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sought in preference to natural sexual gratification. They are
also not normal when they involve, for instance, a man desiring
to witness his wife in the act of coitus with another man. I have
been told of the case of a scientific man who encouraged his wife
to promote the advances of a young friend of his own, in his own
drawing-room, he himself remaining present and apparently taking
no notice; the younger man was astonished, but accepted the
situation. In such a case, when the motives that led up to the
episode are obscure, we must not too hastily assume that
masochism or even mixoscopy is involved. For information on some
of the points mentioned above see, e.g., I. Bloch, _Beiträge zur
Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil I, pp. 200 _et seq._;
Teil II, pp. 195 et seq.
Wide, however, as is the appeal of beauty in sexual selection, it cannot
be said to cover by any means the whole of the visual field in its sexual
relationship. Beauty in the human species is, above all, a feminine
attribute, making its appeal to men. Even for women, as has already been
noted, beauty is still a feminine quality, which they usually admire, and
in cases of inversion worship with an ardor which equals, if it does not
surpass, that experienced by normal men. But the normal woman experiences
no corresponding cult for the beauty of man. The perfection of the body of
man is not behind that of woman in beauty, but the study of it only
appeals to the artist or the æsthetician; it arouses sexual enthusiasm
almost exclusively in the male sexual invert. Whatever may be the case
among animals or even among savages, in civilization the man is most
successful with women is not the most handsome man, and may be the
reverse of handsome.[169] The maiden, according to the old saying, who has
to choose between Adonis and Hercules, will turn to Hercules.
A correspondent writes: "Men are generally attracted in the first
instance by a woman's beauty, either of face or figure.
Frequently this is the highest form of love they are capable of.
Personally, my own love is always prompted by this. In the case
of my wife there was certainly a leaven of friendship and moral
sympathies but these alone would never have been translated into
love had she not been young and good-looking. Moreover, I have
felt intense passion for other women, in my relations with whom
the elements of moral or mental sympathy have not entered. And
always, as youth and beauty went, I believe I should transfer my
love to some one else.
"Now, in woman I fancy this element of beauty and youth does not
enter so much. I have questioned a large number of women--some
married, some unmarried, young and old ladies, shopgirls,
servants, prostitutes, women whom I have known only as friends,
others with whom I have had sexual relations--and I cannot
recollect one instance when a woman said she had fallen in love
with a man for his looks. The nearest approach to any sign of
this was in the instance of one, who noticed a handsome man
sitting near us in a hotel, and said to me: 'I should like him to
kiss me.'
"I have also noticed that women do not like looking at my body,
when naked, as I like looking at theirs. My wife has, on a few
occasions, put her hand over my body, and expressed pleasure at
the feeling of my skin. (I have very fair, soft skin.) But I have
never seen women exhibit the excitement that is caused in me by
the sight of their bodies, which I love to look at, to stroke, to
kiss all over."
It is interesting to point out, in this connection, that the
admiration of strength is not confined to the human female. It is
by the spectacle of his force that the male among many of the
lower animals sexually affects the female. Darwin duly allows for
this fact, while some evolutionists, and notably Wallace,
consider that it covers the whole field of sexual selection. When
choice exists, Wallace states, "all the facts appear to be
consistent with the choice depending on a variety of male
characteristics, with some of which color is often correlated.
Thus, it is the opinion of some of the best observers that vigor
and liveliness are most attractive, and these are, no doubt,
usually associated with some intensity of color, ... There is
reason to believe that it is his [the male bird's] persistency
and energy rather than his beauty which wins the day." (A.R.
Wallace, _Tropical Nature_, 1898, p. 199.) In his later book,
_Darwinism_ (p. 295), Wallace reaffirms his position that sexual
selection means that in the rivalry of males for the female the
most vigorous secures the advantage; "ornament," he adds, "is the
natural product and direct outcome of superabundant health and
vigor." As regards woman's love of strength, see Westermarck,
_History of Marriage_, p. 255.
Women admire a man's strength rather than his beauty. This statement is
commonly made, and with truth, but, so far as I am aware, its meaning is
never analyzed. When we look into it, I think, we shall find that it leads
us into a special division of the visual sphere of sexual allurement. The
spectacle of force, while it remains strictly within the field of vision,
really brings to us, although unconsciously, impressions that are
correlated with another sense--that of touch. We instinctively and
unconsciously translate visible energy into energy of pressure. In
admiring strength we are really admiring a tactile quality which has been
made visible. It may therefore be said that, while through vision men are
sexually affected mainly by the more purely visual quality of beauty,
women are more strongly affected by visual impressions which express
qualities belonging to the more fundamentally sexual sense of touch.
