SEX , MORE THAN any other element in human life, is still viewed by many,
perhaps by most , in an irrational way . Homicide , pestilence , insanity , gold
and precious stones - all the things, in fact, that are the objects of
passionate hopes or fears - have been seen, in the past , through a mist of
magic or mythology ; but the sun of reason has now dispelled the mist,
except here and there. The densest cloud that remains is in the territory of
sex , as is perhaps natural since sex is concerned in the most passionate part
of most people ' s lives.
It is becoming apparent , however, that conditions in the modern world are
working to effect a change in the public attitude toward sex . As to what
change , or changes , this will bring about , no one can speak with any
certainty ; but it is possible to note some of the forces now at work, and to
discuss what their results are likely to be upon the structure of society.
Insofar as human nature is concerned , it cannot be said to be impossible to
produce a society in which there is very little sexual intercourse outside of
marriage . The conditions necessary for this result , however, are such as are
made almost unattainable by modern life. Let us , then , consider what they
are .
The greatest influence toward effecting monogamy is immobility in a region
containing few inhabitants . If a man hardly ever has occasion to leave
home , and seldom sees any woman but his wife , it is easy for him to be
faithful ; but if he travels without her , or lives in a crowded urban
community , the problem is proportionately more difficult. The next greatest
assistance to monogamy is superstition : those who genuinely believe that
' sin ' leads to eternal punishment might be expected to avoid it , and to
some extent they do so , although not to so great an extent as might be
expected . The third support of virtue is public opinion. Where , as in
agricultural societies , all that a man does is known to his neighbours, he has
powerful motives for avoiding whatever convention condemns. But all these
causes of correct behaviour are much less potent than they used to be .
Fewer people live in isolation ; the belief in hell - fire is dying out ; and in large
towns no one knows what his neighbour does . It is, therefore , not surprising
that both men and women are less monogamous than they were before the
rise of modern industrialism .
Of course, it may be said that , while an increasing number of people fail to
observe the moral law, that is no reason for altering our standards. Those
who sin , we are sometimes told , should know and recognize that they sin ,
and an ethical code is none the worse for being difficult to live up to. But I
should reply that the question whether a code is good or bad is the same as
the question whether or not it promotes human happiness . Many adults, in
their hearts , still believe all that they were taught in childhood , and feel
wicked when their lives do not conform to the maxims of the Sunday
school . The harm done is not merely to introduce a division between the
conscious reasonable personality and the unconscious infantile personality;
the harm lies also in the fact that the valid parts of conventional morality
become discredited along with the invalid parts , and it comes to be thought
that , if adultery is excusable, so are laziness , dishonesty , and unkindness.
This danger is inseparable from a system which teaches the young , en bloc ,
a number of beliefs that they are almost sure to discard when they become
mature . In the process of social and economic revolt , they are likely to
throw over the good along with the bad.
The difficulty of arriving at a workable sexual ethic arises from the conflict
between the impulse to jealousy and the impulse to polygamy . There is no
doubt that jealousy, while in part instinctive , is to a very large degree
conventional . In societies in which a man is considered a fit object for
ridicule if his wife is unfaithful , he will be jealous where she is concerned ,
even if he no longer has any affection for her . Thus jealousy is intimately
connected with the sense of property, and is much less where this sense is
absent . If faithfulness is no part of what is conventionally expected , jealousy
is much diminished . But although there is more possibility of lessening
jealousy than many people suppose , there are very definite limits so long as
fathers have rights and duties. So long as this is the case , it is inevitable that
men should desire some assurance that they are the fathers of their wives'
children . If women are to have sexual freedom, fathers must fade out , and
wives must no longer expect to be supported by their husbands. This may
come about in time , but it will be a profound social change , and its effects,
for good or ill , are incalculable .
In the meantime , if marriage and paternity are to survive as social
institutions , some compromise is necessary between complete promiscuity
and life- long monogamy . To decide on the best compromise at any given
moment is not easy; and the decision should vary from time to time ,
according to the habits of the population and the reliability of birth - control
methods . Some things, however, can be said with some definiteness .
In the first place, it is undesirable , both physiologically and educationally,
that women should have children before the age of 20. Our ethics should,
therefore , be such as to make this a rare occurrence.
In the second place , it is unlikely that a person without previous sexual
experience , whether man or woman , will be able to distinguish between
mere physical attraction and the sort of congeniality that is necessary in
order to make marriage a success. Moreover , economic causes compel
men , as a rule , to postpone marriage , and it is neither likely that they will
remain chaste in the years from 20 to 30, nor desirable psychologically that
they should do so ; but it is much better that , if they have temporary
relations, that they should be not with professionals , but with girls of their
own class , whose motive is affection rather than money. For both these
reasons, young unmarried people should have considerable freedom as long
as children are avoided .
