a great openness and generosity of disposition.  I never saw them, in any misfortune, labor under the appearance of anxiety, after the critical moment was past.  Neither does care ever seem to wrinkle their brow.  On the contrary, even the approach of death does not appear to alter their usual vivacity” (Third Voyage of Discovery, 1776-1780).  Turnbull visited Tahiti at a later period (A Voyage Round the World in 1800, etc., pp. 374-5), but while finding all sorts of vices among them, he is yet compelled to admit their virtues:  “Their manner of addressing strangers, from the king to the meanest subject, is courteous and affable in the extreme....  They certainly live amongst each other in more harmony than is usual amongst Europeans.  During the whole time I was amongst them I never saw such a thing as a battle....  I never remember to have seen an Otaheitean out of temper.  They jest upon each other with greater freedom than the Europeans, but these jests are never taken in ill part....  With regard to food, it is, I believe, an invariable law in Otaheite that whatever is possessed by one is common to all.”  Thus we see that even among a people who are commonly referred to as the supreme example of a nation given up to uncontrolled licentiousness, the claims of chastity were admitted, and many other virtues vigorously flourished.  The Tahitians were brave, hospitable, self-controlled, courteous, considerate to the needs of others, chivalrous to women, even appreciative of the advantages of sexual restraint, to an extent which has rarely, if ever, been known among those Christian nations which have looked down upon them as abandoned to unspeakable vices.

As we turn from savages towards peoples in the barbarous and civilized stages we find a general tendency for chastity, in so far as it is a common possession of the common people, to be less regarded, or to be retained only as a traditional convention no longer strictly observed.  The old grounds for chastity in primitive religions and tabu have decayed and no new grounds have been generally established.  “Although the progress of civilization,” wrote Gibbon long ago, “has undoubtedly contributed to assuage the fiercer passions of human nature, it seems to have been less favorable to the virtue of chastity,” and Westermarck concludes that “irregular connections between the sexes have, on the whole, exhibited a tendency to increase along with the progress of civilization.”

The main difference in the social function of chastity as we pass from savagery to higher stages of culture seems to be that it ceases to exist as a general hygienic measure or a general ceremonial observance, and, for the most part, becomes confined to special philosophic or religious sects which cultivate it to an extreme degree in a more or less professional way.  This state of things is well illustrated by the Roman Empire during the early centuries of the Christian era.[73] Christianity itself was at first one of these sects enamored of the ideal of chastity; but by its superior vitality it replaced all the others and finally imposed its ideals, though by no means its primitive practices, on European society generally.