Part 7 (1/2)
The s.e.x relations.h.i.+p is the basis of marriage. The famous couplet of Rosalind still holds good. The s.e.x instinct (or rather instincts, for coupled with s.e.x-desire is love of beauty, admiration, joy of possession, triumph, etc.) has the unique place of being more regulated by law and custom than any other basic instinct. The law holds that no marriage is consummated until the s.e.x act has taken place, regardless of the words of preacher or State official. The happiness of the first year or years of married life is mostly in its voluptuous bonds, for companions.h.i.+p and comrades.h.i.+p have really not yet arisen. Complementary to this it may be said that much of married misery, especially for the woman, arises from the first marital embrace.
This last is because of the ignorance of men and women, an ignorance wholly due to prudery. The majority of women have been chaste before marriage; the majority of men have not. One would expect therefore knowledge of men, the knowledge of experience. But the experience has been gained with women of a certain type and has not equipped the man to deal with his wife. Though most women know in advance what is expected of them, some are even ignorant of the most elemental facts of s.e.x, and even those who know are unprepared for reality.
Too frequently the man regards himself as a Grand Seigneur with a paramount ”Jus Primis Noctis.” True, the majority of men are abashed in the presence of innocence and deal gently with it,--but others follow in a repellent way their instinct of possession. Any neurologist of experience has cases where s.e.xual frigidity and neurasthenia in a woman can be traced back to the shock of that all-important first night.
There are savage races in which preparation for marriage is an elementary part of education. We need not follow them into absurdity, but more than the last silly whispered words to bride and groom at the ceremony is necessary. A formal antenuptial enlightenment, frank and expert, is needed by our civilization.
The s.e.x appet.i.te varies as widely as any other human character.
Generally speaking, it is believed that s.e.xual pa.s.sion in women is more episodic than in men, often relating to the menstrual period. In many cases it does not develop as a conscious factor in the woman's life until after marriage, and sometimes not until the first child is born.
Certainly desire in the girl is a more generalized, less local, less conscious excitement than it is in the boy who cannot misunderstand his feelings. I think it may safely be said that allowing for the freedom of boys and men, there is native to the male a more urgent pa.s.sion than to the female. This would be biologically necessary, since upon him devolves not only courts.h.i.+p but the fundamental activity in the s.e.xual act. A pa.s.sionless woman may have s.e.xual relation, a pa.s.sionless man cannot.
The disparity in s.e.x desire between a husband and wife may be slight or great. No statistics on the subject will ever be gathered, from the very nature of the facts, but it is safe to say that much more disparity exists than is suspected. And likewise it causes more trouble than is suspected. Where the virility of the mate is inadequate there breeds a subtle dissatisfaction that may corrode domestic happiness and bring about conflict on subjects quite remote from the real issue.
Contrariwise, to have relations forced or coaxed on one where desire is lacking brings about disgust, nervous reactions, fatigue of marked nature.
A woman s.e.xually well mated often clings beyond reason to an unworthy mate. Many an inexplicable marriage, many a fantastic loyalty of a good woman to a bad man has its origin where it is least expected, in the s.e.x attachment. Demureness of appearance, refinement of manner, n.o.ble ideals are not at all inconsistent with powerful s.e.x feeling. There is no reason why strong, well-controlled pa.s.sion should be considered anything but a virtue, why the pleasure of the s.e.xual field should, under the social restriction, be regarded as impure.
Too often the latter is the case. Fantastic puritanical ideas often govern both men and women. I have in mind several couples who desired to live continent until such time as children were desired. The biological reasons for the s.e.xual relations seemed to them the only ”pure” reasons.
Needless to say the resolution broke down under the intimacy of one roof, but meanwhile a conflict was engendered that took some vigorous counsel to dissipate.
This purely occidental idea that s.e.xual pleasure is somehow unworthy is responsible for a disparity of a further kind. There are parts of the physical side of love in which the majority of men need education, though in the well-adjusted married life the proper knowledge comes.
Nature has not completely adjusted the s.e.xes to one another; it is the part of the man to bring about that adjustment. This part of the adjustment need not here be detailed; the books of Havelock Ellis are explicit on the matter. Certainly no small share of the difficulties of our housewife result, for it is a law that excitement without gratification brings about nervous instability.
