We are also so accustomed in using all our other senses, sight, hearing, etc., to regard them as individual possessions, that it is difficult to separate the sexual sense from all others. Yet it distinctly belongs to a different class from all our other senses, because its ultimate expression is not a simple individual performance, but is a social act of vital importance to the race. The imperfection of our intelligence, which makes it easier to consider a joint act in its diversity than in its unity, has led to very imperfect observation of physiological facts and many false deductions from such imperfect observation. Very grave social errors, leading even to the general debasement and ultimate destruction of national life, flow from the hitherto rudimentary condition of our human intelligence in relation to the sexual powers.
Fornication is the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes. It is the yielding to the domination of the simple physical impulse of sex, with no perception or acceptance of the mutual responsibility involved in the relation, and with no regard to a fundamental aspect of this relation—viz., the well-being of offspring. Fornication is the attempt to divorce the moral and physical elements of human nature, and to ignore the inseparable results of joint action.
In considering this subject from a medical point of view, we are at once brought face to face with a conflict nineteen hundred years old. Christianity, springing up when the Roman Empire was perishing through its vices, stamped fornication as the gravest of social crimes. There is nothing more strongly marked in the earlier records of this religion than the stern, even awful, condemnation of whore-mongers. The sin of sexual impurity is denounced as the essence of hatred and fraud. We observe that wherever the Christian Church becomes hypocritical and cowardly, and fails to reprobate this sin alike in men and women, in high and low, in the State and in the family, or fails to be the leader of the people against organized evil, there the Christian Church begins to fall into contempt, and the vox populi condemns it.
The Christian physiologist, pondering the inexorable law of purity as shown by history, is compelled to re-examine the physical and moral facts of the human constitution, on which the rise and fall of races depend. The question distinctly arises, Is Christianity a superstition, dying out in the nineteenth century of science and material development; or does it contain within itself a principle whose transforming power has been hitherto unrecognised, but which will now come into play, and lead the nations into renewed and more permanent vigour of life?
One of the first subjects to be investigated by the Christian physiologist is the truth or error of the assertion so widely made, that sexual passion is a much stronger force in men than in women. Very remarkable results have flowed from the attempts to mould society upon this assertion. A simple Christian might reply, ‘Our religion makes no such distinction; male and female are as one under guidance and judgment of the Divine law.’ But the physiologist must go farther, and use the light of principles underlying physical truth in order to understand the meaning of facts which arraign and would destroy Christianity.
It is necessary, therefore, to determine what is meant by strength and what is meant by passion. In one sense a bull is stronger than a man, and many of the inferior animals are superior in muscular force or keenness of special sense to human beings, yet man is more powerful than the animal world which he dominates to his will. Any assertion that the animal is stronger than the human being fails to recognise the very essence of humanity—viz., mental or moral strength.
Again, in one sense, the whirlwind or the earthquake is stronger than the creative action of Nature; their rapid devastation strikes the terrified imagination, yet at the very moment of their ravage reparative and creative force is being exerted all over the world with immeasurably more power than any sudden outbreak of destruction.
In determining the strength of races and the strength of individuals, the various elements which constitute vital power must be considered. Endurance, longevity, special aptitudes with the proportionate amount of vital force given to their fulfilment—these are all elements of relative strength.
In any attempt to settle the comparative strength of man and woman, therefore, all these elements must be weighed. Thus the powers of endurance which are demanded by each kind of life must be accurately measured; the care of a sick child must be balanced against the anxiety of business, the ceaseless cares of indoor life against the changes of outdoor life, etc. The impossibility of so weighing the burden which each sex bears in the various trials and difficulties of practical life shows the futility of attempting to measure the amount of vital power possessed by men or by women separately.
Any attempt at a comparison of absolute sexual power between men and women will be found to be equally futile. The varying manifestations of the sexual faculties, as exhibited in their male and female phases, make the relative measurement of this vital force in men and women quite impossible. Considering, however, the enormous practical edifice of law and custom which has been built up on the very sandy foundation of the supposed stronger character of male sexual passion, it is necessary to examine closely the facts of human nature, and challenge many erroneous conclusions. Any theory which proposes two methods of judgment or two measures of law, in consequence of a supposed difference of vital power, is emphatically uncertain, and lays itself open to just suspicion of dangerous error.