Sex--The Unknown Quantity Part 4

We can look back and trace the development of a race consciousness from the clan to the nation. In this century we see the barriers between races and nations and sects and societies, as also between the s.e.xes, slowly dissolving.

Only a few years ago we could not imagine an Oriental, occupying a political, or educational or religions platform with an Occidental.

Now it is a common thing. We know the hostility which has existed between the Jew and the Gentile--now they exchange pulpits, and all sects and all nations unite in matters of world interest. Women are elected to political and educational offices. No matter that these evidences of unity are as yet incomplete. They are _promises_ of the birth of a larger concept of love than that which prevailed when a man's highest idea of honor and of love was to protect his immediate family only; to care for his own legal wife and children even at the expense of and certainly with heartless indifference to the fate of any other women and children.

To be sure, this protection has often been vouchsafed because of the self interest which is inseparable from the idea of possession and is not, per se, a grander or n.o.bler impulse than that which actuated our hair-clothed antecedents, who found that their own lives were best conserved by respecting those nearest to them. But thus it is that Love has been implanted in human hearts through no higher or more altruistic method than that of self-interest; but the nature of love is to expand; to grow; to _give_ of itself until unselfishness must come with the final aim of love, which is _unity_ and not possession.

We of this era are unquestionably manifesting a larger and more inclusive ideal of love, and since the Female Principle conserves the higher aspects of love, we are bound to concede that a higher ideal of love is possible to the woman of today than ever before. We must take into consideration the average of the s.e.x, at the same time not forgetting that in the highest type of individual, the qualities of both s.e.xes are balanced, uniting the spiritual, self-sacrificing and unselfish love-element of the female principle, with the wider scope, the inclusive element of the male. Let us remember that we are dealing with principles and not merely with individuals.

Admitting that it is not because of lack of love, either maternal or conjugal, that women are shirking marriage and maternity, we may then ask: "What is the cause?" The answer may be found in the conclusion that women are done with mere instinctive procreation. They demand conditions consistent with the birth of a higher type of human-kind.

They desire to "make right the way" for the coming of the perfect race--a race that will not snarl and bite and growl and tear and claw and choke and starve and freeze and otherwise kill each other over the possession of bones.

Ever and ever we have been promised the coming of the perfect man--the "man-G.o.d," as Emerson said. This means the G.o.d in Man consciously active, and awake. This G.o.d-nature of Man's has been asleep, submerged under the domination of the animal nature which subdues and appropriates.

A race of supermen can be born only of full and complete union.

Animals reproduce their kind, but man's perogative is to invite the G.o.ds to come to earth. We may consciously beget souls, not merely reproduce bodies. Women are demanding a union in which there shall be something more than mere physical contact resulting in reproduction.

This demand is working itself out more or less blindly according to the development of individual women, but the ideal of soul union is coming to be more and more recognized not only as a desirable type of union, but also as the initiative of the promised time when the kingdom of G.o.d should come on earth as it is in the heavens.

All races have uttered this prayer, apparently with a firm belief in its efficacy. If they have not faith in its appeal, it were surely vain and foolish to voice it But we are a.s.sured that "G.o.d always keeps his promises," which is simply one way of saying that the law of the cosmos is reliable.

"One calls it Evolution and another calls it G.o.d," but both must agree that whether G.o.d or Evolution be the name, Love is the result. There can be no higher or more spiritual phase of life than that in which Love is an ever-present reality. Neither can we with any degree of logic a.s.sume that a function so universal, so all-pervading, and also so inspiring, as that of s.e.x, has its beginning and its termination on the physical plane--a manifestation of life which even physicists are bound to concede is an infinitesimal part of cosmic activities.

We need not worry therefore lest the race shall die, because of a decreasing birthrate as we see it on the physical plane. There are many other places and planes of consciousness. The stars and the planets are peopled. The cosmos is very much alive, because s.e.x is the axis (X-is) upon which it rotates in perfect harmony.

The fact which we here wish to emphasize is that the Female Principle is refusing maternity, and above all the _bondage_ of matrimony for the important reason that the time has come for the rearing of the Man-G.o.d; for the establishment of the spiritual function of s.e.x, superceding the mere instinctive animal urge of procreation and sense gratification.

Evolution is apparent in all other phases of our life-activities. Why should it not manifest in this most important of all our systems of intercourse?

The mere act of bringing forth children is not in itself either sacred or holy. Far more often it has been a perfunctory duty or a punishment for indulgence in an act of which men and women have been more than half ashamed, even while seeking it with the instinctive urge of a cosmic law which cannot be escaped, although it may be co-operated with to advantage.

