child, but for that very reason is in some respects more advanced than
man, who, as he grows older, is “farther off from heaven than when he
was a boy.”
PAGE 51.—_Finesse in Woman._
“The method of attaining results by ruses (common among all the weaker
lower animals) is so habitual among women that, as Lombroso and Ferrero
remark, in women deception is ‘almost physiological.’ * * * But to
regard the caution and indirectness of women as due to innate
wickedness, would, it need scarcely be said, be utterly irrational. It
is inevitable, and results from the constitution of women, acting in the
conditions under which they are generally placed. There is at present no
country in the world, certainly no civilized country, in which a woman
may safely state openly her wishes and desires, and proceed openly to
seek their satisfaction.”—H. Ellis, “Man and Woman,” p. 174.
PAGE 56.—(note).—“_The Freedom of Woman Must Ultimately Rest on the
Communism of Society._”
“The reproduction of the race is a social function, and we are compelled
to conclude that it is the duty of the community, as a community, to
provide for the child-bearer when in the exercise of her social function
she is unable to provide for herself. The woman engaged in producing a
new member, who may be a source of incalculable profit or danger to the
whole community, cannot fail to be a source of the liveliest solicitude
to everyone in the community, and it was a sane and beautiful instinct
that found expression of old in the permission accorded to the pregnant
woman to enter gardens and orchards, and freely help herself.”—Havelock
Ellis, Pamphlet on “Evolution in Sex,” p. 15.
“She held it just that women should be so provided for, because the
mothers of the community fulfil in the State as important and necessary
a function as the men themselves do.”—Grant Allen, “The Woman Who Did,”
p. 73.
PAGE 57.—“_Menstrual Troubles and Disturbances._”
There is little doubt that menstruation, as it occurs to-day in the vast
majority of cases, is somehow pathological and out of the order of
nature. In animals the periodic loss is so small as to be scarcely
noticeable, and among primitive races of mankind it is as a rule
markedly less than among the higher and later races. We may therefore
suppose that its present excess is attributable to certain conditions of
life which have prevailed for a number of centuries, and which have
continuously acted to bring about a feverish disposition of the sexual
apparatus, and an hereditary tendency to recurrent manifestations of a
diseased character. Among conditions of life which in all probability
would act in this way may be counted (1) the indoor life and occupations
of women, leading to degeneration of the neuro-muscular system,
weakness, and inflammability; (2) the heightening of the sex-passion in
both men and women with the increase of luxury and artificialism in
life; (3) the subjection of the woman to the unrestrained use and even
abuse of the man, which inevitably took place as soon as she—with the
changes in the old tribal life—became his chattel and slave; and which
has continued practically ever since. These three causes acting together
over so long a period may well seem sufficient to have induced a morbid
and excessive habit in the female organism; and if so we may hope that
with their removal the excess itself and a vast amount of concomitant
human misery and waste of life-power will disappear.
PAGE 62.—“_Natural Desires._”
“Although I agree with Malthus as to the value of virtuous abstinence,
the sad conviction is forced upon me as a physician that the chaste
morality of women—which though it is certainly a high virtue in our
modern States is none the less a crime against nature—not unfrequently
revenges itself in the cruellest forms of disease.”—Dr. Hegerisch,
translator of Malthus.
PAGE 64.—“_They Must Learn to Fight._”
“Women have as little hope from men as workmen from the middle
classes.”—Bebel, “Woman,” p. 72.
PAGE 66.—_Sexual Selection Exercised by the Female._
“Hunger—that is to say, what we call economic causes—has, because it is
the more widespread and constant, though not necessarily the more
imperious instinct, produced nearly all the great zoological
revolutions. * * * Yet love has, in the form of sexual selection, even
before we reach the vertebrates, moulded races to the ideal of the
female; and reproduction is always the chief end of nutrition which
hunger waits on, the supreme aim of life everywhere.”—“Evolution in
Sex,” p. 12.
