Manifestations resembling the kiss, whether with the object of expressing affection or sexual emotion, are found among various animals much lower than man. The caressing of the antennæ practiced by snails and various insects during sexual intercourse is of the nature of a kiss. Birds use their bills for a kind of caress. Thus, referring to guillemots and their practice of nibbling each other's feet, and the interest the mate always takes in this proceeding, which probably relieves irritation caused by insects, Edmund Selous remarks: "When they nibble and preen each other they may, I think, be rightly said to cosset and caress, the expression and pose of the bird receiving the benefit being often beatific."[196] Among mammals, such as the dog, we have what closely resembles a kiss, and the dog who smells, licks, and gently bites his master or a bitch, combines most of the sensory activities involved in the various forms of the human kiss.
As practiced by man, the kiss involves mainly either the sense of touch or that of smell. Occasionally it involves to some extent both sensory elements.[197] The tactile kiss is certainly very ancient and primitive. It is common among mammals generally. The human infant exhibits, in a very marked degree, the impulse to carry everything to the mouth and to lick or attempt to taste it, possibly, as Compayre suggests,[198] from a memory of the action of the lips protruded to seize the maternal nipple. The affectionate child, as Mantegazza remarks,[199] not only applies inanimate objects to its lips or tongue, but of its own impulse licks the people it likes. Stanley Hall, in the light of a large amount of information he obtained on this point, found that "some children insist on licking the cheeks, necks, and hands of those they wish to caress," or like having animals lick them.[200] This impulse in children may be associated with the maternal impulse in animals to lick the young. "The method of licking the young practiced by the mother," remarks S.S. Buckman, "would cause licking to be associated with happy feelings. And, further, there is the allaying of parasitical irritation which is afforded by the rubbing and hence results in pleasure. It may even be suggested that the desire of the mother to lick her young was prompted in the first place by a desire to bestow on her offspring a pleasure she felt herself." The licking impulse in the child may thus, it is possible, be regarded as the evanescent manifestation of a more fundamental animal impulse,[201] a manifestation which is liable to appear in adult life under the stress of strong sexual emotion. Such an association is of interest if, as there is some reason to believe, the kiss of sexual love originated as a development of the more primitive kiss bestowed by the mother on her child, for it is sometimes found that the maternal kiss is practiced where the sexual kiss is unknown.
The impulse to bite is also a part of the tactile element which lies at the origin of kissing. As Stanley Hall notes, children are fond of biting, though by no means always as a method of affection. There is, however, in biting a distinctly sexual origin to invoke, for among many animals the teeth (and among birds the bill) are used by the male to grasp the female more firmly during intercourse. This point has been discussed in the previous volume of these _Studies_ in reference to "Love and Pain," and it is unnecessary to enter into further details here. The heroine of Kleist's _Penthesilea_ remarks: "Kissing (Küsse) rhymes with biting (Bisse), and one who loves with the whole heart may easily confound the two."
The kiss, as known in Europe, has developed on a sensory basis that is mainly tactile, although an olfactory element may sometimes coexist. The kiss thus understood is not very widely spread and is not usually found among rude and uncultured peoples. We can trace it in Aryan and Semitic antiquity, but in no very pronounced form; Homer scarcely knew it, and the Greek poets seldom mention it. Today it may be said to be known all over Europe except in Lapland. Even in Europe it is probably a comparatively modern discovery; and in all the Celtic tongues, Rhys states, there is no word for "kiss," the word employed being always borrowed from the Latin _pax_.