Feminism and Sex-Extinction Part 5

(A conclusion as singularly interesting, I think, as it is instructive, in view of modern Feminist doctrine and aims, which make, not for the culture and the ever further evolutionary development of the Woman-traits in woman, but, on the contrary, for a reversion to earlier cruder states of the subjection in her of her Woman-traits by those male Dominant ones, which, as the hybrid offspring of a male and of a female parent, every female creature inherits from her father, together with the Woman-traits she inherits from her mother. There is seen here the irony that woman has, by long ages of biological development, released herself from sociological subjection by the male, only voluntarily to set the Woman in herself in far worse psychological subjection to the male in herself.)

In the new and profoundly interesting light thrown by Mendel on some previously unsolved problems of heredity, the reason for the long subjection of woman, biological and sociological, becomes clear.

Because, given the key-notes of Tallness and Colour as Dominant traits, one identifies these, at once, as traits of Maleness; the greater stature of male creatures and the richer colour of their fur and plumage in the lower species pointing unmistakably thereto. Dwarfness (or lesser stature) and Whiteness (or lesser colour) are Recessive, and are obviously Female traits. The plant of Dominant type, though still bi-s.e.xual, is making for a male _genus_; the Recessive type is making for a Female _genus_. White creatures are so feminine in general effect that it seems an anomaly when they are males. The converse is true of black creatures. The black horse is stubborn and restive; the white, gentle and submissive.

White poultry are prolific in egg-production; white cattle are good milkers--a female characteristic. Jersey cows are both small in size and pale of colour.

The male s.e.x stands presumably for Dominance. And his positive, or objective, traits overpowering the negative, or subjective, traits of Recessiveness, prevail accordingly in early biological development.

The female s.e.x stands for Recessiveness. Her less a.s.sertive traits yield and recede into the background before those of the Dominant male. In stature, in strength, and in colour, and in the allied mental attributes, he holds the foreground in form and in function. The reason being that his role in Life is adaptation to environment.

The male, therefore, in his masculine role of Adaptation, with his Dominant traits making fiercely for the survival and for the ever further development of physical fitness--until physical fitness, or Adaptation, had attained due degrees of ascendancy--was long lord of Creation; the female, his va.s.sal. And this not only in life and in action, but too in the personal characteristics of both s.e.xes. During aeons before the Recessive female-traits were able to come into evidence as definite traits, they functioned as negations, merely; submerged and over-ridden in all female creatures by the Dominant male-traits they had inherited from their sires.

Primal physical development may be said, thus, to have derived its first impulse from those fierce and fighting male-proclivities which characterised it in the epoch of that early savage struggle with environment whence Species emerged. Only with further evolutionary progress, do the female traits manifest as personal characteristics, secure survival, and find increasing exercise and sway.

The tigress is only less fierce, less strong, and less savage than the tiger. Primal woman was only less fierce, less strong, and less savage than the male. It is only, indeed, in the maternal function and relation that the female traits of both tigress and primal woman awake, and find justification, impulse, and scope for development. And while the material progress which has led to modern Civilisation resulted from Adaptation to, and of, environment, and derived its impulse from the male proclivities of strength, a.s.sertiveness and intelligence, the moral progress thereof may be said to have derived its impulse from the evolution of the female s.e.x-characteristics. Because the evolution of Woman-traits has meant the ever further tempering and counterpoising of the fiercely active and aggressive male propensities, by the more pa.s.sive and self-surrendering qualities of the female.

Judging the respective characteristics of the s.e.xes by their widely-differing roles in the most important of their co-operative living functions, the parental one--the sole function wherein the s.e.xes of lower organisation co-operate, indeed--the respective attributes of Dominance and Recessiveness manifest clearly in these. The province of the male being to fight for mate and young, providing food, defending life--in order to fit him for this struggle for racial survival, his traits of strength and stature remain long paramount, alike in development and function, over those of the female, as regards his own organisation and that of his offspring, both male and female. The province of the female being to surrender her powers to the nurture of offspring before birth, and, after birth, mildly to suckle and to tend its helplessness, Nature equips her to these ends; inhibiting, or negativing, strength and fierceness in her by the traits of Recessiveness.

Tigress or savage woman, her struggle with the rough conditions of primal existence is only less fierce and less strenuous than her mate's.

