Studies in the Psychology of Sex Volume Iv Part 16

In dealing with the question of s.e.xual selection in man various writers have been puzzled by the problem presented by that abhorrence of incest which is usually, though not always so clearly marked among the different races of mankind.[184] It was once commonly stated, as by Morgan and by Maine, that this abhorrence was the result of experience; the marriages of closely related persons were found to be injurious to offspring and were therefore avoided. This theory, however, is baseless because the marriages of closely related persons are not injurious to the offspring. Consanguineous marriages, so closely as they can be investigated on a large scale,-that is to say, marriages between cousins,-as Huth was the first to show, develop no tendency to the production of offspring of impaired quality provided the parents are sound; they are only injurious in this respect in so far as they may lead to the union of couples who are both defective in the same direction. According to another theory, that of Westermarck, who has very fully and ably discussed the whole question,[185] "there is an innate aversion to s.e.xual intercourse between persons living very closely together from early youth, and, as such persons are in most cases related, this feeling displays itself chiefly as a horror of intercourse between near kin." Westermarck points out very truly that the prohibition of incest could not be founded on experience even if (as he is himself inclined to believe) consanguineous marriages are injurious to the offspring; incest is prevented "neither by laws, nor by customs, nor by education, but by an instinct which under normal circ.u.mstances makes s.e.xual love between the nearest kin a psychic impossibility." There is, however, a very radical objection to this theory. It a.s.sumes the existence of a kind of instinct which can with difficulty be accepted. An instinct is fundamentally a more or less complicated series of reflexes set in action by a definite stimulus. An innate tendency at once so specific and so merely negative, involving at the same time deliberate intellectual processes, can only with a certain force be introduced into the accepted cla.s.s of instincts. It is as awkward and artificial an instinct as would be, let us say, an instinct to avoid eating the apples that grew in one's own yard.[186]

The explanation of the abhorrence to incest is really, however, exceedingly simple. Any reader who has followed the discussion of s.e.xual selection in the present volume and is also familiar with the "a.n.a.lysis of the s.e.xual Impulse" set forth in the previous volume of these Studies will quickly perceive that the normal failure of the pairing instinct to manifest itself in the case of brothers and sisters, or of boys and girls brought up together from infancy, is a merely negative phenomenon due to the inevitable absence under those circ.u.mstances of the conditions which evoke the pairing impulse. Courtship is the process by which powerful sensory stimuli proceeding from a person of the opposite s.e.x gradually produce the physiological state of tumescence, with its psychic concomitant of love and desire, more or less necessary for mating to be effected. But between those who have been brought up together from childhood all the sensory stimuli of vision, hearing, and touch have been dulled by use, trained to the calm level of affection, and deprived of their potency to arouse the erethistic excitement which produces s.e.xual tumescence.[187] Brothers and sisters in relation to each other have at p.u.b.erty already reached that state to which old married couples by the exhaustion of youthful pa.s.sion and the slow usage of daily life gradually approximate. Pa.s.sion between brother and sister is, indeed, by no means so rare as is sometimes supposed, and it may be very strong, but it is usually aroused by the aid of those conditions which are normally required for the appearance of pa.s.sion, more especially by the unfamiliarity caused by a long separation. In reality, therefore, the usual absence of s.e.xual attraction between brothers and sisters requires no special explanation; it is merely due to the normal absence under these circ.u.mstances of the conditions that tend to produce s.e.xual tumescence and the play of those sensory allurements which lead to s.e.xual selection.[188] It is a purely negative phenomenon and it is quite unnecessary, even if it were legitimate, to invoke any instinct for its explanation. It is probable that the same tendency also operates among animals to some extent, tending to produce a stronger s.e.xual attraction toward those of their species to whom they have not become habituated.[189] In animals, and in man also when living under primitive conditions, s.e.xual attraction is not a constant phenomenon[190]; it is an occasional manifestation only called out by the powerful stimulation. It is not its absence which we need to explain; it is its presence which needs explanation, and such an explanation we find in the a.n.a.lysis of the phenomena of courtship.

