“Waitz assures us that in several countries of Africa a young girl is preferred for wife when she has made herself remarked by several amours and by much fecundity. (C.f. Havelock Ellis, op. cit., vol.6: ‘Equally unsound is the notion that the virgin bride brings her husband at marriage an important capital which is consumed in the first act of intercourse and can never be recovered. That is a notion which has survived into civilisation, but it belongs to barbarism and not to civilisation. So far as it has any validity it lies within a sphere of erotic perversity which cannot be taken into consideration in an estimation of moral values. For most men, however, in any case, whether they realise it or not, the woman who has been initiated into the mysteries of love has a higher erotic value than the virgin,[10] and there need be no anxiety on this ground concerning the wife who has lost her virginity.’)

[10] “I am not surprised if the Phœnicians, according to St. Athanasius, obliged their daughters, by severe laws, to suffer themselves before marriage to be deflowered by valets, or also that the Armenians, as Strabo relates, sacrificed their daughters in the temple of the Goddess Anaitis, with the object of being eased of their maidenheads, so as to be able afterwards to find advantageous marriages suited to their condition; for one cannot describe what exhaustion and what sufferings a man has to undergo in his first action, at all events if the girl be narrow.... It is far sweeter to have connection with a woman accustomed to the pleasures of love than to caress one who has not yet known a man; for as we ask a locksmith to ease the wards of a new lock he brings us, to save us the trouble we might have the first day, so had the nations of whom we spoke good reason for establishing such laws.” (Nicolas Venette: La Génération de L’Homme, ou Tableau de L’Amour Conjugal: Paris, 1751.)

“It was impossible,” continues Dr. Jacobus X--, “ever to find the signs of virginity among the Machacura women in Brazil, and Feldner explains the reason thus:--

“‘Among them a virgin is never to be found, for this reason: that the mother from her daughter’s tenderest years endeavours with the utmost care to remove all tightness of the vagina and obstacle therein. With this end in view, the leaf of a tree folded in the shape of a funnel is held in the right hand, then while the index finger is introduced into the genital parts and worked to and fro, warm water is admitted by means of the funnel.’ (Journey Across Brazil, 1828.)

“Among the Sakalaves in Madagascar the young girls deflower themselves, when the parents have not previously seen to this necessary preparation for marriage.

“Among the Balanti of Senegambia, one of the most degraded races in Africa, the girls cannot find a husband until they have been deflowered by their King, who often exacts costly presents from his female subjects for putting them in condition to be able to marry.

“Barth, (1856), in describing Adamad, says that the chief of the Bagoli used to lie the first night with the daughters of the Fulba, a people under his sway. Similar facts are related of the aborigines of Brazil and of the Kinipeto Esquimaux.

“Demosthenes informs us that there was a celebrated Greek hetaira, named Mæra, who had seven slaves whom she called her daughters, so that being supposed to be free a higher price was paid for their favours. She sold their virginity five or six times over, and ended by selling the whole lot together.

“The god Mutinus, Mutunus or Tutunus of ancient Rome used to have the new brides come and sit upon his knees, as if to offer him their virginity. St. Augustine says: ‘In the celebration of nuptials the newly wed bride used to be bidden sit on the shaft of Priapus.’ Lactantius gives more precise details: ‘And Mutunus, in whose shameful lap brides sit, in order that the god may appear to have gathered the first-fruits of their virginity.’ It appears, however, that this offering was not merely symbolical, for when they had become wives, they used to return to the favourite deity to pray for fecundity.[11]

[11] “According to Festus, Mutinus is a god differing wholly from Priapus, having a public sanctuary at Rome, where the statue was placed sitting with penis erect. Newly mated girls were placed in his lap, before being led away to their husbands, so that the deity might appear to have foretasted their virginity, this being supposed to render the bride fruitful.” (Priapeia: Cosmopoli, 1890.) Schurig (Gynæcologia: op. cit. sup.) instances the Indian custom of deflowering young brides by means of an enormous priapus in the temples.

