HOW OUR INSTITUTIONS FIT INDIVIDUAL SEX PSYCHOLOGY

Social institutions controlling sex activities based on the assumption that all women are adapted to as well as specialized for reproduction; Neurotic tendencies which unfit women for marriage the desire for domination; Sexual anæsthesia another neurotic trait which interferes with marital harmony; The conditioning of the sexual impulse to the parent ideal and the erotic fetish as factors which determine mating; Homosexual tendencies and their part in the sex problem; The conflict between the desire for marriage and egoistic ambitions; The social regulations from the viewpoint of individual psychology.

The institutionalized forms of social control into which the old sex taboos have developed impose upon all members of the group a uniform type of sexual relationship. These socially enforced standards which govern the sex life are based upon the assumption that men and women conform closely to the masculine and feminine ideals of tradition. The emphasis is much more strongly placed on feminine conformity, however; a great many sexual activities are tolerated in the male that would be unsparingly condemned in the female. Thus the sex problem becomes in large measure a woman’s problem, not only because of her peculiar biological specialization for reproduction, which involves an enormous responsibility but also because her life has for so many generations been hedged in by rigid institutionalized taboos and prohibitions.

The traditional conception of marriage and the family relation implies that all women are adapted to as well as specialized for motherhood. In reality, if the biological evidence of intersexuality be as conclusive as now appears, there are many women who by their very nature are much better adapted to the activities customarily considered as pre-eminently masculine, although they are still specialized for childbearing. There is no statistical evidence of any high correlation between the sexual and maternal impulses. Indeed, a great many traits of human behaviour seem to justify the inference that these two tendencies may often be entirely dissociated in the individual life. Dr Blair Bell (as noted in Part I, Chapter III) believes that it is possible to differentiate women possessing a maternal impulse from those lacking such tendencies by the very anatomical structure. It is obvious that a woman endowed with a strong erotic nature requires a kind of sexual relationship different from one whose interests are predominantly in her children. And both the sexual and maternal types require different situations than the woman who combines the two instincts in her own personality for a normal expression of their emotional life.

According to social tradition, sexual activity (at least in the case of women) is to be exercised primarily for the reproduction of the group. Thus the institutions of marriage and the family in their present form provide only for the woman who possesses both the sexual and maternal cravings. Contraceptive knowledge has enabled a small number of women (which is rapidly growing larger) to fit into these institutions in spite of their lack of a desire for motherhood. There have been a few hardy theorists who have braved convention to the extent of suggesting the deliberate adoption of unmarried motherhood by women who are consumed by the maternal passion but have no strongly erotic nature. Whether their problem will be solved in this manner, only the course of social evolution in the future can show.

Besides the differences in natural instinctive tendencies which make it difficult for many women to fit into a uniform type of sexual relationship, modern society, with its less rigid natural selection, has permitted the survival of many neurotic temperaments which find marriage a precarious venture. The neurotic constitution, as Adler[1,2] has pointed out, is an expression of underlying structural or functional organic deficiency. It is a physiological axiom that whenever one organ of the body, because of injury, disease, etc., becomes incapable of properly discharging its functions, its duties are taken over by some other organ or group of organs. This process of organic compensation, whereby deficiency in one part of the body is atoned for by additional labours of other parts, necessarily involves the nervous mechanism in ways which need not be discussed in detail here.

In children the process of compensation, with its formation of new nervous co-ordinations, is manifest in the inability to cope with their companions who have a better biological endowment. This gives rise to a feeling of inferiority from which the child tries to free itself by every possible means, ordinarily by surpassing in the classroom the playmates whom it cannot defeat on the playground. The feeling of inferiority continues throughout life, however, although the mechanism of physiological compensation may have become so perfected that the functioning of the organism is quite adequate to the needs of the environment. As a result, the ruling motive of the conduct becomes the desire to release the personality from this torturing sense of inability by a constant demonstration of the power to control circumstances or to dominate associates.

This abnormal will to power finds expression in the marital relationship in the desire for supremacy over the mate. The domineering husband is a familiar figure in daily life. The wife who finds it more difficult to rule her husband by sheer mastery achieves the same ends by developing a fit of hysterical weeping or having a nervous headache when denied her own way in family affairs.

