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the physiology of menstruation, wrote: "Many years ago, I
concluded that every women had a law peculiar to herself, which
governed the times of her bringing forth (and conceiving); that
she was more prone to bring forth at certain epochs than at
others; and subsequent researches have established the accuracy
of the forecast." He further stated his belief in a "primordial
seasonal aptitude for procreation, the impress of which still
remains, and, to some extent, governs the breeding-times of
humanity." (A. Wiltshire, "Lectures on the Comparative Physiology
of Menstruation," _British Medical Journal_, March, 1883, pp.
502, etc.)
Westermarck, in a chapter of his _History of Human Marriage_,
dealing with the question of "A Human Pairing Season in Primitive
Times," brings forward evidence showing that spring, or, rather,
early summer, is the time for increase of the sexual instinct,
and argues that this is a survival of an ancient pairing season;
spring, he points out, is a season of want, rather than
abundance, for a frugivorous species, but when men took to herbs,
roots, and animal food, spring became a time of abundance, and
suitable for the birth of children. He thus considers that in
man, as in lower animals, the times of conception are governed by
the times most suitable for birth.
Rosenstadt, as we shall see later, also believes that men to-day
have inherited a physiological custom of procreating at a certain
epoch, and he thus accounts for the seasonal changes in the
birthrate.
Heape, who also believes that "at one period of its existence the
human species had a special breeding season," follows Wiltshire
in suggesting that "there is some reason to believe that the
human female is not always in a condition to breed." (W. Heape,
"Menstruation and Ovulation of _Macacus rhesus_," _Philosophical
Transactions_, 1897; id. "The Sexual Season of Mammals,"
_Quarterly Journal Microscopical Science_, 1900.)
Except, however, in one important respect, with which we shall presently
have to deal, few attempts have been made to demonstrate any annual
organic sexual rhythm. The supposition of such annual cycle is usually
little more than a deduction from the existence of the well-marked
seasonal sexual rhythm in animals. Most of the higher animals breed only
once or twice a year, and at such a period that the young are born when
food is most plentiful. At other periods the female is incapable of
breeding, and without sexual desires, while the male is either in the same
condition or in a condition of latent sexuality. Under the influence of
domestication, animals tend to lose the strict periodicity of the wild
condition, and become apt for breeding at more frequent intervals. Thus
among dogs in the wild state the bitch only experiences heat once a year,
in the spring. Among domesticated dogs, there is not only the spring
period of heat, early in the year, but also an autumn period, about six
months later; the primitive period, however, remains the most important
one, and the best litters of pups are said to be produced in the spring.
The mare is in season in spring and summer; sheep take the ram in
autumn.[128] Many of the menstruating monkeys also, whether or not sexual
desire is present throughout the year, only conceive in spring and in
autumn. Almost any time of the year may be an animal's pairing season,
this season being apparently in part determined by the economic conditions
which will prevail at birth. While it is essential that animals should be
born during the season of greatest abundance, it is equally essential that
pairing, which involves great expenditure of energy, should also take
place at a season of maximum physical vigor.
As an example of the sexual history of an animal through the
year, I may quote the following description, by Dr. A.W.
Johnstone, of the habits of the American deer: "Our common
American deer, in winter-time, is half-starved for lack of
vegetation in the woods; the low temperature, snow, and ice, make
his conditions of life harder for lack of the proper amount of
food, whereby he becomes an easier prey to carnivorous animals.
He has difficulty even in preserving life. In spring he sheds his
winter coat, and is provided with a suit of lighter hair, and
while this is going on the male grows antlers for defence. The
female about this time is far along in pregnancy, and when the
antlers are fully grown she drops the fawn. When the fawns are
dropped vegetation is plentiful and lactation sets in. During
this time the male is kept fully employed in getting food and
guarding his more or less helpless family. As the season advances
the vegetation increases and the fawn begins to eat grass. When
the summer heat commences the little streams begin to dry up, and
the animal once more has difficulty in supporting life because of
the enervating heat, the effect of drought on the vegetation, and
the distance which has to be traveled to get water; therefore,
fully ten months in each year the deer has all he can do to live
without extra exertion incident to rutting. Soon after the autumn
rains commence vegetation becomes more luxurious, the antlers of
the male and new suits of hair for both are fully grown, heat of
the summer is gone, food and drink are plentiful everywhere, the
fawns are weaned, and both sexes are in the very finest
condition. Then, and then only, in the whole year, comes the rut,
which, to them as to most other animals, means an unwonted amount
of physical exercise besides the everyday runs for life from
their natural enemies, and an unusual amount of energy is used
up. If a doe dislikes the attention of a special buck, miles of
racing result. If jealous males meet, furious battles take place.