[202] At a fairly early historic period, however, the Welsh Cymri, at all events, acquired a knowledge of the kiss, but it was regarded as a serious matter and very sparingly used, being by law only permitted on special occasions, as at a game called rope-playing or a carousal; otherwise a wife who kissed a man not her husband could be repudiated. Throughout eastern Asia it is unknown; thus, in Japanese literature kisses and embraces have no existence. "Kisses, and embraces are simply unknown in Japan as tokens of affection," Lafcadio Hearn states, "if we except the solitary fact that Japanese mothers, like mothers all over the world, lip and hug their little ones betimes. After babyhood there is no more hugging or kisses; such actions, except in the case of infants, are held to be immodest. Never do girls kiss one another; never do parents kiss or embrace their children who have become able to walk." This holds true, and has always held true, of all classes; hand-clasping is also foreign to them. On meeting after a long absence, Hearn remarks, they smile, perhaps cry a little, they may even stroke each other, but that is all. Japanese affection "is chiefly shown in acts of exquisite courtesy and kindness."[203] Among nearly all of the black races of Africa lovers never kiss nor do mothers usually kiss their babies.[204] Among the American Indians the tactile kiss is, for the most part, unknown, though here and there, as among the Fuegians, lovers rub their cheeks together.[205] Kissing is unknown to the Malays. In North Queensland, however, Roth states, kissing takes place between mothers (not fathers) and infants, also between husbands and wives; but whether it is an introduced custom Roth is unable to say; he adds that the Pitta-pitta language possesses a word for kissing.[206] It must be remarked, however, that in many parts of the world where the tactile kiss, as we understand it, is usually said to be unknown, it still exists as between a mother and her baby, and this seems to support the view advocated by Lombroso that the lovers' kiss is developed from the maternal kiss. Thus, the Angoni Zulus to the north of the Zambesi, Wiese states, kiss their small children on both cheeks[207] and among the Fuegians, according to Hyades, mothers kiss their small children.
Even in Europe the kiss in early mediæval days was, it seems probable, not widely known as an expression of sexual love; it would appear to have been a refinement of love only practiced by the more cultivated classes. In the old ballad of Glasgerion the lady suspected that her secret visitor was only a churl, and not the knight he pretended to be, because when he came in his master's place to spend the night with her he kissed her neither coming nor going, but simply got her with child. It is only under a comparatively high stage of civilization that the kiss has been emphasized and developed in the art of love. Thus the Arabic author of the _Perfumed Garden_, a work revealing the existence of a high degree of social refinement, insists on the great importance of the kiss, especially if applied to the inner part of the mouth, and he quotes a proverb that "A moist kiss is better than a hasty coitus." Such kisses, as well as on the face generally, and all over the body, are frequently referred to by Hindu, Latin, and more modern erotic writers as among the most efficacious methods of arousing love.[208] A reason which may have stood in the way of the development of the kiss in a sexual direction has probably been the fact that in the near East the kiss was largely monopolized for sacred uses, so that its erotic potentialities were not easily perceived. Among the early Arabians the gods were worshiped by a kiss.[209] This was the usual way of greeting the house gods on entering or leaving.[210] In Rome the kiss was a sign of reverence and respect far more than a method of sexual excitation.[211] Among the early Christians it had an all but sacramental significance. It retains its ancient and serious meaning in many usages of the Western and still more the Eastern Churches; the relics of saints, the foot of the pope, the hands of bishops, are kissed, just as the ancient Greeks kissed the images of the gods. Among ourselves we still have a legally recognized example of the sacredness of the kiss in the form of taking an oath by kissing the Testament.[212] So far we have been concerned mainly with the tactile kiss, which is sometimes supposed to have arisen in remote times to the east of the Mediterranean--where the vassal kissed his suzerain and where the kiss of love was known, as we learn from the Songs of Songs, to the Hebrews--and has now conquered nearly the whole of Europe. But over a much larger part of the world and even in one corner of Europe (Lapland, as well as among the Russian Yakuts) a different kind of salutation rules, the olfactory kiss. This varies in form in different regions and sometimes simulates a tactile kiss, but, as it exists in a typical form in China, where it has been carefully studied by d'Enjoy, it may be said to be made up of three phases: (1) the nose is applied to the cheek of the beloved person; (2) there is a long nasal inspiration accompanied by lowering of the eyelids; (3) there is a slight smacking of the lips without the application of the mouth to the embraced cheek. The whole process, d'Enjoy considers, is founded on sexual desire and the desire for food, smell