OF THE AGES OF WOMAN IN RELATION TO BEAUTY.
The variations of the organization of woman do not distinctly mark the
seasons of life. Many connected phenomena glide on imperceptibly; and we
can distinguish the strong characters of different and distinct ages, only
at periods remote from each other. Although, therefore, woman is
perpetually changing, it requires some care to discriminate the principal
epochs of her life.
The first age of woman extends from birth to the period of puberty.
In beginning the career of life, woman is not yet truly woman; the
characters of her sex are not yet decided; she is an equivocal being, who
does not differ from the male of the same age even by the delicacy of the
organs; and we observe between them a perfect identity of wants,
functions, and movements. Their existence is, then, purely individual; we
perceive none of the relations which afterward establish between them a
mutual dependance; each lives only for self.
This conformity and independence of the sexes are the more remarkable, the
earlier the age and the less advanced the development.
Confining our view to woman alone, it is not only in dimensions that, at
this age, her person differs from that in which the growth is terminated:
it presents another model. The various parts have not, in relation to each
other, the same proportions.
The head is much more voluminous; and this is not a result of the extent
of the face, for that is small and contracted, because the apparatus of
smell and of mastication are not yet developed. Nor is the head only more
voluminous; it is also more active, and forms a centre toward which is
directed all the effort of life.
The spine of the back has not either the minuter prominences or the
general inflexions which favor the action of the extensor muscles, a
circumstance which is opposed to standing perpendicularly during the first
months. The infant consequently can only crawl like a quadruped.
Little distinction can then be drawn, and that with difficulty, from the
comparative width of the haunches, and magnitude of the pelvis. That part
is scarcely more developed in the female than in the male; its general
form is the same; and its different diameters have similar relations to
each other.
The length of the trunk is great in proportion to the limbs, which are
slightly and imperfectly developed.
Owing to the great length of the chest, and the imperfection of the
inferior members, the middle of the body then corresponds to the region of
the umbilicus. An infant having other proportions, would appear to be
deprived of the characters of its age.
In the locomotive system, the muscles have not yet acted with sufficient
power and frequency to modify the direction of the bones, and to bestow a
peculiar character upon their combination in the skeleton. The fleshy and
other soft parts do not yet appear to differ from those of the male,
either as to form or as to relative volume.
The vital functions of digestion, of circulation and respiration, of
nutrition, secretion, and excretion, are performed in the same manner. The
want of nourishment is unceasingly renewed, and the movements of the
pulse, and of inspiration and expiration, are rapidly performed, owing to
the extreme irritability of all the organs.
The mental functions present the same resemblance; the ideas, the
appetites, the passions, have the greatest analogy; and similar moral
dispositions prevail. Little girls, it has been observed, have in some
measure the petulance of little boys, and these have in some measure the
mobility and the inconstancy of little girls.
Owing to the pelvis not being yet developed, little girls walk nearly like
children of the other sex.
These points of resemblance do not continue during a long period: the
female begins to acquire a distinct physiognomy, and traits which are
peculiar to her, long before we can discern any of the symptoms of
puberty; and although the especial marks which distinguish her sex do not
yet show themselves, the general forms which characterize it may be
perceived. These differences, however, are only slight modifications, more
easily felt than determined.
The cartilaginous extremities of the bones appear to enlarge; and the
mucous substance, which ultimately gives the soft reliefs which
distinguish woman, is not yet secreted. She is now perhaps more easily
distinguished by the nature of her inclinations and the general character
of her mind: while man now seeks to make use of his strength, woman
endeavors to acquire agreeable arts. The movements, the gait, of the
little girl begin to change.
These shades are so much the more sensible as the development is more
advanced. Still, woman, in advancing toward puberty, appears to remove
less than man from her primitive constitution; she always preserves
something of the character proper to children; and the texture of her
organs never loses all its original softness.
At the near approach to puberty, woman becomes daily more perfect.
We observe a predominance of the action of the lungs and the arteries; the
pelvis enlarges; the haunches are rounded; and the figure acquires
elegance.
There is in particular a remarkable increase of the capacity of the
pelvis, of which the circumference at last presents the circular form; it
being no longer, as in the little girl and in man, the anteroposterior
diameter which is the greatest, but the transverse one. It has been
observed that the same occurs in the females of the greater quadrupeds.
The pelvis, however, does not acquire, till the moment of perfect puberty,
its proper form and dimensions.
The changes which the same cause produces at the surface, are a general
development of the cellular tissue, the delicacy of all the outlines, the
fineness and the animation of the skin, and the new state of the bosom.
The fire of the eyes, and the altogether new expression of the
physiognomy, show that there now also exists the sensation of a new want,
which various circumstances may for a time enfeeble or silence, but can
never entirely stifle; and with it come those tastes, that direction of
the mind, and those habits, which are the effect of an internal power now
called into activity.
