Note 455 — Chapter III · THEORY OF THE ORIGINAL PAIRING OR MONOGAMOUS FAMILY
Reading edition
Owing to the hard conditions of life, female beauty fades early among savage and barbarous peoples, sometimes even among those reckoned as civilized. A fresh wife is demanded when the first grows old. In some cases the husband is forbidden by custom to cohabit with his wife until the child is weaned, though suckling may continue two, three, or four years: Westermarck, op. cit., 483-88; Ploss, Das Weib, I, 58, 59 (fading beauty).