← catalogue

Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1

by Havelock Ellis · English · Gutenberg #13610 · 891,221 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1

Author: Havelock Ellis


        
Release date: October 8, 2004 [eBook #13610]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13610

Credits: E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX, VOLUME 1 ***

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
      file which includes the original illustrations.
      See 13610-h.htm or 13610-h.zip:
      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/6/1/13610/13610-h/13610-h.htm)
      or
      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/6/1/13610/13610-h.zip)





STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX, VOLUME I

   The Evolution of Modesty
   The Phenomena of Sexual Periodicity
   Auto-Erotism

by

HAVELOCK ELLIS

1927







GENERAL PREFACE.


The origin of these _Studies_ dates from many years back. As a youth I was
faced, as others are, by the problem of sex. Living partly in an
Australian city where the ways of life were plainly seen, partly in the
solitude of the bush, I was free both to contemplate and to meditate many
things. A resolve slowly grew up within me: one main part of my life-work
should be to make clear the problems of sex.

That was more than twenty years ago. Since then I can honestly say that in
all that I have done that resolve has never been very far from my
thoughts. I have always been slowly working up to this central problem;
and in a book published some three years ago--_Man and Woman: a Study of
Human Secondary Sexual Characters_--I put forward what was, in my own
eyes, an introduction to the study of the primary questions of sexual
psychology.

Now that I have at length reached the time for beginning to publish my
results, these results scarcely seem to me large. As a youth, I had hoped
to settle problems for those who came after; now I am quietly content if I
do little more than state them. For even that, I now think, is much; it is
at least the half of knowledge. In this particular field the evil of
ignorance is magnified by our efforts to suppress that which never can be
suppressed, though in the effort of suppression it may become perverted. I
have at least tried to find out what are the facts, among normal people as
well as among abnormal people; for, while it seems to me that the
physician's training is necessary in order to ascertain the facts, the
physician for the most part only obtains the abnormal facts, which alone
bring little light. I have tried to get at the facts, and, having got at
the facts, to look them simply and squarely in the face. If I cannot
perhaps turn the lock myself, I bring the key which can alone in the end
rightly open the door: the key of sincerity. That is my one panacea:
sincerity.

I know that many of my friends, people on whose side I, too, am to be
found, retort with another word: reticence. It is a mistake, they say, to
try to uncover these things; leave the sexual instincts alone, to grow up
and develop in the shy solitude they love, and they will be sure to grow
up and develop wholesomely. But, as a matter of fact, that is precisely
what we can not and will not ever allow them to do. There are very few
middle-aged men and women who can clearly recall the facts of their lives
and tell you in all honesty that their sexual instincts have developed
easily and wholesomely throughout. And it should not be difficult to see
why this is so. Let my friends try to transfer their feelings and theories
from the reproductive region to, let us say, the nutritive region, the
only other which can be compared to it for importance. Suppose that eating
and drinking was never spoken of openly, save in veiled or poetic
language, and that no one ever ate food publicly, because it was
considered immoral and immodest to reveal the mysteries of this natural
function. We know what would occur. A considerable proportion of the
community, more especially the more youthful members, possessed by an
instinctive and legitimate curiosity, would concentrate their thoughts on
the subject. They would have so many problems to puzzle over: How often
ought I to eat? What ought I to eat? Is it wrong to eat fruit, which I
like? Ought I to eat grass, which I don't like? Instinct notwithstanding,
we may be quite sure that only a small minority would succeed in eating
reasonably and wholesomely. The sexual secrecy of life is even more
disastrous than such a nutritive secrecy would be; partly because we
expend such a wealth of moral energy in directing or misdirecting it,
partly because the sexual impulse normally develops at the same time as
the intellectual impulse, not in the early years of life, when wholesome
instinctive habits might be formed. And there is always some ignorant and
foolish friend who is prepared still further to muddle things: Eat a meal
every other day! Eat twelve meals a day! Never eat fruit! Always eat
grass! The advice emphatically given in sexual matters is usually not less
absurd than this. When, however, the matter is fully open, the problems of
food are not indeed wholly solved, but everyone is enabled by the
experience of his fellows to reach some sort of situation suited to his
own case. And when the rigid secrecy is once swept away a sane and natural
reticence becomes for the first time possible.

This secrecy has not always been maintained. When the Catholic Church was
at the summit of its power and influence it fully realized the magnitude
of sexual problems and took an active and inquiring interest in all the
details of normal and abnormal sexuality. Even to the present time there
are certain phenomena of the sexual life which have scarcely been
accurately described except in ancient theological treatises. As the type
of such treatises I will mention the great tome of Sanchez, _De
Matrimonio_. Here you will find the whole sexual life of men and women
analyzed in its relationships to sin. Everything is set forth, as clearly
and as concisely as it can be--without morbid prudery on the one hand, or
morbid sentimentality on the other--in the coldest scientific language;
the right course of action is pointed out for all the cases that may
occur, and we are told what is lawful, what a venial sin, what a mortal
sin. Now I do not consider that sexual matters concern the theologian
alone, and I deny altogether that he is competent to deal with them. In
his hands, also, undoubtedly, they sometimes become prurient, as they can
scarcely fail to become on the non-natural and unwholesome basis of
asceticism, and as they with difficulty become in the open-air light of
science. But we are bound to recognize the thoroughness with which the
Catholic theologians dealt with these matters, and, from their own point
of view, indeed, the entire reasonableness; we are bound to recognize the
admirable spirit in which, successfully or not, they sought to approach
them. We need to-day the same spirit and temper applied from a different
standpoint. These things concern everyone; the study of these things
concerns the physiologist, the psychologist, the moralist. We want to get
into possession of the actual facts, and from the investigation of the
facts we want to ascertain what is normal and what is abnormal, from the
point of view of physiology and of psychology. We want to know what is
naturally lawful under the various sexual chances that may befall man, not
as the born child of sin, but as a naturally social animal. What is a
venial sin against nature, what a mortal sin against nature? The answers
are less easy to reach than the theologians' answers generally were, but
we can at least put ourselves in the right attitude; we may succeed in
asking that question which is sometimes even more than the half of
knowledge.

It is perhaps a mistake to show so plainly at the outset that I approach
what may seem only a psychological question not without moral fervour. But
I do not wish any mistake to be made. I regard sex as the central problem
of life. And now that the problem of religion has practically been
settled, and that the problem of labor has at least been placed on a
practical foundation, the question of sex--with the racial questions that
rest on it--stands before the coming generations as the chief problem for
solution. Sex lies at the root of life, and we can never learn to
reverence life until we know how to understand sex.--So, at least, it
seems to me.

Having said so much, I will try to present such results as I have to
record in that cold and dry light through which alone the goal of
knowledge may truly be seen.

HAVELOCK ELLIS.

July, 1897.




PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.


The first edition of this volume was published in 1899, following "Sexual
Inversion," which now forms Volume II. The second edition, issued by the
present publishers and substantially identical with the first edition,
appeared in the following year. Ten years have elapsed since then and this
new edition will be found to reflect the course of that long interval. Not
only is the volume greatly enlarged, but nearly every page has been partly
rewritten. This is mainly due to three causes: Much new literature
required to be taken into account; my own knowledge of the historical and
ethnographic aspects of the sexual impulse has increased; many fresh
illustrative cases of a valuable and instructive character have
accumulated in my hands. It is to these three sources of improvement that
the book owes its greatly revised and enlarged condition, and not to the
need for modifying any of its essential conclusions. These, far from
undergoing any change, have by the new material been greatly strengthened.

It may be added that the General Preface to the whole work, which was
originally published in 1898 at the beginning of "Sexual Inversion," now
finds its proper place at the outset of the present volume.

HAVELOCK ELLIS.

Carbis Bay,

Cornwall, Eng.




PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.


The present volume contains three studies which seem to me to be necessary
_prolegomena_ to that analysis of the sexual instinct which must form the
chief part of an investigation into the psychology of sex. The first
sketches the main outlines of a complex emotional state which is of
fundamental importance in sexual psychology; the second, by bringing
together evidence from widely different regions, suggests a tentative
explanation of facts that are still imperfectly known; the third attempts
to show that even in fields where we assume our knowledge to be adequate a
broader view of the phenomena teaches us to suspend judgment and to adopt
a more cautious attitude. So far as they go, these studies are complete in
themselves; their special use, as an introduction to a more comprehensive
analysis of sexual phenomena, is that they bring before us, under varying
aspects, a characteristic which, though often ignored, is of the first
importance in obtaining a clear understanding of the facts: the tendency
of the sexual impulse to appear in a spontaneous and to some extent
periodic manner, affecting women differently from men. This is a tendency
which, later, I hope to make still more apparent, for it has practical and
social, as well as psychological, implications. Here--and more especially
in the study of those spontaneous solitary manifestations which I call
auto-erotic--I have attempted to clear the ground, and to indicate the
main lines along which the progress of our knowledge in these fields may
best be attained.

It may surprise many medical readers that in the third and longest study I
have said little, save incidentally, either of treatment or prevention.
The omission of such considerations at this stage is intentional. It may
safely be said that in no other field of human activity is so vast an
amount of strenuous didactic morality founded on so slender a basis of
facts. In most other departments of life we at least make a pretence of
learning before we presume to teach; in the field of sex we content
ourselves with the smallest and vaguest minimum of information, often
ostentatiously second-hand, usually unreliable. I wish to emphasize the
fact that before we can safely talk either of curing or preventing these
manifestations we must know a great deal more than we know at present
regarding their distribution, etiology, and symptomatology; and we must
exercise the same coolness and caution as--if our work is to be
fruitful--we require in any other field of serious study. We must approach
these facts as physicians, it is true, but also as psychologists,
primarily concerned to find out the workings of such manifestations in
fairly healthy and normal people. If we found a divorce-court judge
writing a treatise on marriage we should smile. But it is equally absurd
for the physician, so long as his knowledge is confined to disease, to
write regarding sex at large; valuable as the facts he brings forward may
be, he can never be in a position to generalize concerning them. And to
me, at all events, it seems that we have had more than enough pictures of
gross sexual perversity, whether furnished by the asylum or the brothel.
They are only really instructive when they are seen in their proper
perspective as the rare and ultimate extremes of a chain of phenomena
which we may more profitably study nearer home.

Yet, although we are, on every hand, surrounded by the normal
manifestations of sex, conscious or unconscious, these manifestations are
extremely difficult to observe, and, in those cases in which we are best
able to observe them, it frequently happens that we are unable to make any
use of our knowledge. Moreover, even when we have obtained our data, the
difficulties--at all events, for an English investigator--are by no means
overcome. He may take for granted that any serious and precise study of
the sexual instinct will not meet with general approval; his work will be
misunderstood; his motives will be called in question; among those for
whom he is chiefly working he will find indifference. Indeed, the pioneer
in this field may well count himself happy if he meets with nothing worse
than indifference. Hence it is that the present volume will not be
published in England, but that, availing myself of the generous sympathy
with which my work has been received in America, I have sought the wider
medical and scientific audience of the United States. In matters of faith,
"liberty of prophesying" was centuries since eloquently vindicated for
Englishmen; the liberty of investigating facts is still called in
question, under one pretence or another, and to seek out the most vital
facts of life is still in England a perilous task.

I desire most heartily to thank the numerous friends and correspondents,
some living in remote parts of the world, who have freely assisted me in
my work with valuable information and personal histories. To Mr. F.H.
Perry-Coste I owe an appendix which is by far the most elaborate attempt
yet made to find evidence of periodicity in the spontaneous sexual
manifestations of sleep; my debts to various medical and other
correspondents are duly stated in the text. To many women friends and
correspondents I may here express my gratitude for the manner in which
they have furnished me with intimate personal records, and for the
cross-examination to which they have allowed me to subject them. I may
already say here, what I shall have occasion to say more emphatically in
subsequent volumes, that without the assistance I have received from women
of fine intelligence and high character my work would be impossible. I
regret that I cannot make my thanks more specific.

HAVELOCK ELLIS.




CONTENTS.


THE EVOLUTION OF MODESTY.

I.

The Definition of Modesty--The Significance of Modesty--Difficulties in
the Way of Its Analysis--The Varying Phenomena of Modesty Among Different
Peoples and in Different Ages.

II.

Modesty an Agglomeration of Fears--Children in Relation to
Modesty--Modesty in Animals--The Attitude of the Medicean Venus--The
Sexual Factor of Modesty Based on Sexual periodicity and on the Primitive
Phenomena of Courtship--The Necessity of Seclusion in Primitive Sexual
Intercourse--The Meaning of Coquetry--The Sexual Charm of Modesty--Modesty
as an Expression of Feminine Erotic Impulse--The Fear of Causing Disgust
as a Factor of Modesty--The Modesty of Savages in Regard to Eating in the
Presence of Others--The Sacro-Pubic Region as a Focus of Disgust--The Idea
of Ceremonial Uncleanliness--The Custom of Veiling the Face--Ornaments and
Clothing--Modesty Becomes Concentrated in the Garment--The Economic Factor
in Modesty--The Contribution of Civilization to Modesty--The Elaboration
of Social Ritual.

III.

The Blush the Sanction of Modesty--The Phenomena of Blushing--Influences
Which Modify the Aptitude to Blush--Darkness, Concealment of the Face,
Etc.

IV.

Summary of the Factors of Modesty--The Future of Modesty--Modesty an
Essential Element of Love.


THE PHENOMENA OF SEXUAL PERIODICITY.

I.

The Various Physiological and Psychological Rhythms--Menstruation--The
Alleged Influence of the Moon--Frequent Suppression of Menstruation among
Primitive Races--Mittelschmerz--Possible Tendency to a Future
Intermenstrual Cycle--Menstruation among Animals--Menstruating Monkeys and
Apes--What is Menstruation--Its Primary Cause Still Obscure--The Relation
of Menstruation to Ovulation--The Occasional Absence of Menstruation in
Health--The Relation of Menstruation to "Heat"--The Prohibition of
Intercourse during Menstruation--The Predominance of Sexual Excitement at
and around the Menstrual Period--Its Absence during the Period Frequently
Apparent only.

II.

The Question of a Monthly Sexual Cycle in Men--The Earliest Suggestions of
a General Physiological Cycle in Men--Periodicity in Disease--Insanity,
Heart Disease, etc.--The Alleged Twenty-three Days' Cycle--The
Physiological Periodicity of Seminal Emissions during Sleep--Original
Observations--Fortnightly and Weekly Rhythms.

III.

The Annual Sexual Rhythm--In Animals--In Man--Tendency of the Sexual
Impulse to become Heightened in Spring and Autumn--The Prevalence of
Seasonal Erotic Festivals--The Feast of Fools--The Easter and Midsummer
Bonfires--The Seasonal Variations in Birthrate--The Causes of those
Variations--The Typical Conception-rate Curve for Europe--The Seasonal
Periodicity of Seminal Emissions During Sleep--Original
Observations--Spring and Autumn the Chief Periods of Involuntary Sexual
Excitement--The Seasonal Periodicity of Rapes--Of Outbreaks among
Prisoners--The Seasonal Curves of Insanity and Suicide--The Growth of
Children According to Season--The Annual Curve of Bread-consumption in
Prisons--Seasonal Periodicity of Scarlet Fever--The Underlying Causes of
these Seasonal Phenomena.


AUTO-EROTISM: A STUDY OF THE SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS OF THE SEXUAL
IMPULSE.

I.

Definition of Auto-erotism--Masturbation only Covers a Small Portion of
the Auto-erotic Field--The Importance of this Study, especially
To-day--Auto-erotic Phenomena in Animals--Among Savage and Barbaric
Races--The Japanese _rin-no-tama_ and other Special Instruments for
Obtaining Auto-erotic Gratification--Abuse of the Ordinary Implements and
Objects of Daily Life--The Frequency of Hair-pin in the Bladder--The
Influence of Horse-exercise and Railway Traveling--The Sewing-machine and
the Bicycle--Spontaneous Passive Sexual Excitement--_Delectatio
Morosa_--Day-dreaming--_Pollutio_--Sexual Excitement During Sleep--Erotic
Dreams--The Analogy of Nocturnal Enuresis--Differences in the Erotic
Dreams of Men and Women--The Auto-erotic Phenomena of Sleep in the
Hysterical--Their Frequently Painful Character.

II.

Hysteria and the Question of Its Relation to the Sexual Emotions--The
Early Greek Theories of its Nature and Causation--The Gradual Rise of
Modern Views--Charcot--The Revolt Against Charcot's Too Absolute
Conclusions--Fallacies Involved--Charcot's Attitude the Outcome of his
Personal Temperament--Breuer and Freud--Their Views Supplement and
Complete Charcot's--At the Same Time they Furnish a Justification for the
Earlier Doctrine of Hysteria--But They Must Not be Regarded as Final--The
Diffused Hysteroid Condition in Normal Persons--The Physiological Basis of
Hysteria--True Pathological Hysteria is Linked on to almost Normal States,
especially to Sex-hunger.

III.

The Prevalence of Masturbation--Its Occurrence in Infancy and
Childhood--Is it More Frequent in Males or Females?--After Adolescence
Apparently more Frequent in Women--Reasons for the Sexual Distribution of
Masturbation--The Alleged Evils of Masturbation--Historical Sketch of the
Views Held on This Point--The Symptoms and Results of Masturbation--Its
Alleged Influence in Causing Eye Disorders--Its Relation to Insanity and
Nervous Disorders--The Evil Effects of Masturbation Usually Occur on the
Basis of a Congenitally Morbid Nervous System--Neurasthenia Probably the
Commonest Accompaniment of Excessive Masturbation--Precocious Masturbation
Tends to Produce Aversion to Coitus--Psychic Results of Habitual
Masturbation--Masturbation in Men of Genius--Masturbation as a Nervous
Sedative--Typical Cases--The Greek Attitude toward Masturbation--Attitude
of the Catholic Theologians--The Mohammedan Attitude--The Modern
Scientific Attitude--In What Sense is Masturbation Normal?--The Immense
Part in Life Played by Transmuted Auto-erotic Phenomena.


APPENDIX A.

The Influence of Menstruation on the Position of Women.


APPENDIX B.

Sexual Periodicity in Men.


APPENDIX C.

The Auto-erotic Factor in Religion.


INDEX.


DIAGRAMS.




THE EVOLUTION OF MODESTY.

I.

The Definition of Modesty--The Significance of Modesty--Difficulties in
the Way of Its Analysis--The Varying Phenomena of Modesty Among Different
Peoples and in Different Ages.


Modesty, which may be provisionally defined as an almost instinctive fear
prompting to concealment and usually centering around the sexual
processes, while common to both sexes is more peculiarly feminine, so that
it may almost be regarded as the chief secondary sexual character of women
on the psychical side. The woman who is lacking in this kind of fear is
lacking, also, in sexual attractiveness to the normal and average man. The
apparent exceptions seem to prove the rule, for it will generally be found
that the women who are, not immodest (for immodesty is more closely
related to modesty than mere negative absence of the sense of modesty),
but without that fear which implies the presence of a complex emotional
feminine organization to defend, only make a strong sexual appeal to men
who are themselves lacking in the complementary masculine qualities. As a
psychical secondary sexual character of the first rank, it is necessary,
before any psychology of sex can be arranged in order, to obtain a clear
view of modesty.

    The immense importance of feminine modesty in creating masculine
    passion must be fairly obvious. I may, however, quote the
    observations of two writers who have shown evidence of insight
    and knowledge regarding this matter.

    Casanova describes how, when at Berne, he went to the baths, and
    was, according to custom, attended by a young girl, whom he
    selected from a group of bath attendants. She undressed him,
    proceeded to undress herself, and then entered the bath with him,
    and rubbed him thoroughly all over, the operation being performed
    in the most serious manner and without a word being spoken. When
    all was over, however, he perceived that the girl had expected
    him to make advances, and he proceeds to describe and discuss his
    own feelings of indifference under such circumstances. "Though
    without gazing on the girl's figure, I had seen enough to
    recognize that she had all that a man can desire to find in a
    woman: a beautiful face, lively and well-formed eyes, a beautiful
    mouth, with good teeth, a healthy complexion, well-developed
    breasts, and everything in harmony. It is true that I had felt
    that her hands could have been smoother, but I could only
    attribute this to hard work; moreover, my Swiss girl was only
    eighteen, and yet I remained entirely cold. What was the cause of
    this? That was the question that I asked myself."

