It is also important to remark to what extent the increase of man's

mental complexity transforms his sexual tactics. The simple, natural,

and at the same time bashful, modest manner, in which a naive young

man seeks to conquer a heart, usually produces no effect on the

fashionable young lady, experienced in all refined pleasures and

saturated with unhealthy novels. These young women are much more

easily seduced by the art of Don Juan and the old _roues_, who are

more adequate to deal with them because they have studied practically

the psychology of the modern woman.

=Instinct of Procreation.=--Another irradiation of the male sexual

instinct, connected with the preceding, is the instinct of

procreation. If there were no other difficulties or consequences, man

would without the least doubt be instinctively inclined to copulate

with as many women as he could, and procreate as many children as

possible. The more he is capable of satisfying his procreative

instinct, the more he becomes self-exalted, as he thus sees himself

multiplied and feels his power extended by the possession of a great

number of wives and children. This is one of the principal causes

which urge rich men and polygamous peoples to possess many women.

Coitus without object, like that of prostitution, can only assuage the

sexual appetite and does not satisfy any of its higher irradiations.

It is well known that a happy betrothal, reposing on true love, and

not on pecuniary interests, often transforms a young man from

pessimism to optimism, from misogyny to philogyny. Skeptics smile at

this transformation and regard it as only the transient intoxication

of love. This may be true in some cases, but, as we have seen above,

when love is ennobled by deep understanding and mutual education, when

each knows and respects the other, the transformation remains

definite, and is strengthened so much that the honeymoon of the silver

wedding is often happier and more exalted than that which followed

marriage. We can then say that the optimism created by sexual union

cemented by true love rests on the normal accomplishment of the object

of life. I cannot too often repeat that work in common, especially

social work, on the part of the conjoints, is necessary for their

happiness to be complete, and to survive in the one who remains after

the decease of the other.

=Jealousy.=--The worst irradiation, or rather the worst reaction of

contrast of love, which we have inherited from our animal ancestors,

and that which is the most deeply rooted, is _jealousy_. Jealousy is a

heritage of animals and barbarism; that is what I would say to all

those who, in the name of offended honor, would grant it rights and

even place it on a pedestal. It is ten times better for a woman to

marry an unfaithful than a jealous husband. From the phylogenetic

point of view, jealousy originates in the struggle for the possession

of woman, at a period when right depended only on brute force. Cunning

and violence contended with each other, and when the conqueror was in

possession of a female, he had to guard her jealously to prevent her

being abducted. Furious combats ensued. As soon as an unaccustomed

approach, a look or anything else awakened the least suspicion of the

presence of a rival, the male was tormented with a continual and

instinctive feeling of defiance and distrust, often increased by the

remembrance of the sadness of former defeats and the impotent rage

which followed.

The results of male jealousy in the history of marriage are truly

incredible. I may mention the iron girdles with locks--the so-called

girdles of chastity--which we still see in certain museums, which the

knights of the Middle Ages put on their wives when they set off to the

wars, in order to appease their jealousy. Many savage peoples do not

content themselves with severely punishing adultery in woman, even by

death, but even simple conversations with a strange man. Jealousy

transforms marriage into a hell. It is often exalted in man to the

point of a mania for persecution, to which it is analogous. It is also

a very common symptom of alcoholism. Then the life of the unfortunate

woman who is the object of it becomes a continual martyrdom. Perpetual

suspicion accompanied by insults, threats and violent words, and even

homicide may be the result of this atrocious passion.

Even in its more moderate and normal form, jealousy is a torment, for

distrust and suspicion poison love. We often hear of justified

jealousy; I maintain, on the contrary, that jealousy is never

justified, and that it is only the brutal stupidity of an atavistic

heritage, or a pathological symptom. A reasonable man who has doubts

as to the fidelity of his wife has certainly the right to assure

himself of their correctness. But of what use is it to be jealous? If

he finds his suspicions false he has, by his manner, made his wife

unnecessarily unhappy and destroyed conjugal confidence and happiness.

If, on the contrary, his suspicions are well founded he has only to

choose between one of two ways. If it is a case of amorous

intoxication suggested by another man to his wife, who is often very

unhappy about it, she may then be restored to her husband and

pardoned, for in this case affection only can cure her, never

jealousy. If, however, love for her husband is entirely extinguished

in her, or if she is only a false intriguer without character,

jealousy is even more absurd, for the game is not worth the candle,

and immediate divorce is necessary.

Unfortunately, man only possesses very little control over his

feelings when these are violent. The jealous person by nature, that is

by heredity, is generally incurable and poisons his own existence at

the same time as that of his wife. Such individuals should never

marry.

In lunatic asylums, in law, and in novels jealousy plays an important

part, for it is one of the most fruitful sources of tragedies and

human unhappiness. The combined and persevering efforts of education

and selection are necessary to gradually eliminate it from the human

brain. We often hear it said of man and woman that they are not

jealous enough, because they are too indulgent toward the

extra-nuptial inclinations of their conjoint. When such indulgence

rests on cynical indifference or on pecuniary interests, it is not the

want of jealousy but the want of moral sense which is to blame. If it

arises from real and reasoned love, it should on the contrary be

highly respected and praised. I would wish all heroes of offended

honor and all defenders of jealousy to reflect on the following case:

A man of high position, and the father of five children, lived in the

most happy union. One day he made the acquaintance of a friend of his

wife, a very intelligent and well-educated lady. Frequent visits and

long conversations led to intimacy which developed into violent

reciprocal love. However, the lady refused to abandon herself

entirely. The husband confessed everything to his wife, even to the

smallest details, and the lady did the same. Instead of becoming

jealous, the wife had the good sense and the courage to treat the two

lovers not only with indulgence, but a true and profound affection.

The loyalty of each of the parties interested greatly facilitated the

gradual _denouement_ of a difficult situation, without the family

affections suffering. But the _denouement_ would have been quite as

peaceful if the lady had yielded to sexual connection with the

husband. In fact, the wife herself considered this question very

seriously and calmly, in case the fire could not be otherwise

extinguished.

I ask in all sincerity, if such mild and humane treatment of an

unfortunate love affair, in which the three interested parties each

strove to avoid all scandal and everything which could damage their

mutual reputation, I ask if this good and loyal treatment is not, from

the moral standpoint, far superior to scenes of jealousy, duels,

divorces and all their consequences, things which are all sanctioned

and even sanctified by custom?

I also know many cases where the husbands of women who have fallen in

love with other men have conducted themselves in an equally noble and

reasonable manner, even when their wives had been completely

unfaithful, and the results have always been good. It is needless to

say that I do not wish to maintain that a husband should tolerate

indefinitely the bad conduct of his wife, nor a woman that of her

husband; but this is another thing.

=Sexual Braggardism.=--Let us pass on to another irradiation of the

male sexual appetite--sexual braggardism. This arises from

self-exaltation evolved from the sexual power of man. Like jealousy,

this sentiment is no doubt inherited from our animal ancestors, and it

finds its analogy, or rather its caricature, in the cock, the peacock,

the turkey, and in general among the richly adorned males of

polygamous species. Although on the whole more innocent, the results

of this atavistic instinct are no more elevated than those of

jealousy. The sentiment of sexual power induces men, especially those

of lower mental caliber, to boast of their sexual conquests and

exaggerate them. It is needless to say that success does not go to the

unskillful boaster, but to the one who relates his audacious exploits

in a casual way. The Don Juan experienced in the art of seduction

approaches women with audacity and _aplomb_, and usually imposes on

them considerably, whatever his ignorance of other things. He has

instinctively learnt one thing: viz., the weakness of woman in the

face of the male form, theatrical effect, uniforms, an audacious act,

a fierce mustache, etc. He has learnt that these fireworks hypnotize

her and silence her reason, and that she is then capable of enthusiasm

for the most doubtful cavalier and delivers herself to him bound hand

and foot, provided his self-assurance does not desert him.

I may say here that it is most often men of low intellect, weak in

judgment and principles, who think themselves most superior to the

feminine sex, and who behave as tyrants to their wives.

Sexual braggardism has, moreover, grave consequences for the man

himself, for it urges him to excesses which far exceed his appetites

and especially his natural wants. In spite of other advantages, he

wishes to shine by these excesses among his fellows and even among the

grisettes whose minds are full of sexual matters.

Male sexual braggardism contributes with sexual appetite to entice

reserved and high-minded young men toward prostitutes, against their

better instincts, their reason and their moral sense. Alcohol

especially facilitates the degeneration of sexual life.

=The Pornographic Spirit.=--The term _eroticism_ is given to the state

of excitation of the sexual appetite. When a person cultivates it

artificially and abandons himself to purely animal sensuality, without

combining it with higher intellectual or moral aspirations, there

develop in the mind irradiations which may be designated by the term

_pornographic spirit_. The entire circle of ideas of such individuals

is so impregnated with eroticism that all their thoughts and

sentiments are colored by it. They see everywhere, even in the most

innocent objects, the most lewd allusions. Woman is only regarded by

them as an object of sexual enjoyment, and her mind only appears to

such satyrs as an ignoble erotic caricature, which is disgusting to

every man capable of lofty sentiments.

Owing to its usually sensual and gross nature, male eroticism has

succeeded in modeling a whole class of women in whom ideal character

in their desires is wanting. Instead of recognizing his own work and

the vile image of his own person in these unnatural women, the

libertine, as we have already seen, imagines them as the normal type

of woman. From the height of his presumption, he then despises woman

and does not perceive that it is himself whom he despises; for on the

whole, from the sexual point of view, the dependent woman of to-day

conforms herself to man and becomes what he makes her. The number of

coitus, their details, the size and form of the sexual organs, the

pleasure of having cut out other men, and especially the pathological

perversions of the sexual appetite, form the chief object of the

thoughts and conversations of pornographic minds. Each tries to outdo

the others in sexual enormities, and the virtuosity of these gentlemen

in this domain is only surpassed by their ignorance and incapacity in

all others.

Prostitution and all the modern sexual degeneration which marches

under the hypocritical flag of Christianity, civilization and

monogamy, have so far developed the pornographic spirit that men

living in centers of debauchery, centers which are unfortunately

extending more and more from town to country, lose all conception of

the noble qualities natural to the feminine sentiment and to true

love, or only preserve a few shreds of it which they treat with

ridicule. Many men have admitted this to me, after being much

astonished when I was obliged to give them quite another conception of

love and woman, without introducing the least trace of religion. No

doubt certain better individuals, fallen by chance into debauchery,

speak respectfully of a mother or a sister, for whom they profess an

almost religious worship. They regard these as beings apart, as

species of a lost race of demigods, and they do not perceive that they

discredit them and drag them in the mud by their contempt and

pornographic conception of woman in general, a conception which is

moreover often altered to profound pessimism.

In the relatively moral circles of society, our description would no

doubt be taxed with exaggeration, because natures a little more

refined have the habit of acting like the ostrich who hides his head

in the sand, that is to say of turning their eyes away from the

pornographic swamp with disgust so as not to see it, and thus avoid it

instinctively. But this maneuver serves no purpose: the facts remain

as they are.

Eroticism is no more a vice than sexual anaesthesia is a virtue. Even

when they are chaste, men of libidinous nature require a strong will

to resist all the artificial seductions which excite their sensuality.

This is why the bog of debauchery engulfs so many men of a naturally

good nature. In this sense, cold natures are better off; they can

cover themselves with the glory of a "virtue" the resplendent rays of

which become lost in a penumbra of defects and weaknesses from which

these natures suffer in other domains.

=Sexual Hypocrisy.=--Hypocrisy is a peculiarity deeply rooted in the

human mind. We can affirm that whoever pretends never to have been a

hypocrite lies, quite as much as one who swears he has never lied. But

nowhere, save perhaps in the domain of religion, does hypocrisy play a

greater part than in the sexual domain. Nowhere is there so much

falsehood, and men who are most honest on other points make no scruple

of deceiving their wives in this respect. I do not speak here of the

simulation of sentiments of love, for it is too banal, and there is no

need to be too exacting over this point, for there are strong

attenuating circumstances.

