SEXUAL SELECTION
By sexual selection we mean union by choice among males and females. In the vertebrates, the female chooses much more commonly than the male, the latter being more disposed to pair with all the females than the females with all the males. We may certainly admit that this was also the case in primitive man, especially when there existed a rutting period, for then the sexual appetite was more violent. Moreover, even at the present day, women are on the average more difficult to please and more strict in their choice than men.
In the case of hybrids it is generally the male which violates the law of instinct. Female slaves often flee from their free husbands, but we never see male slaves abandon their free wives. Among savage races the woman is always more difficult to please than the man. Among half-breeds, it is nearly always the father who belongs to a higher race. The inverse rarely occurs; it is exceptional for a white woman to marry a negro. The same thing is reproduced among ourselves; we often see a cultured man marry an uneducated woman, but a cultured woman seldom marries a laborer.
It is especially among savages that the woman prefers the man who is strongest, most skillful, most ardent, and most audacious. Heroes always haunt the minds of women, who love to throw themselves at the head of conquerors. The ideal of certain women in Borneo is a husband who has killed many enemies and possesses their heads (head-hunters of Borneo). This psychological trait responds to natural selection, for the women obtain by this custom better protectors and stronger children.
On the other hand, man looks instinctively for a young, healthy and well-developed woman. It is on this basis that Greek art formed Eros and Aphrodite, designating the latter as goddess of both love and beauty.
Conception of Beauty.—The conception of beauty is very relative. The Australians laugh at our long noses and the natives of Cochin-China at our white teeth and red cheeks. Certain savage women bind their legs below the knees to make them swell, this effect being part of their idea of beauty. The Chinese admire the deformed feet of their women and their prominent cheek bones. In each nation the conception of beauty generally corresponds to the ideal type of the race, for both sexes. As a general rule muscle is admired in man and fullness of figure in woman. The Hottentots like women's breasts to be so pendulous that they can throw them over shoulder, and suckle the infants carried on their backs; they also admire the elongated lips of the vulva.
There are, therefore, few general typical characters of sexual preference; these are especially the ideal type of the race and the health of both sexes, voluptuous forms and grace in women, muscular strength and dexterity in men. Everything else is relative and variable, and depends on the local point of view, customs, race, individual taste, etc.
Thus, according to the conception of æsthetics, tattooing, the arrangement of the hair and beard, deformations of the nose, cranium, or feet, are admired by different peoples. Each race extols its own peculiarities; the European compares a woman's breasts to snow, the Malay to gold, etc. The natives of Coromandel paint their gods black and their devils white, while in Europe it is the reverse.
The association of love with beauty is not based on æsthetic sentiments, for the latter are disinterested, while the original instinct of love is interested. The association of the two things depends on the instinctive necessity of health, combined with the sexual appetite, although custom has produced numerous aberrations. Everything which differs markedly from the type of the race is more or less pathological. This is why instinct, determined by natural selection, repels it.
Fashion also rules among savages, but is less changeable among them than with us, and their taste for adornment only varies in the narrow circle of their customs.