    "It is clear," wrote Stendhal, "that three parts of modesty are
    taught. This is, perhaps, the only law born of civilization which
    produces nothing but happiness. It has been observed that birds
    of prey hide themselves to drink, because, being obliged to
    plunge their heads in the water, they are at that moment
    defenceless. After having considered what passes at Otaheite, I
    can see no other natural foundation for modesty. Love is the
    miracle of civilization. Among savage and very barbarous races we
    find nothing but physical love of a gross character. It is
    modesty that gives to love the aid of imagination, and in so
    doing imparts life to it. Modesty is very early taught to little
    girls by their mothers, and with extreme jealousy, one might say,
    by _esprit de corps_. They are watching in advance over the
    happiness of the future lover. To a timid and tender woman there
    ought to be no greater torture than to allow herself in the
    presence of a man something which she thinks she ought to blush
    at. I am convinced that a proud woman would prefer a thousand
    deaths. A slight liberty taken on the tender side by the man she
    loves gives a woman a moment of keen pleasure, but if he has the
    air of blaming her for it, or only of not enjoying it with
    transport, an awful doubt must be left in her mind. For a woman
    above the vulgar level there is, then, everything to gain by very
    reserved manners. The play is not equal. She hazards against a
    slight pleasure, or against the advantage of appearing a little
    amiable, the danger of biting remorse, and a feeling of shame
    which must render even the lover less dear. An evening passed
    gaily and thoughtlessly, without thinking of what comes after, is
    dearly paid at this price. The sight of a lover with whom one
    fears that one has had this kind of wrong must become odious for
    several days. Can one be surprised at the force of a habit, the
    slightest infractions of which are punished with such atrocious
    shame? As to the utility of modesty, it is the mother of love. As
    to the mechanism of the feeling, nothing is simpler. The mind is
    absorbed in feeling shame instead of being occupied with desire.
    Desires are forbidden, and desires lead to actions. It is evident
    that every tender and proud woman--and these two things, being
    cause and effect, naturally go together--must contract habits of
    coldness which the people whom she disconcerts call prudery. The
    power of modesty is so great that a tender woman betrays herself
    with her lover rather by deeds than by words. The evil of
    modesty is that it constantly leads to falsehood." (Stendhal, _De
    l'Amour_, Chapter XXIV.)

    It thus happens that, as Adler remarks (_Die Mangelhafte
    Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, p. 133), the sexual impulse in
    women is fettered by an inhibition which has to be conquered. A
    thin veil of reticence, shyness, and anxiety is constantly cast
    anew over a woman's love, and her wooer, in every act of
    courtship, has the enjoyment of conquering afresh an oft-won
    woman.

    An interesting testimony to the part played by modesty in
    effecting the union of the sexes is furnished by the fact--to
    which attention has often been called--that the special modesty
    of women usually tends to diminish, though not to disappear, with
    the complete gratification of the sexual impulses. This may be
    noted among savage as well as among civilized women. The
    comparatively evanescent character of modesty has led to the
    argument (Venturi, _Degenerazioni Psico-sessuali_, pp. 92-93)
    that modesty (_pudore_) is possessed by women alone, men
    exhibiting, instead, a sense of decency which remains at about
    the same level of persistency throughout life. Viazzi ("Pudore
    nell 'uomo e nella donna," _Rivista Mensile di Psichiatria
    Forense_, 1898), on the contrary, following Sergi, argues that
    men are, throughout, more modest than women; but the points he
    brings forward, though often just, scarcely justify his
    conclusion. While the young virgin, however, is more modest and
    shy than the young man of the same age, the experienced married
    woman is usually less so than her husband, and in a woman who is
    a mother the shy reticences of virginal modesty would be rightly
    felt to be ridiculous. ("Les petites pudeurs n'existent pas pour
    les mères," remarks Goncourt, _Journal des Goncourt_, vol. iii,
    p. 5.) She has put off a sexual livery that has no longer any
    important part to play in life, and would, indeed, be
    inconvenient and harmful, just as a bird loses its sexual plumage
    when the pairing season is over.

    Madame Céline Renooz, in an elaborate study of the psychological
    sexual differences between men and women (_Psychologie Comparée
    de l'Homme et de la Femme_, 1898, pp. 85-87), also believes that
    modesty is not really a feminine characteristic. "Modesty," she
    argues, "is masculine shame attributed to women for two reasons:
    first, because man believes that woman is subject to the same
    laws as himself; secondly, because the course of human evolution
    has reversed the psychology of the sexes, attributing to women
    the psychological results of masculine sexuality. This is the
    origin of the conventional lies which by a sort of social
    suggestion have intimidated women. They have, in appearance at
    least, accepted the rule of shame imposed on them by men, but
    only custom inspires the modesty for which they are praised; it
    is really an outrage to their sex. This reversal of psychological
    laws has, however, only been accepted by women with a struggle.
    Primitive woman, proud of her womanhood, for a long time
    defended her nakedness which ancient art has always represented.
    And in the actual life of the young girl to-day there is a moment
    when, by a secret atavism, she feels the pride of her sex, the
    intuition of her moral superiority, and cannot understand why she
    must hide its cause. At this moment, wavering between the laws of
    Nature and social conventions, she scarcely knows if nakedness
    should or should not affright her. A sort of confused atavistic
    memory recalls to her a period before clothing was known, and
    reveals to her as a paradisaical ideal the customs of that human
    epoch."

    In support of this view the authoress proceeds to point out that
    the _décolleté_ constantly reappears in feminine clothing, never
    in male; that missionaries experience great difficulty in
    persuading women to cover themselves; that, while women accept
    with facility an examination by male doctors, men cannot force
    themselves to accept examination by a woman doctor, etc. (These
    and similar points had already been independently brought forward
    by Sergi, _Archivio di Psichiatria_, vol. xiii, 1892.)

    It cannot be said that Madame Renooz's arguments will all bear
    examination, if only on the ground that nakedness by no means
    involves absence of modesty, but the point of view which she
    expresses is one which usually fails to gain recognition, though
    it probably contains an important element of truth. It is quite
    true, as Stendhal said, that modesty is very largely taught; from
    the earliest years, a girl child is trained to show a modesty
    which she quickly begins really to feel. This fact cannot fail to
    strike any one who reads the histories of pseudo-hermaphroditic
    persons, really males, who have from infancy been brought up in
    the belief that they are girls, and who show, and feel, all the
    shrinking reticence and blushing modesty of their supposed sex.
    But when the error is discovered, and they are restored to their
    proper sex, this is quickly changed, and they exhibit all the
    boldness of masculinity. (See e.g., Neugebauer, "Beobachtungen
    aus dem Gebiete des Scheinzwittertumes," _Jahrbuch für Sexuelle
    Zwischenstufen_, Jahrgang iv, 1902, esp. p. 92.) At the same time
    this is only one thread in the tangled skein with which we are
    here concerned. The mass of facts which meets us when we turn to
    the study of modesty in women cannot be dismissed as a group of
    artificially-imposed customs. They gain rather than lose in
    importance if we have to realize that the organic sexual demands
    of women, calling for coyness in courtship, lead to the temporary
    suppression of another feminine instinct of opposite, though
    doubtless allied, nature.

    But these somewhat conflicting, though not really contradictory,
    statements serve to bring out the fact that a woman's modesty is
    often an incalculable element. The woman who, under some
    circumstances and at some times, is extreme in her reticences,
    under other circumstances or at other times, may be extreme in
    her abandonment. Not that her modesty is an artificial garment,
    which she throws off or on at will. It is organic, but like the
    snail's shell, it sometimes forms an impenetrable covering, and
    sometimes glides off almost altogether. A man's modesty is more
    rigid, with little tendency to deviate toward either extreme.
    Thus it is, that, when uninstructed, a man is apt to be impatient
    with a woman's reticences, and yet shocked at her abandonments.

The significance of our inquiry becomes greater when we reflect that to
the reticences of sexual modesty, in their progression, expansion, and
complication, we largely owe, not only the refinement and development of
the sexual emotions,--"_la pudeur_" as Guyau remarked, "_a civilisé
l'amour_"--but the subtle and pervading part which the sexual instinct has
played in the evolution of all human culture.

    "It is certain that very much of what is best in religion, art,
    and life," remark Stanley Hall and Allin, "owes its charm to the
    progressively-widening irradiation of sexual feeling. Perhaps the
    reluctance of the female first long-circuited the exquisite
    sensations connected with sexual organs and acts to the antics of
    animal and human courtship, while restraint had the physiological
    function of developing the colors, plumes, excessive activity,
    and exuberant life of the pairing season. To keep certain parts
    of the body covered, irradiated the sense of beauty to eyes,
    hair, face, complexion, dress, form, etc., while many savage
    dances, costumes and postures are irradiations of the sexual act.
    Thus reticence, concealment, and restraint are among the prime
    conditions of religion and human culture." (Stanley Hall and
    Allin, "The Psychology of Tickling," _American Journal of
    Psychology_, 1897, p. 31.)

    Groos attributes the deepening of the conjugal relation among
    birds to the circumstance that the male seeks to overcome the
    reticence of the female by the display of his charms and
    abilities. "And in the human world," he continues, "it is the
    same; without the modest reserve of the woman that must, in most
    cases, be overcome by lovable qualities, the sexual relationship
    would with difficulty find a singer who would extol in love the
    highest movements of the human soul." (Groos, _Spiele der
    Menschen_, p. 341.)

I have not, however, been, able to find that the subject of modesty has
been treated in any comprehensive way by psychologists. Though valuable
facts and suggestions bearing on the sexual emotions, on disgust, the
origins of tatooing, on ornament and clothing, have been, brought forward
by physiologists, psychologists, and ethnographists, few or no attempts
appear to have been made to reach a general synthetic statement of these
facts and suggestions. It is true that a great many unreliable, slight, or
fragmentary efforts have been made to ascertain the constitution or basis
of this emotion.[1] Many psychologists have regarded modesty simply as the
result of clothing. This view is overturned by the well-ascertained fact
that many races which go absolutely naked possess a highly-developed sense
of modesty. These writers have not realized that physiological modesty is
earlier in appearance, and more fundamental, than anatomical modesty. A
partial contribution to the analysis of modesty has been made by Professor
James, who, with his usual insight and lucidity, has set forth certain of
its characteristics, especially the element due to "the application to
ourselves of judgments primarily passed upon our mates." Guyau, in a very
brief discussion of modesty, realized its great significance and touched
on most of its chief elements.[2] Westermarck, again, followed by Grosse,
has very ably and convincingly set forth certain factors in the origin of
ornament and clothing, a subject which many writers imagine to cover the
whole field of modesty. More recently Ribot, in his work on the emotions,
has vaguely outlined most of the factors of modesty, but has not developed
a coherent view of their origins and relationships.

    Since the present _Study_ first appeared, Hohenemser, who
    considers that my analysis of modesty is unsatisfactory, has made
    a notable attempt to define the psychological mechanism of shame.
    ("Versuch einer Analyse der Scham," _Archiv für die Gesamte
    Psychologie_, Bd. II, Heft 2-3, 1903.) He regards shame as a
    general psycho-physical phenomenon, "a definite tension of the
    whole soul," with an emotion superadded. "The state of shame
    consists in a certain psychic lameness or inhibition," sometimes
    accompanied by physical phenomena of paralysis, such as sinking
    of the head and inability to meet the eye. It is a special case
    of Lipps's psychic stasis or damming up (_psychische Stauung_),
    always produced when the psychic activities are at the same time
    drawn in two or more different directions. In shame there is
    always something present in consciousness which conflicts with
    the rest of the personality, and cannot be brought into harmony
    with it, which cannot be brought, that is, into moral (not
    logical) relationship with it. A young man in love with a girl is
    ashamed when told that he is in love, because his reverence for
    one whom he regards as a higher being cannot be brought into
    relationship with his own lower personality. A child in the same
    way feels shame in approaching a big, grown-up person, who seems
    a higher sort of being. Sometimes, likewise, we feel shame in
    approaching a stranger, for a new person tends to seem higher and
    more interesting than ourselves. It is not so in approaching a
    new natural phenomenon, because we do not compare it with
    ourselves. Another kind of shame is seen when this mental contest
    is lower than our personality, and on this account in conflict
    with it, as when we are ashamed of sexual thoughts. Sexual ideas
    tend to evoke shame, Hohenemser remarks, because they so easily
    tend to pass into sexual feelings; when they do not so pass (as
    in scientific discussions) they do not evoke shame.

    It will be seen that this discussion of modesty is highly
    generalized and abstracted; it deals simply with the formal
    mechanism of the process. Hohenemser admits that fear is a form
    of psychic stasis, and I have sought to show that modesty is a
    complexus of fears. We may very well accept the conception of
    psychic stasis at the outset. The analysis of modesty has still
    to be carried very much further.

The discussion of modesty is complicated by the difficulty, and even
impossibility, of excluding closely-allied emotions--shame, shyness,
bashfulness, timidity, etc.--all of which, indeed, however defined, adjoin
or overlap modesty.[3] It is not, however, impossible to isolate the main
body of the emotion of modesty, on account of its special connection, on
the whole, with the consciousness of sex. I here attempt, however
imperfectly, to sketch out a fairly-complete analysis of its constitution
and to trace its development.

    In entering upon this investigation a few facts with regard to
    the various manifestations of modesty may be helpful to us. I
    have selected these from scattered original sources, and have
    sought to bring out the variety and complexity of the problems
    with which we are here concerned.

    The New Georgians of the Solomon Islands, so low a race that they
    are ignorant both of pottery and weaving, and wear only a loin
    cloth, "have the same ideas of what is decent with regard to
    certain acts and exposures that we ourselves have;" so that it is
    difficult to observe whether they practice circumcision.
    (Somerville, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1897, p.
    394.)

    In the New Hebrides "the closest secrecy is adopted with regard
    to the penis, not at all from a sense of decency, but to avoid
    Narak, the _sight_ even of that of another man being considered
    most dangerous. The natives of this savage island, accordingly,
    wrap the penis around with many yards of calico, and other like
    materials, winding and folding them until a preposterous bundle
    18 inches, or 2 feet long, and 2 inches or more in diameter is
    formed, which is then supported upward by means of a belt, in the
    extremity decorated with flowering grasses, etc. The testicles
    are left naked." There is no other body covering. (Somerville,
    _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1894, p. 368.)

    In the Pelew Islands, says Kubary, as quoted by Bastian, it is
    said that when the God Irakaderugel and his wife were creating
    man and woman (he forming man and she forming woman), and were at
    work on the sexual organs, the god wished to see his consort's
    handiwork. She, however, was cross, and persisted in concealing
    what she had made. Ever since then women wear an apron of
    pandanus-leaves and men go naked. (A. Bastian, _Inselgruppen in
    Oceanien_, p. 112.)

    In the Pelew Islands, Semper tells us that when approaching a
    large water-hole he was surprised to hear an affrighted,
    long-drawn cry from his native friends. "A girl's voice answered
    out of the bushes, and my people held us back, for there were
    women bathing there who would not allow us to pass. When I
    remarked that they were only women, of whom they need not be
    afraid, they replied that it was not so, that women had an
    unbounded right to punish men who passed them when bathing
    without their permission, and could inflict fines or even death.
    On this account, the women's bathing place is a safe and favorite
    spot for a secret rendezvous. Fortunately a lady's toilet lasts
    but a short time in this island." (Carl Semper, _Die
    Palau-Inseln_, 1873, p. 68.)

    Among the Western Tribes of Torres Strait, Haddon states, "the
    men were formerly nude, and the women wore only a leaf petticoat,
    but I gather that they were a decent people; now both sexes are
    prudish. A man would never go nude before me. The women would
    never voluntarily expose their breasts to white men's gaze; this
    applies to quite young girls, less so to old women. Amongst
    themselves they are, of course, much less particular, but I
    believe they are becoming more so.... Formerly, I imagine, there
    was no restraint in speech; now there is a great deal of prudery;
    for instance, the men were always much ashamed when I asked for
    the name of the sexual parts of a woman." (A.C. Haddon,
    "Ethnography of the Western Tribes of Torres Straits," _Journal
    of the Anthropological Institute_, 1890, p. 336.) After a
    subsequent expedition to the same region, the author reiterates
    his observations as to the "ridiculously prudish manner" of the
    men, attributable to missionary influence during the past thirty
    years, and notes that even the children are affected by it. "At
    Mabuiag, some small children were paddling in the water, and a
    boy of about ten years of age reprimanded a little girl of five
    or six years because she held up her dress too high." (_Reports
    of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_,
    vol. v, p. 272.)

    "Although the women of New Guinea," Vahness says, "are very
    slightly clothed, they are by no means lacking in a
    well-developed sense of decorum. If they notice, for instance,
    that any one is paying special attention to their nakedness, they
    become ashamed and turn round." When a woman had to climb the
    fence to enter the wild-pig enclosure, she would never do it in
    Vahness's presence. (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, Verhdlgen.,
    1900, Heft 5, p. 415.)

    In Australia "the feeling of decency is decidedly less prevalent
    among males than females;" the clothed females retire out of
    sight to bathe. (Curr, _Australian Race_.)

    "Except for waist-bands, forehead-bands, necklets, and armlets,
    and a conventional pubic tassel, shell, or, in the case of the
    women, a small apron, the Central Australian native is naked. The
    pubic tassel is a diminutive structure, about the size of a
    five-shilling piece, made of a few short strands of fur-strings
    flattened out into a fan-shape and attached to the pubic hair. As
    the string, especially at _corrobboree_ times, is covered with
    white kaolin or gypsum, it serves as a decoration rather than a
    covering. Among the Arunta and Luritcha the women usually wear
    nothing, but further north, a small apron is made and worn."
    (Baldwin Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central
    Australia_, p. 572.)

    Of the Central Australians Stirling says: "No sense of shame of
    exposure was exhibited by the men on removal of the diminutive
    articles worn as conventional coverings; they were taken off
    _coram populo_, and bartered without hesitation. On the other
    hand, some little persuasion was necessary to allow inspection of
    the effect of [urethral] sub-incision, assent being given only
    after dismissal to a distance of the women and young children. As
    to the women, it was nearly always observed that when in camp
    without clothing they, especially the younger ones, exhibited by
    their attitude a keen sense of modesty, if, indeed, a
    consciousness of their nakedness can be thus considered. When we
    desired to take a photograph of a group of young women, they were
    very coy at the proposal to remove their scanty garments, and
    retired behind a wall to do so; but once in a state of nudity
    they made no objection to exposure to the camera." (_Report of
    the Horn Scientific Expedition_, 1896, vol. iv, p. 37.)

    In Northern Queensland "phallocrypts," or "penis-concealers,"
    only used by the males at _corrobborees_ and other public
    rejoicings, are either formed of pearl-shell or opossum-string.
    The _koom-pa-ra_, or opossum-string form of phallocrypt, forms a
    kind of tassel, and is colored red; it is hung from the
    waist-belt in the middle line. In both sexes the privates are
    only covered on special public occasions, or when in close
    proximity to white settlements. (W. Roth, _Ethnological Studies
    among the Northwest-Central-Queensland Aborigines_, 1897, pp.
    114-115.)

    "The principle of chastity," said Forster, of his experiences in
    the South Sea Islands in their unspoilt state, "we found in many
    families exceedingly well understood. I have seen many fine women
    who, with a modesty mixed with politeness, refuse the greatest
    and most tempting offers made them by our forward youths; often
    they excuse themselves with a simple _tirra-tano_, 'I am
    married,' and at other times they smiled and declined it with
    _epia_, 'no.' ... Virtuous women hear a joke without emotion,
    which, amongst us, might put some men to the blush. Neither
    austerity and anger, nor joy and ecstasy is the consequence, but
    sometimes a modest, dignified, serene smile spreads itself over
    their face, and seems gently to rebuke the uncouth jester." (J.R.
    Forster, _Observations made During a Voyage Round the World_,
    1728, p. 392.)

    Captain Cook, at Tahiti, in 1769, after performing Divine service
    on Sunday, witnessed "Vespers of a very different kind. A young
    man, near six feet high, performed the rites of Venus with a
    little girl about eleven or twelve years of age, before several
    of our people and a great number of the natives, without the
    least sense of its being indecent or improper, but, as it
    appeared, in perfect conformity to the custom of the place. Among
    the spectators were several women of superior rank, who may
    properly be said to have assisted at the ceremony; for they gave
    instructions to the girl how to perform her part, which, young as
    she was, she did not seem much to stand in need of." (J.
    Hawkesworth, _Account of the Voyages_, etc., 1775, vol. i, p.
    469.)

    At Tahiti, according to Cook, it was customary to "gratify every
    appetite and passion before witnesses," and it is added, "in the
    conversation of these people, that which is the principal source
    of their pleasure is always the principal topic; everything is
    mentioned without any restraint or emotion, and in the most
    direct terms, by both sexes." (Hawkesworth, op. cit., vol ii, p.
    45.)

