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STUDIES
Psychology of Sex
HAVKLOCK ELLIS
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STUDIES IN THE
PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
I. nt EviMiM If Hi<Mt|>, Ike PbeMMM
•I SmuiI PeriilicilT iwl JtDii-tnliia.
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II. ShhiI livBriinii. SZ.OD, Ml.
IIL llHl|iit*ltlKleiuillnpBlH. I2.0B, nt
». Senal leleMiaa la Hu. tZ.IO, Rel.
I. Emit Synhaliin. Ik: HcehHitn gf Itlii-
VL Sei ii Belitioa ti tiGlatr. S3.BI, lef.
Each volume is sold wparately, and ii
complete in itself.
This is (he only edition in English pub-
lished by the author's permissioa.
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STUDIES
PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX
VOLUME VI
SEX IN RELATION TO SOQETY
HAVELOCK ELLIS
F. A. DAVJ8 COMPAMY, PUBUSHEKS
1913
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BOSTON MEDICAL LIBRARV
FRANCIS A. COUmWAY
uBftwnorMEOicnE
COPYRICHT, 1910
V. A- DAV13 COMPANY
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Is the previous five volumes of these Studies, I have dealt
mainly with the sexual impulse in relation to its object, leaving
out of account the external persons and tlie environmental
influences which yet may powerfully affect that impulse and its
gratification. We cannot afford, however, to pnes unnoticed this
relationship of the sexual impuli=e to third persons and to the
community at large with all its anciently established traditions.
We have to consider sex in relation to society.
In so doing, it will be po^ible to discusB more summarily
than in preceding volumes the manifold and important problems
that are presented to us. In considering the more special ques-
tions of sexual psycliology we entered a neglected field and it
was necessary to expend an analytic care and precii^ion which at
many points had never been expended before on these questions.
But when we reach the relationships of sex to so(ict\ we have for
tlie most part no such ueglcLt to encounter. The subject of every
chapter in the present volume could easily form, and often has
formed, the topic of a volume, and the literature of many of
these subjects is already extremely voluminous. It must there-
fore be our main object here not to accumulate details but to
place each subject by tiirn, as clearly and succinctly as may be,
In relation to tliose fundamental principles of sexual psychology
which — BO far as the data at present admit — have been set forth
in the preceding volumes.
It may seem to some, indeed, that in this expt}^itiun I should
have confined myself to the present, and not included so wide a
sweep of the course of human ]ii?tory und the traditions of the
race. It may especially seem that I have laid too great a stress
on th'e influence of Christianity in moulding sexual ideals and
establishing sexual institutions. That, I am convinced, is an
(V)
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error. It is because it ib so frequently made that the movements
of progress among ua — movements that can never at any period
of social history cease — are by many so seriously misunderstood.
We cannot escape from our traditions. There never has been,
and never can be, any "age of reason." The most ardent co-called
"free-thinker," who casts aside as lie imagines the authority of
the Christian past, is still held by that past. If its traditions are
not absolutely in his blood, they are ingrained in the texture of
all the social institutions into which he was bom and they affect
even his modes of thinking. The latest modifications of our
institutions are inevitably influenced by the past form of those
institutions. We cannot realize where we are, nor whither we are
moving, unless we know whence we came. We cannot under-
stand the significance of the changes around us, nor face them
with cheerful confidence, unless we are acquainted with the drift
of the great movements that stir all civilization in never-ending
cycles.
In discussing sexual questions which are very largely matters
of social hygiene we shall thus still be preserving tiie psycho-
logical point of view. Such a point of view in relation to these
matters is not only legitimate but necessary. Discussions of
social hygiene that are purely medical or purely juridical or
purely moral or purely theological not only lead to conclusions
that are often entirely opposed to each other but they obviously
fail to possess complete applicability to the complex human per-
sonality. The main task before us must he to ascertain what best
expresses, and what best satisfies, the totality of the impulses and
ideas of civilized men and women. So that while wo must con-
stantly bear in mind medical, legal, and moral demands — which
all correspond in some respects to some individual or social need
— the main thing is to satisfy the demands of the whole human
person.
It is necessary to emphasize this point of view because it
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would aeenf that no error is more common among writers on
the hygienic and moral problems of sex than the neglect of
the psychological standpoint. They may take, for instance, the
side of sexual restraint, or the side of sexual unrestraint, but
they fail to realize that so narrow a basis is inadequate for the
needs of complex human beings. From the wider paychological
standpoint we recognize that we have to conciliate opposing
impulses that are both alike founded on the human psychic
organism.
In the preceding volumes of these Studies I have sought to
refrain from the expression of any personal opinion and to main-
tain, 80 far as possible, a strictly objective attitude. In this
endeavor, I trust, I have been successful if I may judge from
the fact that I have received the sympathy and approval of all
kinds of people, not less of the rationalistic free-tliinker than of
the orthodox believer, of those who accept, as well as of those
who reject, our most current standards of morality. This is as
it should be, for whatever our criteria of the worth of feelings
and of conduct, it must always be of use to us to know what
exactly are the feelings of people and how those feelings tend to
affect their conduct. In the present volume, however, where
social traditions necessarily come in for consideration and where
we have to discuss the growth of those traditions in the past and
their probable evolution in the future, I am not sanguine that
the objectivity of my attitude will be equally clear to the reader.
I liave here to set down not only what people actually feel and
do but what I think they are tending to feel and do. That is a
matter of estimation only, however widely and however cautiously
it is approached ; it cannot be a matter of absolute demonstration.
I trust that those who have followed me in the past will bear with
me still, even if it is impossible for them always to accept the
conclusions I have myself reached.
Havelock Ellis.
Carbis Bay, Coniwall, England.
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The Motkeb and Her Chiij>.
Tlie Child'H Right to Choose Ita Ancestry— How This Is Effected—
The Mother the Child's Supreme Psrent — Motherhood nnd tlic
Woman Movement — The Immense Importance at Motherhood —
Infant Mortality and Ita Causes — The Chief Cause in tiie
Mother — The Need of Rest During Pregnancy — Frequency of
I>reniBture Birth — The Function of the State — Recent Advance
in Puericulture — Ttie Question of Coitus During Pr^nancy —
The Need of Rest During Lactation — The Mother's Duly to
Suckle Her Child— The Economic Question — The Duty of the
State — Recent Progress in the Protection of the Mother — Tlie
Fallacy o( State Nurseries 1
CHAPTER II.
Sezcu. Education.
Nurture Necessary as Well as Breed — Precocious Manifestations of
the Sexual Impulse — Are they to be Regarded as Normal t — The
Sexual Play of Children— The Emotion of Love in Childhood-
Are Torni Children More Precocious Sexually Than Country
Children! — Children's Ideas Concerning the Origin of Babies —
Need for Beginning the Sexual Education uf Children in Early
Years — The Importance of Early Training in Responsibility —
Evil of the Old Doctrine of Silence in Matters of Sex—The Evil
^lagniflcd ^^'hen Applied to Girls— The Jlother the Natural and
Best Teacher— The Morbid Influence of Artificial Mystery in Si-x
Matters — Books on Kexual Enlightenment of the Young — Nature
of the Mother's Task— Sexual Education in the School— The
Value of Botany — ZoJilDBy— Sewial Educalion After Puberty —
The Necessity of CoimteractinR Quack Literature — Danger of
Neglecting to Prepare for the First Onset of Menstruation — The
Right Attitude Towards Woman's Sexual Life— The Vital Neoes-
si^ of the Hygiene of Menstruation During Adolescence — Such
Hygiene Compatible with the Educational and Social Equality
of the Sexes — The Invalidism of Women Mainly Due to Hygienic
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NrglMt — Good IndanMe of Pbi^k*] TrauuMg on noom aiid Bad
InflupiKv of AthlMics — Tbe Eiib of EmmmmJ SapprMsion —
Knd of Tvaching xke Dignily of Sex — Indivw of TIkm Factors
on a Wonun's Fate in Uania^v — Lrclum and Addrcaaw od
Sexoal Hvginw — Tb« Donor's Part ia Senal Education —
Pubertal InitiatioB Into the Idnl World — Tttt Plw of the Re-
ligious and Etliital Ttaettpr — Tlw Initiation Rites of Savages Into
Manhood and Womanhood — The Sexual ItUhwarc of Litermtai* —
The Sexual InflueiM* of Art
CHAPTER III.
Sesc&l EorcAtios ASB N'AKDTisa.
The .Greek Attitude Tfward^ N'aLedne^si — How the Romans Modi-
fied That Attitude — The Inauenre of Ch riiitian) I v— Nakedness in
^[ediKval Times — Evolution of the Horror of Nakedness — Con-
comitant Change in the Conception of Nakedness — Pniderj- — The
Romantic Movement — Rise of a New Feeling in Regard to Naked-
ness— The Urgienic Aspect of Nakedness — How Children May Be
Arcustomed to Nakedness — N'akedness Not Inimical to Modesty—
The Instinct of Physical Pride — The Value of Nakedness in Edu-
cation— The .^Tsthetic Value of Nakedness — The Human Body as
One of (be Prime Tonics of Life — Bow Nakedness May Be Culti-
vated— The Moral \'alue of Nakedness
CHAPTER IV.
The ViLCATtos or SEXuii. Lots.
The Conception of Sexual Love— The Attitude of Medieval As«eti-
cism — St, Bernard and St. Odo of Cluny— The Ascetic Insistence
on the Proiimity of the Sexual and Eicretory Centres — Love
as a Sacrament of Nature — The Idea of the Impurity of Sex In
Primitive Religions Generally — Theories of the Origin of This
Idea — The An ti-Ancetic Element in the Bible and Early Chris-
tianity— Clement of Alexandria — St. Augustine's Attitude — The
Recognition of the Racredness of the Body by Tertutllan, Ruflnus
and Atbanasius — The Reformation — The Sexual Instinct Re-
garded as Beastly — The Human Sexual Instinct Not Animal-like
^Lust and I^ve~The Definition of Love — I»ve and Names for
I^ve I'nknown in Some Parts of the World — Romantic Love of
Late Development In the White Race — The Mystery of Sexual De-
sire— Whether Love is a Delusion— The Spiritual as Well as the
Physical Structure of the World in Part Built up on Sexual Love
The Testimony of Men of Intellect to the Supremacy ot Love. ... I
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CONTENTS. XI
CHAPTER V.
Thk Function op Chabtitt. pxaa
Chastity EBSvntinl to the Dignity of Love— The Fighteenth Century
Revolt Against the Ideal of Chastity ^Unnatural Forms of
Chastity — The Psychological Basis of Asceticism — Asceticism and
Chastity as Savage Virtues— The Significance of Tahiti — Chastity
Among Barbarous Peoples — Chastity Among the Early Christians
— Struggles of the Saints with the Flesh — The Romance of
Christian Chastity — Its Decay in Mediaval Times — Auoaaain et
JiicoUtle-anA the New Romance of Chaste I-ove— The I'nchastity
of the Northern Barbarians — The Penitentials — Influence of the
Renaissance and the Reformation — The Revolt Against Virginity
as a Virtue — The Modem Conception of Chastity as a Virtue —
The Influences That Favor the Virtue of Chastity — Chastity as
a Discipline — The Value of Chftstity for the Artist — Potency and
Impotence in Popular Estimation — The Correct Definitions of
Asceticism and Chastity 143
CHAPTER VI.
The PnoBiixic of Sexual ABSriRKncE.
The Influence of Tradition— The Theological Conception of Lust —
Tendency of These Influences to Degrade Sexual Morality — ^Their
Result in Creating the Problem of Sexual Abstinence — The Pro-
tests Against Sexual Abstinence — Sexual Abstinence and Genius —
Sexual Abstinence in Women — The Advocates of Sexual Absti-
nence— Intermediate Attitude — Unsatisfactory Nature of the
Whole Discunsion — Criticism of the Conception of Sexual AE>st{-
ncnce — Sexual Abstinence aa Compared to Abstinence from Food —
No Complete Anali^[y — The Morality of Sexual Abstinence En-
tirely Negative — Is It the Physician's Duty to Advise Extra-
Conjugal Sexual IntercoursG? — Opinions of Those Who AfQrm
or Deny This Duty— The Conclusion Against Such Advice— The
Physician Bound by the Social and Moral Ideas of His Age —
The Physician as Reformer — Sexual Abstinence and Sexual Hy-
giene— Alcohol — The Influence of Physical and Mental Exer-
dse— The Inadequacy of Sexual Hygiene in Tliis Field- The
Unreal Nature of the Conception of Sexual Abstinence — The
Necessity o( Replacing It by a More Positive Ideal ITS
CHAPTER VII.
Pbosttfution.
I. The Orgy: — The Religious Origin of the Orgy— The Feast of
Fools — Recognition of the Orgy by the Greeks and Romans —
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The Orgy An»>ng Savage*— The Drama— The Object Subserved
by the Orgj- 21»
II. The Origin and Dfvelopment of Prostitution: — The Deftaition of
Prostitution — I'Tostitution Among Savagen — -The Condi tions Un-
der Which ProfeBsionnl Prostitution ArJHos — Sacred Prostitu-
tion—The Rite of Mylitta— Tiie I'raptiee of Prostitution to
Obtain a Marriage Portion — The Bi"e of Secular Prostitution in
(Ireece — Prostitution in the E«it — India. Ohina, Japan, etc, —
Proftitiition in Rome — The Influence of Cliristianity on Prosti-
tution—The EfTort to Combat PrOHtitution— The Medieval
Brothel — The Appearance of the Courtesan — Tullia D'Aragona
— Veronica Franco — Ninon de I^neloR — Ijitj-r Attempts to Emdi-
Hite Prostitution- The Regulation of I'rontitution- Its Futility
Becoming Recagnized 224
III. The Causes of Prosfitulion : — Prostiliition as a Part of the
Marriage .System — The Complex Causation of Prostitution— Tlie
Motives Assigned by Prostitutes — (1| I-k'ononiic Factor of Prosti-
tution— Poverty Seldom the Chief Motive for Proirtitution —
But Economic Pressure Exerts a Real Influence — The Large Pro-
portion of Prostitutes Recruited from Domestic Service— Signifi-
cance of This Fact — (2) The Biological Factor of Prostitution —
The So-ealle<l Bom- Prostitute — Alleged Identity with the Born-
Criminal— The Sexual Instinct in Prostitutes— Tile Physical ami
Psychic Characters of Prostitutes — (.1) Moral Necessity as a
Factor in the Existence of Proilitutiou—The Moral Advocates
of Prostitution- The Moral Attitude of Christianity Towards
Prostitution — The Attitude of Protestantism — Recent Advocates
of the Moral Necessity of Prostitution — (4) Civiliiational Value
as a Factor of Prostitution— The Influence of I'rban Life — The
Craving for Kvcitement — Why .''erv nut -girls so Often Turn to
Prostitution- The Small Part Played hy Seduction- Prostitutes
Come largely from the Country — The Appeal of Civilization
Attracts Women to Prostitution — The Torres landing Attraction
Felt by Men — Tlie Prostitute n« Arll-t and Losder of Fasliion—
The Charm of Vulgarity 2o4
IV. The Preaent Social AitUndc Toitarih /'roi^ifHlwit.— Tlie Decay
of the Brothel— The Tendency to the niimnniaitinn of Prostitii-
tion— The Monetary Aspects of Prnslitution— The f!ei»ha~Tbe
Hetaira — The Moral Revolt Against Prostitution- Squalid Vice
Based on Luxurious Virtue — The Ordlnori' Attitude Towards
Prosfitules- Its Cruelty Absurd — Tlie Need of Reforming Pros-
titntion— Tlie Need of Reforming Ma iriagc— These Two Needs
Closely Correlated — The Dynamic Relationships Invoh-ed 302
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CHAITKH VIII.
The Cosquest of tub Venebeal Diseasrs.
lie Significance ot the V^nerenl Di^asni — The Histoiy of SypliHis
The Problem of Its OriKir— The Social Gravity of Syphilia— Tlie
Social Dangers of Gonorrhoeu— The Modern Change in the Meth-
ods of Combating Venereal Diseaiwa — Causes of the Decay of tlip
iSyatem of Police Regulation — Necessity ot Facing the Facta —
The Innocent Victitns of Venereal Diseases — Diseases Not
Crimea — The Principle of Notilicatian — The Scandinavian System
— Gratuitous Treatment — Punishment For Transmitting Vene-
real Diseases — Sexual Education in Relation to Venereal DiaeaseA
^I^clures, Etc. — Discussion in Novels and on the Stage — The
"Disgusting" Not the "Immornl" 319
CHAPTER IX.
Sexuai. Mobautt.
'rostitution iu Relation to Our Marriage System — Marriage and
Morality— The Definition of tJie Term "Morality"— Theoretical
Afnrality — Its Division Into Traditional Morality and Ideal
Morally — Practical Slorality — Practical Morality Based on
Custom— The Only Subject of Scientific Ethics — Tlie Reaction
Between Theoretical and Practical Morality — Se\ual Morality
in the Past an Application of Economic Moralit.v— The Com-
bined Rigidity and I-axity of This Morality— The Growth
of a Specific Sexual Morality and the Evolution ot Moral
Ideals — ManifeHtatluns of Si'xual Moralit.v— Disregard of the
Forms ot Kfarriage — Trial Miarriage — Marriage After Con-
ception ot Child — Phenomena in Germany. Anglo-Saxon Coun-
tries, Russia, etc. — The Status of Woman — The Historical Tend-
ency Favoring Moral Equality i)f Women with Men — The Theory
of the Matriarclmte — Mother- Descent^ — Women in Babylonia —
Egypt — Rome — The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries — The
Historical Tendency Favoring Moral Inequality ot Woman — The
.Ambiguous Influence of Christianity — Influence of Teutonic Cus-
tom and Feudalism — Chivalry — Woman in England— The Sale of
Wives- The Vanishing Subjection of Woman— Inaptitude of the
Modem Man to Domineer — The Growth of Moral Responsibility
in Women — The Concomitant Development of Economic Indepen-
dence— Tlie Increase of Women Who Work— Invasion of the
Modem Industrial Field by Women — In Hoiv Far Tliis Is Socially
JustifUble— The Sexual Responsibility of Women tind Its Con!ie-
quences— Tlie AJleged Moral Inferiority of Women— Tlie "Selt-
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Sacrifice" of Women — Socielr Xot CoDCemcd with Sexual Rela-
lionships — Procreation the Sole Sexual Oonccm of the St»te^
Tbc Supreme Importance of Matemit; 3
CHAPTER S.
The Definition of Marriaee — Marringe AmoDg Animals — The Pre-
dominanre of Monogamy — The Question of Group Mairiige —
IMonogamj a Natural Fact, Sot Based on Human Law— The Tend-
encj to Ptafv the Form of Marriage Aboi~e the Fact of Marriage
— The History of Marriage — Marriage in Ancient Rome — Ger-
manic Infliii'Hce on ) I arri age— Bride-Sale — The King — The Influ-
ence of Christianity on Marriage — The Great Estent of this
Influence — The Sacrament of Matrimony — Origin and Growth
o( the Sacramental Conception — The Church Made Marriage a
Puhlic Act — Canon Law — Its Sound Core — Its Development — Its
Confusions and Ahsiirdilics — Prrnliarities of English Marriage
Law— Influence of the Reformation on Marriage — The Protestant
Conception of ilarriagc as a Secular Contract — The Puritan Re-
form of Marringe — Milton fts the Pioneer of Marriage Reform —
His \'iews on Di»orc(--The B;ick\vard Position of England in
Marriage Reform — Criticism of the Engli'^li Divorce Law— Tradi-
tions of the Canon Iji«- Still Persiitenl— The Question of Damagia
for Adulteij' — Collusion as a Bar to Divorce — Divorce in France,
(Jcrmany. Austria, Russia, etc. — The I'nited States — Impossihit-
ity of IXtiding by Statute the Causes for Divorce — Divorce by
JIutnal Consent — Its Origin and Development — Impeded by the
Traditions of Canon Ijiu— Wilhelm von Humboldt— Modern
Pioneer Advocates of Divorce by Mutual ConflenU-Tlie Argu-
ments Against Facility of Divorce— The Interests of the Cbil-
dren— The I'rotection of Women — The Present Tendency of the
Diiorce Movement — Marriage Xot a Contract — Tlic Proposal of
Marriage for a Term of Years— Legal Disabilities and Disad-
advantnges in the Position of the Husband and the Wife — Mar-
riage Xot a Contract But a Fact— tlnly the Xon-Kssentials of
Marriage. Xot the Kssentials, a Proper Matter for Contract —
The Legal Reeognition of Marriage as a Fact Without Any Cere-
mony— Contracts of the Person Opposed to Modern Tendencies —
The Factor of 5loral Rcsponsiliilifv — Marriage as on Ethical
Sacrament — Personal Responsibility Involves Freedom — Freedom
the Best Guarantee of Stability- False Ideas of Individualism—
Alodem Tendency of JIarri age— With the Birth of a Child Mar-
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riage Ceasefl to be a Private Concern — Every Child Must Have
a Legal Father and Mother— How This Can be Effected — Tlie
Finn Baaia of Monogamy — The Question of Marriage Varia-
tiona — Such Variationa Not Inimical to Mont^my — The Most
Common Variationa — The Flexibility of Marriage Holds Varia-
tions in Check — Marriage Variations versus Prostitution — Mar-
riage on a Reasonable and Humane Basis — Summary and Con-
clusion 420
CHAFfER XI.
The Abt of Lovk.
Marriage Not Only for Procreation — Theologians on the Sacra-
mentum BoUttionit — Importance of the Art of Love — The Basis
of Stability in Marriage and th? Condition for Right Procrea-
tion— The Art of Love the Bulwark Against Divorce — The Unity
of Love and Marriage a Principle of Modern Morality — Christian-
ity and the Art of Love — Oiid — The Art of Love Among Primi-
tive Peoples — Sexual Initiation in Africa and Elsewhere — The
Tendency to Spontaneous Development of the Art of Love in
Early Life — Flirtation — Sexual Ignorance in Women— The Hus-
band's Place in Sexual Initiation — Sexual Ignorance in Men—
The Husband's Education for Marriage — The Injury Done by the
Ignorance of Husbands — The Physical and Mental Results of
Unskilful Coitus — Women Understand the Art of Love Better
Than Men — Ancient and Modem Opinions Concerning Frequency
of Coitus — Variation in Sexual Capacity — The Sexual Appetite —
The Art of Love Based on the Biological Facta of Courtship —
The Art of Pleasing Women^The Lover Compared to the Mu-
sician—The Proposal as a Part of Courtship— Divination in the
Art of Love — The Importance of the Preliminaries in Courtship —
The Unskilful Husband Frequently the Cause of the Frigid Wife
— The Difficulty of Courtship — Simultaneous Orgasm — The Evils
of Incomplete Gratification In Women — Coitus Intcrruptus —
Coitus Rescn-atUH— The Human Method of Coitus — Variations
in Coitus — Posture in Coitus — The Best Time for Coitus — The
Influence of Coitus in Marriage — The Advantages of Absence in
Marriage — The Risks of Absence — Jealnusy — The Primitive Func-
tion of Jealousy — Its Predominance Among Animals, Savages,
etc, and in Pathological Stntcs — An Anti-Swial Emotion —
Jealousy Incompatible Wilh the Progress of Civilization — The
Possibility of T^iving More Than One Person at n Tim* — Platonic
Friendship — The Conditions Which Make It Possible— The ila-
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lernal ElemeDt in Woman's Love — The Final Development of
Conjugal Love — The Problem of Imvu One of tlie (irentest of
Social Questions 507
CHAPTER XII.
The Science of PaocEEATtoK,
Tlie RelatiSuahip of the Science of Procreation to tlip Art of Love —
Sexual Desire and Sexual Pleasure as tlie Conditions of Con-
ception— Reproduction Formerly Left to Caprice and Lust — The
Question of Procreation as a Religious Question — The Creed of
Eugenics — Ellen Kev and Sir Francis Galton — Our E)ebt to Poh-
teritj— The Problem of Replacing Natural Selection— The Origin
and Development of Kugenics — The General Acceptance of Eu-
genical Principles To-day — The Two Channels by Which Eugenical
Principles are Becoming Embodied in Practice — The Sense of
Sexual Responsibility in Women — The Rejection of Compulsory
Motherhood — The Privilege of Voluntary Motherhood — Causes of
the Degradation of Motherhood — The Control of Conception — Now-
Practiced by the Majority of the Population in C'ivilixed Coun-
tries— The Fallaej- of "Racial Suicide" — Are Large Families a
Stigma of Degeneration ?—Procreative Control the Outcome of
Natural and Civili7-ed Progress— The Crowth of NeoMalthusian
Beliefs and Practices — Facultative Sterility as Distinct from
Neo-Malthusianism — The Medical and Hygienic .Necessity of
Control of Conception — Preventive Methods — Abortion— The
New Doctrine of the Duty to Practice Abortion — How Far is this
JustiflableT — Castration as a Method of Controlling Procreation
— Negative Eugenics and Positive Eugenics — The Question of Cer-
tificates for Marriage — Tlie Inadequacy of Eugenics by Act of
Parliament — The Quickening of the Social Conscience in Regard
to Heredity — Limitations to the Endowment of Motherhood —
The Conditions Favorable to Procreation — Sterility — The Ques*
tion of Artificial Fecundation — The Best Age of Procreation —
The Question of Early Motherhood— The Best Time for Pro-
«reation — The Completion of the Divine Cycle of Life 5TS
DiclzedbyGoOglC
CHAPTER I.
THE MOTHER AND HER CHILD.
The Child's Right to Choose lU AncesUy— How This ia Effected—
The MoUier the Child's Supreme Parent — Motherhood and the Woman
Horement— The Immense Importance of Motherhood — Tofaiit Mortality
and Its Causes— The Chief Cause in the Mother— The Need of Rest
During Pregnancy — Frequency of Premature Birth — The Function of
the State — Recent Advance in Puericulture — The Question of Coitus
During Pregnancy — The Need of Rest During Lactation — The Mother's
Duty to Suckle Her Child— The Economic Question— The Duty of the
State — Recent Progress in the Protection of the Motlier — The Fallacy
of State Nurseries.
A man's sexual nature, liiie all else that is most essential
in hitn, is rooted in a soil that was formed very long before his
birth. In this, as in every other respect, he draws tiie elements
of his life from his ancestors, however new the recombination
may be and however greatly it may be modified by subsequent
conditions. A man's destiny stands not in the future but in the
past. That, rightly considered, is the most vital of all vital
facts. Every child thus has a right to choose his own ancestors.
Naturally he can only do. this vicariously, through his parents.
It is the most seriouB and sacred duty of the future father to
choose one half of the ancestral and hereditary character of his
future child ; it is the most serious and sacred duty of the
future mother to make a similar choice.^ In choosing each
other they have between them chosen the whole ancestry of their
child. They have determined the stars that will rale his fate.
In the past that fateful determination has usually been
made helplessly, ignorantly, almost imconseiously. It has either
1 It is not, of course, always literally true that each parent sup-
plies exactly half the heredity, for, as ve see among animals generally,
the ofTspring may sometimes approach more nearly to one parent, some-
times to the other, while among plants, as De Vries and others have
«hown, the heredity may be still more unequally divided.
(1)
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X PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
been guided by an instinct which, on the whole, has worked out
fairly wel!, or controlled by economic interests of the results of
which so much cannot be said, or left to the risks of lower than
bestial chances which can produce nothing but evil. In the
future we cannot but have faith — for all the hope of humanity
must rest on that faith — that a new guiding impulse, reinforcing
natural instinct and becoming in time an inseparable accom-
paniment of it, will lead civilized man on his racial course. Just
as in the past the race has, on the whole, been moulded by a
natural, and in part sexual, selection, that was unconscious of
itself and ignorant of the ends it made towards, so in the future
the race will be moulded by deliberate selection, the creative
energy of Nature becoming self-conscious in the civilized brain
of man. This is not a faith which has its source in a vague
hope. The problems of the individual life are linked on to the
fate of the racial life, and again and again we shall find ae we
ponder the individual questions we are here concerned with, that
at all points they ultimately converge towards this same racial
end.
Since we have here, therefore, to follow out the sexual
relationships of the individual as they bear on society, it will
be convenient at this point to put aside the questions of ancestry
and to accept the individual as, with hereditary constitution
already determined, he lies in his mother's womb.
It is the mother who is the child's supreme parent. At
various points in zoological evolution it has seemed possible that
the functions that we now know as those of maternity would be
largely and even equally shared by the male parent. Nature has
tried various experiments in this direction, among the fishes, for
instance, and even among birds. But reasonable and excellent
as these experiments were, and though they were sufficiently sound
to secure their perpetuation unto this day, it remains true that it
was not along these lines that Man was destined to emerge.
Among all the mammal predecessors of Man, the male is an
imposing and important figure in the early days of courtship,
but after conception has once been secured the mother plays the
chief part in the racial life. The male must be content to forage
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TEE MOTHEB AND HBB CHILD. 3
abroad and stand on guard whea at home in the ante-chamber of
the family. When she has once been impregnated the female
animal angrily rejects the careseeB she had welcomed so coquet-
tishly before, and even in Man the place of the father at the birth
of hig child is not a notably dignified or comfortable one.
Nature accords the male but a secondary and comparatively
humble place in tlie home, the breeding-place of the race ; he may
, compensate himself if he will, by seeking adventure and renown
in the world outside. The mother is the child's supreme parent,
and during the period from conception to birth the hygiene
of the future man can only be affected by influences which wDrk
through her,
Fundamental and elementary as is the fact of the pre-
dominant position of the mother in relation to the life of the
race, incontestable as it must seem to all those who have
traversed the volumes of these Studies up to the present point,
it must be admitted that it has sometimes been forgotten or
ignored. In the great ages of humanity it has indeed been
accepted as a central and sacred fact. In classic Rome at one
period the house of the pregnant woman was adorned with
garlands, and in Athens it was an inviolable sanctuary where
even the criminal might find shelter. Even amid, the mized
iafiuences of the exuberantly vital times which preceded the
outburst of the Itenaiseance, the fdeally beautiful woman, as
pictures still show, was the pregnant woman. But it has not
always been so. At the present time, for instance, there can be
no doubt that we are but beginning to emerge from a period
during which this fact was often disputed and denied, both in
theory and in practice, even by women themselves. This was
notably the case both in England and America, and it is probably
owing in large part to the unfortunate infatuation which led
women in these lands to follow after masculine ideals that at the
present moment the inspirations of progress in women's move-
ments come mainly to-day from the women of other lands.
Motherhood and the future of the race were systematically
belittled. Paternity is but a mere incident, it was argued, in
man's life; why should maternity be more than a mere incident
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4 PSYCHOLOGY OP BEX,
in woman's life ? In England, by a curiously perverted form of
sexual attraction, women were bo fascinated by the glamour that
surrounded men that they desired to suppress or forget all the
facts of organic canstitution which made them unlike men,
counting tlieir glory aa their ehame, and sought the same educa-
tion as men, the same occupations as men, even the same sports.
As we know, there was at the origin an element of Tightness in
this impulse. 1 It was absolutely right in so far as it was a claim
for freedom from artificial restriction, and a demand for
economic independence. But it became mischievous and absurd
wlien it developed into a passion for doing, in all respects, the
same things as men do; how mischievous and how absurd we may
realize if we imagine men developing a passion to imitate the
ways and avocations of women. Freedom ig only good when it
is a freedom to follow the laws of one's own nature; it ceases
to be freedom when it becomes a slavish attempt to imitate
others, and would be disastrous if it could be successful.^
At the present day this movement on the theoretical side has
ceased to possess any representatives who exert serious influence.
Yet its practical results are still prominently exhibited in Eng-
land and the other countries in which it lias been felt. Infantile
mortality is enormous, and in England at all events is only
beginning to show a tendency to diminish ; motherhood is with-
■out dignity, and the vitality of mothers is speedily crushed, so
1 It should Hoarcely be necessary to say that to assert that mother-
liood IB a woman's supreme function is by no means to assert that ber
activities should be confined to the home. That is an opinion whlcb
.may now be regarded as almost extinct even among those who most
;glorify the function of woman as mother. As Friedrich Naumann and
■others have very truly pointrai out, a woman is not adequately equipped
to fulfil her functions as mother and trainer of children unless she lias
lived in the world and exercised a vocation.
3 "Were the capacities of the brain and the heart equal in tha
Bexes," Lily Braun [Die Fravmfrage, page 207 1 well says, "the entry
of women into public life would be of no value to humanity, and would
even lead to a still wilder competition. Only the recognition that the
entire nature of woman is different from that of men. that it signifies
a new vivifying principle in human life, makes the women's movement,
in Hpito of the misconception of its enemies and its friends, a social
TCvoIution" (see also Havelock Ellis, Man and Woman, fourth edition,
1904, especiallr Cb. XVIU).
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TBB HOTHBB AND HEB CHILD. 6
that often they cannot bo much as suckle their infants; ignorant
girl-mothers give their infants potatoes and gin; on every hand
ve are told of the evidence of degeneracy in the race, or if not in
the race, at all events, in the young individuals of to-day.
It iTould be out of place, and would le&d ua too far, to discuM
here these various practical outcomes of the fooliah attempt to belittle
the immcnge r&cial importance of motherhood. It It enough here to
touch on the one point of the excess of infantile mortality.
Id England — which is not from the social point of view in a very
much worse condition than most countries, for in Austria and Russia
the infant mortalilj' Is higher still, though in Australia and New Zea-
land much lower, but still excessive — more than one-fourth of the total
number of deaths every year is of infanta under one year oE age. In
the opinion of medical officers of health who are in the beat position to
form an opinion, about one-half of thia mortality, roughly speaking, ia
absolutely preventable. Moreover, it is doubtful Nthether there ia any
real movement of decrease in this mortality; during the pnat half cen-
tury it has sometimes slightly risen and sometimes slightly fallen, and
though during the past few years the general movement of morlality for
children under five in England and Wales has shown a tendency to
decrease, in London (according to J. F. J. -Sykes, although Sir Shirley
Murphy haa attempted to minimize the significunce of thcHe figures)
the infantile mortality rat« for the Grst three months of life ai'luatly
rose from 69 per 1,000 in the period 1888-1802 to 75 per 1,000 in the
period 1898-1001. (This refers, it must be remembered, to the period
before the introduction of the Notification of Births Act.) In any caae,
although the general mortality shows a marked tendency to improve-
ment there ia certainly no adequately corresponding improvement in the
Infantile mortali^. This is acarcely aurprising, when we realize that
there haa been no change for the better, but rather for the worse, in the
conditions under which our infants are born and reared. Tliua ^Mlliam
Hall, who has had an Intimate knowledge extending over fifty-six years
of the slums of Leeds, and has weighed and measured mnny tliou-tands
of slum children, besides examining over 120,000'boys and girls as to
their fitness for factory labor, states {British Medical Journal, October
14, 1005) that "fifty yeara ago the slum mother was much more sober,
cleanly, domestic, and motherly than she is to-day; she waa herself
better nourished and she almost always suckled her children, and after
weaning they received more nutritiou.i bone-making food, and she was
able to prepare more wholesome food at home." The nystem of com-
pulsory education has had an unfortunate influence in exerting a strain
on the parents and worsening the condjtiona of the home. For, excellent
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6 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
BS education is in itself, it is not the primary need of life, and hai been
made compulsorj' before the more essential things of life have been made
equally compulsory. How absolutely unnecessary this great mortality
is may be shown, without evoking the good example of Australia and
New Zealand, by merely comparing small English towns; thus while
in Guildford the infantile death rate is 65 per thousand, in Burslera it
is 205 per thousand.
It is sometimes said that infantile mortality is an economic ques-
tion, and that with improvement in wages it would cease. This is only
true to a limited extent and under certain conditions. In Australia
there is no grinding poverty, but the deaths of infants under one year
of age are still between 80 and 90 per thousand, and one-third of this
mortality, according to Hooper {BHtith Medical Journal. 1908, vol. ii,
p. 2S9),* being due to the ignorance of mothers and the dislike to suck-
ling, is easily preventable. The employment of married women greatly
diminiehes the poverty of a family, but nothing can be worse for the
welfare of the woman as mother, or for the welfare of her child. Eeid,
the medical officer of health for StalTordshire, where there are tn/i large
centres of artisan population with identical health conditions, has shown
that in the northern centre, where a very large number of women are
engaged in factories, still-births are three times as frequent as in the
southern centre, where there ate practically no trade employments for
women; the frequency of abnormalities is also in the same ratio. The
superiority of Jewish over Christian children, again, and their lower
Infantile mortality, seem to be entirely due to the fact that Jewesses
are better mothers, "The Jewish children in the slums." says William
Hall {British Medical Journal, October H, 19051, speaking from wide
and accurate knowledge, "were superior in weight, in teeth, and in gen-
eral bodily development, and they seemed less susceptible to infectious
disease. Yet these Jews were overcrowded, they took little exercise, and
their unsanitary environment was obvious. The tact was, their chil-
dren were much better nourished. The pregnant Jewess was more cared
for, and no doubt supplied better nutriment to the fcetus. After the
children were born 90 per cent, received breast-milk, and during later
childhood they were abundantly fed on bone-making material ; eggs and
oil, fish, fresh vegetables, and fruit entered largely into their diet."
G. Newman, in his important and comprehensive book on Infant Mor-
tality, emphasizes the conclusion that "firBt of all we need a higher
standard of physical motherhood." The problem of infantile mortality,
he declares (page 2.59), is not one of sanitation alone, or housing, or
indeed of poverty as such, "6ii( I'a mainly a question of motherhood."
The fundamental need of tlie pre^ant woman is resl.
Without a large degree of maternal rest there can be no ptieri-
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THE UOTHER AND HEB CHILD. 7
culture.^ The task of creating a man needs the whole of a
woman's best energies, more especially during the three months
before birth. It cannot be subordinated to the tax on strength
involved by manual or mental labor, or even strenuous social
duties and amusements. The numerous experiments and obser-
vations which have been made during recent years in Maternity
Hospitals, more especially in France, have shown conclusively
that not only the present and future well-being of the mother and
the ease of her confinement, but the fate of the child, are
immensely influenced by rest during the last month of preg-
nancy. "Every working woman is entitled to rest during the last
three months of her pregnancy," This formula was adopted by
the International Congress of Hygiene in 1900, but it cannot be
practically carried out except by the cooperation of the whole
community. For it is not enough to say that a woman ought
to rest during pregnancy; it is the business of the community to
ensure that that rest la duly secured. The womaq Iierself, and
her employer, we may be certain, will do their best to cheat the
community, but it is the community which suffers, both
economically and morally, when a woman casts her inferior
childroi into the world, and in its own interests the community
is forced to control both employer and employed. We can no
longer allow it to be said, in Bouchacourt'a words, that "to-day
the dregs of the human species — the blind, the deaf-mute, the
degenerate, the nervous, the vicious, the idiotic, the imbecile, the
cretins and epileptics — are better protected than pregnant
worn en, "2
PiDard, who must always be honored as one of the founders of
eugenicH. has, together with his pupils, doae nmcb to prepare the way
1 The word "puerieulture" was invented by Dr. Caron in 1866 to
signify the culture of children after birth. It was Pinard. the distin-
guished French obiitetrician. who. in 1895, gave it a liirgeT and truer
significance by applying it to include the culture of children before birth.
It is now defined as "the science which has for ite end the search for
the knowledge relative to the reproduction, the preservation, and the
amelioration of the human race" (P*ehin, La Pitiricvlture avant la
Kaittance. Th^se de Paris, 1908).
I In La Orossesse (pp. 450 et Keq.) Bouchacourt has discussed the
problems of puerieulture at some length.
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e P9YCHOLOGT OF 8BX,
for tlie acceptance of this simple but important priDciple by m&king clear
the grounda on which it ia baaed. Frotu prolonged obKervationa on the
pregnant women of all olaiuies I'inard has shown conclitsivel; that women
who rest during pregnancj' have finer children tlian women who do not
rest. Apart from the more genpral pvIIb of work during pregnancy,
Pinard found that during Uie later mouths it had a tendency to preaa
the uterus down into the pelvia, and so cause the premature birth of
undeveloped children, while labor was rendered more difficult and dan-
geroua (see, e.g., Pinard, Oatetle de» H6pilaiix, Nov. ZS, 1S95, Id.,
Annitles de Oynfcologie, Aug., 18B8f.
Letourneux has studied the question whether repose during preg-
nancy ia neeesaarj- for women whose professionft! work is only alight!}'
fatiguing. He investigated 732 successive confinements at the CHniquo
Baudelocqiie in Paris. He found that l.t? women engaged in fatiguing
occupations (servants, cooks, etc.) and not resting during pregnancy,
produced children uith an average weight of 3,0S1 grammes; 115 women
engaged in only slightly fatiguing occupations (dressmakers, milliners,
etc.) and also not resting during pregnancy, had children with an aver-
age wei^t of .1,130 grammes, a sliglit but aignificant difference, in view
of the fact that the women of the first group were large and robust,
while those of the second group were of slight and elegant build. Again,
comparing groups of women who rested during pregnane}', it was found
that the women accustomed to fatiguing work had children with an
average weight of 3.319 grammes, while those accustomed to leas
fatiguing work had children with an average weight of 3,318 grammes.
The difference between repose and non-repose is thus considerable, while
it also enables robust women exercising a fatiguing occupation to catch
up, though not to surpass, the frailer women exercising a less fatiguing
occupation. We see, too, that even in the comparatively unfatiguing
occupations of milliners, etc., rest during pregnancy still remains
important, and cannot safely be dispensed with. "Society," Letourneux
concludes, "must guarantee rest to women not well off during a part
of pregnancy. It will be repaid tJie cost of doing so by the increased
vigor of the children thus produced" (Letourneux, Dc Vliifluence de la
Profeagion de la Mfre «ur le Poida de VF.nfanl, Tlitae de Paris, 1897).
Dr. Dweira^Bernson (fictue Pratique d'Obsfeti igue el de Pidiatrie,
1003, p. 370), compared four groups of pregnant women (servants with
light work, servants with heavy work, farm girls, dressmakers) who
rested for three months Ijetore confinement wjtii four groups similarly
composed who took no rest before confinement. In every group he founil
that the difference in the average weiglit of the child was markedly in
favor of the women who rested, and it was notable tliat tlic greatest
difference was found in the case of the farm girls who were probably the
moat robust and also the hardest worked.
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THE UOTHEB AND HEB CHILD. 9
The UHnal time of gestation ranges between 274 and 280 days (or
280 to 290 days from the last menstrual period), and on^iBionally a few
daya longer, though there is dispute as to the lengtli of the extreme
limit, which some authorities would extend to 3(M> days, or even to 320
days (Pinard, in Richet'a Dietiotinatre de Phi/aiologie, vol. vit, pp. 160-
162; Taylor, Medical Jurisprudence, fifth edition, pp. 44, 93 et »eq.;
L. M, Allen, "Prolonged Gestation," American Journal Obttetriea, April,
1907). It ia poaaible, aa MUUer auggc^sted in 189» in a Th«ae de Nanc},.
that civilization tends to aborten the period of gRstation, and thtit in
earlier ages it was longer than it is now. Such a tendency to prema'
tare birth under the exciting nervous influences of eiviiizntion would
thus correspond, as Boucliacourt has pointed out ( La OrotteaMc, p. 113),
to the similar effect of domestication in animals. The Tobuat country-
woman becomes transformed into the more graceful, but alao more fragile^
town woman who needs a degree of care and hygiene which the eountry-
woman with her more resistant nervous system can to some extent dis-
pense with, although even she, as we see, suffers in the person of her
child, and probably in her own person, from the elTecta of work during
pregnancy. The serious nature of this civilized tendency to premature
birth — of which lack of rest in pregnancy is, however, only one of sev-
eral important causes — is shotvn by the fact that SCropian (Friquettee
Comparie des Causes de I'Acrouckement Prfmaturi, Tb^se de Paris,
1007) found that about one-third of French births {33.2S per cent.) are
to a greater or lesa extent premature. Pregnancy is not a morbid con-
dition; on the contrary, a pregnant woman is at the climax of her moat
normal physiological life, but owing to the tension thus involved she is
specially liable to suffer from any slight shock or strain.
It must be remarked that the incrca'^ed tendency to premature
birth, while in part it may be due to general tendencies of civilization,
is alao in part due to vert' definite and preventable causes. Syphilis,
alcoholism, and attempts to produce abortion are among the not uncom-
moD causes of premature birth (see, e.g., G. F. McCleary, "The Influ-
ence of Antenatal Conditions on Infantile Mortality," British Medical
Journal, Aug. 13, 1904).
Premature birth ought to be avoided, because the child bom too
early is insufficiently equipped for the task before him. Astengo, deal-
ing with nearly 19,000 cases at the Lariboiaifrc Hospital in Paris and
the Maternity, found, that reckoning from the date of the last menstrua-
tion, there is a direct relation between the weight of the infant at birth
and the length of the pregnancy. The longer the pregnancy, the finer
the child (Astengo, Rapport da Poids des Enfants A la Ditrie de la
Qrossesse, ThSse de Paris, 1906).
The frequency of premature birth ia probably as great In England
as in France. Ballantyne states {Manual of Antenatal Pathology; The
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10 PBYCHOLOQY OF SEX.
Fcelug, p, 456) tbat for practical purpOBea Uie frequency of premature
labors in maternity bospitale may be put at 20 per ceot, but that if
all infants weighing less than 3,000 grammes are to be regarded as
premature, it rises to 41.5 per cent. That premature birth is increasing
in England seems to be indicated b; the fact that during the past
twenty-five years there has been a steady rise in tlie mortality rat« from
premature birth. McCleary, wlio diacussea this point and considers tiio
increase real, concludes that "it would appear that there has been a
diminution in the quality as well as in the quantity of our output of
babies" {see also a discuBsion, introduced by Dawson WilliamB, on
"Physical Deterioration," Briliah Sledical Journal, Oct. 14, 1605).
It need scarcely be pointed out that not only is immaturity a
cause of deterioration in tlje infants tbat survive, but that it alone
serves enormously to decrease the number of infants that are able to
survive. Thus G. Kewman states {loo. cil.) that In most large English
urban districts immaturity is the chief cause of infant mortality, fur-
nishing about 30 per cent, of the infant deaths; even in London (Isling-
ton) Alfred Harris {British Medical Journal, Dec. 14, 1607) finds that
it is responsible for nearly 17 per cent, of the infantile deaths. It is
estimated by Newman that about half of the mothers of infants dying
of immaturity suffer from marked ill-health and poor physique; tbey
are not, therefore, fitted to be mothers.
Rest during pregnancy is a very powerful ag.'ut in preventing pre-
mature birth. Thus Dr. Sarraute-Louri^ has compared 1,550 pregnant
women at the Asile Michelet wlio rested before confinement with 1,550
w-omen confined at the ROpital Lariboisi^re who had enjoyed no such
period of rest. She found that the sjrerage duration of pregnancy was
at least twenty days shorter in the latter group (Mme. Sarraute-Lourifi,
De llnfiueHce du Repos sur la Durie de la Gestation, Th^se de Paris,
1800).
Leyboff has insisted on the absolute necessity of rest during preg-
nancy, as well for the sake of the woman herself as the burden she
carries, and shows the evil results which follow when rest is neglected.
Railway traveling, horse-riding, bicyeling, and sea-voyages are also, Ley-
boff believes, liable to be Injurious to the course of pregnancy. LeybofF
recognises the difficulties which procreating women are placed under by
present industrial conditions, and concludes that "it is urgently neces-
sary to prevent women, by law, from working during the last three
months of pregnancy; that in every district there should be a maternity
fund; that during this enforced rest a woman should receive the same
salary as during work." He adds that the children of unmarried
mothers should be cared for by the State, that there should be an eight-
hours' day for all workers, and thut no children under sixteen should be
allowed to work (E, Leyboff, L'SygOne de la QroMesae, These de Paris,
1905).
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THE MOTHER AND HEB CHILD. 11
Perrac states that at least two months' rest before conAnemeDt
should be made compulsoiy, and that during this period the woman
should receive an indemnity regulated by the State. He ia of opinion
Uiat it should take the form of compulaory assurance, to which 'be
worker, the employer, and the State alike contributed (Perruc, Aa»iat-
once aua Femmet ETteetntei, Tb^se de Paris, 190E).
It 18 probable that during the earlier months of pregnancy, work,
if not excessively heavy and exhausting, has little or no bad effect; thus
Bacchimont ^I>ocumen^s pour aervir d I'Bisloire de la Pu4riculture
Intra-utiHne, ThSse de Paris, 1898) foimd that, while there was a great
gain in the weight of children of mothers who had rested for three
months, there was no corresponding gain in the children of those
mothers who had rested for longer petiods. It is during the last three
months that freedom, repose, the cessation of the obligatory routine of
employment become necessary. This is the opinion of Pinard, the chief
authority on this matter. Many, however, fearing that economic and
industrial conditions render so long a period of rest too difficult of prac-
tical attainment, are, with Clappier and G, Newman, content to demand
two months as a miaimum ; Salrat only asks for one month's rest
before confinement, tiie woman, whether married or not. receiving a
pecuniary indemnity during this period, with medical care and drugs
bee. Ballontyne (Manual of Antenatal Pathology: The Fa-tva, p. 475),
as well aa Niven, also asks only for one month's compulsory rest during
pregnancy, with indemnity. Arthur Helme, however, taking a more com-
prehensive view of all the factors involved, concludes in a valuable paper
on "The Unborn Child: Ita Care and Its Rights" {British Medieal
Journal, Aug. 24, 1907), "The important thing -would be to prohibit
pregnant women from going to work at all, and it is as important from
the standpoint of the child that this prohibition should include the early
as the late months of pregnancy."
In England little progress has jet been made as regards this ques-
tion of rest during pregnancy, even as regards the education of public
opinion. Sir William Sinclair, Professor of Obstetrics at the Victoria
University of Manchester, has published (1907) A Plea for Eatabliah-
ing Mvnicipal Maternity Somea. Baltant.vne, a great British authority
on the embryology of the child, has published a "Plea for a Pre-Mat^'m-
Ity Hospital" {Britiah Medical Journal, April S. 1901). has since given
an important lecture on the subject [BHtiah Medical Journal, Jan. 11,
I90S), and has further discussed the matter in his Mamiat of Ante-yatal
Pathology: The Fcelua (Ch. XXVTI) ; he is, however, more interested in
the establishment of hospitals for the diseases of pregnancy than in the
wider and more fundamental question of rest for all pregnant women.
In England there are, indeed, a few institutions which receive unmar-
ried women, with a record of good conduct, who are pregnant for the
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12 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX,
flrst time, for, as Bouchacourt remarks, ancient Britieli prejudices ara
opposed to any mercy being ebown to women who are recidivists id
committing tbe crime of conception.
At present, indeed, it is only in France that the urgent need of
rest during the latter months of pregnancy haa been clearly realized, and
any serious and official attempts made to provide for it. In an interest-
ing Paris thesis (ZJe la I'uiriculture avant ie -Vaissonce, 1907) Clappier
has brought together much information bearing on the eflbrts now being
made to deal practically with liiia question. Thpre are many Aetles in
Paris tor pregnant women. One of the beat is the Asile Michelet,
founded in 18B3 by tbe Assistance Publique de Paris. This is a sana-
torium for pregnant women who liave reached a period of seven and a.
half raontba. It is nominally restricted to the admission of French
women who have been domiciled for a year in Paris, but, in practice, it
appears that women from all pat'ta of France are received. They are
employed in light and occasional work for the institution, being paid
for this work, and are also occupied in making clothes for the expected
baby. Married and unmarried women are admitted alike, all women
being equal from the point of view of motherhood, and indeed tha
majority of the women who come to the Asile Michelet are unmarried,
some being girls who have even trndged on foot from Brittany and other
remote parts of France, to seek concealment from their friends in the
hospitable seclusion of these refuges in the great city. It is not the
least advantage of these institutions that they shield unmarried mothers
and their olTspring fronT the manifold evils to which they are exposed,
and thus tend to decrease crime and suHering. In addition to the
maternity refuges, there are institutions in France for assisting with
help and advice those pregnant women who prefer to remain at home,
but are thus enabled to avoid the necessity for undue domestic labor.
There ought to he no manner of doubt that when, as is the case
to-day in our own and some other supposedly civilized countries, mother-
hood outside marriage is accounted as almost a crime, there is the veiy
greatest need for adequate provision for unmarried women who are
about to become mothers, enabling them to receive shelter and care in
secrecy, and to presen'e their self-respect and social position. This is
necessary not only in the interests of humanity and public economy, but
also, as is too oft*n forgotten, in the interests of morality, for it is
certain that by the neglect to furnish adequate provision of this nature
women are driven to infanticide and prostitution. In earlier, more
humane days, the general proinsion for the secret reception and care of
illegitimate infants was undoubtedly most beneficial. The suppreaaion
of the mediierat method, which in France took place gradually between
Itt.^3 and 18Q2, led to a great increase in infanticide and abortion, and
was a direct encouragement to crime and immorality. In 1887 tlie
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THE HOTHER AND HEB CHILD. 13
Conseil GSnfiral of the Seine sought to replace the prerailing n^Iect of
this matter by the adoption of more enlightened ideas and founded a
bureau tecret d'admitaion for pregnant women. Since then both the
abaDdoDment of infanta and infanticide have greatl}' diminished, though
they are increasing in those parte of France which posseaa no facilities
of this kind. It ia widely held that the State should unify the arrange-
menta for assuring secret maternity, and should, in its own interests.
undertake the expense. In 1004 French law ensured the protection of
unmarried mothers by guaranteeing their cecret, but it failed to organize
the general establishment of secret maternities, and has left to doctors
the pioneering part in this great and humane public work (A. Maillard-
Brune, Refuget, Maternitit, Bureaux d'Admiasion Secrets, comme Moyena
Priservativea dot Infanticide, ThSse de Paris, 1908). It is not among
the least benefits of the falling birth rate that it has helped to stimulate
this beneficent movement.
The development of an induatrial system which subordinates
the htunan body and the human soul to the thirst for gold, has, for
a time, dismissed from social consideration the interests of the
race and even of the individual, but it must be remiembered that
this has not been always and everywhere bo. Although in some
parts of the world the women of savage peoples work up to the
time of confinement, it must be remarked that the conditions of
vork in savage life do not resemble the strenuous and continuous
labor of modem factories. In many parts of the world, how-
ever, women are not allowed to work hard during pregnancy and
every consideration is shown to them. This is so, for instance,
among the Pueblo Indians, and among the Indians of Mexico.
Similar care is taken in the Carolines and the Gilbert Islands
and in many other regions all over the world. In some places,
women are secluded during pregnancy, and in others are com-
pelled to observe many more or less excellent rules. It is true
that the assigned, cause for these rules is frequently the fear of
evil spirits, but they nevertheless often preserve a hygienic value.
In many parts of the world the discovery of pregnancy is the sign
for a festival of more or less ritual character, and much good
advice is given to the expectant mother. The modem Mussel-
mans are careful to guard the h^lth of their women when preg-
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14 PSYCHOLOGY OP SEX.
nant, and so are the Chinese.^ Even in Europe, in the tliirteenth
century, as Clappier notes, industrial corporations sometimes had
regard to this matter, and would not allow women to work during
pregnancy. In Iceland, where much of the primitive life of
Scandinavian Europe is still preserved, great precautions are
taken with pregnant women. They must lead a quiet life, avoid
tight gannents, be moderate in eating and drinking, take no
alcohol, be safeguarded from all shocks, while their husbands and
all others who surround them must treat them with consideration,
aave them from worry and always bear with them patiently.^
It is neceEsary to emphasize this point because we have to
realize that the modem movement for surrounding the pregnant
woman with tenderness and care, so far from being the mere
outcome of civilized softness and degeneracy, is, in all probability,
the return on a higher plane to the sane practice of those races
which laid the foundations of human greatness.
While rest is the cardinal virtue imposed on a woman
during the later months of pregnancy, there are other points in
her regimen that are far from unimportant in their bearing on
the fate of the child. One of these is the question of the
mother's use of alcohol. Undoubtedly alcohol has been a cause
of much fanaticism. But the declamatory extravagance of anti-
alcoholists must not blind us to the fact that the evils of alcohol
1 The importaace of anU<natal puericulture was fully recognized
in China a thoUBaod fears ago. Thus Madame Cheng wrot« at that time
concerning the education of the child: "Even before birth hia education
may begin; and. therefore, the prospective mother of old, when lying
down, lay straight; when sitting down, sat upright; and when stanif
in^, stool erect. She would not taate xtrange flavors, nor have any-
thing to do with spiritualism; if her food were not cut straight she
would not eat it, and if her mat were not set straight, she would not
iit upon it She would not look at any objectionable sight, nor listen
to any objectionable sound, nor utter any nide word, nor handle any
impure thing. At night she studied some canonical work, by day aha
occupied herself with ceremonies and music. Therefore, her sons were
upright and eminent for their talents and virtues; such was the result
of antenatal traimnit" (H. A. Giles, "Woman in Chinese Literature."
Xinefeenth Century, Nov., 1904).
SMait Bartels, "Islandischer Brauch," etc., Zeitichrift fur Etknol-
ogip. 1900, p. 69. A summari' of the customs of various peoples in
reiicard to preenancv Is (tiTeu by Ploss and Bartels, Das Weib, Sect.
XXIX.
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TEE MOTHER AND HEB CHILD. IS
are real. On the reproductive proccBs especially, on the mam-
mary glandB, and on the child, alcohol has an arreeting and
degenerative influence without any compensatory advantagea.
It has been proved by experiments on animals and observations
on the human subject that alcohol taken by the pregnant woman
passes freely from the maternal circulation to the foetal circula-
tion. F4r6 has further shown that, by injecting alcohol and
aldehydes into hen's eggs during incubation, it is possible to
cause arrest of development and malformation in the chick.^
The woman who is bearing her child in her womb or suckling it
at her breast would do well to remember that the alcohol which
may be harmless to herself is little better than poison to the
immature being who derives nourishment from her blood. She
should confine herself to the very lightest of alcoholic beverages
in very moderate amounts and would do better still to abandon
these entirely and drink milk instead. She is now the sole
source of the child's life and she cannot be too scrupulous in
creating around it an atmosphere of purity and health. No
after-influence can ever compensate for mistakes made at this
time.*
What is true of alcohol is equally true of other potent drugs
and poisons, which should all be avoided so far as passible during
pregnancy because of the harmful influence they may directly
exert on the embryo. Hygiene is better than drugs, and care
should be exercised in diet, which should by no means be exces-
sive. It is a mistake to suppose that the pregnant woman needs
considerably more food than usual, and there is much reason to
1 On the influence of alcohol during pregnancy on the embrfo, see,
e.g., G. Newman, Infant Hortalitij, pp. 72-TT. W. C. Sullivan (Alcohol-
ism, 1906, Ch. XI). sumraarizes tbe evidence showing that alcohol is a
factor in human degeneration.
2 There is even reason to believe that the nleoholism of the mother's
father may impair her ability aa a mother. Bunge (Die Zunfkmende
Vnfahigkeit der Frauen ikre Kinder zu Stillen, fifth edition, 1007), from
an investigation extending over 2,000 families, finds that chronic alco-
bolic poisoning in the father is the chief cause of the daughter's inability
to suckle, this inability not usually being recovered in subsequent gen-
erations. Bunge has, however, been opposed by Dr. Agnes Bluhm, 'THe
Stlllongsnot," Zeitgckrift fUr BoxiaU Medizin, 1908 (fully summarized
by herself in Sewual-Prohleme, Jan., lOOB).
DiclzedbyGoOgle
16 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX,
believe not only that a rich meat diet tends to cause sterility but
tliat it IB also unfavorable to the deTelopment of the child in
the womb.l
How far, if at all, it is often asked, should sesual intercourse
be continued after fecundation has been clearly ascertained?
This has not always been found an easy question to answer, for
in the human couple many considerations combine to complicate
the answer. Even the Catholic theologians have not been entirely
in agreement on this point. Clement of Alexandria said that
when the seed had been Bown the field must be left till harvest.
But it may be concluded that, a3 a rule, the Church was inclmed
to regard intercourse during pregnancy as at most a venial sin,
provided there was no danger of abortion. Augustine, Gregory
the Great, Aquinas, Dens, for instance, seem to be of this mind;
for a few, indeed, it is no sin at all,^ Among animals the rule is
■simple and uniform; as soon as the female is impregnated at
the period of oestrus she absolutely rejects all advance of the
male until, after birth and lactation are over, another period of
ccstrus occurs. Among savages the tendency is less uniform,
and sexual abstinence, when it occurs during pregnancy, tends to
become less a natural instinct than a ritual observance, or a
custom now chiefly supported by superstitions. Among many
primitive peoples abstinence during the whole of pregnancy is
enjoined because it is believed that the semen would kill the
foetus.-'
The Talmud is unfavorable to coltna during pTEgnancy, and the
Koran prohibits it during the whole of the period, as well as during
suckling. Among the Hindus, on the other hand, intercourse is con-
tinued up to the last fortuight of pregnancy, and it is even believed that
the injected semen helps to nourish the embryo (W. D. Sutherland,
1 See, e.g., T. Arthur Helme, "The Unborn Child,"" British Medical
Journal, Aug. 24, ISO". Nutrition should, of course, be ndequat*.
Noel Paton has shown (Lancet. July 4, 1B03) that dpfective nutritioa
of the pregnant woman diminishes the weight of the offspring.
2 Debroyne, ilax'hialogie, p. 277. And from the Protestant side
see Northcote iCkristiavily and Hex Frohletna, Ch, IX), who permits
sexual intercourse during pregnancy.
S See Appendix A to the third volume of these Studies; also Plosa
.and Bartels, loc. oit.
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THE UOTHEK AMD HEB CHILD. 17
"Ueber das Alltagsleben und die VoUutuedizin uiit«T d«n BAueni Briti-
BchoBlindienB," Muttckener Meditinttcke Woaheitaohrift, Nob. 12 and 13,
190S). The great Indian pbysiciaD Susruta, however, was opposed to
coitus during pregnancy, and the Chinese are emphatically on the aame
Ab men hare emerged from barbarism in the direction of
civilization, the animal inetinct of refusal after impregnation
has been completely lost in vomen, while at the same time both
sexes tend to become indifferent to those ritual restraints which
at an earlier period were almost as binding as instinct. Sexual
intercourse thus came to be practiced after impregnation, much
the same as before, as part of ordinary "marital rights," though
sometimes there has remained a faint suspicion, reflected in the
hesitating attitude of the Catholic Church already alluded to,
that such intercourse may be a sinful indulgence. Morality is,
however, called in to fortify this^ indulgence. If the husband is
shut out from marital intercourse at this time, it is argued, he
will seek extra-marital intercourse, as indeed in some parts of
the world it is recognized that he legitimately may; therefore
the interests of the wife, anxious to retain her husband's fidelity,
and the interests of Christian morality, anxious to uphold the
institution of monogamy, combine to permit the continuation of
coitus during pregnancy. The custom has been furthered by the
fact that, in civilized women at all events, coitus during preg-
nancy is usually not less agreeable than at other times and by
some women is felt indeed to be even more agreeable.* There is
also the further consideration, for those couples who have sought
to prevent conception, that now intercourse may be enjoyed with
impunity. From a higher point of view such intercourse may
also be justitied, for if, as all the finer moralists of the sexual
impulse now believe, love has its value not only in so far as it
induces procreation but also in so far as it aids individual
J Thus one lady writes: "I have only had one child, but I may
Bay that during pregnancy the desire for union was much stronger, for
the whole time, than at any other period." Bouchacourt (La QroatetM,
pp. 180-193) ntates that, as a rule, sexual desire is not diminished by
pregnancy, and is occasionally increaaed.
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18 PBTCHOLOOT OF SEX.
development and the mutual good and barmoDy of the united
couple, it becomes morally right during pregnancy.
From an early period, however, great authorities have
declared themselves in opposition to the custom of practicing
coitus during pregnancy. At the end of the firat century,
SoranuB, the first of great gynaecologists, stated, in his treatise
on the diseases of vomen, that eexual intercourse is injurious
throughout pregnancy, because of the movement imparted to the
uterus, and especially injurious during the latter months. For
more than sixteen hundred years the question, having fallen into
the bands of the theologians, seems to have been neglected on
the medical side until in 1731 a distinguished French obstet-
rician, Mauriceau, stated that no pregnant woman should have
intercourse during the last two months and that no woman sub-
ject to miscarriage should have intercourse at all during
pregnancy. For more than a century, however, Mauriceau
remained a pioneer with few or no followers. It would be
inconvenient, the opinion went, even if it were necessary, to
forbid intercourse during pregnancy.^
During recent years, nevertheless, there has been an
increasingly strong tendency among obstetricians to speak
decisively concerning intercourse during pregnancy, either by
condemning it altogether or by enjoining great prudence. It is
highly probable that, in accordance with the classical experiments
of Dareste on chicken emhryos, shocks and disturbances to the
human embryo may also produce injurious effects on growth.
The disturbance due to coitus in the early stages of pregnancy
may thus tend to produce malformation. When such conditions
are found in the children of perfectly healthy, vigorous, and gen-
erally temperate parents who have indulged recklessly in coitus
1 This "inconvenience" remains to-day a stumbling-block irith man;
exeellent authorities. "Kxccpt when there is a tendency to miscar-
riage," says KoBsmann (Senator and Kaminer, Health and Disease in
Relation to Marriage, vol. J. p. 257), "we must be very guarded in
ordering abstinence from intercourse during pregnancy," and Ballantyne
{The Fwtaa, p. 475} cautiously remarks that the question is difficult
to decide. Forel also (Die Sexuelle Frage. fourth edition, p. 81), who
is not prepared to advocate complete sexual abetinence during a normal
pregnancy, admits that it is a rather difficult question.
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IBB JIOTHER AND H£B GUILD. 19
during the early stages of pregnancy it ia possible that euch
coitne has acted on the emhr}'o in the same way as shocks and
intoxications are known to act on the embryo of lower organisms.
However this may be, it is quite certain that in predisposed
women, coitus during pregnancy causes premature birth; it
sometimes happens that labor pains begin a few minutes after
the act.l The natural instinct of animals refuses to allow
intercourse during pregnancy ; the ritual observance of primitive
peoples very frequently points in the same direction; the voice
of medical science, so far as it speaks at all, is beginning to
utter the same warning, and before long will probably be in a
position to do so on the basis of more solid and coherent evidence.
FInard, the greatest of authoritiea on puericulture, aseerts that
there must be complete ceesatioD of sexual intercourse during the whole
of pregnancy, and in his consulting room at the Ginique Baudelocque
he has placed a large placard with an "Important Notice" to this effect.
F^re was strongly of opinion that sexual relations during pregnancy,
especially when recklessly carried out, play an important part in the
causation of nervous troubles in children who are of sound heredity and
otherwiae free from all morbid infection during gestation and develop-
ment; he recorded in detail a case which he considered conclusive
("L'Influence de 1' Incontinence Sexuelle pendant la Gestation sur la
Deflcendance," Archives de f/etirologie, April, 1005). Bouchacourt dis-
enages the subject fully {La OroMesge, pp. 177-214), and thinks that
sexual intercourse during pregnaney should be avoided as much as pos-
sible. Fdrbringer (Senator and Kaminer, Health and Diseate in Rela-
tion to Marriage, vol. i, p. 226) recommends abstinence from the sixth
or seventh month, and throughout the whole of pregnancy where there
is any tendency to miscarriage, while in all cases much care and gentle-
ness should be exercised.
The whole subject has been investigated in a Paris Thesis by H.
Br^not (De llnfltienee de la Copulation pendant la Groaaesse, 1903) ; he
concludes that sexual relations are dangerous throughout pregnancy,
frequently provoking premature confinement or abortion, and that thiy
are more dangerous in primipane than in multiparce.
1 This point is discussed, for instance, by SSropian in a Paris
Thesis {Friquence comparie dea Causes de I' Accouchement Prematurt,
1907); he concludes that coitus during pregnancy Is a more frequent
cause of premature confinement than is commonly supposed, especially
in primipane, and markedly so by the ninth month.
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20 PSYCHOLOGT OF SEX.
Nearly ererjrthing that has been said of the hygiene of preg-
nancy, an^ the need for rest, applies also to the period
immediately following the birth of the child. Rest and hygiene
on the mother's part continue to be necesaar}' alike in her own
interests and in the child's. This need has indeed been more
generally and more practically recognized than the need for rest
during pregnancy. The laws of several countries make compul-
sory a period of reat from employment after confinement, and in
some countries they seek to provide for the remuneration of the
mother during this enforced rest. In no country, indeed, is the
principle carried out bo thoroughly and for so long a period as
is desirable. But it is the right principle, and embodies the
germ which, in the future, will be developed. There can be
little doubt that whatever are the matters, and they are certainly
many, which may be safely left to the discretion of the individual,
the care of the mother and her child is not among them. That is
a matter which, more than any other, concerns the community as
a whole, and the community cannot afford to be slack in asserting
its authority over it. The State needs liealthy men and women,
and by any negligence in attending to this need it inflicts serious
charges of all sorts upon itself, and at the same time dangerously
impairs its ePBciency in the world, Nations have begun to recog-
nize the desirability of education, but they have scarcely yet
begun to realize that the nationalization of health Is even more
important than the nationalization of education. If it were
necessary to choose between the task of getting children educated
and the task of getting them well-born and healthy it would be
better to abandon education. There have been many great
peoples who never dreamed of national systems of education;
there has been no great people without the art of producing
healthy and vigorous children.
This matter becomes of peculiar importance in great
industrial states like England, the United States, and Ger-
many, because in_such states a tacit conspiracy tends to grow up
to subordinate national ends to individual ends, and practically
to work for the deterioration of the race. In England, for
instance, this tendency has become peculiarly well marked with
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1BE MOTHER AND HEB CHILD. 21
disaEtrons results. The intereat of the employed woman tends to
bttxime one with that of her employer; between them they com-
bine to crush the interests of the child who representa the race,
and to defeat the laws made in the interests of the race which are
those of the community as a whole. The employed woman wishes
to earn as much wages as she can and with as littlefinterniption
as she can; in gratifying that wish she is, at the same time,
acting in the interests of the employer, who carefully avoids
thwarting her.
Tliia impulse on the employed woman's part is by no means
always and entirely the result of poverty, and would not, tliere-
fore, be removed by raising lier wages. Long before marriage,
when little more than a child, she has usually gone out to work,
and work has become a second nature. She has mastered her
work, she enjoys a certain position and what to her are high
wages; she is among her friends and companions; the noise
and bustle and excitement of the work-room or the factory have
become an agreeable stimulant which she can no longer do with-
out. On the other hand, her home means nothing to her ; she
only returns there to sleep, leaving it next morning at day-
break or earlier; she is ignorant even of the simplest domestic
arts; she moves about in her own home like a strange and
awkward child. The mere act of marriage cannot change tliis
state of things; however willing she may be at marriage to
become a domesticated wife, she is destitute alike of the inclina-
tion or the skill for domesticity. Even in spite of herself she is
driven back to the work-shop, to the one place where she feels
really at home.
In Gennaoy women are not allowed ti> work for four weeks after
eoninement, nor duriog the following two weeke except bj medical
certificate. The obligator)' insurance against disease which covers
women at confinement assurea them an indemnity at this tipie egiiivalent
to a. Urge part of their wages. Married and unmarried mothers benefit
alike. The Austrian law is founded on the same model. This measure
has led to a very great decrease in infantile mortality, and, therefore,
a great increase in health among those who survive. It is, however,
regarded as very inadequate, and there is a movement in Germany for
extending the time, for applying the system to a. Uirger number of women,
and for making it still more definitely compulsory.
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22 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
In SvitzerUad it. has be«D illegal since 1877 for any woman to be
received into a factory aft«r conAnement, uulesa she has rested in all
for eight weeks, six weeks at least of this period being after confine-
ment Since 1898 Swiss working women have been protected by law
from exercising hard work during pregnancy, and from various other
in&uences likely to be injurious. But this law ia evaded in practice,
because it provides no compensatory indemnity for the woman. An
attempt, in 181HI, to amend the law by providing for such indemnity
was rejected by the people.
In Belgium and Holland there are lawa agsinat women working
immediately after conUnement, but no indemnity is provided, so that
employers and employed combine to evade the law. In France there is
no such law, although its necessity has often been emphatically asserted
<aee, e.g., Salvat, La Depopulation de la France, ThDae de Lyon, 1&03).
In England it is illegal to employ a woman "knowingly" in a
workshop within four weeka of the birth of her child, but no provision
is made by the law for the compensation of the woman who is thus
required to sacrifice herself to the interests of the State. The woman
evades the law in tacit collusion with her employers, who can always
aToid "knowing" that a birth has taken place, and so escape all respon-
sibility for the mother's employment. Thus the factory inspectors are
unable to take action, and the law becomes a dead letter; in 1906 only
one prosecution for this offense could be brought into court. By the
insertion of this "knowingly" a premium is placed on ignorance. The
unwisdom of thus beforehand placing a premium on ignorance has
always been more or less clearly recognized by the framers of legal codes
«ven as far back as the days of the Ten Commandments and the laws of
'Hamurabi. It is the business of the Conrt, of those who administer the
law, to make allowance for ignorance where such allowance is fairly
-called for; it is not for the law-maker to make smooth the path of the
law-breaker. There are evidently law-makers nowadays so scrupulous,
or BO simple-minded, that they would be prepared to exact that no pick-
pocket should be prosecuted if he was able to declare on oath that he
had no "knowledge" that the purse he had token belonged to the person
■h« extracted it from.
The annual reports of the English factory inspectors serve to
bring ridicule on this law, which looks so wisely humane and yet means
nothing, but have so far been powerless to effect any change. These
reports show, moreover, that the difficulty is increasing in magnitude.
Thus Miss Martindale, a factory inspector, states that in all the towns
she visits, from a quiet cathedral city to a large manufacturing town,
the employment of married women is rapidly increasing; they have
worked in mills or factories all their lives and are quite unaccustomed
to cooking, housework and the rearing of children, bo that after nur-
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THE HOTHER AND HEB CHILD. 23
riftge, even when not compelled by poverty, they prefer to go on working
as before. Misa Vines, another factory inspector, repeats the remark of
a woman worker in a factory. "I do not need to work, but I do not like
staying at bome," wlille another woman said, "I would rather be at
work a hundred times than at home. I get lost at home" {Ataiual
Report Chief Intpector of FactoHea and Workahopa for 1906, pp. 326,
etc.).
It may be added that not only is the English law enjoining four
weeks' rest on the mother aft«r childbirth practically inoperative, but
the period itself ia absurdly inadequate. As a reat for the mother it is
indeed sufGcient, but the State is still more intere8t«d in the child than
in its mother, and the child needs tlie mother's chief care tor a much
longer period than four weeks. Helme advocates the State prohibition
of women's work for at least six months after confinement. Where mil-
series are attached to factories, enabling the mother to suckle her infant
In intervals of work, the period may doubtless be shortened.
It is important to remember ttiat it is by no means only the women
in factories who are induced to work as usual during the whole period
of pregnancy, and to return to work immediately after the brief rest of
tonfinement. The Kesearch Committee of the Christian Social Union
(London Branch) undertook, in 1906, an inquiry into the employment
of women after childbirth. Women in factories and workshops were
excluded from the inquiry which only had reference to women engaged
in houBehoId duties, in home industries, and in casual work. It was
found that the majority carry on their employment right up t« the time
of confinement and resume it from ten to fourteen days later. The
infantile death rate for the children of women engaged only in household
duties was greatly lower than that for the children of the other women,
while, as ever, the hand-fed infants had a vastly higher death rate than
the breast-fed infants {BHIish Medical Journal, Oct. 24, lOOS, p. 1297) ,
In the great French gun and annour-pIat« works at Creuzot (SaOne
et Loire) the salaries of expectant mothers among the employees are
raised; arrangements are made for giving them proper advice and med-
ical attendance; they are not allowed to work after the middle of
pregnancy or to return to work after confinement without a medical
certificate of dtneBs, The results are said to be excellent, not only on
the health of the mothers, but in the diminution of premature births,
the decrease of infantile deaths, and the genera) prevalence of breast-
feeding. It would probably be hopeless to expect many employers in
Anglo-Saxon lands to adopt this policy. They are ton "practical," they
Icnow how small is the money-value of human lives. With ua it is neces-
sary for the State to intervene.
There can be no doubt that, on the whole, modem civilized com-
munities are beginning to realize that under the social and economic
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24 PBYCHOLOOT OF SEX,
conditions now tending mOTC and more to prevail, they miut in that
own interests insure that the mother's best energj' and vitaliirr are
devoted to the child, both before and after iU birth, tbtiy ere also
realizing that thef cannot cnrrj out their duty in thin respect onless
they make adequate provision for the mothers who are thus compelled
to renounce their employment in order to devote themselves to their
children. We here reach a point at which Individualism ia at one wiUi
Socialism. The individual int cannot fail to see that it is at all cost
necessary to remove social conditions which crush out all individuality;
the Socialist cannot fail to see that a society which neglects to intro-
duce order at this central and vital point, the production of the individ-
ual, must speedily perish.
It is involved in the proper fulfilment of a mother's
relationship to her infant child that, provided she is healthy, she
sliould suckle it. Of recent years this question has become a
matter of serious gravity. In the middle of the eighteenth
century, when the upper-class women of France had grown
disinclined to suckle their own children, Bousseau raised so loud
and eloquent a protest that it became once more the fashion for
a woman to fulfil her natural duties. At the present time, when
the same evil is found once more, and in a far more serious form,
for now it is not the small upper-class but the great lower-
clasB that is concerned, the eloquence of a Bousseau would be
powerless, for it is not fashion so much as convenience, and
especially an intractable economic factor, that ia chiefly con-
cerned. Not the least urgent reason for putting women, and
especially mothers, upon a sounder economic basis, ia the
necessity of enabling them to suckle their children.
No woman is sound, healthy, and complete unless sha pouesses
breasts that are beautiful enough to hold the promise of being functional
when the time for their exercise arrives, and nipples that can give suck.
The gravity of this question to-day is shown by the frequency with
which women are lacking in this essential element of womanhood, and
the young man of to-day. it has been said, often in taking a wife^
"actually marries but part of a woman, the other part being exhibited
in the chemist's shop window, in the shape of a glass feeding-bottle."
Blacker found among a thousand patients from the maternity depart-
ment of University Collegt- Hospital that thirty-nine had never suckled
at alt, seven hundred and forty-seven had suckled all tbeir children, and
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THE MOTHEB AND HEB CHILD. 25
two hundred and fourteen bad Buckled only Bome. The chief reason
given [or not Buckling woa absence or insufficiencj of millc; oUier rea-
sons being inability or dia inclination to suckle, and refuaal of the child
to take the breast (Blacker, Medioal Chronicle, Feb., 1900). These
results among the London poor are certainly very much better than
could be found in many manufacturing towns where women work after
m&rriage. In the other large countries of Europe equally unsatiafac-
tory results are found. In Paris Madame Dluska baa shown that of
Z09 women who came for their confinement to the Clinique Baudelocque,
only 74 suckled tbeir childreni of the 13S who did not suckle, 35 were
prevented by pathological causes or absence of milk, 100 by the necessi-
ties of their work. Even those who suckled could seldom continue more
than seven months on account' of the physiological strain of work
(DIuska, Contribution A I'Elade de I'AlIaitement Maternel, These de
Paris, 1804). Many statistics have been gathered in the German coun-
triee. Thus Wiedow {Centralblatt fiir OynakoUigie, No. 20, 1895)
found that of 625 women at the Freiburg Maternity only half could
snckle thoroughly during the first two weeks; imperfect nipples were
noted in 40 cases, and it was found that the development of the nipple
bore a direct relation to the value of the breast as a secretory organ.
At Munich Escherich and BUller found that nearly 80 per cent, of women
of the lower class were unable to suckle their children, and at Stuttgart
three-quarters of the chi Id-bearing *wom en were in this condition.
The reasons why children should be sackled at their
motherg' breasts are larger than some may be inclined to believe.
In the first place the psychological reason is one of no mean
importance. The breast with its exquisitely s^isitive nipple,
vibrating in harmony with the sexual organs, furnishes the
normal mechanism by which maternal love is developed. No
doubt the woman who never suckles her child may love it, but
ench love is liable to remain defective on the fundamental and
instinctive side. In some women, indeed, whom we may
hesitate to call abnormal, maternal love fails to awaken at all
until brought into action through this mechanism by the act of
suckling.
A more generally recognized and certainly fundamental
reason for suckling the child is that the milk of the mother,
provided she is reasonably healthy, is the infant's only ideally fit
food. There are some people whose confidence in science leads
them to believe that it is possible to manufacture foods that are
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26 PSTCHOLOOT OF BEX.
ag good or better thao mother's milk ; they fancy that the milk
which is best for the calf is equally best for so dilfereut an
aaimal as the baby. These are delusions. The infant's best
food is that elaborated in his own mother's body. All other
foods are more or less possible substitutes, which require trouble
to prepare properly and are, moreover, exposed to various risks
from which the mother's milk is free.
A further reason, especially among the poor, against the use
of any artificial foods is that it accustoms those around the
child to try experiments with its feeding and to fancy that
any kind of food they eat themselves may be good for the infant.
It thus happens that bread and potatoes, brandy and gin, are
thrust into infants' mouths. With the infant that is given the
.breast it is easier to make plain that, except by the doctor's
orders, nothing else must be given.
An additional reason why the mother should suckle her child
is the close and frequent association with the child thus involved.
Not only is the child better cared for in all respects, but the
mother is not deprived of the discipline of such care, and is also
enabled from the outset to learn and to understand the child's
nature.
The inability to auckle acquires great significance if ve realiie
that it is associated, probably in a large msasure as a direct cause, with
infantile mortality. The mortality of artificially- fed infanta during the
first year of life is seldom less than double tJiat of the breast-fed, some-
times it is as much as three times that of the breast-fed, or even more;
thus at Derby 61.7 per cent, of hand-fed infants die under the age of
twelve months, but only 8.6 per cent, of breast-fed infants. Those who
survive are by no means free from suffering. At the end of the first
j'ear they are found to weigh about 25 per cent, less than the breast-
fed, and to be much shorter; tbey are more liable to tuberculosis and
rickets, with all the evil results that flow from these disea.ie3; and
there is some reason to believe that the development of their teeth is
injuriously afTected. The degenerate character of the artificially- fed is
well indicated by the tact that of 40,000 children who were brought for
treatment to the Children's Hospital in Munich, 86 per cent had been
brought up by hand, and the few who had been suckled had usually only
had the breast for a short time. The evil infiuence persists even up to
adult life. In some parts of France where the wet-nurse industry
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THE MOTnEH AND HEE CHrLD, 27
flouriBhes so greatly that nearly all the cbiidren are brought up by band,
ft has been found that the perceutage of rejected conscripts is nearly
double tbat for France generally. Corresponding results have been
found by Friedjung in a large German athletic association. Among
155 members, 65 per cent, were found on inquiry to have been breast-
fed as infanta (for an average of six months); but among the best
athletes the percentage of breast-fed rose to 72 per cent (for an average
period of nine or ten months), while for the group of 56 who stood
lowest in athletic power the percentage of breast-fed fell to 57 (for an
ftverage of only three months).
The advantages for an infant of being suckled by its mother are
greater than can be accounted tor by the mere fact of being suckled
rather than hand-fed. This has been ehon-n by VHrey {De to Mortality
Infantile, Thl>se de Lyon, 1907), who found from the statistics of the
Hfltel-Dieu at Lyons, that infanta suckled by their mothers have a mor-
tality of only 12 per cent, but it suckled by strangers, the mortality
rises to 33 per cent. It may be added that, while suckling is essential
to the complete well-being of the child, it is highly desirable for the
■ake of the mother's health also. (Some important statistics are sum-
marized in a paper on "Infantile Mortality" in British Medical Journal,
Nov. 2, 1907, while the various aspects of suckling have been thoroughly
discussed by Bollinger, "Ueber SSuglings-SterbHchkeit und die Erblicbe
functionelle Atrophie der menschlichen HilchdrOse" (Correapondenz-
bUtlt Deutachen Oeiellgchaft Anthropologie, Oct., 1890).
It appears that in Sweden, in the middle of the eighteenth century,
it was a punishable offense for a woman to give her baby the bottle
when she was able to suckle it In recent years Prof. Anton von Men-
ger, of Vienna, has argued (in his Bargerliche Recht und die Beaitzloscn
Klaasen) that the future generation has the right to make this claim,
and be proposes tbat every mother shall be legally bound to suckle her
diild unless her inability to do so has been certified by a physician.
E. A, Schroeder (Dm Reoht in der Oeachlechilichen Ordnung, 1893, p.
346) also argued that a mother should be legally boimd to suckle her
infant for at least nine months, unless solid grounds could be shown to
the contrary, and this demand, which seems reasonable and natural,
since it is a mother's privilege as well its her duty to suckle her infant
when able to do so, has been insistently made by others also. It
has been supported from the legal aide by Weinberg fMutterchutz, Sept.,
1907). In France the Loi Roussel forbids a woman to act as n wet-
nurse until her child is seven months old, and this has had an excellent
effect in lowering infantile mortality (A. Allfe, PuiriciiUare ci la Loi
Roussel, These de Paris, ISOS). In some parts of Germany mnnufact-
nrers are compelled to set up a suckling-room in the factory, where
mothers can give the breast to the child in the intervals of work. The
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28 PSTCHOLOQT OP SEX.
control and upkeep ot these rooms, with provision of doctors and nurses,
is undertaken by the municipalitir (Semial-Proileme, Sept, 160S, p.
573).
As things are to-day in modern induBtrial countries the
righting of these wrongs cannot be left to Nature, that is, to the
ignorant and untrained impulses of persons who live in a whirl
of artificial life where the voice of instinct is drowned. The
mother, we are accustomed to think, may be trusted to see to
the welfare of her child, and it is unnecessary, or even "immoral,"
to come to her assistance. Yet there are few things, I think,
more pathetic than the sight of a young Lancashire mother who
works in the mills, when she has to stay at home to nurse her
sick child. She is used to rise before day-break to go to the
mill ; she has scarcely seen her child by the light of the sun, she
knows nothing of its necessities, the hands that are so skilful to
catch the loom cannot soothe the child. The mother gazes down
at it in vague, awkward, speechless misery. It is not a sight one
can ever forget.
It is France that is taking the lead in the initiation of the
scientific and practical movements for the care of the young child
before and after birth, and it is in France that we may find the
germs of nearly all the methods now becoming adopted for
arresting infantile mortality. The village system of Villiers-le-
Duc, near Dijon in the Cote d'Or, has proved a germ of this
fruitful kind. Here every pregnant woman not able to secure the
right conditions for her own life and that of the child she is bear-
ing, is able to claim the assistance of the village authorities; she
is entitled, without payment, to the attendance of a doctor and
midwife and to one franc a day during her confinement. The
measures adopted in this village have practically abolished both
maternal and infantile mortality. A few years ago Dr. Samson
Moore, the medical ofiicer of health for Huddersfield, heard of
this village, and Mr. Benjamin Broadbent, the Mayor of Hud-
dersfield, visited Villiers-le-Duc. It was resolved to initiate in
Huddersfield a movement for combating infant mortality.
Henceforth arose what is known as the Huddersfield scheme, a
scheme which has been fruitful in splendid results. The points
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THE UOTHER AND HER CHILD. 29
of the Huddersfield scheme are ; (1) compulBory notification of
birthe within forty-eight hours; (2) the appointment of lady
aseiatant medical officers of help to visit the home, inquire, advise,
and assist; (3) the organized aid of voluntary lady workers in
subordination to the municipal part of the scheme; (4) appeal
to the medical officer of help when the baby, not being under
medical care, fails to thriTe. The infantile mortality of
Huddersfield has been very greatly reduced by this scheme.^
The Huddersfield scheme may be said to be the origin of the Eng-
lish Notification of Births Act, which came into operation in 1908. This
Act represents, in Kngland, the national inauguration of a. scheme (or
the betterment of the race, the ultimate results of which it is impossible
to foresee. When this Act comes into universal action every baby of
the land will be entitled — -legally and not by individual caprice or phil-
anthropic condescension — to medical attention from the day of birth, and
every mother will have at hand the counsel of an educated woman in
touch with the municipal authorities. There could be no greater
triumph for medical science, for national efficiency, and the cause of
humanity generally. Even on the lower financial plane, it is easy to see
that an enormous saving of public and private money will thua be
effected. Tho Act is adoptive, and not compulsory. This was a wise
precaution, for an Act of this kind cannot be effectual unless it ia
carried out thoroughly by the community adopting it, and it will not
be adopted until a community has clearly realized its advantages and
the methods ot attaining them.
An important adjunct of this organization is the School for
Ifothera. Such schools, which are now beginning to spring up every-
where, may be said to have their origins in the CongvUaU<ms de Tfour-
riMons (with their offshoot the Qoutte de Lail), established by Professor
Budin in 1S02, which have spread all over France and been widely
influential for good. At the Con«ultatioti9 infants are examined and
weighed weekly, and the mothers advised and encouraged to suckle their
children. The Oouttet are practically milk dispensaries where infants
for whom breast-feeding is impossible are fed with milk under medical
supervision. Schools for Mothers represent an enlargement of tlie same
scheme, covering a variety of subjects which it is necessary for a mother
to know. Some of the first of these schools were established at Bonn,
at the Bavarian town of Weissenberg, and In Ghent At some of the
1 "Infantile Mortality: The Huddersfield Scheme," British Medical
Journal, Deo., 1907; Samson Moore, "Infant Mortalify," ib., August
80, I90S.
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80 P8TCH0L00Y OF BEX.
Schools for Mothers, and notabl; at Ghent (described by Mrs. Bertrand
RusBell in the yinetcenth Century, 1906), the important step has been
taken of giving training to young girls from fourteen to eighteen; they
receive instruction in infant anatomy and physiology, in the prepara-
tion of sterilized mill;, in weighing children, in taking temperatuiea and
making charts, in managing cr&cbes, and after two years are able to
earn a salary. In various parts of England, schools for young mothers
and pris on these lines are now being eatabliahed, flrat in London, under
the auspices of Dr. F. J. Sykes, Medical Officer of Health for St Pan-
creas (see, e.g., A School For Mothers. 1908, describing an establishment
of this kind at Soraers Town, M'ith a preface by Sir Thomas Barlow; an
account of recent attempts to improve the care of infants in London will
also be found in the Lancet, Sept. 26, 1906). It may be added that some
English municipalities have established depOtS for supplying mothers
cheaply with good milk. Such depots are, however, likely to be mora
mischievous than beneficial if they promote the substitution of hand-feed-
ing for suckling. They should never be established except in connection
with Schools for Mothers, where an educational influence may be
exerted, and no mother should be supplied with milk unless she presents
a medical certificate showing that she is unable to nourish her child
(Byers, "Medical Women and Public Health Questions," British Uedical
Journal, Oct. 6, 1906). It is noteworthy that in England the local
authorities will shortly be empowered by law to establish Schools for
Mothers.
The great benefits produced by these institutions in France, both in
diminishing the infant mortality and in promoting the education of
mothers and their pride and interest in their children, have been set
forth in two Paris theses by G. Chaignon [Organisalicn de$ Conaulla-
iioM de XourrittOTts A la Campagne, I90S), and Alcide Alexandre {Con-
suliation de Xourrttsons el Oouile de Lait iTArqiiea, 1908).
Tlie movement ia now spreading throughout Europe, and an Inter-
national Union has been formed, including all the institutions specialty
founded tor the protection of child lite and the promotion of puericul-
ture. The permanent committee is in Brussels, and a Congress of Infant
Protection IQouttc de Lait] is held every two years.
It will be Been that all the movements now being set in
action for the improvement of the race through the child and
the child's mother, recognize the intimacy of the relation between
the mother and her child and are designed to aid her, even if
necessary by the exercise of some pressure, in performing her
natural functions in relation to her child. To the theoretical
philanthropist, eager to reform the world on paper, nothing seems
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THE MOTHEE AND HBE CHILD. 31
eiinpler than to cure the preeeot evils of child-rearing by Betting
up State nurBeries which are at once to relieve tnothera of every-
thing connected with the production of the men of the future
beyond the pleasure — if such it happens to be— of conceiving
them and the trouble of bearing them, and at the same time to
rear them up independently of the home, in a wholesome,
economical, and scientific manner.^ Nothing seems simpler, but
from the fundamental psychological standpoint nothing is falser.
The idea of a State which is outaide the community is but a
survival in another form of that antiquated notion which com-
pelled Louis XIV to declare "L'Etat c'est moi !" A State
which admits that the individuals composing it are incompetent
to perform their own most sacred and intimate functions, and
takes upon itself to perform tiiem instead, attempts a task which
would be undesirable, even if it were possible of achievement. It
must always be remembered that a State which proposes to
relieve its constituent members of their natural functions and
responsibilities attempts something quite different from the
State which seeks to aid its members to fulfil their own
biological and social functions more adequately. A State which
enables its mothers to rest when they are child-bearing is
engaged in a reasonable task ; a State which takes over its
mothers' children ia reducing philanthropy to absurdity. It is
easy to realize this if we consider the inevitable course of cir-
cumstances under a system of "State-nuraeries." The child
would be removed from its natural mother at tlie earliest age,
but some one has to perform the mother's duties; the substitute
must therefore be properly trained for auch duties; and in
ezerciaing them under favorable circumstances a maternal rela-
tionship is developed between the child and the "mother," who
doubtless possesses natural maternal instincts but baa no natural
1 Ellen Key has admirably dealt with proposals of this kind (as
put forth by C, P. Stetson) in her Essays "On Love and itfarriage." In
opposition to such proposals Ellen Key su^^sts that sueh women as
have been properly trained for maternal duties and are unable entirely
to support themselvefl while exeretsing them should be subsidized by the
State diirinf; the child's first throe years of lite. It may he added that
in Leipzig the plan of subsidizing mothers who (under proper medical
•Dd otJier supervision) auckle their infants has already been introduced.
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32 PSYCHOLOGY OF BEX.
maternal bond to the child she is mothering. Such a relation-
ship tends to become on both aides practically and emotionally the
real relationship. We very often have opportunity of seeing how
unsatisfactory such a relationship becomes. The artificial mother
is deprived of a child she had begun to feel her own; the
child's emotional relationehipe are upset, split and distorted;
the real mother has the bitterness of feeling that for her
child she is not the real mother. Would it not have been much
better for all if the State had encouraged the vast army of
women it had trained for the position of mothering other
women's children, to have, instead, children of their own? The
women who are incapable of mothering their own children could
then be trained to refrain from bearing them,
Ellen Key (in her Ceniury of the Child, and elsewhere) has hdn-
cated for all young women a year of compulsory "service." analogous to
the compulsory military service imposed in most countries on young
men. During this period the girl would be trained in rational house-
keeping, in the principles of hygiene, in the care of the aick, and eap«-
-cialty in the care of infants and all that concerns the physical and
psychic development of children. The principle of this propoMil hu
since heen widely accepted. Marie von Schmid (in her Mvtterdiemt,
1907) goes so far as to advocate a general training of young women In
such duties, carried on in a kind of enlarged and improved midwifery
school. The service would last a year, and the young woman would then
be for three years in the reserves, and liable to be called up for duty.
There is certainly much to be said for such a proposal, considerably
more than is to he said for compulsory military service. For while it
is very doubtful whether a man will ever be called on to fight, moat
women are liable to be called on to exereise household duties or to look
after children, whether for tfaemaelvea or for other people.
DiclzedbyGoOglC
CHAPTER II.
SEXUAL EDUCATION.
Nurture Necessary as Well as Breed — Precocious Manifeatatious
of the 8«zual Impulse — Are Thej to be Regarded as Normal r — The
Sanial Play of Children — ^The Emotion of Love in Childhood — Are Town
Children More PrecociouB Sexunllj Than Country Children! — Children's
Ideas Concerning the Origin of Bnbies — Need for Beginning the Sexual
Education of Children in Early Years — The Importance of Early Train-
ing in Reaponsibility — Evil of the Old Doctrine of Silence in Matters of
Sex— The Evil Magnified When Applied to Girls— The Mother the
Natural and Best Teacher — The Morbid Influence of Artificial Mystery
in Sex Matters — Books on Sexual Enli^tenment of the Young — Nature
of the Mother's Task — Sexual Education in the School — The Value of
Botany — ZoSlogy — Sexual Education After Puberty — The Necessity of
Counteracting Quack Literature — Danger of Neglecting to Prepare for
tlie First Onset of Menstruation — The Right Attitude Towards Woman's
Sexual Life — The Vital Necessity of the Hygiene of Menstruation Dur-
ing Adolescence — Such Hygiene Compatible with the Educational and
Social Equality of the Sexes — The Invalidism of Women Mainly Due to
Hygienic Neglect — Good Influence of Physical Training on Women and
Bad Influence of Athletics — The Evils of Emotional Suppression — Need
of Teaching the Dignity of Sex — Influence of These Factors on a
Woman's Fate in Marriage — Lectures and Addresses on Sexual Hygiene
— The Doctor's Part in Sexual Education — Pubertal Initiation Into the
Ideal World— The Place of the Religious and Ethical Teacher—The
Initiation Rites of Savages Into Manhood and Womanhood — The Sexual
Influence of Literature — The Sexual Influence of Art.
It may seem to some that in attaching weight to the ancestry,
the parentage, the conception, the gestation, even tlie first
infancy, of the child we are wandering away from the spliere of
the psychology of bc-x. That is far from being the case. We are,
on the contrary, going to the root of sex. All our growing
knowledge tends to show that, equally with his physical nature,
the child's psychic nature is based on breed and nurture, on the
quality of the stocks he belongs to, and on the care taken at the
» (33)
Dicized by Google
34 PSYCHOLOGY OF BEX.
early moments when care counts for moBt, to preeerre the fine
quality of those stocks.
It must, of course, be remembered that the influenceB of both breed
■nd nurture are alike influential on the fate of the individual. The
inSuence of nurture is bo obvious that few are likely to under-rate it.
The influence of breed, however, is less obvious, end we may atill meet
with persona so ill informed, and perhaps so prejudiced, as to deny it
altogether. The growth of our knowledge in this matter, by showing
how subtle and penetrative is the influence of lieredity, cannot fail to
diapel thia mischievoua notion. No aound eivilization is posaible except
in a community which in the mass ia not only well-nurtured but well-
bred. And in no part of life so much aa in the aexual relationshipa ia
the influence of good breeding more decisive. An instructive illuatra-
tioD may be gleaned from the minute and preciae hialory of hia early
life furniahed to me by a highly cultured Kusaian gentleman. He wtia
brought up in childhood with hia own brothers and siaters and a little
girl of the aarae age who had been adopted from infancy, the child of a
prostitute who bad died soon after the infant's birth. The adopted child
waa treated as one of the family, and all the children supposed that she
was a real aiater. Yet from early yeara she developed inatincts unlike
those of the children with whom she wad nurtured; she lied, she was
cruel, ahe loved to make miachiet, and she developed precociously vicious
sexual impulaea; though carefully educated, she adopted the occupation
of her mother, and at the age of twenty-two waa exiled to Siberia for
robbery and attempt to murder. The child of a chance father and a
prostitute mother is not fatally devoted to ruin; but such a child is
ill-bred, and that fact, in aome casea, may neutralize all the influences
of good nurture.
When we reach the period of infancy we have already passed
heyond the foundations and potentialities of the sexual life ; we
are in some eases witnessing its actual beginnings. It is a
well-established fact that auto-erotic manifestations may some-
times be observed even in infants of less than twelve months.
We are not now called upon to discuss the disputable point as to
how far such manifestations at this age can be called normal.'
A slight degree of menstrual and mammary activity sometimes
1 These manifeatationa have been dealt with in the study of Auto-
erotism in vol. i of the present StiuHrn. It may be added that the sexual
life of the child has been exhaustively investigated by Moll, Das Seauol-
Uhen dea Kindes, 1009.
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SEXUAL EDUCATION. 35
occurs ac birth. ^ It seems clear that nervous and psychic sexual
activity has its first spriDgs at this early period, and as the years
go by an increasing number of individuals join the stream until
at puberty practically all are carried along in the great current.
While, therefore, it is possibly, even probably, true that the
soundest and healthiest individuals show no definite signs of
nervous and psychic sexuality in childhood, such manifestations
are still sufficiently frequent to make it impossible to say that
aeiual hygiene may be completely ignored until puberty is
approaching.
Precocious physical developrnfnt oppura ns a somewhat rare varia-
tion. W. Kog«r Williams ("Precocious Sexual Development with
Abstracts o( over One Hundred Coses," ItriiUh Qyniecological Journal,
&Iay, 1902) has furnished an Important contribution to the knowledge
of this anomaly which is much commoner in girls thnn in boys. Roger
Williams's cases include only twenty boys to eighty ^rls, and precocity
is not only more frequent but more pronounced in girls, who have been
known to conceive at eight, while thirteen ia stated to be the earliest
age at which boys liave proved able to beget children. Tliis, it may be
remarked, is also the earliest age at which spermatozoa are found in the
seminal Suid of boys; before that age the ejaculations contain no aper-
matoToa, and, aa FUrbringer and Moll have found, they may even be
absent at ei.\tcen, or later. In female children precocious sexual devel-
opment is 1^(9 commonly associated with general increase of bodily
development than in boys. I An individual case of early sexual develop-
ment in a girl of five has been completely described and figured in the
Zeittchrift fur EtknoJogie, 1S06, Heft 4, p. 282.)
Precocious sexual impulses are generally vague, occasional, and
more or less innocent. A case of rare and pronounced character, in
which a child, a boy, from the age of two had been sexually attracted
to girls and women, and directed all bis thoughts and HRtiona to sexual
attempts on them, has been described by Herbert Rich, of Detroit
(AiienitI end fleurologUl, Kov., 1905). General evidence from the
literature of the subject as to sexual precocity, its frequency and signifi-
cance, haa been brought together by L. M. Terman ("A Study in Pre-
cocity," American Journal Psychology, April, IB05).
1 This genital efflorescence tn the sexual glanda and breaata at
birth or in early infancy has been discussed in a Paris thesis, by Camilla
Renouf [La Criiie Ofnital et lea Manifettiilionit CannfMs chex le Fwttta
et le Jiouveau-ni, 190S) ; ba ia unable to offer a satisfactory explanation
of theae phen
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36 PBTCHOLOQT OP SEX.
The erections that are liable to occur in male infants have usuallf
no sexual significance, though, as Moll remarks, they maj acquire it bj
attracting the child's attention; they are merely reflex. It is believed
by some, however, and notably by Freud, that certain manifestations of
infant activity, espertally thunib*«ucking, are of sexual causation, and
that the sexual impulse constantly manifests itself at a. very early age.
The belief that the sexual instinct is absent in childhood, Freud regards
as a serious error, so easy to correct by observation that he wonders
how it can have arisen. "In reality." he remarks, "the new-bom infant
brings sexuality with it into the world, sexual sensattonB accompany it
through the days of lactation and childhood, and very few children can
fail to e.tperienee sexual activities and feelings before the period of ,
puberty" (Freud, "Zur Sexuellen Aufkliirung der Kinder," Satiate
Medizin and Hygitne, Bd. ,ii, 1907 ; cf., for details, the same author's
Drei Abhandltingen zur Scmialtheorie, 1905). Moll, on the other hand,
considers that Freud's views on sexuality in infancy are exaggerations
which must be decisively rejected, thongh be admits that it is difficult,
if not impossible, to differentiate the feelings in childhood (Moll, Dot
Bexuallehen dea Kindes, p. 154). Moll believes also that psycho-sexual
manifestations appearing after tlie age of eight are not pathological ;
children who are weakly or of bod heredity are not seldom sexually pre-
<M>cious, but, on the other hand, Moll has known children of eight or
nine with strongly developed sexual impulses, who yet become finely
developed men.
Rudimentary sexual activities in childhood, accompanied by sexual
feelings, must indeed — when they are not too pronounced or too prema-
ture— be regarded as coming within the normal sphere, though when
they occur in children of bad heredity they are not without serious
risks. But in healthy children, after the age of seven or eight, they
"t^nd to produce no evil results, and are strictly of the nature of play.
Play, both in animals and men, ns Groos has shown with marvelous
' wealth of illustration, is a beneficent process of education; the young
■creature is thereby preparing itself for the exercise of those functions
which in later life it must carry out more completely and more seri-
•ously. In his Spiele der Menschen, Groos applies this idea to the sexual
play of children, and brings forward quotations from literature in evi-
dence. Keller, in his "Romeo und Juliet au( dem Dorte," has given an
admirably truthful picture of these childish love-relationahips. Emit
SchuItze-MalkoHsky {GeschleKht und Genell&chaft, Bd. ii, p. 370) repro-
duces some scenes from the life of n little girl of seven clearly illustrat-
ing the exact nature of the sexual manifestation at this age.
A kind of rudimentary sexual intercourse between children, as
"Bloch has remarked (Brifro-je, etc.. Rd. ii, p. 2.54), occurs in many parts
of the world, and is recognized by their elders as play. This is, for
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SEXUAL EDUCATION. 87
instance, tlie case among the Bawenda of the Transvkal {Zciiachrift fur
Etlntol09i«, 1896, Ueft 4, p. 304), and among the Papuans of Kaiser-
Wilhelms-Land, with the approval of the parents, although much
reticence it observed {id., 1880, Heft 1, p. 10). Godard [Egypte el
Palestine, 1807, p. 105) noted the sexuul plaj of the hoys and girla in
Cairo. In New Mexico W. A. Hammond {fiexuol Impotence, p. 107)
haa seen boya and girls attempting a ptajful se\ua1 eonjunction with
the encouragement of men and women, and in New York he has seen
boj'B and girla of three and four doing the same in the presence of their
parents, with only a laughing rebuke. "Playing at pa and ma" is
indeed extremely common among children in genuine innocence, and with
a complete absence of vieiouHnesB; and is by no means confined to chil-
dren of low Eocial class. Moll remarks on its frequency {Libido
Semialia, Bd, i, p. 277), and tbe committee of e\-angplical pastors, in
their investigation of German rural morality ( Dia Geachtechtliche-
aillliehe Verhdltnigse, Bd. i, p. 102) found that children who are not
yet of school age make attempts at coitus. The sexual play of children
is by no means confined to father and mother games; frequently there
are games of school with the clima.^ in exposure and smackings, and
occasionally there are games of being doctors and making examinations.
Thus a young English woman says: "Of course, when we were at school
[at the age of twelve and earlier] we used to play with one another,
several of us girls; we used to go into a field and pretend we were
doctors and had to examine one another, and then we used to pull up
one another's clothes and feel each other."
These games do not necessarily involve the co{''peration of the
sexual impulse, and still less have they any element of love. But emo-
tions of love, scarcely if at all distinguishable from adult sexual love,
frequently appear at equally early ages. They are ot the nature of play,
in so far as play la a preparation for the activities of later life, though,
unlike the games, they are not felt as play. Ramdohr, more than a
century ago {Penu* Vrania, 1708), referred to the frequent love of little
boys for women. More usually the love is felt towards individuals of
the opposite or the same sex who are not widely different in age, though
usually older. The most comprehensive study of the matter has been
made by Sanford Bell in America on n basis of as many as 2,300 cases
(S. Bell, "A Preliminary Study of the Emotion of Love Between the
Sexes," American Jovmal Psychology, July. 1902). Bpll finds that the
presence of the emotion between three and eight years of age is shown
by such actions as hugging, kissing. lifting each other, scuffling, sitting
close to each other, confessions to each other and to others, talking about
each other when apart, seeking each other and excluding the rest, grief
at separation, giving gifts, showing special courtesies to each other, mak-
ing sacrifices for each other, exhibiting jealousy. The girls are, on the
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38 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
whole, more aggressive than the bofs, and less anxioua to keep the mat-
ter secret. After the age of eight, the girls increase in modesty and
the boys become still more secretive. 'Die physical setiBations are not
usiiailj' located in the sexual organs; erection of the penis and hjper-
temia of the female sexual parts Bell regards as marking undue pre-
cocity. But there is diffused vascular and nervous tumeHcence and a
state of exaltation comparable, thougli not equal, to that experienced In
adolescent and adult age. On the whole, as Bell soundly concludes,
"love between children of opposite aex bears much the same relation to
that between adults as the flower does to the fruit, and has about aa
little of physical sexuality in it as an apple-blossom has of the apple
that develops from it." Moll also {op. cil., p. 76) considers that kissing
and other similar superficial contacts, which he denominates the phe-
nomena of contrectation, constitute most frequently the first and sola
manifestation of the sexual impulse in childhood.
It is often stated tliat it is easier for children to preserve their
sexual innocence in the country than in the town, and that only In cities
is sexuality rampant and conspicuous. This is by no means true, and
in some respects it is the reverse of the truth. Certainly, hard work, a
natural and simple life, and a lack of alert intelligence often combine
to keep the rural lad chaste in tliought and act until the period of
adolescence is completed. Aniinon, for instance, states, though without
giving definite evidence, that this is common among the Baden con-
scripts. Certainly, also, all the multiple sensory excitements of urban
life tend to arouse the nervous and cerebral excitability of the young at
a comparatively early age in the sexual as in other fields, and promote
premature desires and curiosities. But, on the other hand, urban life
offers the young no gratification for their desires and ouriosities. The
publicity of a city, the universal sun'oillance, the studied decorum of a
population conscious that it is continually exposed to the gaze of
strangers, combine to spread a veil over the esoteric side of life, which,
even when at last it fails to conceal from the young the urban stimuli
of that lite, efTectually conceals, tor the most part, the gratiflcationa of
those stimuli. In the country, however, these restraints do not exist in
any corresponding degree: animals render the elemental facts of sexual
life clear to all; there is tees need or regard for decorum; speech is
plainer; supervi^'ion is impossible, and the amplest opportunities for
sexual intimacy are at hand. If the city may perhaps be said to favor
unchastity of thought in the young, the country may certainly be eaid
to favor unchastity of act
The elaborate investigations of the Committee of T.utheran pastors
into sexual morality (Die Oeachlrcbttich-sillliche Vtrhaltniage m
Deutschen Reiche), published a few years ago. demonstrate amply the
sexual freedom io rural Oennany, and Moll, who is decidedly of opinion
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SEXUAL EDDCATION. 39
thst the countrf enjoys no relative freedom from BOzuality, slates {op.
eit., pp. I37'13B, 239) that even the circulation of obscena books and
pictures among school'children seems to be more frequent in small towni
aod the countrr than io large cities. In Russia, where it might be
thought that urban and rural conditions offered less contrast than in
many countries, tlie same difference lias been observed. "I do not
know," a Russian correspondent writes, "whether Zola in La Terre cor-
rectly describes the life of French villages. But the ways of a Russian
village, where I passed part uf my childhood, fairly resemble those
described by Zola. In the life of the rural population into which I was
plunged everything was impregnated with erotiam. One was surrounded
by animal lubricity in all its immodesty. Contrary to the generally
received opinion, I believe tliat a child may preserve his sexual innocence
more easily in a town than in the country. There are, no doubt, many
exceptions to tliis rule. But the functions of the sexual life are gen.
erally more concealed in the towns than in the flelds. Modesty (whether
or not of the merely superflcial and exterior kind) is more developed
among urban populations. In speaking of sexual things in the towns
people veil their thought more; even the lower class in towns employ
more restraint, more euphemisms, than peasants. Thus in the towns a
child may easily fail to comprehend when risky subjects are talked of
In his presence. It may be said that the corruption of towns, tliou(^
more concealed, is all the deeper. Maybe, but that concealment pre-
serves children from it. The town child sees prostitutes in the street
every day without distinguishing them from other people. In the coun-
try he would every day hear it stated in the crudest terms that such
and such a girl has been found at night in a barn or a ditch making
lore with such and such a youth, or that the servant girl slips every
night into tlie coachman's bed, the facts of sexual intercourse, pregnancy,
and childbirth being spoken of in the plainest terms. In towns the
child's attention is solicited by a thousand different objects; in the
country, except fieldwork, which fails to interest him, he hears only of
the reproduction of animals and the erotic exploits of girls and youths.
When we say that the urban environment is more exciting we are think-
ing of adults, but the things which excite the adult have usually no
erotic effect on the child, who cannot, however, long remain asexual when
he sees the great peasant girls, as ardent as mares in heat, abandoning
themselves to the arms of robust youths. He cannot fail to remark
these frank manifestations of sexuality, though the subtle and perverse
refinements of the town would escape his notice. I know that in the
countries of exaggerated prudery there ia much hidden corruption, more,
one is sometimes inclined to think, than in less hypocritical countries.
But I believe that that is a false impression, and am persuaded that
precisely because of all these little concealments which excite the mali-
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■40 PBTCHOLOGt OF SEX.
eiona amusement of foreigners, there are really maiiT' IDore Toung
people in EngUnd who remain chaste than in the countries which
treat sesual relationa more frankly. At all events. If I have known
En^iahmen who were very debauched and very refined in vice, I have
also known young men of the same nation, over twenty, who were as
innocent as children, but never a young Frenchman, Italian, ot
Spaniard of whom this could be said." There is undoubtedly truth
In thia statement, though it must be remembered that, excellent as
chastity is, if it is based on mere ignorance, its possessor is exposed
to terrible dangers.
The question of sexual hygiene, more especially in its special
aspect of sexual enlightenment, is not, however, dependent on the
fact that in some children the psychic and nervous manifestation
of sex appears at an earlier age than in others. It rests upon the
larger general fact that in all children the activity of intelligence
begins to work at a very early age, and that this activity tends to
manifest itself in an inquisitive desire to know many elementary
facts of life which are really dependent on sex. The primary
end most universal of these desires is the desire to know whei'C
children come from. No question could be more natural ; the
question of origins is necessarily a fundamental one in childish
philosophies as, in more ultimate shapes, it is in adult philoso-
phies. Most children, either guided by the statements, usually
the mlBstatements, of their elders, or by their own intelligence
working amid such indications as are open to them, are in
possession of a theory of the origin of babies,
Stanley Hall ("Contents of Children's Minds on Entering School,"
Pedagogical Beminari/, June, 1801) has coHeoted some of the beliefs of
young children as to the origin of babies. "God makes babies in heaven,
though the Holy Mother and even Santa Claua make some. He lets
them down and drops them, and the women or doctors catch them, or
He leaves them on the sidewalk, or btingn them down a wooden ladder
backwards and pulls it up again, or mamma or the doctor or the nurse
go up and fetch them, sometimes in a ballot.n, or they (\y down and lose
off their wings In some place or other and forget it, and jump down to
Jesus, who gives them around. They were also often said to be found
in flour-barrels, and the flour sticks ever so long, you know, or they
grew in cabbages, or God puts them in water, perhaps in the sewer, and
the doctor gets them out and takes them to sick folks that want them.
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SEXUAL EDOCATIOtf. 42
or the miUmuin brings them early in the morning; they are dug out of
the ground, or bought at the haby store."
In England and America the iuquiBltive child is oft«n told that the
baby was found in the garden, under a gooseberry busti or elsewhere; or
ntare commonly it is said, with what ia doubtless felt to be a nearer
approach to the truth, that the doctor brought it. In Germany the com-
mon story told to children is that the stork brings the baby. Various
theories, mostly based on folk-lore, have be^n put forward to explain
this story, but none of them seem quite convincing (see, e.g., G. Herman,
"Seiual-Mythen," Oeschlecht and QeaelUchaft, vol. i. Heft 6, 1906, p.
176, and P. N&cke, Vevrologiache Gentralblait, No. 17, 1907). NScke
thinks there is some plausibility in Professor Petermann's sugges-
tion that a frog writhing in a stork's bill rcBembles a tiny human
In Iceland, according to Max Bartels ("Isllindischer Brauch und
Volksglaube," etc., Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologic, 1900, Heft 2 and 3) we
And a transition between the natural and the fanciful in the stories told
to children of the origin of babies {the stork ia here precluded, for it
only extends to the southern border of Scandinavian lands). In North
Iceland it is said tbat God made the baby and the mother bore it, and
on that account is now ill. In the northwest it is said that God made
the baby and gave it to the mother. Elsewhere it is said that God sent
the bal^ and the midwife brought it, the mother only being in bed to
be near the baby (which is seldom placed in a cradle). It is also some-
times said that a lamb or a bird brought the baby. Again it is said to
have entered during the night through the window. Sometimes, how-
ever, the child is told that the baby came out of tbe mother's breasts,
or from below her breasts, and that is why she is not well.
Even when children learn that babies come out of the mother's
body this knowledge often remains very vague and inaccurate. It very
commonly happens, for instance. In all civilized countries that the navel
is regarded as the baby's point of exit from the body. This is a natural
conclusion, since tbe navel is seemingly a channel into the body, and a
channel for which there is no obvious use, while the pudendal cleft
would not suggest itself to girls (and still less to boys) aa the gate of
birth, since it already appears to be monopolized by the urinary excre-
tion. Tbis belief concerning the navel is sametimes preserved through
the whole period of adolescence, especially in girls of the so-called edu-
cated class, who are too well-bred to discuss tbe matter with their
married friends, and believe indeed that they are already sufficiently
well informed. At this age the belief may not be altogether harmless,
in BO far as it leads to the real gate of sex being left unguarded. In
Elsass where girls commonly believe, and are taught, that babies come
throngfa the navel, popular folk-tales are current {Anthropopkyteia, vol.
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42 PBYCHOLOQT OF SEX.
iii, p. S9) which repreaeDt the mistakeB resulting from this belief at
leading to the loaa of virginity.
Freud, who believes that children give little credit to the etork
fable and eimilar ataries invented for their mystification, has made an
interesting psychological investigation into the real theories which chil-
dren themselves, as the result of observation and thought, reach con-
cerning the sesual facts of life (S. Freud, "Ueber Tnfantile Sexual-
theorien," Sexval-ProbJeme, Dee., 1908). Such theoriea, he remarks,
correspond to the brilliant, but defective hypotheses which primitive
peoples Qrri\'e at concerning the nature and origin of the world. There
are three theoriea, which, aa Freud quite truly concludes, are very com-
monly formed by children. The first, and the most widely disseminated,
is that there is no real anatomical dilTerence between boys and
girl.s; if the boy notices that his little sister has no obvious penia he
even concludes that it is because she is too young, and the little girl
herself takes the aame view. The fact that in early life the clitoris is
relatively larger and more pejiia-like lielps to confirm this view which
Freud connects with the tendency in later life to erotic dream of women
furnished with a penis. This theory, as Freud also remarks, favors the
growth of homosexuality when its germs are present. The second
theory is the ftecal. theory of the origin of babies. The child, who per-
haps thinks his mother has a penis, and is in any case ignorant of the
vagina, concludes that the baby is brought into the world by an action
analogous to the action of the bowels. The third theory, which is per-
haps less prevalent than the others, Freud terms the sadistic theory of
coitus. The child realizes that his father must have taken some sort
of part in his production. The theory that sexual intercourse eonsista
in violence has in it a trace of truth, but seems to be arrived at rather
obscurely. The child's own sexual feelings are often aroused for th»
first time when wrestling or struggling with a companion; he may see
his mother, also, resisting more or less playfully a sudden eareas from
his father, and if a real quarrel takes place, the impression may be
fortified. As to what the state of marriage consists in, Freud flnds that
it is usually regarded as a state which abolishes modesty; the most
prevalent theory being that marriage means that people can make watet
before each other, while another common childish theory is that mar-
riage ia when people can show each other their private parts.
Thus it 19 that at a very early atage of the child's life we are
brought face to face with the question how we may most wisely
begin his initiation into tho knowledge of the great central facts
of sex. It is perhaps a little late in the day to regard it aa a
question, but so it is among ua, although three thousand five
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SEXUAL EDDOATION. 43
hnndred years ago, the Egyptian father spoke to his child : "I
have given yon a mother who hag carried you within her, a heavy
burden, for your saiie, and without leating on me. When at last
you were bom, she indeed submitted herself to the yoke, for
during three years were her nipples in your mouth. Your
eierements never turned her stomach, nor made her say, 'What
am I doing?' When you were sent to school she went regularly
every day to carry the household bread and beer to your master.
When in your turn you marry and have a child, bring up your
child as your mother brought you up."'
I take it for granted, however, that — whatever doubt there
may be as to the bow or the when — no doubt is any longer
possible as to the absolute necessity of taking deliberate and
active part in this sexual initiation, instead of leaving it to the
chance revelation of ignorant and perhaps vicious companions or
servants. It is becoming more and more widely felt that the
risks of ignorant innocence are too great.
"All the love and solicitude parental yearning can bestow," writes
Dr. G. F. Butler, of Chicago (Love and its A/pnitie$, 1896, p. S3), "all
thai the most refined religious influence can offer, nil that the most
cultivated aaaoeiationa can accomplish, in one fatal moment maj he
obliterated. There is no room for ethical reasoning, indeed oftentimes
BO consciousneas of wrong, but only Margaret's 'Es war so hHhs'." The
same writer adds (as had been previouHly remarked by Mra, Craik and
others) that among church members it is the finer and more sensitive
organizations that are the most susceptible to sexual emotions. So far
as boys are concerned, we leave instruction in matters of Be\, the most
sacred and central fact in the world, as Canon Lyttelton remarks, to
"dirfy-minded school-boys, grooms, garden*boys, anyone, in short, who at
an early ago may be sufficiently defiled and sufficiently reckless to talk
of them." And, so tar as girls are concerned, as Balzac long ago
remarked, "a mother may bring up her daughter severely, and cover
her beneath her wings for seventeen years; but a servant-girl can
destroy that long work by a word, even by a gesture."
The great part played by servant-girls of the lower class in the
aezual initiation of the children of the middle class has been illustrated
in dealing with "The Sexual Impulse in Women" in vol. iii, of these
I Am£1ineau, La Morale dea Egyptiens, p. 64.
DiclzedbyGoOglC .
44 P8TCH0L0OT OF SEX.
etudiea, and need not now b« further diacussed. I would only here say
a word, in passing, on the other side. Often as servant-girU take Uiis
part, we must not go so fat as to eay that it ia the case with the
niajorit;. As regards Oermany, Dr. Alfred Kind has lately put on
record his experience; "I have nei.-er, in youth, heard a bad or improper
word on Bex- relationships from a eervaot-girl, although serraDt-girla
followed one another in our house like sunshine and showera in April,
and there was always a relation of comradeship between iis children aitd
the servants." Aa regards England, I can add that my own youthful
experiences correspond to Dr. Kind's. This is not surprising, for one
may say that in the ordinary well-c«iiditioned girl, though her virtue
may not be developed to heroic proportions, there is yet usually a
natural respaet for the innocence of children, a natural sexual indiffer-
ence to them, and a natural expectation that the male should take the
active part when a sexual situation arises.
It Je also beginning to be felt that, especially as regards
women, ignorant innocence is not' merely too fragile a possession
to be worth preservation, but that it is positively mischievous,
since it involves the lack of necessary knowledge. "It is little
short of criminal," writes Dr. F. II. Goodchild,^ "to send our
young people into the midst of the excitements and temptations
of a great city with no more preparation than if they were going
to live in Paradise." In the case of women, ignorance has the'
further disadvantage that it deprives them of the knowledge
necessary for intelligent aj^npathy with other women. The
unsympathetic attitude of women towards women is often largely
due to sheer ignorance of the facts of life. "Why," writes in a
private letter a married lady who keenly realizes this, "are
women brought up with such a profound ignorance of their
own and especially other women's natures? They do not know
half as much about other women as a man of the most average
capacity learns in his da}''B march," We try to make up for our
failure to educate women in the essential matters of sex by
imposing upon the police and other guardians of public order the
duty of protecting women and morals. But, as Moll insists, the
real problem of chastity lies, not in the multiplication of laws
I "The Soeia) Evil in Philadelphia," Arena, March, 1896.
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BBSOAL EDUCATION. 45
ftod policemen, but largely in women's knowledge of the dangers
of sex and in the cultivation of their sense of responsibility.'
We are always making laws for the protection of children and
setting the police on guard. But laws and the police, whether
their activities are good or bad, are in either case alike ineffectual.
They can for the most part only be invoked when the damage is
already done. We have to learn to go to the toot of the matter.
We have to teach children to be a law to themselves. We have to
give them that knowledge which will enable them to guard their
own personalities. 2 There is an authentic story of a lady who
had learned to swim, much to the horror of her clergyman, who
thought that swimming was un feminine. "But," she said,
"suppose I was drowning." "In lliat case," he replied, "you
ought to wait until a man comes along and saves you." There
we have the two methods of salvation which have been preached
to women, the old method and the new. In no sea have women
been more often in danger of drowning than that of sex. There
ought to be no question as to which is the better method of
salvation.
It is diRicult nowadays to And an; serious arguinentB against tlia
desirabilitT' of earlj eezual enlightenment, and it ia almost with amuBC'
ment that we read how t^e novelist Alphonse Daudet, when asked his
opinion of aueh enlightenment, protested — in a spirit certainly common
atDong the men of his time — that it was unnecessary, because boys could
leant everything from the streets and the newspapers, while "as to
young girls — no! I would teach tliem none of the truths of physiology.
I can only see disadvantages in such a proceeding. These truths are
ugly, disillusioning, sure to shock, to frighten, to disgust the mind, the
nature, of a girl." It is as niiich as (o say that there is no need to
supply aources of pure water when there are puddles in the street tliat
anyone can drink of. A contemporary of Daudet's, who possessed a far
finer spiritual insight, Coventry Patmore, the poet, in the essay on
"Ancient and Modem Ideas of Purity" in his beautiful book, Religio
Poeta, had already finely protested against that "disease of impurity"
1 Moll, fonlrare Semudempfindung, third edition, p. 692.
i This poverleasness of the law and the police is well recognized
hy lawyers familiar with the matter. Thus F. Werthauer {Sittlick-
keitadeUkle der Orotatadl, 1007) insists throughout on the importanao
of parents and t^hera imparting to children from their early years a
progressively increasing knowledge of sexual matters.
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46 PBTOHOLOQT OP BEX.
which comes of "our modem undivine silencM" for which Dandet
pleaded. And MetchnikotT, more recently, from the scientific aide, speak-
ing especially as regards women, declares that knowledge is so indispen-
sable for moral conduct that "ignorance must be counted the most
Immoral of acts" (Esaaia OpHmislet, p. 420).
The distinguished Belgian novelist, Camille Lemonnier, in his
L'Bomme en Amour, deals with the question of the sexual education of
the ^ung bj presenting the history of a young man, brought up under
the influence of the conventional and hypocritical views which teach
that nudity and sex are shameful and disgusting things. In this way
he passes by the opportunities of innocent and natural love, to become
hopelessly enslaved at last to a sensual woman who treats him merely
as the instrument of her pleasure, the last of a long succession of lovers.
Hie book is a powerful plea for a sane, wholesome, and natural educa-
tion in matters of sex. It was, however, prosecuted at Bruges, in 1901.
ttHnigh the trial finally ended in acquittal. Such a verdict is in bar-
niCHiy with the general tendency of feeling at the present time.
The old ideas, expressed by Daudet, that the facta of sex are ugly
and disillusioning, and that they shock the mind of the young, are both
alike entirely false. As Canon Lyttelton remarks, in urging that the
laws of the transmission of life should be taught to children by the
mother: "The way they receive it with native reverence, truthfulness
of understanding and guileless delicacy, is nothing short of a revelation
of the never-ceasing beauty of nature. People sometimes speak of the
indescribable beauty of children's innocence. But I venture to nay that
no one quite knows what it is who has foref^ne the privilege of being
the first to set before them the true meaning of life and birth and the
mystery of their own being. Not only do we fail to build up sound
knowledge in them, but we put away from ourselves the chance of learn-
ing something that must be divine." In the same way, Edward Car-
penter, stating that it ii easy and natural for the child to learn from
the first its physical relation to its mother, remarks (Lorf'* Coming of
Age, p. B) : "A child at the age of puberty, with the unfolding of its
far-down emotional and sexual natnre, is eminently capable of the most
sensitive, aO'ectional and serene appreciation of what arm means (gen-
erally more so ae thing? are to-day, than i(p worldling parent or
guardian) ; and can absorb the teaching, if Hympathetically given, with-
out any shock or disturbance to its sense of shame — that sense which ia
BO natural and valuable a safeguard of early youth."
How widespread, even some years ago, had become the conviction
that tie sexual facts of lite should be taught to girls as well as boys,
was shown when the opinions of a very miscellaneous assortment of
more or less prominent persons were sought on the question ("The Tree
of Knowledge," A'etc Bevietp, June, 1894), A small minority of two only
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SEXUAL EDUCAtlON. 47
(Rabbi Adler and Mrs. Lj^n I^nton) were againet auch knowledge,
while among the majority in favor of it were Mme. Adapi, Thomaa
Bardj, Sir Walter Besant, Bjtlrnsoii, Hall Caine, Sarah Grand, Nordau,
ladj Henry Somerset, BaroneeB von Suttner, and Mias Willard. The
leaders of the woman's movement are, of course, in favor of such knowl-
edge. Thus a meeting of the Bund tUr Mutterecliuti at Berlin, in 190S,
aJmoat unanimously passed a resolution declaring that the early sexual
enlightenment of children in the facta of the sexual life is urgently
necessary IMutterschuIz, 190o, Heft 2, p. 01). It may be added that
medical opinion has long approved of this enlightenment. Thus in Eng-
land it was editorially stated in the BritUh Medical Journal some years
ago (June 9, 1804) : "Moat medical men of an age to beget confidence
in aneh affairs will be able to recall instances in which an ignorance,
which would have been ludicrous if It had not been so sad, has been
displayed on mBttcrs regarding which every woman entering on married
life ought to have been accurately informed. There can, we think, be
little doubt that much unhappiness and a great deal of illness would be
prevented if young people of both sexes possessed a little accurate knowl-
edge regarding the sexual relations, and were well impressed with the
^profound importance of selecting healthy mates. Knowledge need not
necessarily be nasty, but even if it were, it certainly is not comparable
In that respect with the imaginings of ignorance." Tn America, also,
vrhere at an annual meeting of the American Medical Association, Dr.
Dcnalow Lewis, of Chicago, eloquently urged the nerd of teaching sexual
hygiene to youths and girls, all the subsequent nine speskers, some of
them physicians of worldwide fame, expressed their essential agreement
{Hedieo-Legal Journal, June-Sept., 1903). Howard, again, at the end
of his elaborate Histort/ of Matrimonial Inslitulions (vol. iii, p. 257)
asserts the necessity for education in matters of sex, as going to the
root of the marriage problem. "In the future educational programme,"
he remarks, "sex questions must bold an honorable place."
While, however, it is now widely recognized that children
are entitled to sexual enlightenment, it cannot be Bald that tbiB
belief is widely put into practice. Many persons, who are fully
persuaded that children Bhould aooner or later be enlightened
concerning the aexual aourcea of life, are somewhat nervously
anxious ae to the precise age at which this enlightenment Bhould
begin. Their latent feeling Beems to be that sex is an evil, and
enlightenment concerning sex also an evil, however neceaaary,
and that the chief point is to ascertain the latest moment to
which we can safely postpone this necessary evil. Such an
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48 FSYCHOLoay op sex.
attitude ib, however, altogether wrong-headed. The child's
desire for knowledge concerning the origin of himself is a per-
fectly natural, honest, and harmless desire, so long as it is not
perverted by being thwarted. A child of four may ask questions
on this matter, simply and spontaneously. As soon as tlie
questions are put, certainly as soon as they become at ail
insistent, they should be answered, in the same simple and
spontaneous spirit, truthfully, though according to the measure
of the child's intelligence and his capacity and desire for knowl-
edge. This period should not, and, if these indications are
followed, naturally would not, in any case, be delayed beyond
the sixth year. After that age even the most carefully guarded
child is liable to contaminating communications from outside.
Moll points out that the sexual enlightenment of girls in its
various stages ought to be always a little ahead of that of boys,
and as the development of girls up to the pubertal age is more
precocious than that of boys, this demand is reasonable.
If the elements of sexual education are to be imparted in
early childhood, it is quite clear who ought to be the teacher.
There should be no question that this privilege belongs by every
right to the mother. Except where a child is artificially
separated from his chief parent it is indeed only the mother
who has any natural opportunity of receiving and responding to
these questions. It is unnecessary for her to take any initiative
in the matter. The inevitable awakening of the child's intelli-
gence and the evolution of his boundless curiosity furnish her
love and skill with all opportunities for guiding her child's
thoughts and knowledge, Nor is it necessary for her to possess
the slightest technical information at this stage. It is only
essential that she should have the most absolute faith in the
purity and dignity of her physical relationship to her child, and
be able to speak of it with frankness and tenderness. When
that essential condition is fulfilled every mother has all the
knowledge that her young child needs.
Among the best authorttieB, both men and women, in all the coun-
tries where this matter is attracting attention, there seema now to be
unanimity of opinion in favor of the elementary facta of the bab^'a rela-
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SEXOAL EDUCATION. 49
tioiLihip to its mother being explained to tlie child by the mother aa
soon aa the child begins to ask questions. Thus in Germany Moll has
repeatedlj argued in this sense; he insists that sexual enlightenment
^ould be mainly a private and individual matter; that in schools there
should be no general and personal warnings about masturbatiSn, etc
(though at a later age he approves of instruction in regard to venereal
diseases), but that the mother is the proper peraon to impart Intimatfl
knowledge to the child, and that any age is suitable for the commence-
ment of such enlightenment, provided it is put into a, form fitted for the
age (Moll, op. cit., p. 2M).
At the Mannheim meeting of the Congress of the German Society
for Combsting Venereal Disease, when the question of seiual enlighten-
ment formed the sole subject of discussion, the opinion in favor of early
teaching by the mother prevailed. "It is the mother who must, in the
first place, be made responsible for the child's clear understanding of
sexual things, bo often lacliiug," said Frau Krukenberg ("Die Aufgabe
der Mutter," Bexualpddagogik, p. IS), while Mas Enderlin, a teacher,
said on the same occasion ("Die Sexuelle Frage in die Votksschule," id.,
p. 35) : "It is the mother who has to give the child his first explana-
tions, for it is to his mother that he first naturally comes with his
questions.." Id England, Canon Lyttelton, who is distinguished among
the heads of public schools not least by bis clear and admirable state-
ments on these questions, states {Molhert Ofld Sons, p. 99) tiiat the
mother's part in the sexual enlightenment and sexual guardianship of
her son is of paramount importance, and should b^n at the earliest
years. J. H. Badley, another schoolmaster ("The Sex: Difficulty," Broad
Tieiot, June, 1904), also states that the mother's part comes first.
Northcote [ChrUtianily and 8fie Problems, p. 26) believes that the duty
of the parents is primary in this matter, the family doctor and the
schoolmaster coming in at a later stage. In America, Dr. Mary Wood
Allen, who occupies a prominent and influential position in women's
social movements, urges (in Child-Confidence Reicarded, and other
pamphlets) that a mother should begin to tell her child these things as
soon as he begins to ask questions, the age of four not being too young,
and explains how this may be done, giving examples of its happy results
in promoting a sweet conRdence between the child and his mother.
If, as a few believe should be the case, the first initiation is
delayed to the tenth year or even later, there is the difficulty that
it IB no longer so easy to talk simply and naturally about such
things; the mother is beginning to feel too shy to speak for the
first time about these difficult subjecta to a son or a daughter
who is nearly as big aa herself. She feela that she can only do it
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60 PSTCHOLOQT OP SEX.
awkwardly and ineffectively, and she probably decides not to do it
at all. TliTiB an atmosphere of mystery is created with all the
embarrassing and perverting influences which mystery encouragea.
There can be no doubt that, more especially in hightj intelligent
children wiUt vague and unapecialiEed yet insistent sexual impulses, tbe
artificial mystery with which sex ia too often clothed not only accen-
tuates the natural curiosity but also tends to faror the morbid intensity
and even prurience of the sexual impulse. This has long been recog-
niHd. Dr. Beddoes wrot« at the beginning of the nineteenth century;
"It is in vain that we dissemble to ourselves the eagerness with which
children of either sei seek to satisfy themselves concerning the confor-
mation of the other. No degree of reserve in the heads of families, no
contrivances, no care to put books of one description out of sight and to
garble others, has perhaps, with any one set of children, succeeded in
preventing or stifling this kind of curiosity. No part of tlie history of
human thought would perhaps be more singular than t^e stratagems
devised by young people in dilTereat situations to make themselves mas-
ters or witnesses of the secret. And every discovery, due to their own
inquiries, can but be so much oil poured upon an imagination in flames"
(T. Beddoes, Hygria, 1S02, vol. iii, p. 50). Kaan, again, in one of the
earliest boobs on morbid sexuality, sets down mystery as one of the
causes of ptychopathia texualis, 'Marro {La PubertA, p. 209) points
out how the veil of mystery thrown over sexual matters merely servea
U> concentrate attention on theai. The distinguished Dutch wriUr Mul-
tatuli, in one of his letters (quoted with approval by Freud), remarks
on the dangers of hiding things from boys and girls in a veil of mystery,
pointing out that this must only heighten the curiosity of children, and
so far from keeping them pure, which mere ignomnce can never do,
heats and perverts their imaginations. Mrs. Mary Wood Allen, also,
warns the mother (op. cil., p. 5) against the danger of allowing any
air of embarrassing mystery to creep over these things. ""If the instruc-
tor feels any embarrassment in answering the queries of the child, he is
not fitted ta be the teacher, tor the feeling of embarrassment will, in
some subtle way, communicate itself to the child, and he will experience
an indefluable sense of olTended delicacy which is both unecessary and
undesirable. Purification of one's own thought is, then, the first step
towards teaching the truth purely, ^¥hy," she adds, "is death, the
gateway out of life, any more dignified or pathetic than birth, the gate-
way into lifeT Or why is the taking of earthly life a more awful fact
than the giving of life!" Mrs. Ennis Richmond, in a book of advice to
mothers which contains many wise and true things, says; "I want to
insist, more strongly than upon anything else, that it is the aeerecy that
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SKXLAL EDLCATION. 51
BUTTOundti certain partn of thu body and their functions tliat gives tli^m
their danger in the child's thought. Uttte children, from earliest years,
are taught to think of these parts uf their body as mysterious, and not
only 80, but that they are mysti-rioua because they are unclean. , Chil-
dren have not even a name for tliom. If yo\i have to speak to your
child, you allude fo them mysteriously and in a half-whisper as 'that
little part of you that you don't speak of,' or words to that effect.
Before everything it is important that your child should have a good
vorking name for these parts of his body, and for their functions, anil
that be should be taught to U8e and to hear the names, and that as
naturally and openly as though he or you ivere speaking of his head or
his foot. Convention has, for various reasons, made it impossible to
speak in this vay in public. But you can, at any rate, break through
this in the nursery. There this rule of convention has no advantage,
and many a serious disadvantage. It is easy to say to a child, the first
time he makes an 'awkward' remark in public: 'Txiok here, laddie, you
may say what you like to me or to daddy, but, (or some reason or other,
one does not talk about these' (only say tchat things) 'in public' Only
let your child make the remark in public before you speak (never mind
the shoclf to your caller's feelings), don't warn him against doing so"
(Ennia Richmond, Boyhood, p. 60). Sex must always be a mystery, but,
aa Mrs. Richmond rightly aaya, "the real and true mysteries of genera-
tion and birth are very different from the vulgar secretiveness with
which custom surrounds them."
The question aa to the precise names to be given to the more pri-
vate bodily parts and functions is sometimes a little diflicult to solve.
Every mother will naturally follow her own inatinefs, and probably her
own traditions, in this matter. I have elsewhere pointed out (in the
study of "The Evolution of Modesty") how widespread and instinctive
is the tendency to adopt constantly new euphemisms in this field. The
ancient and simple words, which in England a great poet like Chaucer
could still use rightly and nnturally, are so often dropped in the mud
by the vulgar that there is an instinctive hesitation nowadays in apply-
ing them to beautiful uses. They are, however, unquestionably the best,
and, in their origin, the most dif^iified and expressive words. Many
persons are of opinion that on this account they should be rescued from
the mud, and their sacredness ta\ight to children. A medical friend
writes that he always tauRlit hU son that the vulgar MX names are
really beautiful words of ancient origin, and (hat when we understand
them aright we cannot possibly see in them any motive for low jesting.
They are simple, serious and solemn words, connoting the most central
facts of life, and only to ignorant and plebeian vulgarity can they cause
obscene mirth. An American man of science, who has privntely and
anonymously printed some pamphlets on aex questions, also takes this
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52 PSTCHOLOQT OF SEX.
view, and coDsistentlj and methodically usee the ancient and simple
wordB. 1 am of opinion that this is the ideal to be sought, but tliat
there are obvious dilhculties at present in the way of attaining it. In
any case, however, tlie mother should be in posBesaion of a very precise
vocabulary for all the bodily parts and aets which it concerns her chil-
dren to know.
It is sometimes said that at tliia early age children should
not be told, even in a simple and elementary form, the real facts
of their origin but should, instead, hear a fairy-tale having in it
perhaps some kind of symbolic truth. This contention may be
absolutely rejected, without thereby, in any degree, denying the
important place which fairy-tales hold in the imagination of
young children. Fairy-tales have a real value to the child ; they
are a mental food he needs, if he ia not to be spiritually starved ;
to deprive him of fairy-tales at this age is to do him a wrong
which can never be made up at any subsequent age. But not
only are sex matters too vital even in childhood to be safely
made matter for a fairy-tale, but the real facta are themselves
as wonderful as any fairy-tale, and appeal to the child's imagina-
tion with as much force as a fairy-tale.
Even, iiowever, if there were no other reasons against telling
children fairj'-talea of sex instead of the real facts, there is one
reason which ought to be decisive with every mother who values
her influence over her child. He will very quickly discover,
either by information from others or by his own natural intelli-
gence, that the fairy-tale, that was told him in reply to a question
about a simple matter of fact, was a lie. With that discovery
his mother's influence over him Jn all such matters vanishes for
ever, for not only has a child a horror of being duped, but he is
extremely sensitive about any rebuff of this kind, and never
repeats what he has been made to feel was a mistake to be
ashamed of. He will not trouble his mother with any more
questiona on this matter; he will not confide in her; he will
himself learn the art of telling "fairy-tales" about sex matters.
He had turned to his mother in trust; she had not responded
with equal trust, and she must suffer the punishment, as
Henriette Furth puts it, of seeing "the love and trust of her son
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BEXUAL EDUCATION. 58
stolen from her by the first boy he makes friends with in the
street'' When, as sometimes happens (Moll mentions a case),
a mother goes on repeating these silly stories to a girl or boy of
seven who is secretly well-informed, she only degrades herself
in her child's eyes. It Is this fatal mistake, ao often made by
mothers, which at first leads them to imagine that tlieir children
are so innocent, and in later years causes them many hours of
bitterness because they realize they do not possess their children's
trust. In the matter of trust it is for the mother to take the
first step; the chUdren who do not trust their mothers are, for
the most part, merely remembering the lesson they learned at
their mother's knee.
The number of little books and pamphlets dealing n-ith the ques-
tion or the sexual enlightenment of the young — whether intended to bo
read b^ the j'oiing or offering guidance to mothers and teaehers in the
task of imparting knowledge — has become very large indeed during
recent years in America, England, and eapecinlly Germany, where there
has been of late an enormous production of such literature. The late
Ben Elmy, writing under the pxeudonym of "Ellis Ethelmer," published
two booklets. Baby Bu<U, and The Human Flower (issued by Mrs. Wol-
fltenholme Elmy, Buxton House, Oongleton), which state the facts in a
simple and delicate manner, though the author was not a notably
Tellable guide on the scientific aspects of these qucstioni^. A charming
conrersation between a mother and child, from a French source, is
reprinted hy Edward Carpenter at the end of his Loir's Coming of Age.
Brno We Are Born, by Mrs. N. J. (apparently a Russian lady writing
in English), prefaced by Jl H, Badtey, is satis/actory. Mention may
also be made of The Wonder of Life, by Mary Tudor Pole. Margaret
Morley's Bong of Life, an American book, which I have not seen, has
been hi^ly praised. Most ot these books are intended for quite young
children, and while they explain more or less clearly the origin of babies,
nearly aln-ays starting with the facts of plant life, they touch very
slightly, if at all, on the relations of the sexes.
Mrs. Bnnis Richmond's books, largely addressed to mothers, deal
with these queatioos in a very sane, direct, and admiralde manner, and
C'KDon Lyttellon's books, discussing such questions gcneraUy, are also
excellent. Most of the books now to be mentioned are intended to be
read by hoyt and girls who have reached the age ot puberty. They refer
more or less precisely to sexual relationships, and they usually touch
on mastorbatjon. The Btory of lAff. written by a very ai-compli»hed
woman, the late Elliee Hopkins, Is somewhat vague, and introduces too
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54 PSTCnOLOQT OF SEX.
many exaited religious ideaa. Arthur Trewbj's Healthy Boyhood is a
little book of wholesome tendency; it deala specially with raasturbation,
A. Talk vAth Boyt About Themselves and A Talk tcith QirU About
Themselves, both by Edward Bruce Kirk (the latter book written in
conjunction with a lady) deal with geoerul as well an sexual hygiene.
There could be no better book to put into the hands of a boy or girl at
puberty than M. A. Warren'a Almost Fourteen, written by an Americaa
school teacher In IS92. It was a most charming and delicately- written
book, which could not have offended the innocence of the most sensitive
maiden. Nothing, however, ia sacred to prurience, and it was easy for
the prurient to captnre the law and obtain (in 1S9T) legal condemna-
tion of this book as "obscene." Anything which sexually exci^s a
prurient mind is, it is true, "obscene" for that mind, for, as Mr. Theo-
dore Schroeder remarks, obscenity is "the contribution of the reading
mind," but we need such books as this in order to diminish the number
of prurient minds, and the condemnation of so entirely admirable a book
makes, not for morality, but for immorality. I am told that the book
was subsequently issued anew with most of its best portions omitted,
and it is stated by Schroeder (Liberty of Bpeech and Frets Euential to
Purity Propaganda, p. 34) that the author was compelled to resign his
position as a public school principal. Maria Lischnewska's Oeachlecht-
tirhe Bekhrung der Kinder (reprinted from MulleTschuts, 1605, Heft
4 and 6) is a most admirable and thorough discussion of the whole
question of sexual education, though the writer is more interested in
the teacher's share in this question than ia the mother's. Suggestions
to mothers are contained in Hugo Salus, TFo kommen die Kinder herf,
E. Stiehl, Eine .Vulterp/ficht, and many other hooka. Dr. Alfred Kind
strongly recommends Ludwig Gurlitt's Der Verkehr mil metnem Kin-
dern, more especially in ita combination of sexual education with artistic
education. Many similar books are referred to by Bloch, in his Sfwuttl
lAfe of Our Time, Ch. xxvi.
I have enumerated the names of these little hooka becauae tliey are
■frequently issued in a acrai-private manner, and are seldom easy to pro-
cure or to hear of. T)i^ propagation of such books seems to be felt to
be almost a disgraceful action, only to be performed by stealth. And
such a feeling seems not unnatural when we see, as in the case of the
author of Almost Fourteen, that a nominally civilized country, instead
of loading with honors a man who has worked for its moral and physical
welfare, seeks so far as it can to ruin him.
I may add that while it would usually be very helpful to a mother
to be acquainted with a few of the booklets I have named, she would do
well, in actually talking to her children, to rely mainly on her own
knowledge and inspiration.
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BBZDAL EDDCATION. 55
The aesiial education which it is the mother's duty and
privilege to initiate during her child's early yeare cannot and
ought not to be technical. It Ib not of the nature of formal
instruction but is a private and intimate initiation. No doubt
the mother must herself be taught.' But the education she
needs is mainly an education in love and insight. The actual
facts which she requites to use at thb early stage are very simple.
Het main task is to make clear the child's own intimate relations
to herself and to show that all young things have a similar
intimate relation to their mothers; in generalizing on this point
the egg is the simplest and most fundamental type to explain the
origin of the individual life, for tlie idea of the egg — in its widest
sense as the seed — not only has its truth for the human creature
but may be applied throughout the animal and vegetable world.
In this explanation the child's physical relationship to his father
is not necessarily at first involved; it may be left to a further
stage or until the child's questions lead up to it.
Apart from his interest in his origin, the child is also
interested in his seicual, or as they seem to him exclusively, his
excretory organs, and in those of other people, his sisters and
parents. On these points, at this age, his mother may simply
and naturally satisfy his simple and natural curiosity, calling
things by precise names, whether the names used are common or
nncommon being a matter in regard to which she may exercise
her judgment and taste. In this manner the mother will,
indirectly, be able to safeguard her child at the outset against the
prudish .and prurient notions alike which he will encounter later.
She will also without unnatural stress he able to lead the child
into a reverential attitude towards his own organs and so exert
an influence against any undesirable tampering with them. In
talking with him about the origin of life and about his own body
and functions, in however elementary a fashion, she will hare
initiated him both in sexual knowledge and in sexual hygiene.
1 "Parenta must be taught how to impart information." remarks
E. L, Knrea ("Education upon Sexual Matters." New York Medical
Journal, Feb. 10, 1906), "and thia teaching of the parent should begin
when he ia himself a child."
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66 PBTCHOLOaT OF SEX.
The mother who establishes a relationship of confidence with
her child during these first years will probably, if she possesses
any measure of wisdom and tact, be able to preserve it even aft«r
the epoch of puberty into the difficult years of adolescence. But
as an educator in the narrower sense her functions will, in most
cases, end at or before puberty. A somewhat more technical and
complet«ly impersonal acquaintance with the essential facts of sex
then becomes desirable, and this would usually be supplied by
the school.
The great though capricious educator, Basedow, to Bonie extent a
pupil of, Rousseau, was an early pioneer in both the theory and the
practice of giving acbool children inBtructlou in tbe facta of the sexual
life, from the age of ten onwards. He insists much on this subject in
hla great treatise, the Elementaneerk (17701774), The questions of
children are to be answered 'cTuthfiilly, he states, and tiiej must be
taught never to jest at anything bo sacred and serious as the sexual
relations. They are to be shown pictures of childbirth, and the dangers
of sexual irregularities are to be clearly expounded to them at the outset.
Boy((, are to be taken to liospitals to see the results of venereal disease.
Basedow is aware that many parents and teachers will be shocked at
his insistence on these things in his books and in his practical peda-
gogic work, but such people, he declares, ought to be shocked at the
Bible (see, e.g., Pinloche. La Riforme de I'Educalion en Allemagne au
di^hvitiime giicle: Basedow et le Philantkropinitme, pp. 125, 266, 260,
272). Basedow was too far ahead of his own time, and even of ours,
to exert much influence in this matter, and he had few immediate
imitalora.
Somewhat later than Basedow, a distinguished English physician,
Thomas Beddoes, worked on somewhat the same lines, seeking to promote
sexual knowledge by lectures and demonstrations. In his remarkable
book, Eygeia, published hi 1802 (vol. i, Essay IV) he sets forth the
absurdity of the conventional requirement that "discretion and ignorance
should lodge In the same bosom," and deals at length with the question
of masturbation and the need of sexual education. He insists on the
great importance of lectures on natural history which, be had found,
could be given with perfect propriety to a mixed audience. His experi-
ences had shown that botany, the amphibia, the hen and her eggs, human
anatomy, even disease and sometimes the sight of it, are salutary from
this point of view. He thinks it is a happy thing for a child to gain
hie first knowledge of sexual difTerence from anatomical subjects, the
dignify of death being a noble prelude to the knowledge of sex and
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8EK0AL EDUCATION. bl
depriving it forever of morbid prurience. It is Boarcely necefwary to
reinaTk that this method of teaching children the elementa of aexual
ftnatomf in the post-mortem room has not found many advocates or
followera; it is undesirable, for it fails to take into account the sensi-
tiveneas of children to such impreieione, and it is unnecessary, for it is
just aa easy to teach the dignity of life as the digni^ of death.
The duty of the school to impart education in matters of sex to
children hafl in recent years been vigorously and ably advocated by
Haria Lischnewska (op. cif.), who speaks with thirty years' experience
as a teacher and an intimate acquaintance with children and their home
life. She ai^es that among the mnss of the population to-day, white
in the home-life there "is every opportunity for coarse familiarly with
sexual matters, there is no opportunity for a pure and enlightened intro-
duction to them, parents being for the most part both morally and
Intellectually incapable of aiding their children here. That the school
should assume the leading part in this task is, she believes, in accord-
ance with the whole tendeni^ of modern civilized life. She would have
the instruction graduated in such a manner that during the fifth or
sixth year of school life the pupil would receive instruction, with the
aid of diagrams, concerning the sexual organs and functions of the
hi^er mammals, the bull and cow being selected by preference. The
facts of gestation would ol course be included. When this stage was
reached it would be easy to pass on to the human species with the state-
ment: "Just in the same way as the calf develops in the cow so the
child develops in the mother's body."
It Is difficult not to recognixe the force of Bfaria Lisehnewska's
argument, and it seems highly probable that, as she asserts, the instruc-
tion proposed lies in the course of our present path of progress. Such
instruction would be formal, unemotional, and impersonal; it would be
given not as speciflc instruction in matters of sex.but simply as a part
of natural history. It would suppleroent, so far as mere knowledge is
concerned, the information the child had already received from its
mother. But it would by no means supplant or replace the personal
and intimate relationship of confidence between mother and child. That
is always to be aimed at, and though it may not be possible among the
ill-educated masses of to-day, nothing else will adequately take its nlace.
There can be no donbt, however, that while in the future
the school will most probably be regarded as the proper place in
which to teach the elements of physiology — and not as at present
a merely emasculated and etTeminated physiology — the intro-
duction of sndi reformed teaching is as yet impracticable in many
commnnities. A coarse and ill-bred community moves in a
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68 FSYCHOLOGT OF SBX.
vicious circle. Ite members are brought up to believe that aex
matters are filthy, and when they become adults they protest
violently against their children being taught this filthy tnowl-
dcdge. The teacher's task is thus rendered at the best difficult,
and under democratic conditions imposaible. We cannot, there-
fore, hope for any immediate introduction of eesnal physiology
into schools, even in the unobtrusive form in which alone it
could properly be introduced, that is to say aa a natural and
inevitable part o( general physiology.
This objection to animal physiology by no means applies,
however, to botany. There can be little doubt that botany ia of
all the natural sciences that which best admits of this incidental
instruction in the fundamental facta of sex, when we are con-
zeroed with children below the age of puberty. There are at least
two reasons why this should be so. In the first place botany
really presents the beginnings of sex, in their most naked and
essential forms; it makes clear the nature, origin, and sig-
nificance of eex. In the second place, in dealing with plants the
facts of sex can he stated to children of either sex or any age
quite plainly and nakedly without any reserve, for no one now-
adays regards the botanical facts of sex as in any way offensive.
The expounder of sex in plants also has on his side the advantage
of being able to assert, without question, the entire beauty of the
sexual process. He is not confronted by the ignorance, had
education, and fal^ associations which have made it so diihcult
either to see or to show the beauty of sex in animala. From
the se.x-life of plants to the sex-life of the lower animals there
is, however, but a step which the teacher, according to his dis-
cretion, may take.
An early educational authority, Salzmann, in 1T8S advocated the
scxQuI enlightenment of children by firat teaching them botany, to be
foTloH-ed by zoClogy. In modem times the metJiod of imparting aex
knowledge to eliildrcn by means, in the firat place, of botany, has been
generally advocated, and from Oie moat various quartera. Thus Marro
(La PuhfrlA, p. 300) recomends this plan. ,T. Hndrey-Menoa ("La
Question du Sexe dans I'Education," Revue fiocialisle, June, 1895), givea
the same advice. Rudolf 5iommer, in a paper entitled ".Madcheneriieh-
ling Oder MenschenbildungT" {OemhUvht vnd OeaseUclmft, Jshrgaag ■
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SEXUAL BDDCATION. 6»
I, Heft 3) recommends that the first introduction of MX knowledge to
children should be made by talking to them on simple natural biator]''
subjects; "there are endless opportunitiea," be remarks, "over a faiij-
tale, or a walk, or a fruit, or an egg, the sowing of seed or the nest-
building of birds." Canon Lyttelton {Training of Ike Young in Laios
of RfT, pp. 74 et Kq.) adrises a somewhat similar method, though lay-
ing chief stress on personal confidence between the child and his mother;
"reference is made to the animal world just so far as the child's knowl-
edge extends, so as lo prevent the new facts from being viewed in isola-
tion, but the main emplmsis is laid on his feeling for his mother and
the instinct which exists in nearlj' all children of reverence due to tho
maternal relation;" he adds that, however difficult the subject may
seem, the essential facts of paternity must also be explained to boys and
girls alike. Keyes, again (iVeio York Medwal Journal, Feb. 10, 1908),
advocates teaching children from an early age the srxual facts of plant
life and also concerning insects and other lower animals, and so grad-
ually leading up to human beings, the matter being thus robbed of its
unwholesome mystery. Mrs. Ennis Richmond (Boyhood, p. 62) recom-
mends that children should be sent to spend some of their time upon a
farm, so that they may not only become acquHinted with the general
facts of the natural world, but also with the sexual Wvts of animals,
learning things which it is difficult to teach verbally. Karina Karin
("Wie erdeht man ein Kind zdr wissenden KeuschheitT" QeachlPcht und
OeaetUchafl, Jabrgang I, Heft 4). reproducing some of her talks with
her nine-year old son, from the time that he first asked her where chil-
dren came from, shows how she began with telling him about flowers, to
pass on to fish and birds, and finally to the facts of human pregnancy,
showing him pictures from an obstetrical manual of the child in its
mother's body. It may be added that the advisability of beginning the
aer teaching of children with the facts of botany was repeatedly empha-
sized by various speakers at the special meeting nf the German Congress
for Combating Venereal Disease devoted to the subject of sexual instruc-
tion (Se^ualpdda^^t/especially pp. 36, 47, 76).
The transition from botany to the elementnrj- zoology of the
lower Bnimals, to human anatomy and physiology, and to the
science of anthropology baaed on these, is simple and natural.
It is not likely to be taken in detail until the age of puberty.
Sex enters into all these subjeeta and should not be artificially
excluded from them in the education of either boys or girls.
The text-books from which the sexual system is entirely omitted
.ought no longer to be tolerated. The nature and secretion of the
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60 P8TCH0L0OT OF SEX.
t«sticleB, the meaning of the ovaries and of menetniation, as
well as the significance of metabolifm and the urinary excretion,
should be clear in their main lines to al! boys and girls who have
reached the age of puberty.
At puberty there arises a new and powerful reason why boys
and girls should receive definite instruction in matters of sex.
Before that age it is possible for the foolish parent to imagine
that a child may be preserved in ignorant innocence,* At
puberty that belief is obviously no longer possible. The
efflorescence of puberty with the development of the sexual
organs, the appearance of hair in unfamiliar places, the general
related organic changes, the spontaneous and perhaps alarming
occurrence in boys of seminal emissions, and in girls of menstrua-
tion, the unaccustomed and sometime? acute recognition of
sexual desire accompanied by new sensations in the sexual organs
and leading perhaps to masturbation; all these arouse, as we
cannot fail to realize, a new anxiety in the boy's or girl's mind,
and a new curiosity, ail the more acute in many cases because it
is carefully concealed as too private, and even too shameful, to
speak of to anyone. In boys, especially if of sensitive tempera-
ment, the suffering tlius caused may be keen and prolonged.
A doctor of philosophy, prominent in bis profession, wrote to Stan-
ley Hall {Adolescence, vol. i, p. 452) : "My entire youtli, from six to
eighteen, was made miserable from lack of knowledge that any one who
knew anything of the nature of puberty might have given; this long
eenae of defect, dread of operation, shame and worry, has left an indeli-
ble mark." Xliere are certainly many men who could say the same.
Lancaster ("Psychology and Pedagogy of Adolescence," Pedagogical
Seminary, July, 1KU7, pp. 123-5) apeaka strongly regarding the evils
of ignorance of sexual hygiene, and the terrible fact that millions of
youths are always in the hands of quacks who dupe them into the belief
that they are on the road to an awful destiny merely because they have
occasional emiaaions during sleep. "This is not a light matter," Ijin-
caster declares. "It strikes at the very foundation of our inmost life.
It deals with the reproducfory part of our natures, and must have a deep
hereditary influence. It is a natural res-ult of the foolish false modesty
shown regarding all sex instruction. Every boy should be tau(^t the
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SEXUAL EDUCATION. 61
simple pbyaiological facts beforv! his life ia forever blighted bj* thU
cause." lAncaster hati had in liiB liands one thousand letleri, mostly
written bj young people, who were usually normal, and addressed to
quacks who were duping them. From time to time the suicides of
youttis from this cause are reported, and in many mysterious suicides
this has undoubtedly t>een the real cause. "Week after week," writes
the Brititk Medioal Journal in an editorial ("Dangerous Quack Litera-
ture: The Moral of a' Recent Suicide," Oct. 1, 1892), "we receive
despairing tetters from those victims of foul birds of prey who have
obtained theii first bold on those they rob, torture and often ruin, by
advertisements inserted by newspapers of a respectable, nay, even of a.
valuable and respected, character." It is added that the wealthy pro-
prietors of such newspapers, often enjoying a reputation tor benevolence,
even when the matter is brought before them, refuse to interfere as they
would tJiereby lose a source of income, and a censorship of advertise-
ments is proposed. This, however, is difficult, and would be quite
unnecessary if youths received proper enlightenment from their natural
Masturbation, and the fear that by an occasional and perhaps out-
grown practice of masturbation they have sometimes done themselves
irreparable injury, ia a common source of anxiety t^ boya. It has long
been a question whether a boy should be warned against masturbation.
At a meeting of the Section of Psychology of the British Medical Asso-
ciation some years ago, four speakers, including the President (Dr.
Blandford), were decidedly in favor of parents warning their children
■gainst masturbation, while three spealiers were decidedly against that
course, mainly on the groimd that it was posEiible to pass through even
a public school life without hearing of masturbation, and also that the
warning against masturbation might encourage the practice. It is,
however, becoming more and more clearly realized that ignorance, even
if it can be maintained, is a. perilous possession, while the teaching that
consists, as it should, in a loving mother's counsel to the child from his
earliest years to treat his sexual parts with care and respect, can only
lead to masturbation in the child who is already irrcsiBtiblj impelled to
it Most of the scK manuals for boys touch on masturbation, sometimes
exaggerating its dangers; such exaggeration should be avoided, for it
leads to far worse evils than those it attempts to prevent. It seems
undesirable that any wnmingf about masturbation nliould form part of
school instruction, unless under very special circumstances. The sexual
instruction imparted in the sdiool on sexual as on other subjects should
be absolutely Impersonal and objective.
At this point we approach one of the difficulties in the way of
■exnal enlightenment r the ignorance or unwisdom of the would-be
teadien. Tbia difficulty at present exists both in the home and tlie
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62 PSYCHOLOGY OF 8BX.
school, while it destroys tlie value of many nanuala written for the
sexual instruction of the young. The mother, who ought to be the
child's confidant and guide in matters of sexual education, and could
naturally be so if left to her own healthy instinctB, has usually been
brought up in false traditions which it requires a high d^ree of intelli-
gence and character to escape Irom; the school -teacher, even if only
called upon to give instruction in natural history, is oppressed by the
same traditions, and by false shame concerning the whole subject of sex;
the writer of maniiats on sex has often only freed himself from these
bonds in order to advocate dogmatic, unscienttilc, and sometimes mis-
chievous opinions which have been evolved in entire ignorance of the
real facts. Aa Moll says (Dag 8exuallcben dm Kindm, p. 270), neces-
sary as Hcxual enlightenment is, we cannot help feeling a little skeptical
as to its reeults so long at those who ought, to enlighten are themselves
often in need of enligtitennient. He refers also to the fact that even
among competent authorities there is difference of opinion concerning
important matters, as, for instance, whether masturbation is physiolog-
ical at the first development of the sexual impulse and how far sexual
abstinence is beneficial. But it is evident that tlie difficulties due to
false tradition and ignorance will diminish as sound traditions and bet-
ter knowledge become more widely diffused.
The girl at puberty is usually less keenly and definitely
coDBciouB of her sexual nature than the boy. But the risks she
runs from sexual ignorance, though for the most part different,
are more subtle and less easy to repair. She is often extremely
inquisitive concemiDg these matters; the thoughts of adolescent
girls, and often their conversation among themselves, revolve
much around sexual and allied mysteries. Even in the matter of
conscious sexual impulse the girl is often not so widely different
from her brother, nor so much less likely to escape the con-
tamination of evil communications, so that the scruples of
foolish and ignorant persons who dread to "sully her purity'" by
proper instruction are exceedingly misplaced.
Conversations dealing with the important mysteries of human
nature, Obici and Marcheaini were told by ladies who had formerly been
pupils in Italian Normal Schools, are the order of the day in schools
and colleges, and sperially circle around procreation, the most ditficult
mystery of all. In England, even in the best and most modem colleges.
in which games and physical exercise are much cultivated, I am fold
that "the majority of the girls are entirely ignorant of all sexual mat-
ters, and understand nothing whatever about them. But they do won-
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8BXUAL EDUCATtOK. 6ff
der about them, end t«lk about them conatantly" (aee Appendix D, ''The
Bclkool- Friendships of Girls," in the second volume of these Sludiea).
"The restricted life and fettered mind of girls," wrote a. well-known
physician some years ago (J. Milner Fothergill, Adolescence, 1890^ pp.
20, 22) "leave them with le«a to actively occupy their thoughts than ii
the case with boys. They are studiously taught concealment, and a girl
may be a perfect model of outward decorum and yet have a very filthy
mind. The pnidishueBs with which she is brought up leaves her no
alternative hut to view her passions from the nasty side of human
nature. All healthy tliaught on the subject is vigorously repressed.
Everything is done to darken her mind and foul her imagination by
throwing her back on her own thoughts and a literature with which she
is ashamed to own acquaintance. It is opposed to a girl's best interests
to prevent her from having fair and just conceptions about herself and
her nature. Many a fair young girl is irredeemably ruined on the very
threshold of life, herself and her family disgraced, from ignorance as
much as from vice. When the moment of temptation comes she falls
without any palpable resistance; she has no trained educated power of
resisUince within herself; her whole future hangs, not upon herself, but
upon the perfection of the social safeguards by which she is hedged and
nrrounded." Under the free social order of America to-day much the
same results are found. In an instructive article ("Why Girls Go
Wrong," Ladies' Home Journal, Jan., 1907) B. B. Lindsey, who, as
Judge of the Juvenile Court of Denver, ia able to speak with authority,
brings forward ample ei-idence on this head. Both girls and boys, he
has found, sometimes possess manuscript books in which they had writ-
ten down the crudest sexual things. These children were often sweet-
faced, pleasant, refined and intelligent, and they had respectable par-
ents-, but no one had ever spoken to them of sex matters, except tha
worst of their school -fellows or some coarse-minded and reckless adult.
By careful inquiry Lindsey found that only in one in twenty cases had
the parents ever spoken to the children of sexual subjects. In nearly
every case the children acknowledged that it was not from their parents,
but in the street or from older companions, that they learnt the facts of
sex. The parents usually imagined that their children were absolutely
ignorant of these matters, and were astonished to realize their mistake;
"parents do not know their children, nor have they the least idea of
what their children know, or what their children talk about and do
when away from them." The parents guilty of this neglect to instruct
their children, are, Lindsey declares, traitors to their children. From
his own experience he judges that nine-tenths of the girls who "go
wrong," whether or not they sink in the world, do so owing to the inat-
tention of their parents, and that in the case of most prostitutes the
mischief is really done before the age of twelve; "every wayward girt
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64 P8TCH0LO0T OF SEX.
I have t&lked to has assured me of this truth." He conajdere that nloe-
tentlis of Bchool-boys and Bchool-girls, in town or country, are very
inquiHJtive regarding matters of sex, and, to liin own araazetaeut, he
has found that in the girta tliis is as marked as in the boys.
It IB the businoss of the girl's mother, at least as much as of
the boy's, to watch over her child from the earliest years and to
win her confidence in all the intimate and personal matters of
sex. With these flBpccts the school cannot properly meddle.
But in matters of physical sexual hygiene, notably menstruation,
in regard to which all girls stand on the same level, it is certainly
the duty of the teacher to take an actively watchful part, and,
moreover, to direct the general work of education accordingly,
and to ensure that the pupil shall rest whenever that may seem
to be desirable. This is part of the very olcmenta of the educa-
tion of girls. To disregard it should disqualify a teacher from
taking further share in educational work. Yet it is constantly
and persistently neglected. A large number of girls have not
even been prepared by their mothers or teachers for the first
onset of the menstrual flow, sometimes with disastrous results
both to their bodily and mental health.*
"I know of no large girl's school," wrote a distinguished gjiMB-
cologist. Sir W. S. Ployfair ("Education and Training of Girls at
Puberty," British Medical Journal, Dec. 7, 1895), "in which the abso-
lute distinction which exists between boys and girls as regards the
dominant menstrual function is systematically cared for and attended
to. Indeed, the feeling of all schoolmistresses is distinctly antagonixtic
to such an admissinn. The contention is that there is no real dilTerenee
between an adolescent male and female, tbat what is good for one la
good for the other, and that such as there is is due to the evil customs
of the past which have denied to women the ambitions and advantages
open to men, and that this will disappear when a happier era is inaug-
urated. If this be so, how conies it that while every practical physician
of experience has seen many cases of antemia and chlorosis in girls,
accompanied by amenorrhien or menorrhagia, headaches, palpitations,
emaciation, and all the familiar accompaniments of breakdown, an
analogous condition in a school-boy is so rare that it may well be
doubted if it is ever seen at all I"
1 Girls are not even prepared, in many cases, for the appearance
of the pubic hair. This unexpected growth of hair frequently causes
young girls much secret worry, and often they carefully cut it ofif.
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SEIOAL EDUCATION. 66
It is, however, only the excuses for this almost criminal negligence,
«a it oug^t to be conaidered, which are new; the negligence itself is
ancient. Half a centui}' earlier, before the new era of feminine educa-
tion, another distinguished gynieco legist. Tilt iEletnenta of Health and
Principles of Female Hygiene, 1862, p. 18) stated that from a statistical
inquiry regarding the onset of menstruation in nearly one thousand
women he found that "25 per cent, were totally unprepared for its
appearance; that thirteen out of the twenty-Bve were much frightened,
screamed, or went into hysterical fits; and that six out of the thirteen
thought themselTee wounded and washed with cold water. Of those
frightened the genera] health was seriously impaired."
Engelmann, after stating that his experience in America was
similar to Tilt's in England, continues ('The Health of the American
Girl," Transactions of the Southern Surgioaf and Gyntrcologieal Bociety,
1800): "To innumerable women has fright, nervous and emotional
excitement, exposure to cold, brought injury at puherty. What more
natural than that the anxious girl, surprised by the sudden and unex-
pected loss of the precious life-Suid, should seek to check the bleeding
wound — as she supposes! For this purpose the use of cold washes and
applications is conimon, some even seek to stop the flow by a cold bath,
as was done by a now careful mother, who long lay at the point of death
from the result of such indiscretion, and but slowly, by years of care,
regained her health. The terrible warning has not been lost, and mind'
ful of her own experience she has taught her children a lesson which
but few are fortunate enough to learn — the individual care during
periods of functional activity which is needful for the preservation of
-woman's health."
In a study of one hundred and twenty-five American high school
girls Dr. Helen Kennedy refers to the "modesty" which makes it Impos-
sible even for mothers and daughters to speak to each other concerning
the menstrual functions. "Thirty-six girls in this high school passed
into womanhood with no knowledge whatever, from a proper source, of
all that makes them women. Thirty-nine were probably not much
wiser, for they stated that they had received some instruction, but had
not talked freely on the matter- From the fact that the curious girl
did not talk freely on what naturally interested her, it is possible she
was put off with a few words as to personal care, and a reprimand for
her curiosity. Less than half of the girls felt free to talk with their
mothers of this most important matterl" (Helen Kennedy, "Effects of
High School Work upon Girls During Adolescence," Pedagogical Semi-
nary, June. 1806.)
The qame state of things probably also prevails in other countries.
Thus, as regards France, Edmond de Goncourt in Chirie (pp. 137-139)
described the terror of his young heroine at the appearance of the first
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66 PSYCHOLOGY OF 8EI.
meiutnial period for which she had never been prepared. He adds:
"It is very aeldom, indeed, that women speak of thia eventuality.
Mothers fear to warn their daughters, elder sisters dislike confidences
with their jiounger sisters, governesses are generallj mute with girls
who have no mothers or sisters."
Sometimes this leads to suicide or to ftttempta at suicide. Thus a
few yea,r» ago the case was reported In the French newspapers of a voung
girl of fifteen, who threw herself into the Seine at Saint-Ouen. She was
rescued, and on being brought before the police commissioner said that
she had been attacked by an "unknown disease" which had driven her
to despair. Discreet inquiry revealed that the mysterious malady was
one common to nil women, and the girl was restored to her insufficiently
punished parents.
Half a century ago the sexual life of girls waB ignored by
their parents and teachers from reaeoos of pnidisbQess; at the
present time, when quite different ideas prevail regarding
feminine education, tt is ignored on the ground that girls should
be 88 independent of their physiological sexual life as boys are.
The fact that this mischievous neglect has prevailed equally
under such diScrent conditions indicates clearly that the vary-
ing reasons assigned for it are merely the cloaks of ignorance.
With the growth of knowledge we may reaBonabiy hope that one
of the chief evils which at present undermine in early life not
only healthy motherhood but healthy womanhood generally, may
be gradually eliminated. The data now being accumulated show
not only the extreme prevalence of ■ painful, disordered, and
absent menstruation in adolescent girls and young women, but
also the great and sometimes permanent evils inflicted upon even
healthy girls when at the beginning of sexual life they are sub-
jected to severe strain of any kind. Medical authorities,
whichever sex they belong to, may now be said to be almost or
quite unanimous on this point. Some years ago, indeed. Dr.
Mary Putnam Jacobi, in a very able book, The Question of Rest
for Women, concluded that "ordinarily healthy" women may
disregard the menstrual period, but she admitted that forty-six
per cent, of women are not "ordinarily healthy," and a minority
which comes so near to being a majority can by no means be
dismissed as a negligible quantity. Qirls themselves, indeed.
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BEXUAL EDDCATIOH. 67
carried away by the ardor of their pursuit of work or amuse-
ment, are usually recklessly and igoorautly indifferent to the
serious risks they run. But the opinions of teachers are now
tending to agree with medical opinion in recognizing the
importance of care and rest during the years of cdoleEcence, and
teachers are even prepared to admit that a year's rest from hard
work during the period that a girl's sexual life is becoming
established, while it may ensure her health and vigor, is not even
a disadvantage from the educational point of view. With the
growth of knowledge and the decay of ancient prejudices, we
may reasonably hope that women will be emancipated from the
traditions of a false civilization, which have forced her to regard
her glory as her shame, — though it has never been so among
robust primitive peoples, — and it is encouraging to find that so
distinguished an educator as Principal Stanley Hall looks for-
ward with confidence to such a time. In his exhaustive work on
Adolescence he writes: "Instead of shame of this function girls
should be taught the greatest reverence for it, and should help it
to normality by regularly stepping aside at stated times for a
few years till it is well established and normal. To higher beings
that looked down upon human life as we do upon flowers, these
would be the most interesting and beautiful hours of blossoming.
With more self-knowledge women will have more self-respect at
this time. Savagery reveres this state and it gives to women a
mystic awe. The time may come when we must even change the
divisions of the year for women, leaving to man his week and
giving to her the same number of Sabbaths per year, but in
groups of four successive days per month. When woman asserts
her true physiological rights she will begin here, and will glory
in what, in an age of ignorance, man made her think to be her
shame. The pathos about the leaders of woman's so-called
emancipation, is that they, even more than those they would
persuade, accept man's estimate of this state."*
1 G. S. Hall, AdoUeoence, vol. i, p. 611. Man; years ago, in 1875,
the Ut« Dr. Clarke, in his Sex in Eduoalion, advised menstrual rest for
girls, and thereby aroused a violent opposition which irould certainly
not be found nowdays, when the special risks of womanhood are becom-
ing more clearly nnderstood.
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68 PSYCHOLOGT OF SEX.
These wise words caimot be too deeply pondered. The
pathos of the situation has indeed been — at all events in the
past for to-day a more enlightened generation is growing up —
that the very leaders of the woman's movement have often
betrayed the cause of women. They have adopted the ideals of
men, they have urged women to become second-rate men, they
have declared that the healthy natural woman disregards the
presence of her menstrual functions. This is the very reverse
of the truth. "They claim," remarks Engelmann, "that woman
in her natural state la the physical equal of man, and constantly
point to the primitive woman, the female of savage peoples, as
au example of this supposed axiom. Do they know how well this
same savage is aware of the weakness of woman and her sus-
ceptibility at certain periods of her life? And with what care he
protects her from harm at these periods? I believe not. The
importance of Burroundiug women with certain precautions
during the height of these great functional waves of her
existence was appreciated by all peoples living in an approx-
imately natural state, by all races at all times; and among their
comparatively few religious customs this one, affording rest to
women, was most persistently adhered to." It is among the
white races alone that the sexual invalidism of women prevails,
and it is the white races alone, which, outgrowing the religious
ideas with which the menstrual seclusion of women was asso-
ciated, have flung away that beneficent seclusion itself, throwing
away the baby with the bath in an almost literal sense.^
In GemiBD]'' Tobler has investigated the menstrual hintoriea of
over one thouaand women {Monatsachrift fur Oeburlshiilfe uttd Qyna-
kologie, July, 1&05). He finds that in the great majority o[ women at
1 For a summary of the ph^siral and menta) phenomena of the
menstrual period, see Havelook Ellis: Man and Woman, Ch. XI. The
primitive conception of menstruation is briefly discussed in Appenilii
A to the first volume of these 8tudieg, and more elaborately by J. G.
Frazer in The Golden Bough. A large collection of fscta with regard
to the nienstruai seclusion of women throughout the world will be found
in Ploas and Bartels, Dan Wcib. Tlie pubertal Bwlusion of girls at
Torres Straits has been especinDv studied bv Seligmann, Beporta Anthro-
pological Expedition to I'orres Btraita, vol.' v, Ch. VI.
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SESCAL EDUCATION. 69
the preaent day menstruation is aBSociated with dUtinet deterioration of
th« general health, and diminution of functional energy. In 26 per cent,
local pain, general malaise, and mental and nervous anomalies coexisted;
in larger proportion come the casea in whieli local pain, general weak
health or psychic abnormality was experienced alone at this period. In
16 per cent, only none of these symptoms were experienced. In a very
small separate group the physical and mental functions were stronger
during this period, but in half of these casea there was distinct disturb-
ance during the intermenstrual period. Tobler concludes that, while
menatruation itself ia physiological, all these disturbances are patho-
logical.
As far as England is concerned, at a discussion of normal and
painful menatruation at a meeting of the British Association of Regis-
tered Hedical Women on the 7th of July, 1908, it was stated by Miss
Bentham that 50 per cent, of girls in good position suffered from pain-
ful menstruation. Mrs. Dunnett said it usually occurred between the
ages of twenty-four and thirty, being frequently due to neglect to rest
during menstruation in the earlier yeara, and Mrs. Grainger Evans had
found that this condition was very common among elementary achool
teachers who bad worked hard for examinations during early girlhood.
In America various investigations have been carried out, showing
the prevalence of disturbance in the acxual health of school girls and
young women. Thus Dr. Helen P. Kennedy obtained elaborate data con-
cerning the menstrual life of one hundred and twenty-five high school
girls of the average age of eighteen ("Effect of High School Work upon
Girls Daring Adolescence," Pedagogical Seminary, June, 1898), Only
twenty-eight felt no pain during the period; half the total number
experienced disagreeable symptoms before the period (such as headache,
malaise, irritability of temper), while forty-four complained of other
symptoms besides pain during the period (especially headache and great
weakness). Jane Kelley Sabine (quoted in Boston Medical and SurgicUl
Journal, Sept. 15, 1904) found in New England schools among two thou-
sand girls that 75 per cent, had menstrual troubles, 80 per cent, had
leucorrhtEa and ovarian neuralgia, and 80 per cent, had to give up work
for two days during each month. These results seem more than usually
unfavorable, but are significant, as they cover a large number of cases.
The conditions in the Pacific States are not much better. Dr. Mary
Hitter (in a paper read before the California State Medical Society in
1003) stated that of 860 Freshmen girls at the University of California,
67 per cent, were subject to menstrual disorders, 27 per cent, to head-
aches, 30 per cent, to backaches, 29 per cent, were habitually constipated,
Ifl per cent, had abnormal heart sounds; only 23 per cent, were free
from functional disturbances. Dr. Helen MacMurchey, in an interesting
paper on Thysiological Phenomena Preceding or Accompanying Men-
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70 P8YCH0L0QT OF SEX.
etruation" {Lancet, Oct. 5, IBOl), hj inquiriei among one hundred
medical women, nurses, and ivomen teachera in Toronto concerning the
presence or absence of twenty-one different abnormal menstrual phe-
nomena, found that between 60 and 00 per cent, admitted that they
were liable at this time to disturbed sleep, to headache, to mental
depression, to digestive disturbance, or to disturbnnc« of the special
senses, while about 25 to 60 per cent, were liable to neuralgia, to vertigo,
to excessive nervous energy, to defective ner\'oiis and muscular power,
to cutoneouB hypemstlienia, to vasomotor disturbances, to constipation,
to diarrhtea, to Increased urination, to cutaneous eruption, to increased
liability to take cold, or to irritating watery discharges before or after
the menstrual discharge. This inquiry Is of much interest, because it
clearly brings out the marked prevalence at menstruation of conditions
which, though not necessarily of any gravity, yet definitely indicate
decreased power of resistance to morbid influences and diminished
efficiency for work.
How serious an impediment menstrual troubles are to a woman is
indicated by the fact that the women who achieve success and fame
seem seldom to be greatly afl^ected by them. To that we may, in part,
attribute the frequency with which leaders of the women's movement
have treated menstruation as a thing of no importance In a woman's
life. Adele Gerhard, and Helene Simon, also, in their valuable and
impartial work, MutteracbafI and Qeiitige Arbtit (p. 312), failed to
find, in their inquiries among women of distinguished ability, that men-
struation was regarded as seriously disturbing to work.
Of late the suggestion that adolescent girls shall not only rest from
work during two days of the menstrual period, but have an entire holi-
day from school during the first year of sexual life, has frequently been
put forward, both from the medical and the educational side. At the
meeting of the Association of Registered Medical Women, already
referred to. Miss Sturge spoke of the good results obtained in a school
where, during the first two years after puberty, the girls were kept in
bed for the first two days of each menstrual period. Some years ago
Dr. G. W. Cook ("Some Disorders of Menstruation," .American Journal
of Obstetrics, April, 1896), after giving cases in point, wrote: "It is
my deliberate conviction that no girl should be confined at study during
tlie year of her puberty, but she should live an outdoor life." In an
article on "Alumna's Children," by "An Alumna" (Popular Scirnce
Monthly. May, ISO'l), dealing with the sexual invalidism of American
women and the severe strain of motherhood upon them, the author,
though she is by no means hostile to education, which is not, she
declares, at fault, pleads for rest for the pubertal girl. "If the brain
claims her whole vitality, how can there be any proper development!
Just as very young children should give all their strength for some years
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SEXUAL EDUCATION, / 1
solely to physical growth before tbe brain is allowed to make any con-
siderable demands, bo at tbis critical period in the life of the woman
nothing should obstruct tbe right of way of this important system. A
year at tiie least should be made especially easy for her, witb neither
mentsl nor nervous strain; and throughout the rest of her school days
sbe should have her periodical day of rest, tree from any study or over-
exertion." In another article on the same subject in the same journal
("The Health of American Girls," Sept., 1907), Nellie Comins WhiUker
advocates a similar course. "I am coming to be convinced, somewhat
against my wiah, that there are many eases when the girl ought to be
taken ont of school entirety for some months or for a year at the period
of puhertij." She adds that the chief obstacle in the way Is the girl's
own likes and dislikes, and the ignorance of her mother who has been
accustomed to think that pain is a woman's natural lot.