The distinction between the man's view and the woman's view, here pointed
out, is not, it must be added, absolute. Even for a man, beauty, with all
these components which we have already analyzed in it, is not the sole
sexual allurement of vision. A woman is not necessarily sexually
attractive in the ratio of her beauty, and with even a high degree of
beauty may have a low degree of attraction. The addition of vivacity or
the addition of languor may each furnish a sexual allurement, and each of
these is a translated tactile quality which possesses an obscure potency
from vague sexual implications.[170] But while in the man the demand for
these translated pressure qualities in the visible attractiveness of a
woman are not usually quite clearly realized, in a woman the corresponding
craving for the visual expression of pressure energy is much more
pronounced and predominant. It is not difficult to see why this should be
so, even without falling back on the usual explanation that natural
selection implies that the female shall choose the male who will be the
most likely father of strong children and the best protector of his
family. The more energetic part in physical love belongs to the man, the
more passive part to the woman; so that, while energy in a woman is no
index to effectiveness in love, energy in a man furnishes a seeming index
to the existence of the primary quality of sexual energy which a woman
demands of a man in the sexual embrace. It may be a fallacious index, for
muscular strength is not necessarily correlated with sexual vigor, and in
its extreme degrees appears to be more correlated with its absence. But it
furnishes, in Stendhal's phrase, a probability of passion, and in any case
it still remains a symbol which cannot be without its effect. We must not,
of course, suppose that these considerations are always or often present
to the consciousness of the maiden who "blushingly turns from Adonis to
Hercules," but the emotional attitude is rooted in more or less unerring
instincts. In this way it happens that even in the field of visual
attraction sexual selection influences women on the underlying basis of
the more primitive sense of touch, the fundamentally sexual sense.
Women are very sensitive to the quality of a man's touch, and
appear to seek and enjoy contact and pressure to a greater extent
than do men, although in early adolescence this impulse seems to
be marked in both sexes. "There is something strangely winning to
most women," remarks George Eliot, in _The Mill on the Floss_,
"in that offer of the firm arm; the help is not wanted physically
at that moment, but the sense of help--the presence of strength
that is outside them and yet theirs--meets a continual want of
the imagination."
Women are often very critical concerning a man's touch and his
method of shaking hands. Stanley Hall (_Adolescence_, vol. ii, p.
8) quotes a gifted lady as remarking: "I used to say that,
however much I liked a man, I could never marry him if I did not
like the touch of his hand, and I feel so yet."
Among the elements of sexual attractiveness which make a special
appeal to women, extreme personal cleanliness would appear to
take higher rank than it takes in the eyes of a man, some men,
indeed, seeming to make surprisingly small demands of a woman in
this respect. If this is so we may connect it with the fact that
beauty in a woman's eye is to a much greater extent than in a
man's a picture of energy, in other words, a translation of
pressure contracts, with which the question of physical purity is
necessarily more intimately associated than it is with the
picture of purely visual beauty. It is noteworthy that Ovid (_Ars
Amandi_, lib. I) urges men who desire to please women to leave
the arts of adornment and effeminacy to those whose loves are
homosexual, and to practice a scrupulous attention to extreme
neatness and cleanliness of body and garments in every detail, a
sun-browned skin, and the absence of all odor. Some two thousand
years later Brummell in an age when extravagance and effeminacy
often marked the fashions of men, introduced a new ideal of
unobtrusive simplicity, extreme cleanliness (with avoidance of
perfumes), and exquisite good taste; he abhorred all
eccentricity, and may be said to have constituted a tradition
which Englishmen have ever since sought, more or less
successfully to follow; he was idolized by women.
It may be added that the attentiveness of women to tactile
contacts is indicated by the frequency with which in them it
takes on morbid forms, as the _délire du contact_, the horror of
contamination, the exaggerated fear of touching dirt. (See, e.g.,
Raymond and Janet, _Les Obsessions et la Psychasthénie_.)
FOOTNOTES:
[168] William Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, second edition, 1832, vol.
1, p. 215.
[169] Stendhal (_De l'Amour_, Chapter XVIII) has some remarks on this
point, and refers to the influence over women possessed by Lekain, the
famous actor, who was singularly ugly. "It is _passion_," he remarks,
"which we demand; beauty only furnishes _probabilities_."
