limitation is considered due to the greater
absorption of a woman
in the task of breeding and rearing her child, and
in part to a
less range of psychic activities. A man, as G. Hirth
puts it,
expressing this view of the matter (_Wege zur
Liebe_, p. 342),
"has not only room in his intellectual horizon for very various
interests, but his power of erotic expansion is much
greater and
more differentiated than that of women, although he
may lack the
intimacy and depth of a woman's devotion."
It may be argued that, since variations in the
sexual order will
inevitably take place, whether or not they are
recognized or
authorized, no harm is likely to be done by using
the weight of
social and legal authority on the side of that form
which is
generally regarded as the best, and, so far as
possible, covering
the other forms with infamy. There are many obvious
defects in
such an attitude, apart from the supremely important
fact that to
cast infamy on sexual relationships is to exert a
despicable
cruelty on women, who are inevitably the chief
sufferers. Not the
least is the injustice and the hampering of vital
energy which it
inflicts on the better and more scrupulous people to
the
advantage of the worse and less scrupulous. This
always happens
when authority exerts its power in favor of a form.
When, in the
thirteenth century, Alexander III--one of the
greatest and most
effective potentates who ever ruled Christendom--was
consulted by
the Bishop of Exeter concerning subdeacons who
persisted in
marrying, the Pope directed him to inquire into the
lives and
characters of the offenders; if they were of regular
habits and
staid morality, they were to be forcibly separated
and the wives
driven out; if they were men of notoriously
disorderly character,
they were to be permitted to retain their wives, if
they so
desired (Lea, _History of Sacerdotal Celibacy_,
third edition,
vol. i, p. 396). It was an astute policy, and was
carried out by
the same Pope elsewhere, but it is easy to see that
it was
altogether opposed to morality in every sense of the
term. It
destroyed the happiness and the efficiency of the
best men; it
left the worst men absolutely free. To-day we are
quite willing
to recognize the evil result of this policy; it was
dictated by a
Pope and carried out seven hundred years ago. Yet in
England we
carry out exactly the same policy to-day by means of
our
separation orders, which are scattered broadcast
among the
population. None of the couples thus separated--and
never
disciplined to celibacy as are the Catholic clergy
of to-day--may
marry again; we, in effect, bid the more scrupulous
among them to
become celibates, and to the less scrupulous we
grant permission
to do as they like. This process is carried on by
virtue of the
collective inertia of the community, and when it is
supported by
arguments, if that ever happens, they are of an
antiquarian
character which can only call forth a pitying smile.
It may be added that there is a further reason why
the custom of
branding sexual variations from the norm as
"immoral" is not so
harmless as some affect to believe: such variations
appear to be
not uncommon among men and women of superlative
ability whose
powers are needed unimpeded in the service of
mankind. To attempt
to fit such persons into the narrow moulds which
suit the
majority is not only an injustice to them as
individuals, but it
is an offence against society, which may fairly
claim that its
best members shall not be hampered in its service.
The notion
that the person whose sexual needs differ from those
of the
average is necessarily a socially bad person, is a
notion
unsupported by facts. Every case must be judged on
its own
merits.
Undoubtedly the most common variation from normal
monogamy has in all
stages of human culture been polygyny or the sexual
union of one man with
more than one woman. It has sometimes been socially and legally
recognized, and sometimes unrecognized, but in either
case it has not
failed to occur. Polyandry, or the union of a woman with more than one
man, has been comparatively rare and for intelligible
reasons: men have
most usually been in a better position, economically and legally, to
organize a household with themselves as the centre; a
woman is, unlike a
man, by nature and often by custom unfitted for
intercourse for
considerable periods at a time; a woman, moreover, has her thoughts and
affections more concentrated on her children. Apart from this the
biological masculine traditions point to polygyny much more than the
feminine traditions point to polyandry. Although it is true that a woman
can undergo a much greater amount of sexual intercourse than a man, it
also remains true that the phenomena of courtship in
nature have made it
the duty of the male to be alert in offering his sexual attention to the
female, whose part it has been to suspend her choice
coyly until she is
sure of her preference. Polygynic conditions have also proved
advantageous, as they have permitted the most vigorous and successful
members of a community to have the largest number of
mates and so to
transmit their own superior qualities.
