4. Coyness

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_ IV. COYNESS

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

'Tis ours to be forward and pushing;
'Tis yours to affect a disdain,

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

You love; yet from your lover's wish retire;
Doubt, yet discern; deny, and yet desire.
Such, Polly, are your sex--part truth, part fiction,
Some thought, much whim, and all a contradiction.

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

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

 

WOMEN WHO WOO

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

"In all Polynesia," says Gerland (VI., 127), "it was a common occurrence that the women wooed the men." "A proposal of marriage," writes Gill (_Savage Life in Polynesia_, II.), "may emanate with propriety from a woman of rank to an equal or an inferior." In an article on Fijian poetry, Sir Arthur Gordon cites the following native poem:

The girls of Vunivanua all had lovers,
But I, poor I, had not even one.
Yet I fell desperately in love one day,
My eye was filled with the beauty of Vasunilawedua.
She ran along the beach, she called the canoe-men.
She is conveyed to the town where her beloved dwells.
Na Ulumatua sits in his canoe unfastening its gear.
He asks her, "Why have you come here, Sovanalasikula?"
"They have been falling in love at Vunivanua," she answers;
"I, too, have fallen in love. I love your lovely son, Vasunilawedua."
Na Ulumatua rose to his feet. He loosened a tambua whale's tooth from the canoe.
"This," he said, presenting it to her, "is my offering to you for your return. My son cannot wed you, lady."
Tears stream from her eyes, they stream down on her breast.
"Let me only live outside his house," she says;
"I will sleep upon the wood-pile. If I may only light his seluka [cigarrette] for him, I shall rejoice.
If I may only hear his voice from a distance, it will suffice. Life will be pleasant to me."
Na Ulumatua replied, "Be magnanimous, lady, and return.
We have many girls of our own. Return to your own land.
Vasunilawedua cannot wed a stranger."
Sovanalasikula went away crying.
She returned to her own town, forlorn.
Her life was sadness.
Ia nam bosulu.

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

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

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

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

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

"Manjikuawis was forward in her advances toward him.
He, however, paid no attention to it, and shunned her.
She continued to be very assiduous in attending to his
wants, such as cooking and mending his mocassins. She
felt hurt and displeased at his indifference, and
resolved to play him a trick. Opportunity soon offered.
The lodge was spacious, and she dug a hole in the
ground, where the young man usually sat, covering it
very carefully. When the brothers returned from the
chase the young man threw himself down carelessly at
the usual place, and fell into the cavity, his head and
feet remaining out, so that he was unable to extricate
himself. 'Ha! ha!' cried Manjikuawis, as she helped him
out, 'you are mine, I have caught you at last, and I
did it on purpose.' A smile came over the young man's
face, and he said, 'So be it, I will be yours;' and
from that moment they lived happily as man and wife."

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

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

Even a coating of culture does not seem to curb the young squaw's propensity to make the first advances. Captain R.H. Pratt (_U.S. Geol. and G.S_., IX., 260), of the Carlisle School, relates an amusing story of a Kiowa young man who, under a variety of circumstances, "never cared for girl. 'But when Laura say she love me, then I began to care for girl.'"

In his _First Footsteps_ Burton gives a glimpse of the "coyness" of Bedouin women:

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

In his book on Southern Abyssinia Johnston relates how, while staying at Murroo, he was strongly recommended to follow the example of his companions and take a temporary wife. There was no need of hunting for helpmates--they offered themselves of their own accord. One of the girls who presented herself as a candidate was stated by her friends to be a very strong woman, who had already had four or five husbands. "I thought this a rather strange recommendation," he adds, "but it was evidently mentioned that she might find favor in my eyes." He found that the best way out of such a dilemma was to engage the first old hag that came along and leave it to her to ward off the others. Masculine coyness under such conditions has its risks. Johnston mentions the case of an Arab who, in the region of the Muzeguahs, scorned a girl who wanted to be his temporary wife; whereupon "the whole tribe asserted he had treated them with contempt by his haughty conduct toward the girl, and demanded to know if she was not good enough for him." He had to give them some brass wire and blue sood before he could allay the national indignation aroused by his refusal to take the girl. Women have rights which must be respected, even in Africa!

In Dutch Borneo there is a special kind of "marriage by stratagem" called _matep_. If a girl desires a particular man he is inveigled into her house, the door is shut, the walls are hung with cloth of different colors and other ornaments, dinner is served up and he is informed of the girl's wish to marry him. If he declines, he is obliged to pay the value of the hangings and the ornaments. (Roth, II., CLXXXI.)

"Uncertain, coy, and hard to please" obviously cannot be sung of such women.

In one of the few native Australian stories on record the two wives of a man are represented as going to his brother's hut when he was asleep, and imitating the voice of an emu. The noise woke him, and he took his spear to kill them; but as soon as he ran out the two women spoke and requested him to be their husband. (Wood's _Native Tribes_, 210.)

