there is great disinclination to remove it, or part with it, or to be seen without it. The sentiment attaches only to the part which is covered by the apparatus. To be seen without it would do harm to the man. Women wear a pubic shield, held in place by a string. The conjecture immediately suggests itself that the girdle or string about the loins was anterior to any covering for the genitals. This conjecture is confirmed by the cases in which the girdle is used to cover the umbilicus, while nothing else is covered, for which there is a reason on account of the connection of the umbilicus with birth, life, and ancestry.[1423] The primitive notion about the genitals is that they are the seat of involuntary phenomena which are to be referred to superior agents. Hence, more than any other part of the body, they are daimonic and sacred (mystery, passion, reproduction). This notion is an independent cause of rules about the organs, and of superstitious ways in reference to them, including concealment.[1424] Waitz recognized in this idea the reason for covering the organ, or the part of it which was believed to be efficient. "Perhaps," he says, "we stand here at the first stage of human clothing,"—a suggestion which deserves more attention than it has received.[1425]

457. The girdle and what it conceals. Very many cases can be cited in which a girdle is worn, but nothing for concealment, unless it be of the umbilicus. In the Louvre (S. 962) may be seen a statue of a deformed primitive god of the Egyptians, Bes, who wears a string around the waist and nothing else. A girdle is often used as a pocket, without any reference to decency.[1426] Convenience would then lead to the suspensorium arrangement or the pubic shell. Also from the girdle was hung any swinging glittering object to avert the evil eye from the genitals. There was no concealment and could be no motive of modesty. The aborigines of Queensland never cover the genitals except on special public occasions, or when near white settlements. The men wear the case only at corroborees and other public festivals.[1427] On Tanna (New Hebrides) it is thought dangerous for a man to see another without any concealment.[1428] The Indians on the Shingu show that such covering as they wear has no purpose of concealment, for it conceals nothing.[1429] The device of the East Greenland Eskimo is also evidently for utility, not for modesty.[1430] In order to escape flies, Brunache and his companions took refuge under a tree which is shunned by flies. It is from this tree that the women pluck the bunches of leaves which they wear dangling before and behind.[1431]

458. Modesty and decency not primitive. At the earliest stage of the treatment of the body we find motives of utility and ornament mixed with superstition and vanity and quickly developing connections with magic, kin notions, and goblinism. Modesty and decency are very much later derivatives.

459. What parts of the body are tabooed? Cases may be adduced to prove that the taboo of concealment does not always attach to the parts of the body to which it attaches in our traditions. Hottentot women wear a head cloth of gay European stuff. They will not take this off. The Herero "think it a great cause of shame if a married woman removes this national head covering in the presence of strangers." They wear very little else. A woman who stood for her photograph "would more readily have uncovered all the rest of her body than her head."[1432] The Guanches thought it immodest for a woman to show her breasts or feet.[1433] Yakut women roll cord on the naked thigh in the presence of men who do not belong to the house, and allow themselves to be seen uncovered to the waist, but they are angry if a man stares at their naked feet. In some places the Yakuts attach great importance to the rule that young wives should not let their husband's male relatives see their hair or their feet.[1434] In mediaeval Germany a respectable woman thought it a great disgrace if a man saw her naked feet.[1435] The Indian woman of those tribes of the northwestern coast of North America which wear the labret are as much embarrassed to be seen without it as a white woman would be if very incompletely dressed.[1436] The back and navel are sometimes under a special taboo of concealment, especially the navel, which is sacred, as above noticed, on account of its connection with birth. Peschel[1437] quotes private information that a woman in the Philippine Islands put a shirt on a boy in order to cover the navel and nothing more. In her view nothing more needed to be covered. Many peoples regard the navel as of erotic interest. Instances occur in the Arabian Nights. It is very improper for a Chinese woman who has compressed feet to show them. Thomson[1438] gives a picture which shows the feet of a woman, but it was very difficult, he says, to persuade the woman to pose in that way. Chinese people would consider the picture obscene. No European would find the slightest suggestion of that kind in it. An Arab woman, in Egypt, cares more to cover her face than any other part of her body, and she is more careful to cover the top or back of her head than her face.[1439] It appears that if any part of the body is put under a concealment taboo for any reason whatever, a consequence is that the opinion grows up that it never ought to be exposed. Then interest may attach to it more than to exposed parts, and erotic suggestion may be connected with it. The tradition in which we are educated is one which has a long history, and which has embraced the Aryan race. To us it seems "natural" and "true in itself." It includes some primitive and universal ideas of magic and goblinism which have been held far beyond the Aryan race. Shame and modesty are sentiments which are consequences produced in the minds of men and women by unbroken habits of fact, association, and suggestion in connection with dress and natural functions. It does not seem "decent" to break the habits, or, decency consists in conforming to the habits. However, the whole notion of decency is held within boundaries of habit. Orientals and Moslems now have such different habits from Occidentals that latrines are very differently constructed for them and for Occidentals.