First of all, erotic feelings are capable of blinding man for the

moment, as far as persuading him of the eternal duration of love and

fidelity which he promises the object of his appetites, as well as of

the reality of the celestial qualities under which this object appears

to him, or with which it pleases him to adorn it. Two persons mutually

excited by sexual passion are fascinated by the illusions of a mirage,

which often vanishes soon afterward, so that it is not rare to see

them on the following day hurling the most violent abuse at each

other.

Those who have not been witnesses of such events may hardly believe

them. It is sufficient, however, to be a magistrate or to read the

reports of lawsuits between debased persons as the result of love

quarrels, broken engagements or marriages, seductions, etc., to study

the letters that the two parties have written before and after their

quarrel, in order to be convinced of the correctness of what we have

said above. In the first letters the lovers adulate each other and

adorn each other with the most hyperbolic epithets, swearing eternal

love and fidelity, and deluding each other in the most absurd manner.

In letters written sometimes only a few days later we are astonished

to see the same individuals grossly insulting each other and mutually

covering themselves with ignoble calumnies. This is how passion

without reason passes through the furnaces of love and hatred,

dragging after it all the artificial scaffolding of what man imagines

to be his right based on logic, but which is in reality only a tissue

of ridiculous contradictions, the automatic and inept product of his

emotional state. Such contrasts are so frequent that we can easily

recognize the expression of a psychological law, due to the mirages of

the amorous passions on the one hand and the inverse reaction on the

other.

Nevertheless hypocrisy has its good side. It has been said not without

reason that "hypocrisy is a concession which vice makes to virtue." In

their nakedness human thoughts are often so sadly vulgar and so

offensive that a little varnish improves them. In this sense, and when

it comes from a feeling of shame or good-will, hypocrisy deserves a

good deal of the eulogy which Mark Twain has heaped on it in his

charming satire, "The Decadence of the Art of Lying."

In the sexual question hypocrisy is directly provoked by the tyranny

and barbarism of what are called good manners, often even by the law.

In this sense it constitutes a response of human nature to the forms

and customs derived from the right of the stronger or from religious

superstitions, as well as from the dogmas resulting from them.

By the term _sexual hypocrisy_ I do not mean the repugnant forms of

hypocrisy pure and simple, in which man only exploits love indirectly

for an interested end, for instance when he simulates love to obtain a

rich wife. I only speak of the forms of hypocrisy which are directly

evolved from the sexual appetite or from love.

It is from this point of view that we must judge sexual hypocrisy, and

if I have laid special stress on its good points, it is in view of

marriage, where it assists the education of noble and elevated

sentiments even in the hypocrite. By praising the virtues of his

helpmate with a little exaggeration, these are made to appear more

noble. If the time is spent in saying disagreeable truths, love is

soon stifled and killed. On the contrary, if each conjoint attributes

to the other as fine qualities as possible, each is finally persuaded

that the other really possesses them, and then realizes them himself,

at any rate in part.

The worst of hypocrisies is that which is the product of base

pecuniary interests, or of a gross sexual appetite without love, or

lastly by the pressure of conventional or religious customs. Good

hypocrisy consists in the repression of all that is base in the

sentiments, inclinations and passions; in the fact that one strives to

hide it from others, even from one's self, and to suggest in its place

as many amiable qualities as possible, so as to strengthen in a

disinterested manner the object of one's love in noble sentiments.

This kind of hypocrisy is in reality an indirect product of altruistic

sentiments. One perceives with pain on reflecting, either the absence

of spontaneous sentiments of sympathy, or the presence of disgust and

bad temper, and one strives to hide the thing by sympathetic

expressions for which one seeks an object, and to which one would wish

to give a durable character. Loyal efforts made in this direction

often succeed in correcting the egoistic humor with which one is

affected, and in giving rise to the sentiments one desires to

experience. One must not, however, by only looking at one side of the

question, allow such efforts to degenerate into maladroit blindness,

which will only have the effect of spoiling the person one loves.

=Egoistic Love.=--It is obvious that the psychic irradiations of the

sexual sense are strongly influenced by the individuality of the one

who loves. The egoist loves in a manner naively egoistic. He is not

wanting in fine words, but in his opinion all sentiment and respect is

due to his person, while he reduces to a minimum his duties toward the

object of his love. He exacts much from the other and gives little.

The good man with altruistic sentiments feels things in an inverse

way; he exacts little from others, and much from himself.

Love differs in different natures, according as they are calm or

lively, imbecile or intelligent, well educated or otherwise: the will

plays a great part here. Weakness and impulsiveness are found in love,

as well as energy and perseverance. In the last point woman is

superior, owing to the greater constancy of her love. There is thus no

domain of the mind which is not influenced by love, and which does not

react on love in its turn.

Intellectual occupations are facilitated by a happy love, while they

are usually hindered by the sorrows of love. Even men of science, so

proud of their calmness, are often more influenced than one would

think in their scientific opinions by their emotional sentiments.

Without a man being aware of it, his sentiments insinuate themselves

into the opinions which he believes to be of a purely intellectual

nature, and direct them unconsciously with much more power than he

generally imagines. Such influences act chiefly on individuals

disposed to sentimentality. In love, these individuals resemble

two-edged swords; the intensity of their emotional reactions and

sentiments drives them from one extreme to another, from foolish

happiness to despair or fury. The situation becomes still more grave

when such storms burst among impulsive persons of weak will and

limited intelligence. Under such circumstances ill-assorted alliances

are formed which lead to violent quarrels, and sometimes even to

crime. When jealousy comes on the scene the man often kills the woman

and commits suicide.

It would seem that such crime can only arise from egoism; this is

often the case, but not always. Despair may often lead to such acts,

without any motive of vengeance, or even of jealousy. The storm of

passion drives weak-minded persons to impulsive actions, the motives

of which are very difficult to analyze. After these tragedies of

murder preceding suicide, when the murderer survives, he often

expresses himself as follows: "I was in such a state of despair and

excitement that I saw no other issue than death for both of us."

=Prudery. Modesty.=--The sentiment of modesty originates in the fear

of everything which is novel and unusual, and is complicated by

natural timidity. This sentiment is especially strong in children. The

sentiment of sexual modesty in man thus rests on timidity and on the

fear of not doing as others do. It betrays itself toward women by

awkwardness and bashfulness behind which eroticism is often ill

concealed. The timid and bashful man carefully endeavors to hide his

sexual feelings from others. The object of modesty is in itself

immaterial to the psychology of this sentiment, and shame is sometimes

inspired not only by very different things but even by opposite

things. One youth is ashamed of appearing erotic, another of appearing

too little erotic, according to the opinion of his neighbors.

Modesty depends on the custom of covering or exposing certain parts of

the body, and people who live in a state of nature are as much ashamed

of clothes as we are ashamed of nudity. Moreover, man soon becomes

accustomed to fashion, and the same English girl who blushes at the

sight of a few inches of bare skin in her own country, finds it quite

natural to see naked negroes in the tropics.

The artificial and systematic cultivation of an exaggerated sentiment

of modesty produces _prudery_, the bad results of which are, however,

less than those of pornography. There are young people so modest that

the simple thought of sexual matters overexcites them terribly. By

associating their own erotic feelings, of which they feel ashamed,

with sexual ideas, they invest these with terrifying attributes, and

become quite unhappy; in this way they are often led to masturbation.

They are, however, excessively frightened at this also and imagine its

effects so terrible that they think themselves lost. Their exaggerated

feelings of modesty often prevent them confiding in some charitable

person. However, they rarely find reasonable consolers; some ridicule

them, while others regard them as iniquitous, which only increases

their terror and drives them to extremes.

The sexual sentiment of modesty very often becomes unhealthy, and is

then easily combined with pathological sexual conditions.

Prudery is, so to speak, sexual modesty codified and dogmatized. It is

indeterminate, because the object of modesty is purely conventional,

and man has no valid reason to regard any part of his body as

shameful. Normal man ought only to be ashamed of bad thoughts and

actions, contrary to his moral conscience. The latter should be based

on natural human altruism only, and not artificially misled by dogma.

=The Old Bachelor.=--The importance of the psychic irradiations of

love is shown perhaps more clearly from the results of their presence

in old bachelors than from any other consideration. In our time, no

doubt, the state of the old bachelor rarely means the renunciation of

the satisfaction of sexual appetite, although it generally entails the

renunciation of love. There are, no doubt, two kinds of old bachelors,

those who are chaste and those who are not. The old bachelor no doubt

leads a less empty existence than the old maid, but the void exists

none the less. Man also needs compensation for the absence of love and

family, but his brain is more capable than that of woman of finding

this compensation in hard intellectual work or in some other

employment.

The old bachelor is generally pessimistic and morose. He easily

becomes the slave of his fads and hobbies, and the peculiarities of

his character are proverbial. His egoism knows no bounds, and his

altruistic impulses usually find too few objects or echoes.

The chastity of some old bachelors conceals sexual anomalies. But even

apart from this, the old celibate easily becomes shy, affected,

misanthropic or misogynistic, at least if some energetic friend does

not induce him to utilize his power of work in some useful sphere. At

other times he lavishes exaggerated admiration on women and worships

them in a pompous manner.

In a separate category come those old bachelors who are chaste and

celibate for high moral reasons, and whose life is spent in social

work, although they are only men and cannot for this reason free

themselves from all the peculiarities we have mentioned. In a word,

the object of life is partly wanting in the best of old bachelors, and

this void not only affects his sentiments but his whole mental being.

His general tendency to pessimism and egoism would be sufficient alone

to provoke an energetic protest against the abandonment of social

power to celibates.

The old bachelor who is not chaste generally descends to pornography,

only becoming acquainted with the worst side of woman. He becomes a

misogynist because he wrongly attributes to all women the character of

those only with whom he has intimate relations. We have already

pointed out this phenomenon in speaking of male eroticism. The

philosopher, Schopenhauer, was an example of this kind.

PSYCHIC IRRADIATIONS OF LOVE IN WOMEN

In speaking of love in man we have already touched on many points

which differentiate it from that of woman. In the latter, the most

prominent peculiarity is the dominant role which it plays in the

brain. Without love woman abjures her nature and ceases to be normal.

=The Old Maid.=--What we have said of old bachelors applies in a still

more marked degree, to old maids. Still more than men they have need

of compensation for sexual love, to avoid losing their natural

qualities and becoming dried-up beings or useless egoists. But, if the

void left by love is greater in her, woman possesses such natural

energy and perseverance, combined with such great power of devotion,

that on the whole she is more capable than man of accomplishing the

work which the void in her existence requires. Unfortunately, many

women do not understand this. On the other hand, those who devote

themselves to social philanthropic works, to art or literature, to

nursing the sick or to other useful occupations, instead of amusing

themselves with futile things, may greatly distinguish themselves in

such social pursuits, and thus obtain real compensation for the loss

of love.

In this respect woman was formerly misunderstood. The modern movement

of her emancipation shows more and more what she is capable of and

promises much more in the future.

As to the old maid who lives alone with her egoism, her whims and

fancies generally exceed those of the old bachelor. She has not the

faculty of creating anything original by her own intellect, so that,

having lost love, all her mental power shrinks up. Her cat, her little

dog, and the daily care of her person and small household occupy her

whole mind. It is not surprising that such persons generally create a

pitiable and ridiculous impression.

Between these two extremes there exists a category of unmarried women

whose sexual love finds compensation in the love they bear for a

parent or a friend (male or female), which although not sexual is none

the less ardent. Such occupation for their sentiments improves their

state of mind and partially fills the void; however, it is not

sufficient as a rule and only constitutes a last resource. This kind

of devotion, by its exclusiveness, often produces bad results, for its

horizon is too limited. If the object of love, which is generally too

pampered, dies or abandons her, she loses her head; grief, bitterness

and pessimism never leave her, unless she finds consolation in

religious exaltation, which is often observed in other women deprived

of love. This last peculiarity is met with, moreover, in all classes

of women, even among the married.