    "I have observed," Captain Cook wrote, "that our friends in the
    South Seas have not even the idea of indecency, with respect to
    any object or any action, but this was by no means the case with
    the inhabitants of New Zealand, in whose carriage and
    conversation there was as much modest reserve and decorum with
    respect to actions, which yet in their opinion were not criminal,
    as are to be found among the politest people in Europe. The women
    were not impregnable; but the terms and manner of compliance were
    as decent as those in marriage among us, and according to their
    notions, the agreement was as innocent. When any of our people
    made an overture to any of their young women, he was given to
    understand that the consent of her friends was necessary, and by
    the influence of a proper present it was generally obtained; but
    when these preliminaries were settled, it was also necessary to
    treat the wife for a night with the same delicacy that is here
    required by the wife for life, and the lover who presumed to take
    any liberties by which this was violated, was sure to be
    disappointed." (Hawkesworth, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 254.)

    Cook found that the people of New Zealand "bring the prepuce over
    the gland, and to prevent it from being drawn back by contraction
    of the part, they tie the string which hangs from the girdle
    round the end of it. The glans, indeed, seemed to be the only
    part of their body which they were solicitous to conceal, for
    they frequently threw off all their dress but the belt and
    string, with the most careless indifference, but showed manifest
    signs of confusion when, to gratify our curiosity, they were
    requested to untie the string, and never consented but with the
    utmost reluctance and shame.... The women's lower garment was
    always bound fast round them, except when they went into the
    water to catch lobsters, and then they took great care not to be
    seen by the men. We surprised several of them at this employment,
    and the chaste Diana, with her nymphs, could not have discovered
    more confusion and distress at the sight of Actæon, than these
    women expressed upon our approach. Some of them hid themselves
    among the rocks, and the rest crouched down in the sea till they
    had made themselves a girdle and apron of such weeds as they
    could find, and when they came out, even with this veil, we could
    see that their modesty suffered much pain by our presence."
    (Hawkesworth, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 257-258.)

    In Rotuma, in Polynesia, where the women enjoy much freedom, but
    where, at all events in old days, married people were, as a rule,
    faithful to each other, "the language is not chaste according to
    our ideas, and there is a great deal of freedom in speaking of
    immoral vices. In this connection a man and his wife will speak
    freely to one another before their friends. I am informed,
    though, by European traders well conversant with the language,
    that there are grades of language, and that certain coarse
    phrases would never be used to any decent woman; so that
    probably, in their way, they have much modesty, only we cannot
    appreciate it." (J. Stanley Gardiner, "The Natives of Rotuma,"
    _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, May, 1898, p. 481.)

    The men of Rotuma, says the same writer, are very clean, the
    women also, bathing twice a day in the sea; but "bathing in
    public without the _kukuluga_, or _sulu_ [loin-cloth, which is
    the ordinary dress], around the waist is absolutely unheard of,
    and would be much looked down upon." (_Journal of the
    Anthropological Institute_, 1898, p. 410.)

    In ancient Samoa the only necessary garment for either man or
    woman was an apron of leaves, but they possessed so "delicate a
    sense of propriety" that even "while bathing they have a girdle
    of leaves or some other covering around the waist." (Turner,
    _Samoa a Hundred Years Ago_, p. 121.)

    After babyhood the Indians of Guiana are never seen naked. When
    they change their single garment they retire. The women wear a
    little apron, now generally made of European beads, but the
    Warraus still make it of the inner bark of a tree, and some of
    seeds. (Everard im Thurn, _Among the Indians of Guiana_, 1883.)

    The Mandurucu women of Brazil, according to Tocantins (quoted by
    Mantegazza), are completely naked, but they are careful to avoid
    any postures which might be considered indecorous, and they do
    this so skilfully that it is impossible to tell when they have
    their menstrual periods. (Mantegazza, _Fisiologia della Donna_,
    cap 9.)

    The Indians of Central Brazil have no "private parts." In men the
    little girdle, or string, surrounding the lower part of the
    abdomen, hides nothing; it is worn after puberty, the penis being
    often raised and placed beneath it to lengthen the prepuce. The
    women also use a little strip of bast that goes down the groin
    and passes between the thighs. Among some tribes (Karibs, Tupis,
    Nu-Arwaks) a little, triangular, coquettishly-made piece of
    bark-bast comes just below the mons veneris; it is only a few
    centimetres in width, and is called the _uluri. In both sexes
    concealment of the sexual mucous membrane is attained_. These
    articles cannot be called clothing. "The red thread of the
    Trumai, the elegant _uluri_, and the variegated flag of the
    Bororó attract attention, like ornaments, instead of drawing
    attention away." Von den Steinen thinks this proceeding a
    necessary protection against the attacks of insects, which are
    often serious in Brazil. He does think, however, that there is
    more than this, and that the people are ashamed to show the
    glans penis. (Karl von den Steinen, _Unter den Naturvölkern
    Zentral-Brasiliens_, 1894, pp. 190 et seq.)

    Other travelers mention that on the Amazon among some tribes the
    women are clothed and the men naked; among others the women
    naked, and the men clothed. Thus, among the Guaycurus the men are
    quite naked, while the women wear a short petticoat; among the
    Uaupás the men always wear a loin-cloth, while the women are
    quite naked.

    "The feeling of modesty is very developed among the Fuegians, who
    are accustomed to live naked. They manifest it in their bearing
    and in the ease with which they show themselves in a state of
    nudity, compared with the awkwardness, blushing, and shame which
    both men and women exhibit if one gazes at certain parts of their
    bodies. Among themselves this is never done even between husband
    and wife. There is no Fuegian word for modesty, perhaps because
    the feeling is universal among them." The women wear a minute
    triangular garment of skin suspended between the thighs and never
    removed, being merely raised during conjugal relations. (Hyades
    and Deniker, _Mission Scientifique du Cap Horn_, vol. vii, pp.
    239, 307, and 347.)

    Among the Crow Indians of Montana, writes Dr. Holder, who has
    lived with them for several years, "a sense of modesty forbids
    the attendance upon the female in labor of any male, white man or
    Indian, physician or layman. This antipathy to receiving
    assistance at the hands of the physician is overcome as the
    tribes progress toward civilization, and it is especially
    noticeable that half-breeds almost constantly seek the
    physician's aid." Dr. Holder mentions the case of a young woman
    who, although brought near the verge of death in a very difficult
    first confinement, repeatedly refused to allow him to examine
    her; at last she consented; "her modest preparation was to take
    bits of quilt and cover thighs and lips of vulva, leaving only
    the aperture exposed.... Their modesty would not be so striking
    were it not that, almost to a woman, the females of this tribe
    are prostitutes, and for a consideration will admit the
    connection of any man." (A.B. Holder, _American Journal of
    Obstetrics_, vol. xxv, No. 6, 1892.)

    "In every North American tribe, from the most northern to the
    most southern, the skirt of the woman is longer than that of the
    men. In Esquimau land the _parka_ of deerskin and sealskin
    reaches to the knees. Throughout Central North America the
    buckskin dress of the women reached quite to the ankles. The
    West-Coast women, from Oregon to the Gulf of California, wore a
    petticoat of shredded bark, of plaited grass, or of strings, upon
    which were strung hundreds of seeds. Even in the most tropical
    areas the rule was universal, as anyone can see from the codices
    or in pictures of the natives." (Otis T. Mason, _Woman's Share in
    Primitive Culture_, p. 237.)

    Describing the loin-cloth worn by Nicobarese men, Man says: "From
    the clumsy mode in which this garment is worn by the Shom
    Pen--necessitating frequent readjustment of the folds--one is led
    to infer that its use is not _de rigueur_, but reserved for
    special occasions, as when receiving or visiting strangers."
    (E.H. Man, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1886, p.
    442.)

    The semi-nude natives of the island of Nias in the Indian Ocean
    are "modest by nature," paying no attention to their own nudity
    or that of others, and much scandalized by any attempt to go
    beyond the limits ordained by custom. When they pass near places
    where women are bathing they raise their voices in order to warn
    them of their presence, and even although any bold youth
    addressed the women, and the latter replied, no attempt would be
    made to approach them; any such attempt would be severely
    punished by the head man of the village. (Modigliani, _Un Viaggio
    a Nias_, p. 460.)

    Man says that the Andamanese in modesty and self-respect compare
    favorably with many classes among civilized peoples. "Women are
    so modest that they will not renew their leaf-aprons in the
    presence of one another, but retire to a secluded spot for this
    purpose; even when parting with one of their _bod_ appendages
    [tails of leaves suspended from back of girdle] to a female
    friend, the delicacy they manifest for the feelings of the
    bystanders in their mode of removing it amounts to prudishness;
    yet they wear no clothing in the ordinary sense." (_Journal of
    the Anthropological Institute_, 1883, pp. 94 and 331.)

    Of the Garo women of Bengal Dalton says: "Their sole garment is a
    piece of cloth less than a foot in width that just meets around
    the loins, and in order that it may not restrain the limbs it is
    only fastened where it meets under the hip at the upper corners.
    The girls are thus greatly restricted in the positions they may
    modestly assume, but decorum is, in their opinion, sufficiently
    preserved if they only keep their legs well together when they
    sit or kneel." (E.T. Dalton, _Ethnology of Bengal_, 1872, p. 66.)

    Of the Naga women of Assam it is said: "Of clothing there was not
    much to see; but in spite of this I doubt whether we could excel
    them in true decency and modesty. Ibn Muhammed Wali had already
    remarked in his history of the conquest of Assam (1662-63), that
    the Naga women only cover their breasts. They declare that it is
    absurd to cover those parts of the body which everyone has been
    able to see from their births, but that it is different with the
    breasts, which appeared later, and are, therefore, to be covered.
    Dalton (_Journal of the Asiatic Society_, Bengal, 41, 1, 84) adds
    that in the presence of strangers Naga women simply cross their
    arms over their breasts, without caring much what other charms
    they may reveal to the observer. As regards some clans of the
    naked Nagas, to whom the Banpara belong, this may still hold
    good." (K. Klemm, "Peal's Ausflug nach Banpara," _Zeitschrift für
    Ethnologie_, 1898, Heft 5, p. 334.)

    "In Ceylon, a woman always bathes in public streams, but she
    never removes all her clothes. She washes under the cloth, bit by
    bit, and then slips on the dry, new cloth, and pulls out the wet
    one from underneath (much in the same sliding way as servant
    girls and young women in England). This is the common custom in
    India and the Malay States. The breasts are always bare in their
    own houses, but in the public roads are covered whenever a
    European passes. The vulva is never exposed. They say that a
    devil, imagined as a white and hairy being, might have
    intercourse with them." (Private communication.)

    In Borneo, "the _sirat_, called _chawal_ by the Malays, is a
    strip of cloth a yard wide, worn round the loins and in between
    the thighs, so as to cover the pudenda and perinæum; it is
    generally six yards or so in length, but the younger men of the
    present generation use as much as twelve or fourteen yards
    (sometimes even more), which they twist and coil with great
    precision round and round their body, until the waist and stomach
    are fully enveloped in its folds." (H. Ling Roth, "Low's Natives
    of Borneo," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1892, p.
    36.)

    "In their own houses in the depths of the forest the Dwarfs are
    said to neglect coverings for decency in the men as in the women,
    but certainly when they emerge from the forest into the villages
    of the agricultural Negroes, they are always observed to be
    wearing some small piece of bark-cloth or skin, or a bunch of
    leaves over the pudenda. Elsewhere in all the regions of Africa
    visited by the writer, or described by other observers, a neglect
    of decency in the male has only been recorded among the Efik
    people of Old Calabar. The nudity of women is another question.
    In parts of West Africa, between the Niger and the Gaboon
    (especially on the Cameroon River, at Old Calabar, and in the
    Niger Delta), it is, or was, customary for young women to go
    about completely nude before they were married. In Swaziland,
    until quite recently, unmarried women and very often matrons went
    stark naked. Even amongst the prudish Baganda, who made it a
    punishable offense for a man to expose any part of his leg above
    the knee, the wives of the King would attend at his Court
    perfectly naked. Among the Kavirondo, all unmarried girls are
    completely nude, and although women who have become mothers are
    supposed to wear a tiny covering before and behind, they very
    often completely neglect to do so when in their own villages.
    Yet, as a general rule, among the Nile Negroes, and still more
    markedly among the Hamites and people of Masai stock, the women
    are particular about concealing the pudenda, whereas the men are
    ostentatiously naked. The Baganda hold nudity in the male to be
    such an abhorrent thing that for centuries they have referred
    with scorn and disgust to the Nile Negroes as the 'naked people.'
    Male nudity extends northwest to within some 200 miles of
    Khartum, or, in fact, wherever the Nile Negroes of the
    Dinka-Acholi stock inhabit the country." (Sir H.H. Johnston,
    _Uganda Protectorate_, vol. ii, pp. 669-672.)

    Among the Nilotic Ja-luo, Johnston states that "unmarried men go
    naked. Married men who have children wear a small piece of goat
    skin, which, though quite inadequate for purposes of decency, is,
    nevertheless, a very important thing in etiquette, for a married
    man with a child must on no account call on his mother-in-law
    without wearing this piece of goat's skin. To call on her in a
    state of absolute nudity would be regarded as a serious insult,
    only to be atoned for by the payment of goats. Even if under the
    new dispensation he wears European trousers, he must have a piece
    of goat's skin underneath. Married women wear a tail of strings
    behind." It is very bad manners for a woman to serve food to her
    husband without putting on this tail. (Sir H.H. Johnston, _Uganda
    Protectorate_, vol. ii, p. 781.)

    Mrs. French-Sheldon remarks that the Masai and other East African
    tribes, with regard to menstruation, "observe the greatest
    delicacy, and are more than modest." (_Journal of the
    Anthropological Institute_, 1894, p. 383.)

    At the same time the Masai, among whom the penis is of enormous
    size, consider it disreputable to conceal that member, and in the
    highest degree reputable to display it, even ostentatiously. (Sir
    H.H. Johnston, _Kilima-njaro Expedition_, p. 413.)

    Among the African Dinka, who are scrupulously clean and delicate
    (smearing themselves with burnt cows' dung, and washing
    themselves daily with cows' urine), and are exquisite cooks,
    reaching in many respects a higher stage of civilization, in
    Schweinfurth's opinion, than is elsewhere attained in Africa,
    only the women wear aprons. The neighboring tribes of the red
    soil--Bongo, Mittoo, Niam-Niam, etc.--are called "women" by the
    Dinka, because among these tribes the men wear an apron, while
    the women obstinately refuse to wear any clothes whatsoever of
    skin or stuff, going into the woods every day, however, to get a
    supple bough for a girdle, with, perhaps, a bundle of fine grass.
    (Schweinfurth, _Heart of Africa_, vol. i, pp. 152, etc.)

    Lombroso and Carrara, examining some Dinka negroes brought from
    the White Nile, remark: "As to their psychology, what struck us
    first was the exaggeration of their modesty; not in a single case
    would the men allow us to examine their genital organs or the
    women their breasts; we examined the tattoo-marks on the chest of
    one of the women, and she remained sad and irritable for two days
    afterward." They add that in sexual and all other respects these
    people are highly moral. (Lombroso and Carrara, _Archivio di
    Psichiatria_, 1896, vol. xvii, fasc. 4.)

    "The negro is very rarely knowingly indecent or addicted to
    lubricity," says Sir H.H. Johnston. "In this land of nudity,
    which I have known for seven years, I do not remember once having
    seen an indecent gesture on the part of either man or woman, and
    only very rarely (and that not among unspoiled savages) in the
    case of that most shameless member of the community--the little
    boy." He adds that the native dances are only an apparent
    exception, being serious in character, though indecent to our
    eyes, almost constituting a religious ceremony. The only really
    indecent dance indigenous to Central Africa "is one which
    originally represented the act of coition, but it is so altered
    to a stereotyped formula that its exact purport is not obvious
    until explained somewhat shyly by the natives.... It may safely
    be asserted that the negro race in Central Africa is much more
    truly modest, is much more free from real vice, than are most
    European nations. Neither boys nor girls wear clothing (unless
    they are the children of chiefs) until nearing the age of
    puberty. Among the Wankonda, practically no covering is worn by
    the men except a ring of brass wire around the stomach. The
    Wankonda women are likewise almost entirely naked, but generally
    cover the pudenda with a tiny bead-work apron, often a piece of
    very beautiful workmanship, and exactly resembling the same
    article worn by Kaffir women. A like degree of nudity prevails
    among many of the Awemba, among the A-lungu, the Batumbuka, and
    the Angoni. Most of the Angoni men, however, adopt the Zulu
    fashion of covering the glans penis with a small wooden case or
    the outer shell of a fruit. The Wa-Yao have a strong sense of
    decency in matters of this kind, which is the more curious since
    they are more given to obscenity in their rites, ceremonies, and
    dances than any other tribe. Not only is it extremely rare to see
    any Yao uncovered, but both men and women have the strongest
    dislike to exposing their persons even to the inspection of a
    doctor. The Atonga and many of the A-nyanga people, and all the
    tribes west of Nyassa (with the exception possibly of the
    A-lunda) have not the Yao regard for decency, and, although they
    can seldom or ever be accused of a deliberate intention to expose
    themselves, the men are relatively indifferent as to whether
    their nakedness is or is not concealed, though the women are
    modest and careful in this respect." (H.H. Johnston, _British
    Central Africa_, 1897, pp. 408-419.)

    In Azimba land, Central Africa, H. Crawford Angus, who has spent
    many years in this part of Africa, writes: "It has been my
    experience that the more naked the people, and the more to us
    obscene and shameless their manners and customs, the more moral
    and strict they are in the matter of sexual intercourse." He
    proceeds to give a description of the _chensamwali_, or
    initiation ceremony of girls at puberty, a season of rejoicing
    when the girl is initiated into all the secrets of marriage, amid
    songs and dances referring to the act of coition. "The whole
    matter is looked upon as a matter of course, and not as a thing
    to be ashamed of or to hide, and, being thus openly treated of
    and no secrecy made about it, you find in this tribe that the
    women are very virtuous. They know from the first all that is to
    be known, and cannot see any reason for secrecy concerning
    natural laws or the powers and senses that have been given them
    from birth." (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1898, Heft 6, p.
    479.)

    Of the Monbuttu of Central Africa, another observer says: "It is
    surprising how a Monbuttu woman of birth can, without the aid of
    dress, impress others with her dignity and modesty." (_British
    Medical Journal_. June 14, 1890.)

    "The women at Upoto wear no clothes whatever, and came up to us
    in the most unreserved manner. An interesting gradation in the
    arrangement of the female costume has been observed by us: as we
    ascended the Congo, the higher up the river we found ourselves,
    the higher the dress reached, till it has now, at last,
    culminated in absolute nudity." (T.H. Parke, _My Personal
    Experiences in Equatorial Africa_, 1891, p. 61.)

    "There exists throughout the Congo population a marked
    appreciation of the sentiment of decency and shame as applied to
    private actions," says Mr. Herbert Ward. In explanation of the
    nudity of the women at Upoto, a chief remarked to Ward that
    "concealment is food for the inquisitive." (_Journal of the
    Anthropological Institute_, 1895, p. 293.)

    In the Gold Coast and surrounding countries complete nudity is
    extremely rare, except when circumstances make it desirable; on
    occasion clothing is abandoned with unconcern. "I have on several
    occasions," says Dr. Freeman, "seen women at Accra walk from the
    beach, where they have been bathing, across the road to their
    houses, where they would proceed to dry themselves, and resume
    their garments; and women may not infrequently be seen bathing in
    pools by the wayside, conversing quite unconstrainedly with their
    male acquaintances, who are seated on the bank. The mere
    unclothed body conveys to their minds no idea of indecency.
    Immodesty and indelicacy of manner are practically unknown." He
    adds that the excessive zeal of missionaries in urging their
    converts to adopt European dress--which they are only too ready
    to do--is much to be regretted, since the close-fitting, thin
    garments are really less modest than the loose clothes they
    replace, besides being much less cleanly. (R.A. Freeman, _Travels
    and Life in Ashanti and Jaman_, 1898, p. 379.)

    At Loango, says Pechuel-Loesche, "the well-bred negress likes to
    cover her bosom, and is sensitive to critical male eyes; if she
    meets a European when without her overgarment, she instinctively,
    though not without coquetry, takes the attitude of the Medicean
    Venus." Men and women bathe separately, and hide themselves from
    each other when naked. The women also exhibit shame when
    discovered suckling their babies. (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_,
    1878, pp. 27-31.)