Nor does the act of giving birth to children confer true motherhood.

Maternity is not necessarily motherhood any more than matrimony is always marriage. There are many mothers who have never borne children.

And there are many women with children who know not the first faint dawn of that wonderful, beautiful and intense (because spiritual) love which comes most often in the guise of motherhood, but which is always present when two souls who are truly mated contact each other's inner nature.

If the women of today will insist upon the sacredness and the rightfulness of birth the women of tomorrow will not seek to evade motherhood. If the women of today will establish the sacredness of all life; if they will not rest until every child that is born into this world is recognized as legitimate and more, is welcomed; is given every advantage of education, of healthful body, of right moral training, rest a.s.sured that the women of the future will seek only to rival each other in the quality and the perfection of their motherhood.

The efforts of many radicals to enact legislation regulating the birthrate, the struggle to disseminate knowledge of how to prevent conception, may be well meant as these things are consistent with prevailing conditions. But they are not the final answer to the problem. Love is the only answer. Where love is permitted to rule, children are not only welcome but ecstatically desired and provided for.

Motherhood is a hope and a joy to the normal woman. Comparatively every woman would be normal under proper social and economic conditions. When women seek to evade maternity it is either because of lack of sufficient means to care for children, or it is because of lack of sufficient love. Or it is because of fear of that modern mo-loch, Public Opinion.

When a woman truly loves a man, she longs to be the mother of his children. A balanced world will make it possible for every woman to be free from the bondage of fear and poverty, and ill-health, leaving her free to be guided in the most vital and important function of her life, by the call of the highest love of which she is capable. Love will establish motherhood as a divine privilege. Certainly no other power on earth or in the realms above can do so. Neither preachments nor plat.i.tudes, nor punishments, nor legislative blunderings. Love is the only saviour of mankind. There is no other true G.o.d.

Some day the symbol of Deity which now depicts Man crucified will be superseded upon all altars by the image of a winged babe, and when this comes to pa.s.s, Humanity will rise to that ideal.

CHAPTER IV

THE HISTORY OF MARRIAGE AND MATING

Any attempt to discuss subjects pertaining to the s.e.x-relation with intelligence and an optimistic outlook is handicapped by the fact that s.e.x-problems are so intimately a.s.sociated with religious prejudices, reasons for which we have already mentioned in the chapter devoted to s.e.x-worship and s.e.x-degradation.

It is possible, therefore, that in seeking to define freedom and to make a plea for the freeing of women and men from the "bonds" of matrimony, we may be accused of seeking to demolish with one blow, so to speak, the social inst.i.tution of marriage.

Such is not the intention of the present writer, for reasons which are based upon something far more noteworthy than a concession to the prejudices and "beliefs" of the average.

Luther Burbank has said: "In pursuing any of the everlasting and fundamental laws of nature, all previous bias and inherited prejudices must be laid aside, if the student hopes to be taken into Nature's confidence and be the sharer of her secrets."

The average person, entrenched behind the bulwark of theological bias, saturated with a belief in the finality of all previous discovery and knowledge, teems with a fanatical desire to "defend his G.o.d"--as if the Supreme Power, whatever name we give it--were not capable of self-defense.

It is due to this mistaken zeal on the part of the short-sighted ones, that human evolution is slow, albeit it is likewise inevitable.

They are like those who, viewing the wrecking of a ruined habitation, condemned by the Board of Public Safety, try to stop the process of the workers; they do not know that when the ground shall have been cleared, a finer, more sightly, and above all, more habitable building will be put up on the same ground; and anything from the old architecture that was worthy of preservation will be used in the new building.

The dug-outs of our antedeluvian ancestors were designed to protect them from the destructive forces of storm and wave and also from their brothers, the enemy; and although our ideas of what const.i.tutes a desirable dwelling-place have evolved to our modern ideal of a home, rather than a shelter, yet the fundamental concept remains. A study of history should be encouraging if only to prove that no radical changes in human ethics have ever been forced upon us. Verily, the "G.o.ds wait upon men" and until there is something like a concerted demand for improved conditions, they stand just outside the door waiting to be bidden, "Enter, Friend."

As with mental ideas, so it is with ethical ideals. Until there is a more general demand for a higher concept of marriage, it is quite certain that the world will worry along with the one which now does duty for the majority, although it must be admitted that the poor thing gives evidence of much decrepitude and suffers from as many complaints as a hypochondriac.

But, the fact that marriage in some form has prevailed as one of the fundamental necessities of human ethics, ever since the beginning of recorded history, and doubtless before that, is, we believe, very satisfactory evidence that marriage has a permanent place in social and individual evolution. What that place is, can be deduced from a study of the history of marriage.