The fact that Australian women have absolutely no choice in the assignment of husbands, must make them inclined to offer themselves to men they like, just as Indian girls offer themselves to noted warriors in the hope of thus calling attention to their personal attractions. As we shall see later, one of the ways in which an Australian wins a wife is by means of magic. In this game, as Spencer and Gillen tell us, the women sometimes take the initiative, thus inducing a man to elope with them.

 

WERE HEBREW AND GREEK WOMEN COY?

The English language is a queer instrument of thought. While coyness has the various meanings of shyness, modest reserve, bashfulness, shrinking from advances or familiarity, disdainfulness, the verb "to coy" may mean the exact opposite--to coax, allure, entice, woo, decoy. It is in _this_ sense that "coyness" is obviously a trait of primitive maidens. What is more surprising is to find in brushing aside prejudice and preconceived notions, that among ancient nations too it is in this second sense rather than in the first that women are "coy." The Hebrew records begin with the story of Adam and Eve, in which Eve is stigmatized as the temptress. Rebekah had never seen the man chosen for her by her male relatives, yet when she was asked if she would go with his servant, she answered, promptly, "I will go." Rachel at the well suffers her cousin to kiss her at first sight. Ruth does all the courting which ends in making her the wife of Boaz. There is no shrinking from advances, real or feigned, in any of these cases; no suggestion of disguised feminine affection; and in two of them the women make the advances. Potiphar's wife is another biblical case. The word coy does not occur once in the Bible.

The idea that women are the aggressors, particularly in criminal amours, is curiously ingrained in the literature of ancient Greece. In the _Odyssey_ we read about the fair-haired goddess Circe, decoying the companions of Odysseus with her sweet voice, giving them drugs and potions, making them the victims of swinish indulgence of their appetites. When Odysseus comes to their rescue she tries to allure him too, saying, "Nay, then, pat up your blade within its sheath, and let us now approach our bed that there we too may join in love and learn to trust each other." Later on Odysseus has his adventure with the Sirens, who are always "casting a spell of penetrating song, sitting within a meadow," in order to decoy passing sailors. Charybdis is another divine Homeric female who lures men to ruin. The island nymph Calypso rescues Odysseus and keeps him a prisoner to her charms, until after seven years he begins to shed tears and long for home "because the nymph pleased him no more." Nor does the human Nausicaea manifest the least coyness when she meets Odysseus at the river. Though he has been cast on the shore naked, she remains, after her maids have run away alarmed, and listens to his tale of woe. Then, after seeing him bathed, anointed, and dressed, she exclaims to her waiting maids: "Ah, might a man like this be called my husband, having his home here and content to stay;" while to him later on she gives this broad hint: "Stranger, farewell! when you are once again in your own land, remember me, and how before all others it is to me you owe the saving of your life."

Nausicaea is, however, a prude compared with the enamoured woman as the Greek poets habitually paint her. Pausanias (II., Chap. 31), speaking of a temple of Peeping Venus says:

"From this very spot the enamoured Phaedra used to
watch Hippolytus at his manly exercises. Here still
grows the myrtle with pierced leaves, as I am told. For
being at her wit's ends and finding no ease from the
pangs of love, she used to wreak her fury on the leaves
of this myrtle."

Professor Rohde, the most erudite authority on Greek erotic literature, writes:

"It is characteristic of the Greek popular tales which
Euripides followed, in what might be called his
tragedies of adultery, that they _always make the woman
the vehicle of the pernicious passion_; it seems as if
Greek feeling could not conceive of a _man_ being
seized by an unmanly soft desire and urged on by it to
passionate disregard of all human conventions and
laws."

 

MASCULINE COYNESS

Greek poets from Stesichorus to the Alexandrians are fond of representing coy men. The story told by Athenaeus (XIV., ch. 11) of Harpalyke, who committed suicide because the youth Iphiclus coyly spurned her, is typical of a large class. No less significant is the circumstance that when the coy backwardness happens to be on the side of a female, she is usually a woman of masculine habits, devoted to Diana and the chase. Several centuries after Christ we still find in the romances an echo of this thoroughly Greek sentiment in the coy attitude, at the beginning, of their youthful heroes.[20]

[FOOTNOTE 20: Rohde, 35, 28, 147. See his list of corroborative cases in the long footnote, pp. 147-148.]

The well-known legend of Sappho--who flourished about a thousand years before the romances just referred to were written--is quite in the Greek spirit. It is thus related by Strabo:

"There is a white rock which stretches out from Leucas
to the sea and toward Cephalonia, that takes its name
from its whiteness. The rock of Leucas has upon it a
temple of Apollo, and the leap from it was supposed to
stop love. From this it is said that Sappho first, as
Menander says somewhere, in pursuit of the haughty
Phaon, urged on by maddening desire, threw herself from
its far-seen rocks, imploring thee [Apollo], lord and
king."

