How far persons in positions of authority have gratified their sense of superiority by derisive laughter at those below them, it would, of course, be hard to say. When power is real and absolute there are other ways of expressing contempt. Literature undoubtedly furnishes examples of the ridicule by the social superior of the ways of a lower class, as in the Provençal poem of Bertran de Born (_c._ 1180) in which the villains are treated contemptuously. Yet the larger part of literature, not being produced for a ruling caste, does not throw much light on this subject.[230] One can only infer with some probability, from the relations of parents and adults, generally, to children, and of white {264} masters to their coloured slaves, that power has always been tempered by some admixture of good-nature, which composition has produced a certain amount of playful jocosity, at once corrective and cementing. The derisive laughter of the superior is particularly loud in certain cases where the authority is not so real as it might be. Man’s ridicule of his not too obedient spouse may be said almost to shriek adown the ages. We may read in papyri of Egypt of the fourteenth or thirteenth century B.C. of the misfortunes of a husband, named Anoupou.[231] The Greek comedians thought no abuse of the sex too bitter or too coarse.[232] In Latin literature we have satirical portraits of different types of women, drawn under the figures of various brutes, a fox, a mare, etc.[233] In mediæval society, the low opinion of women entertained by their lords is illustrated in the firm persuasion that the only way to treat them was to beat them—watching them was quite vain—so that they might be occupied all the day with crying.[234] Sometimes, as in the _Arabian Nights_, this contempt takes the form of bitter denunciation; but, for the most part, it has laughed in the brighter key of comedy. Even the satire here is wont to lose all trace of savageness, and to assume the tone of a good-natured acceptance of the incurable. While the formation of social ranks has thus secured a wide range for supercilious mocking of inferiors, it has guaranteed these ample opportunity of avenging themselves by laughter at the expense of the authorities.