=Passiveness of Woman. Sexual Appetite.=--Ideal love should never be

dual egoism. What happens when two persons live exclusively for each

other, if one of them dies? The survivor sinks into inconsolable

despair, all that his heart was attached to is dead, because his love

did not extend to other human beings, nor to social works. Widows then

become as pitiable as old maids, although in another way, when they

have lost the object of their exclusive love. This is why we recommend

social work, not only for celibates, but also for loving couples.

I again emphasize the fact that in normal women, especially young

girls, the sexual appetite is subordinate to love. In the young girl

love is a mixture of exalted admiration for masculine courage and

grandeur, and an ardent desire for affection and maternity. She wishes

to be outwardly dominated by a man, but to dominate him by her heart.

This sentimentalism of the young girl, joined to the passive role of

her sex, produces in her a state of exaltation which often borders on

ecstasy and then overcomes all the resistance of will and reason. The

woman surrenders herself to the man of whom she is enamored, or who

has conquered or hypnotized her. She is vanquished by his embraces and

follows him submissively, and in such a state of mind she is capable

of any folly.

Although more violent and impetuous in his love, man loses his

_sang-froid_ on the whole much less than woman. We can therefore say

that the relative power of sentiment is on the average greater in

woman, in spite of her passive role.

I cannot protest too strongly against the way in which men of the day

disparage women and misunderstand them. In the way in which a young

girl abandons herself to their sexual appetites, in caresses, and in

the ecstasy of her love, they think they see the proof of a purely

sensual eroticism, identical to their libidinous desire for coitus,

while in reality she usually does not think of it, at any rate at

first. The first coitus is usually painful to woman, often repugnant.

Many are the cases where young girls, even when they knew the terrible

social and individual dangers of their weakness, even when they have

perhaps once already experienced the consequences, let the man abuse

them without a word of complaint, without a trace of sexual pleasure

or venereal orgasm, simply to please the one who desires them, because

he is so good and amiable, and because refusal would give him so much

pain. In his violent passion and in his egoism, man is generally

incapable of understanding the power of this stoicism of a mind which

surrenders itself in spite of all dangers and all its interests. He

confounds his own appetites with the sentiments of the woman, and

finds in this false interpretation of feminine psychology the excuses

for the cowardice of which he gives proof when he yields to his

passions. The psychology of the young girl who surrenders herself has

been admirably depicted by Goethe in _Gretchen_ ("Faust"), as well as

by de Maupassant on several occasions.

It is necessary to know all these facts in order to estimate at its

true value the ignominy of our social institutions and their bearing

on woman's life. If men did not so misunderstand women, and especially

if they were aware of the deep injustice of our customs and laws with

regard to them, the better ones, at least, would think twice before

seducing young girls, to abandon them afterward with their children. I

am only speaking now of true love and not of the extortion so often

practiced by women of low character, or those already educated in

vice.

I shall say no more concerning eroticism, which really exists in many

women, especially in those who are already experienced in sexual

matters. On the other hand there are women who deceive their husbands

and allow themselves to be seduced by any Don Juan, even when they

have never had the least sexual appetite, or felt a single venereal

orgasm. They allow themselves to be dragged in the mud and lose their

reputation, their fortune and their family; they even let their

seducer trample them under foot; they become defamed and treated as

women without character, without honor and without any notion of duty.

They are simply poor feeble creatures incapable of resisting

masculine proposals. With good psychological training they would often

become better women, active, devoted and full of life. It seems hardly

credible, but it is true, that one sometimes finds in this category

women who are highly gifted. It is then said that they are wanting in

moral sense, but this is not always correct. In other respects they

may be faithful to their duty, devoted, sometimes even energetic and

heroic; but they submit to masculine influence to such a degree that

they cannot conceive how to resist it. They find it quite natural to

give way to it and their mind does not understand that the complete

abandonment of their body to the man they love should not necessarily

follow immediately after the abandonment of their heart, or even after

the first kiss. It is impossible for them to make distinctions or to

trace limits.

=Idealism in Woman.=--The cases I have just described are extreme,

although very common; they give the note of a general phenomenon of

feminine love in its exaltation. It is needless to say that reasonable

women of high character behave themselves in quite another manner,

however profound their love. Nevertheless the trait which we have just

described is nearly always found at the bottom of all true love in

woman, however much it may be veiled, dissimulated or conquered.

It is not always audacity or heroic deeds like those of the bold

cavaliers of former days which excite love in woman. The external

qualities of man, such as beauty and elegance, etc., also play a part,

although their effect may be less decisive than that of the bodily

charms of woman in exciting love in man. Intellectual superiority,

high moral actions, and mental qualities in general, easily affect the

heart of woman, which becomes exalted under their influence. But every

man who becomes famous either for good or evil, the fashionable actor,

the celebrated tenor, etc., has the power of exciting love in women.

Women without education or those of inferior mental quality are

naturally more easily affected by the bodily strength of man, and by

his external appearance in general. Many women are especially liable

to succumb under the influence of all that is mystic. These become

infatuated by preachers, and religious enthusiasts, to say nothing of

hypocrites.

Nothing is sadder than the contrast between the exalted love of a

virtuous and chaste young girl, and the debauched life, with its

traits of cynical pornography, of the majority of young men. Guy de

Maupassant has described this contrast in a most striking manner in

his romance entitled "_Une Vie_." I know a number of cases in which

the complete ignorance of young married women with regard to sexual

relations, combined with the cynical lewdness of their husbands, has

transformed the exalted love of a young girl into profound disgust,

and has sometimes even caused mental disorders. Although not very

common, the psychoses resulting from the deception and shock of the

nuptial night are not very rare. But what is much worse than this

douche of cold water which suddenly substitutes the reality of coitus

for the ideal exaltation of sentiment, are the subsequent discoveries

made by the young wife, when the cynical mind of her husband on the

subject of sexual connection and love is unveiled to her in all its

grossness, resulting from his previous life of debauchery. Torn and

sullied in its deepest fibers, the feminine mind then becomes the seat

of a desperate struggle between reality full of deceptions and the

illusions of a dream of happiness.

If it is only a question of bad habits, or want of tact in the

husband, behind which there exists perhaps true love, the wounds in

the woman's sentiment may heal and intimacy may develop; but when the

cynicism is too marked, when the habits of sexual debauchery are too

inveterate, the love of a virtuous woman is soon stifled, and is

changed to resignation and disgust, often to martyrdom or hatred.

In other cases the woman is weak and ill-developed and allows herself

to sink to the level of her husband's sentiments. Sometimes, the

crisis is accentuated and leads to divorce. In de Maupassant's "_Une

Vie_," he describes with profound insight the continuous deceptions of

a young innocent and sentimental girl who marries an egoistic roue,

and whose life is transformed into martyrdom and completely ruined. De

Maupassant's romances contain such true psychology of sexual life and

love in all their forms, often even in their exceptional aberrations,

that they furnish an admirable illustration to the present chapter.

=Petticoat Government.=--A series of most important irradiations of

love in woman results from the need she feels of being, if not

dominated, at least protected by her husband. To be happy, a woman

must be able to respect her husband and even regard him with more or

less veneration; she must see in him the realization of an ideal,

either of bodily strength, courage, unselfishness or superior

intellect. If this is not the case, the husband easily falls under the

petticoat government, or indifference and antipathy may develop in the

wife, at least if misfortune or illness in the husband does not excite

her pity and transform her into a resigned nurse.

Petticoat government can hardly make a household truly happy, for here

the positions are reversed and the wife rules because the husband is

weak. But the normal instinct of woman is to rule over the heart of

man, not over his intelligence or on his will. Ruling in these last

domains may flatter a woman's vanity and render it dominating, but it

never satisfies her heart, and this is why the woman who rules is so

often unfaithful to her husband, if not in deed, at least in thought.

In such a union she has not found the true love which she sought, and

for this reason, if her moral principles are weak, she looks for

compensation in some Don Juan. If the woman in question has a strong

character, or if she is sexually cold, she may easily become sour and

bitter. These women, who are not rare, are to be dreaded; their

plighted love is transformed into hatred, bad temper or jealousy, and

only finds satisfaction in the torment of others.

The psychology of this kind of woman is interesting. They are not

usually conscious of their malice. The chronic bitterness resulting

from an unfortunate hereditary disposition in their character, as much

as from their outraged feelings, makes them take a dislike to the

world and renders them incapable of seeing anything but the worst side

of people. They become accustomed to disparage everything

automatically, to take offense at everything and to speak ill of

everything on every occasion. They are unhappy, but they find a

diabolical joy in all misfortune where they see the confirmation of

their somber prophecies, the only satisfaction which is capable of

exalting them.

We have just said that a certain constitutional disposition is

necessary for such a deplorable change in feminine sentiments to be

produced; but this disposition is often only developed under the

influence of circumstances which we have indicated or analogous ones.

It is impossible for the life in common of two conjoints not to reveal

their reciprocal failings. But true love generally suffices to

definitely cement a union, provided that the wife finds a support in

the steadfast nature of her husband, which then serves as her ideal.

It is also necessary that the husband, finding sentiments of devoted

love in his wife, should reciprocate them. These conditions are

sufficient, if both devote their efforts to the maintenance of their

family and the social welfare.

=Maternal Love.=--The most profound and most natural irradiation of

the sexual appetite in woman is _maternal love_. A mother who does not

love her children is an unnatural being, and a man who does not

understand the desires of maternity in his wife, and does not respect

them, is not worthy of her love. Sometimes egoism renders a man

jealous of the love which his wife bears to his children. At other

times, the father may show more love for the children than their

mother; such exceptions only prove the rule.

The most beautiful and most natural of the irradiations of love is the

joy of parents at the birth of their children, a joy which is one of

the strongest bonds of conjugal affection, and which helps the couple

in triumphing over the conflicting elements in their characters, and

in raising the moral level of their reciprocal sentiments, for it

realizes the natural object of sexual union.

A true woman rejoices at the progress of her pregnancy. The last pains

of childbirth have hardly ceased before she laughs with joy, and

pride, at hearing the first cries of the newly born. The instinctive

outburst of maternal love toward the new-born child corresponds to a

natural imprescriptible right of the child, for it needs the continual

care of its mother. Nothing is so beautiful in the world as the

radiant joy of a young mother nursing her child, and no sign of

degeneration is more painful than that of mothers who abandon their

children without absolute necessity, to strange hands.

On the other hand reason must intervene. The instructive transports of

maternal love soon require a counterpoise. It is important to prevent

them from degenerating into unreasonable spoiling, by scientific and

medical education of the infants. Modern medical art has made great

progress in this direction, but unfortunately, egoism, negligence,

routine, the desire of enjoyment, or often the poverty of many mothers

prevent them from benefiting from this progress and applying it as

they should. Instead of looking after their children they leave them

to nurses. The latter may be necessary to help and instruct young

wives during their first childbirth; but a natural mother will profit

by these instructions and will herself become an excellent nurse,

because she will feel her natural ties and will consecrate herself to

them with the devotion of a maternal love heightened and refined by

reason and knowledge. Among the lower classes the poverty and

ignorance of mothers, often also their thoughtlessness and indolence,

are an obstacle to the rational education of infants.

"=Monkey's Love.="--Maternal love thus constitutes the most important

irradiation of the sexual instincts in woman. It very easily

degenerates into weakness, that is to say into unreasonable passion

and blind compliance with all the faults of the child, which the

mother excuses and transforms into virtues. The foibles of maternal

love do much harm to the child and are often the origin of bitter

deceptions. Hereditary weakness of character here plays a great, or

even the principal part. Nevertheless, maternal foibles have other

causes--riches, absence of culture, idleness, too few children, etc.

