STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX, VOLUME VI

Sex in Relation to Society

by

HAVELOCK ELLIS

1927







PREFACE.

In the previous five volumes of these _Studies_, I have dealt mainly with
the sexual impulse in relation to its object, leaving out of account the
external persons and the environmental influences which yet may powerfully
affect that impulse and its gratification. We cannot afford, however, to
pass unnoticed this relationship of the sexual impulse to third persons
and to the community at large with all its anciently established
traditions. We have to consider sex in relation to society.

In so doing, it will be possible to discuss more summarily than in
preceding volumes the manifold and important problems that are presented
to us. In considering the more special questions of sexual psychology we
entered a neglected field and it was necessary to expend an analytic care
and precision which at many points had never been expended before on these
questions. But when we reach the relationships of sex to society we have
for the most part no such neglect to encounter. The subject of every
chapter in the present volume could easily form, and often has formed, the
topic of a volume, and the literature of many of these subjects is already
extremely voluminous. It must therefore be our main object here not to
accumulate details but to place each subject by turn, as clearly and
succinctly as may be, in relation to those fundamental principles of
sexual psychology which--so far as the data at present admit--have been
set forth in the preceding volumes.

It may seem to some, indeed, that in this exposition I should have
confined myself to the present, and not included so wide a sweep of the
course of human history and the traditions of the race. It may especially
seem that I have laid too great a stress on the influence of Christianity
in moulding sexual ideals and establishing sexual institutions. That, I am
convinced, is an error. It is because it is so frequently made that the
movements of progress among us--movements that can never at any period of
social history cease--are by many so seriously misunderstood. We cannot
escape from our traditions. There never has been, and never can be, any
"age of reason." The most ardent co-called "free-thinker," who casts aside
as he imagines the authority of the Christian past, is still held by that
past. If its traditions are not absolutely in his blood, they are
ingrained in the texture of all the social institutions into which he was
born and they affect even his modes of thinking. The latest modifications
of our institutions are inevitably influenced by the past form of those
institutions. We cannot realize where we are, nor whither we are moving,
unless we know whence we came. We cannot understand the significance of
the changes around us, nor face them with cheerful confidence, unless we
are acquainted with the drift of the great movements that stir all
civilization in never-ending cycles.

In discussing sexual questions which are very largely matters of social
hygiene we shall thus still be preserving the psychological point of view.
Such a point of view in relation to these matters is not only legitimate
but necessary. Discussions of social hygiene that are purely medical or
purely juridical or purely moral or purely theological not only lead to
conclusions that are often entirely opposed to each other but they
obviously fail to possess complete applicability to the complex human
personality. The main task before us must be to ascertain what best
expresses, and what best satisfies, the totality of the impulses and ideas
of civilized men and women. So that while we must constantly bear in mind
medical, legal, and moral demands--which all correspond in some respects
to some individual or social need--the main thing is to satisfy the
demands of the whole human person.

It is necessary to emphasize this point of view because it would seem
that no error is more common among writers on the hygienic and moral
problems of sex than the neglect of the psychological standpoint. They may
take, for instance, the side of sexual restraint, or the side of sexual
unrestraint, but they fail to realize that so narrow a basis is inadequate
for the needs of complex human beings. From the wider psychological
standpoint we recognize that we have to conciliate opposing impulses that
are both alike founded on the human psychic organism.

In the preceding volumes of these _Studies_ I have sought to refrain from
the expression of any personal opinion and to maintain, so far as
possible, a strictly objective attitude. In this endeavor, I trust, I have
been successful if I may judge from the fact that I have received the
sympathy and approval of all kinds of people, not less of the
rationalistic free-thinker than of the orthodox believer, of those who
accept, as well as of those who reject, our most current standards of
morality. This is as it should be, for whatever our criteria of the worth
of feelings and of conduct, it must always be of use to us to know what
exactly are the feelings of people and how those feelings tend to affect
their conduct. In the present volume, however, where social traditions
necessarily come in for consideration and where we have to discuss the
growth of those traditions in the past and their probable evolution in the
future, I am not sanguine that the objectivity of my attitude will be
equally clear to the reader. I have here to set down not only what people
actually feel and do but what I think they are tending to feel and do.
That is a matter of estimation only, however widely and however cautiously
it is approached; it cannot be a matter of absolute demonstration. I trust
that those who have followed me in the past will bear with me still, even
if it is impossible for them always to accept the conclusions I have
myself reached.

HAVELOCK ELLIS.

Carbis Bay, Cornwall, England.




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I.

