The choice of a mate.

  • Anthony Ludovici
Date:
[1935]
Catalogue details
    515/546 (page 485)
    “RICKETS OVERCOME ** to judge a piano from the standpoint of a clock, not to condemn all dogs except greyhounds, because of the “ aesthetic defects ” which the greyhound does not reveal, and all women except the eunuchoid or gynandromorphic female, because of “ aesthetic defects ” which are not displayed in the male. We require, in fact, a canon that will enable us to admire normal female beauty as such, and to banish from our minds the pernicious nonsense which, rooted in ancient Greece, has descended to the present day to blossom forth in pseudo scientific treatises. 1 The reader should not, therefore, shun the young woman of normal proportions so unfashionable to-day. On the contrary, remembering that morphology and psychology are not to be separated, he should learn to admire her specific beauty, and select her for his mate. Another important point to bear in mind is that endocrine disturbances leading to virilism, eunuchoidism, infantilism, etc., are by no means the only causes of skeletal abnormalities which may prevent a girl from turning out a normally functioning mother. A woman may appear perfectly normal, and there may be nothing wrong with her endocrine balance, and yet her pelvis may be deformed in such a way as to render child-birth difficult for her. In such cases, the pelvis is usually rachitic—that is to say, at some stage in her development she has had “ rickets ”, and this has left its mark upon her, although it may require some acuteness to detect the condition of “ rickets successfully over come ” in her limbs. She will not necessarily be bow-legged, for that would make the condition obvious, and of such a woman it could not be said that she “ appeared perfectly normal ”. Stratz, however, maintains that in women with “ rickets over come ” who superficially appear normal, certain signs are, nevertheless, apparent; and my own observation supports him in this. He says that if we examine the legs and arms of such women, we shall notice a thickening of the joints and odd curves above the ankles and the wrists, which are the traces of the former ailment. This is perfectly true, and I have verified this 1 Bloch is a notable exception. He says : “ The observation of the physical differences between man and woman also teaches us the futility of the old disputes as to whether man’s body or woman’s was the more beautiful. The different tasks which lie before the male and female bodies respectively give rise to different development of individual parts. If the development is complete in its kind, the body is beautiful. . . . Masculine and feminine beauty are different. There can be no question regarding the superiority of one or the other.” (S.L.O.T., pp. 64, 65.) 485