SEX MORALITY PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE BY WILLIAM J. ROBINSON, M.D. LEO JACOBI, M.D. JAMES P. WARBASSE, M.D. EDWIN C. WALKER JAMES F. MORTON, JR., M.A. B. S. TALMEY, M.D. MAUDE GLASGOW, M.D. No book hat a right to exist that has not for its purpose the betterment of mankind, by affording either useful instruction or health- ful recreation. - W- J. R. SECOND EDITION 1919 THE CRITIC AND GUIDE COMPANY 12 Mt. Morris Park West NEW YORK Copyright, 1912, By WILLIAM J. ROBINSON, M.D. GENERAL PREFACE I believe that this symposium on sex morality is unique in the English lan- guage. It should help to a clarification of our views and opinions on this ex- tremely vital subject. It is interesting to note that while all the men contributors to the symposium belong to the class of radicals and free thinkers, and hold advanced views on politics, re- ligion, and social economics, their ideas on sex morality are far from being identi- cal. In fact, on one point-that of sexual abstinence or "illicit" sexual relations- the contributors express diametrically op- posite views. It is probably true that many years will pass before we will at- tain unanimity on the sex question. In the meantime we must think, study, in- vestigate; think, study, investigate; and GENERAL PREFACE again think, study and investigate. And we must do it without fear or mental res- ervation. W. J. R. CONTENTS PAGE General Preface w . . 5 Special Preface . . . . 11 Sex Morality - Robinson . . < . . 15 Sex Morality - Jacobi . ... . (. 41 Siex Morality - Morton . . . .; . 103 Sex Morality - Walker 117 Sex Morality - Warbasse . « . . .' 145 Sex Morality - Talmey 165 Sex Morality - Glasgow . 179 SPECIAL PREFACE "In the matter of public writing and speaking I listen to no remonstrance, I acknowledge no decision, save that of the divine monitor within me. My conscience is my adviser, my audience and my judge. It bids me write and speak as I write and speak, without evasion, without disguise; it bids me to go on as I have begun, what- ever the result may be. If my opinions should be condemned, without a single ex- ception, by every one of my readers, it will not make me regret having expressed them, and it will not prevent me from ex- pressing them again. It is my earnest and sincere conviction that those opinions are not only true, but also that they tend to elevate and purify the mind. One thing, at all events, I know: that it has done me good to write this 11 SPECIAL' PREFACE essay; and therefore I do not think that it can injure those by whom it will be read." The above is a paraphrase of some sen- tences from Winwood Reade's preface to his "Martyrdom of Man." I always loved that passage, and I take it as my own to serve as a preface to my essay on Sex Morality. It will be noticed that in the entire paper I have not referred to venereal dis- ease as a factor in or cause for sex moral- ity. To do so seems to me to confuse the issue. To preach continence because non-continence may lead to venereal in- fection is not a moral argument. Bur- glary is wrong irrespective of whether the burglar gets or does not get caught. If illicit sexual relations are wrong they are wrong irrespective of the danger of infection. What I replied in the Critic and Guide to a contributor who advocated 12 SPECIAL PREFACE complete abstinence in the male on acs count of the risk of venereal infection may be repeated here: It is the same old argument of fear, of trying to make people good by threats. "Do not steal or you may get caught and go to prison" is an argument of the same character. And supposing the man is absolutely sure that his female companion is perfectly healthy and pure and there is no possibility of getting any venereal dis- ease-what argument would you use then to keep him chaste? And extending indi- vidual instances to a larger sphere, assum- ing that humane sanitation and the uni- versal intelligent use of venereal proph- ylactics has abolished venereal disease entirely-a thing not altogether outside the bounds of possibility, or even prob- ability-what then?1 Evidently, the ar- gument, be chaste or you will catch a dis- ease which you may transmit to your wife and children, will then not hold good. 13 SPECIAL PREFACE What other argument will we then pre- sent to our boys and men? Let us once forever bear in mind that fear and threats are losing their power as arguments. Disregarding the fact that the man who is "good" simply be- cause he is afraid is really not moral, only a coward, people begin to find out that the threats are exaggerated and having once found it so they are apt to go to ex- tremes, and let all caution go to the winds, thinking that the threats were just grand- mother's tales in order to keep them in the straight path. No, if a certain line of conduct is en- joined upon an advanced independent thinker, you must be able to prove to him that that line of conduct is for the benefit of the individual and of the race, that a contrary line of conduct is to the detri- ment of both. If you cannot prove it, you have no case. w. J. R. 14 SEX MORALITY, PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE WILLIAM J. ROBINSON, M.D. SEX MORALITY PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE XT is unfortunately only too true that many of our opinions are in- fluenced by our general feelings, and to a considerable extent by our phys- ical condition. This is particularly true whenever we come to discuss questions of a sexual character. The man possessed of a very powerful sexuality will be biased in favor of a free sexual morality, may even feel nothing wrong in promis- cuity, and will condone sexual freedom in others. The man of naturally weak sexuality or of an age in which the sexual desire or power is almost or quite extinct, will demand a very strict monogamic standard, and will be ruthless in denounc- ing any sexual transgression in others, either ante-matrimonial or extra-marital. 17 SEX MORALITY -ROBINSON It can even be proven fairly conclusively that the institutions of polygamy, mo- nogamy and polyandry were, next to eco- nomic conditions, influenced by the degree of sexual power in a given race or nation. The sexually strong tribes were polygamous, the moderately strong were almost monogamous, while in the sex- ually weak tribes polyandry was preva- lent. I recogriize that it is extremely difficult to assume a perfectly objective attitude uncolored by our feelings. I recog- nize that even all our prophecies as to the future are influenced by our desires and opinions. What we want to take place, we believe will take place. The anarch- ist, for instance, in picturing the future state of society is sure that it will be a state without any government, without any laws, even without any rules or regu- lations; the state socialist is certain that the government of the future will be of 18 SEX MORALITY - ROBINSON wider scope and more strongly central- ized. The atheist is sure that in future there will be no such thing as religion in any form, while the sincere Catholic is abso- lutely certain that Catholicism is going to spread further and further and will event- ually become the only religion in the world. All the infidels, the Jews, the various Christian denominations, the Mahomedans, the Buddhists, etc., etc., will eventually come to see the truth and will become loyal members of the Catholic Church. I have met such a Catholic. Tell such a believer that the time may come when all dogmatic religions, includ- ing Judaism and Christianity, will disap- pear from the face of the earth, and he will think that you are insane. The monogamist of the present has no doubts whatever that monogamy will be the state of the future, perhaps even in a stricter and more absolute form. The 19 SEX MORALITY -ROBINSON free-lover smiles at this, for he knows that free union or even promiscuity will be the prevalent system. In short, our prophecies about the future are merely the reflections of our ideals in the pres- ent. What we believe in and what we want, that we are sure is going to be the prevailing system of the future. While objectivity may perhaps be at- tained in discussions as to what should be the right conduct of the present, I em- phasize that it is practically impossible to be strictly objective in our prophecies as to the more or less distant future. The human mind is not willing to admit that the future may be entirely different from what one wants it to be, from what one hopes it will be. Recognizing these limitations of the human mind, we will try to do our best. If we cannot attain absolute objectivity, we will try to be as objective as we can. Of all questions, the sexual question is 20 SEX MORALITY -ROBINSON preeminently the question which must be discussed with absolute freedom, frank- ness and honesty. If it cannot be so dis- cussed, it should be left alone altogether. Half-hearted admissions, equivocal hints and veiled allusions are useless and may prove worse than useless. For if misun- derstood, they may lead, and often do lead, to wrong conclusions. It does require some courage, at the present time, to dis- cuss the manifestations of the human sex- ual instinct in the same calm, unconcerned manner in which we discuss any biologic or social question, but it must be done. There is no way out of it. And we must not be afraid to go wherever investigation may lead us. There must be no shrink- ing back from our logical conclusions, be they what they may. Our sole criterion must be-human happiness. If we should find that absolute sexual license, that un- restricted, riotous promiscuity would best contribute toward human happiness, then 21 SEX MORALITY -ROBINSON we should not be afraid to say so; and un- restricted promiscuity should be our ideal. If we think that free unions or temporary marriages or a modified monogamy will be most conducive to human happiness, we should say so; and if we find that rigid monogamy in the absolute sense of the term, without any extra-marital relations on the part of either sex, will best contrib- ute to the happiness of mankind, or the greatest happiness of the greatest number, then we should not be afraid to say so. In short, we should not be afraid to advo- cate that system of sexual relations, what- ever it may be, which in our opinion would contribute most to human happiness. Whether it is due to hereditary influ- ences or strictly orthodox early training or very early marriage or other circum- stances, I cannot say; but as an ideal, as an abstract desideratum, the truly mono- gamic marriage appeals to me more than any other system of sexual relations. The 22 SEX MORALITY - ROBINSON truly monogamic couple, where the man and the woman go chaste to the marriage bed, and go thru life in mutual love and respect, these feelings growing stronger as the years pass by, finding full satisfac- tion in each other, without any desire for any other man or woman-what nobler, what more appealing ideal can one con- jure up? Nor is it an utterly unrealizable ideal, for the sneers of the cynics to the contrary, there are such couples, even at the present time, and even in our largest Babyions. They may not constitute a large percentage, but that they do exist and live most happily demonstrates that the ideal is not a chimera and is not alto- gether outside the bounds of practical realization. In my practice, to encoun- ter a man who has had no sexual relations until his wedding night, and no extra- marital relations whatever, is not such a great rarity. How do I know that my patients tell me 23 SEX MORALITY - ROBINSON the truth, when they assure me of their strictly and exclusively marital relations? Because, J know. Because my patients tell me the truth. They come of their own free will and accord, they want to be helped, they know that I look at sexual matters from the same calm dispassionate viewpoint that I regard a headache, or dyspepsia, or a broken leg, they know that I am not a hypocrite or a moralist preacher, and they tell me their sexual histories with the same ease and frank- ness as they would the history of any of their other troubles. They do not hesitate to disclose to me their perversions-why should they lie about their normal rela- tions before or extra-marital relations after marriage? No, I can have con- fidence in the statements of my patients. And I repeat, the strictly chaste and mo- nogamic man is not such a rarity, at least in this country and in England.1 And if il must admit however this: In Germany and 24 SEX MORALITY -ROBINSON marriage could be consummated at an early age, say at the age of eighteen to twenty-two, such cases would be much more frequent. The strictly monogamic ideal, I repeat, is not an absurdity, not a chimera. And they are to be envied who can attain that ideal and live happily under it. But that ideal is not applicable to all mankind. Many of our troubles arise from our stupid attempts to measure all men and all women by the same standard. The man with an uncontrollably powerful sexuality would like to see all restrictive laws or opinions smashed to pieces and he looks with contempt at the pious impotent weakling; the latter looks at the former France and other continental European countries it is rather difficult to find a man who has been completely abstinent up to his wedding day. Meirowsky's recent investigations among the intellectual classes gave as the result 1 per cent, of men (to be exact 1.1 per cent.) who had had no sexual relations up to their marriage. 25 SEX MORALITY -ROBINSON with hatred and would like to have him incarcerated. The moderate normal man knows that both are wrong, both abnor- mal, but he also knows that neither can help his opinions, for they are both influ- enced by their feelings, by their physical condition. An examination of a man's prostate and seminal vesicles would often shed much light on the why of his speak- ing and writing. The strict ideal of monogamy, I said, is not applicable to all mankind. Ante- nuptially, for instance, it is becoming more and more difficult to live up to that ideal. It is even questionable if, with the late marriages, it is desirable that men should live up to it. And to preach at men, to insist that they should remain chaste until their marriage, when that mar- riage takes place when they are thirty or thirty-five years old or even older, is ab- surd. I am not sure that such preaching may not even be designated as criminal. 26 SEX MORALITY -ROBINSON For if people really followed the advice of our moral preachers, the results would in many cases prove disastrous. And I re- peat what I said so many times before: an impotent man is a more pitiable man than a venereally infected man. [For a fuller discussion of this point, see the au- thor's "Sexual Problems of To-day," Chapter: "The Relations of the Sexes or Man's Inhumanity to Woman."] So much for the unmarried man, the bachelor. We now come to the married man. To even venture to suggest that strict monogamy is not applicable, suita- ble, healthy or even possible for all men, is a risky undertaking indeed. You run the risk not only of being branded as im- moral and depraved by the ignorant and well-meaning fools, who do not know, and do not wish to learn, the difference be- tween the discussion of a thing and its advocacy, but you run a greater risk: you run the risk of having your work, to which 27 SEX MORALITY -ROBINSON you have given your best and most earnest thought, declared obscene and unmailable by our ignorant and autocratic obscurant- ist censors, who do not know the differ- ence between obscenity and a high class scientific discussion of a sexual subject. But I believe the time has come to brave the misunderstandings of the stupid and the wrath of the vicious, and to tell the truth as we see it, regardless of conse- quences. And with the truth as our sole guide, we will say that it is impossible for some men to live a strictly monogamic life and we have therefore no right to demand of them strict compliance with a strictly monogamic standard. A number of men complained to me bitterly and with deep self-reproach of their complete lack of libido or the com- plete impotentia coeundi with their wives. Of course I do not speak here of cases where the man and woman are mismated, where the woman has some disagreeable 28 SEX MORALITY -ROBINSON pelvic disease, or a bad odor from the mouth, or where the man has a dislike for his wife. Such cases are so common as to be commonplace and vulgar. No, I refer to cases where the man loved his wife, loved her fully, solely and sincerely, would have suffered to the end in silence rather than to cause her any pain, would rather have castrated himself than to part from his wife-and still complained that he had neither desire for his wife nor any ability to perform the act with her. He had a desire for another woman; not any woman in particular, just a woman. And it was not viciousness on the man's part-for he fought against it, the proof of which is to be found in the fact that he came to be treated for his affliction. And with an- other woman he was perfectly potent. And the strangest part-strange to one who has not made a study of the subject, but not strange to him who has come in contact with a number of such cases-of 29 SEX MORALITY -ROBINSON it is, that after short temporary relations with other women both the man's potentia and his libido for his wife returned with all their former, if not even with greater vigor. Now, in a case like this, what shall we do? Shall we insist upon the man's re- maining true to his marriage vows, in spite of the fact that this may lead to his and his wife's illness and misery, home disrup- tion and divorce? The uncompromising moralist, who believes that man was made for morals and not morals for man, and who is in our opinion very frequently very immoral, because heartless and cruel, will answer: Yes, he dare not break his mar- riage vows. We will very gently whis- per: Yes, he dare, and for his own and his wife's happiness, he shall. If the wife is wise, she will whisper this advice herself. There is another class of cases. A man comes to us and tells us that he loves his wife, attends to his marital duties nor- 30 SEX MORALITY--ROBINSON mally, his libido and his power are unim- paired, and still he does not feel satisfied; he feels tired after the act, and disinclined to work; the feeling of springiness and buoyancy that he used to have is entirely lacking. If he is a man doing creative work, he complains of a lack of "inspira- tion." And some men become actually unable to work. If they force themselves, the work is of poor quality, mechanical, artificial. A temporary change some- times works wonders. What shall we do? Shall we sacrifice the man's work and talent at the altar of an artificial man- made morality? The answer will depend upon who the answerer is-a narrow me- dievalist or a modern thinker. I will present the following proposi- tions : The strictly monogamic standard is not a chimera, not an abstract ideal impossi- ble of realization in practice; it is being lived up to now, and the cases in which 31 SEX MORALITY -ROBTNSON it is followed are not such exceptional rarities. Ante-nuptial chastity in man is quite feasible in a society in which marriages take place early. Under our present economic and social conditions, when men marry at the age of thirty, thirty-five and later, chastity in men is not feasible, not advisable and probably not desirable. We are confronted in practice with cer- tain cases in which the man's libido and potentia, either one or both, are partially or