The strain on both sexes could not possibly be endured at any
other season of the year. With approach of cold weather, climatic
deprivations and winter dangers commence and rut closes. In all
wild animals, rut occurs only when the climatic and other
conditions favor the highest physical development. This law holds
good in all wild birds, for it is then only that they can stand
the strain incident to love-making. The common American crow is a
very good study. In the winter he travels around the ricefields
of the South, leading a tramp's existence in a country foreign to
him, and to which he goes only to escape the rigors of the
northern climate. For several weeks in the spring he goes about
the fields, gathering up the worms and grubs. After his long
flight from the South he experiences several weeks of an almost
ideal existence, his food is plentiful, he becomes strong and
hearty, and then he turns to thoughts of love. In the pairing
season he does more work than at any other time in the year:
fantastic dances, racing and chasing after the females, and
savage fights with rivals. He endures more than would be possible
in his ordinary physical state. Then come the care of the young
and the long flights for water and food during the drought of the
summer. After the molt, autumn finds him once more in flock, and
with the first frosts he is off again to the South. In the wild
state, rut is the capstone of perfect physical condition." (A.W.
Johnstone, "The Relation of Menstruation to the other
Reproductive Functions," _American Journal of Obstetrics_, vol.
xxxii, 1895.)
Wiltshire ("Lectures on the Comparative Physiology of
Menstruation," _British Medical Journal_, March, 1888) and
Westermarck (_History of Human Marriage_, Chapter II) enumerate
the pairing season of a number of different animals.
With regard to the breeding seasons of monkeys, little seems to
be positively known. Heape made special inquiries with reference
to the two species whose sexual life he investigated. He was
informed that _Semnopithecus entellus_ breeds twice a year, in
April and in October. He accepts Aitcheson's statement that the
_Macacus rhesus_, in Simla, copulates in October, and adds that
in the very different climate of the plains it appears to
copulate in May. He concludes that the breeding season varies
greatly in dependence on climate, but believes that the breeding
season is always preserved, and that it affects the sexual
aptitude of the male. He could not make his monkeys copulate
during February or March, but is unable to say whether or not
sexual intercourse is generally admitted outside the breeding
season. He quotes the observation of Breschet that monkeys
copulate during pregnancy.
In primitive human races we very frequently trace precisely the same
influence of the seasonal impulse as may be witnessed in the higher
animals, although among human races it does not always result that the
children are born at the time of the greatest plenty, and on account of
the development of human skill such a result is not necessary. Thus Dr.
Cook found among the Eskimo that during the long winter nights the
secretions are diminished, muscular power is weak, and the passions are
depressed. Soon after the sun appears a kind of rut affects the young
population. They tremble with the intensity of sexual passion, and for
several weeks much of the time is taken up with courtship and love. Hence,
the majority of the children are born nine months later, when the four
months of perpetual night are beginning. A marked seasonal periodicity of
this kind is not confined to the Arctic regions. We may also find it in
the tropics. In Cambodia, Mondiere has found that twice a year, in April
and September, men seem to experience a "veritable rut," and will
sometimes even kill women who resist them.[129]
These two periods, spring and autumn--the season for greeting the
appearance of life and the season for reveling in its final
fruition--seem to be everywhere throughout the world the most usual
seasons for erotic festivals. In classical Greece and Rome, in India,
among the Indians of North and South America, spring is the most usual
season, while in Africa the yam harvest of autumn is the season chiefly
selected. There are, of course, numerous exceptions to this rule, and it
is common to find both seasons observed. Taking, indeed, a broad view of
festivals throughout the world, we may say that there are four seasons
when they are held: the winter solstice, when the days begin to lengthen
and primitive man rejoices in the lengthening and seeks to assist it;[130]
the vernal equinox, the period of germination and the return of life; the
summer solstice, when the sun reaches its height; and autumn, the period
of fruition, of thankfulness, and of repose. But it is rarely that we find
a people seriously celebrating more than two of these festival seasons.
In Australia, according to Mueller as quoted by Ploss and Bartels, marriage
and conception take place during the warm season, when there is greatest
abundance of food, and to some extent is even confined to that period.
Oldfield and others state that the Australian erotic festivals take place
only in spring. Among some tribes, Mueller adds, such as the Watschandis,
conception is inaugurated by a festival called _kaaro_, which takes place
in the warm season at the first new moon after the yams are ripe. The
leading feature of this festival is a moonlight dance, representing the
sexual act symbolically. With their spears, regarded as the symbols of the
male organ, the men attack bushes, which represent the female organs.
They thus work themselves up to a state of extreme sexual excitement.[131]
Among the Papuans of New Guinea, also, according to Miklucho-Macleay,
conceptions chiefly occur at the end of harvest, and Guise describes the
great annual festival of the year which takes place at the time of the yam
and banana harvest, when the girls undergo a ceremony of initiation and
marriages are effected.[132] In Central Africa, says Sir H.H. Johnston, in
his _Central Africa_, sexual orgies are seriously entered into at certain
seasons of the year, but he neglects to mention what these seasons are.
