Colonel James Smith, who had been adopted by the Indians, relates (45) how one day he helped the squaws to hoe corn.  They approved of it, but the old men afterward chid him for degrading himself by hoeing corn like a squaw.  He slyly adds that, as he was never very fond of work, they had no occasion to scold him again.  We read in Schoolcraft (V., 268) that among the Creeks, during courtship, the young man used to help the girl hoe the corn in her field, plant her beans and set poles for them to run upon.  But this was not intended as an act of gallant assistance; it had a symbolic meaning.  The running up of the beans on the poles and the entwining of their vines was “thought emblematical of their approaching union and bondage.”  Morgan states expressly in his classical work on the Iroquois (332) that “no attempts by the unmarried to please or gratify each other by acts of personal attention were ever made.”  In other words the Indians knew not gallantry in the sense of disinterested courtesy to the weaker sex—­the gallantry which is an essential ingredient of romantic love.

Germs of gallantry may perhaps be found in Borneo where, as St. John relates (I., 161), a young Dyak may help the girl he wants to marry in her farm work, carrying home her load of vegetables or wood, or make her presents of rings, a petticoat, etc.  But such a statement must be interpreted with caution.

The very fact that they make the women do the field work and carry the wood habitually, shows that the Dyaks are not gallant.  Momentary favors for the sake of securing favors in return, or of arranging an ephemeral Bornean “marriage,” are not acts of disinterested courtesy to the weaker sex.  The Dyaks themselves clearly understand that such attentions are mere bids for favors.  As a missionary cited by Ling Roth (1., 13.1) remarks: 

“If a woman handed to a man betel-nut and sirah to eat, or if a man paid her the smallest attention, such as we should term only common politeness, it would be sufficient to excuse a jealous husband for striking a man.”

It is the same in India.

“The politeness, attention, and gallantry which the Europeans practise toward the ladies, although often proceeding from esteem and respect, are invariably ascribed by the Hindoos to a different motive.”

(Dubois, I., 271.) Here, as everywhere in former times, woman existed not for her own sake but for man’s convenience, comfort, and pleasure; why, therefore, should he bother to do anything to please her?  In the Kaniasoutram there is a chapter on the duties of a model wife, in which she is instructed to do all the work not only at home but in garden, field, and stable.  She must go to bed after her husband and get up before him.  She must try to excel all other wives in faithfully serving her lord and master.  She must not even allow the maid-servant to wash his feet, but must do it with her own hands.  The Laws of Manu are full of such precepts, most of them amazingly ungallant.  The horrible maltreatment of women in India, which it would be an unpardonable euphuism to call simply ungallant, will be dwelt on in a later chapter.