Whether or not the American domestic life is too intimate, too constant, is an important question. For the majority of people, after the first ecstasy of the bridal year, separate rooms might be better than a single chamber occupied together. There are people to whom one bed and one room is symbolic of their close unity, of their joined lives, who find comfort and companions.h.i.+p in the knowledge that their life partner sleeps beside them. Where s.e.xual compatibility or adjustment exists, there is nothing but commendation for this arrangement. Where it does not exist, the separate chambers are better for obvious reasons.
A development of recent times is the rapidly increasing use of what are politely known as birth-control measures. This development is rapidly changing the number of births in the community to a figure below that necessary for the perpetuation of the race. We are not concerned here with the morality or immorality of these measures. Modern woman undoubtedly will continue to take the stand that childbearing should be voluntary, that involuntary motherhood is incompatible with her dignity and status as a person. In this, through the increasing cost of living as well as sympathy with her att.i.tude, she will be backed by her husband. I predict without fear that Church and State will have to adjust themselves to this situation.
The fear of pregnancy has brought about this situation, that many a woman undergoes an agony of symptoms which is only relieved when her monthly function appears. This fear makes the s.e.xual relations.h.i.+p a risk almost outweighing its pleasure. The notoriously ”unsafe” character of the contraceptive measures has only diminished this fear, not completely allayed it.
Moreover the contraceptive measures, according to the law that every ”solution” breeds new problems, have their place in causing nervousness.
Rarely do these measures replace the natural act in satisfaction.
Further, some are unable to conquer their repugnance and disgust and some are left excited and unsatisfied. Vasomotor disturbances, neurasthenic symptoms, obsessions, and hysterical phenomena occur in many women as well as in some men. One of the stock questions of the neurologists when examining a married man or woman complaining of neurasthenic symptoms relates to the contraceptive measures used. The channel of discharge of s.e.xual excitement is race old. And this new development blocks that channel. For many persons this is sufficient to deenergize the organism.
At the present time there are two trends in the s.e.x sphere, so far as women are concerned. There is the masculine trend, which is usually called feminism. Women tend to take up the work formerly exclusively belonging to men; they tend to dress more like men, with flat shoes, collars and ties, and tailor-made clothes. They take up the vices of men,--smoking, drinking,--are building up a club life, live in bachelor apartments, call each other by their last names, etc.
Whether with this goes a greater s.e.xual license or not it is difficult to say. The observers best qualified to comment think there has been a decrease in female chast.i.ty,--that the entrance of women in industrial life, the growth of the cities, the increase in automobiles, the greater freedom of women, the dropping of restraint in manner and speech, have brought women's morals somewhat nearer to men's.
The other trend, not entirely separate except for externals, is marked by a hyper-s.e.xuality, an emphasis of femaleness. This is by far the more common phenomenon and probably more widely spread through society. The dress of women in general is more daring, more designed for s.e.x allurement than for a century past. Women paint and powder in a way that only the demimonde did a generation ago, reminding one of the ladies of the French Court in the eighteenth century. Further, the plays of the day would be called mere burlesque a generation back; the girl and music show has the center of the stage, and the drama in America has almost disappeared. There is an epidemic of magazines that flirt with the risque; with t.i.tles that are sometimes much more clever than their contents.
Such eras have been with us before this, have come and gone. It is doubtful if they ever affected so large a number of people. The excitement of the daily life is increased in a s.e.xual way, and this brings an unrest that reacts on the anchor of the home, the housewife.
She too tugs at her moorings; life must be speeded up for her too as well as for the younger and unattached women. She becomes more dissatisfied and therefore more nervous.
Altogether the s.e.xual relations.h.i.+p of modern marriage needs a candid examination. No drastic change is indicated, but education in s.e.xual affairs for men and women is a need. Even the prudish admit the pleasure of the s.e.x-life, and that seems to be their fundamental aversion to it.
Most of the advice and injunctions in the past seem to have come from the s.e.xually abnormal. It is time that this was changed; in fact, it is being changed. The danger lies in a swing to extremes, in leaving the fields to those who think reform lies in the abolition of restraint, in the disregard of all social supervision and obligation. Free love is more disastrous if possible than prudery.
CHAPTER VIII