Such a period of rest from mental strain, while it would fortify
the organism in its resistance to any reasonable strain later, need by no
means be lost for education in the wider sense of the word, for the edu-
cation required in classrooms is but a small part of the education
required for life. Nor should it by any means be reserved merely for
tbe sickly and delicate girl. Tbe tragic part of the present neglect to
give girls a really sound and Btting education is that the best and finest
girls are thereby so often ruined. Even the English policeman, who
admittedly belongs in physical vigor and nervous balance to the flower
of the population, is unable to bear tlie strain of bis life, and is said
to be worn out in twenty-Sve years. It is equally foolish to submit the
finest flowers of girlhood to a strain which is admittedly too severe.
It Beems to be clear that the main factor in the common
pexual and general invalidiam of girls and young women is bad
hygiene, in the first place consisting in neglect of the menstrual
functions and in the second place in faulty habits generally.
In all the more eesential matters that concern the hygiene of
the body the traditions of girls — and this seems to be more
especially the case in the Anglo-Saxon countries — are inferior
to those of youths. Women are much more inclined than men
to subordinate these things to what seems to them some more
urgent interest or fancy of the moment ; they are trained to wear
awkward and constricting garments, they are indifferent to
regular and substantial meals, preferring innutritious and
indigestible foods and drinks; they are apt to disregard the
demands of the bowels and the bladder out of laziness or
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72 PBYCHOLOOT OF SEX.
modesty; they are even indifferent to physical cleanlineeB.^ In
a great number of minor ways, which separately may seem to be
of little importance, they play into the hands of an environment
which, not always having been adequately adjusted to their
special needs, would exert a considerable stress and strain even if
they carefully sought to guard themselves against it. It has
been found in an American Women's College in which about half
the scholars wore corsets and half not, that nearly all the honors
and prizes went to the non-coraet-wearers. McBride, in bringing
forward this fact, pertinently remarks, "If the wearing of a
single style of dress will make this difference in the lives of
young women, and tliat, too, in their most vigorous and resistive
period, how much difference will a score of unhealthy habits
make, if persisted in for a life-time?^
"It seems evident," A. E. Giles concludes ("Some Points of Pre-
ventive Treatment in the Diseases of Women," Tke Eospital, April 10,
1897) "that dysmeDorrhtea might be to a large extent prevented hy
Attention to general health and education. Short hours of work, espe-
1 Thus Uias Lura Sanborn, Director of Physical Training at the
Chicago Normal School, found that a bath once a fortnixbt was not
unusual. At the menstrual period eepeciallj there is still a supersti-
tious dread of wat«r. Girls sbould always be tau^t that at this period,
above all, cleanliness is imperatively necessary. There should be a tepid
hip bath night and momir^, and a vaginal douche (which should never
be cold) is always advantageous, both tor comfort as well as clean-
liness. There is not the slightest reason to dread water during men-
struation. This point was discussed a few years ago in the British
Medical JouTruil with complete unanimity of opinion. A distinguished
American obstetrician, also, Dr. J. Clifton Edgar, after a careful study
of opinion and practice in this matter ("Bathing During the Menstrual
Period," American Journal Obstetrics, Sept., IBOO), concludes that it is
possible and beneficial to take cold baths (though not sea-baths) during
the period, provided due precautions are observed, and that there are no
sudden changes of habits. Such a course should not be indiscriminately
adopted, but there can be no doubt that in sturdy peasant women who
are inured to it early in life even prolonged immersion in the sea In
fishing has no evil results, and is even Ijeneflcial. Houzel (Annalet d«
Oj/nfcologie, Dec., 1S94) has published statistics of the menstrual life
of 123 Ssherwomen on the French coast. They were accustomed to
shrimp for hours at a time in tfae sea, often to above the waist, and
then walk about in their wet clothes selling the shrimps. They all
insisted that their menstruation was easier when they were actively at
work. Their periods are notably regular, and their fertility is hi^.
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BEXCAL EDrCATION, 73
ciallj of atandiag; plenty of outdoor exercise — tennis, boating, cycling,
gymnBsticB, and walking for those who cannot afford these; regularity
of meals and food of the proper quality — not the incessant tea and bread
and butter 'with variation of pastry; the avoidance of overexertion and
prolonged fatigue; these are some of the principal things which require
attentioa. Let prU pursue their study, but more leisurely; they will
arrive at the same goal, but a little later." The benefit of allowing
free movement and exercise lt> the whole body ii undoubtedly very great,
both as regards the sexual and general physical health and the mental
balance; in order to insure this it is necessary to avoid heavy and con-
stricting garments, more especially around the chest, for it is in respira-
tory power and chest expansion more than in any other respect that
girls fall behind boys (see, e.g., Havelork Ellis, Man and Woman, Ch.
IX). In old days the great obstacle to the free exercise of girls lay in
an ideal of feminine behavior which involved a prim restraint on every
natural movement of the body. At the present day that ideal is not eo
fervently preathed as of old, but its traditional influence still to some
extent persists, while there is the further difficulty that adequate time
and opportuni^ and encouragement are by no means generally afforded
to girls for the cultivation and training of the romping instincts which
are really a serious part of education, for it is by such free exercise of
the whole body that the neuro- muscular system, the basis of all vital
•ctivitf, is built up. The neglect of such education is to-day clearly
visible in the structure of our women. Dr. F. May Dickinson Berry,
Medical Examiner to the Technical Education Board of the London
Count? Council, found (BTttiah Medical Journal, May 28, IEK)4) among
over 1,500 girls, who represent the flower of the schools, since they had
obtained scholarships enabling them to proceed to higher grade schools,
that 22 per cent, presented some degree, not always pronounced, of
lateral curvature of the spine, though such cases were very rare among
the boys. In the same way among a very similar class of select girts
at the Chicago Normal School, Miss Lura Sanborn (Doctors' Magasine,
Dec., 1900) found 17 per cent. wiUi spinal curvature, in some cases of
a very pronounced degree. There is no reason why a girl should not
have as straight a back as a boy, and the cause can only lie in the
defective muscular development which was found in most of the cases,
sometimes accompanied by anemia. Here and there nowadays, among
the better social classes, there is ample provision for the development of
muscular power in girls, but in any generalized way there is no adequate
opportunity for such exercise, and among the working class, above
all. in the section of it which touches the lower middle class, although
their lives are destined to be filled with a constant strain on the neuro-
muscular system from work at home or in shops, etc.. there is usually
a of healthy exercise and physical development. Dr. W. A.
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74 PSTCHOLOQT OF BEX.
B. Sallman, of Baltimore ("Cau^^ of Painful Menatnuttlon In Unmar-
ried Women," American Journal Obstelrics. Nov., 1S07), emphasizes tho
admirable reaulU obtained bj* moderate phjaical exercise for young
womeD, and in training them to care for their bodies and to rest their
nervous systemB, while Dr. Charlotte Brown, of San Francisco, rightly in-
fiints on the establiahment in all tonus and villages alike of outdoor gym-
nastic fields for women and girls, and of a building, in connection with
every large school, for training in physical, manual, and domestic
science. The provision of special playgrounds is necessary where the
exereising of girls is so unfamiliar as to cause an embarraBBJng amount
of attention from the opposite sex, though when it is an immemorial
custom it can be carried out on the village green without attracting the
slightest attention, as I have seen in Spain, where one Cannot fail to
connect it with the physical vigor uf the women. In boys' schools games
are not only encouraged, but made compulsory; but this is by no means
a universal rule in girls' schools. It is not necessary, and is indeed
highly undesirable, that the games adopted should be titogo of boys. In
England especially, where the movements of women are so often marked
by awkwardness, angularity and lack of grace, it is essential that noth-
ing should be done to emphasize these characteristics, for where vigor
involves violence we are in the presence of a lack of due neuromuscular
coCrdinatiou. Swimming, when possible, and especially some forms of
dancing, are admirably adapted to develop the bodily movements of
women both vigorously and harmoniously (see, e.g., Havelock Ellis, Man
and Woman, Ch. VII ) . At the International Congress of School
Hygiene in 1907 (see, e.g., British Medical Journal, Aug. 24, 1907) Dr.
L. H. Gulick, formerly Director of Physical Training in the Public
Schools of New York City, stated that after many experiments it bad
l-en found in the New York elementary and high schools that folk-danc-
ing constituted the very best exercise for girls, "Tlie dances selected
involved many contractions of the large muscular masses of the body and
had therefore a great effect on respiration, circulation and nutrition-
Such movements, moreover, when done aa dances, could be carried on
three or four times as long without producing fatigue as formal gym-
nastics. Many folk-dances were imitative, sowing and reaping dance,
dances expressing trade movements (the shoemaker's dance), others
illustrating attack and defense, or the pursuit of game. Such neuro-
muscular movements were racially old and fitted in with man's expres-
sive life, and if it were accepted that the folk-dances really expressed
an epitome of man's neuromuscular history, as distinguished from
mere permutation of movements, the folk-dance combinations should be
preferred on these biological grounds to the unselected, or even ths
physiologically selected. From the Ksthetic point of view the sense of
beauty as shown in dancing was far commoner than the power to sing,
paint or model."
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SEXUAL £l>nCATIO\. 76
It must always be remembered that in realizing the especial
demands of woman's nature, we do not commit ourselves to the
belief that higher education is unfitted for a woman. That
question may now be regarded as settled. There is therefore no
longer any need for the feverish ansiety of the early leadere of
feminine education to prove that girla can be educated exactly a&
if they were boys, and yield at least as good educational results.
At the present time, indeed, that anxiety is not only unnecessary
but mischievous. It is now more necessary to show that women
have special needs just as men have special needs, and that it is as
bad for women, and therefore, for the world, to force them to
accept the special laws and limitations of men as it would be bad
for men, and therefore, for the world, to force men to accept the
special laws and limitations of women. Each sex must seek to
reach the goal by following the laws of its own nature, even
although it remains desirable that, both in the school and in the
world, they should work so far as possible side by side. The great
fact to be remembered always is that, not only are women, in
physical size and physical texture, slighter and finer than men,
but that to an extent altogether unknown among men, their
centre of gravity is apt to be deflected by the series of rhythmic
eexnal curves on which they are always living. They are thus
more delicately poised and any kind of stress or strain — cerebral,
nervous, or muscular — is more likely to produce serious disturb-
ance and requires an accurate adjustment to their special needs.
The fact that it 19 Htress and strain in general, and not necesHarily
edncational studies, that are injurious to adolescent women, is suffi-
ciently proved, if proof is necessary, by the fact that sexual arrest, and
physical or nervous breakdown, occur with extreme frequency in gii\a
who work in shops or mills, even in girls who have never been to school
at all. Even excesses in athletics — which now not infrequently occur as
a reaction against woman's indifference to physical exercise — are bad.
Cycling is i>eneficial for women who can ride without pain or discom-
fort, and, according to Watkins, it is even beneficial in many diseased
and disordered pelvic conditions, hut excessive cycling is evil in its
results on women, more especially by inducing rigidity of the perineum
to *a extent which may even prevent chil^irth and necessitate opera-
tion. I may add that the same objection applies to much borse-rid-
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76 PSTCHOLOGT OF SEX,
ing. In tbe Bame wkj everTthiug which causes shocks to the boii^
is apt to be dangerous to women, since in the womb they possess
a delicately poised organ which varies in weight at different times, and
it would, for instaoce, be impossible to commend football as a game for
girls. "I do not believe," wrote Miss H. Ballaotine, Director of Vassar
College Gymnasium, to Prof. W. Thomas (Sea and Society, p. 22)
"women can ever, no matter what tbe training, approach men in their
physical achievements; and," she wisely adds, "I see no reason why
they should." There seem, indeed, as has already been indicated, to ba
reasons why they should not, especially if tbey look forward to becom-
ing mothers. I have noticed that women who have lived a very robust
and athletic outdoor life, so far from always having the easy confine-
ments which we might anticipate, sometimes have very seriously difficult
times, imperilling the life of the child. On making this observation to
a distinguished obstetrician, the late Dr. Engelmann, who was an ardent
advocate of physical exercise for women (in e.g. his presidential address,
"The Health of the American Girl," TransactUma Bouthem Surgical and
Oyn(Fct>togical Attociation, 1890), he replied that he had himself made
the same observation, and that instructors in physical training, both in
America and England, bad also told him of such cases among their
pupils. "I hold," he wrote, "precisely the opinion yon express [as to
tbe unfavorable inllueuee of muscular development in women], jlfh-
letica, i.e., overdone physical training, causes the girl's system to
approximate to tbe masculine; this is so whether due to sport or
necessity. The woman who indulges in it approximates to the male in
her attributes; this is marked in diminished sexual intensity, and in
increased difficulty of childbirth, with, in time, lessened fecundity.
Healthy habits improve, but masculine muscular development diminiehea,
womanly qualities, althou|^ it ia true that the peasant and tbe laboring
woman have easy labor. I have never advocated muscular development
for girls, only physical training, but have perhaps said too much for it
and pmieed it too unguardedly. In schools and colleges, so far, how-
ever, it is insiifncient rather than too much; only the wealthy have too
much golf and athletic sports. I am collecting new material, but from
what I already have seen I am impressed with the truth of what you
say. 1 am studying the point, and shall elaborate the explanation."
Any publication on this subject was, however, prevented by Engelmann's
death a tew years later.
A proper recognition of the special nature of woman, of her
peculiar needs and her dignity, has a significance beyond its
importance in education and hygiene. The traditions and train-
ing to which ahe is subjected in this matter have a subtle and
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SEZrAL EDUCATION. 77
far-reaching Bignlficance, accordiog as they are good or evil. If
ahe is taught, implicitly or explicitly, contempt for the character-
istics of her own sex, she naturally develops masculine ideals
which may permanently discolor her vision of life and distort her
practical activities ; it has been found that as many ae fifty per
cent, of American school girls have masculine ideals, while fifteen
per cent, American and no fewer than thirty-four per cent.
English school girls wished to be men, though scarcely any boys
wished to be women.' With the same tendency may be con-
nected that neglect to cultivate the emotions, which, by a
mischievously extravagant but inevitable reaction from the
opposite extreme, has sometimes marked the modem training of
women. In the finely developed woman, intelligence is inter-
penetrated with emotion. If there is an exaggerated and
isolated culture of intelligence a tendency shows itself to dis-
harmony which breaks up the character or impairs its complete-
ness. In this connection Reibmayr has remarked that the
American woman may serve. as a warning.^ Within the emo-
tional sphere itself, it may be added, there is a tendency to
disharmony in women owing to the contradictory nature of the
feelings which are traditionally impressed upon her, a contra-
diction which dates back indeed to the identification of sacred-
nesB and impurity at the dawn of civilization. "Every girl and
woman," wrote Hellmann, in a pioneering book which pushed a
sound principle to eccentric extremes, "is taught to regard her
sexual parts as a precious and sacred spot, only to be approached
by a husband or in special circumstances a doctor. She is, at
the same time, taught to regard this spot as a kind of water-closet
which she ought to be extremely ashamed to posaesa, and the mere
mention of which should cause a painful blush."* The average
1 W. G. Cbambers, "The Evolution of Ideals," Pedagogical Semi-
nary, March, 1903; Catherine Dodd, "School Children's Ideals," Ya-
tional Sevictc, Feb. and Dec., 1900, and June, 1901. No German girU
acknowledged a wish to he men; they said it would be wicked. Among
Flemiah girls, however, Varendonck found at Ghent (Archives de Pay
ehologie, Julj-, 1908) that 26 per cent, had men as their ideals.
a A. Reibmayr, Die Enticicl-lungsgcschichte deit Talentea und Oeniea,
190S, Bd. i, p. 70.
<R, Hellmann, TJeber Ovtchlechlsfreiheit, p. 14.
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78 PSYCHOLOGY OP SEX.
untbintdng woman accepts the incongruity of this opposition
without question, and grows accustomed to adapt herself to each
of the incompatibles accordiDg to circumstances. The more
thoughtful woman works out a private theory of her own. But
in very many cases this mischievous opposition exerts a subtly
perverting influence on the whole outlook towards Nature and
life. In a few cases, also, in women of sensitive temperament, it
even undermines and ruins the psychic personality.
ThuB Boris Sidis has recorded a case illustrating the disastrous
results of inculcating on a morbidly sensitive girl the doctrine of the
impurity of women. She was educated in a convent. "While there she
was impressed with the belief that woman is a vesael of vice and
impurity. This seemed to have been imbued in her bj one of the nuns
who was very holy and practiced self-mortification. With the onset of
her periods, and with the observation of the same In the other girls,
this doctrine of female impurity was all the stronger impressed on her
sensitive mind." It lapsed, however, from conscious memory and only
came to the foreground in subsequent years with the exhaustion and
fatigue of prolonged office work. Then she married. Now "she has an
extreme abhorrence of women. Woman, to the patient, is impurity,
filth, the very incarnation of degradation and vice. The bouse wash
must not be given to a laundry where women work. Nothing must be
picked up in the street, not even the most valuable object, perchance
it might have been dropped by a woman" (Boris Sidis, "Studies in
Psychopathology," Boston Uedical and Kvrghal Journal. April 4, IflOT}.
That is the logical outcome of much of the traditional teaching which
is given to girls. Fortunately, the healthy raind offers a natural resist-
ance to its complete acceptation, yet it usually, in some degree, persists
and exerts a mischievous influence.
It is, however, not only in her relations to herself and to
her sex that a girl's thoughts and feelings tend to be distorted
by the ignorance or the false traditions by which she is so often
carefully surrounded. Her happiness in marriage, her whole
future career, is put in peril. The innocent young woman must
always risk much in entering the door of indissoluble marriage ;
she knows nothing truly of her husband, she knows nothing of the
great laws of love, Rhe knows nothing of her own possibilities, and,
worse still, she is even ignorant of her ignorance. She runs the
risk of losing the game while she is still only beginning to leam
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SEXUAL mHJCATION. 79
it. To Bome extent that ie quite ioevitable if we are to insbt that
a woman should bind herself to marry a man before she has
experienced the nature of the forces that marriage may unloose in
her. A young girl believes she poseeBseB a certain character; she
arranges her future in accordance with that character; she
marriee. Then, in a considerable proportion of cases (five out of
six, according to the novelist Bourget), within a year or even a
week, flhe finds she was completely mistaken in herself and in the
man she has married; she discovers within her another self, and
that self detests the man to whom she is bound. That is a
possible fate against which only the "woman who has already been
aroused to love is entitled to regard herself as fairly protected.
There is, however, a certain kind of protection which it is
possible to afford the bride, even without departing from our
most conventional conceptions of marriage. We can at least
insist that she shall be accurately informed as to the exact
nature of her physical relations to her future husband and be
safeguarded from the shocks or the disillusions which marriage
might otlierwjae bring. Notwithstanding the decay of preju-
dices, it is probable that even to-day the majority of women
of the so-called educated class marry with only the vaguest and
most inaccurate notions, picked up more or less clandestinely,
concerning the nature of the sexual relationships. So highly
intelligent a woman as Madame Adam has stated that she
believed herself bound to marry a man who had kissed her on
the mouth, imagining that to be the supreme act of sexual tmion,'
and it has frequently hajipened that women have married
sexually inverted persons of their own sex, not always knowingly,
but believing them to be men, and never discovering their
mistake; it is not long indeed since in America three women were
thus successively married to the same woman, none of them
apparently ever finding out the real sex of the "husband." "The
civilized giri," as Edward Carpenter remarks, "is led to the
I This belief seems frequent among jouag girls in Continental
Europe. It forms the subject of one of Marcel Prevoat's Letlrea de
Femmes. In Austria, according to Freud, it ia not uneommon, exclu-
sirel^ among girla.
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so PSYCHOLOQY OF SEX.
'altar* often in uttermost ignorance and miBunderstanding of the
sacrificial ritea about to be consummated." Certainly more
rapes have been effected in marriage than outside it.^ The girl
is full of vague and romantic faith in the promises of love, often
heighteued by the ecstasies depicted in sentimental novels from
■which every touch of wholesome reality has been carefully
omitted. "All the candor of faith is there," as Senancour puts
it in his book De I'Aviour, "the desires of inesperience, the needs
of a new life, the hopes of an upright heart. She has all the
faculties of love, she must love; she has all the means of
pleasure, she must be loved. Everj-tliing expresses love and
demands love : this hand formed for sweet caresses, an eye whose
resources are unknown if it must not say that it consents to be
loved, a bosom which is motionless and useless without love, and
will fade without having been worshipped; these feelings that
are so vast, so tender, so voluptuous, the ambition of the heart,
the heroism of passion ! She needs must follow the delicious
rule which the law of the world has dictated. That intoxicating
part, which she knows so well, which everything recalls, which the
day inspires and the night commands, what young, sensitive,
loving woman can imagine that she shall not play it?" But
when the actual drama of love begins to unroll before her, and she
realizes the true nature of the "intoxicating part" she has to play,
then, it has often happened, the case is altered ; she finds herself
altogether unprepared, and is overcome with terror and alarm.
All the felicity of her married life may then hang on a few
chances, her husband's skill and consideration, her own presence
of mind. Hirschfeld records the case of an innocent young girl
of seventeen — in this case, it eventually proved, an invert — who
was persuaded to marry but on discovering what marriage meant
energetically resisted her husband's sexual approaches. He
1 Yet, according to Engliih law, rape is a crime which it ia impoa-
Bible lot a. husband to commit on hi* ivife (see, e.g., Nevill Geary, The
Law of Marriage, Cli. XV, Sect. V). The performance of the marriage
ceremony, however, even it it necessarily involved a clear explanation of
marital privilegi^s, cannot be regarded as adequate JQstillcation for an
act of sexual intercourse performed with violence or without the wife's
consent.
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SEXUAL EDUCATION. 81
appealed to her mother to explain to her daughter the nature of
"wifely duties." But the young wife replied to her mother's
eipostulations, "If that ie my wifely duty then it was your
parental duty to have told me beforehand, for, if I had known, I
should never have married." The husband in this case, much in
love with his wife, sought for eight years to over-persuade her,
but In Tain, and a separation finally took place.^ That, no
doubt, is an extreme case, but how many innocent young inverted
girls never realize their true nature until after marriage, and
how many perfectly normal girls are so shocked by the too
sudden initiation of marriage that their beautiful early dreams of
love never develop slowly and wholesomely into the acceptance
of its still more beautiful realities?
Before the age of puberty it would seem that the sexual
initiation of the child — apart from such scientific information as
would form part of school courses in botany and zoology— should
be the exclusive privilege of the mother, or whomever it may be to
whom the mother's duties are delegated. At puberty more
authoritative and precise advice is desirable thau the mother may
be able or willing to give. It is at this age that she should put
into her son's or daughter's hands some one or other of the very
numerous manuals to which reference has already been made
(page 53), expounding the physical and moral aspects of the
sexual life and the principles of sexual hygiene. The boy or
girl is already, we may take it, acquainted with the facts of
motherhood, and the origin of babies, as well as, more or less
precisely, with the father's part in their procreation. Whatever
manual is now placed in his or her hands should at least deal
1 Hirachfeld, Jahrbwh fiir Stavelle ZtoUchenstufen, 1903, p. 88.
It may be added that a horror of coitus is not necesBarilj due to Iwd
education, and may aleo occur in hereditarily degenerate women, whose
anc««tor3 have shown similar or allied mentat peculiarities. A case of
such "functional impotence" lias been reported in a young Italian wife
of twenty-one, who was otherwise healthy, and strongly attached to her
hutband. The marriage was annulled on the ground that "rudimentary
sexual or emotional paranoia, which renders a wife inrineiblj refractory
to Hiual union, notwithstanding the integrity of the sexual organs, cod-
stitutes psychic functional impotence" lArcMvio di Psiohiatria. 1606.
fasc Ti, p. 806) .
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summaTily, but definitely, with the sexual relationship, and
should also comment, wamingly but in no alarmist spirit, with
the chief auto-erotie phenomena, and by no means exclusively
with masturbation. Nothing but good can come of the use of
such a manual, if It has been wisely selected; it will supplant
what the mother has already done, what the teacher may still be
doing, and what later may be done by private interview with a
doctor. It has indeed been argued that the boy or girl to whom
such literature is presented will merely make it an opportunity
for morbid revelry and sensual enjoyment. It can well be
believed that this may sometimes happen with boys or girls from
whom all sexual facts have always been mysteriously veiled, and
that when at last they find the opportunity of gratifying their
long-repressed and perfectly natural curiosity they are overcome
by the excitement of the event. It could not happen to children
who have been naturally and wholesomely brought up. At a
later age, during adolescence, there is doubtless great advantage
in the plan, now frequently adopted, especially in Germany, of
giving lectures, addresses, or quiet talks to young people of each
sex separately. The speaker is usually a specially selected
teacher, a doctor or other qualified person who may be brought
in for this special purpose.
Stanle; Hall, after reniBrking that seituat education should be
chiefly from fathers to sons and from mothers to dau^t«r9, adds: "It
may be that in the future this kind of initiation will again heroine an
art, and experts will tell us with more confidence how to do our duty
to the manifold exigencies, types and stBgen of youth, and instead of
feeling baffled and defeated, we shall see that this age and theme is the
supreme opening for the highest pedagogy to do its best and most trans-
forming work, as well as being the greatest of all opportunities for the
teacher of religion" (Stanley Hall, Adolescence, vol. i, p. 489). "At
Williams College, Harvard, Johns Hopkins and Clark," the snme distin-
guished teacher observes {ib., p. 4S5). "I have made it a duty in my
departmental teaching to speak verj' briefly, but plainly to young men
under my instruction, personally if I deemed it wise, and often, though
here only in general terras, before student bodies, and I believe I ha\e
nowhere done more good, but it is a painful duty. It requires tact and
some degree of hard and strenuous common sense rather than technical
knowledge."
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SEXUAL EDUCATION, 08
It ia scarcely necesaary to say that the ordinary t«acber of either
aex ie quite incompetent to speak of sexual hygiene. It ia a tasli: to
which all, or some, teachers must be trained. A beginning in tbia
direction bas been made in Germany by the delivery to teacbera of
courses of lectures on sexual hygiene in education. In Prussia the first
attempt was made in Breilau when the central school authorities
requested Dr. Martin Chotzen to deliver such a course to one hundred
and fifty teachers who took the greatest interest in the lectures, which
covered the anatomy of the sexual organs, the development of the sexual
instinct, its chief perversions, venereal diseases, and the importance' of
the cultivation of self-control. In Geickleckt und Oeaellschafi (Bd. i.
Heft 7) Dr. Fritz Reuther gives the substance of lectures which be has
delivered to a class of young teachers; they cover much the same ground
There ie no evidence that in England the Minister of Education
has yet taken any steps to insure tlie delivery of lectures on sexua)
hygiene to the pupils who are aliout to leave school. In Prussia, how-
ever, the Ministry of Education bas taken an active interest in this
matter, and such lectures are beginning to be commonly delivered, though
attendance at them is not usually obligatory. Some years ago (In
1000), when it was proposed to deliver a series of lectures on sexual
hygiene to the advanced pupils in Berlin schools, under the auspices of
a society for the improvement of morals, the muncipal authorities with-
drew their permission to use the classrooms, on the ground that "such
lectures would be extremely dangerous to the moral sense of an audience
of the young," Tlie same objection has been made by municipal officials
in France. In Germany, at all events, however, opinion is rapidly grow-
ing more enlightened. In England little or no progress has yet been
made, but in America steps are being taken in this direction, as by the
Chicago Society for Social Hygiene. It must, indeed, be said that those
who oppose the sexual enlightenment of youth in large cities are directly
allying themselves, whether or not they know it, with the influences that
make for vice and immorality.
Such lectures are also given to girls on leaving school, not only girls
of the well-to-do, but also those of the poor class, who need them fully as
much, and in some respects more. Thus Dr. A. Heidenhain has pub-
lished a lecture iBexvelle Belehrung der aut den Volkaachule entlassenen
iladchen, 1907), accompanied by anatomical tables, which he bas deliv-
ered to girls about to leave school, and which is intended to be put into
their hands at this time. Salvat, in a Lyons thesis {La Depopulation
de la France, 100.1], insists that (he hygiene of pregnancy and the care
cf infants should form part of the subject of such lectures. These sub-
jects might Well be left, however, to a somewhat later period.
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84 PSYCHOLOGY OF 8ES.
Something is clearly needed beyond lectures on these
matters. It should be the business of the parents or other
guardians of every adolescent youth and girl to arrange that,
once at least at this period of life, there should be a private,
personal interview with a medical man to afford an opportunity
for a friendly and confidential talk concerning the main points
of sexual hygiene. The family doctor would be the best for this
duty because he would be familiar with the personal temperament
of the youth and the family tendencies,! Jq the case of girls a
woman doctor would often be preferred. Sex is properly a
mystery ; and to the unspoilt youth, it is instinctively so ; except
in an abstract and teclmical form it cannot properly form the
subject of lectures. In a private and individualized conversation
between the novice in life and the espert, it is possible to say
many necessary things that could not be said in public, and it is
possible, moreover, for the youth to ask questions which shyness
and reserve make it impoaeible to put to parents, while the con-
venient opportunity of putting them naturally to the expert
otherwise seldom or never occurs. Most youtha have their own
special ignorances, their own special difficulties, difficulties and
ignorances that could sometimes be resolved by a word. Yet it
by no means infrequently happens that they carry them far on
into adult life because they have lacked the opportunity, or the
skill and assurance to create the opportunity, of obtaining
enlightenment.
It must be clearly understood that these talks are of medical,
hygienic, and physiological character; they are not to be used
for retailing moral platitudes. To make them that would be a
fatal mistake. The young are often very hostile to merely con-
ventional moral maxims, and suspect their hollowness, noi
always without reason. The end to be aimed at here is enlighten-
1 The reaBonableneas of this step ii so obvious that it should
scarcely nepd insistpnce. "The instruction of school-boys and school-
girls is most adequately effected by an elderly doctor," Nilcke remarks,
"sometimes perhapn the school -doctor." "I strongly advocate," says
Ciouston (The Hygiene of Mind, p. 249), "that the family doctor, guided
by the parent and the teacher, is by far the best instructor and monitor."
Moll is of the same opinion.
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BEXUAL EDUCATION. 85
ment. Certainly knowledge can never be immoral, but nothing is
gained by jumbling up knowledge and morality together.
In emphasizing the nature of the physician's task in this
matter as purely and simply that of wise practical enlightenment,
nothing is implied against the advantages, and indeed the
immense value in sexual hygiene, of the moral, religious, ideal
elements of life. It is not the primary busiBcss of the physician
to inspire these, but they have a very intimate relation with the
eexual life, and every boy and girl at puberty, and never before
puberty, should be granted the privilege — and not the duty or
the task — of initiation into those elements of the world's life
which are, at the same time, natural functions of the adolescent
soul. Here, however, is the sphere of the religious or ethical
teacher. At puberty he has his great opportunity, the greatest
he can ever obtain. The flower of sex that blossoms in the body
at puberty has its spiritual counterpart which at the same
moment blossoms in the soul. The churches from of old have
recognized the religious significanoe of this moment, for it is this
period of life that they have appointed as the time of conEnn-
ation and similar rites. With the progress of the ages, it is true,
snch rites become merely formal and apparently meaningless
fossils. But they have a meaning nevertheless, and are capable
of being again vitalized. Nor in their spirit and essence should
they be confined to those who accept supematurally revealed
religion. They concern all ethical teachers, who must realize
that it is at puberty that they are called upon to inspire or to
fortify the great ideal aspirations which at this period tend
spontaneously to arise in the youth's or maiden's soul.^
The age of puberty, I have said, marks the period at which
this new kind of sexual initiation is called for. Before puberty,
although the psychic emotion of love frequently develops, as well
as sometimes physical sexual emotions that are mostly vague
and diffused, definite and localized sexual sensations are rare.
For the normal boy or girl love is usually an unspecialized
emotion ; it is in Guyau's words "a state in which the body has
"Religion and the
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86 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
but tlie smallest place." At the first rising of the aim of sex the
boy or girl sees, as Blake said he saw at sunrise, not a round
yellow body emerging above the horizon, or any other physical
manifegtation, but a great company of singing angels. With
the definite eruption of physical sexual manifestation and desire,
whether at puberty or later in adolescence, a new turbulent dis-
turbing influencH appears. Against the force of this influence,
meie intL-llectual enlightenment, or even loving maternal counsel
— the agencies we have so far been concerned with — may he
powerless. In gaining control of it we must find our auxiliary
in the fact that puberty is the efflorescence not only of a new
physical but a new psychic force. The ideal world naturally
unfolds itself to the boy or girl at puberty. The magic of
beauty, the instinct of modesty, the naturalness of self-restraint,
the idea of unselfish love, the meaning of duty, the feeling for
art and poetry, the craving for religious conceptions and
emotions — all these things awake spontaneously in the unspoiled
boy or girl at puberty. I say "unspoiled," for if these things
have been thrust on the child before puberty when they have
yet no meaning for him — as is unfortunately far too often done,
more especially as regards religious notions — then it is but too
likely that he will fail to react properly at that moment of hie
development when he would otherwise naturally respond to them.
"Under natural conditions this is the period for spiritual
initiation. Now, and not before, is the time for the religious or
■ethical teacher as the case may be — for all religions and ethical
systems may equally adapt themselves to this task — to take the
boy or girl in hand, not with any special and obtrusive reference
to the sexual impulses but for the purpose of assisting the
development and manifestation of this psychic puberty, of
indirectly aiding the young soul to escape from sexual dangers
by harnessing his chariot to a star that may help to save it from
sticking fast in any miry ruts of the fiesh.
Such an initiation, it is important to remark, is more than
an introduction to the sphere of religious sentiment. It is an
initiation into manhood, it must involve a recognition of the
masculine even more than of the feminine virtues. This has
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- 8KXDAL EDUCATION, 87
been well understood by the finest primitive races. They con-
stantly give their boys and girla ao initiation at puberty; it is
an initiation that involves not merely education in the ordinary
sense, but a stem discipline of the character, feate of endurance,
the trial of character, the testing of the muscles of the soul ae
much as of the body.
Ceremonies of initiation into manhood at puberty — involving
physical and mental discipline, as well as InHtructiou, lasting for weeks
or months, and never identical for both sesea — are common among
MTSges in all parts of the world. They nearly always involve the
endurance of a certain amount of pain and hardship, a wise measure
of training which the softness of civiliution has too foolishly allowed
to drop, for the ability to endure hardness is an essential condition of
all real manhood. It is as a corrective to this tendency to flabbinesa
in modern education that the teaching of Nietische is so InTaluable.
The initiation of boys among the natives of Torres Straits has
been elaborately described by A. C. Haddon (Reports Anthropological
Expedition to Torre* Strait*, vol. v, Chs. VII and SII). It laste a
month, involves much severe training and power of endurance, and
includes admirable moral instruction. Haddon remarks that it formed
"a very good discipline," and adds, "it is not easy to conceive of a more
effectual means for a rapid training."
Among the aborigines of Victoria, Australia, the initiatory cere-
numiea, as described by R. H. Mathews ("Some Initiation Ceremonies,"
Zeittokrift fUr Elhnohgia 1605, Heft 6), last for seven months, and con-
stitute an admirable discipline. The boys are taken away by the elders
of the tribe, subjected to many trials of patience and endurance of pain
and discomfort, sometimea involving even the swallowing of urine and
excrement, brought into contact with strange tribes, taught tbe laws
and folk-lore, and at the end meetings are held at which betrothals are
.ry.»g«l.
Among the northern tribes of Central Australia the initiaUon
ceremonies involve circumcision and urethral subincision, as well as
hard manual labor and hardships. The initiation of girls into woman-
hood is accompanied by cutting open of the vagina. These ceremonies
have been described by Spencer and Gillen (Vorthem Tribes of Central
Auttralia, Oh. XI). Among various peoples in British East Africa
(including the Masai) pubertal initiation is a great ceremonial event
extending over a period of many months, and it includes circumcision
!n boys, and in girls clitoridectomy, as well as, among some tribes,
removal of the njmphte. A girl who winces or cries out during the
Operation is disgraced among the women and expelled from the settle-
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88 PBTCHOLOOT OF 8E±.
meut. When tiie eecemonj has been satisfactorily completed ttie boy or
girl is maTTiageable (C. Marsh Beadnell, "Ctrcumcision and Clitori-
dectomj as Practiced by the Natives of British East Africa," British
Medical Journal, April 29, 1905).
Initiation among the African Bawenda, na described bj a mis-
sionaiy, is in three stages: (1) A stage of instruction and discipline
during which the traditions and sacred things of the tribe are revealed,
the art of warfare tau^t, aelf-TCHiraint and endurance borne; then the
youtbs are count«d aa full-grown. (2) In the next stage the art of
daucing is practiced, by each sex separately, during the day. (3) In
the final stage, which is that of complete se^cual initiation, the two
sexes dance together by night; the scene, in the opinion of the good .
missionary, "does not bear description;" the initiated are now complete
adults, with all the privileges and responsi bill ties of adults {Rev. E.
Gottschling, "The Bawenda," Joumcl Anthropological Institution, July
to Dec., 1906, p. 372. Cf,, an interesting account of the Bawenda Toodo
schools by anotlier missionary, Weaeraann, The Batoenda, pp. 60 e( wg.).
The initiation of ^rls in Azimba Land, Central Africa, has boen
fully and interestingly described by H. Crawford Angus ("The 'Chen-
samwali' or Initiation Ceremony of Girla," Zeitachrift fUr Ethnologie,
1898, Heft 6). At the firat sign of menstruation the girl is talcen by
her mother out of the village to a grass hut prepared for her where
only the women are allowed to visit her. At the end of menstruation
she is talcen to a secluded epot and the women dance round her, no men
being present. It was only with much difficulty that Angus was en-
abled to witness the ceremony. The girl is then informed in regard to
the hygiene of menstruation. "Many aongs about the relations between
men and women are eung, and the girl is inntnicted as to all her duties
when ahe becomes a wife. . , . The. pri ia taught to be faithful
to her buaband, and to try and bear children. The whole matter is
looked upon aa a matter of courae, and not as a thing to be ashamed
of or to hide, and being thus openly treated of and no secrecy mode
about it, you find in this tribe that the women are Tery virtuoua,
becanae the subject of married life has no glamour for them. When a
woman fs pregnant she is again danced; this time all the dancers are
naked, and she is taught how to behave and what to do when the time
of her delivery arrives."
Among the Yuman Indians of California, as described by Horatio
Rust ("A Puberty Ceremony of the Misfion Indiana," American Anthro-
pologist, Jan. to March, 1906, p. 2ft> the girls are at puberty prepared
for marriage by a ceremony. They are wrapped In blankets and placed
in a warm pit, where they He looking very hapf^ aa they peer out
through their covers. For four daya and nights they lie here (occasion-
ally going away for food), while the old women of the tribe dane« and
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BBXDAL EDDCATION. 89
sing roimd the pit conatantlj. At times the old women throw silver
coins Buong the crowd to teach the girls to be generous. Thef also
give awaj cloth and wheat, to teach them to be Icind to the old and
ueedjr; and they sow wild seeds broadcast over the girls to cause them
to he prolific. Finally, all straDgers are ordered away, garlands are
placed on the girla' heads, snd Ihey are led to a hillside and shown the
large and sacred stone, symbolical of the female organs of generation
and resembling tbem, which is said to protect women. Then grain is
thrown over all present, and the ceremony is orer.
The Tblinkeet Eskimo women were long notod for their fine
qualities. At puberty they were secluded, aomeUmes for a whole year,
being kept in darkness, suffering, and filth. Yet defective and unsatis-
factory as this initiation was, "Langsdorf suggests," says Bancroft
(A'altce Baeei of Pacific, vol. i, p. 110), referring to the virtues of the
Thlinkeet woman, "that it may be during this period of confinement that
the foundation of her influence is laid; that in modest reserve and
meditation her charactor is strengthened, and she comes forth cleansed
in mind as well as body."
We have lost these ancient and inyaluable rites of initiation
into manhood and womanhood, with their inestimable moral
benefits; at the most we have merely preserved the shells of
initiation in which the core has decayed. In time, we cannot
doubt, they will be revived in modern fonns. At present the
spiritual initiation of youths and maidens is left to the chances
of some happy accident, and usually it is of a purely cerebral
character which cannot be perfectly wholesome, and is at the
best absurdly incomplete.
This cerebral initiation commonly occurs to the youth
through the medium of literature. The influence of literature
in sexual education thus extends, in an incalculable degree,
beyond the narrow sphere of manuals on sexual hygiene, however
admirable and desirable these may be. The greater part of
literature is more or less distinctly penetrated by erotic and auto-
erotic conceptions and impulses ; nearly all imaginative literature
proceeds from the root of sex to Sower in visions of beauty and
ecstasy. The Divine Comedy of Dante is herein the immortal
type of the poet's evolution. The youth becomes acquainted
with the imaginative representations of love before he becomes
acquainted with the reality of love, so that, as Leo Berg puts it,
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■90 P8TCH0L00T OF 6BX.
"the way to love among civilized peoples passea through imagina-
tion." All literature is thus, to the adoleacent soul, a part of
Bexual education.^ It depends, to Bome extent, though for-
tunately not entirely, on the judgment of those in authority over
.the young soul whether the literature to which the youth or girl
is admitted is or is not of the large and humanizing order.
All great literature touches nakedly and saneljr on the central facts
of sex. It is alnays consoling to reroember this in an age of petty
pruderies. And it is a satisfaction to know that It would not be pos-
sible to emasculate the literature of the great ages, however desirable
it might seem to the men of more degenerate ages, or to close the ave-
nues to that literature against tbe young. All our religious and literary
traditions serve to fortify the position of the Bible and of Shakespeare.
"So many men and women,'* writes a correspondent, a literary man,
"gain BCKual ideas in childhood from reading the Old Testament, that
the Bible may be called an erotic text -book. Most persons of either sex
with whom I have conversed on the subject, say that the Books of Moses,
and the stories of Amnon and Tauiar, Lot and liis daughters, Potiphar's
wife and Joseph, etc., caused speculation and curiosity, and gave theni
information of the sexual relationship, A boy and girl of fifteen, both
friends of the writer, and now over thirty years of age, used to find out
erotic passages in the Bible on Sunday mornings, while in a Dissenting
chapel, and pass their Bibles to one another, with their fingers on the
portions that interested them." In the same way many a young woman
has borrowed Shakespeare in order to read the glowing erotic poetry of
Tenua and Adonit, which her friends have told her about.
The Bible, it may be remarked, is not in every respect, a model
introduction for the young mind to the questions of sex. But even
its frank acceptance, as of divine origin, of sexual rules so unlike those
that are norninally our own, such as polygamy and concubinage, helps
to enlarge the vision of the youthful mind by showing that the rules
surrounding the child are not those everywhere and always valid, while
the nakedness and realism of the Bible cannot but he a wholesome and
tonic corrective to conventional pruderies.
We must, indeed, always protest against the absurd contusion
1 The intimate relation of art and poetry to the sexual impulse
hna been realized in a fragmentary way by many who have not attained
to any wide vision of auto-erotic activity in life. "Poetry is necessarily
related to the sexual function," says Metchnikoff (Eaaaiit Optimistes. p.
.152), who also quotes with approval the statement of MBbius (pre-
viously made by Ferrero and many others) that "artistic aptitudes must
probably be considered as secondary sexual characters."
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SBXDAL EDDCATION. 91
whereby nakedness of speech is regarded aa eqaivalent to immorality,
and not the leas because it is often adopted even in what are regarded
as intellectual quarters. When in the House of Lords, in the last cen-
tury, the question of the exclusion of Byron's statue from Westminster
Abbey was under discussion, Lord Brougham "denied that Shakespeare
waa more moral than Byron. He could, on the contrary, point out in a
single page of Shakespeare more grosaness than was to be found in all
Lord Byron's works." The conclusion Brougham thus renched, that
Byron is an incomparably more moral writer than Shakespeare, ought
to have been a sufficient reduolio ad absurcfum of his argument, but it
does not appear that anyone pointed out the vulgar confusion into
which he bad fallen.
It may be said that the spedal attractiveness which the nakedncHs
of great literature sometimes possesses for young minds is unwliolesome.
But it must be remembered that the peculiar interest of this element ii
merely due to lie fact that elsewhere there is an inveterate and abnor-
mal concealment. It must also be said that the statements of the great
miters about natural things are never degrading, nor even erotically
exciting to the young, and what Emilia Pardo Bazan tirlls of herself and
ber'delight when a child in the historical books of the Old Testament.
that the crude passages in them failed to send the faintest cloud of
trouble across her young imagination, is equally true of moat children.
It is necessary, indeed, that these naked and serious things should be
left standing, even if only to counterbalance the lewdly comic efTorts to
besmirch love and sex, which are visible to all in every low-class book*
seller's shop window.
This point of view was vigorously championed by the speakers on
sexual education at the Third Congress of the German Gesellsehaft Jiur
BekSmpfung der Geschlechtskrankheiten in 1907. Thus Enderlin, speak-
ing as a headmaster, protested against the custom of bowdlerizing poems
and folk-songs for the use of children, and thus robbing them of the
finest introduction to purified sexual impulses and the highest sphere of
emotion, while at the same time they are recklessly exposed to the
"psychic infection" of the vulgar comic papers everywhere exposed for
sale. "So long as children are too young to respond to erotic poetry it
cannot hurt them; when they are old enough to respond it can only
benefit them by opening to them the highest and purest channels of
human emotion" {Sexualpadagogil:, p. t!0). Professor SchSfenacker
[id., p. 08) expresses himself in the same aenae, and remarks that "the
method of removing from school-booka all those passages which, in the
opinion of short-sighted and narrow-hearted school masters, are unsulted
tor youth, must be decisively condemned." Every healthy boy and girl
who has reached the age of puberty may be safety allowed to ramble in
any good library, however varied its contents. So far from needing
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92 PSTCHOLOGY OF SEX.
guidance they will usually ehov,- a much more refined taste than their
elders. At this Age, when the emotions are still virginal and sensiUve,
the things that are realistic, ugly, or morbid, jar on the joung spirit
and are cast aside, though in adult life, witli the coarsening of mental
texture which comes of years and experience, this repugnance, doubtless
by an equally sound and natural instinct, may become much leas acute.
Ellen Key in Ch. VI of her Cenlurt/ of the Child well summarizes
the TMSone against the practice of selecting for children books that are
"suitable" for them, a practice which she considers one of the follies of
modern education. The child should be free to read all great literature,
and will himself instinctively put aside the things he is not yet ripe
for. His cooler senses are undisturbed by scenes that his elders find too
exciting, while even at a later stage it is not the nakedness of great
literature, but much more the method of the modem novel, which is
likely to stain the Imagination, falsify reality and injure taste. It is
concealment which minleads and coarsens, producing a state of mind tn
which even the Bible becomes a stimulus to t^e senses. The writings
of the great masters yield the imaginative food which the child craves,
and the erotic moment in them is too brief to be overheating. It is the
more necessary, Ellen Key remarks, for children to be introduced to
great literature, since they often hare little opportunity to oocupy them*
selves with it in later life. Miiny years earlier Buskin, In Sesame and
Lilks, had eloquently urged that even young girls should b« allowed to
range freely in libraries.
What liae been said about literature applies equally to art
Art, as well as literature, and in the same indirect way, can be
made a valuable aid in the task of se.vual enlightenment and
eexual hygiene. Modern art may, indeed, for the most part, be
ignored from this point of view, but children cannot be too
early familiarized with the representations of the nude in ancient
sculpture and in the paintings of the old masters of the Italian
school. In this way they may be immunized, as Enderlin
espresses it, against those representations of the nude which
make an appeal to the baser instincts. Early familiarity with
nudity in ail is at the same time an aid to the attainment of a
proper attitude towards purity in nature. "He who has once
learnt," as Holler remark?, "to enjoy peacefully nakedness in
art, will be able to look on nakedness in nature as on a work of
art."
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BEXUAL EDUCATION. »3
Casts of classic nude statues and reprixluctionB of the picturea of
ttie old Venetian and other Italian maaterB may fittingly he used to
adorn schoolrooms, not bo much as objects of instruction as things of
' beauty with which the child cannot too early become familiarized. In
Italy it is said to be usual for school classes to be taken by their
teachers to the art museuma with good results; euch Tisits form part
of the otScial scheme of education.
There can be no doubt that such early familiarity with the beauty
of nudil^ in classic art is widely needed among alt social classes and in
many countries. It is to this defect of our education that we must
attribute the oceasionai, and indeed In America and En^and frequent,
occurrence of such incidents as petitions and protests against the
exhibition of nude statuary in art museums, the display of pictures so
inoOensive as Leighton's "Bath of Psychr'' in nhop windows, and tiie
demand for the draping of the naked personifications of abstract virtues
in architectural street decoration. So imperfect is still the education of
the multitude that in these matters the ill-brod fanatic of pruriency
usually gains his will. Such a state of things cannot but have an
unwholesome reaction oa the moral atmosphere of the community in
which it is possible. Even from the religious point of view, prurient
prudery ta not justifiable. Northcote has very temperat«ly and sensibly
discussed the question of the nude in art from the standpoint of Chris-
tian morality. He points out that not only is the nude in art not to
b» condemned without qualification, and that the nude is by no means
nec^sarily the erotic, but he also adds t^at even erotic art, in its best
and purest manifestations, only arouses emotions that are the legitimate
object of man's aspirations. It would be impossible even to represent
Biblical stories adequately on canvas or in marble if erotic art were to
be tabooed (Rev. H.Korthcote, Chrutiamly andScse Prohlemt, Ch. XIV).
Early familiarity with the nude in classic and early Italian art
should be combined at puberty with an equal familiarity with photo-
graphs of beautiful and naturally developed nude models. In former
years books containing such pictures in a suitable and attractive man-
ner to place before the young were difficult to procure. Now this diffi-
culty na longer exists. Dr. C. H. Stratz, of The Hague, has been tlie
pioneer in this matter, and in a series of beautiful books (notably in
Der Eorper dea-Kindes, Die SckSnheit des Weiblichen Korpera and Die
Ramentchonhcit dea Weibes, all published by Enke in Stuttgart), he
has brought together a large number of admirably selected photographs
of nude but entirely chaste figures. More recently Dr. Shnfeldt, of Wash-
ington (who dedicates his work to Stratz), has published his Btadiea
of the Buman Form in which, in the same spirit, he has brought
tt^ether the results of his own studies of the naked human form during
many years. It is necessary to correct the impressions received from
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94 PSTCHOLOOY OF BEX.
classic sources bj good photo^aphic illustrations on account of tite false
conveutioDfl prevailing in classic works, though those conventiooE were
not necessaril}' false for the artists who originated them. The omission
of the pudendal hair, in representations of the nude was, for instance,
quite natural for tiie people of countries still under Oriental influence
are accustomed to remove the hair from the body. If, however, under
quite different conditions, we perpetuate that artistic convention to-day,
we put ourselves into a perverse relation to nature. There is ample
evidence of this. "There is one convention so ancient, so necessary, so
universal," writes Mr. Frederic Harrison {Nineteenth Century and
After, Aug., 1907), "that its deliberate defiance to-day may arouse the
bile of the least squeamish of men and should make women withdraw at
once." If boys and girls were brought up at their mother's kneea in
familiarity with pictures of beautiful and natural nakedness, it would
be impossible for anyone to write such silly and shameful words as
There can be no doubt that among ourselves the simple and direct
attitude of the child towards nakedness is bo early crushed out of him
that intelligent education is necessary in order that he may be enabled
to discern what is and what is not obscene. To the plough-boy and the
country servant-girl all nakedness, including that of Greek statuary, is
alike shameful or lustful, "I have a picture of women like that," said
a countryman with a grin, as he pointed to a photi^aph of one of
Tintoret's most beautiful groups, "smoking cigarettes." And the mass
of people in most northern countries have still passed little beyond this
stage of discernment; in ability to distinguish between the beautiful
and the obscene they are still on the level of the plough-boy and the
servant-girl.
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CHAPTEE III.
SEXUAL EDUCATION AND NAKEDl^SS.
The Greek Attitude Towards Nakedness — How the Romans Modi'
fied That Attitude — The Influence of Christianity — NakednesH in Mediee-
val Times — Evolution of the Horror of Nakedness — Concomitant Change
in the Conception of Nakedness — Prudery — The Romantic Movement —
Rise of a Now Feeling in Regard to Nakedncaa — The Hygienic Aspect
of NakednesB — How Children May Be Accuatoraed to Nakedness — Naked-
ness Not loimical fo Modesty— The Instinct of Physical Pride— The
Value of Nakedness in Education — The -l^sthelio Value of Nakedness —
The Human Body as One of the Prime Tonics of Life — How Nakedness
May Be Cultivated— The Moral Value of Nakedness.
The diaeuBBion of the value of nakedness in art leadB ub on
to the allied queBtion of nakedness in nature. What is the
p63'chological influence of familiarity with nakednesB? How far
should children be made familiar with the naked body? This is
a question in regard to which different opinionB have been held in
different ages, and during recent years a remarkable change haa
begun to come over the minds of practical edncationalistB in
regard to it.
In Sparta, in Chios, and elsewhere in Greece, women at one
time practiced gymnastic feats and dances in nakedness, together
with the men, or in their presence.' Plato in his Republic
approved of such customs and said that the ridicule of those who
laughed at them was but "unripe fruit plucked from the tree of
knowledge." On many questions Plato's opinions changed, but
not on this. In the Laws, which are the last outcome of his
philosophic reflection in old age, he still advocates (Bk, viii) a
similar coeducation of the sexes and their cooperation in all the
works of life, in part with a view to blunt the over-keen edge of
"Thus Athenieus (Bk. xiii, Ch. XX) says: "In the Island of
Chios it is a beautiful sight to go to the gymnasia and the race-courses,
and to see the young men wrestling naked with the maidens who are
also naked."
(95)
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96 P8YCHOL0aV OF SEX.
sexual appetite ; with the same object he advocated tlie aseoeia-
tion together of youths and girls without constraint in costumes
which offered no concealment to the form.
It ia notewortliy that the Romans, a coarser-grained people
than the Greeks and in our narrow modem sense more "moral,"
showed no perception of the moralizing and refining influence of
nakedness. Nudity to them was merely a licentious indulgence,
to be treated with contempt even when it was enjoyed. It was
conDned to the stage, and clamored for by the populace. In the
Floralia, especially, tlie crowd seem to have claimed it as their
right that the actors should play naked, probably, it has been
thought, as a survival of a folk-ritual. But the Romans, though
they were eager to run to the theatre, felt nothing but disdain
for the performers. "Flagitii principiura est, nudare inter cives
corpora." So thought old Ennius, as reported by Cicero, and
that remained the genuine Roman feeling to the last. "Quanta
perversitas!" as Tertullian exclaimed. "Artem magnificant,
artificem notant.''^ In this matter the Romans, although they
aroused the horror of the Christians, were yet in reality laying
the foundation of Christian morality.
Christianity, which found so many of Plato's opinions con-
genial, would have nothing to do with his view of nakedness and
failed to recognize its psychological correctness. The reason was
simple, and indeed simple-minded. The Church was passion-
ately eager to fight against what it called "the flesh," and thus
fell into tlie error of confusing the subjective question of sexual
desire with the objective spectacle of the naked form. "The
flesh" is evil; therefore, "the flesh" must be hidden. And they
hid it, without understanding that in so doing they had not sup-
pressed the craving for the human form, but, on the contrary,
had heightened it by imparting to it the additional fascination
of a forbidden mystery.
Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy (Part III, Sect II, Mem. II,
Subs. IV), referring to the recommendations of Ptato, adda: "But
Evaehiug and TheodoTet worthily lash liim for it; and uell they might:
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SEXUAL EDUCATION AND NAKEDNESS. 97
for UB one saith, the r«rf sight of naked parti, eauteth enormout,
etceeding concvpiteenoes, and «tira up both men and women to burning
lust." Yet, as Burtun himaeK adds further on in the same section of
liiB work (Mem. V, Subs. Ill), without protest, "some are of opinion,
tluit to see a woman naked, is able of itself to alter bis affeetion; and
it is worthy of consideration, saith Mftntaigne, the Frenchman, in his
Essays, that the skilfullest masters of amorous dalliance appoint for a
remedy of venereous passions, n full survey of the body."
There ought to be no question regarding the tact that It is the
adorned, the partially concealed body, and not the absolutely naked
body, which acts as a sexual excitant. I have brought together some
evidence on this point in the study of "The Evolution of Modesty." "In
Madagascar, West Africa, and the Cape," aaye G. F, Scott Elliot {A
Naluraligt in Mid-Africa, p. 36), "I have always found the same rule.
Chastity varies inversely as the amount of clothing." It is now indeed
generally held that one of the chief primary objects of omampnt and
clothing was the stimulation of sexual desire, and artists' models
are well aware that when they are completely unclothed, they are most
safe from undesired masculine advances. "A favorite model of mine
told me," remarks Dr. Shufeldt {Medical Brief. Oct., 1904), the distin-
guished author of Btadica of the Human Form, "that it was her prac-
tice to disrobe as soon after entering the artist's studio as possible, for,
as men are not always responsible for their emotions, she felt that she
was far less likely to arouse or excite them when entirely nude than
when only semi-draped." This fact is, indeed, quite familiar to artists'
models. If the conquest of se:tual desire were the flrst and last consid-
eration of life it would be more reasonable to prohibit clothing than to
prohibit nakedness.
WheD ChriBtianity absorbed the whole of the European world
this strict avoidance of even the sight of "the flesh," although
nominally accepted by all as the desirable ideal, could only be
carried out, thorouglily and completely, in the cloister. In the
practice of the world outside, although the original Christian
ideals remained influential, various pagan and primitive tradi-
tions in favor of nakedness still persisted, and were, to some
extent, allowed to manifest themselves, alike in ordinary custom
and on special occasions.
How widespread is the occasional or habitual practice of nakedness
in the world generally, and how entirely concordant it is with even a
most sensitive modesty, has been set forth in "The Evolution of Mod-
eety," in vol. i of these Btttdie*.
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9o PSYCHOLOGY OP BEX.
Even during the Christian era the impulse to adopt nudify, often
with tJie feeling that it was an eepectallj' aocred practice, has persisted.
The Adamites of tite second century, who read and prayed nalied, and
celebrated the sacrament naked, according to the statement quoted by
8t. Augustine, seem to iiave caused little scandal so loi^ aa they only
practiced nudity in their sacred ceremonies. The German Brethren of
the Free Spirit, in the thirteenth century, combined so much chastity
with promiscuous nakedness that orthodox Catholics believed they were
assisted by the Devil. The French Picards, at a much later date,
insisted on public nakedness, believing that God had sent their leader
into the world as a new Adam to reCstabliah the law of Nature; they
were persecuted and were Anally exterminated by the Hussites.
In daily life, however, a considerable degree of nakedness waa
tolerated during mediaival times. This was notably so in the public
baths, frequented by men and women together. Thus Alwin SchuItB
remarks (in his Hiifigckc Ltbcn zvr ZeiC der ilinnesdnger), that the
women of the aristocratic classes, though not the men, were often naked
in these baths except for a hat and a necklace.
It is sometunes stated that in the medieval religious plays Adam
and Eve were absolutely naked. Chambers doubts this, and thinks they
wore flesh-colored tights, or were, as in a later play of this kind,
"apparelled in white leather" (E. K. Chambers, The Hediaval Stage,
vol. i, p. 6). It may l>e bo, but the public exposure even of the sexual
organs was permitted, and that in aristocratic houBes, for John of Salis-
bury (in a passage quoted by Buckle, Commonplace Book, 541) protests
against this custom.
The women of the feminist sixteenth century in France, as R. de
Maulde ia Clavitre remarks {Revue de VArt, Jan., 1898), had no scruple
in recompensing their adorers by admitting them to their toilette, or
even their bath. Late in tbe century they became still less prudish, and
many well-known ladies allowed themBelves to be painted naked down U>
the waist, aa we see in the portrait of "Gabrielle d'EstrCes au Bain" at
Chantilly. Many of these pictures, however, are certainly not real
portraits,
Even in the middle of the seventeenth century in England naked-
ness was not prohibited in public, for Pepys tella ua that on July 26,
1067, a Quaker came into Westminster Hall, crying, "Repent! Bepent!"
being in a state of nakedness, except that he waa "very civilly tied
about the privities to avoid scandal." (This waa doubtless Solomon
Eccles, who was accustomed to go about in this costume, both before and
after the Reatoration. He had been a distinguished musician, and,
though eccentric, was apparently not insane.)
In a chapter, "De la Nudity," and in the appendices of hia book,
De I'AmouT (vol. i, p. 221), Senancour gives inatancea of the occasional
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8EZCAI, EDUCATION AND NAEBDKESS. 99
practice of oudity in Europe, and adds some interesting remarka of hie
own; BO, also, Dulaure (Dea Z>it>tnil^ Oiniratrica, Ch. XV). It would
Appear, as a rule, that though complete nudity was allowed in other
respecto, it was UBiial to cover the sexual parte.
The movement of revolt agaiuBt nakedness never became
completely victoriouB until the nineteenth century. That cen-
tury represented the triumph of all the forces that banned public
nakedness everywhere and altogether. If, as Pudor insists,
nakedness is aristocratic and the slavery of clothes a plebeian
characteristic imposed on the lower classes by an upper class who
reserved to themselves the privilege of physical culture, we may
perhaps connect this with the outburst of democratic plebeianism
which, as Nietzsche pointed out, reached its climax in the nine-
teenth century. It is in any case certainly interesting to observe
that by this time the movement had entirely clianged its char-
acter. It had become general, but at the same time its foimda-
tion had been undermined. It had largely lost its religious and
moral character, and instead was regarded as a matter of con-
vention. The nineteenth century man who encountered the
spectacle of white limbs flashing in the sunlight no longer felt
like the mediaeval ascetic that he was risking the salvation of his
immortal soul or even courting the depravation of his morals; he
merely felt that it was "indecent" or, in extreme cases, "disgust-
ing," That is to say he regarded the matter as simply a question
of conventional etiquette, at the worst, of taste, of aesthetics, in
thus bringing down his repugnance to nakedness to so low a plane
he had indeed rendered it generally acceptable, but at the same
time he had deprived it of high sanction. His profound horror
of nakedness was out of relation to the frivolous grounds on which
he based it.
We must not, however, under-rate the tenacity with which this
horror of nakedness was held. Nothing illustrates more vividly the
deeply ingrained hatred which the nineteenth century felt of nakedness
than the ferocity — there is no other word for it — with which Christian
missionaries to sevagea all over the world, even in the tropics, insisted
on their converts adopting the conventional clothing of Korthern Europe.
levellers' narratives abound in references to the emphasis placed by
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100 PSTCHOLOOT OF SEX.
missionaries on this cliange of custom, which was both injurious to the
health of the people and degrading to their dignity. It is sufficient to
quote one authoritatJTe witness, Lord Stanmore, formerly Governor of
Fiji, who read a long paper to the Anglican Missionary Conference in
1894 on the subject of "Undue Introduction ot Western Ways." "In
the centre of the Tillage," ha remarked in quoting a typical case
(and referring not to Fiji but to Tonga), "is the church, a wooden
bam-Iilce building. If the day be Sunday, we shall find the native
minister arrayed in a greenish-black swallow-tail coat, a neckcloth,
once white, and a pair of spectacles, which he probably does not
need, preaching to a congregation, the male portion of which is dressed
in much the same manner as himself, while the women are dizened
out in old battered hats or bonnets, and shapeless gowns like bathing
dresses, or it may be in crinolines of an early type. Chiefs of infln-
ence and women of high birth, who in their native dress would look,
and do look, the ladies and gentlemen they are, are, by their Sunday
finery, given the appearance of attendants upon Jack-In -the-Green. If
ft rlsit be paid to the houses ot the town, after the morning's work of
the people is over, the family will he found sitting on chairs, listless
and uncomfortable, in a room full of litter. In the houses ot the
superior native clergy there will be a yet greater aping of the manners
ot the West. There will be chairs covered with hideons antimacassars,
tasteless round worsted-work mats for abaent flower jars, and a lot of
ugly cheap and vulgar china chimney ornaments, which, there being no
fireplace, and consequently no chimney-piece, are set out in order on a
rickety deal table. The whole life of these village folk is one piece of
unreal acting. They are continually asking themselves whether they ara
incurring any of.the penalties entailed by infraction of the long table
«t prohibitions, and whether they are living up to the foreign garments
they wear. Their faces have, tor the moat part, an expression of sullen
discontent, they move shout silently and Joylessly, rebels in heart to tho
restrictive code on them, but which they fear to cast off. partly from a
vague apprehension of possible si-cular results, and partly because they
suppose they will cease to be good Christians it they do so. They havS
good ground for their dissatisfaction. At the time when I visited the
Tillages I have specially in my eye, it was punishable by fine and impris-
onment to wear native clothing, punishable by fine and imprisonment to
wear long hair or a garland ot flowers; punishably by fine or imprison-
ment to wrestle or to play at ball; punishable hy fine and imprison-
ment to build a native-fashioned house; punishable not to wear shirt
and trousers, and in certain localities coat and shoes also; and, in addi-
tion to laws enforcing a strictly puritanical observation of the Sabbatb,
it was punishable by fine and Imprisonment to bathe on Sundays. In
some other places bathing on Sunday was punishable by fiogging; and
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SEXUAL EDCCATION AND NAKEDNEBB. 101
to my knowledge women have been flogged for no other offense. Men Id
such circumstances are ripe for revolt, and sometimes the revolt cornea."
An obvious result of reducing the feeling about nakedness to an
unreasoning but imperative convention is the tendency to prudi^neas.
This, as we know, is a form of pseudo-modesty which, being a conven-
tion, and not a natural feeling, is capable of unlimited esteneion. It is
by no means confined to modem times or to Christian Europe. The
ancient Hebrews were not entirely free from prudishnesB, and we find in
the Old Testament that by a curious euphemisin the sexual organn are
Bometimea referred to as "the feet." The Turks are capable of prudish-
ness. So. indeed, were even the ancient Greeks. "Dion the philosopher
tells us," remarks Clement of Alexandria [Stromatea, Bk. IV, Ch. XIX)
"that a certain woman, Lysidica, through excess of modesty, bathed in
ler clothes, and that Philotera, when she was to enter the bath, grad-
ually drew back her tunic as the water covered her naked parts; and
then rising by degrees, put it on." Mincing prudes were found among
the early Christians, and their ways are graphically described by St.
Jerome in one of his letters to Eustochium: "These women," he says,
speak between their teeth or with the edge of the lips, and with a lisp-
ing tongue, only half pronouncing their words, because they regnrd as
gross whatever is natural. Such as these," declares Jerome, the scholar
in him overcoming the ascetic, "corrupt even language." Whenever a
new and artificial "modes^' is imposed upon savages prudery tends to
ttriae. Haddon describes this among the natives of Torres Straits, where
even the children now suffer from exaggerated prudishnesa, though for-
merly absolutely naked and unashamed [Cambridge Anthropological
Expedition to Torre* Straits, vol. v, p. 271).
The nineteenth century, which witnessed tlie triumph of
timidity and prudery in this matter, also produced the firet
fruitful geim of new conceptions of nakedness. To some
extent these were embodied in the great Romantic movement.
Bousseaii, indeed, had placed no special insistence on nakedness
as an element of the return to Nature which he preached so
influentially. A new feeling in this matter emerged, however,
with characteristic extravagance, in some of the episodes of the
Bevolution, while in Germany in the pioneering Lucinde of
Friedrich Schlegel, a characteristic figure in the Romantic move-
ment, a still imfamiliar conception of the body was set forth in
a serious and earnest spirit.
In England, Blake with his strange and flammg genius,
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102 PSl'CllOLOGY OF 8BX.
proclaimed a mystical gospel which involved the spiritual
glorification of the body and contempt for the civilized worship
of clothes ("As to a modern man," he wrote, "stripped from his
load of clothing he is like a dead corpse") ; while, later, in
America, Thoreau and Whitman and Burrougha asserted, still
more definitely, a not dissimilar message concerning the need of
returning to Nature,
We And the importance of the eight of the boAy — though veiy nar-
rowly, for the avoidance of fraud in tlie preiimiDaries of marriage — set
forth as early as the aixteenth century by Sir Thomas More in his
Utopia, which ia eo rich in new and fruitful ideas. In Utopia, accord-
ing to Sir Thomas More, before maTriage, a staid and honest matron
"showeth the woman, be alie maid or widow, naked to the wooer. And
likewise a sage and discreet man exhibiteth the wooer naked to tho
woman. At this custom we laughed and disallowed it as foolish. But
they, OD their part, do greatly wonder at the folly of all other nations
which, in buying a colt where a little money is in hazard, be so chary
and eircumspect that though he be almost all bare, yet they will not
buy him unless the saddle and all the harness be taken off, lest under
these coverings be hid some gall or sore. And yet, in choosing a wife,
which shall be either pleasure or displeasure to them all their life afl«r,
they be so reckless that all the residue of the woman's body being cov-
ered with clothes, they estimate her Bcarcely by one handsbreadth (for
they can see no more but her face) and so join her to them, not without
great Jeopardy of evil agreeing together, it anything in her body after-
ward should chance to offend or mislike them. Verily, so foul deformity
may be hid under thes« coverings that it may quite alienate and take
away tlie man's mind from his wife, when it shall not be lawful for
their bodies to be separate again. If such deformity happen by any
chance after the marriage is consummate and finished, well, there ia no
remedy but patience. But it were well done that a law were mode
whereby all such deceits were eschewed and avoided beforehand."
The clear conception of what may be called the spiritual value of
nakedness — by no means from More's point of view, but as a part of
natural hygiene in the widest sense, and as a high and special aspect
of the purifying and ennobling function of beauty — is of much later
date. It is not clearly expressed until the time ot the Romantic move-
ment at the beginning ot the nineteenth century. We have it admirably
set forth in Senancour's De r.4n'oiir (first edition. Ifi06; fourth and
enlarged edition, 18S4). which still remains one of the best books on the
morality of love. After remarking that nakedness by no means abol-
ishes modesty, he proceeds to advocate occasional partial or complete
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SEXUAL EDUCATION AND NAKEDNESS. 103
nuditr. "Let us aiippoM," he remarkfl, aomewhat in the spirit of
Plato, "a country i" which at certain general festivala the women
should be absolutely free to be nearly or even quite naked. Swimming,
waltzing, walking, tho»e who thought good to do so might TenmiD
UDclotbcd in the presence of men. No doubt the illusions of love would
be tittle known, and passion would see a diminution of jta transports.
But is it passion that in general ennobles human aflfairsi We need
honest attachments and delicate delights, and all these we may obtain
while still preserving oqt common-sense Such nakedness
would demand corresponding institutions, strong and simple, and a great
respect for those conventions which belong to all times" (Senancour, De
I'Amour, vol. i, p. 314 J.
From that time onwards references to the value and desirability
of nakedness become more and more frequent in all civilized countries,
sometimes mingled with sarcastic allusions to the false conventions we
have inherited in this matter. Thus Thoreau writes in his journal on
June 12, 1953, as he looks at boys bathing in the river; "The color of
their bodies in the sun at a distance is pleasing. I hear the sound of
their sport borne over the water. As yet we have not man in Nature.
What B singular fact for an angel visitant to this earth to carry back
in his note-book, that men were forbidden to expose their bodies under
the severest penalties."
Iwan Bloch, in Chapter VII of his Seaual Life of Our Time, dis-
cusses this question of nakedness from tbe modem point of view, and
concludes; "A natural conception of nakedness: that is the watchword
of the future. All the hygienic, esthetic, and moral efforts of our time
are pointing in that direction."
Stratz, as befits one who has worked so strenuously in the cauao
of human health and beauty, admirably sets forth the stage which we
have now atteined in this matter. After pointing out [Die Frauen-
kleidung, third edition, 1004, p. 30) that, in opposition to the pagan
world which worshipped naked gods. Christianity developed the idea
that nakedness was merely sexual, and therefore immoral, he proceeds:
"But over all glimmered on the heavenly helghte of the Cross, the naked
body of the Saviour. Under that protection there has gradually disen-
gaged itself from the confusion of ideas a new transfigured form of
nakedness made free after long struggle. I would call this arlistio
nakcdnese. for as it wis immortalizeii by the old Greeks through art, so
also among us it has been awakened to new lite by art. Artistic naked-
ness is, in its nature, much higher than either the natural or the sensual
conception of nakedness. The simple child of Nature sees in nakedness
nothing at all; the clothed man sees in the uncovered body only a sen.
eual irritation. But at the highest standpoint man consciously returns
to Nature, and recognizes that under the manifold coverings of human
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104 PSYCUOLOOT OF BEX.
CabricatioQ there ia hidden the moat splendid creature that God has
creaUil. One maj stand in silent, worshipping wonder before the sight;
another may be impelled to imitate and show to his fellow-man what
in that holy moment he has seen. But both enjoy the spectacle of
human beauty with full consciousness and enlightened purity of
thought"
It was not, however, so much on these more spiritual sides,
but on tlie Bide of hygiene, that the nineteenth century furnished
its chief practical contribution to the new attitude towards
nakedness.
Lord Monboddo, the Scotch judge, who was a pioneer in rqpird to
many modern ideas, had already in the eighteenth century realised the
hygienic value of "air-baths," and he invented that now familiar name.
"Lord Monboddo," says Boswell, in 1777 {Life of Johnson, edit«d by
Hill, vol. iii, p. 168) "told me that he awaked everj' morniDg at four,
and then for his health got up and walked in his room naked, with the
window open, which he called taking an air-bath." It is said also, 1
know not on what authority, that he made his beautiful daughters take
an air-bath naked on the terrace every morning. Another distinguished
man of the same century, Benjamin Franklin, used sometimes to work
naked in his study on hygienic grounds, and, it is recorded, onca
affrighted a servant-gir) by opening the door in an absent-minded
moment, thus unattired.
Rikli seems to have been the apostle of air-baths and aun-baths
regarded as a systematic method. He establi^ed light- and air-baths
over half a century ago at Trieste and elsewhere in Austria. His motto
was: "Light, Truth, and Freedom are the motive forces towards the
highest development of physical and moral health." ' !Man is not a fish,
he declared; light and air are the first conditions of a highly organized
life. Solaria for the treatment of a number of dilferent disordered con-
ditions are now commonly established, and most systems of natural
therapeutics attach prime importance to light and air, while in medicine
generally it is beginning to be recognized that such influences can by
no means be neglected. Dr. Fernand Sandoz, in his Introduction A la
Thirapetilique Naturttte par Ics agents Physiques el Dietitiques (IBOT)
sets forth such methods comprehensively. In O^rmany sun-baths have
become widely common; thus Lenkei (in a paper summarized in British
Medical Journal, Oct. 31, 190S) prefcribea them with much benefit in
tuberculosis, rheumatic conditions, obesity, ansmia, neurasthenia, etc.
He considers that their peculiar value lies in the action of light. Pro-
fessor J. N. Hyde, of Chicago, even believes ("Light-Hunger in the Pro-
duction of Psoriasis," British Medical Journal, Oct. 6, 1006), that
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SEXUAL EDDCATIOK A»D XAEEDNESS. IDS'
psorioeis is caused bj deficiency of sunlight, and is best cured b; the
Application of light. This belief, which has not, Jiovever, been generally
accepted in its unqualified form, he ingeniously supports by the fact that
psoriasis tenda to appear on the roost exposed parts of the body, which
may be held to naturally receive and require the maximum of light, and
by the absence of the disease in hot countries and among negroes.
The hygienic value of nakedness is indicated by .the robust health
of the savages throughout the world who go naked. The vigor of the
Irish, also, has been connected with the fact that (as Pyne^ Moryson's
Itinerary shows) both sexes, even among persons of high social class,
were accustoroed to go naked except for a mantle, especially in more
remote parts of the country, as late as the seventeenth century. VVhere-
ever primitive races abandon nakedness for clothing, at once the tendency
to disease, mortality, and degeneracy notably increases, though it must
be remembered that the use of clothing is commonly accompanied by the
introduction o( other bad habits. "Nakedness is the only condition
universal among vigorous and healthy savages; at every other point per-
haps tbey differ," remarks Frederick Boyle in n paper ("Savages and
Clothes," Monthly Review, Sept., 1B05) in which he brings together
much evidence cancerning the hygienic advantages of the natural human
stSite in which man is "all face."
It Is in Germany that a return towards nakedness has been most
ably and thoroughly advocated, notably by Dr. H. Pudor in his Nackt-
Cultur, and by R. Ungewitter in Die yacttheit (first published in 190S),
R book which has had a very large circulation in many editions. These
writers enthusiastically advocate nakedness, not only on hygienic, but
on moral and artistic grounds. Fudor insisto more especially that
"nakedness, both in gymnastics and in sport, is a method of cure and
a method of regeneration;" he advocates co-education in this culture of
nakednesa. Althou^ he makes large claims for nakedness — believing
(hat all the nations whjch have disregarded these claims have rapidly
become decadent — Pudor is less hopeful than Ungewitter of any speedy
victory over the prejudices opposed to the culture of nakedness. Ha
considers that the immediate task is education, and that a practical com-
mencement may beet be made with the foot which is specially in need
of hygiene and exercise; a lari^ p*rt of the first volume of his book Is
derated to the foot.
Ab the matter is to-day viewed by thoee educationalists who
are equally alive to aanitary and sexual considerations, the claims
of nakedoesB, so far as concerns the j'oung. are regarded as part
alike of physical and moral hygiene. The free contact of the
naked body with air and water and light makes for the health of
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106 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
the body; familiarity with the sight of the body aboliehes petty
pruriencies, trains the eense of beauty, and makes for the health
of the Boul. This double aspect of the matter has undoubtedly
weighed greatly with those teachers who now approve of customs
trhich, a few years ngo, would have been hastily dismissed as
'^decent." There is still a wide difference of opinion ae to the
limits to which the practice of nakedness may he carried, and also
as to the age when it should begin to be restricted. The fact that
the adult generation of to-day grew up under the influence of the
old horror of nakedness is an inevitable check on any revolu-
tionary changes in these matters.
Maria LiBchnewaka, one of the ablest advocates of the methodical
enlightenment of children in matters of aex (op, c<l.), clearly realizes
that a sane attitude towards the body Ilea at the root of a aoimd educB'
tion for life. She finds that the chief objection encountered in such
education, as applied in the higher clasaeB of schools, is "the horror of
the civilized man at his own body." She shows that there can be no
doubt that those who are engaged in the diflicuit task of working
towards the abolition of that superstitions horror have taken up a moral
task of the first importance.
Walter Gerhard, in a thoughtful and sensible paper on the educa-
tional question ("Ein Kapitel zur Erziehungsfrage, Oeichlecht und
Oeselhchaft, vol. i. Heft 2), points out that it is the adult who needs
education in this matter — as in so many other matters of sexual enlight-
enment— considerably more than the child. Parents educate their chil-
dren from the earliest years in prudery, and vainly flatter themselves
that they have thereby promoted their modesty and morality. Ha
records his own early life in a tropical land and accustomed to naked-
ness from tlie first. "It was not till I came to Germany when nearly
twenty that I learnt that the human body is indecent, and that it must
not be shown because that 'would arouse bad impulses.' It was not till
the human body was entirely withdrawn from my sight and after I was
constantly told that there was something improper behind clothes, that
I was able to understand this Until then I had not known
that a naked body, by the mere fact of being naked, could arouse erotic
feelings. I liad known erotic feelings, but they bad not arisen from the
eight of the naked body, but gradually blossomed from the union of our
souls." And he draws the final moral that, if only for the sake of our
children, we must leam to educate ourselves.
Forel (Die Sexuelle Frage, p. UO), speaking in entirely the same
sense as Gerhard, remarks that prudei; may be either caused or cured
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8EX0AL EDDCATIOK AND NAKEDNESS. 107
in children. It maj be caused by undue anxiety in covering thpir bodien
and hiding from thera the bodies of others. It may be cured by making
them realize that there is nothing in the body that in unnatural and
that we need be nshanied of, and by encouraging bathing of the sexes in
common. He points out (p. S12) the advant»ge» of allowing rhildren
to be acquainted with the adult forma which they will themselves some
day assume, and condemns the conduct of thone foolish perEions who
aaanme that children already possess the adult's erotic feelings about
the body. That is so far from being the case that children are fre-
quently unable to distinguish the sex of other children apart from their
clothes.
At the Mannheim Congress of the German Society for Combating
Venereal Diseases, specially devoted to sexual hygiene, the speakers con-
stantly referred to the necessity of promoting familiarity with the naked
body. Thus Eulenburg and .Tulian Marcuse {HeruatpSdagogik, p. 2S4t
emphasize the importance of air-baths, not only for the sake of the
physical health of the young, but in the interests of rational sexual
training. HBIler, a teacher, speaking at the same congress [op. cit., p.
85), after insisting on familiarity with the nude in art and literature,
and protesting against the bowdlerising of poems for the young, con-
tinues: "By bathing-drawers ordinances no soul was ever yet saved
from moral ruin. One who has learnt to enjoy peacefully the naked in
art is only stirred by the naked in nature as by a work of art." Ender-
lin, another teacher, speaking in the same sense (p. 6S). points out
that nakedness cannot act sexually or immorally on the child, since the
sexual impulse has not yet become pronounced, and the earlier he is
introduced to the naked in nature and in art, as a matter of course, the
less likely are the sexual feelings to be developed precociously. The
child thus, indeed, becomes immune to impure influences, so that later.
when representations of the nude are brought before him for the object
of provoking his wantonness, they are powerless to injure him. It is
important, Enderlin adds, for familiarity with the nude in art to be
learnt at school, for most of us, as Siebert remarks, have to leam purity
through art.
Nakedness in bathing, remarks Bulsche in his Liebetleben in der
Jfalur (vol. iii, pp. 139 et acq.), we already in some measure possess;
we need it in physical exercises, at first for the sexes separately; then,
when we have grown accustomed to the idea, occasionally for both sexes
together. We need to acquire the capacity to sec the bodies of individ-
uals of the otiier sex with such self-control and such natural instinct
that they become non-erotic to us and can be gazed at without erotic
feeling. Art, he says, shows that this is possible in civilization.
Science, he adds, comes to the aid of the same view. '
Ungewitter (Die Nacktkeit, p. 57) also advocates boys and girls
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108 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
engaging ia plaj and gymniuticB together, entirely naked in aiT-ba.tbs.
"In this way," he believes, "the gymnaiium would become a echool of
morality, in which young growing things would be able to retain their
purity OB long aa possible through becoming naturally accustomed to
each other. At the same time their bodies would be hardened and
developed, and the perception of beautiful and natural forms awakened."
To thoae who have any "moral" doubts on the matter, he mentions the
custom in remote country districts of boys and girls bathing together
quite naked and without any sexual consciousness. Rudolf Sommer,
similarly, in an excellent article entitled "Miidclienprdehung oder Men-
Bchenbildung!" (Geschlecht und Gisellsckafl, Bd. i, Heft 3) advises that
children should be made accustomed to each other's nakedness from an
early age in the family life o^ the house or tlie garden, in games, and
especially in bathing; he remarks that parents having children of only
one sex should cultivate for their children's sake intimate relations with
a family having children of like age of the opposite sex, so that they
may grow up together.
It Ib scarcely neceesary to add that the cultivation of naked-
ness muBt always be conciliated with respect for the natural
instincts of modesty. If the practice of nakedness led tlie young
to esperience a diminished reverence for their own or others' per-
sonalities the advantages of it would be too dearly bought. This
ia, in part, a matter of wholesome instinct, in part of wise train-
ing. We now know that the absence of clothes has little relat'on
with the absence of modesty, such relation as there b nj, of
the irfvcrse order, for the savage races which go naked are us ally
more modest than those which wear clothes. The so ng qu te 1
by Herodotus in the early Greek world that "A woman take off
her modesty with her shift" was a favorite text of tl e t.1 r t an
Fathers. But Plutarch, who was aiso a moralist, had already
protested against it at the close of the Greek world : "By no
means," he declared, "she who is modest clothes herself with
modesty when she lays aside her tunic." "A woman may be
naked," as Mrs. Bishop, the traveller, remarked to Dr. Baelz, in
Japan, "and yet behave like a lady."^
The question is complicated among ourselves because ^tab-
1 Sec "The Evolution of Jfodesty" in the first volume of these
Studies, where this question of the relationship of nakedness to modesty
la fully discussed.
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SeXDAL EDUCATION AND KAKEDNE3S. 109
liehed traditions of rigid concealment have fostered a pruriency
which is an offensive insult to naked modesty. In many lands
the women who are accustomed to be almoat or quite naked in the
presence of their own people cover themselves as soon as they
become conscious of the lustful inquisitive eyes of Europeans.
Stratz refers to the prevalence of this impulse of offended
modesty in Japan, aad mentions that he himself failed to arouse
it simply because he was a physician, and, moreover, had long
lived in another land (Java) where also the custom of naked-
ness prevails.^ So long as this unnatural prurience exists a free
unqualified nakedness is rendered difficult.
Modesty is not, however, the only natural impulse which
has to be considered in relation to the custom of nakedness. It
seems probable that in cultivating the practice of nakedness we
are not merely carrying out a moral and hygienic prescription
but allowing legitimate scope to an instinct which at some
periods of life, especially in adolescence, is spontaneous and
natural, even, it may be, wholesomely based in the traditions of
the race in sexual selection. Our rigid conventions make it
impossible for us to discover the laws of nature in this matter
by stifling them at the outset. It may well be that there is a
rhythmic harmony and concordance between impulses of modesty
and impulses of ostentation, though we have done our be?t to
disguise the natural law by our stupid and perverse by-laws.
SUinlej Hall, who emphaaizes the importance of nakedneaa, remarka
that at pubertj' we have much reaaon to aaaume that in a atate of nature
there ia a cert«iii instinctive pride and ostentation that accompaniea the
new local development, and quotes the observation of Dr. Seerley that
the impulse to conceal the sexual organs is especially marked in young
men who are underdeveloped, but not evident in thoae who are developei
beyond the average. Stanley Ilnll (Adolescence, vol. ii, p. 97), also
refers to the frequency with which not only "virtuous young men, but
even women, rather glorj- in occasions when they can display the beauty
of their forma without reserve, not only to themaelves and to loved ones,
but even to others witli proper pretexts,"
Many have doubtlesa noted this tendency, eapccially in women, and
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110 PSYCHOLOGY OF BEX,
chieftf in thoae -who are conscious of beautiful phjaicsl development.
Madame Celine RenoOE believes that the tendency correBponde to a realty
deep-rooted instinct ia women, little or not at all manifested in men
who have consequently sought to impose artificially on women their own
maseuline conceptions of modesty. "In the actual life of the young girl
to-day there is a moment when, by e secret atavism, she feels the pride
of her sex, the intuition of her moral superiority and cannot understand
why she must hide its cause. At this moment, wavering between the
laws of Nature and social aonventJons, she scarcely knows if nakedness
should, or should not, affright her. A sort of confused atavistic memory
recalls to her a period before clothing was known, and reveals to her as
a paradisaical ideal the customs of that human epoch" {C4line RenooE,
Psychologie Comparie de Vllomme et de la Femme, pp. 8B-87). Perhaps
this was obscurely felt by the German girl (mentioned in Kalbeck's IAf«
of Brahmt), who said: "One enjoys music twice as much dicolletie."
From the point of view with which we are here eBsentially
concerned there are three ways in which the cultivation of
nakedncBs — bo far as it is permitted by the slow education of
public opinion — tends to exert an influence; (1) It is an
important element in the sexual hygiene of the young, intro-
ducing a wholesome knowledge and incuriosity into a sphere
once given up to prudery and pruriency. (2) The efifect of
nakedness is beneficial on those of more mature age, also, in so
far as it tends to cultivate the sense of beauty and to furnish the
tonic and consoling influences of natural vigor and grace. (3)
The custom of nakedness, in its inception at all events, has a
dynamic psychological influence also on morals, an influence
exerted in the substitution of a strenuous and positive morality
for the merely negative and timid morality which has ruled in
this sphere.
Perhaps there are not many adults who realize the intense
and secret absorption of thought in the minds of many boys and
some girls concerning the problem of the physical conformation
of the other sex, and the time, patience, and intellectual energy
which they are willing to expend on the solution of this problem.
This ia mostly effected in secret, but not seldom the secret
impulse manifests itself with a sudden violence which in the
blind eyes of the taw is reckoned as crime. A Germau lawj-er,
Dr. Werthauerj has lately stated that if there were a due degree
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B8XDAL laiUCATION AND SAKEDNBSS. HI
of familiarity with the natural organs and fimctioDs of the
opposite sex ninety per cent, of the indecent acta of youths with
girl children would disappear, for in most cases these are not
assaults but merely the innocent, though uncontrollable, out-
come of a repressed natural curiosity. It is quite true that not a
few children boldly enlist each others' cooperation in the
settlement of the question and resolve it to their mutual satis-
faction. But even this is not altogether satisfactory, for the
end is not attained openly and wholesomely, with a due sub-
ordination of the specifically sexual, but with a consciousness of
wrong-doing and an exclusive attentivencss to the merely
physical fact which. tend directly to develop sexual excitement.
■\Vhen familiarity with the naked body of the other sex is gained
openly and with no consciousness of indecorum, in the course of
work and of play, in exercise or g}'mnastic8, in running or in
bathing, from a child's earliest years, no unwholesome results
accompany the knowledge of the essential facts of physical
conformation thus naturally acquired. The prurience and
prudery which liave poisoned sexual life in the past are alike
rendered impossible.
XakednesB has, however, a hygienic value, as well as a
spiritual significance, far beyond its ioftuences in allaying the
natural jnquisitiveness of the young or acting as a preventative
of morbid emotion. It is an inspiration to adults who have long
outgrown any youthful curiosities. The vision of the essential
and eternal human form, the nearest thing to us in all the
world, with its vigor and its beauty and its grace, is one of the
prime tonics of life. "The power of a woman's body" said
James Hinton, "is no more bodily than the power of music ia a
power of atmospheric vibrations." It is more than all the
beautiful and stimulating things of the world, than flowers or
stars or the sea. History and legend and myth reveal to us the
sacred and awful influence of nakedness, for, as Stanley Hall,
says, nakedness has always been "a talisman of wondrous power
with gods and men," How sorely men crave for the spectacle of
the human body — even to-day after generations have inculcated
the notion that it is an indecorous and even disgusting spectacle
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112 PSYOHOLOQT OP BSX.
— IB witnessed by the eagerness with which they seek after the
spectacle of even its imperfect and meretricious forms, although
ihese certainly possess a heady and stimulating quality which
can never be found in the pathetic simplicity of naked beauty.
It was another spectacle when the queens of ancient Madagascar
at the annual Fandroon, or feast of the bath, laid aside their
royal robee and while their subjects crowded the palace courtyard,
descended the marble steps to the bath in complete nakedness.
When we make our conventions of clothing rigid we at once
spread a feast for lust and deny ourselves one of the prime tonics
of Ufe.
"I was feeling in despair and walking despondently along a Mel-
bourne street," writes the Australian author of a yet unpublished auto-
biography, "when three children came running out of a lane and crossed
the road in full daylight. The beaut; and texture of their legs in the
«pen air filled me with joy, so that I forgot all my troubles whilst
looking at them. It was a bright revelation, an unexpected glimpse of
Paradise, and I have never ceaaed to thank the happy combination of
«liape, pure blood, and fine skin of these poverty -stricken children, for
th« wind seemed to quicken their golden beauty, and I retained the roi?
TJsion of their natural young limbs, so much more divine than thMe
always under cover. Another occasion when naked young limbs made
me forget all my gloom and despondency was on my first visit to
Adelaide. I came on a naked boy leaning on the railing near the Baths,
And the beauty of his face, torso, fair young limbs and exquisite feet
filled me with joy and renewed hope. The tears came to my eyes, and I
said to myself, *While there ia beauty In the world I will continue to
Btrug^e.' "
We must, as Biilsche declares [loo. oit), accustom ourselves to gaze
-on the naked human body exactly as we gaze at a beautiful flower, not
merely with the pity with which the doctor looks at the body, but with
joy in its strength and health and beauty. For a flower, as Bjilsche
truly adds, is not merely "naked body," it is the most sacred region of
the body, the sexual organs of the plant.
"For girls to dance naked," said Hinton, "ia the only truly pure
form of dancing, and in due time it must therefore come about. This Is
certain; girls will dance naked and men will be pure enough to gaze
on them." It has already been so in Qreece, he elsewhere remarks, as
it is to-day in Japan (as more recently descritjed by Slratz). It is
nearly forty years since these prophetic words were written, but Hinton
himself would probably have been surprised at the progress which has
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SEXl'AL EDUCATION AND NAEEDNESa. 113
already been made slowly (for all true progress must be slow) towftrda
this goal. Even on the stage new and more natural traditions are begin-
ning to prevail in Europe. It is not many yeara since an English actress
regarded as a calumnj the statement that she appeared on the stage
bar«-foot, and brought an action for libel, winning substantial damages.
Suoh a rpsult would scarcely be poesible to-day. The movement in which
Isadora Duncan was a pioneer ha^ led to a partial disuse among dancers
of the offensive deviee of tightx, and it is no longer considered indecor-
ous to ohov many parts of the body whicb it was formerly usual tt>
oorer.
It should, however, be added at the same time that, while dancers.
Id so far as they are genuine artists, are entitled to determine the con-
ditions moat favorable to their art, nothing whatever is gained for the
cause of a wholesome culture of nakedness by the "living statues" and
"living pictures" which have obtained an international vogue during
recent years. These may be legitimate as variety performancea, but
they have nothing whatever to do with either Nature or art Dr. Pudor,
writing as one of the earliest apostles of the culture of nakedness, has
energetically protested against these performances {Bemial-Prolleme,
Dec., 1608, p. 828). He rightly pointa out that nakedness, to be whole-
some, requires the open air, the meadows, the sunlight, and that naked-
ness at night, in* a music hall, by artiQcial light, in the presence of
spectators who are themselves clothed, has no eltment of morality about
it. Attempts have here and there been qnietly made to cultivate a cer-
tain amount of mutual nakedness as between the sexes on remote country
excursions. It is significant to find a record of such an experiment in
Ungewitter's Die Xacktkeit. In this case a party of people, men and
women, would regularly every Sunday seek remote spots in woods or
meadows where they would settle down, picnic, and enjoy games. "They
made themselves oh comfortable as possible, the men laying aside their
coats, waistcoats, boots and socks; the women their blouses, skirts,
shoes and stockings. Gradually, as the moral conception of nakedness
developed in their minds, more and more clothing fell away, until tlie
men wore nothing but bathing-drawers and the women only their
chemises. In this 'costume' games were carried out in common, and a
regular eamp-life led. The ladies <Home of whom were unmarried)
would then lie in hammocks and we men on the grass, and the inter-
course was delightful. We felt as members of one family, and behaved
accordingly. In an entirely natural and unembarrassed way we gave
ourselves up entirely to the liberating feelings aroused by this li^t- and
air-bath, and passed these splendid hours in joyous singing and dancing,
in wantonly childish fashion, freed from the burden of a false civiliza-
tion. It was, of course, necessary to seek spots as remote as possible
from high-roads, for fear of being disturbed. At the some time we by
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114 PSTCHOLOOY OF SEX.
no meuM foiled in natural modestj and ooneideration towards one
another. Oiildren, who can be entirely naked, may be allowed to take
part in such meetings of adults, and will thus be brought up free from
morbid prudery" (R. Ungewitter, Die Nacklheit, p. 58).
No doubt it may be said that the ideal in this matter is the pos-
sibility of permitting complete nakedness. This may be admitted, and
it is undoubtedly true that our rigid police regulations do much to
artificially foster a concealment in this matter which ia not based on
any natural instinct. Dr. Shufeldt narrates in his 8lu:Ues of the
Euman Form that once in the course of a photographic expedition in
the woods he came upon two boys, naked except for bathing-drawers,
engaged in getting water lilies from a pond. He found them a good
subject for his camera, but they could not be induced to remove their
drawers, by no means out of either modesty or mock-modesty, but simply
because they feared they might possibly be cnuglit and arrested. We
have to recogniie that at the present day the general popular sentiment
is not yet sufficiently educated to allow of public disregard for the con-
vention of covering the sexual centres, and all attempts to extend the
bounds of nakedness must show a due regard for this requirement. As
concerns women, Valentin Lehr, of Freibui^, in Breisgau, has invented
a costume (figured in Ungewitter's Die 'Kacktheil] which is Buitable for
either public water-baths or nirbaths, because it meets the demand of
tho8« whose minimum requirement is that the chief sexual centres of
the body should be covered in public, while it is otherwise fairly unob-
jectionable. It consists of two pieces, made of porous material, one
covering the breasts with a band over the shoulders, and the other cov-
ering the abdomen below the navel and drawn between the legs. This
minimal costume, while neither idea) nor testhetic. adequately covers the
sexual regions of the body, while leaving the arms, waist, bips, and legs
entirely free.
There finally remainB the moral aspect of nakedness.
Although this has been emphasized by many during the past half
century it is still unfamiliar to the majority. The human body
can never be a little thing. The wise educator may see to it
that boys and girls are brou^t up in a natural and wholesome
familiarity with each other, but a certain terror and beauty
must always attach to the spectacle of the body, a mixed attrac-
tion and repulsion. Because it has this force it naturally caUs
out the virtue of those who take part in the spectacle, and makes
impossible any soft compliance to emotion. Even if we admit
that the spectacle of nakedness is a challenge to passion it is still
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SEXDAL EDUCATION AND NAKEDNESS. 115
a challenge that calls out the eonobling qualities of self-control.
It is but a poor sort of virtue that lies in fleeing into the desert
from things that we fear may have in them a temptation. We
have to leam that it is even worse to attempt to create a desert
around us in the midst of civilization. We cannot dispense with
passions if we would ; reason, as Holbach said, is the art of
choosing the right passions, and education the art of sowing and
cultivating them in human hearts. The spectacle of nakedneas
has its moral value in teaching us to leam to enjoy what we do
not possess, a lesson which is an essential part of the training
for any kind of fine social life. The child has to leam to look at
flowers and not pluck them ; the man has to leam to look at a
woman's beauty and not desire to pOBsess it. The joyous con-
quest over that "erotic kleptomania," as Ellen Key has well said,
reveals the blossoming of a fine civilization. We fancy the
conquest is difficult, even impossibly difBcult. But it is not so.
This impulse, like other human impulses, t^nds under natural
conditions to develop temperately and wholesomely. We arti-
ficially press a stupid and brutal hand on it, and it is driven into
the two unnatural extremes of repression and license, one
extreme as foul as the other.
To those who have been bred under bad conditions, it may
indeed seem hopeless to attempt to rise to the level of the Qreeks
and the other finer tempered peoples of antiquity in realizing the
moral, as well as the pedagogic, hygienic, and sesthetic advan-
tages^ of admitting into life the spectacle of t)ie naked human
1 1 have not considered it in place here to emphasize the Esthetic
influence of familiarity with nakedneas. The moat leathetic nations (not-
ably the Greeks and the Japanese) iiave been those that preaerved a
certain degree of familiarily with the naked body. "In all arts,"
Maeterlinck remarks, "civilized peoples have approached or departed
from pure beauty according' as they approached or departed from the
habit of nakednesB." Ungewittcr inaisU on the advantage to the artist
of being able to study the naked body in movement, and it may be worth
mentioning that Fidiis (Hugo HHppener), the Gennan artist of to-day
who has exerted great influence by hia freah, powerful and yet reverent
delineation of the naked human form in all its varying fts;)ecta,
attributes his inspiration and vision to the fact that, aa a pupil of
Diefenbach, he was accustomed with hia companions to work naked in
the Bolitudes outside Munich which they frequented (F. Enzensberger,
"Fldus," Deutaahe Evltw. Aug., 1906).
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116 PSYCHOLOGT OF SEX.
body. But unless we do we hopelessly fetter ouraelTea in our
march along the road of civilization, we deprive ourselves at once
of a source of moral strength and of joyous inspiration. Just as
Wesley once asked why the devil should have all the best tunes,
80 to-day men are beginning to ask why the human body, the
most divine melody at its finest moments that creation has
yielded, should he allowed to become the perquisite of those who
lust for the obsceae. And some are, further, convinced that by
enlisting it on the side of purity and strength they are raising
the most powerful of all bulwarks against the invasion of a
vielouB conception of life and the consequent degradation of sex.
These are considerations which we cannot longer afford to neglect,
however great the opposition they arouse among the unthinking.
"Folk are afraid of such tbings rousing the paBsions," Edward
Carpenter remarka. "No doubt the tilings may act that way. But why,
we may ask, should people be afraid of rousLng pasaiona which, after all,
are the great driving lorces of hiiraan life!" It \a trup, the aame writer
continues, our conventional moral formulie are no longer strong enough
tff control paBsion adequately, and that we are generating steam in a
boiler that is cankered with rust. "The cure is not to cut off the pas-
sions, or to be weakly afraid of them, but to find a new, sound, healthy
engine of general morality and common sense within which they will
work" (Edward Carpenter, Albany Review, Sept., 1907).
So far aa I am aware, however, it was James Hinton who chiefly
sought to make clear the possibility ot a positive morality on the basis
of nakedness, beauty, and sexual influence, regarded as dynamic forces
which, when suppressed, make for corruption and when wisely used
serve to inspire and ennoble life. He worked out bis thnnghts on thii
matter Id MSS., written from about 1870 to his death two years lat«r,
which, never having been prepared for publication, remain in a frag-
mentary state and have not been published. I quote a few brief charac-
teristic passages: "Is not," he wrote, "the Hindu refusal to see a
woman eating strangely like ours to see one naked! The real sensuality
of the thought is visibly identical Suppose, because they
are delicious to eat, pineapples were forbidden to be seen, except in
pictures, and about that there was something dubious. Suppose no one
might have sight of a pineapple unless he were rich enough to purchase
one tor his particular eating, tho sight and the eating being so indis'
solubly joined. What luatfulncss would surround them, what constant
pruriency, what stealing! .... Miss told us of her
Syrian adventures, and how she wont into a wood-carver's shop and he
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SEXUAL EDUCATION AND NAEEDNBS8. 117
would not look at her; and how she took up a. tool and worked, till at
)aat be looked, and they both buiat out laughing. Will it not be even
K> with our looking at women altogether! There will come a work —
and af last we shall look up and both burst out laughing. ....
When men see truly what is amies, and act with reaaon and forethought
in respect to the sesual relations, will they not inaiat on the enjoyment
of women's beauty by youths, and from the earliest age, that the first
feeling may be of beautyt Will they not say, 'We must not allow the
false puri^, we muat hare the true.' The false has been tried, and it
ia not good enough; the power purely to enjoy beauty must be gained;
attempting to do with less ia fatal. Every instructor of youth shall
say; This beauty of woman, God's chief work of beauty, it ia good you
see it; it ia a pleasure that serves good; all beauty aervea it, and abore
all this, for ita office is to make you pure. Come to it aa you come to
daily bread, or pure air, or the cleansing bath: this ia pure to you if
you be pure, it will aid you in your effort to be bo. But if any of you
are impure, and make of it the feeder of impurity, then you ahould be
ashamed and prayj it ia not for you our life can be ordered; it ia for
men and not for beaata.' This must come when men open their eyes,
and act coolly and with reason and forethonght, and not in mere panic
in reapect to the sexual passion in it« moral relations."
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CHAPTER IV.
THE VALUATION OF SEXUAL LOVE.
The Conception of Sexual Love — The Attitude of Medisval Asceti-
cism— St. Bernard and St. Odo of Clunj — The Ascetic Insistence on the
Proximity of tbe Sexual and Excretory Centres — Love as a Sacrament
■of Nature — The Idea of the Impurity of Sex in Primitive Religions
Generally — Theories of the Origin of This Idea — ^The Anti-Ascetic Ele-
ment in the Bible and Early Christianity — Clempnt of Alexandria — St.
Augustine'a Attitude — The Recognition of the Sacredness of the Body
"by Tertullian, Ruflnus and Athanasiua— The Reformation — The Sexual
Instinct regarded as Beastly — The Human Sexual Instinct Not Animal-
Jilte — Lust and Love — The Definition of Love — Love and Names for Love
Unknown in Some Parts of the World— Romantic Love of Late Develop-
ment in the ^\'hif« Race — The Mystery of Sexual Desire — Whether Love
is a Delusion— The Spiritual as Well as the Physical Structure of the
World in Part Built up on Sexual Love— The Testimony of Men of
Intellect to the Supremacy of Love.
It will be seen that the preceding discussion of nakedness
has a significance beyond nhat it appeared to possess at the out-
Bet. The hygienic value, physically and mentally, of familiarity
with nakedness during the early years of life, however con-
siderable it may be, is not the only value which such familiarity
possesses. Beyond its [esthetic value, also, there lies in it a moral
value, a source of dynamic energy. And now, taking a still
further step, we may say that it has a spiritual value in relation
to our whole conception of the sexual impulse. Our attitude
towards tlie naked human body is the test of our attitude towards
the instinct of sex. If our own and our fellows' bodies seem to
us intrinsically shameful or disgusting, nothing will ever really
ennoble or purify our coneeptions of sexual love. Love craves
the flesh, and if the flesh is shameful the lover must be shameful.
"Se la cosa amata ^ vile," as Leonardo da Vinci profoundly
said, 'Tamante se fa vile." However illogical it may have been,
there really was a justification for the old Christian identification
of the flesh with the sexual instinct. They stand or fall
(118)
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THE VALUATION OF 8BXDAL LOVE. 119
together; we cannot degrade the one and exalt the other. As
our feelings towards nakedneea are, bo will be our feelings towards
love.
"Man is nothing else than fetid sperm, a sack of dung, the
food of worms. . . . You have never seen a viler dung-hill."
Such was the outcome of St. Bernard's cloistered Meditaiiones
Piissima.^ Sometimes, indeed, these mediffival monks would
admit that the skin possessed a, certain superficial beauty, but
they only made that admission in order to emphasize the hideous-
nees of the body when deprived of this film of loveliness, and
strained all their perverse intellectual acumen, and their
ferocious irony, as they eagerly pointed the finger of mockery at
every detail of what seemed to them the pitiful figure of man. St.
Odo of Cluny — charming saint as he was and a pioneer in his
appreciation of the wild beauty of the Alps he had often
traversed — was yet an adept in this art of reviling the beauty of
the human body. That beauty only lies in the ekin, he insists ;
if we could see beneath the skin women would arouse nothing
but nausea. Their adornments are but blood and mucus and
bile. If we refuse to touch dung and phlegm even with a finger-
tip, how can we desire to embrace a sack of dung?^ The
mediaeval monks of the more contemplative order, indeed, often
found here a delectable field of meditation, and the Christian
world generally was content to accept their opinions in more or
less diluted versions, or at all events never made any definite
protest against them.
i Meditationea PiMmie de Cognititme Humana Conditions, Migne's
PalTOlogia, vol. clixiv, p. 489, cap. Ill, "De Dignitat* Animie et Vilitate
Corporis." It may be worth while to quote more at length the vigorous
language of the original. "Si diligenter conaideres quid per os et nares
esterosque corporis meatus egrediatur, villus sterquilinum nuroquam
vidisti Attende. homo, quid fuUti ante ortum, et quid ea ab
ortu usque ad occasum, atque quid eria post hanc vitam. Profecto fuit
quand non eraa: postca de vili materia factua, et viliesimo panno
InrolutuB, menstrual i sanguine in iitero matemo fuisti nutritua, et
tunica tua fuit pellis secundina. Nihil Blind eat homo qiiam aperma
fetidum, sacetia aterconim, cibua vermium Quid superbis,
pulvia et cinia, cujus conceptus cula, nasci miaeria, vivere pcena, mori
antruatiaT"
8. Odonit abbalit Cluniaccnsis Oolla-
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120 P3TC110L0QT OF SEX.
Even men of science accepted these conceptions and are,
indeed, only now beginning to emancipate themselves from such
ancient euperstitions. B. de Graef in the Preface to hia famous '
treatise oa the generative organs of women, De MtUierum Organis
Qeneratione Inservientibm, dedicated to Cosmo III de Medici in
1672, considered it necessary to apologize for the subject of his
work. Even a century later, Linnseus in his great work. The
System of Nature, dismissed as "abominable" the exact study
of the female genitals, although he admitted the scientific
interest of euch investigations. And if men of science have
found it difficult to attain an objective vision of women we
cannot be surprised that mediaeval and still more ancient
conceptions have often been subtly mingled with the views of
philosophical and semi-philosophical writers.'
We may regard as a special variety of the ascetic view of
sex, — for the ascetics, as we see, freely but not quite legitimately,
based their asceticism largely on KStbetic considerations, — that
insistence on the proximity of the sexual to the excretory centres
which found expression in the early Church in Augustine's
depreciatory assertion: "Inter faeces et urinam nascimur," and
still persists among many who by no means always associate it
with religious asceticism.^ "As a result of what ridiculous
economy, and of what Mephistophilian irony," asks Tarde,'
"has Nature imagined that a function so lofty, so worthy of the
poetic and philosophical hymns which have celebrated it, only
deserved to have its exclusive organ shared with that of the vilept
corporal functions?"
It may, however, be pointed out that thb view of the matter,
however unconsciously, is itself the outcome of the ascetic depre-
ciation of the body. From a scientific point of view, the
1 Dtlhren {Neue Forahungm Uber die Marquit de Bade, pp. 432 et
»eq.) ahovrs how the ftscetic view of woman's body persisted, for instance,
in Scbopenhftuer and De Sade.
a In "The Evolution of Modesty," in the first volume of these
8tudie», and again in the fifth volume in discussing uroiagnia in the
study of "Erotic Bymbolism.*' the mutual reactions of tJie sexual and
eitcretory centres were fully dealt with,
3 "Ia Morale Sexuelle," ATchive* d'Anthropologie CrimitteU«, Jan.,
1W>7.
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THE VALUATION OF 8EXCAL LOVE. 121
metabolic processes of the body from one end to the other,
whether regarded chemically or psydiologically, are all inter-
woven and all of equal dignity. We cannot separate out any
particular chemical or biological procesa and declare: This is
vile. £ven what we call excrement still stores up the stuff of our
lives. Eating has to some persons seemed a disgusting process.
But yet it has been possible to say, with Thoreau, that "the gods
have really intended that men should feed divinely, as themselves,
on their own nettar and ambrosia. ... I have felt that
eating became a sacrament, a method of communion, an ecstatic
exercise, and a sitting at the communion table of the world."
The sacraments of Nature are in this way everywhere woven
into the texture of men's and women's bodies. Lips good to kiss
witli are indeed first of all chiefiy good to eat and drink with.
So accumulated and overlapped have the centres of force become
in the long course of development, that the mucoua membranes
of the natural orifices, through the sensitiveness gained in their
own offices, all become agents to thrill the soul in the contact
of love ; it is idle to discriminate high or low, pure or impure ; all
alike are sanctified already by the extreme unction of Nature.
The nose receives the breath of life; the vagina receives the
water of life. Ultimately the worth and loveliness of life must
be measured by the worth and loveliness for us of the instruments
of life. The swelling breasts are such divinely gracious insignia
of womanhood because of the potential child that hangs at them
and sucks; the large curves of the hips are so voluptuous because
of the potential child they clasp within them ; there can be no
division here, we cannot cut the roots from the tree. The
supreme function of manhood — the handing- on of the lamp of
life to future racee — is carried on, it is true, by the same instru-
ment that is the daily conduit of the bladder. It has been said
in scorn that we are bom between urine and excrement; it
may be said, in reverence, that the pissage through this channel of
birth is a sacrament of Nature's more sacred and significant than
men could ever invent.
These relationships have been sometimes perceived and their
meaning realized by a sort of mystical intuition. We catch
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122 P8T0H0LOQT OF BEX.
glimpses of such an insight now and again, first among the poets
and later among the physicians of the Renaissance. In 1664
Eolfinciua, in hia Ordo et Methodus Oeneratiom Partium etc., at
the outset of the second Part devoted to the sexual organs of
women, sets forth what ancient irriters have said of the Eleusinian
and other mysteries and the devotion and purity demanded of
those who approached these sacred ritea. It is so also with us, he
continues, in the rites of scientific investigation. "We also operate
with sacred things. The organs of sex are to be held among
sacred things. They who approach these altars must come with
devout minds. Let the profane stand without, and the doors be
closed." In those days, even for science, faith and intuition were
alone possible. It is only of recent years that the histologiat's
microscope and the physiological chemist's test-tube have fur-
nished them with a rational basis. It is no longer possible to
cut Nature in two and assert that here she is pure and there
impure,*
There thuB appears to be no adequate ground for agreeing with
those who consider that the proximity of the generative and excretory
centres is "a stupid bungle of Nature's." An association which is so
ancient and primitive in Nature can only seem repulsive to those whose
feeliogB have become morbidly unnatural. It may further he remarkeil
that the anus, which is the more Kstheticnlly unattractive of the excre-
tory centres, is comparatively remote from the sexual cintce, and that,
as K. Hellmann remarked many years ago in discussing this question
(Ueber Oeachlechttfreiheit, p. 82): "In the first place, freshly voided
urine has nothing specially unpleasant about it, and in the second place,
even if it had, we might reflect that a rosy mouth by no means loses its
charm merely because it fails to invite a kiss at the moment when its
possessor ia vomiting."
A clergyman writes suggesting that we may go further and find a
positive advantage in this proximity: "I am glad that you do not agree
with the man who considered that Nature had bungled by using the
genitals for urinary purposes; apart from teleological or theological
grounds I could not follow that line of reasoning. I think there ia no
need for disgust concerning the urinary organs, though I feel that the
I The above passage, now slightly modified, originally formed an
unpublished part of an essay on Walt Whitman in The f{eu> Spirit, first
issued in 1880. -
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THE VALUATION OF SEXCAL LOTS. 123
anus can never be attractive to the noinial mind; but tbe anus is quite
separate from the genitals. I nould Euggest that the proximity servea
a good end in making the organs more or leas secret except at times of
sexuai emotion or to those in love. The result it some degree of repul-
sion at ordinary times and a strong attraction at times of sexual
activity. Hence, the ordinary guarding of the parta, from fear of creat-
ing disgust, greatly increases their attractiveness at other times when
sexual emotion is paramount. Further, the feeling of disgust itself is
merely the result of habit and sentiment, however useful it may be, and
according to Scripture everj-thing is clean and good. The ascetic feeling
of repulsion, if we go back t« origin, is due to other than Christian
influence. Christianity came out of Judaism which had no sense of th«
impurity of marriage, for 'unclean' in the Old Testament simply means
'sacred.' The ascetic side of the religion of Christianity is no part of
the religion of Christ as it came from the hands of its Founder, and
the modern feeling on this matter is a lingering remnant of the heresy
of the Manichfeans." I may add, however, that, as Northcote points
out {Chrittianilj/ and Bern FrobUmt, p. 14), side by side in the Old
Testament with the frank recognition of sexuality, there ia a circle of
ideas revealing the feeling of impurity in sex and of shame in connec-
tion with it. Christianity inherited this mixed feeling. It has really
been a widespread and almost universal feeling among the ancient and
primitive peoples that there is sometliing impure and sinful in the things
of sex, BO that those who would lead a religious life must avoid sexual
relationships; even in India celibacy has commanded respect (see, e.g.,
Westermarck, Marriage, pp. 150 et seq.). As to the original foundation
of this notion — which it is unnecessary to discuss more fully here —
many theories have been put forward; St. Augustine, in his De Civitato
Dei, sets forth the ingenious idea that the penis, being liable to spon-
taneous movements and erections that are not under the control of the
will, is a shameful organ and involves the whole sphere of sex in its
shame. -Westermarck argues that among nearly all peoples there is a
feeling against sexual relationship with members of the same family or
household, and as sex ivss thus banished from the sphere of domestic
life a notion of its general impurity arose; Northcote points out that
from the first it has been necessary to seek concealment for sexual inter-
course, because at that moment the couple would be a prey to hostile
attacks, and that it was by nil easy transition that sex cume to be
regarded as a thing that ought to be concealed, and, therefore, a sinful
thing. (Diderot, in his HuppUment au Voyage de Bougainville, had
already referred to this motive for seclusion as "the only natural ele-
ment in modesty.") Crawley has devoted a large part of his suggestive
work. The Mystic Rose, to showing that, to savage man, sex is a perilous,
dangerous, and enfeebling element in life, and, therefore, sinful.
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124 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX,
It wonld, however, be a mistake to think that euch men aa
St. Bernard and St. Odo of Clunj, admirably as they repiesented
the ascetic and even the general Christian views of their own
time, are to be regarded as altogether typical exponents of the
genuine and primitiye Christian view. So far as I have been
able to discover, during the first thousand years of Christianity
we do not find this concentrated intellectual and emotional
ferocity of attack on the body ; it only developed at the moment
when, with Pope Gregory VII, mediseval Christianity reached the
climax of its conquest over the souls of European men, in the
establishment of the celibacy of the secular clergy, and the growth
of the great cloistered communities of monks in severely regulated
and secluded orders.! Before that the teachers of asceticism
were more concerned to exhort to chastity and4u6desty than to
direct a deliberate and systematic attack on the whole body ; they
concaitrated their attention rather on spiritual virtues than on
physical imperfections. And if we go back to the Oospels we
find little of the mediceval ascetic spirit in the reported sayings
and doings of Jesus, which may rather indeed be said to reveal,
on the whole, notwithstanding their underlying asceticism, a
certain tenderness and indulgence to the body, while even Paul,
though not tender towards the body, exhorts to reverence towards
it as a temple of the Holy Spirit.
We cannot expect to find the Fathers of the Church sympa-
thetic towards the spectacle of tlie naked human body, for their
position was based on a revolt against paganism, and paganism
had cultivated the body. Nakedness had been more especially
associated with the public bath, the gymnasium, and the theatre ;
in profoundly disapproving of these pagan institutions Christi-
1 Even in the ninth century, however, when the monastic movemeot
was rapidly developing, there were some who withstood the tendencies
of thd new asccticB. Thus, in 860, RatramnuH, the monk of Corbie,
wrote a treatise (Liter de eo quod Chrigtua ex Virgine ttatvt, eel) to
prove that Mary really gave birth to Jesus through her sexual organs,
and not, as some high-atmng persons were beginning to think could
alone be possible, through the more conventionally decent breasts. The
Bpxual organs were annctifled. "Rpiritus sanctus . . . . et thala-
mum tanto dignum sponso sanctificavit et portam" (Achery, Spicilcgium,
vol. i, p. 6E).
DiclzedbyGoOglC,
THE VALUATION OF SEXUAL LOVE. 125
aaity discouraged nakedueas. The fact that familiarity with
Dakedaess wad favorable, rather than opposed, to the chastity to
which it attached eo much importance, the Church — though
indeed at one moment it accepted nakedness in the rite of bap-
tism— was for the most part unable to see if it was indeed a fact
which the special conditions of decadent classic life had tended
to disguise. But in their decided preference for the dressed over
the naked human body the early Christians frequently hesitated
to take the further step of asserting that the body is a focus of
impurity and that the physical organs of sex are a device of the
devil. On the contrary, indeed, some of the moat distinguished
of the Fathers, especially those of the Eastern Church who had
felt the vivifying breath of Gredt thought, occasionally expressed
themselves on the subject of Nature, sex, and the body in a
spirit which would have won the approval of Goethe or Whitman.
Clement of Alexandria, with all the eccentricities of his over-
subtle intellect, was yet the most genuinely Qreek of all the
Fathers, and it is not surprising that the dying ray of classic light
reflected from his mind shed some illumination over this question
of sex. He protested, for instance, against that prudery which,
as the sun of the classic world set, bad begun to overshadow life.
"We should not be aehamed to name," he declared, "what God
has not been ashamed to create."^ It was a memorable declare
tion because, while it accepted the old classic feeling of no shame
in the presence of nature, it put that feeling on a new and
religions basis harmonious t^ Christianity. Throughout, though
not always quite consistently, Clement defends the body and the
functions of sex against those who treated them with contempt.
And as the cause of sex is the cause of women be always strongly
asserts the dignity of women, and also proclaims the holiness of
marriage, a state which he sometimes places above that of
virginity.2
Unfortunately, it must be said, St. Augustine — another
tPadagogua, lib. ii, cap. X. Elsewhere (id., lib. ii, Ch. VI) he
makes a more detailed statement to the same effect.
!See, e.g., Wilhelm Capitaioe, Die Moral dea Clemen* con Alex-
Ofidrien, pp. 112 et aeq.
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126 PSTOHOLOGT OF BBS,
North African, but of Roman Carthage and not of Greek Alex-
andria— thought that he had a convincing answer to the kind of
argument which Clement presented, and so great was the force
of his pasBionate and potent genius that he was able in the end to
make his answer prevail. For Augustine sin was hereditary, and
sin had its epecial seat and symbol in the sesuai organs ; the fact
of sin haH modified tlie original divine act of creation, and we can-
not treat sex and its organs as though there had been no inherited
sin. Our sexual organs, he declares, have become shameful be-
cause, through sin, they are now moved by lust. At the same time
Augustine by no means takes up the mediaeval ascetic position of
contemptuous hatred towards the body. Nothing can be further
from Odo of Cluny than Augustine's enthusiasm about the body,
even about the exquisite harmony of the parta beneath the skin.
"I believe it may be concluded," he even says, "that in the cre-
ation of the liuman body beauty was more regarded than
necessity. In truth, necessity ie a transitory thing, and the time
is coming when we shall be able to enjoy one another's beauty
without any lust."' Even in the sphere of sez he would be
willing to admit purity and beauty, apart from the inherited
influence of Adam's sin. In Paradise, he ssys, had Paradise con-
tinued, the act of generation would have been as simple and free
from shame as the act of t)ie hand in scattering seed on to the
earth. "Sexual conjugation would have been under the control
of the will without any sexual desire. The semen would be in-
jected into the vagina in as simple a manner as the menstrual
fluid is now ejected. There would not have been any words
wltich could be called obscene, but all that might be said of these
members would have been as pure as what is said of the other
parts of the body,"- That, however, for Augustine, is what
i De Ciniiale Dei, lib. xxii, cap. XXIV. "There is no need," he
HBVB ogain iid., lib. \iv, cap. V) "that in our atns and vices we accuse
tlie nature of the flesh to the injury of the Creator, for in its own kind
and degree tlie flesh is good."
£St. Augustine. De Cioitate Dei, lib. xiv, cap. XXIII-XXVI.
Chrj'Soslom and Oregory, of Nyssa, thought that in Paradise human
beings would have multiplied b; special creation, but Buch is not the
accepted Co th olio doctrine.
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THE VALUATION OP SEXUAL LOVE. * 127
might have been in Paradise where, as he believed, sexual desire
had no existeoce. Ab things are, he held, we are right to be
ashamed, we do well to blush. And it was natural that, as
Clement of Alexandria mentions, many heretics should have gone
further on this road and believed that while God made man down
to the navel, the rest was made by another power; such heretics
have their descendants among m even to-day.
Alike in the Eastern and Western Churches, however, both
before and after Augustine, though not so oft«n after, great
Fathers and teachers have uttered opinions which recall those
of Clement rather than of Augustine. We cannot lay very much
weight on tiie utterance of the extravagant and often contradic-
tory Tertullian, but it is worth noting that, while he declared
that woman is the gate of hell, he also said that we must approach
Xature with reverence and not with blushes. "Natura veneranda
est, non erubescenda." "No Christian author," it has indeed
been aaid, "has so energetically spoken against the heretical eon-
tempt of the body as Tertullian. Soul and body, according to
Tertullian, are in the closest association. The soul is the life-
principle of tlie body, but there is no activity of the soul which is
not manifested and conditioned by the flesh."^ More weight
attaches to Eufinus Tyranniua, the friend and fellow-student of
St. Jerome, in the fourth century, who wrote a commentary on
the Apostles' Creed, which was greatly esteemed by the early and
mediaeval Church, and is indeed still valued even to-day. Here,
in answer to those who declared that there was obscenity in the
fact of Christ's birth through the sexual organs of a woman,
Kufinus replies that God created the sexual organs, and that "it
is not Nature but merely human opinion which teaches that these
parts are obscene. For tlie rest, all the parts of the body are
made from the same clay, whatever differences there may be in
their uses and functions."^ He looks at the matter, we see, piously
1 W. Capitaine, Die ^^o^al de« Clement van Alexandricn, pp. 112 e(
seq. Without tlie body, Tertullian declared, there could be no virginity
and no aalvation. The soul itself is corporeal. He carries, indeed, his
idea of the omni presence of the body to the absurd.
2 RuRnua, Commentariaa in Symbolum Apostolorum, cap. XII.
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128 PSYCHOLOOT OF SEX.
indeed, but naturally and simply, like Clement, and not, like
Augustine, tlirough the distorting medium of a tlieological sys-
tem. Athanasiua, in the Eastern Church, spoke in the same sense
as Rufinus in the Western Church. A certain monk named
Amun had been much grieved by the occurrence of seminal emis-
sions during sleep, and he wrote to Athanasius to inquire if such
emissions are a sin. In the letter he wrote in reply, Athanasius
seeks to reassure Amun. "All things," he tells him, "are pure
to the pure. For what, I ask, dear and pious friend, can there
be sinful or naturally impure in excrement? Man is the hand-
work of God. There is certainly nothing in us tliat is impure."^
We feel as we read these utterances that tlie seeds of prudery and
pruriency are already alive in the popular mind, but yet we see
also that some of the most distinguished thinkers of the early
Christian Church, in striking contrast to the more morbid and
narrow-minded mediieval ascetics, clearly stood aside from the
popular movement. On the whole, they were submerged because
Christianity, like Buddhism, had in it from the first a germ that
lent itself to ascetic renunciation, and the sexual life is always the
firgt impulse to be sacrificed to the passion for renunciation. But
there were other germs also in Christianity, and Luther, who in
his own plebeian way asserted the rights of the body, although he
broke with medireval asceticism, by no means thereby cast him-
self off from the traditions of the early Christian Church.
I have thought it worth while to bring forward this evidence,
although I am perfectly well aware that the facts of Nature gain
no additional support from the authority of the Fathers or even
of the Bible. Nature and humanity existed before the Bible and
would continue to exist although the Bible should be forgotten.
But the attitude of Christianity on this point has so often been
unreservedly condemned that it seems as well to point out that
at its finest moments, when it was a young and growing power in
the world, the utterances of Christianity were often at one with
those of Nature and reason. Tliere are many, it may be added,
who find it a matter of consolation that in following the natural
iJligne, Patrotogia (ha'ca, vol. xivi, pp. 1170 e
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THE VALDATION OP SEXUAL LOVE. 129
and rational path id this matter they are not thereby altogether
breaking with the religious traditions of their race.
It is Mjaroelf necesBary to remark that when we turn from ChriS'
tiaaity to the other great world- religioDS, we do not uauall; meet wltb
BO ambiguous an attitude towards sex. The Mabommedans were as
emphatic in assertiug the sanctity of sex as they were In asserting
physical cleanliness; th^ were prepared to cany the functions of sec
into the future life, aud were never worried, as Luther and so many
other Christians have been, concerning the lack of occupation in Heaven.
In India, although India is the home of the most extreme forms of
religious asceticism, sexual love has been sanctified and divinised to a
greater extent than in any other part of the world. "It seems never to
have entered into the heads of the Hindu legislators," said Sir William
Jones long since {Worka, vol. ii, p. 311), "that anything natural could
be offensively obscene, a singularity which pervades all their writings,
but is no proof of the depravity of their morals." The s^cual act has
often had a religious significance in India, and the minutest details of
the sexual life and its variations are discussed in Indian erotic treatises
In a spirit of gravity, while nowhere else have the anatomical and phy-
•io1<^cal sexual characters of women been studied with such minute and
adoring reverence. "Love in India, both as regards theory and practice,"
remarks Richard Schmidt {BeitrSge oar Inditohen Brotik, p. 2) "poa-
oesses an Importance which It is impossible for us even to conceive."
In Protestant countries the influence of the Reformation, by
rehabilitating sex ae natural, indirectly tended to substitute in
popular feeling towards sex the opprobrium of sinfuhiese by the
opprobrium of animality. Henceforth the sexual impulse must
be disguised or adorned to become respectably human. This may
be illuBtrated by a passage in Pepys's Diary in the seventeenth
century. On the morning after the wedding day it was cub-
tomary to call up new married couples by music ; the absence of
this music on one occasion (in 1667) seemed to Pepje "as if they
had married like dog and bitch." We no longer insist on the
music, but the same feeling still exists in the craving for other
disguiees and adornments for the sexual impulse. We do not
always realize that love brings its own sanctity with it.
Nowadays indeed, whenever the repugnance to the sexual
side of life manifests itself, the assertion nearly always made is
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130 PSYCIIOLOBT OF SEX.
not BO much that it is "sinful" aB that it ia "'beaBtly." It iB
regarded as that part of man which moet cLoBely allies him to the
lower animale. It should scarcely be necessary to point out that
this is a mistake. On whichever side, indeed, we approach it, the
implication that sex in man and animals is identical cannot be
home out. From the point of view of those who accept this
identity it would be much more correct to say that men are
inferior, rather than on a level with animala, for in animals under
natural conditions the sexual instinct'is strictly subordinated to
reproduction and very little susceptible to deviation, so that from
the standpoint of those who wish to .minimize sex, animala are
nearer to the ideal, and such persons must say with Woods Hutch-
inson: "Take it altogether, our animal anceatora have quite as
good reason to be ashamed of tte as we of them." But if we look
at the matter from a wider biological standpoint of development,
our conclusion must be very different.
So far from being animal-like, the human impulscB of Bex
are among the least animal-like acquisitions of man. The human
sphere of sex differs from the animal sphere of sex to a Bingularly
great extent.^ Breathing is an animal function and here we can-
not compete with birds; locomotion is an animal function and
here we cannot equal quadrupeds ; we have made no notable ad-
vance in our circulatory, digestive, renal, or hepatic functions.
Even as regards vision and hearing, there are many animals that
are more kecn-sighted than man, and many that are capable of
hearing sounds that to him are inaudible. But there are no
animals in whom the sexual instinct is ao sensitive, so highly
developed, so varied in ite manifeetatione, bo constantly alert, so
capable of irradiating the highest and remotest parts of &e
organism. The sexual activities of man and woman belong not
to that lower part of our nature which degrades ua to the level of
ihe "brute," but to the higher part which raises ub towards all
the finest activities and ideals we are capable of. It is true that
it is chiefly in the mouths of a few ignorant and ill-bred women
1 Even in physiCBl conformation the hntnan sexual orgniw, when
rompnred with those of the lower animals, ahow marked differencea (see
"The Mecbanism of Detumeacence," in the fifth volume of these Studiet).
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THE VALUATION OF SEXUAL LOVE. 131
that we find sex referred to as "bestial'' or "the animal part of
our nature."^ 'But since women are the mothers and teachers of
the human race this ib a piece of ignorance and ill-breeding which
cannot be too swiftly eradicated.
There are some who seem to think that they have held the
balance evenly, and finally stated tlie matter, if they admit that
sexual love may be either beautiful or dlaguatiug, and that either
view is equally normal and legitimate, "Lieten in turn," Tarde
remarks, "to two men who, one cold, the other ardent, one chaste,
the other in love, both equally educated and large-minded, are
estimating the same tiling: one judges as disgusting, odious,
revolting, and bestial what the other judges to be delicious, ex-
quisite, ineffable, divine. What, for one, is in Christian phrase-
ology, an unforgivable sin, is, for the other, the state of true
grace. Acts that for one seem a sad and occasional necessity,
stains that must be carefully effaced by long intervals of con-
tinence, are for tlie other the golden naila from which all the
rest of conduct and existence is enspended, the things that tdone
give human life its value."^ Yet we may well doubt whether
both these persons are "equally well-educated and broad-minded."
The savage feels that sex is perilous, and he is right. But the
person who feels that the sexual impulse is bad, or even low and
vulgar, is an absurdity in the universe, an anomaly. He is like
those persons in our insane asylums, who feel that the instinct
of nutrition is evil and so proceed to starve themselves. They
are alike spiritual outcasts in the universe whose children they
are. It is another matter when a man declares that, personally,
in his own case, he cherishes an ascetic ideal which leads him to
restrain, so far as possible, either or both impulses. The man
who is sanely ascetic seeks a discipline which aids the ideal ho
has personally set before himself. Ho may still remain theoreti-
cally in harmony with the universe to which he belongs. But to
i It may perhaps be as well to point out. with Porel [Die Sexuelle
Frage, p. 208), that the word "beatial" is generally used quite incorrecUy
in thiH connection. Indeed, not only for the higher, but also for the
lower manifestation of the sexual impulae, it would usually be more
correct to nse instead the quatiHeation "humnn."
^Loe. oit., Archivet d'Anthropotogie Criminelle, Jan., 1S07.
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132 PSYCHOLOGY OF tiEX.
pour contempt on the sexual life, to throw the veil of "impurity"
over it, is, as Nietzsche declared, the unpardonable sin against the
Holy Ghost of Life.
There are many who seek to concilate prejudice and reason
in their valuation of sex by drawing a sharp distinction between
'lust" and "love," rejecting the one and accepting the other. It
is quite proper to make such a distinction, but the manner in
which it is made will by no means usually bear examination. We
have to define what we mean by "lust" and what we mean by
'love," and this ia not easy if they are regarded as mutually ex-
'clusive. It is sometimes said that "luat" must be understood as
meaning a reckless indulgence of the sexual impulse without
r^ard to other considerations. So understood, we are quite aafe
in rejecting it. But that is an entirely arbitrary definition of the
word. "Luat" is really a very ambiguous term ; it is a good word
that has changed its moral values, and therefore we need to define
it very carefully before we venture to use it. Properly speaking,
"luat" is an entirely colorless word^ and merely means desire in
general and sexual desire in particular; it corresponds to
"hunger" or "thirst"; to use it in an offensive sense is much the
aame as thougli we should always assume that the word "hungry"
had the offensive meaning of "greedy." The result has been that
sensitive minds indignantly reject the term "lust" in con-
nection with love.2 In the early use of our language, "lust,"
"lusty," and "lustful" conveyed the sense of wholesome and
normal sexual vigor ; now, with the partial exception of "lusty,"
they have been so completely degraded to a lower sense that
although it would be very convenient to restore them to their
1 It has, however, become colored and suspect from an early period
in the hiBtorj' of Christianitr. St. Augustine {De Civitate Dei, lib. xiv,
cap. XV), while admitting that libido ^r luBt is merely the generic name
for all desire, adds that, as specially applied to the sexual appetite, it is
justly and properly mixed up with ideas of shame.
ZHinton well illustra^s this feeling. "We call by the name of
lust," he declares in his MSS., "the most simple and natural desires.
We might as well term hunger and thirst 'lust' as so call sex-passion,
when PTpresaing simply Nature's prompting. We miscall it 'luat.' cruelly
libcllinf: those to whom wc ascribe it, and introduce absolute disorder.
For, by foolishly confounding Nature's demands with luet, we insist upon
restraint upon her,"
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THE TALDATIOS OF SEXUAL LOVE. 133
original and proper place, which gtill remains vacant, the attempt
at such a restoration scarce!}' eeems a liopeful task.- We have
80 deeply poisoned the springs of feeling in theBe matters with
raediffival ascetic crudities that all our words of aex tend soon to
become bespattered with filth ; we may pick them up from the
mud into which they have fallen and seek to purify them, but to
many eyes they will still seem dirty. One result of this tendency
is that we have no simple, precise, natural word for the love of
the sexes, and are compelled to fall back on the general term,
which is so extensive in its range that in English and French and
most of the other leading languages of Europe, it is equally cor-
rect to "love" Qod or to "love" eating.
Love, in the sesual sense, is, summarily considered, a syn-
thesis of Inst (in the primitive and uncolored sense of sexual
emotion) and friendship. It is incorrect to apply the term
"love" in the sexual sense to elementary and uncomplicated sexual
desire; it is equally incorrect to apply it to any variety or com-
bination of varieties of friendship. There can be no sexual love
without lust; but, on the other hand, until the currents of lust
in the organism have been so irradiated as to affect otiier parts of
the psychic organism — at the least the affections and the social
feelings — it is not yet sexual love. Lust, the specific sexual im-
pulse, is indeed the primary and essential element in this syn-
thesis, for it alone is adequate to the end of reproduction, not
only in animals but in men. But it is not until lust is expanded^
and irradiated that it develops into the exquisite and enthralling
flower of love. We may call to mind what happens among
plants ; on the one hand we have the lower organisms in which
sex is carried on summarily and cryptogamically, never shedding
any shower of gorgeous blossoms on the world, and on the other
hand the higher plants among whom sex has become phaners-
gamous and expanded enormously into form and color and
fragrance.
While "lust" is, of coutbs, known aH over the world, and there are
everywhere words to designate it, "love" is not universally known, and
in many languages there kre no words for "love." The failures to find
kve are oft«D remarkable and unexpected. We may find it where we
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134 PSYCUOLOGY OF SEX.
least expect it. Se\ua1 desire became idealized (aa Sergi has pointed
out) even bj some animals, especially birds, for when a bird pines to
death for the loss of its mate Uiis cannot be due to the uncomplicated
instinct of sex, hut must involve the interweaving of that instinct with
the other elements of life to a degree which is rare even among the most
civilizL'd men. Some savage races neem to have no fundamental notion
of love, and (like the American Nahuae) no primary word tor it. while,
on the other hand, in Quichua. the language of the ancient Peruvians.
there are nearly six hundred combinations of the verb munay, to love.
Among some peoples love aeems to be confined to the women. Letourneau
{L'Evol-ulion lAlliraire, p. 529) points out that in i-arious parts of the
world women have taken a leading part in creating erotic poetry. It
may be mentioned in this connection that suicide from erotic motives
among primitive peoples occurs chieQy among women (Zeitachrift fiir
Itoxialwiasenschaft, 1600, p. 678). Not a, tew savages poflsess love-
poems, ax, tor instance, the Suahali (VeTt«n, in his Praia und Poe»ie
der Svahali, devotes a section to love-poems reproflueed in the Suahali
language). D. G. Brinton, in an interesting paper on "The Concep-
tion ot Love in Some American Languages" {Proceedinga American
Philosophical Society, vol. xiiii. p. 646, 1886) states that the words
for love in these languages reveal four main ways of expressing the
conception: (1) Inarticulate cries of emotion; (2) assertions of same-
ness or similarity; (3) assertions of conjunction or union; (4) asser-
tions of a wish, desire, a longing. Brinton adds that "these sama
notions are those which underlie the majority of the words of love
in the great Aryan family of languages." The remarkable fact emerges,
however, that the peoples of Aryan tongue were slow id developing their
conception of sexual love. Brinton remarks that the American Mayas
must be placed at>ove the peoples of early Aryan culture, in that they
, possessed a radical word for the joy of love which was in signiflcanoe
purely psychical, referring strictly to a mental state, and neither to
similarity nor desire. Even the Greeks were late in developing any ideal
of sexual love. This has been well brought out by E, F. M. Benecke in
his Antimachits of Colophon and the Poailion of Women in Greek Poetry,
a book which contains some hazardous assertions, hut is highly instruc-
tive from tlie present point of *iew. The Greek lyric poets wrote prac-
tically no love poems at all to women liefore Anacreon, and his were
only written in old age. True love for the Greeks was nearly always
homoscxnal. The Ionian lyric poets of early Greece regarded woman
as only an instrument of pleasure and the founder of the family.
Theognis compares marriage to cattle-breeding; Alcman, when he wishes
to be complimentary to the Spartan girls, speaks of them as his "female
boy-friends," .Sschylus makes even a father assume that his daughters
will misbehave if left to themselves. There is no sexual love in Sopho-
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THE VALUATION OF BEXCXL LOVE. 135
cin, and JD Euripides it is onlv the women who fall in love, BenecE;?
concludes (p. 67) that in Greece mxubI tove, down to a comparatively
later period, was looked down on, and held to be unworthy of public dia-
citssion and representation. It was in Magna Griscia rather than in
Greece itself that men took interest in women, and it was not until the
Alexandrian period, and notubly in Aeclepiades, Benecke maintains, that
the love of vromen was regarded as a matter of life and death. There-
after the conception of sexual love, in its romantic aspects, appears in
European life. With the Celtic story of Tristram, as Qaston Paris
remarks, it finally appears in the Chriatian European world of poetry
as the chief point in human life, the great motive force of conduct.
Romantic love failed, however, to penetrate the masses in Europe.
In the sixteenth century, or whenever it was that Uie ballad of "GUa-
^rion" was written, we see it is assumed that a churl's relation to bis
mistress is confined to the mere act of sexual intercourse; he fails to
kiss her on arriving or departing; it is only the kni^t, the man of
upper class, who would think of offering that tender civility. And at
the present day in, for instance, the region between East Friesland and
the Alps, Biocb states (Bescuelleben itnaerer Zeit, p. 29), following E.
H. Heyer, that the word "love" is unknown among the masses, and only
Its coarse counterpart recognized.
On the other side of the world. In Japan, sexual love seems to be
in as great disrepute as it was in ancient Greece; thus Mias Tsuda, a
Japanese head-mi stress, and herself a Christian, remarks (as quoted by
Mrs. Fraser in World's Work and Play, Dec., 1S06) : "That word
'love' has been hitherto a word unknown among our girls, in the foreign
sense. Duty, submission, kindness — these were the sentiments which a
girl was expected to bring to the husband who had been chosen for her —
and nuiny happy, harmonious marriages were the result. Now, your
dear sentimental foreign women say to our girls: 'It is wicked to marry
without love; the obedience to parents in such a case is an outrage
against nature and Christianity. If you love a man you must sacrifice
everything to marry him.' "
niien, however, tove is fully developed it becomes an enormously
extended, highly complex emotion, and lust, even in the best sense of
that word, becomes merely a coordinated element among many other
elements. Herbert Spencer, in an interesting passage of his PrinrnpUa
of Psychology (Part IV, Ch. VIII), has analywd love into as many as
nine distinct and important elements: (1) the physical impulse of
sex; (2) the feeling for beauty; (3) affration; (4) admiration and
respect; (5) love of approbation; (6) self-esteem; (T) proprietary
feeling: (8) extended liberty of action from the absence of personal
barriers; (fl) exaltation of the sympathies. "This passion," he con-
cludes, "fuses into one immense aggregate most of the elementary excita-
tions of which we are capable."
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1,36 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
It iB scarcely neceseary to say that to define sexual love, or
even to analyze its componentB, ie by no means to explain its
mystery. We seek to Batisfy our intelligence by means of a
coherent picture of love, but the gulf between that picture and
the emotional reality must always be incommensurable and im-
passable. "There is no word more often pronounced than that
of love," wrote Bonatetten many years ago, "yet there is no subject
more mysterious. Of that which touches ua most nearly we
know least. We measure the march of the stars and we do not
know how we love," And however expert we have become in
detecting and analyzing the causes, the concomitants, and the
results of love, we must still make the same confession to-day.
W& may, as some have done, attempt to explain love as a form of
hunger and thirst, or as a force analogous to electricity, or as k
kind of magnetism, or as a variety of chemical affinity, or as a
vital tropism, but these explanations are nothing more than ways
of expressing to ourselves the magnitude of the phenomenon we
are in the presence of.
What has always baffled men in the contemplation of sexual
love is the seeming inadequacy of its cause, the immense dis-
crepancy between the necessarily circumscribed region of mucous
membrane which is the final goal of such love and the sea of
world-embracing emotions to which it seems as the door, so that,
as Bemy de Gourmont has said, "the mucous membranes, by an
ineffable mystery, enclose in their obscure folds all the riches of
the infinite," It is a mystery before which the thinker and the
artist are alike overcome, Donnay, in his play L'Escalade,
makes a cold and stem man of science, who regards love as a
mere mental disorder which can be cured like other disorders, at
last fall desperately in love himself. He forces his way into the
girl's room, by a ladder, at dead of night, and breaks into a long
and passionate speech; "Everj-thing that touches you becomes
to me myateiious and sacred. Ah! to think that a thing so well
known as a woman's body, which sculptors have modelled, which
poets have sung of, which men of science like myself have dis-
sected, that such a thing should suddenly become an unknown
mystery and an infinite joy merely because it is the body of one
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THE VALUATION OF SEXUAL LOVE. 137
particular woman — what insanity ! And yet that is what I feel."'
That love ie a natural insanity, a temporary deluaion which
the individual is compelled to suffer for the aake of the race, is
indeed an explanation that has suggested itself to many who have
been baffled by this mystery. That, as we know, was the explana-
tion offered by Schopenhauer. When a youth and a girl fall into
each other's arms in the ecstacy of love they imagine that they are
seeking their own happiness. But it is not bo, said Schopen-
hauer ; they are deluded by the genius of the race into the belief
that they ate seeking a personal end in order that they may be
induced to effect a far greater impersonal end: the creation of
the future race. The intensity of their passion is not the
measure of the personal happiness they will secure but the
measure of their aptitude for producing offspring. In accepting
passion and renouncing the counsels of cautious prudence the
yonth and the girl are really sacrificing their chances of
selfish happiness and fulfilling the larger ends of Nature. As
Schopenhauer saw the matter, there was here no vulgar illusion.
The lovers thought that they were reaching towards a boundlessly
immense personal happiness; they were probably deceived. But
they were deceived not because the reality was less than their
imagination, but because it was more; instead of pursuing, as
they thought, a merely personal end they were carrying on the
creative work of the world, a task better left undone, as Schopen-
hauer viewed it, but a task whose magnitude he fully recognized. ^
It must be remembered that in the lower sense of deception,
love may be, and frequently is, a delusion. A man may deceive
himself, or be deceived by the object of his attraction, concerning
1 Several centuries earlier another French writer, the diHlinguiaheil
physician, A. laurentius (DfB Laurens) in his Bitloria Anatomies
Humani Corporis (lib. viii, Qusstio vii) had likewise puzzled over "the
incredible desire of coitui," and asked how it was that "that divine
animal, full of reason and judgment, which we call Man, should be
attracted to those obacene parts of women, soiled with filth, which are
placed, like a sewer, in the lowest part of the body." It is noteworthy
that, from the first, and equally among men of religion, men of science,
and men of letters, the mystery of this problem ha« peculiarly appealed
to the French mind.
2 Schopenbaner, Die Welt alt WiOe und Vorstellang, vol. ii, pp. 60*
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138 PSTCHOLOaY OF SEX.
the qualities that she pOBECeaeB or fails to poesess. In first love,
occurring in youth, such deception is perhaps entirely normal,
and in certain Buggeetible and inflammable types of people it is
peculiarly apt to occur. This kind of deception, although far
more frequent and conspicuous in matters of love — and more
serious because of the tightness of tiie marriage bond — is liable
to occur in any relation of life. For most people, however, and
those not the least sane or the least wise, the memory of the
exaltation of love, even when the period of that exaltation is
over, still remains as, at the least, the memory of'one of the most
real and essential facts of life.^
Some writers seem to confuse tlie liability in matters of love to
deception or disappointment with the larger question of a metaphysical
illusion in Schopenhauer's sense. To some extent this confusion per-
haps eiiBtB in the discussion of love by Renouvier and Prat in La
youvelle Monadologie (pp. 216 et aeq.). In considering whether love ia
or is not a delusion, they answer that it is or is not according as we
are, or are not, dominated by selftshneas and injustice. "It was not an
es»ent[al error which presided over the creation of the idol, for the idol
is only what in all things the ideal is. But to realize the ideal in love
two persons are needed, and therein is the great difficulty." We are
never justified, they conclude, in casting contempt on our love, or even
on its object, for if it is true that we hare not gained possession of the
sovereign beauty of the world it is equally true that we have not
attained a degree of perfection that would have entitled us justly to
rlaim so great a prize." And perhaps most of us, it may be added, must
admit in the end, if we are honest with ourselves, that the priEea of
love we have gained in the world, whatever their flaws, are far greater
than we deserved.
We may well agree that in a certain sense not love alone but
all the passions and desires of men are illusions. In that sense
1 "Perhaps there is scarcely a man," wrote Malthus, a clergyman
as well as one of the profoundest thinkers of his day (fssoy on the
PrincipU of Popuiolton, 1798, Ch. XI), "who has once experienced tha
genuine delight of virtuous love, however great his intellectual pleasures
may have been, that does not look back to the period as the sunny spot
in bis whole life, where his imagination loves to bask, which he recol-
lects r.nd contemplates with the fondest regrets, and which he would
most wish to live over again. The superioritj' of intellectual to sexual
pleasures consists rather in their filling up more time, in their having
a lai^T range, and in their being less liable to satiate, than in their
being more real and essential."
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THE TALCATION OF BEZUAL LOVE, 139
the Qospel of Buddha ts juBtified, and we may recognize the in-
spiration of Shakespeare (in the Tempest) and of Calderon (in
La Vida cs Sueiio), who felt that ultimately the whole world is
an insubstantial dream. Bui short of that large and ultimate
vision we cannot accept illusion ; we cannot admit that love is a
delueion in some special and peculiar sense that men's other
cravings and aspirations escape. On the contrary, it is the most
solid of realities. All the progressive forma of life are built up on
the attraction of sex. If we admit the action of sexual selection
— as we can scarcely fail to do if we purge it from its unessential
accretions' — ^love has moulded the precise shape and color, the
essential beauty, alike of animal and human life.
If we further reflect that, as many investigators believe, not
only the physical structure of life but also its spiritual structure
— our Rocial feelings, our morality, our religion, our poetry and
art — are, in some degree at least, also built up on the impulse of
se.T, and would have been, if not non-existent, certainly altogether
different had other than sexual methods of propagation prevailed
in the world, we may easily realize that we can only fall into
confusion by dismissing love as a delusion. The whole edifice of
life topples down; for as the idealist Schiller long since said, it is
entirely built up on hunger and on love. To look upon love as
in any special sense a delusion is merely to fall into the trap of
a shallow cynicism. Love is only a delusion in bo far as the
whole of life is a delusion, and if we accept the fact of life it is
unphilosophical to refuse to accept the fact of love.
It is unnecesBarj here to magnify the functions of love in the
world; it is sufficient to investigate its workings in its own proper
sphere. It iiia]r, however, be worth while to quote a few ezpregBions of
thinkers, belonging to various sehoola, who have pointed out what
seemed to them the far-ranging significance of the sexual emotions for
the moral life. "The passions are the heavenly fire which gives life to
the moral world," wrote HelvfitiuH long since in De I'EspHt. "The
activity of the mind depends on the activity of the passions, and it is
at the period of the passions, from the oge of twen^-five to thirty-five
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140 PSTCHOLOOT OF SEI.
OT forl^ that men are capable oi the greatest efforts of virtue OT of
geniiiB." "What touchei nex," wrote Zola, "toucbea the centre of Bocial
life." Even our regard tot the praise and blame of oUiers has a ae.<iual
origin, Professor ThomuH argues {Psychological Review, Jan,, 1904, pp.
61-87), and it is love which is the souTee of Busceptibilitj generally and
of the altruistic side of life. "The appearance of sex," ProfesBor Woods
IIutchinBon attempts to show ("Love as a. Factor in Evolution." Moniat,
1898), "the development of maleness and femaleness, wbb not only the
birthplace of affection, the well-spring of all morali^, but an enormous
economic advantage to the race and an absolute necessity of progress.
In it first we find any conscious longing for or active impulse toward a.
fellow creature." "Were man robbed of the instinct of procreation, and
of alt that spiritually springs therefrom," exclaimed Maudsley in his
Physiology of Hind, "that moment would all poetry, and perhaps also
his whole moral sense, be obliterated from bis life." "One seems to
oneself tranaflgured, stronger, richer, more complete; one it more com-
plete," Bays Nietzsche {Der Wille xur Mackt, p. 389), "we find here ort
as an organic function; we find it inlaid in the most angelic instinct of
'love:' we find it as the greatest stimulant of life It is
not merely that it changes the feeling of values: the lover ia worth
more, is stronger. In animals this condition produces new weapons,
pigments, colors, and forms, above all new movements, new rhythms, a
new seductive music. It is not otherwise in man Even
in art the door is opened to him. If we subtract from lyrical work in
words and sounds the suggestions of that intestinal fever, what is left
over in poetry and music? L'Art pour Vart perhaps, the quacking vir-
tuosity of cold frogs who perish in their marsh. All the rest is created
It would be easy to multiply citationa tending to show how many
diverse thinkers have come to the concloBion that sexual love (including
therewith parental and especially maternal love) is the source of the
chief manifestations of life. How far they are justified in that conclu-
sion, It is not our business now to inquire.
It is imdonbtedlv true that, as we have seen when discussing
the erratic and imperfect distribution of the conception of love,
and even of words for love, over the world, by no means all
people are equally apt for experiencing, even at any time in their
lives, the emotions of pcxual exaltation. The difference between
the knight and the churl utill subsists, and both may sometimes
be found in all social strata. Even the refinements of sexual
enjoyment, it is unnecessary to insist, quite commonly remain on
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THE VALUATION OF SEXUAL LOVE. 141
a merely physical basis, and have little effect on the intellectual
and emotional nature.^ But this is not the case with the people
who have most powerfully influenced the course of the world's
thought and foeling. The personal reality of love, its importance
for the individual life, are facts that have been testified to by
some of the greatest thinkers, after lives devoted to the attain-
ment of intellectual labor. The experience of Renan, who
toward the end of his life set down in his remarkable drama
L'Abhesse de Jouarre, his conviction that, even from the point
of view of chastity, love is, after all, the supreme thing in the
world, is far from standing alone. "Love has always appeared
as an inferior mode of human music, ambition as the superior
mode," wrote Tarde, the distinguished sociologist, at the end of
his life. "But will it always be thus? Are there not reasons
for thinking that the future perhaps reserves for us the ineffable
surprise of an inversion of that secular order?" Laplace, half an
hour before hie death, took up a volume of his own Mecantque
Celeste, and said : "AH that is only trifles, there is nothing true
but love." Comte, who had spent his life in building up a
Positive Philosophy which should be absolutely real, found {as
indeed it may be said the great English Positivist Mill also
found) the culmination of all his ideals in a woman, who was,
he said, Egeria and Beatrice and Laura in one, and he wrote:
"There is nothing real in the world but love. One grows tired of
thinking, and even of acting; one never grows tired of loving,
nor of saying so. In the worst tortures of affection I have never
ceased to feel that the essential of happiness is that the heart
should be worthily filled — even with pain, yes, even with pain,
the bitterest pain." And Sophie Kowalewskj', after intellectual
achievements which have placed her among the most distinguished
of her sex, pathetically wrote: "Why can no one love me? I
could give more tlian most women, and yet the most insignificant
women are loved and I am not." Ixtve, they all seem to say, is
I'Terhapi moat nvernge men," Forel remarks {Die Sextielle Fragt,
p. 307), "are but slightly receptive to the intoxication of love; they sre
Kt moat on the level of the gourmet, which is by no means necessarily
an immoral plane, but is certainly not thttt of poetry."
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142 PS.yCHOLOGT OF 8KX.
the oDc thing that is supremely worth while. The greatest and
most brilliant of the world's intellectual giants, in their moments
of final insight, thus reach the habitual level of the humble and
almost anonymous persouB, cloistered from the world, who wrote
The Imitation of Christ or The Letters of a Portuguese Nun.
And how many others t
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CHAPTER V.
THE FUNCTION OF CHASTITY.
Cbastitj' Eseential to tbe Dignity of Love— The Eighteenth Centuiy
Revolt Against tf* Ideal of Chaality — Unnatural Forms of Chastity —
The Psychological Basis of Asceticism — AscetidBm and Chastity ae
Savage Virtuee — The Significance of Tahiti — Chastity Among Barbarous
Feoplea-'ChaBti^ Among the Early Christiaua — Struggles of the Saints
with the Flesh — The Romance of Christian Chastity — Its Decay in
Mediteval Times — Amxutin et Nicolette and the new Romance of Chaste
Love — The Unchaetity of the Northern Barbarians — The Penitentials —
Influence of the Renaissance and Ihe Reformation — The Revolt Against
Virginity as a Virtue — The Modern Conception of Chastity as & Virtue
— ^The Influences That Favor the Virtue of Chastity — (.'bastity as a Dis-
cipline— The Value of Chastity for the Artist — Potency and Impotence
in Popular Estimation — The Correct Definitions of Asceticism and
Chastity.
The supreme importance of chastity, and even of asceticism,
has never at any time, or in any greatly vital human society,
altogether failed of recognition. Sometimes chastity has been
exalted in hnman estimation, sometimes it has been debased; it
has frequently changed the nature of its manifestations ; but it
has always been there. It is even a part of the beautiful vision of
all Nature. "The glory of the world is seen only by a chaste
mind," said Thoreau with hia fine extravagance. "To whomso-
ever this fact is not an awful but beautiful mystery there are no
flowers in Nature." Without chastity it is impossible to main-
tain the dignity of sexual love. The society in which its estima-
tion sinks to a minimum is in the last stages of degeneration.
Chastity has for sexnal love an importance which it can never
lose, least of all to-day.
It is quite true that during the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries many men of high moral and intellectual distinction
pronounced very decidedly their condemnation of the ideal of
chastity. The great BuflEon refused to recognize chastity as an
(143)
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144 P8TCHOLOOT OF SEX,
ideal and referred scornfully to "that kind of insanity which has
turned a girl's virginity into a thing with a real esistence," while
William Morris, in his downright manner, once declared at a
meeting of the Fellowship of the Xew Life, that asceticism is "the
most disgusting vice that afflicted human nature." Blake,
though he Reems always to have been a strictly moral man in the
most conventional sense, felt nothing but contempt for chastity,
and sometimes confers a kind of religious solemnity on the idea
■of unchastity. Shelley, who may have been unwise in aesnal
matters but can scarcely be called unchaste, also often seems to
associate religion and morality, not with chastity, but with un-
chastity, and much the same may be aaid of James Hinton.^
But all these men — with other men of high character who
have pronounced similar opinions — were reacting against false,
decayed, and conventional forma of chastity. They were not
rebelling against an ideal; they were seeking to set up an ideal
in a place where they realized that a mischievous pretense was
masquerading as a moral reality.
We cannot accept an ideal of chastity unless we ruthleealy
cast aside all the unnatural and empty forms of chastity. If
chastity is merely a fatiguing effort to emulate in the sexual
sphere the exploits of professional fasting men, an effort using
up all the energies of the organism and resulting in no achieve-
ment greater than the abstinence it involves, tlien it is surely an
unworthy ideal. If it is a feeble submission to an external
conventional law which there is no courage to break, then it is
not an ideal at all. If it is a rule of morality imposed by one
sex on the opposite sex, then it is an injustice and provocative
■of revolt. If it is an abstinence from the usual forms of sex-
uality, replaced by more abnormal or more secret forma, then it is
simply an unreality based on misconception. And if it is merely
an external acceptance of conventions ^-ithout any further
1 For Blake and for Shelley, as well as, it may be added, for Hin-
ton. chastity, as Todhunter remarks in his Btudu of FHiFllry, is "a typo
of Biibmission to the actual, a renunciation of the infinite, and is there-
fore hated bj them. The chaste man, i.e.. the man of prudence and self-
control, is the man who has lost the nakedness of his prfmitive
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THE FUNCTION OF OHABTITT. 146
acceptance, even in act, then it ie a contemptible farce. Theae
are the forms of chastity which during the past two ceqturiea
many fine-souled men have vigorously rejected.
The fact that chastity, or asceticism, is a real virtue, with
fine nses, becomes evident when we realize that it has flourished at
all times, in connection with all kinds of religions and the most
various moral codes. We find it pronounced among savages, and
the special virtues of savagery — hardness, endurance, and bravery
— are intimately connected with the cultivation of chastity and
asceticism.^ It is true that savages seldom have any ideal of
chastity in the degraded modem sense, as a state of permanent
abstinence from sexual relationships having a merit of its own
apart from any use. They esteem chastity for its values, magical
or real, as a method of self-control which contributes towards the
attainment of importiint ends. The ability to bear pain and
restraint is nearly always a main element in the initiation of
youtha at puberty. The custom of refraining from sexual inter-
course before expeditions of war and hunting, and other serious
concerns involving great muscular and mental strain, whatever
the motives assigned, is a sagacious method of economizing
eneigy. The extremely wide-spread habit of avoiding inter-
course during pregnancy and suckling, again, is an admirable pre-
caution in sexual hygiene which it is extremely difficult to
obtain the observance of in civilization. Savages, also, are. per-
fectly well aware how valuable sexual continence is, in combina-
tion with fasting and solitude, to acquire the aptitude for ab-
normal spiritual powers.
Thus C. Hill Tout (Journal Anthropologieal Inttitute, Jan..Ju]ie,
ISOO, pp. 143-145) gives an interesting ftccount of the self-diaclpline
undergone by those among the Salish Indians of British Coliunbia, who
seek to acquire shantanistic powers. The psjchio effects of such train*
1 For evidence of the practices of savages in this matter, see Appen.
dix A to the third volume of these Studiea, "The Seiual Instinct in
Sava^s." Cf. also Chs. IV and VII of Weatermarck'a Hiitory of
Human Marriage, and also Chs. XXXVIII and XLI of the same author's
" ■ " - - ■ - , jj. pfujer's Oolden
also Crawley's Mystic
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146 FBYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
ing on tbeae men, bays Hill Tout, ie undoubted. "It enables tbem
to undertalie and accomplish feata of abnormal strength, agilitj, and
endurance; and gives them at times, besideB a general exaltation of the
Benses, undoubted clairvoyant and other supernormal mental and bodily
powers." At the other end of the world, as shown bj the Reports of
ike Anthropologioal Expedition to Torrm Strait$ (vol. v, p. 321), closely
analogous methods of obtaining supernatural powers are alao customary.
There are fundamental psychological reasons for the wide prev-
alence of asceticism and for the remarkable manner in which it involves
self-mortilicBtion, even acute physical suffering. Such pain is an actual
psychic stimulant, more especially in slightly neurotic persons. This is
well illustrated by a young woman, a patient of Janet's, who suffered
from mental depression and was accustomed to find relief by slightly
burning her hands and feet. She herself clearly understood the nature
of her actions. "I feel," she said, "that I make an effort when 1 hold
my hands on the stove, or when I pour boiling water- on my feet; it is
a violent act and it awakens me: t feel that it is really done by myself
and not by another To make a mental effort by itself Is
too difficult for me; I have to supplement it by physical efforts. I
have not succeeded in any other way: that is all ; when I brace myself
up to burn myself I make my mind freer, lighter and more active for
several days. Why do you speak of my desire for mortification T My
parents believe that, but it is absurd. It would be a mortiflcatioa if
it brought any suffering, but I enjoy this suffering, it gives me back my
mind; it prevents my thoughts fiom stopping; what would one not do
to attain such happiness!" (P. Janet, "The Pathogenesis of Some Impul-
sions," Journal of Abnormal Psychology, April, 1906.) If we under-
stand this psychological process we may realize how it is that even is
the higher religions, however else they may differ, the practical value
of asceticism and mortification as the necessary door to the most exalted
religious state is almost universally recognized, and with complete cheer-
fulness. "Asceticism and ecstacy are inseparable," as Probst-Birabeii
remarks at the outset of an interesting paper on Mahommcdan mysti-
cism ("L'Eitase dans le Mystioisme Musulman," Revve Fhitoaophiqae,
Nov., 1906). Asceticism is the necessary ante-chamber to spiritual per-
fection.
It thus happenB that savage peoples largely base their often
admirable enforcement of aBceticiam not on the practical grounds
that would justify it, but on religious grounds that with the
growth of intelligence fall into dieeredit.' Even, however, when
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THE FUNCTION OF CHASTITY. 147
the scrupulous obseiTances of savages, whether in sesual or in non-
sexual matters, are without any obviously sound basis it cannot be
said that they are entirely useless if they tend to encourage self-
control and the sense of reverence. ^ The would-be intelligent
and practical peoples who cast aside primitive observances becauee
they seem baaelesB or even ridiculous, need a still finer practical
sense and still greater intelligence in order to realize that, though
the reasons for the observances have been wrong, yet the observ-
ances themselves may liave been necessary methods of attaining
personal and social efficiency. It constantly happens in the course
of civilization that we have to revive old observances and furnish
them with new reasons.
In consideriDg the moral quality of fhaHtity nmong savages, wo
must carefully sepaiate that chastity which among Bcmi -primitive peo-
ples IB exclusively imposed upon women. This has no moral quality
whatever, for it is not exercised as a useful discipline, but merely
enforced in order to heighten the economic and erotic value of the
women. Many awthoritics believe that the regard for women as prop-
erty furnishes the true reason for the widespread insistence on virginity
in brides. Thus A. B. Ellis, speaking of the West Coast of Africa
lYoruba-Speaking Peoples, pp. 183 et »eq.), says that girls of good class
are beti'othed as mere children, and are carefully guarded from men,
while girls of lower class are seldom betrothed, and may lead any life
they choose, "In this custom of infant or child betrothals we probably
find the key to that curious regard for ante-nuptial chastitj' found not
only among the tribes of the Gold and Slave Coasts, but also among
many otlier uncivilized peoples in different parts of the world." In a
very different part of the world, in Northern Siberia, "the Yakuts,"
Sieroshevski states {Journal AntkropoJogieat Institute, Jan, -June, 1901,
1 Thus an old Maori declared, a few years ago, that the decline of
his race has been entirely due to the loss of the ancient religious faith
in the tabu. "For," said he (I quote from an Auckland newspaper),
"in the olden-time our tapu ramified the whole social Bystem. The
head, the hair, spots where apparitions appeared, places which the
tohungos proclaimed as sacred, we have forgotten and disregarded. Who
nowadays thinks of the sacredness of the head? See when the kettle
boils, the young man jumps up, whips the cap off his head, and uses it
for a kettle-holder. Who nowadays but looks on with indifference when
the barber of the village, if he be near the fire, shakes the loose hair off
his cloth into it, and the joke and the lauRhtcr f^s on as if no sacred
operation had just been concluded. Food is consumed on places which,
in bygone days, It dared not even be carried over."
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148 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX,
p. S6], "see nothing immoral in illicit love, providing oolj that nobody
suffers material loss by it. It is true that parents will scold a daughter
if her conduct threatens to deprive them of their gain from the bride-
price; but if once they have lost hope of marrying her off, or if tha
bride-price has been spent, they manifest complete indiffereoce to her
conduct Maidens who no longer expect marriage are not restrained
at all, if they obserre decorum it is only out of respect to cmtom."
Westermarck {Tliftory of Human Marriage, pp. 123 et »eq.) also shows
the connection between the high estimates of virgioity and the concep-
tion of woman as property, and returning to the question in his later
work, The Origin and Development of Ihe Moral Ideas (vol. ii, Ch.
XLII), after pointing out that "marriage by purchase has thus raised
the standard of female chastity," he refers (p. 437) to the significant
fact that the seduction of an unmarried girl "is chiefly, if not exclu-
sively, regarded as an offense against the parents or family of the girl,"
and there is no indication that it is ever held by savages that any wrong
has been done to the woman herself. Westermarck recognizes at tha
same time that the preference given to vir^^ns has also a biological basis
in the instinctive masculine feeling of jealousy in regard to women who
liave had intercourse with other men, and especially in the erotic charm
for men of the emotional state of shyness whicli accompanies virginity.
(This point has been dealt with in the discussion of Modesty in vol. i
of these Btudiea.)
It is scarcely necessary to add that the insistence on the virginity
of brides is by no means confined, as A. B. Ellis seems to imply, to
uncivilized peoples, nor is it necessary tliat wife-purchase should always
accompany it. The preference still persists, not only by virtue of its
natural biological basis, but as a, refinement and extension of the idea
of woman as property, among those ciiilized peoples who, like ourselves,
inherit a form of marriage to some extent based on wife- purchase.
Under such conditions a woman's chastity has an important social func-
tion to perform, bein^. as Mrs. Mona Caird has put it {The Morality of
Marriage, 1897, p. 88), the watch -dog of man's property. The fact that
no element of ideal morality enters into the question is shown by the
usual absence of any demand for ante-nuptial chastity in the husband.
It must not be supposed that when, as is most usually the case,
there is no complete and permanent prohibition of extra-nuptial inter-
course, mere unrestrained license prevails. That has probably never
happened anywhere among uncontaminated savages. The rule probably
is that, as among the tribes at Torres Straits (Reports Cambridgt
Anthropological Expedition, vol. v, p. 275), there is no complete con-
tinence before marriage, but neither is there any unbridled license.
The example of Tahiti is instructive as regards the prevalence of
chastity among peoples of n-hat we generally consider low grades of
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THE FUSCTIOK OF CHASTITY. 149
eiTillzation. Tahiti, according to all who have visited it, from the
earliest explorera down to that dittinguiihed Americaa surgeon, the lat«
Dr. tiieholas Senn, is an island posieBsing qualities of natural beauty
e,nd climatic excellence, which it is impossible to rate too highly. "I
eeemad to be transported into the garden of Bden," said Bougainville in
1768. But, mainlj under the influence of the early English misaionaries
who held ideas of theoretical moralit; totally alien to those of the inhab-
itants of the islands, the Tahitians have be«ome the stock example of ft
population given over to licentiousness and all its awful results. Thus,
in his valuable Polj/ntsian Beaearehea (second edition, 1832, vol. i, Ch.
IX) William Ellis says tliat the Tahitians practiced "the worst pollu-
tions of which it was possible for man to be guilty," though not specify-
ing them. When, however, we carefully examine the narratives of tiie
early visitors to Tahiti, before the population became contaminated by
contact with Europeans, it becomes clear that this view needs serious
modification. "The great plenty of good and nourishing food," wrote an
early explorer, J. R. Forster (Obaervationa Made on a Voyage Round the
World. 1778, pp. 231, 400, 422), "together with the fine cliraat«, the
beauty and unreserved liehavior of their females, invite them powerfully
to the enjoyments and pleasures of love. They begin very early to
abandon themselves to the most libidinous scenes. Their songs, their
dances, and dramatic performances, breathe a spirit of iu]tuTy." Yet
he is over and over again impelled to set down facts which hear testi-
mony to the virtues of these people. Though rather effeminate in
build, they are athletic, he says. Moreover, in their wars they fight
with great bravery and valor. They are, tor the rest, hospitable. He
remarks that they treat their married women with great respect, and
that women generally are nearly the equals of men, both in intelligence
and in social position; he gives a charming description of the women.
"In short, their character," Forster concludes, "is as amiable as that of
any nation that ever came unimproved out of the hands of Nature," and
he remarks that, as was felt by the South Sea peoples generally, "when-
ever we came to this happy island we could evidently perceive the
opulence and happiness of its inhabitants." It is noteworthy also, that,
notwithstanding the high importance which the Tahitians attached to
the erotic side of life, they were not deficient in regard for chastity.
When Cook, who visited Tahiti many times, was among "this benevolent
humane" people, he noted their esteem for chastity, and found that not
only were betrothed girls strictly guarded before maTiage, but that men
also who had refrained from sexual intercourse for some time before
marriage were believed to pass at death immediately into the abode of
the blessed. "Their behavior, on all occasions, seems to indicate a great
openness and generosity of disposition. T never saw them, in any mil-
fortune, labor under the appearance of anxiety, after the critical moment
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150 P8TCHOLOOY OF SEX.
was past. Neither does care ever seem to wrinkle tlieir brovv. On the
contrary, even the approach of death does not appear to alter their usual
vivacity" {Third Voyage of Discovery, 1770-1780). Turnbull visited
Tahiti at a later period (A Voyage Round the World in ISOO, etc., pp.
374-5), but while finding all sorts of vices among them, he ia yet com-
pelled to admit their virtues r "Their manner of addressing strangers,
from the king to the meanest subject, is courteous and affable in the
extreme They certainly livs amongst each other in more
harmony than is usual amongst Europeans. During the whole time 1
was amongst them I nevi?r saw such a thing as a battle I
never remember to have seen an Otaheitean out of temper. They jeat
upon each other with greater freedom than the Europeans, but these
jests are never taken in ill part, .... With regard to food, it
is, I believe, an invariable law In Otaheite that whatever is poasesaed by
one is common to all." Thus we see that even among a people who are
commonly referred to as the supreme example of a nation given up to
uncontrolled licentiousness, the claims of chastity were admitted, and
many other virtues vigorously flourished. The Tahitians were brave,
hospitable, self-controlled, courteous, considerate to the needs of others,
chivalrous to women, even appreciative of the advantages of sexual
restraint, to an extent which haa rarely, if ever, been known among
those Christian nationa which have looked down upon them aa abandoned
to unspeakable vices.
Ab we turn from eavagea towards peoples in the barbaroua
and civilized stages we find a general tendency for cliastity, in so
far as it ia a common possessioD of tlie common people, to be lees .
regarded, or to be retained only as a traditional convention no
longer strictly observed. The old grounds for chastity in primi-
tive religions and iabu have decayed and no new grounds have
been generally established. "Although the progress of civiliza-
tion," wrote Gibbon long ago, "has undoubtedly contributed to
assuage the fiercer passions of human nature, it seems to have
been less favorable to the virtue of chastity," and Westermarck
concludes that "irregular connections between the sexes have, on
the whole, exhibited a tendency to increase along with the prog-
ress of civilization."
The main difference in the social function of chastity as we
pass from savagery to higher stages of culture seems to be that
it ceases to e^ist as a general hygienic measure or a general
■ceremonial observance, and, for the most part, becomes confined
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THE FUNCTION OF CHASTITY. 161
to special philoBophic or religious sects which cultivate it to an
extreme degree in a more or less professional way. This state of
things is well illustrated bj the Boman Empire during the earlj
centuries of the Christian era.^ Christianity itself was at first
one of these sects enamored of the ideal of chastity ; but by its
superior vitality it replaced all the others and finally impoeed its
ideals, though by no means its primitive practices, on European
society generally.
Chastity manifested itself in primitive Christianity in two
different though not necessarily opposed ways. On the one
hand it took a stem and practical form in vigorous men and
women who, after being brought up in a society permitting a
high degree of sexual indulgence, suddenly found themselves con-
vinced of the sin of such indulgence. The battle with the society
they had been bom into, and with their own old impulses and
habits, became so severe that they often found themselves com-
pelled to retire from the world altogether. Thus it was that the
parched solitudes of Egypt were peopled with hermits largely
occupied with the problem of subduing their own flesh. Their
preoccupation, and indeed the preoccupation of much early
Christian literature, with sexual matters, may be said to be vastly
greater than was the case with the pagan society they had left.
Paganism accepted sexual indulgence and was then able to dis-
miss it, so that in classic literature we find very little insistence
on sexual details except in writers like Martial, Juvenal and
Petronius who introduce them mainly for satirical ends. But
the Christians could not thus escape from the obsession of sex ;
it was ever with them. We catch interesting glimpses of their
atmggles, for the most part barren struggles, in tlie Epistles of
St. Jerome, who bad himself been an athlete in these ascetic con-
"<%, how manj times," wrote St, Jerome to Eustochium, the
virgin to whom he addresBed one of the longest and most interesting of
his letters, "when in the desert, in that vast solitude which, burnt up
1 Thus, long before Christian monks arose, the ascetic life of the
cloister on veiy similar lines existed In Egypt in the worship of Serapis
( Dill, Roman Society, p. T9 ) .
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152 P8TCH0L0GY OF SEX.
by the heart of the sun, offers but a horrible dwelling to monkB, I
imagined mjeelf among the delights of Romel I was alone, for aty bouI
wa« full of bittemeu. Hy limbs were covered by a wretched sack and
mj slcin was as black as an Ethiopian's. BTer; d&y I wept and groaned,
and if I was uawillingly overcome by sleep my lean body lay on the bare
earth. I say nothing of my food and drink, for In the desert even
invalids have no drink but cold water, and cooked food is regarded as
a luxury. Well, I, who, out of fear of hell, had condemned myself to this
prison, companion of scorpions and wild beasts, often seemed in imagina-
tion among bands of girls. My face was pale with fasting and my mind
within my frigid body was burning with desire; the fires of lust would
still flare up in a body thai already seemed to be dead. Then, deprived
of all help, I threw myself at the feet of Jesus, washing them with my
tears and drying them with my hair, subjugating my rebellious flesh by
long fasts. I remember that more than once I passed the night uttering
cries and striking my breast until God sent me peace." "Our century,"
wrote St. Chrysostom in bis Discourse to Tkote Who Keep Virffint in
Their Houses, "has seen many men who have bound their bodies with
chains, clothed themselves in sacks, retired to the summits of mountains
where they have lived in constant vigil and fasting, giving the example
of the most austere discipline and forbidding all women to cross the
thresholds of their humble dwellings; and yet, in spite of alt the severi-
ties they have exercised on themselves, it was with difficulty they could
repress the fury of their passions." Hilarion, says Jerome, saw visions
of naked women when he lay down on his solitary couch and delicious
meats when he sat down to his frugal table. Such experiences rendered
the early saints very scrupulous. "They used to say," we are told in
an interesting history of the Egyptian anchorites. Palladiua's Paradise
of the Holy Fathers, belonging to the fourth century (A, W. Budge, The
Paradise, vol, ii, p. 120), "that Abba Isaac went out and found the foot-
print of a woman on the road, and he thought about it in his mind and
destroyed it saying. 'If a brother seeth it he may fall,'" Similarly,
according to the rules of St. Crosarius of Aries for nuns, no male cloth-
ing was to be taken into the convent for the purpose of washing or
mending. Even in old age, a certain anxiety about chastity still re-
mained. One of the brothers, we are told in The Paradise (p. 132) said
to Abba Zeno, "Behold thou hast grown old, how is the matter of forni-
cation?" The venerable saint replied, "It knocketh, but it passeth on."
As the centuries went by the same strenuous anxiety to guard
chastity still remained, and the old struggle constantly reappeared t^ee,
e.g., Migne's Dictionnaire d'AscMisme, art, "Dfmon, Tentation du"}.
Some saints, it is true, like Luigi di Oonzaga, were so angelically natured
that they never felt the sling of sexual desire. These seem to have been
the exception. St. Benedict and St. Francis experienced the difficulty of
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THB PDNCTION OP CHASTITT. 153
subduing the flesh. St. Magdalens de Pozzi, in order to dispel sexual
desires, would roll on thorny bushes till the blood came. Some saints
kept a special cask of cold water in their cells to stand in (Lea,
Sacerdotal Celibacy, vol. i, p. 124). On the other hand, the Blessed
Angela de Fulginio tells us in her ViMemea {cap. XIX) that, until for-
hidden bj her confessor, she would plaee hot coals in her secret parts,
hoping by material fire to extinguish the fire of concupiscence. St.
Aldhelm, the holy Bishop of Sherborne, in the eighth century, also
adopted a homeopathic method of treatment, though of a more literal
kind, for William of Malmsbury states that when tempted by the flesh
he would have women to sit and lie by him until he grew calm again;
the method proved very successfnl, for the reason, it was thought, that
the Devil felt he had been made a fool of.
In time the Catholic prsctice and theory of asceticism became
more formalized and elaborated, and its beneficial effects were held to
extend beyond the individual himself. "Asceticism from the ChrtHtian
point of view," writes Brenier de Montmoraud in an interesting study
("Asc^tisme ei Mysticisme," Revue PhiloBOphiqae, March, 1904) "is
nothing else than all the therapeutic measures making for moral purlll-
cation- The Christian ascetic is an athlete struggling to transform his
corrupt nature and make a road to God through the obstacles due to his
passions and the world. He is not working in his own interests alono,
but — by virtue of the reversibility of merit which compensates that of
solidarity in error — for the good and for the salvation of the whole of
society."
This is the aspect of early Christian aaceticism moat often
emphaeized. But there is another aspect which may be less
familiar, but has been by no means less important. Primitive
Christian chastity was on. one side a Btrenuous discipline. On
another side it was a romance, and this indeed was its most
specifically Christian side, for athletic asceticism has been asso-
ciated with the most various religious and philosophic belief.'f.
If, indeed, it had not possessed the charm of a new sensation, of a
delicious freedom, of an unknown adventure, it would never have
conquered the European world. There are only a few in that
world who have in them the stuff of moral athletes; there are
many who respond to the attraction of romance.
The Christians rejected the grosser forms of se-Tual indul-
gence, but in doing so they entered with a more delicate ardor
into the more refined forms of sexual intimacy. They cultivated
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154 PSYCHOLOGY OF 8BX.
a relatioDsliip of brolliers and Bisters to each other, they kissed
one another ; at one time, in the spiritual orgy of baptism, tliey
were not ashamed to adopt complete nakedneBB.i
A very inBtnietiye picture of the forma which chastity
assumed among the early Christians is given us in the treatise of
Chryaostom Against Those who Keep Virgins in tkeir Houses.
Our fathers, Chryaostom begins, only knew two forms of sexual
intimacy, marriage and fornication. Now a third form has
appeared : men introduce young girls into their houses and keep
them there permanently, respecting their virginity. "What,"
Chryaostom asks, "is tlie reason? It seems to me that life in
common with a woman is sweet, even outside conjugal union and
fleshly commerce. That is my feeling ; and perhaps it is not my
feeling alone; it may also be that of these men. They would
not hold their honor so cheap nor give rise to such scandals if
this pleasure were not violent and tyrannical. . . . That
there should really be a pleasure in this which produces a love
more ardent than conjugal union may surprise you at first. But
when I give you the proofs you will agree that it is so." The
absence of restraint to desire in marriage, he continues, often
leads to speedy disgust, and even apart from this, sexual inter-
course, pregnancy, delivery, lactation, the bringing up of children,
and all the pains and anxieties that accompany these things soon
destroy youth and dull the point of pleasure. The virgin is free
from these burdens. She retains her vigor and youthfulness, and
even at the age of forty may rival the young nubile girl. "A
double ardor thus bums in the heart of him who lives with her,
and the gratification of desire never extinguishes the bright
flame which ever continues to increase in strength." Chrysostom
describes minutely all the little cares and attentions which the
modem girls of his time required, and which these men delighted
to expend on their virginal sweethearts whether in public or in
private. He cannot help tliinking, however, that the man who
lavishes kisses and caresses on a woman whose virginity he retains
1 At night, ID the baptietry, with lamps dimly burning, the woraen
were stripped even of tlieir tunics, plunged three times in the pool, then
nnointed, dreased in whit«, &Dd kisaed.
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THE FDNCTION OF CHASTITY. 155
IB putting himself sotnewliat in the poeition of Tantalus. But
this new refinemeiit of tender chastity, wliich came as a delicious
discovery to the early Christians who had resolutely thrust away
the licentiousness of the pagan world, was deeply rooted, as we
discover from the frequency with which the grave Fathers of the
Church, apprehensive of scandal, felt called upon to reprove it,
though their condemnation is sometimes not without a trace of
secret syrapathy.i
There was one form in which the new Christian chastity
fiourished exuberantly and unchecked: it conquered literature.
The most charming, and, we may be sure, the most popular
literature of the early Church lay in the innumerable romances of
«rotic chastity — to some e.\tent, it may well be, founded on fact
— which are embodied to-day in the Acta Sanctorum. We can
eee in even the most simple and non-miraculous early Christian
Tecords of the martyrdom of women that the writers were fully
aware of the delicate charm of the heroine who, like Perpetua at
Carthage, tossed by wild cattle in the arena, rises to gather her
torn garment aroundher and to put up her disheveled hair.^ It
was an easy step to the stories of romantic adventure. Among
these delightful stories I may refer especially to the legend of
Thekla, which has been placed, incorrectly it may be, as early as
the first century, "The Bride and Bridegroom of India" in Judas
Thomas's Acts, "The Virgin of Antioch" as narrated by St.
Ambrose, the history of "Achilleus and Nereus," "Mygdonia
and Karish," and "Two Lovers of Auvergne" as told by Gregory
of Tours. Early Christian literature aboimds in the stories of
lovers who had indeed preserved their chastity, and had yet
-discovered the most exquisite secrets of love.
1 Thus Jerome, in his letter to Eustochhim, referi to those couples
who "Bhare the same room, often even the same bed, and call ue sus-
picious if we draw anj conclusions." while Cyprian {Kpislola, SA)
is nnable to approve of those men he hears of, one a deacon, who live
in familiar intercourse with vir^ns. even sleeping in the same bed wittt
them, for, he declares, the feminine sex is uesk and 7011th is wanton.
S Perpetua (Acta Sanetorum, March 7) ia termed bv Hort and
Mayor "that fairest flower in the garden of post- .Apostolic Christen-
dom." She was not, however, a virgin, but a yoMog mother with a baby
«t her breast.
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156 PSYCUOLOGT OF SEX.
Thekla'B day fs the twenty'third of September. There is a very
good Sjriae version (by Lipaiua and others regarded ae more primitive
than the Oreek version) of the Acts of Paul and Thekta (see, e.g.,
Wright's Apocryphal Acts). These Acta tielong to the latter part of the
second century. The story is that Tbekia, refusing to yield t« the pas-
sion of the high priest of Syria, was put, naked but for a girdle (««b-
ligaoulum) iDto the arena on the back of a lioness, which licked her
feet and fought for her againat the other beasts, dying in her defense.
