CHAPTER XIX.
SECONDARY SEXUAL CHARACTERS OF MAN.
Differences between man and woman--Causes of such differences and of certain characters common to both sexes--Law of battle--Differences in mental powers, and voice--On the influence of beauty in determining the marriages of mankind--Attention paid by savages to ornaments--Their ideas of beauty in woman--The tendency to exaggerate each natural peculiarity.
With mankind the differences between the sexes are greater than in most of the Quadrumana, but not so great as in some, for instance, the mandrill. Man on an average is considerably taller, heavier, and stronger than woman, with squarer shoulders and more plainly-pronounced muscles. Owing to the relation which exists between muscular development and the projection of the brows (1. Schaaffhausen, translation in 'Anthropological Review,' Oct. 1868, pp. 419, 420, 427.), the superciliary ridge is generally more marked in man than in woman. His body, and especially his face, is more hairy, and his voice has a different and more powerful tone. In certain races the women are said to differ slightly in tint from the men. For instance, Schweinfurth, in speaking of a negress belonging to the Monbuttoos, who inhabit the interior of Africa a few degrees north of the equator, says, "Like all her race, she had a skin several shades lighter than her husband's, being something of the colour of half-roasted coffee." (2. 'The Heart of Africa,' English transl. 1873, vol i. p. 544.) As the women labour in the fields and are quite unclothed, it is not likely that they differ in colour from the men owing to less exposure to the weather. European women are perhaps the brighter coloured of the two sexes, as may be seen when both have been equally exposed.
Man is more courageous, pugnacious and energetic than woman, and has a more inventive genius. His brain is absolutely larger, but whether or not proportionately to his larger body, has not, I believe, been fully ascertained. In woman the face is rounder; the jaws and the base of the skull smaller; the outlines of the body rounder, in parts more prominent; and her pelvis is broader than in man (3. Ecker, translation, in 'Anthropological Review,' Oct. 1868, pp. 351-356. The comparison of the form of the skull in men and women has been followed out with much care by Welcker.); but this latter character may perhaps be considered rather as a primary than a secondary sexual character. She comes to maturity at an earlier age than man.
As with animals of all classes, so with man, the distinctive characters of the male sex are not fully developed until he is nearly mature; and if emasculated they never appear. The beard, for instance, is a secondary sexual character, and male children are beardless, though at an early age they have abundant hair on the head. It is probably due to the rather late appearance in life of the successive variations whereby man has acquired his masculine characters, that they are transmitted to the male sex alone. Male and female children resemble each other closely, like the young of so many other animals in which the adult sexes differ widely; they likewise resemble the mature female much more closely than the mature male. The female, however, ultimately assumes certain distinctive characters, and in the formation of her skull, is said to be intermediate between the child and the man. (4. Ecker and Welcker, ibid. pp. 352, 355; Vogt, 'Lectures on Man,' Eng. translat. p. 81.) Again, as the young of closely allied though distinct species do not differ nearly so much from each other as do the adults, so it is with the children of the different races of man. Some have even maintained that race-differences cannot be detected in the infantile skull. (5. Schaaffhausen, 'Anthropolog. Review,' ibid. p. 429.) In regard to colour, the new-born negro child is reddish nut-brown, which soon becomes slaty-grey; the black colour being fully developed within a year in the Soudan, but not until three years in Egypt.