n the woman
who was attached to a man and the woman who followed an earlier rule of
freedom and independence; it was a later notion to suppose that the latter
woman was debarred from sexual intercourse. We certainly must not seek the
origin of the hymen in sexual selection; we must find it in natural
selection. And here it might seem at first sight that we come upon a
contradiction in Nature, for Nature is always devising contrivances to
secure the maximum amount of fertilization. "Increase and multiply" is so
obviously the command of Nature that the Hebrews, with their usual
insight, unhesitatingly dared to place it in the mouth of Jehovah. But the
hymen is a barrier to fertilization. It has, however, always to be
remembered that as we rise in the zooelogical scale, and as the period of
gestation lengthens and the possible number of offspring is fewer, it
becomes constantly more essential that fertilization shall be effective
rather than easy; the fewer the progeny the more necessary it is that they
shall be vigorous enough to survive. There can be little doubt that, as
one or two writers have already suggested, the hymen owes its development
to the fact that its influence is on the side of effective fertilization.
It is an obstacle to the impregnation of the young female by immature,
aged, or feeble males. The hymen is thus an anatomical expression of that
admiration of force which marks the female in her choice of a mate. So
regarded, it is an interesting example of the intimate manner in which
sexual selection is really based on natural selection. Sexual selection is
but the translation into psychic terms of a process which has already
found expression in the physical texture of the body.

It may be added that this interpretation of the biological
function of the hymen is supported by the facts of its evolution.
It is unknown among the lower mammals, with whom fertilization is
easy, gestation short and offspring numerous. It only begins to
appear among the higher mammals in whom reproduction is already
beginning to take on the characters which become fully developed
in man. Various authors have found traces of a rudimentary hymen,
not only in apes, but in elephants, horses, donkeys, bitches,
bears, pigs, hyenas, and giraffes. (Hyrtl, _Op. cit._, vol. ii,
p. 189; G. Gellhoen, "Anatomy and Development of the Hymen,"
_American Journal Obstetrics_, August, 1904.) It is in the h