A PLEA FOR MONOGAMY
A PLEA FOR
MONOGAMY
BY
WILFRID LAY, Ph.D.
Author of _Man’s Unconscious Conflict_, _The Child’s Unconscious
Mind_, _Man’s Unconscious Passion_ and _Man’s
Unconscious Spirit_.
[Illustration]
_O heart! Oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!_
_Earth’s returns_
_For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!_
_Shut them in,_
_With their triumphs and their glories and the rest,_
_Love is best!_
—Browning: Love Among the Ruins.
BONI AND LIVERIGHT
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
_Copyright, 1923, by_
BONI AND LIVERIGHT, INC.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
First Printing, June, 1923
Second Printing, November, 1923
Third Printing November, 1924
Fourth Printing, February, 1925
Fifth Printing, June, 1925
Sixth Printing, August, 1925
Seventh Printing, January, 1926
UXORI AMANDISSIMAE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. TRUE CONCEPTION OF MARRIAGE 1
§ 1 Disproportionate emotional and intellectual
development, p. 1; § 2 Archaic emotions in marriage, p.
2; § 3 Charity, p. 3; § 4 The sexual crisis, p. 4; § 5
Man’s erotic dominance, p. 6; § 6 Misapprehension about
psychoanalysis, p. 7; § 7 Polymorphous-perverse, p. 11; §
8 Marriage the only cure, p. 12; § 9 The normal sex life,
p. 12; § 10 The true sense of “erotic,” p. 13.
II. MODERN EMOTIONAL UNREST 16
§ 11 Discontented wives, p. 16; § 12 Playmates and
cicisbeos, p. 18; § 13 Wife’s need of playmates is
husband’s fault, p. 19; § 14 Innovations in this book,
p. 21; § 15 Home spirit the husband’s creation, p. 22; §
16 Masculinity and femininity, p. 23; § 17 Virile love,
p. 24; § 18 Arnold Bennett answered, p. 26; § 19 Love at
first sight, p. 29; § 20 Mental autoerotism, p. 31; §
21 Mutuality, p. 32; § 22 Mutuality _vs._ autoerotism,
p. 35; § 23 Honeymoons and autoerotism, p. 37; § 24
Barter and _quid pro quo_, p. 39; § 25 Novel result of
modern technique, p. 42; § 26 Satisfaction _via_ two
routes, p. 44; § 27 Infant class of husbands, p. 46; § 28
Autosuggestion in marital life, p. 48; § 29 Hypersomatic
and hyposomatic, p. 49; § 30 An objection answered, p.
51; § 31 The idea: “I cannot,” p. 52; § 32 Sedentary
_vs._ athletic men, p. 53.
III. EMOTIONS 56
§ 33 Emotions as organic sensations, p. 56; § 34 Men as
emotional as women, p. 58; § 35 Repression, p. 59; § 36
Erotic emotion, p. 59; § 37 Woman’s repressed emotions,
p. 60; § 38 Reassociability, p. 61; § 39 The case of Miss
F., p. 62; § 40 The case of Mrs. G., p. 63; § 41 Slight
reassociability of erotic emotion, p. 64.
IV. INSTINCTS 66
§ 42 Twofold division of instincts, p. 66; § 43 The
egoistic-social instinct, p. 67; § 44 Comparison
its essential feature, p. 68; § 45 Evolution of the
egoistic-social, p. 71; § 46 Plato’s fable, p. 73; §
47 Completeness of life, p. 75; § 48 Not all sex acts
are truly erotic, p. 77; § 49 The young man with the
clandestine affair, p. 78; § 50 Egoistic-social instincts
over-stressed, p. 82; § 51 Present incipient tendency to
stress the erotic, p. 83; § 52 Parents’ happy marriage
necessary to child’s welfare, p. 85; § 53 The best
parental environment, p. 87; § 54 Marital pattern should
be seen by children, p. 89; § 55 Instinct in humans
inadequate, p. 90; § 56 Three fusions in heterosexual
union, p. 91; § 57 Instinctive reasoning by analogy, p.
91; § 58 The greatest human happiness comes from the
three fusions, p. 93; § 59 Instinct of woman expects
strength in man, p. 93; § 60 Man’s reaction to feminine
opposition, p. 94; § 61 Visually unattractive women, p.