completely lost as far as the wife is con- concerned. Their libido and potentia is normal toward other women, and a tem- porary change often renders their feelings normal towards their own wives. In such cases we are morally justified in recom- mending such a change. There is a class of cases where the man, without losing his libido or potentia, gets a feeling of unconquerable ennui or tired- 32 SEX MORALITY -ROBINSON ness or dulness, with regard to his life partner. A temporary separation or change generally effects a cure in such cases. There are certain men doing creative work to whom an occasional new relation seems absolutely necessary, in order that they may do their best work. There are men of powerful sexuality, whom the wife alone, tho perfectly nor- mal, cannot fully satisfy. While normal, her sexuality is much below that of the man. What are we to do in such cases? There are men who, on account of cer- tain psychological peculiarities, cannot live in permanent union with any one per- son; are not fit to be married men. Such people live happily in temporary unions with congenial or similarly consti- tuted women, and such temporary unions are therefore the proper thing for them. If the above premises and theses are 33 SEX MORALITY -ROBINSON correct, the following conclusions may be enunciated: The monogamic system of marriage will probably survive in the future as the domi- nant system. The family will in the fu- ture, as in the present, form the basic unit of society, for a happy, harmonious family is the best environment for the proper bringing up of children, for the proper development of character. Of course it is possible that the state institutions for the care of children in the future will be of a much higher character than the institu- tions of the present. But the institutions with which we are familiar do not inspire us with very great expectations in this respect. A good home is superior to the best institution or asylum or pension or dormitory, and no substitute has yet been found for mother love and father love. It is possible that many wives and hus- bands will find it more suitable to their characters to live in separate houses or 34 SEX MORALITY - ROBINSON apartments. Constant co-habitation in one house is terribly wearing on the nerves of some of the most loving husbands and wives. Whether or not the people will still solemnize their marriages with religious or legal ceremonies is a matter of minor importance. One thing is certain: mar- riage will not be such a practically indis- soluble arrangement or contract as it is now. There isn't any question in my mind that on the petition of both parties a divorce or dissolution of marriage will be granted without further ceremony. The two persons who have to live together are the best judges as to whether they want to continue to live together or not. And when there are no children to be taken care of, a simple declaration by husband and wife, repeated perhaps after a lapse of three or six months, should be and will be quite sufficient for the termination of the marriage contract. Here the state 35 SEX MORALITY -ROBINSON has nothing to say. When there are chil- dren the state will make sure that they will be properly cared for and provided for, before a divorce is granted. Cases where only one party demands a divorce, will have to be carefully studied by a commission, which will include in its personnel physicians and psychiatrists, and every case will be decided on its merits. But adultery will certainly not be the only reason for granting a divorce, as it is in so many states now. Perhaps adultery will be considered the least important rea- son for the granting of a divorce. Of course, women of the future state of so- ciety being economically independent, the question of alimony will not possess the same importance that it does now. Per- haps it will not enter into the question at all. Monogamy, while being the prevalent system, will not be surrounded with the rigid and iron-clad rules of the present 36 SEX MORALITY -ROBINSON day, will not be so absolute in its applica- tions as it is theoretically supposed to be now, and occasional departures from it will not be accompanied by the odium and legal punishments of the present day. The mass of the people being more fa- miliar with the truths of physiology and psychology, occasional straying from the straight and narrow path of rigid mo- nogamy will not be frowned upon by the wife. Perhaps it will be encouraged by her. Ante-nuptially no reproach will be at- tached to sexual relationships. Prostitu- tion being a coarse and unsanitary insti- tution, relationships of a different char- acter will come into vogue where the health of both the man and the woman will be as secure and as safeguarded as it is in the legal marriage. As no odium will be at- tached to such relations, no* secrecy will be required and all sanitary precautions will be readily carried out, should such 37 SEX MORALITY -ROBINSON sanitary precautions be needed at that time. For we believe that in the future, prostitution being non-existent and indi- vidual prophylaxis having been in use for years, venereal disease will have disap- peared from the face of the earth. It is possible that it will be considered best for people to marry at a very early age-eighteen to twenty-two-even before the man can establish and support an in- dependent home. In such cases the young man and woman would remain at their respective parents' homes, until such a time when they could live independently, and they would meet only occasionally. They would have to guard against having children, but the measures for the preven- tion of conception are easily taught and easily carried out. Men and women who, for one reason or another, will be unable or unwilling to enter into any permanent union or to have any children, will enter into free tempo- 38 SEX MORALITY -ROBINSON rary unions, openly and frankly, and they will not be ostracized or even frowned upon for so doing. For it will be recog- nized that for some men or women it is the only form of sexual relationship pos- sible, either psychically or physiologically. I have spoken only of the morality of the male. Because it is his morality that presents vexing problems. Because I still maintain that the female is essentially monandrous, and if properly mated she presents no sexual problem. There is a small minority who are polyandrous in their instincts, who have unconquerable sexual passions. They will enjoy the same liberties that men do. This will also apply to unmarried women or to women who are married to impotent men. They will possess the same freedom and privi- leges as are now enjoyed by men de facto and as will be enjoyed by the men of the future state of society de jure. 39 SEX MORALITY, PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE1 LEO JACOBI, M.D. SEX MORALITY-PAST, PRES- ENT, AND FUTURE I y^he course of social evolution is fl J not a steady, uniform onward movement, as many erroneously believe; it is rather a series of alternating phases, epochs of rapid progress suc- ceeded by periods of comparative stagna- tion and even retrogression. In this rhythmic advance, the present time exhibits all the characteristics of a positive stage. The feverish activity, the universal unrest, the searching criticism of established values, all reveal the pain- ful process of social readjustment. Forms held in reverence a generation ago are now subjected to merciless revalua- tion. Religious, political, industrial in- stitutions are thrown in the balance and 43 SEX MORALITY -JACOBI threatened with destruction or at best reconstruction. Nor does the movement of reform spare our ethical conceptions. "Now that moral injunctions are losing the authority given by their supposed sacred origin, the sec- ularization of morals is becoming impera- tive," wrote Herbert Spencer barely a generation ago. Many still cling to the older forms with the grim allegiance of despair, but on all sides people are seen cutting themselves loose from the wreck and striking out for shore. Among the problems coming under the jurisdiction of ethics, the one dealing with sex relations, always important, has in our own day assumed gigantic dimen- sions. From stage and from pulpit, in novels and in scientific works, in the periodical press and even in the daily papers, a lively discussion is in progress which testifies to the deep-seated vital in- terest in this aspect of human conduct. 44 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI Unfortunately, the utterances heard on both sides are more frequently the crude offspring of prejudice, intolerance and hypocrisy, than the expression of sound thinking and feeling. Despite the wide- spread conquests made by the evolution- ary philosophy, we are assailed on all sides by opinions which proceed from the naivest assumptions. People seem to have an unwavering faith in the efficiency of logical argumentation. They believe it is only necessary to demonstrate the correctness of their own attitude in order to shape the conduct of their opponents accordingly. This confidence in reason- ing is exhibited by the ignorant in com- mon with the cultured, tho surely the lat- ter, ought to realize that it is not by ab- stract ideas, but by sentiments, feeling, emotion, that human conduct is governed everywhere and eminently so within the sphere of sex relations. "It is never the knowledge which is the moving agent in 45 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI conduct, but it is always the feeling which goes along with that knowledge or is ex- cited by it" (Spencer). Despite innumerable experiences show- ing how people habitually act at variance with their knowledge as long as it remains a dead letter, we read and hear continually that extension of knowledge is the only means of insuring rational thinking and ethical behavior. Now, were opinions and convictions actually based solely on logical evidence, how would it be possible for men possess- ing vast knowledge to profess beliefs so radically different and even mutually de- structive? Having access to the same sources of information, and endowed with a trained intellect, they, nevertheless, ar- rive at widely divergent conclusions. With the same data before them, Prof. Lowell argues that Mars is inhabited, while the venerable Wallace demonstrates that only the earth can support life. 46 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI Pointing to the same economic facts, the republican politician advocates protective tariffs, while his democratic rival pleads for free trade. The same evils of civiliza- tion that make the anarchist denounce all authority, call forth the socialist's demand for more government. In all these and similar instances, it is the bias of heredity and education and environment that determines the attitude. When men go to war and spill their blood in the struggle over a principle, a mere theoretical disagreement is never the mov- ing power behind them; if lives are to be sacrificed, the profoundest sympathies must be enlisted in the cause. The same truth becomes apparent on contemplating certain other familiar occurrences. Take an orator, for example, who pleads dili- gently and marshals abundant evidence, yet somehow leaves us cold, while another, without any display of erudition, succeeds in carrying his audience away by the sheer 47 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI force of his aplomb. The former ad- dresses himself to our intellect; the latter chooses the shorter route leading thru the emotions and wins. Invariably the ap- peal to feeling is more effective than the appeal to reason, as illustrated by the daily spectacle of eloquence overruling evidence in the courtroom and on the political platform. This statement applies with additional force to the arguments that fly so thick in the controversy waged around the sex problem, for here, especially, is opinion and behavior based on powerful emotions and sentiments, the products of heredity, education, race and creed. Hence to dis- pute is merely to emphasize the hopeless incompatibility. As Spencer remarks, "in respect of private life the problems presented are so complex and so variable, that nothing like definite solutions of them can be reached by any intellectual pro- cesses, however methodic and however 48 SEX MORALITY -JACOBI careful. They can be completely solved only by the organic adjustment of con- stitution to condition." There is too much faith in regulating conduct by pre- cepts. Our beliefs are not founded on conclusions built up from premises, and only when they are challenged do we fall back upon the resources of logic to sup- port them. Even were it possible to alter settled opinions by debating, we would still be far from influencing conduct. The gulf between preaching and practice cannot be bridged over in this way. Consistency in people's lives is proverbially rare, and per- haps this is for the best, since social stabil- ity might be endangered if all were to act in accordance with their half-baked convic- tions. How far afield consistency in sex- ual conduct practiced on a large scale may lead, can be gathered from a phenomenon which took place in Russia a few years ago, when the young students of both sexes in 49 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI colleges and universities, indignantly re- jecting the unjust double standard of mo- rality, decided to live up to their ideas. Accordingly, they organized so-called Leagues of Free Love and surrendered themselves to promiscuous relations. The consequences made their appearance very promptly, tho not in the form expected by the votaries. Instead of dealing a death- blow to conventional morals, the reform- ers were stricken down by venereal dis- eases, which spread among them like an epidemic, and this, together with numerous pregnancies in the young girls, necessi- tated the closing of several colleges. The whole case illustrates clearly, how un- looked for effects usurp the place of ex- pected results, and this knowledge ought to give us pause before we proceed to shape our conduct in conformity with hasty generalizations. The foregoing seemingly irrelevant in- troduction will have served a useful pur- 50 SEX MORALITY -JACOBI pose if it succeeds in impressing upon the reader that discussions of ethical matters have less value as guides to behavior than is ordinarily assumed. They are interest- ing and noteworthy chiefly as a barometer of the times, indicating the drift of prog- ress, which emanates from far deeper sources than human reason. ii The current debates about sexual mat- ters are devoted mainly to the so-called double standard of sex morality, and to the future form of the family. Are men to continue their enjoyment of freedom while chastity is strictly demanded by women, and is our present monogamic family destined to be permanent? These are the questions most anxiously asked. Concerning the double standard, we must admit right at the outset that it was not the product of an impartial recogni- 51 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI tion of natural sex distinctions, but arose and continued to exist as one of the many concomitants of man's original physical supremacy over woman. Its present ad- vocates have no difficulty in advancing spurious reasons for its continuation, rea- sons which were threshed out and found wanting innumerable times. To tell the simple truth, these advocates have their emotions and feelings enlisted in behalf of the double standard thru heredity and up-bringing, and seek to support it by grasping at any accessible argument. The history of morals shows repeatedly, how people have never been at a loss to find apparently plausible reasons for the most iniquitous customs and institutions. The wholesale burning alive of heretics was eloquently defended several centuries ago, when pious Christian ladies witnessed auto-da-fes, and looked on complacently at the roasting unbelievers. The early Christian ancestors of these ladies, a 52 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI thousand years or more further back, were customarily tied to the branches of trees and set on fire, in order to entertain Roman ladies with nocturnal illumina- tions-a spectacle immortalized in Semi- radski's famous painting. The fanatic religious and political zeal of those times stifled the sympathetic emotions and found vent in torture and martyrdom, while defenders of faith were ready with a storehouse of argumentative ammuni- tion to justify inhuman cruelties ad majorem Dei gloriam, Nor was it otherwise with the unjust treatment of women in past ages. It had to be justified post factum, and a most original defence was accordingly un- earthed. "In ancient Greece," relates Lecky, "the inferiority of women to men was strongly asserted, and it was illus- trated and defended by a very curious physiological notion, that the generative power belonged exclusively to men, 53 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI women having only a very subordinate part in the production of their children. Aeschylus has put this notion into the mouth of Apollo in a speech in the Eu- menides. It has, however, been very widely diffused, and may be found in In- dian, Greek, Roman and even Christian writers. St. Thomas Aquinas accepted it and argued from it that a father should be more loved than a mother." This monstrous invention has been par- alleled in modern times by some of the arguments advanced in opposition to woman's emancipation. The reluctance, conscious or subconscious, to admit the role played by brute force in the subjec- tion of women is the true source of these interesting inspirations. Fortunately the truth cannot be suppressed forever, and impartial scientists have shown conclu- sively that the dual standard did not em- anate from the head, but originated in the fist. So cautious a moralist as Lecky ex- 54 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI presses himself as follows: "The contrast between the levity with which the frailty of men has in most ages been regarded, and the extreme severity with which women who have been guilty of the same offense have been treated, forms one of the most singular anomalies in moral his- tory, and appears the more remarkable when we remember that the temptation usually springs from the sex which is so readily pardoned. . . . Much of our feeling on these subjects is due to laws and moral systems which were formed by men, and were in the first instance intended for their own protection." In his recent work on "Divorce," Prof. Lichtenberger writes in a similar vein: "The social in- feriority of women in all ages is largely responsible for the rise and persistence of the dual standard." These words may be said to represent correctly the con- sensus of scientific opinion on the subject. Among writers of fiction we find so 55 SEX MORALITY -JACOBI deep a thinker as George Meredith tak- ing the same view. He considers the dis- crimination against women in matters of sex by men who claim for themselves un- restricted liberties, as part of the Grand Turk ideal of woman. In "Diana of the Crossways," he puts these words in the mouth of the heroine: "Men may have rounded Seraglio Point. They have not yet doubled Cape Turk." Indeed, were the denial of equitable treatment to women not rooted deeply in primitive emotions, it could scarcely have withstood the repeated assaults made upon it during the past two thousand years or more. Even at a time when the most flagrant corruption reigned in