"Polygamy," writes Woods Hutchinson (_Contemporary Review_, Oct.,
1904), though he recognizes the advantages of
monogamy, "as a
racial institution, among animals as among men, has
many solid
and weighty considerations in its favor, and has
resulted in
both human and pre-human times, in the production of
a very high
type of both individual and social development." He points out
that it promotes intelligence, coöperation, and
division of
labor, while the keen competition for women weeds
out the weaker
and less attractive males.
Among our European ancestors, alike among Germans
and Celts,
polygyny and other sexual forms existed as
occasional variations.
Tacitus noted polygyny in Germany, and Cæsar found
in Britain
that brothers would hold their wives in common, the
children
being reckoned to the man to whom the woman had been
first given
in marriage (see, e.g., Traill's _Social England_,
vol. i, p.
103, for a discussion of this point). The husband's
assistant,
also, who might be called in to impregnate the wife
when the
husband was impotent, existed in Germany, and was
indeed a
general Indo-Germanic institution (Schrader,
_Reallexicon_, art.
"Zeugungshelfer"). The corresponding institution of the concubine
has been still more deeply rooted and widespread. Up
to
comparatively modern times, indeed, in accordance
with the
traditions of Roman law, the concubine held a
recognized and
honorable position, below that of a wife but with
definite legal
rights, though it was not always, or indeed usually,
legal for a
married man to have a concubine. In ancient Wales,
as well as in
Rome, the concubine was accepted and never despised
(R.B. Holt,
"Marriage Laws of the Cymri," _Journal
Anthropological
Institute_, Aug. and Nov., 1898, p. 155). The fact
that when a
concubine entered the house of a married man her
dignity and
legal position were less than those of the wife
preserved
domestic peace and safeguarded the wife's interests.
(A Korean
husband cannot take a concubine under his roof
without his wife's
permission, but she rarely objects, and seems to
enjoy the
companionship, says Louise Jordan Miln, _Quaint
Korea_, 1895, p.
92.) In old Europe, we must remember, as Dufour
points out in
speaking of the time of Charlemagne (_Histoire de la
Prostitution_, vol. iii, p. 226), "concubine" was an honorable
term; the concubine was by no means a mistress, and
she could be
accused of adultery just the same as a wife. In
England, late in
the thirteenth century, Bracton speaks of the
_concubina
legitima_ as entitled to certain rights and
considerations, and
it was the same in other parts of Europe, sometimes
for several
centuries later (see Lea, _History of Sacerdotal
Celibacy_, vol.
i, p. 230). The early Christian Church was
frequently inclined to
recognize the concubine, at all events if attached
to an
unmarried man, for we may trace in the Church "the wish to look
upon every permanent union of man or woman as
possessing the
character of a marriage in the eyes of God, and,
therefore, in
the judgment of the Church" (art. "Concubinage,"
Smith and
Cheetham, _Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_).
This was the
feeling of St. Augustine (who had himself, before
his conversion,
had a concubine who was apparently a Christian), and
the Council
of Toledo admitted an unmarried man who was faithful
to a
concubine. As the law of the Catholic Church grew
more and more
rigid, it necessarily lost touch with human needs.
It was not so
in the early Church during the great ages of its
vital growth. In
those ages even the strenuous general rule of
monogamy was
relaxed when such relaxation seemed reasonable. This
was so, for
instance, in the case of sexual impotency. Thus
early in the
eighth century Gregory II, writing to Boniface, the
apostle of
Germany, in answer to a question by the latter,
replies that when
a wife is incapable from physical infirmity from
fulfilling her
marital duties it is permissible for the husband to
take a second
wife, though he must not withdraw maintenance from
the first. A
little later Archbishop Egbert of York, in his
_Dialogus de
Institutione Ecclesiastica_, though more cautiously,
admits that
when one of two married persons is infirm the other,
with the
permission of the infirm one, may marry again, but
the infirm one
is not allowed to marry again during the other's
life. Impotency
at the time of marriage, of course, made the
marriage void
without the intervention of any ecclesiastical law.
