COURTSHIP IN MAN 85 



Now the ideals of beauty vary considerably. As 

 a rule, the type of beauty which is sexually attrac- 

 tive to one sex is that most characteristic of the other. 

 Thus, men generally admire women with features 

 possessing the most pronounced female sexual char- 

 acteristics ; while women, on the contrary, are 

 attracted by manly strength and vigour. But in 

 addition to this rule, we find also special types of 

 beauty admired by different races, generally that 

 which approaches most nearly to each racial type. 

 Thus, among the Hottentots the women have a 

 natural tendency towards accumulating fat on the 

 hinder parts of the body ; this feature is greatly 

 admired by the men, and is therefore cultivated. 

 The blacks appear, on the whole, repulsive to us, nor 

 do they admire white people with their long noses, 

 preferring instead flat, broad ones. Nor do our 

 women appear beautiful to the Chinese. It is re- 

 ported of a man of the court in Cochin China that he 

 spoke with contempt of the wife of an English am- 

 bassador, because she had white teeth like a dog and 

 cheeks rosy like the colour of a potato flower. This 

 remark explains, perhaps, the habit of blackening 

 the teeth as practised by some races, such as the 

 Japanese, who do this, they say, " in order not to 

 look like pigs"; though this practice is dying out 

 among the Japanese. 



Not being satisfied, however, with the beauty 

 bestowed by Nature, people are constantly striving 

 to " improve " on Nature, and so try by all sorts of 

 compressions and other means, even mutilations, to 

 make themselves still more beautiful. Thus, it is 



