Woman and Womanhood: A Search for Principles

by C. W. Saleeby

Let us begin by a quotation from Dr. McDougall, author of the best and most searching account of this instinct yet written:—

"The maternal instinct, which impels the mother to protect and cherish her young, is common to almost all the higher species of animals. Among the lower animals the perpetuation of the species is generally provided for by the production of an immense number of eggs or young (in some species of fish a single adult produces more than a million eggs), which are left entirely unprotected, and are so preyed upon by other creatures that on the average but one or two attain maturity. As we pass higher up the animal scale, we find the number of eggs or young more and more reduced, and the diminution of their number compensated for by parental protection. At the lowest stage this protection may consist in the provision of some merely physical shelter, as in the case of those animals that carry their eggs attached in some way to their bodies. But, except at this lowest stage, the protection afforded to the young always involves some instinctive adaptation of the parent's behaviour. We may see this even among the fishes, some of which deposit their eggs in rude nests and watch over them, driving away creatures that might prey upon them. From this stage onwards protection of offspring becomes increasingly psychical in character, involves more profound modification of the parent's behaviour, and a more prolonged period of more effective guardianship. The highest stage is reached by those species in which each female produces at a birth but one or two young, and protects them so efficiently that most of the young born reach maturity; the maintenance of the species thus becomes in the main the work of the parental instinct. In such species the protection and cherishing of the young is the constant and all-absorbing occupation of the mother, to which she devotes all her energies, and in the course of which she will at any time undergo privation, pain, and death. The instinct becomes more powerful than any other, and can override any other, even fear itself; for it works directly in the service of the species, while the other instincts work primarily in the service of the individual life, for which Nature cares little.... When we follow up the evolution of this instinct to the highest animal level, we find among the apes the most remarkable examples of its operation. Thus in one species the mother is said to carry her young one clasped in one arm uninterruptedly for several months, never letting go of it in all her wanderings. This instinct is no less strong in many human mothers, in whom, of course, it becomes more or less intellectualized and organized as the most essential constituent of the sentiment of parental love. Like other species, the human species is dependent upon this instinct for its continual existence and welfare. It is true that reason, working in the service of the egotistic impulses and sentiments, often circumvents the ends of this instinct and sets up habits which are incompatible with it. But when that occurs on a large scale in any society, that society is doomed to rapid decay. But the instinct itself can never die out save with the disappearance of the human species itself; it is kept strong and effective just because those families and races and nations in which it weakens become rapidly supplanted by those in which it is strong.

"It is impossible to believe that the operation of this, the most powerful of the instincts, is not accompanied by a strong and definite emotion; one may see the emotion expressed unmistakably by almost any mother among the higher animals, especially the birds and the mammals—by the cat, for example, and by most of the domestic animals; and it is impossible to doubt that this emotion has in all cases the peculiar quality of the tender emotion provoked in the human parent by the spectacle of her helpless offspring. This primary emotion has been very generally ignored by the philosophers and psychologists; that is, perhaps, to be explained by the fact that this instinct and its emotion are in the main decidedly weaker in men than women, and in some men, perhaps, altogether lacking. We may even surmise that the philosophers as a class are men among whom this defect of native endowment is relatively common."

Dr. McDougall goes on to show how from this emotion and its impulse to cherish and protect spring generosity, gratitude, love, true benevolence, and altruistic conduct of every kind; in it they have their main and absolutely essential root without which they would not be. He argues that the intimate alliance between tender emotion and anger is of great importance for the social life of man, for "the anger invoked in this way is the germ of all moral indignation, and on moral indignation justice and the greater part of public law are in the main founded."[11]

The reader may be earnestly counselled to acquaint himself with Dr. McDougall's book, which, in the judgment of those best qualified, definitely advances the science of psychology in its deepest and most important aspects.

The Transmutation of Instinct.—The last thing here meant by the transmutation of instinct is that by any political alchemy it is possible—to quote Herbert Spencer's celebrated aphorism—to get golden conduct out of leaden instincts. But it is the mark of man, the intelligent being, that in him the instincts are plastic, and even capable of amazing transmutations. In the lower animals there is instinct, but that instinct is an almost completely fixed, rigid, and final thing. In ourselves there is a limitless capacity for the development, the humanization of instinct along many lines, as when the primitive infantile curiosity works out into the speculations of a thinker. In other words, we are educable, the lower animals are not, or only within very narrow limits.

Yet in one respect the lower animals have the advantage over us. Their instincts are often perfect. We cannot teach a cat anything about how to look after a kitten; but parallel instincts amongst ourselves, though not less numerous or potent, are not perfected, not sharp-cut. In the cat there is no need for education; in woman there is eminent need for it. Indeed it is the lack of education that is largely responsible for our large infant mortality; not that woman is inferior to the cat, but that, being not instinctive but intelligent, she requires education in motherhood.

Human instincts in general are capable of modification; sometimes they may take bizarre forms, and so we find that there are people without children of their own—more commonly women—who will have twenty cats in the house and look after them, or who will devote their whole lives to the cause of the rat or the rabbit, or whatever it may be, while the children of men are dying around them. These things are indications of the parental instinct centred on unworthy objects. It is a common thing to laugh at these aberrations—thoughtlessly, may we not say? While orphans are to be found, we should do better if we try to bring together the woman who needs to "mother" and the child who needs to be "mothered."

Conduct is at least three-fourths of life, and the great business of education is the direction of conduct. We have seen how modern psychology illuminates what has been so long dark, by directing us to our instincts as the sources of our needs, and by showing us that it is the possibility of the education of instinct which essentially distinguishes us from the lower animals.

We must therefore distinguish between education for motherhood and education or instruction in motherhood. It is very important that a woman should know the elements of infant feeding, but it is more important that, in the first place, her whole life before she becomes a mother—nay, even before she chooses her child's father—shall centre in the education of her instincts for motherhood. Finding good evidence, as we do, of the maternal instinct at a very early age, and recognizing its importance in conduct and in the formation of ideals long before the marriage age, we are justified in discussing the maternal instinct here instead of postponing it, as some might argue, until after we have discussed marriage. There is nothing which I wish to assert more strongly than that we are radically wrong in this postponement, which is indeed our customary practice. Partly because we are blind, partly because of our most imprudent prudery, we ignore and pervert the due sequence of development, but here I deliberately prefer to follow the indications of nature, and to discuss the maternal instinct now because, in the matter of the education of girls, this is precisely the most important subject that can be named.