zation the strict
seclusion of the women was a fatal obstacle to love. Wherever
separation of the sexes and chaperonage prevails, the only kind of
amorous infatuation possible, as a rule, is sensual passion, fiery but
transient. To love a girl sentimentally--that is, for her mental
beauty and moral refinement as well as her bodily charms--a man must
get acquainted with her, be allowed to meet her frequently. This was
not possible until within a few generations. The separation of the
sexes, by preventing all possibility of refined and legitimate
courtship, favored illicit amours on one side, loveless marriages on
the other, thus proving one of the most formidable obstacles to love.
"It is not enough to give time for mutual knowledge and affection
after marriage," wrote the late Henry Drummond.

"Nature must deepen the result by extending it to the time
before marriage.... Courtship, with its vivid perceptions
and quickened emotions, is a great opportunity for
evolution; and to institute and lengthen reasonably a period
so rich in impression is one of its latest and brightest
efforts."

XI. SEXUAL TABOOS

If a law were passed compelling every man living in Rochester, N.Y.,
who wanted a wife to get her outside of that city, in Buffalo,
Syracuse, Utica, or some other place, it would be considered an
outrageous restriction of free choice, calculated to diminish greatly
the chances of love-matches based on intimate acquaintance. If such a
law had existed for generations and centuries, sanctioned by religion
and custom and so strictly enforced that violation of it entailed the
danger of capital punishment, a sentiment would have grown up in
course of time making the inhabitants of Rochester look upon marriage
within the city with the same horror as they do upon incestuous
unions. This is not an absurd or fanciful supposition. Such laws and
customs actually did prevail in this very section of New York State.
The Seneca tribe of the Iroquois Indians was divided into two
phratries, each of which was again subdivided into four clans, named
after their totems or animals; the Bear, Wolf, Beaver, and Turtle
clans belonging to one phratry, while the other included the Deer,
Snipe, Heron, and Hawk clans. Morgan's researches show that originally
an Indian belonging to one phratry could marry a woman belonging to
the other only. Subsequently the line was drawn less strictly, but
still no Indian was al