The abhorrence of incest is an interesting and significant phenomenon from our present point of view, because it instructively points out to us the limits to that charm of parity which apparently makes itself felt to some considerable extent in the const.i.tution of the s.e.xual ideal and still more in the actual h.o.m.ogamy which seems to predominate over heterogamy. This h.o.m.ogamy is, it will be observed, a racial h.o.m.ogamy; it relates to anthropological characters which mark stocks. Even in this racial field, it is unnecessary to remark, the h.o.m.ogamy attained is not, and could not be, absolute; nor would it appear that such absolute racial h.o.m.ogamy is even desired. A tall man who seeks a tall woman can seldom wish her to be as tall as himself; a dark man who seeks a dark woman, certainly will not be displeased at the inevitably greater or less degree of pigment which he finds in her eyes as compared to his own.

But when we go outside the racial field this tendency to h.o.m.ogamy disappears at once. A man marries a woman who, with slight, but agreeable, variations, belongs to a like stock to himself. The abhorrence of incest indicates that even the s.e.xual attraction to people of the same stock has its limits, for it is not strong enough to overcome the s.e.xual indifference between persons of near kin. The desire for novelty shown in this s.e.xual indifference to near kin and to those who have been housemates from childhood, together with the notable s.e.xual attractiveness often possessed by a strange youth or maiden who arrives in a small town or village, indicates that slight differences in stock, if not, indeed, a positive advantage from this point of view, are certainly not a disadvantage. When we leave the consideration of racial differences to consider s.e.xual differences, not only do we no longer find any charm of parity, but we find that there is an actual charm of disparity. At this point it is necessary to remember all that has been brought forward in earlier pages[191] concerning the emphasis of the secondary s.e.xual characters in the ideal of beauty. All those qualities which the woman desires to see emphasized in the man are the precise opposite of the qualities which the man desires to see emphasized in the woman. The man must be strong, vigorous, energetic, hairy, even rough, to stir the primitive instincts of the woman's nature; the woman who satisfies this man must be smooth, rounded, and gentle. It would be hopeless to seek for any h.o.m.ogamy between the manly man and the virile woman, between the feminine woman and the effeminate man. It is not impossible that this tendency to seek disparity in s.e.xual characters may exert some disturbing influences on the tendency to seek parity in anthropological racial characters, for the s.e.xual difference to some extent makes itself felt in racial characters. A somewhat greater darkness of women is a secondary (or, more precisely, tertiary) s.e.xual character, and on this account alone, it is possible, somewhat attractive to men[192]. A difference in size and stature is a very marked secondary s.e.xual character. In the considerable body of data concerning the stature of married couples reproduced by Pearson from Galton's tables, although the tall on the average tend to marry the tall, and the short the short, it is yet noteworthy that, while the men of 5 ft. 4 ins. have more wives at 5 ft. 2 ins. than at any other height, men of 6 ft. show, in an exactly similar manner, more wives at 5 ft. 2 ins. than at any other height, although for many intermediate heights the most numerous groups of wives are taller[193].

In matters of carriage, habit, and especially clothing the love of s.e.xual disparity is instinctive, everywhere well marked, and often carried to very great lengths. To some extent such differences are due to the opposing demands of more fundamental differences in custom and occupation. But this cause by no means adequately accounts for them, since it may sometimes happen that what in one land is the practice of the men is in another the practice of the women, and yet the practices of the two s.e.xes are still opposed[194]. Men instinctively desire to avoid doing things in women's ways, and women instinctively avoid doing things in men's ways, yet both s.e.xes admire in the other s.e.x those things which in themselves they avoid. In the matter of clothing this charm of disparity reaches its highest point, and it has constantly happened that men have even called in the aid of religion to enforce a distinction which seemed to them so urgent[195]. One of the greatest of s.e.x allurements would be lost and the extreme importance of clothes would disappear at once if the two s.e.xes were to dress alike; such ident.i.ty of dress has, however, never come about among any people.

[171]

L. da Vinci, Frammenti, selected by Solmi, pp. 177-180.

[172]

Westermarck, who accepts the "charm of disparity," gives references, History of Human Marriage, p. 354.

[173]

Descent of Man. Part II, Chapter XVIII.

[174]

Bloch (Beitrage zur aetiologie der Psychopathia s.e.xualis, Teil II, pp. 260 et seq.) refers to the tendency to admixture of races and to the s.e.xual attraction occasionally exerted by the negress and sometimes the negro on white persons as evidence in favor of such charm of disparity. In part, however, we are here concerned with vague statements concerning imperfectly known facts, in part with merely individual variations, and with that love of the exotic under the stimulation of civilized conditions to which reference has already been made (p. 184).

