Sex in Relation to Society
by
HAVELOCK ELLIS 1927
PREFACE.
In the previous five volumes of these _Studies_, I have dealt mainly with
the sexual impulse in relation to its object, leaving
out of account the
external persons and the environmental influences which yet may powerfully
affect that impulse and its gratification. We cannot
afford, however, to
pass unnoticed this relationship of the sexual impulse to third persons
and to the community at large with all its anciently
established
traditions. We have to consider sex in relation to
society.
In so doing, it will be possible to discuss more
summarily than in
preceding volumes the manifold and important problems
that are presented
to us. In considering the more special questions of
sexual psychology we
entered a neglected field and it was necessary to expend an analytic care
and precision which at many points had never been
expended before on these
questions. But when we reach the relationships of sex to society we have
for the most part no such neglect to encounter. The
subject of every
chapter in the present volume could easily form, and
often has formed, the
topic of a volume, and the literature of many of these subjects is already
extremely voluminous. It must therefore be our main
object here not to
accumulate details but to place each subject by turn, as clearly and
succinctly as may be, in relation to those fundamental principles of
sexual psychology which--so far as the data at present admit--have been
set forth in the preceding volumes.
It may seem to some, indeed, that in this exposition I should have
confined myself to the present, and not included so wide a sweep of the
course of human history and the traditions of the race.
It may especially
seem that I have laid too great a stress on the
influence of Christianity
in moulding sexual ideals and establishing sexual
institutions. That, I am
convinced, is an error. It is because it is so
frequently made that the
movements of progress among us--movements that can never at any period of
social history cease--are by many so seriously
misunderstood. We cannot
escape from our traditions. There never has been, and
never can be, any
"age of reason." The most ardent co-called "free-thinker," who casts aside
as he imagines the authority of the Christian past, is still held by that
past. If its traditions are not absolutely in his blood, they are
ingrained in the texture of all the social institutions into which he was
born and they affect even his modes of thinking. The
latest modifications
of our institutions are inevitably influenced by the
past form of those
institutions. We cannot realize where we are, nor
whither we are moving,
unless we know whence we came. We cannot understand the significance of
the changes around us, nor face them with cheerful
confidence, unless we
are acquainted with the drift of the great movements
that stir all
civilization in never-ending cycles.
In discussing sexual questions which are very largely
matters of social
hygiene we shall thus still be preserving the
psychological point of view.
Such a point of view in relation to these matters is not only legitimate
but necessary. Discussions of social hygiene that are
purely medical or
purely juridical or purely moral or purely theological not only lead to
conclusions that are often entirely opposed to each
other but they
obviously fail to possess complete applicability to the complex human
personality. The main task before us must be to
ascertain what best
expresses, and what best satisfies, the totality of the impulses and ideas
of civilized men and women. So that while we must
constantly bear in mind
medical, legal, and moral demands--which all correspond in some respects
to some individual or social need--the main thing is to satisfy the
demands of the whole human person.
It is necessary to emphasize this point of view because it would seem
that no error is more common among writers on the
hygienic and moral
problems of sex than the neglect of the psychological
standpoint. They may
take, for instance, the side of sexual restraint, or the side of sexual
unrestraint, but they fail to realize that so narrow a basis is inadequate
for the needs of complex human beings. From the wider
psychological
standpoint we recognize that we have to conciliate
opposing impulses that
are both alike founded on the human psychic organism.
In the preceding volumes of these _Studies_ I have
sought to refrain from
the expression of any personal opinion and to maintain, so far as
possible, a strictly objective attitude. In this
endeavor, I trust, I have
been successful if I may judge from the fact that I have received the
sympathy and approval of all kinds of people, not less of the
rationalistic free-thinker than of the orthodox
believer, of those who
accept, as well as of those who reject, our most current standards of
morality. This is as it should be, for whatever our
criteria of the worth
of feelings and of conduct, it must always be of use to us to know what
exactly are the feelings of people and how those
feelings tend to affect
their conduct. In the present volume, however, where
social traditions
necessarily come in for consideration and where we have to discuss the
growth of those traditions in the past and their
probable evolution in the
future, I am not sanguine that the objectivity of my
attitude will be
equally clear to the reader. I have here to set down not only what people
actually feel and do but what I think they are tending to feel and do.