[170] The charm of a woman's garments to a man is often due in part to
their expressiveness in rendering impressions of energy, vivacity, or
languor. This has often been realized by the poets, and notably by
Herrick, who was singularly sensitive to these qualities in a woman's
garments.
IV.
The Alleged Charm of Disparity in Sexual Attraction--The Admiration for
High Stature--The Admiration for Dark Pigmentation--The Charm of
Parity--Conjugal Mating--The Statistical Results of Observation as Regards
General Appearance, Stature, and Pigmentation of Married
Couples--Preferential Mating and Assortative Mating--The Nature of the
Advantage Attained by the Fair in Sexual Selection--The Abhorrence of
Incest and the Theories of its Cause--The Explanation in Reality
Simple--The Abhorrence of Incest in Relation to Sexual Selection--The
Limits to the Charm of Parity in Conjugal Mating--The Charm of Disparity
in Secondary Sexual Characters.
When we are dealing with the senses of touch, smell, and hearing it is
impossible at present, and must always remain somewhat difficult, to
investigate precisely the degree and direction of their influence in
sexual selection. We can marshal in order--as has here been attempted--the
main facts and considerations which clearly indicate that there is and
must be such an influence, but we cannot even attempt to estimate its
definite direction and still less to measure it precisely. With regard to
vision, we are in a somewhat better position. It is possible to estimate
the direction of the influence which certain visible characters exert on
sexual selection, and it is even possible to attempt their actual
measurement, although there must frequently be doubt as to the
interpretation of such measurements.
Two facts render it thus possible to deal more exactly with the influence
of vision on sexual selection than with the influence of the other senses.
In the first place, men and women consciously seek for certain visible
characters in the persons to whom they are attracted; in other words,
their "ideals" of a fitting mate are visual rather than tactile,
olfactory, or auditory. In the second place, whether such "ideals" are
potent in actual mating, or whether they are modified or even inhibited by
more potent psychological or general biological influences, it is in
either case possible to measure and compare the visible characters of
mated persons.
The two visible characters which are at once most frequently sought in a
mate and most easily measurable are degree of stature and degree of
pigmentation. Every youth or maiden pictures the person he or she would
like for a lover as tall or short, fair or dark, and such characters are
measurable and have on a large scale been measured. It is of interest in
illustration of the problem of sexual selection in man to consider briefly
what results are at present obtainable regarding the influence of these
two characters.
It has long been a widespread belief that short people are sexually
attracted to tall people, and tall people to short; that in the matter of
stature men and women are affected by what Bain called the "charm of
disparity." It has not always prevailed. Many centuries ago Leonardo da
Vinci, whose insight at so many points anticipated our most modern
discoveries, affirmed clearly and repeatedly the charm of parity. After
remarking that painters tend to delineate the figures that resemble
themselves he adds that men also fall in love with and marry those who
resemble themselves; "_chi s'innamora voluntieri s'innamorano de cose a
loro simiglianti_," he elsewhere puts it.[171] But from that day to this,
it would seem Leonardo's statements have remained unknown or unnoticed.
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre said that "love is the result of contrasts," and
Schopenhauer affirmed the same point very decisively; various scientific
and unscientific writers have repeated this statement.[172]
So far as stature is concerned, there appears to be very little reason to
suppose that this "charm of disparity" plays any notable part in
constituting the sexual ideals of either men or women. Indeed, it may
probably be affirmed that both men and women seek tallness in the person
to whom they are sexually attracted. Darwin quotes the opinion of Mayhew
that among dogs the females are strongly attracted to males of large
size.[173] I believe this is true, and it is probably merely a particular
instance of a general psychological tendency.
It is noteworthy as an indication of the direction of the sexual
ideal in this matter that the heroines of male novelists are
rarely short and the heroes of female novelists almost invariably
tall. A reviewer of novels addressing to lady novelists in the
_Speaker_ (July 26, 1890) "A Plea for Shorter Heroes," publishes
statistics on this point. "Heroes," he states, "are longer this
year than ever. Of the 192 of whom I have had my word to say
since October of last year, 27 were merely tall, and 11 were only
slightly above the middle height. No less than 85 stood exactly
six feet in their stocking soles, and the remainder were
considerably over the two yards. I take the average to be six
feet three."