Rome, the moralists emphatically asserted that fidelity in wedlock should be exacted from husband as well as wife. Such was not the case in earlier Roman days, when only the wife was legally punished for infrac- tions of the nuptial tie. In fact, it ap- 56 SEX MORALITY -JACOBI pears to have been the rule in all early societies to saddle the penalty for adultery upon the woman, leaving the man un- molested. Occasionally, we do meet with a reversal of this standard, as among cer- tain Hill-tribes of India, which condone infidelity on the part of the wife, while it is held to be highly dishonorable on the part of the husband. However, such anomalies are extremely rare, the female transgressor being quite uniformly singled out for obloquy and punishment. The faithless wife may be given a sound beat- ing, or her body may be mutilated, or she may even be put to death in various pre- scribed ways. This crying injustice of making the woman a scapegoat survived the united attacks of Greek and Roman writers. Aristotle, Plutarch, Seneca, and Plautus vainly exhorted the husbands to observe in marriage the loyalty they demanded from their wives. In subsequent ages, 57 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI the Christian Fathers continued to ha- rangue the cruel laws which penalized dis- loyal wives but not truant husbands. The total failure of this prolonged moral cru- sade might well astonish those who put their faith in preaching. "At the present day," complains Lecky, "tho the standard of morals is far higher than in Pagan Rome, it may be questioned whether the inequality of the censure which is be- stowed upon the two sexes is not as great as in the days of Paganism, and that in- equality is continually the cause of the most shameful and the most pitiable in- justice. The fundamental truth, that the same act can never be at once venial for a man to demand, and infamous for a woman to accord, tho nobly enforced by the early Christians, has not passed into the popular sentiment of Christendom." After centuries of moralizing, we have failed to improve much upon the semi- civilized past, and if our only hope of 58 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI amelioration depended on preaching and exhortation, progress might be delayed for centuries longer. Fortunately, the outlook is not so gloomy, as we shall pres- ently see. The passages quoted deal mainly with the unfair treatment of the married woman. So little having been achieved in dislodging the evil from the marriage bond, where its iniquity is so potent that the laws and moral injunctions of civilized peoples condemn it almost unanimously, how much can a campaign of arguments and precepts avail against the same in- justice in the sexual life of the unmarried? Need we feel surprise at the current rigid and ruthless discrimination visited upon the unmarried woman? This attitude has become so habitual that it is frequently declared to be innate, or due to a natural instinctive feeling which carries its own justification. Nothing could be more fallacious. 59 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI Even a cursory glance at the customs of various nations and races ought to expose the untenability of this bold assertion. To pick out only a few salient examples from an overwhelming mass of material, we may cite peoples among whom chastity is required of the single man, while the girls are completely unrestrained in their sexual life. Some tribes do not exact fidelity even from the married woman. So little value is placed on chastity by many tribes, that to offer a wife or daugh- ter to a visitor for the night is a sacred duty of hospitality, and to decline the favor is to give mortal offense. Thus we are told of the Asiatic Chukchis: "They offer to travelers who chance to visit them, their wives, and also what we should call their daughters' honor, and resent as a deadly affront any refusal of such offers" (Erman). The Indian Chinooks lend their wives and daughters for a fish-hook or a strand of beads, and to decline the offer 60 SEX MORALITY -JACOBI is to offend the lady and insult the whole tribe. The Bushman, husband often ac- cords his wife permission to cohabit with a stranger, and the Greenland Esquimaux call a man noble and good tempered if he lends his wife to his friends. They also consider it a mark of great friendship for two men to exchange wives temporarily; and the Chippewayans, who have the same custom, esteem such an exchange as one of the strongest ties of affection between two families. While these savages attach so little im- portance to the purity of their women, others go a step further and consider chastity in the bride a downright disgrace, being evidence of her unpopularity with men. The Chibchas "think their virgin brides unfortunate and without luck, as they had not inspired affection in men: accordingly, they dislike them as miser- able women." Frequently, absolute freedom before 61 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI marriage is found co-existent with great strictness afterward. The same Chibcha husband who is grieved because his bride is a virgin, becomes very sensitive to in- fidelity in his married life. Among the Koniagas, a single woman is unrestricted in her sexual relations with men, but once married, she must be faithful to her hus- band; and the same is reported about many other tribes. An interesting compromise between complete liberty and rigid fidelity has been struck by certain Arabs, among whom marriage is for a part of the week, usually four days (if the bride's mother is an able bargainer, she may succeed in making this interval only two days); the remaining time belongs to the wife, who is free to indulge in amorous adventures, and it is even said that her husband feels flattered if she has many intrigues on her off days. The same significance as a transitional stage may be attached to a 62 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI rather common custom in various coun- tries of permitting complete sexual liberty to men and women on certain yearly fes- tivals, tho strict chastity is enforced at all other times. Lest it be retorted that such standards are inconceivable in a civilized nation, we may here refer to the Japanese. So free are they from our squeamishness, that obedience and self-abnegation are rated above chastity in their hierarchy of vir- tues. In one of their most popular his- toric dramas, the heroine voluntarily sells herself to the proprietor of a brothel in order to retrieve her family's fortunes. Such episodes used to be quite common- place, and the custom of selling daughters for a specified period is alleged to be far from extinct even to-day. No disgrace attaches to the girl, who returns to her family afterwards; on the contrary, she is honored for her filial sacrifice. Equally familiar is the Japanese institution of 63 SEX MORALITY -JACOBI temporary marriages. It is quite custom- ary for Europeans who visit Japan to marry native girls for a short period, and dissolve the union on leaving the country. A Russian writer tells the true story of an army officer who contracted such a marriage with a young and beautiful girl of good family. He was so enchanted with his fair consort that he resolved to make the union permanent. Urgent du- ties called him away for a few months, and he spent the interval in dreaming of their future bliss. On his return, a most affectionate meeting takes place. In the midst of tender caresses the delighted hus- band notices a young man packing his effects and preparing to leave. "Who is that?" he inquires. "Oh, don't mind him," replies the smiling wife. "He has to go now. I admitted him only on con- dition that he depart at once when you come back." This ingenuous confession breaks the officer's heart, and he deserts 64 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI the dearly-loved woman. She, too, is grief-stricken, yet totally incapable of understanding his indignation. "Had you only told me it would hurt your feel- ings," she exclaims sorrowfully before the final parting. Strongly contrasting with these people are others, equally numerous, among whom chastity is valued very highly. Many primitive tribes cherish jealously the virtue of their women. The Mandan maidens are described as beautiful and un- approachable; the wayward Chippewa lass can never hope to marry a warrior; the Kaffir girl is chaste and modest; the Sumatran single woman guards her honor like a Vestal. These are statements of travelers and explorers, but even making due allowance for exaggeration, the truth stands out clearly, that among existing peoples, primitive and cultured, all de- grees of sentiment in regard to female purity may be found manifested, from the 65 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI one extreme of declaring it a disgrace, to the opposite extreme of giving it preced- ence over all other virtues, and making it an indispensable condition of moral ex- cellence. Neither does the evidence warrant the contention sometimes heard that regard for chastity rises pari passu with civiliza- tion. "Some peoples who are in other respects among the lowest, are in this re- spect among the highest," says Spencer in his analysis of the subject, and this may also be gathered from the examples just cited. ! Our main purpose in giving these illus- trations has been to dispose effectually of the stubborn fallacy which declares our modern conventional conceptions of sex morality to be innate. Sentiments show- ing such a bewildering lack of uniformity in the different varieties of the human species, cannot be called innate without doing violence to the term. 66 SEX MORALITY -JACOBI Leaving aside these and similar at- tempts to bolster up our unfair system with false assertions, let us now submit the system itself to a critical examina- tion. Our so-called double standard or- dajns that woman should abstain from all sexual intercourse outside of wedlock, and practice intercourse exclusively with one man in wedlock. Now, if all women should actually conform to this demand, realizing it absolutely, it follows that no man would be able to indulge in sexual connections outside of wedlock, for sheer lack of a female partner. This conclu- sion is no mere sophism. It cannot pos- sibly be evaded. To say that single men are free to indulge in sexual intercourse, while women, both single and married, must guard their purity, is to commit one's self to a reductio ad dbsurdum! Given a community of unapproachably chaste women, according to the ideal set up by our "moral law," and where is the 67 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI single man to find a companion for his extra-marital intrigues? Manifestly, uni- versal female chastity would entail univer- sal male chastity. Thus our double standard, which has resulted in such contradictory and mutu- ally destructive demands upon the female sex, turns out on closer scrutiny to be a miserable paradox. There is only one way leading out of this logical labyrinth-namely, to set aside a class of women and exempt them from the requirement of purity. They will supply a channel for drawing off the uncontrollable excess of sexual passion in men, and thus allow the balance of woman- kind to preserve their "honor." Such a compromise does exist in reality, and our prostitute is the representative of this scapegoat-class. "Herself the supreme type of vice," says Lecky in a familiar eloquent passage, "she is ultimately the efficient guardian of virtue. But for her 68 SEX MORALITY -JACOBI the unchallenged purity of countless happy homes would be polluted. On that one ignoble and degraded form are con- centrated the passions that might have filled the world with shame." Only at such an expense, with the aid of such an expedient, can the monstrous, self-contradictory double standard be maintained at all. Without this subter- fuge it must inevitably collapse. All women cannot remain chaste unless all men remain chaste. This proposition is an unassailable logical stronghold. A lapse from purity on the part of any man implies a like lapse on the part of some woman. The sexes are thus seen to stand and fall together. Prostitution is the ransom we are paying for our iniquitous sex morality. It is the modern Minotaur, grown to gigantic dimensions like all things modern, devouring his annual tribute of thousands of our maidens. 69 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI Ill Turn we now from the barbarian Past and the semi-civilized Present to con- template the promise of the Future. Is the current moral system destined to en- dure forever? Are we doomed to live perpetually in the shadow of the dual standard, with the canker of prostitution as its safety valve, or may we take heart in looking forward to an approaching order that will no longer do violence to our sense of equity, our sympathies and our reason? Is Theseus coming to de- liver us from the Minotaur? Are new social forms to arise and supplant the de- caying ones, as Evolution carries the race onward along its predetermined course? Before these anxious queries could be answered in detail, an inventory would have to be taken of the multitudinous causes now in action thruout society, and their distant effects precisely calculated. The knowledge thus obtained would lift 70 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI the veil concealing the future, and allow our mind's eye to dwell on a vision of things lying unborn in the womb of Time. To cope with such an undertaking, our limited faculty is utterly inadequate. Nowhere else is causation so complex and so elusive as in the phenomena constitut- ing social science. Even the immediate effects of present causes can be outlined dimly and with great difficulty; the remote effects are beyond computation. This ob- stacle, however, does not deter our self- styled prophets. Seizing some factor now prominent in its influence, they pro- ceed to construct a definite future upon the basis of its present action, as if any cause will go on producing its effects for all time, without being crossed and re- crossed by thousands of other causes work- ing out their thousands of effects. It is assumed that one thing will change while others will remain unchanged. Detailed prophecy is not attainable in 71 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI social phenomena. All we can attempt is to point out the more conspicuous forces and their probable immediate results, since ultimate results are beyond the scope of human vision. In this cautious spirit of qualified prediction, we may venture to indicate a few potent agencies at present active in working serious changes in our social order, and incidentally playing havoc with our conventional sex morality. Foremost among these agencies stands the emancipation of women. Two gen- erations have witnessed the elevation of woman from a subordinate position to a station of approximate equality with man. In our day, when all occupations and pro- fessions have been thrown open to women, and their complete conquest of suffrage rights is only a question of years, it is difficult to realize that a few decades ago it was considered highly improper for a woman to engage in any activity which took her outside of the narrow confines of 72 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI the home. The fetich of "womanliness" banished the entire sex from the broad field of business, from the calling of law and of medicine, from the stage, and even from art and literature. All these, to- gether with war and politics, belonged to man's exclusive domain, while woman's time and interests were to be partitioned mainly between the kitchen and the nurs- ery. The bearing and rearing of children was her duty to the race, and ample com- pensation for sacrificing her own individu- ality. She was considered a mere child- bearing apparatus, as Bebel says. And now, the daughters and grand- daughters of those household drudges have broken the spell of centuries, and are invading the trades, professions, arts and sciences, and forcing man, their late mas- ter, into an attitude of self-defence. Like a deposed sovereign, he is slowly awaken- ing to the bleak realization of forfeited power. His vassals, so meekly submis- 73 SEX MORALITY -JACOBI sive but yesterday, laugh at his commands in open defiance. But the habits of cen- turies are not easily outgrown, and he will need much time to adjust himself to the new conditions. Human ideas and sentiments do not change as rapidly as circumstances, and hence woman, no less than man, is but slowly adapting her con- duct to the novel acquisition of freedom. Hence, too, occasional inevitable excres- cences in her behavior. Eventually, this process of readjust- ment, habitually repressing man's old pre- tensions, and simultaneously encouraging woman's new aspirations, must bring about an approximate equalization of rights and privileges, including those con- cerned with sex relations. Meanwhile, we shall continue to witness the numerous compromises between old and new ethical forms so characteristic of all transitional stages. Another important modern factor, 74 SEX MORALITY -JACOBI which must prove instrumental in modify- ing our sex morality, is the practice of arti- ficially regulating conception. Whatever ideas one may entertain upon the ethical aspects of this question, no one can deny the increasingly frequent resort to proph- ylaxis of conception (as it may fitly be designated, the Greek term meaning "guarding against" or "warding off"). We are here concerned solely with the in- direct bearing of this custom (for such it is rapidly becoming) upon the general status of sex relations. By conferring upon woman immunity from the most dreaded sequel of illicit indulgence, proph- ylaxis of conception undoubtedly tends to equalize the conduct of both sexes when confronted by temptation. It also deals a weighty blow to a time-worn defence of the double standard, namely, that argu- ment that while a mother naturally knows the child to be her own, a husband can never be sure of his paternity, unless he 75 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI has implicit faith in his wife. This con- tention has very recently been touched upon in a successful play ("As a Man Thinks").1 It is seriously to be feared, however, that further improvement and extension of prophylactic measures di- rected against unwelcome conception, will consign this favorite argument of reac- tionaries to the museum of ancient armor. And conception is being more and more frequently regulated in all civilized coun- tries. Even the triple alliance of clergy, emperor and ex-president will not intimi- date women into child-bearing under un- favorable economic and other conditions. But, of course, those who believe in gov- erning conduct by preaching, will continue to preach. The third great factor promising to play a star role in revolutionizing our notions of sex morality, is the modern i And is the subject of Strindberg's powerful and grewsome tragedy, "Father."