Mating

“ Permanent mating is, therefore, a natural impulse among human beings. It is necessary for the protection and preservation of the lives of a lesser number of offspring of a higher grade. Permanent mating is, hence, of fundamental racial value. In man this impulse is of a more complex form and broader range, which leads the individual to wish not for momentary excitement, but for a permanent union, for a home, for a family. ”

“ The mating of animals, especially the calling of an unseen mate from a great distance, brings us [162] face to face with the same problem, and perhaps also the same answer. Sometimes the mating call is addressed to the outer ear, as in the drumming of a cock-grouse or the whine of a cow-moose; but frequently a mate appears when, so far as we can hear, there is no audible cry to call him. How do the butterflies, for example, know when or where to seek their other halves? That their meeting is by chance or blunder or accident is a theory which hardly endures an hour’s observation. ”

“ Human beings are human animals however much we may pretend to the contrary. In the rest of the animal world the fact of the mating season is frankly acknowledged. It has never been recognized among humankind within the period of written history. Is it possible that when women are released from economic and social coercion, this periodic mating instinct in the woman of the species may assert, or reassert, itself? ”

“ In a given mating, we must take into consideration such factors as impediments to coitus, as well as those numerous agencies in the female which may interfere with the union of sperm and ovum, or with the successful implantation of the fertilized egg in the uterus, and its growth and development there till normal parturition takes place. Successful reproduction depends upon the mating of sexually sound females to equally sound males. ”

“ I would call his attention to the fact that among the animals where the young is born alive, that the mother furnishes the young with food before it is born. If the child has witnessed the mating of the birds and domestic animals and this is explained to him in detail, the necessity for a detailed discussion of human mating will be avoided. The child could be informed that human mating is practically the same. ”

“ But successful mating depends, in each year, on the sexual fitness of the male himself, and the mate, or mates, which for that year he has taken “for better or worse.” It is possible, of course, that a male, ambitious but impotent, will be forsaken by his mate; it is possible that a female of low sexual vitality may fail to respond to the most impassioned displays; in either case no offspring result, and thus the failures are eliminated. It is possible that here, as with the higher vertebrates, coition may by no means always be immediately preceded by display. ”

“ There is a woman with me, and we are both in great danger. We are not fugitives for a night, as you are, for we have never known the freedom of the mating centers, a freedom which you found incomplete and love-destroying. ”

“ Now we come to human beings, and see how different they are! They have no regular mating season, and while there is a certain amount of instinct in men and women [Pg 8] which tends to bring them together, the sex impulse among highly developed people is far more the result of their feeling of love for each other than mere animal instinct alone. Many of the animals make no choice at all in their mating. Any near-by female will do for the male. But among some of the higher animals the male has a special instinct for a certain female, and the female will not tolerate any but a certain male. ”

“ By assortative mating one means that in the population of men and women who do marry, there is a definite tendency for certain classes of men to marry particular classes of women, and conversely. [4] An almost prophetic quotation from Pearson may render the distinction clear.
For example, preferential mating might lead in a highly social community to the rejection of consumptive mates, while assortative mating might through localization or community of habit, lead to considerable consumptive correlation. ”

“ There was no temptation in a strict sense, or so the Monitors were still determined to believe. If, in a few men and women outside the mating centers sex was beginning to rear its primitive head, and the old, dangerous impulses were making themselves felt, no such danger had existed when the pleasure boats had first been launched. Even now, such impulses were just beginning to manifest themselves, and the criminals could be exposed and brought to justice. ”

“ Or, granting that differentiation has occurred, if the mating preferences are then stereotyped, all further differentiation, so far as colour and form are concerned, will be rendered impossible; for divergent modifications, not meeting the stereotyped standard of taste, will for that reason fail to be perpetuated. We must admit, then, that these mating preferences are subject to variation. And now we come to the central question with regard to sexual selection by means of preferential mating. What guides the variation along special lines leading to heightened beauty? ”

“ He wants us to give him and the woman with him our garments and our insignia, so that they may take refuge in a mating center and for a short while remain there disguised as a love-privileged man and woman. It will give them the time they need to make new plans. The Monitors will not think of searching for them in a mating center. ”

“ Second, he is in charge and there need be no damage to either animal selected for such mating. Place one female in a lone breeding male’s pen to mate, preferably after 6:30 p.m. due to nocturnal habits; which does not mean mating in the dark. The evening favors the mating instinct. Leave the female with the male for about 2 to 4 minutes testing period. If she appears unfriendly or desires to fight him, use the tin can at once to scoop her up and remove her to her own pen, and try her again the the following day or night, until she accepts service from the male. ”

“ If the mating period in the case of the higher animals rouses the males to the pitch of frenzy, that frenzy is dangerous only to possible rivals. With the more lowly Spiders and Scorpions ferocity of disposition is a normal feature, and one which can with difficulty be held in check long enough to permit the all-important act of mating to take place. ”

“ Permanent mating was a necessity only as long as the couples lived separated. When, however, already before the dawn of civilization, mutual aid was added to self aid, when for the sake of protection men began to live in herds, and all the males had the responsibility to procure the food for the entire herd, the individual father was released from such responsibility, and there was no necessity any longer for permanent mating. ”