But Aquinas,
and later theologians, allow that an excessive
disgust for a wife
justifies a man in regarding himself as impotent in
relation to
her. These rules are, of course, quite distinct from
the
permissions to break the marriage laws granted to
kings and
princes; such permissions do not count as evidence
of the
Church's rules, for, as the Council of
Constantinople prudently
decided in 809, "Divine law can do nothing against Kings" (art.
"Bigamy," _Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_).
The law of
monogamy was also relaxed in cases of enforced or
voluntary
desertion. Thus the Council of Vermerie (752)
enacted that if a
wife will not accompany her husband when he is
compelled to
follow his lord into another land, he may marry
again, provided
he sees no hope of returning. Theodore of Canterbury
(688),
again, pronounces that if a wife is carried away by
the enemy and
her husband cannot redeem her, he may marry again
after an
interval of a year, or, if there is a chance of
redeeming her,
after an interval of five years; the wife may do the
same. Such
rules, though not general, show, as Meyrick points
out (art.
"Marriage," _Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_), a willingness
"to meet particular cases as they arise."
As the Canon law grew rigid and the Catholic Church
lost its
vital adaptibility, sexual variations ceased to be
recognized
within its sphere. We have to wait for the
Reformation for any
further movement. Many of the early Protestant
Reformers,
especially in Germany, were prepared to admit a
considerable
degree of vital flexibility in sexual relationships.
Thus Luther
advised married women with impotent husbands, in
cases where
there was no wish or opportunity for divorce, to
have sexual
relations with another man, by preference the
husband's brother;
the children were to be reckoned to the husband
("Die Sexuelle
Frage bei Luther," _Mutterschutz_, Sept., 1908).
In England the Puritan spirit, which so largely
occupied itself
with the reform of marriage, could not fail to be
concerned with
the question of sexual variations, and from time to
time we find
the proposal to legalize polygyny. Thus, in 1658, "A Person of
Quality" published in London a small pamphlet
dedicated to the
Lord Protector, entitled _A Remedy for Uncleanness_.
It was in
the form of a number of queries, asking why we
should not admit
polygamy for the avoidance of adultery and
infanticide. The
writer inquires whether it may not "stand with a
gracious spirit,
and be every way consistent with the principles of a
man fearing
God and loving holiness, to have more women than one
to his
proper use.... He that takes another man's ox or ass
is doubtless
a transgressor; but he that puts himself out of the
occasion of
that temptation by keeping of his own seems to be a
right honest
and well-meaning man."
More than a century later (1780), an able, learned,
and
distinguished London clergyman of high character
(who had been a
lawyer before entering the Church), the Rev. Martin
Madan, also
advocated polygamy in a book called _Thelyphthora;
or, a Treatise
on Female Ruin_. Madan had been brought into close
contact with
prostitution through a chaplaincy at the Lock
Hospital, and, like
the Puritan advocate of polygamy, he came to the
conclusion that
only by the reform of marriage is it possible to
work against
prostitution and the evils of sexual intercourse
outside
marriage. His remarkable book aroused much
controversy and strong
feeling against the author, so that he found it
desirable to
leave London and settle in the country. Projects of
marriage
reform have never since come from the Church, but
from
philosophers and moralists, though not rarely from
writers of
definitely religious character. Sénancour, who was
so delicate
and sensitive a moralist in the sexual sphere,
introduced a
temperate discussion of polygamy into his _De
l'Amour_ (vol. ii,
pp. 117-126). It seemed to him to be neither
positively contrary
nor positively conformed to the general tendency of
our present
conventions, and he concluded that "the method of conciliation,
in part, would be no longer to require that the
union of a man
and a woman should only cease with the death of one
of them."
Cope, the biologist, expressed a somewhat more
decided opinion.
