Feminism and Sex-Extinction Part 18

That Intellect--being an instrument by way of which Life is adapted to environment, as also, on the other hand, by way of which environment is adapted to Life--is a makes.h.i.+ft that "reveals a state of impotence" is not to be admitted, however, in view of the fact that it is an instrument which preserves Life from developing along the lines of its environment; an adaptation which would necessarily involve lapse from typal ideals.

Intelligence taught man, in place of so adapting to environment as to have developed the fist of a gorilla (which at a blow can crack a human skull), to arm himself with a club. And by thus adapting environment to his evolutionary requirements, he conserved his resources and applied them to development along higher lines. Such impotence as may be, arises out of the undevelopment of a rudimentary organism. Of an organism in course of development, however. In the meanwhile, both man and woman are provided, in their hybrid const.i.tution, with the "makes.h.i.+ft" of an instrument of opposite s.e.x, which supplies both with the powers neither has yet developed in himself or herself; but without which neither is able to exist or to function.

Hybrid Humanity is still amphibious; a creature living between two planes, the Without and the Within, the Material and the Spiritual. And like all amphibious creatures, the human species is, in a measure, clumsy and imperfect. Because while fitted still with organs and faculties that have adapted to a lower plane, it possesses likewise organs and faculties that are adapting to a higher. Its powers thus handicapped by requiring to engender the vital potential and the developmental power to equip it with two orders of implement, neither order has attained perfection of construction or of function. And both ministering to the requirements of the other, necessarily hamper the operations and mask the characteristics of the other.

The two s.e.xes are making all the while for higher development, each along routes of its contrary trend. Man develops human faculty in the direction of the Outer and material plane of Being. Woman develops it in the direction of the Inner and psychical plane.

Man transmits to woman a brain-hemisphere and powers ever further increased and intensified in their relation to the concrete. Woman transmits to man a brain-hemisphere ever further indrawn and illumined in respect of the emotional and intrinsic. Woman's brain-hemisphere, adapting to its concrete fellow, becomes increasingly empowered to manifest, upon the outer plane, its own essential Woman-traits in Life and Consciousness. Man's brain-hemisphere, adapting to its diviner fellow, becomes increasingly illumined and inspired thereby to leaven and exalt its concrete outlook and activities.

Man's brain, by way of its responsive adaptation to the brain of woman interior to it in the zone of Mind, becomes thus ever more sympathetically intelligent, or intuitive, in respect of human life and conditions, of Science and the Arts; while losing nothing of its Dominance and concrete power, but interpreting its operations in terms of a profounder and a n.o.bler Chivalry. Woman's brain becomes ever more intelligently sympathetic and practically helpful; losing nothing of its Recessiveness, or emotional impulse, but, on the contrary, intensifying all its Woman-attributes by extending the range and the operations of these in terms of a profounder and a n.o.bler Altruism.

Because of their hybrid const.i.tution, there is necessarily a borderland, alike of faculty and function, wherein the organisation and the characteristics of the s.e.xes merge and approximate one another's trend and traits. This borderland represents, however, the crudest and least differentiated department of the personal and mental powers of both. It is a zone of Neuterdom, and marks a grade of rudimentary organisation in which the s.e.x-characteristics have not yet sufficiently diverged in development, as clearly and finely to differentiate themselves as traits of pure and unalloyed type.

The cruder the species or the evolutionary stage of species, the less s.e.x is specialised in it.

CHAPTER V

MALE AND FEMALE s.e.x-INSTINCTS AND MORALE DIAMETRICALLY DIFFERENT

"_In conjunction with any other beings but men, women would have been angels; but with men they are just women, which when all is said and done, is much the same thing._"--De Livry.

I

Among many other misconceptions with regard to s.e.x-characteristics, is the modern teaching that the s.e.x-instinct is identical in men and women.