95; § 62 The love instinct a bad guide, p. 96; § 63 The
ductless glands; superiority of the love instinct, p. 97.
V. THE LOVE EPISODE 98
§ 64 Love is control by husband, the work of a lifetime,
p. 98; § 65 The erotologist, p. 99; § 66 Wife the
“trembler,” p. 100; § 67 The precipitant husband, p.
102; § 68 A positive expressive control of her love
emotions by the wife, p. 103; § 69 The love drama, p.
104; § 70 Man’s occasional embarrassment, p. 105; § 71
Unsatisfactoriness of promiscuity, p. 105; § 72 Marriage
as an examination of man by woman, p. 107; § 73 Man’s
failure to charm, p. 108; § 74 The love episode, p. 109;
§ 75 Its extent, p. 110; § 76 Sign of fusion, p. 111; §
77 Test of happiness, p. 112; § 78 “The Secret Places
of the Heart,” p. 113; § 79 The Islet, p. 113; § 80
Reflections, p. 118; § 81 The Ocean Shore, p. 121; § 82
Taking a woman’s all, p. 123; § 83 Erotic episode like
carving a statue, p. 124; § 84 Love episode only a step
in development, p. 124; § 85 Don Juanism’s fallacy, p.
125; § 86 Phantasy of exhaustion, p. 126; § 87 Woman’s
infinite variety, p. 126; § 88 Union complete, total and
exclusive, p. 128; § 89 Taking a woman’s body, p. 128; §
90 Woman’s right to acme, p. 130; § 91 Consciousness of
desire, p. 131; § 92 Woman’s helpless plight, p. 132; §
93 The wife as complementary body, p. 133; § 94 Poverty
of emotional development, p. 133; § 95 Energy liberated
by erotism, p. 135; § 96 Preparation of the wife, p.
136; § 97 Sufficient time to be given to it, p. 137; §
98 The estrus and its psychological analogue, p. 138;
§ 99 Futility of average love episodes, p. 139; § 100
Karezza, etc., p. 140; § 101 Their extraordinary result,
p. 141; § 102 Their undeniable difficulty, p. 142; § 103
Uselessness of attempting to confine the love impulse,
p. 144; § 104 Substitution of vicarious activities, p.
145; § 105 Karezza compared to the Steinach operation,
p. 145; § 106 Karezza does not frustrate all emotional
relaxation, p. 146; § 107 Wife’s desire to be dominated
erotically, p. 148; § 108 Wife-domination not effected by
egoistic-social devotion, p. 149; § 109 Marital relations
cannot be too truly erotic, p. 151; § 110 Woman’s erotic
relaxation necessary, p. 151; § 111 Simultaneity, p.
153; § 112 Autoerotism of the honeymoon, p. 154; § 113
The succession plan, p. 155; § 114 It demonstrates the
husband’s erotic control, p. 155; § 115 It insures the
basis of a happy marriage, p. 157; § 116 Autosuggestion,
p. 159; § 117 Means of securing control, p. 160; § 118
The love pattern an individual matter, p. 161; § 119
Fetishism, p. 162; § 120 Illustrations, p. 163; § 121 The
wife’s unconscious attempt to hurry the husband, p. 165;
§ 122 The mountain climbing, p. 165; § 123 The view at
the top, p. 166; § 124 The detail of the peak, p. 168; §
125 Reflections at the top, p. 169; § 126 Accelerating
fetishisms, p. 170; § 127 Climbing together, p. 171.
VI. CONTROL 175
§ 128 Evolution of erotic over egoistic-social;
individuality and control, p. 175; § 129 Erotic control
is the only real individuality, p. 178; § 130 The
conventional demand, p. 179; § 131 Love impulse the only
thing left, p. 181; § 132 Control is not annihilation,
p. 182; § 133 Difference between man’s and woman’s
control, p. 183; § 134 Man’s lack of erotic control
unnecessary, p. 184; § 135 Woman’s inability to control
erotically, p. 186; § 136 Phantasy of honeymoon bliss;
the test, p. 187; § 137 Women’s confusion of the two
controls, p. 190; § 138 Woman’s development dependent on
husband’s, p. 192; § 139 Woman’s acme not conditioned
by husband’s, p. 193; § 140 Insensitiveness, p. 193; §
141 Anesthesia, p. 195; § 142 Supremity of male control
misunderstood, p. 195; § 143 Objection answered, p. 196;
§ 144 Interplay of control on egoistic-social level, p.
