On the effects of the continued selection of women according to a different standard of beauty in each race—On the causes which interfere with sexual selection in civilised and savage nations—Conditions favourable to sexual selection during primeval times—On the manner of action of sexual selection with mankind—On the women in savage tribes having some power to choose their husbands—Absence of hair on the body, and development of the beard—Colour of the skin—Summary.
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, “the 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 generation...It is not the weal or woe of any one individual, but that of the human race to come, which is here at stake.” (1. ‘Schopenhauer and Darwinism,’ in ‘Journal of Anthropology,’ 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 “which is observable in the erees or nobles in all the other islands (of the Pacific) is found in the Sandwich Islands”; but this may be chiefly due to their better food and manner of life.
The old traveller Chardin, in describing the Persians, says their “blood 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.” He adds that they inherit their beauty, “not from their ancestors, for without the above mixture, the men of rank in Persia, who are descendants of the Tartars, would be extremely ugly.” (2. These quotations are taken from Lawrence (‘Lectures on Physiology,’ 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. ‘Anthropologie,’ ‘Revue des Cours Scientifiques,’ 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, “are remarkable for their uniformly fine appearance.” A friend of his asked one of these men, “How is it that every one whom I meet is so fine looking, not only your men but your women?” The Jollof answered, “It is very easily explained: it has always been our custom to pick out our worst-looking slaves and to sell them.” 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. ‘Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication,’ 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 effect will be produced on the offspring by certain individuals having had an advantage over others in their courtship. Now it is asserted that there exist at the present day tribes which practise what Sir J. Lubbock by courtesy calls communal marriages; that is, all the men and women in the tribe are husbands and wives to one another. The licentiousness of many savages is no doubt astonishing, but it seems to me that more evidence is requisite, before we fully admit that their intercourse is in any case promiscuous. Nevertheless all those who have most closely studied the subject (5. Sir J. Lubbock, ‘The Origin of Civilisation,’ 1870, chap. iii. especially pp. 60-67. Mr. M’Lennan, in his extremely valuable work on ‘Primitive Marriage,’ 1865, p. 163, speaks of the union of the sexes “in the earliest times as loose, transitory, and in some degree promiscuous.” Mr. M’Lennan and Sir J. Lubbock have collected much evidence on the extreme licentiousness of savages at the present time. Mr. L.H. Morgan, in his interesting memoir of the classificatory system of relationship. (‘Proceedings of the American Academy of Sciences,’ vol. vii. Feb. 1868, p. 475), concludes that polygamy and all forms of marriage during primeval times were essentially unknown. It appears also, from Sir J. Lubbock’s work, that Bachofen likewise believes that communal intercourse originally prevailed.), and whose judgment is worth much more than mine, believe that communal marriage (this expression being variously guarded) was the original and universal form throughout the world, including therein the intermarriage of brothers and sisters. The late Sir A. Smith, who had travelled widely in S. Africa, and knew much about the habits of savages there and elsewhere, expressed to me the strongest opinion that no race exists in which woman is considered as the property of the community. I believe that his judgment was largely determined by what is implied by the term marriage. Throughout the following discussion I use the term in the same sense as when naturalists speak of animals as monogamous, meaning thereby that the male is accepted by or chooses a single female, and lives with her either during the breeding-season or for the whole year, keeping possession of her by the law of might; or, as when they speak of a polygamous species, meaning that the male lives with several females. This kind of marriage is all that concerns us here, as it suffices for the work of sexual selection. But I know that some of the writers above referred to imply by the term marriage a recognised right protected by the tribe.
The indirect evidence in favour of the belief of the former prevalence of communal marriages is strong, and rests chiefly on the terms of relationship which are employed between the members of the same tribe, implying a connection with the tribe, and not with either parent. But the subject is too large and complex for even an abstract to be here given, and I will confine myself to a few remarks. It is evident in the case of such marriages, or where the marriage tie is very loose, that the relationship of the child to its father cannot be known. But it seems almost incredible that the relationship of the child to its mother should ever be completely ignored, especially as the women in most savage tribes nurse their infants for a long time. Accordingly, in many cases the lines of descent are traced through the mother alone, to the exclusion of the father. But in other cases the terms employed express a connection with the tribe alone, to the exclusion even of the mother. It seems possible that the connection between the related members of the same barbarous tribe, exposed to all sorts of danger, might be so much more important, owing to the need of mutual protection and aid, than that between the mother and her child, as to lead to the sole use of terms expressive of the former relationships; but Mr. Morgan is convinced that this view is by no means sufficient.
The terms of relationship used in different parts of the world may be divided, according to the author just quoted, into two great classes, the classificatory and descriptive, the latter being employed by us. It is the classificatory system which so strongly leads to the belief that communal and other extremely loose forms of marriage were originally universal. But as far as I can see, there is no necessity on this ground for believing in absolutely promiscuous intercourse; and I am glad to find that this is Sir J. Lubbock’s view. Men and women, like many of the lower animals, might formerly have entered into strict though temporary unions for each birth, and in this case nearly as much confusion would have arisen in the terms of relationship as in the case of promiscuous intercourse. As far as sexual selection is concerned, all that is required is that choice should be exerted before the parents unite, and it signifies little whether the unions last for life or only for a season.
