As Mr. Darwin points out, we can see the reason why, in the first instance, the male plays the active part:—“Even if the ova were detached before fertilisation, and did not require subsequent nourishment or protection, there would yet be greater difficulty in transporting them than the male element because, being larger than the latter, they are produced in far smaller numbers.”[919] He adds, however, that, with respect to forms of which the progenitors were primordially free, it is difficult to understand why the males should invariably have acquired the habit of approaching the females, instead of being approached by them. Perhaps the explanation may be that the seeker is more exposed to danger than the one sought after, and that the death of a male at the pairing time is less disadvantageous for the existence of the species than the death of a female. At any rate, we may say with Mr. Darwin that it is necessary that the males should be endowed with strong passions in order that they may be efficient seekers; and the acquirement of such passions would naturally follow from the more eager males leaving a larger number of offspring than the less eager.[920] The rule holds good for the human race, the man generally playing a more active, the woman a more passive, part in courtship. The latter, as it has been said, “requires to be courted.” Yet, curiously enough, there are a few peoples among whom the reverse seems to be the case, just as, among the lower animals also, there are some species of which the females are the courters.[921] Among the Moquis in New Mexico, according to Dr. Broeck, “instead of the swain asking the hand of the fair one, she selects the young man who is to her fancy, and then her father proposes the match to the sire of the lucky youth.”[922] In Paraguay, we are told, the women were generally endowed with stronger passions than the men,[923] and were allowed to make proposals;[924] and among the Garos, according to Colonel Dalton, it is not only the privilege but even the duty of the girl to speak first, any infringement of this rule being summarily and severely punished. “If a male makes advances to a girl,” he says, “and the latter, rejecting them, chooses also to tell her friends that such tenders of affection have been made to her, it is looked on as an insult to the whole ‘mahári’ (motherhood) to which the girl belongs, a stain only to be obliterated by the blood of pigs, and liberal libations of beer at the expense of the ‘mahári’ to which the man belongs.”[925] According to Mr. Batchelor, it constantly occurs among the Ainos that the proposal of marriage comes in the first place from the girl;[926] and in Polynesia,[927] as also among the Kafirs of Natal[928] and certain tribes in Oregon,[929] the same is sometimes the case. It often happens that the parents of both parties make up the match; and among several peoples the man pays his suit by proxy. But these instances are of no particular importance.