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.