The other beasts, however, did her no harm, and she was finally released.
A queen loaded her with money, she modified her dress to look like k
man, travelled to meet Paul, and lived to old age. Sir W. M, Ramsay
hat written an interesting study of these Aclt {The Charch in the
Rotnan Empire, Ch. XVT). He is of opinion that the Actt are based on
a first century document, and is able U> disentangle many elements of
truth from the story. He states that it ia the only evidence we possess
cf the ideas and actiona of women during the first century in Asia
Minor, where their position was so high and their influence so great.
Tbekia represents the assertion of woman's rights, and she administered
the rite of baptiam, though in the existing veraiona of the Acts these
features are toned down or eliminated.
Some of the most typical of these early Christian romances are
described as Gnosticai in origin, with something of the germs of Mani-
chtean dualism which were held in the rich end complex matrix of
Gnosticism, while the spirit of these romances is also largely Mon-
tanist, with the combined chastity and ardor, the pronounced feminine
tone due to its origin in Asia Minor, which marked Montanism. It can-
not be denied, however, that they largely passed into the main stream
of Christian tradition, and form an essential and important part of
that tradition. (Renan, in his Marc-Aurile, Chs. IX and XV,
insiata on the immense debt of Christianity to Qnostic and Montanist
contributions). A characteristic example ia the atory of "The Betrothed
of India" in Judas Thomas's Acts {Wright's Apoeryphol Acts). Judaa
Thomaa was aold by hia master Jesus to an Indian merchant who
required a carpenter to go with him to India. On disembarking at the
eity of Sandaruk they heard the sounds of music and singing, and learnt
that it was the wedding-foaat of the King's daughter, which all must
attend, rich and poor, slaves and trepmeo, strangers and citizens.
Judaa Thomas went, with his new master, to the banquet and reclined
witli a garland of myrtle placed on hia head. When a Hebrew flute-
player came and stood over him and played, he sang the aongs of Christ,
and it was aeen that he wna more beantiful than nil that were there
and the King sent for him to biess the young couple in the bridal cham-
ber. And when all were gone out nnd the door of the bridal chamber
closed, the bridegroom approached the bride, and saw, as it were, Judaa
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THE FDNCTION OF CHASTITY. 157
Thomaa still tKlkiDg with her. But it wah out Lord who said to biin,
"I am not Judas, but hia brother." And our Lord sat down on the bed
beside the young people and began to say to them: "Remember, my
children, what my brother spake with you, and know to whom he com-
mitted you, and know that if ye preserve younelves from this filthj
intercourse ye become pure temples, and are saved from afflictions mani'
feet and hidden, and from the heavy care of children, the end whereof
is bitt«r sorrow. For their sakes ye will become oppressors and rob-
bers, and ye will be grievously tortured for their injuries. For children
are the eause of many pains; either the King falls upon them or a
demon lays hold of them, or paralysis befalb them, And if they be
healthy they come to ill, either by adultery, or theft, or fornication, or
covetouaaesa, or vain-glory. But if ye will be persuaded by me, and
keep yourselves purely unto (Jod, ye shall have living children to whom
not one of these blemishes and hnrts cometh nigh; and ye shall be
without care and without grief and without sorrow, and ye shall hope
for the time when ye shall see the true wedding-feast." The young
couple were persuaded, and refrained from lust, and our Lord vanished.
And in the morning, when it was dawn, the King had the table fur-
nished early and brought in before the bridegroom and bride. And he
found them sitting the one opposite the other, and the face of (he bride
waa uncovered and the bridegroom was very cheerful. The mother of
the bride saith to her: "Why art thou sitting thus, and art not
aahamed, but art as if, lo, thou wert married a long time, and for many
a dayf And her father, too, said: "la it thy great love for thy hus-
band that prevents thee from even veiling thyself!" And the bride
answered and said: "Truly, my father, I am in great love, and am
praying to my Lord that I may continue in this love whitA I have
experienced this night. I am not veiled, because the veil of corruption
ia taken from me, and I am not ashamed, because the deed of shame baa
been removed far from me. and I am cheerful and gay, and despise this
deed of corruption and the jo^ of this wedding-feast, because I am
invited to the true wedding-feast I have not had intercourse with a.
hnsband, the end whereof is bitter repentance, because I am betrothed
to the true Husband." The bridegroom answered also in the same spirit,
very naturally to the dismay of the King, who sent for the sorcerer
whom he had asked to bless his unlucky daughter. But Judaa Thomas
had already left the city and at his inn the King's stewards found only
the flute-player, sitting and weeping because he had not taken her with
him. She was glad, however, when she heard what had happened, and
hastened to the young couple, and lived with them ever afterwards.
The King also was finally reconciled, and all ended chastely, but happily.
In these same Judas Thamat'a Acta, which are not later than the
fourth century, we find (eighth act) the story of Mygdonin and Karish.
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158 PSYCHOLOGY OP SEX.
Mygdonia, the wife of Karisht ia converted bj Thomas and flees from
her husband, naked save for the curtain of the chamber door which she
has wrapped around her, to her old nurse. With the nurse she goes to
Thomas, who pours holy oil over her head, bidding the nurse to anoint
her all over with it; then a cloth is put round her loins and he bap-
tizes ber; then she is clothed and he gives her the sacrament. The
young rapture of chastity grows lyrical at times, and Judas Thomas
breaks out: "Purity is the athlete who is not overcome. Purity is tbe
truth that blencbeth not. Purity is worthy before God of being to Him
a familiar handmaiden. Purity ia the messenger of concord which
bringeth the tidings of peace."
Another romance of cliastity is furnished by the episode of
BruBiana in The Eiatory of the Apoitlet traditionally attributed to
Afadias, Bishop of Babylon (Bk. v, Ch. JV, et eeg.). Drusiana is the
wife of Andronicus, and is so pious that she will not have intercourse
with him. The youth Callimachua falls madly in love with her, and his
amorous attempts involve many exciting adventures, but the chastity
of Drusiana is finally triumphant.
A characteristic example of the literature we are here concerned
with is St. Ambrose's story of "The Virgin in tJie Brothel" (narrated
in his De Tirginibut, Migne's edition of Ambrose's Works, vols, iii-iv,
p. 211). A certain virgin, St. Ambrose tells us, who lately lived at
Antioch, was condemned either to sacrifice to the gods or to go to the
brothel. She chose the latter alternative. But the first man who came
in to her was a Christian soldier who called her "sister," and bade her
have no fear. He proposed that they should exchange clothes. This
was done and she escaped, while the soldier was led away to death. At
the place of execution, however, she ran up and exclaimed that it was
not death she feared but shame. He, however, maintained that he had
been condemned to death in her place. Finally the crown of martyrdom
for which they contended was adjudged to both.
We constantly observe in til e early documents of this romantio
literature of chastity that chastity is insisted on by no means chiefly
because of its rewards after death, nor even because the virgin who
devotes herself to it secures in Christ an ever-young lover whose golden-
haired beauty is sometimes emphasized. Its chief charm is represented
as lying in its own joy and freedom and the security it involves from
all the troubles, inconveniences and bondages of matrimony. This early
Christian movement of romantic chastity was clearly, in large measure,
a revolt of women against men and marriage. This is well brought out
in the instructive story, aiipposed to be of third century origin, of the
eunuchs Achilleus and Nereus, as narrated in the Acta SaTiotorum, May:
12th. Achilleus and Nereus were Christian eunuchs of the bedchamber
to Domitia, a virgin of noble birth, related to the Emperor Domitian
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THE FUNCTION OP CHASTITY. 159
and betrothed to Aurelian, aon of a. Consul. One day, aa their mistresB
was putting on her jewela and her purple garments embroidered with
gold, they began in turn to talk to her about all the joys and advantage^
of virginity, as compared to marriage with a mere man. The conversa-
tion is developed at great length and with much eloquence. Domitia
was finally perauaded. She suffered much from Aurelian in conse-
quence, and when he obtained her banishment to an island she went
thither with Achilleua and Nereus, who were put to death. Incident-
ally, the death of Felicula, another heroine of chastity, is described.
When elevat«d on the rack because she would not marry, she constantly
refused to deny Jesus, whom she called her lover, "Ego nan nego
amatorem meum!"
A special department of thin literature is concerned with stories
of the conversions or the penitence of courtesans. St. Martinianus, for
instance (Feb. 13), was tempted by the courtesan Zoe, but converted
her. The story of St. Margaret of Cortona (Feb. 22), a penitent
courtesaD, is late, tor she belongs to the thirteenth century. The most
delightful document In this literature is probably the latest, the four-
(eenth century Italian devotional romance called The Life of Saint Mary
Magdaleti^ commonly assooiated with the name of Frate Domenico
Cavalca. (It has been translated into English). It Is the delicately
end delictouslf told romance of the chaste and passionate love of the
sweet sinner, Mary Magdalene, for her beloved Master.
As time went on the insistence on the joys of chastity in this life
became less marked, and chastity is more and more regarded as a state
only to be fully rewarded in a future life. Even, however, in Gregory
of Tours's charming story of "The Two Lovers of Auvergne," in which
this atttitude is clear, the pleasures of chaste love in this life are
brought out as clearly as in any of the early romances {Biatona Fran-
coruM, lib. i, cap. XLII). Two senators of Auvergne each had an only
child, and they betrothed them to each other. When the wedding day
came and the young couple were placed in bed, the bride turned to the
wall and wept bitterly. The bridegroom implored her to tell him what
was the matter, and, turning towards him, she said that if she were to
weep all her days she could never wash away her grief for she had
resolved to give her little body immaculate to Christ, untouched by men,
and now instead of immortal roses she had only had on her brow faded
roses, which deformed rather than adorned it, and instead of the dowry
of Paradise which Christ had promised her she bad become the consort
"of a nferely mortal man. She deplored her sad fate at considerable
length and with much gentle eloquence. At length the bridegroom,
overcome by her sweet words, felt that eternal life had shone before him
like a great light, and declared that if she wished to abstain from carnal
desires he was of the same mind. She was grateful, and with clasped
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160 PSYCHOtOCY OF SEX.
hands they fell asleep. For many years they thus lived together,
chastely sharing the same bed. At length she died and was buried, her
lover restoring her imznaculate to tiie hands of Christ Soon after-
wards be died also, and was placed in a separate tomb. Then a miracle*
happened which made manifest the magnitude of this chaste love, for
the two bodies were found mysteriously placed together. To this day,
Uregory concludes (writing in the sixth century), the people of the
place call them "The Two Lovers."
Although Benan I Uaro-Aurile, Cb. XV) briefly called attention to
the eiiatence of this copious early ChTiatian literature setting forth the
romance of chastity, it seems as yet to have received tittle or no study.
It is, however, of considerable importance, not merely for its own sake,
but on account of its psychological significance in making clear the
nature of the motive forces which made chastity easy and charming to
the people of the early Christian world, even when it involved complete
abstinence from sexual interoourae. The early Church anathematized
the eroticism of the Pagan world, and exorcised it in the most effectual
way t^ setting up a new and more exqnirite erotjciam of ita own.
During the Middle Ages the primitive freshness of Christian
chastity began to lose its charm. No more romances of chastity
were written, and in actual life men no longer sought daring
adventures in the field of chastity. So far as the old ideals snr-
vived at all it was in the secular field of chivalry. The last
notable figure to emulate the achievements of the early Christians
was Robert of Arbriseel in Normandy.
Robert of Arbrissel, who founded, in the eleventh century, the
famous and distinguished Order of Fontevrault for women, was a Breton.
This Celtic origin is doubtless significant, for it may explain his unfail-
ing ardor and gaiety, and his enthusiastic veneration for womanhood.
Even those of his friends who deprecated what thej considered hie scan-
dalous conduct bear testimony to his unfailing and cheerful tempera-
ment, his alertness in action, his readiness for any deed of humanity,
and his entire freedom from severity. He attracted immense crowds of
people of all conditions, especially women, including prostitutes, and hia
influence over women was great. Once he went into a brotbel to warm
his feet, and, incidentally, converted all the women there. "Who are
yout" asked one of them, "I have been here twenty-five years and nobody
has ever come here to talk about God." Robert's relation with hia nun«
at Fontevrault waa very intimate, and he would often sleep with them.
This is set forth precisely in letters written by friends of his, bishops
and abbots, one of whom remarks that Robert had "discovered a now
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THE FUNCTION' OP CHASTITY. 161
but fruitless form of martfrdora." A royal abbess of Pont«vrault in
the seventeenth century, pretending that the venerated founder of the
order could not possibly have been guilty of such scandaloua conduct,
and that the letters must therefore be spurious, had the originalB
destroyed, so far as possible. The Boliandiste, in an wtscholarly and
incomplete account of the matter {Aeta Sanctorum, Feb. 26), adopted
this view. J. von Walter, however, in a recent and thorough study of
Robert of Arbrissel {Die Ersten Wanderprediger Frankreioti*, Theil I),
shows that there is no reason whatever to doubt the authentic and
reliable character of the impugned letters.
The early Christian legends of chastity had, however, their
auccessors. Aucassin et Nicolette, which waa probably written in
N'orthem France towards the end of the twelfth century, is above
all the descendant of the stories in the Acta Sanctorum and else-
where. It embodied their spirit and carried it forward, uniting
their delicate feeling for chastity and purity with the ideal of
monogamic love. Aucassin et Nicolette was the death-knell of
the primitive Christian romance of chastity. It was the dis-
covery that the chaste refinements of delicacy and devotion were
possible within the strictly normal sphere of sexual love.
There were at least two cansea which tended to extinguish
the primitive Christian attraction to chastity, even apart from the
influence of the Church authorities in repressing its romantic
manifestations. In the first place, the submergence of the old
pagan world, with its practice and, to some extent, ideal of
sexual indulgence, removed the foil which had given grace and
delicacy to the tender freedom of the young Christians. In the
second place, the austerities which the early Christians had
gladly practised for the sake of their soul's health, were robbed
of their charm and spontaneity by being made a formal part of
codes of punishment for sin, first in the Penitentials and after-
wards at the discretion of confessors. This, it may be added,
was rendered the more necessary because the ideal of Christian
chastity was no longer largely the possession of refined people
who had been rendered immune to Pagan license 'by being
brought up in its midst, and even themselves steeped in it. It
was clearly from the first a serious matter for the violent North
Africans to maintain the ideal of chastity, and when Christianity
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162 PSTCHOLOOY OP BKX.
spread lo Northern Europe it Hcemed almost a hopeless task to
acclimatize its ideals among the wild Oermana. Hereafter it
became necessary for celibacy to be imposed on the regular clergy
by the stem force of ecclesiastical authority, while voluntary
celibacy was only kept alive by a succession of religious enthus-
iasts perpetually founding new Orders. An asceticism thus
enforced could not always be accompanied by the ardent exalta-
tion necessary to maintain it, and in its artificial efforts at self-
preservation it frequently fell from its insecure heights to the
depths of unrestrained license.^ This fatality of all hazardous
efforts to overpass humanitj^'s normal limits begun to be realized
after the Jliddle Ages were over by clear-sighted thinkers, "Qui
veut faire I'ange," said Pascal, pnngently summing up 'this view
of the matter, "fait la b^te." That had often been illustrated in
the history of the Church.
The Penitential a began to come int« use in the seventh centui?,
and became ot wide prevalence and authority during the ninth and
tenth centuries. The; were bodies of law, partly spiritual and partly
secular, and were thrown into the form of catalogues of offences with
the exact measure of penance prescribed for each offence. Tbey repr«-
sented the introduction of social order among untamed barbarians, and
were codes of criminal law much more than part of a system of sacra-
mental confession and penance. In France and Spain, where order on a
ChTJBtian basis already existed, tbey were little needed. They had thdr
origin in Ireland and England, and especially flourished in Germany;
Charlemagne supported them (see. e.g.. Lea, History of Aurictilar Con-
feasiwt, vol. ii, p. 06, also Ch. XVII; Hugh Williams, edition ot Qildas,
Part II, Appendix 3; the chief Penitentials are reproduced In Wasser*
schleben's ButtOTdnaitgen) .
In 1216 the Lateran Council, under Innocent m, made confession
obligatory. The priestly prerogative of regulating the amount ot pen-
ance according to circumstances, with greater flexibility than the ri^d
Penitentials admitted, was first absolutely asserted by Peter of Poitiers.
1 The strength of early Christian asceticism lay in its spontaneous
and voluntary character. When, in the ninth century, the Carlovingians
attempted to enforce monastic and clerical celibacy, the result was a
greet outburst of unchnntit; and crime ; nunneries became brothels, nuns
were frequently guilty of infanticide, monks committed unBpeakable
abominations, the regular clergy formed incestuous relations with their
nearest female relatives (Lea, History of Bacerdolal Celibacy, vol. i, pp.
155 et »eq.).
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THE FUNCTION OF CHASTITY, 163
Then Alain de Lille threw aside the PenitentiaU as obsolete, and declared
tliat the priest biouelf must inquire into the circuntatances of each ain
and weigh precisely its guilt <Lea, op. cil., vol. ii, p. 171).
Long before this period, however, the ideals of chastity, so far as
ihey involved any considerable degree of continence, although they had
become flnnly hardened into the conventional traditions and ideals of
the Christian Church, had ceased to have any great charm or force for
the people living in Christendom. Among the Northem barbarians, nlth
different traditions of a mare vigorous and nntural order behind them,
the demands of sex were often frankly exhibited. The monk Ordericua
Vitalis, in the eleventh century, notes what he calls the "lasciviouaness"
of the wives of the Norman conquerors of England who, when left alone
at home, sent messages that if their husbands failed to return speedily
they would take new ones. The celibacy of the clergy was only estab-
lished with the very greatest difficulty, and when it was established,
priests became unchaste. Archbishop Odo of Rouen, in the thirteenth
century, recorded in the diary of his diocesan visitations that there waa
one unchaste priest in every five parishes, and even as regards the Italy
of the same period the friar Salimbene in his remarkable autobigraphy
shows how little chastity was regarded in the religious life. Chastity
could now only be maintained by force, usually the moral force of
ecclesiastical authority, which was itself undermined by unchastjty, but
sometimes even physical force. It was in the thirteenth century, in the
opinion of some, that the prdle of chastity [cingula caatitalia) flrst
begins to appear, but the chief authority, Caufeynon {La Ceinlure de
Chatteti, 1904) believes it only dates from the Renaissance (Schnlti,
Dm S5fiaohe Leben eur Zeit der MirmeaUnger, vol. i, p. 595; Dufour,
Eittoire de la Progtilution, vol. v, p. 272-, Krauss, Anthropopht/teia,
vol. iii, p. 247 ) . In the sixteenth century convents were liable to become
almost brothels, as we learn on t^e unimpeachable authority of Burobard,
a Pope's secretary, in his Diarium, edited by Thuasne who brings
togetiier additional authorities for this statement in a footnote (vol. il,
p. 79) ; that they remained so in the eighteenth century we see clearly
in the pages of Casanova's Mitaoirea, and !n many other documents of
the period.
The RenaisBance and the rise of humaDiam undouhtedly
affected the feeling towards asceticism and chastity. On the one
hand a new and ancient sanction was found for the disregard of
virtues which men began to look upon as merely monkish, and on
the other hand the finer spirits affected by the new movement
began to rea1i;!e that chastity might be better cultivated and
observed by those who were free to do as they would than by
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164 PSYCHOLOGY OF SKI.
those who were under the compulsion of priestly authority.
That is the feeling that prevails in Montaigne, and that is the
idea of Itabelais when he made it the only rule of his Abbey of
Thel^me : "Fay ce que vouldras,"
A little later thia doctrine was repeated in varying tonea hy manjr
writers more or Icsa tinged by tlie culture brought into fashiOQ by the
RenaiaBnnce. "Ab long as Danae was free," remarks Ferrand in bia six-
teenth century treatise, De la Matadie d'Amotir, "she was chaate." And
Sir Kenelm Digby, the latest representative of the Renaiasance spirit,
insists in his Private Memoirs that the liberty which LycurgUB, "tho
wisest human law-raaker that ever waa," gave to women fo eommuaicata
their bodies to men to whom they were drawn by noble affection, and
the hope of generous offspring, was the true cause why "real chaetitj
flourished in Sparta more than in any other part of the world."
In Protestant countries the ascetic ideal of chastity was still
further discredited by the Reformation morement which was in
considerable part a revolt against compulsory celibacy. Religion
was thus no longer placed on the side of chastity. lu the
■eighteenth century, if not earlier, the authority of Xature also
was commonly invoked against chastity. It has thuB happened
that during the past two centuriea serious opinion concerning
chastity has only been partially favorable to it. It began to be
felt that an unhappy and injurious mistake had been perpetrated
by attempting to maintain a lofty ideal which encouraged
hypocrisy. "The human race would gain much," as Senancour
wrote early in the nineteenth century in his remarkable book on
love, "if virtue were made less laborious. The merit would not
be po great, but what is the use of an elevation which can rarely
be sustained ?"^
There can be no doubt that the undue discredit into which
tlie idea of chastity beg;in to fall from the eighteenth century
1 Senancour, Oe I'Amovr, vol. 11, p. 233. Islam has placed much
lesa strcas on chastity than Christlanily, but practically, it would appear,
there is often more regard for chastity under Mohammedan rule than
under Christian rule. Thus it is stated by "Viator" {Portnightljf
Review, Dec.. 1908) that formerly, under Turkish Moslem rule. It waa
impossible to buy the virtue of women in Bosnia, hut that now, under
the Christian rule of Austria, it is everywhere possible to buy women
near the Austrian frontier.
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THE FUNCTION OF CHASTITY. 165
<mwards was largely due to the esistence of that merely external
and conventional physical chastity which was arbitrarily enforced
BO far as it could be enforced, — and is indeed in some degree still
enforced, nominally or really, — upon all respectable women out-
side marriage. The conception of the physical virtue of vir-
ginity had degraded the conception of the spiritual virtue of
chastity. A mere routine, it was felt, prescribed to a whole sex,
whether they would or not, could never possesB the beauty and
charm of a virtue. At the same time it began to be realized that,
as a matter of fact, the state of compulsory virginity is not
only not a state especially favorable to the cultivation of real
virtues, but that it is bound up with qualities which are no longer
regarded as of high value.^
"How arbitrary, artifleial, contrary to Nature, is the life now
fropoaed upon women in this matter of chastity!" wrote Jamea H{nt«n
forty years ago. '"Think of that line; 'A woman who deliberatea ia
lost.' We make danger, making all womanhood hang upon a point like
this, and surrounding it with unnatural and preternatural dangers.
There is a wanton unreason embodied in the life of woman now; the
present 'virtue' is a morbid unhealthy plant. Nature and God never
poised the life of a woman upon such a needle's point. The whole mod'
em idea of chastity has in it sensual exaggeration, surely, in part,
remaining to us from other times, with what was good in it in great
part gone."
"The whole grace of virginity," wrote another philosopher, Ouyau,
I The basis ot this feeling was strengthened when it was shown by
echolars that the physical virtue of "virginity" had been masquerading
under a false name. To remain a virjcin seems to have meant at the
first, among peoples ot early Aryan culture, by no means to take a vow
of chastity, but to refuse to submit to the yoke of patriarchal marriage.
The women who preferred to stand outside marriage were "virgins,"
even thougli mothers of large families, and ^schylus speaks of th«
Amaxons as "virgins," while in Greek the child of an unmarried girl was
always "the virgin's son." The history of Artemis, the most primitive
of Greek deities, is instructive from thia point of view. She was origin-
ally only virginal in the sense that she rejected marriage, being the
goddess of a nomadic and matriarchal hunting people who had not yet
adopted marriage, and she was the goddess of childbirth, worshipped
with orgiastic dances and phallic emblems. It was by a late transfor-
mation that Artemis became the goddess of chastitv (Fnmell. C'llli of
tfie Greek Slates, vol. ii, pp, 442 et seq.; Sir W. M, Ramsay, Cities of
PhrygiOf vol. i, p. 96; Paul Lafargue, "Lea Mythes Historiquea," Revue
dea Idiea, Dec., 1004).
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166 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
"is ignorance. Virgioit;, like certain fruits, can only be preserved bj
a process of desiccation."
M£rim^ pointed out the same desiccating influence of virgiui^.
In a letter dated 1859 he wrote: "I think that nowadays people Httaeh
far too much importance to chastity. Not that I deny that chastity is
a virtue, but Uiere are degrees in virtueB just as there are in vices. It
seems to be alwurd that a woman should be banished from society for
having had a lover, while a woman vtio is miserly, double-faced and
spiteful goes everywhere. The morality of this age is assuredly not that
which is taught in the Gospel. In my opinion it is better to love too
much than not enough. Nowadays dry hearts are stuck up on a. pin-
nacle" IRevue de» Deux Mondes, April, 1S06).
Dr. H. Paul has developed an allied point. She writes: "There
are girls who, even as children, have prostituted themselves by masturba-
tion and lascivious thoughts. The purity of their souls has long been
lost and nothing remains unlcnown to them, but — they have preserved
their hymensi That is for the sake of the future husband. Let no one
dare to doubt their innocence with that unimpeachable evidence! And
if another girl, who has passed her childhood in complete purify, now,
with awakened senses and warm impetuous womanliness, gives herself
to a man in love or even only in pSBsion, they all stand up and scream
that she is 'dishonoredl' And, not least, the prostituted girl with the
hymen. It is she indeed who screams loudest and throws the biggest
stones. Yet the 'distionored' woman, who is sound and wholesome, need
not fear to tell what she has done to the man who desires her in mar-
riage, speaking ns one human being to another. She has no need to
blush, she has exerrtsed her human rights, and no reasonable man will
on that account esteem her the less" (Dr. H. Paul, "Die UeberschStiung
der Jungfemschaft," Oeechlecht und QeselUchaft, Bd. ii, p. 14, 1907).
In a similar spirit writes F. Erhard [Oescklccht xmd OeselUchaft,
Bd, i, p. 408) : "Virginity in one sense has its worth, but in the ordi-
nary sense it is greatly overestimated. Apart from the fact that a girl
who pOBseBses it may yet be thoroughly perverted, this overeat imation
of virginity leads to the girl who is without it being despised, and has
further resulted in the development of a special industry for the prepara-
tion, by means of a prudishly cloistral education, of girls who will bring
to their husbands the peculiar dainty of a bride who knows nothing
about anything. Noturally, this can only be achieved at the expense of
any rational education. What the undeveloped little goose may turn
into, no man can foresee."
Freud (Sexiiat-Proileme, March, 1008) also points out the evil
results of the education for marriage which is given to girls on the
basis of this ideal of virginity. "Education undertakes the task of
repressing the girl's sensuality until the time of betrothal. It not only
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THE FUNCTION OF CHASTITY. 167
forbids sexual relations and seta a high premium od innocence, but it
also withdraws the ripening womanly indi vidua) itj' from temptation,
maintaining a stale of ignorance coneerning the practical side of the
part she is intended to play in life, and enduring no stirring of love
which cannot lead to marriage. The result is that when she is soddenl;
permitted to fall in love by the authority of ber elders, the girt cannot
bring her psychic disposition to bear, and goes into marriage uncertain
of her own feelings. As a consequence of this artificial retardation of
the function of love she brings nothing but deception to the husband
who has set all his desircB upon her, and manifesta frigidity in her
physical relations with him."
Senancour (De I'Amour, vol. i, p. 285) even believes that, when
it is possible to leave out of consideration the question of offspring, not
only will the law of chastity become equal tor the two sexes, but there
will be a tendency for the situation of the sexes to be, to some extent,
changed. "Continence becomes a counsel rather than a precept, and it
iz in women that the voluptuous inclination will be regarded with most
indulgence. Man is made for work; be only meets pleasure in passing;
ho must be content that women should occupy themselves with it more
than he. It is men whom it exhausts, and men must always, in part,
restrain their desires." *
As, however, we liberate oureelvefl from the bondage of a
compulsory physical chastity, it becomes possible to rehabilitate
chastity as a virtue. At the present day it can no longer be
said that there is on the part of thinkers and moralists any active
hostility to the idea of chastity; there is, on the contrary, a
tendency to recognize the value of chastity. But this recognition
has been accompanied by a return to the older and sounder con-
ception of chastity. The preservation of a rigid sexual ab-
stinence, an empty virginity, can only be regarded as a psendo-
chastity. The only positive virtue which Aristotle could bava
recognized in this field was a temperance involving restraint of
the lower impulses, a wise exercise and not a non-exercise.* The
best thinkers of the Christian Church adopted the same concep-
tion ; St. Basil in his important monastic rules laid no weight on
self -discipline as an end in itself, but regarded it as an instru-
ment for enabling the spirit to gain power over the flesh. St.
Augustine declared that continence is only excellent when prao-
1 See, e.g., Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. iii, Ch. XIII.
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168 PSTOHOLOOY OF BEX.
tiaed in the faith of the highest good,i and he regarded chastity
ae "an orderly movement of the soul subordinating lower things
to higher things, and specially to be manifested in conjugal
relationships"; Thomas Aquinas, defining chastity in much
the same way, defined impurity as the enjoyment of sexual
pleasure not according to right reason, whether as regards the
<^ject or the conditions.^ But for a time the voices of the great
moralists were unheard. The virtue of chastity was swamped in
the popular Christian passion for the annihilation of the fiesh,
and that view was, in the sixteenth century, finally consecrated
by the Council of Trent, which formally pronounced an anathema
upon anyone who should declare that the state of virginity and
celibacy was not better than the state of matrimony. Nowadays
the pseudo-chastity that was of value on the simple ground that
any kind of continence is of higher spiritual worth than any
kind of sexual relationship belongs to the past, except for those
who adhere to ancient ascetic creeds. The mystic value of vir-
ginity has gone ; it seems only to arouse in the modem man's
mind the idea of a piquancy craved by the hardened rake ;' it is
men who have themselves long passed the age of innocence who
attach so much importance to the innocence of their brides. The
conception of life-long continence as an ideal has also gone; at
the best it is regarded as a mere matter of personal preference.
And the conventional simulation of universal chastity, at the
bidding of respectability, is coming to be regarded as a hindrance
rather than a help to the cultivation of any real chastity.^
1 De Civilaie Dei, lib, xv, cap. XX. A little further on (lib. xvi,
cap. XXV) he refers to Abmham ae a man able to use women as a man
should, his wife temperately, hja concubine compliantly, neither immod-
erately.
3 gumma, Migne'a edition, vol. iii, qu. 154, art I.
3 See the Study of Modesty in the firBt volume of these Studies,
1 The majority of chatte youths, remarks nn acute critic of modem
life iBellpfich, f/erro»itat und Kultur. p. 175), nre merely actuated by
traditional principles, or by shyness, fear of venereal infections, lack of
Bclf -confidence, want of money, very seldom by any consideration for a
future wife, and that indeed would he h tragi-comio error, for a woman
lays no importance on intact masculinity. Moreover, he adds, the chaste
man is unable to choose a wife wisely, and it is among teachers and
olerKymen — the chastest class — that most unhappy marriHRcs ore made.
Milton had already made this fact an argument for facility of divorce.
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THE FUNCTION OP CHASTITY. 16&
The chastity that is regarded by the moralist of to-day as a
virtue has its worth by no means in its abstinence. It is not, in
St. Theresa's words, the virtue of the tortoise which withdraws
its limbs under its carapace. It is a virtue because it is a dis-
cipline in self-control^becaose it helps to fortify the character
and will, and because it is directly favorable to the cultivation of
the most beautiful, exalted, and effective sexual life. So viewed,
chastity may be opposed to the demands of debased mediaeval
Catholteism, but it is in harmony with the demands of our
civilized life to^ay, and by no means at variance with the re-
quirements of Nature.
There is always an analogy between the instinct of repro-
duction and the instinct of nutrition. In the matter of eating it
is the influence of science, of physiology, which has finally put
aside an exaggerated asceticism, and made eating "pure." The
same process, as James Hinton well pointed out, has been made
possible in the sexual relationships; "science has in its hands
the key to purity."'
Uany influences have, however, worked together to favor an
insistence on chastity. There has, in the first place, been an
inevitable reaction against the sexual facility which had come to
be regarded as natural. Such facility was found to have no
moral value, for it tended to relaxation of moral fibre and was
nnfavorable to the finest sexual satisfaction. It could not even
claim to be natural in any broad sense of the word, for, in Nature
generally, se.vual gratification tends to he rare and difficult.-
Courtship iq arduous and long, the season of love is strictly
delimited, pregnancy interrupts sexual relationships. Even
among savages, so long as they have been untainted by civiliza-
tion, virility is usually maintained by a fine asceticism; the
1 "In eating," said Hinton. "we have achieved the task of combin-
ing pleasure with an abaence of 'lust.' The problem for man and woman
is BO to use and possess the sexual passion as to make it the minister
to higher things, with no restraint on it but lliat. It is esBentially con-
nected with things of the spiritual order, and would naturally revolve
round them. To think of it as merely bodily is a mistake."
2 See "Analysis of the Sexual Impulse," and Appendix, "The Sexual
Instinct in Savages," in vol. iii of these Studies.
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170 P8Y0H0LOGY OF SEX.
endurance of hardship, eelf-control and restraint, tempered by
rare orgies, constitnte a diacipline which covers the Bexual as
well as every other department of savage life. To preserve the
same virility in civilized life, it may well be felt, we must
deliberately cultivate a virtue which under savage conditions of
life is natural. 1
The influence of Nietzsche, direct and indirect, has been on
the side of the virtue of chastity in its modem sense. The com-
mand: "Be hard," as Nietzsche used it, was not bo much an
injunction to an unfeeling indifFerence towards others as an
appeal for a more strenuous attitude towards one's self, the cul-
tivation of a self-control able to gather tip and hold in the forces
of the soul for expenditure on deliberately accepted ends. "A
relative chastity," he wrote, "a fundamental and wise foresight
in the face of erotic things, even in thought, is part of a fine
reasonableness in life, even in richly endowed and complete
natures."^ In this matter Nietzsche is a typical representative
of the modem movement for the restoration of chastity to its
proper place as a real and beneficial virtue, and not a mere empty
convention. Such a movement could not fail to make itself felt,
for all that favors facility and luxurious softaesa in sexual
matters is quickly felt to degrade character as well as to diminish
the finest erotic satisfaction. For erotic satisfaction, in its
highest planes, is only possible when we have secured for the
sexual impulse a high degree of what Colin Scott calls "irradia-
tion," that is to say a wide diffusion through the whole of the
psychic organism. And that can only be attained by placing
impediments in the way of the swift and direct gratification of
sexual desire, by compelling it to increase its force, to take long
circuits, to charge the whole organism so highly that the final
climax of gratified love is not the trivial detumescaice of a petty
desire but the immense coosummation of a longing in which the
whole soul as well as the whole body has its part. "Only the
1 1 hare elsewhere diecuased more nt length Ote need iu modara
civilized life of a natural and sincere asceticism (see A/firmatioiu, 169B}
"St Francis and Others."
^Der Witle tvr Maahl, p. 392.
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THB FUNCTION OF CHASTITY. t71
chaste caa be really obaceoe," eaid Huysmane. And on a higher
plane, only the chaste can really love.
"Physical purity," remftrks Hans Menjago {"Die Uebersebltcung
der Pbysischen Reinheit," Oetchlecht vnd QeaelUdhaft, toI. il. Part
Vin) "wkB original)]' valued as a aign of greater atrength at will and
finnneM of character, and It marked a rise above primitive condition*.
This purit; was difficult to preserve in those uneure day:>; it was rare
and nDoaual. From this rari^ rose the superstition of supematural
power residing in the virgin. But this has no meaning as soon a« such
puri^ becomes general and a spedallj conspicuous degree of firmness of
character is no longer needed to maintain it Physical
purity can only possess value when it is the result of individual strength
of character, and not when it is the result of compulsory rules of
morality."
Eonrad Hfiller, who has given special attention to the sexual ques-
tion in schools, remarks in relation to physioal exercise; "The greatest
advantage of physical exercises, however, is not the development of the
active and passive strength of the body and its skill, but the estahliah-
ment and fortification of the authority of the will over the body and its
needs, so much given up to indolence. He who has learnt to endure and
overcome, for the sake of a definite aim, hunger and thirst and fatigue,
will be the better able to withstand sexual impulses and the temptation
to gratify them, when better insight and «Hthetic feeling have made
clear to him, as one used to maintain authority over his body, that to
yield would be injurioua or disgraceful" (K. HSller, "Die Aufgahe der
Volksschule," Bewvalpadagogik, p. 70). Professor Schttfenacker (id., p.
102), who also emphasizes the importance of self-control and self-re-
straint, thinks a youth must bear in mind hit future mission, as citizen
and father of a family.
A subtle and penetrative thinker of to-day, Jules de Gaultier,
writing on morals without reference to this specific question, has dis-
euflsed what new internal inhibitory motivee we can appeal to in
replacing the old external inhibition of authority and belief which is
now decayed. He answers that the state of feeling on which old faiths
were based still persists. "May not," he asks, "the desire for a thing
that we love and wish for beneficently replace the belief that a thing
is by divine will, or in the nature of things! Will not the presence of
a bridle on the frenzy of instinct reveal itself .as a useful attitude adopted
by instinct itself for its own conservation, as a symptom of the force
and health of instinct! Is not empire over oneself, the power of reg-
ulating one's acts, a mark of superiority and a motive for self-esteem!
Will not this joy of pride have the same authority in preserving (he
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172 PBTCHOLOOY OF 8BX.
instincts aa was once poesassed hy religious fear and the pretend?(t
imperatives of reason t" (Jules de Gauitier, La Dipendance de la Morale
et Vlndipendance de» Mteura, p. 153.)
H. O. Wells {in A Modern Utopia), pointing out the importanoe
of ehastity, though rejecting celibacy, invokeB, like Jules de Gaultier,
the motive of pride. "CivilizaUon baa developed tar more rapidly than
man has modified. Under the unnatural perfection of security, liberty,.
and abundance our civilization has attained, the normal untrained
human being is disposed to excess in almont every direction; he tends
to eat too much and too elaborately, to drink too much, to become laqf
faster than his work can be reduced, to waste his interest upon displays,
and to make love too much and too elaborately. He gets out of train-
ing, and concentrates upon egoistic or erotic broodings. Our founders
organized motives from all sorts of sources, but I think the chief force
to give men self-control is pride. Pride may not be the noblest thing
in the «oul, but it is the best king there, for all that. They looked to
it to keep a man clean and sound and sane. In this matter, as in all
matters of natural desire, tbey held no appetite must be glutted, no-
appetite must have artificial whets, and also and equally that no
appetite should be starved. A man must come from the table satisfied,
hut not replete. And, in the matter of love, a straight and clean desire
for a clean and straight fellow-creature was our founders' ideal. They
enjoined marriage between equals as the duty to the race, and they
framed directions of the preciscst sort to prevent that uxorious insepar-
ableness, that connubiality, that sometimes reduces a couple of people to-
something jointly less than either."
With regard to chastity as an element of erotic satisfaction.
Edward Carpenter writes {Love's Coming of Age, p. 11): "There is tk
kind of illuAon about physical desire similar to that which a child
suffers from when, seeing a beautiful Bower, it instantly snatches the
some, and deatro^'s in a few moments the form and fragrance which
attracted it. He only geta the full glory who holds himself back a little,
and truly possesses, who is willing, if need be. not to possess. He is
indeed a master of lite who, accepting tlie grosser desires as they come
to his body, and not refusing them, knows how to transform them at
will into the most rare and fragrant flowers of human emotion."
Beyond its functions in building up character, in heighten-
ing and ennobling the erotic life, and in subserving the adequate
fuliilment of family and social duties, chastity has a more special
value for those who cultivate the arts. We may not always be
inclined to believe the writers who have declared that their verse
alone ia wanton, but their lives chaste. It is certainly true, how-
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THE FUNCTION OF CHASTITY. 173
ever, that a relationship of this kind tends to occur. The stuff
of the sexual life, ae Nietzsche says, is the stufl of art; if it is
«xpeDded in one channel it is lost for the other. The masters of
all the more intensely ^notional arts have frequently cultivated
s high degree of chastity. This is notably the case as regards
music ; one thinks of Mozart,* of Beethoven, of Schubert, and
many lesser men. In the case of poets and novelists chastity may
usually seem to be less prevalent but it is frequently well-marked,
and IB not seldom disguised by the resounding reverberations
vrhich even the slightest love-episode often exerts on the poetic
organism. Goethe's life seems, at a first glance, to be a long
series of continuous love-episodes. Yet when we remember that
it was the very long life of a man whose vigor remained until
the end, that hig attachments long and profoundly affected his
emotional life and his work, and that with most of the women
he has immortalized he never had actual sexual relationships at
all, and when we realize, moreover, that, throughout, he accom-
plished an almost inconceivably vast amount of work, we shall
probably conclude that sexual indulgence had a very much smaller
part in Goethe's life than in that of many an average man on
whom it leaves no obvious emotional or intellectual trace wliat-
ever. Sterne, again, declared that he must always have a
Dulcinea dancing in his head, yet the amount of his intimate
relations with women appears to have been small. Balzac spent
his life toiling at his desk and carrying on during many years a
love correspondence with a woman he scarcely ever saw and at
the end only spent a few months of married life with. The like
■experience has befallen many artistic creators. For, in the words
of Landor, "absence is the invisible and incorporeal mother of
ideal beauty."
We do well to remember that, while the auto-erotic manifes-
tations through the brain are of infinite variety and importance.
1 At the ELge of twentj-five, when he had already produced much
fine work, Mozart wrote in his letters that he ti&d never touched a
n-oniHn, though he longed for love and marriage. He could not afford
to many, he would not seduce an innocent girl, a venial relation was
repnlsive to him.
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174 P8T0HOLOOY OF BEX.
the brain and the sexual organs are yet the great nvals in iiBiDg
up bodily energy, and that there ie an antagoniam between ex-
treme brain vigor and extreme sexual vigor, even although they
may eometimes both appear at different periods in the same
individual.^ In this senae there is no paradox in the saying of
Ramon Correa that potency is impotence and impotence potency,
for a high degree of energy, whether in athletics or in intellect op
in sexual activity, is unfavorable to the display of energy in
other directions. Every high degree of potency has its related
impotencies.
It may be added that we may find a curiousl; incoDBistent proof
of the excessive importance attached to sexual function hy a society
which HfBteraatically tries to depreciate aex, in the disgrace which is
attributed to the lack of "virile" potency. Although civilized life offen
immense scope for the activities of sexually impotent persons, the
impotent man is made to feel that, while he need not be greatly con-
cerned if he Buffers from nervous disturbances of digeBtioD, if he should
suffer just as innocently from nervous disturbances of the sexual im-
pulse, it is almost a crime. A striking example of this was shown, a
few years ago, when it was plausibly suggested that Carlyte's relations
with his wife might best be explained by supposing that he suffered from
some trouble of sexual potency. At once admirers rushed forward to
"defend" Carlyle from this "diagraceful" charge; they were mors
shocked than if it bad been alleged that be was a syphilitic. Yet
impotoice is, at the most, an inflrmity, whether due to some congenita]
anatomical defect or to a disturbance of nervous balance in the delicate
sexual mechanism, such as is apt to occur in men of abnormally sensi-
tive temperament. It is no more disgraceful to suffer from it than from
dyspepsia, with which, indeed, it may be aasociated. Many men of
genius and high moral character have been sexually deformed. This
was the case with Cowper (Uiough this significant fact is suppressed by
his biographers) ; Ruskin was divorced for a reason of this kind; and
J. S. Mill, it is said, was sexually of little more than infantile develop-
Up to this pomt I have been .considering the quality of
chastity and the quality of asceticism in their most general senae
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THE FUNCTION OP CUA8IITT. 176
and vithoot any attempt at precise differentiation, ^ But if we
are to accept these aa modern virtues, valid to-day, it is necessary
that we should be somewhat more precise in defining them. It
seems most convenient, and most strictly accordant also with
etymology, if we agree to mean by aeceticism or ascesis, the
athlete quality of self-discipline, controlling, by no means oeces-
Barily for indefinitely prolonged periods, the gratification of the
sexual impulse. By chaetity, which is primarily the quality of
purity, and secondarily that of hoIincBB, rather than of abstinence,
we may beet understand a due proportion between erotic claims
and the other claims of life. "Chastity," as Ellen Key well says,
"is harmony between body and soul in relation to love." Thus
comprehended, asceticism is the virtue of control that leads up
to erotic gratification, and chastity is the virtue which exerts its
harmonizing influence in the erotic life itself.
It will be seen that asceticism by no means necessarily
involves perpetual continence. Properly understood, asceticism
is a discipline, a training, which has reference to an end not
itself. If it is compulsorily perpetual, whether at the dictates of
a religious dogma, or as a mere fetish, it is no longer on a natural
basis, and it is no longer moral, for the restraint of a man who
has spent his whole life in a prison is of no value for life. If it
is to be natural and to be moral asceticism must have an end out-
side itself, it must subserve the ends of vital activity, which
cannot be subserved by a person who is engaged in a perpetual
struggle with his own natural instincts. A man may. Indeed, as
a matter of taste or preference, live his whole life in sexual
abstinence, freely and easily, but in that case he is not an ascetic,
and his abstinence is neither a subject for applause nor for
criticism.
iWe may exclude altogether, it ia ■carcelj necessary to repeat, the
quality of Tirginity — that is to Bay, the possesHion of an intact hynieD —
sinee this is a merely physical quality with no necessary ethical rela'
tionshipB. The demand for virginity in women is. for the moit part,
either the demand for a better marketable article, or for a more power-
ful stimulant to masculine desire. Virginity involves no moral qualities
in ita poasesaor. Chastity and asceticism, on the other hand, are mean-
inglesR terms, except as demands made by the apirit on itself or on the
body it controls.
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176 PStCHOLOGT OF SEX.
In the B&me way ehastity, far from involving sexual ab-
stinence, only has its value when it is brought within tie erotic
sphere. A purity that is ignorance, when the age of childisli
innocence is once passed, is mere stupidity ; it is nearer to vice
than to Tirtue. Nor ia purity consonant with efEort and struggle ;
in that respect it differs from asceticism. "AVe conquer the
bondage of sex," Rosa Mayreder aays, "by acceptance, not by
denials, and men can only do this with the help of women." The
would-be chastity of cold calculation is equally unbeautiful and
unreal, and without any sort of value, A true and worthy
chastity can only be supported by an ardent ideal, whether, as
among the early Christians, this is the erotic ideal of a new
romance, or, as among ourselves, a more humanly erotic ideal.
"Only erotic idealism," says Ellen Key, "can arouse enthusiasm
for ehastity." Chastity in a healthily developed person caa thus
be beautifully exercised only in the actual erotic life; in part it
ia the natural instinct of dignity and temperance ; in part it is
the art of touching the things of sex with hands that remember
their aptness for all the fine ends of life. Upon the doorway oE
entrance to the inmost sanctuary of love there is thus the same
inscription as on the doorway to the Epidaurian Sanctuary of
Aesculapius: "None but the pure shall enter here."
It will be seen that the deflnition of chastity remains somewhat
lacking in precision. That ia inevitable. We cannot grasp purit^r
tightly, for, like snow, it will merely melt in our hands. "I'urity itself
forl>idB too minute a system of rules for the observance of purity," well
says Sidgwick [Melhods of Ethics, Bk. iii, Ch.'IX). Elsewhere (op.
cil., Bk. iii, Ch. XI) he attempts to answer the question: ^^^lat w^unl
relations are essentially impuret and concludes that nn answer ia pos-
sible. "There appears to be no distinct principle, having any claim to
self -evidence, upon which the question can lie answered so as to com-
mand general assent." Even what is called "Free Love." he adds, "in
so far as it is earnestly advocated as a means to a completer harmony
of sentiment between men and women, cannot be eondemni'd as impure,
for it seems paradoxical to dintinguish purity from impurity merely by
less rapidity of transition."
Jfoll, from the slandpoint of medical psychology, reaches the same
conclusion as Sidgiiirk from that of ethics. In a report on the "Value
of Chastity for Men," published as an appendix to the third edition
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THE FUKCTION OF CHASTITY. 177
(ISBB) of his Konlrarc Sexualempfindung, the dUtiDguiBhed Berlin phy-
sician discusBes the matter with much vigorous common sense, insisting
that "chaste and unchaste are relative ideas," We must not, h« atates,
aa is BO often done, identify "chaste" with "sexually abstineirt." Ue
adds that we are not justiQed in describing all extra-marital sesual
intercourse aa unchaste, for, if we do so, we shall be compelled to
regard nearly all men, and some veiy estimable women, as nncliaste.
He rightly insiata that in this matter we must apply the same rule to
women as to men, and he points out that even when it involves what
may be technically adultery sexual intercourse is not neceasarily un-
chaste. He takea the case of a girl who, at eighteen, when still mentally
immature, is married to a man with whom ahe finds it impossible to
live and a separation consequently occurs, although a divorce may be
impossible \o obtain. If she now falls passionately in love with a man
her love may be entirely chast«, though it involvea what is technically
adultei;.
In thuB understanding asceticlBni and chastity, and their
beneficial functions in life, we see that they occupy a place mid-
way between the artificially exaggerated position they once held
and that to which they were degraded by the inevitable reaction
of total indifference or actual hostility which followed. Aaceti-
cism and chastity are not rigid categorical imperatives; they are
useful means to desirable ends ; they are wise and beautiful arts.
They demand our estimation, but not our over-estimation. For
in over-estimating them, it is too often forgotten, we over-esti-
mate the sexual instinct. The instinct of sex is indeed extremely
important. Yet it has not that all-embracing and supereminent
importance which some, even of those who fight against it, are
accustomed to believe. That artificially magnified conception of
the sexual impulse is fortified by the artificial emphasis placed
upon asceticism. We may learn the real place of the sexual
impulse in learning how we may reasonably and naturally view
Mie restraints on that impulse.
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CHAPTER VI.
THE PROBLEM OF SEXUAL ABSTINENCE.
The Influence of Tradition — Tlie Theological Conception of Lusi —
Tendency of Tbeie Influences to Degrade Sexual Morality — Their Bsault
in Creating the Problem of Sexual Abstinence — The Proteats Against
Sexual Abstinence — Sexual Abstinence and Genius — Sexual Abstinence
in Women — The Advocates ot Sexual Abstinence — Intermediate Attitude
— UnsatiBfadory Nature of the Whole Discussion — Criticism of the Con-
ception of Sexual Abstiaence — Sexual Abstinence as Compared to
Abstinence from Food — No Complete Analogy— The Morality of Sexnal
Abstinence Entirely Negative — Is It the Physician's Duty to Advise
Extra-Conjugal Sexual IntercourseT — Opinions of Those Who Affirm or
Deny This Duty— The Conclusion Against Such Advice— The Physician
Bound by the Social and Moral Ideas of His \ge — The Physician as
Beformer — Sexual Abstinence and Sexual Hygiene — Alcohol — The Influ-
ence of Physical and Mental Exercise — The Inadequacy of Sexual
Hygiene in This Field — The Unreal Nature of the Conception of Sexual
Abstinence — The Necessity of Replacing It by a More Positive Ideal.
When we look at the matter from a purely abstract or even
purely biological point of view, it might seem that in deciding
that asceticism and chastity are of high value for the personal
life we have said all that is neceesary to Bay. That, however, is
very far from being the case. We soon realize here, as at every
point in the practical application of eexual pKjchology, that it is
not sufficient to determine the abstractly right course along bio-
logical lines. We have to harmonize our biological demands vith
social demands. We are ruled not only by natural instincts but
by inherited traditions, that in the far past were solidly based on
intelligible grounds, and that even still, by the mere fact of their
existence, exert a force which we cannot and ought not to ignore.
In discussing the valuation of the sexual impulse we found
that we had good ground for making a very high estimate of
love. In discussing chastity and asceticism we found that they
also are highly to be valued. And we found that, so far from any
(178)
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THE PROBLEM OF SEXUAL ABSTINENCE. 179
contradiction being here involved, love and chastity are inter-
twined in all their finest developments, and that there is thua a
perfect harmony in apparent oppoeition. But when we come to
consider the matter in detail, in its particular personal applica-
tions, we find that a new factor asserts itself. We find that our
inherited social and religious traditions exert a pressure, all on
one side, which makes it impossible to place the relations of love
and chastity simply on the basis of biology and reason. We are
confronted at the outset by our traditions. On the one side these
traditions have weighted the word 'lust" — considered as express-
ing all the manifestations of the sexual impulse which are outside
marriage or which fail to have marriage as their direct and
ostentations end — with deprecatory and sinister meanings. And
on the other side these traditions have created the problem of
"sexual abstinence," which has nothing to do with either asceti-
cism or chastity as these have been defined in the previous
chapter, but merely with the purely negative pressure on the
sexual impulse, exerted, independently of the individual's wishes,
by his religious and social environment.
The theological conception of 'lust," or "libido," as sin, fol-
lowed logically the early Christian conception of "the fleeh," and
became inevitable as soon as that conception was firmly estab-
lished. Not only, indeed, had early Christian ideals a degrading
influence on the estimation of sexual desire per se, but they
tended to depreciate generally the dignity of tlie sexual relation-
ship. If a man made sexual advances to a woman outside
marriage, and thus brought her within the despised circle of
"lust," he was injuring her because he was impairing her religious
and moral value.* The only way he could repair the damage
done was by paying her money or by entering into a forced and
therefore probably unfortunate marriage with her. That is to
say that sexual relationships were, by the ecclesiastical traditions,
1 This view was hti ambiguous improvement on the view, universally
prevalent, as Westennarck has shown, among primitive peoples, that the
sexual act involves Indignity to & woman or depreciation of her onl^ in
BO far as sha is the property of another person who is the reallj' injured
party.
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180 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX,
placed on a pecuniary basis, on the same level as prostitution.
By its well-meant intentions to support the theological morality
which had developed on an ascetic basis, the Church was thus
really undermining even that form of sexual relationship which
it sanctified.
Gregory the Great ordered that the seducer of a virgin shall marry
her, or. in case of refusal, be severelj punished oorporally and ahut up
in a, monastery to perform penance. According to other ecclesiastical
rules, the seducer of a Tirgin, though held to no responiibiiit'- by the
civil forum, was required to marry her, or to find a husband and furnish
a dowry for her. Such rules had their good side, and were especially
equitable when seduction had been accomplished by deceit. But they
largely tended in practice to subordinate all questions of sexual morality
to a money question. The reparation to the woman, also, largely became
necessary because the ecclesiastical conception of luet caused her value
to be depreciated by contact with lust, and the reparation might be said
. to constitute a part of penance. Aquinas held that lust, in however
alight a degree, is a mortal sin, and most of the more influential
theologians took ft view nearly or quite as rigid. Some, however, held
that a certain degree of delectation is possible in these matters without
mortal sin, or asserted, for instance, that to feel the touch of a soft
and warm hand is not mortal sin so long as no sexual feeling is thereby
aroused. Others, however, held that such distinctions are impossible,
and that all pleasures of this kind are sinful. Tomfis SaneheE en-
deavored at much length to establish rules for the complicated problems
of delectation that thus arose, but he was constrained to admit that no
rules are really possible, and that auch matters must be left to the judg-
ment of a prudent man. At that point casuistry dissolves and the
modern point of view emerges (see, e.g., Lea, History of Avrictilar Con-
fetsion, vol. ii, pp. 57, 116, 246, etc.).
Even to-day the influence of the old traditions of the Church
still unconsciously survives among ua. That is inevitable aa
regards religious teachers, but it is found also in men of science,
even in Protestant countries. The result is that quite contra-
dictory dogmas are found side by side, even in the same writer.
On the one hand, the manifestations of the sexual impulse are
emphatically condemned as both unnecessary and evil; on the
other hand, marriage, which is fundamentally (whatever else it
may also be) a manifestation of the sexual impulse, receives
equally emphatic approval as the ouly proper and moral form of
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THE PROBLEM OF SEXUAL ABSTINENCE. 181
living.' Tliere can be no reasonable doubt whatever that it is to
the surviving and pervading influence of the ancient traditional
theological conception of libido tliat we must largely attribute
the sharp difference of opinions among physicians on the question
of sexual abstinence and the otherwise unnecessary acrimony with
which these opinions have sometimes been stated.
On the one side, we find the emphatic statement that sexual
intercourse is necessary and that health cannot be maintained
unless the sexual activities are regularly exercised,
"All parts of the body which are developed for a definite use
are kept in health, and in tlie enjoyment of fair growth and of
long youth, by the fulfilment of that use, and by their appropriate
exercise in the employment to which they are accustomed." In
that statement, which occurs in the great Hippocratic treatise
"On the Joints," we have the classic expression of the doctrine
which in ever varying forms has been taught by all those who
have protested against sexual abstinence. When we come down
to the sixteenth century outbreak of Protestantism we find that
Luther's revolt against Catholicism was in part a protest against
the teaching of sexual abstinence. "He to whom the gift of con-
tinence is not given," he said in his Tabic Tall', "will not become
chaste by fasting and vigils. For my own part I was not
excessively tormented [though elsewhere he speaks of the great
fires of lust by which he had been troubled], but all the same the
more I macerated myself the more I burnt." And three hundred
years later, Bebel, the would-be nineteenth century Luther of a
difi'erent Protestantism, took tlie same attitude towards sexual
abstinence, while Hinton the physician and philosopher, living in
a land of rigid sexual conventionalism and prudery, and moved
by keen sympathy for the sufferings he saw around him, would
break into passionate sarcasm when confronted by the doctrine of
sexual abstinence. "There are innumerable ills — terrible destruc-
tions, madness even, the ruin of lives — for which the embrace
of man and woman would be a remedy. "So one thinks of
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182 P8T0B0L0GT OF SEX.
qnestioning it. Terrible evils and a remedy in a delight and joy I
And man haB chosen bo to muddle his life that be maet say:
"There, that would be a remedy, but I cannot use it. I mutt
be virtuous.'"
If we confine ourselves to modem times and to fairly precise med-
ical Btatements, we find in Schurig'a Spermatologut { 1720, pp. 2T4 et
aeq.), not only a. diaeuBaion of the advantages of moderate Bexual Inter-
course in a number of disorders, as witnessed by famous authorities,
but also a list of results — Including anorexia, insanity, impotence,
epilepsy, even death — whieh were believed to have been due to aeiual
abstinence. This extreme view of the possible evils of sexual abstinent
seems to have been part of the Renaissance traditions of medicine stiff-
ened by a certain opposition between religion and science. It was atill
rigorously stated by Lallemand early In the nineteenth century. Subse-
quently, the medics] statements of the evil resulta of sexual abstinence
became more temperate and measured, though still often pronounced.
Thus Gyurkovechky believes that these results niay be as serious as those
of sexual excess. Krafft-Ebing showed that sexual abstinence could pro-
duce a state of general ner^-ous excitement {Jahrbuch fiir Ptychiatrie,
Bd. viii, Heft 1 and 2). Schrenck-Not?:ing regards sexual abstinence as
a cause of eitreme sexual hyperssthesis and of vbtIdus perversions (in
• chapter on sexual abstinence in his Krimitialptyctiotogitche und
Ptyohopathologitche Btudien, 1902, pp. 174-178). He records in illus-
tration the case of a man of thirty-six who had masturbated In modera-
tion as a boy. but abandoned the practice entirely, on moral grounds,
twenty years ago, and has never had sexual intercourse, feeling proud
U> enter marriage a chaste man, but now for yesrs has sufTcred greatly
from extreme sexual hyperesthesia snd concentration of thought on
sexual Bubjeeta, notwithstanding a atrong will and the resolve not to
masturbate or indulge in illicit intercourse. In another case a vigorous
and healthy man, not inverted, and with strong sexual desires, who
remained abstinent up to marriage, suffers from psychic impotence, and
his wife remains a virgin notwithstanding all her affection and caresses.
Ord considered that sexual abstinence might produce many minor evils.
"Most of us." he wrote {Briliah Medical Jovrnal, Aug. 2, I8S4) "have,
no doubt, been consulted by men, chaste in act, who are tormented by
sexual excitement. They tell one stories of long-continued local excite-
ment, followed by intense muscular weariness, or by severe aching pain
in the back and legs. In some I have had complaints of swelling and
stiffness in the legs, and of pains In the joints, particularly in the
knees)" be gives the case of a man who suffered after prolonged chastity
from inflammatory conditions of knees and was only cured by marriage.
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THE PROBLEU OF SEXCAL ABSTINENCE. - 183
PearM Gould, it may be added, finds that "excesBive ungratified HexiUiI
deein" b one of the causes of amite orchitii. Remondino ("Some
Obaervationa on Continence as a Factor in Health and Disease," Paoifia
Medical Joumai, Jan., 1900) reourds the caae of a gentleman of nearly
eerentf who, during the prolonged illness of his wife, suffered from fre-
quent Mid extreme priapism, causing inaomnia. He was very certain
that his troubles nere not due to his continence, but all treatment failed
and there vere no spontaneous emissions. At last Remondino advised
him to, as he expresses it, "imitate Solomon." He did so, and all the
Bjmptoins at once disappeared. Ttiis case is of special interest, because
the symptoms were not accompanied by any conscious sexual desire. It
is ao longer generally believed that sexual abstinence tends to produce
insanity, and the occasional cases in which prolonged and intense sexual
desire in young women is followed by insanity will usually be found to
occur on a basis of hereditary degeneration. It is held by many
authorities, however, that minor mental troubles, of a more or leas vague
character, as well as neurasthenia and hysteria, are by no means infre-
quently due to sexual abstinence. Thus Freud, who has carefully studied
angstneurosis, the obsession of anxiety, finds that it is a result of sexual
abstinence, and may indeed be considered as a vicarious form of such
abstinence (Freud, Satnmlung KUiner Schriften Bar ffeuroacnlehre,
1900, pp. 70 et aeq.).
The whole subject of sexual abstinence has been discussed at
length by NystrOm, of Stockholm, in Dot Cfe»ohteaht»leben und teine
Octette, Cb. III. He concludes that it is desirable that continence
should be preserved as long as possible in order to strengthen the phys-
ical health and to develop the intelligence and character. The doctrine
of permanent sexual abstinence, however, he regards as entirely false,
except in the case of a small number of religious or philosophic persons,
"Complete abatineDce during a long period of years cannot be borne
without producing serious results both on the body and the mind.
. . . . Certainly, a young man should repress his sexual impulses
as long as possible and avoid everything that may artificially act as a
sexual stimulant. If, however, he has done so, and still suffers from
unsatisfied normal sexual desires, and if he sees no possibility of mar-
riage within B reasonable time, no one should dare to say that he is
committing a sin if, with mutual understanding, he enters into sexual
relations with a woman friend, or forma temporary sexual relationships,
provided, that is, that he takes the honorable precaution of begetting no
children, unless his partner is entirely willing to become a mother, and
he is prepared to accept all the responsibilifjes of fatherhood." In an
article of later date ("Die Einwirlmng der Sexuellen Abstinenz auf die
Gesundheit," Sfmuil-Probleme, July, 10OS) NystrOm vigorously sums up
his views. He includes among the results of sexual abstinence orchitis,
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184 PSYCHOLOGY OF SES,
fr^uent inToluntaiy seminal cmissionB, impotence. nenraBthenia, deprM-
Bion, and a great variety of nervous disturbances of vaguer character,
involving diminished power of work, limited enjoytnent of life, sleepless-
nesH, nervouBness, and preoccupation with sexual desires and imagiua-
tions. More especially tliere is heightened sexual irritability with erec-
tions, or even seminal emissions on the slightest occasion, as on gazing
at an attractive woman or in social intercourse with her, or in the pres-
ence of works of art repreacnliiig naked figures, Xystriim lias had tha
opportunity of investigating and recording ninety cases of persona who
have presented these and ainiilar aym[ttom8 as the result, he beiieves, of
sexual abstinence. He has published some of these cases (Zeitachrift
lilT Bexualiciaaenschaft, Oct., I»0S), but it may be added that Rohleder
("Die AbStinenlia Sexualis," ib., Nov., lOOS) has criticized these cases,
and doubts whether any of them are conclusive. Rohleder believes that
the bad results of sexual abstinence are never permanent, and also that
ro nnntomically pathological states (such as orchitis) can be thereby
produced. But he considers, nevertheless, that even incomplete and
temporary sexual alKtinence may produce fairly serious results, and
cnpi^cLally neurasthenic disturbances of various kinds, such as nervous
irritahility, anxiety, depression, disinclination for work; also diurnal
omissions, premature ejaculations, and even a state approaching saty-
riasis; and in women hysteria, hjstcro-epilepsy, and nymphomaniacal
manifestations; all these symptoms may, however, he believes, be cured
when the abstinence ceases.
Many advocates of sexual abstinence have attached importance to
the fact that men ol great genius have apparently been completely con-
tinent throughout life. This in certainly true (see ante, p. 173). But
this fact can scarcely be invoked as an argument in favor of the advan-
tages of sexual abstinence among the ordinary population. J. F. Scott
selects .lesuH, Newton, Beethoven, and Kant as "men of vigor and mental
acumen who have lived chastely as bachelors." It cannot, however, be
said that Dr. Kcott has been happy in the four figures whom he has been
able to select from the whole history of human genius as examples of
life-long sexual abstinence. We know little with absolute certainty of
Jesus, and even if we reject the diagnosis which Professor Binet-San^S
(In his FoUe de Jesus) has built up from a minute study of the Gospels,
there are many reasons why we should refrain from emphasizing the
example of his sexual abstinence; Kewton, apart from his stupendous
genius in a special Held, was an incomplete and unsatisfactory human
being who ultimately reached a condition very like insanity; Beethoven
was B thoroughly morbid and dise.ised man, who led an intensely un-
happy existence; Kant, from first to last, was a feeble valetudinarian.
It would probably ho dilTicult to find a healthy normal man who would
i-oluntarily accept the life led by any of these four, even as the price
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THE PROBLEM OP SEXUAL ABSTIKENCE. 185
of their fame. J. A. Godfrey (Science of Seto, pp. 13B'147) diHcuesea
at length the qutstion whether sexual abstioence is favorable to ordinary
intellectual vigor, deciding that it i» not, and that we cannot argue
from the occnaioiial sexual abstinence of men of genius, who are often
abnormally constituted, and physically below the average, to the nor-
mally developed man. Sexual abBtiuence, it may be added, in by no
means always a favorable sign, even in men who stand intellectually
above the average. "I liave not obtained the impression," remarks
Freud (Sexuat-Probleme, March, 1908), "that sexual abstinence is help-
ful to energetic and independent men of action or original thinkers, to
courageous liberators or reforniers. The sesual conduct of a man is
often symbolic of his whole method of reaction in the world. Tlie man
who energetically grasps the object of his sexual desire may be trusted
to show a similarly relentless energy in the pursuit of other aims."
Many, though not all, who deny that prolonged Bexual
abstinence is harmless, include women in this statement. There
are some aiitliorities indeed who believe that, whether or not any
conscious sexual desire is present, sexual abstinence is less easily
tolerated by women than by men.^
Cabanis, in liis famous and pioneering work, Rapports d« Phyiique
et du iforal, said in 1802, that women not only bear sexual excess more
easily than men, hut sexual privations with more diihculty, and a cau-
tious and experienced observer of to-day, Liiwenfeld [Sexaalleben unll
ycrvenleiden, 1R99, p. 53), wliile not considering that normal women bear
sexual abstinence less easily than men, adds that this is not the case
with women of neuropathic disposition, who suffer mucli more from this
cause, and either masturbate when sexual intercourse is impossible or
fall into hystero-neurasthenio states. Busch stated (fios Qeschlechts-
Uben des Weibea, 1H39, vol. i, pp. 69, 71) that not only is the working
of the sexual functions in the organism stronger in women than in men,
but Uiat the bad results of sexual abstinence are more marked in women-
Sir Benjamin Brodie said long ago that the evils of continence to women
are perhaps greater than those of incontinence, and to-day Hammer (DiV
OcsuttdkeitlKheii Oefahren dcr Gcschlefhllicken Eiithallsamkeil, 1904)
states that, so far as reasons of health are concerned, sexual abstinence
Is no more to he recommended to women than to men. Nystriim Is of
the same opinion, though he thinks that women bear sexual abstinence
better than men, and has discussed this special question at length in a
section of his Geschleohtsleben und seine Ometzc. He agrees with the
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lo6 PSYCHOLOGY OP BEX.
experienced Erb tbftt a large number ot completely chaste -women o( high
character, and possesGing diatinguiahed qualities of mind and heart, are
more or leas disordered through their sexual abstinence; this is specially
often the case with women married to impotent men, though it is fre-
quently not until they approach the age of thirty, Ny strOm remarks, that
women definitely realize their sexual needn,
A great many women who are healthy, chaate, and modest, feel at
times such powerful sexual desire that they can scarcely resist the
temptation to go into the street and solicit the first man they meet-
Not a few such women. oft«n of good breeding, do actually offer them-
•eWes to men with whom they may have perhaps only the alighteat
Acquaintance. Routh records such cases (Briiiah Qynwcologioal Jour-
nal, Feb., 1887 ) , and moat men have met with them at some time. When
a woman of high moral character and strong pasaiona is subjected for
a Teiy long period to the perpetual strain of such aexual craving, espe-
cially if combined with love for a definite individual, a chain of evil
results, physical and moral, may be set up, and numerous distinguished
physicians have recorded such cases, which terminated at once in com-
plete recovery as soon aa the passion was gratified. Lauvergne long
since described a case. A fairly typical case of this kind was reported
in detail by Brachet {De I'Bypochtmdrie, p. 69) and embodied by Orie-
ainger in his classic work on "Mental Pathology." It concerned a
healthy married lady, twenty-six years old, having three children. A
risiting acquaintance completely gained her affections, but she strenu-
ously reaiated the aeducing influence, and concealed the violent passion
that he had aroused in her. Various serious symptoms, physical and
mental, slowly began to appear, and she developed what seemed to be
signs of consumption. Six months' stay in the south of France pro-
duced no improvement, either in the bodily or mental symptoms. On
returning home she became still worse. Then ahe again met the object
of her passion, succumbed, abandoned her huaband and children, and
fled with him. Six months later ahe was scarcely recognizable; beauty,
freshness and plumpness had taken the place of emaciation; while the
symptoms of consumption and all other troubles had entirely disap-
peared. A somewhat similar case ia recorded by Camill Ledcrer, of
Vienna { Monatttchrift fiir Barnkrankheilen find Scxuelle Hygiene,
1906, Heft 3). A widow, a few months after her husband's death, began
to cough, with symptoms of bronchial catarrh, but no definite signs of
lung disease. Treatment and change of c1imat« proved entirely unavail-
ing to effect a cure. Two years later, aa no signs of disease had
appeared In the lungs, though the symptoms continued, she married
again. Within a very few weeks all symptoms had disappeared, and
she was entirely frenh and well.
Numerous distinguished gyneecolo^sts have recorded their beli^
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THE PROBLEM OF SEXUAL ADSTINEKOB. 187
that Mxual excitement is a remedy for various disorders of the sexual
syBtem in women, and that abstinence is a cause of such disorders.
Matthews Duncan said that sesnal excitement is the only remedy for
amenorrhffia; "the only emmenagogue medicine that I know of," he
wrote {Medical Times, Feb. 2, I8S4), "is not to be found in the Thar-
macoptEia: it is erotic excitement. Of the value of erotic excitement
there Is no doubt." Anstie, in his work on SeuTalgia, refers to the
beneficial effect of sexual intercourse on dysmenorrhfea, remarking that
the necessi^ of the full natural exercise of the sexual function is shown
by the great improvement in such cases after marriage, and especially
after childbirth. (It may be remarked that not al! authorities find
dysmenorrhcea benefited by marriage, and some consider that the disease
is often thereby aggravated; see, e.g., Wythe Cook, American Journal
OMetrics, Dec, 1803.) The distinguished gymecologist. Tilt, at a some-
what earlier date (On Uterine and Ovariaa In/Uimmation, 1862, p. 309),
insisted on the evil results of sexual abstinence in producing ovarian
irritation, and perhaps subacute ovaritis, remarking that this was spe-
dally pronounced in young widows, and in prostitutes placed in peniten-
tiaries. Intense desire, he pointed out, determines organic movements
resembling those required for the gratification of the desire. These
burning desires, which can only Ix^ quenched by their legitimate satis-
faction, are still further heightened by the erotic influence of thoughts,
books, pictures, mUBi(\, which are often even more sexually stimnlat-
ing than social intercourse with men, but the excitement tlius produced
is not relieved by that natural collapse which should follow a state of
vital turgescence. After referring to the biological facts which show
the effect of psychic inSuences on the formative powers of the ovario-
nterine organs in animals, Tilt continues: "I may fairly infer that
similar incitements on the mind of females may have a stimulating effect
on the organs of ovulation. I have frequently known menstruation to
be irregular, profuse, or abnormal in type during courtship in women in
whom nothing similar had previously occurred, and that this protracted
the treatment of chronic ovaritis and of uterine inflammation." Bonni-
field, of Cincinnati (Medical Standard, Dec., 1896), considers that unsat-
isfied sexual desire is an important cause of catarrhal endometritis. It
is well known that uterine fibroids bear a definite relation tji organic
sexual activity, and that sexual abstinence, more especially the long-
continued deprivation of pregnancy, is a very important cause of the
disease. This is well shown by an analysis by A. E. Giles (Lanoet,
March 2, 1007) of one hundred and fifty cases. As many as flfty-six of
these cases, more than a third, were unmarried women, though nearly
all were over thirty years of age. Of the ninety-four married women,
thir^-four had never been pregnant; of those who had been pregnant,
tbirty-six had not been so for at least ten years. Thus eighty-four per
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188 PSYCHOLOGY OF 6EX.
cent, had either not been pregnant at all, or had had no pregnancy fur
at leaat ten jeara. It is, therefore, evident that deprivation of sexual
function, whether or not involving abstinence from sexual intercourse, is
an important caiue o( uterine fibroid tumors. Balls-Ileadley, of \'ic-
loria {Evolulion of the Dtaeases of Women, 1804, and "Etiology of Dis-
(r:ises of Female Uenital Organs," All butt and Playfair, tSytlem of
Oijiiavology), believes that unsatisfied sexual desire is a factor in very
many disorders of the sexual organs in women, "lly views," he wrile-i
In a private letter, "are founded on a really special gyntEcological prac-
tice of twenty years, during whieh I have myself taken about seven
thousand most careful records. The nonna) woman U sexually well-
formed and her nexual feelings require satisfaction in the direction of
the production of the next generation, but under the restrictive and now
especially abnormal conditions of civilization some women undergo
hereditary atrophy, and (he uterus and sexual feelings are feeble; ill
others of good average local development the feeling is in restraint: in
others the feelings, as well as the organs, are strong, and if normal use
be withheld evils ensue. Bearing in mind these varieties of congenital
development in relation to the respective condition of virginity, or sterile
or parous married life, the mode of occurrence and of progress of disease
grows on the physician's mind, and there ie no more occasion for bewil-
derment than to the metliematician studying conic sections, nhen his
knowledge has gronn from the basis of the science. The problem is
suggested: Has a crowd of unassociatcd diseases fallen as through a
sieve on woman, or have these affections almost necessarily ensued froia
the circumstance:) of her unnatural environmentT" It may be added
that Kisch (Seiuni Life of Woman), while protesting against any exag-
gerated estimate of the effects of sexual ab'itinencc, considers that in
women it may result, not only in numeruiis local disorders, but also in
nervous disturbance, hysteria, and even insanity, while in neurastlienie
women "regulated sexual intercourse has an actively beneficial effect
which is often striking."
0 remark that the evil results of sexual abstinence
ion of many of those who insist upon their impor-
(is merely due to unsatisfied sexual desire. They
'en when the woman herself has not the slightest
1 needs. This was clearly pointed out forty years
ago by the sagacious Anstie {op. cit). In women, especially, he rc-
niarks, "a certain restless hyperactivity of mind, and perhaps of body
also, seems to be the expression of Nature's unconscious resentment of
the ncglecl of scjiial fiitwliona." Such women, he adds, have kept thcni-
selvps free from masturtmtion "at the expense of a perpetual -and almost
fierce activity of mind and muscle." Anstie had found that some of the
worst cases of the form of nervosity and neurasthenia whieh he termed
It
IS important
in wome
n, in the op
tancc, a
re by no me
may be
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THE PKOBLEil OF SEXDAL ABSTINENCE. 189
"apioal irritation," often accompanied bf irritable stomach and anamia,
g.'t well on DMrriag?. "There can be no question," he continuea, "that
a very large proportion of tbeae cases in single women (who form by
far the greater number of subjects of spinal irritation) are due to this
conscious or unconscious irritation kept up by an unsatisfied sexual
want. It is certain tliat very many young persons (women more
especially) are tormented by tUe irritability of the sexual organs with-
out having the least consciousness of sexual desire, and present the aad
spectacle of a vie manqvte without erer knowing the true source of the
misery which incapacitates them for all the active duties of life. It is
a singular fact that in occasional instances one may even see two sis-
ters, inheriting the same kind of nervous organization, both tormented
with the symptoms of spinal irritation and l>oth prot>abIy suITering from
repressed sexual functions, but of whom one shall be pure-minded and
entirely unconscious of the real source of her troubles, while the other
is a victim to conscious and fruitless sexual irritation." In this matter
Anstie may be regarded as a forerunner of Freud, who has developed
with great subtlety and analytic power the doctrine of the transforma-
tion of repressed sexual instinct in women into morbid forms. He con-
flidcTs that the nervosity of to-day is largely due to the injurious action
on the sexual life of that repression of natural instincts on which our
civilization is built up. (Perhaps the clearest brief statement of
Freud's views on the matter is to be found in a. very suggestive article,
"Die 'Kulturelle* Seiualmoral und die Modcrne NcrvositUt," in Se^uat-
PTobleme, March, 1908, reprinted in the second series of Freud's
fiammlung Kleitier Bchriften zut yeuroeenlehre, 1906). We possess the
aptitude, he says, of sublimating and transforming our sexual activities
into other activities of a psychically related character, but non-sexual.
This process cannot, however, be carried out to an unlimited extent any
more than can the conversion of heat into mechanical work in our
machines. A certain amount of direct sexual satisfaction is for most
organizations indispensable, and the renunciation of this individually
varying amount is punished by manifestations which we are compelled
to regard as morbid. The process of sublimation, under the influence
of civiliiation, leads both to sexual perversions and to psycho- neuroses.
These two conditions are closely related, as Freud views the process of
their development; they stand to each other as positive and negative,
sexual perversions being the positive pole and psj'cho-neu roses tlie nega-
tive. It often happens, he remarks, that a brother may be sexually
perverse, while his sister, with a weaker sexual temperament, is a
neurotic whose symptoms are a transformation of her brother's perver-
sion; while in many families the men are immoral, the women pure
and refined but highly nervous. In the case of women who have no
defect of sexual impulse there Is yet the same pressure of civilised
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190 P6YCHOLOOY OP 8E5.
mornUt^ puahing them into neurotic states. It is a terribly serioua
injustice, Freud remarks, that the civilized stanibird of seiual life is
the earae for &11 peraona, because thou^ some, by their organization,
may easily accept it, for others it involves the most diSBcult psychic
sacriflces. The unmarried girl, who haa become nervously we«k, can-
not be advised to aeek relief in marriage, for she must be strong in
order to "bear" marriage, while we urge a man on no account to
marry a girl who is not strong. The married woman who has experi-
enced the deceptions of marriage has usually no way of relief left
but by abandoning her virtue. "The more strenuously she has been
educated, and the more completely she has Iieen subjected to the demands
of civilization, the more she fears this way of escape, and in the conflict
between her desires and her sense of duty, she also seeks refuge — in
neurosis. Nothing protects her virtue so surely as disease." Taking a
still wider view of the influence of the narrow "civilized" conception of
sexual morality on women, Freud flnds that it is not limited to the
production of neurotic conditions; it alTects the whole Intellectual apti-
tude of women. Their education denies them any occupation with sexual
problems, although such problems are so full of interest to them, for it
inculcates the ancient prejudice that any curiosity in such matters is
unwomanly and a proof of wicked inclinations. They are thus terrifled
from thinking, and knowledge is deprived of worth. The prohihitiou to
think extends, automatically and Inevitably, far beyond the sexual
sphere. "I do not believe," Freud concludes, "that there is any opposi-
tion between intellectual work and sexual activity such as was supposed
by UBbius. I em of opinion that the unquestionable fact of the intel-
lectual inferiority of so many women is due to the inhibition of thought
imposed upon them for the purpose of sexual repression."
It is only of recent ye^rs that this problem has been realized and
faced, though solitary thinkers, like Hinton, have been keenly conscious
of Its existence; tor "sorrowing virtue," as Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox
puts it, "ia more ashamed of Its woes than unhappy sin, because the
world baa tears for the latter and only ridicule for the former." "It is
an almost cynical trait of our age," Hellp&ch wrote a few years ago,
"that it is constantly discussing the theme of prostitution, of police
control, of the age of consent, of the "white slavery,' and passes over the
moral struggle of woman's soul without an attempt to answer her burn-
ing questions."
On the other hand we find medical writers not only asserting
with much moral fervor that se.tual intercourse outside marriage
is always and altogether unnecessary, but declaring, moreover, tiie
faarmlessnesB or even the advantages of Bexnal abstinence.
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THE PROBLEM OP SEXDAL ABSTINENCE. 191
Ribbing, the Swedish profesaor, in his Hygiine Beauetle, advocates
sexual abstinence outside marriage, and asserts its harmleasneaB. lilies
de la Tourette, F6t$, and Auga^ieur in France agree. In Germany Fiir-
bringer (Senator and Kaminer, Health and Disease in Relation to Mar-
riage, vol. i, p. 22S) asserts that continence is possible and necessary,
though admitting that it may, however, mean serious mischief in excep-
tional cases. Eulenburg [Sexnale Neuropathie, p. 14) doubts whether
anyone, who othemise lived a reasonable life, ever became ill, or more
precisely neurasthenic, through sexual abstinence. Hegar, replying to
the argumenta of Bebel in his well-known book on women, denies that
sexual abstinence can ever produce satyriasis or nymphomania. NUcke,
who has frequently discussed the problem of sexual abstinence {e.g.,
Archiv /iir Krimitiol-Anthropologie, 190-1, Heft I, and Setmal-Probleme,
June, 1908), maintains that sexual abstinence can, at most, produce rare
and slif^t unfavorable results, and that it is no more likely to produce
insanity, even in predisposed individuals, than are the opposite extremes
of sexual excess and masturbation. He adds that, so far as his own
obeervatjons are concerned, the patients in asylums suffer scarcely at all
from their compulsory sexual abstinence.
It is in England, however, that the virtues of sexual abstinence
have been most loudly and emphatically proclaimed, sometimes indeed
with considerable lack of cautious qualiScation. Acton, in his Repro-
ductive Organs, sets forth the traditional English view, as well as Beale
in his Moralilt/ and the Moral Question. A more distinguished repre-
sentative of the same view was Paget, who, in his lecture on "Sexual
HypochondriasiB," coupled sexual intercourse with "theft or lying." Sir
William Gowers (SyphiUs and the Nervous Bt/stem, 1892, p. 128) also
prodaima the advantages of "unbroken chaatify," more especially as a
method of avoiding syphilis. He is not hopeful, however, even as r^ards
his own remedy, for he adds: "We can trace small ground for hope
Qiat the disease will thus be materially reduced." He would still, how-
ever, preach chastity to the individual, and he does bo with all the ascetic
ardor of a mediaval monk. "With all the force that any knowledge I
possess, and any authority I have, can give, I assert that no man ever
yet was in the slightest degree or way the worse for continence or better
for incontinence. From the latter all are worse morally; a clear
majority are worse physically; and in no small number the result is,
and ever will be, utter physical shipwreck on one of the many rocks,
sharp, jagged-edged, which beset the way, or on one of the many beds
of festering slime which no care can possibly avoid." In America the
same view widely prevails, and Dr. J. F. Scott, in his Bexval-Instinct
(second edition, 1908, Ch. Ill), argues very vigorously and at great
length in favor of sexual abstinence. He will not even admit tKat there
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192 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
are two sides to the question, thou^ if that were the case, the length
and the energy of his argumenta would be unnecessary.
Among medical authorities who have discussed the question of
Msual abstinence at length it is not, indeed, usually possible to find
Buch unqualified opinions in its favor as those I have quoted. There can
i>e no doubt, however, that a large proportion of physicians, not exclud-
ing prominent and distinguished authorities, when casually confronts
with the question whether sexuai abstinence is harmlens, wilt at once
adopt the obvious path of least resistance and reply: Yes. In only ■
few cases will they even make any qualification of this affirmative
answer. This tendency is very well illustrated hy an inquiry made by
Dr. Ludwig Jacohsohn, of St. Petersburgh ("Die Sexuelle Enthaltsam-
iteit im Liehte der Medizin," 8i. Petcrsburger Medtcinitch^ Wochen-
tchrift, March 17, 1007). He wrote to over two hundred distinguished
Russian and German professors of physiology, neurology, psychiatry,
etc., asking them if they regarded sexual obntinence as liarmles.t. The
majori^ returned no answer; eleven Russian and twenty-eight Germans
replied, but four of them merely said that "they had no personal experi-
ence," etc.; there thus remained thirty-five. Of these E. PflOger, of
Bonn, was skeptical of the advantage of any propaganda of abstinence:
"if all the authorities in the world declared the harmlessness of absti-
nence that would have no influence on youth. Forces are here in play
that break through all obstactes." The harmlessness of abstinence was
affirmed by KrSpelin, Cramer, Gitrtner, Tuczek, Schottelius. Gaffky,
Finkler, Selenevr, Lasear, Seifert, Grubcr; the last, however, added that
he knew very few abstinent young men, and himself only considered
abstinence good before full development, and intercourse not dangerous
in moderation even before then. Brieger knew cases of abstinence
without harmful results, but himself thought that no general opinion
could be given. JDrgensen said that abstinence in ilself is not harmful,
but that in some cases intercourse exerts a more beneficial influence.
HolTmann said that abstinence in harmless, adding that though it cer-
tainly leads to masturbation, thnt ia better than gonorrh<ea, to say noth-
ing of syphilis, and is easily kept within bounds. KtrUmpell replied
that sexual abstinence is harmless, and indirectly useful as preserving
from the risk of venereal disease, hut that sexual intercourse, being
normal, is always more desirable. Hensen said that abstinence is not
to be unconditionally approved. Rumpf replied that abstinence was not
harmful for most before the age of thirty, hut after that age there was
a tendency to mental obsessions, and marriage should take place at
twenty-five. Leyden also considered abstinence harmless until towards
thirty, when it leads to psychic anomalies, especially states of anxiety,
and a certain afTectation. Hein replied that abstinence is harmless for
most, btit in some leads to hysterical manifestations and indirectly to
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THE PSOBLEU OF 8EXUAI, ABSTINENCE. 193
bad reeulta from muturbation, while for the aormal man abitinence
cannot be directly beneficial, lince intercourse is mttural. QrUtmer
thought that abstinence is almost never harmful. Neacheda said it is
luirnilees in itself, but harmful in bo far as it leads to unnatural modes
of gratification. Neisser believes that more prolonged alietjnence than
is now usual would be beneficial, but admitted the sexual excitations of
onr civilization; he added that of course he saw no harm for healthy
men in intercourse. Hocbe replied that abstinence is quite harmless in
normal persons, but not always so in abnormal persons. Weber thought
it bad a useful influence in increasing will-power. Tamowsky said it
is good in early manhood, hut likely to be unfavorable after twenl^-five.
Orlow replied that, especially in youth, it is harmless, and a man abould
be as chaste as his wife. Popow said that abstinence is good at all
ages and preserves the energy. Blumenau said that in adult age ab-
stinence is neither normal nor beneficial, and generally leads to mas-
turbation, though not generally to nervous dieordera; but that even
masturbation is better than syphilis. Tachiriew aaw no barm In
abstinence up to thirty, and thought sexual weakness more likely to
follow excess than abstinence. Tschlsh regarded abstinence as beneficial
rather than harmful up to twenty-five or twenty-eight, but thought it
ditScult to decide after that age when nervous alterations seem to be
caused. Darksehewit«z regarded abstinence as harmleBS up to 1;wenty-
five, Frankel said it was harmless for moat, but that for a considerable
proportion of people intercourse is a neccBaity. Erb's opinion is
regarded by Jacobsohn as standing alone; he placed the age below
which abstinence ia harmlesa at twenty; after that age he regarded it
as injurioiM tu health, aerioualy impeding work and capacity, while En
neurotic persons it leads to still more aerioua results. Jacobsohn con-
cludes that the general opinion of those answering the inquiry may thus
be expressed: "Youth should be abstinent. Abstinence can in no way
injure them; on the contrary, it is beneficial. If our young people will
remain abstinent and avoid extra-conjugal intercourse they will nuun-
tain a hi^ ideal of love and preserve themselves from venereal diseases."
The harmlessnesB of aexual abstinence was likewiae affirmed in
.America in a resolution passed by the American Medical Association in
1906. The proposition thua formally accepted was thus worded: "Con-
tinence is not incompatible with health." It ought to be generally
realized that abstract propositions of this kind are worthless, because
they mean nothing. Every sane person, when confronted by the demand
to boldly affirm or deny the proposition, "Continence is not Incompati-
ble with health," is bound to affirm it. He might firmly believe that
continence is incompatible with the health of most people, and that pro-
longed continence is incompatible with anyone's health, and yet, it he
is to be honest in the use of language, it would be impossible for him
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194 P8T0H0L0QT OP SEX.
to deny the vague and abstract proposition that "Continence is not
incompatible witii healtb." Such propositions are therefore not on)}'
without value, but actually misleading.
It ifl obvious that the more extreme and unqualified opinions in
favor of sexual abstinence are baaed not on medical, but on what the
writers regard as moral considerations. Moreover, as the same writers
are usually equally emphatic in regard to the advantages of sesual inter-
course in marriage, it is clear that they have committed themselves to
a contradiction. The same act, as Nllcke rightly points out, cannot
become good or bad according as it is performed in or out of mar-
riage. There is no magic eOicacy in a few words pronounced by a priest
or a government official.
Remondino (loc. cit.) remarks that the authorities who have com-
mitted themselves to declarations in favor of the unconditional advan-
tages of sexual abstinence tend to fall into three errors; <1) they
generalize unduly, instead of considering each case individually, on it^t
own merits; (2) they fail to realize that human nature is influenced
bj highly mixed and complex motives snd cannot l>e assumed to be
amenable only to motives of abstract morality; (3) they ignore Uia
great army of masturbators and sexual perverts who make no complaint
of sexual suffering, but by maintaining a rigid sexual abstinence, so far
as normal relationships are concerned, gradually drift into currents
whence there is no return.
Between those who unconditionally affirm or deny the harm-
leeeneaa of Eexual abstinence we find an intermediate party of
authorities whose opinions are more qualified. Many of those
who occupy this more guarded position are men whose opinions
carry much weight, and it is probable that with them rather than
with the more extreme advocates on either side the greater
measure of reason lies. So complex a question as this cannot be
adequately investigated merely in the abstract, and settled by
an unqualified negative or adinnative. It is a matter in which
every case requires its own special and personal consideration.
"Where there is such a marked opposition of opinion truth is not
exclusively on one side," remarks LOwcnfeld {BexualUhen vnd Wercen-
leiden, second edition, p, 40). Sexual abstinence is certainly often
injurious to neuropathic persons. (This is now believed by a large
number of authorities, and was perhaps flrst decisively stated by Krafft-
Kbing, "LVber NeurosPn durch Abstinenz," JahrbUoh fiir Pgyohtatrie,
1889, p. 1). LSwenfeld finds no special proclivity to neurasthenia
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THE PBOBLEU OF SEXUAL ABSTINENCE. 195
among the Catholic clergy, and when it does occur, there is no reason
to euppofle a sexual causation. "In healthy and not hereditarily neuro-
pathic man complete abstinence is possible without injury to the nervous
eyetem." Injurious effects, he continues, when they appear, seldom
occur until between twenty-four and thirty-six years of age, and even
then are not usually serious enough to lead to a visit to a doctor, con-
sisting mainly in frequency of nocturnal emissions, psin in testes or
rectom, hyperssthesia in the presence of women or of sexiul ideas. If,
however, conditions arise which specially stimulate the sexual emotions,
neurasthenia may be produced. Lit wen f eld agrees with Freud and
Gattel that the neurosis of anxiety tends to occur in the abstinent,
careful examination showing that the abstinence is a factor in its pro-
duction in both sexes. It is common among young women married to
much older men, often appearing during the first years of marriage.
Under special circumstances, therefore, abstinence can be injurious, but
on the whole the difficulties due to such abetinenee are not severe, and
they only exceptionally call forth actual disturbance in the nervous or
psychic spheres. Moll takes a similar temperate and discriminating
Tiew. He regards sexual abstinence before marriage as the Ideal, but
points out that we must avoid any doctrinal extremes in preaching
eexnal abstinence, for such preaching will merely lead to hypocrisy.
Intercourse with prostitutes, and the tendency to change a woman like
a garment, induce loss of sensitiveness to the spiritual and personal
element in woman, while the dangers of sexual abstinence must no
more be exaggerated than the dangers of sexual intercourse (Moll,
Libido Senfualit, 1898, vol. i, p. 848; id., KontrSre Sexnalemp/indung,
1899, p, 6B8). Bloch also (in a ehapter on the question of sexual
abstinence In his Sex^uallehen unaerer Zfit, 19D8) takes a similar stand-
poiaL He advocates abstention during early life and temporary absten-
tion in adult life, such abstention being valuable, not only for the
conservation and transformation ot energy, but also to emphasize the
fact that life contains other matters to strive for beyond the ends of
sex. Redlich ( If eiwiniscfce EHnik, 1908, No. 7) also, in a careful
study of the medical aspects of the question, takes an intermediate
standpoint in relation to the relative advantages and disadvantages of
sexual abstinence. "We may say that sexual abstinence is not a condi-
tion which must, under all circumstances and at any price, be avoided,
though it is true that for the majority of healthy adult persons regular
sexual intercourse is advantageous, and sometimes is even to be recom-
mended."
It may be added that from the standpoint of Christian religious
morality thta same attitude, between the extremes of either parly,
recognizing the advantages of sexual abstinence, but not insisting that
they shall be purchased at any price, has also fbund representation.
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196 PStCHOLOGT OF SEX.
Thus, in England, an Anglican clei^Tmao, the Rev. H. Northcoto
[Chriatianitj/ and Sex Problems, pp. 58, 80) deali temperately and
qrin pathetically with the difficulties of sexual abstinence, and is bj no
means convinced that auch abstinence is always an unmixed advan-
tage; while in Gemiaiij a Catholic priest, Karl Jentsch [Seiewiletkik,
Sexualjualiz, Sexualpolizri, 1900) sets himself to oppose the rigorous
and unqualified assertions of Ribbing in favoi of sexual abstinence.
Jentsch thus expresses what he conceives ought to be the attitude of
fathers, of public opinion, of the State and the Church towards the
young man in this matter: "Endeavor to be abstinent until marriage.
Many succeed in this. If you can succeed, it is good. But, if yon can-
not succeed, it is unnecessary to cast reproaches on yourself and to
regard yourself as a scoundrel or a lost sinner. Provided that you do
not abandon yourself to mere enjoyment or wantonness, but are content
with what is necessary to restore your peace of mind, self-possession,
and cheerful capacity for work, and also that you observe the precau-
tions which physicians or experienced friends impress upon you."
When we thus analyze and investigate the the three main
streams of expert opinions in regard to this question of sexual
abstinence — the opinions in favor of it, the opinions in opposition
to it, and the opinions which take an intermediate course — we can
scarcely fail to conclude how unsatisfactory the whole discussion
is. The state of "sexual abstinence" is a completely vague and
indefinite state. The indefinite and even meaningless character
of the expression "sexual abBtinence" is shown by the frequency
with which those who argue about it assume that it can, may, or
even must, involve masturbation. That fact alone largely de-
prives it of value as morality and altogether as abstinence. At
this point, indeed, we reach the most fundamental criticism to
which the conception of "sexual abstinence" lies open. Rohleder,
^n experienced physician and a recognized authority on questions
■of sexual pathology, has submitted the current views on "sexual
abstinence" to a searching criticism in a lengthy and important
paper,' He denies altogether that strict sexual abstinence exists
at all. "Sexual abstinence," he points out, in any strict scense
of the term, must involve abstinence not merely from sexual
intercourse but from auto-erotic manifestations, from masturba-
' Zeitachrift fUr SexuahDitaenehaft,
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THE PfiOBLEU OF SEXUAL ABIJTIKENCB. 197
tioo, from homose:tiial acts, from all sexually perverse practices.
It must furtber involve a permanent abstention from indulgence
in erotic imaginations and voluptuous reverie. When, however,
it is possible thus to render the whole psychic held & tabula rasa
BO far as sexual activity is concerned — and if it fails to be so con-
stantly and consistently there is no strict sexual abstinence —
then, Bohleder points out, we have to consider whether we are not
in presence of a case of sexual anaesthesia, of anaphrodisia
sexualis. That is a question which is rarely, if ever, faced by
those who discuss sesual abstinence. It is, however, an extremely
pertinent question, because, as Rohleder insists, if sexual anaes-
thesia exists tiie question of sexual abstinence falls to the ground,
for we can only "abstain" from actions that are in our power.
Complete sexual antesthesia is, however,. so rare a state that it
may be practically left out of consideration, and as the sexual
impulse, if it exists, must by physiological necessity sometimes
become active in some shape— even if only, according to Freud's
view, by transformation into some morbid neurotic condition — -
we reach the conclusion that "sexual abstinence" is strictly
impossible. Rohleder has met with a few cases in which there
seemed to him no escape from the conclusion that sexual ab-
stinence existed, but in all of these he subsequently found that he
was mistaken, usually owing to the practice of masturbation,
which he believes to be extremely common and very frequently
accompanied by a persistent altempt to deceive the physician
concerning its existence. The only kind of "sexual abstinence"
that exists is a partial and temporary abstinence. Instead of
saying, as some say, "Permanent abstinence is unnatural and
cannot exist without physical and mental injury," we ought to
say, Rohleder believes, "Permanent abstinence is unnatural and
has never existed."
It is impossible not to feel as we contemplate this chaotic
mass of opinions, that the whole discussion is revolving round a
purely negative idea, and that fundamental fact is responsible
for what at first seem to be startling conflicts of statement. If
indeed we were to eliminate what is commonly regarded as the
religious and moral aspect of the matter — an aspect, be it
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198 PBTOHOLOGT OF SBZ.
remembered, which has do bearing od the essential natural facts
of the quefltion — we cannot fail to perceive that these ostenta-
tiouB differences of conviction would be reduced within very
narrow and trifling limits.
We cannot strictly coordinate the impulse of reproduction
with the impulse of nutrition. There are very important differ-
ences between them, more especially the fundamental difference
that while the satisfaction of the one impulse is absolutely neces-
sary both to the life of the individual and of the race, the satis-
faction of the other is absolutely necessary only to the life of
the race. But when we reduce this question to one of "sexual
abstinence" we are obviously placing it on the same basis as that
of abstinence from food, that is to say at the very opposite pole
to which we place it when {as in the previous chapter) we con-
sider it from the point of view of asceticism and chastity. It
thus comes about that on this negative basis there really is an
interesting analogy between nutritive abstinence, though neces-
sarily only maintained incompletely and for a short time, and
sexual abstinence, maintained more completely and for a longer
time. A patient of Janet's seems to bring out clearly this resem-
blance. Nadia, whom Janet was able to study during five years,
was a youDg woman of twenty-seven, healthy and intelligent, not
suffering from hysteria nor from anorexia, for she had a normal
appetite. But she had an idea; she was anxious to be slim and
to attain this end she cut down her meals to the smallest size,
merely a little soup and a few eggs. She suffered much from the
abstinence she thus imposed on herself, and was always hungry,
though sometimes her hunger was masked by the inevitable
stomach trouble caused by bo long a persistence in this regime.
At times, indeed, she had been so hungry that she had devoured
greedily whatever she could lay her hands on, and not infre-
quently she could not resist the temptation to eat a few biscuits
in secret. Such actions caused her horrible remorse, but, all the
same, she would be guilty of them again. She realized the great
efforts demanded by her way of life, and indeed looked upon her-
self as a heroine for repisting so long. "Sometimes," she told
Janet, "I passed whole hours in thinking about food, I was so
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THE FROBLEU OF SEXUAL AB8TIKENCE. 199
hungry. I swallowed my saliva, I bit my handkerchief, I rolled
on the ground, I wanted to eat so badly. I searched books for
descriptions of meals and feasts, I tried to deceive my hunger
by imagining that I too was enjoying all these good things. I
was really famished, and in spite of a few weaknesses for biscuits
I know that I showed much courage."' Nadia's motive idea,
that she wished to be slim, corresponds to the abstinent man's
idea that he wishes to be "moral," and only differs from it by
having the advantage of bemg somewhat more positive and per-
sonal, for the idea of the person who wishes to avoid sexual
indulgence because it is "not right" is often not merely negative
but impersonal and imposed by the social and religious environ-
ment. Nadia's occasional outbursts of reckless greediness cor-
respond to the sudden impulses to resort to prostitution, and her
secret weaknesses for biscuits, followed by keen remorse, to lapses
into the habit of masturbation. Her fits of struggling and
rolling on the ground are precisely like the outburste of futile
desire which occasionally occur to young abstinent men and
women in health and strength. The absorption in thoughts
about meals and in literary descriptions of meals is clearly
analogous to the abstinent man's absorption in wanton thoughts
and erotic books. Finally, Nadia's conviction that she is a
heroine corresponds exactly to the attitude of self-righteousnesa
which often marks the sexually abstinent.
If we turn to Freud's penetrating and su£^;estive study of
the problem of sexual abstinence in relation to "civilized" sexual
morality, we find that, though he makes no reference to the
analogy with abstinence from food, his words would for the most
part have an equal application to both cases. "The task of sub-
duing so powerful an instinct as the sexual impulse, otherwise
than by giving it satisfaction," he writes, "is one which may
employ the whole strength of a man. Subjugation through sub-
limation, by guiding the sexual forces into higher civilizational
paths, may succeed with a minority, and even with these only for
a time, least easily during the years of ardent youthful energy.
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200 FSTOHOLOQY OF SBX.
Moat others become neurotic or otherwise come to grief. Ex-
perience shows that the majority of people constitntin^ our
society are conetitutioQally unequal to the taek of abstinence.
We say, indeed, that the struggle with this powerful impulse and
the emphasiB the struggle invokes on the ethical and Ksthetic
forces in the soul's life 'steels' the character, and for a few
favorably organized natures this is true ; it must also be acknowl-
edged that the differentiation of individual character bo marlied
in our time only becomes possible through sexual limitationa.
But in by far the majority of cases the struggle with sensuality
uses up the available energy of character, and this at the very
time when the young man needs all his strength in order to win
his place in the wotld."i
When we have put the problem on this negative basis of
abstinence it is difficult to see how we can dispute the justice of
Freud's conclusions. They hold good equally for abstinence
from food and abstinence from sexual love. When we have
placed the problem on a more positive basis, and are able to
invoke the more active and fruitful motives of asceticism and
chastity this unfortunate fight against a natural impulse is
abolished. If chastity is an ideal of the harmoniouB play of all
the organic impulses of the soul and body, if asceticism, properly
understood, is the athletic striving for a worthy object which
causes, for the time, an indifference to the gratification of sexual
impulses, we are on wholesome and natural ground, and there is
no waste of energy in fruitless striving for a negative end,
whether imposed artificially from without, as it usually is, or
voluntarily chosen by the individual himself.
1 S. Preud, Seaual-Problema, March, 1908. Afl AAaXa Bchreiber alu
points out {Mutterachute, Jan., 1007, p. 30), it ii not enough to prove
that abstinence ie not dangerouB ; we have to remember that the spiritual
and phyiical energy uaed up in repressing this mighty instinct often
reduces a joyous and energetic nature to a weary and taded shadow.
SimllBTly. Helene StScker (Die Liebe und die Prauen, p. 105) says;
"The question whether abstinence is harmful is, to say the truth, «
ridiculous question. One needs to be do nervous specialist to know, aa
a matter of course, that a life of happy love and marriage is the healthy
life, and its complete absence cannot fail to lead to severe psychic depres-
sion, even if no direct physiological disturbances can be demonatrated."
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THE PROBLEM OF BBZUjtL ABBTINENCE. 201
For there is really no complete anal(^ between eexual
deeire and hunger, between abstinence from sexnal relationa and
abstinence from food. When we put them both on the basis of
abstinence we put them on a basis which covers the impulse for
food but only half covers the impulse for sexual love. We con-
fer no pleasure and no service on our food when we eat it. But
the half of sexual love, perhaps the most important and ennobling-
half, lies in what we give and not in what we take. To reduce
this question to the low level of abstinence, is not only to centre
it in a merely negative denial but to make it a solely self-regard-
ing question. Instead of asking: How can I bring joy and
strength to another ? we only aak : How can I preserve my empty
virtue?
Therefore it is that from whatever aspect we consider the
question, — ^whether in view of the flagrant contradiction between
the authorities who have discussed this question, or of the
illegitimate mingling here of moral and physiological considera-
tions, or of the merely negative and indeed unnatural character
of the "virtue" thus set up, or of the failure involved to grasp
the ennobljngly altruistic and mntnal side of sexual love, — from
whatever aspect we approach the problem of "sexual abstinence"
we ought only to agree to do so under protest.
If we thus decide to approach it, and if we have reached
the conviction — ^which, in view of all the evidence we can
scarcely escape — ^that, while sexual abstinence in so far as it may
be recognized as possible is not incompatible with health, there
are yet many adults for whom it is harmful, and a very much
larger number for whom when prolonged it is undesirable, we
encounter a serious problem. It is a problem which ctmfronts
any person, and especially the physician, who may be called upon
to give professional advice to his fellows on this matter. If
sexual relationships are sometimes desirable for unmarried per-
sons, or for married persons who, for any reason, are debarred
from conjugal union, is a physician justified in recommending
such sexual relationships to his patient? This is a question that
has frequently been debated and decided in opposing senses.
DKiilzedbyGoOgle
202 PSYCHOLOGY (
Varioua diatiaguished phTsicia
proclaimed the duty of the doctor
his patient whenever he coDsidera it dcBirable. Gyurkovechky, tor
instance, has fully discuaaed this question, and answered it in the
offlrmative. NyatrSm {Bfxual-Probleme, July, 1908, p. 413) states that
it la the physician's duty, in some casee of sexual weakness, when all
other methods of treatment have failed, to recommend sexual inter-
course as the best remedy. Dr. Max Marcuae stands out as a con-
spicuous advocate of the unconditional duty of the phyaieian to
advocat« sexual intercouree in some caae«, both to men and to women,
and has on many occasions argued in this sense (e.g„ Darf der A.ret
mm Au»»erehelichen aeachteehlavtrkehr ratenT 1904). Marcuae ia
strongly of opinion that a phyaieian who, allowing faimeelf to be
influenced by moral, sociological, or other oonaiderationa, neglects to
recommend sexual intercourae when he conaidera it desirable for the
patient's health, is unworthy of hia profeaaion, and should either give
up medicine or send his patients to other doctors. This attitude, though
not usually so emphatically stated, aeems to be widely accepted.
Lederer goes even further when he atat«8 (Uonatttchrifl fUr Bam-
krankheiten «nd BetmelU Hygiene, 1B06, Heft 3) that it is the phyal-
cian'a duty in the case of a woman who is suffering from her huaband'a
Impotence, to advise her to hhve intercourse with another man, adding
that "whether she does ao with her huaband's consent ia no alTalr of
the physician'a, for he is not the guardian of morality, but the guardian
of health." The physicians who publicly take this attitude are, how-
ever, a small minority. In England, ao far aa I am aware, no phyaiciaa
of eminence has openly proclaimed the duty of the doctor to advise
aexual intercourse outside marriage, although. It ia acarcely neceasaiy
to add, in England, as elaewhere, it happena that doctors, including
women doctors, from time to time privately point out to their unmar-
ried and even married patients, that sexual intercourae would probably
be beneflciaL
The duty of the physician to recommend sexual Intercourse has
been denied as emphatically aa it has been affirmed. Thua Eulenbwg
(Sexuale Neuropathic, p. 43), would by no means advise extra-conjugal
relations to his patient; "such advice is quite outside the phyaician's
competence." It is, of course, denied by those who regard aexual
abatinence aa alwaya harmleaa, if not beneficial. But it Is also denied
by many who consider that, under aome circumstances, sexual inter-
course would do good.
Moll haa especially, and on many occasions, diacuaaed the dn^ of
the physician in relation to the question of advising sexual Intercourse
outside marriage (e.g., in his comprehensive work, Aerztliche Efhik,
1902; also ZeittohHft far Aerlzliche FortUldimg, 1905, Nos. 12-16;
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THE PROBLEM OF SEXUAL ABSTIKENCE. 203
Muttertehult, IMS, Heft 3; Qeiekleckt und Oeaellsohaft, toI, ii. Heft
S), At the outset Moll had been disposed to assert the right of the
phyEJcian to recommend sexual intercourse under some circumstances;
"ao long as marriage is undulj' delayed and sexual intercourse outside
marriage exists," he wrote (Die Contrdre Seaualemp/ittdung, second
edition, p. 2BT ) , "so long, I think, we may use such intercourse
therapeutically, provided that the rights of no third person (huaband
or n'ife) are injured." In all his later writings, however, Moll ranges
hinuelf clearly and decisively on the opposite side. He considers that
the physician has no right to overlook the possible results of his advice
in inflicting venereal disease, or, in the case of a woman, pregnanej, on
his patient, and he believes that these serious results are far more
likely to happen than Is always admitted by those who defend the
legitimacy of such advice. Nor will Moll admit that the physician is
entitled to overlook the moral aspects of the question. A physician
may know that a poor man could obtain many things good for his
health by stealing, but he cannot advise him to steal. Moll takes the
ease of a Catbolic priest who is sulTering from neurasthenia due to
sexual abstinence. Kven although the physician feels certain that the
priest may be able to avoid all the ri&ks of disease as well as of pub-
licity, he is not entitled to urge him to sexual intercourse. He has to
remember that in thus causing a priest to break his vows of chastity
he may induce a mental conflict and a bitter remorse which may lead
to the worst results, even on his patient's physical health. Similar
results, Moll remarks, may follow such advice when given to a married
man or woman, to say nothing of possible divorce proceedings and
accompanying evils.
Rohteder iVorle»ungen iiber Oeschleehtstrieb und Qetamtet Qeaeh-
lechlaUben ier Jfetwchen) adopts a somewhat qualified attitude in this
matter. As a general rule he is decidedly against recommending
sexual intercourse outside marriage to those who are suffering from
partial or temporary abstinence (the only form of abstinence he recog-
nJEes), partly on the ground that the evils of abstinence are not serious
or permanent, and partly because the patient is fairly certain to exer-
cise bis own judgment in the matter. But in some classes of eases he
recommends such intercourse, and notably to bisexual persons, on the
ground that he is thus preserving his patient from the criminal risks
of homosexual practices.
It seems to mc that there should be no doubt whatever as to
the correct professional attitude of the physician in relation to
this question of advice concerning sexual intercourse. The
physician is never entitled to advise his patient to adopt sexual
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204 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
intercourse outside marriage nor any method of relief which is
commonly regarded as illegitimate. It is said that the physician
has nothing to do with considerations of conventional morality.
If he considers that champagne would be good for a poor patient
he ought to recommend him to take champagne; he is not
called upon to consider whether the patient will beg, borrow, or
steal the champagne. But, after all, even if that he admitted, it
must still be said that the physician knows that the champagne,
however obtained, is not likely to be poisonous. Wlicn, however,
he prescribes sexual intercourse, with the same lofty indifference
to practical considerations, he hae no such knowledge. In giving
such a prescription the physician has in fact not the slightest
knowledge of what he may be prescribing. He may he giving
bis patient a venereal disease ; he may be giving the anxieties and
responsibilities of an illegitimate child ; the prescriber is quite in
the dark. He is in the same position as if he had prescribed a
quack medicine of which the composition was unknown to him,
with the added disadvantage that the medicine may turn out to be
far more potently explosive than is the case with the usually
innocuous patent medicine. The utmost that a physician can
properly permit himself to do is to put the case impartially before
his patient and to present to him all the risks. The solution
must be for the patient himself to work out, as best he can, for
it involves social and other considerations which, while they are
indeed by no means outside the sphere of medicine, are certainly
entirely outside the control of the individual private practitioner
of medicine.
Moll also is of opinion that this impartial preKntation of the case
for and against eexual intercourse corresponds to the physician's duly
in tbe matter. It is, indeed, a duty which can scarcely be escaped by
the physician in many cases. Moll points out that it can by no means
be aBBimilated, aa some have supposed, with the recontmendation of
sexual intercourse. It in, on the contrary, he remarks, much more
analogous to the physician's duty in reference to operations. He puts
before the patient the nature of the operation, its advantages and its
risks, but he leaves it to the patient's judgment to accept or reject the
operation. Lewitt also {Ocschteckllicke Enlhallaamheit und Qemnd-
heiteslSrutigen, 1905), after discussing the various opinions on this
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THE PHOBLEM OP 8EXDAL ABSTINENCE. 205
question, comeg to the conclusion that the physician, if he thinks that
intercouTse outside marriage might be l>ene(icial, should explain the
difficulties and leave the patient himself to decide.
There ie another reason why, having regard to the prevailing
moral opinions at all events among the middle classes, a physician
Bhould refrain from advising extra-conjugal intercourse: he
places himself in a false relation to hia social environment. He
is recommending a remedy the nature of which he could not
puhlicly avow, and so destroying the public confidence in himself.
The only physician who ie morally entitled to advise his patients
to enter into extra-conjugal relationships is one who openly
acknowledges that he is prepared to give such advice. The doctor
who is openly working for social reform has perhaps won the
moral right to give advice in accordance with the tendency of his
public activity, but even then his advice may be very dubiously
judicious, and he would be better advised to confine his efforts
nt social reform to his public activities. The voice of the physi-
cian, as Professor Max Flesch of Frankfort observes, is more and
more heard in the development and new growth of social institu-
tions; he is a nafural leaders in such movements, and proposals
for reform properly come from him. "But," as Flesch continues,
"publicly to accept the excellence of existing institutions and in
the privacy of the consulting-room to give advice which assumes
the imperfection of those institutions is illogical and confusing.
It is the physician's business to give advice which is in accord-
ance with the interests of the community as a whole, and those
interests require that sexual relationships should be ent«red into
between healthy men and women who are able and willing to
accept the results of their union. That should be the physician's
rule of conduct. Only so can he become, what to-day he b often
proclaimed to be, the leader of the nation.^" This view is not, as
we see, entirely in accord with that which assumes that the
physician's duty is solely and entirely to his patient, without
regard to the bearing of his advice on social conduct. The
patient's interests are primary, but they are not entitled to be
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206 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
placed in antagonism to the interests of society. The advice
given by the wise physician must always be in harmony vith the
social and moral tone of his age. Thus it is that the tendency
among the younger generation of physicians to-day to take an
active interest in raising that tone and in promoting social
reform — a tendency which exists not only in Germany where such
interests have long been acute, but also in bo conservative a land
as England — is full of promise for the future.
The physician is usually content to consider hia duty to his
patient in relationship to sexual abstinence as sufficiently ful-
filled when he attempts to allay sexual hypereesthesia by medical
or hygienic treatment. It can scarcely be claimed, however, that
the results of such treatment are usually satisfactory, and some-
times indeed the treatment has a result which is the reverse of
that intended. The difficulty generally is that in order to be
efficacious the treatment must be carried to an extreme which
exhausts or inhibits not only the genital activities alone but the
activities of the whole organism, and short of that it may prove
a stimulant rather than a sedative. It is difficult and usually
impossible to separate out a man's sexual activities and bring
influence to bear on these activities alone. Sexual activity is
BO closely intertwined with the other organic activities, erotic
exuberance is so much a 0ower which is rooted in the whole
organism, that the blow which crushes it may strike down the
whole man. The bromides are universally recognized as powerful
sexual sedatives, but their influence in this respect only makes
itself felt when they have dulled all the finest energies of the
organism. Physical exercise is universally recommended to
sexually hypcrffisthetic patients. Yet most people, men and
women, find that physical exercise is a positive stimulus to sexual
activity. This is notably so as regards walking, and exuberantly
energetic young women who are troubled by the irritant activity
of their healthy sexual emotions sometimes spend a large part of
their time in the vain attempt to lull their activity by long walk?.
Physical exercise only proves efficacious in this respect when it is
carried to an extent which producer general exhaustion. Then
indeed the sexual activity is lulled, but eo are all the mental and
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THE PROBLEM OF SESUAL ABSTIKEKCi:. 207
pliysical activities. It is midoubtedly true tliat cxerciBes and
games of all Borts for youag people of both eexes have a sexually
hygienic aB well as a generally hygienic influence which is
undoubtedly beneficial. They are, on all grounds, to be preferred
to prolonged sedentary occupations. But it is idle to suppose
that games and exercises will suppress the sesual impulses, for
in so far as they favor health, they favor all the impulses that
are the result of health. The most that can be expected is that
they may tend to restrain the manifestations of sex by dispersing
the energy they generate.
There are many physical rules and precautions which are
advocated, not without reason, as tending to inhibit or diminish
sexual activity. The avoidance of heat and the cultivation of
cold is one of the most important of these. Hot climates, a
close atmosphere, heavy bed-clothing, hot baths, all tend power-
fully to excite the-sexual system, for that system is a peripheral
sensory organ, and whatever stimulates the skin generally,
stimulates the sexual system. ^ Cold, which contracts the skin,
also deadens the sexual feelings, a fact which the ascetics of old
knew and acted upon. The garments and the posture of the body
are not without influence. Constriction or pressure iu the
neighborhood of the sexual region, even tight corsets, as well as
internal pressure, as from a distended bladder, are sources of
sexual irritation. Sleeping on the back, which congests the
spinal centres, also acts in the same way, as has long been known
by those who attend to sexual hygiene; thus it is stated that in
the Franciscan order it is prohibited to lie on the back. Food
and drink are, further, powerful sexual stimulants. This is
true even of the simplest and most wholesome nourishment, but
it is more especially true of flesh meat, and, above all, of alcohol
in its stronger forms such as spirits, liqueurs, sparkling and
heavy wines, and even many English beers. This has always
been clearly realized by those who cultivate asceticism, and it is
one of the powerful reasons why alcohol should not be given in
early youth. As St. Jerome wrote, when telling Eustochium
that she must avoid wine like poison, "wine and youth are the
1 See the Section on Touch in the fourth volume of these Bludiea.
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208 P8TCH010GY OF 8BI.
two fires of luet. Why add oil to the flame ?"^ IdleneBS, again,
CBpecially when combined with rich liying, promotes sexual
activity, as Burton sets forth at length in his Anatomy of Melan-
choly, and constant occupation, on the other hand, concentrates
the wandering activities,
ilcntal e^ferciae, like pliysical ezercise, has sometimeB been
advocated as a metliod of calming sexual excitement, but it aeema
to be equally equivocal in ita action. If it is profoundly inter-
esting and exciting it may stir up rather than lull the sexual
emotions. If it arousea little interest it is unable to exert any
kind of influence. Tliis is true even of mathematical occupations
which have been advocated by various authorities, including
BrouBsais, as aids to sexual hygiene.^ "I have tried mechanical
mental work," a lady writes, "auch as solving arithmetical or
algebraic problems, but it docs no good ; in fact it aeems only to
increase the excitement." "I studied and espfecially turned my
attention to matliematics," a clergyman writes, "with a view to
check my sexual tendencies. To a certain extent I was success-
ful. But at the approach of an old friend, a voice or a touch,
tliese tendencies came back again with renewed strength. I
found mathematics, however, the best thing on the whole to take
off my attention from women, better than religious exercises
which I tried when younger (twenty-two to thirty)." At the
best, however, such devices are of merely temporary efBcacy.
It is easier to avoid arousing the sexual impulses than to
impose silence on them by hygienic measures when once they are
1 "I have had two years' close CKperientw and connexion with the
TrappiBta," wrote Dr. Butterfleld. of Natal [Briliih Medical Journal,
Sept. 15, 1906, p. 668), "both an medical attendant and as being a
Catholic in creed rayBclf. I have studied them and investigated their
life, habits and diet, and though I should be very backward Id adopting
it myself, as not suited to me individually, the great bulk of them are
in absolute ideal health and strength, seldom ailing, capable of vast
work, mental and physical. Their life is very simple and very regular.
A healthier body of men and women, with perfect equanimity ot tem-
Eir — this tatter I lay grent stress on — it would be difficult to find,
ealth beams In their eyes and countenance and actions. Only in sick-
ness or prolonged journeys are they allowed any strong foodj — meats,
«ggB, etc — or any alcohol.
2 Tir6, L'Inttinet Sexutl, second edition, p. 332.
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THE PBOBLEM OF SEXUAL ABSTINENCE. 209
aroused. It is, therefore, in childhood and youth that all these
measures may be most reasonably obBer\-ed in order to avoid auy
premature sexual excitement. In one group of stolidly normal
children influences that might be expected to act sexually pass
away unperceived. At the other extreme, another group of
' children are so neurotically and precociously sensitive that no
precautions will preserve them from such influences. But
between these groups there is another, probably much the largest,
who resist slight sexual suggestions but may succumb to stronger
or longer influences, and on these the cares of sexual hygiene may
profitably be bestowed.^
After puberty, when the spontaneous and inner voice of sex
may at any moment suddenly make itself heard, all hygienic
precautions are liable to he flung to the winds, and even the
youth or maiden most anxious to retain the ideals of chastity can
often do little but wait till the storm has passed. It sometimes
happens that a prolonged period of sexual storm and stress occurs
soon after puberty, and then dies away although there has been
little or no sexual gratification, to be succeeded by a period of
comparative calm. It must be remembered that in many, and
perhaps most, individuals, men and women, the sexual appetite,
unlike hunger or thirst, can after a prolonged struggle, be reduced
to a more or less quicBcent state which, far from injuring, may
even benefit the physical and psychic vigor generally. This may
happen whether or not sexual gratification has been obtained. If
there has never been any such gratification, the struggle is lees
severe and sooner over, unless the individual is of highly erotic
1 Rural life, hs we have Been when discussing itB relation to sesii*!
preeocil?, is on one side the reverse of a safeguard against sexual
influences. But, on the other hand, in bo far as it involves hard work
and simple living under conditions that are not nen-ouslj' Btimulating,
it la favorable to a considerably delayed sexual activitj* in ^outh and
to a relative continence. Ammon, in the course of his anthropological
investigations of Baden conscripts, found that sexual Intercourse was
rare in the country before twenty, and even sexual emissions during
sleep rare before nineteen or twenty. It is said, also, he repeats, that
no one has a right to run after girls who does not yet carry a gun,
and the elder lads sometimes brutally ill-treat any younger boy found
0>ing about with a girl. No doubt this is often preliminary to much
liceoae lat«r.
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210 PSTCIIOLOGT OF 8KS,
temperament. If there has been gratirication, if the mind is
filled Dot merely with desires but with joyous experience to which
the body also has grown accustomed, then the struggle is longer
and more painfully absorbing. The succeeding relief, however,
if it comes, is sometimes more complete and is more likely to be
associated with a state of psychic health. For the fundamental
experiences of life, under normal conditions, bring not only
intellectual sanity, but emotional pacification. A conquest of the
sexual appetites which has never at any period involved a grati-
fication of these appetites seldom produces results that commend
themselves as rich and beautiful.
In these combats there are, however, no permanent con-
quests. For a very large number of people, indeed, though there
may be emotional changes and fluctuations dependent on a
variety of circumstances, there can scarcely be said to be any
conquest at all. They are either always yielding to the impulses
that assail them, or always resisting those impulses, in the first
case with remorse, in the second with dissatisfaction. In either
case much of their lives, at the time when life is most vigorous, is
wasted. With women, if they happen to be of strong passions
and reckless impulses to abandonment, the results may be highly
enervating, if not disastrous to the general psychic life. It is to
this cause, indeed, that some have been inclined to attribute the
frequent mediocrity of women's work in artistic and intellectual
fields. Women of intellectual force are frequently if not gen-
erally women of strong passions, and if they resist the tendency
to merge themselves in the duties of maternity their lives are
often wasted in emotional conflict and their psychic natures im-
poverished.!
I The numerical preponderance which celibate women teachers have
now gained in the American school Bystem haa caused much misgiving
among many sugacious observers, and ia said to be unsatisfactory in its
results on the pupils of both sexes. A distinguished authority, Pro-
fessor KIcKeen Cattell ("The School and the Family," Popular Beicnct
Monthlj/, Jan., lOOd), referring to this preponderance of "devitalized
and imsexed spinsters," goefl so far as to say that "the ultimate result
of letting the celibate female be the usual teacher has been such as to
make It a question whether it would not be an advantage to the country
if the whole school plant could be scrapped."
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THE PROBLEU OF SEXUAL AB6TINENCE. 211
The extent to which sexual abstinence and the struf^leB it involves
inaf hamper and absorb the individual throughout life is well illustrated
in the following case. A lady, vigorous, robust, nnd generally healthy,
of great intelligence and high character, has reached middle life without
marrying, or ever having sexual relationshipB. She was an only child,
and when between three and four years of age, a playmate aome aix
years older, initiated her into the habit of playing with her sexual
parts. She was, however, at this age quite devoid of sexual feelings,
and the habit dropped naturally, without any bad effects, as soon as she
left the neighborhood of this girl a year or so later. Her health was
good and even brilliant, and she developed vigorously at puberty. At
the age of sixteen, however, a mental shock caused menstruation to
diminish in amount during mme years, and simultaneously with this
diminution persistent sexual excitement appeared spontaneously, for the
first time. She regarded such feelings as abnormal and unhealthy, and
exerted all her powers of self-control in resisting them. But will power
had no effect in diminishing the feelings. There was constant and
imperious excitement, with the sense of vibration, tension, pressure,
dilatation and tickling, accompanied. It may be, by some ovarian con-
gestion, for she felt that on the left 'side there was a network of seinat
nerves, and retroversion of the uterus was detected some years later.
Her life was strenuaus with many duties, but no occupation could be
pursued without this undercurrent of sexual hyperssthesla involvinj;
perpetual self-control. This continued more or less acutely for many
years, when menstruation suddenly stopped altogether, much before tha
usual period of the climacteric. At the same time the sexual excite-
ment ceased, and she became calm, peaceful, and happy. Diminished
menstruation was associated with sexual excitement, but abundant
menstruation and its complete absence were both accompanied by the
relief of excitement. This lasted for two years. Then, for the treat-
ment of a trifling degree of ansmia, she was subjected to a long, and,
in her case, injudicious course of hypodermic injections of stiychnia.
From that time, five years ago, np to the present, there has been con-
stant sexual excitement, and she has always to be on guard lest she
should be overtaken by a sexual spasm. Her torture is increased by the
fact that her traditions make it impossible for her (except under very
exceptional circumstances) to allude to the cause of her sufferings. "A
woman is handicapped," she writes. "She may never speak to anyone
on such a subject. She munt live her tragedy alone, smiling as much
as she can under the strain of her terrible burden." To add to her
trouble, two years ago, shs felt impplled to resort to masturbation, and
has done bo aliout once a month since; this not only brings no real
relief, and leaves irritability, wakefulness, and dark marks under Vto
eyes, but ts a cause of remorse to her, for she rcgurds masturbation u
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212 PSYCHOLOGY OF BEX.
entlrel; abnormal and unnatural. She has tried to gain benefit, not
merely by the usual methods of phyaical hygiene, but by auggestion,
Christian Science, etc., but all in vain, "I may say," ehe writes, "that
it ia the most passionate desire of my heart to be freed from this Ixmd-
age, that I may relax the terrible years-long tension of resistance, and
be happy in my own way. If I had this aSliction once a month, onco
a week, even twice a week, to stand against' it would be child's play. I
should scorn to resort to iinnatural means, however moderately. But
self-contro) itself has its revenges, and I sometimes feel as if it is no
longer to be borne."
ThuB while it is an immense benefit in physical and psychic
development if the eruption of the disturbing sexual emotions can
be delayed until puberty or adolescence, and while it is a very
great advantage, after that eruption has occurred, to be able to
gain control of these emotions, to emah altogether the sesual
nature would be a barren, if not, indeed, a perilous victory,
bringing with it no satisfaction. "If I had only had three
weeks' happiness," said a woman, "I would not quarrel with
Fate, but to have one's whole life so absolutely empty is horrible."
If such vacuous self-restraint may, by courtesy, be termed a
virtue, it is but a negative virtue. The persons who achieve it,
as the result of congenitally feeble sexual aptitudes, merely (as
GjTirkovechky, Furbringer, and Ijowenfeld liave all alike re-
marked) made a virtue of their weakness, ilany others, whose
instincts were less weak, when they disdainfully put to flight the
desires of sex in early life, have found that in later life that foe
returns in tenfold force and perhaps in unnatural shapes.^
1 Corre ILes Criminels, p. 351) mentions that of thirteen priests
convicted of crime, six were guilty of sexual attempts on children, and
of eighty-three convicted lay teachers, forty-eight had committed similar
ofTeDsea. This was at a time when lay teachers were in practice almost
compelled to live a celibate life; altered conditions have greatly dimin-
ished this class of olTense among them. Without going bo far as crime,
many moral and religious men, clergymen and others, who have led
severely abstinent lives in youth, sometimes experience in middle age
or later the eruption of almost uncontrntlable sexual impulseB, normal
or abnormal. In women such manifestations are apt to take the form
of obsessional thoughts of sexual character, as e.j/., the case {Comptea-
Rendwt Congrfs International de lUMecine, Moscow, 1897, vol. iv, p. 27)
of a chaste woman who was compelled to think about and look at the
sexual organs of men.
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THE PROBLEM OF BEXCAL ABSTIXENCE. 213
The conception of "gexuai abstinence" is, we see, an entirely
false and artificial conception. It ib not only ill-adjusted to the
hygienic facts of the case but it fails even to invoke any
genuinely moral motive, for it is exclusively self-regarding and
self-centred. It only becomes genuinely moral, and truly inspir-
ing, when we transform it into the altruistic virtue of self-
sacrifice. When we have done bo we see that the element of
abstinence in it ceases to be essential. "Self-sacrifice," writes the
author of a thoughtful book on the sexual life, "is acknowledged
to be the basis of virtue; the noblest instances of self-sacrifice
are those dictated by sexual affection. Sympathy is the secret of
altruism ; nowhere is sympathy more real and complete than in -
love. Courage, both moral and physical, the love of truth and
honor, the spirit of enterprise, and the admiration of moral
worth, are all inspired by love as by nothing else in human
nature. Celibacy denies itself that inspiration or restricts its
influence, according to the measure of its denial . of sesual
intimacy. Thus the deliberate adoption of a consistently celibate
life implies the narrowmg down of emotional and moral experi-
ence to a degree which is, from the broad scientific standpoint,
unjustified by any of the advantages piously supposed to accrue
from it,"^
In a sane natural order all the impulses are centred in the
fulfilment of needs and not in their denial. Moreover, in this
special matter of sex, it is inevitable that the needs of others, and
not merely the needs of the individual himself, should determine
action. It ie more especially the needs of the female which are
the determining factor ; for those needs are more various, com-
plex and elusive, and in his attentiveness to their gratification
the male finds a source of endless erotic satisfaction. It might
be thought that the introduction of an altruistic motive here is
merely the claim of theoretical morality insisting that there shall
be a firm curb on animal instinct. But, as we have again and
again seen throughout the long course of these Studies, it is not
so. The animal instinct itself makes this demand. It is a
> J. A. QoilTty, T\e Science of Sen, p. 13S.
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214 PSYCirOLOGY OF SEX.
biological law that rules throughout the zoological world and
has involved the universality of courtship. In man it is only
modified because in man sexual needs are not entirely concen-
trated in reproduction, but more or less penetrate the whole of
life.
While from the point of view of society, as from that of
Nature, the end and object of the sexual impulse is procreation,
and notliing beyond procreation, that is by no means true for the
individual, whose main object it must be to fulfil himself har-
moniously with that due regard for others which the art of living
demands. Even if sexual relationships had no connection with
procreation whatever — as some Central Australian tribes believe
— they would still be justifiable, and are, indeed, an indiapensablo
aid to the best moral development of the individual, for it is only
in so intimate a relationship as that of sex that the finest graces
and aptitudes of life have full scope. Even the saints cannot
forego the sexual side of life. The best and most accomplished
saints from Jerome to Tolstoy — even the exquisite Francis of
Assisi — had stored up in their past all the experiences that go to
the complete realization of life, and if it were not so they woold
have been the less saints.
The element of positive virtue thus only enters when the
control of the sexual impulse has passed beyond the stage of
rigid and sterile abstinence and has become not merely a delib-
erate refusal of what is evil in sex, but a deliberate acceptance of
what is good. It is only at that moment that such control
becomes a real part of the great art of living. For the art of
living, like any other art, is not compatible with rigidity, but lies
in the weaving of a perpetual harmony between refusing and
accepting, between giving and taking.*
The future, it is clear, belongs ultimately to those who are
slowly building up sounder traditions into the structure of life.
The "problem of sexual abstinence" will more and more sink into
insignificance. There remain the great solid fact of love, the
great solid fact of chastity. Those are eternal. Between them
• See, e.g., Havelock Ellis, "St. Francis and Others," Affirmatioiu.
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THE mOBLEM OF BEXUAL ABSTINENCE. 215
there is nothing but harmoDy. The development of one involves
the development of the other.
It Ima been neceesary to treat seriously this problem of
"sexual abstinence" because we have behind ub the traditions of
two thousand years based on certain ideals of sexual law and
seiual license, together with the long effort to build up practices
more or less conditioned by those ideals. We cannot immediately
escape from these traditions even when we question their validity
for ourselves. We have not only to recognize their existence, but
also to accept the fact that for some time to come they must still
to a considerable extent control the thoughts and even in some
degree the actions of existing communities.
It is undoubtedly deplorable. It involves the introduction
of an artificiality into a real natural order. Love is real and
positive; chastity is real and positive. But sexual abstinence is
unreal and negative, in the strict sense perhaps impossible. The
underlying feelings of all those who have emphasized its impor-
tance is that a physiological process can be good or bad according
as it is or is not carried out under certain arbitrary external con-
ditions, which render it licit or illicit. An act of sexual inter-
course under the name of "marriage" is beneficial; the very
same act, under the name of "incontinence," is pernicious. No
physiological process, and still less any spiritual process, can
bear such restriction. It is as much as to say that a meal becomes
good or bad, digestible or indigestible, according as a grace is or
is not pronounced before the eating of it.
It is deplorable because, such a conception being essentially
unreal, an element of unreality is thus introduced into a matter
of the gravest concern alike to the individual and to society.
Artificial disputes have been introduced where no matter of real
dispute need exist. A contest has been carried on marked by all
the ferocity which marks contests about metaphysical or pseudo-
metaphysical differences having no concrete basis in the actual
world. As will happen in such cases, there has, after all, been no
real difference between the disputants because the point they
quarreled over was unreal. In truth each side was right and each
side was wrong.
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216 PSTCHOLOOT OF SEX.
It is neceseary, we see, that the balance should be held even.
An absolute license is bad ; an absolute abBtinence — even though
Bome by nature or circumstances are urgently called to adopt it —
JB also bad. They are both alike away from the gracious equilib-
rium of Nature. And the force, we see, which naturaUy holds
this balance even ie the biological fact that the act of sexual union
is the satisfaction of the erotic needs, not of one person, but of
two persons.
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CHAPTER VII.
PROSTITUnON.
I. The Orgy; — The Religious Origin of th« Orgy— The Feast of
Foola — Recognition of the Orgy by the Greeks and Romans — The Otgy
Among SavBgea— The Drama — The Ohject Subserved by the Orgy.
II. The Origin and Development of ProsliluHon: — The Definition
of Prostitution — Prostitution Among Savages— The ConditionB Under
Which Professional Prostitution Arises — Saored Prostitution — The Rite
of Mylitta — The Praotice of Prostitution to Obtain a Marriage Portion —
The Rise of Secular Prostitution in Greece— Prostitution in the East —
India, China, Japan, etc. — Prostitution in Rome — The Influence of
Christianity on Prostitution — The Effort to Combat Prostitution — The
Medisva) Brothel — The Appearance of the Courtesan — Tullia D'Aragona
— Veronica Franco — Ninon de Lencloe — Later Attempts to Eradicate
Prostitution — The Regulation of Prostitution — Ita Futility Becoming
Recognized.
in. The Catuee of Pro* (itu (ion .-—Prostitution as a Part of the
Marriage System — The Complex Causation of Prostitution — The Motives
Assigned by Prostitutes — (1) Economic Factor of Prostitution — Poverty
Seldom the Chief Motive for Prostitution — But Economic Pressure Exerts
a Real Influence — The Large Proportion of Prostitutes Recruited from
Domestic Service — Significance of This Fact — (2) The Biological Factor
of Prostitution— The So-called Bom-Prostitute— Alleged Identity with
the Born-Criminal — The Sexual Instinct in Prostitutes — The Physical
and Psychic Characters of Prostitutes — (3) Moral Necessity as a Factor
in the Existence of Prostitution — The Moral Advocates of Prostitution —
The Moral Attitude of Christianity Towards Prostitution— The Attitude
of Protestantism— Recent Advocates of the Moral Necessity of Prostitu-
tion— (4) Civilizational Value as a Factor of Prostitution — The Influ-
ence of Urban Life — The Craving for Excitement — Why Servant-girls so
Often Turn to Prostitution— The Small Part Played by Seduction — Pro-
stitutes Come Largely from the Country— The Appeal of Civilization
Attracts Women to Prostitution — The Corresponding Attraction Fcli by
Men — The Prostitute as Artist and Leader of Fashion — The Charm of
Vulgarity.
IV. The FretenI Social Attitude Totoarda Proa Htution:— The Decay
of the Brothel — The Tendency to the Humanization of Prostitution —
The Monetary Aspects of Prostitution— The Geisha— The Hetaira— The
(217)
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■218 PSYCIIOLOOT OP SEX.
Uoral Herolt Against ProBtitution — Squalid Vice Based on LuxuriouB
Virtue — ITie Ordinary Attitude Towards Prostitutes — Its Cruelty Absurd
— The Need of Reforming Prostitution — The Need of Reforming Mar-
riage— These Two Needs Closely Correlated — The Dynamic Relationships
Involved.
7. The Orgy.
Trawtiosal morality, religion, and CBtabliahed convention
^ombioe to promote not only the extreme of rigid abstinence but
also that of reckless licensed They preach and idealize the one
extreme; tliey drive those who cannot accept it to adopt the
opposite extreme. In the great ages of religion it even happens
that the severity of the rule of abstinence is more or lesa deliber-
ately tempered by the permission for occasional outbursts of
license. We thus have the orgy, which Nourished in mediaeval
days and is, indeed, in its largest sense, a universal manifestation,
liaving a function to fulfil in every orderly and laborious civiliza-
tion, built up on natural energies that are bound by more or less
inevitable restraints.
The consideration of the orgy, it may be said, lifts us beyond
the merely sexual sphere, into a higher and wider region which
belongs to religion. The Greek orgeia referred originally to
ritual things done with a religious purpose, though lator, when
dances of Bacchanals and the like lost their sacred and inspiring
-character, the idea was fostored by Christianity that such things
were immoral. ^ Yet Christianity was itself in its origin an orgy
of the higher spiritual activities released from the uncongenial
servitude of classic civilization, a great festival of the poor and
the humble, of the slave and the sinner. And when, with the
necessity for orderly social organization, Christianity had ceased
to be this it still recognized, as Paganism had done, the need for
an occasional orgy. It appears that in 743 at a Synod held in
Kainault reference was made to the February debauch (de Spur-
calibtta in fehruario) as a pagan practice; yet it was precisely
this pagan festival which was embodied in the accepted customs
■ of the Christian Church as the chief orgy of the ecclesiastical
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PBOSTITCTION. 219
year, the gieat CamiTal prefixed to the long fast of Lent. The
celebration on Shrove Tuesday and the previous Sunday con-
stituted a ChriBtian Bacchanalian festival in which all classes
joined. The greatest freedom and activity of physical movement
was encouraged; "some go about naked without shame, some
crawl on all fours, some on stilts, some imitate animals."' As
time went on the Carnival lost its most strongly marked
Bacchanalian features, but it still retains its essential character
as a permitted and temporary relaxation of the tension of cus-
tomary restraints and conventions. The Mediseval Feast of
Fools — a New Year's Eevel well established by the twelfth cen-
tury, mainly in France — presented an expressive picture of a
Christian orgy in its extreme form, for here the most sacred
ceremonies of the Church became tlie subject of fantastic parody.
The Church, according to Nietzsche's saying, like all wise legis-
lators, recognized that where great impulses and habits have to be
cultivated, intercalary days must be appointed in which these
impulses and habits may be denied, and so learn to hunger anew.^
The clergy took the leading part in these folk-festivals, for ta
the men of that age, as Mcray remarks, "the temple offered the
complete notes of the human gamut; they found there the
teaching of all duties, the consolation of all sorrows, the satis-
1 HormajT's Tatchenbuck, 1836, p. 255. HagelBtange, in a chapter
on medueval festivals in his Siiddeutiches BauenUeben im MittnUUter,
ehowB how, in these Christian orgies which were really of pagan origin,
the German people reacted with tremendous and boiat«rou8 energy
against the laborious and monotonous existence of everyday life.
2 This was clearly realized by the more intelligent upholders of the
Feast of Foola. Austere persons wished to abolish this Feast, and in a
remarkable petition sent up to the Theological Faculty of Paris (and
quoted by Flogel, Qeschichle des Grotesk-Komischen, fourth edition, p.
204) the case for the Feast is thus presented: "We do this according to
ancient custom, in order that folly, which is second nature to man and
seems to bo inborn, may at least once a year have free outlet. Wine
casha would burst if we failed sometimes to remove the bung and let in
air. Now we are all ill-bound casks and barrels which would let out
the wine of wisdom if bv constant devotion and fear of God we allowed
It to ferment. We must let in air so that it mav not be spoilt. Thus
on some days we jrive ourselves up to sport, ao that with the greater zeal
we may afterwards return to the worsbin of God." The Feast of Fools
was not suppressed until the middle of the sixteenth century, and relics
«f it persisted (as at Aix) till near the end of the eighteenth century.
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aa) PSYCHOLOGY OF BEX.
faction of all joje. The sacred festivals of medieval Christianity
were aot a eutrival from Koman times; they leapt from the very
heart of Chrietian society."* But, as M^ray admits^ all great
and vigorous peoples, of the East and the West, have found it
necessary sometimes to play with their sacred things.
Among the Greeks and Romans this need is everywhere
visible, not only in their comedy and tlieir literature generally,
but in everyday life. Aa Nietzsche truly remarks (in his Qeburt
der Tragodie) the Greeks recognized all natural impulses, even
those that are seemingly unwortliy, and safeguarded them from
working mischief by providing channels into which, one special
days and in special rites, the surplus of wild energy might harm-
lessly flow. Plutarch, the last and moat influential of the
Greek moralists, well aays, when advocating festivals (in his
essay "On the Training of Children"), that "even in bows and
harps we loosen their strings tliat we may bend and wind tliem
up again." Seneca, perhaps the most influential of Roman if
not of European moralists, even recommended occasional drunk-
enness. "Sometimes," he wrote in his De TranquUHlate, "we
ought to come even to the point of intoxication, not for the pur-
pose of drowning ourselves but of sinking ourselves deep in wine.
For it washes away cares and raises our spirits from the lowest
depths. The inventor of wine is called Liber because he frees the
soul from the servitude of care, releases it from slavery,
quickens it, and makes it bolder for all undertakings." The
Romans were a sterner and more serious people than the Greeks,
but on that ver}' account they recognized the necessity of occa-
sionally relaxing their moral fibres in order to preserve their tone,
and encouraged the prevalence of festivals which were marked
by much more abandonment than those of Greece. When these
lA MSray, La Vie au Temps des Lihret PrScheurt, vol, ii, Ch. X.
A good and scholarly sccount of the Feaat of FooU is given by E. K.
Chambers, The Vedia-val Stage, Ch. XIII. It is true that the Church
and the early Fathers often anathematized the theatre. But Gregory
of Niizlanten wished to found a Christian theatre; the Mediceval Mys-
teries were certainly under the proterlion of the cl^rgv; and St Thomaa
Aiiiiinas, the greatest of the schoolmen, only conilemns the theatre wiUi
cautious qualifications.
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PHOSTITI'TION'. 221
festivals began to lose their moral sanction and to fall into decay
the decadence of Uome bad begun.
All over the world, and not excepting the most primitive
savages — for even savage life is built up on systematic con-
straints which sometimes need relaxation — the principle of the
orgy is recognized and accepted. Thus Spencer and Gillen
describe' the Nathagura or fire-ceremony of the Warraraunga
tribe of Central Australia, a festival taken part in by both sexes,
in which all the ordinary rules of social life are broken, a kind
of Saturnalia in which, however, there is no sexual license, for
sexual license is, it need scarcely be said, no essential part of the
orgy, even when the orgy lightens the burden of sexual con-
straints. In a widely different part of the world, in British
Columbia, the Salish Indiana, according to Hill Tout,^ believed
that, long before the whites came, their ancestors observed a Sab-
bath or seventh day ceremony for dancing and praying, assemb-
ling at sunrise and dancing till noon. The Sabbath, or peri-
odically recurring orgy, — not a day of tension and constraint but
a festival of joy, a rest from all the duties of everyday life, — .
has, as we know, formed an essential part of many of the orderly
ancient civilizations on which our own has been built ;^ it is
highly probable that the stability of these ancient civilizations
was intimately associated with their recognition of the need of a
Sabbath orgy. Such festivals are, indeed, as Crawley observes,
processes of purification and reinvigoration, the effort to put off
"the old man" and put on "the new man," to enter with fresh
energy on the path of everyday life.*
1 Spencor and Gillen. yorthem Tribes of Central Australia, Ch. XIL
"Journal Anthropological Institute, July-Dec., 1904, p. 329.
aWeatermarck (Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, vol.
ii, pp. 2fl3-9) shows how widespread is the custom of Betting apart a
peritMlical rest day.
* A. E. Crawley, The ilgelic Rose, pp. 273 et seq., Crawley brings
into association with this function of great festivals the custom, found
in some parts of the world, of exchanging wives at these times. "It has
nothing whatever to do with the marriage system, except aa breaking it
for a season, women of forbidden degree being Tent, on the same grounds
as conventions and ordinary relations are broken at fentimls of the
Saturnalia type, the object being to change life and start afresh, by
exchanging everything one can, while the very act of exc'iange coincides
with the oUier desire, to weld the commuDity together" (Ih., p. 47B).
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'££■1 PSYCHOLOGY OF BEX.
The orgy is an inBtituti<ni which by no means has its eignifi-
cance only for the past. On the' contrary, tlie high tension, the
rigid routine, the gray monotony of modem life insistently call
for moments of organic relief, though the precise form that that
orgiastic relief takes must necessarily change with other social
changes. As Wilhelm von Humboldt said, "just as men need
suffering in order to become strong bo they need joy in order to
become good." Charles Wagner, insisting more recently (in his
Jeuntise) on the same need of joy in our modem life, regrets that
dancing in the old, free, and natural manner has gone out of
fashion or become unwholesome. Dancing is indeed the most
fundameotal and primitive form of the org}-, and that which most
completely and healthfully fulfils its object. For while it ia
undoubtedly, as we see even among animals, a process by which
sexual tumescence is accomplished,^ it by no means necessarily
becomes focussed in sexual detumescenee but it may itself become
a detumescent discharge of accumulated energy. It was on this
account that, at all events in former days, the clergy in Spain, on
moral grounds, openly encouraged the national passion for
dancing. Among cultured people in modem times, the orgy
tends to take on a purely cerebral form, which is less wholesome
because it fails to lead to harmonious discharge along motor
channels. In these comparatively passive forms, however, the
orgy tends to become more and more pronounced under the con-
ditions of civilization. Aristotle's famous statement concerning
the function of tragedy as "purgation" seema.to be a recognition
of the beneficial effects of the orgy.^ Wagner's music-dramas
appeal powerfully to this need; the tlieatre, now as ever, fulfils
a great function of the same bind, inherited from the ancient
days when it was the ordered expression of a sexual festival,^
1 See "The AnalyaU of the Sexual Impulse" in vol. iii of these
2G. Murray, Ancient Greek Literature, p, 211.
s The Greek drama probably arose out of a folk-festival of more or
h'ss sexual character, and it is even possible that the mediteval drama
had a somewhat xiinilar origin (see DonaldBOn, The Greek Theatre; Gil-
bert Miirrav, !oe. cil.; Karl Pearson, The Chancee of Death, vol, ii, pp.
135-0,280 etseq.).
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PROBTITUTIOK. 5s2*
The theatre, indeed, tends at the present time to asBume a, larger
importance and to approximate to the more serious dramatic per-
formances of classic days by being transferred to the day-time
and the open-air. France has especially taken the initiative in
these performances, analogoua to tlie Dionysiac festivals of
antiquity and the Mysteries and Moraliti'^ of the Middle Agee.
The moTcment began some years ago at Orange. In 1907 there
were, in France, as many as thirty open-air theatres (ThMtres de
la Nature," "Theatres du Soleil," etc.,) while it is in Marseilles
that the first formal open-air theatre has been erected since classic
days.' In England, likewise, there has been a great extension of
popular interest in dramatic performances, and the newly insti-
tuted Pageants, carried out and taken part in by the population
of the region commemorated in the Pageant, are festivals of the
same character. In England, however, at the present time, the
real popular orgiastic festivals are the Bank holidays, with which
may be associated the more occasional celebrations, "Maffekings,"
etc., often called out by comparatively insignificant national
events but still adequate to arouse orgiastic emotions as genuine
as those of antiquity, though they are lacking in beauty and
religious consecration. It is easy indeed for the narrowly austere
person to view such manifestations with a supercilious smile, but
in the eyes of the moralist and the philosopher these orgiastic
festivals exert a salutary and preservative function. In every
age of dull and monotonous routine — and all civilization involves
such routine — many natural impulses and functions tend to
become suppressed, atrophied, or perverted. They need Uiese
moments of joyous exercise and expression, moments in which
they may not necessarily attain their full activity but in which
they will at all events be able, as Cyples expresses it, to rehearse
their great possibilities.^
1 R. CaDudo, "Lee Chorfiges Francaia," Mercure dc France, May 1,
1907, p. ISO.
i'ThiB is, in fsct." Cyples declares {The Process of Human
Experience, p. 743 1. "Art's peal function — to rehearBe within us greater
eRoiatic poaaibiiitie^. to habituate ub to larger actualizations of personal-
itj in a rudimentary manner," and h> to arouse, "aimlessly but splen-
didly, the sheer as yet unfulftlled poaaibilities witiiin us."
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PBTCHOLOOT (
II. The Origin and Development of Prostitution.
The mare refined forms of the orgy flourish in civilization,
although on account of their mainiy cerebral character they are
not the most beue Scent or the most effective. The more
primitive and muscular forms of the orgy tend, on the other
hand, under the influence of civilization, to fall into discredit
and to be so far as possible suppressed altogether. It is partly
in this way that civilization encourages prostitution. For the
orgy in its primitive forms, forbidden to show itself openly and
reputably, seeks the darkness, and allying itself with a funda-
mental instinct to which civilized society offers no complete
legitimate satisfaction, it firmly entrenches itself in the very
centre of civilized life, and thereby constitutes a problem of
immense difficulty and importance. ^
It is commonly said that prostitution has existed always and
everywhere. That statement is far from correct. A kind of
amateur prostitution is occasionally found among savages, but
usually it is only when barbarism is fully developed and is already
approaching the stage of civilization that well developed prosti-
tution is found. It exists in a systematic form in every civiliza-
tion.
What is prostitution ? There has been considerable discus-
sion as to the correct definition of prostitution.^ The Boman
Ulpian said that a prostitute was one who openly abandons her
body to a number of men without choice, for money.^ Not all
modem definitions have been so satisfactory. It is sometimes
said a prostitute la a woman who gives herself to numerous men.
To be sound, however, a definition must be applicable to both
1 Even when monotonous labor ia intellectual, it is not therebj pro-
tected against degrading, orgiastic reactions. Prof. h. Qurlitt shows
(Die Neuc Oeneration. January, 160B, pp. 31-8) how the strenuous,
unremitting intellectual work of Pniasian seminaries leads among both
teachers and scholars to the worst forms of the orgy.
SRabutaux diBeusses various deSnitions of prostitution, De la
Prostitution ea Europe, pp. 119 et aeq. For the origin of the names to
designate the prostitute, see Schrader, Reallexicon, art. "BeischlBterin."
'Digett, lib. xsiii, tit ii, p. 43. If she only gave herself to one or
two persons, though for money, it was not prostitutioQ,
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FROSTITCTIOK, 225
sexes alike and we should certainly hesitate to describe a man who
had sexual intercourse with many women as a prostitute. The
idea of venality, the intention to sell the favors of the body, is
essential to the conception of prostitution. Thus Ouyot defines
a prostitute as "any person for whom sexual relationships are
subordinated to gain."' It is not, however, adequate to define a
prostitute simply as a woman who sells her body. That is done
every day by women who become wives in order to gain a home
and a liTelihood, yet, immoral as this conduct may be from any
high ethical standpoint, it would be inconvenient and even mis-
leading to call it prostitution. 2 It is better, therefore, to define
a prostitute as a woman who temporarily sells her sexual favors
to various persons. Thus, according to Wharton's Law-lexicon
a prostitute is "a woman who indiscriminately consorts with men
for hire" ; Bonger states that "those women are prostitutes who
sell their bodies for the exercise of sexual acts and make of this a
profession" f Richard again states that "a prostitute is a woman
who publicly gives herself to the first comer in return for a
pecuniary remuneration.''^ Aa, finally, the prevalence of homo-
sexuality has led to the existence of male prostitutes, the defini-
tion must be put in a form irrespective of sex, and we may, there-
fore, say that a prostitute is a person who makes it a profession
1 Guyot, La Prottitalion, p, 9. The element of venali^ ia eBsentiat,
and religious writers (like Robert Wardlaw, D.D., of Edinburgh, in his
Lectures on Female Proilitution, 1842, p. 14) who define prostitution as
"the illicit intercourse of the sexes," and Bynonymous mth theological
"fornication," fall into an absurd confusion.
Z"8uch mairiages are sometimes stigmatized aa legalized prosti-
tution,'" remarks SIdgwiok (Uethods of Ethics, Bit. iii, Ch. XI), "but
the phrase is felt to be extravagant and paTadaxical."
S Bonger. Criminality et Conditions Eoonomiquet, p, 378. Bon-
ger believes that tfae act of prostitution ia "intrioBically equal to that
of a man or woman who contracts a marriage for economical reasons."
* E. Richard. La Prostitution i Paris, IflBO, p. 44. It may be ques-
tioned whether publicity or notoriety should form an essential part of
the definition ; it seems, however, to be involved, or the prostitute can-
not obtain cliente. Reus<i states that ^e must, in addition, be absolutely
without means of subsistence-, that is certainly not essential. Nor is
it necessary, fts the Digfst insisted, that the act should be performed
"without nieasure;" that may be as it will, without affecting tiie
prostltutional nature of the act
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226 PflYCHOLOGT OF BEX.
to gratify the lust of various persons of the opposite sex or the
It ie esseatial that the act of prostitution should be habitually per-
formed with "variouH persona." A woman who gains her liviog by being
mistresB to a man, to whom she le faithful, is not a prostitute, although
she often becomes one afterwards, and may have been one before. The
exact point at which b woman begins to be a prostitute is a question of
considerable importance in countries in which prostitutes are subject to
registration. Thus in Berlin, not long ago, a girl who was mistress to
a rich cavali; officer and supported by him, during the illness of the
officer accidentally met a man whom she had formerly known, and once
or twice invited hira to see her, receiving from him presents in money.
Tbia somehow came to the knowledge of the police, and she was arrested
and sentenced to one day's imprisonment as an unregistered prostitute.
On appeal, however, the sentence was annulled. Liszt, in bis Strafrechl,
lays it down that a girl who obtains whole or part of her income from
"fixed relationships" is not practicing unchsetity for gain in the sense
of the German law {QetckUokt und OeselUahafI, Jahrgang I, Heft 9, p.
346).
It ie not altogether easy to explain the origin of the system-
atized professional prostitutioD with the existence of which we
are familiar in civilization. The amateur kind of prostitution
which has sometimes been noted among primitive peoples — the
fact, that ia, that a man may give a woman a present in seeking
to perauade her to allow him to have intercourse with her — is
really not prostitution as we underBtand it. The present in such
a case is merely part of a kind of courtship leading to a temporary
relationship. The woman more or less retains her social position
and ia not forced to make an avocation of selling herself because
henceforth no other career is possible to her. When Cook came
to New Zealand his men found that the women were not impreg-
nable, "but the terms and manner of compliance were as decent
as those in marriage among us," and according "to their notions
the agreement waa as innocent." The consent of the woman's
friends was Decesaary, and when the preliminaries were settled '
it was also necessary to treat this "Juliet of a night" with "the
earae delicacy aa is here required with the wife for life, and the
lover who presumed to take any liberties by which this was
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PHOSTITUTIOM. 227
violated was sure to be disappoiated."^ Id some of the Melaa-
esian Islands, it is said that women would sometimes become
prostitutes, or on account of their bad conduct be forced to
become prostitutes for a time; they were not, however, par-
ticularly despised, and when they had in this way accumulated a
certain amount of property they eould marry well, after which it
would not be proper to refer to their former career.^
When prostitution first arises among a primitive people it
sometimes happens that little or no stigma is attached to it for
the reason that tlie community has not yet become accustomed to
attach any special value to the presence of virginity. Schurtz
quotes from the old Arabic geographer Al-Bekri some interesting
remarks about the Slavs : "The women of the Slavs, after they
have married, are faithful to their husbands. If, however, a
young girl falls in love with a man she goes to him and satisfies
her passion. And if a man marries and finds his wife a virgin
he says to her: If you were worth anything men would have
loved you, and you would have chosen one who would have taken
away your virginity.' Then he drives her away and renounces
her." It is a feeling of this kind which, among some peoples,
leads a girl to be proud of the presents she has received from her
lovers and to preserve them as a dowry for her marriage, knowing
that her value will thus be atiU further heightened. Even among
the Southern Slavs of modem Europe, who have preserved much
of the primitive sexual freedom, this freedom, as Krauss, who has
minutely studied the manners and customs of these peoples,
declares, is fundamentally different from vice, licentiousness, or
immodesty.^
Prostitution tends to arise, as Schurtz has pointed out, in
every society in which early marriage is difficult and intercourse
outside marriage is socially disapproved. "Venal women every-
where appear as soon as the free sexual intercourse of young
people is repressed, without the necessary consequences being
1 Hawkeiwortli, icoount of the Voyages, etc., ITT5, vo). ii, p. 2S1.
3K. W. Codrington, The Melanetiant, p. 23S.
SF. S. KrauBS, Romanisehe For^ohungen, ]603, p. 200.
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228 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX,
impeded by uousually early marriagefl,"' The repression of
sexual intimacies outside marriage is a pbenonienoa of civiliza-
tion, but it is not itself by any means a measure of a people's
general level, and may, therefore, begin to appear at an early
period. But it is important to remember that the primitive and
rudimentary forms of prostitution, when they occur, are merely
temporary, and frequently — tliough not invariably — involve no
degrading influence on the woman in public estimation, some-
times indeed increasing her value as a wife. The woman who
sells herself for money purely aa a profesaional matter, without
any thought of love or passion, and who, by virtue of her pro-
fession, belongs to a pariah class definitely and rigidly excluded
from the main body of her sex, is a phenomenon which can
seldom be found except in developed civilization. It is alto-
gether incorrect to speak of prostitutes as a mere survival from
primitive times.
On the whole, while among savages sexual relationships are
sometimes free before marriage, as well as on the occasion of
special festivals, tliey are rarely truly promiscuous and still mqre
rarely venal. When savage women nowadays sell tlieraaelves, or
are sold by their husbands, it lias usually been found that we are
concerned with the contamination of European civilization.
The definite ways in whicli professional prostitution may
arise are no doubt many.' We may assent to the general principle,
laid down by Schurtz, that whenever the free union of young
people is impeded under conditions in which early marriage is
also difficult prostitution must certainly arise. There are, how-
ever, different ways in which this principle may take shape. So
far as our western civilization ia concerned — the civilization, that
IH. Schurtz, Alteraklasscn iind ildnnerbiindc, 1B02, p. 190. In
this work Schurtz brings together (pp. 180-201) some examples of tlie
genus of prostitution among primitive people-f. Many facta and refer,
encee are given by Westermarck {History of Human ilarriage, pp. 6S
et aeq., and Origin and Development of the ^orat Ideas, vol. ii, pp. 441
ct seq. ) .
2 Bachofen (more especially in his itulterrecht and f^affe ran
Tanaquil) nrgiied tliat even reli^ous prostitution sprang from the
resistance of primitive instincts 1o the tndividnalization of love. Cf.
Robertson Smith, Religion of Semites, second edition, p. 59.
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PKOBTITUTION. £si
IB to say, which has its cradle in the Mediterranean basin — it
would seem that the origin of prostitution is to be found pri-
marily in a religious custom, religion, the great conserver of
social traditions, preserving in a transformed shape a primitive
freedom that was passing out of general social life.* The typical
example is that recorded by Herodotus, in the fifth century
before Christ, at the temple of Mylitta, the Babylonian Venus,
where every woman once in her life had to come and give herself
to the first stranger who threw a coin in her lap, in worship of
the goddess. The money could not be refused, however small the
amount, but it was given as an offertory to the temple, and the
woman, having followed the man and thus made oblation to
Mylitta, returned home and lived chastely ever afterwards.^ Very
similar customs existed in otiier parts of Western Asia, in North
Africa, in Cyprus and other islands of the Eastern Mediterranean,
and also in Greece, where the Temple of Aphrodite on the fort at
Corinth possessed over a thousand hierodules, dedicated to the
service of the goddess, from time to time, as Strabo states, by
those who desired to make thank-offering for mercies vouchsafed
to them. Pindar refers to the hospitable young Corinthian
women ministrants whose thoughts often turn towards Onrania
1 Whatever the reaaoii ma; be, there can be no doubt that there 1b
a widespread tendency for religion and proatitution to be asBOciated; it
ia poBsibly to Bome extent a special case of that general connection
between the religious and sexual impulses which has been discussed else-
where (Appendix C to vol. i of these Studies). Thus A. B. Ellis, in hia
book on The Ewe-apeaking Peoples of West Africa (pp. 124, Ul) atates
that here women dedicated to a god become promiwuous prostitutes.
W. G. Sumner (Folk-uiaya, Ch. XVI) brings together many facts concern-
ing the wide distribution of religious prostitution,
2 Herodotus. Bk. I, Ch. CXCIX; Baruch, Ch. VI, p. 43. ^fodem
scholars confirm the statements of Herodotus from the study of Babylon-
ian literature, though inclined to deny that reli^ous prostitution
occupied so large a place as he gives it. A tablet of the Gilganuuh epio,
according to Morris Jastrow, refers to prostitutes as attendants of the
goddess lehtar in the city Uruk (or Erech), which was thus a centre, and
perhaps the chief cenfre, of the rites de^ribed by Herodotus (Morris
Jastrow, The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria. 1898, p. 476). Ishtar
was the gdddess of fprtility, the great mother goddess, and the prostitutes
were prlestesse?!. attached to her worship, who took part in ceremonies
intended to symbolize fertility. Thene priestes-ves of Tshtar were known
by the general name Kaditditu, "the holy ones" (op. cit., pp. 485, 660).
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230 psTOHOLoor of sex.
Aphrodite' in whose temple they burned inceoBe; and Atheiueus
mentions the importance that was attached to the prayers of the
Corinthian prostitutes in any national calamity-'
We seem here to be in the presence, not merely of a relig-
iously preserved survival of a greater sexual freedom formerly
exiBting,^ hut of a specialized and ritualized development of that
primitive cult of the generative forces of Nature which involves
the belief that all natural fniitfulness is associated with, and
promoted by, acts of human sexual intercourse which thus
acquire a religious significance. At a later stage acts of sesual
intercourse having a religious significance become specialized and
localized in temples, and by a rational transition of ideas it
becomes believed that such acts of sexual intercourse in the serv-
ice of the god, or with persons devoted to the god's service,
brought benefits to the individual who performed them, more
especially, if a woman, by insuring her fertility. Among primi-
tive peoples generally this conception is embodied mainly in
seasonal festivals, but among the peoples of Western Asia who had
ceased to he primitive, and among whom traditional priestly and
hieratic influences had acquired very great influence, the earlier
1 1t is usual among modern writers to nsaociate Aphrodite Pan-
demoB, rather than Ourania, with venal or promiseiiouK Hexuality, liut
this is a complete raiatake, for the Aphrodite Pandemos was purely polit-
ical and had no sexual aigni flea nee. The mistake was introduced, per-
hapB intention hIIj, by Plato. It has bepn sugiteKted that that arch-jug-
gler, who disliked democratic ideas, purponoly aouglit to pervert and
vulgarize the conception of Aphrodite I'andemos (Farnell, Oiilla of Greek
Stales, vol. ii, p. 600).
ZAthencuR. Bk, xiii. cap. XXXII. It appears that the only other
Hellenic community where the temple cult involved unchastity was a
city of the Loeri Kpizephyrii (Farnell, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 638).
3 I do not say an earlier "promiscuity," for the theory of a primi-
tive sexual promiacuily in now widely discredited, though there can be
no reasonable doubt that the early prevalence of mother-right was more
favorable to the sexual freedom of women than the later patriarchal
system. Tlina in very early Egyptian days a woman could give her
favors to any man she ehose by sending him her garment, even if she
were married. In time the growth of the rights of men led to this being
regarded as criminal, hut the priestesses of Amen retained the privilege
to the last, as being under divine protection (Flinders Petrle, Bffyptian
T(il««, pp. 10, 4S).
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PROSTITUTION. 2S1
generative cult had ttiua, it seems probable, naturally changed
its form in becoming attached to the temples.'
The theory that religious prostitution developed, ils a, general rule,
out of the belief tliat the generative activity of human tieingti poaeeBsed
» myaterioua and sacred influence in promoting the fertility of Nature
generally Beems to have Wen first set forth by Mannhardt in his Aniike
Wald- und FeldkuUe (pp. ZS3 et geq.). It is supported by Dr. F. S.
Krauss ("Beisehtafausilbimg aln Kulthandlung," Anthropophyleia, vol.
iii, p. 20), who refers to the si^illcant fact that in Baruch's time, at a
period long anterior to Herodotus, sacred prostitution took place under
the trees. Dr. J. G. Frazer has more eBptreially developed this concep-
tion of the origin of sacred prostitution in his Adonis, Atti$, Oriris. He
thus summarizes his lengthy discussion: "We may conclude that a great
Mother Goddess, the person i&cation of ail the reproductive energies of
nature, was worshipped under different names, but with a substantial
similari^ of myth and ritual by many peoples of western Asia; that
associated with her was a lover, or rather series of lovers, divine yet
mortal, with whom she mated year by year, their commerce being deemed
essential to the propagation of animals and plants, each in their aeveral
kind; and further, that the fabulous union of the divine pair was sim-
ulated, and, as it were, multiplied on earth by the real, though tem-
porary, union of the human sexes at the sanctuary of the goddess for
the sake of thereby ensuring the fruitfulness of the ground and the
increase of man and beast. In course of time, as the institution of
individual marriage grew in favor, and the old communism fell more and
more into discredit, the revival of the ancient practice, even for a single
occasion in a woman's life, became ever more repugnant to the moral
sense of the people, and aciyirdingly they resorted to various expedients
for evading in practice the obligation which they still acknowledged in
theory But while the majority of women thus contrived to
observe the form of religion without sacrificing their virtue, it was still
thought necessary to the general welfare that a certain number of them
should discharge the old obligation in the old way. Thene became
prostitutes, either for life or for a term of years, at one of the temples^
dedicated fo the service of religion, they were invested with a sacred
lit should be added that Farnell ("The Position of Women in
Ancient Religion." Archiv fur Religionsinssenschaft, 1004, p. SS) seeks
to explain the religious prostitution of Babylonia as a special religious
niodiflcatjon of the custom of destroying virginitv before marriage in
order to safeguard the .husband from the mvslic dangers of defloration.
E. S. Hartland. also ('Tonceming the Ritc'at the Temple of Mylitta,"
Anthropological EMaj/a Presented to H. B. Tyler, p. 1R9K suggests that
this vras a puberty rite eonneeted with cp'remniinl d"flOTition. This
theory is not, however, generally accepted by Semitic scholars.
DiclzedbyGoOgle
232 PSTCHOLOGT of sex.
oliaracter, and their vocation, far from being deemed infamoiu,
probably long regarded bj the lait^ as an exercise of more than c
virtue, and rewarded with a tribute of mixed wonder, reverence, and
pity, not unlitce that which in Rome parts of the world is still paid to
women who geek to honor their Creator in a dilTerent way by renouncing
the natural functions of their sex and the tenderest relations of human-
itj" (J. G. Frazer, adonis, Atlis, Osiris, 1B07, pp. 23 et »eq.).
It is difficult to resist the conclusion that this theory represente
the central and primitive idea which led to the deveIo})ment of sacred
prostitution. It seems equally clear, however, that as time went on, and
especially as temple cults developed and priestly influence increased, this
fundamental and primitive idea tended to become modified, and even
transformed. The primitive conception became specialized in the belief
that religious benelit«, and especially the gift of fruitfulness, were
gained by tfte toorshipper, who thus Bou^t the goddess's favor by an
act of uncbastity wb^ch might be presumed U> be agreeable to an
unchaste deity. The rit« of Mylitta, as described by Herodotus, was a
late development of this kind in an ancient civilization, and the benefit
sought was evidently for the worshipper herself. This has been pointed
out by Dr. West«nnarck, who remarks that the words spoken to the
woman by her partner as he gives her the coin — "May the goddess be
auspicious to theel" — themselves )ndJcat« that the object of the act was
to Insure her fertility, and he refers also to the fact that strangers fre-
quently had a semi -supernatural character, and their benefits a specially
efficacious character (Westermarck, Origin and Development of the Moral
Idea*, vol. ii, p. 446). It may be added that the rite of Mylitta thus
became analogous with another Mediterranean rite, in which the act
of simulating intercourse with the reprcHentative of a god, or his image,
ensured a woman's fertility. This is the rite practiced by the Egyptians
of Mendes, in which a woman went through the ceremony of simulated
intercourse with the sacred goat, regarded as the representative of a
deity of Pan-like character (Herodotus, Bk. ii, Ch. XLVI; and see
Dulaure, De» Divinitis Qiniratricea, Ch. II; cf. vol. v of these Studies,
"Erotic Symbolism," Sect. IV). This rite was maintained by Roman
women, in connection with the statues of Priapus, to a very much later
date, and St. Augustine mentions how Roman matrons placed the young
bride on the erect member of Priapus (De Civilale Dei, Bk. iii, Ch. IX).
The Idea evidently running through this whole group of phenomena is
that the deity, or the representative or even mere image of the deity,
is able, through a real or simulated act of intercourse, to confer on the
worshipper a portion of its own exalted generative activity.
At a Iat«r period, in Corinth, prostitutes were still the
priesteaBea of Venue, more or less loosely attached to her
b Google
PHOSTITDTION. 28*
templeB, and bo long aa that was the case they enjoyed a con-
siderable degree of esteem. At this stage, however, we realize
that religious prostitution was deyeloping a utilitarian side.
. These temples flourished chiefly in sea-coast towns, in islands, in
large cities to which many strangers and sailors came. The
priestesses of Cyprus burnt incense on her altars and invoked her
sacred aid, but at the same time Pindar addresses them as "young
girls who welcome all strangers and give them hospitality."
Side by side with the religious significance of the act of genera-
tion the needs of men far from home were already beginning to be
definitely recognized. The Babylonian woman had gone to the
temple of Mylitta to fulfil a personal religious duty; the Corin-
thian priestess had begun to act as an avowed minister to the
sexual needs of men in strange cities.
The custom which Herodotus noted in Lydia of young girls
prostituting themselves in order to acquire a marriage portion
which they may dispose of as they think fit (Bk. 1, Ch, 93) may
very well have developed (as Frazer also believes) out of religious
prostitution ; we can indeed trace its evolution in Cyprus where
eventnally, at the period when Justinian visited the island, the
money given by strangers to the women was no longer placed on
the altar but put into a chest to form marriage-portions for
them. It is a custom to be found in Japan and various other
parts of the world, notably among the Ouled-Nail of Algeria,*
and is not necessarily always based on religious prostitution;
but it obviously cannot exist except among peoples who see noth-
ing very derogatory in free sexual intercourse for the purpose of
obtaining money, so that the custom of Mylitta furnished a
natural basis for it.^
1 The girls of this tribe, who are remnrkablj' pretty, after apending
two or three years in thus amasaing a little dowry, return horns to marry,
and are sail] to make model wives and mothers. They are described by
Bertherand in Parent-DuchAtelet, ha Prostitulion A Paris, vol. ii, p. 539.
2 In Abyasiniu (according to Fiaselii, British Stedical Journal,
March 13, 1807 ) , where prostitution has always been held in high esteem,
the prostitutes, who are now snbjpct to medical examination twice a,
week, Btill attach no dlsurace to their profession, and easily find hus-
bands afterwards. Potter (Sohrab and Rtutem, pp. 168 et aeq.) gives
references as regards peoples, widely dispersed in the Old World and the
New, among whom the young women have practiced prostitution to
obtain a dowry.
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234 PSYCUOLOOY OF SEX.
As a more spiritual conceptioB of religioa developed, and
as the growth of civilization tended to deprive sexual intercourse
of its sacred halo, religions prostitution in Greece was slowly
abolished, though on the coasts of Asia Minor both religiotis
prostitution and prostitution for the purpose of obtaining a
marriage portion persisted to the time of Constantine, who put an
end to these ancient customs. ^ Superstition was on the Bide of
the old religious prostitution; it was believed that women who
had never sacrificed to Aphrodite became consumed by lust, and
according to the legend recorded by Ovid — 8 legend which seems
to point to A certain antagonism between sacred and secular proe-
titution — this was the case with the women who first became
public prostitutes. The decay of religious prostitution, doubtless
combined with the cravings always bom of the growth of civiliza-
tion, led up to the first establishment, attributed by legend to
Solon, of a public brothel, a purely secular establishment for a
purely secular end : the safeguarding of the virtue of the general
population and the increase of the public revenue. With that
institution the evolution of prostitution, and of the modem
marriage system of which it forma part, was completed. The
Athenian diklerioii is the modem brothel; the dikteriade is the
modem state-regulated prostitute. The free hetaira, indeed,
subsequently arose, educated women having no taint of the dik-
terion, but they likewise had no official part in public worship.^
The primitive conception of the sanctity of sexual intercourse in
the divine service had been utterly lost.
A fairly l^ptcal example of Uie conditknu exiBting among savages
is to be found in the South Sea IstaDd of Kotuma, where "proatitution
for money or gifts was quite unknown." Adultery after marriage was
1 At Tralles, la Lydia, even in the aecond century A. D., as Sir
W, M, Ramsay notes {Cities of Phiygia, vol. i, pp. 84, IIB), sacred
prostitution was still an honorable practice for women of good birth
who "felt themselves called upon to live the divine life under the influ-
ence of divine inspiration."
2 The gradual secularization of prostitution from its earlier re-
ligious fonn ban been traced by various writers (see, e.g., Dupouey, La
Prostitution dann rAntiquitS). The earliest complimimtory reference to
the Hetaira in literature is to be found, according to Benecke {inti-
machui of Colophon, p. 3S), in Bacchylides.
DiclzedbyGoOgle
PROSTITUTION. 235
also unkflown. But there was great freedom in the [ormation of sexual
relationtiliips before marriage {J. Stanley Gardiner, Journal Anlhro-
poiogical Inalitute, February, 1898, p. 400). Much the same is said of
tb» Bantu Ba mbola of Africa {op. cil., July-December, 1905, p. 410).
Among tbe early Cymii of Wales, representing a more advanced
HOcial stage, proHtitution appears to have been not absolutely unknown,
but puMic prostitution was punished by loss of valuable privileges (R.
B. Holt, "Marriage Laws and Customs of the Cymri," Journal Anthro-
poloffical Inalitute, August -November, 18B8, pp. 161-163).
Prostitution was practically unknown in Burmah, and regarded as
shameful before the coming of the English and the example of t^e idcmI-
ern Hindus. The missionaries have unintentionally, but inevitably,
favored the growth of prostitution by condemning free unions {Arokive*
d'Anthropotogie Criminelle, November, 1903, p. 720). The English
brought prostitution to India. "That was not specially the fault of the
English," said a Brahmin to Jules Bois, "it is the crime of your civiliza-
tion. We have never had prostitutes. I mean by that horrible word
the brutalized servants of the gross desire of tbe passerby. We had,
and we have, castes of singtrs and dancers who are married to trees —
yes, to trees — by touching ceremonies which date from Vedic times; our
priests bless them and receive much money from tbem. They do not
refuse themselves to those who love them and please them. ELiags have
made them rich. They represent all the arts-, they are the visible
beauty of the universe" (Jules Bols, Viaiona de Vlnde, p. 56).
Religious prostitutes, it may be added, "the servants of the god,"
are connected with temples in Southern India and the Deccan. They
are devoted to their sacred calling from their earliest years, and it is
their chief business to dance before the image of the god. to whom they
are married |thou|{h in Upper India professional dancing girls are mar-
ried to inanimate objects), but they are also trained in arousing and
assuaging the desires of devotees who comi.' on pilgrimage to the shrine.
For the betrothal rites by which, in India, sncred prostitutes are con-
secrated, see, e.g., A. Van Gennep, Ritt» de Pottage, p. 142.
In many parts of Western Asia, where barbarism had reached a
high stage of development, prostitution was not unknown, though usually
disapproved. The Hebrews knew it, and the historical Biblical refer-
ences to prostitutes imply little reprobation. Jephtha was the son of a
prostitute, brought up with tbe legitimate children, and the story of
Tamar is instructive. But the legal codes were eictremely severe on
Jewish maidens who became prostitutes (the offense was quite tolerable
in strange women), while Hebrew moralists exercised their invectives
against prostitution; it is sufficient to refer to a well-known passage in
the Book of Proverbs (see art. "Harlot." by Cheyne. (n the Encylopadia
Bibliaa). Mahomed also severely condemned prostitution, though some-
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236 PSTCHOLOGT OP SEX.
what more tolerant to it in slave women; acoording to Halebf, however,
prostitution was pTacticallf unknown in IbIbdi during the first centurie)
after the Prophet's time.
The Persian adherents of the someuhat ascetic Zendavesta also
knew prostitution, and regarded it with repulsion; "It is the Gahi [the
courtesan, as an incarnation of the female demon, Gahi], O Spitama
Zarathustral who mixes in her the seed of the faithful and the unfaith-
ful, of the worshipper of Mazda and the worshipper of the Dsvaa, of the
nicked and the righteous. Her look dries up one-third of the mighty
floods that run from the mountains, O Zarathustra; her look withers
onS'third of the beautiful, golden-hued, growing plants, O Zarathustra;
her look withers one-third of the strength of Spenta Armaiti [the earth] ;
and her touch withers in the faithful one-third of his good thoughts, of
his good words, of his good deeds, one-third of his strength, of his vic-
torious power, of his holiness. Verily I say unto thee, O Spitama
Zarathustra! such creatures ought to be killed even more than gliding
finakes, than howling wolves, than the she-wolf tiiat falls upon the fold,
or than the she-frog that falls upon the waters with her thousandfold
brood" (Zend-Avesta, the Tctulidad, translated by James Dannesteter,
FarfadXVrn).,
In practice, however, prostitution is well established in the modern
Gnat. Thus in the Tartar-Turcoman region houses of prostitution Tying
outside Uie paths frequented by Christians have been described by a
writer who appears to be well informed ( "Oriental isehe Prostitution,"
Oeschlecht und Oesellschafl, 1907, Bd. ii. Heft 1). These bouses are not
regarded as immoral or forbidden, but as places in which the visitor will
find a woman who gives him for a few hours the illusion of being In bis
own home, with the pleasure of enjoying her songs, dances, and recita-
tions, and finally her body. Payment is made at the door, and no subse-
quent question of money arises; the visitor is henceforth among friends,
almost as if in his own family. He treats the prostitute almost as if
she were his wife, and no indecorum or coarseness of speech occurs.
"There is no obscenity in the Oriental brothel." At the same time there
is no artificlnl pretence of innocence.
In Eastern Asia, among the peoples of Mongolian stock, especially
in China, we find prostitution firmly established and organised on a
practical business basis. Prostitution is here accepted and viewed with
no serious disfavor, but the prostitute herself ia, nevertheless, treated
with contempt. Young children are frequently sold to be trained to a
life of prostitution, educated accordingly, and kept shut up from the
world. Young widows (remarriage being disapproved) frMjuenlly alao
slide into a life of prostitution. Chinese prostitutes often end through
opium and the ravagps of syphilis (see, e.ij.. C<>Itman'a The Chinese, 1000.
Ch. VII). In ancient China, it is said prosUtutes were a superior
byGoogIc
PllOSTlTUTIOK. 237
ctasa and occupied a poBitioa M>me»h&t aimilar to that at the ketairie in
Greece. Even in modem China, however, where they are very numeTouB,
and the flower boats, in which in towns by the sea they usually live,
very luxurious, it ia chiefly for entertainment, according to aome writers,
that Oiey are resorted to. Tsehang Ki Tong, military attache in Paris
{as quoted by PIom and Bartels), deHcrlbes the Rower boat as less
analogoua to a European brothel than to a cafi chantani; the young
Chinaman cornea here for music, for tea, for agreeable converaation with
the flower-maidens, who are by no means necessarily called upon to min-
ister to the lust of their nsitors.
In Japan, the prostitute's lot is not ao degraded as in China. The
greater refinement of Japanese civilization allows the prostitute to
retain a higher degree of self-respecL Slie is sometimea regarded with
pity, but less often with contempt. She may associate openly with men,
ultimately be married, even to men of good social class, and rank as a
respectable woman. "In riding from Toklo to Yokohama, the (fast win-
ter," Coltman observes [op. dt., p. 113), "I saw a party of four young
men and tliree quite pretty and gaily-painted prostitutes, in the same
car, who were having a glorious time. They had two or three bottles of
1-arious liquor)*, orangps, and fancy cakes, and they ate, drank and sang,
besides playing jokes on each other and frolicking like so many kittens.
You may travel the wliole length of the Chinese Empire and never wit-
ness such a scene." Yet tHe history of Japanese prostitutes (which has
been written in an interesting and well-informed book. The Nighlteta
City, by an English student of sociology who remains anonymous) shows
that prostitution in Japan has not only been severely regulated, but
very widely looked down upon, and that Japanese prostitutes have often
had to suffer greatly; they were at one time practically slaves and often
treated with much hardship. They are free now. and any condition
approaching slavery is strictly prohibited and guarded against. It would
seem, however, that the palmiest days of Japanese prostitution lay some
centuries back. Up to the middle of the eighteenth century Japanese
prostitutes were highly accomplished in singing, dancing, music, etc.