THE MOTHER AND HER CHILD.

The Child's Right to Choose Its Ancestry--How This is Effected--The Mother
the Child's Supreme Parent--Motherhood and the Woman Movement--The Immense
Importance of Motherhood--Infant Mortality and Its Causes--The Chief Cause
in the Mother--The Need of Rest During Pregnancy--Frequency of Premature
Birth--The Function of the State--Recent Advance in Puericulture--The
Question of Coitus During Pregnancy--The Need of Rest During
Lactation--The Mother's Duty to Suckle Her Child--The Economic
Question--The Duty of the State--Recent Progress in the Protection of the
Mother--The Fallacy of State Nurseries.


CHAPTER II.

SEXUAL EDUCATION.

Nurture Necessary as Well as Breed--Precocious Manifestations of the
Sexual Impulse--Are they to be Regarded as Normal?--The Sexual Play of
Children--The Emotion of Love in Childhood--Are Town Children More
Precocious Sexually Than Country Children?--Children's Ideas Concerning
the Origin of Babies--Need for Beginning the Sexual Education of Children
in Early Years--The Importance of Early Training in Responsibility--Evil
of the Old Doctrine of Silence in Matters of Sex--The Evil Magnified When
Applied to Girls--The Mother the Natural and Best Teacher--The Morbid
Influence of Artificial Mystery in Sex Matters--Books on Sexual
Enlightenment of the Young--Nature of the Mother's Task--Sexual Education
in the School--The Value of Botany--Zoölogy--Sexual Education After
Puberty--The Necessity of Counteracting Quack Literature--Danger of
Neglecting to Prepare for the First Onset of Menstruation--The Right
Attitude Towards Woman's Sexual Life--The Vital Necessity of the Hygiene
of Menstruation During Adolescence--Such Hygiene Compatible with the
Educational and Social Equality of the Sexes--The Invalidism of Women
Mainly Due to Hygienic Neglect--Good Influence of Physical Training on
Women and Bad Influence of Athletics--The Evils of Emotional
Suppression--Need of Teaching the Dignity of Sex--Influence of These
Factors on a Woman's Fate in Marriage--Lectures and Addresses on Sexual
Hygiene--The Doctor's Part in Sexual Education--Pubertal Initiation Into
the Ideal World--The Place of the Religious and Ethical Teacher--The
Initiation Rites of Savages Into Manhood and Womanhood--The Sexual
Influence of Literature--The Sexual Influence of Art.


CHAPTER III.

SEXUAL EDUCATION AND NAKEDNESS.

The Greek Attitude Towards Nakedness--How the Romans Modified That
Attitude--The Influence of Christianity--Nakedness in Mediæval
Times--Evolution of the Horror of Nakedness--Concomitant Change in the
Conception of Nakedness--Prudery--The Romantic Movement--Rise of a New
Feeling in Regard to Nakedness--The Hygienic Aspect of Nakedness--How
Children May Be Accustomed to Nakedness--Nakedness Not Inimical to
Modesty--The Instinct of Physical Pride--The Value of Nakedness in
Education--The Æsthetic Value of Nakedness--The Human Body as One of the
Prime Tonics of Life--How Nakedness May Be Cultivated--The Moral Value of
Nakedness.


CHAPTER IV.

THE VALUATION OF SEXUAL LOVE.

The Conception of Sexual Love--The Attitude of Mediæval Asceticism--St.
Bernard and St. Odo of Cluny--The Ascetic Insistence on the Proximity of
the Sexual and Excretory Centres--Love as a Sacrament of Nature--The Idea
of the Impurity of Sex in Primitive Religions Generally--Theories of the
Origin of This Idea--The Anti-Ascetic Element in the Bible and Early
Christianity--Clement of Alexandria--St. Augustine's Attitude--The
Recognition of the Sacredness of the Body by Tertullian, Rufinus and
Athanasius--The Reformation--The Sexual Instinct Regarded as Beastly--The
Human Sexual Instinct Not Animal-like--Lust and Love--The Definition of
Love--Love and Names for Love Unknown in Some Parts of the World--Romantic
Love of Late Development in the White Race--The Mystery of Sexual
Desire--Whether Love is a Delusion--The Spiritual as Well as the Physical
Structure of the World in Part Built up on Sexual Love The Testimony of
Men of Intellect to the Supremacy of Love.


CHAPTER V.

THE FUNCTION OF CHASTITY.

