Origin of kissing; the Scandinavian tradition; an old poet’s idea—Kissing in ancient Rome, and among the Jews and early Christians—Biblical kissing—Religious significance—Kissing in early England—Ancient kissing customs as described by Erasmus—The puritanical views of John Bunyan—How Adam kissed Eve—A kiss defined: By the dictionary, Shakespeare, Robert Herrick, Sidney, Coleridge—Comical and short descriptions—A grammar of kissing—The scientific reason why kisses are pleasant.

Of kissing it has been quaintly said that nature was its author and it began with the first courtship. The Scandinavian tradition was that kissing was an exotic introduced into England by Rowena, the beautiful daughter of Hengist, the Saxon. At a banquet given by the British monarch in honor of his allies the princess, after pressing the brimming beaker to her lips, saluted the astonished and delighted Vortigern with a little kiss, after the manner of her own people.

For a long time it was an act of religion in ancient Rome and among the Romans the sacredness of the kiss was inviolable. At length it was degraded into a current form of salutation.

The kiss was, in process of time, used generally as a form of salutation in Rome where men testified their regard and the warmth of their welcome for each other chiefly by the number of their kisses. There was a curious law among the Romans made by Constantine; that, if a man had kissed his betrothed she gained thereby the half of his effects should he die before the celebration of the marriage; and should the lady herself die, under the same circumstances, her heirs or nearest to kin would take the half due her, a kiss among the ancients being the sign of plighted faith.

Among the Jews, kissing was a customary mode of salutation as we may judge from the circumstance of Judas approaching his Master with a kiss. The Rabbis did not permit more than three kinds of kisses, the kiss of reverence, of reception and dismissal. Kissing in many religions has played a part as a mark of adoration or veneration. In Hosea xiii-2, speaking of idolatry, we find the sentence “Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves.” Again, the discontented prophet is told that even in idolatrous Israel are seven thousand knees which have not bowed to Baal, “and every mouth which hath not kissed him.” The Mohammedans, on their pious pilgrimage to Mecca, kiss the sacred black stone and the four corners of the Kaaba. The Roman Catholic priest kisses the aspergillum, and Palm Sunday the palm.

In the works of St. Augustine we find an account of four kinds of kissing; the first, the kiss of reconciliation which was given between enemies wishing to become friends; the second, the kiss of peace which Christians exchanged in church in the time of the celebration of the holy eucharist. The third, the kiss of love which loving souls gave to one another and to those whom they showed hospitality. St. Peter and St. Paul used to finish their letters by saying, “salute one another with a holy kiss.” In the early church kissing seems to have been a common form of greeting, irrespective of age, sex, or social condition, and, in some it seems to have created a jealous feeling.

One heathen writer speaks of how annoying it must be to a heathen husband to see his wife exchanging kisses with the Christian brethren. Origen, one of the early Christian writers, says that the kisses must be “holy.” He may have had occasion to give this reminder for mention is made by another writer of kisses so loud that they resounded through the churches and occasioned foul suspicions and evil reports.

In the Bible there are eight kinds of kisses mentioned:

Salutation.—David fell on his face to the ground, and bowed himself three times; and they [David and Jonathan] kissed one another, and wept one with another, until David exceeded. I. Samuel xx, 41. Greet all the brethren with a holy kiss. I. Thess. v, 26. Salute one another with a holy kiss. Romans xvi, 16. See also Ex. xviii, 7; I. Cor. xvi, 20; I. Pet. v, 14.

Valediction.—The Lord grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband [Naomi to her daughter-in-law.] Then she kissed them; and they lifted up their voice, and wept. Ruth i, 9.

Reconciliation.—So Joab came to the king, and told him; and when he had called for Absalom, he came to the king, and bowed himself on his face to the ground before the king; and the king kissed Absalom. II. Samuel xiv, 33.

Subjection.—Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Psalm ii, 12.

Adoration.—All the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him. I. Kings xix, 18. [See also Hosea xiii, 2.] And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with ointment. Luke vii, 38.

Approbation.—Every man shall kiss his lips that giveth a right answer. Prov. xxiv, 26.

Treachery.—Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he; hold him fast, and forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, Master; and kissed him. Matt. xxvi, 48, 49. The kisses of an enemy are deceitful. Prov. xxvii, 6. [See also Prov. vii, 13.]

Affection.—When Laban heard the tidings of Jacob, his sister’s son, he ran to meet him, and embraced him, and kissed him, and brought him to his house. Gen. xxix, 13. Moreover he [Joseph] kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them. Gen. xlv, 15. And Joseph fell upon his father’s face, and wept upon him, and kissed him. Gen. l, 1. [See also Gen. xxxi, 55; xxxiii, 4; xlviii, 10; Exod. iv, 27; Luke xv, 20; Acts xx, 37.]

Among the poets we will select Johannus Secundus (Johannes Everard) to sing to the origin of kisses:

And the poet goes on to say that as Triptolemus gave a golden plenty to the land:

In England during the reign of Edward IV., kissing was very popular; a guest was expected on his arrival and also on his departure to salute not only his hostess but all the ladies of the family. So well did this novel importation thrive under the cloudy skies of England that from being an occasional luxury it soon became an every-day enjoyment and the English were celebrated far and near as a kissing people. In 1497 when Erasmus was in England, according to his description, the practice was at its height. He says “if you go to any place you are received with a kiss by all; if you depart on a journey you are dismissed with a kiss; you return, kisses are exchanged; they have come to visit you—a kiss the first thing; they leave you—you kiss them all round. Do they meet you anywhere?—kisses in abundance. Lastly wherever you move there is nothing but kisses—and if you had but once tasted them! how soft they are! how fragrant! on my honor you would not wish to reside here for ten years only, but for life!”