460. Notion of decency lacking. There are cases of groups in which no notions of decency can be found. It is reported of the Kubus of Sumatra that they have acquired a sense of shame within very recent times. "Formerly they knew none and were the derision of the villagers into whose neighborhood they might come."[1440] Stevens never saw an Orang-hutan girl blush. Those girls have no feeling about their nakedness which could cause a blush.[1441] The Bakairi show no sense of shame as to any part of the body. They are innocent in respect to any reserve[1442] [i.e. no taboo of concealment exists amongst them]. A few cases are reported in which the awakening of shame has been observed. A bystander threw a cloth over a nearly naked man on the Chittagong hills. "He was seen to blush, for it was the first time in his life that he realized that he was committing a breach of decency in appearing unclothed."[1443] No doubt the more correct explanation is that he felt that in some way he was not approved by the English visitors. Semon tells how he posed a Papuan girl for her photograph, in the midst of a native crowd. She was "proud of the distinction and attention." Suddenly she was convulsed with shame and abandoned the pose, blushing and refusing.[1444] This explanation may not be correct. The feeling of one accustomed to be naked, if his attention is called to it, cannot be paralleled with that of one accustomed to be clothed, if he finds himself unclothed. The Nile negroes and the Masai manifest a "complete absence of any conventional ideas of decency." The men, at least, have no feeling of shame in connection with the pudenda. Complete nudity of males, where it occurs in Africa, seems almost always traceable to Hamitic influence.[1445]

461. Dress and decency. If the description of the Tyrrhenians given by Athenaeus[1446] can be taken as real, they would have to be classed amongst the people who had no notions of decency. Curr says of the Australians[1447] that the tribes who wear clothing are more decent than those who are naked. The women of the former retire to bathe and the men respect their privacy. Evidently the dress makes the decency. If there was no dress, there would be no need to retire and no privacy. Wilson and Felkin[1448] say of the negroes that their "morals" are inversely as their dress. The Australians practice no indecent dances.[1449] The central Australians hold a man in contempt if he shows excessive amorousness.[1450] The natives of New Britain are naked, but modest and chaste. "Nudity rather checks than stimulates." The same is observed in English New Guinea. The men wear a bandage which does not conceal, but they attach to this all the importance which we attach to complete dress, and they speak of others who do not wear it as "naked wild men."[1451] In the Palau Islands women may punish summarily, even with death, a man who approaches their bathing place, but that place is, therefore, the safest for secret meetings.[1452] The Dyaks, except the hill tribes, conceal the body with care, but they do not observe a careful sex taboo.[1453] We are told of the Congo tribes, some of whom wear nothing, that there exists "a marked appreciation of the sentiment of decency and shame as applied to private actions."[1454] Some of the women repelled the advances of men in Brunache's expedition.[1455] Nachtigal[1456] found the Somrai in Baghirmi modest and reserved. They proved "the well-known fact that decorum and chastity are independent of dress." On the Uganda railroad, near Lake Victoria, coal-black people are to be seen, of whom both sexes are entirely naked, except ornaments. They are "the most moral people in Uganda." The Nile negroes and Masai are naked. In the midst of them live the Baganda who wear much clothing. The women are covered from the waist to the ankles; the men from the neck to the ankles, except porters and men working in the fields. They provide decent latrines and have good sanitary usages as to the surroundings of their houses. They are very polite and courteous. This character and their dress are accounted for by their long subjection to tyranny. They are "profoundly immoral," have indecent dances, and are dying out on account of the "exhaustion of men and women by premature debauchery."[1457] The Kavirondo are naked, but are, "for negroes, a moral race, disliking real indecency and only giving way to lewd actions in their ceremonial dances, where indeed the intention is not immodest, as the pantomime is a kind of ritual."[1458]