By far the easiest way for the woman to satisfy her craving for power is the development of an interesting illness which makes her the centre of attention. The history of nervous disease furnishes many cases of neurosis where this uncontrollable longing for domination is the chief factor in the etiology of the illness. It is not at all unusual to meet wives who hold their husbands subservient to every whim because of “delicate nervous organizations” which are upset at the slightest thwarting of their wishes so that they develop nervous headaches, nervous indigestion, and many other kinds of sickness unless their preferences meet with the utmost consideration. This tendency often becomes a chronic invalidism, which, at the same time that it brings the longed-for attention, incapacitates the individual for sexual and maternal activities and makes the married life an abnormal and unhappy one.

Another more or less neurotic trait which acts as a cause of disharmony in the marital relationship is the sexual anæsthesia which is not at all uncommon in modern women. The absence of any erotic passion is held to be a matter of physiological makeup by many authorities, but it is probably more often due to the inhibition of natural tendencies in accordance with concepts built up by social tradition. In order to understand how social suggestion can have so powerful an effect upon the reactions of the individual, we must revert once more to the principles of behaviouristic psychology.

According to Watson, whenever the environmental factors are such that a direct expression of an emotion cannot occur, the individual has to have recourse to implicit motor attitudes. The best example in everyday life is probably seen in the case of anger, which can seldom be permitted to find an outlet in the natural act of striking, etc. It is apparent, however, in the facial expression and in a certain muscular posture which can best be described as a “defiant” attitude. Another good example is the submissive attitude which often accompanies the emotion of fear. It is manifest in shrinking, avoiding movements, sometimes of the whole body, but more often of the eyes or some other special organ.

“In the sphere of love,” Watson remarks, “there are numerous attitudes as shown by the popular expressions lovelorn, lovesick, tenderness, sympathy. More fundamental and prominent attitudes are those of shyness, shame, embarrassment, jealousy, envy, hate, pride, suspicion, resentment, anguish, and anxiety."

The significant fact is that these attitudes function by limiting the range of stimuli to which the person is sensitive. The attitude of shame concerning their sexual functions, which has been impressed upon women as a result of ages of thinking in harmony with taboo standards, thus is able to prevent the normal biological response to a situation which should call out the emotions of love. In women who have an unstable nervous system this shameful feeling often results in a definite physiological shrinking from the physical manifestations of sexuality and renders the individual insensitive to all erotic stimulation.

This attitude of shame in connection with the love life came into existence as a socially conditioned emotional reaction set up under the influence of the traditional ideal of the “model woman” who was pictured as a being of unearthly purity and immaculacy. It has been passed on from generation to generation through an unconscious conditioning of the daughter’s attitude by suggestion and imitation to resemble that of the mother. Thus it happens that although an increasing amount of liberty, both social and economic, and a more rational and scientific understanding of the womanly nature, have quite revoked this ideal in theory, in actual practice it still continues to exert its inhibitory and restrictive influence.

Because the standardized family relationship involves so much more radical a readjustment in the life of woman than of man, it has almost always been the feminine partner who has taken refuge in neurotic symptoms in order to escape the difficulties of the situation. After the marriage ceremony, the man’s life goes on much as before, so far as his social activities are concerned, but woman takes up the new duties connected with the care of the home and her child-bearing functions. Moreover, the sexual life of woman is in many ways more complex than that of man. She has been subjected to more repressions and inhibitions, and as a result there has been more modification of her emotional reactions in the field of love. This greater complexity of her love life makes adaptation to marriage more problematical in the case of woman.

Although the neurotic tendencies of modern women have been an important factor for the production of disharmony in the family life, there are certain variations of the individual sex life which are more universally significant. The conditioned emotional reactions which environmental influences have built up around the sexual impulse of each member of society invariably determine the choice of the mate and give rise to extremely complicated problems by the very nature of the selective process. It is largely a matter of chance whether the mate chosen in accordance with the ideals of romantic love and because of some fascinating trait which acts as an erotic fetish or in conformity with a parental fixation will prove a congenial companion through life.