    The Koran (Sura XXIV) forbids showing the pudenda, as well as the
    face, yet a veiled Mohammedan woman, Stern remarks, even in the
    streets of Constantinople, will stand still and pull up her
    clothes to scratch her private parts, and in Beyrout, he saw
    Turkish prostitutes, still veiled, place themselves in the
    position for coitus. (B. Stern, _Medizin, etc., in der Türkei_,
    vol. ii, p. 162.)

    "An Englishman surprised a woman while bathing in the Euphrates;
    she held her hands over her face, without troubling as to what
    else the stranger might see. In Egypt, I have myself seen quite
    naked young peasant girls, who hastened to see us, after covering
    their faces." (C. Niebuhr, _Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien_,
    1774, vol. i, p. 165.)

    When Helfer was taken to visit the ladies in the palace of the
    Imam of Muskat, at Buscheir, he found that their faces were
    covered with black masks, though the rest of the body might be
    clothed in a transparent sort of crape; to look at a naked face
    was very painful to the ladies themselves; even a mother never
    lifts the mask from the face of her daughter after the age of
    twelve; that is reserved for her lord and husband. "I observed
    that the ladies looked at me with a certain confusion, and after
    they had glanced into my face, lowered their eyes, ashamed. On
    making inquiries, I found that my uncovered face was indecent, as
    a naked person would be to us. They begged me to assume a mask,
    and when a waiting-woman had bound a splendidly decorated one
    round my head, they all exclaimed: 'Tahip! tahip!'--beautiful,
    beautiful." (J.W. Helfer, _Reisen in Vorderasian und Indien_,
    vol. ii, p. 12.)

    In Algeria--in the provinces of Constantine, in Biskra, even
    Aures,--"among the women especially, not one is restrained by any
    modesty in unfastening her girdle to any comer" (when a search
    was being made for tattoo-marks on the lower extremities). "In
    spite of the great licentiousness of the manners," the same
    writer continues, "the Arab and the Kabyle possess great personal
    modesty, and with difficulty are persuaded to exhibit the body
    nude; is it the result of real modesty, or of their inveterate
    habits of active pederasty? Whatever the cause, they always hide
    the sexual organs with their hands or their handkerchiefs, and
    are disagreeably affected even by the slightest touch of the
    doctor." (Batut, _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, January
    15, 1893.)

    "Moslem modesty," remarks Wellhausen, "was carried to great
    lengths, insufficient clothing being forbidden. It was marked
    even among the heathen Arabs, as among Semites and old
    civilizations generally; we must not be deceived by the
    occasional examples of immodesty in individual cases. The Sunna
    prescribes that a man shall not uncover himself even to himself,
    and shall not wash naked--from fear of God and of spirits; Job
    did so, and atoned for it heavily. When in Arab antiquity
    grown-up persons showed themselves naked, it was only under
    extraordinary circumstances, and to attain unusual ends.... Women
    when mourning uncovered not only the face and bosom, but also
    tore all their garments. The messenger who brought bad news tore
    his garments. A mother desiring to bring pressure to bear on her
    son took off her clothes. A man to whom vengeance is forbidden
    showed his despair and disapproval by uncovering his posterior
    and strewing earth on his head, or by raising his garment behind
    and covering his head with it. This was done also in fulfilling
    natural necessities." (Wellhausen, _Reste Arabischen Heidentums_,
    1897, pp. 173, 195-196.)

    Mantegazza mentions that a Lapland woman refused even for the sum
    of 150 francs to allow him to photograph her naked, though the
    men placed themselves before the camera in the costume of Adam
    for a much smaller sum. In the same book Mantegazza remarks that
    in the eighteenth century, travelers found it extremely difficult
    to persuade Samoyed women to show themselves naked. Among the
    same people, he says, the newly-married wife must conceal her
    face from her husband for two months after marriage, and only
    then yield to his embraces. (Mantegazza, _La Donna_, cap. IV.)

    "The beauty of a Chinese woman," says Dr. Matignon, "resides
    largely in her foot. 'A foot which is not deformed is a
    dishonor,' says a poet. For the husband the foot is more
    interesting than the face. Only the husband may see his wife's
    foot naked. A Chinese woman is as reticent in showing her feet to
    a man as a European woman her breasts. I have often had to treat
    Chinese women with ridiculously small feet for wounds and
    excoriations, the result of tight-bandaging. They exhibited the
    prudishness of school-girls, blushed, turned their backs to
    unfasten the bandages, and then concealed the foot in a cloth,
    leaving only the affected part uncovered. Modesty is a question
    of convention; Chinese have it for their feet," (J. Matignon, "A
    propos d'un Pied de Chinoise," _Archives d'Anthropologie
    Criminelle_, 1898, p. 445.)

    Among the Yakuts of Northeast Siberia, "there was a well-known
    custom according to which a bride should avoid showing herself or
    her uncovered body to her father-in-law. In ancient times, they
    say, a bride concealed herself for seven years from her
    father-in-law, and from the brothers and other masculine
    relations of her husband.... The men also tried not to meet her,
    saying, 'The poor child will be ashamed.' If a meeting could not
    be avoided the young woman put a mask on her face.... Nowadays,
    the young wives only avoid showing to their male relatives-in-law
    the uncovered body. Amongst the rich they avoid going about in
    the presence of these in the chemise alone. In some places, they
    lay especial emphasis on the fact that it is a shame for young
    wives to show their uncovered hair and feet to the male relatives
    of their husbands. On the other side, the male relatives of the
    husband ought to avoid showing to the young wife the body
    uncovered above the elbow or the sole of the foot, and they ought
    to avoid indecent expressions and vulgar vituperations in her
    presence.... That these observances are not the result of a
    specially delicate modesty, is proved by the fact that even young
    girls constantly twist thread upon the naked thigh, unembarrassed
    by the presence of men who do not belong to the household; nor do
    they show any embarrassment if a strange man comes upon them when
    uncovered to the waist. The one thing which they do not like, and
    at which they show anger, is that such persons look carefully at
    their uncovered feet.... The former simplicity, with lack of
    shame in uncovering the body, is disappearing." (Sieroshevski,
    "The Yakuts," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,
    Jan.-June, 1901, p. 93.)

    "In Japan (Captain ---- tells me), the bathing-place of the women
    was perfectly open (the shampooing, indeed, was done by a man),
    and Englishmen were offered no obstacle, nor excited the least
    repugnance; indeed, girls after their bath would freely pass,
    sometimes as if holding out their hair for innocent admiration,
    and this continued until countrymen of ours, by vile laughter and
    jests, made them guard themselves from insult by secrecy. So
    corruption spreads, and heathenism is blacker by our contact."
    (Private communication.)

    "Speaking once with a Japanese gentleman, I observed that we
    considered it an act of indecency for men and women to wash
    together. He shrugged his shoulders as he answered: 'But these
    Westerns have such prurient minds!'" (Mitford, _Tales of Old
    Japan_, 1871.)

    Dr. Carl Davidsohn, who remarks that he had ample opportunity of
    noting the great beauty of the Japanese women in a national
    dance, performed naked, points out that the Japanese have no
    æsthetic sense for the nude. "This was shown at the Jubilee
    Exposition at Kyoto. Here, among many rooms full of art objects,
    one was devoted to oil pictures in the European manner. Among
    these only one represented a nude figure, a Psyche, or Truth. It
    was the first time such a picture had been seen. Men and women
    crowded around it. After they had gazed at it for a time, most
    began to giggle and laugh; some by their air and gestures clearly
    showed their disgust; all found that it was not æsthetic to paint
    a naked woman, though in Nature, nakedness was in no way
    offensive to them. In the middle of the same city, at a fountain
    reputed to possess special virtues, men and women will stand
    together naked and let the water run over them." (Carl
    Davidsohn, "Das Nackte bei den Japanern," _Globus_, 1896, No.
    16.)

    "It is very difficult to investigate the hairiness of Ainu
    women," Baelz remarks, "for they possess a really incredible
    degree of modesty. Even when in summer they bathe--which happens
    but seldom--they keep their clothes on." He records that he was
    once asked to examine a girl at the Mission School, in order to
    advise as regards the treatment of a diseased spine; although she
    had been at the school for seven years, she declared that "she
    would rather die than show her back to a man, even though a
    doctor." (Baelz, "Die Aino," _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1901,
    Heft 2, p. 178.)

    The Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans, appear to have been accustomed
    to cover the foreskin with the _kynodesme_ (a band), or the
    _fibula_ (a ring), for custom and modesty demanded that the glans
    should be concealed. Such covering is represented in persons who
    were compelled to be naked, and is referred to by Celsus as
    "decori causâ." (L. Stieda, "Anatomisch-archäologische Studien,"
    _Anatomische Hefte_, Bd. XIX, Heft 2, 1902.)

    "Among the Lydians, and, indeed, among the barbarians generally,
    it is considered a deep disgrace, even for a man, to be seen
    naked." (Herodotus, Book I, Chapter X.)

    "The simple dress which is now common was first worn in Sparta,
    and there, more than anywhere else, the life of the rich was
    assimilated to that of the people. The Lacedæmonians, too, were
    the first who, in their athletic exercises, stripped naked and
    rubbed themselves over with oil. This was not the ancient custom;
    athletes formerly, even when they were contending at Olympia,
    wore girdles about their loins [earlier still, the Mycenæans had
    always worn a loin-cloth], a practice which lasted until quite
    lately, and still persists among barbarians, especially those of
    Asia, where the combatants at boxing and wrestling matches wear
    girdles." (Thucydides, _History_, Book I, Chapter VI.)

    "The notion of the women exercising naked in the schools with the
    men ... at the present day would appear truly ridiculous.... Not
    long since it was thought discreditable and ridiculous among the
    Greeks, as it is now among most barbarous nations, for men to be
    seen naked. And when the Cretans first, and after them the
    Lacedæmonians, began the practice of gymnastic exercises, the
    wits of the time had it in their power to make sport of those
    novelties.... As for the man who laughs at the idea of undressed
    women going through gymnastic exercises, as a means of revealing
    what is most perfect, his ridicule is but 'unripe fruit plucked
    from the tree of wisdom.'" (Plato, _Republic_, Book V.)

    According to Plutarch, however, among the Spartans, at all
    events, nakedness in women was not ridiculous, since the
    institutes of Lycurgus ordained that at solemn feasts and
    sacrifices the young women should dance naked and sing, the young
    men standing around in a circle to see and hear them. Aristotle
    says that in his time Spartan girls only wore a very slight
    garment. As described by Pausanias, and as shown by a statue in
    the Vatican, the ordinary tunic, which was the sole garment worn
    by women when running, left bare the right shoulder and breast,
    and only reached to the upper third of the thighs. (M.M. Evans,
    _Chapters on Greek Dress_, p. 34.)

    Among the Greeks who were inclined to accept the doctrines of
    Cynicism, it was held that, while shame is not unreasonable, what
    is good may be done and discussed before all men. There are a
    number of authorities who say that Crates and Hipparchia
    consummated their marriage in the presence of many spectators.
    Lactantius (_Inst._ iii, 15) says that the practice was common,
    but this Zeller is inclined to doubt. (Zeller, _Socrates and the
    Socratic Schools_, translated from the Third German Edition,
    1897.)

    "Among the Tyrrhenians, who carry their luxury to an
    extraordinary pitch, Timæus, in his first book, relates that the
    female servants wait on the men in a state of nudity. And
    Theopompus, in the forty-third book of his _History_, states that
    it is a law among the Tyrrhenians that all their women should be
    in common; and that the women pay the greatest attention to their
    persons, and often practice gymnastic exercises, naked, among the
    men, and sometimes with one another; for that it is not accounted
    shameful for them to be seen naked.... Nor is it reckoned among
    the Tyrrhenians at all disgraceful either to do or suffer
    anything in the open air, or to be seen while it is going on; for
    it is quite the custom of their country, and they are so far from
    thinking it disgraceful that they even say, when the master of
    the house is indulging his appetite, and anyone asks for him,
    that he is doing so and so, using the coarsest possible words....
    And they are very beautiful, as is natural for people to be who
    live delicately, and who take care of their persons." (Athenæus,
    _Deipnosophists_, Yonge's translation, vol. iii, p. 829.)

    Dennis throws doubt on the foregoing statement of Athenæus
    regarding the Tyrrhenians or Etruscans, and points out that the
    representations of women in Etruscan tombs shows them as clothed,
    even the breast being rarely uncovered. Nudity, he remarks, was a
    Greek, not an Etruscan, characteristic. "To the nudity of the
    Spartan women I need but refer; the Thessalian women are
    described by Persæus dancing at banquets naked, or with a very
    scanty covering (_apud_ Athenæus, xiii, c. 86). The maidens of
    Chios wrestled naked with the youths in the gymnasium, which
    Athenæus (xiii, 20) pronounces to be 'a beautiful sight.' And at
    the marriage feast of Caranus, the Macedonian women tumblers
    performed naked before the guests (Athenæus, iv, 3)." (G. Dennis,
    _Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria_, 1883, vol. i, p. 321.)

    In Rome, "when there was at first much less freedom in this
    matter than in Greece, the bath became common to both sexes, and
    though each had its basin and hot room apart, they could see each
    other, meet, speak, form intrigues, arrange meetings, and
    multiply adulteries. At first, the baths were so dark that men
    and women could wash side by side, without recognizing each other
    except by the voice; but soon the light of day was allowed to
    enter from every side. 'In the bath of Scipio,' said Seneca,
    'there were narrow ventholes, rather than windows, hardly
    admitting enough light to outrage modesty; but nowadays, baths
    are called caves if they do not receive the sun's rays through
    large windows.' ... Hadrian severely prohibited this mingling of
    men and women, and ordained separate lavaera for the sexes.
    Marcus Aurelius and Alexander Severus renewed this edict, but in
    the interval, Heliogabalus had authorized the sexes to meet in
    the baths." (Dufour, _Histoire de la Prostitution_, vol. ii, Ch.
    XVIII; cf. Smith's _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities_,
    Art. Balneæ.)

    In Rome, according to ancient custom, actors were compelled to
    wear drawers (_subligaculum_) on the stage, in order to safeguard
    the modesty of Roman matrons. Respectable women, it seems, also
    always wore some sort of _subligaculum_, even sometimes when
    bathing. The name was also applied to a leathern girdle laced
    behind, which they were occasionally made to wear as a girdle of
    chastity. (Dufour, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 150.) Greek women also
    wore a cloth round the loins when taking the bath, as did the men
    who bathed there; and a woman is represented bathing and wearing
    a sort of thin combinations reaching to the middle of the thigh.
    (Smith's _Dictionary_, loc. cit.) At a later period, St.
    Augustine refers to the _compestria_, the drawers or apron worn
    by young men who stripped for exercise in the _campus_. (_De
    Civitate Dei_, Bk. XIV, Ch. XVII.)

    Lecky (_History of Morals_, vol. ii, p. 318), brings together
    instances of women, in both Pagan and early Christian times, who
    showed their modesty by drawing their garments around them, even
    at the moment that they were being brutally killed. Plutarch, in
    his essay on the "Virtues of Women,"--moralizing on the
    well-known story of the young women of Milesia, among whom an
    epidemic of suicide was only brought to an end by the decree that
    in future women who hanged themselves should be carried naked
    through the market-places,--observes: "They, who had no dread of
    the most terrible things in the world, death and pain, could not
    abide the imagination of dishonor, and exposure to shame, even
    after death."

    In the second century the physician Aretæus, writing at Rome,
    remarks: "In many cases, owing to involuntary restraint from
    modesty at assemblies, and at banquets, the bladder becomes
    distended, and from the consequent loss of its contractile power,
    it no longer evacuates the urine." (_On the Causes and Symptoms
    of Acute Diseases_, Book II, Chapter X.)

    Apuleius, writing in the second century, says: "Most women, in
    order to exhibit their native gracefulness and allurements,
    divest themselves of all their garments, and long to show their
    naked beauty, being conscious that they shall please more by the
    rosy redness of their skin than by the golden splendor of their
    robes." (Thomas Taylor's translation of _Metamorphosis_, p. 28.)

    Christianity seems to have profoundly affected habits of thought
    and feeling by uniting together the merely natural emotion of
    sexual reserve with, on the one hand, the masculine virtue of
    modesty--_modestia_--and, on the other, the prescription of
    sexual abstinence. Tertullian admirably illustrates this
    confusion, and his treatises _De Pudicitia_ and _De Cultu
    Feminarum_ are instructive from the present point of view. In the
    latter he remarks (Book II, Chapter I): "Salvation--and not of
    women only, but likewise of men--consists in the exhibition,
    principally, of modesty. Since we are all the temple of God,
    modesty is the sacristan and priestess of that temple, who is to
    suffer nothing unclean or profane to enter it, for fear that the
    God who inhabits it should be offended.... Most women, either
    from simple ignorance or from dissimulation, have the hardihood
    so to walk as if modesty consisted only in the integrity of the
    flesh, and in turning away from fornication, and there were no
    need for anything else,--in dress and ornament, the studied
    graces of form,--wearing in their gait the self-same appearance
    as the women of the nations from whom the sense of _true_ modesty
    is absent."

    The earliest Christian ideal of modesty, not long maintained, is
    well shown in an epistle which, there is some reason to suppose,
    was written by Clement of Rome. "And if we see it to be requisite
    to stand and pray for the sake of the woman, and to speak words
    of exhortation and edification, we call the brethren and all the
    holy sisters and maidens, likewise all the other women who are
    there, with all modesty and becoming behavior, to come and feast
    on the truth. And those among us who are skilled in speaking,
    speak to them, and exhort them in those words which God has given
    us. And then we pray, and salute one another, the men the men.
    But the women and the maidens will wrap their hands in their
    garments; we also, with circumspection and with all purity, our
    eyes looking upward, shall wrap our right hand in our garments;
    and then they will come and give us the salutation on our right
    hand, wrapped in our garments. Then we go where God permits us."
    (_Two Epistles Concerning Virginity_; Second Epistle, Chapter
    III, vol. xiv. Ante-Nicene Christian Library, p. 384.)

    "Women will scarce strip naked before their own husbands,
    affecting a plausible pretense of modesty," writes Clement of
    Alexandria, about the end of the second century, "but any others
    who wish may see them at home, shut up in their own baths, for
    they are not ashamed to strip before spectators, as if exposing
    their persons for sale. The baths are opened promiscuously to men
    and women; and there they strip for licentious indulgence (for,
    from looking, men get to loving), as if their modesty had been
    washed away in the bath. Those who have not become utterly
    destitute of modesty shut out strangers, but bathe with their own
    servants, and strip naked before their slaves, and are rubbed by
    them, giving to the crouching menial liberty to lust, by
    permitting fearless handling, for those who are introduced before
    their naked mistresses while in the bath, study to strip
    themselves in order to show audacity in lust, casting off fear in
    consequence of the wicked custom. The ancient athletes, ashamed
    to exhibit a man naked, preserved their modesty by going through
    the contest in drawers; but these women, divesting themselves of
    their modesty along with their chemise, wish to appear beautiful,
    but, contrary to their wish, are simply proved to be wicked."
    (Clement of Alexandria, _Pædagogus_, Book III, Chapter V. For
    elucidations of this passage, see Migne's _Patrologiæ Cursus
    Completus_, vol. vii.) Promiscuous bathing was forbidden by the
    early Apostolical Constitutions, but Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage,
    found it necessary, in the third century, to upbraid even virgins
    vowed to chastity for continuing the custom. "What of those," he
    asks, "who frequent baths, who prostitute to eyes that are
    curious to lust, bodies that are dedicated to chastity and
    modesty? They who disgracefully behold naked men, and are seen
    naked by men? Do they not themselves afford enticement to vice?
    Do they not solicit and invite the desires of those present to
    their own corruption and wrong? 'Let every one,' say you, 'look
    to the disposition with which he comes thither: my care is only
    that of refreshing and washing my poor body.' That kind of
    defence does not clear you, nor does it excuse the crime of
    lasciviousness and wantonness. Such a washing defiles; it does
    not purify nor cleanse the limbs, but stains them. You behold no
    one immodestly, but you, yourself, are gazed upon immodestly; you
    do not pollute your eyes with disgraceful delight, but in
    delighting others you yourself are polluted; you make a show of
    the bathing-place; the places where you assemble are fouler than
    a theatre. There all modesty is put off; together with the
    clothing of garments, the honor and modesty of the body is laid
    aside, virginity is exposed, to be pointed at and to be
    handled.... Let your baths be performed with women, whose
    behavior is modest towards you." (Cyprian, _De Habitu Virginum_,
    cap. 19, 21.) The Church carried the same spirit among the
    barbarians of northern Europe, and several centuries later the
    promiscuous bathing of men and women was prohibited in some of
    the Penitentials. (The custom was, however, preserved here and
    there in Northern Europe, even to the end of the eighteenth
    century, or later. In Rudeck's _Geschichte der öffentlichen
    Sittlichkeit in Deutschland_, an interesting chapter, with
    contemporary illustrations, is devoted to this custom; also, Max
    Bauer, _Das Geschlechtsleben in der Deutschen Vergangenheit_, pp.
    216-265.)

