lived about four years with a man who was unfaithful to her. Then, when all real sex feeling, the hatred of the woman he followed, the desire he should give her love and tenderness, had all gone, came the other feeling, and she said to me, 'You don't understand at all; he's only my little baby; nothing he does can make any difference to me now.' As I grow older and understand women's natures better, I can see almost at once which relation it is a woman has to her husband, or any given man. It is this feeling, and not sex passion, that keeps woman from being free." Not only is there a sexual association in the impulse to foster and protect, there would appear to be a similar element also in the response to that impulse. Freud has especially insisted on the partly sexual character of the child's feelings for those who care for it and tend it and satisfy its needs. It is begun in earliest infancy; "whoever has seen the sated infant sink back from the breast, to fall asleep with flushed cheeks and happy smile, must say that the picture is adequate to the expression of the sexual satisfaction of later life." The lips, moreover, are the earliest erogenous zone. "There will, perhaps, be some opposition," Freud remarks (_Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie_, pp. 36, 64), "to the identification of the child's feelings of tenderness and appreciation for those who tend it with sexual love, but I believe that exact psychological analysis will place the identity beyond doubt. The relationship of the child with the person who tends it is for it a continual source of sexual excitement and satisfaction flowing from the erogenous zones, especially since the fostering person--as a rule the mother--regards the child with emotions which proceed from her sexual life; strokes it, kisses it, rocks it, and very plainly treats it as a compensation for a fully valid sexual object." Freud remarks that girls who retain the childish character of their love for their parents to adult age are apt to make cold wives and to be sexually anæsthetic.
[170] Esbach (in his _Thèse de Paris_, published in 1876) showed that even the finger nails are affected in pregnancy and become measurably thinner.
[171] C.H. Stratz, _Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers_, Chapter VI.
[172] Iron appears to be liberated in the maternal organism during pregnancy, and Wychgel has shown (_Zeitschrift für Geburtshülfe und Gynäkologie_, bd. xlvii, Heft II) that the pigment of pregnant women contains iron, and that the amount of iron in the urine is increased.
[173] Vinay, _Maladies de la Grossesse_, Chapter VIII; K. Hennig, "Exploratio Externa," _Comptes-rendus du XIIe. Congrès International de Médècine_, vol. vi, Section XIII, pp. 144-166. A bibliography of the literature concerning the physiology of pregnancy, extending to ten pages, is appended by Pinard to his article "Grossesse," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales_.
[174] Stratz, op. cit., Chapter XII.
[175] W.S.A. Griffith, "The Diagnosis of Pregnancy," _British Medical Journal_, April 11, 1903.
[176] J. Mackenzie and H.O. Nicholson, "The Heart in Pregnancy," _British Medical Journal_, October 8, 1904; Stengel and Stanton, "The Condition of the Heart in Pregnancy," _Medical Record_, May 10, 1902 and _University Pennsylvania Medical Bulletin_, Sept., 1904 (summarized in _British Medical Journal_, August 16, 1902, and Sept. 23, 1905.)
[177] J. Henderson, "Maternal Blood at Term," _Journal of Obstetrics and Gynæcology_, February, 1902; C. Douglas, "The Blood in Pregnant Women," _British Medical Journal_, March 26, 1904; W.L. Thompson, "The Blood in Pregnancy," _Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin_, June, 1904.
[178] H.O. Nicholson, "Some Remarks on the Maternal Circulation in Pregnancy," _British Medical Journal_, October 3, 1903.
[179] J. Morris Slemans, "Metabolism During Pregnancy," _Johns Hopkins Hospital Reports_, vol. xii, 1904.
[182] R. Barnes, "The Induction of Labor," _British Medical Journal_, December 22, 1894.
[183] See, e.g., Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth edition, pp. 344, et seq.
[184] Arthur Giles, "The Longings of Pregnant Women," _Transactions Obstetrical Society of London_, vol. xxxv, 1893.
[185] Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, Chapter XXX.
[186] Thus, in Cornwall, "to be in the longing way" is a popular synonym for pregnancy.
