The Foundations of Personality [62]
But the two human beings who fall in love are rarely enough alike, and their relationship is rarely one of equality; traditional duties and rights are not equal; they will seek different things, and their relationship is too close and intimate to be an easy one to maintain. Sex love and marriage are different matters, for though they may be the same, too often they are not. Rarely does sex love maintain itself without marriage and marriage colors over sex love with parental feelings, financial interests, home and its emotions, etc. In sex gratification[1] there is the danger of all sensuous pleasure: that a periodic appetite gratified often leaves behind it an ennui, a distaste,--sometimes reaching dislike--of the entire act and associations. [1] Stanley Hall says that after sex gratification there is "taedium vitae," weariness of life. In unsanctioned sex gratification this is extreme and takes on either bitter self-reproach or else a hate of the partner. But this is due to the inner conflict rather than the sex act.
Is all tender feeling, all love, sexual in its essential nature? The Freudians say yes to this, or what amounts to yes. All mother love arises from the sex sphere, and it cannot be denied that in the passionate desire to fondle, to kiss and even to bite there is something very like the excitement of sex. But there is something very different in the wish for self-sacrifice, the pity for the helpless state, the love of the littleness. Women, when they love men, often add maternal feeling to it, but mainly they love their strength, size and vigor; and there tenderness and passion differ. Certainly there seems little of the sexual in the love of a father for his baby,[1] though the Freudians do not hesitate in their use of the term homosexual. Apparently all children have incestuous desire for their parents, if we are to trust Freud. Without entering into detailed reasoning, I disavow any truly sexual element in tender feeling. It is part of the reception we give to objects having a favorable relation to ourselves. Indeed, we give it to our houses, our dogs, our cattle; our pipes are hallowed by friendly association, and so with our books, our clothes and our homes. We extend it in deep, full measure to the very rocks and rills of our native land or to some place where we spent happy or tender days. Tender feeling, love, is inclusive of much of the sex emotion, and the characteristic mistake of the Freudians of identifying somewhat similar things has here been made. [1] It's a very difficult world to live in, if we are to trust the Freudians. If your boy child loves his mother, that's heterosexual; if he loves his father, that's homosexual; and the love of a girl child for her parents simply reverses the above formula. If your wife says of the baby boy, "How I love him! He looks just like my father," be careful; that's a daughter-father complex of a dangerous kind and means the most unhallowed things, and may cause her to have a nervous breakdown some day!
Love, then, is this tender feeling made purposive and intelligent. It is a sentiment, in Shand's phrase, and seeks the good of its object. It may be narrow, it may be broad, it may be intense or feeble, but in its organized sense it plans, fights and cherishes. It has organized with it the primary emotions,--fear if the object is in danger, or anger is evoked according to the circumstances; joy if the object of love is enhanced or prospers; sorrow if it is lost or injured under circumstances that make the lover helpless. Love is not only the tenderest feeling, but it is also the most heroic and desperate fighter in behalf of the loved one. Here we are face to face with the contradictions that we always meet when we personify a quality or make an abstraction. Love may do the most hateful things; love may stunt, the character of the lover and the beloved. In other words, love, tender feeling, must be conjoined with intelligence, good judgment, determination and fairness before it is useful. It would be a nice question to determine just how much harm misguided
Is all tender feeling, all love, sexual in its essential nature? The Freudians say yes to this, or what amounts to yes. All mother love arises from the sex sphere, and it cannot be denied that in the passionate desire to fondle, to kiss and even to bite there is something very like the excitement of sex. But there is something very different in the wish for self-sacrifice, the pity for the helpless state, the love of the littleness. Women, when they love men, often add maternal feeling to it, but mainly they love their strength, size and vigor; and there tenderness and passion differ. Certainly there seems little of the sexual in the love of a father for his baby,[1] though the Freudians do not hesitate in their use of the term homosexual. Apparently all children have incestuous desire for their parents, if we are to trust Freud. Without entering into detailed reasoning, I disavow any truly sexual element in tender feeling. It is part of the reception we give to objects having a favorable relation to ourselves. Indeed, we give it to our houses, our dogs, our cattle; our pipes are hallowed by friendly association, and so with our books, our clothes and our homes. We extend it in deep, full measure to the very rocks and rills of our native land or to some place where we spent happy or tender days. Tender feeling, love, is inclusive of much of the sex emotion, and the characteristic mistake of the Freudians of identifying somewhat similar things has here been made. [1] It's a very difficult world to live in, if we are to trust the Freudians. If your boy child loves his mother, that's heterosexual; if he loves his father, that's homosexual; and the love of a girl child for her parents simply reverses the above formula. If your wife says of the baby boy, "How I love him! He looks just like my father," be careful; that's a daughter-father complex of a dangerous kind and means the most unhallowed things, and may cause her to have a nervous breakdown some day!
Love, then, is this tender feeling made purposive and intelligent. It is a sentiment, in Shand's phrase, and seeks the good of its object. It may be narrow, it may be broad, it may be intense or feeble, but in its organized sense it plans, fights and cherishes. It has organized with it the primary emotions,--fear if the object is in danger, or anger is evoked according to the circumstances; joy if the object of love is enhanced or prospers; sorrow if it is lost or injured under circumstances that make the lover helpless. Love is not only the tenderest feeling, but it is also the most heroic and desperate fighter in behalf of the loved one. Here we are face to face with the contradictions that we always meet when we personify a quality or make an abstraction. Love may do the most hateful things; love may stunt, the character of the lover and the beloved. In other words, love, tender feeling, must be conjoined with intelligence, good judgment, determination and fairness before it is useful. It would be a nice question to determine just how much harm misguided