Marriage's comic and lewd side is scarcely found in civilizations that do not individualize woman: in the East, in Greece, in Rome; the animal function appears there in as generalized a form as do the social rites; but today in the West, men and women are grasped as individuals, and wedding guests snigger because it is this particular man and this particular woman who, in an altogether individual experience, are going to consummate the act that we disguise in rites, speeches, and flowers.