In the third place, divorce should be possible without blame to either party,
and should not be regarded as in any way disgraceful . A childless marriage
should be terminable at the wish of one of the partners , and any marriage
should be terminable by mutual consent - a year' s notice being necessary in
either case . Divorce should, of course , be possible on a number of other
grounds - insanity , desertion , cruelty , and so on; but mutual consent should
be the most usual ground.
In the fourth place , everything possible should be done to free sexual
relations from the economic taint . At present , wives, just as much as
prostitutes , live by the sale of their sexual charms ; and even in temporary
free relations the man is usually expected to bear all the joint expenses. The
result is that there is a sordid entanglement of money with sex , and that
women ' s motives not infrequently have a mercenary element . Sex, even
when blessed by the Church, ought not to be a profession. It is right that a
woman should be paid for housekeeping or cooking or the care of children,
but not merely for having sexual relations with a man . Nor should a woman
who has once loved and been loved by a man be able to live ever after on
alimony when his love and hers have ceased. A woman , like a man , should
work for her living, and an idle wife is no more intrinsically worthy of
respect than a gigolo.
II
Two very primitive impulses have contributed, though in very different
degrees , to the rise of the currently accepted code of sexual behaviour . One
of these is modesty, and the other , as mentioned above, is jealousy.
Modesty , in some form and to some degree, is almost universal in the
human race, and constitutes a taboo which must only be broken through in
accordance with certain forms and ceremonies , or, at the least, in
conformity with some recognized etiquette. Not everything may he seen,
and not all facts may be mentioned . This is not , as some moderns suppose ,
an invention of the Victorian age ; on the contrary , anthropologists have
found the most elaborate forms of prudery among primitive savages. The
conception of the obscene has its roots deep in human nature . We may go
against it from a love of rebellion , or from loyalty to the scientific spirit , or
from a wish to feel wicked, such as existed in Byron ; but we do not thereby
eradicate it from among our natural impulses . No doubt convention
determines , in a given community , exactly what is to be considered
indecent, but the universal existence of some convention of the kind is
conclusive evidence of a source which is not merely conventional . In almost
every human society, pornography and exhibitionism are reckoned as
offences , except when , as not infrequently occurs , they form part of
religious ceremonies .
Asceticism - which may or may not have a psychological connection with
modesty - is an impulse which seems to arise only where a certain level of
civilization has been reached, but may then become powerful. It is not to be
found in the earlier books of the Old Testament , but it appears in the later
books , in the Apocrypha , and in the New Testament . Similarly among the
Greeks there is little of it in early times, but more and more as time goes
on. In India , it arose at a very early date, and acquired great intensity. I will
not attempt to give a psychological analysis of its origin , but I cannot doubt
that it is a spontaneous sentiment , existing , to some slight extent, in almost
all civilized human beings . Its faintest form is reluctance to imagine a
revered individual - especially a person possessed of religious sanctity -
engaged in love - making, which is felt to be scarcely compatible with the
highest degree of dignity . The wish to free the spirit from bondage to the
flesh has inspired many of the great religions of the world , and is still
powerful even among modern intellectuals.
But jealousy, I believe , has been the most potent single factor in the genesis
of sexual morality . Jealousy instinctively rouses anger ; and anger ,
rationalized , becomes moral disapproval. The purely instinctive motive must
have been reinforced, at an early stage in the development of civilization, by
the desire of males to be certain of paternity. Without security in this
respect the patriarchal family would have been impossible, and fatherhood,
with all its economic implications, could not have become the basis of social
institutions . It was , accordingly , wicked to have relations with another man ' s
wife , but not even mildly reprehensible to have relations with an unmarried
woman . There were excellent practical reasons for condemning the
adulterer , since he caused confusion and very likely bloodshed . The siege of
Troy was an extreme example of the upheavals due to disrespect for the
rights of husbands , but something of the sort , though on a smaller scale,
was to be expected even when the parties concerned were less exalted.
There were, of course, in those days , no corresponding rights of wives ; a
husband had no duty to his wife , though he had the duty of respecting the
property of other husbands .
The old system of the patriarchal family , with an ethic based on the feelings
that we have been considering, was, in a sense , successful: men , who
dominated , had considerable liberty , and women , who suffered , were in
such complete subjection that their unhappiness seemed not important . It is
the claim of women to equality with men that has done most to make a
new system necessary in the world today . Equality can be secured in two
ways : either by exacting from men the same strict monogamy as was , in
the past , exacted from women; or by allowing women , equally with men , a
certain relaxation of the traditional code . The first of these ways was
preferred by most of the pioneers of women' s rights , and is still preferred
by the churches; but the second has many more adherents in practice ,
although most of them are in doubt as to the theoretical justifiability of their
own behaviour . And those who recognize that some new ethic is required
find it difficult to know just what its precepts should be .
