A Note on Kissing Other Lands, Other Manners

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6803, 5 January 1929, Page 13

A Note on Kissing Other Lands, Other Manners

BHEN a man can’t take his sweetheart to a movie and kiss her, it’s better to eliminate movies and sweetThis was the opinion of an American judge, who recently acquitted a young man brought before him for disorderly conduct, and specifically charged with kissing in a moving picture theatre. Thus the judge indicated his belief that kissing is not a practice which can be ruled in and out of communities, Hke daylight saving time. Such fads as meatless diet and bobbed hair may come and go, but since the time of the first recprded kisses in the Book of Genesis .the ancient custom of kiss-

ing has continued from one generation, to another. Some who agree with the judge have looked up their subject and found, -first of all, that opinions differ widely as to the origin of kissing. The first kiss is probably. nearly as old as the first man and woman. One school advances the theory that it is a relic of cannibalism, and holds that at its origin “the custom was nothing more or less than a modified bite. This hypothesis probably accounts for the saying that one can love a person well enough to eat him. Professor Lombroso traces the kiss- back to an original act of fond maternal care.

Primitive man had no cups, and when he was thirsty he knelt by a brook and drank after the fashion of animals. Such a method was impossible for an infant. Hence, it was the practice for the mother to fill her mouth with water, and placing her lips to those of the child, inject the liquid into the baby’s mouth. According to this theory, kissing is an example of reversion to the primitive type. And out of these early maternal caresses developed the lover’s kiss. Still other authorities claim that kissing was a simple form of salutation, which had its primitive basis in the senses of smell and taste. Whatever its origin, kissing has become a widespread institution in

civilised countries. With us the kiss has become specialised, so that it now symbolises the most sacred pledge of love. Its magic has inspired countless poets. Yet the kisses of history have not all been lovers’ caresses. Its varied forms have at times expressed sympathy, gratitude, humility, reverence, and hypocrisy. Originally, in Oriental life, the kiss has a religious significance. With the ancient Jews and Teutons, it was a mark of veneration and affection, and as common a salutation between men as the handshake of to-day. The early Arabians worshipped their gods with

kisses. Household gods were thus greeted on entering and leaving the home. And iivith the Persians the kiss of honour was a national custom. A customary expression of love among the Abyssinians was to kneel down and kiss the ground before honoured feet; and in India kissing the feet was a common means of expressing veneration.

Among the early Christians the kiss had an almost sacramental significance. A ceremonial kiss of peace, exchanged between members of the congregation at the communion services, was customary until the fifth century, and the practice is still perpetuated in the Greek Church when the faithful salute each ot,her in the Easter kiss. In modern church ritual the relics of the saints, the embroidered cross on the slipper of the Pope, and the hands of bishops, are still kissed by their followers. In law a sworn statement, supported by kissing the Bible, is considered a sacred oath. Most civilised races have been familiar with the caress for centuries, but kissing is still unknown among millions of the earth’s inhabitants. Many of the semi-civilised races, including the Eskimos, the natives of Madagascar and Tierra del Fuego, the South Sea Islanders, and most African tribes do not include kissing, as we know it, in their love-making. They may rub noses, or cheeks, smack each other on the arms or stomach, blow each other’s hands, or rub their right ears together as a sign of friendly greeting, but kiss they do not. Among the Greenlanders, Malays, and other races a curious nose salute takes the place of the kiss. The Malay kiss is described thus by Darwin:— ’ “The women squatted with their faces upturned, my attendants stood leaning over them, laid the bridges of their noses at right-angles over those of the women, and commenced rubbing. It lasted somewhat longer than a hearty handshake with us. During this -process they uttered a grunt of satisfaction.” The odious regard in which the European kiss is held by the Chinese is mentioned by Havelock Ellis. To them.it suggests voracious cannibals, and Chinese mothers in the French colonies still frighten children by threatening to give them a white man’s kiss. He also tells of some Indian hill tribes where the olfactory kiss is found, the nose being applied to the cheek during salutation, with a strong inhalation. In the land of the Rising Sun kissing, too, is unfamiliar. And love-mak-ing in any form as a prelude to marriage finds small place in Japanese ethics. Lafcadio Hearn writes that: “Kisses and embraces are simply unknown in Japan as tokens of affection, if we except the solitary fact that Japanese mothers—like mothers all over the world—lick and hug their

little ones at times. After babyhood there is no more hugging or kissing; such actions, except in the case of infants, are held to be immodest. Never do girls kiss one another; never do parents kiss or embrace their children who have become able to walk." Kissing appears to have been the ancient and honourable method of salutation in England. Five hundred years ago a Greek traveller, describing this universal British custom, wrote: — “As for English females and children, their customs are liberal in the extreme. For instance, when a visitor calls at a friend’s house his first act is to kiss his friend’s wife; he is then a duly installed guest. Persons meeting in the street follow the same custom, and no one sees anything improper in the action.” Even modern flaming youth could not complain of any lack of freedom in those days. And perhaps the traveller from Greece will recall an ancient law of his own country, that provided that any person found guilty of kissing a woman on- the public streets should be put to death. Thus a precedent was set for the old Massachusetts law, which read: “If any man shall kiss his wife, or wife kiss her husband on the Lord’s Day, the party in fault shall be punished in the Court of Magistrates.” Innumerable old-world customs centre on the kiss. A version of an early Lenten ceremony survives in England to-day: “On Maundy Thursday the Kings and Queens of England personally washed and kissed the feet of as many poor people as they themselves numbered years, and bestowed a gift, or maundy, upon each. Queen Elizabeth performed this royal duty at Greenwich when she was thirty-nine years old. The feet of thirty-nine poor persons were first washed by the yeoman of the laundry with warm water and sweet herbs, and then by the Queen herself, the person who washed, making each time a cross upon the pauper’s foot, above the toes, and kissing it. This ceremony was performed by the Queen kneeling, being attended by thirty-nine ladies and gentlemen. Clothes, victuals and money were then distributed among the poor.” An annual kissing fair is held at Helmagen, in Rumania, at which newly-wed brides, carrying jugs of wine, congregate with their mothers-in-law. They kiss everyone who passes, and not to partake of the proffered wine is regarded as an insult to the bride and her family. The attitude of the newly-wed husbands toward these wholesale osculations is not mentioned, but doubtless the mothers-in-law control the situation. Men have gone to prison for stealing a kiss. The women of Athens once stopped a war by withholding tlicir kisses until their husbands

agreed to stop fighting. History was changed when Anthony wasted a world for Cleopatra’s kisses. And, despite the fact that modern medical science inveighs against the kiss, that anti-kissing leagues have been formed, and that in Russia the Soviet Commission of Health has forbidden kissing on the ground that it is unhygienic and a bourgeoise practice, lovers all over the world seem to be following the Biblical example of Jacob when be met Rachel at the well.