It demands the positive male-qualities (which manifest first in stature, strength and pugnacity) only less in degree than does his, therefore.

The negative female qualities which, manifesting first in pa.s.sivity and surrender, detract from her fierceness and activity, would have made for extinction of species had they not been defended by those of her fighting mate, as too by the male-traits she herself had inherited from her fighting father. They could only evolve, accordingly, precisely in proportion as they were sheltered behind the male dominant powers. The tiger shelters his tigress only during her maternal phases, however. Her cubs brought forth, suckled, reared, and thrust into the jungle to fend for themselves, she must fight her own battles for food and existence.

And her brief maternal phases being all too short for more than the scantest development of female traits--which derive their fullest impulse in their exercise as mother-traits--she remains a tigress merely, and produces tiger offspring merely, because only tigerishness secures survival in her domain of life and attribute.

With the further advance of progressing species, savage woman has evolved from savage brute to savage woman by way of such increasing shelter and protection by her Dominant mate as have permitted the slow and gradual evolution of the Recessive Woman-traits in her; and thereby the evolution of the Woman-s.e.x. Her maternal phases and the unfitnesses of these become ever more prolonged and incapacitating; her offspring demands ever longer periods of suckling, devotion and care, as both she and it rise higher in the scale of organisation. Thus, s.e.x has evolved in the male by response to the ever-increasing claims upon him, by the female and by offspring, of his traits of protective chivalry and intelligent effort. And s.e.x has evolved in the female by response to the ever-increasing claims by offspring upon her, of her traits of devotion and ministry.

The evolution of the Woman-attributes has been rendered possible only by that protection accorded by the male to the female as the due of her maternal unfitnesses; securing thus for her and for offspring a more privileged and kindlier environment. Environment which, evoking less of fight and physical stress, enabled her inherent milder, self-surrendering Recessive traits to emerge, to unfold, and to function increasingly in life and heredity.

And in the degree of her advancing evolution, the male evolved. Because, just as in her earlier hybrid const.i.tution, the Dominant male-traits she had inherited from her father, submerging the Recessive female-traits she had inherited from her mother, made her, for long aeons, more male than she was female, so now, with their progressive evolution, the Recessive female-traits not only made _her_ ever more woman, but, transmitted in ever fuller measure to her sons, increasingly tempered, modified and humanised, the masculine fierceness and combativeness of these. Whereby were subst.i.tuted arts of peace and civilisation for those of war.

Thus, with advancing Evolution, the female s.e.x-characteristics have engendered, in both s.e.xes, qualities of quietism and subordination, to temper those of force and aggression; amenities of gentleness, forbearance and affection, to soften a.s.sertiveness, turn the edge of strife, and fructify intelligence. Thus, human civilisation has been fostered and furthered.

In the hybrid creature that every man and woman is, are grouped two sets of Contrasting Traits, or s.e.x-characteristics: traits Dominant, or male, and traits Recessive, or female. And in the complex human hybrid, these traits, ever increasing in complexity of const.i.tution and further diverging in trend, are a.s.sociated in ever more close and complex poise and counterpoise as both become more intensified and intelligised.

Man is a hybrid in whom the male Dominant traits derived from his father prevail in impulse and development over the female Recessive traits derived from his mother. Woman is a hybrid in whom the maternal Recessive traits prevail in impulse and development over the male Dominant traits she has inherited from her father.

The Woman-traits (which, as said, reach their highest culmination in _mother_-traits), become in man _paternal_ traits; modified mother-instincts which move him not only to love, in addition to providing for and protecting offspring, but, transfiguring all his other characteristics, move him to philanthropy, amity, tolerance and altruism in his dealings with his fellow-creatures.

CHAPTER IV

ONE SIDE OF BODY IS MALE, THE OTHER SIDE IS FEMALE

"Oh, I must feel your brain prompt mine, Your heart antic.i.p.ate my heart, You must be just before, in fine, See and make me see, for your part, New depths of the Divine!"

_Robert Browning._

I

On further applying the Principle of Duality, as operating in organisation and heredity, strangely interesting and significant developments appear.

Because, with the ever further evolution of Form and Faculty as organisms have risen higher in the scale of life, the bodies of living creatures are seen to have become further differentiated into two sides; a right and a left. Anatomically, these two sides appear identical in structure and in function, although contrary in incidence to one another. Each is incomplete and impotent without the other.

