to us if it were not known otherwise.  A Sanscrit poet declares proudly that his beloved is so borne down by the weight of her thighs and breasts that she cannot walk fast; and in the songs of Hala there are numerous “sentiments” like that.  The Arabian poet Amru declares rapturously that his favorite beauty has thighs so delightfully exuberant that she can scarcely enter the tent door.  Another Arabian poet apostrophizes “the maid of Okaib, who has haunches like sand-hills, whence her body rises like a palm-tree.”  And regarding the references to personal appearance in the writings of the ancient Hebrews, Rossbach remarks: 

“In all these descriptions human beauty is recognized in the luxurious fulness of parts, not in their harmony and proportion.  Spiritual expression in the sensual form is not adverted to” (238).

Thus, from the Australian and the Indian to the Hebrew, the Arab, and the Hindoo, what pleases the men in women is not their beauty, but their voluptuous rotundity; they care only for those sensual aspects which emphasize the difference between the sexes.  The object of the modern wasp waist (in the minds of the class of females who, strange to say, are allowed by respectable women to set the fashion for them) is to grossly exaggerate the bust and the hips, and it is for the same reason that barbarian and Oriental girls are fattened for the marriage market.  The appeal is to the appetite, not to the esthetic sense.

THE CONCUPISCENCE THEORY OF BEAUTY

In writing this I do not ignore the fact that many authors have held that personal beauty and sensuality are practically identical or indissolubly associated.  The sober philosopher, Bain, gravely advances the opinion that, on the whole, personal beauty turns, 1, upon qualities and appearances that heighten the expression of favor or good-will; and, 2, upon qualities and appearances that suggest the endearing embrace.  Eckstein expresses the same idea more coarsely by saying that “finding a thing beautiful is simply another way of expressing the manifestation of the sexual appetite.”  But it remained for Mantegazza to give this view the most cynical expression: 

“We look at woman through the prism of desire, and she looks at us in the same way; her beauty appears to us the more perfect the more it arouses our sexual desires—­that is, the more voluptuous enjoyment the possession of her promises us.”

He adds that for this reason a man of twenty finds nearly all women beautiful.

Thus the beauty of a woman, in the opinion of these writers, consists in those physical qualities which arouse a man’s concupiscence.  I admit that this theory applies to savages and to Orientals; the details given in the preceding pages prove that.  It applies also, I must confess, to the majority of Europeans and Americans.  I have paid special attention to this point in various countries and have