e tribes struggles take place between the females
for possession of the male. However, it is usually coquetry in all its
degrees which furnishes woman with the basis for her advances. In many
nations, if not in most, women have the right to refuse a demand for
marriage.

METHODS OF ATTRACTION

=Adornment in the Two Sexes.=--Vanity is older than man, for it is
found in many animals. The lowest and most savage peoples adorn
themselves. Tattooing, staining the skin, rings on the arms and feet,
in the lips, nose and ears serve to attract one sex toward the other.
A Santal woman may carry as much as fifteen kilogrammes of ornaments
on her body. Vanity leads to incredible eccentricities, certain
tribes, for example, pull out their teeth to increase their
attractions. Absurdities of this kind are often associated with
religious ideas, although the latter generally play a secondary part.
The true origin of these customs lies in vanity, combined with the
sexual desire to captivate. In hot climates, at any rate, the savages
only commenced to cover their bodies with clothes with the object of
pleasing by personal adornment. The religious observances attached to
the custom of adornment are not primitive. The latter is derived from
the sexual appetite and from vanity, and has only been incorporated in
the dogmas of religious mysticism after being first established in the
habits of the people.

Among savages the men are more inclined to personal adornment and to
coquetry than the women. This is not due to the inferior social
position of the women, for those who enjoy the greatest liberty are
often less extensively tattooed than those who are reduced to slavery.
The true reason is that the man risks much more than the woman by
remaining celibate, and this obliges him to take more pains than the
women to make himself fascinating. As a rule the wives of savages
attach less importance to their personal appearance than to that of
their husbands, and the vanity of the latter is guided chiefly by the
taste of their wives. The objects with which savages adorn themselves
are generally trophies.

Among civilized people, on the contrary, the men have a much wider
choice and many women remain celibate. This is one of the reasons
which compel women to study their personal appearance and the art of
flirtation. In Europe, earrings represent the last vestige of the
savage methods of adornment.

=Sentiment of Shame of the Genital Organs. Nud