-W. J. R. 76 SEX MORALITY -JACOBI movement of industrial reform. The coming abolition of present glaring eco- nomic inequalities will be accompanied by a decay of our system of prostitution. All are agreed that the driving power be- hind women who join the ranks of prosti- tutes is "the most extreme poverty" (Lecky). With the extinction of wage- slavery, the supply of recruits to the army of white slaves must largely cease, and in the absence of prostitution, as we have seen, our double standard loses its main support. Simultaneously, the removal of economic stress, while facilitating mar- riage in general, will in particular en- courage early marriages, and thus greatly shorten the stormy period lying between puberty and wedlock, which is prolonged beyond all wholesome limits at present, and in which so much sexual aberration falls. Such are the three principal agencies to be reckoned with in forecasting the fu- 77 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI ture status of sex morality. Slowly work- ing out their effects, they promise to achieve what the repeated onslaughts of past centuries have been powerless to ac- complish. The impregnable fortress, hav- ing weathered the hurricanes and batter- ing rams of ages, is nearing the day of its downfall. Where the crude and spec- tacular assaults failed, the invisible disin- tegrating forces of the soil succeeded. They have undermined and honeycombed the foundation rock, and at last the un- yielding superstructure is doomed. The fall of the current incongruous sys- tem of sex morality is assured. Equaliza- tion of privileges accorded to the sexes has already set in and must continue, but whether it will work upward by expanding woman's sphere of liberty, or downward by limiting man's freedom, is by no means plainly apparent. That the coming order will not be founded on gross injustice and sex-favoritism, may be safely predicted, 78 SEX MORALITY -JACOBI but greater detail of prophecy is hazard- ous, causation being here too complex for computation. From the general laws of evolution it may be inferred that the ulti- mate form of sex relations will not be reached by a sudden metamorphosis, but by gradual approximations and compro- mises and occasional backslidings, in obedi- ence to the law of rhythm manifest thruout all phenomena. Action is ever followed by reaction. After centuries of extreme discrimination against women in matters of individual liberty, we are now witness- ing the return swing of the pendulum, which threatens to carry us to the opposite extreme of unlimited license. From this point of view we can under- stand the large quantity of radical senti- ment on sexual matters displayed in the life and literature of our time. The re- volt against the relentless sentence passed upon the woman who violated the "moral law," has carried away the headlong pro- 79 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI gressives to the opposite side. Give the girl full liberty to love, they say. Mother- hood is the highest function of woman and should not be made dependent on acci- dental circumstances favoring or imped- ing marriage. Single or wedded, the young human female must fulfil her lofti- est duty to the race by bearing children. In England, George Bernard Shaw is the brilliant exponent of this idea. In his "pleasant play" called "Getting Mar- ried," he pleads for the right of free motherhood. Many old maids would make excellent mothers, he says, and it is a pity to let them waste fine opportuni- ties. Husband or no husband, they should not be restrained from realizing nature's purpose. "What we must fight for," he exclaims, "is freedom to breed the race without being hampered by the mass of irrelevant conditions implied in the in- stitution of marriage. What we need is freedom for people who have never seen 80 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI each other and never intend to see each other again, to produce children under cer- tain definite public conditions without loss of honor." Lyman Abbott comments upon this outburst as follows: "The fact that Shaw gives this message to the twentieth century and the twentieth cen- tury listens to it, is not without signifi- cance." In France, Maxime Formant, in a novel called "The Sower," capitalizes this "right to free motherhood" for the purpose of fiction. In his preface he remarks that modern philosophers have recognized the right to every normal instinct to be satis- fied and goes on to say: "But so far we do not find any question as to the rights of motherhood regarded as a thing which is desirable in itself. It seems to be con- sidered lawful for a woman to love apart from marriage, but no one has yet given a thought to the woman who, aspiring only to motherhood, is compelled by cir- 81 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI cumstances to seek it apart from wedlock. Without wishing to set up the hierarchy of our instincts, may we not say that the particular one which provides for the con- tinuation of the species is quite as lawful and primordial as that which ministers to the satisfaction of the individual?" The story itself deals with a girl who has been brought up to recognize that maternity is the highest aim of woman, no matter how she comes by the child. Accord- ingly, having failed to get a husband in the conventional way, she sets out from home in search of a father for her future child, and, needless to say, has no difficulty in soon finding him. Other writers, while stopping short of advocating free motherhood, make a strong appeal for greater leniency towards the girl who has "sinned" or has become a mother. Thomas Hardy, especially, is fond of delving deeply into the psychology of 82 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI man's retrospective jealousy, and in "A Pair of Blue Eyes" he graphically depicts the pathetic tragedy precipitated by the protagonist's irrational attitude towards a girl's previous escapade. Misunder- standing her stammering confession, he leaps at the wildest conclusions and spurns the girl he loves. Her affection and his own cannot stem the flood of his right- eous indignation. He will not bestow his heart upon a woman who has committed a faux pas, and turns a stony ear to all her entreaties. The truth is revealed when it is too late for reparation. In his other novels, Hardy returns to this motif, and again shows the sad consequence of man's implacably unforgiving behavior on learning a woman's past. More directly than Hardy, George Meredith pleads in nearly all his novels for more toleration and equity on the part of the male sex. His treatment of this theme is characterized as follows by W. 83 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI C. Brownell ("Victorian Prose Mas- ters") : "With Meredith all this is changed by endowing women writh an or- ganization morally equivalent-and per- haps one may even say ethically identical -with that of men. He considers their responsibility the same, and as a conse- quence, neither enjoys, in virtue of any singularity of native constitution, an im- munity denied to the other. They are played upon by an equally wide range of conflicting emotions, desires, temptations. When they succumb, they fall no lower, having suffered no perversion of their higher nature. 'Diana' is the book in which his ideal of the equivalence-as dis- tinguished from the mere interdependence -of the sexes is most explicitly exposed, tho everywhere in his novels one finds evi- dence of it, and, as an important deduc- tion in detail from this general proposi- tion, the according to women of a senti- mental freedom corresponding to the 84 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI grosser liberty condoned in men. Mere- dith seems to say: What is this bloom of innocence you prize so highly and possess so little of? Merely the desideratum of a crude, not to say savage instinct of the masterful male. Evolution will inevi- tably dispose of it in due season, and meantime it would be the part of wisdom in you to wince less and be worthier." In "Rhoda Fleming" Meredith arraigns our double standard as follows: "All these false sensations, peculiar to men, concern- ing the soiled purity of woman, the lost innocence, the brand of shame upon her, are commonly the foul sentimentalism of such as can be too eager in the chase of corruption when occasion suits, and are another side of pruriency, not absolutely foreign to the best of us." In Russia, some three years ago, a prominent writer, Artsibasheff, entered the lists in the struggle against conven- tional morality with a highly sensational 85 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI novel called "Sanin," which gave rise to endless discussions and precipitated a veri- table deluge of polemical literature. Tho strongly condemned in some quarters, and received with puzzled head-shakings in others, the book made a profound and last- ing impression, and has been translated into several European languages. It is a powerfully written story, interspersed with many and well-aimed thrusts at our vicious sex-conventions.2 Retrospective jealousy toward a woman's previous ex- perience in love comes in for an especially merciless excoriation, seldom paralleled in its brutally cynical frankness, which fur- nishes an interesting foil to Hardy's dis- passionate treatment of the same theme. In this altogether remarkable novel, the author, using his hero as a mouth-piece, advocates a substitute for the free mother- hood of Shaw-namely the expedient of 2 A review of Sanin by the Editor appeared in The Critic and Guide for October 1909.-W. J. R. 86 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI abortion. This act he does not consider criminal and equivalent to murder, but calls it simply an interruption of a "chem- ical reaction," provided it is resorted to promptly enough. The general view he takes of female chastity must be charac- terized as cynical, tho purporting to be merely rational. Unrestrained sexual gratification is painted in such glowing colors that hundreds of young readers had their heads turned, and throwing all conventions aside, gave themselves up to veritable orgies. Young people of both sexes indulged in unrestrained promiscu- ity, until brought back to their senses by the ravages of venereal diseases-and pregnancy. In Scandinavia, the problem of chastity in its relation to the unmarried man forms the subject matter of Bjornson's masterly story called "The Glove," while Ellen Key, the well-known Swedish radical and reformer, discusses sex matters in her 87 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI book on "Love and Marriage." She preaches freedom of love and freedom of divorce. She warns, however, against confounding her freedom of love with so called free love, which is often understood to mean complete license. These few examples, culled from repre- sentative writers, will suffice to indicate the drift of liberal modern opinion on the subject of our dual standard. Bitterly opposed to these progressive ideas are the conservative writers and speakers, who cling tenaciously to the current code of ethics. Both parties lay claim to the truth, each freely denouncing the other as an enemy of society. This alignment of forces on opposite sides appears to be an essential condition of progress. The sharp division into rival camps meets us everywhere-in politics, in science, in art, even in daily comment upon trivial topics. The party of reform and the party of re- sistance are both necessary for moderate 88 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI advancement. To adapt a metaphor from Meredith, one is the stream, the other the dam. Without the one, complete stag- nation would supervene; without the other, headlong changes might disrupt society. The combined effect of both, ex- erting themselves in contrary directions, is a normal rate of rhythmic forward movement. Such being the mechanism of social evolution, the contending factions men- tioned above may be trusted to work out gradually the coming sex morality. In the meantime, it is the course of wisdom not to interfere with progress by limiting freedom of speech. In the words of Her- bert Spencer, "there may be danger in as- suming too confidently that our opinions concerning the relations of the sexes are just what they should be. In all times and places, people have been positive that their ideas and feelings on these matters have been right; and yet, assuming that 89 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI we are right, they must have been wrong. Restraints on free speech concerning the relations of the sexes may possibly be hindrances to something better or higher." It remains for us to consider the future form of the family, and this will be done in the following section. IV When studying the rhythmic course of ethical development, we are frequently in danger of misinterpreting a temporary phase of retrogression for a permanent change. To this error must be ascribed the position taken by many modern writ- ers in regard to the monogamic form of marriage. Observing its present short- comings and the real increase in the di- vorce rate, they become needlessly alarmed, and rush to the conclusion that monogamy is a failure and must be super- seded by a different arrangement. Their inference is not upheld by those who have 90 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI devoted themselves to a deeper study of the subject. Let us hear a few repre- sentative voices. In his recent book on "Divorce," Prof. Lichtenberger says: "Present tendencies do not mean the disruption of the family. They reveal the struggles of adjustment antecedent to more wholesome conditions. With the increasing recognition of the civil-contract theory of marriage and the growing appreciation of individual rights, there is destined to come greater freedom of divorce. The probable immediate re- sult will be a further rise in the divorce rate. The net result of the modern move- ment will be to place marriage upon a bet- ter basis with larger guarantees of its per- manency. An appropriate equality of economic opportunity will overcome sex dependence, and an equal standard of morals will minimize sexual immorality. Theoretical monogamy will tend to be- come actual monogamy." 91 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI We are as yet remote from such an ideal. We are passing thru a transitional stage, and our marriage relation shares the imperfections of all our institutions. But the outlook upon the future is cal- culated to inspire courage and hopeful- ness. "There is abundant evidence," as- sures us Westermark (History of Human Marriage), "that marriage has, upon the whole, become more durable in proportion as the human race has risen to higher de- grees of cultivation, and that a certain amount of civilization is an essential con- dition of the formation of life-long unions." Speaking of ancient forms, Prof. How- ard (History of Matrimonial Institu- tions) says: "The complex phenomena of human sexual relations have been ex- amined in the light of scientific criticism. The result seems unmistakably to show that pairing has always been the typical form of human marriage. Early monog- 92 SEX MORALITY -JACOBI amy takes its rise beyond the borderland separating men from lower animals. At the dawn of human history, individual marriage prevails, tho the union is not al- ways lasting. In the later stages, various forms of polygamy make their appear- ance, tho monogamy as the type is never superseded." Modern monogamy, according to Lich- tenberger, is the only form which meets universal ethical sanction among the civil- ized nations of the earth. The utilitar- ian arguments in its favor are summed up by Lecky in three sentences: Nature, by making the number of males and females nearly equal, indicates it as natural. In no other form of marriage can the govern- ment of the family be so happily sus- tained. In no other does woman assume the position of the equal of man. These views are concurred in by numer- ous authoritative writers. Smyth calls life-long monogamy "the only relation 93 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI that can be thought of as meeting the full claims and obligations of personality." Spencer's resume deserves to be quoted at greater length: "The monogamic form of the sexual relation is manifestly the ultimate form; and any change to be antic- ipated must be in the direction of comple- tion and extension of it. Future evolu- tion may be expected to extend the mo- nogamic relation by extinguishing pro- miscuity, and by suppressing such crimes as bigamy and adultery. . . . With an increase of altruism must go a decrease of domestic dissension. Whence, simultan- eously a strengthening of the moral bond and a weakening of the forces tending to destroy it." In several ways future development may be expected to contribute to the solu- tion of our present perplexity concerning sexual conditions, and to the growing stability of the monogamic union. With advancing civilization there seems to go 94 SEX MORALITY -JACOBI pari passu a diminishing intensity of the sexual passion. A comparison of its un- controllable power in the lower races with its partial amenability to reason character- izing the higher, justifies this statement and the hope that with further progress will come a still greater weakening of this instinct, possibly down to the limit neces- sary for race preservation, which ought to be compatible with very low grades of sexuality. Another important concomi- tant of civilization is the steadily growing power of self-control, which also becomes apparent on contrasting the impulsive na- ture of the savage with the comparatively self-contained nature of the modern cul- tured man. Continued evolution may be trusted to produce a type of humanity ex- hibiting far greater subordination of the lower instincts to the higher faculties than is vouchsafed to us at present. The cooperation of these two factors, diminishing sexual passion and increasing 95 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI inhibition of the lower centers by the higher, must play a strong part in deter- mining conduct in the future. The Song of the Sirens will lose much of its fasci- nation, and bands of steel will hold Ulysses secured to the mast. The outcome of the conflict between duty and desire will be decided without long and anxious vacilla- tions. Here, too, we may fitly mention and condemn the artificial excitation of sexual activity so noticeable everywhere, and so often resorted to from motives of commer- cial greed. The immodest fashions in the dress of women, the lascivious exhibitions on the stage, the obscene art, the porno- graphic literature, the indulgence in al- cohol and in narcotics-all are calculated to arouse prematurely and stimulate con- tinually an instinct sufficiently assertive by nature, and in need of restraint rather than encouragement. It may not be leaning too far on the side of optimism to 96 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI predict that in the future a more rational mode of living will allow the procreative function to assume a lower habitual level of activity, and will eliminate many of its undesirable manifestations. In conclusion, the reader's attention is invited to dwell upon the moulding of sentiments in conformity with institutions exhibited by societies in all stages of de- velopment. Any particular social ar- rangement invariably generates in the course of time a body of harmonious feel- ings, which make it seem appropriate and rational. Nations practising a form of marriage widely different from our own, show the same fervor in its defence, and the same intolerance towards other forms. The polygamous peoples of the East ex- press amazement and loathing at the one- wife system, and sometimes indignantly refuse to believe in its existence. It is simply impossible, said an Arab sheik to a traveler, that in England a man can be 97 SEX MORALITY -JACOBI contented with one wife. In Africa, we are told by