means to be unhappy. Even if actual nervous ailments of a serious sort
are escaped by the selfish, unhappiness in the social relations and in
the _family_ relations is certain to be experienced. It is my firm belief
that, more than any other single cause, selfishness is responsible for
misunderstandings and increasing bitterness between husband and wife,
ending all too often in a breakdown of the sacred institution of marriage.
To deal successfully with that dread problem of to-day--the divorce
evil--we must, I submit, first appreciate how basic in marriage failure is
the factor of selfishness. To this theme I now invite the attention of my
parent-readers, for it is a theme of particular interest to them. If I am
correct, it is through education for marriage and, most of all, through
education against selfishness that the divorce problem can most surely he
solved.
What a problem it is! And a problem that has been steadily growing in
seriousness. In the twenty years from 1867 to 1886, according to figures
compiled by the United States Census Bureau, 328,716 divorces were granted
throughout the country. In the next twenty years--that is, from 1887 to
1906--divorces aggregated the enormous total of 945,625. In other words,
in a period of only twenty years nearly two million men and women in the
United States had their marriage ties legally severed, the break-up being
at the rate of about one hundred and thirty divorces a day.
And this increase has been progressively growing year after year. In 1867
there were only 9,937 divorces for the entire country. In 1906 no fewer
than 72,012 divorces were granted. Four years ago an unofficial estimate
put the annual divorce crop at nearly one hundred thousand, or, roughly,
one hundred divorces for every one hundred thousand of population. The
same estimate indicated that one marriage in every twelve ends in divorce.
Nor do these figures afford a complete view of the extent to which
marital infelicity obtains in the United States. Every year thousands
of marriages virtually, or actually, terminate without recourse to the
courts. Men and women who have entered into the marriage state really in
love with each other, develop so-called "incompatibilities of temperament"
which transform love into indifference, even hate. Reluctant to seek
divorce--perhaps conscientiously opposed to it--they continue to live
together, husband and wife in name only, or they arrange a voluntary
separation. Many others escape from what they have come to regard as an
intolerable yoke by the easy expedient of desertion, not necessarily
followed by court proceedings. It is impossible to give exact figures,
but unquestionably the number of marriages which collapse in divorce is a
comparatively small proportion of all unhappy marriages.
Taking the increase in divorce, however, as a concrete, definite measure
of marriage failure, the problem of explanation and remedy remains
obviously and sufficiently urgent. And it must be said that as a rule the
offered solutions are either evasive or superficial.
Some investigators, despairing of finding any solution, insist that the
increase in divorce is an unavoidable product of the complex, strenuous
life of modern civilisation. Others, much of the same mind, advocate
"trial marriages" as a palliative. Still others, singularly lacking in
courtesy, or of a myopic vision so far as women are concerned, throw the
blame on the "feminist movement," on the increasing emancipation of woman
from her old-time position of slavish inferiority. Finally, there are
investigators who, noting that the increase in divorce has steadily been
gaining momentum since the Civil War, attribute this to the difference in
economic conditions before and after the war. In effect, they say that
there are more divorces because the country is wealthier, the inference
being that increased national prosperity has had an unsettling effect on
the national life.
That this contention is sound cannot be gainsaid; but it does not go deep
enough. Of itself, it no more explains the increase in divorce than it
does the increase in crime and the increase in mental and nervous disease,
equally in evidence since the Civil War. These, too, there is warrant
for affirming, have increased because of changed economic conditions. It
remains, however, to ascertain the precise factor or factors brought into
operation by this economic change to account for the growth in crime,
insanity, nervous troubles, and divorce. And, in this connection, it is
most interesting and important to observe that, so far as concerns crime,
insanity, and nervous troubles, recent research has made clear exactly why
there has been an increase and how this may best be checked.
It is now recognised that, psychologically speaking, crime, insanity, and
nervousness represent an imperfect adaptation to the environment in which
the criminal, the lunatic, or the nervous person lives. This failure
of adaptation may be due either to inborn lack of capacity to meet the
requirements of the environment, or to lack of proper training.