[187] The apple, wherever it is known, has nearly always been a sacred or magic fruit (as J.F. Campbell shows, _Popular Tales of West Highlands_, vol. I, p. lxxv. et seq.), and the fruit of the forbidden tree which tempted Eve is always popularly imagined to be an apple. One may perhaps refer in this connection to the fact that at Rome and elsewhere the testicles have been called apples. I may add that we find a curious proof of the recognition of the feminine love of apples in an old Portuguese ballad, "Donna Guimar," in which a damsel puts on armour and goes to the wars; her sex is suspected and as a test, she is taken into an orchard, but Donna Guimar is too wary to fall into the trap, and turning away from the apples plucks a citron.
[188] A. Pinard, Art. "Grossesse," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales_, p. 138. On the subject of violent, criminal and abnormal impulses during pregnancy, see Cumston, "Pregnancy and Crime," _American Journal Obstetrics_, December, 1903.
[189] See especially Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, vol. i, Chapter XXXI. Ballantyne in his work on the pathology of the foetus adds Loango negroes, the Eskimo and the ancient Japanese.
[190] In 1731 Schurig, in his _Syllepsilogia_, devoted more than a hundred pages (cap. IX) to summarizing a vast number of curious cases of maternal impressions leading to birth-marks of all kinds.
[191] J.W. Ballantyne has written an excellent history of the doctrine of maternal impressions, reprinted in his _Manual of Antenatal Pathology: The Embryo_, 1904, Chapter IX; he gives a bibliography of 381 items. In Germany the history of the question has been written by Dr. Iwan Bloch (under the pseudonym of Gerhard von Welsenburg), _Das Versehen der Frauen_, 1899. Cf., in French, G. Variot, "Origine des Préjugés Populaires sur les Envies," _Bulletin Société d'Anthropologie_, Paris, June 18, 1891. Variot rejects the doctrine absolutely, Bloch accepts it, Ballantyne speaks cautiously.
[192] J.G. Kiernan has shown how many of the alleged cases are negatived by the failure to take this fact into consideration. (_Journal of American Medical Association_, December 9, 1899.)
[193] J. Clifton Edgar, _The Practice of Obstetrics_, second edition, 1904, p. 296. In an important discussion of the question at the American Gynæcological Society in 1886, introduced by Fordyce Barker, various eminent gynæcologists declared in favor of the doctrine, more or less cautiously. (_Transactions of the American Gynæcological Society_, vol. xi, 1886, pp. 152-196.) Gould and Pyle, bringing forward some of the data on the question (_Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine_, pp. 81, _et seq._) state that the reality of the influence of maternal impressions seems fully established. On the other side, see G.W. Cook, _American Journal of Obstetrics_, September, 1889, and H.F. Lewis, ib., July, 1899.
[194] _Transactions Edinburgh Obstetrical Society_, vol. xvii, 1892.
[196] W.C. Dabney, "Maternal Impressions," Keating's _Cyclopædia of Diseases of Children_, vol. i, 1889, pp. 191-216.
[197] Féré, _Sensation et Mouvement_, Chapter XIV, "Sur la Psychologie du Foetus."
[199] H. Campbell, _Nervous Organization of Man and Woman_, p. 206; cf. Moll, _Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, bd. i, p. 264. Many authorities, from Soranus of Ephesus onward, consider, however, that sexual relations should cease during pregnancy, and certainly during the later months. Cf. Brénot, _De l'influence de la copulation pendant la grosseisse_, 1903.
[200] Bianchi terms this fairly common condition the neurasthenia of pregnancy.
[201] Vinay, _Traité des Maladies de la Grossesse_, 1894, pp. 51, 577; Mongeri, "Nervenkrankungen und Schwangerschaft." _Allegemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie_, bd. LVIII, Heft 5. Haig remarks (_Uric Acid_, sixth edition, p. 151) that during normal pregnancy diseases with excess of uric acid in the blood (headaches, fits, mental depression, dyspepsia, asthma) are absent, and considers that the common idea that women do not easily take colds, fevers, etc., at this time is well founded.
