[390] See “The Sexual Impulse in Women,” vol. iii of these Studies.

[391] Zenobia’s practice is referred to by Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ed.  Bury, vol. i, p. 302.  The Queen of Aragon’s decision is recorded by the Montpellier jurist, Nicolas Bohier (Boerius) in his Decisiones, etc., ed. of 1579, p. 563; it is referred to by Montaigne, Essais, Bk. iii, Ch.  V.

[392] Haller, Elementa Physiologiae, 1778, vol. vii, p. 57.

[393] Hammond, Sexual Impotence, p. 129.

[394] Fuerbringer, Senator and Kaminer, Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage, vol. i, p. 221.

[395] Forel, Die Sexuelle Frage, p. 80.

[396] Guyot, Breviaire de l’Amour Experimental, p. 144.

[397] Erb, Ziemssen’s Handbuch, Bd. xi, ii, p. 148.  Guttceit also considered that the very wide variations found are congenital and natural.  It may be added that some believe that there are racial variations.  Thus it has been stated that the genital force of the Englishman is low, and that of the Frenchman (especially Provencal, Languedocian, and Gascon) high, while Loewenfeld believes that the Germanic race excels the French in aptitude to repeat the sex act frequently.  It is probable that little weight attaches to these opinions, and that the chief differences are individual rather than racial.

[398] Ribbing, L’Hygiene Sexualle, p. 75.  Kisch, in his Sexual Life of Woman, expresses the same opinion.

[399] Mohammed, who often displayed a consideration for women very rare in the founders of religions, is an exception.  His prescription of once a week represented the right of the wife, quite independently of the number of wives a man might possess.

[400] How fragile the claim of “conjugal rights” is, may be sufficiently proved by the fact that it is now considered by many that the very term “conjugal rights” arose merely by a mistake for “conjugal rites.”  Before 1733, when legal proceedings were in Latin, the term used was obsequies, and “rights,” instead of “rites,” seems to have been merely a typesetter’s error (see Notes and Queries, May 16, 1891; May 6, 1899).  This explanation, it should be added, only applies to the consecrated term, for there can be no doubt that the underlying idea has an existence quite independent of the term.

[401] “In most marriages that are not happy,” it is said in Rafford Pyke’s thoughtful paper on “Husbands and Wives” (Cosmopolitan, 1902), “it is the wife rather than the husband who is oftenest disappointed.”

[402] See “Analysis of the Sexual Impulse,” in vol. iii of these Studies.

[403] It is well recognized by erotic writers, however, that women may sometimes take a comparatively active part.  Thus Vatsyayana says that sometimes the woman may take the man’s position, and with flowers in her hair and smiles mixed with sighs and bent head, caressing him and pressing her breasts against him, say:  “You have been my conqueror; it is my turn to make you cry for mercy.”