Among many other misconceptions with regard to Sex-characteristics, is the modern teaching that the sex-instinct is identical in men and women.
Ignoring the truth that a higher moral code is the mark of psychical superiority, and moreover that the exaction of it from women, under social penalty, has done more than any other thing to purify and to exalt the woman-character, impassioned fallacy now sees this higher standard demanded of the sex as a stigma of inferiority, and as an injustice. Accordingly it preaches equal liberty in this as in other respects. The trend toward equalisation is unfortunately (but inevitably) in the direction of lowering the woman-code rather than of raising man's.
No falser or more disastrous doctrine could be promulgated. As in all its other attributes and functions, so in this, the woman-nature differs wholly from that of the male. The primal male sex-instinct was one of tyranny and subjugation. There was no element of affection in it, and its bent was toward promiscuity. In the primal female, the instinct as an initiative impulse was non-existent. The surrender was to fear, and to habit engendered by fear. Fondness for her mate came to woman by way of her love for his child, a source essentially monogamous in trend.
Physical passion in woman is derived from the Male-traits in her. It is, accordingly, a borrowed, not an inherent instinct. And in all natural women, passion is secondary to love; love belonging to her own intrinsic nature. Because of its heritage, there is, in a true woman's love, always a maternal altruistic element: unselfish, ministering, devoted. Love has come to be intensified in her by fire of passion and by force of personal attraction. It is no longer a mere meek surrender, with fear for spur and maternity for solace. In proportion as she is of high organisation, it has become a complex of mind and emotion and sense; intense and vital. But always, in proportion as she is womanly, her own way of loving—the way of devotion and tenderness—is ascendant over passion.
In man, howsoever it be leavened by the higher love, passion dominates. When in woman passion dominates love, she is loving with the Male-traits in her—not as woman. And in the measure wherein she falls short of the womanly monogamous ideal, she is less woman than she is male.
Mr. Justice Hannen, for long President of the Divorce Court—and a subtle expert in women—observed that it was not the passionate, warm-eyed women who figured most before him, but, in far greater number, the cold-blooded, greedy and emotionless. Because for one woman who succumbs to love or passion, twenty transgress from motives of vanity or gain; or from mere frivolous craving for excitement.
It is the sexless women who are most immoral, for the same reason that some dyspeptics are always hungry. Persons of healthy digestion eat, and are satisfied. The healthfully-sexed love, and are content. The emotionless woman is for ever seeking in novelty, emotions she lacks the emotion to feel. Such women exploit passion for vanity, for distraction, or for the primal male-instinct of subjugation. Their desire for a lover is less a sentiment than it is of the nature of that craving for drink, or for drugs, or for dress, which many of this order also indulge. All are megalomanias—natural instincts distorted to vices by warp of abnormal self-centredness.
With its foundations laid in instinct, its organic emotionalism, its streak of mental irresponsibility, and its hunger for approbation, the Woman-nature, when lacking in the higher Woman-traits of affection and selflessness, or when these are not duly absorbed in the natural interests and functions of the sex, may degenerate to a very ugly thing.
Some of our latter-day "smart" young married women, childless or with one or two children consigned to hirelings, their passions excited by marriage and not duly assuaged by maternity, their impulses unchastened and their powers unexpended in affection and care for the family, seek outlet and distraction in promiscuous philanderings, in intrigue or in vice.
Human faculty and impulse diverted from their normal channels readily find crooked and dangerous courses.