Not so many years ago it was the consensus of scientific opinion that in
most cases of crime, insanity and nervousness the victim was hopelessly
handicapped from the start by the nature of his being. There was much
talk of "inherited criminality," "congenital brain defects," and
"neuropathic inheritance." But observation and experiment have compelled
an almost complete abandonment of this doctrine of fatal degeneration.
To-day scientists largely hold that not more than 1 or 2 per cent. of
criminals can be stigmatised as criminals by birth; that insanity is not
inheritable, like eye-colour or hair-colour; and that nervousness is, at
bottom, an acquired, rather than inherited, disorder.
Accordingly, if crime, insanity, and nervousness are on the increase,
it follows that faults of training, rather than innate and unescapable
tendencies, are the responsible factors. More specifically, crime,
insanity, and nervousness have increased because no adequate effort has
been made, by appropriate training, to fit the individual to withstand the
extra strain put upon him by the economic changes of the past half century.
Still further, modern scientific research has discovered the specific
training fault which, more than anything else, accounts for the failure
in adaptation. Stated briefly, this fault consists in neglect to develop
moral and emotional control during the first years of life.
In the case of criminality it has been proved, by repeated experiment
tried on a large scale,[10] that even the descendants of a long line of
criminals, if carefully trained in early childhood, will lead upright
lives. In the case of insanity, the discovery that the three principal
causes of mental disease are excessive indulgence in alcohol, sexual
indiscretions, and emotional stress, points directly to the importance of
training, aimed at the development of moral control. But most impressive,
as emphasising the need for beginning this training at an early age,
is the evidence accumulated in the case of those functional maladies,
hysteria, neurasthenia, and psychasthenia--evidence which we have already
discussed in much detail in these pages.
Study the history of every case of "nervous breakdown," of psychasthenic
fear, of hysterical anxiety and disabilities, of neurasthenic aches and
pains, and there will always be found a background of emotional intensity
and self-centredness, persisting from early childhood. Hence, the demand
of the modern neurologist and medical psychologist for training in youth
that will foster control of the emotions and that will habituate the
individual to forget self in useful activities. "The mind occupied with
external interests will have neither time nor inclination to feed upon
itself."
If, therefore, the one sure check to the increase in crime, insanity, and
nervous disorders is moral training in early life, can it be doubted that
the same process offers the strongest means of checking the tendency to
flood the divorce courts?
Ninety-nine divorces out of every hundred, it is safe to say, result from
errors of thinking and living--errors directly traceable to shortcomings
in early training. Selfishness and lack of control--these, I insist, are
the usual elements out of which divorces grow. And what are these but
bad habits, for which good habits might have been substituted had proper
precautions been taken by the parents in the plastic, formative period
of youth? Even in respect to the sexual phase of marriage--that phase in
which so many marriages come to grief--the trouble, when trouble occurs,
may, in most cases, be wholly attributed to parental thoughtlessness or
ignorance. On the sexual side, as on all sides of married life, the great
need is for education for marriage.
It is not my intention here to go into details. It must suffice to say
that investigation has shown that the sexual impulse begins to manifest
itself in sundry ways far earlier than most parents appreciate, and that
unless care is taken to observe and offset eccentricities of behaviour
possibly containing a sexual element, permanent harm may result.
For example, there often is a sexual element in the cruelty with which
not a few children treat play-fellows or household pets. The exaggerated
affection little boys sometimes display for their mothers, and little
girls for their fathers, is to-day likewise regarded by many medical
psychologists as a sexual signal calling for educational measures to
insure a more even distribution of affection for both parents. These same
psychologists insist that at the first obvious signs of interest in sexual
matters--as when the child begins to ask questions about his origin--he
should be given frank, if tactful, elementary instruction in the facts
of sex. Recall the quotation previously made from Havelock Ellis in this
connection. Evasive or untruthful answers will not do. They only fix the
attention more strongly on the subject, and from this fixing of the
attention a dangerously morbid interest in things sexual may develop.