Towards this period, however, they seem to have declined in social con-
sideration and to have ceased to he well educated. Yet even to-day, says
Matignon ("La Prostitution au Japon" Archtvea d'Antkropologie Crintf-
nelle, October, 1906), less infamy attaches to prostitution in Japan than
in Europe, while at the same time there is less immorality in Japan
than in Europe. Though prostitution is organized like the postal or
telpgraph service, there is also much clandestine prostitution. The
prostitution quarters are clean, beautiful and well-kept, but the Japanese
prostitutes have lost much of their native good taste in costume by try-
ing to imitate European fashions. Tt was when prostitution began to
decline two centuries ago, that the geishas first appeared and ware
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238 PSYCHOLOGY of sex.
organized in such n nay that they should not, if possible, compete as
prostitutes with the recognized and licensed inhabit&nte of the Yoshi-
wura, as the quHiter i» culled to wjiich prostitutes are confined. The
geishas, of course, are not prostitutes, though their virtue may not /
always be impregnable, and in social position they correspond to
actresses in Europe,
In Korea, at all events before Korea fell into the bands of the
Japanese, it would seem that there nas no distinction between the
class of dancing girls and prostitutes. "Among the courtesans," Angns
Hamilton Btnt«s, "the mental abilities are trained and developed with a
view to making them brilliant and entertaining companions. These
'leaves of sunlight' are called gisaing, and correspond to the geishas of
Japan. Officially, thpy are attached to a department of government, and
nre controlled by a bureau of their own, in common with the Court
mueiciaiu. They are supported from the national treasury, and they are
in evidence at official diimers and all palace entertainments. They read
nnd recile; they dance and sing; they become accomplished artiste and
miisicianH. They dress with exceptional taste; they move with exceed-
ing grace; they arc delicate in appearance, very frail and very human,
very tender, sympathetic, and imaginative." But thoiigh they are cer-
tainly the prettipst women in Korea, move in the hi^est socie^, and
might become concubines of the Emperor, they are not allowed to
marry men of good class (Angus Hamilton, Korea, p. 62).
The history of European proetitution, as of bo manj other
modem institutions, may properly be said to begin in Borne.
Here at the outset we already find that inconsistently mixed
attitude towards prostitution which to-day is still preserved. In
(Jreece it was in many respects different. Greece was nearer to
the days of religious proetitution, and the sincerity and refine-
ment of Greek civilization made it possible for the better kind of
profititute to exert, and often bo worthy to e.xert, an influence in
all departments of life which she has never been able to exercise
nince, except perhaps occasionally, in a much slighter degree, in
France. The course, vigorous, practical Roman was quite ready
to tolerate the prostitute, but he was not prepared to carry that
toleration to its logical results ; he never felt bound to harmonize
inconsistent facts of life. Cicero, a moralist of no mean order,
without eipressing approval of prostitution, yet could not under-
stand how anyone should wish to prohibit youths from commerce
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PR08TITDTI0N. 26V
with prostituteB, Buch severity being out of barmoDy with all the
customs of the past or the present.^ But the superior class of
Eonian prostitutes, the bona mulieres, had no such dignified
position as the Greek ketaira. Their influence was indeed
immense, but it was confined, as it is in the case of their European
BucccBBors to-day, to fashions, customa, and arts. There was
always a certain moral rigidity in the Roman which prevented
him from yielding far in this direction. He encouraged brothels,
but he only entered them with covered head and face concealed
in his cloak. In the same way, while he tolerated the prostitute,
beyond a certain point he sharply curtailed her privileges. Not
only was she deprived of all influence in the higher concerns of
life, but she might not even wear the vitta or the stola; she could
indeed go almost naked if she pleased, but she must not ape the
emblems of the respectable Soman matron.^
The rise of Christianity to political power produced on the
whole less change of policy than might have been anticipated.
The Christian rulers had to deal practically as best they might
with a very mixed, turbulent, and semi-pagan world. The lead-
ing fathers of the Church were inclined to tolerate prostitution
for the avoidance of greater evils, and Christian emperors, like
tlieir pagan predecessors, were willing to derive a tax from pros-
titution. The right of prostitution to exist was, however, no
longer so unquestionably recognized as in pagan days, and from
time to time some vigorous ruler sought to repress prostitution
by severe enactments. The younger Theodosius and Valentinian
definitely ordained that there should be no more brothels and that
anyone giving shelter to a prostitute should be punished.
Justinian confirmed that measure and ordered that all panders
were to be exiled on pain of death. These enactments were quite
vain. But during a thousand years they were repeated again and
again in various parts of Europe, and invariably with the same
fruitless or worse than fruitless results. Theodoric, king of the
1 Cicero, Oratio pr6 Coelio, Cap. XX.
SKerre Dufour, Biatoire de la Progtitution, vol. ii, Chs, XIX-XX.
The real author of this well-known hiatoiy of prostitution, which, though
not scholarly in its methods, brings together a great mass of interesting
information, is said to l>e Paul I^croix.
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240 PSYCUOLOOT OF BEX.
Viaigoths, punished with death those who promoted prostitution,
and Itecared, a Catholic king of the same people in the sixth
century, prohibited prostitution altogether and ordered that a
prostitute, when found, sliould receive tliree hundred strokes of
the whip and be driven out of the city. Charlemagne, as well
.ae Genserich in Carthage, and later Frederick Btirbarossa in
Germany, made severe laws against prostitution which were all
of no effect, for even if they seemed to be effective for the time
the reaction was all the greater afterwards.*
It is in France that the most persistent efforts have been
made to combat prostitution. Moet notable of all were the
efforts of the King and Saint, Louis IX, In 1254 St. Louis
ordained that prostitutes should be driven out altogether and
deprived of all their money and goods, even to their mantles and
gowns. In 1356 he repeated this ordinance and in 1269, before
setting out for the Crusades, he ordered the destruction of all
places of prostitution. The repetition of those decrees shows how
ineffectual they were. They even made matters worse, for pros-
titutes were forced to mingle with the general population and
their influence wae thus extended. St. Louis was unable to put
down prostitution even in his own camp in the East, and it
existed outside his own tent. His legislation, however, was
frequently imitated by subsequent rulers of France, even to the
middle of the seventeenth century, always with the same ineffect-
ual and worse results. In 15C0 an edict of Charles IX abolished
brothels, but the number of prostitutes was thereby increased
rather than diminished, while many new kinds of brothels
appeared in imsuspected shapes and were more dangerous than
the more recognized brothels which had been euppressed.^ In
spite of all such legislation, or because of it, there has been no
country in which prostitution has played a more conspicuous
part.^
1 RabutauT, is his Ilisfoire dc la Proslitution en Europe, describes
many attempts to suppresB proBtitutioni c/. Dufour, op. cit., vol. iii.
sDufouT, op. <h(., vol. vi, Ch, XLI. It was in the reign of tha
homOBCKual Henry Itl that the foTeranec of brothels was established.
Sin the eighteenth oentury, especially, houses of prostitution in
Paris attained to an astonishing degree of elaboration and prosper!^.
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PBOBTITCTION. 241
At Mantua, bo great was the repulsion aroused by prostitutea
that they were compelled to buy in the markets any fruit or
bread that had been soiled by the mere touch of their hands. It
was so also iu-Avignon in 1343. In Catalonia they could not
eit at the same table as a lady or a knight or kiss any honorable
person.^ Even in Venice, the paradise of prostitution, numerous
and severe regulations were passed against it, and it was long
before the Venetian rulers resigned themselves to its toleration
and regulation.^
The last vigorous attempt to uproot prostitution in Europe
was that of Haria Theresa at Vienna in the middle of the
eighteenth century. Although of such recent date it may be
mentioned here because it was mediseval alike in its conception
and methods. Its object indeed, was to suppress not only prosti-
tution, but fornication generally, and the means adopted were
fines, imprisonment, whipping and torture. The supposed causes
of fornication were also dealt with severely ; short dresses were
prohibited ; billiard rooms and caf^ were inspected ; no wait-
resses were allowed, and when discovered, a waitress was liable
to be handcuffed and carried off by the police. The Chastity
Conuniseion, under which these measures were rigorously carried
out, was, apparently, established in 1751 and was quietly
abolished by the Emperor Joseph II, in the early years of his
reign. It was Uie general opinion that this severe legislation
was really ineffective, and that it caused much more serious evils
than it cured.8 It is certain in any case that, for a long time
Owing to the conatant watchful attention of the police a vast amount of
detailed inforniation concerning the«e establishnients was accumulated,
and during recent years much of it has been published. A summair of
this literature will be found in Dilbren's ?leue Forvhungen iiftw den Mar-
ijuit de Bade vnd seine Zeit, 1904, pp. 07 el teq.
t Rabutaux. op. ctt, p. S4.
2 Calza has vritten the historr of V'netian prostitution ; and some
of the documenta he found have been reproduced by Mantegazza, Oli
Amori degli TJomimi. cap. XIV. At the beginning of the seventeenth cen-
tury, a comparatively late period. Coryat viBited Venice, and in his
Crudities gives a full and interesting account of its courtesans, who then
numbered, he says, at least 20,000: the revenue they brought into tba
State maintained a dozen jBilleyn.
a J. Scbrank, Die Prostitution in Wien, Bd, I, pp. 152-206.
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242 PBTCHOLOGY OF SEX.
past, illegitimac; has been more prevalent in Vienna than in any
other great European capital.
Yet the attitude towards prostitutes was always mised and
inconsiatent at different places or different times, or ei^n at the
same time and place. Dufour has aptly compared their position
to that of the mediaeval JewB ; they were continually persecuted,
ecclesiastically, civilly, and socially, yet all classes were glad to
have recourse to them and it was impossible to do without them.
In some countries, including England in the fourteenth century,
a special costume was imposed on prostitutes as a mark of
infamy.* Yet in many respects no infamy whatever attached
to prostitution. High placed officials could claim payment of
their expenses incurred in visiting prostitutes when traveling on
public business. Prostitution sometimes played an official part
in festivities and receptions accorded by great cities to royal
guests, and the brothel might form an important part of the
city's hospitality. When the Emperor Sigismund came to TTlm
in 1434 the streets were illuminated at such times as be or his
suite desired to visit the common brothel. Brothels under
municipal protection are found in the thirteenth century in
Augsburg, in Vienna, in Hamburg.^ In France tJie best known
abbayts of prostitutes were those of Toulouse and Montpellier.'
Durkheim is of opinion that in the early middle ages, before this
period, free love and marriage were le?s severely differentiated.
It was the rise of the middle class, be considers, anxious to pro-
tect their wives and daughters, which led to a regulated and
publicly recognized attempt to direct debauchery into a separate
channel, brought under control,* These brothels constituted a
kind of public service, the directors of them being regarded almost
as public officials, bound to keep a certain number of prostitutes,
to charge according to a fixed tariff, and not to receive into their
houses girls belonging to the neighborhood. The institutions of
1 U. Robert, tea Signea d'Infamie ou Moyen Age, Cli. IV.
SRudeck (Qegckichle der ajfenllichen ftiUliohireit in Deutaohkmd,
pp. 28-38) gives many details conceding the importapt part played by
proRtitut^B and brothela in mediseval German life.
3 They are described by Rabutaux, op. rit.. pp. 90 et aeg.
il/Annie SocMogique, seventh year, 1B04, p. 440.
DiclzedbyGoOgle
PROSTITUTION. 248
this kind lasted for three centuries. It was, in part, perhaps, the
impetus of the new I'roteatant movement, but mainly the terrible
devastation produced by the introduction of syphilis from
America at the end of the fifteenth century which, as Burckhardt
and others have pointed out, led to the decline of the mediseval
brothels.*
The superior modem prostitute, the "courtesan" who had no
connection with the brothel, seems to have been the outcome of
the Renaissance and made her appearance in Italy at the end of
the fifteenth century. "Courtesan" or "cortegiana" meant a
lady following the court, and the term began at this time to be
applied to a superior prostitute observing a certain degree of
decorum and restraint.^ In the papal court of Alexander Borgia
the courtesan flourished even when her conduct was not alto-
gether dignified. Burchard, the faithful and unimpeachable
chronicler of this court, describes in his diary how, one evening,
in October, 1501, the Pope sent for fifty courtesans to be brought
to bis chamber; after supper, in the presence of Casar Borgia
and hia young sister Lucrezia, they danced with the servitors and
others who were preeent, at first clothed, afterwards naked. The
candlesticks with lighted candies were then placed upon the floor
and chestnuts thrown among them, to be gathered by the women
crawling between the candlesticks on their hands and feet
Finally a number of prizes were brought forth to be awarded to
those men "qui pluries dictos meretrices camaliter agnoscerent,"
the victor in the contest being decided according to the judgment
of the spectators.^ This scene, enacted publicly in the Apostolic
1 Bloch, Der Ursprung der Byphilia. As regards the Genuftn
"FraucnhauHon" see Mux Bauer, Daa OcschiechtBlebcn in der Deutachen
Vergangertheit, pp. 133.214. In Paris, Dufour etat^a {op, cit., vol. v,
Ch. XXXIV). brotliels under the ordinancea of St. Louts liad manj rights
which they lost at last in 1560. when they became merely tolerated
houses, without statutes, special rostumes, or eonftnement to special
streets.
2 "Cortegiana, hoc est nieretrix honeata," wrote Burchard, the
Pope's Secretarj", at the beginning of the sixteenth century, Diarium, ed.
Thuaane, vol. li, p. 442; other outhorities are quoted by Thuasne in a
3 Burchard, Diarium, vol. iii, p. 167. Thuasne quotes other au-
thorities in confirmation.
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244 PSYCHOLOGY OF BES.
palace and serenely set forth by the impartial eecrctary, is at once
a notable epieode in the history of modem prostitution and one of
the most illuniinatii^ illuBtrations we poseeBs of the paganiem of
the Renaissance.
Before the term "cotirteean" came into repute, prostitutes were
even in Italy commonly called "sinners," ptccalriee. The change, Graf
remarkB in a very intercBttng study of the RenaissaDce prostitute t"Una
COrtigiana fra Mille," Attraveno it Ctnqutoento, pp. 217-351 ) , "rereali a
profouDd alteration in ideas and in life;" a term that suggested infamy
gave place to one that suggested approval, and even honor, for the courts
of the Renaissance period represented the finest culture of the time.
The best of these courtesans seem to have been not altogether unworthy
of the honor they received. We can detect this in their letters. There
is a chapter on the letters of Renaissance prostitutes, especially those
of Camilla da Pisa which are marked by genuine passion, in Lothar
Schmidt's Frauenbrieft der Renaitaance. The famous Imperia, called
by a Pope in the early years of the sixteenth century "nobiliaslmum
I{om« Bcortum," knew Latin and could write Italian verse. Other
courtesans knew Italian and Latin poetry by heart, while they were
accomplished in music, dancing, and speech. We are reminded of ancient
Greece, and Graf, discussing how far the Renaissance courtesans resem-
bled the hetaine, finds a very considerable likeness, especially in culture
and influence, though with some differences due to the antagonism
between religion and prostitution at the later period.
The most distinguished figure in every resppct among the courtesans
of that time was certainly IHillia D'Aragnna. She was probably the
daughter of Cardinal D'Aragona (an illegitimate scion of the Spanish
royal family) by a Ferrarese courtesan who became his mistress. Tutlia
has gained a high reputation by her verse. Her best sonnet is addressed
to a youth of twenty, whom she passionately loved, but who did not
return her love. Her Ouerrino Hcnrhino, a translation from the Span-
ish, is a very pure and chaste work. She was a woman of refined
instincts and aspirations, and oni?e at least she abnndnned her life of
prostitution. She was held in high esteem and respect. When, in 1546,
Cosimo, Duke of Florence, ordered all prostitutes to wear a yellow veil
or handkerchief as a public badge of their profession, Tullia appealed
to the Duchess, a Spanish lady of high character, and received permission
to dispense with this badge on account of her "rara scienzia d! poesia
et fliosofia." She dedicated her Rime to (he Duchess. Tullia D'Aragona
was very beautiful, with yellow hair, and remarkably large and bright
eyes, which dominated those who came near her. She was of proud
bearing and inspired unusual respect (G. Biagi, 'Tn' Etera Romana."
DiclzedbyGoOglC
PBOSTITUTIOX. 245
I/uovo Antologia, toL iv, 19S6, pp. fl5s-711; S. Bongi, Riciita oritica
delta Letteratara Italiana, 1BS6, IV, p. 188).
Tullia lyArBgDiia was clearly not a courtesan at heart. PerhapB
the most typical example of the Renaissance courtesan at her best is
furnished by Veronica Franco, born in 1546 at Venice, of middle class
family and in aarly life married to a doctor. Of her also it lias been
said tliat, while by profession a prostitute, she was by inclination a, poet.
But she appears to have been well content with her profession, and
never ashamed of it. Her life and character have been studied by
Artnro Graf, and more slightly in a. little book by Taasini. She was
highly cultured, and knew several languages; she also sang well and
played on many instruments. In one of her letters she advises a youth
who was madly in love with her ttiat if he wishes to obtain her favors
he must leave off importuning her and devote himself tranquilly to
study. "You know well," she adds, "that all those who claim to be able
to gain my love, end who are extremely dear to me, are strenuous in
studious discipline If my fortune allowed it I would spend
all my time quietly in the academies of virtuous men." The Diotlmas
and Aspasias of antiquity, as Graf comments, would not have demande 1
so much of their lovers. In her poems it is possible to trace some of
her love histories, and she often shows herself torn by jealousy at the
thought that perhaps another woman may approach her brloved. Once
she fell in love with an ecclesiastic, possibly a bishop, with whom shs
had no relationships, ard after a long ubxence. which healed her love,
she and he became sincere friends. Once she was visited by Henry III
of France, who took away her portrait, while on her part she promise:!
to dedicate a book to him; she so far fulfilled this as to address some
■onnets to him and a letter; "neither did the King feel ashamed of hi.i
intimacy with the courtesan," remarks Graf, "nor did she suspect that
he would feel ashamed of it" When Montaigne passed through Venice
she sent him a little book of hers, as we learn from his Jmirnal, though
they do not appear to have met. Tintoret was one of her many distin-
guished friends, and she was a strenuous advocate of the high qualities
of modern, as compared with ancient, art. Her friendships were affec-
tionate, and she even seems to have had various grand ladies among her
friends. Shs was, however, so far from being ashamed of her profession
of courtesan that in one of her poems she affirms she has been taught
by Apollo other arts besides those he is usually regarded as teaching:
"Cosl dolce e gustevole divento,
Quando mi trovo con persona in letto
Da cui amata e gradita mi sento."
In a certain eatalogo of the prices of Venetian courtesans Veronica
is assigned only 2 scudi for her favors, while the courtesan to whom the
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246 F8YCU0L00Y OF SEX.
catalogue is dedicated is set down at 25 scudi. Graf thinks there may
be some mistake or malice here, and an Italian gentlemaD of the time
states that she required not leas than 50 acudt from those to whom she
was willing to accord what Montaigne called the "negotiation entiCre."
In regard to this matter it may be mentioned that, as stated by
Bandello, it was the custom for a Venetian prostitute to have six or
seven gentlemen at a time as her lovers. Each was entitled to come to
sup and sleep with her on one night of the week, leaving her days free.
They paid her so much per month, but she always definitely reserved the
right to receive a stranger passing through Venice, il she wished, chang-
ing the time of her appointment with her lover for the night. The high
and special prices which we find recorded are, of course, those demanded
from the casual distinguished stranger who came to Venice as, once in
the sixteenth century, Montaigne came.
In 1S60 twhen not more than thirty-lour) Veronica confessed to
the Holy Office that she had had six children. In the same year she
formed the design of founding a home,Vhich should not be a monastery,
where prostitutes who wished to abandon their mode of life could find a
refuge with their children, if they had any. This seems to have led to the
entablishment of a Casa del Soccorao, In 1S91 she died of fever, recon-
ciled with God and blessed by many unfortunates. She had a good heart
and a sound intellect, and was the last of the great Renaissance court«-
sana who revived Greek hetairism (Graf, Atfraverao il Cinqvccento, pp.
S17-351). Even in sixteenth century Venice, however, it will be seen,
Veronica Franco seems to have been not altogether at peace in the career
of a courtesan. She was clearly not adapted for ordinary marriage, yet
under the most favorable conditions that the modem world has ever
offered it may still be doubted whether a prostitute's career can offer
complete satisfaction to a woman of large heart and brain.
Ninon do Lenclos, who is frequently called "the last of the great
courtesans," may seem an exception to tlie general rule as to the inabil-
ity of a woman of good heart, high character, and flne intelligence to
find satisfaction in a prostitute's life. But it is a total misconception
alike of Ninon de Lenclos's temperament and her career to regard her
as in any true sense a prostitute at all. A knowledge of even the barest
outlines of her life ought to prevent such a mistake. Born early in the
seventeenth century, she was of good family on both sides; her mother
was a woman of severe life, but her father, a gentleman of Touraine,
inspired her with his own Epicurean philosophy as well as his love of
music. She was extremely well educated. At the age of sixteen or
seventeen she had her first lover, the noble and valiant Qaspard dc
Coligny; he was followed for half a century by a long succession of
other lovers, eometimes more than one at a time; three years was the
longest period during which she was faithful to one lover, Eer attrac-
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PROSTITUTION. 247
tions lasted so long that, it ia aaid, three generatioua of S^vign^B were
among her Ibvers. Tallemant des Rfiaux enables ui) to study in detail
her liaUoiu.
It is not, however, the abuadsnce of lovers which makes a woman
a prostitute, but the nature of her relationships with them. Sainte'
Beuve, in an otherwise admirable study of Ninon de Lenclos [Caus^iea
da Lundi, vol. iv), seems to reckon her among the courtesans. But no
woman is a prostitute unless she uses men as a source of pecuniary
gain. Not only ia there no evidence that this was the case with Ninon,
but all the evidence excludes such a relationship. "It required much
skill," said Voltaire, "and a great deal of love on her part, to induce
her to accept presents." Tallemant, indeed, says that she sometimes
took money from her lovers, but this atatement probably Involves noth-
ing beyond what is contained in Voltaire's remark, and, in any case,
Tallemant's gossip, though usually well-informed, was not always re-
liable. All are agreed as to her extreme disinterestednesa.
When we hear precisely of Ninon de Lenclos in connection with
money, it is not as receiving a gift, but only aa repaying a debt to an
old lover, or restoring a large sum left with her for aafe keeping when
the owner was exiled. Such incidents are far from suggesting the pro-
fessional pfostitute of any age; they are rather the relationships which
might exist between men friends. Ninon de Lencios's character was in
many respects far from perfect, but she combined many masculine vir-
tues, and especially probity, with a temperament which, on the whole,
was certainly feminine; she hated hypocrisy, and ehe was never influ-
enced by pecuniary considerations. She waa, moreover, never reckless,
but always retained a certain self-restraint and temperance, even in eat-
ing and drinking, and, we are told, she never drank wine. She was, aa
Sainte-Beuve has remarked, the firat to realize that there must \m the
same virtues for men and for women, and that it ia absurd to reduce all
feminine virtues to one. "Our sez has been burdened with all the
frivolities," she wrote, "and men have reaerved to themselves the essen-
tial qualities : I hav? made myself a man." She sometimes dressed aa a
man when riding (see, e.g.. Correspondence Autkenlique of Ntnon de
Lenclos, with a good introduction by Emile Colombey). Consciously or
not, she represented a new feminine idea at a period when — as we may
see in many forgotten novels written by the women of that time — ideas
were beginning to emerge in the feminine sphere. She was the first, and
doubtless, from one point of view, the most extreme representative of a
small and distinguished group of French women among whom Georges
Sand is the finest personality.
Thus it is idle to attempt to adorn the history of prostitution with
the name of Ninon de Lenclos. A debauched old prostitute would never,
like Ninon towards the end of her long life, have been able to retain or
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P8TCH0LOOT OP SKI,
there reigned in her little court a deconun which the greatest princeaaes
cniuot achieve. She was not a prostitute, but a woman of unique per-
Bonality with a little streak of geniua in it. That ahe was inimitable
we need not perhaps greatly regret. In lier old age, in 1600, her old
friend and former lover, Saint-Evremond, wrote to her. with onlj a little
exaggeration, that there were few princesses and tew saints who would
not leave their courts and their cloisters to change places with her. "If
I had known beforehand what tny life would be I would have hanged
myself," was her oft-quoted answer. It is, indeed, a solitary phrase that
slips in, perhaps as the expression of a momentary mood ; one may make
too much of it. More truly characteristic is the Qne saying in which
her Epicurean philosophy seems to stretch out towards Nietzsche: "La
joie de I'esprit en marque la force."
The frank acceptance of prostitution by the spiritual or even
the temporal power has since the Renaissance become more and
more exceptional. The opposite extreme of attempting to uproot
prostitution has also in practice been altogether abandoned.
Sporadic attempts have indeed been made, here and there, to put
down prostitution with a strong hand even in quite modem times.
It is now, however, realized that in such a case the remedy is ■
worse than the disease.
In I860 a Mayor of Portsmouth felt it bis duty to attempt to sup-
press prostitution. "In the early part of his mayoralty," according to
ft witness before the Select Committee on the Contagious Diseases Acta
<p. 393), "there was an order passed that every beerhouse-keeper and
licensed victualer in the borough known to harbor these women would
be dealt with, and probably lose his license. On a' given day about three
hundred or four hundred of these forlorn outcasts were bundled whole-
sale into the streets, and they formed up in a large body, many of them
with only a shift and a petticoat on, and with a lot of drunken men and
boys with a flfe and fiddle they parnded the streets for several days.
They marched in a body to the workhouse, but for many reasonH they
were refused admittance These women wandered about for
two or three days shelterless, and it was felt that the remedy was very
much worse than the disease, and the women were allowed to go back to
their former places."
Similar experiments have been made even more recently in America.
"In Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1891, the houses of prostitutes were
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PROSTITUTION. 249
closed, tha inmates turned out upon the streets, and were refused lodg-
ing and even food hj the citizens of that place. A nave of populai
remonstrance, all over the country, at the outrage on humanity, creatett
a reaction which resulted in a last condition by no means better than
the first." In tlie same year also a similar incident occurred in New
Yorlc with the same unfortunate results (Isidore Dyer, 'The Municipal
Control of Prostitution in the United States," report presented to the
Brussels International Conference in 1809).
There grew up instead the tendency to regulate prostitution,
to give it a eemi-official toleration which enabled the authorities
to exercise a control over it, and to guard as far ae possible
against ite evil by medical and police inspection. The new
brothel pystem differed from the ancient mediieval houses of
prostitution in important respects; it involved a routine of
medical inspection and it endeavored to suppress any rivalry by
unlicensed prostitutes outside. Bernard Mandeville, the author
of the Fable of the Bees, and an acute thinker, was a pioneer in
the advocacy of this system. In 1724, in his Modest Defense of
Publick Stews, he argues that "the encouraging of public whoring
will not only prevent most of the mischievous effects of this vice,
but even lessen the quantity of whoring in general, and reduce it
to the narrowest bounds which it can possibly be contained in."
He proposed to discourage private prostitution by giving special
privileges and immunities to brothels by Act of Parliament. His
scheme involved the erection of one hundred brothels in a special
quarter of the city, to contain two thousand prostitutes and one
hundred matrons of ability and experience with physicians and
surgeons, as well as commiBSioners to oversee the whole. Mande-
ville was regarded merely as a cynic or worse, and his scheme was
ignored or treated with contempt. It was left to the genius of
Napoleon, eighty years later, to establish the system of "maisons
de tolerance," which had so great an influence over modem
European practice during a large part of the last century and
even still in its numerous survivals forms the subject of widely
divergent opinions.
On the whole, however, it must be said that the system of
registering, examining, and regularizing prostitutes now belongs
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250 PSYCHOLOaY OF SEX.
to the past. Itlany great battles have been fought over this
question ; tlie most important is tliat which raged for manj years
in England over tlie Contagious Diseases Acts, and ia embodied in
the 600 pages of a Report by a Select Committee on these Acts
issued in 1883. The majority of the members of the Committee
reported favorably to the Acts which were, notwithstanding,
repealed in 1886, since which date no serious attempt has been
made in England to establish them again.
At the present time, although the old s}'stem still stands in
many countries with the inert stolidity of established institutions,
it no longer commands general approval. As Paul and Victor
Margueritte have truly stated, in the course of an acute examina-
tion of the phenomena of state- regulated prostitution as found
in Paris, the system is "barbarous to start with and almost
inefficacious as well." The expert is every day more clearly
demonstrating its inelTicacy while the psychologist and the
sociologist are constantly becoming more convinced that it is.
barbarous.
It can indeed by no means be said that any unanimity has
been attained. It is obviously so urgently necessary to combat
the flood of disease and misery which proceeds directly from the
spread of syphilis and gonorrhea, and indirectly from the pros-
titution which is the chief propagator of these diseases, that we
cannot be surprised that many should eagerly catch at any system
which seems to promise a palliation of the evils. At the present
time, however, it is those best acquainted with the operation of
the system of control who have most clearly realized that the
supposed palliation is for the most part illusory,^ and in any
case attained at the cost of the artificial production of other evils.
In France, where the system of the registration and control of
1 The example of Holland, where Bome large cities have adopted the
reflation of proatitution and othera have not, ia instructive as regards
the illusory nature of the advantages of regulation. In \%S3 Dr. DeBprte
brought forward figures, supplied by Dutch officials, ihowing that in
Botterdani, where prostitution was regulated, both prostitution and
venereal dieeasea were more prevalent than in Amsterdam, a city with-
out Tegulation (A. Deapr^a, Im ProtHtution en France, p. 122).
DiclzedbyGoOgle
PROSTITUTION. 251
proBtitutes has been establialied for over a century,^ and where
4.-onBeqaeiitly its advantages, if such there are, should be clearly
realized, it nieete with almost impassioned opposition from able
men belonging to every section of the community. In Germany
the opposition to regularized control has long been led by well-
equipped experts, headed by Blaschko of Berlin. Precisely the
same conclnBious are being reached in America. Gottheil, of
New York, finds that the municipal control of prostitution is
"neither successful nor desirable." Heidingsfeld concludes that
the r^ulation and control system in force in Cincinnati has done
little good and much harm ; under the system among the private
pati^its in his own clinic the proportion of cases of both syphilis
and gonorrhcea has increased; "suppression of prostitutes is
impossible and control is impracticable."^
It is in Germanj' that the attempt to regulate proetitution still
remains most periistent, with results that in Germany itself are regarded
as unfortunate. Thus the Gennan law inflicts a penalty on householders
who permit illegitimate sexual intercourse in their houses. This is
meant to strike the unlicensed prostitute, but it really encourages pros-
titution, for a decent youth and girl who decide to form a relationship
which later may develop into marriage, and which is not illegal (for
extra-marital sexual intercourse per »e is not in Germany, as it is by the
antiquated laws of several American States, a punishable offense), are
subjected to so much trouble and annoyance by the suspicious police that
it is much easier for the girl to become a prostitute and put herself under
the protection of the police. The law was largely directed against thoss
who live on the proBta of prostitution. But in practice it works out dif-
ferently. The prostitute simply has to pay extravagantly high rents, so
that her landlord really lives on the fruits of her trade, while she has
to carry on her business with increased activity and on a larger scale
in order to cover her heavy expenses (P. Hausmeister, "Zur Analyse der
Prostitution," GeeoMecM und OeaelUeluift, vol. ii, 1607, p. 294).
In Italy, opinion on this matter is much divided. The regulation
of prostitution has been successively adopted, abandoned, and rcAdopted.
In Switzerland, the land of governmental experiments, various plans are
1 It was in 1S02 that the medical inspection of prostitutes in Paris
brothels was Introduced, though not until 1825 fully established and
made general.
2M, L. Heidingsfeld. "The Control of Prostitution," Journal Ameri-
Mtn Mediottl Aaaooiation, January 30, 1904.
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252 PSYCHOLOGY of bes.
tried in different oantont. In some there ia no attempt to interfere
with prostitution, except under special circumstaneea ; In others all
prostitution, and even fornication generally, is punishable; iu Geneva
only native prostitutes are permitted to practice; in Zurich, since 1897,
prostitution is prohibited, but care is taken to put no difficulties in the
path of free sexu&l relationshipH vhich are not for gain. With these
difTerent regulations, morals in Switzerland generally are said to be
much on the same level as elsewhere | Moreau-Christaphe, Du ProhlitM
de la Mitire, vol. iii, p. 259). The same conclusion holds good of Lon-
don, A disintereeted observer, FClix Remo (Lo Vie Qalante en Angle-
lerre, ISSS, p. 237), concluded that, notwithstanding its free trade iu
prostitution, its alcoholic excesses, its vices of all kinds, "London is one
of the most moral capitals in Europe." The movement towards freedom
in this matter has been evidenced in recent years by the abandonment of
the system of r^;ulation by Denmark in 1906,
Even the most ardent advocates of the registration of pros-
titutes recognize that not only is the tendency of civilization
opposed ratlier than favorable to the syetem, but tliat in the
numerous countries where the system persists registered prosti-
tutes are losing ground in the struggle against clandestine
prostitutes. Even in France, the classic land of police-con-
trolled prostitutes, the "inaisons de tolerance" have long been
steadily decreasing in number, by no means because prostitution
ia decreasing but because low-class brasseries and small cafh-
chantants, which are really unlicensed brothels, are taking their
place,*
The wholesale regularization of prostitution in civilized
centres is nowadays, indeed, advocated by few, if any, of the
authorities who belong to the newer school. It is at most claimed
as desirable in certain places nnder special circumstances.^
Even those who would still be glad to see prostitution thoroughly
1 See, e.g., G. B6mult, La Maiaon de ToUnince, These de Paris,
1904,
3 Thus the circumstances of the English army in India are of a
special character. A number of statements (from the reports of com-
mittees, official publications, etc.) regarding the good induence of
regulation in reducing venereal diseases in India are brought together
by Surgeon-Colonel P, H. Welch, "The Prevention of Syphilis," Lancel,
August 12, 1990. The system has been sboIiRhed, but only as the result
of a popular outcry and not on the question of its merits.
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FBUaTlTUTIOH. 253
in the control of the police now recognize that experience shows
this to be impossible. Aa many girls begin their career as proB-
titutes at a very early age, a sound Bystem of regulation should be
prepared to enroll as permanent prostitutes even girls who are
little more than children. That, however, is a logical conclusion
against which the moral sense, and even the common sense, of a
community instinctively revolts. In Paris girls may not be
inscribed as prostitutes imtil they have reached the age of sixteen
and some consider even that age too low.' Moreover, whenever
she becomes diseased, or grows tired of her position, the registered
woman may always slip out of the hands of the police and estab-
lish herself elswhere as a clandestine prostitute. Every rigid
attempt to keep prostitution within the police ring leads to
offensive interference with the actions and the freedom of respect-
able women which cannot fail to be intolerable in any free com-
munity. Even in a city like London, where prostitution is
relatively free, the supervision of the police has led to scandalous
police charges against women who have done nothing whatever
which should legitimately arouse suspicion of their behavior.
The escape of the infected woman from the police cordon has, it is
obvious, an effect in raising the apparent level of health of,
registered women, and the police statistics are still further
fallaciously improved by the fact that the inmates of brothels are
older on the average than clandestine prostitutes and have become
immune to disease.^ These facts are now becoming fairly
obvious and well recognized. The state regulation of prostitu-
1 Thus Richard, who accepts regulation and was instructed to
report on it tor the Paris Municipal Council, would not have girls
inscribed as profeBBionsI prostitutes until they are of age and able to
realize what they are binding themselves to (E. Richard, La Proalitu-
lien d Pari*, p, 147). But at that age a large proportion of proatitutes
have been practicing their profession tor years.
! In Germany, where the cure ot infected prostitutes under regula-
tion is nearly evcrTwhere compulmry. usually at the cost of the com-
munity, it is found that 18 U the avernge nge at which they are affected
by syphilis; the average age of prostitutes in brothels is higher than
that of those outside, and a much Inrgf r proportion hnve therefore become
immune to disease (Blaschko. "Hveriene der Syphilis." in Weyl's Hand-
bwh der Hygiene, Bd. ii, p. 62. 1900).
DiclzedbyGoOglC
264 rsTCHOLOOT of sex.
tion is undeBirabk, on moral grounds for the oft-emphaBized
reason that it is only applied to one Bex, and on practical grounds
because it is ineffective. Society allows the police to harass the
prostitute with petty persecutions under the guise of charges of
"aolicitation," "disorderly conduct," etc., but it is no longer con-
vinced that she ought to be under the absolute control of the
police.
The problem of prostitution, when we look at it narrowly,
seems to be in the same position to-day as at any time in the
course of the past three thousand years. In order, however, to
comprehend the real significance of prostitution, and to attain a
reasonable attitude towards it, we must look at it from a broader
point of view ; we must consider not only its evolution and his-
tory, but its causes and its relation to the wider aspects of modem
social life. When we thus view the problem from a broader
standpoint we shall find that there is no conflict betwe^i the
claims of ethics and those of social hygiene, and that the co-
ordinated activity of both is involved in the progressive refine-
ment ^nd purification of civilized sexual relationships.
III. The Causes of Prostitution.
The history of the rise and development of prostitution
enables us to see that prostitution is not an accident of our
marriage system, but an essential constituent which appears con-
currently with its other essential constituents. The gradual
development of the family on a patriarchal and largely mono-
gamic basis rendered it more and more difficult for a woman to
dispose of her own person. She belongs in the first place to her
father, whose interest it was to guard her carefully until a
husband appeared who could afford to purchase her. In
the enhancement of her value the new idea of the market value
of virginity gradually developed, and where a "virgin" had
previously meant a woman who was free to do as she would with
her own body its meaning was now reversed and it came to mean
a woman who was precluded from having intercourse with men.
When she was transferred from her father to a husband, she
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PK08TITUTI0N. 26fr
vae still guarded with the eame care; husband and father alike
found their interest in preserving their women from uumarried
men. The situation thus produced reaulted in the existence of a
large body of young men who were not yet rich enough to obtain
wives, and a large number of young women, not yet chosen as
wives, and many of whom could never expect to become wives.
At such a point in social evolution prostitution is clearly
inevitable; it is not so much the indispensable concomitant of
marriage as an eesaitial part of the whole system. Some of
th»euperfluoua or neglected women, utilizing their money value
and perhaps at the same time reviving traditions of an earlier
freedom, find their social function in selling their favors to
gratify the temporary desires of the men who have not yet been
able to acquire wives. Thus every link in the chain of the
marriage system is firmly welded and tiie complete circle formed.
But while the history of the rise and development of prosti-
tution shows us how indestructible and essential an element
prostitution is of the marriage system which baa long prevailed in
Europe — under very varied racial, political, social, and religioua
conditions — it yet fails to supply us in every respect with the data
necessary to reach a definite attitude towards prostitution to-day.
In order to understand the place of prostitution in our existing
system, it is necessary that we should analyze the chief factors of
prostitution. We may most conveniently leam to understand
these if we consider prostitution, in order, under four aspects.
These are: (1) economic necessity; (2) hiological predisposi-
tion; (3) moral advantages; and (4) what may be called its
ririlizationa} value.
While these four factors of prostitution seem to me those
that here chiefly concern us, it is scarcely necessary to point out
tJiat many other causes contribute to produce and modify prosti-
tution. Prostitutes themselves often seek to lead other girls to
adopt tlie same paths; recruits must be found for brothels,
whence we have the "white slave trade," which ia now being
energetically combated in many parts of the world ; while all the
forms of seduction towards this life are favored and often pre-
disposed to by alcoholism. It will generally he found that several
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266 F8TCHOLOGY OF SEX..
catiBeB have combined to push a girl into the career of prosti-
tution.
The ways In which rariouH faetora of environment and suggestion
unite to lead a girl into the paths of proatitution are indicated in the
following statement in which a correspondent has set forth his own con-
clusions on this n)att«r as a man of the world: "I have had a some-
what varied experience among loose women, and can say, without
hesitatjon, that not more than 1 per cent, of the women I have known
could be regarded as educated. This indicates that almost invariably
the; are of humble origin, and the terrible cases of overcrowding that
are daily brought to light suf^est that at very early ages the sense of
modesty becomes extinct, and ioag before pi^rty a familiarity with
things sexual takes place. As soon as they are old enough these girls
are seduced by their sweethearts ; the familiarity with which they regard
sexual matters removes the restraint which surrounds a girl whose early
life has been spent in decent surroundings. Later they go to work in
factories and shops; if pretty and attractive, they consort with man-
agers and foremen. Then the love of finery, which forms so large a part
of the feminine character, tempts the girl to become the 'kepf woman
of some man of means. A remarkable thing in this connection ia the
fact that th(7 rarely enjoy excitement with Uieir protectors, preferring
rather the coarser embraces of some men nearer their own station' in
life, very often a soldier. I have not known many women who were
seduced and deserted, though this Is a fiction much affected by prosti-
tutes. Barmaids supply a considerable number to the ranlca of prostitu-
tion, largely on account of their addiction to drink; drunkenness
invariably leads to laxnees of moral restraint in women. Another
pot«nt factor in the production of prostitutes lies in the flare of finery
flaunted by some friend who has adopted the life. A girl, working hard
to live, sees some friend, perhaps making a call in the street where the
hard-working girl lives, clothed in finery, while she herself can hardly
get enough to eat. She has a conversation with her finely-clad friend
who tells her how easily she can earn money, explaining what a vital
asset the sexual organs are, and soon another one is added to the ranks."
There is some interest in ccmsidering the reasons assigned for
prostitutes entering their career. In some countries this has been esti-
mated by those who come closely into official or other contact witli
prostitutes. In other countries, it Is the rule for giris, before they are
registered as prostitutes, to state the reasons for which they desire to
enter the career.
Parent-Duchatelet, whose work on prostitutes in Paris is still an
authority, presented the first estimate of this kind. He found that of
over five thousand prostitutes, 1441 were influenced by poverty, 1425 by
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PHOSTITDTION. 1!67
Beduction of loverti who had abandoned them, 1260 hy the loss of parents
from death or other cauae. By such an estimate, nearly the whole num-
ber are accounted for bj wretchedueea, that is bj economic causes, alone
(Pfcrent'Duchfltelet, De la FTOstilulion, 1857, toI, i, p. 107).
In Bniieels during a period of twenty jreara (1866-1884) 350S
women were inscribed as prostitutes. The causes thef assigned for
desiring to take to this career present a different picture from that
shown by Parent-Duchatclet. but perhaps a more reliable one, although
there are tome marked and furious discrepancies. Out of the 3G05, 1523
explained that extreme poverty wai the cause of their degradation i
1118 frankly confessed that their sexual passions were the cause; 420
attributed their fall to evil company; 316 said they were disgusted and
weary of their work, because the toil was so arduous and the pay so
small; 101 had been abandoned by their lorers; 10 had quarrelled with
their parents; T were abandoned by their husbands; 4 did not agree
with their guardians; 3 had family quarrels; 2 were compelled to
prostitute themselves by their husbands, and 1 by her parents {Lancet,
June 28, IBDO, p. 1442).
In London, Merrick found tJiat of 16,022 prostitutes who passed
through his hands during the years he was chaplain at Millbank prison,
6001 voluntarily left home or situation for "a life of pleasure;" 3303
assigned poverty as the cause; 3154 were "seduced" and drifted on to
the street; 1636 were betrayed by promises of marriage and abandoned
by lover and relations. On the whole, Merridc states, 4700, or nearly
one-third of the whole number, may be said to owe the adoption of their
career directly to men, 11,232 to other causes. He adds that of thoee
pleading poverty a large number were indolent and Incapable (G. P.
Merrick, Work Among the Fallen, p. 38).
Logan, an English city missionary with an extensive acquaiutancR
with prostitutes, divided them into the following groups: (1) One-
fourth of the ^rls are servants, especially in public houses, beer shops,
etc., and thus led into the life; (2) one-fourth come from factories,
etc.; (3) nearly one-fourth are recruited by procuresses who visit coun-
try towns, markets, etc.; (4) a Una! group includes, on the one hand,
tiiose who are induced to become prostitutes by destitution, ur indolence,
or a bad temper, which unfits them for ordinary avocations, and, on the
other hand, those who have been seduced by a false promise of marriage
(W. Logan, The Oreat Social Evil, 1871, p. 53).
In America Sanger hes reported the results of inquiries made of
two thousand New York prostitutes as to the causes which induced them
to take up their avocation:
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268 PflYCHOLOQY OP SEX.
Deatitution 52S
loclination 513
Seduced and abandoned 2S8
Drink and desire for drink 181
lli-trcBtment by parents, relations, or husbandB. 14i
Ab an eoBj life 124
Bad company 84
Perauaded by prflBtitutea 71
Too idle to work 29
Violated 27
Seduced on emigrant ship 14
Seduced in emigrant boarding homes B
2,000
(Sanger, Uintory of ProttHution, p. 488.)
In America, again, more recently. Professor Woods Hutchinson put
himself into communication with some thirty representative men in
various great metropolitan centres, and thua nunmarizes the answers as
T^ards the etiology of prostitution:
Love of display, luxury and idlai«M 42.1
Bad family surroundings 23.S
Seduction in which they were innocent victims. 11.3
Lack of employment 0.4
Heredity 7.8
Primary sexual appetite G.O
(Woods Hutchinson, "The Elconomics of Prostitution," Ammiean
QyniEeoXogio and OhMtetrui Journal, September, 189S; Id., The Ooipel
Aocordinff to Darrein, p. 1&4.)
In Italy, in 1881, among 10,422 inscribed prostitutes from the age
of seventeen upwards, the causes of prostitution were classified as fol*
Vice and depravity 2,752
Death of parents, husband, etc 2,130
Seduction by lover 1,653
Seduction by employer 027
Abandoned by parents, husband, etc 704
LovB of luxury 608
Incitement by lover or other persons outside
family OM
Incitement by parents or husband 400
To support parents or children 393
(Perriani, Minorenni Deltnquenti, p. 103.)
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PH08T1TDTI0N, 259
The re&8oas aaaigned hj RuBSian prostitutes for taking up tbeir
career are (according to Federow) aa follows:
38.5 per cent. ineutBcient wages.
£1, " " desire for amusement.
14. " " loss of place.
0.5 " " perBuasion by women friends.
0.5 " " loBH of habit of work.
6.6 " " chagrin, and to punish lover.
.6 " " drunkenness.
(Summarized in Arckioea d'Anthropologie Criminelle, Nov. 16, 1901.)
1. The Economic Causation of Prostitution, — Writers on
proBtitution frequently assert that economic conditions lie at
the root of prostitution and that its chief cause is poverty, while
prostitutes themselves often declare that the difficulty of earning
a livelihood in other ways was a main cause in inducing them
to adopt this career. "Of all the causes of prostitution," Parent-
Ducb&telet wrote a century ago, "particularly in Paris, and
probably in all large cities, none ia more active than lack of work
and the misery which ,i8 the inevitable result of insufficient
wages." In England, also, to a large extent, Sherwell states,
"morals fluctuate with trade."* It ia equally so in Berlin where
the number of registered prostitutes increases during bad years.^
It is 80 also in America. It is the same in Japan; "the cause
of causes is poverty."^
Thus the broad and general statement that prostitution is
largely or mainly an economic phenomenon, due to the low wages
of women or to sudden depressions in trade, is everywhere made
by investigators. It must, however, be added tliat these general
statements are considerably qualified in the light of the detailed
investigations made by careful inquirers. Thus Strohmberg,
who minutely investigated 463 prostitutes, found that only one
assigned destitution as the reason for adopting her career, and on
investigation this was found to be an impudent lie.^ Hammer
1 A. Sherwell, Life in West London, 1897, Ch. V.
3 Bonger brings together statistics illustrating this point, op. dt.,
pp. 402-6.
8 The mghlless City. p. 126.
* StrOlunberg, as quoted by AschafFenburg, Das Verbrechen, 1903,
p. 77.
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260 PSYCHOLOOT OF SEX.
found that of ninety registered German prostituteB not one had
entered on the career out of want or to support a child, while eome
went on the street while in the poesession of money, or without
wishing to be paid.^ Pastor Buschmann, of the Teltow Mag-
dalene Home in Berlin, finds that it is not want but indiSerence
to moral considerations which leads girls to become prostitutes.
In Germany, before a girl ia put on the police register, due care is
always taken to give her a chance of entering a Home and getting
work; in Berlin, in the course of ten years, only two girls— ont
of thousands — were willing to take advantage of this opportunity.
The difficulty experienced by English Rescue Homes in finding
girls who are willing to be "rescued" is notorious. The same
difl3culty is found in other cities, even where entirely different
conditions prevail; thus it is found in Madrid, according to
Bernaldo de Quiros and Lianas Aguilaniedo, that the prostitutes
who enter the Homes, notwithstanding all the devotion of the
nuns, on leaving at once return to their old life. While the
economic factor in prostitution undoubtedly exists, the undue
frequency and emphasis with which it is put forward and accepted
is clearly due, in part to ignorance of the real facts, in part to the
fact that such an assumption appeals to those whose weakness it
is to explain all social phenomena by economic causes, and in part
to its obvious plausibility.^
Prostitutes are mainly recruited from the ranks of factory
^rls, domestic servants, shop girls, and waitresses. In some
1 MonaUachrift fur Bamkrankheiten vnd Sfouelle Hygiene, 1008.
'Rp-tt 10, p. 4G0. But tliid cause is undoubtedly effective in BOme csaes
'of unmarried women in Germany unftble to get work (see article hj Sis-
ter Henrietta Arendt, Police-AsBistant at Stuttgart, Sexual-PTobleme.
December, 1608).
iThus, for instance, ve find Irma von Troll-Boroatfani Bajing in
her book, Im Freien Reich (p. 178) ; "Go and ask these unfortunate
creatures if they willingly and freely devoted themselves to vice. And
nearly all of them will t«ll you a story of need and destitution, of hunger
and lack of work, which eompcllpd them to it. or else of love and seduc-
tion and the fear of the discovery of their fnlne step which drove tliem
out of their home«. helpless and forsaken, into the pool of vice from
which there ia hardly any Balvation." It Is, of course, quit* true that
the prostitute is frequently ready to tell sneli stories to philanthropic
Krsone who expect to hear them, and sometimes even put the words Into
r mouth.
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PB08TITUTI0N. 261
of these occnpations it is difficult to obtain employment all the
year round. In this way many milliners, dresemakeiB and
tailoresses become proBtitutes when busineea is slack, and return to
buBinese when the season begins. Sometim«fl the regular work of
the day is supplemented concurrently by prostitution in the street
in the evening. It is said, possibly with some truth, that amateur
prostitution of Uiis kind is e:itreme1y prevalent in England, as it
is not checked by the precautions which, in countries where prosti-
tution is regulated, the clandestine prostitute must adopt in order
■ to avoid r^istration. Certain public lavatories and dressing-
rooms in central London are said to be used by the girls for
putting on, and finally washing oS before going home, the
customary paint.^ It is certain that in England a targe propor-
tion of parents belonging to the working and even lower middle
class ranks are unacquainted with the nature of the lives led by
their ovn daughters. It must be added, also, that occasionally
this conduct of the daughter is winked at or encouraged by the
parents; thus a correspondent writes that he "knows some towns
in England where prostitution is not regarded as anything dis-
graceful, and can remember many cases where the mother's house
has been used by the daughter with the mother's knowledge."
Acton, in a well-informed book on London prostitution,
written in the middle of the last century, said that prostitution is
"a transitory stage, through wbicli an untold number of British
women are ever on their passage."^ This statement was stren-
uously denied at the time by many earnest moralists who refused
to admit that it was possible for a woman who had sunk into so
deep a pit of degradation ever to climb out again, respectably safe
and sound. Yet it is certainly true as regards a considerable
proportion of women, not only in England, but in other countries
also. Thus Parent-Duchatelet, the greatest authority on French
prostitution, stated that "prostitution is for the majority only a
transitory stage ; it is quitted usually during the first year ; very
1 C. Booth, Life and Labour, final volume, p. 126. Similarly in
Sweden, Kutlberg states tTiat girls of thirteen to seventeen, living at
home with their parent* in comfortable circiinmtancea, have often been
found on the streets.
3 W. Acfon, Protlitulion, 1370, pp. 39, 43.
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262 PSYCHOLOGY OP SEX.
few proetitutee continue until extinction." It is difficult, how-
ever, to ascertain precisely of how large a proportion this is true ;
there are no data which would serve as a basis for exact estima-
tion,^ and it is impoBsible to expect that respectable married
women would admit that they had ever been "on the streets";
they would not, perhaps, always admit it even to themselves.
The following case, though noted down over twenty jean ago, Ib
(airljT t^ical of a certain class, among the lower ranki of prostitution,
in which the economic factor counts for much, but in which we ought
not too hastily to assume that it is the sole factor.
Widow, Rged thirty, with two children. Works iu an umbrella
manufactory in the East End of Tjondon, earning eighteen shillings a
week by hard work, and increasing her income by occasionally going out
on the streets in the evenings. She haunts a quiet side street which is
one of the approaches to a large city railway terminus. She is a com-
fortable, almost matronly-looking woman, quietly dressed in a way that
is only noticeable from the skirts being rather hhorL If spoken to she
may remark that she is "waiting for a lady friend," talks in an affected
way about the weather, and parenthetically introduces her offers. She
will either lead a man into one of the silent neighboring lanes filled with
warehouses, or will take him home with her. She is willing to accept
any sum the man may he willing or able to give; occasionally it !s a
sovereign, sometimes it is only a sixpence; on an average she earns a
few shillings in an evening. She had only been in London tor ten
months; before that she lived in Newcastle. She did not go on the
streets there; "circumstAnces sitcr cafes," she sagely remarks. Though
t In Lyons, according to Potton, of 3884 prostitutes, 3184 aban-
doned, or apparently abandoned, their profession ; in Paris a very large
number became servants, dressmakers, or tailoresses, occupations which,
in many cases, doubtless, they had exercised before ( Parent-Duchlltelet.
Dc la Prottiliition. 18.17. lol. i. p. 6S4; vol. ii, p. 451). Sloggett (quoted
by Acton) stated that at Davenport. 2.50 of the 1775 prostitutes there
married. It is well known that prostitutes occasionally marry extremely
well. It was remarked nearly a century aRO that marriages of prostj.
tutea to ricli men were especially frequent in England, and usually turned
out well; the same seems to he true still. In their own social rank they
not infrequently mnrry cnbmen and policemen, the two clssses of men
with whom they are brought most cIoewIt in contact in the streets. As
regards Germany. C. K. Schneider (flic Proatituirte und die GeaeU-
achaft), states that young prostitute* fake up all sorts of occuostions
and situations, sometimes, it tliev hnve snved a little monev. estsMishing
a business, while old prosfitntei become procuresses, brotbel'keepers,
lavatory women, nnd so on. Not n few prostitutes marry, he adds, but
the proportion among inscribed German prostitutes is very small, less
than 2 per cent.
DiclzedbyGoOglC
PROSTITUTION, 268
not speakii^ well of the police, slie aajs they do not interfere with her
M th^ do with eome of the girls. She never gives them monej, but
hints that it is sometimes necessary to gratifj their desires in order to
keep on good terms with them.
It must always be remembered, for it is sometimes forgotten
bj Bocialists and social reformers, that while the pressure of
poverty exerta a markedly modifying influence on prostitution, in
that it increaBes the ranks of the women who thereby seek a
livelihood and may thus be properly regarded as a factor of
prostitution, no practicable raising of the rate of women's wages
could possibly serve, directly and alone, to abolish prostitution.
De MoIJnari, an economist, after remarking that "prostitution is
an industry" and that if other competing industries can offer
women sufficiently high pecuniary inducements they will not be
80 frequently attracted to prostitution, proceeds to point out that
that hy no means settles the question. "Like every other industry
prostitution is governed by the demand of the need to which it
responds. As long as that need and that demand persist, they
will provoke an offer. It is the need and the demand that we
must act on, and perhaps science will furnish ns the means to do
BO."* In what way Molinari expects science to diminish the
demand for prostitutes, however, is not clearly brought out.
Not only have we to admit that no practicable rise in the
rate of wages paid to women in ordinary industries can possibly
compete with the wages which fairly attractive women of quite
ordinary ability can earn by prostitution,^ but we have also to
realize that a rise in general prosperity — ^which alone can render
a rise of women's wages healthy and normal — involves a rise in
the wages of prostitution, and an increase in the number of
prostitutes. So that if good wages is to be regarded as the
antagonist of prostitution, we can only say that it more than
IQ. de MoUnari, La TiriouUtire, 1897, p. 156.
3 ReuHS and other writers hnve reproduced t7pic«l extracts from
the private account hooica of prontttutes, stiowing the high rate of their
earnings. Even in the common brothels, in Philadelphia (according to
Ooodchild. "The Social Evil in PhiUdplphia," Arena, March, 1896), girls
earn twenty dollars or more a week, which is far more than they could
eam in any other occupation open to them.
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264 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
gives back with one hand what it takes with the other. To bo
marked a degree is this the case that Uespr^s in a detailed moral
and demographic study of the diBtribution of prostitution in
France comes to the conclusion that we must reverse the ancient
doctrine that "poverty engenders prostitution" since prostitution
regularly increases with wealth,^ and aa a d^partement rises in
wealth and prosperity, so the ntunber both of its inscribed and its
free prostitutes rises also. There is indeed a fallacy here, for
while it is true, as Desprte argues, that wealth demands prostitu-
tion, it is also true that a wealthy community involves the extreme
of poverty as well as of riches and that it is among the poorer
elements that prostitution chiefly finds its recruits. The ancient
dictum that "poverty engenders prostitution" still stands, but it
is complicated and qualified by the complex conditions of civiliza-
tion. Bonger, in his able discussion of the economic side of the
question, has realized the wide and deep basis of prostitution
when he reaches the conclusion that it is "on the one hand the
inevitable complement of the existing legal monogamy, and on
the other hand the result of the bad conditions in which many
young girls grow up, the result of the physical and psychical
wretchedness in which the women of the people live, and the
consequence also of the inferior position of women in our actual
society."^ A narrowly economic conaideration of prostitution
can by no means bring us to the root of the matter.
One circumstance alone shoald have sutBced to indicate that the
inability of man]' women to secure "a living wage," ie far from being
tiifl moBt fundamental cause of prostitution; a large proportion of
prostitutes come from the ranks of domestic service. Of alt the great
groups of female workers, domestic servants are the freest from eeonomic
anxieties; thej' do not pay for food or for lodging; they often live as
well as their mistresses, and in a lar^ proportion of cases thej have
fewer roonej' anxieties than their miHtresaes. Moreover, they supply an
almost universal demand, bo that there ia never any need for even very
moderately competent servants to be in want of work. They constitute,
it is true, a very large body which could not fail to supply a certain
contingent of recruits to prostitution. But when we see that domestic
lA. Despres, La Prostitution en France, 1883.
2 Boager, Criminaliti et Conditioite Economiqves, 1905, pp. 3TMI4.
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PE08TITDTI0N. 26&
wirice is the chief reservoir from which prostitutes are drawn, it should
be clear that the craving for food and shelter is by no means the chief
cause of proetitutioD.
It may be added that, altbou^ the significance of this predomi-
nance of servants among prostitutes is seldom realized bj those who
fancy that to remove poverty is to abolish prostitution, it has not been
ignored by the more thoughtful students of social questions. Thus Sher-
well, while pointing out truly that, to a large extent, "morals fluctuate
with trade," adds that, against the importance of the economic factor,
it is a suggestive and in every way impressive fact that the majority
of the girls who frequent the West End of London (88 per cent., accord-
ing to the Salvation Army's Registers) are drawn from domestic servlca
where the economic struggle is not severely felt (Arthur Sherwell, Life
in Weal Lond<m, Ch. V, "Prostitution").
It is at the same time worthy of note that by the condiUons of
their lives serranta, more than any other class, resemble prostitutes
(Bemaldo de Quirns and Llnnas Aguilaniedo have pointed this out in
La Mala Tida en Madrid, p. 240). Like prostitutes, they are a class of
women apart; they are not entitled to the considerations and the little
courtesies usually paid to other women; in some countries they are even
registered, lilte prostitutes; it is scarcely surprising that when they
Bufl'er from so many of the diaadvantag^s of the prostitute, they should
sometimes desiie to poesesH also some of her ndvintagRs. Lily Braun
[Prauenfrage, pp. 389 et »eq.) has set forth in detail these unfavorable
conditions of domestic labor as they bear on the tpndency of servant-
girls to become prostitutes. K. de RyckSre, in his important work, La
Bervante CHminelle (1907, pp. 460 et teq.; cf., the same author's article,
"La Criminality Ancillaire," Archives d'AnlkropoIogie Ctiminelte, July
and Decem1>er, 190G), has studied the psychology of the servant-girl.
He finds that she is specially marked by lack of foresight, vanity, lack
of invention, tendency to imitation, and mobility of mind. These are
characters which ally her to the prostitute. De Ryckere estimates the
proportion of former servants among prostitutes generally aa fifty per
cent., and adds tliat what is called the "white Bla\-ery" here finds Its
most complacent and docile victims. He remarks, however, that the
servant prostitute is, on the whole, not so much immoral as non-moral.
In Paris Parent-Duchlltelet found that, in proportion to their num-
ber, servants furnished the largest contingent to prostitution, and hi<(
editors also found that they head the list ( Parent-Ducbfttelet, edition
18ST, vol. i, p. S3). Among clandestine prostitutes at Paris, Gommenge
has more recently found that former servants constitute forty per cent.
In Bordeaux Jeannel IDe le Prostitution Publique, p. 102) also found
that in 1860 forty per cent, of prostitutes had been servants, seamstreHse'i
coming nest with thirty-seven per cent.
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266 PSTCHOLOGT OF SEX.
In Germanj' and Austria it has long been reet^ized that domeaUe
serrice fumishea the chief number of recruits to prostitution. Lippert,
in Qeitnany, and Qross-Hoffinger, in Austria, pointed out this predomi-
nant of maid-servants and its significance before the middle of the nine-
teenth centurjr, and more recently Blascbko has stated ("Hygiene der
Syphilis" in Weyl'a Handbvch der Hygiene, Bd. ii, p. 40) that among
Berlin pr..-.tituteH in 18S8 maid-servants stand at the head with fifty-ona
per cent. Baumgarten has stated that in Vienna the proportion of
serrantB Is fifty-eight per cent.
In England, according to the Report of a Select Committee of the
Lords on the laws for the protection of children, sixty per cent, of proo-
titntea have been servants. F, Remo, in his Yie GaUinte en Angleterre,
states (be proportion as eighty per cent It would appear to be even
higher as regards the West End of Ixindon. Taking London as a whole
the extensive statistics of Merrick (Worjt Amnng the Fallen), chaplain
of the Millbanic Prison, showed that out of 14,700 prostitutes, 5823, or
about forty per cent, had previously been servants, laundresses ooming
next, and then dressmalters; classifying his data somewhat more sum-
marily and roughly, Merrick found that the proportion of servants was
fifty- three per cent.
In America, among two thousand prostitutes, Sanger states that
forff-three per cent- had lieen servants, dressmakeri coming next, but
at a long Interval, with six per cent. (Sanger, Hittory of Froitituiion,
p. 524). Among Philadelphia prostitutes, Goodcliild states that "do-
mestics are probably in largest proportion," although some recruits may
be found from almost any occupation.
It is the same in other countries. In Italy, according to Tauuneo
{La Prottitwsione, p. 100), servants come first among prostitutes with a
proportion of twenty-eight per cent, followed by the group of dress-
makers, talloresses and milliners, seventeen per cent In Sardinia, A.
Mantegaeca states, most prostitutes are servants from the country. In
Russia, according to Fiaux, the proportion is forty-five per cent In
Madrid, acooiding to Bslava (as quoted by Bernaldo de Quiros and
Lianas Aguilaniedo ( La Mala Tida en Madrid, p. 239 ) , servants come at
the head of registered prostitutes with twenty-seven per cent. — almost
the same proportion as in Italy — and are followed by dressmakers. In
Sweden, according to Welander [Monatsahefte fiir Praktiache Derma-
lologie, 1890, p. 477) among 2641 inscribed prostitutes, 1586 (or mxty-
two per cent) were domestic servants; at a long interval folloived 210
seamstresses, then 168 factory workers, etc.
3. The Biological Factor of Prostitution. — IkKmomic COD-
sideratioDs, as we see, have a highly important modificatory
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PHOSTITUTION. 267
influence on prostitution, although it is by no means correct
to assert that they form its main cause. There is another
question which has exercised many investigators: To what
extent are prostitutes predestined to this career by organic con-
stitution? It is generally admitted that economic and other
conditions are an esciting cause of prostitution; in bow far are
those who succumb predisposed by the possession of abnormal
personal characteriBtlcB ? Some inquirers have argued that this
predisposition is so marked that prostitution may fairly be
regarded as a feminine equivalent for criminality, and that in a
family in which the men instinctively turn to crime, the women
instinctively turn to prostitution. Others have as strenuously
denied this conclusion.
Lombroso haa more eepeciaDy advocated th« doctrine that proB-
titution 19 the vicarious equivalent of criminality. In this he waa
developing ihe results reached, in the important studj of the Jukes
family, by Dugdale, who found that "there where the brothers coounit
crime, the siaters adopt prostitution;" the fines and imprisonments of
the women of the family were not for violations of the right of property,
but mainly for otTences against public decency. "The peychologtcal oa
well as anatomical identity of the criminal and the bora prostitute,"
Lombroso and Ferrero concluded, "could not be more complete: both are
identical with the moral insane, and therefore, according ia the axiom,
equal to each other. There is the same lack of moral sense, the same
hardness of heart, the same precocious taste for ei'il, the same indiffer'
ence to social infamy, the same volatility, love of idleness, and lack of
foresight, the eame taste for facile pleasures, for the orgy and for alcohol,
the seme, or almost the same, vanity. Prostitution is only the feminine
side of criminality. And so true is it that prostitution and criminality
are two analogous, or, so to say, parallel, phenomena, that at their
extremes they meet. The prostitute is, therefore, psychologically a
criminal: if she commits no offenses it is because her physical weak-
ness, her small intelligence, the facility of acquiring what she wants by
more easy methods, dispenses her from the necpssity of crime, and on
these very grounds prostitution represents the specific form of feminine
criminality." The authors add that "prostitution is, in a certain sense,
socially useful as an outlet tor masculine sexuality and a preventive of
crime" (Lombroso and Ferrero, Lti Donna Delinquente. 1893, p. 571).
Those who have opposed this view have taken various grounds, and
by DO means always understood the position they are attacking. Thus
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268 PSTCHOLOGY OF BEX.
VV. Fischer (in Die Prostitution) vigorously argues that prostitution is
not an inoffensive equivalent of criminality, but a factor of criminalitf.
FCre, again (in Digfnirescence et Criminalili), asserts that criminaliiy
and prostitutiOD are not equivalent, but identical. "Prostitutes and
criminals," he holds, "have as a common character their unproductive-
ness, and consequently they are both anti-social. Prostitution thus
constitutes a form of criminality." The essential character of criminals
is not, however, their unproductiveness, for that they share with a con-
siderable proportion of the wealthiest of the upper classes; it must be
added, also, that the prostitute, unlike the criminal, is exercising an
activity for which there is a demand, for which she is willingly paid, and
for which she has to work (it has sometimes been noted that the pros-
titut« looks down on the thief, who "does not work") ; she is carrying
on a profession, and is neither more nor less productive than those who
carry on many more reputable professions. Asehaffenburg, also believing
himself in opposition to Lombroso, arguea, somewhat differently from
FCr^, that prostitution is not indeed, as ¥(t6 said, a form of criminality,
hut that it is too frequently united with criminality to be regarded as
an equivalent. MOnkemSller has more recently supported the same
view. Here, however, as usual, there is a wide dlfTerence of opinion
as to tbe proportion of prostitutes of whom this is true. It is recog-
nized by all investigators to be true of a certain number, but while
Baumgarten, from an examination of eight thousand prostitutes, only
found a minute proportion who were criminals, StrUhmberg found that
among 462 prostitutes there were as many as 175 IJiieves. From another
side, Morasso (as quoted in Archivio <ft Ptiohiatria, 1S96, fasc. I), on
the strength of his own investigations, is more clearly in opposition to
Lombroso, since he protests altogether against any purely degenerative
view of prostitutes which would In any way assimilate them with
criminals.
The question of the Bezuality of pTostitutee, which has a
certain bearing on the question of their tendency to degeDeration,
has been settled by different writers in different senses. While
some, like Ifora^o, assert that sexual impulse is a main cause
inducing women to adopt a prostitute's career, others assert that
prostitutes are usually almost devoid of sexual impulse. Lom-
broso refers to the prevalence of sesnal frigidity among prosti-
tutea.^ In London, Merrick, speaking from a knowledge of
over 16,000 proptitntes, states that he has met with "only a very
I La Donna Drlinguente, p. 401.
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PBOSTITUTION. 2o9
iew cases" in which gross eexual desire has been the motive to
adopt a life of prostitution. In Paris, Baciborski had stated at
a much earlier period that "among prostitutes one finds very few
who are prompted to libertinage by sexual ardor."* Commenge,
again, a careful studeot of the Parisian prostitute, cannot admit
that sexual desire is to be classed among the serious causes of
prostitution. "I have made inquiries of thousands of women on
this point," he states, "and only a very small number have told
me that they were driven to prostitution for the satisfaction of
sexual needs. Although girls who give themselves to prostitution
are often lacking in frankness, on this point, I believe, they have
no wish to deceive. When they have sexual needs they do not
conceal them, but, on the contrary, show a certain amour-propre
in acknowledging them, as a sudicient sort of justification for
their life ; so that if only a very email minority avow this motive
the reason is that for the great majority it has no existence."
There can be no doubt that the statements made regarding
the sexual frigidity of prostitutes are often much too unqualified.
This is in part certainly due to the fact that they are usually
made by those who speak from a knowledge of old prostitutes
whose habitual familiarity with normal sexual intercourse in its
least attractive aspects has resulted in complete indifference to
such intercourse, so far as their clients are concerned.* It may
be stated with truth that to the woman of deep passions the
ephemeral and superficial relationships of prostitution can offer
no temptation. And it may be added that the majority of prosti-
tutes begin their career at a very early age, long before the some-
what late period at which in women the tendency for passion to
1 Raciborfiki, Traili de r/mpuissance, p. 20. It may be added that
Borgh, a leading authority on the anatomical peculiarities of the external
female sexual organs, who believe that strong development of the external
genital organs accompanies libidinous tendencies, has not found such
development to be common among prostitutes.
2 Hammer, who has had much opportunity of studying tie payohol-
ogy of prostitutes, remarks that he has seen no reason to suspect sexual
coldness (J/onotsscftrifi filr Hamkrankheilen und Bexuelle Bygieitv,
1906, Heft 2, p. 8S), although, as he has elsewhere stated, he Is of opin-
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270 PSYCHOLOGY OP SEX.
become strong, has yet arrived.^ It may also be said that au
indifference to sexual relationships, a tendency to attach no per-
sonal value to them, is often a predisposing cause in the adoption
of a prostitute's career; the general mental shallowness of prosti-
tutes may well be accompanied by shallowness of physical
emotion. On the other hand, many prostitutes, at all events early
in their careers, appear to show a marked degree of sensuality,
and to women of coarse sexual fibre the career of prostitution has
not been without attractions from this point of view; the
gratification of physical desire is known to act as a motive in
some cases and is clearly indicated in others.^ This is scarcely
surprising when we remember that prostitutes are in a very large
proportion of cases remarkably robust and healthy persons in
general respects.^ They withstand without difficulty the risks of
their profession, and though under its influence the manifesta-
tions of sexual feeling can scarcely fail to become modified or
perverted in course of time, that is no proof of the original
absence of sexual sensibility. It is not even a proof of its loss,
for the real sexual nature of the normal prostitute, and her
possibilities of sexual ardor, are chiefly manifested, not in her
professional relations with her clients, but in her relations with
her "fancy hojr" or "bully,"* It is quite true that the conditions
of her life often make it practically advantageous to the prosti-
tute to have attached to her a man who is devoted to her interests
t Women," in the third volume of
STait stated that in Edinburgh many married women living with
their huBbande in comfortable circumstancea, and having children, were
found to be acting as prostitutea, that Is, in the regular habit of making
assignations wit^ strangers (W. Tait, Uagdaleniam in EdmbnToh, 1842,
p. 16).
3 Janke brings together opinions to this effect, Die WillkiirlUihe
Hervorhringtn dea Oeschlechts. p. 275. "It we compare a prostitute of
thirty-five with her respectable sister," Acton remarked (ProtlUution,
1870, p. 39), "we seldom find that the conatitutional ravages often
thought to be neceBsary consequences of prostitution exceed tlioae attrib*
utable U> the cares of a family and the heart-wearing struggles of
virtuous labor."
4Hirsehfeld states (We«en der lAebe. p. 35) that the desire for
Intercourae with a svmpathetie person is heightened, and not decreased,
by a proffssioDal act of coitus.
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PB08TITDTI0N. 271
and will defend them if necessary, but that is only a secondary,
occasional, and subsidiary advantage of the "fancy boy," so far
as prostitutes generally are concerned. She is attracted to him
primarily because he appeals to her personally and she wants him
for herself. The motive of her attachment is, above all, erotic,
in the full sense, involving not merely sexual relations but
possession and common interests, a permanent and intimate
life led together. "You know that what one does in the way
of business cannot fill one's heart," said a Qerman prostitute;
"^hy should we not have a husband like other women? I, too,
need loye. If that were not so we should not want a bully."
And he, on his part, reciprocates this feeling and is by no means
merely moved by self -interest.*
One of my correspondente, who has bad much experience of proetl'
tutes, not only in Britaio, but also in Oermany, France, Belgium and
HolloDd, has found that the normal manifestations of Bczual feeling are
much more common in British than in continental prostitutes. "I should
say," he writes, "that in normal coitus foreign women are generally
nncoDScious of sexual excitement. I don't think I have ever known a
foreign woman who had aoy semblance of orgasm. British women, on
the other hand, if a man is moderately kind, and shows that he has
some feelings beyond mere sensual gratification, often abandon them-
selves to the wildest delights of sexual excitement Of course in this
life, as in others, there is keen competition, and a woman, to vie with
her compeUtors, must please her gentlemen friends; but a man of the
world can always distinguish between real and simulated passion." (It
is possible, however, that he may be most successful in arousing the
feelings of his own fellow-country women.) On the other hand, this
writer finds that the foreign women are more anxious to provide tor the
enjoyment of their temporary consorts and to ascertain what pleases
1 This has been clearly shown by Hans Ostwald ( from whom I take
the above-quoted observation of a prostitute), one of the best authorities
on prostitute life end character; see, e.g., his article, "Die erotischen
Besiehungen Kwischen Birne und ZuliHIter," Scatial-Probleme, June,
190S. In the subsequent number of the same periodical (July, 190S,
p. 393) Dr. Mux Marcuse supports Ostwald's experiences, and says that
the letters of prostitutes and their bullies are love-letters exactly like
those of respectable people of the same class, and with the same elements
of love and iealousy: these reNtionships. he remarks, often prove very
endjiring. The prostitute author of the Tagriuch einer Ferlorenen (p.
147) also has some remarks on the proatitilte's relations to her bully,
stating that it is simply the natural relationship of a girl to her lover.
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272 P8Y0HOLOQT OF BEX.
tbem. "The foreigner aeensB to make it the buslneae of her life to dis-
■cover some abnormnt modq of seicual gratiQcation tor her consort." For
their own pleasure also foreign prostitutes frequently oak for ounnv
.Hnotua, in preference to normal coitus, while anal coitus ia also com-
mon. The difference evidently ia that the Britiah women, when they
wek gratification, find it in normal coitus, while the foreign women
prefer more abnormal methods. There is, however, one class of Britiah
prostitutes which this correspondent finds to ba an exception to the
general rule: the class of those who are recruited from the lower walks
of the Btage. "Such women are generally more licentious — that is to
toy, more acquainted w[th the bizarre in sexualiam — than girls who
come from shops or bars; they show a knowledge of fellatio, and una
anal coitus, mod during meoBtniation frequently auggest inter-mammat;
On the whole it would appear that prostitutes, though not
UBuaUj impelled to their life by motives of seneuality, on entering
and during the early part of tiieir career poaaeBB a fairly average
amount of sexual impulse, with variations in both directions of
-excess and deficiency as well as of perversion. At a somewhat
later period it is useless to attempt to measure the sexual impulse
of prostitutes by the amount of pleasure they take in the pro-
feseional perfoi-mance of sexual intercourse. It is necessary to
ascertain whether they possess sexual instincts which are
gratified in other ways. In a large proportion of cases this is
found to be so. Masturbation, especially, is extremely common
among prostitutes everywhere; however prevalent it may be
among women who have no other means of obtaining sexual
gratification it is admitted by all to be still more prevalent among
prostitutes, indeed almost universal.^
Homosexuality, though not so common as masturbation, is
very frequently found among prostitutes — in France, it would
seem, more frequently than in England — and it may indeed be
I Thus Moraglia found that among ISO prostitutes in North Italian
brotlicls, and among 23 elegant Italian and foreign cocottes, every one
admitted that ahe maaturhated, preferably by friction of the clitoris;
113 of them, the msjority, declared that they preferred solitary or
mutual masturbation to normal coitus. TTammer states (ZeAn Lfbena-
Idufe Berliner KontroHmnilf.hen in OatwaM's seriea of "Grosstadt
Dokumente," 1905) that when in hospilnl all but three or four of sixty
prostitutes masturbate, and those who do not are laughed at by the rest.
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PltOSTlTUTION. 278
eaid that it occurs more often among prostitutes than among any
other class of women. It is favored by the acquired distaste for
normal coitus due to professional intercourse with men, which
leads homosexual reiationshipa to be regarded as pure and ideal
by comparison. It would appear also that in a considerable pro-
portion of cases prostitutes present a congenital condition of
sexual inversion, such a condition, with an aceompanyjng
indifference to intercourse with men, being a predisposing cause
of the adoption of a prostitute's career. Kurella even regards
prostitutes as constituting a sub-variety of congenital inverts.
Anna Ruling in Germany states that about twenty per cent.
prostitutes are homosexual; when asked what induced them to
become prostitutes, more than one inverted woman of the street
has replied to her that it was purely a matter of business, sexual
feeling not coming into the question except with a friend of tho
same sex.*
The occurrence of congenital inversion among prostitutes —
although we need not regard prostitutes as necessarily degenerate
as a class — suggests the question whether we are likely to find an
unusually large number of physical and other anomalies among
them. It cannot be said that there is unanimity of opinion on
this point. For some authorities prostitutes are merely normal
ordinary women of low social rank, if indeed their instincts are
not even a little superior to those of the class in which they were
born. Other investigators find among them so large a proportion
of individuals deviating from the normal that they are inclined
to place prostitutes generally among one or other of the
abnormal classes.^
1 Jahrbuch fur Betcuelle Zwischenstufen, Jahrgnng VIT, 1906, p.
148; "Sexual Inversion," vol. ii of these Btudiea, Ch. IV. Hammer
found that of twenty-flve prostitutes in a reformatory as many as twen^-
three were homosexual, or, on good )^ouni!s, suspected to be such.
Hirschfeld {BerUns Driitea GcechlechI, p. 85) mpntiona that prostitutes
sometimes accost better-class women who, from their man-like air, they
tjike io be homosexual; from perMms of their own sex prostitutcB will
accept a smaller remunpration, and eometimes refuse payment altogether.
2 With prostitntion, as with criminality, it is of courie difficult to
disentangle the element of heredity from that of environment, even when
we have good grounds for believing thnt the fnctor of heredity here, aa
tiiroughout the whole of life, cannot, fail to carry much weight. It ii
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274 P3YCH0UK1Y OF BES.
BaumgBTten, in Vienna, from a knowledga o( over 8000 proatituteB,
concluded that only a very minute proportion are either crimiDal or
psychopathic in temperament or organization (ArcAtu fur ilTrtminal-
Anihropologie, vol. xi, 1902). It is not clear, however, that Baumgar-
ten carried out any detailed and precise investigations. Mr. Ia.ne, a
London police magistrate, has stated as the result of his otvn observa-
tion, that prostitution is "at once a symptom and outcome of the same
deteriorated physique and decadent moral fibre which determine the
manufacture of male tramps, pet^ thieves, and professional beggars, of
whom the prostitute is in general the female analogue" {Ethnolo^oal
Jottrnal, April, 1905, p. 41). This estimate is doubtless correct as
regards a considerable proportion of the women, often enfeebled by drink,
who pass through the police courts, but it could searcely be applied witii-
out qualification to prostitutes generally.
Morasso {Archivia di Paickiatria, 1898, fasc. I) has protested
i^inst a purely degenerative view of prostitutea on the strength of hia
own observations. There is, he states, a category of prostitutes, un-
known to scientific inquirers, which he calls that of the proatitvte di
alto bordo. Among these the signs of degeneration, physical or moral,
are not to be found in greater number than among women who do not
belong to prostitution. They reveal all sorts of characters, some of them
showing great refinement, and are cbiefij marked ofl^ by the posaeasion
of an unusual degree of serual appetite. Even among the more degraded
group of the baasa prostituzione, he asserts, we Snd a predominance of
sexual, as well as professional, characters, rather than the signs of degen-
eration. It is sufficient to quote one more testimony, as act down many
j-ears ago by a woman of high intelligence and character, Mrs. Craik, the
novelist: "The women who fall are by no means the worst of their ata*
tion," she wrote. "I have heard it affirmed by more than one lady — hj
one in particular whose experience was as large as her benevolence — tbttt
many of them are of the very best, refined, intelligent, truthful, and
affectionate. 'I don't Icnow how It is.' she would say, 'whether their
very superiority makes them dissatisfied with their own rank — such
brutes or clowns as laboring men often arel — so that they fall easier
victims to the rank above them; or whether, though thia theory will
shock many people, other virtues can exist snd flouriab entirely distinct
certain, in any case, that prostitution frequently runs in families. "It
has often been my experience," writes a former prostitute (Hedwig
Hard, Beichte einer Oefallenen, p. 158) "that when in a family a girl
enters this path, her sister soon afterwards followf her: I have met
with innumerable cases; sometimes three sisters will alt be on the reg-
ister, and I knew a case of four sisters, whose mother, a midwife, had
been in prison, and the father drank. In this case, all four sisters, who
were reiy beautiful, married, one at least very happily, to a rich doctor
who took her out of the brothel at sjxteen and educat«d her."
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PROSTITDTION. 276
from, and after the loss of, that which we are accuetotned to believe the
indiepenaable prime virtue of our sex — ohaatitj. I cannot explain itj
I can onlj sbj' that it is bo, lliat some of my moat promising village girls
have been the first to come to barm; and some of the best and moat
faithful servants 'I ever had, have been girls who have fallen into shame,
and who, had I not gone to the rescue and put them in the way to do
well, would infallibly have become 'lost women' " (J Woman's Thoughtt
Ahoul Women, 1S58, p. 291). Various writers have insisted on the good
moral qualities of proatitutes. Thus in France, Despine first enumerates
their vices as (I) greediness and love of drink, (2) lying, (3) anger,
(4) want of order and untidineaa, (6) mobility of character, (6) need
of movement, (T) tendency to homoicsuality, and then proceeds to
detail their good qualitiea: tbcir maternal and filial afTection, their
charity to each other; and their refusal to denounce each other; while
they are frequently religious, sometimes modest, and generally very hon-
est (Deapine, Paychologie fialitreile, vol. iii, pp. 207 ct aeq.; as regards
Sicilian prostitutes, cf. CftUari, Arckioio di PsiehiatTia., fasc IV, 1903).
The charity towards each other, often manifested in diatress, is largely
neutralized by a tendency to professional auapicion and jealousy of each
Lombroso believes that the basis of prostitution must be found in
moral idiocy. If by moral idiocy we are to understand a condition at
all closely allied with insanity, this assertion is dubious. There seems
no clear relationship between prostitution and insanity, and Tanuneo
has shown {La ProstitwsioTie, p. 76) that the frequency of prostitutes in
the various Italian provinces is in inverse ratio to the frequency of
insane persons; as insanity increases, prostitution decreases. But if
we mean a minor degree of moral imbecility — that is to say, a bluntness
of perception for the ordinary moral considerations of civilization which,
while it is largely due to the hardening inllucnce of an unfavorable early
environment, may also rest on a congenital predisposition — there can
be no doubt that moral imbecility of slight degrcf is very frequently
found among prostitutes. It would be plausible, doubtless, to say that
every woman who gives her virgini^ in exchange for an inadequate
return is an imbecile. If she gives herself for lovp, she has, at the worst,
made a foolish mistake, such as the young and inexperienced may at any
time make. But if she deliberately proposes to sell herself, and does so
for nothing or next to nothing, the case is altered. The experiencca of
Commenge in Paris are instructive on this paint. "For many young
girls," he writea, "modesty has no ejcistence, they experience no emotion
in showing themselves completely undreaaed, they abandon themselves to
any chance individual whom they will never see again. They attach no
importance to their virginity; they ere deflowerrd under the strangest
conditions, without the least thoi^t or care about the act they ore
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276 rsYciioi-ooY or sex.
aecompIishiDg. Ko sentiment, no calculation, pushes them into s man's
arms. Tb^ let themselves go without reflexion and without motive, in
an almost animal manner, from indifference and without pleasure." He
iras acquainted with forty-flve girls between the agea of twelve and seven-
teen who were deflowered bj chance strangers whom, th^ never met
again; they lost tlieir virginity, in Dumas's phrase, as they lost their
milk-t«eth, and could give no plausible account of the loss. A girl of
fifteen, mentioned by Commenge, living with her parents who supplied
all her wants, lost her rirginity by casually meeting a man who offered
her two francs if she would go with him ; she did so without demur and
soon begun to accost men on her own account. A girl of fourteen, also
living comfortably with her parents, sacrificed her virginity at a fair in
return for a glass of beer, and henceforth begun to associate with pros-
titutes. Another girl of the same age, at a local fete, wishing to go
round on the hobby horse, spontaneously offered herself to the man direct-
ing the machinery for the pleasure of a ride. Yet another girl, of fifteen,
at another ff te, offered her virginity' in return for the same momentary
joy (Commenge, Progtitution Clandestine, lfl97, pp. 101 el seq.). In tlie
United States. Dr. W. Travis Gibb, examining physician to the New
York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, bears simikr
testimony to the fact that in a fairly large proportion of "rape" cases
the child is the willing victim. "It is horribly pathetic," he says { J/ed-
ical Record, April 20, 1907}, "to learn how tar a nickel or a quarter
will go towards purchasing the virtue of these children."
In estimating ths t«ndency of prostitutes to display congenital
physical anomalies, the crudeat and most obvious test, though not ft
precise or satisfactory one, is the general impression produced by the
face. In France, when nearly 1000 prostitutes were divided into five
groups from the point of view of their looks, only from seven to fourteen
per cent, were found to belong to the first group, or that of those who
could b« said to possess youth and benuty (Jeannel, De la Prottttution
Fuhlique, 1860, p. IdS). Woods Hutchinson, again, judging from an
extensive acquaintance with London, Paris, Vienna, New York, Philadel-
phia, and Chicago, asserts that a handsome or even attractive-looking
prostitute, is rare, and that the general average of beauty is lower than
in any other class of women. "Whatever other evils," he remarks, "the
fatal power of beauty may be responsible for, it has nothing to do with
prostitution" [Woods Hutchinson. "The Economics of Prostitution,"
American QiiniFcologiail and Obaletrio Journal, September, 1805). It
must, of course, he borne in mind that these estimates are liable to be
vitiated through being based chiefly on the inspection of women who
most obviously belong to the class of prostitutes and have already been
coarsened by tlieir protession.
If we may conclude — and the fact la probably undisputed — that
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PROSTITUTION, 277
beautiful, agreeable, and hannonlouatj' formml fares are rare rather th&n
common among prostitutt^x, we iobj ctrWnly say that minut« examina-
tloD will reveal a large number of physical nhnormalitiea. Ona of che
earliest important physical inveatigationi of prnatitutes was that of Di.
Pauline Tamowaky in RuHsia ( first published in the Vratoh in I88T, and
afterwards as Eludes anthropomfiriqwa twr les I'roatituiea et lea
Yoleutet). She eTaminwI fifty St. Petpr»biirg prostitutes who had (jeen
inmates of a brothel for not leas than two years, and also fifty peasant
women of, so far as possible, the same age and mental development. She
found that (1) the prostitute showed shorter anterior- post«iior and
transverse diameters of skull; {2) a proportion equal to eigiity-four per
cent, showed various signs of physiciat degeneration (irregular sLull,
asymmetry of (ace, anomalies of bard palate, teeth, ears, etc.). This
t«ndency to anomaly among the prostitutes was to some extent explained
when it was foimd that about four-fifths of them, had parenta wbo were
habitual dmnkards, and nearly one-fifth were the last survivors of large
families ; , such families have been often produced by degenerate parents.
The frequency of herpditary degeneration has been noted by Bon-
hoeffer among Q«rman prostitutes. He investigated 100 Breslau proati-
tutes in prisoQ, and therefore of a more abnormal class than ordinary
prostitutes, and found that 102 were hereditarily degenerate, and mostly
with one or both parents who were drunliards; 53 alM showed feeble-
mindedness (Zeitsckrift fur die Oeaamte Btrafit^Mnaoiiaft, Bd. xxiii, p.
106).
The most detailed examinations of ordinary non-criminal prosti-
tutes, both anthropometrically and as regards the prevalence of anom-
alies, have been made in Italy, though not on a sufilciently larg»
number of subjects to yield absolutely decisive resultH. Thus Foroasari
made a detailed examination of sixty prostitutes belonging chiefly ti>
Emilia and Venice, and also of twenty-seven othcra belonging ti Bologna,
the latter group being compared with a third group of twenty normal
women belonging to Bologna (Archtvio di Peichialna, lfll>2, fasc. YI).
The prostitutes were found to be of lower type thnn the normal in-
dividuals, having smaller heads and larger faces. As the author hitnwlf
points out, his subjects were not sufficiently numerous to justify far-
reaching general iiations, but it maj- be worth while to aummarize some
of. his results. At equal heights the proatitutes ahowi^ greater weiglit;
at equal ages they were of shorter stature than other women, not only
of well-to-do, hut of the poor clasa : height of faoe, hi-xygomntic diameter
(though not the distance between lygumas) , the di.-itance from chin to
external auditory meatus, and the size of the jnw were all greater in the
prostitutes; the hands were longer and broader, compared to the palm,
than in ordinary women; the foot also was longer in proatitutes, and
the thigh, as compared to the calf, was larger. It is noteworthy that in
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278 PflYCHOLOOY OF SEX.
most particulara, and especially in regard to head nieasurenieiita, ths
variations were much greater among the prostitutes than among the
other women examined; this is to some extent, though not entirely, to
be accounted for by the slightly greater number of the former.
Ardu (in the same number of the Arokivio) gave the result of
observations (undertaken at Lombroso's suggestion) as to the frequency
of abnormalities among prostitutes. The subjects were seventy-four in
number and belonged to Professor Giovanninl's Clintoa Sifilopatkit at
Turin. Tlie abnormalities investigated were virile distribution of hair
on pubes, chest, and limbs, hypertrichosis on forebeaJ, left-handedness,
atrophy of nipple, and tattooing (which was only found once). Com*
bining Ardu's observations with another series of observations on flfty-
flve prostitutes examined by Lombroso, i'. is -ound that virile disposition
of hair is found in fifteen per cent. C3 against His per cent, in normal
women; some degree of hypertrichosis in eigl.teen per cent; left-handed-
nese in eleven per cent, (but in normal vrcmen as hl^ ae twelve per
cent, according to Gallia) ; and atrophy of nifple in twelve per cent.
GiufTrida-Rugg^ri, again (Atti della i:''^oieti Romajia di Antra-
pologia, 18B7, p. 218), on examining eighty-two prostitutes found
anomalies in the following order of decreasing frequency: tendency of
eyebrows to meet, laclc of cranial symmetry, depression at root of nose,
defective development of calves, hypertrichosis and other anomalies of
hair, adherent or absent lobule, prominen' ligoma, prominent forehead
or frontal bones, bad implantation of teeth. Darwinian tubercle of ear,
thin vertical lipa. These signs are separately of little or do importance,
though together not without significance as an indication of general
More recently Ascarilla, in an elaborate study {Archivio di Pai-
ohiatna, 1906, fasc. VI, p. 812) of the finger prints of prostitutes, comes
to the conclusion that even in this respect prostitutes tend to form a
class showing morphological inferiority to normal women. The pattenis
tend to show unusual simplicity and uniformity, and the significance of
this is indicated by the fact that a similar uniformity is shown by the
finger prints of the insane and deaf-mutes (De Sanctis and Toscano, Atti
Society Bi^mana Antropolo^, vol. viii, 1901, fssc. II).
In Chicago I>r, Harriet Alexander, in conjunction with Dr, E, S.
Talbot and Dr. J, G. Kieman, examined thirty prostitutes in the Bride-
well, or House of Correction; only the "obtuse" class of professional
prostitutes reach this institution, and it is not therefore surprising that
they were found to exhibit very marked stigmata of degeneracy. In
race nearly half of those examined were Celtic Irish. In sixteen tha
zygomatic processes were unequal and very prominent. Other facial
asymmetries were common. In three cases the heads were of Mongoloid
type; sixteen were epignathic, and eleven prognathici five showed arrest
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PROSTITDTIOH. 279
of development of face. Braehjcephal; predominated [aeventeen caaea) ;
the rest were mesaticepbalic; there were no dolicliocephalH. Abnormali-
ties in shape of the skull were numerous, and twenty-nine liad defective
ears. Four were demonstrablj' insane, and one was an epileptic |H. C.
B. Alexander, "Physical Abnormalities in Prostitutes," Chicago Academ;
of Medicine, April, 1803; E. S. Talbot, Degeneracy, p. 320; Id., Irreg-
vlarities of the Teeth, fourth edition, p. 141}.
It would seem, on the whole, bo far as the evidence at present
goes, that pTostitutes are not quite normal representatives of the
ranks into which they were bom. There has been a process of
selection of individuals who slightly deviate congenitally from
the normal average and are, correspondingly, slightly inapt for
normal life.* The psychic characteristics which accompany such
deviation are not always necessarily of an obviously unfavorable
nature; the slightly neurotic girl of low class birth — disinclined
for hard work, through defective energy, and perhaps greedy and
seMsh — may even seem to possess a refinement superior to her
station. While, however, there is a tendency to anomaly among
prostitutes, it must be clearly recognized that that tendency
remains slight so long as we consider impartially the whole class
of prostitutes. Those investigators who have reached the con-
clusion that prostitutes are a highly degenerate and abnormal
class have only observed special groups of prostitutes, more
especially those who are frequently found in prison. It is not
possible to form a just conception of prostitutes by studying them
only in prison, any more than it would be possible to form a just
conception of clergymen, doctors, or lawyers by studying them
esclusively in prison, and this remains true even although a much
larger proportion of prostitutes than of members of the more
reputable professions pass through prisons; that fact no doubt
partly indicates the greater abnormality of prostitutes.
It has, of course, to be ranembered that the special condi-
tions of the lives of prostitutes tend to cause in them the appear-
ance of certaii. professional characteristics which are entirely
acquired and not congenital. In that way we may account for
the gradual modification of the feminine secondary and tertiary
I This fact ia not contradicted by the undoubted fact that prosti-
tutes are by no means always contented with the lifa tiey choose.
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280 I'SYCHOLOGY OF SES,
sexual characters, and the appearance of masculine charactera,
such as the frequent deep voice, etc.* But with all due allowance
for these acquired characters, it reniains true that such compara-
tive investigations as have bo far been made, although inconclu-
sive, aeem to indicate that, even apart from the prevalence of
acquired anomalies, the profeaaional selection of their avocation
tends to separate out from the general population of the same
social class, individuals who possess anthropometrical characters
varying in a definite direction. The observations thus made seem,
in this v&y, to indicate that prostitutes tend to be in weight over
the average, though not in stature, that in length of arm they are
inferior though the hands are longer (this has been fonnd alike
in Italy and Sussia) ; they have smaller ankles and larger calves,
and still larger thighs in proportion to their large calves. The
estimated skull capacity and the skull circumference and
diameters are somewhat below the normal, not only when com-
pared with respectable women but also with thieves; there is a
tendency to brachycephaly (both in Italy and Eusaia) ; the
cheek-bones are usually prominent and the jaws developed ; the
hair is darker than in respectable women though leas so than
in thieves ; it is also unusually abundant, not only on the head
but also on the pudenda and elsewhere; the eyes have be^i
found to be decidedly darker than those of either respectable
women or criminals.^
So far as the evidence goes it serves to indicate that prosti-
lutee tend to approximate to the type which, as was shown in the
previous volume, there is reason to regard as specially indicative
of developed sexuality. It is, however, unnecessary to discuss
this question until our anthropometrical knowledge of prostitutes
is more extended and precise.
3, The Moral JustificaHon of Prostitution. — ^There are and
always have been moralists — ^many of them people whose opinioDB
are deserving of the moat serious respect — ^who consider that,
1 This point haa been discussed by Bloch, SeteualUben uTiterer Xeit,
Ch. xm.-
1 Various series of observations sre summarised bj* Lombroeo and
Ferrero, La Donna Delinqiientc, IftOS, Part III, cap. IV.
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pROSTiTonoK. 281
allowing for the need ol improved liygienic conditione, the
exietence of pnetitutioo presente no seriouB problem for solution.
It is, at most, they Bay, a necessary evil, and, at best, a beneficent
institution, the bulwark of the home, the inevitable reveirse of
which monogamy is the obverse. "The immoral guardian of
public morality," is the defmition of prostitutes given by one
writer, who talcea the humble view of the matter, and another,
taking the loftier ground, writes: "The prostitute fulfils a social
mission. She is the guardian of virginal modesty, the channel
to carry off adulterous desire, the protector of matrons who fear
late maternity ; it is her part to act as the shield of the family."
"Female Decii," said Balzac in his Physiolagie du Manage of
prostitutes, "they sacrifice themselyes for the republic and make
of their bodies a rampart for the protection of respectable
families." In the same way Schopenhauer called prostitutes
"human sacrifices on the altar of monogamy." Lecky, again, in
an oft-quoted passage of rhetoric,* may be said to combine both
the higher and the lower view of the prostitute's mission in
human society, to which he even seeke to give a hieratic character.
"The supreme type of vice," he declared, "she is ultimately the
roost efficient guardian of virtue. But for her, the unchallenged
purity of countless happy homes would be polluted, and not a
few who, in the pride of their untempted chastity, think of her
with an indignant shudder, would have known the agony of
remorse and of despair. On that one degraded and ignoble form
are concentrated the passions that might have filled the world
with shame. She remains, while creeds and civilizations rise and
fall, the eternal priestess of humanity, blasted for the sins of the
people."^
1 am not aware that the Greeks were greatly concerned with
> BUtorg of European Month, vol. iii, p. 283.
2 Similarly Lord Hor1«7 hu written {Diderot, vol. ii, p. 20) : "The
purity of the family, so lovely and dear as it ia, has etill oiily been
■ecurrd hitherto by retaining a vast aaC. dolorous host of female out-
c*«t« .... npon whose heads, as upon the scapegoat of the
Hebrew ordinance, we put all the iniquitiee of the children of the bouse,
and r11 their transf^essions in all their sins, and then K.nish thrm with
maledictions into the (oul outer wilderness and the land not inhabited."
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282 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
the moral justification of proatitution. Tliey had not allowed
it to assume very offensive forma and for the most part they
were content to accept it. The Romans usually accepted it, too,
but, we gather, not quite so easily. There was an austerely
serious, almost Puritanic, spirit in the Romans of the old stock
and they seem sometimes to have felt the need to assure them-
selves that prostitution really was morally justifiable. It ia
significant to note that they were accustomed to remember that
Cato was said to have expressed satisfaction on seeing a man
emerge from a brothel, for otherwise he might have gone to lie
with his neighbor's wife.*
The social necessity of prostitution is the most ancient of
all tlie arguments of moralists in favor of the toleration of pros-
titutes; and if we accept the eternal validity of the marriage
system with which prostitution developed, and of the theoretical
morality based on that system, this is an exceedingly forcible, if
not an unanswerable, argument.
The advent of Christianity, with its special attitude towards
the "flesh," necessarily caused an enormous increase of attention
to the moral aspects of prostitution. When prostitution was not
morally denounced, it became clearly necessary to morally
justify it; it was impossible for a Church, whose ideals were
more or less ascetic, to be benevolently indifferent in such a
matter. As a rule we seem to find throughout that while the
more independent and irresponsible divines take the side of
denunciation, those theologians who have had thrust upon them
the grave responsibilities of ecclesiastical statesmanship have
rather tended towards the reluctant moral justification of prosti-
tution. Of this we have an example of the first importance in
St. Augustine, after St. Paul the chief builder of the Christian
Church. In a treatise written in 386 to justify the Divine regu-
lation of the world, we find him declaring that just as the
executioner, however repulsive he may be, occupies a necessary
place in society, so the prostitute and her like, however sordid
and ugly and wicked they may be, are equally necessary; xemove
I Horace, Balires, lib. i, 2,
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PROSTITUTION. 288
prostitutes from human ailaire and you would pollute the world
with luat : "Aufer meretrices de rebus humanis, turbavcris omnia
libidinibua."^ Aquinas, the only theological thinker of Christen-
dom who can be named with Augustine, was of tlie same mind
with him on this question of prostitution. He maintained the
aiDfulnese of fornication but he accepted the necessity of prosti-
tution as a beneficial part of the social structure, comparing it to
the sewers which keep a palace pure.^ "Prostitution in towns is
like the sewer in a palace; take away the sewers and the palace
becomes an impure and stinking place." Liguori, the most
influential theologian of more modern times, was of the like
opinion.
This wavering and semi-indulgent attitude towards prosti-
tution was indeed generally maintained by theologians. Some,
following Augustine and Aquinas, would permit prostitution for
the avoidance of greater evils; others were altogether opposed to
it; others, again, would allow it in towns but nowhere else. It
was, however, universally held by theologians that the prostitute
has a right to her wages, and is not obliged to make restitution.^
The earlier Christian moralists found no difUculty in maintaining
that there is no sin in renting a house to a prostitute for the
purposes of her trade; absolution was always granted for this
and abstention not required.* Fornication, however, always
remained a sin, and from the twelfth centary onwards the Church
made a series of organized attempts to reclaim prostitutes. All
Catholic theologians hold that a prostitute is bound to confess
the sin of prostitution, and most, though not all, theologians have
believed that a man also must confess intercourse with a prosti-
tute. At the same time, while there was a certain indulgence to
the prostitute herself, the Church was always very severe on those
1 Augustine, De Ordine, Bk. II, Ch. IV.
^ De Regimine PHnoipum {Oputoula -U), lib. iv, cap. XIV. I am
indebted to the Rev. H. Northeote for the reference to tha precise place
where this statement occurs; it is usuallf quoted more vaguely.
SLea, E%»tory of Auriovtar Confession, vol. ii, p. SQ. There was
even, it seems, an eccentric decinion of the Snlamanca theologians that
a Dua mi^t so receive monej, "licitc et valide."
*Lea, op. oit., vol. li, pp. S63, 399.
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284 PeYOHOLOGY OF SEX,
who lived on the profits of promoting prostitutioo, on (he lenones.
Thus the Council of Elvira, which woe ready to receive without
penance the prostitute who married, reiused reconciliation, even
at death, to persons who had been guilty of lenocinium.^
Protestantism, in this as in many other matten of sexual
morality, having abandoned the confessional, was usually able to
escape the necessity for any definite and responsible uttersDces
concerning the moral statue of prostitution. When it expressed
any opinion, or sought to initiate any practical action, it naturally
founded itself on the Biblical injunctions against fornication, as
expressed by St. Paul, and showed no mercy for prostitutes and
no toleration for prostitution. This attitude, which was that of
the Puritans, was the more easy since in Protestant countries,
with the exception of special districts at special periods — such as
Gieneva and ^ew England in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries — theologians have in these matters been called upon to
furnish religious exhortation rather than to carry out practical
policies. The latter task they have left to others, and a certain
confusion and uncertainty has thus often arisen in the lay
Protestant mind. This attitude in a thoughtful and serious
writer, is well illustrated- in England by Burton, writing a century
after the Reformation. He refers with mitigated approval to
"our Pseudo-Catholics," who are severe with adultery but
indulgent to fornication, being perhaps of Cato'e mind that it
should be encouraged to avoid worse mischiefs at home, and who
holds brothels "aa necessary as churches" and "have whole
Colleges of Courtesans in their towns and cities." "They hold it
impossible," he continues, "for idle persons, young, rich and
lusty, BO many servants, monks, friars, to live honest, too tyran-
nical a burden to compel them to be chaste, and most unfit to
suifer poor men, younger brothers and soldiers at all to marry,
as also diseased persons, votaries, priests, servants. Therefore as
well to keep and ease the one as the other, they tolerate and wink
at these kind of brothel -houses and stews. Many probable argu-
ments they have to prove the lawfulness, the necessity, and a
) Rftbutaux, De la Prattitution en Europe, pp. 22 et atq.
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PHOSTITLTION. 285
toleration of them, as of usery ; and without question in policy
they are not to be contradicted, but altogether in religion,"^
It was not until the beginning of the following century that
the ancient argument of St. Augustine for the uioral justification
of prostitution was boldly and decisively stated in Protestant
England, by Bernard Mandeytlle in his Fable of the Bees, and at
its first promulgation it seemed so offensive to the public mind
that the book was suppressed. "If courtesans and stnimpetB were
to be prosecuted with as much rigor as some silly people would
have it," Mandeville wrote, "what iocks or bars would be sufficient
to preserve the honor of our wives and daughters? ....
It is manifest that there is a necessity of sacrificing one part of
womankind to preserve the other, and prevent a filthinefis of a
more heinous nature. From whence I tliink 1 may justly con-
clude that chastity may be supported by incontinence, and the
best of virtues want the assistance of the worst of vicee."^ After
Mandeville's time this view of prostitution began to become com-
mon in Protestant as well as in other countries, though it was
not usually so clearly expressed.
It may be of interest to gather together a few more modern
examples of statements brought fom-ard for the moral juatiftcation of
prostitution.
Thus in France Meuanier de Querlon. in liis story of Ptaphion,
written in the middle of the eighteenth century, puts into the mouth of
a Greek courtesan many interesting reQections concerning the life and
position of the prostitute. She defends her profession with much skill,
and argues that while men imagine that prostitutes are merely the
despised victims of their pleasures, these would-be tyrants are really
dupes who are ministering to the needs of the women they trample
beneath their feet, and themselves equally deserve the contempt thej
bestow. "We return disgust for disgust, as they must surely perceive.
We often abandon to them merely a statue, and while inflamed by their
own desires they consume themselvra on insensible charms, our tranquil
coldness leisurely enjoys their sensibility. Then it is we resume all our
1 Burton, Anaiomv of Melanoholg, Part III, Sect. Ill, Mem. IV.
Rubs. II.
2B. Mandeville, Semarki to Fable of Ihe Bee», 1714, pp. 93-9; of.
P. Sakmann, Bernard de Mandeville, pp. 101-4.
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Zoo PSTOHOLOOY OF BEX.
rights. A little hot blood has brou^t these proud creatures to our feet,
»nd rendered uh miatresses of their fate. On which side, I ask, is the
advantage!" But all men, she odds, are not bo unjust towards the pros-
titute, and she proceeds to pronounce a eulogy, not without b sli^t
touch of ironf in it, of the utility, facility, and convenience of tJie
brothel.
A large number of the modem writers on prostitution insist on its
socially beneficial character. Thus Charles Richard concludes his book
on the subject with the words: "The conduct of society with regard to
prostitution must proceed from the principle of gratitude without false
shame for its utility, and compassion for the poor creatures at whose
expense this is attained" (I^t Proatitttlion detwtt le Philosophe, 1S92,
p. 171). "To make marriage permanent is to make it difficult," an
American medical writer observes; "to make it difficult ia to defer it;
to defer it is to maintain in the community an increasing number of
sexually perfect individuals, with normal, or, in cases where repression
is prolonged, excessive sexual appetites. The social evil is the natural
outcome of the physical nature of man, his inherited impulses, and the
artificial conditions under which he is compelled to live" ("The Social
Evil," Medicine, August and September, 1906). Woods Hutchinson,
while speaking with strong disapproval of prostitution and regarding
prostitutes as "the worst specimens Of the sex," yet regards prostitution
B,s a social agency of the highest valoe. "From a medtco-economie point
of view I venture to claim it as one of the grand selective and elimlnative
agencies of nature, and of highest value to the community. It may be
roughly characterized as a safety Valve (or the institution of marriage"
(The Oospel According to Darwin, p. 193; of. the same author's article
on "The Economics of Prostitution," summarized in Boston Medical and
Burgieal Journal, November 21, 1895). Adolf Gerson, in a somewhat
rimilar spirit, argues ("Die Ursache der Prostitution," Bcmtal-Probteme,
Beptember, 1908) that "prostitution is one of the means used by Nature
to limit the procreative activity of men, and especially to postpone the
period of sexual maturity." Molinari considers that the social benefits
of prostitution have been manifested in various ways from the first; by
steriliiing, for instance, the more excessive manifestations of the sexual
impulse prostitution suppressed the necessity for the infanticide of super-
fluous children, and ted to the prohibition of that primitive method of
limiting the population (G. de lifolinari, La Virieulture, p. 45). In quite
another way than that mentioned by Molinari, prostitution has even in
very recent times led to the absndonment of infanticide. In the Chinese
province of Ping- Yang, Mafignon states, it was usual not many years
ago for poor parents to kill forty per cent, of the girl children, or even
all of them, at birth, for they were Um expensive to rear and brought
nothing in, since men who wished to marry could easily obtain a wife
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PBOSTITDTION. 287
in th« neEgbboring prorince of Wenehu, where women were Tery emy to
obtain. Now, however, the line of eteamahipB along the coast malcea it
very easy for girls U> reach tiie brothels of Shang-Hai, where they can
earn money for their families; the custom of killing them has therefore
died out {Matignon, Archivea d'Anthropologie CHminelle, 1S96, p. 72).
"Under present conditions," writes Dr. F. Erhard ("Auch ein Wort Eur
Ehereform," Geachlecht uniJ QeaelUohaft, Jahrgang I, Heft 9), "prosti-
tution (in the broadest sense, including free relationships) is necesBary
in order that young men may, in some degree, learn to know women, for
conventional conversation cannot suffice for this; an exact knowledge of
feminine thought and action is, however, necessary for « proper choice,
since it is seldom possible to rely on the certainty of instinct. It is good
also that men should wear off their horns before marriage, for the poly-
gamous tendency will break through somewhere. Prostitution will only
spoil those men in whom there is not much to spoil, and if the desire
for marriage is thus lost, the man's unbegotten children may have cause
to thank him." Neisaer, NHcke, and many others, have pleaded for
prostitution, and even for brothels, as "necessary evils."
It is scarcely necessary to add that many, among even the strongest
upholders of the moral advantages of prostitution, believe that some
improvement In method is still desirable. Thus B^rault looks forward
to a time when regulated brothels will become less contemptible. Vari-
ous improvements may, be thinks, in the near future, "deprive them of
the barbarous attributes which mark them out for the opprobrium of tiie
skeptical or ignorant multitude, while their recognizable advantages will
put an end to the contempt aroused by their cynical aspect" {La Maiaon
de ToUranee, These de Paris, 1904) .
4. The Civilizational Value of Prostitution. — ^The moral
argmnent for prostitution is based on the belief that our
marriage system is so infinitely precious that an institution
which serves as its buttresH must be kept in existence, however
ngly or otherwise objectionable it may in itself be. There
is, however, another argument in support of proatitatioo which
scarcely receives the emphasis it deserves. I refer to its influence
in adding an element, in some form or another necessary, of
gaiety and variety to the ordered complexity of modem life, a
relief from the monotony of its mechanical routine, a distraction
from its dull and respectable monotony. This is distinct from
the more specific function of prostitution as an outlet for
Buperfluoos sexual energy, and may even affect those who have
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288 P8Y0HOLOOT OF SEX.
little or no commerce with proetitutee. This element ma; be
Baid to conBtitute the civilizational value of prostitution.
It is not merely the general conditions of civilization, but
more specifically the conditiooB of urban life, which make this
factor insiBtent. Urban life impoBea by the etrcBS of competition
a very severe and exacting routine of dull work. At the same
time it makes men and women more sensitive to new impreasions,
more enamored of excitement and change. It multiplies the
opportunities of social intercourse; it decreaBes the chances of
detection of illegitimate intercourse while at the same time it
makes marriage more difficult, for, by heightening social ambi-
tions and increasing the expenses of living, it postpones the time
when a home can be created. Urban life delays marriage and yet
renders the substitutes for marriage more imperative.'
There caimot be the slightest doubt that it is this motive —
the effort to supplement the imperfect opportunities for self-
development offered by our restrained, mechanical, and laborious
civilization — which plays one of the chief parts in inducing
women to adopt, temporarily or permanently, a prostitute's life.
We have seen that the economic factor is not, as was once sup-
posed, by any means predominant in this choice. Nor, again, is
there any reason to suppose that an over-mastering sexual impulse
is a leading factor. But a large number of young women turn
instinctively to a life of prostitution because they are moved by
an obscure impulse which they can scarcely define to themselves or
express, and are often ashamed to confess. It is, therefore, sur-
prising that this motive should find so large a place even in the
formal statistics of the factors of prostitution. Merrick, in
London, found that 5000, or nearly a third, of the prostitutes be
investigated, voluntarily gave up home or situation "for a life of
pleasure," and he puts this at the head of the causes of prostitu-
1 These conditions favor temporal? free unions, but they also favor
proBtitution. The reason is, according to Adolf Gerson {Seauat-
Proiteme, September, 1908), that the woman of good class will not have
free unions. Partly moved by moral traditions, and partly by the feel-
ing that a man should be leftallv her property, she will not give herself
out of love to a man; and he therefore turns to the lower-clssB womaa
who gives herself for money.
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PKOSTITDTION. 289
tion.^ In America Sanger found tliat "mclination" came almost
at the bead of the causes of prostitution, wliile Woods HutchlnBon
found "\oye of display, luxury and idteness" by far at the head.
"Disgusted and wearied with work" is the reason assigned by a
large number of Belgian girls when stating to the police their
wish to be enrolled as prostitutes. In Italy a similar motive is
estimated to play an important part. In Eussia "desire for
amusement" comes second among the causes of prostitution.
There can, I think, be little doubt that, as a thoughtful student
of London life has concluded, the problem of prostitution is "at
bottom a mad and irresistible craving for excitement, a serious
and wilful revolt against the monotony of commonplace ideals,
and the uninspired drudgery of everyday life."^ It is this factor
of prostitution, we may reasonably conclude, which is mainly
responsible for the fact, pointed out by F, Schiller,^ that with
the development of civilization the supply of prostitutes tends to
outgrow the demand.
Charles Booth seeniH to be of the Bame opinion, and quotes (Life
and Labor of the People, Third Series, vol. vii, p. 3S4) from a Rescue
Committee Report: "The popular idea is, that these women are eager
to leave a life of sin. The plain and simple truth is that, for the most
part, they have no desire at all to be rescued. So mon^ of these women
do not, and will not, regard proatitution as a sin. 1 am takm oat to
dinner and to some place of amusement every night; why should I give
it upf" Uerrick, who found that five per cent, of 14,000 prostitutes
who passed through Millbank Priaon, were accustomed to combine re-
ligioue observance with the practice of their profession, also remarks in
regard to their feelings about morality: "I am convinced that there are
man; poor men and women who do not In the least understand what Is
1 Many g^rlB, said Ellice Hopkins, get into mischief merely because
thev have in them an element of the "black kitten," which must frolic
and play, but has no desire to get into danger. "Da you not think it a
little hard," she added, "that men should have dug by the aide of her
foolish dancing feet a bottomless pit, and that she cannot have her jump
and fun in safety, and put on her fine feathers like the silly bird-witted
thing she is, without a single false step dashing her over the brink, and
leaving her with the very womanhood daahed out of hert"
2 A. Bherwell, Life in West London, 18B7, Ch. V.
S Aa quoted by Bloch, SexmalUben Unserer Zeit, p. 368. In Berlin
during recent years the number of prostitutes has increased at nearly
double the rate at which the general population has increased. It is no
donbt probable that the supply tends to increase the demand.
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290 PSYOHOLOOY OF SEI.
implied in the term 'immorality.' Out of courtesy to you, thqr nay
ABaeut to what you say, but they do not comprehend your meaning when
you talk of virtue or purity; you are Bimply talking over their heada"
(Merrick, op. oit., p. 2S). The aame atttitude may t>e found among
prostitul^E everywhere. In Italy Ferriani roentiona a girl of fifteen who.
H'hen accused of indecency with a man in a public garden, denied with
tears and much indignation. He finally induced her to confess, and then
asked her: "Wliy did you try to make me believe you were a good
girlT" She heaitated, smiled, and aaid; "Because they >ay l^rls ouglit
not to do what I do, but ought to u-ork. But I am what I am, and it
is no concern of theirs." This attitude is often more than an Inatlnctive
feeling; in intelligent prostitutes it frequently becomes a reasoned con-
viction. "I can hear everything, if so it muKt be," wrote the author of
the Tagebvch eintr Terlorenca (p. 291), "even serious and honorable
contempt, but I cannot bear acorn. Contempt — yes, if it is justified. If
a poor and pretty girl with sick and hitter heart stands alone in life, cast
off, with temptations and seductions ofTering on every side, and, in spite
of that, out of inner conviction she chooses the grey and monotonous
path of renunciation and middte-class morality, I recognize In that ^rl
a personality, who has a certain justification in looking down with con-
temptuous pity on weaker girls. But those geese who, under the eyes
of their shepherds and life-long owners, have always been pastured In
smooth green fields, have certainly no right to laugh scornfully at others
who have not been so fortunate." Nor must it be supposed that there
Es necessarily any sophistry in the proatitute'a justification of herself.
Some of our best thinkers and observers have reached a conclusion thai
te not diasimilar. "The actual conditions of society are opposed to any
higb moral feeling in women," Marro observes (La Pubertd, p. 4S2), "for
between those who sell themselves to prostitution and those who sell
themselves to marriage, the only difference is in price and duration of
tlie contract."
We have already Been how very large a part in prostitution
is fumiBhed by those who have left domestic aervice to adopt this
life (ante p. 364). It is not difficult to find in this fact evidence
of the kind of impulse which impels a woman to adopt the career
of prostitution. "The servant, in our society of equality," wrote
Goncourt, recalling somewhat earlier days when she was often
admitted to a place in the family life, "has become nothing but a
paid pariah, a machine for doing household work, and is no longer
allowed to share the employer's human life."^ And in England,
1 Goneourt, Journat, vol. iit. p. 49.
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PROSTITUriON. 29X
even half a century ago, we already find the same statements
conceming the servant'e position : "domestic service is 8 complete
slavery," with early hours and late hours, and congtant running
up and down stairs till her legs are swollen; "an amount of
ingeotiity appears too often to bo exercised, worthy of a better
cause, in obtaining theJargest possible amount of labor out of the
domestic machine"; in addition she is "a kind of lightning con-
ductor," to receive the ill-temper and morbid feelings of her
miBtresB and the young ladies; so that, aa some have said, "I felt
so miserable I did not care what became of me, I wished I was
dead,"^ The servant is deprived of all human relatioDships ; she
must not betray the existence of any simple impulse, or natural
need. At the same time she lives on the fringe of luxury; she
ia surrounded by the tantalizing visions of pleasure and amuse-
ment for which her fresh young nature craves.^ It is not sur-
prising that, repelled by unrelieved drudgery and attracted by
idle luxury, she should take the plunge which will alone enable
her to enjoy the glittering aspects of civilization which seem so
desirable to her.*
It is Bometimea stated that the prevalence of prostitution among
^rls who were formerly aervanta is due lo the immense numbers of
aervanta who are seduced by their maaters or the young men of tbe
family, and are thus forced on to the streets. Undoubtedly in a certain
proportion of caaes, perhaps sometimes a fairly considerable proportion,
this is a decisive factor in the matter, but it scarcely seems to be the
chief factor. The eiistence of relationahips between serrants and mas-
ters, it must be remembered, by no means nei'pssaTily implies aeduction.
1 Vanderkiste, The Dens of London, lS.i4, p. 242.
2 Bonger (CTiminalili et Conditioiut Economiquea, p. 400) refers to
the prevalence of prostitution among dressmakers and milliners, as well
as among servants, as showing the influence of contact with luxury, and
adds that the rich women, who look down on prostitution, do not always
realize that they are themselves an important factor of prostitution, both
by their luxury and their idleness; while they do not seem to be aware
that they would themaelTcs set in the same way if placed under the same
conditions.
8 H. Lippert, in his book on prostitution in Hamburg, laid much
Btress on the craving for dreaa and adornment as a factor of prostitution,
and Blooh I Das Sestuallehen unaurer Zeit. p. 372) considers that thi*
factor is usually undereatl mated, and that it exerts an especially power,
hil influence on servants.
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292 PBTCHOLOOY OF 8EX.
In a Urge number of cases the servant in a liouaehold Ib, in sexual mat-
ters, the teacher rather than the pupil. (In "The Sexual Impulse in
Women," in the third volume of these Studies, I have discussed the part
played by servants as sexual iDitiatocs of the young boys in the house-
holds in which they are placed.) The more precise statistics of the
causes of prostitution seldom assign seduction as the main determining
factor in more than about twenty per cent, of cases, though this is
obviously one of the most easily avowable motives (see ante, p. 29a).
Seduction hj any kind of employer constitufea only a proportion (usually
less than half) even of these cases. The special case of seduction of
servants by masters can thus play no very considerable part as a factor
of prostitution.
The statisUca of the parentage of illegitimate children have some
bearing on this question. In a series of ISO unmarried motJiers Kssisted
by the Berlin Bund fflr Mutterschutz, particulars are given of the
occupations both of tlie mothers, and, as far as possible, of the fathers.
The former were one-third servant-girls, and the great majority of the
remainder assistants in trades or girls carrying on work at home. At
the head of the fathers (among 120 cases) came artisans (33), followed
by tradespeople (22); only a small proportion (20 fa> 25) could be
described as "gentlemen," and even this proportion loses some of its
significance when it is pointed out that some of the girls were also of
the middle-class; in nineteen cases tJie fathers were married men {Uul-
tergchvtg, January, 1907, p. 45).
Most authorities in most countries are of opinion that girls who
eventually (usually between the ages of fifteen and twenl^) become
prostitutes have lost their virginity at an early age, and in the great
majority of cases through men of their own class, "The girl of the peo-
ple falls by the people," stated Reuss in Prance (La Prostitution, p.
41). "It is her Ilk?, worlters like herself, who have the first fruite of
her beauty and virginity. The man of the world who covers her with
gold and jewels only has tbeir leavings." Martineau, again {De la
Proatitvtion Clandestine, 1885), showed that prostitutes are usually
deflowered by men of their own class. And Jeannel, in Bordeaux, found
reason for believing that it is not chiefly their masters who lead servanta
astray; they often go into service because tliey have been seduced in the
country, while la^, greedy, and unintelligent girls are sent from the
country Into the town to service. In Bdinbnrgli, W. Tait {MagdaUnism,
1842) found that soldiers more than any other class in the community
are the seducers of women, the Highlanders being especially notorious in
this retpecL Soldiers have this reputation everywhere, and in Giermany
especially it is constantly found that the presence of the soldiery In a
oountry district, as at the annual roanmuvres, is t^e cause of unchasti^
and illegitimate births; it is so also in Austria, where, long ago, Gross-
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PltOSTITDTION. 298
Hoffinger stated that soldi^ra were reBpoiuible for at least a third of all
illegitimate birthe, a share out of all proportion to their nnmbers. In
Italy, Marro, investigating the occasion of the loss of virginity in twenty-
two prosUtutes, found that ten gave themselves more or less spontane-
ously to lovers or masters, ten yielded in the expectation of marriage,
and two were outraged [La Puberti, p. 461). Tbe loss of virginity,
Marro adds, though it may not be the direct cause of prostitution, often
leads OD to it. "When a door baa once been broken in," a prostitute said
to bim, "it is difficult to keep it closed." In Sardinia, as A. MsntPgazza
and Ciuffo found, prostitutes are very largely servants from the country
who have already been deflowered by men of their own class.
This civilizational factor of prostitution, the influence of
luxury and eicitenient and refiuement iu attracting the girl of
the people, ae the dame attracts the moth, is indicated by tbe
fact that it is the country-dwellere who chiefly auccomb to the
fascination. The girls whose adolescent explosive and orgiastic
impulses, sometimes increased by a slight congenital lack of
ner\'ouB balance, have been latent in the dull monotony of country
life and heightened by the spectacle of luxury acting on the
unrelieved drudgery of town life, find at last their complete
gratiflcatioD in the career of a prostitute. To the town girl,
bom and bied in the town, this career has not usually much
attraction, unless she has been brought np from the first in
an environment that predisposes her to adopt it. She is familiar
from childhood with the excitements of urban civilization and
they do not intoxicate her ; she is, moreover, more shrewd to take
care of herself than the country girl, and too well acquainted
with the real facte of the prostitute's life to be very anxious to
adopt her career. Beyond this, also, it is probable that the
stocks she belongs to possess a native or acquired power of
resistance to unbalancing influences which has enabled them to
survive in urban life. She has become immune to the poisons of
that life.i
I Since this was written the influence of several generations of
town-life in immunizinji: a stock to the evita of that life {thoi'gb with-
out reference to prostitution) has been set forth by Reibmayr, Di«
EnttDtcklungageiohichte dea Talentes und Qcmea, 10OS, vol. ii, pp. 73 e(
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294 ra\cHOLoay of sex.
In all great citiea a large proportion, if not the majority, of tlic
inhabitants have usually been bom outside the city (in London only
about fifty per cent, of beads of households are definitely reported aa
born in London) ; and it ia not therefore aurpriaing that prostitutes
alao abould often be outaidera. Still it remains a aigniflcant fact that
ao typically urban a phenomenon aa prostitution ihould be 80 largely
recruited from the country. Tliis is everywhere the case. Merrick
enumerates the regions from which came some 14,000 prostitutes who
paaaed through Uillbank Prison. Ltiddleaex, Kent, Surrey, Eaaex and
Devon are the countiea that atand at the head, and Merrick eatiiiintes
tliat tbe contingent of London from the four countiea which make up
London was 7000, or one-half of tbe whole; military towns like Col-
chester and naval porta like Plj-mouth supply many prostitutes to
London; Ireland furnished many more than Scotland, and Germany far
more than any otiier European country, France being scarcely rcpre^
senUd at all (Merrick, Work Among ike Fallrn. 1890, pp. 14-16). It ia.
of eourae, possible that the proportions among those who pass through a
prison do not accurately represent the proportions among proatitute*
generally. The registers of the I./>ndon Salvation Army Rescue Home
show that aixty per cent, of the ^rls and women come from the provinces
(A. Sberwell, Ufe in West London, Cb. V). Tliis is exactly the same
proportion as Tait found among prostitutes generally, half a century
earlier, in Edinburgh. Sanger found that of 2000 prostitutes in New
York as many aa 123S were born abroad (708 in Ireland), while of the
remaining 702 only half were bom in tbe State of New York, and clearly
{though the exact figures are not given) a still smaller proportion in
New York City. Prostitutes come from the North — where the climate is
uncongenial, and manufacturing and sedentary occupations prevail —
much more than from the South ; thus !Maine, a cold bleak maritime State,
sent twenty-four of these proatitutes to New Y'ork, while equldiatant Vir-
ginia, which at the same rate should have sent seventy-two, only smt
nine; there was a similar difTereoce between Rhode Island and Maryland
(Sanger, History of Prostitution, p. 452). It is instructive to aee here
the influence of a dreary climate and monotonous labor in stimulating
tbe appetite for a "life of pleasure." In France, as shown by a map in
Parent-Duchfltelet's work (vol. i, pp. 37-64, 1857), if the countiy ia
divided into live zones, on the whole running east and west, there is a
xteady and progressive decrease in the number of prostitutea each zone
sends to Paris, as we descend soutliwarda. Little more than a third
seem to belong to Paris, and, as in America, it la the aerlous and hard-
working North, with its relatively cold climate, which furnishes tlie
largest contingent; even in old France, Dufour remarks (op. cil., vol,
iv, Ch. XV), prostrtution, as the fabliaux and romons show, wa.j less
infamous in the langxie d'oil than in the langue ^oo, eo that they were
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PROSTITUTION. 295
doubtless r&re in the South. At a later period Reues stAtes [La Protti-
tutioa, p. 12) that "nearly all the prostitutes of Paris come from the
provinces." Jeannel found that of one thousand Bordeaux prostitutes
unly fortj-six belonged to the city itself, and Potton (Appendix to
Parent-DuchStelet, vol. ii, p. 448) states that of nearly four thousand
Lyons prostitutes only 376 bclongeil to Lyons. In Vienna, in 1873,
Schranlt remarlts that of over 1500 prostitutes only 616 were bom in
Vienna. The general rule, it will be seen, though the variations are
wide, is that little more than a third of a ci^'s prostitutes are children
of the city.
It is interesting to note that thin tendency of the prostitute to
reach cities from afar, this migratory tendency — vrhich they nowadays
share with waiters — is no merely modern phenomenon. "There are few
cities in Lombardy, or Prance, or Gaul," wrote St. Bonifaee nearly twelve
centuries ago, "in which there is not an adulteress or prostituta of tha
En^ish nation," and the Saint attributes this to the custom of going
on pilgrimage to foreign shrines. At the present time there is no marked
English element among Continental prostitutes. Thus in Paris, accord-
ing to Beuss (La Protlitution, p. 12), the foreign prostitutes in decreas-
ing order are Belgian, German (AleBcc-Lorraine), Swiss (especially
Geneva), Italian, Spanish, and only then English. Conuoisaeurs in this
matter say, Indeed, that the English prostitute, as compared with her
Continental (and especially French) sister, fails to show to advantage,
being usually grasping as regards money and deficient in charm.
It is the appeal of civilization, though not of what is finest
and best in civilization, which more than any other motive, calls
women to the career of a prostitate. It is now ncccsBary to point
out that for the man also, the same appeal makes itaelf felt in the
person of the prostitute. The common and ignorant assumption
that prostitution exists to satisfy the gross sensuality of the
young unmarried man, and tliat if he is taught to bridle gross
sexual impulse or induced to mairj- early the prostitute must bo
idle, is altogether incorrect. If all men married when quite
young, not only would the remedy be worse than the disease— a
point which it would be out of place to discuss here — but the
remedy would not cure the disease. The prostitute is something
more than a channel to drain oS superfluous se.xual energy, and
her attraction by no mean? ceases when men are married, for a
large number of the men who visit prostitutes, if not the majority.
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296 P8TCH0L0GT OP SEX.
are married. And alike whether they are married or unmarried
the motive ie not one of uncomplicated luBt.
Id EngUnd, a nell- informed writer remarks tiiat *^e value of
marriage as a moral agent is evidenced hj the tact that all t^e better-
class prostitutes in London are almost eotirely supported by married
men," while in Germany, as stated in the interesting seriea of reminiS'
cences by a former prostitute, H«dwig Hard's Beiohle einer Oefallenen,
(p. 208), the majority of the men who visit progtituUs are married.
The estimate is probably excessive. Neiaser states that only twenty-five
per cent, of cases of gonorrbiia occur in married men. This indication
is probably misleading in the opposite direction, as the married would
be less reckless than the young and unmarried. Aa regards the motives
which lead married men to prostitutes, Hedwig Hard narrates from her
own experiences an incident which is instructive and no doubt tfplcal.
In the town in which she lived quietly as • prostitute a man of tba best
social class was introduced by a friend, and visit«d her habitually. She
had often seen and admired his wife, who was one of the beauties of the
place, and had two charming children; husband and wife seemed devoted
to each other, and eveiy one envied their happinexs. He was a man of
intellect and culture who encouraged Hedwig's love of books; she became
greatly Btta<^ed to bim, and one day ventured to ask him how he could
leave his lovely and charming wife U> come to one who was not worthy
to tie her shoe-lace. "Yea, my child," he answered, "but all her beaufy
and culture brings nothing to my heart. She is cold, cold as ic2, proper,
and, above all, phlegmatic. Pampered and spoilt, she lives only for her-
■elfi we are two good comrades, and nothing more. If, for instance, I
oome bock from the club in the evening and go to her bed, perhaps a
little excited, she becomes nervous and she thinks it improper to wake
hee If I kiss her she defends herself, and tells me that I smell horribly
of cigars and wine. And if perhaps I attempt more, she jumps out of
bed, bristles up aa though I were assaulting her, and threatens to throw
herself out of the window if I touch her. So, for the sake of peace, I
leave her atone and come to you." There can be no doubt whatever that
this is the experience of many married men who would be well content
to find the sweetheart as well as the friend in their wives. But the
wives, from a variety of causes, have proved incapable of becoming the
sexual mates of their husbands. And the hu'bands, without being car-
ried away by any impulse of strong passion or any desire for infidelity,
seek abroad what they cannot find at home.
This is not the only reason why married men visit prostitutes.
Even men who are happily married to women in all chief respects fitted
to them, are apt to find, after some years of married life, a mysterious
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PBOSTITUTION. 297
craving for Tariety. They are not tired of their wives, they have not
the least wish or intention to abandon them, tliey will not, if tliey can
help it, give them the slightest pain. But Irom time to time they are
led by an almost irresistible and involuntaiy impulse to seek a temporary
intimacy with women to whom nothing would persuade them to join
themselves permanently. Pepya, whose Diary, in addition tn its other
claims upon ua, is a psycliologicat document of unique importance, fur-
nisbcB a veij characteristic example of this kind of impulse. He had
married a young and charming wife, to whom he is grr'atty attached, and
he lives happily with her, save for a few occasional domestic quarrels
Hoon heated by kiasps; his love is witnessed by hia jealousy, a jealousy
which, as he admits, is quite unreasonable, for she is a faitliful and
devoted wife. Yet a few yeiirs after marriage, and In the midst of a
life of strenuoua official activity, Pepys cannot resist tfae temptation to
seek the temporary favnra of other women, seldom prustitutes, hut nearly
always women of low social class — shop women, workmen's wives,
superior servant- girts. Often he is content ti> invite them to a quiet
ale-house, and to take a few trivial liberties. Sometimes they absolutely
refuse to allow more than this; when that happens he frequently thanks
Almighty God (as he makes hia entry in hi^ Diary at night) that he
has been saved from temptation and from los4 of time and money; in
any case, be is apt to vow that it shall never o?cur again. It always
does occur again. Pepys is quite sincere wilh himself; he makes no
attempt at jutitification or excuse; he knows thai he baa yielded t« a
temptation; it is an impulse that comes over him at interrals, an im-
pulse that he seems unable long to resist. Throughout it all he remains
an estimable and diligent ofUcial, and in moat respects a tolerably
virtuous man, nith a genuine diatike of loose pMipIc and loose talk.
The attitude of Pepys is brought out with incomparable simplicity and
sincerity because he is setting down theee things for his own eyes only,
but his case is substantially that of a vast number of other men, per-
haps indeed of the typical \omme moyen Benauel (see Pepys, Diary, ed.
Wheatley; e.g., vol. iv, ptusim).
There ia a third class of married men, Ip's conaiderable in number
but not unimportant, who are impelled to viait prostitutes; the class of
sexually perverted men. There are a great many reasons why such men
may desire to be married, and in some cases they marry women with
whom they find it possible to obtain the particular form of sexual gratifi-
cation they crave. But in a large proportion of cases this is not
posaible. The conventionally bred woman often cannot bring herself to
humor even some quite innocent fetishistic whim of her husband's, for
it is too alien to her feelings and too incomprehensible to her ideas, tmai
though she may be geuuinely in love with him; in many cases the hus-
band would not venture to ask, and scarcely even wish, that hia wife
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298 psYCiiOLoaT of sex.
should lend henelf to pla; the fanUstic or posaiblf degrading part his
desirea demand. In such a caae he turns naturally to the prostitute, the
only womao whose busin««a it is tu fulfil his peculiar needs. Marriage
lias brought no reliei to these meu, and they constitute a Dotewortby
proportion of a prostitute's clients in every great city. The moat ordi-
nary prostitute of &ny experience can aupply cases from among her own
visitors to illUHtrate a treatise of psychopathic sexuality. It may suffice
here to quoto n passage from the confeBsiona of a young London (Strand)
prostitute as written down from her lips by a friend to whom I am
indebted for the document; 1 have merely turned a few colloquial terms
into more technical forms. After describing bow, when ahe was still a
child of thirteen in the country, -a rich old gentleman would frequently
come and exhibit himsplf before her and other girls, and was eventually
arrested and imprisoned, she spoke, of the perversities she had met with
since she had become a prostitute. She knew a young man, about
twenty-five, generally dressed in a sporting style, who always came with
a pair of live pigeona, which he brought b a basbet. She and the girl
with whom she lived had to undress and take the pigeons and wring
their necks; be would stand in front of them, and as the necks were
wrung orgasm occurred. Once a man met her In the street and asked
her if he might come with her and lick ber boots. She agreed, and he
took her to a hotel, paid half a guinea for a room, and, when ahe sat
down, got under the tnble and licked her boots, which were covered with
mud; he did nothing more. Then there were some things, she said, that
were too dirty to repeat; well, one man came home with her and her
friend and made them urinate into his mouth. She also had stories of
Bagellation, generally of men who whipped the giria, more rarely of men
who liked to be whipped by than. One man, who brou^t a new birdi
every time, liked to whip her friend until he drew blood. She knew
another man who would do nothing but smack her nates violently. Nov
alt these tbingx, which come into the ordinary day's work of tiie prosti-
tute, are rooted in deep and almost irresistible impulses (as will be clear
to any reader of the discussion of Erotic Symbolism in the previoua
volume of these Sludiea). They must And some outlet But it is only
the prostitute who can be relied upon, throu(^ her interests and train-
ing, to overcome the natural repulsion to such actions, and gratjl^
desires which, without gratification, might take on other and more dan-
gerous forms.
Although Woods Hutchinson quotes with approval the
declaration of a friend, "Out of thousands I have never Been one
with good table mannerB," there is still a real sense in which the
prostitute represents, however inadequately, the attraction o(
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PKOSTITDTION. 29S
civilization. "There was no house in which I could habitually
Bce a lady's face and heaf a lady's voice," wrote the novelist
Anthony TroUope in his Autobiograph-j, concorning his early life
in London. "No allurement to decent respectability came in my
way. It seems to me that in ouch circumstances the temptations
of loose life will almost certainly prevail with a young man.
The temptation at any rate prevailed with me," In every great
city, it has been said, there are thousands of men who have no
right to call any woman but a barmaid by her Christian name.^
All the brilliant fever of civilization pulses round them in the
streets but their lips never touch it. It is the prostitute who
incarnates this fascination of the city, far better than the
virginal woman, even if intimacy with her were within reach.
The prostitute represents it because she herself feels it, because
she has even sacrificed her woman's honor in the effort to
identify herself with it. She has unbridled feminine instincts,
she is a mistress of the feminine arts of adornment, she can speak
to him concerning the mysteries of womanhood and the lux-
uries of sex with an immediate freedom and knowledge the
innocent maiden cloistered in her home would be incapable of.
She appeals to him by no means only because she can gratify the
lower desires of sex, but also because ghe is, in her way, an artist,
an expert in the art (fir'feminine exploitation, a leader of feminine
fashions. For she is this, and there are, as Simmel has stated in
his Philosophie der Mode, good psychological reasons why she
always should be this. Her uncertain social position makes all
that is conventional and established hateful to her, while her tem-
perament makes perpetual novelty delightful. In new fashions
she finds "an sesthetic form of that instinct of destruction which
seems peculiar to all pariah existences, in so far as they are not
completely enslaved in spirit."
1 In France 'Jiia intimacy is embodied in the delicious privilege of
lutoiemtnt. "The mystery of tuttytmenll" exclaims Ernest La Jeiineese
in I/iiolooatiate: "Barriers broken down, veila -"rawn nway, and the ease
of existencel At ft time when I was very lonely, and trying to grow
•cotiBtomed to Paris and to misfortu- e, I would go niilea — on foot, nat-
urally— to see a gir. cousin and an Cnnt, merely tu have rometbing to
tutoyer. Sometimes they were not at home, and I had tj come back
with my iu, my thiiet for confidence and familiarity and broUierlinesa."
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"However aurp rising it maj xeem to tome," a modern writer
remarUa, "prostitutes must be put on the wime level as arUsts. Both
use their gifts and talents for the joj and pleasure of others, and, as a
rule, far payment. What is the essential difference between a singer
who gives pleasure to hearers by her throat and a prostitute who gives
pleasure to those wlio seek her by another part of her bodyt AH art
works on tlie senses." He refers to the significant fact that actors, and
especially actresses, were formerly regarded much as prostitutes are now
(R, Hellmann, I7e6*r GeaohUchtafreihcit, pp. 245-262).
Bernaldn de Quiros and Lianas AgiiiUniedo {I.a ilala Vida en
Madrid, p. 242) trace the same influence still lower in tJie social scftle.
They are describing the more squalid kind of csfi cluintant, in which, in
8pain and elsewhere, the most vicious and degenerat« feminine creatures
become waitresses (and occasionally singers and dancers], playing the
part of amiable and distinguished hetairir to the public of carmen and
shop-boys who frequent these resorts. "Dressed with what seems to the
youth irreproachable taste, with hair elaborately prepared, and clean
face adorned with flowers or trinkets, alTahle and at times haughfy,
superior in charm and in finery to the other wom>n he is able \a know,
the waitresses become the most elevated example of the femm« gala»te
whom he is able to contemplate and talk to, the courtesan of his sphere."
But while to the simple, ignorant, and hungry youth the
prostitute appeals as the emboditncot of msny of the refinements
and perversities of civilization, on many more complex and
civilized men she exerts an attraction of an almost reverse kind.
She appeals by her fresh and natural coaraeoess, her frank
familiarity with the crudest facts of life; and so lifts them for
a moment out of the withering atmosphere of artificial thought
and nnreal sentiment in which so many civilized persons are
compelled to spend the greater part of their lives. They feel in
the words which the royal friend of a woman of this temperament
IB said to have used in explaining her incomprehensible influence
over him : "She is so splendidly vulgar !"
In illustration of this aspect of the appeal of proaUtntion, I ntay
quote a passage in which the novelist, Hermant, in his OonfetHon d'wt
Enfant ifHier (Lettre Vlt), has set down the reasons which may le^d
the super- refined child of a cultured i^e, yet by no means radically or
oompletely vicious, to find satisfaction in commerce with prostitutes:
"As long as my heart was not touched the object of my satisfaction was
completely indifferent to me. I was, moreover, a great lover of absolute
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liberty, which is ouly possible in the circle of these anonyiuous creature*
And in their rfBerved dwelling. There everything became permiseible.
With other women, however Jow we may eeek tbem, certain convenances
must be observed, a kind of prutucol. To these one can say everything:
one 18 protected by incognito and assured tliat nothing will be divulged.
1 prolileil by tliis fret'doio, wLich suited my ag;.-, but with a perverse
fancy which was not characteri.stic of my years, I scarcely know where
I found what I said to thein, for it was the opposite of my tastes, which
were simple, and, if I may venture to say so, cla><sic. It It true that,
in matters of love, unrestrained naturalism alwa} a tends to perversion,
a fact that can only seem paradoxical at first sight. Primitive peoples
have many traits in common with degenerates. It was. liowever, only
in words thitt I was unbridled; and that was the only occasion on which
I can recollect seriously lying. But that necessity, which I then experi-
enced, of expelling a lower depth of ignoble instincts, seems to me
characteristic and humiliating. I may add that even in the midst of
these dissipations I retained a certain reserve. The contacts to which
I exposed myself failed to soil me; nothing was left when I had crossed
the threshold. I have always retained, from that forcible and indifferent
commerce, the habit of attributing no consequence to the action of the
flesh. The amorous function, which religion and morality have sur-
rounded with mystery or seasoned with sin, seems to me a function like
any other, a little vile, but agreeable, and one to which the usual epilogue
is too long This kind of companionship only lasted for a
short time." This analysis of the attitude of a certain common type of
civilized modem man seema to be just, but it may perhaps occur to some
readers that a commerce which led to "the action of tlie fiesh" lieing
regarded as of no consequence can scarcely be said to have left no taint.
In a somewhat similar manner, Henri de lUgnier, in his novel, Lei
Benoontret de Monsieur Brioi (p, 50), represents Bcrcaillfi as delib-
erately preferring to take his pleasures with servant-girls rather than
with ladies, for pleasure was, to his mind, a kind of service, which could
well be accommodated with the services they are accustomed to give;
and then they are robust and agreeable, they possess the naivety which
ia always charming in the common people, and they are not apt to be
repelled by those little accidents which might offend the fastidious sensi-
bilities of delicately bred ladies.
Bloch, who has especially emphasised this side of the appeal of
prostitution IDaa Beseualleben unserer Zeit, pp. 359-382), refers to tho
delicate and sensitive young Danish writer, J. P. Jakobsen, who seems to
have acutely felt the contrast between the higher and more habitual
impulses, and the occasional outburst of what he felt to be lower
instincts; in his Tfiets Lyhne he describes tlie kind of double life in
which a man is true for a fortnight to the god he worships, and is then
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302 PSYoeoLOOY of sex,
overcome hj other powers which madly bear him iu their grip towards
what he feels to be humiliating, perrerse, and filthy. "Atsuch moments,'*
Bloch remarks, "the man is another being. The 'two souls' in the breast
become a reality. Is that the famous scholar, the lofty idealist, the fine-
souled Ksthetician, tbe artist who has given ua so many splendid and
pure works in poetry and paintingi We no longer recognize him, for
at such moments another being has cone to the surface, another nature
is moving within him, and with the power of an elementary force is
impelling him towards things at which bis 'upper consciousness,' the
civilized man within bim, would shudder." Blocb believes that we are
here concerned with a kind of normal masculine masochiam, whi^
prostitution serves to gratify.
IV. The Present Social Attitude Towards Prostitution.
We have now surveyed the complex fact of prostitution in
some of its most various and typical aspects, seeking to realize,
intelligently and sympathetically, the fundamental part it fXeys
as an elementary constituent of our marriage system. Finally
we have to consider the grounds on which prostitution now
appears to a large and growing numher of persons not only an
unsatisfactory method of sexual gratification but a radically bad
method.
The movement of antagonism towards prostitution manifests
itself most conspicuously, as might beforehand have been
anticipated, by a feeling of repugnance towards the most ancient
and typical, once the moat credited and best established prostitu-
tional manifestation, the brothel. Tlie growth of this repug-
nance is not confined to one or two countries but is international,
and may thus be regarded as corresponding to a real tendency in
our civilization. It is equally pronounced in prostitutes them-
selves and in the people who are tlieir clients. The distaste on
the one side increases the distaste on the other. Since only the
most helpless or the most stupid prostitutes are nowadays willing
to accept the servitude of the brothel, the brothel- Iceeper is forced
to resort to extraordinary methods for entrapping victims, and
even to take part in that cosmopolitan trade in "white slayea"
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PBOSTITCnOH. 808
which exists Bolely to Jeed brothels.^ This state of things has a
Datural reaction in prejudicing the clients of prostitution against
an institution which is going out of fashion and out of credit.
An even more fundamental antipathy is engendered by the fact
that the brothel fails to respond to the high degree of personal
freedom and variety which civilization produces, and always
demtrnds even when it fails to produce. On one side the prosti-
tute is disinclined to enter into a slavery which usually fails even
to bring her any reward ; on the other side her client feels it as
part of the fascination of prostitution under civilized conditions
that he shall enjoy a freedom and choice the brothel cannot
provide.^ Thus it comes about that brothels which once con-
tained nearly all the women who made it a business to minister
to the sexual needs of men, now contain only a decreasing
minority, and that the transformation of cloistered prostitution
into free prostitution is approved by many social reformers as a
gain to the cause of morality.^
The decay of brothels, whether as cause or as effect, has
been associated with a vast increase of prostitution outside
brothels. But the repugnance to brothels in many essential
respects also applies to prostitution generally, and, as we shall
see, it is exerting a profoundly modifying infiuence on that
prostitution.
The changing feeling in regard to prostitution seems to
, express itself mainly in two ways. On the one hand there are
those who, without desiring to abolish prostitution, resent the
abnegation which accompanies it, and are disgusted by its sordid
aspects. They may have no moral scruples against prostitution,
1 For aome facte (knd references to the extensive literature concern-
ing this trade, see, e.g., Bloch, Das Semtalleben Unaerer Zeit, pp. 374-376;
also K. M. Baer, Zeitschrift fur Sexvattbissenscha/t, Sept., 1908; Pau-
lueci de Calboli, Xuova Aniologia, April, 1902.
2 These considerations do not, it is true, apply to many kinds ol
sexual perverts who form an important proporUon of the clients of
brothels. These can frequently find what they crave inside a brothel
much more easily than outside.
s Thus Charles Booth, in his great work on Life and Labor in Lon-
don, final volume (p. 12S), recommends that "houses of accommodation,"
instead of beina hunted out, should be tolerated as a step towards the
suppression of brothels.
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804 p8T0HOLoay op sex.
and they know do reason why a woman should not freely do as
she will with her own person. But they believe that, if prostitu-
tion is necessary, the relationships of men with prostitutes should
he humane and agreeable to each party, and not degrading to
either. It must be remembered that under the conditions of
civilized urban life, the discipline of work is often too severe,
and the excitements of nrban existence too constant, to render
an abandonment to orgy a desirable recreation. The gross form
of orgy appeals, not to the town-dweller but to the peasant, and
to the sailor or soldier who reaches the town after long periods of
dreary routine and emotional abstinence. It is a mistake, even, to
suppose that the attraction of prostitution is inevitably asso-
ciated with the fulfilment of the sexual act. " So far is this from
being the case that the most attractive prostitute may be a woman
who, possessing few sexual needs of her own, desires to please by
the charm of her personality ; these are among those who most
■often find good husbands. There are many men who are even
well content merely to have a few hours' free intimacy with an
agreeable woman, without any further favor, although that may
be open to them. For a very large number of men under urban
conditions of existence the prostitute la ceasing to be the degraded
instrument of a moment's lustful desire; they seek an agreeable
human person with whom they may find relaxation from the
-daily stress or routine of life. When an act of prostitution is
thus put on a humane basis, although it by no means thereby
becomes conducive to the best development of either party, it at
least ceases to be hopelessly degrading. Otherwise it would not
have been possible for religious prostitution to flourish for so long
in ancient days among honorable women of good birth on the
shores of the Mediterranean, even in regions like Lydia, where the
position of women was peculiarly high.^
It is true that the monetary side of prostitution would still
exist. But it is possible to exaggerate its importance. It must
1 "Towna like Woolwich, Aldershot, Portsmouth, Plymouth," it haa
been said, "abound with \iT«tched, filthy monBters that bear no reoem-
blance to women; but it Is drink, scorn, brutality and disease wliich
haVe reduced them to this state, not the mere fact of associating with
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PROSTITUTION, 806
be pointed out tliat, tliough it is usual to speak of the prostitute
as a Toman who "sells herself," this is rather a crude and inexact
way of expressing, in its typical form, the relationship of a
prostitute to her client, A prostitute is not a commodity with a
market-price, like a loaf or a leg of mutton. She is much more
on a level with people belonging to the professional classes, who
accept fees in return for services rendered ; the amount of the
fee varies, on the one hand in accordance with professional
standing, on the other hand in accordance with the client's means,
and under special circumstances may be graciously dispensed
with altogether. Prostitution places on a venal basis intimate
relationships which ought to spring up from natural love, and
in so doing degrades them. But strictly speaking there is in
such a case no "sale." To speak of a prostitute "selling herself"
18 scarcely even a pardonable rhetorical exaggeration ; it is both
inexact and unjust. ^
This tendeiuy in an advanced civibzation towards the humaniza-
tJon of prostitution is the reverse process, we nm,y note, to that which
takes place at an earlier stage of civilization when the ancient concep-
tion of the religious dignity of prostitution logins to fall into disrepute.
When men cease to reverence women who are prostitutes in the service
of a goddess they set up in their place prostitutes who are merely abject
slaves, flattering themselves that thej are thereby wortting in the pause
of "progress" and "morality." On the shores of the Mediterranean this
process took place more than two thousand years ago, and is associated
witb the name of Solon. To-day we may see the aams process going on
in India, In some parts of India (as at Jejuri, near Poonah) Hrat born
girts are dedicated to Khsndoba or other gods; they are married to the
god and termed mitralti. They serve in the temple, sweep it, and wash
1 "The contract of prostitution in the opinion of prostitutes them-
selves," Bematdo de Quiros and Lianas A^ilanledo remark (La Uata
Tida en Madrid, p. 254) , "cannot be assimilated to a sale, nor to a con-
tract of work, nor fo any other form of barter recognized by the civil
law. They consider that in these pacts there always enters an element
which makes it much more like a gift in a matter in which no payment
could be adequate. 'A woman's body is withont price' is an axiom of
prostitution. The money placed In the hands of her who procures the
satisfaction of sexual desire is not the price of the act, but an offering
which the priestess of Venus applies to her msintenance." To the Span-
iard, it is true, every transaction which resembles trade is repugiumt,
but the principle underlying this feeling holds good of prostitution gen-
erally.
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306 PSYCHOLOQY OF BEX.
the holy Teseeb, also tliey dance, Hing and prostitute UtemaelvM. They
are forbidden to marry, and tbej lire in the homes of their parents,
brothera, or sisters; being consecrateil to religious aernce, they are
untouched by degradation. Nowadays, however, Indian "reformers," in
Uie name of "civilization and gfience," seek to persuade the murotM that
they are "plunged in a career of degradation." No doubt in time the
would-be moralists will drive the muralit out of their temples and their
homes, deprive them of all self-respect, and convert them into wretched
outcasts, all in the cause of "science and civilization" (see, e.g., an arti-
cle by Mrs. Eashibai Deodhar, The New Reformer, October, 1907). So
it is that early reformers create for the reformers of a later day the task
of humanizing prostitution afresh.
There can be no doubt that this more humane conception of prosti-
tution is to-day beginning to be realized in ths actual civilized life of
Europe. Thua in writing of prostitution in Paris, Dr. Robert Micbela
("Krotische StreifzUge," Mullergohtitx, 1906, Heft 9, p. 368) remarks:
"While in Germany the prostitute is generally considered as an 'outcasf
creature, and treated accordingly, an instrument of masculine lust to be
used and thrown away, and whom one would under no circumstances
recognize in public, in France the prostitute plays in many respects Uie
part which Once give significance and fame to the helaira of Athena."
And after describing the consideration and respect which the Parisian
prostitute is often able U> require of her friends, and the non-sexual rela-
tion of comradeship which she can enter into with other men, the writer
continues: "A girl who certainly yields licrself for money, but by no
means for the first comer's money, and who, in addition to her 'business
friends,' feels the need of, so to say, non-aezual companions with whom
she can associate in a free comrade-like way, and by whom she is treated
and valued as a free human being, is not wholly tost for the moral worth
of humanity." All prostitution is had, Michols concludes, but we should
have reason to congratulate ourselves if love- relationships of this
Parisian species represented the lowest known >orm of extra-conjugal
sexuality. (As bearing on the relative consideration accorded to prosti-
tutes I may mention that a Paris prostitute remarked to a friend of
mine that Englishmen would aak her questions which no Frenchman
would venture to ask. )
It is not, however, only in Paris, although here more markedly and
prominently, that this humanieing change in prostitution is beginning
to make itself felt- It is manifested, for instance, in the greater open-
ness of a man's sexual life. "While he formerly slinkcd into a brothel
in a remote street," Dr. Willy Hellpach remarks {XervositUt and Eultur.
p. 166), "he now walks abroad with his 'liaison,' visiting the theatres
and caf£s, without indeed any anxiety to meet his acquaintenees, but
with no embarrassment on that point. The thing is becoming more com-
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PBOSTITUTIOM. 307
monpUc«, more — natural." It JB alao, Hellpakch procMds to point out,
tbUB becoming more moral also, and much unnholeBOme pnideTjr and
pruriencj is being done away with.
In England, wbere change ia alow, tliis tendency to the humanisa-
tion of prostitution ma; be lens pronounced. But it certainly exists.
In the middle of the laat century Lecky wrote [HUtory of Etiroptan
MoraU, vol. ii, p. 286) that habitual prostitution "i« in no other Euro-
pean country ao hopeleaaly vicious or so irrevocable." That statement,
which was also made t^ Parent-Duchttelet and other foreign observers,
la fully confirmed by the evidence on record. But it is a statement
which would hardly be made to-day, except prehapa, in refereace to ape-
cial confined areas of our citiea. It is the same In America, and we
may doubtlese find thia tendency reflected in the report on The Soeiitt
Evil (1902). drawn up by a committee in New York, who gave It (p.
176) as one of their chief recommendations that prostitution should no
longer l>e regarded as a crime, in which light, one gathers, it had formerly
been regarded in New York. Tliat may aeem but a amall step in the
path of humanisation, but it is in the right direction.
It la by no meana only in lands of European civiliEation that we
may trace with developing culture the refinement and faumanisation of
the slighter bonds of relatiotiahip with women. In Japan exactly the
aanw demands led, several centuries ago, to the appearance of the geisha.
In the course of an interesting and precise study of the geisha Mr. R. T.
Farrer remarks (Nineteenth Century, April, 1904) : "The geisha is in
no sense necesaarily a courteaan. She is a woman educnted to attract;
perfected from her childhood in all the intricacies of Japanese litera-
ture; practiced in wit and repartee; inured to the rapid give-and-take
of conversation on every topic, human and divine. From her earliest
youth sbe la broken into an inviolable charm of manner incomprehensible
to the flueat European, yet she is almost invariably a blossom of the
lower classes, with dumpy claws, and squat, ugly nails. Her education,
physical and moral, is far harder than that of the ballerina, and her
success is achieved only after years of struggle and a bitter agony of
torture And tte geisha's aocial position may be compared
with that of the European actress. The Qeisha-house ofTers prizea aa
desirable as any of the Western stage. A great g.'isha with twen^
nobles sitting round her, contending for her laughter, and kept in con-
stant check by the flashing bodkin of her wit, bol<U a position no leaa
high and famous than that of Sarah Bernhardt in her prime. She is
equally Bought, equally flattered, quite as madly adored, that quiet little
elderly plain girl in dull blue. But she is prized thus primarily for her
tongue, whose power only ripens fully aa her phyaicnl charms decline.
She demands vast sums for her owners, and even so often appears and
dances only at her own pleasure. Few, it any, Westemera ever ace a
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really famous geisha. She U too great to com;' before a European,
except for an auguat or imperial command. Fioallj she may, and fre-
quently does, marry into exalted places.' In all this there is not the
■lightest neceraity for any illicit relation."
In some reapecta the poeition of th? ancient Greek hetaira was
more analogua to that of the Japanese geisha than to that of the prosti-
tute in the strict sense. For the Greeks, indeed, the lisiaira, was not
strictly a pome or prostitute at alL. The name meant friend or com-
panion, and the woman to whom the name was applied held an honorable
position, which could not be accorded to the mere prostitute. Athentaus
(Bit. xiii, Chs. XXVIII-XXX) brings together passages ahowing that
the AetoiVa could be regarded as an independpnt cit izpn, pure, simple, and
virtuous, altogether distinct from the common crew of prostitutes,
though these might ape her name. The helair(r "were almost the only
Greek women," saya Donaldson {Woman, p. 50), "who exhibited what
was best and noblest in women's nature." This fact renders it more
intelligible why a woman of such intellectual distinction aa Aspaaia
ahould have been a hetaira. There seems little doubt as to her intel-
lectual distinction, "^^achines, in hia dialogue entitled 'Aapaaia,* " writea
Gompers, the historian of Greek philosophy {Oreek Thinlieti, vol. ill, pp.
124 and 343), "puts in the mouth of that distinguished woman an incisive
criticism of the mode of life traditional for her sex. It would be exceed-
ingly strange," GomperE adds, in arguing that an inference may thus
be drawn concerning the historit-nl Aspuaiu, "if tSr:e authors — Plato.
Xenophon and .^chines — hnd agreed in fictitiously enduing the com-
panion of Pericles with what we miglit very reasonably have espeeteil
her to possess — a highly cultivated mind and intellectual influence." It
ia even possible tJiat the movement for woman's right whicli, as we dimly
divine through the pages of Aristophanes, took place in Athens in the
fourth century B. C., wiis led by hetaiiT. According to Ivo Brun*
{Frauenemanoipalion in Athea, 1900, p. 16) "the moat certain informa-
tion which we possess concemini; AspnEiia bears a strong resemblance to
the picture which Euripides and Arixtophanes present to us of the
leaders of the woman movement."' It was the exialen?u of this move-
ment which made Plato's ideas on the community of women appear far
less absurd than they do to us. It may perhaps be thought by some
that this movement represented on a higher plane that love of distmc-
tion, or, as we should better any, that spirit of revolt and aspiration,
which Simmel finds to mark the intcllpctual and ar'i^tic nctivity of those
who are unclnssed or dubiously rlnssed in the social hierarchy. Ninon
de Lencloa, as we have seen, was not strictly a courietan, but she was a
pioneer in the assertion of woman's rights. Aplirtt Behn who, a little
later in Eugland, occupied a similarly dubious social position, was like-
wise a pioneer in generous humanitarian aspirations, which have since
been adopted in the world at large.
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These refinementa of proatitution may be said to be chiefly the out-
rome of the )at« and more developed stages in civilization. Ab S^hurtz
)iaa put it {AUeTikUi»»en und ildnnerbiinde, p. 191) ; "The cheerful,
skilful and artiaticatly accomplished hetaira frequently stands as an ideal
flgurc in opposition to the intellectually uncultivated wife banished to
the interior ot the house. The courtesan o( the Italian Renaissance,
Japanese geishas, Cliineae flower-girls, and Indian buyaderos, all show
some not unnoble features, the breath of a free artistic existence. They
liave achieved — with, it is true, tlie sacriQce of their highest worth —
an independence from the oppressive rule of man and of household
duties, and a part of the feminine endowment which is so often crippled
^comes in them to brilliant development. ProstituJon in its best form
may thus offer a path by which these feminine characteristics may eicert
a certain influence on the development of civilirfltion. We may also
believe that the artistic activity of women is in some measure able to
offer a counterpoise to the otherwise less pleasant results of sexual
abandonment, preventing the coarsening and destruction ot the emotional
life; in his Magda Budermann has described a type of woman who, from
the standpoint of strict morality, is open to condemnation, but in her
art finds a foothold, the strength of which even ill-will must unwillingly
recognize." In his Bex and Character, Weininger has developed in a
more extreme and extravagant manner the conception of the prostitute
as a fundamental and essential part of life, a permanent feminine type.
There are others, apparently in increasing numbere, who
approach the problem of proatitution not from an teathetic stand-
point but from a moral standpoint This moral attitude ia not,
however, that conventionalized morality of Cato and St. Augus-
tine and Lecky, set fortli in previous pages, according to which
the prostitute in the street must be accepted as the guardian of
the wife in the home. These moralists reject indeed the claim of
that belief to be considered moral at all. They hold that it is
not morally possible that the honor of some women shall be
purchaseable at the price of the dishonor of other women, because
at such a price virtue loses all moral worth. When they read
that, as Goncourt stated, "tlie most luxurious articles of women's
trousseaux, the bridal chemises of girls with dowries of sii
hundred thousand francs, are made in the prison of Clairvaux,"*
they see the symbol of the intimate dependence of our luxurious
^Jotimat des Goncourt, vol. iii; this was in 1806.
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SIO FSYCUOLOQY OF BEX.
virtue on our squalid vice. And wfaUe they accept the historical
and Boeiological evidence which shows that prostitution is an
inevitable part of the marriage Bystem which still survives among
118, they ask whether it is not possible bo to modify our marriage
system that it shall not be necessary to divide feminine humanity
into "disreputable" women, who make sacrifices which it is dis-
honorable to make, and "respectable" women, who take sacrifices
which it cannot be less dishonorable to accept.
pToatitutea, a diBtin^ished urns of eeience has said (Duclaux,
L'Bygiine Sooiale, p. 243), "have bMome thinga which the public uses
when it wanta t)iem, and throwx on the dungheap when it haa made than
vile. In its phariaaism it even haa the inaolence to treat their trade as
■hameful, as though it were not just aa ahampful to huj aa to sell in
this market" Rlocli (Flexuelleben unserer Zeit. Ch. XV) insists that
proetitution must be ennobled, and that only so can it be even diminished.
Isidore D;er, of New Orleans, also argues that we cannot check prostitu-
tion anleaa we create "in the minds of men and women a. spirit of
tolerance instead of intolerance pf fallen women." This point may be
illustrated by a remark by the prostitute author of the Tagebuclt einer
VerUtrenen. "If the profesaion of yielding the body ceased to be a ahame-
ful one," ahe wrote, "the army of 'unfortunat«s' would diminiah by four-
flfthi — I will evea aay nine-tenths. Myself, for examplel How gladly
would I take a situation as companion or governesal" "One of two
things," wrote the eminent sociologist Tarde <"La Hbrate Sexuelle,"
Archives i^AnlhropolOffie CrimtTieUe, January, 1907), "either proatitu-
tioQ will disappear through continuing to be dishonorable and will be
replaced by some other institution which will better remedy the defects
of monogamous marriage, or it will survive by becoming reapectable, that
is to say, by making itself respected, whether liked or disliked." Tarde
thought this might perhaps come about by a better organisation of pros-
titutes, a more careful aelectinn aniorg thoae who desired admission to
their ranks and the cultivation of professional virtues which would raise
their moral level. "If courtesans fulfil a ne?d," Balzac had already said
jn his Phyaiologie du Uai iage, "they must become an institution."
TJiis moral attitude is supported and enforced by the
inevitable democratic tendency of civilization which, although it
by no means destroys the idea of class, undermines that idea as
the mark of fundamental human distinctions and renders it
superficial. Prostitution no longer makes a woman a slave; it
ought not to make her even a pariah : "My body is my own," said
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PROSTITUTION. 811
the yoimg German prostitute of to-day, "and what I do with it is
nobody else's concern." When the prostitute was literally a
slave moral duty towards her was by no means necessarily
identical with moral duty towards the free woman. But when,
even in the same family, the prostitute may be separated by a
great and impassable social gulf from her married sister, it
becomes possible to see, and in the opinion of many imperatively
necessary to see, that a readjustment of moral values is required.
For thousands of years prostitution has been defended on the
ground that the prostitute is necessary to ensure the "purity of
women." In a democratic age it begins to be realized that
prostitutes also are women.
The developing sense of a fundamental human equality
underlying the surface divisions of class tends to make the
usual attitude towards the prostitute, the attitude of her clients
even more than that of society generally, seem painfully cruel.
The callous and coarsely frivolous tone of so many young men
about prostitutes, it has been said, is "simply cruelty of a
peculiarly brutal kind," not to be discerned in any other relatioa
of life.i And if this attitude is cruel even in speech it is still
more cruel in action, whatever attempts may be made to disguise
its cruelty.
Canon Lfttleton'i Teinarka may be t«ken to refer chieflj to voung
men of the upper middle class. ConMming what ie perhaps the usual
attitude of lower middle cUsa people towards proetjiution, I ma; quote
from & remarkable communicatton which has reached me from Australia:
"What are the views of a young man brought up iu a middle-class Chris-
tian English family on prostituteBT Take my father, (or instaDoe. He
fljst mentioned prostitutea to me, if I remember rightly, when speaking
of bis life before marriage. And be ipoke of than as be would apeak of
a korge he had hired, paid for, and dismissed from hii mind idien it
had rendered him aerTfce. Although my mother was so kind and good
she spoke of abandoned women with disgust and scorn as of some unclean
animal. As it flatters vanity and pride to be aUe with good counte-
nance and univerBal consent to look down on something. I soon grasped
the situation and adopted an attitude which is, In the main, that of most
I Rev. the Bon. C. Lyttleton, Training of the Young in Lam of Sex.
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812 PSYCUOLOOY OF SEX.
middle-class Christian EngHsbinen towards prostitutes. But as puberty
develops this attitude has to be accommodated with the wish to make
use of this Bcum, these moral lepers. The ordinary young man, who likes
a spice of immorality end has it when in town, and thinks it is not likely
to come to his mother's or sisters' ears, does not get over Ilia arrognnce
and disgust or abate them in the least. He takes Uiem with him, moi«
or less disguised, to the brothel, and they color his thoughts and actions
all the time he is sleeping with prostitutes, or kissing them, or passing
his hands over them, as he would over a mare, getting as much as he
can for his money. To t«1I the truth, on the whole, that was my attitude
too. But if anyone bad asked me for the smallest reason for tiiis
attitude, for this feeling of superiority, pride, hauteur, and prejudice, I
should, like any other 'respectable' young man, have been entirely at a
loss, and could only have gaped foolishly."
From the modern moral standpoint which now concerns us,
not only ia the cruelty involved in the dishonor of the prostitute
absurd, but not less absurd, and often not less cruel, seems the
honor bestowed on'the respectable women on the other side of the
social gulf. It is well recognized' that men sometimes go to
prostitutes to gratify the excitement aroused by fondling their
betrothed,^ As the emotional and physical results of ungratified
excitement are not infrequently more serious in women than in
men, tlie betrothed women in these cases are equally justified in
seeking relief from other men, and the vicious circle of absurdity
might thus be completed.
From the point of view of the modem moralist there is
anotlier consideration which was altogether overlooked in ttie
conventional and traditional morality we have inherited, and
was indeed practically non-existent in the ancient days when that
morality was still a living reality. Women are no longer divided
only into the two groups of wives who are to be honored, and
prostitutes who are the dishonored guardians of that honor ; there
18 a large third class of women who are neither wives nor prosti-
iSee, e.q., R. W. Taylor, Treatise on Bemiai Disorders, 1S97, pp.
74-6. Georg Hirth (TVejre Kur Heimat, 1909, p. fllB) narrates the case
of a young officer who. being excited by tbe caresses of his betrothed and
having too much respect for her to go further than this, and too much.
respect for himself to rpsort to masturbation, knew nothing better thsn
to go to a prOTtitute. Synhilis developed a few days after the wedding.
Hirth adds, briefly, that the results were terrible.
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FKOBti'rorioN. 818
tutee. For this group of the unmarried virtuous the traditional
morality had no place at all ; it simply ignored them. But the
new moralist, who is learning to recognize both the claims of the
individual and the claims of society, begins to ask whether on the
one hand these women are not entitled to the satisfaction of their
afFectional and emotional impulses if they so desire, and on the
other hand whether, since a high civilization involves a diminished
birth-rate, the community ia not entitled to encourage every
healthy and able-bodied woman to contribute to maintain the
birth-rate when she so desires.
All the considerations briefly indicated in the preceding
pages — the fundamental sense of human equality generated by our
civilization, the repugnance to cruelty which accompanies the
reHuement of urban life, the ugly contrast of eictremes which
shock our developing democratic tendencies, the growing sense of
the rights of the individual to authority over his own person,
the no less strongly emphasized right of the community to the
best that the individual can yield — all these considerations are
every day more strongly influencing the modem moralist to
assume towards the prostitute an attitude altogether different
from that of the morality which we derived from Cato and
Augustine. He sees the question in a larger and more dynamic
manner. Instead of declaring that it is well worth while to
tolerate and at the same time to contemn the prostitute, in order
to preserve the sanctity of the wife in her home, he is not only
more inclined to regard each as the proper guardian of her own
moral freedom, but he is less certain about the time-houored
position of tlie prostitute, and moreover, by no means sure that
the wife in the home may not be fully as much in need of
rescuing as the prostitute in the street; he is prepared to con-
sider whether reform in this matter is not most likely to take
place in the shape of a fairer apportionment of sexual privileges
and sexual duties to women generally, with an inevitably resultant
elevation in the sexual lives of men also.
The revolt of many serlouB reformers against the injustice and
degradation now involved bj our system of prostitution is so profound
that w>me have declared themselves ready to accept any revolution of
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314 PSTOHOLOOT OF SEX.
ideoa which would bring about a more wholenme transmutation of morat
values. "Bett«r indeed were a saturnalia of free men tknd women,"
exclaims Edward Carpenter (Love^a Coming of Age, p. 62), "t^an the
spectacle which, as it is, our great cities present at night."
Even th6Be who would he quite content with as conserrative a
treatment as possible of social institutions still eannot fail to realixa
that prostitution is unsatisfactory, unless we are content to moke very
humble claims of the semtal act. "The act of proatitution," Qodfr^
declares (The Boienoe of Beta, p. 202), "may be phjeiologically complete,
but it is complete in no other sense. All the moral and intellectual fac-
tors which combine with physical desire to form the perfect seznal
attraction are abeent. AH tiie higher elements of love — admiration,
respect, honor, and self-sacrificing devotion — are as foreign to prostitu-
tion as to the egoistic act of mastnrbation. The principal drawbacks to
the morally of the act lie In its associations more than In the act Iteelf.
Any aflfectloual quality which a more or tens promiscuous connection
might possess is at once destroyed by the intrusion of the monetary ele-
ment. In the resulting degradation the woman has the largest share,
since it makes her a pariah and involves her in all the hardening and
4epraTing influences of social ostracism. But her degradation only
serves to render her influence on her partners more demorallElng. Pros-
titution," he concludes, "has a strong tendency towards emphasizing the
naturally selflsh attitude of men towards women, and encouraging them
In the delusion, bom of unregulated passions, that the sexual act itaelf
Is the aim and end of the sex life. Prostitution can therefore make no
claim to afford even a temporary solution to the sex problem. It fulflla
only that mission which has made it a 'necessary evil' — the mission of
palliative to the physical rigors of celibacy and monogamy. It does so
at the cost of a considerable amount of physical and moral deterioration,
much of which is undoubtedly due to the action of society in completing
the degradation of the prostitute by persistent ostracism. Prostitution
was not so great an evil when It was not thought so great, yet even at
its best It was a real evil, a melancholy and sordid travesty of sincere
and natural passional relations. It Is an evil which we are bound ti>
have with us so long as celibacy Is a custom nnd monogamy a law." It
is the wife as well aa the prostitute who is degraded by a system which
makes venal love possible. "The time has gone past," the same writer
remarks elsewhere (p. 195) "when a mere ceremony can really sanctify
what is base and transform lust and greed into the sincerity of sexual
affection. If, to enter into sexual connections with a man for a solely
material end is a disgrace to humanify, it is a disgrace under the mar-
riage bond just as much as apart from the hypocritical blessing of the
church or the law. Tf the public prostitute is a being who deserves to
be treated aa a pariab, it is hopelessly irrational to withhold every sort
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FBOBTITUTION. SX5
of morftl opprobritnn from tbe woman wbo lends a Bimilar life UDder «
different let of external circuniBtanoe*. Either the proetitat« wife must
come under the moral ban, or there must be an end to the complete
oatraciem under which the prostitute labors."
The thinker who more clearlj and fundamentallj than others, and
first of all, realized the dynamical relationships of prostitution, as
dependent upon a change In the other social relationships of life, was
James Hinton. More than thirtj years ago, in fragmentary writing
that still remain unpublished, since be never worked them into an
orderly form, Einton gave vigorous and often passionate expression to
this fundamental idea. It may be worth while to quote a few brief pas-
sages from Hinton's MSS.; "I leel that the laws of force should hold,
also amid the waves of human passion, that the relations of mechanics
are true, and will rule also in human life. .... There is a ten-
sion, a. crushing of the soul, by our modem life, and it is ready for a
sudden spring to a different order in which the forces shall rearrange
themselves. It is a dynamical question presented in moiol terms.
.... Keeping a portion of the woman population without prospect
of marriage means having prostitutes, that is women as instruments of
man's mere sensuality, and this means the killing, in many of them, of
all pure love or capacity of it. This is the fact we have to face.
. . . . To-day I saw a young woman whose life was being consumed
by her want of love, a case of threatened utter misery: now see the
price at which we purchase her ill-bealth; for her ill-health we pay the
crushing of another girl into hell. We give that for it; her wretched-
ness of soul and body are bought by prostitution; we have prostitutes
made tor that We devote some women recklessly to perdi-
tion to make a hothouse Heaven for the rest. .... One wears
herself out in vainly trying to endure pleasures she is not strong enough
to enjoy, while other women are perishing for lack of these very pleas-
ures. If marriage is this, is it not embodied lustl The happy Christian
homes are the true dark places of the earth Prostitution
for man, restraint for woman — they are two sides of the same thing, and
both are denials of love, like luxury and asceticism. The mountains of
restraint must be used to fill up the abysses of luxury."
Some of Hinton's views were set forth by a writer intimately
acquainted with him in a pamphlet entitled ^he Future of Uariiage: A.%
Eirenicon for a Question of To-day, by a Respectable Womans(13S6).
"When once the conviction is forced home upon the 'good' women," tha
writer remarks, "that their place of honor and privilege rests upon the
degradation of others as its basis, they will never rest Ull they have
either abandoned it or sought for it some other pedestal. If onr inflexi-
ble marriage system has for its essential condition the existence side by
side with it of prostitution, then one of two things follows: either pros-
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316 P8YCU0L00T OF BEX.
titution must be shown to be compatible with the well-being, moral and
physical, of the woniea who practice it, or our marriage system must be
condemned. If it was clearly put before anyone, he could not seriously
assert that to be 'virtue' which could only bs practiced at the expense
of another's vice Whilst the laws of phyaEcs are becoming
BO universally recognized that no one dreams of attempting to annihilate
a particle of matter, or of force, yet wo do nut instinctively apply the
same conception to moral forces, but think and act as it we could simply
do away with an evil, while leaving unchanged that which gives it its
strength. This is the only view of the social problem which can give us
hope. That prostitution should simply cease, leaving everything else as
it is, would be disastrous if it were possible. But it is not possible.
The weakness of all existing clforta to put dou'u prostitution is that tb^
are directed against it as an isolated thing, whereas it is only one of
the symptoms proceeding from a common disease."
Ellen Key, who during recent years hns been the chief apostle of
a gospel of sexual morality baaed on the needs of women as the motber*
of the race, has, in a somewhat similar spirit, denounced alike prostitu-
tion and rigid marriage, declaring (in her Essaj/s on I.otie and Marriage)
that "the development of erotic personal consriousnees is as much
hindered by socially regulated 'morality' as by socially regulated 'im-
morality,' ■' and that "the two lowest and socially sanctioned expressions
of sexual dualism, rigid marriage and prostitution, will gradually become
impossible, because with the conquest of the idea of erotjc unity they
will no longer correspond to human ne^ds."
We may sum up the present situation as regards prostitutioD
by saying that on the one haad there is a tendency for its eleva-
tion, in association with the growing humanity and refinement
of civilization, characteristics which must inevitably tend to mark
more and more both those women who become proatitutea and
those men who seek them; on the other hand, but perhaps
through the aaine dvTiamic force, there is a tendency towards the
alow elimination of prostitution by the Buccesaful competi-
tion of- higher and purer methods of sexual relationship freed
from pecuniary considerations. This refinement and humaniza-
tion, this competition by better forms of sexual love, are indeed
an essential part of progress as civilization becomes more truly
sound, wholesome, and sincere.
This moral change cnnnot, it seems probable, fail to be
accompanied by the realization that the facte of human life are
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PR08TITOTION. 317
more impoitant than the fomiB. For all changes from lower to
higher social formBj from savagery to civilization, are accom-
panied— in BO far as they are vital changes — by a slow and painful
groping towards the truth that it is only in natural relations that
sanity and sanctity can be found, for, as Nietzsche said, the
"return" to Nature should rather be called the "ascent." Only so
can we achieve the final elimination from our hearts of that
clinging tradition that there is any impurity or dishonor in acts
of love for which the reasonable, and not merely the conventional,
conditions have been fulfilled. For it is vain to attempt to
cleanse our laws, or even our by-laws, until we have first cleansed
our hearts.
It would be out of place here to push furtlier the statement
of the moral question as it is to-day beginning to shape itself, in
the sphere of sex. In a psychological discussion we are on]^ con-
cerned to set down the actual attitude of the moralist, and of
civilization. The practical outcome of that attitude must be
left to moralists and sociologists and the community generally to
work out.
Our inquiry has also, it may be hoped, incidentally tended
to show that in practically dealing with the question of prostitu-
tion it is pre-eminently necessary to remember the warning
which, as regards many other social problems, has been em-
bodied by Ilerbert Spencer in his famous illustration of the
bent iron plate. In trying to make the bent plate smooth, it is
useless, Spencer pointed out, to hammer directly on the buckled
up part; if we do so we merely find that we have made matters
worse; our hammering, to be effective, must be around, and not
directly on, the offensive elevation we wish to reduce; only so
can the iron plate be hammered smooth.* But this elementary
1 It is an oft-quoted paesagp, but ran Bcarcelj be quoted too often:
'^on see that this wroujitht-iron piste is not quite flat: it aticks up a
littk, here towards the left — 'cockles,' as we say. How shall we flatten
itt Obviously, you reply, by hitting down on the part that is prominent.
Well, here is a hammer, and T give the plat' a blow as yot adviaa.
Harder, you say. Still no effect. Another stroke* Well, there Is one.
and another, and another. The prominenee xemains. you see: the evil
ia as great aa ever — [jreafer, indeed. Bnt that is not all. Look at the
warp which the pkkte has got near the opposite edge. Where it was
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318 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEI.
law has not been understood by moralists. The plain, prac-
tical, common-Bense reformer, as he fancied himself to be —
from the time of Charlemagne onwards — has over and over again
brought his heavy fist directly down on to the evil of prostitution
and has always made matters worse. It is only by wisely working
outside and around the evil that we can hope to lessen it effect-
ually. By aiming to develop and raise the relationships of men
to women, and of women to women, by modifying our notions of
sexual relationships, and by introducing a saner and truer con-
ception of womanhood and of the responsibilities of women as
well as of men, by attaining, socially as well as economically, a
higher level of human living— it is only by such methods as these
that we can reasonahly expect to see any diminution and allevia-
tion of the evil of . prostitution. So long as we are incapable of
such methods we must be content with the prostitution we
deserve, learning to treat it with the pity, and the respect, which
BO intimate a failure of our civilization is entitled to.
flkt before it ia now curved. A pretty bungle we have made of it,
Iii8t«ad of curing the original defect we have produced k second. Had
we asked ao artisan practiced in 'planishin}!;.' an it is called, he would
have told us that no good was to be done, but only miBChief. by hitting
down on the projecting part. He would have taught u» how to give
variously-directed and special ly-adjust«d blows with a hammer else-
where: BO attacking the evil, not by direct, but by indirect actions. The
required process is less simple than you thought. Even a sheet of metal
ia not to be successfully dealt with after those comtn on -sense methods
in which you have so much confidence. What, then, shall we say about
a Bocietyl .... Is humanity more readily straightened than an
iron plater' {The Study of BocMogy, p. 270.)
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CHAPTER VIII.
THE CONQUEST OF THE VENEREAL DISEASES.
The Significance of the VeDereal Diseases — The Hiator^r *'^ Syphilis
—The Problem of Its Origin— The Social Gravity- of Syphilis — TI e Social
Dangers of Gonorrhrat — The Modem Change io the Methods of Combat-
ing Venereal Diseases — Causes of the Decay of the System of PoHce
Kegulation — Necessity of Facing the Facte — The Innocent Victims of
Venereal Diseases — Diseases Not Crimes — The Principle of Notlflcatfon —
The Scandinavian System — Gratuitous Treatment — Punishment for
Transmitting Venereal Diseases — Sexual Education in Relation to Ven-
ereal Diseases — Lectures, Etc. — Discussion in Novels and on the Stage —
The "Disgusting" Not the "Immoral."
It may, perhaps, excite surprise that in the preceding dis-
cussion of prostitution scarcely a word has been said of venereal
diseases. In the eyes of many people, the question of prostitution
is simply the qnestion of syphilis. But from the psychological
point of view with which we are directly concerned, as from the
moral point of view with which we cannot fail to be indirectly
concerned, the question of the diseases which may be, and bo
frequently are, associated with prostitution cannot be placed in
the first line of significance. The two questions, however
intimately they may be mingled, are fundamentally distinct.
Not only would venereal diseases still persist even though prosti-
tution had absolutely ceased, but, on the other hand, when
we have brought syphilis under the same control as we have
brought the somewhat analogous disease of leprosy, the problem
of prostitution would still remain.
Yet, even from the standpoint which we here occupy, it is
scarcely possible to ignore the question of venereal disease, for the
psychological and moral aspects of prostitution, and even the
whole question of the sexual relationships, are, to some extent,
affected by the existence of the serious diseases which are specially
liable to be propagated by sexual intercourse.
