Page:Fielding - Sex and the Love Life.pdf/118
sincere and fervent love. Courtship is not simply a preliminary. It is a continual preparation for a career of the supremest import to the pair and to the race. The impulse to dominate and subdue the coyly resisting woman is very powerful in the man, and in morbid forms this impulse may become cruel."
This natural reticence on the part of the female is quite the general rule throughout the animal world. It has as its biological reason the enhancing of the desirability of the female, and arousing the male to greater resourcefulness and skill as a lover. Behind all this is the purpose to stimulate the erotic impulses, to quicken the sexual instincts in the service of the species. It is known that a high degree of excitement of the nervous system is a desirable prelude in facilitating procreation.
Courtship affords opportunities for the cultivation of favorable mental impressions, or predisposing fetiches—in their best sense and normal relation. These tend to crystallize into tender sentiments and finally love, with all the psychic, spiritual and physical manifestations that are bound up in this complex pairing hunger.
In this connection, Prof. Morgan remarks: "The hypothesis of sexual selection suggests that the accepted mate is the one which adequately evokes the pairing impulse. Courtship may thus be regarded from a physiological point of view as a means of producing the requisite amount of pairing hunger (sexual passion), and courtship is thus the strong and steady bending of the bow that the arrow may find its mark in a biological end of the highest importance in the survival of a healthy and vigorous race."
Length of Engagements. The length of engagements must necessarily vary on account of widely varying conditions prevailing in different cases. Generally speaking,