The best antidote for this unreasonable maternal love, which the

Germans call "monkey's love" consists in active occupations for the

mother, combined with a healthy education of her character. Work alone

is not sufficient, if the mother has limited ideas, and if she is not

freed from routine, ignorance, superstition and weakness of will.

=Sentiments and Perseverance.=--The power of love in woman does not

rest alone on the varied harmony of her sentiments of sympathy for her

husband and children, and on the extraordinary finesse and natural

tact which she adds to it; such qualities make her, no doubt, the ray

of sunshine in the family life, but more powerful still are the

tenacity and perseverance of her love.

In general, it is by will-power that woman is superior to man, and it

is in the domain of love that this superiority shines in all its

glory. As a general rule it is the wife who sustains the family. Among

the common people, it is she who economizes, she who watches carefully

over all and corrects the failings, the passionate and impulsive acts,

the discouragements, so frequent with the husband. How often do we see

the father abandon the children, waste his earnings and leave his

situation under some futile pretext, while his courageous wife,

although suffering from hunger and destitution, holds firm and manages

to save the debris which has escaped the excesses and egoism of the

husband.

The husband of a feeble or alcoholic wife sometimes becomes the sole

support of the family, but such exceptions only prove the rule, that

where the normal love and courage of woman are wanting, the family

becomes broken up, for man very rarely possesses the necessary

faculties for its preservation.

It follows from these facts that the modern tendency of women to

become pleasure-seekers, and to take a dislike to maternity, leads to

complete degeneration of society. This is a grave social evil, which

rapidly changes the qualities and power of expansion of a race, and

which must be cured in time, or the race affected by it will be

supplanted by others.

If the feminine mind is generally wanting in intellectual imagination

and power of combination, it is all the more powerful in the practical

intuition of its judgment and in sentimental imagination. The finesse

of its moral and aesthetic sentiments, its natural tact, its

instructive desire to put some element of poetry into all the details

of life, contribute to form true family happiness, a happiness which

the husband and children too often enjoy without fully realizing the

devoted labor, the love and the pains which the mother has given to

create it.

=Routine.=--The reverse of the irradiations of love in woman is

constituted by her failings, which we have already partly indicated.

We may add that her intelligence is usually superficial, that she

attributes an exaggerated importance to trifles, that she often does

not understand the object of ideal conceptions, and remains attached

by routine to all her hobbies. This routine represents in feminine

psychology the excess of a tenacious will applied only to the

repetition of what has been taught. In the family, woman constitutes

the conservative element because sentiment in her much more than in

man, combined with persevering tenacity, predominates over

intelligence; but sentiments represent everywhere and always the

conservative element in the human mind.

This is why woman is the strongest supporter of dogmas, customs,

fashions, prejudices and mysticism. It is not that she herself is more

disposed than man to mystic beliefs, but these when once dogmatized

dazzle the eyes of the suffering with visions of compensation in a

better world. In this way a number of unhappy or disappointed women

are affected with religious exaltation and thus cling to the hope of

happiness after death which they believe will compensate them for the

vicissitudes of their existence.

The other reverses of the feminine character, such as want of logic,

obstinacy, love of trinkets, etc., result from the fundamental

weakness of the feminine mind which we have just analyzed. Moreover,

the social dependence in which man has placed woman, both from the

legal and educational points of view, tend to increase her failings.

Many people fear that women's suffrage would hinder progress, for the

reasons we have just indicated, but they forget that the actual

suffrage of men is to a great extent exercised by their wives,

indirectly and unconsciously. This fact alone shows that the

education, and legal emancipation of women can only be beneficial to

progress, especially as they would contribute to the education of men,

too prone to degenerate on account of their presumptuous and

tyrannical autocracy.

Woman has an instinctive admiration for men of high intellect and

lofty sentiments, and strives to imitate those who provoke her

admiration, and carry out their ideas. Let us therefore give women

their proper rights, equal to ours, at the same time giving them a

higher education and the same free instruction as ourselves; we shall

then see them abandon the obscure paths of mysticism, to devote

themselves to social progress.

=Jealousy in Woman.=--Other irradiations of love in woman are similar

to those of man. Jealousy is perhaps not much less developed in woman

than in man. It is less brutal and violent but more instinctive and

persevering; it manifests itself by quarrels, needle pricks,

chicanery, petty tyrannies and all kinds of tricks which poison

existence as much as man's jealousy, and are quite as inefficient

against infidelity. In the highest degree of passion the jealous man

uses violence or resorts to firearms, while the woman scratches,

poisons or stabs. Among savages, jealous women bite off their rivals'

noses; in civilized countries they throw sulphuric acid in the face.

The object is the same in both cases--to disfigure.

Amorous illusions produced in woman by the sexual appetite are

analogous to those of man, but are modified by feminine attributes. It

is the same with hypocrisy. The passive role of woman in sexual life

obliges her only to betray her feelings to the object of her desires

in a reserved and prudent manner. She cannot make advances toward man

without contravening the conventions and risking her reputation. She

therefore has to be more skillful in the art of dissimulation. This

gives us no right to accuse her of falseness, for this art is natural,

instinctive and imposed by custom. Her desire for love and maternity

unconsciously urges her to make herself as desirable as possible to

man by her grace and allurements. Her stolen glances and sighs, and

the play of her expression serve to betray her ardor as through a

veil. Behind this furtive play, especially calculated to excite the

passions of man, are hidden, in the natural and good woman, a world of

delicate feelings, ideal aspirations, energy and perseverance, which

are much more loyal and honest than the motives revealed by the more

brusque and daring manner in which man expresses his desires. The fine

phrases by which man's love is expressed generally cover sentiments

which are much less pure and calculations much more egoistic than the

relatively innocent play of the young girl. No doubt there are false

women whose amorous wiles are only a spider's web, but we are speaking

here of the average, and not of exceptions.

=Coquetry.=--The sexual braggardism of man is only found in some

prostitutes; it is replaced in woman by coquetry and the desire to

please. Vain women profit by the natural grace and beauty of their sex

and person, not only to attract and please men, but also to shine

among their fellows, to make other women pale before their brilliance

and their elegance. Coquettes take infinite pains in this art. All

their efforts and all their thoughts are directed only to increase

their charm by the brilliancy of their toilette, the refinement of

their attire, the arrangement of their hair, their perfumes, paint and

powder, etc. It is here that the narrowness of the mind of woman is

revealed in all its meanness.

To describe feminine coquetry would oblige me to descend to banality.

If we go to a ball or a fashionable _soiree_, if we observe women at

the theater, their toilettes, their looks and expressions, or if we

read a novel by Guy de Maupassant, "Fort Comme la Mort," or "Notre

Coeur," for example, we can study all the degrees and all the

degeneration of this part of the sexual psychology of women. Many of

them have such bad taste that they transform themselves into

caricatures; dye their hair, paint their eyebrows and lips to give

themselves the appearance of what they are not, or to make themselves

appear young and beautiful.

These artifices of civilized countries resemble the tattooing,

nose-rings, etc., with which savage women adorn themselves. The latter

are represented by earrings, bracelets and necklaces. All these

customs constitute irradiations of the sexual appetite or the desire

to please men. Male sexual inverts (vide Chap. VIII) also practice

them, and often also certain dandies with otherwise normal sexual

instincts.

=The Pornographic Spirit in Woman.=--This is absolutely contrary to

the normal feminine nature, which cannot be said of eroticism. Among

prostitutes, as we have seen, the pornographic spirit is only the echo

of their male companions, and in spite of this, we still find a

vestige of modesty even in them. No doubt, in very erotic women,

sexual excitations may lead to indecent acts and expressions, but

these are rare exceptions and of a pathological nature.

Natural feminine eroticism, not artificially perverted, only shows

itself openly in complete intimacy, and even here modesty and the

aesthetic sense of woman correct and attenuate it. Normally, all

obscenity and cynicism disgusts women and only inspires them with

contempt for the male sex. On the other hand, they are easily

stimulated to eroticism by pictures or novels, if they are

sufficiently aesthetic, or even moral. This is a great danger for both

sexes, especially for woman--eroticism dissimulated under hypocritical

forms, and intended to idealize dishonest intentions (vide de

Maupassant: "_Ce Cochon de Morin_").

=Modesty and Prudery in Woman.=--In woman the sentiments of modesty

and prudery have a peculiar character, which results from her natural

disgust for pornography on the one hand, and also from her attachment

to fashion and prejudice. Many women have a perfect terror of exposing

certain parts of their body, even to a medical man. This fact depends

on convention, and sometimes on the absence or perversion of sexual

feelings. Brought up to prudery, sometimes to an absurd extent as in

England, these women lose their natural feeling and often suffer from

the excitation, indignation, and perpetual fright, which result from

it. The exaggerations of prudery, moreover, easily lead to opposite

excesses, or else degenerate into hypocrisy. The prude is ashamed of

the most natural things, and undergoes continual torment.

Prudery can be created or cured by education in childhood. It may be

created by isolation, by covering all parts of the body, and

especially by making children regard nudity as shameful. On the other

hand, it may be cured by mixed bathing, by accustoming the child to

consider the human body, in all its parts and functions, as something

natural of which one need not be ashamed, lastly by giving instruction

on the relations of the sexes, in due time and in a serious manner,

instead of replying to ingenuous questions by pious falsehoods, by

equivocation, or by an air of mystery.

The chapter on love is infinite, and its relations to the sexual

appetite make it still more complex. We shall confine ourselves to

indicating two more of its irradiations, peculiar to each sex, but

having for each a physionomy corresponding to its own mentality.

FETICHISM AND ANTI-FETICHISM

"We understand by fetiches, objects, portions of objects, or even

simply the qualities of objects which, from their association with a

certain person or with the idea of this person, produce a kind of

charm or at least a profound impression, which in no way corresponds

to the nature of the object itself."--(Krafft-Ebing.) The fetich thus

symbolizes a person in whom we have such a profound interest that

everything connected with her disturbs our feelings. It is we

ourselves who place in the fetich the charm arising from the person

whom it symbolizes for us.

In many religions fetichism plays an important part, so much so that

fetiches such as amulets or relics produce ecstasy in the faithful.

Binet, Krafft-Ebing and others give the name _erotic fetichism_ to the

charm which certain objects or certain parts of the body exercise in a

similar way on the sexual desires or even on love, in the sense that

their simple representation is powerfully associated with the erotic

image of a person of the other sex, or with a particular variety of

sexual excitation. In both man and woman certain portions of the

clothes or the body, the hair, the foot and hand, or certain odors of

the person desired, may take the character of fetiches. It is the same

with certain intellectual peculiarities and certain expressions of the

features. In man, the woman's hair, her hands or feet, her

handkerchief, perfumes, etc., often play the part of erotic fetiches.

We may call _anti-fetiches_ certain objects or certain qualities

which, on the contrary, destroy eroticism. Certain odors, the tone of

a voice, an ugly nose, a garment in bad taste, an awkward manner,

often suffice to destroy eroticism by causing disgust for a person,

and their simple representation is enough to make her unbearable.

Symbolizing disgust, the anti-fetich paralyzes the sexual appetite and

love.

In normal love, it is especially by association of ideas in calling to

mind the image of the person loved that the fetich plays the part of

an exciting agent. It often, however, becomes itself the more special

object of the sexual appetite, while the anti-fetich produces the

opposite effect. But, in degenerates (vide Chap. VIII) it is sometimes

exclusively to the fetich itself that an irresistible sexual appetite

is addressed, the irradiation of which becomes a ridiculous caricature

of love.

We thus see that normal love is based on an extremely complex

synthesis, on a symphony of harmonious sensations, sentiments and

conceptions, combined in all kinds of tones and shades. The

pathological aberrations of which we shall speak, demonstrate this by

forcing one tone or another to the more or less marked exclusion of

the rest.

