Here we have the general phases of evolution correctly indicated, though the author lays too much stress on the influence of the gentile system. But the view we have expressed is sustained in a remarkable way by the elaborate researches of Westermarck. In a series of chapters he has put it almost beyond question that a wide liberty of sexual choice on the part of the female is the rule among primitive men as it is among the lower animals.[646] Everywhere, with few exceptions, the male appears as the wooer. In the female passion is less eager.[647] She therefore requires courting, and thus in effect she secures the chief place in the function of sexual selection. Even in the case of the reproductive cells of plants, where any external difference has been observed, "the male cell behaves actively in the union, the female passively;" and the same law prevails among lowly organized animals.[648] In general, animals contend in some sort of rivalry for their mates. Even the most timid during the season of love "engage in desperate combats with each other for the possession of the female, and she, although comparatively passive, nevertheless often exercises a choice, selecting one of the rivals." Fighting for mates "occurs even among insects, and is of universal prevalence in the order of the vertebrata."[649] This method of courtship, not to be confused with capture, may also have prevailed among "our primeval human ancestors," and it still exists in many forms. Sometimes a fist-fight, a battle with clubs, a duel with bows and arrows, or a "pulling-match" settles the claims of rival suitors; and often, as among the North American aborigines, the contest takes the form of "wrestling for wives."[650] [646] WESTERMARCK, _Human Marriage_, chaps. vii-xiii, inclusive. [647] DARWIN, _Descent of Man_, chap. viii, 222 ff.; ESPINAS, _Des sociétés animales_, 323 ff. _Cf._ GROOS, _Die Spiele der Thiere_, 129 ff. [648] WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 157; SACHS, _Text-Book of Botany_, 897; DARWIN, _op. cit._, chap. viii; KULISCHER, _Die geschlechtliche Zuchtwahl_, in _ZFE._, VIII, 140 ff., who regards the dance as originally a form of wooing. Such is also the view of ESPINAS, _op. cit._, 305 ff.; and GROOS, _op. cit._, 257 ff., 263 ff. [649] WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 159, 253; DARWIN, _op. cit._, chap. xiii; WALLACE, _Darwinism_, 282 ff. [650] MARTIUS, _Rechtszustande_, 589; _idem_, _Ethnographie_, I, 111; WAITZ, _Anthropologie_, III, 101; DARWIN, _op. cit._, chap. xix, 561 ff.; LUBBOCK, _Origin of Civilization_, 101 ff.; and especially WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 159-63, who gives many examples.