The Sexual Question Part 9

[2] The terms _grisette_ and _lorette_ are now obsolete, and the names given to this cla.s.s of women constantly varies. I shall, nevertheless, employ them in the course of this work because they clearly define certain special varieties of remunerated concubinage.

CHAPTER V

LOVE AND OTHER IRRADIATIONS OF THE s.e.xUAL APPEt.i.tE IN THE HUMAN MIND

=Generalities. Jealousy.=--We have seen that the mechanism of the appet.i.tes consists in instincts inherited from our animal ancestors by mnemic engraphia and selection, and that it is situated in the primordial or lower cerebral centers (basal ganglia, spinal cord, etc.). In some of the lower animals we already find other instinctive nervous reactions which const.i.tute the indirect effects or derivatives of the s.e.xual appet.i.te. The most evident of these is _jealousy_, or the feeling of grief and anger produced in an individual when the object of his s.e.xual appet.i.te is disputed by another individual of the same s.e.x. Jealousy may also arise from other instincts, such as those of nutrition, ambition, etc.; but it forms one of the most typical complements of the s.e.xual appet.i.te, and leads, as we know, to furious combats, especially between males, sometimes also between females.

Owing to its profoundly hereditary origin, this pa.s.sion has a very instinctive character, and might quite as well have been mentioned in the preceding chapter. I deal with it here because it is naturally a.s.sociated with other irradiations of the s.e.xual appet.i.te, and because it has a peculiarly mental character.

=Relation Between Love and s.e.xual Appet.i.te. Sympathy.=--Having entered the higher brain, or organ of mind, and become modified, complicated, and combined with the different branches of psychic activity, the s.e.xual appet.i.te takes the name of _love_, properly so-called. In order to better understand the relations of love to the s.e.xual appet.i.te we must refer to Chapter II. Let us begin with a short exposition of the phylogeny of the sentiments of sympathy, or the altruistic and social sentiments.

In the lower animals with no separate s.e.xes egoism reigns absolutely.

Each individual eats as much as it wants, then divides, buds or conjugates, thus fulfilling the sole object of its existence. The same principle holds in the lower stages of reproduction by separate s.e.xes.

Spiders give us a good example. In these, copulation is a dangerous act for the male, for if he is not extremely careful he is devoured by the female, sometimes even before having attained his object, often soon afterward, in order that nothing may be lost. However, the female shows a certain consideration for her eggs, and sometimes even for the young after they are hatched.

In higher stages of the animal kingdom sentiments of sympathy may be observed, derived from the s.e.xual union of individuals. These are sentiments of attachment of the male for the female, and especially of the female (sometimes the male also) for their progeny.

Such sentiments become developed and may be transformed into intense love between the s.e.xes, of long duration. Birds, for instance, often remain faithful for many years, and even for life. From these simple facts is evolved the intimate relations.h.i.+p which exists between s.e.xual love and other sentiments of sympathy, that is to say affection, or love in the more vague and more extended sense of the term.

To every sentiment of sympathy between two individuals (sympathy forms part of the sentiments of pleasure) there is a corresponding contrary correlative sentiment of grief, when the object of sympathy dies, becomes sick, takes flight or is carried off. This sentiment often takes the form of simple sadness, but it may attain a degree of incurable melancholy. Among certain monkeys and parrots, we often see the death of one of the conjoints lead to the refusal of all food and finally to death of the survivor, after increasing sadness and depression. Removal of the young produces a profound sadness in the female ape. But when an animal discovers the cause of the grief, when, for instance, a stranger attempts to take away his mate or his young, a mixed reaction of sentiment is produced, that is to say anger or even fury against the perpetrator of the deed.

Jealousy is only a special form of this anger. The sentiment of anger and its violent and hostile expression const.i.tute the natural reaction against one who disturbs a sentiment of pleasure, a reaction which tends to reestablish the latter. The power of the sentiment of anger increases with the offensive and defensive faculties, while, in weak and peaceful beings, terror and sadness to a great extent take their place. On the other hand, the sight of defenseless prey suffices to provoke, in the rapacious who are strong and well armed, by simple reflex a.s.sociation, a cruel sentiment of voluptuous anger, which is also observed in man.