PSYCHOLOGICAL RELATIONS OF LOVE TO RELIGION

Love and eroticism play a great part in religion, and many derivatives

of religious sentiment are intimately associated with the sexual

appetite. As Krafft-Ebing says, _religious ecstasy_ is closely related

to _amorous ecstasy_, and very often appears in the guise of

consolation and compensation for an unhappy or disappointed love, or

even in the absence of sexual love. In the insane, religion and

eroticism are combined in a very characteristic manner. Among a number

of peoples certain cruel religious customs are the result of

transformed erotic conceptions.

As in religion, there is something mystical in love; the ineffable

dream of eternal ecstasy. This is why the two kinds of mystic and

erotic exaltation become blended in religions.

Krafft-Ebing attributes the cruelty found in many religions to

_sadism_ (sexual lust excited by the sufferings of others). (Vide

Chap. VIII.)

"The relationship so often established between religion, lust and

cruelty can be reduced almost to the following formula: at the acme of

their development, the religious and sexual passions show a

concordance in quality and in quantity of excitation, and may

consequently replace each other, under certain circumstances. Under

special pathological influences, both may be transformed into

cruelty."--(Krafft-Ebing.)

We shall return to this subject in Chapters VIII and XII.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] This tendency of man has been analyzed with a very refined

psychology by _Labiche_, in one of his most celebrated comedies: "_Le

voyage de M. Perichon._"

CHAPTER VI

ETHNOLOGY AND HISTORY OF SEXUAL LIFE IN MAN AND IN MARRIAGE

In the study of the sexual question it is absolutely necessary to

guard against subjectiveness and all preconceived theory, and to avoid

sentimentalism as well as eroticism. These two dangers play a

considerable part in the study of human sexual life. Presented in a

conscientious and scientific way the history of marriage furnishes us

the most trustworthy material for the study of the sexual relations of

man in social life. It is from this material that we can learn the

relative importance of the different psychological and

psycho-pathological factors in social evolution. But, to furnish valid

material, history must not only be based on trustworthy and veracious

sources; it must also give a comparative study of the sexual relations

which exist in most, if not all, of the peoples actually existing. The

present savage tribes no doubt resemble more closely the primitive

peoples than our hybrid agglomeration of the civilized world.

Moreover, the modern study of ethnology gives us more certain

information than the uncertain, incomplete and often fabulous

statements of ancient documents. I am speaking here of primitive

history, and not of the Greek and Roman civilizations. Unfortunately

the correctness of ethnological observations, and especially their

interpretation, still leave much to be desired.

Edward Westermark, professor at Helsingfors, in his "History of Human

Marriage," has given us a monumental work, which is remarkable, not

only for the richness and exactness of its material, but also for the

clearness and good sense of its criticism. I shall give a _resume_ of

Westermark's results, as the subject is beyond the domain of my

special studies. The author has collected a great number of

observations in order to avoid erroneous conclusions. He warns the

reader against a hasty generalization, which attributes without proof

certain customs of living savage tribes to our primitive ancestors.

ORIGIN OF MARRIAGE

In the previous chapter we have considered the phylogeny of love in

general. We have seen that some of the lower animals, such as the ants

and bees, give evidence of an instinctive social altruism much greater

than that of man, while other animals, such as birds, are superior to

us as regards monogamous conjugal fidelity. But it is a question here

of analogies due to phenomena of convergence, and these animals are of

interest to us only as remote objects of comparison.

As regards marriage in primitive man, we can only compare ourselves

with the living animals most closely allied to us, viz. the

_anthropoid apes_.

In most mammals, marriage (if we may give this name to their sexual

union) is only of very short duration, depending on the time necessary

for the procreation of a single brood of young. After copulation the

male generally pays little attention to the female, beyond protecting

her for a certain time. In the anthropoid apes (orang-utan,

chimpanzee, gorilla and gibbon) however, we find monogamous marriage

and the institution of family life. The male protects the female and

the young, and the latter are often of different ages, showing the

existence of conjugal fidelity extending beyond one birth. While the

female and the young remain in their nest, perched on a tree, the male

takes his place at the foot of the tree and watches over the safety of

the family.

According to Westermark this was probably the same in primitive man.

Formed by the father, the mother and the children, the family was in

primitive man a general institution, based on monogamy, polygamy or

polyandry. The wife looked after the children, and the husband

protected the family. No doubt, the husband was not particularly

anxious for the welfare of his wife and children, but concerned

himself chiefly in the satisfaction of his sexual appetite and his

pride. He was useful, however, in building the nest, or hut, in

procuring the necessary food, and in defending his family.

Most legends relate that primitive man lived in promiscuity with

women, without marriage, and that marriage was instituted by some god

or by some law. But this opinion, which is still held by most modern

authors, is quite erroneous, as Westermark has demonstrated in a

masterly manner, by the aid of documents which are absolutely

conclusive.

The duty of the husband to provide food for the family is a general

law among savage peoples. A confirmation of this law is found in the

fact that most often in polygamous races the man has only the right to

as many wives as he can support. Every man must give proof that he is

capable of feeding his family. Even after divorce the husband's duties

continue, and may even be transmitted to his heirs. For example, among

certain peoples, his brother is obliged to marry his widow. The

husband's duties appear to be inherited from the higher apes, among

whom conjugal fidelity lasts longer than the sexual appetite. This

fidelity has therefore deep phylogenetic roots in our nature, and we

shall see later on that we cannot neglect it without compromising our

social state (Chap. XIII).

The following is the definition of marriage as given by Westermark:

_Marriage is a sexual union of variable duration between men and

women, a union which is continued after copulation, at least till the

birth of the child._

According to this definition, there may be monogamous, polygamous and

polyandrous marriages, as well as marriage in groups and limited

marriage. It is evident that permanent monogamous unions, such as

occur in birds and the higher apes, are, according to this definition,

true marriages, of better quality even than those of many men.

Among animals which have a definite rutting period, marriage cannot

depend solely on the sexual appetite, or egoistic eroticism, without

ceasing with the rut. It follows from this that natural selection and

the mneme (engraphia) have derived from the sexual appetite certain

social or altruistic instincts, with the object of preserving the

species by protection of the young. Although not the only means of

preserving the species, such instincts are certainly important.

The family is thus the root of marriage. This explains the custom,

among certain races, of marriage only becoming valid after the birth

of a child. In many forms of marriage by purchase, the wife is even

bound to return to her husband the sum paid for her if she remains

sterile, and among many savages the marriage is only celebrated after

the birth of the first child. In Borneo, relations between the sexes

are free till pregnancy occurs, and it is this which determines the

duties of marriage. In this respect, these savages are more just and

wiser than us.

In man, a special reason in favor of marriage is the fact that he has

no rutting period. In animals the rutting period is generally

regulated so that the young are born exactly at the time of year when

they will find food most abundant. For example, the muscardin

copulates in July and brings forth young in August, at the time when

nuts are ripe, while elephants, whales and certain monkeys, who find

food at all seasons, do not copulate at any definite period.

The anthropoid apes, however, have a rutting period, and something

analogous is found among certain human races (Californians, Hindus and

certain Australians) in the spring, when sexual orgies are indulged

in. In man there is no particular correlation between eroticism and

the possibility of easily obtaining food for the children at the time

of birth. Nevertheless, a recrudescence of the sexual appetite is

generally observed in the spring and beginning of summer, with a

corresponding increase in the number of conceptions. This is probably

explained by the fact that infants born in the autumn or winter are

more robust. Moreover, natural selection has almost entirely ceased in

civilized peoples, owing to the artificial means used to rear

children, and to the diminution which results from their mortality.

We thus see that the institution of marriage in man does not depend on

the excitation of the sexual appetite, for this is, on the whole,

continuous.

ANTIQUITY OF MATRIMONIAL INSTITUTIONS

The fact that the anthropoid apes produce feeble and dependent young,

whose infancy is long, has probably been the origin of marriage.

Kautsky says that in primitive man the child belongs to the clan; but

this is an error. Originally, human societies were composed of

families, or rather associations of families. In primitive man, these

families play the fundamental role and constitute the nucleus of

society. In the anthropoid ape we already find the family, but not the

clan. This must also have been the case with the pithecanthropoids and

other extinct transitory forms. In fact, the lowest savages still live

as isolated families like the carnivorous mammals, rather than in

clans or tribes. This is the case, for example, with the Weddas of

Ceylon, the indigenes of Terra del Fuego, the aboriginal Australians,

the Esquimaux and certain Indians of Brazil. In this way they have

better conditions for subsistence.

In primitive times therefore, man lived in families, on the produce of

the chase. Later on, the spirit of discovery, the more abundant food

obtained by traps and by the cultivation of plants allowed men to live

in tribes. Thus, intellectual development was the first cause of

social life in man, and Lubbock is certainly wrong in considering that

the establishment of clans dates further back than the first beginning

of civilization. Westermark's conclusions are as follows:

(1). _At no period of human existence has family life been replaced by

clan life._

(2). _Conjugal life is a heritage from ancestors who lived in a

similar way to the anthropoid apes of the present day._

(3). _Although less intimately and less constantly bound to the

children than to the mother, the father has always been in man the

protector of the family._

CRITICISM OF THE DOCTRINE OF PROMISCUITY

Most sociologists believe with Lubbock, Bachofen, MacLennan, Bastian,

Giraud-Teulon, Wilkens, and others that primitive man lived in sexual

promiscuity. If we agree with Westermark that the term marriage

includes polygamy, polyandry and limited marriage, the opinion of

these authors is wrong. What they have considered as promiscuity can

always be included in one of these forms of marriage, even among the

indigenes of Hayti, whose life is the most debauched. The author who

has most confused the question is Fison, with his dogmatic theories

concerning the Australians. Obliged to admit that promiscuity does not

exist among these people, he still maintains that it existed formerly.

Curr, who was better acquainted than Fison with the Australians, has

proved that they are normally monogamous.

Similar statements of Bastian, Wilkens and others concerning the

Kustchins, the natives of Terra del Fuego, are also incorrect. In none

of the African tribes is there communion of women, the men, on the

other hand, are extremely jealous. Promiscuity is not observed among

savage and primitive races, but among people already civilized, such

as the Buddhist Butias, in whom man knows neither honor nor jealousy.

The savage Weddas are monogamous, and one of their proverbs says:

"Death alone can separate woman from man."

There is in reality only one true form of promiscuity--the

prostitution of modern civilized races, who have introduced it among

savages, subjecting them to gratify their own lust. Among many savage

races there exists, on the contrary, a very severe monogamy, and they

punish with death every seducer and illegitimate child, as well as the

mother. Among others, however, considerable sexual freedom is allowed

before or after marriage. It is impossible to lay down definite rules,

but one thing may be regarded as universal, viz., that the sexual

depravity of savage races most often arises from the influence of

civilized people who immigrate among them and systematically introduce

immorality and debauchery. It is the white colonists who appropriate

the women of savage races and train them in the worst forms of

prostitution. It is the white colonists who introduce alcoholic drink

which disorganizes the most virtuous and loyal habits, and ends with

ruin.

Certain Arab clans exploit European habits of prostitution by sending

their young girls to brothels for purposes of gain. When they have

accumulated a sufficient fortune they return home and marry one of

their fellow countrymen. Similar customs are observed among other

races.

In this connection Westermark points out that the more advanced is

civilization, the greater is the number of illegitimate births, and

the more widespread is prostitution. In Europe, the proportion of

natural children and of prostitutes is nearly double in the towns what

it is in the country. This shows the absurdity of regarding

promiscuity as a primitive state; on the contrary, it is a rotten

fruit of civilization, and especially of semi-civilization. Primitive

customs are generally chaste, and it is civilization which corrupts

them. In Europe, prostitution is increasing, while marriage is

becoming less frequent; it is the latter which constitutes the

primitive and normal state.