Besides the evidence derived from the terms of relationship, other lines of reasoning indicate the former wide prevalence of communal marriage. Sir J. Lubbock accounts for the strange and widely-extended habit of exogamy—that is, the men of one tribe taking wives from a distinct tribe,—by communism having been the original form of intercourse; so that a man never obtained a wife for himself unless he captured her from a neighbouring and hostile tribe, and then she would naturally have become his sole and valuable property. Thus the practice of capturing wives might have arisen; and from the honour so gained it might ultimately have become the universal habit. According to Sir J. Lubbock (6. ‘Address to British Association On the Social and Religious Condition of the Lower Races of Man,’ 1870, p. 20.), we can also thus understand “the necessity of expiation for marriage as an infringement of tribal rites, since according to old ideas, a man had no right to appropriate to himself that which belonged to the whole tribe.” Sir J. Lubbock further gives a curious body of facts shewing that in old times high honour was bestowed on women who were utterly licentious; and this, as he explains, is intelligible, if we admit that promiscuous intercourse was the aboriginal, and therefore long revered custom of the tribe. (7. ‘Origin of Civilisation,’ 1870, p. 86. In the several works above quoted, there will be found copious evidence on relationship through the females alone, or with the tribe alone.)
Although the manner of development of the marriage tie is an obscure subject, as we may infer from the divergent opinions on several points between the three authors who have studied it most closely, namely, Mr. Morgan, Mr. M’Lennan, and Sir J. Lubbock, yet from the foregoing and several other lines of evidence it seems probable (8. Mr. C. Staniland Wake argues strongly (‘Anthropologia,’ March, 1874, p. 197) against the views held by these three writers on the former prevalence of almost promiscuous intercourse; and he thinks that the classificatory system of relationship can be otherwise explained.) that the habit of marriage, in any strict sense of the word, has been gradually developed; and that almost promiscuous or very loose intercourse was once extremely common throughout the world. Nevertheless, from the strength of the feeling of jealousy all through the animal kingdom, as well as from the analogy of the lower animals, more particularly of those which come nearest to man, I cannot believe that absolutely promiscuous intercourse prevailed in times past, shortly before man attained to his present rank in the zoological scale. Man, as I have attempted to shew, is certainly descended from some ape-like creature. With the existing Quadrumana, as far as their habits are known, the males of some species are monogamous, but live during only a part of the year with the females: of this the orang seems to afford an instance. Several kinds, for example some of the Indian and American monkeys, are strictly monogamous, and associate all the year round with their wives. Others are polygamous, for example the gorilla and several American species, and each family lives separate. Even when this occurs, the families inhabiting the same district are probably somewhat social; the chimpanzee, for instance, is occasionally met with in large bands. Again, other species are polygamous, but several males, each with his own females, live associated in a body, as with several species of baboons. (9. Brehm (‘Thierleben,’ B. i. p. 77) says Cynocephalus hamadryas lives in great troops containing twice as many adult females as adult males. See Rengger on American polygamous species, and Owen (‘Anatomy of Vertebrates,’ vol. iii. p. 746) on American monogamous species. Other references might be added.) We may indeed conclude from what we know of the jealousy of all male quadrupeds, armed, as many of them are, with special weapons for battling with their rivals, that promiscuous intercourse in a state of nature is extremely improbable. The pairing may not last for life, but only for each birth; yet if the males which are the strongest and best able to defend or otherwise assist their females and young, were to select the more attractive females, this would suffice for sexual selection.
Therefore, looking far enough back in the stream of time, and judging from the social habits of man as he now exists, the most probable view is that he aboriginally lived in small communities, each with a single wife, or if powerful with several, whom he jealously guarded against all other men. Or he may not have been a social animal, and yet have lived with several wives, like the gorilla; for all the natives “agree that but one adult male is seen in a band; when the young male grows up, a contest takes place for mastery, and the strongest, by killing and driving out the others, establishes himself as the head of the community.” (10. Dr. Savage, in ‘Boston Journal of Natural History,’ vol. v. 1845-47, p. 423.) The younger males, being thus expelled and wandering about, would, when at last successful in finding a partner, prevent too close interbreeding within the limits of the same family.
Although savages are now extremely licentious, and although communal marriages may formerly have largely prevailed, yet many tribes practise some form of marriage, but of a far more lax nature than that of civilised nations. Polygamy, as just stated, is almost universally followed by the leading men in every tribe. Nevertheless there are tribes, standing almost at the bottom of the scale, which are strictly monogamous. This is the case with the Veddahs of Ceylon: they have a saying, according to Sir J. Lubbock (11. ‘Prehistoric Times,’ 1869, p. 424.), “that death alone can separate husband and wife.” An intelligent Kandyan chief, of course a polygamist, “was perfectly scandalised at the utter barbarism of living with only one wife, and never parting until separated by death.” It was, he said, “just like the Wanderoo monkeys.” Whether savages who now enter into some form of marriage, either polygamous or monogamous, have retained this habit from primeval times, or whether they have returned to some form of marriage, after passing through a stage of promiscuous intercourse, I will not pretend to conjecture.