Chastity Essential to the Dignity of Love--The Eighteenth Century Revolt
Against the Ideal of Chastity--Unnatural Forms of Chastity--The
Psychological Basis of Asceticism--Asceticism and Chastity as Savage
Virtues--The Significance of Tahiti--Chastity Among Barbarous
Peoples--Chastity Among the Early Christians--Struggles of the Saints with
the Flesh--The Romance of Christian Chastity--Its Decay in Mediæval
Times--_Aucassin et Nicolette_ and the New Romance of Chaste Love--The
Unchastity of the Northern Barbarians--The Penitentials--Influence of the
Renaissance and the Reformation--The Revolt Against Virginity as a
Virtue--The Modern Conception of Chastity as a Virtue--The Influences That
Favor the Virtue of Chastity--Chastity as a Discipline--The Value of
Chastity for the Artist--Potency and Impotence in Popular Estimation--The
Correct Definitions of Asceticism and Chastity.


CHAPTER VI.

THE PROBLEM OF SEXUAL ABSTINENCE.

The Influence of Tradition--The Theological Conception of Lust--Tendency
of These Influences to Degrade Sexual Morality--Their Result in Creating
the Problem of Sexual Abstinence--The Protests Against Sexual
Abstinence--Sexual Abstinence and Genius--Sexual Abstinence in Women--The
Advocates of Sexual Abstinence--Intermediate Attitude--Unsatisfactory
Nature of the Whole Discussion--Criticism of the Conception of Sexual
Abstinence--Sexual Abstinence as Compared to Abstinence from Food--No
Complete Analogy--The Morality of Sexual Abstinence Entirely Negative--Is
It the Physician's Duty to Advise Extra-Conjugal Sexual
Intercourse?--Opinions of Those Who Affirm or Deny This Duty--The
Conclusion Against Such Advice--The Physician Bound by the Social and
Moral Ideas of His Age--The Physician as Reformer--Sexual Abstinence and
Sexual Hygiene--Alcohol--The Influence of Physical and Mental
Exercise--The Inadequacy of Sexual Hygiene in This Field--The Unreal
Nature of the Conception of Sexual Abstinence--The Necessity of Replacing
It by a More Positive Ideal.


CHAPTER VII.

PROSTITUTION.

I. _The Orgy:_--The Religious Origin of the Orgy--The Feast of
Fools--Recognition of the Orgy by the Greeks and Romans--The Orgy Among
Savages--The Drama--The Object Subserved by the Orgy.

II. _The Origin and Development of Prostitution:_--The Definition of
Prostitution--Prostitution Among Savages--The Conditions Under Which
Professional Prostitution Arises--Sacred Prostitution--The Rite of
Mylitta--The Practice of Prostitution to Obtain a Marriage Portion--The
Rise of Secular Prostitution in Greece--Prostitution in the East--India,
China, Japan, etc.--Prostitution in Rome--The Influence of Christianity on
Prostitution--The Effort to Combat Prostitution--The Mediæval Brothel--The
Appearance of the Courtesan--Tullia D'Aragona--Veronica Franco--Ninon de
Lenclos--Later Attempts to Eradicate Prostitution--The Regulation of
Prostitution--Its Futility Becoming Recognized.

III. _The Causes of Prostitution:_--Prostitution as a Part of the Marriage
System--The Complex Causation of Prostitution--The Motives Assigned by
Prostitutes--(1) Economic Factor of Prostitution--Poverty Seldom the Chief
Motive for Prostitution--But Economic Pressure Exerts a Real
Influence--The Large Proportion of Prostitutes Recruited from Domestic
Service--Significance of This Fact--(2) The Biological Factor of
Prostitution--The So-called Born-Prostitute--Alleged Identity with the
Born-Criminal--The Sexual Instinct in Prostitutes--The Physical and
Psychic Characters of Prostitutes--(3) Moral Necessity as a Factor in the
Existence of Prostitution--The Moral Advocates of Prostitution--The Moral
Attitude of Christianity Towards Prostitution--The Attitude of
Protestantism--Recent Advocates of the Moral Necessity of
Prostitution--(4) Civilizational Value as a Factor of Prostitution--The
Influence of Urban Life--The Craving for Excitement--Why Servant-girls so
Often Turn to Prostitution--The Small Part Played by Seduction--Prostitutes
Come Largely from the Country--The Appeal of Civilization Attracts Women
to Prostitution--The Corresponding Attraction Felt by Men--The Prostitute
as Artist and Leader of Fashion--The Charm of Vulgarity.