The gait and bearing of woman are now no longer the same; and the voice
changes as well as the physiognomy.
In all that has yet occurred, it will be observed that nutrition and
growth take place with great rapidity in woman. Her internal structure,
her external form, her faculties, are all developed promptly. It would
appear that the parts which compose her body, being less, less compact,
and less strong, than those of man, require less time to attain their
complete development.
Woman consequently arrives earlier at the age of puberty, and her body is
commonly, at twenty years of age, as completely formed as that of a man
at thirty. Thus beauty and grace, as has been observed, seem to demand of
nature less labor and time than the attributes of force and grandeur.
In many women, however, nutrition languishes even until the sexual organs
enter into action, and determine a revolution under the influence of which
growth is accomplished.
Still it is certain that, for several years, the locomotive system
predominates in young women, even in figures promising the ultimate
development of the vital system in the highest degree.
The second age of woman extends from puberty to the cessation of the
menses, or, we may say, from the period of full growth, the general time
of bearing children, to the time of ceasing to bear--generally perhaps
from twenty to forty.
It is at the beginning of this period that woman has acquired all her
attributes, her most seducing graces. She is not now distinguished merely
by the organs which are the direct instruments of reproduction: many other
differences of structure, having a relation to her part in life, present
themselves to our view.
At this maturer age, the whole figure is, in the female, smaller and
slenderer than in the male. The ancients accordingly gave seven heads and
a half to the Venus, and eight heads and some modules to the Apollo.
The relations between the dimensions of the different parts differ also in
the two sexes.
In woman, the head, shoulders, and chest, are small and compact, while
the haunches, the hips, the thighs, and the parts connected with the
abdomen, are ample and large. Hence, her body tapers upward, as her limbs
taper downward. And this is the most remarkable circumstance in her
general form.
Owing to smaller stature, and to greater size of the abdominal region, the
middle point, which is at the pubis in the male, is situated higher in the
female. This is the next remarkable circumstance in a general view.
The inferior members still continue shorter.
In general, woman is not only less in stature, and different in her
general proportions, but her haunches are more apart, her hips more
elevated, her abdomen larger, her members more rounded, her soft parts
less compact, her forms more softened, her traits finer.
During youth, especially, and among civilized nations, woman is farther
distinguished by the softness, the smoothness, the delicacy, and the
polish, of all the forms, by the gradual and easy transitions between all
the parts, by the number and the harmony of the undulating lines which
these present in every view, by the beautiful outline of the reliefs, and
by the fineness and the animation of the skin.
The soft parts which enter into the composition of woman, and the cellular
tissue which serves to unite them, are also more delicate and more supple
than those of man.
All these circumstances indicate very clearly the passive state to which
nature has destined woman, and which will be fully illustrated in a future
volume.
If, in a living body, any part liable to be distended had too much
firmness, or even elasticity, it might press against some essential organ;
and the liquids being impeded in their course, would in that case be
speedily altered, if the neighboring parts offered not flexible vessels
for their reception.
Now, in the body of woman, certain parts are exposed to suffer great
distentions and compressions. It is therefore necessary that her organs
should be of such structure as to yield readily to these impressions, and
to supply each other when their respective functions are impeded.
From this it follows, that woman never enjoys existence better, than when
a moderate plumpness bestows on her organs, without too much weakening
them, all the suppleness of which they are capable.
This leads to the consideration of the natural mobility of the organs of
woman.
Their mobility is a necessary consequence, in the first place, of their
littleness. The movements of all animals, appear to be executed with more
rapidity, the less their bulk. It has been observed, that the arteries of
the ox beat only thirty-five times, while those of the sheep beat sixty,
and that the pulse of women is smaller and more rapid than that of men.
A second physical quality, which concurs to render more mobile the
various parts of woman, is their softness.
A certain feebleness is the necessary consequence of these two
circumstances. But it is thence that spring woman's suppleness and
lightness of movement, and her capacity for grace of attitude.
It has been conjectured, that even the elements of the parts which
constitute woman, have a particular organization, on which depends the
elegance of the forms, the vivacity of the sensations, and the lightness
of the movements, which characterize her.
The result of these circumstances is that, while man possesses force and
majesty, woman is distinguished by beauty and grace. The characteristics
of woman are less imposing and more amiable; they inspire less admiration
than love. As has been observed, a single trait of rudeness, a severe air,
or even the character of majesty, would injure the effect of womanly
beauty. Lucian admirably represents to us the god of love frightened at
the masculine air of Minerva.
While man, by force and activity, surmounts the obstacles which embarrass
him, woman, by yielding, withdraws from their action, and adds to beauty,
a gentle and winning grace which places all the vaunted power of man at
her disposal.
It is evidently the influence of the organs distinguishing the two sexes,
which is the primary cause of their peculiar beauty.
