ak enough to be handed about like invalids; or mentally weak enough
to pretend they are--and to like it. We have made women who respond so
perfectly to the force which made them, that they attach all their idea
of beauty to those characteristics which attract men; sometimes humanly
ugly without even knowing it.

For instance, our long restriction to house-limits, the heavy
limitations of our clothing, and the heavier ones of traditional
decorum, have made women disproportionately short-legged. This is a
particularly undignified and injurious characteristic, bred in women
and inherited by men, most seen among those races which keep their women
most closely. Yet when one woman escapes the tendency and appears with
a normal length of femur and tibia, a normal height of hip and shoulder,
she is criticized and called awkward by her squatty sisters!

The most convenient proof of the inferiority of women in human beauty is
shown by those composite statues prepared by Mr. Sargent for the World's
Fair of '93. These were made from gymnasium measurements of thousands of
young collegians of both sexes all over America. The statue of the girl
has a pretty face, small hands and feet, rather nice arms, though weak;
but the legs are too thick and short; the chest and shoulders poor; and
the trunk is quite pitiful in its weakness. The figure of the man is
much better proportioned.

Thus the effect on human beauty of masculine selection.

Beyond this positive deteriorative effect on women through man's
arbitrary choice comes the negative effect of woman's lack of choice.
Bought or stolen or given by her father, she was deprived of the
innately feminine right and duty of choosing. "Who giveth this woman?"
we still inquire in our archaic marriage service, and one man steps
forward and gives her to another man.

Free, the female chose the victor, and the vanquished went unmated--and
without progeny. Dependent, having to be fed and cared for by some man,
the victors take their pick perhaps, but the vanquished take what is
left; and the poor women, "marrying for a home," take anything. As a
consequence the inferior male is as free to transmit his inferiority as
the superior to give better qualities, and does so--beyond computation.
In modern days, women are freer, in some countries freer than in others;
here in modern America freest of all; and the result is seen in our
improving standards of health and beauty.

Still there remains the