The Foundations of Personality Part 17

[1] See Havelock Ellis.

As a corollary to the above, it is necessary to know that each human being (and also each higher animal) starts out with the potential s.e.x organs of both s.e.xes, and that each individual becomes s.e.xually differentiated at about the eleventh week of intra-uterine life. Moreover every male has female organs, and every female has male organs, though in the normal conditions these are mere vestiges and play no part in the s.e.x life of the person. Yet this indicates that the separation of male and female is not absolute, and logically and actually a male may have female characters, physically and mentally, and vice versa a female may resemble the male in structure and character.

The s.e.x relations have in the racial sense reproduction as their object, but it is wise to remember that in the whole living world only man knows this, and he has known it for only a relatively short time. Furthermore, in youth, when the s.e.xual life is at its intensest, this fact, though known, is not really realized, and in the individual's plans and desires parenthood figures only incidentally, if at all. Society, in its organization, places its emphasis on child-bearing, and so indirectly reproduction becomes a great social aim rather than an individual purpose.

1. The feeling of parenthood is, as every one knows, far stronger in woman than in man. But here again generalizations are of no use to us, since there are women who develop only a weak maternal feeling, while there are men whose intensity of response to children is almost as great as any woman's. Undoubtedly occupation in other than the traditional woman's field is weakening the maternal feeling or is at least competing with it in a way that divides the modern mother's emotions and purposes and is largely responsible for her restless nervousness. This I think may safely be stated: that industry, athleticism, education, late marriage, etc., are not making for better physical motherhood.[1] On the contrary, the modern woman has a harder time in bearing her children, and worst of all she is showing either a reluctance or an inability to nurse them. Small families are becoming the rule, especially among the better to do. On the other hand, the history of the home is the gradual domestication of the man, his greater devotion to the children and to his wife. The increase in divorce has its roots in social issues too big to be discussed with profit here, but perhaps the princ.i.p.al item is the emanc.i.p.ation of woman who is now freer to decline unsatisfactory relations with her mate.

[1] "The Nervous Housewife."

2. The s.e.x pa.s.sion, as a direct feeling, is undoubtedly stronger in the male, as it is biologically necessary it should be, since upon him devolves the active part in the s.e.x relations.h.i.+p.[2] The s.e.xologists point out two types of s.e.x feeling, one of which is supposed to be typically male, the other typically female.

[2] See Havelock Ellis, Krafft-Ebbing, Freud.

The male feeling is called sadism, after an infamous n.o.bleman who wrote on the subject. It is a delight in power, especially in cruelty, and shows itself in a desire for the subjection of the female. In its pathological forms it subst.i.tutes cruelty for the s.e.xual relation, and we have thus the horrible Jack the Rippers, etc. The Freudians go to the extreme of seeing in all love of power a sadism, but the truth is that the s.a.d.i.s.tic impulse is the love of power, cruelly or roughly expressed in s.e.x. The cave man of the stories is a s.a.d.i.s.t of a type, and one generally approved of, at least in theory. A little of sadism is shown in the delight in pinching and biting so often seen; and the expression "I'd like to eat you up" has a playful sadism in it.

The opposite of sadism is masochism. This is a delight in being roughly used, in being the victim of aggression. The typical female is supposed to rejoice in the power and strength of the male as exerted on her. The admiration women often give to the uncouthly strong, their praise of virility, is m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic in its origin. The desire of the peasant woman to be beaten as a mark of man's love is supposed to be m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic, a pleasure in pain, which is held to be a primitive female reaction.

s.e.x psychopathology discloses innumerable cases where extreme sadism and masochism exist in both s.e.xes; that is, not only males but females are s.a.d.i.s.tic, and so not only females but males are m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic. Undoubtedly in minor degree both qualities express themselves in male and female; undoubtedly the male is more frequently a s.a.d.i.s.t than is the female. Though the majority of women may thrill in the strength and power of the lover, there are relatively few American women who will tolerate real roughness or cruelty. As a matter of fact the basic feelings in s.e.x love, aside from the s.e.xual urge itself, are tenderness and admiration. Naturally men desire to protect, and this becomes part of their tenderness; they admire and love the beauty of women and are attracted by the essential (or supposed essential) feminine qualities. And as naturally women desire to be protected; this enhances their tenderness, and their admiration is elicited by the peculiar male characters of strength, hardihood and aggressiveness, as well as by beauty and human qualities generally. Though the love of conquest is a part of s.e.x feeling, it is neither male nor female, but is that feeling of superiority and power so longed for in all relations. Men like to conquer the proud, reserved, haughty woman because she piques them, and women often set out to "win" the reserved "woman hater"

for the same reason. Thus tenderness and s.e.x pa.s.sion, with sadism and masochism in lesser degree, are basic in s.e.x feeling, but other qualities enter so largely that any complete a.n.a.lysis is almost impossible. The belief, engendered by romance and teaching, that happiness lies in love, spurs youth on. Admiration for achievement, love of beauty, desire for the social standing that winning some one gives, desire for home and perhaps even for children are some of the factors of love.