There are two different viewpoints from which we may discuss all phases of Life, namely, the mystical and the ethical. The mystic sees all life from the inside, as it were; and the physicist studies the exterior, the appearance. To the mystic, the visible, or external, world is a succession of symbols, which he must interpret. To him, the everlasting and fundamental truths of the Cosmos are told in a succession of moving pictures. In fact, the mystic has long antic.i.p.ated the art which we now see manifested in our film-theatres and has realized that the scenes, which appear to the eye as actual events, are but the reflection of scenes enacted in a place far distant and long before the moment of projection upon the screen which meets his eye.

Science examines, dissects, and cla.s.sifies these symbols according to their relation to other symbols which the mind has previously noted and cla.s.sified. The same conclusion awaits both Science and Mysticism.

Humanity is ever seeking the Reality--the Noumenon, which we intuitively postulate as behind the phenomena of Nature.

The inst.i.tution of marriage, coming down to us through all the ages, side by side with the mystery of s.e.x, and incorporated with the s.e.x-mystery into every form and system of religious rites and ceremonials among all peoples, would seem to have a place in human ethics, as substantial and as permanent as the germ of life itself.

Indeed, the inst.i.tution of marriage, in its first stages of evolution, obtains in the animal kingdom, where selection in a great variety of forms is common.

And it must be confessed that here we find the same tendency to change and variation, both in regard to the individual and the family species, as we have in the human family.

Polyandry, polygamy, and monogamy, have been general among some animals while among others only one form of mating has been the rule.

Strange to say, s.e.x promiscuity is not at all general among the animals, though polygamy is common. The adoption of polygamy is obviously due to one of two things, or possibly, to be more specific, to both. First, because the percentage of deaths among the males is greater than among the females; this applies to animal life, both wild and domestic. In wild life, because of frequent combats; in domestic life, because the females are kept for breeding while the males are slaughtered for food.

The second reason is because the female is seldom as virile as the male, and to this is also added the debilitating effect of bearing and rearing the young, the necessity for which must have manifested itself very early among the various families, from motives of self-protection, if from nothing higher, since victory evidently favored the numerically strong.

In bird-life, especially, where love is so vital a part of their life, and so beautifully expressed, monogamy is the rule, and in some species, like that of the robin, a certain aristocracy seems to exist, preventing intercourse with any other family. The robin will mate only with a robin, and not infrequently mates for life; which is to say that should one die, the other refuses to mate again.

It is claimed that the bald-headed eagle never varies from monogamy. A mate once chosen, the union lasts until the death of either partner.

It does not follow from this, however, that the bald-headed eagle is a creature of a superior moral conscience. It may be that he is guided in his selection of a conjugal mate by an intuitional power undeveloped by other types of life, or, which is far more probable, it may be that his s.e.xual nature is easily satisfied and that he has no temperamental affinities or repulsions, in which event force of habit would be the strongest actuating power. This explanation is in keeping with the eagle character.

The point is that marriage, or what const.i.tutes marriage, exists among birds and animals, and that it antedates history as a social inst.i.tution among men. Another fact which we must concede, if we are just, is that marriage apparently knows no systematic and upward trend. There is, in fact, no determined evolution toward a definite and conclusive practice of monogamy, although the monogamic custom is recognized as the evolutionary type among the civilized races of today. Nevertheless, it would be folly to imply that a strict monogamy obtains in the letter of the word, or that social exigencies might not reinstate polygamy as a legalized custom.

Pa.s.sing over those forms of mating, which may be cla.s.sed as s.e.x-promiscuity, such, for example, as exist among the Esquimaux, and also among the Dyaks, of Borneo, where a "contract" is made for a night by the simple expediency of the man and the woman exchanging head-gear, we come to one of the earliest and most general forms of marriage among primitive peoples, where the parents arranged a marriage between their children for reasons of personal profit. In these instances, neither the youth nor the girl was consulted and generally did not meet until they met to consummate the marriage. In fact, they seemed not to have any preferences. These marriages were easily broken, unless children resulted therefrom, when there seems to have developed a sense of obligation to the offspring to continue the family.

Marriage by capture grew out of the matriarchal system and came as the very natural revolt of the male from the female rule, in which he had no rights and no home with his spouse. Since the gens of the family was the first consideration and this was maintained by the female heads of a clan, there was nothing left for the male to do, if he would be a factor in the community, but to steal his wife from her family, and establish a family life of his own. Thus the female became the possession of the male, by his right of capture and defense.