coarseness, and general emotional shallowness and sexual frivolity.  The prevention of choice is only one of the obstacles to love, but it is one of the most formidable, because it has acted at all times and among races of all degrees of barbarism or civilization up to modern Europe of two or three centuries ago.  And to the frustration and free choice was added another obstacle—­the separation of the sexes.  Some Indians and even Australians tried to keep the sexes apart, though usually without much success.  In their cause no harm was done to the cause of love, because these races are constitutionally incapable of romantic love; but in higher stages of civilization the strict seclusion of the women was a fatal obstacle to love.  Wherever separation of the sexes and chaperonage prevails, the only kind of amorous infatuation possible, as a rule, is sensual passion, fiery but transient.  To love a girl sentimentally—­that is, for her mental beauty and moral refinement as well as her bodily charms—­a man must get acquainted with her, be allowed to meet her frequently.  This was not possible until within a few generations.  The separation of the sexes, by preventing all possibility of refined and legitimate courtship, favored illicit amours on one side, loveless marriages on the other, thus proving one of the most formidable obstacles to love.  “It is not enough to give time for mutual knowledge and affection after marriage,” wrote the late Henry Drummond.

“Nature must deepen the result by extending it to the time before marriage....  Courtship, with its vivid perceptions and quickened emotions, is a great opportunity for evolution; and to institute and lengthen reasonably a period so rich in impression is one of its latest and brightest efforts.”

XI.  SEXUAL TABOOS

If a law were passed compelling every man living in Rochester, N.Y., who wanted a wife to get her outside of that city, in Buffalo, Syracuse, Utica, or some other place, it would be considered an outrageous restriction of free choice, calculated to diminish greatly the chances of love-matches based on intimate acquaintance.  If such a law had existed for generations and centuries, sanctioned by religion and custom and so strictly enforced that violation of it entailed the danger of capital punishment, a sentiment would have grown up in course of time making the inhabitants of Rochester look upon marriage within the city with the same horror as they do upon incestuous unions.  This is not an absurd or fanciful supposition.  Such laws and customs actually did prevail in this very section of New York State.  The Seneca tribe of the Iroquois Indians was divided into two phratries, each of which was again subdivided into four clans, named after their totems or animals; the Bear, Wolf, Beaver, and Turtle clans belonging to one phratry, while the other included the Deer, Snipe, Heron, and Hawk clans.  Morgan’s researches show that