DYSGENIC NATURE OF CERTAIN FACTORS OF SEX PSYCHOLOGY AND NECESSITY FOR A SOCIAL THERAPY

Mating determined by unconscious psychological motives instead of eugenic considerations; Some of the best male and female stock refusing marriage and parenthood; The race is reproduced largely by the inferior and average stocks and very little by the superior stock; As a therapeutic measure, society should utilize psychological knowledge as a new method of control; Romantic love and conjugal love a new ideal of love; The solution of the conflict between individual and group interests.

From the viewpoint of group welfare, the present psychological situation of human reproductive activities undoubtedly has its detrimental aspects. As we have seen, the choice of a mate is determined by irrational motives which lie far below the levels of consciousness. These unconscious factors which govern sexual selection far outweigh the more rational considerations of modern eugenic thought. The marks of personal beauty around which romantic love centres and which therefore play a prominent part in mating are not necessarily indicative of physical and mental health that will insure the production of sound offspring. The modern standards of beauty (at least in so far as feminine loveliness is concerned) have gone far from the ancient Grecian type of physical perfection. Influenced perhaps by the chivalric ideals of “the lady,” the demand is rather for a delicate and fragile prettiness which has come to be regarded as the essence of femininity. The robust, athletic girl must preserve this “feminine charm” in the midst of her wholesome outdoor life, else she stands in great danger of losing her erotic attraction.

Surface indications of the truth of this statement are easily discovered. The literature which before the war ran riot with athletic heroines pictured them with wind-blown hair and flushed cheeks receiving the offer of their male companion’s heart and hand. The golf course or the summer camp was simply a charming new setting for the development of the eternal love theme. Even fashion has conspired to emphasize the feminine charm of the girl who goes in for sports, as a glance at the models of bathing costumes, silken sweaters, and graceful “sport” skirts plainly reveals.

Just as the love which is directed in accordance with an emotional reaction conditioned to respond to some erotic fetishism or to a parent ideal may be productive of individual unhappiness, so it is also entirely a matter of chance whether or not it leads to a eugenic mating. Like romantic love, it is quite as apt to focus upon a person who does not conform to eugenic ideals as upon one who does. The mate selected upon the basis of these unconscious motives is very likely to bequeath a neurotic constitution or an otherwise impaired physical organism to the offspring of the union, since those possibilities were not taken into consideration in making the choice.

It becomes apparent that while certain forces in the life of the individual and in the social inheritance have united to condition the emotional reactions of the sex life, these conditionings have not always been for the benefit of the race. Indeed, it would almost seem that society has been more concerned with the manner of expression of the love life in the individual members than in its effects upon the next generation. In its neglect or ignorance of the significance of artificial modifications of the emotions, it has permitted certain dysgenic influences to continue in the psychic life of generation after generation, regarding with the utmost placidity a process of sexual selection determined by irrational and irresponsible motives.

The most potent dysgenic influence in the present phase of the sex problem is the conflict between the interests of the individual and the group regulations. The traditional type of marriage and family life has a cramping effect upon the personal ambitions which lessens its attractiveness materially. The enterprising young business or professional man has no desire to restrict his opportunities by the assumption of the responsibilities that accompany family life. He must be free to stake all his resources on some favourable speculation without the thought that he cannot take chances on impoverishing his wife and children. Or if he has professional aspirations, he must be able to take the long difficult pathway of scientific research with no anxiety about the meagre salary that is insufficient for the support of a home. Thus the most vital and aggressive male stocks as well as the most highly intelligent tend to avoid the hampering effects of family life, and their qualities are often lost to the next generation, since even if they marry they will feel that they cannot afford offspring.

As women enter more and more into the competition for economic and social rewards, this becomes equally applicable in their case. Indeed, it would be strange were there not an even greater tendency to shun the ties of family life on the part of ambitious women than of men, since it involves greater sacrifices in their case on account of their biological specialization for motherhood. It appears, therefore, that we are losing the best parental material for the coming generations on both the paternal and maternal sides. Thus the conflict between the egoistic desires and the social institution of the family is segregating just those energetic, successful individuals from whom the race of the future should spring if we hope to reproduce a social organism capable of survival in the inter-group struggle.