    "Women," says Clement again, "should not seek to be graceful by
    avoiding broad drinking vessels that oblige them to stretch their
    mouths, in order to drink from narrow alabastra that cause them
    indecently to throw back the head, revealing to men their necks
    and breasts. The mere thought of what she is ought to inspire a
    woman with modesty.... On no account must a woman be permitted to
    show to a man any portion of her body naked, for fear lest both
    fall: the one by gazing eagerly, the other by delighting to
    attract those eager glances." (_Pædagogus_, Book II, Chapter V.)

    James, Bishop of Nisibis, in the fourth century, was a man of
    great holiness. We are told by Thedoret that once, when James had
    newly come into Persia, it was vouchsafed to him to perform a
    miracle under the following circumstances: He chanced to pass by
    a fountain where young women were washing their linen, and, his
    modesty being profoundly shocked by the exposure involved in this
    occupation, he cursed the fountain, which instantly dried up, and
    he changed the hair of the girls from black to a sandy color.
    (Jortin, _Remarks on Ecclesiastical History_, vol. iii, p. 4.)

    Procopius, writing in the sixth century after Christ, and
    narrating how the Empress Theodora, in early life, would often
    appear almost naked before the public in the theatre, adds that
    she would willingly have appeared altogether nude, but that "no
    woman is allowed to expose herself altogether, unless she wears
    at least short drawers over the lower part of the abdomen."
    Chrysostom mentions, at the end of the fourth century, that
    Arcadius attempted to put down the August festival (Majuma),
    during which women appeared naked in the theatres, or swimming in
    large baths.

    In mediæval days, "ladies, at all events, as represented by the
    poets, were not, on the whole, very prudish. Meleranz surprised a
    lady who was taking a bath under a lime tree; the bath was
    covered with samite, and by it was a magnificent ivory bed,
    surrounded by tapestries representing the history of Paris and
    Helen, the destruction of Troy, the adventures of Æneas, etc. As
    Meleranz rides by, the lady's waiting-maids run away; she
    herself, however, with quick decision, raises the samite which
    covers the tub, and orders him to wait on her in place of the
    maids. He brings her shift and mantle, and shoes, and then stands
    aside till she is dressed; when she has placed herself on the
    bed, she calls him back and commands him to drive away the flies
    while she sleeps. Strange to say, the men are represented as more
    modest than the women. When two maidens prepared a bath for
    Parzival, and proposed to bathe him, according to custom, the
    inexperienced young knight was shy, and would not enter the bath
    until they had gone; on another occasion, he jumped quickly into
    bed when the maidens entered the room. When Wolfdieterich was
    about to undress, he had to ask the ladies who pressed around him
    to leave him alone for a short time, as he was ashamed they
    should see him naked. When Amphons of Spain, bewitched by his
    step-mother into a were-wolf, was at last restored, and stood
    suddenly naked before her, he was greatly ashamed. The maiden who
    healed Iwein was tender of his modesty. In his love-madness, the
    hero wanders for a time naked through the wood; three women find
    him asleep, and send a waiting-maid to annoint him with salve;
    when he came to himself, the maiden hid herself. On the whole,
    however, the ladies were not so delicate; they had no hesitation
    in bathing with gentlemen, and on these occasions would put their
    finest ornaments on their heads. I know no pictures of the
    twelfth and thirteenth centuries representing such a scene, but
    such baths in common are clearly represented in miniatures of the
    fifteenth century." (A. Schultz, _Das Höfische Leben zur Zeit der
    Minnesänger_, vol. i, p. 225.)

    "In the years 1450-70, the use of the cod-piece was introduced,
    whereby the attributes of manhood were accentuated in the most
    shameless manner. It was, in fact, the avowed aim at that period
    to attract attention to these parts. The cod-piece was sometimes
    colored differently from the rest of the garments, often stuffed
    out to enlarge it artificially, and decorated with ribbons."
    (Rudeck, _Geschichte der öffentlichen Sittlichkeit in
    Deutschland_, pp. 45-48; Dufour, _Histoire de la Prostitution_,
    vol. vi, pp. 21-23. Groos refers to the significance of this
    fashion, _Spiele der Menschen_, p. 337.)

    "The first shirt began to be worn [in Germany] in the sixteenth
    century. From this fact, as well as from the custom of public
    bathing, we reach the remarkable result, that for the German
    people, the sight of complete nakedness was the daily rule up to
    the sixteenth century. Everyone undressed completely before going
    to bed, and, in the vapor-baths, no covering was used. Again, the
    dances, both of the peasants and the townspeople, were
    characterized by very high leaps into the air. It was the chief
    delight of the dancers for the male to raise his partner as high
    as possible in the air, so that her dress flew up. That feminine
    modesty was in this respect very indifferent, we know from
    countless references made in the fifteenth and sixteenth
    centuries. It must not be forgotten that throughout the middle
    ages women wore no underclothes, and even in the seventeenth
    century, the wearing of drawers by Italian women was regarded as
    singular. That with the disappearance of the baths, and the use
    of body-linen, a powerful influence was exerted on the creation
    of modesty, there can be little doubt." (Rudeck, op. cit., pp.
    57, 399, etc.)

    In 1461, when Louis XI entered Paris, three very beautiful
    maidens, quite naked, represented the Syrens, and declaimed poems
    before him; they were greatly admired by the public. In 1468,
    when Charles the Bold entered Lille, he was specially pleased,
    among the various festivities, with a representation of the
    Judgment of Paris, in which the three goddesses were nude. When
    Charles the Fifth entered Antwerp, the most beautiful maidens of
    the city danced before him, in nothing but gauze, and were
    closely contemplated by Dürer, as he told his friend, Melancthon.
    (B. Ritter, "Nuditäten im Mittelalter," _Jahrbücher für
    Wissenschaft und Kunst_, 1855, p. 227; this writer shows how
    luxury, fashion, poverty, and certain festivals, all combined to
    make nudity familiar; cf. Fahne, _Der Carneval_, p. 249. Dulaure
    quotes many old writers concerning the important part played by
    nude persons in ancient festivals, _Des Divinités Génératrices_,
    Chapter XIV.)

    Passek, a Polish officer who wrote an account of his campaigns,
    admired the ladies of Denmark in 1658, but considered their
    customs immodest. "Everyone sleeps naked as at birth, and none
    consider it shameful to dress or undress before others. No
    notice, even, is taken of the guest, and in the light one garment
    is taken off after another, even the chemise is hung on the hook.
    Then the door is bolted, the light blown out, and one goes to
    bed. As we blamed their ways, saying that among us a woman would
    not act so, even in the presence of her husband alone, they
    replied that they knew nothing of such shame, and that there was
    no need to be ashamed of limbs which God had created. Moreover,
    to sleep without a shift was good, because, like the other
    garments, it sufficiently served the body during the day. Also,
    why take fleas and other insects to bed with one? Although our
    men teased them in various ways, they would not change their
    habits." (Passek, _Denkwürdigkeiten_, German translation, p. 14.)

    Until late in the seventeenth century, women in England, as well
    as France, suffered much in childbirth from the ignorance and
    superstition of incompetent midwives, owing to the prevailing
    conceptions of modesty, which rendered it impossible (as it is
    still, to some extent, in some semi-civilized lands) for male
    physicians to attend them. Dr. Willoughby, of Derby, tells how,
    in 1658, he had to creep into the chamber of a lying-in woman on
    his hands and knees, in order to examine her unperceived. In
    France, Clement was employed secretly to attend the mistresses of
    Louis XIV in their confinements; to the first he was conducted
    blindfold, while the King was concealed among the bed-curtains,
    and the face of the lady was enveloped in a network of lace. (E.
    Malins, "Midwifery and Midwives," _British Medical Journal_, June
    22, 1901; Witkowski, _Histoire des Accouchements_, 1887, pp. 689
    et seq.) Even until the Revolution, the examination of women in
    France in cases of rape or attempted outrage was left to a jury
    of matrons. In old English manuals of midwifery, even in the
    early nineteenth century, we still find much insistence on the
    demands of modesty. Thus, Dr. John Burns, of Glasgow, in his
    _Principles of Midwifery_, states that "some women, from motives
    of false delicacy, are averse from examination until the pains
    become severe." He adds that "it is usual for the room to be
    darkened, and the bed-curtains drawn close, during an
    examination." Many old pictures show the accoucheur groping in
    the dark, beneath the bed-clothes, to perform operations on women
    in childbirth. (A. Kind, "Das Weib als Gebärerin in der Kunst,"
    _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, Bd. II, Heft 5, p. 203.)

    In Iceland, Winkler stated in 1861 that he sometimes slept in the
    same room as a whole family; "it is often the custom for ten or
    more persons to use the same room for living in and sleeping,
    young and old, master and servant, male and female, and from
    motives of economy, all the clothes, without exception, are
    removed." (G. Winkler, _Island; seine Bewohner_, etc., pp. 107,
    110.)

    "At Cork," saye Fynes Moryson, in 1617, "I have seen with these
    eyes young maids stark naked grinding corn with certain stones to
    make cakes thereof." (Moryson, _Itinerary_, Part 3, Book III,
    Chapter V.)

    "In the more remote parts of Ireland," Moryson elsewhere says,
    where the English laws and manners are unknown, "the very chief
    of the Irish, men as well as women, go naked in very winter-time,
    only having their privy parts covered with a rag of linen, and
    their bodies with a loose mantle. This I speak of my own
    experience." He goes on to tell of a Bohemian baron, just come
    from the North of Ireland, who "told me in great earnestness that
    he, coming to the house of Ocane, a great lord among them, was
    met at the door with sixteen women, all naked, excepting their
    loose mantles; whereof eight or ten were very fair, and two
    seemed very nymphs, with which strange sight, his eyes being
    dazzled, they led him into the house, and then sitting down by
    the fire with crossed legs, like tailors, and so low as could not
    but offend chaste eyes, desired him to sit down with them. Soon
    after, Ocane, the lord of the country, came in, all naked
    excepting a loose mantle, and shoes, which he put off as soon as
    he came in, and entertaining the baron after his best manner in
    the Latin tongue, desired him to put off his apparel, which he
    thought to be a burthen to him, and to sit naked by the fire with
    this naked company. But the baron... for shame, durst not put off
    his apparel." (Ib. Part 3, Book IV, Chapter II.)

    Coryat, when traveling in Italy in the early part of the
    seventeenth century, found that in Lombardy many of the women
    and children wore only smocks, or shirts, in the hot weather. At
    Venice and Padua, he found that wives, widows, and maids, walk
    with naked breasts, many with backs also naked, almost to the
    middle. (Coryat, _Crudities_, 1611. The fashion of _décolleté_
    garments, it may be remarked, only began in the fourteenth
    century; previously, the women of Europe generally covered
    themselves up to the neck.)

    In Northern Italy, some years ago, a fire occurred at night in a
    house in which two girls were sleeping, naked, according to the
    custom. One threw herself out and was saved, the other returned
    for a garment, and was burnt to death. The narrator of the
    incident [a man] expressed strong approval of the more modest
    girl's action. (Private communication.) It may be added that the
    custom of sleeping naked is still preserved, also (according to
    Lippert and Stratz), in Jutland, in Iceland, in some parts of
    Norway, and sometimes even in Berlin.

    Lady Mary Wortley Montague writes in 1717, of the Turkish ladies
    at the baths at Sophia: "The first sofas were covered with
    cushions and rich carpets, on which sat the ladies, and on the
    second, their slaves behind them, but without any distinction of
    rank in their dress, all being in a state of Nature; that is, in
    plain English, stark naked, without any beauty or defect
    concealed. Yet there was not the least wanton smile or immodest
    gesture among them. They walked and moved with the same majestic
    grace which Milton describes of our general mother. I am here
    convinced of the truth of a reflection I had often made, that if
    it was the fashion to go naked, the face would be hardly
    observed." (_Letters and Works_, 1866, vol. i, p. 285.)

    At St. Petersburg, in 1774, Sir Nicholas Wraxall observed "the
    promiscuous bathing of not less than two hundred persons, of both
    sexes. There are several of these public bagnios," he adds, "in
    Petersburg, and every one pays a few copecks for admittance.
    There are, indeed, separate spaces for the men and women, but
    they seem quite regardless of this distinction, and sit or bathe
    in a state of absolute nudity among each other." (Sir N. Wraxall,
    _A Tour Through Some of the Northern Parts of Europe_, 3d ed.,
    1776, p. 248.) It is still usual for women in the country parts
    of Russia to bathe naked in the streams.

    In 1790, Wedgwood wrote to Flaxman: "The nude is so general in
    the work of the ancients, that it will be very difficult to avoid
    the introduction of naked figures. On the other hand, it is
    absolutely necessary to do so, or to keep the pieces for our own
    use; for none, either male or female, of the present generation
    will take or apply them as furniture if the figures are naked."
    (Meteyard, _Life of Wedgwood_, vol. ii, p. 589.)

    Mary Wollstonecraft quotes (for reprobation and not for
    approval) the following remarks: "The lady who asked the
    question whether women may be instructed in the modern system of
    botany, was accused of ridiculous prudery; nevertheless, if she
    had proposed the question to me, I should certainly have
    answered: 'They cannot!'" She further quotes from an educational
    book: "It would be needless to caution you against putting your
    hand, by chance, under your neck-handkerchief; for a modest woman
    never did so." (Mary Wollstonecraft, _The Rights of Woman_, 1792,
    pp. 277, 289.)

    At the present time a knowledge of the physiology of plants is
    not usually considered inconsistent with modesty, but a knowledge
    of animal physiology is still so considered by many. Dr. H.R.
    Hopkins, of New York, wrote in 1895, regarding the teaching of
    physiology: "How can we teach growing girls the functions of the
    various parts of the human body, and still leave them their
    modesty? That is the practical question that has puzzled me for
    years."

    In England, the use of drawers was almost unknown among women
    half a century ago, and was considered immodest and unfeminine.
    Tilt, a distinguished gynecologist of that period, advocated such
    garments, made of fine calico, and not to descend below the knee,
    on hygienic grounds. "Thus understood," he added, "the adoption
    of drawers will doubtless become more general in this country,
    as, being worn without the knowledge of the general observer,
    they will be robbed of the prejudice usually attached to an
    appendage deemed masculine." (Tilt, _Elements of Health_, 1852,
    p. 193.) Drawers came into general use among women during the
    third quarter of the nineteenth century.

    Drawers are an Oriental garment, and seem to have reached Europe
    through Venice, the great channel of communication with the East.
    Like many other refinements of decency and cleanliness, they were
    at first chiefly cultivated by prostitutes, and, on this account,
    there was long a prejudice against them. Even at the present day,
    it is said that in France, a young peasant girl will exclaim, if
    asked whether she wears drawers: "I wear drawers, Madame? A
    respectable girl!" Drawers, however, quickly became acclimatized
    in France, and Dufour (op. cit., vol. vi, p. 28) even regards
    them as essentially a French garment. They were introduced at the
    Court towards the end of the fourteenth century, and in the
    sixteenth century were rendered almost necessary by the new
    fashion of the _vertugale_, or farthingale. In 1615, a lady's
    _caleçons_ are referred to as apparently an ordinary garment. It
    is noteworthy that in London, in the middle of the same century,
    young Mrs. Pepys, who was the daughter of French parents, usually
    wore drawers, which were seemingly of the closed kind. (_Diary_
    of S. Pepys, ed. Wheatley, May 15, 1663, vol. iii.) They were
    probably not worn by Englishwomen, and even in France, with the
    decay of the farthingale, they seem to have dropped out of use
    during the seventeenth century. In a technical and very complete
    book, _L'Art de la Lingerie_, published in 1771, women's drawers
    are not even mentioned, and Mercier (_Tableau de Paris_, 1783,
    vol. vii, p. 54) says that, except actresses, Parisian women do
    not wear drawers. Even by ballet dancers and actresses on the
    stage, they were not invariably worn. Camargo, the famous dancer,
    who first shortened the skirt in dancing, early in the eighteenth
    century, always observed great decorum, never showing the leg
    above the knee; when appealed to as to whether she wore drawers,
    she replied that she could not possibly appear without such a
    "precaution." But they were not necessarily worn by dancers, and
    in 1727 a young _ballerina_, having had her skirt accidentally
    torn away by a piece of stage machinery, the police issued an
    order that in future no actress or dancer should appear on the
    stage without drawers; this regulation does not appear, however,
    to have been long strictly maintained, though Schulz (_Ueber
    Paris und die Pariser_, p. 145) refers to it as in force in 1791.
    (The obscure origin and history of feminine drawers have been
    discussed from time to time in the _Intermédiaire des Chercheurs
    et Curieux_, especially vols. xxv, lii, and liii.)

    Prof. Irving Rosse, of Washington, refers to "New England
    prudishness," and "the colossal modesty of some New York
    policemen, who in certain cases want to give written, rather than
    oral testimony." He adds: "I have known this sentiment carried to
    such an extent in a Massachusetts small town, that a shop-keeper
    was obliged to drape a small, but innocent, statuette displayed
    in his window." (Irving Rosse, _Virginia Medical Monthly_,
    October, 1892.) I am told that popular feeling in South Africa
    would not permit the exhibition of the nude in the Art
    Collections of Cape Town. Even in Italy, nude statues are
    disfigured by the addition of tin fig-leaves, and sporadic
    manifestations of horror at the presence of nude statues, even
    when of most classic type, are liable to occur in all parts of
    Europe, including France and Germany. (Examples of this are
    recorded from time to time in _Sexual-reform_, published as an
    appendix to _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_.)

    Some years ago, (1898), it was stated that the Philadelphia
    _Ladies' Home Journal_ had decided to avoid, in future, all
    reference to ladies' under-linen, because "the treatment of this
    subject in print calls for _minutiæ_ of detail which is extremely
    and pardonably offensive to refined and sensitive women."

    "A man, married twenty years, told me that he had never seen his
    wife entirely nude. Such concealment of the external reproductive
    organs, by married people, appears to be common. Judging from my
    own inquiry, very few women care to look upon male nakedness, and
    many women, though not wanting in esthetic feeling, find no
    beauty in man's form. Some are positively repelled by the sight
    of nakedness, even that of a husband or lover. On the contrary,
    most men delight in gazing upon the uncovered figure of women.
    It seems that only highly-cultivated and imaginative women enjoy
    the spectacle of a finely-shaped nude man (especially after
    attending art classes, and drawing from the nude, as I am told by
    a lady artist). Or else the majority of women dissemble their
    curiosity or admiration. A woman of seventy, mother of several
    children, said to a young wife with whom I am acquainted: 'I have
    never seen a naked man in my life.' This old lady's sister
    confessed that she had never looked at _her own_ nakedness in the
    whole course of her life. She said that it 'frightened' her. She
    was the mother of three sons. A maiden woman of the same family
    told her niece that women were 'disgusting, because they have
    monthly discharges.' The niece suggested that women have no
    choice in the matter, to which the aunt replied: 'I know that;
    but it doesn't make them less disgusting,' I have heard of a girl
    who died from hæmorrhage of the womb, refusing, through shame, to
    make the ailment known to her family. The misery suffered by some
    women at the anticipation of a medical examination, appears to be
    very acute. Husbands have told me of brides who sob and tremble
    with fright on the wedding-night, the hysteria being sometimes
    alarming. E, aged 25, refused her husband for six weeks after
    marriage, exhibiting the greatest fear of his approach. Ignorance
    of the nature of the sexual connection is often the cause of
    exaggerated alarm. In Jersey, I used to hear of a bride who ran
    to the window and screamed 'murder,' on the wedding-night."
    (Private communication.)

    At the present day it is not regarded as incompatible with
    modesty to exhibit the lower part of the thigh when in swimming
    costume, but it is immodest to exhibit the upper part of the
    thigh. In swimming competitions, a minimum of clothing must be
    combined with the demands of modesty. In England, the regulations
    of the Swimming Clubs affiliated to the Amateur Swimming
    Association, require that the male swimmer's costume shall extend
    not less than eight inches from the bifurcation downward, and
    that the female swimmer's costume shall extend to within not more
    than three inches from the knee. (A prolonged discussion, we are
    told, arose as to whether the costume should come to one, two, or
    three inches from the knee, and the proposal of the youngest lady
    swimmer present, that the costume ought to be very scanty, met
    with little approval.) The modesty of women is thus seen to be
    greater than that of men by, roughly speaking, about two inches.
    The same difference may be seen in the sleeves; the male sleeve
    must extend for two inches, the female sleeve four inches, down
    the arm. (Daily Papers, September 26, 1898.)

