Page:Caplin - Health and Beauty1864 - 006.png

6 The stature of woman is about five or six inches below that of man, and her muscles are less projecting—partly because they are smaller and less power­ful, and partly from their fatty covering, which contributes so much to the rounded and undulating outline of her form. The breast and haunches of the male and female are in inverse proportion—the chest being broad, and the hips narrow in the former, the reverse in the latter; or, in other words, if a plumb-line be let fall from the points of the shoulders of both, the hips of the woman would project beyond the line, while those of the man would fall considerably within it. Again, when in a recumbent posture on the back, the breast of the man will be the highest part, but the pubes in the woman. The female loins are also the broadest, and the hollow of her back the greatest, in order that the due inclination may be given to the pelvis.

It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that tastes differ widely in reference to what constitutes female beauty. Fortunately for us, the goddess which one man adores, is only a plain, homely, and very ordinary person to another; and so far does this vagary of liking extend, that more than one learned author has written in favour of a woman with a crooked leg. But for this variety of taste,