life is marked when the female ceases to be a movable thing. She becomes a person; and if still for a long time placed far below the male socially, yet the idea that the right of disposal of herself and her favors belongs to her is developed.
Thus she becomes the object of the male’s wooing. To the barbarous sensual feeling of sexual desire the beginnings of ethical feeling are added. The instinct is intellectualized. Property in women ceases to exist. Individuals of the opposite sexes feel themselves drawn toward each other by mental and physical qualities, and show love for each other only. At this stage woman has a feeling that her charms belong only to the man of her choice, and wishes to conceal them from others. Thus, by the side of modesty, the foundations of chastity and faithfulness—as long as the bond of love lasts—are laid.
Woman attains this degree of social elevation earlier when, at the transition from nomadic life to a state of fixed habitation, man obtains a house and home, and the necessity arises for him to possess in woman a companion for the household,—a housewife.
Among the nations of the East, the Egyptians, the Israelites, and the Greeks, and among those of the West, the Germans, early attained this stage of culture. Among all these races, at this stage of advancement, the esteem in which virginity, chastity, modesty, and sexual faithfulness are held is in marked contrast with other nations which offer the female of the house to the guest for his sexual enjoyment.[1]
That this stage in the culture of sexual morality is quite high and makes its appearance much later than other developmental forms of culture—as, for example, æsthetics—is seen from the condition of the Japanese, with whom it is the custom to marry a woman only after she has lived for a year in the tea-houses (which correspond with European houses of prostitution), and to whom the nakedness of women is nothing shocking. At all events, among the Japanese every unmarried woman can prostitute herself without lessening her value as a future wife,—a proof that with this remarkable people woman possesses
- ↑ Comp. Westermarck, “History of Human Marriage.” McMillan & Co., 1891.