Reade, a wife insists that her husband marry again, and calls him a stingy fellow if he refuses. Livingstone relates that negro women were shocked on hearing that in Europe a man has only one wife, and said it was not respectable. It is even hardly necessary to go so far for examples, when in our own midst there exists a polygamous community, whose women do not feel any repugnance towards the system of plural wives, "On the contrary," says a recent writer, "I failed to find a single Mormon woman who did not strongly uphold polygamy and proclaim her regret at its discontinuance. One instance of this may serve as an ex- ample: two young girls who had been bosom friends from infancy, had planned as their life ideal that they should marry the same man." All these illustrations of sentiments adapted to circumstances justify the in- 98 SEX MORALITY -JACOBI ference, that among ourselves the contin- uance of monogamic marriage will go on strengthening the sentiments appropriate to it, and will in time create a feeling of extreme repugnance towards any violation of the nuptial tie. In the interim, we must be satisfied with crude approximations to this remote ideal. Compromise is the term which best characterizes our current morality. Com- promises are unavoidable in our transi- tional stage of civilization, and especially within the sphere of sex relations. That even in the far more stable mono- gamic relation of the distant future com- promises will obtain, may be gathered from the following passage: "It by no means follows," says Lecky, "that because the life-long union of one man and one woman should be the dominant type it should be the only one, or that the interests of society demand that all connections should be forced into the same die. Connections 99 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI which were confessedly only for a few years have always subsisted side by side with permanent marriages. In the im- mense variety of circumstances and char- acters, cases will always appear in which, on utilitarian grounds, extra-matrimonial connections might seem advisable." Such alliances are at present clandestine and therefore demoralizing. The urgent need of secrecy leads to deceit and crime and other reprehensible forms of conduct. Hence, sporadic attempts have been made to obtain public recognition for free unions under certain oppressive economic condi- tions which preclude wedlock. Possibly, future evolution will discover a means of reconciling permanent mar- riage with alliances of a less stable char- acter, by removing the stigma now attach- ing to them, and declaring them legiti- mate, tho reserving the highest ethical sanction for life-long monogamy. To sum up our ratiocinations before 100 SEX MORALITY - JACOBI leaving the subject, we may say that man- kind will in time relegate prostitution and adultery to the past, and marital relations will be entered upon without undue delay after puberty. Possibly we are not tres- passing far on forbidden ground by tak- ing one more step, and saying that the general advent of clean and early mar- riages will foreshadow an ultimate single standard of pre-matrimonial continence, equally binding for both sexes. 101 SEX MORALITY, PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE: OR Monogamy vs. Variety JAMES F. MORTON, JR. SEX MORALITY, PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OR. JACOBI'S article, in the main excellent and convincing, proba- bly contains as strong meat as the average reader will be able to digest. Those of us who have come to somewhat more positive conclusions of a radical na- ture, cannot complain of being too harshly treated. Like Dr. Jacobi, tho without his lurking bias in favor of institutional mo- nogamy, which, in spite of his efforts at strict neutrality, persists in peeping out here and there in his discussion, we abjure the role of the prophet. The possibilities of unforeseen adjustments in future stand- ards governing sex relations are innumer- able ; and an increasing modesty is sequent upon continued study of the subject. The concluding volume of Havelock Ellis's splendid series on "The Psychology of 105 SEX MORALITY - MORTON Sex" includes perhaps as satisfactory a summary of the views best warranted in the present state of research and thought on the subject, as is now extant; altho the existing tendency toward the acquisition of knowledge on the subject of sex, and the recasting of old theories and dogmas in the light of added discoveries, will doubtless throw much light on the yet ob- scure phases of the problem. Even in the present state of knowledge, it is possible to assert authoritatively that the axe has been laid to the root of the prevalent superstitions concerning sex. We are at last learning that this last stronghold of the exploded absolutist phi- losophy must give way to the universal principle of relativity of standards. In practically every other department of ethi- cal and social conduct, the lesson was learned long ago; but Spencer himself, the great exponent of relativity, lost sight completely of his own principle when 106 SEX MORALITY -MORTON treating of matrimonial institutionalism. Clear thinker tho he was, the obsession of his age was upon him; and it is the British bon bourgeois and not the scientific rea- soner who pronounces dogmatically in favor of the future dominance of an in- creasingly rigorous monogamy. Herein may be seen the fallacy of the attempt to crush the iconoclastic assailant of the monogamic ideal, by pointing out the fact that the majority of the leaders in scientific thought hold firmly to the con- ventional principle. It is on a par with the unfortunate citation of Gladstone as a profound thinker loyal to the orthodox religious creed. When Blackstone, great jurist as he was, rehearsed in abundant de- tail the amazing list of disabilities imposed on married women by the common law of England, and in all seriousness and good faith affirmed that the shackles of woman's enslavement were so many proofs of the good will of the common law 107 SEX MORALITY - MORTON toward her and of its zeal for her protec- tion, he presented himself as a permanent type of the masterly mind, which is yet incapable of escaping from a fixed rut of thought on certain issues assumed to have been once for all settled by a pre- ceding age. Unfortunately, however, such issues have a way of becoming again unsettled; and not Blackstone, Gladstone nor Spencer can stay the tide of investiga- tion. Without doubt, the double standard of sex ethics is hopelessly doomed. It was from the beginning rooted in injustice, and founded on male domination. It is the asserted will of the slave owner, and cannot stand in an age of growing recog- nition of equal rights. The only dispute is with reference to the nature of the re- adjustment which must follow the dis- appearance of this monstrosity of custom. Perpetual monogamy for both sexes, monogamy for most women coupled with 108 SEX MORALITY -MORTON the special ministration to men's sexual demands by a small percentage of women corresponding to the prostitute class of to-day, and free love under some aspect or under several aspects, probably sum up the entire range of choice for a society which is to be conceived as progressing, rather than retrograding; since institu- tional polygamy and polyandry, complex marriage and disorderly promiscuity may be dismissed as incapable of finding seri- ous advocates. The first proposition is of course the popular one. All who seek the applause of the conventional world vie with one another in the loudness of their declara- tions of adhesion to it. The pulpits are ex officio committed to it, regardless of any possible considerations to the con- trary. In most self styled "respectable" circles, no other view can even obtain a hearing; and the mere suggestion that any different proposition deserves even a 109 SEX MORALITY -MORTON decent investigation is met with hysterical shrieks of vituperation. The frantic howls and violent appeals to emotional prejudice, which assailed George Meredith and later Mrs. Elsie Parsons, for the mere hint that some form of trial mar- riage might prove worth considering under conceivable conditions, may be expected by any person who ventures to ask in all good faith for permission to test the in- nate sacredness of the commonly wor- shipped taboo. While it is, of course, possible that a perfect monogamy may become the domi- nant form of sexual life, it rests under suspicion, in view of the manner in which its champions proceed. An unquestion- ably good cause need not resort to hyster- ics, to persecution, to suppression of free speech, in order to maintain itself. It will rather demonstrate its superiority by clearcut reasoning, and welcome the freest experiments with rival plans, in order that 110 SEX MORALITY -MORTON its greater value may be made evident to all. If monogamy is to emerge the win- ner, it is certain that its victory must be preceded by a long period of infinitely greater tolerance than at present. As to the certainty of such triumph, however, no sufficient data have yet been presented. The three great changes dwelt on by Dr. Jacobi are assuredly not conclusive. The recognition of equality between the sexes is no guarantee that new fetters are to be put on the male, when the more nat- ural sequence would seem to be the re- moval of the shackles with which the fe- male has so long been bound. The intelli- gent control of conception certainly does not inevitably make for a more rigid monogamy. The industrial emancipation of woman, while sounding the death-note of commercialized prostitution, merely re- moves a spur to the acceptance of other- wise undesired relations. To support his personal inclination to the monogamic 111 SEX MORALITY - MORTON position, Dr. Jacobi rests mainly on the somewhat dubious supposition that sex passion tends to decrease pari passu with the advance of civilization, and on the as- surance that the race is developing self- control. Neither of these facts, if facts they may be held to be, has of itself a necessary bearing on the question of mon- ogamy. Restraint from excess does not necessarily involve exclusive devotion to one object. The refined epicure eats deli- cately, but enjoys a greater variety of viands than the undiscriminating glutton, to whom quantity is the prime considera- tion. There are men and women of varied loves, whose total of sexual indulgence is immeasurably less than that of many in- satiable married persons, whose extrava- gant excesses, tho confined to the "virtu- ous" marriage couch, would be tolerated in few brothels. As to the permanent existence of a pros- titute class, the thing is scarcely conceiv- 112 SEX MORALITY -MORTON able. The offensive vulgarity of a purely mercenary relation, while tolerated under existing circumstances as a miserable makeshift, must ultimately become incom- patible with a finer type of humanity. If it be true (which is subject to the gravest doubts) that man is instinctively polyga- mous, and that the vast majority of women are monogamous, the result may be the establishment of monogamy as the rule, tempered by the existence of a less special- ized class of women than the prostitutes of to-day, who will become willing part- ners of such men as attract them, while an ever increasing percentage of men may yield to the inevitable, and abandon all thoughts of extra-matrimonial relations. Such women, however, would not be looked on as outcasts, but would have a clearly recognized function in social life. This theory, however, is not one which commends itself as containing a large ele- ment of probability. 113 SEX MORALITY -MORTON It is unfortunate that Dr. Jacobi falls into the common error of confounding free love with promiscuity. The two con- ceptions are as opposite as the poles. The very essence of free love is discrimination, which promiscuity specifically denies. Nor does free love necessarily negative monogamy. On the contrary, a volun- tary and often lifelong monogamy is ex- tremely common in actual free love circles. The radical conception is neither mono- gamic nor anti-monogamic. It is simply voluntaristic. It denies the exemption of the department of sex from the universal principle that evolution results from vari- ation and experimentation. Whether the ultimate ideal shall consist for the average individual of a single love, several coordinate loves, a central love with several subordinate attractions or of all these, depending on the temperament of the particular person, it does not presume to say. Much can be said for each con- 114 SEX MORALITY -MORTON ception from a theoretic standpoint. What is important is not to discount the future, nor to compel the entire human race to stretch itself on a Procrustean bed of Mrs. Grundy's workmanship. The notion that all ideals save what may chance to be our own are vile, and that those who espouse and act according to them are de- graded, sinful or degenerate, must be abandoned. Unsanctioned sex relation- ship has never, merely because unsanc- tioned, involved real and necessary degen- eration for either participant. The men- tal attitude of one or both, surrounding circumstances or the expressed disapprov- al of others, especially when manifested by direct persecution, fully account for any real demoralization resulting. If we cannot take a large and calm view, which recognizes this fact, we shall never ap- proach a solution of the problem. The question of the general social con- sequences of this or that standard of sex 115 SEX MORALITY- MORTON relationship is purely one of fact, to be ascertained, like any other fact, by scien- tific methods, stripped of preconceptions, and based on the study of actual experi- ments under normal conditions. Just as among all persons of decent intelligence it is fully recognized that nature places no stigma on "illegitimacy," and that "bas- tardy" is no ground whatever for re- proach, so must the real student of sexual phenomena dismiss from his mind all thought of a necessary connection between extra-marital sex relationship and crimi- nality. Hysterical sentimentalists and bigoted religious dogmatists have too long as- sumed to speak with wholly unwarranted authority on the subject of sex, concern- ing which they are by all scientific prin- ciples the least qualified of all persons to speak at all. They must now give way to the scientific investigator and the quietly reasoning sociologist. 116 SEX MORALITY, PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE: OR Monogamy vs. Variety EDWIN C. WALKER SEX MORALITY PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OOCTOR JACOBI'S essay is so admirable in so many ways, is so frank and so candid and so in- formed by the scientific spirit, that at the outset the possible critic is denied the spur of outraged feelings; he may not draw from the "deeper sources," whose waves, we are assured, sweep over and swamp the frail craft of human reason. He must argue, he must use logic, he must "preach," if he is to reach the ear of the reason- ing and ethical human being. No doubt the greater part of the intellectual force he expends, as was the greater part of the intellectual force of millions before him, is ineffective in so far as tangible changes in human customs and institutions are concerned, and this for two reasons: On the one hand, the errors in the arguing 119 SEX MORALITY -WALKER and the preaching; and, on the other, the inability of most hearers and readers to comprehend a statement of scientific facts and a logical argument made. Neverthe- less, even as Dr. Jacobi, thinking men and women will continue to interpret non- human and human facts, will continue to argue for their interpretations, will con- tinue to advocate personal reforms and so- cial changes that seem to be in harmony with those interpretations-in short, will continue to reason the best they can, will strive to place wiser and better guiding hands on the levers of the on-rushing en- gine of human emotions. Because from the "deeper sources" is lifted the curious and unreasoning mob that blocks the street against the firemen is no reason why the disciplined and cool-headed police should not clear the street and establish the fire- lines-on the contrary, it is because of this very ebullience of the primitive emo- tions that the police must be there and 120 SEX MORALITY - WALKER must establish and maintain the fire-lines. Speaking of war, it is remarked that "if lives are sacrificed, the profoundest sympathies must be enlisted in the cause." The historical fact is that the hireling sol- dier and the conscripted soldier have ap- peared on the field even more often than has the fanatical volunteer, and neither hireling nor conscript was moved by sym- pathy for "the cause." With the hire- ling, it was a matter of cold calculation or the love of adventure; the conscript had no choice. Even Dr. Jacobi admits the part played by intellect, by teaching and precept, in creating or directing those very emotions and sentiments which he argues are domi- nant, particularly in the field of sex-ac- tion. Speaking of "the controversy waged around the sex-problem," he says, "here, especially, is opinion and behavior based on powerful emotions and senti- ments, the products of heredity, education, 121 SEX MORALITY - WALKER race, and creed." I italicize "products." Two of the four factors he names as hav- ing created present opinion and conduct in sex-life, viz., "education" and "creed," are of the domain of thought. If educa- tion and creeds (precepts, dicta), in the past have helped form the body of emo- tions and sentiments which to-day aid in shaping our opinions and modifying our actions in matters sexual, are we not en- couraged to hope and believe that the edu- cation which we in these later generations are imparting and the precepts that we are repeating will in turn have appreci- able effect in forming the body of emo- tions and sentiments of the future? I am sure that Dr. Jacobi so thinks, or he would not have taken the trouble to prepare this excellent paper. "To tell the simple truth," he says, "these advocates have their emotions enlisted in behalf of the double standard thru heredity and upbringing," thus again assigning to education ("up- 122 SEX MORALITY -WALKER bringing") a creative role, as regards emo- tions and feelings. So, also in the quota- tion from Lecky which he italicizes- "much of our feeling on these subjects is due to laws and moral systems which were formed by men." The cruel persecutions in all ages, some of which are instanced by Dr. Jacobi, and which sympathetic emotions were unable to prevent, were due to the acceptance of false premises or to illogical reasoning from sound premises, and hence prove not the weakness of reason, per se, as against emotion, but the strength of reason even when faulty in origin and process and di- rected to anti-social ends. In other words, beliefs not founded in fact and reasoning which was erroneous in premise or method or both perverted the normally kindly emotions of men and women or served as the tools of their cruel and vindictive creeds. When we speak of the inequitable treat- 123 SEX MORALITY- WALKER ment of women having its root in "primi- tive emotions," might it not be judicious to ask how primitive those emotions are supposed to be and whether the blame is not less to be laid at the door of primitive emotions than at the door of primitive reasoning, which was theological reason- ing? Did not the matriarchate antedate the patriarchate, and so may we not claim that, if emotion