Four centuries after Sappho we find Theocritus harping on the same theme. His _Enchantress_ is a monologue in which a woman relates how she made advances to a youth and won him. She saw him walking along the road and was so smitten that she was prostrated and confined to her bed for ten days. Then she sent her slave to waylay the youth, with these instructions: "If you see him alone, say to him: 'Simaitha desires you,' and bring him here." In this case the youth is not coy in the least; but the sequel of the story is too bucolic to be told here.

 

SHY BUT NOT COY

It is well-known that the respectable women of Greece, especially the virgins, were practically kept under lock and key in the part of the house known as the gynaikonitis. This resulted in making them shy and bashful--but not coy, if we may judge from the mirror of life known as literature. Ramdohr observes, pertinently (III., 270):

"Remarkable is the easy triumph of lovers over the
innocence of free-born girls, daughters of citizens,
examples of which may be found in the _Eunuchus_ and
_Adelphi_ of Terence. They call attention to the low
opinion the ancients had of a woman's power to guard
her sensual impulses, and of her own accord resist
attacks on her honor."

The Abbe Dubois says the same thing about Hindoo girls, and the reason why they are so carefully guarded. It is hardly necessary to add that since no one would be so foolish as to call a man honest who refrains from stealing merely because he has no opportunity, it is equally absurd to call a woman honest or coy who refrains from vice only because she is locked up all the time. The fact (which seems to give Westermarck (64-65) much satisfaction), that some Australians, American Indian and other tribes watch young girls so carefully, does not argue the prevalence of chaste coyness, but the contrary. If the girls had an instinctive inclination to repel improper advances it would not be necessary to cage and watch them. This inclination is not inborn, does not characterize primitive women, but is a result of education and culture.

 

MILITARISM AND MEDIAEVAL WOMEN

Greatly as Greeks and Indians differ in some respects, they have two things in common--a warlike spirit and contempt for women. "When Greek meets Greek then comes a tug of war," and the Indian's chief delight is scalp hunting. The Greeks, as Rohde notes,

"depict their greatest heroes as incited to great
deeds only by eagerness for battle and desire for
glory. The love of women barely engages their
attention transiently in hours of idleness."

Militarism is ever hostile to love except in its grossest forms. It brutalizes the men and prevents the growth of feminine qualities, coyness among others. Hence, wherever militarism prevails, we seek in vain for feminine reserve. An interesting illustration of this may be found in a brochure by Theodor Krabbes, _Die Frau im Altfranzoesischen Karls-Epos_. The author, basing his inferences on an exhaustive study and comparison of the Chansons de Geste of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, draws the following general conclusions:

"Girlish shyness is not a trait of the daughters, least
of all those of heathen origin. Masculine tendencies
characterize them from childhood. Fighting pleases them
and they like to look on when there is a battle....
Love plays an important role in nearly all the Chansons
de Geste.... The woman wooes, the man grants: nearly
always in these epics we read of a woman who loves,
rarely of one who is loved.... In the very first hour
of their acquaintance the girl is apt to yield herself
entirely to the chosen knight, and she persists in her
passion for him even if she is entirely repulsed. There
is no more rest for her. Either she wooes him in
person, or chooses a messenger who invites the coveted
man to a rendezvous. The heathen woman who has to guard
captured Franks and who has given her heart to one of
them, hies herself to the dungeon and offers him her
love. She begs for his love in return and seeks in
every way to win it. If he resists, she curses him,
makes his lot less endurable, withholds his food or
threatens him with death until he is willing to accede
to her wishes. If this has come to pass she overwhelms
him with caresses at the first meeting. She is eager to
have them reciprocated; often the lover is not tender
enough to please her, then she repeatedly begs for
kisses. She embraces him delightedly even though he be
in full armor and in presence of all his companions.
Girlish shyness and modest backwardness are altogether
foreign to her nature.... She never has any moral
scruples.... If he is unwilling to give up his
campaign, she is satisfied to let him go the next
morning if he will only marry her.

"The man is generally described as cold in love.
References to a knight's desire for a woman's love are
very scant, and only once do we come across a hero who
is quite in love. The young knight prefers more serious
matters; his first desire is to win fame in battle,
make rich booty.[21] He looks on love as superfluous,
indeed he is convinced that it incapacitates him from
what he regards as his proper life-task. He also fears
the woman's infidelity. If he allows her to persuade
him to love, he seeks material gain from it; delivery
from captivity, property, vassals.... The lover is
often tardy, careless, too deficient in tenderness, so
that the woman has to chide him and invite his
caresses. A rendezvous is always brought about only
through her efforts, and she alone is annoyed if it is
disturbed too soon. Even when the man desires a woman,
he hardly appears as a wooer. He knows he is sure of
the women's favor; they make it easy for him; he can
have any number of them if he belongs to a noble
family.... Even when the knight is in love--which is
very rare--the first advances are nearly always made by
the woman; it is she who proposes marriage.

