PLURAL LOVE AND INFIDELITY
Lecture audiences often ask me whether plural love is possible. This
would indicate on the part of the questioner a more or less unconscious
wish to justify polygamous cravings. Plural marriages exist but I doubt
whether any such thing as plural love has even been observed at any
period of mankind's history.
For the most complicated examples of plural marriage, as for all the
varieties of sexual complications, we must turn to Greece of the
classical period. Demosthenes wrote somewhere: "We have prostitutes to
give us pleasure, concubines to minister to our daily needs and wives
to bear us children and to watch over our homes."
When we remember that besides the three types of women with whom they
had sexual relations, many and among them some of the greatest men of
those times, indulged in homosexual unions with young men of feminine
appearance, we must draw two conclusions: first, that those men must
have been sexual supermen, as they were at times mental supermen,
second, that love as we understand it at the present day, can only have
had very little to do with their sexual life.
Modern love as we shall see in Chapter XXXI means mutual love, the
equal gratification of the mates thru the rites of sex communion.
=Plural Love=, be it of the ancient Greek type, of the Oriental or
mormon type, means varietism for the male, scanty gratification for
the female. At best a mild form of sexual slavery, most humiliating to
the woman and possible only under a social system debarring woman from
financial independence.
Only a man suffering from priapism could gratify the eroticism of a
large number of wives and the latest or youngest wife would naturally
receive a larger share of physical attention than the earlier and
older mates. The jealousy and hatred thus engendered are in no way
minimised by the fact that the custom of certain lands countenances
such arrangements.
=Polyandry= as it existed in ancient times and still exsists in Tibet,
where a woman marries several men (generally brothers) may be more
satisfactory for the primitive female. Owing to her physiological make
up, and also to her passive rôle in love, woman can gratify several
men and receive gratification from them. The neurotic disturbances
which may arise as a result of a woman's lack of sexual gratification
are avoided by the polyandric scheme of union. But this is the only
superiority which polyandry has over polygamy.
Both polygamous and polyandric nations and civilisations have gradually
receded as far as numerical importance and world prestige go and both
institutions are bound to disappear.
The development of the human ego, both in men and women, will not
permit much longer of the enslavement of one sex to gratify the
pleasures of the other. Nor can any group, male or female, enforce its
domination over individuals of the opposite sex and make them accept
the dogma of an inferior sex by embodying that dogma in any religious
creed of the mormon or mohammedan type.
=Infidelity.= Plural love is passing but infidelity has taken its
place in every possible respect as a sexual and an egotistical form of
gratification.
When dealing with infidelity we must establish a careful distinction
between forms of infidelity due to "normal" causes and other forms
due to unconscious complexes. On the other hand we should beware of
admitting, as many unscientific writers do, that there is a distinct
difference of attitude to infidelity in the two sexes.
That shortsighted viewpoint has been unfortunately voiced in hundreds
of popular sayings which represent man as the great examplary of
infidelity and woman as faithfulness incarnate.
Economic conditions, not sexual differences, are at the bottom of the
levity with which men treat their heart affairs and of the gravity with
which women, officially at least, consider the marriage relationship.
Financial dependence and the fear of motherhood compel the
domesticated, parasitic type of woman to secure the services of a
breadwinner, and after achieving that object, to avoid hurting his
susceptibilities.
Independent and professional women, especially the sterile or
sterilised ones, are frankly "masculine" in their love habits.
But I insist on considering certain forms of infidelity as normal and
others as abnormal, independently from the question as to whether they
are socially desirable or undesirable.
The human type which is so perfectly normal that it has no fixation
and no definite fetishes, except species fetishes, and which weaklings
and puritans designate as "animal," is not likely to be faithful to any
mate. Like every strong and healthy animal at rutting time, he or she
is sexually aroused by every individual of the opposite sex. No safety
complex restrains him as far as sexuality is concerned. The only fears
which restrain his search for gratification are fear of exposure and
ostracism within his herd, fear of pregnancy or infection and fear of
final complications, not to mention of course the fear of inflicting
suffering upon a lifemate of whom he may be extremely fond.