“ Often the male “stakes out his claim,” so to speak, in the vicinity of an old nest, where, during the courtship period, he utters his loud mating call for several days, or even weeks, before the female answers the invitation. Then, after mating is accomplished, his chosen mate may or may not accept his choice of a nesting site. The desirability of the nesting site may in such cases influence the female’s choice of a mate, for she is as much interested in having a comfortable and safe home as in choosing a handsome husband. ”

“ Now comes a youth who thrice has repelled the Hus, and because he has the courage to tell you the truth, you order him hanged without mercy or any thought of me. Henceforth I shall do my own choosing when it comes to mating! ”

“ Left to mere chance there is no reason why a season’s mating should allocate the web-footed male to the web-footed female. Each one of the ten males has nine chances to one of paring with a non-advantaged mate, and only one chance of mating with a hen similar to himself and possessing, as he does, this infinitesimal advantageous differentiation. On the average you would have only one couple in each hundred handing on in full even that first tiny advantage to their progeny with a corresponding tiny survival-value. ”

“ The male must find and impregnate the female, and this fact sets a certain limit to his degeneration, at least in some period of his life, because any further degeneration would involve fundamental changes in the method of reproduction which may not be possible. But besides acting as a check to degeneration, the necessity for mating has in general been a constant force making for the evolution of activity, enterprise, acuity of sense, prowess in battle, and the higher psychic powers. ”

“ I'd managed to stay in a golden daze from the time in the Garden till that moment, refusing to think through the implications of what Larry said.
Sex. Sex is mating and reproduction. Dating and dancing and kissing are parts of the courtship procedure. And the television shows all stop with kissing, because the mating itself is taboo. ”

“ There remain the two other characteristics which we found to be constant under all circumstances, namely, loudness and specific distinctness; and if, in addition to serving the purpose of disclosing the positions of the males, they serve to evoke some emotion in the female, which helps to further the biological end of mating, so much the more reason is there for their survival. ”

“ But the very fact that transient mating does involve so much human agony, especially on the part of the woman, is all the more reason why it is needless to add artificial burdens to those already compelled by the very nature of the emotional life.
The study of child psychology, too, would tend to discourage any general tendency to temporary sexual relationships. Modern research has shown that nothing is more necessary for the normal development of the child's emotional life than a happy home environment with the presence of both father and mother. ”

“ The long, blank-walled anteroom of the mating center was crowded to capacity with love-privileged men and women who had been granted short emergency leaves and were waiting to have their identification disks checked. ”

“ You will note that by each mating a point is either gained or lost in the blood of the stock. In fact two separate blood lines are quickly established, a male and a female line. If you will carry out the system as shown in the accompanying chart, you can soon have your males all looking like the original male and the females looking like the original female of the line. ”

“ The pivotal idea is that when the time for mating arrives the selection of a wife by the prospective husband must be in accordance with true conjugal harmony, and this is not possible in the absence of Spiritual development. ”

“ While we have to recognize that the modification and even total inhibition of sexual ideals in the process of actual mating is largely due to psychic causes, such causes do not appear to cover the whole of the phenomena. Undoubtedly they count for much, and the man or the woman who, from whatever causes, has constituted a sexual ideal with certain characters may in the actual contacts of life find that individuals with other and even opposed characters most adequately respond to his or her psychic demands. ”

“ The sexes concentrate their whole attention on mating. After that the female thinks of nothing but laying eggs. Almost immediately after she is placed within her little tin she begins to deposit eggs, and within a few hours the circle of the card is covered. ”

“ The female makes no positive response but reacts to the male’s presence by fleeing, either frantically or perfunctorily, but if she is physiologically ready to breed the reaction is usually somewhat intermediate between these extremes. The first reaction of the male as he approaches the female is to touch her with his tongue, apparently receiving olfactory stimuli which are essential to the mating pattern. ”

“ There can be no question that this ingenious and attractive theory, if it were true in its special application to song, would immensely simplify interpretation, and moreover that preferential mating would contribute not a little to the success of the whole territorial system. No one can deny the strength of the argument: that the sexual instinct, like all other instincts, must require a stimulus of an appropriate kind; that the effect of the sexual call upon the female cannot be neutral; and hence the probability that stimulation varies too ”

“ During the time that a child is still nursing at the mother’s breast, there is that instinctive, protective parental affection observable in all mating animals; but after the child is weaned and is able to toddle, it is allowed to ramble pretty much where it will, and to take its educational bumps and tumbles without parental worry. Mother Nature provides the only clothes it wears, and, after her own healing, scarifying [142] fashion, darns and patches the rents and tears that they may receive. ”

“ Moreover, within certain limitations, the more these successful females varied in the date of their development, the less severe would be the competition, and178 the more uniformly successful would the mating of all the individuals in a given district tend to become. But all of this renders an interval of sexual inactivity unavoidable; an interval which must constitute a danger unless there were something in the external environment to prevent the male and female from drifting apart. ”