As a slight test alike of the supposed "charm of disparity" as
well as of the general degree in which tall and short persons are
sought as mates by those of the opposite sex I have examined a
series of entries in the _Round-About_, a publication issued by a
club, of which the president is Mr. W.T. Stead, having for its
object the purpose of promoting correspondence, friendship, and
marriage between its members. There are two classes, of entries,
one inserted with a view to "intellectual friendship," the other
with a view to marriage. I have not thought it necessary to
recognize this distinction here; if a man describes his own
physical characteristics and those of the lady he would like as a
friend, I assume that, from the point of view of the present
inquiry, he is much on the same footing as the man who seeks a
wife. In the series of entries which I have examined 35 men and
women state approximately the height of the man or woman they
seek to know; 30 state in addition their own height. The results
are expressed in the table on the following page.
Although the cases are few, the results are, in two main
respects, sufficiently clear without multiplication of data. In
the first place, those who seek parity, whether men or women, are
in a majority over those who seek disparity. In the second place,
the existence of any disparity at all is due only to the
universal desire to find a tall person. Not one man or woman sets
down shortness as his or her ideal. The very fact that no man in
these initial announcements ventures to set himself down as short
(although a considerable proportion describe themselves as tall)
indicates a consciousness that shortness is undesirable, as also
does the fact that the women very frequently describe themselves
as tall.
The same charm of disparity which has been supposed to rule in selective
attraction as regards stature has also been assumed as regards
pigmentation. The fair, it is said, are attracted to the dark, the dark to
the fair. Again, it must be said that this common assumption is not
confirmed either by introspection or by any attempt to put the matter on a
statistical basis.[174]
WOMEN. MEN. TOTALS.
Tall women seek tall men.. 8 Tall men seek tall women.. 6 14
Short women seek short men 0 Short men seek short women 0 0
Medium-sized women seek Medium-sized men seek
medium-sized men ....... 0 medium-sized women .... 3 3
Seek parity........... 8 Seek parity........... 9 17
Tall women seek short men. 0 Tall men seek short women. 0 0
Short women seek tall men. 4 Short men seek tall women. 0 4
Medium-sized woman seeks Medium-sized men seek tall
tall man................ 1 women .................. 8 9
Seek disparity........ 5 Seek disparity........ 8 13
Men of unknown height seek
tall women.............. 5 5
Most people who will carefully introspect their own feelings and ideals in
this matter will find that they are not attracted to persons of the
opposite sex who are strikingly unlike themselves in pigmentary
characters. Even when the abstract ideal of a sexually desirable person
is endowed with certain pigmentary characters, such as blue eyes or
darkness,--either of which is liable to make a vaguely romantic appeal to
the imagination,--it is usually found, on testing the feeling for
particular persons, that the variation from the personal type of the
subject is usually only agreeable within narrow limits, and that there is
a very common tendency for persons of totally opposed pigmentary types,
even though they may sometimes be considered to possess a certain æsthetic
beauty, to be regarded as sexually unattractive or even repulsive. With
this feeling may perhaps be associated the feeling, certainly very widely
felt, that one would not like to marry a person of foreign, even though
closely allied, race.
From the same number of the _Round-About_ from which I have
extracted the data on stature, I have obtained corresponding data
on pigmentation, and have embodied them in the following table.
They are likewise very scanty, but they probably furnish as good
a general indication of the drift of ideals in this matter as we
should obtain from more extensive data of the same character.
WOMEN. MEN. TOTALS.
Fair women seek fair men. 2 Fair men seek fair women 2 4
Dark woman seeks dark man 1 Dark men seek dark women 7 8
Seek parity.......... 3 Seek parity......... 9 12
Fair women seek dark men. 4 Fair men seek dark women 3 7
Dark woman seeks fair man 1 Dark men seek fair women 4 5
Medium-colored man seeks
Seek disparity....... 5 dark woman ........... 1 1
Medium-colored man seeks
fair woman ........... 1 1
Seek disparity...... 9 14
Men of unknown color seek
dark women ........... 3 3
It will be seen that in the case of pigmentation there is not as
in the case of stature a decided charm of parity in the formation
of sexual ideals. The phenomenon, however, remains essentially
analogous. Just as in regard to stature there is without
exception an abstract admiration for tall persons, so here,
though to a less marked extent, there is a general admiration for
dark persons. As many as 6 out of 8 women and 14 out of 21 men
seek a dark partner. This tendency ranges itself with the
considerations already brought forward (p. 182), leading us to
believe that, in England at all events, the admiration of
fairness is not efficacious to promote any sexual selection, and
that if there is actually any such selection it must be put down
to other causes. No doubt, even in England the abstract æsthetic
admiration of fairness is justifiable and may influence the
artist. Probably also it influences the poet, who is affected by
a long-established convention in favor of fairness, and perhaps
also by a general tendency on the part of our poets to be
themselves fair and to yield to the charm of parity,--the
tendency to prefer the women of one's own stock,--which we have
already found to be a real force.[175] But, as a matter of fact,
our famous English beauties are not very fair; probably our
handsomest men are not very fair, and the abstract sexual ideals
of both our men and our women thus go out toward the dark.