Under some circumstances, if all three parties
agreed, he saw no
objection to polygyny or polyandry. "There are some cases of
hardship," he said, "which such permission would remedy. Such,
for instance, would be the case where the man or
woman had become
the victim of a chronic disease; or, when either
party should be
childless, and in other contingencies that could be
imagined."
There would be no compulsion in any direction, and
full
responsibility as at present. Such cases could only
arise
exceptionally, and would not call for social
antagonism. For the
most part, Cope remarks, "the best way to deal with polygamy is
to let it alone" (E.D. Cope, "The Marriage Problem,"
_Open
Court_, Nov. 15 and 22, 1888). In England, Dr. John
Chapman, the
editor of the _Westminster Review_, and a close
associate of the
leaders of the Radical movement in the Victorian
period, was
opposed to State dictation as regards the form of
marriage, and
believed that a certain amount of sexual variation
would be
socially beneficial. Thus he wrote in 1884 (in a
private letter):
"I think that as human beings become less selfish polygamy [i.e.,
polygyny], and even polyandry, in an ennobled form,
will become
increasingly frequent."
James Hinton, who, a few years earlier, had devoted
much thought
and attention to the sexual question, and regarded
it as indeed
the greatest of moral problems, was strongly in
favor of a more
vital flexibility of marriage regulations, an
adaptation to human
needs such as the early Christian Church admitted.
Marriage, he
declared, must be "subordinated to service," since marriage, like
the Sabbath, is made for man and not man for
marriage. Thus in
case of one partner becoming insane he would permit
the other
partner to marry again, the claim of the insane
partner, in case
of recovery, still remaining valid. That would be a
form of
polygamy, but Hinton was careful to point out that
by "polygamy"
he meant "less a particular marriage-order than such an order as
best serves good, and which therefore must be
essentially
variable. Monogamy may be good, even the only good
order, if of
free choice; but a _law_ for it is another thing.
The sexual
relationship must be a _natural_ thing. The true
social life will
not be any fixed and definite relationship, as of
monogamy,
polygamy, or anything else, but a perfect
subordination of every
sexual relationship whatever to reason and human
good."
Ellen Key, who is an enthusiastic advocate of
monogamy, and who
believes that the civilized development of personal
love removes
all danger of the growth of polygamy, still admits
the existence
of variations. She has in mind such solutions of
difficult
problems as Goethe had before him when he proposed
at first in
his _Stella_ to represent the force of affection and
tender
memories as too strong to admit of the rupture of an
old bond in
the presence of a new bond. The problem of sexual
variation, she
remarks, however (_Liebe und Ethik_, p. 12), has
changed its form
under modern conditions; it is no longer a struggle
between the
demand of society for a rigid marriage-order and the
demand of
the individual for sexual satisfaction, but it has
become the
problem of harmonizing the ennoblement of the race
with
heightened requirements of erotic happiness. She
also points out
that the existence of a partner who requires the
other partner's
care as a nurse or as an intellectual companion by
no means
deprives that other partner of the right to
fatherhood or
motherhood, and that such rights must be safeguarded
(Ellen Key,
_Ueber Liebe und Ehe_, pp. 166-168).
A prominent and extreme advocate of polygyny, not as
a simple
rare variation, but as a marriage order superior to
monogamy, is
to be found at the present day in Professor
Christian von
Ehrenfels of Prague (see, e.g., his _Sexualethik_,
1908; "Die
Postulate des Lebens," _Sexual-Probleme_, Oct.,
1908; and letter
to Ellen Key in her _Ueber Liebe und Ehe_, p. 466).
Ehrenfels
believes that the number of men inapt for
satisfactory
reproduction is much larger than that of women, and
that
therefore when these are left out of account, a
polygynic
marriage order becomes necessary. He calls this
"reproduction-marriage" (Zeugungsehe), and considers that it will
entirely replace the present marriage order, to
which it is
morally superior. It would be based on private
contracts.
Ehrenfels holds that women would offer no objection,
as a woman,
he believes, attaches less importance to a man as a
wooer than as
the father of her child. Ehrenfels's doctrine has
been seriously
attacked from many sides, and his proposals are not
in the line
of our progress. Any radical modification of the
existing