[202] Founding his remarks on certain anatomical changes and on a suggestion of Engel's, Donaldson observes: "It is impossible to escape the conclusion that in women natural education is complete only with maternity, which we know to effect some slight changes in the sympathetic system and possibly the spinal cord, and which may be fairly laid under suspicion of causing more structural modifications than are at present recognized." H.H. Donaldson, _The Growth of the Brain_, p. 352.
[203] The state of menstruation is in many respects an approximation to that of pregnancy; see, e.g., Edgar's _Practice of Obstetrics_, plates 6 6 and 7, showing the resemblance of the menstrual changes in the breasts and the external sexual parts to the changes of pregnancy; cf. Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth edition, Chapter XI, "The Functional Periodicity of Woman."
[204] Thus the gypsies say of an unmarried woman who becomes pregnant, "She has smelt the moon-flower"--a flower believed to grow on the so-called moon-mountain and to possess the property of impregnating by its smell. Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, bd. I, Chapter XXVII.
[205] This was a sound instinct, for it is now recognized as an extremely important part of puericulture that a woman should rest at all events during the latter part of pregnancy; see, e.g., Pinard, _Gazette des Hôpitaux_, November 28, 1895, and _Annales de Gynécologie_, August, 1898.
[206] Ploss and Bartels, op. cit., Chapter XXIX; Kryptadia, vol. viii, p. 143.
[208] Weininger, _Geschlecht und Charakter_, p. 107. I may remark that a recent book, Ellis Meredith's _Heart of My Heart_, is devoted to a seemingly autobiographical account of a pregnant woman's emotions and ideas. The relations of maternity to intellectual work have been carefully and impartially investigated by Adele Gerhard and Helena Simon, who seem to conclude that the conflict between the inevitable claims of maternity and the scarcely less inevitable claims of the intellectual life cannot be avoided.
APPENDIX.
HISTORIES OF SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT.
HISTORY I.--The following narrative has been written by a university man trained in psychology:-- So far as I have been able to learn, none of my ancestors for at least three generations have suffered from any nervous or mental disease; and of those more remote I can learn nothing at all. It appears probable, then, that any peculiarities of my own sexual development must be explained by reference to the somewhat peculiar environment.
I was the first child and was, naturally, somewhat spoiled--a process which tended to increase my natural tendency to sentimentality. On the other hand, I was shy and undemonstrative with all except my nearest relatives, and with them as well after my seventh or eighth year. And here it may be well to describe my "mental type," as this is probably the most important factor in determining the direction of one's mental development. Of mental types the "visual" is, of course, by far the most common, but in my own case visual imagery was never strong or vivid, and has constantly grown weaker. The dominant part has been played by tactual, muscular and organic sensations, placing me as one of the "tactual motor" type, with strong "verbal motor" and "organic" tendencies. In reading a novel I seldom have a mental picture of the character or situation, but easily imagine the sensations (except the visual) and feel something of the emotions described. When telling of any event I have a strong impulse to make the movements described and to gesticulate. I remember events in terms of movements and the words to be used in giving an account of them; and in thinking of any subject I can feel the movements of the larynx and, in a less degree, of the lips and tongue that would be involved in putting my thoughts into words. I am easily moved to emotion, even to sentimentality, but am seldom if ever deeply affected and am so averse to any display of my feelings that I have the reputation among my acquaintances of being cold, unfeeling and unemotional. I am naturally quiet and bashful to a degree, which has rendered all forms of social intercourse painful through much of my life, and this in spite of a real longing to associate with people on terms of intimacy. As a child I was sensitive and solitary; later I became morbid as well. In a character so constituted the feelings and impulses of the moment are likely to rule, and such has been my constant experience, though a large element of obstinacy in my character has kept me from appearing impulsive, and slight influences will bring about reactions which seem out of all proportion to their cause. For instance, I cannot, even now, read the more erotic of Boccaccio's stories without a good deal of sexual excitement and restlessness, which can be relieved only by vigorous exercise or masturbation.
The first ten years of my life were passed on a farm, most of the time without playmates or companions of my own age.