IV. _The Present Social Attitude Towards Prostitution:_--The Decay of the
Brothel--The Tendency to the Humanization of Prostitution--The Monetary
Aspects of Prostitution--The Geisha--The Hetaira--The Moral Revolt Against
Prostitution--Squalid Vice Based on Luxurious Virtue--The Ordinary
Attitude Towards Prostitutes--Its Cruelty Absurd--The Need of Reforming
Prostitution--The Need of Reforming Marriage--These Two Needs Closely
Correlated--The Dynamic Relationships Involved.


CHAPTER VIII.

THE CONQUEST OF THE VENEREAL DISEASES.

The Significance of the Venereal Diseases--The History of Syphilis--The
Problem of Its Origin--The Social Gravity of Syphilis--The Social Dangers
of Gonorrhoea--The Modern Change in the Methods of Combating Venereal
Diseases--Causes of the Decay of the System of Police Regulation--Necessity
of Facing the Facts--The Innocent Victims of Venereal Diseases--Diseases
Not Crimes--The Principle of Notification--The Scandinavian
System--Gratuitous Treatment--Punishment For Transmitting
Venereal Diseases--Sexual Education in Relation to Venereal
Diseases--Lectures, Etc.--Discussion in Novels and on the Stage--The
"Disgusting" Not the "Immoral".


CHAPTER IX.

SEXUAL MORALITY.

Prostitution in Relation to Our Marriage System--Marriage and
Morality--The Definition of the Term "Morality"--Theoretical Morality--Its
Division Into Traditional Morality and Ideal Morality--Practical
Morality--Practical Morality Based on Custom--The Only Subject of
Scientific Ethics--The Reaction Between Theoretical and Practical
Morality--Sexual Morality in the Past an Application of Economic
Morality--The Combined Rigidity and Laxity of This Morality--The
Growth of a Specific Sexual Morality and the Evolution of Moral
Ideals--Manifestations of Sexual Morality--Disregard of the Forms of
Marriage--Trial Marriage--Marriage After Conception of Child--Phenomena in
Germany, Anglo-Saxon Countries, Russia, etc.--The Status of Woman--The
Historical Tendency Favoring Moral Equality of Women with Men--The Theory
of the Matriarchate--Mother-Descent--Women in Babylonia--Egypt--Rome--The
Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries--The Historical Tendency
Favoring Moral Inequality of Woman--The Ambiguous Influence of
Christianity--Influence of Teutonic Custom and Feudalism--Chivalry--Woman
in England--The Sale of Wives--The Vanishing Subjection of
Woman--Inaptitude of the Modern Man to Domineer--The Growth of Moral
Responsibility in Women--The Concomitant Development of Economic
Independence--The Increase of Women Who Work--Invasion of the Modern
Industrial Field by Women--In How Far This Is Socially Justifiable--The
Sexual Responsibility of Women and Its Consequences--The Alleged Moral
Inferiority of Women--The "Self-Sacrifice" of Women--Society Not
Concerned with Sexual Relationships--Procreation the Sole Sexual Concern
of the State--The Supreme Importance of Maternity.


CHAPTER X.

MARRIAGE.

The Definition of Marriage--Marriage Among Animals--The Predominance of
Monogamy--The Question of Group Marriage--Monogamy a Natural Fact, Not
Based on Human Law--The Tendency to Place the Form of Marriage Above the
Fact of Marriage--The History of Marriage--Marriage in Ancient
Rome--Germanic Influence on Marriage--Bride-Sale--The Ring--The Influence
of Christianity on Marriage--The Great Extent of this Influence--The
Sacrament of Matrimony--Origin and Growth of the Sacramental
Conception--The Church Made Marriage a Public Act--Canon Law--Its Sound
Core--Its Development--Its Confusions and Absurdities--Peculiarities of
English Marriage Law--Influence of the Reformation on Marriage--The
Protestant Conception of Marriage as a Secular Contract--The Puritan
Reform of Marriage--Milton as the Pioneer of Marriage Reform--His Views on
Divorce--The Backward Position of England in Marriage Reform--Criticism of
the English Divorce Law--Traditions of the Canon Law Still Persistent--The
Question of Damages for Adultery--Collusion as a Bar to
Divorce--Divorce in France, Germany, Austria, Russia, etc.--The United
States--Impossibility of Deciding by Statute the Causes for
Divorce--Divorce by Mutual Consent--Its Origin and Development--Impeded by
the Traditions of Canon Law--Wilhelm von Humboldt--Modern Pioneer
Advocates of Divorce by Mutual Consent--The Arguments Against Facility of
Divorce--The Interests of the Children--The Protection of Women--The
Present Tendency of the Divorce Movement--Marriage Not a Contract--The
Proposal of Marriage for a Term of Years--Legal Disabilities and
Disadvantages in the Position of the Husband and the Wife--Marriage Not a
Contract But a Fact--Only the Non-Essentials of Marriage, Not the
Essentials, a Proper Matter for Contract--The Legal Recognition of
Marriage as a Fact Without Any Ceremony--Contracts of the Person Opposed
to Modern Tendencies--The Factor of Moral Responsibility--Marriage as an
Ethical Sacrament--Personal Responsibility Involves Freedom--Freedom the
Best Guarantee of Stability--False Ideas of Individualism--Modern Tendency
of Marriage--With the Birth of a Child Marriage Ceases to be a Private
Concern--Every Child Must Have a Legal Father and Mother--How This Can be
Effected--The Firm Basis of Monogamy--The Question of Marriage
Variations--Such Variations Not Inimical to Monogamy--The Most Common
Variations--The Flexibility of Marriage Holds Variations in
Check--Marriage Variations _versus_ Prostitution--Marriage on a Reasonable
and Humane Basis--Summary and Conclusion.