The formation of a sexual ideal, while it furnishes a predisposition to be
attracted in a certain direction, and undoubtedly has a certain weight in
sexual choice, is not by any means the whole of sexual selection. It is
not even the whole of the psychic element in sexual selection. Let us
take, for instance, the question of stature. There would seem to be a
general tendency for both men and women, apart from and before experience,
to desire sexually large persons of the opposite sex. It may even be that
this is part of a wider zoölogical tendency. In the human species it shows
itself also on the spiritual plane, in the desire for the infinite, in the
deep and unreasoning feeling that it is impossible to have too much of a
good thing. But it not infrequently happens that a man in whose youthful
dreams of love the heroine has always been large, has not been able to
calculate what are the special nervous and other characteristics most
likely to be met in large women, nor how far these correlated
characteristics would suit his own instinctive demands. He may, and
sometimes does, find that in these other demands, which prove to be more
important and insistent than the desire for stature, the tall women he
meets are less likely to suit him than the medium or short women.[176] It
may thus happen that a man whose ideal of woman has always been as tall
may yet throughout life never be in intimate relationship with a tall
woman because he finds that practically he has more marked affinities in
the case of shorter women. His abstract ideals are modified or negatived
by more imperative sympathies or antipathies.
In one field such sympathies have long been recognized, especially by
alienists, as leading to sexual unions of parity, notwithstanding the
belief in the generally superior attraction of disparity. It has often
been pointed out that the neuropathic, the insane and criminal,
"degenerates" of all kinds, show a notable tendency to marry each other.
This tendency has not, however, been investigated with any precision.[177]
The first attempt on a statistical basis to ascertain what degree of
parity or disparity is actually attained by sexual selection was made by
Alphonse de Candolle.[178] Obtaining his facts from Switzerland, North
Germany, and Belgium, he came to the conclusion that marriages are most
commonly contracted between persons with different eye-colors, except in
the case of brown-eyed women, who (as Schopenhauer stated, and as is seen
in the English data of the sexual ideal I have brought forward) are found
more attractive than others.
The first series of serious observations tending to confirm the result
reached by the genius of Leonardo da Vinci and to show that sexual
selection results in the pairing of like rather than of unlike persons was
made by Hermann Fol, the embryologist.[179] He set out with the popular
notion that married people end by resembling each other, but when at Nice,
which is visited by many young married couples on their honeymoons, he was
struck by the resemblances already existing immediately after marriage. In
order to test the matter he obtained the photographs of 251 young and old
married couples not personally known to him. The results were as follows:
RESEMBLANCES NONRESEMBLANCES
COUPLES. (PERCENTAGE). (PERCENTAGE). TOTAL.
Young.............. 132, about 66,66 66, about 33.33 198
Old ................ 38, about 71.70 15, about 28.30 53
He concluded that in the immense majority of marriages of inclination the
contracting parties are attracted by similarities, and not by
dissimilarities, and that, consequently, the resemblances between aged
married couples are not acquired during conjugal life. Although Fol's
results were not obtained by good methods, and do not cover definite
points like stature and eye-color, they represented the conclusions of a
highly skilled and acute observer and have since been amply confirmed.
