The Foundations of Personality [127]
The belief, engendered by romance and teaching, that happiness lies in love, spurs youth on. Admiration for achievement, love of beauty, desire for the social standing that winning some one gives, desire for home and perhaps even for children are some of the factors of love. Sex passion varies enormously in people. In some men it is an almost constant desire, obsessive, and is relatively uncritical and unchoosing. Occasionally, though much more rarely, the same condition is found in women. Such abnormal individuals are almost certain of social disaster, and when married their conduct usually leads to divorce or desertion. Then there is a wide range of types down to the almost sexless persons,[1] the frigid, who are much more commonly found among women than men. In fact, with many women active sex desire may never occur, and for others it is a rarity, while still others find themselves definitely desirous only after pregnancy. Not only are women less passionate, but their desire is more "finicky," more in need of appropriate circumstances, the proper setting and the chosen mate than with man. In other words, sex desire is more physical and urgent in the man and more psychical and selective in the woman. [1] Some claim that the "frigid" woman is such because her mate is ignorant of the art of love. This is true of some frigid women. Instruction to men and women about to be married on the technique of sexual life might well take a fine place in the curriculum of life.
A curious by-product of the sexual feeling is fetichism. To do it justice, fetichism is found in all feeling toward others, but is most developed in sex relation. The fetich is a symbol of the desired person, thus the handkerchief and glove of the woman or the hat of the man. Pathologically any part of the dress--the shoe or the undergarments--may become so closely associated with sexual feeling as to evoke it indiscriminately or even to displace it. Normal fetich formation may become a bit foolish and sentimental but never becomes a predominant factor in sex relationship. The history of modesty is the history of the sex taboo. As pointed out, the sex feelings are the most restricted of any of the instincts. I despair of giving an adequate summary of this, but it may be best stated by declaring that all the restrictions we hold as imperative have, at one time or another in some place, been regarded as sacred and desirable. Brother and sister marriages were favored by Egyptian royalty, prostitution was a rite in Phoenician worship, phallic worship frankly held as a symbol that which to-day we hold profane (in a silly way), plural marriage was and is countenanced in a large part of the world to-day, marriage for love is held as foolish in most countries, even now. The practice of child restriction now prevalent in Europe and America would be looked at with horror in those countries where children of ten or eleven are allowed to marry. Exogamy, endogamy, monogamy, polygamy,--all these are customs and taboos, and though in our day and country monogamy has the social and religious sanction, there is nothing to indicate that this is a permanent resting place for marriage. Certainly the statistics of divorce indicate a change in the permanent status of marriage. What this is meant to emphasize is the social nature of sexual modesty. Modesty of other kind rests either on a moderate self-valuation or a desire to avoid offense by not emphasizing one's own value, or it is both. However sexual modesty originated, practically it consists in the concealing of certain parts of the body, avoiding certain topics of conversation, especially in the presence of the other sex, and behaving in such fashion as to restrict sexual demonstration. There is a natural coyness in women which has been socially emphasized by restrictions in dress, conduct and speech to a ridiculous degree. Thus it was immodest in our civilization for women to show their legs, and the leg became the symbol of the femaleness of the woman or girl, as also did the breast.[1] The body became taboo, and at present,
A curious by-product of the sexual feeling is fetichism. To do it justice, fetichism is found in all feeling toward others, but is most developed in sex relation. The fetich is a symbol of the desired person, thus the handkerchief and glove of the woman or the hat of the man. Pathologically any part of the dress--the shoe or the undergarments--may become so closely associated with sexual feeling as to evoke it indiscriminately or even to displace it. Normal fetich formation may become a bit foolish and sentimental but never becomes a predominant factor in sex relationship. The history of modesty is the history of the sex taboo. As pointed out, the sex feelings are the most restricted of any of the instincts. I despair of giving an adequate summary of this, but it may be best stated by declaring that all the restrictions we hold as imperative have, at one time or another in some place, been regarded as sacred and desirable. Brother and sister marriages were favored by Egyptian royalty, prostitution was a rite in Phoenician worship, phallic worship frankly held as a symbol that which to-day we hold profane (in a silly way), plural marriage was and is countenanced in a large part of the world to-day, marriage for love is held as foolish in most countries, even now. The practice of child restriction now prevalent in Europe and America would be looked at with horror in those countries where children of ten or eleven are allowed to marry. Exogamy, endogamy, monogamy, polygamy,--all these are customs and taboos, and though in our day and country monogamy has the social and religious sanction, there is nothing to indicate that this is a permanent resting place for marriage. Certainly the statistics of divorce indicate a change in the permanent status of marriage. What this is meant to emphasize is the social nature of sexual modesty. Modesty of other kind rests either on a moderate self-valuation or a desire to avoid offense by not emphasizing one's own value, or it is both. However sexual modesty originated, practically it consists in the concealing of certain parts of the body, avoiding certain topics of conversation, especially in the presence of the other sex, and behaving in such fashion as to restrict sexual demonstration. There is a natural coyness in women which has been socially emphasized by restrictions in dress, conduct and speech to a ridiculous degree. Thus it was immodest in our civilization for women to show their legs, and the leg became the symbol of the femaleness of the woman or girl, as also did the breast.[1] The body became taboo, and at present,