"It was evidently a case of love at first sight, for she swam about the newcomer caressingly, though he appeared evidently alarmed and averse to her overtures of affection. From that hour she forgot her old partner. Winter passed by, and the next spring the pintail seemed to have become a convert to her blandishments, for they nested and produced seven or eight young ones."[95]
I am tempted to wait to consider the immense significance of such cases as these in the analogy they bear to our own sudden preferences in love. The question as to the moral conduct of this duck opens up suggestions of those cases of exceptional love-passions, which all our existing institutions, laws and penalties have never been able to crush. The desire for sexual variety is the ultimate cause of all sexual lapses and irrationalities. It is a mistake to think that this is a condition peculiar to mankind and the result of civilisation. If this were so it would be easier to deal with; but before these deeply-rooted instincts of sexual hunger we are often powerless. I know of no question that needs to be faced by women more than this one. I would like to say more about it. But already this first section of my book has exceeded its limits. I must, therefore, pass on, to draw attention to the fact, clearly proved by the case of this wild-duck's love, as well as by many other examples, that it is the females, who, exercising their right of selection much more than the males, introduce individual preference into their sexual relationships. The difficulty is that such preference, of profound biological importance, is often thwarted among civilised people by considerations of property and the accepted morality. From this standpoint permanent marriage may often fail to do justice to the sexual needs both of the individual and the wider needs of the race. Nature has no care for sex-morals as we understand them, any mode of sexual union is equally right so long as it serves the race-process. But men have set up a whole host of prohibitions and conventions—the "thou shalt nots" of society and religion. Which are we to follow? Which is the wheat and which the tares, that must be garnered or sifted from our loves?
It is important to notice that among mammals, as among men, conjugal fidelity is modified by the conditions of life. An animal belonging to a species habitually monogamic may easily change under the pressure of external causes and adopt polygamy, and, in some cases, polyandry. The shoveler duck, though normally monogamic, is said[96] to practise polyandry when males are in excess; two males being in constant and amicable attendance on the female, without sign of jealousy. Wild-ducks, again, which are strictly monogamous, good parents, and very highly developed in social qualities when in a wild state, become loosely polygamous and indifferent to their offspring under domestication. Civilisation, in this case, depraves the birds, as often it does men.
But enough has now been said. We shall find later how far the facts we have learnt of the position of the female and the sexual relationship, as we have studied them in these examples from the animal kingdom, will apply to us and to our loves. We have now to study marriage and the family as it exists among primitive peoples. We shall find a close resemblance in the courtship customs and the sexual and familial associations to those we have seen to be practised by our pre-human ancestors. The same resemblance will persist when, lastly, we come to investigate the same institutions among civilised races, up to our own. Indeed, we may have to admit that, in some directions, love is not even yet as finely developed with us humans as it is among birds. It is in the loves of birds, as I believe, that we must seek hints to that evolution in fineness, which has still to come in our love.
One thing more. It refers to the disputed question of the differentiation of the sexes by the action of love's-selection. It is a truth that I wish as strongly as I am able to emphasise. We cannot learn to know love's selective powers by enclosing its action within the narrow circle of our preconceived ideas. Instead of limiting its power we should extend it without hindrance of any form—to the female as well as the male; to the woman as to the man. We should regard nothing as impossible, no development of either sex too great to be accomplished, knowing that all progress is possible to love's power. Exceptional cases, then, irregularities, it may be, in sexual expression will henceforth no longer surprise us; they will find their place in the infinite order of life. Such examples may come to be regarded as filling in the chain; they form intermediate stages and also mark the reappearance of earlier manifestations of the sexual hunger. The new morality of love, which is having its birth amongst us to-day, will be deeper and wider than the old morality, because it will be founded on surer knowledge.
FOOTNOTES:
[50] Havelock Ellis, Psychology of Sex, Vol. VI. p. 422.
[51] Evolution of Sex, p. 8.
[52] Animal Behaviour, p. 265, quoted by Havelock Ellis, Psychology of Sex, Vol. III. p. 28.