[175]

In this connection the exceptional case of Tennyson is of interest. He was born and bred in the very fairest part of England (Lincolnshire), but he himself and the stock from which he sprang were dark to a very remarkable degree. In his work, although it reveals traces of the conventional admiration for the fair, there is a marked and unusual admiration for distinctly dark women, the women resembling the stock to which he himself belonged. See Havelock Ellis, "The Color Sense in Literature," Contemporary Review, May, 1896.

[176]

It is noteworthy that in the Round-About, already referred to, although no man expresses a desire to meet a short woman, when he refers to announcements by women as being such as would be likely to suit him, the persons thus pointed out are in a notable proportion short.

[177]

It has been discussed by F. J. Debret, La Selection Naturelle dans l'espece humaine (These de Paris), 1901. Debret regards it as due to natural selection.

[178]

"Heredite de la Couleur des Yeux dans l'espece humaine," Archives des Sciences physiques et naturelles, ser. iii, vol. xii, 1884, p. 109.

[179]

Revue Scientifique, Jan., 1891.

[180]

F. Galton, Natural Inheritance, p. 85. It may be remarked that while Galton's tables on page 206 show a slight excess of disparity as regards s.e.xual selection in stature, in regard to eye color they antic.i.p.ate Karl Pearson's more extensive data and in marriages of disparity show a decided deficiency of observed over chance results. In English Men of Science (pp. 28-33), also, Galton found that among the parents parity decidedly prevailed over disparity (78 to 31) alike as regards temperament, hair color, and eye color.

[181]

Karl Pearson, Phil. Trans. Royal Society, vol. clx.x.xvii, p. 273, and vol. cxcv, p. 113; Proceedings of the Royal Society, vol. lxvi, p. 28; Grammar of Science, second edition, 1900, pp. 425 et seq.; Biometrika, November, 1903. The last-named periodical also contains a study on "a.s.sortative Mating in Man," bringing forward evidence to show that, apart from environmental influence, "length of life is a character which is subject to selection;" that is to say, the long-lived tend to marry the long-lived, and the short-lived to marry the short-lived.

[182]

For a summary of the evidence on this point see Havelock Ellis, Man and Woman, fourth edition, 1904, pp. 256-264.

[183]

"The Comparative Abilities of the Fair and the Dark," Monthly Review, August, 1901.

[184]

The fact that even in Europe the abhorrence to incest is not always strongly felt is brought out by Bloch, Beitrage zur aetiologie der Psychopathia s.e.xualis, Teil II, pp. 263 et seq.

[185]

Westermarck, History of Marriage, Chapters XIV and XV.

[186]

Crawley (The Mystic Rose, p. 446) has pointed out that it is not legitimate to a.s.sume the possibility of an "instinct" of this character; instinct has "nothing in its character but a response of function to environment."

[187]

Fromentin, in his largely autobiographic novel Dominique, makes Olivier say: "Julie is my cousin, which is perhaps a reason why she should please me less than anyone else. I have always known her. We have, as it were, slept in the same cradle. There may be people who would be attracted by this almost fraternal relationship. To me the very idea of marrying someone whom I knew as a baby is as absurd as that of coupling two dolls."

[188]

It may well be, as Crawley argues (The Mystic Rose, Chapter XVII), that s.e.xual taboo plays some part among primitive people in preventing incestuous union, as, undoubtedly, training and moral ideas do among civilized peoples.

[189]

The remarks of the Marquis de Brisay, an authority on doves, as communicated to Giard (L'Intermediare des Biologistes, November 20, 1897), are of much interest on this point, since they correspond to what we find in the human species: "Two birds from the same nest rarely couple. Birds coming from the same nest behave as though they regarded coupling as prohibited, or, rather, they know each other too well, and seem to be ignorant of their difference in s.e.x, remaining unaffected in their relations by the changes which make them adults." Westermarck (op. cit., p. 334) has some remarks on a somewhat similar tendency sometimes observed in dogs and horses.

[190]

See Appendix to vol. lii of these Studies, "The s.e.xual Impulse among Savages."

[191]

See, especially, ante, pp. 163 et seq.

[192]

Kistemaecker, as quoted by Bloch (Beitrage, etc., ii. p. 340), alludes in this connection to the dark clothes of men and to the tendency of women to wear lighter garments, to emphasize the white underlinen, to cultivate pallor of the face, to use powder. "I am white and you are brown; ergo, you must love me"; this affirmation, he states, may be found in the depths of every woman's heart.

