But there are certain elements of feminine beauty, on the other hand, which come in under this head, and which are of so concrete and specific a character as to admit of itemized appreciation.

It is more or less a rule that in communities which are at the stage of economic development at which women are valued by the upper class for their service, the ideal of female beauty is a robust, large-limbed woman.

The ground of appreciation is the physique, while the conformation of the face is of secondary weight only.

A well-known instance of this ideal of the early predatory culture is that of the maidens of the Homeric poems.
This ideal suffers a change in the succeeding development, when, in the conventional scheme, the office of the high-class wife comes to be a vicarious leisure simply.

The ideal then includes the characteristics which are supposed to result from or to go with a life of leisure consistently enforced.