On the other hand it is sufficiently well known that the presence of an uninjured hymen affords no certain assurance of actual virginity. Cases enough are recorded, both in older and more recent medical literature, in which even pregnancy occurred in women in whom the hymen had remained intact, the explanation being that during copulation penetration of the penis had failed to occur, the semen being ejaculated on the vulva. _Scanzoni_ and _Zweifel_ have recorded cases in which the intact hymen offered a hindrance to parturition. The first-named author explains these occurrences by the assumption that the hymen was so stout that the penis was unable to rupture it. _Veit_ remarks that both male and female youth, in these days of the continued advance of knowledge, are well acquainted with _coitus sine immissione penis_, and that very frequently a woman who is informed that she is pregnant makes answer that this is impossible, her paramour having assured her that pregnancy could not occur. On the other hand, cases are met with in which the aperture in the hymen is a very large one, so large that the penis can penetrate to the vagina without lacerating the membrane. _Broudardel_ reports a case of rape in which the lacerated hymen healed so completely that an expert maintained the integrity of the membrane, until another pointed out the fine scar. In general, that we may be assured of the existence of virginity, we must find the hymen uninjured; and, on the other hand, we must regard the laceration of the membrane, unless known to be the result of gynecological examination or other manipulation, as a proof of defloration. In ancient times among savage races the integrity of the hymen was prized as a proof of virginity, and in the Bible also great stress is laid on this sign in connection with defloration, and its absence was even regarded as a ground for the death punishment (Deut. xxii, 21). But amongst other races the hymen was held in no particular esteem as a token of virginity. [Illustration: FIG. 46.—Mamma, the breast of a virgin aged eighteen years. (From Toldt: Atlas of Human Anatomy.—Rebman Company, New York.) ] In ancient times, and even at the present day in the Philippine Islands, the Ladrone Islands, and certain other islands of the Polynesian Archipelago, also among many African tribes, the right of defloration belonged, not to the bridegroom, but to every man belonging to the same tribe; sometimes on the bridal night all the men of the tribe had access to the bride, the bridegroom coming last, but thenceforward having undisputed possession of his wife. Amongst certain other tribes a similar custom prevails, differing however in this respect, that the rite of defloration is performed by a priest or by one of the chiefs of the tribe. In mediæval Europe, again, the great landed proprietors exercised the well-known _jus primae noctis_ or _droit du seigneur_.