If it be true that the best stock, both male and female, for various reasons refuses to assume the duty of reproduction, the group will necessarily be replaced from individuals of average and inferior (but not superior) eugenic value. Even within these limits there is at present no conscious eugenic selection, and the irrational and unconscious motives which govern sexual selection at the present time may induce the choice of a mate from among the weaker individuals. Once again it becomes a matter of chance whether or not the matings prove to be for the welfare of the group and of the race.

It might be contended that the very fact that certain individuals withdraw from reproductive activities is sufficient proof of their lack of normal emotional reactions adapting them to the performance of those functions. But a clearer insight shows that the group standards permit the exercise of the reproductive activities only in accord with arbitrary regulations which have coalesced in the institutions of marriage and the family. These institutions have been developed to fit a definite ideal of manhood and womanhood which grew up out of a manner of thinking in accord with taboo control and ignorant superstitions rather than in harmony with the actual facts of the situation. Now that we are facing reality and trying to rationalize our thinking, we find that the variation from these masculine and feminine ideals does not necessarily imply biological or psychological abnormality, since the ideals were themselves established without reference to biological and psychological data.

The traditional marriage and family arrangement tends to enforce a selection of individuals who conform most nearly to these artificial types as parents for the succeeding generations. It is not at all certain that such a selection is advantageous to the group. It would seem rather that in so complex a social system as that of the present day with its increasing division of labour on other than purely sexual distinctions, we need a variety of types of individuals adapted to the varied activities of modern life.

If society is to successfully meet the present situation it must utilize its psychological insight to remedy conditions which are obviously dysgenic and detrimental to the welfare of the race. If the egoistic and highly individualized modern man and woman are induced to sacrifice personal ambitions in the interests of reproduction, for instance, it will only be because society has learned to turn those same egoistic impulses to its own ends. This will never be accomplished by the forces of tradition or by any such superimposed method of control as conscription for parenthood. There is too much of a spirit of freedom and individual liberty in the social mind to-day for any such measure to meet with success. The same spirit of freedom which formerly burst the bonds of superstition and entered into the world of science is now as impatient of restraint of its emotional life as it formerly was of restriction of its intellectual search for the truth.

Therefore society can no longer depend upon taboo standards crystallized into institutionalized forms as a means of control. It must appeal to more rational motives if it expects to have any degree of influence over its most intelligent and energetic members. Only when the production of eugenic offspring brings the same social approval and reward that is meted out for other activities will the ineradicable and irrespressible egoistic desires that now prevent individuals from assuming the responsibilities of family life be enlisted in the very cause to which they are now so hostile. When the same disapproval is manifested for the shirking of reproductive activities by the eugenically fit that is now directed toward lack of patriotism in other lines, the number of voluntary celibates in society will be materialy decreased.

The greatest triumph of society in the manipulation of the sexual and reproductive life of its members will come when it is able to condition the emotional reaction of the individual by the substitution of the eugenic ideal for the parental fixation and to focus the sentiment of romantic love upon eugenic traits. When this is accomplished, the selection of the mate will at least be favourable for racial regeneration even if individual disharmonies are not entirely eliminated. That there are great difficulties in the way of this accomplishment may be admitted at the outset. The conditioned responses to be broken down and replaced are for the most part formed in early childhood, and have had a long period in which to become firmly impressed upon the organism. But psychological experiments have proven that even the best established conditioned reactions can be broken down and others substituted in their place, so that the situation is not so hopeless. When we recollect that for ages the traditional ideals of masculinity and femininity have been conditioning the emotional life of men and women to respond to their requirements with a remarkable degree of success, there is ground for the belief that the same forces of suggestion and imitation may be turned to more rational ends and utilized as an effective means of social therapy.