being the sense employed in both fields. In the form described by d'Enjoy, we have the Mongolian variety of the olfactory kiss. The Chinese regard the European kiss as odious, suggesting voracious cannibals, and yellow mothers in the French colonies still frighten children by threatening to give them the white man's kiss. Their own kiss the Chinese regard as exclusively voluptuous; it is only befitting as between lovers, and not only do fathers refrain from kissing their children except when very young, but even the mothers only give their children a rare and furtive kiss. Among some of the hill-tribes of south-east India the olfactory kiss is found, the nose being applied to the cheek during salutation with a strong inhalation; instead of saying "Kiss me," they here say "Smell me." The Tamils, I am told by a medical correspondent in Ceylon, do not kiss during coitus, but rub noses and also lick each other's mouth and tongue. The olfactory kiss is known in Africa; thus, on the Gambia in inland Africa when a man salutes a woman he takes her hand and places it to his nose, twice smelling the back of it. Among the Jekris of the Niger coast mothers rub their babies with their cheeks or mouths, but they do not kiss them, nor do lovers kiss, though they squeeze, cuddle, and embrace.[213] Among the Swahilis a smell kiss exists, and very young boys are taught to raise their clothes before women visitors, who thereupon playfully smell the penis; the child who does this is said to "give tobacco."[214] Kissing of any kind appears to be unknown to the Indians throughout a large part of America: Im Thurn states that it is unknown to the Indians of Guiana, and at the other end of South America Hyades and Deniker state that it is unknown to the Fuegians. In Forth America the olfactory kiss is known to the Eskimo, and has been noted among some Indian tribes, as the Blackfeet. It is also known in Polynesia. At Samoa kissing was smelling.[215] In New Zealand, also, the _hongi_, or nose-pressing, was the kiss of welcome, of mourning, and of sympathy.[216] In the Malay archipelago, it is said, the same word is used for "greeting" and "smelling." Among the Dyaks of the Malay archipelago, however, Vaughan Stevens states that any form of kissing is unknown.[217] In Borneo, Breitenstein tells us, kissing is a kind of smelling, the word for smelling being used, but he never himself saw a man kiss a woman; it is always done in private.[218] The olfactory kiss is thus seen to have a much wider extension over the world than the European (or Mediterranean) tactile kiss. In its most complete development, however, it is mainly found among the people of Mongolian race, or those yellow peoples more or less related to them.
The literature of the kiss is extensive. So far, however, as that literature is known to me, the following list includes everything that may be profitably studied: Darwin, _The Expression of the Emotions_; Ling Roth, "Salutations," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, November, 1889; K. Andree, "Nasengruss," _Ethnographische Parallelen_, second series, 1889, pp. 223-227; Alfred Kirchhoff, "Vom Ursprung des Küsses," _Deutsche Revue_, May, 1895; Lombroso, "L'Origine du Baiser," _Nouvelle Revue_, 1897, p. 153; Paul d'Enjoy, "Le Baiser en Europe et en Chine," _Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie_, Paris, 1897, fasc. 2. Professor Nyrop's book, _The Kiss and its History_ (translated from the Danish by W.F. Harvey), deals rather with the history of the kiss in civilization and literature than with its biological origins and psychological significance.
FOOTNOTES: [196] E. Selous, _Bird Watching_, 1901, p. 191. This author adds: "It seems probable indeed that the conferring a practical benefit of the kind indicated may be the origin of the caress throughout nature."
[197] Tylor terms the kiss "the salute by tasting," and d'Enjoy defines it as "a bite and a suction"; there seems, however, little evidence to show that the kiss contains any gustatory element in the strict sense.
[198] Compayre, _L'Evolution intellectuelle et morale de l'enfant_, p. 9.
[200] G. Stanley Hall, "The Early Sense of Self," _American Journal of Psychology_, April, 1898, p. 361.
[201] In some parts of the world the impulse persists into adult life. Sir S. Baker (_Ismailia_, p. 472) mentions licking the eyes as a sign of affection.
[202] _Book of Common Prayer in Manx Gaelic_, edited by A.W. Moore and J. Rhys, 1895.
[204] See, e.g., A.B. Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples_, p. 288. Among the Swahili the kiss is practiced, but exclusively between married people and with very young children. Velten believes they learned it from the Arabs.
[205] Hyades and Deniker, _Mission Scientifique du Cap Horn_, vol. vii, p. 245.
[208] E.g., the _Kama Sutra_ of Vatsyayana, Bk. III, Chapter I.
