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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..227051f --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #60320 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60320) diff --git a/old/60320-0.txt b/old/60320-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index fb8a1bf..0000000 --- a/old/60320-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9739 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Plea for Monogamy, by Wilfrid Lay - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: A Plea for Monogamy - -Author: Wilfrid Lay - -Release Date: September 18, 2019 [EBook #60320] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PLEA FOR MONOGAMY *** - - - - -Produced by Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - - -A PLEA FOR MONOGAMY - - - - - A PLEA FOR - MONOGAMY - - BY - WILFRID LAY, Ph.D. - - Author of _Man’s Unconscious Conflict_, _The Child’s Unconscious - Mind_, _Man’s Unconscious Passion_ and _Man’s - Unconscious Spirit_. - - [Illustration] - - _O heart! Oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!_ - _Earth’s returns_ - _For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!_ - _Shut them in,_ - _With their triumphs and their glories and the rest,_ - _Love is best!_ - - —Browning: Love Among the Ruins. - - BONI AND LIVERIGHT - PUBLISHERS NEW YORK - - _Copyright, 1923, by_ - BONI AND LIVERIGHT, INC. - - PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - - First Printing, June, 1923 - Second Printing, November, 1923 - Third Printing November, 1924 - Fourth Printing, February, 1925 - Fifth Printing, June, 1925 - Sixth Printing, August, 1925 - Seventh Printing, January, 1926 - - - - -UXORI AMANDISSIMAE - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I. TRUE CONCEPTION OF MARRIAGE 1 - - § 1 Disproportionate emotional and intellectual - development, p. 1; § 2 Archaic emotions in marriage, p. - 2; § 3 Charity, p. 3; § 4 The sexual crisis, p. 4; § 5 - Man’s erotic dominance, p. 6; § 6 Misapprehension about - psychoanalysis, p. 7; § 7 Polymorphous-perverse, p. 11; § - 8 Marriage the only cure, p. 12; § 9 The normal sex life, - p. 12; § 10 The true sense of “erotic,” p. 13. - - II. MODERN EMOTIONAL UNREST 16 - - § 11 Discontented wives, p. 16; § 12 Playmates and - cicisbeos, p. 18; § 13 Wife’s need of playmates is - husband’s fault, p. 19; § 14 Innovations in this book, - p. 21; § 15 Home spirit the husband’s creation, p. 22; § - 16 Masculinity and femininity, p. 23; § 17 Virile love, - p. 24; § 18 Arnold Bennett answered, p. 26; § 19 Love at - first sight, p. 29; § 20 Mental autoerotism, p. 31; § - 21 Mutuality, p. 32; § 22 Mutuality _vs._ autoerotism, - p. 35; § 23 Honeymoons and autoerotism, p. 37; § 24 - Barter and _quid pro quo_, p. 39; § 25 Novel result of - modern technique, p. 42; § 26 Satisfaction _via_ two - routes, p. 44; § 27 Infant class of husbands, p. 46; § 28 - Autosuggestion in marital life, p. 48; § 29 Hypersomatic - and hyposomatic, p. 49; § 30 An objection answered, p. - 51; § 31 The idea: “I cannot,” p. 52; § 32 Sedentary - _vs._ athletic men, p. 53. - - III. EMOTIONS 56 - - § 33 Emotions as organic sensations, p. 56; § 34 Men as - emotional as women, p. 58; § 35 Repression, p. 59; § 36 - Erotic emotion, p. 59; § 37 Woman’s repressed emotions, - p. 60; § 38 Reassociability, p. 61; § 39 The case of Miss - F., p. 62; § 40 The case of Mrs. G., p. 63; § 41 Slight - reassociability of erotic emotion, p. 64. - - IV. INSTINCTS 66 - - § 42 Twofold division of instincts, p. 66; § 43 The - egoistic-social instinct, p. 67; § 44 Comparison - its essential feature, p. 68; § 45 Evolution of the - egoistic-social, p. 71; § 46 Plato’s fable, p. 73; § - 47 Completeness of life, p. 75; § 48 Not all sex acts - are truly erotic, p. 77; § 49 The young man with the - clandestine affair, p. 78; § 50 Egoistic-social instincts - over-stressed, p. 82; § 51 Present incipient tendency to - stress the erotic, p. 83; § 52 Parents’ happy marriage - necessary to child’s welfare, p. 85; § 53 The best - parental environment, p. 87; § 54 Marital pattern should - be seen by children, p. 89; § 55 Instinct in humans - inadequate, p. 90; § 56 Three fusions in heterosexual - union, p. 91; § 57 Instinctive reasoning by analogy, p. - 91; § 58 The greatest human happiness comes from the - three fusions, p. 93; § 59 Instinct of woman expects - strength in man, p. 93; § 60 Man’s reaction to feminine - opposition, p. 94; § 61 Visually unattractive women, p. - 95; § 62 The love instinct a bad guide, p. 96; § 63 The - ductless glands; superiority of the love instinct, p. 97. - - V. THE LOVE EPISODE 98 - - § 64 Love is control by husband, the work of a lifetime, - p. 98; § 65 The erotologist, p. 99; § 66 Wife the - “trembler,” p. 100; § 67 The precipitant husband, p. - 102; § 68 A positive expressive control of her love - emotions by the wife, p. 103; § 69 The love drama, p. - 104; § 70 Man’s occasional embarrassment, p. 105; § 71 - Unsatisfactoriness of promiscuity, p. 105; § 72 Marriage - as an examination of man by woman, p. 107; § 73 Man’s - failure to charm, p. 108; § 74 The love episode, p. 109; - § 75 Its extent, p. 110; § 76 Sign of fusion, p. 111; § - 77 Test of happiness, p. 112; § 78 “The Secret Places - of the Heart,” p. 113; § 79 The Islet, p. 113; § 80 - Reflections, p. 118; § 81 The Ocean Shore, p. 121; § 82 - Taking a woman’s all, p. 123; § 83 Erotic episode like - carving a statue, p. 124; § 84 Love episode only a step - in development, p. 124; § 85 Don Juanism’s fallacy, p. - 125; § 86 Phantasy of exhaustion, p. 126; § 87 Woman’s - infinite variety, p. 126; § 88 Union complete, total and - exclusive, p. 128; § 89 Taking a woman’s body, p. 128; § - 90 Woman’s right to acme, p. 130; § 91 Consciousness of - desire, p. 131; § 92 Woman’s helpless plight, p. 132; § - 93 The wife as complementary body, p. 133; § 94 Poverty - of emotional development, p. 133; § 95 Energy liberated - by erotism, p. 135; § 96 Preparation of the wife, p. - 136; § 97 Sufficient time to be given to it, p. 137; § - 98 The estrus and its psychological analogue, p. 138; - § 99 Futility of average love episodes, p. 139; § 100 - Karezza, etc., p. 140; § 101 Their extraordinary result, - p. 141; § 102 Their undeniable difficulty, p. 142; § 103 - Uselessness of attempting to confine the love impulse, - p. 144; § 104 Substitution of vicarious activities, p. - 145; § 105 Karezza compared to the Steinach operation, - p. 145; § 106 Karezza does not frustrate all emotional - relaxation, p. 146; § 107 Wife’s desire to be dominated - erotically, p. 148; § 108 Wife-domination not effected by - egoistic-social devotion, p. 149; § 109 Marital relations - cannot be too truly erotic, p. 151; § 110 Woman’s erotic - relaxation necessary, p. 151; § 111 Simultaneity, p. - 153; § 112 Autoerotism of the honeymoon, p. 154; § 113 - The succession plan, p. 155; § 114 It demonstrates the - husband’s erotic control, p. 155; § 115 It insures the - basis of a happy marriage, p. 157; § 116 Autosuggestion, - p. 159; § 117 Means of securing control, p. 160; § 118 - The love pattern an individual matter, p. 161; § 119 - Fetishism, p. 162; § 120 Illustrations, p. 163; § 121 The - wife’s unconscious attempt to hurry the husband, p. 165; - § 122 The mountain climbing, p. 165; § 123 The view at - the top, p. 166; § 124 The detail of the peak, p. 168; § - 125 Reflections at the top, p. 169; § 126 Accelerating - fetishisms, p. 170; § 127 Climbing together, p. 171. - - VI. CONTROL 175 - - § 128 Evolution of erotic over egoistic-social; - individuality and control, p. 175; § 129 Erotic control - is the only real individuality, p. 178; § 130 The - conventional demand, p. 179; § 131 Love impulse the only - thing left, p. 181; § 132 Control is not annihilation, - p. 182; § 133 Difference between man’s and woman’s - control, p. 183; § 134 Man’s lack of erotic control - unnecessary, p. 184; § 135 Woman’s inability to control - erotically, p. 186; § 136 Phantasy of honeymoon bliss; - the test, p. 187; § 137 Women’s confusion of the two - controls, p. 190; § 138 Woman’s development dependent on - husband’s, p. 192; § 139 Woman’s acme not conditioned - by husband’s, p. 193; § 140 Insensitiveness, p. 193; § - 141 Anesthesia, p. 195; § 142 Supremity of male control - misunderstood, p. 195; § 143 Objection answered, p. 196; - § 144 Interplay of control on egoistic-social level, p. - 197; § 145 Fallacy of erotic control by woman, p. 198; § - 146 Prolongation of love episode, p. 201; § 147 Failure - of illicit unerotic sex act to relax erotic tension, - p. 203; § 148 Development of husband imperative, p. - 205; § 149 Precipitancy caused by fear, p. 206; § 150 - Woman’s instinctive attempt to accelerate, p. 209; § 151 - Her unconscious man-testing, p. 211; § 152 The wrong - instinctive reaction of the husband to the test, p. 212; - § 153 Man should know what to expect, p. 214; § 154 - Responsibility _vs._ Fate, p. 216; § 155 The husband’s - hallucination, p. 217; § 156 The solitariness of crowds, - p. 219; § 157 The wife’s unavoidable resistance, p. 221; - § 158 Bride buried under stones, p. 222; § 159 The only - truly virile accomplishment, p. 224; § 160 The husband’s - anesthesia, p. 224; § 161 Metonymy, the part for the - whole, p. 225; § 162 Phantasy, p. 226; § 163 Control - through imagination, p. 228; § 164 A score of sense - qualities, p. 229; § 165 Manner of mental influence, p. - 231; § 166 The work of the mental pattern, p. 231; § 167 - Need of a love pattern, p. 232; § 168 Completing the - fragmentary wife, p. 233; § 169 More vividness for women, - p. 234. - - VII. THE UNHAPPY MARRIAGE 236 - - § 170 Overweighting physical or spiritual, p. 236; § 171 - Feeling of identity, p. 237; § 172 Erotic control only - a part, p. 239; § 173 Long engagements unnecessary, p. - 239; § 174 Changing adaptation needed, p. 240; § 175 - Love cannot be delegated, p. 241; § 176 Unconscious - polyandry, p. 242; § 177 Masochism, p. 243; § 178 Illicit - love enhances erotic element for some women, p. 245; § - 179 Freud on promiscuous men, p. 246; § 180 Erotism not - masochistic, p. 247; § 181 Jealousy in men and women, - p. 248; § 182 Mrs. Samuel Pepys, p. 249; § 183 Jealousy - atavistic, p. 250; § 184 Jealousy and homosexuality, p. - 251; § 185 Hyposomatic sex is not true erotism, p. 253; § - 186 Résumé of Chapters I to VII, p. 255. - - VIII. HOLOGAMY VS. PROSTITUTION 259 - - § 187 Hologamy defined, p. 259; § 188 Erotic as manned - and womaned, p. 260; § 189 Comparative monogamy, p. - 262; § 190 Health demands unity of personality, p. - 263; § 191 Plurality of women a dissociating element, - p. 264; § 192 Plurality as a search, p. 267; § 193 - Prostitution, p. 268; § 194 Two castes of women, p. 269; - § 195 The mother-imago or angel imago, p. 271; § 196 More - passion needed in marriage, p. 272; § 197 Futility of - prohibition, p. 273; § 198 Ellis’ “civilization value of - prostitution” answered, p. 274. - - IX. THE NEW MARRIAGE 276 - - § 199 Two meanings of “single standard,” p. 276; § 200 - What constitutes mastery, p. 277; § 201 Disappointments - in marriage, p. 279; § 202 The father’s part in the home, - p. 280; § 203 An illustration, p. 283; § 204 Management - of children an egoistic-social activity, p. 284; § 204 - New man and new woman not to confuse egoistic-social and - erotic levels, p. 286; § 206 Prodigality of nature, p. - 287; § 207 Trial marriage and romantic marriage, p. 289; - § 208 Rapport, p. 290; § 209 Erotic unions, p. 292; § - 210 Virginity, p. 292; § 211 Unconscious resentment of - bride, p. 293; § 212 Futility of extra-marital liaisons, - p. 294; § 213 Conclusion, p. 297. - - X. BIRTH CONTROL 298 - - § 214 Ready to print but cannot legally be printed, p. - 298. - - INDEX 301 - - - - -A PLEA FOR MONOGAMY - - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE TRUE CONCEPTION OF MARRIAGE - - Common sense indicates, happiness and health demand, science - proclaims and society is beginning to insist that men and women - understand and apply the palpable truth of the sex relations in - their married life.—DR. W. F. ROBIE. - - -§ 1 - -We are living in an age when the contrast between intellectual complexity -and emotional simplicity is becoming so great that the emotional -reactions and, because of them, the creative and destructive acts -of men are more and more unpredictable and variegated. Intellectual -attainment has reached an extraordinary height. Emotions have not been -trained or developed, if indeed they are capable of development. They -may not be, though it will be assumed in a later chapter that they are -susceptible of the kind of training that is produced by reassociation. -Emotions are the organic sensations perceived by the ego as the result -of reactions, caused by impressions from the external world, reactions -taking place within the tissues of the body, and associated with external -impressions. Emotions are no more complex than they were thousands of -years ago. - -When we say that the emotions of one man are finer than those of another -man we may mean either that he has repressed his sexual emotions, which -we have not been taught to call fine, or that his emotions of surprise, -awe, love, hate, jealousy and others are aroused by, that is, associated -with, more complicated external impressions than they are in another -man. Or we may call fine emotions the constructive emotions with which -pleasure is associated. - -The emotions as physical reactions have not changed in ages of evolution. -We have the same bodies as sounding boards on which the external -impressions reverberate, the same bodies practically that men had five -thousand years ago. But the number and variety of external experiences -has multiplied in geometrical ratio. The result is that, while -intellectually we are men of 1923, emotionally we may be cave men or -apes. With the products of modern civilization, the material advances and -complications, the means of intercommunication, of graphic representation -and of the transformation of natural resources we are, as Robinson says -in _The Mind in the Making_, merely _monkeying_. In spite of numerous -sporadic beginnings in the line of social use of the results of modern -scientific advancement we are as a race making almost no progress in the -direction of fine living. - - -§ 2 - -This is no more clearly evident in any other sphere of life than in -marriage. With all the intellectual progress made by humanity up to the -first quarter of the twentieth century marriage is still looked upon by -many men merely as an opportunity for either legitimized procreation -or unlimited sensual self-gratification. A man puts as much intellect -into his vocation as he is capable of. Into his marriage he puts not -intellect, but the emotions of the ancestral ape. Even in his sublimated -war of business he knows that a consideration of the other fellow is in -the end a winning card, and the word “service” has come into prominence -as advertising material. But in his marriage he uses the same crassly -selfish methods he has used for thousands, perhaps millions of years. - -The sheer blind, isolating selfishness of the average husband and the -misery it causes him are the reason for my writing this book. If a man -used one-tenth the intellect in his marital relations that he does in his -corporation finance and in his inventions and scientific research, the -latter would not be half as necessary as they seem to be, and he would -himself be infinitely happier. - - -§ 3 - -Unless we are progressing toward a woman-made social order it is -imperative that men carry on to a logical conclusion what they have begun. - -“Charity begins at home” is one of the many maxims that were originated -with a far different connotation from that which they have since -acquired. Charity (Latin _Caritas_) originally meant “dearness” or -“fondness” and once had an erotic flavour that it has since lost. The -only place for sexual love is in marriage and its having escaped from -this, like a captured thing, reflects not so much on itself as on the -unnaturalness of its captivity. True erotism has practically fled from -most marriages, leaving only an empty shell. Men should reflect that -nothing is more necessary for the upbuilding of a real civilization -than the personal lives of the individuals themselves. Penetratingly -thoughtful men realize that the present state of civilization is diseased -throughout, and that it “is not in our stars but in ourselves,” that we -are to rely for advance. - - -§ 4 - -In this book an attempt is made to show how men can so control their -marital situation as to make more and more unnecessary the tightness of -the bond that operates to make many marriages so like an imprisonment for -both husbands and wives. Also the suggestion is made that a certain type -of action on the husband’s part will work in the direction of making both -prostitution and divorce less and less necessary. - -This type of behaviour, comparatively rare at the present time, is based -on a pattern that will at once appeal to the sense of justice innate in -every man. Although it implies a relaxation of much present constraint -and artificiality in the married relation, it is in no sense antagonistic -to true monogamous union but rather constitutes a much more advanced and -progressive attitude toward the most vital question of the day. - -The marriage of the near future, it is hoped, will be inspired by our -latest scientific knowledge concerning the psychology of sex, including -the ever present unconscious factor, which is the most potent factor in -the marital situation and which has been necessarily ignored for the -simple reason that, previous to a few years ago, everyone was ignorant of -the unconscious mechanisms and their relation to each other, in making -for mistakes and unhappiness in marital behaviour. - -If every man would exercise the control over himself (the opposite of -asceticism in the ordinarily accepted sense), the control which alone -will secure that emotional ascendancy over his wife, necessary for happy -marriage and unconsciously longed for by the wife, more than any other -thing in marital life, he will reduce to the lowest possible frequency -both divorce, which is the issue of so many marriages, and prostitution, -which has for so many centuries been regarded as the bulwark of marriage -and the protection of the wife. - -As Grete Meisel-Hess says in her _Sexual Crisis_, “The happy marriage of -the securely placed wife is founded upon the degradation and debasement -of another woman, the prostitute”; and Havelock Ellis in the sixth volume -of his _Psychology of Sex_ (page 296) says that “the value of marriage -as a moral agent is evidenced by the fact that all the better-class -prostitutes in London are almost entirely supported by married men,” -while “in Germany, as stated in the interesting series of reminiscences -by a former prostitute, the majority of the men who visit prostitutes are -married.” He then gives several reasons why this is the case. - -If every wife should give serious thought to exactly how much degradation -the prostitute has been considered to save her from, she would realize -that what the prostitute guards her from could be transmuted by the -proper attitude on the husband’s part from a crassly physical into a -highly spiritual thing. And she would move heaven and earth to induce her -husband to study the fine art of love in so thorough a manner that there -could be no doubt of the happy issue of their mutual love life. - -Critics of marriage as it exists today have amply demonstrated that it -shields more immorality, in some cases, than even prostitution itself; -and it is a fact that this immorality comes from a lack of spiritual -rapport between husband and wife, that can be effected primarily, if not -solely, by the husband. - - -§ 5 - -While this book assumes that the marital relation is one in which an -emotional control is necessary to be exercised by the husband over the -wife, it does not assume for a moment but rather denies that the husband -should exert any control whatever over the activities of the wife, -especially in spheres other than the strictly conjugal. - -On the contrary, a husband domineers in small every-day matters only -when, and because, he feels unconsciously that he is failing, or is -beginning to fail, to dominate in the great and important sphere of -woman’s emotional life. - -For the health and happiness of them both, this sphere should be the love -emotions; at any rate, only the constructive or anabolic emotions. A -husband who rightly dominates need not and will not trouble to domineer. -If the wife is as profoundly moved erotically by marriage as she should -be this deep emotion will impel her to develop her personality to the -utmost for the advantage of her husband and, _a fortiori_, of herself. - -It should always be borne in mind by both husband and wife that the love -impulse is uniformly to take precedence over the ego (social) impulse, a -precedence that, however, in our present competitive society it is very -difficult to give. But it is worth every thought that can be devoted to -it; to refine the pattern, to ennoble the picture, of marital life. - - -§ 6 - -A common misapprehension that psychoanalysis leads to promiscuity in -sexual relations needs emphatic correction. The reasoning wrested out -of psychoanalytical findings runs somewhat as follows: Most modern ills -and notably neurotic disturbances, mild and severe, are the result of -the repression brought to bear on the sex instinct by modern civilized -life. Therefore, in order to avoid or cure these multitudinous ills, the -individual whose natural instincts have been repressed, must dig them -up, with great toil and at great expense of time and money, and give -them free play in spite of the prohibitions of society. Indeed, in this -country, psychoanalysts, of the first rank in other respects, have been -said to recommend both men and women patients to make what arrangements -they could to indulge in sexual intercourse, even if unmarried.[1] - -Now fully admitting that the mental and physical troubles of these -patients, and all others who suffer from ills of psychic origin, arise -from the repression of the sexual instinct, it still shows a far too -great tendency on the part of their advisers to temporize and compromise -with facts, if they give this advice. For, while a conflict between -two forces, one or both of which were in the unconscious, is more -satisfactorily and successfully carried on if the two forces are brought -out into the open light of consciousness, the conflict still remains, and -is only shifted to another field where it may go on as before, and with -unabated fierceness. - -The conflict between the individual and society is just as great whether -a man takes it out in himself through a neurosis or gives up the neurosis -and takes a prostitute or a regular mistress, neither of which has the -sanction of society. In the case of many neurotics the cure is worse than -the disease simply because the social pressure becomes clearer to the -individual if he actually does, even in secret, the things he had before -only unconsciously wished. For him the conflict not only is not resolved -but is worse, for if like the majority of neurotics he is of a more -sensitive type than the average person the contrast between his actions -and the implicit demands of his environment will be all the greater. -He will be doing in reality the very thing he unconsciously desired but -feared to do. - -And yet not the same thing after all. For unless the mistress is of that -rare and extraordinary type of Mlle. Drouet who supplied for Victor Hugo -what he would have much preferred to get from his wife, had she been -spiritually able to give it, there will be, for the unfortunately advised -neurotic, another conflict not on an ethical but on an intellectual and -spiritual plane. - -The advice for such people can only be to get married; or, if that -is beyond the bounds of possibility, which is seldom the case, the -suggestion to adopt a moderate autoerotism has been made by some -physicians in good standing as an acceptable substitute at least for the -neurotic of either sex. It frees them, at any rate, from the feeling that -they are injuring anyone else, either directly or indirectly. - -An emphatic reiteration is here appropriate concerning the harmlessness -of the physical forms of autoerotism as practised, at some times in -their lives, by almost nine-tenths of humanity of both sexes, especially -civilized humanity, where a taboo is placed on other normal heterosexual -practices. The autoerotism mentioned (in sections 21-25 on mutuality) is -purely a psychical intellectual or mental autoerotism entirely apart from -the physical. Its results are, in the long run, far worse. (See note, p. -24.) - -Grete Meisel-Hess, in _The Sexual Crisis_, speaking of the men who are -sexual compulsion neurotics and whom she describes as male counterparts -of the _demi-vierges_, says (page 155): “They are unable to surmount the -ultimate obstacle between I and Thou. They are unable to complete their -work, incompetent to possess a woman utterly. The amatory intimacies -are never fully consummated. They get through the preliminaries of -love and the first preludes; but that which comes afterward, the -most beautiful and also the most difficult part, remains unenjoyed, -unmastered, unconsummated. I am not referring here to what is ordinarily -termed impotence. This sentimental impotence has nothing to do with -mere physical weakness, but is far more disastrous, since it forever -bars those affected with it from an entry into the deepest experiences -of love. It is only the strong in soul who are capable of love in its -completeness.” - -The physical autoerotic acts, far from having the results of producing -physical and mental weakness (as has been unscientifically stated and -slavishly repeated for two centuries), are nature’s way of developing -the reproductive apparatus for strictly human use. The injuries supposed -to result are now scientifically proven to be the result caused by the -fear of harm, and the shame inspired in young people by stupidly ignorant -elders. - -The autoerotic mental attitude described in this section is a peculiarity -of men who through lack of enlightenment have not yet outgrown a tendency -to remain, in their psychic reactions, infantile or puerile. But there -is no proof that the inevitably autoerotic attitude of the young need -persist for a moment after they have grasped the idea of the difference -between autoerotism and a real object love that contains the growing -element of perfect mutuality. And yet many men unnecessarily get the -idea fixed in their minds that autoerotic practices have weakened them -physically or have produced a mental habit of mind that cannot be broken. -From one point of view it is the easiest thing in the world to present -the proofs of the utter harmlessness of the autoerotic practices and the -utter groundlessness of the fears which make almost every man, that is -human, lack the confidence which will give him the necessary control over -his own, and incidentally over his wife’s, erotism. (See note, p. 14.) - - -§ 7 - -The recommendation to the neurotic patient to take up clandestine sex -relationship is based on the same misinterpretation of psychoanalytic -theory that is seen in the explanation given by shallow, self-styled -psychoanalysts of Freud’s term “polymorphous perverse” as applied to the -sexuality of children. _Polymorphous_ means “of many shapes or patterns,” -and implies that a child gets as much pleasure and satisfaction from -stimulation of any one of its “erogenous zones” as it does from any other -including the genital. This is quite easily comprehensible from the point -of view that the child’s sexuality, like the unassembled parts of an -automobile, is synthetized at puberty under the “primacy of the genital -zones” whereupon all the pleasures of stimulation of all the other zones -serve only as preliminaries to that of the genital. - -And the word _perverse_ in its etymological significance means only -“turned in all directions,” i.e., as much toward one zone as to another. -But the word perverse in its ordinary sense has the connotation of moral -turpitude. - -It would be as senseless to call a child’s interest in its skin, and -pleasure in sucking its thumb or a piece of candy, perverse in this -latter sense as it would be to call a ring gear of a differential -_wicked_ just because it was lying on the floor of a garage, and the -mechanic had not yet put it in place. - -Thus has Freud been misinterpreted and the good of all his fearless -investigation into sexual life annulled by the shortsighted and ignorant -misreading of his work on the part of so many of those who would call -themselves his followers. - - -§ 8 - -Only marriage and only a pure and complete monogamy without anesthesia[2] -on the part of either mate will satisfy both conscious and unconscious -cravings of the neurotic. It is a great advantage to have these -unconscious cravings introduced into consciousness if for the only -reason of giving a greater self-knowledge and therefore a greater -self-confidence. - -Not only all conscious and unconscious love cravings can, but all should -be satisfied in every marriage from the beginning of it all through to -the end of it. By the majority of healthy people they should be given -conscious expression by both mates much more frequently than they -actually are. - - -§ 9 - -So many unhappily married people ask, “What, Doctor, _is_ a normal sex -life?” It is generally considered by all authorities that individuals -vary to such an extent that it is impossible to lay down any rule except -that in the normal sex life the conscious outward expression should never -take place except when it is a mutual and reciprocal expression, and -that, on these conditions, no limits that could be called normal really -exist. - -But the attitude of this book is that the mutuality is largely if not -entirely the result of the husband’s love-making. In the ideal marriage -he is and always should be the leading factor in the exclusively erotic -sphere. - - -§ 10 - -Every use of the term erotic episode or love episode or love drama, is -to be understood as emphatically affirming the indispensability of an -equal emphasis on both the so-called physical and the so-called mental -or spiritual factor of the love life, neither one nor the other omitted, -neither one nor the other unduly overweighted. - -We are minds or souls inhabiting or, better, organically connected with -bodies. Everyone knows the body cannot be neglected any more than the -mind. But the most mental of the bodily reactions and the most bodily -of the mental reactions are the emotions; and as far as present-day -physiological researches have been able to discover, both are most -closely interrelated by the interlocking system of ductless glands, among -which the interstitial or sexual glands are the grand president of all -the boards of directors.[3] - -Tradition first, in classical Greek and Roman times, unduly overweighted -the physical end and, in modern times, has attempted unduly to overweight -the spiritual end of the balance, but neither of these processes -has restored a balance which is fundamental to the highest type of -Christianity—the balance between the erotic[4] and the egoistic-social -trends.[5] This balance it is the object of this book to suggest, with -the hope that such an approach to equilibrium of two tendencies that are -now badly out of balance will help to show the futility of much activity -that is now called civilized, but which is not most adapted to producing -the greatest happiness of the individual, and through that, the greatest -prosperity of such people as are destined by happiness and prosperity to -survive the crumbling of the present state of society. - - -THE SURPRISE OF THE IMPERFECTLY MARRIED - -_What? Every pair in every marriage attain absolute bliss in every love -episode? Do you mean to tell me that the rose mist of dawn lasts through -the entire day?_ - -Of course, why not? Should one expect every day to be cloudy? Must we -expect our lives to be unhappy? Is it wholesome to live in an atmosphere -of tragedy? Not to have perfect married love is to act lower than the -animals—to have abolished instinct, by which they act, and not to have -attained knowledge, according to which are regulated the acts of all -adepts in the art of love. - - -THE SURPRISE OF THE PERFECTLY MARRIED - -_What? Do you mean to tell me that every married couple do not go through -the same perfect type of love episode we do every day or two? Why, we -have never had anything else from the very first and supposed, of course, -everybody else was exactly like us._ - -Of course, they do not. You see how people _look_, don’t you, after a few -years of marriage? - - - - -CHAPTER II - -MODERN EMOTIONAL UNREST - - Let me not to the marriage of true minds - Admit impediments. Love is not love - Which alters when it alteration finds. - - SHAKESPEARE, _Sonnet_ CXVI. - - -§ 11 - -This book is written largely in the hope that the thousands of unhappy -married women, and the unmarried too, as fate sometimes suddenly and -unexpectedly finds them a partner, will, in reading it, realize what is -making them so restless and discontented. - -In the past few years all interested observers of social phenomena have -been appalled at the lightness with which a great majority of the upper -middle classes regard matrimony. - -Intelligent women, readers of good books, and themselves often friends -of authors, artists, musicians, and other creative personalities are -all absorbed in the most vital topics of the day, chief of which is the -discussion of the normal adjustment of the sex relation. Indeed, it has -been charged that both women and men in this stratum of society talk -sex _ad nauseam_. This is likely to continue until the much desired -adjustment is better made than it is at present. - -The cause of this concentration upon sex problems can be only the -fact that sex is a problem. If our sexual standards were fixed in a -universally serviceable pattern such that changing external conditions -did not almost hourly tend to make it antiquated and useless, the -attention of so large a proportion of civilized humanity need not be -given to it in the present-day excited manner. - -It is, of course, a question whether sexual problems can ever be -permanently solved; but those in the focus of public attention today are -so insistent that it is impossible to ignore them. Various solutions are -being attempted more or less secretly where public opinion’s ban on sex -discussion is stronger; less secretly elsewhere. - -But a pattern of sexual behaviour, a true love pattern, even if it -could not be final should have at least enough elasticity to make the -changes in it a gradual transition. No sensational innovations can ever -hope to be adopted overnight with the approval of society at large. In -fact, conventions in other spheres than those of love are made, and have -been made gradually for centuries. But it is a curious fact that the -conventionalities which concern the expression of the erotic impulse are -those not of yesterday but of many hundreds of years ago. This is but a -manifestation of the extreme complication of the external circumstances -of modern life in contrast with the wonderful simplicity and directness -of the emotions themselves which reverberate in response to the external -complexities. - -It will appear, as this discussion proceeds, that the sexual problems -of today are conditioned by the inhibitions placed by modern economic -conditions upon the natural and instinctive expression of the erotic -impulse. In brief, both men and women talk sex and particularly women, -in a certain extensive class of society, for the real though disguised -purpose of exciting themselves sexually. - -There is every satisfactory proof that this would not occur if their -sexual lives were normal. It is therefore the repressed sexual activity -that breaks out, not in sexual acts specifically, but in the vicarious -sex activity of problem novels, problem plays, risqué stories, and the -talk in mixed company which has been objected to as persistent sex talk. - -Men and women with a perfectly normal love life feel no need whatever -to talk about it. But the inference from that—namely, that those who -resolutely refrain from mention of all such topics are themselves -quite normal in their own love life—is illogical in the extreme. Many -are constrained by an inner fear of self-revelation, lest they show -themselves as abnormal. Thus it may occur that some will not refuse to -discuss this most vital of all topics, for fear they may be considered -themselves abnormal. - -But it is safe to say that the greater number of those who talk much -about love are those whose love is either undeveloped or in some way -awry, and that unconsciously they are attempting to straighten themselves -out, in their own eyes or in the eyes of their friends. - - -§ 12 - -The most exciting conversation on love is, of course, that between two -persons of opposite sex. And in many social circles there has of late -sprung up a new term. A married woman will have some particular male -friend not her husband, whom she laughingly refers to as her “playmate.” -With this “mate” she plays at love and love-making under the guise of -serious discussion. In some coteries, the married woman’s playmate may -be some other woman’s husband, but the favourites for playmates are -unmarried men.[6] - -These “little beaux” or “playmates” are an indication of the essential -childishness of the marriage relation where they play a part, and the -position of the husband whose wife needs such amusement is an exceedingly -unenviable one, no matter how purely Platonic the relation may be between -his wife and her playmate. - - -§ 13 - -It will be consistently maintained in this book that the need of such -Platonic friendships on the part of these numerous wives is a reflection -on the lack of skill with which the husband handles the erotic situation. -He may not be, often, indeed, is not, in the least to blame for his -lack of skill, or for the discontent of his wife that causes her to -give expression to the play side of love, or, even a part of it, in -this taking of a playmate. It is a situation which practically calls -the husband a workmate, or dutymate—a situation that is fundamentally -deplorable and constitutes in fact the first step in the direction of -divorce. - -The playmates provide a large amount of innocent amusement, which the -husbands do not or cannot find time possibly to furnish themselves. With -the playmates the wives go to lunches, dances, theatres, concerts, and -talk poetry, art, music—and love. - -All the evidence points to the fact that these wives are not properly -mated. It is not their fault. It is their husbands’, yet, because of the -husbands’ ignorance of the love needs of women, the husbands are not to -blame, at any rate until they have taken to heart the message which this -book attempts to convey. - -Possibly the wives themselves, after thinking the matter over in the -light of what they may read in this book, might talk to their husbands -about love now as perhaps once they did, and get them to realize what -they are failing to do. - -Seeking intellectual stimulation from a playmate whose tenure of office -is permanent or nearly so is, as psychoanalysis has amply demonstrated, -a substitute or vicariate for sex. The women are, but of course -unconsciously, wishing for more extended and more intimate love episodes -with their playmates. - -In short, restlessness of wives is an expression of the exclusively -economic trend of present-day civilization which makes a machine or an -office organization or a financial manipulation a substitute, in the mind -of the husband, for love. Such a man is most likely to take his business -home with him, where indeed business has no place—even, indeed, take it -to bed with him. - - -§ 14 - -The writer is aware of the unprecedented character of much that has -just been said, but feels that he knows whereof he speaks, also of the -revolutionary nature of the theses of the rest of this chapter in which -the subsequent matter of the book is given in outline. - -First, the statement that what is popularly known as romantic love has -little if any significance in true marriage. For it will be maintained -consistently that given a not too impossible combination of man and -woman, as for example those of too widely divergent social level, any -man can woo and win any woman and make her and himself supremely happy, -entirely apart from the neurotic sentimentality of romanticism. - -The theory that there is just one woman in the world who can make a given -man a perfect wife, and vice versa, is scientifically absurd, for there -is only an infinitesimal chance that these two should ever meet. Many -useless tears have been shed by men and women alike over these “ships -that pass in the night,” and thus frustrate what might have been supernal -happiness. - -Concerning the marital relation, a common sense view raised to scientific -proportions, shows incontrovertibly that married happiness is a creation -of the married people themselves and chiefly of the husband. More in -every way depends on him than on the woman. As pointed out by Meisel-Hess -the “sexual crisis” of the present day is due to the failure of the -individual man to know how to play, and to play acceptably, his part in -married life. - -Indeed, we may go so far as to say with absolute confidence that if a -Pacific liner should lose its way and ground on a desert island, the -thousand or so men and women passengers, supposing they were all young -and unmarried, could put their names on slips of paper in a box, and, -knowing that they were doomed to remain on the island for the rest of -their lives, draw lots for partners and become infinitely more happily -married lovers than the average married couple in civilization and quite -as happy as if they had followed conscious preference. - -But the stipulation is made that the five hundred men at least must be -adepts in the erotic technique. - -That is to say that the real happiness of a marriage depends solely on -the behaviour of the husband, consciously planned intelligent knowledge -of what a real marriage implies. - - -§ 15 - -It will be shown in the subsequent chapters that the aim of marriage is -not, as the reiterated phrase in Hutchinson’s novel, _This Freedom_, “men -that marry for a home” might imply, to make the husband happy. It is, -on the contrary, to make the woman happy, and the children, so that the -marriages of the future may be happier than those of the present. - -It will be shown that the husband not only can, if he knows how, but -must, if he wishes to be happy himself, first see to it that discontent -is an unknown thing. It is in his hands solely. His wife has practically -nothing to do with it. The dependence of the woman on the man for erotic -life is as absolute as that of the newborn infant on the mother for -nutrition. - -The concept of romantic love, like that of love at first sight, contains -the implication that love and especially married love depends more upon -what Fate or Destiny vouchsafes to the man than upon what he takes from -Fate or creates for himself. The taking and creating is certainly the -prerogative of the man while yet it may not necessarily belong to the -woman. - - -§ 16 - -That is the essential difference between the masculine and the feminine -nature. It is masculine to give and to create and to change external -reality. It is feminine to receive, and to respond to the activity of the -male. It is feminine to be thrilled at the effects produced upon the wife -by her husband’s activities in every sphere of action. It is masculine -to be thrilled only by the resultant ecstasies of the wife. It is not -masculine to be emotionally impressed except by the results of his own -individual and particular actions: results effected in other persons and -things. - -This is the essential masculinity and femininity assumed in this book. -It will be evident to those acquainted with modern psychology that the -reverse of these conditions implies the interchange of masculine and -feminine psychic natures. - -For example the man who should (and yet not a few do) derive his -satisfactions solely from the emotions aroused in him by the actions of -other persons and things is not truly masculine. His love could not in -any real sense be called virile. - - -§ 17 - -Virile love is the only love that a man should have—the only feeling a -real man _can_ have—for a woman. Indeed, it is the only way a man loves -a woman if he is truly to be said to _love_ her. Any so-called love -depending on being charmed by a woman is essentially effeminate, not -virile. The moment he surrenders to her _charm_, he is not a man but an -autoerotic[7] child. _He_ should absolutely and positively charm _her_. -There is no disgrace, no lack of true femininity in a woman’s yielding -to the power a man must exercise over her erotic instincts. The power is -strictly a one-way power, exerted by the man upon the woman if, and only -as long as, he remains man and she remains woman. The bisexual nature of -both man and woman often permits a couple to reverse this direction of -power influence.[8] - -If the wife’s charm is the only binding factor in a marriage the marriage -is doomed to dissolve actually or potentially. And in order to maintain -this merely superficial charm, which no real man needs to feel in a -woman, she is obliged to resort to all varieties of artifice from the -lip stick and the exotic perfume upward to the forced attempt to be -intellectually frank and interesting. Woman as woman has no need for this -artifice to maintain charm for primordial man. - -It may be that man at the present day is not primordial superficially. -But fundamentally he is and so is woman primordial woman, and for all the -civilization which is only conscious, the ninety per cent more or less -of unconscious action and being in the man acts upon and is inevitably -and automatically reacted to by the woman; and any survey of the totality -of the relations between them is incomplete if it does not recognize -and control the almost unlimited energy of the primordial man and woman -beneath the surface. The difficulty is that this recognition is a task; -and most married couples attempt to hide it both from themselves and -from each other. In such actions of the woman as are dominated, as most -conscious acts are, by the egoistic-social[9] impulse, any artifice, -great or small, as the case may be, is inevitably registered, to the -woman’s detriment, in the unconscious records of the man. - -“Does she,” the unconscious says, “really _need_ these embellishments, -or does she only _think_ she needs them? If she really needs them, I -have reels of mental moving pictures of women who do not. If she only -thinks so, what have I failed to do that should inspire her confidence, -or prevent her from unconsciously trying to attract the autoerotic -glances of other men? I must adjust her up to a greater height of erotic -exaltation. Possibly that is the fundamental reason. If she were actually -my erotic counterpart the idea would not even unconsciously enter her -mind to improve herself in this showy manner. I must remove this tendency -from her.” - -Of course the husband likes to have his wife appear attractive to him; -but that does not require any branch of the cosmetic art except what -she can do without drugs, pastes, powders and other mechanical aids. Of -course he wants her to interest him mentally but that does not require -her to do or say anything spectacular or anything that has any “news -value.” - -In her own femininity (which by the way is never enhanced but only -lessened by strenuous efforts to appear charming either to himself or -others), he has the field which he can, and will, in proportion to his -psychic virility, cultivate into his own particular Garden of Eden. In -her own essential womanliness he has the ground where he can plant and -build, without external aid, the garden and the mansion, the work of his -own hands, according to his own design, the outward expression of all -that is fine and masculine in his own imagination. Any failure in the -execution of this plan is due to the shaking of his own hand, the lack of -attention on his own part to the necessary details. - - -§ 18 - -Arnold Bennett (in _Pictorial Review_, November 1922), writes: “She -absolutely must exercise charm, whether things are going right or going -wrong.... Women were born to exercise charm.... A large proportion of -women, especially pretty ones, suffer from the illusion that in order to -exercise charm they need only continue to exist. A mistake! To exercise -charm is an active and not a passive function. It cannot be efficiently -done without thought and hard work. It is sometimes very trying and -exhausting, like earning money—but it is not less essential than earning -money if life is to be fully lived.” - -Many women prefer to earn money rather than follow this unremunerative -trade of exercising charm; because they realize that earning money is -productive and exercising charm is not. They can get in dollars a measure -of their efforts. In personal charm, however, there is no measurable -factor, except in reaction on the male, and that is an autoerotic element -in his mental make-up. - -Feminine charm is to be sure active and not passive. It is, however, -reactive and not spontaneously active. It reacts to the positive action -of the man, which is the response characteristic of true femininity -anywhere, any time. As to its necessitating thought and hard work and -being trying and exhausting, the contrary is the truth. No man can -but dislike a woman who has thought and worked hard, been tried and -become _exhausted_ by this thoroughly artificial and unnatural attempt -to “exercise charm.” His unconscious and real reaction to this trying -position into which the woman puts herself to retain his affection by -exercising charm is one of revolt. He may not know it but it is there all -the time, and comes out in the unhappy moments. - -And this attempt recommended by Mr. Bennett is only a superficial -attempt. It never really succeeds permanently. It is the reason why men -avoid designing women. They say to themselves unconsciously that this -forced effort is an overcompensation for a real (i.e., unconsciously -perceived) inferiority. - -The only thing rightly to be called charm is the pleasantness of the -natural reaction on the woman’s part to the binary situation, the -situation of man and woman in social intercourse. Her forcing herself is -always repugnant to him, if he is normally himself. The word charm,[10] -therefore, applies to a type or action on her part that is conditioned -solely on her being with him. It is character and conduct, ingenuous, -instinctive, spontaneous; revealing, without traditional or conventional -inhibitions, the essence of true womanliness, and brought out only in the -situation that is really, and in the highest sense, erotic, where the -erotic holds sway over the more ignoble egoistic-social impulse. - -Her charm for her husband will consist in the fact that she is woman -and wife first and foremost. That is enough for a man who is first and -foremost man and husband. Uninhibited woman, unwarped by sex inhibitions, -spontaneously making her direct response, her natural reaction -uninterrupted, unperverted, unbroken by archaic traditions that have -overweighted the egoistic social instincts and debased the erotic—such a -woman has and will always have the maximum of charm for unperverted man. -The eternal femininity, the universal femininity, is always at the core -of every woman’s being. - -Virile love alone is competent to tear away the impediments that perturb -its reactions, and when this is done true monogamy is inevitable, for -there is no preventive mechanism obstructing the total fusion of their -bodies and souls. That kind of charm any woman naturally exerts over any -man, but it has nothing in common with the conventional charm of the -cosmetic and costumer’s art. - -The monogamic husband, if he reads beneath the surface, feels this -charm in all other women as well as in his wife; but, as he knows what -it amounts to in care and attention, to uncover the soul of his wife, -he realizes that to undertake the task with another woman would not be -worth the candle. He _could do it_, but he knows he would get no more -satisfaction from another woman than from his wife. - - -§ 19 - -In the sense of the universal and eternal feminine charm being exerted -upon the primordial masculine, love is always love at first sight. But -the reason that love at first sight becomes hate at second or closer -sight is just this inability of the man to play the truly virile part. -What has charmed him at first sight no longer charms him simply because -all charm exerted upon him produces in him the autoerotic mental -reaction. Only the first sight should produce that result. If the second -look is not accompanied by the desire to dominate and to explore the -depths of the soul behind that face, it is the look not of a virile man -but of an autoerotic boy. And the boy goes on being charmed by the face; -or stops being charmed and is antagonized. She will antagonize him -actively and positively, of course, if, in due season, she does not sense -in him the virile action. With her hostility aroused by this unconscious -sense of his weakness felt by her, he is disgusted naturally and looks -for another face. - -The modern hologamous marriage is the creative work of a virile man, a -work that, as do all vital things, needs constantly to be kept up. No -overgrown boy will be able to accomplish this virile work, for being -mostly brought up by women, he will not know what _is_ the real work of -virile man in marriage. - -The marriages that run down, those in which the egoistic-social or -material impulses gain the ascendancy over the erotic or spiritual -impulses, are the marriages of autoerotic boys, not of virile men. - -Psychic virility of the husband in the marital relation is the only -factor that can insure the permanence, except superficially, of any -marriage. “Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.” - -There should be alteration in love, but it should be caused by the -progressive development of the husband’s love. This is the theory of -relativity applied in the erotic sphere. Love should not alter when—that -is, because—it finds alteration; but it should make changes in the -reactions of the wife, so that each year finds the married lovers more -completely fused physically and spiritually than the year before. - -From the woman’s point of view, she is invited by marriage to a banquet, -at which she may reasonably expect to find a variety of comestibles all -of adult characteristics. If at this banquet she is served by her husband -only with milk or pap she is rightly revolted, and will not eat. Milk -alternating with pap in successive courses of marital banquet would be -cruelty and adequate cause for separation, if their exclusive presence -could be attributed to the voluntarily malevolent choice of the husband. -But in most cases it is merely his ignorance for which his parents and -teachers are the blameless cause. - - -§ 20 - -Is there any clearer truth than that all autoerotic practices in -the marital union are unmanly? And is there any statement more -incontrovertible than that the average husband who has not taken -the trouble to know and control his wife in the erotic sphere is -unequivocally autoerotic mentally? - -Can it be doubted that the average woman has no possible means of knowing -whether her suitor will, after marriage, be an autoerotic boy or virile -man? Can we blame her if she is forced by our crazy laws to make this -a trial marriage, divorce him if she can, and make another trial? Can -we blame anyone for taking food if she is starving and call her act -stealing? Not unless we have made it perfectly plain to her how and -where she may legitimately obtain food. But we can blame the man, for -he is, he always has been, and he always will be the provider of erotic -power. A man has no right to undertake the erotic support of any woman, -and then proceed to starve her and incontinently to fatten himself upon -her. Universally such a man is scorned and always will be, except by -women whose erotic instincts have been overgrown and overwhelmed by the -egoistic-social impulses of conventionality. These do not scorn a man -who resorts to prostitutes to feed his autoerotic appetites, or who keeps -mistresses or has other illicit liaisons for the same purposes. - -The moment an anthropoid human realizes what he is _getting_ from the -promiscuous relations, and that he is autoerotically getting in a -_puerile_ way instead of giving in a _virile_ way, he takes no more -interest whatever in the promiscuous relation. The reply to an obvious -objection here is that if he finds his wife lacking in passion it means -he has not learned to know his wife, and, if he thinks he finds more -passion in the extra-marital woman, he is either deceiving himself or -being deceived by her, the extra-marital one; and that he is _sexually as -anesthetic to all women_ as he fancies his wife to be anesthetic to him. - -Unless she is a chronic invalid he has no justification in thinking -that passion is impossible between them. He has not the knowledge of -himself wherewith to develop in himself enough virility to awaken her -erotic instincts. When once awakened these will adequately satisfy him. -If he has not aroused them in his wife there is little chance that he -will arouse a real feeling in other women. If he cannot consistently be -satisfied with one woman and believes that men are incurably polygamous, -let him, first, be sure to sound his wife’s erotism to the bottom, and -he will then need no other woman nor fatuously imagine he wants another. -This is the surest cure for the polygamous-nature-of-man delusion. - -The errant husband may think he roves in search of a real woman. As -husband he has a real woman by his side; but, having a real woman as -near to him as he can bring himself to approach, he wanders forth in -search of an imaginary woman, who does not exist in reality. There is no -such thing as the imaginary woman except in his mind. His virile function -is to make over this real woman at his side according to the mental -pattern he has of woman as she should be, and within reasonable limits -he can do it, if he has the virile strength to control his own emotions -in her presence. If he cannot do it in hers he cannot do it in another -woman’s, just because he has failed to do so in his wife’s. - -The answer will of course be made that a man may marry a shrew. To this -the reply is that a shrew like Katharine in Shakespeare’s play is a -woman who has not been taught to love as every wife should be. A shrew -is simply a woman not yet erotically developed. It may, to be sure, -take a more than ordinarily ardent lover to develop such a woman, but -barring the exceedingly rare cases of women in whom love is a physical -impossibility, the shrewishness of a woman is only a measure of the -inadequacy of the husband. Except for the sporadic freaks of nature there -is no such thing as an impossible woman. - - -§ 21 - -_Mutuality_ - -In the minds of young lovers no doubt exists that their love should be -mutual. The doubt comes later in their married life that possibly some -impediment either existed in a latent state before they were married -and has developed since, so that they ceased to be mutual; or, not -previously existing, was developed by some factor in their later married -life unforeseen in their earlier days and therefore impossible to avoid. - -In the creation and maintenance of mutuality in the early married life -the young husband is the only one concerned. If there is real mutuality -caused by a perfect response in his bride, he can maintain it only if -he knows how he has gained it. If it was gained by merely instinctive -actions on his own part, and if he is impressed by the beauty of the -mystery, and repeats to himself how wonderful it is, and how inexplicable -to have so warm a response, he will not have a good chance of continuing -it. He will have to do what he has not yet done. Consciously, and -purposefully, he will observe his wife’s reactions during the entirety of -the love episode; that is, from the beginning of one quite through to the -beginning of the next one, not merely the period of the highest level of -erotic excitement. - -It is the privilege of woman to remain autoerotic in her reactions. She -may or may not rise to allerotic action during her entire life. But man -can never succeed in the marital life if he remains autoerotic. His first -reactions to the marital situation are necessarily autoerotic. He cannot -avoid that. His previous experience with women, if any, and particularly -with prostitutes, gives him at first little if any opportunity to be -with his wife other than essentially autoerotic in his reactions. A -man’s first experience of a woman in an attempt at a love episode is -invariably a bath of absolutely new sensations, a plunge into a sea of -diverse stimuli, a medium in which many men flounder for the remainder -of their lives, gaining each time no more than an uncoördinated congeries -of external excitement in which they act in no controlling manner. Such -men never mate a woman in the highest sense. They only supply her with a -child in the guise of a husband. There is no mutuality between the surf -and the bather who is helplessly tossed about in the breakers and is -finally washed up on the shore and left breathless by his contact with -the countless laughter of the sea. - -Mutuality in the love episode depends solely on the husband’s ability to -control the situation. There is no real mutuality in a relation where -the wife is merely a dispenser of physical delights to a husband that -neither knows nor cares what he himself contributes to the situation, who -immerses himself totally in his own sensations. He is deaf, blind and -otherwise anesthetic to what he himself can accomplish in the line of -studied and foreplanned effects of his own, self-initiated (not merely -instinctive and automatic reflex) actions upon his wife. True, there -are many women who expect no more of a man than just this automatic -autoerotism. But, sooner or later, even though unconsciously, they -perceive a lack of “some amorous rite or other” and their own passion -cools, if it has had any warmth. There is no mutuality here. - - -§ 22 - -Mutuality does not exist where the wife has no alternative other than -the autoerotic reaction of the husband. But in spite of an unchanging -autoerotic disposition of the wife, mutuality may be absolutely secured -by the instructed husband. As indicated below, the average honeymoon -should see the beginning of the end of mental autoerotic reactions on the -part of the groom. - -Even the groom that has had previous sex experience is in his early -marriage in an erotic situation which is essentially new to him—a -situation that contains elements the like of which he never could have -experienced before. The inevitable novelty of these new elements is a -condition, on his part, of perceiving all new sensations, practically of -having unprecedented things done to him. - -The things done to him are more numerous and newer than anything in -all his previous experience. In this sense, then, he is by force of -circumstances placed upon an autoerotic level, from which it is his -imperative duty to ascend in order that by his control of his own erotic -reactions he may control those of his wife. No apology is needed for an -initial autoerotic response on the newly wedded husband’s part. - -It might be said that in the situation of bride and groom each having -things done to them by the other, rather than positively doing things to -each other, there might be a situation of perfect mutuality. But if it -is, it never remains any longer than the duration of a honeymoon, for -the essential femininity of the woman demands that in the erotic sphere -alone, she be led, and with no uncertain guidance. - -The honeymoon ends automatically when this point is reached; and the -condition of true mutuality in perfect marital relations ensues if the -husband has a virile love of his wife and takes the lead. If his love -is not virile, but merely autoerotic and puerile, he never assumes -this leadership, and his wife becomes more and more unresponsive to -him, simply because the only type of activity to which she can respond -is an erotic virility, a true manliness that contains the real essence -of masculinity which is the imperative necessity to control the entire -erotic life of one woman. - - -§ 23 - -It should not be assumed that these remarks about the honeymoon imply -that all honeymoons or even any of them are failures. The failures, -if such appear, are only apparent, and need not necessarily be real; -for their success is always within reach of the husband who needs only -knowledge and confidence. His one aim is the proper response of his -wife, and that is his only needful success. If he uses intelligence and -acquires knowledge (and the honeymoon is the source of his knowledge of -the extent of his wife’s inhibitions, negativisms and resistances) his -progress is limited only by the small amount of his love. If he has love -enough, which includes a determination to win, he will succeed. And it -should be remembered that a woman’s consent to marry is not her admission -that she has been won, but only her consent to let the man win her -thereafter, if he can. - -When this control is properly assumed by the mentally and spiritually -virile husband, real mutuality begins in the marital life. The husband -now conquers his unavoidable initial autoerotic habit of mind and -thought, and at the same time becomes a truly social being, realizing -that by his own self-control alone, in the love episode, which -absolutely assures his wife’s complete erotic affiliation with him, he -is securing the only kind of mutuality worthy of the name. - -It is obvious that _this_ mutuality is reciprocal in a sense entirely -different from any mutuality that could be attributed to the relation -during the honeymoon stage. He knows now what erotically emotional -effects he can produce on his wife during the love episodes, and exactly -how he has produced them. Beyond any doubt whatsoever, he also knows from -the most intimate experience that the production of these effects is the -only real mutuality. - -An effect, in the erotic sphere, produced in a husband by a wife, is -one from which all truly virile men realize they gain only autoerotic -pleasure. To this effect they contribute themselves nothing. In the end -the wife gets nothing of the emotional catharsis which is the _sine qua -non_ of true marital living. In such circumstances the wife gives and -the husband receives, certainly a gross disgrace if it be continued, a -disgrace abhorred by all men. There is no mutuality in such a gift which -but impoverishes the recipient. - -It thus appears that in the marital relation the husband alone is the one -rightly to be the giver. And his gift impoverishes neither himself nor -his wife, the recipient, but paradoxically enriches both. The husband -rightly gives his time, his attention, his love and thereby controls. But -in order to do this he has to control himself absolutely, so as not to -snatch away from both of them that of which nature has designed him to be -the donor. - -Mutuality requires the husband to be sure to get something, but the -thing he can get is the erotic acme of his wife, and this is the only -result that, to the spiritually and mentally virile husband, has any -value whatever. If, on the other hand, he takes his own erotic relaxation -without getting hers it is merely a half gift which he forces, or -persuades, her to give him, and mutuality is out of the question. - - -§ 24 - -The idea of compensation or barter or _quid pro quo_ must be rigidly -excluded from the concept of mutuality; for this measuring of the balance -of values of the actual physical performances or even intellectual -attainments rests for its validity on the inevitable comparisons which -are the basis of all values for the egoistic-social activities. To the -greatest erotic success these comparisons are utterly antagonistic. In -the erotic sphere, as is later noted,[11] comparisons are not merely -odious, but logically impossible. There can be no balancing of giving and -taking. - -From one point of view, the husband cannot but give all and receive -nothing, at least of the character of that which he gives. He gives an -emotional reaction to a woman, which no other man can give. - -He cannot in return reproduce in himself the emotional reaction of a -woman. He cannot react as a woman reacts, if he be a virile lover, for -such a reaction, though common enough in run-down marriages, is not the -emotional reaction of a man. If his bisexuality leads him to approximate -this feminine reaction, he is to that extent himself feminine and not -masculine. - -One should not, however, ignore the fact that both men and women are -normally bisexual to a slight extent, and to that degree woman will -desire to exercise some control in the erotic sphere, even if it be only -to create in her mate the most complete erotic effects. Also, if a woman -with a comparatively large proportion of masculinity in her nature be -married to a man with an equal proportion of femininity, a happy marriage -may result, if no other adverse elements enter. - -But in general it will be admitted that the husband cannot rightly seek -for himself the type of erotic reaction which is proper and peculiar to -his wife; though it must be confessed that the suggestions operative even -in the average married love episode are strongly that way. The husband -hears the ecstatic responses of his wife and her repeated inquiries as -to his own pleasurable sensations, and the whole situation is such as to -suggest to him that he identify in every respect his own feelings with -hers. - -But to do so is in no degree to make for true mutuality. His own feelings -should not be the utter surrender and abandon to physical and mental -bliss which he sees so profoundly moving to his partner. His feeling -should be a pervading sense of triumph and accomplishment, no less -profound for being embedded in sensual gratification. The truth is that -biologically the wife has no positive accomplishment to perform in the -love episode; for the only accomplishment of which she is capable is the -utter dissolution, temporary though it be, of the personality of her -husband. If she succeeds, she is in the position of one who, not knowing, -should try, by applying a match, to see whether or not gunpowder is -inflammable. It is, and she is carefully kept in ignorance of the fact, -but plentifully supplied with matches. - -If this quite easy accomplishment of the wife is successfully performed, -she has no husband left, at least for a while, and the explosion has -ruined her own chance of happiness, until more explosive is provided. - -The husband’s unequivocal task, therefore, which alone assures his -erotically supporting his wife is rigidly to remain uninflammable until -she, metaphorically speaking, is in ashes herself. For this scientific -reduction of the modern wife, the modern husband needs, for he rarely -finds it instinctively, the help of the present-day technique of love as -taught by the best erotologists.[12] - -This will enable him to avoid being consumed to a condition where he is -no longer able to produce any effect at the very time when an effect is -most loudly clamored for by nature. - -The quick ignition of explosive powder produces only a puff and a flash, -but the wife desires no flashlight of that type but a guiding star. - -True mutuality, therefore, cannot be present in a couple where the -husband does not reverse this process and absolutely retain his own -emotional tension until her erotic acme has taken place. It cannot be -too often repeated that the only means of securing the wife’s emotional -catharsis in the acme of the love episode is the husband’s remaining -tense and unrelaxed, avoiding his own emotional catharsis until hers is, -beyond the peradventure of a doubt, secured. - - -§ 25 - -An absolutely novel and unprecedented result follows the successful -accomplishment of this erotically virile performance.[13] The husband -gains a relaxation of all his tensions; the most important of all, and -the greatest, being that relaxation of his caused by the total relaxation -of his wife’s erotic tension. A good part of his own tension is caused by -his knowledge of hers. - -The even unconscious knowledge that this has not been accomplished is the -little rift within the lute of married life that increases until their -relations eventually become no longer sweet bells, but jangled out of -tune and harsh. No matter how much intellectual congeniality there may -be between the married partners, which is a factor more egoistic-social -than erotic, this lack of unconscious rapport is actually sensed, though -not directly. With characteristically human proclivity to rationalize -(instead of to know facts and to reason from them), husband and wife -begin to disagree upon points apparently most remote from anything -erotic, as for example the position of pieces of furniture in the house, -or the thousand and one details of solely egoistic-social import. - -This does not mean at all that they are not going to have differences -of opinion. On the contrary, honest differences of opinion and taste -are to be acknowledged by each as proof of the other’s positiveness of -character; and the surprises caused in the husband by the unexpected -reactions of his wife to all sorts of situations, chiefly egoistic-social -ones, are part of the variety which is the spice of marital living. - -They congratulate themselves that their disagreements and disputes do -not concern really fundamental things, though if they but knew it, there -would be now, as there once was (but they have forgotten), no question -raised about such matters simply because such matters do not belong to -the sphere of marital erotism. - -Complete erotic mutuality based on the proper “firing order” of the love -emotions of husband and wife, distinctly separates and keeps separate and -apart from the single erotic sphere, where the twain are one flesh, their -two individual spheres of their separate egoistic-social impulses and -activities. The husband leaves unquestioned all of these activities of -his wife and vice versa. - -There thus emerges with increasing clearness the prime importance of the -distinction between erotic and egoistic-social impulses and activities, -and with this distinction grows the unalterable conviction, from every -aspect of human values, of the unquestionable superiority of the erotic -sphere over the egoistic-social spheres. - -It is a matter of scientific proof of the last few years, too, that -in the married relation this ascendancy of the erotic over the -egoistic-social sphere is not only conducive to the greatest health, -happiness and longevity but also productive of the greatest material -success. The most successful men and women, from every point of view from -the material to the spiritual, are the men who have secured, and the -women who have experienced, this truly human erotic mutuality. - - -§ 26 - -It is the object of the present volume to point out that the -non-existence of the erotic acme in the wife is an inexcusable condition, -that can be remedied, and that its substitution by the ability of the -husband to insure the acme in the wife as often as she desires it is a -condition of the true physical and spiritual progress which should mark -the present century. - -Nothing could seem further from the truly American ideal of a good -“sport” than that there should be men who will take all and give nothing. -No excuse is accepted of men who enter a game, and, as soon as they -are in, become paralyzed and unable to do a single thing except shout -about their membership on the team. But that is exactly what the average -husband does in his marriage. He marries mostly to get something for -nothing in sex life and he finds out later that the something turns out -to be nothing. Who is to blame but himself? - -He makes innumerable excuses for his failure, excuses sometimes handed -out to him by physicians. He is a man and men are known to be hasty in -the love episode. Civilized men always are and have been. There is no -help for it. Their wives must make themselves content with the crumbs -that fall from the husband’s table. It is injurious for men to change -in any way or degree their instinctive reactions. Postponement or doing -without their own erotic acme acts in such a way as to constitute a -strain on the man’s nervous system. All these false statements have been -made by different people at different times. - -The necessary control on the man’s part is possible to attain, and -once attained it is easy to maintain. But it depends upon a fundamental -rearrangement of all values for the man such that the greatest value for -him is not in the pleasurable sensations that he himself gets out of his -relations with his wife but in the gratifications, totally different in -sense quality, that come from the sense of triumph over resistances that -is experienced by him when he has for the first time attained, or finally -has secured, such control over himself that he can thereby control the -emotional specifically erotic reactions of his wife. - -If a man’s deepest unconscious satisfactions came from being emotionally -controlled by a woman he would never learn to control hers. The -unconscious satisfactions invariably are felt when control over the -woman’s erotic responses is held by the man. - -Nevertheless there is a level of unconscious reaction causing feelings of -gratification that even in men come from being controlled. More will be -said about this later. Instinctively in many boys this control is thrown -off. They rebel against paternal authority. They scorn being managed by -girls. They prefer to be themselves and act their own acts and derive -satisfaction from the effects of those acts upon the persons or things of -the external world. - -Yet the fact that all individuals of both sexes, when infants and -children, are dependent, and can gain satisfaction and relaxations of -tensions of desire never by means of their own acts but only by means -of the acts of others, makes it quite evident that there will be a -tendency, stronger in some than in others, to get in post-pubertal life -their satisfactions via the old route—the satisfactions that come from -having things done to them and not from doing things for other people -and observing the results. - -There are two sources of satisfaction in every human, the infantile one -which may be called passive and the adult male which may be called the -active source or the source of satisfaction from the effects of one’s own -action. - - -§ 27 - -It is not to be overlooked that the satisfaction derived from the effect -of one’s own action may be due to an unconscious magnifying of these -effects. Those who have a slight degree of discriminative ability will -think that their acts and the results of their acts are fine, whether -they are or not, and may remain in the same illusion throughout their -lives. They may never become disillusioned. I may continue to believe -that the effects produced on my readers are deep and far-reaching -whether they are or not. But if I were content to read books and listen -to lectures and felt no desire to write and to influence others or -to persuade them to see things as I see them I should derive all my -satisfactions via the route of passive experiences. - -There is a fundamental difference, then, between the essentially -masculine and the essentially feminine type of character, according as -the individual gets his satisfactions—the relaxations of his tensions of -desire—via the route of feelings caused in him by the action of others -or via the route of feelings caused in him by the true and illusionless -perception that he has produced effects in other persons or in other -things. - -The rearrangement of values is the transition from a frame of mind in -which the satisfactions are via the “passive” route to those via the -active route. This rearrangement need never, for any biological reason, -take place in a woman who is properly mated. If she be married but -not mated by a male individual who has not made the above-mentioned -transition, she will herself tend toward getting her satisfaction via the -“active” or “male” route. In other words, rather than have nothing, she -deludes herself into thinking she has something by getting a cheapened -substitute, by becoming husband to her husband, who in turn becomes wife. - -No man can be said to be successful as a husband who has not made this -transition. No man is exempt from the necessity of the transition from -this type of physical autoerotism to allerotism, simply because he was -once an infant, and until he makes this transition he is, no matter what -his age in years, still an infant. It has been undeniably proved by -psychoanalysis and experienced by people in innumerable forms that no -woman can be dominated by an infantile man. - -Therefore every man is either the one or the other; either an adult man -or an infantile man. He can by taking thought, and after reading books -like the present, learn to which class he belongs. If he belongs in the -infantile class he has been dominated by the “mother imago” or “angel -imago,”[14] and if this be a fixation it will require a deep analysis by -an expert before he can come to a realization of his true status; but -it is unlikely that nine out of ten who read this book will require -more than the advice offered in the following chapters. Or it will -require a good orientation and suggestive treatment from a well equipped -erotologist. - -No wife can be a thoroughly happy one whose husband is in the infantile -class, and who thus needs her “playmate.” (See § 12.) Such women are -truly in a tragic situation. The infantile (autoerotic) behaviour of -such a man in the fragmentary (never complete) love episodes leaves the -woman nervous, “on edge,” with an unconscious conflict in her psyche that -tends to undermine her health, and to make her an insuperable mystery to -her husband, who himself suffers through his own ignorance. He knows, -if he knows anything, only that something is amiss, but blinded by his -own egotism can never believe that the cause lies solely in him, no -matter how blameless he may be, from one point of view, on account of his -ignorance. - - -§ 28 - -To return then to the proposition with which we started: If the man -believes that the woman can by her action evoke his erotic acme, she -can. He should know and believe that she cannot; unless he knows she is -going to arrive at her erotic acme at the same time he does. But no man -can ever be absolutely sure of that, particularly if his egoistic-social -impulses are inordinately active and she has few if any such activities, -comparatively, and more leisure to follow erotic impulses. - -The autoerotic condition in a man is the cause of his haste in the love -episode, as his attention is so primarily centered on his own sensations -that he excludes the possibility of his observation of his wife’s -reactions in the most intimate of marital relations. If the husband is -hasty, he is _ipso facto_ mentally autoerotic. His haste is caused by -his mental autoerotism. In blunt language he loves himself more than his -wife. He may love the results she produces in his feelings. What he needs -is to learn how to love more, to be more passionate, to go deeper into -the nature of erotism, into the study of the woman, his wife, and her -individuality, particularly her unconscious reactions to him. - -The thought, “I can control the most elusive thing in the universe—a -woman’s erotism,” is the most triumphant thought that can occur to a man, -except possibly the thought, “And I know how to continue to control it.” -It is almost equivalent and is analogous in many respects to an ability -to overcome gravitation and propel oneself at will through the air at any -desired speed. - - -§ 29 - -In this connection it must be emphasized that control of the erotic -situation by the husband is absolutely and unequivocally mental. - -In order also to give due weight to the reply to an objection that might -be made here, two new terms will be proposed. The objection is that -the distinction between mental and physical is purely arbitrary, so it -is futile to say that the control is exclusively mental, because the -exclusively mental does not exist. Mind, apart from body, is non-existent. - -The answer: All phenomena into which a so-called mental element enters -can be graded into what would be called without objection on the part -of anyone, more mental or less mental, meaning, of course, consciously -mental. Thus digestion is less mental than phantasying or day-dreaming, -and some emotions might be called less mental than others. - -But because we are required by everything that we know about the -mind-body combination, to suppose that no so-called purely mental state -is without its physical substratum without which it would not exist, -and because no physiological process is totally outside of all causal -connection with the mind, we are justified in saying that mind is more -highly organized body, and body less highly organized mind. - -Regarding then any human phenomenon as conditioned by both mental and -physical causes we can remove the difficulty, and at the same time the -objection that is being answered here, by adopting three Greek words and -coining two new English words from them. - -_Soma_ is the Greek for _body_; _hyper_ for _upper_, or _above_; and -_hypo_ for _under_ or _below_. So we may call the ordinary physiological -movements and processes _hyposomatic_ or a lower form of action of the -mind-body combination. Similarly we may use the name _hypersomatic_ for -the various degrees of mentality. From the point of view of this book -all human action is somatic. Some of it such as digestion, glandular -secretion, is hyposomatic or at one end of a series of degrees of -complexity. Some human action is hypersomatic, such as remembering. Some -of the human phenomena, like emotions, partake of both ends of the series -in apparently more or less equal proportions. - - -§ 30 - -To return, then, after this digression, to the statement that control -is entirely mental: By this, of course, is meant control according to a -hypersomatic pattern. There is no control without a pattern. One never is -said to control one’s actions unless he has an idea according to which he -is going to act. Otherwise his actions are automatic—not controlled. - -The immediate connection of this with our present argument is this then -(an argument that runs right along with the ideas of autosuggestion): any -man can do what any man has done, if he has the same hypersomatic pattern -according to which his actions are carried out. - -An obvious objection will at once be made, but it is only an apparent -one. Many men will say they know they are physically weak, or -weak-willed, are lacking in control. They know it because they have -_never_ controlled their love emotions, and have _little_ control over -any of their emotions. - -To that excuse, the answer is: just because you have not is no proof that -you cannot. If that were the case no progress would ever have been made -by humanity. - -That you have not controlled yourself is proof only that you have not -yet vividly imagined a pattern according to which your actions might be -carried out. The only hypersomatic pattern existing in your personality -is that according to which you are now acting. - -Countless biographies of men, great and less great, demonstrate that -there have been revolutionary, cataclysmic changes in their actions -resulting from alterations in the patterns, i.e., changes in the -hypersomatic end of their personality. - -The man who says he cannot change his actions is simply saying he cannot -change his ideas. That would be somewhat analogous to saying he cannot -learn a foreign language. But we know that everyone going to a foreign -country and being environed month after month by a foreign language -_will_ learn to speak it, whether he tries or not. How easily and quickly -he does is a matter only of his hypersomatic elasticity. Some are more -elastic than others, but almost anyone who can walk can learn to change -his hypersomatic patterns, can in other words become conscious of a new -hypersomatic pattern, see its superiority to an old one, and regulate and -control his actions accordingly. - - -§ 31 - -Psychoanalysis has among other striking paradoxes this one most -applicable here. The person who says he cannot do a thing is consciously -saying, “I cannot,” but unconsciously saying, “I do not wish to.” - -Any reply that can be made by any man who says he cannot learn to control -his own erotic emotions and therefore is unable to control his wife’s is -excusing himself, on the ground that he will not be censured by others -if he is really unable. He may be laughed at, or commiserated for his -incapacities, but he cannot, so he thinks, be held responsible for them. - -But if there is one important and valuable advance made by modern -psychology it is that the unconscious, which says, “I do not wish -to,” causing the conscious man to say, “I cannot”—this unconscious -can be trained, reëducated, reshaped, repatterned. It may take more -than a month. The final emergence of action, based on the re-patterned -unconscious, may be sudden. But it can be done. - -Those who say, “I cannot do it” are in their ignorance simply saying, “I -do not wish to do it.” - -They would wish to do it if they had in their minds—in the hypersomatic -portion of their personalities—an adequately vivid picture of exactly -what it is desired to do. - -It would be impossible to put into a book a detailed pattern of marital -behaviour on the part of husbands, particularly hyposomatic details. -But it is hoped that the book will give as clear an exposition of the -hypersomatic lineaments of the marital pattern as will be required to -make any man that reads it at least willing to change his own love -pattern for one that has in it infinitely more satisfaction and triumph, -containing as it does the only means whereby a single demi-human atom may -completely unite with another and form an entirely new whole. - - -§ 32 - -As far as records are available there is no reason to suppose that the -champion shot-putter, prize-fighter, or longshoreman is any more _able_ -to evoke in his wife the climax of erotic ecstasy than is the rather -flat-chested, spectacled college professor, the department store head, -the banker, or any other member of the so-called sedentary professions. - -The latter class of people have unduly and illogically overvalued the -hyposomatic end of the scale. Woman can be courted and married (and -thereafter won!) by men whose strength is hypersomatic just as well as -by those whose strength is hyposomatic. But so far as the physical or -hyposomatic side of the marital relation is concerned, there may be a -difference between the pugilist and the college professor in the amount -of egoistic-social development in comparison with the amount of erotic -development in his past history. - -After reading this chapter many people may feel disappointed and say: -“You have not told me how I can insure my erotic self-control (or my -husband’s).” - -I will anticipate somewhat by saying that the affirmation “I know I can -control,” if repeated enough times a day with sufficient conviction would -undoubtedly help. If to this were added, “I know I love my wife better -than I do myself,” it would also be a step in the right direction. - -But for the material of the pattern on which is based the conviction of -the truth of man’s ability to control himself, I shall have to refer the -reader to the later chapters in the book. - -At first all I can hope to do is to convince some of the men who read -this book that they belong to the infant class of husbands. If the men -whose wives are discontented or whose sweethearts are slow in promising, -can read and realize that the whole situation is psychic or mental -(hypersomatic) rather than physical or economic (hyposomatic), they -will see that from one point of view their victory over themselves, and -incidentally over others, is the easiest thing in the world, far easier -than to lift a weight or change the colour of a leaf on a tree. - -For the control recommended in this book no new muscles or nerves have to -be supplied, nor do any actual muscles or ligaments or tendons have to -be exercised or otherwise strengthened. It would be hard to go through a -daily dozen or (gross) of calisthenic exercises and still harder, indeed -impossible, to make hair grow (or not grow) where it did not (or did) -before. But the procedure to be recommended in this book is more like -opening one’s eyes, and seeing that a vehicle is bearing down upon one -(or about to leave without one), than it is like walking in an ethical -treadmill and satisfying a sense of duty by monotonous repetition of -behaviour enforced from without. - -For the control advocated here nothing is needed but a new picture of -love, uncorrupted by the ignorance of traditional lore and superstition. -What is needed is more creative imagination in married life, not spoiled -by cynicism or emasculated by fatalism. Control can be secured! - - - - -CHAPTER III - -EMOTIONS - - -§ 33 - -Emotions, including moods and many nameless feelings, are some of the -innate organic sensations evoked in our bodies by sensations that are not -organic. In other words, they form a part of the internal sensations, -which so far as generally named are originally associated with external -sensations. - -Frink remarks that “the emotion, from the point of view of physiology, -_is_ these various preparatory changes in the content of the blood, -in the innervation of the various muscles, endocrine glands and other -viscera. The emotion, from the point of view of psychology, is the -afferent, sensory report of these changes.” And William James’ classical -statement is as follows: “Bodily changes follow directly the perception -of the exciting fact, and our feeling of the same changes as they occur -_is_ the emotion.... The more rational statement is that we feel sorry -because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble, -and not that we cry, strike or tremble, because we are sorry, angry or -fearful, as the case may be.” - -While most emotions of the simple type, like surprise, admiration, joy -and others are in infancy and childhood originally, though not innately -associated with certain definite sensations from the outer world, they -are frequently reassociated by experience through the influence of the -environment, so that, in later life, one enjoys or detests quite the -opposite of what caused instinctive attraction or repulsion in early life. - -The complex emotions of love, jealousy and hate are not, in their -greatest complexity, existent in humans before puberty, although the -unsynthetized elements out of which they are finally composed are present -in childhood, particularly hate. This, according to psychoanalysis, is -a more archaic emotion than love and is not its direct opposite. It is -likely that human emotions are progressing from a dominant hatred toward -a reigning love. - -Love in its fully synthetic and complicated form is not only impossible -in children, but its higher types, spoken of in this book as _erotic_, -occur at their best in those more intricately complicated personalities -that are the peculiar product of modern civilization. - -The expression of erotic emotion does not involve activity on the man’s -part solely, and absolute passivity on the woman’s. Passion and passive -are etymologically the same word, but the natural inferences from this -are erroneous. It happened that emotions were called passions by some old -Roman pseudo-philosopher who was translating Stoic doctrines and used -“passions” to translate _patheia_, which, in Greek, means “sufferings.” -The Stoics believed that emotions were sufferings inflicted on men by -Fate. Their great discovery was that men could conquer them by training -(_askesis_). Hence comes “asceticism”: the training by which a man might -free himself from the suffering which was caused by feeling anything. -Now we are beginning to realize that there are emotions that _ought_ to -be felt, and repeatedly—emotions that are as necessary to the growth of -the soul as food is to the growth of the body. Asceticism (training), -therefore, of the future will be a training in the emotions of love. - - -§ 34 - -Women are said to be more emotional than men. In the sense that their -actions are guided by their emotions more than by the verbal processes -of logical reasoning this may be true. For there is a type of mental -process that may be called logical in which verbal consistency is sought -and with little difficulty maintained. But as words are only counters, -symbols or representatives of things and are used in only a part of -all the thinking, conscious and unconscious, that goes on in the mind -continuously day and night, a term is needed with which to describe -the wordless thought-processes that are quite as important causes of -action as are the verbal processes; and to these has been given the term -psychological. - -Emotions are for the most part indescribable, not to be adequately -represented by words, and are therefore to be regarded as psychological -processes tendency to subject their mental processes to verbal thought or -reasoning. - -Men are characterized more than women by a tendency to subject their -mental processes to verbal control, while women utter many words in the -vain attempt to give verbal expression to their feelings. In men on the -average words have more weight in the determination of action; in women -feelings or emotions. - - -§ 35 - -In the sense, however, that women perceive with greater clearness and -intensity the internal organic sensations (or emotions) it is not true -that women are more emotional than men. Unconsciously, “down deep in -their hearts” the members of one sex are as emotional as those of the -other. Men have as many and as powerful emotions as women, but have -controlled some emotions more than women have, by annihilating or -attempting to annihilate, them by means of repression. But women too have -been forced to repress certain other emotions, notably the erotic. - - -§ 36 - -The most vital emotion is the erotic. I hope I shall not be misunderstood -in my use of the term “erotic.” I place it above all the other emotions -in dignity and complexity. It is sex plus love and more than that. “All -the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem.” All the -dynamics of the ages in the force of one feeling. It is the physical plus -the spiritual, the combination of bodily and psychical, the paradox that -makes the individual’s greatest personal happiness consist in his feeling -the happiness of another person of the opposite sex, the spiritual -force that vitalizes and sublimates every physical thing it touches, -the psychical that completely evaporates, if not supported by the most -physical, an emotion that, unlike any other emotion, comes from the -experience not of other _things_ but of another’s _emotions_, the only -emotion that responds pleasurably to _every_ manifestation of bodily and -spiritual activity of the member of the other sex. Erotism is the most -nearly perfect type of conjugal love. - - -§ 37 - -“After she has had sexual experiences,” Kisch maintains, “a woman’s -sexual emotions are just as powerful as man’s, though she has more -motives than a man for controlling them.” (Ellis, _Psychology of Sex_, -Vol. III, p. 202.) - -Her motives for controlling them, which here means annihilating them or -repressing them, are egoistic-social ones (see § 43) just as man’s; but -in man-made society these motives are stronger in the woman than in the -man, because man has placed more repression on her sex impulses than on -his own. - -In placing more repression on hers than on his, he has not, however, -given anywhere near a full expression to his own erotic instincts. -Because of the dominance of egoistic-social impulses in modern -civilization his erotism does not permit the expression of such -fundamental strata of his unconscious as are stirred in woman, whose more -flexible erotism is aroused to a pitch that he finds it difficult because -of his egoistic-social interests to ascend. - -As is maintained steadfastly in this book, he has repressed his own, but -hers still more. In so doing he has lowered the moral, spiritual and -psychical status of marriage, which should, if they two are to become -one flesh, accept the entire body as well as the whole soul each of the -other. In repressing what he has deemed the physical side of love man -has put on himself a quite unnecessary burden. With the natural desire -to control, which constitutes masculinity, he has, in his thinking, -blunderingly made annihilation an equivalent of control. - -This placing of more repression on her erotism than on his is due to -the fact that his own is so quickly satisfied in comparison with hers. -He acts en masse as if it would take so much of his time, now devoted -to egoistic-social ends, to equal, in erotic expression, her greater -capabilities. - - -§ 38 - -The most striking fact of most emotions, except those of love, is the -facility with which they are reassociated with ideas different from those -with which they first occurred. - -The love emotions appear to be the least easily transferred, as indeed -they are the least easily stirred to their depths. This is said advisedly -on the well grounded observation that most people who say they love do -not love fully, and deeply. The more deeply they love, the more their -passion instills itself into every fibre of their being and the more -slowly they are able to change their love object. - -But ordinary emotions, other than the erotic, are readily and almost -universally shifted from one object to another. Indeed, it may be -asserted that there is no innate content of any of the emotions except -love. Love innately requires an object of the opposite sex. - -To illustrate the reassociability of the other emotions it is necessary -only to recall what things one has liked or feared years ago and compare -them with the present likes or fears. - -And it would be enough to take fear itself as an illustration of the -variability of its content. When fear becomes fixed in a phobia, it is -extraordinary how irrational the association is, viewed from any logical -standpoint. A woman fears mice or snakes, although she has never been -injured by either, or beetles, although possibly she has never touched -one. Or she fears to cross an open square, and nearly faints if she has -to do so alone, although there is not a chance in ten thousand that any -harm would come to her. An association of an emotion so profound as fear -with some chance place or occurrence is ample proof that the emotions -themselves have no essential connection with any external object. -The absence of fear in some persons under circumstances where people -generally would be afraid also demonstrates the ready dissociation of -emotions from particular experiences. One can learn to like or to dislike -almost anything. - -To a certain extent this is true of love but far less so if we restrict -the use of the term “love” to its more ideal phases. When we speak of -“Off with the old love and on with the new,” it will be conceded that we -speak not of true love but of a very shallow interest. - - -§ 39 - -A young woman, Miss F., married a man who made an ideal lover and to -whom she responded passionately; but yet she was not happy with him. She -had in reality fallen in love more or less unconsciously with a previous -suitor. She frankly told her husband she could not love him fully, -divorced him and subsequently married her first lover. - -One might say that, if the reassociation of love emotions were as easy as -that of most other emotions the young woman might have learned to love -her husband. She evidently tried to do so, but she made the mistake, made -by many uninstructed young women, of going against her better judgment -in marrying the man she did. Her first lover was not in a financial -condition to marry. She wanted to marry, and took the first available -man. So, as in many cases, the fear of not getting married at all forced -her to take a man whom she did not love _enough_. She must have been more -or less conscious of this all the time. She made, however, a definite -attempt to reassociate her love emotions. She was not able to do it. Her -husband, although he is described as an ideal lover, was not able to -arouse her full passion. - - -§ 40 - -Then there is the case of Mrs. G., who married the prominent Dr. G. -practically on a wager. She did not love him, but in a spirit of bravado -declared to a girl friend that she could make him marry her. Not himself -being in absolute control of his own erotism, he succumbed to her charm. -Not knowing also the part a husband is required to play in the marital -life in order to make it a success, he did not make her love him, did -not evoke in her the responses which make a woman the object of a man’s -deepest passion. So, as in a great many marriages, he did not really love -her, and she divorced him after a few years. - -Both women were unfortunate in their choice of a man. The resultant -divorces could have been obviated by the knowledge neither man had. But -this is the history of most divorces where the couples have come to grief -on obstacles considered to be erotic. - -Neither of these women clearly distinguished between egoistic-social and -erotic motives because neither of them had had erotic experiences, and -in their marriages they failed also to get the highest type of erotic -experience. - - -§ 41 - -But it is impossible for any woman to know what sort of erotic life -will be hers with any man whom she consents to marry. At present every -marriage is a trial marriage for a woman, and for the uninstructed man as -well. Only the marriage composed of a woman and a fully prepared man can -be said to have any reasonable assurance of being permanent. - -The other emotions than love are readily transferred from one object to -another. Love is not easily transferred as, primarily, it has only one -object, the human of the opposite sex, and where the love in question is -the elaborately developed love, that has its roots deep in the erotic -soil of the unconscious of both partners, which it invariably has, if -the husband knows how to control himself, the transfer is more like the -transplanting of a huge tree. - -It all depends on the unconscious depth of the love whether it can be -transferred or not, or how long it may take. From this the corollary -is that the so-called love that is fickle is not worthy of the name. -Fickleness in a woman shows lack of skill in the man. Fickleness in the -man shows him to be not a man but an autoerotically minded boy. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -INSTINCTS - - -§ 42 - -In a consideration of the essential factors in a happy marriage we are -dealing primarily with the most fundamental of the instincts. For all -practical purposes it is sufficient to distinguish broadly the two main -groups of instincts that are associated with the ideas of love and of ego. - -In popular language we are inclined to say that whatever one does without -conscious forethought is instinctive, yet on further consideration it -appears that unplanned, impulsive acts or groups of acts may, according -to one’s bringing up, be habitual acts. These are acquired, not innate -acts, and yet as soon as any mode of behaviour becomes habitual or -automatic, the acts constituting it, occurring without forethought or -conscious control, are as unpremeditated as is any instinctive act. One -needs, then, to be careful not to consider as instinctive what is merely -habitual. - -Habits, because they are imposed upon the mind and body from without, and -therefore are not innate and original, may be more easily changed than -instincts. Yet it is quite evident that man has to control his instincts -as well as to form habits. In spite of the greater difficulty of changing -the acts which gratify the instinctive desires, this change can be made. - -Asceticism and abstinence both prove that the sex instincts can be given -a different expression, and that a permanent, if not always deep, mental -satisfaction can come from the formation of ascetic habits. But the -effect of these, however spectacular it may be in the accomplishment of -egoistic or social ends, is always a bad one on the body. - -Indeed, this bad effect on the body was even desired by the early -religious ascetics who thought that by mortifying the flesh (making the -body as dead as possible), they could immortalize the soul or mind; a -view which modern science has shown to be erroneous, dependent as it is -on merely verbal reasoning. - - -§ 43 - -The instincts whose gratifications are sought primarily in the physical -satisfactions of food, clothing and shelter, and secondarily in all other -forms of self-magnification, by means of which the individual may take -precedence over other individuals, such as wealth and social position, -or distinction of any kind, are called in this book _egoistic-social -instincts_. - -The egoistic-social impulses are measured by the so-called “intelligence -tests.” They test that quality by which a person through shrewdness -and acuteness of perception of external relations facilitates his -passing ahead of others, always considered as his rivals. Persons with -the highest intelligence are likely to subordinate their emotions to -the intellect, and to reduce them to a gentle glow experienced while -performing complicated and long sustained mental work. Such people look -down on emotional people as being less intelligent than they. - - -§ 44 - -The direct expression of the egoistic-social impulse is the inevitable -comparison made by himself between the individual and others. He compares -himself unconsciously, if not consciously, with other men in health, -strength, wealth, position, and in every other respect; and whether -he voices these comparisons to himself or not, he unwittingly acts in -accordance with them. - -He compares himself with women too. It may safely be said that while -there is no possibility of avoiding comparison with members of the same -sex, a comparison of oneself with a member of the other sex is the one -comparison that ought to be avoided, particularly when sex relations -themselves are in question. - -By this is meant that if a man compares his wealth with a woman’s he -can say either that she has inherited the wealth of another man or, if -she has made it herself, which is a comparatively rare instance, though -growing less so each day, that she has done so simply by competing with -men in egoistic-social activities. A man generally avoids this comparison -if he thinks at all. - -Children quarrel on egoistic lines regardless of sex. Comparisons thus -begin at an age before the erotism in the complete and synthetized state -is possible. - -A woman, too, apparently makes a comparison between herself and different -men, notably her husband. And women make the same comparisons between -themselves and other women, but, it will be admitted, with greater -emotional discomforts. - -In all these comparisons so far mentioned the standard of comparison is -an egoistic-social one. But in the erotic sphere not only are comparisons -logically impossible, but, where attempts at them are made, there is a -lamentable confusion of thought consisting of a rapid shift from one -sphere to another. Thus if a man should say to himself, “Woman is more -(or less) capable of love than men,” he would be using terms with no -sense. For he would mean that woman is more fond of being controlled in -her erotic impulses than man is. This is a comparison without sense; -because woman, with every fibre of her being, craves to be erotically -controlled, while man has no instinctive desire whatever to be -controlled. Such a comparison would be as senseless as comparing infinity -with zero. - -If on the other hand a man should say to himself that woman is more (or -less) capable of love than man, he would mean that woman is more desirous -of being controlled in the erotic sphere than man is of controlling her. -As the fact is that man, innately, is infinitely desirous of controlling -and woman is endlessly desirous of being controlled, such a comparison -would be as senseless as comparing one infinity with another. - -This second useless comparison may be objected to by the people who -accept a current opinion that men are more “passionate” than women. -This, they believe, is the real cause of the double standard of sexual -morality. But all women are potentially, and so are all men, absolutely -under the dominance of the erotic motive, and the only difference -between men and women is the degree of repression of its outward -manifestation, a degree entirely dependent on the circumstances of their -upbringing. - -If we keep clearly in mind from the outset the inevitability of -comparisons between individuals, men or women, in the egoistic-social -sphere (a sphere consisting mainly of comparisons) and the utter -absurdity of comparisons in the erotic sphere, we shall gain much clarity -of thought and subsequently much peace of mind. - -Does one woman want, more than another, to be controlled erotically? If -she seems to, or says so in clearer words or actions than does another -woman, she only happens to be more able to express herself in this way -than other women are. Does one man more than another want to control -a woman in the erotic sphere? If so, he only happens to have had such -experiences that have given him greater erotic insight than the other. - -The men who admit that they find money-getting and all that it implies -more interesting than making love are only admitting that they have -allowed the egoistic-social motives to grow stronger with them than the -erotic motives. They are not stating any absolute truth about themselves. -They are merely saying that they do not know the truth about themselves, -and we listen to them without contradiction for we know that, when they -talk about making love, they do not know what we mean by these words. -They think that we mean wasting time or wasting substance in riotous -living. - - -§ 45 - -The egoistic-social impulses are always developed in children by their -environment earlier than their erotic impulses can manifest themselves, -except in a fragmentary and unsynthetized manner. - -This is somewhat analogous to the situation of the plants that “time the -explosions” of pollen maturity so as to secure cross-fertilization. - -The child has no opportunity to synthetize his erotic impulses which -become unified under the leadership of the reproductive organs at the -time of puberty. - -This separation of egoistic-social and erotic impulse development -may have been Nature’s way of securing an excessive egoistic-social -development, just as she secures maximum growth of the individual body -about the time of puberty. It is obvious that where the struggle against -the forces of nature is a keen one, as was the case ages ago before man -had begun to coöperate and really to form the basis of social living, any -development of the erotic impulse above the bare needs of propagation -would have been impossible. - -So it may be supposed that a high degree of development of the -egoistic-social impulse was evolved out of the adverse conditions of the -physical environment of the prehistoric man. - -But today the intensity of this struggle against the forces of nature -which developed the egoistic-social instinct is far less than ever -before. And the fact that it is now comparatively so slight makes it -evident that the original need for this excessive egoistic-social -development has passed. - -In this development the free expression of the erotic impulse was -necessarily checked. One can see this process of inhibition of the erotic -going on in present-day savage tribes who are still on the way from an -uncivilized to a civilized condition. The sex activity of the individual -is even in them restricted more or less to comply with the demands of the -social unit. - -It would seem that the expression of the erotic impulse would be freer -and freer as we approached the ultimate goal of civilization. In -uncivilized man, love in the sense used in this book has no existence, -but sporadic instances of it appear among civilized peoples. - -But the ascendancy gained, in early human life on the earth, over the -erotic, by the egoistic-social instincts is now so great, on account of -the comparative modernness of the higher type of erotic impulses, that -even yet the latter are as young seedlings of some exotic plant in a -forest of enormous trees. - -And specifically a conscious ideal is needed on every man’s part, -to overcome the undue prevalence of mere competition and create -anew a civilization based not solely as the present one is on the -egoistic-social instinct but on the erotic instinct. - -Lest this be misunderstood as advocating an unlimited number of -offspring, it should be emphasized that the modern erotic impulse is -one leading toward love expression entirely apart from the desire to -procreate. - -How animal-like (we may for example think in 1950) it was in the year -1923 for people to consider it wrong to go through a love episode—even -married people—except when they wished a child to be conceived! Why -should the erotic experiences in those days have been left to the roué -and the prostitute? “What could have been meant by married love?” they -will say. - -Now that an increased sense of responsibility has been developed in -women, placed on them thoughtfully and purposefully by men, all men are -able to find by actual experiment the women whom they wish for mothers of -their children, and women, too, are sure beforehand, both that they want -their children and that they desire those particular men for the fathers -of their children. - - -§ 46 - -The fundamental characteristic of the erotic instinct is its recognition -of the necessity of heterosexual physical and mental companionship. -This belongs to both sexes equally, although men’s clubs, women’s clubs -and the other occasional separations of the sexes exist—caused by the -overpowering influence of egoistic-social impulses. - -If a man cannot see anything in a woman but a child or a fool, he has -no rational excuse for seeking her company. He might as well have a -dog’s. Those who see no more than that are themselves either children or -fools. In such cases the real love instinct has been so overcast with -prejudice or tradition that it cannot function as it should. Such a man -is judging women by the egoistic-social standard and his statement means -no more than that in his experience he has met more unintelligent than -intelligent women. Or it means that he himself lacks that degree of -intelligence which alone is able to evoke the intelligent reaction in -another. - -The proper functioning of the true love instinct is seen only in the -ineluctable conviction that man and woman are complementary, and that the -union of one man and one woman composes the real individual, the social -unit. Man alone, or woman alone, is only demi-human. - -Plato’s fable in the _Symposium_, much quoted recently, relates how -humans were supposed to be duplex—two heads, two sets of arms and legs, -a huge double-size body. Fearing the power of such humans, the gods cut -them in two, one half of each binary human forming a man, the other half -a woman. After that time the parts were so absorbed in trying to unite, -that the gods were no longer worried. - -Corresponding to the self-magnification of the separate demi-human -which seeks the magnification of its own petty half of the real unit of -existence, the true love instinct always includes in its strivings the -gratification of the other complement of the true social unit. - -The egoistic-social instinct then regards the world from a demi-human -standpoint, looking for self-aggrandizement unconsciously, inevitably. -The erotic instinct alone takes in the aspect of the world as affecting -one other person too, and their children when they come along. - -The love instinct seeks gratification through the gratifications of one -member of the opposite sex; and fails to find the first except through -the second. - -It is impossible, from the viewpoint of this book, to love more than one -member of the opposite sex at once. Men or women who think they do this -are deceiving themselves. It is impossible to call that feeling love -which has in it any reservations whatever. Every thought, every feeling, -every act that could not be communicated to the mate, diminishes by so -much the integrity of the personality in whom it originates and initiates -an inceptive disintegration of personality. - -By this denial that love at first sight is a fact is meant that either of -two things is more likely than anything else to happen in the cases where -men and women fall thus instantaneously in love with each other and the -union is continued through life, which is indeed comparatively rare. - -Either the pair are utterly ignorant of what true love really implies and -maintain for years a passionless _mariage de convenance_; or one of the -pair, realizing the emptiness of joy that marks their marital existence, -is too proud to acknowledge failure. It is conceivable that the woman may -realize how unerotic her husband is, and feeling unable, as most women -are indeed, to change her husband’s ideas, to supply him with the ideal -he should have had himself, naturally gives up what is essentially for -her a hopeless struggle. - - -§ 47 - -It is also conceivable that the man, profoundly ignorant as many men are -of the erotic needs of women, may utterly fail, in his behaviour towards -his wife, to avail himself of the inestimable privilege he has of making -himself complete man in the only way possible for a man to do. Through -his entire married life he may suppose, in his ignorance, that his wife -is by nature cold, unsympathetic and unresponsive. He is unlikely to find -by accident the magic key to unlock the treasure of her passion, yet -it exists, and he may, though he has fallen in love with her at first -sight and she with him, be and remain the rest of his life blind to the -possibilities quite within his reach. - -In either of these cases love at first sight is as helpless as any other -love. The term has no very deep meaning except in so far as all love is -love at first sight. - -In the majority of people true passionate love can never be experienced -at first. Therefore no marriage is ever complete in the sense of ended, -as far as possibilities of further development are concerned, until the -death of one of the partners. If this is the case, then, it constitutes -the unanswerable argument for indissoluble marriage, monogamy, not -only with one partner but with that partner for life, providing, of -course (an exceedingly rare combination), that it has not been actually -demonstrated that there are real and insuperable incompatibilities. No -marriage except a life marriage can be complete any more than a single -demi-human existence can be complete until death has rendered any further -development impossible. - -Just as a man can never know till the end of his life all the -possibilities his life held for him, and should endeavour in every -way to develop to its fullest every potentiality of expression of his -personality, so no pair can ever know until the end of their joint life -all the potentialities of the different ages of married life; for each -age has its own. - - -§ 48 - -Adult sexuality is not an egoistic-social expression in any essential -sense. While the gratification of sexual desire is at first entirely -selfish, starting as it does in every individual before puberty in -autoerotic practices, it never becomes thoroughly adult until, in the -case of the man, he has secured in his mate her perfect satisfaction on -which his own depends. He can never marry in the deepest sense if he -retains his autoerotic tendencies. A man’s satisfaction on attaining -solely his own erotic acme without reference to that of his mate, is in -every case an autoerotic satisfaction. The woman, in this instance, is -merely an impersonal object or instrument by means of which he produces -an effect on himself. In this respect his woman is no more personal than -his food. - -It may be said that a man’s satisfaction is none the less selfish, -even though it be conditioned on a woman’s. But the self-satisfaction -which _excludes_ that of the woman must be greater in selfishness and -actually less human. In fact this reciprocal self-satisfaction is the -distinguishing human trait without which the sex life of most marriages, -like all prostitution, is not other than animal heat. - -A man frequently thinks he has to make a conscious choice between -courses of action that are predominantly egoistic-social or erotic. He -thinks of the erotic life as taking time, and incidentally money in -the time lost alone, to pay enough attention to a woman to develop her -erotic possibilities, and many men acting under this false impression -that erotism weakens practical accomplishment, have decided that the -egoistic-social path was the more attractive. But even they can never -free themselves from the promptings of the erotic impulse. - -Such men, thinking erroneously that all sexual acts are erotic, making -as they do no distinction between the two, believe that they have -somehow fulfilled an erotic need by keeping a woman, either a wife or a -mistress. This travesty of the truly erotic by a man who acts mainly from -egoistic-social motives is self-deception. The two are not only not the -same, but never can be made so. - - -§ 49 - -Many a young man making a success of his business, paying off his debts -and beginning to pile up money, lets up a bit from the strain of business -and begins to look about him for amusement keener than the ordinary -recreations. - -He meets an attractive young woman, puts her down mentally as not quite -up to his social scale, but finding her responsive determines to go as -far with her as she will let him. Of course this is starting wrongly, -on the basis of not so much making her an integral part of his own -personality as trying to find in her an objective and nearly impersonal -means of procuring autoerotic pleasure for himself. Not how he pleases -her is his ultimate thought but how she pleases him. It has possibly -not occurred to him that he likes her because he likes the effects she -produces in him and that no matter how much money he lavishes on her, it -is barter for certain privileges she permits him to take with her. These -privileges are not the highest and greatest he could avail himself of, -with a woman he would make his wife, the chief privilege being that of -developing himself through her and incidentally of developing her to the -highest degree of which she is capable. - -On the contrary he does not take a great deal of interest in any section -of her personality except her body. He may think her cute and amusing or -enigmatic if he is interested in solving puzzles; but he is not likely to -find any of her mental characteristics engaging, although she probably -has such, even if she allows him liberties he might consider impossible -in some other women. He will probably not introduce her to his mother or -sisters, as he holds them as a different class of women; and with the -secretly followed woman he feels on a different social plane, no matter -how personally neat and attractive she may be. If she engages with him in -any erotic preliminary play, she ostracizes herself in his eyes from the -class of women to which his mother and sisters belong, women who would -not do that. This comes from his youthful propensity to bisect everything -into absolutely good and absolutely bad. Women are thus divided into -the mother class (which includes of course sisters and cousins) who are -supposed by him to be non-erotic in a sense. Chief goddess in this class -of erotically pure women is the mother-imago or angel-imago described in -another section. - -To the ideas, opinions, beliefs and other spiritual and intellectual -characteristics of his clandestine “love” he pays little attention. -Believing again, and again erroneously, in the utter bisection of human -qualities, he does not know that supreme erotic attainments demand the -highest intellectual abilities, or the utmost freedom from traditional -superstitions about conventional morals. He does not know that his own -greatest intellectual development is conditioned on his own fullest -erotic development, which he can achieve only by the deepest and most -searchingly passionate pursuit first of the soul and second of the body -of his inamorata. His tendency toward gross bisection makes him accept -the common shallow opinion that physical and spiritual are far as the -poles asunder. He does not know that what he thinks the keenest physical -pleasure is, as physical pleasure, far inferior to what it might become -for him if he treated his evening love to the full illumination of his -intellect and his reason. He also thinks and still erroneously that he -can purge away all earthly love from the woman of the mother-imago class -and find for his wife, whom he will later love spiritually after he has -satisfied his physical passions, a woman absolutely pure of all human -passion. - -He makes the serious mistake of thinking he can love on a sort of -departmental plan, a plan that may work well in his business or in any -other egoistic-social sphere, but in the erotic is an utter failure. - -He thinks, in other words, that he has passions that should be called -base, and that he can gratify these desires with one type of woman. -That their baseness is only a matter of the autoerotic mode in which he -gratifies them has perhaps never occurred to him. Nor has he ever known -that no passion can rightly be called base if gratified allerotically, -which is the opposite of autoerotically. For allerotism is the passionate -love not of self but of another. No one could be called in any sense -unethical who gratified his own desires only through the gratified -desires of another. But that is not the state of the well-to-do young -man with a clandestine “love” affair. - -The hardest thing for this young man to see is the fact, which is quite -patent to the unconscious both of the young woman and of himself, the -simple fact that his interest in her is merely autoerotic. Some indeed -will say that they are fully aware that they are keeping up secret -relations with women for purely selfish reasons. They see that, in their -day life, business is business and one has to sell and buy; and they -wrongly suppose that the selling and buying of women’s bodies is no worse -than business. The woman gets well paid for her services. Indeed they -may, if they have read him, quote Ellis, who contrasts the reward of the -average wife and the average _demimondaine_, and says that the prostitute -is much better paid than the wife, and does far less for the economic -reward she gets. - -But the young man who thinks for a moment that there is anything really -erotic in the relations between himself and the young woman whom he -disdains to make his wife, knows no more of erotism than a butterfly does -of the depths of the ocean. His case is simply that of an undeveloped -embryo. His autoerotic love is a wasted gonad that has never met the cell -with which alone it could completely fuse and grow into an individual of -its appropriate species. - -Not all sexual acts are erotic. Many are no more truly erotic than -smoking a pipe or chewing gum. The man who for egoistic-social reasons -refuses to confine his love to a woman he has married or intends to -marry, and thereby removes all chance of the vivifying effects of true -erotism being caused in his extra-marital life by the depth of his -marital love, is starting in the wrong direction every time. He has left -undeveloped the truly erotic part of himself, which, thus banished into -the unconscious, will nevertheless, through its indirect manifestations, -completely warp his sex life. He will have no love life whatever. In -spite of its frequent occurrence in men in general, sex life without love -life is a monstrosity. - -Erotism, then, may be defined as the highest expression of sex, from -which all autoerotic impulses have been removed, or in which they have -been so much subordinated that they play an almost negligible part. - - -§ 50 - -In our competitive economic social structure of yesterday and today the -egoistic-social factor has been stressed to the utmost, almost, indeed, -to the breaking point for all civilized people, quite to the breaking -point with many of them. This egoistic tendency has evidently changed -if not perverted much of the pure love instinct. It has, for instance, -caused woman to judge man by his success in economic competition and also -to adopt for herself a competitive modus which has spread itself over -so much of her activities as in many cases to make her his rival in the -activities in which for the time he happens to be engaged. - -No work that has to be done in the world is any more peculiarly or -properly the work of one sex than that of the other. All _work_, implying -as it does _duty_, is egoistic-social. No work is erotic; and nothing -erotic should be work and so have in it the effort that is connected -with duty. Anything looking like work that enters into the erotic sphere -is just so much egoistic-social activity. Erotism is the play side of -life. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” needs to be reworded -into “all egoistic-social strivings and no erotic living makes Everyman -(and Everywoman for that matter) an emotional moron.” - -Ships are not ordinarily navigated by women, but women could probably -navigate quite as well as men if they had equal experience. Some women -evidently think they are magnifying their own ego if they take up any -occupation simply _because_ it is or has been generally known as man’s -work. Yet no man presumably seeks to magnify his ego by becoming a chef -or a maker of women’s clothing. - -It is strange that we should continue to make financial success an aim -for all young men, when innumerable experiences have taught us beyond a -doubt that happiness comes not from material success, but rather material -success from happiness. - -No man can develop the egoistic sphere of his personality to the limit -of its potentiality if his erotic sphere is rotten to the core. And it -is rotten in many men. No man can feel right toward the outside world or -any part of it if his love impulse, the very core of his being and prime -mover of all his acts, is so overgrown with egoistic or social fears that -he cannot give expression to the most essential part of himself. - - -§ 51 - -The egoistic instinct becomes social, even before the intelligence -perceives that it may be made subservient to the erotic instinct, -quite as soon, indeed, as rivalries, even in childhood, appear for -possession and enjoyment. After the child reaches puberty and recognizes -the egoistic-social impulse as a possible means of furthering the -gratification of erotic desires, it becomes associated with these. - -This extension of the egoistic-social interest under the dominance of the -erotic is more and more, in modern times, beginning to take on a phase -of spiritual growth in distinction to merely material aggrandizement. -It is not the best, in any respect, for a man to acquire, for the sake -of his wife and children, wealth and social or political or artistic -distinction. Indeed, many children are overburdened with the illustrious -traditions of their forebears and are even hindered thereby in their own -self-development. - -A man married and had three children, two daughters and then one son. -By the time his son was old enough to desire luxuries the father was -wealthy enough to provide them without stint. In doing so, however, he -made it plain that the son was expected to follow in his footsteps in -the business. The story is common enough where the son becomes simply a -wastrel without positive character of any kind. - -Not so, however, in this case. The father’s extremely positive and -aggressive character produced a different reaction in the son, who had a -positiveness of his own. Remaining absolutely unspoiled by the luxuries -by which he was surrounded, he continued to disappoint his father by -becoming what the elder man thought the most ignominious of all—a -teacher, and soon reached the summit of his profession as head of a -department in a great university. - -To this career, however, the father’s great egoistic-social success in -amassing money did not in the least contribute; rather it hindered it. -The son’s progress would have been infinitely easier without the rigid -egoistic-social atmosphere in which he was brought up. The ill-concealed -sneers of the father prevented the son even in his youth from developing -a genial open-hearted sociability with which he was by nature endowed, -and made his contacts with men and women unnecessarily difficult. - - -§ 52 - -The parents’ happy married life, irrespective of wealth and distinction, -is the best possible heritage for their children. The father just -mentioned could not in any sense have been called happily married. He -considered his wife an abject idiot and acted accordingly, domineering -over her to the utter extinction of any personality she might have -originally possessed and thereby deprived the son of even as fine a -mother ideal as he might have had. - -If to a happy married life showing itself to the children in every -incident of the home and its management is added the best type of sex -instruction, both physiological and psychological, the parents have -done their duty, and have succeeded, as far as any parents could, in -transmitting an environment in which the superiority of the erotic over -the egoistic-social impulses is daily recognized. - -An exceedingly common environment is the opposite one where any erotic -impulses of the children are not only frowned upon but are practically -declared by the parents to be either non-existent or impossible of any -form of expression. - -Psychoanalytic treatment of various neuroses strikes, unsuggested by -the analyst, the sexual factor, as Frink says in his _Morbid Fears -and Compulsions_ (page 225), in the second or third interview. Most -neurotics are brought up with no legitimate sex instruction. It needs -a fair and open discussion between parents and children, in absolutely -matter-of-fact terms, to prevent sex from becoming compressed, if I may -be permitted to use the term in this way. Sex is forced into the focus -of attention of many children by being the only topic about which they -may not speak to their parents in confidence. The utter exclusion of -the erotic from the child’s life is the final compressive factor which -reduces it into the smallest possible compass, into dangerously explosive -density. The exclusive emphasis on the egoistic-social in the bosom of -the family drives out the erotic from the consciousness of children in -the only situation, where it would be more ethical than in any other. -Many children never see their parents _in puris naturalibus_, though -there is no logical or psychological reason why they should not, and -many psychological reasons why they should have experiences that would -prevent them, boys as well as girls, from the shock of some later chance -revelation. - -Many children never see any endearments between their parents, partly -because when the children are old enough consciously to notice these, -they have ceased to take place. The marriage of the parents has run down. -They are no longer lovers but purely egoistic-social business partners -in the home. - -But where should a tradition arise, and how be perpetuated, of a noble -type of marital love, except in and by the children’s home? How should -they learn anything or where should they best learn of married happiness -except from their father and mother? If they see better marital relations -evidenced in the homes of the companions they may visit, surely they -will at least unconsciously realize that at home all is not well, and -the unconscious principle of identification will make them think that as -their parents lacked warmth of affection so they themselves must or will. - -Homes in which the marriage of the parents has run down are not the -best homes for children. The parents realize this and try to act out -frequently a love which they no longer feel in their hearts. But all -acting of this character is absolutely transparent to the unconscious of -the child. - - -§ 53 - -The best parental environment, the one that gives the erotic its due, -is that in which the child is allowed to remain a child until he is -required to develop certain phases of the egoistic-social environment. -The best home environment is that in which the parents are themselves, -and particularly the father, emotionally, i.e. erotically, adult and not, -as in so many homes, emotionally childish. - -The emotionally childish status, in the erotic sphere of many parents, is -due at least partly to fear, which is purely an egoistic-social emotion. -Love has in its pure state no such emotion as fear but the fears that -are so commonly associated with the expression of love are all of -egoistic-social origin. - -While love is properly identified with sex, there being no real -expression of love that is not fundamentally a sex expression, there is -every reason why love should be freed from acquired associations with -fear; and if the fear which has, through puritanical views, attached to -sex could be removed from sex and therefore from love, people today would -be able to live a much more fully expressed life; for the inhibitions -irrationally associated with sex have taken away from life an inestimable -amount of health, strength and beauty. - -The inference from this is that the only possible time to prevent the -acquirement of inhibitions is early childhood, and the only possible -people to do it are the parents. - -The perfect love pattern will never spontaneously originate with the man -of the world; but with his children it may if he will, if both parents -will, practically refrain from interference. The parents know well -enough, sometimes consciously but more often unconsciously, that their -love pattern is a poor one—poor in conception and poor in execution. It -is poor in joy and rich in misery. According to this perverted pattern -they have lived their own love, and if they but pause to think, they -will withhold their hands and their words from interfering with the -illumination which is slowly reaching the younger generation, but which -blinds the parents’ eyes to true life values. - - -§ 54 - -In order to be a wholesome one, the relation between the parent and -child must involve a wholesome relation between the two parents.[15] You -cannot prevent divorce and prostitution if you do not develop before the -children’s eyes a marital pattern which will put both of these family -evils out of commission. You cannot annihilate even an idea by repressing -it into the unconscious. In order to obviate in the next generation the -worst features of this, we must recognize them intellectually and react -to them emotionally; and to be specific, in order to remove as far as -possible the chances of divorce and prostitution in our own children, -we must show them an environment in our own families in which the -marital pattern is such that any deviation from it must be revolting -to the little boy and the little girl who are now getting their first -impressions of married life from their own parents. - - -§ 55 - -_Instinct in Humans Generally Inadequate or Misleading_ - -Instinctive reactions are adequate responses only in natural environments -before civilization has set in. The more complicated life of modern -civilization renders purely instinctive reactions more out of date than a -twenty-year-old model of an automobile. - -Not only is mere instinct not a good guide in the egoistic-social -activities, but in the erotic life it is almost worse than useless. -This is so because modern life is so different from the prehistoric -environment that humans are today unable to follow erotic instinct, or -even, on account of traditional inhibitions, to get at it in its purity. - -We live today in an environment so preponderantly egoistic-social that -the majority of motives for any act are egoistic-social ones, and only -a small fraction of them erotic. This makes it as difficult to follow -erotic instincts as for a compass to point north, when a magnet is lying -three inches to the east of it. - -Instinct alone would naturally prompt a boy and a girl to dwell long over -the preliminaries to the love episode. If left together and alone, they -would take some time to reach an erotic acme, and would instinctively -find that out last of all, as is so beautifully described in Marlowe’s -_Hero and Leander_, and so delicately suggested in _Paul and Virginia_. - -Not only has the social convention of the present day tended more and -more to inhibit the introduction, prelude, first and second acts of the -love drama but it has raised such a barrier against the third act as to -give it an entirely disproportionate value in comparison with the others. - - -§ 56 - -There are three separate fusions involved in any perfect heterosexual -union: (1) the bodily fusion of the man and the woman, (2) the fusion of -their souls each with the other and (3) the fusion of the soul and body -of each more closely together. - -The last comes from the man on his side and the woman on hers, each -seeing the world more _sub specie Amoris_—as manifestation of erotic -passion; but it also comes from the fact that the admission into -consciousness of the innate erotic reactions, in spite of the opposition -of environment—the legitimate admission of these feelings—vitalizes not -only the physical body of man and woman, but also all the multitudinous -and diversified contacts of both man and woman with people and things. - -Instinct alone, if it were possible to follow it unchecked, would lead to -those three fusions; but the sex instinct in men and women has been so -submerged by various forms of prohibition that even in the married state -most husbands and wives do not know of the joy of any of these three -fusions. - - -§ 57 - -One type of instinctive behaviour is the almost universal tendency to -reason by analogy which frequently turns out to be a reasoning by false -analogy and by association of the contiguity type. - -It would be quite as reasonable for a woman to say that, because a -prostitute enjoys roast beef or lobster (or anything between), the pure -wife should feel it a sin to enjoy good food. - -Of course there are people who think it is wrong to enjoy anything, -but while overgratification from food or drink has a certain essential -sensuality about it and gluttony was one of the “seven deadly sins,” -there is no psychological principle according to which intense enjoyment -is rightly prohibited, providing the consumption of food does not exceed -the necessity of the body for growth and restoration of tissue. Up to -that point the more one enjoys one’s food the better for himself and -incidentally for everyone else. If, however, the enjoyment has to come -from an increase in the amount consumed or the cost of it, then a quite -unjustifiable element of unsocial action surely enters. - -One should enjoy food, and the more enjoyment the better, provided the -enjoyment does not depend on the increase in amount or expensiveness of -it. - -Similarly there is every good reason why both women and men should enjoy -sex and regard it as quite as necessary as food. - -Instinctively both women and men would do so if their sexual instincts -were accessible. Those men and women to whom their instincts are -accessible do gain their greatest comfort if not their greatest happiness -through the uninhibited expression of the sex instinct. - - -§ 58 - -If the greatest happiness in life be something other than the emotions -incident to the fusion of man’s and woman’s beings in the love drama, -then, whatever that greatest happiness may be said to be, it is surely -conditioned on a happy marriage. Those who think otherwise are not -happily married and they need to become so before their words can have -any authority. Those not happily married have, of course, no means -whatever of knowing at first hand what is, or should be, implied in that -term. - - -§ 59 - -Instinct has taught the woman to expect strength, physical or spiritual, -or both, of the man. Let it not be forgotten that mental and spiritual -strength is a perfect substitute for physical strength. It does not -mean that intellectual ability is the equivalent of spiritual strength -as the former may be coexistent with an emotional undevelopment which -is the same as spiritual weakness. A man may, even a child may, be an -intellectual prodigy as a chess player or mathematician without implying -any emotional development in the direction of normal erotism. - -In this the sexes are different, for woman’s instinct here guides her -rightly. Biologically she is unconsciously forced, against her will, and -quite without her knowing it to test her man continuously for some kind -of strength. For some women indeed physical strength is all-satisfactory -but in the majority of cases of civilized woman physical strength, -without an accompanying spiritual strength, which will insure the -necessary erotic control of her by her husband, will always leave her -disappointed and discontented. - -The qualities instinctively called for in the woman by the man are the -opposite in some respects. He unconsciously, if not consciously, expects -sweetness, docility, compliance, adoration in his wife, all qualities -that are a necessary background and basis for his childish and autoerotic -enjoyments. It is almost unheard of to find a man who takes pleasure in -the negativism which characterizes the child and also many women, and -in the opposition which alone, when deftly overcome, constitutes the -only proof that he is or has been purely masculine and creative in his -positive activities in effecting a change in that part of his environment. - -It may be objected that this demand for compliance, softness and -accessibility in woman may not be purely instinctive; but, if it is not, -it is of such early origin as to be undistinguishable from true instinct. -It is the common experience of every infant to be treated with the utmost -tenderness by its mother. - - -§ 60 - -When the average unreflective man meets opposition, in any degree of -strength, from his wife he tends to reënact the mother-infant situation -in his own married life. This results in the husband’s reproducing more -or less exactly the original infantile tantrum. Naturally he tends toward -an explosive use of force when he does not find in his wife the qualities -he has sensed in his mother. However much he may conceal or transform the -outward manifestation of this infantile trend, the trend exists and is -a positive factor in the situation which contains the wife’s opposition. -From this it follows that instinct is a better guide for women than for -men. - -Woman is in every way justified in her demand for strength in her mate. -Man is wholly unjustified in expecting sweetness, adoration and the other -qualities except perhaps the docility implied in the susceptibility to -male control in the erotic sphere which is undoubtedly innate in every -woman. It does not occur to him that the negativistic opposition of woman -is her means of testing his own strength, and that he has in it the best -possibility of proving his essential masculinity. That he should totally -ignore the opposition by the sole means of suggestive replacement of -her antagonistic ideas by the ideas which he knows are the best ones in -the situation, and that he should convince and persuade her through his -perfectly confident attitude that this type of action on his part is -exactly what she is instinctively trying to evoke in him by her apparent -perversity, are too infrequently even glimpsed by the man who relies on -_his_ instinct. - - -§ 61 - -From the erotic viewpoint it makes no difference whether a woman is well -dressed or not or even tidy, provided her ill-dressed condition does not -interfere with her physical health. A woman in rags wielding a hoe or a -rake or even a spade may be just as radiant and have just as fine and -attractive physique as a lady in silks. It is a fallacy to suppose that -erotic attractiveness consists only in the cosmetic art. This motive to -keep herself in the pink of visual perfection appeals only to sight, and -is at bottom more egoistic-social than erotic, however much the woman may -think she is making an erotic impression by her appearance. The conscious -appeal to sight is frequently only an overcompensation for her erotically -unsatisfied condition. - -As sight is only distant or vicarious _touch_, it is evident that the -visual appeal is only a substitute touch appeal. That a woman with -a homely face may be erotically attractive then is no paradox. The -beautiful face is only the symbol of the “skin you love to touch.” The -visible symbol may be absent and yet the kinesthetic quality be present. -Furthermore all lovers who take pleasure from the sight of beautiful -lines of the human form are only vicariating for kinesthetic sensations. -The original sculptor is the caressing hand. - - -§ 62 - -In modern human civilized life instincts in general, even irrespective of -the sex of the person in whom they are manifested, are the worst possible -guides. The love instinct is also among the worst, simply because its -present-day vestiges are so overlaid with restrictions and conventions -that it cannot be seen clearly. It has been so inhibited that it needs an -apologist. - -When looking at the two broad divisions of egoistic-social and love -instincts, one has to have demonstrated the essential superiority of the -love instinct and its far greater ability to cause happiness, health, -and, in the deepest sense, success. - -Over two thousand years ago Aristotle saw, and said, that the greatest -satisfaction comes from fullest use of all one’s powers. Today we are -beginning to realize, after the study of the ductless glands, that -there is a kind of reaction in the body not mediated by nerves, as -are muscular reactions, and that we have, in the hormones, a mode of -interaction between the parts of the body that has been as yet unnoted by -physiologist and psychologist alike, an interaction that places marriage -in the forefront as a necessity not only for health but for the fullest -development of our latent powers. - - -§ 63 - -For among the dozen or so ductless glands, which Berman[16] has -called an “interlocking directorate” of all the human activities, is -the interstitial gland which places in circulation in the blood a -hormone that vitalizes all the secretions of all the other glands, -and which requires for its own perfect working the concomitant and -synchronous perfect working of the homologous gland in the mate, in the -other demi-human of the complete social unit. In other words perfect -physiological health is secured in no better way than by marrying -provided marriage is complete marriage and not merely a “Platonic” or -business relation. - -From these considerations it is evident that as motives for action that -leads to happiness, the erotic instincts (if we can succeed in extracting -their ore from the mine of our unconscious and refining it from the -dross of egoistic-social accretions) are infinitely superior to the -egoistic-social. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -THE LOVE EPISODE - - -§ 64 - -From the earliest ages seers and poets have glorified Love. The Bible -says God is Love. Love as the perfect erotic control of the wife by the -husband will be a strange concept to some minds that have been accustomed -to the theory that woman is the Queen of Love, and to the ideas of men -brought up under the Madonna influence. - -This control is indeed the opposite of the attitude that many husbands -have adopted (or in which they have been trained) toward their wives, to -whom they act as they would toward idealized mothers, not of their own -children, but of themselves. - -A conviction derived from intimate knowledge of the marital relations of -many people forces the conclusion that this current attitude not only is -a false one, but is also one that gradually renders a husband impotent to -take the part which a true male should take, in the highest type of human -mating. - -Love is the work of art of an entire lifetime. The calf love of the -adolescent, the adoration of the betrothed and the first passionate -outburst of the honeymoon are but preludes or overtures to an opera or -drama that should continue as long as the two partners live together, -and in which the husband is the protagonist. - - -§ 65 - -To denote the highest type of special scientific student of the art of -love, the term _erotologist_ is suggested in preference to the word -sexologist, which would imply the study of only the physical side of -_sex_. - -If a modern erotologist can tell us that husbands using toward their -wives one form of behaviour are themselves unhappy, and have too many -children, or too few, we should certainly be broad-minded enough to admit -that the chances are, we ourselves shall be unhappy if we do the same -things in the same way. - -If the erotologist tells us that a million husbands have used a certain -technique in their erotic lives and have become supremely happy, and have -had just as many healthy children as they wanted and no more, we should -certainly be wise, if we could find out what was the felicitous technique -of the happy million. If we saw their wives retaining their youth and -beauty and vivacity, and being both loving wives and proud grandmothers -at the same time, we should not let envy of these men inspire us with -hatred and prejudice enough to say that their methods are iniquitous, -and not mentioned in the Bible; but we should inquire exactly what these -husbands did, to keep their wives and themselves so young and happy. - -We should at the present day inquire mostly in vain. A good part of the -million do not themselves know what they do that is different from the -practice of the other millions. They just love their wives and them -alone. - -The erotologists, however, have been quietly studying the marital -situation for some decades. They have compared, weighed, correlated -and investigated thousands of cases. Some of the sexologists have been -unscientific and biased with ancient superstitions. A few erotologists, -notably Havelock Ellis and Dr. Marie C. Stopes of England, Dr. W. -F. Robie of Baldwinsville, Massachusetts, Dr. H. W. Long of Peoria, -Illinois, and some of the psychoanalysts, are scientists, ready and -willing to look at facts as they are and not as they might wish them to -be. - -The erotologists have actually discovered definite facts about the more -intimate nature of the marital relation. It implies the interaction, in -every married pair, of four sets of tendencies: the husband’s conscious -and his unconscious trends and the wife’s conscious and unconscious -trends. Anyone looking only at the conscious factors is naturally puzzled -by almost all the external phenomena of marriage, e.g., why they fell in -love, what either could see in the other, why another pair fell out, what -on earth was the matter with them. - - -§ 66 - -To the observer not looking beneath the surface with the scientific -instrument of precision constituted by the study of the unconscious, the -actions of two married people are as unaccountable as those of a tack -sliding uphill on a piece of smooth paper. The erotologists have looked -underneath and seen the magnet in the hand of another person and are not -surprised. - -To the erotologists marriage is in no sense a lottery, but a situation -in which the causal factors are just as clearly natural as they are -either in a twelve-cylinder automobile that runs smoothly or in one that -snorts along with a couple of cylinders working. Anyhow a lottery is only -a matter of chance; and chance is only cause to which we either have -blinded ourselves or have not yet become sentient. - -The erotologist can tell us definitely that in marriage the erotic -situation should be controlled by the husband, as the husband is in every -case the cause of the good or evil outcome of the match. Masculinity is -the unquenchable yearning to control the woman emotionally, erotically. -Femininity is the insatiable desire to be erotically controlled. - -Everyone will admit that for a man to be erotically controlled by a woman -does not represent the peak of masculine attainment and that a woman’s -desire to control a man is, while common enough, not an expression of her -love instinct but of her ego instinct by which women are just as much -motivated as are men. - -The erotologist tells us (the main thesis of this book) that the sole -solid bond of union in marriage is just this erotic control of the wife -by the husband. It is not complete and perfect if it does not, in all -activities strictly marital, supersede all egoistic trends. A woman may -as mother of her children, as lady of the house, as woman of business, -display in those spheres as many expressions of egoistic-social instinct -as she has opportunity for or as circumstances allow; but as wife she is -due only to constitute the controlled member of the complementary fusion -of the marital pair. - -It is not without deep significance that the Anglo-Saxon word from -which “wife” is derived is allied to the root WIB which means “to -tremble.” It expresses an essential psychological truth. If the feminine -element in the _binary_, as I have called the perfect marital union, is -somewhat analogous to the surging sea on whose rocks or sand beaches it -continues to break, we see in the rocks or the strand the solid, at least -comparatively unwavering thing to which the surges conform themselves. -There need only be a comparative steadiness on the part of the masculine -element. He may tremble, too, but if only he tremble _less_ than she, he -will be the masculine and she the feminine element. - - -§ 67 - -The precipitate husband is over-precipitate only if he is or becomes more -so than his wife. There is no norm except a comparative one. He must have -control (and yet at the right time he may relinquish it); but at all -times he must have _more_ control over himself, and incidentally over -her, than she has over his erotic reactions, or over her own. - -A woman in perfect control of her own erotic reactions, in the sense of -control through expression and not through repression or annihilation, -probably does not exist. But if she did she would make the perfect -prostitute. Such a woman could give any man the deepest satisfaction -of which he was capable—until he found that she, and not he, was -controlling her erotism. But the egoistic-social impulse operates as a -repressive factor even in the prostitute, and renders the completeness of -her positive control impossible for her; the more civilized the community -the more repressive the control. - -A man married to any woman who is in better control of herself than he -is of himself is married to (but not mated with) a woman who is to him a -prostitute by whatsoever proportion of control she exercises over herself -more than he does over himself or over her. This is true both of the -negative control of repression on her part and of the positive control of -expression. For evidently if her repressive control makes her cold to his -advances she is of the common prostitute type as far as he is concerned. -He evokes no more real response from her than from the casual woman of -the street. However much simulated responsiveness the prostitute may -show, he knows unconsciously its unreality, and feels proportionately -disgusted. In the wife who is cold because of environmental influences in -her youth which the husband has not removed by his wholesome treatment -of her, the objective result is the same as in the prostitute who is -unresponsive from indifference or fear, or from the repression referred -to. - - -§ 68 - -Quite as obviously if the wife shows a greater control over the erotic -situation than the husband, a control through expression, he will be -unconsciously repelled by this unnatural factor in the situation, -no matter how much pleased he may be consciously by the rich, warm -femininity he has discovered in her. - -It is this positive or expressive control of the erotic factor which -gives to some women the reputation of being designing, gives them the -appearance of being more erotic than the husband or lover, and in some -instances repels the man. - -The possibility of greater erotic control on the part of the woman than -the man possesses should be a provoking thought to all husbands who are -overhasty in their handling of the love episode. - -Any husband controls his wife erotically, if he actually does, only -by means of controlling himself. At minimum his control of himself is -just enough to secure his wife’s erotic acme preceding or at least -synchronizing with his own. That is the one and only way by which he can -attain and maintain marital success. - - -§ 69 - -The love drama is the term that applies to the relations of one man and -one woman for the time when they devote themselves to each other. It may -be an hour or a lifetime, but the hour-long period surely is a pitiful -experience, a one-act farce, compared with the grandeur of the lifelong -relation. A man who thinks he prefers a succession of short periods with -different women condemns himself unnecessarily to a course of action -which resembles the career of a tea-tester. He may become a connoisseur -in various flavours but he cannot learn much about women. He is a narrow -specialist with really no wide knowledge. Moreover such a man almost -never tests his own effect on women, but merely the different effects of -women on himself; and is therefore merely autoerotic, merely playing with -himself; and his various instruments are virtually impersonal. - - -§ 70 - -Man is instinctively embarrassed upon rousing a woman to full passion, -and finding it plays so much greater a part in her life than in his, and -that it requires so much more attention on his part than he feels he has -time to give. - -That may explain why some men are so easily satisfied with a woman’s half -love and shy from it when it begins fully to develop. They run from one -woman to another, shirking the labour of drinking because they have not -the stomach to drink love to the lees. - -“Sippers,” they might be called, or “tea-testers.” The tester is doomed -to a sample. He not only never consumes a full cup but never swallows a -drop. He has not the power to hold out. No man could drink a hundred cups -of different consignments of tea. Nor can one man thoroughly experience -more than one woman. The sippers of women would be as disconcerted as a -tea-tester who should be ordered to drink full cups of tea to report on -a hundred samples, if they were expected really to know the women they -sample. Their disconcertment would amount to an actual impotence. - - -§ 71 - -The essential unsatisfactoriness of the promiscuous sex life is -experienced poignantly by most men who attempt it. One wealthy man who -kept numerous mistresses, seventeen at one time, to be exact, came to an -analyst to see if he could not get some help in unifying his life. It -was not that he had any troubles coming from any acts on the part of the -women. Most of them knew of his relations with the others, and professed, -at any rate, to be free from jealousy. This is enough to show that he did -not love any of them. - -Half consciously he realized that he had lost or never learned the truly -erotic art and though he attended to the large businesses he owned, he -felt a complete dissatisfaction with his own life not because it was -sinful and criminal but because it did not give him any real sense of -accomplishment. He was unmarried and among his large acquaintance of -marriageable young women there was one, whose femininity, he recognized, -was so rich that while, for many reasons he would have liked to propose -marriage to her, he knew he would be unable to control her erotism. - -Knowing full well that he controlled the erotism of not a single one of -his seventeen mistresses, he correctly inferred that his methods were -faulty, and sought confidential help from the analyst to bring into full -consciousness the reasons for his attempting in the future to cultivate a -true and deep love for one woman. - -His methods were shown to be faulty because of the fact that his -clandestine relations with the numerous women were on a plane exclusively -or too predominantly physical. He was made to realize that love is -not love that does not include the entire personality of the lover, -physical, mental and spiritual. - - -§ 72 - -The confrontation of a shallow sipper like this with really profound -femininity is a test of virility in the highest erotic sense. The man -perverted by traditional views of masculinity, which overvalue the -physical side, and unenlightened by the modern psychology of love is face -to face with a situation for which he is utterly unprepared. - -A man’s so-called satisfaction, then, with the superficial surrender of -a woman up to the point where she consents to let him try to control her -erotism is not, however, satisfaction at all but a withdrawal from a test -of virility. This primary consent on the woman’s part is not a submission -but merely in effect a consent to examine or as it were to make a survey -of his manliness. Of this she is, of course, entirely unconscious. If she -were conscious of it she would have one of the traits of the promiscuous -woman. But even if it is unconscious in her it is just as operative as if -it were conscious. And the result of the test is also unconscious in the -woman, if the test shows that the man is found wanting. - -Her reaction to the man found wanting is as various as is the upbringing -of women, from the immediate rejection in divorce on the grounds of -incompatibility to the lifelong slavery in which she gradually withers. - -Under the present inanely stupid method of bringing up women in total -ignorance of sex, and in blindness to the truly erotic, a woman has no -means whatever of estimating a man’s erotic virility before marriage and -practically no standard of judging him after. If she had, she might do -something to get him to learn of the existence of true mating. - -And if she could know and could tell her husband how he failed, she would -then have a chance of becoming happy. No really human man will choose -the greater of two evils or refuse the greater of two good things, no -matter when or how that choice is offered to him, although to him it may -be humiliating whether first or last, to have it laid before him by the -woman. - - -§ 73 - -But no whole man will be other than fired by this consent to test. If he -is cloyed by it, his being so demonstrates his inadequacy; it proves his -anesthesia, his insensibility, his blindness to the future possibilities -of complete binary love-living. - -To him this failure of his, this revulsion of feeling at the precise -moment when he has entered the very lists of love, this slacker’s -attitude, seems not a desertion on his part, not a failure of his, but -a sudden loss of charm on her part. She is, upon trial, not what he had -expected and longed for. But the failure, the loss of charm are his, not -hers. He ought to be the charmer. He ought to have been informed that it -is his privilege and power to attain the pleasure of putting his woman -into another world of sheer exuberant joy—that his own pleasure in life -can be attained by no other means; and that the consent of the woman to -be his wife is a consent not to take one step with him, and then have -him vanish, but to travel the path of life-love to its end—a path that -is long and joyous, a path from which no seeing man, no man with eyes of -love, can ever wish to depart. For with him is happiness personified and -before him and leading him on is light. - - -§ 74 - -The acts and scenes and various episodes and strophes of this lifelong -drama are never more than parts, and are organically related each to the -other and to the whole life poem. No matter what one’s egoistic-social -impulses and activities are, the racial theme, i.e., emotional culture -and development, should be as far as possible continuous and its phrases -related. The racial theme is organic, emotional. The narrower national, -or sectional, theme in life is the intellectual one. - -For the so-called sexual act the term _love episode_ has been substituted -in this book. Like a duet on an operatic stage it should be just as -much a combination of the melody of the emotions of each of the two -partners, and the harmony of both of their orchestras of emotions, as are -the melody and harmony arranged by the composer of an opera score. The -husband should be the composer. - -It will be replied that the ordinary man is not of the intellectual -calibre of the Wagners, Gounods, and Verdis, and that if the love life is -to be so exalted in the ordinary marriage it would be a hopeless task, -for so few men have the intellectuality to create a work of art of such -dimensions. - -But the greatness of composers and poets consists in their approaching -so near to life with media so inorganic as sound and sight; and while -music is enjoyed by most people, different styles and grades of music -have the characteristic of bringing the melody and harmony to a definite -and gratifying end. Music therefore essentially consists of the art of -producing a tension and finally a relaxation of human emotions by means -of sound. - -Love as an art consists of the same production of tension and relaxation -in a rhythm whose first pulsation begins even in childhood and whose last -is coincident with the final heartbeat of the individual. - - -§ 75 - -Love, in the sense used above, practically includes every action of the -husband or wife in relation to each other, from the beginning of the -first act of love-living to the end of their joint life. - -The love episode is not a violent activity for a brief space of five or -ten minutes. In its highest form it begins when either of the pair thinks -of any part of it. A true work of erotic art will progress from these -thoughts, through all the phases of verbal mention, or actual carrying -out of any preliminary—all the various verbal and other endearments, all -the caresses and changing contacts, in multitudinous variety of external -circumstances. It will progress through the purely physical part of it, -or that part which is regarded as purely physical (but which never is, -exclusively), and will continue for an hour to a day after the erotic -acme. - -During this post-acme time all the thoughts and emotions of each will be -referred to the past episode and not to any future one. In the interim -between the evanescence of these thought-reverberations, and the growing -tension of another approaching love episode there may be a space of some -hours or a day or two, but, where there is a fully expressed love life, -never more than that. - - -§ 76 - -There is an unmistakable sign when the union of the two natures of a -man and a woman has taken place. It is not the procreation of children, -it is not living together only, it is not a joint bank account or any -mere superficial unity or congeniality of external (egoistic-social) -interests; but it is an emotional reaction at a time of intimate physical -communion, a flood of feeling of an absolutely unique character, which, -once experienced, leads true lovers to say that nothing in the world they -have ever heard of could be in any respect like it—a flood of feeling, -which, like the perigee tide, enters and fills every nook and cranny of -the being of each, just as the waters of an estuary rise and fill and -overflow when the sun and the moon both pull together and the wind blows -into the river’s mouth. - -And the first time that emotional flood tide is experienced is nothing to -what later psychosomatic communion may attain. Man and wife looking back -on their honeymoon thirty years before realize poignantly how infinitely -more exalted and overwhelming is their present-day love communion than -were the unsteady, brief and trembling, uncoördinated embraces of their -early married life. True, they looked at each other with eyes of love -long years before, but such simple, ignorant, artless infantile eyes, -that looked without seeing half there was to see. They have learned -each other as they never could have learned any two, much less three or -more, of the other sex. Each has learned how to give, and that riches -consist only in power to give, and that power to give is developed only -by giving, just as skill in swimming comes from swimming and not from -standing on the shore. - -So they immerge each day into the invigorating ocean, and glory in the -rise and fall of its surf, in its colour and in its refreshing coolness; -and when they become too old to swim, they will sit by the open fire -and exchange sweet reminiscences of bygone plunges, until their spirits -together breast the waves of infinity and eternity forever. - - -§ 77 - -One of the factors of the general marital muddle that constitutes most -marriages is the ignorance of husband or wife, or both, about whether -their sex life, if they still continue it, is normal. What are the -evidences that the consummation of marital life has taken place as -satisfactorily as could be wished, or as could occur with the pair in -question, or (as is supposed at any rate) takes place with the newly -married lovers on their honeymoon? - -It is not enough merely to be able to say they are happy, for they will -sometimes say so whether they know they are or not, and they will in some -cases not know. In fact few people in or out of the wedded state know -whether they are truly happy or not or how to become happy if they are -not so. - -If a husband and wife are happy together they will have begun to make -their marital life a love drama, by the frequent enactment of the love -episode as described in these pages and their outlook upon life will be -buoyant and positive. - - -§ 78 - -In _The Secret Places of the Heart_, H. G. Wells has plainly indicated -that the love episode has taken place between Sir Richmond Hardy and Miss -Grammont. He writes only of the calm which follows the emotional storm, -and in these words (p. 253): - -“At the breakfast table it was Belinda (Miss Grammont’s companion) who -was the most nervous of the three, the most moved, the most disposed to -throw a sacramental air over their last meal together. Her companions had -passed beyond the idea of separation; it was as if they now cherished a -secret satisfaction at the high dignity of their parting. Belinda in some -way perceived they had become different. They were no longer tremulous -lovers. They seemed sure of one another and with a new pride in their -bearing.” - - -§ 79 - -Some husbands treat their wives with a satisfactory erotic technique -from the first, and a few continue it through their entire married life. -Others err from the first, through ignorance, and still others are -backsliders in the pursuit of the erotic art; and true love departs from -these. - -There have been others who by accident have found after years of wedded -life the key to marital happiness, or have been instructed by some -erotologist—some physician who knows or some intimate friend. - -The story of one husband who happened to discover for himself a secret -that had escaped him for years is here given: - -It was in the twentieth year of their marriage. Their son was eighteen -and their daughter sixteen. Another daughter was not yet born. - -They were off for a week in the month of August in the Adirondacks. All -the morning they had tramped over the hills until they came to a lake, -solitary, shut in by forests, a mountain overtowering the side opposite -them—reflected green and blue in the waters that met their eyes as they -approached a beach of fine white sand. - -Sitting awhile they rejoiced in having found so fine a place to eat -their lunch. They were miles from any human habitation. A heron floated -majestically through the air. A kingfisher hurried noisily athwart their -view. A fish jumped out of the water a dozen rods away and made a circle -of waves which slowly enlarged until it became lost to sight. - -Instinctively they both threw off their clothes and stepped down to the -water’s edge hand in hand. - -“I’ll beat you in!” - -“Let’s swim to that little island.” - -In they splashed and swam the first few yards under water, he leading the -way, she following, but his eyes closely watching for any indication on -her part of fatigue. - -“Stay near me, Matey, there’s nothing but water where I am.” - -“All right, Naiade, put your hand on my shoulder and rest awhile. We’re -almost there!” - -He felt her warm hand on his shoulder and her thumb on the back of his -neck, and the warmth of the sun on his rapidly drying hair—there in the -pure water almost arrived at the wooded islet. He felt the impact of the -water on his flank stirred by the leisurely motions of her other hand and -arm as she made as if to help him tow her to shore. - -They climbed up and sat on a mossy bank out of sight of every living -thing, looking from a shady spot at the lake shimmering in the sunlight. - -“Our lunch is over there. We should have brought it with us. Nevertheless -I’ll feed upon thy lips, Corinna. - -“What an experience this is! I never had a swim like this before. A -perfect day and a perfect place. Isolation complete. Thou beside me -singing in the wilderness, but this is a very Eden and we are undisputed -owners of it for this hour. I’m rich in time. I’d just as soon stay here -till sunset. An absolutely perfect place to rest and play. I feel as if -I could do anything—omnipotent as the gods of old, dependent on nothing. -It thrills me to think of myself—just me—and you—just you—the only humans -in all the world we see. If I were a magician I’d turn this moss into a -magic carpet and we’d fly through space.” - -“Oh, Matey dear, I feel as if I _were_ flying! Tell me more like that. -Continue the story. Tell it softly close in my ear.” - -“Up, out from this islet we are flying, without deafening roar of -airplane engine, but just soaring, soaring, wheeling in the air like -eagles, you and I together. Far subtler motion than the intermittent -strokes with which we paddled to that green islet now so far below us. -Blue sky all about and sunshine warm upon my shoulders and your breasts. -See down below us now a cloud. See our silhouette dotting the grey -mist of it. And look, dearest! That rainbow of which our shadow is the -centre. It makes a complete circle. Did you ever seen the whole circle of -iridescence like that? You never could on earth. Look again, for soon we -shall pass that cloud. A perfect circle of perfect rainbow colours—symbol -of infinite beauty.” - -“Stop, Matey, this flight of yours is too thrilling. Take me down to -earth.” - - * * * * * - -“Matey, dear, in all our twenty years of love, I never knew you till this -day. Why did you not teach me about you before this?” - -They were now slowly swimming through the placid waters of the lake -toward the beach of white sand whence they had adventurously departed two -hours before. The sun warmed their heads and the cool waters of the lake -caressed their glowing bodies. - -They stepped upon the sandy beach again. - -They devoured their lunch with eagerness. - -They now, while eating, having dried in the sun, by force of habit put on -their conventional incumbrances of sex-differentiating toggery, took up -their staffs and turned their backs upon the lake with its silvery waves -and white sandy beach and slowly wended their way hand in hand through -the forest, to the road leading to the inn. - -As they walked along the mountain road slipping on stones and gravel each -saw in the other’s eyes a new flame of love never lighted there before. - -“I wonder, Matey, what it was that made this day’s adventure the grand -adventure of my life? I never saw you look so fine before. I never felt -closer to you than I do this minute. Why have you never before told me a -story like that, that fired my imagination as yours seemed to be?” - -“I suppose I never felt fired just that way myself. Ideas occurred to me -I’d never had before. Besides, I’ve done a pile of thinking lately—and -reading, too. I think I’ve succeeded in piecing out a pretty good fairy -tale about us. It makes me much more interested in your view of the world -than ever I was before. But I can tell you other stories now. I think -I’ve learned how to fire your imagination.” - -“You have, indeed! I’m eager for the next. When will it be?” - -“Almost any time we have an hour or two alone. We need time to get up -steam, so to speak. We don’t need to swim in a mountain lake every time -either. I think you got your particular thrill because you had me and my -mind absolutely all to yourself.” - -“Can I ever get that again?” - -“Surely, dear heart, for when I saw for the first time that look in your -eyes, which was not joy alone but pure fire, I learned something about -you I never knew before. I realized that you yourself are a far more -complex and interesting personality with infinitely more potentialities -than ever I had dreamed of. Do you think now I would ever stop telling -you stories like that?” - -“I don’t remember a word of it except the perfect rainbow circle. The -rest was silence. But it had somehow a world of meaning for me. I know -we swam. I know we couldn’t fly, but you made me think we did, which is -quite as good for me.” - - -§ 80 - -“Dear, why has it taken us twenty years to love each other as we do now?” - -“It was our ignorance, which was so dense that it did not know it -was ignorant. That’s the blackest kind. What we knew was that we had -affection for each other, and for our children, but the lack of passion -was not clearly sensed, because there was no article in our creed of -love that declared passion to be a necessary factor in our marriage. We -knew the phrase ‘all in all to each other’; we identified ourselves in -countless superficial ways in addition to the really solid identification -represented in our children, but while we did it with our intellects we -really did not do it with our hearts. We have not been truly united, -truly fused, until this day. - -“It needn’t have taken us twenty years, or even one year, for there -are people who instinctively soar in the same ecstatic flight in their -honeymoon, that we achieved only after twenty years of external devotion -and watchfulness. But those whose early married life is instantly -complete in total physical and emotional fusion think everyone else is -the same as they are and they don’t know what they _have_ any more than -we did not know what we did not have. A colour-blind man in a world -of people all colour-blind would not suspect his affliction. Possibly -it wouldn’t be an affliction. He might only laugh at the extraordinary -persons who say they can see colours in things visible, just as we now -consider people freaks who say they can see colour in sounds.” - -“Do you think, dear, that most people are blind to the kind of love we -see now?” - -“I do, for the vision of the circular rainbow on top of the cloud is -something that really requires a certain fine sensitivity that is the -product of civilization, and depends on the many factors of civilized -life. I could not, as my remote ancestors could, carry you off your feet -in a literal sense, and dominate you by sheer physical strength, which -would have been the only earthbound flight possible with men of that age. -Civilization has transmuted physical strength into mental, moral and -spiritual strength. And just as physical strength was sensibly evident -in every action and motion of the body, so now, in our present state of -civilization, it is obscured or obliterated and every mental reaction to -our environment is taking its place. To some women the strength of this -mental reaction is invisible, and even today they can love with passion -only the physically perfect man. But the majority of women now have been -educated to the point of realizing that physical strength may be present -in men whose mental and moral development is very small and that mental -and moral strength may exist even in the men whose physique is slight and -even frail.” - -“Do you think you’re so much stronger mentally, morally and spiritually -than you were? Did you cultivate that strength consciously? Could you -tell others how to do it?” - -“Yes, dear one, to all three questions, and so are you. The thing that -finally touched off this day’s passionate union was our realization, -helped by the increasing frankness forced by modern science on all vital -matters, that sex life is a part of the love life, and that not only -is sex not exclusively physical, but it is more mental than physical. -Men as ancient as Ovid knew that love is an art, but they did not know -it as well as we do today. If it is an art, it can be taught, it must -be taught. The reason it has not been taught is the taboo on sex. But -that is being lifted gradually and people are beginning to realize -that sexless love is as impossible as birth is impossible without the -fusion of male and female germ cells. The ancient love manuals were all -composed by men to enable men to get greater physical pleasure out of -what they called love. The modern idea is that man and woman together -are each to contribute an equal and complementary part to a spiritual -fusion comparable to the fusion of two human germ cells, and that as the -male cell causes a reaction on the entirety of the female cell, so the -female cell causes a total reaction on the entirety of the male cell. -To say that either absorbs the other is quite misleading. They stand -side by side and merely melt together, forming another different cell -which is the combination of all the properties of the two. This idea of -love implies that the two lovers be equally frank and open in every way, -concealing nothing of their own feelings from each other.” - -“But, dearest, some women, I’m sure, are unable to express themselves, -and others instinctively avoid revealing their true feelings, fearing -perhaps to reveal because they may be giving away something it might be -to their advantage to keep. They think that if they let any man, even -their newly married husband, know how much they love him, they will -cheapen themselves in their husband’s eyes, where they desire to be -valued the most.” - -“Do you think you would love me less if you felt you owned me less? If -you did, your love has possibly too much of ownership in it. Love is not -possession, any more than it is the inability to possess.” - - -§ 81 - -The erotic acme is the detumescence following a tumescence which -activates, in order to secure, a repose which can exist in consciousness -only by contrast with the intense activity, vivification and vitalization -of spheres of experience otherwise remaining without or beyond one’s ken. - -A kiss which is ever so little retarded, a youth laying softly his lips -on those of a fair maiden, and, for the period of a breath or two not -taking them away, feeling that not alone the lips touched hers nor yet -only his arms embraced her, is filled with a natural response which -tingles through his frame to his very fingertips and makes soft and -undulating the sea crag on which they stand. More of her at once would be -too keen a pleasure, would make him faintly dizzy with a joy to which he -is unoriented. - -The halo of that first kiss fades not in a day but lingers through his -sleep, recurring poignantly like the after image of the sun caught by -chance directly in his eyes. - -All his being is pervaded by the sweet breathlessness of that virgin -experience of a maiden’s lips, a touch that spreads like fire through his -body and craves quenching by another kiss which but extends the influence -of the first. - -“Our lips have met, a touch compared with which our hand-clasp was a -grinding of rocks in the mad surging of the ocean surf. - -“Our lips have met, a fragrance above the honeysuckle and the roses of -the hedge. - -“Our lips have met, our breasts have asked us too, why should not they -repose on one another. Our hands have known each other’s sides, and -flanks have questioned why they also might not have the soft contact. - -“Why should not all the remotest parts of us clamor to share in this -meeting of two lovers’ lips? Each of us is whole and every part fired to -yearn for what every other part feels. - -“I look into your eyes and see the world. All that invites to do and feel -and learn. There’s not a drop of blood within my veins that does not -hurry on its joyous course, to tell the uttermost confines of me, that -here in you I find a counterpart, for every region of my living self. - -“We cannot part for hours. This sandy shore, warm with an August sun, -shall be our couch, remote from interruption. You are mine and I am yours -for now and evermore. Not till I know you all, and you feel me pervading -all the regions of your soul, shall we be able then to take anew the -threads of our existence in the world and weave with them a common robe -for both in which enclosed we act toward our fellows, a single person -binary in form.” - - * * * * * - -“My breathing now is calm like yours; our blood is throbbing softly in -our veins, we two went through a fire together, keen, that welded our two -spirits into one—inseparable, self-contained, at rest. - -“Are other men and women thus close fused, each through the other’s eyes -beholding life? If not, dear one, the only other joy, not yet by us slow -tasted, is to look and see how we can make them also feel the deep-down -inner satisfaction pierce the very roots of their own being too, without -which we should lack companionship, and feel ourselves unique and lonely. -Thus, by throwing this same brilliant light of life with which we have -ourselves been newly filled, about us, we can see what ne’er before we -saw back in the times when naught we knew of this glad melting each in -other’s soul here on the sandy rock-bound ocean shore, where wave and -gravel mingle, air and sea and sun and sky; one universal touch and -penetration of each other’s heart. Now we are whole that fragments were -before.” - - -§ 82 - -The rationalistic thought may occur to some men that a woman’s all can -be taken at one love episode. It may come from her uttering words to the -effect that she is all his. If _his_ means _with his destructive mark -on it_ she is utterly his, to be sure, if he has ruined her. But by a -perfect love episode one can ruin only the egoistic-social value of this -woman for some other man. For any other man her sexual value would be -only increased by the proper kind of love episode. - -But her erotic value is something that can exist only for the man whom -she loves and who loves her. The first properly erotic love episode -can never destroy or ruin but only create, or begin the creation, of a -woman out of a gynecoid female. A true woman according to the use of the -term in this book is a female who has become fused with a male. Then -she becomes a woman and he a man. The nature of this fusion has been -discussed elsewhere. - - -§ 83 - -As a woman’s all cannot be taken at one love episode, except that “all” -which is constituted by her strictly egoistic-social property value, it -follows that in the true erotic sense, nothing is taken unless possibly -as one should chip a piece of marble from a block out of which one was to -carve a statue of the Goddess of Love. The fragment of marble chiselled -away at the first stroke of the hammer is no part of the statue. - - -§ 84 - -The thought that the husband is getting an egoistic-socially valuable -possession by the exercise of his rights at the first love episode is -therefore quite absurd. He is performing an act which is in the nature of -a creation, if rightly carried out, but which is destruction if he does -not himself hold his instincts under absolute control. - -That the love episode does not take away from woman anything that makes -her poorer is indicated by the fact, noticed by Ellis and others, -that woman’s erotic nature is deeper and stronger than man’s. For the -development of this great erotic nature it is as absolutely necessary for -her to be controlled by a man quite master of his own sex instincts, as -it is necessary for an ovum to be met by a zoösperm, if it is going to -develop any further than its ovum condition. - -At a single love episode, neither can the woman’s all be taken by a man -nor can her development be completed. The first episode is only the -beginning of a development, that needs the entire excess energies of her -man for the rest of their joint lives. In the sections on virginity it -will also appear that except in a superficial egoistic-social sense, her -psychical virginity cannot always be terminated at the first love episode. - - -§ 85 - -The thought that she has given her all to him is worked out still further -in the irrational conclusion, which comes to some men’s minds, that there -may be nothing left for himself for a future occasion. Therefore he will -not take all this time, so as to leave a little for next time. - -Possibly getting all of her at one stroke may be the root thought in Don -Juanism. _Jus primæ noctis_ may have originated from the idea that the -noble lord should get all there was in the vicinity to get; and he was -exercising his right to own and get everything in sight. The men who -cool in their affections (or whose passions cool) immediately after -the possession of the persons of their love objects may be inspired by -exactly this egoistic-social thought, that there is a possession that may -be acquired by means of one love episode, after which the woman has no -more to give. - - -§ 86 - -In phantasying, in his own ecstasy, the complete surrender of the woman -(cf. § 158), a man may also phantasy her being exhausted, dry like an -eaten orange, or, like a flower, drained of its honey by a bee; not -realizing that the beginning of a woman’s love is only the beginning of -an infinite growth, which he alone is able to develop for himself, and -which no other man can develop for him—that, in short, a man who deserts -one woman after another is simply showing an essentially perverted -appetite. - -What any one of these tasted and rejected women might later be developed -into, in the shape of a full-blooded rich, warm femininity, he has not -the intelligence to conceive. Possibly the cynical roué might say—look at -the older women, are many of them attractive? To which we should reply -no, but the reason they are not is simply that they were not properly -loved into a state of full erotic development, in which they would have -preserved the attractiveness of youth. - - -§ 87 - -The only true human love drama is one that has an organic relation to a -whole lifetime of love. To the Don Juan type of ravisher of virgins the -love episode, as part of a life drama with unity in it, does not exist. -He satisfies himself with beginnings, with staking out foundations for -other people to build and live in the homes constructed by their hands, -not realizing, for his imagination is poor and weak, how soon his little -stakes will be pulled up and thrown away by the first workers on the -house, even if they do not entirely reject his plan’s outlines. - -The only true love of a man for a woman is that in which he studies her -reactions to his own behaviour, and cultivates that power of his, which -is the innate power residing in any whole man, to control the entire -emotional life of one woman, let her intellectual life be what it may. - -“Why,” the man of the world may say, “should any man be satisfied with -only one woman, when, if he has personal attractiveness, he may find -hundreds of women ready to fall into his arms, and may drink the love -life to the dregs?” What Enobarbus said of Cleopatra may be said of any -woman, if she be developed by a man, as she should be. - - Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale - Her infinite variety; other women cloy - The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry - Where most she satisfies.... - -Woman’s infinite variety, supposed in Shakespeare’s day to have been -embodied in the arch-dispenser of delights, Cleopatra, was a rare -phenomenon; but the modern view is that the variety is present in every -woman, just as the fourscore keys are in every piano. In this sense, -then, woman’s infinite variety is dependent on man’s control of her -emotional reactions, no woman being full woman unless and until she has -been completely manned. - - -§ 88 - -No human male, however, can completely man more than one woman, any more -than one gonad can unite with more than one other germ cell. Complete -fusion of two cells requires the entirety of one cell uniting with -the entirety of another. This is the type of physical and psychical -immortality. The union of two single cells contains the potentiality -of development of all the qualities inherent in both, but in new -combinations. - -In the psychosomatic union of two individuals there is the same -possibility of infinite variety in the physical and mental reactions, -only if the union between them is, like the fusion of the two single -cells, a complete total and exclusive union each with the other. - -The fact that of the thousands of egg cells produced by one woman no -two can fuse with each other, and that of the billions of spermatozoa -produced by one man no two can fuse together, but that any one male germ -cell can completely fuse with any one female germ cell is the prototype -of a perfect full marriage, and is the suggestion that probably no -couples need be unhappy; for happiness is a matter of fusion, and fusion -can be accomplished by the removal of ignorance due to tradition. - - -§ 89 - -The right of the wife to experience the erotic acme at every love episode -is only beginning to be admitted. Up to the present time the husband has -generally gone on the principle of taking his wife’s body for the fine -physical catharsis he fancies it produces in himself. - -Taking a woman’s body, however, for the fine emotional catharsis, without -“considering too curiously” just how it strikes the woman is manifestly, -to any thoughtful man, merely a one-sided affair. It involves only as -a negative quantity the results of his action upon the woman, because -erotically the result is negative in her case. The most it can do is -to stir her emotions a little, leave her with more or less ungratified -desire, a tension which in the end is most harmful to her. - -Only a man whose mentality is below par or undeveloped can feel himself -fully satisfied with an attempt at a purely physical love episode like -this. To his unconscious it can be but the stepping up a step that -isn’t there, a striking out at empty air. For the exaltation (which -would come from passion reciprocated) is indelibly registered on his -unconscious as a negative quantity. It is a dent in a surface intended -by nature to be convex. In the fully developed man all the sensibilities -registering response in the mate are present, and if they are not given -the opportunity to function, the lack of it is definitely recorded in the -unconscious. The man has as much right biologically to a response in his -wife as the wife has a right to be sympathetically handled. - -In a time soon to come men will take into consciousness and into -conscious control all instinctive actions, and all these unconscious -lacks; and will so plan their love that the absence of response will -be avoided. The woman’s right to be made to respond will be finally -acknowledged. - - -§ 90 - -The right of woman to experience such stirring up of unconscious depths -of soul as is caused by the erotic acme of the love episode, and the -advantage to her health and general welfare coming from such stirring -are two separate questions. Havelock Ellis has admitted that the woman’s -right to love and all it can include is not a right in a political or -even an ethical sense, any more than the right to be happy. - -But for the existence of the relation of a higher type of erotism to -health of body and mind physiological science is piling up proof every -year. There is a positive relation, a direct connection, of cause and -effect. Only the fullest use of all the faculties makes the fullest and -therefore the happiest life. - -Response as an actual manifestation on the wife’s part may be absent -while there is a repressed response present. In other words the desire -and gratification of it may both occur in her, but below the level of -consciousness. A previous attraction which drew her toward her husband -when he was her lover may have been repressed by some gauche behaviour of -his. Desire, even after conscious passion has cooled, may nevertheless -remain in the unconscious. If consciously accepted, desire is accompanied -by a perceptible physical condition of tumescence. If not consciously -accepted, either the tumescence does not enter consciousness or it is not -in the same organs it would be in if one were consciously entertaining -desire. - -In the absence of the proper or suitable substitute gratification, the -increase of blood supply to specific organs gradually diminishes and the -desire gradually subsides; but there is still left a nerve tension that -is closely bound up with various ideas, images and other predominantly -mental states. - -Sex desires may be aroused and even if not appropriately gratified, will -subside of themselves. An automatic relaxation of all tensions regularly -takes place in children, who also are much more facile than adults in the -acceptance of substitute gratifications. - - -§ 91 - -But after the sexual synthesis of puberty the desires are not only much -more insistent but much more definite and specific. Still they can be and -are repeatedly repressed by many men and most women. That they can be so -repressed is the reason why asceticism has been so emphasized by many -religions. The religious views of many people render uncomfortable the -actual emergence, into consciousness, of any sexual desires whatever. - -If the training of the individual has not been such as to render -conscious the manifestation of the sex desire, it then does not appear as -a tumescence in the genital region, in many cases, but as a swelling or a -pain, or a hardness somewhere else, or as an emotion of disappointment, -disgust or hate. Some deeply religious people seem to prefer these -emotions, in spite of their destructive nature, to the constructive -emotions of truly erotic love. - -And we are impressed with the irony of fate which condemns innocent -people to accept an unwholesome in place of a wholesome emotion, and -makes some people think they are justified in telling others what -emotions they shall have. - - -§ 92 - -The right of woman to experience the erotic acme would be immediately -conceded by every man, if he could in any way get into his mind a visual -image of mangled feelings. The tortures of Tantalus, Ixion and Sisyphus -of Greek legend should be kept in mind, and the erotically unsatisfied -woman regarded as a living, present human being, thirsty and standing in -the middle of a pool of crystal water, which constantly recedes from her -parched lips as they bend to drink; or tied to a wheel which, as it is -rotated, makes her sick and dizzy; or with huge effort rolling a heavy -stone up a hill that has no ending. - -The right of a woman to satisfaction even if not conceded by a -hypothetical monster of selfishness, her husband, might be admitted if -he should be made aware of the detriment to his own psyche received -from her condition. It is surely not an exaggeration to say that to be -in daily relations with any human being who is so twisted and bent by -unrelaxed tensions that she can hardly be called sane, is a fate that -no man would choose unless he perversely wished to drive himself mad. -He might see his own advantage, if not her right, an advantage which he -quite clearly recognizes in all egoistic-social spheres. He will insist -on having his material environment as perfect as possible through his own -personal effort or supervision. He will insist on having the plumbing, -wiring and every other installation of house, garage, shop, store and -factory in the finest possible condition; realizing that any imperfection -will reflect directly upon himself. But he commonly does not see that -the reactions of his wife in the most intimate relations of marital life -should be made, not by mere supervision as of a physician but by his own -personal acts, absolutely perfect in every respect, and that his chief -responsibility in life is to do this very thing, without which all his -other forms of efficiency are of negligible importance. - - -§ 93 - -One’s wife is the closest part of one’s objective ego. She is at least -that. Many men are of course careless of their own bodies and personal -appearance. They recognize, however, that the responsibility for these is -their own and no one else’s. But their wives are above all things their -complementary bodies, and practically as much their own responsibility -as their own personal corporeal systems. A man may conceivably think his -wife has no right to happiness but as part of himself he must see that -she is really happy. She is as important for his welfare at least as his -arms or legs, which he would not choose to have cramped or palsied. Yet a -man with an unsatisfied wife is as personally and intimately defective in -himself as if he had a withered hand, and he is much more responsible for -the wife’s condition than he is for that of his other members. - - -§ 94 - -In the non-fecundating periods in the lives of the lower animals they -spend their energies in either seeking food or hibernating. We humans, -after the work of providing food and shelter is finished, have a surplus -of energy to work off. After procreating our children we need to develop, -in a sense to create, ourselves as humans advancing above the animals, -not as humans descending to animal levels. This development has been -tried in various ways by different men and women in different ages. Some -have given their energies to religion, to philanthropy, to charity, to -arts, to commerce. Few have seen the importance of developing the proper -human emotions. - -At the present stage of civilization all objects of study, except the -last, have been worked over so thoroughly that there is nothing new under -the sun. Religions have been analyzed, codified, classified; philanthropy -and charity have been endowed, institutionalized and organized. There -seems no longer any development possible in the technique of the -various arts comparable to what was done centuries ago. Commerce and -applied science are already elaborated into an almost incomprehensible -complexity. Human emotions, however, and _par excellence_ love, have only -just begun to be sensed as a new field and source of human welfare. - -It would seem a strange prophecy to make (yet all prophecies are -strange) that, inside of five hundred years, or even fifty years, men’s -excess energies would be devoted to love-making, instead of almost -exclusively to the pursuit of egoistic-social ends. And yet that is -what the renaissance of the erotic values of life will certainly bring -about. Tarde says that “if the ambition of power, the regal wealth of -American or European millionairism once seemed nobler, love now more -and more attracts to itself the best and highest parts of the soul, -where lies the hidden ferment of all that is greatest in science and -art, and more and more those studious and artist souls multiply who, -intent on their peaceful activities, hold in horror the business men -and the politicians and will one day succeed in driving them back. That -surely will be the great and capital revolution of humanity, an active -psychological revolution; the recognized preponderance of the meditative -and contemplative, the lover’s side of the human soul, over the feverish, -expansive, rapacious and ambitious side. And then it will be understood -that one of the greatest of social problems, perhaps the most arduous of -all, has been the problem of love.” - - -§ 95 - -Let it not be thought that truly and sublimely intense erotic occupation -is a thing that weakens men for the carrying out of great projects. The -greatest project is the successful living together of men and nations, -and this has not been approached, being as far from us now as the -nearest fixed star. The union of man and woman into the complete binary -individual is the first and essential step toward the formation of the -social group which will have its first perfectly successful existence -when all its individuals are binaries consisting each of a man and a -woman who have become fused into an individual. - -Then and not until then will questions of class, nationality and race be -settled. There will probably be no separate and mutually antagonistic -nations. Men will not be strong enough to create the hologamous[17] -binary individual until they are emotionally strong enough and simple -enough to realize the supremacy of erotic over egoistic-social values. - - -§ 96 - -A fundamental principle of erotics is that in the relation of husband -and wife, this condition of preparedness for the husband’s relaxation of -his erotic tension is the erotic acme of the wife herself. This is the -pattern referred to at the beginning of the last section. - -The emotional relaxation of the husband is, from the biological -viewpoint, essentially inept and silly if it occurs in the presence of -a woman unprepared for it. It is ridiculous enough anywhere else than -in the woman’s _presence_; but she is not all present, spiritually, -mentally, psychically, no matter how close physically, if she be not -herself in the very climax of erotic acme. His emotional relaxation, -occurring at any time previous to the complete alignment of the totality -of her personality solely in the erotic direction is as inept as falling -into the water completely clothed. - -It is as if Nature had said unambiguously to man: - -“Your happiness depends on your own emotional control of the emotions -of your mate. She should never know that you have lost control of your -emotions. If you do, you are a mere puling infant. It is therefore your -duty to make her lose control of her erotic emotions. - -“Only in case you are able to exalt her to this altitude of supermundane -excitement, have you any right to lose control of your own emotions. -You can then let them go, give free rein to them; and you will probably -both come to at the same time, she not knowing definitely exactly what -has happened to her, but surprised, delighted, awed, overwhelmed at the -beauty and wonder of it. She knew that being in love was pleasant. She -did not know that the reward of being in love was a flight of illimitable -velocity through the azure empyrean beyond the stars and back again.” - - -CONSUMMATION - - Burning—relentless burning— - With the gently caressing fires that will not be calmed. - A delicious sense of stifling. - Suddenly a fierce storm of sharp, exquisite pains ... - Like little electric needle shocks ... - Pierces every tiny part of your body— - Till you are raised out of this earth. - - A great calm comes over you then— - And you open languorously, luxuriously - Like an enormous, fresh passion flower opens its petals to the sun. - Something comes and snuggles into its petals like a honey bee - And they slowly close again—and then—just nothing then— - The sensation of having no sensations—great peace, vast peace—and - Nothing, nothing, nothing. - - —FLORENCE E. VON WIEN. - - -§ 97 - -So far as the woman’s slower progress than man’s toward the climax -requires, as much time as possible should be given to each detail of the -love episode. It will be shown in the chapter on control[18] that this -time, and the opportunity for observation which it gives, is an important -factor in the essentially human element of male control. Only its -crassest animal form, its acutest gasp, is “brief as the lightning in the -collied night.” - -In the love episode, at the time when contact is deepest and most -intense, one sees, if one reasons biologically, that the time that would -be chosen by nature for the injection of spermatozoa (of the millions of -which only one is to be chosen by chance to be united to the single ovum -ordinarily developed each month) is the time when the container which is -destined to be the seat of the future life was either most open or most -turned toward the source of the spermatozoa. - -As it is believed that the woman’s erotic acme is either coincident with -or associated with this change in shape of the innermost organ, we have -here a prototype giving more rationally the pattern for carrying out this -phase of the love episode. - -In other words the wife is to be prepared for an emotional cataclysm on -the part of the husband. Just as the organs of any two animals have to -come together simultaneously so not only is this apposition necessary in -humans, but in them there is a psychical apposition, a rapport of purely -spiritual quality needed in order that the real spiritual fusion may take -place. - - -§ 98 - -In animals simultaneity is gained by the same mechanism as that which -arranges for cross fertilization of some plants, i.e., the time for the -impregnation is short or instantaneous in one sex and long in the other. -In animals the female is ready only for a short time, the male always. -The female animal is prepared by physiological changes, the female human -by psychical development. In humans the female is supposed by some men -to be always ready until by their ignorance and diabolical treatment -they find their women never ready. That which occurs in an animal is a -purely physiological heat. In women it has dwindled into almost vestigial -proportions in comparison to the psychically caused excitement. This -psychic element is enough, however (if rightly understood and managed -by the man), to make it safe to say that a woman may always be made -ready, even though by her own constitution and upbringing she may never -know it and so not admit it. The female animal never suffers the male’s -approaches except in her estrual period. Man has it in his power to cause -in woman the psychic analogue of the estrus at any time. - - -§ 99 - -Ellis (op. cit., III, 251) remarks that the sexual impulse tends to -involve, to a greater extent in women than in men, the higher psychic -region. Therefore sex, tending in men to be exclusively physical, needs -in them to be raised to the erotic level of the psychical, in order to -give man the master key to the situation. Thus the rapport (which is -psychical and not physical) can be established. The greater psychic -diffusion of love instincts in woman gives man the opportunity for a -complete dominance over her erotism as soon as he learns to exercise -it. In woman’s sexuality “lies the earth, all Danaë to the stars,” -symbolizing the direction from which man should approach woman, from a -psychically more exalted position, and not from below, like mephitic air -from a cave. - -As one cannot put a finger into a ring, unless a ring is there, so in the -love episode the husband must be sure that his emotional power will not, -like a blow wasted in the air, fall upon a situation most inappropriate, -unreceptive and unproductive of the end sought. A blacksmith must be sure -the anvil is in place before he takes up his hammer. - -It is obvious that, if the relaxation of erotic tension on the man’s part -is to do the work, which it certainly has to do, it must have a condition -which is appropriate for the most telling effect of this work. One of -the best ways in which this condition can be produced in some women is -outlined in the following section. - - -§ 100 - -A technique of the love episode has been described and advocated under -several names (Karezza, Male Continence, Dr. Zugassent’s Discovery, etc.) -which consists in that degree of virile control whereby, while the erotic -acme may be produced in the wife, the husband reserves his. There is no -doubt whatever that this technique is of greatest possible advantage to -the wife, if she herself reaches the acme. Opinions differ as to its -possible harm for the husband. It was the principle which the Oneida -Community (organized in 1847 and discontinued as a eugenic experiment -in 1879) followed for the 30 years of its existence with no observable -injury to the men. It is also spontaneously discovered and sporadically -used by married couples at the present day independently of the -propaganda in its favour, conducted by a woman writer who has published -the book _Karezza_.[19] - -There is also no doubt whatever that only a comparatively few men are -willing, and some fewer are quite unable to control themselves to this -degree necessary to postpone their own erotic acme until a future time. -The ability to do this is the most potent factor possible in producing -that superiority of virile over feminine power which forms the greatest -fusing medium between the two partners. - - -§ 101 - -Indeed, it may be confidently asserted that the accomplishment of this -erotic _tour de force_ on the part of the husband (during which he may -observe the greatest possible effect that man can have upon woman) -gives the husband a sense of exaltation that could not be paralleled, a -feeling of power that produces in him a keenness and penetrating sense of -satisfaction that he has never before felt. After an experience of this -kind, he is fully alive, as he never was before, to the possibilities -of erotic ecstasy emanating from the preliminaries and every several and -separate phase of the love episode as responded to by his wife. - -This entire reconstruction of the love episode not only throws into -strong light the value of the preliminary and intermediary phases of the -love episode, but it puts, in the husband’s mind, so much value on the -first and second acts of the play that the actual occurrence of his own -erotic acme has then a much lessened importance. - -If he can so transform his wife, as he sees her transformed before his -very eyes, and perceives in every sense quality of consciousness, and -if he can thus express his love any time he wishes, his former hurried, -perfunctory and mechanical sexuality appears to him as a dried leaf as -compared to the full-blown rose of his present triumph. He recognizes -that he has stepped from one level of existence to a higher plane of -life, and that he is human in a new and enlarged sense. - - -§ 102 - -Kisses may stale but the occasional practice of this reserve on the -husband’s part in the love episode will never stale, but will compare -to the recharging of an exhausted battery, to the filling of a vessel -drained, to the incoming tide. It is a far greater stimulant to happiness -of all kinds than anything else discovered by mankind. - -That this is rare and exceedingly hard to get, and that it involves -self-control on the part of the husband and abandonment of self-control -on the part of the wife, makes it like one of those elements in the -erotic situation mentioned by Freud as having been necessarily injected -into it by man, whenever he found love too easy and too free. - -“It is easy to prove that the psychical value of the need for love -sinks, as soon as its satisfaction is made easy. An obstruction is -needed to drive the libido upward, and where the natural obstructions to -satisfaction do not apply, men have at all times conventionally inserted -them, in order to be able to enjoy love. This is true of individuals -as well as of nations. In times when the satisfaction of love found no -difficulties, as occasionally during the fall of ancient civilizations, -love became worthless and life empty, and there was necessary a strong -reactionary influence to restore the indispensable emotional values.”[20] - -It is hard enough for any man to hold in check any instinct; but, when -he is holding the love instinct in check, in the face of everything -including his wife herself, unanimously calling upon him to throw away -all restraint, it becomes the most difficult, and (because of its -results, not its difficulty) the most desirable accomplishment possible. - -It is hard for a woman of refinement, culture and puritanical antecedents -to relax the inhibitions necessary to be relaxed in order for her to gain -her own erotic acme. If she realizes that her husband must have his, -anyway, regardless of hers, this realization makes her still less able to -relax. - - -§ 103 - -If on the other hand she is assured by experience from the first that her -erotic acme will be taken care of with absolute reliability by the only -person in the world who can insure its coming, her own inhibitions are -much more likely to be overcome, and she to become relaxed and open to -him at his approach. - -The vital importance, therefore, to the man, of doing everything in his -power to make himself absolutely sure, even from the very first, that the -erotic needs of his wife are amply taken care of by him, will be clearly -seen when he realizes that if he does not do it himself, instinct (which -is as strong in a woman as it is in a man) will ceaselessly pull her in -the direction of getting these needs supplied by some other man. If the -husband has not the strength of will to overcome his own instincts to the -minor degree of retarding, for his wife’s health, the relaxation of his -own erotic tension he will be unable consistently to blame her. - -Man’s historic remedy for this defect in himself—namely, shutting up his -woman behind the doors of a harem—and the remedy that followed this, of -shutting her in behind psychic bars of repressions and inhibitions, is -the infantile method of force. Its success has been slight. The only -thing that doors and locks confine is the body, and perhaps that was -all he wanted. And likewise the only thing that inhibitions and bars -of repression can restrain is the physical manifestation of the sexual -impulse. The instinct itself cannot be annihilated. We know quite well -what happens to different types of people when the expression of the -sexual impulse is completely inhibited. Man or woman is equally affected -by this suppression, but woman in general has been the more suppressed. - - -§ 104 - -It cannot be overlooked that the constant pull exercised over every woman -by her erotic instincts, even though they be so repressed that she is -utterly unconscious of them, is more racking in the more refined and -cultivated type of woman than in the other. Lacking the satisfaction of -her erotic desires she unconsciously seeks gratification in numerous -activities toward which this blind erotism is the only efficient cause. -And as the real need is never met, these substitute activities never -completely satisfy. - - -§ 105 - -The practice of Karezza, or the husband’s reserving his own erotic -acme, has an interesting sidelight thrown upon it by the experiments of -Steinach in cutting the _vas deferens_. The effect of this is to stop the -external secretions of the interstitial gland. “The result is that the -seminal vesicle (either one of the two reservoirs for the semen) and the -interstitial gland are completely cut off from one another; and this in -turn gives rise to a multiplication of the interstitial cells, and to an -increase of the hormone produced by them. - -“Professor Steinach has performed the operation on men on several -occasions. In some instances these men were fairly young but physically -weak; in others the subjects were senile men. The appearance of the -subjects became youngish, fresh; their bodily strength increased, the -tremor of their hand disappeared, memory and will power returned, and the -sexual power was restored.”[21] - -It seems quite likely that Karezza may produce the same results. It has -too the advantage of being removable at will. That is, the husband, in -perfect control of his erotism, can thus reduce the external secretions -of his interstitial gland himself, without an operation, and reduce it to -as low a degree as he finds consonant with the buoyancy of his health, -and at the same time not only perfectly satisfy his wife but give her a -type and a degree of satisfaction wholly incommensurate with the effort -on his own part necessary to accomplish the result. If for any reason -whatever it seems at any time again desirable to produce the external -secretions he can do so. But it appears quite reasonable to suppose that -the arousal of the wife’s full erotism will under such circumstances -have the total favourable hygienic effect upon her, and his fears about -himself—namely, that by excessive external excretions of the interstitial -gland he may be weakening himself—groundless though they may well be, -will be quite removed. - - -§ 106 - -There is much discussion among physicians as to the harm that may be -done to the husband’s constitution by the practice of Karezza. But while -the physicians and scientists are weighing the possibilities of physical -harm to the constitution of the husband by this method of accomplishing -psychically what surgeons do with the knife, there can be no doubt of -the extraordinary psychic advantage of the procedure, an advantage which, -considering the well known but little used influence of the mind over the -body, may easily exceed any physical disadvantage. - -The physical side of it is discussed by Dr. Robie, who thinks that -undesirable effects are produced by it, if it is continued long enough to -cause any of the disadvantages he mentions. The practice can be stopped -or interrupted at any time. The husband can control it perfectly so as -to have exactly as much external secretion as he finds he needs for his -greatest health. - -And no matter how old he may become in years, up to the threescore -and ten, at any rate, he will have no need to give up for any fancied -advantage to himself his love episodes with his wife. - -Karezza then while possibly unnecessary, or moderately undesirable for -young and vigorous men, may be a most salutary procedure for middle-aged -and older men, whereby they may preserve in themselves the functioning of -the interstitial gland, continuing its valuable internal secretions that -are stopped by complete abstinence. - -Describing Karezza as the husband’s reserving his own erotic acme is not -psychologically accurate. As has been before stated the acme nevertheless -takes place, not physically through the sudden ejaculation of the -external secretions, but psychically through the indescribable emotional -exaltation on his part following the demonstration of his control, a -control which evokes an altogether unprecedented response from his wife. - -He soon learns to value this response and his own power, which enables -him to evoke it, as the greatest accomplishment of his life, one compared -with which the egoistic-social emoluments and distinctions are as -nothing, a power of control greater than any other in the world in its -good results, a power of control which once exercised over one person -gives the possessor of the power the same or similar influence over -others. - - -§ 107 - -If the husband’s concern is for his adult feeling of exaltation and -power, his greatest concern is the complete overpowering of his wife -in the realm solely of the erotic emotions. His study of her, and his -refusal to study his own feelings, is the best method of arousing her to -the pitch of excitement that glows almost to a point of luminosity. He -should learn by reading, and by consultation with the best erotologists, -how every effect on her is to be produced in the management of the -love episode, failing which he is almost certain to arouse a degree of -resentment in her, which, the more repressed, the more independently of -her own control it develops, so that it may break out even years later in -some act of anger or spite. - -What he says, does and even thinks during the hours of the first love -episode, beginning with the first mutual anticipatory thought or look -and ending with the last reverberating memory image of what he has been -through with her, every act, word and thought of his own has an effect -upon her total physical and mental reactions, his mental expressions on -her physical reactions quite as much as his physical or her mental. - -He can be absolutely confident that what she most desires, whether she -knows it or not, is to be completely dominated by him in the sphere of -erotic action, and the amazing thing is the number of husbands who do -not seek this domination of the erotic sphere of their wives’ life, but -who seek merely their own relaxation of tension which they could get -mechanically and autoerotically any time, if that was all there was to it. - -She cannot desire to dominate him. It is a biological impossibility. She -may be so twisted and muddled in her thinking between social-egoistic -ends and erotic ends that she consciously wants to dictate to him in -everything; but if he properly master her here, she will not continue to -do so. - -She cannot desire to dictate to him, except to gain egoistic ends, and -these are largely conscious ones; while the true erotic aims, in every -woman, are deep in the unconscious, and need to be liberated therefrom by -her husband, for the mutual development both of herself and of him. - - -§ 108 - -A correspondent of Ellis (Vol. III, p. 210) writes that, one cause, -serving to disguise a woman’s feelings to herself and make her seem -to herself colder than she really is, may be looked for in “the -masochistic[22] tendency of women, or their desire for subjection to -the man they love. I believe no point in the whole question is more -misunderstood than this. Nearly every man imagines that to secure a -woman’s love and respect he must give her her own way in small things and -compel her obedience in great ones. Every man who desires success with a -woman should exactly reverse that theory.” - -The unsatisfactory nature of this communication comes from the ambiguity -as to small things and great things. What are small and what great? The -answer is that the small things are those concerned with egoistic-social -impulses, the great things are the erotic. From the truly erotic point -of view no egoistic-social impulses lead to great, valuable or important -actions. A man may defer to his wife’s judgment in all kinds of every-day -affairs, unless this deference is unmistakably due to an actual lack of -confidence on his part, because confidence of all kinds is based on love -confidence. - -And a man who not only defers to his wife’s judgment in egoistic-social -lines but in addition continues to “compass her with sweet observances,” -being always chivalrously polite and attentive to her, if he fail to -control her erotically, will completely dissatisfy her. His attentiveness -will actually annoy her. She unconsciously realizes that he is playing -the obedient little boy to her, and thus making out of her a mother and -not a wife. - -The masochism referred to is an exaggeration. The natural desire of the -woman for erotic subjection is not masochism in the ordinarily accepted -sense, which means the pleasure experienced by some neurotics as a result -of pain inflicted upon them by others. - -What Ellis’ correspondent means is that giving a woman her way in great -things and compelling her obedience in small things equally show that -love confidence without which any man’s actions will continuously gall -the wife’s unconscious. If he yields to her in great egoistic-social -issues, he shows the same confidence in the superiority of the erotic -instincts (the love confidence par excellence) that he shows in -compelling her obedience in small things. - - -§ 109 - -No egoistic-social experience, save when all the circumstances are such -as produce truly marital conditions, ever has the same transcendent value -as when the erotic within the married state is raised to the nth power. -Not does any of life’s rewards in the egoistic-social sphere compensate -for the loss of the erotic consummations of the binary life. - -The married pair can be too sexual in the strictly physical sense, -they can leave undeveloped the more complicated organism of psychic -erotism—but they cannot be too erotic in the sense in which I have used -this term, for erotism, in the sense I use it, is psychically controlled -sex, controlled not as in the majority of cases, by repression and -inhibition, but by rational modes of expression. - - -§ 110 - -Modern science shows, and clearly, why it must be so, that man’s -emotional tensions are never to be relaxed in the presence of a woman -herself tense. - -This applies in every other situation in life, as well as in the -distinctively erotic. A man’s emotional tensions are not to be relaxed on -a woman, but on a relaxed woman. - -In every sphere of life the mother[23] is always a relaxed woman to her -son, particularly in his childhood, but is never a relaxed woman to her -husband, except at her consummation in the erotic episode. - -If the husband is unwilling, or unprepared to accept these conditions -of marriage, he is marrying a woman to be a mother to him, instead of -a wife, and he is completely deluding both himself and her. If he is -unwilling or unprepared to accept these conditions of marriage, he needs -to wait till he is willing or he needs to be prepared. - -This may sound, to some men, like giving entirely and not getting -anything in return. But they must realize that getting the response they -biologically need themselves, and consciously desire, if they be above -the animal level, is a process of constructive giving. - -So much of their attention husbands must give in order to get what few -really get—the total response in every fibre of their wives’ life-love. -They cannot get anything by merely taking. Things merely taken turn to -dust in their hands. What they want to get must be lured forth from the -unconscious depths of their wives and must, to the wife, seem uncaused, -spontaneous, no matter how much the husband knows he has practised art. - - -§ 111 - -Much has been said not only in this book but in others about simultaneity -of the erotic acme in husband and wife. Gallichan in his _Psychology of -Marriage_ (p. 107), speaking of women, says: “It should be known that the -imperfect fulfillment of the marital act, unaccompanied by the normal, -healthy gratification decreed by Nature with infinite care, has a more or -less injurious effect upon the psychic-emotional being and may affect the -bodily functions.... The husband who does not experience this emotion is -either not the proper spouse for his partner, or some necessary element -of reciprocal love is wanting or amiss. If there is any human act that -should be perfectly mutual, it is this. When passion is shared alike, -Nature approves and blesses the conjunction.” - -From that it may be inferred that the author quoted advocates -simultaneity of the erotic acme in husband and wife. - -But there is a much better arrangement of the love episode than that. -The husband should see to it that in every episode the wife not only -arrives at the utmost climax of her erotic acme before he does but -that she recovers sufficiently from her ecstasy to enable her to give -thereafter conscious attention to his. Where, as in a passionate -honeymoon, both partners lose consciousness, so to speak, together, -in every love episode, neither has the supernal joy of witnessing the -ecstatic culmination of the other’s bliss. With autoerotic proclivities, -pardonable in the first weeks of marital life, they close their eyes -to each other, at the climax, and they sink into their own subjective -feelings, after which they come to the conclusion that each has loved the -other to the limit. - -But this is not the case. They have loved their own sensations to the -limit but not each other’s. If it could be arranged that each should take -turns in “taking care” of the other so that now one and now the other -should first arrive at the climax, they would, it might appear to the -superficial thinkers, each gain the priceless boon of seeing his or her -own ecstasy reflected in the other’s. - - -§ 112 - -Nature has, on the contrary, so arranged it, as is obvious to all who -have had any true erotic experience, that a supposition that the husband -gets his acme first and the wife second, _in the same love episode_, is -an impossible one; for man is so constituted as generally to be unable to -continue a love episode after reaching his own erotic acme. - -On the other hand woman is so constituted as to be able to continue any -love episode after she has herself passed the point of her own erotic -acme. - -Therefore if the simultaneity of the ideal honeymoon, mentally autoerotic -as it is in its essential nature, is to give place to truly allerotic -marital behaviour, this transition can take place in only one way. It is -imperative that the allerotic action be that of the husband. The wife may -legitimately remain mentally autoerotic for the rest of her life. - -It is a marital crime for the husband to remain mentally autoerotic. That -is what blasts most marriages. - -Simultaneity, so unanimously approved by most erotologists, is an -introducing phenomenon, belonging only to the initial stages of marital -life. It should give place as soon as possible to the principle of -successiveness. - - -§ 113 - -All erotologists, on the general principle of altruism and mutuality, -sympathy and responsiveness, have advocated simultaneity of acme, without -realizing its mental autoerotism. - -This book unqualifiedly recommends succession as infinitely superior to -simultaneity. Only by the arrangement of the love episode in such a way -that in every love episode the husband’s erotic acme follows, even after -the lapse of several minutes, the wife’s, can the spiritually deleterious -results of mentally autoerotic simultaneity be avoided. Only thus can the -most inexpressible joy be experienced by both husband and wife. Only thus -can they be said to be, erotically, perfectly mated. - -For there is a peculiarly conscious human joy in feeling, in at least -comparative calmness, the ineffable bliss of just one other human being, -a joy of which no lover can ever, in wildest phantasy, dream, a joy that -mere simultaneity can never give. - -Marital success demands succession. - - -§ 114 - -It may be said that it is characteristic of woman’s motherly and -unselfish nature that, in her utter surrender to her husband lover, she -is willing to make the sacrifice of giving him all and taking nothing -herself except the vicarious satisfaction of pleasing him. That has -indeed been the preachment, undoubtedly originating with selfish males, -for centuries of repression of erotism in women. - -But its results are only conscious and superficial. Unconsciously, and -that means with nine-tenths of her available energy, she is unable to do -this thing. Nine-tenths of her very being, whether she is aware of it or -not, revolts at the monumental injustice of this arrangement. - -Women of high moral and intellectual attainments can so coerce their -unconscious erotic instincts as to appear on the surface completely in -control of themselves. But what virile lover would wish them so, just -for the purpose of maintaining himself in a perpetual state of mental -autoerotism? - -Succession in this order more than doubles the joy of marital fusion, and -does so by stressing the psychical or hypersomatic factor of the episode. -It is an arrangement of the love drama that is peculiarly human and once -attained will never be abandoned. - -It is a technique depending entirely on the husband’s absolute control -of the erotic situation. He will have almost every factor in the total -situation against him—his own instincts and those of his wife, which, on -the principle of biological testing carried on unconsciously by the woman -will help make this attainment difficult for him; but it is the true test -of virile marital love. - -It will be replied by the average husband that he simply cannot -accomplish this feat, that it is against Nature, and that physicians -have told him nothing should be allowed to interfere with the speedy -attainment of his desires once he is on the path. - -But a little reflection will show the incomparable superiority in every -way of this completely virile technique. - -It may be also remembered by those who know anything about the intimate -history of the Oneida Community that a group of some 250 persons carried -on a technique successfully for thirty years with no detrimental results -to the males, a technique which differed from this Succession Plan only -in the fact that the men, but not the women, abstained from taking their -own erotic acme entirely except for the purpose of procreation. In this -community in which their principle of Male Continence was raised to a -religious principle there was a much greater health than the average for -the United States at the time (1849-1879) and the nervous disorders were -far less than the average. - -What has been done can be done, yet what is advocated here is much easier -of attainment than what was done by the men of the Oneida Community. - - -§ 115 - -To a technique like that of the Succession Plan here suggested the -unconscious of the woman cannot fail to respond in the most favourable -manner. It is manifest that in every marriage that is truly happy the -husband must have approximated this technique if he has not finally -reached it. And by happy is meant successful from the erotic standpoint. - -For it is conceivable that some lives even of happily married people may -be marred by certain egoistic-social reverses. There may be not as much -money as would make them more comfortable, and either one of the pair may -have bereavements, or they both may lose a child. But none of these will -touch closely the erotic life they live in common. - -By happy marriage is meant one in which the partners never have a really -serious temptation to depart from the monogamic ideal. If thoroughly -fused, neither will have the slightest temptation, for each will fill -every erotic need of the other and will continue to do so. - -If men were universally taught this Succession Plan, there would be no -dissatisfied wives; nor would any man be attracted away from his own life -partner. For beauty of face and grace of form, brightness of intellect -and brilliance of egoistic-social attainment are as nothing compared with -the sense of power and triumph shared alike by both partners where the -husband controls the erotism of the wife according to this method. - -If men universally used this method there would be no possibility of -prostitution or any other form of infidelity, for no man, even following -the lead of his own unconscious, would find anything better than -perfection, and every man would find, because he had himself developed, -perfection in his wife. - -Let, then, every man who thinks himself incapable of this degree of -control over his own erotic emotions admit to himself that he is as yet -undeveloped. He is still in the class of autoerotic infants. - -Let him not infer, therefore, that because he is mentally autoerotic, he -has become so because of past physical, autoerotic habits. Those who, -uninstructed by erotologists who know the facts, have lost their love -confidence by brooding in secret over the fancied injury they have done -themselves in their youth by physical autoerotism—such men can gain a -mastery over themselves when married, and can become perfect examples of -erotic self-control. - - -§ 116 - -There is no question whatever of the ability of most men to attain the -degree of control necessary to practise Karezza, or the Succession Plan -advocated in this book. - -The only question is the amount of clear thinking a man may be willing to -do concerning himself, to realize whether he should remain in the infant -class of autoerotics, or should represent to himself in vivid colours the -advantages of ascending into a truly allerotic adult level of control. -It is certain that if a man realizes the advantage, not only to himself -but to his wife and to everyone else in his own milieu, he will make the -outline of it so clear in his mind that all his unconscious energy will -assist him in the attainment of it as an objective reality. - -This ideal is here called a representation, or an imagination on the -principle adopted by the autosuggestionists that “where the will and -the imagination come into conflict, the imagination always wins”—Coué’s -_Law of Reversed Effort_. Therefore the natural and obvious expression -was avoided above. It might have been said that when a man realizes the -advantages of the Succession Plan in the love episode, he will exert -every effort of which he is capable to attain it. But for this form of -statement was expressly substituted the form “he will make the outline of -it so clear in his own mind.” - -For what autosuggestion has so convincingly shown is that the unconscious -imagination of the _opposite_ of what one says or thinks consciously is -the result that may possibly follow unless he is forewarned. If a man -say to himself a hundred times a day, “I will control myself,” he may -yet have in his unconscious a clear picture of lack of control, of hasty -abandon, and _it is that picture which forms the pattern of his acts as -they are carried out_. - - -§ 117 - -The question will at once be asked: first, how one can tell whether -one’s unconscious imagination, which controls one’s acts and one’s -physiological reactions, contains the picture of control or of lack of -control, and, second, how one can change the lineaments of this pattern. - -The first question is answered by saying that if a man show lack of -erotic control it is proved that his unconscious imagination is thus, and -not otherwise, patterned. - -The second question requires a longer consideration. - -If the unconscious is to be controlled at all, it can be controlled by -conscious thinking only by means of substituting one pattern of action -for another. - -It is obvious that the unconscious mental processes that govern -digestion, circulation, excretion, and the work of the glands of internal -secretion, cannot be pictured at all in conscious terms, i.e., in visual -or auditory or other images. No anatomist, histologist, or physiologist -has a definite enough mental picture of what actually does take place -in the blood stream upon the injection of the secretions of the various -endocrine glands. Therefore the autosuggestionists give the most generic -formula possible—simply: “Every day in every way I’m getting better and -better.” - -But in the conduct of the love episode this extremely generic formula is -not sufficient. So we come to a more specific answer to our question as -to how the unconscious can be controlled. It is controlled by impressing -on it patterns of action from the conscious. There is no other way. The -extraordinary and freakish accomplishments of Hindu fakirs are made -possible by their picturing in their conscious minds the possibility -of their living successfully through their months of awkward postures. -If these feats were attempted by Occidentals the results would be -fevers, congestions, and all manner of ills suggested to them by their -environment. - - -§ 118 - -The Succession Plan of the love episode is, however, no freakish Hindu -proposition. But it is a perfectly possible pattern which involves the -application of psychical (hypersomatic) imagination to a course of action -that in animals is entirely physical and in humans takes on more and more -the psychical characteristics, as men gain more and more insight into -the influence of the hypersomatic over the hyposomatic portions of the -mind-body combination. - -It is obviously impossible in this book, however, to be more specific -than to recommend that the man having become fully cognizant of the fact -that other men have done, and are today doing, what is not generally -done, should say to himself, “I will retard here, I will observe there, -I will not hurry or allow myself to be hurried but will take everything -as it comes and reap the full measure of satisfaction before advancing -a single step farther, knowing full well that whatever acceleration is -urged will only defeat its own purpose.” - -Each man should fill out the details of this pattern which in a book -cannot be any more specific; but above all he should know that he can -acquire control over his own passions—indeed, that he must, in order to -be able to give them the fullest play later, and that their fullest play -is not an iota less than they should have for the health and happiness of -himself and his life partner. - - -§ 119 - -The fetishism of the single sense quality is an important consideration -here. Harvey O’Higgins in _The Secret Springs_ shows how even a part of -the person or a phase of the woman’s personality may take on an overplus -of emotional tension in the mind of the man, such as to make him think -he has found the paragon of all the virtues in the first woman he sees -having this peculiarity. - -If his mother’s hands were especially beautiful, it is likely that -beauty of hands will play a big part in his unconscious selection of a -life partner, and that homely hands will repel him in a girl otherwise -eminently fitted to be his mate. - -The deep emotions experienced by a little boy in seeing his mother in -evening dress in the ruddy glow of a red lampshade in the drawing-room -gave him a depth of response to that one vision that made him twenty -years later fall suddenly in love with a girl whom he saw illuminated by -the red hall light in her father’s house. - -One is partly, but only partly, conscious of one’s fetishes. No man -except the most self-conscious student of his own mental reactions can -tell exactly why he likes or dislikes _anything_. He can give many -reasons; but the real _cause_ lies in the unconscious memory he has -forgotten—a memory of some pleasurable emotion of exceeding depth that -has occurred possibly a quarter of a century before. - -But whatever may be the real _cause_ of the disproportionate emphasis on -certain features, mannerisms, or mental or physical habits of his wife, -the fact remains. It may well be questioned that any such overemphasis -on the _way_ she speaks or smiles, or on some peculiar catch in the -breath, _should_ make him lose control of himself, but it does. It is not -necessarily that he is set to go off in ecstasies at the occurrence of -any of these factors, as much as that through his own experience he sets -himself thus in a sort of lock combination. - - -§ 120 - -In reality this setting is something that should take place during and -not before marriage, if it must take place at all in a man. It were much -better if it took place not at all in the husband but in the wife. - -This overvaluation of a smile, a dimple, a look, a timbre of the voice, -a perfume or froufrou, is used by men even before marriage as a sexual -stimulus when in reality none is needed. - -The question of most vital importance is not so much, however, the shape -of eyebrow, the laughter rhythm, or other mannerism or characteristic of -a woman that causes a man to decide that he wants to marry her, for that -is in most cases in the unconscious, and therefore actually inaccessible -to him except through much more study than he is able or willing to give -it. The fetishes made by the unconscious, kept in the unconscious, and -causing selection on the man’s part are as nothing in importance to the -fetishes that he had innately or has acquired that give overvaluation for -him to certain phases of the love episode itself. - -It is likely that in highly sensitive and intellectual men some -ordinarily unobserved or half-consciously noted phases of action or -being are major causes in the man’s premature arrival at the automatic -and uncontrollable part of his own action in the love episode. As -an illustration might be mentioned the undue prominence taken in an -episode by the bodily fragrance (natural, not the result of artificial -perfume) noticed and especially dilated upon verbally by one husband, who -thereupon completely lost control of himself at an early stage and was -unable to gain the allerotic result of his wife’s (prior) erotic acme. - - -§ 121 - -As is repeatedly stated in this book, there are other types of reaction -on the woman’s part that are unconscious attempts to test his control, -and continually used by her. Unconsciously she gains her deepest -satisfaction, one that permeates every thought and action of hers until -the next subsequent love episode, from her _inability_ to make her -husband lose control of himself. - -Fundamentally this is the main cause of woman’s mystery to ordinary -man. She is continually springing surprises on him to throw him off -his rigid course of action. Continually she is deeply disappointed -if she succeeds in doing this. Could anything seem more perverse and -contradictory? Is anything really simpler and more straightforward than -man’s imperative necessity to pursue his own course quite uninfluenced by -her unconsciously motivated actions? - -She will beseech him to hurry through the episode, not knowing herself, -sometimes, that it is the last thing she really wants or needs. An -allegory will serve as an illustration. - - -§ 122 - -They are ardent mountaineers. They are ascending Mt. Chocorua in New -Hampshire. She is afraid herself to go ahead over the rough mountain -trail and see the new views as they develop. She needs also his -assistance, his hand, to help her over rocks and fallen tree trunks and -up steep ascents. She says to him: “You go ahead and I’ll follow. Rush -up quickly and tell me what you see.” If he does so, he runs till he is -out of breath and then attempts from a cliff he has reached to shout to -her, to tell her how to get up to him, to describe the valley of the -Swift River of which he has just caught a glimpse. But he is panting so -hard he cannot articulate. Why should he have run ahead of her? Indeed he -should not have. - -It would have been much wiser for him to reply to her invitation to -anticipate her: “Why, dearest, I see you are tired. Of course no woman -can keep pace with a strong healthy man up these slopes. Let’s sit down -and rest a bit.” He would then sit with her on a mossy stone or tree -trunk, or take her on his lap, and point out the beauties of the place -they were in, and absolutely refuse to leave her. He really does not wish -to see the panorama from the peak first, before she does. He is very -foolish to believe her when she says she wishes not to see it herself but -to hear about it. She may be, consciously, perfectly sincere and really -think she doesn’t care about going clear to the top with him _this_ time. - -These two are ardent mountain climbers; but there are many couples where -the woman has not ever climbed to the top of a mountain who sends her -husband on alone; and, poor thing, he goes, not realizing how much better -the view is when two are looking at it. - - -§ 123 - -But any two ardent mountain climbers are practically certain to arrive -at the top, whether they get there together or the man goes ahead and -waits for his lady to come up herself—with the help of another man. -For the mountain of which I speak has the peculiarity that no woman can -climb alone to the top, as the path is extremely narrow, precipitous and -dangerous. If her husband leaves her as they approach the peak (which is -an enormous hill of rock capped by one huge boulder), she will be forced -to wait until he feels energetic enough to descend a couple of hundred -feet or so and help her up. Or if, enchanted himself by the glorious -view—miles and miles of rolling country, numerous lakes and the silver -ribbon of the Atlantic Ocean nearly eighty miles away—he is absorbed in -his own sensations of grandeur, and forgets his wife down there below him -as so many men do, it is just possible that another more unselfish and -less uncontrolled man will give her his hand and help her to the top, -slowly and courteously as behooves a man to do in spite of her effusive -protestations to him to leave her and see the sunrise himself from the -mountain top. - -How will the husband of this woman feel, if, standing and facing the -east, he suddenly realizes that there appears his own wife over the edge -of the boulder, lifted by the strength of another man? - -Had he known the true etiquette of mountain climbing among true married -lovers, he would have waited until both had covered together the entire -ascent up to the base of the boulder, six feet high and twenty in -diameter; and then, making a foot rest for her with his two hands, he -would have assisted her to get on this pinnacle herself first, before he -did. - -Then he would have watched her face for full five minutes in its -varying lights as she turned about in ecstasy at the sublime panorama, -the sunlight falling on her cheeks with their heightened colour from -her climb, the wind blowing a lock of hair across her temple. He would -have enjoyed for a while her outcry of delight as she saw and recognized -the miniature presentment of now a familiar village, now a lake, before -he jumped up beside her, clasped her in his arms and both turned about -from north to east to south to west together, and together drank in the -vitalizing air. He would be infinitely better able to tell her what to -look at, than he was able when he was on the boulder and she two hundred -feet below, to shout to her that he could see a hundred miles in every -direction. - -And now he need not shout. He can whisper in her ears, between kisses on -every part of her head and neck, the joy of both of them, and can listen -to her murmuring endearments she never otherwise would have thought of -uttering. - - -§ 124 - -This climax-capping boulder on the peak of Mt. Chocorua in New Hampshire -has on its southeast side the six-foot sheer perpendicular up which he -helped her first. On its northwest side it has a slope of some forty -degrees up which they might have scrambled hand in hand and reached the -utmost altitude simultaneously. But she will be much better pleased and -admire his restraint forever, if he not only keeps her ahead of him all -the long trail up the mountain but finally lifts her up ahead of him, -up the steep side at the southeast and (with her pardonable childish -satisfaction, which well becomes her but ill becomes him) lets her, on -this mountain-climbing experience, be his superior in this one little -thing for these brief five minutes. During this time she will recover a -bit from the sublimity of her position, will regain her breath, and will -be able to turn her attention from the wonders of the mountain view, so -that she too may have the pleasure of watching _his_ face and covering -it with kisses when he has made his final upspringing to the highest -physical altitude in the region. Ardent mountain climbers like this will -not be satisfied until they have symbolically, so to speak, climbed Mt. -Everest in the Himalayas. And these ascents, each with the other, will -preclude their taking any interest in the company of other mountain -climbers. No woman will want other company than that of her husband, no -man will be able to find a more attractive companion than his wife. - - -§ 125 - -For, on the mountain top, thoughts come to each—thoughts that can occur -in _no other_ situation. The difficulties encountered and overcome make -them inseparable soul mates. The refusal of her husband to leave her and -go up without her endears him more to her than presents of many jewels. -It shows her he has the only strength a woman can respect, the strength -to reserve his strength and to use it for and with her, a strength which -all unconsciously she must test at every step of the ascent. If this -strength is found wanting, she will be left forlorn, the most wretched of -living things, far more miserable than any female animal. If it is found -present, it will make her the happiest of mortals, happy beyond words in -her defeat in the contest of strength, yearning to make him the father of -her children. - -To both of them come deep thoughts, those of the one reflected in the -multitudinous facets of the personality of the other, thoughts deep into -the past, thoughts looking far into the future, thoughts corresponding in -depth to the vastness of the prospects before them as they turn now east, -now south. A realization of the greatness of the world will come to them, -of the minute littleness of lonely atoms of humanity, a realization that -this aspect of nature alone is the one view of life that enables each -to know the other deeply and to be a complete unity instead of solitary -demi-humans each longing for an unseen other. - - -§ 126 - -To revert to the concept of fetishism one may use the mountain-climbing -symbolism of the love episode and say that almost anything on the ascent -may be used as, and become habitual as, a fetish capable of causing the -husband to leave his wife on the trail and hurry forward to the peak that -has a thousand ecstatic views. - -She may use any of a number of suggestive arguments or mannerisms or -actions to convince him if she can that it is his duty to leave her, no -matter how harmful may be his abandoning her for his own erotic abandon. - -She may tell him that he must get there so as not to miss the setting -(or rising) sun, or a rainbow, or a nuance of cloud forms, obscured from -where they are, halfway up the trail. - -Of course, he too, unless he has been convinced of the childishness of -his act, may think there is some reason why he cannot or should not wait -for her, halfway, three-quarters, nine-tenths, perhaps, of the way up. -At the very boulder he may be persuaded to take this last jump alone, -and indeed it were a pity if, having brought her so far, he should leave -her, walled by the boulder from at least half the complete view. Some -women would petulantly begin the descent, forever unknowing what was the -husband’s experience in looking over the half of the circumference of -horizon impossible for the wife to see. - - -§ 127 - -The _one_ injunction necessary for the too enthusiastically climbing -husband is: There is plenty of time. Sit on this mossy bank. Help your -wife over every stone and stick in the path. Tell her of the grandeur of -the view. There is no hurry provided you both arrive at the top and she -take the final step before you. No aspect of sun, sky, clouds, forest or -lake but is absolutely different after every ascent and superlatively, -nay ecstatically, sublime. This is not the only chance you will have to -climb Chocorua. Mountain climbing, if not too speedy, is good for the -heart, and no expedition so fortifies one for work among the world of men -as this pedestrian ascent into the sky. Only you should go together and -be together all the time. The men who leave their wives on the piazzas -of the hotels in the valley are purely autoerotic boys. No man can tell -in words this mountain-climbing experience. - -There may be women who think this mountain climbing immoral, coarse, too -rough for their fine constitution. These will have to be tenderly lifted -up each step of the way but when once at the top will be enthusiastic -converts, for they will have in the panorama an experience they will then -recognize as totally different and distinctively human. - - - - - “It has always been common to discuss the psychology of women. - The psychology of men has usually been passed over, whether - because it is too simple or too complicated. But the marriage - question today is much less the wife problem than the husband - problem.”