Foumier, one of the leading authorities on this subject, has
well said that syphilis, alcoholism, and tuberculosis are the three
(319)
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320 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
Djodem plagnee. At a much earlier period (1851) Schopen-
hauer in Parerga und Paralipomena had expressed the opinion
that the two things which mark modem social life, in distinction
from that of antiquity, and to the advantage of the latter, are
the knightly principle of honor and venereal disease ; together, he
added, they have poisoned life, and introduced a hostile and even
diabolical element into the relations of the Bexes, which has
indirectly afFected all other social relationghips.1 It is like a
merchandise, says Havelburg, of syphilid, which civilization has
everywhere carried, so that only a very few remote districts of the
globe (as in Central Africa and Central Brazil) are to-day free
from it. 2
It is undoubtedly true that in the older civilized countries
tlie manifestations of syphilis, though still severe and a cause of
physical deterioration in the individual and the race, are less
severe than tliey were even a generation ago.^ This is partly the
result of earlier and better treatment, partly, it is possible, the
result also of the syphilization of the race, some degree of
immunity having now become an inherited possession, although
it must be remembered that an attack of syphilis does not
necessarily confer immunity from the actual attack of the
disease even in the same individual. But it must be added that,
even though it has become less severe, syphilis, in the opinion of
many, is nevertheless still spreading, even in the chief centres of
civilization ; this has been noted alike in Paris and in London.^
1 It is probable that Scht^ienhauer f^lt a more than merely specula-
tive interest in this matter. Bloch has shown good reason for believing
that Schopenhauer himself contracted syphilift in 1813, and that this was
a factor in constituting his conception of the world and in co^flrming
his conBtitutionnl pessimism [Mediiiniaohe Elinik, Nos. 25 and S6, IDOS).
£ Havelburg, in Senator and Kaminer, Health and Diaease in Rela-
tion to Marriage, vol. i, pp. 188-189,
3 This is the very deflnite opinion of Lowndes after an experience
of fifty-four years in the treatment of venereal diseases in Liverpool
(British Medical JiMmal, Feb. 0, 1907, p. 334). It is further indicated
by the fact (if it is a real fact) that since 1876 there has been a decline
of both the infantile and general mortslitj from syphilis in England.
* "There is no doubt whatever that syphilis is on the increase in
London, judging from hospital work alone," shvb Pernet (British Medical
Journal, March 30. 19071. Svphilis waa evidently very prevalent, how-
ever, a centnry or two ago, and there is no ground for asserting positively
that it is more prevalent to-day.
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THB OONQUBST OP THB TBNESEAL DISEASBB. 321
According to the belief which is now tending to prevail,
syphilis was brought to Europe at the end of the fifteenth century
by the first discoverers of America. In Seville, the chief
European port for America, it was known as the Indian disease,
but when Charles YIII and his anny first brought it to Italy in
1495, although this connection with the French was only
accidental, it was called the Gallic disease, "a monstrous disease,"
said Catanens, "never seen in previous centuries and altogether
unknown in the world."
The synonyms of syphilis were at first almost innumerable.
It was in his Latin poem Syphilis give Morbus Oalliciu, written
before 1521 and published at Verona in 1530, that Fracastorus
finally gave the disease its now universally accepted name, invent-
ing a romantic myth to account for ita origin.
Although Uie weif^t of ftuthoriUtive oplninn now Menu to Incline
towttrda the belief that STphilis was brought to Europe from Amerlcft,
on the dlacoverj of the New World, it Ib 011I7 within quite recent yeari
that that belief has gained ground, and it icarcely even yet seems cer-
tain that what the Spaniards brought back from America was reallj' a
disease absolutely new to the Old World, and not a more virulent form
«f an old disease of which the manifestations had become benign. Buret,
for instance {Le Sypkilia Aujourd'hm et cntw it* Ancient, ISQO), who
some years ago reached "the deep conviction that syphilis dates from the
creation of man," and believed, from a minute study of ciasaie authors,
that syphilis existed in Rome under the Ciesars, was of opinion that it
has broken out at different places and *t different times, in epidemic
bursts exhibiting different combinations of its manifold -sj-mptoms, so
that It passed unnoticed at ordinary times, and at the times of its more
intense manifestation was looked upon as a hitherto unlcnown disease.
It was thus r^arded in classic times, be considers, as coining from
Egypt, though he looked upon ita real home as Asia. ]l.eopold GlUck
ha* likewise quoted (Arohiv fiir Dermatologie uad Syphitia, January,
1S99) passages from the medical epigrams of a sixteenth century phy-
sician, Gabriel Ayala, declaring that syphiHs is not really a new disease,
though popularly supposed to be »o, but an old disease which tias broken
out with hitherto unknown violence. There is, however, no conclusive
reason for believing that syphilis was known at all in claaaic antiquity.
A. V, Notthatt ("Die Legende von der Althertums-syphilia," in the
Bindfleisch Festschrift, 1907, pp. 37T-E92) has critically investigated
Uie passages in classic authors which were supposed by Eosenbaum, Buret,
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322 PSYCHOLOGY OF 6EI.
Prokech and others to refer to syphilid. It is quite true, Notthaft
admits, that many of Uiese paeaages might poasibly refer to syphilis,
and one or two would even better fit syphilis than any other ilisease.
But, on the whole, they furnish no proof at all, and no ayphilologist, he
concludes, has ever succeeded in demonBtrating that syphilis was known
in antiquity. That belief is a legend. The most damning argument
against it, Notthaft points out, is the fact that, although in antiquity
there were great physicians who were keen observers, not one of tlicm
gives any description of the primary, secondary, tertiary, and oongenital
forms of this disease. China is frequently mentioned as the original
home of syphilis, but this belief is also quite without basis, and the
Japanese physician, Okamura, has shown {Monatgackrift fur proIclMcAs
Dermatologie, vol, Txviii, pp. 296 et seq,\ that Chinese record* rereal
nothing relating to syphilis earlier than the sixteenth century. At the
Paris Academy of Medicine in 1900 photographs from Egypt were ex-
hibited by Fouquet of human remains which date from B. C. 2400, show-
ing bone lesions which seemed to be clearly syphilitic; Fournier, howerer,
one of the greatest of authorities, considered that the diagnosis of syph-
ilis could not be maintained until other conditions liable to produce some-
what similar bone lesions had been eliminated (BritUh Medical Journal,
September 20, 1000, p. 946). In Florida and various regions of Central
America, in undoubtedly pre-Columbian burial places, diseased bones
have been found which good authorities have declared could not b« any-
thing else than sji^hilitic (".p., British Medical Journal, November 20,
1907, p. 1487), though it may be noted that so recently ai 18B0 the cau-
tious Virchow stated that pre-Columbian syphilis in America was still tor
him an open question (Zeitachrift /iir Ethnologie, Heft 2 and 3, 1890, p.
216). From another side, Beler, the distinguished authority on Mexican
antiquity, shows (Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie, 1805, Heft Br p. 44») that
the ancient Mexicans were acquainted with a disease whi;h, as they
described it, might well have been syphilis. It is obvious, however, that
while the difficulty of demonstrating syphilitic diseased bones in America
is as great as in Europe, the demonstration, however complete, would not
suffice to show that the disease had not alreedy an existence also in the
Old World. The plausible theory of Ayala that fifteenth century syphilis
was a virulent recrudescence of an ancient disease has frequently been
revived in more modern times. Thus J. Knott ("The Origin of Syphilis,"
A'ew York ^ffdical Journal. October 31. 1008) suggests that though not
new in fiftefnth century Europe, it was then imported afresh in S form
rendered more aggravai.ed by comlni; from an exotic race, as is believed
often to be the case.
It was in the eighteenth century that Jean Astruc began the
rehabilitation of the belief that syphilis is really a comparatively mod-
era disease of American origin, and since then various aathorities of
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THE CONQOEST OF THE VENEREAL DISEASES. 323
weight have given tbeir adherence to this view. It is to the energy and
learning of Dr. Iwan Bloch, of Berlin (the first volume of whose impor'
tant work. Dot Urtprung der Supkilia, was published in 1001) that we
owe the fullest Btatement of the evidence in favor of t^e American origin
of sj'philia. Bloch regards Buy Diaz de Isla, a distinguished Spanish
physician, as the weightiest witness for the Indian origin of the disease,
and concludes that it was brought to Europe by Columbus's men from
Central America, more precisely from the Island of Haiti, to Fipain In
1493 and 1494, and immediately afterwards was spread hy the armies of
Charles VIII in an epidemic fashion over Italy and the other countries
of Europe.
It may be added that even If we have to accept the theory that the
central regions of America constitute the place of origin of European
syphilis, we still have to recognize that syphilis has spread in the North
American mntinent very much more slowly and partially than it has
in Europe, and even at the present day there are American Indian
tribes among whom it is unknown. Holder, on the basis of his own
experiences among Indian tribes, as well as of wide inquiries among
agency physicians, prepared a table showing that among some thir^
tribes and groups of tribes, eighteen were almost or entirely free from
venereal disease, while among thirteen it was very prevalent. Almost
without exception, the tribes where syphilis is rsre or unknown refuse
sexual intercourse with strangerii, while those among whom such disease
is prevalent are morally tax. It is the whites who are the source of
infection among these tribes (A. B. Holder, "Gynecic Notes Among the
American Indiana," American Journal of Obatetrica. 1S92, No. 1).
S3'philis is only one, certainly the most important, of a group
of three entirely distinct "venereal diseases" whioli have only
been distinguished in recent times, and so far as their precise
nature and causation are concerned, are indeed only to-day begin-
ning to be understood, although two of them were certainly
knom in antiquity. It is but seventy years ago since Ricord, the
great French sypbilologist, following Bassereau, first taught the
complete independence of syphilis both from gonorrhoea and soft
chancre, at the same time expounding clearly the three stages,
primarj-, secondary and tertiary, through which syphilitic mani-
festations tend to pass, while the full extent of tertiary syphilitic
symptoms is scarcely yet grasped, and it is only to-day beginning
to be generally realized that two of the most prevalent and serioua
diseases of the bram and nervous system — general paralysis and
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324 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
tabes dorsalia or locomotor ataxia — have their predominaat
though not Bole and exclusive cause in the invasion of the
syphilitic poiBon many years before. In 1879 a new stage of
more precise knowledge of the vMiereal diseases began with
Neiseer's discovery of the gonococeus which is the specific cause
of gononrhcea. This was followed a few years later by the dis-
covery by Ducrey and TJnna of the bacillus of soft chancre, the
least important of the venereal diseases because exclusively local
in its effects. Finally, in 1905 — after Metchnikoff had prepared
the way by succeeding in carrying syphilis from man to monkey,
and Lassar, by inoculation, from monkey to monkey — Fritz
Schaudinn made his great discovery of the protozoal Spirochata
pallida (since sometimes called Treponema pallidum), which is
now generally regarded as the cause of syphilis, and thus revealed
the final hiding place of one of the most dangerous and insidions
foes of humanity.^
There is no more subtle poison than that of syphilis. It is
not, like small-poz or typhoid, a disease which produces a brief
and sudden storm, a violent struggle with the forces of life, in
which it tends, even without treatment, provided the organism
is healthy, to succumb, leaving little or no traces of its ravages
behind. It penetrates ever deeper and deeper into the organism,
with the passage of time leading to ever new manifestations, and
no tissue is safe from its attack. And so subtle is thia all-per-
vading poison that though its outward manifestations are
amenable to prolonged treatment, it is often difBcult to say that
the poison has been finally killed out.^
The immense importance of syphilis, and the chief reason
1 See, e.g., A. Nciaaer, Die cxpeHmentelU 8'jphilUfOTiKshung, 1906,
and E. Uoffmann (wlio was associated with Schaudinn's discover)'), DU
Aetiologie der SyphUia, 1906; D'Arcy Power, A Hystem of Sypkitia, 1903,
«tc.; F, W. Mott, "Pathology of Syphilis in the Light of MoJern Re-
search," BritUh Medical Journal, February 20, IflOfl; also, Archivet of
Neurology and Paj/chiatnf, vol. iv, 1909.
2 There fa some difference of opinion on this point, and Uiough it
teems probable that early and thorough treatment usually curis the dis-
ease in a few years and renders further complications highly improbable,
it is not possible, even under the most favorable circumstanecs, to speak
with absolut« certainty as to the future.
DiclzedbyGoOglc
'fuK CONQDEST OF THE TSNEfiZAL DISEASES. 325
wliy it is aeeeas&ry to consider it here, lies in the fact that its
results are not confioed to the individual himself, nor even to the
persons to whom he may impart it by the contagion due to con-
tact in or out of sexual relationships : it affects the offspring, and
it affects the power to produce offspring. It attacks men and
women at the centre of life, as the progenitors of the coming race,
inflicting either sterility or the tendency to aborted and diseased
products of conception. The father alone can perhaps transmit
syphilis to his child, even though the mother escapes infection,
and the child bom of syphilitic parents may come into the world
apparently healthy only to reveal its syphilitic origin after a
period of months or even years. Thus syphilis is probably a main
cause of the enfeeblement of the race.^
Alike in the individual and in his offspring syphilis shows
its deteriorating effects on all the structures of the body, bnt
especially on the brain and nervous system. There are, as has
been pointed out by Mott, a leading authority in this matter,^
five ways in which syphilis affects the brain and nervous system :
(1) by moral shock ; (2) by the effects of the poison in produc-
ing ansemia and impaired general nutrition; (3) by causing
inflammation of the membranes and tissues of the brain ; (4) by
producing arterial degeneration, leading on to brain-softening,
paralysis, and dementia; (5) as a main cause of the para-
syphilitic affections of general paralysis and tabes dorsalis.
It is only within recent years that medical men have recog-
nized the preponderant part played by acquired or inherited
syphilis in producing general paralysis, which so largely helps
to fill lunatic asylimis, and tabes dorsalis which is the most
important disease of the spinal cord. Even to-day it can scarcely
I "That Byphilia haa been, and is, one of the chief causes of phyflical
degeneration in England cannot be denied, and it is a. fact that is
a<£nowledged on all sides," writes Lieutenant- Colonel Lambkin, the
medical officer in command of the London Military Hospital for Venereal
Diseases. 'To grapple with the treatment of syphilis among the civil
population of England ought to be the chief object of those interested in
that most burning question, the physical degeneration of our race'
IBHtUh Meiiical Journal, August 19, 1905}.
a F. W. Mott, "Syphilis as a Cause of Insanity," Britith Medical
Journal, October IB, IMS.
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32(i PffYCHOLOQT OF 8BX.
be said that there Ib complete agreement as to the supreme im-
portance of the factor of syphilis in these diseases. There can,
however, be little doubt that in about ninety-five per cent, at
least of cases of general paralysis syphilis is present.^
Syphilis is not indeed by itself an adequate cause of general
paralysis for among many savage peoples syphilis is very common
vrhile general paralysis is very rare. It is, as Krafft-Ebing was
accustomed to say, syphilization and civilization working together
which produce general paralysis, perhaps in many cases, there is
reason for thinking, on a nervous soil that is hereditarily
degenerated to some extent; this is shown by the abnormal
prevalence of congenital stigmata of degeneration found in gen-
eral paralytics by Nacke and otliers. "Paralyticus nascitur atque
fit," according to the dictum of Obersteiner. Once undermined by
sj-philis, the deteriorated brain is unable to resist the jars and
strains of civilized life, and the result is general paralysis, truly
described as "one of the most terrible scourges of modem times."
In ID03 the Psychological Section of the British Medical Asso-
ciation, embodying the most competent English authority on this
question, unanimously passed a resolution recommending that
the attention of the Legislature and other public bodies should be
called to the necessity for immediate action in view of tlte fact
that "general paralysis, a very grave and frequent form of brain
disease, together with other varieties of insanity, is largely due
to syphilis, and is therefore preventable." Yet not a single step
has yet been taken in this direction.
The dangers of syphilis lie not alone in its potency and its
persistence but also in its prevalence. It is difficult to state the
exact incidence of syphilis, but a great many partial investigations
have been made in various countries, and it would appear that
1 It can seldom be proved in more than eiglify per cent, ol cases,
but in twenty per cent, of old syphilitic cases it is commonly imposaiblo
to And traces of the disease or to obtain a history of it. Crocker found
that it was only in eighty per cent, of cases of absolutely certain syphi-
litic skin diseases that he could obtain n history of syp^iilitic infection,
and Sfott found exactly the sfime peropntage in absolutely certain syphi-
litic lesions of the brain; Mott believes {?.<;.. "Syphilis in Relation to
the fJervouB System," British Medical Journal. January 4, 1908) that
Byphilis is the essential cause ol general paralysis and tabes.
DiclzedbyGoOgle
TUE CONQUEST OF THE VENEREAL DISEASES. 327
from five to twenty per cent, of the population in European
countries is syphilitic, while about fifteen per cent, of the
syphilitic cases die from causes directly or indirectly due to the
disease.^ In France generally, Fournier estimates that seventeeu
per cent, of the whole population have had syphilis, and at
Toulouse, Audry considers that eighteen per cent, of all his
patients are Byphilitic. In Copenhagen, where notification is
obligatory, over four per cent, of the population are said to be
syphilitic. In America a committee of the Medical Society of
New York, appointed to investigate the question, reported aa the
result of exhaustive inquiry that in the city of New York not
less than a quarter of a million of cases of venereal disease
occurred every year, and a leading New York dermatologist has
stated that among the better class families he knows intimately
at least one-third of the sons have had syphilis. In Germany
eight hundred tliousaud cases of venereal disease are by one
authority estimated to occur yearly, and in the larger universities
twenty-five per cent, of the students aro infected every term,
venereal disease being, however, specially common among students.
The yearly number of men invalided in the German army by
venereal diseases equals a third of the total number wounded in the
Franco-Prussian war. Yet the German army stands fairly high
as regards freedom from venereal disease when compared with the
British army which is more syphilized than any other European
army.* The British army, however, being professional and not
1 Audry, La Bemaine MidicaU, June 26, 1907. When Europ«aiu
carry syphilia to lands inhabited by people of lower race, the results are
often very much worse than this. Thus Lambkin, as a result of a spe-
cial misaion to investigate syphilis in Uganda, found that in wine
districts aa many as ninety pPT cent, of the people suffer from syphilis,
and fifty to sixty per cent, uf the infant mortality is due to thi« cause.
These people are Beganda, a highly intelligent, powerful, and well-organ-
ized tribe before they received, in tiie gift of ayphilis, the full benefit of
civilization and Christianity, which (Lambkin points outt has been
largely the cause of the apread of the disease by breaking down social
customs and emancipating the iromen. Christianity is powerful enough
to break down the old moralitv. but not powerful enough to build up a
new roorality (Britiah itrdical Journal. October 3, 190S, p. 1037).
3 Even within the limits of the EnsHflh army it is found in India
(H. C. French, Bf/pkilia in the Army, 1907) that venereal disease is ten
times more frequent among British troops than among Native troops.
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828 PSYCHOLOGY OF BEX.
national, is less representative of the people than is the case in
countries where some fonn of conecription prevailB. At one
London hospital it could be aBcertained that ten per cent, of the
patients had had ayphiliB; this probably means a real proportion
of about fifteen per cent., a high though not extremely high ratio.
Tet it is obvious that even if the ratio is really lower than this the
national Iosb in life and health, in defective procreation and
racial deterioration, must be enormous and practically incal-
culable. Even in cash the venereal budget is comparable in
amount to the general budget of a great nation. Stritch
estimates that the cost to the British nation of venereal diseases
in the army, navy and Qovemment'departments alone, amounts
.annually to £3,000,000, and whai allowance is made for super-
annuations and sick-leave indirectly occasioned through these
diseasea, though not appearing in the returns as such, the more
occarate estimate of the cost to the nation is stated to be £7,000-
000. The adoption of simple hygienic measures for the preven-
tion and the speedy cure of venereal diseases will be not only
indirectly but evea directly a source of immense wealth to the
nation.
Syphilis is the most obviously and conspicuously appalling
of the venereal diseases. Yet it is less frequent and in aome
respects less dangerously insidious than the other chief venereal
disease, gonorrhcea.^ At one time the serious nature of
gonorrhoea, especially in women, was little realized. Men
accepted it with a light heart as a trivial accident; women
ignored it. This failure to realize the gravity of gonorrhoea,
Outside of national annies it is found, by admiuion to hospital and
death rates, that the United States etands far away at the head for fre-
quen<? of venereal diseaae, b^ing followed by Great Britain, then France
and Auetria-Bungary, Russia, and Germany.
1 There is no dispute concerning the antiquity of gonorrhtsa In the
Old World as there is regarding syphilis. The disease was certainly
known at a very remote period. Even Eaarhaddon, the famous King of
Assyria, referred to in the Old Testament, was treated by the priests for
ft disorder which, as described in the cuneiform documents of the tiroe,
could only have been gonorrhtea. The disease was also well known to
the ancient Egyptians, and evidently enmmon, for they recorded many
^prescriptions for its treatment (Oefele, "Gonorrhoe 1350 vor Christl
Geburt," Monatghefte fUr Praktuche Dermatotogie, ISOO, p. 260).
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THE CONQUEST OF THB VBKEBEAL DISEASES. 6)iV
even sometimes on the part of the medical profeeeion — bo that it
has been popularly looked upon, in Grandio's words, aa of little
more significance than a cold ih the nose — has led to a reaction
on the part of some towards an opposite extreme, and the risks
and dangers of gonorrhcea have been even unduly magnified.
This is notably the case as regards sterility. The inflammatory
results of gonorrhoea are indubitably a potent cause of sterility in
both sexes; some suthorities have stated that not only eighty per
cent, of the deaths from inflammatory diseaees of the peWic
organs and the majority of the cases of chronic invalidism in
women, but ninety per cent, of involuntary sterile marriages, are
due to gonorrhoea. Keisser, a great authority, ascribes to this
disease without doubt fifty per cent, of such marriages. Even
this estimate is in the experience of some observers excessive. It
is fully proved that the great majority of men who have had
gonorrhcea, even if they marry within two years of being infected,
fail to convey the disease to their wives, and even of the women
infected by their husbands more than half have children. This
is, for instance, the result of Erb's esperience, and Kisch speaks
still more strongly in the same sense. Bmnm, again, although
regarding gonorrhcea ae one of the two chief causes of sterility
in women, finds that it is not the most frequent cause, being only
responsible for about one-third of the cases; the other two-
thirds are due to developmental faults in the genital organs.
Dunning in America has readied results which are fairly con-
cordant with Bumm's.
With regard to another of the terrible results of gonorrhoea,
the part it plays in producing life-long blindneSB from infection
of the eyes at birth, there has long been no sori; of doubt. The
Committee of the Ophthalmological Society in 1884, reported
that thirty to forty-one per cent, of the inmates of four asylums
for the blind in England owed their blindness to this cause.^ In
German asylums Beinhard found that thirty per cent, lost their
sight from the same cause. The total number of persons blind
from gonorrhoeal infection from their mothers at birth is
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enormous. The British Koyal Commiseion on the Condition of
the Blind estimated there were about seven thousand persons in
the United Kingdom alone (or twenty-two per cent, of the blind
persons in the coimtrj) who became blind ae the result of this
disease, and Mookerji stated in his address on Ophthalmalogy at
the Indian Medical Congress of 1894 that in Bengal alone there
were six hundred thousand totally blind beggars, forty per cait. of
whom lost their sight at birth through maternal gonorrhoea;
and this refers to the beggar class alone.
Although gonorrhoea is liable to produce many and various
calamities,^ there can be no doubt that the majority of gonor-
rhceal persons escape either suffering or inflicting any very
serious injury. The special reason why gonorrhoea has become
so peculiarly serious a scourge is its extreme prevalence. It
is difficult to estimate the proportion of men and women in
the general population who have had gonorrhoea, and the estimates
vary within wide limits. They are often set too high, Erb, of
Heidelberg, anxious to disprove exaggerated estimates of the
prevalence of gonorrhcea, went over the records of two thousand
two hundred patients in his private practice (excludmg all
hospital patients) and found the proportion of those who had
suffered from gonorrhoea was 48.5 per cent.
Among the working classes the disease ia much less prevalent
than among higher-class people. In a Berlin Industrial Sick
Club, 413 per 10,000 men and 69 per 10,000 women had gonor-
rhoja in a year; taking a series of years the Club showed a steady
increase ia the number of men, and decrease in the number of
women, with venereal infection ; this seems to indicate that the
laboring classes are beginning to have intercourse more with
prostitutes and less with respectable girls.' In America Wood
Buggies has given (as had Noggerath previously, for New York),
the prevalence of gonorrhoaa among adult males as from ?5 to 80
per cent. ; Tenney places it much lower, 20 per cent, for males
1 The extent of tlieae evils is set fortli, e.g., in a comprehenjive
eeaay by Tnjlor, American Journal Obatelrics, January, 1908.
i Neiaser brings together figures bearing on the prevalence of
gonorrh<ea in Germany, Senator and Kaminer, Health and Disease in
Relation la Marriage, vol. ii, pp. 468-492.
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THE CONQDEST OF THE TENEDEAL DISEASES. 331
and 5 per cent, for females. In England, a writer in the Lancet,
Bome years ago,^ found sb the result of experience and inquiries
that 75 per cent, adult males have had gonoirhcea once, 40 per
cent, twice, 15 per cent, three or more times. According to Dul-
berg about twenty per cent, of new cases occur in married men of
good social class, the disease being comparatively rare among
married men of the working class in England.
Gonorrhosa in its prevalence is thus only second to measles ■
and in the gravity of its results scarcely second to tuberculosis.
"And yet," as Grandin remarks in comparing gonorrhcea to tuber-
culosis, "witness the activity of the crusade against the latter and
the criminal apathy displayed when the former is concerned."^
The public must learn to understand, another writer remarks,
that "gonorrhcea is a pest that concema its highest intereats and
most sacred relations as much as do smallpox, cholera, diphtheria,
or tuberculosis.''^
It cannot fairly be said that no attempts have been made to
beat back the flood of venereal disease. On the contrary, such
attempts have been made from the first. But they have never
been effectual ;* they have never been modified to changed condi-
ihanaet, September 23, 1882. As regards women. Dr. Francea
Ivens [British Medical Journal, June IB, 1906) has found at Liverpool
that 14 per cent, of gynecological cases revealed the presence of gonor-
rhiEA. They were mostly poor respectable married women. This is
Erobablj a high proportion, as Liverpool is a busy seaport, but it ia
!ss than Sanger's estimate of 18 per cent.
2 E. H. Grandin, Medical Record, May 26, 1606.
3E. W. Gushing, "Sociological Aspects of OonorrhiBa," JVansoottoiu
American Qyncoological Society, vol. xxii, 1867,
* It is only in very small communities ruled by an autocratic power
with absolute authority to control conditions and to examine persons of
both sexes that reglementation becomes in any degree efTectual. This is
well shown by Dr. VV, E. Hnrwood, who di-scribes the system he organized
in the mines of the Minnesota Iron Company {Journal Arnerican Med-
tool Association. December 22, 1906). The women in the brothels on
the company's estate were of the lowest class, and disease was very
prevalent. Careful examination of the women was established, and con-
trol of the men, who, immediately on becoming diseased, were bound to
declare by what woman they had been inferted. The woman was
responsible for the meilica! bill of the man she infected, and even for his
hoard, it incapacitated, and the women were comnelled to maintain a
ftuiJ for their own hospital ennenses when required. In this way ven-
ereal disease, though not entirely uprooted, was very greatly diminished.
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SS'2 FSTOHOLOQT OF BEX.
tion; at tbe present day the; are hopeleealy unscientififi and
entirely opposed alike to the social and tbe individnal demandB
of modem peoples. At the Tarious conferences on this question
which have been held during recent years the only generally
accepted conclusion which has emerged ie that all the existing
systems of interfereDce or non-interference with prostitution are
nnsatisfactory.i
The character of prostitution has changed and the methods
of dealing with it must change. Brothels, and tbe systems of
official regulation which grew up with special reference to
brothels, are alike out of date; they have about them a mediaeval
atmosphere, an antiquated spirit, which now render tbem
unattractive and suspected. The conspicuously distinctive
brothel is falling into disrepute; tbe liveried prostitute absolutely
under municipal control can scarcely be said to exist. Prostitu-
tion tends to become more diffused, more intimately mingled with
social life generally, leas easily distinguished as a definitely
separable part of life. We can nowadays only influence it by
methods of permeation which bear upon the whole of our social
life.
The objection to the regulation of prostitution is still of slow
growth, but it is steadily developing everywhere, and may be traced
equally in scientific opinion and in popular feeling. In France tbo
municipalities of some of the largest cities have either suppressed the
system of regulation entirely or shown their disapproval of it, while an
inquiry among several hundred medical men showed that less than oue-
third were in favor of maintaining regulation {Die Xeue Qenerttlion,
June, 1609, p. 244). In Germany, where there is in some respects more
1 A clear and comprehensive statement of the present position of
the question is given by Iwao Bloch, Dot BemtaUehen Unterer Zeit, Chs.
XIII-XV. How ineffectual the system of police regulation is, even in
Germany, where police interference is tolerated to so marked a degree,
may be illustrated by the case of Mannheim. Here the regulation of
prostitution is very severe and thorough, yet a careful inquiry in 1606
among the doctors of Mannheim (ninety-two of whom sent in detailed
returns) showed that of six hundred cases of venereal disease in men.
nearly half had been contracted from prostitutes. About half the re-
maining cases (nearly a quarter of the whole) were due to waitresses
and bar-maids; then followed servsnt'girls (Lion and Loeh. in Bewual-
pSdagogik. the Proceedings of the Third German Congress for Combating
Venereal Diseases, 1907, p. 296).
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THE CONQUEST OF THE VBNEBEAI. DISEABBS. S33
patient endurance of interference with the liberty of the individual than
in France, England, or America, various elaborate ayeteme for organ-
izing proatitution and dealing with venereal disease continue to be
maintained, but thejr cannot bo completely carried out, and it is gen-
eral!; admitted that in tuty case they could not accomplish the objects
sought. Thus in Sasony no brothels are officially tolerated, though as
a matter of fact they nevertheless exist Here, as in many other parts
of Germany, most minute and extensive regulations are framed for the
use of prostitutes. Thus at Leipzig they must not sit on the benches
in public promenades, nor go to picture galleries, or theatres, or con-
certs, or restaurants, nor look out of their windows, nor stare about
them in the street, nor smile, nor wink, etc., etc. In fact, a German
prostitute who possesses the heroic self-control to carry out conscien-
tiously all the self-denying ordinances officially decreed for her guidance
would seem to be entitled to a Government pension for life.
Two methods of dealing with prostitution prevail in Germany. In
some cities public houses of prostitution are tolerated (though not
licensed) ; in other cities prostitution is "free," though "secret." Ham-
burg Is the most important city where houses of prostitution are
tolerated and segregated. But, it is stated, "everywhere, by far the
larger proportion of the prostitutes belong to the so-called 'secret' class."
In Hamburg, alone, are suspected men, when accused of infecting women,
officially examined; men of every social class must obey a summons of
this kind, which is issued secretly, and if diseased, they are bound to go
under treatment, if necessary under compulsory treatment in the city
hospital, until no longer dangerous to the community.
In Germany it is only when a woman baa been repeatedly observed
to act Btispiciously in the streets that she is quietly warned-, if the
warning is disregarded she is invited to give her name and address to
the police, and interviewed. It is not until these methods fail that she
ia oflkially inscribed as a prostitute. The inscribed women, in some
cities at all events, contribute to a sick benefit fund which pays their
expenses when in hospital. The hesitation of the police to inscribe a
woman on the official list is legitimate and inevitable, for no other course
would be tolerated; yet the majority of prostitutes begin their careers
very young, and as they tend to become infected very early after their
tareers begin, it is obvious that this delay contributes to render the
system of regulation ineffective. In Berlin, where there are no officially
recognized brothels, there are some sis thousand inscribed prostitutes,
but it is estimated that there are over sixty thousand prostitutes who
are not inscribed. (The foregoing facts are taken from a series of
papers describing personal investigations in Germany made by Dr. F.
Bierhoff, of New York, "Police Methods for the Sanitary Control of
Prostitution," New York Medical Journal, August, 1907.) The estima-
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334 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
tion of the amount of clandcBtiue prostitution can indeed nerer be mnch
more than guesswork ; exactly the same figure of sixty thousand it com-
monly hrought forward as the probable number of prostitutes not only
in Berlin, but also in London and in New York. It is absolutely impos-
sible to say whether it ia under or over the real number, for secret
proslitution is quit« intangible. Even if the (acts were miraouJously
revealed there would still remain the difficulty of deciding what is and
what is not prostitution. The avowed and public prostitute is linked
by various gradations on the one side to the respectable girl llring at
home who seeks some little relief from the oppression of her Tespnttabil-
ity, and on the other hand to the married woman who has married for
the aaJift of a home. In any case, however, It is very certain that public
prostitutes living entirely on the eamiDgs of prostitution form but a
email proportion of the vast army of women who may be said, in a wide
sense of the word, to he prostitutes, i.e., who use their attractirenew to
obtain from men not love alone, but money or goods.
'The struggle agaiuBt sypbiliB is only possible if we agree to
regard iU victims as onfortunatfi and not ae guilty
We must give up the prejudice which has led to the creation of
the term 'shameful dieeaaes/ and which commands silence con-
cerning this Bconrge of the family and of humanity." In these
words of Duclnux, the dietinguiehed successor of Faatenr at the
Pasteur Institute, in his noble and admirable work L'Hygiina
Sociale, we have indicated to us, I am convinced, the only road
by which we can approach the rational and succesBful treatment
of the great social problem of venereal disease.
The supreme importance of this key to the solution of a problem
which has often seemed insoluble is to-day beginning to become recog-
nized in all quarters, and in . every country. Tlius a distinguished
German authority, Professor Finger (Oeschlecht und Oescllachaft, Bd.
i. Heft 5) declares that venereal disease must not be regarded as the
well-merited punishment for a debauched life, hut as an unhappy
accident. It seems to be in France, however, that this truth has been
proclaimed with most courage and humanity, and not alone by ihe
followers of science and medicine, but by many who might well be
excused from interfering with so difficult and ungrateful a task. Thus
the brothers, Paul and Victor Margueritte, who occupy a brilliant and
honorable place in contemporary French letters, have distingnished
themselves by advocating a more humane attitude towards prostitutes,
and a more modem method of dealing with the question of venereal
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THE CONQUKBT OF THE VENEREAL DISEASES. 335
diaeaK. "The true method of prevention ia that which makea it clear
to all that ayphilia is not a mysterioua and terrible thing, the penalty
of the iin of the Jleah, a eort of shameful evil branded hy Catholic male-
diction, but an ordinary disease which may be treated and cured." It
ma; be remarked that the aversion to acknowledge venereal disease is
at least as marked in France as in any other country; "maladiea
faonteueea" ia a consecrated French term, just as "loathsome disease"
is in English; "in the hospital," says Landret, "it requires much trou-
ble (o obtain an avowal of gonorrhiea, and we may esteem ourselves
happy if the patient acknowledges the fact of having had syphilis."
Ho evils can be combated until they are recognized, simply
and frankly, and honestly discussed. It is a significant and evett
Bymbolic fact tliat the bacteria of disease rarely flourish vhen
they are open to the free currents of pure air. Obscurity, dis-
guise, concealment furnish the best conditions for their vigor and
diffusion, and these favoring conditions we have for centuries
past accorded to venereal diseases. It was not always so, as
indeed the survival of tlie word 'venereal' itself in this connec-
tion, with its reference to a goddess, atone suffices to show. Even
the name "Byphilis" itself, taken from a romantic poem in which
Fracaslorus sought a mythological origin for the disease, bears
witness to the same fact. The romantic attitude is indeed aa
much out of date as that of hypocritical and shamefaced obscuran-
tism. We need to face these diseases in the same simple, direct,
and courageous way which has already been adopted successfully
in the case of smallpox, a disease which, of old, men thought
analogous to syphilis and which was indeed once almost as terrible
in its ravages.
At this point, however, we encounter those who say that it is
unnecessary to show any sort of recognition of venereal diseases,
and immoral to do anything that might seem to involve indulg-
ence to those who suffer from such diseases ; they have got what
they deserve and may well be left to perish. Those who take
this attitude place themselves so far outside the pale of civiliza-
tion— to say nothing of morality or religion — ^that they might
well be disregarded. The progress of the race, the development of
humanity, in fact and in feeling, has consisted in the elimination
of an attitude which it is an insult to primitive peoples to term
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^Ob PSTOHOtOOY OF 8KX.
savage. Yet it is an attitude which should not be ignored for it
still carries weight with many who are too weak to withstand
those who juggle with fine moral phrases. I have even seen in a
medical quarter the statement that venereal disease cannot be
put on the same level with other infectious diseases because it is
"the result of voluntary action," But all the diseases, indeed all
the accidents and misfortunes of suffering human beings, are
equally the involuntary results of voluntary actions. The man
who is run over in crossing the street, the family poisoned by
unwholesome food, the mother who catches the disease of the
child she is nursing, all these suffer as the involuntary result ot
the voluntary act of gratifying some fundamental human
instinct — the instinct of activity, the instinct of nutrition, the
instinct of affection. The instinct of sex is as fundamental as
any of these, and the involuntary evils which may follow the
voluntary act of gratifying it stand on exactly the same level.
This is the essential fact: a human being in following tha
human instincts implanted within him has stumbled and fallen.
Any person who sees, not this essential fact but merely some
subsidiary aspect of it, reveals a mind that is twisted and
perverted; he has no claim to arrest our attention.
But even if we were to adopt the standpoint of the would-be
moralist, and to agree that everyone must be left to suffer his
deserts, it is far indeed from being the fact that all those who
contract venereal diseases are in any sense receiving their deserts.
In a large number of cases the disease haa been inflicted on them
in the most absolutely involuntary manner. This is, of course,
true in the case of the vast number of infants who are infected
at conception or at birth. But it is also true in a scarcely lesa
Absolute manner of a large proportion of persons infected in
later life.
Syphilis, insontium, or syphilis of the innocent, as it is com-
monly called, may be said to fall into five groups; (1) the vast
army of congenitally syphilitic infants who inherit the diseasft
from father or mother; (2) the constantly occurring cases of
syphilis contracted, in the course of their professional duties, by
doctors, midwivea and wet-nurses; (3) infection as a result of
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THE CONQDEST OF THE VENEREAL DIBEABEB. 337
affection, as in simple kisBing; (4) accidental infection from
casual eontacte and from using in common the objects and
utensils of daily life, such as cups, towels, razors, knives (as in
ritual circumcision), etc; (5) the infection of wives by their
Hereditary congenital syphilis belongs to the ordinary path-
ology of the disease and is a chief element in its social danger
since it is responsiWe for an enormous infantile mortality .^ The
risks of extragenital infection in the professional activity of
doctors, midwivea and wet-nurses is also universally recognized.
In the case of wet-nursee infected by their employers' syphilitic
infante at their breast, the penalty inflicted on the innocent is
peculiarly harsh and unnecessary. The influence of infected low-
class midwives is notably dangerous, for they may inflict wide-
spread injury in ignorance; thus the case has been recorded of a
midwife, whose finger became infected in the conrse of her
duties, and directly or indirectly contaminated one hundred per-
sons. Kissing is an extremely common source of syphilitic
infection, and of all extragenital regions the mouth is by far the
most frequent seat of primary syphilitic sores. In some cases, it
is true, especially in prostitutes, this is the result of abnormal
sexual contacts. Bnt in the majority of cases it is the result of
ordinary and slight kisses as between young children, between
parents and children, between lovers and friends and acquaint-
1 A eixtta leM numerous class migbt be added of the young girls,
often so more than children, who have been practically raped by
men who believe that intercourse with a virgin is a cure for obatinate
venereal disease. In America this belief ie frequently held by Italiana,
Chinese, negrora, etc. W. Travis Gibb, Examiiiing Physician of the
New Yorlc Society for the Prevention of Cruelty U) Children, has ex-
amined over 900 raped children (only a small proportion, he states, of
the coses actually occurring), and finds that thirteen per cent, have
venereal diseases. A fairly large proportion of these cases, among girls
from twelve to sixteen, are, he states, willing victims. Dr. Flora Pol-
lack, also, of the Johns Hopkins Hospital Dispensary, eatimfttes that
in Baltimore alone from 800 to 1,000 children between the ages of one
and fifteen are venereally infected every year. The largest number, she
finds, is at the age of six, and the chief causa appears to be, not lurt,
but superstition.
3 For a (lisciiAKion of inherited syphilis, see, e.g., Clement Lucas,
LatKMt, February 1, 1008.
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338 FSTOHOLOOT OF SEX.
ancee. Fairly typical examplea, which have been reported, are
thoae of a child, kissed by a proetitute, who became infected and
Bubeeqnoitly infected its mother and grandmother; of a young
French bride contaminated on her wedding-day by one of the
guests who, according to French custom, kissed her on the cheek
after the ceremony ; of an American girl who, returning from a
ball, kissed, at parting, the young man who had accompanied her
home, thus acquiring the disease which she not long afterwards
imparted in the same way to her mother and three sisters. The
ignorant and unthinking are apt to ridicule those who point out
the serious risks of miscellaneous kissing. But it remains nerer-
theless true that people who are not intimate enough to know
the state of each other's health are not intimate enough to kiss
each other. Infection by the use of domestic utensils, linen, etc.,
while comparatively rare among the better social classea, is
extremely common among the lower classes and among &e less
civilized nations ; in Bussia, according to Tamowsky, the chief
authority, seventy per cent, of flll cases of ayphilis in the mral
districts are due to this cause and to ordinary kissing, and a
special conference in St. Petersbui^ in 1897, for the considera-
tion of the methods of dealing with venereal disease, recorded its
opinion to the same effect; much the same seems to be true
regarding Bosnia and various parts of the Balkan peninsula
where syphilis is extremely prevalent among the peasantry. As
regards the last group, according to Bulkley in America, fifty per
cent, of women generally contract syphilis innocently, chiefly
from their husbands, while Foumier states tiiat in France
seventy-five per cent, of married women with syphilis have been
infected by their husbandB, most frequently (seventy per cent.)
by husbands who were themselves infected before marriage and
supposed that they were cured. Among men the proportion of
syphilitics who have been accidentally infected, though less than
among women, is still very considerable ; it is stated to be at
least ten per cent., and possibly it is a much larger proportion of
cases. The scrupulous moralist who is anxious that all should
have their deserts cannot fail to be still more anxious to prevent
the innocent from sufEering in place of the gnil^- But it is
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THE CONQUEST OF THE VENBKilAL DISEASES. o39
absolutely impossible for him to combine these two aims;
syphilis camiot be at the same time perpetuated for the ^Ity
and abolished for the inDocent.
I bsve been taking onlj aTphilis into account, but nearly all that
is said of the accidental infection of Byphilia applies nitii eqvial or
greater force to gonorrhtEa, for though gonoirhcea does not enter into
the system 1^ so many chanuelB as syphilis, it is a moie common as well
aa a more subtle and elusive disease.
The literature of Syphilis Insontium is «rtremely extenslTe. There
is a bibliography at the end of Zhincan Bulkley's ByphilU *n th»
Iitnoeeitt, and a comprehensive summary of the question in a Leipzig
Inaugural Dissertation I^ F. Moses, Zur Kaaaiitik der EatragenitaUn
Ss/philis-it^ektion, 1904.
Even, however, when we have put aside the vast number of
Tenereally infected people who may be said to be, in the narrowest
and most conventionally moral sense, "innocent" victims of the
diseases they have contracted, there is still much to he said on
this question. It must be remembered that the majority of those
who contract venereal diseases by illegitimate sexual intercourse
are young. They are youths, ignorant of life, scarcely yet
escaped from home, still undeveloped, incompletely educated, and
easily duped by women; in many cases they have met, as they
thought, a '^ice" girl, not indeed strictly virtnoua but, it seemed
to them, above all suspicion of disease, though in reality she was
a clandestine prostitute. Or they are young girls who have
indeed ceased to be absolutely chaste, but have not yet lost all
their innocence, and who do not consider themselves, and are not
by others considered, prostitutes; that indeed, is one of the
rocks on which the system of police regulation of prostitution
comes to grief, for the police cannot catch the proetitnte at a
sufficiently early stage. Of women who become sj'philitic, accord-
ing to Foumier, twenty per cent, are infected before they are
nineteen ; in hospitals the proportion is as high as forty per cent. ;
and of men fifteen per cent, cases occur between eleven and
twenty-one years of age. The age of maximum frequency of
infection is for women twenty years (in the rural population
eighteen), and for men twenty-three years. In Germany Erb
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340 PSTCIIOLOOT OF SEX.
£ndB that ae many as eighty-five per cent men with gonorrhcea
contracted the diaease between the ages of sixteen and twenty-
five, a very small percentage being infected after thirty. Theee
young things for the most part fell into a trap which Nature had
baited with her moat fascinating lure; they were usually
ignorant; not seldom they were deceived by an attractive per-
sonality; often they were overcome by passion; frequently all
prudence and reserve had been lost in the fumes of wine. From
a truly moral point of view they were scarcely less innocent than
children.
"I aak," eaya Duelanx, "whether when a young man, or a young
girl, abandon themselves to a dangerous caress society has done what it
can to warn them. Perhaps its intentions were good, but when the need
<vme for precise knowledge a silly prudery has held it back, and it has
left its children without viaticum. ... I will go further, and pro-
claim that in a large number of cases the husbanda who contaminate
their wives are innocent. No one is responsible for the evil which he
commits without knowing it and without willing it." I may recall the
suggestive fact, already referred to, that the majority of husbands who
infect their wives contracted the disease before marriage. They entered
on marriage believing that their disease was cured, and that they had
broken with their past. Doctors have sometimes (and quacks fre-
quently) contributed to this result by too sanguine an estimate of the
period necessary to destroy the poison. So great an authority aa
Fournier formerly believed that the syphilitic could safely be allowed
to marry three or four years after the date of infection, but now, with
increased experience, he extends the period to four or five ye^rs. It is
undoubtedly true that, especially when treatment has been thorough uid
prompt, the diseased constitution, in a majority of cases, can be brougM
under complete control in a short«r period than tliis, but there is always
a certain proportion of cases in which the powers of infection persist
tor many years, and even when the syphilitic husband is no longer
capable of infecting his wife he may still perhaps be In a condition to
effect a disastrous influence on the offspring.
In nearly all these cases there was more or less ignorance —
which is but another word for innocence as we commonly under-
stand innocence — and when at last, after the event, the facts are
more or less bluntly explained to the victim he frequently ex-
claims : "Nobody told me I" It is this fact which condemns the
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THE C0NQCE8T OF THE VENEBEAL DISEASES. 341
peeudomorallst. If he had Been to it that inotherB began to
explain the facta of eex to their little boys and girls from child-
hood, if he had (as Dr. Joseph Price urges) taught the risliB of
venereal diBeaae in the Sunday-school, if he had plainly preadied
on the relations of the sexes from the pulpit, if he had seen to it
that every youth at the beginning of adolescence received some
simple technical instruction from his family doctor concerning
sexual health and se^iual disease — ^then, though there would still
T^nain the need of pity for those who strayed from a path that
must always be difficult to walk in, the would-be moralist at all
events would in some measure be exculpated. But he has seldom
indeed lifted a finger to do any of these things.
Even those who may be unwilling to abandon an attitude of
private moral intolerance towards the victims of venereal dieeases
may still do well to remember that since the public manifestation
of their intolerance is mischievous, and at the best useless, it is
necessary for them to restrain it in the interests' of society. They
would not be the lees free to order their own personal conduct in
the strictest accordance with their superior moral rigidity ; and
that after all is for them the main thing. But for the sake of
society it is necessary for them to adopt what they may consider
the convention of a purely hygienic attitude towards these dis-
eases. The erring are inevitably frightened by an attitude of
moral reprobation into methods of concealment, and these produce
an endless chain of social evils which can only be dissipated by
openness. As Duclaux has eo earnestly insisted, it is impossible
to grapple successfully with venereal disease unless we consent
not to introduce our prejudices, or even our morals and religion,
into the question, but treat it purely and simply as a sanitary
question. And if the pseudo-moralist still has difficulty in co-
operating towards the healing of this social sore he may be
reminded that he himself — like every one of us little though we
may know it — has certainly had a great army of syphilitic and
gonorrhceal persona among his own ancestors during the past four
centuries. We are all bound together, and it is absurd, even when
it is not inhuman, to cast contempt on our own flesh and blood.
I have discussed rather fully the attitude of those who plead
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842 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
morality as a resBon for ignoring the Bocial neceseity of combating
venereal disease, because although there may not be many who
aeriously and underetandingly adopt so anti-social and inhuman
an attitude there are certainly many who are glad at need of the
existence of bo fine an excuse for their moral indifference or their
mental indolence.* When they are confronted by this great and
difficult problem they find it easy to offer the remedy of conven-
tional morality, although they are well aware that on a large
scale that remedy has long been proved to be ineffectual. They
ostentatiously affect to proffer the useless thick end of the wedge
at a point where it is only possible with much skill and prudence
to inBinuate the thin working end.
The general acceptance of the fact that sj-philia and gonor-
rhoea are diaeasea, and not necesBarily crimes or sins, is the con-
dition for any practical attempt to deal with this question from
the sanitary point of view which is now taking the place of the
antiquated and ineffective police point of view. The Scandi-
navian countries of Europe have been the pioneers in practical
modem hygienic methods of dealing with venereal disease.
There are several reasons why this has come about. All the
problems of sex — of sexual love as well as of sexual disease —
have long been prominent in these countries, and an impatience
with prudish hypocrisy seems here to have been more pronounced
than elsewhere; we see this spirit, for instance, emphatically
embodied in the plays of Ibsen, and to some extent in Bjomson's
works. The fearless and energetic temper of the people impels
them to deal practically with sexual difficulties, while their strong
instincts of independence render tbem averse to the bureaucratic
police methods which have flouriBhed in Germany and France.
The Scandinavians have thus been the natural pioneers of the
methods of combating venereal diseases which are now becoming
1 Much harm has been done in some countries bv the foolish and
mischievous practice of friendly BOfJeties and sick clubs of ignoring
venereal diseases, and not accordini; fri>e medical aid or sick pay to
those members who aiiffer from them. This practice prevailed, tor
instance, in Vienna until 1907, when a more humane and eolightened
policy was inaui^rated, venereal diseases being placed on the same level
as other dleeaies.
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THE CONQUEST OF THE VENEREAL DISEASES. 343
generally recognized to be the methods of the future, and they
have fully organized the system of putting venereal diseases under
the ordinary law and dealing with them as with other contagiouB
diseases.
The first step in dealing with a contagious disease is to apply
to it the recognized principles of notification. Every new appli-
cation of the principle, it is true, meets with opposition. It is
without practical result, it is an unwarranted inquisition into the
affairs of the individual, it is a new tax on the busy medical
practitioner, etc. Certainly notification by itself will not arrest
the progress of any infectious disease. But it is an essential
element in every attempt to deal with the prevention of disease.
Unless we know precisely the exact incidence, local variations, and
temporary fluctuatiaus of a disease we are entirely in the dark
and can only beat about at random. All progress in public
hygiene has been accompanied by the increased notification of
disease, and most authorities are agreed that such notification
must be still further extended, any slight inconvenience thus
caused to individuals being of trifling importance compared to
the great public interests at stake. It is true that so great an
authority as Neisser has expressed doubt concerning the extension
of notification to gonorrhoea; the diagnosis cannot be infallible,
and the patients often give false names. These objections, how-
ever, seem trivial; diagnosis can very seldom be infallible (though
in this field no one has done so much for exact diagnosis as
Neisser himself), and names are not necessary for notification,
and are not indeed required in the form of compulsory notification
of venereal disease which existed a few years ago in Norway.
The principle of the compulsory notification of venereal
diseases seems to have been first established in Prussia, where it
dates from 1835. The system here, however, is only partial, not
being obligatory in all cases but only when in the doctor's
opinion secrecy might be harmful to the patient himself or to the
community; it is only obligatory when the patient is a soldier.
This method of notification is indeed on a wrong basis, it is not
part of a comprehensive sanitary system hut merely an auxiliary
to police methods of dealing with prostitutioD. According to the
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844 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
ScandinaviaD eystem, notification, though not an essential part of
this Byfltem, rests on an entirely different baais.
The Scandinavian plan in a modified fomi has lately been
established in Denmark. This little country, so closely adjoining
Germany, for some time followed in this matter the example of
its great neighbor and adopted the police regulation of prostitu-
tion and venereal disease. The more fundamental Scandinavian
affinities of Denmark were, however, eventually asserted, and in
1906, the system of regulation was entirely abandoned and Den-
mark resolved to rely on thorough and aystematic application
of the sanitary principle already accepted in. the country, although
something of German influence still persists in the strict
regulation of the streets and the penalties imposed npon
brothel-keepers, leaving prostitution itself free. The decisive
feature of the present system is, however, Uiat the sanitary
authorities are now exclusively medical. Everyone, whatever
bis social or financial position, is entitled to the free treatment of
venereal disease. Whether he avails himself of it or not, he is in
any case bound to undergo treatment. Every diseased person is
thus, so far as it can be achieved, in a doctor's hands. All
doctors have their instructions in regard to such cases, they have
not only to inform their patients that they cannot marry so long
as risks of infection are estimated to be present, but that they
are liable for the expenses of treatment, as well ae the dangers
suffered, by any persons whom they may infect. Although it
has not been possible to make the system at every point thor-
oughly operative, its general success is indicated by the entire
reliance now placed on it, and the abandonment of the police
regulation of prostitution. A system very similar to that of
Denmark was established some years previously in Norway. The
principle of the treatment of venereal disease at the public ex-
pense exists also in Sweden as well as in Finland, where treatment
is compulsory.*
1 Active meaaiireB againat venereal diaease were introduced in
Sweden early in the last century, and compulsory and gratuitous treat-
ment established. Compulsory Tiotification was introduced many years
ago in Norway, and by 1007 there was a great diminution in the
prevalence of venereal <Uaeasea; there ia compulsory treatment.
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TEE CONQUEST OF TEE VENEREAL DISEASES. 345
It can scarcely be said that the principle of notification has
yet been properly applied on a large scale to venereal diseases.
But it is constantly becoming more widely advocated, more
especially in England and tbe United States,^ where national
temperament and political traditions render the system of the
police regulation of prostitution impossible — even if it were more^
effective than it practically is — and where the system of dealing
with venereal disease on the basis of public health has to be
recc^ized as not only the best but the only possible system-^
In association with this, it is necessary, as is also becoming
ever more widely recognized, that there should be the most ample
facilities for the gratuitous treatment of venereal diseases; the
general establisliment of free dispensaries, open in the evenings, is
especially necessary, for many can only seek advice and help at
this time. It is largely to the systematic introduction of facilities
for gratuitous treatment that tlie enormous reduction in venereal
disease in Sweden, Norway, and Bosnia is attributed. It is the
absence of the facilities for treatment, the implied feeling that the
victims of venereal disease are not sufferers but merely offenders
not entitled to care, that has in the past operated so disastrously
in artificially promoting the dissemination of preventable diseases
which might be brought under control.
If we dispense with the paternal methods of police regula-
tion, if we rely on the general principles of medical hygiene, and
for the rest allow the responsibility for his own good or bad
actions to rest on the individual himself, there is a further step,
already fully recognized in principle, which we cannot neglect to
take: We must look on every person as accountable for the
venereal diseases he transmits. So long as we refuse to recognize
venereal diseases as on the same level as other infectious diseases,
and so long as we offer no full and fair facilities for their treat-
1 Bee, e.g., JIottow, Booial D%aea»ea and Marriage, Ch, XXXVII.
2 A committee of the Medical Society of New York, appointed in
1602 fo consider this question, reported in favor of notiflcation without
giving names and addresses, and Dr. C. R. Diysdale, who took an active
part in the Brussels International Conference of 1899, advocated «
■imilar plaa in England, BrilUh Medical Journal, Febnuuy 3, 1900.
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346 parcHOLOGY of sex.
ment, it is unjust to bring the individual to account for spreading
them. But if we publicly recognize the danger of infectious
venereal diBeasee, and if we leave freedom to the individual, we
must inevitably declare, with Duclaux, that every man or woman
muet be held responsible (or the diseases he or she communicates.
According to the Oldenburg Code of 1814 it waa a punish-
able oScnce for a venereally diseased person to have sexual inter-
course with a healthy person, whether or not infection resulted.
In Germany to-day, however, there is no law of this kind,
although eminent German legal authorities, notably Von Liszt,
are of opinion that a paragraph should be added to the Code
declaring that sexual intercourse on the part of a person who
knows lliat he is diseased should be punieiiable by imprisonment
for a period not exceeding two years, the law not to be applied as
between married couples except on the application of one of the
parties. At the present time in Germany the transmission of
venereal diseafie is only punishable as a special case of the
infliction of bodily injury.' In this matter Germany is behind
most of the Scandinavian countries where individual respon-
sibility for venereal infection ia well recognized and actively
enforced.
In France, though the law ia not definite and satisfactory,
actions for th^ transmission of syphilis are successfully brought
before the courts. Opinion seems to be more decisively in favor
of puniphment for this offense than it is in Germany. In 1883
Despr^s discussed the matter and considered the objections. Few
may avail themselves of the law, he remarks, but all would be
rendered more cautious by the fear of Infringing it; while the
difficulties of tracing and proving infection are not greater, he
points out, than those of tracing and proving paternity in the
case of illegitimate children. Despres would punish with im-
prisonment for not more than two years any person, knowing him-
self to be diseased, who transmitted a venereal disease, and would
1 Thus in Munich, in 1909, ft man who had givpu gonorrhtpa to a
BCTvant-jdrl wns spnt to prison for ten months on thia Rroiind. The
etate of German opinion to-dHv on this subject ie summarized bf Blocb,
Betcualleben wuerer Zeit, p. 424.
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THE CONQUEST OP THE VENEB£AL DISEASES. 347
merely fine those who communicated the contagion by impru-
dence, not realizing that they were diseased. ^ The question has
more recently been discussed hy Aurientis in a Paris thesis. He
states that the present French law as regards the transmission of
sexual diseases is not clearly established and is difficult to act
upon, but it is certainly just that those who have been con-
taminated and injured in this way should easily be able to obtain
reparation. Although it is admitted in principle that the com-
munication of syphilis is an offence even under common law he is
in agreement with those who would treat it as a special offence,
making a new and more practical law.'' Heavy damages are even
at the present time obtained in the French courts from men who
have infected young women in sexual intercourse, and also from
the doctors as well as the mothers of syphilitic infants who have
infected the foster-mothers they were entrusted to. Although
the French Penal Code forbids in general the disclosure of pro-
fessional secrets, it is the duty of the medical practitioner to
warn the foster-mother in such a case of the danger she is incur-
ring, but without naming the disease; if he neglects to g;ive this
warning he may be held liable.
In England, as well as in the United States, the law is more
unsatisfactory and more helpless, in relation to this class of
offences, than it is in France. The mischievous and barbarous
notion, already dealt with, according to which venereal disease
is the result of illicit intercourse and should be tolerated as a
just visitation of God, aeems still to flourish in these countries
with fatal persistency. In England the communication of
venereal disease by illicit intercourse is not an actionable wrong
if the act of intercourse has been voluntary, even although there
has been wilful and intentional concealment of the disease. Ex
turpi causa non oritur actio, it is sententiously said ; for there is
much dormitative virtue in a Latin maxim. No legal offence has
still been committed if a husband contaminates his wife, or a
lA. Deapr^s, La Proalilulion A Parts, p. Ifll.
S F. AuTi<-ntia, Etude Medico-lfijale eur la iuriaprvtcnce aetvelle i
prtpoa de la Tranamiaaion dee Maladies YeniHcnnes, Thftae de Paris,
1906.
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348 psrcHOLOOY of sex.
wife her huBbaml.i The "freedom" enjoyed in thU matter by
England and the United States is well illustrated by an American
case quoted by Dr. Isidore Dyer, of New Orleans, in bis report to
the Brussels ConfeTence on the Prevention of Venereal Diseases,
in 1899: "A patient with primary syphilis refused even
charitable treatment and carried a book wherein she kept the
number of men she had inoculated. When I first saw her she
declared the number hsd reached two hundred and nineteen and
that slie would not be treated until she had had revenge on five
hundred men." In a community where the most elementary
rules of justice prevailed facilities would exist to enable this
woman to obtain damages from the man who bad injured her or
even to secure his conviction to a term of imprisonment. In
obtaining some indemnity for the wrong done her, and securing
the "revenge" she craved, she would at the same time have con-
ferred a benefit on society. She is shut out from any action
against the one person who injured her; but as a sort of com-
pensation she is allowed to become a radiating focus of diseade, to
shorten many lives, to cause many deaths, to pile up incatculable
damages; and in so doing she is to-day perfectly within her legal
rights. A community which encourages this state of things is
not only immoral but stupid.
There seems, however, to be a growing body of influential
opinion, both in England and in the United States, in favor of
making the transmission of venereal disease an offence punishable
by heavy fine or by imprisonment.^ In any enactment no stress
1 In England at present "a huaband knowingly and wilfully infect-
ing Iiis wife with the venereal diEteate, cannot be convicted criminnlly,
either under a charge of asiiault or of inflicting grievous bodily harm"
(N. Geaiy, TJte Lam of Marriage, p. 479). Tliia waa decided in 1888 in
the case of R. v. Clarence by nine judges to four judges in the Court
for the ConBideratiott of Crown Caees Reserved.
3 Modem democratic sentiment is opposed to the sequestration of
a prostitute merely because the is diseased. But there can be no reft-
sonabie doubt wbntever that if a diseased prostitute infecta another
person, and ia unable to pay tbe very heavy damages which should be
demanded in such a case, she ou^ht to be secluded and subjected to
treatment. That is necessary in the interests of the community. But
it is also necessary, to avoid placing a premium on the commission of
an offence which would ensure gratuitous treatment and provision for
a pro<ititute without means, tliat sha should be furnished with facilities
for treatment in any case.
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THE CONQUEST OF THE VKtfEREAL DItiBASES. 349
should be put on the infection being conveyed "knowingly." Any
formal limitation of this kind ib unneceeeary, as in each a case the
Court always takes into account the offender's ignorance or mere
negligence, and it is miscbievous because it tends to render an
enactment ineSective and to put a premium on ignorance; the
husbands who infect their wives with gonorrbcea immediately
after marriage bave usually done so from ignorance, and it
should be at least necessary for them to prove that tbey bave
been fortified in tbeir ignorance by medical advice. It is some-
times said tliat the existing law could be utilized for bringing
actions of this kind, and that no greater facilities should be
offered for fear of increasing attempts at blackmail. The
inutility of the law at present for this purpose is shown by the
fact that it seldom or never happens that any attempt is made
to utilize it, while not only are there a number of esisting pimish-
able offences which form the subject of attempts at blackmail,
but blackmail can still be demanded even in regard to disreput-
able actions that are not legally punishable at all. Moreover,
the attempt to levy blackmail is itself an offence always sternly
dealt with in the courts.
It is possible to trace the beginning of a recognition that the
transmission of a venereal disease is a matter of which legal
cognizance may be taken in the English law courts. It b now
well settled that the infection of a wife by her husband may be
held to constitute the legal cruelty which, according to the
present law, must be proved, in addition to adultery, before a
vife can obtain divorce from her husband. In 1777 Bestif de la
Bretonne proposed in his Qynogmpkes that the commtmication of
a venereal disease should itself be an adequate ground for divorce;
this, however, is not at present generally accepted,^
It is sometimes said that it is very well to make the
individual legally responsible for the venereal disease he com-
municates, but that the difficulties of bringing that reeponsibility
I It haa, however, been decided hy the Paris Court of Appeal that
for a husband to marr}' when knowing])' suffering from a venereal diB-
ease and to communicate that disease to his wife is « sufficient cause for
divorce {Senuiine Mfdicah, May. 1896).
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360 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
home would Etill remain. And those who admit these difficulties
frequently reply that at the worBt we should have in our hands
a means of educating reeponsibility; the man who deliberately
ran the risk of transmitting such infection would be made to feel
that be was no longer fairly within his legal rights but had
done a bad action. We are thus led on finally to what is now
becoming generally recognized as the chief and central method of
combating venereal disease, if we are to accept the principle of
individual responsibility as ruling in this sphere of life. Organ-
ized sanitary and medical precautions, and proper legal protection
for those who have been injured, are inoperative without the
educative influence of elementary hygienic instruction placed in
the possession of every young man and woman. In a sphere that
is necessarily bo intimate medical organization and legal resort
can never be all-sufficing; knowledge is needed at every step ia
every individual to guide and even to awaken that sense of
personal moral responsibility which must here always rule.
Wherever the importance of these questions is becoming acutely
realized — and notably at the Congresses of the (German Society
for Combating Venereal Disease — the problem is resolving itself
maiuly into one of education. ^ And although opinion and prac-
tice in this matter are to-day more advanced in Germany than
elsewhere the conviction of this necessity is becoming scarcely
less pronounced in all other civilized countries, in England and
America as much as in France and the Scandinavian lands.
A knowledge of the risks of disease by sexual intercourse^
both in and out of marriage, — and indeed, apart from sesnal
intercourse altogether, — is a further stage of that sexual education
which, as we have already seen, must begin, so far as the elemente
are concerned, at a very early age. Youths and girls should be
taught, as the distinguished Austrian economist, Anton von Men-
ger wrote, shortly before his death, in his excellent little book,
Netie Siltenlehre, that the production of children is a crime when
1 The large volume, entitled BemMlpAAagogik, containing the Pro-
wed ings of the Third of theac Con greases, almoBt ignores the Bpecial
Hubject of venereal dtBeRse, and is devoted to the questions involved \>j
the general sexual education of the young, which, as many of the apeaken
maintained, must begin with the child at his mother's knee.
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THE CONQUEST OF THE VENEBEAL DISEASES. 351
the parents are syphilitic or otherwise incompetent through trans-
missible chronic diseases. Information about venereal disease
should not indeed be given until after puberty is well established.
It is unnecessary and undesirable to impart medical knowledge to
young boys and girls and to warn them against risks they are
yet little liable to be exposed to. It is when the age of strong
sexual instinct, actual or potential, begins that the risks, under
Borne circumstances, of yielding to it, need to be clearly present
to the mind. No one who refiects on the actual facts of life
ought to doubt that it is in the highest degree desirable that every
adolescent youth and girl ought to receive some elementary
instruction in the general facts of venereal dieeaae, tuberculosis,
and alcoholism. These three "plagues of civilization" are so
wide-spread, so subtle and manifold in their operation, that every-
one comes in contact with them during life, and that everyone ift
liable to suffer, even before he is aware, perhaps hopelessly and
forever, from the results of that contact. Vague declamation
about immorality and vaguer warnings against it have no effect
and possess no meaning, while rhetorical exaggeration is unneces-
sary. A very simple and concise statement of the actual facts
concerning the evils that beset life is quite sufiicient and adequate,
and quite essential. To ignore this need is only possible to those
who take a dangerously frivolous view of life.
It is the young woman as much as the youth who needs this
enlightenment. There are still some persons so ill-informed aa
to believe that though it may be necessary to instruct the youth
it is best to leave his sister unsullied, as they consider it, by a
knowledge of the facta of life. This is the very reverse of the
truth. It is desirable indeed that all should be acquainted with
facte so vital to humanity, even although not themselves per-
sonally concerned. But the girl is even more concerned than the
youth. A man has the matter more within his own grasp, and if
he so chooses he may avoid all the grosser risks of contact with
venereal disease. But it is not so with the woman. Whatever
her own purity, she cannot be sure that she may not have to
guard against the possibility of disease in her future husband
as well as in those to whom she may entrust her child. It is a
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iJ02 PSYOHOLOOY OF SEX.
poBsibility which the educated woman, so far from being dis-
pensed from, is more liable to encounter than is the working-class
woman, for venereal disease is less prevalent among the poor than
the rich.^ The careful physician, even when his patient is a
minister of religion, considers it hie duty to inquire if he has had
ayphilia, and the clergyman of most severely correct life recog-
nizes the need of such inquiry and may perhaps smile, but seldom
feels himself insulted. The relationship between husband and
wife is even much more intimate and important than that between
doctor and patient, and a woman is not dispeuBcd from the
necessity of such inquiry concerning her future husband by the
conviction that the reply must surely be satisfactory. Moreover,
it may well be in some cases that, if she is adequately enlightened,
she may be the means of saving him, before it is too late, from the
guilt of premature marriage and its fateful consequences, bo
deserving to earn his everlasting gratitude. Even if she fails in
winning that, she etill has her duty to herself and to the future
race which her children will help to form.
In most countries there is a, growing feeling in favor of the enlight-
enment of young women equsll; witli young men as regards reaereal
diseases. Thus in German}' Max Flesch, in his /Ya«ltf«fion und Frauen'
krankheiten, oonsiders that at the end of their school dajs all girls
should receive instruction concerning the grave physicAl and social dan-
gers to which women arc exposed in life. In France I>uc1auz (in his
L'lJjfffiine Sociale) is emphatic that women must be taught, "Already,"
he states, "doctors who by custom have been made, in spite of them-
selves, the hustiand's accomplicea, will tell you of the ironical gaze th^
Bometintes encounter when tiiey seek to lead a wife antray concerning
the causes of her ills. The day is approaching of a revolt against the
social lie which has made so many victims, and you will be obliged to
teach women what they need to know in order to guard themselves
against you." It is the same in America. Reform in this field, Isidora
1 "Workmen, soldiers, and so on," Neisser remarks (Senator and
Kaminer, Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage, vol. ii, p. 485),
"can more easily find non-prostitute girls of their own class willing to
enter into amorous relation<i with them which result tn sexunl inter-
course, and they are therefore less expose<l to the danger of infoctton
than those men who have recourse almost exclusively tn prostituted*
{see also Bloch, Betmalleien unterer Beit, p. 437).
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THE COXQUESr OP THE VEKEREAL DISEASES. 353
Dyer declares, must embleuon on its flag tbe motto, "Knowledge ia
Health," as well of mind as of body, for women as well as for men.
In a discussion introduced by Denslo^ Lewis at the annual meeting of
tbe American Medical Association in 1001 on the limitation of venereal
diseases [Medieo-Legal Journal, June and September, 19031, there waa
a fairly general agreement among all tiie speakers that almost or quite
the chief method of prevention lay in education, the education of women
as much as of men. "Education lies at the bottom of the whole thing,"
declared one speaker (Seneca Egbert, of Philadelphia), "and we will
never gain much headway until every young man, and every young
woman, even before she falls in love and becomes engaged, knows what
these diseases are, and what it will mean if she marries a man who has
contracted them." "Educate father and mother, and they will educato
their sons and daughters," exclaims Egbert Orandin, more especially in
regard to ganorrhiea {Medioal Reoord, May 26, 1906} ; "I lay stress on
th« daughter because she becomes the chief sufferer from inoculation, and
It is her right to know that she should protect herself against tbe gosor-
rh«eic as well as against the alcoholic."
We must fully fac« the fact that it is the woman herself who
mnst be accounted responsible, as much as a man, for securing the
right conditions of a marriage she proposes to enter into. In
practice, at the outset, that responsibility may no doubt be in part
delegated to parents or guardians. It is unreasonable that any
false delicacy should be felt about this matter on either side.
Questions of money and of income are discusaed before marriage,
and as public opinion grows sounder none will question the
necessity of discussing the still more serious question of health,
alike that of the prospective bridegroom and of the bride. An
incalculable amount of disease and marital unhappiness would be
prevented if before an engagement was finally concluded each
party placed himself or herself in the hands of a physician and
authorized him to report to the other party. Such a report
would extend far beyond venereal disease. If its necessity became
generally recognized it would put an end to much fraud which
now takes place when entering the marriage bond. It constantly
happens at present that one party or the other conceals the
existence of some serious disease or disability which is speedily
discovered after marriage, sometimes with a painful and alarming
shock — as when a man discovers his wife in an epileptic fit on
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854 FSTCHOLOGT OF 8SX.
the wedding night — and always with the bitter and abiding sense
of having been doped. There can be no reasonable doubt that
Buch concealment is an adequate cause of divorce. Sir Thomas
More doubtless sought to guard against such frauds when he
ordained in his Utopia that each party should before marriage
be shown naked to the other. The quaint ceremony he describes
was based on a reasonable idea, for it is ludicrous, if it were not
often tragic in its results, that any person should be asked to
undertake to embrace for life a person whom he or she has not bo
much as seen.
It may be necesBary to point out that every movement in
this direction must be the spontaneous action of individuals
directing their own lives according to the rules of an enlightened
conscience, and cannot be initiated by the dictation of the com-
munity as a whole enforcing its commands by law. In these
matters law can only come in at the end, not at the beginning.
In the essential matters of marriage and procreation laws are
primarily made in the brains and consciences of individuals for
their own guidance. Unless such laws are already embodied in
the actual practice of the great majority of the community it is
useless for parliaments to enact them by statute. They will be
ineffective or else they will be worse than ineffective by producing
undesigned mischiefs. We can only go to the root of the matter
by insisting on education in moral responsibility and instruction
in matters of fact.
The question arises as to the best person to impart this
instruction. As we have seen there can be little doubt that before
puberty the parents, and especially the mother, are the proper
instructors of their children in eBoteric knowledge. But after
puberty the case is altered. The boy and the girl are becoming
less amenable to parental influence, there is greater shynese on
both sides, and the parents rarely possess the more technical
knowledge that is now required. At this stage it seems that the
assistance of the physician, of the family doctor if he has the
oroper qualities for the task, should be called in. The plan
usually adopted, and now widely carried out, is that of lectures
setting forth the main facts concerning venereal diseases, their
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TUE CONQUEST OF THE VEKEHEAL DISEASES. 356
dangers, and allied topics.^ This method is quite excellent.
Such lectures should be delivered at intervals by medical lecturers
at all urban, educational, manufacturing, military, and naval
centres, wherever indeed a large Dumber of young persons are
gathered together. It should be the buBinese of the central
educational authority either to carry them out or to enforce on
those controlling or employing young persons the duty of provid-
ing sucb lectures. Tlie lectures should be free to all who have
attained the age of sixteen.
In GeriuBiiy the principle of instruction bj lectures concerning
venereal diseaBes Beems to have become eetablisKed, at all events bo far
as young men kre coocemed, and euch lecturen are conetantl; becoming
more usual- In 1907 the lllinister of Education established courses of
lectures bj doctors on Bcxual b;giene and venereal diaeases for higher
schools and educational institution!!, though attendance was not made
oompulsoTy. The courses now frequently given by medical men to the
higher cUsses in Oerman secondary schools on the general principles of
sexual anatomy and physiology nearly always include sexual hygiene
with special reference to venereal diBcases (see, e.g., BexualpHdagogilc,
pp. 131-153). In Austria, also, lectures on personal hygiene and the
dangers of venereal disease are delivered to students about to leave the
gymnasium for the university; and the working men's clubs have
instituted regular courses of lectures on the same subjects delivered by
physicians. Id France many distinguished men, both inside and outside
the medical profession, are working for the cause of the instruction of
the young in sexual hygiene, though they have to contend against a
more obstinate degree of prejudice and prudery on the part of the middle
class than is t« be found in the Germanic lands. The Commission
Extraparlementaire du Regime des Moeurs, with the conjunction of
Aogagneur, Alfred Fournier, Yves Guyot, Gide, and other distinguished
professors, teachers, etc., has lately pronounced in favor of the ofUcial
establishment of instruction in sexual hygiene, to be given in the highest
classes at the lycCes, or in the earliest class at higher educational col-
leges; mich instruction, it is argued, would not only furnish needed
enlightenment, but also educate the sense of moral responsibility. There
is in France, also, an active and distinguished though unofflcial Soci^t^
Francaise de Prophylaxle Sanitaire et Morale, which delivers public
lectures on sexual hygiene, Fournier, Pinard, Burlureaux and other
1 The character and extent of such lectures are fully discussed In
the Proceedings of the Tliird Congress ot the German Society for Com-
bating Venereal Diseases, Semalpadagogik, 1907.
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356 PBTCHOI-OGT OF 8ES.
etninent phyaicians have written pamphlets on this ndijeet for popular
diBtribution (see, e.g., Le Progria Midical of September, 1007). In
England and the United States very little has ^et been done in thia
direction, but in the United States, at all events, opinion in favor of
action is rapidly growing (see, e.g., W. A. Funk, "The Venereal Peril,"
UedUxtl Record, April 13, 1007). The American Society of Sanitary ait^
Moral Prophylaxis (based on the parent society founded in Paris in
1600 by Foumier) was established in New York in 1905. There mre
similar societies in Chicago and Philadelphia. The main object Is ta
study venereal diseases and to work toward their social control. Doc-
tors, laymen, and xfomen are meral«rB. Lectures and short talks are
now given under the auspices of these societies to small groups of young
women in social settlements, and in other ways, with encouraging suc-
cess; it is found to be an exeellent method of reaching tlie young women
of the working classes. Both men and women physicians take part in
the lectures (Clement Cleveland, Presidential Address on "ProphylaxiB
of Venereal Diseases," Traneaelions Amerioan Oynaoologiool Sooietg,
Philadelphia, vol. sx^cii, 1007).
An important auxiliary method of carrying out the task of sexual
hygiene, and at the same time of spreading useful enlightenment, ia
furnished by tlie method of giving to every syphilitic patient in clinics
where such cases are treated a card of instruction for his guidance In
hygienic matters, together with a warning of the risks of marriage
within four or five years after infection, and in no case without medical
advice. Such printed instruction, in clear, simple, and incisive language,
should be put into the hands of every syphilitic patient as a matter of
routine, and it might be as welt to have a corresponding card for gonor-
rhieal patients. This plan has already been Introduced at some hospitals,
and it is so simple and unobjectionable a precaution that it will, do
doubt, be generally adopted. In some countries this measure is carried
out on a wider scale. Thus in Austria, as the result of a mornnent in
which several university professors have taken an active part, leaflets
and circulars, explaining briefly the chief symptoms of -venerea) diseftsea
and warning against quacks and secret remedies, are circulated among
young laborers and factory hands, matriculating students, and eeholan
who are leaving trade schools.
In France, where great social questions are sometimes faced with
a more chivalrous daring than elsewhere, the dangers of syphilis, and
the social position of the prostitute, have alike been dealt with by dis-
tinguished novelists and dramatists. Huysmans inaugurated thb move-
ment with his first novel, Marlhe, which was immediately suppressed
by the police. Shortly afterwards Edmond de Ooncourt published La
Fille Elian, the first notable novel of the kind by a distinguished author.
It was written with much reticence, and was not indeed a work of Iti^
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THE CONQDEflT OF THE VENEREAL DISEASES. 357
artletic value, but it boldly faced s great social problem and clearly set
forth the evils of the common attitude towards prostitution. It was
dramatized end played bj Auf«ine at tha Th6fi.tre Libre, but when, in
1801, Antoine wiaheil to produce it at the Porte- Saint-Martin Theatre,
the censor interfered and prohibited the play on accnunt of its "con-
texture gfin^rale." The Minister of Education defended this decision on
the ground that there was much in the play that might arouse repug-
nance and disgust. "Kepugnance here is more mors! than attraction,"
exclaimed M. Paul IWroulMe, and the newspapers criticized a censure
which permitted on the stage all the trivial indecencies which iavor
prostitution, but cannot tolerate any attack on prostitution. In more
recent years the brothers Margueritte, botli in novels and in journalism,
have largely devoted their distinguished abilities and high literary skill
to the courageous and enlightened advocacy of many social reforms.
Victor Margueritte, In his Prostitufe (1907) — a novel which has at-
tracted wide attention and been translated into various languages — has
sought to represent the condition of womi^n in our actual society, and
more especially the condition of the prostitute under what fa^ regards
as the odious and iniquitous system stil! prevailing. Tlie boi^ in a
faithful picture of the real facts, thanks to the assistance the author
teceived from the Paris Prefecture of Police, and largely for that reason
is not altogether a satisfactory work of art, but it vividly and poignantly
represento the cruelty, indifference, and hypocri^ so often shown by men
towards women, and is a book which, on that account, cannot be too
widely read. One of the most notable of modem plays is Brieux's Let
A-varift <1003l. This distinguished dramatist, himself a medical man,
dedicates his play to Fonrnier, the greatest of lyphilographers. "I think
with you," he writes here, "that syphilis will lose much of its danger
when it is possible to speak openly of an evil which is neither a shame
»or a punishment, and when those who suffer from it, knowing what
evils they may propagate, will better understand their duties towards
others and towards themselves." The story developed in the drama is
the old and typical story of the young man who has spent his bachelor
days in what he considers a discreto and regular manner, having only
had two mistresses, neither of them prostitutes, but at the end of this
period, at a gay supper at which he bids farewell to his bachelor life,
he eommita a fatal indiscretion and becomes infected by syphilis; his
marriage is approaching and he goes to a distinguished specialist who
wsms him that treatment tokes time, and that marriage is impossible
for several years; he finds a quack, however, who undertakes to cure
bim in six months; at the end of the time he marries; a eyphiliUc
child is bom; the wife discovers the state of things and forsakes her
home to retum to her parents; her indignant father, a deputy in Far-
lioinent, arrives in Paris; the last word is with the great specialist who
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3o8 PSYCHOLOOT OF SEX.
brings finally some degree of peare and hope into the family. The chief
mornls Brieiix points out are that it is ths duty of ths bride's parents
before marriage to ascertain tlie bridegroom's health > that the bride-
groom should have a doctor's certificate; tliat at every iiia.rriage tlie
part of the doctor* U at least as important as that of tile lawyers.
Even if it were a less accomplished work of art than it i*, Lrs Avarifs
is a play wliich, from the sooial and educathv point of view alone, all
who have reached tiie age of adolescenee should be compelled to eee.
Another aitpect of tlie same problem has been presented in Plu»
Fort que le Ual, a book written in dramatic form (though not as a
properly constituted play intended for the stag«) by a distlngnished
French medical author who here adopts the name of Bspy de Metz. The
author (who is not, however, pleading pi-o ifonio) calls for a more sym-
pathetic attitude towards tliose who suffer from syphilis, and though
he writes with much leas dramatic skill than Brieux, and scarcely pre-
sents his moral in so unequiiocnl n form, his work is a. notable con-
tribution to the dramatic literature of sj-philis.
It will probably be some time before these questions, poignant as
they are from the dramatic point of view, and vitally important from
the social point of view, are introduced on the English or the American
stage. It is a remarkable fact that, notwithstanding the Purit&nic ele-
ments which still exist in Anglo-Saxon thought and feeling generally,
the Puritanic aspect of life has never received embodiment in the Eng-
lish or American drama. On the English stage it is neier permitted
to hint at the tragic side of wantonness; vice must always be made
Reductive, even though n deus ea machina causes it to collapse at the end
of the performance. As tir. Bernard Shaw has said, the English thea-
trical method by no means banishes vice; it merely consents that it shall
be made attractive; its charms are advertised and its penalties sup-
pressed. "N'ou-. it is futile to plead that the stage is not the proper
place for the representation and discussion of illegal operntionB, incest,
and venereal disease. If the stage is the proper place for the eKhibition
and discussion of seduction, adultery, promiscuity, and prostitution, it
must be thrown open to nil the consequences of these things, or It will
deraoralize the nation."
The impulse to insist that vice sholl always be made attractive is
not really, notwitlistandlng appearances, a vicious impulse. It airises
from a mental confusion, a common psychic tendency, which Is by no
means confined to Anglo-Saxon lands, and is even more well marked
among the better educate In the merely literary sense, tlian among the
worse educated people. The mithetie is conhised witli the moral, and
what arouses disgust is thus regarded as immoral. In France the novels
of Zola, the most pedestrinnally moralistic of writers, were for n long
time supposed to be immoral because they were often disgusting. Ths
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THE COXQUEaT OF THE TENEBEAL DlSJiLiBES, 359
BBme feeling is still more -widespread in England. If a prostitute is
brou^t on the stage, and she is pictty, well-dresNed, geductive, she maf
gailj sail through the play and every one ia aatlafled. But it she were
not particularly pretty, well-dressed, or seductive, if it were made plain
that she was diseased and was reckless in infecting others with that
disease, if it were hinted that she could oa occaflion be foul-mouthed, if,
in short, a pi<^tnre were showu from life — then we should hear that the
unfortunate dramatist had commitled something that was "disgusting"
and "immoral." DiHgusting it might be, but, on that very account, it
would be moral. There is a distinction here that the psychologist cannot
too often point out or the moralist too often emphasise.
It is Dot for the physician to complicate and confme his own
task as teacher by mixing it up with considerations which belong
to iiie spiritual sphere. But in carrying out impartially his own
special work of enlightenment he will always do well to remem-
ber that there is in the adolescent mind, as it has been necessary
to point out in a previous chapter, a spontaneous force working
on the side of sexual hygiene. Those who believe that ttie
adolescent mind is merely bent on sensual indulgence are not less
false and mischievous in their inSuence than are those who think
it possible and desirable for adolescents to be preserved in sheer
sexual ignorance. However concealed, suppressed, or deformed —
usually by the misplaced and premature zeal of foolish parents
■ and teachers — there arise nt puberty ideal impulses which, even
though they may be rooted in sex, yet in their scope transcend
Bex. These are capable of becoming far more potent guides of the
physical sex impulse than are merely material or even hygienic
considerations.
It is time to summarize and conclude this discussion of the
prevention of venereal disease, which, though it may seem to the
superficial obsener to be merely a medical and sanitary question
outside the psychologist's sphere, is yet seen on closer view to be
intimately related even to the most spiritual conception of the
sexual relationships. Kot only are venereal diseases the foes to
the finer development of the race, but we cannot attain to any
wholesome and beautiful vision of the relationships of sex so long
as such relationships are liable at every moment to be corrupted
and undermined at their source. We cannot yet precisely
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360 PSYCHOLOGY OF 8EI.
measure the interral which must elapse before, so far as Europe at
leaBt IB concerned, aypfailis and gonorrhoea are sent to that limbo
of monstrouB old dead diseasea to which plague and leprosy have
gone and small-pox is already drawing near. But society is
beginning to realize that into this field also mnet be brought the
weapons of light and air, the Bword and the breastplate with
which all diseases can alone be attacked. As we have seen, there
are four methods by which in the more enlightened countries
venereal disease is now beginnmg to be combated.^ (1) By
proclaiming openly that the venereal diseases are diseases like
any other disease, although more subtle and terrible than most,
which may attack anyone from the unborn baby to its grand-
mother, and that they are not, more than other diseases, the
ahameful penalties of sin, from which relief is only to be sought,
if at all, by stealth, but humaa calamities; (3) by adopting
methods of securing official information concerning the extent,
distribution, and variation of venereal, disease, through the already
recognized plan of notiftcation and otherwise, and by providing
such facilities for treatment, especially for free treatment, as may
be found necessary ; (3) by training the individual sense of moral
responsibility, so that every member of the community may
realize that to inflict a serious disease on another person, even only
as a result of reckless negligence, is a more serious ofEaice than
if he or she had used the knife or the gun or poison as the method
of attack, and that it is necessary to introduce special legal
provision in every country to assist the recovery of damages for
such injuries and to inflict penalties by lora of liberty or other-
wise; (4) by the spread of hygienic knowledge, so tliat all
adolescents, youths and girls alike, may be furnished at the outset
of adult life with an equipment of information which will assist
them to avoid the grosser risks of contamination and enable them
to recognize and avoid danger at the earliest stages.
1 1 leave out of account, as bejrond the Ksope of the present work,
tiie ansiliary aida to the Bnpprenion of venereal difi^aws fumiahed by
the promising new methods, onl.v now beginning to be nnderatood. of
treating or even aborting anch diseases {see, e.g., Metohnikoff, TAe Vew
Syffime, 1906 J.
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THE CONQUEST OF THE VENEBSAL DISEASES. 361
A few yean ago, when no method of combating venereal
diaeaee was known except that system of police regulation which
ia now in its decadence, it would have been imposaible to bring
forward such coDHiderations ae theee; they would have seemed
Utopian. To-day they are not only recognizable as practical, but
they are bmg actually put into practice, although, it is true, with
very varying energy and insight in different countries. Yet it
is certain that in the competition of nationalities, as Max von
Niesaen has well said, "that country will best take a leading
place in the march of civilization which has the foresight and
courage to introduce and carry through those practical movements
of sesnal hygiene which have bo wide and significant a bearing on
its own futnre, and that of the human race generally.*
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CHAPTER IX.
BEXL'AL MORALITY.
Prostitution in Relation to Our Marriage Sj^tem — Marriage aod
Morality — The Definition of the Term "Morality"— Theoretical Morally
— Its Division Into Traditional Morality and Ideal Morality — Practical
Morality — Practical Morality Based on Custom — The Only Subject of
Scientific Ethics — The Reaction Bctweeii Theoretical and Practical
Morality — Sexual Morality in the Past an Application of Economic
Morality— The Combined Rigidity and Laiity of This Morality — The
Growth of a Specific ScKual Morality and the Evolution of Moral Ideald
— Manifestations of Sexual Morality — Disregard of the Forms of Mar-
riage— Trial Marriage — Marriage After Conception of Child — Phenomena
in Germany, Anglo-Saxon Countries, Russia, etc. — The Status of Woman
— The Historical Tendency Favoring Moral Equality of Women with
Men — The Theory of tlie Matria rebate — Mother-Descent — Women in
Babylonia — Egypt — Rome — The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries —
The Historical Tendency Favoring Moral Inequality of Woman — Tlie
Ambiguous Influence of Christianity — Influence of Teutonic Custom and
Feudalism — Chivalry— Woman in England — The Sale of Wives— The
Vanishing Subjection of Women — Inaptitude of the Modem Man to
Domineer — The Growth of Moral ResponaibiHty in Women^The Con-
comitant Development of Economic Independence — The Increase of
Women Who Work — Invasion of the Modern Industrial Field by Women
— In How Far Tliis Is Socially Justifiable— The Sexual Responsibilitj-
ot Women and Its Consequences—The Alleged Moral Inferiori^ of
Women— The "Self-Sacriflce" of Women — Society Not Concerned with
Sexual Relationships — Procreation the Sole Sexual Concern of the State
— Tlie Supreme Importance of Maternity.
It lias been necessary to deal fully with the phenomena of
prostitution because, however aloof we may personally choose to
hold ourselves from those phenomenn, they really bring us to the
heart of the sexual question in so far aa it constitutes a social
problem. If we look at prostitution from the outside, as an
objective phenojnenon, as a question of social dynamics, it is seen
to be not a merely accidental and eliminable incident of our
present marriage system but an integral part of it, without which
it would fall to pieces. This will probably be fairly clear to all
who have followed the preceding exposition of prostitutional
(362)
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SEXUAL MORALITY. 36ii
phenomena. Tliere is, however, more than tliis to be said. Not
only is proetitution to-day, as it has been for more than two
thousand years, the buttress of our marriage system, but if we
look at marriage, not from the outside as a formal institution,
but from the inside with relation to the motives that constitnte
it, we find that marriage in a large proportiou of cases is itself
in certain respects a form of prostitution. This has been
• emphasized so often and from so many widely different stand-
points that it may aeem hardly necessary to labor the point here.
But the point is one of extreme importance in relation to the
question of sexual morality. Our social conditions are unfavor-
able to the development of a high moral feeling in woman. The
difference between the woman who sells herself in prostitution
and the woman who sella herself in marriage, according to the
saying of Marro already quoted, "is only a difference in price
and duration of the contract." Or, as Forel puts it, marriage is
"a more fashionable form of prostitution," that is to say, a mode
of obtaining, or disposing of, for monetary considerations, a
sexual commodity. Marriage is, indeed, not merely a more
fashionable form of prostitution, it is a form sanctified by law
and religion, and the question of morality is not allowed to
intrude. Morality may be outraged with impunity provided that
law and religion have been invoked. The essential principle of
prostitution ia thus legalized and sanctified among us. That is
why it is ao difficult to arouse any serious indignation, or to main-
tain any reasoned objections, against our prostitution considered
by itself. The most plausible ground is that of those* who, bring-
ing marriage down to the level of prostitution, maintain that the
prostitute is a "blackleg" who is accepting less than the "market
rate of wages," i.e., marriage, for the sexual services she renders.
But even this low ground is quite unsafe. The prostitute is
really paid extremely well considering how little she gives in
return; the wife is really paid extremely badly considering how
much she often gives, and how much she necessarily gives up.
For the sake of the advantage of economic dependence on her
*E.g., K. Beltort Bax, Oatapoken Eaaays, p. I
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364 PSYCHOLOQT OF SEX.
husband, she muet give up, as Ellen Key observes, those ri^ts
over her children, her property, her work, and her own person
which she enjoys as an unmarried woman, even, it may be added,
as a prostitute. The prostitute never signs away the right over
her own person, as the wife is compelled to do ; the prostitute,
luilike the wife, retains her freedom and her personal rights,
although these may not often be of much worth. It is the wife
rather than the prostitute who is the "blackleg."
It is by no mesua only during recent years that our niArrlage ayS'
tern has been arraigned before the bar of momls. Forty years ago James
Hinton exhausted the vocabulary of denunciation in describing the
immorality and selilsh licentiousness which our marriage system covers
with Ibe cloak of legality and sanctity. "There is an unsoundness in
our marriage relations," Hinton wrote. "Not only practically are they
dreadful, but they do not answer to feelings and convictions far too
widespread to be wisely ignored. Take the case of women of markml
eminenM consenting to be a married man's mistress; of pure and simple
girls saying they cannot see why they should have a marriags by law,
of a lady saying that if she were in love she would not have any legal
tie; of its being necessary — or thought so by good and wise men — to
keep one sex in bitter and often fatal Ignorance. These things (and how
many more) show some deep unsoundness in the marriage rctatiana.
This must be probed and searched to the bottom."
At an earlier date, in 1847, Gross-Hofftnger, in his Die BcMokaale
der Fraaea and die Proslittilion — a remarkable book which Blocb, with
little exaggeration, describes as possessing an epoch-marking signiB-
cance — vigorously showed that the problem of prostitution is in reality
tbe problem of marriage, and that we can only reform away prostitution
by reforming marriage, regarded as a compulsory institution resting on
an antiquated economic basis. Groas-Hofltnger was a pioneering pre-
cursor of Ellen Key.
More than a century and « half earlier a man of very different
type scathingly analyzed the morality of his time, with a brutal frank-
ness, indeed, that seemed to his contemporaries a revoltingly cynical
attitude towards their sacred Institutions, and they felt that nothing
was left to tbem save to burn hia books. Describing modem marriage
in his Fable of the Bees (1714, p. 04), and what that marriage might
legally cover, Mandeville wrote: "The fine gentleman I spoke of need
not practice any greater self-denial than the savage, and the lattor acted
more according to the laws of nature and sincerity than the first. The
man that gratifies his appetite after the manner the custom of the coun-
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SEXUAL MORALITY, 360
tij allows of, has no MnsuTe to fear. If he is hotter than goatB or
buJla, as motm as the ceremony is over, let him sate and fatigue himself
with joy and ecstasies of pleasure, raise and indulge his appetite by
turns, as extravagantly as his strength and manhood will give him leave.
He may, with safety, laugh at the wise men that should reprove him:
all the women and above nine in ten of the men are of hia side; nay.
he has the liber^ of valuing himself upon the fury of his unbridled
passions, and the more he wallows in lust and strains ei-ery faculty to
be abandonedly voluptuous, the sooner he shall have the good-will and
gain the atfection of tlie women, not the young, vain, and lascivious only,
but the prudent, grave, and most sober matrons."
Thus the charge brought against our marriage system from the
point of view of morality is that it subcrdinates the sexual relationship
to considerations of money and of lust. That is precisely the essence of
prostitution.
Thfl only legitimately moral end of marriage — whether we
regard it from the wider biological Btandpoint or from the
narrower standpoiDt of human society — is as a sexual selection,
effected in accordance with the laws of sexual selection, and
having as its direct object a united life of complete mutual love
and as its indirect object the procreation of the race. Unlesa
procreation forms part of the object of marriage, society has noth-
ing whatever to do with it and has no right to make its voice
heard. But if procreation is one of the ends of marriage, then
it is imperative from the biological and social points of view that
no influences outside the proper natural influence of sexual
selection should be permitted to affect the choice of conjugal
partncTB, for in so far as wholesome sexual selection is interfered
with the offspring is likely to be injured and the interests of the
race affected.
It must, of course, be clearly understood that the idea of marriage
OS a form of sexual union based not on biological but on economic
considerations, is very ancient, and is sometimes found in societies that
are almost primitive. Whenever, however, marriage on a purely prop-
erty basis, and without due regard to sexual selection, has occurred
among comparatively primitive and vigorous peoples, it has been largely
deprived of its evil results by the recognition of its merely economic
character, and by the absence of any desire to suppress, even nominally,
other sexual relationships on a more natural basis which were outside
this artificial form of marriage. Polygamy especially tended to con-
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366 rsYCHOLOoY of sex.
ciliate unions on an economic basig with unions on a natural sexual
basis. Our modem marriage system has, howerer, acquired an artificial
rigidit; which excludes the possibility of this natural safeguard and
compensation. Whatever ita real moral content may be, a modem mar-
riage is always "legal" and "sacred." We are indeed so accustomed to
economic forms of marriage that, as Sidgwick truly observed {Method
of Etkiea, Bk. ii, Ch. XI), when they are spoken of aa "legalized prostitu-
tion" it constantly happens that "the phrase is felt to be extravagant
and paradoxical."
A man who marries for money or for ambition is departing
from the biological and moral ends of marriage. A woman who
sells herself for life is morally on the same level as one who sells
herself for a night. The fact that the payment seems larger,
tliat in return for rendering certain domestic services and cer-
tain personal complacencies — eervicea and complacencies in which
she may be quite inexpert — she will secure an almshouse in which
she will be fed and clothed and sheltered for life makes no differ-
ence in the moral aspect of her case. The moral responsibility is,
it need scarcely be said, at least as much the man's as the
woman's. It is largely due to the ignorance and even the
indifference of men, who often know little or nothing of the
nature of women and the art of love. The un intelligence with
which even men who might, one thinks, be not without eii)eri-
enee, select as a mate, a woman who, however fine and charming
slie may be, possesses none of the qualities which her wooer really
craves, is a perpetual marvel. To refrain from testing and
proving the temper and quality of the woman he desires for a
mate is no doubt an amiable trait of humility on a man's part.
But it is certain that a man should never be content with less than
the best of what a woman's soul and body have to give, however
unworthy he may feel himself of such a posseasion. This
demand, it must be remarked, is in the highest interests of the
woman herself. A woman can offer to a man what is a part at
all events of the secret of the universe. The woman degrades
herself who sinks to the level of a candidate for an asylum for the
destitute.
Our discussion of the psychic facts of sex has thus, it will
be seen, brought us up to the question of morality. Over and
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SEXUAL MORAXJTT, 367
over again, in setting forth the phenomena of prostitution, it has
been neceasary to use the word "moral," That word, however,
is vague and even, it may be, misleading because it has several
senses. So far, it has been left to the intelligent reader, as he
will not fail to perceive, to decide from the context in what
sense the word was used. But at the present point, before we
proceed to discuss sexual psychology in relation to marriage, it
is necessary, in order to avoid ambiguity, to remind the reader
what precisely are the chief main senses in which the word
"morality" is commonly used.
The morality with which ethical treatises are concerned is
theoretical morality. It is concerned with what people "ought"
— or what is "right" for them — to do. Socrates in the Platonic
dialogues was concerned with such theoretical morality : what
"ought" people to seek in their actions? The great bulk of
ethical literature, until recent times one may say the whole of it,
is concerned with that question. Such theoretical morality is,
as Sidgwick said, a study rather than a science, for science can
only be based on what is, not on what ought to be.
Even within the sphere of theoretical morality there are two
very different kinds of morality, so different indeed that some-
times each regards the other as even inimical or at best only by
courtesy, with yet a shade of contempt, "moral," These two
kinds of theoretical morality are traditional morality and ideal
morality. Traditional morality is founded on the long estab-
lished practices of a community and possesses the stability of all
theoretical ideas based in the past social life and surrounding
every individual born into the community from his earliest years.
It becomes the voice of conscience which speaks automatically in
favor of all the rules that are thus firmly fixed, even when the
individual himself no longer accepts them. Many persons, for
example, who were brought up in childhood to the Puritanical
observance of Sunday, will recall how, long after they had
ceased to believe that such observances were "right," they yet
in the violation of them heard the protest of the automatically
aroused voice of "conscience," that is to say the expression
within the individual of customary rules which have indeed now
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368 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
ceased to be his own but were those of the community in which he
was brought up.
Ideal morality, on the other band, refers not to the past of
the coinmunity but to its future. It is based not on the old
social actions that are becoming antiquated, and perhaps even
anti-social in their tendency, hut on new social actions that are
as yet only practiced by & small though growing minority of the
community. Nietzsche in modem times has been a conspicuous
champion of ideal morality, the heroic morality of the pioneer,
of the individual of the coming community, against traditional
morality, or, as he called it, herd-morality, the morality of the
crowd. These two moralities are necessarily opposed to each
other, but, we have to remember, they are both equally sotmd
and equally indispensable, not only to those who accept them but
to the community which they both contribute to hold in vital
tlieoretical balance. We liave seen them both, for instance,
applied to the question of prostitution; traditional morality
defends prostitution, not for its own sake, but for the sake of
the marriage system which it regards as sufficiently precious to be
worth a sacrifice, while ideal morality refuses to accept the neces-
sity of prostitution, and looks forward to progressive changes in
the marriage system which will modify and diminish prostitution.
But altogether outside theoretical morality, or the question
of what people "ought" to do, there remains practical moralitjf,
-or tiie question of what, as a matter of fact, people actually do.
This is the really fundamental and essential morally. Latin
mores and Greek $Ak both refer to custom, to the things that
are, and not to tlie things that "ought to be, except in the
indirect and secondary sense that whatever the members of the
community, in the mass, actually do, is the thing that they feel
they ouglit to do. In the first place, however, a moral act was
not done because it was felt that it ought to be done, but for
reasons of a much deeper and more instinctive character. * It
I Such raasoDS are conuected with communal welfare. "All immoral
jicls result in communal imhappineaa, all moral acts in communal happi-
ness." aa Prof. A. Mathews remarkB, "Science and Morality," Popular
Mcience Monthly, March, 1909.
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BEXUAL MOBAUTY. 869
was not first done because it was felt it ought to be done, bnt it
vati felt it "ought" to be done becauBe it bad actually become the
custom to do it.
The actions of a community are deteniuned by the vital
needs of a community under tbe special circumstances of ita
culture, time, and land. When it is tbe general custom for chil-
dren to kill their aged parents that custom is always found to be
the best not only for the community but even for the old people
themselves, who desire it; the action is both practically moral
and theoretically moral.' And when, as among ourselves, the
aged are kept alive, that action is also both practically and
theoretically moral ; it ia in no wise dependent on any law or rule
opposed to the taking of life, for we glory in the taking of life
under tbe patriotic name of "war," and are fairly indifferent
to it when involved by the demands of our industrial system;
but the killing of the aged no longer subserves any social need
and tbeir preservation ministers to our civilized emotional needs.
The killing of a man is indeed notoriously an act which differs
widely in its moral value at different periods and in different
countries. It was quite moral in England two centuries ago and
less, to kill a man for trifling offences against property, for such
punishuient commended it^lf as desirable to the general sense of
the educated community. To-day it would be regarded as highly
immoral. We are even yet only beginning to doubt the morality
of condemning to death and imprisoning for life an unmarried
girl who destroyed her infant at birth, solely actuated, against all
her natural impulses, by the primitive instinct of self-defense.
It cannot be said that we have yet begun to doubt the morality
of killing men in war, though we no longer approve of killing
women and children, or even non-combatants generally. Every
age or land has its own morality.
"Custom, in the strict sense of the word," well says Wester-
Kiarck, "involves a moral rule Society is the school
in which men learn to distinguish between right and wrong.
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370 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
The headmaster is custom."' Custom is not only the basis of
morality but also of law. "Custom is law."^ The field of theo-
retical morality has been found so fascinating a playground for
clever philosophers that there has sometimes been a danger of
forgetting that, after all, it is not theoretical morality but prac-
tical morality, the question of what men in the mass of a com-
munity actually do, which constitutes the real stuff of morals.^
If we define more precisely what we mean by morals, on the
practical side, we may say that it is constituted by those customs
which the great majority of the members of a community
regard as conducive to the welfare of the community at some
particular time and place. It is for this reason — Le.^ because it is
a question of what is and not of merely what some think ought
to be — that practical morals form the proper subject of science.
"If the word 'ethics' is to be used as the name for a science,"
Westermarck says, "the object of that science can only be to
study the moral consciousness as a fact."*
Lecky's Batory of European MoraU is a study in practical rather
than in theoretical morals. Dr. WcatcrniHTck's great work. The Origin
and Development of the Moral Ideas, is a more modern example of the
objectively scientific discussion of morals, although this is not perhaps
clearly brought out by the title. It is essentially a deacription of the
actual historical facts of what has been, and not of what "ought" to be.
Mr. L. T. Hobhouse's Morah m Evolvlion, published almost at the same
time, is simiUrly a work which, while professedly dealing with Ideas,
1 \Ve8termarck, Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, pp, 9,
ISftj also the whole of Ch. VII. Actions that are in accordance with
custom call forth public approval, actions that arc opposed to custom
call forth public resentment, and Westermarck powerfully argues tjiat
such approval and such resentment are the foundation of moral judg-
2 This is well recognized by legal writers (e. g., E. A. Schroeder, Das
Recht in der Otschlechtlichen Ordnang, p. 5).
3 W. G. Sumnpr [Folkteayit. p. 418) even considers it desirable to
change the form of the word in order to emphasize the real and funda-
mental meaning of morals, and proposes the word morrg to indicate
"popular usages and traditions conducive to societal reform." " 'Tm'
moral.' " he points out, "never means anything but contrary to the mores
of the tfme and place." There is, however, no need whatever to abolish
■ or to supplement the good old ancient word "morality," so long as we
clearly realize that, on the practical side, it means essentially custom.
* Westermarck, op. oil., vol. i, p. JJ>.
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SESIAL MOHALITY. 371
ie., with rules and regulationa, and indeed disclaiming the task of being
"the history of conduct," vH limits itself to those rules which are "in
fact, the normal conduct of the average man" (vol. i, p. 26). In other
words, it is essentially a history' ^o( practical morality, and not of
theoretical morality. One of the most subtle and suggestive of living
thinkers, M. Jules de Gaultier, in several of his books, and notabi}- in
La Dipendance de la Uorale el I'lndipendaace des ilwura (1907), has
analyzed the conception of morals in a somewhat simitar sense. "Phe-
nomena relative to conduct," as he puts it [op. eit., p. 6B), "are given
in experience like other phenomena, so that morality, or the totality of
the laws which at any given moment of historic evolution are applied
to human practice, is dependent on customs." 1 may also refer to the
masterly eiposition of this aspect of morality in L^vy-Bruhl's La Morale
et la Science des MtFurs (there is an English translation).
Practical morality ia thua the solid natural fact which forms
the biological baBis of theoretical morality, whether traditional or
ideal. The excessive fear, bo widespread among us, lest we should
injure morality is misplaced. We cannot hurt morals though
we can hurt ourselves. A[orals is based on nature and can at the
most only be modified. As Crawley rightly insists,* even the
categorical imperatives of our moral traditions, so far from being,
as is often popularly supposed, attempts to suppress Nature, arise
in tlie desire to assist Nature ; they are simply an attempt at the
rigid formulation of natural impulses. The evil of them only
lies in the fact that, like all things that become rigid and dead,
they tend to persist beyond the period when they were a beneficial
vital reaction to the environment. They thua provoke new forma
of ideal morality; and practical morals develops new structures,
in accordance with new vital relationships, to replace older and
desiccated traditions.
There is clearly an intimate relationship between theoretical
morals and practical morals or morality proper. For not only
is theoretical morality the outcome in consciousness of realized
I See, e.g., "Exogamy and the Mating of Cousins," in Essays Pre-
sented ia E. B. Tylor. 1907, p. 53. "In many departments of primitive
life we find a naive desire to, as it were, assist Nature, to afhrm what
is normal, and later to confirm it by the categorical imperative of custom
and law. This tendency still flourishes in our civilized communities,
nnd, as the worship of the normal, is often a deadly foe to the abnormal
and eccentric, and too often paralyzes originally,"
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372 PBYCHOLOOY OF SEX.
practices embodied in the general life of the commimity, bat,
baring thus become conscicniB, it reacts on those practices and
tends to support them or, by its own spontaneons growth, to
modify them. This action is diverse, according as we are dealing
with one or the other of the strongly marked divisions of theo-
retical morality : traditional and posterior morality, retarding the
vital growth of moral practice, or ideal and anterior morality,
stimulating the vital growth of moral practice. Practical
morality, or morals proper, may be said to stand between these
two divisions of theoretical morality. Practice is perpetually
following after anterior theoretical morality, in so far of course
as ideal morality really is anterior and not, as so often happens,
astray up a blind alley. Posterior or traditional morality always
follows after practice. The result is that while the actual
morality, in practice at any time or place, is always closely related
to theoretical morality, it can never exactly correspond to either
of its forms. It always fails to catch up with ideal morality;
it is always outgrowing trn^iitional morality.
Jt has been necessary at this point to formulate definitely
the three chief forms in which the word "moral" is used,
although under one shape or another they cannot but be familiar
to the reader. In the discussion of prostitution it has indeed
been easily possible to follow the usual custom of allowing the
special sense in which the word was used to be determined by the
context. But now, when we are, for the moment, directly con-
cerned with the specific question of the evolution of sexual
morality, it is necessary to be more precise in formulating the
terms we use. In this chapter, except when it is otherwise stated,
we are concerned primarily with morals proper, with actual con-
duct as it develops among the masses of a community, and only
secondarily with anterior morality or with posterior morality.
Sexual morality, like all other kinds of morality, is neces-
sarily constituted by inherited traditions modified by new adap-
tations to the changing social environment. If the influence of
tradition becomes unduly pronounced the moral life tends to
decay and lose its vital adaptability. If adaptability becomes too
fscile the moral life tends to become unstable and to lose
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BEXDAL UOBAUTT. 373
authority. It is only by a reasonable eyiitbeais of structure and
function — of what is called the traditional with what is called
the ideal — that the moral life can retain its authority without
losing its reality. Many, even among those who call themselves
moralists, have found this hard to understand. In a vain desire
for an impoBable logicality they have OTer-empbasized either the
ideal influence on practical morals or, still more frequently, the
traditional influence, which has appealed to them because of the
impressive authority Its dicta seem to convey. The results in the
sphere we are here concerned with have often been unfortunate,
for no social impulse is so rebellious to decayed traditions, so
voleanically eruptive, as tliat of ses.
We are accustomed to identify our present marriage system
with "morality*' in the abstract, and for many people, perhaps
for most, it is difficult to realize that the slow and insensible
movement which is always affecting social life at the present time,
as at every other time, is profoundly affecting our sexual morality.
A transference of values is constantly taking place; what was
once the very standard of morality becomes immoral, what was
once without question immoral becomes a new standard. Such a
process is almost as bewildering as for the European world two
thousand years ago was the great struggle between the Roman
ci^ and the Christian Charch, when it became necessary to
realize that what Marcus Aurelius, the great pattern of morality,
had sought to crush as without question immoral,* was becoming
regarded as the supreme standard of morality. The classic
world considered love and pity and self-sacrifice as little better
than weakness and sometimes worse; the Christian world not
only regarded them as moralities but incarnated them in a god.
Our sexual morality has likewise disregarded natural human
emotions, and is incapable of understanding those who declare
that to retain unduly traditional laws that are opposed to the
vital needs of human societies is not a morality but an immorality.
1 The Bpirit of Chrialiauity, as illustrated by Paulinus, in hifl
EpittU XXV, waa from the Roman point of view, as Dill remarks
{Romaa Society, p. 11), "a renunciation, not only of citizenship, but of
all the hard-woD fmite of civilizatioa and social life."
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874 PSYCHOLOGY OF BEX.
The reason why the gradual evolution of moral ideals, which
is always taking place, tends in the sexual sphere, at all events
among ourselves, to reach a stage in which there seemB to be an
opposition between different standards lies in the fact that as yet
ive really have no specific sexual morality at all.^ That may
seem surprising at first to one who refiects on the immense weight
which is usually attached to "sexual morality." And it is
undoubtedly true that we have a morality which we apply to the
sphere of sex. But that morality is one which belongs mainly to
the sphere of property and was very largely developed on a
property basia. All the historians of morals in general, and of
marriage in particular, have set forth this fact, and illustrated
it with a wealth of historical material. We have as yet no gen-
erally recognized sexual morality which has been based on the
specific sexual facts of life. That becomes clear at once when we
realize the central fact that the sexual relationship is based on
love, at the very least on sexual desire, and that that basis is so
deep as to be even ph}'siological, for in the absence of such sexual
desire it is physiologically impossible for a man to effect inter-
course with a woman. Any specific sexual morality must be
based on that fact. But our so-called "sexual morality," so far
from being based on that fact, attempts to ignore it altogether.
It makes contracts, it arranges sexual relationships beforehand,
it offerp to guarantee permanency of sexual inclinations. It
introduces, that is, considerations of a kind that is perfectly
sound in the economic spliere to which such considerations rightly
belong, but ridiculously incongruous in the sphere of sex to which
they have solemnly been applied. The economic relationships of
life, in the large sense, are, as we shall see, extremely important in
the evolution of any sound sexual morality, but they belong to the
conditions of its development and do not constitute its basis."
1 It thus happeoB that, as Lecky said in his History of European
Morals, "of all the dEpartnientn of ethipR the questions concerning the
relations of the aexes and the proper position of woman are those upon
the future of which there rests the frreatest uncertainty." Some pnw-
reia haa perhaps been made nince these words were written, but they still
hold true for the majority of people,
2 Concemint; economic marrinfte n!> a Testigial survival, see, e.g.,
Bloch, The Sexual lAfe of Our Time, p. 212.
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SEXUAL MORALITY, 375
The fact that, from the legal point of view, marriage Is primarily
AQ arrangement for securing the rights of property and inheritance is
well illustrated by the En^ish divorce law to-day. According to this
law, if a woman has sexual intercourse with any man beside her husband,
be is entitled to divorce her; if, however, tiie husband has int«rcanree
with another woman beside hia wife, she Is not entitled to a divorce:
that is only accorded if, in addition, he has also been cruel to her, or
deserted her, and from any standpoint of ideal morality such a law is
obviously unjust, and it has now been discarded in nearly all civilized
lands except England.
But from the standpoint of property and inheritance it is quit«
intelligible, and on that ground it is still supported by the majority of
Englishmen. If the wife has intercourse with other men there ia a risk
that the husband's property will be inherited by a child who is not his
own. But the sexual intercourse of the husband with other women Is
followed by no such risk. The infidelity of the wife is a serious offence
against property; the inftdelitj of the husband is no offmce against
property, and cannot possibly, therefore, be regarded as a ground for
divorce from our legal point of view. The fact that his adultery com-
plicated by cruelty is such a ground, is simply a concession to modem
feeling. Yet, as Helene Stiicker truly points out ("Verschiedenheit im
Liebesleben des Weibes und des Mannes," Zeitsohrift fiir Be»wtiwUten-
aehaft, Dec., 1908), a married man who has an unacknowledged child
with a woman outside of marriage, has committed an act as seriously
anti-social as a married woman who has a child without acknowledging
that the father is not her husband. Id the first case, the husband, and
in the second case, the wife, have placed an undue amount of respon-
sibility on another person. (The same point is brought forward by the
Autiior of The Qve»tion of Engltih Divorce, p. 30.)
I insist here on the economic element in our sexual morality,
because that is the element which has given it a kind of stability and
become established in law. But if we take a wider view of our sexual
morally, we cannot ignore the ancient element of asceticism, which has
given religious passion and sanction to it. Our sexual morality ia thua,
Jn reality, a bastard born of the union of property-morality with primi-
tive ascetic morality, neither In tme relationship to the vital facte of
tiie sexual life. It is, indeed, the property element which, with a tew
iflconaistencies, has become finally the main concern of our law, but the
ascetic element (with, in the past, a wavering relationship to law) has
had an important part in moulding popular sentiment and in creating
an attitude of reprobation towards sexual intercourse p«r »e, although
such intercourse is regarded as an essential part of the property-based
«nd reli^ously sanctified institution of legal marriage.
The glorification of virginity led by imperceptible stages to the
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878 P8TCH0L00T OP SEX.
formnUtloii of "fomlcAtioii" aa a deadly sin, and finally ai an actual
eecular "crime." It is sometimeB stated that it vas not until tba
Council of Trent that the Church fonualljr anathematjud those who
held that the state of mairiage was higher than that of virginity, but
the opinion had been more or less formally held from almost ttie earliest
ages of Christianity, and is elear in the epistles of Paul. All the
theologians agree that fornication le a mortal sin. Caramuel, indeed,
the distinguished Spanish tiieologian, who made unusual concessions to
the demands of reason and nature, held that fornication is only evil
because it is forbidden, but Innocent XI formally condemned that
proposition. Fornication as a mortal sin became gradually eeeularized
into fornication as a crime. Fomicatitm was a crime in France eren as
late aa the eighteenth century, as Tarde found In his historical Investiga-
tions of criminal procedure in Perigord; adultery was also a crime and
sererely punished quite Independently of any complaint from either of
the parties (Tarde, "Archtologie Criminells en Ferigord," Anhivet do
FAnthropoIogi« CHminelU, Nov. IS, ISOS).
The Purihsns of the Commonnealth days in England (like the
Puritans of Cleneva) followed the Catholia example and adopted ecclesi-
aatical offences against chastity into the secular law. By an Act passed
in 1<S3 f^tmication became punishable by three months' imprisonment
inflicted on both parties. 'By the same Aet the adultery of a wife (noth-
ing is said of a husband) was made felony, both for her and her partner
in guilt, and therefore punishable by death (Scobell, Acts and Or-
ditKuteet, p. 121 ) .
The action of a pseudo-morality, such aa our sexual morality
baB been, is double-edged. On the oue aide it induces a secret
and shame-faced laxity, on the other it upholds a rigid and
uninspiring theoretical code which so few can consistently follow
that theoretical morality is thereby degraded into a more or less
empty form. "The human race would gain much," said the
wise Senanconrt, "if virtue were made less laborious. The merit
would not be so great, but what is the use of an elevation which
can rarely be sustained ?"' At preaent, as a more recent moralist,
Ellen Key, pute it, we only have an immorality which favors vice
and makes virtue irrealizable, and, as she exclaima with pardon-
able extravagance, to preach a sounder morality to the young,
1 Senancourt, De I'Amour, vol. ii, p. S33. The author of Th« Quea-
tio-- of English Divorce attributes the absence of anv widespread feeling
against sexual license to the absurd tigidi^ of the law.
DiclzedbyGoOglC
SEXUAL UOBALITT. 377
without at the same time condenming the society which encour-
ages the prevailing immorality, ie "worse than folly, it is crime."
It IB on the lines along which Senanconrt a century ago and
Ellen Key to-day aie great pioneera that the new forms of ante-
rior or ideal theoretical morality are now moving, va advance
according to the general tendency in morale, of traditional
morality and even of practice.
There is one great modern movement of a definit« kind
which will serve to show how clearly Bexnal morality ia to-day
moving towards a new standpoint. This is the changing atti-
tude of the bulk of the community towards both State marriage
and religious marriage, and the growing tendency to disallow
State interference wi^ sexual relationships, apart from the pro-
duction of children.
There has no doubt always been a tendency among the
masses of the population in Europe to dispense with the ofBcial
sanction of sexual relationships until such relationships have
been well established and the hope of offspring has become
juEtifiable. This tendency has been crystallized into recognized
customs among numberless rural communities little touched
either by the disturbing inSuences of the outside world or the
controlling inBuences of theological Christian conceptions. Sut
at the present day this tendency is not confined to the more
primitive and isolated communitiee of Europe among whom, on
the contrary, it has tended to die out. It is an unquestionable
fact, says Professor Bruno Meyer, that far more than the half
of sexual intercourse now takes place outside legal marriage.*
It is among the intelligent classes and in prosperous and progres-
sive communities that this movement is chiefly marked. We see
throughout the world the practical common sense of the people
shaping itself in the direction which has been pioneered by the
ideal moralists who invariably precede the new growth of prac-
tical morality.
The voluntary childless marriages of to-day have served to
show the possibility of such unions outside legal marriage, and
Stmial-
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378 PSYCHOLOGY OF 8ES,
such free uniooB are becoming, as Mrs. Parsons points out, "a
progressive substitute for marriage."* The gradual but steadj'
rise in tlie age for entering on legal marriage also points in the
same direction, though it indicates not merely an increase of free
unions but an increase of all forma of normal and abnormal
sexuality outside marriage. Thus in England and Wales, in
190C, only 43 per 1,000 husbands and 146 per 1,000 wives were
under age, while the average age for husbands waa 38.6 years and
for wives 26.4 years. For men the age has gone up some eight
months during the past forty years, for women more than this.
In the large cities, like London, where the possibilities of extra-
matrimonial relationships are greater, the age for legal marriage
is higher than in the country.
If we are to regard the age of legal marriage as, on the whole, the
Age at which the population enters into sexual unions, it ia undoubtedly
too lafe. Beyer, a leading German neurologist, finds that there are evils
alike in early and in late marriage, and comes to the conclusion that
in temperate zones the best age for women to marry is the twenty-first
year, and for men the twenty-fifth year.
Yet, under had economic conditions and with a rigid marriage law,
.early marriages are in every respect disastrous. They are amoi^ tho
poor a sign of destitution. The very poorest marry first, and they do
BO through the feeling that their condition cannot be worse. (Dr.
Michael Ryan brought together much interesting evidence coDceming the
causes of early marriage in Ireland in his PhUotophy of Marriagt, 1837,
pp. 58-72) . Among the poor, therefore, early marriage is always ■ mis-
fortune. "Many good people," says Mr. Thomas Holmes, Secretary of
the Howard Association and missionary at police courts (in an inter-
view, Daily Chronicle, Sept. B, 1906), "advise boys and girls to get
married in order to prevent what they call a 'disgrace.' This I consider
-to be absolutely wicked, and it leads to far greater evils than it can
.possibly avert."
Early marriages are one of the commonest causes both of prostitu-
tion and divorce. They lead to prostitution in innumerable cases, even
when no outward separation takes place. The fact that they lead to
divorce is shown by the significant circumstance that in England,
although only 146 per 1,000 women are under twenty-one at marriage.
1 Elsie Clews Parsons, The Family, p. 351. Dr. Parsons rightly
thinks such unions a social evil when they check the development of
persona lit;.
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8EXLAL IIOIUUTV. 379
of the wives concerned in divorce casea, 280 per 1,000 were under twentj-
one at marriage, and this diacrepaocy is even greater than it appears,
for in the welt-to-do class, whicli c»n alone afford tiie luxury of dii-orce,
the norniHl age at marriage is much higher tlian for the population gen-
erally. Inexparience, as was long ago pointed out by Milton (who had
learnt this lesson to his cost), leads to shipwreck in marriage. "They
who have lived moat loosely," he wrote, "prove most successful in their
matches, because their wild alTections, unsettling at will, have been so
many divorces to teach them experience."
Miss Clapperton, referring to the educated classes, advocates very
early marriage, even during student life, which might then be to soma
extent carried on side by side {Scientific Jfeltomm, Ch. XVII). Ellen
Key, also, advocates early marriage. But she wisely adds that it
involves the necessity for easy divorce. That, indeed, is the only condi.
tion which can render early marriage generally desirable. Young people
— unless they possess very simple and inert natures— can neither foretell
the course of their own development and their own strongest needs, nor
estimate accurately the nature and quality of anot^r personality. A
marriage formed at an early age very speedily ceases to be a marriage
in anything but name. Sometimes a young girl applies for a separation
from her husband even on the very day after marriage.
The more or less permanent free unions formed among us in
Europe are usually to be regarded merely as trial-marriages.
That is to say they are a precaution rendered desirable both by
uncertainty as to either the harmony or the fniitfuhiess of union
until actual experiment has been made, and by the practical im-
possibility of otherwise rectifying any mistake in consequence of
the antiquated rigidity of most European divorce laws. Such trial
marriages are therefore demanded by prudence and caution, and
as foresight increases with the development of civilization, and
constantly grows among ns, we may expect that there will be a
parallel development in the frequency of trial marriage and in
the social attitude towards such unions. The only alternative —
that a radical reform in European marriage laws should render
tihe divorce of a legal marriage as economical and as con-
venient as the divorce of a free marriage — cannot yet be expected,
for law always lags behind public opinion and public practice.
If, however, we take a wider historical view, we find that we
are in presence of a phenomenon which, though favored by
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380 PSYCHOLOGT OP BEX,
moderD coaditions, is very ancient and widespread, dating, bo far
as Europe is coQcemed, from the time when the Chnrdi first
sought to impose ecclesiastical marriage, so that it is practically
a continuation of the anrfent European custom of private
marriage.
Trial-mairiftges poHB by imperceptible gradations iDto the group
of eourtstiip cuatoms which, while ■.tlowing the jouag couple to spend
the ni^t togetiier, in a position of more or less intimacj, exclude, as a
rule, actual sexual ioteroourse. Ni^t-courtsliip flouriBheB in sUble and
well-knit European communities not liable to disorganisation bj contact
with strangers. It seems to be specialty common in Teutonic and Celtic
lands, and is known by various names, as Probendchte, fenaterln, Eilt-
gang, hand-faating, bundling, »ilting-ap^ courlini; on (A« bed, etc. It is
well known in Wales; it is found in various English counties as in
Cheshire; it eidated in eighteenth century Ireland (according to Richard
Twiss'B TraveU) ; in New England it was known aa tarrying; in Holland
it is called questing. In Norway', where it is called nigM-ruaning, on
account of the long distance between the homesteads, I am told that it
is generally practiced, though the clergy preach against it; the young
girl puts on several extra skirts and goes to bed, and the young man
enters by door or window and goes to bed with her; they talk alt night,
and are not bound to marry unless it should happen that the girl becomes
pregnant.
Rhys and Brynmor-Jones {Welth People, pp. G82-4) have an inter-
esting passage on this night-courtship with numerous references. As
regards Germany see, e.g., Rudeck, QtichicMe der olfentlichen Sittlieh-
keit, pp. 146-154. With reference to trial-marriage generally many
facte and references are given by M. A. Potter {Bohrab and Ru»tem, pp.
129-137).
The custom of free marriage unions, usually rendered legal before
or after the birth of children, seems to be fairly common in many, or
perhaps all, rural parts of England. The union is made legal, if found
satisfactory, even when there is no prospect of children. In some coun-
ties it is said to be almost a universal practice for the women t« have
sexual relationships before legal marriage; sometimes she marries the
first man whom she tries; sometimes she tries several before finding the
man who suits her. Such marriages necessarily, on the whole, turn out
better than marriages in which the woman, knowing nothing of what
awaits her and having no other experiences for comparison, Is liable to
be disillusioned or to feel that she "might have done better." Even
when legal recognition is not sought until after the birth of children, it
by no means follows that any moral deterioration is involved. Thus in
DiclzedbyGoOgle
SEXLAL MORALITY. 381
some parts ot BtaSordBhire when it ia the cuBtom of tlie women to
have a child before marriage, notwithetanding this "corruption," we are
told (BnrtOD, Citg of the Baintt, Appendix IV), the women are "very
good nel^bors, excellent, bard-working, and aSectionate wives and
mothers."
"The lower social classes, especiallj peasants," remarlis Dr. Ehr-
hard ("Auch Ein Wort cur Ehereform," Qeachlecht und OeselUchafl,
Jabrgang I, Heft 10), "know better than we that the marriage bed is
the foundation of marriage. On tliat account they have retained the
primitive custom of trial -marriaip wiiich, in the Middle Ages, was still
practiced even in the best circles. It has the further advantage that
the marriage Is not concluded until it has shown itself to be fruitful.
Trial-marriage assumes, of course, that vir^nity is not valued beyond
its true worth." With regard to this point it may be mentioned that
in many parts of the world a woman is more highly esteemed if she hns
had intercourse before marriage (see, e.g., Potter, op. cit., pp. 1B3 et aeq.).
While virginity is one of the sexual attractions a woman may possess,
an attraction that is based on a natural instinct (see "The Evolu-
tion of Modesty," in vol. i of these iS'dMltes), yet an exaggerated atten-
tion to virginity can only be regarded as a sexual perversion, allied to
paidophilia, tbe sexual attraction to children.
In very small coSrdinated communities the primitive custom of
trial-marriage tends to decay when there is a great invasion of strangers
who have not been brought up to the custom ( which seeros to them indis-
tinguishable from the license of prostitution), and who fall to undertake
the obligations which trial-marriage involves. This is what happened
in the ease of the so-eatled "island custom" of Portland, which lasted
well on into the nineteenth century; according to this custom a woman
before marriage lived with ber lover until pregnant and then married
him; she wns always strictly faithful to him while living with him, but
if no pregnancy occurred the couple might decide that they were not
meant for each othfr. and break off relations. The result was that for
a long period of years no illegitimate children were born, and few mar-
riages were childless. But when the Portland stone trade was developed,
the workmen imported from London took advantage of the "island cus-
tom," but refused to fulfil the obligation of marriage when pregnancy
occurred. The custom consequently fell into disuse (see, e.g., tranidator's
note to Bloch's Beaual Life of Our Time. p. 237, and the qnototion there
g^ven from Hutohins, Biatory and Anti^Het of Doreet. vol. ii. p. 820).
It la, however, by no means only in rural districto, but in great
cities also that marriages are at the outset free unions. Thus in Paris
Desprte stat«d more than thirty years ago (£<a Prottitution A Pari*, p.
137) that in an average arrondissement nine out of ten legal marriages
are the consolidation of a free union; though, while that was an sver-
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382 PsrcHOLOOT of sex.
age, in a, few arrondiasements it was only three ont of t«n. Mach the
same conditions prevail in Paria to-day; at leut half the marriages, it
is staled, are of this kind.
In Teutonic lands the cuatom of free unions ia very aocient and
wet I'eatabli shed, lliug in iSueden, Ellen Key states {lAehe vtid Ehe, p.
123), the majority of the population begin married life in thia way.
The arrangement is found to be beneficial, and "marital fidelity Is as
great as pre-marital freedom is unboimded." In Denmarlc, aim, a large
number of children are conceived before the unions of the parents are
l^alized fRubin and Wcstcrgaard, quoted by Gaedeken, Arokivea d'An-
Ikropologie CnminelU, Feb. 15, 1909).
In Germany not only is the proportion of illegitimate births Teij
high, since in Berlin it is 17 per cent., and in some towns Tery much
higher, but ante-nuptial conceptions take place in nearly half the mar-
riages, and sometimes in the majority. Thus in Berlin more than 40
per cent, of all legitimate flrat-bom children are conceived before mar-
riage, while in some rural provinces (where the proportion of illegitimate
births is lower) the percentage of marriages following nnte-nuptial con-
ceptions is much higher than in Berlin. The conditions In rural Ger-
many have been especially investigated by a committee of Lutheran
pastors, and were set forth a few years ago in two volumes, Die Oeteh-
lechl-aittlich yerMltnisae im Detitgohen Reiche, which are full of
instruction concerning German sexual morality. In Hanover, it is said
in this work, the majority of authorities state that intercourse before
marriage is the rule. At the very least, a probe, or trial, is regarded
as a matter-of-course preliminary to a marriage, since no one wishes "to
buy a pig in a poke." In Sasony, likewise, we arc told, it Is seldom
that a girl fails to have intercourse before marriage, or that her first
child is not bom, or at all events conceived, outside marriage. This is
justified as a proper proving of a bride before taking her for good. "One
does not buy even a penny pipe without trying it," a German pastor wa^
informed. Around Stettin, in twelve districts (nearly half the whole),
sexunl intercourse before marriage is a recognized custom, and in th«
remainder, it not exactly a custom, it is very common, and is not severely
or even at ail condemned by public opinion. In some districts marriage
immediately follows pregnancy. In the Dantzig neighborhood, again,
according to the Lutheran Committee, intercourse before marriage occurs
in more than half the cases, but marriage by no means always follows
pregnancy. Nearly all the girls who go as servants have lovers, and
country people in engaging servants sometimes tell them that at evening
and night they may do as they like. This state of things is found to
be favorable to conjugal fidelity. The German peasant girl, as another
authority remarks (E. H. 5feyer, Deutnehe Tollcsluade, ISBfl. pp. 154,
1641, has her own room; she may receive her lover; it is no great
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SEXUAL MORALITY. 3S&
Aame if she givea herself to hira. The number ot women who enter
legal marriage still virgins is not large (this refers more especialljr to-
Baden), but public opinion protects them, and such opinion JB unfavor-
able to the disregard ot the responsibilities involved by sexual relation-
ships. The German woman is less chaste before marriage than her
French or Italian sister. But, Mejer adds, she is probably more faithful
after marriage than they are.
It is assumed by many that this state of German morality as it
exists to-day is a new phenomenon, and the sign of a rapid national
d^l^eneration. That is by no means the case. In this connection wa-
roay accept the evidence of Catholic priests, who, by the experience of
the confessional, are enabled to speak with authority. An old Bavarian-
priest thus writes {OesckUchI und Oetelhckaft, 1907, Bd. ii, Heft 1) ;
"At Moral Congreeses we hear laudation of 'the good old times' when
faith and morality prevailed among the people. Whether that is correct
is another question. As a young priest I heard of as many and as
serious sins as T now hear of as an old man. The morality of the people
is not greater nor is it less. The error is the belief that immoralily
goes out of the towns and poisons the country. People talk as though
the country were a pure Paradise of innocence. I will by no means call
our country people immorni, but from an experience of many years I can
say that in sexual respects there is no difference between town and coun^
try. I have learnt to know more than a hundred different parishes, and
in the most various localities, in the mountain and in the plain, on
poor land and on rich land. But everywhere I find the same morals and
lack of morals. There are everywhere the same men, though in the
country there are often better Christians than in the towns."
If, however, we go much farther back than the memories of A
living man it seems highly probable that the sexual customs of the Ger-
man people of the present day are not substantially different — though
it may well be that at different periods different circumstances have
accentuated them — from what thej' were in the dawn of Teutonic
history. This is the opinion of one of the profoundest students of Indo-
flermanic origins. In his ReoHcrtcon (art. "Keuschheit" ) O. Schrader
points out that the oft-quoted Tacitus, strictly considered, can only be
taken to prove that women were chaste after marriage, and that no
prostitution existed. There can be no doubt, he adds, and the earliest
historical evidence shows, that women in ancient Germany were not
chaste before marriage. This fact has been disguised by the tendency
of the old classic writers to idealise the Northern peoples.
Thus we have to realize that the conception ot "German virtue,"
.which has been rendered m familiar to the world by a long succession
of German writers, by no means involves any special devotion to the
virtue of chastity. Tacitus, indeed, in the passage more often quoted in
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Germanj' than any other passage in classic literature, while correctly
emphasizing the late puberty of the Germans and their brutal punish-
ment of conjugal infidelity on the part of the wife, seemed to imply that
tiiey were also chaste. But we have always to remark that Tacitua
wrote as a satirizing moralist as well as a bietorian, and that, as he
declaimed concerning the virtues of the German barbarians, he had one
eye on the Soman gallery whose vices he desired to lash. Much tli«
same perplexing confusion has been created by Qildas, who, in describing
the results of the Saxon Conquest of Britain, wrote as a preacher aa
well as a historian, and the same moral purpose (as Dill has pointed
out) distorts Salvlan's picture of the vices of fifth century Qaul. (£
may add that some of the evidence in favor of the sexual freedom
involved by early Teutonic faiths and customs is brought together in
the study of "Sexual Periodicity" in tbe first volume of these Btudiet;
ef. also, Rudeck, Oetohichte der offentlichen aittUehkeit in Deutsohland,
1697, pp. U6et teq.).
The freedom and tolerance of Russian sracual customs Is fairly
well-kDOwn. As a Russian correspondent writes to me, "the llberalisnl
of Russian manners enables youths and girls to enjoy complete inde-
pendence. They visit each other alone, they walk out alone, and Okj
return home at any hour they please. They have a liberty of movement
as complete as that of grown-up persons; some avail themselves of it
to discuss politics and others to make love. They are able also to pro-
cure any books they please; thus on the table of a college girl I knew
I saw the Elements of Soeiat Bcienee, then prohibited in Russia; thii
girl lived with her aunt, but she had her own room, which only her
friends were allowed to enter; her aunt or other relations never entered
it. Naturally, she went out and came hack at what hours she pleased.
Many other college girls enjoy the same freedom Id their families. It
is very different in Italy, where girls have no freedom of movement, and
can neither go out alone nor receive gentlemen alone, and where, unlike
Russia, a girl who has sexual intercourse Outside marriage is really 'lost'
and 'dishonored'" {ef. Bexuai-Probleme, Aug., 1908, p. 500).
It would appear that freedom of sexual relationships in Russia—
apart from the influence of ancient custom — has largely been rendered
necessary by the difficulty of divorce. Married couples, who were unable
to secure divorce, separated and found new partners without legal mar-
riage. In 1907, however, an attempt was made to remedy this defeat in
the law; a liberal dii-orce law has been introduced, mutual consent with
separation for a period of over a year being recognized as adequate
ground for divorce (BeibUtt to Ottohleoht wnd eetellsnhaft, Bd. il. Heft
fi, p. 140).
During recent years there bat developed among educated young
men and women in Russia a movement of sexual license, which, thou^ U
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SBXDAt. MORALITY. B85
1h doubtlMS supported bj the old tTaditioni of sexual freedom, must by
no means be confused with that freedom, since it is directly due (o
causes of an entirely different order. The strenuous revolutionarj efforts
made during the last years of the past century to attain political free-
dom absorbed the jounger and more energetic section of the educated
classes] involved a high degree of mental tension, and were accompanied
by a tendency to asceticism. The prospect of death was constantly befors
their eyes, and any preoccupation with sexual matters would have been
felt Bs out of harmony with the spirit of revolution. But during the
present century revolutionary activity has largely ceased. It has been,
to a considerable extent, replaced by a morement of interest in senual
problems and of indulgence in sexual unrestraint, often taking on a
somewhat licentious and sensual character. "Free love" unions have
been formed by the students of both sexes for the cultivation of those
tendencies. A novel, ArtzibasehefTs Ssanin, has had great influence in
promoting these tendencies. It is not likely that this morement, in its
more extravagant forms, will be of long duration. (For some account
of this movement, see. e.g., Werner Daya, "Die Sexuelle Bewegung in
Russland," Zeitschrift fiir SexualvnatettKhaft, Aug., lOOS; also, "Les
AsBOCiationa Erotlques en Busse," Journal da Droit Internalianal Prw4,
Jan., 1B09, fully summarized in Reoae des Idfe», Feb., 1000.)
The movement of sexual freedom in Russia lies much deeper, how-
ever, than this fashion of sensual license; it is found in remote and
uncontaminated parts of the country, and Is connected with very ancient
customs.
There is considerable interest in realizing the existence of tong-
continued sexual freedom— by some incorrectly termed "immorality," for
what is In accordance with the customs or mores of a people cannot be
immoral — among peoples so virile and robust, so eminently capable of
splendid achievements, as the Germans and the Russians. There is, bow-
ever, a perhaps even greater Interest in tracing the development of the
same tendency among new prosperous and highly progressive communi-
ties who have either not inherited the custom of sexual freedom or are
now only reviving if. We may, for instance, take the ease of Australia
and New Zealand. Thin development may not, indeed, be altogether
recent. The frankness of sexual freedom in Australia and the tolerance
In regard (o it were conspicuous thirty years ago to those who came from
England to live in the Southern continent, and were doubtless equally
visible at on earlier date. It seems. howe»-er, to have de\-eloped with
the increase of self-conscious civilization. "After careful inquiry." says
the Rev. H. Northcole, who has lived for many years in the Southern
hemisphere fChrialianilg and Sex ProhUma, Ch. VIII) , "the writer finds
sufficient ei'idence that of recent years interoonrse out of wedlock has
tended towards an actual increase in parts of Australia." Coghlan, the
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386 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
chief authority on Australian statistics, states more precisely in bis
Childbirth in New SoulK Wale», published a few years Ago: "The
prevalence of births of ante-nuptial ranception — a matter hitherto little
understood — has now been completely investigated. In New South Wales,
during six years, there were 13,366 marriages, in respect of which there
was sute-nuptial conception, and, as the total number of marriages was '
40,841, at least twenty-seven marriages in a hundred followed conception.
During the same period the illegitimate births numbered 14,779; there
were, therefore, 23,145 cases of conception amongst unmarried women;
in 13,366 instances marriage preceded the birth of the child, so that t^e
children were legitimatiied in rather more than forty-seven cases out of
one hundred. A study of the figures of births of ante-nuptial conception
makes it obvious that in a very large number of instances pre-marital
intercourse is not an anticipation of marriage already arranged, but that
the marriages are forced upon the parties, and would not be entered into
were it not for the condition of the woman" (cf. Powys, Biomttrika, vol.
i, 1901-2, p. 30). That marriage should be, as Coghlan puts it, "forced
upon the parties," is not, of course, desirable in the general moral inter-
ests, and it is also a sign of imperfect moral responsibility in the parties
them selves.
The existence of such a state of things, in a young country belong-
ing to a part of the world where the general level of prosperity, intelli-
gence, morality and social responsibility may perhaps be said to be higher
than in any other region inhabited by people of white race, is a fact of
the very first significance when we are attempting to forecast the direc-
tion in which civilized morality is moving-
It is sometimes said, or at least implied, that in this move-
ment women are taking only a passive part, and that the initiative
lies with men who are probably animated by a desire to escape
the responsibilities of marriage. This is very far from being
the case.
The active part taken by German girls in sexual matters is referred
to again and again by the Lutheran pastors in their elaborate and
detailed report. Of the Dantzig district it is said "the young girls give
themselves to the youths, or even seduce them." The military manoeuvres
are frequently a source of unchastity in rural districts. "The fault is
not merely with the soldiers, but chiefly with the girls, who become half
mad as soon as they see a soldier," it is reported from the Dresden dis-
trict. And in summarizing conditions In East Germany the report
states : "In sexual wantonness girls are not iiehind the yoiuig men ; they
allow themselves to be seduced only too nillingly; even grown-up girls
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SEXUAL ilORALlTY. 387
often go with half-growa youths, and girls frequently' give themselves to
several men, one alter tlie other. It is by no means always tlie youth
who effects the seduction, it ia very frequently the girls who entice the
youth to sexual intercourse; they do not always wait till the men come
to their rooms, but will go to the men's rooms and await them in their
beds. With this inclination to sexual intercourse, it is not surprising
that many believe that after sixteen no girl ia a virgin. Unchastity
among the rural laboring classes is universal, snd equally pronounced in
both sexes" {op. cil., vol. i, 218).
Among women of the educated rlasHCS the conditions are somewhat
different. Restraints, both internal and external, are very much greater.
Virginity, at all events in its physical fact, is retained, for the most part,
till long past girlhood, and when it is lost that loss is concealed with
a scrupulous care and prudence unknown to the working-classes. Yet
the fundamental tendencies remain the same. So far as England is con-
cerned, Geoffrey Mortimer quite truly writes {Chaplert on Human Love,
1S98, p. 117) that the two groups of (1) women who live in constant
secret association with a single lover, and (2) women who give themselves
to men, without fear, from the force of their passions, are "much larger
than is generally supposed. In all classes of society there are women
who are only virgins by repute. Slany have home children without bring
even suspected of cohabitation; but the majority adopt methods of pre-
venting conception. A doctor in a smalt provincial town declared to
me that such irregular intimacies were the rule, and not by any means
the exception in his district." As regards Germany, a Indy doctor, Fmu
Adama-Lehmann, states in a volume of the Transactions of the German
Society for Combating Venereal Disease {ScxualpadagogiJ:, p. 271) : "I
can say that during consultation hours I see very few virgins over thirty.
These women," she adds, "are sensible, courageous and natural, often the
best of their sex; and we ought to give them our moral support. They
are working towards a new age."
It is frequently stated that the pronounced tendency
witnessed at the present time to dispense as long as possible with
the formal ceremony of binding marriage is unfortunate because
it places women in a disadvantageous position. In so far as
the social environment in which she lives views with disapproval
sexual relationship without formal maiTinge, the statement is
obviously to that extent true, though it must be remarked, on
the other hand, that when social opinion strongly favors legal
marriage it acts as a compelling force in the direction of legiti-
mating free unions. But if the absence of the formal marriage
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388 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
bond constituted a Mai and intrinsic disadvantage to women in
Ecj^ual relations they would not show themselves so increasingly
ready to dispense with it. And, as a matter of fact, those who
are intimately acquainted with the facts declare that the absence
of formal marriage tends to give increased consideration to
women and is even favorable to fidelity and to the prolongation of
the union. This seems to be true as regards people of the most
different social classes and even of different races. It is probably
based on fundamental psychological facts, for the sense of com-
pulsion always tends to produce a movement of exasperation and
revolt. We are not here concerned with the question as to how
far formal marriage also is based on natural facts; that is a
question which will come up for discussion at a later stage.
The advBDtage for women of free sexual uniona over compulsoiy
marriage is well recognized in the case of the working clasHen of London.
among whom sexual relationships before marriage are not unusual, and
are indulgently regarded. It is, for instanee, clearly ABserted in the
monumental work of 0. Booth, Life and Labour of the People. "It is
even said of rough laborers," we read, for instance, in the final volume
of tbii work (p. 41), "that they behave best if not married to the woman
with whom they live." The evidence on this point is often the more
Impressive because brouglit forward by people who are very far indeed
from being anxious to base any general conclusions on it. Thua in the
Bame volume n clergyman is quoted as saying: ''These people manage
to live together fairly peaceably so long as they are not married, but If
they marry it alwajf seems to lend to blo«-s and rows."
It may be said that in such a case we witness not so much the
operation of a natural law as the influences of a great centre of civiliza-
tion exerting its moralizing elTects even on those who stand outside the
legally recognized institution of marriage. That contention may. how-
ever, be thrust aside. We And exactly the same tendency In Jamaica
where the population is largely colored, and the stress of a high civiliea-
tioQ can scarcely be said to exist. I^egal marriage is here discarded to
an even greater extent than in I»ndon, for little care is taken tn
legitimate children by marriage. It was found by a committee appointed
to inquire into the marriage laws of Jamaica, that three out of every
five births are illegitimate, that is to say that legal illegitimacy has
ceased to be immoral, having become the recognized cuitom of the
majority of the inhabitants. There is no social feeling against illegiti-
macy'. The men approve of the decay of legal marriage, because they
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SBXLAL ilOEALITY. OOV
saj' the women work belter in tlie house when they are not married; the
women approve of it, bfcause thoy aay that men are more faithful when
not bound by legal marriage. This Iiae been well brought out by W. P.
Livingstone in hin interesting book, htack Jamaica (1800). The people
recognize, he 1«I13 ut, (p. 210), that "faithful living together constitutes
marriage;" they say that th^ are "married but not parsoned." One
reason against legal marriage is that they are disinclined to incur the
expense of the official sanction. (In Venezuela, it may be added, where
also the majority of births take place outside official marriage, the chief
reason is slated to be, not moral laxity, but the same disinclination to
pay the expenses of legal weddings.) Frequently in later life, some-
times when they have grown up sons and daughters, couples go throu^
the official ceremony. (In Abyssinia, also, it is stated by Hugues Le
Houx, where the people are Christian and marriage is indissoluble and
the ceremony expensive, it U not usual for married couples to make
their unions legal until old age is coming on, Bcxual-Prohleme, April,
1008, p. 217.) It is significant that this condition of things in Jamaica,
as elsewhere, is associated with the superiority of women. "The women
of the peasant class," remarks Livingstone {p. 212), "are still practically
independent of the men. and are frequently their superiors, both in
physical and mental capacity." They refuse to bind themselves to a
man who may turn out to be good for nothing, a burden instead of &
help and protection. So long as the unions are tree they are likely to
be permanent. If made legal, the risk is that they will become intol-
erable, and cease by one of the parties leaving the other. "The necessity
for mutual kindness and forbearance establishes a condition that is the
best guarantee of permanency" (p. 214). It is said, however, that under
the influence of religious and social pressure the people are becoming
more anxious to adopt "respectable" ideas of sexual relationships, though
it seems evident, in view of Livingstone's statement, that such respecta-
bility is likely to involve a decrease of real morality, Livingstone points
out, however, one serious defect in the present conditions which makes
it easy for immoral men to escape paternal responsibilities, and this is
the absence of legal provision for the registration of the father's name
on birth certificates (p. 256). In every country where the majority of
births are illegitimate It is an obvious social necessity that the names
of both parents should he duly registered on all birth certificates. It
lias been an unpardonable failure on the part of (he Jamaican Govern-
ment to neglect the simple measure needed to give "each child born in
the country a legal father" (p. 253).
We thus see that we have to-day reached a position in which
— partly owing to economic causes and partly to causes which are
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890 PSYCHOLOGY OF 6ES.
more deeply rooted in the tendencieB involved by ciTilization —
-women are more often detached than of old from legal sexual
relationehip with men and both sexeB are lesa inclined than in
earlier stages of civilization to sacrifice their own independence
even when they form Buch relationsMpB. "I never heard of a
woman over sixteen years of age who, prior to the breakdown
of aboriginal customs after the coming of the whites, had not a
husband," wrote Curr of the Australian Blacks.^ £ven as
regards some parts of Europe, it is still possible to-day to make
almost the same statement. But in all the richer, more enei^ic,
and progressive countries very different conditions prevail.
Marriage is late and a certain proportion of men, and a still
larger proportion of women (who exceed the men in the general
population) never marry at all.'
Before we consider the fateful significance of thia fact of
the growing proportion of adult unmarried women whose sexual
relationships are unrecognized by the state and largely unrecog-
nized altogether, it may be well to glance summarily at the two
historical streams of tendency, both still in action among us,
which affect the status of women, the one favoring the social
equality of the sexes, the other favoring the social subjection of
women. It is not difficult to trace these two streams both in
conduct and opinion, in practical morality and in theoretical
morality.
At one time it was widely held that in early states of society,
before the establishment of the patriarchal stage which places
women under the protection of men, a matriarchal stage prevailed
in which women possessed supreme power.^ Bachofen, half a
1 For evidence regarding the general absence of celibacj smong both
savage and barbarouB peoples, see, e.g., Westerniarek, Eistory of Humon
Marriage, Ch. VII.
3 There are, for instance, two millions of umnarried women in
IVanee, while in Belgium .^0 per cent, of the women, and in Oermanj
»ometimee even 60 per cent, are unmarried.
3 Such a, position n'ould not be biologically unreasonable, in view
of the greatly preponderant part placed by the female in the sexual
process which insures the conservation of the race. "If the ^exual
instinct is regarded solely from the physical side." says D. W, H. Buseh
(Das Oeschlechlskben des Wdbea, 1839, vol. i, p. 201), "the woman
cannot be regarded as the property of the man, but with equal and
greater reason the man may lie regarded as the property of the woman."
D,c,lz.dbyG0X>gle
8EXUAL MOEALITT. 391
century ago, waa the great champion of this view. He found
a typical example of a matriarchal state among the ancient
LyciauB of Asia Minor with whom, HerodotUB stated, the child
takes the name of the mother, and follows her status, not that
of the father.^ Such peoples, Bachofen believed, were gynteco-
cratie ; power was in the hands of women. It can no longer be
said that this opinion, in tlie form held by Bachofen, meets with
any considerable support. As to the wide-Bpread prevalence of
descent through the mother, there is no doubt whatever that it
has prevailed very widely. But such descent through the mother,
it has become recognized, by no means necessarily involves the
power of the mother, and mother-descent may even be combined
with a patriarchal system. ^ Tliere has even been a tendency to
run to the opposite extreme from Bachofen and to deny that
mother-descent conferred any special claim for consideration on
women. That, however, seems scarcely in accordance with the
evidence and even in the absence of evidence could scarcely be
regarded as probable. It would seem that we may fairly take as
a type of the matriarchal family that based on the ambil andk
marriage of Sumatra, in which the husband lives in the wife's
family, paying nothing and occupying a subordinate position.
The example of the Lyciana is here in point, for although, as
reported by Herodotus, there is nothing to show that there was
anything of the nature of a g)'n3?cocracy in Lyeia, we know that
women in all these regions of Asia Minor enjoyed high consider-
ation and influence, traces of which may be detected in the
early literature and history of Christianity. A decisive and
better known example of the favorable influence of mother-
descent on the status of woman is afforded by the beena marriage
of early Arabia. Under such a system the wife is not only pre-
1 Herodotus, Bk. i. Ch. CLXXIII.
2 That power and relationship are entirely distinct was pointed out
many yeara ago by L. von Dargun, Mullerreeht und Vaterreokt, 1892.
Westermarck (Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, vol. I, p.
656), who is inclinnl to think that Steinmetz has not proved conclUBively
that mother-descent involves Um authority of husband over wife, makes
the important qualification that the husband's authority is impaired
when he lives among hia wife's kinsfolk.
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392 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
served from the subjection involved by purchaEe, which always
caste upon her some shadow of the inferiority belonging to
property, but she hereelf ia the owner of the tent and the houae-
hold property, and enjoys the dignity always involved by the
possession of property and the ability to free herself from her
husband.*
It is also impossible to avoid connecting the primitive
tendency to mother-descent, and the emphasis it involved on
maternal rather than paternal generative energy, with the tend-
ency to place the goddess rather than the god in the forefront of
primitive pantheons, a tendency which cannot possibly fail to
reflect honor on the sex to which the supreme deity belongs, and
which may be connected with the large part which primitive
women often play in the functions of religion. Thus, according
to traditions common to all the central tribes of Australia, the
woman formerly took a much greater share in the performance
of sacred ceremonies which are now regarded as coming almost
esclusively within the masculine province, and in at least one
tribe which seems to retain ancient practices the women still
actually take part in these ceremonies.^ It seems to have been
much the same in Europe, We observe, too, both in the Celtic
pantheon and among iVIediterranean peoples, that while all the
ancient divinities have receded into the dim background yet the
goddesses loom larger than the gods.' In Ireland, where ancient
custom and tradition hare always been very tenaciously preserved,
women retained a very high position, and much freedom both
before and after marriage. "Every woman," it was said, "is to
go the way she willeth freely," and after marriage she enjoyed
a better position and greater freedom of divorce than was afforded
1 Robertson Smith, Kiiithip and Marriage in Early Arabia; 3. G.
Frazer has pointed out (Academy, March 27, 1888) that the partially
Semitic peoples on the North frontier of AbysBinia, not subjected to the
revolutionary processes of lalam, preserve a system closely resembling
beena marriage, as well as some traces of the opposite gyateni, hy Robert-
son Smith called ba'al marriage, in which the wife is acquired by pur-
chase and becomes a piece of property.
* Spencer and Olllen, yortkern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 358.
3KhV8 and Brynmor. Jones, Tke Welmh People, pp. 55-fli cf. Rhys,
Celtic Heathendom, p. 93.
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SEXUAL MORAIIIY. 393
either by the Christian Church or the English common law,'
There is leas difficulty in recognizing that mother-descent was
peculiarly favorable to the high status of women when we realize
that even under very unfavorable conditions women have been
able to esert great pressure on the men and to resist aucceaafully
the attempts to tyrannize over them.^
If we consider the status of woman in the great empires of
antiquity we find on the whole that in their early stage, the stage
of growth, as well as in their final stage, the stage of fruition,
women tend to occupy a favorable position, while in their middle
stage, usually the stage of predominating military organization
on a patriarchal basis, women occupy a less favorable posi-
tion. This cyclic movement seems to be almost a natural law of
the development of great social groups. It was apparently well
marked in the very stable and orderly growth of Babylonia. In
the earliest times a Babylonian woman had complete independ-
ence and equal rights with her brothers and her husband ; later
(as shown by the code of Hamurabi) a woman's rights, though
not her duties, were more circumscribed ; in the still later Neo-
Babylonian periods, she again acquired equal rights with her
husband.^
In Egypt the position of women stood highest at the end, but
it seems to have been high throughout the whole of the long
course of Egyptian history, and continuously improving, while
the fact that little regard was paid to prenuptial chastity and
that marriage contracts placed no stress on virginity indicate the
absence of the conception of women as property. More than
three thousand five hundred years ago men and women were
recognized as equal in Egypt, The high position of the Egyptian
woman is significantly indicated by the fact that her child was
never illegitimate ; illegitimacy was not recognized even in the
1 Rhys Hnd BrTmnor-Jones, op. eit., p. 214.
2 Crawley {The Mystic Ro»e,f. 41 et eeq.) gives numerouB instanoei.
8 Revillout, "L» Femme dans rAntiquite," Jnvmal Astatique. IftM,
vol. vii, p. 67. See, alao, Victor Marx, Bettrdge aur Aeai/riologie, 18B9,
Bd. iv. Heft 1.
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394 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
case of a slave woman's child.' "It is the glory of Egj'ptian
morality," says Am^lineau, "to have been the first to express the
Dignity of Woman."^ The idea of marital authority was
altogether unknown in Egypt. There can be no doubt that the
high status of woman in two civilizations so stable, so vital, so
long-lived, and so infiuential on human culture as Babylonia and
Egypt, is a fact of much significance.
Among the Jews there Beenia to have been no inteinnediate atage of
subordination of women, but instead a, gradual progress throughout from
complete subjection of the woman as wife to ever greater freedom. At
first the husband could repudiate his wife at will without cause. (ThU
was not an extension of patriarchal authority, but a purely marital
authority.) The restrictions on this authority gradually increased, and
begin to be observable already in the Book of Deuteronomj. The
Mishnah went further and forbade divorce whenever the wife's condition
inspired pity (as in insanity, captivity, etc). By A. D. 1025, divorce
waa no longer possible except for legitimate reasons or by the wife's con-
sent. At the same time, the wife also began to acquire the right of
divorce in the form of compelling the husband to repudiate her on penalty
of punishment in case of refusal. On divorce the wife became an inde-
pendent woman in her own right, and was permitted to carry off the
dowry which her husband gave her on marriage. Thus, notwithstanding
Jewish respect for the letter of the law, the flexible jurisprudence of the
Rabbis, in harmony with the growth of culture, accorded an ever-growing
measure of sexual justice and equality to women (D. W. Amram, Tb«
Jetoish Law of Divorce ) .
Among the Arabs the tendency of progress has also been favorable
to women in many respects, especially as regards inheritance. Before
Mahommed, in accordance with the system prevailing at Medina, women
had little or no right of inheritance. The legislation of the Koran modi-
fled this rule, without entirely abolishing it, and placed women in a much
better position. This is attributed largely to the fact that Mahommed
belonged not to Medina, but to Mecca, where traces of matriarchal cus-
tom still survived (W. Marcais, Dei Parent* et dea AUiia Succesiibha en
Droit Muaulman).
1 Donaldson, Woman, pp. IS6, 241 et acq. NJetzold. IDie Eke in
"Agypien," p, 17), thinks the statement of Diodorus that no cliildren were
illegitimate, needs qualification, but that certainly the illegitimate child
in Egypt wab at no I'Ocial disadvantage.
^Aroelineau, La. Morale Egj/ptienne. p. in4-, Hobhouse, ilorala in
Evolution, vol. i, p. 187; Flinders Petrle, Religion and Conscience in
Ancient Bgypt, pp. 131 et acq.
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SEXUAL MORALITY. tfaO
It aukj be pointed out — for it u not always realiied — that even
that stage of civilization — when it occura — which Involves Uie suixirdiiia-
tiou ftnd subjection of woman and her rights really has its origin in the
need for the protection of women, and is son^etimeB even a sign of the
acquirement of new privileges by women. They are, as it were, locked
vp, not in order to deprive them of their rights, but in order to guard
those rights. In the later more stable phase of civilisation, when women
are no longer exposed to the name dangers, this motive is forgotten and
the guardianship of woman and her rights seems, and indeed has really
become, a hardship rather than an advantage.
Of the status of women at Borne in the earliest periods we
know little or nothing; the patriarchal system was already firmly
establiehed when Roman history begins to become clear and it
involved unusually strict subordination of the woman to her
father first and then to her husband. But nothing is more cer-
tain than that the status of women in Rome rose with the rise of
civilization, exactly in the same way as in Babylonia and in
Egypt. In the case of Rome, however, the growing refinement
of civilization, and the expansion of the Empire, were associated
with the magnificent development of the system of Homan law,
which in its final forms consecrated the position of women. In
the last days of the Republic women already began to attain the
same legal level as men, and later the great Antonine juris-
consults, guided by their theory of natural law, reached the
conception of the equality of the sexes as a principle of the code
of equity. The patriarchal subordination of women fell into
complete discredit, and this continued until, in the days of
Justinian, under the influence of Christianity, the position of
women began to suffer,* In the best days the older forms of
Roman marriage gave place to a form (apparently old but not
hitherto considered reputable) which amounted in law to a
temporary deposit of the woman by her family. She was
independent of her husband (more especially as she came to
him with her own dowry) and only nominally dependent on her
family. Marriage was a private contract, aecompnnied by a
religious ceremony if desired, and being a contract it could be
1 Maine, Anoifnt Lair, C'h. \'.
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396 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
disBolred, tot nay reaEOD, in the presence of competent witnesses
and with due legal forms, after the advice of the family council
had been taken. Consent was the esaenee of this marriage and
no shame, therefore, attached to its dissolution. Nor had it any
evil effect either on the liappiness or the morals of Roman
women. 1 Such a system is obviously more in harmony with
modern civilized feeling than any system that has ever been set
up in Christendom.
In Rome, also, it is clear that this system was not a mere
legal invention but the natural outgrowth of an enlightened
public feeling in favor of the equality of men and women, often
even in the field of sexual morality. I'lautus, who makes tlit-
old slave Syra ask why there is not the same law in this respect
for the husband as for the wife,' had preceded the legist TJIpinn
who wrote: "It seems to be very unjust that a man demands
chastity of his wife while he himself shows no example of it.""
Such demands lie deeper than social legislation, but the fact that
these questions presented themselves to typical Roman men
indicates the peneral attitude towards women. In the final atapt--
of Roman society the bond of the patriarchal system so far as
women were concerned dwindled to a mere thread binding then)
to their fathers and leaving them quite free face to face with
their husbands. "The Roman matron of the Empire," says
Hobhouse, "was more fully her own mistress than the married
woman of any earlier civilization, with the possible exception of a
certain period of Egyptian history, and, it must be added, than
the wife of any later civilization down to our own generation.*
On the strength of the Btatements of two satirical writers, Juvenal
nnd T«citu9, it has been supposed by msnr that Roman women of the
late period were given up fo license. It is, however, idle to seek in
satirists any balanced picture of a great eiviliiation. Hobhouse (foe.
eil., p. 216) condudeq that on the whole, Roman women nortliily
retained the position of tbelr husbandii' companions, counaeDors and
> Donaldson, Woman, pp. 109, 120.
S Uercator, iv, S.
s Digest XLVIII, 13, 5.
*HobhoMse, Morals in Evolution, vol, i, p. 213.
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SEXUAL WOIiALITY. 397
(rienda which tbey had lield when an austere system placed them legally
in his power. Most authoritiea seem now to be ot this opinion, though
at an earlier period FriedlSnder expressed himself more dublauslr. Thus
Dill, in his judidoua Roman Society (p. 163), states that the Baman
woman'B position, both in law and in fact, rose during the Empire; with-
out being less virtuous or respected, she became far more occomplishnt
and attractive; with fewer restraints she had greater charm, and
influence, even in public affairs, and was more and more the equal ot her
husband. "In the last age of the Western Empire there Is no deteriora-
tion in the position and influence of women." Principal Donaldson, also,
in his valuable historical sketcli. Woman, considers (p. 113) that there
was no degradation of mornis in the Roman Empire; "the licentiousness
of Pagan Rome is nothing t« the licentiousness of Christian Africa,
Rome, and Gaul, if we can put any reliance on the description of
Salvian." Salvian's description of Christendom is probably exaggerated
and one-sided, but exactly the same may be said in an even greater
degree of the descriptions of ancient Rome left by clever Pagan satirists
and ascetic Christian preachers.
It thus becomcB necesaary to leap over considerablj' more than
a thousand j'ears before we reach a stage of civilization in any
degree approaching in height tlie final stage of Roman society.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, at first in France,
then in England, we find once more the moral and legal move-
ment tending towards the equalization of women with men. We
find also a long aeries of pioneers of that movement foreshadow-
ing its developments : Mary Astor, "Sophia, a Lady of QnaUty,"
Segur, Mrs. Wheeler, and very notably Mary Wollstonecraft in
A Vindication of the Rights i>f Woman, and John Stflart Mill in
The Subjection of Women.^
The main European stream of influences in this matter
within historical times has involved, we can scarcely doubt when
we take into consideration its complex phenomena as a whole, the
maintenance of an inequality to the disadvantage of tvomen.
The fine legacy of Roman law to Europe was indeed favorable to
women, but that legacy was dispersed and for the most part lost
in the more predominating inflnence of tenacious Teutonic
1 For an account of the work of some of the less known of these
pioneers, see a series of articles by Harriet Mcllquham In the Weit-
minster Review, especially Nov,, IBM, and Nov., 1903.
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898 PSTCHOLOGT OF SEX.
cuBtom aesociated with the vigorously organized Chrietian
Church. Notwithstandiiig that the facts do not all point in the
same direction, and that there is coneequently some difference of
opinion, it seems evident that on the whole both Teutonic custom
and Christian religion were unfavorable to the equality of
women with men. Teutonic custom in this matter was deter-
mined by two decisive factors: (1) the existence of marriage by
purchase which although, as Crawley has pointed out, it by no
means necessarily involves the degradation of women, certainly
tends to place them in an inferior position, and (2) pre-occupa-
tion with war which is always accompanied by a depreciation of
peaceful and feminine occupations and an indifference to love.
Christianity was at its origin favorable to women because it
liberated and glorified the most essentially feminine emotions,
but when it became an established and organized religion with
definitely ascetic ideals, its whole emotional tone grew unfavor-
able to women. It had from the first excluded them from any
priestly function. It now regarded them as the special repre-
sentatives of the despised element of sex in life.' The eccentric
TertuUian had once declared that woman was janua Diaboli;
nearly seven hundred years later,^even the gentle and philosophic
Ansehn wrote : Femina fax eat Sataruc.^
Thus among the Franks, with whom the practice of monogamy pre'
vailed, a Wtiman was never free; she could not buy or aell or inherit
without the permission of those to whom she belonged. She passed into
the posaeiaion of her husband by acquisition, and when he Gxed the
wedding day he gave her parents coins of small money as arilut, and
the day after the wedding she received from him a present, the morgen-
gabe. A widow belonged to her parents again (Bedollierre, Bialoire de
Mieurt dea Frangaia, vol. i, p. *80). It is true that the Salic law
ordained a pecuniary fine for touching a uoman, even for squeezing her
finger, but it ia clear that the offence thus committed was an offenw
against property, and by no means ngainst tlie sanctity of a woman's
personality. The primitive German husband could sell his children, und
1 The influence of Christianity on the position of nonicn has been
well discussed by Lecfcy, Ristorn of European itorals, vol. ii, pp. 316 f(
aeq., and more recently by Donaldson, Woman, Bk. iii.
^Higne, Patrologia, vol. clvili, p. 686.
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8BXDAL MOEAUTT. 399
sometimes bis wife, even into Hlavery. In the eleventh ctatury cases of
wife-selling are still heard of, though no longer recognized by law.
The traditions of Christianity were more favorable to sexual
equality than were Teutonic customs, but in becoming amalgamated with
those customs they added their own special contribution as to woman's
impurity. This spiritual inferiority of woman was significantly shown
by the restrictions sometimes placed on women in church, and even in
the right to enter a church; in some places they were compelled to
remain in the narthex, even in non-monastic churches (see for these
rules. Smith and Cheetham, DicHonan/ of Chrittian Anliquitiea, art.
"Sexes, Separation of").
By attempting to desexualize the idea of man and to oversexualize
the Idea of woman, Christianity necessaj-ily degraded the position of
woman and the conception of womanhood. As Donaldson well remarks,
in pointing this out {op. cit., p. 182), "I may define man as a male
human being and woman as a female human being. .... What the
early Christians did was to strike the 'male' out of the definition of man,
and 'human being* out of the definition of woman." Religion generally
appears to be a powerfully depressing influence on the position of woman
notwithstanding the appeal which it makes to woman. Westemarck
considers, indeed (Oriffin and Development of the Moral Idettt, vol. 1,
p. 60B), that religion "has probably been the most persistent cause of
the wife's subjection to her husband's rule."
It is sometimes said that the Christian tendency to place women
in an inferior apirilual position went so far that a church council
formally denied that women have souls. Tliis foolish story has Indeed
been repeated in a parrot-like fashion by a number of writers. The
source of the story is probably to be found in the fact, recorded by
Gregory of Tours, in his history (lib. viii, cap. XX), Ujat at the Ck)uncil
of MBcon, in 685, a bishop was In doubt as to whether the term "man"
included woman, but was convinced by the other members of the Council
that it did. The same difficulty has presented itself to lawyers In more
modem times, and has not always been resolved so favorably to woman
as by the Christian Council of MBcon.
The low estimate of women that prevailed even in the early Church
is admitted by Christian scholars. "We cannot but notice," writes
Meyrick (art. "Marriage," Smith and Cheetham, Dietionary of Chrittuin
AntiquiticH) , "even in the greatest of the diristian fathers a lamentably
low estimate of woman, and consequently of the marriage relationship.
Even St. Augustine can see no justification for marriage, except in a
grave desire deliberately adopted of having children; and in accordance
with this view, all married intercourse, except for this single purpose, is
harshly condemned. If marriage is sought after for the sake of children,
it is justifiable; if entered into as a remediutn to avoid worse evils, it
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AOO 'PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX,
ia pardonable; the id?a of tlie mutual society, help, and comfort that
the one ought to have of the other, both in proBperity and adrereity,
hardly existed, and eould hardly yet exist"
From the woman's point of view, Lily Braun, in her important
work on the woman question {Die Frauenf rage, 1801, pp. 2S et seq.) con-
cludes that, in BO far aa Christianity was favorable to women, we must
see that favorable influence in the placing of women on the same moral
levpl as men, as illustrated in the saying of Jesus, "Let him who is with-
out sin amongst you cast the first stone." implying that each sex owes
the same fidelity. It reached, she adds, no further than this. "Chris-
tianity, which women accepted as a deliverance with so much enthusiasm,
and died far as martyrs, has not fulfllled their hopes."
Even as regards the moral equality of the sexes in marriage, the
position ol Christian authorities was sometimes fK^uivocal. One of th«
greatest of the Fathers, St. Basil, in the latter half of the fourth cen-
tury, distingnished between adultery and fornication as committed by a
married man; i( with a married woman. It was adultery; if with an
unmarried woman, ft was merely fornication. In the former case, a wife
should not receive her husband back; in the latter case, she should {art.
"Adultery," Smith and Cheetham, Dictionary of Ghrittian AnIiqiiititJt) .
Such a decision, by attaching supreme importance to a distinction which
could make no difference to the wife. Involved a failure to recognize ber
moral personality. Sfany of the Fathers in the Western Church, how-
ever, like Jerome, Augustine, and Ambrose, could see DO reason why tiia
moral low should not be the same for the husband as for the wife, but
as late Roman feeling both on the legal and popular side was already
approximating to that view, the influence of Christianity was scarcely
required to attain it. It ultimately received formal sanction in the
Roman Canon I«w, which decreed that adultery is equally committed by
either conjugal party in two degrees : ( 1 ) aimpUx, of the married with
the unmarried, and (2) duplex, of the married with the married.
It can scarcely be said, however, that Christianity succeeded in
attaining the inclusion of this view of the moral equality of the sexes
into actual practical morality. It was accepted in theory; it was not
followed in practice. W. G. Sumner, discussing this question (folft-
tcoya, pp. 359-361), concludes: "Why are these views not in the moreaf
Undoubtedly it is because they are dogmatic in form, invented or imposed
by theological authority or philosophical speculation. They do not grow
-out of the experience of life, and cannot be verifled by it. The reasons
are in ultimate physiological facts, by virtue of which one Is a ivoman
and the other is a man." There is, however, more to be said on this
point later.
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SEXUAL MOBALITY. 401
It waa .probably, howeyer, not bo much the Church as
Teutonic cuetome and the development of the feudal system, with
the masculine and military ideals it fostered, that was chiefly
decisive in fixing the inferior position of women in the mediffival
world. Even the ideas of chivalry, which have often been
supposed to be peculiarly favorable to women, so far as they
affected women seem to have been of little practical significance.
In Iiis great work on chivalry Qautier brings forward much evi-
dence to show that the feudal spirit, like the militarj spirit alwaja and
everywhere, on the whole involved at bottom a disdain tor women, even
though it occasionally idealized them. "Go into your painted and gilded
rooms," we read in Renaua de MiMttavban, "sit in the shade, make your-
selves comfortable, drink, eat, work tapestiy, dye silk, but remember
that you must not occupy yourselves with our affairs. Our business is
to strike with the steel sword. Bilence!" And if the woman insists sho
is struck OB Uie face till the blood comes. The husband had a legal right
to beat his wife, not only for adultery, but even for contradicting him.
Women were not, however, entirely without power, and in a thirteenth
century collection of Coutume», it is set down that a husband must only
beat his wife reasonably, re»nahUment. (As regards the husband's ri(^t
to chastise his wife, see also Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, vol. i, p.
234. In England it was not until tbe reign of Charles II, from which
so many modem movements date, that the husband was deprived of this
legal right.)
In the eyes of a feudal knight, it may be added, the beauty of a
horse competed, often successfully, with the beauty of a woman. In
OiTbers de Melt, two knights, Gsrin and his cousin Girbert, ride by a
window at which sits a beautiful girl with the face of a rose and the
white flesh of a lily. "Look, cousin Girbert, lookt By Saint Mary, a
beautiful woman!" "Ah," Girbert replies, "a beautiful beast is my
horse!" "I have never seen anything so charming as that young girl
with her fresh color and her dark eyes," says Garin. "I know no steed
to compare with mine," retorts Girbert. When the men were thua
absorbed in the things that pertain to war, it is not surprising that
amorous advances were left to young girls to make. "In all the ohaitaona
de geste," Gautier remarks, "it is tbe young girls who make the advaneea,
often with effrontery," though, he adds, wives are represented as more
virtuous (L. Gautier, La Ghevalcrie, pp. 236-8, 348-60).
In England Pollock and Maitland {Hittorjf of BnglUh Lav>, vol. il,
p. 437) do not believe that a lifelong tutela of women ever existed u
among other Teutonic peoples. "From the Conqueet onwards," Hobhouso
states (op. cif., vol. i, p. 224), "the unmarried English woman, on attaln-
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402 PSYCHOLOGY OF 8ES.
ing her majority', becomes full; equipped with nil legal and civil rights,
at much a legal personality as the Babylonian woman hud been three
thousand years before." But the developed English law more than made
up for any privileges thus accorded to the unmarried by the inconsistent
manner in wliich it swathed up the wife in endless folds of irrespon-
sibility, except when she committed the supreme offence of injuring her
lord and master. The English wife, as Hobhouse continues {loc. cil.)
was, if not Ker husband's slave, at any rate his liege subject; if she
killed him it was "petty treason," the revolt of a subject against a
sovereign in a miniature kingdom, and a more serious offence than mur-
der. Murder she could not commit in his presence, for her persooality
was merged in him; he was responsible for most of her crimes and
offences (it was that fact which gave him the right to chastise her), and
he could not even enter into a contract with her, for that would be enter-
ing into a contract with himself. "The very being and legal existence
of a woman is suspended during marriage," said Blackstone, "or at least
is incorporated and consolidated into that of her huBband, under whose
wing, protection and cover she performs everjthing. So great a favor-
ite," he added, "is the female sex of the laws of England." "The
strength of woman," says Hobhouse, interpreting the sense of the Eng-
lish law, "was her weakness. She conquered by yielding. Her gentle-
ness had to be guarded from the turmoil of the world, her fragrance to
be kept sweet and fresh, away from the dust and the smoke of battle.
Hence her need of a champion and guardian."
fn Prance the wife of the medieval and Renaissance periods
occupied much the same position in her husband's house. He was her
absolute master and lord, the head and soul of "the feminine and feeble
creature" who owed to him "perfect love and obedience." She was his
chief servant, the eldest of his children, his wife and subject; she signed
herself "your humble obedient daughter and friend," when she wrote to
iiim. The historian. De Maulde la ClaviSre, who has brought together
evidence on this point in his Fenime« de la Renaissance, remarks that
even though the husband enjoyed this lofty and superior position in
marriage, it was still generally he, and not the wife, who complained of
the hardships of marriage.
Law and custom assumed that a woman should be more or
lesE under the protection of & man, and even the ideals of fine
womanhood which arose in this society, during feudal and later
times, were necessarily tinged by the same conception. It
involved the inequality of women as compared with men, but
under the social conditions of a feudal society such inequality
was to woman's advantage. Maeculine force was the determine
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SEXUAL MOHALITT. 403
ing factor in life and it was necesBary that every woman should
have a portion of this force on her side. This sound and
reasonable idea naturally tended to persist even after the growth
of civilization rendered force a much less decisive factor in social
life. In England in Queeu Elizabeth's time no woman must be
masterless, although the feminine subjects of Queen Elizabeth
had in their sovereign the object lesson of a woman who could
play a very brilliant and effective part in life and yet remain
absolutely maaterlesB. Still later, in the eighteenth century, even
BO fine a moralist as Shaftesbury, in his Characteristics, refers to
lovers of married women as invaders of property. If such con-
ceptioDB still ruled even in the best minds, it is not surprising
that in the same century, even in the following century, they
were carried out into practice by less educated people who
frankly bought and sold women.
Schrader, in his Reallfxicon (art. "Brautkauf'li points out that,
originally, the purchase of a wife was the purchase of her person, and
not merely of the right of protecting her. The original conception prob.
ably persisted long in Great Britain on account of its remoteness from
the centres of civilization; In the eleventh century Gregory VII desired
Lanfranc to stop the sale of wives in Scotland and elsewhere in the island
of the English (Pike, UUtory of Crime in England, vol. i, p, 09). The
practice never quite died out, however, in remote country districts.
Such transactions have taken place even in London. Thus in the
Annual Regitler for 1767 {p. BO) we read: "About three weeks ago a
bricklayer's laborer at Jlarylebone sold a woman, whom he had cohabited
with for several years, to a fellow- workman for a quarter guinea and a
gallon of beer. The workman went off with the purchase, and she has
since had the good fortune to have a legacy of £200, and some plate, left
her by a deceased uncle in Devonshire. The parties were married last
Friday."
The Rev. J. Edward Vau.r [Ckitroh Folk-lore, second edition, p.
146) narrates two authentic cases in which women had been bought by
their husbands in open market in the nineteenth century. In one case
the wife, with her own full consent, was brought to market with a halter
round her neck, sold for half a crown, and led to her new home, twelve
miles off by the new husband who had purchased her; in the other case
a publican bought another man's wife for a two-gallon jar of gin.
It is the same conception of woman, as property which, even to the
present, has caused the retention in many legal codes of clauses render-
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404 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
ing a man liable to paj pecuniary damages to a woman, preriously »
virgin, whom he has intercourie with and subsequently forsakes (Natalie
Fuchs, "Die Jungf«rnBchaIt im Recht und Sitte," Semtal-ProbUme, Feb.,
IMS). The woman is "dislionored" by sexual intercourse, depreciated
in her market vnlue, exactly aa a new garment becomes "second -hand,"
even if it has but once been n/ini. A man, on the oUier hand, would
disdain the idea that his personal value could be diminished by any
number of acts of sexual intercourse.
This fact has even led some to advocate the "abolition of physical
virginity." Thus the German autliorcss of Una Poenitentium (1907),
considering that the protection of a woman is by no means so well secured
by a little piece of membrane as by the presence of a true and watchful
soul inside, advocates the operation of removal of the hymen in child-
hood. It is undoubtedly true that the undue importance attached to the
hymen has led to a false conception of feminine "honor," and to an
unwholesome conception of feminine purity.
Custom and law are slowly cliangiog in harmony with
changed social conditions which no longer demand the subjection
of women either in their own interests or in the interests of the
community. Concomitantly with these changes a different ideal
of womanly personality is developing. It is true that the ancient
ideal of the lordship of the hnsband over the wife is still more
or less consciously afSrmed around na. The husband frequently
dictates to the wife what avocations she may not pursue, what
places she may not visit, what people she may not know, what
books she may not read. He assumes to control her, even in
personal matters having no direct concern with himself, by
virtue of the old masculine prerogative of force which placed a
woman under the hand, as the ancient patriarchal legists termed
it, of a man. It is, however, becoming more and more widely
recognized that such a part is not suited to tlie modem man. The
modem man, as liosa Majreder has pointed out in a thoughtful
essay,' is no longer equipped to play this domineering part in
relation to his wife. The "noble savage," leading a wild life on
mountain and in forest, hunting dangerous beasts and scalping
enemies when necessary, may occasionally bring his club gently
and effectively on to the head of his wife, even, it may be, with
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SEXUAL MOBALITT, 405
grateful appreciation on her port.^ But the modem man, who
for th« most part spends his days tamely at a desk, who has been
trained to endure silently the inanlts and humiliations which
superior officials or patronizing clients may inflict upon him,
this typical modem man is no longer able to assume eSectually
the part of the "noble savage" when he retuma to his home. He
is indeed so unfitted for the part that his wife resents his
attempts to play it. He is gradually recognizing this, even
apart from any consciousness of the general trend of civiliza-
tion. The modem man of ideas recognizes that, as a matter
of principle, his wife is entitled to equality with himself;
the modem man of the world feels that it would be both ridiculmis
and inconvenient not to accord his wife much the same kind of
freedom which he himself possesses. And, moreover, while the
modem man has to some extent acquired feminine qualities, the
modem woman has to a corresponding eltent acquired masculine
qualities.
Brief and summary as the preceding discussion has neces-
sarily been, it will have served to bring us face to face with the
central fact in the sexual morality which the growtli of civiliza-
tion has at the present day rendered inevitable : personal respon-
sibility. "The responsible human being, man or woman, is the
centre of modem ethics as of modem law ;" that is the conclusion
reached by Hobhouse in his discussion of the evolution of human
morality.^ The movement which is taking place among us to
liberate sexual relationships from an excessive bondage to fixed
and arbitrary regulations would have been impossible and mia-
chievous but for the concomitant growth of a sense of personal
responsibility in the members of the community. It could not
indeed have subsisted for a single year without degenerating into
license and disorder. Freedom in sexual relations Involves
1 Rasmussen (People of the Polar North, p. 56) , describes a f«ri>cioufl
quarrel between husband and wife, who each in turn knocked the other
down. "Somewhat later, when I peeped in, they were lying affectionately
asleep, with their arms around each other."
zHobhouBP, Jiorala in Evolution, vol. ii, p. 367. Dr. StSoker, in
Die Lirbe und die Fraufn. also insists on the significance of this factor
of personal responsibilits.
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406 PaYClIOLOOY OF BEX,
mutual trust and that can only rest on a baeis of personal respon-
sibility. Where there can be no reliance on personal respon-
sibility there can be no freedom. In most fields of moral action
this sense of personal responsibility is acquired at a fairly early
stage of social progress. Sexual morality is the last field of
morality to be brought witliin tlie sphere of personal respon-
sibility. The community imposes the most varied, complicated,
and artificial codes of sexual morality on its members, especially
its feminine members, and, naturally enough, it is always very
suspicious of their ability to observe these codes, and is careful
to allow them, so far as possible, no personal responsibility in the
matter. But a training in restraint, when carried through a
long series of generations, is the best preparation for freedom.
The law laid on the earlier generations, as old theology stated
the matter, has been the schoolmaster to bring the later genera-
tions to Christ; or, as new science expresses exactly the same
idea, the later generations have become immunized and have
finally acquired a certain degree of protection against the virus
which would have destroyed the earlier generations.
The process bf which a people acquirea the sense of personal respon-
aibilitf is slow, and perhaps it cannot be adequatelj acquired at all by
races lacking a high grade of nervous organization. Tliig is especially
the case as regards sexual morality, and has often twen inuBtrat«d on
the contact of a higher with a lower civilization. It hag constantly
happened that missionaries— «ntirely against their own wialies, it need
not be said — by overthrowing the strict moral system they have found
established, and by substituting the freedom of European cuatoma among
people entirely unprepared for such freedom, have exerted the most
disastrous effects on morality. This has been the case among the for-
merly well -organized and highly moral Baganda of Central Africa, as
recorded in an official report by Colonel Lambkin {British Medical Jour-
nal, Oct. 3. 1908).