    "At ----, bathing in a state of Nature was _de rigueur_ for the
    _élite_ of the bathers, while our Sunday visitors from the slums
    frequently made a great point of wearing bathing costumes; it was
    frequently noticed that those who were most anxious to avoid
    exposing their persons were distinguished by the foulness of
    their language. My impression was that their foul-mindedness
    deprived them of the consciousness of safety from coarse jests.
    If I were bathing alone among blackguards, I should probably feel
    uncomfortable myself, if without costume." (Private
    communication.)

    A lady in a little city of the south of Italy, told Paola
    Lombroso that young middle-class girls there are not allowed to
    go out except to Mass, and cannot even show themselves at the
    window except under their mother's eye; yet they do not think it
    necessary to have a cabin when sea-bathing, and even dispense
    with a bathing costume without consciousness of immodesty. (P.
    Lombroso, _Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1901, p. 306.)

    "A woman mentioned to me that a man came to her and told her in
    confidence his distress of mind: he feared he had _corrupted_ his
    wife because she got into a bath in his presence, with her baby,
    and enjoyed his looking at her splashing about. He was deeply
    distressed, thinking he must have done her harm, and destroyed
    her modesty. The woman to whom this was said felt naturally
    indignant, but also it gave her the feeling as if every man may
    secretly despise a woman for the very things he teaches her, and
    only meets her confiding delight with regret or dislike."
    (Private communication.)

    "Women will occasionally be found to hide diseases and symptoms
    from a bashfulness and modesty so great and perverse as to be
    hardly credible," writes Dr. W. Wynn Westcott, an experienced
    coroner. "I have known several cases of female deaths, reported
    as sudden, and of cause unknown, when the medical man called in
    during the latter hours of life has been quite unaware that his
    lady patient was dying of gangrene of a strangulated femoral
    hernia, or was bleeding to death from the bowel, or from ruptured
    varices of the vulva." (_British Medical Journal_, Feb. 29,
    1908.)

    The foregoing selection of facts might, of course, be
    indefinitely enlarged, since I have not generally quoted from any
    previous collection of facts bearing on the question of modesty.
    Such collections may be found in Ploss and Max Bartels _Das
    Weib_, a work that is constantly appearing in new and enlarged
    editions; Herbert Spencer, _Descriptive Sociology_ (especially
    under such headings as "Clothing," "Moral Sentiments," and
    "Æsthetic Products"); W.G. Sumner, _Folkways_, Ch. XI;
    Mantegazza, _Amori degli Uomini_, Chapter II; Westermarck,
    _Marriage_, Chapter IX; Letourneau, _L'Evolution de la Morale_,
    pp. 126 et seq.; G. Mortimer, _Chapters on Human Love_, Chapter
    IV; and in the general anthropological works of Waitz-Gerland,
    Peschel, Ratzel and others.


FOOTNOTES:

[1] The earliest theory I have met with is that of St. Augustine, who
states (_De Civitate Dei_, Bk. XIV, Ch. XVII) that erections of the penis
never occurred until after the Fall of Man. It was the occurrence of this
"shameless novelty" which made nakedness indecent. This theory fails to
account for modesty in women.

[2] Guyau, _L'Irreligion de l'Avenir_, Ch. VII.

[3] Timidity, as understood by Dugas, in his interesting essay on that
subject, is probably most remote. Dr. H. Campbell's "morbid shyness"
(_British Medical Journal_, September 26, 1896) is, in part, identical
with timidity, in part, with modesty. The matter is further complicated by
the fact that modesty itself has in English (like virtue) two distinct
meanings. In its original form it has no special connection with sex or
women, but may rather be considered as a masculine virtue. Cicero regards
"modestia" as the equivalent of the Greek sôphrosunê. This is the
"modesty" which Mary Wollstonecraft eulogized in the last century, the
outcome of knowledge and reflection, "soberness of mind," "the graceful
calm virtue of maturity." In French, it is possible to avoid the
confusion, and _modestie_ is entirely distinct from _pudeur_. It is, of
course, mainly with _pudeur_ that I am here concerned.




II.

Modesty an Agglomeration of Fears--Children in Relation to
Modesty--Modesty in Animals--The Attitude of the Medicean Venus--The
Sexual Factor of Modesty Based on Sexual Periodicity and on the Primitive
Phenomena of Courtship--The Necessity of Seclusion in Primitive Sexual
Intercourse--The Meaning of Coquetry--The Sexual Charm of Modesty--Modesty
as an Expression of Feminine Erotic Impulse--The Fear of Causing Disgust
as a Factor of Modesty--The Modesty of Savages in Regard to Eating in the
Presence of Others--The Sacro-Pubic Region as a Focus of Disgust--The Idea
of Ceremonial Uncleanliness--The Custom of Veiling the Face--Ornaments and
Clothing--Modesty Becomes Concentrated in the Garment--The Economic Factor
in Modesty--The Contribution of Civilization to Modesty--The Elaboration
of Social Ritual.


That modesty--like all the closely-allied emotions--is based on fear, one
of the most primitive of the emotions, seems to be fairly evident.[4] The
association of modesty and fear is even a very ancient observation, and is
found in the fragments of Epicharmus, while according to one of the most
recent definitions, "modesty is the timidity of the body." Modesty is,
indeed, an agglomeration of fears, especially, as I hope to show, of two
important and distinct fears: one of much earlier than human origin, and
supplied solely by the female; the other of more distinctly human
character, and of social, rather than sexual, origin.

A child left to itself, though very bashful, is wholly devoid of
modesty.[5] Everyone is familiar with the shocking _inconvenances_ of
children in speech and act, with the charming ways in which they
innocently disregard the conventions of modesty their elders thrust upon
them, or, even when anxious to carry them out, wholly miss the point at
issue: as when a child thinks that to put a little garment round the neck
satisfies the demands of modesty. Julius Moses states that modesty in the
uncovering of the sexual parts begins about the age of four. But in cases
when this occurs it is difficult to exclude teaching and example. Under
civilized conditions the convention of modesty long precedes its real
development. Bell has found that in love affairs before the age of nine
the girl is more aggressive than the boy and that at that age she begins
to be modest.[6] It may fairly be said that complete development of
modesty only takes place at the advent of puberty.[7] We may admit, with
Perez, one of the very few writers who touch on the evolution of this
emotion, that modesty may appear at a very early age if sexual desire
appears early.[8] We should not, however, be justified in asserting that
on this account modesty is a purely sexual phenomenon. The social impulses
also develop about puberty, and to that coincidence the compound nature of
the emotion of modesty may well be largely due.

The sexual factor is, however, the simplest and most primitive element of
modesty, and may, therefore, be mentioned first. Anyone who watches a
bitch, not in heat, when approached by a dog with tail wagging gallantly,
may see the beginnings of modesty. When the dog's attentions become a
little too marked, the bitch squats firmly down on the front legs and hind
quarters though when the period of oestrus comes her modesty may be flung
to the air and she eagerly turns her hind quarters to her admirer's nose
and elevates her tail high in the air. Her attitude of refusal is
equivalent, that is to say, to that which in the human race is typified by
the classical example of womanly modesty in the Medicean Venus, who
withdraws the pelvis, at the same time holding one hand to guard the
pubes, the other to guard the breasts.[9] The essential expression in each
case is that of defence of the sexual centers against the undesired
advances of the male.[10]

    Stratz, who criticizes the above statement, argues (with
    photographs of nude women in illustration) that the normal type
    of European surprised modesty is shown by an attitude in which
    the arms are crossed over the breast, the most sexually
    attractive region, while the thighs are pressed together, one
    being placed before the other, the shoulder raised and the back
    slightly curved; occasionally, he adds, the hands may be used to
    cover the face, and then the crossed arms conceal the breasts.
    The Medicean Venus, he remarks, is only a pretty woman coquetting
    with her body. Canova's Venus in the Pitti (who has drapery in
    front of her, and presses her arms across her breast) being a
    more accurate rendering of the attitude of modesty. But Stratz
    admits that when a surprised woman is gazed at for some time, she
    turns her head away, sinks or closes her eyes, and covers her
    pubes (or any other part she thinks is being gazed at) with one
    hand, while with the other she hides her breast or face. This he
    terms the secondary expression of modesty. (Stratz, _Die
    Frauenkleidung_, third ed., p. 23.)

    It is certainly true that the Medicean Venus merely represents an
    artistic convention, a generalized tradition, not founded on
    exact and precise observation of the gestures of modesty, and it
    is equally true that all the instinctive movements noted by
    Stratz are commonly resorted to by a woman whose nakedness is
    surprised. But in the absence of any series of carefully recorded
    observations, one may doubt whether the distinction drawn by
    Stratz between the primary and the secondary expression of
    modesty can be upheld as the general rule, while it is most
    certainly not true for every case. When a young woman is
    surprised in a state of nakedness by a person of the opposite, or
    even of the same, sex, it is her instinct to conceal the primary
    centers of sexual function and attractiveness, in the first
    place, the pubes, in the second place the breasts. The exact
    attitude and the particular gestures of the hands in achieving
    the desired end vary with the individual, and with the
    circumstances. The hand may not be used at all as a veil, and,
    indeed, the instinct of modesty itself may inhibit the use of the
    hand for the protection of modesty (to turn the back towards the
    beholder is often the chief impulse of blushing modesty, even
    when clothed), but the application of the hand to this end is
    primitive and natural. The lowly Fuegian woman, depicted by
    Hyades and Deniker, who holds her hand to her pubes while being
    photographed, is one at this point with the Roman Venus described
    by Ovid (_Ars Amatoria_, Book  II):--

        "Ipsa Venus pubem, quoties velamnia ponit,
        Protegitur læva semireducta manus."

    It may be added that young men of the lower social classes, at
    all events in England, when bathing at the seaside in complete
    nudity, commonly grasp the sexual organs with one hand, for
    concealment, as they walk up from the sea.

The sexual modesty of the female animal is rooted in the sexual
periodicity of the female, and is an involuntary expression of the organic
fact that the time for love is not now. Inasmuch as this fact is true of
the greater part of the lives of all female animals below man, the
expression itself becomes so habitual that it even intrudes at those
moments when it has ceased to be in place. We may see this again
illustrated in the bitch, who, when in heat, herself runs after the male,
and again turns to flee, perhaps only submitting with much persuasion to
his embrace. Thus, modesty becomes something more than a mere refusal of
the male; it becomes an invitation to the male, and is mixed up with his
ideas of what is sexually desirable in the female. This would alone serve
to account for the existence of modesty as a psychical secondary sexual
character. In this sense, and in this sense only, we may say, with Colin
Scott, that "the feeling of shame is made to be overcome," and is thus
correlated with its physical representative, the hymen, in the rupture of
which, as Groos remarks, there is, in some degree, a disruption also of
modesty. The sexual modesty of the female is thus an inevitable by-product
of the naturally aggressive attitude of the male in sexual relationships,
and the naturally defensive attitude of the female, this again being
founded on the fact that, while--in man and the species allied to him--the
sexual function in the female is periodic, and during most of life a
function to be guarded from the opposite sex, in the male it rarely or
never needs to be so guarded.[11]

Both male and female, however, need to guard themselves during the
exercise of their sexual activities from jealous rivals, as well as from
enemies who might take advantage of their position to attack them. It is
highly probable that this is one important sexual factor in the
constitution of modesty, and it helps to explain how the male, not less
than the female, cultivates modesty, and shuns publicity, in the exercise
of sexual functions. Northcote has especially emphasized this element in
modesty, as originating in the fear of rivals. "That from this seeking
after secrecy from motives of fear should arise an instinctive feeling
that the sexual act must always be hidden, is a natural enough sequence.
And since it is not a long step between thinking of an act as needing
concealment and thinking of it as wrong, it is easily conceivable that
sexual intercourse comes to be regarded as a stolen and therefore, in some
degree, a sinful pleasure."[12]

Animals in a state of nature usually appear to seek seclusion for sexual
intercourse, although this instinct is lost under domestication. Even the
lowest savages, also, if uncorrupted by civilized influences, seek the
solitude of the forest or the protection of their huts for the same
purpose; the rare cases in which coitus is public seem usually to involve
a ceremonial or social observance, rather than mere personal
gratification. At Loango, for instance, it would be highly improper to
have intercourse in an exposed spot; it must only be performed inside the
hut, with closed doors, at night, when no one is present.[13]

    It is on the sexual factor of modesty, existing in a well-marked
    form even among animals, that coquetry is founded. I am glad to
    find myself on this point in agreement with Professor Groos, who,
    in his elaborate study of the play-instinct, has reached the same
    conclusion. So far from being the mere heartless play by which a
    woman shows her power over a man, Groos points out that coquetry
    possesses "high biological and psychological significance," being
    rooted in the antagonism between the sexual instinct and inborn
    modesty. He refers to the roe, who runs away from the stag--but
    in a circle. (Groos, _Die Spiele der Menschen_, 1899, p. 339;
    also the same author's _Die Spiele der Thiere_, pp. 288 _et
    seq._) Another example of coquetry is furnished by the female
    kingfisher (_Alcedo ispida_), which will spend all the morning in
    teasing and flying away from the male, but is careful constantly
    to look back, and never to let him out of her sight. (Many
    examples are given by Büchner, in _Liebe und Liebesleben in der
    Tierwelt_.) Robert Müller (_Sexualbiologie_, p. 302) emphasizes
    the importance of coquetry as a lure to the male.

    "It is quite true," a lady writes to me in a private letter,
    "that 'coquetry is a poor thing,' and that every milkmaid can
    assume it, but a woman uses it principally in self-defence, while
    she is finding out what the man himself is like." This is in
    accordance with the remark of Marro, that modesty enables a woman
    "to put lovers to the test, in order to select him who is best
    able to serve the natural ends of love." It is doubtless the
    necessity for this probationary period, as a test of masculine
    qualities, which usually leads a woman to repel instinctively a
    too hasty and impatient suitor, for, as Arthur Macdonald remarks,
    "It seems to be instinctive in young women to reject the
    impetuous lover, without the least consideration of his
    character, ability, and fitness."

This essential element in courtship, this fundamental attitude of pursuer
and pursued, is clearly to be seen even in animals and savages; it is
equally pronounced in the most civilized men and women, manifesting itself
in crude and subtle ways alike. Shakespeare's Angelo, whose virtue had
always resisted the temptations of vice, discovered at last that

            "modesty may more betray our sense
    Than woman's lightness."

"What," asked the wise Montaigne, "is the object of that virginal shame,
that sedate coldness, that severe countenance, that pretence of not
knowing things which they understand better than we who teach them, except
to increase in us the desire to conquer and curb, to trample under our
appetite, all that ceremony and those obstacles? For there is not only
matter for pleasure, but for pride also, in ruffling and debauching that
soft sweetness and infantine modesty."[14] The masculine attitude in the
face of feminine coyness may easily pass into a kind of sadism, but is
nevertheless in its origin an innocent and instinctive impulse. Restif de
la Bretonne, describing his own shame and timidity as a pretty boy whom
the girls would run after and kiss, adds: "It is surprising that at the
same time I would imagine the pleasure I should have in embracing a girl
who resisted, in inspiring her with timidity, in making her flee and in
pursuing her; that was a part which I burned to play."[15] It is the
instinct of the sophisticated and the unsophisticated alike. The Arabs
have developed an erotic ideal of sensuality, but they emphasize the
importance of feminine modesty, and declare that the best woman is "she
who sees not men and whom they see not."[16] This deep-rooted modesty of
women towards men in courtship is intimately interwoven with the marriage
customs and magic rites of even the most primitive peoples, and has
survived in many civilized practices to-day.[17] The prostitute must be
able to simulate the modesty she may often be far from feeling, and the
immense erotic advantage of the innocent over the vicious woman lies
largely in the fact that in her the exquisite reactions of modesty are
fresh and vigorous. "I cannot imagine anything that is more sexually
exciting," remarks Hans Menjago, "than to observe a person of the opposite
sex, who, by some external or internal force, is compelled to fight
against her physical modesty. The more modest she is the more sexually
exciting is the picture she presents."[18] It is notable that even in
abnormal, as well as in normal, erotic passion the desire is for innocent
and not for vicious women, and, in association with this, the desired
favor to be keenly relished must often be gained by sudden surprise and
not by mutual agreement. A foot fetichist writes to me: "It is the
_stolen_ glimpse of a pretty foot or ankle which produces the greatest
effect on me." A urolagnic symbolist was chiefly excited by the act of
urination when he caught a young woman unawares in the act. A fetichistic
admirer of the nates only desired to see this region in innocent girls,
not in prostitutes. The exhibitionist, almost invariably, only exposes
himself to apparently respectable girls.

    A Russian correspondent, who feels this charm of women in a
    particularly strong degree, is inclined to think that there is an
    element of perversity in it. "In the erotic action of the idea of
    feminine enjoyment," he writes, "I think there are traces of a
    certain perversity. In fact, owing to the impressions of early
    youth, woman (even if we feel contempt for her in theory) is
    placed above us, on a certain pedestal, as an almost sacred
    being, and the more so because mysterious. Now sensuality and
    sexual desire are considered as rather vulgar, and a little
    dirty, even ridiculous and degrading, not to say bestial. The
    woman who enjoys it, is, therefore, rather like a profaned altar,
    or, at least, like a divinity who has descended on to the earth.
    To give enjoyment to a woman is, therefore, like perpetrating a
    sacrilege, or at least like taking a liberty with a god. The
    feelings bequeathed to us by a long social civilization maintain
    themselves in spite of our rational and deliberate opinions.
    Reason tells us that there is nothing evil in sexual enjoyment,
    whether in man or woman, but an unconscious feeling directs our
    emotions, and this feeling (having a germ that was placed in
    modern men by Christianity, and perhaps by still older religions)
    says that woman _ought_ to be an absolutely pure being, with
    ethereal sensations, and that in her sexual enjoyment is out of
    place, improper, scandalous. To arouse sexual emotions in a
    woman, if not to profane a sacred host, is, at all events, the
    staining of an immaculate peplos; if not sacrilege, it is, at
    least, irreverence or impertinence. For all men, the chaster a
    woman is, the more agreeable it is to bring her to the orgasm.
    That is felt as a triumph of the body over the soul, of sin over
    virtue, of earth over heaven. There is something diabolic in such
    pleasure, especially when it is felt by a man intoxicated with
    love, and full of religious respect for the virgin of his
    election. This feeling is, from a rational point of view, absurd,
    and in its tendencies, immoral; but it is delicious in its
    sacredly voluptuous subtlety. Defloration thus has its powerful
    fascination in the respect consciously or unconsciously felt for
    woman's chastity. In marriage, the feeling is yet more
    complicated: in deflowering his bride, the Christian (that is,
    any man brought up in a Christian civilization) has the feeling
    of committing a sort of sin (for the 'flesh' is, for him, always
    connected with sin) which, by a special privilege, has for him
    become legitimate. He has received a special permit to corrupt
    innocence. Hence, the peculiar prestige for civilized Christians,
    of the wedding night, sung by Shelley, in ecstatic  verses:--

        "'Oh, joy! Oh, fear! What will be done
        In the absence of the sun!'"

    This feeling has, however, its normal range, and is not, _per
    se_, a perversity, though it may doubtless become so when unduly
    heightened by Christian sentiment, and especially if it leads, as
    to some extent it has led in my Russian correspondent, to an
    abnormal feeling of the sexual attraction of girls who have only
    or scarcely reached the age of puberty. The sexual charm of this
    period of girlhood is well illustrated in many of the poems of
    Thomas Ashe, and it is worthy of note, as perhaps supporting the
    contention that this attraction is based on Christian feeling,
    that Ashe had been a clergyman. An attentiveness to the woman's
    pleasure remains, in itself, very far from a perversion, but
    increases, as Colin Scott has pointed out, with civilization,
    while its absence--the indifference to the partner's pleasure--is
    a perversion of the most degraded kind.

