modern love, as i have endeavored to show in the preceding chapters is infinitely more complex than love was in the past. when woman was meant to obey and serve, when feudalism or any other rigid caste system set clear-cut boundaries to each individual's range of development, there was less unrest among women just as there was less unrest among slaves. and both the mediaeval slave and the mediaeval women were probably absolute bores.
unrest is growth and complexity is the obvious evidence of growth.
love stirrings among the amoebae are probably similar to those experienced by human beings. nature probably puts a premium of pleasure on the cleavage of the unicellular animal which reproduces itself by dividing itself in two, by issuing forth another cell, as it does on the human male when his gonads liberate spermatozoa.
[pg 292]
but the amoeba's love feelings are extremely simple and lead to no complication for they imply no enduring companionship, no responsibilities to a mate nor to the "offspring."
what we expect of the modern woman. the modern woman who is expected to be, not merely a sexual mate but a social and intellectual mate as well, a companion in our athletic diversions, a comrade-at-arms in the world's battles, and many other things, can no longer allow chance to interrupt her developmental strivings, to handicap her in the friendly race she is running with the mate of her choice for intellectual accomplishment by unexpected, unwelcome, inconvenient pregnancy and child bearing.
every child claims two years of its mother's life and it seems reasonable that the mother should have something to say as to what number that chapter will bear in her biography.
as only the very weak-minded or very hypocritical offer as a remedy for frequent pregnancy male continence, we shall not even consider for one minute such an absurd, abnormal, biologically immoral solution.
the only solution. the only other solution which has ever been proposed is a system of sexual[pg 293] enlightenment which will enable a woman to prevent pregnancy until such time when she feels that she can in justice to herself and to her offspring bear a child, and will, further, enable her to have an abortion performed when, in spite of all contraceptive measures, pregnancy has begun.
this solution has been adopted by the entire civilised world, and in fact, i might say that the degree of civilisation of a race or nation can be accurately gauged by the number of individuals within that race or nation practicing birth control.
with very few exceptions, a large family betokens stupidity, poverty and ignorance. it is the poor, the stupid and the ignorant who are burdened with children and, in turn, that burden keeps them stupid, poor and ignorant. a vicious circle which seems hard to break.
the human milch cow. many a time when beholding some miserable female from the slums wrecked by repeated childbearing, dwarfed in mind, deformed in body, i have felt that sexual relations between her and her mate had probably reached the level at which they could only by an unusual stretch of one's imagination, be even distantly connected with love. to her and to her mate, every[pg 294] embrace, except after the onset of pregnancy, meant added suffering, added expense, further physical degradation and decay.
since the "nice" people, however, know the remedy and apply it, why bother any longer? because, while normally intelligent men and women know how to avoid pregnancy and to whom to turn when an accident happens, the greatest uncertainty about contraception obsesses their minds and panicky fears bring about many catastrophes when the unwelcome fruit must be removed from the mother's body.
thousands of men and woman, enlightened in the mysteries of contraception by some one who is little less ignorant than themselves, are chilled in their enjoyment of lawful love by the thought of possible danger.
many women accept their husbands caresses in fear and trembling and many, imagining that there is a close connection between orgasm and pregnancy succeed in making themselves frigid, which leads to neurotic disturbances in the wife and unhappiness for both mates. many husbands never dare to "let themselves go" unless it be in the arms of a prostitute who is "wise" and can "take care of herself." many a woman has deceived her husband[pg 295] because a wise "man of the world" assured her that she ran no risk of pregnancy in his arms.
the nightmare of abortion. and, if in spite of all, an "accident" happens, what is the mental state of the woman who calls at the "unethical" practitioner's office? while such an operation practiced with a modicum of skill may be harmless, the dread fear of possible consequences is quite able to kill the woman.
fear may bring forth any morbid symptom, from an embolus to violent suppuration.
fear, on the other hand, on which the advocates of suppressive measures rely, hardly ever leads anyone to continence or prevents any one from resorting to abortion.
legal obstacles to contraceptive education attain only one result. they make married love risky and unpleasant, kill many a young woman and, in the case of neurotic mothers, allow one morbid generation to bring into this world another morbid generation.
the plight of the neurotic woman. many neurotic women imagine that they hate their husbands and rationalise that hatred by bringing up many absurd, imaginary charges against them. to them their husbands symbolise pregnancy.
[pg 296]
many neurotic mothers, who did not wish to bear another child, often compensate for their lack of real love for the unwelcome child by an absurd, exaggerated tenderness which spoils the child or develops morbid fears (the fear they might hurt or kill the child, fear as to the child's health or welfare) which wreck the child's mental balance and not infrequently land the mother in a sanatarium.
a neurotic woman i treated was obsessed by the fear that she might some day kill her husband and children. several years ago she had had an abortion performed by a midwife whom she did not trust. septic poisoning set in and she hovered between life and death for several months. a great fear of death drove her into reading many religious books. she came to the conclusion that she had committed a murder.
but her husband, having impregnated her, was more guilty than she, for he was the cause of it all. hence, her insane logic added, he and she would be better off dead than leading a sinful life. she should, therefore, kill him and kill herself. furthermore, her children being the offspring of murderers, must be themselves tainted with criminal tendencies and should also be saved from a life of crime. when she was brought to me she had attempted[pg 297] to kill the entire family by turning on the gas faucets all over the house about two o'clock in the morning.