Ignoring the truth that a higher moral code is the mark of psychical superiority, and moreover that the exaction of it from women, under social penalty, has done more than any other thing to purify and to exalt the woman-character, impa.s.sioned fallacy now sees this higher standard demanded of the s.e.x as a stigma of inferiority, and as an injustice. Accordingly it preaches equal liberty in this as in other respects. The trend toward equalisation is unfortunately (but inevitably) in the direction of lowering the woman-code rather than of raising man's.

No falser or more disastrous doctrine could be promulgated. As in all its other attributes and functions, so in this, the woman-nature differs wholly from that of the male. The primal male s.e.x-instinct was one of tyranny and subjugation. There was no element of affection in it, and its bent was toward promiscuity. In the primal female, the instinct as an initiative impulse was non-existent. The surrender was to fear, and to habit engendered by fear. Fondness for her mate came to woman by way of her love for his child, a source essentially monogamous in trend.

Physical pa.s.sion in woman is derived from the Male-traits in her. It is, accordingly, a borrowed, not an inherent instinct. And in all natural women, pa.s.sion is secondary to love; love belonging to her own intrinsic nature. Because of its heritage, there is, in a true woman's love, always a maternal altruistic element: unselfish, ministering, devoted.

Love has come to be intensified in her by fire of pa.s.sion and by force of personal attraction. It is no longer a mere meek surrender, with fear for spur and maternity for solace. In proportion as she is of high organisation, it has become a complex of mind and emotion and sense; intense and vital. But always, in proportion as she is womanly, her own way of loving--the way of devotion and tenderness--is ascendant over pa.s.sion.

In man, howsoever it be leavened by the higher love, pa.s.sion dominates.

When in woman pa.s.sion dominates love, she is loving with the Male-traits in her--not as woman. And in the measure wherein she falls short of the womanly monogamous ideal, she is less woman than she is male.

Mr. Justice Hannen, for long President of the Divorce Court--and a subtle expert in women--observed that it was not the pa.s.sionate, warm-eyed women who figured most before him, but, in far greater number, the cold-blooded, greedy and emotionless. Because for one woman who succ.u.mbs to love or pa.s.sion, twenty transgress from motives of vanity or gain; or from mere frivolous craving for excitement.

It is the s.e.xless women who are most immoral, for the same reason that some dyspeptics are always hungry. Persons of healthy digestion eat, and are satisfied. The healthfully-s.e.xed love, and are content. The emotionless woman is for ever seeking in novelty, emotions she lacks the emotion to feel. Such women exploit pa.s.sion for vanity, for distraction, or for the primal male-instinct of subjugation. Their desire for a lover is less a sentiment than it is of the nature of that craving for drink, or for drugs, or for dress, which many of this order also indulge. All are megalomanias--natural instincts distorted to vices by warp of abnormal self-centredness.

With its foundations laid in instinct, its organic emotionalism, its streak of mental irresponsibility, and its hunger for approbation, the Woman-nature, when lacking in the higher Woman-traits of affection and selflessness, or when these are not duly absorbed in the natural interests and functions of the s.e.x, may degenerate to a very ugly thing.

Some of our latter-day "smart" young married women, childless or with one or two children consigned to hirelings, their pa.s.sions excited by marriage and not duly a.s.suaged by maternity, their impulses unchastened and their powers unexpended in affection and care for the family, seek outlet and distraction in promiscuous philanderings, in intrigue or in vice.

Human faculty and impulse diverted from their normal channels readily find crooked and dangerous courses.

In the fourth year of War, the Prussian Protestant State-Church declared that "immorality among German women has attained such a degree that the very foundations of Society are threatened." This and kindred developments in other War-ridden countries are not due to women having changed their natures, but are the outcome of conditions so altered as to have released them from the wholesome disciplinary exercise of their accustomed duties, relaxing thus the salutary curbs of habit and convention. Child of Nature that she is, woman is a born rebel; for ever in revolt against the law and order and restraints which man has imposed as indispensable to Progress. Whereas men abhor, women exult in crises and upheavals. Because these serve for outlet to their restive emotionalism and supply scope for exotic sensation, while at the same time giving them temporary mastery over the male--who is always at a disadvantage in exhibitions of feeling.

