Thus went the pope’s daughter to the comb. Henceforward the pope combed them both, regaling them with his little ‘doll,’[85] passing his life in futtering both daughter and mother.
EXCURSUS to THE PRINCESS WHO PISSETH OVER THE HAYCOCKS and THE COMB.
The main theme of these two stories—— the ability of a virgin girl to urinate to a great height—— is founded on physiological fact, although, of course, grossly distorted and exaggerated. “In children,” says Havelock Ellis, (Studies in the Psychology of Sex, vol. 5: Erotic Symbolism), “the vulva appears to look directly forward and the clitoris and urinary meatus easily appear, while in adult women, and especially after attempts at coïtus have been made, the vulva appears directed more below and behind, and the clitoris and meatus more covered by the labia majora; so that the child urinates forward, while the adult woman is usually able to urinate almost directly downwards in the erect position, though in some cases (as may occasionally be observed in the street) she can only do so when bending slightly forwards.
“This difference in the direction of the stream formerly furnished one of the methods of diagnosing virginity, an uncertain one, since the difference is largely due to age and individual variation. The main factor in the position and aspect of the vulva is pelvic inclination....”
Havelock Ellis, later on in the same volume of his Studies, again refers to the subject:
“A sign to which the old authors often attached much importance was furnished by the urinary stream. In the De Secretis Mulierum, wrongly attributed to Albertus Magnus,[86] it is laid down that ‘the virgin urinates higher than the woman.’ Riolan, in his Anthropographia, discussing the ability of virgins to ejaculate urine to a height, states that Scaliger had observed women who were virgins emit urine in a high jet against a wall, but that married women could seldom do this. Bonaciolus also stated that the urine of virgins is emitted in a small stream to a distance with an acute hissing sound. (Parthenologia, p. 281.)[87] ... There is no doubt a tendency for the various stresses of sexual life to produce an influence in this direction, though they act far too slowly and uncertainly to be a reliable index to the presence or the absence of virginity.
“Another common ancient test of virginity by urination rests on a psychic basis, and appears in a variety of forms which are really all reducible to the same principle. Thus we are told in De Secretis Mulierum that to ascertain if a girl has been seduced she should be given to eat of powdered crocus flowers, and if she has been seduced she immediately urinates. We are here concerned with auto-suggestion, and it may well be believed that with nervous and credulous girls this test often revealed the truth....
“ ... The ancient custom, known in classic times, of measuring the neck the day after marriage was frequently practised to ascertain if a girl was or was not a virgin. There were various ways of doing this. One was to measure with a thread the circumference of the bride’s neck before she went to bed on the bridal night. If in the morning the same thread would not go around her neck it was a sure sign that she had lost her virginity during the night; if it would, she was still a virgin or had been deflowered at an earlier period. Catullus alluded to this custom,[88] which still exists, or existed until lately,[89] in the south of France. It is perfectly sound, for it rests on the intimate response by congestion of the thyroid gland to sexual excitement. (Parthenologia, p. 283.)”