variations should have been transmitted exclusively to the same sex;
consequently that they should have transmitted beauty in a somewhat
higher degree to their female than to their male offspring, and thus
have become more beautiful, according to general opinion, than men.
Women, however, certainly transmit most of their characters, including
some beauty, to their offspring of both sexes; so that the continued
preference by the men of each race for the more attractive women,
according to their standard of taste, will have tended to modify in the
same manner all the individuals of both sexes belonging to the race.
With respect to the other form of sexual selection (which with the
lower animals is much the more common), namely, when the females are
the selectors, and accept only those males which excite or charm them
most, we have reason to believe that it formerly acted on our
progenitors. Man in all probability owes his beard, and perhaps some
other characters, to inheritance from an ancient progenitor who thus
gained his ornaments. But this form of selection may have occasionally
acted during later times; for in utterly barbarous tribes the women
have more power in choosing, rejecting, and tempting their lovers, or
of afterwards changing their husbands, than might have been expected.
As this is a point of some importance, I will give in detail such
evidence as I have been able to collect.
Hearne describes how a woman in one of the tribes of Arctic America
repeatedly ran away from her husband and joined her lover; and with the
Charruas of S. America, according to Azara, divorce is quite optional.
Amongst the Abipones, a man on choosing a wife bargains with the
parents about the price. But it frequently happens that the girl
rescinds what has been agreed upon between the parents and the
bridegroom, obstinately rejecting the very mention of marriage. She
often runs away, hides herself, and thus eludes the bridegroom. Captain
Musters who lived with the Patagonians, says that their marriages are
always settled by inclination; if the parents make a match contrary to
the daughter s will, she refuses and is never compelled to comply. In
Tierra del Fuego a young man first obtains the consent of the parents
by doing them some service, and then he attempts to carry off the girl;
but if she is unwilling, she hides herself in the woods until her
admirer is heartily tired of looking for her, and gives up the pursuit;
but this seldom happens. In the Fiji Islands the man seizes on the
woman whom he wishes for his wife by actual or pretended force; but on
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