—HAVELOCK ELLIS: _Little Essays of Love and Virtue_, - New York, 1922, p. 75. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -CONTROL - - -§ 128 - -Evolution has produced in man a being in whom the erotic has now a -greater significance than the egoistic-social impulse. In the development -of plant and animal forms, science recognizes certain new productions -that differ from the norm of the species in which they appear, in such a -way that they were at first called freaks or mutations. But as they breed -true to their form, they are necessarily regarded not as freaks (_lusus -naturæ_), but as well established varieties. - -The establishment of the erotic as a norm in humans has the further -implication that here we have a phenomenon existent nowhere else in life, -namely the non-procreative or social love episode. - -Indeed it may be that love itself, as distinguished from sensual desire, -is a mutation on the psychical level, a form not recognized in any -description of natural phenomena until late in man’s evolution—the love -that comprises both physical and spiritual reaction for the man, and both -physical and spiritual counter-reaction from the woman. Without this -interaction man cannot be said truly to love. - -For the man of today, who has succeeded in placing the erotic above the -egoistic-social impulse, has achieved a height that few, if any, have -attained before him, has gained a joy and fullness of living compared -with which the so-called happiness of successful marriage according to -former standards is but foredawn to noon-day. - -The existence of this higher type of erotic control leading to the -establishment of the non-procreative or social love episode, brings into -clearest relief the distinction between control as repression and control -as expression. - -Control as expression is analogous to driving a horse and getting -somewhere, control as repression is like unharnessing him and letting -him run away. Control of the erotic instinct by repressing is not like -shooting the horse, because repression never annihilates an impulse but -only removes it from conscious control. - -Keeping in mind this difference between control by repression, which is -only apparent, not real, annihilation, only removal from consciousness -and not destruction of the impulse, we shall more easily note the -necessary connection between self-control and individuality, i.e., -personality. - -His individuality is just what he makes up his mind, and exercises -his utmost imagination, to _do_. His work is his own, only in so far -as he controls his actions in doing it, so that they are better than -the external demand. If he is an office boy and told to put stamps on -envelopes, he can do it and only it, or he can put them on so quickly or -so straight that the quickness or straightness is immediately seen as his -particular part of the performance. - -He can control the actions of his work and his play; but, except -indirectly, he cannot control his digestion, respiration, blood pressure -or circulation. He has to eat more digestible food, or to take more -exercise, or to cultivate pressure-raising emotions, or those that lower -the blood pressure. - -He has been taught to believe that his physical constitution and his -instincts are tendencies inherited from his ancestors and that he cannot -control them. If his instincts or inherited disposition make him lose his -temper so that he is not himself, he is supposed not to be responsible -for all he does. - -But is he freed from responsibility because he is temporarily governed -by his instincts, or is he steered by his instincts only when and -because he throws away responsibility? Is it impulsive, instinctive -action that excuses him, or is it excuses that are wanted by him, which -makes him call his action, or the part of it he wants to be excused for, -instinctive? - -Is not his only reason for calling some actions instinctive or impulsive -the fact that he does not want to be held responsible for them? What he -cannot control is not his fault. Therefore, what he does not want to -be blamed for he says is not under his control. Any thing, person or -mysterious power can be made the scapegoat for his misdeed. Much more -likely is he to blame other things, persons or powers for what he does -contrary to what he thinks people want him to do, than to account for -some praiseworthy action by saying it was the result of some power other -than himself. - -If his marriage has turned out unhappily he consoles himself by saying -all marriage is a lottery. If it turns out well he pats himself on the -back and says, in actions though not in so many words: “See what a fine -match I have made!” But why should he take only praise and put blame on -some mysterious power—luck, or providence or what not? - - -§ 129 - -His sexual instinct is most likely to be assigned to some mysterious -power. But it is no more mysterious than his heartbeat and no more -miraculous than the growth of his beard or finger nail. In spite of the -fact that he has not given them much thought, his sex instincts are as -much a part of him as any tissue of his body. - -The same principle applies to the praise or blame attached by others -to the acts which his sexual instincts prompt him to do. If he kiss -a strange girl in an environment where strange girls are kissed by -everyone, his act is not blamed. So it is his own act and not inspired -by some unholy power (unless indeed he has to explain to someone how he -happened to be in that environment, or he would have to blame that on his -instinct). - -If his amativeness shows itself in any place where that form of -self-expression is frowned upon, he will be mentally preparing excuses, -even if he does not have to use them, and he will simply say he was -forced by his irresistible impulse to do that very thing. - -If his environment consisted at the time of one woman whose unconscious -passion was already directed toward him, she might call upon him for an -explanation which of course she wouldn’t really care about, but any sort -of explanation logical or not would suffice, because the demand was only -conventional. - -He takes the praise for what is conventionally praised in his actions. He -shifts the blame to anything not himself. Also he takes the praise, if -any is accorded, to anything that has cost him much effort. He leaves, -or dodges, the blame. So the two ideas according to which he reacts to -praise or blame are the idea of whether the actions praised or blamed are -his, the result of his conscious effort, and the idea of whether or not -the actions or their results are pleasant. - - -§ 130 - -On this principle he does always the next best thing to what he thinks is -expected of him provided he cannot or fancies he cannot do exactly what -people look to him to do. - -This praise and blame, coming from other people and this looking to him, -to do this or that, are both examples of the control society is exerting -on him from childhood up. The clothes he wears, the books he reads, the -plays he sees, everything he does is at least partly dictated to him by -the people with whom and among whom he lives. If he knows people expect -him to wear a linen collar and silk tie he puts them on if he has them. -If he has only a collar he puts that on. If he has no linen collar he -possibly puts on a paper or celluloid one. - -At any rate he gives them the next best thing in any and every line -coming up as far as possible to their demands. - -In sexual instincts there is only one conventional demand; namely, -that, except in marriage, he repress them entirely. The next best -thing, the celluloid collar, in this case, is any and everything -society calls non-sexual. He may waste his time playing cards and his -money on the races or the stock market, and if he succeeds in getting -excitement enough out of them to prevent his thoughts turning to sex -topics he will have the comparative approval of society. If he leaves -women alone entirely he will be called a clean man. Anything short of -actual criminality serves as the next best thing to sex in the eyes of -conventional society. - -Society to date makes only this negative demand on him. It as much as -admits that it has nothing to do with sex and still less with love. That -simply means that society is so blind it has not yet seen that it can get -anything out of sex, or of love either. Society has no eyes, no arms, no -lips. Why should society be interested in the employment of these parts -of men in amatory ways? They need not expect it to. They have no need to -look to it for such things. - -Society on the other hand wants the individual’s time and energy devoted -entirely to professional, commercial and artistic ends, and grudges him -every moment he spends in doing and thinking along lines of pleasure -and advantage to himself. Society plans the rôle of the gods in the old -Platonic fable before mentioned (§ 46) but has taken the half-humans and -halved them again. - -Society, unlike the fabled gods, however, wishes each of these to devote -full time to making, manufacturing, buying, selling, even fighting, which -always makes more work, but never to loving, which it considers a mere -waste of time. Children it wants, but they can be begotten without love; -and the less love the greater numbers. - -Society therefore completely ignores the individual. It tells him to make -chairs and tables but never to make love. - - -§ 131 - -One has to reflect thus, so as to disentangle the motives that rule -one’s actions. The most individual and intimately personal motive is -love. One’s strongest individuality, if one can discount society and be -oneself, is seen in the ability to make love. - -What a man most controls is most himself. Those actions that are -most controlled by forces _outside_ of himself are least his own. In -his thinking he has to learn inseparably to link individuality and -self-control. - -He has been taught from infancy to give up doing what he wanted to -do himself and do what other people want. All other people want him -to do almost the opposite of what he wants to do himself until, with -punishments, retaliations, and all sorts of rebuffs, their wants -have snowed under his instinctive desires with such an avalanche of -prohibitions that his actions are about ninety-nine per cent controlled -by the kind of selfishness that consists of selfishly trying to please -other people for a release from this snow pressure, which release is -called approbation or praise. - -The impulses which come from the avalanche are the egoistic-social -motives, social because they come down upon him from everyone with whom -he comes in contact, egoistic because he is really protecting and -pleasing himself by following these motives. - -But one can see for himself how much of the control of his ordinary -every-day actions is his, how much is the control of the avalanche. - -Really then the only thing left to the individual is his love impulse. -Society is not interested in it, or does not see that it is. Society -would be a very different thing if it had eyes. It might have some -sympathy. The individual’s love impulse is the one bit of leaven in the -human mass today. It is the one thing he can call his own, the one thing -whose expression he can control. But society has taught by implication -that that is the one thing he cannot control except by annihilation. - -So it appears society has shown quite Machiavellian abilities in -checkmating the erotic impulse which is the individual impulse par -excellence. Society is confronted with an apparently antisocial influence -and reacts to it on the low intellectual plane of trying to destroy it. - - -§ 132 - -But control is not annihilation nor is annihilation control in any sense -whatever. If you cannot train a horse by shooting him dead, you cannot -drive him by poisoning him. If you do you haven’t got him. - -If you kill your love impulse you haven’t got it. You cannot kill it, but -you can knock it in the head so that it is unconscious. Ascetics have -done it. Society would as lief you did it yourself. - -Your love impulse, not the Sunday school variety but the full red-blooded -variety of woman-loving (or man-loving) impulse is not only the most -individual thing about you because it is capable of the most complex -development in your case but it is the most valuable dynamo you have -generating endless power whose source is the sun itself. - -Control of the love impulse therefore, and not annihilation of it, is the -individual’s most personal advantage. - - -§ 133 - -An essential difference obtains between the average man’s control and the -average woman’s chiefly in that the woman’s is a control by repression, -virtually, of course, no control at all; while the man’s control wherever -it exists is a control through expression. - -It accords with the nature of masculinity and femininity that the control -of the woman’s erotism, if it be a control through expression, is the -control exercised over it by the man. Any control she may obtain over it -cannot but be the control by repression. In other words no woman has any -control over her own erotism except the ability to refuse to express it, -and even that she may lose if she meets the right man. And no control -is exercised over her erotism except by her true mate, if she is thus -developed by him. - -The man’s control over his own erotism is a real control only after he -has succeeded in freeing his psyche from the mental autoerotism in which -he has been born, and has achieved a real allerotism. No consideration -need be given to the objection possibly raised here by some; namely, -that the double standard of sexual morality that obtains so widely may -have given the man a taste of allerotism, and may thus have given him -a control through expression. But it must be clearly understood that no -clandestine liaison of any sort whatever, except where there is a true -love of one woman, to the social recognition of which there is some -insuperable barrier, has any real value as an erotic control through -expression. - -Finally in the differentiation between masculine and feminine erotic -control it may be said that the woman needs and can, by the nature of the -circumstances, have no control through expression herself. She needs no -release from her own natural autoerotism. Her love problem is _toto cælo_ -different from man’s. - - -§ 134 - -The question—Are not all healthy men prone to relax their erotic tensions -more rapidly than women?—may be answered. Possibly they are, but they -need not be. If a man is sick he is more likely to feel like crying, -yet he does not always do so. If a man receives any great blow, he is -proportionately more likely to regress to the stage of infantility. - -Healthy men, on the contrary, need not be short-winded in the love -episode any more than in playing a baseball game, painting a picture, -singing a song or writing a book. It may be that no art can be taught. -Even if this is true, we shall always attempt to teach arts of all kinds. -It may be that the art of love requires a certain amount of innate taste -in a man, for him to make any great progress. - -History has shown a few great geniuses and a few great lovers. Few great -lovers figure in history because the average human adult married lover -has no penchant for advertising himself. The average childish married -man can, however, learn to take steps in the direction of adulthood in -married relations, even if he never becomes truly great as a lover. - -This is indeed the most important point of all. Divorces in large numbers -and unhappy marriages in still larger numbers occur simply because the -husband will not have, or has not had the opportunity to learn the main -lessons of the married life, the greatest of which is that it is his -privilege to insure his wife’s attainment of the erotic acme, preferably -before his own, but at least simultaneously, and every time his own -occurs. - -They are not truly mated unless this plan of simultaneity or succession -is followed whole-heartedly. If it is not now followed, it must be begun -at once, and the only method is through the appropriate action of the -husband. - -A baby takes its mother’s milk and gives nothing in return except smiles -and gurgles and sleep. A man taking his wife’s body and giving her no -adult emotional return for the emotional catharsis he gets himself, -except the infantile smile and sleep, is himself no less a baby. - -And she will “mother” or “baby” him, first, and unconsciously hate him -later. Asking him if he has his rubbers, his umbrella, his overcoat and -the thousand and one things that more or less consciously irritate him, -show (but, in the average man, only to his unconscious) that what really -irritates him in these minor solicitudes is his manifestly infantile -situation. - - -§ 135 - -This complete lack, on the woman’s part, of any ability whatsoever to -secure erotic control over man leads her to try, unconsciously, of -course, to compensate, for her inability in this region, by securing -egoistic-social control over man. This she succeeds in doing every time -she meets a man who has not yet developed from a mental autoerotism, in -which he thinks that she has pleasures to bestow upon him and that he has -to get them from her, with or without payment of egoistic-social services. - -It thus appears that woman not only has no exclusively erotic control, -which by the nature of things belongs entirely to man where he has -developed sufficiently to assume it, but also she invariably confuses the -two types of control, getting a vicarious satisfaction from different -forms of egoistic-social control, and missing, in a great number of -instances, the deep biological and organic satisfactions from the -exercise of control over her by the man. - -A hazy notion that happiness is her prerogative at least in the first -months of her marriage leads many a woman to believe even to the extent -of a virtual hallucination that she _is_ happy, i.e., that she is -erotically controlled by her husband. - -A love episode in which this control has not been secured by her husband, -or in which he may not even have tried to secure it leaves her in a state -of psychical conflict. She consciously knows she ought to be supremely -happy, unconsciously she feels blankly unhappy; and if, as so many women -are, she is without erotic insight, she fancies that her husband has -slighted her in some purely egoistic-social action. - -Woman’s negative control in the erotic sphere results in the complete -depersonalization of her body. - - -§ 136 - -Unconsciously as well as consciously she _wishes_ to find all pleasure -in her honeymoon, and so strong is that wish that she is impelled to -believe that all the several experiences of it are pleasurable. They -_must_ be pleasurable or she must admit that at the start even, she is -_not_ happily married. This is the state of mind of those who enter the -married state with the most disingenuous sincerity. Those who marry with -any initial conflict, such as feelings of guilt for any previous illicit -sexual adventures, are more unfortunate. - -Those whose wishes for happiness are so strong as to interpose a -rose-coloured glass between their eyes and their actual experiences are -deceiving only their conscious selves. One cannot deceive the unconscious. - -Unconsciously they are disappointed in the lack of rapport between their -own emotional erotic situation and their husbands’. They are in the -position of a starving man looking through a plate-glass window, at a -restaurant full of merry feasters. - -According to her bringing up she may repress all or a part, or none, -of her natural resentment at this situation; and the resentment is -going eventually to make her more exacting of her husband, if she is to -surrender to him even her impersonal body. For impersonal her body does -become even to her. She regards it as belonging by law to him and she -will not virtually inhabit it when he is with it. At his approach she -flees from it every time. And as this flight is an unconscious, though -a real flight, we cannot blame her if her husband will not, or cannot, -take enough care of it and its reactions to enable her to assimilate the -necessary food of love. - -She will think: “He says he loves me, but I know only that he likes my -body. I begin to hate it because it does not give me the satisfaction -it does him. I can’t understand it a bit. It’s a strange world. But I -suppose it’s got to be as it is. I can’t do anything about it.” - -And she cannot, if he will not or cannot. Is there any more powerful -deterrent than despair to prevent a young wife from being able to produce -in herself a relaxation of erotic tensions? Her usual course, when -she begins to despair thus is to deny to herself that she has any sex -feeling at all. Her husband then agrees with her and calls her frigid. -This crystallization of her feelings not merely retards but annihilates -whatever abilities she has to express her love in an erotic way. She -fortifies herself with the compensating thought that sex is, as she has -always heard, sinful, filthy, nauseating. Her face begins to become -hardened, to develop a wrinkle or two and she is in a fair way to become -an anti-something. - -She begins to realize that he has not done this or that, such as -remembering to post a letter or make a purchase or keep an appointment -with her; or he has contradicted or opposed her in some judgment -concerning practical every-day occurrence. He has not done what he should -have done, to be sure; but not only does she not know what that thing is -but she has no means of knowing what it is. She therefore is forced to -express her dissatisfaction with him in terms of a sphere of impulse with -which she is acquainted; namely, the egoistic-social. She cannot talk to -him in a language of which she knows not a single word. - -The relations between a new bride and her husband in their first love -episode are those of an examination or test. The bride tests the groom, -of course, in the majority of cases unconsciously. There is nothing else -for her to do. There is no test she has to meet. By the circumstances of -the case she is not required to do anything for the conscious performance -of which she is to be judged or tested by anyone. She has not to do but -merely to be, to exist—as if, asleep, to be awakened. - -The unconscious situation is quite the reverse. The husband is the one -who is tested. If he fails in any detail of this test there remains in -the story of his actions a lacuna which she has no means of filling, but -which forms the nucleus of a doubt in her unconscious mind and the centre -toward which all subsequent failures on his part tend to congregate in -such numbers that she may become later completely skeptical. She will say -she knows he loves her. To be sure, he does a thousand little things for -her all of egoistic-social, none of truly erotic value. - -If he even once takes these virtually friendly, unconscious examinings of -hers as real evidence of hostility or lack of interest, he is failing her -where she feels it most keenly, and is beginning to lose his control of -her erotically. If he continues to be switched off the main track by her -well-nigh inquisitorial attitude he as much as admits to her that he is -not longer able to come up to her standards—a humiliating admission for -any man to make to any woman. - -Kittens are born blind. Women are born love-blind. No woman is other -than anesthetic, which means “not perceiving” until she has perceived -something. And there is nothing for her to perceive except what her -husband does. - -Woman’s negative control, coming as it does from her anesthesia which -is innate in her and is removed only by the proper kind of marriage, -makes her “uncertain, coy and hard to please.” If not met and handled -erotically by a man who has abandoned autoerotism, it develops in her -a degree of opposition, antagonism, obstinacy and resistance that is -completely misunderstood by a man without erotic insight. - - -§ 137 - -Women confuse the control on the egoistic level with that on the erotic -level, because the latter prompts them to keep testing their men in -the unconscious attempt to assure themselves of their own security. -This testing is done on both levels. When it is done on the upper or -superficial level of egoistic-social acts it takes the form of all -varieties of fantastic and capricious behaviour. The most “temperamental” -woman is using her moods only to try the steadfastness of the man -concerned, although she is quite unaware of the unconscious motive. -She either cannot explain her actions or she assigns reasons that are -pure rationalizations. When the testing is done on the erotic level it -sometimes assumes the form of coldness or anesthesia. - -Women will later come to see that their use of egoistic-social tests is -only an indirect manner (and never a reliable one) of assuring their -erotic security, but they will attain this insight only after they have -made the distinction between the two groups of motives and have given to -the erotic its true superior value. - -If the young bride has had the good fortune to be enlightened on sexual -matters, and thus to be prepared for a descent upon her of an expression -of force which otherwise is easily too great a shock, she may even -welcome its impetuosity. - -If on the other hand, as is almost universally the case, she is ignorant -of sex, her reaction to an uncontrolled husband will be one of utter -despair. The majority of educated women today have been brought up with -all the inhibitions which crass ignorance of sexual psychology produces. -As a precautionary measure many of them were instructed by their mothers -that boys and men are uncontrolled brutes and should not be allowed to -touch girls, who are destined to become married mothers. - -Therefore the majority of women enter the married state with faces at -least slightly averted from sex, just as some religious sects train their -believers to wash in the dark and never under any circumstances to look -at their bodies undraped, much less any other persons’. - -So the chance is that the husband will have as his first duty to -eradicate this sex inhibition, for which his wife is in no way to blame, -for as a child she started in the right direction, and was misdirected by -her parents, guardians or teachers. - -If a man is constitutionally unable, or has trained himself to be -unable, to control his own emotional catharsis, and must see to his own -satisfaction, before (or even instead of) his wife’s, the prognosis of -happiness, if he gets a woman with the sex inhibition, is negative. - - -§ 138 - -That the soul as well as the body of the newly married, in their first -love episode, should be inexplicable and unreservedly “blended with the -only other soul and body in all the world for him” certainly requires -a mental ante-nuptial preparation that has rarely been attained in the -past. It implies the belief on the man’s part that the woman should have -_from the first_ exactly the same true physical and psychical ecstasy -that he expects himself. How many men think that? - -It must be admitted, however, as has been indicated above, that the -woman’s erotic development progresses, and that in some cases it takes -months and even years for it to reach its full expansion. In the meantime -the hasty, anesthetic husband has lost his grip and, unconsciously -unwilling to grow up with his wife, remains at his selfish, animal level. - -Incidentally, too, he holds his wife there; for it must be remembered -that the wife’s erotic development, on which depends not merely her -contentment, but the stark possibility of her becoming more than a -gynecoid female, is absolutely nil, if it be not developed by her -husband. This is unequivocally a one-way process. All the latent love and -beauty of being and action on the woman’s part are dependent solely on -the ability of her husband to unfold her. - - -§ 139 - -It may be argued that the woman’s erotic acme is conditioned by the -prior or simultaneous emergence of the man’s. But this argument is the -working out of a defence mechanism coming from the unconscious of the -man. He makes this statement not because it is true but because, from an -autoerotic phantasy, he wishes it were true. - -The statement, too, may be sincerely made by the woman, but, if it is, -it is because she has heard him make it or correctly inferred from his -unconscious actions its tacit existence in his mind. It is shown in -another place that there is always in the man’s unconscious a phantasy -that his part in the love episode will produce his wife’s erotic acme at -once and without effort on his part. This phantasy amounts in some cases -to an hallucination. - - -§ 140 - -It was said above that you cannot control what you cannot see or touch or -otherwise perceive. To what you cannot see, you are blind; to what you -cannot hear, you are deaf; to what you cannot smell you are—but there is -no English word for that, so we have had to take a Greek word—_anosmic_. -Similarly if you could not taste, touch, feel, you would be insensible. -There are many more forms of insensibility than merely being knocked -out in a fight. The insensibility to the penultimate one of the various -phases of the love episode has been called in a woman anesthesia. In the -love episode of the hasty husband there are innumerable reactions of -his wife to which he is insensible, anesthetic; but which would be a -revelation of supreme joy to him if he could but see them; therefore it -is better that the love episodes should take place in the light rather -than in the dark. - -Yet not alone the visually perceptible reactions. For there are reactions -of every variety. If you have ever used a blow pipe on a piece of copper, -and observed the iridescence which soon comes, you will realize the same -beauties in every sense preceding the complete annealing of your wife -by the heat of passion you engender in her. If you have ever watched -the iridescence of a spraying fountain in the sun, you will see the -same effect in the emotions of your wife when the relaxation of tension -has broken up her being into fine particles that float slowly down and -refract the light rays of your love. And the beauty and calm of the -rainbow after a summer storm is nothing to that of the mental state of a -woman after the downpour of her erotic passion. - -All these are features to which the anesthetic man is insensible. -Although the similes used are visual, there is not a sense quality that -cannot be thrilled by the perception of the woman’s reactions. And -although the similes rather hint at the finale than at the preliminaries -they all refer to the effect produced on the woman by the activities of -the man. The kinesthetic sense of the husband must be developed. He is -much wiser if he will give these sensations some appreciative study. -It will help to give him control by taking his mind off the burden of -tension he has to carry himself, and enable him to acquire over his wife -that domination in the exclusively erotic sphere which is essential not -only to his wife’s happiness but to his own. - - -§ 141 - -Anesthesia is love-blindness. Love is pictured blind because he does not -see _defects_. The worst blindness of love is its not seeing beauties. -Most husbands’ love is blind. This is the anesthesia meant. When one is -given surgically an anesthetic it is to make one insensible to pain. Love -anesthesia is the insensibility to the love emotions which are stirred in -every man by every woman. - -Can a man be aware of these appeals, made by every woman, and choose -to remain true to the woman he has married? What good would be done to -him if the anesthetic to which, by virtue of conventional repression, -we are all subject, should be suddenly removed? Would not such a man be -irresistibly impelled to make love to any and every woman he saw? Where -then would monogamy be? But if monogamy depended on anesthetics of this -type it would be on a very insecure basis. It would not endure a week. - -Yet most men are love-blind, are anesthetic to woman’s deepest erotic -appeal. Furthermore the securest protection for monogamy is the removal -of that anesthesia. - - -§ 142 - -This doctrine of the supremity of masculine erotic control will be -objected to, and by the best of women. They will say that they get their -joy in perfect marriage from the knowledge that their husbands are made -happy. They will also say that it is only fair play if there is a give -and take on both sides, and that the denial of woman’s control relegates -them to an inferior position. - -They misunderstand, however, the biological foundations of the marital -state if they consider woman’s position of receiver and not giver as -in any way implying inferiority. They confuse erotic control, which is -demonstrably a one-way control, with egoistic-social control, which is -quite as normally exercised by women as by men, by women over men, as by -men over women. - -They fail to see also that the secure establishment of the one-way -masculine erotic control will so satisfy men that no dispute can arise as -to the rights of women in the egoistic-social sphere. They fail to see -also that the solid foundation of truly erotic control over them by their -husbands will release for egoistic-social activities an enormous fund -of energy which is now irrationally locked up in the erotic sphere. In -other words if they are fortunate enough to be married to a man who is in -perfect control erotically they will not need to worry about his approval -of whatever they may find interesting to do in egoistic-social spheres of -action. - - -§ 143 - -The excellent women who may on theoretical grounds, object to their -husbands’ supreme erotic control, are merely echoing the sentiments -of traditional convention, which are man-made sentiments, made by men -centuries ago, dictating what was right and proper for women to do -centuries ago. - -Today there is nothing, even in the ordinary every-day service a man -receives from his wife that he would not rather have servants do for -him—cooking, house-tending, clothes-mending or the supervision of these. -If he were rich enough he would. - -But the personality reaction in the most intimate psychical as well as -physical relations of married life he can secure from no other than a -true wife, and in no other sphere than the exclusively erotic and in no -other way than as she, like the vibrating string of a musical instrument, -responds to his technique. - - -§ 144 - -The main thesis of this book is that in the instincts and emotions of -love the self-control of the husband and, through this, his control of -the exclusively erotic emotions of his wife are essential to a successful -marriage. - -A continuous interplay of control on the egoistic-social level between -husband and wife tends to exist in all marriages. There is an impulse in -women to control the actions of men at this level quite as much as men -attempt to control women. But the control of the egoistic-social impulses -of each by the other has nothing to do with real marriage, and the -impulses and emotions peculiar to it, which are erotic only and, at that, -subject to a one-way control. - -In the sphere of the erotic emotions man should be supreme. Neither -husband nor wife is ever really happy unless he has this control, and is -indifferent to the other control on the egoistic-social level. - -The facts that control is neither annihilation nor repression, that -control is of the very essence of personality and individuality, that -biologically man’s control of woman is the only control needed in the -erotic sphere, and that woman, not being able to control there (and -feeling, if she be not controlled, a need which she unconsciously -interprets as a need to control others)—all these are facts that are of -slight importance, however striking they may be, compared with the fact -that man, on the average, is brought up without knowledge of the erotic -control he needs to assume in order to make both himself and his wife -happy. - -The unsatisfied woman experiences the fact that she has bestowed upon her -mate unutterable joy and bliss. A satisfied woman’s recognition of this -fact, however, cannot occur at the same time that her own erotic acme -takes place, for at that particular time she is as oblivious to anything -save her own sensations as if she were the only being existing in the -universe, and her sensations are as indefinite and infinite as though she -were taking chloroform. She must, in all the processes leading up to her -temporary psychic dissolution, realize that these processes are being -accomplished for her by the being and doing of her husband-lover. She may -not ever know exactly what he does do, but she is translated—and by her -husband. - - -§ 145 - -The man of the twentieth-century type gets his supreme gratification, not -from anything that is done to him, nor yet from any sensations which his -activities produce in him, which indeed he could get blindfolded from -any living woman of similar proportions and somatic reaction, but from -the knowledge his own visual and tactual sense gives him of the effect -of his acts on his partner, the physical and psychical effect which his -being and doing have not on himself directly (which is the ordinary -autoerotic procedure) but indirectly on him through the body and soul of -his mate. - -The analogous statement cannot be made about the woman. To be sure, she -both is loved and loves, both is desired and desires, but she can herself -do nothing that gives the man other than autoerotic pleasure. His joy, -on the contrary, comes not from what she does to gratify him directly. -His appreciation and response to any artful action on her part is a -feminine reaction, and while excusable in egoistic spheres of action is -inexcusable in the erotic. - -For he neither wants her, nor does she want, essentially and -biologically, to be the active, creative factor in the love episode, just -because this factor is the exclusively masculine factor. Her unconscious -reaction to this reversal of masculinity and femininity may amuse her -for a while, as a variation; but it cannot continue. Conscious purposive -action on her part gives neither her nor him a lasting gratification, -as it is a step in the direction of psychic autoerotism on his part to -receive such satisfactions. - -Her reactions on the contrary should have such a degree of spontaneity -and unreflective artlessness as to give him assurance of their being true -unmeditated responses as sure and inevitable as the chemical action in -an opening flower, but as purely hypersomatic (spiritual) as they are -inevitable. - -Otherwise, he will never be able to know her as she is. He will know -her as the traditional suggestion of her environment has taught her to -be. This pervasive influence of environment, which is well enough in -egoistic-social impulses, is wholly out of place in the erotic sphere. - -The truly modern husband will wish more than any other thing to know his -wife as he himself alone can know her, and will more and more consciously -resent, as the century grows older, any egoistic-social conventionality -slipping into the purely erotic. - -In order for him to gain his greatest joy from marriage with this -particular woman, she will have to be made _sui generis_. The only means -toward this end is her utterly unpremeditated, spontaneous response, -unclouded by the suggestions of tradition as to how she ought to respond. - -A woman thus rendered _sui generis_ by her husband’s erotic control will -more than fulfil any requirements or specifications of a pattern of -romantic love. Such a woman, thus known by a fully percipient husband, -takes on for him a value, transcending far those of the ordinary -so-called loves of the every-day, mildly contented variety, and becomes -for him alone, incandescent with vitality. - -The considerations offered in the preceding paragraphs point to the -conclusion that the average man’s lack of erotic control is due first of -all to his mental autoerotism. - -Man’s lack of erotic control is due also partly to a certain anesthesia -on his part, taking the word in its etymological sense of a failure to -perceive. - -He fails to perceive that his function in married life is giving and not -receiving. He also fails to perceive the difference between woman’s -spontaneous reactions and those suggested to her by her environment. He -fails to perceive that woman’s resistance has a deep biological cause and -that she is unconsciously forced to test him hourly. He fails to perceive -that she inevitably confuses erotic and egoistic-social instincts. - - -§ 146 - -The man to whom the love episode is only an animal sex act, a swift and -dizzy whirl, is one who, so to speak does not in advance plot out the -trajectory of this flight, does not let the component factors enter his -consciousness for long enough to observe them and devote some conscious -love to them. These innate associations are there in his unconscious; -but his training has repressed them. Such a man to whom the love episode -is like a swift gulping of strong liquor has no time to reflect upon its -various bouquets and glints in natural and artificial light. - -The ideal enactment of the love episode, if permitted to enter -consciousness in the proper manner, enables one to prolong it, because -this admittance of new factors into consciousness, that were all along in -the unconscious, gives a reason for stopping and taking account of the -phases of it as they occur. The most important phases are those where the -husband takes note of the effects of his being and doing upon his wife. -The hasty husband is the one who has no regard for any other’s feelings -save his own. If his own were the only ones that existed, he would of -course have no reason to retard his own erotic acme. With an insensate -spouse he might go through the love episode as often and as rapidly as he -wished. - -It must be kept in mind always that there is a definite biological cause -for the slow progress of woman through the phases of the love episode—the -inescapable necessity that she shall assure herself continuously and -beyond the slightest doubt of the erotic strength of her partner. - -It is probable that the women who are not slow in this progress are in a -sense degenerate, if that term have any real meaning. They would be the -ones who would not, unconsciously, of course, express that biological -need for impregnation by the strongest male, which is expressed by the -average woman in her slowness. They would tend to reproduce what might -be called a lower order of humans in which the erotic in itself, the -hypersomatically or spiritually erotic plays a much smaller part, an -order of humans that were nearer the animals than those humans who have -amplified the erotic factor. - -The hasty husband, as will later be shown (§ 158), unconsciously reasons -that his own speed demonstrates his quick and masterful control over his -wife’s erotic emotions. This unconscious fallacy is made worse if the -wife has followed the doctor’s advice to simulate an erotic acme in order -to preserve the marital peace. - -If the effect on her of his mere presence were so overwhelming, and if, -as soon as he embraced her, she soared into the empyrean of ecstatic -bliss, his mere embrace might have the effect at once of producing, in -her, her own erotic acme. This would, however, imply either that she -was herself weak, judged by the standard just given, or that she had -assumed, without testing, his superior strength in the erotic sphere. - -This assumption is an exceedingly rare one, depending on an inference -from mere physical muscular strength, or from the fact of a great -egoistic-social reputation. In other words such a woman might think that -because her husband was or is an athlete his physical strength implies -erotic strength, or that because he was a famous man he would be a great -lover. - - -§ 147 - -The husband’s lack of erotic control based on his own lack of perception -renders him too precipitant in the love episode. - -It is believed, on the authority of physicians and such others as have -studied the subject, that the love episode, in about seventy per cent of -civilized marriages, is but a one-sided affair from the first. This is -due almost exclusively to the impetuosity of the husband during the first -weeks of marriage. Sometimes under the inspiration of the purity of his -bride-to-be, or from an increased cautiousness against the chances of -contracting venereal disease, he abstains from resorting to prostitutes. - -If this practice of his has come from a belief on his part that he -was obliged, as he believes all men are, to relax his sexual tension -periodically, he will generally believe that his temporary pre-marital -continence is piling up tension in him, and he will approach his bride -for the first time with an idea probably that his tension is greater -than it has ever been in his life. - -A very important distinction must here be kept in mind; namely, that -between the perfect erotic love episode, free from conflict, and -involving both hyper- and hyposomatic levels of the personality, and the -imperfect, illicit sex act. It has been pointed out[24] that the physical -sex act does not relax a true love tension, that the instinct itself may -not be satisfied even with numerous hyposomatic sex activities. - -If, therefore, the young husband be of the type that believes that an -illicit sex act invariably produces the desired relaxation of erotic -tension, he will be the more likely to give way to an impulse that has -a large proportion of the purely hyposomatic (or physical) factor in -it. This abandon on his part will exclude all possibility of mutuality. -He will thus lose at the start the possibility of that control which he -might have gained over his wife’s erotic reactions, had he been able to -control his own. And he would have been able to control his own but for -the erroneous belief that the tensions he relaxed clandestinely with the -_demimondaine_ were the main tensions, which undoubtedly they are not. - -It is obvious that the annihilation of his bride’s natural responsive -actions that results from his faulty procedure is fatal to married -happiness. - - -§ 148 - -This hastiness marks the love episode on the part of the average man. -What he wants is a reaction that is to take place in himself, for which -his bride is merely the external complementary mechanism. The purely -mechanical side of this he could either purchase from a courtesan or -seize against her will from an innocent “honest” girl, but he fears -venereal disease in the former and trouble of accidental paternity or -discovery or both in the case of the latter. Eventually he regards both -types of women with equal impersonality. Either is merely food for his -sexual (not erotic in the highest sense) hunger, and it is his own sex -hunger that he is bent on appeasing, with absolutely no idea of the -difference in erotic value between the two types of women, in the way he -acts. There is none, for neither is more appropriate to his spiritual -need than hay would be for his stomach. - -The man who desires a wife either for the purely sexual or for the -purely domestic motive has no conception of marriage whatever. If he is -influenced either consciously, or unconsciously by such a motive he might -as far as his own sole advantage is concerned, confine himself to sexual -affairs with prostitutes. He is unaware of the new light that has been -thrown on love by the recently acquired knowledge of the work of the -ductless glands. He has never heard of them, of course, and could not be -expected to know how intimately they are connected with each other and -with his entire mental and physical welfare. - -What he later finds out, and that with no help whatever from science, -but from tough experience, is that the two things that he craves—namely, -sexual satisfaction and all the good things of domestic life—are in some -way inevitably and more and more sundered. His wife either is and remains -“cold” or acquires suddenly or gradually a coolness which increases to -actual pseudo-frigidity. He notices a change in her. He knows he has not -himself changed. - -The change should have been in him and then there would have been in -her a change which would have gratified him instead of disappointing -him. But, never having been taught how to behave in the most intimate -relations of marriage, he is feeling the results of his ignorance just -as would a landlubber feel eventually the resulting shipwreck if he -undertook, or were forced against his will, to pilot a big ship. The -husband should be the matrimonial pilot, but he has received no course of -instruction in that form of navigation. - - -§ 149 - -Haste in the husband comes primarily from fear. Fear makes the thief -hurry through his thieving. The pickpocket must be so deft and swift -that the victim’s consciousness is not aroused to the theft. But a true -husband-lover is not, in the love episode, stealing anything from his -wife, no matter how much his actions may resemble those of a thief. His -aim should be not to avoid arousing her consciousness, but to awaken it -to the gift he is offering her. - -Fear makes anyone telescope, curtail, syncopate and abbreviate any -act, selecting out of all the portions of the act some element of it, -considered perhaps the cream of it, and cutting out all the rest of it. -Fear alone—the fear felt by the thief—is unconscious motive enough for -haste on the husband’s part. If he did not fear her erotic acme, or her -reactions that occur prior to it, he would not repress them, or allow her -to repress them. Why should he fear to give his wife the same erotic acme -in every love episode that he uniformly gives himself? - -He fears—unconsciously, to be sure, for the most part—that, if his wife -develops so strong an erotic reaction, she may have an irresistible -craving to satisfy herself when he is not present, thus giving herself to -another. - -Haste in the husband is therefore due to a fear that he may lose his -wife’s passion, if it be aroused. He does not realize that the modern -educated civilized woman is unable to give herself to any but the one man -who has first aroused her deepest passion; and that the more educated and -cultivated she is, the more surely she is centred upon the one man about -whose being the entire erotic sphere rotates as on an axis. - -Man’s fear that his wife may be or become “oversexed” is at least a -part of the cause for his haste in the love episode. Unconsciously, of -course, he does not want her to have the same ecstatic pleasure as he -has himself. Not only because, in his squinting regard, this puts her -in the prostitute class, but also because he fears her becoming too -passionate for one man and therefore requiring two or more. This is based -on an undercurrent of opinion among men that a woman’s sexuality is -fundamentally stronger than a man’s; and that her comparative leisure -in view of his own, will tend to foster in her the desire for sexual -gratification. - -Added to this is the other erroneous supposition, common among ignorant -men, that excessive indulgence in the pleasures of the love episode has -a weakening effect on the man. Viewed as excretions, as the seminal -products have been until today, it would seem quite illogical to fear -an evacuation of these at least once a day. But although they have been -regarded as excreta, there has always been an unconscious belief in men -that their retention somehow strengthened the brain. Still a way has been -pointed out (see § 100) for the love episodes to be continued without -this fear. - -A consideration favouring the erroneous belief that the seminal products -should not be ejaculated too freely is the phenomenon of a certain -lassitude and inactivity following the love (?) episode as it has been -hastily put through by many men. On the contrary the perfectly balanced -love episode cannot have this unpleasant result. It ensues only when the -episode has been imperfect either through too great haste or through the -lack of suitable response on the wife’s part. If both share equally, -i.e., if the husband reserves his own acme, the result is perfect. It -cannot be perfect in any other way than that perfectly shared in flawless -mutuality. The evocation of the suitable response on the wife’s part -lies wholly in the husband’s self-control. Whether the effect is caused -principally by psychical or by physical causes, it is he that in all -cases is responsible. Without his proper conducting of the love episode, -she is impotent and anesthetic. She cannot feel what he does not do. -She cannot see what he does not show her. Who can blame her if her -unconscious passion, over which she has never had, has not now and never -will have any control, is magnetized by the really superior conduct of -another man? - -In brief, divorce is in the power of the husband to render imperative or -impossible. The wife has essentially nothing to say in the matter except -that she has found in her husband a rover among women, a beast that -treats her brutally or an ignoramus who is not competent to be either a -good husband or a good father. - - -§ 150 - -Some men are always delighting the conscious life of women by the -intensity and frequency and rapidity of their emotional relaxations. -Such men seem so generous in their spending of the small change of -emotion. But they are always maddening the unconscious of their women, -whether these women be wives or mistresses, for they are repeatedly, -almost universally, taking in the woman’s presence, and through the -instrumentality of her presence, what she cannot herself get, and what -she has biologically an expectancy, if not a right, to have. Such men -are practically annihilating the chances of their own and their wives’ -happiness. - -The woman that is governed by the egoistic-social instinct unwittingly -plans for the man’s hasty emotional relaxation, the while completely -holding her own emotional reactions in check, under perfect repressive -control. In the average civilized woman brought up under sex inhibitions -this control by annihilation is the only control she has. The ability -thus to annihilate the finest possibilities of erotic reaction in herself -is the result of the only training many women get. It is the fine art -of the prostitute, but not all of hers, however. The rest of it is -to simulate a loss of control on her own part in order to effect the -aggrandizement and unconscious sense of superiority on the part of her -patrons. - -This conscious retaining of erotic control is, to be sure, based on -the biological necessity of man testing. The best of women cannot of -themselves let go their own erotic control. It has to be taken from them -by men who are emotionally their superiors in strength. - -In so far as it (woman’s tendency to lie) is “almost physiological”[25] -and based on radical feminine characteristics, such as modesty, -affectability and sympathy, which have an organic basis in the feminine -constitution, and can therefore never altogether be changed, feminine -dissimulation seems scarcely likely to disappear. - -Woman’s tendency to dissemble is dependent on her unconscious reaction of -testing the male. But she must test her male for the deeply biological -purpose of finding out whether he is strong enough for her. He needs to -be, for her purposes, only stronger than she is, to be strong enough; -although, when this motive is sometimes transferred to consciousness, -she may become a fortune hunter or vampire, and throw away any man for -the next egoistic-socially stronger she finds available. This does not -of course refer to physical muscular strength but to psycho-sexual -strength. If physical strength were enough there would be almost no -divorces and no marital unhappiness. - - -§ 151 - -Her testing her male, therefore, whether it is in pre-marital -egoistic-social relations or after marriage erotically, is a resort to -the negativism (which is indeed a characteristic of infantility). This -negativism is seen in the critical attitude which is so intense in some -of the later incidents in married life. And in the first love episode any -coolness on the bride’s part is a tacit resistance which seems to say: -“I am not yet fully mastered. Any opposition I present to you is no more -than what as a man you should be able to overcome. You may be my superior -in physical strength but there are numerous kinds of strength. I did not -obviously marry you for your physical strength much as I appreciate, -value and need it. But the love episode,” she continues unconsciously, in -blushes, averted gaze, occasional paleness, interspersed with impulsive -advances, all of which are here set down in their equivalent words, “the -love episode consists in far more than physical violence. In fact for -many centuries physical violence has formed no essential part of it. It -has on the other hand a tendency to fluctuating, wavering, more or less -trembling behaviour, that to the uninitiated appears contradictory or -inanely silly. If you are upset or disconcerted audibly or visibly by -any of the obstructions I am placing in your way, you are really not -strong enough for me. By my instinctive need for being controlled, I -am impelled to see how much strain you can bear, how strong your mental -and spiritual nature is, for I need that control more than anything else -in the world. I hope you will not fail me at this juncture, for I want -above all things to find a firm base to which to attach the wavering, -vacillating, fluctuating algæ of my emotions.” - -All this she says in her actions, while her words may be: “Oh, Rob, you -certainly are awkward. You don’t understand me a bit.” - -How tragic if Rob should take her words as gospel truth and substantiate -them by showing any irritation whatever! - - -§ 152 - -Possibly this is the place to say that if the young husband shows -surprise or, worse, irritation at any of the, to him, seemingly bizarre -acts of his new wife, he is providing her with exactly the reaction which -her careful and thorough unconscious is looking for, finding which it -says to itself: “Well, if I find many of these defects, farewell! I’ll -attach myself to some other man.” - -Whereas consciously she is triumphant in her power over him to make him -anything from miserable to blissful. - -This unconscious tendency to test the husband, based on the biological -necessity of choosing a mate at least slightly stronger spiritually, -psychically, mentally than herself, determines much of the actions of a -maid with a man. - -In married couples where the man is properly schooled in love, this -wrangling on a low level does not take place except at its minimum at -the outset. Frequently the woman immediately senses, unconsciously, -that the man whose attentions she is receiving is of the stronger type -necessary to compel her emotional submission. - -This theory admits the possibility of perfect marriage between the lowest -and highest types of intellect (which is an egoistic-social expression, -not erotic) with proportionally happy results. - -It also shows how every married couple can reinstate themselves in the -most satisfactory mutual relation, even if they have already started on -the wrong path. - -If the husband realizes that he is only being tested, and by a -sympathetic examiner who really wants him to pass the test, and that it -requires only a little thinking on his own part to make him erotically a -fully followed husband instead of a led one, he will certainly give the -necessary time to visualizing the pattern his actions will have to take -thereafter in order to make him successful. - -In married couples where the man does not know or cannot learn the erotic -principles, the surface wrangling based on the perpetual unconscious -test continues, involving more and more of the couple’s egoistic-social -activities, until finally it becomes so acute that nothing can prevent an -open rupture. - -In other couples where the man’s reactions satisfactorily answer the -woman’s first tacit interrogation, the dramatic testing automatically -stops. - -Woman’s tendency to dissemble thus includes not merely verbal lies -but also all forms of her behaviour toward her husband. Of course, if -her erotic nature is entirely engaged she will have (for example) no -possible motive to spend his money above what is needed for pleasing -him through her developing her own personality in every way, or in -acting in any capacity whatever that would in an egoistic-social sense -be to his detriment, for through the perfect love episode she so -strongly identifies herself with him that all his interests, even the -egoistic-social, are superlatively hers, quite in contrast with the wife -whose love impulses have been ungratified. - -The wife with the ungratified love impulse reacting unconsciously, as -described above, with irritated but unsatisfied desires, unconsciously -reasons to herself on the talion plan because she has not risen from that -to total identification. The irritated but unsatisfied wife, still on the -“eye for eye” level of reaction, unconsciously says to herself: “If I -cannot get something out of him one way, I will another, to pay for all -he is getting out of me. If I cannot make him give me a real love episode -I will make him give me other things. I will buy what I want and send him -the bill. He shall give me money if he cannot give love. Love is what I -want but I must have something.” This is unspoken, but still it exists. - - -§ 153 - -A man cannot feel what isn’t there without phantasying up to the point of -hallucination. But what isn’t there is simply what he hasn’t put there in -the way of response to appropriate action on his own part. He cannot put -it there if he is mentally autoerotic. (§ 112). - -He must know in advance what to expect, and what is the necessary -expression of woman’s erotic feelings. If he does not, he is doomed to -surprise of an unpleasant character; for he will either be disappointed -when he finds that his wife’s reactions are not up to his narrowly -limited pattern or he will be embarrassed by a too great gush of feeling -on her part and an arousal of passion so tremendous that he does not know -how to handle it. - -This embarrassment is related to a certain type of mild disgust or -aversion felt by men to whom some women make advances not considered -truly feminine by the men. This does not refer to the brazen -self-assertiveness of the prostitute which is by most men clearly -recognized as egoistic-social. It refers to a truly erotic abandon -sometimes seen in a woman who absolutely throws herself upon the man that -has inspired her fancy. This attitude makes impossible for some men the -satisfaction of victory or conquest. - -This too great abandon on the woman’s part evokes in such a man the -thought either that she is sexually more potent than he (an erotic -reaction in no way connected with egoistic-social impulses); or that -her own environment has been such as to bring out this expression in -her. If she has been brought up in a family where love needs are frankly -recognized, their wholesomeness will make her much more responsive, at -once, to her husband’s love. - -Naturally he will be neither embarrassed nor dismayed, if he has himself -been trained to believe that his capacity for woman’s love is, if fully -developed, as great as or greater than any woman’s could be. If he was -thus well oriented, he would be pleased rather than otherwise to be -relieved of the task of removing love’s inhibitions from his wife. - - -§ 154 - -Fate is inscrutable and mysterious. Dame Fortune is a mother-imago. -The husband who does not understand his wife is a child who does not -understand his mother. According to her fancy she may give or not give -what he wants her to bestow upon him. Children comparatively early -learn to manage their mothers, but the man who has failed to learn how -to control his wife erotically has not advanced even as far as these -children. - -Such men are the ones who profess to revere the mystery in the feminine -nature. They are simply a case of arrested emotional development. There -should be no mystery in marriage. There is plenty of room for passion and -romance without demanding that there shall be in it any mystery whatever. -The inscrutability of the mysterious expression on the face of the _Mona -Lisa_ was the expression of Leonardo’s extreme infantility, the erotic -childishness of a man who never really loved a woman as a man should. - -Man’s projection of mystery upon woman is his infantile attitude toward -her expressing his unconscious desire not to give but to receive. - -What constitutes the husband’s complete erotic control is the removal -of all mystery, his full perception of all the factors in the erotic -situation. One of these is the actual fact as to whether or not his wife -has in the love episode reached the erotic acme. - -He frequently thinks, if he is one of the numerous men without insight, -that she has; when as a fact she has not. - -It is sublimely stupid for a doctor to tell the wife to pretend that she -has reached the erotic acme in every love episode, and to say that no man -can tell whether or not she has reached that degree of exaltation; so she -might as well deceive him in order to keep the marital peace. Such men as -follow this advice have not the remotest resemblance to human men, nor -do they deserve to retain the love of their wives even if they have once -gained it. One can tell whether a person is _unconscious_ or not, or if -she sleeps or not. A real husband can tell whether or not his wife has -reached the erotic acme. - - -§ 155 - -The unconscious inference of a man’s reaching the erotic acme is that his -wife has done the same in the erotic episode or surely will when he does. -This feeling is so strong as to make almost everyone take the sign for -the thing signified. The thing signified is the woman’s utter surrender. -It is signified by the sign, which is the man’s losing or letting go his -own control. Prior to the wife’s erotic acme there is no time during -the love episode when the husband’s loss of control will not affect his -wife’s unconscious adversely. She will surely though unconsciously resent -his throwing down his burden of tension before he has torn hers from her, -because his own tenseness is his only instrument wherewith to operate on -hers. His desire lapses with his relaxation. Her relaxation cannot take -place if he loses his tenseness before she does, even if it be only one -second before. - -Men would make happy marriage certain if they should universally grasp -this idea; namely, that their letting themselves go entirely without the -prior or simultaneous erotic acme on the part of their wives, is putting -themselves on the same level as the animals without, however, being in -the animal environment. - -To that level the wives cannot sink; yet the husbands allow themselves to -do so almost without exception. Because of centuries of repression their -wives are not able to respond to the erotic situation as rapidly as they -do themselves, and yet the husbands act as if they responded fully. This -type of behaviour is practically equivalent to producing a hallucination -in themselves. - -To use a term from pathological psychology, every husband who does -not secure his wife’s erotic acme before or with his own, actually -_hallucinates_, for his own benefit, that reaction on her part. He is -exactly like a man walking along a level sidewalk and making as if to -step upstairs each step he takes and thinking he is climbing—in so far, -just crazy, that is all. - -It would be much better in some ways for a husband of this type to -renounce love episodes forever, for such actions form no part of a real -one; they are as productive as half a pair of scissors without the other -half. - -This solitary vice in a husband (masturbatio per vaginam) always comes -from his hallucinating the effects he should produce instead of producing -them. He is alone with his wife in his sexual (not love) episodes -because she is practically not there. He may never have thought of the -question as to where she may have been. She may have been mentally in the -arms of another man. “With another person and yet alone!” is a terrible -thought. - -Yet when we think about what we see and hear among so-called humans we -must realize how much alone all except the very fewest are, alone because -they have not yet discovered the only method of not being alone—the -supernal communion of one man and one woman. The few men who have learned -how to love, and the exactly equal number of women whom they have taught, -are the only persons in the world who are not absolutely and completely -as alone as would be a solitary chemical atom in an illimitable universe -of space. - - -§ 156 - -All the crowds and jams of people we see are merely, for the most part, -huddling together, as an unconscious compensation for the sickening -loneliness they feel in their heart of hearts. We see them in amusement -parks, and in all places where hordes of people congregate; and -undoubtedly a part of the impulse which moves them is their unconscious -solitude for which they get only consciously perceptible consolation -in the sight of each other and rubbing of elbows and treading on each -other’s feet. - -If one should ask if sex is the sole or major motive in all this the -answer would be, by no means, if physical sex is all that is meant. The -need is for companionship which many followers of crowds, not having the -companionship furnished by the complete love of a man or a woman, fancy -they get from the sight or elbow-touch of masses of people. - -The deeply, profoundly, thoroughly married couples are the only ones -who have no need to fear anything that comes from incompleteness. They -neither crave nor are averse to other people, but the most fully mated -never appreciate crowds very highly. Into their own mystic circle of -binary personality they cannot take a third. - -For these thirds there is no hope but to find each his or her own -complementary personality. The women wait; for there is nothing else to -do. They cannot find by looking; they can only give themselves the gaunt -consolation of distracting their own attention from love until they are -found by the proper men. - -For in spite of the great popularity which George Bernard Shaw gives to -his ideas by putting them in epigrammatic and striking literary form, -the truth is manifest to all who think straightforwardly and do not -believe in a statement simply because it is paradoxical and therefore -emphatic—the truth, namely, that women are not the choosers but if there -is any choice they are the chosen, and are themselves utterly helpless -and must remain inactive. - -They can try to attract men but the more they try, the more will the -erotically developed men unconsciously and unerringly infer that there -is some weakness about them that necessitates this strenuous attempt -to compensate for it. The harder they try to attract men, the more -suspicious do the men become, particularly those having any deep acumen. -As for the men being simply the helpless puppets of a sex of sirens—it is -ridiculous. - -The world is made up of the unmarried, the truly mated and those -ill-assorted thirds whom ignorance has left unhappy and helpless until -knowledge comes to the male partner. - - -§ 157 - -Many of these third persons are the wives of ignorant husbands who have -hallucinated the fusion which they have never made. The husband fancies, -perhaps, that the fusion can be effected by the wife; that all he needs -to do is to submit himself to the wife as dispenser of delights and that -by merely having him she will glow and burn with the heat necessary -to fuse their two souls and make them a whole instead of fragments. -Delusion! Hallucination! - -The child says to a stick, “This is a horse.” The child husband says to -himself, “This is my wife,” whether he knows it to be a fact or not. And -curiously enough the child knows he is only fancying; but the man, in -thousands of instances, _does not know it_. - -This unconscious, and therefore almost irresistible, tendency on the -part of men to believe the existence of what they wish is the main -obstacle to man’s control of the erotic situation. Based on biological -necessity, which in the merely instinctive acts of animals secures the -sexual reaction on the part of the female, the unconscious phantasy still -persists in the human animal, the phantasy that the erotic acme of the -man causes that of the woman every time. But it is a phantasy in the -majority of civilized marriages and tragically enough it may be the only -flaw in some where congeniality and affection are flawless. - -The bridegroom has this definite task before him to know his wife, -for he can never know her before marriage. His knowing is a process -of perception, the failure to perceive being a form of anesthesia in -himself. Adam knew his wife—the only good he brought out of Paradise and -fully compensating for the loss of Paradise. - -When he knows his bride he will know exactly how much resistance he -has to overcome in order to develop her. She cannot tell him anything -in words, for no woman can know. Not even the most experienced woman -sexually can put into words exactly what unconscious resistance she may -have to even a virgin-pure man. - -The bride’s resistance is just as real a force as is the gravity in -a pile of stones. At the bottom of that pile of stones his bride’s -soul waits and he has to remove them one by one; actions which take as -concrete an amount of psychic energy as if they could be measured in -foot-pounds or kilowatt hours. - - -§ 158 - -The groom not only has to see what resistance there is, but has to -know that he must remove it all. The bride herself has no more power -or control over these resistances than she would if she were literally -buried under tons of rock. She depends entirely on his work to get at her -soul. Will he ecstatically embrace one of these stones that cover her -up? Like the child calling a stick a horse, will he say: “This stone is -my wife. If I can believe hard enough, she may change, in my eyes, into -my wife and I shall be spared the effort of releasing her from the weight -which now oppresses her. How sweet and tender this stone is! How it -throbs and palpitates as I squeeze it tightly in my arms! There, it has -melted entirely. Dear wife!” - -Insane? Yes. And the woman herself, alive and breathing under the load of -stone which antiquity with more than bestial blindness, with infinitely -more than granite heartlessness and marble stupidity has heaped upon her -for centuries, is so deeply buried that she cannot herself even direct -her own release. Dimly she hears her man apostrophizing with love the -outermost stone. Will he ever get the sense to drop it, pick up one after -the other of those overwhelming _her_, and actually penetrate to her and -grasp her in his arms. Good heavens! How can intelligence be conveyed to -that imbecile? - -Or instead of hearing her husband hallucinating her release by means of -rapturously caressing a stone that holds her down, she may have the still -more poignant agony of hearing him make love to a woman already released -from her bonds by some other man. - -“Damnation inconceivable! Is he, my husband, willing to take the woman -whom other hands have released, whom the work of other men has made -practically theirs, and whom he virtually steals, or as a beggar accepts -like a fruit skin from another’s feast? - -“Or is it,” the poor soul may think to herself, “that really in my -own true being, I am less attractive than the women whose weight of -oppression so many men have cheerfully lifted? What have I done to make -myself so unattractive? Must I curse my parents, who have, besides, -perhaps, helped to entomb me alive under these stones?” - - -§ 159 - -The situation in many marriages is not less tragic than this. The husband -in this case has either not been able to see the obstacles that lie -between him and complete emotional fusion with his wife, or if he has -seen them, he has not thought himself able to remove them. In either case -he may be more ignorant than to blame; but not after he once gets the -point of view of this book. - -His accomplishment, the only virile accomplishment in the world, is -plainly before him. He must acquaint himself with the exact amount of -resistance and repression; and he must remove it piece by piece if it -takes a half a century. He must realize fully that it is a piece of -constructive work, and that no one else can do it for him. - - -§ 160 - -The anesthesia of the husband and the failure to come up to the constant -test are both increased by man’s ignorance of the fundamental biological -nature of the woman. - -The only remedy for it, which will improve the conditions of marriage -and reduce to the minimum infidelity of wives and of husbands as well, -is the husband’s deeper knowledge of the feminine element. This -knowledge, which should be an essential part of a man’s education, cannot -be entirely given him by another, but must be the result of his own -observation. - -It is obvious that the intimate adaptations required of each marriage -are absolutely individual. While all women and all men are actuated by -similar unconscious motives, the specific working out of these motives -results in an interplay of forces which is different in each individual -marriage. There are over a thousand types of this intimate interplay of -personalities within the marital state; also the types change in special -cases from time to time. It is easy to see, therefore, that the minutiæ -or marital living have endless combinations of possibilities, concerning -which the husband would do well to become as well informed as possible. - - -§ 161 - -The hasty husband takes his own motions and his own erotic acme, which -are but parts, for the whole. He takes the most physical aspect for the -love episode. Naming the part for the whole is a sort of metonymy, which -is a figure of speech and not literal truth. The hasty husband is in this -sense unconsciously a liar. He cannot tell the truth because he cannot -know it. If we say that this fragmentary performance of his is taken by -him to be logically or intellectually like the whole, we must say that -he rates low in discrimination. He ought to know that the fragment is no -more like the whole thing than a hand is like the body. - -Giving the physical side of the love episode too great a value is like -connecting it too closely with the imagination, or with that part of the -imagination that is bound up with the emotions. The factor in the sex -life of most of the animal-like humans, that is, most closely connected -with the strongest emotions, is the acme. In true human love, then, the -strongest emotions are reassociated with other elements of the love -episode than the acme. And the acme is the greatest desideratum only from -the unconscious or instinctive point of view. - -The imagination, the power of visualizing (and other forms of -representations as well) then involves the power to affect, or to effect -changes in the somatic reactions of the husband that render possible the -prolongation of a sex act, and its transformation, into a love episode. -The imagination of organic sensations in himself, in the normal husband, -retards the progress of the love episode for the benefit of the wife. The -hasty husband lacks just this imagination and the love episode is hurried -through in the manner of an animal sex act. - -The husband who reaches his acme of erotic relaxation even before actual -contact with his love object has not in consciousness dwelt much upon the -numerous preliminaries. Methods of retardation are methods of admitting -into consciousness the different innate associations between emotions and -the touch and movement sensations constituting the first stages. - - -§ 162 - -The use of the imagination as a transformer of unconscious energy is a -comparatively modern technique and one made use of with great effect in -autosuggestion. - -As a transformer of unconscious psychic energy, or possibly, better, a -re-shaper, it has sharply to be distinguished from phantasy. - -Phantasy is the continuous mental activity that goes on night and -day in the mind of every man, woman and child. It consists of visual -images, auditory images, tactual, kinesthetic, thermal and a dozen other -qualities all combining with each other in the patterns by no means -fortuitous, but organized into groups, some of which have been called -complexes. This organization is the unconscious wish. The patterns -formed are unrelated to time, are unmoral and follow exclusively the -pleasure-pain principle. - -Phantasy, which is entirely spontaneous, or independent of any conscious -volition on the part of the individual, is about ninety-nine per cent -submerged in the unconscious. The one per cent more or less that emerges -into the consciousness of the ordinary man of the world comes in as -day-dreaming or as dreams of the night. In these two forms it appears -in a shape least disguised, and is therefore the chief material of -psychoanalysis, which is an inventory of the contents of the unconscious -of the individual, an inventory that shows what possibilities he has of -future better adaptation to his environment. It also shows why the people -who are ill-adapted have failed to adapt themselves. - -We are obliged to assume a causal connection between the phantasies of -unconscious mind and the physiological process in the body on the one -hand and on the other the broader life currents of the individual. - - -§ 163 - -Only by assuming this causal connection, which must also be a two-way -connection, can we explain any influence of mind upon body. From -innumerable instances, however, we are all absolutely sure that the mind -influences the bodily functions and that the bodily functions influence -the mind. - -In no sphere of human activity is the influence of the mind on the -body more clearly demonstrable than in the erotic sphere, both in its -equatorial physical zones and in its polar intellectual zones. - -This makes it absolutely incontrovertible not only that man can control -his emotions, including the erotic; but that he should, if he wishes to -be human and not merely animal. - -In the causal connection between hypersomatic (mind) and hyposomatic -(body) there is at least one link called the imagination. But the fact -that imagination is so broad a term makes the understanding difficult as -to how the various mental mechanisms, mostly unconscious, interact with -each other. - -The fact, however, is well known and admitted by all scientists that the -mind does influence the body. It causes changes in the functions of the -bodily organs. A purely mental state caused by external stimulation, -for example, the hearing of some bad news or witnessing of some tragic -occurrence, will alter the internal secretions of some of the endocrine -glands, postpone digestion or upset it, accelerate circulation and -respiration and cause other changes. - -Sex phenomena are no exception to this principle that bodily processes -are conditioned, that is, partially caused, by mental processes. Sex -cannot be a part of love until love which is hypersomatic (mental) is in -control. - -It would be exceedingly satisfactory if one could devise a mental pattern -for love that would apply to all individuals; but the fact that the -various factors are over twenty in number, making over four hundred -combinations of only two at a time, render it practically impossible to -do more than make a generic verbal formula such as “better and better -every day.” - -It is impossible however, to get away from the fact that the sense type -of imagination has not a little influence in the original rapport that -springs up between two persons of opposite sex. Obviously a colour-blind -man could not be much influenced by the iridescent beauty of some young -women. There are people who are tone-deaf, and, to such, a monotonous -voice might not have the deterrent effect it would for some. There are -individual variations in the sensitivity to every one of the twenty-odd -sense qualities that enter consciousness from time to time. Any of these -variations may play a part in the first attraction exerted by young -people on each other. - - -§ 164 - -Every one of these twenty-odd different qualities of sense impression -may enter consciousness from time to time as a representation or -reverberation of an original sensation. The commonest of these is sight. -The appearance of some facial expression, for example, of an attractive -woman, will, spontaneously recur to a young man for a long time. -Motivated by pleasurable emotions experienced at the first sight, these -visual memory images will recur again and again, each time accompanied -by, if not caused by, the continuance or reëmergence of the pleasurable -emotions. - -But visual images are not the only ones that spontaneously recur. If the -individual belongs to the auditory type, there will be numerous auditory -“images.” He will hear in his mind’s ear the joyous timbre of a woman’s -voice, also perhaps motivated by the same recurrent pleasurable emotion -he experienced when listening to it the first time. - -Visual and auditory “images” or representations may be supplemented by -those of any of the other twenty-odd qualities of sense impression. -The memory of a dance recalls a number of these, tactual, olfactory, -kinesthetic, mostly, however, in the average person, not clearly -conscious. - -People have to be taught to see what is before their eyes. They also -have to be taught to recognize timbres of musical instruments, intervals -between tones, composition of various chords, etc. - -Conscious attention must be used to enable some people to recognize the -difference between various flavours, perfumes, odours, bouquets of wine, -etc. - -This sharpening of sense discrimination is accomplished by means of the -conscious attention to the various images. - -The sharpening of sense discrimination with the assistance of the -mental standard supplied by the various representations of former sense -impressions involves a change in the sense organ itself if we include -in the organ, as we must, its nerve connections with the brain and with -other organs. - - -§ 165 - -This is how we may conceive the effect of mind upon body. The -imagination, composed of its various qualities of images visual, auditory -and other, involves the change in the sense organ and in the brain and -the other organs connected. We are thus being changed continually, -both body and mind, by impressions coming from without and by the -reverberations of these impressions that are known as mental images. - -Is it any wonder that the drama, and lately the moving picture, is -recognized as one of the deepest transmuting influences in human life? - - -§ 166 - -Every sense impression is a suggestion. It is a psychological axiom that -every idea tends to work itself out into an act on the part of the person -that accepts the idea. This is the basis of hypnotism and any form of -non-hypnotic suggestion. - -It is evident then, that the sense impressions received every second of -our waking life (together with the images or reverberations of these -impressions that continue to live in the unconscious and appear only -occasionally in consciousness) accumulate suggestive force. It is evident -that every individual is subjected from birth to a continuous stream of -suggestions, some of which he accepts (among them the most often repeated -ones). - -If these suggestions are formed of images (conscious or unconscious) of -health, happiness and triumphant activity, they will be accepted and -constitute a pattern for the entire life activity of this individual. And -the same is true _vice versa_. - -The impressions thus received constitute the content of the imagination -and this content produces either well-being or ill-being (not to say -illness) in the individual so influenced. - - -§ 167 - -The inference that a wholesome erotic pattern must be provided for young -people, and adopted by older married persons, is therefore irresistible. - -_The only way actions of any kind can be made better is by introducing -into the mind a pattern according to which these actions are to be -carried out._ The only means for introducing this pattern into the -mind of a man, if he does not already possess it, is by way of the -imagination. The various visual, auditory and other images must be -created in the mind of the individual before it will be physically -possible for him to follow this pattern. - -Mere verbal reiteration of a clumsily worded command or prohibition -_never_ provides the imaginative factor which is the essential one. -Prohibitions are discussed elsewhere (§ 197). - -Thus it appears that the imagination is the vital factor in any action -just because it constitutes the pattern of the action. - -It is always much better psychologically to show or describe a person -doing what one desires him to do than in abstract terms, to tell him to -do it. - - -§ 168 - -Therefore a love pattern is needed. It is needed by the husband in order -that he may control the erotic situation. It is not needed by the wife in -order that she may control, for in the erotic sphere control is not hers -nor does she want it; but it is needed by her in order to know whether or -not she is being properly controlled erotically. - -As no two individuals are alike, this makes it evident that the function -of the husband necessary to create a happy marriage is to emphasize the -mental (or hypersomatic) side of it, for the purpose of including every -physical aspect in the most comprehensive way. - -Again it must be reiterated that instinct alone can never _guarantee_ -a successful married life. The erotologist knows full well that the -husband, relying on instinct alone, remains unutterably selfish, and -therefore anesthetic, in thousands of cases; and that he can, if he has -the confidence of knowledge, make of his wife a whole wife and not, as in -the majority of cases a fragmentary wife. - -A man should not let his wife remain fragmentary. He should not be -content with either the domestic-servant fragment or the cook fragment, -nor should he regard her solely as washwoman, stenographer or performer -of any other essentially egoistic-social function. “Wife” should be -restored to its original Anglo-Saxon concept of “the trembler,” i.e., -the thrilled woman. Many men on the contrary speak of “the” wife, exactly -as they would say “the” cook, or “the” chambermaid. - -Instinct alone, which is purely selfish, in spite of its occasional -marvellous faculty of providing for the future of others, can in -almost none of the intimate marital relations insure a continuance of -completely satisfactory love episodes. Continuance of these alone cements -married love and furnishes the foundation for a truly artistic erotic -superstructure—a love mansion, having a beauty far surpassing the lust -hovels in which, after their tinsel and gingerbread honeymoon cottages, -the average married pair spend the remainder of their lives. - - -§ 169 - -If, as assumed broadly above, the remedy for the ills which beset the -married life which is guided by instinct alone are more excitement for -the woman and less for the man, this only in one way suggests a balance -which (as many wives consciously or unconsciously perceive) grows less -and less as the years go on. - -The man advances in his profession, makes more money, gains more or less -gratifying triumphs in the world of affairs, joins a club or lodge, meets -and has more or less stimulating contacts with more and more of his -fellow-men. His wife the while remains mostly in the home, is restricted -by the necessity of care of children, if any. If there are no children, -she is generally steered by her husband into the least stimulating life -possible, for he knows unconsciously that the interest of his wife in -other people is mildly displeasing to him. He wishes to own her all—her -actions, her thoughts. If he does not someone else will, and she will -be, to that extent, not his. It will be difficult for him to reason that -this type of ownership is merely the gratification of an egoistic-social -instinct. If there is one thing a man should not, for his own erotic -interests, want to do, that thing is the establishing of an ownership or -possession. Ownership of wives dates back at least to the early Roman -times when one had to own and control one’s wife’s whereabouts in order -to satisfy oneself, and one’s neighbours, that one’s freeborn children -were one’s own. - -As a gratification of the egoistic-social instinct, ownership of the -wife’s person, property, actions and thoughts is in direct antagonism -with pure love instinct, which controls most satisfactorily and -gratefully when there is no egoistic-social compulsion acting through -husband on wife. Pure love instinct is gratified only when the control is -perfected by eliminating all egoistic-social motives of husband or wife -from the situation. - -This is realized by some young women who marry but insist that they be -not supported by their husbands. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -THE UNHAPPY MARRIAGE - - -§ 170 - -Those who marry from merely physical sexual motives, who overemphasize or -overweight the physical side of sex, are not able to gain from marriage -what the rationally controlled love episode can give them. They naturally -never admit that this is the case. They frequently do not know it -themselves. - -They think perhaps that they are putting the love instinct ahead of -the egoistic-social, but their knowledge of men, women and things is -defective. - -They are to a certain degree anesthetic in the etymological sense, -because they do not know how to live most fully. They are in a position -similar to a child who should find a package of new thousand-dollar -bills, and take them out into the street and play with them. They are -infantile in appreciation of values, which, however, they may later learn. - -To overweight the physical factor in the love between the sexes and -to place the love motive ahead of the egoistic-social motive are not -by any means the same thing. It has been already indicated that the -overweighting of the physical factor proceeds from an egoistic motive, -and is thereby vitiated as a truly human motive in the highest sense. - -Both parties to such a marriage can, if they see and understand, change -so as to raise the level of their own motive and give the true love -motive its real place, as might be illustrated by the case of a young man -who marries a woman author twenty years older than himself, motivated -at first solely by the glamour of her reputation; but, finding in her a -great heart and womanly qualities he had not before suspected, becomes -her true mate in every sense; or the girl who, dazzled by the wealth of -a suitor old enough to be her father but rich enough to “buy and sell” -her father several times over, finally discovers in him a completeness -and fullness of love that quite satisfies her when she realizes that, -in spite of his egoistic instincts that have made him rich his love -instinct is still richer. All that is necessary in a match “misgrafféd -in respect of years” is the proper subordination by both partners of the -egoistic-social to the love instinct. - - -§ 171 - -Unconsciously, of course, such people know from the first that they -should get from each other the sweetness par excellence of human -life, but while they know this unconsciously and it makes some of -them uncomfortable and eccentric, even unhuman, they fancy so many -inhibitions and barriers to it (particularly in the case of narrowly -brought up women) that they do not gain from marriage that unspeakable -and indescribable sense of identity each with the other that would -successfully obviate any tendency whatever to infidelity. - -This feeling of identity is not only thus physical in the husband -and wife at the climax of erotism, but is given tangible, visible, -and in all ways perceptible, manifestation in their children. It is -given ideal existence in the community of interests it engenders in -connection with the family life, interests which are here the expression -of the ego-instinct, but here, as they should be, interests arising -from the subordination of the ego-instinct to the now brightly revealed -love instincts, which are not accessible to consciousness until after -enlightenment in the technique of the love drama. - -Those people also are unable to give fullest expression to themselves in -the love episode who consciously or unconsciously, frankly or otherwise, -place the egoistic-social motive above the love motive, who marry “for a -meal ticket” or for any other egoistic-social motive such as wealth or -position. - -Both of these may be taught, if they can be made to see their false -positions. Those who overweight the physical motive can, unless their -intelligence is of too low an order, be made to see eventually, that they -are contenting themselves, or trying to make themselves content, with -much less happiness than they are capable of. Those who overemphasize the -egoistic-social end of their relation to their spouses, can be instructed -in love, so that they can raise their union to the higher order, unless, -of course, there is the comparatively rare absolute incompatibility of -temperament. - -Marriage need not in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred be dissolved. -Within reasonable limits; that is, excluding the widest possible -divergence of taste and interests, almost any man can learn to control -the erotism of almost any woman, if he wishes to take the trouble to -learn how to do it. - - -§ 172 - -Most emphatically this does not mean that the control here referred to -is all there is to a perfect marriage. It has been reiterated that the -erotic control is only the foundation, but important as all foundations -are. The erotic control leads not only to the maximum egoistic-social -freedom, but to the greatest possible development of each of the -partners’ distinctive personality. - -The love confidence gained by the establishment of the one-way control -in the erotic sphere only opens the windows of the house of love to the -invigorating air of the outdoor world. - -The unhappily married are unhappy because each is watching the other -continually, devoting to this conscious and unconscious surveillance so -much energy that either they have none left for the development of the -properly subordinated egoistic-social interests or they lose so much -energy in the unconscious conflict that they tend to become neurotic. - -The unhappy married ones’ lack of love confidence is the most deeply -gnawing care known to human misery. No egoistic-social interest of either -but is regarded by the other as drawing him or her away. - - -§ 173 - -The marriage of two young people need not be postponed over a month or -two after they have learned enough of each other to be sure that they -are placing each motive, the love motive and the egoistic-social motive, -in the proper relations to the other; namely, that the egoistic motive is -recognized as being of less value toward their happiness. No fears should -be allowed to enter their minds about the happiness of their marriage. -Birth control should prevent any fear from the egoistic-economic point of -view. - - -§ 174 - -If it should seem to some that the potentialities of the marriage that -has been called a lottery are usually those of misery, and that the -ordinary marriage only brings out the miseries of existence to which -some shut their eyes, and from which others run away, it need only be -suggested that almost nothing runs itself in the world as we know it, but -everything needs constant upkeep, and it would be unreasonable to expect -that when the nuptial knot is tied all activities in the direction of -keeping it tied could be given up. - -If the world about us is in constant change, to which we are obliged to -make constantly changing adaptation, it is even more strikingly a fact -that the world within us is constantly changing; and that we need to -control this change ourselves and could not, if we tried, find a more -fascinating occupation than learning how to make our inner adaptations in -the best manner. - -Marriages that run down before death has ended them are those where the -man has lost his psychic potence, due to initial or gradually developing -anesthesia on his part. - -In the courtship he has taken a man’s part, presumably; but has stopped -his wooing after marriage, because he has confused egoistic-social -impulses with erotic. He has thought marriage was a civil contract by -which he came into possession of something. Love scorns contracts; as it -evaporates in barter. Most unhappy marriages are of the “run-down” type. -The thesis of this book is that the only distinctive man’s work in the -world is to keep winding them up. The man that lets his marriage run down -is probably a perpetual-motion crank at heart. He thinks that in marriage -he has found a thing that will run by itself forever. - - -§ 175 - -A passionate desire for culmination represents well the attitude of the -executive head, or man of affairs who advances business by delegating -details to others. There is no detail of the behaviour of the truly mated -that the husband can want to be delegated to underlings. Love is not a -business and no part of it should be either left undone or delegated to -another man; though there are many husbands who apparently think some -of the preliminaries can be omitted. Possibly the hasty husbands have -thought that only the “high spots” of love could be or should be touched -by them, because their business or professional lives do not permit them -to look into every detail, much less do it themselves. But the minutiæ of -love are like the notes of a violin score; they all have to be played by -the violinist and they are all given their due effect and proper shading -by the true artist. - -Possibly one may say that all men cannot be virtuosos in love, -particularly as it is infinitely more complicated than even the -musical art; but at any rate all can use their utmost endeavour in the -performances of the duets, which constitute the most valuable works of -art for the family and the nation. - - -§ 176 - -The unconscious polyandry of the average married woman is absolutely -proved if she does not regard her husband as satisfying in every way. If -there is the remotest doubt of this, if she has the slightest repulsion -or disinclination or aversion to any feature, act, mannerism or personal -quality of his, she is withholding from him, possibly blamelessly because -unconsciously, a feeling which, as she cannot give it to him, she must -and does unwittingly give to some other man either seen or dreamed of. -Absolute surrender on her part to one man is essential for a strictly -monogamous union, a complete union entirely excluding the appeal of every -other man under the sun. Any reserve whatever on her part is a reserve -that will be kept by the unconscious part of her solely for the use not -of her husband but of some other man possibly not yet seen by her; later -she may meet him. - -How can a woman give herself, if she has keen sense discrimination, to a -man who isn’t strong, isn’t clean, isn’t well-dressed, isn’t generous and -loving? If she has this fine discrimination she will not run the risk of -approaching a marriage with such a man. If a man of undeniable strength -(mental, not physical) makes love to her, his sincerity and the strength -of his desire will enable her to change other characteristics in him -before marriage. - - -§ 177 - -There is, as Krafft-Ebing argues, a natural “sexual subjection” of woman -(i.e., “women are naturally masochistic”). Saying that the essence -of femininity is to be erotically led, does not mean that women are -naturally masochistic. In no sense does being led, in the purely erotic -or love impulse aspect of the marital relation, imply masochism. Only, -however, when the ego impulse is so strong as to need much sacrifice in -the love episode can really masochistic feelings occur in the wife; and -in the husband only when he uses the love episode as an egoistic act, by -which he is to compete with other men in the favour of his wife. - -If that jealous stage occur, it is a condition where the full expression -of the love instinct itself is diminished in favour of the other. The -even momentary thought that his wife could be given a more thorough -relaxation in the purely erotic sphere by another than himself, a more -perfect consummation than perfection itself, which he has induced in her, -is a thought that is in itself masochistic and least likely to occur to -either of a thoroughly married pair. - -The idea of masochism as an element in marriage is worthy of -consideration only because it is the ruling motive of the wife in those -unions where the husband has not assumed control of the emotional -situation and the wife has been so well trained in the Christian duty of -self-sacrifice as to believe that she must suffer—truly a humiliating -thought for the husband if he happens to be a man. He thus vicariously -suffers from his own ignorance. - -Masochism, the tendency to gain pleasure from the pain another inflicts -on oneself, is a natural phenomenon at a certain stage of pre-synthetic -childish erotic development; and, in all normally developed persons, is -outgrown. Indeed, a woman,—and _a fortiori_, a man, who retains any great -masochistic element in his love life—is, in that respect alone, a child -and not an adult, and incapable of adult love until that tendency is -removed. - -But it persists more frequently in women, and constitutes a part of the -sexual inhibition already referred to. It is a tendency about which all -young husbands should be warned in advance. They are not to allow their -wives for an instant to have any reason to infer that the wife’s marital -“duty” is to sacrifice herself or any part of herself to the physical or -mental pleasure of her husband. The eradication of this idea can be begun -by the man long before engagement, in spheres of activity quite far from -the sexual, and should be steadily and consistently carried on. He should -never ask her to do anything “for him,” especially not anything to which -she may have expressed any unwillingness, not to say repugnance, herself. -He should see to it that he gets his pleasure from the knowledge that -what he does is most likely to be gratifying to her. This is, of course, -the attitude of the real man. - -A girl should be instructed enough not to be impressed by the mental -autoerotism of “lounge lizards” who are feeding their own erotic -phantasies by sight and touch of her. They are more than likely to become -mentally autoerotic husbands. - -While on the topic of masochism it is necessary to warn all young women -that in no sense is self-sacrifice the object of a healthy marriage. -The self-sacrifice which is so lauded in theologies is a sacrifice of -egoistic impulse gratification. In the face of a great erotic exaltation -there can be no such thing as a thought of sacrifice. No woman really in -love can perceive anything but gain in really erotic action, for if she -knows herself she realizes that her strongest impulses are those of Eros. - - -§ 178 - -Any conflict in her psyche is between the erotic and the egoistic-social -impulses. The only inhibitions against the erotic impulses, as -everywhere, appear to be the egoistic-social ones, though it has been -pointed out that even the erotic instinct itself contains an innate -antithesis that might cause a conflict even were the egoistic-social -influences minimized or even removed. - -One suspects that in the woman these unconscious doubts must come -primarily from not having been completely controlled, so completely -in the erotic sphere that no egoistic-social impulses are for the -time perceptible. A woman of a highly refined nature whose husband’s -erotic control is not forceful enough thus to expunge totally all -egoistic-social impulses for the time being, will have a certain number -of them not disposed of. - -It thus happens that such a married woman, when loved by another than -her husband and yielding to him, will in so doing obliterate even this -residue of egoistic-social inhibitions. This explains why an illicit -love is to them so powerful a stimulus. They observe a sudden separation -of the two spheres of impulse in themselves, and they realize the -illimitable enhancement of the erotic motive over the egoistic-social, -the latter naturally appearing as dross against the gold of the erotic. -If in the clandestine love they have swept away all egoistic-social -conventions, they have practically rendered themselves subject to erotic -impulses alone. Thus the very fact of this love being illicit appears -to render it purely erotic, absolute, all-comprehensive, the conflict -settled beforehand. - - -§ 179 - -Freud in his paper on the love life already referred to[26] makes the -observation that there is a type of “love” in a certain class of men in -which the man seems to prefer as his loved one a woman who is at least -nominally possessed by another man. His attentions to her are carried -on as if he were rescuing her from some oppressor. In extreme instances -he often professes to be solicitous for her virtue, which consists -in his eyes only in not being used by the other man. Freud continues -that the other man from whom this type of lover wishes to rescue the -woman represents this lover’s own father, the woman his mother, and he -himself is the little boy in the original family triangle where the son, -according to Freud, is always jealous of the father and continually -trying to get his mother away from the father. The “love” type here -described is another instance of the compulsion to repeat, referred to -in his book _Beyond the Pleasure Principle_. - -It should be the privilege of the husband to sweep away all -egoistic-social inhibitions. He should see to it that his actions -throughout his married life are such that his wife makes to him the total -surrender here implied. If he does not, he has not taken all the steps he -might, to render his marriage absolutely happy. - - -§ 180 - -It is likely that the woman who responds thus erotically to the illicit -love situation, because love is thus cleared of all egoistic-social -inhibitions, may be the counterpart of the man just described. If he -wishes to rescue her from a personality, apparently her husband, but -in reality the father influence (from the point of view of the lover), -so she may wish to be rescued, i.e., removed from all influence of -authority—the father influence in her own personality. For in the -unconscious the father factor represents the egoistic-social impulses. It -is the father who requires compliance with egoistic-social demands. And -whoever can sweep away all these influences symbolically rescues her from -her own father. It should be, and in many cases indeed is, the husband -that does this; and if he does it completely there is no motive for -illicit love. - -In no sense can the so-called sacrifice made by a woman of these -egoistic-social demands be regarded as a masochistic self-sacrifice -involving any erotic factor. The erotic is not sacrificed but magnified. -The misfortune is only that in some cases the husband does not cause the -sacrifice which then is left for some other man to bring about. - -Without for a moment implying that this illicit love on the woman’s -part has any more ethical value than the man’s attempted rescue, it is -impossible not to believe that the periodical abolition by the husband -of all egoistic-social inhibitions of his wife is a purification of the -erotic factor. Taking place within the marital state and effected solely -by the husband, this makes the light of love burn so much more brightly -as to illumine every other life activity. - - -§ 181 - -Jealousy is treated by Ellis in a vein apparently unaware of the -contribution made to this subject by Freud, who shows that the man is -jealous because he is either physically or psychically impotent. If the -husband either knows or thinks that he is unable to lift his wife into -the empyrean, the thought inevitably comes to him that there must be some -other man who can do it. If this thought is an unconscious one it is -manifested in every restrictive measure taken to prevent his wife from -meeting other men, for which measures he assigns not the real cause, -for he does not know it, but all sorts of reasons developing through -the unconscious mechanism of rationalization, either that she is not -attending to her duty, or neglecting him and his interests or spending -too much money, or what not. This condition of jealousy is all the more -likely to exist in the husbands who are so ignorant of love that they are -unaware that there is any such thing as the woman’s acme of pleasure in -the love episode. This form of jealousy, primarily due to the husband’s -ignorance, is all the more painful to him because he does not understand, -and all the more tragic in its irony. - -It seems, too, quite probable that part of the jealousy of women is due -to a corresponding situation of their own erotic life. A woman who fails -to apperceive in consciousness the overwhelming somatic reactions which -occur at the climax of the love episode is in a condition quite analogous -to that of psychic impotence in man. If man’s jealousy, as has been shown -by psychoanalysis, is really caused by his psychic impotence, i.e., his -anesthesia, woman’s jealousy is evidently also caused by her anesthesia -which is a form of psychic impotence. - - -§ 182 - -The case cited by Ellis (that of Mrs. Samuel Pepys, as recounted in the -famous diary) contains only the man’s side. Possibly if the lady’s side -were known it would be found that she was herself deficient in love -and that she dreaded her husband’s possibly finding a woman who could -react toward him in a more complete and satisfactory way than she could -herself, this entirely apart from the question whether or not it should -be the duty of the man to evoke such a response. She would feel unhappy -and all the more conscious if she knew it was his duty and that he had -fled from her to others where perhaps the task would be easier. - -It is also insignificant that Pepys himself records: “I must here remark -that I have lain with my moher (wife) as a husband more times since this -falling out than in, I believe, twelve months before, and with more -pleasure to her than in all the time of our marriage before.” This cannot -be adduced as a proof that the jealousy aroused in the wife was the cause -of any improvement in the marital relations of the Pepyses, but that -his noting an increase in her pleasure simply indicates that because of -his own lack of imagination he had not been playing the husband’s part -for the preceding twelvemonth as he should have. His own imagination -was probably stirred by “Deb’s” propinquity; as it would not have been -had his erotic life with his wife been on the high passional level it -should. This is the only reason why a little jealousy is supposed to whet -the edge of love. If Pepys had been grounded in true love instead of a -small-minded man, flinging notes to his wife’s maid, advising her to -help him out in the lie he told his wife, he would not have failed so to -control his wife’s erotic emotions that she would have outshone any other -woman in attractiveness. - - -§ 183 - -Furthermore Ellis admits, and quotes his authorities to show, that -jealousy is “an emotion which is at its maximum among animals, among -savages, among children, in the senile, in the degenerate, and very -specially in chronic alcoholics.” He notes that the supreme artists and -masters of the human heart, who have most consummately represented the -tragedy of jealousy, clearly recognized that it is either atavistic or -pathological. Shakespeare made his Othello a barbarian, and Tolstoy made -the Pozdnischeff of his _Kreutzer Sonata_ a lunatic. But the jealous -person is above all (at least psychically) impotent and projects, on the -most likely object, his own desires, which he cannot fulfill for himself. - -Let every jealous husband ponder this. If he cannot utterly satisfy his -wife erotically, he is jealous of other men simply because consciously -or unconsciously he thinks some other man can. Also if he cannot, his -inability probably proceeds either from ignorance of the art of love or -from a foolish disbelief in his physical powers, a most common delusion -in the ordinary man who is brought up in the tradition that sex activity -involves a loss of vitality, instead of constituting, as it does, an -exercise of the interstitial glands, whose functioning is necessary to -the most robust health and success, both of which are inimical to or -destructive of the emotion of jealousy. - - -§ 184 - -One of the factors that make marriage a lottery for those who cannot or -do not know about the unconscious element in the marital situation is the -unconscious homosexuality characterizing so many men and women. - -It is quite probable that the only impossible women, psychically, are -those who have this unsuspected homosexual trend. It is an absolutely -proven fact that the men who have it strongly developed are themselves -impossible, unless they are cured of it. - -The subject of homosexuality is one of the most serious, most complicated -and most difficult ones of all the subjects connected with the marital -question. - -Let it not be understood that the homosexuals are all manifestly -woman-hating men or man-hating women. Their homosexuality is not as -evident as that. Sometimes its only visible sign is being what is called -a man’s man or a woman’s woman. - -The man who enjoys men’s company almost exclusively, the club man, the -man who never misses an opportunity to meet men, who invariably rides in -the smoker but who does not invariably smoke there, who is much more at -ease with men than with women, is in all these reactions motivated not -solely by the conscious motive of carrying on so-called male activities, -but partly by an unconscious homosexual tendency which, though it may -never express itself in overt acts, is still an influence dominating the -majority of his actions, and, to that extent, is an influence working -against his completely hologamous status. It is, in some if not all -cases, undoubtedly the factor that is most powerful in preventing him -from obtaining the erotic control over his wife necessary to a perfect -hologamy. - -Our man-made civilization has strongly homosexual tendencies, and has -had them for centuries, expressed not only in men’s (and women’s) -clubs, associations, fraternities and secret societies, but also in -the compensatory woman-hunting and woman-worshipping done by some of -the individual men, as a reaction from the unconsciously perceived -homosexuality of their environment. - -Psychoanalysis has shown, indeed, that some of the illicit sex -relationships maintained by men are mostly for the purpose of -demonstrating to the men themselves, bachelor club men, for example, that -they are not really homosexually inclined. - -Psychoanalysis also shows the close connection of this deficient -masculinity with jealousy on the one hand, and with paranoia on the -other. Also it has been shown that morbid jealousy in woman has -sometimes the same cause. “The root of this jealousy is a non-conscious -homosexuality. She is jealous of her woman friend, because she herself is -in love with the friend. She puts herself in the rôle of the man.”