Clearly, parents who would do their full duty by their children have
no easy task before them. Yet everything combines to show that unless
they make a business of parenthood--and, in especial, unless, by direct
instruction and the force of good example, they develop in their children
the virtues of self-control and self-forgetfulness--the after lives of
those children, when themselves married, will be anything but happy, and
may, in addition, be lives marred by some form of serious nervous or
mental disturbance.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 9: "Psychotherapy," pp. 559-560.]
[Footnote 10: See "Psychology and Parenthood," pp. 8-18.]
BASHFULNESS AND INDECISION
VI
BASHFULNESS AND INDECISION
Doctor W. Bechterew, a distinguished Russian physician, was one day
visited by a man of extraordinary appearance. Cheap and shabby clothing
fitted the visitor's gaunt frame badly; his gait was shuffling; his whole
form and manner testified pathetically to an overwhelming burden of
poverty, anxiety, and dread. But what was most remarkable about him was
a pair of enormous black spectacles, giving a horribly grotesque aspect
to his pallid, bearded face. It was with difficulty that Doctor Bechterew
concealed the astonishment he felt and courteously inquired what he could
do for his strange visitor.
"I have come," was the hesitating, almost stammering, reply, "in the hope
that you can cure me of my bashfulness."
"Your bashfulness?" repeated the physician, with a quizzical, but kindly,
smile. "Is that all that troubles you?"
"It is enough," answered the other, vehemently. "Doctor, it has made life
a hell for me."
"And for how long have you been bashful?"
"Virtually since childhood. I can positively place its beginnings in my
schooldays." His words now flowed swiftly, torrentially. "Long before I
left school I noticed that I felt awkward and uneasy when anybody looked
directly at me. I found myself blushing, stammering, turning away, unable
to look people in the eye.
"After I left school and went to work, matters became much worse. In
business I had to meet strangers all the time, and in the presence of
strangers I felt absolutely helpless. My bashfulness increased to such an
extent that I began to invent excuses to stay away from my work, and to
remain at home in a miserable solitude. But this did not do; I had to
earn my living. In desperation, I hit on the idea of wearing these black
spectacles."
"So that people cannot see your eyes?"
"Exactly. They have helped me wonderfully; intrenched behind them, I feel
comparatively safe. But I detest them, and I long to be like other men. Is
there no cure for me?"
Bizarre, startlingly unique as this must seem, it, after all, differs only
in the single detail of the spectacles from hundreds of other cases which
might be cited. All over the world are men and women who suffer agonies
from an oppressive, and to them inexplicable, sense of timidity when
brought into contact with other people. Many, to be sure, make a brave
effort to conceal the true state of affairs, compelling themselves to
mingle more or less freely in society, despite the torturing apprehensions
they then feel. Others of less stubborn mould either seclude themselves or
deliberately choose careers that leave them much in solitude. Sometimes,
for that matter, the choosing of such careers is an affair not of choice,
but of necessity. A man of thirty-four confided to his physician, Doctor
Paul Hartenberg:
"I began life as an assistant to my father in the wholesale liquor
business, my work being such that I did not realise my extreme
bashfulness. But it was made very clear to me when, owing to my father's
failure, I was obliged to seek employment elsewhere.
"I applied for and was given the position of manager in a large café. It
was part of my duty to keep order among the employees, and, to my dismay,
I found that I was not equal to this. Whenever I had to exert my authority
I was strangely embarrassed; I stammered, trembled, and, worst of all,
blushed like a girl. The employees, as you may imagine, were not long in
perceiving how timid and bashful I was, and affairs rapidly came to such a
pass that the owner of the café angrily dismissed me.