[193]

K. Pearson, Grammar of Science, second edition, p. 430.

[194]

In Man and Woman (fourth edition, p. 65) I have referred to a curious example of this tendency to opposition, which is of almost worldwide extent. Among some people it is, or has been, the custom for the women to stand during urination, and in these countries it is usually the custom for the man to squat; in most countries the practices of the s.e.xes in this matter are opposed.

[195]

It is sufficient to quote one example. At the end of the sixteenth century it was a serious objection to the fashionable wife of an English Brownist pastor in Amsterdam that she had "bodies [a bodice or corset] tied to the petticoat with points [laces] as men do their doublets and their hose, contrary to I Thess., v, 22, conferred with Deut. xxii, 5; and I John ii, 16."

V.

Summary of the Conclusions at Present Attainable in Regard to the Nature of Beauty and its Relation to s.e.xual Selection.

The consideration of vision has led us into a region in which, more definitely and precisely than is the case with any other sense, we can observe and even hope to measure the operation of s.e.xual selection in man. In the conception of feminine beauty we possess an instrument of universal extension by which it seems possible to measure the nature and extent of such selection as exercised by men on women. This conception, with which we set out, is, however, by no means so precise, so easily available for the attainment of sound conclusions, as at first it may seem to be.

It is true that beauty is not, as some have supposed, a mere matter of caprice. It rests in part on (1) an objective basis of aesthetic character which holds all its variations together and leads to a remarkable approximation among the ideals of feminine beauty cherished by the most intelligent men of all races. But beyond this general objective basis we find that (2) the specific characters of the race or nation tend to cause divergence in the ideals of beauty, since beauty is often held to consist in the extreme development of these racial or national anthropological features; and it would, indeed, appear that the full development of racial characters indicates at the same time the full development of health and vigor. We have further to consider that (3) in most countries an important and usually essential element of beauty lies in the emphasis of the secondary and tertiary s.e.xual characters: the special characters of the hair in woman, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her hips, and innumerable other qualities of minor saliency, but all apt to be of significance from the point of view of s.e.xual selection. In addition we have (4) the factor of individual taste, const.i.tuted by the special organization and the peculiar experiences of the individual and inevitably affecting his ideal of beauty. Often this individual factor is merged into collective shapes, and in this way are const.i.tuted pa.s.sing fashions in the matter of beauty, certain influences which normally affect only the individual having become potent enough to affect many individuals. Finally, in states of high civilization and in individuals of that restless and nervous temperament which is common in civilization, we have (5) a tendency to the appearance of an exotic element in the ideal of beauty, and in place of admiring that kind of beauty which most closely approximates to the type of their own race men begin to be agreeably affected by types which more or less deviate from that with which they are most familiar.

While we have these various and to some extent conflicting elements in a man's ideal of feminine beauty, the question is still further complicated by the fact that s.e.xual selection in the human species is not merely the choice of the woman by the man, but also the choice of the man by the woman. And when we come to consider this we find that the standard is altogether different, that many of the elements of beauty as it exists in woman for man have here fallen away altogether, while a new and preponderant element has to be recognized in the shape of a regard for strength and vigor. This, as I have pointed out, is not a purely visual character, but a tactile pressure character translated into visual terms.

When we have stated the s.e.xual ideal we have not yet, however, by any means stated the complete problem of human s.e.xual selection. The ideal that is desired and sought is, in a large measure, not the outcome of experience; it is not even necessarily the expression of the individual's temperament and idiosyncrasy. It may be largely the result of fortuitous circ.u.mstances, of slight chance attractions in childhood, of accepted traditions consecrated by romance. In the actual contacts of life the individual may find that his s.e.xual impulse is stirred by sensory stimuli which are other than those of the ideal he had cherished and may even be the reverse of them.

Beyond this, also, we have reason for believing that factors of a still more fundamentally biological character, to some extent deeper even than all these psychic elements, enter into the problem of s.e.xual selection. Certain individuals, apart altogether from the question of whether they are either ideally or practically the most fit mates, display a greater energy and achieve a greater success than others in securing partners. These individuals possess a greater const.i.tutional vigor, physical or mental, which conduces to their success in practical affairs generally, and probably also heightens their specifically philogamic activities.