And this temperamental erraticism is valuably disciplined by the masculine bent for rule and method, and normally finds admirable safety-valves in wifely, housewifely, and motherly functions.

II

To advocate a moral standard higher for women than for men is regarded now as reactionary and regressive.

Nevertheless, it is certain that beyond all the other virtues, personal purity is essentially the highest, and is racially the most valuable of all the Woman-qualities. Lapses in the other s.e.x are in no way comparable, as regards moral, biological, or sociological significance, with kindred lapses in woman. Because of her native non-conformability, once she has deviated from the monogamous code, she is dangerously likely never after to conform to it. (It is a truism that _The woman who has one, has many lovers_.) Her non-conformity requires, accordingly, to be protected by a social ordinance more rigid than is that of man. Man being less complex of psychology, moreover, that which in him is merely biological is vice in woman. The fact alone that the male is able to employ the s.e.x-function as a weapon of brutality (as in violation) proves him totally dissimilar to woman in this relation.

Man disperses; Woman absorbs. And the consistency of Nature is such that these two diametrically-opposite biological modes in reproduction are reflected on the planes of mind and impulse. The diametrical difference of the modes disposes outright of the Feminist demand for identical moral codes for the s.e.xes; the s.e.x-functions of the two being so intrinsically contrary in method and inherence, with correspondingly signal differences in moral impulse and significance.

Biologically, the masculine function concludes with its fulfilment.

Whereas the feminine function _begins_ mainly therewith, and continues thence onward to operate in an ever-deepening, broadening, and intensifying tide of issues; biological and psychological. And so potent and subtle is Nature's consistency with regard to this primary and vital function of woman in Life, that whether or not biological issue results, psychological issues do inevitably. Woman's mode and mood of _receptiveness_ in this mysterious union so operate that, in her surrender, she admits to the inmost sanctuary of her being an alien presence--which remains with her till death. Fade as it may from her consciousness, it remains, nevertheless, impressed for ever after on the vibrant records of her sensitive Subconsciousness, as vitally as in the hour of her surrender. And underlying mind and character and conduct ever after, it for ever after contributes its quota to these.

Because of the vivifying potence of her creative womanhood--the function whereof is to engender Life--the stranger admitted to her citadel becomes endued with Life, and takes up his abode with her to the end of her natural term. For this reason, the adulterous woman is adulterous in a sense impossible to man--adulterous in both a vital and an intrinsic psychical sense that is revolting.

With the increasing intensification in the male, with advancing evolution, of his inherited Woman-traits, he has become ever further endowed with Woman's Sub- and Supra-conscious faculties. So that the function which was, in its primal moral, but brief and cursory, ending summarily with its biological fulfilment, has become increasingly endued in him with the vital emotionalism, and accordingly with the moral significance inherent to the Woman-nature. If his experiences fade more quickly from his consciousness than hers do, they remain nevertheless (in the degree of his psychical development) potent still in his Subconsciousness--as possibly adulterating and debasing factors. But since his Subconscious emotionalism is an acquired and not an inherent part of his male mentality, it is a medium vastly less sensitised and operative in him than it is in her; of whom it is the very basis of her being.

This is no apology, of course, for masculine aberration, but a counsel of feminine virtue--a counsel making indirectly, therefore, but none the less surely for masculine virtue also. The reasons for chast.i.ty in the one s.e.x differ diametrically from those which should be the motive thereof in the other, however.

Chivalry and Prost.i.tution are incompatible.