The people of New Britain, according to Weisser (as quoted by Ploss and
Bartels), carefully guard their young girls from the young men. At certain
times, however, a loud trumpet is blown in the evening, and the girls are
then allowed to go away into the bush to mix freely with the young men. In
ancient Peru (according to an account derived from a pastoral letter of
Archbishop Villagomez of Lima), in December, when the fruit of the
_paltay_ is ripe, a festival was held, preceded by a five days' fast.
During the festival, which lasted six days and six nights, men and women
met together in a state of complete nudity at a certain spot among the
gardens, and all raced toward a certain hill. Every man who caught up with
a woman in the race was bound at once to have intercourse with her.
Very instructive, from our present point of view, is the account given by
Dalton, of the festivals of the various Bengal races. Thus the Hos (a
Kolarian tribe), of Bengal, are a purely agricultural people, and the
chief festival of the year with them is the _magh parah_. It is held in
the month of January, "when the granaries are full of grain, and the
people, to use their own expression, full of devilry." It is the festival
of the harvest-home, the termination of the year's toil, and is always
held at full moon. The festival is a _saturnalia_, when all rules of duty
and decorum are forgotten, and the utmost liberty is allowed to women and
girls, who become like bacchantes. The people believe that at this time
both men and women become overcharged with vitality, and that a safety
valve is absolutely necessary. The festival begins with a religious
sacrifice made by the village priest or elders, and with prayers for the
departed and for the vouchsafing of seasonable rain and good crops. The
religious ceremonies over, the people give themselves up to feasting and
to drinking the home-made beer, the preparation of which from fermented
rice is one of a girl's chief accomplishments. "The Ho population," wrote
Dalton, "are at other seasons quiet and reserved in manner, and in their
demeanor toward women gentle and decorous; even in their flirtations they
never transcend the bounds of decency. The girls, though full of spirits
and somewhat saucy, have innate notions of propriety that make them modest
in demeanor, though devoid of all prudery, and of the obscene abuse, so
frequently heard from the lips of common women in Bengal, they appear to
have no knowledge. They are delicately sensitive under harsh language of
any kind, and never use it to others; and since their adoption of clothing
they are careful to drape themselves decently, as well as gracefully; but
they throw all this aside during the _magh_ feast. Their nature appears to
undergo a temporary change. Sons and daughters revile their parents in
gross language, and parents their children; men and women become almost
like animals in the indulgence of their amorous propensities. They enact
all that was ever portrayed by prurient artists in a bacchanalian festival
or pandean orgy; and as the light of the sun they adore, and the presence
of numerous spectators, seems to be no restraint on their indulgence, it
cannot be expected that chastity is preserved when the shades of night
fall on such a scene of licentiousness and debauchery." While, however,
thus representing the festival as a mere debauch, Dalton adds that
relationships formed at this time generally end in marriage. There is also
a flower festival in April and May, of religious nature, but the dances
at this festival are quieter in character.[133]
In Burmah the great festival of the year is the full moon of October,
following the Buddhist Lent season (which is also the wet season), during
which there is no sexual intercourse. The other great festival is the New
Year in March.[134]
In classical times the great festivals were held at the same time as in
northern and modern Europe. The _brumalia_ took place in midwinter, when
the days were shortest, and the _rosalia_, according to early custom in
May or June, and at a later time about Easter. After the establishment of
Christianity the Church made constant efforts to suppress this latter
festival, and it was referred to by an eighth century council as "a wicked
and reprehensible holiday-making." These festivals appear to be intimately
associated with Dionysus worship, and the flower-festival of Dionysus, as
well as the Roman Liberales in honor of Bacchus, was celebrated in March
with worship of Priapus. The festivals of the Delian Apollo and of
Artemis, both took place during the first week in May and the Roman
Bacchanales in October.[135]
The mediaeval Feast of Fools was to a large extent a seasonal orgy licensed
by the Church. It may be traced directly back through the barbatories of
the lower empire to the Roman _saturnalia_, and at Sens, the ancient
ecclesiastical metropolis of France, it was held at about the same time as
the _saturnalia_, on the Feast of the Circumcision, i.e., New Year's Day.
It was not, however, always held at this time; thus at Evreux it took
place on the 1st of May.[136]
The Easter bonfires of northern-central Europe, the Midsummer (St. John's
Eve) fires of southern-central Europe, still bear witness to the ancient
festivals.[137] There is certainly a connection between these bonfires and
erotic festivals; it is noteworthy that they occur chiefly at the period
of spring and early summer, which, on other grounds, is widely regarded as
the time for the increase of the sexual instinct, while the less frequent
period for the bonfires is that of the minor sexual climax. Mannhardt was
perhaps the first to show how intimately these spring and early summer
festivals--held with bonfires and dances and the music of violin--have
been associated with love-making and the choice of a mate.[138] In spring,
the first Monday in Lent (Quadrigesima) and Easter Eve were frequent days
for such bonfires. In May, among the Franks of the Main, the unmarried
women, naked and adorned with flowers, danced on the Blocksberg before the
men, as described by Herbels in the tenth century.[139] In the central
highlands of Scotland the Beltane fires were kindled on the 1st of May.