For we must never forget the fact, unpleasant as it may appear to
unscientific hypocrites, that lasting love is a matter of fixation and
fetishism, hence, always slightly tainted with neurosis.
=When Love Dies.= "Normal" infidelity may also be merely the only hope
of sexual gratification for the normal man or woman whose mate has
ceased to present the fetishes needed to awaken his or her eroticism.
Healthy individuals are neither willing nor capable to forego sexual
gratification. Now and then complications arise, a man being very
fond, for sexual reasons, of a woman who would prove undesirable as
his mate and, for sentimental reasons, of a woman who is infinitely
congenial but no longer arouses his desire. Likewise, a woman may be
deeply attached to both her lover and her husband. Ivan Bloch writes:
"It is quite possible to love more than one person at the same time
with nearly equal tenderness and be honestly able to assure each of the
passion felt for him or her. The vast psychic differentiation involved
by modern civilization increases the possibility of this double love
for it is difficult to find one's complement in a single person and
this applies to women as well as to men."
George Hirth, in his "Wege zur Heimat" also points out that women,
as well as men, can love two persons at the same time. Men flatter
themselves with the prejudice that the female heart, or rather brain,
can only hold one man at a time and that if there is a second man, it
is by a kind of prostitution. Nearly all the erotic writers, poets
and novelists, even physicians and psychologists, belong to this
class. They look upon a woman as property and of course two men cannot
"possess" one woman.
"Regarding novelists, however," remarks Havelock Ellis, "the remark
may be interpolated that there are many exceptions. Thomas Hardy, for
instance, frequently represents a woman as more or less in love with
two men at the same time."
Hirth maintains that a woman is not necessarily obliged to be untrue to
one man because she has conceived a passion for another man. "Today,"
Hirth writes, "truly love and justice can count as honorable motives
in marriage. The modern man accords to the beloved wife and life
companion the same freedom he himself took before marriage, and perhaps
still, takes in marriage. If she makes no use of it, as is to be
hoped, so much the better. But let there be no lies, no deception, the
indispensable foundation of modern marriage is boundless sincerity and
friendship, the deepest trust, affectionate devotion and consideration.
That is the best safeguard against adultery. Let him, however, who is,
nevertheless, overtaken by the outbreak of it, console himself with the
undoubted fact that of two real lovers, the most noble minded and deep
seeing friend will always have the preference."
Even under an economic system countenancing free love and birth
control, such complications would surely arise and cause much suffering.
=Bored Wives.= Infidelity is often also a refuge from boredom for
the middle class woman who has no definite training or ability in
any direction and is thereby condemned to idleness. Left alone all
day and a few evenings every month by a busy husband, she yearns for
companionship. Unless she is slightly homosexual, she soon tires of
stupid teas, bridge and gossip parties and she accepts the attentions
of some man who brings into her life a little romance and a different
aspect of the world's activities. The French cynic Willy had that type
in mind when he wrote: "adultery has become the key stone of society.
By making married life tolerable it prevents the breaking up of the
home."
Besides normal sexual cravings, there are many unconscious or only
partly conscious causes which drive human beings into being faithless
to their life mates.
Many women take lovers, many men take mistresses for purely egotistical
reasons. Justly or unjustly they feel a certain lack of appreciation in
their mates and make up their minds to get even with them.
="Getting Even"= is one of the great neurotic cravings, one which
has led to numberless offences, including crime and suicide.
To some neurotics with a sense of inferiority, an extramatrimonial
affair seems to be the sole means of restoring one's self confidence.
"I am of no account at home but to some one else I mean the world."
Many neurotics use "romance" and "inspiration" as convenient scapegoats.