As far back as I can remember I indulged in elaborate day-dreams in which I figured as the chief character along with a few others who were chiefly creatures of my imagination, but at times borrowed from reality. These others were always boys until I learned the proper function of the sexual organs, when girls usurped the whole stage in numbers beyond the limits of a Turkish harem. Even at school my day-dreams were scarcely interrupted, for my shyness and timidity made me very unpopular among my schoolmates, who tormented me after the fashion of small boys or neglected me, as the spirit moved them. To make matters worse, I was brought up under the "sheltered life system," kept carefully away from the "bad boys," which category included nearly all the youngsters of the community, and deluged with moral homilies and tirades on things religious until I was thoroughly convinced that goodness and discomfort, the right and the unpleasant, were strictly synonymous; and I was kept through much of the time facing the prospect of an early death, to be followed by the good old orthodox hell or the equal miseries of its gorgeous alternative. I may say in all seriousness that this is a conservative and unexaggerated account of one phase of my early life--the one, I think, that tended most strongly to make me introspective and morbid. Later on, when I was trying to abandon the habit of masturbation, this early training greatly increased the despair I felt at each successive failure.
The first traces of sexual excitement that I can now recall occurred when I was about 4 years old. I had erections quite frequently and found a mild pleasure in fondling my genitals when these occurred, especially just after waking in the morning. I had no notion of an orgasm, and never succeeded in producing one until I was 13 years of age. In the summer of my sixth year I experienced pleasurable sensations in daubing my genitals with oil and then fondling or rubbing them, but I abandoned this amusement after getting some irritating substance into the meatus. A year later my mother warned me that playing with my penis would "make me very sick," but since experience had taught me that this was not true, my conviction that what was forbidden must necessarily be pleasant, sent me directly to my favorite retreat in the barn loft to experiment. Since, however, I failed, in spite of persistent effort, to produce any such pleasant results as I had expected, I soon gave up my attempts for other kinds of amusement.
A few months after this, in midsummer, a very sensual servant girl began a series of attempts to satisfy herself sexually with my help. She came nearly every day into the loft where I was playing and did her best to initiate me into the mysteries of sexual relationships, but I proved a sorry pupil. She would rub my penis until it became erect and then, placing me upon her, would insert the penis in her vulva and make movements of her thighs and hips calculated to cause friction. At times she varied the program by lying upon me and embracing me passionately. I can remember distinctly her quick, gasping breath and convulsive movements. She generally ended the seance by persuading me to perform cunnilingus upon her. None of these performances were intelligible to me and I invariably protested against being compelled to leave my play to amuse her. Even her fondling of my genitals annoyed me; and, stranger still, I preferred satisfying her by cunnilingus to the attempts at coitus.
It was nearly a year later that I experienced the first unmistakable manifestations of the sexual impulse--erections accompanied by lustful feeling and vague desires of whose proper satisfaction I had no notion whatever. It never occurred to me to associate my experiences with the servant girl with these new sensations. The peculiar fact about them was that they were generally occasioned by the infliction of pain upon animals. I do not remember how I first discovered that they could be evoked in this way, but I can clearly recollect many of my efforts to arouse this pleasurable excitement by abusing the dog or the cats, or by prodding the calves with a nail set in the end of a broom handle. I seldom manipulated my genitals at this time, and when I did it was for the purpose of causing sexual excitement rather than allaying it.
During this same year I got my first idea of sexual intercourse by watching animals copulate; but my powers of observation must have been limited, for I supposed that the penis of the male entered the anus of the female. In watching the coitus of animals I experienced lively sexual excitement and lustful sensations, located not only in the genitals, but apparently in the anus as well. I often excited, myself by imagining myself playing the part of the female animal--a peculiar combination of passive pederasty and bestiality. A servant girl put me to right on the error of observation just mentioned, but neglected to apply the principle to human animals, and I remained for another year in complete ignorance of the structure of woman's sexual organs and of the intercourse between man and woman. In the meantime I cultivated my fancies of intercourse with animals, often still perversely imagining myself taking the part of the female; and the notion of such relationships gradually became so familiar as to seem possible and desirable. This is especially significant in view of later developments.