Bonfires sometimes took place on Halloween (October 31st) and Christmas.
But the great season all over Europe for these bonfires, then often held
with erotic ceremonial, is the summer solstice, the 23d of June, the eve
of Midsummer, or St. John's Day.[140]
The Bohemians and other Slavonic races formerly had meetings with sexual
license. This was so up to the beginning of the sixteenth century on the
banks of rivers near Novgorod. The meetings took place, as a rule, the day
before the Festival of John the Baptist, which, in pagan times, was that
of a divinity known by the name of Jarilo (equivalent to Priapus). Half a
century later, a new ecclesiastical code sought to abolish every vestige
of the early festivals held on Christmas Day, on the Day of the Baptism,
of Our Lord, and on John the Baptist's Day. A general feature of all these
festivals (says Kowalewsky) was the prevalence of the promiscuous
intercourse of the sexes. Among the Ehstonians, at the end of the
eighteenth century, thousands of persons would gather around an old ruined
church (in the Fellinschen) on the Eve of St. John, light a bonfire, and
throw sacrificial gifts into it. Sterile women danced naked among the
ruins; much eating and drinking went on, while the young men and maidens
disappeared into the woods to do what they would. Festivals of this
character still take place at the end of June in some districts. Young
unmarried couples jump barefoot over large fires, usually near rivers or
ponds. Licentiousness is rare.[141] But in many parts of Russia the
peasants still attach little value to virginity, and even prefer women who
have been mothers. The population of the Grisons in the sixteenth century
held regular meetings not less licentious than those of the Cossacks.
These were abolished by law. Kowalewsky regards all such customs as a
survival of early forms of promiscuity.[142]
Frazer (_Golden Bough_, 2d ed., 1900, vol. iii, pp. 236-350)
fully describes and discusses the dances, bonfires and festivals
of spring and summer, of Halloween (October 31), and Christmas.
He also explains the sexual character of these festivals. "There
are clear indications," he observes (p. 305), "that even human
fecundity is supposed to be promoted by the genial heat of the
fires. It is an Irish belief that a girl who jumps thrice over
the midsummer bonfire will soon marry and become the mother of
many children; and in various parts of France they think that if
a girl dances round nine fires she will be sure to marry within a
year. On the other hand, in Lechrain, people say that if a young
man and woman, leaping over the midsummer fire together, escape
unsmirched, the young woman will not become a mother within
twelve months--the flames have not touched and fertilized her.
The rule observed in some parts of France and Belgium, that the
bonfires on the first Sunday in Lent should be kindled by the
person who was last married, seems to belong to the same class of
ideas, whether it be that such a person is supposed to receive
from, or impart to, the fire a generative and fertilizing
influence. The common practice of lovers leaping over the fires
hand-in-hand may very well have originated in a notion that
thereby their marriage would be more likely to be blessed with
offspring. And the scenes of profligacy which appear to have
marked the midsummer celebration among the Ehstonians, as they
once marked the celebration of May Day among ourselves, may have
sprung, not from the mere license of holiday-makers, but from a
crude notion that such orgies were justified, if not required, by
some mysterious bond which linked the life of man, to the courses
of the heavens at the turning-point of the year."
As regards these primitive festivals, although the evidence is scattered
and sometimes obscure, certain main conclusions clearly emerge. In early
Europe there were, according to Grimm, only two seasons, sometimes
regarded as spring and winter, sometimes as spring and autumn, and for
mythical purposes these seasons were alone available.[143] The appearance
of each of these two seasons was inaugurated by festivals which were
religious and often erotic in character. The Slavonic year began in March,
at which time there was formerly, it is believed, a great festival, not
only in Slavonic but also in Teutonic countries. In Northern Germany there
were Easter bonfires always associated with mountains or hills. The Celtic
bonfires were held at the beginning of May, while the Teutonic May-day, or
_Walpurgisnacht_, is a very ancient sacred festival, associated with
erotic ceremonial, and regarded by Grimm as having a common origin with
the Roman _floralia_ and the Greek _dionysia_. Thus, in Europe, Grimm
concludes: "there are four different ways of welcoming summer. In Sweden
and Gothland a battle of winter and summer, a triumphal entry of the
latter. In Schonen, Denmark, Lower Saxony, and England, simply May-riding,
or fetching of the May-wagon. On the Rhine merely a battle of winter and
summer, without immersion, without the pomp of an entry. In Franconia,
Thuringia, Meissen, Silesia, and Bohemia only the carrying out of wintry
death; no battle, no formal introduction of summer. Of these festivals the
first and second fall in May, the third and fourth in March. In the first
two, the whole population take part with unabated enthusiasm; in the last
two only the lower poorer class.... Everything goes to prove that the
approach of summer was to our forefathers a holy tide, welcomed by
sacrifice, feast, and dance, and largely governing and brightening the
people's life."[144] The early spring festival of March, the festival of
Ostara, the goddess of spring, has become identified with the Christian