[27] - -From these considerations it will be evident that the man or woman with -the unconscious homosexual trend cannot be a true mate until the trend is -redirected. The obverse of this is also quite suggestive, although not -necessarily operative in all instances; namely, that, if the passion for -his wife cools, it _may_ be because he has, or has developed, in himself -a homosexual tendency of which he is unconscious. - - -§ 185 - -A careful distinction needs here to be made between the sex activity that -is really erotic—that of two perfectly mated lovers—and that which does -not rise above the hyposomatic (physical) level. This latter invariably, -except in the most unintelligent and spiritually undeveloped of humans, -contains a conflict which may or may not enter consciousness. There is -in people highly civilized according to puritanical ideals always a -conscious conflict between the physical expression of love and their -traditional ideas that the body is base and ignoble and the soul is a -thing separate from the body and superior to it. - -Psychoanalytic research into the unconscious shows that there in the -levels below, and inaccessible to consciousness, the conflicts that like -a perpetual tug of war are uselessly consuming large amounts of psychic -energy are also, in that shunting of energy from its natural destination -to other termini which may be practically any of the organs of the body, -causing a derangement that if long continued easily becomes a functional -disease. - -The conflict that is conscious also produces a physiological derangement -that may become a disorder. So in either case, whether the conflict be -conscious or unconscious, the physiological processes are more or less -disturbed. - -If, as sometimes happens, a man’s inhibitions are too great, he is -absolutely unable even to begin to have a love episode. If they are less -great, he may be able to begin it but not to continue it. If there is any -inhibition at all his part in the love episode is affected by just that -amount of psychic energy that represents the force of his inhibition. - -The conflict that is expressed in physical derangement, disorder, malaise -or any other unpleasant result is almost always a mental conflict that -can be resolved by mental means better than by physical. - -In sex activity that is truly erotic there is no conflict in the man and -none in the woman. It may be said that sex activity never becomes truly -erotic until these conflicts have subsided. - -But in the unhappy marriage a part of the conflict on the husband’s part -comes from his unconscious realization that he has not assumed the truly -masculine rôle. - - -§ 186 - -A brief résumé will be now given of conclusions so far reached. Man’s -control, while difficult for him to gain and particularly in the love -episode, is yet essential to his perfect union with his mate, unless -there is proved to be, which has not yet been done, a congenitally -uncontrollable type of men. Such men could never satisfy any except women -who are erotically the most highly developed, in the sense that anything -or nothing would send them into transports—a comparatively rare type of -woman. - -Haste on the man’s part in the love episode, his acknowledged -precipitateness, his hurry to relax sexual tension, is due directly to -his own anesthesia, his insensibility to the preliminary reactions of -his mate, and in some cases a total ignorance of the existence of her -final reaction. He does not know what effect in his mate he should really -strive to get. - -A knowledge of that effect involves a recognition of the fact that all -women are unconsciously trying continually to test the man’s psychical -strength. Many actions of women cannot be accounted for except by -assuming this unconscious motive, for which, of course, there is a -biological cause in the attempt of nature to mate the woman with the -strongest man. The congenitally uncontrollable (if any exists) man will -go down under this test, uniformly. - -This biological cause produces in the woman the tendency to dissemble. -This tendency makes the woman coy, bashful, modest, reserved, retiring. -As animal she is always facing away from the male in the sexual act and -as Ellis has noted, only the human female has in the human love episode -turned so as to face the man. But this subhuman characteristic is always -present in the woman, manifesting itself in some of her actions if not -in all, and constitutes an obstacle to the man’s self-control; for, -unless he has insight enough into the feminine character to discount her -dramatic prevarications, he will infer that it is useless and hopeless -for him to try to produce any effect whatever in her, so he might as well -produce what effect he can—namely, in himself. He does not know that the -most satisfactory result in his own feelings is produced by the reactions -which he effects in her, through the reservation of his own supreme -reaction until she is past knowing it herself, until, therefore, he has -convinced her that his control is greater than hers, that his strength is -greater. - -As it is evident that in animal copulation whatever acme is reached is -reached simultaneously by both sexes, because of the briefness of the -act, it is reasonable to suppose that the man’s unconscious situation -contains the implication that his own erotic acme necessarily involves -the woman’s. In other words every man has an unconscious phantasy -that when he has completely satisfied himself his mate is completely -satisfied. Only after years of married life do some husbands begin to -suspect that something is missing from the marital relation. - -If the male _subhuman_ animal is excused from any concern as to the -proper reaction of the female, that does not excuse any man and yet -in so far as he is animal he has no cause to act otherwise than take -his satisfaction without delay. The female animal is accessible only -in the rutting season. Human woman is at all times accessible to the -love expressed in true mating. Human sexuality has not only made a -fundamental distinction between procreative and erotic love episodes but -also has almost obliterated the periodicity in the sexual accessibility -of the woman. Therefore human love is _toto cælo_ different from animal -copulation. - -Considerations of the matter of control lead to the conclusion that it -is possible only by means of the imagination, and because imagination -is only the reawakening with possible recombination of images of past -experiences, we are again confronted with the problem of explaining how -the experience to be imaged in advance and looked for and waited for may -be presented both to the men who have and to those who have not had sex -experience. - -As one cannot control anything except according to a pattern, the pattern -of controlled action must be in the mind of any who intend to achieve -control. - -The method then, by which the husband is to achieve control of his own, -and thus over his wife’s erotic reactions, is simply observation. He -absolutely requires fully to note the effect that what he does has on his -wife. If he succeeds in averting his gaze, figuratively, from himself to -his partner, he will find that his own reactions take on a lessened value -in his eyes. His own reaction, one of ecstatic pleasure is, in comparison -with his wife’s, highly concentrated on one detail of the love episode. -This is, of course, the most important one in animals and would be in -humans, if humans were animals, but the fact that they are not and that -erotic values have developed in humans that do not exist in animals, -makes the man’s erotic acme take on a much smaller significance and value. - -Most husbands go through the love episode as if they were animals, merely -procreating progeny, while yet starting from no such purpose. The purpose -is, of course, in so many men solely the purpose to gratify themselves -and not anyone else, that, of course, any deliberate thought of ways and -means of gratifying any other, does not occur to them. - -Many men, indeed, are filled with embarrassment, if not dismay, in -perceiving a deeper and more extended reaction in their women than they -perceive in themselves. With such a power which they observe developing -in their wives they do not know how to compete. The situation of a -husband who finds himself developing in his wife a much richer and fuller -erotism than he thinks he has himself, contains the unconscious factor -of unflattering comparison. Unconsciously he does not wish to find -her richer than himself because that gives him a sense of unconscious -inferiority and injures his feeling of control. So the marital situation -contains the unconscious wish on the husband’s part not to find in his -wife an erotism greater than his own, entirely apart from any conscious -idea he may have that he should not have an “oversexed” woman as a wife. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -HOLOGAMY VS. PROSTITUTION - - -§ 187 - -Marriage, in the sense of a legal bond between two people who are bound -together in no other way than that affecting the interests of the -egoistic-social type, is not truly monogamous. - -True monogamy between two people whose interests are entirely implicated -each with the other’s on both the conscious and the unconscious level of -the erotic sphere needs a new name for which is offered the term hologamy -or whole marriage—complete marriage. - -The completeness implied here is that in which both conscious and -unconscious affection and passion are involved. The hologamous union is -the one in which both partners have allowed instinctive impulses from the -unconscious to enter consciousness. Their erotic insight consists in just -this admission. - -A hologamous erotic union is the assurance of earthly felicity. It is -utterly uncaused by egoistic-social factors, though it may yet itself -be the cause of egoistic-social success. At any rate it is the most -favourable condition for the development of both members of the union -along egoistic-social lines. No man now imperfectly married will fail -to become more successful in his life outside of the home by improving -the conditions of his life within it. The most important condition has -been clearly indicated. No woman, now imperfectly married, but is waiting -(for that is all she can do) for the time when her husband may chance to -improve his erotic technique, or learn from others how to do so. - -It is tacitly assumed by both European and American society that -either the erotic or the egoistic-social motives may independently -and exclusively be an adequate basis for a marriage. On the contrary -psychology shows that the erotic one is the only one necessary, and that -the egoistic-social is never adequate, without the erotic, to constitute -anything but a mildly sentimental business relation between man and woman. - - -§ 188 - -The erotic motive is not represented or meant by the ordinary expression -used by married people who say, of course, they love each other, or they -would not have married. Erotic means more than “inspired by love” in the -sense that the uninitiated use the term love, which in common language -is of very wide application including even food and clothing and all -other egoistic-social expressions. Erotic not only means inspired by love -in the most whole, passionate sense but implies also that the persons -activated by erotic motives have at least some knowledge of the art of -love, a knowledge which includes something about the unconscious factor. -Otherwise love has not progressed to its higher phase of erotism, and is -mostly made up of affection which is primarily egoistic-social. Love is a -word that has become too debased in the minds of most people to serve as -a term for what is here outlined. - -If on the other hand a marriage is a hologamous one, in which the -husband’s egoistic-social motives are duly subordinated to his erotic -motive, then the erotic motive, freed from extraneous elements, will -cause both his conscious and his unconscious passion to be centred on one -woman. No other marriage deserves the name. “Marriage” is derived from -the Latin word _mas_, male, and originally referred only to the woman. -She was “manned.” - -If we should say today that a woman was thoroughly manned we should be -understood to mean that she had sexual relations with one or more men. -To most we should not probably convey the meaning that she had been -completed, as an originally defective demi-human being, by the necessary -complement to fill out her being to the totality of human possibility, or -that this completion involved the development in her of an absolutely new -attitude toward the world which she could not attain without physical and -spiritual union with one man. - -This implies also that the corresponding statement should be made of the -truly married man. As an originally incomplete or defective demi-human -being lacking a complement, he needs to be completely womaned, for which -indeed there is no appropriate word of Latin derivation. But if we should -say a man was comprehensively womaned we should be understood to mean -probably that he had both a wife and concubines—that his affection and -egoistic-social impulses were gratified by the former and his erotic -needs by the latter. Yet it is really not possible for a man to be -perfectly and completely womaned except by one woman. If his counterpart -is a mosaic of fifty different varicoloured fragments he cannot be said -to have done anything but use a separate facet of each woman composing -the mosaic, and to have left unused all her other facets. So he cannot be -said to have seen any of the other facets, a lack of vision constituting -a kind of anesthesia already mentioned in § 141. - - -§ 189 - -Monogamy is not perfect if there is anesthesia on either side. Anesthesia -prevents complete union. Only the mates who are completely directed each -to other are fully married, and marriage means not partial but complete -union. All degrees of fragmentary attachment are defective monogamy and -so not monogamy at all, but unconscious polygamy. - -Furthermore, that portion of the ego which is not attached to one’s -mate exhibits a tendency to attach itself to some other one’s actual or -potential mate, simply because attachment is a case of tension fixed to -relax on a definite object, and if the legally sanctioned object has been -detached, if the tensions natural to either sex are, by some complex, -detached from that object, they tend of themselves to seek relaxation -from some other person. If a man is completely satisfied with his wife he -will not only seek no other woman, but will be dangerously attracted by -no other, and _vice versa_. - -So we can suppose a possible scale on which a husband’s union with his -wife, not hologamous, is measured in units from 1 to 100 such that we -might say a man was sixty-five per cent married to his wife, while yet -she might be a hundred per cent married to him. This gives 10,000 degrees -of non-hologamous marital union, M 1 — W 100 representing a man with -only slight interest in his wife who is herself quite devoted to him. -This man’s other ninety-nine per cent of libido might be directed to any -number of other women. If it were directed toward one other woman he -would undoubtedly be happier if he divorced and remarried. But it is the -thesis of this book that M 1 — W 100 is an impossibility. - -A division of libido as disproportionate as this would not imply much -split in the man’s libido. He would thus be ninety-nine per cent devoted -to his paramour and only one per cent to his wife. His paramour would -be his _de facto_ wife. But if his ninety-nine per cent of libido were -directed toward ninety-nine other women he would be called a personality -of maximum diffusion. - - -§ 190 - -Now the personality in perfect health tends toward the preservation of -unity. The man whose love life should include one hundred women would be -unable to devote more than one per cent of his libido to one woman. He -would be as far from being a unit as, on the supposed scale, he could -get. He would be not one personality but a knocked-down pile of parts -waiting for a skilled mechanic to assemble. - -There are different types of men, those who tend more, and those who tend -less, to preserve their own unity of personality. - -In general the progress from infancy to adulthood is a progress from -partial synthesis to complete synthesis, so that the type of man -whose synthesis is incomplete is an infantile and dissociated type of -personality; or better than dissociated, he might be called dissipated, -disjointed, dismembered, disassembled. - -Unfortunately, the infantile condition can completely satisfy, -consciously, the infant of adult size. This makes it difficult to -approach him, makes him difficult of access. If one present him with a -fully developed adult woman, he immediately recoils much farther into his -youth which he regards as a fine quality. Because of the uncomfortable -nature of the comparison he unconsciously sees his inferiority and -unconsciously compensates for it, by getting (in the only way he can) the -feeling of satisfaction that comes _via_ mental autoerotism whenever it -fails to be obtained from the outside world. - -Adult society always produces this reaction somewhere in the sub-adult -psyche; so it becomes a great problem, to devise some method for getting -the sub-adult to desire to react in adult modes. - - -§ 191 - -Any plurality of women for a man implies reservation. He cannot love all -of a woman entirely who thinks he loves in any degree any other woman. -If for example he “loved” one woman for her hair and another for her -eyes, another for her smile, this could not be called love, but only -physical sex stimulation, or fetishism. Man’s supposed love of more than -one woman is where his reservation makes him love one woman consciously -and the others unconsciously. But conscious love is not complete love -either, so that a man who consciously loves his wife, but is not able to -arouse in her the erotic acme for any reason, cannot really be said to -love her. He may rationalize to himself that his wife is a good mother to -his children, a good housewife, patient, painstaking, self-sacrificing; -but that other women whom he has seen interest him more in various -intellectual spheres. - -His wife could not be a brilliant pianist, good conversationalist, noted -writer, artist, and singer, all at the same time. It would be a physical -impossibility. He is interested in all those spheres in other women; why -should he not find pleasure in their company? Why should he not call love -that interest which the thought-provoking, intellectually stimulating -woman arouses in him? Simply because he would not and probably could not -evoke in her the fullest erotic reaction, and probably has not in his own -wife. - -Plurality of women would compare with Guyot’s violinist who should say -he could play “Yankee Doodle” only on one violin and only a concerto on -another, or could play only in E flat Major on one, and A flat Minor on -another, needing a different instrument for each of the twenty-four keys. - -That is not to say women are not different, but only that man’s -satisfaction in marrying one is dependent largely on his own erotic -technique which is far more important and valuable than either musical, -artistic or any other technique; and that if he does not play upon her -emotional instrument, to his and her complete satisfaction, he has -no right to try to play on any other. Men go from one musical erotic -instrument to another, saying, virtually: “I cannot play on this one. Of -course, I shall be able to play on the next. This is an inferior one. -Besides, the more practice I get the better I shall be able to play. -After I have had a hundred or so I shall be a virtuoso.” - -Women in general, however, are one as good as another for the production -of the erotic music which can completely satisfy a man. He not only needs -no more than one but on _a priori_ grounds it can be safely said in -almost every case that he can evoke no more satisfactory erotic response -from one than from another, regarding this from the purely erotic -viewpoint and not confusing it with the egoistic-social one. - -Undoubtedly it gratifies a man’s egoistic-social impulse of -self-magnification to have a woman flatter him, to make him feel that his -very presence excites her, thrills her through and through. It is almost -automatic in some women thus to try to play upon a man. But this too is -never from purely erotic motives, but largely from egoistic-social ones. - -The man who prides himself on his success with all women is constantly -confusing the erotic with the egoistic-social aim. And many a man -considers that he has fulfilled this erotic aim when, through his -personal magnetism or his susceptibility to flattery, he has succeeded -in getting a woman to consent to try to surrender herself _in toto_ -to him. But in using this pseudo-erotic situation as a factor in the -egoistic-social sequence, he is showing an utter blindness to the essence -of erotism, which consists in the woman’s fully conscious placing of the -erotic motive ahead of the egoistic-social one she has been following in -her course of verbal or other flattery and blandishment. - -Can any satisfaction come to a woman except the purely egoistic-social -one of superseding another, his wife, in the preference of a man whom -she endeavours to captivate? Can any satisfaction except egoistic-social -come to a man who prides himself on his conquests, on how easily women -fall for him? Can he be said to be motivated more by erotic or by -egoistic-social impulses in his attempts to add other women to his list, -or to run risks and arouse in his soul the excitements of danger? - - -§ 192 - -If he need the excitements of a plurality of women, it is proof that -he cannot get a normal amount of tension and relaxation from his own -wife. There are those, of course, who live their married life on the -theory that the physical tensions and relaxations of sex are too gross -for refined marital relations, and that their wives would be shocked if -they experienced them. The boy brought up with the _angel_-imago (or -mother-imago, see § 195) as his ideal of woman necessary to be the mother -of his children would inevitably identify his wife with a prostitute if -he succeeded in evoking the highest psychical exaltation in her erotic -sphere. He has plurality ingrained in his nature from the cradle; the -feminine sex is not one but at least two: angel and prostitute. Unable to -conceive the two existing in one woman, in fact unwilling to conceive -this, he perforce puts the mother of his own children in the angel class -and would be shocked if she evinced any of the characteristics of the -other class. - -The irony of which is that whatever reactions the prostitute shows are -her attempt to imitate what she conceives as the highest type of erotism, -what her patron’s highest erotic development would call for. Whatever -impulses of erotic nature she has, which are few enough in the class that -practise promiscuity for pay, are so overweighted by the egoistic-social -impulses of material self-advancement, that they lose whatever value they -might otherwise have. - -A so-called prostitute, like Victor Hugo’s Mlle. Drouet, who after -promiscuity devotes herself with absolute fidelity to one man is no -longer a prostitute. She has, in thus placing the erotic above the -egoistic-social motive, fulfilled the highest human function except that -of parenthood. - -It is possible that a man of many women may think he is seeking for -his final mate. Such men have been heard to express somewhat similar -sentiments. “If I could,” said one roué, “effect a grand passion with -some woman, she would be the only one for me.” He thought he could not -gain this result from his wife, but if he were a whole man with erotic -unity instead of a roué with the disassembled psyche, he could effect the -grand passion quite as easily with his wife as with another woman. - - -§ 193 - -Some considerations on the status of prostitution are necessary in every -book that attempts to discuss marital relations. Far as the poles -asunder though they may be in externals, they are yet the common activity -of the same man in many instances. Figures show that the married man is -the main support of the prostitute. What he does to his psyche in the -direction of actually splitting it by this double life has been described -more or less in the following manner. It is not merely that he either -lies to one woman and consorts with another and is under the psychical -strain of remembering never to confuse the parts of this double drama he -is enacting. It is worse than that. - -It has been shown through studies of the unconscious in men that show a -strong leaning toward fallen women, that they are unwittingly reënacting -a jealousy drama of their own infancy in which they try to rescue from -the father their own object of earliest love, their mother (cf. § 179). - -Furthermore, the average man’s bringing up leads him unconsciously -to separate all the women in the world into two classes. This simple -division is characteristic of childhood, which sees everything either -black or white and does not conceive fine gradations. The two classes of -women are the angel-mother type and the devil-prostitute type, and this -distinction with hardly any other he maintains sometimes till the end of -his life. - - -§ 194 - -Strangely enough this division of women into two classes, while it is -made by most men in their unconscious, evokes opposite reactions in two -types of men, some of whom are found by the psychoanalysts as “more -potent” with the prostitute type, while others are more potent with their -wives. Yet these men are not wholly potent to the extent of carrying out -the love episode to a conclusion perfectly satisfactory to their wives, -and in the illicit relation they are still more precipitant. - -It seems, however, most probable that the illicit woman has the effect -on them of producing an overvaluation of some particular factor in the -nature of a fetish which has lost its overplus of emotional value in the -case of the wife. As has been already pointed out, this overvaluation -of one or another factor in the total situation of the episode has an -accelerating effect in the episode with the less familiar woman, an -effect which, because of habit, has become less in the episode with the -wife. - -Another element in the situation is that with the woman of the prostitute -type the man is concerned in no degree with any reaction on her part, -whereas with his wife he may, in some cases, feel a certain dim sense of -responsibility. Added to which the professional prostitute frequently -pretends to be controlled, while the average wife does not. - -It happens that this unimaginative paucity of merely twofold division of -women unfortunately involves almost without exception the unconscious -assumption that his sexual gratification is the function of the -prostitute and is both absent from and not supplied by the woman of the -angel type, from which stratum of society he naturally selects his wife. -No wonder then that many men consider their wives “oversexed” if they -show any great passion. “Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.” -This type of man who rigidly demands that his wife shall be an angel -(as, when an infant, he thought that his mother was) makes, or tries -to make out of her a sexless worker or butterfly while he goes to the -prostitute weed for the satisfaction of his imperative sexual needs. -He is unable to act as if his wife had exactly the same human body as -himself, the same or homologous glands and identical sexual needs with -himself, the denial of which is the cause of much if not most of the -nervousness of women and accountable for a good part of their ill health -and weakness. - - -§ 195 - -The boy of five or less has no means of knowing that his mother has any -sexual needs, jealous though he may be of his father. The same boy when a -man of thirty, if he keep the same childish viewpoint that women of the -angel type are as angelically sexless as his mother was to him, will, -unless he picks out a woman of the other type for a wife, which is, of -course, exceedingly rare, never be wholly free from inhibitions against -the full development of the true love episode with his wife. Regarding -the prostitute as of another caste, he thus avoids with her alone the -inhibitions caused by his childish separation of all women into two -diametrically opposed castes. - -It is obvious that this early-formed association of mother (and of -course, later, wife) with absence of sexual interests or even instincts -may in some men be a large factor in causing the repression of the -majority of the components of the love episode. One component, however, -alone, is impossible for the man to repress, though he may later find to -his supreme satisfaction that he can control it and retard it; namely, -the final relaxation of all his erotic tension. - -If he continues love episodes with his wife and has a fixed but -unconscious idea that with a wife all varieties of preliminary love -actions, in brief, every component but the one to him absolutely -essential component of dropping his burden of erotic tension,—which by -the way he might just as well drop elsewhere—are actions more appropriate -in a brothel than in a home, he will tend more and more to avoid with his -wife all but the essential, as he virtually conceives it. - - -§ 196 - -It is admitted by all students of married life that not less passion but -more is needed, and the precipitant husband undoubtedly needs more. For -him the love episode’s passion is concentrated into the climax of it. It -has no beginning, no middle, and no end, for it rarely if ever gives the -full satisfaction that is gained by the husband who really takes care of -his wife’s erotic responses. For the ignorant husband, who is emotionally -about five years old, the love episode is featureless and crude like a -five-year-old child’s drawing of a man on a slate. It has no proportions, -a head, rectangular body and two straight lines for legs and quadrangular -sinkers for feet and asterisk hands. - -The passionless love episode is no love episode at all as it lacks the -essential of deep love. Putting more passion into his love for his wife -is of course exactly what the man, whose woman’s world consists of -only two widely sundered castes, is unable to do unless he succeeds in -overcoming the early-fixed habit of his thought about what he knows as -love. But putting more passion into his love for his wife is exactly what -he must do to be fully a man and to control her erotic emotions. - -One who is fully a woman latently, as are all with negligible exceptions, -is never fully developed into a woman, actually, except by the man -who can play on her, as on a violin, all the melodies of which she is -capable. She will never know herself unless she is thus developed by man. -She will be like an undeveloped photographic plate. - - -§ 197 - -The attitude of society toward prostitution is, as a whole, as -unorganized and haphazard as could be, in all civilized countries. Both -kinds of laws are made, prohibitive and regulative, neither of which has -any more effect on men’s actions than would a law have which attempted -to prohibit drawing breath or to regulate the number of inhalations per -hour. In general the laws have been prohibitive and have met the same -fate as any prohibitive legislation. It has been realized by a few deep -thinkers that no prohibitions have to be made against what nobody ever -thinks of doing, and that the existence of a prohibitive law is proof of -a widespread tendency to do the thing prohibited. All prohibition is, -from the point of view of both conscious and unconscious psychology, -unscientific. - - -§ 198 - -A part of the motive that leads the husband to resort to the prostitute -is the widespread notion mentioned by Ellis (op. cit., VI) that -prostitution has a civilization value in adding “an element of gaiety -and variety to the ordered complexity of modern life, a relief from the -monotony of its mechanical routine, a distraction from its dull and -respectable monotony.” - -These are the arguments advanced for the use of alcohol also. While -admitting, however, the desirability, indeed even the necessity, of -variety in life which means the family life as well, we should not -forget that the lack of variety in marital existence is mostly if not -exclusively due to the infantility of the husband. Marriage is the most -vital institution of society, but the one that has been most carelessly -left to its own haphazard development. - -For this abandonment of marriage to its own fate amidst the most hostile -possible environment of rapidly developing egoistic-social impulses, the -husband is solely to blame. His fault, however, is primarily due to his -bringing up and chiefly to that feature of the mother-imago which leads -him invariably to look for interest, variety and all good things from the -mother. - -The child’s frequent whine, “Mother, what can I _do_?” is here virtually -repeated by the unimaginative husband, defended by the sexologist and -answered by the prostitute. If, as has been intimated before in this -book, age cannot wither woman nor custom stale her infinite variety, -then the infinite variety, or enough of it, at any rate, to satisfy any -husband, should be evoked from his wife. - -In the fragmentary love of the average married man it is not to be -expected, of course, that he will find much variety. For fragments do -not, or at any rate, a single fragment does not, provide much. - -The relief from the monotony of the average married life is most -desirable in every way, but the relief can come in the best way only from -the variegation of the marital pattern, a change that is fully within the -power of any husband who will acquaint himself with the findings of the -modern psychology of love. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -THE NEW MARRIAGE - - Certain it is that the chrysalis, man, is emerging from the - cocoon of tradition.—DR. ROBIE. - - -§ 199 - -The new husband is the man who realizes that the type of passion which -he has idealized to himself as appropriate for himself is logically -quite as appropriate for his wife. Quite as logically he may deduce -that if there is, therefore, to be not only no double standard with -regard to promiscuity, but also no double standard with regard to the -rights to erotic exaltation, he may create a single standard by means -of reducing the number of his love episodes to a minimum of intercourse -for procreation only. Many men have done this or nearly this. But all -who try it find that there are two sets of difficulties in the way, the -difficulty of attaining this semi-ascetic end from the purely volitional -point of view, and the difficulty, or more exactly the detriment, which -modern science is beginning to demonstrate as inevitably coming to the -psychic as well as the physical powers of the ascetic individual. - -Also the single standard idea is to be transferred to the degree to -which each partner carries, and is carried, in the love episode. Truly a -double standard in this respect is little better than a double standard -in promiscuity. There is no good reason why it should be right for a -husband to reach his erotic acme at each love episode and wrong, or even -indifferent, for the wife. The true single standard of married life -implies, therefore, that the same standard of erotic gratification should -be for both husband and wife. Man has no biological privilege here over -woman. What is right for man must also be right for woman. So we see that -the new husband is the one who recognizes the single standard of monogamy -and also that of hologamy which provides for the wife’s erotic acme as -well as for the husband’s. - - -§ 200 - -Woman fundamentally and biologically calls for man to be the stronger -to impregnate by force the impregnable fortress of her femininity, and -he who fails to do this fails to make a good husband. The training for -husbandship, irrespective of wealth or social position, should start from -this fundamental principle of masculine control of the marital situation. -This control should begin at the altar, and never weaken, never relax for -a moment, except at the times when the wife is by her erotic emotions at -the climax of the love episode incapable of witnessing its relaxation, at -least of envying her husband. - -After a long courtship in which there has been much worship of the woman -by the man, there may tend to be preserved, to hang over, a sort of -worship habit in the husband; but this should give place to an inflexible -attitude and a positive aggressive treatment, Petruchio-like, yet only in -the erotic sphere, increasing in power as the years go by. Woman will -test it hourly to detect any weakening, jealous of the strength to be -handed down to her offspring. It is unconscious in her. She cannot help -it. - -In the modern woman with a vocation, to which there cannot be a possible -objection if it does not exclude her proper maternity, the relation to -her husband must still be one of emotional subservience. She cannot -control him emotionally without making herself a mother-imago to him. -He cannot, even unconsciously, accept this control of himself by -her, without regressing to the condition of being dominated by the -mother-imago, without being to her as her child and not her man. - -Modern marriage must be an entirely new and different thing from most -previous marital relations. Mastery over the woman must remain, if -marriage is to continue; but it must be a spiritual mastery, a love -mastery in place of the old Rome-inherited legal, economic and physical -mastery. Thus the poor husband of a rich wife need lose no mastery, -nor need the non-professional husband of a professional wife, nor the -unintellectual husband of an intellectual wife, the uneducated husband of -an educated wife. - -Mastery or control does not consist any more in the regulation by the -man of any egoistic-social activities of the woman, the dictating of -what she shall do or wear or think, nor in the acts of the man himself -consciously designed to steer her this way or that. Mastery does consist -in what the husband, and the husband alone, can make the wife feel. It -does consist in the establishment and maintenance of a sense on her -part of belonging to him, which he can develop even though granting her -in the egoistic-social sphere, the most absurd license—the _Hörigkeit_ -(mentioned by Freud) based on the peculiar intensity with which he -gratified after awakening it in early married life, her erotic need. - - -§ 201 - -Possibly the great increase in the number of divorces is due to the -increasing expectation of something unutterably fine in marriage and an -inevitable disillusionment resulting from concrete experience. There -would be no divorce on the grounds of adultery if the married woman felt -that her paramour could give her no joy remotely resembling what her -husband could. The adultery of the man, too, comes from disappointment. -Where there is absolutely complete satisfaction the motive for adultery -cannot exist. - -The man or woman with conscious and unconscious passion of the one -developed into a habit may be attracted by other women but the other -woman’s attractiveness will not be as great as his wife’s. And deflection -in either husband or wife, if they think at all precisely on their -action, must be quite repugnant to them in every way. The uncontrolled -man who does not master his wife’s erotic emotions is disappointed in her -and seeks his supreme gratification with another woman who appears to be -able to give him what he thinks he cannot get from his wife in the way of -appreciation, sympathy or understanding. - -If this is the man’s attitude then, of course, he cannot have grasped -the idea of the higher monogamy, which is not that of getting but of -giving. No man in any degree cognizant of the concept of true mating -can fail to find even the woman to whom he happens to be married, able -to receive if he practises properly the technique of presentation. He -must have found certain qualities in her before he married her, which -his awkwardness in presenting himself have perturbed, and he can now -review these and work upon them until he is utterly accepted. For his -presentation of himself and his service to her in the worship of Eros -are the only means toward his adequately virile satisfaction. _Credite -expertis._ - -No one who has had prosperity in the egoistic-social sphere, who has had -a comfortable home, for example, will choose adversity, will thereafter -prefer to live in a tenement, noisy, squalid. No man who has experienced -the greater profundities of virile control of the total erotic situation -will choose to give any less of himself to his wife. No wife who has -received from her husband the maximum that a man can give, which is -himself—that is, his supreme control of himself and of her—will choose to -look for anything greater or higher, for it does not exist even in the -most extravagant imagination. - - -§ 202 - -In the marriage of the future we must make sure that the art of love is -thoroughly learned by the husband. Without it, he has only a small chance -of making a successful marriage. And we must see to it that this new art -of love be not like Ovid’s the adulterer’s art of winning a woman away -from her home, but the husband’s art of retaining her in it. - -This will require a readjustment, possibly of the concept of “home.” The -home meant here is not in any sense the material house and furniture and -embellishments. The home is the family, to which all the members should -belong in a sense far more spiritual than the average. The truly mated -couple belong to the family forever and to the children, until the latter -marry and make families of their own. Any deflection from the purely -hologamous ideal on the part of either the husband-father or wife-mother -is a misfortune to the latter, but unequivocally the fault of the former. - -The marriage of the future, if it is to follow the single-standard -pattern of equal joy for equal mutuality, will be in no way inferior to -any type of so-called romantic marriage of today. It will have all the -totality of fusion of the individual’s body and soul, all the fusion of -the personalities of the two mates. It will have all the finality and -indissolubility now wished for it by the present generation whose marital -relations begin to crumble in a year or less. It will never degenerate -into a situation where life seems not worth living, but will be the only -circumstance in which life is consciously and perennially known, as well -as believed and felt, to be thoroughly worth while. - -By their confusion of the two levels of control women lose much of the -happiness that would come to them from the direct control exercised over -them by men, on the erotic level. Into the love episode egoistic-social -impulses, being the uninvited guest at a feast, only intrude. Women’s -sphere of active control is limited, on all rational grounds, to the work -in the world which they choose for themselves apart from being wives. - -It is equally true, too, that if the erotic life is to be rationally -developed in both partners the husband will have to keep carefully -separated the egoistic-social in his life from the erotic. There is much -talk about the ability of a woman to be a mother, which tacitly implies -being a housewife, and at the same time to be a professional woman or to -do anything whatever of an egoistic-social nature outside of her home. - -The idea never seems to have occurred to anybody that in an equitable -marriage at least, not to mention an ideal one, the husband has any part -to play in the construction of that spiritual situation which should -constitute the home. The father really has as vital a part to play in the -home as the mother. There is no perfect home that does not contain these -two absolutely equally unifying factors. “What is home without a father?” -is quite as pertinent a question as the other trite one. - -This does not for a moment imply that the duties of the father and the -mother in the material home should be the same. This would give only a -literal verbal significance to the statement that a man’s duty is quite -as much toward his home as is a woman’s. If we were simply using words -that sounded reasonable we might as well repeat the oft expressed and -seemingly perfectly balanced retort of woman to her husband: “If I have -to _bear_ the child, why on earth shouldn’t _you_ care for it?” - - -§ 203 - -To illustrate with a concrete example the utter helplessness of some of -the finest women, the following excerpt is made, with his permission, -from a letter received by Dr. Robie: - -“The man whom I finally married came into my life as an intellectual -wonder. I marvelled at his knowledge and his worldly poise.... Whenever I -pleaded for consideration, kindness, he would say: ‘Haven’t you a home, -clothes, money, a baby? What more do you want?’ or ‘Haven’t I told you -once that I love you? Can’t you take that for granted?’ - -“No gentleness, no petting, just hardness and the greatest conceit over -his own personality and ability. - -“I found at dances that other men could thrill me, and one man in -particular.... He never knew it. - -“I got the reputation of being a perfect mother, and a beauty, and my -spirit never has been broken; but my faith is broken. My love is as dead -as last year’s leaves; and I scorn men who stop being lovers on their -wedding night. - -“Health, enthusiasm, good nature, big sense of humour, beauty, ideal -birth inheritance, magnetism, yes, and passion—for I am not cold, but -_very_ impulsive and affectionate—all this lost to the right man, and the -wrong one quite content, apparently, in his worldly successes, and with -a cultured wife who does not bother him, and keeps his noisy brood of -children at a distance. - -“This comes from a bursting heart. It is true I am a success as a mother; -and the world thinks I am in all ways. Yet that greatest of all things, -LOVE, is denied me.” - - -§ 204 - -The father’s part in the home is something, however, far more -hypersomatic than that, more spiritual. The truly husbanded wife will -make the egoistic-social aspects of home-keeping so much her own business -that she will tend to appropriate more than she should really have. And -the thoughtless man will let her and wonder why she is tired and cross. - -If rugs have to be beaten and windows washed, and there is no money to -hire a man to do it, the wife will do it, frequently, and the husband, -who does not husband his wife’s health and beauty will let her. And so -on up the egoistic-social scale till we reach the millionaire who might -do certain things for his wife much more acceptably than hirelings, but -dissociates himself more and more from her. - -The management of the children is really an egoistic-social affair, in -which some men are much better able to plan, and execute plans than -are most women. The management of very young children in the home is -something that no _paterfamilias_ can afford to leave entirely to women. -This is by all odds the most important part of the child’s life. - -It does not mean that the banker or politician should spend hour after -hour in the nursery, though, indeed, he should know pretty well what -goes on there. The nature of the personal contacts the child gets in -the nursery is a determining factor in many cases, in the way in which -he will later behave in his marital existence. In the nursery, meaning -by that any locality where the child spends most of his playtime and -sleeping time, he gets the experiences from which later he may develop -neuroses, phobias, and other emotional disorders. He forms there usually -his mother-imago, for even if he belongs to the class of children who -never see their own mothers except on the rarest occasions, he will form -his mother ideal from his hired nurse, or from any other woman with whom -he comes into close contact. - -Here then, the egoistic-social trends of the parents play an important -rôle in determining the erotic life of the child. The egoistic-social -pressure exerted on one or both parents withdraws them from their -children, and partly or wholly orphans them. Many a child’s father is no -more personal than a checking bank. - -Not only, therefore, does the absorption of the parents by -egoistic-social trends diminish the chances of their own erotic -development as husband and wife, a development that takes time, energy -and imagination, but it deprives their children of the proper environment -in which to develop the germs of future wholesome erotism. - -Parents and children should spend a certain amount of time in each -other’s company during which they do nothing but love each other all -around and have a jolly good time together. It is just as important -for the parents to banish egoistic-social claims for short periods and -actually loaf and fool around with the children as it is for the children -to have a taste of adult idling company. Such, for example, is a real -picnic or camping trip or ocean voyage, or any situation that brings -parents and children together. - - -§ 205 - -It is important, too, for every woman to keep clearly separated in her -mind and in her action the two levels, egoistic-social and erotic. Only -then is she in a satisfactory position to become a wife in a higher sense -than that in which most women are wives, and her becoming a mother need -interfere in no way with her remaining a wife to her husband. - -It is therefore to the advantage of man to realize that, however much he -may value his wife’s clear intuition in egoistic-social matters, he is -to be sure about their utter exclusion from matters purely erotic. A man -can never fall in love with a conventionally so-called unattractive woman -solely because she has a good business head. If any man should think -so, he would find, on closer analysis, that, if he was really in love, -his motive was truly erotic. If he cannot find any really erotic factor -in his attitude toward her, his union with her can never be a complete -marriage. - -He has confused the two levels. He cannot love her _because_ she can -manage a library or a bond broker’s office or an insurance agency, any -more than he can love her really because she knows how to make fudge. He -may be attracted by the fudge. He is undoubtedly attracted unconsciously -by other factors truly erotic in her character. Otherwise he would be -more prudent to marry the fudge rather than the girl. - -Similarly if the woman thinks she attracts by her business or culinary -ability she is confusing levels. There are some women who unfortunately, -because erroneously, believe they have little or no erotic attraction. -Plain in face, not well formed, possibly under-weight, complexions not -clear, they think that by sedulously following egoistic-social trends -they can make an appeal to other people and particularly to men. They -fail to see that these trends have hardly anything to do with love, -that, once they love, their form improves, that the homeliest face, -once lighted by the fire of love, has a beauty all its own, pure and -irresistible. - -The same is true of unloving, unillumined, unfired men. Judging -erroneously from a confusion of the two levels, they fail to see not only -that erotic trends are the strongest and most universal in the world, but -that being the fundamentally vital trends they are almost inexhaustible -and provide the untapped energy which the egoistic-social thinking of -these diffident men makes them fear to draw upon. - -The mathematical exactness of the comparison of men on the -egoistic-social level makes many a man think his erotic impulses are -similarly inferior. He should ponder well upon the prodigality of nature, -remembering that he, too, is part of nature. - - -§ 206 - -Unrestrained nature is most prodigal. The thousands of ova and millions -of spermatozoa produced in every woman and man show that the analogy is -false that is drawn between the human body and a mere container like a -basket. Anything with life cannot be exhausted until life has gone, and -yet through asceticism the secretions can be rendered great or small -or almost non-existent. Men can make eunuchs of themselves by force of -will, yet their egoistic-social performances are not improved but rather -impoverished by the process. - -Men should train themselves to produce, which consists in being lavish of -self in every manner. The richest are those who give most. The miser is -the poorest man in the world and the most miserable. - -Fear of giving self is the fear of losing self. What most men fear if -they love their wives too much is that they will impoverish themselves -and enrich their wives, thus making their wives contemptuous of their -resultant poverty. But the poorest man or woman is the one who has not -begun to love, and many are such even in the married state. - -And they begin to enrich themselves even more than each other, when they -give each to other the uttermost that is in them. - -Giving is the only thing that produces fertility of giving. It is -tapping the inexhaustible, the only way in which to unite oneself to the -infinite. Withholding is closing up the gate to universal strength and -power. - -Control is not annihilation or denial. It is direction of an endless -stream of energy. If the energy is not delivered it cannot be directed -and therefore cannot be controlled. - -The tragedy of present-day marital life lies in the deception men -practise on themselves by believing that annihilation is a kind of -control. - -The facts of the intimate marital relations of most couples are too -unlovely to be welcomed by most people, but in order to progress it is -necessary to face them. - -In the new marriage the husband, therefore, will relinquish certain of -the egoistic-social spheres of action and will confine his attention -solely to those most closely associated with the erotic. He will assume -the responsibility for these. - - -§ 207 - -Trial marriage is little more than a method of testing man’s control in -the erotic sphere. It implies that if a man is found lacking in control -over one woman, he may be tried with another, in the hope that with the -second up to the _n_th he may find a woman whom he can control. But as -stated elsewhere in this book the probability of an uncontrolled man’s -acquiring control by a superficial trial and error method is almost nil. - -Science has not a word to say against permanent marriage if the pair are -really compatible. What constitutes compatibility, however, is much more -a mental attitude on the part of the husband. A man that thinks he has -to have a special, peculiar type of woman for a wife, or because of a -bringing up in an excessively romantic family thinks there is only one -woman in the world, specially born for him, who alone can make him happy -in marriage, or who thinks he has found her when he has fallen in love -at first sight, assumes no responsibility for his own happiness, but -fatalistically waits for destiny to provide him with a suitable spouse. - -“Spouse” is derived from Latin _spondeo_ which is at the root of the -word _response_, and means “to promise solemnly.” This refers to what the -person confidently expects to _get_, not himself contribute to the union. -But it has been clear to the seers of all ages that giving is the only -true getting. - -On the basis of giving, almost any woman can be made a wife, but never in -the sense of spouse if it has its ancient meaning of a person bound to -give something. - -If a young man is given the proper training in the right way, which shows -him that the most intensely physical contacts are emotionally worthless -without the spiritual factor in the truly erotic, and that the intimacies -of marital life are far more determined by hypersomatic (spiritual) facts -than by physical ones, that he has the privilege of making his married -life as romantic as he wishes or can leave it quite prosaic and dull; if -he knows this, even a provisional marriage entered into with a woman not -positively distasteful to him can be made a triumphant success. - -The proviso, however, will be made by most people that there must be an -original rapport between the two. It is the unequivocal position of this -book, on the contrary, that the rapport, even if it never existed, can be -created by the husband, by means of his own conscious creative power. - - -§ 208 - -This implies neither that the rapport is solely a physical one nor that -it is based on solely physical factors. Nor does it imply that a perfect -marital love that has all the qualities of the romantic may not, by -the proper behaviour on the husband’s part, be progressively developed -as the years pass. Indeed, the fully matured love of at least a quarter -of a century’s duration is the only marital love that has any claim -to be called romantic. In the young, love is not romantic but may be -spectacular, in its expression, or in the egoistic-social circumstances -which surround it, but the only perfect love of a man and a woman is the -one that has the growth of years. - -If a man knowing the true technique which is more spiritual (more -hypersomatic) than physical in every instance, though impossible without -the complete combination of physical and spiritual, chooses any woman -whatever of his own free will, and uses with her the real love technique -of word and deed, he cannot fail to find in her his erotic complement, if -she be really a woman. - -The choice, it is admitted, is the work largely of his unconscious. The -unconscious is an absolutely accurate registering apparatus; and as such -is the real foundation of the choice of a mate. - -But it should not for a moment be forgotten that the unconscious -mechanisms that present this woman as more attractive than that to a man -are only the foundation of the edifice of his marital love which it is -his triumph to build with his own hands. - -And it should equally well be remembered that the erotic control is -his, and will remain his, if the marriage is to prove happy; also that -the erotic control is more spiritual than physical, though it can never -endure without the physical. - - -§ 209 - -The duty of marriage is the procreation of healthy children. The -privilege and pleasure of marriage is what Havelock Ellis has called the -play side of love. - -If the husband does not secure and by a superior knowledge of love insist -on securing in his wife this essential of human marriage, his marriage is -only legal, only social, and has no love instinct back of it. It is not -an erotic union. Erotic unions are the only healthy ones. - -Erotic unions are the only healthy ones not merely in the sense of -health-giving to the partners, but also in the sense of having themselves -a healthy growth in progressively embracing all human activities, in -which the partners are concerned in egoistic and social lines, embracing -them in such a way that the love instinct increases its control over the -ego instinct. This increase is the real object of a love marriage, not -increase of wealth, honour, distinction, and experience of the world but -increase of the dominance of love over self. - - -§ 210 - -Possibly this dependence of the woman on the man to unfold her accounts -for man’s instinctive desire to marry a virgin. Unconsciously he may -imagine that to make her most his own, she should have been influenced -erotically by no other man. - -Whether or not the future development of the general attitude toward -marriage will include an insistence on the woman’s being a virgin when -she enters the marital state, there are still some considerations -concerning both the physical and the psychical condition of virginity, -both of men and of women, that are pertinent today, and that seem -advisable to take up at this point. - - -§ 211 - -The study of the unconscious throws an important sidelight upon the -matter of the termination of physical virginity of women. - -It has been clearly shown that this termination when, as is frequently -the case, it is accompanied by sudden and severe pain on the rupture -of the hymen, is the cause of a revulsion of feeling on the woman’s -part, utterly incommensurate with the actual intensity and duration -of the pain, a feeling also of which she never is, and possibly never -becomes, directly conscious; but, if the pain is caused by the action -of the husband, it is the cause of a resentment which, in the wife’s -unconscious, is ever after associated with her husband. - -From this point of view it would seem more felicitous if that unconscious -association of ideas could be made in her mind with some other man, e.g., -the family doctor, if it is an inevitable association and absolutely -uncontrollable by the wife, as all deeply unconscious mental processes -are. It would seem that a man would profit by not being the particular -man associated in his wife’s unconscious with a painful incident that -cuts so deep. This applies to the average uninstructed man but not to -the adept or even inexperienced man who is willing and able to act -intelligently and profit by the knowledge now available about how to -avoid this one of the many mischances that may occur in the case of the -virgin episode. - -This phenomenon of the unconscious resentment due to the forcible and -painful termination of merely physical virginity is recognized in the -frequently happy second married life of women who have lost their first -husbands, and in the customs of some savage tribes in which no woman -becomes a wife until she has been deflowered by the official appointed by -the tribe for that special purpose. - -The inference from these facts is not necessarily that a man will be more -happy with a wife who comes to him “impure” or widowed; though this may -be the case. The inference is on the other hand that the man, if he knows -enough, will be able in the very first love episode so to act that the -bride inflicts any necessary pain on herself, and not he on her; making -all the difference in the world to her, because in this case, never, -even in her own unconscious, can she lay up against her husband this -cause of resentment. The technically instructed husband thus gains an -initial prestige with his wife and with her unconscious, which enormously -increases his erotic control of her emotions—the _sine qua non_ of a -felicitous marriage, that essential condition for fully functioning adult -human life. - - -§ 212 - -Women are unable to control or direct their own development in the -erotic sphere up to the point of greatest exaltation. They are perforce -required to be developed by men. But, in from fifty to seventy per -cent of marriages, men are too uninterested or too ignorant to develop -their wives’ erotism to this point, and, of course, to develop their own -erotism to the necessary degree of self-control whereby they can secure -the total erotic relaxation of their wives. - -So that when we say that men are more virginal than women we imply a -responsibility on the husband’s part, and none whatever on the wife’s -part, for the proper erotic development which alone constitutes the basis -of a permanent monogamy. - -That is the reason for saying that in the love episode control is the -husband’s organically, fundamentally, biologically. The husband reader -of this book should ask himself whether he has exercised the adequate -amount of control in the erotic sphere. Has he left his wife, the mother -of his children, in the condition of being psychically a virgin? If he -has, he must realize that he, too, is in a sense, himself a virgin. This -signifies primarily that because his wife’s erotism is left undeveloped, -his own is too. Undeveloped erotism is no secure bond, no perfect -assurance, of a true monogamy. - -He will need to take the matter into his own hands and truly marry his -wife by means of fully developing his own and her erotism. This need of -marrying one’s own wife is the greatest need of the present day. It can -be fulfilled only by more knowledge and more (truly erotic) passion on -the part of the husband. - -The husband, therefore, who has not in this sense married his own wife, -is illogical in thinking that there is any justice or beauty or poetry or -romance in any attempted affiliation, liaison or other intimate relation -with any other woman. On the other hand, the husband who has married his -wife in this sense, will neither seek nor need the intimacy of any other -woman than his wife. - -The phantasied happiness with any other woman rests solely on the thought -that the erotic development of the other would be easier for him, or that -it would be unnecessary. If it is unnecessary, it has been accomplished -by some other man; for true mutual erotic relations are not attained by -a woman alone or by two women, man being the only developer of woman’s -erotism. - -He may think indeed that some extra-marital woman actually loves him, -and that his wife does not. This may be true, if he is fully developed -himself, has made sincere attempts for years to develop his wife and, in -spite of his own best thought and advice of erotologists, has found that -she is definitely ineducable. This is an exceedingly rare case. - -It may _appear_ that the extra-marital woman loves him, and that he loves -her; but the experience of many centuries has shown that, except in the -rarest of instances, the woman is ignorant of her own true feelings and -that the attempt on the man’s part to develop her erotically would be a -failure. - -If his own desire for the extra-marital woman is conditioned, as it so -often is, on the mentally autoerotic nature of his own satisfactions, -which his lack of success with his wife has, in most cases, amply proved, -his success in the adulterous union is not likely to be any greater. He -will be most likely to expect an easier conquest in the extra-marital -liaison than in the marital relation. His going from the marital one to -one fancied easier is an evidence of his mental autoerotism. - - -§ 213 - -In conclusion it may be said that the feeling on the part of any critic -of modern civilization that marriage has been a failure applies only to -the facts of the imperfect carrying out of the ideal of monogamy. We -may remind such critics that, like Christianity, monogamy (in the sense -of hologamy or the total physical and psychical fusion of man and wife) -cannot be called a failure, because in the vast majority of persons, -it simply _has not been given a fair trial_. External, conscious, -superficial fidelity is not true hologamy any more than lip service is -Christianity; and, as a whole, civilized peoples have not yet succeeded -in attaining faith either in the one or in the other. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -BIRTH CONTROL - - -§ 214 - -This chapter is written; but, because of the egoistic-social legislation -of fifty years ago, cannot be printed. - -While it is lawful to inform readers that abortion is a crime and in -every way unnatural, the practice of —— and ——, and the use of ——, ——, -——, etc., none of which in any sense causes the death of that which has -begun to live, as is the case in abortion, cannot by law be described. - -While it has been conclusively proved that in countries like Holland -where birth control is not only legalized but made a matter of public -instruction, the birth rate declines, _but_ the death rate declines -_still more_, legislators in this country have apparently gone on the -principle that more unintelligent voters were more desirable than fewer -intelligent voters. For where the death rate, due to birth control, -is still less than the birth rate the result is a great increase in -intelligence as well as eventually in population. - - - - -FOOTNOTES - - -[1] One of the questions of a questionnaire submitted to prominent -neurologists, and published in _Mental Hygiene_ (Oct., 1920) was the -following: “Do you consider that absolute continence is always to -be insisted upon, or may it be taught that under certain conditions -intercourse in the unmarried is harmless or beneficial?” - -To this question A. A. Brill of New York gave the following answer: -“Years ago I encouraged intercourse in some neurotics who were constantly -worrying about sex. I soon found out that it had not benefited them. The -same factors which produced the original conflicts continued to disturb -them. Now I remove their conflicts by analysis, and then they need no -advice. I have known a number of cases who have successfully abstained -from two to three years following analysis.” - -[2] Used in technical sense explained in § 141. - -[3] BERMAN: _The Glands Regulating Personality_, N. Y., 1921, p. 96. - -[4] _Erotism_ is defined in the dictionaries as a medical word meaning -“abnormal sexual desire.” But that is simply because the doctors got hold -of it first. There is no Greek word _erotism_ nor yet _eroticism_, but -“erotism” has resulted from being the common element in autoerotism and -allerotism and being shorter than eroticism was adopted by the present -writer to name the highest type of the combination of body and soul -mating. He never suspected till he looked up the word that it had a bad -sense in the minds of others. (See also p. 82.) - -[5] As will appear in the following chapters (especially § 43), -egoistic-social impulses or instincts are those which include the trends -toward self-maintenance and self-magnification—practically all impulses -that are not truly erotic. - -[6] The “playmate” is a new term for an old thing, which does not, -however, imply that present conditions are exactly the same as those of -Sheridan’s day who, in _The School for Scandal_, makes Lady Teazle say: -“You know I admit you as a lover no farther than fashion sanctions,” to -which Joseph Surface replies: “True—a mere Platonic cicisbeo, what every -wife is entitled to.” And the Century Dictionary defines _cicisbeo_ as -“In Italy, since the 17th century, the name given to a professed gallant -and attendant of a married woman; one who dangles about women,” and shows -that the word is derived from _chiche_, little, and _beau_. - -“Tame cats” and “house friends” are also names given today, by these -discontented women, to the persons who engage in this form of cicisbeism. - -[7] Havelock Ellis, who coined the word autoerotism, defines it as -follows (_Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, Vol. I, page 161): “By -‘autoerotism’ I mean the phenomena of spontaneous sexual emotion -generated in the absence of an external stimulus proceeding, directly or -indirectly, from another person.” The present writer calls autoerotic -those husbands who, in the love episode, secure their own erotic acme, in -which their sexual, if not their erotic, tension is relaxed; but either -do not know or do not care whether their wives reach a corresponding -relaxation. The opposite of autoerotism is allerotism, where the husband -places on the wife’s erotic relaxation a value at least equal to that -which he places on his own. - -[8] Hologamy, however (see §§ 187 to 198), depends on a direct and not an -alternating current. - -[9] See § 43. - -[10] Derived ultimately from _cano_, sing or utter in impassioned tone -and rhythm. Women are more erotically impressed by men’s singing than men -are by women’s. - -[11] In § 44. - -[12] See § 65. - -[13] Further discussed in §§ 100-106. - -[14] For a more detailed explanation of mother imago, see the chapter on -Hologamy and Prostitution. - -[15] Stekel, W., in _The Homosexual Neurosis_ (Boston, 1922) says: “The -evil effects produced upon the child witnessing marital bickerings, -the household inspiration it receives with regard to judgment-feelings -about women and men, the decisive manner in which parents affect it -when they transfer their conflicts on the child—these capital facts the -life histories of homosexuals given above illustrate very clearly for -anyone willing to look squarely at the truth. We do not yet appreciate -how careful we must be in our relations with the children. Our educators -are still guilty of a serious blunder when they conceive their duty to -be to instil goodness in the child through the instrumentality of fear. -There are only two educational levers: one’s own example and—love. The -healthiest children come from happy marriages. It is love that determines -whether a marriage shall be a happy one and whether the offspring will -be healthy or weak. The unconscious sexual instinct manifesting itself -in love is the guide for the regeneration of the human race. Social -conditions favouring early love marriages are the only social reform to -which I look for results.” (Page 316.) - -[16] _The Glands Regulating Personality_, Macmillan, 1921. - -[17] See § 187. - -[18] §§ 128-169. - -[19] Dr. Alice B. Stockham, _Karezza: Ethics of Marriage_, N. Y., 1896. -She recommends that both husband and wife refrain from the erotic acme. -“During a lengthy period of perfect control, the whole being of each is -merged into the other, and an exquisite exaltation experienced. This -may be accompanied by a quiet motion, entirely under subordination of -the will, so that the thrill of passion may not go beyond a pleasurable -exchange.... With abundant time and mutual reciprocity the interchange -becomes satisfactory and complete, without emission or crisis. In the -course of an hour the physical tension subsides, the spiritual exaltation -increases and not uncommonly visions of a transcendent life are seen and -consciousness of new powers experienced.” (Page 25.) She suggests that -such episodes should take place from two weeks to three months apart, -and should be the only type of love episode except where procreation is -desired. - -[20] _Beiträge zur Psychologie des Liebeslebens._ Psychoanalytische -Jahrbuch (1910). - -[21] Harrow: _Glands in Health and Disease_, N. Y., 1922, p. 105. - -[22] For a discussion of masochism see §§ 177, 180. - -[23] For a discussion of the Mother-Imago see the chapter on Prostitution. - -[24] “When we say that for health any individual requires an adequate -sexual outlet, it must be understood that this outlet may be secured in -a great number of different ways. A person may be having regular and -frequent sexual intercourse (excessive intercourse, in fact) without this -affording him an adequate outlet, or preventing his libido from becoming -dammed up.”—FRINK: _Morbid Fears and Compulsions_, p. 268. - -[25] LOMBROSO and FERRERO: ap. ELLIS, op. cit., VI, 415. - -[26] § 102. - -[27] STEKEL, W.: _The Homosexual Neurosis_, Boston, 1922, p. 117. - - - - -INDEX - - - Acme, § 26, p. 44; § 28, p. 48; § 68, p. 103; § 75, p. 110; § 76, - p. 111; § 81, p. 121; § 89, p. 128; § 96, p. 136; § 97, p. 137; - § 101, p. 141; § 110, p. 151; § 111, p. 153; § 121, p. 165; - § 139, p. 193; § 144, p. 197; § 146, p. 202; § 157, p. 221; - § 199, p. 277 - - Adult, § 48, p. 77 - - Affection, § 182, p. 259; § 188, p. 260 - - All, a woman’s, §§ 82-85, pp. 123-125; § 89, p. 128 - - Analogy, § 57, p. 91 - - Anesthesia, § 8, p. 12; § 20, p. 31; § 73, p. 108; § 136, p. 187; - § 140, p. 193; § 141, p. 195; § 149, p. 206; § 163, p. 228; - § 181, p. 248; § 199, p. 276 - - Annihilation, § 132, p. 182 - - Apperception, § 195, p. 271 - - Art of Love, § 74, p. 109 - - Asceticism, § 33, p. 56; § 42, p. 66 - - Athletic _vs._ Sedentary, § 32, p. 53 - - Autoerotism, § 20, p. 31; § 21, p. 33; § 23, p. 37; § 27, p. 46; - § 28, p. 48; § 48, p. 77; § 112, p. 154; § 115, p. 157; - § 116, p. 159; § 133, p. 183; § 145, p. 198; § 153, p. 214; - § 155, p. 217 - - Autosuggestion, § 28, p. 48; § 30, p. 51; § 116, p. 159 - - - Bennett, Arnold, § 18, p. 26 - - Berman, § 10, p. 13 - - Binary, § 66, p. 100; § 95, p. 135; § 159, p. 224 - - Birth Control, § 214, p. 298 - - Brill, A. A., § 6, p. 7 - - - Charity, § 3, p. 3 - - Charm, § 17, p. 24; § 18, p. 26; § 73, p. 108 - - Cicisbeo, § 12, p. 18 - - Clandestine relations, § 49, p. 78; § 71, p. 105 - - Coldness (see _Frigidity_.) - - Combinations of conscious and unconscious passion, § 189, p. 262 - - Comparison, § 44, p. 68 - - Companionship, § 46, p. 73; § 158, p. 222; § 159, p. 224 - - Compensation, § 156, p. 219 - - Completeness of Life, § 47, p. 75 - - Compulsion to repeat, § 146, p. 279 - - Conflict, § 6, p. 7; § 147, p. 203; § 180, p. 247; § 187, p. 259 - - Confusion of erotic and egoistic-social, § 40, p. 64; § 135, p. 186; - § 137, p. 190 - - Continence, Male, § 100, p. 140 - - Control, § 5, p. 6; § 23, p. 37; § 26, p. 44; §§ 28-30, pp. 48-51; - § 32, p. 53; § 67, p. 102; § 68, p. 103; § 100, p. 140; § 114, p. 155; - §§ 128-169, pp. 175-234; § 174, p. 240 - - Control, woman’s, § 67, p. 102; § 68, p. 103; § 133, p. 183 - - Coué, § 116, p. 159 - - Creating, § 84, p. 124 - - - Demi-human, § 31, p. 52; § 125, p. 169 - - Despair, § 136, p. 187 - - Disagreements, § 25, p. 43 - - Disappointments, § 136, p. 187; § 201, p. 279 - - Discontent, § 15, p. 22 - - Dissembling, § 150, p. 209; § 152, p. 212 - - Dominating, § 5, p. 6; § 107, p. 148 - - Double Standard, § 44, p. 69; § 199, p. 276 - - Drouet, Mlle., § 6, p. 7; § 192, p. 268 - - Drama, Love, § 69, p. 104; § 74, p. 109; § 87, p. 126 - - Duty, § 50, p. 82 - - - Education, § 152, p. 212 - - Egoistic-social, § 17, p. 24; § 25, p. 42; §§ 43-45, pp. 67-71; - § 50, p. 82; § 51, p. 83; § 171, p. 237; § 191, p. 264; - § 206, p. 287 - - Ellis, § 37, p. 60; § 84, p. 125; § 90, p. 130; § 99, p. 139; - § 128, p. 175; § 181, p. 248; § 183, p. 250 - - Embarrassment, § 70, p. 105; § 153, p. 214 - - Emotional catharsis, § 24, p. 39. (See _Acme_.) - - Emotions, § 1, p. 1; § 24, p. 39; §§ 33-42, pp. 56-65; § 94, p. 133; - § 193, p. 268; § 197, p. 273 - - Environment, mental, § 145, p. 200 - - Erotic, § 10, p. 13; § 25, p. 42; § 33, p. 56; § 36, p. 59; - § 45, p. 71; § 46, p. 73; § 48, p. 77; § 49, p. 78; § 51, p. 83; - § 109, p. 151; § 147, p. 203; § 180, p. 247; § 187, p. 259; - § 191, p. 264 - - Erotic, superiority of, § 63, p. 97 - - Erotism, § 10, p. 14 - - Erotologist, § 65, p. 99; § 107, p. 148; § 112, p. 154 - - Estrus, § 98, p. 138 - - Evolution, § 128, p. 175; § 190, p. 263 - - - Fakirs, § 117, p. 160 - - Fate, § 15, p. 22; § 154, p. 216; § 208, p. 290 - - Father, § 204, p. 284 - - Fears, § 149, p. 206 - - Femininity, § 16, p. 23; § 27, p. 46; § 66, p. 100; § 72, p. 107; - § 107, p. 148 - - Fetishism, § 119, p. 162; § 120, p. 163; § 126, p. 170 - - Fickleness, § 41, p. 64 - - Freud, § 67, p. 102; § 102, p. 142; § 179, p. 246; § 181, p. 248; - § 183, p. 250 - - Frigidity, § 136, p. 187; § 199, p. 276 - - Frink, H. W., § 33, p. 56; § 52, p. 85; § 147, p. 203 - - Fusion, § 56, p. 91; § 76, p. 111; § 88, p. 128; § 114, p. 155 - - - Gallichan, W. M., § 111, p. 153 - - Giving, § 23, p. 37; § 24, p. 39; § 154, p. 216 - - Glands, § 10, p. 13; § 63, p. 97; § 105, p. 145 - - Gonad, § 80, p. 120; § 88, p. 128 - - - Habit, § 42, p. 66 - - Hallucination, § 157, p. 221; § 161, p. 225 - - Harrow, B., § 105, p. 145 - - Haste, § 67, p. 102; § 134, p. 184; § 147, p. 203; § 148, p. 205; - § 150, p. 209 - - Hologamy, § 19, p. 29; § 88, p. 128; § 95, p. 135; § 187, p. 259 - - Home, § 15, p. 22; § 202, p. 280 - - Homosexuality, § 184, p. 251 - - Honeymoon, § 22, p. 35; § 23, p. 37; § 112, p. 154; § 136, p. 187 - - Hutchinson, § 15, p. 22 - - Hypersomatic, § 29, p. 49; § 32, p. 53; § 145, p. 198; § 166, p. 231; - § 190, p. 263 - - Hyposomatic, § 29, p. 49; § 32, p. 53 - - - Identification, § 80, p. 118; § 171, p. 237 - - Ignorance, § 80, p. 118; § 98, p. 138 - - Imagination, § 116, p. 159; § 164, p. 229; § 165, p. 231; - § 166, p. 231; § 167, p. 232 - - Individuality, § 128, p. 175 - - Infantility, § 27, p. 46; § 60, p. 94; § 155, p. 217 - - Infidelity, § 160, p. 224 - - Insight, erotic, § 199, p. 276; § 200, p. 277 - - Instinct, §§ 42-63, pp. 66-97; § 103, p. 144; § 120, p. 163; - § 199, p. 276 - - Islet, § 79, p. 113; § 80, p. 118 - - - James, W., § 33, p. 56 - - Jealousy, § 179, p. 246; § 183, p. 250; § 185, p. 253; § 186, p. 255 - - Juan, Don, § 85, p. 125 - - Jus primæ noctis, § 85, p. 125 - - - Karezza, §§ 100-106, pp. 140-146; § 116, p. 159 - - Krafft-Ebing, § 177, p. 243 - - - Law of Reversed Effort, § 116, p. 159 - - Lombroso, § 150, p. 209 - - Loneliness, § 156, p. 219 - - Love, § 33, p. 56; § 46, p. 73; § 64, p. 98; § 75, p. 110; - § 94, p. 133; § 128, p. 175 - - Love at first sight, § 19, p. 29; § 47, p. 75 - - Love Drama, § 69, p. 104; § 74, p. 109; § 87, p. 126 - - Love Episode, § 10, p. 13; § 26, p. 44; § 74, p. 109; § 75, p. 110; - § 84, p. 124; § 97, p. 137; § 146, p. 201; § 212, p. 294 - - Love Impulse, § 5, p. 6; § 132, p. 182 - - Love Pattern, § 30, p. 51; § 53, p. 87 - - - Man’s _vs._ Woman’s egoistic-social and erotic urge, § 35, p. 59 - - Marriage a lottery, § 66, p. 100; § 128, p. 175; § 184, p. 257 - - Marriage not to be postponed, § 173, p. 240 - - Marriage, run down, § 19, p. 29; § 174, p. 241 - - Marriage, Happy, § 115, p. 157 - - Masculinity, § 16, p. 23; § 27, p. 46; § 60, p. 94; § 66, p. 100 - - Masochism, § 108, p. 149; § 177, p. 243; § 180, p. 247 - - Mastery, § 200, p. 277 - - Meisel-Hess, G., § 4, p. 4; § 6, p. 7; § 14, p. 21 - - Mental _vs._ physical, § 29, p. 49 - - Metonymy, § 161, p. 225 - - Monogamy, § 213, p. 297 - - Mother imago, § 27, p. 46; § 64, p. 98; § 110, p. 151; § 114, p. 155; - § 134, p. 184; § 193, p. 268 - - Mountain-climbing allegory, §§ 122-127, pp. 165-171 - - Mutuality, §§ 21-25, pp. 33-42 - - - Mystery, § 31, p. 33; § 121, p. 165; § 154, p. 216 - - - Negativism, § 23, p. 37; § 59, p. 93; § 60, p. 94; § 151, p. 211 - - Next best thing, § 130, p. 179 - - - Observation, § 28, p. 48; § 97, p. 137 - - Ocean shore, § 81, p. 121 - - O’Higgins, H., § 119, p. 162 - - Oneida Community, § 100, p. 140; § 114, p. 155 - - Over-sexed woman, § 149, p. 206; § 186, p. 258 - - - Parents, § 52, p. 85; § 53, p. 87; § 54, p. 89 - - Passion, § 33, p. 56; § 49, p. 78; § 196, p. 272; § 203, p. 283; - § 207, p. 289 - - Passive, § 27, p. 46; § 33, p. 56 - - Patterns, § 11, p. 16; §§ 31-32, pp. 52-55; § 53, p. 87; - § 117, p. 160; § 118, p. 161; § 168, p. 233; § 170, p. 236; - § 199, p. 276 - - Pepys, § 182, p. 249 - - Perverse, § 7, p. 11 - - Phantasy, § 86, p. 126; § 139, p. 193; § 146, p. 201; § 153, p. 214; - § 157, p. 221; § 162, p. 226 - - Phobia, § 38, p. 61 - - Physical _vs._ mental, § 29, p. 49; § 170, p. 236 - - Plato, § 46, p. 73 - - Playmate, § 12, p. 18; § 27, p. 46 - - Plurality of women, § 191, p. 264 - - Polyandry, unconscious, § 176, p. 242 - - Polygamy, § 20, p. 31 - - Polymorphous-perverse, § 7, p. 11 - - Preparation of wife, §§ 97-99, pp. 137-139 - - Problems, sex, § 11, p. 16 - - Prodigality of Nature, § 206, p. 287 - - Prohibition, § 197, p. 273 - - Prostitute, § 4, p. 4; § 67, p. 102; § 150, p. 209 - - Prostitution, § 4, p. 4; § 54, p. 89; §§ 197-198, pp. 273-274 - - Psychic erotism, § 109, p. 151 - - Psychoanalysis, § 6, p. 7; § 31, p. 52; § 52, p. 85; § 184, p. 251 - - - Rapport, § 99, p. 139; § 166, p. 231; § 207, p. 289 - - Rationalization, § 25, p. 42; § 82, p. 123 - - Reassociation, § 38, p. 61; § 39, p. 62; § 41, p. 64 - - Relaxation, § 96, p. 136; § 99, p. 139; § 192, p. 267 - - Repression, § 6, p. 7; § 35, p. 59; § 37, p. 60; § 128, p. 175; - § 144, p. 197; § 162, p. 226; § 197, p. 273 - - Resentment, § 136, p. 187 - - Resistance, § 157, p. 221; § 159, p. 222 - - Responsibility, § 45, p. 71; § 194, p. 269 - - Restlessness, § 13, p. 19 - - Right of woman, § 89, p. 128; § 90, p. 130; § 92, p. 132; § 93, p. 133 - - Robie, Dr. W. F., § 65, p. 100 - - Robinson, J. H., § 1, p. 2 - - Romantic, § 14, p. 21; § 15, p. 22 - - - Sacrifice, § 177, p. 243; § 180, p. 247 - - Satisfaction, § 2, p. 2; § 16, p. 23; § 26, p. 44; § 27, p. 46; - § 72, p. 107 - - Science, § 110, p. 151 - - Sea and rocks, § 81, p. 121 - - “Secret Places of the Heart,” § 78, p. 113 - - Sex Inhibition, § 137, p. 190; § 178, p. 245 - - Sex life, normal, § 9, p. 12; § 11, p. 16; § 77, p. 112 - - Sex talk, § 11, p. 16 - - Shaw, G. B., § 156, p. 219 - - Shrew, § 20, p. 31 - - Simultaneity, § 98, p. 138; §§ 111-113, pp. 153-155 - - Single standard, § 199, p. 276 - - Solitary vice of husbands, § 155, p. 218 - - Soma, § 29, p. 49 - - Splitting of libido, § 189, p. 262 - - Spouse, § 207, p. 289 - - Steinach, § 105, p. 145 - - Stekel, W., § 54, p. 89; § 184, p. 251 - - Stoics, § 33, p. 56 - - Strength, § 59, p. 93; § 60, p. 94; § 80, p. 118 - - Study (see _Observation_) - - Sublimation, § 104, p. 145 - - Succession plan, § 112, p. 154; § 113, p. 155; § 115, p. 157; - § 118, p. 161 - - Suggestion, § 166, p. 231 - - Supremity of male control, § 142, p. 195 - - Surprise, § 33, p. 56; § 121, p. 165 - - Surprise of married, p. 15 - - Synthesis, § 7, p. 11; § 91, p. 131 - - - Talion, § 152, p. 212 - - Taming of the Shrew, § 20, p. 31 - - Tension, erotic, § 91, p. 131 - - Testing, § 72, p. 107; § 114, p. 155; § 121, p. 165; § 136, p. 187; - § 137, p. 190; § 150, p. 209; § 151, p. 211; § 152, p. 212; - § 160, p. 224 - - Thesis, § 144, p. 197 - - Trial marriage, § 41, p. 64; § 207, p. 289 - - Tumescence, § 81, p. 121; § 91, p. 131 - - - Unconscious affection, § 187, p. 259 - - Unconscious factor, § 65, p. 99; § 66, p. 100; § 192, p. 267 - - Unconscious love, § 193, p. 268; § 206, p. 287; § 207, p. 289; - § 208, p. 290 - - Unhappy marriage, §§ 170-186, pp. 236-258 - - Unity, § 190, p. 263 - - - Variety, § 87, p. 126; § 198, p. 274 - - Virginity, § 84, p. 124; § 210, p. 292; § 211, p. 293 - - Virility, § 17, p. 24; § 25, p. 42; § 72, p. 107; § 100, p. 140; - § 114, p. 155; § 159, p. 224; § 201, p. 279 - - - Wells, H. G., § 78, p. 113 - - Wifan (root WIB), § 66, p. 100; § 168, p. 233 - - Wife, § 170, p. 236 - - Wife’s helplessness, § 92, p. 132; § 157, p. 221; § 160, p. 224; - § 161, p. 225 - - Woman’s infinite variety, § 87, p. 126 - - Woman’s lack of positive control, § 133, p. 183 - - Work, § 50, p. 82 - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Plea for Monogamy, by Wilfrid Lay - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PLEA FOR MONOGAMY *** - -***** This file should be named 60320-0.txt or 60320-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/3/2/60320/ - -Produced by Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: A Plea for Monogamy - -Author: Wilfrid Lay - -Release Date: September 18, 2019 [EBook #60320] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PLEA FOR MONOGAMY *** - - - - -Produced by Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p> - -<p class="fm larger">A PLEA FOR<br /> -MONOGAMY</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p> - -<p class="titlepage larger">A PLEA FOR<br /> -MONOGAMY</p> - -<p class="titlepage"><span class="smaller">BY</span><br /> -WILFRID LAY, Ph.D.</p> - -<p class="center smaller">Author of <cite>Man’s Unconscious Conflict</cite>, <cite>The Child’s Unconscious<br /> -Mind</cite>, <cite>Man’s Unconscious Passion</cite> and <cite>Man’s<br /> -Unconscious Spirit</cite>.</p> - -<div class="figcenter titlepage" style="width: 80px;"> -<img src="images/b-and-l.jpg" width="80" height="100" alt="" /> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container titlepage smaller"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><i>O heart! Oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!</i></div> -<div class="verse indent8"><i>Earth’s returns</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!</i></div> -<div class="verse indent8"><i>Shut them in,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>With their triumphs and their glories and the rest,</i></div> -<div class="verse indent8"><i>Love is best!</i></div> -<div class="verse right">—Browning: Love Among the Ruins.</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="titlepage"><span class="smcap larger">BONI and LIVERIGHT</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">Publishers</span> <span class="smcap">New York</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p> - -<p class="titlepage smaller"><i>Copyright, 1923, by</i><br /> -<span class="smcap">Boni and Liveright, Inc.</span></p> - -<p class="center smaller">PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p> - -<p class="center smaller">First Printing, June, 1923<br /> -Second Printing, November, 1923<br /> -Third Printing November, 1924<br /> -Fourth Printing, February, 1925<br /> -Fifth Printing, June, 1925<br /> -Sixth Printing, August, 1925<br /> -Seventh Printing, January, 1926</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></p> - -<p class="fm larger">UXORI<br /> -AMANDISSIMAE</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CONTENTS</h2> - -<table summary="Contents"> - <tr> - <td class="tdr smaller">CHAPTER</td> - <td></td> - <td class="tdpg smaller">PAGE</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">I.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">True Conception of Marriage</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">1</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"></td> - <td class="details"><a href="#section1">§ 1</a> Disproportionate emotional and intellectual - development, <a href="#Page_1">p. 1</a>; <a href="#section2">§ 2</a> Archaic emotions in marriage, - <a href="#Page_2">p. 2</a>; <a href="#section3">§ 3</a> Charity, <a href="#Page_3">p. 3</a>; <a href="#section4">§ 4</a> The sexual - crisis, <a href="#Page_4">p. 4</a>; <a href="#section5">§ 5</a> Man’s erotic dominance, <a href="#Page_6">p. 6</a>; - <a href="#section6">§ 6</a> Misapprehension about psychoanalysis, <a href="#Page_7">p. 7</a>; - <a href="#section7">§ 7</a> Polymorphous-perverse, <a href="#Page_11">p. 11</a>; <a href="#section8">§ 8</a> Marriage - the only cure, <a href="#Page_12">p. 12</a>; <a href="#section9">§ 9</a> The normal sex life, <a href="#Page_12">p. - 12</a>; <a href="#section10">§ 10</a> The true sense of “erotic,” <a href="#Page_13">p. 13</a>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">II.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Modern Emotional Unrest</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">16</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"></td> - <td class="details"><a href="#section11">§ 11</a> Discontented wives, <a href="#Page_16">p. 16</a>; <a href="#section12">§ 12</a> Playmates - and cicisbeos, <a href="#Page_18">p. 18</a>; <a href="#section13">§ 13</a> Wife’s need of playmates - is husband’s fault, <a href="#Page_19">p. 19</a>; <a href="#section14">§ 14</a> Innovations in this - book, <a href="#Page_21">p. 21</a>; <a href="#section15">§ 15</a> Home spirit the husband’s creation, - <a href="#Page_22">p. 22</a>; <a href="#section16">§ 16</a> Masculinity and femininity, <a href="#Page_23">p. - 23</a>; <a href="#section17">§ 17</a> Virile love, <a href="#Page_24">p. 24</a>; <a href="#section18">§ 18</a> Arnold Bennett - answered, <a href="#Page_26">p. 26</a>; <a href="#section19">§ 19</a> Love at first sight, <a href="#Page_29">p. 29</a>; - <a href="#section20">§ 20</a> Mental autoerotism, <a href="#Page_31">p. 31</a>; <a href="#section21">§ 21</a> Mutuality, <a href="#Page_32">p. - 32</a>; <a href="#section22">§ 22</a> Mutuality <i>vs.</i> autoerotism, <a href="#Page_35">p. 35</a>; <a href="#section23">§ 23</a> - Honeymoons and autoerotism, <a href="#Page_37">p. 37</a>; <a href="#section24">§ 24</a> Barter - and <i lang="la">quid pro quo</i>, <a href="#Page_39">p. 39</a>; <a href="#section25">§ 25</a> Novel result of modern - technique, <a href="#Page_42">p. 42</a>; <a href="#section26">§ 26</a> Satisfaction <i lang="la">via</i> two - routes, <a href="#Page_44">p. 44</a>; <a href="#section27">§ 27</a> Infant class of husbands, <a href="#Page_46">p. 46</a>; - <a href="#section28">§ 28</a> Autosuggestion in marital life, <a href="#Page_48">p. 48</a>; <a href="#section29">§ 29</a> - Hypersomatic and hyposomatic, <a href="#Page_49">p. 49</a>; <a href="#section30">§ 30</a> An - objection answered, <a href="#Page_51">p. 51</a>; <a href="#section31">§ 31</a> The idea: “I cannot,” - <a href="#Page_52">p. 52</a>; <a href="#section32">§ 32</a> Sedentary <i>vs.</i> athletic men, <a href="#Page_53">p. 53</a>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">III.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Emotions</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">56</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"></td> - <td class="details"><a href="#section33">§ 33</a> Emotions as organic sensations, <a href="#Page_56">p. 56</a>; <a href="#section34">§ 34</a> - Men as emotional as women, <a href="#Page_58">p. 58</a>; <a href="#section35">§ 35</a> Repression,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span> - <a href="#Page_59">p. 59</a>; <a href="#section36">§ 36</a> Erotic emotion, <a href="#Page_59">p. 59</a>; <a href="#section37">§ 37</a> Woman’s - repressed emotions, <a href="#Page_60">p. 60</a>; <a href="#section38">§ 38</a> Reassociability, - <a href="#Page_61">p. 61</a>; <a href="#section39">§ 39</a> The case of Miss F., <a href="#Page_62">p. 62</a>; - <a href="#section40">§ 40</a> The case of Mrs. G., <a href="#Page_63">p. 63</a>; <a href="#section41">§ 41</a> Slight reassociability - of erotic emotion, <a href="#Page_64">p. 64</a>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">IV.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Instincts</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">66</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"></td> - <td class="details"><a href="#section42">§ 42</a> Twofold division of instincts, <a href="#Page_66">p. 66</a>; <a href="#section43">§ 43</a> The - egoistic-social instinct, <a href="#Page_67">p. 67</a>; <a href="#section44">§ 44</a> Comparison its - essential feature, <a href="#Page_68">p. 68</a>; <a href="#section45">§ 45</a> Evolution of the egoistic-social, - <a href="#Page_71">p. 71</a>; <a href="#section46">§ 46</a> Plato’s fable, <a href="#Page_73">p. 73</a>; <a href="#section47">§ 47</a> - Completeness of life, <a href="#Page_75">p. 75</a>; <a href="#section48">§ 48</a> Not all sex acts - are truly erotic, <a href="#Page_77">p. 77</a>; <a href="#section49">§ 49</a> The young man with - the clandestine affair, <a href="#Page_78">p. 78</a>; <a href="#section50">§ 50</a> Egoistic-social - instincts over-stressed, <a href="#Page_82">p. 82</a>; <a href="#section51">§ 51</a> Present incipient - tendency to stress the erotic, <a href="#Page_83">p. 83</a>; <a href="#section52">§ 52</a> Parents’ - happy marriage necessary to child’s welfare, - <a href="#Page_85">p. 85</a>; <a href="#section53">§ 53</a> The best parental environment, <a href="#Page_87">p. 87</a>; - <a href="#section54">§ 54</a> Marital pattern should be seen by children, - <a href="#Page_89">p. 89</a>; <a href="#section55">§ 55</a> Instinct in humans inadequate, <a href="#Page_90">p. 90</a>; - <a href="#section56">§ 56</a> Three fusions in heterosexual union, <a href="#Page_91">p. 91</a>; - <a href="#section57">§ 57</a> Instinctive reasoning by analogy, <a href="#Page_91">p. 91</a>; - <a href="#section58">§ 58</a> The greatest human happiness comes from - the three fusions, <a href="#Page_93">p. 93</a>; <a href="#section59">§ 59</a> Instinct of woman - expects strength in man, <a href="#Page_93">p. 93</a>; <a href="#section60">§ 60</a> Man’s reaction - to feminine opposition, <a href="#Page_94">p. 94</a>; <a href="#section61">§ 61</a> Visually - unattractive women, <a href="#Page_95">p. 95</a>; <a href="#section62">§ 62</a> The love instinct - a bad guide, <a href="#Page_96">p. 96</a>; <a href="#section63">§ 63</a> The ductless glands; - superiority of the love instinct, <a href="#Page_97">p. 97</a>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">V.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">The Love Episode</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">98</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"></td> - <td class="details"><a href="#section64">§ 64</a> Love is control by husband, the work of a - lifetime, <a href="#Page_98">p. 98</a>; <a href="#section65">§ 65</a> The erotologist, <a href="#Page_99">p. 99</a>; <a href="#section66">§ 66</a> - Wife the “trembler,” <a href="#Page_100">p. 100</a>; <a href="#section67">§ 67</a> The precipitant - husband, <a href="#Page_102">p. 102</a>; <a href="#section68">§ 68</a> A positive expressive control - of her love emotions by the wife, <a href="#Page_103">p. 103</a>; <a href="#section69">§ 69</a> The - love drama, <a href="#Page_104">p. 104</a>; <a href="#section70">§ 70</a> Man’s occasional embarrassment, - <a href="#Page_105">p. 105</a>; <a href="#section71">§ 71</a> Unsatisfactoriness of - promiscuity, <a href="#Page_105">p. 105</a>; <a href="#section72">§ 72</a> Marriage as an examination - of man by woman, <a href="#Page_107">p. 107</a>; <a href="#section73">§ 73</a> Man’s failure - to charm, <a href="#Page_108">p. 108</a>; <a href="#section74">§ 74</a> The love episode, <a href="#Page_109">p. - 109</a>; <a href="#section75">§ 75</a> Its extent, <a href="#Page_110">p. 110</a>; <a href="#section76">§ 76</a> Sign of fusion, - <a href="#Page_111">p. 111</a>; <a href="#section77">§ 77</a> Test of happiness, <a href="#Page_112">p. 112</a>; <a href="#section78">§ 78</a> “The - Secret Places of the Heart,” <a href="#Page_113">p. 113</a>; <a href="#section79">§ 79</a> The Islet,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span> - <a href="#Page_113">p. 113</a>; <a href="#section80">§ 80</a> Reflections, <a href="#Page_118">p. 118</a>; <a href="#section81">§ 81</a> The Ocean - Shore, <a href="#Page_121">p. 121</a>; <a href="#section82">§ 82</a> Taking a woman’s all, <a href="#Page_123">p. 123</a>; - <a href="#section83">§ 83</a> Erotic episode like carving a statue, <a href="#Page_124">p. 124</a>; - <a href="#section84">§ 84</a> Love episode only a step in development, <a href="#Page_124">p. - 124</a>; <a href="#section85">§ 85</a> Don Juanism’s fallacy, <a href="#Page_125">p. 125</a>; <a href="#section86">§ 86</a> - Phantasy of exhaustion, <a href="#Page_126">p. 126</a>; <a href="#section87">§ 87</a> Woman’s infinite - variety, <a href="#Page_126">p. 126</a>; <a href="#section88">§ 88</a> Union complete, total - and exclusive, <a href="#Page_128">p. 128</a>; <a href="#section89">§ 89</a> Taking a woman’s - body, <a href="#Page_128">p. 128</a>; <a href="#section90">§ 90</a> Woman’s right to acme, <a href="#Page_130">p. 130</a>; - <a href="#section91">§ 91</a> Consciousness of desire, <a href="#Page_131">p. 131</a>; <a href="#section92">§ 92</a> Woman’s - helpless plight, <a href="#Page_132">p. 132</a>; <a href="#section93">§ 93</a> The wife as complementary - body, <a href="#Page_133">p. 133</a>; <a href="#section94">§ 94</a> Poverty of emotional - development, <a href="#Page_133">p. 133</a>; <a href="#section95">§ 95</a> Energy liberated - by erotism, <a href="#Page_135">p. 135</a>; <a href="#section96">§ 96</a> Preparation of the wife, - <a href="#Page_136">p. 136</a>; <a href="#section97">§ 97</a> Sufficient time to be given to it, <a href="#Page_137">p. - 137</a>; <a href="#section98">§ 98</a> The estrus and its psychological analogue, - <a href="#Page_138">p. 138</a>; <a href="#section99">§ 99</a> Futility of average love episodes, - <a href="#Page_139">p. 139</a>; <a href="#section100">§ 100</a> Karezza, etc., <a href="#Page_140">p. 140</a>; <a href="#section101">§ 101</a> - Their extraordinary result, <a href="#Page_141">p. 141</a>; <a href="#section102">§ 102</a> Their - undeniable difficulty, <a href="#Page_142">p. 142</a>; <a href="#section103">§ 103</a> Uselessness of - attempting to confine the love impulse, <a href="#Page_144">p. 144</a>; - <a href="#section104">§ 104</a> Substitution of vicarious activities, <a href="#Page_145">p. 145</a>; - <a href="#section105">§ 105</a> Karezza compared to the Steinach operation, - <a href="#Page_145">p. 145</a>; <a href="#section106">§ 106</a> Karezza does not frustrate all emotional - relaxation, <a href="#Page_146">p. 146</a>; <a href="#section107">§ 107</a> Wife’s desire to be - dominated erotically, <a href="#Page_148">p. 148</a>; <a href="#section108">§ 108</a> Wife-domination - not effected by egoistic-social devotion, <a href="#Page_149">p. 149</a>; - <a href="#section109">§ 109</a> Marital relations cannot be too truly erotic, - <a href="#Page_151">p. 151</a>; <a href="#section110">§ 110</a> Woman’s erotic relaxation necessary, - <a href="#Page_151">p. 151</a>; <a href="#section111">§ 111</a> Simultaneity, <a href="#Page_153">p. 153</a>; <a href="#section112">§ 112</a> Autoerotism - of the honeymoon, <a href="#Page_154">p. 154</a>; <a href="#section113">§ 113</a> The succession - plan, <a href="#Page_155">p. 155</a>; <a href="#section114">§ 114</a> It demonstrates the husband’s - erotic control, <a href="#Page_155">p. 155</a>; <a href="#section115">§ 115</a> It insures the - basis of a happy marriage, <a href="#Page_157">p. 157</a>; <a href="#section116">§ 116</a> Autosuggestion, - <a href="#Page_159">p. 159</a>; <a href="#section117">§ 117</a> Means of securing control, - <a href="#Page_160">p. 160</a>; <a href="#section118">§ 118</a> The love pattern an individual - matter, <a href="#Page_161">p. 161</a>; <a href="#section119">§ 119</a> Fetishism, <a href="#Page_162">p. 162</a>; <a href="#section120">§ 120</a> - Illustrations, <a href="#Page_163">p. 163</a>; <a href="#section121">§ 121</a> The wife’s unconscious - attempt to hurry the husband, <a href="#Page_165">p. 165</a>; <a href="#section122">§ 122</a> The - mountain climbing, <a href="#Page_165">p. 165</a>; <a href="#section123">§ 123</a> The view at the - top, <a href="#Page_166">p. 166</a>; <a href="#section124">§ 124</a> The detail of the peak, <a href="#Page_168">p. 168</a>; - <a href="#section125">§ 125</a> Reflections at the top, <a href="#Page_169">p. 169</a>; <a href="#section126">§ 126</a> Accelerating - fetishisms, <a href="#Page_170">p. 170</a>; <a href="#section127">§ 127</a> Climbing together, <a href="#Page_171">p. - 171</a>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span></td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">VI.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Control</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">175</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"></td> - <td class="details"><a href="#section128">§ 128</a> Evolution of erotic over egoistic-social; individuality - and control, <a href="#Page_175">p. 175</a>; <a href="#section129">§ 129</a> Erotic control - is the only real individuality, <a href="#Page_178">p. 178</a>; <a href="#section130">§ 130</a> - The conventional demand, <a href="#Page_179">p. 179</a>; <a href="#section131">§ 131</a> Love impulse - the only thing left, <a href="#Page_181">p. 181</a>; <a href="#section132">§ 132</a> Control is - not annihilation, <a href="#Page_182">p. 182</a>; <a href="#section133">§ 133</a> Difference between - man’s and woman’s control, <a href="#Page_183">p. 183</a>; <a href="#section134">§ 134</a> Man’s - lack of erotic control unnecessary, <a href="#Page_184">p. 184</a>; <a href="#section135">§ 135</a> - Woman’s inability to control erotically, <a href="#Page_186">p. 186</a>; - <a href="#section136">§ 136</a> Phantasy of honeymoon bliss; the test, <a href="#Page_187">p. - 187</a>; <a href="#section137">§ 137</a> Women’s confusion of the two controls, - <a href="#Page_190">p. 190</a>; <a href="#section138">§ 138</a> Woman’s development dependent - on husband’s, <a href="#Page_192">p. 192</a>; <a href="#section139">§ 139</a> Woman’s acme not - conditioned by husband’s, <a href="#Page_193">p. 193</a>; <a href="#section140">§ 140</a> Insensitiveness, - <a href="#Page_193">p. 193</a>; <a href="#section141">§ 141</a> Anesthesia, <a href="#Page_195">p. 195</a>; <a href="#section142">§ 142</a> - Supremity of male control misunderstood, <a href="#Page_195">p. 195</a>; - <a href="#section143">§ 143</a> Objection answered, <a href="#Page_196">p. 196</a>; <a href="#section144">§ 144</a> Interplay - of control on egoistic-social level, <a href="#Page_197">p. 197</a>; <a href="#section145">§ 145</a> - Fallacy of erotic control by woman, <a href="#Page_198">p. 198</a>; <a href="#section146">§ 146</a> - Prolongation of love episode, <a href="#Page_201">p. 201</a>; <a href="#section147">§ 147</a> Failure - of illicit unerotic sex act to relax erotic tension, - <a href="#Page_203">p. 203</a>; <a href="#section148">§ 148</a> Development of husband imperative, - <a href="#Page_205">p. 205</a>; <a href="#section149">§ 149</a> Precipitancy caused by fear, <a href="#Page_206">p. 206</a>; - <a href="#section150">§ 150</a> Woman’s instinctive attempt to accelerate, - <a href="#Page_209">p. 209</a>; <a href="#section151">§ 151</a> Her unconscious man-testing, <a href="#Page_211">p. - 211</a>; <a href="#section152">§ 152</a> The wrong instinctive reaction of the - husband to the test, <a href="#Page_212">p. 212</a>; <a href="#section153">§ 153</a> Man should - know what to expect, <a href="#Page_214">p. 214</a>; <a href="#section154">§ 154</a> Responsibility - <i>vs.</i> Fate, <a href="#Page_216">p. 216</a>; <a href="#section155">§ 155</a> The husband’s hallucination, - <a href="#Page_217">p. 217</a>; <a href="#section156">§ 156</a> The solitariness of crowds, - <a href="#Page_219">p. 219</a>; <a href="#section157">§ 157</a> The wife’s unavoidable resistance, - <a href="#Page_221">p. 221</a>; <a href="#section158">§ 158</a> Bride buried under stones, <a href="#Page_222">p. 222</a>; - <a href="#section159">§ 159</a> The only truly virile accomplishment, <a href="#Page_224">p. - 224</a>; <a href="#section160">§ 160</a> The husband’s anesthesia, <a href="#Page_224">p. 224</a>; - <a href="#section161">§ 161</a> Metonymy, the part for the whole, <a href="#Page_225">p. 225</a>; - <a href="#section162">§ 162</a> Phantasy, <a href="#Page_226">p. 226</a>; <a href="#section163">§ 163</a> Control through - imagination, <a href="#Page_228">p. 228</a>; <a href="#section164">§ 164</a> A score of sense qualities, - <a href="#Page_229">p. 229</a>; <a href="#section165">§ 165</a> Manner of mental influence, - <a href="#Page_231">p. 231</a>; <a href="#section166">§ 166</a> The work of the mental pattern, - <a href="#Page_231">p. 231</a>; <a href="#section167">§ 167</a> Need of a love pattern, <a href="#Page_232">p. 232</a>; - <a href="#section168">§ 168</a> Completing the fragmentary wife, <a href="#Page_233">p. 233</a>; - <a href="#section169">§ 169</a> More vividness for women, <a href="#Page_234">p. 234</a>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span></td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">VII.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">The Unhappy Marriage</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">236</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"></td> - <td class="details"><a href="#section170">§ 170</a> Overweighting physical or spiritual, <a href="#Page_236">p. 236</a>; - <a href="#section171">§ 171</a> Feeling of identity, <a href="#Page_237">p. 237</a>; <a href="#section172">§ 172</a> Erotic control - only a part, <a href="#Page_239">p. 239</a>; <a href="#section173">§ 173</a> Long engagements - unnecessary, <a href="#Page_239">p. 239</a>; <a href="#section174">§ 174</a> Changing adaptation - needed, <a href="#Page_240">p. 240</a>; <a href="#section175">§ 175</a> Love cannot be delegated, - <a href="#Page_241">p. 241</a>; <a href="#section176">§ 176</a> Unconscious polyandry, <a href="#Page_242">p. 242</a>; <a href="#section177">§ 177</a> - Masochism, <a href="#Page_243">p. 243</a>; <a href="#section178">§ 178</a> Illicit love enhances - erotic element for some women, <a href="#Page_245">p. 245</a>; <a href="#section179">§ 179</a> - Freud on promiscuous men, <a href="#Page_246">p. 246</a>; <a href="#section180">§ 180</a> Erotism - not masochistic, <a href="#Page_247">p. 247</a>; <a href="#section181">§ 181</a> Jealousy in men and - women, <a href="#Page_248">p. 248</a>; <a href="#section182">§ 182</a> Mrs. Samuel Pepys, <a href="#Page_249">p. 249</a>; - <a href="#section183">§ 183</a> Jealousy atavistic, <a href="#Page_250">p. 250</a>; <a href="#section184">§ 184</a> Jealousy - and homosexuality, <a href="#Page_251">p. 251</a>; <a href="#section185">§ 185</a> Hyposomatic - sex is not true erotism, <a href="#Page_253">p. 253</a>; <a href="#section186">§ 186</a> Résumé of - Chapters I to VII, <a href="#Page_255">p. 255</a>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">VIII.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Hologamy vs. Prostitution</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">259</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"></td> - <td class="details"><a href="#section187">§ 187</a> Hologamy defined, <a href="#Page_259">p. 259</a>; <a href="#section188">§ 188</a> Erotic as - manned and womaned, <a href="#Page_260">p. 260</a>; <a href="#section189">§ 189</a> Comparative - monogamy, <a href="#Page_262">p. 262</a>; <a href="#section190">§ 190</a> Health demands unity of - personality, <a href="#Page_263">p. 263</a>; <a href="#section191">§ 191</a> Plurality of women a - dissociating element, <a href="#Page_264">p. 264</a>; <a href="#section192">§ 192</a> Plurality as a - search, <a href="#Page_267">p. 267</a>; <a href="#section193">§ 193</a> Prostitution, <a href="#Page_268">p. 268</a>; <a href="#section194">§ 194</a> - Two castes of women, <a href="#Page_269">p. 269</a>; <a href="#section195">§ 195</a> The mother-imago - or angel imago, <a href="#Page_271">p. 271</a>; <a href="#section196">§ 196</a> More passion - needed in marriage, <a href="#Page_272">p. 272</a>; <a href="#section197">§ 197</a> Futility of prohibition, - <a href="#Page_273">p. 273</a>; <a href="#section198">§ 198</a> Ellis’ “civilization value of - prostitution” answered, <a href="#Page_274">p. 274</a>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">IX.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">The New Marriage</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">276</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"></td> - <td class="details"><a href="#section199">§ 199</a> Two meanings of “single standard,” <a href="#Page_276">p. 276</a>; - <a href="#section200">§ 200</a> What constitutes mastery, <a href="#Page_277">p. 277</a>; <a href="#section201">§ 201</a> - Disappointments in marriage, <a href="#Page_279">p. 279</a>; <a href="#section202">§ 202</a> The - father’s part in the home, <a href="#Page_280">p. 280</a>; <a href="#section203">§ 203</a> An illustration, - <a href="#Page_283">p. 283</a>; <a href="#section204">§ 204</a> Management of children an - egoistic-social activity, <a href="#Page_284">p. 284</a>; <a href="#section204">§ 204</a> New man and - new woman not to confuse egoistic-social and - erotic levels, <a href="#Page_286">p. 286</a>; <a href="#section206">§ 206</a> Prodigality of nature, - <a href="#Page_287">p. 287</a>; <a href="#section207">§ 207</a> Trial marriage and romantic marriage, - <a href="#Page_289">p. 289</a>; <a href="#section208">§ 208</a> Rapport, <a href="#Page_290">p. 290</a>; <a href="#section209">§ 209</a> Erotic - unions, <a href="#Page_292">p. 292</a>; <a href="#section210">§ 210</a> Virginity, <a href="#Page_292">p. 292</a>; <a href="#section211">§ 211</a> Unconscious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span> - resentment of bride, <a href="#Page_293">p. 293</a>; <a href="#section212">§ 212</a> Futility - of extra-marital liaisons, <a href="#Page_294">p. 294</a>; <a href="#section213">§ 213</a> Conclusion, - <a href="#Page_297">p. 297</a>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">X.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Birth Control</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">298</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"></td> - <td class="details"><a href="#section214">§ 214</a> Ready to print but cannot legally be printed, - <a href="#Page_298">p. 298</a>.</td> - <td></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"></td> - <td><span class="smcap">Index</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#INDEX">301</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> - -<h1>A PLEA FOR MONOGAMY</h1> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I<br /> -<span class="smaller">THE TRUE CONCEPTION OF MARRIAGE</span></h2> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>Common sense indicates, happiness and health demand, science -proclaims and society is beginning to insist that men and women -understand and apply the palpable truth of the sex relations in -their married life.—<span class="smcap">Dr. W. F. Robie.</span></p> - -</div> - -<h3 id="section1">§ 1</h3> - -<p>We are living in an age when the contrast between -intellectual complexity and emotional simplicity -is becoming so great that the emotional -reactions and, because of them, the creative and -destructive acts of men are more and more unpredictable -and variegated. Intellectual attainment -has reached an extraordinary height. Emotions -have not been trained or developed, if indeed they -are capable of development. They may not be, -though it will be assumed in a later chapter that -they are susceptible of the kind of training that is -produced by reassociation. Emotions are the organic -sensations perceived by the ego as the result -of reactions, caused by impressions from the external -world, reactions taking place within the tissues -of the body, and associated with external impressions.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> -Emotions are no more complex than -they were thousands of years ago.</p> - -<p>When we say that the emotions of one man are -finer than those of another man we may mean either -that he has repressed his sexual emotions, which we -have not been taught to call fine, or that his emotions -of surprise, awe, love, hate, jealousy and -others are aroused by, that is, associated with, more -complicated external impressions than they are in -another man. Or we may call fine emotions the constructive -emotions with which pleasure is associated.</p> - -<p>The emotions as physical reactions have not -changed in ages of evolution. We have the same -bodies as sounding boards on which the external -impressions reverberate, the same bodies practically -that men had five thousand years ago. But the -number and variety of external experiences has multiplied -in geometrical ratio. The result is that, -while intellectually we are men of 1923, emotionally -we may be cave men or apes. With the products -of modern civilization, the material advances and -complications, the means of intercommunication, of -graphic representation and of the transformation -of natural resources we are, as Robinson says in -<cite>The Mind in the Making</cite>, merely <em>monkeying</em>. In -spite of numerous sporadic beginnings in the line -of social use of the results of modern scientific -advancement we are as a race making almost no -progress in the direction of fine living.</p> - -<h3 id="section2">§ 2</h3> - -<p>This is no more clearly evident in any other -sphere of life than in marriage. With all the intellectual<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> -progress made by humanity up to the first -quarter of the twentieth century marriage is still -looked upon by many men merely as an opportunity -for either legitimized procreation or unlimited -sensual self-gratification. A man puts as much -intellect into his vocation as he is capable of. Into -his marriage he puts not intellect, but the emotions -of the ancestral ape. Even in his sublimated war -of business he knows that a consideration of the -other fellow is in the end a winning card, and the -word “service” has come into prominence as advertising -material. But in his marriage he uses the -same crassly selfish methods he has used for thousands, -perhaps millions of years.</p> - -<p>The sheer blind, isolating selfishness of the average -husband and the misery it causes him are the -reason for my writing this book. If a man used -one-tenth the intellect in his marital relations that -he does in his corporation finance and in his inventions -and scientific research, the latter would not be -half as necessary as they seem to be, and he would -himself be infinitely happier.</p> - -<h3 id="section3">§ 3</h3> - -<p>Unless we are progressing toward a woman-made -social order it is imperative that men carry on to -a logical conclusion what they have begun.</p> - -<p>“Charity begins at home” is one of the many -maxims that were originated with a far different -connotation from that which they have since -acquired. Charity (Latin <i lang="la">Caritas</i>) originally -meant “dearness” or “fondness” and once had an -erotic flavour that it has since lost. The only place<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> -for sexual love is in marriage and its having escaped -from this, like a captured thing, reflects not so -much on itself as on the unnaturalness of its captivity. -True erotism has practically fled from most -marriages, leaving only an empty shell. Men should -reflect that nothing is more necessary for the upbuilding -of a real civilization than the personal lives of -the individuals themselves. Penetratingly thoughtful -men realize that the present state of civilization -is diseased throughout, and that it “is not in our -stars but in ourselves,” that we are to rely for -advance.</p> - -<h3 id="section4">§ 4</h3> - -<p>In this book an attempt is made to show how men -can so control their marital situation as to make -more and more unnecessary the tightness of the -bond that operates to make many marriages so like -an imprisonment for both husbands and wives. Also -the suggestion is made that a certain type of action -on the husband’s part will work in the direction of -making both prostitution and divorce less and less -necessary.</p> - -<p>This type of behaviour, comparatively rare at the -present time, is based on a pattern that will at once -appeal to the sense of justice innate in every man. -Although it implies a relaxation of much present -constraint and artificiality in the married relation, -it is in no sense antagonistic to true monogamous -union but rather constitutes a much more advanced -and progressive attitude toward the most vital question -of the day.</p> - -<p>The marriage of the near future, it is hoped, will -be inspired by our latest scientific knowledge concerning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> -the psychology of sex, including the ever -present unconscious factor, which is the most potent -factor in the marital situation and which has been -necessarily ignored for the simple reason that, previous -to a few years ago, everyone was ignorant of -the unconscious mechanisms and their relation to -each other, in making for mistakes and unhappiness -in marital behaviour.</p> - -<p>If every man would exercise the control over himself -(the opposite of asceticism in the ordinarily -accepted sense), the control which alone will secure -that emotional ascendancy over his wife, necessary -for happy marriage and unconsciously longed for -by the wife, more than any other thing in marital -life, he will reduce to the lowest possible frequency -both divorce, which is the issue of so many marriages, -and prostitution, which has for so many -centuries been regarded as the bulwark of marriage -and the protection of the wife.</p> - -<p>As Grete Meisel-Hess says in her <cite>Sexual Crisis</cite>, -“The happy marriage of the securely placed wife is -founded upon the degradation and debasement of -another woman, the prostitute”; and Havelock Ellis -in the sixth volume of his <cite>Psychology of Sex</cite> (page -296) says that “the value of marriage as a moral -agent is evidenced by the fact that all the better-class -prostitutes in London are almost entirely supported -by married men,” while “in Germany, as stated in -the interesting series of reminiscences by a former -prostitute, the majority of the men who visit prostitutes -are married.” He then gives several reasons -why this is the case.</p> - -<p>If every wife should give serious thought to exactly -how much degradation the prostitute has been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> -considered to save her from, she would realize that -what the prostitute guards her from could be transmuted -by the proper attitude on the husband’s part -from a crassly physical into a highly spiritual thing. -And she would move heaven and earth to induce her -husband to study the fine art of love in so thorough -a manner that there could be no doubt of the happy -issue of their mutual love life.</p> - -<p>Critics of marriage as it exists today have amply -demonstrated that it shields more immorality, in -some cases, than even prostitution itself; and it is a -fact that this immorality comes from a lack of -spiritual rapport between husband and wife, that -can be effected primarily, if not solely, by the -husband.</p> - -<h3 id="section5">§ 5</h3> - -<p>While this book assumes that the marital relation -is one in which an emotional control is necessary to -be exercised by the husband over the wife, it does -not assume for a moment but rather denies that the -husband should exert any control whatever over the -activities of the wife, especially in spheres other than -the strictly conjugal.</p> - -<p>On the contrary, a husband domineers in small -every-day matters only when, and because, he feels -unconsciously that he is failing, or is beginning to -fail, to dominate in the great and important sphere -of woman’s emotional life.</p> - -<p>For the health and happiness of them both, this -sphere should be the love emotions; at any rate, -only the constructive or anabolic emotions. A husband -who rightly dominates need not and will not -trouble to domineer. If the wife is as profoundly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> -moved erotically by marriage as she should be this -deep emotion will impel her to develop her personality -to the utmost for the advantage of her husband -and, <i lang="la">a fortiori</i>, of herself.</p> - -<p>It should always be borne in mind by both husband -and wife that the love impulse is uniformly -to take precedence over the ego (social) impulse, a -precedence that, however, in our present competitive -society it is very difficult to give. But it is worth -every thought that can be devoted to it; to refine -the pattern, to ennoble the picture, of marital life.</p> - -<h3 id="section6">§ 6</h3> - -<p>A common misapprehension that psychoanalysis -leads to promiscuity in sexual relations needs emphatic -correction. The reasoning wrested out of -psychoanalytical findings runs somewhat as follows: -Most modern ills and notably neurotic disturbances, -mild and severe, are the result of the repression -brought to bear on the sex instinct by modern civilized -life. Therefore, in order to avoid or cure these -multitudinous ills, the individual whose natural instincts -have been repressed, must dig them up, with -great toil and at great expense of time and money, -and give them free play in spite of the prohibitions -of society. Indeed, in this country, psychoanalysts, -of the first rank in other respects, have been said -to recommend both men and women patients to -make what arrangements they could to indulge in -sexual intercourse, even if unmarried.<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span></p> - -<p>Now fully admitting that the mental and physical -troubles of these patients, and all others who suffer -from ills of psychic origin, arise from the repression -of the sexual instinct, it still shows a far too great -tendency on the part of their advisers to temporize -and compromise with facts, if they give this advice. -For, while a conflict between two forces, one or both -of which were in the unconscious, is more satisfactorily -and successfully carried on if the two forces -are brought out into the open light of consciousness, -the conflict still remains, and is only shifted to another -field where it may go on as before, and with -unabated fierceness.