356 
SEXUAL SELECTION: MAN. 
Part IL 
attracted by the mental charms of women, by their 
wealth, and especially by their social position ; for men 
rarely marry into a much lower rank of life. The men 
who succeed in obtaining the more beautiful women,, 
wall not have a better chance of leaving a long lino 
of descendants than other men wn‘th plainer wives, with 
the exception of the few who bequeath their fortunes 
according to primogeniture. With respect to the op- 
posite form of selection, namely of the more attractive 
men by the women, although in civilised nations women 
have free or almost free choice, which is not the case 
with barbarous races, yet their choice is largely in- 
fluenced by the social position and wealth of the men; 
ai]d the success of the latter in life largely depends on 
their intellectual powers and energy, or on the fruits of 
these same powers in their forefathers. 
There is, however, reason to believe that sexual 
selection has effected something in certain civilised and 
seini-civilised nations. Many persons are convinced, as* 
it appears to me with justice, that the members of our 
aristocracy, including under this term all wealthy fami- . 
lies in which primogeniture has long prevailed, from 
having chosen during many generations from all classes, 
the more beautiful women as their wives, have become 
handsomer, according to the European standard of 
beauty, than the middle classes ; yet the middle classes^ 
are placed under equally favourable conditions of life 
for the perfect development of the body. Cook re- 
marks that the superiority in personal appearance 
which is observable in the erees or nobles in all the 
other islands (of the Pacific) is found in the Sandwich 
‘^islands but this may be chiefly due to their better 
food and manner of life. 
The old traveller Chardin, in describing the Persians, 
says tlieir '' blcod is now highly refined by frequent 
