The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin (children's ebooks online TXT) đ
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In the fashions of our own dress we see exactly the same principle and the same desire to carry every point to an extreme; we exhibit, also, the same spirit of emulation. But the fashions of savages are far more permanent than ours; and whenever their bodies are artificially modified, this is necessarily the case. The Arab women of the Upper Nile occupy about three days in dressing their hair; they never imitate other tribes, âbut simply vie with each other in the superlativeness of their own style.â Dr. Wilson, in speaking of the compressed skulls of various American races, adds, âsuch usages are among the least eradicable, and long survive the shock of revolutions that change dynasties and efface more important national peculiarities.â (73. âSmithsonian Institution,â 1863, p. 289. On the fashions of Arab women, Sir S. Baker, âThe Nile Tributaries,â 1867, p. 121.) The same principle comes into play in the art of breeding; and we can thus understand, as I have elsewhere explained (74. The âVariation of Animals and Plants under Domestication,â vol. i. p. 214; vol. ii. p. 240.), the wonderful development of the many races of animals and plants, which have been kept merely for ornament. Fanciers always wish each character to be somewhat increased; they do not admire a medium standard; they certainly do not desire any great and abrupt change in the character of their breeds; they admire solely what they are accustomed to, but they ardently desire to see each characteristic feature a little more developed.
The senses of man and of the lower animals seem to be so constituted that brilliant colours and certain forms, as well as harmonious and rhythmical sounds, give pleasure and are called beautiful; but why this should be so we know not. It is certainly not true that there is in the mind of man any universal standard of beauty with respect to the human body. It is, however, possible that certain tastes may in the course of time become inherited, though there is no evidence in favour of this belief: and if so, each race would possess its own innate ideal standard of beauty. It has been argued (75. Schaaffhausen, âArchiv. fur Anthropologie,â 1866, s. 164.) that ugliness consists in an approach to the structure of the lower animals, and no doubt this is partly true with the more civilised nations, in which intellect is highly appreciated; but this explanation will hardly apply to all forms of ugliness. The men of each race prefer what they are accustomed to; they cannot endure any great change; but they like variety, and admire each characteristic carried to a moderate extreme. (76. Mr. Bain has collected (âMental and Moral Science,â 1868, pp. 304-314) about a dozen more or less different theories of the idea of beauty; but none is quite the same as that here given.) Men accustomed to a nearly oval face, to straight and regular features, and to bright colours, admire, as we Europeans know, these points when strongly developed. On the other hand, men accustomed to a broad face, with high cheek-bones, a depressed nose, and a black skin, admire these peculiarities when strongly marked. No doubt characters of all kinds may be too much developed for beauty. Hence a perfect beauty, which implies many characters modified in a particular manner, will be in every race a prodigy. As the great anatomist Bichat long ago said, if every one were cast in the same mould, there would be no such thing as beauty. If all our women were to become as beautiful as the Venus deâ Medici, we should for a time be charmed; but we should soon wish for variety; and as soon as we had obtained variety, we should wish to see certain characters a little exaggerated beyond the then existing common standard.
CHAPTER XX.
SECONDARY SEXUAL CHARACTERS OF MANâcontinued.
On the effects of the continued selection of women according to a different standard of beauty in each raceâOn the causes which interfere with sexual selection in civilised and savage nationsâConditions favourable to sexual selection during primeval timesâOn the manner of action of sexual selection with mankindâOn the women in savage tribes having some power to choose their husbandsâAbsence of hair on the body, and development of the beardâColour of the skinâSummary.
We have seen in the last chapter that with all barbarous races ornaments, dress, and external appearance are highly valued; and that the men judge of the beauty of their women by widely different standards. We must next inquire whether this preference and the consequent selection during many generations of those women, which appear to the men of each race the most attractive, has altered the character either of the females alone, or of both sexes. With mammals the general rule appears to be that characters of all kinds are inherited equally by the males and females; we might therefore expect that with mankind any characters gained by the females or by the males through sexual selection would commonly be transferred to the offspring of both sexes. If any change has thus been effected, it is almost certain that the different races would be differently modified, as each has its own standard of beauty.
