Plutarch's Romane Questions · Plutarch
IX. TABOOS.
In fairy tales it is not surprising that the hero should be forbidden to see his wife on certain days, or whilst she is washing, or at night, and that he should be required to take precautions lest he should take her unawares in one of the forbidden moments.[78] But it is surprising to find that the prosaic Roman punctiliously observed fairy etiquette in these matters, and habitually behaved like an inhabitant of fairy-land. See _R. Q._ 9 and 65. It is also surprising to discover that in Italy, where, owing to "the vigorous development of the marital authority, regardless of the natural rights of persons as such," the wife's "moral subjection became transformed into legal slavery,"[79] the wife was "exempted from the tasks of corn-grinding and cooking," because, according to Mommsen, those tasks were menial.[80] The exemption is mentioned by Plutarch in _R. Q._ 85; but we must take leave to question Mommsen's explanation. The exemption is not an exemption, but a prohibition: it is identical with the taboo laid on the Flamen Dialis (_R. Q._ 109), and has the same object. Doubtless if a Roman ate food touched by a woman, "it would swell and inflame his mouth or throat," or have some disastrous effect. For that even indirect contact with women at certain periods, _e.g._ child-birth, &c., is highly dangerous, is a belief found amongst the Australian blacks and the Eskimo, the Indians of North America, and the Kafirs of South Africa. An Australian blackfellow, having been brought accidentally into this dangerous contact, died of terror within a fortnight.[81] It is not strange, therefore, that the Romans, returning home after absence, _if their wives were at home, used to send a messenger unto them before, for to give warning and advertisement of their comming_. And we can understand that the primitive public for whom the fairy tales in question were composed found the incident of the violated taboo as thrilling and as full of "actuality" as a modern reader finds the latest sensational novel.
The belief that a mother and her new-born babe are peculiarly at the mercy of malevolent spirits is world-wide. In the fairy tales of Christian Europe the period of danger is terminated by baptism, until which time various precautions, such as burning a light in the chamber, must be observed.[82] In ancient Italy the danger ended when the child received its name, which, as Plutarch (_R. Q._ 103) informs us, was on the ninth day after birth in the case of boys, on the eighth in the case of girls. Until that day a candle was to be kept lighted, and the spirit Candelifera was to be invoked. On that day the child was purified (which indicates an original taboo), and received the _bulla_, mentioned by Plutarch (_R. Q._ 102), to preserve him henceforth from evil spirits and the evil eye. Whether the _bulla_ derived its virtue from the substances which were enclosed in it, as in a box, or from its moon shape, is uncertain. If the latter be the true explanation, we may compare the fact recorded by Plutarch (_R. Q._ 76), _that those who are descended of the most noble and auncient houses of Rome carried little moones upon their shoes_. The daughters of Sion also wore as amulets "round tires like the moon" (Isaiah, iii. 18). The moon-spirit sends disease or takes possession of the person who is "lunatick" or "moon-struck." But the spirit may be deluded, and will enter any moon-shaped object which the person attacked is wearing. The Chaldæans diverted the spirit of disease from the sick man by providing an image in the likeness of the spirit to attract the plague.[83]
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.