was the active factor in the about-face, the more primitive emo- tions were not so unfavorable to woman as were the later? Or, was it a change in feeling or a change in the mental out- look, primarily, the shift of the theologi- cal direction of worship, that chiefly was responsible for the later degradation of women? When Earth was the Mother, sex was cleanly worshipped and woman seems to have been equal with man or paramount to him. But when the Sun took the place of chief god and the male Christ successively ascended the throne in 124 SEX MORALITY -WALKER this or that land, the old order changed to the new and women descended in the scale of importance. Only in the Church of Rome does there linger an element of the old regime in the form of the Virgin, still worshipped as the mother of the male god. By so much only is Rome nearer to the period of the matriarchate than is Witten- berg or Geneva. The failure of the attack of the Greek and Roman writers and of the Christian Fathers upon the double standard, does not, as Dr. Jacobi thinks it should, "aston- ish those who put their faith (partly) in preaching." For two reasons: First, it has not been, at bottom, a fight between logic and emotion but between two forms of logic. On the one side were the teach- ings of a more primitive theology, im- pressed almost indelibly on the race in one of the most plastic stages of its existence and drilled into the children of the later ages in the most receptive period of their 125 SEX MORALITY- WALKER individual lives. On the other side were the secular teachings, the appeals for hu- man justice, made by a few exceptional men. Precisely so in the special domain of religion-the comparatively few Free- thinkers have had, and now have, to fight with the weapons of a better reasoning against all the inculcations of thousands of years, the parent-taught, church- taught, State-taught reiterated casuistries and dogmas that each generation has had and still has to learn. Second, the proponents of the single standard have been handicapped from the beginning of the race by the needless bur- den they took upon themselves. They essayed the impossible task of bringing all men into and holding them in the nar- row groove of monogamy. They tried) to bring all men down to the level of ab- negation and dwarfing to which all women had been condemned, by men and by women. The very opposite course is the 126 SEX MORALITY -WALKER one indicated to every thoughtful student of human nature who is sufficiently eman- cipated from the thraldom of ancient the- ology to search for facts without bias and to face them without flinching. The ad- vocates of a certain theory of sexual rela- tions have had, and have, so little faith in the soundness of their theory, so little faith in the strength of any system founded upon it, so little faith in its ability to win out over all rivals in the arena of a fair test, that they have done all they could, and still do all they can, to prevent the free evolution of the family, by penal- izing all divergent theories and practices, at the same time admitting that prostitu- tion and venereal diseases are gigantic evils with which they struggle hopelessly. "While these savages attach so little importance to the purity of their women," etc. In what does the "purity" of woman consist? With us, the word means con- formity to the standards we have set up 127 SEX MORALITY -WALKER for women. If the women of these tribes conformed to their standards, each one to that of her tribe, were they not "pure," measured by those standards? Then did not these savages attach just as much im- portance to the "purity" of their women as we do to that of ours? Did they not, do not the survivors now, punish depart- ures from their standards just as rigor- ously, to say the least, as we do depart- ures from ours? The truth is, we are try- ing to test their conceptions of purity by the conventional social acids with which we test our own. But when we rise above conventions and seek the essentials of sex- ual purity, we are sure to discover that very often our claims are as unfounded as many of theirs would be seen to be could they be brought to formulate them in the terms of our psychology. If we define "pure" sexual relations as the unbought, unsold, associations of a man and a woman who love each other-and how else could 128 SEX MORALITY -WALKER any rational, self-respecting, ethical man or women define them -we are shocked to realize how much sexual impurity there is in nominally monogamic lands; and so great a proportion of it sheltered under the sacred roof-trees of monogamic homes. Lecky's famous paragraph always has seemed to me very suggestive of implica- tions that he did not perceive. "On that one ignoble and degraded form (the pros- titute's) are concentrated the passions that might have filled the world with shame." But is not the world filled with shame as it is? Is not prostitution itself a shame and a reproach to civilization? And what shall we say of the homes it has not saved, of the homes into which from its altars have been carried the horrors of venereal disease, bringing the aftermath of wrecked and shamed wives and blinded children? Paraphrasing Lecky, the prostitute, "her- self the supreme type of vice," "is ulti- mately the efficient" excuse of the popular 129 SEX MORALITY -WALKER moralist in refusing to look the sexual problem squarely in the face. "Action is ever followed by reaction. After centuries of extreme discrimination against women in matters of individual liberty, we are now witnessing a return swing of the pendulum, which threatens to carry us to the opposite extreme of un- limited license," says Dr. Jacobi. But there are two reactions, and the one not named is the really retrogressive one. The reaction from the restriction of woman's liberty in the past to the restric- tion of man's liberty in the present and future is proceeding swiftly and widely in sentiment and far from negligibly in law. It is not at all strange that with few exceptions the most active workers in as- cetic "moral reforms," usually wrongly called moral and reforms, are middle-aged and old men and women, probably never overly strong in observation and ratiocin- ation, and who now have well-equipped 130 SEX MORALITY - WALKER forgetteries. What they do not wish or need now they are quite sure they never needed or wished, or, if they did wish it, the desire was an evidence of their then unregenerate state; and they are positive they are doing righteous work when they force all others, regardless of the wishes and needs of the others, to conform to the present standards of the atrophied cen- sors. In a new direction, in the misused name of science, they are blithely demand- ing the enactment of laws about the ulti- mate effects of which they are in total ig- norance, because, if for no other reason, there is such an entangled mass of causes that not even the most earnest and thoro student of science is prepared to hazard positive assertions, much less to take any but the most cautious and tentative steps in social experimentation. But the aged and forgetful panaceists rush heedlessly along, having little difficulty in finding legislators as ignorant and irresponsible as 131 SEX MORALITY -WALKER themselves to abet them in their reckless and irremediable tinkering. It is a mistake to say that "all are agreed that the driving power behind women who join the ranks of prostitutes is the most extreme poverty" if by that it is meant that poverty is the driving power behind all women who become prostitutes. The same temperament and lack of deli- cate sensibility and a high ethical standard that lead so many men to buy the counter- feit of love are operative in inducing many women to sell the counterfeit of love. This is proved beyond the possibility of successful dispute by the fact that in all historical ages, as now, very many women entered into loveless marriage relations, not, as some did, of course, for the bare necessities of a poor home, but that they might thereby enjoy the luxuries and so- cial position they could not otherwise ob- tain or otherwise obtain with so little labor. The psychology that leads some women to 132 SEX MORALITY- WALKER thus prostitute themselves within the mar- riage pale indubitably leads others to prostitute themselves without that pale. A not inconsiderable contingent is re- cruited among young girls who have made a "misstep" and against whom in conse- quence a besotted and cowardly public opinion has shut the door of hope. Others frankly go out from the light of social respectability because only out- side can they find freedom in the gratifica- tion of the imperious desires which they share with their brother men. Still others, inexperienced in and impa- tient of life they regard as "dull" and "prosy" or as too laborious, go to the un- derworld for the care-freeness, the gayety and frivolity, which they delude them- selves or have been deluded into thinking they will find there without countervail- ing vexations and sorrows. Some have descended to where they are 133 SEX MORALITY -WALKER because indulgence in alcoholic stimulants and in narcotics robbed them of self-con- trol and so of self-respect, and some have taken their departure from the hells of unhappy marriage. For, after all, despite the guess of the economic panaceists, prostitution is not an exception to the rule that every effect has many causes, near and remote, direct and contributory. The inevitable corollary is that no remedy is a cure-all. To all the prophesiers of the ultimate triumph of the monogamic ideal, even to the author himself, I would earnestly com- mend this most trenchant paragraph of Dr. Jacobi's essay: "Nowhere else is causation so complex and so elusive as in the phenomena consti- tuting social science. Even the immedi- ate effects of present causes can be out- lined dimly and with great difficulty; the remote effects are beyond computation. This obstacle, however, does not deter our 134 SEX MORALITY -WALKER self-styled prophets. Seizing some factor now prominent in its influence, they pro- ceed to construct a definite future upon the basis of its present action, as if any cause will go on producing its effects for all time, without being crossed and recrossed by thousands of other causes working out their thousands of effects. It is assumed that one thing will change while others will remain unchanged." No one can see to-day what will be the effect upon monogamy of the free play of individual and social forces for the next hundred or thousand years. What modi- fications may not be wrought by the po- litical and industrial readjustments of woman's sphere, by the advent of really free divorce, by the intelligent control of conception, by the differentiating work of group marriage, of polygamy, of polyan- dry, of trial marriage, of frank variety among self-supporting free men and women, by the progress of medical science 135 SEX MORALITY -WALKER and sane sociology in limiting or extirpat- ing venereal disease? Lecky had the faculty, not so rare as it should be, of expressing his thought in such a way that the reader, unless he critic- ally examines the assertion, gets the im- pression of having been told something that is indisputable. Dr. Jacobi remarks that the utilitarian arguments in favor of monogamy are summed up by Lecky in three sentences: "Nature, by making the number of males and females nearly equal, indicates it as natural. In no other form of marriage can the government of the family be so happily sustained. In no other does woman assume the position of the equal of man." The approximately equal numbers of the two sexes proves nothing for monog- amy that it does not prove for a group marriage, with the advantage for the lat- ter that the despair of bereavement is mitigated and orphanage prevented. It 136 SEX MORALITY -WALKER proves nothing for monogamy that it does not prove for a system of variety wherein the sexes are equal in freedom and respon- sibility. Taking the other two statements to- gether, by what process of self-bewilder- ing could Lecky have induced himself to hazard such assertions? When he wrote, the now swiftly hastening movement for the recognition of the equality of woman with man, within marriage and out, hardly had more than fairly begun. The wife did not "assume the position of the equal of" her husband. He was the single ab- solute head of the family, as he is often to-day; the wife was not his equal in any respect, whether in the special domain of sex, the ownership and control of prop- erty, or the possession and training of the children. The property she made or in- herited was not hers; the letters she re- ceived were not hers; the children she bore were not hers if, under no matter what 137 SEX MORALITY -WALKER grievous provocation, she separated from her husband. She was not an entity in the eyes of the law. Her body was not hers-how short a time it is since in Eng- land an action would lie for the legal "res- titution of the marital rights" of her hus- band! The "government of the family" was "happily sustained" by the legal and, if he felt so disposed, the actual, tsar, the husband. If, as of course often hap- pened, the wife was the stronger of the two and so ruled de facto in the household, she could not rule de jure, and she was not his equal in the broader social view of the situation. If to-day there is legal and practical equality of rights in many mo- nogamic homes, the change has been wrought by vast outside political, eco- nomic, and ethical agitations and revolu- tions, identical with or related to those that Dr. Jacobi has shown us are operat- ing to abolish the double standard. There 138 SEX MORALITY -WALKER is little if any evidence that the monogamic home, as such, has been a positive factor in bringing about its own improvement or transformation. Negatively, it has had this effect, for it has been one of the most conspicuous of the terrible examples of the inequality of rights of the sexes which have stirred thinking, conscientious men and women into action for society-wide re- form. Even if he had been as right as he was wrong in asserting that in monogamy woman assumed "the position of the equal of man," he was not in a position to know what we know, now, that such equality has come to women and men in love relations other than monogamic, and is now so com- ing to ever-increasing numbers of them. We have been warned repeatedly against the hazards of prophesying, and I agree that it is a temerous proceeding, but as Spencer has been permitted to say that "The monogamic form of the sexual 139 SEX MORALITY- WALKER relation is manifestly the ultimate form; and any change to be anticipated must be in the direction of completion and exten- sion of it," perhaps I may be pardoned for declaring that this assumption is not warranted by the results of the study, up to this time, of human psychology and sociology; that, in fact, just the opposite conclusion is indicated. By Spencer's own doctrine, development is from the sim- ple to the complex, from the homo- geneous to the heterogeneous, and I see no reason why the relations of human sexes should be the one exception to the rule, why ultimately all men and women should voluntarily enter into one form of sexual relationship and all find therein for the whole of their lives the greatest possible physical, moral, and emotional health. But there is not space here for me to go into this phase of the general subject in detail; and that has been done elsewhere, by others and by myself. 140 SEX MORALITY- WALKER If it be true that human passion is di- minishing as civilization advances, instead of merely modifying the forms of its mani- festation, and limiting its "natural" re- sults, then it needs no power of divination to foretell the dying out of the race if this diminution continues without check. But if the outbreaks of passion are less fre- quent and less violent because the emotions are being brought more and more under the control of the intellectual and ethical faculties, then the outlook is most hope- ful for an improving humanity so long as the earth continues to be fairly habitable. Quite likely the truth lies somewhere be- tween the two hypotheses. The order of development m point of time puts the emotions before the intellect and ethics latest in the series. But this order of appearance does not justify us in classing them as low, and higher, and highest, morally. Per se, they are equally immoral, non-moral, or moral, as 141 SEX MORALITY- WALKER you choose your term. Body, emotions, mind, ethics-all are absolutely essential; there is no full man or woman otherwise. When you rate the body as "low" or list the sexual desires as "lower instincts" you in effect say that the trunk of the human tree is rotten ab initio, and yet you ex- pect healthy branches of "higher faculties" to spring therefrom! It is the use that is "low" or "higher" or "highest." Muscle is not in itself "low," tho muscle may be used in the commission of an anti-social act. The sexual organs are not in them- selves "low," tho their injudicious or reck- less use may bring to pass anti-social re- sults. The intellect is reckoned among the "higher faculties," tho misused intel- lects have planned and executed the most colossal crimes against society and its com- ponent units. Ethics is "high," yet un- timely or misapplied morals have precip- itated immense social disasters. The good and the evil alike are in the use. The 142 SEX MORALITY -WALKER foundation is not low or impure because it is first in order of time and is nearer to the ground than is the superstructure, the tower, or the dome. 143 SEX MORALITY: A PLEA FOR SEXUAL CONTI- NENCE IN THE UNMARRIED JAMES P. WARBASSE, M.D. SEX MORALITY -AN ARGU- MENT IN DEFENCE OF THE SINGLE STANDARD OF SEX- UAL MORALS. ^^^HERE is much speculation, if 1 ) not much discussion, upon the prevalent double standard of sexual morals and the effects of conti- nence upon continent individuals. What is sexual continence? The gen- eral interpretation applied to this term is that it means abstinence from coitus, es- pecially in an individual capable of per- forming such an act. This, I think, is an utterly wrong interpretation. Physio- logically and socially, sexual continence means abstinence from those stimuli, re- ceived thru all the senses and engendered in the mind, which result in libidinous tur- gescence of the organs of copulation. 147 SEX MORALITY -WARBASSE There is an unscientific tendency to take out of the sexual functions the act of copulation and treat it as an isolated entity. As a matter of fact, it is but one link in a chain of sexual phenomena. This understanding is important because many persons are misled by the conven- tional definition, and often do themselves physical harm. A young man and woman who repeatedly indulge them- selves in amorous caresses to the point of creating a high degree of sexual excite- ment, and then part without coitus, may regard themselves as continent, but in the light of physiology and pathology they are neither continent nor wise. The con- tinence which they have respected is a fet- ish. The greater should not be confused with the lesser. The man who drinks brandy and soda, with the idea of going as far as he can, is not slaking his thirst, he is getting drunk. Sexual continence is not compatible with sexual excitement. 