CHAPTER XI.

THE ART OF LOVE.

Marriage Not Only for Procreation--Theologians on the _Sacramentum
Solationis_--Importance of the _Art of Love_--The Basis of Stability in
Marriage and the Condition for Right Procreation--The Art of Love the
Bulwark Against Divorce--The Unity of Love and Marriage a Principle of
Modern Morality--Christianity and the Art of Love--Ovid--The Art of Love
Among Primitive Peoples--Sexual Initiation in Africa and Elsewhere--The
Tendency to Spontaneous Development of the Art of Love in Early
Life--Flirtation--Sexual Ignorance in Women--The Husband's Place in Sexual
Initiation--Sexual Ignorance in Men--The Husband's Education for
Marriage--The Injury Done by the Ignorance of Husbands--The Physical and
Mental Results of Unskilful Coitus--Women Understand the Art of Love
Better Than Men--Ancient and Modern Opinions Concerning Frequency of
Coitus--Variation in Sexual Capacity--The Sexual Appetite--The Art of Love
Based on the Biological Facts of Courtship--The Art of Pleasing Women--The
Lover Compared to the Musician--The Proposal as a Part of
Courtship--Divination in the Art of Love--The Importance of the
Preliminaries in Courtship--The Unskilful Husband Frequently the Cause of
the Frigid Wife--The Difficulty of Courtship--Simultaneous Orgasm--The
Evils of Incomplete Gratification in Women--Coitus Interruptus--Coitus
Reservatus--The Human Method of Coitus--Variations in Coitus--Posture in
Coitus--The Best Time for Coitus--The Influence of Coitus in Marriage--The
Advantages of Absence in Marriage--The Risks of Absence--Jealousy--The
Primitive Function of Jealousy--Its Predominance Among Animals, Savages,
etc, and in Pathological States--An Anti-Social Emotion--Jealousy
Incompatible With the Progress of Civilization--The Possibility of Loving
More Than One Person at a Time--Platonic Friendship--The Conditions Which
Make It Possible--The Maternal Element in Woman's Love--The Final
Development of Conjugal Love--The Problem of Love One of the Greatest Of
Social Questions.


CHAPTER XII.

THE SCIENCE OF PROCREATION.

The Relationship of the Science of Procreation to the Art of Love--Sexual
Desire and Sexual Pleasure as the Conditions of Conception--Reproduction
Formerly Left to Caprice and Lust--The Question of Procreation as a
Religious Question--The Creed of Eugenics--Ellen Key and Sir Francis
Galton--Our Debt to Posterity--The Problem of Replacing Natural
Selection--The Origin and Development of Eugenics--The General Acceptance
of Eugenical Principles To-day--The Two Channels by Which Eugenical
Principles are Becoming Embodied in Practice--The Sense of Sexual
Responsibility in Women--The Rejection of Compulsory Motherhood--The
Privilege of Voluntary Motherhood--Causes of the Degradation of
Motherhood--The Control of Conception--Now Practiced by the Majority of
the Population in Civilized Countries--The Fallacy of "Racial
Suicide"--Are Large Families a Stigma of Degeneration?--Procreative
Control the Outcome of Natural and Civilized Progress--The Growth of
Neo-Malthusian Beliefs and Practices--Facultative Sterility as Distinct
from Neo-Malthusianism--The Medical and Hygienic Necessity of Control of
Conception--Preventive Methods--Abortion--The New Doctrine of the Duty to
Practice Abortion--How Far is this Justifiable?--Castration as a Method of
Controlling Procreation--Negative Eugenics and Positive Eugenics--The
Question of Certificates for Marriage--The Inadequacy of Eugenics by Act
of Parliament--The Quickening of the Social Conscience in Regard to
Heredity--Limitations to the Endowment of Motherhood--The Conditions
Favorable to Procreation--Sterility--The Question of Artificial
Fecundation--The Best Age of Procreation--The Question of Early
Motherhood--The Best Time for Procreation--The Completion of the Divine
Cycle of Life.