There is no such instinctive demand on the woman's part for innocence in
the man.[19] In the nature of things that could not be. Such emotion is
required for properly playing the part of the pursued; it is by no means
an added attraction on the part of the pursuer. There is, however, an
allied and corresponding desire which is very often clearly or latently
present in the woman: a longing for pleasure that is stolen or forbidden.
It is a mistake to suppose that this is an indication of viciousness or
perversity. It appears to be an impulse that occurs quite naturally in
altogether innocent women. The exciting charm of the risky and dangerous
naturally arises on a background of feminine shyness and timidity. We may
trace its recognition at a very early stage of history in the story of Eve
and the forbidden fruit that has so often been the symbol of the masculine
organs of sex. It is on this ground that many have argued the folly of
laying external restrictions on women in matters of love. Thus in quoting
the great Italian writer who afterwards became Pope Pius II, Robert Burton
remarked: "I am of Æneas Sylvius' mind, 'Those jealous Italians do very
ill to lock up their wives; for women are of such a disposition they will
mostly covet that which is denied most, and offend least when they have
free liberty to trespass.'"[20]

It is the spontaneous and natural instinct of the lover to desire modesty
in his mistress, and by no means any calculated opinion on his part that
modesty is the sign of sexual emotion. It remains true, however, that
modesty is an expression of feminine erotic impulse. We have here one of
the instances, of which there, are so many, of that curious and
instinctive harmony by which Nature has sought the more effectively to
bring about the ends of courtship. As to the fact itself there can be
little doubt. It constantly forces itself on the notice of careful
observers, and has long been decided in the affirmative by those who have
discussed the matter. Venette, one of the earliest writers on the
psychology of sex, after discussing the question at length, decided that
the timid woman is a more ardent lover than the bold woman.[21] "It is the
most pudent girl," remarked Restif de la Bretonne whose experience of
women was so extensive, "the girl who blushes most, who is most disposed
to the pleasures of love," he adds that, in girls and boys alike, shyness
is a premature consciousness of sex.[22] This observation has even become
embodied in popular proverbs. "Do as the lasses do--say no, but take it,"
is a Scotch saying, to which corresponds the Welsh saying, "The more
prudish the more unchaste."[23]

    It is not, at first, quite clear why an excessively shy and
    modest woman should be the most apt for intimate relationships
    with a man, and in such a case the woman is often charged with
    hypocrisy. There is, however, no hypocrisy in the matter. The shy
    and reserved woman holds herself aloof from intimacy in ordinary
    friendship, because she is acutely sensitive to the judgments of
    others, and fears that any seemingly immodest action may make an
    unfavorable opinion. With a lover, however, in whose eyes she
    feels assured that her actions can not be viewed unfavorably,
    these barriers of modesty fall down, and the resulting intimacy
    becomes all the more fascinating to the woman because of its
    contrast with the extreme reserve she is impelled to maintain in
    other relationships. It thus happens that many modest women who,
    in non-sexual relationships with their own sex, are not able to
    act with the physical unreserve not uncommon with women among
    themselves, yet feel no such reserve with a man, when they are
    once confident of his good opinion. Much the same is true of
    modest and sensitive men in their relations with women.

This fundamental animal factor of modesty, rooted in the natural facts of
the sexual life of the higher mammals, and especially man, obviously will
not explain all the phenomena of modesty. We must turn to the other great
primary element of modesty, the social factor.

We cannot doubt that one of the most primitive and universal of the social
characteristics of man is an aptitude for disgust, founded, as it is, on a
yet more primitive and animal aptitude for disgust, which has little or no
social significance. In nearly all races, even the most savage, we seem
to find distinct traces of this aptitude for disgust in the presence of
certain actions of others, an emotion naturally reflected in the
individual's own actions, and hence a guide to conduct. Notwithstanding
our gastric community of disgust with lower animals, it is only in man
that this disgust seems to become transformed and developed, to possess a
distinctly social character, and to serve as a guide to social
conduct.[24] The objects of disgust vary infinitely according to the
circumstances and habits of particular races, but the reaction of disgust
is fundamental throughout.

The best study of the phenomena of disgust known to me is, without doubt,
Professor Richet's.[25] Richet concludes that it is the _dangerous_ and
the _useless_ which evoke disgust. The digestive and sexual excretions and
secretions, being either useless or, in accordance with widespread
primitive ideas, highly dangerous, the genito-anal region became a
concentrated focus of disgust.[26] It is largely for this reason, no
doubt, that savage men exhibit modesty, not only toward women, but toward
their own sex, and that so many of the lowest savages take great
precautions in obtaining seclusion for the fulfillment of natural
functions. The statement, now so often made, that the primary object of
clothes is to accentuate, rather than to conceal, has in it--as I shall
point out later--a large element of truth, but it is by no means a
complete account of the matter. It seems difficult not to admit that,
alongside the impulse to accentuate sexual differences, there is also in
both men and women a genuine impulse to concealment among the most
primitive peoples, and the invincible repugnance often felt by savages to
remove the girdle or apron, is scarcely accounted for by the theory that
it is solely a sexual lure.

In this connection it seems to me instructive to consider a special form
of modesty very strongly marked among savages in some parts of the world.
I refer to the feeling of immodesty in eating. Where this feeling exists,
modesty is offended when one eats in public; the modest man retires to
eat. Indecency, said Cook, was utterly unknown among the Tahitians; but
they would not eat together; even brothers and sisters had their separate
baskets of provisions, and generally sat some yards apart, with their
backs to each other, when they ate.[27] The Warrua of Central Africa,
Cameron found, when offered a drink, put up a cloth before their faces
while they swallowed it, and would not allow anyone to see them eat or
drink; so that every man or woman must have his own fire and cook for
himself.[28] Karl von den Steinen remarks, in his interesting book on
Brazil, that though the Bakairi of Central Brazil have no feeling of shame
about nakedness, they are ashamed to eat in public; they retire to eat,
and hung their heads in shame-faced confusion when they saw him innocently
eat in public. Hrolf Vaughan Stevens found that, when he gave an Orang
Laut (Malay) woman anything to eat, she not only would not eat it if her
husband were present, but if any man were present she would go outside
before eating or giving her children to eat.[29] Thus among these peoples
the act of eating in public produces the same feelings as among ourselves
the indecent exposure of the body in public.[30]

It is quite easy to understand how this arises. Whenever there is any
pressure on the means of subsistence, as among savages at some time or
another there nearly always is, it must necessarily arouse a profound and
mixed emotion of desire and disgust to see another person putting into his
stomach what one might just as well have put into one's own.[31] The
special secrecy sometimes observed by women is probably due to the fact
that women would be less able to resist the emotions that the act of
eating would arouse in onlookers. As social feeling develops, a man
desires not only to eat in safety, but also to avoid being an object of
disgust, and to spare his friends all unpleasant emotions. Hence it
becomes a requirement of ordinary decency to eat in private. A man who
eats in public becomes--like the man who in our cities exposes his person
in public--an object of disgust and contempt.

Long ago, when a hospital student on midwifery duty in London slums, I had
occasion to observe that among the women of the poor, and more especially
in those who had lost the first bloom of youth, modesty consisted chiefly
in the fear of being disgusting. There was an almost pathetic anxiety, in
the face of pain and discomfort, not to be disgusting in the doctor's
eyes. This anxiety expressed itself in the ordinary symptoms of modesty.
But, as soon as the woman realized that I found nothing disgusting in
whatever was proper and necessary to be done under the circumstances, it
almost invariably happened that every sign of modesty at once
disappeared.[32] In the special and elementary conditions of parturition,
modesty is reduced to this one fear of causing disgust; so that, when that
is negated, the emotion is non-existent, and the subject becomes, without
effort, as direct and natural as a little child. A fellow-student on
similar duty, who also discovered for himself the same character of
modesty--that if he was careful to guard her modesty the woman was careful
also, and that if he was not the woman was not--remarked on it to me with
sadness; it seemed to him derogatory to womanhood that what he had been
accustomed to consider its supreme grace should be so superficial that he
could at will set limits to it.[33] I thought then, as I think still, that
that was rather a perversion of the matter, and that nothing becomes
degrading because we happen to have learned something about its
operations. But I am more convinced than ever that the fear of causing
disgust--a fear quite distinct from that of losing a sexual lure or
breaking a rule of social etiquette--plays a very large part in the
modesty of the more modest sex, and in modesty generally. Our Venuses, as
Lucretius long since remarked and Montaigne after him, are careful to
conceal from their lovers the _vita postscenia_, and that fantastic fate
which placed so near together the supreme foci of physical attraction and
physical repugnance, has immensely contributed to build up all the
subtlest coquetries of courtship. Whatever stimulates self-confidence and
lulls the fear of evoking disgust--whether it is the presence of a beloved
person in whose good opinion complete confidence is felt, or whether it is
merely the grosser narcotizing influence of a slight degree of
intoxication--always automatically lulls the emotion of modesty.[34]
Together with the animal factor of sexual refusal, this social fear of
evoking disgust seems to me the most fundamental element in modesty.

It is, of course, impossible to argue that the fact of the sacro-pubic
region of the body being the chief focus of concealment proves the
importance of this factor of modesty. But it may fairly be argued that it
owes this position not merely to being the sexual centre, but also as
being the excretory centre. Even among many lower mammals, as well as
among birds and insects, there is a well-marked horror of dirt, somewhat
disguised by the varying ways in which an animal may be said to define
"dirt." Many animals spend more time and energy in the duties of
cleanliness than human beings, and they often show well-marked anxiety to
remove their own excrement, or to keep away from it.[35] Thus this element
of modesty also may be said to have an animal basis.

It is on this animal basis that the human and social fear of arousing
disgust has developed. Its probably wide extension is indicated not only
by the strong feeling attached to the constant presence of clothing on
this part of the body,--such constant presence being quite uncalled for if
the garment or ornament is merely a sort of sexual war-paint,--but by the
repugnance felt by many savages very low down in the scale to the public
satisfaction of natural needs, and to their more than civilized
cleanliness in this connection;[36] it is further of interest to note that
in some parts of the world the covering is not in front, but behind;
though of this fact there are probably other explanations. Among civilized
people, also, it may be added, the final and invincible seat of modesty is
sometimes not around the pubes, but the anus; that is to say, that in such
cases the fear of arousing disgust is the ultimate and most fundamental
element of modesty.[37]

    The concentration of modesty around the anus is sometimes very
    marked. Many women feel so high a degree of shame and reserve
    with regard to this region, that they are comparatively
    indifferent to an anterior examination of the sexual organs. A
    similar feeling is not seldom found in men. "I would permit of an
    examination of my genitals by a medical man, without any feeling
    of discomfort," a correspondent writes, "but I think I would
    rather die than submit to any rectal examination." Even
    physicians have been known to endure painful rectal disorders for
    years, rather than undergo examination.

    "Among ordinary English girls," a medical correspondent writes,
    "I have often noticed that the dislike and shame of allowing a
    man to have sexual intercourse with them, when newly married, is
    simply due to the fact that the sexual aperture is so closely
    apposed to the anus and bladder. If the vulva and vagina were
    situated between a woman's shoulder blades, and a man had a
    separate instrument for coitus, not used for any excretory
    purpose, I do not think women would feel about intercourse as
    they sometimes do. Again, in their ignorance of anatomy, women
    often look upon the vagina and womb as part of the bowel and its
    exit of discharge, and sometimes say, for instance,
    'inflammation of the _bowel_', when they mean _womb_. Again,
    many, perhaps most, women believe that they pass water through
    the vagina, and are ignorant of the existence of the separate
    urethral orifice. Again, women associate the vulva with the anus,
    and so feel ashamed of it; even when speaking to their husbands,
    or to a doctor, or among themselves; they have absolutely no name
    for the vulva (I mean among the upper classes, and people of
    gentle birth), but speak of it as 'down below,' 'low down,' etc."

    Even though this feeling is largely based on wrong and ignorant
    ideas, it must still be recognized that it is to some extent
    natural and inevitable. "How much is risked," exclaims Dugas, "in
    the privacies of love! The results may be disillusion, disgust,
    the consciousness of physical imperfection, of brutality or
    coldness, of æsthetic disenchantment, of a sentimental shock,
    seen or divined. To be without modesty, that is to say, to have
    no fear of the ordeals of love, one must be sure of one's self,
    of one's grace, of one's physical emotions, of one's feelings,
    and be sure, moreover, of the effect of all these on the nerves,
    the imagination, and the heart of another person. Let us suppose
    modesty reduced to æsthetic discomfort, to a woman's fear of
    displeasing, or of not seeming beautiful enough. Even thus
    defined, how can modesty avoid being always awake and restless?
    What woman could repeat, without risk, the tranquil action of
    Phryne? And even in that action, who knows how much may not have
    been due to mere professional insolence!" (Dugas, "La Pudeur,"
    _Revue Philosophique_, November, 1903.) "Men and Women," Schurtz
    points out (_Altersklassen und Männerbünde_, pp. 41-51), "have
    certainly the capacity mutually to supplement and enrich each
    other; but when this completion fails, or is not sought, the
    difference may easily become a strong antipathy;" and he proceeds
    to develop the wide-reaching significance of this psychic fact.

I have emphasized the proximity of the excretory centres to the sexual
focus in discussing this important factor of modesty, because, in
analyzing so complex and elusive an emotion as modesty it is desirable to
keep as near as possible to the essential and fundamental facts on which
it is based. It is scarcely necessary to point out that, in ordinary
civilized society, these fundamental facts are not usually present at the
surface of consciousness and may even be absent altogether; on the
foundation of them may arise all sorts of idealized fears, of delicate
reserves, of æsthetic refinements, as the emotions of love become more
complex and more subtle, and the crude simplicity of the basis on which
they finally rest becomes inevitably concealed.

Another factor of modesty, which reaches a high development in savagery,
is the ritual element, especially the idea of ceremonial uncleanness,
based on a dread of the supernatural influences which the sexual organs
and functions are supposed to exert. It may be to some extent rooted in
the elements already referred to, and it leads us into a much wider field
than that of modesty, so that it is only necessary to touch slightly on it
here; it has been exhaustively studied by Frazer and by Crawley. Offences
against the ritual rendered necessary by this mysterious dread, though
more serious than offences against sexual reticence or the fear of causing
disgust, are so obviously allied that they all reinforce one another and
cannot easily be disentangled.

Nearly everywhere all over the world at a primitive stage of thought, and
even to some extent in the highest civilization, the sight of the sexual
organs or of the sexual act, the image or even the names of the sexual
parts of either man or woman, are believed to have a curiously potent
influence, sometimes beneficent, but quite as often maleficent. The two
kinds of influence may even be combined, and Riedel, quoted by Ploss and
Bartels,[38] states that the Ambon islanders carve a schematic
representation of the vulva on their fruit trees, in part to promote the
productiveness of the trees, and in part to scare any unauthorized person
who might be tempted to steal the fruit. The precautions prescribed as
regards coitus at Loango[39] are evidently associated with religious
fears. In Ceylon, again (as a medical correspondent there informs me),
where the penis is worshipped and held sacred, a native never allows it to
be seen, except under compulsion, by a doctor, and even a wife must
neither see it nor touch it nor ask for coitus, though she must grant as
much as the husband desires. All savage and barbarous peoples who have
attained any high degree of ceremonialism have included the functions not
only of sex, but also of excretion, more or less stringently within the
bounds of that ceremonialism.[40] It is only necessary to refer to the
Jewish ritual books of the Old Testament, to Hesiod, and to the customs
prevalent among Mohammedan peoples. Modesty in eating, also, has its roots
by no means only in the fear of causing disgust, but very largely in this
kind of ritual, and Crawley has shown how numerous and frequent among
primitive peoples are the religious implications of eating and
drinking.[41] So profound is this dread of the sacred mystery of sex, and
so widespread is the ritual based upon it, that some have imagined that
here alone we may find the complete explanation of modesty, and Salomon
Reinach declares that "at the origin of the emotion of modesty lies a
taboo."[42]

    Durkheim ("La Prohibition de l'Inceste," _L'Année Sociologique_,
    1898, p. 50), arguing that whatever sense of repugnance women may
    inspire must necessarily reach the highest point around the womb,
    which is hence subjected to the most stringent taboo,
    incidentally suggests that here is an origin of modesty. "The
    sexual organs must be veiled at an early period, to prevent the
    dangerous effluvia which they give off from reaching the
    environment. The veil is often a method of intercepting magic
    action. Once constituted, the practice would be maintained and
    transformed."

    It was doubtless as a secondary and derived significance that the
    veil became, as Reinach ("Le Voile de l'Oblation," op. cit., pp.
    299-311) shows it was, alike among the Romans and in the Catholic
    Church, the sign of consecration to the gods.

At an early stage of culture, again, menstruation is regarded as a process
of purification, a dangerous expulsion of vitiated humors. Hence the term
_katharsis_ applied to it by the Greeks. Hence also the mediæval view of
women: "_Mulier speciosa templum ædificatum super cloacam_," said
Boethius. The sacro-pubic region in women, because it includes the source
of menstruation, thus becomes a specially heightened seat of taboo.
According to the Mosiac law (Leviticus, Chapter XX, v. 18), if a man
uncovered a menstruating woman, both were to be cut off.

It is probable that the Mohammedan custom of veiling the face and head
really has its source solely in another aspect of this ritual factor of
modesty. It must be remembered that this custom is not Mohammedan in its
origin, since it existed long previously among the Arabians, and is
described by Tertullian.[43] In early Arabia very handsome men also veiled
their faces, in order to preserve themselves from the evil eye, and it has
been conjectured with much probability that the origin of the custom of
women veiling their faces may be traced to this magico-religious
precaution.[44] Among the Jews of the same period, according to
Büchler,[45] the women had their heads covered and never cut their hair;
to appear in the streets without such covering would be like a prostitute
and was adequate ground for divorce; adulterous women were punished by
uncovering their heads and cutting their hair. It is possible, though not
certain, that St. Paul's obscure injunction to women to cover their heads
"because of the angels," may really be based on the ancient reason, that
when uncovered they would be exposed to the wanton assaults of spirits (1
Corinthians, Ch. XI, vv. 5-6),[46] exactly as Singhalese women believe
that they must keep the vulva covered lest demons should have intercourse
with them. Even at the present day St. Paul's injunction is still observed
by Christendom, which is, however, far from accepting, or even perhaps
understanding, the folk-lore ground on which are based such injunctions.

    Crawley thus summarizes some of the evidence concerning the
    significance of the veil:--

    "Sexual shyness, not only in woman, but in man, is intensified at
    marriage, and forms a chief feature of the dangerous sexual
    properties mutually feared. When fully ceremonial, the idea takes
    on the meaning that satisfaction of these feelings will lead to
    their neutralization, as, in fact, it does. The bridegroom in
    ancient Sparta supped on the wedding night at the men's mess, and
    then visited his bride, leaving her before daybreak. This
    practice was continued, and sometimes children were born before
    the pair had ever seen each other's faces by day. At weddings in
    the Babar Islands, the bridegroom has to hunt for his bride in a
    darkened room. This lasts a good while if she is shy. In South
    Africa, the bridegroom may not see his bride till the whole of
    the marriage ceremonies have been performed. In Persia, a husband
    never sees his wife till he has consummated the marriage. At
    marriages in South Arabia, the bride and bridegroom have to sit
    immovable in the same position from noon till midnight, fasting,
    in separate rooms. The bride is attended by ladies, and the groom
    by men. They may not see each other till the night of the fourth
    day. In Egypt, the groom cannot see the face of his bride, even
    by a surreptitious glance, till she is in his absolute
    possession. Then comes the ceremony, which he performs, of
    uncovering her face. In Egypt, of course, this has been
    accentuated by the seclusion and veiling of women. In Morocco, at
    the feast before the marriage, the bride and groom sit together
    on a sort of throne; all the time, the poor bride's eyes are
    firmly closed, and she sits amidst the revelry as immovable as a
    statue. On the next day is the marriage. She is conducted after
    dark to her future home, accompanied by a crowd with lanterns and
    candles. She is led with closed eyes along the street by two
    relatives, each holding one of her hands. The bride's head is
    held in its proper position by a female relative, who walks
    behind her. She wears a veil, and is not allowed to open her eyes
    until she is set on the bridal bed, with a girl friend beside
    her. Amongst the Zulus, the bridal party proceeds to the house of
    the groom, having the bride hidden amongst them. They stand
    facing the groom, while the bride sings a song. Her companions
    then suddenly break away, and she is discovered standing in the
    middle, with a fringe of beads covering her face. Amongst the
    people of Kumaun, the husband sees his wife first after the
    joining of hands. Amongst the Bedui of North East Africa, the
    bride is brought on the evening of the wedding-day by her girl
    friends, to the groom's house. She is closely muffled up. Amongst
    the Jews of Jerusalem, the bride, at the marriage ceremony,
    stands under the nuptial canopy, her eyes being closed, that she
    may not behold the face of her future husband before she reaches
    the bridal chamber. In Melanesia, the bride is carried to her new
    home on some one's back, wrapped in many mats, with palm-fans
    held about her face, because she is supposed to be modest and
    shy. Among the Damaras, the groom cannot see his bride for four
    days after marriage. When a Damara woman is asked in marriage,
    she covers her face for a time with the flap of a headdress made
    for this purpose. At the Thlinkeet marriage ceremony, the bride
    must look down, and keep her head bowed all the time; during the
    wedding-day, she remains hiding in a corner of the house, and the
    groom is forbidden to enter. At a Yezedee marriage, the bride is
    covered from head to foot with a thick veil, and when arrived at
    her new home, she retires behind a curtain in the corner of a
    darkened room, where she remains for three days before her
    husband is permitted to see her. In Corea, the bride has to cover
    her face with her long sleeves, when meeting the bridegroom at
    the wedding. The Manchurian bride uncovers her face for the first
    time when she descends from the nuptial couch. It is dangerous
    even to see dangerous persons. Sight is a method of contagion in
    primitive science, and the idea coincides with the psychological
    aversion to see dangerous things, and with sexual shyness and
    timidity. In the customs noticed, we can distinguish the feeling
    that it is dangerous to the bride for her husband's eyes to be
    upon her, and the feeling of bashfulness in her which induces her
    neither to see him nor to be seen by him. These ideas explain the
    origin of the bridal veil and similar concealments. The bridal
    veil is used, to take a few instances, in China, Burmah, Corea,
    Russia, Bulgaria, Manchuria, and Persia, and in all these cases
    it conceals the face entirely." (E. Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_,
    pp. 328 et seq.)