[209] Hosea, Chapter xiii, v. 2; I Kings, Chapter xix, v. 18.
[211] The Romans recognized at least three kinds of kiss: the _osculum_, for friendship, given on the face; the _basium_, for affection, given on the lips; the _suavium_, given between the lips, reserved for lovers.
[212] In other parts of the world it would appear that the kiss sometimes has a sacred or ritual character. Thus, according to Rev. J. Macdonald (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, November, 1890, p. 118), it is part of the initiation ceremony of a girl at her first menstruation that the women of the village should kiss her on the cheek, and on the mons veneris and labia.
[213] _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, August and November, 1898, p. 107.
[216] Tregear, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1889.
APPENDIX B.
HISTORIES OF SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT.
The histories here recorded are similar in character to those given in Appendix B of the previous volume.
HISTORY I.--C.D., clergyman, age, 34. Height about 5 ft. 8 in. Weight, 8st. 8lb. Complexion, fair. Physical infirmities, very myopic, tendency to consumption.
"My family is of old lineage on both sides. My parents were normal and fairly healthy; but I consider that heredity, though not vitiated, is somewhat overrefined, and there is a neuropathic tendency, which has appeared in myself and in one or two other members of the family. As a child, I suffered, though not very frequently, from nocturnal enuresis. My sexual nature, though normal, has been keenly alive and sensitive as far back as I can remember; and as I look back I discern within myself in early childhood what I now understand to be a decided masochistic or passively algolagnic tendency. So far as I remember, this manifested itself in me in two aspects; one psychic or sentimental and free from carnality, expressing itself in imaginative visions such as the following: I used, to imagine myself kneeling before a young and beautiful woman and being sentenced by her to some punishment, and even threatened with death. At other times I would picture myself as a wounded soldier watched over on his sickbed by queenly women. These visions always included an imagination of something heroic in my own personality. No doubt they were the same kind of dreamings as are present in multitudes of imaginative children; they are only of interest in so far as a sexual element was present; and that was algolagnic in character.
"I had a small fund of natural common sense; and my surroundings were not favorable to sentimental imaginings; consequently I believe I began to throw them off at an early age, though the temperament which produced them is still a part of my nature.
"On the carnal side, the sexual instinct was decidedly algolagnic. Masturbation is one of my earliest recollections; indeed, it was not at first, so far as I remember, associated with any sexual ideas at all; but began as a reflex animal act. I do not remember its first occurrence. It soon, however, became associated in my mind with algolagnic excitement, giving rise to reveries which took the ordinary form of imagining oneself stripped and whipped, etc., by persons of the opposite sex. The _dramatis personæ_ in my own algolagnic reveries were elderly women; somewhat strangely, I did not associate physical sexuality at this period with young and attractive women. If scientific light on these matters were generally available in the practical bringing up of children, persons in charge of young children might refrain from exciting an algolagnic tendency or doing anything calculated to awake sexual emotions prematurely. In my own case, I recollect acts performed by older persons in ignorance and thoughtlessness which undoubtedly tended to foster and strengthen my algolagnic instinct.
"Little or nothing was done to prevent, discover, or remedy the pernicious habit into which I was falling unknowingly. Circumcision was perhaps little thought of in those days as a preventive of juvenile masturbation; at any rate, it was not resorted to in my case. I remember, indeed, that a nurse discovered that I was practicing masturbation, and I think she made a few half-hearted attempts to stop it. It was probably these attempts which gave me a growing feeling that there was something wrong about masturbation, and that it must be practiced secretly. But they were unsuccessful in their main object. The practice continued.
"I went to school at the age of 10. There I came in contact almost without warning, with the ordinary lewdness and grossness of school conversation, and took to it readily. I soon became conversant with the theory of sexual relations; but never got the opportunity of sexual intercourse, and probably should have felt some moral restraint even had such opportunity presented itself, for coitus, however interesting it might be to talk about, was a bigger thing to practice than masturbation. I masturbated fairly frequently, occasionally producing two orgasms in quick succession. I seldom masturbated with the hand; my method was to lie face downward. There was probably little or no homosexuality at my first school. I never heard of it till later, and it was always repugnant to me, though surrounded with a certain morbid interest. Masturbation was discountenanced openly at the school, but was, I believe, extensively practiced, both at that school and at the two others I afterward attended. The boys often talked about the hygiene of it; and the general theory was that it was somehow physically detrimental; but I heard no arguments advanced sufficiently cogent to make me see the necessity for a real moral effort against the habit, though, as I neared puberty, I was indulging more moderately and with greater misgivings.