Nevertheless, paralysis and other diseases show that each is, as it were, an ent.i.ty totally distinct from the other. One side may be wholly helpless and insensitive while its fellow remains sound and efficient.

Complementary and supplementary each to the other, both are, in a sense, complete. Further and closer comparison of function shows, however, that although they co-operate in action, they are by no means identical in power or apt.i.tude.

The right half of the body is, for both s.e.xes, the active and executive half; quicker and stronger, and in all ways more efficient on the plane of physics.

The left half is, relatively, pa.s.sive and inert, is _responsive_, mainly, to the initiative and requirements of the right half, by which its powers are overshadowed in every form of direct activity.

As with the two sides of the body, so it is with the two halves of the brain, which are at the same time the agencies of mentality and the centres for recording the sensations and for directing the movements of the two sides of the body. The brain-half which controls the right side is known as "the Leading half." It is the agent in concrete intellection, as in physical activity.

While, so far as biologists and psychologists have been able to discover, the other half of the brain is negative in function--a blank, as regards concrete intelligence and nervous or muscular initiative. In disease, it has sometimes been found to undertake, and to perform feebly and imperfectly, sundry of the duties of its active "Leading" partner.

But inert and inadequate in muscular action, it is negative in intellection. It has been observed, however, that patients in whom this brain-half is diseased show signs of moral deterioration. Yet whatsoever its functions--and the fact that it does not atrophy nor degenerate in the marvellous structure and complexity which characterise brain-const.i.tution shows that it functions duly--its operations are totally dissimilar to, and are, moreover, wholly overshadowed by those of its active, intelligent partner.

Here again, as in the two sides of the body, appear, surely, the factors of Dominance and Recessiveness--in other words of Maleness and Femaleness; of strength and activity upon material planes, and of inhibition upon these.

Developments which, being in full agreement with one another and with others, suggest that the two orders of s.e.x-characteristics (derived from parents of opposite s.e.x) are centred, respectively, in the two sides of the body, and in the two brain-hemispheres allied, respectively, with these. One side of the body, with its allied brain-half, represents the paternal inherences of the individual; the other, the maternal. If so, the right side of the body, with its allied Leading, or Dominant, brain-half is, clearly, of male inherence. While the left side, with its allied Recessive, or Dormant, brain-half is of female inherence.

The inference is further supported by the fact that the stronger right side is rather larger and more masculine in form; while left-side limbs are in normal right-handed persons, more slender and shapely and delicate--in a word more womanly--than are those of the right.

As regards the face, from one aspect both sides are complete, from another aspect both are incomplete, without the other. And in configuration and expression, the two sides of the face differ appreciably; the left side being more psychical, emotional and subtle--in a word again more womanly.

In most persons, the hands and ears and eyes of one side differ from those of the other, both in form and in function. In some persons the differences are considerable. It happens occasionally, indeed, that the eye of one side resembles in colour the eyes of one parent, while the opposite eye bears the colour of those of the other parent.

Strange to say, there are, moreover, in the human male, organs concerned with the strictly female function of lactation.

Indication of primaeval human hermaphrodites formed one of Darwin's greatest puzzles, indeed. In his _Descent of Man_, the following pa.s.sage occurs:

"It has been known that in the vertebrate Kingdom one s.e.x bears rudiments of various accessory parts appertaining to the reproductive system, which properly belong to the other s.e.x....

Some remote progenitor of the whole vertebrate kingdom appears to have been hermaphrodite, or androgynous."

It escaped him as it has escaped later biologists that Man, the highest of the vertebrates, _is still androgynous_. And this inevitably so, since, being of bi-s.e.xual parentage, the s.e.x-characteristics of both parents must be present in him.

In _The Evolution of s.e.x_, Professors Geddes and Thomson state:

"Sometimes a fish is male on one side, female on the other, or male anteriorly and female posteriorly.... Among invertebrates the same has been occasionally observed, especially among b.u.t.terflies, where striking differences in the colouring of the wings on the two sides have in some cases been found to correspond to an internal co-existence of ovary and testes.... The prettiest cases of superficial hermaphrodism occur among insects, especially among moths and b.u.t.terflies, where it often happens that the wings on one side are those of the male, on the other, those of the female."