peated coitus, some
authors add, that the pubic hairs become crisp. Some recent
observers, it may be remarked, have noted a connection between
sexual excitation and the condition of the pubic hair in women.
(Cf. the present volume, _ante_ p. 127.)

A sign to which the old authors often attached much importance
was furnished by the urinary stream. In the _De Secretis
Mulierum_, wrongly attributed to Albertus Magnus, it is laid down
that "the virgin urinates higher than the woman." Riolan, in his
_Anthropographia_, discussing the ability of virgins to ejaculate
urine to a height, states that Scaliger had observed women who
were virgins emit urine in a high jet against a wall, but that
married women could seldom do this. Bouaciolus also stated that
the urine of virgins is emitted in a small stream to a distance
with an acute hissing sound. (_Parthenologia_, p. 281.) A
folk-lore belief in the reality of this influence is evidenced by
the Picardy _conte_ referred to already (_ante_, p. 53), "La
Princesse qui pisse au dessus les Meules." There is no doubt a
tendency for the various stresses of sexual life to produce an
influence in this direction, though they act far too slowly and
uncertainly to be a reliable index to the presence or the absence
of virginity.

Another common ancient test of virginity by urination rests on a
psychic basis, and appears in a variety of forms which are really
all reducible to the same principle. Thus we are told in _De
Secretis Mulierum_ that to ascertain if a girl is seduced she
should be given to eat of powdered crocus flowers, and if she has
been seduced she immediately urinates. We are here concerned with
auto-suggestion, and it may well be believed that with nervous
and credulous girls this test often revealed the truth.

A further test of virginity discussed by Schurig is the presence
of modesty of countenance. If a woman blushes her virtue is safe.
In this way girls who have themselves had experience of the
marriage bed are said to detect the virgin. The virgin's eyes are
cast down and almost motionless, while she who has known a man
has eyes that are bright and quick. But this sign is equivocal,
says Schurig, for girls are different, and can simulate the
modesty they do not feel. Yet this indication also rests on a
fundamentally sound