§ 138
That the soul as well as the body of the newly married, in their first love episode, should be inexplicable and unreservedly “blended with the only other soul and body in all the world for him” certainly requires a mental ante-nuptial preparation that has rarely been attained in the past. It implies the belief on the man’s part that the woman should have from the first exactly the same true physical and psychical ecstasy that he expects himself. How many men think that?
It must be admitted, however, as has been indicated above, that the woman’s erotic development progresses, and that in some cases it takes months and even years for it to reach its full expansion. In the meantime the hasty, anesthetic husband has lost his grip and, unconsciously unwilling to grow up with his wife, remains at his selfish, animal level.
Incidentally, too, he holds his wife there; for it must be remembered that the wife’s erotic development, on which depends not merely her contentment, but the stark possibility of her becoming more than a gynecoid female, is absolutely nil, if it be not developed by her husband. This is unequivocally a one-way process. All the latent love and beauty of being and action on the woman’s part are dependent solely on the ability of her husband to unfold her.