Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c5.373

v1.c5.373

owner of a wife that formerly was so run after, feeling itself highly gratified; he it is that has carried off such a pearl and cut the others out! How, then, should this vanity not be just as delightfully puffed up, when she that is already married has a strong attraction for others! If we read this sentence (already, indeed, anticipated by Rousseau) in Engels, *Der Ursprung d. Familie*, etc. (1894), p. 17: “If anything is sure, it is this, that jealousy is a feeling developed relatively late,” then at first we call such a thing monstrous beyond words. And yet, Finck above all (pp. 82 ff.; 438 ff. and elsewhere, as also Hartland, *Primitive Paternity*, especially ch. vi) has brought together overwhelming evidence that real jealousy is hardly to be met with among more primitive peoples; among the men we can only speak, at most, of anger at the infringement of their rights of property, among the women, of envy for her that is favoured by the husband with better treatment. Here and there outward circumstances may have contributed towards men and women manifesting an indifference like this—lower than among the beasts—in things of love. Thus among the Eskimos there is the *stress of life* (Dr. H. C. Stratz, *Die Frauenkleidung in ihrer natürl. Entwickl.*³, p. 18). Especially when the chief, prince, or priest drinks from the same cup as ordinary mortals, the men thus favoured feel the most devout, nay, proudest joy, and that not only among the Kalmucks (Westermarck, p. 79; Finck, 44-45). *Tout comme chez nous* is what even the civilized European must acknowledge, who is familiar with history and the present day.