wins the female very largely by the display of
force. The infliction of pain must inevitably be a frequent indirect
result of the exertion of power. It is even more than this; the infliction
of pain by the male on the female may itself be a gratification of the
impulse to exert force. This tendency has always to be held in check, for
it is of the essence of courtship that the male should win the female, and
she can only be won by the promise of pleasure. The tendency of the male
to inflict pain must be restrained, so far as the female is concerned, by
the consideration of what is pleasing to her. Yet, the more carefully we
study the essential elements of courtship, the clearer it becomes that,
playful as these manifestations may seem on the surface, in every
direction they are verging on pain. It is so among animals generally; it
is so in man among savages. "It is precisely the alliance of pleasure and
pain," wrote the physiologist Burdach, "which constitutes the voluptuous
emotion."

Nor is this emotional attitude entirely confined to the male. The female
also in courtship delights to arouse to the highest degree in the male the
desire for her favors and to withhold those favors from him, thus finding
on her part also the enjoyment of power in cruelty. "One's cruelty is
one's power," Millament says in Congreve's _Way of the World_, "and when
one parts with one's cruelty one parts with one's power."

At the outset, then, the impulse to inflict pain is brought into
courtship, and at the same time rendered a pleasurable idea to the female,
because with primitive man, as well as among his immediate ancestors, the
victor in love has been the bravest and strongest rather than the most
beautiful or the most skilful. Until he can fight he is not reckoned a man
and he cannot hope to win a woman. Among the African Masai a man is not
supposed to marry until he has blooded his spear, and in a very different
part of the world, among the Dyaks of Borneo, there can be little doubt
that the chief incentive to head-hunting is the desire to please the
women, the possession of a head decapitated by himself being an excellent
way of winning a maiden's favor.[62] Such instances are too well known to
need multiplication here, and they survive in civilization, for, even
among ourselves, although courtship is now chiefly ruled by quite other
considerations, most women are in some degree emotionally affected by
strength and courage. But the d