Beauty: Illustrated Chiefly by an Analysis and Classificatin of Beauty in Woman

CHAPTER XIII.

SECOND SPECIES OF BEAUTY—BEAUTY OF THE NUTRITIVE SYSTEM

With the vital system of woman, the capacity of the pelvis, and the consequent breadth of the haunches, are still more connected than with the locomotive system; for, with these, all those functions which are most essentially feminine—impregnation, gestation, and parturition—are intimately connected.

Camper, in a memoir on physical beauty, read to the Academy of Design, at Amsterdam,34 showed, that, in tracing the forms of the male and female within two elliptical areas of equal size, the female pelvis extended beyond the ellipsis, while the shoulders were within; and the male shoulders reached beyond their ellipsis, while the pelvis was within.—The pelvis of the African woman is said by some to be greater than that of the European.

The abdominal and lumbar portion of the trunk, as already said, is longer in woman. In persons above the common stature, there is almost half a face more in the part of the body which is between the mammæ and the bifurcation of the trunk.

The abdomen, placed below the chest, has more projection and roundness in woman than in man: but it has little fulness in a figure capable of serving as a model; and the slightest alteration in its outlines or its polish is injurious.

The waist, which is most distinctly marked in the back and loins, owes all its advantages to its elegance, softness, and flexibility.

The neck should, by the gentlest curvature, form an almost insensible transition between the body and the head. It should also present fulness sufficient to conceal the projection of the flute part of the throat in front, and of the two large muscles which descend from behind the ears toward the pit above the breast-bone.35

Over all these parts, the predominance of the cellular tissue, and the soft and moderate plumpness which is connected with it, are a remarkable characteristic of the vital system in woman. While this facilitates the adaptation of the locomotive system to every change, it at the same time obliterates the projection of the muscles, and invests the whole figure with rounded and beautiful forms.

It has been well observed that the principal effect of such forms upon the observer must be referred to the faculties which they reveal; for, as remarked by Roussel, if we examine the greater part of the attributes which constitute beauty, if reason analyze that which instinct judges at a glance, we shall find that these attributes have a reference to real advantages for the species. A light shape, supple movements, whence spring brilliance and grace, are qualities which please, because they announce the good condition of the individual who possesses them, and the greater degree of aptitude for the functions which that individual ought to fulfil.

Beauty, then, of the nutritive system in woman, depends especially upon these fundamental facts, and those tendencies of structure which thus distinguish her from man.

In the woman possessing this species of beauty, therefore, the face is generally rounded, to give greater room to the cavities connected with nutrition;—the eyes are generally of the softest azure, which is similarly associated;—the neck is often rather short, in order intimately to connect the head with the nutritive organs in the trunk;—the shoulders are softly rounded, and owe any breadth they may possess rather to the expanded chest, containing these organs, than to any bony or muscular size of the shoulders themselves;—the bosom, a vital organ, in its luxuriance seems laterally to protrude on the space occupied by the arms;—the waist, though sufficiently marked, is, as it were, encroached on by that plumpness of all the contiguous parts, which the powerful nutritive system affords;—the haunches are greatly expanded for the vital purposes of gestation and parturition;—the thighs are large in proportion;—but the locomotive organs, the limbs and arms, tapering and becoming delicate, terminate in feet and hands which, compared with the ample trunk, are peculiarly small;—the complexion, dependant upon nutrition, has the rose and lily so exquisitely blended, that we are surprised it should defy the usual operation of the elements;—and there is a luxuriant profusion of soft and fine flaxen or auburn hair.—The whole figure is soft and voluptuous in the extreme.

To this class belong all the more feminine, soft, and exquisitely-graceful women.

The kind of beauty thus characterized is seen chiefly in the Saxon races of our eastern coast; and it is certainly more frequent in women of short stature.

The vital system is peculiarly the system of woman; and so truly is this the case, that any great employment, either of the locomotive or mental organs, deranges the peculiar functions of woman, and destroys the characteristics of her sex.

Women who greatly occupy the locomotive organs, acquire a coarse and masculine appearance; and so well is this incompatibility of power, in the use of locomotive organs with the exercise of vital ones, known to the best female dancers, that, during the time of their engagements, they generally live apart from their husbands.

As to intellectual ladies, they either seldom become mothers, or they become intellectual when they cease to be mothers.

These few facts are worth a thousand hypotheses and dreams, however amiable they may be.

The vital system is relatively largest in little women, especially after they have been mothers. The shorter stature of woman ensures, indeed, in almost all, a relative excess of the vital system after, if not before, they become mothers; for, whatever the stature, the mammæ, abdomen, &c., necessarily expand. In those of short stature, these parts, of course, become nearly as large as in the tall; and this circumstance causes them to touch on the limits of each other in little women.