s.e.x pa.s.sion varies enormously in people. In some men it is an almost constant desire, obsessive, and is relatively uncritical and unchoosing. Occasionally, though much more rarely, the same condition is found in women. Such abnormal individuals are almost certain of social disaster, and when married their conduct usually leads to divorce or desertion. Then there is a wide range of types down to the almost s.e.xless persons,[1] the frigid, who are much more commonly found among women than men. In fact, with many women active s.e.x desire may never occur, and for others it is a rarity, while still others find themselves definitely desirous only after pregnancy. Not only are women less pa.s.sionate, but their desire is more "finicky," more in need of appropriate circ.u.mstances, the proper setting and the chosen mate than with man. In other words, s.e.x desire is more physical and urgent in the man and more psychical and selective in the woman.

[1] Some claim that the "frigid" woman is such because her mate is ignorant of the art of love. This is true of some frigid women. Instruction to men and women about to be married on the technique of s.e.xual life might well take a fine place in the curriculum of life.

A curious by-product of the s.e.xual feeling is fetichism. To do it justice, fetichism is found in all feeling toward others, but is most developed in s.e.x relation. The fetich is a symbol of the desired person, thus the handkerchief and glove of the woman or the hat of the man. Pathologically any part of the dress--the shoe or the undergarments--may become so closely a.s.sociated with s.e.xual feeling as to evoke it indiscriminately or even to displace it. Normal fetich formation may become a bit foolish and sentimental but never becomes a predominant factor in s.e.x relations.h.i.+p.

The history of modesty is the history of the s.e.x taboo. As pointed out, the s.e.x feelings are the most restricted of any of the instincts. I despair of giving an adequate summary of this, but it may be best stated by declaring that all the restrictions we hold as imperative have, at one time or another in some place, been regarded as sacred and desirable. Brother and sister marriages were favored by Egyptian royalty, prost.i.tution was a rite in Phoenician wors.h.i.+p, phallic wors.h.i.+p frankly held as a symbol that which to-day we hold profane (in a silly way), plural marriage was and is countenanced in a large part of the world to-day, marriage for love is held as foolish in most countries, even now. The practice of child restriction now prevalent in Europe and America would be looked at with horror in those countries where children of ten or eleven are allowed to marry.

Exogamy, endogamy, monogamy, polygamy,--all these are customs and taboos, and though in our day and country monogamy has the social and religious sanction, there is nothing to indicate that this is a permanent resting place for marriage. Certainly the statistics of divorce indicate a change in the permanent status of marriage.

What this is meant to emphasize is the social nature of s.e.xual modesty. Modesty of other kind rests either on a moderate self-valuation or a desire to avoid offense by not emphasizing one's own value, or it is both. However s.e.xual modesty originated, practically it consists in the concealing of certain parts of the body, avoiding certain topics of conversation, especially in the presence of the other s.e.x, and behaving in such fas.h.i.+on as to restrict s.e.xual demonstration. There is a natural coyness in women which has been socially emphasized by restrictions in dress, conduct and speech to a ridiculous degree.

Thus it was immodest in our civilization for women to show their legs, and the leg became the symbol of the femaleness of the woman or girl, as also did the breast.[1] The body became taboo, and at present, when women are commencing to dress so that the legs are shown, the arms are bare, and the back and shoulders visible, the cry of immodesty, immorality and social demoralization is raised, as if real morality rested in these ridiculous, barbaric taboos.

[1] All the anthropologists, Tyler, McLennan, Ellis and especially Frazier, deal at length with this fascinating subject.

The psychopathologists relate the most extraordinary stories of fetich love.