festival of Resurrection (just as the summer solstice festival has been
placed beneath the patronage of St. John the Baptist); but there has been
only an amalgamation of closely-allied rites, for the Christian festival
also may be traced back to a similar origin. Among the early Arabians the
great _ragab_ feast, identified by Ewald and Robertson Smith with the
Jewish _paschal_ feast, fell in the spring or early summer, when the
camels and other domestic animals brought forth their young and the
shepherds offered their sacrifices.[145] Babylonia, the supreme early
centre of religious and cosmological culture, presents a more decisive
example of the sex festival. The festival of Tammuz is precisely analogous
to the European festival of St. John's Day. Tammuz was the solar god of
spring vegetation, and closely associated with Ishtar, also an
agricultural deity of fertility. The Tammuz festival was, in the earliest
times, held toward the summer solstice, at the time of the first wheat and
barley harvest. In Babylonia, as in primitive Europe, there were only two
seasons; the festival of Tammuz, coming at the end of winter and the
beginning of summer, was a fast followed by a feast, a time of mourning
for winter, of rejoicing for summer. It is part of the primitive function
of sacred ritual to be symbolical of natural processes, a mysterious
representation of natural processes with the object of bringing them
about.[146] The Tammuz festival was an appeal to the powers of Nature to
exhibit their generative functions; its erotic character is indicated not
only by the well-known fact that the priestesses of Ishtar (the Kadishtu,
or "holy ones") were prostitutes, but by the statements in Babylonian
legends concerning the state of the earth during Ishtar's winter absence,
when the bull, the ass, and man ceased to reproduce. It is evident that
the return of spring, coincident with the Tammuz festival, was regarded as
the period for the return of the reproductive instinct even in man.[147]
So that along this line also we are led back to a great procreative
festival.
Thus the great spring festivals were held between March and June,
frequently culminating in a great orgy on Midsummer's Eve. The next great
season of festivals in Europe was in autumn. The beginning of August was a
great festival in Celtic lands, and the echoes of it, Rhys remarks, have
not yet died out in Wales.[148] The beginning of November, both in Celtic
and Teutonic countries, was a period of bonfires.[149] In Germanic
countries especially there was a great festival at the time. The Germanic
year began at Martinmas (November 11th), and the great festival of the
year was then held. It is the oldest Germanic festival on record, and
retained its importance even in the Middle Ages. There was feasting all
night, and the cattle that were to be killed were devoted to the gods; the
goose was associated with this festival.[150] These autumn festivals
culminated in the great festival of the winter solstice which we have
perpetuated in the celebrations of Christmas and New Year. Thus, while
the two great primitive culminating festivals of spring and autumn
correspond exactly (as we shall see) with the seasons of maximum
fecundation, even in the Europe of to-day, the earlier spring (March)
and--though less closely--autumn (November) festivals correspond with the
periods of maximum spontaneous sexual disturbance, as far as I have been
able to obtain precise evidence of such disturbance. That the maximum of
physiological sexual excitement should tend to appear earlier than the
maximum of fecundation is a result that might be expected.
The considerations so far brought forward clearly indicate that among
primitive races there are frequently one or two seasons in the
year--especially spring and autumn--during which sexual intercourse is
chiefly or even exclusively carried on, and they further indicate that
these primitive customs persist to some extent even in Europe to-day. It
would still remain, to determine whether any such influence affects the
whole mass of the civilized population and determines the times at which
intercourse, or fecundation, most frequently takes place.
This question can be most conveniently answered by studying the seasonal
variation in the birthrate, calculating back to the time of conception.
Wargentin, in Sweden, first called attention to the periodicity of the
birthrate in 1767.[151] The matter seems to have attracted little further
attention until Quetelet, who instinctively scented unreclaimed fields of
statistical investigation, showed that in Belgium and Holland there is a
maximum of births in February, and, consequently, of conceptions in May,
and a minimum of births about July, with consequent minimum of conceptions
in October. Quetelet considered that the spring maximum of conceptions
corresponded to an increase of vitality after the winter cold. He pointed
out that this sexual climax was better marked in the country than in
towns, and accounted for this by the consideration that in the country
the winter cold is more keenly felt. Later, Wappaeus investigated the
matter in various parts of northern and southern Europe as well as in
Chile, and found that there was a maximum of conceptions in May and June
attributable to season, and in Catholic countries strengthened by customs
connected with ecclesiastical seasons. This maximum was, he found,
followed by a minimum in September, October, and November, due to
gradually increasing exhaustion, and the influence of epidemic diseases,
as well as the strain of harvest-work. The minimum is reached in the south
earlier than in the north. About November conceptions again become more
frequent, and reach the second maximum at about Christmas and New Year.
