With wild animals sexual desire is not less powerful as an incentive to strenuous exertion than hunger and thirst. In the rut-time, the males even of the most cowardly species engage in mortal combats; and abstinence, or at least voluntary abstinence, is almost unheard of in a state of nature.[751]
As regards savage and barbarous races of men, among whom the relations of the sexes under normal conditions take the form of marriage, nearly every individual strives to get married as soon as he, or she, reaches the age of puberty.[752] Hence there are far fewer bachelors and spinsters among them than among civilized peoples. Harmon found that among the Blackfeet, Crees, Chippewyans, and other aboriginal tribes on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains, celibacy was a rare exception;[753] and Ashe noted the same fact among the Shawanese.[754] Prescott states of the Dacotahs, “I do not know of a bachelor among them. They have a little more respect for the women and themselves, than to live a single life.”[755] Indeed, according to Adair, many Indian women thought virginity and widowhood the same as death.[756] Among the Eastern Greenlanders, visited by Lieutenant Holm, only one unmarried woman was met with.[757]
The Charruas, says Azara, “ne restent jamais dans le célibat, et ils se marient aussitôt qu’ils sentent le besoin de cette union.”[758] As regards the Yahgans, Mr. Bridges writes that “none but mutes and imbeciles remained single, except some lads of vigour who did so from choice, influenced by licentiousness. But no woman remained unmarried; almost immediately on her husband’s death the widow found another husband.”
Among the wild nations of Southern Africa, according to Burchell, neither men nor women ever pass their lives in a state of celibacy;[759] and Bosman assures us that very few negroes of the Gold Coast died single, unless they were quite young.[760] Among the Mandingoes, Caillié met with no instance of a young woman, pretty or plain, who had not a husband.[761] Barth reports that the Western Touaregs had no fault to find with him except that he lived in celibacy; they could not even understand how this was possible.[762]
Among the Sinhalese there are hardly any old bachelors and old maids;[763] and Mr. Marshall says of the Todas, “No unmarried class exists, to disturb society with its loves and broils; ... it is a ‘very much married’ people. Every man and every woman, every lad and every girl is somebody’s husband or wife; tied at the earliest possible age.... With the exception of a cripple girl, and of those women who, past the child-bearing age, were widows, I did not meet with a single instance of unmarried adult females.”[764] Among the Toungtha, it is unheard of for a man or woman to be unmarried after the age of thirty, and among the Chukmas, a bachelor twenty-five years old is rarely seen.[765] The Muásís consider it a father’s duty to fix upon a bridegroom as soon as his daughter becomes marriageable.[766] Among the Burmese[767] and the Hill Dyaks of Borneo,[768] old maids and old bachelors are alike unknown. Among the Sumatrans, too, instances of persons of either sex passing their lives in a state of celibacy are extremely rare:—“In the districts under my charge,” says Marsden, “are about eight thousand inhabitants, among whom I do not conceive it would be possible to find ten instances of men of the age of thirty years unmarried.”[769] In Java, Mr. Crawfurd “never saw a woman of two-and-twenty that was not, or had not been, married.”[770] In Tonga, according to Mariner, there were but few women who, from whim or some accidental cause, remained single for life.[771] In Australia, “nearly all the girls are betrothed at a very early age;” and Mr. Curr never heard of a woman, over sixteen years of age, who, prior to the breakdown of aboriginal customs after the coming of the Whites, had not a husband.[772] As to the natives of Herbert River, Northern Queensland, Herr Lumholtz says that though the majority of the young men have to wait a long time before they get wives, it is rare for a man to die unmarried.[773]