CHAPTER I.

THE MOTHER AND HER CHILD.

The Child's Right to Choose Its Ancestry--How This is Effected--The Mother
the Child's Supreme Parent--Motherhood and the Woman Movement--The Immense
Importance of Motherhood--Infant Mortality and Its Causes--The Chief Cause
in the Mother--The Need of Rest During Pregnancy--Frequency of Premature
Birth--The Function of the State--Recent Advance in Puericulture--The
Question of Coitus During Pregnancy--The Need of Rest During
Lactation--The Mother's Duty to Suckle Her Child--The Economic
Question--The Duty of the State--Recent Progress in the Protection of the
Mother--The Fallacy of State Nurseries.


A man's sexual nature, like all else that is most essential in him, is
rooted in a soil that was formed very long before his birth. In this, as
in every other respect, he draws the elements of his life from his
ancestors, however new the recombination may be and however greatly it may
be modified by subsequent conditions. A man's destiny stands not in the
future but in the past. That, rightly considered, is the most vital of all
vital facts. Every child thus has a right to choose his own ancestors.
Naturally he can only do this vicariously, through his parents. It is the
most serious and sacred duty of the future father to choose one half of
the ancestral and hereditary character of his future child; it is the most
serious and sacred duty of the future mother to make a similar choice.[1]
In choosing each other they have between them chosen the whole ancestry of
their child. They have determined the stars that will rule his fate.

In the past that fateful determination has usually been made helplessly,
ignorantly, almost unconsciously. It has either been guided by an
instinct which, on the whole, has worked out fairly well, or controlled by
economic interests of the results of which so much cannot be said, or left
to the risks of lower than bestial chances which can produce nothing but
evil. In the future we cannot but have faith--for all the hope of humanity
must rest on that faith--that a new guiding impulse, reinforcing natural
instinct and becoming in time an inseparable accompaniment of it, will
lead civilized man on his racial course. Just as in the past the race has,
on the whole, been moulded by a natural, and in part sexual, selection,
that was unconscious of itself and ignorant of the ends it made towards,
so in the future the race will be moulded by deliberate selection, the
creative energy of Nature becoming self-conscious in the civilized brain
of man. This is not a faith which has its source in a vague hope. The
problems of the individual life are linked on to the fate of the racial
life, and again and again we shall find as we ponder the individual
questions we are here concerned with, that at all points they ultimately
converge towards this same racial end.

Since we have here, therefore, to follow out the sexual relationships of
the individual as they bear on society, it will be convenient at this
point to put aside the questions of ancestry and to accept the individual
as, with hereditary constitution already determined, he lies in his
mother's womb.

It is the mother who is the child's supreme parent. At various points in
zoölogical evolution it has seemed possible that the functions that we now
know as those of maternity would be largely and even equally shared by the
male parent. Nature has tried various experiments in this direction, among
the fishes, for instance, and even among birds. But reasonable and
excellent as these experiments were, and though they were sufficiently
sound to secure their perpetuation unto this day, it remains true that it
was not along these lines that Man was destined to emerge. Among all the
mammal predecessors of Man, the male is an imposing and important figure
in the early days of courtship, but after conception has once been secured
the mother plays the chief part in the racial life. The male must be
content to forage abroad and stand on guard when at home in the
ante-chamber of the family. When she has once been impregnated the female
animal angrily rejects the caresses she had welcomed so coquettishly
before, and even in Man the place of the father at the birth of his child
is not a notably dignified or comfortable one. Nature accords the male but
a secondary and comparatively humble place in the home, the breeding-place
of the race; he may compensate himself if he will, by seeking adventure
and renown in the world outside. The mother is the child's supreme parent,
and during the period from conception to birth the hygiene of the future
man can only be affected by influences which work through her.