But no matter how much one emphasizes the arbitrary nature of modesty, of the restrictions placed on dress, speech and conduct, it still remains true that their function is at present to act as inhibitors. Ridiculous as it is to believe that morality resides in the length of the skirt or in the degree of paint and powder on the face, the fact is that usually they who depart too widely from the conventional in these matters are uninhibited and are as apt to depart from the conventional in deed as they are in deportment. There are those who say that we would be far more moral if we went about naked; that clothes suggest more than nakedness reveals. This is true of some kinds of clothes--the half nakedness of the stage or the ballroom, or the coquettish additions to clothes represented by the dangling ta.s.sels --but it is not true of the riding breeches, or the trim sport clothes, or the walking suit. The dress of men, though ugly, is useful, convenient and modest, and there is no doubt that a generation of free women, determined to become human in appearance, could evolve a modest and yet decorative costume. All of the present-day extravagance in female attire, with its ever-changing fas.h.i.+on, is a medley of commercial intrigues, female compet.i.tion and s.e.x excitement. Though the modesty restrictions are absurd, the motive that obscurely prompts it is not, and the transgressors either seek notice in a risky way, are foolish, to speak bluntly, or else are inviting actual s.e.xual advances.

Though we may actually restrict the s.e.x life so that some men and women become pure in the accepted sense, it will always be true that men and women will be vaguely or definitely attracted to each other. Like the atmospheric pressure which though fifteen pounds to the square inch at the sea level is not felt, so there exists a s.e.x pressure, excited by men and women in each other.

There is a smoldering excitement always ready to leap into flame whenever the young and attractive of the s.e.xes meet. The conventions of modesty tend to restrict the excitement, to neutralize the s.e.x pressure, but they may be swept aside by immodesty and the suggestive. The explanation of the anger and condemnation felt by the moral man in the presence of the "brazen" woman lies in the threat to his purposes of respectability and faithfulness; he is angered that this creature can arouse a conflict in him. The bitterness of the "saint"

against the wanton originates in the ease with which she tempts him, and his natural conclusion is that the fault lies with her and not with his own pa.s.sions. The respectable woman inveigles against her more untrammeled sister, not so much through her concern for morality, as through the anger felt against an unscrupulous compet.i.tor who is breaking the rules.

In so far as women are concerned, the s.e.x pressure on them is increased in many ways. For two years I examined, mentally, the girls who were listed as s.e.x offenders by the various social agencies of Boston. As a result of that experience, plus that of a physician and citizen of the world, a few facts of importance stand out in my mind.

1. There is a group of men whom one may call s.e.x adventurers.

These are not all of one kind in education, social status and age, but they seek s.e.x experiences wherever they go and are always alert for signs that indicate a chance to become intimate.

They take advantage of the widespread tendency to flirt and haunt the places where the young girls tend to parade up and down (certain streets in every large city), the public dance halls, the skating resorts, the crowded public beaches, etc. They regard themselves as connoisseurs in women and think they know when a girl is "ripe"; they are ready to spend money and utilize flattery, gifts and bold wooing, according to their nature and the way they size up their prey.

2. The female s.e.x adventurer is not so common, except in the higher criminal cla.s.ses where the effort to ensnare rich men calls forth the abilities of certain women. In a limited way the prost.i.tute, professed or clandestine, is a s.e.x adventurer, but ordinarily she is merely supplying a demand and has only to exert herself physically, rarely needing to conquer men's inhibitions.

We omit here the schemes of conquest of girls and women seeking marriage as too complex for any one but a novelist, and also because the moral code regards them as legitimate. Women who are ready to accept s.e.xual advances are common enough in the uninhibited girl, the dissatisfied married woman, the young widow, the drug habitue; but aside from the woman who has capitalized her s.e.x, the s.e.x adventurer is largely male.

What attracts him? For he rarely pesters the good woman, and ordinarily the average woman is not solicited.

The girl usually "picked up" dresses immodestly or in the extreme of style, even though she is essentially shabby and poorly clad.

To-day business sees to it that fripperies are within the reach of every purse.

She usually corresponds to a type of prettiness favored in the community, often what is nowadays called the chicken type. Plump legs and fairly prominent bosom and hips are symbols of those desired among all grades of men, together with a pretty face. The homely girl finds it much easier to walk unmolested.

If she appears intelligent and firm, the above qualities will only ent.i.tle her to glances, respectful and otherwise. The s.e.x adventurer hates to be rebuffed, and he is not desperately in love, so that he will not risk his vanity. If she appears of that port vivacious type just above the moron level--in other words if she is neither bright nor really feeble-minded--then s.e.x pressure is increased. The feeble-minded girl of the moron type, or the over-innocent and unenlightened girl, is always in danger.

