Sex Characters and Domesticity : Part 4

The Foundations of Personality
by Abraham Myerson, M.D.

(Page 18 of 22)

The sex desires and instincts struggle with, overcome or harmonize with the social instincts. It would be impossible to portray even the simplest sex life from the mental standpoint. The chastest woman who is unconscious of sex desire is motivated by romance and the sex feelings and customs of others in her ideas of happiness and right behavior. The cynical profligate, indulging every sensual urge, in so far as he can, must guide himself by the resistance of society, by the necessity of camouflage, the fear of public opinion and often the impediment of his own early training. Men and women start out perhaps as romantic idealists, enter marriage, and in the course of their experiences become almost frankly sensual.

And in the opposite direction, men and women wildly passionate in youth develop counter tendencies that swing them into restraint and serene self-control. There are those to whom sex is mere appetite, to be indulged and put out of the way, so as not to interfere with the great purposes of success; there are those to whom it is a religion, carried on with ceremonials and rites; there are those to whom it is an obsession, and their minds are in a sexual stew at all times. There are the under-inhibited, spoken of above, and there are the over-inhibited, Puritanical, rebelling at the flesh as such, disguising all their emotions, reluctant to admit their humanness and the validity of pleasure.

The romantic ideal, glorifying a sort of asexual love of perfect men and women, asceticism which permits sex only as a sort of necessary evil and sensuality which proclaims the pleasure of sex as the only joy and scoffs at inhibition influence the lives of us all. The effect of the forbidden, the tantalizing curiosity aroused and the longing to rise above the level of lust make the sex adjustment the most difficult of all and produce the queerest results. Sex is a road to power and to failure, a road to health and sickness. As in all adjustments, there are some who are conscious of but few difficulties, who are moral or immoral without struggle or discontent. Contrasted with these are the ones who find morality a great burden, and those who, yielding to desire, find continuous inner conflict and dissatisfaction and lowered self-valuation as a result.

Our society is organized on chastity and continence prior to marriage, purity and constancy after marriage. That noble ideal has never been realized; the stories of Pagan times, of the Middle Ages and of the present day, as well as everyday human experience, show that the male certainly has not lived up to his part of the bargain. Legalized prostitution in most countries, illegal prostitution in the United States and England, in addition to the enormous amount of clandestine relationships, are a sufficient commentary on the results. The increasing divorce rate, the feminist movement, the legalizing of the "illegitimate" child in Norway and Sweden and the almost certain arrival of similar laws in all countries indicate a softer attitude toward sex restrictions. The rapidly increasing age of marriage means simply that continence will be more and more difficult, for I am not one of those who believe that the repression of this vital instinct is without harm. Continence is socially necessary, but beyond a certain age it is physically and mentally harmful. Man is thus placed on the horns of a dilemma from which it will take the greatest wisdom and the finest humanity to extricate him. But I cannot lay claim to any part of the knowledge and ability necessary to formulate the plan. Let us at least be candid; let us not say grandiloquently that the sexual urge can be indefinitely repressed without harm to the average individual. We may safely assert that there are people, men and women both, to whom the sex impulses are vague and of little force, but to the great majority, at least of men, sex desire is almost a hunger, and unsatisfied it brings about a restlessness and dissatisfaction that enters into all the mental life. On what basis society will meet this situation I do not pretend to know, but this is certain, - that all over the civilized world there is apparent an organizing rebellion against the social impediment to sexual satisfaction.

For it must be remembered that sexual satisfaction is not alone naked desire. It is that - but sublimated into finer things as well. It is the desire for stability of affection, for a sympathetic beloved, an outlet for emotion, a longing for respectable unitary status. The unit of respectable human life is the married couple; the girl wants that social recognition, and so does her man. Both yearn to cast off from their old homes and start a new one, as an initial step in successful living. The thought of children - a little form in a little bed, and the man and woman gazing in an ecstasy of pride and affection upon it - makes all other pleasures seem unworthy and gives to the ache for intimacy a high moral sanction.

This brings us to the point where we must consider those characteristics that make up domesticity and homekeeping. Early impressions and the consistent teaching of literature, stage, press and religion have given to the home a semi-sacred character, which is one of the great components of the desire to marry, especially for women. The home is, in the minds of most of those who enter into marriage, a place owned, peculiarly possessed, and it offers freedom from the restraints of society and the inhibitions of ceremony and custom. Both the man and woman like to think that here is the place where their love can find free expression, where she will care for him and he will provide for her, and where their children can grow in beauty, intelligence and moral worth under their guidance. But this is only the sentimental side of their thought, the part they give freest expression to because it is most respectable and "nice." In the background of their minds is the desire for ownership, the wish to say, "This is mine and here I rule." Into that comes the ideal that the stability of society is involved and the homekeeper is its most important citizen, but when we study the real evolution of the home, study the laws pertaining to the family, we find that the husband and father had a little kingdom with wife and children as subjects, and that only gradually has there come from that monarchical idea the more democratic conception cherished to-day.

Men and women may be considered as domestic or non-domestic. The domestic type of man is ordinarily "steady" in purpose and absorbed more in work than in the seeking of pleasure, is either strongly inhibited sexually or else rather easily satisfied; cherishes the ideal of respectability highly; is conventional and habituated, usually has a strong property feeling and is apt to have a decided paternal feeling. He may of course be seclusive and apt to feel the constraints of contact with others as wearying and unsatisfactory; he is not easily bored or made restless. All this is a broad sketch; even the most domestic find in the home a certain amount of tyranny and monotony; they yearn now and then for adventure and new romance and think of the freedom of their bachelor days with regret over their passing. They may decide that married home life is best, but the choice is not without difficulty and is accompanied by an irrepressible, though hidden dissatisfaction. On the whole, however, the domestic man finds the home a haven of relief and a source of pleasurable feeling.