In Nature, before the arrival of Man, it can scarcely be said indeed that any difficulty existed.  It was taken for granted at that time that the female had both the right to her own body, and the right to a certain amount of enjoyment in the use of it.  It often cost the male a serious amount of trouble—­though he never failed to find it worth while—­to explain to her the point where he may be allowed to come in, and to persuade her that he can contribute to her enjoyment.  So it generally is throughout Nature, before we reach Man, and, though it is not invariably obvious, we often find it even among the unlikeliest animals.  As is well known, it is most pronounced among the birds, who have in some species carried the erotic art,—­and the faithful devotion which properly accompanied the erotic art as being an essential part of it,—­to the highest point.  We have here the great natural fact of courtship.  Throughout Nature, wherever we meet with animals of a high type, often indeed when they are of a lowly type—­provided they have not been rendered unnatural by domestication—­every act of sexual union is preceded by a process of courtship.  There is a sound physiological reason for this courtship, for in the act of wooing and being wooed the psychic excitement gradually generated in the brains of the two partners acts as a stimulant to arouse into full activity the mechanism which ensures sexual union and aids ultimate impregnation.  Such courtship is thus a fundamental natural fact.

It is as a natural fact that we still find it in full development among a large number of peoples of the lower races whom we are accustomed to regard as more primitive than ourselves.  New conditions, it is true, soon enter to complicate the picture presented by savage courtship.  The economic element of bargaining, destined to prove so important, comes in at an early stage.  And among peoples leading a violent life, and constantly fighting, it has sometimes happened, though not always, that courtship also has been violent.  This is not so frequent as was once supposed.  With better knowledge it was found that the seeming brutality once thought to take the place of courtship among various peoples in a low state of culture was really itself courtship, a rough kind of play agreeable to both parties and not depriving the feminine partner of her own freedom of choice.  This was notably the case as regards so-called “marriage by capture.”  While this is sometimes a real capture, it is more often a mock capture; the lover perhaps pursues the beloved on horseback, but she is as fleet and as skilful as he is, cannot be captured unless she wishes to be captured, and in addition, as among the Kirghiz, she may be armed with a formidable whip; so that “marriage by capture,” far from being a hardship imposed on women is largely a concession to their modesty and a gratification of their erotic impulses.  Even when the chief part of the decision rests with masculine force courtship is still not necessarily or usually excluded, for the exhibition of force by a lover,—­and this is true for civilised as well as for savage women,—­is itself a source of pleasurable stimulation, and when that is so the essence of courtship may be attained even more successfully by the forceful than by the humble lover.