object; but when this passion is once rooted in women it is much stronger and more durable than in men, and rather increases than diminishes by enjoying the person of the beloved.” (A Modest Defence of Public Stews, 1724, p. 34.) Burdach considered that women only acquire the full enjoyment of their general strength after marriage and pregnancy, while it is before marriage that men have most vigor.  Schopenhauer also said that a man’s love decreases with enjoyment, and a woman’s increases.  And Ellen Key has remarked (Love and Marriage) that “where there is no mixture of Southern blood it is a long time, sometimes indeed not till years after marriage, that the senses of the Northern women awake to consciousness.”

Even among animals this tendency seems to be manifested.  Edmund Selous (Bird Watching, p. 112) remarks, concerning sea-gulls:  “Always, or almost always, one of the birds—­and this I take to be the female—­is more eager, has a more soliciting manner and tender begging look than the other.  It is she who, as a rule, draws the male bird on.  She looks fondly up at him, and, raising her bill to his, as though beseeching a kiss, just touches with it, in raising, the feathers of the throat—­an action light, but full of endearment.  And in every way she shows herself the most desirous, and, in fact, so worries and pesters the poor male gull that often, to avoid her importunities, he flies away.  This may seem odd, but I have seen other instances of it.  No doubt, in actual courting, before the sexes are paired, the male bird is usually the most eager, but after marriage the female often becomes the wooer.  Of this I have seen some marked instances.”  Selous mentions especially the plover, kestrel hawk, and rook.

In association with the fact that women tend to show an increase of sexual ardor after sexual relationships have been set up may be noted the probably related fact that sexual intercourse is undoubtedly less injurious to women than to men.  Other things being equal, that is to say, the threshold of excess is passed very much sooner by the man than by the woman.  This was long ago pointed out by Montaigne.  The ancient saying, “Omne animal post coitum triste,” is of limited application at the best, but certainly has little reference to women.[174] Alacrity, rather than languor, as Robin has truly observed,[175] marks a woman after coitus, or, as a medical friend of my own has said, a woman then goes about the house singing.[176] It is, indeed, only after intercourse with a woman for whom, in reality, he feels contempt that a man experiences that revulsion of feeling described by Shakespeare (sonnet cxxix).  Such a passage should not be quoted, as it sometimes has been quoted, as the representation of a normal phenomenon.  But, with equal gratification on both sides, it remains true that, while after a single coitus the man may experience a not unpleasant lassitude and readiness for sleep, this is rarely the case with his partner, for whom a single coitus is often but a pleasant stimulus, the climax of satisfaction not being reached until a second or subsequent act of intercourse.  “Excess in venery,” which, rightly or wrongly, is set down as the cause of so many evils in men, seldom, indeed, appears in connection with women, although in every act of venery the woman has taken part.[177]