197; § 145 Fallacy of erotic control by woman, p. 198; §
146 Prolongation of love episode, p. 201; § 147 Failure
of illicit unerotic sex act to relax erotic tension,
p. 203; § 148 Development of husband imperative, p.
205; § 149 Precipitancy caused by fear, p. 206; § 150
Woman’s instinctive attempt to accelerate, p. 209; § 151
Her unconscious man-testing, p. 211; § 152 The wrong
instinctive reaction of the husband to the test, p. 212;
§ 153 Man should know what to expect, p. 214; § 154
Responsibility _vs._ Fate, p. 216; § 155 The husband’s
hallucination, p. 217; § 156 The solitariness of crowds,
p. 219; § 157 The wife’s unavoidable resistance, p. 221;
§ 158 Bride buried under stones, p. 222; § 159 The only
truly virile accomplishment, p. 224; § 160 The husband’s
anesthesia, p. 224; § 161 Metonymy, the part for the
whole, p. 225; § 162 Phantasy, p. 226; § 163 Control
through imagination, p. 228; § 164 A score of sense
qualities, p. 229; § 165 Manner of mental influence, p.
231; § 166 The work of the mental pattern, p. 231; § 167
Need of a love pattern, p. 232; § 168 Completing the
fragmentary wife, p. 233; § 169 More vividness for women,
p. 234.
VII. THE UNHAPPY MARRIAGE 236
§ 170 Overweighting physical or spiritual, p. 236; § 171
Feeling of identity, p. 237; § 172 Erotic control only
a part, p. 239; § 173 Long engagements unnecessary, p.
239; § 174 Changing adaptation needed, p. 240; § 175
Love cannot be delegated, p. 241; § 176 Unconscious
polyandry, p. 242; § 177 Masochism, p. 243; § 178 Illicit
love enhances erotic element for some women, p. 245; §
179 Freud on promiscuous men, p. 246; § 180 Erotism not
masochistic, p. 247; § 181 Jealousy in men and women,
p. 248; § 182 Mrs. Samuel Pepys, p. 249; § 183 Jealousy
atavistic, p. 250; § 184 Jealousy and homosexuality, p.
251; § 185 Hyposomatic sex is not true erotism, p. 253; §
186 Résumé of Chapters I to VII, p. 255.
VIII. HOLOGAMY VS. PROSTITUTION 259
§ 187 Hologamy defined, p. 259; § 188 Erotic as manned
and womaned, p. 260; § 189 Comparative monogamy, p.
262; § 190 Health demands unity of personality, p.
263; § 191 Plurality of women a dissociating element,
p. 264; § 192 Plurality as a search, p. 267; § 193
Prostitution, p. 268; § 194 Two castes of women, p. 269;
§ 195 The mother-imago or angel imago, p. 271; § 196 More
passion needed in marriage, p. 272; § 197 Futility of
prohibition, p. 273; § 198 Ellis’ “civilization value of
prostitution” answered, p. 274.
IX. THE NEW MARRIAGE 276
§ 199 Two meanings of “single standard,” p. 276; § 200
What constitutes mastery, p. 277; § 201 Disappointments
in marriage, p. 279; § 202 The father’s part in the home,
p. 280; § 203 An illustration, p. 283; § 204 Management
of children an egoistic-social activity, p. 284; § 204
New man and new woman not to confuse egoistic-social and
erotic levels, p. 286; § 206 Prodigality of nature, p.
287; § 207 Trial marriage and romantic marriage, p. 289;
§ 208 Rapport, p. 290; § 209 Erotic unions, p. 292; §
210 Virginity, p. 292; § 211 Unconscious resentment of
bride, p. 293; § 212 Futility of extra-marital liaisons,
p. 294; § 213 Conclusion, p. 297.
X. BIRTH CONTROL 298
§ 214 Ready to print but cannot legally be printed, p.
298.
