Studies in the Psychology of Sex Volume I Part 8

[77]

Thus, the Papuans, in some districts, believe that the first menstruation is due to an actual connection, during sleep, with the moon in the shape of a man, the girl dreaming that a real man is embracing her. (Reports Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, vol. v, p. 206.)

[78]

Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 164.

[79]

While in the majority of women the menstrual cycle is regular for the individual, and corresponds to the lunar month of 28 days, it must be added that in a considerable minority it is rather longer, or, more usually, shorter than this, and in many individuals is not constant. Osterloh found a regular type of menstruation in 68 per cent, healthy women, four weeks being the most usual length of the cycle; in 21 per cent, the cycle was always irregular. See Nacke, "Die Menstruation und ihr Einfluss bei chronischen Psychosen," Archiv fur Psychiatrie, 1896, Bd, 28, Heft 1.

[80]

Among the Duala and allied negro peoples of Bantu stock dances of markedly erotic character take place at full moon. Gason describes the dances and s.e.xual festivals of the South Australian blacks, generally followed by promiscuous intercourse, as taking place at full moon. (Journal of the Anthropological Inst.i.tute, November, 1894, p. 174.) In all parts of the world, indeed, including Christendom, festivals are frequently regulated by the phases of the moon.

[81]

It has often been held that the course of insanity is influenced by the moon. Of comparatively recent years, this thesis has been maintained by Koster (Ueber die Gesetze des periodischen Irreseins und verwandter Nervenzustande, Bonn, 1882), who argues in detail that periodic insanity tends to fall into periods of seven days or multiples of seven.

[82]

Ed. Hahn, Demeter und Baubo, p. 23.

[83]

E. Seler, Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie, 1907, Heft I, p. 39. And as regards the primitive importance of the moon, see also Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Ch. VIII.

[84]

Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia, 1898, pp. 68, 75-79, 461.

[85]

Even in England, Barnes has known women of feeble s.e.xual const.i.tution who menstruated only in summer (R. Barnes, Diseases of Women, 1878, p. 192).

[86]

A. B. Holder, "Gynecic Notes among American Indians," American Journal of Obstetrics, No. 6, 1892.

[87]

In the male, the phenomenon is termed rut, and is most familiar in the stag. I quote from Marshall and Jolly some remarks on the infrequency of rut: "'The male wild Cat,' Mr. c.o.c.ks informs us, (like the stag), 'has a rutting season, calls loudly, almost day and night, making far more noise than the female.' This information is of interest, inasmuch as the males of most carnivores, although they undoubtedly show signs of increased s.e.xual activity at some times more than at others, are not known to have anything of the nature of a regularly recurrent rutting season. Nothing of the kind is known in the Dog, nor, so far as we are aware, in the males of the domestic Cat, or the Ferret, all of which seem to be capable of copulation at any time of the year. On the other hand, the males of Seals appear to have a rutting season at the same time as the s.e.xual season of the female." (Marshall and Jolly, "Contributions to the Physiology of Mammalian Reproduction," Philosophical Transactions, 1905, B. 198.)

[88]

A. Wiltshire, British Medical Journal, March, 1883. The best account of heat known to me is contained in Ellenberger's Vergleichende Physiologie der Haussaugethiere, 1892, Band 4, Theil 2, pp. 276-284.

[89]

Schurig (Parthenologia, 1729, p. 125), gives numerous references and quotations.

[90]

Quoted by Icard, La Femme, etc., p. 63.

[91]

Bland Sutton, Surgical Diseases of the Ovaries, and British Gynecological Journal, vol. ii.

[92]

W. Heape, "The Menstruation of Semnopithecus Entellus," Philosophical Transactions, 1894; "Menstruation and Ovulation of Macacus Rhesus," Philosophical Transactions, 1897.

[93]

W. L. Distant, "Notes on the Chacma Baboon," Zoologist, January, 1897, p, 29.

[94]

Nature, March 23, 1899.

[95]

W. Heape, "The Menstruation of Semnopithecus Entellus," Philosophical Transactions, 1894, p. 483; Bland Sutton, Surgical Diseases of the Ovaries, 1896.