Galton could not find that the average results from a fairly large number
of cases indicated that stature, eye-color, or other personal
characteristics notably influenced sexual selection, as evidenced by a
comparison of married couples.[180] Karl Pearson, however, in part making
use of a large body of data obtained by Galton, referring to stature and
eye-color, has reached the conclusion that sexual selection ultimately
results in a marked degree of parity so far as these characters are
concerned.[181] As regards stature, he is unable to find evidence of what
he terms "preferential mating"; that is to say, it does not appear that
any preconceived ideals concerning the desirability of tallness in sexual
mates leads to any perceptibly greater tallness of the chosen mate;
husbands are not taller than men in general, nor wives than women in
general. In regard to eye-color, however, there appeared to be evidence of
preferential mating. Husbands are very decidedly fairer than men in
general, and though there is no such marked difference in women, wives are
also somewhat fairer than women in general. As regards "assortative
mating" as it is termed by Pearson,--the tendency to parity or to
disparity between husbands and wives,--the result were in both cases
decisive. Tall men marry women who are somewhat above the average in
height; short men marry women who are somewhat below the average, so that
husband and wife resemble each other in stature as closely as uncle and
niece. As regards eye-color there is also a tendency for like to marry
like; the light-eyed men tend to marry light-eyed women more often than
dark-eyed women; the dark-eyed men tend to marry dark-eyed women more
often than light-eyed. There remains, however, a very considerable
difference in the eye-color of husband and wife; in the 774 couples dealt
with by Pearson there are 333 dark-eyed women to only 251 dark-eyed men,
and 523 light-eyed men to only 441 light-eyed women. The women in the
English population are darker-eyed than the men;[182] but the difference
is scarcely so great as this; so that even if wives are not so dark-eyed
as women generally it would appear that the ideal admiration for the
dark-eyed may still to some extent make itself felt in actual mating.
While we have to recognize that the modification and even total inhibition
of sexual ideals in the process of actual mating is largely due to psychic
causes, such causes do not appear to cover the whole of the phenomena.
Undoubtedly they count for much, and the man or the woman who, from
whatever causes, has constituted a sexual ideal with certain characters
may in the actual contacts of life find that individuals with other and
even opposed characters most adequately respond to his or her psychic
demands. There are, however, other causes in play here which at first
sight may seem to be not of a purely psychic character. One unquestionable
cause of this kind comes into action in regard to pigmentary selection.
Fair people, possibly as a matter of race more than from absence of
pigment, are more energetic than dark people. They possess a sanguine
vigor and impetuosity which, in most, though not in all, fields and
especially in the competition of practical life, tend to give them some
superiority over their darker brethren. The greater fairness of husbands
in comparison with men in general, as found by Karl Pearson, is thus
accounted for; fair men are most likely to obtain wives. Husbands are
fairer than men in general for the same reason that, as I have shown
elsewhere,[183] created peers are fairer than either hereditary peers or
even most groups of intellectual persons; they have possessed in higher
measure the qualities that insure success. It may be added that with the
recognition of this fact we have not really left the field of sexual
psychology, for, as has already been pointed out, that energy which thus
insures success in practical life is itself a sexual allurement to women.
Energy in a woman in courtship is less congenial to her sexual attitude
than to a man's, and is not attractive to men; thus it is not surprising,
even apart from the probably greater beauty of dark women, that the
preponderance of fairness among wives as compared to women generally,
indicated by Karl Pearson's data, is very slight. It may possibly be
accounted for altogether by homogamy--the tendency of like to marry
like--in the fair husbands.
The energy and vitality of fair people is not, however, it is probable,
merely an indirect cause of the greater tendency of fair men to become
husbands; that is to say, it is not merely the result of the generally
somewhat greater ability of the fair to attain success in temporal
affairs. In addition to this, fair men, if not fair women, would appear to
show a tendency to a greater activity in their specifically sexual
proclivities. This is a point which we shall encounter in a later _Study_
and it is therefore unnecessary to discuss it here.
In dealing with the question of sexual selection in man various writers
have been puzzled by the problem presented by that abhorrence of incest
which is usually, though not always so clearly marked among the different
races of mankind.[184] It was once commonly stated, as by Morgan and by
Maine, that this abhorrence was the result of experience; the marriages of
closely related persons were found to be injurious to offspring and were
therefore avoided. This theory, however, is baseless because the marriages
of closely related persons are not injurious to the offspring.