There is further the s.e.xually excited or the uninhibited girl. We must differentiate between those who attempt no control, and those whose surge of desire is beyond the normal limits. The uninhibited of both s.e.xes are a large group, and the bulk of the prost.i.tutes are deficient in this respect rather than in intelligence. Sometimes inhibition arrives late, after s.e.xual immorality has commenced. In men this is common, but unfortunately for women, society stands in their way when this occurs with them. "Youth must have its fling" is a masculine privilege denied to feminine offenders.

The desire for a good time plays havoc with the uninhibited girl.

Unable to find interest in her work, which too often is uninteresting, desiring good clothes and excitement, she discovers that these are within her reach if she follows her instincts. What starts out as a flirtation ends in social disaster, and a girl finds out that some men who give good times expect to be paid for them.

Since our study is not a pathological treatise, we must omit further consideration of the offender and dismiss without more comment the whole range of the perverter. It suffices to say that the perverted are often such congenitally, in which case nothing can be done for them, and others are the results of certain environments, which range all the way from girls'

boarding-schools to the palaces of kings.

In ancient times, and in many countries to-day, certain perversions were so common as to defy belief, and we are compelled to a.s.sociate with some of the greatest names, practices[1] that shock us. These same ancients would denounce as unnatural in as hearty terms the increasing practices of child-limitation among us.

[1] I pa.s.s over as out of the range of this book the question raised by Freud, whether or not we are all of us h.o.m.os.e.xual as well as heteros.e.xual.

The s.e.x desires and instincts struggle with, overcome or harmonize with the social instincts. It would be impossible to portray even the simplest s.e.x life from the mental standpoint.

The chastest woman who is unconscious of s.e.x desire is motivated by romance and the s.e.x feelings and customs of others in her ideas of happiness and right behavior. The cynical profligate, indulging every sensual urge, in so far as he can, must guide himself by the resistance of society, by the necessity of camouflage, the fear of public opinion and often the impediment of his own early training. Men and women start out perhaps as romantic idealists, enter marriage, and in the course of their experiences become almost frankly sensual. And in the opposite direction, men and women wildly pa.s.sionate in youth develop counter tendencies that swing them into restraint and serene self-control. There are those to whom s.e.x is mere appet.i.te, to be indulged and put out of the way, so as not to interfere with the great purposes of success; there are those to whom it is a religion, carried on with ceremonials and rites; there are those to whom it is an obsession, and their minds are in a s.e.xual stew at all times. There are the under-inhibited, spoken of above, and there are the over-inhibited, Puritanical, rebelling at the flesh as such, disguising all their emotions, reluctant to admit their humanness and the validity of pleasure.

The romantic ideal, glorifying a sort of as.e.xual love of perfect men and women, asceticism which permits s.e.x only as a sort of necessary evil and sensuality which proclaims the pleasure of s.e.x as the only joy and scoffs at inhibition influence the lives of us all. The effect of the forbidden, the tantalizing curiosity aroused and the longing to rise above the level of l.u.s.t make the s.e.x adjustment the most difficult of all and produce the queerest results. s.e.x is a road to power and to failure, a road to health and sickness. As in all adjustments, there are some who are conscious of but few difficulties, who are moral or immoral without struggle or discontent. Contrasted with these are the ones who find morality a great burden, and those who, yielding to desire, find continuous inner conflict and dissatisfaction and lowered self-valuation as a result.

Our society is organized on chast.i.ty and continence prior to marriage, purity and constancy after marriage. That n.o.ble ideal has never been realized; the stories of Pagan times, of the Middle Ages and of the present day, as well as everyday human experience, show that the male certainly has not lived up to his part of the bargain. Legalized prost.i.tution in most countries, illegal prost.i.tution in the United States and England, in addition to the enormous amount of clandestine relations.h.i.+ps, are a sufficient commentary on the results. The increasing divorce rate, the feminist movement, the legalizing of the "illegitimate"

child in Norway and Sweden and the almost certain arrival of similar laws in all countries indicate a softer att.i.tude toward s.e.x restrictions. The rapidly increasing age of marriage means simply that continence will be more and more difficult, for I am not one of those who believe that the repression of this vital instinct is without harm. Continence is socially necessary, but beyond a certain age it is physically and mentally harmful. Man is thus placed on the horns of a dilemma from which it will take the greatest wisdom and the finest humanity to extricate him. But I cannot lay claim to any part of the knowledge and ability necessary to formulate the plan. Let us at least be candid; let us not say grandiloquently that the s.e.xual urge can be indefinitely repressed without harm to the average individual. We may safely a.s.sert that there are people, men and women both, to whom the s.e.x impulses are vague and of little force, but to the great majority, at least of men, s.e.x desire is almost a hunger, and unsatisfied it brings about a restlessness and dissatisfaction that enters into all the mental life. On what basis society will meet this situation I do not pretend to know, but this is certain,--that all over the civilized world there is apparent an organizing rebellion against the social impediment to s.e.xual satisfaction.