[96]

T. Bryce and J. Teacher (Contributions to the Study of the Early Development of the Human Ovum, 1908), putting the matter somewhat differently, regard menstruation as a cyclical process, providing for the maintenance of the endometrium in a suitable condition of immaturity for the production of the decidua of pregnancy, which they believe may take place at any time of the month, though most favorably shortly before or after a menstrual period which has been accompanied by ovulation.

[97]

Robinson, American Gynecological and Obstetrical Journal, August, 1905.

[98]

Bossi, Annali di Ostetrica e Ginecologia, September, 1896; summarized in the British Medical Journal, October 31, 1896. As regards the more normal influence of the ovaries over the uterus, see e.g. Carmichael and F. H. A. Marshall, "Correlation of the Ovarian and Uterine Functions," Proceedings Royal Society, vol. 79, Series B, 1907.

[99]

Beuttner, Centralblatt fur Gynakologie, No. 49, 1893; summarized in British Medical Journal, December, 1893. Many cases show that pregnancy may occur in the absence of menstruation. See, e.g., Nouvelles Archives d'Obstetrique et de Gynecologie, 25 Janvier, 1894, supplement, p. 9.

[100]

It is still possible, and even probable, that the primordial cause of both phenomena is the same. Heape (Transactions Obstetrical Society of London, 1898, vol. xl, p. 161) argues that both menstruation and ovulation are closely connected with and influenced by congestion, and that in the primitive condition they are largely due to the same cause. This primary cause he is inclined to regard as a ferment, due to a change in the const.i.tution of the blood brought about by climatic influences and food, which he proposes to call gonadin. (W. Heape, Proceedings of Royal Society, 1905, vol. B. 76, p. 266.) Marshall, who has found that in the ferret and other animals, ovulation may be dependent upon copulation, also considers that ovulation and menstruation, though connected and able to react on each other, may both be dependent upon a common cause; he finds that in b.i.t.c.hes and rats heat can be produced by injection of extract from ovaries in the strous state (F. H. A. Marshall, Philosophical Transactions, 1903, vol. B. 196; also Marshall and Jolly, id., 1905, B. 198). Cf. C. J. Bond, "An Inquiry Into Some Points in Uterine and Ovarian Physiology and Pathology in Rabbits," British Medical Journal, July 21, 1906.

[101]

Pouchet, Theorie de l'Ovulation Spontanee, 1847. As Blair Bell and Pontland Hick remark ("Menstruation," British Medical Journal, March 6, 1909), the repeated strus of unimpregnated animals (once a fortnight in rabbits) is surely comparable to menstruation.

[102]

Tait, Provincial Medical Journal, May, 1891; J. Beard, The Span of Gestation, 1897, p. 69. Lawson Tait is reduced to the a.s.sertion that ovulation and menstruation are identical.

[103]

As Moll points out, even the secondary s.e.xual characters have undergone a somewhat similar change. The beard was once an important s.e.xual attraction, but men can now afford to dispense with it without fear of loss in attractiveness. (Libido s.e.xualis, Band I, p. 387.) These points are discussed at greater length in the fourth volume of these Studies, "s.e.xual Selection in Man."

[104]

It is not absolutely established that in menstruating animals the period of menstruation is always a period of s.e.xual congress; probably not, the influence of menstruation being diminished by the more fundamental influence of breeding seasons, which affect the male also; monkeys have a breeding season, though they menstruate regularly all the year round.

[105]

See Appendix A.

[106]

Bland Sutton, loc. cit., p. 896.

[107]

See H. Ellis, Man and Woman, Chapter XI.

[108]

This is by no means true of European women only. Thus, we read in an Arabic book, The Perfumed Garden, that women have an aversion to coitus during menstruation. On the other hand, the old Hindoo physician, Susruta, appears to have stated that a tendency to run after men is one of the signs of menstruation.

[109]

The actual period of the menstrual flow corresponds, in Heape's terminology, to the congestive stage, or pro-strum, in female animals; the strus, or period of s.e.xual desire, immediately follows the pro-strum, and is the direct result of it. See Heape, "The 's.e.xual Season' of Mammals," Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, 1900, vol. xliv, Part I.