Afl regards Polynesia, also, B. L, Stevenson, in his interesting Iiook,
In the Botith Seat (Ch. V), pointed out that, while before the coming of
the whites the Polynesians were, on the whole, ehaate, and the young
carefully watched, now it is far otherwise.
Even in Fiji, where, according to Lord Stanraore — who was High
CommiBsioner of the Pacific, and an independent critic — missionary effort
has been "wonderfully successful," where all own at least nominal
allegiance to Christianity, which lias much modified life and character.
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SEXUAL MOEALITT. 407
jet chastitj' has suffered. Thia was shown hy a Rojal Commission on
the condition of the native races in Fiji. Mr. Fitchett, commenting on
this report (Australasian Review of Revietca, Oct., 1807) remarks; "Not
a few witnesses examined by the commission declare that the moral
advance in Fiji is of a curiously patchy type. The abolition of polygamy,
for example, they say, has not told at every point in favor of women.
The woman is the toiler in Fiji; and when the support of the husband
was distributed over four wivea, the burden on each wife was less than
it is now, when it has to be carried by one. In heatiien times female
chasti^ was guarded by the club; a faithless wife, an unmarried
mother, was Bummarily put to death, Christianity has abolished club-
law, and purely moral restraints, or the terror of the penalties of the
next world, do not, to the limited imagination of the Fijian, quite take
its place. So the standard of Fijian cbaitity is diatresstngly low."
It must always be remembered that when the highly organized
primitive system of mixed spiritual and physical restraints is removed,
chastity becomes more delicately and unstably poised. The controlling
power of personal responsibility, valuable and essential as it is, cannot
permanently and unremittingly restrain the volcanic forces of the pas-
sion of love even in high civilisations. "No perfection of moral consti-
tution in a woman," Hinton has well said, "no power of will, no wish
and resolution to be 'good,' no force of religion or control of custom, can
flecure what is called the virtue of woman- The emotion of absolute
devotion with which some man may inspire her will sweep them all away.
Society, in choosing to erect itself on that basis, chooses inevitable dis-
order, and so long as it continues to choose it will continue to have that
It 18 neceBBary to insist for a. while on this personal respon-
sibility in matters of sexual morality, in the form in which it is
making itself felt among ue, and to search out its implications.
The most important of these is undoubtedly economic independ-
€nce. That is indeed so important that moral responsibility in
any fine sense can scarcely be said to have any existence in its
absence. Moral responsibility and economic independence are
indeed really identical ; they are but two sides of the same social
fact. The responsible person is the person who is able to answer
for his actions and, if need be, to pay for them. The economic-
ally dependent person can accept a criminal responsibility; he
can, with an empty purse, go to prison or to death. But in the
ordinary sphere of everyday morality that large penalty is not
required of him; if he goes against the wishes of his family or
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408 PSYCHOLOGY OF SZX.
his friends or his parish, they may turn their backs on him but
they canBot usually demand against him the last penalties of the
law. He can exert his own personal responsibility, he can freely
choose to go his own way and to maintain himself in it before
his fellowmen on one condition, that he is able to par for it.
His personal responsibility has little or no meaning except in so
far as it is also economic independence.
In civilized societies as they attain maturity, the women tend
to acquire a greater and greater degree alike of moral respon-
sibility and economic independence. Any freedom and seeming
equality of women, even when it actually assumes the air of
superiority, which is not bo based, is unreal. It is only on
sufferance; it is the freedom accorded to the child, because it
asks for it so prettily or may scream if it is refused. This is
merely parasitism.! The basis of economic independence ensures
a more real freedom. Even in societies which by law and custom
hold women in strict subordination, the woman who happens to
be placed in possession of property enjoys a high degree alike of
independence and of responsibility.^ The growth of a high
civilization seems indeed to be so closely identified with the
economic freedom and independence of women that it is diffi-
cult to say which is cause and which effect. Herodotus, in his
fascinating account of Egypt, a land which he regarded as
admirable beyond all other lands, noted with surprise that, totally
unlike the fashion of Greece, women left the men at home to the
management of the loom and went to market to transact the
1 Olive Schreiner has especially emphasized the evila of parasitiam
for women. "The increased wealth of the male," she remarks ("The
Woman's Movement of Our Day," Harper't Bazaar, .Tan., 1B02 ) , "no more
of necessity tienefits and raises the female upon whom he expends it. than
the increased wealth of his miatrcaa necessarily benefits, mentally or
physically, a poodle, because she can then give him a down cushion in
place of one of feathers, and chicken in place of beef." Olive Schteiner
believes that feminine parasitism is a danger which really thre«tena
society at the present time, and that if not averted "the whole body of
females in civili?^ societies must sink into a state of more or leas
absolute dependence."
!fn Rome and in Japan, Hobhouse notes {op. oit.. vol, i, pp. 169,
176), the patriarchal system reached its fullest extension, yet the taws
of both these countries placed the husband in a position of practical sub-
jugation to a rich wife.
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SEXtTAL MOHALITY. 409
buEUieEs of commerce.' It is the economic factor in social life
which secures the moral leeponsibility of women and which chieAy
determines the position of the wife in relation to her husband.^
In this respect in its late stages civilization returns to the same
point it had occupied at the beginning, when, as has already been
noted, we find greater equality with men and at the same time
greater economic independence .^
In all the leading modem civilized countries, for a century
past, ciistom and law have combined to give an ever greater
economic independence to women. In some respects England
took the lead by inaugurating the great industrial movement
which slowly swept women into ita ranks,'' and made inevitable
the legal changes which, by 1882, insured to a married woman
the possession of her own earnings. The same movement, with
its eame consequences, is going on elsewhere. In the United
States, just as in England, there is a vast array of five million
women, rapidly increasing, who earn their own living, and their
position in relation to men workers is even better than in Eng-
land. In France from twenty-five to seventy-five per cent, of the
workers in most of the chief industries — the liberal pi:ofessionB,
1 Herodotus, Bk. ii, Ch. XXXV. Herodotus noted that it was the
woman and not tlie man on whom the responsibility for supporting aged
parents rested. That alone involved a very high econoinie position of
women. It is not surpTising that to some obaervers, as to DJodorus
Siculue, it seemed that the Egyptian woman was mistress over her
husband.
2Hobhoiise {loo. cit.). Hale, and also Grosse, believe that good
economic position of a people involves high position of women. Wester-
niarck (Moral Ideas, vol. i, p. 881), hero in agreement with Olive
Scbreiner, thinks this statement cannot be accepted without modification,
though agreeing that agricultural life has a good effect on woman's posi-
tion, because they themselves become actively engaged in it. A good
mic position has no real effect in raising woman's position, unless
■n themselves take a renl and not merely parasitic part in it.
3 Westermarck (!Horal Ideas, vol. i, Ch, XXVI, vol. ii, p. 29) gives
Tous references with regard to the considerable proprietary and
other privileges of women among savages which tend to be lost at a some-
what higher stage of culture.
* The steady rise in the proportion of women among English
workers in machine industries began in 1S61. There are now, it is
estimated, three and a half million women employed in industrial oecn-
paiiona, beside a million and a half domestic servants. (See for details,
James Hastain, in a series of papers in the Enffliahwomatt^ 1900.)
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410 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
■coiumerce, agriculture, factory industricB — are women, and in
some of tlie very largest, such as home ludustriea and textile
industries, more women are employed than men. In Japan, it is
said, three-fifths of the factory workers are women, and all the
textile industries are in the hands of women. ^ This movement la
the outward expression of the modem conception of personal
rights, personal moral worth, and personal responsibility, which,
as Hohhouse has remarked, has compelled women to take their
lives into their own hands, and has at the same time rendered the
-ancient marriage laws an anachronism, and the ancient ideals of
feminine innocence shrouded from the world a mere piece of false
eentiment.2
There can be no doubt that the entrance of women into the field of
industrial work. In rivalry with men and under somewhat the same con-
ditions as men, raises serious questions of another order. The general
tendency of civilization towards the economic independence and the mora]
responsibility of women is unquestionable. But it is by no means
absolutely clear that it is best (or women, and, therefore, for the com-
munity, that women should exercise all the ordinary avocations and
professions of men on the same level ae men. Not only have the condi-
tions p' the avocations and professions developed In accordance with the
special aptitudes of men, but the fact that the sexual processes by which
the race is propagated demand an incomparably greater expenditure of
time and energy on the part of women than of men, precludes women in
the mass from devoting themselves ao exclusively as men to industrial
work. Pot some biologiste, indeed, it seems clear that outside the home
and the school women should not worlc at all. "Any nation that worka
its women is damned," says Woods Hutchinson iThe Ootpel Aecwdinff
to Darwin, p. W9). That view is extreme. Yet from the economic side,
hIso, Hobson, in summing up this question, regards the tendency of
machine- industry to drive women away from the home as "a tendency
antagonistic to civil iiation." The neglect of the home, he states, is, "on
the whole, the worst injury modem industry has inflicted on our lives,
nnd it is difficult to see bow it can be compensated by any increase of
material products. Factory life for women, save in extremely rare coses,
saps the physical and moral health of the family. The exigencies of
factory life are inconsistent with the position of a good mother, a good
I See, e.jr., J. A. Hobson, Thf Evolutv»t of Modern Capilaliim, sec-
■ond edition, 1907, Ch. XII, "Women in Modern Industry."
S Uobhouse, op. dl., vol. i, p. 22S.
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SEXUAL MORALITY, 411
vite, or the maker of a home. Save in extreme circumBtances, no
increase of the family nsge can balance these loases, whose values stand
upon a higher qualitative level" (J. A. Hobson, Evolution of Modern
Capilaliam, Cb, XIl; cf. what has been said in Ch. I of the present
volume). It is tAw beginning to be recognized that tlie early pioneers
of the "woman's movement" in worlcing to remove the "subjectioD of
woman" were still dominated b; the old ideals of that subjection, accord-
ing to which the masculine is in all main respects the superior aex.
Whatever was good for man, they thought, must be equally good for
woman. That has been the source of all that was unbalanced and
unstable, sometimes both a little pathetic and a little absurd, in the old
"woman's movement." There was a failure to perceive that, flrst of all,
women must claim their right to their own womanhood as mothers of
the race, and thereby the supreme lawgivers in the sphere of sex and
the large part of life dependent on sex. This special position of woman
seems likely to require a reatljustment of economic conditions to their
needs, though it is not likely that such readjustment would be permitted
to affect their independence or their responsibility'. We have had, as
Madame Juliette Adam has put it, the rights of men sacriflciug women,
followed by the rights of women sacriHcing the child; that must be fol-
lowed by the rights of the child reconstituting the family. It ban
already been necessary to touch on this point in the first chapter of this
volume, and it will again be necessary in tbe last chapter.
The question as to the method by which tbe economic
independence of women will be completely insured, and the part
which the community may be expected to take ia insuring it,
on the ground of woman's special child-bearing functions, ia
from the present point of view snbeidiary. There can be no
doubt, however, as to the reality of the movement in that
direction, whatever doubt there may be as to the final adjustment
of the details. It ia only necessary in this place to touch on
some of the general and more obvious respects in which the
growth of woman's responsibility ia affecting sexual morality.
The first and most obvious way in which the sense of moral
responsibility works is in an insistence on reality in the relation-
ships of sex. Moral irresponsibility has too often combined
with economic dependence to induce a woman to treat the
sexual event in her life which is biologically of most fateful
gravity as a merely gay and trivial event, at the most an event
which has given her a triumph over her rivals and over the
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412 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX,
superior male, who, on hiB part, willingly condescends, for the
moment, to assume the part of the Tanqnisbed. "Gallantry to
the ladies," we are told of the hero of the greatest and most
typical of English novels, "was among his principles of lionor,
and he held it as much incumbent on liim to accept a challenge
to love as if it had been a challenge to fight;" he heroically
goes home for the night with a lady of title he meets at a
masquerade, tbdug^ at the time very much in love with the girl
whom he eventually marries.' The woman whose power lies
only in her charms, and who is free to allow the burdm of respon-
sibihty to fall on a man's ehoiilder,^ could lightly play_ the sedu-
cing part, and thereby exert independence and authority in the
only shapes open to her. The man on his part, introducing the
misplaced idea of "honor" into the field from which the natural
idea of responsibility has been banished, is prepared to descend
at the lady's bidding into the arena, according to the old legend,
and rescue the glove, even though he afterwards flings it con-
temptuously in her face. The ancient conception of gallantry,
which Tom Jones so well embodies, is the direct outcome of a
system involving the moral irresponsibility and economic de-
pendence of women, and is as opposed to the conceptions, prevail-
ing in the earlier and later civilized stages, of approximate sexual
equality as it is to the biological traditions of natural courtship
in the world generally.
In controlling her own sexual life, and in realizing that her
responsibility for eucb control can no longer be shifted on to the
shoulders of the other sex, women will also indirectly affect
the sexual lives of men, much as men already affect the
sexual lives of women. In what ways that influence will in the
main be exerted it ie still premature to say. According to some,
just as formerly men bought their wives and demanded pre-
nuptial virginity in the article thus purchased, so nowadays,
among the better classes, women are able to buy their husbands,
1 Fielding, Tom Jones, Bk. iii, Ch. VII.
2 Even tlie Church to some extent adopted this allotment of the
reBponsibilitj-. and "xoljci tuition." i.e., th(- sin of a confessor in seducing
hia female penitent, is conetantly txeated aa exclusively the c<mfeaRor'B
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SEXUAL MOHAXITY. 418
and in their turn are diapoBed to demand continence. ' That,
however, is too Bimple-minded a way of viewing the question.
It is enough to refer to tlie fact that women are not attracted
to virginal innocence in men and that tliey frequently have good
ground for viewing such innocence with suspicion.^ Yet it may
well be believed that women will more and more prefer to exert
a certain discrimination in the approval of their husbands' past
lives. However instinctively a woman may desire that her hus-
band shall be initiated in the art of making love to her, she may
oft«n well doubt whether the finest initiation is to be secured from
tlie average prostitute. Prostitution, as we have seen, is ulti-
mately as incompatible with complete sexual reepousibilitj' as is
the patriarchal marriage system with which it has been so closely
associated. It is an arrangement mainly determined by the
demands of men, to whatever extent it may have incidentally
subserved various needs of women. Men arranged that one group
of women should be set apart to minister exclusively to their
sexual necessities, while another group should be brought up in
asceticism as candidates for the privilege of ministering to their
household and family neceBsities. That this has be^ in many
respects a most excellent arrangement is sufficiently proved by
the fact that it has flourished for so long a period, notwithstand-
ing the influences that are antagonistic to it. But it is obviously
only possible during a certain stage of civilization and in asso-
ciation with a certain social organization. It is not completely
congruous with a democratic stage of civilization involving the
economic independence and the sexual responaibili^ of both
sexes alike in all social classes. It is possible that women may
begin to realize this fact earlier than men.
It is also believed by many that women will realize that a
high degree of moral responsibility is not easily compatible with
the practice of dissimulation and that economic independence
will deprive deceit — which is always the resort of the weak — of
1 Adolf G«rBOn, Sexuat-Prohleme, Sept., 1908, p. 64T.
a It has already been necessary to refer to the unfortunate results
which may follow the ignoranoe of husbands (see, e.g.. "The Sexual
Impulse in Women," rol. iii of thpse Ftudies), and will be necessai?
again in Ch. XI of the present volume.
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414 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
whatever moral juatilication it may posseea. Here, however, it is
Decesaarj to speak with caution or we ma; be unjust to wom^.
It must be remarked that in the sphere of sex men also are often
the weak, and are therefore apt to resort to the refuge of the weak.
With the recognition of that fact we may also recognize that
deception in women has been the cauae of much of the age-long
blunders of the masculine mind in the contemplation of feminine
ways. Men have constantly committed the double error of over-
looking the dissimulation of women and of over-estimating it.
This fact has always served to render more difficult still the
inevitably difBcult course of women through the devious path of
sexual behavior. Pepya, who represents so vividly and so frankly
the vices and virtues of the ordinary masculine mind, tells how
one day when he called to see Mrs. Martin her sister Doll went
out for a bottle of wine and came back indignant because a
Dutchman had pulled her into a stable and tumbled and tossed
her. Fepys having been himself often permitted to take
liberties with her, it seemed to him that her indignation with
the Dutchman was "the best instance of woman's falseness in the
world."^ He assumes without question that a woman who has
accorded the privilege of familiarity to a man she knows and, one
hopes, respects, would be prepared to accept complacently the
brutal attentions of the first drunken stranger she meets in the
street.
It was the assumption of woman's falseness which led the
ultra-masculine Pepys into a sufficiently absurd error. At this
point, indeed, we encounter what has seemed to some a serious
obstacle to the full moral responsibility of women. Dissimula-
tion, liombroso and Ferrero argue, is in woman "almost physio-
logical," and they give various grounds for this conclusion. -
The theologians, on their side, have reached a similar conclusion.
"A confessor must not immediately believe a woman's words,"
says Father Qnry, "for women are habitually inclined to lie.'"^
1 Pepys, Diary, ed. Wheatley, vol. vii. p. 10.
SLombrooo and FerreTo. La Donna DeKnquenle; cf. Havelock Ellis,
Man and Woman, fourth ediUon, p. IH.
SGury, TMologie Morale, art. 381.
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SEXUAL MORALITY. 415-
This tendency, which seems to be common]}' believed to affect
women as a sex, however free from it a vast number of individual
women are, may be said, and with truth, to be largely the result
of the subjection of women and therefore likely to disappear as
that subjection disappears. In so far, however, as it ia "almost
physiological," and based on radical feminine characters, such
as modesty, affectability, and sympathy, which have an organic
basis in the feminine constitution and can tlierefore never
altogether be changed, feminine dissimulation seems scarcely
likely to disappear. The utmost that can be expected is that
it should be held in check by the developed sense of moral respon-
sibility, and, being reduced to its simply natural proportions,
become recognizably intelligible.
Tt is unneceBaary to remark that there can be no qiieation here as
to any inherent mora! superiority of one sei over the other. The answer
to that question was well stated many years ago by one of the most
subtle moralistB of lore. "Taken altogether," eoncluded Senancour (Dp
VAmour, vol, ii, p. 85), "we have no reason to assert the moral super-
iority of either iex. Both sexes, with their errors and their good inten-
tions, very equally fulfil the ends of nature. We may well believe that
in either of the two divisions of the human speciea the sum of evil and
that of good are about eqtial. IF, for instance, a? regards love, we oppose
the visibly licentious conduct of men to the apparent resen'e of women,
it would be a vain valuation, for the number of faults committed by
women with men ia necessarily the same as that of men with women.
There exist among us fewer scrupulous men than perfectly honest wotaen,
but it is eaej' to see how the balance is restored. If thin question of the
moral preeminence of one sex over the other were not insoluble it would
still remain very complicated with reference to the whole of the spedM,
or even the whole of a nation, and any dispute here seems Idle."
This conclusion is in accordance with the general compensatory and
eomplementary relationship of women to men (see, e.g., Havelock Ellis,
Man and Woman, fourth edition, especially pp. 448 et seq.).
In a recent symposium on the question whether women are morally
inferior to men, with special reference to aptitude for loyalty {La Revue.
Jan. 1, 1909), to which various distinguished PVench men and women
contributed their opinions, some declared that women are usually
superior; others regarded it as a question of difference rather than of
superiority or inferiority; all were agreed that when they enjoy the
tame independence as men, women are quite as loyal as men.
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416 PSYCHOLOGY Of SEX.
■ It is undoubtedly true that — partly as a result of ancient
traditions and education, partly of genuine feminine character-
ietics — many women are diffident as to their right to moral
reeponaibility and unwilling to assume it. And an attempt ia
made to justify their attitude by asserting that woman's part in
life is naturally that of Belf-sacrifice, or, to put the etatement in a
somewhat more technical form, that women are naturally maso-
chistic; and that there is, as Krafft-Ebing argues, a natural
"sexual subjection" of woman. It is by no means clear that this
statement is absolotely true, and if it were true it would not
serve to abolish the moral responsibility of women.
Bloch {BeitrUge eur Aetiologie der Payehopathia Seaualie, Pftrt II,
p. 178), in agreement with Eulenburg, energetically denies that there ia
»ny such natural "seitufll subjection" of women, regarding it as artifi-
cially produced, the reniilt of the eociallj inferior position of women, and
arguing that such subjection is in much higher degree a phyaiological
characteristic of men than of women. (It has been neceBsary to discvua
thia queation in dealing with "Love and Pain" In the third volume of
these Studies.) It seema certainly clear that the notion that women are
especially prone to E^lf-aacrifice has little biological validly. Self-
eacrillce by compulsion, whether physical or moral compulsion, ia not
worthy of the name; when it is deliberate it is simply the aacriSce of
a lesser good for the sake of a greater good. Doubtleat a man who eats
a good dinner may b« said to "sacrifice" his hnn^r. Even within the
sphere of traditional morality a woman who aacrificea her "honor" for
the sake of her love to a man has, by her "sacrifice," gained something
that she valnea more. "What a triumph it is to a woman," a woman
haa aald, "to give pleaaure to a man she loves!" And in a morality on
a Bound biological basis no "aaerifiee" is here called for. It may rather
be aaid that the biological laws of courtship fundamentally demand aetf-
sacrifice of the male rather than of the female. Thus the lioneaa, accord-
ing to Gerard the lion-hunter, gives herself to the most vigorous of her
lion wooera; ahe encourages them to fight among themselves for
auperiority. lying on her belly to gaze at the combat and lashing her
tail with delight. Every female ia wooed by many males, but she onl^
accepts one; it ia not the female who la called upon for erotic self-
sacrifice, but the male. Tliat is indeed part of the divine compensation
of Nature, for Bince the heavier part of the burden of aex reata on ths
female, it ia fitting that ahe should be less called upon for renunciation.
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SEXUAL HOBALITY. 417
It tbiis seema probable that the increase of moral reepon*
eibility may tend to make a woman's conduct more intelligible to
others ;* it will in any caae certainly tend to make it less the con-
cern of others. This is emphatically the case aa regards the rela-
tions of sex. In the past men have been invited to excel in many
forms of virtue ; only one virtue has been open to women. That
is no longer possible. To place upon a woman the main respon-
sibility for her own sexual conduct is to deprive that conduct of
its conspicuously public character as a virtue or a vice. Sexual
union, for a woman as much as for a man, ia a physiological
fact ; it may also be a spiritual fact ; but it is not a social act.
It ia, on the contrary, an act which, beyond all other acts,
demands retirement and mystery for its accomplishment. That
indeed is a general human, almost zoological, fact. Moreover,
tliis demand of mystery is more especially made by woman in
virtue of her greater modesty which, we have found reason to
believe, has a biological basis. It is not until a child is bom
or conceived that the community has any right to interest itself
in the sexual acts of its members. The sexual act is of no more
concern to the community than any other private physiological
act. It is an impertinence, if not an outrage, to seek to inquire
into it. But the birth of a child is a social act. Not what goes
into the womb but what comes out of it concerns society. The
community is invited to receive a new citizen. It ia entitled to
demand that that citizen shall be worthy of a place in its midst
and that he shall be properly introduced by a responsible father
and a responsible mother. The whole of sexual morality, as Ellen
Key has said, revolves round the child.
At this final point in our discuasion of sexual morality we
may perhaps be able to realize the immensity of the change which
has been involved by the development in women of moral respon-
sibility. So long as responsibility was denied to women, so long
as a father or a husband, backed up by the community, held him-
I "Men will not le«m what women are," remnrka Itosa Mayreder
iZur Kritik der "Weiblichkeil, p. IW), "until they have left off prescrib-
ing ivhat tiiey ou^t to be."
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418 PSYCHOLOGY OF BES.
self responsible for a womaa's sexual behavior, for her "virtue,"
it was necessary that the whole of sexual morality should revolve
around the entrance to the vagioa. It became absolutely eesential
to the maintenance of morality that all eyes in the community
should be constantly directed on to that point, and the whole
marriage law had to be adjusted accordingly. That is no longer
possible. When a woman aesumes her own moral responsibility,
in sexual aa in other matters, it becomes not only intolerable but
meaningless for the community to pry into her most intimate
physiological or spiritual acts. She is herself directly responsible
to society as soon as she performs a social act, and not before.
In relation to the fact of maternity the realization of all
that is involved in the new moral reBpoDsibility of women is
especially significant. Under a system of morality by which a
man is left free to accept the responsibility for his sexual acts
while a woman is not equally free to do the like, a premium is
placed on sexual acts which have no end in procreation, and a
penalty is placed on the acts which lead to procreation. The
reason is that it is the former class of acts in which men find
chief gratification; it la the latter class in which women find
chief gratification. For the tragic part of the old sexual morality
in its bearing on women waa that while it made men alone
morally responsible for sexual acts in which both a man and a
woman took part, women were rendered both socially and legally
incapable of availing themselves of the fact of masculine respon-
sibility unless they had fulfilled conditions which men had laid
down for them, and yet refrained from imposing upon themselves.
The act of sexual intercourse, being the sexual act in which men
found chief pleaaure, was under all circumBtances an act of little
social gravity; the act of bringing a child into the world, which
is for women the most massively gratifying of all sexual acts, was
counted a crime unless the mother had before fulfilled the con-
ditions demanded by man. That was perhaps the most unfor-
tunate and certainly the most unnatural of the results of the
patriarchal regulation of society. It has never existed in any
great State where women have possessed some degree of regula-
tive power.
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8EXCAL ItOnALITY. 419
It liaB, of eourae, been said by abstract theorists iJiat women have
the matter in their own hands. They must never love a man until thej
have safely locked him up in the legal bonds of matrimonj. Such an
argument is absolutely futile, for it ignores the fact that, while love and
even monogamy are natural, legal marriage is merely an external form,
with a very feeble power of subjugating natural impulses, except when
those impulses are weak, and no power at all of subjugating them perma-
nently. Civilization involves the growth of toresiglit, and of self-control
in both sexes; but it is foolish to attempt to place on these fine
and ultimate outgrowths of civilization a strain which they could never
bear. How foolish it is has been sliown, once and for all, by Lea in bis
admirable Bittory of Sacerdotal Celibacy.
Moreover, when we compare the respective aptitudes of men and
women in this particular region, it roust be remembered that men possess
a greater power of forethought and self-control tlian women, notwith-
standing the modesty and reserve of women. The sexual sphere is
immensely larger in women, to that when its activity is once aroused
it Is much more diflicnlt to nkaster or control. (The reasons were set
out in detail in the discussion of "The Sexual Impulse in Women" in
volume iii of these jStudies.) It is, therefore, unfair to women, and
unduly favors men, when too heavy a premium is placed on forethought
and self-restraint in sexual matters. Since women play the predominant
part in the sexual field their natural demands, rather than those of men,
must furnish the standard.
With the realization of the moral reaponBibility of women
the natural relations of life spring hack to their due biological
adjuBtment. Motherhood ie restored to its natural BocredneSB.
It becomeB the concern of the woman herself, and not of
society nor of any individual, to determine the conditions under
which the child shall be conceived. Society is entitled to require
that the father shall in every case acknowledge the fact of his
paternity, but it must leave the chief responsibility for all the
circumstances of child-production to the mother. That is the
point of view which is now gaining ground in all civilized lands
both in theory and in practice.^
1 It has been set out, for instance, by Professor Wahrmund in Bha
tind EherechI, 1008. I need scarcely refer again to the writings of Ellen
Key, which may be said to be almost epoch-making in their significance,
especially (in German translation) Ueber Licbe und Eke (also French
translation), and (in English translation, Putnam, 1909), the valuable,
' though less important work, The Century of the Child. See also Edward
Carpenter, Love't Coming of Age; Forel, Die Sexuetl^ Frage (English
translation, abridged. The Set^ial Quetlion, Bebman, 1908) ; Bloch,
dexualleben unnfre Zeit (English translation. The Seitiol Life of Our
Time, Rebman, 1908) ; Helene Stficker. Die Liehe und dU Frauen, 1900;
and Paul Lapie, La Femme dans la FamilU, 1908.
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CHAPTER X.
MARRIAGE.
The Definition of Morringe — ItniTiage Among Animata — The Pre-
dominance ot Monognmy^Tlip QiiPHtlon of Croup Marriage — Monogaray
A Natural Fact, Not Based on Human Lnw — Tlie Tendency to Place the
Form of Marriage Above the Fsct ot Marriage — The History of Marriage
— Marriage in Ancient Rome — Germanic Influence on Marriage — Bride-
Sale — The Ring— The Influence ot Christianity on Marriage — The Great
Extent of Tliis Influeuce— The Sacrament of Ttlatrimony — Origin nnd
Growth ot tlie Sacramental Conception — Tlie Church Made Marriage a
Public Act — Canon Law — Its Sound Core — Its Devetopnieiit — Ita Con-
fusions and Absurdities — Peculiarities ot English Marriage Law — Influ-
ence of the Reformation on Marriage — The Protestant Conception of
Marriage as a Secular Contract — The Puritan Reform of Marriage —
Milton as the Pioneer of Itlarriage Reform — His Views on Divorce — The
Backward Position of England in Marriage Reform — Criticism of the
English Divorce Ijiw — Traditions of the Canon Law Still Persistent —
The Question ot Damages for Adultery — Collusion as a Bar to Divorce —
Divorce in France, Germany, Austria, Russia, etc. — The United States —
Impossibility of Deciding by Statute the Causes tor Divorce — Divorce
by Mutual Consent — Its Origin and Development — Impeded by the Tradi-
tions of Canon Law — Wilhelm von Humboldt — Modern Pioneer Advocates
ot Divorce by Mutual Consent — The Arguments Against Facility of
Divorce— The Interests ot the OiiMren— The Protection of .Women— Tlie
Present Tendency of the Di\-oree Movement — Marriage Not a Contract —
The Proposal of Marriage For a Term of Years — Legal Disabilities and
Disadvantages in the Position ot the Husband and the Wife — Marriage
Not a Contract But a Fact — Onlj- the Kon -Essentia Is of Marriage, Not
the Essentials, a Proper ^fatter tor Contract — The Legal Recognition of
Marriage as a Fact Without Any Ceremony — Contracts ot the Person
Opposed to Modern Tendencies — Tlie Factor ot Moral Responsibility —
Marriage as an Ethical Sacrament — Personal Responsibility Involves
Freedom — Freedom the Best Guarantee ot Stability — False Ideas of
Individualism — Modem Tendency ot Marriage — With the Birth ot a '
Child Marriage Censes to be n Private Concern— Every Cliild Must Have
a Legal Father and Mother— How Tliis Can he EITected- The Firm Basis
ot Monogamy — Tlic Question of Marriage Variations — Sucli Variations
(420)
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UABBIAGE. 421
Not Inimical to Monogamy — The Host Common Variattons — The Flexi-
bility of Marriage Holds Variations In Check —Marriage Variations
versus Prostitution — Marriage on a Reasonable and Humane Basis — Sum-
mary and Conclusion.
The discussioti in the previous chapter of the nature of
sexual morality, with the brief sketch it involved of the direction
in which that morality is moving, has necessarily left many
points vague. It may still be asked what definite and precise
forms sexual unions are tending to take among us, and what
relation these unions bear to the religious, social, and legal
traditions we have inherited. These are matters about which a
very considerable amount of uncertainty seems to prevail, for it is
not unusual to bear revolutionary or eccentric opinions concern-
ing them.
Sexual union, involving the cohahitation, temporary or
permanent, of two or more persons, and having for one of its chief
ends the production and care of offspring, is commonly termed
marriage. The group so constituted fonns a family. This is
the sense in wliieh the words "marriage" and the "family" are
most properly used, whether we speak of animals or of Man.
There is thus seen to be room for variation as regards both the
time during which the union lasts, and the number of individuals
who form it, the chief factor in the determination of tliese points
being the interests of the oitspring. In actual practice, however,
sexual unions, not only in Man but among the higher animals,
tend to last beyond the needs of the offspring of a single season,
while the fact that iu niof^t species the numbers of males and
females are approximately equal makes it inevitable that both
among animals and in ^lan the family is produced by a single
se.xual couple, that is to say that monogamy is, with however
many esceptions, necessarily the fundamental rule.
It will thus be seen that marriage centres in the child, and
has at the outset no reason for existence apart from the welfare
of the offspring. Among those animals of lowly organization
which are able to provide for themselves from the beginning of
existence there is no family and no need for marriage. Among
human races, when sexual unions are not followed by offspring.
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422 PSYCHOLOGY OF 8EI.
there may be other reasons for the eoatinuance of the nnion but
they are not rea^one in uliicli either Nature or society is Id the
slightest degree directly concerned. The marriage which grew
up among animals by liercdity on the basis of natural selection,
and which has been continued by tlie lower human races through
custom and tradition, by the more civilized races through the
superimposed regulative influence of legal institutions, has been
marriage for the sake of the offspring.^ Even in civilized races
among whom the proportion of sterile marriages is large, mar-
riage tends to be so constituted as always to assume the pro-
creation of children and to involve the permanence required by
such procreation.
Among birds, which from the point of view of erotic development
stand at the head of the animal world, monogamy frequently prevails
(according to some eatimates among 00 pet cent.), and unions tend to
be permanent; there is an approximation to the same condition among
some of the higher mammals, especiall]' the anthropoid apea; thus among
gorillas and oran-utans permanent monogamic marriages take place, the
young sometimes remaining with the parents to the age of six, while
any approach to loose bel»vior on the part of the wife is severely pun-
ished hy the husband. The variations tiiat occur are often simply mat-
ters of adaptation to circumstances; thus, according to J. G. Millals
(Yofural BUtorij of Briliah Duckt, pp. 8, B3), the Shoveler duck, though
normally monogamic, will become polyandric when males are in exi'csH,
the two males ttcing in constant and amicable attendance on the female
without signs of jealousy; among tbe monogamic mallards, similarly,
polygyny and polyandry may also occur. See aluo R. W. Shufeldt,
"Mating Among Birds." American XaturalUt. March, 1007; for mammal
marriugea, a valuable paper by Robert Mllller, "Hilngethierehen," Sexaal-
ProbUme, Jan., 1909, and as regards the general prevalence of monogamy,
Woods Hutchinson. "Animal Marriage," Contemporary Revieto, Oct.,
ie04, and Sept, 10O6.
There haa long been a dispute among the historians of marHage as
to the first form of human marriage. Some' assume a primitive promis-
cuity gradually modified in the direction of monogamy; others nrgiie
that man began where the anthropoid apes left olT. and that monogamy
has prevailed, on the whole, throughout. Both these opposed views, in
1 Rosenthal, of Breslau, from the legal side, goes so far as to argue
("Grundfrageii des F.heproblem*," Die Xi-iie Ofirfralioii. Dee.. IftOHI.
that the intention of procreation is essential to the conception of legal
marriage.
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MABBUOE. 423
ftn extreme fonn, seem unUnable, and the truth appears to lie midway.
It has been shown bj various writers, and notably West«miarck {Biatory
of fittnuin Marriage, Chs. IV-VI), that there is no sound evidence in
favor of primitive promiscuit;, and that at the present day there ar«
few, if any, savage peoples living in genuine unrestricted sexual promia-
cul^. This theory of a primitive promiscuity seems to have been
suggested, as J. A. Godfrey has pointed out {Boiertee of Bea, p. 112), by
the existence in civilized societies of promiscuous prostitution, though
this kind of promiscuity was really the result, rather than the origin, of
marria^. On the other hand, it can scarcely be said that there is any
convincing evidence of primitive strict monogamy beyond the assumption
that early man continued the sexual habits of the anthropoid apes. It
would seem probable, however, that the great forward step involved In
passing from ape to man was associated with a change in sexual habits
involving the temporary adoption of a more complex system than
monogamy. It is difficult to see in what other social field th&n that of
sex primitive man could And exercise for the developing intellectual and
moral aptitudes, the subtle distinctions and moral restraints, which the
strict monogamy practiced by animals could afford no scope for. It Is
also equally difficult to see on \rhat basis other than that of a more
closely associated sexual system the combined and harmonious efforts
needed for social progress could have developed. It Is probable that at
least one of the motives for exogamy, or marriage outside the group, is
(as was probably flrst pointed out by St. Augustine in his De dvitate
Dei) the need of creating a larger social circle, and so facilitating social
activities and progress. Exactly the same end is effected by a complex
marriage system binding a large number of people together by common
interests. The strictly small and confined monogamic family, however
excellently it subserved the interests of the ofl'spring, contained no
promise of a wider social progress. We see this among both ants and
bees, trho of all animals, have attained the highest social organization;
their progress was only possible through a profound modification of the
systems of sexual relationship. As Espinas said many years ago (in h!a
suggestive work, De» Socittla Animalea) : "The cohesion of the hmily
and the probabilities for the birth of societies are Inverse." Or, aa
Schurtz more recently pointed out. although individual marriage has pre-
vailed more or less from the first, early social Institutions, early Ideas
and early religion involved sexual customs which modified a strict
monogamy.
The most primitive form of complex human marriage which has yet
been demonstrated as still in existence Is what is called group-marriage,
in which all the men of one class are regarded as the actual, or at all
events potential, vrives of all the men in another class. This has been
observed among some central Australian tribes, a people aa primitive and
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424 PSKCHOLOQT OF SEX.
as secluded from external influence aa could well be found, and tliere is
evidenoe to show that it wks fonnerif more widespread among tliem.
"In tbe Urabunna tribe, for example," say Spencer and Gillen, "a group
of men actually do hare, continually and aa a normal condition, marital
relations with a group of women. This state of afTaira has nothing
whatever to do with polygamy any more than it has with polyandry. It
in simply a qucetion of a group of men and a group of women who may
lawfully have what we call marital relations. Tliere is nothing what-
ever abnormal about it, and, in all probability, this system of what has
been called group marriage, Berving as it does to bind more or less
closely together groups of individuals who are mutually interested in
one another's welfare, has been one of the most powerful agents in the
early stages of the upward development of the human race" (Spencer
and Gilten, Northern Tribes of Central Atutralia, p. 74; of. A, W.
Rowitt. The Xalive Tribet of South-Eatt Auttralia), Group-marriage,
with female descent, as found in Australia, tends to become transformed
by various stages of progress into individual marriage with descent in
the male line, a survival of group -marriage perhaps persisting in the
much -discussed jus prima: nocfia. (It should be added that Mr. N. W.
Thomas, in bin book on Kinship arid Marriage in Aiistralia, 1908, con-
cludes that group -marriage in Australia has not been demonstrated, and
that Professor Westemiarek. in his Origin and Development of the Moral
Jdeos, as In his previous History of Human Marriage, maintains a
skeptical opinion in regard to group-marriage generally; he thinks the
Urabunna custom may hare developed out of ordinary individual mar-
riage, and regards tlie group-marriage theory as "the residuary legatee
of tJic old theory of promiscuity." Durkheim also believes that the Aus-
tralian marriage system is not primitive, "Organisation Uatrlmoniale
Austral ienne," L' Annie Bociologique, eighth year, 1905). With the
attainment of a certain level of social progress it is easy to see that a
wide and complicated system of sexual relationships ceases to have its
value, and a more or less qualified monogamy tends to prevail as more
in harmony with the claims of social stability and executive masculine
enei^.
The best historical discussion of marriage is still probably Wester*
marck's Bi»tOTy of Human Marriage, though at some points it now needs
to be corrected or supplemented; among more recent books dealing with
primitive sexual conceptions may be specially mentioned Crawley's
Mystic Rose, while the facts concerning the transformation of marriage
among the higher human races are set forth in G. E. Howard's Hielon/
of Matrimonial Inetitutiont |3 vols.), which contains copioos biblio-
graphical references. There is an admirably compact, hut clear and com-
prehensive, sketch of the development of modem marriage in Pollock and
Maitland, Si»tory of English Lav, vol. ii.
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UABRUGE. 42^
It is necessary to make allowance for variationB, thereby
Bbimning the extreme theorists who insist on moulding alt facts^
to their theories, but we may conclude that — as the approximately
equal number of the sexes indicates — in the human species, as
among many of the higher animals, a more or less permanent
monogamy has on the whole tended to prevail. That is a ta€t
of great significance in its implications. For we have to realize
that we are here in the presence of a natural fact. Sexual
relationships, in human as in animal societies, follow a natural
law, oscillating on each side of the norm, and there is no place-
for the theory that that law was imposed artificially. If all
artificial "laws" could be abolished the natural order of the
sexual relationships would continue to subsist Bubstantially as at
present. Virtue, said Cicero, is but Nature carried out to the
utmost. Or, as Holbach put it, arguing that our institutions
tend whither Nature tends, "art is only Nature acting by the help
of the instruments she has herself made." Shakespeare had
already seen much the same truth when he said that the art
which adds to Nature "is an art that Nature makes." Law and
religion have buttressed monogamy; it is not based on them
but on the needs and customs of mankind, and these constitute its
completely adequate sanctions.^ Or, as Cope put it, marriage
is not the creation of law but the law is its creation.' Crawley,
again, throughout his study of primitive sex relationships,
emphasizes the fact that our formal marriage system is not, as ao
many religious and moral writers once supposed, a forcible
repression of natural impulses, but merely tlie rigid crystallization
of those natural impulses, which in a more fluid form have been
in human nature from the first. Our conventional forms, we
must believe, have not introduced any elements of value, while
in some respects they have been mischievous.
It ia necesgarj to bear in mind that the conctuaion that monagamic
marriage is natural, and represents nn order which is in harmony with
tJie inntinctfl of tiie majorit; nf people, by no means involves agreement
with the details of any particular legal system of monogamy. Mono-
' .1. A. Godfrey, Science of Bex, p. IIB.
2 R. D. Cope, "The Marriage Problem," Open Court, Nov.,
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426 PSYCHOLOGY OF BEX.
gainic marriage ia a natural biological fact, alike in many aDinwIa and
in man. But no B^stem of legal regulation is a natural biological fact.
When a higblj esteemed alieniet, Dr. ClouBfon, writes {The Hygiene of
Mind, p. 246) "there is only one natural mode of gratifying sexual nifiw
and reproductive instinct, that of marriage," the statement reqnirea
considerable exegesis before it can be accepted, or even receive an
intelligible meaning, and if we are to understand by "marriage" the
particular form and implications of the English marriage law, or even
of the somewhat more enlightened Scotch law, the statement is absolutely
bise. There is a world of difference, as J. A. Godfrey remarks {Tlie
Science of Sex, 1901, p. 278), between natural monogamous marriage and
our legal system ; "the fonner is the outward expression of the beat that
lies ID tbe sexuality of man; the latter is a creation in which religious
and moral superstitions have played a mmt important part, not always
to the benefit of individual and social health."
We must, therefore, guard against the tendency to think that there
ia anytJiing rigid or formal in- the natural order of monogamy. Some
sociologists would even limit the naturalness of monogamy still further.
Thus Tarde ("La Morale Sexuelle," Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle,
Jan., 1907), while accepting as natural under present conditions the
tendency for monogamy, mitigated by more or less clandestine concubin-
age, to prevail over all other forms of marriage, considers that this is
not due to any irresistible influence, but merely to the fact that this kind
of marriage is practiced by the majority of people, including the most
With the acceptance of the tendency to monogamy we are not at
the end of sexual morality, but only at the beginning. It is not
monogamy that is the main thing, but the kind of lives that people lead
in monogamy. The mere acceptance of a monogamic rule carries us but
a little way. That is a fact which cannot fail to impress itself on those
who approach the questions of sex from the psychological side.
If monogamy ia thus firmly based it ia unreasonable to
fear, or to hope for, any radical modificatioo in tbe inetitution of
marriage, regarded, not under its temporary religious and legal
aspects but as an order wbich appeared on the earth even earlier
than man. Monogamy is the most natural expression of an
impulse which cannot, as a rule, be so adequately realized in full
fruition iinder conditions involving a leas prolonged period of
mutual communion and intimacy. Variations, regarded as
inevitable osciltationa around the norm, are also natural, but
union iu couples must always be the rule because the numbers of
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UARBUOE. 427
the sexes are always approximately equal, vhile the Deeds of the
emotional life, even apart from the needs of offspring, demand
that such unions based oa mutual attraction should be bo far as
possible permanent.
It muBt here agnin be repeated that it in the renlit.T, and not the
form or the perm&neDce of the marriage union, which is its esBential and
valuable part. It ia not the legal or religious formality which sanctiflei
marriage, it ia the reality of the marriage which ganctifles the form.
Fielding has satirized in Nightingale, Tom Jones's friend, the shallow-
brained view of connubial society which degradea the reality of marriage
to exalt the form. Nightingale has the greatest dilDcnlty in marrying a
girl with whom he haa already had sexual relation». although be is the
only man who has had relations with her. To .Tones's arguments he
replies; "Common-sense warrants all you say, hut yet you well know
that the opinion of the world is bo contrary to it, that were I to marry
a whore, though my own, I should be ashamed of ever showing my face
again." It cannot be said that Fielding's satire is even yet out of date.
Thus in Prussia, according to Adele Schreibcr ("HeirathsbeschrSnkun-
gen," Die lieue Qeneration, Feb., 1900), it seems to be still practically
impossible for a military officer to marry the mother of his own
illegitimate child.
The glorification of the form at the expense of the reality of mar-
riage has even been attempted in poetry by Tennyson in the least
inspired of his works. The Idylls of the King. In "Lancelot and Elaine"
and "Guinevere" (as Julia Magruder points out, North American Review,
April, 1006) Guinevere ia married to King Arthur, whom she has never
seen, when already in love with Lancelot, so that the "marriage" was
merely a ceremony, and not a real marriage (ef.. May Child, "The Weird
of Sir Lancelot," North American Review, Dec., 1908).
It may seem to some that so conservative an estimate of
the tendencies of civilization in matters of sexual love is due
to a timid adherence to mere tradition. That is not the case.
We have to recognize that marriage is firmly held in position by
the pressure of two opposing forces. There are two currents in
the stream of our civilization : one that moves towards an ever
greater social order and cohesion, the other that moves towards
an ever greater individual freedom. There is real harmony
underlying the apparent opposition of these two tendencies, and
each is indeed the indispensable complement of the other. There
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428 PSTCHOLOOT OF BEX.
can be do real freedom for the individual in the thingB that con-
cern that individual alone uolesB there iB a coherent order in the
things that concern him as a social unit. Marriage in one of its
aspects only concerns the two individuals involved; in another
of its aspects it chiefly concema society. The two forces cannot
combine to act destructively on marriage, for the one counteracts
the other. They combine to support monogamy, in all essentials,
on its immemorial basis.
It must be added that in the circnnistanees of monogamy
that are not essential there always has been, and always must be,
perpetual transformation. All traditional institutions, however
firmly founded on natural impulses, are always growing dead
and rigid at some points and putting forth vitally new growths
at other points. It is the effort to maintain their vitality, and
to preserve their elastic adjustment to the environment, which
involves this process of transformation in non-essentials.
The only way in which we can fruitfully approach the
question of the value of the transformations now taking place
in our marriage-syetem is by considering the history of that
system in the past. In that way we learn the real significance
of the marriage-system, and we understand what transformations
are, or are not, associated with a fine civilization. When we are
acquainted with the changes of the past we are enabled to face
more confidently the changes of the present.
The history of the marriage-system of modem civilized
peoples begins in the later days of the Roman Empire at the
time n-Iien the foundations were being laid of that Roman law
which has exerted so large an influence in Christendom.
Iteference has already been made^ to the significant fact that in
late Rome women had acquired a position of nearly complete
independence in relation to their husbands, while the patriarchal
authority still exerted over them by their fntbere had become,
for the most part, almost nominal. This high status of women
was associated, as it naturally tends to be, with a high degree of
freedom in the marriage system. Boman law had no power of
3 See ante, p. 399.
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HABBIAQE. 429
intervening in the formation of marriages and tliere were no legal
foniiB of marriage. The Romans recognized that marriage is a
fact and not a mere legal form ; .in marriage by iiaus there was
no ceremony at all; it was eonetituted by the mere fact of living
together for a whole year; yet such marriage was regarded as
just as legal and complete as if it had been inaugurated by the
sacred rite of confarreaiio. Marriage was a matter of simple
private agreement in which the man and the woman approache<l
each other on a footing of equality. The wife retained full con-
trol of her own property; the barbarity of tidmitting an action
for restitution of conjugal rights was impossible, divorce was a
private transaction to wliich the wife was as fully entitled as the
husband, and it required no inquisitorial intervention of magis-
trate or court; Augustus ordained, indeed, that a public declara-
tion was necessary, but the divorce itself was a private legal act
of the two persons concerned.* It is interesting to note this
enlightened conce])tion of marriage prevailing in the greatest and
most masterful Empire wliich has ever dominated the world, at
the period not indeed of its greatest force, — for the maximum of
force and the maximum of expansion, the bud and the full
flower, are necessarily incompatible, — but at the period of its
fullest development. In the chaos that followed the dissolution
of the Empire Roman law remained as a precious legacy to
the new developing nations, but its influence was inextricably
mingled with that of Christianity, which, though not at the first
anxious to set up marriage laws of its own, gradually revealed a
growing ascetic feeling hostile alike to the dignity of the married
woman and the freedom of marriage and divoree." With that
influence was combined the influence, introduced through the
1 Wachtpr, Ehrnekiedttagen, pp. 95 *■( atq,; Esmpin. ilarriage en
Droit Canoitique, vol. i. p. 9; Howard, History of .Uatrinioiiial ItutilU'
lions, vol. ii, p. 15. Howard (in agreement with Leoky) ponsiders that
the frepdom of divorce wan only abused by a Eimalt section of the Roman
population, nnd that such abuse, so far as it existed, ivas not the cause
ot any decline of Roman morals.
2 The opinions of the Christian Fathers were rerj- varied, and they
were sometimes doubtful about them; see, e.j.. the opinions collected by
Oranmer and enumerated by Burnet, History of Reformation ( ed. Narea ) ,
vol. ii, p. Bl.
DiclzedbyGoOglC
480 FSYCHOLOOY OF SEX.
Bible, of the barbaric Jewish marriago-Bystem conferring on the
huBband rights in marriage and divorce which were totally
denied to tJie wife; this was, an infiuence which gained still
greater force at the Reformation when the authority once accorded
to the Church was largely transformed to the Bible. Finally,
tliere was in a great part of Europe, including the most energetic
and expansive parts, tlie influence of the Germans, an influence
still more primitive than that of the Jews, involving the con-
ception of the wife as almost her husband's chattel, and marriage
as a purchase. All these influences clashed and often appeared
side by aide, though they could not be harmonized. The result
was that the fifteen hundred years that followed the complete
conquest of Christianity represent on the whole the most
degraded condition to which the marriage system has ever been
known to fall for so long a period during the whole course of
human history.
At first indeed the beneficent infiuence of Bome continued
in some degree to prevail and even exhibited new developments.
In the time of the Christian Emperors freedom of divorce by
mutual consent was alternately maintained, and abolished.' We
even find the wise and far-seeing provision of the law enacting
that a contract of the two parties never to separate could have no
legal validity. Justinian's prohibition of divorce by consent led
to much domestic unhappiness, and even crime, which appears to
be the reason why it was immediately abrogated by his successor,
Theodoeius, still maintaining the late lioman tradition of the
moral equality of the sexes, allowed the wife equally with the
husband to obtain a divorce for adultery ; that is a point we have
not yet attained in England to-day.
I Conatantine, the drat Christian Emperor, enacted a strict and
peculiar divorce law (allowing a wife to divorce her husband only when
he was a homicide, a poisoner, or a violator of sepulchrea), which could
not be maintained. In 497. therefore, AnastasiuH decreed divorce by
mutual consent. This was abolished by Justinian, who only allowed
divorce for various specified causes, among them, however, including the
husband's adultery. These restrictions proved unworkable, and Jus-
tinian's sureessor and nephew, Justin, restored divorce by mutual con-
sent. Finally, in S70. Leo the Philosopher returned to Justinian's
enactment (see, e.g.. Smith and Cheetham; Dictionary of CAmlfon J.ntt<
quilien arts. "Adultery" and "Marriage").
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MAHBIAQE, 4jtl
It seems to be admitted on all sides that it was largely
the fatal influence of the irruption of the barbarous Germans
which degraded, when it .failed to sweep away, the noble con-
ception of the equality of women with men, and the dignity and
fi-eedom of marriage, slowly moulded by the organizing genius
of the Boman into a great tradition which still retains a supreme
value. Tlie influence of Christianity had at the first no degrad-
ing influence of this kind; for the ascetic ideal was not yet pre-
dominant, priests married as a matter of course, and there was no
difliculty in accepting the marriage order eetablished in the
secular world ; it was even possible to add to it a new vitality and
freedom. But the Germans, with all the primitively acquisitive
and combative instincts of untamed savages, went far. beyond
even the early Eomans in the subjection of their wives; they
allowed indeed to their unmarried girls a large measure
of indulgence and even sexual freedom, — ^just as the Christians
also reverenced their virgins,^ — but the German marriage system
placed the wife, as compared to the wife of the Soman Empire, in
a condition little better than that of a domestic slave. In one
fonn or another, under one disguise or another, the system of
wife-purchase prevailed among the Germans, and, whenever that
system is influential, even when the wife is honored her privileges
are diminished.^ Among the Teutonic peoples generally, as
among the early English, marriage was indeed a private trans-
action but it took the form of a sale of the bride by the father, or
other legal guardian, to the bridegroom. The beweddung Was a
1 The element of reverence in the early Oemmn attitude towards
women and the privilegeH which even the married woman enjoyed, so far
at Tacitua can be considered a reliable guide, seem to have been the
surviving vestiges of an earlier social Htate on a more matriarchal baaia.
They are moat dJBtinct at the dawn of German history. From the first,
however, though divorce by mutuiil consent seems to have been possible,
German custom was pitiless to the married woman who waH unfaithful,
sterile, or otherwise offended, though for some time after the introduction
of Christianity it was no offence for the German husband to commit
adultery (Westermarck, Origin of the Moral Ideaa, vol. ii, p. 463).
S"ThiB form of marriage." says Hobhouse {op. cit.. vol. i, p. 166),
"is intimately associated witl> the extension of marital power." Of.
Howard, op. eit., vol. i, p. 231. The very subordinate position of the
medieeva] German woman In set forth by Hagelstange, BUtldewttohea
Bauernleben in UitteUUter, 180S, pp. 70 et aeq.
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432 PSYCIIOLOGT OF SEX,
real contract of sale,* "Sale-marriage" was the most nsual form
of marriage. The ring, indeed, probably was not in origin, as
some have supposed, a mark of servitude, but rather a form of
bride-price, or arrha, that is to say, earnest mcmey on the contract
of marriage and so the B}Tnbol of it.^ At first a sign of tlie
bride's purchase, it was not till later that the ring acquired the
significance of subjection to the bridegroom, and that significance,
later in the Middle Agea, was further emphasized by other cere-
monies. Thus in England the York and Sarum manuals in
some of their forms direct the bride, after the delivery of the
ring, to fall at her husband's feet, and sometimes to kiss his right
foot. la BuBsia, also, the bride kissed her husband's feet. At a
later period, in France, this custom was attenuated, and it became
customary for the bride to let the ring fall in front of the altar
and then stoop at her husband's feet to pick it up.^ Feudalism
carried on, and by its military character exaggerated, these
Teutonic influences. A fief was land held on condition of
military service, and the nature of its influence on marriage is
implied in that fact. The woman vas given with the fief and
her own will counted for nothing.^
The Christian Church in the beginning accepted the forms
1 Howard, op. cit., vol. i, p. 259; Smith and Clieethnm, Dictionary
of Chrigtian Antiquitiet, art. Arrhtr. It would appear, however, that
the "bride-aale," of which Tacitus apeaks, waa not strictly the sale of a
chattel nor of a slave-girl, but t*e sale of the mund or protectorship over
the girl. It in true the diatinction may not aln-ayn have been clear to
those who took part in the transaction. Similarly the Anglo-Saxon
betrothal was not so much a payment of the bride's price to her kinsmen,
although as a matter of fact, they might make a profit out of the trans-
action, as a covenant stipulating for the bride's honorable treatment n>t
wife and widow. Reminiscences of this, remark Pollock and Maitland
(op. ei(., vol. ii, p. 364), may be found in "that curious cabinet of anti-
quitiei, the marriage ritual of the English Church."
ZHoward, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 278.2S1, 388. The Arrha crept into
Roman and Byzantine taw during the sixth century.
3 J. Wickhsm LegK, Ecchnoloffical Easay», p. 1R9. It mav be
added that the idea of the subordination ot the wife tn the husband
appeared in the Christian Church at a somewhat parly period, and no
doubt Independently of Germanic influences; St. Augustine said (.^rmo
XXXVir. cap. vi) that a good materjamiliaa must not be ashamed to
call herself her husband's servant (oncitfa).
*See, e.g., L. Gautier, La Chevalerie, Ch. IX,
DiclzedbyGoOglC
of maniage already exiating iu those countriee in whicli it found
itself, tlie Boman fonus in the lands of Latin tradition and the
Genuau forma In Teutonic lands. It merely demanded (as it
also demanded for other civil contracts, such as an ordinary
sale) that they should be hallowed by priestly benediction. But
the marriage was recognized by the Church even in the absence
of such benediction. There was no special religions marriage
service, either in the East or the West, earlier than the sixth
century. It was simply the custom for the married couple, after
the secular ceremonies were completed, to attend the church,
listen to the ordinary service and take the sacrament. A special
marriage service was developed slowly, and it was no part of
the real marriage. During the tenth century (at all events in
Italy and France) it was beginning to become customary to cele-
brate the first part of the real nuptials, still a purely temporal
act, outside the church door. Soon this was followed by the
regular bride*mass, directly applicable to the occasion, inside the
church. By the twelfth century the priest directed the cere-
mony, now involving an imposing ritual, which began outside the
church and ended with the bridal mass inside. By the thirteenth
century, the priest, superseding the guardians of the young
couple, himself officiated through the whole ceremony. Up to
that time marriage had been a purely private business transaction.
Thus, after more than a millennium of Christianity, not by law
but by the slow growth of custom, ecclesiastical marriage was
established.'
It was undoubtedly an event of very great importance not
merely for the Church but for the whole history of European
marriage even down to to-day. The whole of our public method
of celebrating marriage to-day is based on that of the Catholic
Church as established in the twelfth century and formulat«d in
the Canon law. Even the publication of banns has its origin here,
and the fact that in our modem civil marriage the public
ceremony takes place in an oEBce and not in a Church may dis-
I Howard, op. ct'(., vol. i, pp. 293 et aeq.; EBmein, op. oil., vol. i, pp.
23 ct acq. ; Smith ond Cheetham, Dictionary of Christian Antiquiliet,
art. "Contract of Jlarriage."
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4S4 psTCHOLOaY of sex.
guise but cannot alt«r tlie fact that it is the direct and unques-
tionable descendant of the public ecclesiastical ceremony whidi
embodied the slow and subtle triumph — so slow and subtle that
its history is difficult to trace — of Christian priests over the
private affairs of men and women. Before they set themselves to
this task marriage everywhere was t)ie private business of the
persons concerned; when they had completed tlieir task, — and
it was not absolutely complete until the Council of Trent, — a
private marriage had become a sin and almost a crime.*
It may seem a matter for surprise that the Church which,
as ve know, had shown an ever greater tendency to reverence
virginity and to cast contumely on the sexual relationship, should
yet, parallel with that movement and with the growing influence
of asceticism, have shown so great an anxiety to capture marriage
and to confer on it a public, dignified, and religious character.
There was, however, no contradiction. The factors that were
constituting European marriage, taken as a whole, were indeed
of very diverse characters and often involved unreconciled con-
tradictions. But so far as the central efforts of the ecclesiastical
legislators were troucemed, there was a definite and intelligible
point of view. The very depreciation of the sexual instinct
involved the necessity, since the instinct could not be uprooted,
of constituting for it a legitimate channel, so that ecclesiastical
matrimony was, it has been said, "analogous to a license to sell
intoxicating liquors."^ Moreover, matrimony exhibited the
power of the Church to confer on the license a dignity and dis-
tinction which would clearly separate it from the general stream
of lust. Sexual enjoj-ment is impure, the faithful cannot par-
take of it until it has been purified by the ministrations of the
Church. The solemnization of marriage was the necessary
result of the sanctification of virginity. It became necessary
1 Any later changes in Catliolic Canon law have merdy been in th«
direction of making matrimony atill narrower and atill more remote
Irom the practice of the world. By a papal decree of lfi07, civil mar-
riages and marriages in non-ratholic places of worship are declared to
be not only sinful and unlawful (which they were before), but actually
null and void.
2 E. S. P. Haynea, Oar Diroici: Lam. p. 3.
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MABRIAOE. 435
to sanctify marriage alsOj and hence was developed the indis-
Boluble sacrament of matrimony. The conception of marriage
as a religious sacrament, a conception of far-reaching influence,
is the great contribution of the Catholic Church to the history
of marriage.
It is important to remember that, while ChristUnitj' brought the
idea of marriage as a sacrament into the main stream of the institutional
history of Europe, that idea was merely developed, not invented, by Uie
Church. It ia an ancieat and even primitive idea. The Jews believed
that marriage is a magico'religious bond, having in it something mjatical
resembling a, sacrament, and that idea, savs Durkheim (L'Anaie Socio-
lagifqtte, eighth year/ 1B05, p. 410), is perhaps very archaic, and hangs
on to the generally magic character of sex relations. "The mere act of
union, Crawley remarks (Tke MystUs Rogt, p. 318) concerning savagea,
"is potentially a marriage ceremony of the eacramental kind
One may even credit Uie earliest animistic men with some such vague
conception before any ceremony became erystalliEed." The essence of a
marriage ceremony, the same writer continues, "is the 'joining together'
of a man and a woman; in the words of our English service, 'for this
cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall be joined unto
his wife; and they two shall be one flesh.' At the other side of the
world, amongst the Orang Benuas, these words are pronounced by an
elder, when a marriage is solemnized: 'Listen all ye that are present;
those that were distant are now brought together; those that wero
separated are now united.' Marriage ceremonies in all stages of culture
may be called religious with as much propriety as any ceremony what-
ever. Those who were separated are now joined together, those who
were mutually taboo now break the taboo," Thus marriage ceremonies
prevent sin and neutralize danger.
The Catholic conception of marriage was, it is clear, in essentials
precisely the primitive conception. Christianity drew the sacramental
idea from the archaic traditions in popular consciousness, and its own
ecclesiastical contribution lay in slowly giving that idea h formal and
rigid shape, and in declaring it indissoluble. As among savages, it was
in the act of consent that the essence of the sacrament lay; the
intervention of the priest was not, in principle, necessary to give mar-
riage its religiously binding character. The essence of the sacrament
was mutual acceptance of each other by the man and the woman, as hus-
band and wife, and technically the priest who presided at the ceremony
was simply a witness of the sacrament. The essential fact being thus
the mental act of consent, the sacrnment of matrimony had the peculiar
character of being without any outward and visible sign. Perhaps it
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436 PSYCHOLOGY OP SEX.
wftB thfs fact, instiitctivelf felt as a weaknesB, which led to the immense
emphaeis on the indiBsolubility of tlie sacrament of matrimony, alre&dy
eatnbliahed by St. Auguatine. The Canonists brought forward various
arguments to account for that indissolubility, and a, frequerft argument
baa always been the Striptural application of the term "one flesh" to
married couples; but the favorite argument of the Canonists was that
matrimony represents the union of Christ with the Church j that is
indissoluble, and therefore its image must be indissoluble (Esmein, op.
ait., vol. i, p. S4). In part, also, one may well believe, tbe idea of tike
indissolubility of marriage suggested itself to the ecclesiastical mind by
a natural association of ideas: the votr of virginity in monasticism was
indissoluble; ought not the vow of sexual relationship in matrimony to
be similarly indissolublet It appears that it was not until 1164, in
Peter Lombard's Sentences, that clear and formal recognition ia found of
matrimony as one of the seven sacraments (Howard, op. oit., vol. i, p.
333).
The Church, however, had not only made marriage a reli-
gious act; it had also made it a public act. The officiating prieet,
who had now become the arbiter of marriage, was bound by all
the injunctiona and prohibitions of the Church, and he could
not allow himself to bend to the inclinations and intereete of
individual couples or their guardians. It was inevitable that in
this matter, as in other similar matters, a code of ecclesiastical
regulations should be gradually developed for his guidance.
This need of the Church, due to its growing control of the
world's affairs, was the origin of Canon law. With the develop-
ment of Canon law the whole field of the regulation of the
sexual relationsliips, and the control of its aberrations, became an
exclusively ecclesiastical matter. The secular law could take no
more direct cognizance of adultery than of fornication or mastur-
bation; bigamy, incest, and so<lomy were not temporal crimes;
the Church was supreme in the whole sphere of sex.
It was during the twelfth century that Canon law developed,
and Gratian was the master mind who first moulded it. He
belonged to the Bolognese achool of juriaprudence which had
inherited the sane traditions of Roman law. The Canons which
Gratian compiled were, however, no more the mere result of
legal traditions than they were the outcome of cloistered theo-
logical speculation. They were the result of a response to the
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MABEIAGE. 437
practical needs of the day before those needs had had time to
form a foundation for fine-spun subtleties. At a somewhat
later period, before the .close of the century, the Italian jurists
were vanquished by the Gallic theologians of Paris as represented
by Peter Lombard. The result was the introduction of mis-
chievous complexities which went far to rob Canon law alike of
its certainty and its adaptation to human necessities.
Notwithstanding, however, all the parasitic accretions which
swiftly began to form around the Cauon law aud to entangle its
practical activity, that legislation embodied — predominantly at
the outset and more obscurely throughout its whole period of
vital activity — a sound core of real value. The Canon law
recognized at the outset that the essential fact of marriage is the
actual sexual union, accomplished with the intention of inaugu-
rating a permanent relationship. The copula camalis, the mak-
ing of two "one flesh," according to the Scriptural phrase, a
mystic symbol of the union of the Church to Christ, was the
essence of marriage, and the mutual consent of the couple alone
BufBeed to constitute marriage, even without any religious bene-
diction, or without any ceremony at all. The formless and
unblessed imion was still a real and binding marriage if the two
parties had willed it so to be.^
Whatever hard things may be said about tlie Canon law, it must
never be forgotten that it carried through the Middle Ages until the
middle of the eixt^enth century the great truth that the essence of mar-
riage lies not in rites and forms, but in the mutual consent of the two
persons who marry each other. When the Catholic Church, in its grow.
ing rigidity, lost that conception, it was taken up by the Protestants
and Puritans In thpir first stage of ardent vital activity, though it was
more or leas dropped as they fell back into a state of subservience to
forms. It continued to be maintained by moralists and poets. Thus
George Chapman, the dramatist, who was both moralist and poet, in
The Oetttleman Usher (lfi06), represents the ritelesa nuirriage of his
hero and heroine, which the bitter thus introduces: —
1 It was the Council of Trent, in the Bixteenth century, which made
ecclesiastical rites essential to binding marriage; but even then fifty-
six prelates voted against that decision.
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43a PSrCHOLOGT OF SEX.
"M»y not we now
Our contract make and marry before Heaven T
Are not tbe lawa of God and Nature more
Ulan formal lawa of men ! Are outward ritea
More virtuous than the very <iiibBtance U
Of holy nuptials soleuiDzied within T
.... The etemsl acts of our pure souls
Knit us with Ood, the soul of all the world.
He nliall be priest to us; and with such rites
Aa we oan here devise we will express
And strongly ratify our hearts' true tows.
Which no external riolence shall disaoire,"
And to-day, RIten Key. the distinguished prophet of marriage reform,
declares at the end of her Li^be Hud Bhe that the true marriage law
contains only the paragraph : "They who lore tmrh other are husband and
wife."
The (^tablislim^nt of marria<re on tlits f^und and natnral-
istii- basis had the furtlipr excellent n-sult that it placed the man
and tW woman, irho could thus constitute marriage by their con-
!>ent in cntiiv dii^rt^pml of the wishes of their parents or familiea,
mi tho wiMH' moral level. Here the Church was following alike
tlio later Itonians and the earlj Christiana like Lactantius and
.Icroine who had declared that what was licit for a man was licit
for a woman. The Penitentiala also attempted to set np this
same moral law for both sexes. The Canonists finally allowed a.
iH'rtain cnpremacy to the husband, though, on the other hand,
they sometimes seemed to assign even the chief part in marriage
to the wife, and the nttenipt was made to derive the word malri-
nionium from malrU fiiunium. thereby declaring the maternal
function to be the essential fact of marriage.'
The sound elements in the Canon law conception of marriage
were, however, from a very early period largely if not altogether
neutralized by the \erbal subtleties by which they were overiaid,
and even by its own fundamental original defects. Even in the
thirteenth centurj- it began to be possible to attach a superior
force to marriage verbally formed per verba de pngsenti than to
I KHmcin, op. cil., vol. i, p. fll.
DiclzedbyGoOglC
one constituted by sexual union, while so many impedimentB to
marriage were set up that it became difficult to know what mar-
riages were valid, an important point since a marriage even inno-
cently contracted within the prohibited d^reee waa only a
putative marriage. The most serious and the most profoundly
unnatural feature of this ecclesiastical conception of marriage
was the flagrant contradiction between the estreme facility with
which the gate of marriage was flung open to the young couple,
even if they were little more than children, and the extreme
rigor with which it was locked and bolted when they were inside.
That is still the defect of the marriage system we have inherited
from the Church, hut in the hands of the Canonists it was
emphasized both on the side of its facility for entrance and of
its difficulty for exit.^ Alike from the standpoint of reason and
of humanity the gate that is easy of ingress must be easy of
egress; or if the e.xit is necessarily difQcult then extreme care
must be taken in admission. But neither of these necessary pre-
cautions was possible to the Canonists. Matrimony was a
sacrament and all must be welcome to a sacrament, the more so
since otherwise they may be thrust into the mortal sin of fornica-
tion. On the other side, since matrimony was a sacrament, when
once truly formed, beyond the permissible power of verbal
quibbles to invalidate, it could never be abrogated. The very
institution that, in the view of the Church, had been set up as a
bulwark against license became itself an instrument for artificially
creating license. So that the net result of the Canon law in the
long run was the production of a state of things which — in the
1 It is sometimes said that the Catholic Church is ab!c to diminiah
the evils of ita doctrine of the indigsolubilitj of marriage I^ the number
of impedimeDta to marriage it admits, thus affording free scope for dis-
pensatioiiH from marriage. This scarcclv seems to be the case. I>r. P.
J. Hayes, who epeaks with authority as Chancellor of the Catholic Arch-
diocese of New York, states ("Impediments to Marriage in the Catholic
Church," Xorth Ameiican Review, May, 1905) that even in so modem
and BO mixed a community as this there are few applications for dispen-
aations on account of impediments; there are 15,000 Catholic marriages
per annum in New York City, but scarcely five per nnnum are questioned
as to validity, and these chiefly on the ground of bigamy.
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440 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
eyes of a large part of ChriBtendom — more than neutralized the
80iindiieBe of its original conception.^
Id England, where from the ninth centuij, marriage was geaer-
ally accepted by the ecclesiastical and temporal powers as indissoluble.
Canon law waa, in the main, eBtabtished as in the rest of Christendom.
There were, bowerer, certain points in which Canon law was not accepted
by the law of England. Bj English law a ceremonf before a priest was
neceaaary to the vatiditf of a marriage, though in Scotland tl)e Canon
law doctrine was accepted that eimple consent of the parties, even
exchanged secretly, sufficed to constitute marriage. Again, the issue of
a void marriage contracted in innocence, and the issue of persons wh9
subsequently marry each other, are legitimate by Canon law, but not by
the common law of England (Geary, Marriage and Famiiy Relations,
p. 3; Pollock and Maitland, too. cit.). The Canonists regarded the dis-
abilities attaching to tiastardy as a punishment inflicted on the offending
parents, and considered, therefore, that no burden should fall on the
children when there had been a ceremony in good faith on the part of
one at least of the parents. In tl)is respect the English law is less rea-
sonable and humane. It was at the Council of Merton, in 1236, that the
barons of England rejected the proposal to make the laws of England
harmonize with the Canon taw, that is, with the ecc^Iesiasticai law of
Christendom generally, in allowing children bom before wedlock to b»
legitimated by subsequent marriage. Groaseteste poured forth bis elo-
quence and his arguments in favor of the change, but in vain, and the
law of England has ever since stood alone in this respect (Freeman,
"Merton Priory," English Toions and Districta). The proposal was
rejected in the famous formula, "Nolumus leges Angliie mutare," a for-
mula which nierel}' stood for an unreasonable and inhumane obstinacy.
In the United States, white by common law subsequent marriage
fails to legitimate children born before marriage, in many of the States
the subsequent marriage of the parents effects by statute the le^timacy
of the child, sometimes (as in Maine) automatically, more usually (as
in Massachusetts ) through special acknowledgment by tlie father.
The appearance of Luther and the Reformation involved
the decay .of the Canon law Bystem so far aa Europe as a whole
was concerned. It wae for many reasouB impossible for the
I The Canonists, say Pollock and Maltland {loi?. cit.). "made a
capricious mess of the marriage law," "Seldom," says Howard (op. cit.,
vol i, p> 340), "have mere tlmory and subtle quibbling had more disas-
trous consequences in practical life than in the case of the distinction
between spoiualia de prtrseati and de futuro."
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HABBUQE. 441
Froteetant reformen to retain formally either the Catholic con-
ception of matrimony or the precariouaty elaborate legal structure
which the Church had built up on that conception. It can
scarcely be said, indeed, that the Protestant attitude towards the
Catholic idea of matrimony was altogether a clear, logical, or
coneiBtent attitude. It was a revolt, an emotional impulse, rather
than a matter of reasoned principle. In its inevitable necessity,
under the circumstances of the rise of Protestantism, lies its
justification, and, on the whole, its wholesome soundness. It
took the form, which may seem strange in a religious movement,
of proclaiming that marriage is not a religious but a secular
matter. Marriage is, said Luther, "a worldly thing," and Calvin
put it on the same level as house-building, farming, or shoe-
making. But while this secularization of marriage represents
the general and final drift of Protestantism, the leaders of
Protestantism were themselves not altogether confident and clear-
sighted in the matter. Even Luther was a little confused on this
point ; sometimes he seems to call marriage "a sacrament,"
sometimes "a temporal business," to be left to the state.^ It
was the latter view which tended to prevail. But at first there
was a period of confusion, if not of cbaos, in the minds of the
Reformers; not only were they not always convinced in their
own minds ; they were at variance with each other, especially on
the very practical question of divorce. Luther on the whole
belonged to the more rigid party, including Calvin and Beza,
which would grant divorce only for adultery and malicious deser-
tion; some, including many of the early English Protestants,
were in favor ot allowing the husband to divorce for adultery but
not the wife. Another party, including Zwingli, were influenced
by Erasmus in a more liberal direction-, and — moving towards
the standpoint of Roman Imperial legislation— admitted various
causes of divorce. Some, like Bueer, anticipating Milton, would
even allow divorce when the husband was unable to love his wife.
1 Howard, op. int., vol. i, pp. 386 et aeq. On the whole, however,
Luther's opinion was that marriage, though a sacred and mysterious
thing, is not a sacniment; his various sUttements on the matter aT«
brought together bj Strampff, Lather iiber die Eke, pp. 204-214.
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442 l-SVCHOLOOV OF SEX.
At tile bcj^inning Bome of the llefonners adopted the principle of
self-divorce, ae it prevailed among the Jews aod was accepted by
some early Church Councils. In this way Luther held that the
cause for the divorce itself effected the divorce without any
judicial decree, though a magisterial permiseion was needed for
remarriage. This question of remarriage, and the treatment
of the adulterer, were also matters of dispute. The remarriage
of the innocent party was generally accepted; in England it began
in the middle of the sixteenth century, was pronounced valid by
the Archbishop of Canterbury, and confirmed by Parliament.
Many Eeformers were opposed, however, to the remarriage of the
adulterous party, Beust, Beza, and Melanchthon would liave
him hanged and fo settle tJie question of remarriage; Luther
and Calvin would like to kill him, but since the civil rulers were
slack in adopting that measure they allowed him to remarry, if
possible in some other part of the country.^
The final outcome was that Prot^atantism framed a con-
ception of marriage mainly on the legal and economic factor — a
factor not ignored but strictly subordinated by the Canonists —
and regarded it as essentially a contract. In so doing they were
on the negative side effecting a real progress, for they broke the
power of an antiquated and artificial system, but on the positive
side they were merely returning to a conception which prevails in
barbarous societies, and is most pronounced when marriage is
most assimilable to purchase. The steps taken by Protestantism
involved a considerable change in the nature of marriage, but not
necessarily any great changes in its form. Marriage was no
longer a sacrament, but it was still a public and not a private
function and was still, however inconsistently, solemnized in
Church. And as Protestantism had no rival code to set up, both
in Germany and England it fell back on the general principles of
Canon law, modifying them to suit its own special attitude and
needs.^ It was the later Puritanic movement, first in the
1 Howard, op. dt., vol. ii. pp. 61 et »eq.
! Probably as a result of the somewhat confused and jncoherent
attitude of the RefomierB, the Canon law of mnrriapp, in a modified form,
really persisted in Proteifant eountries to a greater extent than la
fnthoTic countries; in Franro, espeeially, it has been much more pro-
foundly modified (Esmein, op. cit., vol. i, p. 33).
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UABBIAGE. 443
K'etherlands (15S0), then in England (1G53), and afterrards in
Hew England, wliich introduced a Berious and coherent con-
ception of Protestant marriage, and began to establish it on a
civil base.
The EngliBh ReformerB under Edward VI and hia enlightened
adviserB, including Archbishop Cranmer, took l[beral viewB of marriage,
and were prepared to carry through many admirable reforms. The early
death of that King exerted a profound influence on the legal history of
English marriage. The Catholic reaction under Queen Mary killed off
the more radical ReformerB, wliilp the subsequent accession of Queen
Elizabeth, whose attitude towards marriage was grudging, illiberal, and
old- fashioned, approximating to that of her father, Henry VIII (as wit-
nessed, for ioetance, in her decided opposition to the marriage of the
clergy), permanently affected English marriage law. It became less
liberal than that of other Protestant oountries, and closer to that of
Catholic countries.
The reform of marriage ottempted by the Puritans began In Eng-
land in 1044, when an Act was passed asserting "marriage to be no sacra-
ment, nor peculiar to the Church of God, but commoD to mankind and
of public interest to every Commonwealth." The Act added, notwith-
standing, that it was expedient marriage should be solemnized by "a
lawful minister of the Word." The more radical Act of 1653 swept away
thia provision, and made marriage purely secular. Tlie banns were to be
published (by registrars specially appointed) in the Church, or (if Uie
parties desired) the market-place. The marriage was to be performed
by a Justice of the Peace; the age of consent to marriage for a man was
made sixteen, for a woman fourteen (Scobell's Aels and Ordinaiwet, pp.
86, 236). The Restoration abolished this sensible Act, and relntrodueed
Canon-law traditions, but the Puritan conception of marriage was car-
ried over to America, where it took root and flourished.
It was out of Puritanism, moreover, ae represented by
Milton, that the first genuinely modem though as yet still imper-
fect conception of the marriage relationship was destined to
€merge. The early Beformers in this matter acted mainly from
an obscure instinct of natural revolt in an environment of
plebeian materialism. The Puritans were moved by their feeling
for simplicity and civil order as the conditions for religions free-
dom. Milton, in his Doctrine and Discipline of Div(trce, pub-
lished in 1643, when he was thirty-five years of age, proclaimed
the supremacy of the substance of marriage over the form of it.
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444 PSYCHOLOGY OP SES.
and the spiritnal autonomy of the indiridual in the regulation of
that fonn. He had grasped the meaning of that conception of
personal Tesponsibility which is the foundation of sexual relation-
ships ae they are beginning to appear to men to-day. If Milton
had left behind him only hJe writings on marriage and divorce
they would have sufficed to stamp him with the seal of genius.
Christendom had to wait a century and a half before another man
of genius of the first rank, Wilhelm von Humboldt, spoke out
with equal authority and clearness in favor of free marriage and
free divorce.
It ia to the honor of Milton, ftnd one of faia chief claimn on our
gratitude, that he is the first great protagooist in Christendom of the
doctrine that marriage is a private matter, and that, therefore, it should
be freely dissoluble hy mutual consent, or even at the desire of one of
the parties. We owe to him, eaya Howard, "the boldest defence of the
liberty of divorce which had yet appeared. If taken in the abstract, and
applied to both sexes alike, it is perhaps the strongest defence which can
be made through an appeal to mere authority," though his arguments,
being based on reason and experience, are often ill sustained by hia
authority { he is really speaking the language of the modern social
reformer, snd Milton's writings on this subject are now aomctimea ranked
in importance above all his other work (Maseon, Li^e o^ J/>I(on, vol. iii;
Howard, op. oit., vol. ii, p. 86, vol. iii, p. 251; C. B. Wheeler, "Milton's
Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce," Xtnefeenth Century, Jan., 1907).
Marriage, anid Milton, "is not a mere carnal coition, but a human
society; where that cannot be had tliere can be no true marriage" {Don-
trine of Divorce, Bk. i, Ch. XIII) ; it is "a covenant, the very being
whereof consists not in a forced cohabitation, and counterfeit perform-
ance of duties, but in unfeigned love and peace" {lb., Ch, VI). Any
marriage that ia less than thia is "an idol, nolhing in the world." The
weak point in Milton's presentation of the matter Is that he never
explicitly accords to the wife the same power of initiative in marriage
and divorce as to the husband. There ia, however, nothing in h\* argu-
ment to prevent its et^ual application to the wife, nn application which,
while never aaaerting he never denies; and it has been pointed out that
he assumes that women are the equals of men and demands from thera
intellectual and spiritual companionship; however ready Milton may
have been to grant complete equality of divorce to the wife, It would
have been impossible tor a seventoenth century Puritan to have obtained
any hearing for such a doctrine ; hia arguments would have been received
with, if that were possible, even more neglect than they actually met.
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ilAS&IAOE. 445
(Milton's scornful Bonnet concerning the reception of hia book is well
known.)
Milton inaiats that in the conventional Christian marriage exduaivs
importance is attached to carnal connection. So long as that connectioa
is possible, no matter what antipathy may eicist between the couple, no
matter how mistaken they may have been "through any error, conceal-
ment, or misadventure," no matter if it is impossible for them to "live
in any union or contentment all their days," yet the marriage still holds
good, the two must "fadge together" (op. oil., Bk. i). It is the Canon
law, he aays, which is at fault, "doubtlees by the policy of the dei-il," for
the Canou law leads to licentiousness (op. dt,). It is, he argues, tb9
absence of reasonable liber^ which causes license, and it is tlie men who
desire to retain the privileges of license who oppose the introduction of
reasonable liberty.
The just ground for divorce is "indisposition, unfitness, or con-
traries of mind, arising from a cause in nature unchsngcnble. hindering,
and ever likely to hinder, the main benefits of conjugal society, which
are solace and peace." Without the "deep and serious verity" of mutual
love, wedlock is "nothing but the empty husks of a mere outside matri-
mony," a mere hypocrisy, and must be dissolved {op. cit.).
Miltou goes beyond the usual Puritan standpoint, and not only
rejects courts and magistrates, but approves of aelfdivorcei for divorce
cannot rightly belong to any civil or eartlilv power, since "ofttimes the
causes of seeking divorce reside so deeply in the rndical and innocent
affeetionB of nature, as is not within the diocese of law to tamper with."
Be adds that, for the prevention of injustice, special points may be
referred to the magistrate, who should not, however, in any case, be able
to forbid divorce {oj>. cit., Bk. ii, Ch. XXI). Speaking from a stand-
point which we have not even yet attained, he protests against tha
absurdity of "autboriziog a judicial court to toss about and divulge the
unaccountable and secret reason of disaffection between man and wife."
In modem times Hinton was accustomed to compare the marriage
law to the law of the Sabbath as broken by Jesus. We find exactly the
same comparison in Milton. The Sabbath, he believes, was mode for
God. "Yet when the good of man comes into the scales, we have that
voice of infinite goodness and benignity, that 'Sabbath was made for man
and not man for Sabbath.' What thing ever was made more for man
alone, and less for God, than marriage?" [op cil., Bk, i, Ch. XI). "If
man be brd of the Sabbatb, can he be less than lord of marria^T"
Milton, in this matter as in others, stood outside the currenta
of his age. His conception of marriage made no more impres-
sion on contemporary life than his Paradise Lost, Even hia
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446 PSYCHOLOGY OP SEX,
own Puritan party who had passed the Act of 1653 had strangely
failed to transfer divorce and nullity casee to the temporal courts,
which would at least have been a step on the right road. The
Puritan influence was transferred to America and constituted
the leaven which still works in producing the liheral though too
minutely detailed divorce laws of many States. The American
secular marriage procedure followed that set up by the English
Commonwealth, and the dictum of the great Quaker, George
Pox, "We marry none, but are witnesses of it,"i (which was really
the sound kernel in the Canon law) is regarded as the spirit of
the marriage law of the conservative but liberal State of Pennsyl-
vania, where, as recently as 1885, a statute was passed expressly
authorizing a man and woman to solemnize their own marriage.'
In England itself the reforms in marriage law effected by the
Puritans were at the Restoration largely submerged. For two
and a half centuries longer the English spiritual courts adminis-
tered what was Biibstantially tlie old Canon law. Divorce had,
indeed, become more difficult than before the Reformation, and
the married woman's lot was in consequence harder. From the
sixteenth century to the second half of the nineteenth, English
marriage law was peculiarly harsh and rigid, much less liberal
than that of any other Protestant country. Divorce was
unknown to the ordinary English law, and a special act of
Parliament, at enormous expense, was necessary to procure it in
individual cases.*' There was even an attitude of self-righteous-
ness in the maintenance of this ayatem. It was regarded as
moral. There was complete failure to realize that nothing is
luoi-e immoral than the existence of unreal sexual unions, not
1 The Quaker conception of marriage ia still vitally influential.
"\Vliy," Bays Strs. Besnnt (itaii-Uige. p. 10), "should not we take a leaf
nut ot the Quaker's book, and aubstitut? for the present legal lonoB of
marriage a simple declaration publicly made!"
2 Howard, op. cit., vol. ii_, p. 45fi. The actual practice in Pennsyl-
vania appears, however, to diner little from that usual in the other
States.
3 Howard, op. cit.. vol. ii, p. 109. "It is, indeed, wonderful,"
Howard remarke, "that a, great nation, priding herself on a love of equity
and social liberty, should thus for five generations tolerate an invidious
indulgence, rather than frankly and couragciiD'ly (o free herself from
the pliartlps of an ecclesiastical tradition."
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UABRIAOE. 447
only from the point of view of theoretical but also of practical
morality, for no commuoity could tolerate a majority of Bueh
unions.! Xn 1857 an act for reforming the B}'Btem was at last
passed with great diiGculty. It was a somewhat incoherent and
make-ehift measure, and was avowedly put forward only as a
etep towards further reform; but it still suhetantially governs
English procedure, and in the eyes of many has set a permanent
standard of morality. The spirit of blind conservatism, —
A'o'timits leges AngHa miitHre, — which in this sphere had
reasserted itself after the vital movement of Reform and Puritan-
ism, still persists. In questions of marriage and divorce English
legislation and English public feeling are behind alike both the
I^tin land of France and the Puritanically moulded land of the
United States.
The author of an able and temperate easajr on The Question of Eng-
lish Divorce, aumming up the characteristics of the English dii-orce law,
concludes that it is: (1) unequal, (2) immoral, (3) contradictory, (4)
illogical, <S) uncertain, and (6) unsuited to present requirements. It
was oa\j grudgingly introduced in a bill, presented to Parliament lit
18S7, which was stubbornly reaiated during a whole session, not only on
religious grounds by the opponents of divorce, but also by the friends of
divorce, who desired a more liberal measure. It dealt with the sexes
unequally, granting the husband but not the wife divorce for adultery
alone. In introducing the bill the Attorney-General apologized for this
defect, stating that the measure was not intended to lie final, but merely
as a step towards further legislation. That was more than half a cen-
tuiy ago, but the furtiier step has not yet been taken. Incomplete and
uueatisfactory as the measure was, it seems to have been regarded by
many as revolutionary and dangerous in the highest degree. The author
of an article on "Modem Divorce" in the Universal Review for July,
1859, while approving in principle of the establishment of a special
Divorce Court, yet declared that the new court was "tending to destroy
marriage as a social institution and to ssp female chastity," and that
"everyone now is a husband and wife at will." "No one," he adds, "can
now justly quibble at a deflcieucy of matrimonial vomitories,"
1 "The enforced continuance of an unsuccessful union is perhaps
the most immoral thins which a civilized society ever countenanced, far
less encoura^d." says Godfrey {Science of Sea, p. 123). "The morality
of a union is dependent upon mutual desire, and a union dictated by
any other cause is outside the moral pale, however custom may sanction
it, or religion and law condone it."
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448 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
Yet, according to this law, it is not even posaible tor a wife to
obtain a divorce for her husband's adultery, unless be is also cruel or
deserts her. At flrat "cruelty" meant pbj-aical cruelty and of a serious
kind. But in course of time the meaaing of the word was extended to
pain inflicted on the mind, and now coldness and neglect may almost of
themselves constitute cruelty, though the English court has sometimes
had the greatest hesitation in accepting the most atrocious forms of
refined cruelty, because it involved no "physical" element. "The time
may very reasonably be looked forward to, however," a legal writer has
stated (Montmorency, "The Changing Status of a Married Woman,"
Laio Quaricrlj/ Review, April, 1897 ) , "when almost any act of misconduct
will, in itself, be considered to convey such mental agony to the innocent
party as to constitute the cruelty requisite under the Act of 1857." (Tho
question of cruelty is fully discussed in J. R. Bishop's Commenlariet on
Marriage, Divorce and Separation, 1891, vol. 1, Ch. XLIX; cf. Howard,
op. cit., vol, ii, p. 111).
There can be little doubt, however, that cruelty alone is a reasonable
cause for divorce. In many American States, where the facilities for
divorce are much greater than in England, cruelty is recognized as itaelf
suHlcient cause, whether the wife or the husband is the complainant.
The acts of cruelty alleged have sometimes been seemingly very trivial.
Thus divorces have been pronounced in America on the ground of the
"cruel and inhuman conduct" of a wife who failed to sew her husband's
buttons on, or because a wife "struck plaintiff a violent blow with her
bustle," or because a husband does not cut his toe-nails, or because "dur-
ing our whole married life my husband has never offered to take me out
riding. This has been a source of great mental suffering and injury."
In many other cases, it must be added, the cruelty inflicted by the hus-
band, even by the wife—for though usually, it is not always, the husband
who is the brute — is of an atrocious and heart-rending character (Report
on Marriage and Divorce in the United Stales, issued by Hon. Carroll D.
Wright, Commissioner of Labor, 1889 J . But even in many of the appar-
ently trivial cases — as of a husband who will not wasii, and a wife who
is constantly evincing a hasty temper — it must be admitted that circum-
stancea which, in the more ordinary relationships of life may be toler-
ated, become intolerable in the intjmate relationship of sexual union.
As a matter of fact, it has been found by careful investigation that the
American courts weigh well the cases that come before them, and are
not careless in the granting of decrees of divorce.
In 1859 an exaggerated importance was attached to the gross rea-
sons for divorce, to the neglect of subtle but equally fatal impedimenta
to the continuance of marriage. This was pointed out by Gladstone, who
was opposed to making adulter;' a cause of divorce at all. "We have
many causes." he said, "more fatal to the great obligation of marriage.
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AS dUeaH, idiocy, crime involving puaishment for life." Nowmdaya we
«re beginnJDg to recognize not onl)' euch causes aa these, ttut others of
« far more intimate cliaracter which, as Milton long ago realized, cannot
be embodied in statutes, or pleaded in law courts. The matrimonial
bond is not merely a physical union, and we have to learn that, as the
author of Tke Quettion of BnglUh Divorce (p. 49) remarks, "other than
physical divergencies are, in fact, by far the moat important of the
originating causes of matrimonial diaaster."
In England and Wales more husbands than wives petition for
divorce, the wives who petition being about 40 per cent, of the whole.
Divorces are increasing, though the number is not large, in IB07 about
1,300, of whom less than half remarried. The inadequacy of the divorce
law is shown by the fact that during the same year about 7,000 orders
for judicial separation were issued by magistrates. These separation
orders not only do not give the right to remarry, but they make it impos-
Bible to obtain divorce. They are, in effect, an official permission to
form relationships outside State marriage.
In the United States during the years 1897-1906 nearly 40 per cent.
of the divorces granted were lor "desertion," which is variously inter-
preted in different Stat«B, and must often mean a separation by mutual
consent. Of the remekindcr, IB per cent, were for unfaithfulness, and
the same proportion for cruel^; but while the divorces granted to hus-
bands for the infldetity of their wives are nearly three times as great
proportionately as those granted to wives for their husband's adultery,
with regard to cruelty it is the reverse, wives obtaining 27 per cent of
their divorces on that ground and husbands only 10 per cent.
In Prussia divorce is increasing. In 1007 there were eif^t thou-
sand divorces, the cause in half the cases being adultery, and in about
a thousand cases malicious desertion. In cases of desertion the husbands
were tbe guilty parties nearly twice as often as the wives, in cases of
•dnltery only a fifth to an eighth part
There cannot be the slightest doubt that the difficulty, the
Gonfasion, the inconsistency, and the flagrant indecency which
BQiTound divorce and the methods of securing it are due solely and
entirely to the subtle persistence of traditions based, on the one
hand, on the Canon law doctrines of the indissolubility of mar-
riage and the sin of sexual intercourse outside marriage, and, on
the other hand, on the primitive idea of marriage as a contract
which economically subordinates the wife to the husband and
renders her person, or at all events her guardianship, his property.
It is only when we realize how deeply these traditions have
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4-"»0 PSYCIIOLOOY OF SEX.
become embedded in the religious, legal, social and sentimental
life of Europe that we can imderetand how it is that barbaric
notions of marriage and divorce can to-daj subsist in a stage of
civilization which lias, in many respects, advanced beyond such
notions.
The Canon law conception of the abstract religious sanctity
of matrimony, when transferred to the moral sphere, makes a
breach of the marriage relationship seem a public wrong; the
conception of the contractive subordination of the wife makes
such a breach on her part, and even, by transference of ideas, on
his part, seem a private wrong. These two ideas of wrong
incoherently flourish side by side in the vulgar mind, even to-day.
The economic subordination of the wife as a species of
property significantly coniea into view when we find that a
husband can claim, and often secure, large sums of money from
the man who sexually approaches iiis property, by such trespass
damaging it in its master's eyes.' To a psychologist it would be
obvious that a husband who has lacked the skill so to gain and to
hold his wife's love and respect that it is not perfectly easy and
natural to her to reject the advances of any other man owes at
least as much damages to her as she or her partner owes to him ;
while if the failure is really on her side, if she is so incapable of
responding to love and trust and so easy a prey to au outsider,
then surely the husband, far from wishing for any money com-
pensation, should consider himself more than fully compensated
by being delivered from the necessity of supporting such a
woman. In tlie absence of any false traditions that would be
obvious. It might not, indeed, be unreasonable that a husband
should pay heavily in order to free himself from a wife whom,
evidently, he has made a serious mistake in choosing. But to
ordain that a man should actually be indemnified because he has
1 Adultery in most savage and barbaroua societies is reg&rded, in
the words of Westormarck, as "an illegitimate appropriation of the
exclusive clainiB which the husband has acquired by the purchase of his
wife, as an offence against propertrc;" the seducer ia, therefore, punished
as a thief, bv fine, mutilation, eveii death (Oriijin of the Moral Idea*, vol.
ii, pp. 447 e( geq.; id.. History of Iliiman Harriage, p. 121). Among
some peoples it is the seducer who alone suffers, and not the wife.
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3IARB1A0E. 451
sliown himself incapable of winning a woman's lore ia an idea
that could not occur in a civilized society that was Dot twisted
by inherited prejudice.^ Yet as matters are to-day there are
civilized countries in which it is legally possible for a husband
to enter a prayer for damages against his wife's paramour in
combination with either a petition for judicial separation or for
diesolution of wedlock. In this way adultery ia not a crime but
a private injury.^
At the Bame time, however, the influence of Canon law comes
iDconsistently to the surface and asserts that a breach of
matrimony is a public wrong, a sin transformed by the State
into something almost or quite like a crime. This ia clearly
indicated by the fact that in some countries the adulterer is
liable to impriaonraent, a liability scarcely nowadays carried into
practice. But exactly the same idea is beautifully illustrated by
the doctrine of "collusion," which, in theory, is still strictly
observed in many countries. According to the doctrine of
"collusion" the conditions necessary to make the divorce possible
must on no account be secured by mutual agreement. In practice
it is impossible to prevent more or less collusion, but if proved
in court it constitutes an absolute impediment to the granting of
a divorce, however just and imperative the demand for divorce
may be. '
The English Divorce Act of 1657 refused divorce when there was
collusion, aa well as when there was any countercharge against the
petitioner, and the Matrimonial Causes Act of 18S0 provided the machin-
ery for guaranteeing these bars to divorce. This question of collusion is
1 It is sometimes said in defence of the claim for damages for
seducing a wife that women are often weak and unable to resist mas-
culine advances, so that the law ought to press heavily on the man who
takes advantage of that weakness. This argument ae'emg a little anti-
quated. The law ia beginning to accept the responsibility even of mar-
ried women in other respects, and can scarcely refuse to accept it for
the control of her own person. Moreover, if it is HO natural for the
woman to yield, it Is scarcely legitimate to punish the man with whom
she has performed that natural act. It must further be said that if a
wife's adultery is only an irresponsible feminine weakness, a most undue
brutality U indicted on her by publicly demanding her pecuniary price
from her lover. If, indeed, we accept this argument, we ought to rein-
troduce the mediteval girdle of chastity.
SBoward, op. cii., vol. ii, p. ]14.
DiclzedbyGoOglC
452 PSYCHOLOGY OF BEX.
discuised bj Q. P. Bishop [op. cit., vol. Ji, Ch. IX). "However jiut k
cause may be," Biahop remarks, "if parties collude in its managemeDt,
io that in real fact both parties are plaintiffs, while by the record the
one appears as plaintiff and the other as defendant, it cannot go forward.
All conduct of this sort, disturbing to the course of justice, falls within
the general idea of fraud on the court. Such is the doctrine in principle
everywhere."
It is quite evident that from the social or the moral point
of view, it is best that when a husband and wife cai no longer live
together, they should part amicably, and in harmonious agree-
ment effect all the arrangements rendered necessary by their
separation. The law ridiculously forbids them to do so, and
declares tliat they must not part at all unless they are willing to
part as enemies. In order to reach a still lower depth of
absurdity and immorality the law goes on to say that if as a
matter of fact they have succeeded in becoming enemies to each
other to such an extent that each has wrongs to plead against the
other party tliey cannot be divorced at all !^ That is to aay that
when a married couple have reached a degree of separation which
makes it imperatively necessary, not merely in their own interests
but in the moral interests of society, that they should be separated
and their relations to other parties concerned regularized, then
they must on no account be separated.
It is clear how these provisions of the law are totally opposed
to the demands Of reason and morality. Yet at the some time it
is equally clear how no efforts of the lawyers, however skilfal
or humane those efforts may be, can bring the present law into
harmony with the demands of modem civilization. It is not
1 This rule Is, in England, bj no means a dead letter. Thus, In
1907, a wife who had left her home, leaving a letter stating that her hus-
band was not the father of her child, subsequently brought an action for
divorce, which, as the buRhand made no defence, she obtained. But, the
King's Proctor having learnt the facta, the decree was rescinded. Then
the husband brougiit an action for divorce, but could not obtain it, hav-
ing already admitted his own adultery by leaving the previous case
undefended. He took the matter up to the Court of Appeal, but his
petition was dismissed, the Court being of opinion that "to grant relief
in such a case was not in the interest of public moratily," The safest
way in England to render what is legally tfirme<l marriage absolutely
indissoluble is for both parties to commit adultery.
DiclzedbyGoOgle
MAREIAOE. 458
the lawyers who are at fault; they haye done their best, and,
in England, it is entirely owing to the skilful and cautious way in
which the judges have bo far as possible pressed the law into
harmony with modem needs, that our antiquated divorce laws
have survived at all. It is the system which is wrong. That
system is the illegitimate outgrowth of the Canon law which
grew up around conceptions long since dead. It involves the
placing of the person who imperils tlie theoretical indissolubility
of the matrimonial bond in the position of a criminal, now that
he can no longer be publicly condemned as a sinner. To aid
and abet that criminal is itself an offence, and the aider and
abettor of the criminal must, therefore, be inconeequently pun-
ished by the curious method of refraining from punishing the
criminal. We do not openly assert that the defendant in a
divorce case is a criminal ; that would be to render the absurdity
of it too obvious, and, moreover, would be hardly consistent with
the permission to claim damages which is based on a different
idea. We hover uncertainly between two conceptions of divorce,
both of them bad, each inconsistent with the other, and neither
of them capable of being pushed to its logical conclusions.
The result is that if a perfectly virtuous married couple
comes forward to claim divorce, they are told that it is out
of the question, for in such a case there must be a "defendant."
They are to be punished for their virtue. If each commits
adultery and they again come forward to claim divorce, they are
told that it is still out of the question, for there must be a
"plaintiff." Before they were punished for their virtue; now
they are to be punished in exactly the same way for their lack
of it. The couple must humor the law by adopting a course
of action which may be utterly repugnant to both. If only the
wife alone will commit adulter^', if only the husband will commit
adultery and also inflict some act of cruelty upon his wife, if
the innocent party will descend to the degradation of employing
detectives and hunting up witnesses, the law is at their feet and
hastens to accord to both parties the permission to remarry.
Provided, of course, that the parties have arranged this without
"collusion." That is to say that our law, with its ecclesiastical
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454 PSTCHOLOQT OP SEX.
traditions behind it, says to the wife : Be a einner, or to the
huBbaud : Be a sinner and a criminal — then we will do all you
wish. The law puts a premium on bid and on crime. In order
to pile absurdity on absurdity it claims that this is done in the
cause of "public morality." To those who accept this point of
view it seems that the sweeping away of divorce laws would
undermine the bases of morality. Yet there can be little donbt
that the sooner such "morality" is undermined, and indeed
utterly destroyed, the better it will be for true morality.
There is an influential movement in England for the reform of
divorce, on the grounds thnt the present Uw in unjust, illogical, nnd
immoral, represented by the Divorce Law Reform Union. Even the
former president of the Divorce Court, I>Drd Gorell, declared from
the bench in 1906 that the English law produces deplorable reaulta, and
is "full of inconsistencies, anomalies and inequalities, amounting almost
to absurdities." The points in the law which have aroused most protest.
as being most behind the law of other nations, are the great expense of
divorce, the inequality of the seies, the failure to grant divorces for
desertion and in cawa of hopeless insanity, and the failure of separation
orders to enable the separated parties to marry again. Separation
orders are granted by magistrates for cruelty, adultery, and desertion.
This "separation" is really the direct descendant of the Canon law
divorce a merua et thoro, and the inability to marry which it involves
is merely a survival of the Canon law tradition. At the present time
magistrates — exercising their discretion, it is admitted, in a careful and
prudent manner — issue some 7,000 separation orders annually, so that
every year the population is increased by 14,000 individuals mostly in
the age of sexual vigor, and some little more than children, who are for-
bidden by law to form legal marriages. They contribute powerfully to
the great forward movement which, as was shown in th» previous chap-
ter, marks the morality of our age. But it is highly imdesirable that
free marriages should be formed, helplessly, by couples who have no
choice in the matter, for it is unlikely that under such circumstances
any high level of personal responsibility can be reached. The matter
could be easily remedied by dropping altogether a Canon law tradition
which no longer has any vitality or meaning, and gfiving to the rnagia-
trate's separation order the force of a decree of divorce.
New Zealand and the Australian colonies, led by Victoria in 1889,
have passed divorce laws which, while more or less framed on the
English model, represent a distinct advance. Thus in New Zealand the
grounds for dii'orce are adultery on either side, wilful dcEiertion, habitual
drunkenness, and conviction to imprisonment for a term of years.
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MABaiAQB. 465
It is natural that an EngllBhman shoold feel acutely b^ibi-
tive to this blot in the law of England and desire the epeedy
diaappearance of a system so open to Bcathiug Barcasm. It ia
natural that every humane person should grow impatient of the
spectacle of so many blighted lives, of so much misery inflicted
on innocent persons — and on persons who even when technically
guilty are often the victims of imnatural circumstances — by the
persistence of a medieeval system of ecclesiastical tyranny and
inquisitoria] insolence into an age when sexual relationships are
becoming regarded as the sacred secret of the persons intimately
concerned, and when more and more we rely on the responsibility
of the individual in making and maintaining such relationships.
When, however, we refrain from concentrating our attention
on particular countries and embrace the general movement of
civilization in the matter of divorce during recent times, there
cannot be the elightest doubt aa to the direction of that move-
ment, England was a pioneer in the movement half a century
ago, and to-day every civilized country is moving in the same
direction. France broke with the old ecclesiastical tradition of
the indissolubility of matrimony in 1885 by a divorce law in
some respects very reasonable. The wife may obtain a divorce
on an equality with the husband (though she is liable to
imprisonment for adultery), the co-respondent occupies a very
subordinate position in adultery charges, and facility is offered
for divorce on the ground of simple injures graves (excluding
aa far as possible mere incompatibility of temper), while the
judge has the power, which he often successfully exerts, to
effect a reconciliation in private or to grant a decree without
public trial. The influence of France has doubtless been
influential in moulding the divorce laws of the other Latin
countries.
In Prussia an enlightened divorce law formerly prevailed
by which it was possible for a couple to separate without scandal
when it was clearly shown that they could not live together in
agreement. But the German Code of 1900 introduced pro-
visions aa regards divorce which — while in some respects more
liberal than those of the English law, especially by .permitting
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456 PSYCilOLOGT OF BBS.
divorce for deeertion and in sanity — are, on the whole, retrograde
as compared with the earlier PruBsian law and place the matter
on a cruder and more bmtal basis. For two years after the Code
came into operations tlie number of divorcee sank ; after that the
public and the courts adapted themselves to the new pro-
visions (more especially one which allowed divorce for serious
neglect of conjugal duties) and the number of divorces began to
increaee with great rapidity- "But," remarks Hirschfeld, "how
painful it has now become to read divorce cases ! One side abuses
tlie other, makes accusations of the grossest character, employs
detectives to obtain the necessary proofs of 'dishonorable and
immoral conduct,' whereas, before, both parties realized that they
had been deceived in each other, that they failed to suit each
other, and that they could no longer live together. Thus we
see that the narrowing of individnal responsibility in sexual
matters has not only had no practical effect, but leads to injnriouB
results of a serious kind.''^ In England a similar state of
things has prevailed ever since divorce was established, but it
seems to have become too familiar to excite either pain or dis-
gust. Yet, as Adner has pointed out,^ it has moved in a direc-
tion contrary to the general tendency of civilization, not only by
increasing the inquisitorial authority of public courts but by
emphasizing merely external causes of divorce and abolishing the
more subtle internal causes which constantly grow in importance
with the refinement of civilization.
In Austria until recent years, Canon law ruled absolutely,
and matrimony was indiseoluble, as it still remains for the
Catholic population. The results as regards matrimonial happi-
ness were iu the highest degree deplorable. Half a century ago
Gross-Hoffinger investigated the marital happiness of 100
't'iennese couples of all social classes, without choice of cases, and
presented the results in detail. He found that 48 couples were
positively unhappy, only 16 were undoubtedly happy, and even
among these there was only one case in which happiness resulted
1 Magnus HirRchfeld, Zeit»c]irift filr BexnaluAsaenHohaft, Oct., ItK>S.
2 H. Adner. "Die Richterliohe Beurteilung der 'Zerrdtteten' Ehe,"
Getchleeht und Oeaelltchaft, Bd. ii, Teil 8.
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MARBIAOB. 457
from mutual faithfulneesj happiness in the other cases being
only attained by setting aside the queBtion of fidelity.' This
picture, it is to be hoped, no longer remains true. There
is an influential AuBtrian Marriage Reform Association, publish-
ing a journal called Die Fessel, or The Fetter. "One was chained
to another," we are told. "In certain circumBtances tliia must have
been the worst and most torturing penalty of all. The moat
bizarre and repulsive couplings took place. There were, it is
true, many affectionate companionships of the chain. But ther&
were many more which infiicted an eternity of suffering upon
one of the pair." This quotation, it must be added, has nothing
to do with what the CanonistB, borrowing the technical term for
a prisoner's shackles, suggestively termed the vinculum matri-
monii; it was written many years ago concerning the galleys of
the old French convict system. It is, however, recalled to one's
mind by the title which the Austrian Marriage Reform Asso-
ciation has given to its official organ.
Russia, where the marriage laws are arranged by the Holy
Synod aided by jurists, stands almost alone among the great
countries in the reasonable simplicity of its divorce provisions.
Before 1907 divorce was very difficult to obtain in Kussia, but in
that year it became possible for a married couple to separate
by mutual consent and after living apart for a year to become
thereby entitled to a divorce enabling them to remarry. This
provision is in accordance with the humane conception of the
sexual relationship which has always tended to prevail in
Russia, whither, it must be remembered, the stem and unnatural
ideals of compulsory celibacy cheriBhed by the Western Church
never completely penetrated ; the clergy of the Eastern Church
are married, though the marriage must take place before they
enter the priesthood, and they could not sympathize with the
nnti-Eexual tone of the marriage regulations laid down by the
celibate clergy of the west.
Switzerland, again, which has been regarded as the political
1 Gross-Hoffinger, We Schu;hsale der Frauen umJ die Proatitutioa,
]847; BJoch presents a full Bummary of the results of this Inquiry In
Bn Appendix to Ch. X of his Beieual Life of Our Times.
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458 PSTCHOLOOY OP BEX.
laboratory of Europe, also stands apart in tlie liberality of ite
divorce legislation. A renewable divorce for two years may be
obtained in Switzerland when there are "circumatanceB which
seriously affect the maintenance of the conjugal tie." To the
Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, finally, belongs the honor of having
firmly maintained throughout the great principle of divorce by
mntual consent under legal conditions, as established by Napoleon
in hia Code of 1803. The smaller countries generally are in
advance of the large in matters of divorce law. The Norwegian
law is liberal. The new Roumanian Code permits divorce by
mutual consent, provided both parents grant equal shares of their
property to the children. The little principality of Monaco has
recently introduced the reasonable provision of granting divorce
for, among other causes, alcoholism, syphilis, and epilepsy, so
protecting the future race.
Outside Europe the most instructive example of the tendency
of divorce is undoubtedly furnished by the United States of
America. The divorce laws of the States are mainly on a Puri-
tanic basis, and they retain not only tlie Puritanic love of
individual freedom hut the Puritanic precisianism. ^ In some
States, notahly Iowa, the statute-makers have been constantly
engaged in adopting, changing, abrogating and re-enacting the
provisions of their divorce laws, and Howard has shown how
much confusion and awkwardness arise by such perpetual legisla-
tive fiddling over small details.
This restless precisianism has somewhat disguised the gen-
erally broad and liberal tendency of marriage law in America,
and has encouraged foreign criticism of American social institu-
tions. As a matter of fact the prevalence of divorce in America
is enormously exaggerated. The proportion of divorced persona
in the population appears to be less than one per cent., and, con-
trary to a frequent assertion, it is by no means the rule for
divorced persons to remarry immediately. Taking into account
the special conditions of life in the United States the prevalence
of divorce is small and its character by no means reveals a low
1 Divorce in the United States ie fully discussed b; Howard, op.
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grade morality. An impartial and competent critic of the
American people. Professor Munsterberg, remarks that the real
ground which mainly leads to dirorce in the United States — not
the mere legal pretexts made compulsory by the preciBianism of
the law — is the hi^lj ethical objection to continuing externally
in a marriage which has ceased to be spiritually congenial. "It
is the women especially," he says, "and generally the very best
women, who prefer to take the step, with all the hardships which
it involves, to prolonging a marriage which is spiritually hypo-
critical and immoral."^
The people of the United States, above all others, cherish
ideals of individualism ; they are also the people among whom,
above all others, there is the greatest amount of what Reibmayr
calls "blood-chaos," Under such circumstances the difficulties of
conjugal life are necessarily at a maximum, and marriage union
is liable to subtle impediments which must forever elude the
Btatute-book.2 There can be little doubt that the practical sagac-
ity of the American people will enable them sooner or later to
recognize this fact; and that finally fulfilling the Puritanic drift
of their divorce legislation — as foreshadowed in its outcome by
Milton — they will agree to trust their own citizens with the
responsibility of deciding so private a matter as their conjugal
iH. MtlDSterberg, The Americana, p. 6TE. Similarly, Dr. Felix
Adier, in a atudy of "Tlie Ethics of Divorce" {The Ethical Record, 1880,
p. 200), although not himself an admirer of divorce, believes that the
first cause of the frequency of divorce in the United Statee is the high
position of women.
2 In an important article, with illustrative eases, on "The Ni'uni-
]>8ychical Element in Conjugal Aversion" IJoumal of Nervous and
Mental Dueoses, Sept., 1S02) Smith Baiter refers ta the cases in which
"a man may find himself progresaively becoming antipathetic, through
recognition of the comparatively lees dereloped peraonaiity of the one to
whom he happena to be married. Marrying, perhaps, before he has
learned to accurately judge of character and ita tendencies, he anakens
to the fact that he is honorably bound to live all his physiological life
with, not a real companion, but a mere counterfeit." The casein* are still
more numeroua, the same writer observes, in which the sexual appetite
of the wife fails to reveal Itself except as the result of education and
practice. 'This sort of natural -unnatural condition is the source of much
disappointment, and of intenBe aulTering on the part of the woman as
well as of family dissatjaf action." Yet such causes for divorce arc far
too romplex to be stated in statute-books, and far too inttmatf to be
pleaded in courts of justice.
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460 PSYCHOLOGY OF BEX.
relationships, with, of couree, authority in tlie eourta to see that
DO injustice is committed. It is, indeed, surprising that the
American people, usually intolerant of State interference, ahotild
in this matter eo long have tolerated such interference in ao
private a matter.
The movemeut of divorce is not confined to Christendom;
it IE a mark of modem civilization. In Japan the proportion of
divorces is higher tlian in any other country, not excluding the
United States.' The most vigorous and progrfeseive countries
are those that msiat most firmly on the purity of sexual unions.
In the United States it was pointed out many years ago that
divorce is most prevalent where the standard of education and
morality ia highest. It was the New England States, with
strong Puritanic traditions of moral freedom, which took the
lead in granting facility to divorce. The divorce movement ia
not, as some have foolishly supposed, a movement making for
immorality.^ Immorality ia the inevitable accompaniment of
indissoluble marriage; the emphasis on the sanctity of a merely
formal imion discourages the growth of moral responsibility as
regards the hypothetically unholy unions which grow up beneath
its shadow. To insist, on the other hand, by establishing facility
of divorce, that sexual unions shall be real, is to work in the
cause of morality. The lands in which divorce by mutual con-
sent has prevailed longest are probably among the most, and not
the least, moral of lands.
Surprise has been expressed that although divorce by mutual
consent commended itself as an obviously just and reasonable
measure two thousand years ago to the legally-minded Romans
that solution has even yet been so rarely attained by modem
states.3 Wherever society is established on a solidly organized
basis and the claims of reason and humanity receive due con-
sideration—€vai when the general level of civilization is not
1 Ten years ago, if not bHII, the United Stat*a came fourth in order
of frequency of divorce, after Japan, Denmark, and Switzerland.
2 Lecky, the historian of European mornls, has pointed out (Dcmoe-
raey and Liberty, vol. ii, p. 172) the dose connection generally b '
facility of divorce and a high standard of aexual morality.
a So, e.g., Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, vol. i, p. 237
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in every respect high — ^there we find a tendency to divorce by
mutnal consent.
In Japan, EK^cording to the new Civil Code, much a» in ttncient
Rome, marriage ia effected by giving notice of the fact to the r^etrar in
the pre^nce of two witnesBea, and with the consent (In the case of young
couples) of the heads of their families. There may be a ceremony, but
it is not demanded bj the law. Divorce is effected in exactly the same
way, by simply having the registration cancelled, provided both husband
and wife are over twenty-flve years of age. For younger couples
unhappily married, and for cases in which mutual consent cannot be
obtained, judicial divorce existe. This is granted (or various speciflo
causes, of which the moat important is "grave insult, such as to render
living together unbearable" (Ernest W. Clement, "The New Woman in
Japan," American Journal Sociology, March, 1903) . Such a system, like
BO much else achieved by Japanese organization, seems reasonable,
guarded, and effective.
In the very different and far more ancient ntarriage system of
China, divorce by mutual conaeut is equally well-established. Such
divorce by mutnal consent takes place for incompatibility ol tempera-
ment, or when both husband and wife desire it. There are, however,
various antiquated and peculiar provisions in the Chinese marriage laws,
and divorce is compulsory for the wife's adultery or serious physical
injuries inflicted by either party on the other. (The marriage laws of
China are fully set forth by Paul d'Enjcy, La fteeue, Sept. 1, 1906.)
Among the Eskimo (who, as readers of Nansen's fascinating books
on their morals will know, are In some respects a highly socialized peo-
ple) the sexes are absolutely equal, marriages are perfectly free, and
separation is equally free. The result is that there are no uncongenial
unions, and that no impleasaut word is heard between man and wife
(StefSnison, Barper'» Magaxine, Nov., 190B).
Among the ancient Welsh, women, both before and after marriage,
enjoyed great freedom, far more than was afTorded either by Christianify
or the English Common law. "Practically either husband or wife could
separate when either one or both chose" (Rhys and Brynmor- Jones, The
Welsh People, p. 214). It was so also in ancient Ireland. Women held
a very high position, and the marriage tie was very free, so as to be
practically, it would appear, dissoluble by mutual consent. So far as the
Brehon laws show, says Ginnell [The Brebon Lau>s, p. 212), "the mar-
riage relation was extremely loose, and divorce was as easy, and could
be obtained on as alight ground, as Is now the case in some of the States
of the American Union. It appears to have been obtained more easily
by the wife than by the husband. When obtained on her petition, she
took away with her all the property she had brouf^t her husband, *U
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462 PSYCHOLOOT OF SEX,
her husbuid hod settled upon her on their mairioge, KDd in addition u>
much of her huiband'B property ai her industiy appeared to have eotitled
her to."
Even in early French hiatoiy we find that divorce by mutual con-
sent was very conuuoa. It waa eufficient to prepare in duplicate a foTmal
document to this effect: "Since between N. and hia wife there is discord
instead of charity according to God, and that in consequence it is impos-
iible for them to live together, it haa pleased both to separate, and they
have accordingly done so." £ach of the partiee waa thus free either to
retire into a cloister or to contract another union (E. de la Bedolli&re,
Biatoire iea M<e«ra i&s Fran^aia, vol. i, p. 317). Such a practice, how-
ever it might accord with the germinal principle of consent embodied in
the Canon law, was far too opposed to the ecclesiastical doctrins of the
sacramental indissolubility of matrimony to be permanently allowed, and
it was completely crushed out.
The fact that we so rarely find divorce by mutual consent in
Christendom until the beginning of the nineteenth century, that
then it required a man of stupendous and revolutionary genius
like Napoleon to re-introduce it, and tliat even he was unable to
do so effectually, U clearly due to the immense victory which the
ascetic spirit of Christianity, as firmly embodied in the Canon
law, had gained over the souls and bodies of men. So subjugated
were European traditions and institutions by this spirit that
even the volcanic emotional uprising of the Beformation, as we
have seen, could not shake it off. When Protestant States
naturally resumed the control of secular affairs which had been
absorbed by the Church, and rescued from ecclesiastical hands
those things which belonged to the sphere of the individual con-
science, it might have seemed that marriage and divorce would
have been among the first concerns to be thus transferred. Yet,
as we know, England was about as much enslaved to the spirit
and even the letter of Canon law in the nineteenth as in the
fourteenth century, and even to-day English law, though no
longer supported by the feeling of the masses, clings to the same
traditions.
There seems to be little doubt, however, that the modem
movement for divorce must inevitably tend to reach the goal
of separation by the will of both parties, or, under proper con-
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HABRUOE. . 463
ditioDB and restrictioiiB, hy the will of one party. It now
requires the will of two persons to form a marriage; law insists
on that condition.! n ]g logical aa well as just that law should
take the next step involved by the historical evolution of mar-
riage, and equally iuBist that it requires the will of two persons
to maintain a marriage. This solution is, without doubt, the
only way of deliverance from the cnidities, the indecencies, the
inextricable complexities which are introduced into law by the
vain attempt to foresee in detail all the possibilities of conjugal
disharmony which may arise under the conditions of modem
civilization. It is, moreover, we may rest assured, the only solu-
tion which the growing modern sense of personal responsibility
in sexual matters traced in the previous chapter — the respon-
sibility of women as well as of men — ^will be content to accept.
The subtle and complex charaeter of the sexual relatfoiiBblps tn a
higli civilization and the unhappf reaulta of their State regulation were
well expreflsed bjr Wilhelm von Humboldt in his Ideen sm einen Terauoh
die Oremen der Wirktamkeit dea Staatet ssu betlimmen, so long ago as
1702. "A union eo cloaelj allied with the very nature of the respective
individuals must be attended with the most hurtful connequences when
the State attempts to regulate it by law, or, through the force of its
institutions, to make It repose on anything save simple inclination.
When we remember, moreover, that the State can only contemplate the
final results of such regulations on the race, we shall be still more ready
to admit the justice of this conclusion. It may reasonably be argued
that a solicitude for the race only conducts to the same results aa the
highest solicitude for the moat beautiful development of the inner man.
For, after careful observation, .it has been found that the uninterrupted
union of one man with one woman is most beneficial to the race, and
it is likewise undeniable that no other union springs from true, natural,
harmonious love. And further, it may be observed, that such love leads
to the same results as those very relations which law and custom tend
to establish. The radical error seems to be that the law commands;
whereas such a relation cannot mould itself according to external
arrangements, but depends wholly on inclination; and wherever coercion
1 In England this step was taken in the reign of Henry VII, when
the forcible marriage of women against their will was forbidden by
statute (3 Henry VII, c. 2). Even in the middle of the seventeenth cen-
tury, however, the question of forcible marriage had again to be dealt
with {Indertoick, Interregnum, pp. 40 et aeq.).
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464 ' PSTCHOLOOY OF SEX.
or guidance <!omes into collision with Inclination, they dirert it stilt
brth^r from the proper path. Wherefore it appears to me that the State
should not only loosen the bonds in this instance and leave ampler free-
dom to the citisen, but that it should entirely withdraw its octiva
solicitude from the institution of marriage, and, bath generally and in
its particular modifications, should rather leave it wholly to the free
choice of the individuals, and the various controcta they may enter into
with respect to it. I should not be deterred from the adoption of this
principle by the fear that oil family relations might be disturbed, for,
although such a fear might be justified by conaideratJonB of particular
circumstances and localities, it could not fairly be entertained in an
inquiry into the nature of men and Stat«s in general. For experience
frequently convinces us that just where law bos imposed no fetters,
morality most surely binds; the idea of external coercion is one entirely
foreign to an institution nbich, like marriage, reposes only on inclina-
tion and an inward sense of duty; and the results of such coercive
Institutions do not at all correspond to the intentions in which they
A long Huccession of dlBtinguiehed thinkers — moralistfl, sociologists,
political reformers — have maintained the social advantages of divorce by
mutual consent, or, under guarded circumstances, at the wish of one
party. Mutual consent was the corner-stone of Milton's conception of
marriage. Montesquieu said that true divorce must be the result of
mutual consent and based on the impossibility of living together. Sen-
ancour seems to agree with Montesquieu. Lord Morley (Diderot, vol.
ii, Ch. I), echoing and approving the conclfisions of Diderot's BttppU-
ment aa Tot/age de Bougainville (1772), aflds that the separation of
husband and wife is "a transaction in Itself perfectly natural and blame-
less, and often not only laudable, but a duty." Bloch {Bemial Life of
Ovr Time, p. 240), with many other writers, emphasiicB the truth of
Shelley's saying, that the freedom of marriage is the guarantee of Its
durability. (That the facts of life point in the same direction has been
shown in the previous chapter.) The learned Caspar! {Die Soziale
Frage iiber die Freiheit der Bhe), while disclaiming any prevision of the
future, declares that if sexual relationships are to remain or to become
moral, there must be an easier dissolution of marriage. Howard, at the
conclusion of his exhaustive history of matrimonial institutions (vol.
iii, p. 220), though he himself believes that marriage is peculiarly in
need of regulation by law, is yet constrained to admit that It is perfectly
dear to the student of history that the modem divorce movement is "but
a part of the mighfy movement for social liberation which has been
gaining in volume and strength since the Reformation." Similarly the
cautious and judicial Westermarck concludes the chapter on marriage of
his Origin and Development of the Moral Ideaa (vol. ii, p. 398) with tiie
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MABBIAOE. 466
eUt«ment that "when both husband and wife deeire to Hparate, It seemi
to man; enlightened miodB that the State has no right to prevent them
from disaolving the marriage contract, provided the children are properlf
cared for; and that, for the children, also, it ie better to have the luper-
Tision of one parent only than of two who cannot agree,"
In France the leaders of the movement of social reform aeem !« be
almost, or quite, unanimoue in believing that the next itep in rc^rd to
divorce is the establishment of divorce bj mutua] consent. This was, for
Instance, the result reached In a symposium to which thirty-one distin-
guished men and women contributed.- All were in favor of divorce by
mutual consent; the only exception was Uadame Adam, who said she
had reached a state of slcepticism with regard to political and sodal
forms, but admitted that for nearly.balf a ceBtttiy she had been a strong
advocate of divorce. A targe number of the contributors were in favor
of divorce at the desire of one party only {La Recue, March t, IfKIl).
In other countries, also, there is a growing recognition that this solution
of the question, with due precautions to avoid any abuses to which it
might otherwise be liable, is the proper and inevitable solution.
Aa to the exact method by which divorce by mutual consent should
be effected, opinions differ, and the matter is lilcely to be differently
arranged In different countriee. The Japanese plan seems simple and
judicious (see ante, p. 461). Paul and Victor Margueritte {Quelguea
Idies, pp. 3 et acq.), while realizing that the conflict of feeling in the
matter of personal associations involves decisions which are entirely out-
side the competence of legal tribunals, recognize that such tribunals are
necessary in order to deal with the property of divorced persons, and
also, in the last resort, with the question of the care of the children.
They should not act in public. These writers propose that each party
should choose a representative, and that these two should choose a third;
and that this tribunal should privately investigate, and if they agreed
should register the divorce, which should take place six or twelve months
later, or three years later, if only desired by one of the parties. Dr.
Shufeldt (" Psychopath i a Sexualis and Divorce") proposes that a divorce-
court judge should conduct, alone, the hearing of any cases of marital
discord, the husband and wife appearing directly before him, without
counsel, though with their witnesses, if necessary; should medical
experts be required the judge alone would be empowered to call them.
When we realize that the long delay in the acceptance of so
just and natural a basis of divorce is due to an artificial tension
created by the pressure of the dead hand of Canon law — a tension
confined exclusively to Christendom — we may also realize that
with the final disappearance of that tension the just and natural
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466 FSTCHOLOOY OF SEX.
order in thia relationship will spring back the more awifUy
because that relief has been so long delayed. "Nature abhors
a vacuum nowhere more than in a marriage," Ellen Key remarks
in the language of antiquated physical metaphor ; the vacuum will
somehow be iilled, and if it cannot be iilled in a natural and
orderly manner it will be filled in an unnatural and disorderly
manner. It is the business of society to see that no laws stand in
the way of the establishment of natural order.
Reform upon a reasonable basis has been made difficult by
the unfortunate retention of the idea of delinquency. With the
traditions of the Canoniste at the back of our heads we have some-
how persuaded ourselves that there cannot be a divorce unless
there is a delinquent, a teal serious delinquent who, if he had his
deserts, would be imprisoned and consigned to infamy. But
in the marriage relationship, as in all other relationships, it is
only in a very small niunber of cases that one parity stands
towards the other as a criminal, even a defendant. This is often
obvious in the early stages of conjugal alienation. But it remains
true in the end. The wife commits adultery and the husband aa
a matter of course a^umes the position of plaintiff. But we do
not inquire how it is that he has not bo won her love that her
adultery is out of the question; such inquiry might lead to the
conclusion that the real defendant is the husband. And similarly
when the husband is accused of brutal cruelty the law takes no
heed to inquire whether in the infliction of less brutal but not less
poignant wounds, the wife also should not be made defendant.
There are a few cases, but only a few, in which the relationship of
plaintiff and defendant is not a totally false and artificial rela-
tionship, an immoral legal fiction. In most cases, if the truth
were fully known, husband and wife should come side by side to
the divorce court and declare: "We are both in the wrong: we
have not been able to fulfil our engagements to each other; we
have erred in choosing each other." The long reports of tlie case
in open court, the mutual recriminations, the detectives, the
servant girls and other witnesses, the infamous inquisition into
intimate secrets— all these things, which no necessity could ever
justify, are altogether unnecessary.
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It is said by eome that if there were no impedimente to
divorce a man might be married in succession to half a dozen
vomeo. These simple-minded or ignorant persona do not seem
to be aware that even when marriage is absolutely indissoluble a
man can, and frequently does, carry on sexual relationships not
merely auceesaiYely, but, if he chooses, even simultaneously, with
half a dozen women. There is, however, this important differ-
ence that, in the one case, the man is encouraged by the law to
believe that he need only treat at most one of the six women with
anything approaching to justice and humanity; in the other case
the law insists that he sliall fairly and openly fulfil his obligations
towards all the six women. It is a very important difference,
and there ought to be no question as to which state of things is
moral and which immoral. It is no concern of the State to
inquire into the number of persons with whom a man or a
woman chooses to have sexual relationships ; it is a private matter
which may indeed affect their own finer spiritual development
but which it is impertinent for the State to pry into. It is,
however, the concern of the State, in its own collective interest
and that of its members, to see that no injustice is done.
But what about the children? That is necessarily a very
important question. The question of the arrangements made
for the children in cases of divorce is always one to which the
State must give its regulative attention, for it is only when there
are children that the State has any real concern in the matter.
At one time it was even supposed fay some that the existence
of children was a serious argument against facility of divorce.
A more reasonable view is now generally taken. It is, in the
first place, recognized that a very large proportion of couples
seeking divorce have no children. In England the proportion
is about forty per cent. ; in some other countries it is doubtless
larger still. But even when there arc children no one who
realizes what the conditions are in families where the parents
ought to be but are not divorced can have any doubt that usually
those conditions are extremely bad for the children. The tension
between the parents absorbs energy which should be devoted to
the children. The spectacle of the grievances or quarrels
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468 rsYciioLOOT op sex.
of their parents is demoralizing for the cliildreu, and usually
fatal to any respect towards them. At the best it ia injuriously
distreBsing to tlie children. One effectlYe parent, there cannot
be the slightest doubt, is far better for a child than two ineffec-
tive parents. There is a further point, often overlooked, for
consideration here. Two people when living together at variance
— one of them perhaps, it is not rarely the case, nervously
abnormal or diseased — are not fitted to become parents, nor in
the best condition for procreation. It ia, therefore, not merdy
an act of justice to the individual, but a measure called for in
the interests of the State, that new citizens should not be brought
into the community through such defective channels.^ From
this point of view all the interests of the State are on the side
of facility of divorce.
There is a final argument which is often brought forward
against facility of divorce. Marriage, it ia said, is for the pro-
tection of women; facilitate divorce and women are robbed of
that protection. It is obvious that this argument has little
application as against divorce by mutual consent. Certainly it is
necessary that divorce should only be arranged under conditions
which in each individual case have received the approval of the
law as just. But it must always be remembered that the essential
fact of marriage is not naturally, and should never artificially be
made, an economic question. It is possible — that is a question
which society will have to consider — that a woman should be
paid for being a mother on the ground that she is rearing new
citizens for the State, But neither the State nor her husband
nor anyone else ought to pay her for exercising conjugal rights.
The fact that audi an argument can be brought forward shows
how far we are from the sound biological attitude towards sexual
relationships. Equally unsound is tJie notion that the virgin
bride brings her husband at marriage an important capital which
is consumed in the first act of intercourse and can never be
1 Woods Hutt^liiiison {Contemjiorary Reviao. Sept., 1905) argues
that when there i» epileps;ri insanity, moral perversion, habitual drunk-
enness, or criniinnt eonduet of any kind, divoree, for the sake of the next
generation, sliniilil be not perniisHive but compulsorj. Mere divorce,
liowever, u'ould not sutRce to attain tlie ends deaired.
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recovered. That is a Botion which has snrrivGd into civilization,
but it belongs to barbarism and not to civilization. So far as
it has any validity it lies within a sphere of erotic perversity
which cannot be taken into consideration in an estimation of
moral values. For moat men, however, in any case, whether they
realize it or not, the woman who has been initiated into the
mysteries of love has a higher erotic value than the virgin, and
there need he no anxiety on this ground concerning the wife who
has lost her virginity. It is probably a significant fact that this
ansiety for the protection of women by the limitation of divorce
is chiefly brought forward by men and not by women themselves.
A woman at marriage ia deprived by society and the law of her
own name. She haa been deprived until recently of the right to
her oTv-n earnings. She ia deprived of the moat intimate rights
in her own person. She is deprived under some circumstances of
her own child, against whom she may have committed no offence
whatever. It is perhaps scarcely surprising that' ahe ia not
greatly appreciative of the protection afforded her by the with-
holding of the right to divorce her husband. "All, no, no pro-
tection !" a brilliant French woman haa written. "We have been
protected long enough. The only protection to grant women ia
to cease protecting them."^ As a matter of fact the divorce move-
ment appears to develop, on the whole, with that development of
woman's moral responsibility traced in the previous chapter, and
where divorce is freest women occupy the highest poaition.
We cannot fail to realize as we grasp the nature and direction
of the modem movement of divorce that the final tendency of
that movement is to efface itself. Necessary as the Divorce
I Similarly in Germanj', Wanda von Sacher-Tklasoch, who had suf-
fered much from marriage, whatever her own defects of character may
bftve been, writea at the end of .Weiite Lebenabeichte that "as long as
women have not the courage to regulate, without State- interference or
t'hiirch -interference, relatioiiBhips which concern themselves atone, they
Mill not be free." In place of this old decayed system of marriage bo
oppoiied to our modern thoughts and feelings, ehe would have private
coiitrnct»i made by a Uwyer. In England, at a much earlier period,
riiaries Kingsley, who was an ardent friend to women's movements, and
wlioiie feeling for womanhood amounted almost to worship, wrote to J.
S. Mill: "There will never be a good world for women until the last
remmiDt of the Canon law ia civilized off the earth."
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470 P8T0HOLOGT OF BEX,
Court has been as the inevitable corollary of an imposaible
ecclesiastical conception of marriage, no institution is now more
hideous, more alien to the instinctive feelings generated by a
fine civilization, and more opposed to the dignity of womanhood.*
Its disappearance and its eubstitutioQ by private arrangementB,
effected on their contractive sides, especially if there are children
to provide for, under legal and if necessary judicial supervision,
is, and always has been, the natural result of the attainment of a
reasonably high stage of civilization. The Divorce Court has
merely been a phase in the history of modem marriage, and a
phase tbat has really been repugnant to all concerned in it.
There is no need to view the project of its ultimate disappearance
with anything but satisfaction. It was merely the outcome of an
artificial conception of marriage. It is time to return to the
consideration of that conception.
We have seen tbat when the Catholic development of the
archaic conception of marriage as a sacrament, slowly elaborated
and foBsiHzed by the ingenuity of the Canonists, was at last nom-
inally dethroned, though not destroyed, by the movement asso-
ciated with the Beformation, it was replaced by the conception
of marriage as a contract. This conception of marriage as a
contract still enjoys a considerable amount of credit amongst ub.
There must always be contractive elements, implicit or
explicit, in a marriage; that was well recognized even by the
Canonists. But when we treat marriage as all contract, and
nothing but contract, we have to realize that we have set up a very
peculiar form of contract, not voidable, like other contracts, by
the agreement of the parties to it, but dissoluble as a sort of
punishment of delinquency rather than by the voluntary annul-
ment of a bond.- When the Protestant Reformers seized on the
1 "No fouler institution was ever invented." declared Auberon Her-
bert many years ago, expressing, 1>efore its time, it feeling which has
since become more common; "and its ejtistence drags on, to our deep
shame, because we have not the courage franlcly to say that the sexual
relations of husband and wife, or those who live together, concern their
own selves, and do not concern the prying, gloating, self-righteows, and
intensely untruthful world outside."
SHobhouse, op cit., vol. i, p. 237.
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UAEBIAGB. 471
idea of marriage as a contract they were not influenced by any
reaBoned analysis of the special dmracteristicB of a contract ; they
were merely anxious to secure a plausible ground, already
admitted even hj the Canonists to cover certain aspects of the
matrimonial union, on which they could declare that marriage is
a secular and not an ecclesiastical matter, a civil bond and not
a sacramental process.*
Like so much else in the Protestant revolt, the strength of
this attitude lay in the fact that it was a protest, based on its
negative side on reasonable and natural grounds. But while
Protestantism was right in its attempt — for it was only an
atteiDpt — ^to deny the authority of Canon law, that attempt was
altogether unsatisfactory on the positive side. As a matter of
fact marriage is not a true contract and no attempt has ever been .
made to convert it into a true contract.
Vkrtoua writers have treated marriage as an actual contract or
argued that It ought to be converted into a true oontract. Mth. Mona
Caird, for iastance {"The Morality of Marriage," Fortnight!!/ Revtsto,
1800), believea that when marriage becomea really a contract "a couple
would draw Up their agreement, or depute the task to their friends, as is
now generally done as regards marriage settlements. They agree to live
together on such and such terms, making certain stipniationa within the
limits of the code." The State, she holds, should, however, demand an
interval of time between notice of divorce and the divorce itself, it still
desired when that interval has passed. Similarly, in the United States
Dr. Sbufeldt ("Needed Revision of the Laws of Marriage and Divorce,"
Medico-Legal Journal, Dec., ISOT) insists that marriage must be entirely
put into the hands of the legal profession and "made a civil contract,
explicit in detail, and defining terms of divorce, in the event that a dis-
solution of the contract is subsequently desired." He adds that
medical certificates of freedom from hereditary and acquired disease
should be required, and properly regulated probationary marriages also
be instituted.
1 The same conception of marriage as a contract sUIl persists to
some e:(tent also in the United States, whither it was carried by the early
Protestants and Puritans. No definition of marriage is indeed usually
laid down by the States, but, Howard says [op, cit., vol. ii, p. 395), "in
effect matrimony is treated as a relation partaking of the nature of both
status and contract."
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472 PSTCHOLOQT OP SEX.
In France, » deputy of the Chamber was, in 1891, so conTineed that
nuuriBge is a oontract, like any other rantract, that he declared that "to
perform music at the celebration of a marriage is as ridiculous as it
would be to Bend tor a tenor to a notary's to celebrate a sale of timber."
He was of quite different mind from Pepys, who, a conpl« of oenturiee
earlier, had been equally Indignant at the absence of music from a wed-
ding, which, he said, made it lilce a coupling of dog and bitch.
A frequent demand of those who insist that marriage must be
regarded as a contract is marriage contracted for a term of years. Mar-
riages could tie contracted for a term of tlvo years or less in old Japan,
and it is said that they were rarely or never dissolved at the end of the
term. Goethe, in his Wahlverwiandlachaften (Part I, CTi. X) inddentally
introduced a proposal for marriages for a term of five years and at-
tached much moral signiScance to the prolongation of the mar-
liage beyond that term without eTternal compulsion. (Bloch considers
that Goethe had probably heard of the .Tapanese custom, Sexual Life of
Our Time, p. 241.) Professor E. D. Cope ("The Marriage Problem,"
Open Court, I\'ov, IS and 22, 18SS), likewise, in order to remore matri-
mony from the domain of caprice and to permit full and fair trial,
advocated "a system of civil marriage contracts which shall run for a
definite tjme. These contracts should be of the same value and effect
as the existing marriage contract. The time limits should be increased
rapidly, so as to prevent women of mature years being deprived of sup-
port. The first contract ought not to run for leas than five years, so
as to give ample opportunity for acquaintance, and for the recovery
from temporary disagreements." This first contract. Cope held, should
be termiiuble at the wish of either party; the second contract, for ten
or fifteen years, should only be terminable at the wish of both parties,
and the third should be permanent and indissoluble. George Meredith,
the distinguished novelist, also, more recently, threw out the suggestion
that marriages should be contracted for a term of years.
It can scarcely be said that marriages for a term of years con-
stitute a very satisfactory solution of the difficulties at present enooun-
l«red. They would not commend themselves to young lovers, who believe
that their love is eternal, nor, so long as the union proves satisfactory,
is there auy need to introduce the disturbing idea of a legal termination
of tha contract. On the other hand, if the union proves unhappy, it is
not reasonable to Insist on the continuation for ten or even five years
of an empty form which corresponds to no real marriage union. Even
if marriage is placed on the most prosaic contractive basis it is a mis-
take, and indeed an impossibility, to pre-ordain the length of its dura-
tion. The system of fixing the duration of marriage beforehand for a
term of years involves exactly the same principle as the system of fixing
it beforehand for life. It is open to the same objection that it is incom-
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MABSUGE. 478
patible with any vital retationHhip. Ab the demand for vital reality
«nd effectiveness in aocial relationabips growB, this fact is increoainglj
felt. We see exactly tiie same change among ua in r^ard to the Bystem
of inflicting fixed eentencea of imprisonment on criminals. To send «
man to prison for five years or for life, without any regard to the
unknown problem of the vital reaction of imprisonment on the man — a
reaction which will be different in every individual case — is slowly com
ing to be r^arded as an absurdity.
If marriage were really placed on the basis of a contract,
not only would that contract be voidable at the will of the two
parties concerned, without any question of delinquency coming
into the question, but thoee parties would at the outset themselves
determine the conditions regulating the contract. But nothing
could be more unlike oar actual marriage. The two parties are
bidden to accept each other as husband and wife ; they are not
invited to make a contract ; they are not even told that, little as
they may know it, they have in fact made a very complicated and
elaborate contract that was framed on lines laid down, for a large
part, thousands of years before they were bom. Unless they have
studied law tliey are totally ignorant, also, that this contract
contains clauses which under some circumstances may be fatal to
either of them. All that happens is that a young couple, perhaps
little more than children, momentarily dazed by emotion, are
hurried before the clergyman or the civil registrar of marriages,
to bind themselves together for life, knowing nothing of the
world and scarcely more of each other, knowing nothing also
of the marriage laws, not even perhaps so much as that there
are any marriage laws, never realizing that— as has been truly
said — from the place they are entering beneath a garland of
flowers there is, on this side of death, no exit except through
the trapdoor of a sewer.'
When a woman marries she gives up the right to her own person.
Thus, according to the law of England, a man "cannot be guilty of a
rape upon his lawful wife." Stephen, who, in the first edition of his
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474 PSYCKOLOOY OF SEX,
Digat of Criminal Lair, thought that under some circunutsnecA a man
might be indict«d for rape upon his wife, in the last editjoa withdrew
that opinion. A man may rape a prostitute, but he cannot rape hia
wife. Having once given her consent to sexual intercourse hj the act
of marrying a man, she has given it forever, whatever new circumstancea
may arise, and he has no need to ask her consent to sexual intercourse,
not even if he Is knowingly suffering at the time from a venereal disease
(see, e.g., an article on "Sei Bias," Weglmintter Remeie, March, 188B).
The duty of the wife to allow "conjugal rights" to her husband is
another aspect of her legal subjection to him. Even in the nineteenth
century a Suffolk lady of good family was imprisoned in Ipswich Goal
for many years and fed on bread and water, though suffering from vari-
ous diseases, till she died, simply because she continued to disregard the
-decree requiring her to render conjugal rights to her huoband. This
state of things was partly reformed by the Matrimonial Causes Bill of
1884, and that bill was passed, not to protect women, but men, against
punishment for refusal to restore conjugal rights. Undoubtedly, the
modem tendency, although it has progressed very slowly, is against
applying compulsion to either huabaud or wife to yield "conjugal
rights;" and since the Jackson cose it Is not possible in England for
a husband U> use force in attempting to compel his wife to live with
him. This tendency is still more marked in the United States; thus
the Iowa Supreme Court, a few years ago, decided that encessive demands
for coitus constituted cruelty of a degree justifying divorce (J, 0.
Eiernan, AUenitt and Nevrologitt, Nov. 1006, p. 406) .
The slender tenure of the wife over her person is not confined to
the sexual sphere, but even extends to her right to life. In England, if
a wife kills her husband, it was formerly the very serious offence of
"petit treason," and it is still murder. But, if a husband kills his wife
and is able to plead her adultery and his jealousy, it is only man-
slauj^ter. (In France, where jealousy Is regarded with extreme Indul-
gence, even a wife who kills her husband is often acquitted.)
It must not, however, be supposed that all the legal inequalities
involved by marriage are in favor of the husband. A large number of
injustices are also inflicted on the husband. The husband, for instance,
is legally responsible for the libels uttered by his wife, and he is equally
responsible civilly for the frauds she commits, even if she is living apart
from him. (This was, for instance, held by an English judge in 1908;
"he could only say he regretted it, for it seems a hard case. But it
was the law.") Belfort Bax has, in recent years, especially Insisted on
the hardships inflicted by English law in such ways as these. There
can be no doubt that marriage, as at present constituted, inflicts aerious
wrongs on the husband as well as on the wife.
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HABBIAQS. 47-'>
Marriage is, therefore, not only not a contract in the true
■eenae,* but in the only eenae in which it is a contract it is a con-
tract of an exceedingly bad kind. When the Canonists super-
aeded the old conception of marriage ae a contract of purchase by
their sacramental marriage, they were in many respects effecting
a real progress, and the return to the idea of a contract, aa soon
■as its temporary value as a protest bag ceased, proves altogether
•out of harmony with any advanced stage of civilization, it was
revived in days before the revolt against slavery had been
inaugurated. Personal contracts are out of harmony with our
modem civilization and our ideaa of individual liberty. A man
«an no longer contract himself as a slave nor sell his wife. Yet
marriage, regarded as a contract, is of precisely the same class
M those transactions.^ In every high stage of civilization this
fact is clearly recognized, and young couples are not even allowed
to contract themselves out in marriage unconditionally. We see
this, for instance, in the wise legislation of the Romans. Even
under the Christian Emperors that sound principle was main-
tained and the lawyer Paulus wrote :^ "Marriage was so free,
according to ancient opinion, that even agreements between the
parties not to separate from one another could have no validity."
In BO far as the essence and not any accidental circumstance of
the marital relationships is made a contract, it is a contract of
a nature which the two parties concerned are not competent to
make. Biologically and psychologically it cannot be valid, and
with the growth of a humane civilization it is explicitly declared
to be legally invalid.
For, there can be no donbt about it, the intimate and essen-
tial fact of marriage — the relationship of sexual intercourse — is
1 1 may remark thai this was pointed out, and tU consequences
vigorously argued, ma^aj years ago by C. G. GaTrlson, "Limits o£
Divorce," Contemporart) Review, Feb., 1884. "It may safely be as-
serted." lie concludes, "that marriage presents not one attribute or
incident of anything remotely resembling a contract, either in form,
remedy, procedure, or result; but that in all these aspects, on the con-
trary, it is fatally hostile to the principles and practices «f that division
'Of the rights of persons." Marriage is not contract, but conduct.
I See, e.g., P. and V. Margueritte, op. cii.
3 As quoted by Howard, op. ait., vol. ii, p. 29.
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476 PSTCHOLOQY OF SEX.
not and cannot be a contract. 1 1 is not a contract but a fact ; it
cannot be effected by any mere act of will oa the part of the
parties concerned; it cannot be maintained by any mere act of
will. To will Buch a contract ia merely to perform a worse than
indecorous farce. Certainly many of the circiunatances of mar-
riage are properly the subject of contract, to be voluntarily and
deliberately made by the parties to the contract. But the
eBsential fact of marriage — a love strong enough to render the
most intimate of relationships possible and desirable through an
indefinite number of years — cannot be made a matter for contract.
Alike from the physical point of view, and the psychical point of
view, no binding contract — and a contract ia worthless if' it ia
not binding — can possibly be made. And the making of such
pseudo-contracts concerning the future of a marriage, before it
has even been ascertained that the marriage can ever bectmie a
fact at all, is not only impossible but absurd.
It ia of course true that this impoBsibility, this absurdity, are
never visible to the contracting parties. They have applied to
the question all the very restricted tests that are conventionally
permitted to them, and the satisfactory results of these tests,
together with the consciousness of possessing an immense and
apparently inexhaustible fund of loving ^notion, seem to them
adequate to the fulfilment of the contract throughout life, if not
indeed eternity.
As a child of seven I chanced to be in a semi-tropical island
of the Pacific supplied with fruit, especially grapes, from the
mainland, and a dusky market woman always presented a
large bunch of grapes to the little Englisli stranger. But a
day came when the proffered bunch was firmly refused; the
superabundance of grapes had produced a reaction of disgust.
A space of nearly forty years was needed to overcome the repug-
nance to grapes thus acquired. Yet there can be no doubt tliat
if at the age of six that little hoy had been asked to sign a con-
tract binding him to accept grapes every day, to keep them always
near him, to eat them and to enjoy them every day, he would have
signed that contract as joyously as any radiant bridgegroom or
demure bride signs the register in the vestry. But is a complex
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MAKBIAQE. 477
man or woman, with unknown capacities for dianging or
deteriorating, and with incalculable aptitudes for inflicting
torture and arousing loathing, is such a creature more easy to be
bound to than an exquisite fruit? All the countries of the
world in which the subtle influence of tlie Canon law of
Christendom still makes itself felt, have not yet grasped a gen-
eral truth which is well within the practical experience of & child
of seyen.*
The noUon that such a relationabip »• that of marriage can r«at
on so fragile a basis as a preordained contract has naturally never pre-
vailed widely in its extreme form, and has been unknown altogether in
many parti of tlie world. The Romans, as we know, explicitly rejected
it, and even at a comparatively early period recognized the legality of
marriage by wtus, thus declaring in effect that marriage must be a fact,
and not a mere undertaking. There has been a widespread legal ten-
dency, especially where the traditions of Roman law have retained any
inHuence, to regard the cohabitation of marriage aa the essential fact of
the relationship. It was an old rule even tmder the Catholic Church
that marriage may be presumed from cohabitation (see. e.;;., Zacchia,
Qaeationum M«dujo-legali«m Opus, eiitiOTi ot 1088, vol. iii, p. 234). Even
In England cohabitation ia already one of the preaumptiona In favor of
the existence of marriage (thou^ not necessarily by Itself regarded as
sufficient), provided the woman is of nnblemished character, and does
not appear to be a common prostitute (Nevill Geary, The Laic of Mar-
riage, Ch. III). If, however, according to Lord Watson's judicial state-
ment in the Dysart Peerage case, a man takes hia mistress to a hotel or
goes with her to a baby-linen shop and speaks of her as his wife. It is
to be presumed that he is acting for the sake of decency, and this fur-
nishes no evidence of marriage. In Scotland the presumption of mar-
riage arises on much slighter grounds than in England. Thia may be
connected with the ancient and deep-rooted custom in Scotland of mar-
riage by exchange of consent (Geary, op. cit„ Ch. SVIII; cf., Howard,
Matrimonial Inttitutioru, vol. i, p. 310).
In the Bredalbane ease (Campbell v. Campbell, 1867), which was
of great importance because it involved the nuccession to the vast estates
of the Marquis of Bredalbane, the House of Lords decided than even an
adulterous connection may, on ceasing to be adulterous, become matri-
1 Ellen Key similarly (Ufber lAebe unrf Ehe, p. 343) remarks that
to talk of "the duty of lifelong fidelity" la much the same as to talk of
"the duty of life-long health. A man may promise, she ndda. to A>
his best to preserve his life, or hia love; he cannot unconditionally
undertake to preserve them.
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47s PSTCHOLOGT OF SEI,
atomial br the tt^i*** mmm^I of the parties, a> cTidennd hj habit and
rfpatr, witboat aoj need for the jftiiMtiMl ^araeter of the eonnec*
tkn to be indicated bj aitj pabli: aet. aor anr aeoeseitj to prore the
^eciOe period wbea the awaent vaa interchaBgnL This dedsioD baa
been canfirmed is the Dj^art eaae i Geair. Tor. eil. ; ef. C. G. Garrisan.
"Limits of Dtrorce," Comlempormry RrcUta, Feb^ 1894)- Similarly, as
dwided hy Justice Keknridi in the Wa^taff ease in 1907, if a man
kare* money to bis "widcnr," on eonditioii that she nem' marries a^in,
altbongh he has nerer beea married to her. and tbougli die has been,
le^tly married to another man, the testator's intentiotn most be
npbeld. Garriaoa, in his Taloable disciuaioD of this aspect of legal
marria^ (loe. cU.), forciblj insists tliat bv Engiish law marriage is r
fact and not a contract, and that where "conduct duraeteriied bj con-
nobial porpoae and constancy" exists, there marriage l^allj exivU, mar-
riage being rimply "a name for an esisting fart."
In the t'nited State*, marriage "^r habit and rcpnte" ^milarly-
aUlute <J. P. Bbbop, CommemlpHet, toL i, Ch. XV). "Whatever the
form of tbe ceremony, and even if all ceremony was dispensed with,"
said Jadge Coolev, of Michigan, in 1875 (in an opinion accepted as
antboritati*e by the Federal courtnt. "if (he parlies agreed presently
to take each other for hosbuid and wife, and from that time lired
together professedly in that relation, proof of these facta would be suffi-
cient .... This has been the settled doctrine of (he American
courts." {Howard, op. cil., vol. iii, pp. 177 et arq. Twenty-three States
sanction common-law marriagp, vhile eighteen repudiate, or are inclined
to repudiate, any informal agreement.)
This le^l recognition by the highest judicial authorities, alike in
Ureat Britain and tbe United States, that marriage is esBentially a fact,
and that no evidence of any form or ceremony of marriage is required
for the most complete legal recognition of marriage, undoubtedly carries
with it highly important implications. It becanie cle*r that the reform
of marriage b possible even without change in the law, and that honor-
able sexual relationships, even when entered into without any legal
forms, are already entitled to full legal rect^nition and protection.
There are, however, it need scarcely be added here, other considerations
which render refonn along these lines incomplete.
It thus tends to come about that with the growth of civiliza-
tion the conception of marriage as a contract falls more and more
into discredit. It is realized, on the one hand, that personal
contracts are out of harmony with our general and social attitude,
for if we reject the idea of a human being contracting himself
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MABBIAGE. 47&
SB a Blare, bow much more we should reject the idea of enterlng^
by contract into the atill more intimate relationship of a buaband
or a wife; on the other hand it is felt that the idea of pre-
ordained contracts on a matter over which the individual himself
baa no control is quite unreal and when any strict rules of equity
prevail, necessarily invalid. It is true that we atill constantly
find writers sententious I y asserting their notions of the duties or
the privileges involved by the "contract" of marriage, with no-
more attempt to analyze the meaning of the term "contract" in
this connection than the Protestant Reformers made, but it can
eearcely be said that these writers have yet reached the alphabet
of the subject they dogmatize about.
The transference of marriage from the Church to the State
which, in the lands where it first occurred, we owe to Protestant-
ism and, in the English -speaking lands, especially to Puritaniamr
while a necessary stage, had the unfortunate result of seculariz-
ing the sesual relationships. That is to say, it ignored the
transcendent element in love which is really the essential part of
such relationships, and it concentrated attention on those formal
and accidental parts of marriage which can alone be dealt with
in a rigid and precise manner, and can alone properly form the
subject of contracts. The Canon law, fantastic and imposaible
as it became in many of its developments, at least insisted on the
natural and actual fact of marriage as, above all, a bodily union,
while, at the same time, it regarded that union as no mere secular
business contract but a sacred and exalted function, a divine fact,
and the symbol of the most divine fact in the world. We are
returning to-day to the Canonist's conception of marriage on a
higher and freer plane, bringing back the exalted conception of
the Canon law, yet retaining the individualism which the Puritan
wrongly thought he could secure on the basis of mere seculariza-
tion, while, further, we recognize that the whole process belongs
to the private sphere of moral responsibility. As Hobhouse has
well said, in tracing the evolutionary history of the modem con-
ception of marriage, the sacramental idea of marriage has again
emerged but on a higher plane ; "from being a sacrament in the
magical, it has become one in the ethical, sense," We are thus
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480 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
teotling towards, thougli we have not yet legallj' achieved, mar-
riage made and maintained b^ consent, "a union between two free
and reepotiBible persons in which the equal rights of both are
maintained."'
It is supposed by some that to look upon Bexual union aa a ucra*
nient is DecesBarilf to accept the ancient Catholic view, embodied in the
Canon law, that matrimonj' ia indiasoluble. That is, however, a mistake.
Even the Canonists theroselvea were never able to put forward any
coherent and consietent ground for the indiasolubllity of matrimony
which could commend itaelf rationally, white Luther and Mitton and
Wilhelm von Humboldt, who maintained the religious and aocred nature
of sexual union — though they were cautious about using the term sacra-
ment on account ol its eccleaiaatical implicationa — ao far from believing
that its sanctity involved indissolubility, argued in the reverse sense.
This point of view may be defended even from a atrictly Protestant
standpoint. "I take it," Mr. G. C. Maberly says, "that the Prayer
Book definition of a sacrament, 'the outward and visible sign of an
inward and spiritual grace,' is generally accepted. In marriage the
legal and physical unions are the outward and visible signs, white the
inward and spiritual grace is the Qod-given love that makes the union
«[ heart and soul: and it is precisely because I take this view of mar-
riage t^at I consider the legal and phyaical union should be dissolved
whenever the apiritual union of unselfish, divine love and afTection has
ceased. It seems to me that the sacramental view of marriage compels
us to say that those who continue the legal or physical union when the
spiritual union haa ceased, are — to quote again from the Prayer Book
words applied to those who take the outward sign of another sacrament
when the inward and spiritual grace Is not present— 'eating and drink-
ing their own damnation.' "
If from the point we have now reached we look back at the
question of divorce we see that, as the modem aspects of the
marriage relationship becomes more clearly realized by the com-
munity, that question will be immensely simplified. Since mar-
riage is not a mere contract but a fact of conduct, and even a
sacred fact, the free participation of both parties ia needed to
maintain it. To introduce the idea of delinquency and punish-
ment into divorce, to foster mutual recrimination, to publish to
, vol. i, pp. 159, 237-»; of. P. and V. Mar-
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MABEIAOE. 481
the world the secrets of the heart or the senses, is not only
immoral, it is altogether out of place. In the question as to when
a marriage has ceased to be a marriage the two parties concerned
can alone be the supreme judges; the State, if the State is called
in, can but register the sentence they pronounce, merely seeing
to it that no injustice is involved in the carrying out of that
sentence. *
In discussing in the previous chapter the direction in which
seiual morality tends to develop with the development of civiliza-
tion we came to the conclusion that in its main lines it involved,
above all, personal responsibility. A relationship iixed among
savage peoples by social custom which none dare break, and in a
higher stage of culture by formal laws which must be observed
in the letter even if broken in the spirit, becomes gradually trans-
ferred to the sphere of individual moral responsibility. Such a
transference is necessarily meaningless, and indeed impossible,
unless the increasing stringency of the moral bond is accompanied
by the decreasing stringency of the formal bond. It is only by
the process of loosening the artificial restraints that the natural
restraints can exert their full control. That process takes place
in two ways, in part on the basis of the indifference to formal
marriage which has marked the masses of the population every-
where and doubtless stretches back to the tenth century before
the domination of ecclesiastical matrimony began, and partly by
the progreasive modification of marriage laws which were made
necessary by the needs of the propertied classes anxious to secure
the State recognition of their unions. The whole process is
necessarily a gradual and indeed imperceptible process. It is
impossible to fix definitely the dates of the stages by which the
Church effected the immense revolution by which it grasped, and
eventually transferred to the State, the complete control of mar-
riage, for that revolution was effected without the intervention of
any law. It will be equally difficult to pereeive the transference
1 "Divorce," as Garrison puts it ("Limite of Divorce," Conlem-
poranj Rrvieir. Feb., 1894), "is the judicial announcement that condact
once connubial in character and purpose, has lost tliese qualities.
. , . . Divorce is a question of fact, and not a license to break a
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482 FSTCHOLOOY OF SEX.
of the control of marriage from the State to the individuah con-
cerned, and the more difficult because, as we shall see, although
the essential and intimately personal fact of marriage is not a
proper matter for State control, there are certain aspects of mar-
riage which touch the interests of the community so closely that
the State is bound to insist on their registration and to take an
interest in their settlement.
The result of dissolving the formal stringency of the mar-
riage relationship, it is aometimea said, would be a tendency to an
immoral laxity. Those who make this statement overlook the
fact that laxity tends to reach a maximum as a result of
stringency, and that where the merely external authority of a
rigid marriage law prevails, there the extreme excesses of license
most flourish. It is also undoubtedly true, and for the same
reason, that any sudden removal of restraints neeesaarily involves
B reaction to the opposite extreme of license; a slave is not
changed at a stroke into an autonomous freeman. Yet we have
to remember that the marriage order existed for millenniums
before any attempt was made to mould it into arbitrary shapes by
human legislation. Such legislation, we have seen, was indeed
the effort of the human spirit to affirm more emphatically the
demands of its own instincts.^ But its final result is to choke
and impede rather than to further the instincts which inspired
it. Its gradual disappearance allows the natural order free and
proper scope.
The great truth that compulsion is not really a force on the aide
of virtue, but on the side of vice, had been clearly realized b; the genius
of Rabelais, when he said of bis ideal social state, the Abbej of Thelema,
that there was but one clause in its rule: Fav ce que vonldnu.
"Becauae," said Rabelais (Bk, i, Ch. VII), "men that are free, well-
born, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an
instinct and spur that prompts them unto virtuous actions and with-
draws them from vice. These same men, when by base subjection and
constraint they are brought under and kept down, turn aside from that
noble disposition by which they freely were inclined to virtue, to shake
off and break that bond of servitude." So that when a man and a
woman who had lived under the rule of Thelema married each other,
1 See, ante, p. 42S.
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UABBUQB. 488
Rabelais tells us, their mutual love lasted undiminished to the day of
their death.
When the lose of autonomous freedom fails to lead to licentious
rebellion it incurs the opposite risk and tends to become a flabby
reliance on an external suppoit. The artiticial support of marriage by
State regulation then resembleH the artificial Hupport of the body fur-
nished by corset- wearing. The reasons for and against adopting artifi-
cial support are the same in one case as the other. Corsets really give
a feeling of support; they really furnisli without trouble a fairly satis-
factory appearance of decorum; they are a real protection against
various accidents. But the price at which tht^ furnish these advantages
is serious, and the advantages themselves only exist under unnatural
conditions. The corset cramps the form and the healtliy development of
the organs; it enfeebles the voluntary muscular system; it is incom-
patible with perfect grace and beauty; it diminishes the sum of active
energy. It exerta, in short, the same kind of influence on physical
responsibility as formal marriage on moral responsibility.
It is too often forgotten, and must therefore be repeated, that
married people do not remain together because of any religious or legal
tie; that tie is merely the historical outcome of their natural tt-ndency
to remain together, a tendency which is itself far older than history.
"Love would exist in the world to-day, just as pure and just as endur-
ing," says Shufeldt {Medico-Legal Journal, Dec., 1897), "had man never
tnrented 'marriage.' Truly afflued mates would have remained faithful
to each other as long as lite lasted. It is only when men attempt to
improve upon nature that crime, disease, and unhappiness step in."
The abolition of marriage in the form now practiced," wrote Godwin
more than a century ago [Political Justice, second edition, 1706, vol.
i, p. 248), "will be attended with no evils. We are apt to represent it
to ourselves as the harbinger of brutel lust and depravity. But it
realty happens in this, as in other cases, that the positive laws which
are made to restrain our vices irritete end multiply them." And Pro-
fessor Lester Ward, in insisting on the strength of the monogamic senti-
ment in modern society, truly remarks (International Journal of Ethics,
Oct., 1896) that the rebellion against rigid marriage bonds "is. In
reality, due to the very strengthening of the true bonds of conjugal
afl^ection, coupled with a rational and altogether proper determination
on the part of individuals to accept, in so important a matter, nothing
less than the genuine artiele.*' "If by a single stroke," says Professor
Woods Hutchinson (Contemporary Review, Sept., 1905), "all marriage
ties now in existence were struck off or declared illegal, eight-tenths of
all couples would be remarried within forty eight hours, and seven-
tenths could not be kept asunder with bayoneti." An experiment of
this kind on a snail scale was witnessed in IB09 in an English village
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484 rsvciioLOtiY of sex.
in Buck iD^amsL ire. It wax found that the parish cbuTcb had never
been licensed for mairiages, and that in consequence all the people who
had gone through the ceremony of marriage in that church during the
previous half century had never been legally married. Yet, so far as
could be ascertained, not a single couple tlius released from the legal
compulsion of marriage took advantage of the freedom bestowed. In
the face of such a fact it is obviously impossible to attach any moral
value to the form of marriage.
it is certainly inevitable that during a period of transition
the natural order is to some extent disturbed by the persistence,
«ven though in a weakened form, of external bonds which are
beginning to be consciously realized as inimical to the authorita-
tive control of individual moral responsibility. We can clearly
trace this at the present time. A sensitive anxiety to escape from
external constraint induces an under-valuation of the significance
of personal constraint in the relationship of marriage. Every-
one is probably familiar with cases in which a. couple will live
together through long years without entering the legal bond of
marriage, notwithstanding diflicultiea in their mutual relation-
ship which would have long since caused a separation or a
divorce had they been legally married. When the inherent
difficulties of the marital relationship are complicated by the
difficulties due to external constraint, the development of
individual moral responsibility cuts two ways, and leads to
results that are not entirely satisf actor}'. This has been seen in
the United States of America and attention has often beea called
to it by thoughtful American observers. It is, naturally, noted
especially in women because it is in women that the new growth
of personal freedom and moral responsibility has chiefly made
itself felt. The first stirring of these new impulses, especially
when associated, as it often is, with inexperience and ignorance,
leads to impatience with the natural order, to a demand for
impossible conditions of existence, and to an inaptitude not only
for the arbitrary bondage of law but even for the wholesome and
necessary bonds of human social life- It is always a hard lesson
for the young and idealistic that in order to command Nature we
must obey her; it can only be learnt through contact with life
and by the attainment of full human growth.
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iUKRiAOE. 485
Dr. Felix Adler (in an address before th« Society of Ethical Cut-
tare of New York, Nov. 17, 1889) called attention to what he regarded
BB the most deep-rooted cause of an undue prevalence ot divorce in
America. "The false idea of individual liber^ is largely held in
America," 'and when applied to family life it often Ie«da to an
impatienee with these duties which the individual is citherbom into
or has voluntarily accepted. "I am consti-ained to think that the
prevalence of divorce is to he ascribed in no small degree to the influence
of democratic ideas — that is, of false democratic ideas — and our hope
lies in advancing towards a higher and truer democracy." A more
recent American writer, this time a woman, Anna A. Rogers ("Why
American Marriages Fail," Atlantic ilontMy, Sept., 1007) speaks in tlie
same sense, though perhaps in too unqualified a manner. She states
that the frequency of divorce in America is due to three causes; (1)
woman's failure to realize that marriage is her work in the world; (2)
her growing individualism; (3) her lost art of giving, replaced by *
highly developed receptive faculty. The American woman, this writer
stnt«i>. in discovering her own individuality has not yet learnt how to
manage It; it is atill "largely a useless, uneasy fact«r, vouchsafing her
very little more peace than it does those in her immediate surcharged
vicinity." TTer circumstAuces tend to make of her "a curious anomalous
hybrid; a cross between a magnificent, rather unmannerly boy, and a
spoiled, exacting demi-mondaine, who sincerely loves in this world her-
self nlone." She has not yet learnt that woman's supreme work in the
world can only be attained through the voluntary acceptance of tho
restraints of narringp. The same writer points out that the fault is not
alone with .\merican women, but alno with American men. Their
idolatry of their women is largely responsible for that intolerance and
selfishness which causes so many divorces; "American women are, as a
whole, pampered and worshipped out of nil reason." But the men, who
lend themselves to this, do not feel that they can treat their wives with
the same comradeship as the French treat their wives, nor seek their
advice with the same reliance; the American woman is placed on as
unreal pedestal. Yet another American writer, TtalTord Pyke ("Hus-
bands and Wives," Cotmopolilan, 1902), points out that only a small
proportion of American marriages are really unhappy, these being chiefly
among the more cultured classes, in which the movement of expansion
in women's inicrests and lives is taking place; it is more often the wife
than the husband who is disappointed in marriage, and this is largely
due to her inability to merge, not necessarily subordinate, her individ-
uality in an equal union with his. "Itfarriage to-dsy ia becoming more
and more dependent for its success upon the adjustment of conditions
that are p^blcal. Whereas in former generations it was snfilcient
that the union should involve physical reciprocity, in this age of onrs
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486 PSICHOLOQY OF BEX.
the imioD must involve a paychic reciprocity as well. And wliereu,
heretofore, the community of intereat wae attained with ease, it is now
becoming far more difficult because of the tendency to discourage a
woman who marries from merging her separate iodiTiduality in her
husband's. Yet, unless she does this, how can she have a eomplete Uid
perfect inferest in the life t^^ther, and, for tiiat matter, how can be
have Bueb an interest eitherf
Professor MUnsterberg, the distinguished psychologist, in his frank
but appreoiative study of American institutions. The Amerioan», takii^
a broader outlook, points out that the influence of women on morale in
America has not been in every respect satisfactory. In bo far as it has
tended to encourage shallowness and superficiality. "The American
woman who has scarcely a shred of education," be remarks (p. S87).
"looks in vain for any subject on which she has not firm convictions
already at hand The arrogance of this feminine lack of
knowledge is the symptom of a profound trait in the feminine soul, and
points to dangers springing from the domination of women in the
intellectual life. .... And in no other civilized land are ethical
conceptions so worm-eal«n by superstitions."
We have seen that the modem tendeocy as regards martiage
is towards its recognition as a voluntary union entered into by
two free, equal, and morally responsible persons, and that that
union Ib rather of the nature of an ethical sacrament than of a
contract, so that in its essence as a physical and spiritual bond
it is outside the sphere of the State's action. It has been neces-
sary to labor that point before we approach what may seem to
many not only a different but even a totally opposed aspect of
marriage. If the marriage union itself cannot be a matter for
contract, it naturally leads to a fact which must necessarily be
fi matter for implicit or explicit contract, a matter, moreover, in
which the community at large has a real and proper interest:
that is the fact of procreation.^
The ancient Egyptians — among whom matrimoniaj institu-
tions were so elastic and the position of woman so high — ^recog-
nized a provisional and slight marriage bond for the purpose of
1 It has been necessary to discuss reproduction in the first chapter
of the present ^'olume, and it will again be necessary in the concluding
chapter. Here we are only concerned with procreation as an element
of marriage.
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MAREIAQE. 487
teetiDg fecundity.^ Among ourselves the law makes no auch
paternal provision, leaving to young couples themselves the
respODBibility of making any tests, a permission, we know, they
largely avail themselves of, usually entering the legal bonds of
marriage, however, before the birth of their child. That legal
bond is a recognition that the introduction of a new individual
into the community is not, like sexual union, a mere personal fact,
but a social fact, n fact in which the State cannot fail to be
concerned. And the more we investigate the tendency of the
modem marriage movement the more we shall realize that ita
attitude of freedom, of individual moral responsibility, in the
formation of sexual relationships, is compensated by an attitude of
stringency, of strict social oversight, in the matter of procreation.
Two people who form an erotic relationship are bound, when
they reach the conviction that their relationship is a real mar-
riage, having its natural end in procreation, to subscribe to a con-
tract which, though it may leave themselves personally free, must
yet bind them both to their duties towards their children.^
The necessity for auch an undertaking is double, even apart
from the fact that it is in the highest interests of the parents
themselves. It is required in the Intereets of the child. It
is required in the interests of the State. A child can be bred,
and well-bred, by one effective parent. But to equip a child
adequately for its entrance into life both parents are usually
needed. The State on its side — that is to say, the community of
which parents and child alike form part — is bound to know who
these persons are who have become sponsors for a new individual
iMietzold, Die Bhe in JfCgypien ear PtoUmSiach-remischen Zeit,
1903, p. 3. This bond also accorded rights to anj children that might be
bom during its existence.
2 See, e.ff., Ellen Key, Mutter und Kind, p. 21, The necewitj lor
the combination of greater fTcedom of sexual relationships with greater
stringency of parental relationahips was clearly realized at an earlier
peT)(3 bj another able woman writer. Miss J. H. Clapperton, in her
notable book, Scientifio ifrlioriam, published in ISS6, "Legal cbangea."
she wrote (p. 320), "are required in two directions, viz., towards greater
freedom as to marriecre and greater strictness an to parentage. Tbe
marriage union Is essentially a private matter with which society hu
no call and no right to interfere. Childbirth, on the contrary, is a pub-
lic event It touches the interests of the whole nation."
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48e PSYCUOLOOT OF SEX.
now introduced into its midst. The most Individualistic State,
the moBt SocialiBtic State, are alike bound, i{ faithful to the
interests, both biological and economic, of their constituent
members generally, to insist on the full legal and recognized
parentage of the father and mother of every child. That is
clearly demanded in the interests of the child; it is clearly
demanded aleo in the intereete of the State.
The barrier vhich in Christendom has opposed itself to the
natural recognition of this fact, so injuring alike the child and
the State, has clearly been the rigidity of the marriage Bystem,
more especially as moulded by the Canon law. The Canonists
attributed a truly immense importance to the copula carnalis,
a8 they technically termed it. They centred marriage etrictly
in the vagina ; they were not greatly concerned about either the
presence or the absence of the child. The vagina, sb we know, has
not always proved a very firm centre for the support of marriage,
and that centre is now being gradually transferred to the child.
If we turn from the Canonists to the writings of a modem like
Ellen Key, who so accurately represents much that is most
characteristic and essential in the late tendencies of marriage
development, we seem to have entered a new world, even a newly
illuminated world. For "in the new sexual morality, as in Cor-
regio'a Notte, the light emanates from the child."^
No doubt this change is largely a matter of sentiment, of,
as we sometimes say, mere sentiment, although there is nothing
so powerful in human affaire as sentiment, and the revolution
effected by Jesus, the later revolution effected by Rousseau, were
mainly revolutions in sentiment. But the change is also a matter
of the growing recognition of interests and rights, and as such it
manifests itself in law. We can scarcely doubt that we are
approaching a time when it will be generally understood that
the entrance into the world of every child, without exception,
should be preceded by the formation of a marriage contract which,
while in no way binding the father and mother to any duties, or
any privileges, towards each other, binds them both towards
of. the same author's Cent^try
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their child and at the same time enattres their reepoiiBibility
towards the State. It is impossible for the State to obtain more
than this, but it should be iniposaible for it to demand less.
A contract of such a kind "marries" the father and mother so
far ae the parentage of the individual child ia concerned, and
in no other respect; it is a contract which leaves entirely
nnaffected their past, present, or future relations towards other
persons, otherwise it would be impossible to enforce it. In all
parts of the world this elementary demand of social morality ia
slowly beginning to be recognized, and as it affects hundreds of
thousands of infants* who are yearly branded as "illegitimate"
through no act of their own, no one can say that the recognition
has come too soon. As yet, indeed, it seems nowhere to be
complete.
Most attempts or propOBals for the avoidaDce of illegitimate birtlio
are concerned with the legalizing of unions of a lese binding degree than
the prenent legnl marriage. Such unions would serve to counteract other
evils. Thus an English writer, who has devoted much study to sex
questions, writes In a private letter: "The best remedf for the licen-
tiousness of celibate men and the mental and physical troubles of
continence in woman would be found in a recognized honorable tystein
of free unions and trial -marriages, in which preventive intercourse is
practiced until the lovers were old enough to become parents, and pos-
sessed of sufficient means to support a family. The prospect of a
loveless existence for young men and women of ardent natures is intol-
erable and as terribis as the prospect of painful illness and death. But
I tliink the old order must change ere long."
In Teutonic countries there ia a strongly marked current of feeling
in the direction of establishing legal unions of a lower degree than
marriage. They exist in Sweden, as also in Norway where by a recent
law the illegitimate child is entitled to the same rights in relation to
both parents as tlie legitimate child, bearing the father's name and
inheriting his property (Die Vcuc Generation, July, 1908, p. 303 (. In
France the well-knonn judge, Magnard, so honorably distinguished for
his attitude towards cases of infanticide by young mothers, has said: "I
heartily wish that alongside the institution of marriage as it now existe
1 In Germany alone 180,000 "illegitimate" children are bora every
year, and the number is rapidly increasing: in England it is only 40,000
per annum, the strong feeling which often exists against such births in
England (as also in France) leading to the wide adoption of methods
for preventing conception.
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490 PSTCHOLOQT OF SEX.
we hod tt free union constituted by simple declaration before & rndgiatrate
and conferring almost the same family rights as ordinary marriage."
This wish has been widely echoed.
In China, although polygamy in the strict sense cannot properly
be said to exist, the interests of the child, the woman, and the State are
alike safeguarded by enabling a man to enter into a kind of secondary
marriage with the mother of his child. "Thanks to this system," Paul
d'Enjoy states {La Rewe, Sept., 1905), "which allows the husband to
marry the woman he desires, without being prevented by previous and
undissolved unions, it is only right to remark that there are no seduced
and abandoned girla, except such as no law could save from what is
really innato depravify; and that there are no illegjtimato children
except thoee whose mothers are unhappily nearer to animals by their
senses than to human beings by their reason and dignity."
The new civil code of Japan, which is in many respects so advanced,
allows an illegitimate child to he "recognized" by giving notice to tha
re^strar; when a married man so recognizes a child, it appears, the
child may be adopted by the wife as her own, thou^ not actually ren-
dered legitimate. This state of things represents a transition stage; it
can scarcely be said to recc^Ize the rights of the "recognized" child's
mother. Japan, it may be added, has adopted the principle of the auto-
matic legitimation by marriage of the children bors to the couple befora
marriage.
In Australia, where women possess a larger share than elsewhere
in making and administering the laws, some attention 18 beginning to be
given to the rights of illegitimato children. Thus in South Australia,
paternity may be proved before birth, and the father (by magistrate's
order) provides lodging for one month before and after birth, as well as
nurse, doctor, and clothing, furnishing security that he will do so-, after
birth, at the magistrate's decision, he pays a weekly sum for the child's
maintenance. An "ill^timate" mother may also be kept in a public
institution at the public expense for six months to enable her to become
attached to her child.
Such provisions are developed from the widely recognized right of
the unmarried woman to claim support for her child from its father.
In France, indeed, and in the legal codes which follow the French
example, it is not legally permitted to inquire into the paternity of an
Illegitimate child. Such a law is, needless to say, alike unjust to the
mother, to the child, and to the State. In Austria, the law goes to the
opposite, though certainly more reasonable, extreme, and peimite even
the mother who has had several lovers to select for herself which she
chooses to make responsible for her child. The German code adopte bm
intermediate course, and comes only to the aid of the unmarried mother
who has one lover. In all such cases, however, the aid given te
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MABRIAQE. 481
pecuniary onlj; it insures the mother no recognition or respect, and (aa
VVahrniund has truly said in his Ehf «nd Ekcrccht ) it is atili neccBsaiT'
to insiBt on "tlie unconditional eanetity of motherhood, which is entitled,
under whatever circumstances it ariaes. to the respect and protection
of society."
It muBt be added that, from t^e social point of view, it is not the
sexual union which requires legal recognition, but the child which is tha
product of that union. It would, moreover, be hopeless to attempt to
legalize all sexual connection, but it is comparatively easy to legaliEC all
children.
There has been much discuBsioti in the past concerning the
particular form which marriage ought to take. Many fheoriste
h&ve exercised their ingenuity in inventing and preaching new
and unusual marriage-arrangements as panaceas for social ills;
while others have exerted even greater energy in denouncing all
such proposals as subversive of the foundations of human society.
We may regard all such discussions, on the one side or the
other, as idle.
In the first place marriage customs are far too fundamental,
far too intimately blended with the primary substance of human
and indeed animal society, to be in the slightest degree shaken by
the theories or the practices of mere individuals, or even groups
of individuals. Monogamy — the more or leea prolonged cohabita-
tion of two individuals of opposite sex — has been the prevailing
type of sexual relationship among the higher yertebratee and
through the greater part of human history. This is admitted
even by those who believe (without any sound evidence) that man
has passed through a stage of sexual promiscuity. There have
been tendencies to variation in one direction or another, but at
the lowest stages and the highest stages, so far as can be seen,
monogamy represents the prevailing rule.
It must be said also, in the second place, that the natural
prevalence of monogamy as the normal type of sexual relation-
ship by no means excludes variations. Indeed it assumes them.
"There is nothing precise in Nature," according to Diderofs
saying. The line of Nature is a curve that oscillates from side
to side of the norm. Such oscillations inevitably occur in
harmony with changes in environmental conditions, and, no
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492 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
doubt, nith peculiarities of pereonal diBpoeition. So lOng as no
arbitrary and merely external attempt ie made to force Nature,
the vital order is harmoniously maintained. Among certain
species of ducks when males are in excess polyandric families are
constituted, the two males attending their female partner without
jealousy, but when the sexes again become equal in number tlie
monogamic order is restored. The natural human deviations
from the monogamic order seem to be generally of this character,
and largely conditioned by tlie social and economic environment.
The most common variation, and that which most clearly poa-
HCBaea a biological foundation, is the tendency to polygjuy, which
is found at all stages of culture, even, in an unrecognized and
more or less promiscuous shape, in the highest civilization.^ It
must be remembered, however, that recognized polygeny is not
the rule even where it prevails ; it is merely permissive ; there is
never a sufficient e-vceee of women to allow more than a few of
the richer and more influential persons to have more than one
wife.2
It has further to be borne in mind that a certain elasticity
of the formal side of marriage while, on the one side, it permits
variations from the general monogamic order, where such are
healthful or needed to restore a balance in natural conditions,
on the other hand restrains such variations in so far as they are
due to the disturbing influence of artificial constraint. Much of
the polygyny, and polyandry also, which prevails among us to-
day is an altogether artificial and unnatural form of polygamy,
^iarriages which on a more natural basis would be dissolved can-
not legally be dissolved, and consequently the parties to them,
I "Where are real monogamiats to be found!" ask^d Schopenhauer
in liis essay. "I'eber die Weibe." And James Hinton ivaa wont to aak:
"What is the meaning of maintaining monogamy T Ib there any
ehance of getting it, I should like to knowT Do you call English life
monogamous T"
l".Mm08t everywhere," says Weslermarck of polygyny (which he
discusses fully in Chs. XX-XXII of his Eitlory of naman Marriage)
"it is Fonlined to the smaller part of the ppople. the vaxt majority being
monognmouB." MHuri<^ Gregory {Goniemjmraiii Itriinr. Kept., 1006)
gives statistics showing that nearly everywhere the t4>ndency is towards
equality in number of the wxe«.
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MASBIAGE. 493
instead of changing their partners and bo preaerring the natural
monogamic order, take on other additional partners and bo intro-
duce an unnatural polygamy. There will alwayB be TBriations
from the monogamic order and civilization is certainly not hostile
to sexual Tariation. Whether we reckon theae variations as
legitimate or illegitimate, they will still take place; of that we
may be certain. The path of social wisdom eeems to lie on the
one hand in making the marriage relationship flexible enough to
reduce t^ a minimum theee deviations — ^not because such devia-
tions are intrinsically bad but because they ought not to be forced
into existence — and on the other hand in according to these
deviations when they occur such a measure of recognition as will
deprive them of injurious influence and enable justice to be done
to all the parties concerned. We too often forget that our failure
io recognize such variations merely means that we accord in such
cases an illegitimate permission to perpetrate injustice. In
those parts of the worid in which polygyny is recognized as a -
permissible variation u man is legally held to his natural
obligations towards all his sexual mates and towards the children
he has by those mates. In no part of the world is polyg)-ny
80 prevalent as in ChriBtendom; in no part of the world
is it so easy for a man to escape the obligations incurred by
polygyny. We imagine that if we refuse to recognize the fact
of polygyny, we may refuse to recognize any obligations incurred
by polygyny. By enabling a man to escape so easily from the
obligations of his polygamous relationships we encourage him, if
he is unscnipnlous, to enter into them ; we place a premium on
the immorality we loftily condemn.' Our polygj-ny has no legal
«xi8tence, and therefore its obligations can have no legal existence.
