o be a violent discord shortly after marriage.

We now come to those other relative considerations which depend on each
individual trying to eradicate, through the medium of another, his
weaknesses, deficiencies, and deviations from the type, in order that
they may not be perpetuated in the child that is to be born or develop
into absolute abnormities. The weaker a man is in muscular power, the
more will he desire a woman who is muscular; and the same thing applies
to a woman....

Nevertheless, if a big woman choose a big husband, in order, perhaps, to
present a better appearance in society, the children, as a rule, suffer
for her folly. Again, another very decided consideration is complexion.
Blonde people fancy either absolutely dark complexions or brown; but it
is rarely the case _vice versa_. The reason for it is this: that fair
hair and blue eyes are a deviation from the type and almost constitute
an abnormity, analogous to white mice, or at any rate white horses. They
are not indigenous to any other part of the world but Europe,--not even
to the polar regions,--and are obviously of Scandinavian origin. _En
passant_, it is my conviction that a white skin is not natural to man,
and that by nature he has either a black or brown skin like our
forefathers, the Hindoos, and that the white man was never originally
created by nature; and that, therefore, there is no _race_ of white
people, much as it is talked about, but every white man is a bleached
one. Driven up into the north, where he was a stranger, and where he
existed only like an exotic plant, in need of a hothouse in winter, man
in the course of centuries became white. The gipsies, an Indian tribe
which emigrated only about four centuries ago, show the transition of
the Hindoo's complexion to ours. In love, therefore, nature strives to
return to dark hair and brown eyes, because they are the original type;
still, a white skin has become second nature, although not to such an
extent as to make the dark skin of the Hindoo repellent to us.

Finally, every man tries to find the corrective of his own defects and
aberrations in the particular parts of his body, and the more
conspicuous the defect is the greater is his determination to correct
it. This is why snub-nosed persons find an aquiline nose or a
parrot-like face so indescribably pleasing; and the same thing applies
to every other part of the body. Men of immoderately long and attenuated
build delight in a st