Here we see what the expression that the Niam-Niam “spare no sacrifice to redeem their imprisoned women” amounts to:  the Nubians counted on it that they would rather part with their ivory than with their wives!  This, surely, involved no “sacrifice”; it was simply a question of which the husbands preferred, the useless ivory or the useful women—­desirable as drudges and concubines.  Why should buying back a wife be evidence of affection any more than the buying of a bride, which is a general custom of Africans?  As for their howling over their lost wives, that was natural enough; they would have howled over lost cows too—­as our children cry if their milk is taken away when they are hungry.  Actions which can be interpreted in such sensual and selfish terms can never be accepted as proof of true affection.  That the captured wives, on their part, were not troubled by conjugal affection is evident from Schweinfurth’s remark that they “were perfectly composed and apparently quite indifferent.”

INCLINATIONS MISTAKEN FOR AFFECTION

Let us take one more case.  There are plenty of men who would like to kiss every pretty girl they see, and no one would be so foolish as to regard a kiss as proof of affection.  Yet Lyon (another of the witnesses on whom Westermarck relies) accepts, with a naivete equalling Captain Bourke’s, the rubbing together of noses, which among the Eskimos is an equivalent of our kissing, as a mark of “affection.”  In the case of unscientific travellers, such a loose use of words may perhaps be pardonable, but a specialist who writes a history of marriage should not put the label of “affection” on everything that comes into his drag-net, as Westermarck does (pp. 358-59); a proceeding the less excusable because he himself admits, a few pages later (362), that affection is chiefly provoked by “intellectual, emotional, and moral qualities” which certainly could not be found among some of the races he refers to.  I have investigated a number of the alleged cases of conjugal “affection” in books of travel, and found invariably that some manifestation of sensual attachment was recklessly accepted as an indication of “affection.”

In part, it is true, the English language is to be blamed for this state of affairs.  The word affection has been used to mean almost any disposition of the mind, including passion, lust, animosity, and a morbid state.  But in good modern usage it means or implies an altruistic feeling of devotion which urges us to seek the welfare of another even at the expense of our own.  We call a mother affectionate because she willingly and eagerly sacrifices herself for her child, toils for it, loses sleep and food and health for its sake.  If she merely cared for it [note the subtle double sense of “caring for”] because it is pretty and amusing, we might concede that she “liked” it, was “attached” to it, or “fond” of it; but it would be incorrect to speak of affection.  Liking, attachment, and fondness differ from affection not only in degree but in kind; they are selfish, while affection is unselfish; they occur among savages, while affection is peculiar to civilized persons and perhaps some animals.