</p> - -<p>The conflict between the individual and society is -just as great whether a man takes it out in himself -through a neurosis or gives up the neurosis and takes -a prostitute or a regular mistress, neither of which -has the sanction of society. In the case of many -neurotics the cure is worse than the disease simply -because the social pressure becomes clearer to the -individual if he actually does, even in secret, the -things he had before only unconsciously wished. -For him the conflict not only is not resolved but is -worse, for if like the majority of neurotics he is -of a more sensitive type than the average person -the contrast between his actions and the implicit -demands of his environment will be all the greater.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> -He will be doing in reality the very thing he unconsciously -desired but feared to do.</p> - -<p>And yet not the same thing after all. For unless -the mistress is of that rare and extraordinary type -of Mlle. Drouet who supplied for Victor Hugo -what he would have much preferred to get from his -wife, had she been spiritually able to give it, there -will be, for the unfortunately advised neurotic, -another conflict not on an ethical but on an intellectual -and spiritual plane.</p> - -<p>The advice for such people can only be to get -married; or, if that is beyond the bounds of possibility, -which is seldom the case, the suggestion to -adopt a moderate autoerotism has been made by -some physicians in good standing as an acceptable -substitute at least for the neurotic of either sex. It -frees them, at any rate, from the feeling that they -are injuring anyone else, either directly or indirectly.</p> - -<p>An emphatic reiteration is here appropriate concerning -the harmlessness of the physical forms of -autoerotism as practised, at some times in their lives, -by almost nine-tenths of humanity of both sexes, -especially civilized humanity, where a taboo is -placed on other normal heterosexual practices. The -autoerotism mentioned (in <a href="#section21">sections 21-25</a> on mutuality) -is purely a psychical intellectual or mental -autoerotism entirely apart from the physical. Its -results are, in the long run, far worse. (See note, -<a href="#Page_24">p. 24</a>.)</p> - -<p>Grete Meisel-Hess, in <cite>The Sexual Crisis</cite>, speaking -of the men who are sexual compulsion neurotics and -whom she describes as male counterparts of the -<i lang="fr">demi-vierges</i>, says (page 155): “They are unable -to surmount the ultimate obstacle between I and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> -Thou. They are unable to complete their work, -incompetent to possess a woman utterly. The amatory -intimacies are never fully consummated. They -get through the preliminaries of love and the first -preludes; but that which comes afterward, the most -beautiful and also the most difficult part, remains -unenjoyed, unmastered, unconsummated. I am not -referring here to what is ordinarily termed impotence. -This sentimental impotence has nothing to -do with mere physical weakness, but is far more -disastrous, since it forever bars those affected with -it from an entry into the deepest experiences of love. -It is only the strong in soul who are capable of love -in its completeness.”</p> - -<p>The physical autoerotic acts, far from having -the results of producing physical and mental -weakness (as has been unscientifically stated and -slavishly repeated for two centuries), are nature’s -way of developing the reproductive apparatus -for strictly human use. The injuries supposed -to result are now scientifically proven to be the -result caused by the fear of harm, and the shame -inspired in young people by stupidly ignorant elders.</p> - -<p>The autoerotic mental attitude described in this -section is a peculiarity of men who through lack of -enlightenment have not yet outgrown a tendency to -remain, in their psychic reactions, infantile or puerile. -But there is no proof that the inevitably autoerotic -attitude of the young need persist for a -moment after they have grasped the idea of the -difference between autoerotism and a real object -love that contains the growing element of perfect -mutuality. And yet many men unnecessarily get -the idea fixed in their minds that autoerotic practices<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> -have weakened them physically or have produced -a mental habit of mind that cannot be broken. -From one point of view it is the easiest thing in the -world to present the proofs of the utter harmlessness -of the autoerotic practices and the utter groundlessness -of the fears which make almost every man, that -is human, lack the confidence which will give him -the necessary control over his own, and incidentally -over his wife’s, erotism. (See note, <a href="#Page_14">p. 14</a>.)</p> - -<h3 id="section7">§ 7</h3> - -<p>The recommendation to the neurotic patient to -take up clandestine sex relationship is based on the -same misinterpretation of psychoanalytic theory -that is seen in the explanation given by shallow, -self-styled psychoanalysts of Freud’s term “polymorphous -perverse” as applied to the sexuality of -children. <em>Polymorphous</em> means “of many shapes or -patterns,” and implies that a child gets as much -pleasure and satisfaction from stimulation of any -one of its “erogenous zones” as it does from any -other including the genital. This is quite easily -comprehensible from the point of view that the -child’s sexuality, like the unassembled parts of an -automobile, is synthetized at puberty under the -“primacy of the genital zones” whereupon all the -pleasures of stimulation of all the other zones serve -only as preliminaries to that of the genital.</p> - -<p>And the word <em>perverse</em> in its etymological significance -means only “turned in all directions,” i.e., as -much toward one zone as to another. But the -word perverse in its ordinary sense has the connotation -of moral turpitude.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span></p> - -<p>It would be as senseless to call a child’s interest -in its skin, and pleasure in sucking its thumb or a -piece of candy, perverse in this latter sense as it -would be to call a ring gear of a differential <em>wicked</em> -just because it was lying on the floor of a garage, -and the mechanic had not yet put it in place.</p> - -<p>Thus has Freud been misinterpreted and the good -of all his fearless investigation into sexual life annulled -by the shortsighted and ignorant misreading -of his work on the part of so many of those who -would call themselves his followers.</p> - -<h3 id="section8">§ 8</h3> - -<p>Only marriage and only a pure and complete -monogamy without anesthesia<a name="FNanchor_2" id="FNanchor_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> on the part of either -mate will satisfy both conscious and unconscious -cravings of the neurotic. It is a great advantage to -have these unconscious cravings introduced into consciousness -if for the only reason of giving a greater -self-knowledge and therefore a greater self-confidence.</p> - -<p>Not only all conscious and unconscious love cravings -can, but all should be satisfied in every marriage -from the beginning of it all through to the end of it. -By the majority of healthy people they should be -given conscious expression by both mates much more -frequently than they actually are.</p> - -<h3 id="section9">§ 9</h3> - -<p>So many unhappily married people ask, “What, -Doctor, <em>is</em> a normal sex life?” It is generally considered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> -by all authorities that individuals vary to -such an extent that it is impossible to lay down any -rule except that in the normal sex life the conscious -outward expression should never take place except -when it is a mutual and reciprocal expression, and -that, on these conditions, no limits that could be -called normal really exist.</p> - -<p>But the attitude of this book is that the mutuality -is largely if not entirely the result of the husband’s -love-making. In the ideal marriage he is and always -should be the leading factor in the exclusively erotic -sphere.</p> - -<h3 id="section10">§ 10</h3> - -<p>Every use of the term erotic episode or love episode -or love drama, is to be understood as emphatically -affirming the indispensability of an equal -emphasis on both the so-called physical and the so-called -mental or spiritual factor of the love life, -neither one nor the other omitted, neither one nor -the other unduly overweighted.</p> - -<p>We are minds or souls inhabiting or, better, organically -connected with bodies. Everyone knows -the body cannot be neglected any more than the -mind. But the most mental of the bodily reactions -and the most bodily of the mental reactions are the -emotions; and as far as present-day physiological -researches have been able to discover, both are most -closely interrelated by the interlocking system of -ductless glands, among which the interstitial or -sexual glands are the grand president of all the -boards of directors.<a name="FNanchor_3" id="FNanchor_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span></p> - -<p>Tradition first, in classical Greek and Roman -times, unduly overweighted the physical end and, in -modern times, has attempted unduly to overweight -the spiritual end of the balance, but neither of these -processes has restored a balance which is fundamental -to the highest type of Christianity—the balance -between the erotic<a name="FNanchor_4" id="FNanchor_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> and the egoistic-social -trends.<a name="FNanchor_5" id="FNanchor_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> This balance it is the object of this book -to suggest, with the hope that such an approach to -equilibrium of two tendencies that are now badly -out of balance will help to show the futility of much -activity that is now called civilized, but which is not -most adapted to producing the greatest happiness of -the individual, and through that, the greatest prosperity -of such people as are destined by happiness -and prosperity to survive the crumbling of the present -state of society.</p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Surprise of the Imperfectly Married</span></p> - -<p><i>What? Every pair in every marriage attain absolute -bliss in every love episode? Do you mean to -tell me that the rose mist of dawn lasts through -the entire day?</i></p> - -<p>Of course, why not? Should one expect every -day to be cloudy? Must we expect our lives to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> -unhappy? Is it wholesome to live in an atmosphere -of tragedy? Not to have perfect married love is -to act lower than the animals—to have abolished -instinct, by which they act, and not to have attained -knowledge, according to which are regulated the acts -of all adepts in the art of love.</p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Surprise of the Perfectly Married</span></p> - -<p><i>What? Do you mean to tell me that every -married couple do not go through the same perfect -type of love episode we do every day or two? -Why, we have never had anything else from the -very first and supposed, of course, everybody else -was exactly like us.</i></p> - -<p>Of course, they do not. You see how people <em>look</em>, -don’t you, after a few years of marriage?</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II<br /> -<span class="smaller">MODERN EMOTIONAL UNREST</span></h2> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Let me not to the marriage of true minds</div> -<div class="verse">Admit impediments. Love is not love</div> -<div class="verse">Which alters when it alteration finds.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse right"><span class="smcap">Shakespeare</span>, <cite>Sonnet</cite> CXVI.</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3 id="section11">§ 11</h3> - -<p>This book is written largely in the hope that the -thousands of unhappy married women, and the unmarried -too, as fate sometimes suddenly and unexpectedly -finds them a partner, will, in reading it, -realize what is making them so restless and discontented.</p> - -<p>In the past few years all interested observers of -social phenomena have been appalled at the lightness -with which a great majority of the upper middle -classes regard matrimony.</p> - -<p>Intelligent women, readers of good books, and -themselves often friends of authors, artists, -musicians, and other creative personalities are all -absorbed in the most vital topics of the day, chief -of which is the discussion of the normal adjustment -of the sex relation. Indeed, it has been charged -that both women and men in this stratum of society -talk sex <i lang="la">ad nauseam</i>. This is likely to continue until -the much desired adjustment is better made than it -is at present.</p> - -<p>The cause of this concentration upon sex problems -can be only the fact that sex is a problem. If<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> -our sexual standards were fixed in a universally serviceable -pattern such that changing external conditions -did not almost hourly tend to make it -antiquated and useless, the attention of so large a -proportion of civilized humanity need not be given -to it in the present-day excited manner.</p> - -<p>It is, of course, a question whether sexual problems -can ever be permanently solved; but those in -the focus of public attention today are so insistent -that it is impossible to ignore them. Various solutions -are being attempted more or less secretly -where public opinion’s ban on sex discussion is -stronger; less secretly elsewhere.</p> - -<p>But a pattern of sexual behaviour, a true love pattern, -even if it could not be final should have at -least enough elasticity to make the changes in it a -gradual transition. No sensational innovations -can ever hope to be adopted overnight with the -approval of society at large. In fact, conventions -in other spheres than those of love are made, and -have been made gradually for centuries. But it is a -curious fact that the conventionalities which concern -the expression of the erotic impulse are those not -of yesterday but of many hundreds of years ago. -This is but a manifestation of the extreme complication -of the external circumstances of modern life in -contrast with the wonderful simplicity and directness -of the emotions themselves which reverberate -in response to the external complexities.</p> - -<p>It will appear, as this discussion proceeds, that -the sexual problems of today are conditioned by -the inhibitions placed by modern economic conditions -upon the natural and instinctive expression of the -erotic impulse. In brief, both men and women talk<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> -sex and particularly women, in a certain extensive -class of society, for the real though disguised purpose -of exciting themselves sexually.</p> - -<p>There is every satisfactory proof that this would -not occur if their sexual lives were normal. It is -therefore the repressed sexual activity that breaks -out, not in sexual acts specifically, but in the vicarious -sex activity of problem novels, problem plays, -risqué stories, and the talk in mixed company which -has been objected to as persistent sex talk.</p> - -<p>Men and women with a perfectly normal love life -feel no need whatever to talk about it. But the -inference from that—namely, that those who resolutely -refrain from mention of all such topics are -themselves quite normal in their own love life—is -illogical in the extreme. Many are constrained by -an inner fear of self-revelation, lest they show themselves -as abnormal. Thus it may occur that some -will not refuse to discuss this most vital of all topics, -for fear they may be considered themselves -abnormal.</p> - -<p>But it is safe to say that the greater number of -those who talk much about love are those whose love -is either undeveloped or in some way awry, and that -unconsciously they are attempting to straighten -themselves out, in their own eyes or in the eyes of -their friends.</p> - -<h3 id="section12">§ 12</h3> - -<p>The most exciting conversation on love is, of -course, that between two persons of opposite sex. -And in many social circles there has of late sprung -up a new term. A married woman will have some -particular male friend not her husband, whom she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> -laughingly refers to as her “playmate.” With this -“mate” she plays at love and love-making under the -guise of serious discussion. In some coteries, the -married woman’s playmate may be some other -woman’s husband, but the favourites for playmates -are unmarried men.<a name="FNanchor_6" id="FNanchor_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> - -<p>These “little beaux” or “playmates” are an indication -of the essential childishness of the marriage -relation where they play a part, and the position -of the husband whose wife needs such amusement -is an exceedingly unenviable one, no matter how -purely Platonic the relation may be between his wife -and her playmate.</p> - -<h3 id="section13">§ 13</h3> - -<p>It will be consistently maintained in this book -that the need of such Platonic friendships on the -part of these numerous wives is a reflection on the -lack of skill with which the husband handles the -erotic situation. He may not be, often, indeed, is -not, in the least to blame for his lack of skill, or for -the discontent of his wife that causes her to give -expression to the play side of love, or, even a part -of it, in this taking of a playmate. It is a situation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> -which practically calls the husband a workmate, or -dutymate—a situation that is fundamentally deplorable -and constitutes in fact the first step in the -direction of divorce.</p> - -<p>The playmates provide a large amount of innocent -amusement, which the husbands do not or cannot -find time possibly to furnish themselves. With -the playmates the wives go to lunches, dances, -theatres, concerts, and talk poetry, art, music—and -love.</p> - -<p>All the evidence points to the fact that these wives -are not properly mated. It is not their fault. It is -their husbands’, yet, because of the husbands’ ignorance -of the love needs of women, the husbands are -not to blame, at any rate until they have taken to -heart the message which this book attempts to -convey.</p> - -<p>Possibly the wives themselves, after thinking the -matter over in the light of what they may read in -this book, might talk to their husbands about love -now as perhaps once they did, and get them to realize -what they are failing to do.</p> - -<p>Seeking intellectual stimulation from a playmate -whose tenure of office is permanent or nearly so is, -as psychoanalysis has amply demonstrated, a substitute -or vicariate for sex. The women are, but of -course unconsciously, wishing for more extended and -more intimate love episodes with their playmates.</p> - -<p>In short, restlessness of wives is an expression -of the exclusively economic trend of present-day -civilization which makes a machine or an office -organization or a financial manipulation a substitute, -in the mind of the husband, for love. Such -a man is most likely to take his business home with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> -him, where indeed business has no place—even, indeed, -take it to bed with him.</p> - -<h3 id="section14">§ 14</h3> - -<p>The writer is aware of the unprecedented character -of much that has just been said, but feels that -he knows whereof he speaks, also of the revolutionary -nature of the theses of the rest of this -chapter in which the subsequent matter of the book -is given in outline.</p> - -<p>First, the statement that what is popularly known -as romantic love has little if any significance in true -marriage. For it will be maintained consistently -that given a not too impossible combination of man -and woman, as for example those of too widely -divergent social level, any man can woo and win any -woman and make her and himself supremely happy, -entirely apart from the neurotic sentimentality of -romanticism.</p> - -<p>The theory that there is just one woman in the -world who can make a given man a perfect wife, -and vice versa, is scientifically absurd, for there is -only an infinitesimal chance that these two should -ever meet. Many useless tears have been shed by -men and women alike over these “ships that pass in -the night,” and thus frustrate what might have -been supernal happiness.</p> - -<p>Concerning the marital relation, a common sense -view raised to scientific proportions, shows incontrovertibly -that married happiness is a creation of -the married people themselves and chiefly of the -husband. More in every way depends on him than -on the woman. As pointed out by Meisel-Hess the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> -“sexual crisis” of the present day is due to the failure -of the individual man to know how to play, and -to play acceptably, his part in married life.</p> - -<p>Indeed, we may go so far as to say with absolute -confidence that if a Pacific liner should lose its way -and ground on a desert island, the thousand or so -men and women passengers, supposing they were all -young and unmarried, could put their names on slips -of paper in a box, and, knowing that they were -doomed to remain on the island for the rest of their -lives, draw lots for partners and become infinitely -more happily married lovers than the average -married couple in civilization and quite as happy -as if they had followed conscious preference.</p> - -<p>But the stipulation is made that the five hundred -men at least must be adepts in the erotic technique.</p> - -<p>That is to say that the real happiness of a marriage -depends solely on the behaviour of the husband, -consciously planned intelligent knowledge of -what a real marriage implies.</p> - -<h3 id="section15">§ 15</h3> - -<p>It will be shown in the subsequent chapters that -the aim of marriage is not, as the reiterated phrase -in Hutchinson’s novel, <cite>This Freedom</cite>, “men that -marry for a home” might imply, to make the husband -happy. It is, on the contrary, to make the -woman happy, and the children, so that the marriages -of the future may be happier than those of -the present.</p> - -<p>It will be shown that the husband not only can, -if he knows how, but must, if he wishes to be happy -himself, first see to it that discontent is an unknown<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> -thing. It is in his hands solely. His wife has practically -nothing to do with it. The dependence of -the woman on the man for erotic life is as absolute -as that of the newborn infant on the mother for -nutrition.</p> - -<p>The concept of romantic love, like that of love -at first sight, contains the implication that love and -especially married love depends more upon what -Fate or Destiny vouchsafes to the man than upon -what he takes from Fate or creates for himself. -The taking and creating is certainly the prerogative -of the man while yet it may not necessarily belong to -the woman.</p> - -<h3 id="section16">§ 16</h3> - -<p>That is the essential difference between the masculine -and the feminine nature. It is masculine to -give and to create and to change external reality. -It is feminine to receive, and to respond to the -activity of the male. It is feminine to be thrilled at -the effects produced upon the wife by her husband’s -activities in every sphere of action. It is masculine to -be thrilled only by the resultant ecstasies of the wife. -It is not masculine to be emotionally impressed except -by the results of his own individual and particular -actions: results effected in other persons and -things.</p> - -<p>This is the essential masculinity and femininity -assumed in this book. It will be evident to those -acquainted with modern psychology that the reverse -of these conditions implies the interchange of masculine -and feminine psychic natures.</p> - -<p>For example the man who should (and yet not a -few do) derive his satisfactions solely from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> -emotions aroused in him by the actions of other persons -and things is not truly masculine. His love -could not in any real sense be called virile.</p> - -<h3 id="section17">§ 17</h3> - -<p>Virile love is the only love that a man should -have—the only feeling a real man <em>can</em> have—for a -woman. Indeed, it is the only way a man loves a -woman if he is truly to be said to <em>love</em> her. Any -so-called love depending on being charmed by a -woman is essentially effeminate, not virile. The -moment he surrenders to her <em>charm</em>, he is not a man -but an autoerotic<a name="FNanchor_7" id="FNanchor_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> child. <em>He</em> should absolutely and -positively charm <em>her</em>. There is no disgrace, no lack -of true femininity in a woman’s yielding to the power -a man must exercise over her erotic instincts. The -power is strictly a one-way power, exerted by the -man upon the woman if, and only as long as, he remains -man and she remains woman. The bisexual -nature of both man and woman often permits a -couple to reverse this direction of power influence.<a name="FNanchor_8" id="FNanchor_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> - -<p>If the wife’s charm is the only binding factor in -a marriage the marriage is doomed to dissolve<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> -actually or potentially. And in order to maintain -this merely superficial charm, which no real man -needs to feel in a woman, she is obliged to resort to -all varieties of artifice from the lip stick and the -exotic perfume upward to the forced attempt to be -intellectually frank and interesting. Woman as -woman has no need for this artifice to maintain -charm for primordial man.</p> - -<p>It may be that man at the present day is not -primordial superficially. But fundamentally he is -and so is woman primordial woman, and for all the -civilization which is only conscious, the ninety per -cent more or less of unconscious action and being -in the man acts upon and is inevitably and automatically -reacted to by the woman; and any survey -of the totality of the relations between them is incomplete -if it does not recognize and control the -almost unlimited energy of the primordial man and -woman beneath the surface. The difficulty is that -this recognition is a task; and most married couples -attempt to hide it both from themselves and from -each other. In such actions of the woman as are -dominated, as most conscious acts are, by the egoistic-social<a name="FNanchor_9" id="FNanchor_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> -impulse, any artifice, great or small, as -the case may be, is inevitably registered, to the -woman’s detriment, in the unconscious records of -the man.</p> - -<p>“Does she,” the unconscious says, “really <em>need</em> -these embellishments, or does she only <em>think</em> she -needs them? If she really needs them, I have reels -of mental moving pictures of women who do not. -If she only thinks so, what have I failed to do that -should inspire her confidence, or prevent her from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> -unconsciously trying to attract the autoerotic glances -of other men? I must adjust her up to a greater -height of erotic exaltation. Possibly that is the -fundamental reason. If she were actually my erotic -counterpart the idea would not even unconsciously -enter her mind to improve herself in this showy -manner. I must remove this tendency from her.”</p> - -<p>Of course the husband likes to have his wife appear -attractive to him; but that does not require any -branch of the cosmetic art except what she can do -without drugs, pastes, powders and other mechanical -aids. Of course he wants her to interest him mentally -but that does not require her to do or say anything -spectacular or anything that has any “news -value.”</p> - -<p>In her own femininity (which by the way is never -enhanced but only lessened by strenuous efforts to -appear charming either to himself or others), he -has the field which he can, and will, in proportion -to his psychic virility, cultivate into his own particular -Garden of Eden. In her own essential -womanliness he has the ground where he can plant -and build, without external aid, the garden and the -mansion, the work of his own hands, according to -his own design, the outward expression of all that -is fine and masculine in his own imagination. Any -failure in the execution of this plan is due to the -shaking of his own hand, the lack of attention on -his own part to the necessary details.</p> - -<h3 id="section18">§ 18</h3> - -<p>Arnold Bennett (in <cite>Pictorial Review</cite>, November -1922), writes: “She absolutely must exercise charm,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> -whether things are going right or going wrong.... -Women were born to exercise charm.... A large -proportion of women, especially pretty ones, suffer -from the illusion that in order to exercise charm -they need only continue to exist. A mistake! To -exercise charm is an active and not a passive function. -It cannot be efficiently done without thought -and hard work. It is sometimes very trying and -exhausting, like earning money—but it is not less -essential than earning money if life is to be fully -lived.”</p> - -<p>Many women prefer to earn money rather than -follow this unremunerative trade of exercising -charm; because they realize that earning money is -productive and exercising charm is not. They can -get in dollars a measure of their efforts. In personal -charm, however, there is no measurable factor, -except in reaction on the male, and that is an autoerotic -element in his mental make-up.</p> - -<p>Feminine charm is to be sure active and not -passive. It is, however, reactive and not spontaneously -active. It reacts to the positive action of -the man, which is the response characteristic of true -femininity anywhere, any time. As to its necessitating -thought and hard work and being trying and -exhausting, the contrary is the truth. No man can -but dislike a woman who has thought and worked -hard, been tried and become <em>exhausted</em> by this thoroughly -artificial and unnatural attempt to “exercise -charm.” His unconscious and real reaction to this -trying position into which the woman puts herself -to retain his affection by exercising charm is one -of revolt. He may not know it but it is there all the -time, and comes out in the unhappy moments.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p> - -<p>And this attempt recommended by Mr. Bennett -is only a superficial attempt. It never really succeeds -permanently. It is the reason why men avoid designing -women. They say to themselves unconsciously -that this forced effort is an overcompensation for -a real (i.e., unconsciously perceived) inferiority.</p> - -<p>The only thing rightly to be called charm is the -pleasantness of the natural reaction on the woman’s -part to the binary situation, the situation of man -and woman in social intercourse. Her forcing herself -is always repugnant to him, if he is normally -himself. The word charm,<a name="FNanchor_10" id="FNanchor_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> therefore, applies to -a type or action on her part that is conditioned solely -on her being with him. It is character and conduct, -ingenuous, instinctive, spontaneous; revealing, without -traditional or conventional inhibitions, the -essence of true womanliness, and brought out only -in the situation that is really, and in the highest sense, -erotic, where the erotic holds sway over the more -ignoble egoistic-social impulse.</p> - -<p>Her charm for her husband will consist in the -fact that she is woman and wife first and foremost. -That is enough for a man who is first and foremost -man and husband. Uninhibited woman, unwarped by -sex inhibitions, spontaneously making her direct -response, her natural reaction uninterrupted, unperverted, -unbroken by archaic traditions that have -overweighted the egoistic social instincts and debased -the erotic—such a woman has and will always -have the maximum of charm for unperverted man. -The eternal femininity, the universal femininity, is -always at the core of every woman’s being.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p> - -<p>Virile love alone is competent to tear away the -impediments that perturb its reactions, and when -this is done true monogamy is inevitable, for there -is no preventive mechanism obstructing the total -fusion of their bodies and souls. That kind of -charm any woman naturally exerts over any man, but -it has nothing in common with the conventional -charm of the cosmetic and costumer’s art.</p> - -<p>The monogamic husband, if he reads beneath -the surface, feels this charm in all other women as -well as in his wife; but, as he knows what it amounts -to in care and attention, to uncover the soul of his -wife, he realizes that to undertake the task with -another woman would not be worth the candle. He -<em>could do it</em>, but he knows he would get no more -satisfaction from another woman than from his -wife.</p> - -<h3 id="section19">§ 19</h3> - -<p>In the sense of the universal and eternal feminine -charm being exerted upon the primordial masculine, -love is always love at first sight. But the reason -that love at first sight becomes hate at second or -closer sight is just this inability of the man to play -the truly virile part. What has charmed him at first -sight no longer charms him simply because all charm -exerted upon him produces in him the autoerotic -mental reaction. Only the first sight should produce -that result. If the second look is not accompanied by -the desire to dominate and to explore the depths -of the soul behind that face, it is the look not of a -virile man but of an autoerotic boy. And the boy -goes on being charmed by the face; or stops being -charmed and is antagonized. She will antagonize<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> -him actively and positively, of course, if, in due -season, she does not sense in him the virile action. -With her hostility aroused by this unconscious sense -of his weakness felt by her, he is disgusted naturally -and looks for another face.</p> - -<p>The modern hologamous marriage is the creative -work of a virile man, a work that, as do all vital -things, needs constantly to be kept up. No overgrown -boy will be able to accomplish this virile work, -for being mostly brought up by women, he will not -know what <em>is</em> the real work of virile man in marriage.</p> - -<p>The marriages that run down, those in which the -egoistic-social or material impulses gain the ascendancy -over the erotic or spiritual impulses, are the -marriages of autoerotic boys, not of virile men.</p> - -<p>Psychic virility of the husband in the marital -relation is the only factor that can insure the permanence, -except superficially, of any marriage. “Love -is not love which alters when it alteration finds.”</p> - -<p>There should be alteration in love, but it should -be caused by the progressive development of the -husband’s love. This is the theory of relativity -applied in the erotic sphere. Love should not alter -when—that is, because—it finds alteration; but it -should make changes in the reactions of the wife, so -that each year finds the married lovers more completely -fused physically and spiritually than the year -before.</p> - -<p>From the woman’s point of view, she is invited by -marriage to a banquet, at which she may reasonably -expect to find a variety of comestibles all of adult -characteristics. If at this banquet she is served by -her husband only with milk or pap she is rightly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> -revolted, and will not eat. Milk alternating with -pap in successive courses of marital banquet would -be cruelty and adequate cause for separation, if their -exclusive presence could be attributed to the voluntarily -malevolent choice of the husband. But in -most cases it is merely his ignorance for which his -parents and teachers are the blameless cause.</p> - -<h3 id="section20">§ 20</h3> - -<p>Is there any clearer truth than that all autoerotic -practices in the marital union are unmanly? And -is there any statement more incontrovertible than -that the average husband who has not taken the -trouble to know and control his wife in the erotic -sphere is unequivocally autoerotic mentally?</p> - -<p>Can it be doubted that the average woman has -no possible means of knowing whether her suitor -will, after marriage, be an autoerotic boy or virile -man? Can we blame her if she is forced by our -crazy laws to make this a trial marriage, divorce -him if she can, and make another trial? Can we -blame anyone for taking food if she is starving and -call her act stealing? Not unless we have made it -perfectly plain to her how and where she may legitimately -obtain food. But we can blame the man, -for he is, he always has been, and he always will be -the provider of erotic power. A man has no right -to undertake the erotic support of any woman, and -then proceed to starve her and incontinently to -fatten himself upon her. Universally such a man -is scorned and always will be, except by women -whose erotic instincts have been overgrown and -overwhelmed by the egoistic-social impulses of conventionality.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> -These do not scorn a man who resorts -to prostitutes to feed his autoerotic appetites, or -who keeps mistresses or has other illicit liaisons for -the same purposes.</p> - -<p>The moment an anthropoid human realizes what -he is <em>getting</em> from the promiscuous relations, and -that he is autoerotically getting in a <em>puerile</em> way -instead of giving in a <em>virile</em> way, he takes no more -interest whatever in the promiscuous relation. The -reply to an obvious objection here is that if he -finds his wife lacking in passion it means he has -not learned to know his wife, and, if he thinks he -finds more passion in the extra-marital woman, he -is either deceiving himself or being deceived by her, -the extra-marital one; and that he is <em>sexually as -anesthetic to all women</em> as he fancies his wife to be -anesthetic to him.</p> - -<p>Unless she is a chronic invalid he has no justification -in thinking that passion is impossible between -them. He has not the knowledge of himself wherewith -to develop in himself enough virility to awaken -her erotic instincts. When once awakened these -will adequately satisfy him. If he has not aroused -them in his wife there is little chance that he will -arouse a real feeling in other women. If he cannot -consistently be satisfied with one woman and believes -that men are incurably polygamous, let him, -first, be sure to sound his wife’s erotism to the -bottom, and he will then need no other woman nor -fatuously imagine he wants another. This is the -surest cure for the polygamous-nature-of-man -delusion.</p> - -<p>The errant husband may think he roves in search -of a real woman. As husband he has a real woman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> -by his side; but, having a real woman as near to -him as he can bring himself to approach, he wanders -forth in search of an imaginary woman, who does -not exist in reality. There is no such thing as the -imaginary woman except in his mind. His virile -function is to make over this real woman at his -side according to the mental pattern he has of -woman as she should be, and within reasonable -limits he can do it, if he has the virile strength to -control his own emotions in her presence. If he -cannot do it in hers he cannot do it in another -woman’s, just because he has failed to do so in -his wife’s.</p> - -<p>The answer will of course be made that a man -may marry a shrew. To this the reply is that a shrew -like Katharine in Shakespeare’s play is a woman -who has not been taught to love as every wife should -be. A shrew is simply a woman not yet erotically -developed. It may, to be sure, take a more than -ordinarily ardent lover to develop such a woman, but -barring the exceedingly rare cases of women in whom -love is a physical impossibility, the shrewishness of -a woman is only a measure of the inadequacy of the -husband. Except for the sporadic freaks of nature -there is no such thing as an impossible woman.</p> - -<h3 id="section21">§ 21</h3> - -<p class="center"><i>Mutuality</i></p> - -<p>In the minds of young lovers no doubt exists -that their love should be mutual. The doubt comes -later in their married life that possibly some impediment -either existed in a latent state before they -were married and has developed since, so that they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> -ceased to be mutual; or, not previously existing, -was developed by some factor in their later married -life unforeseen in their earlier days and therefore -impossible to avoid.</p> - -<p>In the creation and maintenance of mutuality in -the early married life the young husband is the -only one concerned. If there is real mutuality -caused by a perfect response in his bride, he can -maintain it only if he knows how he has gained it. -If it was gained by merely instinctive actions on his -own part, and if he is impressed by the beauty of -the mystery, and repeats to himself how wonderful it -is, and how inexplicable to have so warm a response, -he will not have a good chance of continuing it. -He will have to do what he has not yet done. Consciously, -and purposefully, he will observe his wife’s -reactions during the entirety of the love episode; -that is, from the beginning of one quite through to -the beginning of the next one, not merely the period -of the highest level of erotic excitement.</p> - -<p>It is the privilege of woman to remain autoerotic -in her reactions. She may or may not rise to -allerotic action during her entire life. But man can -never succeed in the marital life if he remains autoerotic. -His first reactions to the marital situation -are necessarily autoerotic. He cannot avoid that. -His previous experience with women, if any, and -particularly with prostitutes, gives him at first little -if any opportunity to be with his wife other than -essentially autoerotic in his reactions. A man’s first -experience of a woman in an attempt at a love -episode is invariably a bath of absolutely new sensations, -a plunge into a sea of diverse stimuli, a -medium in which many men flounder for the remainder<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> -of their lives, gaining each time no more -than an uncoördinated congeries of external excitement -in which they act in no controlling manner. -Such men never mate a woman in the highest sense. -They only supply her with a child in the guise of -a husband. There is no mutuality between the surf -and the bather who is helplessly tossed about in -the breakers and is finally washed up on the shore -and left breathless by his contact with the countless -laughter of the sea.</p> - -<p>Mutuality in the love episode depends solely on -the husband’s ability to control the situation. There -is no real mutuality in a relation where the wife is -merely a dispenser of physical delights to a husband -that neither knows nor cares what he himself contributes -to the situation, who immerses himself -totally in his own sensations. He is deaf, blind -and otherwise anesthetic to what he himself can -accomplish in the line of studied and foreplanned -effects of his own, self-initiated (not merely instinctive -and automatic reflex) actions upon his -wife. True, there are many women who expect no -more of a man than just this automatic autoerotism. -But, sooner or later, even though unconsciously, -they perceive a lack of “some amorous rite or other” -and their own passion cools, if it has had any -warmth. There is no mutuality here.</p> - -<h3 id="section22">§ 22</h3> - -<p>Mutuality does not exist where the wife has no -alternative other than the autoerotic reaction of the -husband. But in spite of an unchanging autoerotic -disposition of the wife, mutuality may be absolutely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> -secured by the instructed husband. As indicated -below, the average honeymoon should see the beginning -of the end of mental autoerotic reactions -on the part of the groom.</p> - -<p>Even the groom that has had previous sex experience -is in his early marriage in an erotic situation -which is essentially new to him—a situation that -contains elements the like of which he never could -have experienced before. The inevitable novelty -of these new elements is a condition, on his part, of -perceiving all new sensations, practically of having -unprecedented things done to him.</p> - -<p>The things done to him are more numerous and -newer than anything in all his previous experience. -In this sense, then, he is by force of circumstances -placed upon an autoerotic level, from which it is his -imperative duty to ascend in order that by his -control of his own erotic reactions he may control -those of his wife. No apology is needed for an -initial autoerotic response on the newly wedded husband’s -part.</p> - -<p>It might be said that in the situation of bride and -groom each having things done to them by the -other, rather than positively doing things to each -other, there might be a situation of perfect mutuality. -But if it is, it never remains any longer than -the duration of a honeymoon, for the essential -femininity of the woman demands that in the erotic -sphere alone, she be led, and with no uncertain -guidance.</p> - -<p>The honeymoon ends automatically when this -point is reached; and the condition of true mutuality -in perfect marital relations ensues if the husband -has a virile love of his wife and takes the lead. If -his love is not virile, but merely autoerotic and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> -puerile, he never assumes this leadership, and his -wife becomes more and more unresponsive to him, -simply because the only type of activity to which -she can respond is an erotic virility, a true manliness -that contains the real essence of masculinity which -is the imperative necessity to control the entire -erotic life of one woman.</p> - -<h3 id="section23">§ 23</h3> - -<p>It should not be assumed that these remarks -about the honeymoon imply that all honeymoons or -even any of them are failures. The failures, if -such appear, are only apparent, and need not necessarily -be real; for their success is always within reach -of the husband who needs only knowledge and confidence. -His one aim is the proper response of his -wife, and that is his only needful success. If he -uses intelligence and acquires knowledge (and the -honeymoon is the source of his knowledge of the -extent of his wife’s inhibitions, negativisms and resistances) -his progress is limited only by the small -amount of his love. If he has love enough, which -includes a determination to win, he will succeed. -And it should be remembered that a woman’s consent -to marry is not her admission that she has -been won, but only her consent to let the man win -her thereafter, if he can.</p> - -<p>When this control is properly assumed by the -mentally and spiritually virile husband, real mutuality -begins in the marital life. The husband now -conquers his unavoidable initial autoerotic habit of -mind and thought, and at the same time becomes -a truly social being, realizing that by his own self-control -alone, in the love episode, which absolutely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> -assures his wife’s complete erotic affiliation with him, -he is securing the only kind of mutuality worthy of -the name.</p> - -<p>It is obvious that <em>this</em> mutuality is reciprocal in a -sense entirely different from any mutuality that -could be attributed to the relation during the honeymoon -stage. He knows now what erotically emotional -effects he can produce on his wife during the -love episodes, and exactly how he has produced -them. Beyond any doubt whatsoever, he also knows -from the most intimate experience that the production -of these effects is the only real mutuality.</p> - -<p>An effect, in the erotic sphere, produced in a husband -by a wife, is one from which all truly virile -men realize they gain only autoerotic pleasure. To -this effect they contribute themselves nothing. In -the end the wife gets nothing of the emotional -catharsis which is the <i lang="la">sine qua non</i> of true marital -living. In such circumstances the wife gives and -the husband receives, certainly a gross disgrace if -it be continued, a disgrace abhorred by all men. -There is no mutuality in such a gift which but -impoverishes the recipient.</p> - -<p>It thus appears that in the marital relation the -husband alone is the one rightly to be the giver. -And his gift impoverishes neither himself nor his -wife, the recipient, but paradoxically enriches both. -The husband rightly gives his time, his attention, -his love and thereby controls. But in order to do -this he has to control himself absolutely, so as not -to snatch away from both of them that of which -nature has designed him to be the donor.</p> - -<p>Mutuality requires the husband to be sure to get -something, but the thing he can get is the erotic -acme of his wife, and this is the only result that, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> -the spiritually and mentally virile husband, has any -value whatever. If, on the other hand, he takes -his own erotic relaxation without getting hers it is -merely a half gift which he forces, or persuades, her -to give him, and mutuality is out of the question.</p> - -<h3 id="section24">§ 24</h3> - -<p>The idea of compensation or barter or <i lang="la">quid pro -quo</i> must be rigidly excluded from the concept of -mutuality; for this measuring of the balance of -values of the actual physical performances or even -intellectual attainments rests for its validity on the -inevitable comparisons which are the basis of all -values for the egoistic-social activities. To the greatest -erotic success these comparisons are utterly -antagonistic. In the erotic sphere, as is later noted,<a name="FNanchor_11" id="FNanchor_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> -comparisons are not merely odious, but logically -impossible. There can be no balancing of giving -and taking.</p> - -<p>From one point of view, the husband cannot but -give all and receive nothing, at least of the character -of that which he gives. He gives an emotional -reaction to a woman, which no other man can -give.</p> - -<p>He cannot in return reproduce in himself the -emotional reaction of a woman. He cannot react -as a woman reacts, if he be a virile lover, for such -a reaction, though common enough in run-down -marriages, is not the emotional reaction of a man. -If his bisexuality leads him to approximate this -feminine reaction, he is to that extent himself feminine -and not masculine.</p> - -<p>One should not, however, ignore the fact that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> -both men and women are normally bisexual to a -slight extent, and to that degree woman will desire -to exercise some control in the erotic sphere, even -if it be only to create in her mate the most complete -erotic effects. Also, if a woman with a comparatively -large proportion of masculinity in her nature -be married to a man with an equal proportion of -femininity, a happy marriage may result, if no other -adverse elements enter.</p> - -<p>But in general it will be admitted that the husband -cannot rightly seek for himself the type of erotic -reaction which is proper and peculiar to his wife; -though it must be confessed that the suggestions -operative even in the average married love episode -are strongly that way. The husband hears the -ecstatic responses of his wife and her repeated inquiries -as to his own pleasurable sensations, and the -whole situation is such as to suggest to him that he -identify in every respect his own feelings with hers.</p> - -<p>But to do so is in no degree to make for true -mutuality. His own feelings should not be the -utter surrender and abandon to physical and mental -bliss which he sees so profoundly moving to his -partner. His feeling should be a pervading sense -of triumph and accomplishment, no less profound -for being embedded in sensual gratification. The -truth is that biologically the wife has no positive -accomplishment to perform in the love episode; for -the only accomplishment of which she is capable -is the utter dissolution, temporary though it be, of -the personality of her husband. If she succeeds, -she is in the position of one who, not knowing, should -try, by applying a match, to see whether or not -gunpowder is inflammable. It is, and she is carefully<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> -kept in ignorance of the fact, but plentifully supplied -with matches.</p> - -<p>If this quite easy accomplishment of the wife is -successfully performed, she has no husband left, at -least for a while, and the explosion has ruined her -own chance of happiness, until more explosive is -provided.</p> - -<p>The husband’s unequivocal task, therefore, which -alone assures his erotically supporting his wife is -rigidly to remain uninflammable until she, metaphorically -speaking, is in ashes herself. For this -scientific reduction of the modern wife, the modern -husband needs, for he rarely finds it instinctively, the -help of the present-day technique of love as taught -by the best erotologists.<a name="FNanchor_12" id="FNanchor_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> - -<p>This will enable him to avoid being consumed to -a condition where he is no longer able to produce -any effect at the very time when an effect is most -loudly clamored for by nature.</p> - -<p>The quick ignition of explosive powder produces -only a puff and a flash, but the wife desires no flashlight -of that type but a guiding star.</p> - -<p>True mutuality, therefore, cannot be present in -a couple where the husband does not reverse this -process and absolutely retain his own emotional -tension until her erotic acme has taken place. It -cannot be too often repeated that the only means of -securing the wife’s emotional catharsis in the acme of -the love episode is the husband’s remaining tense and -unrelaxed, avoiding his own emotional catharsis -until hers is, beyond the peradventure of a doubt, -secured.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p> - -<h3 id="section25">§ 25</h3> - -<p>An absolutely novel and unprecedented result -follows the successful accomplishment of this erotically -virile performance.<a name="FNanchor_13" id="FNanchor_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> The husband gains a -relaxation of all his tensions; the most important -of all, and the greatest, being that relaxation of his -caused by the total relaxation of his wife’s erotic -tension. A good part of his own tension is caused -by his knowledge of hers.</p> - -<p>The even unconscious knowledge that this has -not been accomplished is the little rift within the -lute of married life that increases until their relations -eventually become no longer sweet bells, but -jangled out of tune and harsh. No matter how -much intellectual congeniality there may be between -the married partners, which is a factor more egoistic-social -than erotic, this lack of unconscious rapport is -actually sensed, though not directly. With characteristically -human proclivity to rationalize (instead -of to know facts and to reason from them), husband -and wife begin to disagree upon points apparently -most remote from anything erotic, as for example -the position of pieces of furniture in the house, or -the thousand and one details of solely egoistic-social -import.</p> - -<p>This does not mean at all that they are not going -to have differences of opinion. On the contrary, -honest differences of opinion and taste are to be -acknowledged by each as proof of the other’s positiveness -of character; and the surprises caused in the -husband by the unexpected reactions of his wife to -all sorts of situations, chiefly egoistic-social ones, are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> -part of the variety which is the spice of marital -living.</p> - -<p>They congratulate themselves that their disagreements -and disputes do not concern really fundamental -things, though if they but knew it, there would be -now, as there once was (but they have forgotten), -no question raised about such matters simply because -such matters do not belong to the sphere of marital -erotism.</p> - -<p>Complete erotic mutuality based on the proper -“firing order” of the love emotions of husband and -wife, distinctly separates and keeps separate and -apart from the single erotic sphere, where the twain -are one flesh, their two individual spheres of their -separate egoistic-social impulses and activities. The -husband leaves unquestioned all of these activities -of his wife and vice versa.</p> - -<p>There thus emerges with increasing clearness the -prime importance of the distinction between erotic -and egoistic-social impulses and activities, and with -this distinction grows the unalterable conviction, -from every aspect of human values, of the unquestionable -superiority of the erotic sphere over the -egoistic-social spheres.</p> - -<p>It is a matter of scientific proof of the last few -years, too, that in the married relation this ascendancy -of the erotic over the egoistic-social sphere is -not only conducive to the greatest health, happiness -and longevity but also productive of the greatest -material success. The most successful men and -women, from every point of view from the material -to the spiritual, are the men who have secured, and -the women who have experienced, this truly human -erotic mutuality.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></p> - -<h3 id="section26">§ 26</h3> - -<p>It is the object of the present volume to point out -that the non-existence of the erotic acme in the wife -is an inexcusable condition, that can be remedied, -and that its substitution by the ability of the husband -to insure the acme in the wife as often as she desires -it is a condition of the true physical and spiritual -progress which should mark the present century.</p> - -<p>Nothing could seem further from the truly American -ideal of a good “sport” than that there should be -men who will take all and give nothing. No excuse -is accepted of men who enter a game, and, as soon as -they are in, become paralyzed and unable to do a -single thing except shout about their membership on -the team. But that is exactly what the average husband -does in his marriage. He marries mostly to -get something for nothing in sex life and he finds out -later that the something turns out to be nothing. -Who is to blame but himself?</p> - -<p>He makes innumerable excuses for his failure, -excuses sometimes handed out to him by physicians. -He is a man and men are known to be hasty in the -love episode. Civilized men always are and have -been. There is no help for it. Their wives must -make themselves content with the crumbs that fall -from the husband’s table. It is injurious for men to -change in any way or degree their instinctive reactions. -Postponement or doing without their own -erotic acme acts in such a way as to constitute a strain -on the man’s nervous system. All these false statements -have been made by different people at different -times.</p> - -<p>The necessary control on the man’s part is possible<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> -to attain, and once attained it is easy to maintain. -But it depends upon a fundamental rearrangement -of all values for the man such that the greatest value -for him is not in the pleasurable sensations that he -himself gets out of his relations with his wife but in -the gratifications, totally different in sense quality, -that come from the sense of triumph over resistances -that is experienced by him when he has for the -first time attained, or finally has secured, such control -over himself that he can thereby control the -emotional specifically erotic reactions of his wife.</p> - -<p>If a man’s deepest unconscious satisfactions came -from being emotionally controlled by a woman he -would never learn to control hers. The unconscious -satisfactions invariably are felt when control over -the woman’s erotic responses is held by the man.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless there is a level of unconscious reaction -causing feelings of gratification that even in -men come from being controlled. More will be said -about this later. Instinctively in many boys this control -is thrown off. They rebel against paternal -authority. They scorn being managed by girls. -They prefer to be themselves and act their own acts -and derive satisfaction from the effects of those acts -upon the persons or things of the external world.</p> - -<p>Yet the fact that all individuals of both sexes, -when infants and children, are dependent, and can -gain satisfaction and relaxations of tensions of desire -never by means of their own acts but only by means -of the acts of others, makes it quite evident that there -will be a tendency, stronger in some than in others, -to get in post-pubertal life their satisfactions via the -old route—the satisfactions that come from having<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> -things done to them and not from doing things for -other people and observing the results.</p> - -<p>There are two sources of satisfaction in every -human, the infantile one which may be called passive -and the adult male which may be called the active -source or the source of satisfaction from the effects -of one’s own action.</p> - -<h3 id="section27">§ 27</h3> - -<p>It is not to be overlooked that the satisfaction -derived from the effect of one’s own action may be -due to an unconscious magnifying of these effects. -Those who have a slight degree of discriminative -ability will think that their acts and the results of -their acts are fine, whether they are or not, and may -remain in the same illusion throughout their lives. -They may never become disillusioned. I may continue -to believe that the effects produced on my -readers are deep and far-reaching whether they are -or not. But if I were content to read books and -listen to lectures and felt no desire to write and to -influence others or to persuade them to see things -as I see them I should derive all my satisfactions via -the route of passive experiences.</p> - -<p>There is a fundamental difference, then, between -the essentially masculine and the essentially feminine -type of character, according as the individual gets -his satisfactions—the relaxations of his tensions of -desire—via the route of feelings caused in him by -the action of others or via the route of feelings -caused in him by the true and illusionless perception -that he has produced effects in other persons or in -other things.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p> - -<p>The rearrangement of values is the transition -from a frame of mind in which the satisfactions are -via the “passive” route to those via the active route. -This rearrangement need never, for any biological -reason, take place in a woman who is properly mated. -If she be married but not mated by a male individual -who has not made the above-mentioned transition, -she will herself tend toward getting her satisfaction -via the “active” or “male” route. In other words, -rather than have nothing, she deludes herself into -thinking she has something by getting a cheapened -substitute, by becoming husband to her husband, who -in turn becomes wife.</p> - -<p>No man can be said to be successful as a husband -who has not made this transition. No man is exempt -from the necessity of the transition from this type -of physical autoerotism to allerotism, simply because -he was once an infant, and until he makes this -transition he is, no matter what his age in years, still -an infant. It has been undeniably proved by psychoanalysis -and experienced by people in innumerable -forms that no woman can be dominated by an infantile -man.</p> - -<p>Therefore every man is either the one or the -other; either an adult man or an infantile man. He -can by taking thought, and after reading books like -the present, learn to which class he belongs. If he -belongs in the infantile class he has been dominated -by the “mother imago” or “angel imago,”<a name="FNanchor_14" id="FNanchor_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> and if -this be a fixation it will require a deep analysis by an -expert before he can come to a realization of his true -status; but it is unlikely that nine out of ten who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> -read this book will require more than the advice -offered in the following chapters. Or it will require -a good orientation and suggestive treatment from a -well equipped erotologist.</p> - -<p>No wife can be a thoroughly happy one whose -husband is in the infantile class, and who thus needs -her “playmate.” (See <a href="#section12">§ 12</a>.) Such women are -truly in a tragic situation. The infantile (autoerotic) -behaviour of such a man in the fragmentary -(never complete) love episodes leaves the woman -nervous, “on edge,” with an unconscious conflict -in her psyche that tends to undermine her health, -and to make her an insuperable mystery to her husband, -who himself suffers through his own ignorance. -He knows, if he knows anything, only that -something is amiss, but blinded by his own egotism -can never believe that the cause lies solely in him, no -matter how blameless he may be, from one point of -view, on account of his ignorance.</p> - -<h3 id="section28">§ 28</h3> - -<p>To return then to the proposition with which we -started: If the man believes that the woman can by -her action evoke his erotic acme, she can. He should -know and believe that she cannot; unless he knows -she is going to arrive at her erotic acme at the same -time he does. But no man can ever be absolutely -sure of that, particularly if his egoistic-social impulses -are inordinately active and she has few if any -such activities, comparatively, and more leisure to -follow erotic impulses.</p> - -<p>The autoerotic condition in a man is the cause of -his haste in the love episode, as his attention is so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> -primarily centered on his own sensations that he excludes -the possibility of his observation of his wife’s -reactions in the most intimate of marital relations. -If the husband is hasty, he is <i lang="la">ipso facto</i> mentally -autoerotic. His haste is caused by his mental autoerotism. -In blunt language he loves himself more -than his wife. He may love the results she produces -in his feelings. What he needs is to learn how to -love more, to be more passionate, to go deeper into -the nature of erotism, into the study of the woman, -his wife, and her individuality, particularly her -unconscious reactions to him.</p> - -<p>The thought, “I can control the most elusive -thing in the universe—a woman’s erotism,” is the -most triumphant thought that can occur to a man, -except possibly the thought, “And I know how to -continue to control it.” It is almost equivalent and -is analogous in many respects to an ability to overcome -gravitation and propel oneself at will through -the air at any desired speed.</p> - -<h3 id="section29">§ 29</h3> - -<p>In this connection it must be emphasized that control -of the erotic situation by the husband is absolutely -and unequivocally mental.</p> - -<p>In order also to give due weight to the reply to an -objection that might be made here, two new terms -will be proposed. The objection is that the distinction -between mental and physical is purely arbitrary, -so it is futile to say that the control is exclusively -mental, because the exclusively mental does not exist. -Mind, apart from body, is non-existent.</p> - -<p>The answer: All phenomena into which a so-called<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> -mental element enters can be graded into what would -be called without objection on the part of anyone, -more mental or less mental, meaning, of course, consciously -mental. Thus digestion is less mental than -phantasying or day-dreaming, and some emotions -might be called less mental than others.</p> - -<p>But because we are required by everything that we -know about the mind-body combination, to suppose -that no so-called purely mental state is without its -physical substratum without which it would not exist, -and because no physiological process is totally outside -of all causal connection with the mind, we are -justified in saying that mind is more highly organized -body, and body less highly organized mind.</p> - -<p>Regarding then any human phenomenon as conditioned -by both mental and physical causes we can -remove the difficulty, and at the same time the objection -that is being answered here, by adopting three -Greek words and coining two new English words -from them.</p> - -<p><em>Soma</em> is the Greek for <em>body</em>; <em>hyper</em> for <em>upper</em>, or -<em>above</em>; and <em>hypo</em> for <em>under</em> or <em>below</em>. So we may call -the ordinary physiological movements and processes -<em>hyposomatic</em> or a lower form of action of the mind-body -combination. Similarly we may use the name -<em>hypersomatic</em> for the various degrees of mentality. -From the point of view of this book all human action -is somatic. Some of it such as digestion, glandular -secretion, is hyposomatic or at one end of a series of -degrees of complexity. Some human action is hypersomatic, -such as remembering. Some of the human -phenomena, like emotions, partake of both ends of -the series in apparently more or less equal proportions.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p> - -<h3 id="section30">§ 30</h3> - -<p>To return, then, after this digression, to the statement -that control is entirely mental: By this, of -course, is meant control according to a hypersomatic -pattern. There is no control without a pattern. -One never is said to control one’s actions unless he -has an idea according to which he is going to act. -Otherwise his actions are automatic—not controlled.</p> - -<p>The immediate connection of this with our present -argument is this then (an argument that runs right -along with the ideas of autosuggestion): any man -can do what any man has done, if he has the same -hypersomatic pattern according to which his actions -are carried out.</p> - -<p>An obvious objection will at once be made, but it -is only an apparent one. Many men will say they -know they are physically weak, or weak-willed, are -lacking in control. They know it because they have -<em>never</em> controlled their love emotions, and have <em>little</em> -control over any of their emotions.</p> - -<p>To that excuse, the answer is: just because you -have not is no proof that you cannot. If that were -the case no progress would ever have been made -by humanity.</p> - -<p>That you have not controlled yourself is proof -only that you have not yet vividly imagined a pattern -according to which your actions might be carried -out. The only hypersomatic pattern existing in your -personality is that according to which you are now -acting.</p> - -<p>Countless biographies of men, great and less great, -demonstrate that there have been revolutionary, -cataclysmic changes in their actions resulting from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> -alterations in the patterns, i.e., changes in the hypersomatic -end of their personality.</p> - -<p>The man who says he cannot change his actions -is simply saying he cannot change his ideas. That -would be somewhat analogous to saying he cannot -learn a foreign language. But we know that everyone -going to a foreign country and being environed -month after month by a foreign language <em>will</em> learn -to speak it, whether he tries or not. How easily and -quickly he does is a matter only of his hypersomatic -elasticity. Some are more elastic than others, but -almost anyone who can walk can learn to change his -hypersomatic patterns, can in other words become -conscious of a new hypersomatic pattern, see its -superiority to an old one, and regulate and control -his actions accordingly.</p> - -<h3 id="section31">§ 31</h3> - -<p>Psychoanalysis has among other striking paradoxes -this one most applicable here. The person -who says he cannot do a thing is consciously saying, -“I cannot,” but unconsciously saying, “I do not -wish to.”</p> - -<p>Any reply that can be made by any man who says -he cannot learn to control his own erotic emotions -and therefore is unable to control his wife’s is -excusing himself, on the ground that he will not be -censured by others if he is really unable. He may -be laughed at, or commiserated for his incapacities, -but he cannot, so he thinks, be held responsible for -them.</p> - -<p>But if there is one important and valuable advance -made by modern psychology it is that the unconscious,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> -which says, “I do not wish to,” causing the -conscious man to say, “I cannot”—this unconscious -can be trained, reëducated, reshaped, repatterned. -It may take more than a month. The final emergence -of action, based on the re-patterned unconscious, may -be sudden. But it can be done.</p> - -<p>Those who say, “I cannot do it” are in their ignorance -simply saying, “I do not wish to do it.”</p> - -<p>They would wish to do it if they had in their -minds—in the hypersomatic portion of their personalities—an -adequately vivid picture of exactly what -it is desired to do.</p> - -<p>It would be impossible to put into a book a detailed -pattern of marital behaviour on the part of -husbands, particularly hyposomatic details. But it -is hoped that the book will give as clear an exposition -of the hypersomatic lineaments of the marital pattern -as will be required to make any man that reads -it at least willing to change his own love pattern for -one that has in it infinitely more satisfaction and -triumph, containing as it does the only means -whereby a single demi-human atom may completely -unite with another and form an entirely new whole.</p> - -<h3 id="section32">§ 32</h3> - -<p>As far as records are available there is no reason -to suppose that the champion shot-putter, prize-fighter, -or longshoreman is any more <em>able</em> to evoke -in his wife the climax of erotic ecstasy than is the -rather flat-chested, spectacled college professor, -the department store head, the banker, or any other -member of the so-called sedentary professions.</p> - -<p>The latter class of people have unduly and illogically<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> -overvalued the hyposomatic end of the scale. -Woman can be courted and married (and thereafter -won!) by men whose strength is hypersomatic just -as well as by those whose strength is hyposomatic. -But so far as the physical or hyposomatic side of the -marital relation is concerned, there may be a difference -between the pugilist and the college professor -in the amount of egoistic-social development in comparison -with the amount of erotic development in -his past history.</p> - -<p>After reading this chapter many people may feel -disappointed and say: “You have not told me -how I can insure my erotic self-control (or my -husband’s).”</p> - -<p>I will anticipate somewhat by saying that the -affirmation “I know I can control,” if repeated -enough times a day with sufficient conviction would -undoubtedly help. If to this were added, “I know -I love my wife better than I do myself,” it would -also be a step in the right direction.</p> - -<p>But for the material of the pattern on which is -based the conviction of the truth of man’s ability -to control himself, I shall have to refer the reader to -the later chapters in the book.</p> - -<p>At first all I can hope to do is to convince some of -the men who read this book that they belong to the -infant class of husbands. If the men whose wives -are discontented or whose sweethearts are slow in -promising, can read and realize that the whole situation -is psychic or mental (hypersomatic) rather -than physical or economic (hyposomatic), they will -see that from one point of view their victory over -themselves, and incidentally over others, is the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> -easiest thing in the world, far easier than to lift a -weight or change the colour of a leaf on a tree.</p> - -<p>For the control recommended in this book no new -muscles or nerves have to be supplied, nor do any -actual muscles or ligaments or tendons have to be -exercised or otherwise strengthened. It would -be hard to go through a daily dozen or (gross) of -calisthenic exercises and still harder, indeed impossible, -to make hair grow (or not grow) where it did -not (or did) before. But the procedure to be recommended -in this book is more like opening one’s eyes, -and seeing that a vehicle is bearing down upon one -(or about to leave without one), than it is like walking -in an ethical treadmill and satisfying a sense of -duty by monotonous repetition of behaviour enforced -from without.</p> - -<p>For the control advocated here nothing is needed -but a new picture of love, uncorrupted by the ignorance -of traditional lore and superstition. What is -needed is more creative imagination in married life, -not spoiled by cynicism or emasculated by fatalism. -Control can be secured!</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III<br /> -<span class="smaller">EMOTIONS</span></h2> - -<h3 id="section33">§ 33</h3> - -<p>Emotions, including moods and many nameless -feelings, are some of the innate organic sensations -evoked in our bodies by sensations that are not -organic. In other words, they form a part of the -internal sensations, which so far as generally named -are originally associated with external sensations.</p> - -<p>Frink remarks that “the emotion, from the point -of view of physiology, <em>is</em> these various preparatory -changes in the content of the blood, in the innervation -of the various muscles, endocrine glands and -other viscera. The emotion, from the point of view -of psychology, is the afferent, sensory report of these -changes.” And William James’ classical statement is -as follows: “Bodily changes follow directly the perception -of the exciting fact, and our feeling of the -same changes as they occur <em>is</em> the emotion.... The -more rational statement is that we feel sorry because -we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we -tremble, and not that we cry, strike or tremble, because -we are sorry, angry or fearful, as the case -may be.”</p> - -<p>While most emotions of the simple type, like surprise, -admiration, joy and others are in infancy and -childhood originally, though not innately associated -with certain definite sensations from the outer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> -world, they are frequently reassociated by experience -through the influence of the environment, so that, in -later life, one enjoys or detests quite the opposite -of what caused instinctive attraction or repulsion in -early life.</p> - -<p>The complex emotions of love, jealousy and hate -are not, in their greatest complexity, existent in -humans before puberty, although the unsynthetized -elements out of which they are finally composed are -present in childhood, particularly hate. This, according -to psychoanalysis, is a more archaic emotion -than love and is not its direct opposite. It is -likely that human emotions are progressing from a -dominant hatred toward a reigning love.</p> - -<p>Love in its fully synthetic and complicated form -is not only impossible in children, but its higher -types, spoken of in this book as <em>erotic</em>, occur at their -best in those more intricately complicated personalities -that are the peculiar product of modern -civilization.</p> - -<p>The expression of erotic emotion does not involve -activity on the man’s part solely, and absolute passivity -on the woman’s. Passion and passive are -etymologically the same word, but the natural inferences -from this are erroneous. It happened that -emotions were called passions by some old Roman -pseudo-philosopher who was translating Stoic doctrines -and used “passions” to translate <i>patheia</i>, -which, in Greek, means “sufferings.” The Stoics believed -that emotions were sufferings inflicted on men -by Fate. Their great discovery was that men could -conquer them by training (<i>askesis</i>). Hence comes -“asceticism”: the training by which a man might free -himself from the suffering which was caused by feeling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> -anything. Now we are beginning to realize that -there are emotions that <em>ought</em> to be felt, and repeatedly—emotions -that are as necessary to the -growth of the soul as food is to the growth of the -body. Asceticism (training), therefore, of the future -will be a training in the emotions of love.</p> - -<h3 id="section34">§ 34</h3> - -<p>Women are said to be more emotional than men. -In the sense that their actions are guided by their -emotions more than by the verbal processes of logical -reasoning this may be true. For there is a type -of mental process that may be called logical in which -verbal consistency is sought and with little difficulty -maintained. But as words are only counters, symbols -or representatives of things and are used in -only a part of all the thinking, conscious and unconscious, -that goes on in the mind continuously day -and night, a term is needed with which to describe -the wordless thought-processes that are quite as important -causes of action as are the verbal processes; -and to these has been given the term psychological.</p> - -<p>Emotions are for the most part indescribable, not -to be adequately represented by words, and are -therefore to be regarded as psychological processes -tendency to subject their mental processes to verbal -thought or reasoning.</p> - -<p>Men are characterized more than women by a -tendency to subject their mental processes to verbal -control, while women utter many words in the vain -attempt to give verbal expression to their feelings. -In men on the average words have more weight in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> -the determination of action; in women feelings or -emotions.</p> - -<h3 id="section35">§ 35</h3> - -<p>In the sense, however, that women perceive with -greater clearness and intensity the internal organic -sensations (or emotions) it is not true that women -are more emotional than men. Unconsciously, -“down deep in their hearts” the members of one sex -are as emotional as those of the other. Men have -as many and as powerful emotions as women, but -have controlled some emotions more than women -have, by annihilating or attempting to annihilate, -them by means of repression. But women too have -been forced to repress certain other emotions, notably -the erotic.</p> - -<h3 id="section36">§ 36</h3> - -<p>The most vital emotion is the erotic. I hope I -shall not be misunderstood in my use of the term -“erotic.” I place it above all the other emotions in -dignity and complexity. It is sex plus love and more -than that. “All the wonder and wealth of the mine -in the heart of one gem.” All the dynamics of the -ages in the force of one feeling. It is the physical -plus the spiritual, the combination of bodily and -psychical, the paradox that makes the individual’s -greatest personal happiness consist in his feeling the -happiness of another person of the opposite sex, -the spiritual force that vitalizes and sublimates every -physical thing it touches, the psychical that completely -evaporates, if not supported by the most -physical, an emotion that, unlike any other emotion,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> -comes from the experience not of other <em>things</em> but -of another’s <em>emotions</em>, the only emotion that -responds pleasurably to <em>every</em> manifestation of bodily -and spiritual activity of the member of the other -sex. Erotism is the most nearly perfect type of -conjugal love.</p> - -<h3 id="section37">§ 37</h3> - -<p>“After she has had sexual experiences,” Kisch -maintains, “a woman’s sexual emotions are just as -powerful as man’s, though she has more motives -than a man for controlling them.” (Ellis, <cite>Psychology -of Sex</cite>, Vol. III, p. 202.)</p> - -<p>Her motives for controlling them, which here -means annihilating them or repressing them, are -egoistic-social ones (see <a href="#section43">§ 43</a>) just as man’s; but in -man-made society these motives are stronger in the -woman than in the man, because man has placed more -repression on her sex impulses than on his own.</p> - -<p>In placing more repression on hers than on his, -he has not, however, given anywhere near a full -expression to his own erotic instincts. Because of -the dominance of egoistic-social impulses in modern -civilization his erotism does not permit the expression -of such fundamental strata of his unconscious -as are stirred in woman, whose more flexible erotism -is aroused to a pitch that he finds it difficult because -of his egoistic-social interests to ascend.</p> - -<p>As is maintained steadfastly in this book, he -has repressed his own, but hers still more. In so -doing he has lowered the moral, spiritual and psychical -status of marriage, which should, if they two -are to become one flesh, accept the entire body as -well as the whole soul each of the other. In repressing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> -what he has deemed the physical side of love -man has put on himself a quite unnecessary burden. -With the natural desire to control, which constitutes -masculinity, he has, in his thinking, blunderingly -made annihilation an equivalent of control.</p> - -<p>This placing of more repression on her erotism -than on his is due to the fact that his own is so -quickly satisfied in comparison with hers. He acts -en masse as if it would take so much of his time, -now devoted to egoistic-social ends, to equal, in -erotic expression, her greater capabilities.</p> - -<h3 id="section38">§ 38</h3> - -<p>The most striking fact of most emotions, except -those of love, is the facility with which they are -reassociated with ideas different from those with -which they first occurred.</p> - -<p>The love emotions appear to be the least easily -transferred, as indeed they are the least easily -stirred to their depths. This is said advisedly on -the well grounded observation that most people who -say they love do not love fully, and deeply. The -more deeply they love, the more their passion instills -itself into every fibre of their being and the more -slowly they are able to change their love object.</p> - -<p>But ordinary emotions, other than the erotic, are -readily and almost universally shifted from one object -to another. Indeed, it may be asserted that -there is no innate content of any of the emotions -except love. Love innately requires an object of -the opposite sex.</p> - -<p>To illustrate the reassociability of the other emotions -it is necessary only to recall what things one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> -has liked or feared years ago and compare them -with the present likes or fears.</p> - -<p>And it would be enough to take fear itself as an -illustration of the variability of its content. When -fear becomes fixed in a phobia, it is extraordinary -how irrational the association is, viewed from any -logical standpoint. A woman fears mice or snakes, -although she has never been injured by either, or -beetles, although possibly she has never touched one. -Or she fears to cross an open square, and nearly -faints if she has to do so alone, although there is -not a chance in ten thousand that any harm would -come to her. An association of an emotion so profound -as fear with some chance place or occurrence -is ample proof that the emotions themselves have no -essential connection with any external object. The -absence of fear in some persons under circumstances -where people generally would be afraid also demonstrates -the ready dissociation of emotions from particular -experiences. One can learn to like or to -dislike almost anything.</p> - -<p>To a certain extent this is true of love but far -less so if we restrict the use of the term “love” to its -more ideal phases. When we speak of “Off with the -old love and on with the new,” it will be conceded -that we speak not of true love but of a very shallow -interest.</p> - -<h3 id="section39">§ 39</h3> - -<p>A young woman, Miss F., married a man who -made an ideal lover and to whom she responded passionately; -but yet she was not happy with him. She -had in reality fallen in love more or less unconsciously -with a previous suitor. She frankly told<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> -her husband she could not love him fully, divorced -him and subsequently married her first lover.</p> - -<p>One might say that, if the reassociation of love -emotions were as easy as that of most other emotions -the young woman might have learned to love -her husband. She evidently tried to do so, but she -made the mistake, made by many uninstructed young -women, of going against her better judgment in -marrying the man she did. Her first lover was not -in a financial condition to marry. She wanted to -marry, and took the first available man. So, as in -many cases, the fear of not getting married at all -forced her to take a man whom she did not love -<em>enough</em>. She must have been more or less conscious -of this all the time. She made, however, a definite -attempt to reassociate her love emotions. She was -not able to do it. Her husband, although he is -described as an ideal lover, was not able to arouse -her full passion.</p> - -<h3 id="section40">§ 40</h3> - -<p>Then there is the case of Mrs. G., who married -the prominent Dr. G. practically on a wager. She -did not love him, but in a spirit of bravado declared -to a girl friend that she could make him marry her. -Not himself being in absolute control of his own -erotism, he succumbed to her charm. Not knowing -also the part a husband is required to play in the -marital life in order to make it a success, he did not -make her love him, did not evoke in her the responses -which make a woman the object of a man’s deepest -passion. So, as in a great many marriages, he did -not really love her, and she divorced him after a -few years.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></p> - -<p>Both women were unfortunate in their choice of -a man. The resultant divorces could have been -obviated by the knowledge neither man had. But -this is the history of most divorces where the couples -have come to grief on obstacles considered to be -erotic.</p> - -<p>Neither of these women clearly distinguished between -egoistic-social and erotic motives because -neither of them had had erotic experiences, and in -their marriages they failed also to get the highest -type of erotic experience.</p> - -<h3 id="section41">§ 41</h3> - -<p>But it is impossible for any woman to know what -sort of erotic life will be hers with any man whom -she consents to marry. At present every marriage -is a trial marriage for a woman, and for the uninstructed -man as well. Only the marriage composed -of a woman and a fully prepared man can be said -to have any reasonable assurance of being permanent.</p> - -<p>The other emotions than love are readily transferred -from one object to another. Love is not -easily transferred as, primarily, it has only one object, -the human of the opposite sex, and where the -love in question is the elaborately developed love, -that has its roots deep in the erotic soil of the unconscious -of both partners, which it invariably has, -if the husband knows how to control himself, the -transfer is more like the transplanting of a huge -tree.</p> - -<p>It all depends on the unconscious depth of the -love whether it can be transferred or not, or how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> -long it may take. From this the corollary is that -the so-called love that is fickle is not worthy of the -name. Fickleness in a woman shows lack of skill -in the man. Fickleness in the man shows him to be -not a man but an autoerotically minded boy.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV<br /> -<span class="smaller">INSTINCTS</span></h2> - -<h3 id="section42">§ 42</h3> - -<p>In a consideration of the essential factors in a happy -marriage we are dealing primarily with the most -fundamental of the instincts. For all practical purposes -it is sufficient to distinguish broadly the two -main groups of instincts that are associated with -the ideas of love and of ego.</p> - -<p>In popular language we are inclined to say that -whatever one does without conscious forethought -is instinctive, yet on further consideration it appears -that unplanned, impulsive acts or groups of acts -may, according to one’s bringing up, be habitual acts. -These are acquired, not innate acts, and yet as soon -as any mode of behaviour becomes habitual or automatic, -the acts constituting it, occurring without -forethought or conscious control, are as unpremeditated -as is any instinctive act. One needs, then, to -be careful not to consider as instinctive what is -merely habitual.</p> - -<p>Habits, because they are imposed upon the mind -and body from without, and therefore are not innate -and original, may be more easily changed than -instincts. Yet it is quite evident that man has to -control his instincts as well as to form habits. In -spite of the greater difficulty of changing the acts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> -which gratify the instinctive desires, this change can -be made.</p> - -<p>Asceticism and abstinence both prove that the -sex instincts can be given a different expression, and -that a permanent, if not always deep, mental satisfaction -can come from the formation of ascetic -habits. But the effect of these, however spectacular -it may be in the accomplishment of egoistic or social -ends, is always a bad one on the body.</p> - -<p>Indeed, this bad effect on the body was even desired -by the early religious ascetics who thought that -by mortifying the flesh (making the body as dead -as possible), they could immortalize the soul or -mind; a view which modern science has shown to -be erroneous, dependent as it is on merely verbal -reasoning.</p> - -<h3 id="section43">§ 43</h3> - -<p>The instincts whose gratifications are sought primarily -in the physical satisfactions of food, clothing -and shelter, and secondarily in all other forms of -self-magnification, by means of which the individual -may take precedence over other individuals, such as -wealth and social position, or distinction of any kind, -are called in this book <em>egoistic-social instincts</em>.</p> - -<p>The egoistic-social impulses are measured by the -so-called “intelligence tests.” They test that quality -by which a person through shrewdness and acuteness -of perception of external relations facilitates -his passing ahead of others, always considered as -his rivals. Persons with the highest intelligence are -likely to subordinate their emotions to the intellect, -and to reduce them to a gentle glow experienced -while performing complicated and long sustained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> -mental work. Such people look down on emotional -people as being less intelligent than they.</p> - -<h3 id="section44">§ 44</h3> - -<p>The direct expression of the egoistic-social impulse -is the inevitable comparison made by himself between -the individual and others. He compares himself -unconsciously, if not consciously, with other men -in health, strength, wealth, position, and in every -other respect; and whether he voices these comparisons -to himself or not, he unwittingly acts in accordance -with them.</p> - -<p>He compares himself with women too. It may -safely be said that while there is no possibility of -avoiding comparison with members of the same sex, -a comparison of oneself with a member of the other -sex is the one comparison that ought to be avoided, -particularly when sex relations themselves are in -question.</p> - -<p>By this is meant that if a man compares his wealth -with a woman’s he can say either that she has inherited -the wealth of another man or, if she has -made it herself, which is a comparatively rare instance, -though growing less so each day, that she -has done so simply by competing with men in egoistic-social -activities. A man generally avoids this -comparison if he thinks at all.</p> - -<p>Children quarrel on egoistic lines regardless of -sex. Comparisons thus begin at an age before the -erotism in the complete and synthetized state is -possible.</p> - -<p>A woman, too, apparently makes a comparison -between herself and different men, notably her husband.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> -And women make the same comparisons between -themselves and other women, but, it will be -admitted, with greater emotional discomforts.</p> - -<p>In all these comparisons so far mentioned the -standard of comparison is an egoistic-social one. -But in the erotic sphere not only are comparisons -logically impossible, but, where attempts at them -are made, there is a lamentable confusion of thought -consisting of a rapid shift from one sphere to -another. Thus if a man should say to himself, -“Woman is more (or less) capable of love than -men,” he would be using terms with no sense. For -he would mean that woman is more fond of being -controlled in her erotic impulses than man is. This -is a comparison without sense; because woman, with -every fibre of her being, craves to be erotically controlled, -while man has no instinctive desire whatever -to be controlled. Such a comparison would be as -senseless as comparing infinity with zero.</p> - -<p>If on the other hand a man should say to himself -that woman is more (or less) capable of love than -man, he would mean that woman is more desirous -of being controlled in the erotic sphere than man is -of controlling her. As the fact is that man, innately, -is infinitely desirous of controlling and woman is endlessly -desirous of being controlled, such a comparison -would be as senseless as comparing one infinity -with another.</p> - -<p>This second useless comparison may be objected -to by the people who accept a current opinion that -men are more “passionate” than women. This, they -believe, is the real cause of the double standard of -sexual morality. But all women are potentially, and -so are all men, absolutely under the dominance of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> -the erotic motive, and the only difference between -men and women is the degree of repression of its -outward manifestation, a degree entirely dependent -on the circumstances of their upbringing.</p> - -<p>If we keep clearly in mind from the outset the -inevitability of comparisons between individuals, -men or women, in the egoistic-social sphere (a sphere -consisting mainly of comparisons) and the utter -absurdity of comparisons in the erotic sphere, we -shall gain much clarity of thought and subsequently -much peace of mind.</p> - -<p>Does one woman want, more than another, to be -controlled erotically? If she seems to, or says so -in clearer words or actions than does another -woman, she only happens to be more able to express -herself in this way than other women are. Does one -man more than another want to control a woman in -the erotic sphere? If so, he only happens to have -had such experiences that have given him greater -erotic insight than the other.</p> - -<p>The men who admit that they find money-getting -and all that it implies more interesting than making -love are only admitting that they have allowed the -egoistic-social motives to grow stronger with them -than the erotic motives. They are not stating any -absolute truth about themselves. They are merely -saying that they do not know the truth about themselves, -and we listen to them without contradiction -for we know that, when they talk about making -love, they do not know what we mean by these -words. They think that we mean wasting time or -wasting substance in riotous living.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p> - -<h3 id="section45">§ 45</h3> - -<p>The egoistic-social impulses are always developed -in children by their environment earlier than their -erotic impulses can manifest themselves, except in a -fragmentary and unsynthetized manner.</p> - -<p>This is somewhat analogous to the situation of -the plants that “time the explosions” of pollen maturity -so as to secure cross-fertilization.</p> - -<p>The child has no opportunity to synthetize his -erotic impulses which become unified under the leadership -of the reproductive organs at the time of -puberty.</p> - -<p>This separation of egoistic-social and erotic impulse -development may have been Nature’s way of -securing an excessive egoistic-social development, -just as she secures maximum growth of the individual -body about the time of puberty. It is obvious -that where the struggle against the forces of nature -is a keen one, as was the case ages ago before man -had begun to coöperate and really to form the basis -of social living, any development of the erotic impulse -above the bare needs of propagation would -have been impossible.</p> - -<p>So it may be supposed that a high degree of development -of the egoistic-social impulse was evolved -out of the adverse conditions of the physical environment -of the prehistoric man.</p> - -<p>But today the intensity of this struggle against -the forces of nature which developed the egoistic-social -instinct is far less than ever before. And the -fact that it is now comparatively so slight makes it -evident that the original need for this excessive -egoistic-social development has passed.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span></p> - -<p>In this development the free expression of the -erotic impulse was necessarily checked. One can see -this process of inhibition of the erotic going on in -present-day savage tribes who are still on the way -from an uncivilized to a civilized condition. The sex -activity of the individual is even in them restricted -more or less to comply with the demands of the social -unit.</p> - -<p>It would seem that the expression of the erotic -impulse would be freer and freer as we approached -the ultimate goal of civilization. In uncivilized man, -love in the sense used in this book has no existence, -but sporadic instances of it appear among civilized -peoples.</p> - -<p>But the ascendancy gained, in early human life -on the earth, over the erotic, by the egoistic-social -instincts is now so great, on account of the comparative -modernness of the higher type of erotic impulses, -that even yet the latter are as young seedlings of -some exotic plant in a forest of enormous trees.</p> - -<p>And specifically a conscious ideal is needed on -every man’s part, to overcome the undue prevalence -of mere competition and create anew a civilization -based not solely as the present one is on the egoistic-social -instinct but on the erotic instinct.</p> - -<p>Lest this be misunderstood as advocating an unlimited -number of offspring, it should be emphasized -that the modern erotic impulse is one leading toward -love expression entirely apart from the desire to -procreate.</p> - -<p>How animal-like (we may for example think in -1950) it was in the year 1923 for people to consider -it wrong to go through a love episode—even -married people—except when they wished a child<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> -to be conceived! Why should the erotic experiences -in those days have been left to the roué and the -prostitute? “What could have been meant by married -love?” they will say.</p> - -<p>Now that an increased sense of responsibility has -been developed in women, placed on them thoughtfully -and purposefully by men, all men are able to -find by actual experiment the women whom they -wish for mothers of their children, and women, too, -are sure beforehand, both that they want their children -and that they desire those particular men for -the fathers of their children.</p> - -<h3 id="section46">§ 46</h3> - -<p>The fundamental characteristic of the erotic -instinct is its recognition of the necessity of heterosexual -physical and mental companionship. This -belongs to both sexes equally, although men’s clubs, -women’s clubs and the other occasional separations -of the sexes exist—caused by the overpowering influence -of egoistic-social impulses.</p> - -<p>If a man cannot see anything in a woman but a -child or a fool, he has no rational excuse for seeking -her company. He might as well have a dog’s. -Those who see no more than that are themselves -either children or fools. In such cases the real -love instinct has been so overcast with prejudice or -tradition that it cannot function as it should. Such -a man is judging women by the egoistic-social standard -and his statement means no more than that in -his experience he has met more unintelligent than -intelligent women. Or it means that he himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> -lacks that degree of intelligence which alone is able -to evoke the intelligent reaction in another.</p> - -<p>The proper functioning of the true love instinct -is seen only in the ineluctable conviction that man -and woman are complementary, and that the union -of one man and one woman composes the real individual, -the social unit. Man alone, or woman alone, -is only demi-human.</p> - -<p>Plato’s fable in the <cite>Symposium</cite>, much quoted recently, -relates how humans were supposed to be -duplex—two heads, two sets of arms and legs, a -huge double-size body. Fearing the power of such -humans, the gods cut them in two, one half of each -binary human forming a man, the other half a -woman. After that time the parts were so absorbed -in trying to unite, that the gods were no longer -worried.</p> - -<p>Corresponding to the self-magnification of the -separate demi-human which seeks the magnification -of its own petty half of the real unit of existence, -the true love instinct always includes in its strivings -the gratification of the other complement of the -true social unit.</p> - -<p>The egoistic-social instinct then regards the world -from a demi-human standpoint, looking for self-aggrandizement -unconsciously, inevitably. The erotic -instinct alone takes in the aspect of the world as -affecting one other person too, and their children -when they come along.</p> - -<p>The love instinct seeks gratification through the -gratifications of one member of the opposite sex; -and fails to find the first except through the second.</p> - -<p>It is impossible, from the viewpoint of this book, -to love more than one member of the opposite sex<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> -at once. Men or women who think they do this -are deceiving themselves. It is impossible to call -that feeling love which has in it any reservations -whatever. Every thought, every feeling, every act -that could not be communicated to the mate, diminishes -by so much the integrity of the personality in -whom it originates and initiates an inceptive disintegration -of personality.</p> - -<p>By this denial that love at first sight is a fact is -meant that either of two things is more likely than -anything else to happen in the cases where men and -women fall thus instantaneously in love with each -other and the union is continued through life, which -is indeed comparatively rare.</p> - -<p>Either the pair are utterly ignorant of what true -love really implies and maintain for years a passionless -<i lang="fr">mariage de convenance</i>; or one of the pair, -realizing the emptiness of joy that marks their marital -existence, is too proud to acknowledge failure. -It is conceivable that the woman may realize how -unerotic her husband is, and feeling unable, as most -women are indeed, to change her husband’s ideas, -to supply him with the ideal he should have had -himself, naturally gives up what is essentially for -her a hopeless struggle.</p> - -<h3 id="section47">§ 47</h3> - -<p>It is also conceivable that the man, profoundly -ignorant as many men are of the erotic needs of -women, may utterly fail, in his behaviour towards -his wife, to avail himself of the inestimable privilege -he has of making himself complete man in the only -way possible for a man to do. Through his entire<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> -married life he may suppose, in his ignorance, that -his wife is by nature cold, unsympathetic and unresponsive. -He is unlikely to find by accident the -magic key to unlock the treasure of her passion, -yet it exists, and he may, though he has fallen in -love with her at first sight and she with him, be and -remain the rest of his life blind to the possibilities -quite within his reach.</p> - -<p>In either of these cases love at first sight is as -helpless as any other love. The term has no very -deep meaning except in so far as all love is love at -first sight.</p> - -<p>In the majority of people true passionate love can -never be experienced at first. Therefore no marriage -is ever complete in the sense of ended, as far -as possibilities of further development are concerned, -until the death of one of the partners. If -this is the case, then, it constitutes the unanswerable -argument for indissoluble marriage, monogamy, not -only with one partner but with that partner for life, -providing, of course (an exceedingly rare combination), -that it has not been actually demonstrated that -there are real and insuperable incompatibilities. No -marriage except a life marriage can be complete any -more than a single demi-human existence can be -complete until death has rendered any further development -impossible.</p> - -<p>Just as a man can never know till the end of his -life all the possibilities his life held for him, and -should endeavour in every way to develop to its -fullest every potentiality of expression of his personality, -so no pair can ever know until the end of their -joint life all the potentialities of the different ages -of married life; for each age has its own.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p> - -<h3 id="section48">§ 48</h3> - -<p>Adult sexuality is not an egoistic-social expression -in any essential sense. While the gratification of -sexual desire is at first entirely selfish, starting as it -does in every individual before puberty in autoerotic -practices, it never becomes thoroughly adult until, -in the case of the man, he has secured in his mate -her perfect satisfaction on which his own depends. -He can never marry in the deepest sense if he retains -his autoerotic tendencies. A man’s satisfaction -on attaining solely his own erotic acme without -reference to that of his mate, is in every case an -autoerotic satisfaction. The woman, in this instance, -is merely an impersonal object or instrument by -means of which he produces an effect on himself. -In this respect his woman is no more personal than -his food.</p> - -<p>It may be said that a man’s satisfaction is none -the less selfish, even though it be conditioned on a -woman’s. But the self-satisfaction which <em>excludes</em> -that of the woman must be greater in selfishness and -actually less human. In fact this reciprocal self-satisfaction -is the distinguishing human trait without -which the sex life of most marriages, like all prostitution, -is not other than animal heat.</p> - -<p>A man frequently thinks he has to make a conscious -choice between courses of action that are predominantly -egoistic-social or erotic. He thinks of -the erotic life as taking time, and incidentally money -in the time lost alone, to pay enough attention to a -woman to develop her erotic possibilities, and many -men acting under this false impression that erotism -weakens practical accomplishment, have decided<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> -that the egoistic-social path was the more attractive. -But even they can never free themselves from the -promptings of the erotic impulse.</p> - -<p>Such men, thinking erroneously that all sexual acts -are erotic, making as they do no distinction between -the two, believe that they have somehow fulfilled an -erotic need by keeping a woman, either a wife or a -mistress. This travesty of the truly erotic by a man -who acts mainly from egoistic-social motives is self-deception. -The two are not only not the same, but -never can be made so.</p> - -<h3 id="section49">§ 49</h3> - -<p>Many a young man making a success of his business, -paying off his debts and beginning to pile up -money, lets up a bit from the strain of business and -begins to look about him for amusement keener -than the ordinary recreations.</p> - -<p>He meets an attractive young woman, puts her -down mentally as not quite up to his social scale, but -finding her responsive determines to go as far with -her as she will let him. Of course this is starting -wrongly, on the basis of not so much making her an -integral part of his own personality as trying to find -in her an objective and nearly impersonal means of -procuring autoerotic pleasure for himself. Not how -he pleases her is his ultimate thought but how she -pleases him. It has possibly not occurred to him -that he likes her because he likes the effects -she produces in him and that no matter how much -money he lavishes on her, it is barter for certain -privileges she permits him to take with her. These -privileges are not the highest and greatest he could -avail himself of, with a woman he would make his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> -wife, the chief privilege being that of developing -himself through her and incidentally of developing -her to the highest degree of which she is capable.</p> - -<p>On the contrary he does not take a great deal of -interest in any section of her personality except her -body. He may think her cute and amusing or enigmatic -if he is interested in solving puzzles; but he -is not likely to find any of her mental characteristics -engaging, although she probably has such, even if -she allows him liberties he might consider impossible -in some other women. He will probably not introduce -her to his mother or sisters, as he holds them -as a different class of women; and with the secretly -followed woman he feels on a different social plane, -no matter how personally neat and attractive she -may be. If she engages with him in any erotic preliminary -play, she ostracizes herself in his eyes from -the class of women to which his mother and sisters -belong, women who would not do that. This comes -from his youthful propensity to bisect everything -into absolutely good and absolutely bad. Women -are thus divided into the mother class (which includes -of course sisters and cousins) who are supposed -by him to be non-erotic in a sense. Chief -goddess in this class of erotically pure women is the -mother-imago or angel-imago described in another -section.</p> - -<p>To the ideas, opinions, beliefs and other spiritual -and intellectual characteristics of his clandestine -“love” he pays little attention. Believing again, and -again erroneously, in the utter bisection of human -qualities, he does not know that supreme erotic -attainments demand the highest intellectual abilities, -or the utmost freedom from traditional superstitions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> -about conventional morals. He does not know that -his own greatest intellectual development is conditioned -on his own fullest erotic development, which -he can achieve only by the deepest and most searchingly -passionate pursuit first of the soul and second -of the body of his inamorata. His tendency toward -gross bisection makes him accept the common shallow -opinion that physical and spiritual are far as the -poles asunder. He does not know that what he -thinks the keenest physical pleasure is, as physical -pleasure, far inferior to what it might become for -him if he treated his evening love to the full illumination -of his intellect and his reason. He also -thinks and still erroneously that he can purge away -all earthly love from the woman of the mother-imago -class and find for his wife, whom he will later love -spiritually after he has satisfied his physical passions, -a woman absolutely pure of all human passion.</p> - -<p>He makes the serious mistake of thinking he can -love on a sort of departmental plan, a plan that -may work well in his business or in any other egoistic-social -sphere, but in the erotic is an utter failure.</p> - -<p>He thinks, in other words, that he has passions -that should be called base, and that he can gratify -these desires with one type of woman. That their -baseness is only a matter of the autoerotic mode in -which he gratifies them has perhaps never occurred -to him. Nor has he ever known that no passion -can rightly be called base if gratified allerotically, -which is the opposite of autoerotically. For allerotism -is the passionate love not of self but of another. -No one could be called in any sense unethical who -gratified his own desires only through the gratified -desires of another. But that is not the state of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> -well-to-do young man with a clandestine “love” -affair.</p> - -<p>The hardest thing for this young man to see is -the fact, which is quite patent to the unconscious -both of the young woman and of himself, the simple -fact that his interest in her is merely autoerotic. -Some indeed will say that they are fully aware that -they are keeping up secret relations with women for -purely selfish reasons. They see that, in their day -life, business is business and one has to sell and buy; -and they wrongly suppose that the selling and buying -of women’s bodies is no worse than business. -The woman gets well paid for her services. Indeed -they may, if they have read him, quote Ellis, who -contrasts the reward of the average wife and the -average <i lang="fr">demimondaine</i>, and says that the prostitute -is much better paid than the wife, and does far less -for the economic reward she gets.</p> - -<p>But the young man who thinks for a moment that -there is anything really erotic in the relations between -himself and the young woman whom he disdains -to make his wife, knows no more of erotism -than a butterfly does of the depths of the ocean. -His case is simply that of an undeveloped embryo. -His autoerotic love is a wasted gonad that has never -met the cell with which alone it could completely -fuse and grow into an individual of its appropriate -species.</p> - -<p>Not all sexual acts are erotic. Many are no more -truly erotic than smoking a pipe or chewing gum. -The man who for egoistic-social reasons refuses to -confine his love to a woman he has married or intends -to marry, and thereby removes all chance of -the vivifying effects of true erotism being caused in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> -his extra-marital life by the depth of his marital -love, is starting in the wrong direction every time. -He has left undeveloped the truly erotic part of -himself, which, thus banished into the unconscious, -will nevertheless, through its indirect manifestations, -completely warp his sex life. He will have no -love life whatever. In spite of its frequent occurrence -in men in general, sex life without love life is -a monstrosity.</p> - -<p>Erotism, then, may be defined as the highest expression -of sex, from which all autoerotic impulses -have been removed, or in which they have been so -much subordinated that they play an almost negligible -part.</p> - -<h3 id="section50">§ 50</h3> - -<p>In our competitive economic social structure of -yesterday and today the egoistic-social factor has -been stressed to the utmost, almost, indeed, to the -breaking point for all civilized people, quite to the -breaking point with many of them. This egoistic -tendency has evidently changed if not perverted -much of the pure love instinct. It has, for instance, -caused woman to judge man by his success in -economic competition and also to adopt for herself -a competitive modus which has spread itself over so -much of her activities as in many cases to make her -his rival in the activities in which for the time he -happens to be engaged.</p> - -<p>No work that has to be done in the world is any -more peculiarly or properly the work of one sex -than that of the other. All <em>work</em>, implying as it does -<em>duty</em>, is egoistic-social. No work is erotic; and -nothing erotic should be work and so have in it the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> -effort that is connected with duty. Anything looking -like work that enters into the erotic sphere is -just so much egoistic-social activity. Erotism is the -play side of life. “All work and no play makes Jack -a dull boy” needs to be reworded into “all egoistic-social -strivings and no erotic living makes Everyman -(and Everywoman for that matter) an emotional -moron.”</p> - -<p>Ships are not ordinarily navigated by women, but -women could probably navigate quite as well as men -if they had equal experience. Some women evidently -think they are magnifying their own ego if they -take up any occupation simply <em>because</em> it is or has -been generally known as man’s work. Yet no man -presumably seeks to magnify his ego by becoming -a chef or a maker of women’s clothing.</p> - -<p>It is strange that we should continue to make -financial success an aim for all young men, when -innumerable experiences have taught us beyond a -doubt that happiness comes not from material success, -but rather material success from happiness.</p> - -<p>No man can develop the egoistic sphere of his -personality to the limit of its potentiality if his erotic -sphere is rotten to the core. And it is rotten in -many men. No man can feel right toward the outside -world or any part of it if his love impulse, -the very core of his being and prime mover of all his -acts, is so overgrown with egoistic or social fears -that he cannot give expression to the most essential -part of himself.</p> - -<h3 id="section51">§ 51</h3> - -<p>The egoistic instinct becomes social, even before -the intelligence perceives that it may be made subservient<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> -to the erotic instinct, quite as soon, indeed, -as rivalries, even in childhood, appear for possession -and enjoyment. After the child reaches puberty -and recognizes the egoistic-social impulse as a possible -means of furthering the gratification of erotic -desires, it becomes associated with these.</p> - -<p>This extension of the egoistic-social interest -under the dominance of the erotic is more and more, -in modern times, beginning to take on a phase of -spiritual growth in distinction to merely material -aggrandizement. It is not the best, in any respect, -for a man to acquire, for the sake of his wife and -children, wealth and social or political or artistic -distinction. Indeed, many children are overburdened -with the illustrious traditions of their forebears and -are even hindered thereby in their own self-development.</p> - -<p>A man married and had three children, two -daughters and then one son. By the time his son -was old enough to desire luxuries the father was -wealthy enough to provide them without stint. -In doing so, however, he made it plain that -the son was expected to follow in his footsteps in -the business. The story is common enough where -the son becomes simply a wastrel without positive -character of any kind.</p> - -<p>Not so, however, in this case. The father’s -extremely positive and aggressive character produced -a different reaction in the son, who had a positiveness -of his own. Remaining absolutely unspoiled -by the luxuries by which he was surrounded, he continued -to disappoint his father by becoming what -the elder man thought the most ignominious of all—a -teacher, and soon reached the summit of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> -profession as head of a department in a great -university.</p> - -<p>To this career, however, the father’s great -egoistic-social success in amassing money did not in -the least contribute; rather it hindered it. The -son’s progress would have been infinitely easier without -the rigid egoistic-social atmosphere in which he -was brought up. The ill-concealed sneers of the -father prevented the son even in his youth from -developing a genial open-hearted sociability with -which he was by nature endowed, and made his -contacts with men and women unnecessarily difficult.</p> - -<h3 id="section52">§ 52</h3> - -<p>The parents’ happy married life, irrespective of -wealth and distinction, is the best possible heritage -for their children. The father just mentioned could -not in any sense have been called happily married. -He considered his wife an abject idiot and acted -accordingly, domineering over her to the utter extinction -of any personality she might have originally -possessed and thereby deprived the son of even as -fine a mother ideal as he might have had.</p> - -<p>If to a happy married life showing itself to the -children in every incident of the home and its management -is added the best type of sex instruction, -both physiological and psychological, the parents -have done their duty, and have succeeded, as far as -any parents could, in transmitting an environment -in which the superiority of the erotic over the egoistic-social -impulses is daily recognized.</p> - -<p>An exceedingly common environment is the opposite -one where any erotic impulses of the children<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> -are not only frowned upon but are practically declared -by the parents to be either non-existent or -impossible of any form of expression.</p> - -<p>Psychoanalytic treatment of various neuroses -strikes, unsuggested by the analyst, the sexual factor, -as Frink says in his <cite>Morbid Fears and Compulsions</cite> -(page 225), in the second or third interview. -Most neurotics are brought up with no legitimate -sex instruction. It needs a fair and open discussion -between parents and children, in absolutely matter-of-fact -terms, to prevent sex from becoming compressed, -if I may be permitted to use the term in this -way. Sex is forced into the focus of attention of -many children by being the only topic about which -they may not speak to their parents in confidence. -The utter exclusion of the erotic from the child’s -life is the final compressive factor which reduces -it into the smallest possible compass, into dangerously -explosive density. The exclusive emphasis on -the egoistic-social in the bosom of the family drives -out the erotic from the consciousness of children in -the only situation, where it would be more ethical -than in any other. Many children never see their -parents <i lang="la">in puris naturalibus</i>, though there is no logical -or psychological reason why they should not, and -many psychological reasons why they should have -experiences that would prevent them, boys as well -as girls, from the shock of some later chance -revelation.</p> - -<p>Many children never see any endearments between -their parents, partly because when the children are -old enough consciously to notice these, they have -ceased to take place. The marriage of the parents -has run down. They are no longer lovers but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> -purely egoistic-social business partners in the home.</p> - -<p>But where should a tradition arise, and how be -perpetuated, of a noble type of marital love, except -in and by the children’s home? How should they -learn anything or where should they best learn of -married happiness except from their father and -mother? If they see better marital relations evidenced -in the homes of the companions they may -visit, surely they will at least unconsciously realize -that at home all is not well, and the unconscious -principle of identification will make them think that -as their parents lacked warmth of affection so they -themselves must or will.