Westermark admits, as we have mentioned above, that sexual liberty

before or after marriage exists among certain tribes; but in spite of

this the custom of careful choice always exists among these people,

and this renders their unions comparatively lasting. He cites as an

example the Tounghtas of India, who practice sexual connection before

marriage, but among whom these connections nearly always lead to

marriage; this race considers prostitution as dishonorable.

We must, however, make one objection to Westermark. Promiscuity in

itself is not necessarily prostitution, for the latter signifies

especially the sale of the body, which is not the case in promiscuity.

The fundamental fact which prevents us admitting the existence of

primitive promiscuity among savage races is the following: As soon as

the two sexes are free, the monogamous instinct of the woman and

jealousy of both sexes combine to reestablish marriage. True

promiscuity can only exist by means of a sort of legal obligation,

such as exists in the colony of Oneidas in New York. In this colony

the members formally agree to mutual and free sexual intercourse. We

must not forget that prostitution is only kept up in women by the

thirst for lucre, and ceases immediately this element disappears.

Before the Reformation there existed in Scotland a singular custom

called "hand-fasting," by which young men had the right to choose a

companion for a year, at the end of which time they could either

separate or become married according to their inclination.

On the other hand, Lubbock mentions certain customs in Greece and

India, the worship of _phallus_, for example, which obliged young

girls to give themselves to all men. But these customs were not among

primitive races but resulted from the eroticism of highly civilized

nations. Thus, Lubbock's argument concerning the existence of

primitive promiscuity falls to the ground.

Certain savage nations offer their daughters or their servants, rarely

their wives, to their guests. A _jus primae nocti_ (right to the first

night) has also existed and will sometimes exist in some tribes, but

this right is reserved for the chiefs, kings or priests, and allows

them to have sexual intercourse before the husband with every newly

married woman during the first night of the nuptials. This is a

barbarous custom based on the right of the stronger, and analogous to

the privileges claimed by the European nobles from their serfs or

peasants. But such abuses do not constitute promiscuity, as Lubbock

maintains.

In many countries the courtesans and concubines were held in high

esteem, and are so even at the present day, more than is supposed; but

this again is not a question of promiscuity.

Morgan has deduced his theories of promiscuity from terms employed in

certain savage dialects to designate relationship. These conclusions

are false and Morgan, like others, has been led into error by the

obscurity of the language of these people. The simple fact that

paternal parentage is recognised among them proves the absurdity of

Morgan's reasoning, for promiscuity cannot recognize paternal

parentage.

In 1860 Bachofen drew attention to the ancient custom of naming the

children after the maternal side, and it is now certain that this

custom has existed among many primitive races, while in others

children were named after the paternal side. The term _matriarchy_ is

given to denomination after the maternal side. MacLennan maintains the

existence of matriarchy in promiscuity, but this is inadmissible.

Maternity is self-evident, while paternity can only be proved

indirectly by the aid of reasoning. No doubt all nations appear to

have recognized the real part which the father takes in every

conception, and from this results the singular custom among certain

tribes, in which the husband retires to his couch and fasts during the

accouchement of his wife.

Westermark explains matriarchy in a simpler and more natural way, by

the intimate relations of the child to the mother. Children,

especially when they are still young, follow the mother when she

separates from the father. Matriarchy is quite natural in marriages of

short duration, with change of wives, and in polygamy; while, in

monogamous nations, it is _patriarchy_, or denomination after the

paternal line, which dominates.

Among nations where the denomination of uncles exists, and where the

married woman lives with her family till she has a child, matriarchy

results quite naturally from this fact. In Japanese families who have

only daughters, the husband of the eldest takes his wife's family

name. Among savages in general, the name has a great importance. When

rank and property are only inherited in the female line, the children

are always named after this line. We are thus concerned here with very

complex questions which have nothing to do with promiscuity.

Maine has proved that prostitution and promiscuity lead to sterility

and decadence. Among the few tribes in which polyandry is the rule,

especially in Thibet, several brothers generally have the same wife.

But they usually alternate, and never dwell together. In the fifteenth

century, in the Canary Islands, every woman had three husbands, each

of whom lived with her for a month, and the one who was to possess her

during the following month had to work both for her and for the other

two husbands. Polyandry has always originated in scarcity of women.

The jealousy of men, which has never ceased to exist, gives the

clearest proof of the impossibility of promiscuity. Polyandry is only

possible among a few feeble and degenerate races who ignore jealousy.

These tribes are diminishing and tend to disappear. The jealousy of

savages is generally so terrible that among them a woman who commits

adultery is usually put to death along with her seducer. Sometimes

they are content with cutting off her nose or inflicting other

chastisement. It is from jealousy that results the obligation of

chastity in the woman.

Religious ideas on the future of man after death are often combined

with these ideas; this is why chastity, death, or even all kinds of

torture are, in certain countries, imposed on the woman after death of

the husband.

It must not be forgotten that among most savages the wife is regarded

as the property of her husband. If the latter lends his wife to a

guest, he offers her as part of a feast. This is not, however,

promiscuity, and we must understand that these people have quite

different sentiments to ours. In clans or tribes the most powerful men

have always had the youngest and most beautiful wives.

To sum up, there is not the shadow of proof in support of the doctrine

of primitive promiscuity, a doctrine which is based on purely

hypothetical grounds.

MARRIAGE AND CELIBACY

Among animals the voluntary celibate exists only among the females of

certain birds which have become widowed, and even then the case is

rare. In savage man, nearly every individual marries, and the women

look upon celibacy or widowhood almost in the same way as death. The

savage despises celibates as thieves or sorcerers. In his opinion a

man without a wife is not a man. He therefore marries at a much

earlier age than civilized man, sometimes even (in Greenland) before

fecundation is possible. Among certain Indians men sometimes marry at

the age of nine or ten years, generally between fourteen and eighteen;

the girls between nine and twelve. In some comparatively civilized

nations the celibate is so much despised that they go as far as

marrying the spirits of departed children! Among the Greeks, celibates

were punished, and among the Romans they were taxed heavily. Celibacy

becomes more rare the further we go back in the history of the human

race; celibacy increases with the corruption of morals. It is

civilization which does most harm to marriage, especially in the large

towns, and the age at which people marry becomes more and more

advanced, although in Europe there are more women than men. Want of

money and insufficient salaries diminish more and more the number of

marriages in the large centers, while among savages, and also among

our peasants, the women and children are one of the principal sources

of wealth, because they work and have few needs. Among the middle

classes, on the contrary, the wife is a source of expense, as well as

the education of the children. For men, the length of intellectual and

professional education (and military service in many countries) cause

marriage to be postponed and celibacy is obligatory at the time when

the sexual appetite is most powerful. Thus, the more civilization

advances, the longer is marriage postponed. The refinement and the

multiplicity of pleasures also diminish the attractions of marriage.

Lastly, intellectual culture exalts the desire for the ideal, so that

men and women well suited to each other meet less frequently, as their

mutual adaptation becomes more complicated.

Nevertheless, I must repeat here what I have already said concerning

the way in which novelists present us with the extreme passions of

ill-balanced people and describe them as types, the normal man being

too prosaic to attract their readers. Rotten as it is with neurotic

degenerates, our modern society is certainly not wanting in

pathological models for the novelists, but it is nevertheless false to

always put these into prominence. The cultured man of well-balanced

mind, adapts himself to marriage on the whole very well, and is not

always so difficult to please. However, it must be recognized that

marriage becomes less easy if a too high ideal is expected from it.

With characteristic prudence, Westermark does not answer the question

whether marriage will progressively diminish in the future.

=The Cult of Virgins. Sanctity of the Celibate.=--Among many savages

the singular idea obtains that there is something impure in sexual

intercourse. The celibacy ordained by several religions originates

from ideas of this kind.

Many nations have worshiped virgins, for instance the vestal virgins

of the Romans. The mother of Buddha was declared to be holy and pure,

Buddha having been conceived supernaturally, according to the legend.

A Buddhist monk is forbidden to have sexual intercourse, even with

animals! Celibacy among certain priests exists also in China.

Among the Hebrews, the idea of the impurity of marriage had got a

footing, and this no doubt powerfully influenced Christianity. St.

Paul thus places celibacy higher than marriage, and this is how the

idea became established among the fathers of the Church that the

repression of all sensuality was a cardinal virtue, and that God had

contemplated in paradise an asexual reproduction of the human species,

which was annulled by the fall of Adam. Men who remained pure were to

be immortal. "The earth is filled with marriage and the heavens with

virginity," says Jeremiah. Such are the ideas which have given rise to

the obligation of celibacy for priests.

Westermark thinks that the idea of impurity attached to sexual

intercourse is possibly derived from the instinctive repugnance

experienced by members of the same family to have sexual intercourse

between themselves. Banished from the family circle this intercourse

was tainted with a stigma which offended modesty, and by the

association of ideas so common in man, this stigma was extended to

legal marriage outside the family. Moreover, religious celibacy is

complicated by ascetic conceptions, and the idea of the impurity of

sexual intercourse is by no means general.

For my part, I think rather that the jealousy natural to both sexes

has gradually compelled them to limit their sexual intercourse to

intimacy and to conceal it. But man is ashamed of everything which he

conceals, and we shall soon see that the sentiment of modesty concerns

all parts of the body which are concealed. This simple fact is

sufficient to give rise to the idea that coitus is impure, and I do

not think it necessary to seek any further explanation.

ADVANCES MADE BY ONE SEX TO THE OTHER--DEMANDS IN MARRIAGE

A natural law compels the male germinal cell to move toward the egg;

exceptions to this law are rare, the female germinal cells being

larger and produced in less number. It follows that in copulation, or

the union of individual sexual entities, man included, it is the male

which is the active party and makes the advances. Among certain tribes

(Paraguayans, Garos, Moquis), however, it is the female who makes the

advances. Everyone knows the combats for the female which takes place

between the male of animals, cocks and stags for example. Among

certain Indians similar struggles are also observed, after which the

vanquished has to surrender his wife to the conqueror. The same custom

obtained among the ancient Greeks, as we see in the suitors for

Penelope. In Ireland similar customs prevailed up to the last few

centuries.

On the other hand, we often see among savages and among birds the

favors of the female obtained by assiduous courtship rather than by

combat. In some savage tribes struggles take place between the females

for possession of the male. However, it is usually coquetry in all its

degrees which furnishes woman with the basis for her advances. In many

nations, if not in most, women have the right to refuse a demand for

marriage.

METHODS OF ATTRACTION

=Adornment in the Two Sexes.=--Vanity is older than man, for it is

found in many animals. The lowest and most savage peoples adorn

themselves. Tattooing, staining the skin, rings on the arms and feet,

in the lips, nose and ears serve to attract one sex toward the other.

A Santal woman may carry as much as fifteen kilogrammes of ornaments

on her body. Vanity leads to incredible eccentricities, certain

tribes, for example, pull out their teeth to increase their

attractions. Absurdities of this kind are often associated with

religious ideas, although the latter generally play a secondary part.

The true origin of these customs lies in vanity, combined with the

sexual desire to captivate. In hot climates, at any rate, the savages

only commenced to cover their bodies with clothes with the object of

pleasing by personal adornment. The religious observances attached to

the custom of adornment are not primitive. The latter is derived from

the sexual appetite and from vanity, and has only been incorporated in

the dogmas of religious mysticism after being first established in the

habits of the people.

Among savages the men are more inclined to personal adornment and to

coquetry than the women. This is not due to the inferior social

position of the women, for those who enjoy the greatest liberty are

often less extensively tattooed than those who are reduced to slavery.

The true reason is that the man risks much more than the woman by

remaining celibate, and this obliges him to take more pains than the

women to make himself fascinating. As a rule the wives of savages

attach less importance to their personal appearance than to that of

their husbands, and the vanity of the latter is guided chiefly by the

taste of their wives. The objects with which savages adorn themselves

are generally trophies.

Among civilized people, on the contrary, the men have a much wider

choice and many women remain celibate. This is one of the reasons

which compel women to study their personal appearance and the art of

flirtation. In Europe, earrings represent the last vestige of the

savage methods of adornment.