148 SEX MORALITY -WARBA SSE This whole question of sexual love has been confused by breaking it up into sec- tions. The great and fundamental sex- ual joys, inherent in communion with an object of love, by thought, word, look, or touch, stimulating with rapture the higher centers, and infusing the mind with gratification, are all a part of the sexual chain, altho no libidinous impulses arise. Very easily from one state may the stimulations pass on to the next, the next, and the next, until the great sex- ual act is complete, and a babe lies nestled at its mother's breast. To start the chain of impulses means that the end is already in sight. To interrupt the process of sexual love is fraught with a sense of in- completeness, with dissatisfaction, and often with danger. Continence is absti- nence from sexual love and its greater stimuli. The next definition which we should at- tempt is that of "single standard" and 149 SEX MORALITY - W ARB AS SE "double standard." By the first, it is un- derstood that certain sexual practices which are morally justifiable for one sex are morally justifiable for the other sex. In the terms of our western civilization, it is the male sex which is understood to be permitted the privileges which are denied the female. In some of the older civili- zations the female enjoyed the greater privileges. It is my own opinion that there should be no privileged sex or class. The sexual morality which governs the woman should be the same as that which governs the man. Privilege in sex, soci- ety, or industry, is pernicious. There is no such a thing as one class having privi- leges or advantages unless there is an- other class of whom advantage is taken. True democracy is sex-wide as well as class-wide. From a scientific point of view, this belief is made tenable because, I think, the harm of an incomplete sexual fife is vis- 150 SEX MORALITY -WARBASSE ited upon both the man and the woman- equally, let us say, tho the peculiarities of the two sexes make comparison impos- sible. Much is said of the libido sexu- alis developing earlier and being stronger in the male, but we have no conclusive in- formation. We do only know that the male is more subjected to artificial stimu- lation; but if a boy and girl grew up alone in an atmosphere free from such in- fluences, it is conceivable that their im- pulses would be similar. The same may be said of the sexual impulses of men; they are unduly stimulated by the arti- ficial social conditions with which they are surrounded. If the habits, privileges, ideals, and conceptions of life among women were the same as among men, so- ciety would be overwhelmed with sexual promiscuity, for it is conceivable that women would become in their sexual hab- its similar to men. In this temperate zone puberty begins 151 SEX MORALITY -WARBASSE in the male at from ten to fourteen years and in the female at from eleven to fourteen. There is not much differ- ence between the two sexes in this respect; the slightly earlier period in the male may be due to environmental in- fluences. The term "sexual morality" is also much employed. In discussing this sub- ject, morality should not be separated from the scientific viewpoint. There is a tendency to separate them, as tho science had no business with morality. It has. The mistake which society has always made has been to relegate the science of morals to an especially unscientific class. This subject cannot be discussed apart from morality. Society has too long made the mistake to think of morals as something esoteric and immaterial. It is my view that morality without a physical basis is not morality at all. There is no such thing as spiritual morality. If sex- 152 SEX MORALITY - WARBASSE ual practices, marital or extra-marital, do not cause harm to any individual, alive or yet unborn, those practices are not im- moral. No man can harm any extra- natural omnipotence. Immorality con- sists in harming people; and that means one's self as well as others. This is de- cidedly a question inseparable from morals. Let us consider the physiology of the sex organs in their relation to continence. The mistake should not be made to think of the sexual organs as dormant except- ing at a certain period in life. They be- gin to functionate before the child is born, and continue thruout life. The internal secretions of these organs, circulating in the blood, influence all the cells of the body. They modify the shape, growth, and texture of other structures, power- fully influence the central nerve cells, and are potent factors in stamping the individ- ual with character. Sigmund Freud, in 153 SEX MORALITY -WARBASSE "Infantile Sexuality" ("Three contribu- tions to the Sexual Theory,") describes the early signs of sexuality. The earli- ness of their beginning cannot be identi- fied. At the other end of life they are illustrated by the reply of the aged French savant, who, upon being asked, "When does a man cease to love?" re- plied, " You must ask some one older than I." Sexuality and sexual impulses begin and end with life. Nor should the mis- take be made to think of the pelvic organs as constituting the whole sexual system. The internal secretions which have a strong influence upon sexual character come not only from the ovaries, testicles, uterus, and prostate, but also from the thyroid, and, perhaps, from the hypophy- sis, suprarenals, parathyroids, thymus, and other organs of which little is known. Sexuality is general, not local; and, prop■ erly speaking, the sexual organs are all 154 SEX MORALITY - WARBASSE the organs of the body. The fact that there are certain highly specialized parts, and that there are superficial areas which are especially sensitive to erogenous im- pulses, has given these regions special sex- ual significance, while but little is known of the other organs as sexual centers. I desire to bring out the fact that the sexual organs are constantly in action, and that repression is both impossible and undesir- able. External sexual excitements have the power to cause a precocious or premature development of the sexual activities in both boys and girls, just as intellectual ex- citements or stimuli have the power to heighten the intellectual functions. Ex- cessive, continuous, or prolonged stimula- tion of the erogenous zones results in ex- aggeration, or later exhaustion, of the libidinous impulses. Testicular fluid in the seminal vesicles, under unexciting conditions, does not require to be dis- 155 SEX MORALITY - WARBASSE charged at intervals. I have not been able to find in the studies of the physiolo- gists that its retention is abnormal or un- hygienic. I do not believe it is. The ejaculation of this fluid takes place as a result of erogenous excitement or lo- cal stimulation. Involuntary emissions, masturbation, or coitus empty the vesi- cles; but without some preliminary caus- ative influence ejaculation does not take place. The dogmatic statement is sometimes made that these emissions are necessary for the health of the man. This contention is not substantiated. The idea is kept alive by those who wish to be- lieve it in order to justify their own prac- tices, by those who perpetuate a tradition, and by those who actually regard it as a scientific fact. I do not believe that con- tinence is injurious to the male, provided that his continence is real. The common mistake is to think of coitus as synonymous with incontinence. 156 SEX MORALITY -WARBASSE I have tried to show the difference. It is undoubtedly true that idle men, living under the abnormal and unhealthful con- ditions of city life, lending themselves to erotic stimuli of great variety, thinking lustfully of women, and rolling their eyes about for libidinous suggestions, are pro- moted in health by completing the sexual act which they always have in process of beginning. It is not coitus that pre- serves their health; it is the preliminary vicious habits that are damaging it. Co- itus is called upon as the remedy. Hav- ing begun the sexual act, it is normal that it should be completed. But the healthy man, whose mind is oc- cupied with wholesome thoughts, who has interests and activities for the working hours and enough knowledge and intellect to make relaxation a joy-such a man does not suffer from mere lack of coitus. The vacant mind, ennui, tobacco, alcohol, and other promoters of defective oxida- 157 SEX MORALITY - WARBASSE tion are often the precursors of the sexual necessity. An unmarried young man of the above described healthy type, who argues that some day he shall marry, who thinks that somewhere in the world the woman is waiting for him, who does not harbor the delusion of the sexual necessity, who has resolved that he shall expect virginity of his bride and that she may expect the same of him, who is aware of the harm and dangers of extra-marital coitus, and who, having thus fortified himself, dismisses from his mind the whole question as set- tled for him-such a man has clear sail- ing. The fellow who gets in trouble is the weak man, who vacillates, who enter- tains erogenous thoughts with himself as a party, and who goes half way and at- tempts to recede-he has no business with the single standard of sexual morals; it will make a fool of him. Dalliance is not abstinence. 158 SEX MORALITY -WARBASSE I do not conceive of a man suffering from the ills of continence or growing im- potent who has been cast away on a desert island, with no immediate prospect of re- lief, and whose mind and hands are occu- pied with raising grain, catching fish for subsistence, and constructing a boat for escape. Examinations of many unmarried men show congestion of the prostate and pros- tatic urethra, due to just these uncom- pleted sexual activities. The continuance of the sexual excitements without com- pleting the sexual act perpetuates the congestion, until in the course of time im- potence supervenes. What is the rem- edy? Removal of the cause, ceasing from sexual excitements which cannot be com- pleted. The remedy is not taking an- other step, fraught even with greater pos- sibilities of harm and danger. I have elsewhere (Medical Sociology, p. 83) set down the objections to extra-marital sex- 159 SEX MORALITY -WARBASSE ual intercourse, which are sufficiently per- tinent to this discussion to be reproduced. "The dangers and objections arising from violation of the rule, that a man should have sexual intercourse with none but his wife and that if he have no wife he shall remain continent, are as fol- lows : the moral and social degradation of a woman who otherwise would live rightly; the danger of causing disease in such a woman; the encouragement, by ex- ample, of a practice which stands pre- eminent as the great cause of social un- happiness, the subtraction of just so much joy and devotion from the woman who should or will stand in the proper relation of wife; the possibility of the propagation of illegitimate children; the strong prob- ability of contracting venereal disease; the danger of transmitting physical or moral blight to one's offspring; the de- velopment of vicious habits; the cultiva- tion of immoral society; the wasting of 160 SEX MORALITY -WARBASSE time and energy in unprofitable company; the social harm to one's self and family; the moral harm which springs from acting in secretiveness and shame; the contract- ing of the concomitant vices which go hand in hand with venery for venery's sake; and the postponement of the organ- ization, or the weakening of the strength, of the most potent factor in the solidarity of society-the home." These are strong reasons against extra- marital sexual congress, and each is sus- ceptible of serious consideration. Congestion of the deep urethra is found also in the incontinent as well as in the continent. Excessive coitus is said by good authorities to be a common cause of physical deterioration. Is it not possible that the individuals who need coitus as the remedy for their ills are the same as those who later suffer from the harm of excess? And is it not possible that, single or mar- ried, they will permit their sexual im- 161 SEX MORALITY - WARBASSE pulses to do them injury? The pity is that a woman has to be dragged down with them. To concede that coitus is essential for the health of unmarried men is to concede the desirability of a chain of social condi- tions which are the concomitants of the concession. Who shall be the woman to preserve his precious health? He would prefer a comely young woman for seduc- tion, but suppose we grant him the prosti- tute? That means regulation of prosti- tution. Regulation of prostitution means legal approval of the double standard of sexual morals, the increase of the propor- tion of unmarried men and therefore of unmarried women, and the diminution in the ratio of homes to population. I am opposed to the legalization of prostitu- tion. All that has been said of men may be said of women. They are harmed quite as much as men by empty minds, ennui, 162 SEX MORALITY -WARBASSE idleness, and erotic suggestions. Such women create their own internal stimuli. They long for love. The unsatisfied longing inflicts constitutional damage. As men become hypochondriac and impo- tent, so do women become neurotic and sallow,-all from the uncompleted stim- uli of sexual love. The true remedy in both cases is nor- mal social love and marriage. If it can- not be had, the next best thing is the elim- ination of the sexual stimuli or supplant- ing them with less erogenous impulses. Given, a woman capable of sexual love and its highest gratifications, deny her these things, and she may be preserved in usefulness and happiness if she but be- come engrossed in occupation. On every hand we see women who exemplify both types. This discussion is made necessary be- cause of the bad social conditions in which we five. The remedy is an economic one. 163 SEX MORALITY - WARBASSE When an equable distribution of the pro- ceeds of his labor goes to the worker, and there is no bonus for the maintenance of an idle class, when a true social democ- racy is secured, then the relations of men and women may be adjusted in harmony with the highest possibilities of sexual morals,-and not until then. 164 SEX MORALITY, IS THERE ANY JUSTIFICATION FOR THE DOUBLE STAND- ARD OF MORALITY IN THE SEXES? B. S. TALMEY, M.D. IS THERE ANY JUSTIFICATION FOR THE DOUBLE STAND- ARD OF MORALITY IN THE SEXES? C^HE history of sexual morality, J which is really the history of the evolution of marriage, shows that every advanced step in the development of marriage was made in the interest of the race. 1st Stage: If we take Morgan's "An- cient Society" as the basis of our inquiry we find that in tTie lowest conceivable stage of savagery, men living in hordes, mankind lived in a state of promiscuous intercourse like the gregarious animals. 2nd Stage: From this irregular state the consanguineous family develops. It is founded upon intermarriage of broth- ers and sisters in a group, but marriage 167 SEX MORALITY - TALMEY between parents and children is now pro- hibited. Srd Stage: Experience having taught even these primitive men that the off- spring of such marriages is often in some respect deficient and sickly, the next step was the prohibition of intermarriage in the same tribe. This prohibition had the effect to exclude own brothers and sisters from the marriage relation. This so- called Punaluan family was founded upon inter-marriage of several sisters, from one tribe, with each others' husbands in a group, the joint husbands not being necessarily kinsmen of each other, but be- longing to other tribes than their wives, or of several brothers with each others' wives in a group. In this so-called exog- amous marriage each group of men were conjointly married to the group of women. The children naturally know only their mother, and inheritance follows in the female line. The common mother 168 SEX MORALITY - TALMEY of the tribe is the origin and ruler of the same. 4th Stage: The next step is the pairing family. Communal marriage is replaced by individual marriage. It was founded upon marriage between single pairs, but without an exclusive cohabitation. The marriage continued during the pleasure of the parties. Marriage between any relatives is entirely prohibited, conse- quently marriage in a group is impossible. The male leaves his tribe and marries into another tribe. The children know now their father also. Yet they still belong to their mother's tribe. The fortune of the tribe belongs to the ancestress. Matri- archate prevails. Woman is yet the un- disputed mistress of the house and clan. The males have only to provide the clan with food and all the other conveniences of life from day to day. They have no other authority. The husband being sub- ject to his wife, property and descent go 169 SEX MORALITY - TALMEY in the female line. Kinship is counted thru the mother. When a man dies his arms and dress, his only personal prop- erty, are handed over to the tribe to which he formerly belonged. The main fortune remains in the clan of the female. 5th Stage: With the training of ani- mals and the breeding of herds, sources of wealth hitherto unthought of develop. Now, the males have always been the pro- viders and possessors of the food supply of the clan, and the herds being now the main source of food they consequently belong to the males. Lest with the death of the father the flocks should be handed over to his former clan, change of descent from the female line to the male line is now established. The man is now the ruler. He is the head of the clan, man- ager of its possessions and leader in war. Hitherto lands and herds belonged in common to the entire clan or even tribe. But in the frequent wars, at this period in 170 SEX MORALITY -TALMEY human history, powerful leaders were necessary, and the latter became pre- eminent among the other members of the tribe. As a reward they often receive in- dividual allotments from the common property of the tribe. These allotments ripen finally into individual ownership to be inherited by the children. Now inher- itance in the male line requires that the father should know his children. He ex- acts, therefore, strict fidelity from his wife. This leads to the patriarchal fam- ily of the Bible. It is founded upon the marriage of one man with one or several wives. Thus we see that the changes in the marriage relations of the sexes were all made in the interest of the welfare of the offspring. Promiscuity, consanguineous marriage, punaluan family and the pair- ing family followed each other in the in- terest of the health of posterity. The last change into female monogamy was made 171 SEX MORALITY -TALMEY in the economic interest of the progeny. The husband in sacrificing his own com- fort while providing food and shelter for his children must be certain that he is the father of these children. Uncertainty would make him negligent, and the exist- ence of the race would be jeopardized. Adultery on the part of the husband does not necessarily alter the relations of the children to the parents and to each other. The husband misconducts himself outside the family circle, inchastity of the wife either altogether breaks the family bond or weakens it thru doubt. The pur- ity of the woman and her faithfulness are, therefore, of the greatest racial impor- tance, and it is eminently proper that she should be in the van of moral progress. The highest moral character, says Kant, is that which does the good not out of in- clination but from a sense of duty guided by reason, and there is a good reason for female chastity. The masculine morality 172 SEX MORALITY - TALMEY is as yet very little influenced by reason, hence the male standard of chastity is still very low, so much so that, with meretri- cious venery rampant, male monogamy is as yet a dream of the idealist. But is there no reason why the man should be as chaste as the woman? The answer must be, Yes! There is a valid reason why he should not be inferior to her in the standard of chastity. If there was, perhaps, no racial reason for his chastity in ancient times, there is a good reason for him to be chaste since the ar- rival of venereal diseases in Europe with Columbus' soldiers. Nowadays the racial interest requires from him the same strict chastity as from the woman. The dangers of promiscuous intercourse thru the venereal diseases cannot be over- stated. Noeggerath* claimed that, in * The Editor verily believes that it is about time to give your old Dr. Noeggerath, who has been dead so many years, a rest. Requiescat in pace and let us take more modern investigators. 