"Marriage as treated in the epics is seldom based on
love. The woman desires wedlock, because she hopes
thereby to secure her rights and better her chances of
protection. It is for this reason that we see her so
often eagerly endeavoring to secure a promise of
marriage."

[FOOTNOTE 21: Compare this with what Rohde says about the Homeric heroes and their complete absorption in warlike doings.]

 

WHAT MADE WOMEN COY?

Sufficient evidence has now been adduced to make it clear that the first of the two questions posed at the outset of this chapter must be answered in the negative. Coyness is _not_ an innate or universal trait of femininity, but is often absent, particularly where man's absorption in war and woman's need of protection prevent its growth and induce the females to do the courting. This being the case and war being the normal state of the lower races, our next task is to ascertain what were the influences that induced woman to adopt the habit of repelling advances instead of making them. It is one of the most interesting questions in sexual psychology, which has never been answered satisfactorily; it and gains additional interest from the fact that we find among the most ancient and primitive races phenomena which resemble coyness and have been habitually designated as such. As we shall see in a moment, this is an abuse of language, confounding genuine resistance or aversion with coyness.

Chinese maidens often feel so great an aversion to marriage as practised in their country that they prefer suicide to it. Douglas says (196) that Chinese women often ask English ladies, "Does your husband beat you?" and are surprised if answered "No." The gallant Chinaman calls his wife his "dull thorn," and there are plenty of reasons apart from Confucian teachings why "for some days before the date fixed, the bride assumes all the panoply of woe, and weeps and wails without ceasing." She is about to face the terrible ordeal of being confronted for the first time with the man who has been chosen for her, and who may be the ugliest, vilest wretch in the world--possibly even a leper, such cases being on record. Douglas reports the case of six girls who committed suicide together to avoid marriage. There exist in China anti-matrimonial societies of girls and young widows, the latter doubtless, supplying the experience that serves as the motive for establishing such associations.

Descending to the lowest stratum of human life as witnessed in Australia, we find that, as Meyer asserts (11), the bride appears "generally to go very unwillingly" to the man she has been assigned to. Lumholtz relates that the man seizes the woman by the wrists and carries her off "despite her screams, which can be heard till she is a mile away." "The women," he says, "always make resistance; for they do not like to leave their tribe, and in many instances they have the best of reasons for kicking their lovers." What are these reasons? As all observers testify, they are not allowed any voice in the choice of their husbands. They are usually bartered by their father or brothers for other women, and in many if not most cases the husbands assigned to them are several times their age. Before they are assigned to a particular man the girls indulge in promiscuous intercourse, whereas after marriage they are fiercely guarded. They may indeed attempt to elope with another man more suited to their age, but they do so at the risk of cruel injury and probable death. The wives have to do all the drudgery; they get only such food as the husbands do not want, and on the slightest suspicion of intrigue they are maltreated horribly. Causes enough surely for their resistance to obligatory marriage. This resistance is a frank expression of genuine unwillingness, or aversion, and has nothing in common with real coyness, which signifies the mere _semblance_ of unwillingness on the part of a woman who is at least _half-willing_. Such expressions as Goldsmith's "the coy maid, half willing to be pressed," and Dryden's

When the kind nymph would coyness feign,
And hides but to be found again,

indicate the nature of true coyness better than any definitions. There are no "coy looks," no "feigning" in the actions of an Australian girl about to be married to a man who is old enough to be her grandfather. The "cold disdain" is real, not assumed, and there is no "dissemblance of feminine affection."

 

CAPTURING WOMEN

The same reasoning applies to the customs attending wife-capturing in general, which has prevailed in all parts of the world and still prevails in some regions. To take one or two instances of a hundred that might be cited from books of travel in all parts of the world: Columbus relates that the Caribs made the capture of women the chief object of their expeditions. The California Indians worked up their warlike spirit by chanting a song the substance of which was, "let us go and carry off girls" (Waitz, IV., 242). Savages everywhere have looked upon women as legitimate spoils of war, desirable as concubines and drudges. Now even primitive women are attached to their homes and relatives, and it is needless to say their resistance to the enemy who has just slain their father and brothers and is about to carry them off to slavery, is genuine, and has no more trace of coyness in it than the actions of an American girl who resists the efforts of unknown kidnappers to drag her from her home.

