In mammals, as in birds, and as in man, sexual desire raises and intensifies all the faculties, and seems to elevate the individual above the level of normal life. Animals in a state of rut become bolder, more ferocious, and more dangerous. The elephant, pacific enough by nature, assumes a terrible fury in the rutting season. The Sanskrit poems constantly recur to the simile of the elephant in rut to express the highest degree of strength, nobility, grandeur, and even beauty.
But obviously I must not linger very long over the loves of the animals. My chief object is to study sexual union and marriage amongst human beings. The rut of animals and their sexual passions merely interest us here as preliminary studies, which throw light on the origin of analogous sentiments in mankind. Before leaving this subject, however, it will be useful to note a few more facts which, from the point of view of sexual psychology, bring animals and men near to each other.
The old Cartesian paradox, which makes the animal an unconscious machine, has still many partisans. A widely-prevailing prejudice insists that animals always obey blind instincts, while man alone, homo sapiens, made after the image of God, weighs motives, deliberates and chooses. Now, as procreation constitutes one of the great necessities of organised beings, and is an imperious law which no species can elude without disappearing, surely we ought to find amongst animals the most exact regularity in the acts connected with it. Man alone ought to have the privilege of introducing caprice and free choice into love. It is not so, however. On this side of his nature, as on all the others, man and animal approach, resemble, and copy each other. In his celebrated invocation to Venus, Lucretius has truly said, proclaiming the universal empire of the instinct of reproduction—
“Per te quoniam genus omne animantum
Concipitur, visitque exortum lumine solis.”
The animal, as well as the morally developed man, is capable of preference and individual passion; he does not yield blindly and passively to sexual love.
According to observers and breeders, it is the female who is specially susceptible of sentimental selection. The male, even the male of birds, is more ardent than the female, that is to say, more intoxicated and more sharply pricked by instinct, and thus generally accepts any female whatever: all are alike to him. This is the rule, but it is not without exceptions; thus, the male pheasant shows a singular aversion to certain hens. Amongst the long-tailed ducks some females have evidently a particular charm for the males, and are courted more than the others.[21] The pigeon of the dovecot shows a strong aversion to the species modified by breeders, which he regards as deteriorated.[22] Stallions are often capricious. It was necessary, for example, to use stratagem in order to induce the famous stallion Monarch to beget Gladiateur, who became still more famous.[23] Analogous facts have been observed in regard to bulls.[24]
But it is more especially the females who introduce individual fancy into sexual love. They are subject to singular and inexplicable aversions. Mares sometimes resist, and it is necessary to deceive them.[25] Female pigeons occasionally show a strong dislike to certain males without apparent cause, and refuse to yield to their caresses. At other times a female pigeon, suddenly forgetting the constancy of her species, abandons her old mate or legitimate spouse to fall violently in love with another male. In the same way peahens sometimes show a lively attachment to a particular peacock.[26] High-bred bitches, led astray by passion, trample under foot their dignity, honour, and all care for nobility of blood, to yield themselves to pug-dogs of low breed or mongrel males. We are told of some who have persisted for entire weeks in these degrading passions, repulsing between times the most distinguished of their own race.[27]
Even among species noted for their fidelity it sometimes happens that acts of sexual looseness are committed. The female pigeon often abandons her mate if the latter is wounded or becomes weak.[28] Misfortune is not attractive, and love does not always inspire heroism.
In concluding this short study of sexual union in the animal kingdom, I will attempt to formulate the general propositions which may be drawn from it.
All organic species undergo the tyranny of the procreative function, which is a guarantee of the duration of the type.