1 In a polygamous land a man in of ooiirse as muoh bonni] by hh
obligationa to hia second wife as to his flrat. Among ouraelvea the man's
"second wife" is degraded with the name of "mia^esa," and the worse
he treats her and her children the more hia "morality" is approved, just
as the Catholic Church, when struggling tu establish sacerdotal celibacy,
approved more highly the priest who had illegitimate relations with
women than the priest who decently and openly married. If hia neglect
induces a married man's mistress to make known her relationship to
him the man is justified in prosecuting her. Bind his counsel, assured of
general sympathy, will state in court that "this woduid has even been
ao wicked as to write to the prosecutor's wilel"
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494 PSYCIIOLOQT OF SEX.
The oetrich, it was once imagined, hidcB its head in the Band and
attempts to annihilate facte by refusing to look at them; but
there is only one known animal which adopts this course of action,
and it is called Man.
Monogamy, in the fundamental biological sens^ represmts
the natural order into which the majority of sexual facts will
always naturally fall because it is the relationship which most
adequately corresponds to all the physical and spiritual facta
involved. But if we realize that sexual relationships primarily
concern only the persons who enter into those relationships, and
if we further realize that the interest of society in such relation-
ships is confined to the children which they produce, we shall
also realize that to fix by law the number of women with whom a
man shall have sexual relationships, and the number of men
with whom a woman shall unite herself, is more imreasonable
than it would be to fix by law the number of children they ehall
produce. The State has a right to declare whether it needs few
citizens or many ; but in attempting to regulate the sexual rela-
tionships of its members the State attempts an impossible task
and is at the same time guilty of an impertinence.
There ia &IWB7S a tendency, at certain atages of civiliEation, to
fnsiBt on a merely fornial aod external uniformity, and a correaponding
failure to see not only that such uniformity ia unreal, but also that it
lia« an injurious effect, in so far as it checkn beneBcial variations. The
tendency is by no means confined to the sexual sphere. In England
there is, for instance, a tendency to make building laws which enjoin,
in regard to places of human habitation, all sorts of provisions that on
the whole are fairly beneRcial, but which in practice act injuriously,
because they render many simple and excellent human habitations
absolutely illegal, merely because such habitations fail to conform to
regulations which, under some circumstances, are not only unnecessary,
but mischievous.
Variation is a fact that will exist whether we will or no; it can
only become healthful It we recognize and allow for it. We may even
have to recognize that it is a more marked tendency in civilization than
in more primitive social stages. Thus Gerson argues {Sexual-Frobleme,
Bept., ISOS, p. 539) that just as the civilized nmn cannot be content
with the coarse and monotonous food which satisfies the peasant, so It
is in sasual matters; the peasant yout^ and girl in their sexual rela-
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HABBIAOE. 495
tionaUpi are nearly ftlwa]^ monogamoua, but ciTllized people, with their
more versatile and senBitivs tastes, are apt to crave for varie^. Senan-
cour (De I'Amour, vol. ii, "D>i Partage," p. 127) Beema to admit the
poasibility of marriage variations, aa of sharing a wife, provided noth-
ing ia done to cause rivalry, or to impair the soul's candor. Lecky, near
the end of his Biatory of European Morals, declared hia belief that,
while the permanent union of two persons ia the normal and prevailing
type of marriage, it by no means follows that, in the Interests of
society. It should be the only form. Remy de Oounnont similarly
{Physique de Cimour, p. 1S6). while stating that the couple is the
natural form of marriage and its prolonged continuance a condition of
human auperiority, adds that the permanence of the union can only be
achieved with difficulty. So, also. Professor W. Thomas {Sex and
Sociely, 1907, p. 193), while regarding monogamy aa aubserring social
needs, adds: "Speaking from the biological standpoint monogamy does
not, aa a rule, answer to the conditions of highest stimulation, since here
the problematical and elusive elements disappear to some extent, and
the object of attention has grown so familiar in consciousness that the
emotional reactions are qualified. This is the fundamental explanation
of the fact that married men and women frequently become intereiited
in others than their partners in matrimony."
Pepys, whose unconscious self-dissection admirably illustrates so
many psychological tendencies, clearly shows how — by a logic of feeling
deeper than any intellectual logic — the devotion to monogamy subsista
aide by side with an irresistible passion for sexual varic^. With his
constantly recurring wayward attraction to a long series of women he
retains throughout a deep and unchanging affection for his charming
young wife. In the privacy of his Diary he frequently refers to her in
terms of endearment which cannot be feigned; he enjoys her society; he
is very particular about her dress; he delights in her progress in music,
and spends much money on her training; he is absurdly jealous when
he finds her in the society of a man. Hie subsidiary relationships with
other women recur Irresistibly, but he has no wish either to make tbem
very permanent or to allow them to engross him unduly. Pepys repre-
sents a common t^pe of civilised "monogamist" who ia perfectly sincere
and extremely convinced in his advocacy of monogamy, as he under-
stands it, but at the same time believes and acta on the belief that
monogamy by no means excludes the need (or sexual variation. Lord
Morley's statement (Diderot, vol. ii, p. 20) that "man is Instinctively
polygamous," can by no means be accepted, but if we interpret it as
meaning that roan is an instinctively monogamous animal with a con-
oomitant desire for sexual variation, there is much evidence in ita favor.
Women must be as free as men to mould their own amatory life.
Many consider, however, that auch freedom on the part of women will
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496 PaTCHOLOGY OP SEX.
b«, and ought to be, exercised within narrower limits («ee, e.g., Bloch,
Be!eual Life of Our Time, Ch, X). In part this limitation is considered
due to the greater absorption of a woman in the task of breeding and
rearing her child, and in part to a leas range of psychio activities. A
man, sa G. Hirth puts it, expressing this view of the matter (Weye sur
Liebe, p. 342), "ha» not only room in bis intellectual horizon (or very
various interests, hut bis power of erotie expansion is much greater and
more differentiated than that of women, although he may lack the
intimacy and depth of a woman's devotion."
It may be argued that, since variations in the sexual order will
inevitably take place, whether or not they are recogniied or authorized,
no harm is likely to be done by .uaing the weight of social and 1^1
authority on the side of that form which is generally regarded as the
best, and, so far as poaaible, covering the other forms with inbmy.
There are many obvioua defects in such an attitude, apart from the
nupremely important fact that to cast infamy on sexual relationships
is to exert a despicable cruelty on women, who are inevitably the chief
sufferers. Not the least is the injustice and the hampering of vital
'energy which it inflicts on the better and more scrupulous people to the
advantage of the worae and less scrupnlons. This always happens when
authority exerto its power in favor of a form. When, in the thirteenth
.century, Alexander Til — one of the greateat and most effective potentates
who ever ruled Christendom — was consulted by the Bishop of Exeter
-concerning aubdeacons who persiBt«d in marrying, the Pope directed him
to inquire into the lives and characters of the offendera; if they were
of regular habita and staid morality, they were to be forcibly separated
and the wives driven out; if they were men of notoriously disorderly
character, th^ were to be permitted to retain their wives, it th<7 so
desired (Lea, BUtory of 8ae«rdotal CelUxio]/, third edition, vol. i, |>.
396). It was an astute policy, and was carried out by the same Pope
'elsewhere, but it is easy to see that it was altogether opposed to morality
in every sense of the term. It destroyed the happiness and the effi-
ciency of the best men; it left the worst men absolutely free. To-day
we are quite willing to recognize the evil result of this policy; it was
dictated I^ a Pope and carried out seven hundred years a^. Yet in
England we carry out exactly the same policy to-day by means of our
separation orders, which are scattered broadcast among the popula-
tion. None of the couples thus separated — and never disciplinad to
celibacy as are the Catholic clergy of to-day — may marry again; we,
in eff'eet, bid the more scrupulons among them to become celibates, and
to the leea scrupulous we grant permiasion to do as they like. This
proeesa is carried on by virtue of the collective inertia of the community,
and when it Is supported by arguments, if that ever happens, they are
of an antiquarian character which can only coll forth a pitying smile.
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UARBIAOE. 497
It maj be added that there ia a further reason vrhy the cuBtom of
branding sexual variations from the norm as "immoral" is not bo harm-
leaa aa some aiTect to believe: such variatione appear to be not uncom-
mon among men and women of superlative ability nhoae powers are
needed unimpeded in the service of mankind. To attempt to fit anch
jiersone into the narrow moulds which suit the majority ia not only an
injuatit^e to them as individuals, but it is an offence against society,
which ma_v fairl; claim that its best members shall not be hampered in
its service. The notion that the person whose sexual needa differ from
those of the average is necessarily a socially bad person, is a notion
unsupported by facta. Every case must be judged on its own merits.
Undoabtedly the most common rariation from normal
monogamy haa in all Btages of human culture been polygyny or
the sexual union of one man with more than one woman. It haa
sometimes been socially and legally recognized, and sometimes
unrecognized, but in either case it has not failed to occur.
Polyandry, or the union of a woman with more than one man,
has been comparatively rare and for intelligible reasons: men
have most usually been in a better position, economically and
legally, to organize a liousehold with themaelves aa the centre;
a woman is, unlike a man, by nature and often by custom
unfitted for intercourse for considerable periods at a time; a
woman, moreover, haa her thoughts and affections more con-
centrated on her children. Apart from this the biolc^ical mas-
culine traditions point to polygyny much more than the feminine
traditions point to polyandry. Although it is true that a woman
can undergo a much greater amount of sexual intercourse than
a man, it also remains true that the phenomena of courtship in
nature have made it the duty of the male to be alert in offering
his sexual attention to the female, whose part it has been to
suspend her choice coyly until she is sure of her preference.
Polygynic conditions have also proved advantageous, as they have
permitted the most vigorous and successful members of a com-
munity to have the largest number of mates and so to transmit
their own superior qualities.
"Polygamy," writes Woods Hutchinaon (Coniempordry Rtview,
Oct., 1904), though he recognizes the advantagea of monogamy, "as a
racial institution, among animals aa among men, has many solid and
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498 PSYCHOLOGY OF BBX.
weigbtf coDsideratlona in its (»vor, and has reaulted in both huauui and
pre-human times, in the production of a very high type of ttoth indl-
Tiduftl and aoeial development" He points out that it promotes intelli-
gence, coSperation, and division of labor, while the keen competition for
women weeds out the weaker and less attractive males.
Among our European ancestors, alike among Qermans and Celts,
polygyny and other sexual forma existed as occasional variations. Tacitus
not«d polygyny in Germany, and Cmaar found in Britain that brothers
would hold their wives in common, the children being reckoned to the
man to whom the woman had been first given in marriage (see, «.;.,
Traill's Social England, vol. i, p. 103, for a dlscussioa of this point).
The husband's assistant, also, who might be called in to Impregnate the
wife when the husband was impotent, existed in Germany, and was
indeed a general Indo-Germanlc Institution (Schrader, iZeolIetriooN, art.
"Zeugungahelfer"). The corresponding institution of the concubine has
been still more deeply rooted and widespread. Up to comparatJTely
modem times, indeed, in accordance with the traditions of Boman taw,
the concubine held a recognized and honorable position, below that of a
wife but with definite 1(^1 rights, though It was not always, or Indeed
usually, legal for a married man to have a concubine. In ancient Wales,
as well as In Rome, the concubine was accepted and never despised (B.
B. Holt, "Marriage Laws of the Cymri," Journal Anthropologioal Inttt-
tute, Aug. and Nov., 18SS, p. 165). The fact that when a concubine
entered the bouse of a married man her dignity and legal position were
leas than those of the wife preserved domestic peace and safeguarded
the wife's Interests. (A Korean btuband cannot take a concubine under
his roof without his wife's permission, but she rarely objects, and seems
to enjoy the companionship, says Louise Jordan Miln, Quaint Korea,
IBM, p. 92.) In old Europe, we must remember, as Dufour points out
In speaking of the time of Charlemagne {Hiatoire de la Proglitution,
vol. Hi, p. 226), "concubine" was an honorable term; the concubine was
by no means a mistress, and she could be accused of adultery just the
same as a wife. In England, late in the thirteenth century, Bracton
■peaks of the concubina legitima as entitled to certain rights and oon-
liderations, and It was the same in other parts of Europe, sometimes for
several centuries later (see Lea, EUlory of Sacerdotal Celibacy, vol. i,
p. 230). The early Christian Church was frequently inclined to recog-
nize the concubine, at all events If attached to an unmarried man.
for we may trace in the Church "the wish to look upon every permanent
union of man or woman as possessing the character of a marriage in
the eyes of God, and, therefore, In the judgment of th« Church" (art.
"Concubinage," Smith and Cheetham, Dictionary of Christian Antiqui-
ties). This was the feeling of St. Augustine (who had himself, before
his conversion, bad a concubine who was apparently a Christian), and
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MABBUOS. 49y
the Ctnmeil of Toledo admitted on unmarried man who was taitbful to
a concubine. Ab the Ian of the Catholic Church grew more and more
rigid, it neceesarily loet touch with human needs. It was not so in the
early Church during the great ages of its vital growth. In those ages
eren the strenuous general rule of monogamy wna relaxed when such
relaxation seemed reaBonable. This was so, for instance, in the case of
sexual impotenc}'. Thus early in the eighth century Gregory II, writing
to Boniface, the apostle of Germany, in answer to a. question by the
latter, replies that when a wife is incapable from physical Inflrmi^
from fulfilling her marital duties it is permissible for the husband to
take a second wife, though he must not withdraw maintenance from the
first. A little later Archbishop Egbert of York, in his Dialogue d9
IiulUulione Eooleaiaatioa, though more cautiously, admits that when
one of two married persons la inflmi the other, with the permieaion of
the infirm one, may marry again, but the infirm one is not allowed to
marry again during the other's life. Impotency at the time of marriage,
o! course, made the marriage void without the intervention of any
ecclesiastical law. But Aquinas, and later theologians, allow that an
excessive disgust for a wife justifies a man in regarding himself as
Impotent in relation to her. These rules are, of course, quite distinct
from the permissions to hreak the tharriage laws granted to kings and
princes ; such permissions do not count as evidence of the Church's rules,
for, as the Council of Constantinople prudently decided in 809, "Divine
law can do nothing against Kings" (art, "Bigamy," DictUmary of Chris- .
tion Antiquiiiet). The law of monogamy was also relaxed in cases of
enforced or voluntary desertion. Thus the Council of Vermerie (TS2)
enacted that if a wife will not accompany her husband when he is com-
pelled to follow hia lord Into another land, he may mafry again, pro-
vided he sees no hope of returning. Theodore of Canterbury 168B),
again, pronounces that if a wife is carried away hy the enemy and her
husband cannot redeem her, he may marry again after an interval of a
year, or, If there Is a chance of redeeming her, after an interval of five
years; the wife may do the same. Such rules, though not general,
show, as Meyrick points out (art. "Marriage," Dictionary of Christian
Antiquities), a willingness "to meet particular cases ss they arise."
As the Canon law grew rigid and the Catholic Church lost its vital
adapttbility, sexual variations ceased to be recognized within its sphere.
We have to wait for the Reformation for any further movement. Many
of the early Protestant Reformers, especially in Germany, were prepared
to admit a considerable degree of vital Hexibility in sexual relationships.
Thus Luther advised married women with impotent husbands. In cases
where there was no wish or opportunity for divorce, to have sexual rela-
tions with another man, by preference the husband's brother; the chil-
dren were to be reckoned to the husband ("Die Sexuelle Frage be!
Luther," Muttersehutz, Sept., 1908).
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In England the Puritan spirit, trhich m largely occupied itwlf
with the reform of marriage, could not fail to be concerned with the
question of sexual variationg, and from^time to time we And the proposal
to legalize polygyny. Thus, in IO08, "A Person of Quality' published
in London a small pamphlet dedicated to the Iiord Protector, entitled
A Remedp for Unoleanncse. It was in the form of a number of queries,
asking why we, should not admit polygamy for the avoidance of adultery
and infanticide. . The writer inquires whether It may not "stand with it
gracious spirit, and he every way consistent with the principles of %
man (earing God and loving holiness, to have more women than one to
his proper use He that takes another man's ox or ass is
doubtless a transgressor; but he that puts himself out of the occasion
of that temptation by keeping of his own seems to be a right honest
and well-meaning man."
More than a century later (1790), an able, learned, and ilistin-
gnlshed London clergyman of high character (who had been a lawyer
before entering the Church), the Rev. Martin Madan, also advocated
polygamy in a book called Thtlt/phthom ; or, a Treatise on FemaU ftuin.
Madan had been brought into close contact with prostitution through
a chaplaincy at the Lock Hospital, and, like the Puritan advocate of
polygamy, he came to the conclusion that only by the reform of marriage
is it possible to work against prostitution and the evils of sexual inter-
course outside marriage. His remarkable book aroused much contro-
versy and strong feeling against the author, so that he found it dcsirnble
to leave London and settle in the country. Projects of marriage reform
have never since come from the Church, but from philosophers and
moralists, though not rarely from writers of definitely religious charac-
ter. Senancour, who was so delicate and sensitive a moralist in the
sexual sphere, introduced a temperate discussion of polygamy into his
De FAmour (vol. it, pp. 117-126). Tt Beemed to him to be neither posi-
tively contrary nor positively conformed to the general tendency of our
present conventions, and he concluded that "the method of conciliation,
in part, would be no longer to require that the union of a man and a
woman should only ceate with the death of one of them." Cope, the
biologist, expressed n somewhat more dei'ided opinion. Under some cir-
cumstances, if all three parties agreed, he saw no objection to polygyny
or polyandry. "There are some cases of hardship," he said, "which such
permission would remedy. Such, for instance, would be the case where
the man or woman had become the victim of a chronic disease; or, when
either party should be childless, and in other contingencies that conld be
Imagined." There would be no compulsion !n any direction, and full
responsibility as at present. Such cases could only arise exceptionally,
and would not call for social antagonism. For the most part. Cope ,
remarks, "the best way to deal with polygamy is to let it alone" (E. D.
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Cope, "The Marriage Problem, Open Court, Nov. 16 and 22, 1388). In
England, Dr. John Chapman, the editor of the Wegtminaler BevUw, and
a close associate of the leaders of the Radical movement In the Victorisji
period, was opposed to 8tat« dictation as regards the form of marriage,
and believed that a certain amount of sexual variation would be socially
beneficial. Thus he wrote in 1884 tin a privaU letter) : "I think that
as human beings become leas selfish polygamy [i.e., polygyny], and even
polyandry, in an ennobled form, will become increasingly frequent."
James Hinton, who, a few years earlier, had devoted much thought
and attention to the sexual question, und regarded It as indeed the
greatest of moral problems, was strongly in favor of a more vital
flexibility of marriage regulations, an adaptation to human needs such
as the early CfariBtian Church admitted. Marriage, he declared, must
be "subordinated to service," since marriage, like the Sabbath, ia made
for man and not man for marriage. Thus in casp of one partner becom-
ing Insane he would permit the other partner to marry again, the claim
of the insane partner, in case of recovery, still remaining valid. That
would be a form of polygamy, but Hinton was careful to point out that
by "polygamy" he meant "less a particular marriage-order than such an
order as best serves good, and which therefore must be essentially
variable. Monogamy may be good, even the only good order, if of free
choice; but a late for it is another thing. The sexual relationship must
be a natural thing. The true social life will not be any Hxed and
definite relationship, as of monogamy, polygamy, or anything else, but
a perfect subordination of every sexual relationship whatever to reason
and human good."
Ellen Key, who is an enthusiaBtie advocate of monogamy, and who
believes that the civilized development of personal love removes all dan^
ger of the growth of polygamy, gttll admits the existence of variations.
She hag in mind such solutions of difficult problems as Goethe had before
him when he proposed at first in his Stella to represent the force of
affection and tender memories as too strong to admit of the rupture of
an old bond in the presence of a new bond. The problem of sexual varia-
tion, she remarks, however (LieSe und Ethik, p. 12), has changed its
form under modem conditions; it is no longer a struggle between the
demand of society for a rigid marriage-order and the demand of the
individual for sexual sotisfaction, but it has become the problem of
harmonizing the ennoblement of the race with heightened requirements
of erotic happiness. She also points out that the existenee of a partner
who requires the other partner's care as a nurse or as an intellectual
companion by no means deprives that other partner of the right t«
fatherhood or motherhood, and that such rights must be safeguarded
(Ellen Key, Pe6«r Lieie und Ehe, pp. 186-168).
A prominent and ractreme advocate of polygyny, not as a simple
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rare variation, but as a marriage order superior to monogamf, is to be
found at the present day in Professor Christian ron Ehrenfels of Prague
(see, e.g., his Bemutlethik, IDOS; "Die Postulate des Lebens," Sexual-
Probteme, Oct, 1908; and letter to Ellen Key in her Feber lAebe find
Ehe, p. 466). Ebrentels believes that the number of men inapt for satis-
factory reproduction is much larger than that of women, and that there-
fore when these are left out of account, a polygynic marriage order
becomes necessary. He calls this "reproduction -marriage" (Zeugunga-
ehe), and conaiders that it will entirely replace the present marriage
order, tj) which it is morally superior. It would be based on priv&t«
contracts. Ehrenfels holds that women would offer no objection, as a
woman, he believes, attaches less importance to a man as a wooer than
OS the fatber of her child. Ehrenfela'a doctrine has been seriously
attacked from many sides, and his proposals are not in the line of our
progress. Any radical modification of the existing monogamic order is
not to be expected, even tf it were generally recognized, which cannot
be said to be the case, tliat It is desirable. The quration of sexual varia-
tions, it must be remembered, is not a question of introducing an entirely
new form of marriage, but only of recognizing the rights of individuals,
in exceptional cases, to adopt such aberrant forms, and of recognising
the corresponding duties of such individuals to accept the responsibilities
of any aberrant marriage forms they may find it best to adopt. So far
as the question of sexual variations is more than this, it is, as HInton
argued, a dynamical method of worlcing towards the abolition of the
perilous and dangerous promiscuity of prostitution. A rigid marriage
order Involves prostitution; • flexible marriage order largely — though
not, it may t»e, entirely — renders prostitution unnecessary. The demo-
cratic morality of the present day, so far as the indications at present
go, is opposed to the encouragement of a ^uast-slave class, with dimin-
ished social rights, such as prostitutes always constitute in a more or
less marked degree. It is fairly evident, also, that the rapidly growing
influence of medical hygiene is on the same side. We may, therefore, rea-
sonably expect in the future a slow though steady increase in the recog-
nition, and even the extension, of those variations of the monogamic
order which have, in reality, never ceased to exist.
It U latneatable that at this period of the world's history,
nearly two thousand years after the wise legislators of Rome had
completed their work, it should still be necessary to conclude that
we are to-day only beginning to place marriage on a reasonable
and htimaue basis. I have repeatedly pointed out bow largely the
Canon law has been responsible for this arrest of development.
One may say, indeed, that the whole attitude of the Church, after
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it had once acquired complete worldly dominance, must be held
reBponsible. In the earlier centuries the attitude of ChriBtianity
was, on the whole, admirable. It held aloft great ideals but it
refrained from enforcing those ideals at all eosts; thus its ideals
remained genuine and could not degenerate into mere hypocritical
empty forms; much flexibility was allowed when it seemed to be
for human good and made for the avoidance of evil and injustice.
But when the Church attained temporal power, and when that
power was concentrated in the hands of Popes who subordinated
moral and religions interests to political interests, all the claims
of reason and humanity were flung to the winds. The ideal was
no more a fact than it was before, but it was now treated as a
fact. Human relationships remained what they were before, as
complicated and as various, but henceforth one rigid pattern,
admirable as an ideal but worse than empty as a form, was
arbitrarily set up, and all deviations from it treated either as non-
existent or damnable. The vitality was crushed out of the most
central human institutions, and they are only to^lay beginning
to lift their heads afresh.
If — to sum up — we consider the course which the regulation
of marriage haa run during the Christian era, the only period
which immediately concerns us, it is not difficult to trace the
main outlines. Marriage began as a private arrangement, which
the Church, without being able to control, was willing to bless,
aa it also blessed many other secular affairs of men, making no
undue attempt to limit its natural flexibility to human needs.
Gradually and imperceptibly, however, without the medium of
any law, Christianity gained the complete control of marriage,
coordinated it with its already evolved conceptions of the evil of
lust, of the virtue of chastity, of the mortal sin of fornication,
and, having through the influence of these dominating concep-
tions limited the flexibility of marriage in every possible direc-
tion, it placed it on a lofty hut narrow pedestal as the sacrament
of matrimony. For reasons which by no means lay in the nature
of the sexual relationships, but which probably seemed cogent to
sacerdotal legislators who assimilated it to ordination, matrimony
was declared indissoluble. Nothing was so easy to enter ae the
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gate of matrimony, but, after the maimer of a monfie-tr^, it
opened inwards and not outwards ; once in there was no way ont
alive. The Church's regulation of marriage while, like the
celibacy of the clergy, it was a success from the point of view of
ecclesiastical politics, and even at first from the point of view of
civilization, for it at least introduced order into a chaotic society,
was in the long run a failure from the point of view of society
and morals. On the one hand it drifted into absurd subtleties
and quibbles; on the other, not being based on either reason or
humanity, it had none of that vital adaptability to the needs of
life, which early Christianity, while holding aloft austere ideals,
still largely retained. On the side of tradition this code of
marriage law became awkward and impracticable; on the
biological side it was hopelessly false. The way was thus pre-
pared for the Protestant reintroduction of the conception of
marriage as a contract, that conception being, however, brought
forward less on its merits than as a protest against the difficulties
and absurdities of the Catholic Canon law. The contractive view,
which still largely persists even to-day, speedily took over much
of the Canon law doctrines of marriage, becoming in practice a
kind of reformed and secularized Canon law. It was somewhat
more adapted to modem needs, but it retained much of the
rigidity of the Catholic marriage without its sacramental charac-
ter, and it never made any attempt to become more than nom-
inally contractive. It has been of the nature of an incongruotis
compromise and haa represented a transitional phase towards free
private marriage. We can recognize that phase in the tendency,
well marked in all civilized lands, to an ever increasing flexibility
of marriage. The idea, and even the fact, of marriage by con-
sent and divorce by failure of that consent, which we are now
approaching, has never indeed been quite extinct. In the Latin
countries it has survived with the tradition of Eoman law ; in the
English-speaking countries it is bound up with the spirit of
Puritanism which insists that in the things that concern the
individual alone the individual himself shall be the supreme
judge. That doctrine as applied to marriage was in England
magnificently asserted by the genius of Afilton, and in America
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it has been a leavea which is etill working in marriage legiBlation
towards an inevitable goal whidi is scarcely yet in eight. The
marriage system of the future, as it moves along its present course,
will resemble the old Christian system in that it will recognize
the sacred and sacramental character of the sexual relationship,
and it will resemble the civil conception in that it will insist tiiat
marriage, bo far as it involves procreation, shall be publicly
registered by the State. But in opposition to the Church it will
recognize that marriage, in so far as it is purely a sexual relation-
ship, is a private matter the conditions of which must be left to
the persons who alone are concerned in it; and in opposition
to the civil theory it will recognize that marriage is in its essence
a fact and not a contract, though it may give rise to contracts,
so long as such contracts do not touch that essential fact. And
in one respect it will go beyond either the ecclesiastical concep-
tion or the civil conception. Man has in recent times gained
control of his own procreative powers, and that control involves
a shifting of the centre of gravity of marriage, in so far as mar-
riage is an affair of the State, from the vagina to the child which
is the fruit of the womb. Marriage as a state institution will
centre, not around the sexual relationship, but around the child
which is the outcome of that relationship. In so far as marriage
is an inviolable public contract it will be of such a nature that
it will be capable of automatically covering with its protection
every child that is bom into the world, so that every child may
possess a legal mother and a legal father. On the one aide, there-
fore, marriage is tending to become less stringent; on the other
side it is tending to become more stringent. On the personal
side it is a sacred and intimate relationship with which the State
has no concern ; on the social side it is the assumption of the
responsible public sponsorship of a new member of the State.
Some among us are working to furtlier one of these aspects of
marriage, some to further the other aspect. Both are indis-
pensable to establish a perfect harmony. It is necessaiy to hold
the two aspects of marriage apart, in order to do equal justice to
the individual and to society, but in bo far as marriage approaches
its ideal state those two aspects become one.
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We have now completed the discussion of marriage as it pre-
eents itself to the modem man bom in what in mediferal dajia
was called Christendom. It is not an easy subject to discusa.
It is indeed a very difficult subject, and only after many years is
it possible to detect the main drift of its apparently opposing
and confused currents when one is oneaelf in the midst of them.
To an Englishman it is, perhaps, peculiarly difficult, for the
Englishman is nothing if not insular; in that fact lie whatever
virtues he possesses, as well as their reverse sidra.*
Yet it is worth while to attempt to climb to a hei^t from
which we can view the stream of social tendency in its true pro-
portions and estimate its direction. It is necessary to do so if we
value our mental peace in an age when men's minds are agitated
by many petty movements which have nothing to do with their
great temporal interests, to say nothing of their eternal interests.
When we have attained a wide vision of the solid biological facte
of life, when we have graeped the great historical streams of tra-
ction,— which together make up the map of human affairs, — we
can face serenely the little social transitions which take place in
onr own age, as they have taken place in every age.
i Howard, in hiB judicial Hiatory of Matrimonial Inttitutiont (voL
ii. pp. 86 et neq.), cannot refrain ^om drawing attention to the almost
insanely wild el^racter of tJie language used in England not so manj
jeaTB ago by tiiose who opposed marriage with a deceased wife's sister,
and he contrasts it with the much more reaHonable attitude of ttis
Catholic Church. "Pictures have been drawn," he remarks, "of tho
moral anarchy such mairiages must produce, which are read by Ameri-
can, Colonial, and Continental observers with a bewilderment Uiat Is
not unmixed with disguBt, and are, indeed, a curious illustration of tha
extreme insularitr of the English mind." So recently as A. D. 190S a
bill was brought into the British House of Lords proposing that deser-
tion witiiout cause for two years shall be a ground for divorce, a
reasonable and humane measure which is law in most parts of the
civilixed world. The Lord Chancellor (Lord Lorebum), a Liberal, and
in the sphere of polities an enlightened and sagacious leader, declared
that such a proposal was "absolutely impossible." The House rejected
the proposal by 61 rotes to 2. Even the marriage decrees of the Council
of Trent were not affirmed by such an overwhelming majority. In mat-
ters of marriage legialatioQ Eiudand has scarcely yet emerged from tita
Middle Ages.
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CHAPTER XI.
THE ART OF LOVE.
Marriage Not Only for Procreation — Theologians on the Sacra-
mentum Bolationit — Importance of the Art of Love — The Baaia of
Stability in Marriage and the Condition for Right Procreation — The Art
of Love the Bulwark Against Divorce — The Unity of Love and Marriage
a Principle of Modem Morality—Christianity and the Art of Love —
Ovid — The Art of Love Among Primitive Peoples — Sexual Initiation in
Africa and Elsewhere — The Tendency to Spontaneous Development of the
Art of Love in Early Life — Flirtation — Sexual IgDorance in Women —
The Husband's Place in Sexual Initiation — Sexual Ignorance in Men —
The Husband's Education for Marriage — The Injury Done by the Ignor-
ance of Husbands — The Physical and Mental Results of Unskilful Coitus
— Women Understand the Art of Love Better Than Men — Ancient and
Modern Opinions Concerning Frequency of Coitus — Variation in Sexual
Capacity — The Sexual Appetite — The Art of Love Based on tite Biological
Facta of Courtship — The Art of Pleasing Women — The Lover Compared
to the Musician — The Proposal as a Part ot Courtship — Divination in
the Art of Love — The Importance of the Preliminaries in Courtahlp—
The Unskilful Husband Frequently the Cause of the Frigid Wife — The
Difficulty of Courtship — Simultaneoua Or^am — The Evils of Incomplete
Gratification in Women — Coitus Tnterruptus — Coitus Reservatua — The
Human Method ot Coitus — Variations in Coitus — Posture in Coitus —
The Beat Time for Coitus — The Influence of Coitus in Marriage — The
Advantages of Absence in Marriage — The Risks of Absence — Jealoui^
— The Primitive Function of Jealousy — Its Predominance Among Ani-
mals, Savages, etc., and in Pathological States — An Antj-Social Emotion
— Jealousy Incompatible with the Progress of Civilisation — The Possl-
hility of Loving More Than One Person at a Time — Platonic Friendship
— The Conditions Which Make It Possible— The Maternal Element in
Woman's Love — The Final Development of Conjugal Love — The Problem
of Love One of the Greatest of Social Questions.
It vill be clear from tbe preceding diBCUSBioa that there
are two elements in every marriage so far as that marriage is
complete. On the one hand marriage ia a union prompted by
mutual lore and only Buetainable as a reality, apart from its
mere formal aide, by the cultiraticm of such lore. On the other
(507)
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608 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
hand marriage is a method for propagating the race and having
its end in offspring. la the first aspect its aim is erotic, in the
second parental. Both these ends have long been generally
recognized. We find them set forth, for instance, in the mar-
riage service of the Church of England, where it is stated that
marriage exists both for "the mutual society, help and comfort
that the one ought to have of the other," and also for "the pro-
creation of children." Without the factor of mutual love the
proper conditions for procreation cannot eiist; without the
factor of procreation the sexual union, however beautiful and
sacred a relationship it may in itself be, remains, in essence,
a private relationship, incomplete as a marriage and without
public Bignificance. It becomes necessary, therefore, to supple-
ment the preceding discussion of marriage in its general out-
lines by a final and more intimate consideration of marriage ia
its essence, as embracing the art of love and the science of pro-
creation,
Here has already bem occasion from time to time to refer to
thoM who, starting from various points of view, have sought to limit
the scope ot marriage and to suppress one or other of its elements. (See
e.g., ante. p. 135.)
In modem times the tendency has been to exclude the factor of
procreation, and to regard the relationship ot marriage as eiclusively
lying in the relationship of the two parties to each other. Apart from
the fact, which it is unnecessary again to call attention to, that, from
the public and social point of view, a marriage without children, how-
ever important to the tu'o persons concerned, is a relationship without
any public significance, it must further be said that, in the absence of
children, even the personal erotic life itself is apt to suffer, for in the
normal erotic life, especially in women, sexual love tonds to grow into
parental love. Moreover, the full development of mutual love and
dependence is with difficulty attained, and there is absence of that closest
of bonds, the mutual cooperation of two persons in producing a new
person. The perfect and complete marriage in its full development is a
Those who seek to eliminate the erotic factor from marriage as
unessential, or at all events as only permissible when strictly sub'
ordinated to the end of procreation, have made themselves heard from
time to time at various periods. Even the ancients. Greeks and Romans
alike, in their more severe moments advocated the elimination of the
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AST OF LOTE. £09
erotic dement from marriage, and its coDflnement to extra-marital rela-
tionehipfl, tbat is bo far as men were concerned ; for the erotic needs of
married women they had no provision to make. Montaigne, soaked in
olaBsic traditions, has admirably set forth the reaaona for eliminating
the erotic interest from marriage: "One does not marry for oneself,
wliaterer may be said; a man marries as mucb, or more, for his pos-
terity, for his family; the usage and interest of marriage touch our
race beyond ourselTes Thus it is a kind of incest to employ,
in this venerable and sacred parentage, the efforts and the extravagances
of amorous license" (Egsai», Bk. i. Cli. XXIX; Bk. iii, Ch. V). This
point of view easily commended itself to the early Christians, who, how-
ever, deliberately overlooked its reverse side, the establishment of erotic
interests outside marriage. "To have intercourse except for procrea-
tion," said Clement of Alexandria (Pwdagogvs, Bk. ii. Ch. X), "is to do
Injury to Nature." ^ile, however, that utatement is ([iiite true ot the
lower animals, it is not true of man, and especially not true of civilized
man, whose erotic needs are far more developed, and far more intimately
associated with the finest and highest part of the organism, than is the
ease among animals generally. For the animal, sexual desire, except
when called forth by I'le conditions involved by procreative necessities,
has no existence. It is far otherwise in man, for whom, even when the
question -of procreation is altogether excluded, sexual love is still an
insistent need, and even a condition of the finest spiritual development
The Catholic Church, tiierefore, while regarding with admiration a con-
tinence in marriage which excluded sexual relationn except for the end
of procreation, has followed St. Augustine in treating intercourse apart
from procreation with considerable indulgence, as only a venial sin.
Here, however, the Church was inclined to draw the tine, and it appears
that in 1670 Innocent XI condemned the proposition thnt "the conjugal
act, practiced for pleasure alone, is exempt even from venial sin."
Protestant theologians have been inclined to go further, and therein
they found some authority even in Catholic writers. John ft Lasco, the
Catholic Bishop who became a Protestant and settled in England during
Edward Vl's reign, was following many mediteval theologians when he
recognized the saoramentum solationU, in addition to proleg, as an
element of marriage. Cranmer, in his marriage service of 1549, stated
that "mutual help and comfort," as well as procreation, enter into the
object of marriage (Wickham Legg. Eocte»iotogioal Essays, p. 204;
Howard, Matrimonial Imtitutions, vol. i, p. 393). Modern theologians
speak still more distinctly. "The sexual act," says Northcote {Chrii-
tianilg and 8ex-Problem», p. 66), "is a love act. Duly regulated, it
conduces to the ethical welfare of the Individual and promotes his elS-
cieney as a social unit. The act itself and its surrounding emotions
fltiroutate within the organism the powerful movements of a vast psychic
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510 F8YCHOLOOT OF BEX.
life." At an earlier period also, ScMGiermacher, in his Lettert ott
Lueinde, had pointed out the great significance of love for the Rpiritoal
development of the individual.
Edward Carpenter truly remarks, in Love'a Coming of Age, that
sexual love is not only needed for physical creation, but also for apiritual
creation. Bloch, again, in discusBing this question (The Sexual Life of
Ovr Time, Ch. VI) concludes that "love and the sexual embrace have
not only an end in procreation, they constitute an end in tbenuelvee,
and are necessary for the life, development, and inner growth of the
individual himself."
It is argued by some, vho admit mutual love as a constituent
part of marriage, that aueh love, once recognized at the outset,
may be taken for granted, and requires no further discussion;
there is, they believe, no art of love to be either leamt or taught;
it comes by nature. N'othing could be further from the truth,
moat of all as regards civilized man. Even the elementary fact
of coitus needs to be tau^t. N'o one could take a more austerely
Puritanic view of sexual affairs than Sir James Paget, and yet
Paget (in his lecture on "Sexual Hypochondriasis") declared
that "Ignorance about sexual affairs seems to be a notable char-
acteristic of the more civilized part of the human race. Among
ourselves it is certain that the method of copulating needs to be
taught, and that they to whom it is not taught remain quite
ignorant about it." Oallard, again, remarks similarly (in his
Clinique des Maladies des Femmes) that yoong people, . like
Daphnis in Longus's pastoral, need a beautiful Lycenion to give
them a solid education, practical as well as theoretical, in these
matters, and he considers that mothers should instruct their
daughters at marriage, and fathers their sons. Philosophers
have from time to time recognized the gravity of these questions
and have discoursed concerning them; thus Epicurus, as Plu-
tarch tella uB.i would discuss with his disciples various sexual
matters, such as the proper time for coitus; but then, as now,
there were obscurantists who would leave even the central facts
of life to the hazards of chance or ignorance, and these presumed
to blame the philosopher.
1 Quastionum Cotivivalium, lib. iii, quiestio 6.
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ABT OF LOTE. 511
There ia, however, mnch more to be learnt in these matters
than the mere elementary facts of seiual intercourse. The art
of love certainly includes such primary facts of sexual hygiene,
but it involves also the whole erotic diBcipline of marriage, and
that is why its significance is bo great, for the welfare and
happiness of the individual, for the stability of sesual unions,
and indirectly for the race, since the art of love is ultimately the
art of attaining the right conditions for procreation.
"It seems extremely probable," wrote Professor E. D. Cope,'
"that if this subject could be properly understood, and become, in
the details of its practical conduct, a part of a written social
science, the monogamic marriage might attain a far more general
snccesB than is often found in actual life." There can be no
doubt whatever that this is the case. In the great majority of
marriages success depends exclusively upon the knowledge of the
art of love possessed by the two persons who enter into it. A
life-long monogamic union may, indeed, persist in the absence of
the slightest inborn or acquired art of lore, out of reli^ous
resignation or sheer stupidity. But that attitude is now becom-
ing less common. Aa we have seen in the previous chapter,
divorces are becoming more frequent and more easily obtainable
in every civilized country. This is a tendency of civilization;
it is the result of a demand that marriage should be a real rela-
tionship, and that when it ceases to be real as a relationship it
should also cease as a form. That is aa inevitable tendency,
involved in our growing democratization, for the democracy
seems to care more for realities than for forms, however vener-
able. We cannot fight against it; and we should be wrong to
fight against it even if we could.
Yet while we are bound to aid the tendency to divorce, and
to insist that a valid marriage needs the wills of two persons to
maintam it, it is difQcult for anyone to argue that divorce is in
itself desirable. It is always a confession of failure. Two per-
sons, who, if they have been moved in the slightest degree by the
normal and regular impulse of sexual selection, at the outset
1 E. D. Cope, "The Marriage Problem," Open Court, Nov. 1888.
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612 PSTCUOLOOY OF SEX.
regarded each other as lovable, have, on one Bide or the other or
on both, proted not lovable. There has been a failure in the
fundamental art of love. If we are to counterbalance facility of
divorce our only sound course is to increase the atabilitj of
marriage, and that is only possible by cultivating the art of love,
the primal foundation of marriage.
It is by no means unnecessary to emphasize this point.
There are still many persons who have failed to realize it. There
are even people who seem to imagine that it is unimportant
whether or not pleasure is present in the sexual act. "I do not
believe mutual pleasure in the sexual act has any particular bear-
ing on the happiness of life," once remarked Dr. Howard A.
Kelly.i Such a statement means — if indeed it means anything —
that the marriage tie has no "particular bearing" on human
happiness; it means that the way must be freely opened to
adoltery and divorce. Even the most perverse ascetic of the
Middle Ages scarcely ventured to make a statement so flagrantly
opposed to the experiences of humanity, and the fact that a dis-
tinguished gynecologist of the twentieth century can make it,
with almost the air of stating a tniiam, is ample justification for
the emphasis which it has nowadays become necessary to place on
the art of love. "Uxor enim dignitatis nomen est, non volup-
tatis," was indeed an ancient Pagan dictum. But it is not in
harmony with modem ideas. It was not even altogether in
harmony with Christianity. For our modem morality, as Ellen
Key well says, the uni^ of love and marriage is a fundamental
principle.^
The neglect of the art of love has not been a universal
phenomenon ; it is more especially characteristic n{ Christendom.
The spirit of ancient Rome undoubtedly predisposed Europe to
Bueh a neglect, for with their rough cultivation of the military
virtues and their inaptitude for the finer aspects of civili-
zation the Romans were willing to regard love as a permissible
indulgence, but they were not, as a people, prepared to cultivate
it as an art. Their poets do not, in this matter, represent the
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moTsl feeling of their beet people. It ia indeed a highly Bignificant
fact that Ovid, the moet distinguished Latin poet who concerned
himself much vith the art of love, aasociated that art not 80 much
with morality as with immorality. As he viewed it, the art of
love was less the art of retaining a woman in her home than the
art of winning her away from it; it was the adulterer's art rather
than the husband's art. Such a conception would be impossible
out of Europe, but it proved very favorable to the growth of the
ChriBtian attitude towards the art of love.
Jjtn as an ftrt, u well bh a passion, seenu to hav« received con-
■Iderable rtudf in antiqui^, tbongh the results of that atudy have per-
ished. Cadmus Mileeius, says Suidas, wrote fovrteen great volumes on
the passion of love, but they are not now to be found. Rohde (Dai
OriixhUche Roman, p. 55) has a brief section on the Greek philosophic
writers on love. Bloch (Beilrdge tur PayohopatMa SftnialU, Teil I,
p. 191) enumerates the ancient women writers who dealt with the art
of love. Montaigne iEt»ai», liv. li, Ch. V) gives 9 list of ancient
classical lost books on love. Burton (^ilniifoniy of Mftancholy, Bell's
edition, vol. iii, p. 2) also gives a list of lost booke on love. Burton
himself dealt at length with the manifold signs of love and its grievous
symptoms. - BoisHier de Sauvages, early in the eighteenth century, pub-
liabed a Latin thesis, De Amore, discussing love somewhat In the same
spirit as Burton, as a psychic disease to be treated and cured.
The breath of Christian asceticism had passed over love; it was
no longer, as in classic days, nn art to be cultivated, hut only a malady
to be cured. The true inlieritor of the classic spirit in this, as in many
other matters, was not the Christian world, but the world of Islam.
The Perfumvd Garden of tbe Sheik Nefzaoui was probably written in the
city of Tunis early in the sixteenth century by an author who belonged
to the south of Tunis. Its opening invocation clearly indicates that it
departs widely from the conception of love as a disease; "Praise be to
God who has placed man's greatest pleasures in the natural parts of
woman, and has destined the natural parts of man to afford the greatest
enjoyments to woman." The Arabic book. El Ktab, or "The Secret
Laws of Love," is a modem work, by Orner Halehy Abu Othmfin, who
was bom in Algiers of a Moorish mother and a Turkish father.
For Christianity the permission to yield to the sexual
impulse at all was merely a concession to human weakness, an
indulgence only possible when it was carefully hedged and
guarded on every side. Almost from the first the Christians
began to cultivate the art of virginity, and they could not so
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BH PBTCHOLOQT OF SEX.
dislocate their point of view as to approve of the art of love. All
&eir paaeiODate adoration in the sphere of Bex went out towards
chastity. Possessed by Buch ideala, they could only tolerate
homan love at all by giving to one special form of it a religious
sacramental character, and even that aacramenta) halo imparted to
love a quasi-ascetic character which precluded the idea of regard-
ing love as an art.^ Love gained a religious element but it lost
a moral element, since, outside Christianity, the art of love ia part
of the foundation of sexual morality, wherever such morality in
any d^;ree exists. In Christendom love in marriage was left to
shift for itself as best it might ; the art of love was a dubious art
which was held to indicate a certain commerce with immorality
and even indeed to be itself immoral. That feeling was doubt-
less strengthened by the fact that Ovid was the most conspicuous
master in literature of the art of love. His literary reputation —
far greater than it now seeme to os^ — gave distinction to his
position as the author of the chief extant text-book of the art of
love. With HumaoiBm and the Itenaissance and the consequent
realization that Christianity had overlooked one side of life,
Ovid's Are Amatoria was placed on a pedestal it had not occupied
before or since. It represented a step forward in civilization ; it.
revealed love not as a mere animal instinct or a mere pledged
duty, but as a complex, humane, and refined relationship which
demanded cultivation ; "arte regendus amor." Boccaccio made a
1 In an admirable article on Friedrich Sc}ilegel's Lucinde (Mutter-
sckulz. 1806, Heft j), Heinrich Meyer^Benfey, in pointing out that the
Catholic sacramental conception of rirriage licenwd love, but failed to
elevate it. regards Luctndc, v lib all ita defects, aa the firat espreasion
of the unitj tf the Benses and the soul, and, aa such, tiie basis of the
new ethica of love. It must, however, be said that four hundred years
earlier Pontano had expressed this aame erotic unity far more robustly
and wholesomely than Schlegel, though the I^tin verse in which he
wrote, fresh and vital as it is, remained without influence. Pontano's
Carmina, including the "De Amore Conjugwli," have at length been
reprinted in a scholarly edition by Soldati.
2 From the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries Ovid was, in
reality, the most popular and influential elassie poet. His works played
a large part fn mouldine Renaissance literature, not least in England,
where Marlowe translated his Amores, and Shakespeare, during the early
years of his literary activity, was greatly irdehted to him (see, e.g.,
Pidney Lee, "Ovid and Shakespeare's Sonnets," Quarterly Rwieio, Ap.,
IB09).
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ART OF LOVE. 515
■wise teacher put Ovid'a Ara Amatoria into the hands of the
yonng. Id an age still oppreeeed by the mediaeval spirit, it was a
much needed text-book, but it possessed the fatal defect, as a text-
book, of presenting the erotic claims of the individual as divorced
from the claims of good social order. It never succeeded in
establishing itself as a generally accepted manual of love, and
in the eyes of many it served to stamp the subject it dealt with
as one that lies outside the limits of good morals.
When, however, we take a wider survey, and inquire into the
discipline for life that is imparted to the young in many parts of
the world, we shall frequently find that the art of love, under-
stood in varying ways, is an essential part of that disrinline.
Sumjnary, though generally adequate, as are the educational
methods of primitive peoples, they not seldom include a training
in those arts which render a woman agreeable to a man and a
man agreeable to a woman in the relationship of marriage, and it
is often more or less dimly realized that courtship is not a mere
preliminary to marriage, but a biologically essential part of the
marriage relationship throughout.-
Sexual initiation is carried out verjr tlioion^l]' in Azimba land,
Central Africa. H. Crawford Anpia, the first European to visit the
Azimba people, lived among them for a year, and has described the
Chentamwali, or initiation ceremony, of girls, "At the first sign of
raenBtruation in a yo<inf; girl, she in taught the mysteries of womanhood,
and is shown the different positions for sexual intercourse. The vagina
is handled freely, and if not previously enlargi^ (which may have t&kcn
place at the harvest festival when a boy and girl are allowed to 'Iceep
bouse' during the day-time by themselves, and when quasi -intercourse
takes place) It ii now enlarged by means of a horn or corn-cob, which is
inserted and secured in place by bands of bark cloth. ^^Tien all signs
(of menstruation] have passed, a public announcement of a dance fs
given to the women in the village. At this dance no men are allowed to
be present, and it was only with a great deal of trouble that I managed
to witness iL The girl to be 'danced' is led back from the bush to her
mother's hut where she is kept in solitude to the morning of Uie dance.
On that morning she is placed on the ground in a sitting position, while
the dancers form a ring around her. Several songs are then sung with
reference to the genital organs. The girl is then stripped and made to
go through the mimic performance of sexual intorcourae, ard it the move-
ments are not enacted properly, as is often the case wlien the girl is
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616 P8YCH0LOOT OF 8EI.
timid and bashful, one of the older iromcn will take lier place and show
her liow she ie to perform. Klaii]' iiongs about the relation between men
and women arc eung, and the girl ia instructed an to all her duties whpn
ahe b<!comes a wife. She Is also instructed that during the time of her
menstruation she is unclean, and that during her monthly period she
must clope her vulva with a pad of Sbrc used for the purpose. The
object of the dance is to inculcate to the girl the knowledge of married
life. The girl is taught to be faithful to her husband and to try to bear
children, and she is also tau^t the various arts and methods of making
herself seductive and pleasing to her husband, and of thus retaining
him in her power." (H. Crawford Angus, "The Chcnsamwali,"
Zeitachrift fur Ethnologie, 18B8, Heft 6, p. 476).
In Abyssinia, as well an on tlie Zanzibar coast, according to Rtecker
(quoted by Ploss-Bartels, Das Weib, Section 110) young girls are edn*
cated in buttock movements which increase their charm in coitus.
These movements, of a rotatory character, are called Duk-Duk. To be
ignorant of Duk-Duk is a great disgrace to a girl. Among the Swahill
women of Zanzibar, indeed, a complete artistic system of hip-morementa
is cultivated, to be displayed in coitus. It prevails more especially on
the coast, and a Swahili woman is not counted a "lady" (bibi) unleaa
she is acquainted with this art. From sixty to eighty young women
practice this buttock dance together for some eight hours a day. laying
aside all clothing, and singing the while. The public are not admitted.
The dance, which is a kind of imitation of coitus, has been described
by Zache ("Sitten nnd Gebrfluche der Suaheli," Zeitachrifi fiir Elhno-
Jogie, 166B, Heft 2'3, p. 72). The more accomplished dancers ^eite
general admiration. During the latt«r part of this initiation various
feats are imposed, to test the girl's skill and self-control. For insttnce,
she must dance up to a Are and remove from the midst of tlie fire a
vessel full of water to the brim, without spilliug it. At the end of three
months the training is over, and the girl goes home in festival attire.
She is now eligible for marriage. Similar customs are said to prevail
in tlie Dutch East Indies and einewhere.
The Hebrews had erotic dances, which were doubtless related to
the art of love in marriage, and among the Greeks, and their disciples
the Romans, the conception of love as an art which needs training, skill,
and cultivation, was Rtill extant. That conception was crushed by
Christianity which, although it sanctified the institution of matrimony,
degraded that sexual love which is normally the content of marriage.
In 1176 the question was brought before a Court of Love by «
baron and lady of Cliampngne, whether love is compatible with marriage.
"No," said the baron, "I admire and respect the sweet intimacy of mar-
ried couples, but I cannot call it love. Love desires obstacles, mystery,
otolcn favors. Now husbands and wives boldly avow their relationship;
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AST OF LOTS. 517
ibty poMew each ot^er without contradiction and without reserve. It
cannot then be love that they ejcperience." And after mature delibera-
tion tJie ladiea of the Court of Love adopted the baron's concluBion))
(E. de la BedoIIiere, Hialoire de* Moetirs dea Frangait, vol. iii, p. 334).
There was undoubtedly an element of truth in the barou'a arguntents.
Yet It may well be doubted whether in any non-Christian country it
would ever have been poaaible to obtain acceptance for the doctrine that
love and marriage are incompatible. Thia doctrine van, however, an
Bibot points out in hia Lagiqw dcs SentimenU, inevitable, when, aa
among the medieval nobility, marriage waa merely a political or
domestic treaty and could not, therefore, be a method of mora] elevation.
"Why IB it," Baked RStif de la Bretonne, towarda the end of the
eif^tcenth century, "that girla who have no morale are more seductive '
and more loveable than honest women? It ia because, lite the Oreelc
eourtesana to whom grace and voluptuouanees were taught, thej have
studied the art of pleaaing. Among the foolish detractora of my Oon-
temporaines, not one guessed the philosophic aim of nearly everyone of
these tales, which is to suggest to honest women the ways of making
themaelvea loved. I should like to see the institution of initiations,
such as those of the ancients To-day the happiness of the
human species ia abandoned to chance; all the experience of women is
individuali like that of animals; it ia lost with those women who, being
naturally amiable, might have taught others to become ao. Prostitutes
alone make a superficial study of it, and the lessons they receive are, for
the most part, as harmful as those of respectable Greek and Roman
matrons were holy and honorable, only tending to wantonness, to the
exhaustion alike of the purse and of the physical faculties, while
the aim of the ancient matrons was the union of husband and wife
and their mutual attachment through pleasure. The Christian religion
annihilated the Mysteries a a infamoua, but we may regard that
annihilation as one of the wrongs done by Christianity to humanity, as
the work of men with little enlightenment and bitter zeal, dan^rous
puritans who were the natural enemies of marriage" (R^tif de la
Bretonne, Monsieur Xicolaa, reprint of 1883, vol. x, pp. 160-3). It may
be added that Dllhren (Dr. Iwan Bloch) regards RCtif as "a master in
the Ara Amattdi," and discusses him from this point of view in hit
Rdif de la Brettmne (pp. 382-371).
Whether or not Christiaiiity is to be held responBible, it
cannot be doubted that throughout ChriBtendom there haa been
a lamentable failure to recoc^ize the supreme importance, not
only erotically but morally, of the art of love. Even in the great
revival of sexual enlightenment now taking place around us there
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618 PSYCHOLOOY OP BEX.
is rarely even the faintest recognition that in sexual enlightea-
ment the one thing eeseiitiaUy necessary is a knowledge of the art
of love. For the most part, sexual instruction as at present
understood, is purely negative, a mere string of thou-shalt-nota.
If that failure were due to the conscious and deliberate recogni-
tion that while the art of lore must be based on physiological and
psychological knowledge, it is far too subtle, too complex, too
personal, to be formulated iu lectures and manuals, it would be
reasonable and sound. But it seems to rest entirely on ignorance,
indifference, or worse.
Love-making is indeed, like other arts, an art that is partly
natural — "an art that nature makes" — and therefore it is a
natural subject for learning and exercising in play. Children
left to themselves tend, both playfully and seriously, to practice
love, alike on the physical and the psychic sidea.i But this play
is on its physical side sternly repressed by their elders, when dis-
covered, and on its psychic side laughed at. Among the well-
bred classes it is usually starved out at an early age.
After puberty, if not before, there is another form in which
the art of love is largely experimented and practised, especially
in England and America, the form of flirtation. In its elemen-
tary manifestations flirting is entirely natural and normal; we
may trace it even in animals ; it is simply the beginning of court-
ship, at the early stage when courtship may yet, if desired, be
broken off. Under modem civilized conditions, however, flirta-
tion is often more than thia. These conditions make marriage
diflicult; they make love and its engagements too serious a
matter to be entered on lightly; they make actual sexual inter-
course dangerous as well as disreputable. Flirtation adapts
itself to these conditions. Instead of being merely the pre-
liminary stage of normal courtahip, it is developed into a form of
sexual gratification as complete as due observation of the condi-
tions already mentioned will allow. In Germany, and especially
in France where it is held in great abhorrence, this is the only
form of flirtation known ; it is regarded as an exportation from
1 This hag already been didcuased in Chapter II.
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ABT OP LOVE. 519
the United States and is denomiDated "flirtage." Its practical
outcome ie held to be the "demi-vierge," who knows and has
experienced the joys of sex while yet retaining her hymen intact.
This degenerate form of flirtation, cultivated not aa a part of
courtship, but for its own salce, iias been well described hy Forel {Die
Beruelle Frage, pp. 97-101). He defines it as including "all those
expressions of the sexual instinct of one individual towards another
Individual which excite the other's sexual instinct, coitus being always
excepted." In the beginning it may be merely a proroeative look or a
ximple apparently unintentional touch or contact; and by slight grada-
tions it may pass on to caresses, kisses, embraces, and even extend to
pressure or friction of tlie nexual parts, sometimes leading to orgasm.
Thus. Forel mentions, a sensnouR woman by the pressure of her garmenla
in dancing can produce ejaculation in her partner. Most usually the
process is that voluptuous contoct and revery which, in English slang,
is called "spooning." From first to last there need not be any explicit
explanations, proposals, or declarations on either side, and neither party
is committed to any relationship with the other beyond the period
devoted to flirtage. In one form, however, flirtage consists entirely in
the excitement of a conversation devoted to erotic and indecorous topics.
Either the man or the woman may take the active part in flirtage, but
In a woman more refinement and skill is required to play the active part
without repelling the man or injuring her reputation. Indeed, much
the same is true of men also, for women, while they often like flirting,
usually prefer its more refined forms. There are infinite forma of Dirt-
age, and while as a preliminary part of courtship, it has Its normal place
and justification, Forel concludes that "as an end in itself, and never
passing beyond itself, it is a phenomenon of degeneration."
From the French point of view, flirtage and flirtation generally
have been discussed by Madame Bentzon ("Family Life in America,"
^orutn, March, 1806) who, however, fails to realize the natural basis of
flirtation in courtship. She regards it as a sin against the law "Thou
shalt not play with love," for it ought to have the excuse of an irresisti-
ble passion, but she thinks it is comparatively inoffensive in America
(though still a deteriorating influence on the women) on account of the
temperament, education, and habita of the people. It must, however,
be remembered that play has a proper relationship to all vital activities,
and that a reasonable criticism of flirtation is concerned rather with ita
normal limitations than with ita right to exist (see the observations on
tiie natural basis of coquetry and the ends It subserves in "The Evolution
of Modesty" in volume i of these B1^^die»).
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620 PBTOHOLOQT OF SBX.
While flirtatioD in it8 natural form — though not in the per-
verted form of "flirtage" — has sound justification, alike as a
method of testing a lover and of acquiring acme small part of
the art of love, it remains an altogether inadequate preparation
for love. This is sufficiently shown by the frequent inaptitude
for the art of love, and even for the mere physical act of love, so
frequently manifested both by men and women in the very
countries where flirtation most flourisheB.
This ignorance, not merely of the art of love but even of the
physical facts of sexual love, is marked not only in women,
especially women of the middle class, but also in men, for the
civilized man, as Fritsch long ago remarked, often knows less of
the facts of the sexual life than a milkmaid. It shows itself
differently, however, in the two sexes.
Among women sexual ignorance ranges from complete
innocence of the fact that it involves any intimate bodily rela-
tionship at all to misapprehenBions of the most various kind;
some think that the relationship consists in lying side by side,
many that intercourse takes place at the navel, not -a few that
the act occupies the whole night. It has been nece6sai7 in a
previous chapter to discuss the general evils of sexual ignorance;
it is here necessary to refer to its more special evils as regards
the relationship of marriage. Girls are educated with the vague
idea that they will marry, — quite correctly, for the majority of
them do marry, — but the idea that they must be educated for_
the career that will naturally fall to their lot is an idea which
as yet has never seemed to occur to the teachers of girls. Their
heads are crammed to stupidity with the knowledge of facts which
it is no one's concern to know, but the supremely important train-
ing for life they are totally unable to teach. Women are trained
for nearly every avocation under the sun; for the supreme
avocation of wifehood and motherhood -they are never trained
at all!
It may be said, and with truth, tliat the present incompetent
training of girlB ie likely to continue ao long as the mothers of
girls are content to demand nothing better. It may alao be said,
with even greater truth, that there is much that concerns the
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ABT OF LOTS. 621
knowledge of senal relationships which the mother herself may
most properly impart to her daughter. It may further be
asserted, moBt imanswerabiy, that the art of love, with which we
are here more especially concerned, can only be learnt by actual
experience, an experience which our social traditions make it
difficult for a virtuous girl to acquire with credit. Without here
attempting to apportion the share of blame which falls to each
cause, it remains unfortunate that a woman should so often enter
marriage with the worst possible equipment of prejudices and
misapprehensions, even when she believes, as often happens, that
she Imows all about it. Even with the beet equipment, a woman,
under present conditions, enters marriage at a disadvantage.
She awakes to the full realization of love more slowly than a
Dian, and, on the average, at a later age, so that her experiences of
the life of sex before marriage have usually been of a much more
restricted kind than her husband's.' So that even with the best
preparation, it often happens that it is not nntil several years
after marriage that a woman clearly realizes her own sexual needs
and adequately estimates her husband's ability to satisfy those
needs. We cannot over-estimate the pei^onal and social impor-
tance of a complete preparation for marriage, and the greater
the difficulties placed in the way of divorce the more weight
necessarily attaches to that preparation.^
Everyone ia probably acquainted with many casea of the ezfreme-
ignorance of women on entering marriage. The following caae coocem-
ing B woman of twenly-eeven, wIm had been asked in marriage. Is some-
what extreme, hut not very exceptional. "She did not feel sure of iipr
affection and she aaked a woman cousin concerning the meaning of love.
This consin lent her EIHb Bthelmer'a pamphlet, 7^ Buman Flower.
She leamt from this that men deaired the body of a woman, and thin
1 By the age of twenty-five, as G. Hirth remarks ( Wege xur BHmat.
&64I), an energetic and sexually disposed man in a large city baa, for
e most part, already had relationa with some twenty-five women, per-
bapa even as many as fifty, while a well-bred and cultivated woman at
that age is atill tmly ti^nning to realiEe the slowly aummating eicita-
tiooa of sex.
9 In hta study of "Conjugal Aversion" {Jovrnal Tfereoa* and
Mtntal Digeaae, Bept., 1S&2) Smith Baker points out the value of
adequate sexual knowledge before mar^il^p in leaaenjng the risks of such
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522 I'SYCHOLOGli' UF SEX.
K> appalled her that she was quite ill for eeveral dajB. The next time
her lover attenipt«d a caress she told him that it waa 'lust.' Since then
she hae read George Moore's Bister Teresa, and the knowledge that
'women can be as bad as men" has madH Iiit sad." Tlie "Histories"
contained in the Appendices to previous volumes of these Studies reveal
numerous instances of the deplorable ignorance of joung girls concern-
ing the most central facts of the sexual life. It U not surprising, under
such circumstances, that marriage leads to disillusionment or repulsion.
It is commonly said that the dutj of initiating the wife into the
privileges and obligations of marriage properly belongs to Uie husband.
Apart, however, altogether from the fact that it is unjust to a woman
to compel her to bind herself in marriage before she has fully realized
what marriage means, it must also be said that there are many thingn
necessary for women to know that it is unreasonable to expect a husband
to explain. This is, for instance, notably the case as regards the mom
fatiguing and exhausting effects of coitus on a man as compared with
a woman. The inexperienced bride cannot know beforehand that the
frequently repeated orgasms which render ber vigorous and radiant exert
a depressing effect on her husband, and his masculine pride induces him
to attempt to conceal that fact. The bride, in her innocence, is unoon-
Bcious that her pleasure la bought at her husband's expense, and that
what is not excess to her, may be a serious excess to him. The woman
who knows (notably, for instance, a widow who remarries) is careful to
guard her husband's health in this respect, by restraining her own
ardor, for she realizes that a man is not willing to admit that he Is
incapable of satisfying his wife's desires. (O. Birth has also pointed
out how important it is that women should know before marriage the
natural limits of masculine potency, Wege eur Liebe, p. S71.)
The ignorance of women of all that concemB the art of love,
and their total lack of preparation for the natural facts of the
Beznal life, would perhaps he of lese evil augury for marriage if
it were always compensated by the knowledge, skill, and con-
sideratenees of the husband. But that is by no means always the
case. Within the ordinary range we find, at all events in
England, the large group of men whose knowledge of wom«i
before marrtnge has been mainly confined to prostitutes, and tlie
important and not incimBidorablc group of men who have had no
intimate intercourse with women, their sexual experiences having
been confined to masturbation or other auto-erotio manifesta-
tions, and to flirtation. Certainly the man of sensitive and
intelligent temperament, whatever his training or lack of train-
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ABT OF LOVE. 523
in^, may succeed with patieuce and consideration in overcoming
all the difficulties placed in the way of lore by the mixture of
ignorances and prejudices which bo often in wdmao takes the
place of an education for the erotic part of her life. But it can-
not be eaid that either of these two groups of men has been well
equipped for the task. The training and experience which a man
receives from a prostitute, even under fairly favorable conditions,
scarcely form the right preparation for approaching a woman of
his own class who has no intimate erotic experiences.^ The
frequent result is that he is liable to waver between two opiwBite
courses of action, both of them mistaken. On the one hand, he
may treat his bride as a prostitute, or as a novice to be speedily
moulded into the sexual shape he is most accustomed to, thus
running the risk either of perverting or of disgusting her. On
the other hand, realizing that the purity and dignity of his bride
place her in an altogether different class from the women he has
previously knovni, he may go to the opposite extreme of treating
her with an exaggerated respect, and so fail either to arouse or
to gratify her erotic needs. It is difficult to say which of these
two courses of action is the more unfortunate ; the result of both,
however, is frequently found to be that a nominal marriage
never becomes a real marriage. ^
l"lt may be aaid to the honor of men," Adler truly remarks (op.
cit., p. 182), "that it ia perhaps not often their eonscious bnitnlity that
is at fault in this matter, but merely lack of skill and lack of under-
standing, Tha husband who is not specially endowed by nature and
experience for psychic intercourse with women, is not likely, tliroiigh his
earlier intercourse with Venus vulRivaga, to bring into marriage any
useful knowledge, psychic or physical."
2 "The first night," writes a eorrcBpondent concerning hii mar-
riage, "she found the act very painful and was frightened and Rurprised
at the size of my penis, and at my suddenly getting on her. We had
talked very openly about sex things before marriage, and it never
occurred to mc that she was ignorant of the details of the act I
imagined it would disgust her to talk about these things; but I now
tee T should have explained things to her. Before marrj'jng I had ootne
to the conclusion that the respect owed to one's wife ivas incompatible
with any talk thst might seem indecent, and also I had made a resolve
not to subject her to what I thought then were dirty (ricks, even to be
oaked and to have her naked. In fact, T was the victim of mock mod-
esty; it was an artifieial reaction from the life I had been living before
marriage. Now it seems to me to be natural, If you love a woman, to
do whatever occurs to you and to her. Tf T had not felt It wrong to
encourage auch acts between us, there might have been established a
sexual aympatliy which would have bound me more closely to her."
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624 PSTCHOLOOY OF SEX.
Yet there can be no doubt whatever that the other group of
men, the men who enter marriage without any erotic experiences,
run even greater rieltB. These are often the best of men, both as
regards personal character and mental power. It ia indeed
astonishing to find how ignorant, both practically and theoret-
ically, very able and highly educated men may be concerning
sexual matters.
^Complete abstinence during youth," saya Freud (BeMial-PTtibleme,
March, 190S), "is not the best preparation for marriage in a young man.
Women divine tliis and prefer those of their wooers who have already
proved themselvea to be men with other women." Ellen Key, referring
to the demand sometimes made by women for purity in men {Oeh«r
LUle UfWl She, p. 06), asks whether women realize the effect of their
admiration of the experienced and confident man who knows women, on
the shy and hesjtnling youth, "who perhaps lias been struggling hard
for hiB erotic purity, In the hope that a woman's happy Bmile will bo-
■the reward of his conquest, and who is condemned to see how that woman
looks down on him with lofty compassion and gOEea with admiration at
Hie leopard's Bpola." When the lovpr. in T^anra Marholm's Was war t*T
says to the heroine, "1 hare never yet touched a woman," the girl "tvnw
from him with horror, and it seemed to her that a cold shudder wait
through her, a chilling deception." The same feeling Is manifested in
an exaggerated form in the passion often experienced by vigorous girls
of eighteen to twenty-four for old roufs. (This has been discussed by
Forel, Die StfXMcilr Frage. pp. 217 el sfg.)
Other factors may enter In a woman's preference for the man who
has conquered other women. Even the most religions and moral young
woman, Valera remarks (DoHa Lue, p. 806), likes to marry a man who-
has loved many women; It gives a greater value to his choice of her;
it also offers her an opportunity of converting him to hl^er ideals. Ko
doubt when the inexperienced man meets in marriage the equally inex-
perienced woman they often succeed in adapting themselves to each other
and a permanent modus vivendi Is constituted. But it Is by no means
BO always. If the wife is taught by instinct or experience she ia apt to
resent the awkwardness and helpleasnesH of her husband in the art of
love. Even if she is ignorant she may be permanently allenat«d and
become chronically frigid, through the brutal inconsideratenegs of her
Ignorant husband In carrying out what he conceives to be hla marital
duties. (It has already been necessary to touch on this point in dis-
cussing "The Sexual Impulse in Women" in vol. iii of these Studies.)
Sometimes, indeed, serious physical injury has been inflicted on the
bride owing to this ignorance of the husband.
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ABT OF LOVB. 525
"I take it that most men have hkd pre-nutrimonlal seK-relation-
•hipa," a coireapondeEt write*. "But I have known one man at leait
who, up till the age of twenty, had not era a rudimentaiy id«a of wx
matters. At twenty-nine, a few montha before marriage, he came to a«lc
me how coitus was performed, and displayed an ignorance that I could
not believe to exiat in the mind of an otherwise intelligent nun. He
had evidently no Instinct to guide him, as the brutes have, and hia rea-
son was unable to supply the neceasary knowledge. It in very curious
that man should loae this instinctive knowledge. I have known anothsr
man almoBt equally ignorant. He also came to me for advice in marital
-dutiea. Both of theae men masturbated, and they were normally pas-
sionate." Such coaea are not so very rare. Usually, however, a certain
amount of information haa been acquired from aome for the moat part
unsatisfactory source, and the ignorsnoe is only partial, though not on
that account less dangerous.
Balcoe has compared the avBTage husband to an orang-utan
trying to play the violin. "Love, aa we instinctively feel, ia the most
melodioua of harmonies. Woman is a delicious instrument of pleasure,
but it is necessary to know its quivering strings, study the pose of it,
its timid keyboard, the chan^ng and capricious Angering. How many
orangH — men, I mean, marry without knowing what a woman isl
. . . . Nearly all men marry in the most profound ignorance of
women and of love" (Balzac, PkyHologie du Mariaga, Meditation VII).
Neugebauer (Monatatohrift fur OeburtahUlfe, 1889, Bk. ix, pp. 221
el teq.) has collected over one hundred and fifty cases of injury to
women in coitua inflicted by the penis. The causes were brutality,
drunkenness of one or both parties, unusual position in coitus, dispro-
portion of the organs, pathological conditions of the woman's organs
ICf. R. W. Taylor, Practical Treatise on Sexual DUordert. Ch. XXXV).
Blumreicb alao diacusses the injuries produced by violent coitua (Senator
and Kaminer, Bealth and Diaeaae tn Relation to Marriage, vol. ii, pp.
770-779). C. M. Green (Boston Medical and Surgical Jottrnal, 13 Ap.,
1893) records two cases of rupture of vagina by sexual intercourse in
newly-married ladies, without evidence of any great violence. Mylott
(British Mediodl Journal, Sept. 16, 1890) records a similar case occur-
ring on the wedding night The amount of force sometimea exerted in
coitus IB evidenced by the cases, occurring from time to time, in which
intercourse takes place by the urethra.
Guienburg finds [BexuaU Neuropathie, p. 69) that vaginismus, a
condition of spasmodic contraction of the vulva and exaggerated aenai-
bility on the attempt to effect coitus, is due to forcible and unakllful
attempts at the first coitus. Adler (Die Mangtlhafte OetehUc\l»emp-
findung det Weibet, p. ISO) also believes that the scarred remainaof the
hymen, together with painful momoriea of a violent first coitus, are the
moat frequent cause of vaginismus.
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I^ PSYCHOLOGY OF 8ES.
Hie oecasEonal eases, howeveT, of ph^Bieal injury or of pathological
conditjon produced bj violent coitus at the beginning of marriage con-
stitute but ft very snail portion of the evidence which witnesses to ttio
evil results of the prevalent ignorance regarding the art of love. As
regards Qennan]', FUrbringer writes (Senator and Kaminer, Health and
Diaeiut in Relation to MaiTtage, vol. i, p. 215) : "I am perfectly satis-
fled that the number of young married women wlio have a lasting painful
recollection of their first sexual intercourse exceeds by far the number
of those who venture to consult a doctor." As regards England, the fol-
lowing experience is instructive: A lady aslted six married women in
auccesaion, privately, on the same day concerning their bridal experi-
ences. To all, sexual intercourse had come as s shock; two had been
absolutely ignorant about sexual matters; the others had thought they
knew what coitus was, but were none the less shocked. These women
were of the middle class, perhaps above the average in intelligence; one
was a doctor.
Breuer and Freud, In their Stvdien Uber Hyaterte (p. 216), pointed
out that the bridal night is practically often a rape, and that it some-
tiroes leads to hysteria, which is not cured until satisfying nexual rela-
tionships are established. Even when there is no violence, Kinch {Sfxual
Life of Woman, Part II) regards awkward and inexperienced coitus,
leading to incomplete excitement of the wife, as the chief cause of
dyspareunia, or absence of seiiual gratification, although gross diKpro-
portion in the size of the male and female organs, or disease in cither
party, may lead to the same result. Dyspareunia, Kisch adds, is aston-
ishingly frequent, though sometimes women complain of it without
justification in order to arouse sympstby for themselves as sacrifices on
the altar of marriage; the constant sign is absence of ejaculation on
the woman's part. Kisch also obsen'es that wedding night deflorations
are often really rapes. One young bride, known to him, was so ignorant
of the physical side of love, and so overwhelmed by her husband's first
attempt at intercourse, that she fled from the house in the night, and
nothing would ever persuade her to return to her husband. (It is worth
noting that by Canon law, under such circumstances, the Church might
hold the marriage invalid. See Tliomas Slater's Moral Theology, vol. li,
p. 318, and a case in point, both quoted by Rev. C. J. Shebbeare, "Mar-
riage Law in the Church of England," yineteenth Century, Aug,, 190B,
p. 263.) Kisch considers, also, that wedding tours are a mistake; since
the fatigue, the excitement, the long journeys, sight-seeing, false modesty,
bad hotel arrangements, often combine to afi'ect the bride unfavorably
and produce the genns of serious illness. This Is undoubtedly the case.
The extreme psychic importance of the manner in which the act of
defloration is accomplished is strongly emphasized by Adler. He regards
it as a frequent cause of permanent sexual aniesthesia. "This first
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ART OF LOVE. 5a7
moment in which Uie man's indiv[c1uality attaiDH its full rights often
decides the whole of life. The unsliilled, ovcr-excited huaband can then
implant the eeed of feminine inaenBibilit;, and by continued awkward-
ncM and eoarsenesii develop it into permanent anBathesia. The man who
Ukee poBBeiBioD of his rights with recicleea brutal masculine force merely
nauscH his wife anxiety and pain, and with every repetition of the act
increases her repulsion A large proportion of cold-natured
women represent a sacrifice by men, due either to nnconscious awkward-
ness, or, occasionally, to conscious brutality towards the tender plant
which should have been cherished with peculiar art and love, but has
been robbed of the splendor of its development. All her life long, a wist-
ful and trembling woman will preserve the recollection of a brutal wed-
ding night, and, often enough, it remains a perpetual source of inhibition
every time that the husband seeks anew to gratify his desires without
adapting himself to his wife's desires for love (0. Adler, Die Mangelhafte
Geeehkvktsemplindiing des W'eibef, pp. 159 e( »eq,, IS] et seq). "I have
seen an honest woman shudder with horror at her husband's approach,"
WT0t« Diderot long ago in hie exsay "Sur les Femmes"; "I have seen her
plunge in the bath and feel herself never sufficiently washed from the
stain of duty." The same may still he said of a vast army of women,
victims of a pernicious system of morality which has taught tlicm false
Ideas of "conjugal duty" and has failed to teach their husbands the art
of lore.
Women, when their fine natural instincts have not been
hopeleealy perverted by the pruderies and prejudices which are bo
diligently inBtiUed into them, understand the art of love more
readily than men. Even when little more than children they can
often completely take the cue that is given to them. Much
more than is the case with men, at all events under civilized con-
ditions, the art of love is with them an art that Nature makes.
They always know more of love, as Montaigne long since said,
than men can teach them, for it is a discipline that is bom in
their blood.i
I Montaigne, BataU, Bk, iii, Ch. V. It is a significant fact that,
even in the matter of information, women, notwithstanding much fgno^
ranee and inexperience, are often better equipped for marriage than men.
As FUrhringer remarks (Senator and Kaminer, Health and Disease in
Relation to Marriage, vol. i, p. 212), although the wife is usually more
chaste at marriage than the husband, yet "she is generally the better
informed partner in matters pertaining to the married stat^ in spite of
occasional astonishing confessions."
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528 PSTCHOLOOT OF BEX.
The extensive inquiries of Saniord Be]] (loo. oit) aliow Uist the
emotiODB of BcX'love may Appear as early as the third year. It must
also Ik remembered that, hoth phyoicallj' and paychicallv, girla ara more
precocious, more mature, than boys (see, e.^., Earelocic Ellis, ifon and
Woman, fourth edition, pp. 34 et seq., 200, etc.). Thus, by the time she
has reached the age of puberty a girl has had time to become an accom-
plished mistress of the minor arts of love. Tliat the age of puberty is
for girls the age of love seems to he widely recognized by the popular
mind. Thus in a popular song of Bresse a girl sings: —
"J'ai calcule mon age,
tTai quatorse & quinze ans.
Ne suis-je pas dans I'Sge
Tfj avoir un amsntT"
This matter of the sexual precocity of girls liaa an important bear-
ing on the question of the "age of consent," or the age at which it should
be legal for a girl to consent to sexual intercourse. Until within the
last twenty-five years there has been a tendency to set a rery lovr age
(even as low as t«n) as the age above which a man commits no offence
in having sexual intercourse with a girl. In recent years there has been
a tendency to run to the opposite and equally unfortunate extreme of
raising it to a very late age. In England, by the Criminal Law Amend-
ment Act of 1885, the age of consent was raised to sixteen (this clause
of the bill being carried in the House of Commons by a majority of 108).
This seems to be the reasonable age at which the limit should be set
and its extreme high limit in temperate climates. It is the age recog^
nized by the Italian Criminal Code, and in many other parts of the
civilited world. Gladstone, however, was in favor of raising it to
eighteen, and Howard, in discussing this question as regards the United
States [Matrimonial Inittitutiona, vol. ill, pp. 105-203), thinks it ought
everywhere to be raised to twenty-one, so coinciding with the age of legal
majority at which a woman can enter into business or political relations.
There has been, during recent years, a wide limit of variation in the
Ipgislation of the different American States on this point, the dUTerences
of the two limits being as much as ei(^t years, and In some Important
States the act of intercourse with a g^rl under eighteen is declared to
be "rape," and punishable with imprisonment for life.
Such enactments as these, however, it must be recognized, are
arbitrary, artificial, and unnatural. They do not rest on a sound
biological basis, and cannot be enforced by the common sense of the com-
munity. There is no proper analogy between the age of legal majority
which is fixed, approximately, with reference to the ability to comprehend
abstract matters of intelligence, and the age of soxuni maturity which
-occurs much earlier, both physically and psychically, and is determined in
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ABT OF LOVi;. b2v
wom«n hj a ver^ preciie biological event: the completion of puberty in
the onset of menstruation. Among peoples living under natural condi-
tions in all parts of the world it is recogniied iJiat a girl becomea
Mxually a woman at pubertj; at that epoch she receives her initiation
into adult life and becomes a nife and a mother. To declare that the
act of intercourse with a woman who, by the natural instinet of man-
kind generally, is regarded as old enough for all the duties of woman-
hood, is a criminal act of rape, punishable by imprisonment for life, can
only be considered an abuse of language, and, what is worse, an abuse ot
law, even if we leave all psychological and moral considerations out of
the question, for it deprives the conception of rape of all that renders it
naturally and properly revolting.
The sound view in this question la clearly the view that it is the
girl's puberty which constitutes tbe criterion of the man's criminality
in sexually approaching her. In the temperate regions of Europe and
North America the average age of the appearance of menstruation, the
critical moment in the establishment of complete puberty, is fifteen (see,
e.g., IlAvelock Ellis, Man and Woman, Ch. XI; the facts are set forth at
length In Kisch's Sexual Life of Woman, IB09). Therefore it is reason-
able that the act of an adult man in having sexual connection with a
girl under sixteen, with or without her consent, should properly be a
criminal act, severely punishable. In those lands where the average age
of pubertf is higher or lower, the age of consent should be raised or
lowered accordingly. (Bruno Meyer, arguing against any attempt to
raise the age of consent above sixteen, considers that the proper age
of consent is generally fourteen, for, as be rightly insists, the line of
division is between the ripe and the unripe personality, and while tb«
latter should be strictly preserved from the sphere of sexuality, only
voluntary, not compulsory, influence should be brought to bear on the
former. BeauahProhleme, Ap., 1009.)
If we take into our view the wider considerations of psychology,
morality, and law, we shall find ample justification for this point of view.
We have to remember that a girt, during all the years of ordinary school
life, is always more advanced, both physically and psychically, than n
boy of the same age, and we have to recognize that this preeocl^ covers
her sexual development; for even though it Is true, on the average, that
active sexual desire is not usually aroused in women until a somewhat
later age, there is also truth in the observation of Mr. Thomas Hardy
(yeio Revieto, June, 1894) : "It has never struck me that the spider is
invariably male and the fly invariably female." Even, therefore, when
sexual intercourse takes place between a girl and a youth somewhat
older than herself, she is likely to be the more mature, the more self-
poesessed, and the more responsible of the two, and often the one who
has taken the more active part in initiating the act. (This point bag
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530 P8T0HOLOGY OF SEX.
been diacoBSed in "The Sexual Impulse in Women" in vol. iii of these
Btudiet. ) It must also be remembered that when a girl has once reached
the age of pubertj, and put on all the manner and habits as well as the
phjBical development of a woman, it ib no longer possible for a man
always to estimate ber age. It is easy to see that a girl has not yet
reached the age of puberty; It Is impqssible to tell whether a mature
woman it under or over eighteen; it is therefore, to say the least, unjust
to make her male partner's fate for life depend on the recognition of a
distinction which has no basis in nature. Such considerations are,
indeed, so obrioua that there la no ehanee of carrying out thoroughly in
practice the doctrine that a man should be imprisoned for life for having
iutercouree with a girl who is over tbe a^ of sixteen. It is better, from
the legal point of view, to cast tbe net less widely and to be quite sure
that it is adapted to catch the real and conscious offender, who may be
punished without offending the common sense of the oommunitf. {Cf.
Bloch, The Beauol life of Our Time, Ch. XXIV; he considers that the
"age of consent" should begin with the completion of the sixteenth year.)
It may be necessary to add that the establishment of the "age of
consent" on this basis by no means implies that interoourse with girts
but little over sixteen should be encouraged, or even socially and morally
tolemted. Here, however, we are not in the sphere of law. It is the
natural f«ndeDCy of the well-bom and well-nurtured girl under civiliied
conditions to hold herself in reserve, and the pressure whereby that tmd-
ency is maintained and furthered must be supplied by the whole of her
environment, primarily by the intelligent reflection of the girl herself
when she has reached the age of adolescence. To foster in a young
woman who has long passed the epoch of puberty the notion that she has
no responsibili^ in the guardianship of her own body and soul is out
of harmony with modem feeling, as netl as unfavorable to the training
of women for the world. The States which have been induced to adopt
the high limit of the age of consent have, indeed, thereby made an abject
confession of their inability to maintain a decent moral level by wore
legitimate means; they may profitably serve as a warning rather than
as an example.
The knowledge of women cannot, however, replace, the
ignorance of men, but, on the contrary, merely eervea to reveal it.
For in the art of love the man must necessarily take the initiative.
It is he who must first unseal the mystery of the intimacies and
audacities which the woman's heart may hold. The risk of meet-
ing with even the shadow of contempt or disgust is too serious
to allow a woman, even a wife, to reveal the secrets of love to a
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ART OF LOVE. 531
man who has not shown himself to be an initiate.^ Xumberless
are the jovial and contented husbands who have never suspected,
and will never know, that their wives carry about with them,
sometimes with silent resentment, the ache of mysterious tabtis.
The feeling that there are delicious privacies and privileges which
she has never been asked to take, or forced to accept, often
erotically divorces a wife from a husband who never realizes what
he has missed.^ The case of such husbands is all the harder
because, for the most part, all that they have done is the result
of the morality that has been preached to them. They have been
tiiught from boyhood to be strenuous and manly and clean-
minded, to seek by all means to put out of their minds the
thought of women or the longing for sensuous indulgence. They
have been told on all sides that only in marriage is it right or
even safe to approach women. They have acquired the notion
that sexual indulgence and all that appertains to it is something
low and degrading, at the worst a mere natural necessity, at the
beet a duty to be accomplished in a direct, honorable and straight-
forward manner. No one seems to have told them that love is an
art, and that to gain real possession of a woman's soul and body
is a task that requires the whole of a man's best skill and insight.
It may well be that when a man leams his lesson too late he is
inclined to turn ferociously on the society that by its conspiracy
of pseudo-morality has done its best to ruin his life, and that of
his wife. In some of these cases husband or wife or both are
1 "She never loses her Belf-respect nor my respect for her," n man
writes in a letter, "simply because we are desperately in love with one
nnother, and everything we do — sonie of which the lowest prostitute might
refuse to do — seems but one attenipt after another to translate our pas-
sion into action. I never realized before, not that to the pure all things
are pure. Indeed, but that to the lover nothing is indecent. Yes. I have
always felt it, to love her is a liberal education." It is obviously only
the existence of such an attitude as this that can enable a pure woman
to be passionate.
3 "To be really understood," as Rafford Pjke well says, "to say
what she likes, to utter her innermost thoughts in her own way, to cast
aside the traditional conventions that pill her and repress her, to have
someone near her with whom she can be quit« franh, and yet to know
that not a syllable of what she says will be misint«n>reted or mistaken,
but rather felt fust as she (eels it all — how wonderfully sweet is this to
every woman, and how few men are there who can give it to herl"
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632 FSTCHOLOQY OF SEX.
finally attracted to a third person, and a divorce enableB them to
start afresh with better experience under happier auapices. But
as things are at present that is a sad and serious process, for
many impossible. They are happier, as Milton pointed out,
whose trials of love before marriage "have been go many divorces
to teach them experience."
The general ignorance concerning the art of love may be
gauged by the fact that perhaps the question in this matter most
frequently asked is the crude question how often sexual inter-
course should take place. That is a question, indeed, which has
occupied the founders of religion, the law-givers, and the
philosophers of mankind, from the earliest times.^ Zoroaster
said it should be once in every nine days. The laws of Manes
allowed intercourse during fourteen days of the month, but a
famous ancient Hindu physician, Susruta, prescribed it six times
a month, except during the heat of summer when it should be
once a month, while other Hindu authorities say three or four
times a month. Solon's requirement of the citizen that inter-
course should take place three times a month fairly agrees with
Zoroaster's. Mohammed, in the Koran, decrees intercourse once
a week. The Jewish Talmud is more discriminating, and dis-
tinguishes between different classes of people; on the vigorous
and healthy young man, not compelled to work hard, once a day
is imposed, on the ordinary working man twice a week, on
learned men once a week. Luther considered twice a week the
proper frequensy of intercourse.
It will be observed that, as we might expect, these estimates
tend to allow a greater interval in the earlier ages when erotic
stimulation was probably less and erotic erethism probably rare,
and to involve an increased frequency as we approach modem
civilization. It will also be observed that variation occurs within
fairly narrow limits. This is probably due to the fact that these
law-givers were in all cases men. Women law-givers would
1 In more recent times it has been discuiued in relation to the fre-
quency of spontaneous nocturnal emlMJona. See "The Phenompna of
Sexual Periodicity," Sect. IT, in volume i of these Btudiet, and cf. Mr.
Perry-Coste'i remarks on "The Annual Rhythm," in Appendix B of the
•ame volume.
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AST OF lOYB. Odd
certainly have shown a much greater tendency to Tariation, since
the variations of the sexual impulse are greater in women.^
Thus Zenobia required the approach of her bueband once a
month, provided that impregnation had not taken place the pre-
vious mouth, while another queen went very far to the other
extreme, for we are told that the Queen of Aragon, after mature
deliberation, ordained six times a day as the proper rule in a
legitimate marriage.^
It ma; be remarked, in passing, tha.t the eatimAtes of tlie proper
frequency of sexual icteTcourse may always be taken to assume that there
is a ceesation during the menstrual period. This is especially the case
as regards early periods of culture when intercourse at this time is
usually regarded as either dangerous or sinful, or tioth. (Thia point has
been discussed in the "Phenomena of Feriodicity" in volume i of these
Studiea.) Under civilized conditions the inhibition is due to testhetio
reasons, the wife, even if she desires intercourse, feeling a repugnanco
to be approached at a time when she regards herself as "disgusting," and
the husband easily sharing this altitude. It majr, however, be pointed
out that the Eesthetic objection is very largely the result of the super-
stitious horror of water which is still widely felt at this time, and would,
to some extent, disappear if a more scrupulous cleanliness were observed.
It remains a good general rule to abstain from sexual intercourse during
the menstrual period, but in some cases there may be adequate reason for
breaking it. This is so when desire is specially strong at this time, or
when intercourse is physically difBcult at other times but easier during
the relaxation of tiie parts caused by menstruation. It must be remem-
bered also that the time when the menstrual flow is beginning to cease is
probably, more than any other period of the month, tbe biologically
proper time for sexual intercourse, since not only is intercourse easiest
Ihen, and also most gratifying to the female, but it affords the most
favorable opportuni^ for securing fertilization.
Schurig long since brought together evidence (Parthenologia, pp.
302 et aeq.) showing that coitus is most easy during menstruation. Some
of the Catholic theologians (like Sanchez, and later, Liguori), going
against the popular opinion, have distinctly permitted intercourse during
menstruation, though many earlier theologians regarded it as a mortal
1 See "Thp Sexual Impulse in Women, vol. iii of these Studiea.
2 Zenobia's practice is referred to by Glblxin, Decline and Fall, ed.
Bury, vol. i, p. 302. The Queen of Aranon's decision is recorded by the
Montpellier jurist, Nicolas Bohier (Boerius) in his Decisiones, etc., ed.
of 167B, p. 663; It la referred to by Montaigne, Eataia, Bk. iii, Ch. V.
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584 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
■In. From tbe medical aide, KossmBnn (Senator and Kaminer, Health
and Diaease in Relation to Marriage, vol. i. p. 249) advocates eoitUH not
only at tlte end of menetrustion, but even during the latter part of the
period, as being the time when women moat uaualiy need it, the marked
diaagreeablenesH of temper often ahown 1i; women at this time, he aays,
being connected with the auppreaaion, dcraanded by custom, of a natural
fleaire. "It ia alnioat always during menstruation that Uie first clouds
appear on the matrimonial horizon."
Ill modern times the phyi^iologiBts and phyBicians who bave
expreeaed any opinion on this subject have usually come very
near to Luther's dictum. Keller said that intercourse should not
be much more frequent than twice a week.' Acton said once a
week, and so also Hammond, even for healthy men between the
ages of twenty-five and forty.^ Fiirbringer only slightly exceeds
this estimate by advocating from fifty to -one hundred single
acts in the year.^ Forel advises two or three times a week for a
man in the prime of manhood, but he adds that for some healthy
and vigorous men once a month appears to be excess.^ Mante-
gazza, in his Hygiene of Love, also states that, for a man between
twenty and thirty, two or three times a week represents the proper
amount of intercourse, and between the ages of tliirty and forty-
five, twice a week. Guyot recommends every three daya.^
It seems, however, quite unnecessary to lay down any gen-
eral rules regarding the frequency of coitus. Individual desire
and individual aptitude, even within the limits of health, vary
enormously. Moreover, if we recognize that the restraint of
desire is Eometimes desirable, and often necessary for prolonged
periods, it is as well to refrain from any appearance of asserting
the necessity of sexual intercourse at frequent and regular inter-
vals. The question is chiefly of importance in order to guard
against excess, or even against the attempt to live habituaUy
close to the threshold of excess. Many authorities are, therefore,
careful to point out that it is inadvisable to be too definite.
1 Haller, Elementa Pkysiologiie, 1778, vol. vii, p. 57.
2 Hammond, Sexual Impotence, p. 128.
3 FUrbringer, Senator and Kaminer, Health and Daeate in Relation
to Marriage, vol. i, p. 221.
* Forel, Die BexvelU Frage, p. 80.
BQufot, BriviatTe de VAmour Expirimental, p. 141.
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ABT OF LO¥B. 685
ThoB Erb, while remarking that, for some, Luther's dictum
represents the extreme maximum, adds that othere can go far
beyond that amount with impunity, and he conBidera that Buch
variations are congenital. ^ Bibbing, again, while ezpreseing
general agreement with Luther's rule, protests against any
attempt to lay down laws for everyone, and is inclined to say
that as often as one likes is a safe rule, so long as there are
no bad after-effects.^
It Beena to be generally agreed that bad effects from excess in
eoitni, wben thej do occur, are rare in women (see, e.g., Hammond,
8ewwit Impotence, p. 127). Occaeionally, however, evil effects occur in
women. (The case, possibly to be mentioned in thia connection, has been
recorded of a man whose three wives all became insane after marriage.
Journal of Mental Science, Jan., 1879, p. 611.) In cases ot sexual excess
great physical exhaustion, with suspicion and delusionn, is often observed.
Hutchinson has recorded three cases nf temporary blindness, all in men,
the result of sexual excess after marriage {Archives of Surgery, Jan.,
1693). The old medical authors attributed many evil results to excess
in coitus. Thus Schurig (Spermatologia, 1720, pp. 260 et acq.) brings
together cases of insanity, apoplexy, syncope, epilepsy, loss of memory,
blindness, baldness, unilateral perspiration, gout, and death attributed
. to ttiis cause; of death many cases are given, some in women, but one
may easily perceive that pott was often mistaken for propter.
There is, however, another consideration which can scarcely
escape the reader of the present work. Nearly all the estimates
of the desirable frequence of coitus are framed to suit the sup-
posed physiological needs of the husband,* and tliey appear
1 Erb, Ziemssen's Handbuoh. Bd. xi, U, p. 148. Guttceit also con-
sidered that the very wide variations found are congenital and natural.
It may be added that some believe that there are racial variations. Thus
it has been stated that the genital force of the Englishman is tow, and
that of the Frenchman (especially Provencal, Languedocian, and Gascon)
high, while LOwenfeld believes that the Germanic race excels the French
in aptitude to repeat the sex act trequpntly. It is probable that little
wei^t attaches to these opinions, and that the chief differences are
individual rather than racial.
2 Bibbing, L'Hygifne Sexualle. p. 75. Kisch, in his Rexval Life of
"Woman, expresses the same opinion.
3 Mohammed, who often displayed a consideration for women very
rare in the founders of relii;;tons, is an exception. His prescription ot
once a week represented the right of the wife, quite independently of the
number of wives a man might possess.
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536 P8Ycnoi.OGY of sex.
uBuall; to be framed in the same spirit of exclusive attention to
those needs as though the physiological needs of the eracuation
of the bowels or the bladder were in question. But seioal needs
are the needs of two persons, of the husband and of the wife. It
is not enough to ascertain the needs of the husband ; it is also
necessary to ascertain the needs of the wife. The resultant must
be a harmonious adjustment of these two groups of needs. That
consideration alone, in conjunction with the wide variations of
individual needs, sufScee to render any definite rules of very
trifiing value.
It ia important to r^nembeT the wids limits of variBtion In aenwl
capacity, aa well as the fact that such variationa in either direction maj
be healthy and normal, though undouhtedlj vrfaen they become extreme
variations may have a pathological aigniflcance. In one caae, for
instance, a man has interconree once a nwnth and finds this aofficient;
lie has no nocturnal emiuiona nor any strong desires in the interval;
yet be leads an idle and luxarioua life and ia not restrained by any moral
or religioua scruples ; if be much exceeda the frequency which suit* bim
he suffers from ill-bealth, though otbarwise quite healthy except for a
weak digestion. At the other extreme, a happily married couple, between
fortj-flve and fifty, much attached to each other, had engaged In sexual
intercourae every night for twenty years, except during the menstrual
period and advanced pregnancy, which had only occurred once; they are
hearty, full'blooded, intellectnal people, fond of good living, and they
attribute their affection and constancy to thia frequent indulgence in
ooitua; the only child, a girl, is not strong, though fairly healthy.
The cases are numerous in which, on special occaaiona, ft is possible
for people who are passionately attached to each other to repeat the act
of coitus, or at all events the orgasm, an inordinate number of times
within a few hours. Thia uaually occurs at the beginning of an intimacy
or after a long aeparatJon. Thus in one case a newly-married woman
experienced the orgasm fourteen timea in one night, her husband in the
same period experiencing it aeven timea. In another case a woman who
had lived a chaste life, when sexual relationships finally began, once
experienced orgasm fourteen or fifteen times to her partner's three times.
In a case which, I have been assured may be accepted as authentic, a
young wife of highly erotic, very erethic, sli^tly abnormal tempera-
ment, after a month's absence from her husband, was excit«d twenty-aix
timea within an hour and a quarter; her huaband, a much older man,
having two orgaams during this period; the wife admitted that she felt
a "complete wrecic" after this, but it is evident that if thia case may
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ART OF LOVE. 587
b« r^krd«d na authentic the orgaems were of extremely slight intenaily.
A fouag woioaii, newly marTied to a. physically robust man, once had
IntercourM with him eight times in two houra, orgasm occurring etch
time in both partiea. Gnttceit IDrtisaig JaKre Frams, vol. ii. p. 311),
in Bnuia, knew many cases in which young men of twenty-two to twenty-
d^t bad intATcourse more than ten times in one night, though after
the fourth time there is seldom any semen. He had known aome men
who had masturbated in early boyhood, and began to consort with women
ftt fifteen, yet reraained sexually Tigoroue in old age, while he knew
ottiers who began intercourse late and were losing force at forty. Mante-
gama, who knew a man who had intercourse fourteen Umea in one day,
rematka that the stories of the old Italian novelists show that twelve
time* was regarded as a rare exception. Bnrefaard, Alexander VI's secre-
tary, states that the Florentine Ambassador's son, in Home in 1489,
"knew a girl seven times in one hour" (J. Burchardi, Diarium^ ed.
Thuosne, vol. i, p. 329). Olivier, Charlemagne's knight, boasted, accord-
ing to legend, that he could show his virile power one hundred times in
one night, if allowed to sleep with the Emperor of Constantinople's
daughter; he was allowed to try, it is said, and succeeded thirty times
(Schultz, Dm HBfitche Lehen,vo\. i, p. G81).
It will be seen that whenever the sexual act ts repeated frequently
wltiiin a short time it is very rarely indeed that the husband can keep
pace with the wife. It is true that the woman's sexual energy is aroused
more slowly and with more difficult? than the man's, but as it becomes
aroused its momentum increases. The man, whose energy is easily
aroused, is easily exhausted; the woman has often scarcely attained her
energy until after the first orgasm is over. It is sometimes a surprise
to a young husband, happily married, to find that the act of sexual inter-
course which completely satisfies him has only served to arouse his
wife's ardor. Very many women feel that the repetition of the act sev-
eral times in succession is needed to, aa they may express it, "clear the
system," and, far from producing sleepiness and fatigue, it renders them
bright and lively.
The young and vigorous woman, who has lived a chaste life, some-
times feels when she commences sexual relationships as though she really
rehired several husbands, and needed intercourse at least once a day,
though later when she becomes adjusted to married life she reaches the
conclusion that her desires are not abnormally excessive. The husband
has to adjust himself to his wife's needs, through his sexual force when
lie possesses it, and. if not, through his skill and consideration. The
rare men who possess a genital potency which they can exert to tiie
gratification of women without injury to themselves have been, by Pro-
fessor Benedikt, termed "sexual athletes," and he remarks that such men
easily dominate women. He rightly regards Casanova as the type of the'
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£38 I-SYCHOLOGY OF SEX,
sexual athlete {Archives d'Anihropotogie CiimtnelU, Jan., 1S96). N&cke
reports the uaee of a mdn uhoni he regards as a sexual athlete, who
throughout hJB life had intercourse once or twice daily with hia wife, or
if she was unwilling, with another woman, until he became insane at the
age of aeventf-fivc iZeitschrift fUr SetmalwiMenaokaft, Aug., 190S, p.
507). This should probably, however, be regarded rather as a caae of
morbid hyperesthesia than of sexual athleticism.
At tliie stage wc reach the fundamental elementa of the art of
love. We have Been that many moral praoticea and moral
theories which have been widely current in Christendom have
developed traditionB, etiJI by no means extinct among ub, which
were profoundly antagonistic to the art of love. The idea grew
up of "marital duties," of "conjugal riglits."^ The husband had
the right and the duty to perform sexual intercourse with his
wife, whatever her wishes in the matter might be, while the wife
had the duty and the right {the duty in her case being usually
put first) to submit to such intercourse, which she waa fi^quently
taught to regard as something low and merely physical, an
unpleasant and almost degrading necessity which she would do
well to put out of her thoughts as speedily as possible. It is not
surprising that such an attitude towards marriage has been
highly favorable to conjugal unhappiness, more eBpecially that of
the wife,^ and it has tended to promote adultery and divorce.
We might have been more Burprised had it been otherwise.
The art of love is based on the fundamental natural fact of
courtship ; and courtship is the effort of the male to make him-
self acceptable to the female.^ "The art of love," said Vataya-
yana, one of the greatest of authorities, "ia the art of pleasing
■ TIow fragile the claim of "conjugal rights" is. may be sufHciently
proved bv the fnct that it is now considered by many that the very term
"(unjugal rights" arose merely by a mistake for "conjugal rites." Before
IT.^.'i. when legal proceedings were in Latin, the term used was ohstqviet,
and "rights," instead of "rites," seems lo hare been merely a typesetter's
error (see .Vores and piHrics, May 16, 1S91; May B, ISOfli. This
explanation, it should be added, only applies to the consecrated term, for
there can be no doubt that the underlying idea has an eNisti-nce quit«
independent of tt.e term.
2 "In mo«t marriages that are not hinnv." it is said in RatTord
Pvke's thoughtful paper on "Husbands and Wives" ( Cosmo nolt Ian, 1902),
"it is the wife rather than the husband who is oftenest disappointed."
3 See "Analysis of the Sexual Impulse," in vol. iii of these Studie*.
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ABT OF LOTS. 638
womeu.'' "A man must never permit himself a pleasure witli
his wife," said Balzac in hia Physiologie du Manage, "which he
has not the skill first to make her desire." The whole art of love
is there. Women, naturally and instinctively, seeli to make
themselves desirable to men, even to men whom they are
supremely indifferent to, and the woman who is in love with a
man, by an equally natural instinct, seeks to shape herself to the
measure which individually pleases liim. This tendency ia not
really modified by the fundamental fact that in these matters it
is only the arts that Nature makes which are truly efEective. It
is finally by what he is that a man arouses a woman's deepest
emotions of sympathy or of antipathy, and he is often pleasing
her more by displaying his fitness to play a great part in the
world outside than by any acquired accomplishments in the arts
of courtship. When, howeyer, the serious and intimate play of
physical love begins, the woman's part is, even biologically, on the
surface the more passive part.^ She ia, on the physical side,
inevitably the instrument in love; it must be his hand and his
bow which evoke the music.
In speakmg of the art of love, however, it is impossible to
disentangle completely the spiritual from the physical. The very
attempt to do po is, indeed, a fatal mistake. The man who can
only perceive the physical side of the sexual relationship is, as
Hinton was accustomed to say, on a level with the man who, in
listening to a sonata of Beethoven on the violin, is only con-
scious of the physical fact that a horse's tail is being scraped
agamst a sheep's entrails.
Tbe ima^ oE the mu^iml in»trumeiit constaDtly recurs to thoae who
write of the art of love, linlziic'n compariHon of the unskilful husband
to the orang-utnn attcmplin^ to pinr the violin han already h»en quoted.
Dr. Jules Ouyot, in hin xprioiis and admirable little book, Br6viair« de
i'Amcyur Expirimental . fnlis on (o the game comparison; "There are an
I It is well rcco^i/.t>d by erotic writers, however, that women may
sometimes take a coniparntively active part Tlius Vatsyayana says that
sometimes the woman may take the man's position, and with flowers in
her hnir and smiles nii>:ed with sighs and bent head, rnrensing him and
prRNHin^ her breasts amtinst him, say:' "You have been my conqueror;
it is my turn to make you cry for mercy."
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540 FSTCHOLOGY OP BEX.
immeiue number of ignorant, selfish, ukd brutal men who give themHlvea
no trouble to studf the instrument which God has ooufided to them, and
do not so much as aucpect that it is neceasary to studf it in order to
draw out its slighteat chords. .... Everj direct contact, even with
the clitoris, every attempt at coitus [when the feminine orgmnism is not
aroused], exercises a painful sensation, an instinctive repulsion, a feel-
ing of disgust and aversion. Any man, any husband, who Is ignorant of
this fact, is ridiculous and oontonptible. Any man, any huslwnd, who,
knowing it, dares to disregard it, has committed an outrage
In the final eombination of man and woman, the positive element, the
husband, has the initiative and the responsibility for the conjugal life.
He is the minstrel who will produce harmony or cacophony by bis band
and his ix>w. The wife, from this point of view, is really the many-
etringed instrument who will give out hBrmonious or discordant sounds,
according as she Is well or ill handled" (Guyot, Brfviair^ pp. 0S, 115,
138).
That such love corresponds to the woman's need there cannot be
any doubt. All developed women desire to be loved, says Kllen Key, not
"en mBle" but "en artiste" {Liebe und Ehe, p. 92). "Only a man of
whom she feels that he has also the artist's joy in her, and who shows
this joy through his timid and delicate touch on her houI as on her body,
can keep tbe woman of tO'day. She will only belong to a man who con-
tinues to long for her even when he holds her locked in his arms. And
when such a woman breaks out: "You want me, but yuu cannot caress
me, you cannot tell what I want,' then that man is judged." Ix>ve is
indeed, as Keray de Gourmont remarks, a delicate art, for which, as for
painting or music, only some are apt.
It must not be supposed that the demand on the lover and
husband to approach a woman in the same spirit, with the same
consideration and skilful touch, as a musician takes up his instru-
ment is merely a demand made by modem women who are
probably neurotic or bysterical. No reader of these Studies who
has followed the discussions of courtship and of sexual selection
in previous volumes can fail to realize that — although we have
sought to befool ourselves by giving an illegitimate connotation
to the word "brutal" — consideration and respect for the female
is alt but universal in the sexual relationships of the animals
below man ; it is only at the furthest remove from the "brutes,"
among civilized men, that sexual "l)ruta]ity" is at all common,
and even there it is chiefly the result of ignorance- If we go
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AHT OF LOVK. 641
SB low as the insects, who have been disciplined by no family
life, and are generally counted as careless and wanton, we may
sometimes find this attitude towards the female fully developed,
and the extreme consideration of the male for the female whom
yet he holds iirmly beneath him, the tender preliminaries, the
extremely gradual approach to the supreme sexual act, may well
furnish an admirable lesson.
This greater difficulty and delay on the part of women in
responding to the erotic excitation of courtship is really very
fundamental and — as has ao often been necessary to point out
in previous volumes of these Studies — it covers the whole of
woman's erotic life, from the earliest age when coyness and
modeity develop. A woman's love develops much more slowly
than a man's for a much longer period. There is real psycho-
logical significance in the fact that a man's desire for a woman
tends to arise spontaneously, while a woman's desire for a man
tends only to be aroused gradually, in the measure of her com-
plexly developing relationship to him. Hence her sexual emotion
is often less abstract, more intimately associated with the
individual lover in whom it is centred. "The way to my senses
is through my heart," wrote Mary WoUstonecraft to her lover
Imlay, "but, forgive me ! I think there is sometimes a shorter
cut to yours." She spoke for the best, if not for the largest part,
of her sex. A man often reaches the full limit of bis physical
capacity for love at a single step, and it would appear that his
psychic limits are often not more difficult to reach. This is the
solid fact underlying the more hazardous statement, ao often
made, that woman is monogamic and man polygamic.
On the more physical side, Guttceit states that a month after mar-
riage not more than two women out of ten have experienced the full
pleasnre of seiual intercoufBe/ and it may not be for aii months, a year,
or even till after the birth of several childreo, that a. woman experiences
the full enjoyment of the phyaica.1 relationship, and even then only with
a man she completely loves, so that the conditions of sexual gratifi-
cation are much more complex in women than \n men. Similarly, on tha
psychic Bide, Ellen Key remarks ( Ueber Liebe und Ehe, p. Ill): "It is
certainly true that a woman di^ijircs uexual gratification from a man.
Bnt while in her this desire not neldom only appears after she has begun
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542 rsTciroLOGY of rkx.
to love a man enough to give her life for him, a man often deiiires to
poMees a woman phTsicallj' before he loves her enough to give even hi*
tittle finger for her. The fact that love in a u'omsn mostly goes from
the soul to the seiiaeB and oft«n fails to reach them, and that in a man
it mostly goes from the EenHes to the soul and frequently never reat^hea
that goal-r-this Is of all the existing differences between men and women
that which causes most torture to both," It will, of course, be apparent
to the reader of the fourth volume of these Studiea on "Sexual Selection
in Man" that the metJiod of stating t]ie difference which hsa commended
itstlf to Mary Wollatonecraft, Ellen Key, and others, is not strietly cor-
rect, and the chastest woman, after, far example, taking too hot a bath,
may find that her heart Is not the only path through n-hich her senses
may be affected. The aenaea are the only channels to the external world
which we possess, and love must come through these channels or not at
all. The difTerence, however, seems to be a real one, if we translate it
to mean that, as we have seen reason to beliei'e in previous volumes of
these Stvdie», there arc in women {1) preferential sensory paths of
sexual stimuli, such as, apparently, n prcdominence of tiictilc and audi'
tory paths as compared with men; (2) a more massive, complex, and
delicately poised sexual mechanism; and. as a result of this, (3) eventu-
ally a greater amount of nervous and cerebral sexual Irradiation.
It must be remembered, at the same time, that while this distinction
represents a real tcndeni^y in sexual difTerentiation, with an organic and
not merely traditional basin, it has about it nothing whatever that is
absolute. There are a vast number of women whose sexual facility, again
by natural tendenry and not merely by acquired habits, is as marked as
that of any man, if not more so. In the sexual field, oa we have seen in
* previous volume lAnali/iU of the Sexual Impulse) , the range of varia-
bility is greater in women than in men.
The fact that love is an art, a method of drawing mueic from
an instrument, and not the mere commissioQ of an act by matual
consent, mates any verbal agreement to love of little moment. If
love were a matter of contract, of einiple intellectual consent, of
liicptton and answer, it would never have come into the world at
all. Love appeared bs art from the first, and the suhaequent
developments of the summary methods of reason and speech can-
not abolish that fundamental fact. This is scarcely realized by
those ill-advieed lovers who consider that the first step in court-
sliip — and perhaps even the whole of courtship — is for a man to
ask a woman to be his wife. That is so far from being the case
that it constantly happens that the premature exhibition of so
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ABT OF LOVE. 64S
large a demand at once and for ever danms all the wooer's
chances. It is lamentable, no doubt, that ao grave and fateful
a matter as that of marriage should so often be decided without
calm deliberation and reasonable forethought. But sexual
relationships can never, and should never, be merely a matter of
cold calculation. When a woman is suddenly confronted by the
demand that she should yield herself up as a wife to a man who
has not yet succeeded in gaining her afFections she will not fail to
find — provided ehe is lifted above the cold-hearted motives of self-
interest — that there ai* many sound reasons why she should not
do BO. And having thus squarely faced the question in cool
blood and decided it, she will henceforth, probably, meet that
wooer with a tunic of steel enclosing her breast.
"Love must be revealed by acta and not betrayed bj words. I
regard as abuoTinal the extnwrdinarj' method of a hasty avowal before-
hand; for that represents not the direct but the reflex path of tranamis-
eion. However sweet and normal the avowal may be when once reeip-
roci^ has been realised, aa a method of conquest I consider it dangeroua
and likely to produce the reverse of the result desired." I take these
wise words from a thoughtful "GaBai snr TAmour" iArchives de Pay-
ehotogU, 1904) by a non -psychological Swiss writer who is recording his
own erperienceB, and who insists much on the predominance of the
spiritual and mental element in love.
It Is worthy of note that this recognition that direct speech is out
of pface in courtship must not be regarded as a refinement of civilization.
Among primitive peoples everywhere tt Is perfectly well reeognieed that
the oITer of love, and its acceptance or its refusal, must be made l^
actions aymholicnlly. and not by the crude method of question and
aniwer. Among the Indians of Paraguay, who allow much sexual free-
dom to their women, bnt never buy or sell love, Mantegazza states (Rio
de la Plata e Teiinife, 1R07. p. 2-25) that a girl of the people will come
to your door or window and timidly, with a confused air, aak you, in the
.(inarani tongui'. for a drink of water. But she will smile if you inno-
i-ently offer her water. Among the TB.rfthumari Indiana of Mexico,
with whom the initiative in courting belongs to the women, the
girl takes the first step through her parents, then she throws
small pebbles at the young man; if he throws them back the matter is
concluded (Carl Lumholtz, Scrihner'g Magazine, Sept., 18B4, p. 2»). In
many parts of the world it is the woman who chooses her husband (see,
e.g., H. A. Potter, Bohrab and Riiatem, pp. 169 et »eq.), and aha very
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o44 rsvciioLOGY ok skx,
frequently r-doptti a, symbolical method of proposal. Except when tti«
commercial element preilominatea in marriage, fi similar method is fre-
quently adopted by men also in making proposals of marriage.
It is not only at tbe beginniug of courtship that the act of
love baa little room for fonnal declarations, for the demands and
the avowals that can be clearly defined in speech. The same rule
holds even in the most intimate relationships of old lovers,
throughout the married life. The permanent clement in modesty,
which surviTes every sexual initiation to become intertwined
with all tbe exquisite impudicities of lovf, combines with a true
erotic instinct to rebel against fonnal demands, against verbal
aflirmations or denials. Love's requests cannot be made in words,
nor truthfully answered in words : a fine divination is still needed
as long as love lasts.
The fact that the needi of love cannot be expreaacd but must be
divined h.iB loni; been recogniied by those who have written of the art of
love, alike by writers within and witliout the European Christian tradi-
tions. Tlius Zacchia, in his great medi^xi-lpgiil treatine, points out that
a husband must be attentive to the signs of sexual desire in his wife.
"Women," he says, "when sexual desire arises within them are accustomed
to ask their husbands questions on matters of love; they Ratter and
caress them; tii^ allow some part of their body to be uncovered as it
by accident; their breasts appear to swell; they show unusual alacrify;
th^ bluah; their eyes are bright; and if they experience unusual ardor
Omy Btammer, talk beside the mark, and are scarcely mistress of them-
selves. At the same time their private parts become hot and swell. All
these signs should conviDoe a hnaband, however inattentive he may be,
that his wife craves for satisfaction" {Zacehiae Queationmn Medico-
legalium Opu», lib. vii, tit. iii, qustst. I; vol. ii, p. 624 In ed. of I6SB}.
The old Hindu erotio writers attributed great importance alike to
the man's attentiveness to the womau'i erotic needs, and to his skill and
consideration In all the preliminaries of the sexual act. He must do all
that he can to procure her pleasure, says Vatsyayana. When she is otv
her bed and perhaps absorbed in conversation, he gently unfastens the
Icnot of her lower garment. It she proteeta be closes her mouth with
kisses. Some authors, Vatsyayana remarks, hold that the lover should
be^ t^ sucking the nipples of her breasts. When erection ocimrs be
touehea her with bis bands, softly caressing the various parts of her
body. Be should always press those parts of her body towards which sh»
turns her eyes. If she is shy, and it is the first time, he will place his
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ART OF LOVE, 646
hands between lier thighs which she will inatinctively press together. If
she is young he will put his hands on her breasts, and she will no doubt
cover them with her own. If she is mature lie will do alt that may Hem
fitting and agreeable to both parties. Then he will take her hair and
her chin between his fingers and kiss them. If she is very young she will
blush and close her eyes. By the way in which she receives his caresses
he will divine what pleases her most in union. The signs of her enjoy-
ment are that her body becomes limp, her eyes dose, she loses alt
timidity, and takes part in the movements which bring her most closely
to him. If, on the other hand, she feels no pleasure, she strikes the bed
with her hands, will not allow the man to continue, is sullen, even bites
or kicks, and continues the movements of coitus when the man has
finished. In such cases, Vatsyayana adds, it is his duty to mh the vulva
with his hand before union until it is moist, and he should perform the
same mm'ements afterwards if his own orgasm has occurred first.
With regard to Indian erotic art generally, and more especially
VatS3'nyana, who appears to have lived some sixteen hundred years ago,
information will be found in Valentino, "L'HygiPne conjugate cliez les
Hindous," Archives Giiiiyalea de ilf-dccine, Ap. 25, 1005; Iwan Bloch,
"Indische MediBtn," Puschmann's Handbuch der Oeschichte der Median,
vol. i ; Heimann and Stephan, "BeitrSge zur Ehehygiene nach der Lehren
des Kamasutram," Zeittchaft (ut SexaalxHsaentckaft, Sept., ISOS; also
a review of Richard Schmidt's German translation of the Kamaakaatra
of Vatsyayana in Zeitsehrift fur Elhnologie, 1002, Heft 2. There has
long existed an English translation of this work. In the lengthy preface
to the French translation Lamairesse points out the superiority of Indian
erotic art to that of the Latin poets by its loftjer spirit, and greater
purity and idealism. It is throughout marked by respect for women, and
its spirit is expressed in the well-known proverb: "Thou shalt not strike
a woman even with a flower." See also Margaret Noble's We1> of Indian
Life, especially Ch. Ill, "On the Hindu Woman as Wife," and Ch. IV,
"Lore Strong as Death."
The advice given to husbands by Guyot IBriviaire de t'Amoar
Espirimental, p. 422) closely conforms to that given, under very different
social conditions, by Zacchia and Vatsyayana. "In a state of sexual need
and desire the woman's lips are firm and vibrant, the breaata are swollen,
and the nipples erect. The intelligent husband cannot be deceived by
these signs. If they do not exist, it is his part to provoke them by his
kisses and caresses, and If, in spite of his tender and delicate excitations,
the lips show no heat and the breasts no swelling, and especially if tlie
nipples are disagreeably irritated by slight suction, he must arrest his
transports and abstain from alt contact with the organs of generation,
for he would certainly find them in a state of exhaustion and disposed to
repulsion. If, on the contrary, the accessory organs are animated, or
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beoome animntpd beneath hie caresses, he must extend them to the gen-
erative organs, and especially to the clitoris, which beneath his touch icill
become full of appetite and ardor."
The importance of the preliminary titration of the sexual organs
has been emphasized by a long BuccesBJon alike of erotic writers and phy-
sicians, from Ovid (Ars Amatoria end of Bk. II) onwards. Eulenburg
(Die Seruale Neuropathie, p. 79) conaid^Ts that litillation is sometimes
neecBsary, and Adier, likewise insiBting on the preliminariea of psychic
and physical courtship [Die Mangflhafte OtarhleBchtsemp/indung des
Weifiea, p. 138), observes that the man who is gifted with insight and
skill in these matters possesses a charm which will draw sparlcs of sen-
sibility from the coldest feminine heart. The advice of the physician is
at one in this matter with the maxims of t^e erotic artist and with the
needs of the loving woman. In making love there muat be no haste,
wrote Ovid ; —
"Crede mihl, non est Veneris propersnda votuptai,
Sed sensim tarda prolicienda mora."
"Husbands, like spoiled children," a woman has written, "too often
miss the pleasnre which might otherwise be theirs, by clamoring for it
at the wrong time. The msn who thinks this prolonged courtship pre-
vious to the act of sex union wearisome, has never given it a trial. It
is the approach to the marital embrace, as well aa the embrace itself,
which constitutes the charm of the relation between the sexes."
It not seldom happens, remarks Adler [op. cit., p. 186), that the
insensibility of the wife must be treated — in the husband. And Guyot,
bringing forward the same point, writes (op. oit., p. 130) ; "If by a
delay of tender study the husband has understood his young bride, if he
is able to realize for her the ineffable happiness and dreams of youth, he
will be beloved forever; he will be her master and sovereign lord. If he
has failed to understand her he will fatigue and exhanst himself in vain
efforts, and finally class her among the indifTerent and cold women. She
will be his wife by duty, the mother of his children. He will take his
pleasure elsewhere, for man Is ever in pursuit of tlie woman who racperi-
cnces the genesic spasm. Thus the vague and unintelligent search for ft
halt who can unite in that delirious finale is the chief cause of all con-
jugal dissolutions. In such a case a man resembles a bad musician who
■■linnges his violin in the hope that a new instrument will bring the
melody he is unable to play."
The fact that there is thus an art in love, and that sexual
intercourse is not a mere physical act to be executed by force of
mnecles, may help to explain why it is that in so many parts of the
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ART OF LOVE. 647
world defloFBtion is not iiiiiiicdiately effected oa marriage.^ No
doubt religious or magic reasons may also intei-vene here, but, as
so often happens, they harmonize with the biological process.
This is the case even among imdvilized peoples who marry early.
The need for delay and considenite skill is far greater when, as
among ourselves, a. woman's marriage is delayed long past the
establishment of puberty to a pci'iod when it is more difficult to
break down the psychic and perhaps even physical barriers of
personality.
It has to be added that the art of love in the act of courtship
is not confined to the preliminaries to the single act of coitus.
In a sense the life of love is a continuous courtship with a con-
stant progression. The establishment of pliysical intercourse is
but the beginning of it. This is especially true of women. "The
consummation of love," says Senancour,' "which is often the end
of love with man is only the beginning of love with woman, a
test of trust, a gage of future pleasure, a sort of engagement for
an intimacy to come." "A woman's soul and body," says another
writer,^ "are not given at one stroke at a given moment ; but
only slowly, little by little, through many stages, are both
delivered to the beloved. Instead of abandoning the young
woman to the bridegroom on the wedding night, as an entrapped
mouse is flung to the cat to be devoured, it would be better to let
the young bridal couple live side by side, like two friends and
comrades, until they gradually learn how to develop and use their
sexual consciousness," The conventional wedding is out of place
as a preliminary to the consummation of marriage, if only on the
ground that it is impossible to say at what stage in the endless
process of courtship it ought to take place.
A woman, unlike a man, is prepared by Nature, to play a
skilful part in the art of love. The man's part in courtship, "
which is that of the male throughout the zoological series, may he
I Thus among the Swaliili it is on the third daj after marriage that
tho bridegroonj is allowed, by nistom. to "ompletp defloration, according
to Zache, Zeit»chrift fiir Ethnologie. 1889. IIIII, p. 84.
2Dc VAmoar, vol. ii, p. S7,
3 Rofiert Michels, "BraulHtandsmorol," Geschlccht und OetelUchaft,
.Tabrgangl, Heft ]2.
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548 PSVCIIOLOGY OF SEX.
difficult and liazardous, but it is in a etraight line, fairly simple
and direct. The woman's part, having to follow at the same
moment two quite different impulses, is necessarily always in a
zigzag or a curve. That ia to say that at every erotic moment
her action is the resultant of tlie combined force of her desire
(conscious or unconscious) and her modesty. She must sail
through a tortuous channel with Scylla on the one side and
Charybdis on the other, and to avoid either danger too anxiously
may mean risking shipwreck on the other aide. She must be
impenetrable to all the world, but it must be an impenetrability
not too obaeure for the divination of the right man. Her speech
must be honest, but yet on no account tell everything; her
actions must be the outcome of her impulsea, and on that very
account be capable of two interpretations. It is only in the last
resort of complete intimacy that alie can become tlie perfect
woman.
For many a woman the conditions for that final erotic avatar — ■
"that splendid shameJessness which," as Rafford Pyke says, "is
the flneat thing in perfect love" — never present themselves at all.
She is compelled to be to the end of her erotic life, what she
must always be at the beginning, a complex and duplex person-
ality, naturally artful. Therewith she ia better prepared than
man to play her part in the art of love.
The man's part in the art of love is, however, by no means
easy. That is not always realized by tlie women who complain
of his lack of skill in playing it. Althongh a man haa not to
cultivate the same natural duplicity as a woman, it is necessary
that he should possess a considerable power of divination. He
is not well prepared for that, because the traditional masculine
virtue Js force rather than insight. The male's work in the
world, we are told, is domination, and it is by such domination
that the female is attracted. There is an element of truth in that
doctrine, an element of truth which may well lead astray the man
who too exclusively relies upon it in the art of love. Violence
ie bad in every art, and in the erotic ait the female desires to be
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ART OP LOVE. 649
won to love and not to be ordered to love. That is fundamental.
We sometimes see the matter so stated as if the objection to
force and domination in love conf^tituted some quite new and
revolutionary demand of the "modem woman." That is, it need
scarcely be said, the result of ignorance. The art of love, being
an art that Nature roakes, is the aame now as in essentials it has
always been,^ and it was well established before woman came into
existence. That it has not always been very skilfully played ia
another matter. And, so far aa the man is concerned, it is this
very tradition of maeculine predominance which has contributed
to the difficulty of playing it skilfully. The woman admires the
male's force; she even wishes herself to be forced to the things
that she altogether desires; and yet she revolts from any exertion
of force outside that narrow circle, either before the boundary of
it ie reached or after the boundary ia passed. Thus the man's
position is really more difScult than the women who complain of
his awkwardness in love are always ready to admit. He must
cultivate force, not only in the world but even for display in the
erotic field; he must be able to divine the moments when, in
love, fofce is no longer force because his own will is his partner's
will; he must, at the same time, hold himself in complete
restraint lest he should fall into the fatal error of yielding to bis
own impulse of domination; and all this at the very moment
when his emotions are least under control. We need scarcely be
surprised that of the myriads who embark on the sea of love, so
few women, so very few men, come safely into port.
It may still aeem to aome that in dwelling on the laws that
guide the erotic life, if that life is to be healthy and complete, we
have wandered away from the consideration of the sexual instinct
in its relationship to society. It may therefore be desirable to
return to first principles and to point out that we are still cling-
ing to the fundamental facts of the personal and social life.
^Marriage, as wo have seen reason to believe, is a great social
institution; procreation, which is, on the public side, its supreme
function, is a great social end. But marriage and procreation
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650 PBYCHOLOOT OP 8EI.
are both based on the erotic life. If the erotic life ia not sound,
thee marriage is broken up, practically if not always formally,
and the process of procreation ia carried out under unfavorable
conditions or not at all.
This social and personal importance of the erotic life,
though, under the influence of a false morality and an equally
false modesty, it has sometimes been allowed to fall into the back-
ground in stnges of artificial civilization, haa always been clearly
realized by those peoples who have vitally grasped the relation-
ships of life. Among most uncivilized races there appear to be
few or no "sexually frigid" women. It is little to the credit of
our own "civilization" that it should be possible for physicians
to-day to assert, even with tJie faintest plausibility, that there
are some 25 per cent, of women who may thus be described.
The whole sesuol structure of the world is built np on the
general fact that the intimate contact of the male and female
who have chosen each other is mutually pleasurable. Below tjiia
general fact is the more specific fact that in the normal accom-
plishment of the act of sexual consummation the two partners
experience the acute gratification of simultaneous orgasm.
Herein, it has been said, lies the secret of love. It is the very
basis of love, the condition of the healtJiy exercise of the sexual
functions, and, in many cases, it seems probable, the condition
also of fertilization.
Even BBvages in a vtij low degree of culture are Bometimea patient
and considerate in evoking and waiting for the signs of sexual desire in
their females. (I may refer to the significant case of tlie Carolinti
Islandcm, as describrd by Kubary in 1ii& ethnographic study of that peo-
ple and quoted in volume ir of these Bludteg, "Sexual Selection in Man,"
Sect. III.) In Catholic days theological influence worked wholesomely
in the same direction, although tlic theologians were bo keen to detect the
mortal sin of lust. It is true that the Catholic insisffince on the desira-
bility of simultaneous orgasm was largely due to the mistaken notion
that to secure conception it was necessary that there should be "insemi-
nation" on the part of the wife "s well as of the husband, but that was
not the sole source of the theological view. Thus Zacchia discusses
whether a man ought to continue uith his wife until she has the orgasm
and feels satisfied, and he decides that that is the husband's duty; other-
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ART OP LOVE. 651
wIm tbe wife falli into danger either of experiencing tlie OTgaBm during
■leep. or, more probably, by aelf-e:ccitation, "(or many women, wlien their
desires have not l)een latiafied by i-oitus. place one thigh on the other,
presBing and rubbing tbem together until the orgasm occurs, in the Iwlief
that ir they abstain from using the hands they have committed no sin."
Some theologians, he adds, favor that I»elief, notably Hurtado de Mendoza
and Sanchez, and he further quotes the opinion of the latter that women
who have not been sattsfled in coitus are liable to become hysterical or
melancholic (Za<!chi(E Qu(T»tionum Medico-legalium Opun, lib. vil, tit.
lii, qucBst. VI). In tbe same spirit some theologians seem to have per-
mitted irrumatio (without ejaculation), so long as it is only the pre-
liminary to the normal sexual act.
Nowadays physicians have fully confirmed the belief of Sanchez.
It is well recogniEed that women In whom, from whatever cause,
acuta sexual excitement occurs with frequency without being fat-
lowed by the due natural relief of orgasm are liable to various nervous
and congestive symptoms which diminish their vital effectireneas, and
rery possibly lead to a breakdown in health. Kinch has descritwd, as a
cardiac neurosis of sexual' origin, a pathological tachycardia which Is an
exaggeration of the physinlogicai quick heiirt of sexual excitement. J.
Inglis Parsons (BritUh Medienl Journal, Oct. 22, 1004, p. 1062) refers
to tbe ovarian pain produced by strong unsatisfied sexual excitement,
often in vigorous unmarried women, and sometimes a cause of great dis-
tress. An experienced Austrian ^-ncecolngitit told Hirth {Weg« mr
Beimat, p. 013) that of every hundred women who come to him with
uterine troubles seventy eulTered from congestion of the womb, which he
regarded as due to incomplete coitus.
It is frequently stated that the evil of incomplete gratification and
absence of orgasm in women is chiefly due to male withdrawal, that Is
to say coitugintetTupliis, in which the penis is hastily withdrawn as soon
as involuntary ejaculation is impending-, and it is sometimes said that
the same widely prevalent practice is also productive of slight or serious
results in the male (see. e.g.. L. B. Bangs, Trantaelioaa ymo York
Academi/ of Medicine, vol. ix, 1803; D. S. Booth, "Coitus Intermptus
and Coitus Heservatus as Causes of Profound Neurosis and Psycliosia,'*
Alienist and yeurologist, Nov., 190S; also, Alienitt and Neurohgitt,
Oct., 1897, p. 588).
It is undoubtedly true that coitus intermptus, since It involves
sudden withdrawal on the part of the man without reference to the stags
of sexual excitation which his partner may have reached, cannot fail to
produce frequently an injurious nervous efll'eet on the woman, though the
injurious effect on the man, who obtains ejaculation, is little or ntme.
But the practice is so widespread that it cannot be regarded as neces-
sarily involving this evil result. There can, I am assured, be no doubt
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Nat FSYCHOLOQT OF SEX.
wbAfever that Blnnmich is jurtiflcd in bia tt^ttmeat (Senator and
Kamiiwr, Health and Digeate in Relation to Marriage, toI. ii, p. 7S3|
that "iDtemipted coitiu U injuTious to the genital siretem of those wmnen
emlj who are dlsttirbed in their senBatJoii of delight by this form of
cohabitation, in vhom the orgasm is not prodnced, and who continue for
bonrs subsequently to be tormented by feelings of an unsatisfied desire."
Equally injurious effects follow in normal coitns when the man's orgasm
occurs too toon. "These phenomena, therefore,'' lie concludes, "are not
characteristic of interrupted coitus, but conaequencea of an imperfectly
coDchided sexnal cohabitation as each." Riach, likewise, in his elaborate
and ftothoritative work on The Setniat Life of Womatw. also states that
the question of the evil results of coitm tnferrupliia in women is simply
a question of whether or not they receive sexntl satisfaction. [Cf. also
FOrbrioger, Health and Diteate in Relation to Marriage, vol. i, pp. 232 et
eeq.) This is clearly the most reasonable rlev to take concerning what
Is the simplest, the most widespread, and certainly the most ancient of
the methods of preventing conception. In the Book of Qenests we find
it practiced by Onan, and to come down to modem times, in the Bixt«enth
century it seems to have been familiar to French ladies, who, according
to BrantAme, enjoined ft on their lovers.
Coitus rwervatus,— in which intercourse Is maintained even for very
long periods, during which the woman may have orgasm several times
while the man succeeds In holding back orgasm,— w> far from being
Injurious to the woman, is probably the form of coitns which gives her
the maximum of gratification and relief. For most men, however, it
seems probable that this eelf'Control over the processes leading to the
involuntary act of detumescence is difficult to acquire, while in Vi-eak,
nervous, and eretfaic persons it is Impossible. It is, however, a desirable
condition for completely adequate coitus, and in the East this is fully -
recognized, and the aptitude carefully cultivated. Thus W. D. Suther-
land states ("Einiges Uher das Alltagsleben und die Volksmedizin unter
den Bauem Britischostindiens," Manchener Medixiniaehe Wocheraehrift,
No. 13, IWW) that the Hindu smoke* and talks during intercourse in
order to delay orgasm, and sometimes applies an opium paste to the
glani of the penis for the same purpose. (See also vol. iii of these
Sttidlet, "The Sexual Impulse in Women.") Some authorities have,
indeed, stated that the prolongation ot the act of coitus is injurious in
its effect on the male. Thus R. W. Taylor (practical Treatise on Remiat
Diawrdera, third ed.. p. 121 ) states that it tends to cause atonic impo-
tence, and LSwenfeM [SemtalUhen und Nervenleiden, p. 74) thinlcs that
the swift and unimpeded culmination of the sexual act is necessary in
order to preserve the vigor of the reflex resctions. This is probably true
of extreme and often repented cases of indefinite prolongation of pro-
nounced erection without detumescence, but it is not true within fairly
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ART OP LOVE. 658
wide limifs in the case of henlthy persona. Prolonged eottug reservatus
•9ia% n practice of the complex marriage Hjatem of the Oneida community,
and I was aaiured by tlie late Noyee Miller, who had spent the greater
part of his life in the community, that the practice had no sort of evil
result. Coxtua re»ervatv» was erected into a principle in the Oneida
community. Every man In the community waa theoretically the husband
of e\'ery -n-oman, but every man waa not free to have children with every
woman. Scxunl initiation took place soon after puberty In tlie case of
boys, some yeara later in the ease of girla, by a much older peraon of ths
oppositescT. In Intercourse the male inserted his penis into thevagina and
retained it there for even an hour without emission, though orgasm took
place in the woman. There waa usually no emission in the case of the
man, even after withdrawal, and he felt no need of emission. The social
feeling of the community waa a force on the aide of this practice, the
carelesa, unskilful men being avoided by women, while the general
romantic sentiment of affection for all the women in the community waa
also a force. Maaturbation was unknown, and no irregular relationa took
place with persons outside the community. The practice was maintained
for thirty j'ears, and was finally abandoned, not on ita demerits, but In
deference to the opinions of the outside world. Mr. Miller admitted that
the practice became more difficult in ordinary marriage, which favors a
more mechanical habit of intercourse. The information received from
Mr. Miller ia aupplemented in a pamphlet entitled Male Coatinenee (the
name given to eotfas resercntus in the community), written in 1872 by
the founder, John Humphrey Noyea. The practice is based, ho says, on
the fact that aexual intercourse consists of two acts, a social and a
propagative, and that if propagation is to be scientific there must be
no confusion of these two acts, and procreation must never be involnn-
tary. It waa in 1844, he states, that this idea occurred to him as a
result of a resolve to abstain from sexual intercourse in consequence of
his wife's delicate health and inability to bear healthy children, and in
hia own rase he found tho practice "a great deliverance. It made a
happy household." He points out that the chief members of the Oneida
community "belonged to the moat respectable families In Vermont, had
been educated in the best schools of New England raorafity and refine-
ment, and were, by the ordinary standards, irreproachable In their con-
duct BO far At sexual matters are concerned, till they deliberately
commenced, in 1846, the experiment of a new state of society, on prln-
ciplts which they had been long maturing and were prepared to defend
before the world." In relation to male continence, therefore, Noyes
thought the community might fairly be considered "the Committee of
Providence to test its value In actual life." He states that a careful
medical comparison of the statistics of the community had shown that
the rate of nervous disease in the community waa considerably below the
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554 PSTCHOLOQT OP SEX.
Breraga outside, and that onlj two cases of nervous disorder had occurred
which could be tratred with any probability to a misuse of male contin-
ence. This has been confirmed by Van de Warker, who studied (orty-
two women of the community without finding any undue prevalence of
reproductive diseases, nor could he find any diseased condition attribu-
table to the sexual habits of the communi^ {of. C. Reed, TexlBook of
Oyneeology, 1901, p. 9).
Naves believed that, "male continence" had never prsvionslj been
a definitely recogniwd practice based on theory, though there might have
been occasional approximatioo to it. This is probably true if the coitus
is reacrvatua in the full sense, with complete absence of emisBion. Pro-
longed coitus, however, perinitting the woman to have orgasm more than
once, while the man has none, has long been recognized. Thus in the seven-
teenth century Zacchia discussed whether such a practice is legitimate
(Zacchiie Qiteationum Opus, ed. of 1688, lib. vii, tit. iii, quest VI). In
modem times it is occasionally practiced, without any theory, and ia
always appreciated by the woman, while it appears to have no bad effect
on the man. In such a case it will happen that the act of coitus may
last for an hour and a quarter or even longer, the maximum of the
woman's pleasure not being reached until three-quarters of an hour have
passed; during this period the woman will experience orgasm some four
or five times, the man only at the end. It may occasionally happen that
a little later the woman again experiences desire, and intercourse begins
afresh in the same way. But after that she Is satisfied, and there is no
recurrence of desire.
It may be desirable at this point to refer briefiy to the chief varia-
tions in the method of eD'ecting coitus in their relationship to the art of
love and the attainment of adequate and satisfying detumescence.
The primary and essential characteristic of the specifically human
method of coitus is the fact that it takes place face to face. The fact
that in what is usually considered the typically normal method of coitus
the woman lies supine and the man above her is secondary. Psyciiically,
this front- to-front attitude represents a great advance over tlie quadru-
pedal method. The two partners reveal to each other the most important,
the most beautiful, the most expressive sides of themselves, and thua
multiply the mutual pleasure and harmony of the intimate act of union.
Moreover, this face-to-face attitude possessos a greot significance, in the
fact that it is the outward sign that the human couple has outgrown
the animal sexual attitude of the hunter seizing his prey in the act of
flight, and content to enjoy it in that attitude, from behind. The human
male may be said to retain the same attitude, but the female has turned
round; she has faced her partner and approached him, and so symbolizea
her deliberate consent to the act of union.
The human varialions in the exercise of coitus, both individual and
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ART OF LOVE. 555
national, are, however, extremely numerous. "To be quite frank," says
FilrbriQger (Senator and Kaminer, Health and DUeaae tn Relation to
Marriage, vol. i, p. 213), "I ran liardly think of any combination which
does not figure among my case-notes bb having been practiced by my
patients." We must not too hastily conclude that such variations are
due to vicious training. That ia (ar from being the case. They
often occur naturally and spontaneously. Freud has properly pointed
out (in the second series of his BeitrUge mir NeuroaenltKre, "Bruchstflck"
etc.) that we must not be too shocked even when the idea of fellaiio
spontaneously presents itself to a woman, for that idea has a harmless
origin in the resemblance between the penis and the nipple. Similarly,
it may be added, the desire for mtnnilinctM, which seems to be much more
often latently present in women than is the desire for its performance in
men, has a natural analogy in the pleasure of suckling, a pleasure which
Is itself indeed often erotically tinged (see vol. iv of these 8lwiie»,
"Sexual Selection in Man," Touch. Sect. III).
Every variation in this matter, remarks Remy de Gourmont (Pfcy-
»ique de VAmour, p. 2S4) partakes of the sin of luxury, and some of the
theologians have indeed considered any position in coituK but that which
is usually called normal in Europe as a mortal sin. Other theologians,
however, regarded such variations as only venial sins, provided ejacula-
tion took place in the vagina, just as some theologians would permit
iiTumafto as a preliminary to coitus, provided there was no ejaculation.
Aquinas took a serious view of the deviations from normal intercourse;
Sanchez was more indulgent, especially in view of his doctrine, derived
from the Greek and Arabic natural philosophers, that the womb can
attract the sperm, so tliat the natural end may be attained even in
unusual positions.
Whatever diffprence of opinion there may have )>een among ancient
theologians, it is well recognized by modern physicians that variations
from the ordinary method of coitus are desirable in special cases. Thus
Kiscb points out (SicriiitSi dca Weibea, p lOT) that in some cases it is
only possible for the woman to experience sexual excitement when coitus
takes place in the lateral position, or m the a posteriori position, or
when the usual position is reversed and in his Rexual Life of Woman,
also, Kisch recommends several variations of position for coitus. Adler
points out (op. oil., pp. 1G1, IB6) the value of the same positions In
some cases, and remarks that such variations often call forth latent
sexual feelings as by a charm. Such cases are indeed, by no means Infrc'
quent, the advantage of the unusual position being due either to physical
or psychic causes, and the discovery of the right variation is sometimes
found in a merely playful attempt. It has occasionally happened, also,
that when intercourse has hnbitually taken place in an abnormal position,
no satisfaction is experienced by the woman until the normal position is
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556 PSTCIIOLOGY OF SEX.
adopted. The only fairly aommon variation of coitus which meets witb
unqualiOed disapproval ie that in the erect posture. (See e.g., Hammond,
op. cit. pp. 257 et seq.)
Lucretius speciolly recommended the quadrupedal variation
of coitus (Bk. iv, 125S), and Ovid describes (end of B]<. iii of the Art
Amatoiia ) what he regards ax agreeable variations, giving the preference,
as the easiest and simplest method, to that in which the woman lies half
supine on her side. Perhaps. hoH'ever, the variation which is nearest to
the normal attitude and which has most often and most completely com-
mended itself is that apparently known to Arabic erotic writers as dole
el art, in which the man is seated and his partner is astride his thighs,
embracing his body with her legs and his neck with her arms, while he
embraces her waist; this is stated in the Arabic Perfumed Garden to be
the method preferred by most women.
The other most usuhI variation is the inverse normal position in
which the man is supine, and the woman adapts herself to this poeition,
which permits of several modifications obviously advantageous, especially
when the man is much larger than his partner. The Christian as well
as the Mnhommedan theologians appear, indeed, to have been generally
opposed to this superior position of the female, apparently, it would
seem, because they regarded the literal subjection of the male which it
involves as symbolic of a moral subjection. The testimony of many peo-
ple to-day, hou'cver, is decidedly in favor of this position, more especially
as regards the woman, since it enables her to obtain a better adjustment
and greater control of the process, and bo frequently to secure sexual
satisfaction which she may find difficult or impossible in the normal
Tlie theologians seem to have been less unfavorably disposed to the
position normal among quadrupeds, a posterior*, though the old Peni-
tentials were inclined to treat it severely, the Penitential of Angers pre-
scribing forty days penance, and Egbert's three years, if practiced
habitually. (It is discussed by J. Petermann, "Venus Aversa," Beaval-
Probleme, Feb., 1900). Tliere are good reasons why in many caaes tbi»
position should be desirable, more especially from the point of view of
women, who indeed not infrequently prefer it. It must be alwaya remem-
bered, as has already been pointed out, that In the progress from anthro-
poid to man it is the female, not themale, whose metbodof coitus hasbeen
revolutionized. While, however, the obverse human position represents a
psychic advance, there has never been a complete physical readjustment
of the female organs to the obverse method. More especially, in Adler's
opinion (op. fit., pp. 117-119), the position of the clitoris is euch that,
as a rule, it is more easily excited by coitus from behind than from in
front. A more recent writer, Klotz, in his book. Drr Henaeh ein Tier-
fussier linOR), even takes the too extreme position that the quadrupedal
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AflT OF LOVE. 657
method of coitus, being the only method that insures due contact with
the clitoris, is the natural human method. It must, however, be
admitted that the posterior mode of coitus is not onlj' a widespread, but
a very important variation, in either of its two most important forms:
th« Pompeiian method, in which the woman bends forwards and the man
approaches behind, or the method described by Boccaccio, in which the
man is supine and the woman astride.
Fellatio and eunnilinctuB, while they are not strictly methods of
coitus, in so far as thej do not involve the penetration of the penis into
the vagina, are very widespread as preliminaries, or as vicarious forms
of coitus, alike among civilized and uncivilized peoples. Thus, in Indin,,
I am told that fellatio is almost universal in households, and regarded
as a natural duty towards the paterfamilias. As regards cunnilinctaa
Max Deseoir has stated iAllgemeine Zeitschrift fur Paychtalrie, 1S04,
Heft S) that the superior Berlin prostitutes say that about a quarter
of their clients desire to exercise this, and that in France and Italy the
proportion is higher; the number of women who find cuanilinctas
agreeable is without doubt much greater. Intercourse per anutn must
also be regarded as a viearioua form of coitus. It appears to be not uncom-
mon, especially among the lower social classes, and while most often
duB to the wish ta avoid conoeptlon, it ia also sometimes practiced as
& sexual aberration, at the wish either of the man or the woman, the
anus being to some extent an erogenoua zone.
The ethnic rariations in method of coitus were briefly discussed
in volume v of these Btudiea, "The MeclianJsm of Detumescence," Sec-
tion n. In all civilized countries, from the earliest times, writers on
the erotic art hare formally and systematically set forth the different
positions for coitus. The earliest writing of this kind now extant seems
to be an Egyptian papyrus preserved at Turin of the dale B. C. 1300;
in this, fourteen different positions are represented. The Indians,
according to Iwan Bloch, recognize altogether forty-eight different posi-
tjons; the Ananga Ranga describes thirtv-tivo main forms. Tho
Mohammedan Petfiimed Oarden describes forty forms, as well as six
different kinds of movement during coitus. The Eastern books of this
kind are, on the whole, superior to those that have been produced by
the Western world, not only by their greater thoroughness, but by the
higher spirit by which they have often been inspired.
The ancient Greek erotic writings, now all lost, in which the
modes of coitus were described, were nearly alt attributed to women.
According to a legend recorded by Suidas, Ihe earliest writer of this
kind was As^nassa, the maid of Helen of Troy. Elephantis, the
poetess, is supposed to have enumerated nine different postures. Numer-
ous women of Inter date wrote on these subjects, and one book is
attributed to Polycrates, tie sophist.
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568 PSYCIIOLOGT OF SEX.
Aretlno — who wrote after the influence of OiriHtUnity had
degraded erotic matters perilously near to that region of pornographj'
from which they Ate only to-day beginning to be rescued — in his Son-
netli Luaauriim described twenty-six difTerent methods of coitus, each
one accompanied by an illustrative design by Giulio Romano, the chief
among Raphael's pupils. Veniero, in his Puttana Errante, described
thirty-two positions. More recently Forberg, the chief modem authority,
has enumerated ninety positions, but, it is said, only forty-eight can,
even on the most liberal estimate, be regarded as coming within the
range of normal variation.
The disgrace which has overtaken tlie sexual act, and rendered it
a deed of darkness, Is doubtless largely responsible for the fact that the
chief time for its consummation among modem civilized peoples is the
darkness of the early night in stulTy bedrooms when the fatigue of the
day's labors is struggling with the artificial stimulation produced by
heavy meals and alcoholic drinks. This habit Is partly responsible for
the indifference or even disgust with which women sometimes view
coitus.
Many more primitive peoples are wiser. The New Guinea Papuans
of Astrolabe Bay, according to Vahness (ZeUschrift fur Ethnologie,
]900, Heft 6, p 414), though it must be remembered that the sasociation
of the sexual act with darkness Is much older than Christianity, and
connected with early religious notions {cf, Hesiod, Works and Days.
Bk. II), always have sexual intercourse in the open air. The hard-
working women of the Gebvuka and Buru Islands, again, are too
tired for coitus at night; it is carried out in the day time under
the trees, and the Serang Islanders also have coitus in the woods (Plosa
and Bartels, Dan Wcib. Bk. i, Ch. XVII).
It is obviouBly impracticable to follow these examples In modem
cities, even if avocation and climate permitted. It is also agreed that
sexual intercourse should be followed by repose. There seems to be
little doubt, however, that the early morning and the daylight are a
more favorable time than the early night. Conception should take place
in the light, said Michelet {VAmour, p. 153); sexual intercourse In
the darkness of night is an act committed with a mere female animal;
in the day-time it is union with n loving and beloved individual person.
This has been widely recognized. The Greeks, as we gather from
Aristophanes in the ArcAarni'niw, regarded sunrise as the appropriate
time (or coitus. The South Slavs also say that dawn Is the time fof
coitus. Many modem authorities have urged the advantages of early
morning coitus. Morning, said Roubaud (Trait f de Vlmpuitsatioe, pp.
IGl-3) is the time for coitus, and even if desire is greater in the evening,
pleasure Is greater in the morning. Osiander also advised early morn-
ing coitus, and Venette, in an earlier century, discussing "at what hour
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ABT OF LOVE. 559
a man should amorousljr embrace hie wife" (La Ointralion de I'Bomme,
Part II, Ch. V), while thinking it is beat to follow inclination, remarkB
that "a beautiful woman looks better by sunlight than by candlelight."
A few authorities, like Burdach, have been content to accept the custom
of night coitus, and Bosch {Dot Oe»chleoht»leben dea Weihea, vol. i, p.
214) was inclined to think the darkness of night the most "natural"
time, while POrbringer (Senator and Kamlner, Bealth and Disease in
ReUtlion to Marriage, vol. t, p. 217) thinks that early morning is
"occasionally" the best time.
To some, on the other hand, the exercise of sexual intercourse in
the sunlight and the open air seems so important that they are inclined
to elevate it to the rank of a reli^ous exercise. I quote from a com-
munication on this point received from Australia: "This shameful
thing that must not be spoken of or done (except in the dark) will some
day, 1 believe, become the one reli^ous ceremony of the human race,
in the spring, (Oh, what springs ! ) People will have become very sane,
well-bred, aristocratic (all of them aristocrata), and on the whola
opposed to rites and superstitions, for thay will have a perfect knowl-
edge of the past. The coition of lovers in the springtime will Im the
one religious ceremony they will allow themselves. -I have a vision
sometimes of the holy scene, but I am afraid it is too beauUful to
describe. The intercourse of the sexes, W>^vc dreamed, is ineffably
beautiful, too fair to be remembered,' wrote the chaste Thoreau. Verily
human beauty, joy, and love will reach their divineat height during
those Inaugural days of springtide coupling. When the world is one
Paradise, the consummation of the lovers, the youngest and most beau-
tiful, win take place in certain sacred valleys in sight of thousands
assembled to witness it. For days it will take place in these valleys
where the sun will rise on a dream of passionate voices, of clinging
human forms, of dowers and waters, and the purple and gold of the
sunrise are reflected on hills illumined with pansies. [I know not if
the writer recalled George Chapman's "Enamelled pansies used at
nuptials stiirn, and repeated on golden human flesh and human hair.
In these sacred valleys the subtle perfume of the pansies will mingle
with the divine fragrance of healthy naked young women and men In
the spring coupling. You and I shall not see that, but we may help
tn make it possible," This rhapsody (an nneonsclous repetition of
Saint-Lambert's at Mile. Qulnault's table in the eighteenth century)
serves to illustrate the revolt which tends to take place against the
unnatural and artificial degradation of the sexual act
In seme parts of the world it has seemed perfectly natural and
reaaonable that' so great and significant an act as that of coitus should
be consecrated to the divinity, and hence arose the custom of prayer
before sexual intercourse. Thus Zoroaster ordained that a married
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660 PSTCHOLOfiY OF SEX.
couple should pray before coitus, and after the act tbey should Mj
together; "O, Sapondomad, I trust this seed to thee, preserve It for
me, for it is a man." Id the Gorong Archipelago it is custoinarj also
for husband and wife to pray together before the sexual act (Ploaa and
BarteU, Dot Weih, Bd. i, Cli. XVII). The civilized man, however, has
come to regard his stomach as the roost important of his organs, and
he utters his conventional grace, not before love, but only before food.
Even the degraded ritual vestiges of the religious recognition of coitus
are difficult to And in Europe. We may perhaps detect it among the
Spaniards, with their tenacious instinct for ritual, in the solemn
etiquette with which, in the seventeenth century, it was customary,
according to Madame d'Aulnay, for the King to enter the bedchamber of
the Queen: "He has on his slippers, his black mantle over his shoulder,
his shield on one arm, a bottle hanging by a cord over the other arm
(this bottle is not to drinit from, but for a quite opposite purpose, which
you will guess). With all this the King must also have bis great sword
in one hand and a dark lantern in the other. In this way he must
«nter, alone, the Queen's chamber" (Madame d'Aulnay, Belatitm dv
Voyage d'Eapagne, 16B2, vol, iii, p. 221).
In discussing the art of love it la necessary to give a primary
place to the central facPof coitus, on account of the ignorance
that widely prevails concerning it, and the unfortunate prejudices
which in their fungous broods flourish in the noisome obscurity
aronnd it. The traditions of the Christian Church, which over-
spread the whole of Europe, and set up for worship a Divine
Virgin and her Divine Son, both of whom it elaborately dis-
engaged from personal contact with sexuality, effectually crushed
any attempt to find a sacred and avowable ideal in married
love. Even the Church's own efforts to elevate matrimony were
negatived by its own ideals. That influence depresses our civili-
zation even to-day. When Walt Whitman wrote his "Children of
Adam" he was giving imperfect expression to conceptions of the
religious nature of sexual love which hare existed wholesomely
and naturally in all parts of the world, but had not yet pene-
trated the darkness of Christendom where they still seemed
strange and new, if not terrible. And the refusal to recognize
the solemnity of sex had involved the placing of a pall of black-
ness and disrepute on the supreme sexual act iterlf. It was shut
out from the sunshine and excluded from the sphere of worship.
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AHT OF LOTE. 561
The Bemal act is important from the point of view of erotic
art, not only from the ignorance and prejudices which Burround
it, but also because it has a real value even in regard to tlie
psychic side of married life. "These organs," according to the
oft-quoted saying of the old French physician, Ambrose Pare,
"make peace in the household." How this comes about we see
illustrated from time to time in Pepys's Diary. At the same time,
it is scarcely necessary to say, after all that has gone before, that
this ancient source of domestic peace tends to be indefinitely
complicated by the infinite variety in erotic needs, which become
ever more pronounced witli the growth of civilization. ^
The art of love is, indeed, only beginning with the establish-
ment of sexual intercourse. In the adjustment of that relation-
ship all the forces of nature are so strongly engaged that under
completely favorable conditions — which indeed very rarely occur
in our civilization — the knowledge of the art and a poasible skill
in its exercise come almost of themselves. The real test of the
artist in love is in the skill to carry it beyond the period when
the interests of nature, having been really or seemingly secured,
begin to slacken. The whole art of love, it has been well said,
lies in forever finding something new in the same person. The
art of love is even more the art of retaining love than of arousing
it. Otherwise it tends to degenerate towards the Shakespearian
lust,
"Paat reason hunted, and no sooner had.
Past reason bated,"
though it must be remembered that even from the most strictly
natural point of view the transitions of passion are not normally
towards repulsion but towards affection. ^
The young man and woman who are brought into the com-
plete unrestraint of marriage after a prolonged and unnatural
separation, during which desire and the satisfactions of desire
- Thus, among the Eskimo, who practice temporary wife-exchan^,
Rasmnnsen states that "a man generally discovers that his own wife
is, in spite of all, the best,"
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662 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
have been artiiicially disconnected, are certainly not under the
beet conditioQB for learning the art of love. They are tempted
by reckleee and promiBcuous indulgence in the intimacies of
marriage to fling carelessly aside all the reasons that make that
art worth learning. "There are married people," as Ellen Key
remarks, "who might have loved each other all their lives if they
had not been compelled, every day and all the year, to direct
their habits, wills, and inclinations towards each other."
All the tendencies of our civilized life are, in personal
matters, towards individualism ; they involve the specialization,
and they ensure the sacrednese, of personal habits and even
peculiarities. This individualism cannot be broken down sud-
denly at the arbitrary dictation of a tradition, or even by the
force of passion from which the restraints have been removed. Out
of deference to the conventions and prejudices of their friends,
or out of the reckless abandonment of young love, or merely out
of a fear of hurting each other's feelings, young couples have
often plunged prematurely into an unbroken intimacy which is
even more disastrous to the permanency of marriage than the
failure ever to reach a complete intimacy at all. That is one of
the chief reasons why most writers on the moral hygiene of mar-
riage nowadays recommend separate beds for the married couple,
if possible separate bedrooms, and even sometimes, with Ellen
Key, see no objection to their living in separate houses. Cer-
tainly the happiest marriages have often involved the closest and
most unbroken intimacy, in persons peculiarly fitted for such
intimacy. It is far from true that, as Bloch has affirmed,
familiarity is fatal to love. It is deadly to a love that has no
roots, but it is the nourishment of the deeply-rooted love. Yet
it remains true that absence is needed to maintain the keen fresh-
ness and fine idealism of love. "Absence," as Landor said, "la
the invisible and incorporeal mother of ideal beauty." The mar-
ried lovers who are only able to meet for comparatively brief
periods between long absences have often experienced in these
meetings a life-long succession of honeymoons.^
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ART OF LOVE, 563
There can be no question that as presence haa its risks for
love, so also has absence. Absence like presence, in the end, if
too prolonged, eiTacea the memory of love, and absence, further,
by the multiplied points of contact with the world which it
frequently involves, introduces the problem of jealousy, although,
it must be added, it is difficult indeed to secure a degree of asso-
ciation which excludes jealousy or even the opportunities for
motives of jealousy. The problem of jealousy is so fundamental
in the art of love that it is necessary at this point to devote to it
a brief discussion.
Jealousy is based on fundamental instincts which are visible
at the beginning of animal life, Descartes defined jealooay as
"a kind of fear related to a desire to preserve a possession."
Every impulse of acquisition in the animal world is stimulated
into greater aetivitv by the presence of a rival who may snatch
beforehand the coveted object. This seems to be a fundamental
fact in the animal world ; it has been a life-conserving tendency,
.for, it has been said, an animal that stood aside while its fellows
were gorging themselves with food, and experienced nothing but
pure satisfaction in tlie spectacle, would speedily perish. But
in this fact we have the natural basis of jealousy.'
It is in reference to food that this impulse appears first and
most conspicuously among animals. It is a well-known fact that
human nature, that a married ranple need not be always together t« be
happy, and that in faot reaxonable absences and partings tend towards
ultimate and closer union." That the prolon^tion of passion is onlv
compatible with absence scarcely needs pointing out; as Mary Wolf-
stonecraft long since said (Rights of Woman, ori^nal ed.. p. 61). it is
only in absence or in misfortune that paBsion is durable. It may be
added, however, that in her love-letters to Imlay she wrote; "I have
ever declared that two people who mean to live together ought not to
be long separated."
1 "Viewed broadly," Hays Arnold L. Gesell, in his interesting study
of "Jealousy" (American Journal of Pgychologif. Oct.. 1606) , "jealousy
seems such a necessary psycholo)>ical accompaniment to biological be-
havior, amidst competitive struggle, that one is tempted to consider It
genetically among the oldest of the emotions, synoj'moua almost with the
will to live, and to make it scs.Tcely less fundamental than fear'or snger,
In fact, jealousy readily passes into anger, and is itself a brand of fear.
, . . . In sociability and mutual aid we see the other side of the
shield; but jealousy, however anti-eocia! it may be. retains a function
in zofilo^cal economy: viz., to conserve the individual as against the
group. It is Nature's great corrective for the purely social emotions."
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564 PSTCHOLOOY OF SEX.
association with other animals inducea an animal to eat much
more than when kept by himself. lie ceases to eat from hunger
but eats, hb it has been put, in order to preserre his food from
rivals in the only strong box he knows. The same feeling is
transferred among animals to tiie field of sex. And further in
the relations of dogs and other domesticated animals to their
masters the emotion of icnlousy is often very keenly marked. *
Jealousy is an emotion which is at its maximum among
animals, among savages,^ among children,^ in the senile, in the
degenerate, and very specially in chronic alcoholicc.^ It is
worthy of note that the supreme artists and masters of the
human heart who have most consummately represented the
tragedy of jealousy clearly recognized that it is eitlier atavistic
or pathological ; Shakespeare made liis Othello a barbarian, and
Tolstoy made the Pozdnischeff of his Krevtzer Sonata a lunatic.
It ia an anti-social emotion, though it has been maintained by
some that it has been the cause of chastity and fidelity. Gesell,
for instance, while admitting its anti-social character and*
accumulating quotations in evidence of the torture and disaster it
occasions, seems to think that it still ought to be encouraged in
order to foster sexual virtues. Very decided opinions have been
expressed in the opposite sense. Jealousy, like other shadows,
says Ellen Key, belongs only to the dawn and the setting of love,
IManj illustrations are brought together in GeseU'a studj of
"Jealousy."
Z Jealousy aiitong lower races may be disguised or modifled by
tribal cuBtoms. Thus Rasiuusseii [People of (fce Polar North, p. 86)
aaya in reference to the Eskimo cuatom of wife-eichange : "A man once
told me that he only b«at bis wife when she would not receive other
men. She would have nothing to do with anyone but him — and that
was her only failing!" Raamussen elsewhere shows that the EBkimo
are capable of extreme j'ealousv.
8 See, e.y., Moll, BexuiiHeben des Kiitdeg, p. 158; ef., Qe»eira "Study
of Jealousy."
* Jealousy 1b notoriously common Rmoni; dninkards. As K. Bim-
bauro points out ("Das Sexualleben der AlkokoIIsten," Uemial-Problcvif.
Jan., IS09), this jealousy is. in most cases, more or less well-founded,
for the wife, di^^sted with her husband, naturally seeks sympathy and
companionship elsewhere. Alcoholic jealousy, howevcT, goes far beyond
its basia of support In fact, and is entangled with delusions and
hallucinations. (See e.ij. O. Dumas. "La Logique d'nn Wment." Reriw
Pliilo$ophi<iiir Feb., IflOfi; also Stefanowski, ".Morbid Jealousy," Alienist
and NeurologiBt, July, 1S93.)
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ART OF LOVE. 66S
and a man Bhoold feci that it is a miracle, aiul not liis ri^t, if
the sun stands still at the zenith.^
Even therefore if jealousy has been a beneiicial inSuence at
the beginning of ciyiliiation, as well as among animals, — as may
probably be admitted, though on the whole it scema rather to be
the by-product of a beneficial influence than such an influence
iteelf, — it is still by no means clear that it therefore becomes a
desirable emotion in more advanced stages of civilization. There
are many primitive emotions, like anger and fear, which we do
not think it desirable to encourage in complex civilized Eocieties
but rather seek to restrain and control, and even if we are
inclined to attribute an original value to jealousy, it seems to be
among these emotions that it ought to be placed.
Mias GappertoR, in discussing tliis probTpm (Sckntifie Melioritnb,
pp. 129-137), follows Darwin [DesceHl of Man, Part I, CTi. IV) in think-
ing that jealous}' led to "thp inculcation of female virtue," but she addt
that it has also l>etn a muse nf woman's snbjectioQ, and now needs to
be eliminated. "To rid ourselves as rapidly an may be of jealousf is
essential; otherwise the great movement in favor of equality of sex
will necessarily meet with checks and grave obatruction."
Kibot {La Logique de» Sentiments, pp. 75 et aeq.; B»sa% sur
les PaasioTiS, pp. 91. 175], while stating that subjectively the estimate
of jealonay must differ in accordance with the ideal of life held, con-
siders that ohjertivelj- we must incline to an nnfavorable estimate
"Even a brief passion is a, rupt\ire in the normal life; it ia an abnormal,
if not a pathological utafe, an ejcrescencc, a parasitism."
Forel (Die Semtlle Frage, Ch. V) speaks very strongly in the
same sense, and considers that it ia necessary to eliminate jealousy by
non-procreation of the jealous. Jealousy is, he declares, "the worst and
unfortunately the most deeply-rooted of the 'irradiations,' or, better, the
'contraet-rcactions.' of sexual love inherited from our animal ancestors.
An old German saying, 'Eifersucht ist eine T.eidenschaft die mlt Eifer
ancht waa Leider schafft.' says by no means too much
Jealousy is a heritage of animnlity and barbarism; I would recall thia
to those who, under the name of 'injured honor.' attempt to Justify it
and place it on a high pedestal. An unfaithful husband is ten timea
more to be wished for a woman than a jealous husband. . . . Wo
often hear of 'justiflahle jealouay.' I believe, however, that there Is no
justlfiahle jealouay; it is nlwaya atarislic or elae pathoIo|^cal; at the
1 Ellen Key, Ueber Licbe tind She, p. 335.
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566 PSTCUOLOGY OF SEX.
best it is nothinf; more than a brutal nnimal stupidifT'. A man who,
by nature, that ia bv hia hpreditarj' constitwtion, is jealous ii certaia
to poiaon his own life and that of his nife. Such men ought on no
account to many. Both education and selection should work together
to eliminate jealousy as far as possible from the human brain."
Eric Gillard in an article on "Jealousy" iFree Revieie, Sept.,
1806), in opposition to those who believe tlint jealousy "makes the
home," declares that. i>n the contrarf, it is the chief force that unmakes
the home. "So long as egotism waters it with the tears of sentiment
and shields it from the cold blasts of scientific inquiry, oo long will it
thrive. But the time will come when it will be burned In the Garden
of Love as a noxiouB weed. Its mephitic influence in society is too
palpable to be overlooked. It turns homes that might be sanctuaries of
love into hells of discord and hate; it causes suicides, and it drives
thousands to drink, reckless excesses, and madness. Makes the home!
One of your married men friends sees a probable seducer in every man
who smiles at his wife; anotlier is jealous of his wife's women actiuain-
tances; a third is wounded because his wife shows so much attention
to the children. Some of the women you know display jealousy of every
other woman, of their husband'? acquaintances, and some, of his very
dog. You must be completely monopolized or you do not thoroughly
love. You must admire no one but the person with whom you have
immured yourself for life. Old friendships must be dissolved, new
friendships must not be formed, for tear of invoking the beautiful
emotion that 'makes the home.' "
Even if jealouey in matters of sex could be admitted to be an
emotion working on theeide of civilised progrese, it must still be
pointed out that it merely acts externally; it can have little or no
real influence; the jealous person seldom makes himself more
lovable by his jealousy and frequently much less lovable. The
main efFect of his jealousy is to increase, and not seldom to
excite, the causes for jealousy, and at the same time to encourage
hypocrisy.
All the circumstances, accompaniments, and results of domestic
jealousy in their completely typical form, are well illustrated by a very
serious episode in the historj' of the Pepys household, and have been
fully and faithfully set down by the great diarist. The offence — an
embrace of hia wife's lady-help, as she might now be termed — was a
slight one, but, as Pepys himself admits, quite inexcusable. He is writ-
ing, being in his thirtri- -sixth year, on the 25th of Oct., ISSf) (Lord's
Day). "After supper, to have my bnir combed by Deb, which occasioned
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ART or LOYE, 667
the greateat sorrow to me that ever I knew in this world, for my wife,
coming up suddenly, did find me embracing the girl I was
at a wonderful Iobb upon it, and the girl also, and I endeavored to put
it off, but my wife was struck mute and grew angry Heart-
ily afflicted for this folly of mine So ends this month," be
writes a few days later, "with some quiet to my mind, though not per-
fect, after the greatest falling out with my poor wife, and through ray
folly with the girl, that ever I had, and I have reason to be sorry and
ashamed of it, and more to be troubled for the poor girl's sake. Sixth
November. Up, and presently my wife up with me, which she professedly
now do every day to dress me, that I may not see Willet [Deb], and do
eye me, whether I caat my eye upon her, or no, and do keep me from
going into the room where she is. Ninth November. Up, and I did, by
a little note which I flung to Deb, advise her that I did continue to deny
that ever I kissed ber, and so she might govern herself. The truth it
that I did adventure upon God's pardoning me this lie, knowing how
heavy a thing it would be for me, to the ruin of the poor girl, and next
knowing that if my wife should know all it would be impossible for her
ever to be at peace with me again, and so our whole lives would be
uncomfortable. The girl read, and as I bid her returned me the note,
flinging it to me in passing by." Next day, however, he is "mightily
troubled," for his wife has obtained a confession from the girl of the
kissing. For some nights -Mr, and Mrs. Pepya are both sleepless, with
much weeping on either side. Deb gets another place, leaving on the
14th of November, and Pepys is never able to see her before she leaves
the house, his wife keeping him always under her eye. It is evident
that Pepys now feels strongly attracted to Deb. though there Is no
evidence of this before she became the subject of the quarrel. On the
13th of November, hearing she was to leave next day, be writes: "Tlia
truth is I have a good mind to have the maidenhead of this girl." Ho
was, however, the "more troubled to see how my wife is by this means
likely forever to have her hand over me, and that I shall forever be a
slave to her — that is to say, only in matters of pleasure." At the same
time his love for his wife was by no means diminished, nor hers for
him. "I must here remark," be says, "that I have lain with my moher
{i.e., muger, wife] as a husband more times since this falling out than
in, I believe, twelve months before. And with more pleasure to her
than in all the time of our marriage before." The next day was Sun-
day. On Monday Pepys at once begins to make inquiries which will
put him on the track of Deb. On the I8th he finds her. She gets up
into the coach with him, and he kisses her and takes liberties with her,
at the same time advising her "to have a care of her honor and to fear
God," allowing no one else to do what he has done; he also tells her
how she can find him If she desires. Pepys now feels that everything
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668 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
is wttled Mtisfactori];, And hit heui la full of joy. But hia jo}> U
short-Hvcil, for Mrs. Pepys diseorers this interview with Deb on the
following daj. Pepys deniea it at first, thra confeaeea, aiDd there is a
more furious scene than ever. Pepye Js now really Alarmed, for Ilia
wife threatens to leave tilm; he definitely abandons Dth, aod with
prayers to Ood resolven never to do the like again. Mrs. Pepys ia not
aatiafled, however, till she makes her husband write a letter to Deb,
telling her that she is little better than a, whore, and that he hates her,
thongh Deb is spared thia, not by any stratagem of Pepya, but by the
considerateness of the friend to whom the letter was entrusted for
deliTery. Moreover, Mrs. Pepya arranges with her husband that, in
futnre, whenever he goes abroad he ahall be accompanied everywhere by
hia clerk. We aee that Mrs. Pepya ptaya with what appears to be
triumphant skill and success the part of the jealous and avenging wife,
and digs her little French heels remorselessly into her prostrate husband
and her rival. Unfortunately, we do not know what the final outcome
was, lor a little later, owing to trouble with his eyesight, Pepya was
compelled to bring hia Diary to an (-nd. It is evident, however, when
we survey the whole of thta perhaps typical episode, that neither husband
nor wife were in the slightest defn^e prepared for the commonplace posi-
tion into which they were thrown ; that each of them appears in a
painful, undignified, and humiliating light; that as a result of it the
husband acquires aimoat a genuine and atrong affection for the girl
who is the cauae of the quarrel ; and finally that, even though he is
compelled, for the time at all eventE, to yield to his wife, he remains
at the end exactly what he was at the beginning. Nor had husband or
wife the very alighteat wish to leave each other; the bond of marriage
remained firm, but it had been degraded by insincerity on one side and
the jealous endeavor on the other to secure fidelity by compulsion.
Apart altogether, however, from the question of its effective-
ness, or even of the misery that it caaees to all concerned, it is
evident that jealousy is incompatible with all the tendencies of
civilization. We have seen that a certain degree of variation is
involved in the sexual relationship, as in all other relationships,
and unlesB we are to continue to perpetuate many evils and
injustices, that fact has to be faced and recognized. We have
also seen that the line of our advance involves a constant increase
in moral responsibility and self-government, and that, in its turn,
implies not only a high degree of sincerity hut also the recog-
nition that no person has any right, or indeed any power, to con-
trol the emotions and actions of another person. If our sun of
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-ART OF LOVE. 569
love stands etill at midday, according to Ellen Key's phrase, that
is a miracle to be greeted with awe and gratitude, and by no
means a right to be demanded. The claim of jealousy falls with
the claim of conjugal rights.
It is quite posaible, Bloch remarks {The Sexual Life of Our Time,
Ch. X), to love more than one person at the game time, with nearly
equal tendemeas, and to b« honestly able to assure each of the paeaion
felt for her or him. Bloch adds that the vast psjchic differentiation
involved hy modern civilization increases the possibility of this double
loye, for it is difficult for anyone to find his complement in a single
person, and that this applies to women as well as to men.
Georg Birth likewise points out (Wege zur Beimat, pp. 643-SS2)
that it is important to remember that women, as well aa men, can tove
two persons at the same time. Men flatter themaetves. he remarks, with
the prejudice tliat the female heart, or rather brain, can only hold one
man at a time, and that if there ia a second man it is by a kind of
prostitution. Nearly all erotic writers, poets, and novelists, even phy-
sicians and psychologiats, belong to this class, he f&\%-, they look on
a woman as property, and of course two men cannot "possess" a woman.
(Regarding novelists, however, the remark may be interpolated th«J
there are many exceptions, and Thomas Hardy, for instance, frequently
represents a woman as more or leas in love with two men at the same
time.) As agalust this desire to depreciate women's paychio capacity,
Hirth maintains that a woman is not necessarily obliged to be untrue
to one man because she has conceived a passion for another man. "To-
day," Hirth truly declares, "only love and justice can count as honor-
able motives in marriage. The modem man accords to the beloved wife
and life-companion the same freedom which he himself took before mar-
riage, and perhaps still takes in marriage. If she makes no use of it,
aa is to be hoped — ao much the betterl But let there be no lies, no
deception; the indispensable foundation of Tnodern marriage is bound-
less sincerity and friendship, the deepest trust, affectionate devotion,
and consideration. This is the best safeguard against adultery. . . .
Let him, however, who is, nevertheless, overtaken by the outbreak of it
console him.ielf with the undoubted fact that of two real lovers the most
noble-minded and deep-seeing friend will always have the preference."
These wise words cannot be too deeply meditated. The policy of jealousy
is only successful— when it is successful — in the hands of the man who
oonnts the external husk of love more precious than the kernel.
It Beems to some that the recognition of variations in sexual
relationehips, of the tendency of the monogamic to overpasa its
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self-imposed bouuds, is at best a aad necessity, and a lamentable
fall from a high ideal. That, however, is the reverse of the truth.
The great evil of monogamy, and its most serionsly weak point, is
its tendency to eelf-coneentratiou at the expense of the outer
world. The devil alwajs comes to a man in the shape of hia wife
and children, said Hinton. The family ia a great social influence
in so far as it is the best instrument for creating children who
will make the future citizens; but in a certain sense the family is
an anti-social influence, for it tends to absorb unduly the energy
that is needed for the invigoration of society. It is possible,
indeed, that that fact led to the modification of the monogaraic
system in early developing periods of human history, when social
expansion and cohesion were the ' primary necessities. The
family too often tends to resemble, as someone has said, the
secluded collection of grubs Bometimcs revealed in their narrow
home when we casually raise a flat stone in our gardens. Great
as are the problems of love, and great as should be our attention
to them, it must always be remembered, that lore is not a little
circle that is complete in itself. It is the nature of love to
irradiate. Just as family life exists mainly for the social end of
breetling the future race, so family love has its social ends in the
extension of sjinpathy and affection to those outside it, and even
in ends that go beyond love altogether.*
The question is debated from time to time as to how far it is
possible for men and women to have intimate friendships with
each other outside the erotic sphere.^ There can be no doubt
whatever that it is perfectly possible for a man and a woman to
experience for each other a friendship which never intrudes into
the sexual sphere. As a rule, however, this only happens under
special conditions, and those are generally conditions which
1 Schrempf points out (''Von Stella lU Klilrchen." MulteracHuIz,
1906, Hert 7, p. 264) (hat Goethe Btrove to show in Egmont that
a woman is repelled b^ the love of a man who knows nothing beyond
his love to her, and that it ia easy for her to devote herself to the man
whose aims lie in the larger world beyond herself. There is profound
truth in this view.
2 A discussion or "Platonic friendship" of this kind by several
writers, mostly women, whone opinions were nearly equally divided, may
be found, for InstAnce, in the Lady'a Reatm, March, IBOO.
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ABT OF LOVE. 671
exclude the cloaeEt and moet intiiiiate friendship. If, as we have
aeeD, love may be defined as a syntliesis of lust and friendship,
friendship inevitably enters into the erotic sphere. Just as sexual
emotion tends to merge into friendship, so friendship between
persons of opposite sex, if young, liealthy, and attractive, tends
to involve sexual emotion. The two feelings are too closely allied
for an artificial barrier to be permanently placed between them
without protest. Men who offer a woman friendship usually find
that it is not received with much satisfaction except as the first
installment of a warmer emotion, and women who offer friendship
to a man usually find that lie responds with an offer of love;
very often the "friendship" is from the first simply love or
flirtation masquerading tmder another name.
"Id the long rtio." a wonian writeB (in a letUr publi«lied in
Oeaohtecht und OesflUchaft, Bd. i, Heft 7 ) , "the »enacs become diacon-
tented at their complete exclusion. And I believe tliat a man can onlj-
come into the closest mutual association witli a voman by whom, con'
Bcioualy or uncODHCiously, he is phj'sicallj attracted. He cannot enter
into the closest psychic intercourse with a woman with whom he could
not imagine faimself in physical intercourse. His prevailing wish is for
the possession of a woman, of the whole woman, her soul as well as her
body. And a woman also cannot imagine an intimate relation to a man
in which the heart and the body, as well as the mind, are not involved.
(Naturally I am thinking of people with sound nerves and healthy
blood.) Can a woman carry on a Platonic relation with a man from
year to year without the thought sometimes coming to her: 'Why does
he never kiss me! Have I no charm for himT' And in the moat con-
cealed comer of her heart will it not happen that she uses that word
'kiss' in the more comprehensive sense in which the French sometimes
employ it?" There is undoubtedly an element of truth in this state-
ment. The frontier between erotic love and friendship is vague, and an
intimate psychic intercourse that is sternly debarred from ever mani-
festing itself in a caress, or other physical manifestation of tender
intimacy, tends to be constrained, and arouses unspoken and unspeak-
able thoughts and desires which are fatal to any complete friendship.
Undoubtedly the only perfect "Platonic friendships" are
those which have been reached through the portal of a pre-
liminary erotic intimacy. In such a ease bad lovers, when they
have resolutely traversed the erotic stage, may become exceedingly
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good friende. A satisfactory friendeliip Ie possible between
brother and sister because they have been physically intimate in
childhood, aod all erotic curiosities are absent. The most
admirable "Platonic friendship" may often be attained by hus-
band and wife in whom sympathy and affection and common
interests have outlived passion. In nearly all the most famous
friendships of distinguished men and women — as we know in
some caeee and divine in others — an hour's passion, in Sainte-
Beuve's words, has served as the golden key to unlock the most
precious and intimate secrets of friendship.*
The friendships that have been entered through the erotic
portal possess an intimacy and retain a spiritually erotic char-
acter which could not be attained on the basis of a normal friend-
ship between persona of the same sex. This is true in a far
higher degree of the ultimate relationship, under fortunate cir-
cumstances, of husband and wife in the years after passion has
become impossible. They have ceased to be passionate lovers but
they have not become mere friends and comrades. More
especially their relationship takes on elements borrowed from the
attitude of child to parent, of parent to child. Everyone from
hia first years retains something of the child which cannot be
revealed to all the world; everyone acquires aoniething of tlie
guardian paternal or maternal spirit. Husband and wife are
each child to the other,' and are indeed parent and child by turn.
And here still the woman retains a certain erotic supremacy, for
she is to the last more of a child than it. is ever easy for the man
to be, and much more essentially a mother than he is a father.
Groos {Der .Ssthetische Oenuss, p. 249) has pointed out that
"love" is T«al)7 made up of both sexual instinct and parental inatinct.
"So'called liappy marriages," saya Profesaor W. TboraaB {8e» and
SrxMty, p, 24G), "represent an equilibrium reached through an exteoeioa
of the maternal interest of the woman to tlie man, whereby she looks
after his personal needs as she (toes after those of the children —
1 There are no doubt important exceptions. Thus MerimSe's
famous friendship with MUe. Jenny Dacqiiin. enshrined in the Lettres
d une /nconnue, was perhaps Platonic througliout on Mfirim^'a side.
Mile. Dacquin adaptin;; herself to his attitude. Cf. A. Lefebvie, La
Ciliire Inoonnue de Mirimfe, 1908.
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ART OF LOVE. 573
clierUhing him, in fact, as a child — or in an extension to woman on the
part of man of the nurture and affection which is in his nature to give
to pets and alt helpless (and preferably dumb) creatures."