    Alexander Walker, writing in 1846, remarks: "Among old-fashioned
    people, of whom a good example may be found in old country people
    of the middle class in England, it is indecent to be seen with
    the head unclothed; such a woman is terrified at the chance of
    being seen In that condition, and if intruded on at that time,
    she shrieks with terror, and flies to conceal herself." (A.
    Walker, _Beauty_, p. 15.) This fear of being seen with the head
    uncovered exists still, M. Van Gennep informs me, in some regions
    of France, as in Brittany.

So far it has only been necessary to refer incidentally to the connection
of modesty with clothing. I have sought to emphasize the unquestionable,
but often forgotten, fact that modesty is in its origin independent of
clothing, that physiological modesty takes precedence of anatomical
modesty, and that the primary factors of modesty were certainly developed
long before the discovery of either ornament or garments. The rise of
clothing probably had its first psychical basis on an emotion of modesty
already compositely formed of the elements we have traced. Both the main
elementary factors, it must be noted, must naturally tend to develop and
unite in a more complex, though--it may well be--much less intense,
emotion. The impulse which leads the female animal, as it leads some
African women when found without their girdles, to squat firmly down on
the earth, becomes a more refined and extended play of gesture and
ornament and garment. A very notable advance, I may remark, is made when
this primary attitude of defence against the action of the male becomes a
defence against his eyes. We may thus explain the spread of modesty to
various parts of the body, even when we exclude the more special influence
of the evil eye. The breasts very early become a focus of modesty in
women; this may be observed among many naked, or nearly naked, negro
races; the tendency of the nates to become the chief seat of modesty in
many parts of Africa may probably be, in large part, thus explained, since
the full development of the gluteal regions is often the greatest
attraction an African woman can possess.[47] The same cause contributes,
doubtless, to the face becoming, in some races, the centre of modesty. We
see the influence of this defence against strange eyes in the special
precautions in gesture or clothing taken by the women in various parts of
the world, against the more offensive eyes of civilized Europeans.

But in thus becoming directed only against sight, and not against action,
the gestures of modesty are at once free to become merely those of
coquetry. When there is no real danger of offensive action, there is no
need for more than playful defence, and no serious anxiety should that
defence be taken as a disguised invitation. Thus the road is at once fully
open toward the most civilized manifestations of the comedy of courtship.

In the same way the social fear of arousing disgust combines easily and
perfectly with any new development in the invention of ornament or
clothing as sexual lures. Even among the most civilized races it has often
been noted that the fashion of feminine garments (as also sometimes the
use of scents) has the double object of concealing and attracting. It is
so with the little apron of the young savage belle. The heightening of the
attraction is, indeed, a logical outcome of the fear of evoking disgust.

It is possible, as some ethnographists have observed,[48] that intercrural
cords and other primitive garments have a physical ground, inasmuch as
they protect the most sensitive and unprotected part of the body,
especially in women. We may note in this connection the significant
remarks of K. von den Steinen, who argues that among Brazilian tribes the
object of the _uluri_, etc., is to obtain a maximum of protection for the
mucous membrane with a minimum of concealment. Among the Eskimo, as Nansen
noted, the corresponding intercrural cord is so thin as to be often
practically invisible; this may be noted, I may add, in the excellent
photographs of Eskimo women given by Holm.

But it is evident that, in the beginning, protection is to little or no
extent the motive for attaching foreign substances to the body. Thus the
tribes of Central Australia wear no clothes, although they often suffer
from the cold. But, in addition to armlets, neck-bands and head-bands,
they have string or hair girdles, with, for the women, a very small apron
and, for the men, a pubic tassel. The latter does not conceal the organs,
being no larger than a coin, and often brilliantly coated with white
pipeclay, especially during the progress of _corrobborees_, when a large
number of men and women meet together; it serves the purpose of drawing
attention to the organs.[49] When Forster visited the unspoilt islanders
of the Pacific early in the eighteenth century, he tells us that, though
they wore no clothes, they found it necessary to cover themselves with
various ornaments, especially on, the sexual parts. "But though their
males," he remarks, "were to all appearances equally anxious in this
respect with their females, this part of their dress served only to make
that more conspicuous which it intended to hide."[50] He adds the
significant remark that "these ideas of decency and modesty are only
observed at the age of sexual maturity," just as in Central Australia
women may only wear aprons after the initiation of puberty.

"There are certain things," said Montaigne, "which are hidden in order to
be shown;" and there can be no doubt that the contention of Westermarck
and others, that ornament and clothing were, in the first place, intended,
not to conceal or even to protect the body, but, in large part, to render
it sexually attractive, is fully proved.[51] We cannot, in the light of
all that has gone before, regard ornaments and clothing as the sole cause
of modesty, but the feelings that are thus gathered around the garment
constitute a highly important factor of modesty.

    Among some Australian tribes it is said that the sexual organs
    are only covered during their erotic dances; and it is further
    said that in some parts of the world only prostitutes are
    clothed. "The scanty covering," as Westermarck observes, "was
    found to act as the most powerful obtainable sexual stimulus." It
    is undoubtedly true that this statement may be made not merely of
    the savage, but of the most civilized world. All observers agree
    that the complete nudity of savages, unlike the civilized
    _décolleté_ or _détroussé_, has no suggestion of sexual
    allurement. (Westermarck quotes numerous testimonies on this
    point, op. cit., pp. 192 et seq.) Dr. R.W. Felkin remarks
    concerning Central Africa, that he has never met more indecency
    than in Uganda, where the penalty of death is inflicted on an
    adult found naked in the street. (_Edinburgh Medical Journal_,
    April, 1884.) A study of pictures or statuary will alone serve to
    demonstrate that nakedness is always chaster in its effects than
    partial clothing. As a well-known artist, Du Maurier, has
    remarked (in _Trilby_), it is "a fact well known to all painters
    and sculptors who have used the nude model (except a few shady
    pretenders, whose purity, not being of the right sort, has gone
    rank from too much watching) that nothing is so chaste as nudity.
    Venus herself, as she drops her garments and steps on to the
    model-throne, leaves behind her on the floor every weapon in her
    armory by which she can pierce to the grosser passions of men."
    Burton, in the _Anatomy of Melancholy_ (Part III, Sect. II,
    Subsect. 3), deals at length with the "Allurements of Love," and
    concludes that "the greatest provocations of lust are from our
    apparel." The artist's model, as one informs me, is much less
    exposed to liberties from men when nude than when she is
    partially clothed, and it may be noted that in Paris studios the
    model who poses naked undresses behind a screen.

    An admirable poetic rendering of this element in the philosophy
    of clothing has been given by Herrick, that master of erotic
    psychology, in "A Lily in Crystal," where he argues that a lily
    in crystal, and amber in a stream, and strawberries in cream,
    gain an added delight from semi-concealment; and so, he
    concludes, we obtain

        "A rule, how far, to teach,
        Your nakedness must reach."

    In this connection, also, it is worth noting that Stanley Hall,
    in a report based on returns from nearly a thousand persons,
    mostly teachers, ("The Early Sense of Self," _American Journal of
    Psychology_, 1898, p. 366), finds that of the three functions of
    clothes--protection, ornament, and Lotzean "self-feeling"--the
    second is by far the most conspicuous in childhood. The attitude
    of children is testimony to the primitive attitude toward
    clothing.

    It cannot, however, be said that the use of clothing for the sake
    of showing the natural forms of the body has everywhere been
    developed. In Japan, where nakedness is accepted without shame,
    clothes are worn to cover and conceal, and not to reveal, the
    body. It is so, also, in China. A distinguished Chinese
    gentleman, who had long resided in Europe, once told Baelz that
    he had gradually learnt to grasp the European point of view, but
    that it would be impossible to persuade his fellow-countrymen
    that a woman who used her clothes to show off her figure could
    possibly possess the least trace of modesty. (Baelz, _Zeitschrift
    für Ethnologie_, 1901, Heft 2, p. 179.)

The great artistic elaboration often displayed by articles of ornament or
clothing, even when very small, and the fact--as shown by Karl von den
Steinen regarding the Brazilian _uluri_--that they may serve as common
motives in general decoration, sufficiently prove that such objects
attract rather than avoid attention. And while there is an invincible
repugnance among some peoples to remove these articles, such repugnance
being often strongest when the adornment is most minute, others have no
such repugnance or are quite indifferent whether or not their aprons are
accurately adjusted. The mere presence or possession of the article gives
the required sense of self-respect, of human dignity, of sexual
desirability. Thus it is that to unclothe a person, is to humiliate him;
this was so even in Homeric times, for we may recall the threat of
Ulysses to strip Thyestes.[52]

When clothing is once established, another element, this time a
social-economic element, often comes in to emphasize its importance and
increase the anatomical modesty of women. I mean the growth of the
conception of women as property. Waitz, followed by Schurtz and
Letourneau, has insisted that the jealousy of husbands is the primary
origin of clothing, and, indirectly, of modesty. Diderot in the eighteenth
century had already given clear expression to the same view. It is
undoubtedly true that only married women are among some peoples clothed,
the unmarried women, though full grown, remaining naked. In many parts of
the world, also, as Mantegazza and others have shown, where the men are
naked and the women covered, clothing is regarded as a sort of disgrace,
and men can only with difficulty be persuaded to adopt it. Before marriage
a woman was often free, and not bound to chastity, and at the same time
was often naked; after marriage she was clothed, and no longer free. To
the husband's mind, the garment appears--illogically, though naturally--a
moral and physical protection against any attack on his property.[53] Thus
a new motive was furnished, this time somewhat artificially, for making
nakedness, in women at all events, disgraceful. As the conception of
property also extended to the father's right over his daughters, and the
appreciation of female chastity developed, this motive spread to unmarried
as well as married women. A woman on the west coast of Africa must always
be chaste because she is first the property of her parents and afterwards
of her husband,[54] and even in the seventeenth century of Christendom so
able a thinker as Bishop Burnet furnished precisely the same reason for
feminine chastity.[55] This conception probably constituted the chief and
most persistent element furnished to the complex emotion of modesty by the
barbarous stages of human civilization.

This economic factor necessarily involved the introduction of a new moral
element into modesty. If a woman's chastity is the property of another
person, it is essential that she shall be modest in order that men may not
be tempted to incur the penalties involved by the infringement of property
rights. Thus modesty is strictly inculcated on women in order that men may
be safeguarded from temptation. The fact was overlooked that modesty is
itself a temptation. Immodesty being, on this ground, disapproved by men,
a new motive for modesty is furnished to women. In the book which the
Knight of the Tower, Landry, wrote in the fourteenth century, for the
instruction of his daughters, this factor of modesty is naïvely revealed.
He tells his daughters of the trouble that David got into through the
thoughtlessness of Bathsheba, and warns them that "every woman ought
religiously to conceal herself when dressing and washing, and neither out
of vanity nor yet to attract attention show either her hair, or her neck,
or her breast, or any part which ought to be covered." Hinton went so far
as to regard what he termed "body modesty," as entirely a custom imposed
upon women by men with the object of preserving their own virtue. While
this motive is far from being the sole source of modesty, it must
certainly be borne in mind as an inevitable outcome of the economic factor
of modesty.

In Europe it seems probable that the generally accepted conceptions of
mediæval chivalry were not without influence in constituting the forms in
which modesty shows itself among us. In the early middle ages there seems
to have been a much greater degree of physical familiarity between the
sexes than is commonly found among barbarians elsewhere. There was
certainly considerable promiscuity in bathing and indifference to
nakedness. It seems probable, as Durkheim points out,[56] that this state
of things was modified in part by the growing force of the dictates of
Christian morality, which regarded all intimate approaches between the
sexes as sinful, and in part by the influence of chivalry with its
æsthetic and moral ideals of women, as the representative of all the
delicacies and elegancies of civilization. This ideal was regarded as
incompatible with the familiarities of the existing social relationships
between the sexes, and thus a separation, which at first existed only in
art and literature, began by a curious reaction to exert an influence on
real life.

The chief new feature--it is scarcely a new element--added to modesty when
an advanced civilization slowly emerges from barbarism is the elaboration
of its social ritual.[57] Civilization expands the range of modesty, and
renders it, at the same time, more changeable. The French seventeenth
century, and the English eighteenth, represent early stages of modern
European civilization, and they both devoted special attention to the
elaboration of the minute details of modesty. The frequenters of the Hotel
Rambouillet, the _précieuses_ satirized by Molière, were not only engaged
in refining the language; they were refining feelings and ideas and
enlarging the boundaries of modesty.[58] In England such famous and
popular authors as Swift and Sterne bear witness to a new ardor of modesty
in the sudden reticences, the dashes, and the asterisks, which are found
throughout their works. The altogether new quality of literary prurience,
of which Sterne is still the classical example, could only have arisen on
the basis of the new modesty which was then overspreading society and
literature. Idle people, mostly, no doubt, the women in _salons_ and
drawing-rooms, people more familiar with books than with the realities of
life, now laid down the rules of modesty, and were ever enlarging it, ever
inventing new subtleties of gesture and speech, which it would be immodest
to neglect, and which are ever being rendered vulgar by use and ever
changing.

    It was at this time, probably, that the custom of inventing an
    arbitrary private vocabulary of words and phrases for the purpose
    of disguising references to functions and parts of the body
    regarded as immodest and indecent, first began to become common.
    Such private slang, growing up independently in families, and
    especially among women, as well as between lovers, is now almost
    universal. It is not confined to any European country, and has
    been studied in Italy by Niceforo (_Il Gergo_, 1897, cap. 1 and
    2), who regards it as a weapon of social defence against an
    inquisitive or hostile environment, since it enables things to be
    said with a meaning which is unintelligible to all but the
    initiated person. While it is quite true that the custom is
    supported by the consciousness of its practical advantages, it
    has another source in a desire to avoid what is felt to be the
    vulgar immodesty of direct speech. This is sufficiently shown by
    the fact that such slang is mostly concerned with the sacro-pubic
    sphere. It is one of the chief contributions to the phenomena of
    modesty furnished by civilization. The claims of modesty having
    effected the clothing of the body, the impulse of modesty finds a
    further sphere of activity--half-playful, yet wholly
    imperative--in the clothing of language.

    Modesty of speech has, however, a deep and primitive basis,
    although in modern Europe it only became conspicuous at the
    beginning of the eighteenth century. "All over the world," as
    Dufour put it, "to do is good, to say is bad." Reticences of
    speech are not adequately accounted for by the statement that
    modesty tends to irradiate from the action to the words
    describing the action, for there is a tendency for modesty to be
    more deeply rooted in the words than in the actions. "Modest
    women," as Kleinpaul truly remarks, "have a much greater horror
    of saying immodest things than of doing them; they believe that
    fig-leaves were especially made for the mouth." (Kleinpaul,
    _Sprache ohne Worte_, p. 309.) It is a tendency which is linked
    on to the religious and ritual feeling which we have already
    found to be a factor of modesty, and which, even when applied to
    language, appears to have an almost or quite instinctive basis,
    for it is found among the most primitive savages, who very
    frequently regard a name as too sacred or dangerous to utter.
    Among the tribes of Central Australia, in addition to his
    ordinary name, each individual has his sacred or secret name,
    only known to the older and fully initiated members of his own
    totemic group; among the Warramunga, it is not permitted to women
    to utter even a man's ordinary name, though she knows it.
    (Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p.
    581.) In the mysterious region of sex, this feeling easily takes
    root. In many parts of the world, men use among themselves, and
    women use among themselves, words and even languages which they
    may not use without impropriety in speaking to persons of the
    opposite sex, and it has been shown that exogamy, or the fact
    that the wife belongs to a different tribe, will not always
    account for this phenomenon. (Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_, p. 46.)
    A special vocabulary for the generative organs and functions is
    very widespread. Thus, in northwest Central Queensland, there is
    both a decent and an indecent vocabulary for the sexual parts; in
    Mitakoodi language, for instance, _me-ne_ may be used for the
    vulva in the best aboriginal society, but _koon-ja_ and _pukkil_,
    which are names for the same parts, are the most blackguardly
    words known to the natives. (W. Roth, _Ethnological Studies Among
    the Queensland Aborigines_, p. 184.) Among the Malays, _puki_ is
    also a name for the vulva which it is very indecent to utter, and
    it is only used in public by people under the influence of an
    obsessive nervous disorder. (W. Gilman Ellis, "Latah," _Journal
    of Mental Science_, Jan., 1897.) The Swahili women of Africa have
    a private metaphorical language of their own, referring to sexual
    matters (Zache, _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1899, Heft 2-3, pp.
    70 et seq.), and in Samoa, again, young girls have a euphemistic
    name for the penis, _aualuma_, which is not that in common use
    (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1899, Heft 1, p. 31); exactly the
    same thing is found in Europe, to-day, and is sometimes more
    marked among young peasant women than among those of better
    social class, who often avoid, under all circumstances, the
    necessity for using any definite name.

    Singular as it may seem, the Romans, who in their literature
    impress us by their vigorous and naked grip of the most private
    facts of life, showed in familiar intercourse a dread of obscene
    language--a dread ultimately founded, it is evident, on religious
    grounds--far exceeding that which prevails among ourselves to-day
    in civilization. "It is remarkable," Dufour observes, "that the
    prostitutes of ancient Rome would have blushed to say an indecent
    word in public. The little tender words used between lovers and
    their mistresses were not less correct and innocent when the
    mistress was a courtesan and the lover an erotic poet. He called
    her his rose, his queen, his goddess, his dove, his light, his
    star, and she replied by calling him her jewel, her honey, her
    bird, her ambrosia, the apple of her eye, and never with any
    licentious interjection, but only 'I will love!' (_Amabo_), a
    frequent exclamation, summing up a whole life and vocation. When
    intimate relations began, they treated each other as 'brother'
    and 'sister.' These appellations were common among the humblest
    and the proudest courtesans alike." (Dufour, _Histoire de la
    Prostitution_, vol. ii, p. 78.) So excessive was the Roman horror
    of obscenity that even physicians were compelled to use a
    euphemism for _urina_, and though the _urinal_ or _vas urinarium_
    was openly used at the dining-table (following a custom
    introduced by the Sybarites, according to Athenæus, Book XII,
    cap. 17), the decorous guest could not ask for it by name, but
    only by a snap of the fingers (Dufour, op. cit., vol. ii, p.
    174).

    In modern Europe, as seems fairly evident from the early
    realistic dramatic literature of various countries, no special
    horror of speaking plainly regarding the sacro-pubic regions and
    their functions existed among the general population until the
    seventeenth century. There is, however, one marked exception.
    Such a feeling clearly existed as regards menstruation. It is not
    difficult to see why it should have begun at this function. We
    have here not only a function confined to one sex and, therefore,
    easily lending itself to a vocabulary confined to one sex; but,
    what is even of more importance, the belief which existed among
    the Romans, as elsewhere throughout the world, concerning the
    specially dangerous and mysterious properties of menstruation,
    survived throughout mediæval times. (See e.g., Ploss and Bartels,
    _Das Weib_, Bd. I, XIV; also Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_,
    fourth ed. Ch. XI.) The very name, _menses_ ("monthlies"), is a
    euphemism, and most of the old scientific names for this function
    are similarly vague. As regards popular feminine terminology
    previous to the eighteenth century, Schurig gives us fairly ample
    information (_Parthenologia_, 1729, pp. 27 et seq.). He remarks
    that both in L

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/13610