=Sentiment of Duty.=--Another derivative of the sentiment of sympathy is that of _duty_, that is the moral sense. All sentiment of love or sympathy urges the one who loves to certain acts destined to increase the welfare of the object loved. This is why the mother nourishes her young and plucks feathers and hairs to make them a soft bed; and why the father brings food to his wife and young, and defends them against their enemies. All these acts, which are not to the advantage of the individual but to the object or objects of his sympathy, exact more or less laborious efforts, courage in the face of danger, etc. They thus provoke an internal struggle between the sentiment of sympathy and egoism, or the unpleasantness of undertaking things which are troublesome and disagreeable for the individual himself. From this struggle between two opposed series of sentiments is derived a third group of complex or mixed sentiments, that of duty, or _moral conscience_. When the sentiment of sympathy prevails, when the animal does his duty toward his young and his conjoint, he feels a sentiment of pleasure, of duty accomplished. If, on the contrary, he has been negligent, the egoistic instincts having for the moment prevailed, the remorse of conscience results, that is the painful uneasiness which follows all disobedience to the instinctive sentiments of sympathy.

This uneasiness acc.u.mulates in the brain in the form of self-discontent, and may lead to an accentuated sentiment of _repentance_.

These phenomena exist both in the male and in the female, and if it was not so, the accomplishment of duty would be impossible; the cat would run away instead of defending her young; would eat her prey instead of giving it to them, etc. We thus see the elements of human social sentiment already very marked in many animals. Remorse and repentance can only be formed on the basis of preexisting sentiments of sympathy.

=Sentiment of Kins.h.i.+p.=--A higher degree of the sentiments of sympathy is developed when these do not remain limited to a temporary union, but when the union of the s.e.xes is transformed into durable or even life-long marriage, as we see in monkeys and in most birds. In another manner the sentiments of sympathy are developed by extension of the family community to a greater number of individuals, who are grouped together for the common defense, as we see in swallows, crows, and to a higher degree, in the large organized communities of social animals, as the beavers, bees, ants, etc. In the latter, the sentiment of sympathy and duty nearly always affects all the individuals of the community, while anger and jealousy are extended toward every being which does not form part of it.

We must be blinded by prejudice not to comprehend that these same general facts, revealed by the study of biology and animal psychology, are repeated in the human mind. Some animals are even superior to the majority of men in the intensity of their sentiments of sympathy and duty, as well as in love and conjugal fidelity--monkeys and parrots, for example. In the social insects, such as the ants and bees, with their communities so solidly organized and so finely coordinated on the basis of instinct, the sentiment of social duty has almost entirely replaced the individual sentiments of sympathy. An ant or a bee only loves, so to speak, the whole a.s.semblage of his companions.

It does not sacrifice itself for any one of them in particular, but only for the community. In these animals the individual is only regarded as a number in the community whose motto is--one for all, but never all for one.

In bees especially, the degree of sympathy extended to a member or a cla.s.s of the hive is exactly proportional to the utility of this member to the community. The working bees will kill themselves or die of hunger in order to nourish their queen, while in the autumn they ruthlessly ma.s.sacre all the males or drones which have become useless.

=Sentiments of Patriotism and Humanity.=--The human brain, so powerful and so complicated, contains a little of all these things, with enormous individual variations. In man, the sentiments of sympathy and duty relate especially to the family, that is to say, they are to a great extent limited to individuals interested in a s.e.xual community, viz., the conjoints and children, as occurs generally in mammals. It follows that sentiments of sympathy connected with larger communities such as remote relatives, the clan, the community, the country, those who speak the same language, etc., are relatively much weaker, and result from education and custom rather than from instinct. The weakest sentiment is certainly that of _humanity_, which regards each man as a brother and companion, and from which is evolved the general sentiment of solidarity or social duty. How can it be otherwise in a species which has lived for thousands or perhaps millions of years as small hostile tribes, separated from each other? Primitive men were so dest.i.tute of all humanitarian sentiment that they not only killed one another and practiced mutual slavery, but also martyred, tortured and even devoured one another.

In spite of all this, and as the result of custom and life in common, the individual sentiments of sympathy in man are easily extended to members of other races, especially as regards different s.e.xes, so much so that enemies conquered and taken prisoners often became later on, owing to life in common, the friends or mates of their conquerors.

=Antipathy.=--Inversely, individual antipathies and enmity often occur not only between members of the same tribe but even between those of the same family. The latter may lead to parricide, fratricide, infanticide, or a.s.sa.s.sination of a conjoint.