But besides real capture of women there has existed, and still exists in many countries, what is known as sham-capture--a custom which has puzzled anthropologists sorely. Herbert Spencer illustrates it (_P.S._, I., Sec. 288) by citing Crantz, who says, concerning the Eskimos, that when a damsel is asked in marriage, she

"directly falls into the greatest apparent
consternation, and runs out of doors tearing her hair;
for single women always affect the utmost bashfulness
and aversion to any proposal of marriage, lest they
should lose their reputation for modesty."

Spencer also quotes Burckhardt, who describes how the bride among Sinai Arabs defends herself with stones, even though she does not dislike the lover; "for according to custom, the more she struggles, bites, kicks, cries, and strikes, the more she is applauded ever after by her own companions." During the procession to the husband's camp "decency obliges her to cry and sob most bitterly." Among the Araucanians of Chili, according to Smith "it is a point of honor with the bride to resist and struggle, however willing she may be."

While conceding that "the manners of the inferior races do not imply much coyness," Spencer, nevertheless, thinks "we cannot suppose coyness to be wholly absent." He holds that in the cases just cited coyness is responsible for the resistance of the women, and he goes so far as to make this coyness "an important factor," in accounting for the custom of marriage by capture which has prevailed among so many peoples in all parts of the world. Westermarck declares that this suggestion can scarcely be disproved, and Grosse echoes his judgment. To me, on the contrary, it seems that these distinguished sociologists are putting the cart before the horse. They make the capture a sequence of "coyness," whereas in truth the coyness (if it may be so called) is a result of capture. The custom of wife capture can be easily explained without calling in the aid of what we have seen to be so questionable a thing as primitive female coyness. Savages capture wives as the most coveted spoils of war. They capture them, in other instances, because polygamy and female infanticide have disturbed the equilibrium of the sexes, thus compelling the young men to seek wives elsewhere than in their own tribes; and the same result is brought about (in Australia, for instance), by the old men's habit of appropriating all the young women by a system of exchange, leaving none for the young men, who, therefore, either have to persuade the married women to elope--at the risk of their lives--or else are compelled to steal wives elsewhere. In another very large number of cases the men stole brides--willing or unwilling--to avoid paying their parents for them.

 

THE COMEDY OF MOCK CAPTURE

Thus the custom of real capture is easily accounted for. What calls for an explanation is the _sham_ capture and resistance in cases where both the parents and the bride are perfectly willing. Why should primitive maidens who, as we have seen, are rather apt than not to make amorous advances, repel their suitors so violently in these instances of mock capture? Are they, after all, coy--more coy than civilized maidens? To answer this question let us look at one of Spencer's witnesses more carefully. The reason Crantz gives for the Eskimo women's show of aversion to marriage is that they do it, "lest they lose their reputation for modesty." Now modesty of any kind is a quality unknown to Eskimos. Nansen, Kane, Hayes, and other explorers have testified that the Eskimos of both sexes take off all their clothes in their warm subterranean homes. Captain Beechey has described their obscene dances, and it is well-known that they consider it a duty to lend their wives and daughters to guests. Some of the native tales collected by Rink (236-37; 405) indicate most unceremonious modes of courtship and nocturnal frolics, which do not stop even at incest. To suppose that women so utterly devoid of moral sensibility could, of their own accord and actuated by modesty and bashfulness manifest such a coy aversion to marriage that force has to be resorted to, is manifestly absurd. In attributing their antics to modesty, Crantz made an error into which so many explorers have fallen--that of interpreting the actions of savages from the point of view of civilization--an error more pardonable in an unsophisticated traveller of the eighteenth century than in a modern sociologist.

If we must therefore reject Herbert Spencer's inference as to the existence of primitive coyness and its consequences, how are we to account for the comedy of mock capture? Several writers have tried to crack the nut. Sutherland (I., 200) holds that sham capture is not a survival of real capture, but "the festive symbolism of the contrast in the character of the sexes--courage in the man and shyness in the woman"--a fantastic suggestion which does not call for discussion, since, as we know, the normal primitive woman is anything but shy. Abercromby (I., 454) is another writer who believes that sham capture is not a survival of real capture, but merely a result of the innate general desire on the part of the men to display courage--a view which dodges the one thing that calls for an explanation--the resistance of the women. Grosse indulges in some curious antics (105-108). First he asks: "Since real capture is everywhere an exception and is looked on as punishable, why should the semblance of capture have ever become a general and approved custom?" Then he asks, with a sneer, why sociology should be called upon to answer such questions anyhow; and a moment later he, nevertheless, attempts an answer, on Spencerian lines. Among inferior races, he remarks, women are usually coveted as spoils of war. The captured women become the wives or concubines of the warriors and thus represent, as it were, trophies of their valor. Is it not, therefore, inevitable that the acquisition of a wife by force should be looked on, among warlike races, as the most honorable way of getting her, nay, in course of time, as the only one worthy of a warrior? But since, he continues, not all the men can get wives in that way, even among the rudest tribes, these other men consoled themselves with investing the peaceful home-taking of a bride also with the show of an honorable capture.

