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Show 3G8 SEXUAL SELECTION: MAN. PART JL conscqnently they wonld not have practised infunticic1c. Thoro wonld 1u:wc'b8c:n no artificial scarcity of women, and polyandry wonld not have been fo1lowcu; there would have been no l'arly betrothals; women would not have been valued as mere slaves; both sexes, if tbc females as wc1l its the mal s were permitted to exert any choice, woultl have chosen their partners, not for mental charms, or property, or social position, but almost · soldy from external appearance. All the adults would have married or pn.ircd, and all the offsprino-, ns far as that was possible, would have been reared; ::;o that tl1o struggle for existence would have been periodically severo to an extreme degree. Thus during these primordial times all the conditions for sexnal selection would have been much more favourable than at a later period, when man had advanced in his intellcctnal powerN, but had retrograded in his instincts. Thrreforc, whatever influence sexual selection may have hncl in producjng the differences between the rnccs of mnn, and between man and the hio·her Quadrumana, this influence would have been much more powerfnl at a very remote perjoJ than at tlJC present day. On the Manne?· of Action of Sexual Select·ion with mankind.-With primeml men nuder the favourable conditions just stated, anu with those savages who at the present time enter into any marriage tie (but subject to greater or less interference according as the ha1its of female infanticide, early betrothals, &c., arc more or lrss practised), sexual selection will probably have acted in the following manner. Tho strongest and most vigorous mcn,-those who could best defend and hnnt for their families, and during ]ntcr times the chiefs ot· head-men,-thosc who were provided with tho best wca.l'ons and who possessed the most property, such as CHAP. XX. MANNER OF ACTION. r3()!) a larger number of dogs or other animals, woilld have ·succeeded in rearing a greater average number of off ·spring, than would the weaker, poorer and lower members of the same tribes. There can, also, be no ·doubt that snch men would generally have been able to sdect the more attractive women. At present the chiefs of nearly every tribe throughout the world succeed in obtaining more than one wife. Until recently, ns I hear from Mr. Mantell, almost every girl in New Zcnland, who was pretty, or promised to be pretty, was taptb to some chief. ·with the Kafirs, as Mr. C. Hamilton states/5 "the chiefs generally have the pick " of the women for many miles round, and arc most "persevering in establishing or confirming their privi" lege." 'vVe have seen that each race has its own .style of beauty, and 'i\'C know that it is natural to man to admire each characteristic point in his domestic animals, dress, ornaments, ar.d personal appearance, when carried a little beyond the common standard. If then the several foregoing propositions be admitted, and I cannot see that they are doubtful, it would be an in ·explicablc circumstance, if the selection of the more attractive women by the more powerful men of each tribe, who wonld rear on an average a greater number -of children, did not after the lapse of many generations modify to a certain extent the character of the tribe. With our domestic animals, when a foreign breed ~s introduced into a new eountry, or when a native breed is long and carefully attended to, either for usc or ornament, it is found after several generations to have undergone, whenever the means of comparison exist, a greater or less amount of change. This follows from nnconscious selection during a long series of generations 15 'Anthropological Hevicw,' Jnn. 1870, p. xvi. VOL. II. 2 B |