"I then became a clerk in a department store. But, alas! my deplorable
bashfulness was again my undoing. If a customer looked at me when asking
a question or giving an order, I blushed, became so embarrassed that I had
to turn away, and, in my confusion, paid no attention to what the customer
was saying. If the latter repeated his words I became more disturbed than
ever, trembled, perspired, and acted so queerly that people thought I was
drunk.
"Again I was dismissed, and again I found employment, this time in a
smaller store. The result was the same. Thus I passed from position to
position, always descending in the social scale. What do you suppose I am
doing at present? I am washing dishes in the cellar of a restaurant. It is
not pleasant work, but it at least shelters me from the terrible gaze of
strangers."
This, fortunately, is an exceptional case. Yet it is certain that many a
man is to-day holding a position far below that for which he really has
ability, simply because he is too bashful to assert himself, dreading not
so much the increased responsibilities of more remunerative work as the
fact that it will bring him more conspicuously and intimately into the
view of other people. He feels in his soul, poor fellow, that the result
will be to plunge him into unendurable confusion. It is an ordeal too
great for him to face, and he clings desperately to the inferior position,
which, from his distorted point of view, has the merit of allowing him to
go through life unnoticed and, consequently, untroubled.
What, then, is this bashfulness which exerts so widespread and baneful an
influence? Whence does it take its rise? And how is its victim to go about
the task of overcoming it? These are questions of vital significance,
particularly in this age of complex civilisation and strenuous
competition, in which the bashful man is at a tremendous disadvantage.
Happily, he appreciates this, and resorts with increasing frequency to
the physician's office in quest of advice and aid. As a result, far more
is known about bashfulness to-day than was ever the case before, albeit
in its most important aspects as yet known only to a comparatively small
number of psychologically trained physicians.
These physicians recognise that there are two distinct types of
bashfulness, the one chronic, the other occasional, both of which
represent an abnormal exaggeration of the shyness which is a normal
characteristic of nearly every child, and which manifests itself in
blushing, fidgeting, hiding the face, etc. Ordinarily, this organic
shyness, as the psychologist Baldwin has termed it, disappears between the
fifth and seventh year. But it may recur under special conditions, and it
is specially likely to recur, as almost everybody knows from experience,
under conditions focusing public attention on the person. Under such
conditions--being called on unexpectedly to speak in public, taking part
for the first time in theatrical performances, and so forth--bashfulness
of the occasional type is very much in evidence, its symptoms ranging
from tremor, palpitation, and vasomotor disturbances to the paralysis of
"stage fright." Neither psychologically nor medically is this type of
bashfulness of much importance. As the novelty of the conditions giving
rise to it wears off--when, for example, one has become accustomed to
public speaking--it usually disappears. Like the organic shyness of
childhood, it is merely a product of inexperience, an expression of an
instinctive reaction that is possibly "a far-off echo from the dim past,
when fear of the unknown was a safeguard in the struggle for existence."
Altogether different is the case with those who are habitually bashful,
of whom the world holds many thousands. Here, obviously, some factor
or factors other than inexperience must enter to cause the chronic
timidity which has the special quality of afflicting its victim only
when in the presence of other human beings. This, indeed, is the
distinguishing characteristic of bashfulness, as was pointed out long
ago by Charles Darwin, in his statement that bashfulness seems to depend
on "sensitiveness to the opinion, whether good or bad, of others."
Darwin also held--and his view still is the prevailing one--that the
sensitiveness of the habitually bashful man relates mostly to external
appearances. That is to say, he is bashful because he knows he is
awkward, because he is dressed out of style or not in keeping with the
special occasion, or because he suffers from some real or fancied bodily
defect. To the objection that there are plenty of awkward, badly dressed,
and physically deformed men and women who are not at all bashful, the
advocates of this theory fall back on heredity as the ultimate determining
factor, insisting that it is an inborn weakness which makes the bashful
man or woman supersensitive to the opinion of others regarding his or her
personal appearance and demeanour.
