ove-matches among peasants as compared with commercial city
marriages. As a matter of fact, in no class do sordid pecuniary
matters play so great a role as among peasants. (_Cf._ Grosse.
_F.d.F._, 16.)

[129] _Princ. of Soc._, American Edition, pp. 756, 772, 784, 787.

[130] The proofs of man's universal contempt for woman are to be found
in the chapter on "Adoration," and everywhere in this book. Many
additional illustrations are contained in several articles by Crawley
in the _Jour. Anthrop. Inst_., Vol. XXIV.

[131] _Cf_. Ploss-Bartels, I., 471-87, where this topic of infant
marriage is treated with truly German thoroughness and erudition.

[132] To demonstrate the recklessness (to use a mild word) of Darwin
and Westermarck in this matter I will quote the exact words of
Burchell in the passage referred to (II., 58-59): "These men generally
take a second wife as soon as the first becomes somewhat advanced in
years." "Most commonly" the girls are betrothed when about seven years
old, and in two or three years the girl is given to the man. "These
bargains are made with her parents only, and _without ever consulting
the wishes (even if she had any) of the daughter_. When it happens,
which is not often the case, that a girl has grown up to womanhood
without having been betrothed, her lover must gain her approbation _as
well as that of her parents_."

[133] Darwin was evidently puzzled by the queer nature of Reade's
evidence in other matters (_D.M._, Chap. XIX.); yet he naively relies
on him as an authority. Reade told him that the ideas of negroes on
beauty are "on the whole, the same as ours." Yet in several other
pages of Darwin we see it noted that according to Reade, the negroes
have a horror of a white skin and admire a skin in proportion to its
blackness; that "they look on blue eyes with aversion, and they think
our noses too long and our lips too thin." "He does not think it
probable," Darwin adds, "that negroes would ever prefer the most
beautiful European woman, on the mere ground of physical admiration,
to a good-looking negress." How extraordinarily like our taste! If a
man had talked to Darwin about corals or angleworms as foolishly and
inconsistently as Reade did about negroes, he would have ignored him.
But in matters relating to beauty or love all rubbish is accepted, and
every globe-trotter and amateur explorer who wields a pen is treated
as an authority.

[134] See McLennan's _Studies in Ancient H