That is a matter of estimation only, however widely and however cautiously
it is approached; it cannot be a matter of absolute
demonstration. I trust
that those who have followed me in the past will bear
with me still, even
if it is impossible for them always to accept the
conclusions I have
myself reached.
HAVELOCK ELLIS.
Carbis Bay, Cornwall, England.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE MOTHER AND HER CHILD.
The Child's Right to Choose Its Ancestry--How This is
Effected--The Mother
the Child's Supreme Parent--Motherhood and the Woman
Movement--The Immense
Importance of Motherhood--Infant Mortality and Its
Causes--The Chief Cause
in the Mother--The Need of Rest During Pregnancy--
Frequency of Premature
Birth--The Function of the State--Recent Advance in
Puericulture--The
Question of Coitus During Pregnancy--The Need of Rest
During
Lactation--The Mother's Duty to Suckle Her Child--The
Economic
Question--The Duty of the State--Recent Progress in the Protection of the
Mother--The Fallacy of State Nurseries.
CHAPTER II.
SEXUAL EDUCATION.
Nurture Necessary as Well as Breed--Precocious
Manifestations of the
Sexual Impulse--Are they to be Regarded as Normal?--The Sexual Play of
Children--The Emotion of Love in Childhood--Are Town
Children More
Precocious Sexually Than Country Children?--Children's Ideas Concerning
the Origin of Babies--Need for Beginning the Sexual
Education of Children
in Early Years--The Importance of Early Training in
Responsibility--Evil
of the Old Doctrine of Silence in Matters of Sex--The
Evil Magnified When
Applied to Girls--The Mother the Natural and Best
Teacher--The Morbid
Influence of Artificial Mystery in Sex Matters--Books on Sexual
Enlightenment of the Young--Nature of the Mother's Task-
-Sexual Education
in the School--The Value of Botany--Zoölogy--Sexual
Education After
Puberty--The Necessity of Counteracting Quack
Literature--Danger of
Neglecting to Prepare for the First Onset of
Menstruation--The Right
Attitude Towards Woman's Sexual Life--The Vital
Necessity of the Hygiene
of Menstruation During Adolescence--Such Hygiene
Compatible with the
Educational and Social Equality of the Sexes--The
Invalidism of Women
Mainly Due to Hygienic Neglect--Good Influence of
Physical Training on
Women and Bad Influence of Athletics--The Evils of
Emotional
Suppression--Need of Teaching the Dignity of Sex--
Influence of These
Factors on a Woman's Fate in Marriage--Lectures and
Addresses on Sexual
Hygiene--The Doctor's Part in Sexual Education--Pubertal Initiation Into
the Ideal World--The Place of the Religious and Ethical Teacher--The
Initiation Rites of Savages Into Manhood and Womanhood--
The Sexual
Influence of Literature--The Sexual Influence of Art.
CHAPTER III.
SEXUAL EDUCATION AND NAKEDNESS.
The Greek Attitude Towards Nakedness--How the Romans
Modified That
Attitude--The Influence of Christianity--Nakedness in
Mediæval
Times--Evolution of the Horror of Nakedness--Concomitant Change in the
Conception of Nakedness--Prudery--The Romantic Movement-
-Rise of a New
Feeling in Regard to Nakedness--The Hygienic Aspect of Nakedness--How
Children May Be Accustomed to Nakedness--Nakedness Not Inimical to
Modesty--The Instinct of Physical Pride--The Value of
Nakedness in
Education--The Æsthetic Value of Nakedness--The Human
Body as One of the
Prime Tonics of Life--How Nakedness May Be Cultivated--
The Moral Value of
Nakedness.
CHAPTER IV.
THE VALUATION OF SEXUAL LOVE.
The Conception of Sexual Love--The Attitude of Mediæval Asceticism--St.