</p> - -<p>Homes in which the marriage of the parents has -run down are not the best homes for children. The -parents realize this and try to act out frequently a -love which they no longer feel in their hearts. But -all acting of this character is absolutely transparent -to the unconscious of the child.</p> - -<h3 id="section53">§ 53</h3> - -<p>The best parental environment, the one that gives -the erotic its due, is that in which the child is allowed -to remain a child until he is required to develop -certain phases of the egoistic-social environment. -The best home environment is that in which the -parents are themselves, and particularly the father, -emotionally, i.e. erotically, adult and not, as in so -many homes, emotionally childish.</p> - -<p>The emotionally childish status, in the erotic -sphere of many parents, is due at least partly to fear, -which is purely an egoistic-social emotion. Love has -in its pure state no such emotion as fear but the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> -fears that are so commonly associated with the -expression of love are all of egoistic-social origin.</p> - -<p>While love is properly identified with sex, there -being no real expression of love that is not fundamentally -a sex expression, there is every reason why -love should be freed from acquired associations with -fear; and if the fear which has, through puritanical -views, attached to sex could be removed from sex -and therefore from love, people today would be -able to live a much more fully expressed life; for the -inhibitions irrationally associated with sex have -taken away from life an inestimable amount of -health, strength and beauty.</p> - -<p>The inference from this is that the only possible -time to prevent the acquirement of inhibitions is -early childhood, and the only possible people to do -it are the parents.</p> - -<p>The perfect love pattern will never spontaneously -originate with the man of the world; but with his -children it may if he will, if both parents will, practically -refrain from interference. The parents know -well enough, sometimes consciously but more often -unconsciously, that their love pattern is a poor one—poor -in conception and poor in execution. It is -poor in joy and rich in misery. According to this -perverted pattern they have lived their own love, -and if they but pause to think, they will withhold -their hands and their words from interfering with -the illumination which is slowly reaching the younger -generation, but which blinds the parents’ eyes to -true life values.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p> - -<h3 id="section54">§ 54</h3> - -<p>In order to be a wholesome one, the relation -between the parent and child must involve a wholesome -relation between the two parents.<a name="FNanchor_15" id="FNanchor_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> You -cannot prevent divorce and prostitution if you do -not develop before the children’s eyes a marital -pattern which will put both of these family evils -out of commission. You cannot annihilate even an -idea by repressing it into the unconscious. In order -to obviate in the next generation the worst features -of this, we must recognize them intellectually and -react to them emotionally; and to be specific, in -order to remove as far as possible the chances of -divorce and prostitution in our own children, we -must show them an environment in our own families -in which the marital pattern is such that any deviation -from it must be revolting to the little boy and -the little girl who are now getting their first impressions -of married life from their own parents.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span></p> - -<h3 id="section55">§ 55</h3> - -<p class="center"><i>Instinct in Humans Generally Inadequate or -Misleading</i></p> - -<p>Instinctive reactions are adequate responses only -in natural environments before civilization has set -in. The more complicated life of modern civilization -renders purely instinctive reactions more out -of date than a twenty-year-old model of an automobile.</p> - -<p>Not only is mere instinct not a good guide in the -egoistic-social activities, but in the erotic life it is -almost worse than useless. This is so because -modern life is so different from the prehistoric -environment that humans are today unable to -follow erotic instinct, or even, on account of traditional -inhibitions, to get at it in its purity.</p> - -<p>We live today in an environment so preponderantly -egoistic-social that the majority of motives -for any act are egoistic-social ones, and only a small -fraction of them erotic. This makes it as difficult -to follow erotic instincts as for a compass to point -north, when a magnet is lying three inches to the -east of it.</p> - -<p>Instinct alone would naturally prompt a boy and -a girl to dwell long over the preliminaries to the -love episode. If left together and alone, they would -take some time to reach an erotic acme, and would -instinctively find that out last of all, as is so beautifully -described in Marlowe’s <cite>Hero and Leander</cite>, -and so delicately suggested in <cite>Paul and Virginia</cite>.</p> - -<p>Not only has the social convention of the present -day tended more and more to inhibit the introduction,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> -prelude, first and second acts of the love drama -but it has raised such a barrier against the third act -as to give it an entirely disproportionate value in -comparison with the others.</p> - -<h3 id="section56">§ 56</h3> - -<p>There are three separate fusions involved in any -perfect heterosexual union: (1) the bodily fusion of -the man and the woman, (2) the fusion of their -souls each with the other and (3) the fusion of the -soul and body of each more closely together.</p> - -<p>The last comes from the man on his side and the -woman on hers, each seeing the world more <i lang="la">sub -specie Amoris</i>—as manifestation of erotic passion; -but it also comes from the fact that the admission -into consciousness of the innate erotic reactions, in -spite of the opposition of environment—the legitimate -admission of these feelings—vitalizes not only -the physical body of man and woman, but also all -the multitudinous and diversified contacts of both -man and woman with people and things.</p> - -<p>Instinct alone, if it were possible to follow it -unchecked, would lead to those three fusions; but the -sex instinct in men and women has been so submerged -by various forms of prohibition that even -in the married state most husbands and wives do not -know of the joy of any of these three fusions.</p> - -<h3 id="section57">§ 57</h3> - -<p>One type of instinctive behaviour is the almost -universal tendency to reason by analogy which frequently<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> -turns out to be a reasoning by false analogy -and by association of the contiguity type.</p> - -<p>It would be quite as reasonable for a woman to -say that, because a prostitute enjoys roast beef or -lobster (or anything between), the pure wife should -feel it a sin to enjoy good food.</p> - -<p>Of course there are people who think it is wrong -to enjoy anything, but while overgratification from -food or drink has a certain essential sensuality -about it and gluttony was one of the “seven deadly -sins,” there is no psychological principle according -to which intense enjoyment is rightly prohibited, -providing the consumption of food does not exceed -the necessity of the body for growth and restoration -of tissue. Up to that point the more one enjoys -one’s food the better for himself and incidentally -for everyone else. If, however, the enjoyment has -to come from an increase in the amount consumed -or the cost of it, then a quite unjustifiable element -of unsocial action surely enters.</p> - -<p>One should enjoy food, and the more enjoyment -the better, provided the enjoyment does not depend -on the increase in amount or expensiveness of it.</p> - -<p>Similarly there is every good reason why both -women and men should enjoy sex and regard it as -quite as necessary as food.</p> - -<p>Instinctively both women and men would do so -if their sexual instincts were accessible. Those men -and women to whom their instincts are accessible do -gain their greatest comfort if not their greatest -happiness through the uninhibited expression of the -sex instinct.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span></p> - -<h3 id="section58">§ 58</h3> - -<p>If the greatest happiness in life be something -other than the emotions incident to the fusion of -man’s and woman’s beings in the love drama, then, -whatever that greatest happiness may be said to be, -it is surely conditioned on a happy marriage. Those -who think otherwise are not happily married and -they need to become so before their words can have -any authority. Those not happily married have, of -course, no means whatever of knowing at first hand -what is, or should be, implied in that term.</p> - -<h3 id="section59">§ 59</h3> - -<p>Instinct has taught the woman to expect strength, -physical or spiritual, or both, of the man. Let it -not be forgotten that mental and spiritual strength -is a perfect substitute for physical strength. It does -not mean that intellectual ability is the equivalent -of spiritual strength as the former may be coexistent -with an emotional undevelopment which is the same -as spiritual weakness. A man may, even a child -may, be an intellectual prodigy as a chess player or -mathematician without implying any emotional development -in the direction of normal erotism.</p> - -<p>In this the sexes are different, for woman’s instinct -here guides her rightly. Biologically she is unconsciously -forced, against her will, and quite without -her knowing it to test her man continuously for some -kind of strength. For some women indeed physical -strength is all-satisfactory but in the majority of -cases of civilized woman physical strength, without -an accompanying spiritual strength, which will insure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> -the necessary erotic control of her by her husband, -will always leave her disappointed and discontented.</p> - -<p>The qualities instinctively called for in the woman -by the man are the opposite in some respects. He -unconsciously, if not consciously, expects sweetness, -docility, compliance, adoration in his wife, all qualities -that are a necessary background and basis for -his childish and autoerotic enjoyments. It is almost -unheard of to find a man who takes pleasure in -the negativism which characterizes the child and -also many women, and in the opposition which alone, -when deftly overcome, constitutes the only proof -that he is or has been purely masculine and creative -in his positive activities in effecting a change in that -part of his environment.</p> - -<p>It may be objected that this demand for compliance, -softness and accessibility in woman may not -be purely instinctive; but, if it is not, it is of such -early origin as to be undistinguishable from true -instinct. It is the common experience of every -infant to be treated with the utmost tenderness by -its mother.</p> - -<h3 id="section60">§ 60</h3> - -<p>When the average unreflective man meets opposition, -in any degree of strength, from his wife he -tends to reënact the mother-infant situation in his -own married life. This results in the husband’s -reproducing more or less exactly the original infantile -tantrum. Naturally he tends toward an explosive -use of force when he does not find in his wife -the qualities he has sensed in his mother. However -much he may conceal or transform the outward -manifestation of this infantile trend, the trend<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> -exists and is a positive factor in the situation which -contains the wife’s opposition. From this it follows -that instinct is a better guide for women than for -men.</p> - -<p>Woman is in every way justified in her demand -for strength in her mate. Man is wholly unjustified -in expecting sweetness, adoration and the other -qualities except perhaps the docility implied in the -susceptibility to male control in the erotic sphere -which is undoubtedly innate in every woman. It -does not occur to him that the negativistic opposition -of woman is her means of testing his own strength, -and that he has in it the best possibility of proving -his essential masculinity. That he should totally -ignore the opposition by the sole means of suggestive -replacement of her antagonistic ideas by the -ideas which he knows are the best ones in the situation, -and that he should convince and persuade her -through his perfectly confident attitude that this -type of action on his part is exactly what she is -instinctively trying to evoke in him by her apparent -perversity, are too infrequently even glimpsed by the -man who relies on <em>his</em> instinct.</p> - -<h3 id="section61">§ 61</h3> - -<p>From the erotic viewpoint it makes no difference -whether a woman is well dressed or not or even tidy, -provided her ill-dressed condition does not interfere -with her physical health. A woman in rags wielding -a hoe or a rake or even a spade may be just as -radiant and have just as fine and attractive physique -as a lady in silks. It is a fallacy to suppose that -erotic attractiveness consists only in the cosmetic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> -art. This motive to keep herself in the pink of -visual perfection appeals only to sight, and is at -bottom more egoistic-social than erotic, however -much the woman may think she is making an erotic -impression by her appearance. The conscious appeal -to sight is frequently only an overcompensation for -her erotically unsatisfied condition.</p> - -<p>As sight is only distant or vicarious <em>touch</em>, it is -evident that the visual appeal is only a substitute -touch appeal. That a woman with a homely face -may be erotically attractive then is no paradox. The -beautiful face is only the symbol of the “skin you -love to touch.” The visible symbol may be absent -and yet the kinesthetic quality be present. Furthermore -all lovers who take pleasure from the sight of -beautiful lines of the human form are only vicariating -for kinesthetic sensations. The original -sculptor is the caressing hand.</p> - -<h3 id="section62">§ 62</h3> - -<p>In modern human civilized life instincts in general, -even irrespective of the sex of the person in whom -they are manifested, are the worst possible guides. -The love instinct is also among the worst, simply -because its present-day vestiges are so overlaid with -restrictions and conventions that it cannot be seen -clearly. It has been so inhibited that it needs an -apologist.</p> - -<p>When looking at the two broad divisions of egoistic-social -and love instincts, one has to have demonstrated -the essential superiority of the love instinct -and its far greater ability to cause happiness, health, -and, in the deepest sense, success.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p> - -<p>Over two thousand years ago Aristotle saw, and -said, that the greatest satisfaction comes from fullest -use of all one’s powers. Today we are beginning to -realize, after the study of the ductless glands, that -there is a kind of reaction in the body not mediated -by nerves, as are muscular reactions, and that we -have, in the hormones, a mode of interaction between -the parts of the body that has been as yet unnoted -by physiologist and psychologist alike, an interaction -that places marriage in the forefront as a -necessity not only for health but for the fullest -development of our latent powers.</p> - -<h3 id="section63">§ 63</h3> - -<p>For among the dozen or so ductless glands, which -Berman<a name="FNanchor_16" id="FNanchor_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> has called an “interlocking directorate” -of all the human activities, is the interstitial gland -which places in circulation in the blood a hormone -that vitalizes all the secretions of all the other -glands, and which requires for its own perfect -working the concomitant and synchronous perfect -working of the homologous gland in the mate, in -the other demi-human of the complete social unit. -In other words perfect physiological health is -secured in no better way than by marrying provided -marriage is complete marriage and not merely a -“Platonic” or business relation.</p> - -<p>From these considerations it is evident that as -motives for action that leads to happiness, the erotic -instincts (if we can succeed in extracting their ore -from the mine of our unconscious and refining it -from the dross of egoistic-social accretions) are infinitely -superior to the egoistic-social.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V<br /> -<span class="smaller">THE LOVE EPISODE</span></h2> - -<h3 id="section64">§ 64</h3> - -<p>From the earliest ages seers and poets have glorified -Love. The Bible says God is Love. Love as -the perfect erotic control of the wife by the husband -will be a strange concept to some minds that have -been accustomed to the theory that woman is the -Queen of Love, and to the ideas of men brought -up under the Madonna influence.</p> - -<p>This control is indeed the opposite of the attitude -that many husbands have adopted (or in which -they have been trained) toward their wives, to -whom they act as they would toward idealized -mothers, not of their own children, but of themselves.</p> - -<p>A conviction derived from intimate knowledge -of the marital relations of many people forces the -conclusion that this current attitude not only is a -false one, but is also one that gradually renders a -husband impotent to take the part which a true male -should take, in the highest type of human mating.</p> - -<p>Love is the work of art of an entire lifetime. -The calf love of the adolescent, the adoration of -the betrothed and the first passionate outburst of -the honeymoon are but preludes or overtures to an -opera or drama that should continue as long as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> -two partners live together, and in which the husband -is the protagonist.</p> - -<h3 id="section65">§ 65</h3> - -<p>To denote the highest type of special scientific -student of the art of love, the term <em>erotologist</em> is -suggested in preference to the word sexologist, -which would imply the study of only the physical -side of <em>sex</em>.</p> - -<p>If a modern erotologist can tell us that husbands -using toward their wives one form of behaviour are -themselves unhappy, and have too many children, or -too few, we should certainly be broad-minded -enough to admit that the chances are, we ourselves -shall be unhappy if we do the same things in the -same way.</p> - -<p>If the erotologist tells us that a million husbands -have used a certain technique in their erotic lives -and have become supremely happy, and have had -just as many healthy children as they wanted and no -more, we should certainly be wise, if we could find -out what was the felicitous technique of the happy -million. If we saw their wives retaining their youth -and beauty and vivacity, and being both loving wives -and proud grandmothers at the same time, we should -not let envy of these men inspire us with hatred and -prejudice enough to say that their methods are -iniquitous, and not mentioned in the Bible; but we -should inquire exactly what these husbands did, to -keep their wives and themselves so young and -happy.</p> - -<p>We should at the present day inquire mostly in -vain. A good part of the million do not themselves -know what they do that is different from the practice<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> -of the other millions. They just love their -wives and them alone.</p> - -<p>The erotologists, however, have been quietly -studying the marital situation for some decades. -They have compared, weighed, correlated and investigated -thousands of cases. Some of the sexologists -have been unscientific and biased with -ancient superstitions. A few erotologists, notably -Havelock Ellis and Dr. Marie C. Stopes of England, -Dr. W. F. Robie of Baldwinsville, Massachusetts, -Dr. H. W. Long of Peoria, Illinois, and some -of the psychoanalysts, are scientists, ready and willing -to look at facts as they are and not as they -might wish them to be.</p> - -<p>The erotologists have actually discovered definite -facts about the more intimate nature of the marital -relation. It implies the interaction, in every married -pair, of four sets of tendencies: the husband’s conscious -and his unconscious trends and the wife’s -conscious and unconscious trends. Anyone looking -only at the conscious factors is naturally puzzled -by almost all the external phenomena of marriage, -e.g., why they fell in love, what either could see in -the other, why another pair fell out, what on earth -was the matter with them.</p> - -<h3 id="section66">§ 66</h3> - -<p>To the observer not looking beneath the surface -with the scientific instrument of precision constituted -by the study of the unconscious, the actions of two -married people are as unaccountable as those of a -tack sliding uphill on a piece of smooth paper. The -erotologists have looked underneath and seen the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> -magnet in the hand of another person and are not -surprised.</p> - -<p>To the erotologists marriage is in no sense a -lottery, but a situation in which the causal factors -are just as clearly natural as they are either in a -twelve-cylinder automobile that runs smoothly or -in one that snorts along with a couple of cylinders -working. Anyhow a lottery is only a matter of -chance; and chance is only cause to which we either -have blinded ourselves or have not yet become -sentient.</p> - -<p>The erotologist can tell us definitely that in marriage -the erotic situation should be controlled by the -husband, as the husband is in every case the cause of -the good or evil outcome of the match. Masculinity -is the unquenchable yearning to control the woman -emotionally, erotically. Femininity is the insatiable -desire to be erotically controlled.</p> - -<p>Everyone will admit that for a man to be erotically -controlled by a woman does not represent the -peak of masculine attainment and that a woman’s -desire to control a man is, while common enough, -not an expression of her love instinct but of her -ego instinct by which women are just as much -motivated as are men.</p> - -<p>The erotologist tells us (the main thesis of this -book) that the sole solid bond of union in marriage -is just this erotic control of the wife by the husband. -It is not complete and perfect if it does not, in all -activities strictly marital, supersede all egoistic -trends. A woman may as mother of her children, -as lady of the house, as woman of business, display -in those spheres as many expressions of egoistic-social -instinct as she has opportunity for or as circumstances<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> -allow; but as wife she is due only to -constitute the controlled member of the complementary -fusion of the marital pair.</p> - -<p>It is not without deep significance that the Anglo-Saxon -word from which “wife” is derived is allied -to the root WIB which means “to tremble.” It -expresses an essential psychological truth. If the -feminine element in the <em>binary</em>, as I have called the -perfect marital union, is somewhat analogous to the -surging sea on whose rocks or sand beaches it continues -to break, we see in the rocks or the strand -the solid, at least comparatively unwavering thing -to which the surges conform themselves. There -need only be a comparative steadiness on the part of -the masculine element. He may tremble, too, but -if only he tremble <em>less</em> than she, he will be the masculine -and she the feminine element.</p> - -<h3 id="section67">§ 67</h3> - -<p>The precipitate husband is over-precipitate only -if he is or becomes more so than his wife. There is -no norm except a comparative one. He must have -control (and yet at the right time he may relinquish -it); but at all times he must have <em>more</em> control over -himself, and incidentally over her, than she has -over his erotic reactions, or over her own.</p> - -<p>A woman in perfect control of her own erotic -reactions, in the sense of control through expression -and not through repression or annihilation, probably -does not exist. But if she did she would make the -perfect prostitute. Such a woman could give any -man the deepest satisfaction of which he was -capable—until he found that she, and not he, was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> -controlling her erotism. But the egoistic-social -impulse operates as a repressive factor even in the -prostitute, and renders the completeness of her -positive control impossible for her; the more civilized -the community the more repressive the control.</p> - -<p>A man married to any woman who is in better -control of herself than he is of himself is married -to (but not mated with) a woman who is to him a -prostitute by whatsoever proportion of control she -exercises over herself more than he does over himself -or over her. This is true both of the negative -control of repression on her part and of the positive -control of expression. For evidently if her repressive -control makes her cold to his advances she is -of the common prostitute type as far as he is concerned. -He evokes no more real response from her -than from the casual woman of the street. However -much simulated responsiveness the prostitute may -show, he knows unconsciously its unreality, and -feels proportionately disgusted. In the wife who -is cold because of environmental influences in her -youth which the husband has not removed by his -wholesome treatment of her, the objective result is -the same as in the prostitute who is unresponsive -from indifference or fear, or from the repression -referred to.</p> - -<h3 id="section68">§ 68</h3> - -<p>Quite as obviously if the wife shows a greater -control over the erotic situation than the husband, -a control through expression, he will be unconsciously -repelled by this unnatural factor in the -situation, no matter how much pleased he may be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> -consciously by the rich, warm femininity he has -discovered in her.</p> - -<p>It is this positive or expressive control of the -erotic factor which gives to some women the reputation -of being designing, gives them the appearance -of being more erotic than the husband or lover, and -in some instances repels the man.</p> - -<p>The possibility of greater erotic control on the -part of the woman than the man possesses should -be a provoking thought to all husbands who are -overhasty in their handling of the love episode.</p> - -<p>Any husband controls his wife erotically, if he -actually does, only by means of controlling himself. -At minimum his control of himself is just enough -to secure his wife’s erotic acme preceding or at least -synchronizing with his own. That is the one and -only way by which he can attain and maintain -marital success.</p> - -<h3 id="section69">§ 69</h3> - -<p>The love drama is the term that applies to the -relations of one man and one woman for the time -when they devote themselves to each other. It may -be an hour or a lifetime, but the hour-long period -surely is a pitiful experience, a one-act farce, compared -with the grandeur of the lifelong relation. A -man who thinks he prefers a succession of short -periods with different women condemns himself -unnecessarily to a course of action which resembles -the career of a tea-tester. He may become a connoisseur -in various flavours but he cannot learn much -about women. He is a narrow specialist with really -no wide knowledge. Moreover such a man almost -never tests his own effect on women, but merely the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> -different effects of women on himself; and is therefore -merely autoerotic, merely playing with himself; -and his various instruments are virtually impersonal.</p> - -<h3 id="section70">§ 70</h3> - -<p>Man is instinctively embarrassed upon rousing a -woman to full passion, and finding it plays so much -greater a part in her life than in his, and that it -requires so much more attention on his part than -he feels he has time to give.</p> - -<p>That may explain why some men are so easily -satisfied with a woman’s half love and shy from it -when it begins fully to develop. They run from one -woman to another, shirking the labour of drinking -because they have not the stomach to drink love to -the lees.</p> - -<p>“Sippers,” they might be called, or “tea-testers.” -The tester is doomed to a sample. He not only never -consumes a full cup but never swallows a drop. He -has not the power to hold out. No man could -drink a hundred cups of different consignments of -tea. Nor can one man thoroughly experience more -than one woman. The sippers of women would be -as disconcerted as a tea-tester who should be ordered -to drink full cups of tea to report on a hundred -samples, if they were expected really to know the -women they sample. Their disconcertment would -amount to an actual impotence.</p> - -<h3 id="section71">§ 71</h3> - -<p>The essential unsatisfactoriness of the promiscuous -sex life is experienced poignantly by most men<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> -who attempt it. One wealthy man who kept numerous -mistresses, seventeen at one time, to be exact, -came to an analyst to see if he could not get some -help in unifying his life. It was not that he had -any troubles coming from any acts on the part of -the women. Most of them knew of his relations -with the others, and professed, at any rate, to be -free from jealousy. This is enough to show that -he did not love any of them.</p> - -<p>Half consciously he realized that he had lost or -never learned the truly erotic art and though he -attended to the large businesses he owned, he felt -a complete dissatisfaction with his own life not -because it was sinful and criminal but because it did -not give him any real sense of accomplishment. He -was unmarried and among his large acquaintance of -marriageable young women there was one, whose -femininity, he recognized, was so rich that while, -for many reasons he would have liked to propose -marriage to her, he knew he would be unable to -control her erotism.</p> - -<p>Knowing full well that he controlled the erotism -of not a single one of his seventeen mistresses, he -correctly inferred that his methods were faulty, and -sought confidential help from the analyst to bring -into full consciousness the reasons for his attempting -in the future to cultivate a true and deep love for -one woman.</p> - -<p>His methods were shown to be faulty because of -the fact that his clandestine relations with the -numerous women were on a plane exclusively or too -predominantly physical. He was made to realize -that love is not love that does not include the entire<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> -personality of the lover, physical, mental and -spiritual.</p> - -<h3 id="section72">§ 72</h3> - -<p>The confrontation of a shallow sipper like this -with really profound femininity is a test of virility -in the highest erotic sense. The man perverted by -traditional views of masculinity, which overvalue -the physical side, and unenlightened by the modern -psychology of love is face to face with a situation -for which he is utterly unprepared.</p> - -<p>A man’s so-called satisfaction, then, with the -superficial surrender of a woman up to the point -where she consents to let him try to control her -erotism is not, however, satisfaction at all but a -withdrawal from a test of virility. This primary -consent on the woman’s part is not a submission but -merely in effect a consent to examine or as it were -to make a survey of his manliness. Of this she is, -of course, entirely unconscious. If she were conscious -of it she would have one of the traits of the -promiscuous woman. But even if it is unconscious -in her it is just as operative as if it were conscious. -And the result of the test is also unconscious in the -woman, if the test shows that the man is found -wanting.</p> - -<p>Her reaction to the man found wanting is as -various as is the upbringing of women, from the -immediate rejection in divorce on the grounds of -incompatibility to the lifelong slavery in which she -gradually withers.</p> - -<p>Under the present inanely stupid method of -bringing up women in total ignorance of sex, and in -blindness to the truly erotic, a woman has no means<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> -whatever of estimating a man’s erotic virility before -marriage and practically no standard of judging -him after. If she had, she might do something to -get him to learn of the existence of true mating.</p> - -<p>And if she could know and could tell her husband -how he failed, she would then have a chance of -becoming happy. No really human man will choose -the greater of two evils or refuse the greater of -two good things, no matter when or how that choice -is offered to him, although to him it may be humiliating -whether first or last, to have it laid before -him by the woman.</p> - -<h3 id="section73">§ 73</h3> - -<p>But no whole man will be other than fired by this -consent to test. If he is cloyed by it, his being so -demonstrates his inadequacy; it proves his anesthesia, -his insensibility, his blindness to the future -possibilities of complete binary love-living.</p> - -<p>To him this failure of his, this revulsion of feeling -at the precise moment when he has entered the very -lists of love, this slacker’s attitude, seems not a -desertion on his part, not a failure of his, but a -sudden loss of charm on her part. She is, upon -trial, not what he had expected and longed for. But -the failure, the loss of charm are his, not hers. He -ought to be the charmer. He ought to have been -informed that it is his privilege and power to attain -the pleasure of putting his woman into another -world of sheer exuberant joy—that his own pleasure -in life can be attained by no other means; and that -the consent of the woman to be his wife is a consent -not to take one step with him, and then have him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> -vanish, but to travel the path of life-love to its end—a -path that is long and joyous, a path from which -no seeing man, no man with eyes of love, can ever -wish to depart. For with him is happiness personified -and before him and leading him on is light.</p> - -<h3 id="section74">§ 74</h3> - -<p>The acts and scenes and various episodes and -strophes of this lifelong drama are never more -than parts, and are organically related each to the -other and to the whole life poem. No matter what -one’s egoistic-social impulses and activities are, the -racial theme, i.e., emotional culture and development, -should be as far as possible continuous and -its phrases related. The racial theme is organic, -emotional. The narrower national, or sectional, -theme in life is the intellectual one.</p> - -<p>For the so-called sexual act the term <em>love episode</em> -has been substituted in this book. Like a duet on -an operatic stage it should be just as much a combination -of the melody of the emotions of each of -the two partners, and the harmony of both of their -orchestras of emotions, as are the melody and harmony -arranged by the composer of an opera score. -The husband should be the composer.</p> - -<p>It will be replied that the ordinary man is not -of the intellectual calibre of the Wagners, Gounods, -and Verdis, and that if the love life is to be so -exalted in the ordinary marriage it would be a hopeless -task, for so few men have the intellectuality to -create a work of art of such dimensions.</p> - -<p>But the greatness of composers and poets consists -in their approaching so near to life with media so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> -inorganic as sound and sight; and while music is -enjoyed by most people, different styles and grades -of music have the characteristic of bringing the -melody and harmony to a definite and gratifying -end. Music therefore essentially consists of the art -of producing a tension and finally a relaxation of -human emotions by means of sound.</p> - -<p>Love as an art consists of the same production -of tension and relaxation in a rhythm whose first -pulsation begins even in childhood and whose last is -coincident with the final heartbeat of the individual.</p> - -<h3 id="section75">§ 75</h3> - -<p>Love, in the sense used above, practically includes -every action of the husband or wife in relation to -each other, from the beginning of the first act of -love-living to the end of their joint life.</p> - -<p>The love episode is not a violent activity for a -brief space of five or ten minutes. In its highest -form it begins when either of the pair thinks of any -part of it. A true work of erotic art will progress -from these thoughts, through all the phases of -verbal mention, or actual carrying out of any preliminary—all -the various verbal and other endearments, -all the caresses and changing contacts, in -multitudinous variety of external circumstances. It -will progress through the purely physical part of it, -or that part which is regarded as purely physical -(but which never is, exclusively), and will continue -for an hour to a day after the erotic acme.</p> - -<p>During this post-acme time all the thoughts and -emotions of each will be referred to the past episode -and not to any future one. In the interim between<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> -the evanescence of these thought-reverberations, and -the growing tension of another approaching love -episode there may be a space of some hours or a day -or two, but, where there is a fully expressed love -life, never more than that.</p> - -<h3 id="section76">§ 76</h3> - -<p>There is an unmistakable sign when the union of -the two natures of a man and a woman has taken -place. It is not the procreation of children, it is -not living together only, it is not a joint bank account -or any mere superficial unity or congeniality of -external (egoistic-social) interests; but it is an emotional -reaction at a time of intimate physical communion, -a flood of feeling of an absolutely unique -character, which, once experienced, leads true lovers -to say that nothing in the world they have ever -heard of could be in any respect like it—a flood of -feeling, which, like the perigee tide, enters and fills -every nook and cranny of the being of each, just -as the waters of an estuary rise and fill and overflow -when the sun and the moon both pull together -and the wind blows into the river’s mouth.</p> - -<p>And the first time that emotional flood tide is -experienced is nothing to what later psychosomatic -communion may attain. Man and wife looking -back on their honeymoon thirty years before realize -poignantly how infinitely more exalted and overwhelming -is their present-day love communion than -were the unsteady, brief and trembling, uncoördinated -embraces of their early married life. True, -they looked at each other with eyes of love long -years before, but such simple, ignorant, artless infantile<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> -eyes, that looked without seeing half there was -to see. They have learned each other as they never -could have learned any two, much less three or more, -of the other sex. Each has learned how to give, and -that riches consist only in power to give, and that -power to give is developed only by giving, just as -skill in swimming comes from swimming and not -from standing on the shore.</p> - -<p>So they immerge each day into the invigorating -ocean, and glory in the rise and fall of its surf, in -its colour and in its refreshing coolness; and when -they become too old to swim, they will sit by the -open fire and exchange sweet reminiscences of bygone -plunges, until their spirits together breast the -waves of infinity and eternity forever.</p> - -<h3 id="section77">§ 77</h3> - -<p>One of the factors of the general marital muddle -that constitutes most marriages is the ignorance of -husband or wife, or both, about whether their sex -life, if they still continue it, is normal. What are -the evidences that the consummation of marital life -has taken place as satisfactorily as could be wished, -or as could occur with the pair in question, or (as is -supposed at any rate) takes place with the newly -married lovers on their honeymoon?</p> - -<p>It is not enough merely to be able to say they are -happy, for they will sometimes say so whether they -know they are or not, and they will in some cases -not know. In fact few people in or out of the wedded -state know whether they are truly happy or not or -how to become happy if they are not so.</p> - -<p>If a husband and wife are happy together they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> -will have begun to make their marital life a love -drama, by the frequent enactment of the love episode -as described in these pages and their outlook upon -life will be buoyant and positive.</p> - -<h3 id="section78">§ 78</h3> - -<p>In <cite>The Secret Places of the Heart</cite>, H. G. Wells -has plainly indicated that the love episode has taken -place between Sir Richmond Hardy and Miss -Grammont. He writes only of the calm which -follows the emotional storm, and in these words -(p. 253):</p> - -<p>“At the breakfast table it was Belinda (Miss -Grammont’s companion) who was the most nervous -of the three, the most moved, the most disposed to -throw a sacramental air over their last meal together. -Her companions had passed beyond the -idea of separation; it was as if they now cherished -a secret satisfaction at the high dignity of their -parting. Belinda in some way perceived they had -become different. They were no longer tremulous -lovers. They seemed sure of one another and with -a new pride in their bearing.”</p> - -<h3 id="section79">§ 79</h3> - -<p>Some husbands treat their wives with a satisfactory -erotic technique from the first, and a few -continue it through their entire married life. Others -err from the first, through ignorance, and still others -are backsliders in the pursuit of the erotic art; and -true love departs from these.</p> - -<p>There have been others who by accident have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> -found after years of wedded life the key to marital -happiness, or have been instructed by some erotologist—some -physician who knows or some intimate -friend.</p> - -<p>The story of one husband who happened to discover -for himself a secret that had escaped him -for years is here given:</p> - -<p>It was in the twentieth year of their marriage. -Their son was eighteen and their daughter sixteen. -Another daughter was not yet born.</p> - -<p>They were off for a week in the month of August -in the Adirondacks. All the morning they had -tramped over the hills until they came to a lake, -solitary, shut in by forests, a mountain overtowering -the side opposite them—reflected green and blue -in the waters that met their eyes as they approached -a beach of fine white sand.</p> - -<p>Sitting awhile they rejoiced in having found so -fine a place to eat their lunch. They were miles -from any human habitation. A heron floated majestically -through the air. A kingfisher hurried -noisily athwart their view. A fish jumped out of -the water a dozen rods away and made a circle -of waves which slowly enlarged until it became lost -to sight.</p> - -<p>Instinctively they both threw off their clothes and -stepped down to the water’s edge hand in hand.</p> - -<p>“I’ll beat you in!”</p> - -<p>“Let’s swim to that little island.”</p> - -<p>In they splashed and swam the first few yards -under water, he leading the way, she following, but -his eyes closely watching for any indication on her -part of fatigue.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Stay near me, Matey, there’s nothing but water -where I am.”</p> - -<p>“All right, Naiade, put your hand on my shoulder -and rest awhile. We’re almost there!”</p> - -<p>He felt her warm hand on his shoulder and her -thumb on the back of his neck, and the warmth of -the sun on his rapidly drying hair—there in the pure -water almost arrived at the wooded islet. He felt -the impact of the water on his flank stirred by the -leisurely motions of her other hand and arm as -she made as if to help him tow her to shore.</p> - -<p>They climbed up and sat on a mossy bank out of -sight of every living thing, looking from a shady -spot at the lake shimmering in the sunlight.</p> - -<p>“Our lunch is over there. We should have -brought it with us. Nevertheless I’ll feed upon thy -lips, Corinna.</p> - -<p>“What an experience this is! I never had a swim -like this before. A perfect day and a perfect place. -Isolation complete. Thou beside me singing in the -wilderness, but this is a very Eden and we are undisputed -owners of it for this hour. I’m rich in time. -I’d just as soon stay here till sunset. An absolutely -perfect place to rest and play. I feel as if I could -do anything—omnipotent as the gods of old, dependent -on nothing. It thrills me to think of myself—just -me—and you—just you—the only humans in -all the world we see. If I were a magician I’d turn -this moss into a magic carpet and we’d fly through -space.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Matey dear, I feel as if I <em>were</em> flying! Tell -me more like that. Continue the story. Tell it -softly close in my ear.”</p> - -<p>“Up, out from this islet we are flying, without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> -deafening roar of airplane engine, but just soaring, -soaring, wheeling in the air like eagles, you and I -together. Far subtler motion than the intermittent -strokes with which we paddled to that green islet -now so far below us. Blue sky all about and sunshine -warm upon my shoulders and your breasts. -See down below us now a cloud. See our silhouette -dotting the grey mist of it. And look, dearest! -That rainbow of which our shadow is the centre. It -makes a complete circle. Did you ever seen the -whole circle of iridescence like that? You never -could on earth. Look again, for soon we shall pass -that cloud. A perfect circle of perfect rainbow -colours—symbol of infinite beauty.”</p> - -<p>“Stop, Matey, this flight of yours is too thrilling. -Take me down to earth.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>“Matey, dear, in all our twenty years of love, I -never knew you till this day. Why did you not teach -me about you before this?”</p> - -<p>They were now slowly swimming through the -placid waters of the lake toward the beach of white -sand whence they had adventurously departed two -hours before. The sun warmed their heads and -the cool waters of the lake caressed their glowing -bodies.</p> - -<p>They stepped upon the sandy beach again.</p> - -<p>They devoured their lunch with eagerness.</p> - -<p>They now, while eating, having dried in the sun, -by force of habit put on their conventional incumbrances -of sex-differentiating toggery, took up their -staffs and turned their backs upon the lake with -its silvery waves and white sandy beach and slowly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> -wended their way hand in hand through the forest, -to the road leading to the inn.</p> - -<p>As they walked along the mountain road slipping -on stones and gravel each saw in the other’s eyes a -new flame of love never lighted there before.</p> - -<p>“I wonder, Matey, what it was that made this -day’s adventure the grand adventure of my life? -I never saw you look so fine before. I never felt -closer to you than I do this minute. Why have -you never before told me a story like that, that fired -my imagination as yours seemed to be?”</p> - -<p>“I suppose I never felt fired just that way myself. -Ideas occurred to me I’d never had before. Besides, -I’ve done a pile of thinking lately—and reading, too. -I think I’ve succeeded in piecing out a pretty good -fairy tale about us. It makes me much more interested -in your view of the world than ever I was -before. But I can tell you other stories now. I -think I’ve learned how to fire your imagination.”</p> - -<p>“You have, indeed! I’m eager for the next. -When will it be?”</p> - -<p>“Almost any time we have an hour or two alone. -We need time to get up steam, so to speak. We -don’t need to swim in a mountain lake every time -either. I think you got your particular thrill because -you had me and my mind absolutely all to yourself.”</p> - -<p>“Can I ever get that again?”</p> - -<p>“Surely, dear heart, for when I saw for the first -time that look in your eyes, which was not joy alone -but pure fire, I learned something about you I never -knew before. I realized that you yourself are a -far more complex and interesting personality with -infinitely more potentialities than ever I had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> -dreamed of. Do you think now I would ever stop -telling you stories like that?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t remember a word of it except the perfect -rainbow circle. The rest was silence. But it had -somehow a world of meaning for me. I know we -swam. I know we couldn’t fly, but you made me -think we did, which is quite as good for me.”</p> - -<h3 id="section80">§ 80</h3> - -<p>“Dear, why has it taken us twenty years to love -each other as we do now?”</p> - -<p>“It was our ignorance, which was so dense that -it did not know it was ignorant. That’s the blackest -kind. What we knew was that we had affection -for each other, and for our children, but the lack -of passion was not clearly sensed, because there was -no article in our creed of love that declared passion -to be a necessary factor in our marriage. We knew -the phrase ‘all in all to each other’; we identified -ourselves in countless superficial ways in addition to -the really solid identification represented in our -children, but while we did it with our intellects we -really did not do it with our hearts. We have not -been truly united, truly fused, until this day.</p> - -<p>“It needn’t have taken us twenty years, or even -one year, for there are people who instinctively -soar in the same ecstatic flight in their honeymoon, -that we achieved only after twenty years of external -devotion and watchfulness. But those whose early -married life is instantly complete in total physical -and emotional fusion think everyone else is the same -as they are and they don’t know what they <em>have</em> any -more than we did not know what we did not have.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> -A colour-blind man in a world of people all colour-blind -would not suspect his affliction. Possibly it -wouldn’t be an affliction. He might only laugh at -the extraordinary persons who say they can see -colours in things visible, just as we now consider -people freaks who say they can see colour in -sounds.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think, dear, that most people are blind -to the kind of love we see now?”</p> - -<p>“I do, for the vision of the circular rainbow on -top of the cloud is something that really requires -a certain fine sensitivity that is the product of civilization, -and depends on the many factors of civilized -life. I could not, as my remote ancestors could, -carry you off your feet in a literal sense, and dominate -you by sheer physical strength, which would -have been the only earthbound flight possible with -men of that age. Civilization has transmuted physical -strength into mental, moral and spiritual strength. -And just as physical strength was sensibly evident -in every action and motion of the body, so now, in -our present state of civilization, it is obscured or -obliterated and every mental reaction to our environment -is taking its place. To some women the -strength of this mental reaction is invisible, and -even today they can love with passion only the -physically perfect man. But the majority of women -now have been educated to the point of realizing -that physical strength may be present in men whose -mental and moral development is very small and -that mental and moral strength may exist even in -the men whose physique is slight and even frail.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think you’re so much stronger mentally, -morally and spiritually than you were? Did you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> -cultivate that strength consciously? Could you tell -others how to do it?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, dear one, to all three questions, and so are -you. The thing that finally touched off this day’s -passionate union was our realization, helped by the -increasing frankness forced by modern science on all -vital matters, that sex life is a part of the love life, -and that not only is sex not exclusively physical, but -it is more mental than physical. Men as ancient as -Ovid knew that love is an art, but they did not -know it as well as we do today. If it is an art, it -can be taught, it must be taught. The reason it -has not been taught is the taboo on sex. But that -is being lifted gradually and people are beginning to -realize that sexless love is as impossible as birth is -impossible without the fusion of male and female -germ cells. The ancient love manuals were all composed -by men to enable men to get greater physical -pleasure out of what they called love. The modern -idea is that man and woman together are each to -contribute an equal and complementary part to a -spiritual fusion comparable to the fusion of two -human germ cells, and that as the male cell causes -a reaction on the entirety of the female cell, so the -female cell causes a total reaction on the entirety of -the male cell. To say that either absorbs the other -is quite misleading. They stand side by side and -merely melt together, forming another different cell -which is the combination of all the properties of -the two. This idea of love implies that the two -lovers be equally frank and open in every way, concealing -nothing of their own feelings from each -other.”</p> - -<p>“But, dearest, some women, I’m sure, are unable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> -to express themselves, and others instinctively avoid -revealing their true feelings, fearing perhaps to -reveal because they may be giving away something -it might be to their advantage to keep. They think -that if they let any man, even their newly married -husband, know how much they love him, they will -cheapen themselves in their husband’s eyes, where -they desire to be valued the most.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think you would love me less if you felt -you owned me less? If you did, your love has possibly -too much of ownership in it. Love is not -possession, any more than it is the inability to -possess.”</p> - -<h3 id="section81">§ 81</h3> - -<p>The erotic acme is the detumescence following a -tumescence which activates, in order to secure, a -repose which can exist in consciousness only by contrast -with the intense activity, vivification and vitalization -of spheres of experience otherwise remaining -without or beyond one’s ken.</p> - -<p>A kiss which is ever so little retarded, a youth -laying softly his lips on those of a fair maiden, and, -for the period of a breath or two not taking them -away, feeling that not alone the lips touched hers -nor yet only his arms embraced her, is filled with a -natural response which tingles through his frame to -his very fingertips and makes soft and undulating -the sea crag on which they stand. More of her at -once would be too keen a pleasure, would make him -faintly dizzy with a joy to which he is unoriented.</p> - -<p>The halo of that first kiss fades not in a day but -lingers through his sleep, recurring poignantly like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> -the after image of the sun caught by chance directly -in his eyes.</p> - -<p>All his being is pervaded by the sweet breathlessness -of that virgin experience of a maiden’s lips, a -touch that spreads like fire through his body and -craves quenching by another kiss which but extends -the influence of the first.</p> - -<p>“Our lips have met, a touch compared with which -our hand-clasp was a grinding of rocks in the mad -surging of the ocean surf.</p> - -<p>“Our lips have met, a fragrance above the honeysuckle -and the roses of the hedge.</p> - -<p>“Our lips have met, our breasts have asked us too, -why should not they repose on one another. Our -hands have known each other’s sides, and flanks -have questioned why they also might not have the -soft contact.</p> - -<p>“Why should not all the remotest parts of us -clamor to share in this meeting of two lovers’ lips? -Each of us is whole and every part fired to yearn for -what every other part feels.</p> - -<p>“I look into your eyes and see the world. All -that invites to do and feel and learn. There’s not -a drop of blood within my veins that does not hurry -on its joyous course, to tell the uttermost confines -of me, that here in you I find a counterpart, for -every region of my living self.</p> - -<p>“We cannot part for hours. This sandy shore, -warm with an August sun, shall be our couch, remote -from interruption. You are mine and I am yours -for now and evermore. Not till I know you all, and -you feel me pervading all the regions of your soul, -shall we be able then to take anew the threads of -our existence in the world and weave with them a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> -common robe for both in which enclosed we act -toward our fellows, a single person binary in form.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>“My breathing now is calm like yours; our blood -is throbbing softly in our veins, we two went through -a fire together, keen, that welded our two spirits -into one—inseparable, self-contained, at rest.</p> - -<p>“Are other men and women thus close fused, each -through the other’s eyes beholding life? If not, -dear one, the only other joy, not yet by us slow -tasted, is to look and see how we can make them -also feel the deep-down inner satisfaction pierce the -very roots of their own being too, without which -we should lack companionship, and feel ourselves -unique and lonely. Thus, by throwing this same -brilliant light of life with which we have ourselves -been newly filled, about us, we can see what ne’er -before we saw back in the times when naught we -knew of this glad melting each in other’s soul here -on the sandy rock-bound ocean shore, where wave -and gravel mingle, air and sea and sun and sky; one -universal touch and penetration of each other’s -heart. Now we are whole that fragments were -before.”</p> - -<h3 id="section82">§ 82</h3> - -<p>The rationalistic thought may occur to some men -that a woman’s all can be taken at one love episode. -It may come from her uttering words to the effect -that she is all his. If <em>his</em> means <em>with his destructive -mark on it</em> she is utterly his, to be sure, if he has -ruined her. But by a perfect love episode one can -ruin only the egoistic-social value of this woman for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> -some other man. For any other man her sexual -value would be only increased by the proper kind -of love episode.</p> - -<p>But her erotic value is something that can exist -only for the man whom she loves and who loves her. -The first properly erotic love episode can never -destroy or ruin but only create, or begin the creation, -of a woman out of a gynecoid female. A true woman -according to the use of the term in this book is a -female who has become fused with a male. Then -she becomes a woman and he a man. The nature of -this fusion has been discussed elsewhere.</p> - -<h3 id="section83">§ 83</h3> - -<p>As a woman’s all cannot be taken at one love -episode, except that “all” which is constituted by -her strictly egoistic-social property value, it follows -that in the true erotic sense, nothing is taken unless -possibly as one should chip a piece of marble from -a block out of which one was to carve a statue of -the Goddess of Love. The fragment of marble -chiselled away at the first stroke of the hammer is -no part of the statue.</p> - -<h3 id="section84">§ 84</h3> - -<p>The thought that the husband is getting an egoistic-socially -valuable possession by the exercise of -his rights at the first love episode is therefore quite -absurd. He is performing an act which is in the -nature of a creation, if rightly carried out, but which -is destruction if he does not himself hold his instincts -under absolute control.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p> - -<p>That the love episode does not take away from -woman anything that makes her poorer is indicated -by the fact, noticed by Ellis and others, that woman’s -erotic nature is deeper and stronger than man’s. -For the development of this great erotic nature -it is as absolutely necessary for her to be controlled -by a man quite master of his own sex instincts, as it -is necessary for an ovum to be met by a zoösperm, -if it is going to develop any further than its ovum -condition.</p> - -<p>At a single love episode, neither can the woman’s -all be taken by a man nor can her development -be completed. The first episode is only the beginning -of a development, that needs the entire excess energies -of her man for the rest of their joint lives. In -the sections on virginity it will also appear that -except in a superficial egoistic-social sense, her psychical -virginity cannot always be terminated at the -first love episode.</p> - -<h3 id="section85">§ 85</h3> - -<p>The thought that she has given her all to him is -worked out still further in the irrational conclusion, -which comes to some men’s minds, that there may -be nothing left for himself for a future occasion. -Therefore he will not take all this time, so as to -leave a little for next time.</p> - -<p>Possibly getting all of her at one stroke may be -the root thought in Don Juanism. <i lang="la">Jus primæ noctis</i> -may have originated from the idea that the noble -lord should get all there was in the vicinity to get; -and he was exercising his right to own and get -everything in sight. The men who cool in their -affections (or whose passions cool) immediately<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> -after the possession of the persons of their love -objects may be inspired by exactly this egoistic-social -thought, that there is a possession that may be -acquired by means of one love episode, after which -the woman has no more to give.</p> - -<h3 id="section86">§ 86</h3> - -<p>In phantasying, in his own ecstasy, the complete -surrender of the woman (cf. <a href="#section158">§ 158</a>), a man may also -phantasy her being exhausted, dry like an eaten -orange, or, like a flower, drained of its honey by a -bee; not realizing that the beginning of a woman’s -love is only the beginning of an infinite growth, -which he alone is able to develop for himself, and -which no other man can develop for him—that, in -short, a man who deserts one woman after another -is simply showing an essentially perverted appetite.</p> - -<p>What any one of these tasted and rejected women -might later be developed into, in the shape of a full-blooded -rich, warm femininity, he has not the intelligence -to conceive. Possibly the cynical roué might -say—look at the older women, are many of them -attractive? To which we should reply no, but -the reason they are not is simply that they were -not properly loved into a state of full erotic development, -in which they would have preserved the -attractiveness of youth.</p> - -<h3 id="section87">§ 87</h3> - -<p>The only true human love drama is one that has -an organic relation to a whole lifetime of love. To -the Don Juan type of ravisher of virgins the love<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> -episode, as part of a life drama with unity in it, does -not exist. He satisfies himself with beginnings, with -staking out foundations for other people to build -and live in the homes constructed by their hands, not -realizing, for his imagination is poor and weak, -how soon his little stakes will be pulled up and -thrown away by the first workers on the house, even -if they do not entirely reject his plan’s outlines.</p> - -<p>The only true love of a man for a woman is that -in which he studies her reactions to his own behaviour, -and cultivates that power of his, which is -the innate power residing in any whole man, to control -the entire emotional life of one woman, let her -intellectual life be what it may.</p> - -<p>“Why,” the man of the world may say, “should -any man be satisfied with only one woman, when, if -he has personal attractiveness, he may find hundreds -of women ready to fall into his arms, and may drink -the love life to the dregs?” What Enobarbus said -of Cleopatra may be said of any woman, if she be -developed by a man, as she should be.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale</div> -<div class="verse">Her infinite variety; other women cloy</div> -<div class="verse">The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry</div> -<div class="verse">Where most she satisfies....</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>Woman’s infinite variety, supposed in Shakespeare’s -day to have been embodied in the arch-dispenser -of delights, Cleopatra, was a rare phenomenon; -but the modern view is that the variety is -present in every woman, just as the fourscore keys -are in every piano. In this sense, then, woman’s -infinite variety is dependent on man’s control of her -emotional reactions, no woman being full woman -unless and until she has been completely manned.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></p> - -<h3 id="section88">§ 88</h3> - -<p>No human male, however, can completely man -more than one woman, any more than one gonad -can unite with more than one other germ cell. Complete -fusion of two cells requires the entirety of one -cell uniting with the entirety of another. This is -the type of physical and psychical immortality. The -union of two single cells contains the potentiality of -development of all the qualities inherent in both, but -in new combinations.</p> - -<p>In the psychosomatic union of two individuals -there is the same possibility of infinite variety in the -physical and mental reactions, only if the union -between them is, like the fusion of the two single -cells, a complete total and exclusive union each with -the other.</p> - -<p>The fact that of the thousands of egg cells produced -by one woman no two can fuse with each -other, and that of the billions of spermatozoa produced -by one man no two can fuse together, but -that any one male germ cell can completely fuse -with any one female germ cell is the prototype of a -perfect full marriage, and is the suggestion that -probably no couples need be unhappy; for happiness -is a matter of fusion, and fusion can be accomplished -by the removal of ignorance due to tradition.</p> - -<h3 id="section89">§ 89</h3> - -<p>The right of the wife to experience the erotic -acme at every love episode is only beginning to be -admitted. Up to the present time the husband has -generally gone on the principle of taking his wife’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> -body for the fine physical catharsis he fancies it -produces in himself.</p> - -<p>Taking a woman’s body, however, for the fine -emotional catharsis, without “considering too curiously” -just how it strikes the woman is manifestly, -to any thoughtful man, merely a one-sided affair. -It involves only as a negative quantity the results of -his action upon the woman, because erotically the -result is negative in her case. The most it can do -is to stir her emotions a little, leave her with more -or less ungratified desire, a tension which in the end -is most harmful to her.</p> - -<p>Only a man whose mentality is below par or -undeveloped can feel himself fully satisfied with an -attempt at a purely physical love episode like this. -To his unconscious it can be but the stepping up a -step that isn’t there, a striking out at empty air. -For the exaltation (which would come from passion -reciprocated) is indelibly registered on his unconscious -as a negative quantity. It is a dent in a -surface intended by nature to be convex. In the -fully developed man all the sensibilities registering -response in the mate are present, and if they are not -given the opportunity to function, the lack of it is -definitely recorded in the unconscious. The man -has as much right biologically to a response in his -wife as the wife has a right to be sympathetically -handled.</p> - -<p>In a time soon to come men will take into consciousness -and into conscious control all instinctive -actions, and all these unconscious lacks; and will so -plan their love that the absence of response will be -avoided. The woman’s right to be made to respond -will be finally acknowledged.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span></p> - -<h3 id="section90">§ 90</h3> - -<p>The right of woman to experience such stirring -up of unconscious depths of soul as is caused by the -erotic acme of the love episode, and the advantage -to her health and general welfare coming from such -stirring are two separate questions. Havelock Ellis -has admitted that the woman’s right to love and -all it can include is not a right in a political or even -an ethical sense, any more than the right to be -happy.</p> - -<p>But for the existence of the relation of a higher -type of erotism to health of body and mind physiological -science is piling up proof every year. There -is a positive relation, a direct connection, of cause -and effect. Only the fullest use of all the faculties -makes the fullest and therefore the happiest life.</p> - -<p>Response as an actual manifestation on the wife’s -part may be absent while there is a repressed -response present. In other words the desire and -gratification of it may both occur in her, but below -the level of consciousness. A previous attraction -which drew her toward her husband when he was -her lover may have been repressed by some gauche -behaviour of his. Desire, even after conscious passion -has cooled, may nevertheless remain in the unconscious. -If consciously accepted, desire is accompanied -by a perceptible physical condition of tumescence. -If not consciously accepted, either the -tumescence does not enter consciousness or it is not -in the same organs it would be in if one were consciously -entertaining desire.</p> - -<p>In the absence of the proper or suitable substitute -gratification, the increase of blood supply to specific<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> -organs gradually diminishes and the desire gradually -subsides; but there is still left a nerve tension that -is closely bound up with various ideas, images and -other predominantly mental states.</p> - -<p>Sex desires may be aroused and even if not appropriately -gratified, will subside of themselves. An -automatic relaxation of all tensions regularly takes -place in children, who also are much more facile -than adults in the acceptance of substitute gratifications.</p> - -<h3 id="section91">§ 91</h3> - -<p>But after the sexual synthesis of puberty the desires -are not only much more insistent but much more -definite and specific. Still they can be and are repeatedly -repressed by many men and most women. -That they can be so repressed is the reason why -asceticism has been so emphasized by many religions. -The religious views of many people render uncomfortable -the actual emergence, into consciousness, -of any sexual desires whatever.</p> - -<p>If the training of the individual has not been such -as to render conscious the manifestation of the sex -desire, it then does not appear as a tumescence in -the genital region, in many cases, but as a swelling -or a pain, or a hardness somewhere else, or as an -emotion of disappointment, disgust or hate. Some -deeply religious people seem to prefer these emotions, -in spite of their destructive nature, to the -constructive emotions of truly erotic love.</p> - -<p>And we are impressed with the irony of fate -which condemns innocent people to accept an unwholesome -in place of a wholesome emotion, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> -makes some people think they are justified in telling -others what emotions they shall have.</p> - -<h3 id="section92">§ 92</h3> - -<p>The right of woman to experience the erotic -acme would be immediately conceded by every man, -if he could in any way get into his mind a visual -image of mangled feelings. The tortures of Tantalus, -Ixion and Sisyphus of Greek legend should -be kept in mind, and the erotically unsatisfied woman -regarded as a living, present human being, thirsty -and standing in the middle of a pool of crystal -water, which constantly recedes from her parched -lips as they bend to drink; or tied to a wheel which, -as it is rotated, makes her sick and dizzy; or with -huge effort rolling a heavy stone up a hill that has -no ending.</p> - -<p>The right of a woman to satisfaction even if not -conceded by a hypothetical monster of selfishness, -her husband, might be admitted if he should be made -aware of the detriment to his own psyche received -from her condition. It is surely not an exaggeration -to say that to be in daily relations with any human -being who is so twisted and bent by unrelaxed tensions -that she can hardly be called sane, is a fate -that no man would choose unless he perversely -wished to drive himself mad. He might see his -own advantage, if not her right, an advantage which -he quite clearly recognizes in all egoistic-social -spheres. He will insist on having his material environment -as perfect as possible through his own -personal effort or supervision. He will insist on -having the plumbing, wiring and every other installation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> -of house, garage, shop, store and factory in the -finest possible condition; realizing that any imperfection -will reflect directly upon himself. But he -commonly does not see that the reactions of his wife -in the most intimate relations of marital life should -be made, not by mere supervision as of a physician -but by his own personal acts, absolutely perfect in -every respect, and that his chief responsibility in -life is to do this very thing, without which all his -other forms of efficiency are of negligible importance.</p> - -<h3 id="section93">§ 93</h3> - -<p>One’s wife is the closest part of one’s objective -ego. She is at least that. Many men are of course -careless of their own bodies and personal appearance. -They recognize, however, that the responsibility -for these is their own and no one else’s. But -their wives are above all things their complementary -bodies, and practically as much their own responsibility -as their own personal corporeal systems. A -man may conceivably think his wife has no right to -happiness but as part of himself he must see that -she is really happy. She is as important for his -welfare at least as his arms or legs, which he would -not choose to have cramped or palsied. Yet a man -with an unsatisfied wife is as personally and intimately -defective in himself as if he had a withered -hand, and he is much more responsible for the wife’s -condition than he is for that of his other members.</p> - -<h3 id="section94">§ 94</h3> - -<p>In the non-fecundating periods in the lives of the -lower animals they spend their energies in either<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> -seeking food or hibernating. We humans, after the -work of providing food and shelter is finished, have -a surplus of energy to work off. After procreating -our children we need to develop, in a sense to create, -ourselves as humans advancing above the animals, -not as humans descending to animal levels. This -development has been tried in various ways by different -men and women in different ages. Some have -given their energies to religion, to philanthropy, to -charity, to arts, to commerce. Few have seen the -importance of developing the proper human emotions.</p> - -<p>At the present stage of civilization all objects of -study, except the last, have been worked over so -thoroughly that there is nothing new under the sun. -Religions have been analyzed, codified, classified; -philanthropy and charity have been endowed, institutionalized -and organized. There seems no longer -any development possible in the technique of the -various arts comparable to what was done centuries -ago. Commerce and applied science are already -elaborated into an almost incomprehensible complexity. -Human emotions, however, and <i lang="fr">par excellence</i> -love, have only just begun to be sensed as a -new field and source of human welfare.</p> - -<p>It would seem a strange prophecy to make (yet -all prophecies are strange) that, inside of five hundred -years, or even fifty years, men’s excess energies -would be devoted to love-making, instead of almost -exclusively to the pursuit of egoistic-social ends. And -yet that is what the renaissance of the erotic values -of life will certainly bring about. Tarde says that -“if the ambition of power, the regal wealth of -American or European millionairism once seemed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> -nobler, love now more and more attracts to itself -the best and highest parts of the soul, where lies -the hidden ferment of all that is greatest in science -and art, and more and more those studious and -artist souls multiply who, intent on their peaceful -activities, hold in horror the business men and the -politicians and will one day succeed in driving them -back. That surely will be the great and capital -revolution of humanity, an active psychological revolution; -the recognized preponderance of the meditative -and contemplative, the lover’s side of the -human soul, over the feverish, expansive, rapacious -and ambitious side. And then it will be understood -that one of the greatest of social problems, perhaps -the most arduous of all, has been the problem of -love.”</p> - -<h3 id="section95">§ 95</h3> - -<p>Let it not be thought that truly and sublimely -intense erotic occupation is a thing that weakens -men for the carrying out of great projects. The -greatest project is the successful living together of -men and nations, and this has not been approached, -being as far from us now as the nearest fixed star. -The union of man and woman into the complete -binary individual is the first and essential step toward -the formation of the social group which will -have its first perfectly successful existence when all -its individuals are binaries consisting each of a man -and a woman who have become fused into an individual.</p> - -<p>Then and not until then will questions of class, -nationality and race be settled. There will probably -be no separate and mutually antagonistic nations.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> -Men will not be strong enough to create the hologamous<a name="FNanchor_17" id="FNanchor_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> -binary individual until they are emotionally -strong enough and simple enough to realize the -supremacy of erotic over egoistic-social values.</p> - -<h3 id="section96">§ 96</h3> - -<p>A fundamental principle of erotics is that in the -relation of husband and wife, this condition of -preparedness for the husband’s relaxation of his -erotic tension is the erotic acme of the wife herself. -This is the pattern referred to at the beginning of -the last section.</p> - -<p>The emotional relaxation of the husband is, from -the biological viewpoint, essentially inept and silly -if it occurs in the presence of a woman unprepared -for it. It is ridiculous enough anywhere else than -in the woman’s <em>presence</em>; but she is not all present, -spiritually, mentally, psychically, no matter how -close physically, if she be not herself in the very -climax of erotic acme. His emotional relaxation, -occurring at any time previous to the complete alignment -of the totality of her personality solely in the -erotic direction is as inept as falling into the water -completely clothed.</p> - -<p>It is as if Nature had said unambiguously to man:</p> - -<p>“Your happiness depends on your own emotional -control of the emotions of your mate. She should -never know that you have lost control of your emotions. -If you do, you are a mere puling infant. It -is therefore your duty to make her lose control of -her erotic emotions.</p> - -<p>“Only in case you are able to exalt her to this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> -altitude of supermundane excitement, have you any -right to lose control of your own emotions. You -can then let them go, give free rein to them; and -you will probably both come to at the same time, -she not knowing definitely exactly what has happened -to her, but surprised, delighted, awed, overwhelmed -at the beauty and wonder of it. She knew -that being in love was pleasant. She did not know -that the reward of being in love was a flight of -illimitable velocity through the azure empyrean beyond -the stars and back again.”</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<p class="center">CONSUMMATION</p> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Burning—relentless burning—</div> -<div class="verse">With the gently caressing fires that will not be calmed.</div> -<div class="verse">A delicious sense of stifling.</div> -<div class="verse">Suddenly a fierce storm of sharp, exquisite pains ...</div> -<div class="verse">Like little electric needle shocks ...</div> -<div class="verse">Pierces every tiny part of your body—</div> -<div class="verse">Till you are raised out of this earth.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">A great calm comes over you then—</div> -<div class="verse">And you open languorously, luxuriously</div> -<div class="verse">Like an enormous, fresh passion flower opens its petals to the sun.</div> -<div class="verse">Something comes and snuggles into its petals like a honey bee</div> -<div class="verse">And they slowly close again—and then—just nothing then—</div> -<div class="verse">The sensation of having no sensations—great peace, vast peace—and</div> -<div class="verse">Nothing, nothing, nothing.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse right">—<span class="smcap">Florence E. von Wien.</span></div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - -<h3 id="section97">§ 97</h3> - -<p>So far as the woman’s slower progress than man’s -toward the climax requires, as much time as possible -should be given to each detail of the love episode. -It will be shown in the chapter on control<a name="FNanchor_18" id="FNanchor_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> that this -time, and the opportunity for observation which it -gives, is an important factor in the essentially human<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> -element of male control. Only its crassest animal -form, its acutest gasp, is “brief as the lightning in -the collied night.”</p> - -<p>In the love episode, at the time when contact is -deepest and most intense, one sees, if one reasons -biologically, that the time that would be chosen by -nature for the injection of spermatozoa (of the -millions of which only one is to be chosen by chance -to be united to the single ovum ordinarily developed -each month) is the time when the container which -is destined to be the seat of the future life was either -most open or most turned toward the source of the -spermatozoa.</p> - -<p>As it is believed that the woman’s erotic acme is -either coincident with or associated with this change -in shape of the innermost organ, we have here a -prototype giving more rationally the pattern for -carrying out this phase of the love episode.</p> - -<p>In other words the wife is to be prepared for an -emotional cataclysm on the part of the husband. -Just as the organs of any two animals have to come -together simultaneously so not only is this apposition -necessary in humans, but in them there is a psychical -apposition, a rapport of purely spiritual quality -needed in order that the real spiritual fusion may -take place.</p> - -<h3 id="section98">§ 98</h3> - -<p>In animals simultaneity is gained by the same -mechanism as that which arranges for cross fertilization -of some plants, i.e., the time for the impregnation -is short or instantaneous in one sex and -long in the other. In animals the female is ready -only for a short time, the male always. The female<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> -animal is prepared by physiological changes, the female -human by psychical development. In humans -the female is supposed by some men to be always -ready until by their ignorance and diabolical treatment -they find their women never ready. That -which occurs in an animal is a purely physiological -heat. In women it has dwindled into almost vestigial -proportions in comparison to the psychically -caused excitement. This psychic element is enough, -however (if rightly understood and managed by the -man), to make it safe to say that a woman may -always be made ready, even though by her own constitution -and upbringing she may never know it and -so not admit it. The female animal never suffers -the male’s approaches except in her estrual period. -Man has it in his power to cause in woman the -psychic analogue of the estrus at any time.</p> - -<h3 id="section99">§ 99</h3> - -<p>Ellis (op. cit., III, 251) remarks that the sexual -impulse tends to involve, to a greater extent in -women than in men, the higher psychic region. -Therefore sex, tending in men to be exclusively -physical, needs in them to be raised to the erotic -level of the psychical, in order to give man the -master key to the situation. Thus the rapport -(which is psychical and not physical) can be established. -The greater psychic diffusion of love instincts -in woman gives man the opportunity for a -complete dominance over her erotism as soon as he -learns to exercise it. In woman’s sexuality “lies -the earth, all Danaë to the stars,” symbolizing the -direction from which man should approach woman,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> -from a psychically more exalted position, and not -from below, like mephitic air from a cave.</p> - -<p>As one cannot put a finger into a ring, unless a -ring is there, so in the love episode the husband -must be sure that his emotional power will not, like -a blow wasted in the air, fall upon a situation most -inappropriate, unreceptive and unproductive of the -end sought. A blacksmith must be sure the anvil -is in place before he takes up his hammer.</p> - -<p>It is obvious that, if the relaxation of erotic tension -on the man’s part is to do the work, which it -certainly has to do, it must have a condition which -is appropriate for the most telling effect of this -work. One of the best ways in which this condition -can be produced in some women is outlined in the -following section.</p> - -<h3 id="section100">§ 100</h3> - -<p>A technique of the love episode has been described -and advocated under several names (Karezza, Male -Continence, Dr. Zugassent’s Discovery, etc.) which -consists in that degree of virile control whereby, -while the erotic acme may be produced in the wife, -the husband reserves his. There is no doubt whatever -that this technique is of greatest possible advantage -to the wife, if she herself reaches the acme. -Opinions differ as to its possible harm for the husband. -It was the principle which the Oneida Community -(organized in 1847 and discontinued as a -eugenic experiment in 1879) followed for the 30 -years of its existence with no observable injury to -the men. It is also spontaneously discovered and -sporadically used by married couples at the present<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> -day independently of the propaganda in its favour, -conducted by a woman writer who has published the -book <cite>Karezza</cite>.<a name="FNanchor_19" id="FNanchor_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p> - -<p>There is also no doubt whatever that only a comparatively -few men are willing, and some fewer are -quite unable to control themselves to this degree -necessary to postpone their own erotic acme until -a future time. The ability to do this is the most -potent factor possible in producing that superiority -of virile over feminine power which forms the greatest -fusing medium between the two partners.</p> - -<h3 id="section101">§ 101</h3> - -<p>Indeed, it may be confidently asserted that the -accomplishment of this erotic <i lang="fr">tour de force</i> on the -part of the husband (during which he may observe -the greatest possible effect that man can have upon -woman) gives the husband a sense of exaltation -that could not be paralleled, a feeling of power that -produces in him a keenness and penetrating sense -of satisfaction that he has never before felt. After -an experience of this kind, he is fully alive, as he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> -never was before, to the possibilities of erotic ecstasy -emanating from the preliminaries and every several -and separate phase of the love episode as responded -to by his wife.</p> - -<p>This entire reconstruction of the love episode not -only throws into strong light the value of the preliminary -and intermediary phases of the love episode, -but it puts, in the husband’s mind, so much -value on the first and second acts of the play that -the actual occurrence of his own erotic acme has -then a much lessened importance.</p> - -<p>If he can so transform his wife, as he sees her -transformed before his very eyes, and perceives in -every sense quality of consciousness, and if he can -thus express his love any time he wishes, his former -hurried, perfunctory and mechanical sexuality appears -to him as a dried leaf as compared to the full-blown -rose of his present triumph. He recognizes -that he has stepped from one level of existence to a -higher plane of life, and that he is human in a new -and enlarged sense.</p> - -<h3 id="section102">§ 102</h3> - -<p>Kisses may stale but the occasional practice of -this reserve on the husband’s part in the love episode -will never stale, but will compare to the recharging -of an exhausted battery, to the filling of a vessel -drained, to the incoming tide. It is a far greater -stimulant to happiness of all kinds than anything -else discovered by mankind.</p> - -<p>That this is rare and exceedingly hard to get, and -that it involves self-control on the part of the husband -and abandonment of self-control on the part of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> -the wife, makes it like one of those elements in the -erotic situation mentioned by Freud as having been -necessarily injected into it by man, whenever he -found love too easy and too free.</p> - -<p>“It is easy to prove that the psychical value -of the need for love sinks, as soon as its satisfaction -is made easy. An obstruction is needed to drive the -libido upward, and where the natural obstructions -to satisfaction do not apply, men have at all times -conventionally inserted them, in order to be able -to enjoy love. This is true of individuals as well -as of nations. In times when the satisfaction of -love found no difficulties, as occasionally during the -fall of ancient civilizations, love became worthless -and life empty, and there was necessary a strong -reactionary influence to restore the indispensable -emotional values.”<a name="FNanchor_20" id="FNanchor_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p> - -<p>It is hard enough for any man to hold in check -any instinct; but, when he is holding the love instinct -in check, in the face of everything including his wife -herself, unanimously calling upon him to throw away -all restraint, it becomes the most difficult, and (because -of its results, not its difficulty) the most desirable -accomplishment possible.</p> - -<p>It is hard for a woman of refinement, culture and -puritanical antecedents to relax the inhibitions necessary -to be relaxed in order for her to gain her own -erotic acme. If she realizes that her husband must -have his, anyway, regardless of hers, this realization -makes her still less able to relax.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span></p> - -<h3 id="section103">§ 103</h3> - -<p>If on the other hand she is assured by experience -from the first that her erotic acme will be taken -care of with absolute reliability by the only person -in the world who can insure its coming, her own -inhibitions are much more likely to be overcome, -and she to become relaxed and open to him at his -approach.</p> - -<p>The vital importance, therefore, to the man, of -doing everything in his power to make himself absolutely -sure, even from the very first, that the erotic -needs of his wife are amply taken care of by him, -will be clearly seen when he realizes that if he does -not do it himself, instinct (which is as strong in a -woman as it is in a man) will ceaselessly pull her -in the direction of getting these needs supplied by -some other man. If the husband has not the -strength of will to overcome his own instincts to -the minor degree of retarding, for his wife’s health, -the relaxation of his own erotic tension he will be -unable consistently to blame her.</p> - -<p>Man’s historic remedy for this defect in himself—namely, -shutting up his woman behind the doors of a -harem—and the remedy that followed this, of shutting -her in behind psychic bars of repressions and inhibitions, -is the infantile method of force. Its success -has been slight. The only thing that doors and locks -confine is the body, and perhaps that was all he -wanted. And likewise the only thing that inhibitions -and bars of repression can restrain is the physical -manifestation of the sexual impulse. The instinct -itself cannot be annihilated. We know quite well -what happens to different types of people when the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> -expression of the sexual impulse is completely inhibited. -Man or woman is equally affected by this -suppression, but woman in general has been the -more suppressed.</p> - -<h3 id="section104">§ 104</h3> - -<p>It cannot be overlooked that the constant pull -exercised over every woman by her erotic instincts, -even though they be so repressed that she is utterly -unconscious of them, is more racking in the more -refined and cultivated type of woman than in the -other. Lacking the satisfaction of her erotic desires -she unconsciously seeks gratification in numerous -activities toward which this blind erotism is the -only efficient cause. And as the real need is never -met, these substitute activities never completely -satisfy.</p> - -<h3 id="section105">§ 105</h3> - -<p>The practice of Karezza, or the husband’s reserving -his own erotic acme, has an interesting sidelight -thrown upon it by the experiments of Steinach in -cutting the <i lang="la">vas deferens</i>. The effect of this is to stop -the external secretions of the interstitial gland. “The -result is that the seminal vesicle (either one of the -two reservoirs for the semen) and the interstitial -gland are completely cut off from one another; and -this in turn gives rise to a multiplication of the -interstitial cells, and to an increase of the hormone -produced by them.</p> - -<p>“Professor Steinach has performed the operation -on men on several occasions. In some instances -these men were fairly young but physically weak; -in others the subjects were senile men. The appearance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> -of the subjects became youngish, fresh; their -bodily strength increased, the tremor of their hand -disappeared, memory and will power returned, and -the sexual power was restored.”<a name="FNanchor_21" id="FNanchor_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p> - -<p>It seems quite likely that Karezza may produce -the same results. It has too the advantage of being -removable at will. That is, the husband, in perfect -control of his erotism, can thus reduce the external -secretions of his interstitial gland himself, without -an operation, and reduce it to as low a degree as he -finds consonant with the buoyancy of his health, and -at the same time not only perfectly satisfy his wife -but give her a type and a degree of satisfaction -wholly incommensurate with the effort on his own -part necessary to accomplish the result. If for any -reason whatever it seems at any time again desirable -to produce the external secretions he can do so. But -it appears quite reasonable to suppose that the -arousal of the wife’s full erotism will under such -circumstances have the total favourable hygienic -effect upon her, and his fears about himself—namely, -that by excessive external excretions of the interstitial -gland he may be weakening himself—groundless -though they may well be, will be quite removed.</p> - -<h3 id="section106">§ 106</h3> - -<p>There is much discussion among physicians as to -the harm that may be done to the husband’s constitution -by the practice of Karezza. But while the -physicians and scientists are weighing the possibilities -of physical harm to the constitution of the husband -by this method of accomplishing psychically<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> -what surgeons do with the knife, there can be no -doubt of the extraordinary psychic advantage of -the procedure, an advantage which, considering the -well known but little used influence of the mind over -the body, may easily exceed any physical disadvantage.</p> - -<p>The physical side of it is discussed by Dr. -Robie, who thinks that undesirable effects are produced -by it, if it is continued long enough to -cause any of the disadvantages he mentions. The -practice can be stopped or interrupted at any time. -The husband can control it perfectly so as to have -exactly as much external secretion as he finds he -needs for his greatest health.</p> - -<p>And no matter how old he may become in years, -up to the threescore and ten, at any rate, he will -have no need to give up for any fancied advantage -to himself his love episodes with his wife.</p> - -<p>Karezza then while possibly unnecessary, or -moderately undesirable for young and vigorous -men, may be a most salutary procedure for middle-aged -and older men, whereby they may preserve in -themselves the functioning of the interstitial gland, -continuing its valuable internal secretions that are -stopped by complete abstinence.</p> - -<p>Describing Karezza as the husband’s reserving -his own erotic acme is not psychologically accurate. -As has been before stated the acme nevertheless -takes place, not physically through the sudden ejaculation -of the external secretions, but psychically -through the indescribable emotional exaltation on -his part following the demonstration of his control, -a control which evokes an altogether unprecedented -response from his wife.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></p> - -<p>He soon learns to value this response and his -own power, which enables him to evoke it, as the -greatest accomplishment of his life, one compared -with which the egoistic-social emoluments and distinctions -are as nothing, a power of control greater -than any other in the world in its good results, a -power of control which once exercised over one -person gives the possessor of the power the same -or similar influence over others.</p> - -<h3 id="section107">§ 107</h3> - -<p>If the husband’s concern is for his adult feeling -of exaltation and power, his greatest concern is the -complete overpowering of his wife in the realm -solely of the erotic emotions. His study of her, and -his refusal to study his own feelings, is the best -method of arousing her to the pitch of excitement -that glows almost to a point of luminosity. He -should learn by reading, and by consultation with -the best erotologists, how every effect on her is to -be produced in the management of the love episode, -failing which he is almost certain to arouse a degree -of resentment in her, which, the more repressed, -the more independently of her own control it develops, -so that it may break out even years later in -some act of anger or spite.</p> - -<p>What he says, does and even thinks during the -hours of the first love episode, beginning with the -first mutual anticipatory thought or look and ending -with the last reverberating memory image of what -he has been through with her, every act, word and -thought of his own has an effect upon her total -physical and mental reactions, his mental expressions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> -on her physical reactions quite as much as his -physical or her mental.</p> - -<p>He can be absolutely confident that what she -most desires, whether she knows it or not, is to be -completely dominated by him in the sphere of erotic -action, and the amazing thing is the number of -husbands who do not seek this domination of the -erotic sphere of their wives’ life, but who seek merely -their own relaxation of tension which they could -get mechanically and autoerotically any time, if that -was all there was to it.</p> - -<p>She cannot desire to dominate him. It is a -biological impossibility. She may be so twisted and -muddled in her thinking between social-egoistic ends -and erotic ends that she consciously wants to dictate -to him in everything; but if he properly master her -here, she will not continue to do so.</p> - -<p>She cannot desire to dictate to him, except to -gain egoistic ends, and these are largely conscious -ones; while the true erotic aims, in every woman, -are deep in the unconscious, and need to be liberated -therefrom by her husband, for the mutual -development both of herself and of him.</p> - -<h3 id="section108">§ 108</h3> - -<p>A correspondent of Ellis (Vol. III, p. 210) writes -that, one cause, serving to disguise a woman’s feelings -to herself and make her seem to herself colder -than she really is, may be looked for in “the masochistic<a name="FNanchor_22" id="FNanchor_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> -tendency of women, or their desire for -subjection to the man they love. I believe no point -in the whole question is more misunderstood than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> -this. Nearly every man imagines that to secure a -woman’s love and respect he must give her her own -way in small things and compel her obedience in -great ones. Every man who desires success with a -woman should exactly reverse that theory.”</p> - -<p>The unsatisfactory nature of this communication -comes from the ambiguity as to small things -and great things. What are small and what great? -The answer is that the small things are those concerned -with egoistic-social impulses, the great things -are the erotic. From the truly erotic point of view -no egoistic-social impulses lead to great, valuable -or important actions. A man may defer to his -wife’s judgment in all kinds of every-day affairs, -unless this deference is unmistakably due to an -actual lack of confidence on his part, because confidence -of all kinds is based on love confidence.</p> - -<p>And a man who not only defers to his wife’s -judgment in egoistic-social lines but in addition continues -to “compass her with sweet observances,” -being always chivalrously polite and attentive to -her, if he fail to control her erotically, will completely -dissatisfy her. His attentiveness will actually -annoy her. She unconsciously realizes that he -is playing the obedient little boy to her, and thus -making out of her a mother and not a wife.</p> - -<p>The masochism referred to is an exaggeration. -The natural desire of the woman for erotic subjection -is not masochism in the ordinarily accepted -sense, which means the pleasure experienced by -some neurotics as a result of pain inflicted upon -them by others.</p> - -<p>What Ellis’ correspondent means is that giving<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> -a woman her way in great things and compelling -her obedience in small things equally show that love -confidence without which any man’s actions will -continuously gall the wife’s unconscious. If he -yields to her in great egoistic-social issues, he shows -the same confidence in the superiority of the erotic -instincts (the love confidence par excellence) that -he shows in compelling her obedience in small things.</p> - -<h3 id="section109">§ 109</h3> - -<p>No egoistic-social experience, save when all the -circumstances are such as produce truly marital conditions, -ever has the same transcendent value as -when the erotic within the married state is raised -to the nth power. Not does any of life’s rewards -in the egoistic-social sphere compensate for the loss -of the erotic consummations of the binary life.</p> - -<p>The married pair can be too sexual in the strictly -physical sense, they can leave undeveloped the more -complicated organism of psychic erotism—but they -cannot be too erotic in the sense in which I have -used this term, for erotism, in the sense I use it, is -psychically controlled sex, controlled not as in the -majority of cases, by repression and inhibition, but -by rational modes of expression.</p> - -<h3 id="section110">§ 110</h3> - -<p>Modern science shows, and clearly, why it must -be so, that man’s emotional tensions are never to -be relaxed in the presence of a woman herself -tense.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span></p> - -<p>This applies in every other situation in life, as -well as in the distinctively erotic. A man’s emotional -tensions are not to be relaxed on a woman, -but on a relaxed woman.</p> - -<p>In every sphere of life the mother<a name="FNanchor_23" id="FNanchor_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> is always -a relaxed woman to her son, particularly in his -childhood, but is never a relaxed woman to her -husband, except at her consummation in the erotic -episode.</p> - -<p>If the husband is unwilling, or unprepared to -accept these conditions of marriage, he is marrying -a woman to be a mother to him, instead of a wife, -and he is completely deluding both himself and her. -If he is unwilling or unprepared to accept these -conditions of marriage, he needs to wait till he is -willing or he needs to be prepared.</p> - -<p>This may sound, to some men, like giving entirely -and not getting anything in return. But they must -realize that getting the response they biologically -need themselves, and consciously desire, if they be -above the animal level, is a process of constructive -giving.</p> - -<p>So much of their attention husbands must give -in order to get what few really get—the total response -in every fibre of their wives’ life-love. They -cannot get anything by merely taking. Things -merely taken turn to dust in their hands. What -they want to get must be lured forth from the unconscious -depths of their wives and must, to the -wife, seem uncaused, spontaneous, no matter how -much the husband knows he has practised art.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span></p> - -<h3 id="section111">§ 111</h3> - -<p>Much has been said not only in this book but in -others about simultaneity of the erotic acme in husband -and wife. Gallichan in his <cite>Psychology of -Marriage</cite> (p. 107), speaking of women, says: “It -should be known that the imperfect fulfillment of -the marital act, unaccompanied by the normal, -healthy gratification decreed by Nature with infinite -care, has a more or less injurious effect upon -the psychic-emotional being and may affect the -bodily functions.... The husband who does not -experience this emotion is either not the proper -spouse for his partner, or some necessary element -of reciprocal love is wanting or amiss. If there is -any human act that should be perfectly mutual, it -is this. When passion is shared alike, Nature approves -and blesses the conjunction.”</p> - -<p>From that it may be inferred that the author -quoted advocates simultaneity of the erotic acme -in husband and wife.</p> - -<p>But there is a much better arrangement of the -love episode than that. The husband should see -to it that in every episode the wife not only arrives -at the utmost climax of her erotic acme before he -does but that she recovers sufficiently from her -ecstasy to enable her to give thereafter conscious -attention to his. Where, as in a passionate honeymoon, -both partners lose consciousness, so to speak, -together, in every love episode, neither has the -supernal joy of witnessing the ecstatic culmination -of the other’s bliss. With autoerotic proclivities, -pardonable in the first weeks of marital life, they -close their eyes to each other, at the climax, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> -they sink into their own subjective feelings, after -which they come to the conclusion that each has -loved the other to the limit.</p> - -<p>But this is not the case. They have loved their -own sensations to the limit but not each other’s. -If it could be arranged that each should take turns -in “taking care” of the other so that now one and -now the other should first arrive at the climax, they -would, it might appear to the superficial thinkers, -each gain the priceless boon of seeing his or her -own ecstasy reflected in the other’s.</p> - -<h3 id="section112">§ 112</h3> - -<p>Nature has, on the contrary, so arranged it, as -is obvious to all who have had any true erotic -experience, that a supposition that the husband gets -his acme first and the wife second, <em>in the same love -episode</em>, is an impossible one; for man is so constituted -as generally to be unable to continue a love -episode after reaching his own erotic acme.</p> - -<p>On the other hand woman is so constituted as -to be able to continue any love episode after she -has herself passed the point of her own erotic acme.</p> - -<p>Therefore if the simultaneity of the ideal honeymoon, -mentally autoerotic as it is in its essential -nature, is to give place to truly allerotic marital -behaviour, this transition can take place in only -one way. It is imperative that the allerotic action -be that of the husband. The wife may legitimately -remain mentally autoerotic for the rest of her life.</p> - -<p>It is a marital crime for the husband to remain -mentally autoerotic. That is what blasts most -marriages.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p> - -<p>Simultaneity, so unanimously approved by most -erotologists, is an introducing phenomenon, belonging -only to the initial stages of marital life. It -should give place as soon as possible to the principle -of successiveness.</p> - -<h3 id="section113">§ 113</h3> - -<p>All erotologists, on the general principle of altruism -and mutuality, sympathy and responsiveness, -have advocated simultaneity of acme, without realizing -its mental autoerotism.</p> - -<p>This book unqualifiedly recommends succession -as infinitely superior to simultaneity. Only by the -arrangement of the love episode in such a way that -in every love episode the husband’s erotic acme -follows, even after the lapse of several minutes, the -wife’s, can the spiritually deleterious results of -mentally autoerotic simultaneity be avoided. Only -thus can the most inexpressible joy be experienced -by both husband and wife. Only thus can they be -said to be, erotically, perfectly mated.</p> - -<p>For there is a peculiarly conscious human joy in -feeling, in at least comparative calmness, the ineffable -bliss of just one other human being, a joy -of which no lover can ever, in wildest phantasy, -dream, a joy that mere simultaneity can never give.</p> - -<p>Marital success demands succession.</p> - -<h3 id="section114">§ 114</h3> - -<p>It may be said that it is characteristic of woman’s -motherly and unselfish nature that, in her utter surrender -to her husband lover, she is willing to make<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> -the sacrifice of giving him all and taking nothing -herself except the vicarious satisfaction of pleasing -him. That has indeed been the preachment, undoubtedly -originating with selfish males, for centuries -of repression of erotism in women.</p> - -<p>But its results are only conscious and superficial. -Unconsciously, and that means with nine-tenths of -her available energy, she is unable to do this thing. -Nine-tenths of her very being, whether she is aware -of it or not, revolts at the monumental injustice -of this arrangement.</p> - -<p>Women of high moral and intellectual attainments -can so coerce their unconscious erotic instincts as -to appear on the surface completely in control of -themselves. But what virile lover would wish them -so, just for the purpose of maintaining himself in -a perpetual state of mental autoerotism?</p> - -<p>Succession in this order more than doubles the -joy of marital fusion, and does so by stressing the -psychical or hypersomatic factor of the episode. It -is an arrangement of the love drama that is peculiarly -human and once attained will never be abandoned.</p> - -<p>It is a technique depending entirely on the husband’s -absolute control of the erotic situation. He -will have almost every factor in the total situation -against him—his own instincts and those of his -wife, which, on the principle of biological testing -carried on unconsciously by the woman will help -make this attainment difficult for him; but it is the -true test of virile marital love.</p> - -<p>It will be replied by the average husband that he -simply cannot accomplish this feat, that it is against -Nature, and that physicians have told him nothing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> -should be allowed to interfere with the speedy -attainment of his desires once he is on the path.</p> - -<p>But a little reflection will show the incomparable -superiority in every way of this completely virile -technique.</p> - -<p>It may be also remembered by those who know -anything about the intimate history of the Oneida -Community that a group of some 250 persons -carried on a technique successfully for thirty years -with no detrimental results to the males, a technique -which differed from this Succession Plan only in the -fact that the men, but not the women, abstained -from taking their own erotic acme entirely except -for the purpose of procreation. In this community -in which their principle of Male Continence was -raised to a religious principle there was a much -greater health than the average for the United -States at the time (1849-1879) and the nervous -disorders were far less than the average.</p> - -<p>What has been done can be done, yet what is -advocated here is much easier of attainment than -what was done by the men of the Oneida Community.</p> - -<h3 id="section115">§ 115</h3> - -<p>To a technique like that of the Succession Plan -here suggested the unconscious of the woman cannot -fail to respond in the most favourable manner. -It is manifest that in every marriage that is truly -happy the husband must have approximated this -technique if he has not finally reached it. And by -happy is meant successful from the erotic standpoint.</p> - -<p>For it is conceivable that some lives even of happily<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> -married people may be marred by certain egoistic-social -reverses. There may be not as much -money as would make them more comfortable, and -either one of the pair may have bereavements, or -they both may lose a child. But none of these will -touch closely the erotic life they live in common.</p> - -<p>By happy marriage is meant one in which the -partners never have a really serious temptation to -depart from the monogamic ideal. If thoroughly -fused, neither will have the slightest temptation, for -each will fill every erotic need of the other and -will continue to do so.</p> - -<p>If men were universally taught this Succession -Plan, there would be no dissatisfied wives; nor -would any man be attracted away from his own -life partner. For beauty of face and grace of -form, brightness of intellect and brilliance of egoistic-social -attainment are as nothing compared with -the sense of power and triumph shared alike by -both partners where the husband controls the -erotism of the wife according to this method.</p> - -<p>If men universally used this method there would -be no possibility of prostitution or any other form -of infidelity, for no man, even following the lead -of his own unconscious, would find anything better -than perfection, and every man would find, because -he had himself developed, perfection in his wife.</p> - -<p>Let, then, every man who thinks himself incapable -of this degree of control over his own erotic emotions -admit to himself that he is as yet undeveloped. -He is still in the class of autoerotic infants.</p> - -<p>Let him not infer, therefore, that because he is -mentally autoerotic, he has become so because of -past physical, autoerotic habits. Those who, uninstructed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> -by erotologists who know the facts, have -lost their love confidence by brooding in secret -over the fancied injury they have done themselves -in their youth by physical autoerotism—such men -can gain a mastery over themselves when married, -and can become perfect examples of erotic self-control.</p> - -<h3 id="section116">§ 116</h3> - -<p>There is no question whatever of the ability of -most men to attain the degree of control necessary -to practise Karezza, or the Succession Plan advocated -in this book.</p> - -<p>The only question is the amount of clear thinking -a man may be willing to do concerning himself, to -realize whether he should remain in the infant class -of autoerotics, or should represent to himself in -vivid colours the advantages of ascending into a -truly allerotic adult level of control. It is certain -that if a man realizes the advantage, not only to -himself but to his wife and to everyone else in his -own milieu, he will make the outline of it so clear -in his mind that all his unconscious energy will -assist him in the attainment of it as an objective -reality.</p> - -<p>This ideal is here called a representation, or an -imagination on the principle adopted by the autosuggestionists -that “where the will and the imagination -come into conflict, the imagination always wins”—Coué’s -<cite>Law of Reversed Effort</cite>. Therefore the -natural and obvious expression was avoided above. -It might have been said that when a man realizes -the advantages of the Succession Plan in the love -episode, he will exert every effort of which he is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> -capable to attain it. But for this form of statement -was expressly substituted the form “he will -make the outline of it so clear in his own mind.”</p> - -<p>For what autosuggestion has so convincingly -shown is that the unconscious imagination of the -<em>opposite</em> of what one says or thinks consciously is -the result that may possibly follow unless he is -forewarned. If a man say to himself a hundred -times a day, “I will control myself,” he may yet -have in his unconscious a clear picture of lack of -control, of hasty abandon, and <em>it is that picture -which forms the pattern of his acts as they are -carried out</em>.</p> - -<h3 id="section117">§ 117</h3> - -<p>The question will at once be asked: first, how -one can tell whether one’s unconscious imagination, -which controls one’s acts and one’s physiological -reactions, contains the picture of control or of lack -of control, and, second, how one can change the -lineaments of this pattern.</p> - -<p>The first question is answered by saying that if a -man show lack of erotic control it is proved that -his unconscious imagination is thus, and not otherwise, -patterned.</p> - -<p>The second question requires a longer consideration.</p> - -<p>If the unconscious is to be controlled at all, it -can be controlled by conscious thinking only by -means of substituting one pattern of action for -another.</p> - -<p>It is obvious that the unconscious mental processes -that govern digestion, circulation, excretion, and -the work of the glands of internal secretion, cannot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> -be pictured at all in conscious terms, i.e., in visual -or auditory or other images. No anatomist, histologist, -or physiologist has a definite enough mental -picture of what actually does take place in the -blood stream upon the injection of the secretions -of the various endocrine glands. Therefore the -autosuggestionists give the most generic formula -possible—simply: “Every day in every way I’m -getting better and better.”</p> - -<p>But in the conduct of the love episode this extremely -generic formula is not sufficient. So we -come to a more specific answer to our question as -to how the unconscious can be controlled. It is -controlled by impressing on it patterns of action -from the conscious. There is no other way. The -extraordinary and freakish accomplishments of -Hindu fakirs are made possible by their picturing -in their conscious minds the possibility of their -living successfully through their months of awkward -postures. If these feats were attempted by -Occidentals the results would be fevers, congestions, -and all manner of ills suggested to them by their -environment.</p> - -<h3 id="section118">§ 118</h3> - -<p>The Succession Plan of the love episode is, however, -no freakish Hindu proposition. But it is a -perfectly possible pattern which involves the application -of psychical (hypersomatic) imagination to -a course of action that in animals is entirely physical -and in humans takes on more and more the psychical -characteristics, as men gain more and more -insight into the influence of the hypersomatic over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> -the hyposomatic portions of the mind-body combination.</p> - -<p>It is obviously impossible in this book, however, -to be more specific than to recommend that the man -having become fully cognizant of the fact that other -men have done, and are today doing, what is not -generally done, should say to himself, “I will retard -here, I will observe there, I will not hurry or allow -myself to be hurried but will take everything as it -comes and reap the full measure of satisfaction -before advancing a single step farther, knowing full -well that whatever acceleration is urged will only -defeat its own purpose.”</p> - -<p>Each man should fill out the details of this pattern -which in a book cannot be any more specific; -but above all he should know that he can acquire -control over his own passions—indeed, that he must, -in order to be able to give them the fullest play -later, and that their fullest play is not an iota less -than they should have for the health and happiness -of himself and his life partner.</p> - -<h3 id="section119">§ 119</h3> - -<p>The fetishism of the single sense quality is an -important consideration here. Harvey O’Higgins -in <cite>The Secret Springs</cite> shows how even a part of the -person or a phase of the woman’s personality may -take on an overplus of emotional tension in the -mind of the man, such as to make him think he has -found the paragon of all the virtues in the first -woman he sees having this peculiarity.</p> - -<p>If his mother’s hands were especially beautiful, it -is likely that beauty of hands will play a big part<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> -in his unconscious selection of a life partner, and -that homely hands will repel him in a girl otherwise -eminently fitted to be his mate.</p> - -<p>The deep emotions experienced by a little boy -in seeing his mother in evening dress in the ruddy -glow of a red lampshade in the drawing-room gave -him a depth of response to that one vision that -made him twenty years later fall suddenly in love -with a girl whom he saw illuminated by the red hall -light in her father’s house.</p> - -<p>One is partly, but only partly, conscious of one’s -fetishes. No man except the most self-conscious -student of his own mental reactions can tell exactly -why he likes or dislikes <em>anything</em>. He can give many -reasons; but the real <em>cause</em> lies in the unconscious -memory he has forgotten—a memory of some -pleasurable emotion of exceeding depth that has -occurred possibly a quarter of a century before.</p> - -<p>But whatever may be the real <em>cause</em> of the disproportionate -emphasis on certain features, mannerisms, -or mental or physical habits of his wife, -the fact remains. It may well be questioned that -any such overemphasis on the <em>way</em> she speaks or -smiles, or on some peculiar catch in the breath, -<em>should</em> make him lose control of himself, but it does. -It is not necessarily that he is set to go off in -ecstasies at the occurrence of any of these factors, -as much as that through his own experience he sets -himself thus in a sort of lock combination.</p> - -<h3 id="section120">§ 120</h3> - -<p>In reality this setting is something that should -take place during and not before marriage, if it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> -must take place at all in a man. It were much -better if it took place not at all in the husband but -in the wife.</p> - -<p>This overvaluation of a smile, a dimple, a look, a -timbre of the voice, a perfume or froufrou, is used -by men even before marriage as a sexual stimulus -when in reality none is needed.</p> - -<p>The question of most vital importance is not so -much, however, the shape of eyebrow, the laughter -rhythm, or other mannerism or characteristic of a -woman that causes a man to decide that he wants -to marry her, for that is in most cases in the unconscious, -and therefore actually inaccessible to him -except through much more study than he is -able or willing to give it. The fetishes made by the -unconscious, kept in the unconscious, and causing -selection on the man’s part are as nothing in importance -to the fetishes that he had innately or has -acquired that give overvaluation for him to certain -phases of the love episode itself.</p> - -<p>It is likely that in highly sensitive and intellectual -men some ordinarily unobserved or half-consciously -noted phases of action or being are major causes -in the man’s premature arrival at the automatic -and uncontrollable part of his own action in the -love episode. As an illustration might be mentioned -the undue prominence taken in an episode -by the bodily fragrance (natural, not the result of -artificial perfume) noticed and especially dilated -upon verbally by one husband, who thereupon completely -lost control of himself at an early stage and -was unable to gain the allerotic result of his wife’s -(prior) erotic acme.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span></p> - -<h3 id="section121">§ 121</h3> - -<p>As is repeatedly stated in this book, there are -other types of reaction on the woman’s part that -are unconscious attempts to test his control, and -continually used by her. Unconsciously she gains -her deepest satisfaction, one that permeates every -thought and action of hers until the next subsequent -love episode, from her <em>inability</em> to make her -husband lose control of himself.</p> - -<p>Fundamentally this is the main cause of woman’s -mystery to ordinary man. She is continually springing -surprises on him to throw him off his rigid -course of action. Continually she is deeply disappointed -if she succeeds in doing this. Could anything -seem more perverse and contradictory? Is -anything really simpler and more straightforward -than man’s imperative necessity to pursue his own -course quite uninfluenced by her unconsciously motivated -actions?</p> - -<p>She will beseech him to hurry through the episode, -not knowing herself, sometimes, that it is the -last thing she really wants or needs. An allegory -will serve as an illustration.</p> - -<h3 id="section122">§ 122</h3> - -<p>They are ardent mountaineers. They are ascending -Mt. Chocorua in New Hampshire. She is afraid -herself to go ahead over the rough mountain trail -and see the new views as they develop. She needs -also his assistance, his hand, to help her over rocks -and fallen tree trunks and up steep ascents. She -says to him: “You go ahead and I’ll follow. Rush<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> -up quickly and tell me what you see.” If he does -so, he runs till he is out of breath and then attempts -from a cliff he has reached to shout to her, to tell -her how to get up to him, to describe the valley -of the Swift River of which he has just caught a -glimpse. But he is panting so hard he cannot articulate. -Why should he have run ahead of her? -Indeed he should not have.