There is another element in the settlement of this question which may also be fairly called objective, and that is the _historical_ factor. We are prone to believe that the particular status of the sexes that prevails among ourselves corresponds to a universal and unchangeable order of things. In reality this is far from being the case. It may, indeed, be truly said that there is no kind of social position, no sort of avocation, public or domestic, among ourselves exclusively appertaining to one sex, which has not at some time or in some part of the world belonged to the opposite sex, and with the most excellent results. We regard it as alone right and proper for a man to take the initiative in courtship, yet among the Papuans of New Guinea a man would think it indecorous and ridiculous to court a girl; it was the girl's privilege to take the initiative in this matter, and she exercised it with delicacy and skill and the best moral results, until the shocked missionaries upset the native system and unintentionally introduced looser ways. There is, again, no implement which we regard as so peculiarly and exclusively feminine as the needle. Yet in some parts of Africa a woman never touches a needle; that is man's work, and a wife who can show a neglected rent in her petticoat is even considered to have a fair claim for a divorce. Innumerable similar examples appear when we consider the human species in time and space. The historical aspect of this matter may thus be said in some degree to counterbalance the biological aspect. If the fundamental constitution of the sexes renders their mental characters necessarily different, the difference is still not so pronounced as to prevent one sex sometimes playing effectively the parts which are generally played by the other sex.