=Phylogeny of Love.=--The social life of ants offers us some instructive a.n.a.logies. In spite of the intense hostility of different colonies of ants among themselves, there may be obtained by habitude, often after many desperate combats, alliances between colonies which were hitherto enemies, even between colonies of different species.

These alliances henceforth become permanent. This is very curious to observe at the time when the alliance begins to be formed. We then see certain individual hatreds persist, to a varying extent, for several days. Certain individuals of the weaker party are maltreated by other individuals of the conquering party. They cut off their limbs and antennae and often martyrize them to death with a rabidness that sadly resembles human sentiments! Hatred and dispute between individuals of the same colony of ants are, on the other hand, extremely rare. I can guarantee the correctness of all these observations, having often repeated them myself and having recorded them in my works on the habits of ants. Moreover, they have since been confirmed by other writers.

After what we have just said, and especially if we take into consideration the numerous observations which have been made in biology, we can hardly doubt that the sentiment of s.e.xual attraction, or the s.e.xual appet.i.te, has been the primary source of nearly all, if not all, the sentiments of sympathy and duty which have been developed in animals and especially in man. Many of these sentiments are no doubt little by little completely differentiated and rendered entirely independent of s.e.xual sentiment, forming a series of corresponding conceptions adapted to divers social objects in the form of sentiments of amity. The latter in their turn have often become the generators of social formations and of a more generalized altruism. Many others, however, have remained more or less consciously a.s.sociated with the s.e.xual appet.i.te, as is certainly the case in man.

This short sketch which we have given of the phylogenetic history of love and its derivatives is sufficient to show the immense influence which s.e.xual life has exercised on the whole development of the human mind.

On the other hand, we must avoid exaggerating the actual importance of this influence. Young children, who possess neither s.e.xual appet.i.te nor corresponding sensations, already give evidence not only of intense sentiments of sympathy and antipathy, anger and jealousy, but also of commiseration, when they see those whom they love suffer; they may even show that they already possess the sentiment of duty or disinterested devotion. All these phylogenetic derivatives of the sentiments of s.e.xual attraction are thus developed in the individual long before the s.e.xual instinct itself, from which they have become absolutely independent. This does not prevent them being powerfully influenced by the s.e.xual instinct when this awakes, or from being a.s.sociated with its direct derivatives when the s.e.xual appet.i.te, properly so-called, is absent. Thus we see absolutely cold women become loving and devoted wives and mothers, and possessing a highly developed sense of kins.h.i.+p. Maternal love is a sentiment of sympathy derived from the s.e.xual sentiment, adapted directly to children, who are the products of s.e.xual life.

=Constellations.=--From all this results the immense complication of the peculiarities of the human mind which are connected with love.

Individual variations of the disposition to s.e.xual appet.i.te are combined with individual dispositions to the higher qualities of mind--general sentiments, intelligence and will--to form the most diverse individual combinations, which we may call _constellations_.

Moreover, inherited individual dispositions are combined in man with a great number of experiences and remembrances, acquired in all domains in the course of his life, acc.u.mulating them in his brain by what is called education or adaptation to environment. From the immense complexity of energies resulting from hereditary dispositions combined with acquired factors, the resolutions and acts of man are derived, without his being able to account for the infinite multiplicity of causes which determine them.

It is thus that a man may be a model of conduct or morality, simply from the fact that his s.e.xual appet.i.te is almost nil. Another, on the contrary, suffers from an exaggerated s.e.xual appet.i.te, but is devoted, conscientious, and even scrupulous; this results in violent internal struggles, from which he does not always emerge victorious. A third is moderate in his appet.i.tes; if his sentiment of duty is strong and he possesses a strong will, he will resist his desires, while if his will is weak or his moral sense defective, he will succ.u.mb to the first temptation.

Love and s.e.xual appet.i.te may be intimately connected or completely separated in the same individual. In the same way that a cold woman may be a good mother, a very sensual woman may be a bad one, but the inverse may also be met with.

=Love.=--I speak here of the true love of a higher nature of one s.e.x for the other, or _s.e.xual love_, which is not simple friends.h.i.+p, but is combined with s.e.xual appet.i.te. To write on love is almost to pour water into the ocean, for literature is three parts composed of dissertations on love. There can be no doubt that the normal man feels a great desire for love. The irradiations of love in the mind const.i.tute one of the fundamental conditions of human happiness and one of the princ.i.p.al objects of life. Unfortunately, the question is too often treated with exaggerated sentiment, or on the other hand, with sensual cynicism; it is examined from one side only, or else it is misunderstood.

