CHAPTER XI[ToC]
THE INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT ON SEXUAL LIFE
However strong may be the hereditary sexual instincts which an individual has inherited by phylogeny from his ancestors, and however violent their internal outbreaks in his ontogeny, it is necessary to recognize that an organism so complicated as that of man is capable of adapting itself to its environment to a remarkable and varied degree, and that consequently external influences react strongly on the sexual appetite. We will now examine these influences, so far as they are not dealt with in other chapters.
Influence of Climate.—Warm climates appear to excite the intensity of sexual life; man matures more quickly and is more disposed to sexual excess. I am not aware of other influences that can be attributed to climate. It is, moreover, possible that the direct influence of heat has been confounded with the indirect action it exerts in the conditions of human existence. In cold countries life is more laborious, and this diminishes the intensity of the sexual appetite. In warm countries man has not so much concern with dwellings, clothes and heating; life is greatly simplified, and this freedom from anxiety inclines him to greater sexual activity.
Town and Country. Isolation. Sociability. Life in Factories.—The social relations of man exert a great influence on sexual life. Hermits and those who live on isolated farms are interesting in this respect. Solitude generally leads man to chronic melancholia and to abnormal peculiarities, unless he has a library in his hermitage, when he may live in the spirit of the intellectual sociability derived from the study of books.
It is quite otherwise with one who has no intellectual occupation, or one who has lived in solitude from infancy. In this case the hermit becomes a kind of savage, without any intellectual development, and reverts more or less to the state of primitive man.
An adult who establishes himself in solitude without providing himself with intellectual capital becomes strongly inclined to depressing psychoses. This is observed among the isolated farmers, according to Professor Seguin, of New York. The man who lives alone, or surrounded only by the members of his family becomes disposed to certain sexual anomalies, such as incest, sodomy and masturbation.
It is among the agricultural population that we meet with the most normal sexual relations and the best hygiene. The French Canadians form a good example, and it is the same generally where agriculture is practiced by independent peasants, not alcoholized, and having divided property. Agricultural families generally procreate more children and healthier ones than urban families. No doubt modern medical hygiene, both public and private, has made so much progress in towns that there may be, at a certain age, proportionally more living children than in the country; but the country children are of stronger constitution and more healthy in every way.
I had the opportunity of confirming this opinion while I was superintendent of a lunatic asylum for many years. I found it was impossible to recruit from the town a good staff of nurses of either sex.