This second maximum is very slightly marked in southern countries, but
strongly marked in northern countries (in Sweden the absolute maximum of
conceptions is reached in December), and is due, in the opinion of
Wappaeus, solely to social causes. Villerme reached somewhat similar
results. Founding his study on 17,000,000 births, he showed that in France
it was in April, May, and June, or from the spring equinox to the summer
solstice, and nearer to the solstice than the equinox, that the maximum of
fecundations takes place; while the minimum of births is normally in July,
but is retarded by a wet and cold summer in such a manner that in August
there are scarcely more births than in July, and, on the other hand, a
very hot summer, accelerating the minimum of births, causes it to fall in
June instead of in July.[152] He also showed that in Buenos Ayres, where
the seasons are reversed, the conception-rate follows the reversed
seasons, and is also raised by epochs of repose, of plentiful food, and of
increased social life. Sormani studied the periodicity of conception in
Italy, and found that the spring maximum in the southern provinces occurs
in May, and gradually falls later as one proceeds northward, until, in the
extreme north of the peninsula, it occurs in July. In southern Italy there
is only one maximum and one minimum; in the north there are two. The
minimum which follows the spring or summer maximum increases as we
approach the south, while the minimum associated with the winter cold
increases as we approach the north.[153] Beukemann, who studied the matter
in various parts of Germany, found that seasonal influence was specially
marked in the case of illegitimate births. The maximum of conceptions of
illegitimate children takes place in the spring and summer of Europe
generally; in Russia it takes place in the autumn and winter, when the
harvest-working months for the population are over, and the period of
rest, and also of minimum deathrate (September, October, and November),
comes round. In Russia the general conception-rate has been studied by
various investigators. Here the maximum number of conceptions is in
winter, the minimum varying among different elements of the population.
Looked at more closely, there are maxima of conceptions in Russia in
January and in April. (In Russian towns, however, the maximum number of
conceptions occurs in the autumn.) The special characteristics of the
Russian conception-rate are held to be due to the prevalence of marriages
in autumn and winter,[154] to the severely observed fasts of spring, and
to the exhausting harvest-work of summer.
It is instructive to compare the conception-rate of Europe with that of a
non-European country. Such a comparison has been made by S.A. Hill for the
Northwest Provinces of India. Here the Holi and other erotic festivals
take place in spring; but spring is not the period when conceptions
chiefly take place; indeed, the prevalence of erotic festivals in spring
appears to Hill an argument in favor of those festivals having originated
in a colder climate. The conceptions show a rise through October and
November to a maximum in December and January, followed by a steady and
prolonged fall to a minimum in September. This curve can be accounted for
by climatic and economic conditions. September is near the end of the long
and depressing hot season, when malarial influences are rapidly
increasing to a maximum, the food-supply is nearly exhausted, and there is
the greatest tendency to suicide. With October it forms the period of
greatest mortality. December, on the other hand, is the month when food is
most abundant, and it is also a very healthy month.[155]
For a summary of the chief researches into this question, see
Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_; also, Rosenstadt, "Zur Frage nach
den Ursachen welche die Zahl der Conceptionen, etc,"
_Mittheilungen aus den embryologischen Institute Universitaet
Wien_, second series, fasc. 4, 1890. Rosenstadt concludes that
man has inherited from animal ancestors a "physiological custom"
which has probably been further favored by climatic and social
conditions. "Primitive man," he proceeds, "had inherited from his
ancestors the faculty of only reproducing himself at determined
epochs. On the arrival of this period of rut, fecundation took
place on a large scale, this being very easy, thanks to the
promiscuity in which primitive man lived. With the development of
civilization, men give themselves up to sexual relations all the
year around, but the 'physiological custom' of procreating at a
certain epoch has not completely disappeared; it remains as a
survival of the animal condition, and manifests itself in the
recrudescence of the number of conceptions during certain months
of the year." O. Rosenbach ("Bemerkungen ueber das Problem einer
Brunstzeit beim Menschen," _Archiv fuer Rassen und
Gesellschafts-Biologie_, Bd. III, Heft 5) has also argued in
favor of a chief sexual period in the year in man, with secondary
and even tertiary climaxes, in March, August, and December. He
finds that in some families, for several generations, birthdays
tend to fall in the same months, but his paper is, on the whole,
inconclusive.
Some years ago, Prof. J.B. Haycraft argued, on the basis of data
furnished by Scotland, that the conception-rate corresponds to
the temperature-curve (Haycraft, "Physiological Results of
Temperature Variation," _Transactions of the Royal Society of
Edinburgh_, vol. xxix, 1880). "Temperature," he concluded, "is
the main factor regulating the variations in the number of
conceptions which occur during the year. It increases their
number with its elevation, and this on an average of 0.5 per
cent, for an elevation of 1 deg. F." Whether or not this theory may
fit the facts as regards Scotland, it is certainly altogether
untenable when we take a broader view of the phenomena.