the lawmakers who prevented that woman from having an operation performed legally, (which would remove the fear of crime) safely, by a reputable practitioner, (which would remove the fear of consequences), openly, (which would remove the fear of social ostracism), would have been responsible for the death of several people, had she not accidentally awakened her husband by upsetting a chair on her way back to her bed.
there are thousands of neurotics, suffering from a feeling of inferiority, who are unfit to become mothers until their morbidity has been cured by psychotherapy, and who, if allowed to bear children, will train a new generation to behave in a negative, neurotic, socially baneful way.
the children of neurotic mothers, in whom the fear and hatred of sex and love is rampant, will some day become prostitutes or puritans, both of them degrading love equally.
i cannot follow freud when he states that every neurosis has its root in a failure of the love life, but some of the artificial obstacles created by a stupid puritanical civilisation between man and the full[pg 298] realisation of his sexual goal have not infrequently wrecked a life which, neurotically oriented as it was, might have gone on, in a socially tolerable way, for years and perhaps until the individual's death.
difficulties due to the use of improper or misunderstood contraceptive appliances, the terrors of pregnancy, actual or expected, the fear of abortion, the sufferings following abortion in a complex-ridden organism, have too often upset a balance which at best was precarious.
birth control and indulgence. certain critics of birth control attack it on the ground that it would lead to "overindulgence" of the sex relationship. those people are generally unprepossessing, worn, individuals who are trying to compensate for their sexual weakness by making a virtue out of an unavoidable inferiority. their opposition to what they call "overindulgence" (one thing which nature hardly ever allows, barring rare morbid cases of priapism) is grotesque in the case of married couples.
more unions are wrecked by underindulgence due to fear, ignorance of the mates or inhibitions on the part of one or both, than to indulgence of the normal kind.
anything which prevents or discourages the[pg 299] normal exchange of sexual caresses between those legally entitled to each others enjoyment is pernicious, antisocial and antibiological for, as grace potter writes:
"mating has to do with other creation than that of new human beings. it has to do with every kind of creation—a new state, a poem, a picture, a great bridge, a happier world. mating is concerned with repeopling the world but also with regeneration of the individual, opening his capacities to growth. who shall say that the one is not as important as the other? if the second were not as important as the first there would have been hardly any advance in human culture. of all the errors incident to the development of human beings, in their struggle to attain a consciousness that makes them more than animals, none has had wider ill-effects than our misuse of love.
"there are two equally unfortunate attitudes toward love which perhaps grow out of each other. the one is the puritan attitude and the other is the vulgar one. the puritan attitude is that sex impulses are somehow vile and so, altho they give pleasure, must be denied. the vulgar attitude takes it for granted that sex impulses are vile but as they are pleasant are to be accepted. the one tends to [pg 300] deny physical values to love. this is suppression. the other tends to deny tender values to love. that is suppression also. they have neither one known love. and finally the puritan becomes incapable of tenderness and the vulgar becomes equally incapable of physical expression. it is not a beautiful picture.
"the healthy attitude is this: the sex impulse is not degrading any more than any other impulse is. it is a force as gravity is a force. those human beings achieve beauty and harmony who correlate sexual impulses harmoniously with all their other impulses." [3]
"in spite of the age-long teachings that sex life in itself is unclean," margaret sanger writes in "woman and the new race," the world has been moving to a realization that a great love between a man and a woman is a holy thing freighted with great responsibilities for spiritual growth. the fear of unwanted children removed, the assurance that she will have a sufficient amount of time in which to develop her love life to its greatest beauty, with its comradeship in many fields—these will lift woman by the very soaring quality of her innermost self to spiritual heights that few have attained. then the coming of the eagerly desired children will but enrich life in all its avenues, rather than enslave and impoverish it as do unwanted ones to-day.
[pg 301]
"what healthier grounds for the growth of sound morals could possibly exist than the ample spiritual life of the woman just depicted? free to follow the feminine spirit, which dwells in the sanctuary of her nature, she will, in her daily life, give expression to that high idealism which is the fruit of that spirit when it is unhampered and unviolated.
"the love for her mate will flower in beauty of deeds that are pure because they are the natural expression of her physical, mental and spiritual being. the love for desired children will come to blossom in a spirituality that is high because it is free to reach the heights.
"the moral force of woman's nature will be unchained, and of its own dynamic power will uplift her to a plane unimagined by those holding fast to the old standards of church morality. love is the greatest force of the universe; freed of its bonds of submission and unwanted progeny,[pg 302] it will formulate and compel of its own nature observance to standards of purity far beyond the highest conception of the average moralist."
the passing of the double standard. "birth control in philosophy and practice," margaret sanger writes in "the pivot of civilization," is the destroyer of the dualism in the old sex code. it denies that the only purpose of sexual activity is procreation; it also denies that sex should be reduced to the level of sensual lust or that woman should permit herself to be the instrument of its satisfaction. in increasing and differentiating her love demands, woman must elevate sex into another sphere, whereby it may subserve and enhance the possibility of individual and human expression. man will gain in this no less than woman; for in the age-old enslavement of woman he has enslaved himself; and in the liberation of womankind, all of humanity will experience the joys of a newer and fuller freedom."