462. Ornament and simplest dress. The notion of ornament is extremely vague. Things were attached to the body as amulets or trophies. Then the bodies which had nothing of this kind on them seemed bare and naked. Next objects were worn in order to comply with a type, without the character of amulets or trophies. These were ornaments. Hagen[1459] noticed, in his own experience, that ornament did away with the appearance of nakedness. The same effect of tattooing may be noticed, even in pictures. The oldest Chinese tradition asserts that dress was originally for ornament.[1460] "To the grass-land negroes of North Kamerun dress of any kind is only ornament or protection against severe weather." Their conversation on certain subjects is gross, perhaps because they are entirely unclothed.[1461] The Doko women wear a few strings of beads hanging from a girdle, and the girls of the Dime wear one, two, or three ivory cylinders hanging from the waist, but nothing more.[1462] The Xosa wear an ornamented girdle, but no apron.[1463] The unmarried women in the Temu districts of Togo wear strings of beads but no dress. The Moslem women make triangular aprons, worn by men over the suspensorium. The women meet suitors with grace and coquetry, in spite of the lack of clothing.[1464] The Mashukalumbe wear no dress, but the women wear little iron bells on a strap around the waist.[1465] The women of the Longos near Foweira wear anklets, waistbands, and bracelets of beads, but nothing else.[1466] The Herero have a horror of the nudity of adults.[1467] The Tasmanians wore no dress but decorated themselves with feathers, flowers, etc.[1468] Papuans on the Fly River fasten things through the nose and hang objects around the neck. Some wear a pubic shell, but most have not even that.[1469] On the island of New Britain both sexes are unclothed, although tapa cloth in very beautiful patterns is made on the island for other purposes.[1470] On the Banks Islands the men wear nothing, although they formerly made very beautiful dresses which were worn in the dance.[1471] Some of the Indians on the Shingu wear necklaces and ear pendants, but nothing else.[1472]

463. The evolution of dress. The above-mentioned girdle with objects hanging from it turned from an ornament into a garment when it became a kilt of fringed grass or leather. Arab women wore the girdle of thongs with lappets until it was superseded by a kilt of leather cut into a fringe. The primitive apron of the ancient Egyptians was continued underneath the later more elaborate dress. The ancient primitive dress got a sacred character and was worn by everybody, whatever else he wore. It was worn by girls, by women monthly, and also, "it is said, by worshipers at the Caaba." Then the ancient thongs and lappets got the character of amulets.[1473] In some Papuan tribes those who had learned all the religious secrets were allowed to wear the girdle as a sign of honor and dignity.[1474] Sometimes a skin or mat is worn hanging from the waist behind. It really is worn to be sat upon, upon occasion. Nothing else is worn.[1475] In this case, and in some of those mentioned above from Central Africa, a consciousness is sometimes manifested that there is something to conceal, and a posture or mode of walking is adopted which accomplishes the concealment. Amongst the Ja-luo (northeast corner of Lake Victoria) both sexes when unmarried go naked. A man, when he is a father, wears a cape of goatskin "inadequate for decency." Married women wear only a "tail of strings behind."[1476] The Nandi wear clothing "only for warmth or adornment, not for purposes of decency."[1477] The Acholi, in Uganda, think it beneath masculine dignity to wear anything.[1478] The Vanyoro men are generally clothed in skins. The women, until marriage, wear nothing; after marriage, bark cloth. The Bari men never wear anything. They think it womanish to do so. The unmarried women wear a pendant of fringe behind and five or six iron bars six inches long, the whole three and a half inches broad, in front. Married women wear a fringe in front and a leather apron behind.[1479]

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 deg. N., 70 deg. 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 naivete. 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 naive 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 naive 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. Conscience might be added as another natural or supernatural "voice," intuition, and part of the original outfit of all human beings as such. If these notions could be verified, and if they proved true, no discussion of them would be in place here, but as to honor it is a well-known and undisputed fact that societies have set codes of honor and standards of it which were arbitrary, irrational, and both individually and socially inexpedient, as ample experiment has proved. These codes have been and are imperative, and they have been accepted and obeyed by great groups of men who, in their own judgment, did not believe them sound. Those codes came out of the folkways of the time and place. Then comes the question whether it is not always so. Is honor, in any case, anything but the code of one's duty to himself which he has accepted from the group in which he was educated? Family, class, religious sect, school, occupation, enter into the social environment. In every environment there is a standard of honor. When a man thinks that he is acting most independently, on his personal prerogative, he is at best only balancing against each other the different codes in which he has been educated, e.g. that of the trades union against that of the Sunday school, or of the school against that of the family. What we think "natural" and universal, and to which we attribute an objective reality, is the sum of traits whose origin is so remote, and which we share with so many, that we do not know when or how we took them up, and we can remember no rational selection by which we adopted them. The same is true of common sense. It is the stock of ways of looking at things which we acquired unconsciously by suggestion from the environment in which we grew up. Some have more common sense than others, because they are more docile to suggestion, or have been taught to make judgments by people who were strong and wise. Conscience also seems best explained as a sum of principles of action which have in one's character the most original, remote, undisputed, and authoritative position, and to which questions of doubt are habitually referred. If these views are accepted, we have in honor, common sense, and conscience other phenomena of the folkways, and the notions of eternal truths of philosophy or ethics, derived from somewhere outside of men and their struggles to live well under the conditions of earth, must be abandoned as myths.

