Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/635

 RELIGIOUS DEDICATION OF WOMEN 619

placation of deity for the sake of fertility. As a fertility rite it may certainly be viewed as a form of the religious dedication of women in general. Hamilton gives us a clear statement on this point in relation to the practice of the jus primae noctis as a religious ceremony on the Malabar coast :

When the Samorin (ruler of Calicut) marries, he must not cohabit with his bride till the hambourie or chief priest has enjoyed her, and, if he pleases, may have three nights of her company, because the first-fruits of her nuptials must be a holy oblation to the god she worships ; and some of the nobles are so complaisant as to allow the clergy the same tribute.* 4

Conjugal abstinence on religious occasions may also partake of the nature of a dedication in communities where sacrifice has become self-abnegation. Nevertheless, I do not wish to intro- duce these subjects into my argument. To do so, a close and exhaustive study would be necessary of every case of defloration or conjugal abstinence as a religious rite in relation to other social facts in the specific community, in order to determine the respect- ive parts played by phallic worship, self-sacrifice, and sexual tabu in the rite. For example, the dictate of Moses to the Hebrews, ordering them to refrain from sexual intercourse with their wives, preparatory to the appearance of Yahweh on Mount Sinai, was probably a purificatory observance, a tabu due to fear of female contamination on a sacred occasion. 35 In this early period of Hebrew history the gift theory had not yet passed into the self- abnegation theory. Self -sacrificial, on the other hand, may have been, in view of early Christian asceticism, the synodal decrees of Bishop Ratherius and of Egbert, archbishop of York, prescribing conjugal abstinence for a period of two weeks at Christmas, of one week at Easter and Whitsuntide, for the eves of feast-days, for Saturdays and Sundays, and for three days and nights before and after partaking of the holy communion. 36 A like difference of motive is seen in the Jewish story of Tobias, and in certain of the early papal admonishments in regard to postponing the con- female sanctity. Because of the meaning attaching to blood in general and there- fore to menstrual blood, women are thought of as peculiarly close to the totem-god. Hence clan exogamy. Compare with what has preceded in regard to the sin of violating ecclesiastically dedicated women.

54 Schmidt, Jus Primae Noctis, pp. 313-18.


 * Exod. 19: 15. * Schmidt, op. dt., p. 149, n. i.