John Bunyan, the author of the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” writing over a hundred years later, did not view the practice with enthusiasm. He wrote: “The common salutation of women I abhor; it is odious to me in whomsoever I see it. When I have seen good men salute those women that they have visited, or that have visited them, I have made my objections against it; and when they have answered that it was but a piece of civility, I have told them that it was not a comely sight. Some, indeed, have urged the holy kiss; but then, I have asked them why they make balks? why they did salute the most handsome and let the ill favored ones go.”

In an old book called “The Ladies Dictionary,” speaking of kissing in Scotland, the author says: “But kissing and drinking are now both grown to a greater custom among us than in those days with the Romans.” And to what extent kissing was carried on in Rome, Martial has stated in his “Epigrams.” “Every neighbor,” he says, “every hairy-faced farmer presses on you with a strongly scented kiss. Here the weaver assails you, there the fuller and the cobbler, who has just been kissing leather; here the owner of the filthy beard, and a one-eyed gentleman; there one with bleared eyes, and fellows whose mouths are defiled with all manner of abominations.”

In England the custom of universal kissing seems to have gone out about the time of the Restoration. Its abandonment in England might have formed part of that French code of politeness which Charles II introduced on his return. Returning to our first thought as to the origin of Kissing, we may use the very safe phrase that “its origin is involved in mystery,” and agree with the poet that

How Adam kissed Eve has been described in “Paradise Lost:”

Though we may be unfortunate in tracing back the origin of this pleasing custom, let us see if we have better luck in an attempt to answer the question, “What is a kiss?”

First, we will go to the dictionary where we learn that a kiss, a smack, or a buss, is “a salute made by touching with the lips pressed closely together and suddenly parting them.”

Dr. Stormouth says that the word kiss seems to have had its origin in the practice of feudal times of expressing homage to a superior by kissing the hand, foot or some part of the body or, in his absence, some object belonging to him, as a gate or a lock.

One poet calls kisses “the fragrant breath of summer flowers.” This is a very happy conceit that is not always found to be true, for how fragrant kisses are depends very much on the breath of the principals engaged. Coleridge calls them “nectar breathing.” Shakespeare speaks of them as “seals of love,” and Sidney tells us they tie souls together. An old poet asks:

Robert Herrick, the old English divine, says of a kiss:

Among short definitions we have that of the old Georgia farmer who caught a young couple kissing on a train that was passing through a tunnel, and called the act “dipping sugar.” A kiss is like a rumor, because it goes from mouth to mouth; its shape is a lip-tickle; as a grammatical part of speech it is a conjunction; kisses are the interrogation points in the literature of love. Then again, kissing has been called lip-service and has been defined as the prologue to sin; more often, let us hope, it is simply a sweetmeat which satisfies the hunger of the heart.

Martial, the old satirist, has called the kisses of his favorite “the fragrance of balsam extracted from aromatic trees; the ripe odor yielded by the teeming saffron; the perfume of fruits mellowing in their winter repository; the flowery meadows in the vernal season; amber warmed by the hand of a maiden; a garden that attracts the bees.”

Kisses have been called the balm of love; Cupid’s seal; the lover’s fee; the fee of parting; the first and last of joys; the homage of the life; the hostage of promise; love’s chief sign; love’s language; love’s mintage; love’s print; love’s tribute; love’s rhetoric; the nectar of Venus; the pledge of bliss and love; the seal of bliss; the melting sip, and the stamp of love.

Johannas Secundus says to his sweetheart:

Kisses, according to Sam Slick, are like creation, because they are made out of nothing and are very good. Another wag says they are like sermons, they require two heads and an application.

An ingenious American grammarian thus conjugates the verb: Buss, to kiss; rebus, to kiss again; pluribus, to kiss without regard to number; sillybus, to kiss the hand instead of the lips; blunderbus, to kiss the wrong person; omnibus, to kiss every person in the room; erebus, to kiss in the dark.

Robert Burns thus speaks of it:

But kissing baffles all attempts at analysis; as Josh Billings says “the more a man tries to analize a kiss, the more he can’t; the best way to define a kiss is to take one.” Kisses are commodities costing nothing, never wearing out, and always to be had in abundance. After all, why are kisses pleasant? A scientist says that kissing is pleasant because the teeth, jawbones and lips are full of nerves, and when the lips meet an electric current is generated.

The late George D. Prentice said he had a female correspondent who wrote “when two hearts are surcharged with love’s electricity, a kiss is the burning contract, the wild leaping flames of love’s enthusiasm.” The humorist observed that the idea was very pretty, “but a flash of electricity is altogether too brief to give a correct idea of a truly delicious kiss.” We agree with Byron that the strength of a kiss is generally measured by its length. Still, there should be a limit, and we really think that Mrs. Browning, strong-minded woman as she is, transcends all reasonable limits in her notions of a kiss’s duration. In her ‘Aurora Leigh’ she talks of a kiss

‘As long and silent as the ecstatic night.’

That, indeed, must be ‘linked sweetness’ altogether too long drawn out.