apartment dwelling and the crowding together of many families, a child
must be very inattentive indeed not to have gathered through
conversation and observation much firsthand knowledge of the adult
sexual relationship. Children should, of course, be aware of the love of
their fathers and mothers for each other as well as for themselves, but
love-making in its final forms is baffling and disturbing to their
emotional natures, and observation of it often leads to sex misconduct.
The most serious type of sex activity is that caused by a premature
sexual experience at the hands of some adult, often an elderly and
trusted person. Even if the episode occurred but once, and the offender
left, never to be seen again, a psychic injury or trauma frequently (not
always) results and manifests itself in obsessive sex behavior.
When premature sexual experience _is_ the motivating factor in sex
misconduct, most careful guidance is necessary, lest the future love
life be endangered. After relieving the child of feelings of guilt, the
conduct of the older offender must be explained in terms of his senility
or his mental state. "He is not normal." "He should be in a hospital."
It is important that this person's abnormal conduct does not represent
in the child's mind the natural sex pattern.
Faith in love-making and faith in love partners must be held intact. Yet
there should be no discussion of love and no real sex teaching at this
critical time. Sex instruction is a post-convalescent therapy. It should
not be used as an immediate or first-aid remedy for fear it may become
associated with a most distressing memory. Above all, family
conversations and speculations should be abandoned, for children are
sensitive to talk they do not even hear. A child who has suffered a
premature sexual experience at the hands of an older person needs all
that his family can give him of thoughtful consideration and
reassurance. Yet he should by no means feel himself a hero. Once the
story is told and accredited, it should sink into a friendly silence.
Whatever form sex misconduct takes--whether peeping and undressing,
playing "father and mother," using vulgar words, making offensive
drawings or writing unsavory verses, urinating in public--punishment in
any of its many forms tends to decrease the quick chances of recovery.
Humiliation, body-guarding (I never can trust you alone), confinement
(lock you up), emotional scenes (you've disgraced your family), threats
(I'll send you away)--strike deep into the emotional nature of the child
and destroy that integrity of spirit and belief in himself which he
needs for his restoration. Persistent probings and grillings will also
block progress.
Correction of any type of sex misdemeanor requires insight, forbearance,
a vast amount of emotional poise, and an understanding of contributing
causes. If lack of wholesome sex knowledge is the cause, then wise sex
instruction _without_ reference to past sins is the remedy. If
fixations, jealousies, or a too strict moral code at home are
responsible (and they often are responsible not only for the more active
forms of misconduct, but for masturbation, thumb-sucking, and other bad
habits as well), then the cure rests with the willingness of parents to
modify their own attitude and exactions. If the cause is a recreational
lack, new activities, new scenes and companions, new interests must be
supplied to break up the old associations and supply the needed zest for
life. If observation of adult relationships has taken place, a careful
explanation and interpretation of the act of mating is necessary to lift
the relationship into its legitimate and acceptable place.
The most difficult phase of sex education is the interpretation and
guidance of sex activities in childhood. Our traditional codes and
sanctions have measured their punishments out of all proportion to the
offense. In order to meet this type of conduct constructively, one must
avoid severe punishment, the awakening of a deep sense of guilt, and set
oneself to work out a quiet regimen of rehabilitation. Best of all, one
comforts oneself with the knowledge that, except in cases of psychic
trauma, studies reveal that there is little relationship between early
sex play and later delinquency.
Wise parents of today build a solid foundation for the sexual happiness
of their children. No longer do they withhold knowledge of love, mating,
and the renewal of life. They equip themselves with a thorough
understanding of the emotional nature of their children and of the
technique of presenting sex instruction. We of this generation are
seeing changes in thought and patterns of sex teaching and ethics. Codes
and sanctions are in transition. It is not that in the years to come we
shall have more knowledge or more freedom purely for the sake of
knowledge and freedom. It is that we and our children and our children's
children, who are tomorrow's men and women, shall live with more
serenity, more wisdom, and more joyousness in their love relationships
because of the foundations which we have built.
_William Lyon Phelps_
CHAPTER TEN
_Religion in the Home_
During my forty years of teaching college under-graduates, if the lesson
for the day was pertinent or an occasion afforded the opportunity, I
talked to the men in the classroom about their careers--not concerning
vocational training; what I emphasized was the right mental attitude
toward life itself, the perhaps inarticulate philosophy underlying all
choices and all ambitions.
I have always been able to speak more intimately to a group of young
people than to an individual. The individual must take the initiative. I
believe we have no more right to probe into the secret places of the
heart than we have to pick a man's pocket. Whenever a student came to me
alone and on his own, then I was willing and glad to discuss anything
with him. But I believe every man's personality is sacred: an
unauthorized or unasked-for attempt to enter it is the worst sort of
trespassing.