INDEX 301
A PLEA FOR MONOGAMY
CHAPTER I
THE TRUE CONCEPTION OF MARRIAGE
Common sense indicates, happiness and health demand, science
proclaims and society is beginning to insist that men and women
understand and apply the palpable truth of the sex relations in
their married life.—DR. W. F. ROBIE.
§ 1
We are living in an age when the contrast between intellectual complexity
and emotional simplicity is becoming so great that the emotional
reactions and, because of them, the creative and destructive acts
of men are more and more unpredictable and variegated. Intellectual
attainment has reached an extraordinary height. Emotions have not been
trained or developed, if indeed they are capable of development. They
may not be, though it will be assumed in a later chapter that they are
susceptible of the kind of training that is produced by reassociation.
Emotions are the organic sensations perceived by the ego as the result
of reactions, caused by impressions from the external world, reactions
taking place within the tissues of the body, and associated with external
impressions. Emotions are no more complex than they were thousands of
years ago.
When we say that the emotions of one man are finer than those of another
man we may mean either that he has repressed his sexual emotions, which
we have not been taught to call fine, or that his emotions of surprise,
awe, love, hate, jealousy and others are aroused by, that is, associated
with, more complicated external impressions than they are in another
man. Or we may call fine emotions the constructive emotions with which
pleasure is associated.
The emotions as physical reactions have not changed in ages of evolution.
We have the same bodies as sounding boards on which the external
impressions reverberate, the same bodies practically that men had five
thousand years ago. But the number and variety of external experiences
has multiplied in geometrical ratio. The result is that, while
intellectually we are men of 1923, emotionally we may be cave men or
apes. With the products of modern civilization, the material advances and
complications, the means of intercommunication, of graphic representation
and of the transformation of natural resources we are, as Robinson says
in _The Mind in the Making_, merely _monkeying_. In spite of numerous
sporadic beginnings in the line of social use of the results of modern
scientific advancement we are as a race making almost no progress in the
direction of fine living.
§ 2
This is no more clearly evident in any other sphere of life than in
marriage. With all the intellectual progress made by humanity up to the
first quarter of the twentieth century marriage is still looked upon by
many men merely as an opportunity for either legitimized procreation
or unlimited sensual self-gratification. A man puts as much intellect
into his vocation as he is capable of. Into his marriage he puts not
intellect, but the emotions of the ancestral ape. Even in his sublimated
war of business he knows that a consideration of the other fellow is in
the end a winning card, and the word “service” has come into prominence
as advertising material. But in his marriage he uses the same crassly
selfish methods he has used for thousands, perhaps millions of years.
The sheer blind, isolating selfishness of the average husband and the
misery it causes him are the reason for my writing this book. If a man
used one-tenth the intellect in his marital relations that he does in his
corporation finance and in his inventions and scientific research, the
latter would not be half as necessary as they seem to be, and he would
himself be infinitely happier.
§ 3
Unless we are progressing toward a woman-made social order it is
imperative that men carry on to a logical conclusion what they have begun.
“Charity begins at home” is one of the many maxims that were originated
with a far different connotation from that which they have since
acquired. Charity (Latin _Caritas_) originally meant “dearness” or
“fondness” and once had an erotic flavour that it has since lost. The
only place for sexual love is in marriage and its having escaped from
this, like a captured thing, reflects not so much on itself as on the
unnaturalness of its captivity. True erotism has practically fled from
most marriages, leaving only an empty shell. Men should reflect that
nothing is more necessary for the upbuilding of a real civilization
than the personal lives of the individuals themselves. Penetratingly
thoughtful men realize that the present state of civilization is diseased
throughout, and that it “is not in our stars but in ourselves,” that we
are to rely for advance.
§ 4
In this book an attempt is made to show how men can so control their
marital situation as to make more and more unnecessary the tightness of
the bond that operates to make many marriages so like an imprisonment for
both husbands and wives. Also the suggestion is made that a certain type
of action on the husband’s part will work in the direction of making both
prostitution and divorce less and less necessary.
This type of behaviour, comparatively rare at the present time, is based
on a pattern that will at once appeal to the sense of justice innate in
every man. Although it implies a relaxation of much present constraint
and artificiality in the married relation, it is in no sense antagonistic
to true monogamous union but rather constitutes a much more advanced and
progressive attitude toward the most vital question of the day.