If we are to have a more rationalized form of social control, then, it will undoubtedly take into consideration the necessity of forming the socially desirable conditionings of the emotional life. The importance of the emotional reactions for social progress has been very well summarized by Burgess, who says that emotion can be utilized for breaking down old customs and establishing new ones, as well as for the conservation of the mores. Society can largely determine around what stimuli the emotions can be organized, this author continues, and the group has indeed always sought to control the stimuli impinging upon its members. One policy has been to eliminate objectionable stimuli, as in the outlawing of the saloon. The other is to change the nature of the affective response of the individual to certain stimuli in the environment where the natural or organic responses would be at variance with conduct considered socially desirable.

Modern psychological knowledge enables us to understand the mechanism of this last method of social control as the building up of the conditioned emotional response. If our civilization is to endure it must learn to apply this method of control to the sex life of the individual so that reproduction will fall to the lot of the most desirable eugenic stock instead of being left to the workings of chance as it is at the present time.

From the viewpoint of individual psychology, one of the principal problems of the erotic life is to find a smooth transition from the romantic love of the courtship period to the less ethereal emotions of the married state. Indirectly, this is also socially significant, because of the overwhelming effect of the home environment in shaping the reactions of the next generation. As a rule, only the children who have grown up in a happy and wholesome atmosphere of sincere parental comradeship and affection can have an entirely sane and healthy reaction to their own erotic functions in later years.

Although romantic love in its present expression may often lead to uncongenial marriages and even involve dysgenic mating, its aesthetic and refining influences are such as to make it desirable in spite of these drawbacks. Its influence upon literature has been noted by Bloch while its potency in the formation of a deep and tender feeling between men and women has been elaborately discussed by Finck. Thus it is evident that its individual and social advantages more than balance its disadvantages.

Unfortunately, with the entrance into the marital relationship and the release of the erotic emotion into natural channels so that it no longer seeks the vicarious outlets which were partly supplied in the idealization of the lovers, there is a tendency for this romantic element to fade from their affection. The conjugal affection which replaces it is built on quite other foundations. It is not composed of day dreams about the beloved, but is wrought out of mutual interests, of joys and sorrows shared together, of the pleasure of unrestricted companionship, and of the common care of offspring. The danger lies in the possibility that these foundations for conjugal love will not have been lain by the time that romantic sentiments begin to grow dim. It is this crisis in the married life which seems disappointing in the afterglow of the engagement and honeymoon.

Of late there have been attempts to build up a new conception of love which shall incorporate the best features of romantic love and at the same time make the transition to the conjugal affection less difficult. This new conception has grown up through the increasing freedom of women and the constant association of the sexes in the educational and business world as well as in the social life. This free companionship of men and women has done much to destroy the illusions about each other which were formerly supposed to be so necessary a component of romantic love, but it has also created the basis for a broader sympathy and a deeper comradeship which is easily carried over into the married relation.

The new ideal of love which is being thus developed combines complete understanding and frankness with erotic attraction and the tenderness of romanticism. It implies a type of marital relationship in which there is preservation of the personality and at the same time a harmony and union of interests that was often absent from the old-fashioned marriage, when the wife was supposed to be more limited in her interests than her husband. It may well be that the evolution of this new ideal of love, which grants personal autonomy even within the marriage bond, will solve a great deal of the present conflict between the individualistic impulses and the exercise of the erotic functions as permitted by the group.

It is, of course, an open question as to how far the interests of the individual and the group can be made to coincide. Group survival demands that the most vital and intelligent members shall be those to carry on the reproductive functions. Therefore from the social viewpoint, it is quite justified in setting up the machinery of social approval and in establishing emotional attitudes by this means that will insure that this takes place. On the other hand, it may be that the individuals who will be thus coerced will be as rebellious against new forms of social control as they are restless under the present methods of restraint.

