n,
if we go back to origin, is due to other than Christian
influence. Christianity came out of Judaism which had no sense of
the impurity of marriage, for 'unclean' in the Old Testament
simply means 'sacred.' The ascetic side of the religion of
Christianity is no part of the religion of Christ as it came from
the hands of its Founder, and the modern feeling on this matter
is a lingering remnant of the heresy of the Manichaeans." I may
add, however, that, as Northcote points out (_Christianity and
Sex Problems_, p. 14), side by side in the Old Testament with the
frank recognition of sexuality, there is a circle of ideas
revealing the feeling of impurity in sex and of shame in
connection with it. Christianity inherited this mixed feeling. It
has really been a widespread and almost universal feeling among
the ancient and primitive peoples that there is something impure
and sinful in the things of sex, so that those who would lead a
religious life must avoid sexual relationships; even in India
celibacy has commanded respect (see, e.g., Westermarck,
_Marriage_, pp. 150 et seq.). As to the original foundation of
this notion--which it is unnecessary to discuss more fully
here--many theories have been put forward; St. Augustine, in his
_De Civitate Dei_, sets forth the ingenious idea that the penis,
being liable to spontaneous movements and erections that are not
under the control of the will, is a shameful organ and involves
the whole sphere of sex in its shame. Westermarck argues that
among nearly all peoples there is a feeling against sexual
relationship with members of the same family or household, and as
sex was thus banished from the sphere of domestic life a notion
of its general impurity arose; Northcote points out that from the
first it has been necessary to seek concealment for sexual
intercourse, because at that moment the couple would be a prey to
hostile attacks, and that it was by an easy transition that sex
came to be regarded as a thing that ought to be concealed, and,
therefore, a sinful thing. (Diderot, in his _Supplement au Voyage
de Bougainville_, had already referred to this motive for
seclusion as "the only natural element in modesty.") Crawley has
devoted a large part of his suggestive work, _The Mystic Rose_,
to showing that, to savage man, sex is a perilous,