As, in pregnancy and suckling, the abdomen and mammæ necessarily expand, and as they would afterward collapse and become wrinkled, were not a certain degree of plumpness acquired, that acquisition is essential to beauty in mothers. Meagerness in them, accordingly, becomes deformity.

A French writer indeed says: “Most of our fashionables are extremely slender; they have constituted this an essential to beauty; leanness is in France necessary to the air élégant.” It must be remembered, however, that the vital system—that which we have just said is peculiarly the system of woman—is, in its most beautiful parts, peculiarly defective in France; and that, owing in a great measure to that circumstance, the women of France are among the ugliest in Europe.—But of that in its proper place.

It may here be observed, that the varieties of beauty of the locomotive system, and also those of beauty of the mental system, are easily explicable, because these systems are, in some respects, more limited and simple. The varieties of beauty of the vital system are, on the contrary, more difficult of explanation, because that system is, in some respects, more diffused and complicated.

Even the preparatory vital organs and functions differ somewhat in the two sexes.

Woman has frequently a smaller number of molar teeth than man; those called wisdom teeth not always appearing. Mastication is also less energetic in woman.

The stomach, in woman, is much smaller; the appetite for food is less; hunger does not appear to press her so imperiously; and her consumption of food is much less considerable.36 Hence, indubitable cases of long abstinence from food, have generally occurred in females.

In the choice and the preference of certain aliments, woman also differs much from man. In general, women prefer light and agreeable food, which flatters the palate by its perfume and its savor. Their appetites are also much more varied.

Women, whom vicious habits have not depraved, use also beverages less abundantly than men. Fermented, vinous, and spirituous beverages are indeed used only by the monsters engendered in the corruptions of towns—amid the insane dissipation of the rich, or the wretched and pitiable suffering of the poor; and both are then brought to one humiliating level, marked by the red and pimpled, or the pallid face, the swimming eye, the haggard features, the pestilential breath. The scarf-skin in these cases divides all that may be worthy from all that is utterly worthless: the worthy part may be external to the cuticle, in substantial, though polluted clothing; the worthless is the yet living portion, which, whether called body or soul, is no longer worth picking off a dunghill.37

Digestion in woman is made, however, with great rapidity; and the whole canal interested in that process, possesses great irritability.

The absorbent vessels in woman are much more developed, and seem to enjoy a more active vitality. The circumstances of pregnancy and suckling, appear also to augment the energy of these vessels.

The first modification, therefore, of this species of beauty, is that in which the digestive and absorbent system is small but active; for the great purpose of life in woman is secretion, whether it regard the formation of the superficial adipose substance which invests her with beautiful and attractive forms, or the nutrition of the new being which is the object of her attractions and of her life.

Hence it is, that women naturally and instinctively affect abstemiousness and delicacy of appetite. Hence it is, that they compress the waist, and endeavor to render it slender.

Women have, in greater abundance than men, several of the fluids which enter into the composition of the body. They appear to have a greater quantity of blood; and they certainly have more frequent and more considerable hemorrhages. There is less force in the circulation and respiration; but the heart beats more rapidly. The pulse also is less full, but it is quicker.

In woman, the purer lily and more vivid rose of complexion, depend on various causes.

It would appear that, in women, the blood is in general carried less abundantly to the surface and to the extremities, where also the white vessels are more developed; and that, to this, as well as to the subjacent adipose substance, the skin owes its whiteness.

In youth, however, one of the constituent parts of the skin, the reticular tissue, or whatever the substance under the scarf-skin may be called, appears to be more expanded, especially in women; and it would seem that this tissue is then filled with a blood which is less dark, and which forms the coloring of youth. This, differently modified by the scarf-skin, gives the blue, the purple, and all the teints formed by these and the color of the skin. Where the vessels are more patent, and the skin more thin, delicate, and transparent, as in the cheeks, the hue of the rose is cast over that of the lily. In addition to this, the slightest emotions of surprise, of pleasure, of love, of shame, of fear, often diversify all these teints.

Lightness of complexion, however, is probably dependant more particularly on the arterial circulation, and darkness of complexion on the venous circulation; for we know that in fairer woman the arteries possess greater energy, while in darker man the veins are more developed, larger, and fuller.

