Prev | Current Page 405 | Next

Ellis, Havelock, 1859-1939

"Sexual Selection In Man"


[193] K. Pearson, _Grammar of Science_, second edition, p. 430.
[194] In _Man and Woman_ (fourth edition, p. 65) I have referred to a
curious example of this tendency to opposition, which is of almost
worldwide extent. Among some people it is, or has been, the custom for the
women to stand during urination, and in these countries it is usually the
custom for the man to squat; in most countries the practices of the sexes
in this matter are opposed.
[195] It is sufficient to quote one example. At the end of the sixteenth
century it was a serious objection to the fashionable wife of an English
Brownist pastor in Amsterdam that she had "bodies [a bodice or corset]
tied to the petticoat with points [laces] as men do their doublets and
their hose, contrary to I Thess., v, 22, conferred with Deut. xxii, 5; and
I John ii, 16."


V.
Summary of the Conclusions at Present Attainable in Regard to the Nature
of Beauty and its Relation to Sexual Selection.

The consideration of vision has led us into a region in which, more
definitely and precisely than is the case with any other sense, we can
observe and even hope to measure the operation of sexual selection in man.


Pages:
393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417