Fundamental and elementary as is the fact of the predominant position of
the mother in relation to the life of the race, incontestable as it must
seem to all those who have traversed the volumes of these _Studies_ up to
the present point, it must be admitted that it has sometimes been
forgotten or ignored. In the great ages of humanity it has indeed been
accepted as a central and sacred fact. In classic Rome at one period the
house of the pregnant woman was adorned with garlands, and in Athens it
was an inviolable sanctuary where even the criminal might find shelter.
Even amid the mixed influences of the exuberantly vital times which
preceded the outburst of the Renaissance, the ideally beautiful woman, as
pictures still show, was the pregnant woman. But it has not always been
so. At the present time, for instance, there can be no doubt that we are
but beginning to emerge from a period during which this fact was often
disputed and denied, both in theory and in practice, even by women
themselves. This was notably the case both in England and America, and it
is probably owing in large part to the unfortunate infatuation which led
women in these lands to follow after masculine ideals that at the present
moment the inspirations of progress in women's movements come mainly
to-day from the women of other lands. Motherhood and the future of the
race were systematically belittled. Paternity is but a mere incident, it
was argued, in man's life: why should maternity be more than a mere
incident in woman's life? In England, by a curiously perverted form of
sexual attraction, women were so fascinated by the glamour that surrounded
men that they desired to suppress or forget all the facts of organic
constitution which made them unlike men, counting their glory as their
shame, and sought the same education as men, the same occupations as men,
even the same sports. As we know, there was at the origin an element of
rightness in this impulse.[2] It was absolutely right in so far as it was
a claim for freedom from artificial restriction, and a demand for economic
independence. But it became mischievous and absurd when it developed into
a passion for doing, in all respects, the same things as men do; how
mischievous and how absurd we may realize if we imagine men developing a
passion to imitate the ways and avocations of women. Freedom is only good
when it is a freedom to follow the laws of one's own nature; it ceases to
be freedom when it becomes a slavish attempt to imitate others, and would
be disastrous if it could be successful.[3]

At the present day this movement on the theoretical side has ceased to
possess any representatives who exert serious influence. Yet its practical
results are still prominently exhibited in England and the other countries
in which it has been felt. Infantile mortality is enormous, and in England
at all events is only beginning to show a tendency to diminish; motherhood
is without dignity, and the vitality of mothers is speedily crushed, so
that often they cannot so much as suckle their infants; ignorant
girl-mothers give their infants potatoes and gin; on every hand we are
told of the evidence of degeneracy in the race, or if not in the race, at
all events, in the young individuals of to-day.

It would be out of place, and would lead us too far, to discuss
here these various practical outcomes of the foolish attempt to
belittle the immense racial importance of motherhood. It is
enough here to touch on the one point of the excess of infantile
mortality.

In England--which is not from the social point of view in a very
much worse condition than most countries, for in Austria and
Russia the infant mortality is higher still, though in Australia
and New Zealand much lower, but still excessive--more than
one-fourth of the total number of deaths every year is of infants
under one year of age. In the opinion of medical officers of
health who are in the best position to form an opinion, about
one-half of this mortality, roughly speaking, is absolutely
preventable. Moreover, it is doubtful whether there is any real
movement of decrease in this mortality; during the past half
century it has sometimes slightly risen and sometimes slightly
fallen, and though during the past few years the general movement
of mortality for children under five in England and Wales has
shown a tendency to decrease, in London (according to J.F.J.
Sykes, although Sir Shirley Murphy has attempted to minimize the
significance of these figures) the infantile mortality rate for
the first three months of life actually rose from 69 per 1,000 in
the period 1888-1892 to 75 per 1,000 in the period 1898-1901.
(This refers, it must be remembered, to the period before the
introduction of the Notification of Births Act.) In any case,
although the general mortality shows a marked tendency to
improvement there is certainly no adequately corresponding
improvement in the infantile mortality. This is scarcely
surprising, when we realize that there has been no change for the
better, but rather for the worse, in the conditions under which
our infants are born and reared. Thus William Hall, who has had
an intimate knowledge extending over fifty-six years of the slums
of Leeds, and has weighed and measured many thousands of slum
children, besides examining over 120,000 boys and girls as to
their fitness for factory labor, states (_British Medical
Journal_, October 14, 1905) that "fifty years ago the slum mother
was much more sober, cleanly, domestic, and motherly than she is
to-day; she was herself better nourished and she almost always
suckled her children, and after weaning they received more
nutritious bone-making food, and she was able to prepare more
wholesome food at home." The system of compulsory education has
had an unfortunate influence in exerting a strain on the parents
and worsening the conditions of the home. For, excellent as
education is in itself, it is not the primary need of life, and
has been made compulsory before the more essential things of life
have been made equally compulsory. How absolutely unnecessary
this great mortality is may be shown, without evoking the good
example of Australia and New Zealand, by merely comparing small
English towns; thus while in Guildford the infantile death rate
is 65 per thousand, in Burslem it is 205 per thousand.