There is another source of novelty , and that is the effect of the scientific
outlook in weakening the taboo on sexual knowledge . It has come to be
understood that various evils - for example, venereal disease - cannot be
effectively combated unless they are spoken of much more openly than was
formerly thought permissible ; and it has also been found that reticence and
ignorance are apt to have injurious effects upon the psychology of the
individual . Both sociology and psychoanalysis have led serious students to
deprecate the policy of silence in regard to sexual matters, and many
practical educators , from experience with children , have adopted the same
position . Those who have a scientific outlook on human behaviour ,
moreover , find it impossible to label any action as ' sin '; they realize that
what we do has its origin in our heredity , our education , and our
environment , and that it is by control of these causes, rather than by
denunciation , that conduct injurious to society is to be prevented .
In seeking a new ethic of sexual behaviour , therefore , we must not
ourselves be dominated by the ancient irrational passions which gave rise to
the old ethic , though we should recognize that they may, by accident , have
led to some sound maxims , and that , since they still exist, though perhaps
in a weakened form, they are still among the data of our problem . What we
have to do positively is to ask ourselves what moral rules are most likely to
promote human happiness , remembering always that , whatever the rules
may be , they are not likely to be universally observed . That is to say , we
have to consider the effect which the rules will in fact have , not that which
they would have if they were completely effective .
III
Let us look next at the question of knowledge on sexual subjects, which
arises at the earliest age and is the least difficult and doubtful of the various
problems with which we are concerned . There is no sound reason , of any
sort or kind , for concealing facts when talking to children . Their questions
should be answered and their curiosity satisfied in exactly the same way in
regard to sex as in regard to the habits of fishes , or any other subject that
interests them . There should be no sentiment , because young children
cannot feel as adults do, and see no occasion for high- flown talk . It is a
mistake to begin with the loves of the bees and the flowers ; there is no point
in leading up to the facts of life by devious routes. The child who is told
what he wants to know , and allowed to see his parents naked, will have no
pruriency and no obsession of a sexual kind . Boys who are brought up in
official ignorance think and talk much more about sex than boys who have
always heard this topic treated on a level with any other . Official ignorance
and actual knowledge teach them to be deceitful and hypocritical with their
elders. On the other hand , real ignorance , when it is achieved , is likely to be
a source of shock and anxiety, and to make adaptation to real life difficult.
All ignorance is regrettable, but ignorance on so important a matter as sex
is a serious danger .
When I say that children should be told about sex , I do not mean that they
should be told only the bare physiological facts ; they should be told
whatever they wish to know . There should be no attempt to represent
adults as more virtuous than they are , or sex as occurring only in marriage.
There is no excuse for deceiving children. And when , as must happen in
conventional families, they find that their parents have lied , they lose
confidence in them , and feel justified in lying to them . There are facts which
I should not obtrude upon a child , but I would tell him anything sooner
than say what is not true. Virtue which is based upon a false view of the
facts is not real virtue . Speaking not only from theory , but from practical
experience , I am convinced that complete openness on sexual subjects is
the best way to prevent children from thinking about them excessively,
nastily , or unwholesomely , and also the almost indispensable preliminary to
an enlightened sexual morality .
Where adult sexual behaviour is concerned , it is by no means easy to arrive
at a rational compromise between the antagonistic considerations that have
each their own validity. The fundamental difficulty is , of course, the conflict
between the impulse to jealousy and the impulse to sexual variety. Neither
impulse , it is true , is universal: there are those (though they are few ) who
are never jealous, and there are those ( among men as well as among
women ) whose affections never wander from the chosen partner . If either
of these types could be made universal, it would be easy to devise a
satisfactory code . It must be admitted , however, that either type can be
made more common by conventions designed to that end.
Much ground remains to be covered by a complete sexual ethic , but I do
not think we can say anything very positive until we have more experience,
both of the effects of various systems and of the changes resulting from a
rational education in matters of sex . It is clear that marriage , as an
institution , should only interest the State because of children, and should be
viewed as a purely private matter so long as it is childless. It is clear , also ,
that , even where there are children, the State is only interested through the
duties of fathers, which are chiefly financial . Where divorce is easy , as in
Scandinavia , the children usually go with the mother , so that the patriarchal
family tends to disappear. If , as is increasingly happening where wage -
earners are concerned , the State takes over the duties that have hitherto
fallen upon fathers, marriage will cease to have any raison d ' être , and will
probably be no longer customary except among the rich and the religious.
In the meantime , it would be well if men and women could remember, in
sexual relations, in marriage , and in divorce , to practise the ordinary virtues
of tolerance , kindness, truthfulness , and justice. Those who, by conventional
standards , are sexually virtuous, too often consider themselves thereby
absolved from behaving like decent human beings . Most moralists have
been so obsessed by sex that they have laid much too little emphasis on
other more socially useful kinds of ethically commendable conduct.
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