Although women are still in possession of their natural inheritance, a finer and more complex organism comparatively free from imperfections, and although, as a result of this inheritance, their intuitions are still quicker, their perceptions keener, and their endurance greater, the drain on their physical energies, caused by the abnormal development of the reproductive energies in the opposite sex, has, during the ages of man’s dominion over her, been sufficient to preclude the idea of success in competing with men for the prizes of life. Although an era of progress has begun, ages will doubtless be required to eradicate abuses which are the result of constitutional defects, and especially so as the prejudices and feelings of mankind are for the most part in harmony with such abuses.
If we examine the subject of female apparel, at the present time, we shall observe how difficult it is to uproot long-established prejudices which are deeply rooted in sensuality and superstition; and this is true notwithstanding the fact that such prejudices may involve the comfort and even the health of half the people, and seriously affect the welfare of unborn generations. An examination of the influences which have determined the course of modern fashions in woman’s clothing will show the truth of this observation.
Of all the senses which have been developed, that of sight is undoubtedly the most refined, and when in the human species it is cultivated to a degree which enables its possessor to appreciate the beautiful in Nature and in Art, we are perhaps justified in designating it as the intellectual sense. In point of refinement, the sense of hearing comes next in order, yet among creatures as low in the scale of being as birds, we find that females not only appreciate the beautiful, but that they are charmed by pleasing and harmonious sounds, and that if males would win their favour it must be accomplished by appeals through these senses to the higher qualities developed within them.
Although the female of the human species, like the female among the lower orders of life, is capable of appreciating fine colouring, and to a considerable extent the beautiful in form, the style of dress adopted by women is not an expression of their natural ideas of taste and harmony. On the contrary, it is to Sexual Selection that we must look for an explanation of the incongruities and absurdities presented by the so-called female fashions of the past and present. The processes of Sexual Selection, which, so long as the female was the controlling agency in courtship, worked on the male, have in these later ages been reversed. For the reason that the female of the human species has so long been under subjection to the male, the styles of female dress and adornment which have been adopted, and which are still in vogue, are largely the result of masculine taste. Woman’s business in life has been to marry, or, at least, it has been necessary for her, in order to gain her support, to win the favour of the opposite sex. She must, therefore, by her charms, captivate the male.