Psychology of sex - Total No. of Records in System :: 2032

PSYCHOLOGY OF SEXwhich, in its original form, is not always accepted. Wenot to bemust especiallyremember that such selection isreckoned as primarily esthetic. It is not beauty but greatervigor, or greater conspicuousness, that counts. The precisedegree of validity which Darwinian sexual selection(even apart from its misinterpretation by Wallace) possessesamong animals generallyis still doubtful even tomany careful students of animal life. It is doubtful, inother words, how far such instinctive choice in mating asis so far demonstrable can lead to a biological selectionof some characters and the rejection of other characters, soaffecting inheritance. The increasing knowledge in recentyears of the Mendelian factors of inheritance still furtherobscures the question of sexual selection. What we arecertainly concerned with is Preferential Mating, whichleaves open the question of sexual selection in relation toracial inheritance. It is not clear that the less preferredare usually shut out from mating, and those who are excludedaltogether, whether among the lower animals orthe lower human races, seem generally an almost negligiblenumber. Courtship among birds is often a serious,prolonged, and highly arduous affair. Yet it is still notDarwinian "selection" has beenalways clear that anyachieved. Eliot Howard, a very thorough student of birdlife, while not absolutely rejecting such "selection," in hiswith muchgreat work on British Warblers, yet speakshesitation concerning its extent and significance. Variousother authorities on bird life are equally cautious.For Man in the far past preferential mating may reallyhave rendered it difficult for the less preferred to mate andso pass on their less preferred characters. Among theBabylonian women whose dutyit was once in life toprostitute themselves at the shrine of Mylitta (though weare not here concerned with a very primitive phase of[38]