34 PEOPLE of primitive society tended to raise the average of the fighting peoples, but this is extremely doubtful. It is more likely that war never was a eugenic measure as for the most part the strong men were those selected for warriors, while as in our times, the weak were left at home to reproduce the next generation. So it would seem that even where whole nations were dragged into slavery the total effect was not all that could have been desired. The rape of the Sabine women meant more than surface indications. When in ancient times a nation dragged another off into slavery, sometimes the women would bear children by the conquerors and the men of the subject race might be killed. But more often the men slaves and the women slaves lived together. The hardy shepherd slaves constituted the armies of two Roman generals, and in Cato, I have found a reference to the breeding of shepherds. After referring to the breeding of many kinds of animals, the old Roman remarks in all seriousness: "As to what relates to the breeding of shepherds, it is easy, insofar as concerns those who remain on the farmstead; the pastoral Venus demands no more. Some hold that it is also expedient to furnish women for those who pasture the flocks in the meadows and the forests and have no residence but find their shelter from the rain under improvised sheds; that such women feeding the flocks and bringing the food for the shepherds keep the men better satisfied and more devoted to their duty. But they must needs be strong, though not deformed, and no less capable that the men themselves as they are in many localities and as may be seen from Illyricum where the women feed the flocks or carry in wood.... and keep the food and watch over the household utensils in their cottages." [photo, center top][photo credit]By Cowling, from Ewing Galloway [photo caption]KIKUYU BELLE In primitive tribes a woman is considered socially valuable in direct ratio to her fertility. [photo][photo credit]Ewing Galloway [photo caption]A NATIVE VILLAGE IN THE NEW HEBRIDES Curious customs of intermarriage among close blood relatives exist in parts of the New Hebrides. In Pentecost Island a man may marry the daughter of a daughter of his brother - i.e., his grand niece. [end]