132 SEX-LORE 



2. PARENTAL CARB IN MAN. 



We reach an altogether new phase of parental care 

 when we come to the rearing of the young among 

 human beings. It has been seen that in the court- 

 ship and mating of man the conscious element plays 

 a great role, whilst instinct retires somewhat more 

 into the background. The same may be said of 

 parenthood: it has become part and parcel of the 

 conscious activity of Man. The period of gestation 

 is longer in Man than in any of the animals (with the 

 exception of the elephant, whose enormous bulk may 

 account for this). Now, though pregnancy is a 

 physiological process, still a good deal of deliberate 

 attention is given to it even among primitive people, 

 as we have seen in a previous chapter. This makes 

 for the greater safety of the ensuing progeny. The 

 period of infancy is also very long, suckling alone 

 being carried on, at least among the lower races, 

 until the child is a few years old, since it is impossible 

 for savage people to get suitable food for very young 

 children. A baby cannot walk until it is a year old 

 or more, so that it must be carried about. As many 

 mothers, especially among uncivilized people, must 

 work very hard and have no spare time to nurse 

 their babies, they have to contrive some means of 

 keeping the children with them wherever they may 

 be. In some tribes, as, for instance, the Kalmucks, 

 the babies are always kept wrapped up in a sheep- 

 skin, lying on the ground, the mothers only carrying 

 them when moving to some other place. In some 

 of the wild tribes of Asiatic Turkey the newborn 

 child is first bathed, then wrapped up in a piece of 