In the classroom anything may be discussed without embarrassment. No
teacher ever had a more intimate classroom than mine. For my main
interest in literature, which I taught professionally, is its relation
to men and women. Browning said his poetry dealt exclusively with the
human soul; and it so happens that four poems of Tennyson's which,
intentionally or not, are placed together, deal with four terrific
passions. The poems are "The First Quarrel," "Rizpah," "The Northern
Cobbler," and "The Revenge." They deal respectively with sex, mother
love, drink, and patriotism. All four have produced happiness, and all
four have produced murder. Life is dangerous.
Students naturally wish to be successful in their chosen careers. I told
them the greatest and most important career was marriage; that, unlike
other careers, marriage was a career open to every one of them. For
among the many and striking differences between male and female we may
observe this: not every woman can be married, but every man can. There
is always some woman who will marry him.
The highest happiness known on earth is in marriage. Every man who is
happily married is a successful man even if he has failed in everything
else. And every man whose marriage is a failure is not a successful man
even if he has succeeded in everything else. The great Russian novelist
Turgenev said he would give all his fame and all his genius if there
were only one woman who cared whether he came home late to dinner. It
would have been well if he had known this when he was young.
I told my students: "Young gentlemen, although very few of you are now
engaged to be married and not one of you is married, _your wives are
alive_; they are living now. You do not know their names or where they
are; but isn't it exciting to think that you are every moment drawing
nearer to each other? She is half an hour closer to you now than when
you entered this classroom. Some in California are sound asleep, for it
is before dawn; some are eating breakfast in New York City; some are
eating lunch in Europe. But all your wives are as real as if they were
already living with you. What do you intend to do about it?"
Those preparing for the law or medicine take special studies; those
preparing for athletic contests take special training. If they did not,
they would be idiotic. Those who are preparing for marriage should not
leave success to chance. For, while happiness is sometimes dependent on
luck, in the majority of instances it is not; happiness usually follows
the proper conditions.
Thus boys and girls, young men and women, will do well if they train
their bodies and their minds to be successful husbands and wives long
before marriage. It is worth it; for they are in training for the
highest prize obtainable on earth, and yet one open to and won by
millions.
Not being a physician and being ignorant of physiology, I know little
about the value of sex instruction. Yet however important sex
instruction may be to those about to be married, there is one thing more
important--character. Two people unselfish and considerate, tactful and
warmhearted, and salted with humor, who are in love, have the most
essential of all qualifications for a successful marriage--they have
_character_. People about to be married need training in character much
more than they need instruction in sex.
From childhood boys and girls find out how children come, but the secret
of a good character, temperament, and disposition is not so readily
found.
The reason why character is the most important requisite for success in
marriage is not merely that it happens to be the chief cause of
happiness, but that those who have character can turn an unsuccessful
marriage into a successful one, instead of taking the easy way out, and
acknowledging failure. No man or no woman is to blame for making a
foolish marriage; it might happen to anyone. The test of character is
not whether one has or has not made a foolish marriage; the test comes
after the foolish marriage has been made. What a triumph then to turn
that failure into a success, as the statesman turns a minority into a
majority!
This article is addressed to young people, for those who marry late in
life either do not need any suggestions or are already incurable. I am
in favor of early marriages. I am delighted when either the boy's
parents or those of the girl have money enough so that the young pair
can be married at twenty-two, before they begin professional study or
work. And when there is little money but either or both have a job, then
by all means they should be married. When young people marry, they take
difficulties of housekeeping and privations as a lark, even as young
people do camping out. When I was a boy, camping out was absolute bliss;
now it would be absolute horror. Furthermore, in youth neither of them
has "set"; they can accommodate themselves to each other.
The late President Harper of the University of Chicago was married at
nineteen--not so young in his case, for he had already taken his
doctor's degree. He told me that during the first five or six years
there were times when neither he nor his wife could mail a letter,
because they did not have enough cash to buy one postage stamp. He
laughed aloud as he recounted this, and added, "There was never one
moment when either of us regretted our marriage."
Marriage can be wonderful from every point of view when it is a
combination of the highest physical delight with the highest spiritual
development. It is indeed the sublimation of the senses. The great
novelist George Meredith, who hated priggishness in all its forms, said
in a letter: "I have written always with the perception that there is
no life but of the spirit; that the concrete is really the shadowy; yet
that the way to spiritual life lies in the complete unfolding of the
creature, not in the nipping of his passions. An outrage to Nature helps
to extinguish his light. To the flourishing of the spirit, then, through
the healthy exercise of the senses."
Could there be a better description of the union of physical and
spiritual development in marriage than his phrase "the complete
unfolding of the creature"?