</p> - -<p>It would have been much wiser for him to reply -to her invitation to anticipate her: “Why, dearest, -I see you are tired. Of course no woman can keep -pace with a strong healthy man up these slopes. -Let’s sit down and rest a bit.” He would then sit -with her on a mossy stone or tree trunk, or take -her on his lap, and point out the beauties of the -place they were in, and absolutely refuse to leave -her. He really does not wish to see the panorama -from the peak first, before she does. He is very -foolish to believe her when she says she wishes -not to see it herself but to hear about it. She may -be, consciously, perfectly sincere and really think -she doesn’t care about going clear to the top with -him <em>this</em> time.</p> - -<p>These two are ardent mountain climbers; but -there are many couples where the woman has not -ever climbed to the top of a mountain who sends -her husband on alone; and, poor thing, he goes, not -realizing how much better the view is when two -are looking at it.</p> - -<h3 id="section123">§ 123</h3> - -<p>But any two ardent mountain climbers are practically -certain to arrive at the top, whether they -get there together or the man goes ahead and waits<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> -for his lady to come up herself—with the help of -another man. For the mountain of which I speak -has the peculiarity that no woman can climb alone -to the top, as the path is extremely narrow, precipitous -and dangerous. If her husband leaves her as -they approach the peak (which is an enormous hill -of rock capped by one huge boulder), she will be -forced to wait until he feels energetic enough to -descend a couple of hundred feet or so and help her -up. Or if, enchanted himself by the glorious view—miles -and miles of rolling country, numerous -lakes and the silver ribbon of the Atlantic Ocean -nearly eighty miles away—he is absorbed in his own -sensations of grandeur, and forgets his wife down -there below him as so many men do, it is just possible -that another more unselfish and less uncontrolled -man will give her his hand and help her -to the top, slowly and courteously as behooves a -man to do in spite of her effusive protestations to -him to leave her and see the sunrise himself from -the mountain top.</p> - -<p>How will the husband of this woman feel, if, -standing and facing the east, he suddenly realizes -that there appears his own wife over the edge of -the boulder, lifted by the strength of another man?</p> - -<p>Had he known the true etiquette of mountain -climbing among true married lovers, he would have -waited until both had covered together the entire -ascent up to the base of the boulder, six feet high -and twenty in diameter; and then, making a foot -rest for her with his two hands, he would have -assisted her to get on this pinnacle herself first, -before he did.</p> - -<p>Then he would have watched her face for full<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> -five minutes in its varying lights as she turned about -in ecstasy at the sublime panorama, the sunlight -falling on her cheeks with their heightened colour -from her climb, the wind blowing a lock of hair -across her temple. He would have enjoyed for a -while her outcry of delight as she saw and recognized -the miniature presentment of now a familiar -village, now a lake, before he jumped up beside -her, clasped her in his arms and both turned about -from north to east to south to west together, and -together drank in the vitalizing air. He would be -infinitely better able to tell her what to look at, -than he was able when he was on the boulder and -she two hundred feet below, to shout to her that -he could see a hundred miles in every direction.</p> - -<p>And now he need not shout. He can whisper in -her ears, between kisses on every part of her head -and neck, the joy of both of them, and can listen -to her murmuring endearments she never otherwise -would have thought of uttering.</p> - -<h3 id="section124">§ 124</h3> - -<p>This climax-capping boulder on the peak of Mt. -Chocorua in New Hampshire has on its southeast -side the six-foot sheer perpendicular up which he -helped her first. On its northwest side it has a -slope of some forty degrees up which they might -have scrambled hand in hand and reached the utmost -altitude simultaneously. But she will be much -better pleased and admire his restraint forever, if -he not only keeps her ahead of him all the long -trail up the mountain but finally lifts her up ahead -of him, up the steep side at the southeast and (with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> -her pardonable childish satisfaction, which well becomes -her but ill becomes him) lets her, on this -mountain-climbing experience, be his superior in -this one little thing for these brief five minutes. -During this time she will recover a bit from the -sublimity of her position, will regain her breath, -and will be able to turn her attention from the -wonders of the mountain view, so that she too may -have the pleasure of watching <em>his</em> face and covering -it with kisses when he has made his final upspringing -to the highest physical altitude in the region. -Ardent mountain climbers like this will not be satisfied -until they have symbolically, so to speak, -climbed Mt. Everest in the Himalayas. And these -ascents, each with the other, will preclude their -taking any interest in the company of other mountain -climbers. No woman will want other company -than that of her husband, no man will be able to -find a more attractive companion than his wife.</p> - -<h3 id="section125">§ 125</h3> - -<p>For, on the mountain top, thoughts come to each—thoughts -that can occur in <em>no other</em> situation. -The difficulties encountered and overcome make -them inseparable soul mates. The refusal of her -husband to leave her and go up without her endears -him more to her than presents of many jewels. -It shows her he has the only strength a woman -can respect, the strength to reserve his strength and -to use it for and with her, a strength which all -unconsciously she must test at every step of the -ascent. If this strength is found wanting, she will -be left forlorn, the most wretched of living things,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> -far more miserable than any female animal. If it -is found present, it will make her the happiest of -mortals, happy beyond words in her defeat in the -contest of strength, yearning to make him the father -of her children.</p> - -<p>To both of them come deep thoughts, those of -the one reflected in the multitudinous facets of the -personality of the other, thoughts deep into the past, -thoughts looking far into the future, thoughts -corresponding in depth to the vastness of the prospects -before them as they turn now east, now south. -A realization of the greatness of the world will -come to them, of the minute littleness of lonely -atoms of humanity, a realization that this aspect of -nature alone is the one view of life that enables -each to know the other deeply and to be a complete -unity instead of solitary demi-humans each longing -for an unseen other.</p> - -<h3 id="section126">§ 126</h3> - -<p>To revert to the concept of fetishism one may -use the mountain-climbing symbolism of the love -episode and say that almost anything on the ascent -may be used as, and become habitual as, a fetish -capable of causing the husband to leave his wife -on the trail and hurry forward to the peak that has -a thousand ecstatic views.</p> - -<p>She may use any of a number of suggestive arguments -or mannerisms or actions to convince him -if she can that it is his duty to leave her, no matter -how harmful may be his abandoning her for his -own erotic abandon.</p> - -<p>She may tell him that he must get there so as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> -not to miss the setting (or rising) sun, or a rainbow, -or a nuance of cloud forms, obscured from -where they are, halfway up the trail.</p> - -<p>Of course, he too, unless he has been convinced -of the childishness of his act, may think there is -some reason why he cannot or should not wait for -her, halfway, three-quarters, nine-tenths, perhaps, -of the way up. At the very boulder he may be -persuaded to take this last jump alone, and indeed -it were a pity if, having brought her so far, he -should leave her, walled by the boulder from at -least half the complete view. Some women would -petulantly begin the descent, forever unknowing -what was the husband’s experience in looking over -the half of the circumference of horizon impossible -for the wife to see.</p> - -<h3 id="section127">§ 127</h3> - -<p>The <em>one</em> injunction necessary for the too enthusiastically -climbing husband is: There is plenty -of time. Sit on this mossy bank. Help your wife -over every stone and stick in the path. Tell her -of the grandeur of the view. There is no hurry -provided you both arrive at the top and she take -the final step before you. No aspect of sun, sky, -clouds, forest or lake but is absolutely different after -every ascent and superlatively, nay ecstatically, sublime. -This is not the only chance you will have to -climb Chocorua. Mountain climbing, if not too -speedy, is good for the heart, and no expedition so -fortifies one for work among the world of men as -this pedestrian ascent into the sky. Only you should -go together and be together all the time. The men<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> -who leave their wives on the piazzas of the hotels -in the valley are purely autoerotic boys. No man -can tell in words this mountain-climbing experience.</p> - -<p>There may be women who think this mountain -climbing immoral, coarse, too rough for their fine -constitution. These will have to be tenderly lifted -up each step of the way but when once at the top -will be enthusiastic converts, for they will have in -the panorama an experience they will then recognize -as totally different and distinctively human.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span></p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“It has always been common to discuss the psychology -of women. The psychology of men has -usually been passed over, whether because it is too -simple or too complicated. But the marriage question -today is much less the wife problem than -the husband problem.”—<span class="smcap">Havelock Ellis</span>: <cite>Little -Essays of Love and Virtue</cite>, New York, 1922, p. 75.</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI<br /> -<span class="smaller">CONTROL</span></h2> - -<h3 id="section128">§ 128</h3> - -<p>Evolution has produced in man a being in whom -the erotic has now a greater significance than the -egoistic-social impulse. In the development of plant -and animal forms, science recognizes certain new -productions that differ from the norm of the species -in which they appear, in such a way that they were -at first called freaks or mutations. But as they -breed true to their form, they are necessarily regarded -not as freaks (<i lang="la">lusus naturæ</i>), but as well -established varieties.</p> - -<p>The establishment of the erotic as a norm in -humans has the further implication that here we -have a phenomenon existent nowhere else in life, -namely the non-procreative or social love episode.</p> - -<p>Indeed it may be that love itself, as distinguished -from sensual desire, is a mutation on the psychical -level, a form not recognized in any description of -natural phenomena until late in man’s evolution—the -love that comprises both physical and spiritual -reaction for the man, and both physical and spiritual -counter-reaction from the woman. Without this interaction -man cannot be said truly to love.</p> - -<p>For the man of today, who has succeeded in -placing the erotic above the egoistic-social impulse, -has achieved a height that few, if any, have attained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> -before him, has gained a joy and fullness of living -compared with which the so-called happiness of successful -marriage according to former standards is -but foredawn to noon-day.</p> - -<p>The existence of this higher type of erotic control -leading to the establishment of the non-procreative -or social love episode, brings into clearest relief the -distinction between control as repression and control -as expression.</p> - -<p>Control as expression is analogous to driving a -horse and getting somewhere, control as repression -is like unharnessing him and letting him run away. -Control of the erotic instinct by repressing is not -like shooting the horse, because repression never -annihilates an impulse but only removes it from -conscious control.</p> - -<p>Keeping in mind this difference between control -by repression, which is only apparent, not real, -annihilation, only removal from consciousness and -not destruction of the impulse, we shall more easily -note the necessary connection between self-control -and individuality, i.e., personality.</p> - -<p>His individuality is just what he makes up his -mind, and exercises his utmost imagination, to <em>do</em>. -His work is his own, only in so far as he controls -his actions in doing it, so that they are better than -the external demand. If he is an office boy and told -to put stamps on envelopes, he can do it and only -it, or he can put them on so quickly or so straight -that the quickness or straightness is immediately -seen as his particular part of the performance.</p> - -<p>He can control the actions of his work and his -play; but, except indirectly, he cannot control his -digestion, respiration, blood pressure or circulation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> -He has to eat more digestible food, or to take more -exercise, or to cultivate pressure-raising emotions, -or those that lower the blood pressure.</p> - -<p>He has been taught to believe that his physical -constitution and his instincts are tendencies inherited -from his ancestors and that he cannot control -them. If his instincts or inherited disposition make -him lose his temper so that he is not himself, he -is supposed not to be responsible for all he does.</p> - -<p>But is he freed from responsibility because he is -temporarily governed by his instincts, or is he -steered by his instincts only when and because he -throws away responsibility? Is it impulsive, instinctive -action that excuses him, or is it excuses -that are wanted by him, which makes him call his -action, or the part of it he wants to be excused for, -instinctive?</p> - -<p>Is not his only reason for calling some actions -instinctive or impulsive the fact that he does not -want to be held responsible for them? What he -cannot control is not his fault. Therefore, what he -does not want to be blamed for he says is not under -his control. Any thing, person or mysterious power -can be made the scapegoat for his misdeed. Much -more likely is he to blame other things, persons or -powers for what he does contrary to what he thinks -people want him to do, than to account for some -praiseworthy action by saying it was the result of -some power other than himself.</p> - -<p>If his marriage has turned out unhappily he consoles -himself by saying all marriage is a lottery. -If it turns out well he pats himself on the back and -says, in actions though not in so many words: -“See what a fine match I have made!” But why<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> -should he take only praise and put blame on some -mysterious power—luck, or providence or what not?</p> - -<h3 id="section129">§ 129</h3> - -<p>His sexual instinct is most likely to be assigned -to some mysterious power. But it is no more mysterious -than his heartbeat and no more miraculous -than the growth of his beard or finger nail. In -spite of the fact that he has not given them much -thought, his sex instincts are as much a part of him -as any tissue of his body.</p> - -<p>The same principle applies to the praise or blame -attached by others to the acts which his sexual instincts -prompt him to do. If he kiss a strange girl -in an environment where strange girls are kissed -by everyone, his act is not blamed. So it is his -own act and not inspired by some unholy power -(unless indeed he has to explain to someone how -he happened to be in that environment, or he would -have to blame that on his instinct).</p> - -<p>If his amativeness shows itself in any place where -that form of self-expression is frowned upon, he -will be mentally preparing excuses, even if he does -not have to use them, and he will simply say he was -forced by his irresistible impulse to do that very -thing.</p> - -<p>If his environment consisted at the time of one -woman whose unconscious passion was already directed -toward him, she might call upon him for an -explanation which of course she wouldn’t really care -about, but any sort of explanation logical or not -would suffice, because the demand was only conventional.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span></p> - -<p>He takes the praise for what is conventionally -praised in his actions. He shifts the blame to anything -not himself. Also he takes the praise, if any -is accorded, to anything that has cost him much -effort. He leaves, or dodges, the blame. So the -two ideas according to which he reacts to praise or -blame are the idea of whether the actions praised -or blamed are his, the result of his conscious effort, -and the idea of whether or not the actions or their -results are pleasant.</p> - -<h3 id="section130">§ 130</h3> - -<p>On this principle he does always the next best -thing to what he thinks is expected of him provided -he cannot or fancies he cannot do exactly what -people look to him to do.</p> - -<p>This praise and blame, coming from other people -and this looking to him, to do this or that, are both -examples of the control society is exerting on him -from childhood up. The clothes he wears, the -books he reads, the plays he sees, everything he -does is at least partly dictated to him by the people -with whom and among whom he lives. If he knows -people expect him to wear a linen collar and silk tie -he puts them on if he has them. If he has only a -collar he puts that on. If he has no linen collar he -possibly puts on a paper or celluloid one.</p> - -<p>At any rate he gives them the next best thing in -any and every line coming up as far as possible to -their demands.</p> - -<p>In sexual instincts there is only one conventional -demand; namely, that, except in marriage, he repress -them entirely. The next best thing, the celluloid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> -collar, in this case, is any and everything -society calls non-sexual. He may waste his time -playing cards and his money on the races or the -stock market, and if he succeeds in getting excitement -enough out of them to prevent his thoughts -turning to sex topics he will have the comparative -approval of society. If he leaves women alone entirely -he will be called a clean man. Anything short -of actual criminality serves as the next best thing to -sex in the eyes of conventional society.</p> - -<p>Society to date makes only this negative demand -on him. It as much as admits that it has nothing -to do with sex and still less with love. That simply -means that society is so blind it has not yet seen -that it can get anything out of sex, or of love either. -Society has no eyes, no arms, no lips. Why should -society be interested in the employment of these -parts of men in amatory ways? They need not expect -it to. They have no need to look to it for -such things.</p> - -<p>Society on the other hand wants the individual’s -time and energy devoted entirely to professional, -commercial and artistic ends, and grudges him -every moment he spends in doing and thinking along -lines of pleasure and advantage to himself. Society -plans the rôle of the gods in the old Platonic fable -before mentioned (<a href="#section46">§ 46</a>) but has taken the half-humans -and halved them again.</p> - -<p>Society, unlike the fabled gods, however, wishes -each of these to devote full time to making, manufacturing, -buying, selling, even fighting, which always -makes more work, but never to loving, which -it considers a mere waste of time. Children it wants,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> -but they can be begotten without love; and the less -love the greater numbers.</p> - -<p>Society therefore completely ignores the individual. -It tells him to make chairs and tables but -never to make love.</p> - -<h3 id="section131">§ 131</h3> - -<p>One has to reflect thus, so as to disentangle the -motives that rule one’s actions. The most individual -and intimately personal motive is love. One’s -strongest individuality, if one can discount society -and be oneself, is seen in the ability to make love.</p> - -<p>What a man most controls is most himself. -Those actions that are most controlled by forces -<em>outside</em> of himself are least his own. In his thinking -he has to learn inseparably to link individuality -and self-control.</p> - -<p>He has been taught from infancy to give up doing -what he wanted to do himself and do what other -people want. All other people want him to do almost -the opposite of what he wants to do himself -until, with punishments, retaliations, and all sorts -of rebuffs, their wants have snowed under his instinctive -desires with such an avalanche of prohibitions -that his actions are about ninety-nine per cent -controlled by the kind of selfishness that consists of -selfishly trying to please other people for a release -from this snow pressure, which release is called -approbation or praise.</p> - -<p>The impulses which come from the avalanche are -the egoistic-social motives, social because they come -down upon him from everyone with whom he comes -in contact, egoistic because he is really protecting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> -and pleasing himself by following these motives.</p> - -<p>But one can see for himself how much of the -control of his ordinary every-day actions is his, how -much is the control of the avalanche.</p> - -<p>Really then the only thing left to the individual -is his love impulse. Society is not interested in it, -or does not see that it is. Society would be a very -different thing if it had eyes. It might have some -sympathy. The individual’s love impulse is the one -bit of leaven in the human mass today. It is the -one thing he can call his own, the one thing whose -expression he can control. But society has taught -by implication that that is the one thing he cannot -control except by annihilation.</p> - -<p>So it appears society has shown quite Machiavellian -abilities in checkmating the erotic impulse which -is the individual impulse par excellence. Society is -confronted with an apparently antisocial influence -and reacts to it on the low intellectual plane of -trying to destroy it.</p> - -<h3 id="section132">§ 132</h3> - -<p>But control is not annihilation nor is annihilation -control in any sense whatever. If you cannot train -a horse by shooting him dead, you cannot drive him -by poisoning him. If you do you haven’t got him.</p> - -<p>If you kill your love impulse you haven’t got it. -You cannot kill it, but you can knock it in the head -so that it is unconscious. Ascetics have done it. -Society would as lief you did it yourself.</p> - -<p>Your love impulse, not the Sunday school variety -but the full red-blooded variety of woman-loving -(or man-loving) impulse is not only the most individual<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> -thing about you because it is capable of the -most complex development in your case but it is -the most valuable dynamo you have generating endless -power whose source is the sun itself.</p> - -<p>Control of the love impulse therefore, and not -annihilation of it, is the individual’s most personal -advantage.</p> - -<h3 id="section133">§ 133</h3> - -<p>An essential difference obtains between the average -man’s control and the average woman’s chiefly -in that the woman’s is a control by repression, virtually, -of course, no control at all; while the man’s -control wherever it exists is a control through expression.</p> - -<p>It accords with the nature of masculinity and -femininity that the control of the woman’s erotism, -if it be a control through expression, is the control -exercised over it by the man. Any control she may -obtain over it cannot but be the control by repression. -In other words no woman has any control -over her own erotism except the ability to refuse to -express it, and even that she may lose if she meets -the right man. And no control is exercised over her -erotism except by her true mate, if she is thus developed -by him.</p> - -<p>The man’s control over his own erotism is a real -control only after he has succeeded in freeing his -psyche from the mental autoerotism in which he has -been born, and has achieved a real allerotism. No -consideration need be given to the objection possibly -raised here by some; namely, that the double -standard of sexual morality that obtains so widely -may have given the man a taste of allerotism,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> -and may thus have given him a control through -expression. But it must be clearly understood that -no clandestine liaison of any sort whatever, except -where there is a true love of one woman, to the -social recognition of which there is some insuperable -barrier, has any real value as an erotic control -through expression.</p> - -<p>Finally in the differentiation between masculine -and feminine erotic control it may be said that the -woman needs and can, by the nature of the circumstances, -have no control through expression herself. -She needs no release from her own natural autoerotism. -Her love problem is <i lang="la">toto cælo</i> different -from man’s.</p> - -<h3 id="section134">§ 134</h3> - -<p>The question—Are not all healthy men prone to -relax their erotic tensions more rapidly than -women?—may be answered. Possibly they are, but -they need not be. If a man is sick he is more likely -to feel like crying, yet he does not always do so. -If a man receives any great blow, he is proportionately -more likely to regress to the stage of infantility.</p> - -<p>Healthy men, on the contrary, need not be short-winded -in the love episode any more than in playing -a baseball game, painting a picture, singing a song -or writing a book. It may be that no art can be -taught. Even if this is true, we shall always attempt -to teach arts of all kinds. It may be that the -art of love requires a certain amount of innate taste -in a man, for him to make any great progress.</p> - -<p>History has shown a few great geniuses and a few -great lovers. Few great lovers figure in history because<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> -the average human adult married lover has -no penchant for advertising himself. The average -childish married man can, however, learn to take -steps in the direction of adulthood in married relations, -even if he never becomes truly great as a -lover.</p> - -<p>This is indeed the most important point of all. -Divorces in large numbers and unhappy marriages -in still larger numbers occur simply because the husband -will not have, or has not had the opportunity to -learn the main lessons of the married life, the greatest -of which is that it is his privilege to insure his -wife’s attainment of the erotic acme, preferably before -his own, but at least simultaneously, and every -time his own occurs.</p> - -<p>They are not truly mated unless this plan of -simultaneity or succession is followed whole-heartedly. -If it is not now followed, it must be begun -at once, and the only method is through the appropriate -action of the husband.</p> - -<p>A baby takes its mother’s milk and gives nothing -in return except smiles and gurgles and sleep. A -man taking his wife’s body and giving her no adult -emotional return for the emotional catharsis he gets -himself, except the infantile smile and sleep, is himself -no less a baby.</p> - -<p>And she will “mother” or “baby” him, first, and -unconsciously hate him later. Asking him if he has -his rubbers, his umbrella, his overcoat and the thousand -and one things that more or less consciously -irritate him, show (but, in the average man, only -to his unconscious) that what really irritates him -in these minor solicitudes is his manifestly infantile -situation.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span></p> - -<h3 id="section135">§ 135</h3> - -<p>This complete lack, on the woman’s part, of any -ability whatsoever to secure erotic control over man -leads her to try, unconsciously, of course, to compensate, -for her inability in this region, by securing -egoistic-social control over man. This she succeeds -in doing every time she meets a man who has not -yet developed from a mental autoerotism, in which -he thinks that she has pleasures to bestow upon him -and that he has to get them from her, with or without -payment of egoistic-social services.</p> - -<p>It thus appears that woman not only has no exclusively -erotic control, which by the nature of things -belongs entirely to man where he has developed -sufficiently to assume it, but also she invariably confuses -the two types of control, getting a vicarious -satisfaction from different forms of egoistic-social -control, and missing, in a great number of instances, -the deep biological and organic satisfactions from -the exercise of control over her by the man.</p> - -<p>A hazy notion that happiness is her prerogative -at least in the first months of her marriage leads -many a woman to believe even to the extent of a -virtual hallucination that she <em>is</em> happy, i.e., that -she is erotically controlled by her husband.</p> - -<p>A love episode in which this control has not been -secured by her husband, or in which he may not even -have tried to secure it leaves her in a state of psychical -conflict. She consciously knows she ought to be -supremely happy, unconsciously she feels blankly unhappy; -and if, as so many women are, she is without -erotic insight, she fancies that her husband has -slighted her in some purely egoistic-social action.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p> - -<p>Woman’s negative control in the erotic sphere results -in the complete depersonalization of her body.</p> - -<h3 id="section136">§ 136</h3> - -<p>Unconsciously as well as consciously she <em>wishes</em> -to find all pleasure in her honeymoon, and so strong -is that wish that she is impelled to believe that all -the several experiences of it are pleasurable. They -<em>must</em> be pleasurable or she must admit that at the -start even, she is <em>not</em> happily married. This is the -state of mind of those who enter the married state -with the most disingenuous sincerity. Those who -marry with any initial conflict, such as feelings of -guilt for any previous illicit sexual adventures, are -more unfortunate.</p> - -<p>Those whose wishes for happiness are so strong -as to interpose a rose-coloured glass between their -eyes and their actual experiences are deceiving only -their conscious selves. One cannot deceive the unconscious.</p> - -<p>Unconsciously they are disappointed in the lack -of rapport between their own emotional erotic situation -and their husbands’. They are in the position -of a starving man looking through a plate-glass -window, at a restaurant full of merry feasters.</p> - -<p>According to her bringing up she may repress all -or a part, or none, of her natural resentment at this -situation; and the resentment is going eventually to -make her more exacting of her husband, if she is -to surrender to him even her impersonal body. For -impersonal her body does become even to her. She -regards it as belonging by law to him and she will -not virtually inhabit it when he is with it. At his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> -approach she flees from it every time. And as this -flight is an unconscious, though a real flight, we -cannot blame her if her husband will not, or cannot, -take enough care of it and its reactions to enable -her to assimilate the necessary food of love.</p> - -<p>She will think: “He says he loves me, but I know -only that he likes my body. I begin to hate it -because it does not give me the satisfaction it does -him. I can’t understand it a bit. It’s a strange -world. But I suppose it’s got to be as it is. I can’t -do anything about it.”</p> - -<p>And she cannot, if he will not or cannot. Is there -any more powerful deterrent than despair to prevent -a young wife from being able to produce in -herself a relaxation of erotic tensions? Her usual -course, when she begins to despair thus is to deny -to herself that she has any sex feeling at all. Her -husband then agrees with her and calls her frigid. -This crystallization of her feelings not merely retards -but annihilates whatever abilities she has to -express her love in an erotic way. She fortifies herself -with the compensating thought that sex is, as -she has always heard, sinful, filthy, nauseating. Her -face begins to become hardened, to develop a -wrinkle or two and she is in a fair way to become -an anti-something.</p> - -<p>She begins to realize that he has not done this -or that, such as remembering to post a letter or -make a purchase or keep an appointment with her; -or he has contradicted or opposed her in some judgment -concerning practical every-day occurrence. He -has not done what he should have done, to be sure; -but not only does she not know what that thing -is but she has no means of knowing what it is. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> -therefore is forced to express her dissatisfaction with -him in terms of a sphere of impulse with which she -is acquainted; namely, the egoistic-social. She cannot -talk to him in a language of which she knows -not a single word.</p> - -<p>The relations between a new bride and her husband -in their first love episode are those of an -examination or test. The bride tests the groom, of -course, in the majority of cases unconsciously. -There is nothing else for her to do. There is no -test she has to meet. By the circumstances of the -case she is not required to do anything for the conscious -performance of which she is to be judged -or tested by anyone. She has not to do but merely -to be, to exist—as if, asleep, to be awakened.</p> - -<p>The unconscious situation is quite the reverse. -The husband is the one who is tested. If he fails -in any detail of this test there remains in the story -of his actions a lacuna which she has no means of -filling, but which forms the nucleus of a doubt in her -unconscious mind and the centre toward which all -subsequent failures on his part tend to congregate -in such numbers that she may become later completely -skeptical. She will say she knows he loves -her. To be sure, he does a thousand little things -for her all of egoistic-social, none of truly erotic -value.</p> - -<p>If he even once takes these virtually friendly, unconscious -examinings of hers as real evidence of -hostility or lack of interest, he is failing her where -she feels it most keenly, and is beginning to lose -his control of her erotically. If he continues to be -switched off the main track by her well-nigh inquisitorial -attitude he as much as admits to her that he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> -is not longer able to come up to her standards—a -humiliating admission for any man to make to any -woman.</p> - -<p>Kittens are born blind. Women are born love-blind. -No woman is other than anesthetic, which -means “not perceiving” until she has perceived -something. And there is nothing for her to perceive -except what her husband does.</p> - -<p>Woman’s negative control, coming as it does -from her anesthesia which is innate in her and is -removed only by the proper kind of marriage, makes -her “uncertain, coy and hard to please.” If not met -and handled erotically by a man who has abandoned -autoerotism, it develops in her a degree of opposition, -antagonism, obstinacy and resistance that is -completely misunderstood by a man without erotic -insight.</p> - -<h3 id="section137">§ 137</h3> - -<p>Women confuse the control on the egoistic level -with that on the erotic level, because the latter -prompts them to keep testing their men in the unconscious -attempt to assure themselves of their own -security. This testing is done on both levels. When -it is done on the upper or superficial level of egoistic-social -acts it takes the form of all varieties of fantastic -and capricious behaviour. The most “temperamental” -woman is using her moods only to try the -steadfastness of the man concerned, although she is -quite unaware of the unconscious motive. She either -cannot explain her actions or she assigns reasons -that are pure rationalizations. When the testing is -done on the erotic level it sometimes assumes the -form of coldness or anesthesia.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span></p> - -<p>Women will later come to see that their use of -egoistic-social tests is only an indirect manner (and -never a reliable one) of assuring their erotic security, -but they will attain this insight only after -they have made the distinction between the two -groups of motives and have given to the erotic its -true superior value.</p> - -<p>If the young bride has had the good fortune to -be enlightened on sexual matters, and thus to be -prepared for a descent upon her of an expression -of force which otherwise is easily too great a shock, -she may even welcome its impetuosity.</p> - -<p>If on the other hand, as is almost universally the -case, she is ignorant of sex, her reaction to an uncontrolled -husband will be one of utter despair. -The majority of educated women today have been -brought up with all the inhibitions which crass ignorance -of sexual psychology produces. As a precautionary -measure many of them were instructed -by their mothers that boys and men are uncontrolled -brutes and should not be allowed to touch girls, who -are destined to become married mothers.</p> - -<p>Therefore the majority of women enter the married -state with faces at least slightly averted from -sex, just as some religious sects train their believers -to wash in the dark and never under any circumstances -to look at their bodies undraped, much less -any other persons’.</p> - -<p>So the chance is that the husband will have as -his first duty to eradicate this sex inhibition, for -which his wife is in no way to blame, for as a child -she started in the right direction, and was misdirected -by her parents, guardians or teachers.</p> - -<p>If a man is constitutionally unable, or has trained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> -himself to be unable, to control his own emotional -catharsis, and must see to his own satisfaction, before -(or even instead of) his wife’s, the prognosis -of happiness, if he gets a woman with the sex inhibition, -is negative.</p> - -<h3 id="section138">§ 138</h3> - -<p>That the soul as well as the body of the newly -married, in their first love episode, should be inexplicable -and unreservedly “blended with the only -other soul and body in all the world for him” certainly -requires a mental ante-nuptial preparation -that has rarely been attained in the past. It implies -the belief on the man’s part that the woman should -have <em>from the first</em> exactly the same true physical -and psychical ecstasy that he expects himself. How -many men think that?</p> - -<p>It must be admitted, however, as has been indicated -above, that the woman’s erotic development -progresses, and that in some cases it takes months -and even years for it to reach its full expansion. -In the meantime the hasty, anesthetic husband has -lost his grip and, unconsciously unwilling to grow up -with his wife, remains at his selfish, animal level.</p> - -<p>Incidentally, too, he holds his wife there; for it -must be remembered that the wife’s erotic development, -on which depends not merely her contentment, -but the stark possibility of her becoming more than -a gynecoid female, is absolutely nil, if it be not -developed by her husband. This is unequivocally a -one-way process. All the latent love and beauty of -being and action on the woman’s part are dependent -solely on the ability of her husband to unfold her.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span></p> - -<h3 id="section139">§ 139</h3> - -<p>It may be argued that the woman’s erotic acme -is conditioned by the prior or simultaneous emergence -of the man’s. But this argument is the working -out of a defence mechanism coming from the -unconscious of the man. He makes this statement -not because it is true but because, from an autoerotic -phantasy, he wishes it were true.</p> - -<p>The statement, too, may be sincerely made by -the woman, but, if it is, it is because she has heard -him make it or correctly inferred from his unconscious -actions its tacit existence in his mind. It is -shown in another place that there is always in the -man’s unconscious a phantasy that his part in the -love episode will produce his wife’s erotic acme at -once and without effort on his part. This phantasy -amounts in some cases to an hallucination.</p> - -<h3 id="section140">§ 140</h3> - -<p>It was said above that you cannot control what -you cannot see or touch or otherwise perceive. To -what you cannot see, you are blind; to what you -cannot hear, you are deaf; to what you cannot smell -you are—but there is no English word for that, so -we have had to take a Greek word—<i>anosmic</i>. Similarly -if you could not taste, touch, feel, you would -be insensible. There are many more forms of insensibility -than merely being knocked out in a fight. -The insensibility to the penultimate one of the various -phases of the love episode has been called in a -woman anesthesia. In the love episode of the hasty -husband there are innumerable reactions of his wife<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> -to which he is insensible, anesthetic; but which would -be a revelation of supreme joy to him if he could -but see them; therefore it is better that the love -episodes should take place in the light rather than -in the dark.</p> - -<p>Yet not alone the visually perceptible reactions. -For there are reactions of every variety. If you -have ever used a blow pipe on a piece of copper, and -observed the iridescence which soon comes, you will -realize the same beauties in every sense preceding -the complete annealing of your wife by the heat of -passion you engender in her. If you have ever -watched the iridescence of a spraying fountain in -the sun, you will see the same effect in the emotions -of your wife when the relaxation of tension has -broken up her being into fine particles that float -slowly down and refract the light rays of your love. -And the beauty and calm of the rainbow after a -summer storm is nothing to that of the mental state -of a woman after the downpour of her erotic passion.</p> - -<p>All these are features to which the anesthetic man -is insensible. Although the similes used are visual, -there is not a sense quality that cannot be thrilled -by the perception of the woman’s reactions. And -although the similes rather hint at the finale than -at the preliminaries they all refer to the effect produced -on the woman by the activities of the man. -The kinesthetic sense of the husband must be developed. -He is much wiser if he will give these -sensations some appreciative study. It will help to -give him control by taking his mind off the burden -of tension he has to carry himself, and enable him -to acquire over his wife that domination in the exclusively<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> -erotic sphere which is essential not only -to his wife’s happiness but to his own.</p> - -<h3 id="section141">§ 141</h3> - -<p>Anesthesia is love-blindness. Love is pictured -blind because he does not see <em>defects</em>. The worst -blindness of love is its not seeing beauties. Most -husbands’ love is blind. This is the anesthesia -meant. When one is given surgically an anesthetic -it is to make one insensible to pain. Love anesthesia -is the insensibility to the love emotions which are -stirred in every man by every woman.</p> - -<p>Can a man be aware of these appeals, made by -every woman, and choose to remain true to the -woman he has married? What good would be done -to him if the anesthetic to which, by virtue of conventional -repression, we are all subject, should be -suddenly removed? Would not such a man be irresistibly -impelled to make love to any and every -woman he saw? Where then would monogamy be? -But if monogamy depended on anesthetics of this -type it would be on a very insecure basis. It would -not endure a week.</p> - -<p>Yet most men are love-blind, are anesthetic to -woman’s deepest erotic appeal. Furthermore the -securest protection for monogamy is the removal of -that anesthesia.</p> - -<h3 id="section142">§ 142</h3> - -<p>This doctrine of the supremity of masculine erotic -control will be objected to, and by the best of -women. They will say that they get their joy in -perfect marriage from the knowledge that their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> -husbands are made happy. They will also say that -it is only fair play if there is a give and take on -both sides, and that the denial of woman’s control -relegates them to an inferior position.</p> - -<p>They misunderstand, however, the biological -foundations of the marital state if they consider -woman’s position of receiver and not giver as in -any way implying inferiority. They confuse erotic -control, which is demonstrably a one-way control, -with egoistic-social control, which is quite as normally -exercised by women as by men, by women -over men, as by men over women.</p> - -<p>They fail to see also that the secure establishment -of the one-way masculine erotic control will -so satisfy men that no dispute can arise as to the -rights of women in the egoistic-social sphere. They -fail to see also that the solid foundation of truly -erotic control over them by their husbands will release -for egoistic-social activities an enormous fund -of energy which is now irrationally locked up in the -erotic sphere. In other words if they are fortunate -enough to be married to a man who is in perfect -control erotically they will not need to worry about -his approval of whatever they may find interesting -to do in egoistic-social spheres of action.</p> - -<h3 id="section143">§ 143</h3> - -<p>The excellent women who may on theoretical -grounds, object to their husbands’ supreme erotic -control, are merely echoing the sentiments of traditional -convention, which are man-made sentiments, -made by men centuries ago, dictating what was right -and proper for women to do centuries ago.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span></p> - -<p>Today there is nothing, even in the ordinary -every-day service a man receives from his wife that -he would not rather have servants do for him—cooking, -house-tending, clothes-mending or the supervision -of these. If he were rich enough he would.</p> - -<p>But the personality reaction in the most intimate -psychical as well as physical relations of married -life he can secure from no other than a true wife, -and in no other sphere than the exclusively erotic -and in no other way than as she, like the vibrating -string of a musical instrument, responds to his technique.</p> - -<h3 id="section144">§ 144</h3> - -<p>The main thesis of this book is that in the instincts -and emotions of love the self-control of the -husband and, through this, his control of the exclusively -erotic emotions of his wife are essential -to a successful marriage.</p> - -<p>A continuous interplay of control on the egoistic-social -level between husband and wife tends to exist -in all marriages. There is an impulse in women to -control the actions of men at this level quite as -much as men attempt to control women. But the -control of the egoistic-social impulses of each by the -other has nothing to do with real marriage, and the -impulses and emotions peculiar to it, which are -erotic only and, at that, subject to a one-way control.</p> - -<p>In the sphere of the erotic emotions man should -be supreme. Neither husband nor wife is ever really -happy unless he has this control, and is indifferent -to the other control on the egoistic-social level.</p> - -<p>The facts that control is neither annihilation nor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> -repression, that control is of the very essence of -personality and individuality, that biologically man’s -control of woman is the only control needed in the -erotic sphere, and that woman, not being able to -control there (and feeling, if she be not controlled, -a need which she unconsciously interprets as a need -to control others)—all these are facts that are of -slight importance, however striking they may be, -compared with the fact that man, on the average, -is brought up without knowledge of the erotic control -he needs to assume in order to make both himself -and his wife happy.</p> - -<p>The unsatisfied woman experiences the fact that -she has bestowed upon her mate unutterable joy and -bliss. A satisfied woman’s recognition of this fact, -however, cannot occur at the same time that her -own erotic acme takes place, for at that particular -time she is as oblivious to anything save her own -sensations as if she were the only being existing in -the universe, and her sensations are as indefinite -and infinite as though she were taking chloroform. -She must, in all the processes leading up to her temporary -psychic dissolution, realize that these processes -are being accomplished for her by the being -and doing of her husband-lover. She may not ever -know exactly what he does do, but she is translated—and -by her husband.</p> - -<h3 id="section145">§ 145</h3> - -<p>The man of the twentieth-century type gets his -supreme gratification, not from anything that is -done to him, nor yet from any sensations which his -activities produce in him, which indeed he could get<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> -blindfolded from any living woman of similar proportions -and somatic reaction, but from the knowledge -his own visual and tactual sense gives him of -the effect of his acts on his partner, the physical -and psychical effect which his being and doing have -not on himself directly (which is the ordinary autoerotic -procedure) but indirectly on him through the -body and soul of his mate.</p> - -<p>The analogous statement cannot be made about -the woman. To be sure, she both is loved and loves, -both is desired and desires, but she can herself do -nothing that gives the man other than autoerotic -pleasure. His joy, on the contrary, comes not from -what she does to gratify him directly. His appreciation -and response to any artful action on her part -is a feminine reaction, and while excusable in egoistic -spheres of action is inexcusable in the erotic.</p> - -<p>For he neither wants her, nor does she want, -essentially and biologically, to be the active, creative -factor in the love episode, just because this factor -is the exclusively masculine factor. Her unconscious -reaction to this reversal of masculinity and -femininity may amuse her for a while, as a variation; -but it cannot continue. Conscious purposive -action on her part gives neither her nor him a lasting -gratification, as it is a step in the direction of -psychic autoerotism on his part to receive such satisfactions.</p> - -<p>Her reactions on the contrary should have such -a degree of spontaneity and unreflective artlessness -as to give him assurance of their being true unmeditated -responses as sure and inevitable as the chemical -action in an opening flower, but as purely hypersomatic -(spiritual) as they are inevitable.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span></p> - -<p>Otherwise, he will never be able to know her as -she is. He will know her as the traditional suggestion -of her environment has taught her to be. This -pervasive influence of environment, which is well -enough in egoistic-social impulses, is wholly out of -place in the erotic sphere.</p> - -<p>The truly modern husband will wish more than -any other thing to know his wife as he himself alone -can know her, and will more and more consciously -resent, as the century grows older, any egoistic-social -conventionality slipping into the purely erotic.</p> - -<p>In order for him to gain his greatest joy from -marriage with this particular woman, she will have -to be made <i lang="la">sui generis</i>. The only means toward -this end is her utterly unpremeditated, spontaneous -response, unclouded by the suggestions of tradition -as to how she ought to respond.</p> - -<p>A woman thus rendered <i lang="la">sui generis</i> by her husband’s -erotic control will more than fulfil any requirements -or specifications of a pattern of romantic -love. Such a woman, thus known by a fully -percipient husband, takes on for him a value, transcending -far those of the ordinary so-called loves -of the every-day, mildly contented variety, and becomes -for him alone, incandescent with vitality.</p> - -<p>The considerations offered in the preceding paragraphs -point to the conclusion that the average -man’s lack of erotic control is due first of all to his -mental autoerotism.</p> - -<p>Man’s lack of erotic control is due also partly -to a certain anesthesia on his part, taking the word -in its etymological sense of a failure to perceive.</p> - -<p>He fails to perceive that his function in married -life is giving and not receiving. He also fails to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> -perceive the difference between woman’s spontaneous -reactions and those suggested to her by her -environment. He fails to perceive that woman’s -resistance has a deep biological cause and that she -is unconsciously forced to test him hourly. He fails -to perceive that she inevitably confuses erotic and -egoistic-social instincts.</p> - -<h3 id="section146">§ 146</h3> - -<p>The man to whom the love episode is only an -animal sex act, a swift and dizzy whirl, is one who, -so to speak does not in advance plot out the trajectory -of this flight, does not let the component -factors enter his consciousness for long enough to -observe them and devote some conscious love to -them. These innate associations are there in his -unconscious; but his training has repressed them. -Such a man to whom the love episode is like a swift -gulping of strong liquor has no time to reflect upon -its various bouquets and glints in natural and artificial -light.</p> - -<p>The ideal enactment of the love episode, if permitted -to enter consciousness in the proper manner, -enables one to prolong it, because this admittance -of new factors into consciousness, that were all -along in the unconscious, gives a reason for stopping -and taking account of the phases of it as they occur. -The most important phases are those where the -husband takes note of the effects of his being and -doing upon his wife. The hasty husband is the -one who has no regard for any other’s feelings save -his own. If his own were the only ones that existed, -he would of course have no reason to retard his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> -own erotic acme. With an insensate spouse he -might go through the love episode as often and as -rapidly as he wished.</p> - -<p>It must be kept in mind always that there is a -definite biological cause for the slow progress of -woman through the phases of the love episode—the -inescapable necessity that she shall assure herself -continuously and beyond the slightest doubt of -the erotic strength of her partner.</p> - -<p>It is probable that the women who are not slow -in this progress are in a sense degenerate, if that -term have any real meaning. They would be the -ones who would not, unconsciously, of course, express -that biological need for impregnation by the -strongest male, which is expressed by the average -woman in her slowness. They would tend to reproduce -what might be called a lower order of humans -in which the erotic in itself, the hypersomatically or -spiritually erotic plays a much smaller part, an -order of humans that were nearer the animals than -those humans who have amplified the erotic factor.</p> - -<p>The hasty husband, as will later be shown -(<a href="#section158">§ 158</a>), unconsciously reasons that his own speed -demonstrates his quick and masterful control over -his wife’s erotic emotions. This unconscious fallacy -is made worse if the wife has followed the doctor’s -advice to simulate an erotic acme in order to preserve -the marital peace.</p> - -<p>If the effect on her of his mere presence were so -overwhelming, and if, as soon as he embraced her, -she soared into the empyrean of ecstatic bliss, his -mere embrace might have the effect at once of producing, -in her, her own erotic acme. This would, -however, imply either that she was herself weak,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> -judged by the standard just given, or that she had -assumed, without testing, his superior strength in -the erotic sphere.</p> - -<p>This assumption is an exceedingly rare one, depending -on an inference from mere physical muscular -strength, or from the fact of a great egoistic-social -reputation. In other words such a woman -might think that because her husband was or is -an athlete his physical strength implies erotic -strength, or that because he was a famous man he -would be a great lover.</p> - -<h3 id="section147">§ 147</h3> - -<p>The husband’s lack of erotic control based on -his own lack of perception renders him too precipitant -in the love episode.</p> - -<p>It is believed, on the authority of physicians and -such others as have studied the subject, that the -love episode, in about seventy per cent of civilized -marriages, is but a one-sided affair from the first. -This is due almost exclusively to the impetuosity of -the husband during the first weeks of marriage. -Sometimes under the inspiration of the purity of -his bride-to-be, or from an increased cautiousness -against the chances of contracting venereal disease, -he abstains from resorting to prostitutes.</p> - -<p>If this practice of his has come from a belief on -his part that he was obliged, as he believes all men -are, to relax his sexual tension periodically, he will -generally believe that his temporary pre-marital -continence is piling up tension in him, and he will -approach his bride for the first time with an idea<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> -probably that his tension is greater than it has ever -been in his life.</p> - -<p>A very important distinction must here be kept -in mind; namely, that between the perfect erotic -love episode, free from conflict, and involving both -hyper- and hyposomatic levels of the personality, -and the imperfect, illicit sex act. It has been pointed -out<a name="FNanchor_24" id="FNanchor_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> that the physical sex act does not relax a -true love tension, that the instinct itself may not be -satisfied even with numerous hyposomatic sex activities.</p> - -<p>If, therefore, the young husband be of the type -that believes that an illicit sex act invariably produces -the desired relaxation of erotic tension, he -will be the more likely to give way to an impulse -that has a large proportion of the purely hyposomatic -(or physical) factor in it. This abandon on -his part will exclude all possibility of mutuality. -He will thus lose at the start the possibility of -that control which he might have gained over his -wife’s erotic reactions, had he been able to control -his own. And he would have been able to control -his own but for the erroneous belief that the tensions -he relaxed clandestinely with the <i lang="fr">demimondaine</i> -were the main tensions, which undoubtedly -they are not.</p> - -<p>It is obvious that the annihilation of his bride’s -natural responsive actions that results from his -faulty procedure is fatal to married happiness.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span></p> - -<h3 id="section148">§ 148</h3> - -<p>This hastiness marks the love episode on the part -of the average man. What he wants is a reaction -that is to take place in himself, for which his bride -is merely the external complementary mechanism. -The purely mechanical side of this he could either -purchase from a courtesan or seize against her will -from an innocent “honest” girl, but he fears venereal -disease in the former and trouble of accidental -paternity or discovery or both in the case of the -latter. Eventually he regards both types of women -with equal impersonality. Either is merely food -for his sexual (not erotic in the highest sense) -hunger, and it is his own sex hunger that he is bent -on appeasing, with absolutely no idea of the difference -in erotic value between the two types of -women, in the way he acts. There is none, for -neither is more appropriate to his spiritual need -than hay would be for his stomach.</p> - -<p>The man who desires a wife either for the purely -sexual or for the purely domestic motive has no conception -of marriage whatever. If he is influenced -either consciously, or unconsciously by such a motive -he might as far as his own sole advantage is -concerned, confine himself to sexual affairs with -prostitutes. He is unaware of the new light that -has been thrown on love by the recently acquired -knowledge of the work of the ductless glands. He -has never heard of them, of course, and could not -be expected to know how intimately they are connected -with each other and with his entire mental -and physical welfare.</p> - -<p>What he later finds out, and that with no help<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> -whatever from science, but from tough experience, -is that the two things that he craves—namely, sexual -satisfaction and all the good things of domestic life—are -in some way inevitably and more and more -sundered. His wife either is and remains “cold” -or acquires suddenly or gradually a coolness which -increases to actual pseudo-frigidity. He notices a -change in her. He knows he has not himself -changed.</p> - -<p>The change should have been in him and then -there would have been in her a change which would -have gratified him instead of disappointing him. -But, never having been taught how to behave in the -most intimate relations of marriage, he is feeling -the results of his ignorance just as would a landlubber -feel eventually the resulting shipwreck if he -undertook, or were forced against his will, to pilot -a big ship. The husband should be the matrimonial -pilot, but he has received no course of instruction -in that form of navigation.</p> - -<h3 id="section149">§ 149</h3> - -<p>Haste in the husband comes primarily from fear. -Fear makes the thief hurry through his thieving. -The pickpocket must be so deft and swift that the -victim’s consciousness is not aroused to the theft. -But a true husband-lover is not, in the love episode, -stealing anything from his wife, no matter how -much his actions may resemble those of a thief. His -aim should be not to avoid arousing her consciousness, -but to awaken it to the gift he is offering her.</p> - -<p>Fear makes anyone telescope, curtail, syncopate -and abbreviate any act, selecting out of all the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> -portions of the act some element of it, considered -perhaps the cream of it, and cutting out all the -rest of it. Fear alone—the fear felt by the thief—is -unconscious motive enough for haste on the husband’s -part. If he did not fear her erotic acme, -or her reactions that occur prior to it, he would -not repress them, or allow her to repress them. -Why should he fear to give his wife the same erotic -acme in every love episode that he uniformly gives -himself?</p> - -<p>He fears—unconsciously, to be sure, for the most -part—that, if his wife develops so strong an erotic -reaction, she may have an irresistible craving to -satisfy herself when he is not present, thus giving -herself to another.</p> - -<p>Haste in the husband is therefore due to a fear -that he may lose his wife’s passion, if it be aroused. -He does not realize that the modern educated civilized -woman is unable to give herself to any but the -one man who has first aroused her deepest passion; -and that the more educated and cultivated she is, the -more surely she is centred upon the one man about -whose being the entire erotic sphere rotates as on -an axis.</p> - -<p>Man’s fear that his wife may be or become “oversexed” -is at least a part of the cause for his haste -in the love episode. Unconsciously, of course, he -does not want her to have the same ecstatic pleasure -as he has himself. Not only because, in his squinting -regard, this puts her in the prostitute class, but -also because he fears her becoming too passionate -for one man and therefore requiring two or more. -This is based on an undercurrent of opinion among -men that a woman’s sexuality is fundamentally<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> -stronger than a man’s; and that her comparative -leisure in view of his own, will tend to foster in -her the desire for sexual gratification.</p> - -<p>Added to this is the other erroneous supposition, -common among ignorant men, that excessive indulgence -in the pleasures of the love episode has a weakening -effect on the man. Viewed as excretions, as -the seminal products have been until today, it would -seem quite illogical to fear an evacuation of these -at least once a day. But although they have been -regarded as excreta, there has always been an -unconscious belief in men that their retention somehow -strengthened the brain. Still a way has been -pointed out (see <a href="#section100">§ 100</a>) for the love episodes to be -continued without this fear.</p> - -<p>A consideration favouring the erroneous belief -that the seminal products should not be ejaculated -too freely is the phenomenon of a certain lassitude -and inactivity following the love (?) episode as it -has been hastily put through by many men. On -the contrary the perfectly balanced love episode -cannot have this unpleasant result. It ensues only -when the episode has been imperfect either through -too great haste or through the lack of suitable response -on the wife’s part. If both share equally, -i.e., if the husband reserves his own acme, the -result is perfect. It cannot be perfect in any other -way than that perfectly shared in flawless mutuality. -The evocation of the suitable response on the wife’s -part lies wholly in the husband’s self-control. -Whether the effect is caused principally by psychical -or by physical causes, it is he that in all cases is -responsible. Without his proper conducting of the -love episode, she is impotent and anesthetic. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> -cannot feel what he does not do. She cannot see -what he does not show her. Who can blame her if -her unconscious passion, over which she has never -had, has not now and never will have any control, -is magnetized by the really superior conduct of another -man?</p> - -<p>In brief, divorce is in the power of the husband -to render imperative or impossible. The wife has -essentially nothing to say in the matter except that -she has found in her husband a rover among women, -a beast that treats her brutally or an ignoramus -who is not competent to be either a good husband -or a good father.</p> - -<h3 id="section150">§ 150</h3> - -<p>Some men are always delighting the conscious life -of women by the intensity and frequency and rapidity -of their emotional relaxations. Such men seem -so generous in their spending of the small change -of emotion. But they are always maddening the -unconscious of their women, whether these women -be wives or mistresses, for they are repeatedly, -almost universally, taking in the woman’s presence, -and through the instrumentality of her presence, -what she cannot herself get, and what she has biologically -an expectancy, if not a right, to have. Such men -are practically annihilating the chances of their own -and their wives’ happiness.</p> - -<p>The woman that is governed by the egoistic-social -instinct unwittingly plans for the man’s hasty emotional -relaxation, the while completely holding her -own emotional reactions in check, under perfect -repressive control. In the average civilized woman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> -brought up under sex inhibitions this control by -annihilation is the only control she has. The ability -thus to annihilate the finest possibilities of erotic -reaction in herself is the result of the only training -many women get. It is the fine art of the prostitute, -but not all of hers, however. The rest of it -is to simulate a loss of control on her own part in -order to effect the aggrandizement and unconscious -sense of superiority on the part of her patrons.</p> - -<p>This conscious retaining of erotic control is, to -be sure, based on the biological necessity of man -testing. The best of women cannot of themselves let -go their own erotic control. It has to be taken from -them by men who are emotionally their superiors in -strength.</p> - -<p>In so far as it (woman’s tendency to lie) is -“almost physiological”<a name="FNanchor_25" id="FNanchor_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> and based on radical feminine -characteristics, such as modesty, affectability -and sympathy, which have an organic basis in the -feminine constitution, and can therefore never altogether -be changed, feminine dissimulation seems -scarcely likely to disappear.</p> - -<p>Woman’s tendency to dissemble is dependent on -her unconscious reaction of testing the male. But -she must test her male for the deeply biological -purpose of finding out whether he is strong enough -for her. He needs to be, for her purposes, only -stronger than she is, to be strong enough; although, -when this motive is sometimes transferred to consciousness, -she may become a fortune hunter or -vampire, and throw away any man for the next -egoistic-socially stronger she finds available. This -does not of course refer to physical muscular strength<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> -but to psycho-sexual strength. If physical strength -were enough there would be almost no divorces and -no marital unhappiness.</p> - -<h3 id="section151">§ 151</h3> - -<p>Her testing her male, therefore, whether it is in -pre-marital egoistic-social relations or after marriage -erotically, is a resort to the negativism (which -is indeed a characteristic of infantility). This -negativism is seen in the critical attitude which is so -intense in some of the later incidents in married -life. And in the first love episode any coolness on -the bride’s part is a tacit resistance which seems to -say: “I am not yet fully mastered. Any opposition -I present to you is no more than what as a -man you should be able to overcome. You may be -my superior in physical strength but there are numerous -kinds of strength. I did not obviously -marry you for your physical strength much as I -appreciate, value and need it. But the love -episode,” she continues unconsciously, in blushes, -averted gaze, occasional paleness, interspersed with -impulsive advances, all of which are here set down -in their equivalent words, “the love episode consists -in far more than physical violence. In fact for -many centuries physical violence has formed no -essential part of it. It has on the other hand a -tendency to fluctuating, wavering, more or less trembling -behaviour, that to the uninitiated appears contradictory -or inanely silly. If you are upset or -disconcerted audibly or visibly by any of the obstructions -I am placing in your way, you are really not -strong enough for me. By my instinctive need for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> -being controlled, I am impelled to see how much -strain you can bear, how strong your mental and -spiritual nature is, for I need that control more -than anything else in the world. I hope you will not -fail me at this juncture, for I want above all things -to find a firm base to which to attach the wavering, -vacillating, fluctuating algæ of my emotions.”</p> - -<p>All this she says in her actions, while her words -may be: “Oh, Rob, you certainly are awkward. -You don’t understand me a bit.”</p> - -<p>How tragic if Rob should take her words as -gospel truth and substantiate them by showing any -irritation whatever!</p> - -<h3 id="section152">§ 152</h3> - -<p>Possibly this is the place to say that if the young -husband shows surprise or, worse, irritation at any -of the, to him, seemingly bizarre acts of his new -wife, he is providing her with exactly the reaction -which her careful and thorough unconscious is looking -for, finding which it says to itself: “Well, if -I find many of these defects, farewell! I’ll attach -myself to some other man.”</p> - -<p>Whereas consciously she is triumphant in her -power over him to make him anything from miserable -to blissful.</p> - -<p>This unconscious tendency to test the husband, -based on the biological necessity of choosing a mate -at least slightly stronger spiritually, psychically, -mentally than herself, determines much of the -actions of a maid with a man.</p> - -<p>In married couples where the man is properly -schooled in love, this wrangling on a low level does<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> -not take place except at its minimum at the outset. -Frequently the woman immediately senses, unconsciously, -that the man whose attentions she is receiving -is of the stronger type necessary to compel -her emotional submission.</p> - -<p>This theory admits the possibility of perfect marriage -between the lowest and highest types of intellect -(which is an egoistic-social expression, not -erotic) with proportionally happy results.</p> - -<p>It also shows how every married couple can reinstate -themselves in the most satisfactory mutual -relation, even if they have already started on the -wrong path.</p> - -<p>If the husband realizes that he is only being -tested, and by a sympathetic examiner who really -wants him to pass the test, and that it requires only -a little thinking on his own part to make him -erotically a fully followed husband instead of a led -one, he will certainly give the necessary time to -visualizing the pattern his actions will have to take -thereafter in order to make him successful.</p> - -<p>In married couples where the man does not know -or cannot learn the erotic principles, the surface -wrangling based on the perpetual unconscious test -continues, involving more and more of the couple’s -egoistic-social activities, until finally it becomes so -acute that nothing can prevent an open rupture.</p> - -<p>In other couples where the man’s reactions satisfactorily -answer the woman’s first tacit interrogation, -the dramatic testing automatically stops.</p> - -<p>Woman’s tendency to dissemble thus includes -not merely verbal lies but also all forms of her -behaviour toward her husband. Of course, if her -erotic nature is entirely engaged she will have (for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> -example) no possible motive to spend his money -above what is needed for pleasing him through her -developing her own personality in every way, or in -acting in any capacity whatever that would in an -egoistic-social sense be to his detriment, for through -the perfect love episode she so strongly identifies -herself with him that all his interests, even the -egoistic-social, are superlatively hers, quite in contrast -with the wife whose love impulses have been -ungratified.</p> - -<p>The wife with the ungratified love impulse reacting -unconsciously, as described above, with irritated -but unsatisfied desires, unconsciously reasons to herself -on the talion plan because she has not risen -from that to total identification. The irritated but -unsatisfied wife, still on the “eye for eye” level of -reaction, unconsciously says to herself: “If I cannot -get something out of him one way, I will -another, to pay for all he is getting out of me. If -I cannot make him give me a real love episode I will -make him give me other things. I will buy what I -want and send him the bill. He shall give me money -if he cannot give love. Love is what I want but -I must have something.” This is unspoken, but still -it exists.</p> - -<h3 id="section153">§ 153</h3> - -<p>A man cannot feel what isn’t there without phantasying -up to the point of hallucination. But what -isn’t there is simply what he hasn’t put there in the -way of response to appropriate action on his own -part. He cannot put it there if he is mentally -autoerotic. (<a href="#section112">§ 112</a>).</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span></p> - -<p>He must know in advance what to expect, and -what is the necessary expression of woman’s erotic -feelings. If he does not, he is doomed to surprise -of an unpleasant character; for he will either be -disappointed when he finds that his wife’s reactions -are not up to his narrowly limited pattern or he -will be embarrassed by a too great gush of feeling -on her part and an arousal of passion so tremendous -that he does not know how to handle it.</p> - -<p>This embarrassment is related to a certain type -of mild disgust or aversion felt by men to whom -some women make advances not considered truly -feminine by the men. This does not refer to the -brazen self-assertiveness of the prostitute which is -by most men clearly recognized as egoistic-social. -It refers to a truly erotic abandon sometimes seen -in a woman who absolutely throws herself upon the -man that has inspired her fancy. This attitude -makes impossible for some men the satisfaction of -victory or conquest.</p> - -<p>This too great abandon on the woman’s part -evokes in such a man the thought either that she -is sexually more potent than he (an erotic reaction -in no way connected with egoistic-social impulses); -or that her own environment has been such as to -bring out this expression in her. If she has been -brought up in a family where love needs are frankly -recognized, their wholesomeness will make her much -more responsive, at once, to her husband’s love.</p> - -<p>Naturally he will be neither embarrassed nor dismayed, -if he has himself been trained to believe that -his capacity for woman’s love is, if fully developed, -as great as or greater than any woman’s could be. -If he was thus well oriented, he would be pleased<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> -rather than otherwise to be relieved of the task -of removing love’s inhibitions from his wife.</p> - -<h3 id="section154">§ 154</h3> - -<p>Fate is inscrutable and mysterious. Dame Fortune -is a mother-imago. The husband who does -not understand his wife is a child who does not -understand his mother. According to her fancy -she may give or not give what he wants her to bestow -upon him. Children comparatively early learn -to manage their mothers, but the man who has -failed to learn how to control his wife erotically has -not advanced even as far as these children.</p> - -<p>Such men are the ones who profess to revere the -mystery in the feminine nature. They are simply -a case of arrested emotional development. There -should be no mystery in marriage. There is plenty -of room for passion and romance without demanding -that there shall be in it any mystery whatever. -The inscrutability of the mysterious expression on -the face of the <cite>Mona Lisa</cite> was the expression of -Leonardo’s extreme infantility, the erotic childishness -of a man who never really loved a woman as -a man should.</p> - -<p>Man’s projection of mystery upon woman is his -infantile attitude toward her expressing his unconscious -desire not to give but to receive.</p> - -<p>What constitutes the husband’s complete erotic -control is the removal of all mystery, his full perception -of all the factors in the erotic situation. One -of these is the actual fact as to whether or not his -wife has in the love episode reached the erotic acme.</p> - -<p>He frequently thinks, if he is one of the numerous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> -men without insight, that she has; when as a fact she -has not.</p> - -<p>It is sublimely stupid for a doctor to tell the wife -to pretend that she has reached the erotic acme in -every love episode, and to say that no man can tell -whether or not she has reached that degree of -exaltation; so she might as well deceive him in order -to keep the marital peace. Such men as follow -this advice have not the remotest resemblance to -human men, nor do they deserve to retain the love -of their wives even if they have once gained it. -One can tell whether a person is <em>unconscious</em> or not, -or if she sleeps or not. A real husband can tell -whether or not his wife has reached the erotic -acme.</p> - -<h3 id="section155">§ 155</h3> - -<p>The unconscious inference of a man’s reaching the -erotic acme is that his wife has done the same in -the erotic episode or surely will when he does. This -feeling is so strong as to make almost everyone -take the sign for the thing signified. The thing -signified is the woman’s utter surrender. It is -signified by the sign, which is the man’s losing or -letting go his own control. Prior to the wife’s -erotic acme there is no time during the love episode -when the husband’s loss of control will not affect his -wife’s unconscious adversely. She will surely though -unconsciously resent his throwing down his burden -of tension before he has torn hers from her, because -his own tenseness is his only instrument wherewith -to operate on hers. His desire lapses with his -relaxation. Her relaxation cannot take place if he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> -loses his tenseness before she does, even if it be -only one second before.</p> - -<p>Men would make happy marriage certain if they -should universally grasp this idea; namely, that their -letting themselves go entirely without the prior or -simultaneous erotic acme on the part of their -wives, is putting themselves on the same level as the -animals without, however, being in the animal environment.</p> - -<p>To that level the wives cannot sink; yet the -husbands allow themselves to do so almost without -exception. Because of centuries of repression their -wives are not able to respond to the erotic situation -as rapidly as they do themselves, and yet the husbands -act as if they responded fully. This type of -behaviour is practically equivalent to producing a -hallucination in themselves.</p> - -<p>To use a term from pathological psychology, -every husband who does not secure his wife’s erotic -acme before or with his own, actually <em>hallucinates</em>, -for his own benefit, that reaction on her part. He is -exactly like a man walking along a level sidewalk -and making as if to step upstairs each step he takes -and thinking he is climbing—in so far, just crazy, -that is all.</p> - -<p>It would be much better in some ways for a husband -of this type to renounce love episodes forever, -for such actions form no part of a real one; they -are as productive as half a pair of scissors without -the other half.</p> - -<p>This solitary vice in a husband (masturbatio per -vaginam) always comes from his hallucinating the -effects he should produce instead of producing them. -He is alone with his wife in his sexual (not love)<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> -episodes because she is practically not there. He -may never have thought of the question as to -where she may have been. She may have been -mentally in the arms of another man. “With another -person and yet alone!” is a terrible thought.</p> - -<p>Yet when we think about what we see and hear -among so-called humans we must realize how much -alone all except the very fewest are, alone because -they have not yet discovered the only method of not -being alone—the supernal communion of one man -and one woman. The few men who have learned -how to love, and the exactly equal number of women -whom they have taught, are the only persons in the -world who are not absolutely and completely as -alone as would be a solitary chemical atom in an -illimitable universe of space.</p> - -<h3 id="section156">§ 156</h3> - -<p>All the crowds and jams of people we see are -merely, for the most part, huddling together, as -an unconscious compensation for the sickening loneliness -they feel in their heart of hearts. We see -them in amusement parks, and in all places where -hordes of people congregate; and undoubtedly a -part of the impulse which moves them is their -unconscious solitude for which they get only consciously -perceptible consolation in the sight of each -other and rubbing of elbows and treading on each -other’s feet.</p> - -<p>If one should ask if sex is the sole or major -motive in all this the answer would be, by no means, -if physical sex is all that is meant. The need is for -companionship which many followers of crowds, not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> -having the companionship furnished by the complete -love of a man or a woman, fancy they get from -the sight or elbow-touch of masses of people.</p> - -<p>The deeply, profoundly, thoroughly married -couples are the only ones who have no need to fear -anything that comes from incompleteness. They -neither crave nor are averse to other people, but the -most fully mated never appreciate crowds very -highly. Into their own mystic circle of binary personality -they cannot take a third.</p> - -<p>For these thirds there is no hope but to find each -his or her own complementary personality. The -women wait; for there is nothing else to do. They -cannot find by looking; they can only give themselves -the gaunt consolation of distracting their own -attention from love until they are found by the -proper men.</p> - -<p>For in spite of the great popularity which George -Bernard Shaw gives to his ideas by putting them in -epigrammatic and striking literary form, the truth -is manifest to all who think straightforwardly and -do not believe in a statement simply because it is -paradoxical and therefore emphatic—the truth, -namely, that women are not the choosers but if -there is any choice they are the chosen, and are -themselves utterly helpless and must remain inactive.</p> - -<p>They can try to attract men but the more they -try, the more will the erotically developed men unconsciously -and unerringly infer that there is some -weakness about them that necessitates this strenuous -attempt to compensate for it. The harder they -try to attract men, the more suspicious do the men -become, particularly those having any deep acumen.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> -As for the men being simply the helpless puppets -of a sex of sirens—it is ridiculous.</p> - -<p>The world is made up of the unmarried, the -truly mated and those ill-assorted thirds whom ignorance -has left unhappy and helpless until knowledge -comes to the male partner.</p> - -<h3 id="section157">§ 157</h3> - -<p>Many of these third persons are the wives of -ignorant husbands who have hallucinated the fusion -which they have never made. The husband fancies, -perhaps, that the fusion can be effected by the wife; -that all he needs to do is to submit himself to the -wife as dispenser of delights and that by merely -having him she will glow and burn with the heat -necessary to fuse their two souls and make them -a whole instead of fragments. Delusion! Hallucination!</p> - -<p>The child says to a stick, “This is a horse.” The -child husband says to himself, “This is my wife,” -whether he knows it to be a fact or not. And -curiously enough the child knows he is only fancying; -but the man, in thousands of instances, <em>does not -know it</em>.</p> - -<p>This unconscious, and therefore almost irresistible, -tendency on the part of men to believe the -existence of what they wish is the main obstacle to -man’s control of the erotic situation. Based on -biological necessity, which in the merely instinctive -acts of animals secures the sexual reaction on the -part of the female, the unconscious phantasy still -persists in the human animal, the phantasy that the -erotic acme of the man causes that of the woman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> -every time. But it is a phantasy in the majority of -civilized marriages and tragically enough it may be -the only flaw in some where congeniality and affection -are flawless.</p> - -<p>The bridegroom has this definite task before him -to know his wife, for he can never know her before -marriage. His knowing is a process of perception, -the failure to perceive being a form of anesthesia -in himself. Adam knew his wife—the only good -he brought out of Paradise and fully compensating -for the loss of Paradise.</p> - -<p>When he knows his bride he will know exactly -how much resistance he has to overcome in order -to develop her. She cannot tell him anything in -words, for no woman can know. Not even the -most experienced woman sexually can put into words -exactly what unconscious resistance she may have -to even a virgin-pure man.</p> - -<p>The bride’s resistance is just as real a force as is -the gravity in a pile of stones. At the bottom of -that pile of stones his bride’s soul waits and he -has to remove them one by one; actions which take -as concrete an amount of psychic energy as if they -could be measured in foot-pounds or kilowatt hours.</p> - -<h3 id="section158">§ 158</h3> - -<p>The groom not only has to see what resistance -there is, but has to know that he must remove it all. -The bride herself has no more power or control -over these resistances than she would if she were -literally buried under tons of rock. She depends -entirely on his work to get at her soul. Will he -ecstatically embrace one of these stones that cover<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> -her up? Like the child calling a stick a horse, will -he say: “This stone is my wife. If I can believe -hard enough, she may change, in my eyes, into my -wife and I shall be spared the effort of releasing her -from the weight which now oppresses her. How -sweet and tender this stone is! How it throbs and -palpitates as I squeeze it tightly in my arms! There, -it has melted entirely. Dear wife!”</p> - -<p>Insane? Yes. And the woman herself, alive and -breathing under the load of stone which antiquity -with more than bestial blindness, with infinitely -more than granite heartlessness and marble stupidity -has heaped upon her for centuries, is so deeply -buried that she cannot herself even direct her own -release. Dimly she hears her man apostrophizing -with love the outermost stone. Will he ever get -the sense to drop it, pick up one after the other of -those overwhelming <em>her</em>, and actually penetrate to -her and grasp her in his arms. Good heavens! -How can intelligence be conveyed to that imbecile?</p> - -<p>Or instead of hearing her husband hallucinating -her release by means of rapturously caressing a stone -that holds her down, she may have the still more -poignant agony of hearing him make love to a -woman already released from her bonds by some -other man.</p> - -<p>“Damnation inconceivable! Is he, my husband, -willing to take the woman whom other hands have -released, whom the work of other men has made -practically theirs, and whom he virtually steals, or -as a beggar accepts like a fruit skin from another’s -feast?</p> - -<p>“Or is it,” the poor soul may think to herself, -“that really in my own true being, I am less attractive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> -than the women whose weight of oppression so -many men have cheerfully lifted? What have I -done to make myself so unattractive? Must I curse -my parents, who have, besides, perhaps, helped to -entomb me alive under these stones?”</p> - -<h3 id="section159">§ 159</h3> - -<p>The situation in many marriages is not less tragic -than this. The husband in this case has either not -been able to see the obstacles that lie between him -and complete emotional fusion with his wife, or if -he has seen them, he has not thought himself able -to remove them. In either case he may be more -ignorant than to blame; but not after he once gets -the point of view of this book.</p> - -<p>His accomplishment, the only virile accomplishment -in the world, is plainly before him. He must -acquaint himself with the exact amount of resistance -and repression; and he must remove it piece by -piece if it takes a half a century. He must realize -fully that it is a piece of constructive work, and that -no one else can do it for him.</p> - -<h3 id="section160">§ 160</h3> - -<p>The anesthesia of the husband and the failure to -come up to the constant test are both increased by -man’s ignorance of the fundamental biological nature -of the woman.</p> - -<p>The only remedy for it, which will improve the -conditions of marriage and reduce to the minimum -infidelity of wives and of husbands as well, is the -husband’s deeper knowledge of the feminine element.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> -This knowledge, which should be an essential part -of a man’s education, cannot be entirely given him -by another, but must be the result of his own -observation.</p> - -<p>It is obvious that the intimate adaptations required -of each marriage are absolutely individual. -While all women and all men are actuated by similar -unconscious motives, the specific working out of -these motives results in an interplay of forces which -is different in each individual marriage. There are -over a thousand types of this intimate interplay of -personalities within the marital state; also the types -change in special cases from time to time. It is easy -to see, therefore, that the minutiæ or marital living -have endless combinations of possibilities, concerning -which the husband would do well to become as -well informed as possible.</p> - -<h3 id="section161">§ 161</h3> - -<p>The hasty husband takes his own motions and -his own erotic acme, which are but parts, for the -whole. He takes the most physical aspect for the -love episode. Naming the part for the whole is a -sort of metonymy, which is a figure of speech and -not literal truth. The hasty husband is in this -sense unconsciously a liar. He cannot tell the truth -because he cannot know it. If we say that this -fragmentary performance of his is taken by him -to be logically or intellectually like the whole, we -must say that he rates low in discrimination. He -ought to know that the fragment is no more like -the whole thing than a hand is like the body.</p> - -<p>Giving the physical side of the love episode too<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> -great a value is like connecting it too closely with -the imagination, or with that part of the imagination -that is bound up with the emotions. The factor -in the sex life of most of the animal-like humans, -that is, most closely connected with the strongest -emotions, is the acme. In true human love, then, the -strongest emotions are reassociated with other -elements of the love episode than the acme. And -the acme is the greatest desideratum only from the -unconscious or instinctive point of view.</p> - -<p>The imagination, the power of visualizing (and -other forms of representations as well) then involves -the power to affect, or to effect changes in -the somatic reactions of the husband that render -possible the prolongation of a sex act, and its transformation, -into a love episode. The imagination -of organic sensations in himself, in the normal husband, -retards the progress of the love episode for -the benefit of the wife. The hasty husband lacks -just this imagination and the love episode is hurried -through in the manner of an animal sex act.</p> - -<p>The husband who reaches his acme of erotic -relaxation even before actual contact with his love -object has not in consciousness dwelt much upon the -numerous preliminaries. Methods of retardation -are methods of admitting into consciousness the -different innate associations between emotions and -the touch and movement sensations constituting the -first stages.</p> - -<h3 id="section162">§ 162</h3> - -<p>The use of the imagination as a transformer of -unconscious energy is a comparatively modern technique<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> -and one made use of with great effect in autosuggestion.</p> - -<p>As a transformer of unconscious psychic energy, -or possibly, better, a re-shaper, it has sharply to be -distinguished from phantasy.</p> - -<p>Phantasy is the continuous mental activity that -goes on night and day in the mind of every man, -woman and child. It consists of visual images, -auditory images, tactual, kinesthetic, thermal and -a dozen other qualities all combining with each other -in the patterns by no means fortuitous, but organized -into groups, some of which have been called -complexes. This organization is the unconscious -wish. The patterns formed are unrelated to time, -are unmoral and follow exclusively the pleasure-pain -principle.</p> - -<p>Phantasy, which is entirely spontaneous, or independent -of any conscious volition on the part of the -individual, is about ninety-nine per cent submerged -in the unconscious. The one per cent more or less -that emerges into the consciousness of the ordinary -man of the world comes in as day-dreaming or as -dreams of the night. In these two forms it appears -in a shape least disguised, and is therefore the chief -material of psychoanalysis, which is an inventory -of the contents of the unconscious of the individual, -an inventory that shows what possibilities he has -of future better adaptation to his environment. It -also shows why the people who are ill-adapted have -failed to adapt themselves.</p> - -<p>We are obliged to assume a causal connection -between the phantasies of unconscious mind and the -physiological process in the body on the one hand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> -and on the other the broader life currents of the -individual.</p> - -<h3 id="section163">§ 163</h3> - -<p>Only by assuming this causal connection, which -must also be a two-way connection, can we explain -any influence of mind upon body. From innumerable -instances, however, we are all absolutely sure -that the mind influences the bodily functions and -that the bodily functions influence the mind.</p> - -<p>In no sphere of human activity is the influence -of the mind on the body more clearly demonstrable -than in the erotic sphere, both in its equatorial -physical zones and in its polar intellectual zones.</p> - -<p>This makes it absolutely incontrovertible not only -that man can control his emotions, including the -erotic; but that he should, if he wishes to be human -and not merely animal.</p> - -<p>In the causal connection between hypersomatic -(mind) and hyposomatic (body) there is at least -one link called the imagination. But the fact that -imagination is so broad a term makes the understanding -difficult as to how the various mental -mechanisms, mostly unconscious, interact with each -other.</p> - -<p>The fact, however, is well known and admitted -by all scientists that the mind does influence the -body. It causes changes in the functions of the -bodily organs. A purely mental state caused by -external stimulation, for example, the hearing of -some bad news or witnessing of some tragic occurrence, -will alter the internal secretions of some of -the endocrine glands, postpone digestion or upset<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> -it, accelerate circulation and respiration and cause -other changes.</p> - -<p>Sex phenomena are no exception to this principle -that bodily processes are conditioned, that is, partially -caused, by mental processes. Sex cannot be a -part of love until love which is hypersomatic (mental) -is in control.</p> - -<p>It would be exceedingly satisfactory if one could -devise a mental pattern for love that would apply -to all individuals; but the fact that the various -factors are over twenty in number, making over four -hundred combinations of only two at a time, render -it practically impossible to do more than make a -generic verbal formula such as “better and better -every day.”</p> - -<p>It is impossible however, to get away from the -fact that the sense type of imagination has not a -little influence in the original rapport that springs -up between two persons of opposite sex. Obviously -a colour-blind man could not be much influenced by -the iridescent beauty of some young women. There -are people who are tone-deaf, and, to such, a monotonous -voice might not have the deterrent effect -it would for some. There are individual variations -in the sensitivity to every one of the twenty-odd -sense qualities that enter consciousness from time -to time. Any of these variations may play a part -in the first attraction exerted by young people on -each other.</p> - -<h3 id="section164">§ 164</h3> - -<p>Every one of these twenty-odd different qualities -of sense impression may enter consciousness from -time to time as a representation or reverberation of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> -an original sensation. The commonest of these is -sight. The appearance of some facial expression, -for example, of an attractive woman, will, spontaneously -recur to a young man for a long time. Motivated -by pleasurable emotions experienced at the -first sight, these visual memory images will recur -again and again, each time accompanied by, if not -caused by, the continuance or reëmergence of the -pleasurable emotions.</p> - -<p>But visual images are not the only ones that -spontaneously recur. If the individual belongs to -the auditory type, there will be numerous auditory -“images.” He will hear in his mind’s ear the -joyous timbre of a woman’s voice, also perhaps -motivated by the same recurrent pleasurable emotion -he experienced when listening to it the first -time.</p> - -<p>Visual and auditory “images” or representations -may be supplemented by those of any of the other -twenty-odd qualities of sense impression. The -memory of a dance recalls a number of these, -tactual, olfactory, kinesthetic, mostly, however, in -the average person, not clearly conscious.</p> - -<p>People have to be taught to see what is before -their eyes. They also have to be taught to recognize -timbres of musical instruments, intervals -between tones, composition of various chords, etc.</p> - -<p>Conscious attention must be used to enable some -people to recognize the difference between various -flavours, perfumes, odours, bouquets of wine, etc.</p> - -<p>This sharpening of sense discrimination is accomplished -by means of the conscious attention to the -various images.</p> - -<p>The sharpening of sense discrimination with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> -assistance of the mental standard supplied by the -various representations of former sense impressions -involves a change in the sense organ itself if we -include in the organ, as we must, its nerve connections -with the brain and with other organs.</p> - -<h3 id="section165">§ 165</h3> - -<p>This is how we may conceive the effect of mind -upon body. The imagination, composed of its -various qualities of images visual, auditory and -other, involves the change in the sense organ and -in the brain and the other organs connected. We -are thus being changed continually, both body and -mind, by impressions coming from without and by -the reverberations of these impressions that are -known as mental images.</p> - -<p>Is it any wonder that the drama, and lately the -moving picture, is recognized as one of the deepest -transmuting influences in human life?</p> - -<h3 id="section166">§ 166</h3> - -<p>Every sense impression is a suggestion. It is a -psychological axiom that every idea tends to work -itself out into an act on the part of the person that -accepts the idea. This is the basis of hypnotism and -any form of non-hypnotic suggestion.</p> - -<p>It is evident then, that the sense impressions received -every second of our waking life (together -with the images or reverberations of these impressions -that continue to live in the unconscious and -appear only occasionally in consciousness) accumulate -suggestive force. It is evident that every -individual is subjected from birth to a continuous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> -stream of suggestions, some of which he accepts -(among them the most often repeated ones).</p> - -<p>If these suggestions are formed of images (conscious -or unconscious) of health, happiness and -triumphant activity, they will be accepted and constitute -a pattern for the entire life activity of this -individual. And the same is true <i lang="la">vice versa</i>.</p> - -<p>The impressions thus received constitute the content -of the imagination and this content produces -either well-being or ill-being (not to say illness) in -the individual so influenced.</p> - -<h3 id="section167">§ 167</h3> - -<p>The inference that a wholesome erotic pattern -must be provided for young people, and adopted -by older married persons, is therefore irresistible.</p> - -<p><em>The only way actions of any kind can be -made better is by introducing into the mind a pattern -according to which these actions are to be -carried out.</em> The only means for introducing this -pattern into the mind of a man, if he does not -already possess it, is by way of the imagination. -The various visual, auditory and other images must -be created in the mind of the individual before it -will be physically possible for him to follow this -pattern.</p> - -<p>Mere verbal reiteration of a clumsily worded -command or prohibition <em>never</em> provides the imaginative -factor which is the essential one. Prohibitions -are discussed elsewhere (<a href="#section197">§ 197</a>).</p> - -<p>Thus it appears that the imagination is the vital -factor in any action just because it constitutes the -pattern of the action.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span></p> - -<p>It is always much better psychologically to show -or describe a person doing what one desires him to -do than in abstract terms, to tell him to do it.</p> - -<h3 id="section168">§ 168</h3> - -<p>Therefore a love pattern is needed. It is needed -by the husband in order that he may control the -erotic situation. It is not needed by the wife in -order that she may control, for in the erotic sphere -control is not hers nor does she want it; but it is -needed by her in order to know whether or not she -is being properly controlled erotically.</p> - -<p>As no two individuals are alike, this makes it -evident that the function of the husband necessary -to create a happy marriage is to emphasize the -mental (or hypersomatic) side of it, for the purpose -of including every physical aspect in the most comprehensive -way.</p> - -<p>Again it must be reiterated that instinct alone -can never <em>guarantee</em> a successful married life. The -erotologist knows full well that the husband, relying -on instinct alone, remains unutterably selfish, and -therefore anesthetic, in thousands of cases; and that -he can, if he has the confidence of knowledge, make -of his wife a whole wife and not, as in the majority -of cases a fragmentary wife.</p> - -<p>A man should not let his wife remain fragmentary. -He should not be content with either the domestic-servant -fragment or the cook fragment, nor -should he regard her solely as washwoman, stenographer -or performer of any other essentially egoistic-social -function. “Wife” should be restored to -its original Anglo-Saxon concept of “the trembler,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> -i.e., the thrilled woman. Many men on the contrary -speak of “the” wife, exactly as they would say “the” -cook, or “the” chambermaid.</p> - -<p>Instinct alone, which is purely selfish, in spite of -its occasional marvellous faculty of providing for -the future of others, can in almost none of the intimate -marital relations insure a continuance of completely -satisfactory love episodes. Continuance of -these alone cements married love and furnishes the -foundation for a truly artistic erotic superstructure—a -love mansion, having a beauty far surpassing -the lust hovels in which, after their tinsel and gingerbread -honeymoon cottages, the average married pair -spend the remainder of their lives.</p> - -<h3 id="section169">§ 169</h3> - -<p>If, as assumed broadly above, the remedy for the -ills which beset the married life which is guided -by instinct alone are more excitement for the woman -and less for the man, this only in one way suggests -a balance which (as many wives consciously or unconsciously -perceive) grows less and less as the -years go on.</p> - -<p>The man advances in his profession, makes more -money, gains more or less gratifying triumphs in -the world of affairs, joins a club or lodge, meets -and has more or less stimulating contacts with more -and more of his fellow-men. His wife the while -remains mostly in the home, is restricted by the -necessity of care of children, if any. If there are -no children, she is generally steered by her husband -into the least stimulating life possible, for he knows -unconsciously that the interest of his wife in other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> -people is mildly displeasing to him. He wishes to -own her all—her actions, her thoughts. If he -does not someone else will, and she will be, to that -extent, not his. It will be difficult for him to reason -that this type of ownership is merely the gratification -of an egoistic-social instinct. If there is one -thing a man should not, for his own erotic interests, -want to do, that thing is the establishing of an -ownership or possession. Ownership of wives dates -back at least to the early Roman times when one -had to own and control one’s wife’s whereabouts in -order to satisfy oneself, and one’s neighbours, that -one’s freeborn children were one’s own.</p> - -<p>As a gratification of the egoistic-social instinct, -ownership of the wife’s person, property, actions -and thoughts is in direct antagonism with pure love -instinct, which controls most satisfactorily and -gratefully when there is no egoistic-social compulsion -acting through husband on wife. Pure love -instinct is gratified only when the control is perfected -by eliminating all egoistic-social motives of -husband or wife from the situation.</p> - -<p>This is realized by some young women who marry -but insist that they be not supported by their -husbands.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII<br /> -<span class="smaller">THE UNHAPPY MARRIAGE</span></h2> - -<h3 id="section170">§ 170</h3> - -<p>Those who marry from merely physical sexual -motives, who overemphasize or overweight the -physical side of sex, are not able to gain from -marriage what the rationally controlled love episode -can give them. They naturally never admit that -this is the case. They frequently do not know it -themselves.</p> - -<p>They think perhaps that they are putting the -love instinct ahead of the egoistic-social, but their -knowledge of men, women and things is defective.</p> - -<p>They are to a certain degree anesthetic in the -etymological sense, because they do not know how -to live most fully. They are in a position similar -to a child who should find a package of new thousand-dollar -bills, and take them out into the street -and play with them. They are infantile in appreciation -of values, which, however, they may later -learn.</p> - -<p>To overweight the physical factor in the love -between the sexes and to place the love motive -ahead of the egoistic-social motive are not by any -means the same thing. It has been already indicated -that the overweighting of the physical factor -proceeds from an egoistic motive, and is thereby -vitiated as a truly human motive in the highest -sense.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span></p> - -<p>Both parties to such a marriage can, if they see -and understand, change so as to raise the level of -their own motive and give the true love motive its -real place, as might be illustrated by the case of a -young man who marries a woman author twenty -years older than himself, motivated at first solely -by the glamour of her reputation; but, finding in -her a great heart and womanly qualities he had not -before suspected, becomes her true mate in every -sense; or the girl who, dazzled by the wealth of a -suitor old enough to be her father but rich enough -to “buy and sell” her father several times over, -finally discovers in him a completeness and fullness -of love that quite satisfies her when she realizes -that, in spite of his egoistic instincts that have made -him rich his love instinct is still richer. All that is -necessary in a match “misgrafféd in respect of years” -is the proper subordination by both partners of the -egoistic-social to the love instinct.</p> - -<h3 id="section171">§ 171</h3> - -<p>Unconsciously, of course, such people know from -the first that they should get from each other the -sweetness par excellence of human life, but while -they know this unconsciously and it makes some of -them uncomfortable and eccentric, even unhuman, -they fancy so many inhibitions and barriers to it -(particularly in the case of narrowly brought up -women) that they do not gain from marriage that -unspeakable and indescribable sense of identity -each with the other that would successfully obviate -any tendency whatever to infidelity.</p> - -<p>This feeling of identity is not only thus physical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> -in the husband and wife at the climax of erotism, -but is given tangible, visible, and in all ways perceptible, -manifestation in their children. It is given -ideal existence in the community of interests it -engenders in connection with the family life, interests -which are here the expression of the ego-instinct, -but here, as they should be, interests arising from -the subordination of the ego-instinct to the now -brightly revealed love instincts, which are not accessible -to consciousness until after enlightenment in -the technique of the love drama.</p> - -<p>Those people also are unable to give fullest expression -to themselves in the love episode who consciously -or unconsciously, frankly or otherwise, place -the egoistic-social motive above the love motive, -who marry “for a meal ticket” or for any other -egoistic-social motive such as wealth or position.</p> - -<p>Both of these may be taught, if they can be made -to see their false positions. Those who overweight -the physical motive can, unless their intelligence is -of too low an order, be made to see eventually, that -they are contenting themselves, or trying to make -themselves content, with much less happiness than -they are capable of. Those who overemphasize the -egoistic-social end of their relation to their spouses, -can be instructed in love, so that they can raise their -union to the higher order, unless, of course, there is -the comparatively rare absolute incompatibility of -temperament.</p> - -<p>Marriage need not in ninety-nine cases out of a -hundred be dissolved. Within reasonable limits; -that is, excluding the widest possible divergence of -taste and interests, almost any man can learn to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> -control the erotism of almost any woman, if he -wishes to take the trouble to learn how to do it.</p> - -<h3 id="section172">§ 172</h3> - -<p>Most emphatically this does not mean that the -control here referred to is all there is to a perfect -marriage. It has been reiterated that the erotic -control is only the foundation, but important as all -foundations are. The erotic control leads not only -to the maximum egoistic-social freedom, but to the -greatest possible development of each of the partners’ -distinctive personality.</p> - -<p>The love confidence gained by the establishment -of the one-way control in the erotic sphere only -opens the windows of the house of love to the invigorating -air of the outdoor world.</p> - -<p>The unhappily married are unhappy because each -is watching the other continually, devoting to this -conscious and unconscious surveillance so much -energy that either they have none left for the development -of the properly subordinated egoistic-social -interests or they lose so much energy in the unconscious -conflict that they tend to become neurotic.</p> - -<p>The unhappy married ones’ lack of love confidence -is the most deeply gnawing care known to -human misery. No egoistic-social interest of either -but is regarded by the other as drawing him or her -away.</p> - -<h3 id="section173">§ 173</h3> - -<p>The marriage of two young people need not be -postponed over a month or two after they have -learned enough of each other to be sure that they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> -are placing each motive, the love motive and the -egoistic-social motive, in the proper relations to the -other; namely, that the egoistic motive is recognized -as being of less value toward their happiness. No -fears should be allowed to enter their minds about -the happiness of their marriage. Birth control -should prevent any fear from the egoistic-economic -point of view.</p> - -<h3 id="section174">§ 174</h3> - -<p>If it should seem to some that the potentialities -of the marriage that has been called a lottery are -usually those of misery, and that the ordinary marriage -only brings out the miseries of existence to -which some shut their eyes, and from which others -run away, it need only be suggested that almost -nothing runs itself in the world as we know it, but -everything needs constant upkeep, and it would be -unreasonable to expect that when the nuptial knot -is tied all activities in the direction of keeping it -tied could be given up.</p> - -<p>If the world about us is in constant change, to -which we are obliged to make constantly changing -adaptation, it is even more strikingly a fact that -the world within us is constantly changing; and -that we need to control this change ourselves and -could not, if we tried, find a more fascinating occupation -than learning how to make our inner adaptations -in the best manner.</p> - -<p>Marriages that run down before death has ended -them are those where the man has lost his psychic -potence, due to initial or gradually developing -anesthesia on his part.</p> - -<p>In the courtship he has taken a man’s part, presumably;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> -but has stopped his wooing after marriage, -because he has confused egoistic-social impulses with -erotic. He has thought marriage was a civil contract -by which he came into possession of something. -Love scorns contracts; as it evaporates in barter. -Most unhappy marriages are of the “run-down” -type. The thesis of this book is that the only distinctive -man’s work in the world is to keep winding -them up. The man that lets his marriage run down -is probably a perpetual-motion crank at heart. He -thinks that in marriage he has found a thing that -will run by itself forever.</p> - -<h3 id="section175">§ 175</h3> - -<p>A passionate desire for culmination represents -well the attitude of the executive head, or man of -affairs who advances business by delegating details -to others. There is no detail of the behaviour of -the truly mated that the husband can want to be -delegated to underlings. Love is not a business and -no part of it should be either left undone or delegated -to another man; though there are many husbands -who apparently think some of the preliminaries -can be omitted. Possibly the hasty husbands -have thought that only the “high spots” of love -could be or should be touched by them, because their -business or professional lives do not permit them to -look into every detail, much less do it themselves. -But the minutiæ of love are like the notes of a -violin score; they all have to be played by the -violinist and they are all given their due effect and -proper shading by the true artist.</p> - -<p>Possibly one may say that all men cannot be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span> -virtuosos in love, particularly as it is infinitely more -complicated than even the musical art; but at any -rate all can use their utmost endeavour in the performances -of the duets, which constitute the most -valuable works of art for the family and the nation.</p> - -<h3 id="section176">§ 176</h3> - -<p>The unconscious polyandry of the average married -woman is absolutely proved if she does not -regard her husband as satisfying in every way. If -there is the remotest doubt of this, if she has the -slightest repulsion or disinclination or aversion to -any feature, act, mannerism or personal quality of -his, she is withholding from him, possibly blamelessly -because unconsciously, a feeling which, as she -cannot give it to him, she must and does unwittingly -give to some other man either seen or dreamed of. -Absolute surrender on her part to one man is essential -for a strictly monogamous union, a complete -union entirely excluding the appeal of every other -man under the sun. Any reserve whatever on her -part is a reserve that will be kept by the unconscious -part of her solely for the use not of her husband but -of some other man possibly not yet seen by her; -later she may meet him.</p> - -<p>How can a woman give herself, if she has keen -sense discrimination, to a man who isn’t strong, -isn’t clean, isn’t well-dressed, isn’t generous and -loving? If she has this fine discrimination she will -not run the risk of approaching a marriage with -such a man. If a man of undeniable strength (mental, -not physical) makes love to her, his sincerity -and the strength of his desire will enable her to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> -change other characteristics in him before marriage.</p> - -<h3 id="section177">§ 177</h3> - -<p>There is, as Krafft-Ebing argues, a natural -“sexual subjection” of woman (i.e., “women are -naturally masochistic”). Saying that the essence -of femininity is to be erotically led, does not mean -that women are naturally masochistic. In no sense -does being led, in the purely erotic or love impulse -aspect of the marital relation, imply masochism. -Only, however, when the ego impulse is so strong as -to need much sacrifice in the love episode can really -masochistic feelings occur in the wife; and in the -husband only when he uses the love episode as an -egoistic act, by which he is to compete with other -men in the favour of his wife.</p> - -<p>If that jealous stage occur, it is a condition where -the full expression of the love instinct itself is -diminished in favour of the other. The even momentary -thought that his wife could be given a -more thorough relaxation in the purely erotic sphere -by another than himself, a more perfect consummation -than perfection itself, which he has induced in -her, is a thought that is in itself masochistic and -least likely to occur to either of a thoroughly married -pair.</p> - -<p>The idea of masochism as an element in marriage -is worthy of consideration only because it is the -ruling motive of the wife in those unions where the -husband has not assumed control of the emotional -situation and the wife has been so well trained in -the Christian duty of self-sacrifice as to believe that -she must suffer—truly a humiliating thought for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> -the husband if he happens to be a man. He thus -vicariously suffers from his own ignorance.</p> - -<p>Masochism, the tendency to gain pleasure from -the pain another inflicts on oneself, is a natural -phenomenon at a certain stage of pre-synthetic -childish erotic development; and, in all normally -developed persons, is outgrown. Indeed, a woman,—and -<i lang="la">a fortiori</i>, a man, who retains any great masochistic -element in his love life—is, in that respect -alone, a child and not an adult, and incapable of -adult love until that tendency is removed.</p> - -<p>But it persists more frequently in women, and -constitutes a part of the sexual inhibition already -referred to. It is a tendency about which all young -husbands should be warned in advance. They are -not to allow their wives for an instant to have any -reason to infer that the wife’s marital “duty” is to -sacrifice herself or any part of herself to the physical -or mental pleasure of her husband. The eradication -of this idea can be begun by the man long -before engagement, in spheres of activity quite far -from the sexual, and should be steadily and consistently -carried on. He should never ask her to do -anything “for him,” especially not anything to which -she may have expressed any unwillingness, not to -say repugnance, herself. He should see to it that -he gets his pleasure from the knowledge that what he -does is most likely to be gratifying to her. This -is, of course, the attitude of the real man.</p> - -<p>A girl should be instructed enough not to be -impressed by the mental autoerotism of “lounge -lizards” who are feeding their own erotic phantasies -by sight and touch of her. They are more -than likely to become mentally autoerotic husbands.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span></p> - -<p>While on the topic of masochism it is necessary -to warn all young women that in no sense is self-sacrifice -the object of a healthy marriage. The -self-sacrifice which is so lauded in theologies is a -sacrifice of egoistic impulse gratification. In the face -of a great erotic exaltation there can be no such thing -as a thought of sacrifice. No woman really in love -can perceive anything but gain in really erotic action, -for if she knows herself she realizes that her strongest -impulses are those of Eros.</p> - -<h3 id="section178">§ 178</h3> - -<p>Any conflict in her psyche is between the erotic -and the egoistic-social impulses. The only inhibitions -against the erotic impulses, as everywhere, -appear to be the egoistic-social ones, though it has -been pointed out that even the erotic instinct itself -contains an innate antithesis that might cause a -conflict even were the egoistic-social influences minimized -or even removed.</p> - -<p>One suspects that in the woman these unconscious -doubts must come primarily from not having been -completely controlled, so completely in the erotic -sphere that no egoistic-social impulses are for the -time perceptible. A woman of a highly refined nature -whose husband’s erotic control is not forceful -enough thus to expunge totally all egoistic-social -impulses for the time being, will have a certain -number of them not disposed of.</p> - -<p>It thus happens that such a married woman, when -loved by another than her husband and yielding to -him, will in so doing obliterate even this residue of -egoistic-social inhibitions. This explains why an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> -illicit love is to them so powerful a stimulus. They -observe a sudden separation of the two spheres of -impulse in themselves, and they realize the illimitable -enhancement of the erotic motive over the -egoistic-social, the latter naturally appearing as -dross against the gold of the erotic. If in the -clandestine love they have swept away all egoistic-social -conventions, they have practically rendered -themselves subject to erotic impulses alone. Thus -the very fact of this love being illicit appears to -render it purely erotic, absolute, all-comprehensive, -the conflict settled beforehand.