For it must be remembered that s.e.xual satisfaction is not alone naked desire. It is that--but sublimated into finer things as well. It is the desire for stability of affection, for a sympathetic beloved, an outlet for emotion, a longing for respectable unitary status. The unit of respectable human life is the married couple; the girl wants that social recognition, and so does her man. Both yearn to cast off from their old homes and start a new one, as an initial step in successful living. The thought of children--a little form in a little bed, and the man and woman gazing in an ecstasy of pride and affection upon it--makes all other pleasures seem unworthy and gives to the ache for intimacy a high moral sanction.

This brings us to the point where we must consider those characteristics that make up domesticity and homekeeping. Early impressions and the consistent teaching of literature, stage, press and religion have given to the home a semi-sacred character, which is one of the great components of the desire to marry, especially for women. The home is, in the minds of most of those who enter into marriage, a place owned, peculiarly possessed, and it offers freedom from the restraints of society and the inhibitions of ceremony and custom. Both the man and woman like to think that here is the place where their love can find free expression, where she will care for him and he will provide for her, and where their children can grow in beauty, intelligence and moral worth under their guidance. But this is only the sentimental side of their thought, the part they give freest expression to because it is most respectable and "nice."

In the background of their minds is the desire for owners.h.i.+p, the wish to say, "This is mine and here I rule." Into that comes the ideal that the stability of society is involved and the homekeeper is its most important citizen, but when we study the real evolution of the home, study the laws pertaining to the family, we find that the husband and father had a little kingdom with wife and children as subjects, and that only gradually has there come from that monarchical idea the more democratic conception cherished to-day.

Men and women may be considered as domestic or non-domestic. The domestic type of man is ordinarily "steady" in purpose and absorbed more in work than in the seeking of pleasure, is either strongly inhibited s.e.xually or else rather easily satisfied; cherishes the ideal of respectability highly; is conventional and habituated, usually has a strong property feeling and is apt to have a decided paternal feeling. He may of course be seclusive and apt to feel the constraints of contact with others as wearying and unsatisfactory; he is not easily bored or made restless. All this is a broad sketch; even the most domestic find in the home a certain amount of tyranny and monotony; they yearn now and then for adventure and new romance and think of the freedom of their bachelor days with regret over their pa.s.sing.

They may decide that married home life is best, but the choice is not without difficulty and is accompanied by an irrepressible, though hidden dissatisfaction. On the whole, however, the domestic man finds the home a haven of relief and a source of pleasurable feeling.

The non-domestic man may be of a dozen types. Perhaps he is incurably romantic and hates the thought of settling down and putting away for good the search for the perfect woman. Perhaps he is uninhibted s.e.xually or over-excitable in this respect, and is therefore restless and unfaithful. He may be bored by monotony, a restless seeker of new experiences and new work, possessed by the devils of wanderl.u.s.t. He may be an egoist incapable of the continuous self-sacrifice and self-abnegation demanded by the home,--quarrelsome and selfish. Sometimes he is wedded to an ideal of achievement or work and believes that he travels best who travels alone. Often in these days of late marriage he has waited until he could "afford" to marry and then finds that his habits chain him to single life. Or he may be an unconventional non-believer in the home and marriage, though these are really rare. The drinker, the roue, the wanderer, the selfish, the nonconventional, the soarer, the restless, the inefficient and the misogynist all make poor husbands and fathers and find the home a burden too crippling to be borne.

One of the outstanding figures of the past is the domestic woman, yearning for a home, a.s.siduously and constantly devoted to it, her husband and her numerous children. Fancy likes to linger on this old-fas.h.i.+oned housewife, arising in the early morning and from that time until her bedtime content to bake, cook, wash, dust, clean, sew, nurse and teach; imagining no other career possible or proper for her s.e.x; leading a life of self- sacrifice, toil and devotion. Poet, novelist, artist, and clergyman have immortalized her, and men for the most part cherish this type as their mother and dream of it as the ideal wife.