To his son Meredith wrote: "Look for the truth in everything, and follow
it, and you will then be living justly before God. Let nothing flout
your sense of a Supreme Being, and be certain that your understanding
wavers whenever you chance to doubt that He leads to good. We grow to
good as surely as the plant grows to the light. Do not lose the habit of
praying to the unseen Divinity. Prayer for worldly goods is worse than
fruitless, but prayer for strength of soul is that passion of the soul
which catches the gift it seeks."
What is love? From the age of six or seven on boys and girls fall in
love with a good many different persons. But this is not the same thing
as married love, which grows by companionship and by sharing sorrows as
well as pleasures. Many years ago a college friend of mine, a splendid
fellow with everything to make life worth living, was married to a fine
girl. He died suddenly, during the first week of the honeymoon. I said
to a man of sixty, "Can anything be more tragic than that?"
"Yes," he replied unhesitatingly, "it is more tragic when the husband or
wife dies after twenty-five years of marriage."
He was right; the loss after twenty-five years is more terrible; and in
the instance I mentioned the shattered and desolated bride was in two
years happily married to a second husband.
The overwhelming passion of love is certainly rapture, and marriage is
its most satisfying consummation. But true love is not so expressive in
desire for possession as it is in consideration for the welfare of the
beloved object. "Oh, how I love you!" may not mean as much as "Don't go
out without your rubbers on." Do you remember that passage in Guy de
Maupassant where the husband said just that to his wife? And they were
astounded when the maiden aunt, who had lived with them for years
without a word of dissatisfaction, who had gone in and out of the room
as unremarked as the family cat, who was thought to be incapable of
emotion, suddenly burst into a storm of weeping and cried, "No one has
ever cared whether or not I had my rubbers on!"
Yet expressions of love and passion, embraces and caresses, are also
essential. I told my students, "After you are married never leave the
house, even if only to post a letter at the corner, without kissing your
wife." This very simple act is a tremendous preservative of married
happiness.
I also advised them during the first twenty years of marriage to occupy
the same bedroom. Quarrels and even insults given in the heat of anger
are certain to happen in nine marriages out of ten. It is supremely
important not to let these flames of resentment become a fatal
conflagration. They must not last. Never go to sleep with resentment in
your hearts.
"And blessings on the falling out
That all the more endears,
When we fall out with those we love,
And kiss again with tears!"
Although happy marriages are common (unhappy ones are still news), the
only ideal, flawless marriages I ever heard of were those of the
Brownings and the Hawthornes; in both instances the husbands were men of
genius and the wives positively angelic.
Since the greatest of all the arts is the art of living together, and
since the highest and most permanent happiness depends on it, and since
the way to practice this art successfully lies through character, the
all-important question is how to obtain character.
The surest way is through religion--religion in the home. All that we
know for certain of every person is that he is imperfect. Human
imperfection means a chronic need for improvement. The most tremendous
and continuous elevating, purifying, strengthening force is religious
faith.
My parents neglected my social training. I am sorry they did. They were
careless about my clothes and my personal appearances. I am sorry for
it. But I am supremely grateful for their religious and spiritual
training. Every day of my life I am grateful. I would rather belong to
the church than belong to any other organization or society or club. I
would rather be a church member than receive any honor or decoration in
the world.
It amuses me when I read novels written by those who never had any
religious faith or who have lost it, novels that describe religious
training in the home as producing unhappiness and hypocrisy and
morbidity, the atmosphere one of thick gloom. As I look back on my
childhood, it seems to me that our house was full of laughter. Table
conversation was enlivened with mirth. If there ever was a merry
household, it was ours. Our daily existence was full of fun, and
Christmas, New Years, Fourth of July, and birthdays were delirious.
This is normal and natural and logical. Religious faith is a central
heating plant--it warms and energizes one's whole existence. It gives a
reason for life itself, for development. It gives a philosophy for
conduct, and, far more important, it _emotionalizes_ conduct even more
strongly than athletics and patriotism.
Of all essential things, the most essential in married life and in the
bringing up of children is religion. When two people are engaged and are
making plans for living together, they are sure to discuss religion. You
remember how suddenly Marguerite turned to Faust and asked him
point-blank, "Do you believe in God?"
A chief reason why bringing up children is so difficult is that example
is so much more important than precept. I am a qualified literary
critic, although I never wrote a novel; I am a qualified drama critic,
although I never wrote a play; I am a qualified baseball and lawn tennis
critic, although I never was a first-class player. But when parents
endeavor to bring up children to reflect honor on the family and be
useful members of society, the parents must set a good example. A man
once wrote to Carlyle asking him if he ought to teach his little
children to say prayers. The severe Scot replied: "Yes, but only if you
pray yourself. Don't teach them anything in which you yourself do not
believe."