495. Seemliness. Honor, common sense, and conscience can never be predicated of groups except by a figure of speech. The case with seemliness is different. That also is an individual trait. It is lighter and less definable than honor and propriety. The individual alone must decide what it is fitting for him to do or refuse to do. He will get his standards for this decision from his nearest social environment. Seemliness, however, can be predicated of a society. A civilized state may act in a seemly or unseemly manner, that is, in a way worthy of its history and character, or the contrary. Also the people of a group, in their unorganized acts, can obey unworthy motives and yield to impulses, groupwise, which are beneath the level of culture which they really have obtained, or belong to policies which are narrower than those by which they pretend to act.

496. Cases of unseemliness. The Assyrians were fierce, cruel, bloodthirsty, and pitiless. They have left, cut in the hardest stone,—it must have been by immense labor,—pictures of cruel tortures and executions and of immense slaughters. A king is represented putting out the eyes of prisoners. What the pictures reveal is the lust of conquest, the delights of revenge, and the ecstasy of tyranny. After Assurbanipal took Susa he broke open the tombs of the old heroes of Elam, who had in their day defeated the Assyrians. He desecrated the tombs, insulted the monuments, and carried the bones away to Nineveh. It was believed that the ghosts of these dead heroes would suffer the captivity inflicted on their bones, and sacrifices were made to them just sufficient to prolong their existence and suffering. This policy was pursued with all the ingenious refinements which the dogmas suggested, in order to glut the vengeance of the Assyrian king.[1636] The Babylonians were peaceful and industrial, but the Persians combined with great luxury and licentiousness a fiendish ingenuity in torture and painful modes of execution. It is very interesting to notice in Homer criticism of conduct from the standpoint of taste and judgment as to what is seemly.[1637] Homer thought it unseemly for Achilles to drag the corpse of Hector behind his chariot. He says that the gods thought so too.[1638] He disapproved of the sacrifice of twelve Trojan youths on the pyre of Patroclus.[1639] In the poems there are recorded many unseemly acts. Achilles spurned the prayer of Hector that his body might be redeemed, and wished that he could eat part of the body of his conquered foe. The Greeks mutilated the corpse with their weapons.[1640] Agamemnon and Ajax Oileus cut off the heads of the slain.[1641] Odysseus ordered twelve maidens who had been friends to the suitors to be put to the sword. Telemachus hanged them. Melantheus, who had traitorously taken the suitors' side, was mutilated alive, member by member.[1642] Odysseus tells Eurykleia that it is a cruel sin to exult over a dead enemy, but the heroes often did it. This doctrine expresses the better sense of the age, but a doctrine which was beyond their self-control when their passions were aroused. The Olympian household must be taken to represent the society of the time, especially if we throw out the stories of the violations of the sex taboo which were often myths of nature processes or survivals of earlier mores. The Olympian gods show no dignity, magnanimity, or moral earnestness. They entertain mean sentiments of jealousy, envy, offended vanity, resentment, and rancor. They are divided by enmities and feuds. The females are frivolous and shallow; their fathers and husbands are often angry with them for levity, folly, disobedience, and self-will; but they have to remember that the goddesses are females and make the best of it with a groan and a laugh. The gods have great weakness for feminine grace and charm. They make allowances for the women, pet them, and despise them. There is some recognition of a possibly nobler relation of men to women, but it is only a transitory ideal. The goddesses get into difficulties by their intrigues and follies, but they avail themselves to the utmost of their feminine privileges to escape the penalties. They fool the gods. It reminds us of a modern French novel. We meet with the same sentiments, maxims, and philosophy. What were the gods for? They were superfluous and useless, or mischievous, but theology taught that they kept the whole thing going. They dealt meanly with men. Athena took the form of Deiphobus in order to persuade Hector to meet Achilles and be killed.[1643] They sent dreams to men to mislead them. What can men do against that? They mixed in the fights of men, but availed themselves of their godship, if things went against them, and especially in order to get revenge for defeat. There was no chivalry or nobility of mind or behavior. It is plain that the gods are not idealized men. They are worse than the men. Von der March[1644] has collected evidence that the heroes were savage, cruel, cowardly, venal, rancorous, vain, and lacking in fortitude, when compared with German epic heroes. It is far more important to notice that this evidence proves that the Greeks did not have, and therefore could not ascribe to the gods, a standard of seemliness above what these traits of the picture disclose. Since that is so, it follows that the standard of what is fit, seemly, becoming, good form, is a function of the folkways, or rather of class ways, since it is only selected classes who cultivate seemliness. Seemliness is a light, remote, and less important form of propriety. It is a matter of taste, and taste is cultivated by the folkways.