In other words, Grosse declares on one page that it is absurd to derive approved sham capture from real capture because real capture is everywhere exceptional only and is always considered punishable; yet two pages later he argues that sham capture _is_ derived from real capture because the latter is so honorable! As a matter of fact, among the lowest races known, wife-stealing is not considered honorable. Regarding the Australians, Curr states distinctly (I., 108) that it was not encouraged because it was apt to involve a whole tribe in war for one man's sake. Among the North American Indians, on the other hand, where, as we saw in the chapter on Honorable Polygamy, a wife-stealer is admired by both men and women, sham capture does _not_ prevail. Grosse's argument, therefore, falls to the ground.

 

WHY THE WOMEN RESIST

Prior to all these writers Sir John Lubbock advanced still another theory of capture, real and sham. Believing that men once had all their wives in common, he declares that

"capture, and capture alone, could originally give a
man the right to monopolize a woman to the exclusion of
his fellow-clansmen; and that hence, even after all
necessity for actual capture had long ceased, the
symbol remained; capture having, by long habit, come to
be received as a necessary preliminary to marriage."

This theory has the same shortcoming as the others. While accounting for the capture, it does not explain the resistance of the women. In real capture they had real reasons for kicking, biting, and howling, but why should they continue these antics in cases of sham capture? Obviously another factor came into play here, which has been strangely overlooked--parental persuasion or command. Among savages a father owns his daughter as absolutely as his dog; he can sell or exchange her at pleasure; in Australia, "swapping" daughters or sisters is the commonest mode of marriage. Now, stealing brides, or eloping to avoid having to pay for them, is of frequent occurrence everywhere among uncivilized races. To protect themselves against such loss of personal property it must have occurred to parents at an early date that it would be wise to teach their daughters to resist all suitors until it has become certain that their intentions are honorable--that is, that they intend to pay. In course of time such teaching (strengthened by the girls' pride at being purchased for a large sum) would assume the form of an inviolable command, having the force of a taboo and, with the stubbornness peculiar to many social customs, persisting long after the original reasons have ceased to exist.

In other words, I believe that the peculiar antics of the brides in cases of sham capture are neither due to innate feminine coyness nor are they a direct survival of the genuine resistance made in real capture; but that they are simply a result of parental dictation which assigns to the bride the role she must play in the comedy of "courtship." I find numerous facts supporting this view, especially in Reinsberg-Dueringsfeld's _Hochzeitsbuch_ and Schroeder's _Hochzeitsgebraeuche der Esten_.

Describing the marriage customs of the Mordvins, Mainow says that the bridegroom sneaks into the bride's house before daybreak, seizes her and carries her off to where his companions are waiting with their wagons. "Etiquette," he adds, "_demands_ she should resist violently and cry loudly, even if she is entirely in favor of the elopement." Among the Votyaks girl-stealing (kukem) occurs to this day. If the father is unwilling or asks too much, while the young folks are willing, the girl goes to work in the field and the lover carries her off. _On the way to his house she is cheerful, but when they reach the lover's house she begins to cry and wail_, whereupon she is locked up in a cabin that has no window. The father, having found out where she is, comes and demands payment. If the lover offers too little, the parent plies his whip on him. Among the Ostyaks such elopements, to avoid payment, are frequent. Regarding the Esthonians, Schroeder says (40): "When the intermediary comes, the girl _must_ conceal herself in some place until she is either found, _with her father's consent_, or appears of her own accord."

In the old epic "Kalewipoeg," Salme hides in the garret and Linda in the bath-room, and refuse to come out till after much coaxing and urging.

 

QUAINT CUSTOMS

The words I have italicized indicate the passive role played by the girls, who simply carry out the instructions given to them. The parents are the stage-managers, and they know very well what they want--money or brandy. Among the Mordvins, as soon as the suitor and his friends are seen approaching the bride's house, it is barricaded, and the defenders ask, "Who are you?" The answer is, "Merchants." "What do you wish?" "Living goods." "We do not trade!" "We shall take her by force." A show of force is made, but finally the suitors are admitted, after paying twenty kopeks. In Little Russia it is customary to barricade the door of the bride's house with a wheel, but after offering a bottle of brandy as a "pass" the suitor's party is allowed to enter.

Among the Esthonians custom _demands_ (Schroeder, 36), that a comedy like the following be enacted. The intermediary comes to the bride's house and pretends that he has lost a cow or a lamb, and asks permission to hunt for it. The girl's relatives at first stubbornly deny having any knowledge of its whereabouts, but finally they allow the suitors to search, and the bride is usually found without much delay. In Western Prussia (Berent district), after the bridegroom has made his terms with the bride and her parents, he comes to their house and says: "We were out hunting and saw a wounded deer run into this house. May we follow its tracks?" Permission is granted, whereupon the men start in pursuit of the bride, who has hidden away with the other village maidens. At last the "hound"--one of the bridegroom's companions--finds her and brings her to the lover.

