The presence of the emotion in children between three and eight years
of age is shown by such action as the following: hugging, kissing,
lifting each other, scuffling, sitting close to each other;
confessions to each other and to others, talking about each other
when apart; seeking each other and excluding others, grief at being
separated; giving of gifts, extending courtesies to each other that
are withheld from others, making sacrifices such as giving up desired
things or foregoing pleasures; jealousies, etc. The unprejudiced mind
in observing these manifestations in hundreds of couples of children
cannot escape referring them to sex origin. The most exacting mind is
satisfied when to these observations are added the confessions of
those who have, as children, experienced the emotion to a marked
degree of intensity, and whose memories of childhood are relatively
distinct. We are prone to refer many of the manifestations enumerated
to imitation. Imitation can account in part for the _form_ in which
the emotion shows itself, whose _presence_ is established by the
accumulation of a vast amount of evidence. Imitation plays an
important role in the development of the sex instinct, and love
between the sexes as one of this instinct's derivatives, as it does
with the development of most other instincts. It would be no more
satisfactory to account for these manifestations by referring them to
imitation than it would to account for the love for dolls, the
instinct of hunting, the interest in "playing house" by reference to
the same cause. When we observe in young puppies, shoats, squirrels,
seals, grouse, partridges, field-sparrows, starlings, wood-larks,
water-wagtails, goldfinches, etc., actions corresponding to these
which I have mentioned in children, we have no hesitancy in referring
them to the sex instinct for explanation.
So far as the observations given to me by others are concerned, with
very few exceptions, they all report hugging, kissing and other means
of affecting physical contact, as being indulged in by the child
lovers. This is largely due to the fact that the observers took these
actions as the main ones that indicate the presence of the emotion
and reported no cases in which they did not occur. My own
observations and some of the confessions show that although some form
of embrace is general, it is not always present. Through all of the
stages of the emotion's development the embrace in some of its forms
is the most general means of its expression. A quotation from
Groos[6] in this connection is deemed appropriate. In speaking of
natural courtship he says: "But a scientific system of natural
courtship of the various human races does not exist; nor, indeed,
have we systematic observations of any one people. It is, therefore,
impossible to affirm whether there are such things as instinctive
gestures, expressions, caresses, etc., which all human beings
recognize as sexual stimuli. From the little that is known it seems
probable that the number of such tokens is not great,--even the kiss
is by no means general! We can only be sure of a universal tendency
to approach and to touch one another, and of a disposition to self
exhibition and coquetry as probably instinctive and of the special
forms which these tendencies take under the influence of imitation
and tradition as secondary causes. Caressing contact may then be
regarded as play when it is an end in itself, which is possible under
two conditions. First, when the pursuance of the instinctive
movements to their legitimate end is prevented by incapacity or
ignorance; and, second, when it is prevented by an act of the will on
part of the participants. Children exhibit the first case, adults
often enough the second. It is generally known that children are
frequently very early susceptible to sexual excitement, and show a
desire for contact with others as well as an enjoyment of it, without
having the least suspicion of its meaning." In the cases in which I
have recorded lifting each other as indicating sex-love, it was
unmistakably apparent that the lifting was not a trial of strength
but an indulgence in the pleasures of bodily contact, as was also
true of the scuffling. In few, if in any of the cases which I have
observed upon children of eight, have the participants been conscious
of the meaning of their actions, although I have sometimes seen them
attended by great sexual excitement. Schaeffer[7] believes that "the
fundamental impulse of sexual life for the utmost intensive and
extensive contact, with a more or less clearly defined idea of
conquest underlying it," plays a conspicuous part in the ring
fighting of belligerent boys. Bain[8] attaches very great importance
to the element of physical contact in sex-love. He says: "In
considering the genesis of tender emotion, in any or all of its
modes, I am inclined to put great stress upon the sensation of animal
contact, or the pleasure of the embrace, a circumstance not adverted
to by Mr. Spencer. Many facts may be adduced as showing this to be a
very intense susceptibility, as well as a starting point of
associations. (1) Touch is the fundamental and generic sense, the
first born of sensibility, from which, in the view of evolution, all
others take their rise. (2) Even after the remaining senses are
differentiated, the primary sense continues to be a leading
susceptibility of the mind. The soft, warm touch, if not a
first-class influence, is at least an approach to that. The combined
power of soft contact and warmth amounts to a considerable pitch of
massive pleasure; while there may be subtle influences not reducible
to these two heads, such as we term, from not knowing anything about
them, magnetic or electric. The sort of thrill from taking a baby in
arms is something beyond mere warm touch; and it may rise to the
ecstatic height, in which case, however, there may be concurring
sensations and ideas. Between male and female the sexual appetite is
aroused. A predisposed affection through other means, makes the
contact thrilling. (3) The strong fact that cannot be explained away
is, that under tender feeling there is a craving for the embrace.