The marriage of the near future, it is hoped, will be inspired by our
latest scientific knowledge concerning the psychology of sex, including
the ever present unconscious factor, which is the most potent factor in
the marital situation and which has been necessarily ignored for the
simple reason that, previous to a few years ago, everyone was ignorant of
the unconscious mechanisms and their relation to each other, in making
for mistakes and unhappiness in marital behaviour.
If every man would exercise the control over himself (the opposite of
asceticism in the ordinarily accepted sense), the control which alone
will secure that emotional ascendancy over his wife, necessary for happy
marriage and unconsciously longed for by the wife, more than any other
thing in marital life, he will reduce to the lowest possible frequency
both divorce, which is the issue of so many marriages, and prostitution,
which has for so many centuries been regarded as the bulwark of marriage
and the protection of the wife.
As Grete Meisel-Hess says in her _Sexual Crisis_, “The happy marriage of
the securely placed wife is founded upon the degradation and debasement
of another woman, the prostitute”; and Havelock Ellis in the sixth volume
of his _Psychology of Sex_ (page 296) says that “the value of marriage
as a moral agent is evidenced by the fact that all the better-class
prostitutes in London are almost entirely supported by married men,”
while “in Germany, as stated in the interesting series of reminiscences
by a former prostitute, the majority of the men who visit prostitutes are
married.” He then gives several reasons why this is the case.
If every wife should give serious thought to exactly how much degradation
the prostitute has been considered to save her from, she would realize
that what the prostitute guards her from could be transmuted by the
proper attitude on the husband’s part from a crassly physical into a
highly spiritual thing. And she would move heaven and earth to induce her
husband to study the fine art of love in so thorough a manner that there
could be no doubt of the happy issue of their mutual love life.
Critics of marriage as it exists today have amply demonstrated that it
shields more immorality, in some cases, than even prostitution itself;
and it is a fact that this immorality comes from a lack of spiritual
rapport between husband and wife, that can be effected primarily, if not
solely, by the husband.
§ 5
While this book assumes that the marital relation is one in which an
emotional control is necessary to be exercised by the husband over the
wife, it does not assume for a moment but rather denies that the husband
should exert any control whatever over the activities of the wife,
especially in spheres other than the strictly conjugal.
On the contrary, a husband domineers in small every-day matters only
when, and because, he feels unconsciously that he is failing, or is
beginning to fail, to dominate in the great and important sphere of
woman’s emotional life.
For the health and happiness of them both, this sphere should be the love
emotions; at any rate, only the constructive or anabolic emotions. A
husband who rightly dominates need not and will not trouble to domineer.
If the wife is as profoundly moved erotically by marriage as she should
be this deep emotion will impel her to develop her personality to the
utmost for the advantage of her husband and, _a fortiori_, of herself.
It should always be borne in mind by both husband and wife that the love
impulse is uniformly to take precedence over the ego (social) impulse, a
precedence that, however, in our present competitive society it is very
difficult to give. But it is worth every thought that can be devoted to
it; to refine the pattern, to ennoble the picture, of marital life.
§ 6
A common misapprehension that psychoanalysis leads to promiscuity in
sexual relations needs emphatic correction. The reasoning wrested out
of psychoanalytical findings runs somewhat as follows: Most modern ills
and notably neurotic disturbances, mild and severe, are the result of
the repression brought to bear on the sex instinct by modern civilized
life. Therefore, in order to avoid or cure these multitudinous ills, the
individual whose natural instincts have been repressed, must dig them
up, with great toil and at great expense of time and money, and give
them free play in spite of the prohibitions of society. Indeed, in this
country, psychoanalysts, of the first rank in other respects, have been
said to recommend both men and women patients to make what arrangements
they could to indulge in sexual intercourse, even if unmarried.[1]
Now fully admitting that the mental and physical troubles of these
patients, and all others who suffer from ills of psychic origin, arise
from the repression of the sexual instinct, it still shows a far too
great tendency on the part of their advisers to temporize and compromise
with facts, if they give this advice. For, while a conflict between
two forces, one or both of which were in the unconscious, is more
satisfactorily and successfully carried on if the two forces are brought
out into the open light of consciousness, the conflict still remains, and
is only shifted to another field where it may go on as before, and with
unabated fierceness.
