THE SYMPTOMS AS WEAPONS AGAINST THE HUSBAND
Throughout life, two great trends may be picked out of the intricacy of
human motives and conduct. The one is (or may be called) the Will to
Power, the other the Will to Fellowship. The will to power is the desire
to conquer the environment, to lead one's fellows, to accumulate wealth
(power), to write a great book (influence or power), to become a
religious leader (power), to be successful in any department of human
effort. In every group, from a few tots playing in the grass to
gray-headed statesmen deciding a world's destinies, there is a struggle
of these wills to power. In the children's group this takes the trivial
(to us) form as to who shall be "policeman" or "teacher", in the
statesmen it takes the "weighty" form as to which river shall form a
boundary line and which group of capitalists shall exploit this or that
benighted country. The will to power includes all trends which inflate
the ego,--love of admiration, pride, reluctance to admit error, desire
for beauty, lust for possession, cruelty, even philanthropy, which in
many cases is the good man's desire for power over the lives of his
fellows.
Side by side with this group of instincts and purposes, interplaying and
interweaving with it, modifying it and being modified by it, is the
group we call the will to fellowship. This is the social sense, the need
of other's good will, the desire to help, sympathy, love, friendly
feeling, self-sacrifice, sense of fair play, all the impulses that are
essentially maternal and paternal, devotion to the interests of others.
This will to fellowship permeates all groups, little and big, old and
young, and is the cement stuff of life, holding society together.
There are those who find no difference between the _egoism_ of the will
to power and the _altruism_ of the will to fellowship. They assert that
if egoism is given a wider range, so that the ego includes others, you
have altruism, which therefore is only an egoism of a larger ego.
However true this may be logically, for all practical purposes we may
separate these two trends in human nature.
In each individual there goes on from cradle to grave a struggle between
the will to power and the will to fellowship. The teaching of morality
is largely the government, the subordination of the will to power; the
teaching of success and achievement is largely the discovery of means by
which it is to be gained. However we may disguise it to ourselves, power
is what we mainly seek, though we may call our goal knowledge, science,
benevolence, invention, government, money.
Without the will to fellowship the will to power is tyranny, harshness,
cruelty, autocracy, and men hate the possessor of such a character.
Without the will to power, the will to fellowship is sterile, futile,
and the owner becomes lost in a world of striving people who brush him
aside. The two must mingle. And a curious thing becomes evident in the
life of men, which in itself is simple enough to understand. When men
who have been ruthless, concentrated on success, specialists in the will
to power, reach their goal, they often turn to the thwarted will to
fellowship for real satisfaction in life, become philanthropists, world
benefactors, etc. On the other hand those who start out with ideals of
altruism and service, specialists in the will to fellowship, generally
lose enthusiasm for this and turn slowly, half reluctantly, to the will
for power. In life's cycle it is common to see the egotist turn
philanthropist, and the altruist, the idealist, lose faith and become an
egotist.
How does this apply to the nervous housewife? Simply this, that there
are various ways of seeking power, of gaining one's ends.
There is first the method of force, directly applied. The strong man
disdains subtlety, persuasion, sweeps opposition aside. "Might is right"
is his motto; he beats down opposition by fist, by sword, by thundering
voice, or look. Men who use this method are little troubled by codes;
they follow the primitive line of direct attack.
There is second the method of strategy, the disguise of purpose, the
disguise of means. The effort is to shift the attention of the opponent
to another place and then to walk off with the prize. "Possession is
nine points of the law" say these folk. And a straight line is _not_
the shortest way for strategy. Or exchange with your opponent, give what
_seems_ valuable for what _is_ valuable and then fall back on the adage,
"A fair exchange is no robbery."
Third, there is persuasion. Here, by stirring your opponent into
friendliness, he talks matters over, he aligns his interest with yours.
Compromise is the keynote, coöperation the watchword. "'Tis folly to
fight, we both lose by battle; whose is the gain?"
Fourth is the method of the weak, to gain an end through weakness,
through arousing sympathy, by parading grief, by awakening the
discomfort of unpleasant emotion in an opponent who is of course not an
implacable enemy. This has been woman's weapon from time immemorial;
tears and sobs are her sword and gun. Unable to cope with man on an
equal plane, through his superior physical strength, his intrenched
social and legal position, she took advantage of her beauty and
desirability, of his love; if that failed, she fell back on her grief
and sorrow by which to plague him into submission, into yielding.
Children use this weapon constantly; they cry for a thing and develop
symptoms in the face of some disagreeable event, such as a threatened
punishment. In their day-dreams the idea of dying to punish their cruel
parents is a favorite one.
This appeal to the conscience of the stronger through a demonstration of
weakness may be called "Will to Power through Weakness." It has long
been known to women that a man is usually helpless in the presence of
woman's tears, if it is apparent that something he has done has brought
about the deluge. And in the case of some housewives, certain
similarities between tears and the symptoms appear that show that in
these cases, at least, the symptoms of nervousness appear as a
substitute for tears in the marital conflict.
Not that this is a deliberate and fully conscious process, nor that it
causes the symptoms. On the contrary, it is a use for them!
Such a conclusion of course is not to be reached in those cases where
the symptoms arise out of sickness of some kind, or where they follow
long and arduous household tasks. But every one knows that the woman
who gets sick, has a nervous headache, weakness, a loss of appetite, or
becomes blue as soon as she loses in some domestic argument, or when her
will is crossed; these symptoms persist until the exasperated but
helpless husband yields the point at issue. Then recovery takes place
almost at once.
In some of the severer cases of neurasthenia in women such a mechanism
can be traced. There is a definite relation between the onset of the
attacks and some domestic difficulty, and though the recovery does not
take place at once, an adjustment in favor of the wife causes the
condition to turn soon for the better.
I do not claim that the above is an original discovery. True, the
medical men have not formulated it in their textbooks, but every
experienced practitioner knows it to occur. And the humorists and the
satirists of the daily press use the theme every day. The favorite point
is that the brutal husband is forced to his knees through the
disabilities of his wife, and that cure takes place when--he gets her
the bonnet or dress she wants, when the trip to Florida is ordered, etc.
etc.
Discreditable to women? Discreditable to those women who use it? Men
would do the same in the face of superior force. In the battle of wills
that goes on in life the weak must use different weapons than the
strong. Doubtless the women of another day, trained otherwise than our
present-day women and having a different relationship to men, will
abandon, at least in larger part, the weapons of weakness. Wherever
women work with men on a plane of equality they ask no favors and resort
to no tears. They play the game as men do, as "good sports." But where
the relationship is the one-sided affair of matrimony, a certain type
uses her tears, her aches and pains, her moods, and her failings to gain
her point.