method of question and answer. Among the Indians of
Paraguay, who allow much sexual freedom to their women, but never
buy or sell love, Mantegazza states (_Rio de la Plata e
Tenerife_, 1867, p. 225) that a girl of the people will come to
your door or window and timidly, with a confused air, ask you, in
the Guarani tongue, for a drink of water. But she will smile if
you innocently offer her water. Among the Tarahumari Indians of
Mexico, with whom the initiative in courting belongs to the
women, the girl takes the first step through her parents, then
she throws small pebbles at the young man; if he throws them back
the matter is concluded (Carl Lumholtz, _Scribner's Magazine_,
Sept., 1894, p. 299). In many parts of the world it is the woman
who chooses her husband (see, e.g., M.A. Potter, _Sohrab and
Rustem_, pp. 169 et seq.), and she very frequently adopts a
symbolical method of proposal. Except when the commercial element
predominates in marriage, a similar method is frequently adopted
by men also in making proposals of marriage.

It is not only at the beginning of courtship that the act of love has
little room for formal declarations, for the demands and the avowals that
can be clearly defined in speech. The same rule holds even in the most
intimate relationships of old lovers, throughout the married life. The
permanent element in modesty, which survives every sexual initiation to
become intertwined with all the exquisite impudicities of love, combines
with a true erotic instinct to rebel against formal demands, against
verbal affirmations or denials. Love's requests cannot be made in words,
nor truthfully answered in words: a fine divination is still needed as
long as love lasts.

The fact that the needs of love cannot be expressed but must be
divined has long been recognized by those who have written of the
art of love, alike by writers within and without the European
Christian traditions. Thus Zacchia, in his great medico-legal
treatise, points out that a husband must be attentive to the
signs of sexual desire in his wife. "Women," he says, "when
sexual desire arises within them are accustomed to ask their
husbands questions on matters of love; they flatter and caress
them; they allow some part of their body to be uncovered as if by
accident; their breasts appear to swell; they show unusual
alacrity; they bl