497. Greek tragedies and notions of seemliness. We think it unseemly to criticise the ways of Divine Providence, and we refrain from it, whatever we may think. Since Christianity is no longer imposed by pains and penalties, we think it unseemly to assail Christianity in the interest of a negative or destructive philosophy. The Greeks of the fifth century B.C. had not these notions. They upbraided the gods for their ways to men and for their vices. The antagonisms of the mores were antagonisms of gods. In the Eumenides the most tragic consequences follow from the antagonism of the mores of the mother and father family. The Furies do not insist on the duty of Orestes to kill his mother, in blood revenge for the murder of his father, because they belong to the old system, in which the son was of the mother's blood; but Apollo, the god of the new system, orders it. A new doctrine of procreation has to be promulgated. "The mother does not procreate the son; she only bears and cherishes the awakened life." [Here we see how the doctrines are invented afterwards to fit the exigencies of new folkways.] Orestes obeys Apollo and is a victim. Since the command comes from a god, how shall the man not obey? To us it is a simple case of a common tragedy, that an individual is the victim of a great social movement. In the Herakleidae, Alcmena urges that a war captive be slain. The king of Athens forbids that any one be slain who was taken alive. The former prevailed. The Athenian doctrine was new and high and not yet current. In the Ion Ion tells Zeus and Poseidon that if they paid the penalties of all their adulteries they would empty their temple treasuries. They act wrongly when they do not observe due measure in their pursuit of pleasure. It is not fair to call men wicked when they imitate the gods. Let the evil examples be blamed. In the Andromache horror is expressed of the folkways of the barbarians, in which incest is not prevented. In the Medea Jason, who is a scoundrel and a cur, prates to Medea about her gain in coming to Greece: "Thou hast learned what justice means, and how to live by law, not by the dictates of brute force." She had not learned it at all—quite the contrary. In the Hekuba it is said to be a disgrace to murder guests in Greece, and in Iphigenia amongst the Taurians the same doctrine is stated when Greeks are to be the victims of the contrary rule. "Barbarian" was a cultural category. To be Greek was to have city life with market place, gymnastic training, and a share in the games.[1645] These were arbitrary marks of superiority such as the members of an esoteric corporation always love, but the time came when the Greek history contained so many shameful things that the Greeks ceased to talk of the contrast with barbarians. It was proposed to Pausanias that he should repay on the corpse of Mardonius the insults inflicted by Xerxes on the body of Leonidas. He indignantly refused.[1646] The old laws of war put the life and property of the vanquished, and their wives and children, at the mercy of the conquerors, but the Greeks, when the Peloponnesian war began, felt the shame of this law as between Greeks. Therefore they sinned against their own better feeling when in that war they enslaved and slaughtered the vanquished. That they knew better is shown by the conduct of the Athenians towards Mytilene, in 427. At first all adult males were sentenced to death, and the women and children to slavery, but later this sentence was revoked. Cases also occurred in which the law of war was not followed, but the conquered were spared. By retaliation they inflamed their own passions and went on from bad to worse until there was a revulsion of pure shame. Lysander put to death three thousand Athenians, captives, after the battle of AEgospotami, as reprisals for the barbarities executed by the Athenians against Sparta and her allies. The allies wanted to exercise war law on Athens, but Sparta would not consent. To her then belongs the honor of fixing a new precedent. It was her duty to do so after the act of Lysander. Beloch thinks that science made the greater humanity of the fourth century.[1647] It is more probable that it was due to a perception of the horror and shame of the other course. The parties in the cities, in the later centuries, were also guilty of excess, rancorous passion, revenge, and oppression. These cases come under the head of unseemliness in so far as they show a lack of sense of where to stop. That sense, especially in the political acts of democracies, must be a resultant, in the minds of men of the most numerous classes, from the spirit and temper of the folkways.