With mankind, especially with savages, many causes interfere with the action of sexual selection as far as the bodily frame is concerned. Civilised men are largely attracted by the mental charms of women, by their wealth, and especially by their social position; for men rarely marry into a much lower rank. The men who succeed in obtaining the more beautiful women will not have a better chance of leaving a long line of descendants than other men with plainer wives, save the few who bequeath their fortunes according to primogeniture. With respect to the opposite form of selection, namely, of the more attractive men by the women, although in civilised nations women have free or almost free choice, which is not the case with barbarous races, yet their choice is largely influenced by the social position and wealth of the men; and the success of the latter in life depends much on their intellectual powers and energy, or on the fruits of these same powers in their forefathers. No excuse is needed for treating this subject in some detail; for, as the German philosopher Schopenhauer remarks, âthe final aim of all love intrigues, be they comic or tragic, is really of more importance than all other ends in human life. What it all turns upon is nothing less than the composition of the next generationâŠIt is not the weal or woe of any one individual, but that of the human race to come, which is here at stake.â (1. âSchopenhauer and Darwinism,â in âJournal of Anthropology,â Jan. 1871, p. 323.
There is, however, reason to believe that in certain civilised and semi- civilised nations sexual selection has effected something in modifying the bodily frame of some of the members. Many persons are convinced, as it appears to me with justice, that our aristocracy, including under this term all wealthy families in which primogeniture has long prevailed, from having chosen during many generations from all classes the more beautiful women as their wives, have become handsomer, according to the European standard, than the middle classes; yet the middle classes are placed under equally favourable conditions of life for the perfect development of the body. Cook remarks that the superiority in personal appearance âwhich is observable in the erees or nobles in all the other islands (of the Pacific) is found in the Sandwich Islandsâ; but this may be chiefly due to their better food and manner of life.
The old traveller Chardin, in describing the Persians, says their âblood is now highly refined by frequent intermixtures with the Georgians and Circassians, two nations which surpass all the world in personal beauty. There is hardly a man of rank in Persia who is not born of a Georgian or Circassian mother.â He adds that they inherit their beauty, ânot from their ancestors, for without the above mixture, the men of rank in Persia, who are descendants of the Tartars, would be extremely ugly.â (2. These quotations are taken from Lawrence (âLectures on Physiology,â etc., 1822, p. 393), who attributes the beauty of the upper classes in England to the men having long selected the more beautiful women.) Here is a more curious case; the priestesses who attended the temple of Venus Erycina at San- Giuliano in Sicily, were selected for their beauty out of the whole of Greece; they were not vestal virgins, and Quatrefages (3. âAnthropologie,â âRevue des Cours Scientifiques,â Oct. 1868, p. 721.), who states the foregoing fact, says that the women of San-Giuliano are now famous as the most beautiful in the island, and are sought by artists as models. But it is obvious that the evidence in all the above cases is doubtful.
The following case, though relating to savages, is well worth giving for its curiosity. Mr. Winwood Reade informs me that the Jollofs, a tribe of negroes on the west coast of Africa, âare remarkable for their uniformly fine appearance.â A friend of his asked one of these men, âHow is it that every one whom I meet is so fine looking, not only your men but your women?â The Jollof answered, âIt is very easily explained: it has always been our custom to pick out our worst-looking slaves and to sell them.â It need hardly be added that with all savages, female slaves serve as concubines. That this negro should have attributed, whether rightly or wrongly, the fine appearance of his tribe to the long-continued elimination of the ugly women is not so surprising as it may at first appear; for I have elsewhere shewn (4. âVariation of Animals and Plants under Domestication,â vol. i. p. 207.) that negroes fully appreciate the importance of selection in the breeding of their domestic animals, and I could give from Mr. Reade additional evidence on this head.
THE CAUSES WHICH PREVENT OR CHECK THE ACTION OF SEXUAL SELECTION WITH SAVAGES.
The chief causes are, first, so-called communal marriages or promiscuous intercourse; secondly, the consequences of female infanticide; thirdly, early betrothals; and lastly, the low estimation in which women are held, as mere slaves. These four points must be considered in some detail.
It is obvious that as long as the pairing of man, or of any other animal, is left to mere chance, with no choice exerted by either sex, there can be no sexual selection; and no
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