ABSTRACT
When the Chinese philosophers wished to build up a theory of love they explained that in springtime the girls were attracted by the boys, and in autumn the boys by the girls, as though each of them in turn feeling his nature to be incomplete, was suddenly seized with the irresistible desire to perfect it.1 Spring was the season of betrothals : in old times the initiative came from the girls. Autumn was the time for setting up house : the wife must come, without delay, to live at her husband's home.2 In autumn the husbandmen were rich in grain, garnered for the winter : but the women, in spring, had abundance of still more precious riches, stuffs newly woven. At first the women weavers had the means of attracting the husbandmen : then they, in their turn, had the means of making themselves agreeable to the weavers. All, alternatively, had their charms and were able to realize their desire.
