courting-dances

Updated: May 14, 2025

There are such things as Courting-dances, when the mature male and female go through a ritual together not only in civilized ball-rooms and the back-parlors of inns, but in the farmyards where the rooster pays his addresses to the hen, or the yearling bull to the cow with quite recognized formalities; there are elaborate ceremonials performed by the Australian bower-birds and many other animals.

Edward Carpenter - Pagan and Christian creeds: their origin and meaning