Up to my eleventh or twelfth year the erotic element in my daydreaming varied with the seasons. In the summer it played a dominant part, while in the winter it was almost entirely absent, owing, it may be, to the fact that most of my time was spent indoors or on long, tiresome tramps to and from school, and the further fact that during the winter I saw but little of the animals which had acted as a stimulus to sexual excitement. So little was I troubled in winter and so ignorant was I of normal intercourse that sleeping with a cousin, a girl of about my own age (7 or 8 years), resulted in no addition to my knowledge of things sexual.
It was early in my ninth year that I first learned something of the anatomical difference between man and woman and of the functions of the sexual organs in coitus. These were explained to me by a young male servant, who, however, told me nothing of conception or pregnancy. At first I was very little interested, as it did not immediately occur to me to associate my own erotic experiences with the matter of these revelations; but under the faithful tuition of my new instructor I soon began to desire normal coitus, and my interest in the sexual affairs of animals weakened accordingly. His teachings went still further, for he masturbated before me, then persuaded me to masturbate him, and finally practiced coitus inter femora upon me. He also tried to masturbate me, but was unable to produce an orgasm, though I found the experiment mildly pleasurable.
Early in my eleventh year we left the farm and lived in the city for several months. In the meantime there had been no developments in my sexual life beyond what has already been indicated. In the city I found so much to interest and amuse me that I almost entirely forgot my erotic day-dreams and desires. Though my chief playmates were two girls of about my own age I never thought of attempting sexual intercourse with them, as I might easily have done, for they were much wiser and more experienced in these things than myself. Shortly before the end of our stay in town an older schoolmate explained to me as much of the process of reproduction as is usually known by a precocious youngster of 12 years, but I firmly refused to credit his statements. He adduced the fact of lactation in proof of the correctness of his views, but I had been too thoroughly steeped in supernaturalism to be very amenable to naturalistic evidence of this sort and remained obdurate. But the suggestion stayed with me and perplexed me not a little; when we returned to the farm I began to watch the reproductive process in animals.
The following two years were decidedly unpleasant. I was growing rapidly and was sluggish, awkward and stupid. At school I was more unpopular than ever and seemed to have a positive genius for doing the wrong thing. On the rare occasions when my companions admitted me to their counsels I was a willing dupe and catspaw, with the result that I was much in trouble with my teachers. Being morbidly sensitive I suffered keenly under these circumstances and, as my health was not at all good, I often made of my frequent headaches excuses to stay at home, where I would lie abed brooding over my small troubles or, more often, dreaming erotic day-dreams and making repeated attempts to produce an orgasm. But though these efforts were accompanied by the most lustful thoughts and my imagination created situations of oriental extravagance, I was 13 years old when they first met with success. I remember the occasion very distinctly, the more so because I thought of it much and bitterly when shortly afterwards I tried to abandon a habit which the family "doctor book" assured me must result in every variety of damnation. At the moment, however, I was greatly surprised and gratified and tried at once to repeat the delightful sensation, but was unable to do so until the following day. From that time to the present I think I have masturbated an average of ten times per week, and this is certainly a very conservative estimate; for though up to my sixteenth year I could seldom produce an orgasm more than once a day I have often, during the last four or five years, produced it from four to seven times per day without difficulty and this for days and even weeks in succession. During these periods of excessive masturbation very little liquid was ejaculated and the pleasurable sensations were slight or entirely lacking.
From the time when I began masturbating regularly practically my whole interest centered in things pertaining to sex. I read the chapters of the family "doctor book" which treated of sexual matters; my day-dreams were almost exclusively erotic; I sought opportunities to talk about sex-relationships with my schoolmates, with whom I was now slowly getting on better terms; I collected pictures of nude women, learned a great number of obscene stories, read such obscene books as I could obtain and even searched the dictionary for words having a sexual connotation. Up to my fifteenth year, when ejaculation of semen began, there was a strong sadistic coloring to my day-dreams. Through this period, too, my bashfulness in the presence of the opposite sex increased until it reached the point of absurdity.