Recently Dr. Paul Gaedeken of Copenhagen has argued in a detailed
statistical study ("La Reaction de l'Organisme sous l'Influence
Physico-Chimiques des Agents Meteorologiques," _Archives
d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Feb., 1909) that the
conception-rate, as well as the periodicity of suicide and allied
phenomena, is due to the action of the chemical rays on the
unpigmented skin in early spring, this action being
physiologically similar to that of alcohol. He seeks thus to
account for the marked and early occurrence of such periodic
phenomena in Greenland and other northern countries where there
is much chemical action (owing to the clear air) in early spring,
but little heat. This explanation would not cover an autumnal
climax, the existence of which Gaedeken denies.
In order to obtain a fairly typical conception-curve for Europe, and to
allow the variations of local habit and custom to some extent to
annihilate each other, I have summated the figures given by Mayr for about
a quarter of a million births in Germany, France, and Italy,[156]
obtaining a curve (Chart 2) of the conception-rate which may be said
roughly to be that of Europe generally. If we begin at September as the
lowest point, we find an autumn rise culminating in the lesser maximum of
Christmas, followed by a minor depression in January and February. Then
comes the great spring rise, culminating in May, and followed after June
by a rapid descent to the minimum.
In Canada (see e.g., _Report of the Registrar General of the
Province of Ontario_ for 1904), the maximum and minimum of
conceptions alike fall later than in Europe; the months of
maximum conception are June, July, and August; of minimum
conception, January, February, and March. June is the favorite
month for marriage.
It would be of some interest to know the conception-curve for the
well-to-do classes, who are largely free from the industrial and
social influences which evidently, to a great extent, control the
conception-rate. It seems probable that the seasonal influence
would here be specially well shown. The only attempt I have made
in this direction is to examine a well-filled birthday-book. The
entries show a very high and equally maintained maximum of
conceptions throughout April, May and June, followed by a marked
minimum during the next three months, and an autumn rise very
strongly marked, in November. There is no December rise. As will
be seen, there is here a fairly exact resemblance to the yearly
ecbolic curve of people of the same class. The inquiry needs,
however, to be extended to a very much larger number of cases.
Mr. John Douglass Brown, of Philadelphia, has kindly prepared and
sent me, since the above was written, a series of curves showing
the, annual periodicity of births among the educated classes in
the State of Pennsylvania, using the statistics as to 4,066
births contained in the Biographical Catalogue of Matriculates of
the College of the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Brown prepared
four curves: the first, covering the earliest period, 1757-1859;
the second, the period 1860-1876; the third, 1877-1893; while the
fourth presented the summated results for the whole period. (The
dates named are those of the entry to classes, and not of actual
occurrence of birth.) A very definite and well-marked curve is
shown, and the average number of births (not conceptions) per
day, for the whole period, is as follows:--
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec.
10.5 11.4 11 8.3 10.2 10.5 11.5 12.6 12.3 11.6 12 11.7
There is thus a well-marked minimum of conceptions (a depression
appearing here in each of the three periods, separately) about
the month of July. (In the second period, however, which contains
the smallest number of births, the minimum occurs in September.)
From that low minimum there is steady and unbroken rise up to the
chief maximum in November. (In the first period, however, the
maximum is delayed till January, and in the second period it is
somewhat diffused.) There is a tendency to a minor maximum in
February, specially well marked in the third and most important
period, and in the first period delayed until March.
A very curious and perhaps not accidental coincidence might be briefly
pointed out before we leave this part of the subject. It is found[157] by
taking 3000 cases of children dying under one year that, among the general
population, children born in February and September (and therefore
conceived in May and December) appear to possess the greatest vitality,
and those born in June, and, therefore, conceived in September, the least
vitality.[158] As we have seen, May and December are precisely the periods
when conceptions in Europe generally are at a maximum, and September is
precisely the period when they are at a minimum, so that, if this
coincidence is not accidental, the strongest children are conceived when
there is the strongest tendency to procreate, and the feeblest children
when that tendency is feeblest.
