to speak of their land as married, of
their nation as a wife in prosperity and a widow in calamity, of their
Maker as their husband, who rejoices over them as the bridegroom
rejoiceth over the bride: [117] this same necessity, becoming a habit
like that of our own country folks in Hampshire, of whom Cobbett
speaks, who call almost everything _he_ or _she_; led the sensuous
and imaginative ancients, as it leads simple and poetical peoples
still, to call the moon a man and to worship him as a god. Objects of
fear and reverence would be usually masculines; and objects of love
and desire feminines. We may thus find light thrown upon the
honours paid to such goddesses as Astarte and Aphrodite: which
will also help us to understand the deification by a celibate
priesthood of the Virgin Mary. We may, moreover, account partly
for the fact that to the sailor his ship is always she; to the swain the
flowers which resemble his idol, as the lily and the rose, are always
feminine, and used as female names; while to the patriot the mother
country is nearly always of the tender sex. [118] Prof. Max Mueller
thinks that the distinction between males and females began, "not
with the introduction of masculine nouns, but with the introduction
of feminines, _i.e._ with the setting apart of certain derivative
suffixes for females. By this all other words became masculine."
[119] Thus the sexual emotions of men created that grammatical
gender which has contributed so powerfully to our later mythology,
and has therefore been mistaken for the author of our male and
female personations. What beside sexuality suggested the thought of
the Chevalier Marini? "He introduces the god _Pan_, who boasts
that the spots which are seen in the moon are impressions of the
kisses he gave it." [120] That grammar is very much younger than
sexual relations is proven by the curious fact mentioned by Max
Mueller that _pater_ is not a masculine, nor _mater_ a feminine.
Gender, we must not forget, is from _genus_, a kind or class; and
that the classification in various languages has been arranged on no
fixed plan. We in our modern English, with much still to do, have
improved in this respect, since, in Anglo-Saxon, _wif_ = wife, was
neuter, and _wif-mann_ = woman, was masculine. In German still
_die frau_, the woman, is feminine; but _das weib_, the wife, is
neuter. [121] Dr. Farrar finds the root of gender in the imagination:
which we admit if associated with sex.