Farther confirmation of this is afforded by an observation, which physiologists have neglected to make, that the kidneys, receiving arterial blood, are the artery-relieving glands, while the liver, receiving venous blood, is the vein-relieving gland. Now, it is certain that, in cold climates, the urinary secretion and fairness prevail; while, in hot climates, the hepatic secretion and darkness prevail. Many physiologists have indeed made the insulated remark, that the dark complexion has much to do with the hepatic secretion. The more abundant urinary and hepatic secretions, however, may not be the causes, but only concomitant effects of the same cause with fairness and darkness of complexion.

The second modification, therefore, of this species of beauty, is that in which the circulating vessels, being moderately active and finely ramified, bestow upon the skin a whiteness, a transparency, and a complexion, which are necessary to beauty.

The whiteness, the transparency, and the color of the skin, have, in all highly civilized nations, been deemed essential conditions of beauty.

The ancients regarded whiteness, in particular, as the distinctive character of beauty; and they estimated that character so highly, that the name of Venus, from the Celtic ven, ben, or ban, signifies white, or whiteness; and Venus herself is said to be fair and golden-haired.

Among the civilized moderns, also a taste which women seek always to satisfy, is that for whiteness of the skin: hence, the white lily, new-fallen snow, white marble, or alabaster, are the images which poetry employs, when the color of a woman is its subject. So greatly, indeed, does whiteness contribute to beauty, that many women deemed beautiful by us, have little other right to that epithet except what they derive from a beautiful skin.

The branches of the great artery of the body, the aorta, supplying the abdomen and pelvis, are larger in woman than in man, as well as more habitually liable to variation in the quantity of their contents. The quantity of blood, also, which passes to the abdomen, is greater.

At the same time, the excretions are generally less in woman. Hippocrates says: “Nam corpus muliebre minus dissipatur quam virile;” the expenditure of the body of woman is less than that of man.

It is evident, then, that the secretions, nutrition, in particular, must be greater. We actually know them to be so.

But the nourishment of the organs concerned in locomotion is less active, and that of the cellular and adipose substance is generally more active, than in man. And on this, important consequences depend.

Woman is subject to crises which would destroy all her organs, if they offered too powerful a resistance. Some parts of her body are exposed to great shocks, to alternate extensions, compressions, and reductions, which could not take place with impunity, but by means of this predominance of the cellular and adipose structure.

The cellular expansion, the general basis of the structure, appears then to be more abundant in woman, more lax and yielding, more dilated and fuller of liquids; and it is by yielding gradually, by decomposing and weakening shocks by means of the general suppleness of the different organs, thus procured, that nature seems, in woman, to avoid, or to destroy, every hurtful effort.

It is observed, moreover, that certain parts, naturally more loose, receive into all their vessels a more considerable quantity of liquid, and assume a particular enlargement, at the moment when their sympathy with the uterus causes them to enter into action in concert with it; and it is also observed that they dilate more easily during pregnancy.

It is thus, then, that nature gives to all the parts of woman that suppleness which renders her capable of easily yielding to the great revolutions which affect her organization in regard to reproduction, as well as mark the different periods of her life.

The great development of the cellular and fatty tissue in woman is illustrated by the remarkable fact, that anciently the Romans, in order to burn the bodies of dead men, were obliged to join to them those of women, the fat of which greatly facilitated combustion.

Now, with the great purposes described above, beauty is naturally associated. It is principally this excess of the cellular and fatty tissues which gives to the members of woman those round and beautiful outlines, that soft and polished surface, which the body of man does not possess.

In every part, however, of the human figure, as observed by Reynolds, “when not spoiled by too great corpulency, will be found distinctness, the parts never appearing uncertain or confused, or as a musician would say, slurred; and all those smaller parts which are comprehended in the larger compartment are still found to be there, however marked.”

Now, while all this is the case, it appears that the true skin is much thinner and more delicate in woman than in man, and that it derives more or less of its clear whiteness from the quantity of fat which is below it; for meagerness inevitably tarnishes and dries it. Hence, to possess a fine, soft, white, and fresh skin, it is also indispensable to possess plumpness.

In relation to this purer white, it must also be observed, that transpiration, which might soil it, appears to be much less abundant in woman; and that the liver or vein-relieving gland, is very large. The excretions of the skin in women are indeed chiefly limited to certain parts; and it is thence that it has, in various parts, an odor which a French writer observes “it is difficult to describe, but which an exercised sense of smell easily succeeds in distinguishing in women who fully enjoy all the attributes of their sex, and who are women even in the atmosphere which exhales from them.”

While the skin is thus more white in women, it is also more transparent. The reticular tissue, or substance interposed between the true skin and scarf-skin, appears to have more clearness and turgescence, especially on the face, where, under the influence of various emotions, it easily permits a passage to the blood, as we see in blushing. It is in youth that this turgescence and clearness are most evident.