173 SEX MORALITY - TALMEY New York City, of 1000 men 800 have had gonorrhea, 90 per cent, of all these men have not been thoroly cured and can infect their wives if they ever get mar- ried. As a result three out of every five married women in New York are more or less infected with gonorrhea. Eighty per cent, of the deaths from inflammatory diseases peculiar to women, 75 per cent, of all special surgical operations per- formed on women and 60 per cent, of all the work done by specialists in diseases of women are the result of this disgusting disease. Gonorrheal infection may make a trag- edy of married life by destroying the woman's conceptional capacity and ren- dering her irrevocably childless. Fifty per cent, or more of all the infected women are rendered absolutely and ir- remediably sterile. In addition many are condemned to a life-long invalid- ism. The aspirations centered in mother- 174 SEX MORALITY -TALMEY hood and children are thus swept away. Besides mutilating the innocent women gonorrhea destroys the eyesight of inno- cent babies. From 70 to 80 per cent, of the ophthalmia which blots out the eyes of babies, and 15 to 25 per cent, of all blindness is caused by this disease. And these things are even more tragic because the majority of infections is conveyed from chronic gonorrhea without the inten- tion or even the knowledge of the of- fender. The other most appalling venereal dis- ease is syphilis. It may become the cause of all maladies humanity is afflicted with. In gonorrheal infection the individual risks the wife has to incur are much more serious than those following syphilis. But the constitutional disturbances caused by syphilis and the risks to the offspring make this disease one of the most dreaded affections known to medical science. 175 SEX MORALITY -TALMEY The prevalence of syphilis is estimated at 18 per cent, of the adult population. Some claim that in the large cities, in the better class of families, one-third of the sons of adult age are infected with syph- ilis. The disease causes 40 per cent, of all miscarriages, and the mortality of syphilitic children is about 60 per cent. Syphilis is the only disease transmitted to the offspring in full virulence. Sixty to eighty per cent, of all infected children die before they are born. Syphilis is a chronic disease, the dura- tion of which is unlimited. It may re- main latent for several years and then break out. Thus the dangers of venereal diseases beset not only the individual but thru the individual the entire race. With these dangers staring at him, no young man should even think of exposing himself, his future wife and offspring to all these risks for the mere pittance of a short mo- 176 SEX MORALITY - TALMEY mentary enjoyment in the company of pestiferous individuals. It is a moral crime to impart these loathsome diseases to one's wife and children. Hence, if strict female chastity was originally demanded in the interest of posterity on account of the changed law of inheritance, in our present age of syphilis and gonorrhea the interest of pos- terity requires the same strict chastity in the man. There is, therefore, no valid reason for the present double standard of morality of the sexes. 177 SEX MORALITY-ANOTHER POINT OF VIEW By Maude Glasgow, M. D. SEX MORALITY-ANOTHER POINT OF VIEW OR. W. J. ROBINSON'S article on Sexual Morality very aptly illustrates his claim--that indi- vidual bias creates influences and controls personal opinion. After reading his ar- ticle, there is no doubt left that this is so. His enthusiastic support of sex- ual immorality would indicate a moral myopia where sex questions are con- cerned, which limits his vision, and forces him to see objects out of their proper pro- portions. From no point of view can the mere gratification of the senses fie regarded as admirable, useful, beneficial or praise- worthy, and such gratification, we know, savors rather of weakness and selfishness. The sex impulse is but a means to an end, 181 SEX MORALITY -GLASGOW and the supreme object of marriage is the child, and not such sense gratification. If this sex impulse did not exist, the burden of bearing and rearing a family might have been avoided, so its existence fulfils a wise purpose, but when this func- tion, thru its intemperate use, becomes the means by which misery, disease, and death are introduced into homes and families, when it becomes a force to deteriorate and decimate the race, then it is time to put the brakes on, and regulate the balance- wheel in order to regain normal propor- tions. It would be well to have a correct defi- nition of the terms "strong sexuality," and "powerful sexuality," with which the ar- ticle is seasoned. A powerful sexuality, overmastering in demand, and brooking no denial is the type met in the pervert, the idiot, the imbecile, who are as inde- cent as they are dangerous. The man low-down in the scale of civilization has 182 SEX MORALITY -GLASGOW also a "strong" and a "powerful" sexual- ity, because he is a little nearer his four- footed progenitors, than his civilized brother-when the latter is normal. It is the strong and virile man who con- trols his appetites-he masters them, but the weakling, whose lascivious thoughts keep him in a constant state of irritation, becomes the slave of his. Sexual intemperance, as a recent writer has stated, is a habit, slowly acquired thru long generations, fostered by false and pernicious traditions, and the absence of punishment for the aggressor. We are now learning that the imperi- ousness of the sex instinct has been greatly overrated, and that the evils of temperance are more or less imaginary. Fournier has declared that he does not know what the evils of continence are, for he has never seen them, but that one-eighth of the dis- ease and misery of the world has been due to incontinence. 183 SEX MORALITY -GLASGOW It would seem that the strong sexual- ity displayed by a sex whose biological contribution to the germ of the race is discharged in a brief moment of enjoy- ment, is very greatly less than that ex- hibited by the party of the other part whose contribution is made thru long months of patient endurance, in the agony of parturition, and in the long months of unselfish devotion which follow. Can anyone doubt the greater power, energy, capacity of the lifegiver, the mother of the race, whose natural instincts are for the preservation and upbuilding of that race to which she has given birth? It is she whose instincts form the safest guide and not those of her mate; and it is her de- mands which must furnish the standard for both. It has been said that the reality of mar- riage sanctifies the form. Marriage should not be a mere sexual coupling. It must include the psychic sympathy, the 184 SEX MORALITY - GLASGOW intangible, emotional, invisible chains which are stronger than the Atlantic cable -while they last at any rate. So that if a man tires of his wife, which Dr. Rob- inson assures us some men do, and he longs for-not another wife, but some woman, any woman, in order to gratify his animalism, then both the man and his partner must coarsen and deteriorate. They have no emotional excuse; there is on the one side but sensuality, and on the other cupidity; and the man returns to the wife he expects to be faithful, reek- ing with the disease of the woman he em- braced, and in his heart despised. He has made himself a perjurer, a hypocrite, and an adulterer. Ellen Key very truly says, "Man has as little right to satisfy desire by unchastity, as he has to satisfy hunger by theft." As for the men who we are assured cannot live in permanent union with any woman and who like temporary changes: 185 SEX MORALITY - GLASGOW well, for these there will always be some women like themselves and they can wal- low in filth together, but decent women who have unfortunately mated with men of this class should obtain a divorce in or- der to protect their bodies from disease, and their minds from contamination. And as for the men who have "an un- controllably powerful sexuality," who "would like to have all restrictive laws smashed to pieces," society needs protec- tion from this type as well as his cousins of lesser degree, and for such the opera- tion of vasectomy, which is practically painless and not attended by danger, should be performed, and it would doubt- less prove of considerable benefit to them- selves, while it would also be a protection to society. The statement that the institutions of polygamy, monogamy and polyandry were influenced by the degree of sexual power in a race or nation, polygamy in- 186 SEX MORALITY - GLASGOW dicating sexual strength, monogamy mod- erate sexual strength, and polyandry sex- ual weakness, has no foundation in fact. The foundation upon which monogamy rests is that of an existing necessity for it, and this necessity is now strengthened by laws and customs. Crawley states that "Our formal marriage system is not a forcible repression of natural impulses, but merely the rigid crystallization of those natural impulses which, in a more fluid form, have been in human nature from the first." The various forms of marriage would appear to be influenced by economic conditions rather than by "sexual power." Monogamous marriage is found to exist among birds in about 90 per cent, of cases, their unions being fairly per- manent as well. Permanent monogamous marriage oc- curs among anthropoid apes, and as man slowly developed from the animal state it 187 SEX MORALITY - GLASGOW is probable that monogamous marriage was an inheritance and dictated by the needs of the offspring, just as it is to-day. Polygamy at one time prevailed almost universally, and arose with the Patriar- chal form of government. This institu- tion led to a great abuse of power, the women were regarded as mere chattels, and were bought and sold like animals. Thus the word family originally meant slaves or servants. The woman by her un- paid labor helped to support the Patri- arch, who then had time to devote to con- genial pursuits. Because of the numer- ical equality of the sexes, only the wealthy and powerful males could indulge in polygamy, the other males were obliged to lead a celibate life. Polyandry was also an economic ques- tion, tho of a different nature. The lat- ter arose when there was a surplus of males, and not "when tribes were sexually weak." Polyandry was an adaptation to 188 SEX MORALITY - GLASGOW conditions, and when a numerical equality was regained between the sexes, it disap- peared. The purpose of marriage is the contin- uance of the race. A sexual intemperance which murders infants born and unborn, which brings diseases and mutilation to wives, which destroys the procreative ca- pacity in both sexes, which breaks up homes, which leads to divorce, which de- stroys efficiency, and shortens the expecta- tion of life, cannot be tolerated. The greatest good of the greatest num- ber is the end to be kept in view, and humanity is no longer reckoned as so many men-besides women and children; the best interests of the sexes are bound up together, for Kant has said the sexes are but half of the whole and what in- jures one injures both. It is almost inconceivable, that, when men have tendencies to immorality which they are bravely struggling to subdue, and 189 SEX MORALITY - GLASGOW when they come to the physician for ad- vice and help, the latter, instead of giving wise counsel, advises the man not to at- tempt to gain a victory over self, but to cease struggling, to be false to his mar- riage vows. Such a physician destroys the confidence of the public in the physi- cian and degrades the profession to which he belongs. NOTE BY THE EDITOR The above article was not intended for inclu- sion in this Symposium on Sex Morality. It appeared in the Medical Review of Reviews as an answer to my paper and I include it here as a good illustration of the kind of argumenta- tion which is indulged in by the quasiscientific prudes. All they have to do is to throw at you the adjective "immoral" or "vicious," and they think they have settled the question. To dis- cuss Dr. Glasgow's paper would be futile. But I will take the liberty to reproduce here a para- graph from an article in my Sexual Problems of To-day. The little article is entitled: "Who Should Discuss the Sexual Continence 190 SEX MORALITY - EDITOR Question?" and the paragraph referred to is as follows: In order to reach a proper solution of the sexual continence question, we must eliminate from the discussion certain classes of people. We must eliminate the man who is so old that he no longer remembers that he ever was young; we must elim- inate the impotent or pervert, who never experi- enced any normal desire; we must eliminate the bigoted theologian and the narrow-minded moral- ist, who consider extra-marital intercourse a crime, about on a par with burglary or murder; we must eliminate-this by all means-the asexualized old maid, who has no conception of the power of the libido in normal man (or in normal woman, for that matter) ; and-last but not least-we must also eliminate the debauchee who puts an absurdly exaggerated value on the sexual function, and who believes that life without sexual gratification is not worth living. Dr. Maude Glasgow, whose sincerity nobody will question, is a typical representative of one of the above referred to classes-it is not neces- 191 SEX MORALITY -EDITOR sary to specify which-and she is therefore not competent to discuss any sexual problems. The question should be discussed only by nor- mal, healthy, free thinking, scientific men and women ranging in age between thirty and fifty. They may be older, provided they have good memories. Only then will we have an honest and scien- tifically valuable answer to this tremendously important question: The existence or non-ex- istence of the sexual "necessity." 192 WOMAN: HER SEX AND LOVE LIFE FOR MEN AND WOMEN By WILLIAM J. ROBINSON, M.D. Illustrated This is one of the most important, most useful books that we have ever brought out. It is not de- voted to abstruse discussions or doubtful theories: it is full of practical information of vital importance to every woman and through her to every man, to every wife and through her to every husband. The simple practical points contained in its pages would render millions of homes happier abodes than they are now; they would prevent the disruption of many a family; they show how to hold the love of a man, how to preserve sexual attraction, how to re- main young beyond the usually allotted age. This book destroys many injurious errors and superstitions and teaches truths that have never been presented in any other book before. In short, this book not only imparts interesting facts; it gives practical points which will make thousands of women, and thousands of men happier, healthier, and more satisfied with life. Certain single chapters or even paragraphs are alone worth the price of the book. You may safely order the book without delay. But if you wish, a complete synopsis of contents will be sent. you. Cloth bound. Price $3.00 THE CRITIC AND GUIDE CO. 12 MT. MORRIS PARK W., NEW YORK NEW YORK SEXUAL PROBLEMS OF TODAY By WILLIAM J. ROBINSON, M.D. I Dr. Robinson's work deals with many phases of the sex question, both in their individual and social as- pects. , In this book the scientific knowledge of a physician, eminent as a specialist in everything per- taining to the physiological and medical side of these topics, is combined with the [vigorous social views of a thinker who has radical ideas and is not afraid to give them outspoken expression. A few of the subjects which the author discusses in trenchant fashion are: The Relations Between the Sexes and Man's Inhumanity to Woman. - The Influence of Abstinence on Man's Sexual Health and Sexual Power. - The Double Standard of Morality and the Effect of Continence on Each Sex.- The Limitation of Offspring: the Most Important Immediate Step for the Better- ment of the Human Race, from an Economic and Eugenic Standpoint. - What To Do With the Prostitute and How To Abolish Venereal Disease.-The Question of Abortion Considered In Its Ethical and Social Aspects. - Torturing the Wife When the Husband Is At Fault. - Influence of the Prostate on Man's Mental Condition.-The Most Efficient Venereal Prophylactics, etc. etc. "SEXUAL PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY" will give most of its readers information they never possessed before and ideas they never had before - or if they had, never heard them publicly expressed before. Cloth-bound, 320 Pages, $2 Postpaid THE CRITIC AND GUIDE CO. 12 MT. MORRIS PARK W. NEW YORK I consider myself extremely fortunate in having been instru- mental in making this remarkable book accessible to the English reading public. It is a great book well worth a careful perusal. From Dr.jWilliam J. Robinson's Introduction. The Sexual Crisis A CRITIQUE OF OUR SEX LIFE A Psychologic and Sociologic Study By GRETE MEISEL-HESS *** AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION BY EDEN AND CEDAR PAUL EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION By WILLIAM J. ROBINSON, M. D. One of the greatest of all books on the sex question that have appeared in the Twentieth Century. It is a book that no educated man or woman, lay or professional, interested in sexual ethics, in our marriage system, in free motherhood, in trial marriages, in the question of sexual abstinence, etc., etc., can afford to leave unread. Nobody who discusses, writes or lectures on any phases of the sex question, has a right to overlook this remarkable volume. Written with a wonderfully keen analysis of the conditions which are bringing about a sexual crisis, the book abounds in gems of thought and in pearls of style on every page. It must be read to be appreciated. A Complete Synopsis of Contents Will Be Sent on Request 350 PAGES. PRICE $3.00 THE CRITIC AND GUIDE CO. 12 MT. MORRIS PARK, WEST :: :: :: :: NEW YORK CITY A New Book by Dr. Robinson Sex Knowledge for Men. By WILLIAM J. ROBINSON, M. D. ILLUSTRATED. An honest, unbiased, truthful, strictly scientific and up-to-date book, dealing with the anatomy and physi- ology of the male sex organs, with the venereal diseases and their prevention, and the manifestations of the sex instinct in boys and men. Absolutely free from any cant, hypocrisy, falsehood, exaggeration, compromise, or any attempt to conc;jate the stupid and ignorant. An elementary book written in plain, understandable language, which should be in the possession of every adolescent boy and every parent. Price, cloth bound, $2.00. Sex Knowledge What Every Woman and Girl Should Know A Companion Volume to SEX KNOWLEDGE FOR MEN Price, cloth bound, $1.00. ADDRESS: THE CRITIC AND GUIDE CO. 12 MT. MORRIS PARK W. NEW YORK CITY