But the complexity of the situation lies in the fact that the erotic impulses may become conditioned to respond to an indefinite number of substituted stimuli. For example, the parental fixation may become reconditioned by focussing upon some special characteristic of the father or mother, which becomes an erotic fetish. If the mate is selected on the basis of this fetishistic attraction, he (or she) may prove to be so unlike the parent in other respects as to lose all the affection which was originally inspired. A concrete illustration of these conflicting emotional reactions is the case of the girl who declared that she feared her fiance as much as she loved him, but felt that she must marry him nevertheless. An investigation showed that her almost compulsive feeling about her lover was due to the fact that his gestures and manner of regarding her, in fact his whole bearing, reminded her of her dead father, while in other respects he was totally repugnant to her because his character traits were so far removed from those of her father ideal.

The conflict between the parental ideal and other phases of the sexual impulse is even more pronounced in men than in women, for two reasons. In the first place, the mother plays by far the largest part in the life of her children, so that the son’s fixation upon her is necessarily more intense than the daughter’s affection for the father. Yet on the other hand, the sexual desire of the male is more easily aroused than that of the female, and is more apt to centre upon some member of the opposite sex who possesses certain physical attractiveness but is not at all like the mother ideal. Thus it happens that men often enshrine on their hearthstone the woman who approximates the worshipped mother, while they seek satisfaction for their erotic needs outside the home. In other words, in the masculine psyche there is often a dissociation of the sexual impulse in its direct manifestations and the sentiment of love in its more idealistic aspects. This partially explains the fact that it is possible for a man to be “unfaithful” to his wife while actually loving her devotedly all the time.

A different solution of the unconscious conflict between the mother fixation and the sexual desires at lower levels is seen in those cases in which the man impulsively marries the woman who has this transient attraction for him. When the first passion of such an alliance has worn away, there is no lasting bond to take its place, and the man must find solace in some such way as an intimate friendship with a woman who recalls the maternal impressions of his childhood. A famous example of this is found in the beautiful affection of Auguste Comte for his idolized Clotilde de Vaux. Although Comte was bound to a woman whom he had married in the flush of erotic desire and whom he found entirety uncongenial, Clotilde became the inspiration of his later life, and held his affection without the aid of any material bond because she so closely resembled the dead mother whom he adored.

It is evident that the selection of a mate who is erotically attractive, but proves to be very similar to a parent who was disliked instead of loved, is as unfortunate as the choice of a partner who is utterly unlike a beloved father or mother. Indeed, when all the possible complications are clearly visualized, taking into account the numerous ways in which the sexual emotions can be modified, it is plain that these unconscious factors which determine the choice of a mate are not always conducive to a happy married life.

Quite recently the tendency to homosexuality has been emphasized as an important factor in the psychological problem of sex. At the International Conference of Medical Women (New York, 1919) it was stated that homosexual fixations among women are a frequent cause of female celibacy and divorce. This view was upheld by such authorities as Dr. Constance Long of England, and other prominent women physicians. Although a certain percentage of female homosexuality is congenital, it is probable that by far the largest part is due to a conditioning of the sexual impulse by the substitution of members of the same sex as the erotic stimulus in place of the normal response to the opposite sex.

This substitution is facilitated by certain facts in the social life of women. The frequent lack of opportunity to be with men during adolescent school days, and a certain amount of taboo on male society for the unmarried woman, are in direct favour of the establishment of homosexual reactions. There is also an increasing sex antagonism, growing out of woman’s long struggle for the privilege of participating in activities and sharing prerogatives formerly limited to men, which acts as an inhibitory force to prevent the transference of the sexual emotion to its normal object in the opposite sex. Moreover, the entrance of woman into a manner of living and lines of activity which have heretofore been exclusively masculine, has brought out certain character traits which in other times would have been repressed as incompatible with the social standards of feminine conduct, but which are conducive to the formation of homosexual attachments, since the qualities admired in men can now be found also in women.