When fifteen years old I began to practice coitus inter femora on my brother and continued it intermittently for about two years. The experience was disappointing, for I had confidently expected a great increase of pleasure over masturbation in this act; and in casting about for some stronger stimulus I recurred to the forgotten idea of intercourse with animals. I promptly tried to put the idea to a test, but failed several times, and finally succeeded, only to find that the result fell far short of my expectations. Nevertheless I continued the practice irregularly for about three years--or rather through that part of the three years that I spent at home, for while I was at school opportunity for such indulgence was lacking. Long familiarity with the idea of intercourse with animals had made it impossible for me to feel the disgust with the practice which it inspires in most people; and even the perusal of Exodus xxii: 19 failed to make me abandon it. Firmly as I believed in the Mosaic law the supremacy of the sexual impulse was complete.
As early as my sixteenth year I tried to abandon "self-abuse" in all its forms and have repeatedly made the same effort since that time but never with more than very partial success. On two or three occasions I have stopped for periods of several weeks, but only to begin again and indulge more recklessly than before. The deep depression which followed each failure, and often each act of masturbation, I attributed solely to the loss of semen, leaving out of account the fact that I expected to feel depressed and the utter discouragement and self-contempt which accompanied the sense of failure and weakness when, in the face of my resolution, I repeatedly gave way and yielded to the temptation to an act whose consequences I firmly believed must be ruinous. I am now convinced that by far the greater part of this depression was due to suggestion and the humiliating sense of defeat. And this feeling of moral impotence, this seeming helplessness against an overpowering impulse which, on the other hand, seemed so trivial when viewed without passion, eventually weakened my self-control to a degree guessed by no one but myself and sapped the foundations of my moral life in a way which I have constant occasion to deplore.
The foregoing paragraphs give, I think, a fair idea of my condition when I left home for a boarding school at the beginning of my seventeenth year. From this time my experiences may be said to have run on in two distinct cycles--that of the summer months when I was at home, and that of the remainder of the year when I was at school. This fact will make some confusion and apparent inconsistency in the rest of this "history" unavoidable. When I left home I was shy, retiring, totally ignorant of social usage, without self-confidence, unambitious, dreamy, and subject to fits of melancholy. I masturbated at least once a day, though I was in almost constant rebellion against the habit. In my more idle moments I elaborated erotic day dreams in which there was a peculiar mixture of the purely sensual and the purely ideal element; which never fused in my experience, but held the field alternately or mingled somewhat in the manner of air and water. One person usually served as the object of my ideal attachment, another as the center round which I grouped my sensual dreams and desires.
At school I found more congenial companions than I had fallen in with elsewhere, and the necessary contact with people of both sexes gradually wore off some of the rougher corners and brought a measure of self-confidence. I had two or three incipient love affairs which my backwardness kept from growing serious. Out of this change of environment came a sense of expansion, of escape from self, which was distinctly pleasant. I still masturbated regularly, but no longer experienced the former depression except when at home during vacation. Relatively to the past, life was now so varied and interesting that I had less and less time for melancholy; and the discovery that I could lead my classes and hold my own in athletic sports seemed to indicate that my past fears had been exaggerated. Nevertheless I was never reconciled to the habit and often rebelled at the weakness that kept me its slave.
When I entered the university the effects of my useless struggle with the practice of masturbation were pretty well developed. I could no longer fix my attention steadily upon my work and found that only by "cribbing" and "bluffing" could I keep my place at the head of my classes. I was troubled not a little by the shoddiness of my work, and tried again and again during the course of the two years spent at this college to shake off the habit. At the university I was introduced gradually to a wider social circle and so far outgrew my bashfulness that I began to seek the society of the opposite sex assiduously. As I gained self-confidence I became reckless, getting at one time into serious trouble with the authorities which came near resulting in my expulsion. I became one of the more popular members of the clique to which I belonged--much to my surprise and even more to that of my acquaintances. The physical culture craze attacked me at this time and my pet ambition was the attainment of strength and agility. My bump of vanity also grew apace, but an unmeasured hatred of all kinds of foppishness kept me on the safe side of moderation in my dress and behavior.