[24] "Modesty is, at first," said Renouvier, "a fear which we have of
displeasing others, and of blushing at our own natural imperfections."
(Renouvier and Prat, _La Nouvelle Monadologie_, p. 221.)
[25] C. Richet, "Les Causes du Dégoût," _L'Homme et l'Intelligence_, 1884.
This eminent physiologist's elaborate study of disgust was not written as
a contribution to the psychology of modesty, but it forms an admirable
introduction to the investigation of the social factor of modesty.
[26] It is interesting to note that where, as among the Eskimo, urine, for
instance, is preserved as a highly-valuable commodity, the act of
urination, even at table, is not regarded as in the slightest degree
disgusting or immodest (Bourke, _Scatologic Rites_, p.
202).
[27] Hawkesworth, _An Account of the Voyages_, etc., 1775, vol. ii, p. 52.
[28] _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, vol.
vi, p. 173.
[29] Stevens, "Mittheilungen aus dem Frauenleben der Orang Belendas,"
_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, Heft 4, p. 167, 1896.
Crawley, (_Mystic
Rose_, Ch. VIII, p. 439) gives numerous other instances, even in Europe,
with, however, special reference to sexual taboo. I may remark that
English people of lower class, especially women, are often modest about
eating in the presence of people of higher class. This feeling is, no
doubt, due, in part, to the consciousness of defective etiquette, but that
very consciousness is, in part, a development of the fear of causing
disgust, which is a component of modesty.
[30] Shame in regard to eating, it may be added, occasionally appears as a
neurasthenic obsession in civilization, and has been studied as a form of
psychasthenia by Janet. See e.g., (Raymond and Janet, _Les Obsessions et
la Psychasthénie_, vol. ii, p. 386) the case of a young girl of 24, who,
from the age of 12 or 13 (the epoch of puberty) had been ashamed to eat in
public, thinking it nasty and ugly to do so, and arguing that it ought
only to be done in private, like urination.
[31] "Desire and disgust are curiously blended," remarks Crawley (_The
Mystic Rose_, p. 139), "when, with one's own desire unsatisfied, one sees
the satisfaction of another; and here we may see the altruistic stage
beginning; this has two sides, the fear of causing desire in others, and
the fear of causing disgust; in each case, personal isolation is the
psychological result."
[32] Hohenemser argues that the fear of causing disgust cannot be a part
of shame. But he also argues that shame is simply psychic stasis, and it
is quite easy to see, as in the above case, that the fear of causing
disgust is simply a manifestation of psychic stasis.
There is a conflict
in the woman's mind between the idea of herself which she has already
given, and the more degraded idea of herself which she fears she is likely
to give, and this conflict is settled when she is made to feel that the
first idea may still be maintained under the new circumstances.
[33] We neither of us knew that we had merely made afresh a very ancient
discovery. Casanova, more than a century ago, quoted the remark of a
friend of his, that the easiest way to overcome the modesty of a woman is
to suppose it non-existent; and he adds a saying, which he attributes to
Clement of Alexandria, that modesty, which seems so deeply rooted in
women, only resides in the linen that covers them, and vanishes when it
vanishes. The passage to which Casanova referred occurs in the
_Pædagogus_, and has already been quoted. The observation seems to have
appealed strongly to the Fathers, always glad to make a point against
women, and I have met with it in Cyprian's _De Habitu Feminarum_. It also
occurs in Jerome's treatise against Jovinian. Jerome, with more scholarly
instinct, rightly presents the remark as a quotation:
"_Scribit Herodotus
quod mulier cum veste deponat et verecundiam_." In Herodotus the saying is
attributed to Gyges (Book I, Chapter VIII). We may thus trace very far
back into antiquity an observation which in English has received its
classical expression from Chaucer, who, in his "Wife of Bath's Prologue,"
has:--
"He sayde, a woman cast hir shame away, When she cast of hir smok."
I need not point out that the analysis of modesty offered above robs this
venerable saying of any sting it may have possessed as a slur upon women.
In such a case, modesty is largely a doubt as to the spectator's attitude,
and necessarily disappears when that doubt is satisfactorily resolved. As
we have seen, the Central Australian maidens were very modest with regard
to the removal of their single garment, but when that removal was
accomplished and accepted, they were fearless.
[34] The same result occurs more markedly under the deadening influence of
insanity. Grimaldi (_Il Manicomio Moderno_, 1888) found that modesty is
lacking in 50 per cent, of the insane.
[35] For some facts bearing on this point, see Houssay, _Industries of
Animals_, Chapter VII. "The Defence and Sanitation of Dwellings;" also P.
Ballion, _De l'Instinct de Propreté chez les Animaux_.
[36] Thus, Stevens mentions (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, p. 182, 1897)
that the Dyaks of Malacca always wash the sexual organs, even after
urination, and are careful to use the left hand in doing so. The left hand
is also reserved for such uses among the Jekris of the Niger coast
(_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, p. 122, 1898).
[37] Lombroso and Ferrero--who adopt the derivation of _pudor_ from
_putere_; i.e., from the repugnance caused by the decomposition of the
vaginal secretions--consider that the fear of causing disgust to men is
the sole origin of modesty among savage women, as also it remains the sole
form of modesty among some prostitutes to-day. (_La Donna Delinquente_, p.
540.) Important as this factor is in the constitution of the emotion of
modesty, I need scarcely add that I regard so exclusive a theory as
altogether untenable.
[38] _Das Weib_, Ch. VI.
[39] For references as to a similar feeling among other savages, see
Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_, p. 152.
[40] See e.g., Bourke, _Scatologic Rites_, pp. 141, 145, etc.
[41] Crawley, op. cit., Ch. VII.
[42] S, Reinach, _Cultes, Mythes et Religions_, p. 172.
[43] Tertullian, _De Virginibus Velandis_, cap. 17.
Hottentot women, also
(Fritsch, _Eingeborene Südafrika's_, p. 311), cover their head with a
cloth, and will not be persuaded to remove it.
[44] Wellhausen, _Reste Arabischen Heidentums_, p. 196.
The same custom is
found among Tuareg men though it is not imperative for the women
(Duveyrier, _Les Touaregs du Nord_, p. 291).
[45] Quoted in _Zentralblatt für Anthropologie_, 1906, Heft I, p. 21.
[46] Or rather, perhaps, because the sight of their nakedness might lead
the angels into sin. See W.G. Sumner, _Folkways_, p.