Between the sexes there is the deeper appetite; while in mere tender
emotion, not sexual, there is nothing but the sense of touch to
gratify unless we assume the occult magnetic influences. As anger is
consummated, reaches a satisfactory term, by knocking some one down,
love is completed and satisfied with an embrace. This would seem to
show that the love emotion, while fed by sights and sounds, and even
by odors, reaches its climax in touch; and, if so, it must be more
completely identified with this sensibility than with any other. In a
word, our love pleasures begin and end in sensual contact. Touch is
both the alpha and omega of affection. As the terminal and satisfying
sensation, the _ne plus ultra_, it must be a pleasure of the highest
degree." While it is the contact through the sense of touch that acts
both as the most natural and most complete expression of love between
the sexes and a powerful sexual excitant, there is a contact of the
eyes of adolescent and adult lovers,--a sort of embrace by means of
the eyes--that is as exciting to many as contact through touch.
The pleasure derived from hugging and kissing, etc., in children who
have the emotion in this first stage of its development, is not
specifically sexual except in some cases which I am inclined to
consider as precocious. Normally, there appears to be no erethism of
the sexual organs during the process of love-making. But erethism, as
we shall see in another chapter upon the analysis of the sex impulse,
is not confined to the sexual organs, but is distributed throughout
the entire body, especially through the vascular and nervous systems.
In these children there is a state of exaltation, indeed as yet not
comparable in intensity to that of the adolescent or adult, which is,
nevertheless, erethistic in its nature. It is massive, vague, and
generally distributed throughout the body. In some cases there is
specific sexual excitement with erections of the penis and hyperæmia
of the female genitalia. Such phenomena are seen only in the cases
that seem to me to be precocious. This point will be more fully
treated in the chapter referred to above. Suffice it to say here that
in love between the sexes at this early period or in the next
following, the physical sensations of sexual excitement are generally
wholly wanting, or if present are entirely unlocated. Love between
children of the opposite sex bears much the same relation to that
between adults as the flower does to the fruit, and has about as
little of physical sexuality in it as an apple-blossom has of the
apple that develops from it.
The love demonstrations of children in the first stage of the
emotion's development are generally spontaneous, profuse, and
unrestrained. There is an absence of shyness, of any sense of shame,
of the feeling of self-consciousness. The children have as yet no
notion of the meaning of sex. Their naïvete in this regard has not
been destroyed by the social suggestion that such actions are wrong
and vulgar. They are natively happy and free in their ignorance. The
individual differences among children are as great in their
experiencing and manifesting this emotion as they are in any other
phase of life, so not infrequently we find children under eight years
of age who are shy, repressive and self-conscious in regard to their
love actions. The same children are shy and repressive in other
things. It is more of a general disposition than a specific attitude
toward this one emotion.
The giving of gifts and the sharing of choice possessions is very
common. The emotion in its earliest form introduces the element of
self-sacrifice for the loved one that is inseparable from the emotion
in all of its normal stages of development. It likewise introduces
the intense selfishness that comes from the desire to monopolize the
allegiance of the one loved. An only child, who as a rule is very
selfish and will not share any of his possessions with others,
readily gives up a liberal part to the lover. During the earlier
years of this stage the gift is appreciated for its inherent value;
it is good to eat, or pretty to look at, or has some other real
value. This inherent value continues to be an element of appreciation
in lovers's gifts throughout life. It is given by the lover as an
expression of his love, and so received and prized by the sweetheart.
Everything else being equal, the greater the real value the more
satisfactory is the love expression to both. In the 6th and 7th years
there appears unmistakable evidence of acquired value in the
presents. They become of value because the lover gave them and, on
account of their associations, are preserved as keepsakes. As early
as the 6th and 7th years presents are taken from their places of safe
keeping or where they are on exhibition as ornaments, and kissed and
fondled as expressions of love for the absent giver. This is
interesting as evidence of love-fetichism appearing in early
childhood.
The emotion otherwise affects the moods and disposition of children.
Refractory children, whose parents manage them with difficulty,
become docile and amiable under the influence of the sweetheart or
lover. Boys who, at other times, are cowards will fight with vigor
and courage when their love is concerned. Children that have a
sociable disposition sometimes become exclusive and abandon all other
playmates for the chosen one, and cannot be induced to play with any
one else. Ideas of marriage are often present, but they are vague and
are present through social suggestion. The general attitude is
represented by the testimony of one woman who stated that she had no
definite idea of marriage at the time of her earliest childish love
affair, but that she had a vague feeling that she and her little
lover would always be together, and this feeling was a source of
pleasure. Certainly children under eight have little foresight; they
are chiefly absorbed in the present whose engrossing emotions give no
premonition that they will ever change.
Beauty begins to be a factor in the choice of a sweetheart among the
children in this first stage. The most beautiful, charming, and
attractive little girls are the ones who are favored. This element
becomes much more conspicuous in the later stages. Jealousy is
present from the first. It is more pronounced in the cases of love
between children and adults of the opposite sex on account of the
child's being less able to monopolize the attention of the adult and
on account of the precocity of the child concerned in such cases. A
fuller discussion of jealousy belongs in another section of this
study.