An Ancient History of Kissing
Philematologists - yes, there is a science to smooching - are relatively divided on its origins, but here is the consensus of why our bodies tell us it feels good to do this strange thing with our mouths.
According to William Jankowiak, Justin R. Garcia, and Shelly Volshe in a 2015 study, only 46% of cultures kiss romantically, evidencing the view that the practice is less common than one might think.
This could provide the view that this osculation primarily percolated through Eurocentric colonial activity, which is corroborated through many non-colonized regions holding that kissing is abhorrent; some a transgression, the mouth being a “portal to the soul”, Dr. Bryant (an expert on the history of the kiss) notes.
However, there is research conducted by ethnologist Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt that shows that kissing exists in around 90% of cultures, which suggests only half of its prevalence has a romantic or sexual context; instead, it is commonly associated with familial expressions of affection.
This is possibly the most common scenario of osculation: the progenitor of the kiss in pre-mastication or grooming has many parallels in great apes like chimpanzees and bonobos, our taxonomic cousins neanderthals, as well as dogs, polar bears and squirrels - evolutionarily, saliva has a wonderful place in the homeostasis (maintenance) of bodily hygiene and oral biome.
Key antimicrobials are found in saliva, such as hydrogen peroxide, lactoferrin, and lysozymes, which all protect the oral microbiome - therefore, functions like licking wounds and kissing different areas of the body are proven to have a positive effect in preventing infection.
Consequently, many scientists like Maguire view kissing emerging as a system for vetting potential partners’ immune systems for healthy procreation; this explains the chemical cocktail of pleasure hormones serotonin, oxytocin, and dopamine associated with a successful kiss.
Early human behaviors carried this hygienic practice into the greeting, in which the terms of “greet” and “kiss” were conflated, such as in ancient India, as well as the recreational expression of affection: in such circumstances as after marriage, after sex, to express respect, or to greet friends, as seen in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, at least as early as 2500BC.
There are even sources from over 4000 years ago detailing how married women had been led astray by kissing men, curses from the gods have been given for the kissing of priestesses, or details in particularly smoochy romantic poetry:
“When my sweet precious, my heart, had lain down too, each of them in turn kissing with the tongue, each in turn, then my brother of the beautiful eyes did it fifty times to her, exhaustedly waiting for her, as she trembled underneath him, dumbly silent for him. My dear precious passed the time with my brother laying his hands on her hips.”
A balbale to Inana (Dumuzid-Inana D)
“O Golden One, put that in her heart,
so, I may hurry to my beloved,
and kiss him before his companions!”
A Decorated Doorway, Papyrus Chester Beatty I, Chester Beatty Library
Here one not only sees mere pyrokinesis, respectful osculation, which featured in the Macedonian hegemony, Byzantium, and Ancient Rome as a hierarchical custom, or in Abrahamic traditions as an act of reverence for holy texts (or the “kiss of peace”), or even the conciliatory kiss at the end of Homer's Iliad - this is unabashed, uninhibited snogging.
This had contemporary ramifications in the rise of oral venereal diseases, such as “Bu'šānu Disease”, what we would call herpes; HSV-1, which has been around for over 5000 years, according to DNA studies, which implies an even older practice than recorded.
Such epidemics recirculated periodically in history, as kissing became more widespread, once famously leading Roman Emperor Tiberius to put a ban in place, to control the spread of cold sores.
Latin split the kiss into three words: first osculum (our osculation), a polite greeting-kiss on the cheek, still observed in many cultures, variably as one kiss (e.g. Chile, Peru), two (e.g. Italy, Croatia), or even three (e.g. Belgium, Egypt), which was likely popularized through St Paul’s mentioning in Romans 16:16, advising Christians to “greet one another with a holy kiss”.
Second is basium, a closed-mouth lip kiss between family members, from which we get the words “un baiser” in French, “el beso” in Spanish, “beso-beso” in the Philippines, among various other languages.
Finally, savium was a particularly passionate, savoring kiss - this crops up the most often in poetry, due to its connotations of a desire to linger in the moment; this practically cemented the kiss as a romantic act.
Accelerating forward, as stories of romance became increasingly popular in the middle ages as a social gesture, and with reception of classical literature in the Renaissance in Europe, this romantic association of a kiss became increasingly dominant as the power of the Church waned, and consequently the “holy kiss” was recontextualized as a cultural convention and phased out in many cultures.
This European absorption of culture then was propagated through colonialization, substantiating the statistics at the start, that only a few imperial cultures are responsible for the prevalence of romantic kissing it is vital that we now analyze our cultural norms and be mindful of where our unconscious habits originate.
Therefore, keep in mind when you kiss, of the legacy you must uphold, as a gesture of premastication, wound tending, greeting, and of course romance.
Simon Cockling
https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/aman.12286#aman12286
Do other animals kiss? | Live Science
First kiss dates back 21 million years, say scientists - BBC News
Study on saliva’s antimicrobial properties
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6855406/
Contemporary Kissing Etiquette
https://www.uofo.uk/eleventh-lesson-i
Picture: The Stolen Kiss, Fragonard, The Met Collection