=Sentiment of Shame of the Genital Organs. Nudity.=--What is the

origin of the fact that man is ashamed of his genital organs? Nothing

of the kind occurs in animals. The psychologist, Wundt, maintains that

man has always had a sexual sentiment of modesty. This is not correct,

for many races present no trace of it, and sometimes cover all parts

of their body except the genital organs. In some, the men, and in

others the women go absolutely naked. Originally, clothes were only

worn for adornment or for protection against the cold. The Massais

would be ashamed to hide their penis, and it is their custom to

exhibit it. Other savages cover the glans penis only with a small cap;

they retire to pass water, but regard themselves as fully dressed so

long as the glans penis is covered. The girdles and other garments of

savage women are intended for ornament, and as a means of attraction;

they have nothing to do with modesty. In a society where every one

goes naked, nudity seems quite natural, and provokes neither shame nor

eroticism. The custom of adorning the sexual organs then serves as a

means of attraction, both in men and women. The short transparent

skirts of a ballet dancer are in reality much more immodest than the

nudity of the female savages. A great naturalist has said that veiled

forms provoke the sexual appetite more than nudity. Snow remarks that

association with naked savages excites much less sensuality than the

society of fashionably dressed women in our salons. Read also remarks

"Nothing is more moral or less calculated to excite the passions than

nudity." It is needless to say that this statement is only correct

when nudity is a matter of custom, for in sexual matters it is always

novelty which attracts. Pious persons have tried to make savages

modest by clothing them, but have only produced the contrary effect.

Savage women regard it as shameful to cover their sexual organs. The

naturalist, Wallace, found in one tribe a young girl who possessed a

dress, but who was quite as much ashamed of clothing herself with it

as one of our ladies would be of undressing before strangers.

It is only owing to the custom of wearing clothes that nudity provokes

the sexual appetite. This custom develops artificially a sentiment of

modesty with regard to nudity, which increases progressively in

intensity and is especially marked in aged women. It is not so much

habit, as to the feeling of progressive deterioration of their charms,

which leads the latter to cover themselves as they grow older, and is

part of the instinctive aesthetic sentiment of woman.

At the orgies and fetes held among savages the women cover their

sexual organs with certain objects, as a means to excite the men.

Complete nudity is found more often in savage women than in the men.

Later on when it became the custom to wear clothes, nudity became

attractive and was considered shameful. This is why the Chinese feel

shame at exposing their feet, the Mahometans their faces, and some

savages even the ends of their fingers.

Certain customs, like circumcision among the Jews, Polynesians and

Australians; the artificial elongation of the lips of the vulva in

Hottentots, Malays, and North American Indians, originated, according

to Westermark, in the intention of exciting the sexual appetite, or of

introducing variety into its satisfaction. Later on routine, which

sanctions everything, transferred these customs into religious cult.

It is possible, however, that among the Jews, who are a practical

race, the hygienic advantage of circumcision took a part in its

transformation into a rite.

To resume, everything derogatory to established custom excites the

sentiment of shame or modesty, not only in sexual matters but in

others. Most children are ashamed of not behaving exactly as their

comrades or their brothers and sisters, and are very uncomfortable if

they are obliged to behave otherwise. All sentiments of morality and

modesty rest on conventionalities. The savage women burst into

laughter when the naked companions of Livingstone turned their backs

from modesty. The sentiment of modesty or shame thus depends only on

exceptional violation of an old custom. This is why unconventional

ways in one of the sexes (especially in woman) tend to offend the

sentiments of modesty, and usually excite the sexual appetite of the

other sex.

LIBERTY OF CHOICE IN MARRIAGE--PATRIARCHISM

Among savages, the women sometimes have the right of giving their hand

in marriage, sometimes not. The latter case is not surprising in

countries where women are considered as merchandise. Among the

Esquimaux every girl is betrothed from birth. Among the Boschimans,

Ashantis, etc., the unborn girl is even betrothed while she is in her

mother's womb! These betrothals are generally arranged by the maternal

parents together with the mother.

Very often, however, the consent of the woman is required; or, the

marriage may be only valid after the birth of the first child on

condition of the woman's consent.

Among the American Indians, if the woman is not a consenting party she

elopes with her lover and thus escapes the would-be-husband. In this

way elopement has gradually become a recognized institution among

certain races. I was told by a Bulgarian that the peasants in his

country buy their wives from the father, generally for two or three

hundred francs, but if the father demands too much, the women are

raped. After this marriage becomes indispensable and the father

receives nothing, for, in Bulgaria, which is not yet spoiled by

civilization, unions apart from marriage are considered as a terrible

disgrace.

In certain races, the woman has a free choice among several men and

her wish becomes law, so that the parents have no voice in the matter;

this occurs among the natives of the Celebes. The bridegroom is

nevertheless obliged to pay the dowry demanded. Similar customs

prevail among other races.

Westermark comes to the conclusion that in the primitive state of

humanity the women had a much freer choice than afterward. Marriage by

purchase developed later and constituted an intermediate stage. When

the first civilizations became more complicated and recognized the

value of woman's labor, the fathers began to sell their daughters, as

we now see savage tribes abandon their women to prostitution with the

white man. But in primitive times, when there was neither

civilization, money, nor labor, properly so-called, each individual

fought for his life and the father had no more possibility of selling

his daughter as a slave than a gorilla or an orang-utan would have

to-day.

Marriage by rape, which occurred after wars when the women were

abducted and married against their will, must not be confounded with

marriage by elopement which takes place with the woman's consent, and

of which the latest fashion is elopement by automobile.

Among savages, the boys are also most often the property of the

father, who has the right to sell them and even to put them to death.

But they become free at the age of puberty and then have the right to

marry according to their inclination without being forced by their

parents.

There existed and still exist many patriarchal races (certain Indians

and Asiatics, for example) among whom the father possesses unlimited

power. The older he is the more he is honored, and the more his power

is uncontested. All the children and grandchildren, with their wives

and children, eat at his table; none of his descendants can marry

without his consent, etc. The effects of patriarchism are deplorable

and very immoral. The patriarch abuses his power--gives his old wives

to his children and takes the young ones, for example. The purest and

most virtuous Japanese girl is obliged to go to a brothel if her

father orders it. The patriarch has the power of life and death over

both sexes, and from this is derived the cult of ancestors. At the

present day we see immorality of this kind in the Russian patriarchism

among the peasants; the fathers have the custom of misusing their

sons' wives. Patriarchism thus degenerates into atrocious tyranny on

the part of the chief of the family, who becomes looked upon as a

god.

A law which is common in the Latin races, which forbids marriage

before the age of thirty, without the consent of the father, is a

vestige of patriarchism.

We see, therefore, that quite primitive savage races approached our

most modern ideas in liberty of choice in marriage. Between these two

periods humanity was under the yoke of a barbarous error--the

intermediate stage of marriage by purchase and patriarchal autocracy.

There has existed and still exists more than one aberration of this

kind in the intermediate stages of civilization; for instance,

torture, slavery and the use of narcotic substances, such as alcohol.

SEXUAL SELECTION

By sexual selection we mean union by choice among males and females.

In the vertebrates, the female chooses much more commonly than the

male, the latter being more disposed to pair with all the females than

the females with all the males. We may certainly admit that this was

also the case in primitive man, especially when there existed a

rutting period, for then the sexual appetite was more violent.

Moreover, even at the present day, women are on the average more

difficult to please and more strict in their choice than men.

In the case of hybrids it is generally the male which violates the law

of instinct. Female slaves often flee from their free husbands, but we

never see male slaves abandon their free wives. Among savage races the

woman is always more difficult to please than the man. Among

half-breeds, it is nearly always the father who belongs to a higher

race. The inverse rarely occurs; it is exceptional for a white woman

to marry a negro. The same thing is reproduced among ourselves; we

often see a cultured man marry an uneducated woman, but a cultured

woman seldom marries a laborer.

It is especially among savages that the woman prefers the man who is

strongest, most skillful, most ardent, and most audacious. Heroes

always haunt the minds of women, who love to throw themselves at the

head of conquerors. The ideal of certain women in Borneo is a husband

who has killed many enemies and possesses their heads (head-hunters of

Borneo). This psychological trait responds to natural selection, for

the women obtain by this custom better protectors and stronger

children.

On the other hand, man looks instinctively for a young, healthy and

well-developed woman. It is on this basis that Greek art formed Eros

and Aphrodite, designating the latter as goddess of both love and

beauty.

=Conception of Beauty.=--The conception of beauty is very relative.

The Australians laugh at our long noses and the natives of

Cochin-China at our white teeth and red cheeks. Certain savage women

bind their legs below the knees to make them swell, this effect being

part of their idea of beauty. The Chinese admire the deformed feet of

their women and their prominent cheek bones. In each nation the

conception of beauty generally corresponds to the ideal type of the

race, for both sexes. As a general rule muscle is admired in man and

fullness of figure in woman. The Hottentots like women's breasts to be

so pendulous that they can throw them over shoulder, and suckle the

infants carried on their backs; they also admire the elongated lips of

the vulva.

There are, therefore, few general typical characters of sexual

preference; these are especially the ideal type of the race and the

health of both sexes, voluptuous forms and grace in women, muscular

strength and dexterity in men. Everything else is relative and

variable, and depends on the local point of view, customs, race,

individual taste, etc.

Thus, according to the conception of aesthetics, tattooing, the

arrangement of the hair and beard, deformations of the nose, cranium,

or feet, are admired by different peoples. Each race extols its own

peculiarities; the European compares a woman's breasts to snow, the

Malay to gold, etc. The natives of Coromandel paint their gods black

and their devils white, while in Europe it is the reverse.

The association of love with beauty is not based on aesthetic

sentiments, for the latter are disinterested, while the original

instinct of love is interested. The association of the two things

depends on the instinctive necessity of health, combined with the

sexual appetite, although custom has produced numerous aberrations.

Everything which differs markedly from the type of the race is more

or less pathological. This is why instinct, determined by natural

selection, repels it.

Fashion also rules among savages, but is less changeable among them

than with us, and their taste for adornment only varies in the narrow

circle of their customs.

Climate has a powerful action on the types of races, the latter being

generally adapted to the climate in which they live. Thus, the

European becomes darker in the tropics while negroes and Indians

become paler in the north.

LAWS OF RESEMBLANCE--HYBRIDS

Every animal species has an instinctive repugnance to pair with

another. Even where they are possible, natural hybrids are rare, and

only become a little more frequent in domestic animals and plants. The

fecundity of hybrids diminishes when they have connection among

themselves, and this explains why the instinct for such connections

tends to gradually disappear.

In his book on "The Mneme," Semon explains the infecundity of hybrids

in a very plausible manner, by the disorder that a too large quantity

of dissimilar hereditary engrams causes in the hereditary mneme of two

conjugated cells. When the parents differ from each other only in a

moderate degree homophony may still be reestablished, and then the

divergencies have a very favorable effect on the product, by the new

combinations which they furnish in the course of its development.

Moral ideas follow the course of instincts, and this explains why

sexual connection with animals is regarded as a horrible crime. This

is especially produced by pathological aberration, or when one sex is

completely isolated from the other. There is also a certain degree of

aversion to copulation between different races, in animals as well as

man; for example, between sheep and horses of different races, and

between white men, negroes and Indians. There are, however, many

hybrids or half-breeds in South America, and in Mexico they even

constitute two-thirds of the population.

Broca maintained that human hybrids produced by the crossing of remote

races, for example, between English and negroes or Australians, were

usually sterile. Westermark disputes this, but agrees that these

hybrids become enfeebled in a few generations. It has also been

established that mixed marriage between Jews and Aryans are generally

less fecund; but this fact is not yet sufficiently explained.