If we free ourselves from a manner of thinking induced by inhibitions developed through ages of taboo control, and look at the problem rationally, we must admit that the chief interest of society would be in the eugenic value of the children born into it. At the present time, however, the emphasis seems to be chiefly upon the manner of birth, that is, the principal concern is to have the parents married in the customary orthodox fashion. Only in view of the necessities of the recent war have the European nations been forced to wipe out the stain of illegitimacy, and in America we are still blind to this necessity. Only Scandinavia, under the leadership of such minds as Ellen Key’s, was roused to this inconsistency in the mores without external pressure, and enacted legislation concerning illegitimacy which may well serve as a model to the whole world. The main points of the Norwegian Castberg bill are as follows: The child whose parents are unmarried has a right to the surname of the father, and the right of inheritance from a propertied father; the court has full power to clear up the paternity of the child; the man is held responsible for the child’s support even if other men are known to have had intercourse with the mother. In order to discourage immorality in women for the purpose of blackmailing wealthy men, the mother is also compelled to contribute to the child’s support.

No psychologist of discernment, in insisting on eugenic standards rather than a marriage certificate as the best criterion for parenthood would encourage any tendency to promiscuous mating. The individual suffering involved in such a system of sexual relationships would be too great to permit its universal adoption even if it should be found to have no deleterious social effects. But the very fact that transient mating does involve so much human agony, especially on the part of the woman, is all the more reason why it is needless to add artificial burdens to those already compelled by the very nature of the emotional life.

The study of child psychology, too, would tend to discourage any general tendency to temporary sexual relationships. Modern research has shown that nothing is more necessary for the normal development of the child’s emotional life than a happy home environment with the presence of both father and mother. Only in these surroundings, with the love of both parents as a part of the childhood experience, can the emotional reactions of the child be properly conditioned to respond to the social situations of adult life.

In one respect, at least, society can do a great deal to better the existing situation, and to solve the struggle between the individual and group interests. At the same time that it endeavours to set up emotional responses that shall be conducive to eugenic mating and to a happy love life, as well as for the welfare of the child, it should also leave a wide margin of personal liberty for the individuals concerned to work out a type of sexual relationship which is in harmony with their natural inclinations. The institution of monogamy is too deeply founded in the needs of the individual and of the child to suffer from this increase in freedom and responsibility. Were it so frail a thing as to need the protection of the church and state as well as public opinion to insure its survival, it would be so little adapted to the needs of humanity that it might better disappear.

There are no indications that there would be any wider deviation from the monogamous relationship were variations frankly recognized that now take place in secret. By its present attitude, society is not accomplishing its purpose and preventing all sexual relationships except those which conform to its institutionalized standards. It is merely forcing what should be always the most dignified of human relationships into the shamefulness of concealment and furtiveness. Moreover, because it visits its wrath on the child born of unions which are not strictly conventionalized, it prevents the birth of children from mothers who might be of great eugenic value, but whom fear of social disapproval keeps from the exercise of their maternal functions but not of their sexual activities.

In the final analysis, it will probably be demonstrated that for a certain type of personality there can be no compromise which will resolve the conflict between the egoistic inclinations and the interests of the group. For those whose deepest desires are so out of harmony with the social life of the times there is no alternative but to sacrifice their personal desires or to forfeit the pleasure of feeling in complete rapport with their fellows. In such natures, the ultimate course of conduct will be determined by the relative strengths of the individualistic and gregarious impulses, other things being equal. In some instances this will mean the choice of a line of conduct out of harmony with the general trend of group life; in others, it will mean the repression of personal inclinations and conformity to social standards.

For the majority of people, however, it is likely that a more rational form of social control, freed from the long ages of taboo restrictions, and based upon accurate biological and psychological knowledge, will solve the disharmony between the individual and the group to a great extent. Such a rationalization will take into account the value of a new ideal of love which shall be built up from a sane relationship between the sexes and in accordance with eugenic standards. It will also grant a great deal of personal autonomy in the determination of sexual relationships in so far as this can be correlated with the welfare of the children of the race. Last of all, it will attempt to condition the emotional reactions to respond to stimuli which shall insure eugenic mating naturally and without the intervention of legislation.

Unless modern civilization can set up some such form of rational control for the sexual and reproductive life of its members, the present conflict between individuation and socialization will continue and the dysgenic factors now operative in society will steadily increase. In the end, this internal conflict may become so powerful as to act as an irresistible disintegrating force that will shatter the fabric of modern social organization. Only the evolution of a rationalized method of control can avert this social catastrophe.