"The fact of becoming acquainted with the theory of sexual intercourse tended to diminish the algolagnia, and to impel my sexual instinct into an ordinary channel. On one occasion circumstances brought me into close contact with a woman for about three or four weeks, I being a mere boy and she very much my senior. I felt sexually attracted by this woman, and allowed myself a degree of familiarity with her which I have since recognized as undue and have deeply regretted. It did not, however, go to the length of seduction, and I trust may have passed away without leaving any permanent harm. It should, indeed, be remarked here that I never knew a woman sexually till my marriage; and with the one exception mentioned I do not recall any instance of conduct on my part toward a woman which could be described as giving her an impulse downhill.
"On the psychic side my sexual emotions awoke in early childhood; and though my love affairs as a boy were not frequent and were kept to myself, they attained a considerable degree of emotional power. Leaving out of account the precocious movements of the sexual instinct to which I have already referred as colored by psychic algolagnia, I may say that somewhat later, from the age of puberty and onward, I had three or four love affairs, devoid of any algolagnic tendency, and considerably more developed on the psychic and emotional, than on the physical, side. In fact, my experience has been that when deeply in love, when the mind is full of the love ecstasy, the physical element of sexuality is kept--doubtless only temporarily--in abeyance.
"To return now to the subject of masturbation. Here befell the chief moral struggle of my early life; and no terms that I have at command will adequately describe the stress of it.
"A casual remark heard one day as I was arriving at puberty convinced me that there must be truth in the vague schoolboy theory that masturbation was _weakening_. It was to the effect that the evil results of masturbation practiced in boyhood would manifest themselves in later life. I then realized that I must relinquish masturbation, and I set myself to fight it; but with grave misgivings that, owing to the early age at which I had formed the habit, I had already done myself serious harm.
"Before many weeks had passed, I had formed a resolution to abstain, which I kept thereafter without--so far as I remember--more than one conscious lapse into my former habit. Here it must be said at once that, so far as touches my own experience of a struggle of this kind, the religious factor is of primary importance as strengthening and sustaining the moral effort which has to be made. I am writing an account of my sexual, not my spiritual, experiences; but I should not only be untrue to my convictions, but unable to give an accurate and penetrating survey of the development of my sex life, unless I were clearly to state that it was to a large extent on that life that my strongest and most valuable religious experiences arose.[219] It is to the endeavor to discipline the sexual instinct, and to grapple with the difficulties and anxieties of the sex life, that I owe what I possess of spiritual religion, of the consciousness that my life has been brought into contact with Divine love and power.
"My early habits, after they were broken off, left me none the less a legacy of sexual neurasthenia and a slight varicocele. My nocturnal pollutions were overfrequent; and I brooded over them, being too reticent and too much afraid of exposure at school and possible expulsion to confide in a doctor. Far better for me had I done so, for a few years later I received the truest kindness and sympathy in regard to sexual matters at the hands of more than one medical man. But while at school I was afraid to speak of the trouble which so unnerved and depressed me; and as a consequence my morbid fears grew stronger, being intensified by generalities which I met with from time to time in my reading on the subject of the punishment which nature metes out to impurity.
"On leaving school my sex life continued for some years on the same lines: a struggle for chastity, morbid fears and regrets about the past, efforts to cope with the neurasthenia, and a haunting dread of coming insanity. These troubles were increased by my sedentary life. However I obtained medical aid, and put as good a face on matters as possible.
"But the most trying thing of all has yet to be mentioned--the discovery that I had not yet got fully clear of the habit of masturbation. I had, indeed, repudiated it as far as my conscious waking moments were concerned, even though strongly impelled by sexual desire; but one night, about a year after I had relinquished the practice, I found myself again giving way to it in those moments between sleeping and waking when the will is only semiconscious. It was as if a race took place for wakefulness between my physical instinct, on the one side, and my moral sense and inhibitory nerves on the other; and very frequently the physical instinct won. This, perhaps, is not an uncommon experience, but it distressed me greatly; and I never felt safe from it until marriage. I resorted to various expedients to combat this tendency, at length having to tie myself in a certain position every night with a cord round my legs, so as to render it impossible to turn over upon my face.
