Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/56

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42 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

the race the less is the physical difference of the sexes. A simi- lar relation holds between the higher and lower classes of the same society. The measurements of Broca and Topinard show that the difference in cranial capacity of the inhabitants of the epoch of polished stone is about 127", of the modern French of the provinces about 150", and of Parisians about 222 CC . Sev- eral observers have recorded the opinion that women of doli- chocephalic races are more brachycephalic, and women of brachycephalic races more dolichocephalic than the men of the same races. If this is true it is a remarkable confirmation of the conservative tendency of woman. "I have thought for several years that woman was, in a general way, less dolichoce- phalic in dolichocephalic races, and less brachycephalic in brachy- cephalic races, and that she had a tendency to approach the typical median form of humanity." 1 The skin of woman is without exception of a lighter shade than that of man, even among the dark races. This cannot be due to less exposure, since the women and men are equally exposed among the uncivilized races, and it is due to the same causes as the more brilliant plumage of male birds. "In the human species," says Delaunay, "whether we consider stature, color of the hair, mus- cular strength, voice, tastes, ideas, or even chirography, we find among women a great resemblance and among men an immense difference." 2

After making all deductions for the limitations of woman's activity by civilization (and they are many) we may still say that the cause of the greater variation of the male in mankind, as in the subhuman species, is the tendency to a rapid destruc- tion of energy .3

1 TOPINARD, he. cit., p. 375.

a DELAUNAY, loc. cit.

3 If the common characters of a genus are more evident in the female than the male we may look also in the female for the persistence of characters which in the course of organic evolution are vanishing, and Paul Albrecht, in a somewhat brutal paper on the greater bestiality of woman, from the anatomical standpoint, has maintained that she stands nearer than man to our prehistoric ancestors in the following respects : In woman the stature is less than that of man ; both dolichocephaly and prognathism are more marked and of more frequent occurrence ; the inner incisors are more power-