line of least resistance

“The Via Aemilia Scauri ended at Vada Sabatia; from that point on there was no road in the Roman sense, just a wagon trail which followed the line of least resistance through an area where very high mountains plunged into the sea.”

The First Man in Rome

“This line of least resistance is determined by the organic nervous constitution and by certain life-experiences or habit-formation factors.”

The Journal of Abnormal Psychology

“There being no question of a line of least resistance for woman, it is fairly obvious that the necessity (in many instances) of making a silk purse out of a sow's ear and instilling the qualities of tidiness, love of home, cowardice, unintelligence, etc., etc., into persons who were born with quite other capacities and defects must have resulted in a pitiable waste of good material, sacrificed upon the altar of a domesticity arranged in the interests of the husband.”

Marriage as a Trade