SEXUAL SELECTION IN RELATION TO MAN 769 



the more attractive women, according to their standard of 

 taste, will have tended to modify in the same manner all the 

 individuals of both sexes belonging to the race. 



"With respect to the other form of sexual selection (which 

 with the lower animals is much the more common), namely, 

 when the females are the selecters, and accept only those 

 males which excite or charm them most, we have reason 

 to believe that it formerly acted on our progenitors. Man 

 in all probability owes his beard, and perhaps some other 

 characters, to inheritance from an ancient progenitor who 

 thus gained his ornaments. But this form of selection may 

 have occasionally acted during later times; for in utterly 

 barbarous tribes the women have more power in choosing, 

 rejecting, and tempting their lovers, or of afterward chang- 

 ing their husbands, than might have been expected. Aa 

 this is a point of some importance, I will give in detail 

 such evidence as I have been able to collect. 



Hearne describes how a woman in one of the tribes of 

 Arctic America repeatedly ran away from her husband and 

 joined her lover; and with the Charruas of South America, 

 according to Azara, divorce is quite optional. Among the 

 Abipones, a man, on choosing a wife, bargains with the 

 parents about the price. But "it frequently happens that 

 the girl rescinds what has been agreed upon between the 

 parents and the bridegroom, obstinately rejecting the very 

 mention of marriage." She often runs away, hides herself, 

 and thus eludes the bridegroom. Captain Musters, who 

 lived with the Patagonians, says that their marriages are 

 always settled by inclination; "if the parents make a match 

 contrary to the daughter's will, she refuses and is never com- 

 pelled to comply. ' ' In Tierra del Fuego a young man first 

 obtains the consent of the parents by doing them some ser- 

 vice, and then he attempts to carry off the girl; "but if she 

 is unwilling, she hides herself in the woods until her admirer 

 is heartily tired of looking for her, and gives up the pursuit; 

 but this seldom happens." In the Fiji Islands the man 

 seizes on the woman whom he wishes for his wife by act- 