As the liquid which, in man, is secreted in certain vessels for the
purpose of reproduction, communicates a general excitement and activity to
the character, so when, in woman, the periodical excretion appears, the
breasts expand, the eyes sparkle, the countenance becomes more expressive,
but at the same time more timid and reserved, and a character of
flexibility and grace distinguishes every motion.
Conformably with this view, the appearance and the manners of eunuchs
approach to those of women, by the softness and feebleness of their
organization, as well as by their timidity, and by their acute voice.
The very opposite is naturally the result of the extirpation of the
ovaries in women. Pott, giving an account of the case of a female, in whom
both the ovaries were extirpated, says, the person "has become thinner,
and more apparently muscular; her breasts, which were large, are gone; nor
has she ever menstruated since the operation, which is now some years."
Haighton found that, by dividing the Fallopian tubes, which connect the
ovaries with the womb, sexual feelings were destroyed, and the ovaries
gradually wasted.
The women, also, in whom the uterus and the ovaries remain inert during
life, approximate in forms and habits to men. It is stated, in the
Philosophical Transactions for 1805, that an adult female, in whom the
ovaries were defective, presented a corresponding defect in the state of
the constitution.
To the same general principle, it has been observed, we must refer the
partial growth of a beard on females in the decline of life, and the
circumstance that female-birds, when they have ceased to lay eggs,
occasionally assume the plumage, and, to a certain extent, the other
characters of the male.
Under the influence of this cause, the first exercise of her new faculty
determines remarkable modifications in woman. Her neck swells and augments
in size--
"Non illam nutrix orienti luce revisens
Hesterno collum poterit circumdare filo;[31]
her voice assumes another expression; her moral habits totally change: and
many women owe to love and marriage more splendid beauty.
The women thus happily constituted are not those of hot climates, but
those of cooler regions and calmer temperament, whose placid features and
more elastic forms announce a gentler and more passive love.
Impassioned women, on the contrary, do not so long preserve their
freshness: the expansive force, from which the organs derived their form
and coloring, abates; and a less agreeable flaccidity succeeds to the
elasticity with which they were endowed, if the plumpness which adult age
commonly brings does not sustain them.
During pregnancy and suckling, the firstmentioned class of women retain a
remarkable freshness and plumpness.
The lastmentioned class of women most frequently become meager, and lose
their freshness during the continuance of these states.
If, however, during these states, suitable precautions and preservative
cares be not employed, it is the first class who most suffer from traces
of maternity.
Conception, pregnancy, delivery, and suckling, being renewed more or less
frequently during the second age, hasten debility in feeble and
ill-constituted women; especially if misery or an improper mode of life
increase the influence of these causes.
In the third age of woman, extending generally from forty to sixty, the
physical form does not suddenly deteriorate; and, as has often been
observed, "when premature infirmities or misfortunes, the exercise of an
unfavorable profession, or a wrong employment of life, have not hastened
old age, women during the third age preserve many of the charms of the
preceding one."
At this period, in well-constituted women, the fat, being absorbed with
less activity, is accumulated in the cellular tissue under the skin and
elsewhere; and this effaces any wrinkles which might have begun to furrow
the skin, rounds the outlines anew, and again restores an air of youth and
freshness. Hence, this period is called "the age of return."
This plumpness, though juvenile lightness and freshness be wanting,
sustains the forms, and sometimes confers a majestic air, which, in women
otherwise favorably organized, still interests for a number of years.
The shape certainly is no longer so elegant; the articulations have less
elasticity; the muscles are more feeble; the movements are less light; and
in plump women we observe those broken motions, and in meager ones that
stiffness, which mark the walk or the dance at that age.
At this period occurs a remarkable alteration in the organs of voice.
Women, therefore, to whom singing is a profession, ought to limit its
exercise.
When women pass happily from the third to the fourth age, their
constitution, as every one must have observed, changes entirely; it
becomes stronger: and nature abandons to individual life all the rest of
existence.
Beauty, however, is no more; form and shape have disappeared; the
plumpness which supported the reliefs has abandoned them; the sinkings and
wrinkles are multiplied; the skin has lost its polish; color and freshness
have fled for ever.
These injuries of time, it has been observed, commonly begin by the
abdomen, which loses its polish and its firmness; the hemispheres of the
bosom no longer sustain themselves; the clavicles project; the neck
becomes meager; all the reliefs are effaced; all the forms are altered
from roundness and softness to angularity and hardness.
That which, amid these ruins, still survives for a long time, is the
entireness of the hair, the placidity or the fineness of the look, the air
of sentiment, the amiable expression of the countenance, and, in women of
elegant mind and great accomplishments, caressing manners and charming
graces, which almost make us forget youth and beauty.
Finally, and especially in muscular or nervous women, the temperament
changes, and the constitution of woman approaches to that of man; the
organs become rigid; and, in some unhappy cases, a beard protrudes.
Old age and decrepitude finally succeed.