PAGE 72.—“_The Features of a Grander Type._”
“Towards the Future I look and see a greater race to come—of beautiful
women, athletic, free, able in mind and logic, great in love and in
maternal instincts, unashamed of their bodies and of the sexual parts of
them, calm in nerve, and with a chronic recognition of Spiritual
qualities—a race of men, gentle, strong, courageous, continent,
affectionate, unselfish, large in body and mind, full of pluck and
brawn, able to suffer, clean and honest in their animal necessities,
self-confident, with no king or overseer.”—Miriam Wheeler Nicol.
PAGE 78.—“_The Search for a Fitting Mate._”
“With the disappearance of the artificial barriers in the way of
friendship between the sexes, and of the economic motive to sexual
relationships—which are perhaps the two chief forces now tending to
produce promiscuous sexual intercourse, whether dignified or not with
the name of marriage—men and women will be free to engage, unhampered,
in the search, so complicated in a highly civilized condition of
society, for a fitting mate.”—“Evolution in Sex,” p. 13.
PAGE 79 (note).—_Desire of Congress Less Strong in Woman._
“I will mention here that from various late sources of information I
conclude that sexual insensibility in women is much commoner than
usually assumed. Of course I mean by this, insensibility as from the
sexual standpoint: of the sense of pleasure and satisfaction in
congress, as well as the desire for congress. This desire is much less
frequent in woman than generally supposed. But the soulside of love on
the other hand is often more prominent in females than in males.”—A.
Moll, “Contrare Sexual-empfindung,” 2nd edn., p. 325.
PAGE 83.—“_In This Serf-Life Their very Natures Have Been Blunted._”
“Not so the wife; however brutal a tyrant she may be chained to * * * he
can claim from her and enforce the lowest degradation of a human being,
that of being made the instrument of an animal function contrary to her
inclinations. * * * No amount of ill-usage, without adultery superadded,
will in England free a wife from her tormentor.”—Mill’s “Subjection of
Women,” 1869.
Clitheroe Case, 1891.—After the refusal of the wife to cohabit, the
husband said: “I therefore took my wife, and have since detained her in
my house, using no more force or restraint than necessary to take her
and keep her.”
The Lord Chancellor said: “I am of opinion that no, such right or power
exists in law”—and ordered the lady to be restored to her
liberty.—“Woman Free,” by Ellis Ethelmer, p. 144.
PAGE 95.—_The Monogamic Marriage._
“In attempting to estimate the moral worth of a people, a race, or a
civilization, we are much more enlightened by the position given to
woman than by the legal type of the conjugal union. This type, besides,
is usually more apparent than real. In many civilizations, both dead and
living, legal monogamy has for its chief object the regulation of
succession and the division of property.”—Letourneau, “Evolution of
Marriage,” p. 186.
Conjugal Unions Among the Animals.—“Among many of the animal species the
sexual union induces a durable association, having for its object the
rearing of young. In nobility, delicacy, and devotion these unions do
not yield precedence to many human unions.”—Ibid., p. 19.
“It is especially interesting to study the various modes of conjugal and
familiar association among birds. This may be easily inferred from the
ardor, the variety and delicacy they bring to their amours. * * * There
are some birds absolutely fickle and even debauched—as, for example, the
little American starling (Icterus pecoris), which changes its female
from day to day. * * * Other species, while they have renounced
promiscuity, are still determined polygamists. The gallinaceae are
particularly addicted to this form of conjugal union, which is so common
in fact with mankind, even when highly civilized and boasting of their
practice of monogamy. Our barndoor cock, vain and sensual, courageous
and jealous, is a perfect type of the polygamous bird.” * * *—Ibid., p.
26.
“Nearly all the rapacious animals, even the stupid vultures, are
monogamous. The conjugal union of the bald-headed eagle appears even to
last till the death of one of the partners.” * * *
“With the female Illinois parrot (Psittacus pertinax) widowhood and
death are synonymous, a circumstance rare enough in the human species,
yet of which the birds give us more than one example. When, after some
years of conjugal life, a Wheat-ear happens to die, his companion hardly
survives him a month.”—Ibid., p. 27.