"But for the inspiration I derive from my affair with So and So, I
could not do my work properly," and this is true in a good many cases,
but in many more cases, any one else would do just as well as a lover
or mistress. Some neurotics, who remind one of Madame Bovary, the
heroine of Flaubert's great novel, feel that accomplishment and the
fullness of life are naturally associated with sexual irregularities.
Too inferior to accomplish anything by dint of hard work, Emma Bovary
childishly expected love to accomplish everything for her. Other
neurotics, incapable of any creative work, consider romance as an
achievement in itself and proceed to call every carnal dissipation
romance. Just as inferior boys at the gang age steal or destroy in an
absurd attempt at "doing something out of the ordinary."
Some neurotics never feel safe very long with any sexual mate; they
grow afraid or suspicious and seek safety in the arms of some other
human being in whom they unconsciously hope to find the father or
mother image to which they were over-attached. Their search for the
safe mate, that is, for the parent image, is, of course, always
unsuccessful.
=Varietists.= I have observed a number of men and women who liked
to designate themselves as varietists and who were simply unconscious
or partly conscious homosexuals struggling against perverse tendencies
to which they did not wish to yield.
I have seen in my office several Don Juans who were unconsciously
attracted to men and refused for a long while to admit that such a
craving was a part of their personality. Every woman they met only
meant one thing to them: "If I could capture her, I would feel sure
that I was a real man." A few days after catching their prey they were
once more obsessed by doubts and had to seek new evidence.
Many partly conscious homosexuals seek women who in their appearance,
manner of dress and behavior are the best substitutes for men, that is,
mannish girls, flat chested, with narrow hips, bobbed hair, wearing
tailor-made garments, engaged in masculine pursuits, etc.
They often meet with disappointment for such women are frequently
homosexual and hence unlikely to yield to a man. When the woman is
sexually normal, however, the neurotic's happiness is far from assured.
As soon as sentimentalism or tenderness allows the feminine component
of those masculine women to break thru their masculinity, the
unconscious homosexual loses his love for them. One patient of mine did
his hunting among equestriennes in Central Park. On two occasions his
attentions were accepted. His disappointment was terrible; calling upon
the women who had attracted him when wearing a mannish derby and riding
breeches, he was greeted by very womanly persons attired in the most
feminine finery.
Several times in his life my patient has been in love with rather
masculine women. The first flash of femininity in them had always cured
him entirely of his infatuation.
=The Ultrafeminine.= Other homosexuals struggling savagely against
the appeal of the masculine, seek safety in the arms of extremely
feminine creatures who could not in any way awaken the slightest
suggestion of a perversion.
Their obsessive fear, however, does not allow them to enjoy the affair
very long. Small physical details which a normal man would not notice
suddenly fill them with fear or disgust. A masculine gesture, a raucous
intonation, a slight growth of hair on the upper lip or the limbs may
suggest unavoidably the sex from which they are fleeing in panic. Their
love cools off and safety has to be sought, altho it is never found,
in the arms of some other woman of very feminine appearance, who is in
turn discarded for the same absurd reasons.
As fixations and fetishism have infinitely more importance for men
than for women (see Chapter III) the male neurotic is naturally more
"promiscuous" and faithless than the female neurotic.
=Messalina.= Every psychoanalyst, however, has met the Messalina
type, who is constantly seeking the "love that will endure." Like her
masculine counterpart, the Don Juan, she is in the majority of cases
seeking safety and trying, by conquering many men, to reestablish her
self-confidence which every little disappointment and humiliation
destroys so easily.
However loving and worshipful the neurotic's mate may be, he or she
cannot hope to save the neurotic from further love entanglements.
One of the most striking neurotic traits is a craving to disparage
everything and everybody in his environment.
The praise of the most affectionate husband or lover, wife or mistress,
is insufficient to raise the neurotic's self-esteem. With all
neurotics, familiarity breeds contempt and it must be from the lips of
a new man or new woman that they must hear their praise sung before
their feeling of inferiority is deadened and allows them to enjoy that
praise.