Similar customs have prevailed in parts of Russia, Roumania, Servia, Sardinia, Hungary, and elsewhere. In Old Finland the comedy continues even after the nuptial knot has been tied. The bridal couple return each to their home. Soon the groom appears at the bride's house and demands to be admitted. Her father refuses to let him in. A "pass" is thereupon produced and read, and this, combined with a few presents, finally secures admission. In some districts the bride remains invisible even during the wedding-dinner, and it is "good form" for her to let the guests wait as long as possible, and not to appear until after considerable coaxing by her mother. When a Votyak bridegroom comes after the bride on the wedding-day she is denied to him three times. After that she is searched for, dragged from her hiding-place, and her face covered with a cloth, while she screams and struggles. Then she is carried to the yard, placed on a blanket with her face down, and the bridegroom belabors her with a stick on a pillow which has been tied on her back. After that she becomes obedient and amiable. A Mordvin bride must try to escape from the wagon on the way to the church. In Old Finland the bride was barricaded in her house even after the wedding, and the Island Swedes have the same custom. This burlesque of bridal resistance after marriage occurs also among the wild tribes of India. "After remaining with her husband for ten days only," writes Dalton (192), "it is _the correct thing_ for the wife to run away from him, and tell all her friends that she loves him not and will see him no more." The husband's duty is to seek her eagerly.

"I have seen a young wife thus found and claimed,
and borne away, screeching and struggling in the
arms of her husband, from the midst of a crowded
bazaar. No one interferes on these occasions."

More than enough has now been said to prove that in cases of sham capture the girls simply follow their village customs blindly. Left to themselves they might act very differently, but as it is, all the girls in each district _must_ do the same thing, however silly. About the real feelings of the girls these comedies tell us nothing whatever. With coyness--that is, a woman's concealment of her feelings toward a man she likes--these actions have no more to do than the man in the moon has with anthropology. Least of all do they tell us anything about love, for the girls must all act alike, whether they favor a man or not. Regarding the absence of love we have, moreover, the direct testimony of Dr. F. Kreutzwald (Schroeder, 233). That marriages are made in heaven is, he declares, true in a certain sense, so far as the Esthonians are concerned; for "the parties concerned usually play a passive role.... Love is not one of the requisites, it is an unknown phenomenon." Utilitarianism, he adds, is the basis of their marriages. The suitor tries to ascertain if the girl he wants is a good worker; to find this out he may even watch her secretly while she is spinning, thrashing, or combing flax.

"Most of the men proceed at random, and it is not unusual for a suitor who has been refused in one place and another to proceed at once to a third or fourth.... Many a bridegroom sees his bride for the first time at the ceremony of the priestly betrothal, and he cannot therefore be blamed for asking: 'Which of these girls is my bride?'"

 

GREEK AND ROMAN MERCENARY COYNESS

So far our search for that coyness which is an ingredient of modern love has been in vain. At the same time it is obvious that since coyness is widely prevalent at the present day it must have been in the past of use to women, else it would not have survived and increased. The question is: how far down in the scale of civilization do we find traces of it? The literature of the ancient Greeks indicates that, in a certain phase and among certain classes, it was known to them. True, the respectable women, being always locked up and having no choice in the selecting of their partners, had no occasion for the exercise of any sort of coyness. But the hetairai appear to have understood the advantages of assumed disdain or indifference in making a coveted man more eager in his wooing. In the fifteenth of Lucian's [Greek: Etairikoi dialogoi] we read about a wanton who locked her door to her lover because he had refused to pay her two talents for the privilege of exclusive possession. In other cases, the poets still feel called upon to teach these women how to make men submissive by withholding caresses from them. Thus in Lucian, Pythias exclaims:

"To tell the truth, dear Joessa, you yourself spoiled
him with your excessive love, which you even allowed
him to notice. You should not have made so much of him:
men, when they discover that, easily become
overweening. Do not weep, poor girl! Follow my advice
and keep your door locked once or twice when he tries
to see you again. You will find that that will make him
flame up again and become frantic with love and
jealousy."

In the third book of his treatise on the Art of Love, Ovid advises women (of the same class) how to win men. He says, in substance:

"Do not answer his letters too soon; all delay inflames
the lover, provided it does not last too long.... What
is too readily granted does not long retain love. Mix
with the pleasure you give mortifying refusals, make
him wait in your doorway; let him bewail the 'cruel
door;' let him beg humbly, or else get angry and
threaten. Sweet things cloy, tonics are bitter."

