, are frequent.
High-bred bitches will show sudden passions for low-bred or mongrel
males. According to breeders and observers it is the female who is
always much more susceptible of sentimental selection; thus it is
often necessary to deceive mares. Among many primitive peoples it is
the woman who takes the initiative in courtship. In New Guinea, for
instance, where women hold a very independent position, "the girl is
always regarded as the seducer. 'Women steal men.' A youth who
proposed to a girl would be making himself ridiculous, would be called
a woman, and laughed at by the girls. The usual method by which a girl
proposes is to send a present to the youth by a third party, following
this up by repeated gifts of food; the young man sometimes waits a
month or two, receiving presents all the time, in order to assure
himself of the girl's constancy before decisively accepting her
advances."[315]

In the face of this, and many similar cases, it becomes an absurdity
to continue a belief in the passivity of the female as a natural law
of the sexes. Such openness of conduct in courtship is, of course,
impossible except where woman holds an entirely independent position.
Still, it would not be difficult to bring forward similar
manifestations of the initiative being taken by the woman--though
often exercised unconsciously as the expression of an instinctive
need--in the artificial courtships of highly civilised peoples. But
enough has perhaps been said; and such examples can, I doubt not, be
readily supplied by each of my readers for themselves. I will only
remark that the true nature of the passivity of the woman in courtship
is made abundantly clear from the ease with which the pretence is
thrown off in every case where the necessity arises.

Nothing is more astounding to me than this delusion that the man is
the active partner in sex. I believe, as I have once before stated,
that Bernard Shaw[316] is right here when he says that men set up the
theory to save their pride. Having taken to themselves the initiative
in all other matters, they claim the same privilege in love; and women
have acquiesced and have helped them, so that the duplicity has become
almost ineradicable. Few women are brave enough to admit this even if
they have clear sight to see the truth; they know that it is not
permitted to them to exercise openly their right of choice. They
understand that the male pride of possession--the hunter's and the
fi