</p> - -<h3 id="section179">§ 179</h3> - -<p>Freud in his paper on the love life already referred -to<a name="FNanchor_26" id="FNanchor_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> makes the observation that there is a -type of “love” in a certain class of men in which -the man seems to prefer as his loved one a woman -who is at least nominally possessed by another man. -His attentions to her are carried on as if he were -rescuing her from some oppressor. In extreme -instances he often professes to be solicitous for her -virtue, which consists in his eyes only in not being -used by the other man. Freud continues that the -other man from whom this type of lover wishes to -rescue the woman represents this lover’s own -father, the woman his mother, and he himself is -the little boy in the original family triangle where -the son, according to Freud, is always jealous of -the father and continually trying to get his mother -away from the father. The “love” type here described -is another instance of the compulsion to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> -repeat, referred to in his book <cite>Beyond the Pleasure -Principle</cite>.</p> - -<p>It should be the privilege of the husband to sweep -away all egoistic-social inhibitions. He should see -to it that his actions throughout his married life -are such that his wife makes to him the total surrender -here implied. If he does not, he has not -taken all the steps he might, to render his marriage -absolutely happy.</p> - -<h3 id="section180">§ 180</h3> - -<p>It is likely that the woman who responds thus -erotically to the illicit love situation, because love is -thus cleared of all egoistic-social inhibitions, may be -the counterpart of the man just described. If he -wishes to rescue her from a personality, apparently -her husband, but in reality the father influence -(from the point of view of the lover), so she may -wish to be rescued, i.e., removed from all influence -of authority—the father influence in her own personality. -For in the unconscious the father factor -represents the egoistic-social impulses. It is the -father who requires compliance with egoistic-social -demands. And whoever can sweep away all these -influences symbolically rescues her from her own -father. It should be, and in many cases indeed is, -the husband that does this; and if he does it completely -there is no motive for illicit love.</p> - -<p>In no sense can the so-called sacrifice made by a -woman of these egoistic-social demands be regarded -as a masochistic self-sacrifice involving any erotic -factor. The erotic is not sacrificed but magnified. -The misfortune is only that in some cases the husband<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> -does not cause the sacrifice which then is left -for some other man to bring about.</p> - -<p>Without for a moment implying that this illicit -love on the woman’s part has any more ethical value -than the man’s attempted rescue, it is impossible not -to believe that the periodical abolition by the husband -of all egoistic-social inhibitions of his wife -is a purification of the erotic factor. Taking place -within the marital state and effected solely by the -husband, this makes the light of love burn so much -more brightly as to illumine every other life activity.</p> - -<h3 id="section181">§ 181</h3> - -<p>Jealousy is treated by Ellis in a vein apparently -unaware of the contribution made to this subject by -Freud, who shows that the man is jealous because -he is either physically or psychically impotent. If -the husband either knows or thinks that he is unable -to lift his wife into the empyrean, the thought inevitably -comes to him that there must be some other -man who can do it. If this thought is an unconscious -one it is manifested in every restrictive measure -taken to prevent his wife from meeting other men, -for which measures he assigns not the real cause, -for he does not know it, but all sorts of reasons -developing through the unconscious mechanism of -rationalization, either that she is not attending to -her duty, or neglecting him and his interests or -spending too much money, or what not. This condition -of jealousy is all the more likely to exist in -the husbands who are so ignorant of love that they -are unaware that there is any such thing as the -woman’s acme of pleasure in the love episode. This<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> -form of jealousy, primarily due to the husband’s -ignorance, is all the more painful to him because -he does not understand, and all the more tragic -in its irony.</p> - -<p>It seems, too, quite probable that part of the -jealousy of women is due to a corresponding situation -of their own erotic life. A woman who fails -to apperceive in consciousness the overwhelming -somatic reactions which occur at the climax of the -love episode is in a condition quite analogous to that -of psychic impotence in man. If man’s jealousy, as -has been shown by psychoanalysis, is really caused -by his psychic impotence, i.e., his anesthesia, woman’s -jealousy is evidently also caused by her anesthesia -which is a form of psychic impotence.</p> - -<h3 id="section182">§ 182</h3> - -<p>The case cited by Ellis (that of Mrs. Samuel -Pepys, as recounted in the famous diary) contains -only the man’s side. Possibly if the lady’s side -were known it would be found that she was herself -deficient in love and that she dreaded her husband’s -possibly finding a woman who could react toward -him in a more complete and satisfactory way than -she could herself, this entirely apart from the question -whether or not it should be the duty of the -man to evoke such a response. She would feel -unhappy and all the more conscious if she knew it -was his duty and that he had fled from her to others -where perhaps the task would be easier.</p> - -<p>It is also insignificant that Pepys himself records: -“I must here remark that I have lain with my -moher (wife) as a husband more times since this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> -falling out than in, I believe, twelve months before, -and with more pleasure to her than in all the time -of our marriage before.” This cannot be adduced -as a proof that the jealousy aroused in the wife was -the cause of any improvement in the marital relations -of the Pepyses, but that his noting an increase -in her pleasure simply indicates that because of his -own lack of imagination he had not been playing -the husband’s part for the preceding twelvemonth -as he should have. His own imagination was probably -stirred by “Deb’s” propinquity; as it would -not have been had his erotic life with his wife been -on the high passional level it should. This is the -only reason why a little jealousy is supposed to -whet the edge of love. If Pepys had been grounded -in true love instead of a small-minded man, flinging -notes to his wife’s maid, advising her to help him -out in the lie he told his wife, he would not have -failed so to control his wife’s erotic emotions that -she would have outshone any other woman in attractiveness.</p> - -<h3 id="section183">§ 183</h3> - -<p>Furthermore Ellis admits, and quotes his authorities -to show, that jealousy is “an emotion which is -at its maximum among animals, among savages, -among children, in the senile, in the degenerate, and -very specially in chronic alcoholics.” He notes that -the supreme artists and masters of the human -heart, who have most consummately represented the -tragedy of jealousy, clearly recognized that it is -either atavistic or pathological. Shakespeare made -his Othello a barbarian, and Tolstoy made the -Pozdnischeff of his <cite>Kreutzer Sonata</cite> a lunatic. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> -the jealous person is above all (at least psychically) -impotent and projects, on the most likely object, his -own desires, which he cannot fulfill for himself.</p> - -<p>Let every jealous husband ponder this. If he -cannot utterly satisfy his wife erotically, he is jealous -of other men simply because consciously or unconsciously -he thinks some other man can. Also -if he cannot, his inability probably proceeds either -from ignorance of the art of love or from a foolish -disbelief in his physical powers, a most common -delusion in the ordinary man who is brought up -in the tradition that sex activity involves a loss of -vitality, instead of constituting, as it does, an exercise -of the interstitial glands, whose functioning is -necessary to the most robust health and success, -both of which are inimical to or destructive of the -emotion of jealousy.</p> - -<h3 id="section184">§ 184</h3> - -<p>One of the factors that make marriage a lottery -for those who cannot or do not know about the -unconscious element in the marital situation is the -unconscious homosexuality characterizing so many -men and women.</p> - -<p>It is quite probable that the only impossible -women, psychically, are those who have this unsuspected -homosexual trend. It is an absolutely -proven fact that the men who have it strongly developed -are themselves impossible, unless they are -cured of it.</p> - -<p>The subject of homosexuality is one of the most -serious, most complicated and most difficult ones of -all the subjects connected with the marital question.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span></p> - -<p>Let it not be understood that the homosexuals -are all manifestly woman-hating men or man-hating -women. Their homosexuality is not as evident as -that. Sometimes its only visible sign is being what -is called a man’s man or a woman’s woman.</p> - -<p>The man who enjoys men’s company almost exclusively, -the club man, the man who never misses -an opportunity to meet men, who invariably rides -in the smoker but who does not invariably smoke -there, who is much more at ease with men than -with women, is in all these reactions motivated -not solely by the conscious motive of carrying on -so-called male activities, but partly by an unconscious -homosexual tendency which, though it may -never express itself in overt acts, is still an influence -dominating the majority of his actions, and, to that -extent, is an influence working against his completely -hologamous status. It is, in some if not all cases, -undoubtedly the factor that is most powerful in -preventing him from obtaining the erotic control -over his wife necessary to a perfect hologamy.</p> - -<p>Our man-made civilization has strongly homosexual -tendencies, and has had them for centuries, -expressed not only in men’s (and women’s) clubs, -associations, fraternities and secret societies, but -also in the compensatory woman-hunting and -woman-worshipping done by some of the individual -men, as a reaction from the unconsciously perceived -homosexuality of their environment.</p> - -<p>Psychoanalysis has shown, indeed, that some of -the illicit sex relationships maintained by men are -mostly for the purpose of demonstrating to the men -themselves, bachelor club men, for example, that -they are not really homosexually inclined.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span></p> - -<p>Psychoanalysis also shows the close connection -of this deficient masculinity with jealousy on the -one hand, and with paranoia on the other. Also it -has been shown that morbid jealousy in woman has -sometimes the same cause. “The root of this jealousy -is a non-conscious homosexuality. She is jealous -of her woman friend, because she herself is in -love with the friend. She puts herself in the rôle -of the man.”<a name="FNanchor_27" id="FNanchor_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p> - -<p>From these considerations it will be evident that -the man or woman with the unconscious homosexual -trend cannot be a true mate until the trend is redirected. -The obverse of this is also quite suggestive, -although not necessarily operative in all instances; -namely, that, if the passion for his wife -cools, it <em>may</em> be because he has, or has developed, in -himself a homosexual tendency of which he is unconscious.</p> - -<h3 id="section185">§ 185</h3> - -<p>A careful distinction needs here to be made between -the sex activity that is really erotic—that -of two perfectly mated lovers—and that which does -not rise above the hyposomatic (physical) level. -This latter invariably, except in the most unintelligent -and spiritually undeveloped of humans, contains -a conflict which may or may not enter consciousness. -There is in people highly civilized according to -puritanical ideals always a conscious conflict between -the physical expression of love and their traditional -ideas that the body is base and ignoble and -the soul is a thing separate from the body and superior -to it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span></p> - -<p>Psychoanalytic research into the unconscious -shows that there in the levels below, and inaccessible -to consciousness, the conflicts that like a perpetual -tug of war are uselessly consuming large -amounts of psychic energy are also, in that shunting -of energy from its natural destination to other -termini which may be practically any of the organs -of the body, causing a derangement that if long -continued easily becomes a functional disease.</p> - -<p>The conflict that is conscious also produces a -physiological derangement that may become a disorder. -So in either case, whether the conflict be -conscious or unconscious, the physiological processes -are more or less disturbed.</p> - -<p>If, as sometimes happens, a man’s inhibitions are -too great, he is absolutely unable even to begin -to have a love episode. If they are less great, he -may be able to begin it but not to continue it. If -there is any inhibition at all his part in the love -episode is affected by just that amount of psychic -energy that represents the force of his inhibition.</p> - -<p>The conflict that is expressed in physical derangement, -disorder, malaise or any other unpleasant -result is almost always a mental conflict that can -be resolved by mental means better than by physical.</p> - -<p>In sex activity that is truly erotic there is no -conflict in the man and none in the woman. It may -be said that sex activity never becomes truly erotic -until these conflicts have subsided.</p> - -<p>But in the unhappy marriage a part of the conflict -on the husband’s part comes from his unconscious -realization that he has not assumed the truly -masculine rôle.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span></p> - -<h3 id="section186">§ 186</h3> - -<p>A brief résumé will be now given of conclusions -so far reached. Man’s control, while difficult for -him to gain and particularly in the love episode, -is yet essential to his perfect union with his mate, -unless there is proved to be, which has not yet been -done, a congenitally uncontrollable type of men. -Such men could never satisfy any except women -who are erotically the most highly developed, in the -sense that anything or nothing would send them -into transports—a comparatively rare type of -woman.</p> - -<p>Haste on the man’s part in the love episode, his -acknowledged precipitateness, his hurry to relax -sexual tension, is due directly to his own anesthesia, -his insensibility to the preliminary reactions of his -mate, and in some cases a total ignorance of the -existence of her final reaction. He does not know -what effect in his mate he should really strive to get.</p> - -<p>A knowledge of that effect involves a recognition -of the fact that all women are unconsciously trying -continually to test the man’s psychical strength. -Many actions of women cannot be accounted for -except by assuming this unconscious motive, for -which, of course, there is a biological cause in the -attempt of nature to mate the woman with the -strongest man. The congenitally uncontrollable (if -any exists) man will go down under this test, uniformly.</p> - -<p>This biological cause produces in the woman the -tendency to dissemble. This tendency makes the -woman coy, bashful, modest, reserved, retiring. As -animal she is always facing away from the male in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span> -the sexual act and as Ellis has noted, only the -human female has in the human love episode turned -so as to face the man. But this subhuman characteristic -is always present in the woman, manifesting -itself in some of her actions if not in all, and constitutes -an obstacle to the man’s self-control; for, -unless he has insight enough into the feminine character -to discount her dramatic prevarications, he -will infer that it is useless and hopeless for him to -try to produce any effect whatever in her, so he -might as well produce what effect he can—namely, -in himself. He does not know that the most satisfactory -result in his own feelings is produced by -the reactions which he effects in her, through the -reservation of his own supreme reaction until she -is past knowing it herself, until, therefore, he has -convinced her that his control is greater than hers, -that his strength is greater.</p> - -<p>As it is evident that in animal copulation whatever -acme is reached is reached simultaneously by -both sexes, because of the briefness of the act, it -is reasonable to suppose that the man’s unconscious -situation contains the implication that his own erotic -acme necessarily involves the woman’s. In other -words every man has an unconscious phantasy that -when he has completely satisfied himself his mate -is completely satisfied. Only after years of married -life do some husbands begin to suspect that something -is missing from the marital relation.</p> - -<p>If the male <em>subhuman</em> animal is excused from any -concern as to the proper reaction of the female, -that does not excuse any man and yet in so far as he -is animal he has no cause to act otherwise than -take his satisfaction without delay. The female animal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span> -is accessible only in the rutting season. Human -woman is at all times accessible to the love expressed -in true mating. Human sexuality has not -only made a fundamental distinction between procreative -and erotic love episodes but also has almost -obliterated the periodicity in the sexual accessibility -of the woman. Therefore human love is <i lang="la">toto cælo</i> -different from animal copulation.</p> - -<p>Considerations of the matter of control lead to -the conclusion that it is possible only by means of -the imagination, and because imagination is only the -reawakening with possible recombination of images -of past experiences, we are again confronted with -the problem of explaining how the experience to be -imaged in advance and looked for and waited for -may be presented both to the men who have and -to those who have not had sex experience.</p> - -<p>As one cannot control anything except according -to a pattern, the pattern of controlled action must -be in the mind of any who intend to achieve control.</p> - -<p>The method then, by which the husband is to -achieve control of his own, and thus over his wife’s -erotic reactions, is simply observation. He absolutely -requires fully to note the effect that what he -does has on his wife. If he succeeds in averting -his gaze, figuratively, from himself to his partner, -he will find that his own reactions take on a lessened -value in his eyes. His own reaction, one of ecstatic -pleasure is, in comparison with his wife’s, highly -concentrated on one detail of the love episode. This -is, of course, the most important one in animals -and would be in humans, if humans were animals, -but the fact that they are not and that erotic values -have developed in humans that do not exist in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span> -animals, makes the man’s erotic acme take on a -much smaller significance and value.</p> - -<p>Most husbands go through the love episode as -if they were animals, merely procreating progeny, -while yet starting from no such purpose. The purpose -is, of course, in so many men solely the purpose -to gratify themselves and not anyone else, -that, of course, any deliberate thought of ways and -means of gratifying any other, does not occur to -them.</p> - -<p>Many men, indeed, are filled with embarrassment, -if not dismay, in perceiving a deeper and more extended -reaction in their women than they perceive -in themselves. With such a power which they observe -developing in their wives they do not know -how to compete. The situation of a husband who -finds himself developing in his wife a much richer -and fuller erotism than he thinks he has himself, -contains the unconscious factor of unflattering comparison. -Unconsciously he does not wish to find her -richer than himself because that gives him a sense -of unconscious inferiority and injures his feeling of -control. So the marital situation contains the unconscious -wish on the husband’s part not to find -in his wife an erotism greater than his own, entirely -apart from any conscious idea he may have that he -should not have an “oversexed” woman as a wife.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII<br /> -<span class="smaller">HOLOGAMY VS. PROSTITUTION</span></h2> - -<h3 id="section187">§ 187</h3> - -<p>Marriage, in the sense of a legal bond between -two people who are bound together in no other -way than that affecting the interests of the egoistic-social -type, is not truly monogamous.</p> - -<p>True monogamy between two people whose interests -are entirely implicated each with the other’s -on both the conscious and the unconscious level of -the erotic sphere needs a new name for which is -offered the term hologamy or whole marriage—complete -marriage.</p> - -<p>The completeness implied here is that in which -both conscious and unconscious affection and passion -are involved. The hologamous union is the one in -which both partners have allowed instinctive impulses -from the unconscious to enter consciousness. -Their erotic insight consists in just this admission.</p> - -<p>A hologamous erotic union is the assurance of -earthly felicity. It is utterly uncaused by egoistic-social -factors, though it may yet itself be the cause of -egoistic-social success. At any rate it is the most favourable -condition for the development of both members -of the union along egoistic-social lines. No man -now imperfectly married will fail to become more -successful in his life outside of the home by improving -the conditions of his life within it. The most important<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span> -condition has been clearly indicated. No -woman, now imperfectly married, but is waiting -(for that is all she can do) for the time when her -husband may chance to improve his erotic technique, -or learn from others how to do so.</p> - -<p>It is tacitly assumed by both European and American -society that either the erotic or the egoistic-social -motives may independently and exclusively be -an adequate basis for a marriage. On the contrary -psychology shows that the erotic one is the only -one necessary, and that the egoistic-social is never -adequate, without the erotic, to constitute anything -but a mildly sentimental business relation between -man and woman.</p> - -<h3 id="section188">§ 188</h3> - -<p>The erotic motive is not represented or meant -by the ordinary expression used by married people -who say, of course, they love each other, or they -would not have married. Erotic means more than -“inspired by love” in the sense that the uninitiated -use the term love, which in common language is -of very wide application including even food and -clothing and all other egoistic-social expressions. -Erotic not only means inspired by love in the most -whole, passionate sense but implies also that the -persons activated by erotic motives have at least -some knowledge of the art of love, a knowledge -which includes something about the unconscious factor. -Otherwise love has not progressed to its higher -phase of erotism, and is mostly made up of affection -which is primarily egoistic-social. Love is a -word that has become too debased in the minds of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span> -most people to serve as a term for what is here -outlined.</p> - -<p>If on the other hand a marriage is a hologamous -one, in which the husband’s egoistic-social motives -are duly subordinated to his erotic motive, then -the erotic motive, freed from extraneous elements, -will cause both his conscious and his unconscious -passion to be centred on one woman. No other -marriage deserves the name. “Marriage” is derived -from the Latin word <i lang="la">mas</i>, male, and originally -referred only to the woman. She was “manned.”</p> - -<p>If we should say today that a woman was thoroughly -manned we should be understood to mean -that she had sexual relations with one or more men. -To most we should not probably convey the meaning -that she had been completed, as an originally -defective demi-human being, by the necessary complement -to fill out her being to the totality of human -possibility, or that this completion involved the development -in her of an absolutely new attitude toward -the world which she could not attain without -physical and spiritual union with one man.</p> - -<p>This implies also that the corresponding statement -should be made of the truly married man. As -an originally incomplete or defective demi-human -being lacking a complement, he needs to be completely -womaned, for which indeed there is no appropriate -word of Latin derivation. But if we -should say a man was comprehensively womaned -we should be understood to mean probably that he -had both a wife and concubines—that his affection -and egoistic-social impulses were gratified by the -former and his erotic needs by the latter. Yet it -is really not possible for a man to be perfectly and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> -completely womaned except by one woman. If his -counterpart is a mosaic of fifty different varicoloured -fragments he cannot be said to have done anything -but use a separate facet of each woman composing -the mosaic, and to have left unused all her other -facets. So he cannot be said to have seen any of -the other facets, a lack of vision constituting a kind -of anesthesia already mentioned in <a href="#section141">§ 141</a>.</p> - -<h3 id="section189">§ 189</h3> - -<p>Monogamy is not perfect if there is anesthesia -on either side. Anesthesia prevents complete union. -Only the mates who are completely directed each -to other are fully married, and marriage means not -partial but complete union. All degrees of fragmentary -attachment are defective monogamy and -so not monogamy at all, but unconscious polygamy.</p> - -<p>Furthermore, that portion of the ego which is -not attached to one’s mate exhibits a tendency to -attach itself to some other one’s actual or potential -mate, simply because attachment is a case of tension -fixed to relax on a definite object, and if the legally -sanctioned object has been detached, if the tensions -natural to either sex are, by some complex, detached -from that object, they tend of themselves to seek -relaxation from some other person. If a man is -completely satisfied with his wife he will not only -seek no other woman, but will be dangerously attracted -by no other, and <i lang="la">vice versa</i>.</p> - -<p>So we can suppose a possible scale on which a -husband’s union with his wife, not hologamous, is -measured in units from 1 to 100 such that we might -say a man was sixty-five per cent married to his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span> -wife, while yet she might be a hundred per cent -married to him. This gives 10,000 degrees of non-hologamous -marital union, M 1 — W 100 representing -a man with only slight interest in his wife -who is herself quite devoted to him. This man’s -other ninety-nine per cent of libido might be directed -to any number of other women. If it were directed -toward one other woman he would undoubtedly be -happier if he divorced and remarried. But it is the -thesis of this book that M 1 — W 100 is an impossibility.</p> - -<p>A division of libido as disproportionate as this -would not imply much split in the man’s libido. -He would thus be ninety-nine per cent devoted to -his paramour and only one per cent to his wife. -His paramour would be his <i lang="la">de facto</i> wife. But if -his ninety-nine per cent of libido were directed toward -ninety-nine other women he would be called -a personality of maximum diffusion.</p> - -<h3 id="section190">§ 190</h3> - -<p>Now the personality in perfect health tends toward -the preservation of unity. The man whose -love life should include one hundred women would -be unable to devote more than one per cent of his -libido to one woman. He would be as far from -being a unit as, on the supposed scale, he could get. -He would be not one personality but a knocked-down -pile of parts waiting for a skilled mechanic -to assemble.</p> - -<p>There are different types of men, those who tend -more, and those who tend less, to preserve their -own unity of personality.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span></p> - -<p>In general the progress from infancy to adulthood -is a progress from partial synthesis to complete -synthesis, so that the type of man whose -synthesis is incomplete is an infantile and dissociated -type of personality; or better than dissociated, -he might be called dissipated, disjointed, dismembered, -disassembled.</p> - -<p>Unfortunately, the infantile condition can completely -satisfy, consciously, the infant of adult size. -This makes it difficult to approach him, makes him -difficult of access. If one present him with a fully -developed adult woman, he immediately recoils -much farther into his youth which he regards as a -fine quality. Because of the uncomfortable nature -of the comparison he unconsciously sees his inferiority -and unconsciously compensates for it, by -getting (in the only way he can) the feeling of -satisfaction that comes <i lang="la">via</i> mental autoerotism -whenever it fails to be obtained from the outside -world.</p> - -<p>Adult society always produces this reaction somewhere -in the sub-adult psyche; so it becomes a great -problem, to devise some method for getting the -sub-adult to desire to react in adult modes.</p> - -<h3 id="section191">§ 191</h3> - -<p>Any plurality of women for a man implies reservation. -He cannot love all of a woman entirely -who thinks he loves in any degree any other woman. -If for example he “loved” one woman for her hair -and another for her eyes, another for her smile, -this could not be called love, but only physical sex -stimulation, or fetishism. Man’s supposed love of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> -more than one woman is where his reservation makes -him love one woman consciously and the others -unconsciously. But conscious love is not complete -love either, so that a man who consciously loves his -wife, but is not able to arouse in her the erotic acme -for any reason, cannot really be said to love her. He -may rationalize to himself that his wife is a good -mother to his children, a good housewife, patient, -painstaking, self-sacrificing; but that other women -whom he has seen interest him more in various intellectual -spheres.</p> - -<p>His wife could not be a brilliant pianist, good -conversationalist, noted writer, artist, and singer, -all at the same time. It would be a physical impossibility. -He is interested in all those spheres in -other women; why should he not find pleasure in -their company? Why should he not call love that -interest which the thought-provoking, intellectually -stimulating woman arouses in him? Simply because -he would not and probably could not evoke in her -the fullest erotic reaction, and probably has not in -his own wife.</p> - -<p>Plurality of women would compare with Guyot’s -violinist who should say he could play “Yankee -Doodle” only on one violin and only a concerto on -another, or could play only in E flat Major on -one, and A flat Minor on another, needing a different -instrument for each of the twenty-four keys.</p> - -<p>That is not to say women are not different, but -only that man’s satisfaction in marrying one is dependent -largely on his own erotic technique which -is far more important and valuable than either -musical, artistic or any other technique; and that -if he does not play upon her emotional instrument,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> -to his and her complete satisfaction, he has no -right to try to play on any other. Men go from -one musical erotic instrument to another, saying, -virtually: “I cannot play on this one. Of course, -I shall be able to play on the next. This is an inferior -one. Besides, the more practice I get the -better I shall be able to play. After I have had a -hundred or so I shall be a virtuoso.”</p> - -<p>Women in general, however, are one as good as -another for the production of the erotic music which -can completely satisfy a man. He not only needs -no more than one but on <i lang="la">a priori</i> grounds it can -be safely said in almost every case that he can evoke -no more satisfactory erotic response from one than -from another, regarding this from the purely erotic -viewpoint and not confusing it with the egoistic-social -one.</p> - -<p>Undoubtedly it gratifies a man’s egoistic-social -impulse of self-magnification to have a woman flatter -him, to make him feel that his very presence -excites her, thrills her through and through. It is -almost automatic in some women thus to try to -play upon a man. But this too is never from purely -erotic motives, but largely from egoistic-social ones.</p> - -<p>The man who prides himself on his success with -all women is constantly confusing the erotic with -the egoistic-social aim. And many a man considers -that he has fulfilled this erotic aim when, through -his personal magnetism or his susceptibility to flattery, -he has succeeded in getting a woman to consent -to try to surrender herself <i lang="la">in toto</i> to him. -But in using this pseudo-erotic situation as a factor -in the egoistic-social sequence, he is showing an -utter blindness to the essence of erotism, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> -consists in the woman’s fully conscious placing of -the erotic motive ahead of the egoistic-social one -she has been following in her course of verbal or -other flattery and blandishment.</p> - -<p>Can any satisfaction come to a woman except -the purely egoistic-social one of superseding another, -his wife, in the preference of a man whom she -endeavours to captivate? Can any satisfaction except -egoistic-social come to a man who prides himself -on his conquests, on how easily women fall -for him? Can he be said to be motivated more by -erotic or by egoistic-social impulses in his attempts -to add other women to his list, or to run risks and -arouse in his soul the excitements of danger?</p> - -<h3 id="section192">§ 192</h3> - -<p>If he need the excitements of a plurality of -women, it is proof that he cannot get a normal -amount of tension and relaxation from his own -wife. There are those, of course, who live their -married life on the theory that the physical tensions -and relaxations of sex are too gross for refined -marital relations, and that their wives would be -shocked if they experienced them. The boy brought -up with the <em>angel</em>-imago (or mother-imago, see -<a href="#section195">§ 195</a>) as his ideal of woman necessary to be -the mother of his children would inevitably identify -his wife with a prostitute if he succeeded in evoking -the highest psychical exaltation in her erotic sphere. -He has plurality ingrained in his nature from the -cradle; the feminine sex is not one but at least two: -angel and prostitute. Unable to conceive the two -existing in one woman, in fact unwilling to conceive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> -this, he perforce puts the mother of his own children -in the angel class and would be shocked if she -evinced any of the characteristics of the other class.</p> - -<p>The irony of which is that whatever reactions -the prostitute shows are her attempt to imitate -what she conceives as the highest type of erotism, -what her patron’s highest erotic development would -call for. Whatever impulses of erotic nature she -has, which are few enough in the class that practise -promiscuity for pay, are so overweighted by the -egoistic-social impulses of material self-advancement, -that they lose whatever value they might -otherwise have.</p> - -<p>A so-called prostitute, like Victor Hugo’s Mlle. -Drouet, who after promiscuity devotes herself with -absolute fidelity to one man is no longer a prostitute. -She has, in thus placing the erotic above the -egoistic-social motive, fulfilled the highest human -function except that of parenthood.</p> - -<p>It is possible that a man of many women may -think he is seeking for his final mate. Such men -have been heard to express somewhat similar sentiments. -“If I could,” said one roué, “effect a grand -passion with some woman, she would be the only -one for me.” He thought he could not gain this -result from his wife, but if he were a whole man -with erotic unity instead of a roué with the disassembled -psyche, he could effect the grand passion -quite as easily with his wife as with another woman.</p> - -<h3 id="section193">§ 193</h3> - -<p>Some considerations on the status of prostitution -are necessary in every book that attempts to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span> -discuss marital relations. Far as the poles asunder -though they may be in externals, they are yet the -common activity of the same man in many instances. -Figures show that the married man is the main -support of the prostitute. What he does to his -psyche in the direction of actually splitting it by -this double life has been described more or less in -the following manner. It is not merely that he -either lies to one woman and consorts with another -and is under the psychical strain of remembering -never to confuse the parts of this double drama he -is enacting. It is worse than that.</p> - -<p>It has been shown through studies of the unconscious -in men that show a strong leaning toward -fallen women, that they are unwittingly reënacting -a jealousy drama of their own infancy in which -they try to rescue from the father their own object -of earliest love, their mother (cf. <a href="#section179">§ 179</a>).</p> - -<p>Furthermore, the average man’s bringing up leads -him unconsciously to separate all the women in the -world into two classes. This simple division is -characteristic of childhood, which sees everything -either black or white and does not conceive fine -gradations. The two classes of women are the angel-mother -type and the devil-prostitute type, and this -distinction with hardly any other he maintains sometimes -till the end of his life.</p> - -<h3 id="section194">§ 194</h3> - -<p>Strangely enough this division of women into -two classes, while it is made by most men in their unconscious, -evokes opposite reactions in two types of -men, some of whom are found by the psychoanalysts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span> -as “more potent” with the prostitute type, while -others are more potent with their wives. Yet these -men are not wholly potent to the extent of carrying -out the love episode to a conclusion perfectly satisfactory -to their wives, and in the illicit relation they -are still more precipitant.</p> - -<p>It seems, however, most probable that the illicit -woman has the effect on them of producing an -overvaluation of some particular factor in the nature -of a fetish which has lost its overplus of emotional -value in the case of the wife. As has been -already pointed out, this overvaluation of one or -another factor in the total situation of the episode -has an accelerating effect in the episode with the -less familiar woman, an effect which, because of -habit, has become less in the episode with the wife.</p> - -<p>Another element in the situation is that with the -woman of the prostitute type the man is concerned -in no degree with any reaction on her part, whereas -with his wife he may, in some cases, feel a certain -dim sense of responsibility. Added to which the -professional prostitute frequently pretends to be -controlled, while the average wife does not.</p> - -<p>It happens that this unimaginative paucity of -merely twofold division of women unfortunately -involves almost without exception the unconscious -assumption that his sexual gratification is the function -of the prostitute and is both absent from and -not supplied by the woman of the angel type, from -which stratum of society he naturally selects his -wife. No wonder then that many men consider their -wives “oversexed” if they show any great passion. -“Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.” -This type of man who rigidly demands that his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> -wife shall be an angel (as, when an infant, he -thought that his mother was) makes, or tries to -make out of her a sexless worker or butterfly while -he goes to the prostitute weed for the satisfaction -of his imperative sexual needs. He is unable to -act as if his wife had exactly the same human body -as himself, the same or homologous glands and -identical sexual needs with himself, the denial of -which is the cause of much if not most of the nervousness -of women and accountable for a good part -of their ill health and weakness.</p> - -<h3 id="section195">§ 195</h3> - -<p>The boy of five or less has no means of knowing -that his mother has any sexual needs, jealous though -he may be of his father. The same boy when a -man of thirty, if he keep the same childish viewpoint -that women of the angel type are as angelically -sexless as his mother was to him, will, unless -he picks out a woman of the other type for a wife, -which is, of course, exceedingly rare, never be wholly -free from inhibitions against the full development of -the true love episode with his wife. Regarding the -prostitute as of another caste, he thus avoids with her -alone the inhibitions caused by his childish separation -of all women into two diametrically opposed castes.</p> - -<p>It is obvious that this early-formed association -of mother (and of course, later, wife) with absence -of sexual interests or even instincts may in some men -be a large factor in causing the repression of the -majority of the components of the love episode. -One component, however, alone, is impossible for -the man to repress, though he may later find to his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span> -supreme satisfaction that he can control it and -retard it; namely, the final relaxation of all his erotic -tension.</p> - -<p>If he continues love episodes with his wife and -has a fixed but unconscious idea that with a wife all -varieties of preliminary love actions, in brief, every -component but the one to him absolutely essential -component of dropping his burden of erotic tension,—which -by the way he might just as well drop elsewhere—are -actions more appropriate in a brothel -than in a home, he will tend more and more to -avoid with his wife all but the essential, as he -virtually conceives it.</p> - -<h3 id="section196">§ 196</h3> - -<p>It is admitted by all students of married life -that not less passion but more is needed, and the -precipitant husband undoubtedly needs more. For -him the love episode’s passion is concentrated into -the climax of it. It has no beginning, no middle, -and no end, for it rarely if ever gives the full satisfaction -that is gained by the husband who really -takes care of his wife’s erotic responses. For the -ignorant husband, who is emotionally about five years -old, the love episode is featureless and crude like -a five-year-old child’s drawing of a man on a slate. -It has no proportions, a head, rectangular body and -two straight lines for legs and quadrangular sinkers -for feet and asterisk hands.</p> - -<p>The passionless love episode is no love episode at -all as it lacks the essential of deep love. Putting -more passion into his love for his wife is of course -exactly what the man, whose woman’s world consists<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> -of only two widely sundered castes, is unable -to do unless he succeeds in overcoming the early-fixed -habit of his thought about what he knows as -love. But putting more passion into his love for -his wife is exactly what he must do to be fully a -man and to control her erotic emotions.</p> - -<p>One who is fully a woman latently, as are all -with negligible exceptions, is never fully developed -into a woman, actually, except by the man who can -play on her, as on a violin, all the melodies of which -she is capable. She will never know herself unless -she is thus developed by man. She will be like an -undeveloped photographic plate.</p> - -<h3 id="section197">§ 197</h3> - -<p>The attitude of society toward prostitution is, -as a whole, as unorganized and haphazard as could -be, in all civilized countries. Both kinds of laws are -made, prohibitive and regulative, neither of which -has any more effect on men’s actions than would a -law have which attempted to prohibit drawing -breath or to regulate the number of inhalations per -hour. In general the laws have been prohibitive -and have met the same fate as any prohibitive legislation. -It has been realized by a few deep thinkers -that no prohibitions have to be made against what -nobody ever thinks of doing, and that the existence -of a prohibitive law is proof of a widespread tendency -to do the thing prohibited. All prohibition is, -from the point of view of both conscious and unconscious -psychology, unscientific.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span></p> - -<h3 id="section198">§ 198</h3> - -<p>A part of the motive that leads the husband to -resort to the prostitute is the widespread notion -mentioned by Ellis (op. cit., VI) that prostitution -has a civilization value in adding “an element of -gaiety and variety to the ordered complexity of -modern life, a relief from the monotony of its -mechanical routine, a distraction from its dull and -respectable monotony.”</p> - -<p>These are the arguments advanced for the use -of alcohol also. While admitting, however, the desirability, -indeed even the necessity, of variety in -life which means the family life as well, we should -not forget that the lack of variety in marital existence -is mostly if not exclusively due to the infantility -of the husband. Marriage is the most vital institution -of society, but the one that has been most -carelessly left to its own haphazard development.</p> - -<p>For this abandonment of marriage to its own -fate amidst the most hostile possible environment -of rapidly developing egoistic-social impulses, the -husband is solely to blame. His fault, however, is -primarily due to his bringing up and chiefly to that -feature of the mother-imago which leads him invariably -to look for interest, variety and all good -things from the mother.</p> - -<p>The child’s frequent whine, “Mother, what can I -<em>do</em>?” is here virtually repeated by the unimaginative -husband, defended by the sexologist and answered -by the prostitute. If, as has been intimated before -in this book, age cannot wither woman nor custom -stale her infinite variety, then the infinite variety,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span> -or enough of it, at any rate, to satisfy any husband, -should be evoked from his wife.</p> - -<p>In the fragmentary love of the average married -man it is not to be expected, of course, that he will -find much variety. For fragments do not, or at -any rate, a single fragment does not, provide much.</p> - -<p>The relief from the monotony of the average -married life is most desirable in every way, but the -relief can come in the best way only from the variegation -of the marital pattern, a change that is fully -within the power of any husband who will acquaint -himself with the findings of the modern psychology -of love.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX<br /> -<span class="smaller">THE NEW MARRIAGE</span></h2> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>Certain it is that the chrysalis, man, is emerging -from the cocoon of tradition.—<span class="smcap">Dr. Robie.</span></p> - -</div> - -<h3 id="section199">§ 199</h3> - -<p>The new husband is the man who realizes that -the type of passion which he has idealized to himself -as appropriate for himself is logically quite as appropriate -for his wife. Quite as logically he may -deduce that if there is, therefore, to be not only -no double standard with regard to promiscuity, but -also no double standard with regard to the rights -to erotic exaltation, he may create a single standard -by means of reducing the number of his love episodes -to a minimum of intercourse for procreation -only. Many men have done this or nearly this. -But all who try it find that there are two sets of -difficulties in the way, the difficulty of attaining this -semi-ascetic end from the purely volitional point of -view, and the difficulty, or more exactly the detriment, -which modern science is beginning to demonstrate -as inevitably coming to the psychic as well -as the physical powers of the ascetic individual.</p> - -<p>Also the single standard idea is to be transferred -to the degree to which each partner carries, and is -carried, in the love episode. Truly a double standard -in this respect is little better than a double<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span> -standard in promiscuity. There is no good reason -why it should be right for a husband to reach his -erotic acme at each love episode and wrong, or even -indifferent, for the wife. The true single standard -of married life implies, therefore, that the same -standard of erotic gratification should be for both -husband and wife. Man has no biological privilege -here over woman. What is right for man must -also be right for woman. So we see that the new -husband is the one who recognizes the single standard -of monogamy and also that of hologamy which -provides for the wife’s erotic acme as well as for -the husband’s.</p> - -<h3 id="section200">§ 200</h3> - -<p>Woman fundamentally and biologically calls for -man to be the stronger to impregnate by force the -impregnable fortress of her femininity, and he who -fails to do this fails to make a good husband. The -training for husbandship, irrespective of wealth or -social position, should start from this fundamental -principle of masculine control of the marital situation. -This control should begin at the altar, and -never weaken, never relax for a moment, except -at the times when the wife is by her erotic emotions -at the climax of the love episode incapable of witnessing -its relaxation, at least of envying her husband.</p> - -<p>After a long courtship in which there has been -much worship of the woman by the man, there may -tend to be preserved, to hang over, a sort of worship -habit in the husband; but this should give place -to an inflexible attitude and a positive aggressive -treatment, Petruchio-like, yet only in the erotic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span> -sphere, increasing in power as the years go by. -Woman will test it hourly to detect any weakening, -jealous of the strength to be handed down to her -offspring. It is unconscious in her. She cannot help -it.</p> - -<p>In the modern woman with a vocation, to which -there cannot be a possible objection if it does not -exclude her proper maternity, the relation to her -husband must still be one of emotional subservience. -She cannot control him emotionally without making -herself a mother-imago to him. He cannot, even -unconsciously, accept this control of himself by her, -without regressing to the condition of being dominated -by the mother-imago, without being to her -as her child and not her man.</p> - -<p>Modern marriage must be an entirely new and -different thing from most previous marital relations. -Mastery over the woman must remain, if -marriage is to continue; but it must be a spiritual -mastery, a love mastery in place of the old Rome-inherited -legal, economic and physical mastery. -Thus the poor husband of a rich wife need lose no -mastery, nor need the non-professional husband of -a professional wife, nor the unintellectual husband -of an intellectual wife, the uneducated husband of -an educated wife.</p> - -<p>Mastery or control does not consist any more in -the regulation by the man of any egoistic-social activities -of the woman, the dictating of what she -shall do or wear or think, nor in the acts of the man -himself consciously designed to steer her this way -or that. Mastery does consist in what the husband, -and the husband alone, can make the wife feel. It -does consist in the establishment and maintenance of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span> -a sense on her part of belonging to him, which he can -develop even though granting her in the egoistic-social -sphere, the most absurd license—the <i lang="de">Hörigkeit</i> -(mentioned by Freud) based on the peculiar -intensity with which he gratified after awakening -it in early married life, her erotic need.</p> - -<h3 id="section201">§ 201</h3> - -<p>Possibly the great increase in the number of -divorces is due to the increasing expectation of -something unutterably fine in marriage and an -inevitable disillusionment resulting from concrete -experience. There would be no divorce on the -grounds of adultery if the married woman felt that -her paramour could give her no joy remotely resembling -what her husband could. The adultery -of the man, too, comes from disappointment. Where -there is absolutely complete satisfaction the motive -for adultery cannot exist.</p> - -<p>The man or woman with conscious and unconscious -passion of the one developed into a habit -may be attracted by other women but the other -woman’s attractiveness will not be as great as his -wife’s. And deflection in either husband or wife, if -they think at all precisely on their action, must be -quite repugnant to them in every way. The uncontrolled -man who does not master his wife’s erotic -emotions is disappointed in her and seeks his supreme -gratification with another woman who appears -to be able to give him what he thinks he -cannot get from his wife in the way of appreciation, -sympathy or understanding.</p> - -<p>If this is the man’s attitude then, of course, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span> -cannot have grasped the idea of the higher monogamy, -which is not that of getting but of giving. No -man in any degree cognizant of the concept of true -mating can fail to find even the woman to whom -he happens to be married, able to receive if he -practises properly the technique of presentation. -He must have found certain qualities in her before -he married her, which his awkwardness in presenting -himself have perturbed, and he can now review -these and work upon them until he is utterly accepted. -For his presentation of himself and his -service to her in the worship of Eros are the only -means toward his adequately virile satisfaction. -<i lang="la">Credite expertis.</i></p> - -<p>No one who has had prosperity in the egoistic-social -sphere, who has had a comfortable home, for -example, will choose adversity, will thereafter -prefer to live in a tenement, noisy, squalid. No -man who has experienced the greater profundities -of virile control of the total erotic situation will -choose to give any less of himself to his wife. No -wife who has received from her husband the maximum -that a man can give, which is himself—that is, -his supreme control of himself and of her—will -choose to look for anything greater or higher, for -it does not exist even in the most extravagant -imagination.</p> - -<h3 id="section202">§ 202</h3> - -<p>In the marriage of the future we must make sure -that the art of love is thoroughly learned by the -husband. Without it, he has only a small chance -of making a successful marriage. And we must -see to it that this new art of love be not like Ovid’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span> -the adulterer’s art of winning a woman away from -her home, but the husband’s art of retaining her -in it.</p> - -<p>This will require a readjustment, possibly of the -concept of “home.” The home meant here is not -in any sense the material house and furniture and -embellishments. The home is the family, to which -all the members should belong in a sense far more -spiritual than the average. The truly mated couple -belong to the family forever and to the children, -until the latter marry and make families of their -own. Any deflection from the purely hologamous -ideal on the part of either the husband-father or -wife-mother is a misfortune to the latter, but -unequivocally the fault of the former.</p> - -<p>The marriage of the future, if it is to follow the -single-standard pattern of equal joy for equal mutuality, -will be in no way inferior to any type of -so-called romantic marriage of today. It will have -all the totality of fusion of the individual’s body -and soul, all the fusion of the personalities of the -two mates. It will have all the finality and indissolubility -now wished for it by the present generation -whose marital relations begin to crumble in -a year or less. It will never degenerate into a -situation where life seems not worth living, but -will be the only circumstance in which life is consciously -and perennially known, as well as believed -and felt, to be thoroughly worth while.</p> - -<p>By their confusion of the two levels of control -women lose much of the happiness that would come -to them from the direct control exercised over them -by men, on the erotic level. Into the love episode -egoistic-social impulses, being the uninvited guest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span> -at a feast, only intrude. Women’s sphere of active -control is limited, on all rational grounds, to the -work in the world which they choose for themselves -apart from being wives.</p> - -<p>It is equally true, too, that if the erotic life is -to be rationally developed in both partners the husband -will have to keep carefully separated the egoistic-social -in his life from the erotic. There is -much talk about the ability of a woman to be a -mother, which tacitly implies being a housewife, -and at the same time to be a professional woman -or to do anything whatever of an egoistic-social -nature outside of her home.</p> - -<p>The idea never seems to have occurred to anybody -that in an equitable marriage at least, not to -mention an ideal one, the husband has any part to -play in the construction of that spiritual situation -which should constitute the home. The father -really has as vital a part to play in the home as -the mother. There is no perfect home that does -not contain these two absolutely equally unifying -factors. “What is home without a father?” is -quite as pertinent a question as the other trite one.</p> - -<p>This does not for a moment imply that the duties -of the father and the mother in the material home -should be the same. This would give only a literal -verbal significance to the statement that a man’s -duty is quite as much toward his home as is a -woman’s. If we were simply using words that -sounded reasonable we might as well repeat the oft -expressed and seemingly perfectly balanced retort of -woman to her husband: “If I have to <em>bear</em> the -child, why on earth shouldn’t <em>you</em> care for it?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span></p> - -<h3 id="section203">§ 203</h3> - -<p>To illustrate with a concrete example the utter -helplessness of some of the finest women, the following -excerpt is made, with his permission, from a -letter received by Dr. Robie:</p> - -<p>“The man whom I finally married came into my -life as an intellectual wonder. I marvelled at his -knowledge and his worldly poise.... Whenever -I pleaded for consideration, kindness, he would say: -‘Haven’t you a home, clothes, money, a baby? What -more do you want?’ or ‘Haven’t I told you once -that I love you? Can’t you take that for granted?’</p> - -<p>“No gentleness, no petting, just hardness and -the greatest conceit over his own personality and -ability.</p> - -<p>“I found at dances that other men could thrill -me, and one man in particular.... He never -knew it.</p> - -<p>“I got the reputation of being a perfect mother, -and a beauty, and my spirit never has been broken; -but my faith is broken. My love is as dead as last -year’s leaves; and I scorn men who stop being lovers -on their wedding night.</p> - -<p>“Health, enthusiasm, good nature, big sense of -humour, beauty, ideal birth inheritance, magnetism, -yes, and passion—for I am not cold, but <em>very</em> impulsive -and affectionate—all this lost to the right -man, and the wrong one quite content, apparently, -in his worldly successes, and with a cultured wife -who does not bother him, and keeps his noisy brood -of children at a distance.</p> - -<p>“This comes from a bursting heart. It is true I -am a success as a mother; and the world thinks I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> -am in all ways. Yet that greatest of all things, -LOVE, is denied me.”</p> - -<h3 id="section204">§ 204</h3> - -<p>The father’s part in the home is something, however, -far more hypersomatic than that, more spiritual. -The truly husbanded wife will make the egoistic-social -aspects of home-keeping so much her own -business that she will tend to appropriate more -than she should really have. And the thoughtless -man will let her and wonder why she is tired and -cross.</p> - -<p>If rugs have to be beaten and windows washed, -and there is no money to hire a man to do it, the -wife will do it, frequently, and the husband, who -does not husband his wife’s health and beauty will -let her. And so on up the egoistic-social scale till we -reach the millionaire who might do certain things -for his wife much more acceptably than hirelings, -but dissociates himself more and more from her.</p> - -<p>The management of the children is really an -egoistic-social affair, in which some men are much -better able to plan, and execute plans than are most -women. The management of very young children -in the home is something that no <i lang="la">paterfamilias</i> can -afford to leave entirely to women. This is by all -odds the most important part of the child’s life.</p> - -<p>It does not mean that the banker or politician -should spend hour after hour in the nursery, though, -indeed, he should know pretty well what goes on -there. The nature of the personal contacts the -child gets in the nursery is a determining factor in -many cases, in the way in which he will later behave<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span> -in his marital existence. In the nursery, meaning -by that any locality where the child spends most of -his playtime and sleeping time, he gets the experiences -from which later he may develop neuroses, -phobias, and other emotional disorders. He forms -there usually his mother-imago, for even if he -belongs to the class of children who never see their -own mothers except on the rarest occasions, he will -form his mother ideal from his hired nurse, or from -any other woman with whom he comes into close -contact.</p> - -<p>Here then, the egoistic-social trends of the parents -play an important rôle in determining the -erotic life of the child. The egoistic-social pressure -exerted on one or both parents withdraws them -from their children, and partly or wholly orphans -them. Many a child’s father is no more personal -than a checking bank.</p> - -<p>Not only, therefore, does the absorption of the -parents by egoistic-social trends diminish the chances -of their own erotic development as husband and -wife, a development that takes time, energy and -imagination, but it deprives their children of the -proper environment in which to develop the germs -of future wholesome erotism.</p> - -<p>Parents and children should spend a certain -amount of time in each other’s company during -which they do nothing but love each other all around -and have a jolly good time together. It is just as -important for the parents to banish egoistic-social -claims for short periods and actually loaf and fool -around with the children as it is for the children -to have a taste of adult idling company. Such, for -example, is a real picnic or camping trip or ocean<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span> -voyage, or any situation that brings parents and -children together.</p> - -<h3 id="section205">§ 205</h3> - -<p>It is important, too, for every woman to keep -clearly separated in her mind and in her action the -two levels, egoistic-social and erotic. Only then is -she in a satisfactory position to become a wife in -a higher sense than that in which most women are -wives, and her becoming a mother need interfere -in no way with her remaining a wife to her husband.</p> - -<p>It is therefore to the advantage of man to -realize that, however much he may value his wife’s -clear intuition in egoistic-social matters, he is to be -sure about their utter exclusion from matters purely -erotic. A man can never fall in love with a conventionally -so-called unattractive woman solely because -she has a good business head. If any man -should think so, he would find, on closer analysis, -that, if he was really in love, his motive was truly -erotic. If he cannot find any really erotic factor in -his attitude toward her, his union with her can -never be a complete marriage.</p> - -<p>He has confused the two levels. He cannot love -her <em>because</em> she can manage a library or a bond -broker’s office or an insurance agency, any more -than he can love her really because she knows how -to make fudge. He may be attracted by the -fudge. He is undoubtedly attracted unconsciously -by other factors truly erotic in her character. Otherwise -he would be more prudent to marry the fudge -rather than the girl.</p> - -<p>Similarly if the woman thinks she attracts by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span> -her business or culinary ability she is confusing -levels. There are some women who unfortunately, -because erroneously, believe they have little or no -erotic attraction. Plain in face, not well formed, -possibly under-weight, complexions not clear, they -think that by sedulously following egoistic-social -trends they can make an appeal to other people and -particularly to men. They fail to see that these -trends have hardly anything to do with love, that, -once they love, their form improves, that the homeliest -face, once lighted by the fire of love, has a beauty -all its own, pure and irresistible.</p> - -<p>The same is true of unloving, unillumined, unfired -men. Judging erroneously from a confusion of the -two levels, they fail to see not only that erotic trends -are the strongest and most universal in the world, -but that being the fundamentally vital trends they -are almost inexhaustible and provide the untapped -energy which the egoistic-social thinking of these -diffident men makes them fear to draw upon.</p> - -<p>The mathematical exactness of the comparison -of men on the egoistic-social level makes many a -man think his erotic impulses are similarly inferior. -He should ponder well upon the prodigality of -nature, remembering that he, too, is part of nature.</p> - -<h3 id="section206">§ 206</h3> - -<p>Unrestrained nature is most prodigal. The -thousands of ova and millions of spermatozoa produced -in every woman and man show that the analogy -is false that is drawn between the human body -and a mere container like a basket. Anything with -life cannot be exhausted until life has gone, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> -yet through asceticism the secretions can be rendered -great or small or almost non-existent. Men -can make eunuchs of themselves by force of will, -yet their egoistic-social performances are not improved -but rather impoverished by the process.</p> - -<p>Men should train themselves to produce, which -consists in being lavish of self in every manner. -The richest are those who give most. The miser -is the poorest man in the world and the most -miserable.</p> - -<p>Fear of giving self is the fear of losing self. -What most men fear if they love their wives too -much is that they will impoverish themselves and -enrich their wives, thus making their wives contemptuous -of their resultant poverty. But the -poorest man or woman is the one who has not begun -to love, and many are such even in the married -state.</p> - -<p>And they begin to enrich themselves even more -than each other, when they give each to other the -uttermost that is in them.</p> - -<p>Giving is the only thing that produces fertility -of giving. It is tapping the inexhaustible, the only -way in which to unite oneself to the infinite. Withholding -is closing up the gate to universal strength -and power.</p> - -<p>Control is not annihilation or denial. It is direction -of an endless stream of energy. If the energy -is not delivered it cannot be directed and therefore -cannot be controlled.</p> - -<p>The tragedy of present-day marital life lies in -the deception men practise on themselves by believing -that annihilation is a kind of control.</p> - -<p>The facts of the intimate marital relations of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span> -most couples are too unlovely to be welcomed by -most people, but in order to progress it is necessary -to face them.</p> - -<p>In the new marriage the husband, therefore, will -relinquish certain of the egoistic-social spheres of -action and will confine his attention solely to those -most closely associated with the erotic. He will -assume the responsibility for these.</p> - -<h3 id="section207">§ 207</h3> - -<p>Trial marriage is little more than a method of -testing man’s control in the erotic sphere. It implies -that if a man is found lacking in control over one -woman, he may be tried with another, in the hope -that with the second up to the <em>n</em>th he may find a -woman whom he can control. But as stated elsewhere -in this book the probability of an uncontrolled -man’s acquiring control by a superficial trial -and error method is almost nil.</p> - -<p>Science has not a word to say against permanent -marriage if the pair are really compatible. What -constitutes compatibility, however, is much more -a mental attitude on the part of the husband. A -man that thinks he has to have a special, peculiar -type of woman for a wife, or because of a bringing -up in an excessively romantic family thinks there -is only one woman in the world, specially born for -him, who alone can make him happy in marriage, -or who thinks he has found her when he has fallen -in love at first sight, assumes no responsibility for -his own happiness, but fatalistically waits for destiny -to provide him with a suitable spouse.</p> - -<p>“Spouse” is derived from Latin <i lang="la">spondeo</i> which is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span> -at the root of the word <em>response</em>, and means “to -promise solemnly.” This refers to what the person -confidently expects to <em>get</em>, not himself contribute -to the union. But it has been clear to the seers of -all ages that giving is the only true getting.</p> - -<p>On the basis of giving, almost any woman can -be made a wife, but never in the sense of spouse if -it has its ancient meaning of a person bound to -give something.</p> - -<p>If a young man is given the proper training in -the right way, which shows him that the most intensely -physical contacts are emotionally worthless -without the spiritual factor in the truly erotic, and -that the intimacies of marital life are far more -determined by hypersomatic (spiritual) facts than -by physical ones, that he has the privilege of making -his married life as romantic as he wishes or can -leave it quite prosaic and dull; if he knows this, -even a provisional marriage entered into with a -woman not positively distasteful to him can be -made a triumphant success.</p> - -<p>The proviso, however, will be made by most -people that there must be an original rapport between -the two. It is the unequivocal position of -this book, on the contrary, that the rapport, even if -it never existed, can be created by the husband, by -means of his own conscious creative power.</p> - -<h3 id="section208">§ 208</h3> - -<p>This implies neither that the rapport is solely a -physical one nor that it is based on solely physical -factors. Nor does it imply that a perfect marital -love that has all the qualities of the romantic may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span> -not, by the proper behaviour on the husband’s part, -be progressively developed as the years pass. -Indeed, the fully matured love of at least a quarter -of a century’s duration is the only marital love that -has any claim to be called romantic. In the young, -love is not romantic but may be spectacular, in its -expression, or in the egoistic-social circumstances -which surround it, but the only perfect love of a -man and a woman is the one that has the growth -of years.</p> - -<p>If a man knowing the true technique which is -more spiritual (more hypersomatic) than physical -in every instance, though impossible without the -complete combination of physical and spiritual, -chooses any woman whatever of his own free will, -and uses with her the real love technique of word -and deed, he cannot fail to find in her his erotic -complement, if she be really a woman.</p> - -<p>The choice, it is admitted, is the work largely of -his unconscious. The unconscious is an absolutely -accurate registering apparatus; and as such is the -real foundation of the choice of a mate.</p> - -<p>But it should not for a moment be forgotten that -the unconscious mechanisms that present this woman -as more attractive than that to a man are only the -foundation of the edifice of his marital love which it -is his triumph to build with his own hands.</p> - -<p>And it should equally well be remembered that -the erotic control is his, and will remain his, if the -marriage is to prove happy; also that the erotic -control is more spiritual than physical, though it -can never endure without the physical.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span></p> - -<h3 id="section209">§ 209</h3> - -<p>The duty of marriage is the procreation of -healthy children. The privilege and pleasure of -marriage is what Havelock Ellis has called the play -side of love.</p> - -<p>If the husband does not secure and by a superior -knowledge of love insist on securing in his wife this -essential of human marriage, his marriage is only -legal, only social, and has no love instinct back of -it. It is not an erotic union. Erotic unions are the -only healthy ones.</p> - -<p>Erotic unions are the only healthy ones not merely -in the sense of health-giving to the partners, but -also in the sense of having themselves a healthy -growth in progressively embracing all human activities, -in which the partners are concerned in egoistic -and social lines, embracing them in such a way that -the love instinct increases its control over the ego -instinct. This increase is the real object of a love -marriage, not increase of wealth, honour, distinction, -and experience of the world but increase of the -dominance of love over self.</p> - -<h3 id="section210">§ 210</h3> - -<p>Possibly this dependence of the woman on the -man to unfold her accounts for man’s instinctive -desire to marry a virgin. Unconsciously he may -imagine that to make her most his own, she should -have been influenced erotically by no other man.</p> - -<p>Whether or not the future development of the -general attitude toward marriage will include an -insistence on the woman’s being a virgin when she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span> -enters the marital state, there are still some considerations -concerning both the physical and the -psychical condition of virginity, both of men and -of women, that are pertinent today, and that seem -advisable to take up at this point.</p> - -<h3 id="section211">§ 211</h3> - -<p>The study of the unconscious throws an important -sidelight upon the matter of the termination of physical -virginity of women.</p> - -<p>It has been clearly shown that this termination -when, as is frequently the case, it is accompanied by -sudden and severe pain on the rupture of the hymen, -is the cause of a revulsion of feeling on the woman’s -part, utterly incommensurate with the actual intensity -and duration of the pain, a feeling also of -which she never is, and possibly never becomes, -directly conscious; but, if the pain is caused by the -action of the husband, it is the cause of a resentment -which, in the wife’s unconscious, is ever after -associated with her husband.</p> - -<p>From this point of view it would seem more -felicitous if that unconscious association of ideas -could be made in her mind with some other man, -e.g., the family doctor, if it is an inevitable association -and absolutely uncontrollable by the wife, as -all deeply unconscious mental processes are. It -would seem that a man would profit by not being -the particular man associated in his wife’s unconscious -with a painful incident that cuts so deep. -This applies to the average uninstructed man but -not to the adept or even inexperienced man who is -willing and able to act intelligently and profit by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> -knowledge now available about how to avoid this -one of the many mischances that may occur in the -case of the virgin episode.</p> - -<p>This phenomenon of the unconscious resentment -due to the forcible and painful termination of -merely physical virginity is recognized in the frequently -happy second married life of women who -have lost their first husbands, and in the customs -of some savage tribes in which no woman becomes -a wife until she has been deflowered by the official -appointed by the tribe for that special purpose.</p> - -<p>The inference from these facts is not necessarily -that a man will be more happy with a wife who -comes to him “impure” or widowed; though this -may be the case. The inference is on the other -hand that the man, if he knows enough, will be able -in the very first love episode so to act that the bride -inflicts any necessary pain on herself, and not he -on her; making all the difference in the world to -her, because in this case, never, even in her own -unconscious, can she lay up against her husband -this cause of resentment. The technically instructed -husband thus gains an initial prestige with his wife -and with her unconscious, which enormously increases -his erotic control of her emotions—the <i lang="la">sine -qua non</i> of a felicitous marriage, that essential condition -for fully functioning adult human life.</p> - -<h3 id="section212">§ 212</h3> - -<p>Women are unable to control or direct their own -development in the erotic sphere up to the point -of greatest exaltation. They are perforce required -to be developed by men. But, in from fifty to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span> -seventy per cent of marriages, men are too uninterested -or too ignorant to develop their wives’ erotism -to this point, and, of course, to develop their -own erotism to the necessary degree of self-control -whereby they can secure the total erotic relaxation -of their wives.</p> - -<p>So that when we say that men are more virginal -than women we imply a responsibility on the husband’s -part, and none whatever on the wife’s part, -for the proper erotic development which alone constitutes -the basis of a permanent monogamy.</p> - -<p>That is the reason for saying that in the love -episode control is the husband’s organically, fundamentally, -biologically. The husband reader of this -book should ask himself whether he has exercised -the adequate amount of control in the erotic sphere. -Has he left his wife, the mother of his children, in -the condition of being psychically a virgin? If he -has, he must realize that he, too, is in a sense, himself -a virgin. This signifies primarily that because -his wife’s erotism is left undeveloped, his own is -too. Undeveloped erotism is no secure bond, no -perfect assurance, of a true monogamy.</p> - -<p>He will need to take the matter into his own -hands and truly marry his wife by means of fully -developing his own and her erotism. This need of -marrying one’s own wife is the greatest need of the -present day. It can be fulfilled only by more knowledge -and more (truly erotic) passion on the part -of the husband.</p> - -<p>The husband, therefore, who has not in this sense -married his own wife, is illogical in thinking that -there is any justice or beauty or poetry or romance -in any attempted affiliation, liaison or other intimate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span> -relation with any other woman. On the other hand, -the husband who has married his wife in this sense, -will neither seek nor need the intimacy of any other -woman than his wife.</p> - -<p>The phantasied happiness with any other woman -rests solely on the thought that the erotic development -of the other would be easier for him, or that -it would be unnecessary. If it is unnecessary, it has -been accomplished by some other man; for true -mutual erotic relations are not attained by a woman -alone or by two women, man being the only developer -of woman’s erotism.</p> - -<p>He may think indeed that some extra-marital -woman actually loves him, and that his wife does -not. This may be true, if he is fully developed -himself, has made sincere attempts for years to -develop his wife and, in spite of his own best -thought and advice of erotologists, has found that -she is definitely ineducable. This is an exceedingly -rare case.</p> - -<p>It may <em>appear</em> that the extra-marital woman loves -him, and that he loves her; but the experience of -many centuries has shown that, except in the rarest -of instances, the woman is ignorant of her own true -feelings and that the attempt on the man’s part to -develop her erotically would be a failure.</p> - -<p>If his own desire for the extra-marital woman -is conditioned, as it so often is, on the mentally -autoerotic nature of his own satisfactions, which -his lack of success with his wife has, in most cases, -amply proved, his success in the adulterous union -is not likely to be any greater. He will be most -likely to expect an easier conquest in the extra-marital -liaison than in the marital relation. His<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span> -going from the marital one to one fancied easier is -an evidence of his mental autoerotism.</p> - -<h3 id="section213">§ 213</h3> - -<p>In conclusion it may be said that the feeling on -the part of any critic of modern civilization that -marriage has been a failure applies only to the -facts of the imperfect carrying out of the ideal of -monogamy. We may remind such critics that, like -Christianity, monogamy (in the sense of hologamy -or the total physical and psychical fusion of man -and wife) cannot be called a failure, because in -the vast majority of persons, it simply <em>has not been -given a fair trial</em>. External, conscious, superficial -fidelity is not true hologamy any more than lip -service is Christianity; and, as a whole, civilized -peoples have not yet succeeded in attaining faith -either in the one or in the other.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X<br /> -<span class="smaller">BIRTH CONTROL</span></h2> - -<h3 id="section214">§ 214</h3> - -<p>This chapter is written; but, because of the egoistic-social -legislation of fifty years ago, cannot be -printed.</p> - -<p>While it is lawful to inform readers that abortion -is a crime and in every way unnatural, the -practice of —— and ——, and the use of ——, -——, ——, etc., none of which in any sense causes -the death of that which has begun to live, -as is the case in abortion, cannot by law be described.</p> - -<p>While it has been conclusively proved that in -countries like Holland where birth control is not -only legalized but made a matter of public instruction, -the birth rate declines, <em>but</em> the death rate declines -<em>still more</em>, legislators in this country have -apparently gone on the principle that more unintelligent -voters were more desirable than fewer intelligent -voters. For where the death rate, due to birth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span> -control, is still less than the birth rate the result is -a great increase in intelligence as well as eventually -in population.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span></p> - -<div class="footnotes"> - -<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> One of the questions of a questionnaire submitted to prominent -neurologists, and published in <cite>Mental Hygiene</cite> (Oct., 1920) -was the following: “Do you consider that absolute continence -is always to be insisted upon, or may it be taught that under -certain conditions intercourse in the unmarried is harmless or -beneficial?”</p> - -<p>To this question A. A. Brill of New York gave the following -answer: “Years ago I encouraged intercourse in some neurotics -who were constantly worrying about sex. I soon found out that it -had not benefited them. The same factors which produced the -original conflicts continued to disturb them. Now I remove their -conflicts by analysis, and then they need no advice. I have known -a number of cases who have successfully abstained from two to -three years following analysis.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2" id="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Used in technical sense explained in <a href="#section141">§ 141</a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_3" id="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Berman</span>: <cite>The Glands Regulating Personality</cite>, N. Y., 1921, p. 96.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_4" id="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> <em>Erotism</em> is defined in the dictionaries as a medical word meaning -“abnormal sexual desire.” But that is simply because the -doctors got hold of it first. There is no Greek word <em>erotism</em> -nor yet <em>eroticism</em>, but “erotism” has resulted from being the common -element in autoerotism and allerotism and being shorter than -eroticism was adopted by the present writer to name the highest -type of the combination of body and soul mating. He never suspected -till he looked up the word that it had a bad sense in the -minds of others. (See also <a href="#Page_82">p. 82</a>.)</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_5" id="Footnote_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> As will appear in the following chapters (especially <a href="#section43">§ 43</a>), -egoistic-social impulses or instincts are those which include the -trends toward self-maintenance and self-magnification—practically -all impulses that are not truly erotic.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_6" id="Footnote_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> The “playmate” is a new term for an old thing, which does -not, however, imply that present conditions are exactly the same -as those of Sheridan’s day who, in <cite>The School for Scandal</cite>, -makes Lady Teazle say: “You know I admit you as a lover no -farther than fashion sanctions,” to which Joseph Surface replies: -“True—a mere Platonic cicisbeo, what every wife is entitled to.” -And the Century Dictionary defines <i>cicisbeo</i> as “In Italy, since the -17th century, the name given to a professed gallant and attendant -of a married woman; one who dangles about women,” and -shows that the word is derived from <i lang="fr">chiche</i>, little, and <i lang="fr">beau</i>.</p> - -<p>“Tame cats” and “house friends” are also names given today, -by these discontented women, to the persons who engage in this -form of cicisbeism.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_7" id="Footnote_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Havelock Ellis, who coined the word autoerotism, defines it -as follows (<cite>Studies in the Psychology of Sex</cite>, Vol. I, page 161): -“By ‘autoerotism’ I mean the phenomena of spontaneous sexual -emotion generated in the absence of an external stimulus proceeding, -directly or indirectly, from another person.” The present -writer calls autoerotic those husbands who, in the love episode, -secure their own erotic acme, in which their sexual, if not their -erotic, tension is relaxed; but either do not know or do not care -whether their wives reach a corresponding relaxation. The -opposite of autoerotism is allerotism, where the husband places -on the wife’s erotic relaxation a value at least equal to that -which he places on his own.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_8" id="Footnote_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Hologamy, however (see <a href="#section187">§§ 187 to 198</a>), depends on a direct -and not an alternating current.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_9" id="Footnote_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> See <a href="#section43">§ 43</a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_10" id="Footnote_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Derived ultimately from <i lang="it">cano</i>, sing or utter in impassioned -tone and rhythm. Women are more erotically impressed by men’s -singing than men are by women’s.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_11" id="Footnote_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> In <a href="#section44">§ 44</a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_12" id="Footnote_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> See <a href="#section65">§ 65</a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_13" id="Footnote_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Further discussed in <a href="#section100">§§ 100-106</a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_14" id="Footnote_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> For a more detailed explanation of mother imago, see the -chapter on Hologamy and Prostitution.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_15" id="Footnote_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Stekel, W., in <cite>The Homosexual Neurosis</cite> (Boston, 1922) says: -“The evil effects produced upon the child witnessing marital bickerings, -the household inspiration it receives with regard to judgment-feelings -about women and men, the decisive manner in which -parents affect it when they transfer their conflicts on the child—these -capital facts the life histories of homosexuals given above -illustrate very clearly for anyone willing to look squarely at the -truth. We do not yet appreciate how careful we must be in our -relations with the children. Our educators are still guilty of a -serious blunder when they conceive their duty to be to instil -goodness in the child through the instrumentality of fear. There -are only two educational levers: one’s own example and—love. -The healthiest children come from happy marriages. It is -love that determines whether a marriage shall be a happy one -and whether the offspring will be healthy or weak. The unconscious -sexual instinct manifesting itself in love is the guide for -the regeneration of the human race. Social conditions favouring -early love marriages are the only social reform to which I look -for results.” (Page 316.)</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_16" id="Footnote_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> <cite>The Glands Regulating Personality</cite>, Macmillan, 1921.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_17" id="Footnote_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> See <a href="#section187">§ 187</a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_18" id="Footnote_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> <a href="#section128">§§ 128-169</a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_19" id="Footnote_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Dr. Alice B. Stockham, <cite>Karezza: Ethics of Marriage</cite>, N. Y., -1896. She recommends that both husband and wife refrain from -the erotic acme. “During a lengthy period of perfect control, the -whole being of each is merged into the other, and an exquisite -exaltation experienced. This may be accompanied by a quiet -motion, entirely under subordination of the will, so that the thrill -of passion may not go beyond a pleasurable exchange.... With -abundant time and mutual reciprocity the interchange becomes satisfactory -and complete, without emission or crisis. In the course -of an hour the physical tension subsides, the spiritual exaltation -increases and not uncommonly visions of a transcendent life are -seen and consciousness of new powers experienced.” (Page 25.) -She suggests that such episodes should take place from two weeks -to three months apart, and should be the only type of love episode -except where procreation is desired.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_20" id="Footnote_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> <cite>Beiträge zur Psychologie des Liebeslebens.</cite> Psychoanalytische -Jahrbuch (1910).</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_21" id="Footnote_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Harrow: <cite>Glands in Health and Disease</cite>, N. Y., 1922, p. 105.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_22" id="Footnote_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> For a discussion of masochism see <a href="#section177">§§ 177, 180</a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_23" id="Footnote_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> For a discussion of the Mother-Imago see the chapter on -Prostitution.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_24" id="Footnote_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> “When we say that for health any individual requires an -adequate sexual outlet, it must be understood that this outlet may -be secured in a great number of different ways. A person may -be having regular and frequent sexual intercourse (excessive intercourse, -in fact) without this affording him an adequate outlet, -or preventing his libido from becoming dammed up.”—<span class="smcap">Frink</span>: -<cite>Morbid Fears and Compulsions</cite>, p. 268.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_25" id="Footnote_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Lombroso</span> and <span class="smcap">Ferrero</span>: ap. <span class="smcap">Ellis</span>, op. cit., VI, 415.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_26" id="Footnote_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> <a href="#section102">§ 102</a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_27" id="Footnote_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Stekel, W.</span>: <cite>The Homosexual Neurosis</cite>, Boston, 1922, p. 117.</p> - -</div> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="INDEX">INDEX</h2> - -<ul> - -<li class="ifrst" id="Acme">Acme, <a href="#Page_44">§ 26, p. 44</a>; <a href="#Page_48">§ 28, p. 48</a>; <a href="#Page_103">§ 68, p. 103</a>; <a href="#Page_110">§ 75, p. 110</a>; <a href="#Page_111">§ 76, p. 111</a>; <a href="#Page_121">§ 81, p. 121</a>; <a href="#Page_128">§ 89, p. 128</a>; <a href="#Page_136">§ 96, p. 136</a>; <a href="#Page_137">§ 97, p. 137</a>; <a href="#Page_141">§ 101, p. 141</a>; <a href="#Page_151">§ 110, p. 151</a>; <a href="#Page_153">§ 111, p. 153</a>; <a href="#Page_165">§ 121, p. 165</a>; <a href="#Page_193">§ 139, p. 193</a>; <a href="#Page_197">§ 144, p. 197</a>; <a href="#Page_202">§ 146, p. 202</a>; <a href="#Page_221">§ 157, p. 221</a>; <a href="#Page_277">§ 199, p. 277</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Adult, <a href="#Page_77">§ 48, p. 77</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Affection, <a href="#Page_259">§ 182, p. 259</a>; <a href="#Page_260">§ 188, p. 260</a></li> - -<li class="indx">All, a woman’s, <a href="#Page_123">§§ 82-85, pp. 123-125</a>; <a href="#Page_128">§ 89, p. 128</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Analogy, <a href="#Page_91">§ 57, p. 91</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Anesthesia, <a href="#Page_12">§ 8, p. 12</a>; <a href="#Page_31">§ 20, p. 31</a>; <a href="#Page_108">§ 73, p. 108</a>; <a href="#Page_187">§ 136, p. 187</a>; <a href="#Page_193">§ 140, p. 193</a>; <a href="#Page_195">§ 141, p. 195</a>; <a href="#Page_206">§ 149, p. 206</a>; <a href="#Page_228">§ 163, p. 228</a>; <a href="#Page_248">§ 181, p. 248</a>; <a href="#Page_276">§ 199, p. 276</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Annihilation, <a href="#Page_182">§ 132, p. 182</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Apperception, <a href="#Page_271">§ 195, p. 271</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Art of Love, <a href="#Page_109">§ 74, p. 109</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Asceticism, <a href="#Page_56">§ 33, p. 56</a>; <a href="#Page_66">§ 42, p. 66</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Athletic <i>vs.</i> Sedentary, <a href="#Page_53">§ 32, p. 53</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Autoerotism, <a href="#Page_31">§ 20, p. 31</a>; <a href="#Page_33">§ 21, p. 33</a>; <a href="#Page_37">§ 23, p. 37</a>; <a href="#Page_46">§ 27, p. 46</a>; <a href="#Page_48">§ 28, p. 48</a>; <a href="#Page_77">§ 48, p. 77</a>; <a href="#Page_154">§ 112, p. 154</a>; <a href="#Page_157">§ 115, p. 157</a>; <a href="#Page_159">§ 116, p. 159</a>; <a href="#Page_183">§ 133, p. 183</a>; <a href="#Page_198">§ 145, p. 198</a>; <a href="#Page_214">§ 153, p. 214</a>; <a href="#Page_217">§ 155, p. 217</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Autosuggestion, <a href="#Page_48">§ 28, p. 48</a>; <a href="#Page_51">§ 30, p. 51</a>; <a href="#Page_159">§ 116, p. 159</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Bennett, Arnold, <a href="#Page_26">§ 18, p. 26</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Berman, <a href="#Page_13">§ 10, p. 13</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Binary, <a href="#Page_100">§ 66, p. 100</a>; <a href="#Page_135">§ 95, p. 135</a>; <a href="#Page_224">§ 159, p. 224</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Birth Control, <a href="#Page_298">§ 214, p. 298</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Brill, A. A., <a href="#Page_7">§ 6, p. 7</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Charity, <a href="#Page_3">§ 3, p. 3</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Charm, <a href="#Page_24">§ 17, p. 24</a>; <a href="#Page_26">§ 18, p. 26</a>; <a href="#Page_108">§ 73, p. 108</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cicisbeo, <a href="#Page_18">§ 12, p. 18</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Clandestine relations, <a href="#Page_78">§ 49, p. 78</a>; <a href="#Page_105">§ 71, p. 105</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Coldness (see <a href="#Frigidity"><i>Frigidity</i></a>.)</li> - -<li class="indx">Combinations of conscious and unconscious passion, <a href="#Page_262">§ 189, p. 262</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Comparison, <a href="#Page_68">§ 44, p. 68</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Companionship, <a href="#Page_73">§ 46, p. 73</a>; <a href="#Page_222">§ 158, p. 222</a>; <a href="#Page_224">§ 159, p. 224</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Compensation, <a href="#Page_219">§ 156, p. 219</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Completeness of Life, <a href="#Page_75">§ 47, p. 75</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Compulsion to repeat, <a href="#Page_279">§ 146, p. 279</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Conflict, <a href="#Page_7">§ 6, p. 7</a>; <a href="#Page_203">§ 147, p. 203</a>; <a href="#Page_247">§ 180, p. 247</a>; <a href="#Page_259">§ 187, p. 259</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Confusion of erotic and egoistic-social, <a href="#Page_64">§ 40, p. 64</a>; <a href="#Page_186">§ 135, p. 186</a>; <a href="#Page_190">§ 137, p. 190</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Continence, Male, <a href="#Page_140">§ 100, p. 140</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Control, <a href="#Page_6">§ 5, p. 6</a>; <a href="#Page_37">§ 23, p. 37</a>; <a href="#Page_44">§ 26, p. 44</a>; <a href="#Page_48">§§ 28-30, pp. 48-51</a>; <a href="#Page_53">§ 32, p. 53</a>; <a href="#Page_102">§ 67, p. 102</a>; <a href="#Page_103">§ 68, p. 103</a>; <a href="#Page_140">§ 100, p. 140</a>; <a href="#Page_155">§ 114, p. 155</a>; <a href="#Page_175">§§ 128-169, pp. 175-234</a>; <a href="#Page_240">§ 174, p. 240</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Control, woman’s, <a href="#Page_102">§ 67, p. 102</a>; <a href="#Page_103">§ 68, p. 103</a>; <a href="#Page_183">§ 133, p. 183</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span>Coué, <a href="#Page_159">§ 116, p. 159</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Creating, <a href="#Page_124">§ 84, p. 124</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Demi-human, <a href="#Page_52">§ 31, p. 52</a>; <a href="#Page_169">§ 125, p. 169</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Despair, <a href="#Page_187">§ 136, p. 187</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Disagreements, <a href="#Page_43">§ 25, p. 43</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Disappointments, <a href="#Page_187">§ 136, p. 187</a>; <a href="#Page_279">§ 201, p. 279</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Discontent, <a href="#Page_22">§ 15, p. 22</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Dissembling, <a href="#Page_209">§ 150, p. 209</a>; <a href="#Page_212">§ 152, p. 212</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Dominating, <a href="#Page_6">§ 5, p. 6</a>; <a href="#Page_148">§ 107, p. 148</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Double Standard, <a href="#Page_69">§ 44, p. 69</a>; <a href="#Page_276">§ 199, p. 276</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Drouet, Mlle., <a href="#Page_7">§ 6, p. 7</a>; <a href="#Page_268">§ 192, p. 268</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Drama, Love, <a href="#Page_104">§ 69, p. 104</a>; <a href="#Page_109">§ 74, p. 109</a>; <a href="#Page_126">§ 87, p. 126</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Duty, <a href="#Page_82">§ 50, p. 82</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Education, <a href="#Page_212">§ 152, p. 212</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Egoistic-social, <a href="#Page_24">§ 17, p. 24</a>; <a href="#Page_42">§ 25, p. 42</a>; <a href="#Page_67">§§ 43-45, pp. 67-71</a>; <a href="#Page_82">§ 50, p. 82</a>; <a href="#Page_83">§ 51, p. 83</a>; <a href="#Page_237">§ 171, p. 237</a>; <a href="#Page_264">§ 191, p. 264</a>; <a href="#Page_287">§ 206, p. 287</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ellis, <a href="#Page_60">§ 37, p. 60</a>; <a href="#Page_125">§ 84, p. 125</a>; <a href="#Page_130">§ 90, p. 130</a>; <a href="#Page_139">§ 99, p. 139</a>; <a href="#Page_175">§ 128, p. 175</a>; <a href="#Page_248">§ 181, p. 248</a>; <a href="#Page_250">§ 183, p. 250</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Embarrassment, <a href="#Page_105">§ 70, p. 105</a>; <a href="#Page_214">§ 153, p. 214</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Emotional catharsis, <a href="#Page_39">§ 24, p. 39</a>. (See <a href="#Acme"><i>Acme</i></a>.)</li> - -<li class="indx">Emotions, <a href="#Page_1">§ 1, p. 1</a>; <a href="#Page_39">§ 24, p. 39</a>; <a href="#Page_56">§§ 33-42, pp. 56-65</a>; <a href="#Page_133">§ 94, p. 133</a>; <a href="#Page_268">§ 193, p. 268</a>; <a href="#Page_273">§ 197, p. 273</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Environment, mental, <a href="#Page_200">§ 145, p. 200</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Erotic, <a href="#Page_13">§ 10, p. 13</a>; <a href="#Page_42">§ 25, p. 42</a>; <a href="#Page_56">§ 33, p. 56</a>; <a href="#Page_59">§ 36, p. 59</a>; <a href="#Page_71">§ 45, p. 71</a>; <a href="#Page_73">§ 46, p. 73</a>; <a href="#Page_77">§ 48, p. 77</a>; <a href="#Page_78">§ 49, p. 78</a>; <a href="#Page_83">§ 51, p. 83</a>; <a href="#Page_151">§ 109, p. 151</a>; <a href="#Page_203">§ 147, p. 203</a>; <a href="#Page_247">§ 180, p. 247</a>; <a href="#Page_259">§ 187, p. 259</a>; <a href="#Page_264">§ 191, p. 264</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Erotic, superiority of, <a href="#Page_97">§ 63, p. 97</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Erotism, <a href="#Page_14">§ 10, p. 14</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Erotologist, <a href="#Page_99">§ 65, p. 99</a>; <a href="#Page_148">§ 107, p. 148</a>; <a href="#Page_154">§ 112, p. 154</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Estrus, <a href="#Page_138">§ 98, p. 138</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Evolution, <a href="#Page_175">§ 128, p. 175</a>; <a href="#Page_263">§ 190, p. 263</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Fakirs, <a href="#Page_160">§ 117, p. 160</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fate, <a href="#Page_22">§ 15, p. 22</a>; <a href="#Page_216">§ 154, p. 216</a>; <a href="#Page_290">§ 208, p. 290</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Father, <a href="#Page_284">§ 204, p. 284</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fears, <a href="#Page_206">§ 149, p. 206</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Femininity, <a href="#Page_23">§ 16, p. 23</a>; <a href="#Page_46">§ 27, p. 46</a>; <a href="#Page_100">§ 66, p. 100</a>; <a href="#Page_107">§ 72, p. 107</a>; <a href="#Page_148">§ 107, p. 148</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fetishism, <a href="#Page_162">§ 119, p. 162</a>; <a href="#Page_163">§ 120, p. 163</a>; <a href="#Page_170">§ 126, p. 170</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fickleness, <a href="#Page_64">§ 41, p. 64</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Freud, <a href="#Page_102">§ 67, p. 102</a>; <a href="#Page_142">§ 102, p. 142</a>; <a href="#Page_246">§ 179, p. 246</a>; <a href="#Page_248">§ 181, p. 248</a>; <a href="#Page_250">§ 183, p. 250</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Frigidity">Frigidity, <a href="#Page_187">§ 136, p. 187</a>; <a href="#Page_276">§ 199, p. 276</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Frink, H. W., <a href="#Page_56">§ 33, p. 56</a>; <a href="#Page_85">§ 52, p. 85</a>; <a href="#Page_203">§ 147, p. 203</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fusion, <a href="#Page_91">§ 56, p. 91</a>; <a href="#Page_111">§ 76, p. 111</a>; <a href="#Page_128">§ 88, p. 128</a>; <a href="#Page_155">§ 114, p. 155</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Gallichan, W. M., <a href="#Page_153">§ 111, p. 153</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Giving, <a href="#Page_37">§ 23, p. 37</a>; <a href="#Page_39">§ 24, p. 39</a>; <a href="#Page_216">§ 154, p. 216</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Glands, <a href="#Page_13">§ 10, p. 13</a>; <a href="#Page_97">§ 63, p. 97</a>; <a href="#Page_145">§ 105, p. 145</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Gonad, <a href="#Page_120">§ 80, p. 120</a>; <a href="#Page_128">§ 88, p. 128</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Habit, <a href="#Page_66">§ 42, p. 66</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hallucination, <a href="#Page_221">§ 157, p. 221</a>; <a href="#Page_225">§ 161, p. 225</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Harrow, B., <a href="#Page_145">§ 105, p. 145</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span>Haste, <a href="#Page_102">§ 67, p. 102</a>; <a href="#Page_184">§ 134, p. 184</a>; <a href="#Page_203">§ 147, p. 203</a>; <a href="#Page_205">§ 148, p. 205</a>; <a href="#Page_209">§ 150, p. 209</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hologamy, <a href="#Page_29">§ 19, p. 29</a>; <a href="#Page_128">§ 88, p. 128</a>; <a href="#Page_135">§ 95, p. 135</a>; <a href="#Page_259">§ 187, p. 259</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Home, <a href="#Page_22">§ 15, p. 22</a>; <a href="#Page_280">§ 202, p. 280</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Homosexuality, <a href="#Page_251">§ 184, p. 251</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Honeymoon, <a href="#Page_35">§ 22, p. 35</a>; <a href="#Page_37">§ 23, p. 37</a>; <a href="#Page_154">§ 112, p. 154</a>; <a href="#Page_187">§ 136, p. 187</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hutchinson, <a href="#Page_22">§ 15, p. 22</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hypersomatic, <a href="#Page_49">§ 29, p. 49</a>; <a href="#Page_53">§ 32, p. 53</a>; <a href="#Page_198">§ 145, p. 198</a>; <a href="#Page_231">§ 166, p. 231</a>; <a href="#Page_263">§ 190, p. 263</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hyposomatic, <a href="#Page_49">§ 29, p. 49</a>; <a href="#Page_53">§ 32, p. 53</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Identification, <a href="#Page_118">§ 80, p. 118</a>; <a href="#Page_237">§ 171, p. 237</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ignorance, <a href="#Page_118">§ 80, p. 118</a>; <a href="#Page_138">§ 98, p. 138</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Imagination, <a href="#Page_159">§ 116, p. 159</a>; <a href="#Page_229">§ 164, p. 229</a>; <a href="#Page_231">§ 165, p. 231</a>; <a href="#Page_231">§ 166, p. 231</a>; <a href="#Page_232">§ 167, p. 232</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Individuality, <a href="#Page_175">§ 128, p. 175</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Infantility, <a href="#Page_46">§ 27, p. 46</a>; <a href="#Page_94">§ 60, p. 94</a>; <a href="#Page_217">§ 155, p. 217</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Infidelity, <a href="#Page_224">§ 160, p. 224</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Insight, erotic, <a href="#Page_276">§ 199, p. 276</a>; <a href="#Page_277">§ 200, p. 277</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Instinct, <a href="#Page_66">§§ 42-63, pp. 66-97</a>; <a href="#Page_144">§ 103, p. 144</a>; <a href="#Page_163">§ 120, p. 163</a>; <a href="#Page_276">§ 199, p. 276</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Islet, <a href="#Page_113">§ 79, p. 113</a>; <a href="#Page_118">§ 80, p. 118</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">James, W., <a href="#Page_56">§ 33, p. 56</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Jealousy, <a href="#Page_246">§ 179, p. 246</a>; <a href="#Page_250">§ 183, p. 250</a>; <a href="#Page_253">§ 185, p. 253</a>; <a href="#Page_255">§ 186, p. 255</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Juan, Don, <a href="#Page_125">§ 85, p. 125</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Jus primæ noctis, <a href="#Page_125">§ 85, p. 125</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Karezza, <a href="#Page_140">§§ 100-106, pp. 140-146</a>; <a href="#Page_159">§ 116, p. 159</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Krafft-Ebing, <a href="#Page_243">§ 177, p. 243</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Law of Reversed Effort, <a href="#Page_159">§ 116, p. 159</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Lombroso, <a href="#Page_209">§ 150, p. 209</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Loneliness, <a href="#Page_219">§ 156, p. 219</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Love, <a href="#Page_56">§ 33, p. 56</a>; <a href="#Page_73">§ 46, p. 73</a>; <a href="#Page_98">§ 64, p. 98</a>; <a href="#Page_110">§ 75, p. 110</a>; <a href="#Page_133">§ 94, p. 133</a>; <a href="#Page_175">§ 128, p. 175</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Love at first sight, <a href="#Page_29">§ 19, p. 29</a>; <a href="#Page_75">§ 47, p. 75</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Love Drama, <a href="#Page_104">§ 69, p. 104</a>; <a href="#Page_109">§ 74, p. 109</a>; <a href="#Page_126">§ 87, p. 126</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Love Episode, <a href="#Page_13">§ 10, p. 13</a>; <a href="#Page_44">§ 26, p. 44</a>; <a href="#Page_109">§ 74, p. 109</a>; <a href="#Page_110">§ 75, p. 110</a>; <a href="#Page_124">§ 84, p. 124</a>; <a href="#Page_137">§ 97, p. 137</a>; <a href="#Page_201">§ 146, p. 201</a>; <a href="#Page_294">§ 212, p. 294</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Love Impulse, <a href="#Page_6">§ 5, p. 6</a>; <a href="#Page_182">§ 132, p. 182</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Love Pattern, <a href="#Page_51">§ 30, p. 51</a>; <a href="#Page_87">§ 53, p. 87</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Man’s <i>vs.</i> Woman’s egoistic-social and erotic urge, <a href="#Page_59">§ 35, p. 59</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Marriage a lottery, <a href="#Page_100">§ 66, p. 100</a>; <a href="#Page_175">§ 128, p. 175</a>; <a href="#Page_257">§ 184, p. 257</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Marriage not to be postponed, <a href="#Page_240">§ 173, p. 240</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Marriage, run down, <a href="#Page_29">§ 19, p. 29</a>; <a href="#Page_241">§ 174, p. 241</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Marriage, Happy, <a href="#Page_157">§ 115, p. 157</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Masculinity, <a href="#Page_23">§ 16, p. 23</a>; <a href="#Page_46">§ 27, p. 46</a>; <a href="#Page_94">§ 60, p. 94</a>; <a href="#Page_100">§ 66, p. 100</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Masochism, <a href="#Page_149">§ 108, p. 149</a>; <a href="#Page_243">§ 177, p. 243</a>; <a href="#Page_247">§ 180, p. 247</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mastery, <a href="#Page_277">§ 200, p. 277</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Meisel-Hess, G., <a href="#Page_4">§ 4, p. 4</a>; <a href="#Page_7">§ 6, p. 7</a>; <a href="#Page_21">§ 14, p. 21</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mental <i>vs.</i> physical, <a href="#Page_49">§ 29, p. 49</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Metonymy, <a href="#Page_225">§ 161, p. 225</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Monogamy, <a href="#Page_297">§ 213, p. 297</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mother imago, <a href="#Page_46">§ 27, p. 46</a>; <a href="#Page_98">§ 64, p. 98</a>; <a href="#Page_151">§ 110, p. 151</a>; <a href="#Page_155">§ 114, p. 155</a>; <a href="#Page_184">§ 134, p. 184</a>; <a href="#Page_268">§ 193, p. 268</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mountain-climbing allegory, <a href="#Page_165">§§ 122-127, pp. 165-171</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span>Mutuality, <a href="#Page_33">§§ 21-25, pp. 33-42</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Mystery, <a href="#Page_33">§ 31, p. 33</a>; <a href="#Page_165">§ 121, p. 165</a>; <a href="#Page_216">§ 154, p. 216</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Negativism, <a href="#Page_37">§ 23, p. 37</a>; <a href="#Page_93">§ 59, p. 93</a>; <a href="#Page_94">§ 60, p. 94</a>; <a href="#Page_211">§ 151, p. 211</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Next best thing, <a href="#Page_179">§ 130, p. 179</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst" id="Observation">Observation, <a href="#Page_48">§ 28, p. 48</a>; <a href="#Page_137">§ 97, p. 137</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ocean shore, <a href="#Page_121">§ 81, p. 121</a></li> - -<li class="indx">O’Higgins, H., <a href="#Page_162">§ 119, p. 162</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Oneida Community, <a href="#Page_140">§ 100, p. 140</a>; <a href="#Page_155">§ 114, p. 155</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Over-sexed woman, <a href="#Page_206">§ 149, p. 206</a>; <a href="#Page_258">§ 186, p. 258</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Parents, <a href="#Page_85">§ 52, p. 85</a>; <a href="#Page_87">§ 53, p. 87</a>; <a href="#Page_89">§ 54, p. 89</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Passion, <a href="#Page_56">§ 33, p. 56</a>; <a href="#Page_78">§ 49, p. 78</a>; <a href="#Page_272">§ 196, p. 272</a>; <a href="#Page_283">§ 203, p. 283</a>; <a href="#Page_289">§ 207, p. 289</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Passive, <a href="#Page_46">§ 27, p. 46</a>; <a href="#Page_56">§ 33, p. 56</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Patterns, <a href="#Page_16">§ 11, p. 16</a>; <a href="#Page_52">§§ 31-32, pp. 52-55</a>; <a href="#Page_87">§ 53, p. 87</a>; <a href="#Page_160">§ 117, p. 160</a>; <a href="#Page_161">§ 118, p. 161</a>; <a href="#Page_233">§ 168, p. 233</a>; <a href="#Page_236">§ 170, p. 236</a>; <a href="#Page_276">§ 199, p. 276</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Pepys, <a href="#Page_249">§ 182, p. 249</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Perverse, <a href="#Page_11">§ 7, p. 11</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Phantasy, <a href="#Page_126">§ 86, p. 126</a>; <a href="#Page_193">§ 139, p. 193</a>; <a href="#Page_201">§ 146, p. 201</a>; <a href="#Page_214">§ 153, p. 214</a>; <a href="#Page_221">§ 157, p. 221</a>; <a href="#Page_226">§ 162, p. 226</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Phobia, <a href="#Page_61">§ 38, p. 61</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Physical <i>vs.</i> mental, <a href="#Page_49">§ 29, p. 49</a>; <a href="#Page_236">§ 170, p. 236</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Plato, <a href="#Page_73">§ 46, p. 73</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Playmate, <a href="#Page_18">§ 12, p. 18</a>; <a href="#Page_46">§ 27, p. 46</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Plurality of women, <a href="#Page_264">§ 191, p. 264</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Polyandry, unconscious, <a href="#Page_242">§ 176, p. 242</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Polygamy, <a href="#Page_31">§ 20, p. 31</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Polymorphous-perverse, <a href="#Page_11">§ 7, p. 11</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Preparation of wife, <a href="#Page_137">§§ 97-99, pp. 137-139</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Problems, sex, <a href="#Page_16">§ 11, p. 16</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Prodigality of Nature, <a href="#Page_287">§ 206, p. 287</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Prohibition, <a href="#Page_273">§ 197, p. 273</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Prostitute, <a href="#Page_4">§ 4, p. 4</a>; <a href="#Page_102">§ 67, p. 102</a>; <a href="#Page_209">§ 150, p. 209</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Prostitution, <a href="#Page_4">§ 4, p. 4</a>; <a href="#Page_89">§ 54, p. 89</a>; <a href="#Page_273">§§ 197-198, pp. 273-274</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Psychic erotism, <a href="#Page_151">§ 109, p. 151</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Psychoanalysis, <a href="#Page_7">§ 6, p. 7</a>; <a href="#Page_52">§ 31, p. 52</a>; <a href="#Page_85">§ 52, p. 85</a>; <a href="#Page_251">§ 184, p. 251</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Rapport, <a href="#Page_139">§ 99, p. 139</a>; <a href="#Page_231">§ 166, p. 231</a>; <a href="#Page_289">§ 207, p. 289</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rationalization, <a href="#Page_42">§ 25, p. 42</a>; <a href="#Page_123">§ 82, p. 123</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Reassociation, <a href="#Page_61">§ 38, p. 61</a>; <a href="#Page_62">§ 39, p. 62</a>; <a href="#Page_64">§ 41, p. 64</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Relaxation, <a href="#Page_136">§ 96, p. 136</a>; <a href="#Page_139">§ 99, p. 139</a>; <a href="#Page_267">§ 192, p. 267</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Repression, <a href="#Page_7">§ 6, p. 7</a>; <a href="#Page_59">§ 35, p. 59</a>; <a href="#Page_60">§ 37, p. 60</a>; <a href="#Page_175">§ 128, p. 175</a>; <a href="#Page_197">§ 144, p. 197</a>; <a href="#Page_226">§ 162, p. 226</a>; <a href="#Page_273">§ 197, p. 273</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Resentment, <a href="#Page_187">§ 136, p. 187</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Resistance, <a href="#Page_221">§ 157, p. 221</a>; <a href="#Page_222">§ 159, p. 222</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Responsibility, <a href="#Page_71">§ 45, p. 71</a>; <a href="#Page_269">§ 194, p. 269</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Restlessness, <a href="#Page_19">§ 13, p. 19</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Right of woman, <a href="#Page_128">§ 89, p. 128</a>; <a href="#Page_130">§ 90, p. 130</a>; <a href="#Page_132">§ 92, p. 132</a>; <a href="#Page_133">§ 93, p. 133</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Robie, Dr. W. F., <a href="#Page_100">§ 65, p. 100</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Robinson, J. H., <a href="#Page_2">§ 1, p. 2</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Romantic, <a href="#Page_21">§ 14, p. 21</a>; <a href="#Page_22">§ 15, p. 22</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Sacrifice, <a href="#Page_243">§ 177, p. 243</a>; <a href="#Page_247">§ 180, p. 247</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span>Satisfaction, <a href="#Page_2">§ 2, p. 2</a>; <a href="#Page_23">§ 16, p. 23</a>; <a href="#Page_44">§ 26, p. 44</a>; <a href="#Page_46">§ 27, p. 46</a>; <a href="#Page_107">§ 72, p. 107</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Science, <a href="#Page_151">§ 110, p. 151</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sea and rocks, <a href="#Page_121">§ 81, p. 121</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Secret Places of the Heart,” <a href="#Page_113">§ 78, p. 113</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sex Inhibition, <a href="#Page_190">§ 137, p. 190</a>; <a href="#Page_245">§ 178, p. 245</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sex life, normal, <a href="#Page_12">§ 9, p. 12</a>; <a href="#Page_16">§ 11, p. 16</a>; <a href="#Page_112">§ 77, p. 112</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sex talk, <a href="#Page_16">§ 11, p. 16</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Shaw, G. B., <a href="#Page_219">§ 156, p. 219</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Shrew, <a href="#Page_31">§ 20, p. 31</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Simultaneity, <a href="#Page_138">§ 98, p. 138</a>; <a href="#Page_153">§§ 111-113, pp. 153-155</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Single standard, <a href="#Page_276">§ 199, p. 276</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Solitary vice of husbands, <a href="#Page_218">§ 155, p. 218</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Soma, <a href="#Page_49">§ 29, p. 49</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Splitting of libido, <a href="#Page_262">§ 189, p. 262</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Spouse, <a href="#Page_289">§ 207, p. 289</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Steinach, <a href="#Page_145">§ 105, p. 145</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Stekel, W., <a href="#Page_89">§ 54, p. 89</a>; <a href="#Page_251">§ 184, p. 251</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Stoics, <a href="#Page_56">§ 33, p. 56</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Strength, <a href="#Page_93">§ 59, p. 93</a>; <a href="#Page_94">§ 60, p. 94</a>; <a href="#Page_118">§ 80, p. 118</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Study (see <a href="#Observation"><i>Observation</i></a>)</li> - -<li class="indx">Sublimation, <a href="#Page_145">§ 104, p. 145</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Succession plan, <a href="#Page_154">§ 112, p. 154</a>; <a href="#Page_155">§ 113, p. 155</a>; <a href="#Page_157">§ 115, p. 157</a>; <a href="#Page_161">§ 118, p. 161</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Suggestion, <a href="#Page_231">§ 166, p. 231</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Supremity of male control, <a href="#Page_195">§ 142, p. 195</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Surprise, <a href="#Page_56">§ 33, p. 56</a>; <a href="#Page_165">§ 121, p. 165</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Surprise of married, <a href="#Page_15">p. 15</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Synthesis, <a href="#Page_11">§ 7, p. 11</a>; <a href="#Page_131">§ 91, p. 131</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Talion, <a href="#Page_212">§ 152, p. 212</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Taming of the Shrew, <a href="#Page_31">§ 20, p. 31</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Tension, erotic, <a href="#Page_131">§ 91, p. 131</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Testing, <a href="#Page_107">§ 72, p. 107</a>; <a href="#Page_155">§ 114, p. 155</a>; <a href="#Page_165">§ 121, p. 165</a>; <a href="#Page_187">§ 136, p. 187</a>; <a href="#Page_190">§ 137, p. 190</a>; <a href="#Page_209">§ 150, p. 209</a>; <a href="#Page_211">§ 151, p. 211</a>; <a href="#Page_212">§ 152, p. 212</a>; <a href="#Page_224">§ 160, p. 224</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Thesis, <a href="#Page_197">§ 144, p. 197</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Trial marriage, <a href="#Page_64">§ 41, p. 64</a>; <a href="#Page_289">§ 207, p. 289</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Tumescence, <a href="#Page_121">§ 81, p. 121</a>; <a href="#Page_131">§ 91, p. 131</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Unconscious affection, <a href="#Page_259">§ 187, p. 259</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Unconscious factor, <a href="#Page_99">§ 65, p. 99</a>; <a href="#Page_100">§ 66, p. 100</a>; <a href="#Page_267">§ 192, p. 267</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Unconscious love, <a href="#Page_268">§ 193, p. 268</a>; <a href="#Page_287">§ 206, p. 287</a>; <a href="#Page_289">§ 207, p. 289</a>; <a href="#Page_290">§ 208, p. 290</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Unhappy marriage, <a href="#Page_236">§§ 170-186, pp. 236-258</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Unity, <a href="#Page_263">§ 190, p. 263</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Variety, <a href="#Page_126">§ 87, p. 126</a>; <a href="#Page_274">§ 198, p. 274</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Virginity, <a href="#Page_124">§ 84, p. 124</a>; <a href="#Page_292">§ 210, p. 292</a>; <a href="#Page_293">§ 211, p. 293</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Virility, <a href="#Page_24">§ 17, p. 24</a>; <a href="#Page_42">§ 25, p. 42</a>; <a href="#Page_107">§ 72, p. 107</a>; <a href="#Page_140">§ 100, p. 140</a>; <a href="#Page_155">§ 114, p. 155</a>; <a href="#Page_224">§ 159, p. 224</a>; <a href="#Page_279">§ 201, p. 279</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Wells, H. G., <a href="#Page_113">§ 78, p. 113</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wifan (root WIB), <a href="#Page_100">§ 66, p. 100</a>; <a href="#Page_233">§ 168, p. 233</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wife, <a href="#Page_236">§ 170, p. 236</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wife’s helplessness, <a href="#Page_132">§ 92, p. 132</a>; <a href="#Page_221">§ 157, p. 221</a>; <a href="#Page_224">§ 160, p. 224</a>; <a href="#Page_225">§ 161, p. 225</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Woman’s infinite variety, <a href="#Page_126">§ 87, p. 126</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Woman’s lack of positive control, <a href="#Page_183">§ 133, p. 183</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Work, <a href="#Page_82">§ 50, p. 82</a></li> - -</ul> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Plea for Monogamy, by Wilfrid Lay - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PLEA FOR MONOGAMY *** - -***** This file should be named 60320-h.htm or 60320-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/3/2/60320/ - -Produced by Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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