“Bad fathers are rare among birds. Often on the contrary the male rivals
the female in love for the young; he guards and feeds her during
incubation, and sometimes even sits on the eggs with her. The carrier
pigeon feeds his female while she is sitting; the Canadian goose and the
crow do the same; more than that the latter takes his companion’s place
at times, to give her some relaxation. The blue marten behaves in the
same manner. Among many species male and female combine their efforts
without distinction of sex; they sit in turn, and the one who is free
takes the duty of feeding the one who is occupied. This is the custom of
the black-coated gull, the booby of Bassan, the great blue heron, and of
the black vulture.”—Ibid., p. 30.
“In regard to mammals, there is no strict relation between the degree of
intellectual development and the form of sexual union. The carnivorous
animals often live in couples; but this is not an absolute rule, for the
South African lion is frequently accompanied by four or five females.
Bears, weasels, whales, etc., generally go in couples. Sometimes species
that are very nearly allied have different conjugal customs; thus the
white-cheeked peccary lives in troops, whilst the white-ringed peccary
lives in couples. There is the same diversity in the habits of monkeys.
Some are polygamous and others monogamous. The Wanderoo (Macacus
Silenus) of India has only one female and is faithful to her until
death. The Cebus Capucinus, on the contrary, is polygamous.”—Ibid., p.
33.
PAGE 101.—“_The Destinies of a Life-Time._”
“Unlike the Catholic Church in its dealings with novices, Society
demands (in marriage) the ring, the parchment, and the vow as a
preliminary to the knowledge and experience; hence adulteries, the
divorce court, home-prisons, and the increase of cant and pruriency in
the community. Unless a woman knows what a man’s body is like, with its
virile needs, and realizes to the full her own adult necessities, how is
it possible that she can have the faintest conception as to whether the
romantic passionate impulse a man awakens in her is the trinity of love,
trust and reverence, which alone lays the foundations of real
marriage?”—Edith M. Ellis, “A Noviciate for Marriage,” p. 13.
PAGE 106.—“_Contracts of Some Kind Will Still Be Made._”
“It is therefore probable that a future more or less distant will
inaugurate the regime of monogamic unions, freely contracted, and, at
need, freely dissolved by simple mutual consent, as is already the case
with divorces in various European countries—at Geneva, in Belgium, in
Roumania, etc.—and with separation in Italy. In these divorces of the
future, the community will only intervene in order to safeguard that
which is of vital interest to it—the fate and the education of the
children. But this evolution in the manner of understanding and
practicing marriage will operate slowly, for it supposes an entire
corresponding revolution in public opinion; moreover, it requires as a
corollary profound modifications in the social organism.”—Letourneau,
“Evolution of Marriage,” p. 358.
“The antique morals which hold woman as a servile property belonging to
her husband still live in many minds. They will be extinguished by
degrees. The matrimonial contract will end by being the same kind of
contract as any other, freely accepted, freely maintained, freely
dissolved; but where constraint has disappeared deception becomes an
unworthy offence. Such will be the opinion of a future humanity, more
elevated morally than ours. Doubtless it will no longer have any tender
indulgence for conveniently dissimulated adultery, but, on the other
hand, it will no longer excuse the avenging husband.”—Ibid., p. 127.
PAGE 106.—_Contracts Preliminary to a Permanent Alliance._
“The custom of hand-fasting, rare now anywhere else, still prevails to
some extent in Iceland. A man and woman contract to live together for a
year. If at the end of the year the parties agree thereto, they are
married; if not, they separate without stigma on either side. The
contract may be made conditionally binding from the first. It may bind
the parties to marry in the event of issue, or in the event of no issue,
as the case may be.”—Prof. Mavor, “Iceland: Some Sociological and Other
Notes,” Proceedings Philosophical Society, Glasgow, 1890–91.
