A minor point may be illustrative. The racial mixture in the background of black people is so varied that it is extremely rare to find two Negroes who have exactly the same brown tones to their skin. There is usually a bit more yellow or red or black that distinguishes seemingly identical skin colors from one another. But these are minor variations on a brown theme and their least deviations are generally of small moment to adults.

The infant’s world is so very different in this regard. His mother’s body is a vitally important part of his world. Her breasts, her hands, arms, face, are the most important things he sees and touches. She is the first human he recognizes and for a long time in his small life she is bringer of life.

As he plays with her breast or face, he looks intently, with the myopic vision of a child, at her skin. Its color becomes to him the color of all loving people’s skin, and in fact the particular skin tones he sees as a child will ever after evoke emotional overtones based on that intimacy. It is no wonder then that men choose women whose skin tones are closely matched to their mother’s, or that in multiple marriages all the wives will have the identical color.