Studies in the Psychology of Sex Volume Iv Part 15

Founded on the sense of vision also we find a phenomenon, bordering on the abnormal, which is by Moll termed mixoscopy. This means the s.e.xual pleasure derived from the spectacle of other persons engaged in natural or perverse s.e.xual actions. (Moll, Kontrare s.e.xualempfindung, third edition, p. 308. Moll considers that in some cases mixoscopy is related to masochism. There is, however, no necessary connection between the two phenomena.) Brothels are prepared to accommodate visitors who merely desire to look on, and for their convenience carefully contrived peepholes are provided; such visitors are in Paris termed "voyeurs." It is said by Coffignon that persons hide at night in the bushes in the Champs Elysees in the hope of witnessing such scenes between servant girls and their lovers. In England during a country walk I have come across an elderly man carefully ensconced behind a bush and intently watching through his field-gla.s.s a couple of lovers reclining on a bank, though the actions of the latter were not apparently marked by any excess of indecorum. Such impulses are only slightly abnormal, whatever may be said of them from the point of view of good taste. They are not very far removed from the legitimate curiosity of the young woman who, believing herself un.o.bserved, turns her gla.s.s on to a group of young men bathing naked. They only become truly perverse when the gratification thus derived is sought in preference to natural s.e.xual 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 a.s.sume that masochism or even mixoscopy is involved. For information on some of the points mentioned above see, e.g., I. Bloch, Beitrage zur aetiologie der Psychopathia s.e.xualis, Teil I, pp. 200 et seq.; Teil II, pp. 195 et seq.

Wide, however, as is the appeal of beauty in s.e.xual selection, it cannot be said to cover by any means the whole of the visual field in its s.e.xual 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 surpa.s.s, 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 aesthetician; it arouses s.e.xual enthusiasm almost exclusively in the male s.e.xual 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 pa.s.sion 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, prost.i.tutes, women whom I have known only as friends, others with whom I have had s.e.xual 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 s.e.xually affects the female. Darwin duly allows for this fact, while some evolutionists, and notably Wallace, consider that it covers the whole field of s.e.xual 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 a.s.sociated 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 s.e.xual 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 a.n.a.lyzed. When we look into it, I think, we shall find that it leads us into a special division of the visual sphere of s.e.xual 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 s.e.xually 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 s.e.xual 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 a.n.a.lyzed in it, is not the sole s.e.xual allurement of vision. A woman is not necessarily s.e.xually 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 s.e.xual allurement, and each of these is a translated tactile quality which possesses an obscure potency from vague s.e.xual 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 pa.s.sive 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 s.e.xual energy which a woman demands of a man in the s.e.xual embrace. It may be a fallacious index, for muscular strength is not necessarily correlated with s.e.xual vigor, and in its extreme degrees appears to be more correlated with its absence. But it furnishes, in Stendhal's phrase, a probability of pa.s.sion, 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 att.i.tude is rooted in more or less unerring instincts. In this way it happens that even in the field of visual attraction s.e.xual selection influences women on the underlying basis of the more primitive sense of touch, the fundamentally s.e.xual 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 s.e.xes. "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 s.e.xual 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 a.s.sociated 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 h.o.m.os.e.xual, 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 un.o.btrusive simplicity, extreme cleanliness (with avoidance of perfumes), and exquisite good taste; he abhorred all eccentricity, and may be said to have const.i.tuted 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 delire du contact, the horror of contamination, the exaggerated fear of touching dirt. (See, e.g., Raymond and Janet, Les Obsessions et la Psychasthenie.)

[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 pa.s.sion," 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 s.e.xual 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 a.s.sortative Mating-The Nature of the Advantage Attained by the Fair in s.e.xual Selection-The Abhorrence of Incest and the Theories of its Cause-The Explanation in Reality Simple-The Abhorrence of Incest in Relation to s.e.xual Selection-The Limits to the Charm of Parity in Conjugal Mating-The Charm of Disparity in Secondary s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 ill.u.s.tration of the problem of s.e.xual 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 s.e.xually 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 antic.i.p.ated 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 const.i.tuting the s.e.xual 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 s.e.xually 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.x 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 cla.s.ses, 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 a.s.sume 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 a.s.sumed 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 a.s.sumption 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 s.e.x who are strikingly unlike themselves in pigmentary characters. Even when the abstract ideal of a s.e.xually 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 aesthetic beauty, to be regarded as s.e.xually unattractive or even repulsive. With this feeling may perhaps be a.s.sociated 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 s.e.xual ideals. The phenomenon, however, remains essentially a.n.a.logous. 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 s.e.xual 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 aesthetic 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 s.e.xual ideals of both our men and our women thus go out toward the dark.

The formation of a s.e.xual ideal, while it furnishes a predisposition to be attracted in a certain direction, and undoubtedly has a certain weight in s.e.xual choice, is not by any means the whole of s.e.xual selection. It is not even the whole of the psychic element in s.e.xual 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 s.e.xually large persons of the opposite s.e.x. It may even be that this is part of a wider zoological 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 "a.s.sortative 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 s.e.xual 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 const.i.tuted a s.e.xual 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 compet.i.tion 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 s.e.xual psychology, for, as has already been pointed out, that energy which thus insures success in practical life is itself a s.e.xual allurement to women. Energy in a woman in courtship is less congenial to her s.e.xual att.i.tude 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 h.o.m.ogamy-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 s.e.xual proclivities. This is a point which we shall encounter in a later Study and it is therefore unnecessary to discuss it here.