It must be confessed, however, that deterioration of the woman-organisation and temperament conduces greatly to masculine promiscuity. Not only because this entails loss of power to charm and bind the mate, but because with the s.e.x-immaturity, on the one hand of the over-Feminised type, on the other, of the Mannish woman, women lose, in greater or less degree, the natural power of one s.e.x to a.s.suage pa.s.sion in the other.

Man is deteriorated, moreover, by moral and psychical deterioration in that s.e.x whence moral impulse springs, because, in such case, the appeal of woman ceases to be, as is normal, to the emotional and chivalrous in him, but evokes, on the contrary, biological instinct mainly, or merely.

It is well-established truth that her first lover (or her husband, supposing she had loved him) retains a unique hold upon a woman's mind throughout her after-life--his personality or memory dominating her imagination as no later-comer is able to do. This is because that first enters into possession of both Consciousness and Subconsciousness while the tablets of these are still virgin and unblotted. This first impresses himself, therefore, clearly and strongly defined upon her exquisitely-sensitised tablets of remembrance.

Latter-day young girls, permitted the injurious licence of free and unchaperoned a.s.sociation with the other s.e.x, even when they come to marriage, inviolate, have, many of them, pa.s.sed through experiences which so have blurred and sullied their young highly-impressionable temperament and senses as to have despoiled these of that fair purity and freshness indispensable alike to potent impressions and to deep attachments. In natural woman who has arrived at womanhood without premature arousing of the senses, soul and sense are at fine poise, and respond in vital unison to love. In girls whose innocence and conduct have not been duly safeguarded, the prematurely-excited senses have become detached from the soul--from the higher emotions, that is. With the result that this fine poise of mind and body, which is the Hall-mark of Woman-development, and whence romantic pa.s.sion issues, has been irretrievably lost.

The same is true, in degree, of young men. They too deteriorate when biological instinct is dissociated in them from the higher impulses of pa.s.sion. But in men, the poise, being less delicate, is not only less readily lost, but it is more readily recovered. In this, as in other things, the normal male makes for means; while woman's bent is toward extremes. Further, physical pa.s.sion being normally far stronger in him, and _initiative_ in impulse--whereas in her it is mainly _responsive_--the senses a.s.sert sway over him spontaneously. While in natural girls these lie more or less dormant, unless artificially roused, or until aroused in natural response to love.

Early philanderings (more serious than boy-and-girl comrades.h.i.+p and innocent flirtation) prevent women not only from ever attaining their highest levels of organisation and temperament, but they destroy effectually their power to love profoundly and whole-heartedly. They rob them, accordingly, of the greatest transfiguring potence and happiness of life.

III

Odious and startling evidence that because of woman's vital emotionalism and sensitive psychology, her nature retains ineffaceable vestiges of all that has happened to her, is the fact that a woman's children by a second husband may resemble her first husband far more than they resemble their father. A significant and repulsive adulteration of type, and one so intrinsic that a woman who had been previously wife to a negro or a Chinaman will present her second husband, typically European, with offspring of negroid or of Mongolian type. That husbands and wives come to resemble one another in physiognomy and characteristics, is further indication of the subtle and potent temperamental fusion and implications of the mysterious s.e.x-union.

The adulteration of type which may thus repulsively mar the offspring of women twice-mated is seen, at first hand, in that adulteration of personality which results from s.e.x-promiscuity. Not only is the individuality both of mind and character obliterated, but the individuality both of form and feature is obliterated too. The features of persons of irregular life become blurred and more or less mongrel; character and expression so degenerating as to produce eventually that which has been styled a "composite face"--the face resulting when a number of portraits of different persons are printed one over another on the same photographic plate.

The degree to which in the s.e.x-union--howsoever lightly entered on--they twain become intrinsically and remain irrevocably one, in the vital records of individualism and character, is wholly unsuspected. But in this--which is a complex phenomenon of Hypnosis--indelible undying images, such as are impressed upon the Subconscious mind in every other form of Hypnosis, remain impressed thereon; to inspire and fructify, or to weaken and vitiate nature and faculty.