in order to facilitate sexual
intercourse in future years. (Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, vol.
i, Chapter VI.) The manipulations of vaginal masturbation will,
of course, similarly destroy the hymen. It is also quite possible
for the hymen to be ruptured by falls and other accidents. (See,
e.g., a lengthy study by Nina-Rodrigues, "Des Ruptures de l'Hymen
dans les Chutes," _Annales d'Hygiene Publique_, September, 1903.)

On the other hand, integrity of the hymen is no proof of
virginity, apart from the obvious fact that there may be
intercourse without penetration. (The case has even been recorded
of a prostitute with syphilitic condylomata, a somewhat masculine
type of pubic arch, and vulva rather posteriorly placed, whose
hymen had never been penetrated.) The hymen may be of a yielding
or folding type, so that complete penetration may take place and
yet the hymen be afterwards found unruptured. It occasionally
happens that the hymen is found intact at the end of pregnancy.
In some, though not all, of these cases there has been conception
without intromission of the penis. This has occurred even when
the entrance was very minute. The possibility of such conception
has long been recognized, and Schurig (_Syllepsilogia_, 1731,
Section I, cap. VIII, p. 2) quotes ancient authors who have
recorded cases. For some typical modern cases see Guerard
(_Centralblatt fuer Gynaekologie_, No. 15, 1895), in one of whose
cases the hymen of the pregnant woman scarcely admitted a hair;
also Braun (ib., No. 23, 1895).

The hymen has played a very definite and pronounced part in the social and
moral life of humanity. Until recently it has been more difficult to
decide what precise biological function it has exercised to ensure its
development and preservation. Sexual selection, no doubt, has worked in
its favor, but that influence has been very limited and comparatively very
recent. Virginity is not usually of any value among peoples who are
entirely primitive. Indeed, even in the classic civilization which we
inherit, it is easy to show that the virgin and the admiration for
virginity are of late growth; the virgin goddesses were not originally
virgins in our modern sense. Diana was the many-breasted patroness of
childbirth before she became the chaste and solitary huntress, for the
earliest distinction would appear to have been simply betwee