“Arnobius also asks: ‘Is it Tutunus, on whose huge organs and bristling tool you think it an auspicious and desirable thing that your matrons should be mounted?’

“Pertunda was another hermaphrodite divinity that St. Augustine maliciously proposed rather to name the Deus Pretundus (who strikes first); it was carried on to the nuptial bed to aid the bridegroom: ‘Pertunda stands there ready in the bed-chamber for the aid of husbands excavating the virgin pit.’ (Arnobius.)

“The Kondadgis (Ceylon), the Cambodgians, and other peoples charged their priests with the defloration of their brides.

“Jager communicated to the Berlin Anthropological Society a passage from Gemelli Cancri, which mentions a _stupratio officialis_[12] practised at a certain period among the Bisayos of the Philippine Islands: ‘There is no known example of a custom so barbarous as that which had been there established, of having public officials, and even paid very dearly, to take the virginity of young girls, the same being considered to be an obstacle to the pleasures of the husband. As a fact there no longer exists any trace of this infamous practice since the establishment of the Spanish rule, ... but even to-day a Bisayo feels vexed to find his wife safe from suspicion, because he concludes, that not having excited the desire of anyone, she must have some bad quality which will prevent him from being happy with her.’

[12] i.e., a legalised defilement or ravishing. Blondeau, in his Dictionnaire érotique latin-français (Liseux: Paris, 1885), translates stupratio as “a combat in which one forces a beauty to yield to one’s passion ... to take possession of the honour of some pretty woman ... the struggle in which women succumb with pleasure.” Stupro, the verb; stuprator, the noun; and stupratus, the adjective have kindred meanings.

“On the Malabar Coast, also, there were Brahmins whose only religious office was to gather the virgin flower of young girls. These latter used to pay them for it, without which they could not find husbands. The King of Calicut himself used to grant the right of the first night to a Brahmin; the King of Tamassat grants it to the first stranger who arrives in the town; whereas the King of Campa reserves to himself the _jus primæ noctis_[13] for all the marriages in the kingdom. (De Gubernatis, Histoire des voyageurs italiens aux Indes Orientales: Livourne, 1875.)

[13] An old established practice whereby newly married women are deflowered by others than their husbands, whether by priest, lord, or stranger. To discuss this relic of feudalism would be beyond the scope of a note; it is summed up briefly in the idea that the lord of a domain was entitled to exact tribute from his subjects in the form of intercourse with every bride on the first night of her marriage. Our readers are referred to Dr. Karl Schmidt’s Jus Primæ Noctis (The Law of the First Night), the most comprehensive treatise on the subject.

“Warthema says that the King of Calicut, when he took a wife, chose the most worthy and learned Brahmin to deflower the maiden; for this service he received from 400 to 500 crowns. At Tenasserim fathers used to beg of their daughters to allow themselves to be deflowered by Christians or Mohammedans.

“Pascal de Andagoya, who visited Nicaragua between 1514 and 1522, says that it was usual for a grand-priest to lie during the first night with the bride, and Oviedo, (1535), speaking of the Acovacks and other American nations, relates that the wife, in order that the marriage should be happy, passed the first nuptial night with the priest or piache, and Gomarra, (1551), relates the same thing of the inhabitants of Cumana.

“In Europe, young girls who are not very virtuous, and who have studied all the various forms of flirtation, are most generally passed off as virgins when they marry. Even when it does not really exist, there are many ways by which a virginity--which perhaps has been sold over and over again by expert and clever procuresses--can be simulated. A little time before going to the nuptial bed, the girl inserts into her vagina a few drops of pigeon’s blood; or in some cases she selects for her wedding day the last day of menstruation. A sponge, skilfully placed, allows the blood to flow at the moment of the catastrophe, when a sudden ‘Oh!’ announces to the unsuspecting husband that the temple has been violated for the first time, and that the veil of the sanctum sanctorum has really been rent by him. Add also to these methods injections so astringent that, at the required time, they will give to a prostitute, whose gap has been widened by a thousand customers, a tightness greater than that of a real virgin.”