In this connection the term homosexuality is used very loosely to denote any type of emotional fixation upon members of the same sex which is strong enough to prevent a normal love life with some individual of the opposite sex. Among American women, at least, this tendency is seldom expressed by any gross physical manifestations, but often becomes an idealized and lofty sentiment of friendship. It is abnormal, however, when it becomes so strong as to prevent a happy married life.

The tendency of emotions to seek a vicarious outlet must also be considered in any inclusive attempt to explain the homosexual attachment of women. The woman who, on account of lack of attraction for men or for any other reason, is denied the normal functioning of the love life in marriage, is forced to find some other expression for her erotic emotions, and it is only natural that she should find it in an affection for other women. Again, the voluntary celibacy of a large class of modern women, who prefer to retain their economic independence rather than to enter into family life, also necessitates finding vicarious emotional activities. Whenever their work throws a number of these women into constant association, it is almost inevitable that homosexual attachments will spring up.

We meet all these types of homosexual fixations in daily life. The college girl who is isolated from men for four years has her sworn comrade among the girls, and is sure that she will never marry but will love her chum always. Very often it is some time after she leaves college before she begins to take an interest in male companionship. The young professional woman looks up to the older woman in her line of work with the same admiration for her courage and brilliancy that used to be reserved for the husband alone in the days when women were permitted only a strictly feminine education and occupation. The business woman refuses to give up her high salaried position for marriage, and consoles herself with her feminine friends. These are the common manifestations characteristic of female homosexuality. As has been suggested, the term is loosely applied to such cases as these, but the tendency of recent psychological literature is to consider them as highly sublimated expressions of this tendency.

As has been intimated, the modern woman who has entered into the economic competition is often reluctant to abandon this activity for the responsibilities of wifehood and motherhood, which involve a withdrawal from the business world. Just as the materialistic rewards of economic activities often prove more attractive than the emotional satisfactions of family life, so, too, the intellectual ambitions of the professional woman may deter her from the exercise of her reproductive functions. Thus the egoistic and individualistic tendencies which modern social organization fosters in the personality of its feminine members makes them unwilling to sacrifice their ambitious plans in the performance of their natural biological functions.

In the present speeding up of competition, the entrance upon family life becomes almost as burdensome to man as to woman, although in a different manner. Free as he is from the biological responsibilities connected with childbearing which fall to a woman’s lot, he finds the economic responsibilities which the care of children entails equally grilling. His choice of a profession can no longer be decided by his own preferences, but must be determined by the economic returns. He can never afford to sacrifice financial gain for personal recognition, because of his obligation to provide for his family. Thus it happens that marriage often presents a situation in which no outlet for personal ambitions is possible and the egoistic desires and emotions must be sternly repressed. There is therefore an increasing hesitancy on the part of the men of to-day to assume responsibilities so grave and involving so much personal sacrifice.

It is evident from even such a casual inquiry as this, that there are many facts of individual psychology which have not been taken into account by society in the development of the mores which govern the sexual relationships of its members. The traditional institution of the family, which would shape all women into model wives and mothers, has neglected to consider the fact that not all women are biologically adapted for these particular activities. The choice of a mate which is determined by irrational and unconscious motives may or may not prove to be a wise selection, as we have seen in the course of our discussion. Most significant of all for the social problem of sex, is the overwhelming tendency to individuation which is making both men and women frankly question whether marriage and parenthood are worth while when they involve so much personal sacrifice.

From the viewpoint of psychology, we may briefly summarize the whole situation by saying that society has imposed upon its members a uniform and inflexible type of sexual relationships and reproductive activities with a total disregard of individual differences in its demand for conformity to these traditions. When the infinite number of variations and modifications possible in the sexual life of different individuals is taken into consideration, it is obvious that there must be a certain disharmony between personal inclinations and social standards. Because the power of the group control is very great, its members usually repress emotions which are not in accord with its regulations, and shape their conduct to meet with its approval. If such a restriction of the personality and emotional life of the individual is necessary for the welfare of the whole race and for social progress, its existence is entirely justified. It is our next task, therefore, to determine in what respects a rigid and irrational social control is conducive to human betterment, and wherein, if at all, it fails to achieve this purpose.