"In my early manhood the strain on my constitution was considerable from causes other than the sexual neurasthenia, which, indeed, I am now well aware I exaggerated in importance. Medical advisers whom I consulted in that period assured me that this was so; and, though at the time I often thought that they were concealing the real facts from me out of kindness, my own reading has since convinced me that they spoke nothing but scientific truth.
"The years went on. I went through a university course, and in spite of my poor health took a good degree. The agony of my struggle for chastity seemed to come to a climax about four years later when for a long period, partly owing to overstudy and partly to the sexual strain, I fell into a condition of severe nervous exhaustion, one of the most distressing symptoms of which was insomnia. The dreaded cloud of insanity seemed to come closer. I had to use alcohol freely at nights; and might by now have become a drunkard, had I not been casually--or I must say, Providentially--directed to the common sense plan of measuring my whisky in a dram glass; so that the alcohol could not steal a march upon me.
"This period was one of acute mental suffering. One cause of the nervous tension was--as I have now no doubt--the need of healthy sexual intercourse. I proved this eventually. My circumstances, which had long been adverse to marriage, at length were shaped in that direction. I renewed acquaintance with a lady whom I had known well some years before; and our friendship ripened until, after much perplexity on my side, owing to the uncertainty of my health and prospects, I decided that it was right to speak. We were married after a few months; and I realized that I had gained an excellent wife. We did not come together sexually for some nights after marriage; but, having once tasted the pleasure of the marriage bed, I have to admit that, partly owing to ignorance of the hygiene of marriage, I was for some time rather unrestrained in conjugal relations, requiring intercourse as often as eight or nine times a month. This was not unnatural when one considers that I had now for the first time free access to a woman, after a long and weary struggle to preserve chastity. Married life, however, tends naturally--or did so in my case--to regulate desire; and when I began to understand the ethics and hygiene of sex, as I did a year or two after marriage, I was enabled to exercise increasing self-restraint. We are now sparing in our enjoyment of conjugal pleasure. We have had no children; and I attribute this chiefly to the remaining sexual weakness in myself.[220] But I may say that not only my sexual power, but my nerve-power and general health, were greatly improved by marriage; and though I have fallen back, the last year or two, into a poor state of health, the cause of this is probably overwork rather than anything to do with sex. Not but what it must be said that, had it not been for the juvenile masturbation superadded to a neuropathic temperament, my constitution would no doubt have endured the general strain of life better than it has done. The algolagnia, being one of the congenital conditions of my sexual instinct, must be considered fundamental, and certainly has not been eliminated. If I were to allow myself indulgence in algolagnic reveries they would even now excite me without difficulty; but I have systematically discouraged them, so that they give me little or no practical trouble. My erotic dreams, which years ago were (to the best of my remembrance) frequently algolagnic, are now almost invariably normal.
"My conjugal relations have always been on the lines of strictly normal sexuality. I have a deep sense of the obligations of monogamous marriage, besides a sincere affection for my wife; consequently I repress as far as possible all sexual inclinations, such as will come involuntarily sometimes, toward other women.
"From what I have disclosed, it will be seen that I am but a frail man; but for many years I have striven honestly and hard to discipline sexuality within myself, and to regulate it according to right reason, pure hygiene, and the moral law; and I can but hope and believe that the Divine Power in which I have endeavored to trust will in the future, as it has done in the past, working by natural methods and through the current events of my life, amend and control my sex life and conduct it to safe and honorable issues."
HISTORY II.--A.B., married, good general health, dark hair, fair complexion, short-sighted, and below medium height. Parents both belong to healthy families, but the mother suffered from nerves during early years of married life, and the father, a very energetic and ambitious man, was cold, passionless, and unscrupulous. A.B. is the oldest child; two of the brothers and sisters are slightly abnormal, nervously. But, so far as is known, none of the family has ever been sexually abnormal.