It is sometimes said that infantile mortality is an economic
question, and that with improvement in wages it would cease. This
is only true to a limited extent and under certain conditions. In
Australia there is no grinding poverty, but the deaths of infants
under one year of age are still between 80 and 90 per thousand,
and one-third of this mortality, according to Hooper (_British
Medical Journal_, 1908, vol. ii, p. 289), being due to the
ignorance of mothers and the dislike to suckling, is easily
preventable. The employment of married women greatly diminishes
the poverty of a family, but nothing can be worse for the welfare
of the woman as mother, or for the welfare of her child. Reid,
the medical officer of health for Staffordshire, where there are
two large centres of artisan population with identical health
conditions, has shown that in the northern centre, where a very
large number of women are engaged in factories, still-births are
three times as frequent as in the southern centre, where there
are practically no trade employments for women; the frequency of
abnormalities is also in the same ratio. The superiority of
Jewish over Christian children, again, and their lower infantile
mortality, seem to be entirely due to the fact that Jewesses are
better mothers. "The Jewish children in the slums," says William
Hall (_British Medical Journal_, October 14, 1905), speaking from
wide and accurate knowledge, "were superior in weight, in teeth,
and in general bodily development, and they seemed less
susceptible to infectious disease. Yet these Jews were
overcrowded, they took little exercise, and their unsanitary
environment was obvious. The fact was, their children were much
better nourished. The pregnant Jewess was more cared for, and no
doubt supplied better nutriment to the foetus. After the children
were born 90 per cent. received breast-milk, and during later
childhood they were abundantly fed on bone-making material; eggs
and oil, fish, fresh vegetables, and fruit entered largely into
their diet." G. Newman, in his important and comprehensive book
on _Infant Mortality_, emphasizes the conclusion that "first of
all we need a higher standard of physical motherhood." The
problem of infantile mortality, he declares (page 259), is not
one of sanitation alone, or housing, or indeed of poverty as
such, "_but is mainly a question of motherhood_."

The fundamental need of the pregnant woman is _rest_. Without a large
degree of maternal rest there can be no puericulture.[4] The task of
creating a man needs the whole of a woman's best energies, more especially
during the three months before birth. It cannot be subordinated to the tax
on strength involved by manual or mental labor, or even strenuous social
duties and amusements. The numerous experiments and observations which
have been made during recent years in Maternity Hospitals, more especially
in France, have shown conclusively that not only the present and future
well-being of the mother and the ease of her confinement, but the fate of
the child, are immensely influenced by rest during the last month of
pregnancy. "Every working woman is entitled to rest during the last three
months of her pregnancy." This formula was adopted by the International
Congress of Hygiene in 1900, but it cannot be practically carried out
except by the coöperation of the whole community. For it is not enough to
say that a woman ought to rest during pregnancy; it is the business of the
community to ensure that that rest is duly secured. The woman herself, and
her employer, we may be certain, will do their best to cheat the
community, but it is the community which suffers, both economically and
morally, when a woman casts her inferior children into the world, and in
its own interests the community is forced to control both employer and
employed. We can no longer allow it to be said, in Bouchacourt's words,
that "to-day the dregs of the human species--the blind, the deaf-mute, the
degenerate, the nervous, the vicious, the idiotic, the imbecile, the
cretins and epileptics--are better protected than pregnant women."[5]

Pinard, who must always be honored as one of the founders of
eugenics, has, together with his pupils, done much to prepare the
way for the acceptance of this simple but important principle by
making clear the grounds on which it is based. From prolonged
observations on the pregnant women of all classes Pinard has
shown conclusively that women who rest during pregnancy have
finer children than women who do not rest. Apart from the more
general evils of work during pregnancy, Pinard found that during
the later months it had a tendency to press the uterus down into
the pelvis, and so cause the premature birth of undeveloped
children, while labor was rendered more difficult and dangerous
(see, e.g., Pinard, _Gazette des Hôpitaux_, Nov. 28, 1895, Id.,
_Annales de Gynécologie_, Aug., 1898).

Letourneux has studied the question whether repose during
pregnancy is necessary for women whose professional work is only
slightly fatiguing. He investigated 732 successive confinements
at the Clinique Baudelocque in Paris. He found that 137 women
engaged in fatiguing occupations (servants, cooks, etc.) and not
resting during pregnancy, produced children with an average
weight of 3,081 grammes; 115 women engaged in only slightly