First of all, love appears to be usually kindled by the s.e.xual appet.i.te. This is the celebrated story of Cupid's arrow. One falls in love with a face, a look, a smile, a white breast, a sweet and melodious voice, etc. However, the relations between love and s.e.xual appet.i.te are extremely delicate and complex. In man, the second may exist without the first and love may often persist without appet.i.te, while in woman the two things are difficult to separate, and in any case, in her, the original appet.i.te without love is much more rare.

The two things are thus not identical; even the most materialistic and libidinous egoist will agree to this, if he is not too narrow-minded.

It may also happen that love precedes appet.i.te, and this often leads to the most happy unions. Two characters may have extreme mutual sympathy, and this purely intellectual and sentimental sympathy may at first develop without a shadow of sensuality. This is nearly always the case when it exists from infancy. In modern society an enormous number of s.e.xual unions, or marriages, are consummated without a trace of love, and are based on pure speculation, conventionality or fortune. Here it is tacitly a.s.sumed that the normal s.e.xual appet.i.te combined with custom will cement the marriage and render it durable.

As the normal man has not, as a rule, extreme sentiments, such prevision is usually realized on the whole, the conjoints becoming gradually adapted to one another, more or less successfully according to the discoveries which are made after marriage.

Even when they are relatively true, love stories generally deal with exceptional cases, often even pathological; for the average marriage does not appear to the novelist sufficiently piquant or interesting to captivate his readers. We are not concerned here with extremes, or with the tragic situations met with in novels, but with normal and ordinary love, as it most often occurs in reality.

After what we have just said, it is clear that love is derived from two factors: (1) _momentary s.e.xual pa.s.sion_; (2) _the hereditary and instinctive sentiments of sympathy which are derived from the primordial s.e.xual appet.i.te of our animal ancestors, but which have become completely independent of this appet.i.te_. Between these two terms are placed the sentiments of sympathy experienced by the individual in his former life, which have most often been provoked by s.e.xual desire for an individual of the opposite s.e.x, and which may be evoked by the aid of remembrance, kindled afresh, and contribute strongly to maintain constancy of love. These different sentiments pa.s.s into each other in all possible shades, and continually react on each other. s.e.xual appet.i.te, for example, awakens sympathy, and is awakened by the latter in its turn; on the contrary, it is cooled or extinguished under the influence of bad conduct on the part of the person loved.

Let us here recall a law of the sentiments of sympathy, a law which is well known, but generally forgotten in human calculations. Man loves best those to whom he devotes himself, and not those from whom he receives benefits.[3] It is easy to be convinced of the reality of this fact in the relations of parents to their children, as well as in marriage. When one of the conjoints in marriage adulates the other, the latter may easily find this adulation quite natural, and may love the other conjoint much less than a spoilt child, to which is devoted all the transports of an unreasonable affection. The spoilt child, the object of such blind affection, more often responds to it by indifference, or even by ingrat.i.tude, disdain and impertinence. We find everywhere this play of sentiments, which considerably impedes mutuality in love. It may even concern inanimate objects. We like a garden, a house or a book over which we have taken much pains, and we remain indifferent to the most beautiful and precious gifts which come by themselves without our making any effort to obtain them. In the same way, the child becomes attached to some toy which he has made himself, and disdains the costly presents given by his parents. As a poet has said: "Man only enjoys for long and without remorse the goods dearly paid for by his efforts." (Sully-Prudhomme: "_Le Bonheur_.")

There is, therefore, a profound psychology in the old and wise saying that true love expresses itself as often by refusal as by compliance, and should always a.s.sociate itself with reason. No doubt this is not primitive love; it is a love elevated and purified by its combination with the elements of intelligence.

In marriage, more than one husband thinks he ought to be separated from his wife and children so as not to spoil them. There is no need of a long explanation to show the fallacy of this idea. To be complete, love should be reciprocal, and to remain mutual it requires mutual education in marriage. Every husband should above all be separated from himself, and not from his wife. If each one did all in his power to promote the happiness of the other, this altruistic effort would strengthen his own sentiments of sympathy. This requires a constant and loyal effort on each side, but it avoids the illusion of a false love, provoked by the senses, vanis.h.i.+ng like smoke or becoming changed to hatred. Without being blind to the weaknesses of his partner he must learn to like them as forming part of the person to whom he has devoted his heart, and employ all his skill in correcting them by affection, instead of increasing his own weakness by leaning on them. It is necessary, therefore, neither to admire nor to dislike the defects of the loved one, but to try and attenuate them by aid of integral love.