The conflict between the individual and society is just as great whether
a man takes it out in himself through a neurosis or gives up the neurosis
and takes a prostitute or a regular mistress, neither of which has the
sanction of society. In the case of many neurotics the cure is worse than
the disease simply because the social pressure becomes clearer to the
individual if he actually does, even in secret, the things he had before
only unconsciously wished. For him the conflict not only is not resolved
but is worse, for if like the majority of neurotics he is of a more
sensitive type than the average person the contrast between his actions
and the implicit demands of his environment will be all the greater.
He will be doing in reality the very thing he unconsciously desired but
feared to do.
And yet not the same thing after all. For unless the mistress is of that
rare and extraordinary type of Mlle. Drouet who supplied for Victor Hugo
what he would have much preferred to get from his wife, had she been
spiritually able to give it, there will be, for the unfortunately advised
neurotic, another conflict not on an ethical but on an intellectual and
spiritual plane.
The advice for such people can only be to get married; or, if that
is beyond the bounds of possibility, which is seldom the case, the
suggestion to adopt a moderate autoerotism has been made by some
physicians in good standing as an acceptable substitute at least for the
neurotic of either sex. It frees them, at any rate, from the feeling that
they are injuring anyone else, either directly or indirectly.
An emphatic reiteration is here appropriate concerning the harmlessness
of the physical forms of autoerotism as practised, at some times in
their lives, by almost nine-tenths of humanity of both sexes, especially
civilized humanity, where a taboo is placed on other normal heterosexual
practices. The autoerotism mentioned (in sections 21-25 on mutuality) is
purely a psychical intellectual or mental autoerotism entirely apart from
the physical. Its results are, in the long run, far worse. (See note, p.
24.)
Grete Meisel-Hess, in _The Sexual Crisis_, speaking of the men who are
sexual compulsion neurotics and whom she describes as male counterparts
of the _demi-vierges_, says (page 155): “They are unable to surmount the
ultimate obstacle between I and Thou. They are unable to complete their
work, incompetent to possess a woman utterly. The amatory intimacies
are never fully consummated. They get through the preliminaries of
love and the first preludes; but that which comes afterward, the
most beautiful and also the most difficult part, remains unenjoyed,
unmastered, unconsummated. I am not referring here to what is ordinarily
termed impotence. This sentimental impotence has nothing to do with
mere physical weakness, but is far more disastrous, since it forever
bars those affected with it from an entry into the deepest experiences
of love. It is only the strong in soul who are capable of love in its
completeness.”
The physical autoerotic acts, far from having the results of producing
physical and mental weakness (as has been unscientifically stated and
slavishly repeated for two centuries), are nature’s way of developing
the reproductive apparatus for strictly human use. The injuries supposed
to result are now scientifically proven to be the result caused by the
fear of harm, and the shame inspired in young people by stupidly ignorant
elders.
The autoerotic mental attitude described in this section is a peculiarity
of men who through lack of enlightenment have not yet outgrown a tendency
to remain, in their psychic reactions, infantile or puerile. But there
is no proof that the inevitably autoerotic attitude of the young need
persist for a moment after they have grasped the idea of the difference
between autoerotism and a real object love that contains the growing
element of perfect mutuality. And yet many men unnecessarily get the
idea fixed in their minds that autoerotic practices have weakened them
physically or have produced a mental habit of mind that cannot be broken.
From one point of view it is the easiest thing in the world to present
the proofs of the utter harmlessness of the autoerotic practices and the
utter groundlessness of the fears which make almost every man, that is
human, lack the confidence which will give him the necessary control over
his own, and incidentally over his wife’s, erotism. (See note, p. 14.)
§ 7
The recommendation to the neurotic patient to take up clandestine sex
relationship is based on the same misinterpretation of psychoanalytic
theory that is seen in the explanation given by shallow, self-styled
psychoanalysts of Freud’s term “polymorphous perverse” as applied to the
sexuality of children. _Polymorphous_ means “of many shapes or patterns,”
and implies that a child gets as much pleasure and satisfaction from
stimulation of any one of its “erogenous zones” as it does from any other
including the genital. This is quite easily comprehensible from the point
of view that the child’s sexuality, like the unassembled parts of an
automobile, is synthetized at puberty under the “primacy of the genital
zones” whereupon all the pleasures of stimulation of all the other zones
serve only as preliminaries to that of the genital.
