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 440 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

ment. Dark races blacken the skin, tall races increase the stature by special footwear, flat-nosed people further flatten the nose, the white women use face powder.

Darwin quotes Winwood Reade as saying that the negroes of the west coast of Africa do not like the color of the European skin ; "they look upon blue eyes with aversion and they think our noses too long and our lips too thin," Mr. Reade is convinced that these negroes would not, on the ground of mere physical admiration, prefer the most beautiful European woman to a good looking negress.^^ Some traits are indicative of good health or of morbidity, and are admired or abhorred accordingly. A pale Mongolian in regions unaffected by white standards would be considered as unhealthy, while in Europe a sallow skin is looked upon with aversion as an evidence of disease. Climatic condi- tions may thus transform standards of utility into standards of beauty.

The esthetic sense of the parties immediately concerned is far from being the sole factor which affects marriage choice. Among nearly all peoples there is a deliberate favoring of the type de- sired in offspring and a conscious effort to control heredity in accordance therewith. It is certain that some understanding of the principles of breeding exists long before any exact scientific knowledge of the laws of heredity begins. Darwin mentions the case of the Jollof s, a west coast negro tribe of exceptionally fine appearance, who explained their physical superiority by their habits of deliberately selling off their worse-looking slaves.^* Ellis states that in Ashanti the women of royal blood were per- mitted to intrigue freely with fine and handsome men in order that the kings might be of commanding presence. ^'^ Nansen attributes the almost universal race mixture among the Eskimo of the west coast of Greenland to the fact that half-breeds, having come to be regarded as handsomer than the pure-bred natives, are preferred in marriage.^* Breeding for favorite types may take the form of breeding in desired features or breeding out

"Darwin, Descent of Man, 582. ^^ Ibid., 587.

" The Tshi-Speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast, 287. ^Eskimo Life, 165; note.