Love has been defined as "dual egoism." The reciprocal adulation of two human beings easily degenerates into egoistic enmity toward the rest of the human race, and this often reacts harmfully on the quality of love. Human solidarity is too great, especially at the present day, for such exclusivism in love not to suffer.

I would define ideal love as follows: _After mature consideration, a man and a woman are led by s.e.xual attraction, combined with harmony of character, to form a union in which they stimulate each other to social work, commencing this work with their mutual education and that of their children._

Such a conception of love refines this sentiment and purifies it to such an extent that it loses all its pettiness, and it is pettiness which so often causes it to degenerate, even in its most loyal forms.

The social work in common of a man and woman united by true affection, full of tenderness and devotion for one another, mutually encouraging each other to perseverance and to action, will easily triumph over petty jealousies and all other instinctive reactions of the phylogenetic exclusiveness of natural love. The sentiments of love will thus become ever more ideal, and will no longer provide egoism with the soil of idleness and comfort on which it grows like a weed.

=Inconvenience of Abstinence from s.e.xual Connection Between Married Couples by Medical Orders.=--It is a matter of common observation that in marriage, at least during mature life, s.e.xual connection strengthens and maintains love, even when it only const.i.tutes part of that which cements tenderness and affection. In many cases I have observed that medical orders, given no doubt with good intentions, and forbidding s.e.xual connection, on account of certain morbid conditions, have had the effect of cooling the sentiments of love and sympathy and producing indifference which soon becomes incurable. Physicians should always bear this in mind in their prescriptions, of which they too often see the immediate object only. The medical prohibition of s.e.xual connection in marriage should be reserved for cases of absolute necessity. For example: A virtuous and capable man marries for love an intelligent but somewhat ill-developed girl. The marriage is happy and they have several children. But after a time certain local disorders in the woman induce the medical man to forbid s.e.xual connection with her husband. They begin to sleep in separate rooms, and little by little intimate love becomes so far cooled that the renewal of s.e.xual relations later on becomes impossible. The husband's sentiments are so much affected as to render him unfaithful to his moral principles, and to lead him occasionally to visit prost.i.tutes. Although they have become essentially strangers to each other, the husband and wife continue to live together an apparently happy life; but this is far from always the case.

=Durable Love.=--It may be stated as a principle that true and elevated love is durable, and that the sudden pa.s.sion which lets loose the s.e.xual appet.i.te toward an individual of the opposite s.e.x, hitherto a stranger, in no way represents the measure of true love. Pa.s.sion warps the judgment, conceals the most evident faults, colors everything in celestial purple, renders the lovers blind, and veils the true character of each from the other. We are only speaking here of cases where each is loyal and where the s.e.xual appet.i.te is not a.s.sociated with the cold calculations of egoism. Reason only returns when the first tempest of a pa.s.sion which seemed insatiable has subsided, when the honeymoon of marriage, or of a free union, has pa.s.sed. Then only is it possible to see if what remains is true love, indifference, hatred or a mixture of these three sentiments, capable or not of becoming more or less adaptable and tolerable. This is why sudden amours are always dangerous, and why only long and profound mutual acquaintance before marriage can lead to a happy and lasting union.

Even in this case the unforseen is not absent, for it is very rarely that one knows a man and his ancestry; moreover, acquired diseases or mental anomalies may cause his character to degenerate later on.

Let us now examine some psychic phenomena more or less connected with love. For reasons which we have mentioned the irradiations of s.e.xual love are on the whole less developed in man than in woman.

PSYCHIC IRRADIATIONS OF LOVE IN MAN

=Masculine Audacity.=--In the normal male the sentiment of s.e.xual power favors self-exaltation, while the contrary sentiment of impotence, or even that of mediocre s.e.xual power, depresses this sentiment of exaltation. Yet, in reality, the s.e.xual power of man has not the capital importance for a normal and virgin woman that men imagine, influenced as they are by self-exaltation; what imposes on women is especially masculine audacity, and in s.e.xual matters this increases with experience and practice. The company of prost.i.tutes often renders men incapable of understanding feminine psychology, for prost.i.tutes are hardly more than automata trained for the use of male sensuality. When men look among these for the s.e.xual psychology of woman they only find their own mirror.