Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/467

Rh male sexual purity, and Raja Rasalu, a hero essentially of gallantries of every kind, is repeatedly called "jati sati, pure and chaste," in the sense of being endowed with unimpaired capacity. He was in that sense fully virtuous. The possession of such virtue is made a condition of worldly power, and when possessed in an inordinate degree calls down the wrath of the supernatural powers as a positive danger to them. It is also a vital point to keep out of touch with women at periods of stress and trial in order to maintain it, their approach and proximity impairing it. The origin of all this is obvious, the male is not subjected to tabu or appropriation, and the female is.

Perhaps the neatest indication of the point that of old chastity was the virtue of women and virile capacity the virtue of men, is shown in the manner in which the zone, both as a word and as an article of costume, was used. There was always the female girdle or zone, the emblem of chastity, and the male zone or sign of virility and lighting capacity. In the Himalayas the silver zone is still the sign par excellence of a warrior. Says a legend: "The Lord Raja is coming himself to this war. He has called every wearer of a silver zone to Junga."

Now, the very line of reasoning which renders male chastity of no account, makes female chastity the main virtue—i.e. capacity of the sex. In such a society as is reflected in Indian legendary lore, it was as essential for a woman to be chaste, as it was for man to be of his hands capable. The maintenance of the tribe and its social structure rested on these features of the two classes of human beings composing it. We Europeans have the remains of this feeling in all our languages when we talk of a woman and her virtue. Female chastity, then, being of such very great importance to the men, and also so very difficult to secure without the co-operation of the women themselves, the men were always calling in the supernatural powers to their aid in maintaining it, out of their