Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4: Sexual Selection In ManEllis, Havelock
Science
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4: Sexual Selection In Man
Ellis, Havelock
Sex; Sex (Psychology)
To the average man of every race the woman who most completely embodies
the type of his race is usually the most beautiful, and even mutilations
and deformities often have their origin, as Humboldt long since pointed
out, in the effort to accentuate the racial type.[152] Eastern women
possess by nature large and conspicuous eyes, and this characteristic
they seek still further to heighten by art. The Ainu are the hairiest of
races, and there is nothing which they consider so beautiful as hair. It
is difficult to be sexually attracted to persons who are fundamentally
unlike ourselves in racial constitution.[153]
It frequently happens that this admiration for racial characteristics
leads to the idealization of features which are far removed from æsthetic
beauty. The firm and rounded breast is certainly a feature of beauty, but
among many of the black peoples of Africa the breasts fall at a very early
period, and here we sometimes find that the hanging breast is admired as
beautiful.
The African Baganda, the Rev. J. Roscoe states (_Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, January-June, 1902, p. 72), admire
hanging breasts to such an extent that their young women tie them
down in order to hasten the arrival of this condition.
"The most remarkable trait of beauty in the East," wrote Sonnini,
"is to have large black eyes, and nature has made this a
characteristic sign of the women of these countries. But, not
content with this, the women of Egypt wish their eyes to be still
larger and blacker. To attain this Mussulmans, Jewesses, and
Christians, rich and poor, all tint their eyelids with galena.
They also blacken the lashes (as Juvenal tells us the Roman
ladies did) and mark the angles of the eye so that the fissure
appears larger." (Sonnini, _Voyage dans la Haute et Basse
Egypte_, 1799, vol. i, p. 290.) Kohl is thus only used by the
women who have what the Arabs call "natural kohl." As Flinders
Petrie has found, the women of the so-called "New Race," between
the sixth and tenth dynasties of ancient Egypt, used galena and
malachite for painting their faces. Jewish women in the days of
the prophets painted their eyes with kohl, as do some Hindu women
to-day.
"The Ainu have a great affection for their beards. They regard
them as a sign of manhood and strength and consider them as
especially handsome. They look upon them, indeed, as a great and
highly prized treasure." (J. Batchelor, _The Ainu and their
Folklore_, p. 162.)
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