Mulattoes, or hybrids between negroes and whites, constitute a

degenerate race and hardly viable, at any rate if their descendants do

not return entirely to one of the original races. Half-breeds between

whites and American Indians, also called Ladinos, seem on the contrary

to form a viable race, but one of little valor.

PROHIBITION OF CONSANGUINEOUS MARRIAGES

Sexual union between near relations nearly always causes a feeling of

repugnance in man, and has been stigmatized by the term _incest_.

Coitus between mother and son especially excites disgust. Sexual

connection between parents and children, as well as between brothers

and sisters is, however, common among certain tribes. Many other races

allow marriage between brothers and sisters, but this is elsewhere

generally condemned.

Among the Weddas, marriage between an elder brother and his younger

sister is considered normal, while that between a younger brother and

his elder sister, or between a nephew and his aunt, is regarded as

unnatural. The latter simply shows that unions between young men and

old women are not natural. Unions between brothers and sisters, and

especially between half-brothers and half-sisters were licit among the

Persians, Egyptians, Syrians, Athenians and ancient Jews. Those

between uncles and nieces (more rarely between aunts and nephews) are

sometimes permitted, sometimes prohibited. With the exception of Spain

and Russia marriages between first cousins are allowed in Europe.

=Exogamy and Endogamy.=--Among many savages the prohibition of

consanguineous marriage may be extended to relationship of the third

degree. Marriage may even be prohibited among all members of the same

tribe or clan, even when they are not related. This is called

_exogamous_ marriage, and reaches its extreme development among the

Australians, who are only allowed to marry into remote clans.

We thus see that the great majority of savages extend their idea of

incest much further than we do. The reason of this has been much

discussed. It was formerly said that consanguineous marriage was

contrary to the commandments of God; that it offended the natural

sentiment of modesty; that it obscures relationship, etc. Nowadays, it

is said to be injurious to posterity. Ethnography teaches us, however,

that these statements are of little value.

Along with the exogamy of many tribes there is among other savages a

system of _endogamy_, described by MacLennan; this is the prohibition

of marriage between different clans. Spencer and MacLennan have

different explanations of this custom which seem hardly natural.

Westermark appears to be nearer the truth in remarking as follows: The

sexual appetite, especially in man, is excited by new impressions and

cooled by habit. It is not the fact of a man and woman being related,

but intimate companionship since youth, which produces in them a

repugnance to sexual union. We find the same repugnance between

adopted brothers and sisters and between friends who have been

intimate since childhood. When, on the contrary, brothers and sisters

or near relatives have been separated from each other since an early

age, they often fall in love with each other when they meet later on.

There is, therefore, no innate or instinctive repugnance to incest in

itself, but only against sexual union between individuals who have

lived together since childhood. As it is parents and their children

who are usually in this situation, everything is explained simply and

clearly.

The causes of exogamy are explained in the same way, by the fact that

members of the same clan often live together in close intimacy. It is

the small clans, formed of thirty or fifty individuals of a few

families living together, which have the most severe laws against

incest or endogamy. Where the families live in separate homes, such

prohibitions do not exist. The Maoris, who are endogamous, inhabit

villages which are widely separated, and marriage between relations is

allowed. Endogamy generally exists where the clan life is little

developed, and where relatives know and see little of each other. The

aversion to marriage between persons living together has thus created

prohibition of marriage between relations as well as that of marriage

between members of the same clan. It is the same reason which has led

to the prohibition of marriage between brothers-and sisters-in-law,

between brothers and adopted sisters, etc. In people living in small

communities, endogamy does not appear to have ever existed.

Incest between relatives living together appears to have everywhere

the same natural cause--the scarcity of women in isolated families

living in remote districts. There is also a psycho-pathological form

of incest associated with morbid appetites in the families of

degenerates. In animals living alone and whose families break up very

rapidly (cats for example) incestuous unions, between parents and

young, for instance, are quite common.

Let us now consider the scientific side of the question. We see

everywhere that sexual union between quite distinct animal species

gives no result. At the most, certain closely allied species, such as

the ass and the horse, the rabbit and the hare, give progeny which are

themselves sterile (mules, etc.). The feebleness and sterility of

hybrids derived from widely separated races or nearly allied different

species proves the deficiency in vital force of the offspring of

fundamentally dissimilar procreators. But, on the other hand, the

dangers of continuous consanguineous reproduction are no less evident.

Perpetual unions between brothers and sisters for several generations,

lead to degeneration of the race. For example, the still-births will

be 25 per cent. instead of 8 per cent., which is the figure in

ordinary crossings. The prejudice against consanguineous unions may,

however, depend on the accumulation of certain pathological defects.

Westermark admits that it is difficult to show clearly that

consanguineous marriages are prejudicial in man. The consanguinity

which causes evil effects in animals concerns long-continued unions

between parents and children or brothers and sisters. But this never

occurs in man. Animals and plants may be perpetuated for many years in

the closest consanguinity without degeneration resulting. Among the

Persians and Egyptians, intimate unions have existed for a long time

without producing degeneration.

On the other hand, breeders of animals tell us that a single drop of

new blood (or rather sperm) is enough to counteract all the evil

effects of consanguinity. In man the most frequent incests are always

interrupted by some other union. The Ptolemies, who nearly always

married their sisters, nieces or cousins, lived long and were far from

being sterile. In Ceylon, the Weddas perpetuate their consanguineous

unions; insanity is rare among them, but they are small, unfruitful

and tend to become extinct.

In Europe, the question of marriages between first cousins has been

much discussed, and it has been constantly attempted to prove that

they are injurious. Nevertheless, when we examine the question

impartially, we always find that the prejudices against them do not

arrive from consanguinity, but from certain pathological defects, such

as insanity, hemophilia, etc., which are naturally perpetuated by

consanguineous unions when they are accumulated in one family, as well

as when two insane persons of different families marry. Therefore it

is not consanguineous unions in themselves (which are always

accidental in man and interrupted by others) but the hereditary

reproduction of pathological defects, often of blastophthoric origin,

which are the real cause of the evil. Statistics have clearly proved

that marriage between first cousins plays no part in the causes of

insanity.

Influenced, no doubt, by general opinion, Westermark tries to believe

in some instinctive repulsion of man for consanguineous unions. If in

modern society such unions, perpetuated between parents and children,

brothers and sisters, were still produced as in animals I should agree

that they might be injurious to the species; but, considering how

cosmopolitan and mixed is our modern society, I cannot make the

concession. On the contrary, I maintain that the isolated unions which

still take place between relatives in civilized countries are so

exceptional that they do not present the least danger, excepting among

the families of degenerates. It is therefore only a question of

superstition. What we have to guard against are unions between

pathological individuals and blastophthoric influences. We must not

forget that many degenerates and idiots have a great pathological

tendency to incest, and this is no doubt why the effect has been

confounded with the cause.

Westermark himself gives us a striking example. Since the most remote

times the inhabitants of the Commune of Bats, composed of 3,300

persons, have intermarried; yet this population is very healthy and

vigorous and shows no sign of degeneration. On the other hand, we have

seen that contrasts produce a mutual attraction in the domain of love,

while strong resemblances rather repel. Bernardin de St. Pierre has

said that love is created by contrasts; the greater the contrast the

greater the love. Schopenhauer remarks as follows: "Every individual

seeks in the opposite sex peculiarities which contrast with his own;

the most masculine man seeks the most feminine woman, while small and

feeble men love large and strong women; people with short noses prefer

long ones, tall and thin men prefer short and stout women. All this

increases fecundity." Thus instinct is sufficient to protect humanity

against consanguinity, each sex instinctively seeking the contrasts

which consanguinity diminishes.

SENTIMENT AND CALCULATION IN SEXUAL SELECTION

Youth, beauty, health, finery and flirtation excite the sexual

appetite. Many other sentiments are accessory, such as admiration, the

pleasure of possession, respect, pity, etc. Inclination is an

important element, but in no way necessary to sexual union.

In the lower stages of human development, tenderness toward children

is much stronger than sexual love. Among many savage races the love of

a man for his wife is completely wanting, as well as that of the wife

for her husband. In this case marriage depends on reciprocal

convenience, on the desire to have children, and profits by personal

comfort and the satisfaction of a purely animal sexual appetite.

However, among these people the parents have a tender regard for their

children. The husband has the right to beat his wife, but the wife is

considered as unnatural or even criminal if she beats her children.

Among the North American Indians, for example, conjugal love is, so to

speak, unknown. On the other hand, in other savage races, such as the

Touaregs, the Niam-Niams, the New Caledonians, the Tonganese and

Australians, the conjoints have a deep affection for each other, and

the husband often commits suicide on the death of his wife. On the

whole, the sentiments of affection of the conjoints are the result of

a long sexual life in common, and they are especially strengthened by

the love of the parents for their children.

As a rule, the mutual attachment of conjoints for each other among

cultivated races is developed along with altruism. The tenderness and

refinement of love as they exist at the present day among highly

civilized races were unknown to most savages and to the older

civilizations. In China it is considered good manners to beat the

wife, and when a poor Chinaman treats his wife with consideration, it

is to avoid having to buy another. What the Arab understands by love

is only sexual appetite, and among the ancient Greeks it was nearly

the same.

In civilized Europe mental culture progresses in the direction of

equality of rights between the two sexes, so that a man regards his

wife more as a companion who is his equal and no longer a slave.

Community of interests, opinions, sentiments and culture constitute a

primary condition for sentiments of mutual sympathy and favors

affection. No doubt, excitation of the sexual appetite by contrasts

acts here as an antagonistic force. Contrast should not be so great as

to exclude sympathy.

Too great difference in age is dangerous for attachment, for it causes

too great a divergence in the aims and interests of life. Education

and social equality also favors love, and this tends to preserve class

distinction. It is rare for a well-educated man to fall in love with a

peasant, or a laboring man with an educated woman, except in a sensual

way. Men generally avoid marriage with individuals of another race, or

of another religion.

Endogamy and exogamy do not form such an absolute contrast as at first

sight might appear. Even among exogamous races, there is a limit which

must not be passed. These races often prohibit marriage with

individuals of another race. Among the Arabs, for example, the

instinct of ethnical separation is so strong, that the same Bedouin

wife who will prostitute herself for money with Turks or Europeans,

would think it dishonorable to marry one of them. In this way custom

produces endogamy of caste and class among the same people. The same

with the nobility; in ancient Rome it was forbidden for a patrician to

marry a plebeian. Sometimes an endogamy of religious origin is met

with, among the Jews for example.

Children are treasures for the man of low culture, while they become a

burden to the cultivated man. In spite of this the natural man

ardently desires children. In Switzerland, two-fifths of the divorces

occur in sterile unions, although the latter only form one-fifth of

all marriages.

Calculation often smothers sentiment when it becomes the basis of

marriage. We live to-day under the sway of Mammon, with the result

that the influence of love, strength, beauty, capacity for work,

intelligence, skill, character and even health, count for little

compared with money in the question of marriage. This sad sign is

really a new form of marriage by purchase, hypocritically disguised.

MARRIAGE BY RAPE AND MARRIAGE BY PURCHASE

The rape of women is an established custom in some regions. Certain

marriage ceremonies prove that rape was formerly much more common than

at the present day. Among certain Indian tribes the simulation of rape

and abduction of the woman form part of the marriage ceremonies;

custom requiring that the woman must feign to resist.

According to Spencer, marriage by rape originated in the prudery of

woman, while MacLennan attributes it to the predominance of exogamy;

but, in reality, marriage by rape exists in races which are absolutely

endogamous. Westermark believes it arose from the repugnance to unions

contracted in a narrow circle. The savage has difficulty in procuring

a wife without giving the father compensation; besides, his own

repugnance to the companions of his childhood and the prejudices

against unions between relations, as well as the enmity of other

clans, all increase the difficulties to be overcome. This is why he

often decides on rape. Marriage by rape has not, however, been the

rule at any period, and on the whole, unions concluded by mutual

agreement have always predominated.