PAGE 118.—_A Certain Amount of Animalism._
“The Saviors of this, as of every corrupt and stupid generation, must
feel the pulse of the adulterer as well as that of his victim, and stand
clear-eyed and honest as pioneers of the new sexual renaissance, which
will probably combine a healthy temperate animalism with Browning’s
vision of that rare mating when soul lies by soul.”—Edith M. Ellis, “A
Noviciate for Marriage,” p. 4.
“She gave him comprehension of the meaning of love: a word in many
mouths, not often explained. With her, wound in his idea of her, he
perceived it to signify a new start in our existence, a finer shoot of
the tree stoutly planted in good gross earth; the senses running their
live sap, and the minds companioned, and the spirits made one by the
whole-natured conjunction. In sooth, a happy prospect for the sons and
daughters of Earth, divinely indicating more than happiness: the
speeding of us, compact of what we are, between the ascetic rocks and
the sensual whirlpools, to the creation of certain nobler races, now
very dimly imagined.”—George Meredith’s “Diana of the Cross-ways,” ch.
37.
THE END.
-----
Footnote 1:
Though this is of course not true of animal food.
Footnote 2:
See “Appendix.”
Footnote 3:
See “Appendix.”
Footnote 4:
Taking union as the main point we may look upon the idealized Sex-love
as a sense of contact pervading the whole mind and body—while the
sex-organs are a specialization of this faculty of union in the
outermost sphere: union in the bodily sphere giving rise to bodily
generation, the same as union in the mental and emotional spheres
occasions generation of another kind.
Footnote 5:
These are (1) the curious, not yet explained, facts of “Telegony”—i.
e., the tendency (often noticed in animals) of the children of a dam
by a second sire to resemble the first sire; (2) the probable
survival, in a modified form, of the primitive close relation (as seen
in the protozoa) between copulation and nutrition; (3) the great
activity of the spermatozoa themselves.
Footnote 6:
For other points of difference see Appendix.
Footnote 7:
Man and Woman, by Havelock Ellis. Contemporary Science Series, p. 371.
Footnote 8:
Physiologically speaking a certain excess of affectability and
excitability in women over men seems to be distinctly traceable.
Footnote 9:
The freedom of Woman must ultimately rest on the Communism of
society—which alone can give her support during the period of
Motherhood, without forcing her into dependence on the arbitrary will
of one man. While the present effort of women towards earning their
own economic independence is a healthy sign and a necessary feature of
the times, it is evident that it alone will not entirely solve the
problem, since it is just during the difficult years of Motherhood,
when support is most needed, that the woman is least capable of
earning it for herself. (See Appendix.)
Footnote 10:
See “Appendix.”
Footnote 11:
See “Appendix.”
Footnote 12:
As to the maternal teaching of children, it must be confessed that it
has, in late times, been most dismal. Whether among the masses or the
classes the idea has been first and foremost to impress upon them the
necessity of sliding through life as comfortably as possible, and the
parting word to the boy leaving home to launch into the great world
has seldom risen to a more heroic strain than “Don’t forget your
flannels!”
Footnote 13:
It must be remembered too that to many women (though of course by no
means a majority) the thought of Sex brings but little sense of
pleasure, and the fulfillment of its duties constitutes a real, even
though a willing, sacrifice. See Appendix.
Footnote 14:
Thus Bebel in his book on Woman speaks of “the idle and luxurious life
of so many women in the upper classes, the nervous stimulant afforded
by exquisite perfumes, the over-dosing with poetry, music, the
stage—which is regarded as the chief means of education, and is the
chief occupation, of a sex already suffering from hypertrophy of
nerves and sensibility.”
Footnote 15:
See “Appendix.”
Footnote 16:
It is curious that the early Church Service had “Till death us
depart,” but in 1661 this was altered to “Till death us do part.”
Footnote 17:
See R. F. Burton’s Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah, chap. xxiv. He
says, however, “As far as my limited observations go polyandry is the
only state of society in which jealousy and quarrels about the sex are
the exception and not the rule of life!”
Footnote 18:
See “Appendix.”