 

MODESTY AND COYNESS

Feigned unwillingness or indifference in obedience to such advice may perhaps be called coyness, but it is only a coarse primitive phase of that attitude, based on sordid, mercenary motives, whereas true modern coyness consists in an impulse, grounded in modesty, to conceal affection. The germs of Greek venal coyness for filthy lucre may be found as low down as among the Papuan women who, as Bastian notes (Ploss, I., 460) exact payment in shell-money for their caresses. Of the Tongans, highest of all Polynesians, Mariner says (Martin, II., 174):

"It must not be supposed that these women are always
easily won; the greatest attentions and fervent
solicitations are sometimes requisite, even though
there be no other lover in the way. This happens
sometimes from a spirit of coquetry, at other times
from a dislike to the party, etc."

Now coquetry is a cousin of coyness, but in whatever way this Tongan coquetry may manifest itself (no details are given) it certainly lacks the regard for modesty and chastity which is essential to modern coyness; for, as the writer just referred to attests, Tongan girls are permitted to indulge in free intercourse before marriage, the only thing liable to censure being a too frequent change of lovers.

That the anxious regard for chastity, modesty, decorum, which cannot be present in the coquetry of these Tongan women, is one of the essential ingredients of modern coyness has long been felt by the poets. After Juliet has made her confession of love which Romeo overhears in the dark, she apologizes to him because she fears that he might attribute her easy yielding to light love. Lest he think her too quickly won she "would have frowned and been perverse, and said him nay." Then she begs him trust she'll "_prove more true_ than those that have more cunning to be strange." Wither's "That coy one in the winning, _proves a true one_ being won," expresses the same sentiment.

 

UTILITY OF COYNESS

Man's esteem for virtues which he does not always practise himself, is thus responsible, in part at least, for the existence of modern coyness. Other factors, however, aided its growth, among them man's fickleness. If a girl did not say nay (when she would rather say yes), and hold back, hesitate, and delay, the suitor would in many cases suck the honey from her lips and flit away to another flower. Cumulative experience of man's sensual selfishness has taught her to be slow in yielding to his advances. Experience has also taught women that men are apt to value favors in proportion to the difficulty of winning them, and the wisest of them have profited by the lesson. Callimachus wrote, two hundred and fifty years before Christ, that his love was "versed in pursuing what flies (from it), but flits past what lies in its mid path"--a conceit which the poets have since echoed a thousand times. Another very important thing that experience taught women was that by deferring or withholding their caresses and smiles they could make the tyrant man humble, generous, and gallant. Girls who do not throw themselves away on the first man who happens along, also have an advantage over others who are less fastidious and coy, and by transmitting their disposition to their daughters they give it greater vogue. Female coyness prevents too hasty marriages, and the girls who lack it often live to repent their shortcomings at leisure. Coyness prolongs the period of courtship and, by keeping the suitor in suspense and doubt, it develops the imaginative, sentimental side of love.

 

HOW WOMEN PROPOSE

Sufficient reasons, these, why coyness should have gradually become a general attribute of femininity. Nevertheless, it is an artificial product of imperfect social conditions, and in an ideal world women would not be called upon to romance about their feelings. As a mark of modesty, coyness will always have a charm for men, and a woman devoid of it will never inspire genuine love. But what I have elsewhere called "spring-chicken coyness"--the disposition of European girls to hide shyly behind their mammas--as chickens do under a hen at the sight of a hawk--is losing its charm in face of the frank confidingness of American girls in the presence of gentlemen; and as for that phase of coyness which consists in concealing affection for a man, girls usually manage to circumvent it in a more or less refined manner. Some girls who are coarse, or have little control of their feelings, propose bluntly to the men they want. I myself have known several such cases, but the man always refused. Others have a thousand subtle ways of betraying themselves without actually "giving themselves away." A very amusing story of how an ingenious maiden tries to bring a young man to bay has been told by Anthony Hope. Dowden calls attention to the fact that it is Juliet "who proposes and urges on the sudden marriage." Romeo has only spoken of love; it is she who asks him, if his purpose be marriage, to send her word next day. In _Troilus and Cressida_ (III., 2), the heroine exclaims:

But, though I loved you well, I woo'd you not;
And yet, good faith, I wished myself a man,
Or that we women had men's privilege
Of speaking first.

In his _Old Virginia_ (II., 127) John Fiske tells a funny story of how Parson Camm was wooed. A young friend of his, who had been courting Miss Betsy Hansford of his parish, asked him to assist him with his eloquence. The parson did so by citing to the girl texts from the Bible enjoining matrimony as a duty. But she beat him at his own game, telling him to take his Bible when he got home and look at 2 Sam. xii. 7, which would explain her obduracy. He did so, and found this: "And Nathan said to David, _thou art the man._" The parson took the hint--and the girl. _

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