Part 8 (2/2)
CHAPTER IX
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 Fellows.h.i.+p. The will to power is the desire to conquer the environment, to lead one's fellows, to acc.u.mulate 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 gra.s.s 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, l.u.s.t 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 fellows.h.i.+p. 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 fellows.h.i.+p 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 fellows.h.i.+p. They a.s.sert 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 fellows.h.i.+p. 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 fellows.h.i.+p 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 fellows.h.i.+p 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 fellows.h.i.+p 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 fellows.h.i.+p, 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 s.h.i.+ft 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, cooperation 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 subst.i.tute 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 appet.i.te, 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 pract.i.tioner 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 relations.h.i.+p 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 relations.h.i.+p 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.
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