Footnote 19:
Perhaps one of the most sombre and inscrutable of these natural
tragedies lies, for Woman, in the fact that the man to whom she first
surrenders her body often acquires for her (whatever his character may
be) so profound and inalienable a claim upon her heart. While, either
for man or woman, it is almost impossible to thoroughly understand
their own nature, or that of others, till they have had
sex-experience, it happens so that in the case of woman the experience
which should thus give the power of choice is frequently the very one
which seals her destiny. It reveals to her, as at a glance, the
tragedy of a life-time which lies before her, and yet which she cannot
do other than accept.
Footnote 20:
See note on the Primitive Group-marriage, infra.
Footnote 21:
Letourneau (“Evolution of Marriage,” p. 173) mentions also among the
inferior races who have adopted Monogamy the Veddahs of Ceylon, the
Bochimans of S. Africa, and the Kurnails of Australia.
Footnote 22:
See Remarks on the Early Star and Sex Worships, infra.
Footnote 23:
Perhaps this accounts for the feeling, which so many have experienced,
that a great love, even though not apparently returned, justifies
itself, and has its fruition in its own time and its own way.
Footnote 24:
These dates have shifted now by two or three weeks owing to the
equinoctial precession.
Footnote 25:
The date of his birth was not fixed till A. D. 531—when it was
computed by a monkish astrologer.
Footnote 26:
Note especially the ordeals through which the youth of so many savage
races have had to pass before being admitted to manhood.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
WORKS OF
_Edw^d Carpenter_
[Illustration]
_Except love build the house they labor in vain who build it._
Towards Democracy
A masterpiece, the work of a seer. Gifted as poet and philosopher, the
author has given us one of the great, if not the greatest, work of the
nineteenth century. It is full of vivid pictures of the soul’s
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in man—“the divine life which incloses and redeems all souls.” Through
this life every soul finds itself akin to every other soul; brotherhood
is more than a myth and democracy ceases to be a dead letter.
=A. B. Stockham, M. D.=: I have read and reread Towards Democracy with
transports of delight, and with a great hope for humanity. As a _chela_
to a _guru_ my soul bows to thine. People of the nineteenth century may
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but illumined souls of the coming centuries will honor the author as one
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given to imprisoned souls.
=Chas. A. Hamilton=: Towards Democracy is a revelation! Walt Whitman,
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like a bather in the cool waves of the ocean. I splashed through its
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=W. L. Sinton=: Towards Democracy stands side by side with the Bible,
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=Cecelia Evans=: I have Towards Democracy beside my bed, and read
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by word or pen the good that book has done me. I never pick it up that
my courage is not renewed. His “Joy, Joy” would kill any case of blues.
I always felt that these little daily tasks were so hard, and thought if
one could only get out in the world and do something one might be saved;
but his “Sweet are the Uses of Life,” with his promise that the Lover
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“_Who is the poet whom love has made strong, strong_, STRONG, _with
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A Visit to a Gnani
With an Introduction by Alice B. Stockham, M. D.
A vivid pen picture of oriental thought and teaching, containing in a
few pages what one often fails to find by searching many volumes. A
Gnani is one who knows, a Knower; in other words, one who has a
consciousness of the greater or universal life which Carpenter calls the
Kosmic Consciousness, which is the higher self of Theosophists, the
Infinite I of Fichte, the Noumena of Kant, the Divine Mind of Christian
Religion.
In a concise and comprehensive manner, the author presents the practical
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and dependence upon physical and material life to gain a consciousness
of the universal life—a Kosmic consciousness.
=Health Culture=: The book contains many interesting facts and anecdotes
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=Sidney Flower=: In the domain of occultism this is clearly the book of
the year. It is interesting to note that the East and the West touch
hands in the matter of self-development. We simply make our will the
master of the mind, and by thus subjugating the noise of the machinery,
we make it possible to hear and attend to the Voice in the Silence.
=Psychic Review=: As one reads this vivid pen picture, his interest is
held throughout, and he realizes that there is a life more wonderful and
perhaps more real than the material life.