And the word _perverse_ in its etymological significance means only
“turned in all directions,” i.e., as much toward one zone as to another.
But the word perverse in its ordinary sense has the connotation of moral
turpitude.
It would be as senseless to call a child’s interest in its skin, and
pleasure in sucking its thumb or a piece of candy, perverse in this
latter sense as it would be to call a ring gear of a differential
_wicked_ just because it was lying on the floor of a garage, and the
mechanic had not yet put it in place.
Thus has Freud been misinterpreted and the good of all his fearless
investigation into sexual life annulled by the shortsighted and ignorant
misreading of his work on the part of so many of those who would call
themselves his followers.
§ 8
Only marriage and only a pure and complete monogamy without anesthesia[2]
on the part of either mate will satisfy both conscious and unconscious
cravings of the neurotic. It is a great advantage to have these
unconscious cravings introduced into consciousness if for the only
reason of giving a greater self-knowledge and therefore a greater
self-confidence.
Not only all conscious and unconscious love cravings can, but all should
be satisfied in every marriage from the beginning of it all through to
the end of it. By the majority of healthy people they should be given
conscious expression by both mates much more frequently than they
actually are.
§ 9
So many unhappily married people ask, “What, Doctor, _is_ a normal sex
life?” It is generally considered by all authorities that individuals
vary to such an extent that it is impossible to lay down any rule except
that in the normal sex life the conscious outward expression should never
take place except when it is a mutual and reciprocal expression, and
that, on these conditions, no limits that could be called normal really
exist.
But the attitude of this book is that the mutuality is largely if not
entirely the result of the husband’s love-making. In the ideal marriage
he is and always should be the leading factor in the exclusively erotic
sphere.
§ 10
Every use of the term erotic episode or love episode or love drama, is
to be understood as emphatically affirming the indispensability of an
equal emphasis on both the so-called physical and the so-called mental
or spiritual factor of the love life, neither one nor the other omitted,
neither one nor the other unduly overweighted.
We are minds or souls inhabiting or, better, organically connected with
bodies. Everyone knows the body cannot be neglected any more than the
mind. But the most mental of the bodily reactions and the most bodily
of the mental reactions are the emotions; and as far as present-day
physiological researches have been able to discover, both are most
closely interrelated by the interlocking system of ductless glands, among
which the interstitial or sexual glands are the grand president of all
the boards of directors.[3]
Tradition first, in classical Greek and Roman times, unduly overweighted
the physical end and, in modern times, has attempted unduly to overweight
the spiritual end of the balance, but neither of these processes
has restored a balance which is fundamental to the highest type of
Christianity—the balance between the erotic[4] and the egoistic-social
trends.[5] This balance it is the object of this book to suggest, with
the hope that such an approach to equilibrium of two tendencies that are
now badly out of balance will help to show the futility of much activity
that is now called civilized, but which is not most adapted to producing
the greatest happiness of the individual, and through that, the greatest
prosperity of such people as are destined by happiness and prosperity to
survive the crumbling of the present state of society.
THE SURPRISE OF THE IMPERFECTLY MARRIED
_What? Every pair in every marriage attain absolute bliss in every love
episode? Do you mean to tell me that the rose mist of dawn lasts through
the entire day?_
Of course, why not? Should one expect every day to be cloudy? Must we
expect our lives to be unhappy? Is it wholesome to live in an atmosphere
of tragedy? Not to have perfect married love is to act lower than the
animals—to have abolished instinct, by which they act, and not to have
attained knowledge, according to which are regulated the acts of all
adepts in the art of love.
THE SURPRISE OF THE PERFECTLY MARRIED
_What? Do you mean to tell me that every married couple do not go through
the same perfect type of love episode we do every day or two? Why, we
have never had anything else from the very first and supposed, of course,
everybody else was exactly like us._
Of course, they do not. You see how people _look_, don’t you, after a few
years of marriage?