Consanguineous marriages, so closely as they can be investigated on a
large scale,--that is to say, marriages between cousins,--as Huth was the
first to show, develop no tendency to the production of offspring of
impaired quality provided the parents are sound; they are only injurious
in this respect in so far as they may lead to the union of couples who are
both defective in the same direction. According to another theory, that of
Westermarck, who has very fully and ably discussed the whole
question,[185] "there is an innate aversion to sexual intercourse between
persons living very closely together from early youth, and, as such
persons are in most cases related, this feeling displays itself chiefly
as a horror of intercourse between near kin." Westermarck points out very
truly that the prohibition of incest could not be founded on experience
even if (as he is himself inclined to believe) consanguineous marriages
are injurious to the offspring; incest is prevented "neither by laws, nor
by customs, nor by education, but by an _instinct_ which under normal
circumstances makes sexual love between the nearest kin a psychic
impossibility." There is, however, a very radical objection to this
theory. It assumes the existence of a kind of instinct which can with
difficulty be accepted. An instinct is fundamentally a more or less
complicated series of reflexes set in action by a definite stimulus. An
innate tendency at once so specific and so merely negative, involving at
the same time deliberate intellectual processes, can only with a certain
force be introduced into the accepted class of instincts. It is as awkward
and artificial an instinct as would be, let us say, an instinct to avoid
eating the apples that grew in one's own yard.[186]
The explanation of the abhorrence to incest is really, however,
exceedingly simple. Any reader who has followed the discussion of sexual
selection in the present volume and is also familiar with the "Analysis of
the Sexual Impulse" set forth in the previous volume of these _Studies_
will quickly perceive that the normal failure of the pairing instinct to
manifest itself in the case of brothers and sisters, or of boys and girls
brought up together from infancy, is a merely negative phenomenon due to
the inevitable absence under those circumstances of the conditions which
evoke the pairing impulse. Courtship is the process by which powerful
sensory stimuli proceeding from a person of the opposite sex gradually
produce the physiological state of tumescence, with its psychic
concomitant of love and desire, more or less necessary for mating to be
effected. But between those who have been brought up together from
childhood all the sensory stimuli of vision, hearing, and touch have been
dulled by use, trained to the calm level of affection, and deprived of
their potency to arouse the erethistic excitement which produces sexual
tumescence.[187] Brothers and sisters in relation to each other have at
puberty already reached that state to which old married couples by the
exhaustion of youthful passion and the slow usage of daily life gradually
approximate. Passion between brother and sister is, indeed, by no means so
rare as is sometimes supposed, and it may be very strong, but it is
usually aroused by the aid of those conditions which are normally required
for the appearance of passion, more especially by the unfamiliarity caused
by a long separation. In reality, therefore, the usual absence of sexual
attraction between brothers and sisters requires no special explanation;
it is merely due to the normal absence under these circumstances of the
conditions that tend to produce sexual tumescence and the play of those
sensory allurements which lead to sexual selection.[188] It is a purely
negative phenomenon and it is quite unnecessary, even if it were
legitimate, to invoke any instinct for its explanation. It is probable
that the same tendency also operates among animals to some extent, tending
to produce a stronger sexual attraction toward those of their species to
whom they have not become habituated.[189] In animals, and in man also
when living under primitive conditions, sexual attraction is not a
constant phenomenon[190]; it is an occasional manifestation only called
out by the powerful stimulation. It is not its absence which we need to
explain; it is its presence which needs explanation, and such an
explanation we find in the analysis of the phenomena of courtship.
The abhorrence of incest is an interesting and significant phenomenon from
our present point of view, because it instructively points out to us the
limits to that charm of parity which apparently makes itself felt to some
considerable extent in the constitution of the sexual ideal and still more
in the actual homogamy which seems to predominate over heterogamy. This
homogamy is, it will be observed, a _racial_ homogamy; it relates to
anthropological characters which mark stocks. Even in this racial field,
it is unnecessary to remark, the homogamy attained is not, and could not
be, absolute; nor would it appear that such absolute racial homogamy is
even desired. A tall man who seeks a tall woman can seldom wish her to be
as tall as himself; a dark man who seeks a dark woman, certainly will not
be displeased at the inevitably greater or less degree of pigment which he
finds in her eyes as compared to his own.