Now, recent research seems to leave no doubt that heredity does
operate to some extent in the causation of bashfulness, since most
bashful persons--at any rate, among those who come under the care of
physicians--have a strain of the neurotic in their family histories. On
the other hand, it has been quite as positively established that the
matter of external appearances has a causal relation to bashfulness in
comparatively few cases, though it may act as an aggravating element.
In case after case the first manifestations of true chronic bashfulness
have been traced to a period in life far antedating any anxiety on the
person's part respecting the way he walks or dresses or looks. More than
this, when the bashful themselves are questioned as to the causes of their
bashfulness, they usually either profess entire ignorance, or emphasise
mental, rather than physical, factors.
"I attribute my bashfulness to no physical cause," is a characteristic
response. "I attribute it to a certain weakness of mind, to my lack
of self-confidence, to fear of ridicule, and especially to a nervous
excitement which I feel whenever others look at me."
Of course, apart from the doubt which such a response casts on the
external appearances theory of bashfulness, and its emphasis on the
mental, as opposed to the physical, factor, it really throws scarcely any
light on the question of causation. Just as there are many awkward, badly
dressed, and deformed people who are not bashful, so there are many modest
and sensitive ones who go through life in wholly normal fashion, perhaps
untroubled even by bashfulness of the occasional type. Quite evidently
there still is an underlying something which has to be taken into account
before one can fully understand chronic bashfulness.
That something the modern medical psychologist is beginning to believe he
has discovered through proceeding on the assumption that bashfulness is
far more than a mere innate weakness or character defect; that it is, in
reality, a functional nervous trouble, differing only in degree, not in
kind, from hysteria and other psychoneuroses. That is to say, the medical
psychologist assumes that, as is now believed to be the case in every
psychoneurosis, the bashful man is the victim of subconscious memories of
distressing incidents in his early life; incidents which, in his case,
have had the effect of arousing in an exaggerated degree sentiments of
shame or fear.
The supersensitive child, having seen or heard something that profoundly
shocks him, or having committed some petty or really serious fault, feels,
on the one hand, that he has a shameful secret he must guard carefully,
and, on the other hand, fears that people can read his secret in his eyes.
Hence, he develops feelings of awkwardness and embarrassment when others
look at and speak to him. He fidgets, blushes, stammers, trembles; in a
word, displays all the symptoms indicated by the term bashfulness. In the
course of time one of two things will happen: either increased knowledge
will reassure him, and he will, as the saying is, outgrow his bashfulness;
or the hidden fear and shame--even though the original occasion for them
may have completely lapsed from conscious remembrance--will fix themselves
firmly in his mind, causing a habit of bashfulness which may torture him
all his life.
Whether this new theory as to bashfulness of the chronic type holds
good invariably, it is as yet impossible to say. Certainly, it has been
verified in an astonishingly large number of cases. Time and again,
applying some one of the delicate methods by which they tunnel into the
most obscure recesses of the mind, medical psychologists have dragged into
the full light of conscious recollection forgotten memories which the
victims of bashfulness themselves recognise as connected with the onset of
their abnormal timidity. Often their bashfulness completely disappears,
or is markedly abated, as soon as the memories responsible for it are
recovered. Or, when an immediate cure is not wrought, one is pretty sure
to result after an explanation of the evolution of the trouble and the
application of appropriate suggestions to develop self-confidence and will
power.
To illustrate by citing a few instances from life, let me give first the
case of a young New England man, who, as usually happens, did not resort
to a physician until his bashfulness had begun to interfere with his
earning a livelihood.
"I have not the slightest idea what is the matter with me," he told the
neurologist whom he consulted, "but the fact is that for a good many years
I have felt strangely timid when meeting people. I believe I am naturally
of a courageous disposition--certainly I do not suffer from cowardice in
the ordinary sense--but I actually blush and tremble if spoken to suddenly
or looked at intently. Lately I notice this has been growing worse."
"Can you tell me," the physician asked, "just when you first noticed that
you were bashful?"
"No, I am sorry to say I can't. I only know that it began while I was a
boy."