The records preserved from older civilizations are (as has been said before) too fundamental in treatment to be of much value to us in the matter of details. We know, however, that the mythology and folklore of any race presents a more or less accurate idea of the customs of the time. Granting an amount of exaggeration in the fables, we have still the proof that seduction has always been a recognized practice in Heaven. Scarcely a god has not dabbled in the art at one time or another. In the first place they start off with the advantages of divinity and a working knowledge of black magic.^[9] They could be called seducers in the true sense of the word only by courtesy. Jupiter, to take an example, used methods of archaic and brutal simplicity. To be sure, he would sometimes take the trouble to turn himself into a swan or a bull or a shower of gold, but such exercises are second nature to a deity and cause no delay or exhaustion. Ammon, the Egyptian god, associated exclusively with royalty, and no one thought of calling him to task for such moral irregularities. On the contrary, the kingly family was proud of him.^[10]

A close study of the ancient Indians reveals the fact that they deemed seduction one of the most important of the arts, rivalling philosophy in popularity as a study.^[11] The Chinese with their customary reserve, make no mention of such matters in official papers, but a quantity of poetry and maxims discloses a keen Oriental interest in the topic.^[12] The Old Testament abounds in stories of seduction by means of trickery, bribery and simple persuasion. It is safe to assume from the records that seduction in all parts of the civilized world was at about the same stage of primary development.

The Middle Ages show some progress. Literature was growing into an important culture, and we have much more source material. There are manifestations of refinement in the ancient game, but at the same time the world was not as light-hearted about these matters as it had been in the past. The growth of the Church, with its set ideas of these subjects and its zeal to catalogue the sins of mankind and to deal out punishment accordingly, gave to seduction its greatest impetus. At no other time in history has such a vast amount of time and thought been expended on one idea. It became a sin, and therefore a necessity.

Added to the stimulation of the churchly attitude was that of the caste system, which made seduction the only means of communication between the classes. The Renaissance introduced a new fashion, persuasion by means of bribery. Kings and their courtiers led the movement by elevating their mistresses to dizzy heights of power and wealth. The sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries witnessed an influx of new families and the ascent of many a lowly maiden. Several of the noblest families of England trace their origin to such glittering seductions.^[13] Indeed this process became at one time so notorious that it crept into folklore and has been preserved for us in many a ballad, of which the following is representative:

Even before this period, England had introduced a variation of the art in the form of Chivalry. This school of behaviour, while professing an ignorance of the very rudiments of seduction, nevertheless played an important part in its development, as is convincingly illustrated by the old song:

But aside from the royal habits, there was no imagination, no finesse to seduction. It was a stereotyped affair, a furtive irregularity, a silly little sin. The seduction of the middle classes was a monotonous business, popular only by reason of the danger it entailed. It has remained for our modern world to raise it to a place of dignity among the leading interests of all society.

THIS MODERN WORLD

What are the reasons for this recent tendency? There are many answers. In the first place, mankind need no longer turn the whole of its energy to defence and sustenance. The life of the average man is not completely devoted to his business. He is a rarely active person if one-third of his day is given over to actual work.

Otherwise what does he do with his time?

He reads, he plays, sometimes he wages war, and for the rest of the time he sleeps, eats and makes love. We find ourselves in a restless age, a time of experiment; when almost everyone is urged by the same desire to revise and improve.

It is the Golden Age of good living, consequently it is the age of impending boredom. In such an atmosphere we would expect to find a development of parlour pastimes. These conditions, this pleasant leisure, this much vaunted, generally diffused prosperity, this impatience for hallowed tradition and the time-honoured devices for improving one’s time, have given rise to crossword puzzles, introspection, and modern seduction.