But when we go outside the racial field this tendency to homogamy
disappears at once. A man marries a woman who, with slight, but agreeable,
variations, belongs to a like stock to himself. The abhorrence of incest
indicates that even the sexual attraction to people of the same stock has
its limits, for it is not strong enough to overcome the sexual
indifference between persons of near kin. The desire for novelty shown in
this sexual indifference to near kin and to those who have been housemates
from childhood, together with the notable sexual attractiveness often
possessed by a strange youth or maiden who arrives in a small town or
village, indicates that slight differences in stock, if not, indeed, a
positive advantage from this point of view, are certainly not a
disadvantage. When we leave the consideration of racial differences to
consider sexual differences, not only do we no longer find any charm of
parity, but we find that there is an actual charm of disparity. At this
point it is necessary to remember all that has been brought forward in
earlier pages[191] concerning the emphasis of the secondary sexual
characters in the ideal of beauty. All those qualities which the woman
desires to see emphasized in the man are the precise opposite of the
qualities which the man desires to see emphasized in the woman. The man
must be strong, vigorous, energetic, hairy, even rough, to stir the
primitive instincts of the woman's nature; the woman who satisfies this
man must be smooth, rounded, and gentle. It would be hopeless to seek for
any homogamy between the manly man and the virile woman, between the
feminine woman and the effeminate man. It is not impossible that this
tendency to seek disparity in sexual characters may exert some disturbing
influences on the tendency to seek parity in anthropological racial
characters, for the sexual difference to some extent makes itself felt in
racial characters. A somewhat greater darkness of women is a secondary
(or, more precisely, tertiary) sexual character, and on this account
alone, it is possible, somewhat attractive to men[192]. A difference in
size and stature is a very marked secondary sexual character. In the
considerable body of data concerning the stature of married couples
reproduced by Pearson from Galton's tables, although the tall on the
average tend to marry the tall, and the short the short, it is yet
noteworthy that, while the men of 5 ft. 4 ins. have more wives at 5 ft. 2
ins. than at any other height, men of 6 ft. show, in an exactly similar
manner, more wives at 5 ft. 2 ins. than at any other height, although for
many intermediate heights the most numerous groups of wives are
taller[193].
In matters of carriage, habit, and especially clothing the love of sexual
disparity is instinctive, everywhere well marked, and often carried to
very great lengths. To some extent such differences are due to the
opposing demands of more fundamental differences in custom and occupation.
But this cause by no means adequately accounts for them, since it may
sometimes happen that what in one land is the practice of the men is in
another the practice of the women, and yet the practices of the two sexes
are still opposed[194]. Men instinctively desire to avoid doing things in
women's ways, and women instinctively avoid doing things in men's ways,
yet both sexes admire in the other sex those things which in themselves
they avoid. In the matter of clothing this charm of disparity reaches its
highest point, and it has constantly happened that men have even called in
the aid of religion to enforce a distinction which seemed to them so
urgent[195]. One of the greatest of sex allurements would be lost and the
extreme importance of clothes would disappear at once if the two sexes
were to dress alike; such identity of dress has, however, never come about
among any people.
FOOTNOTES:
[171] L. da Vinci, _Frammenti_, selected by Solmi, pp. 177-180.
[172] Westermarck, who accepts the "charm of disparity," gives references,
_History of Human Marriage_, p. 354.
[173] _Descent of Man_. Part II, Chapter XVIII.
[174] Bloch (_Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil II,
pp. 260 et seq.) refers to the tendency to admixture of races and to the
sexual attraction occasionally exerted by the negress and sometimes the
negro on white persons as evidence in favor of such charm of disparity. In
part, however, we are here concerned with vague statements concerning
imperfectly known facts, in part with merely individual variations, and
with that love of the exotic under the stimulation of civilized conditions
to which reference has already been made (p. 184).
[175] In this connection the exceptional case of Tennyson is of interest.
He was born and bred in the very fairest part of England (Lincolnshire),
but he himself and the stock from which he sprang were dark to a very
remarkable degree. In his work, although it reveals traces of the
conventional admiration for the fair, there is a marked and unusual
admiration for distinctly dark women, the women resembling the stock to
which he himself belonged. See Havelock Ellis, "The Color Sense in
Literature," _Contemporary Review_, May, 1896.
[176] It is noteworthy that in the _Round-About_, already referred to,
although no man expresses a desire to meet a short woman, when he refers
to announcements by women as being such as would be likely to suit him,
the persons thus pointed out are in a notable proportion short.
[177] It has been discussed by F.J. Debret, _La Selection Naturelle dans
l'espèce humaine_ (Thèse de Paris), 1901. Debret regards it as due to
natural selection.
[178] "Hérédité de la Couleur des Yeux dans l'espèce humaine," _Archives
des Sciences physiques et naturelles_, sér. iii, vol. xii, 1884, p. 109.
[179] _Revue Scientifique_, Jan., 1891.
[180] F. Galton, _Natural Inheritance_, p. 85. It may be remarked that
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