With reference to selection by the women, Darwin shows that among savages they have much more to say in their marriages than is usually supposed. He remarks: "They can tempt the men they prefer, and can sometimes reject those whom they dislike, either before or after their marriage. Preference on the part of the women, steadily acting in any one direction, would ultimately affect the character of the tribe, for the women would generally choose, not merely the handsomest men, according to their standard of taste, but those who were at the same time best able to defend and support them. Such well-endowed pairs would commonly rear a larger number of offspring than the less favored." Darwin adds: "The same result would obviously follow in a still more marked manner if there were selection on both sides, that is, if the more attractive, and at the same time more powerful men were to prefer, and were preferred by, the more attractive women. And this double form of selection seems actually to have occurred, especially during the earlier periods of our long history." The investigations of Darwin as to the operation of sexual selection had reference chiefly to the modification of physical characters. He did not altogether lose sight, however, of its possible influence in affecting for the better the mental characteristics of the race. He concludes his enquiry by the remark that "Man might by selection do something, not only for the bodily constitution and frame of his offspring, but for their intellectual and moral qualities. Both sexes ought to refrain from marriage if they are in any marked degree inferior in body or mind; but such hopes are Utopian, and will never be even partially realized until the laws of inheritance are thoroughly known. Every one does good service who aids towards this end."