The sexual question

by Auguste Forel

I think the following advice may be useful to the husband (and occasionally also to the wife). When his sexual passion is excited by another woman and he is in danger of succumbing, he should endeavor, by the aid of his imagination, to clothe his own wife with the charms of his would-be seducer. With a little determination this measure will often succeed; he will thus strengthen his sexual desire toward his own wife, and perhaps increase hers also. In this way, a flame which threatened to destroy conjugal happiness may sometimes serve to strengthen it, by reviving afresh the mutual feelings of love and desire. In the first part of his "Wahlverwandtschaften" (elective affinities), Goethe designates this phenomenon by the term mental adultery; but I am of the opinion that it is rather the expression of a mental conjugal fidelity which is strengthened by sensual substitution.

When there is true love and good-will on both sides, such experiences may often help toward the gradual consolidation of conjugal relations. Not only may a deviated passion be brought back to the conjugal bed, but certain discords may be restored to harmony, and the couple may find new desire and mutual affection which have been put to the test.

Matriarchism.—With regard to family relations there is an important point to consider, which we have already touched upon in Chapter XIII. The power of man and of patriarchism has had the result of giving the father's name to the family. This system is not only unnatural, but also has deplorable effects. If it is true that the germ of the individual (Chromosomes, Chapter I) inherits on the average as much from the father as from the mother, the latter is more closely connected with it from all other points of view. Races in which the maternal influence predominates in the family, not only in name but also in other respects, have better understood the voice of nature.

The fact that the mother carries the child for nine months in her womb, and for many years after birth is more intimately associated with it than the father, gives her a natural right which the father cannot claim. Children ought, therefore, to be named after the mother. Moreover, in case of divorce, it should be the rule for children to be restored to the mother, unless there are special reasons for another decision.

It is evident that in the conditions of modern civilization we cannot return to matriarchism in its primitive sense. An old patriarch cannot become the sole sovereign of all his descendants without the occurrence of grave abuses, no more can this power devolve on a grandmother. Apart from denomination in the maternal line, I mean by matriarchism, the legal privilege of the management of the family conferred on the wife, who is in reality the center of the family.

I will sum up what appears to me to be required, in the following propositions:

1. Denomination in the maternal line.

2. With the exception of cases in which the wife loses her maternal rights owing to incapacity, bad conduct or insanity, etc., or when the law is obliged to deprive her of them, she alone will possess the guardianship and the management of her children during their minority.

3. The wife will be proprietor and housekeeper of the house and household. Her work of housekeeping and her maternal duties will be estimated at their just value, and will have the right to compensation, equivalent to the husband's work in his business.

4. As long as conjugal union exists, the husband has the right to live in his wife's house, for the protection he gives to the family, for the work he gives toward the house and the education of the children, as well as for his pecuniary contributions toward the expenses of both.