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_ One of the most important details of my theory is that while there can be no romantic love without opportunity for genuine courtship and free choice, nevertheless the existence of such opportunity and choice does not guarantee the presence of love unless the other conditions for its growth--general refinement and altruistic impulses--coexist with them. Among the Chittagong hill-tribes these conditions--constituting "whole tracts of mind, and thought, and feeling"--do not coexist with the liberty of choice, hence it is useless to look for love in our sense of the word. Moreover, when we further read in Lewin that the reason why there are no harlots is that they "are rendered unnecessary by the freedom of intercourse indulged in and allowed to both sexes before marriage," we see that what at first seemed a virtue is really a mark of lower degradation. Some of the oldest legislators, like Zoroaster and Solon, already recognized the truth that it was far better to sacrifice a few women to the demon of immorality than to expose them all to contamination. The wild tribes of India in general have not yet arrived at that point of view. In their indifference to chastity they rank with the lowest savages, and usually there is a great deal of promiscuous indulgence before a mate is chosen for a union of endurance. Among the Oraons, as Dalton tells us (248), "liaisons between boys and girls of the same village seldom end in marriage;" and he gives strange details regarding the conduct of the young people which may not be cited here, and in which the natives see "no impropriety." Regarding the Butias Rowney says:
"The marriage tie is so loose that chastity is quite
unknown amongst them. The husbands are indifferent to
the honor of their wives, and the wives do not care to
preserve that which has no value attached to it. ...
The intercourse of the sexes is, in fact, promiscuous."
Of the Lepchas Rowney says that "chastity in adult girls previous to marriage is neither to be met with nor cared for." Of the Mishmees he says: "Wives are not expected to be chaste, and are not thought worse off when otherwise," and of the Kookies: "All the women of a village, married or unmarried, are available to the chief at his will, and no stigma attaches to those who are favored by him." In some tribes wives are freely exchanged. Dalton says of the Butan that "the intercourse between the sexes is practically promiscuous." Rhyongtha girls indulge in promiscuous intercourse with several lovers before marriage. (Lewin, 121.) With the Kurmuba, "no such ceremony as marriage exists." They "live together like the brute creation." (W.R. King, 44.)
My theory that in practice, at any rate, if not in form, promiscuity was the original state of affairs among savages, in India as elsewhere, is supported by the foregoing facts, and also by what various writers have told us regarding the licentious festivals indulged in by these wild tribes of India. "It would appear," says Dalton,
"that most of the hill-tribes found it necessary to
promote marriage by stimulating intercourse between the
sexes at particular seasons of the year.... At one of
the Kandh festivals held in November all the lads and
lasses assemble for a spree, and a bachelor has then
the privilege of making off with any unmarried girl
whom he can induce to go with him, subject to a
subsequent arrangement with the parents of the maiden."
Dalton gives a vivid description of these festivals as practised by the Hos in January, when the granaries are full of wheat and the natives "full of deviltry:"
"They have a strange notion that at this period men and
women are so overcharged with vicious propensities,
that it is absolutely necessary for the safety of the
person to let off steam by allowing, for a time, full
vent to the passions. The festival therefore becomes a
saturnale, during which servants forget their duties to
their masters, children their reverence for parents,
even their respect for women, and women all notions of
modesty, delicacy, and gentleness; they become raging
bacchantes....
"The Ho population of the village forming the environs
of Chaibasa are at other seasons quiet and reserved in
manner, and in their demeanor toward women gentle and
decorous; even in the flirtations I have spoken of they
never transcend the bounds of decency. The girls,
though full of spirits and somewhat saucy, have innate
notions of propriety that make them modest in demeanor,
though devoid of all prudery.... Since their adoption
of clothing they are careful to drape themselves
decently as well as gracefully, but they throw all this
aside during the Magh feast. Their natures appear to
undergo a temporary change. Sons and daughters revile
their parents in gross language, and parents their
children; men and women become almost like animals in
the indulgence of their amorous propensities. They
enact all that was ever portrayed by prurient artists
in a bacchanalian festival or pandean orgy; and as the
light of the sun they adore and the presence of
numerous spectators seem to be no restraint on their
indulgence, it cannot be expected that chastity is
preserved when the shades of night fall on such a scene
of licentiousness and debauchery." _
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