"When the devotion in the tie between mother and son," a woman
writes, "is added to the relation of husband and wife, the union of mar-
riage is raised to tlie high and beautiful dignity it deserves, and can
attain in this world. It comprehends sympathy, love, and perfect under-
standing, even of the faults and weaknesses of both sides." "The founda-
tion of every true woman's love," another woman writes, "is a mother's
tenderness. He wlioni she loves is a child of larger (n^wtli, although
Bhe may at the same time have a deep respect for him." (See also, for
similar opinion of another woman of distingnished intellectual ability.
footnote at beginning of "The Psychic State in Pregnancy" in volume v
of these Studies. )
It is on the basis of these elemental human facts that the
permanently seductive and inspiring relationships of sex are developed.
and not by the emergence of personalities who combine impossibly
exalted characteristics. "The task is extremely difficult," says Kisch in
his Sexual Life of Woman^ "but a clever and virtuous modern wife must
endeavor to combine in her single personality the sensuous attractive-
ness of an Aspasia, the chastity of a Lucrece, and the intellectual
greatness of a Cornelia." And in an earlier century we are told in the
novel of La Tia Fingida, whieli has sometimes been attributed to Cer-
vantes, that "a woman should be an angel in the street, a saint in
church, beautiful at the window, honest in the house, and a demon in
bed," The demands made of men by women, on the other hand, have
been almost too lofty to bear definite formulation at all. "Ninety-nine
out of a hundred loving women," says Helene StScker, "certainly believe
that if a thousand other men have behaved ignobly, and forsaken, ill-
used, and deceived the woman they love, the man they love is an excep-
tion, marked out from all other men; that is the reason they love him."
It may be doubted, however, if the great lovers have ei-er stood very
far above the ordinary level of humanity by their possession of perfec-
tion. They have been human, and their art of love has not always
excluded the possession of human frailties; perfection, indeed, even if it
could be found, would furnish a bad soil for love to strike deep roots in.
It is only when we realize the highly complex nature of the
elements which raalie up erotic love that we can understand how
it is that that love can constitute so tremendous a revelation and
exert so profound an influence even in men of the jrreatest genius
and intellect and in the sphere of their most spiritual activity.
It is not merely passion, nor any conscious skill in the erotic art, —
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574 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
important as these may be, — ^that would serve to account for
Goethe's relationship to Frau von Stein, or Wagner's to Matiiilde
Wesendonck, or that of Robert and Elizabeth Browning to each
other.'
It may now be clear to the reader why it has been necessary
in a discuaeion of the sexual impulse in its relationship to Bociety
to deal with the art of love. It is true that there is nothing so
intimately private and personal as the erotic affairs of the
individual. Yet it is equally true that these rffairs lie at the
basis of the social life, and furnish the conditions — ^good or bad as
the case raay be — of that procreative act which is a supreme con-
cern of the State. It is because the question of love is of such
purely private interest that it tends to he submerged in the ques-
tion of breed. ■ We have to realize, not only that the question of
love subserves the question of breed, but also that love has a
proper, a necessary, even a socially wholesome claim, to stand
by itself and to be regarded for its own worth.
In the profoundly BUggegtive study of love which the distinguished
sociologist Tarde left behind at his death (Arthiiea d' Anthropologic
CrimineUe, loc cit.), there are some interesting remarks on this point:
"Society," he says, "has been far more, and more intelligently, preoc-
cupied with the problem of answering the 'question of breed' than the
'question of love.' The first problem fills all our civil and comnerclftl
codes. The second problem has never been clearly stated, or looked in
the face, not even in antiquity, still less since the coming of Christjanity,
for merely to offer the solutions of marriage and prostitution is mani-
festly inadequate. Statesmen have only seen the side on which it
1 The love-letters of at) these distinguished persons have been pub-
lished. Rosa Mayreder (Zur Kritik der Weiblickkeil, pp. 229 tl »eq.)
discusses the question of the humble and absolute manner in which even
men of the most masculine and impetuous genius abandon themselves
to the inspiration of the beloved woman. Tlie case of the Brownings,
who have been termed "the hero and heroine of the most wonderful love-
story that the world knows of," is specially notable; (Ellen Key has
uritten of the Brownings from this point' of view in Menschen, and
reference may he made to an article on the Brownings' love-letters in
the Edinlurgh Review, April. 1809). It is scarcely necessary to add
that an erotic retation>iliip may mean very much to persons of high
intellectual ability, even when its issue is not happy; of Mary Wollstone-
craft, one of the most intellectually distinguished of women, it may be
said that the letters which enshrine her love to the worthless Imlay are
among the most passionate and pathetic love-letters in English,
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AKT OF LOVE. 57&
touches population. Hence the marriage tavrs. Sterile love tliey pro-
feaa to disdain. Yet it is evident tliat, tliougli liorD ns the serf of
generation, love tends by civilization to i>e freed from it In place of
a simple method of procreation it has become an end, it has created
itself a title, a royal title. Our gardens cultivate flowers that are all
the more eharming becauae they are sterile i why is the double corolla
of love held more infamous than the sterilized flowers ot our gardens!''
Tarde replies that the reason is that our politicians are merely ambitious
persons thirsting for power and wealth, and even when they are lovers
they are Don Juans rather than Virgils. "The future," he continues,
"is to the Virgilians, because if the ambition of power, the regal wealth
of American or European millionarism, once seemed nobler, love now
more and more attracts to itself the best and highest parts of the soul,
where lies the hidden ferment of all that is greatest in science and art,
and more and more those studious and artist souls multiply who, intent
on their peaceful activities, hold in horror the business men and the
politicians, and will one day succeed in driving them back. That
assuredly will be the great and capital revolution of humanity, an active
psychological revolution: the recognized preponderance of the medita-
tive and contemplative, the lover's side of the human soul, over the
feverish, expansive, rapacious, and ambitious side. And then it will be
understood that one of the greatest of social problems, perhaps the moit
arduous of all, has been the problem of love."
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CHAPTER XII.
THE SClE^■CE OF PROCREATION.
The Relationship of tlie Soience of Procreation to the Art of Love —
Sexual Desire and Sexual Pleasure as the Conditions of Conception —
Reproduction Formerly Lett to Caprice and Lust — The Question of Pro-
creation as a Religious Question — The Cree<i of Eugenics — Ellen Key
and Sir Francis Galton— Our Debt to Posterity— The Prohleni of Re-
placing Natural Selection — The Origin and Development of Eugenics —
The Genera] Acceptance of Eugenical Principles To-day — Tlie Two Chan-
nels by Which Eugenieal Principles are Becouiing Embodied in Practice —
The Sense of Sexual Responsibility in Women — The Rejection of Com-
pulsory Motherhood — The Privilege of Voluntary Motherhood — Causes
of the Degradation of Motherhood — Tlie Control of Conception — Now
Practiced by the Majority of the Population in Civilized Countries — The
Fallacy of "Racial Suicide" — Are Large Families a Stigma of Degenera-
tion?— Procreative Control the Outcome of Natural and Civilized Prog-
ress— The Growth of Neo-Malthusian Beliefs and Practices — Facultative
Sterility as Distinct from Neo-Malthusian ism — The Medical and Hygienic
Necessity of Control of Conception — Preventive Methods — Abortion — The
New Doctrine of the Duty to Practice Abortion — How Far is this Justift'
able! — Castration as a Method of Controlling Procreation — Negative Eu-
genics and FoBitire Eugenics — The Question of CertiQcates for Marriage
— The Inadequacy of Eugenics by Act of Parliament — The Quickening
of the Social Conscience in Regard to Heredity — Limitations to the En-
dowment of Motherhood— The Conditions Favorable to Procreation —
Sterility— The Question of Artificial Fecundation — The Best Age of
Procreation — The Question of Early Motherhood — The Best Time for
Procreation — The Completion of the Divine Cycle of Life.
We have seen that the art of love has an independent and
amply justifiable right to existence apart, altogether, from pro-
creation. Even if we still believed — as all men must once have
believed and some Central Australians yet believe^ — ^that sexual
intercourse has no essential connection with the propagation of
the race it would have full right to existence. In its finer mani-
festations as an art it is required in civilization for the full
< Spencer and Gillen, Korlhern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 330.
(576)
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THE 80IESCE OP PltOCREATION. 677
development of the individual, aud it is equally required for that
stability of relationships which is nearly everywhere regarded ae
a demand of social morality.
When we now turn to the Becond great constitutional factor
of marriage, procreation, the first point we encounter is that the
art of love here also has its place. In ancient times the sexual
congruence of any man with any woman waa supposed to be so
much a matter of course that all questions of love and of the
art of love could be left out of consideration. The propagative
act might, it was thought, be performed as iropersonaUy, as per-
functorily, as the early Christian Fathers imagined it had been
performed in Paradise. That view is no longer acceptable. It
fails to commend itself to men, and still less to women. We
know that in civilization at all events — and it is often indeed the
same among savages — erethism is not always, easy between two
persons selected at random, nor even when they are more
specially selected. And we also know, on the authority of very
distinguished gynecologists, that it is not in very many cases
sufficient even to effect coitus, it is also necessary to excite
orgasm, if conception ia to be achieved.
Many primitive peoples, as well as the theologians of tbe Middle
Ages, have believed that sexual eiciinnent on the wonuin'a part is
neceesarj' to conception, though they have sometimes mixed up that
belief with false science aud mere superstition. Tlie belief itself is
supported by some of tU" most cautious and experienced modprn g^'nic-
cologiits. Thus, Matthews Duncan (in his lectures on StfrHily in
IVomen) argued that the absence of sexual desire in women, and the
absence of pleasure in the sexual act, arc powerful luQuences making
for sterility. He brought forward a table based on his case-books, show-
ing that of nearly four hundred sterile women, only about one-fourth
enperienced sexual desirp, uhlle less than half experienced pleasure in
the sexual act. In the ahaence, however, of a corresponding table con-
cerning fertile women, nothing is hereby absolutely proved, and, at most,
only a probability established.
Kisch, more recently (in his Bemtal Life of Woman), has dealt
fully with this question, and reaches the conclusion that it is "ex-
tremely probable" that the active erotic participation of the woman in
coitus is an important link in the chain of conditions producing concep-
tion. It acts, he remarks, in either or both of two ways, by causing reflex
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578 I-SYCIIOLOGY OF SEX.
changes in the cervical tecretions, and so facilitatiog the j
th» spennatOEOH, and hy causing reflex erectile changes ia t
itself, with slight descent of the uterus, so rendering the <
the semen easier. Kisch refers to the anslogoua fact that' the llrat oc-
<nirreiic« of menstruation ia favored by sexual excitement.
Some authorities go so far as to assert that, until voluptuous
excitement occurs in women, no impregnation ia possible. This state-
ment seente too extreme. It is true that the occurrence of impregnation
during sleep, or in aneatbeaia, cannot be opposed to it, for ve know
that the unconsciousneaa of these states by no means prevents tha
occurrence of complete sexual excitement. We cannot fail, however, to
connect the tact that impregnation frequently fails to occur for montha
and even years after marriage, with the fact that sexual pleasure in
coitus on the wife's part also frequently fuih to occur for a similar
"Of all human instinctB," Pinard lias fiaid,^ "that of repro-
duction is the odIv one which remains in the primitive condition
and hae received no education. We procreate to-day as they
procreated in the Stone Age. The moat important act in the life
of man, the subliniest of all acts since it is that of his reproduc-
tion, man accomplishes to-day with as much carelessnees aa in
the age of the cave-man." And though Pinard himself, as the
founder of puericiilture, has greatly contributed to call attention
to the vast destinies that hang on the act of procreation, there
still remains a lamentable amount of truth iu this statement.
"Future generations," writes Westermarck in his great history
of moral ideas,^ "will probably with a kind of horror look back
at a period when the most important, and in its consequences
the most far-reaching, function which has fallen to the lot of
man was entirely left to individual caprice and lust."
We are told in his T(^le Talk, that the great Luther was
accustomed to say that God's way of making man was very
foolish ("aehr nJirriBch"), and that if God had deigned to take
him into His counsel he would have strongly advised Him to make
the whole human race, aa He made Adam, "out of earth." And
certainly if applied to the careless and reckless manner in which
procreation in Luther's day, as still for the most part in our
> Academy of Medicine of Paris, March 31, 1009.
3 The Ori^'n and Devetopmtnt of the Moral Ideaa, vol. ii, p. 40S.
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THE SCIENCE OF PllOCnEATION. 579
own, was usually carried out there was sound common sense in
the Reformer's remarkB, If that is the way procreation is to be
carried on, it would be better to create and mould every human
being afresh out of the earth ; in that way we could at all events
elimi^^te evil heredity. It was, however, unjust to place the
responsibility on God. It is men and women who breed tbe
people that make the world good or bad. They seek to put the
evils of society on to something outside themselves. They see
how large a proportion of human beings are defective, ill-con-
ditioned, anti-social, incapable of leading a whole and beautiful
human life. In old theological language it was often said that
such were "'children of the Devil," and Luther himself was often
ready enough to attribute the evil of the world to the direct
interposition of the Devil. Yet these ill-conditioned people who
clog the wheels of society are, after ail, in reality the children of
Man. The only Devil whom we can justly invoke in this matter
is Man.
The command "Be fruitful and multiply," which the ancient
Hebrews put into the mouth of their tribal God, was, as Crackan-
thorpe points out,^ a command supposed to have been utt«red
when there were only eight persons in the world. If the time
should ever again occur when the inhabitants of the world could
be counted on one's fingers, such an injunction, as Crackanthorpe
truly observes, would again be reasonable. But we have to
remember that to-day humanity has spawned itself over the
world in hundreds and even thousands of millions of creatures,
a large proportion of whom, as is but too obvious, ought never to
have been bom at all, and the voice of Jehovah is now making
itself heard through the leaders of mankind in a very different
sense.
It is not surprising that as this fact tends to become gen-
erally recognized, the question of the procreation of tbe race
should gain a new significance, and even tend to take on the
character of a new religious movement. Mere morality can never
lead us to concern ourselves with the future of the race, and in
1 Population and PregrtM, p. 41.
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5S0 PSTCHOLOOT OF SEX.
the days of old, men used to protest against the tendency to
8ubardiDate the interests of religion to the claims of "mere
morality." There was a sound natural instinct underlying that
protest, BO often and so vigorously made by Christianity, and
again revived to-day in a more intelligent form. The claim of
the race ia the claim of religion. We have to beware lest we sub-
ordinate that claim to our moralities. Moralities ere, indeed, an
inevitable part of our social order from which we cannot escape ;
every community must have its mores. But we are not entitled
to make a fetich of our morality, sacrificing to it the highest
interests entrusted to us. The nations wliich have done so have
already signed, their own death-warrant,^ From this point of
view, the whole of Christianity, rightly considered, with its pro-
found conviction of the necessity for forethought and preparation
for the life hereafter, has been a preparation for eugenics, a
schoolmaster to discipline within us a higher ideal than itself
taught, and we cannot therefore be surprised at the solidity of the
basis on which eugenical conceptions of life are developing.
The moit diBtingiiished pioneers of the new movement of devotion
ta the creation of the race aeem independently to have realized its
religious character. This attitude ia equally m&rlced in Ellen Key and
Francis Galton. In her Century of the Child (English translation.
1900), Ellen Key entirely identiHes herseir with the eugenic movement.
"It ie only a question of time," she elsewhere writes { Uebtr Liebe uiut
EJic, p. 44S), "when the attitude of society towards a sexual union
M'ill depend not on the form of the union, but on the value of the
children created. Men and women will then devote the salne religious
earnestness to the psychic and physical perfectioning of this sexual
task as Christians have derot^ lo the salvation of their souls."
Sir Francis Galton, writing a few years later, but without doubt
mdcpendently. In 1905, on "Restrict! on x in Marriage." and "Eugenics
as a Factor in Religion" {Sociological Papers of the Sociological Society,
vol. ii, pp. 13, O't), remarks: "Religious precepts, founded on the
ethics and practice of older days, require to be reinterpreted, to make
them conform to the needs of progressive nations. Ours are already so
far behind modern requirements that much of our practice and our
profession cannot !>« reconciled without illegitimate casuistry. It seems
1 Cf. Reibmavr, EntwickluHffsgcackichle des Talenlea und Oentcs,
Bd. II, p. .11.
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lUE SCIENCE OF PKOCaEATlON. 681
to me that few things are more needed by ug id Euf^and than a
revieion ol out religion, to adapt it to the intelligence nnd needs of thia
present lime. . . . Evolution is a grand phantasmagoria, but it
aafumea an infinitely uiorp interesting aspect under the knowledge that
the intelligent action of the human will is, in some small measure,
capable of guiding its course. Man has the power of doing this largely,
so far as the evolution of humanity is concerned; he has already af-
fected the quality and distribution of organic life so widely that the
ehanges on the surface of the earth, merely through his disforestings
and agriculture, would be recognizable from n distance as great aa
that of the moon. Eugenics is a virile creed, full of hopefulness, and
appealing to many of the noblest feelings of our nature."
As will always happen in every great movement, a few fanatics
have carried into absurdity the belief in the supreme religious impor-
tance of procreation. Love, apart from procreation, writes one of these
fanatics. Vaeher de Lapouge, in the spirit of some of the early Christian
Fathers (see anJe p.50li), is an aberration comparable to sadism and
sodomy. Procreation is the only thing that matters, and it must be-
come "a legally prescribed social duty" only to be exercised by care^
fully selected persons, and forbidden to others, who must, by necessity,
be deprived of tlip power of procreation, while abortion and infanticide
must, under some circumstances, become compulsory. Romantic love
will disappear by a process of selection, as also will all religion except
a new form of phallic worship (G. Vaeher de Lapouge. "Die Crisis der
Sexuellen Moral," Politigch Anthropologiache RcriK, No. 8, 190S). It
is sufficient to point out that love is, and always must be, the natural
portal to generation. Such excesses of procreative fanaticism cannot fail
to occur, and they render the more necessary the emphasis •^'hich haa
here been placed on the art of love.
"What has posterity done for me that I sliould do anything
for posterity?" a cynic Is said to liave asked. The answer is
very simple. The human race has done everj-thing for him. AH
that he is, and can be, is its creation ; all that he can do is the
result of its laboriously accumulated traditions. It is only by
working towards the creation of a still better posterity, that he
can repay the good gifts which the human race has brought him.*
Just as, within the limits of this present life, many who have
received benefits and kindnesses they can never repay to the
1 "The debt that we owe to those who have gone before us," says
Haycraft (Danrini*m and Race Progrett, p. 160), "we can only repay
to those who come after us."
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682 PSYCHOLOOT OF SKX.
actual givers, find a pleasure in vicariously repaying the like to
otherfl, BO the heritage we have received from our ascendents we
can never repay, save by handing it on in a better form to our
descendants.
It is undoubtedly true that the growth of eugenical ideals
has not been, for the most part, due to religious feeling. It has
been chiefly the outcome of a very gradual, but very comprehen-
aive, movement towards social amelioration, which has been going
on for more than a century, and which has involved a progreasive
efEort towards the betterment of all the conditions of life. The
ideals of this movement were proclaimed in the eighteenth cen-
tury, they began to find expression early in the nineteenth cen-
tury, in the initiation of the modern system of sanitation, in the
growth of factory legislation, in all the movements which have
been borne onwards by socialism hand in hand with individualism.
The inevitable tendency has been slowly towards the root of the
matter; it began to be seen that comparatively little can be
effected by improving the conditions of life of adults; attention
began to be concentrated on the child, on the infant, on the
embryo in its mother's womb, and this resulted in the fruitful
movement of puericulture inspired by Pinard, and finally the
problem is brought to its source at the poiut of procreation, and
the regulation of sexual selection between stocks and between
individuals as the prime condition of life. Here we have the
science of eugenics which Sir Francis Galton has done so much
to make a definite, vital, and practical study, and which in its
wider bearings he defines ns "tiie science which deals with those
social eugenics that influence, mentally or physically, the racial
qualities of future generations." In its largest aspect, eugenics is,
as Galton has elsewhere said, man's attempt "to replace Satural
Selection by other processes that are more merciful and not less
effective."
Tn the last chapter of his Slfniories of My Life (1908}. on "Race
Improvement," Sir Francis Galton sets forth the origin and develop-
ment of hin conception of the science ot eugenicn. Tlie term, "eugenics."
he first used in 1H84, in his Human Faculty, but the conception dates
from 1865, and even earlier. Galton has more rccenlly discussed the
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THE SCIENCE OF PROCREATION. 683
problems of eugenics in papers read before Gte Sociological Society
[Sociological Papers, vola. i and ii, 1B05), in the Herbert Spencer
Lecture on "ProlMibilitT the Foundation of Eugenics," (IBOT), and else-
where. Galton's Dumerous memoirs on this subject have now been
published in a collected form by the Eugenics Education Society, which
wax Estnblislied in 1607, to further and to popularize the eugenical
attitude towards social questions; The Eugenic* Revieu> ia published
bj this Society. On the more strictly scientific side, eugenic studies are
carried on in the Eugenics Laboratory of the University of London,
established by Sir Francis Gallon, and now working in connection with
Professor Karl Pearson's biomctric laboratory, in Unirersity College.
Much of ProfesBor Pearson's stntistical work in this and allied direc-
tions, is the elatkoration of idcBH and suggestions thrown out by Galton.
See, e.g., Karl Pearson's Robert Boyle Lecture, "The Scope and Impor-
tance to the State of the Science of National Eugenics" (l^O?)- Bio-
metrika, edited by Karl Pearson in association with other workers,
contains numerous statistical memoirs on eugenics. In Germany, the
Archiv fUr Ronen und Getelltchafla-biologic, and t^ PoUtiteh-Anthro-
pologixche Revue, are largely occupied with various aspects of such sub-
jects, snd in America, The Popular Science Monthly from time to time,
publishes articles which have a bearing on eugenics.
At one time there was a tendency to scoff, or to laugh, at the
«ugenic movement. It was regarded as an attempt to breed
men ns nien breed animals, and it was thought a sufficiently easy
task to 3weep away this new movement with the remark that love
laughs at bolts and bars. It is now beginning to be better under-
fitiKid. Xone but fanatics dream of abolishing love in order to
elTcct pairing by rule. It is merely a question of limiting the
possible number of mates from whom each may select a partner,
and that, we must remember, has always been done evea by
savages, for, as it has been said, "eugenics is the oldest of the
sciences." The question has merely been transformed. Instead
of being limited mechanically by caste, we begin to see that the
choice of sexual mates must be limited intelligently by actual
fitness. Promiscuous marriages have never been the rule; the
possibility of choice has always been narrow, and the moat primi-
tive peoples have exerted the most marked self-restraint. It is
not 90 merely among remote races but among our own European
ancestors. Throughout the whole period of Catholic supremacy
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5S4 PSYCHOLOGY OF 8KX.
the Canon law multiplied the impediments to matrimony, as bj
ordaining that consanguinity to the fourth degree (third coub-
ina), as well aa apiritual rektionship, is an impediment, and by
such arbitrary prohibitiona limited the range of possible mates at
least as much as it would be limited by the more reasonable dic-
tates of eugenic conaiderationa.
At the present day it may be said that the principle of the
voluntary control of procreation, not for the selfish ends of the
individual, but in order to extinguish diaease, to limit human
misery, and to raise the general level of humanity by substituting
the ideal of quality for the vulgar ideal of mere quantity, is now
generally accepted, alike by medical pathologists, embryologiate
and neurologists, and by sociologists and moralists.
It would beatasy to multiply ^uotAtions from distiogubfaed au-
thoritiM on tble point. Thus, MetchnikoD' pointa out (Eatait OptimUtem,
p. 419) that orthobioBia seems to involve the limitation of offspring in
tho fight against disease. Ballantjne concludes his great treatise on
Anleminal Pathology with the statement that "Eugenics" or nell-
bpgetting, is one of the world's most pressing problems." Dr. Louise
Robinovibch, the editor of the Journal of Mental Pathology, in a bril-
liant and thoughtful paper, read before the Rome Congress of Pij-
chology in 1B05, well spoke in the same sense: "Nations have not
yet elevated the energy of gcneslc function to the dignity of an energy.
Other energies known to us, even of the meanest grade, ha*-e long since
been wisely utilized, and their activities based on the principle of the
sti-iclest possible economy. This economic utilization has been brought
about, not through any enforcement of legislative restrictions, but through
steadily progressive human intelligence. Economic handling of geneelc
function will, like the economic function of other energies, come about
through a steady and progressive intellectual development of nations."
"There are circumstances," says C. H. Hughes, ("Restricted Procrea-
tion," Alienist and \furologial. May, 1908), "under which the propa-
gation of a human life may be as gravely criminal as the taking of a
life already begun."
From the general biological, as well aa from tbe sociological side,
the acceptance of the same standpoint is constantly becoming more
general, for it is recognized aa the inevitable outcome of movements
which have long been in progress.
"Already," wrote Haycraft (Darwinitm and Race Progreta, p. 160),
referring to the law for the prevention of cruelty to children, "public
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THE 8CIESCE OF PROCDEATION. 586
opinion lias expressed itself in the public rule that a man and womso.
in begetting a child, must t&lce upon thetUBelvps the obligation and re-
sponsibility of seeing that tliat ciiild is not subjected to cruelty and
harilaliip. It is but one step more to say that a man and a woman
shall be under obligation not to produce children, when it is certain
thai, from their want of physique, they will have to undergo suffering,
and will keep up but an unetjual struggle with their fellows."
Professor J. Arthur Thomson, in his volume on Heredity (IBOS),
vigorously and temperately pleads {p. 629) for rational methods of
eugenics, as specially demanded in an age like our own, when the unSt
linve been given a better chanoe of reproduction than they have ever
been given in any other age. Bateson, again, referring to the growing
knowledge of heredity, remarks (Uendel'a Principles of Rerndity., 1909,
p. .105 )t "Genetic knowledge must certainly lead to new conceptions
of justice, and it is by no means impossible that, in the light of such
knowledge, public opinion will welcome measures likely to do more
for the extinction of the criminal and the degenerate than has been ac-
complished hj ages of penal enactment," AdoIeHCenP youths and girls,
said Anton von Menger, in hia last book, the pregnant .Veue Rittenlehre
(I0OS), must be taught that the production of children, under certain
eircumstancos. Is a crime; they must also be taught the voluntary re-
sttaint of conception, even In health; such teaching, Menger rightly
added, ia a necessary preliminary to any legislation in this direction. .
Of recent years, many books and articles have been devoted to
the advocacy of eugenic methodit. Mention may be made, for instance,
of Pojyulalion and Progress (1607), by Montague Crackanthorpe, Presi-
dent of the Eugenics Education Society. See also. Havelock Ellis, "Eu-
genics and St. Valentine," yiiifirfnih Cenlury and After, May, 1906.
It may be mentioned that nearly thirty years ago. Miss J. R. Clapperton,
in her Scienlifie Ueliorisn, ( 18R5, Ch. XVII), pointed out that tha
voluntary restraint of piocreation by Neo-llalthusian methods, apart
from merely prudential motives, there clearly recognised, ia "a new key
lo the" social position," and a opcessary condition for "national re-
generation." Professor Karl Pearson's Orourulirork of Euqeniea, (1900)
is, perhaps, the best brief introduction to the subject. Mention may also
be made of Dr. Saleeby's Parenthood and Race Culture (1900), written
in a popular and enthusiastic manner.
How widely the general principles of eugenics are now accepted
as the sound method of raising the level ot the human race, was
well shown at a meeting of the Sociological Society, in 1906, when,
after Sir Francis Galton had read papers on the question, the meeting
heard the opinions of numerous sociologists, economists, biologists, and
well-known thinkers in various lands, who were present, or who had
sent communications. Some twenty-one expressed more or less unquali-
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5»B PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
Red approval, and only tliree or four liad objections to olTer, mostly on
matUrs of detail {Sociological Papers, published by tlie Sociological
Society, vol. ii, 190B).
If we ask by what channele tbis impulBG towards t!ie control
of procreation for the elevation of the race is expressing itaelf
in practical life, we shall scarcely fail to find that there are at
least two such channels: (1) the growing sense of sexual respon-
sibility among women as well as men, and (2) the conquest of
procreative control which has been achieved in recent years, by
the general adoption of methods for the prevention of conception.
It has already been necessary in a previous chapter to dis-
cuss the far-reaching significance of woman's personal respou-
eibility as an element in the modification of the sexual life of
modem communities. Here it need only be pointed out that
the autonomous authority of a woman over her own person, in the
sexual sphere, involves on her part a consent to the act of pro-
creation which must be deliberate. We are apt to think that
this is a new and almost revolutionary demand ; it is, however,
undoubtedly a natural, ancient, and recognized privilege of
women that they should not be mothers without their own con-
sent. Even in tlie Islamic world of the Arabian Nights, we find
that high praise is accorded to the "virtue and courage" of the
woman who, having been ravished in her sleep, exposed, and aban-
doned on the highway, the infant that was the fruit of this
involuntary union, "not wishing," she said, "to take the respon-
sibility before Allah of a child that had been bom without my
consent."' The approval with which this story is narrated
clearly shows that to the public of Islam it seemed entirely just
and humane that a woman should not have a child, except by her
own deliberate will. We have been accustomed to say in later
days that the State needs children, and that it is the business and
the duty of women to supply them. But the State has no more
right than the individual to ravish a woman against her will.
We are beginning to realize that if the State wants children it
1 Mardrus, Let MUle yuili, ™1. xvi, p. 158.
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THE SCIENCE OP PROCREATION. 687
muBt make it agreeable to women to produce them, as under
natural and equitable eonditioDB it cannot fail to be. "The
women will solve the question of mankind," said Ibsen in one
of his rare and pregnant private utterances, "and they will do it
as mothers." But it is unthinkable that any question should
ever be solved by a helplesa, unwilling, and involuntary act which
has not even attained to the dignity of animal joy.
It is sometiinea aupposed, and even assumed, that the demand
of women that motlierhood must never be compulsory, means that they
are unwilling to be mothers on any terms. In a few cases that may
be 80, but it is certainly not the case as regards the majority ot
sane and healthy women in any country. On the contrary, thia demand
ia usually associatpd with the desire to glorify motherhood, if not, in-
deed, even with the thought ot extending motherhood to many who ara
to-day shut out from it. "It seems to me,"' wrote Lady Henry Somerset,
some years ago .("The Welcome Child, Arena, April, ia95), "that life
will be dearer and nobler the more we reci^nize that there is no in-
delicacy in the climax and crown of creative power, but, ratJier, tliat
it is the higlieat glory of the race. But if voluntary motherhood is
the crown of the race, involuntary compulsory motherhood is the Viiry
opposite. . . . Only wtien both man and woman have learned that
the most sacred of all functions given to women must be exercised by
the free will alone, can children be born into the world who liave in
them the joyous desire to live, who claim that sweetest privilege of
childhood, the certainty that they can expand in the sunshine of the
love which is their due." Ellen Key, similarly, while |)ointing but
(Vcber Liebe and Ehc, pp. 14, 285) that the tyranny of the old
Protestant religious spirit which enjoined on women unlimited sub-
mission to joyless motherhood within "the whited sepulchre of marriage"
is now being broken, exalts the privileges of volunt&ry motherhood, while
admitting that there may be a few exceptional cases in which women
may withdraw themselves from motherhood for the sake of tlie other
demands of their personality, though, "as a general rule, the woman
who refuses motherhood in order to serve humanity, is like a soldier who
prepares himself on the eve of battle for the forthcoming struggle by
opening his veins." Helene StScker, likewise, reckons motherhood as
one of the demands, one of the growing demands indeed, which women
now make. "If, to-day," she says (in the Preface to Liebe unrf di9
Frauen, 1900), "all the good things of life are claimed even for women —
intellectual training, pecuniary independence, a happy vocation in life,
A respected social position — and at the same time, as equally matt«r-of-
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588 P8TCH0LOOT OF SEX.
course, and equaUj necessary, marriage and child, that demand no longer
soundn. aa it sounded a few years ago, the voice of a preacher in the
wildemeBB."
The degradation to which motherhood has, in the eyes of many>
fallen, is due partly to the tendency to deprive women of any voice in
the qucBtion, and partly to what H. G. Wells calls {Socialism and tha
Familjf, 1906) "the moni>trou3 absurdity of women discharging their
supreme social function, bearing and rearing children, in their spare
time, as it were, while they 'earn their living' by contributing some
half mechanical element to some trivial indnetrial product." It would be
impracticable, and even undesirable, to insist that married women
should not be allowed to work, for a work in the world is good for
all. It ia estimated that over thirty per cent, of the women workers-
in England are married or widows (James Raslam, Engliihiaoman. June,
IflOS), and in Lancashire factories alone, In 1901, there were 120.000
married women employed. But it would be easily possible for the State-
to arrange, in its own interests, that a woman's work at a trade should
always give wsy to her work an a mother. It is the more undeairable that
married women should be prohibited from working at a profession,
since Iheie are some profesaiona for which a married woman, or, rather,
a mother, is better equipped than an unmarried woman. This is notably
the case aa regards teaching, and it would be a good policy to allow
married women teachers special privileges in the shape of increased free
time and leave of absence. While in many fields of knowledge an un-
married woman may be a most excellent teacher, it is highly imdesirable
that children, and especially girls, should be brou^t exclusively under
the educational influence of unmarried teachers.
The second great channel through which the impulse towarde
the control of procreation for the elevation of the race is entering
into practical life is by the general adoption, by the educated
claeseE of all countries — and it must be remembered that, in this
matter at all evente, all classes are gradually beguming to become
educated— of methods for the prevention of conception except
when conception is deliberately desired. It is no longer permis-
sible to discuss the validity of this control, for it is an accom-
plished fact and has become a part of our modem moralitj. "If
s course of conduct is habitually and deliberately pursued by
vast multitudes of otherwise well-conducted people, forming
probably a majority of the whole educated class of the nation,"
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THE 8CIEXCB OF PROCREATION. ' 589
as Sidney Webb rightly puts it, "we must assume that it does not
conflict with their actual code of morality."i
There cannot be xiiy doubt that, bo far as England ia concemed,
the prevention of conceptioD is practiced, from prudential or other
motives, hy the vast majoritj of the educated classes. This fact is well
within the knowledge of all who are intimately acquainted with the
facts of English family life. Thus, Dr. A. W. Thomas writes fBritith
Medical Jountal, Oet. 30, 1003, p. 1066); "From my experience as a
general practitioner, I have no hesitation in saying that ninety per cent,
of young married couples of the comfortaibly-ofi' classes use preventives."
As a matter of fact, this rough estimate appears to be rather under than
over the mark. In the inrj- able paper already quoted, in which Sidney
Webb showB that "the decline in the birthrate appears to be much
greater in thoM sections of the population which give proofs of thrift
and foresigfat," that this decline is "principally, if not entirely, the
result of deliberate volition," nnd that "a i-olitional regulation of the
marria^ state is novr ubiquitous throughout England and Wales,
among, apparently, a large majority of the population," the results are
brought forward of a detailed inquiry carried out by the Fabian Society.
This inquiry covered 316 families, selected at random from all parts
of Great Britain, and belonging to all sections of the middle class. The
resulta are carefnlly analyzed, and it is found that seventy-four families
were unlimited, and two hundred and forty-two voluntarily limited.
When, however, the decade 1890-99 is Ul<en by itself as the typical
period, it is found that of 120 marriages, 107 were limited, and only
thirteen unlimited, while of these thirteen, five were childless at the date
of the retnm. In ttiis decade, therefore, only seven unlimited fertile
marriages are reported, out of a total of 120.
What is true of Great Britain is true of all other civitiied
-countries, in the liigliest degree true of the most civilized countries,
and it finds expression in the well-known phenomenon of the deeline
of the birthrate. In modem times, this movement of decline began in
France, producing a slow but steady diminution in the annual num-
ber of births, and in France the movement seems now to be almoat,
or quite, arrested. But it has since taken place in all other progressive
countries, notably in the United States, in Canada, in Australia, and
in New Zealand, as well as in Germany, Austro-Hungary. Italy, Spain,
Switcerland, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. In
England, it has been continuous since 1877. Of the great countries.
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590 . PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
Russia is the only one in which it has not yet taten place, and among
the maBsea of the Russian popuIatJon we find less education, more
poverty, a higher deathrat«, and a greater amount of diseftse, than in
any other great, or even small, civilized country.
It is sometimes said, indeed, tJiat Ihc decline of the birthrate is
not entirely due to the voluntary control of procreation. It is un-
doubtedly true that certain other elements, common under civilized con-
ditions, such as the postponement of marriage in women to a com-
paratively late age, tend tu diminish the size of the family. But when
all such allowances have been made, the decline is still found to be
real and large. This has been shown, for in^taace, by the stotistical
analyses made by Arthur Newsholme and T. U, C. Stevenson, and by
G. Yule, both publislied in Journal Royal Blaliilicnl Society, April, IdOQ.
Some have supposed that, since the Catholic Church [orbids in-
complete sexual intercourse, this movement for the control of procreation
will involve a relatively much greater increase among Catholic than among
non-Catholic populations. This, however, is only correct under certain
conditions. It is quite true that in Ireland there has been no fall in
the birthrate, and that the fall is but little marked in those Lan-
cashire towns which possess a large Irish element. But in Belgium,
Italy, Spain, and other mainly Catholic countries, the decline in the
birthrate is duly taking place. What has happened is that the Church
— always alive to sexual questions— has realized the importence of tlie
modem movement, and has adapted herself to it, by proclaiming to her
more ignorant and uneducated children, that incomplete intercourse is
ft deadly sin, while at the same time refraining from making inquiries
into this matter among her more educated members. The question was
definitely brou^t up for Papal judgment, in 1842, by Bishop Bouvier
of Le Mans, who stated the matter very clearly, representing to tlie
Pope (Gregory XVI) that the prevention of conception was becoming
very common, and that to treat it as a deadly sic merely resulted in
driving the penitent away from confession. After mature considera-
tion, the Curia Sacra Poenitentiaria replied by pointing out, as regards
the common method of withdrawal before emission, that since it was
due to the wrong act of the man, the woman who has been forced by
her husband to consent to it, has committed no sin. Further, the
Bishop was reminded of the wise dictum of Liguori, "the most learned
and experienced man in these matters," that the confessor is not
usually called upon to make inquiry upon so delicate a matter as the
debitum conjugaln, and, if his opinion is not asked, he should be silent
(Bouvier, Diatcrtatio in sextvm Decalogi pia-ceptum; sttpplementum ad
Tiaclatum de ifalrim-mio, 1849, pp. 1791fi2; quoted by Hans Ferdy,
BemialProbUme. Aug., 1908. p. 498). We see. therefore, that, among
Catholic as well as among non-Catholic populations, the adoption of pre-
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THE SCIENCE OF PROCREATION. 691
ventive tnetfaoda of conception follows progreea and civilization, and that
the general practice of sucb methods by Catholics (with the tacit consent
of the Church) ia mere); a matter of time.
From time to time many energetic persons have Qoieily
demanded that a Btop should be put to the decline of the birth-
rate, for, they argue, it means "race suicide." It is now begin-
ning to be realized, however, that this outcry was a foolish and
mischievous mistake. It is impoBBible to walk through the streets
of any great city, full of vast numbers of persons who, obviously,
ought never to have been bom, without recognizing that the
birthrate is as yet very far above ita normal and healthy limit.
The greatest States have often been the smallest so far as mere
number of citizens is concerned, for it is quality not quantity that
counts. And while it is true that the increase of the best types
of citizens can only enrich a State, it is now becoraii^ intolerable
that a nation should increase by the mere dumping down of
procreative refuse in its midst. It is beginning to be realized
that this process not only depreciates the quality of a people but
imposes on a State an inordinate financial burden.
It ie DOT welt recognized that large families are associated with
degeneracy, and, in the widest sense, with abnormality of every kind.
Thus, it iB undoubtedly true that men of genius tend to belong to
very large families, though it may be pointed out to those who fear
an alarming decrease of genius from the tendeniy to the limita-
tion of the family, that the position in the family most often
occupied by the child of genius is the firstborn. (See Uavelock
Ellis, A Sludy of Britinh OemiM, pp. IlS-120). The insane, the idiotic,
imbecile, and weak-minded, the criminal, the epileptic, the liysterieal, the
neurasthenic, the tubercular, all, it would appear, tend to belong to
large families (see e.g., Havelock Ellis, op. dt., p. 110; Toulouse, Let
Ciivses de la FoUe, p. 91; Harriet Alexander, "Tlfalthusianism and
Degeneracy," Alienist and Neurologist, Jhu., 1901). It has, indeed,
been shown by Heron, Pearson, and Goring, that not only the eldeat-
born, but also the second-bom, are specially liable to sutTer from patho-
logical defect (insanity, criminality, tuberculosis). There is, bow-
ever, it would seem, a fallacy in the common interpretation of this fact.
According to Van den Velden (as quoted in SemiahProbleme, May, 1909,
p. 3B1). this tendency is fully counterbalanced by the rising mortality
of children from th« firstborn onward. The greater pathological ten-
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Jj92 pstchologt of sex.
deucy of the earlier children is thus simply the result of a leas stringnit
-selection bj death. So fur as they show any really greater pathological
t«ndeD(!y, apart from this fallat.v, it is perhaps due to premature mar-
riage. There is anotli«r fallacy in the frequent statement that the
children in small families are more feeble than those in large families.
We have to distinguish between a naturally small family, and an arti-
ficiallj small family. A family which is small merely as the result of
the feeble procreative eneigy of the parents, is likely to be n feeble
family; a family wiiicb is small as tlie result of the deliberate con-
trol of the parents, shown, of course, no such tendenc}'.
These considerations, it will be seen, do not modify the teMdency
of the large family to be d^enerate. We may connect this phenomenon
with the disposition, often shown by nert'oiisly unsound and abnormal
persons, to believe that they hare a special aptitude to procreate fine
children. "I believe that everyone has a special vocation," said a man
to Marro (La PubrrtA, p. 459) ; "I find that it la my vocation to beget
superior children." He begat four, — an epileptic, a lunatic, a dipso-
maniac, and a valetudinarian, — and himself died insane. Most people
have come octobs somewhat similar, though perhaps less marked,
cases of this delusion. In a matter of such fateful gravity to other
human beings, no one can safely rely on his own unsupported impres-
The demand of national efficiency thus correaponda with the
demand of developing humanitarian ism, which, having begun by
attempting to ameliorate the conditions of life, has gradually
begun to realize that it is necessary to go deeper and to ameliorate
life itself. For while it is undoubtedly true that much may be
^one by acting systematically on the conditions of life, the more
, searching analysis of evil environmental conditions only serves
io show that in Urge parts they are based in the human organism
itself and were not only pre-natal, but pre-conceptional, being
involved in the quality of the parental or ancestral organisms.
Putting aside, however, all humanitarian consideratione, the
:serioua error of attempting to stem the progress of civilization
in the directioB of procreative control could never have occurred
if the general tendencies of zoological evolution had been under-
etood, even in their elements. All zoological progress is from the
more prolific to the less prolific ; the higher the species the less
fruitful are its individual members. The same tendency is
found within the limits of the human species, though not in an
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THE BCIEXCE OF PROCREATION. 593
invariable straight line; the growth oi civilization involves a
diminution in fertility. This ie by no means a aew phenomenon;
ancient Rome and later Geneva, "the Protestant Home/' bear
witness to it; no doubt it has occurred in every high centre of
moral and intellectual culture, altliough the data for measuring
the tendency no longer esist. When we take a sufficiently wide
and intelligent survey, we realize that the tendency of a com-
munity to slacken its natural rate of increase ia an essential
phenomenon of all advanced civilization. The more Intelligent
nations have manifested the tendency first, and in each nation
the more educated classes have taken the lead, but it is only a
matter of time to bring all civilized nations, and all social classes
in each nation, into line.^ This movement, we have to remem-
ber— in opposition to the ignorant outcry of certain would-be
moralists and politicians — is a beneficent movement. It means
a greater regard to the quality than to the quantity of the
increase ; it involves the possibility of combating successfully the
evils of high mortality, disease, overcrowding, and all the mani-
fold misfortunes which inevitably accompany a too exuberant
birthrate. For it is only in a community which increases
slowly that it is possible to secure the adequate economic adjust-
ment and enviroDmental modifications necessary for a sane and
wholesome civic and personal life,^ If those persons who raise
the cry of "race suicide" in face of the decline of the birth-
rate really had the knowledge and intelligence to realize the
manifold evils which they are invoking they would deserve to be
treated as criminals.
1 Thus, in Paris, in 1906, in the rich quarters, the birthrate per
1,000 inhabitanU was 19.09; in well-lo-do quarters, 22.51; and in
poor quarters, 29.70. Here we see that, while the birthrate falls and
rises with aooial class, iven among tlie poor and least reetrmined class
tlifi birthrate is still but little above the general average for England,
where prevention is widespread, and very considerably lower than the
average (now rapidly falling) in Germany. It is evident that even
among the poor class there is a process of leveling up to the higher
classes in this matter.
3 1 have developed thew points more in detail in two articles in
the Independent Review. November, 1903, and April. 1904. See also,
Bushee, "The Declining Birthrate and Its Causes," Popular Science
Monthly, Aug., 1903,
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594 FBTCHOLOGY OF SEX.
On the practical side a knowledge of the possibility of pre-
venting conception lias, doubtless, never been quite extinct m
civilization and even in lower stages of culture, though it has
mostly been utilized for ends of personal convenience or practiced
in obedience to conventional social rules which demanded chastity,
and has only of recent times been made subservient to tlie larger
interests of society and the elevation of the race. The theoretical
basis of the control of procreation, on its social and economic, as-
distinct from its eugenic, aspects, may be said to date from
Malthus's famous Essai/ on Population, first published in 1798,
an epoch-marking book, — though its central thesis is not sui=-
ceptible of actual demonstration, — since it not only served as the
starting-point of the modem humanitarian movement for the
control of procreation, but also furnished to Darwin (and
independently to Wallace also) the fruitful idea which was
iinally developed into the great evolutionary theory of natural
selection.
MalthuB, however, was very far from suggesting that the
control of procreation, which he advocated for the benefit of
mankind, should be exercised by the introduction of preventive
methods into sexual intercourse. He believed that civilization
involved an increased power of self-control, which would make it
possible to refrain altogether from sexual intercourse, when such
self-restraint was demanded in the interests of humanity, I^ter
thinkers realized, however, that, while it is undoubtedly tnie that
civilization involves greater forethought and greater self-eontrol,
we cannot anticipate that those qualities should be developed to
the extent demanded by Malthus, especially when the impulse
to be controlled is of so powerful and explosive a nature.
James Mill was the pioneer in advocating Neo-Malthusian
methods, though he spoke cautiously. In 1818, in the article
"Colony" in the supplement to the Encyclopmdta Britannica.
after remarking that the means of checking the unrestricted
increase of the population constitutes "the most important prac-
tical problem to which the wisdom of the politician and moralist
can be applied," he continued: "If the superstitions of the
nursery were discarded, and tiie principle of utility kept steadily
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THE SCIEXCE OF PKOCKEiXIOX, 595
in view, a solution might not be very diificult to be found."
Four years later, James Mill's 'friend, the Radical reformer,
Francis Place, more distinctly expressed the tliouglit that was
evidently in Mill's mind. After enumerating the facts concern-
ing the necessity of self-control in procreation and the evils of
early marriage, which he.thinks ought to be clearly taught. Place
continues: "If a hundredth, perhaps a thousandth part of the
pains were taken to teach these truths, tliat are taken to teach
dogmas, a great cliange for the better might, in no considerable
space of time, be expected to take place in the appearance and
the habits of the people. If, above all, it were once clearly under-
stood that it was not disreputable for married persons to avail
themselves of such precautionary means as would, without being
injurious to health, or destructive of female delicacy, prevent
conception, a sufficient check might at once be given to the
increaae of population beyond the means of subsistence; vice and
misery, to a prodigious extent, might be removed from society,
and the object of Mr. ilalthua, Mr. Goilwin, and of every
philanthropic person, be promoted, by the increase of comfort,
of intelligence, and of moral conduct, in the niass of the popula-
tion. The cours? recommended will, I am fully persuaded, at
some period be pursued by the people even if left to themselves."^
It was not long before Place's prophetic words began to be
realized, and in another half century the movement was affecting
the birthrate of all civilized lands, though it can scarcely yet
be said that justice has been done to the pioneers who promoted
it in the face of much persecution from the ignorant and super-
stitious public whom they sought to benefit. In 1831, Robert
Dale Owen, the son of Robert Owen, published his Moral
Physiology, setting forth the methods of preventing conception.
A little later the brothers George and Charles Drysdale (bora
1825 and 1829), two ardent and unwearying philanthropists,
devoted much of their energy to the propagation of Neo-Mal-
thusian principles. George Drysdale, in 1854, published his
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696 rsvcnoLOGY of skx.
Elements of Social Science, whicli during many yeara had an
eoormous circulation all over Europe in eight different languages.
It waa by no means in every respect a scientific or soiind work,
but it certainly had great influence, and it came into the hands
of many who never saw any other work on sexual topics.
Although the N'eo-MalthuBian propagandists of those days often
met with much obloquy, their cause waa triumphantly vindicated
in 187C, when Charles Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant, having been
prosecuted for disseminating Neo-Malthusian pamphlets, the
charge waa dismissed, the Lord Chief Justice declaring that so
ill-advised and injudicious a charge had probably never before
been made in a court of justice. This trial, even by its mere
publicity and apart from its issue, gave an enormous impetus to
the Neo-Malthusian movement. It is well known that the steady
decline in the English birthrate begun in 18T7, the year follow-
ing the trial. There could be no more brilliant illustration of
tJie fact, that what used to be called "the instruments of
Providence" are indee<l unconscious instruments in bringing
about great ends which they themselves were far from either
intending or desiring.
In 1877. Dr. C. It. Viysdale founded tlie Malthusian League, and
edited a periodical, The Malthusian, aided throughout by liis wife, Dr.
Alice Drysdal^ Vickerj-. He died in 1007. (The noble and pioneering
work of the Drj-fldaiea lian not yet been adequately recognized in their
own country; an appreciative and well-informed article by Dr. Hermann
Bohieder, "Dr. C. R. Drysdale, Der Hauptvortreter der Neumalthusian'
isehe Lehre," appeared in the ZeiUchrift fiir SejmaliMssensckafl, March,
IfiOS). There are now societies and periodicals in a1) civilized countries
for the propagation of Keo-Matthusian principles, as they are still com-
monly called, though it viould he desirable to avoid the use of Malthue's
name in this connection. In the medical profession, the advocacy of
preventive methods of sexual intercourse, not on social, but on medical
and hygienic grounds, began same thirty years ago, though in Prance,
at an earlier date, Haciborski advocated the method of avoiding tba
neighborhood of menstruation. In Germany, Dr. itensinga, the gyiue-
colopst, is the most prominent advocate, on medical and hygienic
grounds, of what he terms "facultative sterility," which he first put for-
ward about less. In Russia. nl>out the same time, artificial sterility
was first openly advocated by the distinguished g^-ncecologist, Professor
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THE SCIENCE OF PHOCREATIOS. 597
Ott, at the St. Peteraburg Obatetric and GywBcologiciil Society. Such
medical reoommendBtJons, in particalar cases, are dow becoming coBunon.
There are certain cnses in which a person ought aot to marry at
all; this is so, for instance, when there has been an attack of insanity;
it can never be said witli certainty that a person who lias had one
attack of insanity will not have another, and persona who hav° hnd such
attacks ought not, as Blandford says (Luinleian Lectures on Insanit}',
BriUBh Medical Journal, April 20, 1895), "to inflict on their partner
for life, the anxiety, and even danger, of another attack," There are
other and numerous cases in which marriage may be permitted, or may
have already taken place, under more favorable circumstances, but whera
it is, or has tiecome, hi^ly desirable that there should be no children.
This is the case when a first attack of insanity occurs after marriage,
the more urgently if the affected party is the wife, and especially if the
.disease takes the form of puerperal nuinia. "\\'hat can be more la-
mentable," aaks Blandford [loc dt.), than to see ft woman break down
in childbed, recover, break down again with the next child, and so on,
for six, seven, or eight children, the recovery between each being less
and less, until she is almost a chronic maniac?" It has been found,
moreover, by Tredgold {lancet. May IT, 1902), that among children
bom to insane mothers, the mortality is twice as great as the ordinary
infantile mortality, in even the poorest districts. In cases of unions
between persons with tuberculous antecedents, also, it is held by many
(e.g., by Massalongo, in discussing tuberculosis and marriage at the
Tuberculosis Congress, at Naples, in 1900) that every precaution should
be taken to make the marriage childless. In a third class of cases, it is
necessary to limit the children to one or two; this happens in some
forms of heart disease, in which pregnancy has a progressively deteriorat-
ing effect on the heart (Kisch, TherapeulUche .Wono/sftfff, Feb., 1898,
and Beanutl lAfe of Woman; Vinay, Lyon Mfdical, .Ian. 8, 188B); in
some CAMS of heart disease, hown-er, it is possible that, though there
is no reason for prohibiting marriage, it xf desirable for a woman not
to have any children (J. F. Blacker, "Heart Dinease in Relation to'
Pregnancy," BritUh Hedical Journal, May 25, 1907).
In all such cases, the recommendation of pre\entive methods of
intercourse is obviously an indispensable aid to the physician in em-
phasiEing the supremacy of hygienic precautions. In the absence of
such methods, he can never be sure that his warnings will be heard, and
even the observance of his advice would be attended with various un-
desirable results. It sometimes happens that a married couple agree,
even before marriage, to live together without sexual relations, but, for
various reasons, it is seldom found possible or convenient to maintain
thia resolution for a long period.
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two PSYCHOLOGY OF 8EX.
It is the recognition of these and similar considerations
which has led — though only witliin recent years— K)n the one
hand, as we have seen, to the embodiment of the control of
procreation into the practical morality of all civilized nations,
and, on the other hand, to the assertion, now perhaps witliout
exception, by ail medical authorities on matters of sex that the
use of the methods of preventing conception is under certain
circumstances urgently necessary and quite harmless.' It
arouses a smile to-daj' when we find that ]ef6 than a century ago
it was possible for an able and esteemed medical author to
declare that the use of "various abominable means" to prevent
conception is "based upon a most presumptuous doubt in the
conservative power of tlie Creator. "^
The adaptation of theory to practice is not yet complete,
and we could not expect that it should be so, for, as we have seen,
there is always an antagonism between practical morality and
traditional morality. From time to time flagrant illustrations of
this antagonism oceur.3 Even in England, which plaj'ed a
pioneering part in the control of procreation, attempts are still
made — sometimes in quarters where we hnve a right to expect a
'See, e.g., a weiglity chapter in the Sexualleben und Xen'cnlriden
of LBwenfeld, one of the most judicious authorities on Rexusl pathology.
Twenty-five yeara ago. as many will remember, tlie medical student was
VBually taught that pre\'entive methods of iiitemnirse led to all sorts
of serious resiilta. At that time, however, recklesn and undesirable
methods of prevention "eem to have been more prevalent than now.
! Michael Ryan. Philoaophj/ of Marriagr. p. ft. To enable "the
conseryative power of the Creotor" to exert itself on the myriads of
germinal human beingH necreted during his life-time \>y even one man,
would require a world full of women, while the corresponding problem
as regards a woman is nitogetlier ton difficult to cope with. The procesH
by which life has been built up, far from being a process of untver<a1
conservation, has been a process of stringent selection and vast de'
6truction; the progress effected by civilization merely lies in making
(his blind process intelligent.
SThua, in Belgium, in 190S (ffejmalProbleme. Feb.. 1900. p. l.lfl).
a physician (Rr. Mawaun) who had been prominent in promoting a
knowledge of preventive methods of conception, was condemned to three
months imprisonment for "offense against morality!" Tn such a case,
Dr. Helene StJieker comments (Die Neve Generation. .Tan., Ifl09. p. 7),
"morality" is another name for ignorance, timidity, hypocrisy, prudery,
coarseness, and lack of conscience. It must be remembered, however.
in explanation of this iniquitous judgment, that for some years past
the clerical party has been politically predominant in Belgium.
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THE SCIENCE OF PBOOREATION. 699
better knowledge — to cast discredit on a movement which, since
it has conquered alike scientific approval and popular practice,
it is now idle to call in question.
It would be out of place to diacuBa here the various methods
which are used for the control of procreation, or their respective
merits and defects. It is sufficient to say that the condom or
protective eheatb, which seems to be the most ancient of all
methods of preventing conception, after withdrawal, is now
regarded by nearly all authorities as, when properly used, the
safest, the most convenient, and the most harmless method.^
This is the opinion of Krafft-Ebing, of Moll, of Schrenck-Not-
zing, of Lowenfeld, of Forel, of Kisch, of Furbringer, to mention
only a few of the most distinguished medical authorities.^
There is some iutereet in attempting to trace the origin and history
of the condom, though it seems impoBsible to do bo with any precision.
It iB probable that, in a rudimentary form, Buch an appliance ia of
great aifttquity. In China and Japan, it would appear, rounds of oiled
silk paper are used to cover the mouth of the womb, at all ei'ents, by
prostitutea. Thia seema the aimplest and most obvious mechanical
method of preventing conception, and may have suggested the applica-
tion of a aheath to the penia aa a more effectual method. In Europe.
it ia in the middle of the sixteenth century, in Italy, that we tirst seem
to hear of such appliances, in the shape of linen sheaths, adapted to the
shape of the penis; Fallopius recommended the use of such an appli'
ani-e. Improvements in the manufacture were gradually devised; the
CKCum of the lamb was employed, and afterwards, isinglass. It iippeurs
1 It has been objected that the condom cannot be used by the
very poorest, on account of it« cost, bnt Hana Ferdy, in a detailed
paper (Sexuat-Prohteme, Dec., IMS), shows that the use of the con-
dom can be brought within the means of the very poorest, if care ia
taken to preserve it under water when not in use. NyatrSm (Semial-
Probleme, Nov., 190S, p. 736) has issued a leaflet for the benefit of hU
patients and others, recommending the condom, and explaining ita use.
2 Thus, Kisch, in hia Seirual Life of Woman, after disCTisaing fully
tJie various methods of prevention, decides in favor of the condom.
FUrbringer aimilarly (Senator end Kaminer, Health and Dinease in Re-
lation to Marriage, vol. i. pp. 232 el seg.) concludes that the condom is
"relatively the most perfect anti -conceptual remedy." Forel (Die
Sexuelle Frage, pp. 457 el seq.) also discusses the question at length;
any esthetic objection to the condom, Forel adds (p. 544), ia due to
the fact that we are not accustomed to it; "eye-giassea are not .spe-
cially (esthetic, but the poetry of life does rot suffer excessively from
their use, which, in many cases, cannot be diajiensed with."
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600 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
that a coniiderable inqiroi'ement in the inaDufacture took place in the
8avent«entli or eighteenth centiuy, and this improvemeot was generally
associated with England. The appliance thus became known as the Eng-
lish cape or mantle, the "capote anglaise,-' or the "redingote anglaise,"
and, under the latter name, is referred to by Caisaiiova, in the middle of
the eighteenth century (Casanova, Mimoirct, ed. Oarnier, t-ol. iv, p. 464) ;
Casanora nev«r seeme, however, to have used these redingotea hlnlNK,
not caring, he said, "to shut myself up in a piece of dead skin iu order
to prove tAat I am perfectly alive." These capotes — then made of gold-
beaters' skin — were, also, it appears, known at an earlier pwtod to
Mme. de SSvigne, who did not regard them with favor, for, in one of
her letters, she refers to them as "cuirasses contre la volupt^ et tolles
d'arraign4e contre le mal." The name, "condom," dates from the
eighteenth century, first appearing in France, and is generally con-
sidered to be that of an Eoglisb physician, or surgeon, who invented,
or, rather, improved the appliance. Condom is not. however, an English
name, but there is an English name, Condon, of which "condom" may
well be a corruption. This supposition is strengthened by the fact that
the word sometimes actually was written "condon." Thus, in lines
quoted by Bachaumont, in his Diary (Dec. 15, 1 773). and supposed to be
addressed to a former ballet dancer who had become a prostitute, I
find:—
"Du Condon cependant, vous connalsses I'usage,
Le condon, c'est la loi, ma fille, et les pro^AetesI"
The difficulty remains, however, of discovering any Englishman of
the name of Condon, who can plausibly be associated with the condom;
doubtless he took no care to put the matter on record, never suspecting
the fame that would accrue to his invention, or the immortality that
awaited his name. I find no mention of any Condon in the records
of the College of Physicians, and at the College of Surgeons, also,
where, indeed, the old lists are very imperfect, Mr. Victor Plarr, the
librarian, after kindly making a search, has assured roe that there is
no record of the same. Other varying explanations of tbe name have
been offered, with more or less assurance, though usually without any
proofs. Thus, Hyrtl (Randiuch der Topographi»chen Anatomic, 7th ed.,
vol. ii, p. 212) states that the condom was originally called gondom,
from the name of the English discoverer, a Cavalier of Charles Il'a Court,
who first prepared it from the amnion of the sheep; Gondom is, how-
ever, no more an English name than Condom. There happens to be a
French town, in Gascony, called Condom, and Bloch suggests, without ,
any evidence, that this furnished tte name; if so, however, it is improb-
able that it would have been unknown in France. Finally, Hans Ferdy
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THE SCIENCE OF PROCBEATIOS. 601
■ that it is derived from "condus" — that which prcBerrea — and,
in acoordance with hia tlieoty, he temiB the condom a condua.
Tb« early bUtory «f the condom b briefly discussed by various
writera, aa 1^ Piokach, Die Torbauung dw Yeneriachexi KrankKeilen,
p. 49; Bloch, Beawil Life of Our Time, Chs. XV and XXVIII; Cahante,
/ndMoretiMM 4e PBittoirt, p. 121, etc.
The control of procreation by the preventiou of conception
has, we have seen, become a part of the morality of civilized
peoples. There is another method, not indeed for preventing
conception, but for limiting offHpring, which is of much more
ancient appearance in the world, tliough it has at different times
been very differently viewed and still arouses widely opposing
opinions. This is the method of abortion.
While the practice of abortion liaa by no means, like the
practice of preventing conception, become accepted in civilization,
it scarcely appears to excite profound repulsion in a large propor-
tion of the population of civilized countries. The majority of
women, not excluding educated and highly moral women, who
become pregnant against their wish contemplate the possibility
of procuring abortion without the 8light«fit twinge of conscience,
and often are not even aware of the usual professional attitude of
the Church, the law, and medicine regarding abortion. Prob-
ably all doctors have encountered this fact, and even so dis-
tinguished and correct a medico-legist as Brouardel stated* that
he had been not infrequently solicited to procure abortion, for
themselves or their wet-nurses, by ladies who looked on it as a
perfectly natural thing, and had not the least 9uspicic»i that the
law regarded the deed as a crime.
It is not, therefore, surprising that abortion is exceedingly
common in all civilized and progressive countries. It cannot,
indeed, unfortunately, be said that abortion has been conducted
in accordance with eugenic considerations, nor has it often
been so much as advocated from the eugenic standpoint. But
in numerous classes of cases of undesired pregnancy, occnr-
ring in iromen of character and energy, not accustomed to submit
tamely to conditions they may not have sought, and in any case
I L'Avortetnent, p. 43.
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602 PSTCHOLOOY OP 8ES.
consider undesirable, abortion is frequently resorted to. It is
liBual to regard the United States as a land in which the practice
especially flourishes, and certainly a land in which the ideal of
chastity for unmarried women, of freedom for married women,
of independence for all, is actively followed cannot fail to be
favorable to the practice of abortion. But the way in which the
prevalence of abortion is proclaimed in the United States is
probably in' large part due to the honesty of the Americans in
settingforth, and endeavoring to correct, what, riglitlj or wrongly,
they regard as social defects, and may not indicate any real
pre-eminence in the practice. Comparative statistics are diffi-
cult, and it is certainly true that abortion is extremely common
in England, in France, and in Germany. It is probal)le that any
national differences may be accounted for by differences in gen-
■eral social habits and ideals. Thus in Germany, where con-
siderable sexual freedom is permitted to unmarried women and
married women are very domesticated, abortion may be less fre-
quent than in Francft where purity is stringently demanded from
the young girl, while the married woman demands freedom for
work and for pleasure. But such national differences, if they
exist, are tending to be levelled down^ and charges of criminal
abortion are constantly becoming more common in Germany;
though this increase, again, may he merely due to greater zeal
in pursuing the offence.
Brouardel (op. eit., p. 30) quotes the opinion that, in New York,
only one in every thousand abortions is discovered. Dr. J. F. Scott
(The Seaual Instinct, Ch. VIII), who is himself strongly opposed to
the practice, conriders that in America, the custom of procuring abortion
has to-day reached "such vast proportions as to be almost beyond be-
lief," while "countless thousands" of cases are never reported. "It has
increased ao rapidly in our day and generation," .Scott states, "that It
has created surprise and alarm in the minds of all conscientious per-
sons who are informed of the extent to which it is carried." (The as-
sumption that those who approve of abortion are necessarily not "con-
scieotious persons" is, as we shall see, mistaken.) The change has
taken place since 1840. The Michigan Special Committee on Criminal
Abortion reported in 1881 that, from correspondence with nearly one
hundred physicians, it appeared that there came to the knowledge at
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THE 80ISNOE OF PROCREATION. 603
the profession wventeen FibortionB t« every one hundred pregnancies;
to these, the oomniittee believe, may be added an many more that never
eanie to the physician's knowledge. The cominitt«e further quot«d,
though without endorsement, the opinion of a physician who believed
that a change is now coming over public feeling in regard to the
abortionist, who is beginning to be regarded in America as a useful mem-
ber of society, and even a benefactor.
In England, also, there appears to have been a marked increase
of abortion during recent years, perhaps specially marked among the
poor and hard-working elasses. A writer in the BrilUh Medical Journal
(.\pril 9, 1904, p. 865) finds that al>ortion i* "wholesale and systematic,"
and gives four cases occurring in his practice during four months, in
which women either attempted to produce abortion, or requested him
to do so; they were married women, usually with large families, and
in delicate health, and were willing to endure any suffering, if they
might 1>e saved from further child-bearing. Abortion is frequently ef-
fected, or attempted, by taking "Female Pitts," which contain small
portions of lead, and are thus liable to produce very serious symptoms,
whether or not they Induce abortion. Professor Arthur Hall, of Shef-
field, who has especially studied this use of lend ("The Increasing Use
of Lend as an Aborti facie nt," BritiaK Medical Joitmal, March 18. 1905),
finds that the practice has lately become verj common in the English
Midlands, and is gradually, it appears, widening it« circle. It occurs
chielly among married women with families, belonging to the working
clans, and it tends to become specially prevalent during periods of trade
depression fcf. Q. Newman, Infant Mortality, p. 81). Women of bet-
ter social class resort to professional abortionists, and sometimes go
over to Paris.
In France, also, and especially in Paris, there has been a great
increase during recent years in the practice of abortion. ( See e.g., a dis-
cussion at the Paris Society de M&Iecinc Legale, Archives d'Anthro-
pologie Criminelle, May, 190T.) Dol^ris has shown {Bulletin de la Bo-
dftf d'ObflUtrique, Feb., 1905) that in the Paris Matemitis the per-
centage of abortJons in pregnancies doubled between 1868 and 1B04,
and Doleris estimates that about half of these abortions were artiScialiy
induced. In France, abortion is mainly carried on by professional
abortionists. One of these, Mme. Thomas, who was condemned to penal
servitude, in IB91, acknowledged performing 10,000 abortions during
eight jieara; her charge for the operation was two francs and upwards.
She was a peasant's daughter, brought up in the home of her uncle,
a doctor, whose medical and obstetrical books she had devoured (A.
Hanion, La France en lHHt, pp. 62B<63I). French public opinion is
lenient to abortion, especially to women who perform the operation on
tliemselves; not many cases are brought into court, and o( these, fort;
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604 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
per c«nt. are ncquitt^ {Eugene Bausnet, L'Avortement Crimtntl, Tli&se
de Paris, 1907). The professional nbortionist is, however, usually sent
to prison.
In Germany, also, abortion appears to have greatly Increased
during recent years, and the yearly number of cases of criminal abor-
tion brou^t into ihe courts was, in IW3, more tlian double as many as
in 186S. {See, also, Elisabeth Zanilnger, Oeachlccht und Oetetlschaft,
Bd. II, Heft 0; and SeTual-PrObUme, Jan., 1908, p. 23.)
In viev of these facts it is not eurprising that the induction
of abortion has been permitted and even encouraged in many
civilizatione. Its unqualified coadenmatioo is only found in
Christendom, and is due to theoretical notions. In Turkey,
under ordinary circum stances, there is no punishm«it for
abortion. In the classic civilization of Greece and Home, like-
wise, abortion was permitted though with certain qualifications
and conditions. Plato admitted the mother's right to decide on
abortion but said that the questi(m should be settled as early as
possible in pregnancy. Aristotle, who approved of abortion, was
of the same opinion. Zeno and the Stoics regarded the fcetus as
the fruit of the womb, the soul being acquired at birth ; this was
in accordance with Roman law which decreed that the fcetus only
became a human being at birth.* Among the Romans abortion
became very common, but, in accordance with the patriarchal
basis of early Soman institutions, it was the father, not the
mother, who had the right to exercise it. Christianity introduced
a new circle of ideas based on the importance of the soul, on its
immortality, and the necessity of baptism as a method of salva-
tion from the results of inherited sin. We already see this new
attitude in St. Augustine who, discussing whether embryos that
died in the womb will rise at the resnrrection, says "I make bold
neither to aflirm nor t« deny, although I fail to see why, if they
are not excluded from the number of the dead, they should not
attain to the resurrection of the dead."^ The criminality- of
abortion was, however, speedily established, and the early Chris-
' There are some disputed pointu in Roman law and practice con-
cerning abortion; they are discussed in Balestrini'a valuable book,
Aborto, pp. 30 el taq.
3 Augustine, De Civitate Dei, Bk. XXII, Ch. XTIT.
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THE SCIENCE OP PROCHEATIOX. 60S
tian Emperors, in agreement with the C'tmrch, edicted many
faatastic and extreme penalties against abortion. This tendency
continued under ecclesiastical influence, unrestrained, imtil the
humanitarian movement of the eighteenth century, when Bec-
caria, Voltaire, Rouseeau and other great reformers succeeded in
turning the tide of public opinion against the barbarity of the
laws, and the penalty of death for abortion was finally abolished.'
Medical science and practice at the present day — although
it can scarcely be said tliat it speaks with an absolutely unanimous
voice — on the whole occupies a position midway between that of
the classic lawyers and that of the later Christian ecclesiastics.
It is, on the whole, in favor of sacrificing the foetus whenever
the intcreats of the mother demand such a sacrifice. General
medical opinion is not, however, prepared at present to go fur-
ther, and is distinctly disinclined to aid the parents in exerting
nn unqualified control over the fcctus in the >:omb, nor is it yet
disposed to practice abortion on eugenic grounds. It is obvious,
indeed, that medicine cannot in this matter take the initiative, for
it is the primary duty of medicine to save life. Society itself
must assume the responsibility of protecting the race.
Dr. S. Maci-ie ("Mother versus Child," TranaacUoiu Edinburgh
Ohttetrical Society, vol. ixiv, 1899) elaborately dieciisses the respective
values of the tietva and the adult on the basis of life-expectancy, and
concludes that the ftetuH is nierelj "a parasite performing no function
whatever," and that "unlcBS the life-expectancy of the child covers the
years in which its potentiality is converted into actuality, the relative
values of the maternal and tcetal life will be tliat of actual as againat
potential," This statement seems fairly sound. Ballantyne {Hianual
of Antenatal Pathologij: The Falus, p. 4.')0) endeavors to make the
statement more precise by saying that "the mother's life has a value,
because she is what shi; is, while tlip fffitus only has a possible value,
on account of nhat it may become."
Durtacher, among others, has discussed, in careful and cautious
detail, the various conilitions in which the physician should, or should
not, induce abortion in the interests of the mother ("Der KUnstliche
1 The development of opinion and law concerning abortion has been
traced by EugOne Bausset. L'AvoTlement Criminel. Thtw de Paris, 1907.
For a summan- of the practices of different peoples regarding abortion,
see W. G. Sumner, Folkwayt, Ch. YIII.
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606 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
Abort," Wiener Elinik, Aug. and Sept., 1B06) ; so alio, Eugen Wilfaelu
("Die Abtreibung iind dae Recht des Arzteig zur Vemicbtung der Leibes-
frucht," Bewual-ProUeme, May and June, 1908). Wilhelm further dis-
cuBsei whether it is desirable to alter the laws in order to give the
phyaician greater freed'>m in deciding on abortion. He concludes that
this is not necessary, and might even act injuriously, by unduly ham-
pering medical freedom. Any change in the law should merely be, he con-
siders, in the direction of asserting that the destruction of the fotiis
is not abortion in the legal sense, provided it is indicated by the rules
of medical science. With reference to the timidity of some medical
men in inducing abortion, Wilhelm remarks that, even in the pret^ent
state of the law, the physician who conscientloufily efTecta abortion, in
accordance with his best knowledge, even if mistakenly, may consider
himself safe from all legtil penalties, and that he is much more likely
to come in conflict with the law if it can be proved that death followed
■8 a result of his neglect to Induce abortion.
Pinard, who has discussed the right to control the f<etal lite
(Annates de Oynfcotogie. \o\». lii and Hii, 1S99 and 1900), inspired by
his enthusiastic propaganda for the salvntion of infant life, i^ led to the
unwarranted conclunion that no one has the rights of life and death
over the foftus; "the infant's right to his life is an imprescriptible and
sacred right, which no power can take from him." There is a mistako
here, unless Pinard deliberately desires to place himself, like Tolstoy, in
opposition to current civilized morality. So far from the infant hav-
ing any "imprescriptible right to life," even the adult has, in human
societies, no such inalienable right, and very much less the fstus, which
is not strictly a human being at all. We assume the right of terminat-
ing the lives of those individuals whose anti-social conduct makes thein
dangerous, and. in war, we deliberately terminate, amid general applause
and enthusiasm, the lives of men who have been specially selected for
this purpose on account of their physical and general efficiency. It
Mould be absurdly inconsistent to say that we have no rights over the
lives of creatures that have, as yet, no part in human society at all,
and are not so much as bom. We are here in presence of a vestige of
ancient theological dogma, and there can be little doubt that, on the
theoretical side at all events, the "imprescriptiblo right" of the embryo
will go the same way as the "imprescriptible right" o( the spermatozoon.
Both rights are indeed "imprescriptible."
Of recent years a new, and, it muat be admitted, somewhat
uoe.xpected, aspect of this question of abortion has been revealed.
Hitherto it has been a question entirely in the hands of men,
first, following the Roman traditions, in the hands of Christian
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TUE SCIENCE OF FB00R£AT10N. 607
ecclesiastics, and later, in those of the professional castes. Yet
the qucstioD is in reality very largely, and indeed mainly, a
woman's question, and now, more especially in Uermany, it has
been actively taken up by women. The Gratin Uisela titreitberg
"Cfiipies the pioneering place in this movement with her book
Das Beckt zur Beiseitigung Keimenden Lebens, and was speedily
followed, from 1897 onwards, by a number of distinguished
women who occupy a prominent place in the German woman's
movement, among others Helene Stocker, Oda Olberg, Elisabeth
Zanzinger, Camilla Jellinek. All these writers insist that the
fretus is not yet an independent human being, and that every
woman, by virtue of the right over her own body, ia entitled to
decide whether it shall become an independent human being.
.At the Woman's Congress held in the autumn of 1905, a resolu-
tion was passed demanding that abortion ahonid only be punish-
able when effected by another person against the wish of tJie
pregnant women herself.^ The acceptance of this resolution by
a representative assembly is interesting proof of the interest now
taken by women in the question, and of the strenuous attitude
they are tending to assume.
Bliaabrtb Zanzinger ("Verbrechen gegen die LeibeBfrncbt," Oeach-
Ucht tind OeselUchaft, Bd. II, Heft 6. 1907} ably and energetically
oondemnE the law which makes abortion a crime. "A woman herself is
thu only legitimate poaaeaaor of her own body And her own health.
. . . Just aK it ia a woman's private right, and moat intimat« con-
cern, to present her virginity aa her I>e8t gift to the chosen of her
heart, so it ia certainly a pregnant woman's own private concern if,
for reasons which aeem good to her, she decides to destroy the reanlts of
licr action." A woman wlio destroys the embryo which might become
a burden to the community, or is likely to be an inferior member of
society, this writer urges, is doing a service to the community, which
ought to reward her, perhaps by granting her special privileges as re-
gards the upbringing of her other children, Oda Olberg, in a thoughtful
paper ("Ueber den ,Iuristischen Schutz des Keimenden Lebens," Die
yeac Oeneralion, June, 1908), endeavors to make clear all that is in-
1 Die .Veuc Oeneralion, May, 1908, p. 192. It may be added that
n England the attachment of any penaltv at all to abortion, practiced
n the early months of pregnancy (before ''quickening" baa taken place),
» merelv a modem innovation.
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608 PSTCHOLOOY OF BEX.
volved in the effort t« protect the developing erobiyo agBinet the oi
thai carries it, to protect a creature, that is, against itself and itii own
instincts. Site considers tliat most of the women who terminate tlieir
pregnancies artificially would only have produced undesirables, for the
normal, healthy, robust woman has no desire to effect abortion. "There
are women who are psychically sterile, without being physically bo, and
who possess nothing of motherhood hut the ability to bring forth. TheM,
when they abort, are simply correcting a failure of Nature." Some of
them, she remarks, by going on to term, become guilty of the far worse
offence of infanticide. As for the women who desire abortion merely
from motives of vanity, or convenience, Oda Olborg points out that the
circles in which these motives rule arc quite able to limit their chil-
dren without having to resort t« abortion. She concludes that society
must protect the young life in every way, by social hygiene, by laws
for the protection of the workers, by spreading a new morality on the
basis of the laws of heredity'. But we need no law to protect the
yonug creature against its own mother, for a thousand natural forces
are urging the mother to protect her own child, and we may be sura
that she will not disobey tliese forces without very good reasons.
Camilla Jellinek, again [Die Strafrtchltrefarm, etc., Heidelberg, 190(1),
in a powerful and well-informed address before the Associated German
Frauenvereine, at Breslau, argues in the same sense.
The lawyers very speedily came to the assistance of the women In
this matter, the more readily, no doubt, since the traditions of the
greatest and most influential body of law already pointed, on one side
at all events, in the same direction. It may, indeed, be claimed that
it was from the side of law — and in Italy, the classic land of legal
reform — that this new movement first begun. In ISfit), Balestrini pub-
lished, at Turin, his Aboilo, Infanticidio ed Eipotizione d'lttfante, in
which he argued that the penalty should he removed from abortion. It
was a very able and learneil book, inspired by large ideas and a humani-
tarian spirit, but though its importance is now recogniced, it cannot
be said that it attracted much attenion on publication.
It is especially in Germany that, during recent years, lawyers have
followed women Teformi'r.4, by advocating, more or less completely, tba
abolition of the punishment for abortion. So distinguished an authority
as Von Liszt, in a private letter to Camilla Jellinek (op. ct(.), states
that he regards the punishment of abortion as "very doubtful," though
he considers its complete abolition impracticable; he thinks abortion
might be permitted during the early months of pregnancy, thus bringing
about a return of the old view. Hans Gross stales his opinion (Arehir
(iir Eriminal'Anlhropologie, Bd. XII, p. 346) that the time is not far
distant when abortion wilt no longer be punished. Kadbruch and Van
Lilienthal speak in the same sense. Weinberg has advocated a chang»
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THE SCIENCE OF PROCREATION. 609
in the law {MnUeraohutx, 1906, Heft 3), Bnd Kurt Uiller {Die Neve
(tenrralion, April, 1909j, atao from the legal side, argues that abortion
abould only be puniBhuble when effected by a married woman, without
the knowledge and content of her husband.
The medical profeeeioo, which took the first step in modem
ttmee ia the authorization of abortion, has not at preseot taken
any further step. It has been content to lay down the principle
that when the interests of the mother are opposed to those of the
fcctuB, it is tlie latter which must be sacrificed. It has hesitated
to take the further step of placing abortion on the eugenic basis,
and of claiming the right to insist on abortion whenever the
medical and hygienic interests of society demand such a step.
This attitude is perfectly intelligible. Medicine has in the past
been chiefly identified with the saving of lives, even of worthless
and worse than worthless lives; "Keep everything alive! Keep
everything alive!" nervously cried Sir James Paget. Medicine
has confined itself to the humble task of attempting to cure evils,
and is only to-day beginning to undertake the larger and nobler
task of preventing them,
"The Btep from killing the child in the' womb to murdering a per-
son when out of the womb, is a dangerousty narrow one," sagely re-
marks a reeent medical author, probably speaking for many otliers,
who somehow succeed in blinding themselves to the fact that this "dan-
gerously narrow step" 1ia<i been taken by mankind, only too freely, for
thousands of years past, long before abortion was known in the world.
Here and there, however, medical authors of repute have advocated •
the further extension uf abortion, with precautions, and under proper
supervision, as an aid to eugenic progress. Thus, Professor Max Flesch
iDie Neue Oeneration, April, 1B09) is in favor of a change in the law
permitting abortion (provided it is carried out by the physician) in
special esses, as when tlii: mother's pregnancy has been due to force,
when she has been abandoned, or when, in the interests of the com-
munity, it is desiraUe to prevent the propagation of insane, crimiiuJ,
alcoholic, or tuberculous persons.
In France, a medical man, Dr. Jean Darricarrdre, has written a
remarkable novel, Le Droit d'AvorlemenI (1906), which advocates the
thesis that a woman always possesses a complete right to abortion, and
is the supreme judge as to whether she will or not undergo the pain
and risks of childbirth. The question is, here, however, obviously
placed not on medical^ but on humanitarian and feminist grounds.
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610 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
We have seen that, alike on the side of practice and of
theory, a great change has taken place during recent years in
the attitude towards abortion. It must, however, clearly be
recognized that, unlike the control of procreation by methods for
preventing conception, facultative abortion has not yet been
embodied in our current social morality. If it is permissible to
interpolate a personal opinion, I may say that to me it seems
that our morality is here fairly reasonable.' I am decidedly of
opinion that an unrestricted permission for women to practice
abortion in their own interests, or even for communities to
practice it in the interests of the race, would be to reach beyond
the stage of civilization we have at present attained. As Ellen
Key very forcibly argues, a civilization which permits, without
protest, the barbarous slaughter of its carefully selected adults
in war has not yet won the right to destroy deliberately even its
most inferior vital products in the womb. A civilization guilty
of so reckless a waste of life cannot safely be entrusted with this
judicial function. The blind and aimless anxiety to cherish the
most hopeless rnd degraded forms of life, even of unborn life,
may well be a .veakness, and since it often leads to incalculable
suffering, even a crime. But as yet there is an impenetrable
barrier agamst progress in this direction. Before we are entitled
to take life deliberately for the sake of purifying life, we must
learn how to preserve it by abolishing such destructive influences
— ^war, disease, bad industrial conditions — as are easily within
our social power as civilized nations.'^
1 Evpn Baleatrini, who is opposed to the punishment of abortion,
is no advocate of it. "Whenever abortion becomes a social custom,"
he remarks {op. cil., p. 101), "it is the external manifestation of a
people's decadence, and far too deeply rooted to be cured by the mere
attempt to suppress the external manifestation."
2Cf. Ellen Key, Century of the Child, Ch. I. HirtJi iWege i«m
Heimat, p. 526) is likewise opposed to the encouragement of abortion,
though he would not actually punish the pregnant woman who in-
duces abortion. I would especially call attention to an able and cogent
article by Anna Pappriti! ("Die Vernichtung des Keimenden Ijcbens,"
Senual-Prohleme, July, 1000) who argues that the woman is not the
sole guardian of the embryo she b^rs, and that it is not in the
inlerestB of society, nor even in her own interests, that she should be
free to destroy it at will. Anna Pappriti! admits that the present bar-
barous laws in regard to abortion must be modified, but maiDtaina
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THE SCIENCE OF PBOCBEATION. 611
There is, further, another consideration which seems to me
to carry weight. The progress of civilization is in the direction
of greater foresight, of greater prevention, of a diminished need
for struggling vith the reckless lack of prevision. The necesBity
for abortion is precisely one of those results of reckless action
vhicb civilization tends to diminish. While we may admit that
in a sounder state of civilization a few cases might still occur
when the induction of abortion would be desirable, it seems
probable that the number of such cases will decrease rather than
increase. In order to do away with the need for abortion, and to
counteract the propaganda in its favor, our main reliance must .
be placed, on the one band, on increased foresight in the deter-
mination of conception and increased knowledge of the means for
preventing conception,' and on the other hand, on a better pro-
vision by the State for the care of pregnant women, married and
unmarried alike, and a practical recognition of the qualified
mother's claim on society.^ There can be little doubt that, in
many a charge of criminal abortion, the real offence lies at the
door of those who have failed to exercise their social and profes-
sional duty of making known the more natural and harmletis
methods for preventing conception, or else by their social attitude
have made the pregnant woman's position intolerable. By active
social reform in these two directions, the new movement in favor
of abortion may be kept in check, and it may even be found that
by stimulating such reform that movement has been beneficial.
We have seen that the deliberate restraint of conception has
become a part of our civilized morality, and that the practice
and theory of facultative abortion has gained a footing among
us. There remains a third and yet more radical method of con-
fiither, whether married or unmarried (a provision already carried out
in Norway, both for abortion and infanticide) ; (3) permiBaion to the
physipian (o elTect abortion when there ia good reason to suspect heredi-
tary degeneration, aa well as when the woman has been impregnated
hy force.
1 Cf. Dr. MaT Hiraeh, Bemial-PTahleme, Jan., 1B08, p. 23.
2 RaiiBBet (op. 01*.) ■'*<! forth various social measiires for the care
of pre^ant and child-bearinif women, which would tend to lessen orim-
iual abortion.
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612 PSTCHOLOOY OF SEX.
trolling procreation, the method of prerentiug the possibility of
procreation altogether by the performance of castration or other
slighter operation having a like inhibitory effect on reproduction.
The other two methodB only effect a single act of union or its
results, but castration affects all subsequent acts of sexual union
and usually destroys the procreative power permanently.
Castration for various social and other purposes is an ancient
and wide-spread practice, carried out on men and on animals.
There has, however, been on the whole a certain prejudice against
it when applied to men. Itlany peoples have attached a very sacred
, value to the integrity of the sexual organs. Among some primi-
tive peoples the removal of these organs has been regarded as a
peculiarly ferocious insult, only to be carried out in momenta
of great excitement, as after a battle. Aledicine has been opposed
to any interference with the sexual organs. The oath taken by
the Greek physicians appears to prohibit castration : "I will not
cut."i In modem times a great change has taken place, the
castration of botJi men and women is commonly performed in
diseased conditions ; the same operation is sometimes advocated
and occasionally performed in the hope that it may remove
strong and abnormal sexual impulses. And during recent years
castration has been invoked in the cause of negative eugenics, to
a greater extent, indeed, on account of its more radical character,
than either the prevention of conception or abortion.
The movement in favor of castration appears to have b^un
in the United States, where various experimeots have been made
in embodying it in law. It wan first advocated merely as a
punishment for criminals, and especially sexual offenders, by
Hammond, Everts, Lydston and others. From this point of
view, however, it seems to be imsatisfactory and perhaps illegiti-
mate. In many cases castration is no punishment at all, and
indeed a positive benefit. In other cases, when inflicted against
tlie subject's will, it may produce very disturbing mental effects,
leading in already degenerate or unbalanced persons to insanity,
eriminality, and anti-social tendencies generally, much more
1 Gomperx, Orcek Thinkers, lol. i, p. 564.
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THE SCIENCE OP PROCREATION. 613
dangerous tlmn tlie original Btate. Eugenic considerationB,
which were later brought forward, conetitute a much sounder
argument for castration ; in this case the castration is carried
out, by no means in order to inflict a barbarous and degrading
punishment, but, with the subject's consent, in order to protect
the community from the risk of useless or mischievous members.
The fact that castration ran no longer be prop«rly ooneldered a
puniBhmpiit, in sbown by tlie pog»ibilUy of deliberately seeking tbe
operation simply for tlie take of convenience, as a preferable and moat
effective substitute for the adoption of preventive methods in sexual
intercourae. 1 am only at prcHcnt acquainted with one eaae in which
this course has been adopted. This subject is a medical man (of Pnritan
New England ancestry) with whose nexual history, which is quite
nonnal, I have been acquainted for n long time past. His present age
is thirty-nine. A few years since, having Si sufficiently large family, he
adopted preventive methods of intercour^. The subsequent events I
narrate in hia own words: "The trouble, forethought, etc, rendered
neoesaary by preventive measures, grew more and more irkaoroe to me
as the years passed by, and finally, I laid the matter before another
physician, and on his assurances, and after mature deliberation with
my wife, was operated on some time since, and rendered sterile by hav-
ing the vaa deferens on each side exposed through a slit in the scrotum,
then tied in two places with silk and aevered between the ligatures.
This was done under cocaine inBltrative annstheaia, and was not so
extremely painful, though what pain there was (dragging tbe cord out
through the slit, etc.) wcmed very hard to endure. I wa; not out of my
ofhce a single day, nor seriously disturbed in any way. In six days all
stitches in the scrotum uere removed, and in three weeks I abandoned
the suspensory' bandage that had been rendered necessary by the ex-
.treme sensitiveness of thp testicles and cord.
"The operation iisd nroved a moat complete success in every wnv.
Sexual functions are abnohilely unaffected in ant/ way whatsoever. There
is no sense of discomfort or uneasiness in the sexual tract, and what
seems strangest of all to me, is the fact that the semer. so far as one
can judge by ordinary means of observation, is undiminished In quan-
tity and unchanged in character. (Of course, the microscope would
reveal its fatal lack.)
"My wife is delighted at having fear banished from our lore, and,
taken all in all, it certainty seems as if life would mean more to ua
both. Incidentally, the health of both of ua seems better than usual,
particularly so in my wife's case, and this she attributes to a sooth'
ing influence that is attained by allowing the seminal fluid to be de-
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614 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX,
posited in a perfectl}- normal manner, and remain in contact with the
Taginal secretionB until it naturally passes off.
"This operation being comparatively new, and, as yet, not often
done on others than the insane, crinlinal, etc., I thought it might be
of interest to you. It I shed even the faintest ray of light on this great-
est of all human problems ... I shall be glad indeed."
Such a caae, with it': so far satisfactory issue, certainly deserves
to he placed on record, though it may well be that at present it will
not be widely imitated.
The earliest advocacy of castration, which I have met with
as a part of negative eugenics, for the specific "purpose of
prophylaxis as applied to race improvement and the protection of
society," is by Dr. F. E. Daniel, of Texas, and dates from 1893.^
Daniel mixed up, however, somewhat inextricably, castration as
a method of purifying the race, a method which can be carried
out with the concurrence of the individual operated on, with cas-
tration as a punishment, to be inflicted for rape, sodomy,
bestiality, pederasty and even habitual masturbation, the method
of its performance, moreover, to be the extremely harbarous and
primitive method of total ablation of the sexual organs. In more
recent years somewhat more equitable, practical, and scientific
methods of castration have been advocated, not involving the
removal of the sexual glands or organs, and not as a punishment,
but simply for the sake of protecting the community and the race
from the burden of probably unproductive and possibly dangerous
members. Nacke has, from 1899 onwards, repeatedly u^d the
social advantages of this measure.^ The propagation of the
inferior elements of society, Wacke insists, brings unhappincBs.
into the family and is a source of great expense to the State.
He regards castration as the only effective method of prevention,
and concludes that it is, therefore, our duty to adopt it, just as
IF. E. Daniel, President of the State Medical Association of
Texas, "Should Insane Criminals or Sexual Perverts be Allowed to
Procreate?" Medieo-tegal Journal, Dec, 1863; id., "The Cause and Pre-
vention of Rape," Texaa Utedical Jomiiat. May, 1904.
! P. NHcke, "Die Kftstrstion bei gewissen Klassen von Degener-
irten als ein WJrksamer Socialer SchutK," Archie fur Kriminalanlkr^
pologie, Bd. Ill, IS9B, p. 58; id, "Kastrafion in Gewissen Fallen von
Geisteskrankheit," PiyehiatrischyeKrologiaehe Wooh«n»ehrift, 190S,
Jvo, 29.
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THE SCIENCE OF PROCHEATION. 615
»
we hnve adopted vaceiDation, taking care to eecure the conBent
of tlic subject himself or bis guardian, of the civil authorities,
and, if necessary, of a committee of experts. Professor Angelo
Zaccarelli of Naples has also, from 1899 onwards, emphasized
the importance of castration in the sterilization of the epileptic,
the insane of various classes, the alcoholic, the tuberculous, and
instinctive criminaU, tlie choice of cases for operation to be made
by a commission of e^cperts who would examine school-children,
candidates for public employments, or persons about to marry.i
This movement rapidly gained ground, and in 1905 at the
annual meeting of Swiss ulienists it was unanimously agreed that
the sterilization of the insane is desirable, and that it is neces-
sary that the question should be legally regulated. It is in
Switzerland, indeed, that the first steps have been taken in
Europe to carry out castration as a measure of social prophylaxis.
The sixteenth yearly report (1907) of the Cantonal asylum at
Wil describes four cases of castration, two in men and two in
women, perfonned — with the permission of the patients and the
civil authorities — for social reasons ; both women had previously
had illegitimate children who were a burden on the community,
and all four patients were sexually abnormal; the operation
enabled the patients to be liberated and to work, and the results
were considered in every respect satisfactory to all concerned.^
The introduction of caatratioR as a method of negative eugenics
huB been facilitated hy the use of new methods of performing it with-
out risk, and without actual removal of the testes or ovaries. For
men, there la the simple method of vasectomy, as recommended by
NHcke and many others. For women, there is the oorresponding, and
almost equally simple and harmless method of Kehrer, by section and
ligutioD of the Fallopian tubes through the vagina, as recommended by
) .^ngclo Zuccarelli, "Asessualizzazione o ateriliizazione dei De-
genenti," L'Anomalo, 1898-M. No. 6; id., "Sur la necessity et sur
lea Moyena d'empScber la Reproduction des Hommes les plus Degen6res,"
International Congress Criminal Anthropology, Amsterdam, 1901.
J Nllcke, TfeuroloffiaoXen Centralhlatt. March 1, 1908. The original
account of these operations Is reproduced in the PtyctUatTitofi-NeuTolo-
ijifhr Wochenachrift, No. 2, 1909, with an approving comment by the
editor. Dr. Brealer, As regards castration in America, see Flood,
'TQRtrafion of Idiot Children." American Journal Ptyehology, Jan.,
ISOO; also, Alienitl aad Xeurotogiat, Aug., 160ft, p. 348.
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616 rsVCHOLOGY OF SEX.
Eiach, or Rose's very similar procedure, easily carried out in a few
mlnntea by a.n experienced hand, as recommended by ZuecarelU.
It has been found that repeated exposure to the X'raya produces
sterili^ in both sexes, alike io animals and men, tind X-ray workers
have to adopt various precsutions to avoid sufTering from this effect. It
has been suggested that the application of the X-ra,vs would be s good
■ubstitut^ for cBstrRtion; it appears tliat the cITects of the application
are only likely to last a few years, wliieh, in some doubtful cases,
might be an advantage. (See British Medical Joarna], Aug. 13, 1904;
ib., March 11, 1905; <b., July e, 10OT.)
It is scarcely posBible, it seema to mc, to view castration as a
method of negative aigenics with great enthusiasm. The reck-
lesanees, moreover, with which it is sometimes proposed to apply
it by law— owing no doubt to the fact tliat it is not so obviously
repulsive as the less radical procedure of abortion — ought to
render us very cautious. We must, too, dismiss the idea of cas-
tration as a punishment ; aa such it is not merely barbarous but
degrading and is unlikely to have a beneficial effect. As a
method of negative eugenics it should never be carried out except
with the subject's consent. The fact that in some cases it might
be necessary to enforce secluaion in the absence of castration
would doubtless be a fact exerting influence in favor of such
consent; but tlie consent is essential if the subject of the opera-
tion is to be safe-guarded from degradation. A man who has
been degraded and embittered by an enforced castration might
not be dangerous to posterity, but might very easily become a
dangerous member of the society in which he actually lived.
With due precautions and safeguards, castration may doubtless
play a certain part in the eleration and improvement of the race.'
The methods' we have been considering, in so far as they
I It is probable that castration may prove especially advantaKeous
in the cnse of the feeble-minded. "In t^mersetshire," says Treagold
("The Feeble-Mind as a .Social Danger," Kugenict Revietc, July, 1909),
"I found that out of a tiital numt«r of 167 feeble-minded women, nearly
tn-o-fltths ( 61 ) had givin birth to children, for the most part illegitimate.
Moreover, it is not uncommon, but, rather the rule, for these poor girls to
be admitted into the workhouse maternity wards again and again, and
the average number of olTspring to each one of tbem is probably threo
or four, although even six is not uneommon." In his work on Mental
Dtficienoy (pp. 288-292) Ihe same author shows that propagation by the
mentally deficient is, in England, "both a terrible and extensive ei-il,"
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THE SCIENCE OF PBOCBBATION. 617"
limit the procreative powers of the leas health; and efEcieut
etockg in a conununity, are methods of eugenics. It must not,,
however, be supposed that they are the whole of eugenics, or
indeed that they are in any way essential to a eugenic scheme.
Eugenics is concerned with the whole of the agencies which
elevate and improve the human breed ; abortion and castration
are methods which may be used to this end, but they are Hot
methods of which everyone approves, nor is it always clear that
the ends they effect would not better be attained by other
methods; in any case they are methods of negative eugenics.
There remains the field of positive eugenics, which is concerned,
not with the elimination of the inferior stocks but with ascer-
taining which are the superior stocks and with furthering their
procreative power.
While the necessity of refraining fiom procreation is no-
longer a bar to marriage, the question of whether two persons
ought to marry each other still remains in the majority of cases
a serious question from the standpoint of positive as well as of
negative eugenics, for the normal marriage cannot fail to involve
children, as, indeed, its chief and most desirable end. We have
to consider not merely what are the stocks or the individuals
that are unfit to breed, but also what are these stocks or individ-
uals that are most fit to breed, and under what conditions pro-
creation may best be effected. The present imperfection of our
knowledge on these questions emphasizes the need for care and
caution in approaching their consideration.
It in»y be fitting, at this point, to refer to the experiment of the
Oneida Community in establisliing a system of scientilic propagation,
under the guidance of a man whoxe ability and distinction as a pioneer
are only to-day beginning to be adequately recognized. John Humphrey
Noyes was too far aliead of his own day to be recognized at his true
worth; at the most, he was regarded as the sagacious and successful
founder oS a sect, and h'm attempts to apply eugenics to life only aroused
ridicule and persecution, so that he wan, unfortunately, compelled by
outside pressure to bring a most instructive experiment to a premature
end. TTis aim and principle are set forth in an Essay on ftoienlific Propo-
rtion, printed some forty years ago, which discusses problems that are
only now beginning to attract the attention of the practical man, as
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618 PSYCHOLOOY OF SEX.
within the range of social politice. When Noyes turned his vigorous and
practical mind to the question of eugenics, that question was exclusively
in the hands of scientific men, who felt all the natural timidity of the
scientific man towards the realization of his proposals, and who were not
prepared to depart a hair's breadth from the conventional customsof their
time. The experiment of Noyes, at Oneida, marked a new stage in the
history of ct^enics; whatever might be the value of the experiment — and
a first experiment cannot well be final — with Noyes the questions of
eugenics passed beyond the purely academic stage in which, from the
time of Plato, they bad peacefully reposed. "It is becoming clear,"
Noyes states at the outset, "that the foundations of scientific society are
to be laid in the scientific propagation of human beings." In doing this,
we must attend to two things: blood tor heredity) and training; and
he puts blood first. In that, be was at one with the most recent bio-
metrical eugeniats of to-day ("tl.j nation has for years been putting
its money on 'Environment,' when "Heredity' wins in a canter," as Karl
Pearson prefers to put it), and at the same time revealed the breadth
of his vision In comparison with the ordinary social reformer, who, in
that day, was usually a fanatical believer in tlie influence of training
and surroundings. Noyes sets forth the position of Darwin on Uie
principles of breeding, and the step beyond Darwin, which bad been
taken by Qalton. He then remarks that, when Galton comes to the
point wliere it is necessary to advance from theory to the duties the
theory suggests, he "subsides into the meekest conservatism." (It must
be remembered that this was written at an early stage in Galton's work.)
This conclusion was entirely opposed to Kojes' practical and religious
temperament. "Duty is plain; we say we ought to do it — we want to
do it; but we cannot. The law of God urges us on; but the law of
society holds us back. Tlie boldest course is the safest. Let us take an
honest and afeady look at the law. It is only in the timidity of igno-
rance that the duty seems impracticable." Noyes anticipated Galton
is regarding eugenics n» n matter of religion.
Noyes proposed to term the work of modem science in propagation
"Stirpiculture," in which he has sometimes been followed by others.
He considered that it is the business of the stirpiculturist to keep
in view both quantity am] quality of stocks, and he held tliat, without
diminishing quantity, it was possible to raise the quality by exercising
a very stringent discrimination in selecting males. At this point, Noyce
has been supported in recent years by Karl Pearson and others, who
have shown that only a relatively small portion of a population la
needed to produce the next generation, and that, in fact, twelve per cent,
of one generation in man produces fifty per cent, of the next genera-
tion. What we need to ensure is that this small reproducing section of
the population shall be the best adapted for the purpose. "The quantily
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THE SCIENCE OF PBOCBEATION. 619
of production will be in direct proportion to the number of fertile
fpmaleB," a.a Noyea saw the queBtton, "and tlie value produced, so far
an it depends on selection, will be nearly in inverse proportion to the
number of fertilizing malea," In this matter, Noyea anticipated
Ehrenfels. The two principles to be held in mind were, "Breed from
the best," and "Breed in-and-in," with a cautious and occaaional intro-
dnction of new strains. [It ma; be noted tbat Reibmaj-r, in his recent
Enttrietlungigeachiohte de« Qenics tind Talented, argues that the su-
perior races, and superior individuals, in the human species, have been
produced by an unconscious adherence to exactly these principles.)
"By segregating superior families, and by breeding these in-and-in,
superior varieties of human beings might be produced, which would
be comparable to the thoroughbreds in all the domestic races." He
illustrates this by the early history of the Jews.
Noyea finally criticiaea the present method, or lack ot method, in
matters of propagation. Our marriage aystem, he states, "leaves mating
to be determined by a general scramble." By ignoring, also, the great
difference between the se\es in repi^odnctive power, it "restricts each
man, whatever may be his potency and his value, to the amount of
production of which one woman, chosen blindly, may be capable." More-
over, he continues, "practically it diacriminates against the best, and
in favor of the worst; for, while the good man will be limited by his
conscience to what the law allows, the bad man, free from moral check,
will distribute his seed bej-ond the legal limits, as widely as he dares."
"We are safe every way in saying that there is no possibility of carry-
ing the two precepts of scientific propagation into an institution which
pretends to no discrimination, allows no suppression, gives no more
liberty to the best than to the worst, and which, in fact, must inevitably
discriminate the viong way, so long as the inferior classes are most
prolific and least amenable to the admonitions of science and morality."
In modifying our sexual institutions, Noyes insists there are two es-
sential points to remember; the preservation of liberty, and the preser-
vation of the home. There must be no compulsion about human
scientific propagation; it must be autonomous, directed by self-govern-
ment, "by the free choice of those who love science well enough to
'make themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake.' " The
home, also, must be preserved, since "marriage is the best thing for man
88 lie is;" but it is necessary to enlarge the home, tor, "It all could
learn to love other children than their own, there would l>e nothing to
hinder scientific propagation in the midst of homes far better than any
that now exist"
This memorable pamphlet contains no exposition of the preciss
measures adopted by the Oneida Community to cnrri- out these prin-
ciples. The two essential points were, as we know, "male oontinence"
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620 PSYCHOLOGY OF 8EI.
(see ante p. 653), and the enlarged fumily, in which all the mm were
the actual or potential mat^s of all the women, but no union (or propa-
gation took place, except hh the regult of reason and deliberate rewlve.
"Tbe community," utya U. J. Seymour, one of the original members
{The Oneida Commttnit!/, 1894, p. 5), "was a family, as distinctly sepa-
rated from surrounding society as ordinary houaeholdu. The tie that
bound it together waa as permanent, and at least as sacred, as that
of marriage. Every man's care, and the whole of the common property,
waa pledged for the maintenance and protection of the women, and
the support and education of the children." It is not probable that tlie
Oneid* Community presented in detail tlie model to which human
society generally will conform. But even at the lowest estimate, its
success showed, as Lord Slorely has pointed out {Diderol, vol. ii, p, 1»),
"how modifiable are some of these facts of existing human character
which are vulgarly deemed to be ultimate and ineradicable," and that
"the discipline of the appetites and affections of sex," on which the
future of civilization largely rests, is very far from an impoMtbilify.
tu many respects, the Oneida. Commimity was ahead of its time, —
and even of ours, — but it is interesting to note that, in the nutter of
the control of conception, our marriage system has come into line with
the theory and practice of Oneida; it cannot, indeed, be said that
we always control conception in accordance with eugenic principles, but
the fact that such control has now become a generally accepted habit
of civilization, to some extent deprives Noyes' criticism of our marriBge
Hystem of the force it possessed half a century ago. Another change
in our customs — the advocacy, and even the practice, of abortion and
castration — would not have met with his approval; he waa strongly .
opposed to both, and with the high moral level that ruled his community,
neither was necessary to the maintenance of the stirpiculture that
preiailcd.
The Oneida Community endured for the space of one generation,
and came to an end In 1ST9, by no means through a recognition of failure,
but by a wise deference to external pressure. Its members, many of
them highly educated, continued to cherish the memory of the practices
anti ideals of the Community. Noyes Miller (the author of The Btrikt
of a Sea, and Zugaasant'a Diaoovery) to the last, looked with quiet
confidence to the time when, as he anticipated, the great discovery of
Noyes would be accepted and adopted by the world at large. Another
member of the Community (Henry J. Sej-mour) wrote of the Community
long afterwards that "It was an anticipation and imperfect miniature,
of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth."
Perhaps the commonest tjpe of proposal or attempt to
improve the biological level of tlie race is by the escluaion of
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THE SCIENCE OF PBOCBEATION. 621
certain claseee of degenerates from marriage, or by the encourage-
ment of better claBses of the community to marry. Thie seems
to be, at present, the moat popular form of eugenics, and in eo
far aa it is not effected by compulsion but is the outcome of a
voluntary reeolTe to treat the question of the creation of the
race with the jealous care and guardianship which so tremend-
ously serious, so godlilie, a task involves, it has much to be said
in its favor and nothing against it.
But it is quite another matter when the attempt is made
to regnlate such an institution as marriage by law. In the first
place we do not yet know enough about the principles of heredity
and the transmissibility of pathological states to enable us to
formulate sound legislative proposals on this basis. Even so
comparatively simple a matter as the relationship of tuberculosis
to heredity can scarcely be said to be a matter of common agree-
ment, even if it can yet be claimed that we possess adequate
material on which to attain a common agreement. Supposing,
moreover, that our knowledge on all these questions were far
more advanced than it is, we still should not have attained a
position in which we could lay down general propositions regard-
ing the desirability or the undesirability of certain classes of
persons procreating. The question is necessarily an individual
question, and it can only be decided when all the circumstances
of the individual case have been fairly passed in review.
Thfl objection to any legislative and compulsory regulation
of the right to marry is, however, much more fundamental than
the consideration that our knowledge is at present inadequate.
It lies in the extraordinary confusion, in the minds of those who
advocate such legislation, between legal marriage and procreation.
The persons who fall into such confusion have not yet learnt the
alphabet of the subject they presume to dictate about, and are no
more competent to legislate than a child who cannot tell A from
B is competent to read.
Marriage, in so far as it is the partnership for mutual help
and consolation of two people who in such partnership are free,
if they please, to exercise sexual union, is an elementary right
of every person who is able to reason, who is guilty of no fraud
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022 PSTCHOLOGT OF SEX.
or concealment, and who is not likely to injure the partner
selected, for in that case society is entitled to interfere by virtue
of its duty to protect its raemberB. But the right to marry, thus
underetood, in no way involveB the right to procreate. For
while marriage per se only affects the two individual concerned,
and in no way affects the State, procreation, on the other hand,
primarily affects the community which is ultimately made up of
procreated persons, anil only secondarily affects the two individ-
uals who are the inBtramenta of procreation. So that just as the
individual couple lias tlie first right in the question of marriage,
the State has the first right in the question of procreation. The
State is juet as incompetent to lay down the law about marriage
as the individual is to lay down the law about procreation.
That, however, is only one-half of the folly committed by
those who would select the candidates for matrimony by statute.
Let us suppose — as is not indeed easy to suppose — that a com-
munity will meekly accept the abstract prohibitions of the statute
book and quietly go home again when the registrar of marriages
informs them that they are shut out from legal matrimony by
the new table of prohibited degrees. An explicit prohibition to
procreate witliin marriage is an implicit permiasion to procreate
outside marriage. Thus the undesirable procreation, instead of
being carried out under the least dangerous conditions, is carried
out under the most dangerous conditions, and the net result to
the community is not a gain but a loss.
What seems usually to happen, in the presence of a formal
legislative prohibition against tlie marriage of a particular class,
is a combination of various evils. In part the law becomes a
dead letter, in part it is evaded by skill and fraud, in part it is
obeyed to give rise to worse evils. This happened, for instance,
in the Terek district of the Caucasus where, on the demand of a
medical committee, priests were prohibited from marrying per-
sons among whose relatives or ancestry any cases of leprosy had
occurred. So much and such various mischief was caused by
this order that it was speedily withdrawn. ^
iThiB example is brought forward by Ledermann, "Skin
Olid Marrisge." in Senator and Karainer, Health and DUeaae
lion to Marriage.
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THE SCIENCE OF PROCBEATION. 623
If we remember that the Catholic Church was occupied lor
more than a thousand years in the attempt to impose the prohibi-
tiou of marriage on its priesthood, — an educated and trained body
of men, wlio had every spiritual and worldly motive to accept the
probibitioi), and were, moreover, brought up to regard aBceticism
as the beet ideal in life,^ — we may realize bow absurd it is to
attempt to gain the same end by mere casual prohibitions issued
to untrained people with no motives to obey such prohibitions,
and no ideals of celibacy.
The hopelessness and even absurdity of effecting the eugenic
improvement of the race by merely placing on the statute book
prohibitions to certain classes of people to enter the legal bonds
of matrimony as at present constituted, reveals the weakness of
those who undervalue the eugenic importance of environment.
Those who affirm that heredity is everything and environment
nothing seem strangely to forget that it is precisely the lower
classes — those who are most subjected to the influence of bad
environment — who procreate most copiously, most recklessly,
and most disastrously. The restraint of procreation, and a con-
comitant regard for heredity, increase pari poMu with improve-
ment of the environment and rise in social well-being. If even
already it can be said that probably fifty per cent, of sexual inter-
course—perhaps the most procreatively productive moiety — takes
place outside legal marriage, it becomes obvious that statutory
prohibition to the unfit classes to refrain from legal marriage
merely involves their joining the procreating classes outside legal
matrimony. It is also clear that if we are to neglect the factor
of environment, and leave the lower social classes to the
ignorance and recklessness which are the result of such environ-
ment, the only practical method of eugenics left open is that by
castration and abortion. But this method — if applied on a
wholesale scale as it would need to be^ and without reference to
1 1 may here again refer to Lea's instnictive History of Sacerdotal
Celibaey.
2 In England, 36,000 applicants for admission to the navy are an-
nually rejected, and although the physical requirements for enlistment!
in the army are nowadays extremely moderate, it is estimated by Gen-
eral Maurice that at least sixty per cent, of recruits and would-be
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624 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
the consent of the individual — ia entirely opposed to tnodeni
democratic feeling. Thus those short-sighted eugenista who
overlook the importance of environment are overlooking the only
practical channel tlirough which their aims can be realized.
Attention to procreation and attention to environment are not,
as some have supposed, antagonistic, but they play hannonioualy
into each ©tiler's hands. The care for environment leads to a
restraint on reckless procreation, and the restraint of procreation
leads to improved environment.
Legislation on marriage, to be effectual, must be enacted in
the home, in the school, in the doctor's consulting room. Force
is helpless here; it is education that is needed, not merely
instruction, but the education of the conscience and will, and the
training of the emotions.
Legal action may come in to further this procesa of educa-
tion, though it cannot replace it. Thus it is very desirable that
when there has been a concealment of serious disease by a party
to a marriage such concealment should be a ground for divoree.
Epilepsy may be taken as typical of the diseases which should be
a bar to procreation, and their concealment equivalent to an
annulment of marriage.^ In the United States tlie Supreme
Court of Errors of Connecticut laid it down in 190G that the
Superior Court has the power to pass a decree of divoree when
one of the parties has concealed the existence of epilepsy. This
weighty doliverence, it has been well said,^ marks a forward
step in human progress. There are many other seriomly path-
ological conditions in which divorce should be pronounced, or
indeed, occur automatically, except when procreation has been
reriuits are dismissed n? unfit. (See e.g., William Coatea, "The Duty
j)f the Medical Profession in the Prevention of National Deterioration,"
Brilish Medical Journal. May 1, 1909.) It can Bcarcely be claimed that
men who arc not good enough for the army are good enough for the
grpat task of creating the future race.
1 The recognition of epilepsy as a har to procreation is not recent.
There is naid to be a record in the archives of the town of Lucon in
wliieh epilepsy was adjudged to be a valid reason for the cancellation
of a betrothal (flrifixft Hedical Journal. Feb. U, 19M. p. .183),
i British Medical Joi.rnal. April 14, 1906. In California and some
other States, it appcarn that deceit regarding health Is a ground for
the annulment of marriage.
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THE SCIENCE OF PROCBEATION, 62o
renounced, for in that case the State ie no longer concerned in
the relationship, except to punish any fraud committed by
concealment.
The demand that a medical certificate of health should be com-
pulBorj' on marriage, has been especially made in France. In 1868,
Didii]', of Lyons, proposed, indeed, that all personi, without exception,
should be compelled to possess a certificate of health and disease, a Icind
of sanitary passport. In IRT2, Bertillon (Art. "Deniographie," iKction-
naire Encgelopidiqae des Sciences Mfdu^les) advocated the registration,
at marriage, of the chief anthropological and pathological traits of the
contracting parties (height, weight, color of hair and eyes, muscular
force, size of head, condition of vision, hearing, etc., deformities and
defects, etc.), not so much, however, for tlie end of preventing undesir-
able marriages, as to facilitate the study and comparison of human
groups at particular periods. Subsequent demands, of a more limited
and partial character, for legal medical certificates as a condition of
marriage, have been made bj* Fournier (Syphilis el Manage, 1890),
Cni'alis (Le Science et le Manage. 1890), and Jullien ( BlenorrAoyic et
Manage, 1898). In Austria, Ha akovec, of Prague ("Contrat Matrimonial
et L'Hygiene Pnblique," Comptes-rendaa Congrfs International de Mide-
eine, Lisbon, 1000, Section VII, p. 600), argues that, on marriage, a
medical certificate should be presented, showing that the subject is ex-
empt from tuberculosis, alcoholism, syphilis, gonorrbffia, severe mental,
or nervous, or other degenerative state, likely to be injurious to the
other partner, or to the offspring. In America, Rosenberg and Aronstam
argue that every candidate for marriage, male or female, should undergo
a strict examination by a competent board of medical examiners, con-
cerning (1) Family and Past History (syphilis, consumption, alcoholism,
nervous, and mental diseases), and (2) Status Prcsens {thorough ex-
amination of all the organs) ; if satisfactory, a certificate of matri-
monial eligibility would then be granted. It is pointed out that a
measure of this kind would render unnecessary the acts passed l:^ some
States for the punishment by fine, or imprisonment, of the cODceahnent
of disease. Ellen Key also considers (Ltebc und Ehe, p. 430) that each
party at marriage should produce a certificate of health. "It seems
to me just as necessary," she remarks, elsewhere (Century of the Child,
Ch. I), "to demand medical testimony concerning capacity for marriage,
as concerning capacity for military service. In the one case, it is a mat-
ter of giving life; in the other, of taking It, althouf^ certainly the latter
occasion has hitherto been considered as much the more serious."
The certificate, as usually advocated, would be a private but
necessary legitimation of the marriage in. the eyes of the civil and
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626 PSYCHOLOOY OF SEX.
nligiovB authoritiea. Such a at«p, being required /or the protection
alike of the conjugal partner and of posterity, would inyolTe a new
legal organization of the matrimonial contra^. That such demands
are m frequently made, ie a sigDificant sign of the growUi of moral
(Miiseiouaneu in the communit}', and it is good that the public ahould
be made acquainted with the urgent need for them. But it is hi^y
undesirable that the.r should, at present, or, perliaps, ever, be embodied
in l^al codes. What is needed is the cultivation of the feeling of in-
dividnal reaponsibility. and the development of social Bntagoniem towards
those individuals who fail to recogniie their responsibilit;. It is the
reality of marriage, and not its mere legal forms, that it is necessary
to act upon.
The voluntary method is the only Bound way of approach
in this matter. Duclaux considered that the candidate for
marriage should poBBeee a certificate of health in much the same
way as the candidate for life assurance, the question of profes-
sional secrecy, as well as that of compulsion, no more coming into
one question than into the other. There is no reason why Buch
certificates, of an entirely voluntary character, should not
become customary among those persons who are sufficiently
enlightened to realize all the grave personal, family, and social
issues involved in marriage. The system of eugenic certifica-
tion, as originated and developed by Galton, will constitute a
valuable instrument for raising the moral consciousness in this
matter. Gallon's eugenic certificates would deal mainly with
the natural virtues of superior hereditary breed — "the public
recognition of a natural nobility" — ^but they would include the
question of personal health and personal aptitude.^
To demand compulsory certificates of health at marriage is
indeed to begin at the wrong cud. It would not only lead to
evasions and antagonisms but would probably call forth a
reaction. It is first necessary to create an enthusiasm for
health, a moral conscience in matters of procreation, together
with, on the scientific side, a general habit of registering the
anthropological, psychological, and pathological data concerning
I Sir F. Galton. Inquiries Inlo Uumtin FacvUy. Everyman's Li-
brary edition, pp. Zll et seq.; cf. Gallon's collected Eaaaya in Eugenios,
recently published by the Eugenics Education Society.
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THE SCIENCE OP PBOCBEATION. 627
the individual, from birth onwanle, altogcthi-r apart from mar-
riage. The earlier demands of Diday and Bortillon were thus
not only on a Eounder but also a more practicable basis. If such
records were kept from birth for every cliild, there would be no
need for Bpecial examination at marriage, and many incidental
ends would be gained. There is difficulty at present in obtaining
each records from the moment of birth, and, po far as I am
aware, no attempts have yet been made to establish their system-
atic registration. But it is quite possible to begin at the begin-
ning of school life, and this is now done at many schools and
colleges in England, America, and elsewhere, more especially as
regards anthropological, phy Biological, and psychological data,
each child being submitted to a thorough and searching anthropo-
metric examination, and thus furnished with a systematic state-
ment of his physical condition.' This examination needs to be
standardized and generalized, and repeated at fixed intervals.
"Every individual child," as is truly stated by Dr. Dukes, the
Physician to Rugby School, "on his entrance to a public school
should be as carefully and as thoroughly examined as if it were
for life insurance." If this procedure were general from an early
age, there would be no hardship in the production of the record at
marriage, and no opportunity for fraud. The dossier of each
person might well he registered by the State, as wills already are,
and, as in the case of wills, become freely open to students when a
century had elapsed. Until this has been done during several
centuries our knowledge of eugenics will remain rudimentary.
There can be little doubt that the eugenic attitude towards mu-
riage, and the reeponaibility of the individual for the future of the race,
je becoming more recognized. It Jr coDBtantlf happening that persons,
about to many, approach the physician in a atate of serious anxiety on
this point. Urquhart, indeed (Journal of Menlai Boienee. April. 1907,
p. 277), believes that marriageB are seldom broken off on this ground;
thin seems, however, too pessimistic a vi^w, and even when the mar-
riage ia not broken off the resolve is often made to avoid procreation.
1 For some account of the methods and results of the work in
schools, see Bertram C. A. Windle, "Anthropometric Work in Schools,"
Medical Magaeine, Feb., 1SS4.
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628 PSTCHOLOQT OF SEX.
ClouBtoD, iviio empIiBsimii {Hygiene of the Uind, p. 74) the imporianM
of "inquiries by each of the partieB to the life-contract, by their parents
and their doctors, an to heredity, temperament, and hcRtth," is more
hopeful of the reaults than Urquhart. "I have been very much iin-
presacd, of late years," he writes [Journal of Uenlal Scirncir, Oct., 1007,
p. 710), "with the way in which this subject is taking posBession of
intelligent people, by the nuipber of times one is ronsultcil by young
men and young women, proposing to marrj-, or by their fathers or
motiiers. I used to hnve the feeling in the back of my mind, when
I was consulted, that it did not matter what I said, it would not nuke
any difference. But it is making a difference; and I, and others, could
tell of scores of roarriftges which were put off in consequence of psychi-
atric medical advice."
Ellen Key, al»o, refers to the growing tendency among both men
and women, to be influenced by eugenic consideration in forming partner-
ships for life {Century of the Child, Ch. I). The recognition of tho
eugenic attitude towards marriage, ttie quickening of tlie social aud
individual conscience in matters of lieredity, as also the systematic in-
troduction of certification and registration, will be furthered by the
growing tpndencv to the Hocialization of medicine, and, indeed, in its
absence would be impossible. (See e.g., Havelock Ellis, The Nationalisa-
tion of aealth.) The growth of the State Medical Organization of Health
is steady and continuous, and is constantly covering a laiger field. The
day of the private practitioner of medicine — who was treated, as Duclaus
(L'BygHne Sociale, p. 26-1) put it, "like a grocer, whose siiop the cus-
tomer may enter and leave as he pleases, and when he pleases" — will,
doubtless, noon be over. It is now beginning to be felt that health is tar
too serious a matter, not only from tiie individual but also from tha
social point of view, to be left to private caprice. There is, indeed, a
tendency, in some quarters, to fear that some day societ; nay rush to
the opposite c:ctreme, and bow before medicine with the same unreasoning
deference that it once bowed before theology. That danger is still very
remote, nor is it likely, indeed, that medicine will ever claim any au-
thority of this kind. The spirit of medicine has, notoriously, been
rather towards tiie a<«»ertion of scepticism than of dogma, and the
fanatics in this detd will always be in a hopelessly small minority.
The general introduction of nuthentic personal records
covering all essential data — hereditary, anthropometric and
pathological — cannot fail to be a force on the side of positive
aB well as of nepative eugenics, for it would tend to promote
the procreation of the fit as well as restrict that of the unfit,
without any legislative compulsion. With the growth of educa-
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THE SCIENCE OF PKOCREATION. 629
tion a regard lor such records as a prelimiaary to marriage
would become as much a matter of course aa ODce was the regard
to the restrictions imposed by Canon law, and as atill is a regard
to money or to caste. A woman can usually refrain from marry-
ing a man with no money and no prospects; a man may be
passionately in love with a woman of lower class than himself
but he seldom marries her. It needs but a clear general per-
ception of all that is involved in heredity and health to make
eugenic considerations equally inHuential.
A discriminating regard to the quality of offspring will act
beneficially on the side of positive eugenics by substituting the
pernicious tendency to put a premium on excess of childbirth by
the more rational method of putting a premium on tlie quality
of the child. It has been one of the most unfortunate results
of the mania for protesting against that decline of the birthrate
which is always and everjwhere the result of civilization, that
there has been a tendency to offer special social or pecuniary
advantages to the parents of large families. Since large fam-
ilies tend to be degenerate, and to become a tax on the community,
since rapid pregnancies in succession are not only a serious drain
on the strength of the mother but are now known to depreciate
seriously the quality of the offspring, and since, moreover, it is
in large families that disease and mortality chiefly prevail, all the
interests of the community are against the placing of any
premium on large families, even in the case of parents of good
stock. The interests of the State are bound up not with the
quantity but with the quality of its citizens, and the premium
should be placed not on the families that reach a certain size but
on the individual children that reach a certain standard; the
attainment of this standard could well be based on observations
made from birth to the fifth year. A premium on this basis
would be as beneficial to a State as that on the merely numerical
basis is pernicious.
This consideration applies with sUil greater force to the
proposals for the "pystematic endowment of motherhood" of
which we hear more and more. So moderate and judicious a
social reformer as Mr. Sidney Webb writes : "We shall have to
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630 PSYCUOLOOY OF SEX.
face the problem of the systematic endowment of motherhood,
and place this most indispensable of all professions upon an
honorable economic basis. At present it is ignored as an occupa-
tion, unremunerated, and in no way honored by the State."*
True as this statement is, it must always be remembered that an
indispensable preliminary to any proposal for the endowment
of motherhood by the State is a clear conception of the kind of
motherhood which the State requires. To endow the reckless
and indiscriminate motherhood which we see around us, to
encourage, that is, by State aid, the production of citizens a
large proportion of whom the State, if it dared, would like to
destroy as unfit, is too ridiculous a proposal to deserve discus-
eioQ.^ The only ^und reason, indeed, for the endowment of
motherhood is that it would enable the State, in its own interests,
to further the natural selection of the fit.
As to the positive qualities which the State is entitled to
endow in its encouragement of motherhood, it is still too early
to speak with complete assurance. Negative eugenics tends to be
ahead of positive eugenics ; it is easier to detect bad stocks than
to be quite sure of good stocks. Both on the scientific side and
on the social side, however, we are beginning to attain a clearer
realization of the end to be attained and a more precise knowl-
edge of the methods of attaining it.^
Even when we have gained a fairly clear conception of the
stocks and the individuals which we are justified in encouraging
to undertake the task of producing fit citizens for the State, the
problems of procreation are by no means at an end. Before we
1 The moat notable steps in this direction have been taken in
Germany. For an account of the experiment at Karlsruhe, see Dia
.Tieue Oeneralion, Dee., 1908.
3 Wictbknudnen (as quoted in Beanial-Probleme, Dec., IMS, p. S37)
epealcB strongly, but not too strongly, concerning the folly of any indis-
rriminate endowment of procreation.
3 On the seientiRc side, in addition to the fruitful methods of
Rtntisticftl biometricx. which have already been mentioned, much promise
attaches to work along the lines initiated by Mendel; see W. Bateeon,
Mendel't Principles of Heredity, 1909 ; also, W. H. Lock, Accent Progreag
in the Study of Variation, Heredity, <md Evolution, and B. C. Punnett,
Mvndelivm, 1907 {American edition, with interesting preface by Gaylord
Wilshire, from the Socialistic point of view, 1909).
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THE SCIENCK OF PllOCUEATlON. 631
cuu eo luuch as inquire what are the conditions under which
Belected individuals may best procreate, there is Etill tlie initial
queetioD to be decided whetlier those individnals are both fertile
and potent, for this is not guaranteed by the fact tliat they
bi'long to good stocka, nor is even the fact that a, man and a
woman are fertile with other persons any positive proof that they
will he fertile with each other. Among the large maases of the
population who do not aeek to make their unions legal until
those unions have proved fertile, this difficulty is settled in a
Bimple and practical manner. The question is, however, a
fieriouB and hazardous one, in the present state of the marriage
law in most countries, for those classes which are accustomed to
bind theraselvoa in legal marriage without any knowledge of their
potency and fertility with each other. The matter is mostly left
to cliance, and as legal marriage cannot usually be dissolved on
the ground that there are no offspring, even although procreation
IB commonly declared to be the chief end of marriage, the question
assumes much gravity. The ordinary range of sterility is from
seven to fifteen per cent, of all marriages, and in a very large
proportion of these it is a source of great concern. This could
be avoided, in ssme measure, hy esamination before marriage,
and almost altogether hy ordaining that, as it is only tlirough
olTspring that a marriage has any concern for the State, a legal
marriage could be dissolved, after a certain period, at the will of
either of the parties", in the absence of such offspring.
It was formerly Bupposetl that when k nnion proved Infertile, it
was the wife who wa^ (tt fault. That belief is long since exploded,
but, even yet, a man is generally far more concerned about his potency,
that IB, his 'ability to perform the mechanical act of ooitus, than about
hia fertility, that is, hia ability to produce living spermataioa, though
the latter condition is a much more common source of sterility. "Any
man," says Arthur Cooper (British MedUml Journal, May 11, 1907),
"who has any sexual defect or malformation, or who has suffered from
any disease or injury of the gen ito- urinary organs, even though compara-
tively trivial or one-sided, and although his copulative power may be
unimpaired, should be looked upon as possibly sterile, until some sort
of evidence to the contrary has been obtained." In case of a sterilo
marriage, the possible cause should first be inTestigated in the husband,
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632 FBYCHOLOQT OF SEX.
for it is eomparativelj' easy to examine tlie semen, and to BMert«ia if it
contAina active Bpenuatoco*. Prinzing, in a compreheiuive study of
sterile marriages ("Die Sterilen Eheo," Zeitachrift fiir SoidalwUgen-
toheft, 1904, Heft 1 and 2), atatefl that in two-flftbe of ateriie marriages
the man ie at fault; one-third of such marriages are the result of
venereal diseases in the l:uaband himself, or transmitted to the wife.
GoDorrhiBS is not now considered so important a cause of sterility as it
was a few years ago; Schenk makes it responsible for only about thir-
teen per cent, sterile marriages icf. KJsch, The Sexual Life of Woman).
Piukus {ArcMv fiir Qynlikologie, 1907) found that of nearly five hun-
dred cues in which he examined both partners, in 24.4 per cent, oases,
the sterility was directly due to the husband, and in 16.B per cent,
cases, indirectly due, because caused by gonorrhica with which he had
infected his wife.
When sterility <b due to a defect in the husband's spermiatoeoa,
and is not discovered, as it usually might be, before marriage, the
question of impregnating the wife by other methods has oocasionally
arisen. Divorce on the ground of sterility is not possible, and, even if
it were, the couple, although they wish to have a child, have not usually
any winh to Bcparate. I'nder these circimistancea, in order to secure the
desired end, without departing from widely accepted rules of morality,
the attempt is occasionally made to effect artiQcial fecundation by in-
jecting the semen from a healthy male. Attempts have been made to
«ffect artificial fecundation by various distinguished men, from John
Hunter to Schwalbe, but it is nearly always very difficult to effect, and
often impossible. This is easy to account for, if we recall what ha* al-
ready been pointed out (ante p. S77) concerning the influence of erotic
excitement in the women in securing conception; it is obriously a
serious task for even the most susceptible woman to evoke erotjc en-
thusiasm & propot of a medical syringe. Schwalbe, for inatanoe, records
a case {Deutsche Medianischea Wochentchrift, Aug., ISOS, p. 610) in
which,— in consequence of the husband's sterility and the wife's anxiety,
with her husband's consent, to be impregnated bj the semen of another
man, — he made repeated careful attempts to effect artificial fecundation;
Uiese attempts were, however, fruiUess, and the three parties concerned
Anally resigned themselves to the natural method of intercourse, which
was snccessful. In another case, recorded by Schwalbe, in which the
husband was impotent but not sterile, six attompts were made to effect
artificial fecundation, and further efforts abandoned on account of the
disgust of all concerned.
Opinion, on the whole, has been opposed to the practice of artificial
fecundation, even apart from tlie question of the probabilities of success.
Thus, in France, where there is a considerable literature on the subject,
the Paris Medical Facul^, in 1B8S, after some heutation, refused
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THE SCIENCE OF FBOCHEATIOM. 633
O^r&rd'a theaiB on the hiatory of artificial fecundation, afterwards pub-
lieb«d independentlj. In 1883, the Bordeaux legal tribunal declared that
artificial fecundation waa illegitimate, and a Bocial danger. In 1S97,
the Hoi; See alM pronounced that tiie practice is unlawful {"Artificial
Fecundation before the Inquisition," BritUh Medical Journal, March 6,
1899). Apart, altogether, from tbia attitude of medicine, law, and
Church, it would certainlj seem that those who desire offspring would
do well, as a rule, to adopt the natural method, which is also the best,
or else to abandon to others the taalc of procreatiob, for which they
are not adequately equipped.
When we have aBcertaiued that two iDdividuala both belong
to Bound and healthy etocks, and, further, that they are them-
selvee both apt for procreation, it atill remains to consider the
conditioQB under which they may beat effect procreation.^
There ariaea, for inrtance, the question, often asked. What is the
best age for procreation ?
The coDBi derations which weigh in anawering this queetion
are of two different orders, physiological, and social or mora).
That is to say, that it is necessary, on the one band, that physical
maturity should have been fully attained, and the sexual cells
completely developed ; while, on the other hand, it is necessary
that the man shall have become able to support a family, and that
both partners shall have received a training in life adequate to
undertake the responsibilities and anxieties involved in the rear-
ing of children. While there have been variations at different
times, it scarcely appears that, on the whole, the general opinion
as to the best age for procreation has greatly varied in Europe
during many centuries. Hesiod indeed said that a woman
should marry about fifteen and a man about thirty,^ but
obstetricians have usually concluded that, in the interests alike
of the parents and their offspring, the procreative life should not
1 The Htudy of tNe right conditions for procreation ia very ancient.
In modem times we find that even the very first French tni'dical boolt
in the vulgnr tongue, the Rigime du Corps, written by Alebrand of
Florence (who was physician to the Kii^; of France) , In 1256, is largely
devoted to this matter, concerning which it gives much sound advice.
See J. B. So;ilhat, ies litres iie MaUtre AUbrand de Florence aw lo
PjrfricuJiurc, Thtse de Paris. IflOfi.
EHeeiod, Wor^ and Days, II, 690-700.
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634 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
begiu in women before twcntj and in men before twenty-five.'
After thirty in women and after tliirty-five or forty in men it
seems probable that the best conditions for procreation begin to
decline.^ At the present time, in England and several other
civilized countries, the tendency has been for the age of marriage
to fall at an increasingly late age, on the average some years
later than that usually fixed as the most favorable ago for the
commencement of the procreative life. But, on the whole, the
average seldom departs widely from the accepted standard, and
there seems no good reason why we should desire to modify this
general tendency.
At the same time, it b; no means follows that wide variAtions,
under special circumstances, may not only be permisBible, but desirable.
The male is capable of procreating, in some cases, from about the agb
of thirteen until far beyond eighty, and at this advanced age, the
offspring, even if not notable for great physical robustness, may posaesn
high intellectual qualities. (See e.g., Haveloclt Ellis, A Sivdg of Britiah
Oenim, pp. 120 et teq.) The range of the procreative age in women
begins earlier (sometimps at eight), though it usually ceases by fifty. '
«r earlier, in only rare cases continuing to sixty or beyond. Caaea have
been reported of pregnancy, or childbirth, at the age of fifty-nine {e.g..
Lancet, Aug. 5, 1»05, p, 419). Lepage IComptet-rendvs BooifIS dfOh-
ttitrique de Parts. Oct., 1603) reports a case of a primipara of fifty-
seven; the child wan stillborn. Kiech (jSmwiI Life of tfoinan. Part IT)
1 This bas long been tbe accepted opinion of medical autborlties,
as may be judged by the statements brought together two centuries ago
bj- Schurig, Parthenalogia, pp. 22-26.
1 The statement that, on the average, the best age for procreation
in men is before, rather than after, forty, by no means assumes the
existence of any "critical" age in men analogous to the menopause in
women. This is sometimes asserted, but there is no agreement in re-
gnrd to it. Restif de la Bretonne {Montieur Tfieolat, vol, z, p. 176)
said that at the age of forty delicacy of sentiment be^ns to go.
Fjlrbringer believes (Senator and Kaminer, Health and Diaeate t» B«-
lation to Marriage, vol. i, p. 222) that there is a decisive turn In »
mnn's life in the sixth decade, or the middle of Ihe fifth, when desire
and potency diminish, J, F. Sutherland also states (Comptea-reitduM
Congrfu International de Mfdecine. IflOO, Section de Psychiatrle, p. 471)
that there Is. in men, about the fiftv-fifth year, a chanije analogous t»
the menopause in women, but only in a certain proportion of men. It
would appear that in most men the decline of sexual feeling and potMKT'
In verv gradual, and at first manifesta itself in increased power of
-control.
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TBS SOIENCB OF FROCBEATtON. 635
refeTH to omMfl of pTegnancy in elderly women, mnd various references
are given in Briltth Medical Journal, Aug. 8, 1903, p. 325.
Of mote importance Is the question of early pregnancy. Several
investigatore havs devoted their attention to tliis question. Thus, Spitta
(in a Marburg Inaugural Diaaertation, 1895) reviewed the clinical
history of 200 labors in primipane of IB and under, as observed at the
Marburg Maternity. He found that the general health during pregnancy
was not below the average of pregnant women, while the mortality of
the child at birth and during the following weeks was not high, and
the mortality of the mother waa by no meana high. Picard (in a Paris
thesia, 1903) has studied childbirth in thirty.eight mothers below the
age of sixteen. He found that, although the pelvis is certainly not yet
fully developed in very }-oung giria, the joints and bones are much more
yielding than in the adult, bo that parturition, far from being more
difficult, is usually rapid and easy. The proceaa of labor itself, is essen-
tially normal in these caaea, and, even when abnormalities occur (low
insertion of the placenta is a common anomaly) it is remarkable that
the patients do not sufTer from them in the way common among older
women. The average weight of the child was three Itilogrammea, or
about 0 pounds, 9 ounces; it sometimes required special care during the
first few days after birth, perhaps because labor in these cases is some-
times dow. The recovery of the mother was, in every case, absolutely
normal, and the fact that these young mothers become pregnant again
more readily than primipans of a more mature age, further contributes
to show that childbirth below the age of aiiteen is in no way injurious
to the mother. Cache {AnTialea de Qynicologie et d'ObsUtriquc, Dec.,
1904) has attended ninety-one labors of mothers under sevmteen, in
the Rawson Hospital, Buenos Ayres; they were of so-called Latin race,
mostly Spanish or Italian. Gache found that these young mothers were
by no means more exposed than others to abortion or to other compli-
cations of pregnancy. Except in tour cases of slightly contracted pel-
vis, delivery was normal, though rather longer than in older primipane.
Damage to the soft parts waa, however, rare, and, when it occurred, in
every case rapidly healed. The average weight of the child was 3,039
grammes, or nearly G% pounds. It may be noted that most observers
find that very early pregnancies occur in women who begin to menstruate
at an unusually early age, that is, some years before the early pregnancy
It is clear, however, that young mothers do remarkably well,
while there is no doubt whatever that they bear unusually fine infants.
KleinwBchter, indeed, found that the younger the mother, the bi^<-r
the child. It is not only physically that the children of young mothers
are superior. Marro has found {Puberii, p. 2RT) that the childien of
mothers under 21 are superior to those of older mothers both in con-
DiclzedbyGoOglC
636 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
duct and intelligence, provided the father* kre not too old or too young.
The detailed records of individual cases ccoftrm tbese reaulta, both
aa regards Bother and child. Thus, Milner (Laitoet, Jnna 7, 1902)
records a case of prqpancy in a girl of fourteen; the labor pains
were very mild, and delivery was easy. E. B. Walee, of New Jer-
sey, has recorded the history (reproduced in Medical ReprutM, SepL 15,
1S(«0) of a colored girl who Iwcaiiie pregnant at the age of eleven. She
was of medium siie, rather tall and slender, but well developed, and
began to menstruate at the age of ten. She was in good health and
spirits during pregnancy, and able to work. Delivery. wa* easy and
natural, not notably prolonged, and apparently not unduly painful, for
there were do moona or agitation. The child was a fine, healthy boy,
weigliing not less than eleven pounds. Mother and child both did well,
and there was a great flow of milk. Whiteside Robertson {britith Medi-
cal Journal, Jan. IS, 1902) has recorded a case of pregnancy at the aga
of thirteen, in a Colonial girl ot British origin En Cape Colony, which
is notable from other points of view. During pregnancy, she was annmic,
and appeared to be of poor development and doubtfully normal pelvic
conformation. Yet delivery took place naturally, at full term, wiOiout
diOiculty or injury, and thi; lying-in period was In every way satisfactory.
The baby was welt -proportioned, and weighed lYi pounds. "I have
rarely seen a primipara enjoy easier labor," concluded Robertson, "and
I have never seen one look forward to the happy realization of mother-
hood with greater satisfaction."
The facts brought forward by obstetricians concerning the good
results of early pregnancy, as regards both mother and child, have not
yet received the attention tJiey deserve. They are, however, confirmed
by many general tendencies which are now fairly well recogniiad. Tb«
Bigcificant fact Is known, for instance, that in mothers over thirty, the
proportion of abortions and miscarrisges is twice as great as in mothers
between the ages of fifteen and twenty, who also are superior in this
respect to mothers between the ages of twenty and thirty {Bt<Ut»ti«cker
Jahrbuck, Budapest, 1905). It was, again, proved by Matthews Dun-
can, in his Goulstonian lecture, that the chances ot sterility in a woman
increase with increase of age. It has, further, been shown (Kisch,
Bemiai Life of Woman, Part IT) tiiat the older a woman at marriage,
the greater the average interval before the first delivery, a tendency
which seems to indicate that it is the very young woman who is in the
condition most apt for procreation; Kiseh is not, indeed, inclined to
think that this applies to women below ttt-enty, but the fact, observed
by other obstetricians, that mothern under eighteen tend to become pr^
nant again at an unusually short interval, goes far to neutralize the
ciception made by Kisch. It may also be pointed out that, among
children of very young mothers, the sexes are more nearly equal in nnm-
Dicized by Google
THE SCIENCE OF PBOCRBAnOK. (iit7
ber than ia the case with older mothers. This would seem to indicate
that we ars here in presence of a normal equilibrium which will decrease
as the age of the mother is progresaiTely disturbed in an atmormal
direction.
The facility of parturition at an early age, it may be noted, cot-
respondB to an equal facility in physical sexual intercourse, a fact that
is often overlooked. In EuBSJa, where marriage etill takes place early,
it was formerly common when the woman was only twelve or thirteen,
and Guttceit [Dreiaaig Jahre I'toois, vol. i, p. 324) says that he was
assured by women who married at this age that the first coitus pre-
sented no especial difficulties.
There is undoubtediy, at the present time, a considerable amount
of prejudice against early motherhood. In part, this is due to a failure
to realize that women are sexusHy much more precocious than men,
physically as well as psychically (see ante p. 35}. The difference is
about five years. This difference has been virtually recognized for
thousands of years, in the ancient belief that the age of election fpr
procreation is about twenty, or less, for women, but about twenty-five
for men; and it has more lately been afBrmed by the discovery that,
while the male is never capable of generation before tbirteen, the female
may, in occasional instances, become pregnant at eight. (Some of the
recorded examples are quoted by Kisch.) In part, also, there is an
objection to the assumption of responsibilities so serious as those of
motherhood by a young girl, and there is the very reasonable- feeling
that the obligations of a permanent marriage tie ought not to be under-
taken at an early age. On the other hand, apart from the physical
advantages, as regards both mother and infant, on the side of early
pregnancies, it is an advantage for the child to have a young mother,
who can devote heriielf sympathetically and unreservedly to its inter-
ests, instead of presenfing the pathetic spectacle we so often witnesH
in the middle-agod woiunn who turns to motherhood when her youth and
mental flexibility are gone, and her habits and tastes have settled into
other grooves; it has sometimes been a great blessing even to the very
greatest men, like Qoethe, to have had a youthful mother. It would
also, in many cases, be a great advantage for the woman herself if
she could bring her procreative life to an end well before the age of
twenty-five, so that she could then, unhampered by child-bearing and
mature in experience, be free to enter on such wider activities in Uie
world as she might be fitted for.
Such an arrangement of the procreative life of women would, ob-
viously, only be a variation, and would probably be unsuited for the
majority. Every case must be judged on its own merits. The best age
for procreation will probably continue to be regarded as being, for most
women, around the sge of tweofy. But at a time like the present, when
Dicized by Google
638 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
there is an unfortunate tendency for motherhood to be unduly delayed,
It beeomes necesMrj to insist on the advantagee, in many cases, of Cftrly
motherhood.
There are other coBditioDB favorable or tinfavorable to
procreation which it is now unDccessary to discuss in detail, since
they have already been incidentally dealt with in previous volumes
of these Studies. There ie, for instance, the question of the time
of year and the time of the menstrual cycle which may most
properly be selected for procreation. ^ The best period is prob-
ably that when sexual desire is strongest, which is the period
when conception would appear, as a matter of fact, most often to
occur. This would be in spring or early Bummer,^ and imme-
diately after (or shortly before) the ' menstrual period. The
Chinese have observed that the last day of menstruation and the
two following days — corresponding to the period of cestniB —
constitute the most favorable time for fecundation, and Bossi, of
Genoa, has found that the great majority of successes in both
natural and artificial fecundation occur at this period.^ Soranus,
as well as the Talmud, assigned the period about menstruation as
the beet for impregnation, and Susruta, the Indian physician,
said that at this time pregnancy most readily occurs because then
the mouth of the womb is open, like the flower of the water-lily
to the sunshine.
We have now at last reached the point from which we started,
the moment of conception, and the child again lies in its mother's
womb. There remains no more to be said. The divine cycle of
life is completed,
1 See, in vol. i, the study of "The Phenomena of Sexual Periodicity."
1 Among animals, a1»o, spring litters are often said to be the best.
SBoBsi's results are summaTieed in Archtveg d' Anthropologic
Criminelk, Sept., 1891. Alebrand of Florence, the French King's physi-
cian in the thirteenth century, also advised intercourse a day after the
end of menstruation.
Dicized by Google
POSTSCRIPT.
"The work that I was bom to do is done," a great poet
wrote when at last he had completed hts task. And although
I am not entitled to sing any Nunc dimittis, I am well aware
that the task that has occupied the best part of my life can
have left few years and little strength for any work that
comes after. It is more than thirty years ago since the first
resolve to write the work now here concluded began to
shape itself, still dimly though insistently; the period of
study and preparation occupied over fifteen years, ending
with the publication of Man and Woman, put forward as a
prolegomenon to the main work which, in the writing and
publication, has occupied the fifteen subsequent years.
It was perhaps fortunate for my peace that I failed at
the outset to foresee all the perils that beset my path. I
knew indeed that those who investigate severely and inti-
mately any subject which men are accustomed to pass by on
the other side lay themselves open to misunderstanding and
even obloquy. But I supposed that a secluded student who
approached vital social problems with precaution, making
no direct appeal to the general public, but only to the public's
teachers, and who wrapped up the results of his inquiries in
technically written volumes open to few, I supposed that such
a student was at all events secure from any gross form of
attack on the part of the police or the government under
whose protection he imagined that he lived. That proved
to be a mistake. When only one volume of these Studies
had been written and published in England, a prosecution,
(639)
Dicized by Google
640 POSTSCRIPT.
instigated by the government, put an end to the sale of tliat
volume in England, and led me to resolve that the subse-
quent volumes should not be published in my own country,
I do not complain. I am grateful for the early and generous
sympathy with which my work was received in Germany
and the United States, and I recognize that it has had a
wider circulation, both in Enghsh and the other chief
languages of the world, than would have been possible by
the modest method of issue which the government of my
own country induced me to abandon. Nor has the effort to
crush my work resulted in any change in that work by su
much as a single word. With help, or without it, I have
followed my own path to the end.
For it so happens that I come on both sides of my house
from stocks of Englishmen who, nearly three hundred
years ago, had encountered just these same difficuhies and
dangers before. In the seventeenth century, indeed, the
battle was around the problem of religion, as to-day it is
around the problem of sex. Since I have of late years
realized this analogy I have often thought of certain
admirable and obscure men who were driven out. robbed,
and persecuted, some by the Church because the spirit of
Puritanism moved within them, some by the Puritans
because they clung to the ideals of the Church, yet both alike
quiet and unflinching, both alike fighting for causes of
freedom or of order in a field which has now for ever been
won. That victory has often seemed of good augury to the
perhaps degenerate child of these men who has to-day
sought to maintain the causes of freedom and of order in
another field.
It sometimes seems, indeed, a hopeless task to move
the pressure of inert prejudices which are at no point so
DiclzedbyGoOgle
P08T8CEIPT. 641
obstinate as this of sex. It may help to restore the serenity
of our optimism if we would more clearly realize that in a
very few generations all these prejudices will have perished
and be forgotten. He who follows in the steps of Nature
after a law that was not made by man, and is above and
beyond man, has time as well as eternity on his side, and
can afford to be both patient and fearless. Men die, but the
ideas they seek to kill live. Our books may be thrown
to the flames, but in the next generation those flames
become human souls. The transformation is effected by the
doctor in his consulting room, by the teacher in the school,
the preacher in the pulpit, the journalist in the press. It
is a transformation that is going on, slowly but surely,
around us.
I am well aware that many will not feel able to accept
the estimate of the sexual situation as here set forth, more
especially in the final volume. Some will consider that
estimate too conservative, others too revolutionary. For
there are always some who passionately seek to hold fast to
the past ; there are always others who passionately seek to
snatch at what they imagine to be the future. But the wise
man, standing midway between both parties and sympathiz-
ing with each, knows that we are ever in the stage of transi-
tion. The present is in every age merely the shifting point
at which past and future meet, and we can have no quarrel
with either. There can be no world without traditions;
neither can there be any life without movement. As Hera-
cleitus knew at the outset of modem philosophy, we cannot
bathe twice in the same stream, though, as we know to-day,
the stream still flows in an unending circle. There is never
a moment when the new dawn is not breaking over the
earth, and never a moment when the sunset ceases to die.
Dicized by Google
642 POSTSCRIPT.
It is well to greet serenely even the first glimmer of the
dawn when we see it, not hastening towards it with undue
speed, nor leaving the sunset without gratitude for the dying
light that once was dawn.
In the moral world we are ourselves the light-bearers,
and the cosmic process is in us made flesh. For a brief space
it is granted to us, if we will, to enlighten the darkness that
surrounds our path. As in the ancient torch-race, which
seemed to Lucretius to be the symbol of all life, we press
forward torch in hand along the course. Soon from behind
conies the runner who will outpace us. All our skill lies in
giving into his hand the living torch, bright and unflickering,
as we ourselves disappear in the darkness,
Havelock Ellis.
Dicized by Google
INDEX OF AUTHORS.
Abdtaa. 1E8.
Acberr, 21, 270.
AcCoo, 191. MI. 27D.
Adam, Mme,. 7S. 411, M6.
Adl«r. Felii, 485.
Adter. O., 523, G26. 627, H6.
Adner, KS.
Agullaotedo. 260, MS. £«. 300, 305.
Ayala, 323.
Baoctalmont. II
Bud ley, J, H.,
BaEIS-HpRdley,
BaUac. 2S1. 5!
Ban EH. L, B,.
BartelB, Mai.
BaBPdav. Se.
Bai, Beltorl, 363. 471.
Baian. Emilia Pardo, SI.
Beadnell. C. M.. 38.
Beddoei, GO, U.
103, lao, 13S. ]».
291, 301, 3«3, 310,
374, SSI. 410, 467.
SIT, E30, 54S, 567,
■, de SBUTagea. Et3.
Banatetlen
Booth, f
9 MoQlmaraod, 153.
(643)
D,t„db, Google
. . ISS, 3»0, 5E1.
BUBhee, StS.
Butler. O.. 43.
Daniel, F. B., «14.
Dareste, 18.
DHrmeBteterl J., Z3e.
Darrlcarrire. 809.
Darwin, e«6.
D'Aulnay. hme., 6t0.
Dau, W., 385.
Debrerne, IE.
D'Enjojr. Paul, «1, tW.
DeoB, K.
Oeodbar. Mn. Kaahlbit. :
DeBpln«, 27G.
Deiprfa. £&0, 284. 348, 3S1.
Deasoir, Mai. &E7.
Iward. 48, 79, 116, 17i, 314,
Cblld. May, 427.
Cbotien, M., »3.
CtUTBoBlom, 128. 1E2, 154.
Cicero, 239.
Cluffo, 293.
Clappertoa, Ulas, 379, 4S7, &es, 53.^.
Clarke, «7. '
Clement ot Alexandria, 18, 101, I
Colomber, 347.
Coltman, !36, 237.
Crackautbarpe, 579, G86.
Crawley," A. E., 123, 145,
Curr. 390,
Cyples, '223."
Dlder
, 63S.
I, B27.
, Sir K.,
161. 373, 397.
Dluska, Mme., 25.
Dodd. Catherine, 7T.
DoUrU, 803.
DonaMBon. Principal. 308, 394, 397, 398,
399.
Dryadale. c! R.. 346. 695. 598.
.-■- " 595
-.). S.1(. 340. 341, 346, 628.
DUbren, »ee Bloch, Iwan.
~ " , ~ . 339, 240, 294.
Dukea, 827.
Dulaure, 99. 232.
Dulberg, 331.
Dumaa. O., 684.
Duncao, Matlhewa, 127. 677, G3g.
Dunnetl, 69.
Dunning, 329.
Dupouey. 234.
Durkhetm, 424. 436.
Durlacher. 808.
Djrer, I., 249. 348, 353.
Edgar, J. Clifton, 72.
Ebrenl'ela," C. von. 502, 819.
Elllol. Q. F. S., 97.
Bills. Str A. B., 147, 148, 229,
ElllB. Hatelock. 4, 68, 73, 74. 85, 121.
170, 214, 416, 528. 629, 685. 631, 693,
628, 834.
El 118, William. 149.
Elmy. Beo.. «rc Etbelmer. Ellis.
Enderlln, Max. 49, 91. 92. 107.
EngelmaDn. 86, 88, 76.
EnnlUB, 96.
- lenaberger, 146.
I, 193, 330. 339. 636.
■ I, 429. 433, 438. 442.
ler, Ellis. 63. 621.
urg. 107. 191, 636. 54S.
:er, 89.
rneU,
Dicized by Google
Ferruid, ISt.
Flucbl, 133.
Fltcbctt. «n.
Flescb, Max, 106, SU, 600.
FJogel, 21S.
. 141, 363, W, E1>, E»,
G34, E<G, EM.
ForQa«arl,^J77.
FracagtaruB. 3S1. 335.
Fruer. Ura., 13G.
Fraier. J. Q., (8. IIS. ni, Z33. 391.
eud, 3«
«,
riirf
Zl.
cha. N.
4W.
36«
Gacbe, (3G.
aaEdekeD. 3S!.
GailHTd, BID.
Galtoil, Sir F.. UO. 532, SS3, 818. 326.
aardioer, J. S.. Z3E.
OarrlaoD, C. O., 1TC. ITS, Ul.
Gaultler, J. it. 171, 3T1.
Geary, 'n.," 80, "aw. 'mo, 47T.
Oenaep. A. Van, 23S.
Gerard, 633.
Gertisrd, Adgle, 70.
Gerw)n,'A., "siO.'^Sa, 413, 4S4.
Geaell, 663,
Gtbb, W. T., 278, 337.
Gibbon. 160.
Gllea, A. E.. 72. 19T.
Glli-H, H. A,. 14.
Glllard, B.. 666.
Glllen. 87, JZl. 392. 424. 633, ETC.
antes de la Tourette. 191.
Glnnell, 481.
Gluffrlda-Ruggerl, 278.
GlOck, L., 321.
Oodard, 37.
Godrrer, J. A., 18G, 211. 314, 423, 426.
426. 44T.
GodvlD, W., 483.
Goelhe, 472.
Gomperi. 612.
GoDcourt, C5, 290, 309, 368.
Ooodttalld. P. M., 44, 263, 288.
GotUiel'l. 2G1.
Oottichllng, 88.
Goarmoat, Remr de, 126, 540, (166.
Qnter, R. de, UO.
L, 220.
Qresory ol Nrssa. 118.
GresoiT ot Taura, 169, 399.
Oregarr M., 492.
Oroaa, 38, '572.'
Groas, H., 608.
Oroaae, 409.
Gullck, L. H., 74.
Ourlltt. L... 64, 224.
Gultc
, 414.
, 63T. Ul, S2T.
Gjurkovecliky,' lK2,"l02!
Haddon. A. C, 87, lOU
HagelaUnge, 219, 431.
Hale, 409.
, 186, 289, 2T2, 172. _
, W. L., 33L
Haalain. J.. 409, E88.
Hauamelater. P., 251.
Hare] burg, 320.
Havkeawortb, 2£T.
Harcrtft. 581, 584.
Haraa, P. J., 439.
Haynei, E. S. P., 434.
Hfiar, »1.
Heldenhaiii, A., 83.
HeidlDBsteld. 261.
Helmasn, 645.
Hellmann, 7T, 122, 300.
Hellpftcb, 163. 180, 306,
Hplme. T. A,, 11, 18.
HelTecluB, 139.
Herbert. AuberoD, 470.
Herodotus. 108, :
; 232, 233, 391, MS,
., 492, 501, 539.
Dicized by Google
Holm«a, T., XK.
Holt, R. B., £K, 49S.
Hopkins, Elllcc, B3. ZSS.
Hort. 156.
Houiel, 72.
Howard, O. G., 4!4. 43», 432, 436,
441, 44«. 418, 451. tet, 411, 477,
B28.
Howltt. A. W., 434.
Hudrej-Menos, J.. 58.
HQSh«, C. H.. 584.
Humboldt, W. Von, 222, 444, 4«3.
HutchliiBon, Sir J,. 535.
HutchLnson. Woods. 130. 140. 2SS,
286, 289. 2»9. 410, 422, 463.
Hyde, J. N.. IM.
Hyrtl, 600.
Indervlck. 463. '
Ivens. F.. 331.
jBOObl. Mflpy P. St
jBcobBohn, L., 192.
Janel. 146. 198.
Jultlen
Kaan, 50.
Knlbeck, 110.
KarlD. Karlna. 59.
Keller, G., 38.
Kelly. H. A.. E12.
Kennedy. Helen, 66. <I9.
Key, Ellen. 3t. 32. 02. 115. 175, 37G,
364, 376. 379, 3S2. 417, 419. 438.
477, 487, 488, 561. 512. 624, 540,
B62, 564, 574. 580. 587, 610, 0^.
Keyee, E. L., 55. 59.
Klernan, 27S, 474.
Kind, A.. 44, 54.
KlDgsley, C, 469.
Kirk. E. B., 64.
Kisch. 188, 329, 526. 528, 535. 551,
K6, 673. 677. G90, 616, K32, 634,
637.
Klotl. 666.
Knott, J.. 322.
KoBBmann. 534.
KoVHlewsky, Sopble. 141.
Krefft-Eblng, 182, 194, 326, 416, 59
KrausB, F. B.. 163, 227. 231.
Krukenberg. Frsu. 49.
Kubary, 550.
Ku 11 berg, 261.
KurellB, £73,
Lambkin, 325. 3£7. 406.
Landret, 336.
LaDsadorl, 89.
Laycock, 562,
Lea. 153. 162. ISO. 283, 419. 496. 623.
Lecky, 2S1. 307, 370, 374, 398, 460, 495.
Lederer, 186, 202.
-Brull,' 371.
B, Denalov, 47, 363.
LiBcbncwska. Maria, 54, 57, 106.
Ll9it. 608.
LIvlngslone. W. P., 389.
Lotk, W, H.. 630.
Logan, 2S7.
Lombroeo. 267. 276. 380. 414.
LOwenfeld. 185, 194, 535. 59!l.
Lowndes. 320.
Lueae, Clempnt, 337.
Lucretius, S5«.
LumboKz. 543,
Luther. IKl, 441, 499, 532, 578.
Lydston, 612.
LytteltOD. E.. 46. 49. 59, 311.
Uaberly, O. C. 480.
MaeMurcby, Dr. Helen, 69.
Mac vie, 605.
Madala. M., 500.
Maeterlinck, 115.
Magruder. J., 427.
Malllard-Bruue, 13.
Maine. 395.
Maltland. 40. 424. 440.
HattbUB, 138, 594.
Mandevllle. B., 249, 2K, 364.
Manubnrdt, 231.
ManteeaziB, A., 266, 293.
Mantegaua. P.. 534, 543.
Marchealnl, 62.
Marcuae. J.. lOT.
. 271.
I, 363, 692, 636.
Maasalong
Maason, 4^
MatbevB,
Mayreder. Rosa, 176, 404, 417, GT4.
Mc Bride, O. H., 72.
McCleary. Q. P., 9, 10.
Dicized by Google
HcIlqubBDi, 3S7.
Meyer- Be D(ey, H„ B14.
. R.. 30S, UT.
Mild, L. J.. II
. O. de, 2G3, laS.
Maakemailer. 26S.
;. MS. bis, bZI.
Moreau. Cbrlalopbe. 252,
Mott, F. W., 324, 226, S!
MulUtull. 50.
MUnsterbfrg. «5», m.
MutTHf. Qllbert, 222.
, IH 2gT, S26, ESS,
■. 2ST. 324. 329, 362.
m, g'., «, 10, 11. IE, £03.
mm*. A., B80.
I. Mai von. 3S1.
d, 394, 4ST.
he, 87, », 132, 140, ITO, 210. 220,
Nortbcow. Rev. H., 16, 40, 9S, 123, 1
ISO, 3§5, 609.
Notthatt, 321.
)BtVAli1. H,. 2T1.
)vl'd, 513, 54S. 5Sfi.
Ill, Dr. H., lee.
Perry-CoBte, 633,
Plnard, I. 8,
PInkUB, 63!.
— - 'le, 58.
Francis, i
I, 230, 301.
, 19, S7S, SSi, <
Pole, M. T,. 53.
ProbBl-Blraben, !«.
ProkBcb, 001.
Pudor, 99, 105, 118.
Punnett, 630.
Pyke, Rafford, 43«, 631, 538.
QuertDD. Heuenl^r de, tSS,
QuirOe, C. Bernaldo de, 260. 295.
300, 3«6.
Rabelais. 4S2.
RabuUuT. £24, 240, 243, 231.
RHclborskl. 2e3, m.
Radbrucb, 608.
Ramdohr, 37.
Ramsay. Sir W. U., 1B6. 165, 234.
RBsmuMen, 406, 561, iH.
Dicil zed by Google
■, 174, 298, ESO, 819.
Renooi Ceilne, 110.
ReUH. £2S, ta. un. 2».
Richard, C, Wi.
Rlcbud, B., 215, 2G3.
Rtcbmond, bra, Banli, B
RItter, Dr. Uair, «9.
Robert, U., 212.
Hobertmn. W., 63<.
RoblDovltch. L.. SM.
Rosen. Anna. U5.
Robde, G13.
Robleder, 184, IH, 203.
RolBnclua, 122.
RoMDtbal,' 421.'
RuBdub TrrBDnlu>, UT.
Ruggl«a. W., no.
ROIlns, Anna, m.
RuaUa. 92.
Rases] I. Mn. BertreDd, 30.
Ruat, H., SS.
RuUen
Ry'kir"
Scott. Colla, ITO.
Scott. J. F'., IM, 111, <
s«sur, xn.
. 102, 134,, m. sn.
liebbeare. Rev. C. .
t. 93, 97, 114,
■in:\a.
Sldgwk
k. H,. 170, 226, MS. 367.
Sidia. I
lorla. 78.
SleroaheTBkl. 14T.
2».
SlmoD.
HoUne. 70.
Smttb.
Robertwin. 22S. SS2.
Soathat
BomerB
t, Lsdr Hen
Bommei
,'h.. M, 108.
, la, S38.
Spence
BBldHln, «T
221, 392,
424
Herbert, 13G
Splits,
ess.
re. Lord, 106,
WBkl, 5«t.
406.
Sterl°l
«D. 4«1.
on. R, L., 409
Ste»en»
690.
IS
MIBB, 70.'
567.
'■W.'a.'.'m. 370
B32, 638,
nd, J. P.,
834.
te.
552.
S;k«,
f. F. J„ 5
30.
Talt. W.. 270. 292,
2»4.
TBlbQt.
E, 3., 27S.
a. 276.
120, 131, 141
310.
STO,
4IS. 574.
TaraoV
8k1 PBUllD
Tfljlor,
R. W., 312
*625,
B63.
Tennj!
L. M., 3S
Tolstor, 564.
Taut, d. Hill, Itf.
DiclzedbyGoOglC
TtrIII, 4H.
Tradiold, GST, tLt.
Trenby, H.
Troll- BoroBtrinl I.
Trolloiw. A., 2M.
VIplaa. tU, 3M.
Uuievlttsr. in, lOT, 113. 114. IIG.
Uraubart,' fl2T.
TKDderklne. m.
VsTFDdanck. 77.
VstirajraDa, Mi. M.
Vaux, Rev. J. E.. 403.
Veldeu. Van den. &>1.
Velten, 134.
Venotte, KB.
Venlero, GU.
Vlckerr. A. Drjradals, CI
VLnay, 6«.
Vinci, L. de. 118.
Vina, Mlu. 23.
VIrchDW, 3K.
Vltrej. IT.
Wkchter, 121.
Wagner. C, 231.
Wabrmuud, 41S. «!.
Wala. E. B.. S3S.
-Ward. Leater, 4S3.
warker, Van
•k"
A.
WaiBerichleben
163
iS'k'
GB3,
m.
Wa niager, 308.
We aDder, 366.
We ch. F. H.,
S&3.
We la, H. 0..
£S8.
Werthaner, 46,
'ui.
23. 146. I*». 148
178
221.
238, 232. 3<9
370
390
381,
i8»,
4W,
433. 431. 460
t»4
«3,
Wharton. USB.
Wheeler, C. B.
'tn.
. Ella W., 190.
WlQdIe. C. t
_ ._. B7. '
WolllUnecraft. H., Ul, GO.
Yule, 0. Adner. GM.
Zacebia, 477, 644. 660. 664.
ZsFhe, 61«. G4T.
Zbq linger, E.. 604. GOT.
Zeno, 604.
Dicized by Google
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
Abortion, arguments againat, Oil
et Bcq.
modern advocatea of, 60S el seq.
the practice of, 001.
Abutinencp. alleged evit results of,
182 et seq.
alleged good results of, 191
as a preparation for marriage,
sexual, in relation to chastitr,
169, 177.
the problems of, 178 et »eq.
AbyBsinia, prostitution in, 233.
sexual initiation in, 516.
Achi Ileus and Nereus, legend of,
158.
Athletics for women, 75,
Aucussin et Nieolette, 161.
Australia, marriage system in, 424.
saturnalian festivals in, 221.
sexual initiation in, 87.
Auvsrgne, story of the Two Lovers
of, 151),
Azimba Land, sexual initiation in,
SS, 616.
Babies, children's theories on the
origin of. 40 et Mq.
Babrtonia. high status of women
Alcohol, aa a sexual stimulant,
207.
in pregnancy, 14.
in relation to the org)-. 220.
Alexander VI and courtesans, 243.
Ambit anak Marriage, 391,
America, divorce in, 458 et seq.,
024.
marriage in, 448, 478. 485,
prostitution in, 251, 257. 266.
American Indians, appreciate as-
ceticism, 145.
sexnal initiation among, 88.
their Sabbath orgies, 221,
words for love among, 134,
Aphrodit« Pandemos, 230.
Art in relation to sexual impulse,
90, 223.
Asceticism among early Chris-
tians, 151 el seq.
appreciated by savages, 146.
definition of, 175.
in religion, 146.
later degeneracy of, 102.
value of, 143 el acq.
Ascetics, attitude towards sex of
medieval, 119.
Aspasia, 308.
(650)
Reena marriage, 391.
Beethoven. 184.
Rehn, Aphra, 308.
Belgium, prostitution in, 267.
Bestial, human sexual impulse not,
130.
Bible in relation to sexual educa-
tion, 90,
Biometrics, 583, 630.
Birth, civilized tendency to pre-
mature, 9.
Birthrate, decline of, 589 et seq.
Blindness in relation to gonor-
thfea. 329.
Botany in sexual education, 68.
Bredalbane case, 477.
Breed versus nurture, 34.
Bride- price, 432.
Brothel, decay of, 302, 332.
in ancient Rome, 239.
in the East. 230.
medieval, 242.
modem defence of, 287.
modern regulation of, 240.
origin of, 234.
Bundling, 3R0.
Burmah, prostitution in, 235.
Canon law, defects of, 438.
its importance, 433.
origin of, 436.
persistence of its traditions, 449
ei Keq.
sound kernel of, 479.
Dicized by Google
Carlyle, 174.
Carnival, origin of, 218.
Castration, modern developments
of, 614.
the practice of, 612.
Chastity among early Chriatians,
151 e( sfq.
deRnition of, 175.
girdle of, 183.
in modern Fiji, 406.
in what aenae a virtue, 169.
modern attitnde towards, 167.
Protestant attitude towards, 184.
romantic literature of, 158.
the function of, 143 el seq.
Child, as foundation of marriage,
488, 305.
characteristics of eldest born.
591.
its need of two parents, 487.
Childhood, sexual activity in, 33
et seq., 209.
nexual teaching in, 48.
aiina, divorce in. 461.
prostitution in, 236.
Chiralry on position of women, in-
fluence of, 401.
Christianity, attitude towards
chaslity, 151 et seq.
attitude towards lust, 179.
attitude towards nakedness, 90.
failed to recognize importance of
art of love, 517.
its influence on position of
women, 398 et seq.
on marriage, 429 et teq.
mixed attitude towanls sexual
impulse, 124 et %eq., 513.
towards prostitution. 282 el aer{.
towards seduction, 180.
Civilization and prostitution, 187
and the sexual impulse, 199.
Coitus, a ponieriori, 556.
best time for, f"
injuries due to unskilful, 525.
intemiptuB, 551.
morbid horror of. 81.
needs to be taught, 510.
prayer before, 659,
proper frequency olV533.
Collusion, doctrine of, 451.
Conception, conditions of, 577.
prevention of, 588 et seq.
Concubine, 498.
Condom, 599.
Conjugal rights or rites, 538.
Consent, age of, 528.
Consultation de Nourrisaon, 29.
Contract, marriage as a, 470 el aeq.
Corinth, prostitution at, 229, 232.
Country life and sexuality, 33.
Courtesan, origin of term, 243.
Courtship, the art of, 538, ef »eq.
Criminality in relation to prostitii-
Dancing, hypienic value of, 74,
as an axgy. 222.
D'Aragona, Xullia, 244.
Divorce, by mutual consent, 403
causes for, 448.
in ancient Rome, 429.
t ^Val.
,461.
in diina, 461.
in England, 447.
in France, 455, 465.
in Germany. 455.
in Japan, 400.
in Russia, 457.
in xSwitKerland, 457.
t'nited States, 458 el seq..
I, 444.
024.
.Milfon'i
modern tendency of, 462 et seq.
rrotostaut attitude towards, 441.
question of damages tor, 450.
reform of. 454.
tendency- of legislation regarding,
624.
transmission of venereal dis-
ease as a cause for, 349.
Drama, modem function of the,
222.
Dt-smenorrhcea, 187,
Economic factor, of marriage, 375.
of prostitution, 259 et seq.
Education in matters of sex, 33
for women, 75.
Dicized by Google
EgTpt, higb Htatiu of women in,
393, 403.
Eldest bom child, chttrocteri sties
of, 6»1.
EDgUnd, marriage in, 431, 444.
prostitution in, 262, 267, 265,
307.
Erotic element in marriage, 508.
Eskimo, divorce among, 461.
sexual initiation among, 89.
Eugenics, T.
false ideas of, 683.
foundation bj Oalton, 5S2.
importance of environment In re-
lation to, 623.
in relation to castration. 614.
Noyes a pioneer in, 618.
positive, 621.
wide acceptance of principle of,
684.
Exogamj, origin of, 423.
Families and degeneracy, large,
691.
Father in relation to tamily, 2.
Fecundation, artificial, 632.
Festivals, seaaonat, 21», 230.
Fidus, 115.
Fiji, chastity in, 406.
Flirtation, 518.
Foots, Feast of, 219.
Fornication, theological doctrine
of, 283, 375.
France, divorce in, 455. 465.
prostitution in, 240, 250, 253,
25S, 266, 306.
Franco, Veronica, 245.
Gallantrr, the ancient conception
of, 412.
Geisha, the, 307.
General paralysis and syphilis, 325,
Genius, in relation to chastity, 173,
184.
in relation to love, 574.
Germany, divorce in, 455.
marriage in, 431.
prostitution in. 251, 253, 333.
Gestation, lenfi:th of, 9.
Girdle of chastity, 183.
Girls, interest in sex matters, 62.
masculine ideals of, 77.
46.
Gnostic elements in early Chris-
tian literature, 166.
Goddesses in forefront of primitiva
pantheons, 392.
Gonorrhma, natu-e and results of,
328 et teg.
And tee Venereal Diseases.
Goutte de Lait, 20.
Greeks, origin of their drama, 222.
prudery among, 101.
rarity of ideal sexual love among,
134.
their attitude towards naked-
ness, 95.
their conception of the orgy, 220,
their erotic writings, 567.
Group-marriage, 423.
Gynacocracy, alleged primitiTe,
390.
644.
Holland, prostitution in, 250.
Homosexuality among prostitutes,
272.
Huddersfleld scheme, 28.
Hysteria, 183.
Ideals of girls, masculine, 77.
Itlegitimacy, 292.
in Germany, 3B2, 489.
Imperia, 244.
Impotency in popular estimation,
Impurity, disastrous results of
teaching feminine, 78.
early Christian views of, 128.
India, story of The Betrothed of,
166.
sacred prostitution in, 836.
Individualism and Socialism, 24.
Infantile mortality, 5.
in relation to suckling by
mother, 26.
in relation to syphilis, G37.
Infantile sexuality, 36.
Insanity and prostitution, 275.
Intellectual work in relation io
sexual activity in men, IBS.
in women, 190.
Dicized by Google
Jamaica, results of free sexual
unions in, 38S.
Japan, attitude towards love in,
13S.
automatic legitimation of cliil-
dren in, 490.
divorce in, 400, 461.
prostitution in, 233, 237.
Jealousy, 563 et aeq.
Jesus, 184.
Jews, as parents, 6.
prostitution among ancient, 235.
status of women among, 394,
Judas Thomaa's Acts, 156 et aeq.
Kadishtu, 22».
Kant, 184.
Korea, prostitution in, 238.
Lactation, 24.
Lectures on sexual Iiygiene, 83.
Lencloa, Ninon de, 246, 308.
Love an essential part of mar-
riages 508.
art of, 507 et aeq,
definition of, 132 et aeq.
difficulties of art of, 530, 547.
for more than one person. 871.
future development of, 574.
how far an illusion, 137 et seq.
in childhood, 36 f( neq., 528.
in relation to chastity, 172, 176.
Inevitable mystery of, 136.
its value for life, 115 et aeq.
testimonies to immense impor-
tance of, 130 et Bcq.
Lust, in relation to love, 132.
theological conception of, 17S.
Lydian prostitution, 233, 234.
Atahommedaniam and prostitution,
236.
and sanctity of sex, 129.
its regard for chastity, 164.
Male continence, 554.
Malthus. 594.
Mammary activity in infancy. 34.
Manuals of sexual hygienf. 53. fll.
Afaoria, results of loss of old faith
among, 147.
Z. 653
Marriage, advantages of early,
379.
smbil anak, 3S1.
and prostitution, 225, 296, 363.
as a contract, 470 et »eq.
as a fact, 477 et aeq.
aa a sacrament, 436, 479.
aa an ethical sacrament, 47ft.
beena, 391.
by capture, 148.
certificates for, 622.
criticism of, 364.
evolution of, 421 et seq.
for a term of years, 473.
from legal |xiint of view, 375.
in early Christian times, 429, et
in old English law, 402.
in relation to eugenics, 621,
in relation to morals, 373.
in Rome, 428.
independent of forms, 480 et «eq.
inferior forms of, 489.
love as a factor of, 508 et aeq.
modern tendencies in regard to.
377 f
objectiona to early, 37.
objects of, 507.
procreation as a factor of, 676
Protestant attitude towards, 440
trial, 379 et aeq.
variations in order of, 491 et Mq.
Masturbation among prostitutes.
196.
Matriarchv, alleged primitive, 390.
Matrilineal descent, 391.
Mendelism, 630.
Mendes, the rite at, 232.
Menstruation, brought on by sex-
ual excitement. 57S.
coitus during. 633.
hygiene of, 68 et seq,
instruction regarding, 64 et seq.
Miasionnriea' attempt to impose
European customs, 09 et seq.
Modestv consistent with nakedneaa,
108.
Monognmy. 421 et aeq., 491.
Montanist element in early Chris-
tian literature, 166.
Dicized by Google
MoralitJ', meaning of the term, 31iT
Motlierbood, esrlj age of, 634.
endowment of, 630,
Mothers, dutj to instruct da ugliters,
■ 64.
duty to aiickle infant, 24.
responsibility for their own pro-
creative acta, 588 ct seq.
BchooU for, 29.
the sexual teachers of children,
4S e( aeq.
Mylitta. prostitution at temple of,
226.
Nakedness, an alleged sexual
stimulant, 97.
as a prime tonic of life, 112.
consistent with modestj, IDS.
educational value of. 106.
hygienic value of, 104, HI.
in literature and art, 90 et acq.
in medisBval Europe, 98,
1 relation to sexual education,
Penitent ials, the, 162.
Physician, alleged duty to pre-
scribe sexual intercourse, 201
IB a social reformer, 206.
lis place in sexual hygiene, 84,
364, 369.
Platonic friendship, 671.
Poetry in relation to sexual im-
pulse, 90.
Polygamy, 366. 412. 490, et Beq.
Precocity, sexual, 35, 209, 628, 634.
Pregnancv, among primitive
peoples. 13.
coitus during, 16.
early, 634.
hygiene of, 6 ft seq.
Premature birth, 10 et «e^.
Procreation, best age for, 633.
95 e
1 for, <
modem attitude towards, 101 el
Neo-Malthusianism, 588 Ft »eq.
Keuraathenia, sexual, lt<3, 189, 2(
Newton, 134.
New Zealand, result of decay of
topu in, 147.
sexual freedom in ancient. 22i
Tenereal diseases, 343.
Nurture vertua breed, 34.
Nutrition compared to reproduc-
tion, 109, 198, 201.
Obscenity, early Christian views of,
126 e( 9eq.
Orgy, among sat^ges, 221.
in classic times, 220.
in medieval Christianity, 219.
its religious origin, 218.
modern need of, 222.
Oneida Community, 563, 617 el seq.
Ouled-Nail prostitution, 233.
Ovarian irritation, 187.
Ovid, 614.
control of, 678 et »eq.
its place in marriage, 366. 608.
methods of control of, 699 et Mj.
the science of, 578 et »eq.
Promiscuity, theory of primitive,
284.
seq.
at the Renaissance, 243 et »eq.
attitudes towards bully, 270.
in Austria, 241.
in classic times, 239.
in France, 240.
in Italy, 241.
injustice of social attitude to-
wards, 310.
number of servants who become,
284 ct Hcq., 290 et seq.
psychic and physical characteris-
tics, 274 et seq.
tendency to homosexuality, 272.
their motives for adopting avoca-
tion, 256 el seq.. 288 et seq.
their sexual temperament, 288 et
causes of. 254 et seq.
civil izatiotial value of, 289 et seq.
decay of State legnlotiou (d, 260.
Dicized by Google
Prostitution, definition of, 224.
economic factor of, 259 et arq.
essentially unsatisfactoiy nature
of, 313.
in modern times, 243. -
in relation to marriage, 363.
in the East, 235 et seg.
moral jnatification of, 2R0 et teg.
need for liumnnizing, 306.
on the stage, 366.
origin and development of, 224
present social attitude towards,
302 et $e<i.
regulation of. 240, 331, 330.
rcIigiouB, 22S et aeq., 235.
rise of secular, 234.
to acquire marriage portion, 233,
Protestantism, attitude towards
prostitution, 284.
PmdeTT in ancient times. 101.
Puberty, initiation at, among sav-
ages, 87 el teq.
sexual education at, GO, 8S.
sexual hygiene at, 209.
Puericulture, 7 et saj.
Puritans, attitude towards un-
chaatit.r, 376.
towards marriage, 437 et aeq.
Quaker conception of marriage,
Rape, cannot be committed by hus-
band on wife, 80, 473.
wedding night often a. 526.
Religious prostitution, 228 et aeq.,
236.
Rcnaisxance, prostitutes at the,
243 et seq.
Reproduction compared to nu-
trition, 169, 108, 201.
Responsibility in matters of sex.
personal, 349 et aeq., 405 et
aeq., 41T, 444, 463, 481, 586
Rest, during pregnancy, importance
of, 7 et aeq.
during menstruation. 67.
Ring, origin of wedding. 432.
Robert of Arbrissel, 160.
Romantic literature of chastity,
168.
love, late origin of, 135.
Rome, attitude towards nakedness
in ancient, 96.
conception of the orgy in, 220.
marriage in, 428.
prostitution in, 238.
status of women in, 395.
Russia, divorce in, 457.
sexual freedom in, 384.
Sabbath orgy, 221.
Sacrament, marriage as a, 43a, 479.
Sacred prostitution, 228, 235.
Sale-marriage, 432.
Savages, prostitution among, 226.
rarity of love among, 134.
sexual education among, 87 et
aeq., 515 et aeq.
Scandinavian method of dealing
with venerea! diseases, 344.
School, its place in sexual educa-
tion, 5e el aeq., S3.
Schools for mothers, 29.
Seduction, early Church's attitude
towards, 180.
Servants frequently become prosti-
tutes, 264 et aeq., 290 et aeq.
Sexual abstinence, 169 el srq.
Sexual anssthesia, a cause of, 526.
Sexual education, 33 et teq.
among savages, 87 et aeq., 515 el
Sexi
and coitus, 610.
and nakedness, 06 et aeq.
Yual hygiene and art, 02, 223.
tnd lir
id religion, 85.
at puberty, 209.
at school, 56 el aeq.
in childhood. 40 et aeq.
in relation to sexual abstinence,
200 el aeq.
Sexual innocence, value of. 44.
Sexual morality, 362 el aeq.
Sexual neurasthenia, 183, 189, 203.
Sexual physiology in education, 57.
Sexual precocity, 35, 209, 528, 634.
Shakespeare in relation to sexual
education, 90.
Slavs, sexual freedom among, 227,
384.
Socialism and individualism, 24,
Spain, prostitution in, 266.
Stage, prostitution on the, 366.
Dicized by Google
nurseries, 31,
^**"329' '" "'"*'™ ** gonorrhtea,
Stirpiculture. 618.
causes of, 631,
Stork legend of origin of babies, 41
^""516 ^"""^ education among,
Switzerland, divorce in, 457
prostitution in, 251,
Syphilis, if3 prevalence, 328
nature and rcaulte of, 324 el sea.
of the innocent, 336.
questions of the origin of, 321
And ate Venereal Diseases.
Tahiti chaatify and unchaBtitv in
old, 148, '
Teachers and sexual hygiene 83
Teutonic custom, influence on i>o-
sition of women, 401 c( geq
influence on marriage, 431 et teg.
Theatre, us a beneficial form of
the orfty, 222.
early Christian attitude to-
wards, 220,
Thekls, legend of, 158.
Town life and seiuality, 38, 203
e( aeq.
Trnppista, rf^ime of, 20S
Trent. Council of, 434, 437
Trial-marriage, 379 et aeq
. 293
I'rban life and sexuality,
I'lerine fibroids, 187.
Vaginismus. 625.
Vasectomy. 816.
Venereal diBeasea, conquest of the,
316 ef scq.
free treatment of, 345.
need of enlightenment concern-
ing. 360 et aeq.
notification of, 343 et aeq
personal responsibility for, 340
punishment for transmission of.
Virgin, intercourse with as a cure
for syphilis, 337.
°"^T "e""'"? of the term,
345 f
240.
prostitution in, 241, 245
J^!*?"*'"'^ music dramas, 223.
iJ^'f' ^}''°^ '" """i^t, 481.
IVhite slavery, 302.
Wife-purchase among ancient Ger-
in modern times, 403.
Woman movement, 4, 68, 408 et
Women, alleged tendency to dis-
simulation, 412.
among the Jews, 394.
and TOKual abstinence', 1S6 rt aeq
erotic characteristics of, 541
Ignorance of art of love, 520
in Arabia, 394.
in Babylonia, 303.
in Egypt. 303, 408.
in modern Europe, 307.
in relation to divorce, 468
'"o'L^i"*'"" *** ^"^ "™»' unions,
380 et eeq.
in Home, 395, 428,
inequality before the law, 473
moral equality with men, 438,
""fiSrt""* *** compulsory mothers,
""* attracted to innocent men,
position aa afi'ected by Teutonic
custom, 401 et aeq.
procreative age of, 634.
their high status in ancient Ire-
their need of economic indepen-
dence, 407.
their need of personal responsi-
bility, 405, 460.
their need of sexual knowledge,
44 et aeq.. 351.
""^"sfand love better than men,
Yakuts, attitude towards virginity,
Yuman Indians, sexual initiation
among, 88.
Zoology and sexual education, 60.
Dicized by Google
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