Bernard and St. Odo of Cluny--The Ascetic Insistence on the Proximity of
the Sexual and Excretory Centres--Love as a Sacrament of Nature--The Idea
of the Impurity of Sex in Primitive Religions Generally-
-Theories of the
Origin of This Idea--The Anti-Ascetic Element in the
Bible and Early
Christianity--Clement of Alexandria--St. Augustine's
Attitude--The
Recognition of the Sacredness of the Body by Tertullian, Rufinus and
Athanasius--The Reformation--The Sexual Instinct
Regarded as Beastly--The
Human Sexual Instinct Not Animal-like--Lust and Love--
The Definition of
Love--Love and Names for Love Unknown in Some Parts of the World--Romantic
Love of Late Development in the White Race--The Mystery of Sexual
Desire--Whether Love is a Delusion--The Spiritual as
Well as the Physical
Structure of the World in Part Built up on Sexual Love The Testimony of
Men of Intellect to the Supremacy of Love.
CHAPTER V.
THE FUNCTION OF CHASTITY.
Chastity Essential to the Dignity of Love--The
Eighteenth Century Revolt
Against the Ideal of Chastity--Unnatural Forms of
Chastity--The
Psychological Basis of Asceticism--Asceticism and
Chastity as Savage
Virtues--The Significance of Tahiti--Chastity Among
Barbarous
Peoples--Chastity Among the Early Christians--Struggles of the Saints with
the Flesh--The Romance of Christian Chastity--Its Decay in Mediæval
Times--_Aucassin et Nicolette_ and the New Romance of
Chaste Love--The
Unchastity of the Northern Barbarians--The Penitentials-
-Influence of the
Renaissance and the Reformation--The Revolt Against
Virginity as a
Virtue--The Modern Conception of Chastity as a Virtue--
The Influences That
Favor the Virtue of Chastity--Chastity as a Discipline--
The Value of
Chastity for the Artist--Potency and Impotence in
Popular Estimation--The
Correct Definitions of Asceticism and Chastity.
CHAPTER VI.
THE PROBLEM OF SEXUAL ABSTINENCE.
The Influence of Tradition--The Theological Conception of Lust--Tendency
of These Influences to Degrade Sexual Morality--Their
Result in Creating
the Problem of Sexual Abstinence--The Protests Against Sexual
Abstinence--Sexual Abstinence and Genius--Sexual
Abstinence in Women--The
Advocates of Sexual Abstinence--Intermediate Attitude--
Unsatisfactory
Nature of the Whole Discussion--Criticism of the
Conception of Sexual
Abstinence--Sexual Abstinence as Compared to Abstinence from Food--No
Complete Analogy--The Morality of Sexual Abstinence
Entirely Negative--Is
It the Physician's Duty to Advise Extra-Conjugal Sexual Intercourse?--Opinions of Those Who Affirm or Deny This Duty--The
Conclusion Against Such Advice--The Physician Bound by the Social and
Moral Ideas of His Age--The Physician as Reformer--
Sexual Abstinence and
Sexual Hygiene--Alcohol--The Influence of Physical and Mental
Exercise--The Inadequacy of Sexual Hygiene in This
Field--The Unreal
Nature of the Conception of Sexual Abstinence--The
Necessity of Replacing
It by a More Positive Ideal.
CHAPTER VII.
PROSTITUTION.
I. _The Orgy:_--The Religious Origin of the Orgy--The
Feast of
Fools--Recognition of the Orgy by the Greeks and Romans-
-The Orgy Among
Savages--The Drama--The Object Subserved by the Orgy.
II. _The Origin and Development of Prostitution:_--The Definition of
Prostitution--Prostitution Among Savages--The Conditions Under Which
Professional Prostitution Arises--Sacred Prostitution--
The Rite of
Mylitta--The Practice of Prostitution to Obtain a
Marriage Portion--The
Rise of Secular Prostitution in Greece--Prostitution in the East--India,
China, Japan, etc.--Prostitution in Rome--The Influence of Christianity on
Prostitution--The Effort to Combat Prostitution--The
Mediæval Brothel--The
Appearance of the Courtesan--Tullia D'Aragona--Veronica Franco--Ninon de
Lenclos--Later Attempts to Eradicate Prostitution--The Regulation of
Prostitution--Its Futility Becoming Recognized.
III. _The Causes of Prostitution:_--Prostitution as a