Page:The art of kissing (IA artofkissing987wood).djvu/20

 out kissing. The Celtic tongue, as Rhys found out, has no word for kiss, but uses the Latin pax, which means literally "peace," because it occurs in the religious phrase osculum pacis, kiss of peace. Yet the Welsh Cymri early learned kissing. Its religious use is widespread. Among European pagans, house gods were greeted, on entering and leaving, with a kiss. The Eastern and Western churches have derived from this such customs as kissing the relics of saints, the foot of the pope, and the hands of bishops. The surviving custom of kissing the Testament, on administering an oath in many of our courts, is a vestige of the dying religious usage.

Yet the kiss made its way slightly into the East. The Arabic Perfumed Garden recommends the kiss, especially on the inside of the mouth. In feudal times in Europe, the vassal kissed the hand of his superior, or some symbol of the lord. Pliny may have been facetious when he said that the custom of kissing women originated in Rome, as a method of the husband's to test whether his wife had been drinking liquor or not. The custom, when extended to other women, justified itself. In France, the good girl is supposed to save her lips for her husband. This is so true, that Mme. Adam wrote that, when she first let a man kiss her as a girl, she thought she had parted with her virtue, and was sure that a child would follow the kiss. A similar misconception prevails among writers for and censors of American movies, if we are to judge by their product.