Nelson, in his study of dreams and their relation to seasonal ecbolic
manifestations, does not present any yearly ecbolic curve, as the two
years and a half over which his observations extend scarcely supply a
sufficient basis. On examining his figures, however, I find there is a
certain amount of evidence of a yearly rhythm. There are spring and autumn
climaxes throughout (in February and in November); there is no December
rise. During one year there is a marked minimum from May to September,
though it is but slightly traceable in the succeeding year. These figures
are too uncertain to prove anything, but, as far as they go, they are in
fair agreement with the much more extensive record, that of W.K. (_ante_
p. 113), which I have already made use of in discussing the question of a
monthly rhythm. This record, covering nearly twelve years, shows a general
tendency, when the year is divided into four periods (November-January,
February-April, May-July, August-October) and the results summated, to
rise steadily throughout, from the minimum in the winter period to the
maximum in the autumn period. This steady upward progress is not seen in
each year taken separately. In three years there is a fall in passing from
the November-January to the February-April quarter (always followed by a
rise in the subsequent quarter); in three cases there is a fall in passing
from the second to the third quarter (again always followed by a rise in
the following quarter), and in two successive years there is a fall in
passing from the third to the fourth quarter. If, however, beginning at
the second year, we summate the results for each year with those for all
previous years, a steady rise from season to season is seen throughout. If
we analyze the data according to the months of the year, still more
precise and interesting results (as shown in the curve, Chart 3) are
obtained; two maximum points are seen, one in spring (March), one in
autumn (October, or, rather, August-October), and each of these maximum
points is followed by; a steep and sudden descent to the minimum points in
April and in December. If we compare this result with Perry-Coste's also
extending over a long series of years, we find a marked similarity. In
both alike there are spring and autumn maxima, in both the autumn maximum
is the highest, and in both also there is an intervening fall. In both
cases, again, the maxima are followed by steep descents, but while in both
the spring maximum occurs in March, in Perry-Coste's case the second
maximum, though of precisely similar shape, occurs earlier, in
June-September instead of August-October. In Perry-Coste's case, also,
there is an apparently abnormal tendency, only shown in the more recent
years of the record, to an additional maximum in January. The records
certainly show far more points of agreement than of discrepancy, and by
their harmony, as well with each other as with themselves, when the years
are taken separately, certainly go far to prove that there is a very
marked annual rhythm in the phenomena of seminal emissions during sleep,
or, as Nelson has termed it, the ecbolic curve. We see, also, that the
great yearly organic climax of sexual effervescence corresponds with the
period following harvest, which, throughout the primitive world, has been
a season of sexual erethism and orgy; though those customs have died out
of our waking lives, they are still imprinted on our nervous texture, and
become manifest during sleep.
The fresh records that have reached me since the first edition of
this book was published show well-marked annual curves, though
each curve always has some slight personal peculiarities of its
own. The most interesting and significant is that of E.M. (see
_ante_ p. 116), covering four years. It is indicated by the
following monthly frequencies, summated for the four years:--
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec.
16 13 14 22 19 19 12 12 14 14 12 24
E.M. lives in India. April, May, and June, are hot months, but
not unhealthy, and during this season, moreover, he lives in the
hills, under favorable conditions, getting plenty of outdoor
exercise. July, August, and September, are nearly as hot, but
much damper, and more trying; during these months, E.M. is living
in the city, and his work is then, also, more exacting than at
other times, September is the worst month of all; he has a short
holiday at the end of it. During December, January, and February,
the climate is very fine, and E.M.'s work is easier. It will be
seen that his ecbolic curve corresponds to his circumstances and
environment, although until he analyzed the record he had no idea
that any such relationship existed. Unfavorable climatic
conditions and hard work, favorable conditions and lighter work,
happen to coincide in his life, and the former depress the
frequency of seminal emissions; the latter increase their
frequency. At the same time, the curve is not out of harmony with
the northern curves. There is what corresponds to a late spring
(April) climax, and another still higher, late autumn (December)
climax. A very interesting point is the general resemblance of
the ecbolic curves to the Indian conception-curves as set forth
by Hill (_ante_ p. 140). The conception-curve is at its lowest
point in September, and at its highest point in December-January,
and this ecbolic curve follows it, except that both the minimum
and the maximum are reached a little earlier. When compared with
the English annual ecbolic curves (W.K. and Perry-Coste), both
spring and autumn maxima fall rather later, but all agree in
representing the autumn rise as the chief climax.
The annual curve of A.N. (_ante_ p. 117), who lives in Indiana,
U.S.A., also covers four years. It presents the usual spring
(May-June, in this case) and autumn (September-October) climaxes.
The exact monthly results, summated for the four years, are given
below; in order to allow for the irregular lengths of the months,
I have reduced them to daily averages, for convenience treating
the four years as one year:--
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec.
13 9 13 20 23 22 20 20 21 23 9 16
.42 .32 .42 .66 .74 .73 .64 .64 .70 .74 .30 .52
In his book on _Adolescence_, Stanley Hall refers to three
ecbolic records in his possession, all made by men who were
doctors of philosophy, and all considering themselves normal. The
best of these records made by "a virtuous, active and able man,"
covered nearly eight years. Stanley Hall thus summarizes the
records, which are not presented in detail: "The best of these
records averages about three and a half such experiences per
month, the most frequent being 5.14 for July, and the least
frequent 2.28, for September, for all the years taken together.
There appears also a slight rise in April, and another in
November, with a fall in December." The frequency varies in the
different individuals. There was no tendency to a monthly cycle.
In the best case, the minimum number for the year was
thirty-seven, and the maximum, fifty. Fifty-nine per cent. of all
were at an interval of a week or less; forty per cent. at an
interval of from one to four days; thirty-four per cent, at an
interval of from eight to seventeen days, the longest being
forty-two days. Poor condition, overwork, and undersleep, led to
infrequency. Early morning was the most common time. Normally
there was a sense of distinct relief, but in low conditions, or
with over-frequency, depression. (G.S. Hall, _Adolescence_, vol.
i, p. 453.) I may add that an anonymous article on "Nocturnal
Emissions" (_American Journal of Psychology_, Jan., 1904) is
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