The Scot was right. To teach little children to say their prayers when
the parents never say them themselves is like teaching a dog to say his
prayers, a trick that seems to amuse many people. To have little
children say grace at the table when no adult in the room has any faith
is again only a pretty trick. But to send them to church and Sunday
School when the parents stay away is far worse; it is culpable. Then the
children regard church-going, praying, and religion as one of the
innumerable burdens and penalties of childhood, from which they will
escape as soon as they reach independence.
When Overton, the great Yale athlete, who was killed in the war, left
his Tennessee home to go to college, his father told him that he would
not give him any advice as to morals or behavior; "but, Johnny, will you
promise me that you will never go to sleep at night until you have said
your prayers?" John promised, and afterward told his father he had kept
his word.
If both young husband and wife share a similar religious belief, it is
an enormous asset; and immense help to permanence in married happiness.
Now, one cannot believe in God and in Our Lord merely by wishing to do
so. Yet I often think that many who do not believe do not really wish to
with passionate earnestness; with as strong a wish as they have for
money or good looks or popularity.
There are many who say and more who think without saying: "If I only had
the faith I had as a child! Then I believed in God and in Jesus Christ
and in Heaven." One might almost as well say, "If I only had the
knowledge of algebra I had as a child!" Why do small boys and girls know
algebra and why in later years do they not know it? Because when they
were at school, they gave their attention to it; they studied it; they
thought about it. But after leaving school they may never have opened an
algebra book or considered the subject again.
What does one expect? If one expresses regret for the lost faith of
childhood, it is proper to ask: "How long is it since you read the
Gospels? How long is it since you prayed?"
Since religious faith is such an asset to happiness, such a foundation
for character and for married life and bringing up children, one might
make an effort to recover it, or at least to consider it.
I believe Sunday should be a day of joy and happiness. Sunday afternoon
games and recreation are fine, but one enjoys them more if one has been
to church in the morning or spent part of the day in either solitary or
community worship. Those parents who selfishly seek only their own
pleasures every weekend, who do nothing but amuse themselves--are they
likely to bring up their children successfully?
To those who have no faith and to those who have lost it let me
recommend some wise words by Dean Inge. There are those who are as
explosively and suddenly "converted" as was St. Paul; but there are also
those who cannot have such an experience; and many, many are the ways to
God. Give the matter serious attention; it deserves it. It is the most
serious of all things.
Being educated means to prefer the best not only to the worst but to the
second best. It means in music to prefer Beethoven not only to jazz but
to Brahms. So it is in all forms of art, in athletics, in politics, in
everything.
Now, the Person celebrated in the Gospels is the greatest Personality in
all history. He knew more about life than Shakespeare. He was the
greatest nerve specialist who ever lived. "Come unto me ... and you
shall find rest unto your souls." His way is incomparably the best way;
it is the way to peace of mind, to courage, independence, fearlessness,
to joy. If we find faith lacking, try His way.
Listen to Dean Inge; he is discussing the illumination of the mind that
_follows recognition_ of the Master:
"This illumination must be earned, or rather prepared for, by a
strenuous course of moral discipline. The religious life begins with
Faith, which has been defined ... as the resolution to stand or fall by
the noblest hypothesis. This venture of the will and conscience
progressively verifies itself as we progress on the upward path. _That
which began as an experiment ends as an experience._ We become
accustomed to breathe the atmosphere of the spiritual world."
Young people about to be married, young people recently married, young
fathers and mothers, should give religion the most serious
consideration. To neglect it, to be indifferent to it, is worse and more
foolish than to be antagonistic. Religion is not a frill or an ornament
or a luxury; still less is it a thing to clutch at only in danger or in
heartbreak.
Religion is the greatest creative force in the world; it has made
thousands of saints and thousands of heroes; it has revolutionized
innumerable individual lives. It has changed people from selfishness to
unselfishness; from cowardice to courage; from despair to hope; from
vulgarity to decency; from barrenness of life to fruitfulness. When
religion can change the lives of millions, when it can produce supreme
creations in art, it is a force worth serious consideration.
Religious faith has produced the finest architecture, the finest
painting, the finest music, the finest literature in the world.
The late John Philip Sousa, the famous composer and bandmaster, said
that the reason why there was not so much great music produced in the
twentieth as in the nineteenth century was that religious faith had
declined. According to him, creation is based on faith. This may be
claiming too much, but his testimony as a composer is interesting.
The American philosopher Paul Elmer More, who died in 1937, and who was
one of the most profound scholars in the world, after prolonged thought
and study and observation, came from agnosticism into a complete and
passionate faith in the Christian religion and in the incarnation. He
said that while love was the main principle in religion as a way of
life, the most important contribution to humanity made by religion was
hope. Hope in the destiny of man, in the superlative value of the
individual, in the Personality of our Father in Heaven.