Woman

by Anthony M. Ludovici

This is now the time and the place to consider whether there are not perhaps other physiological and psychical conditions resulting from deliberate childlessness, or from the deliberate limitation of the family, besides those discussed above, which hasten the rupture between the positive couple.

There are certainly many such physiological and psychical conditions, and the foremost of these is the deleterious effect which the constant use of contraceptives has upon the happy sexual relations of the young couple. That there should be no known contraceptive which does not in some way mar the complete happiness of marital intercourse, will perhaps be regarded by some as a very wise dispensation of Providence;—for certainly the best brains of all nations for many thousands of years have concerned themselves with the problem, and it seems astonishing that, so far, nothing really perfect should have been discovered;—but at all events this fact goes a considerable way towards making the marriage-bed of people who deliberately limit the family at least a breeding-place of very serious trouble.

Secondly, the very fact that childlessness as an end is incessantly present to the minds of the young couple—whether they have had no children at all, or only one, two, or three—during the cohabitation, constitutes in itself an influence which in time is certain to destroy the savour of their relations at a pace commensurate with their positiveness.

The reduction of any human function to the plane of sensationalism alone has this strange result that, in the end, the very sensations it provides tend to decline in intensity. It is as if sensation alone were an insufficient psychical foundation to support the whole arch of any permanent human interest or effort, and that where it is not correlated with the feelings of power or purposefulness, it tends to crumble and to perish.

The woman in such cases suffers even more quickly than the man, because in her the physiological disappointment sings in chorus with the psychical disillusionment. But in the man too ultimate anæsthesia is inevitable; for, sooner or later, the fact that the natural consequences of his act (offspring) are not forthcoming, will begin to tell on his self-esteem and his sense of power, with which elements more than half the savour of sexual relations must certainly have been associated by his ancestors.[89]

A further psychological factor must be reckoned with, which has its share in bringing about matrimonial difficulties in the state of deliberate childlessness, or of the limitation of the family, and that is the feeling of aimlessness that ultimately supervenes, when any two people associate together without any further object in life than that of eating, drinking, or making merry. This is not due to the fact that eating, drinking, and making merry are in themselves bad, as the Puritans would have us believe; but that they are at least monotonous if unrelieved by any other interests. Life, as we have seen, is repetition with a modicum of variation, and so is happiness. Nothing that can introduce variety into the home of the young couple, therefore, ought to be eschewed, for fear lest that lack of variety should be realized which causes life to lose its interest and its savour. Now children are obviously a constant source of variety in the home. Each child, in its turn, gives the home a different aspect, a different outlook, a different responsibility. Children, moreover, give the family unit a superior aim and purpose, which increases in importance with the number of the offspring. In this sense alone, therefore, a state of childlessness or of family limitation (when the number of children is small), in an ordinary home, where there are no compensating features such as ardent artistic, scientific or religious preoccupations, constitutes a dangerous state from the standpoint of connubial stability.

Before concluding this discussion of the positive couple in relation to divorce, which we propose to do with an examination of the statistics, it will now be necessary to consider the circumstances under which the positive man himself becomes unfaithful.[90]

From the statistics it would appear that more women than men go wrong in a childless marriage. This is only what, from our argument, we should have expected; because since the coitus represents a complete physiological experience to the man, he is less likely to become vaguely dissatisfied with childlessness than the woman. Nevertheless, should the childless state be continued too long—that is to say, for five, six, or more years—there are sure to arise certain indistinct feelings of dissatisfaction in the man, which will cause him to become restless and interested in other women. These feelings will be the result of the total lack of those “appeals” to his primitive instincts, which the regular procreation of children provides for almost all men without exception. He will miss the sense of power which he would derive from the material and visible extension of his own identity in his offspring, and he will also feel the need of that silent tribute which children would make to the deepest source of his self-esteem—virile potency.

It should also be borne in mind that, where there are no children, the man is more likely, owing to the absence of heavy responsibilities, to indulge that inclination to varied sexual experiences, to which every positive man is subject after some years of marriage. We have seen how entirely man’s sexual experience depends for its savour upon desire—the desire he feels for the object of his sexual passion. When, therefore, through years of regular intimacy with his wife, this desire tends to decline, there naturally follows a corresponding decline in the savour of his sexual experience. To correct this he is tempted to go in search of change, of novelty. Now, when this inclination arises in monogamic marriages, it is frequently checked out of consideration for the children, and more especially by the secret satisfaction derived from their presence. Where there are no children, it is much more likely to be given free rein.

Another factor which ought to be given due weight in the sexual psychology of man, is his love of protecting and patronizing. The wife who gives him a number of children not only makes a strong appeal to this love in her own person but also in the persons of her offspring. He becomes, figuratively, a huge buttress supporting the dependent members of his family, and this gratifies the self-esteem of the average simple-minded man, and in innumerable cases induces him not only to accept the burden, but also to love it deeply and passionately for giving him such a delightful and constant sense of real importance.