Wounded pride,
violated chastity, and broken conjugal vows--pangs which goad us into
jealousy--are considerations unknown to him. In other words, his
"jealousy" is not a solicitude for marital honor, for wifely purity
and affection, but simply a question of lending his property and being
paid for it. Thus, in the case of the Blackfeet Indians referred to a
moment ago, the author declares that while they mutilated erring wives
by cutting off their noses (the Comanches and other tribes, down to
the Brazilian Botocudos, did the same thing), they eagerly offered
their wives and daughters in exchange for a bottle of whiskey. In this
respect, too, this case is typical. Sutherland found (I., 184) that in
regard to twenty-one tribes of Indians out of thirty-eight there was
express record of unlimited intercourse before marriage and the
loaning or exchanging of wives. In seventeen he could not get express
information, and in only four was it stated that a chaste girl was
more esteemed than an unchaste one. In the chapter on Indifference to
Chastity I cited testimony showing that in Australia, the Pacific
Islands, and among aborigines in general, chastity is not valued as a
virtue. There are plenty of tribes that attempt to enforce it, but for
commercial, sensual, or at best, genealogical reasons, not from a
regard for personal purity; so that among all these lower races
jealousy in our sense of the word is out of the question.
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