The equal numbers of men and women, their equal longevity, and consequently equal power of enduring the wear and tear of life, prove the equal general vital power of the sexes.
In considering further the special sexual manifestations of the two sexes, we observe that the power of reproduction commences at an earlier age in women than in men. The physical life of the sexual faculties at the same early age is more vigorous in the female than in the male, and all those social interests which centre round sex in the human race are in the young woman stronger; whilst at the same age the experience and intellectual development which should give dignity and profundity to the noble object of sex—parentage—are not yet attained. The ‘eagerness for a romance’ and the unconscious impulse towards parentage are developed earlier, and absorb a larger proportion of vital force in the girl than in the boy.
At a later age, when physical sex is fully developed in the young adult, we are still struck by the greater proportion of vital force demanded from or given by women to all that is involved in sexual life. The physical functions of sex weigh more imperiously upon the woman than the man, compel more thought and care, and necessitate more enlightened intelligence in the general arrangements of life. Physical sex is a larger factor in the life of the woman, unmarried or married, than in the life of the man, and this is the case at every period of the full vigour of life. In order to secure the perfect health and independent freedom which is the birthright of every rational human being, larger wisdom is required for the maintenance of perfect physical health in the woman than in the man, this function being a more important element in the one than in the other.
If this be true of the physical element of sex, it is equally true of the mental element. No careful observer can fail to remark the larger proportionate amount of thought and feeling, as compared with the total vital force of the individual, which we find given by women to all that concerns the subject of sex. Words spoken, slight courtesies rendered, excite a more permanent interest in women. That which may be the mere passing thought or action of the man, at once forgotten by him, obliterated by a thousand other intellectual or practical interests in his life, often make a quite undue impression upon the woman. Incidents are thought of over and over again, and are supposed to mean much more than they do mean. A romance or a scandal, a tale of true or false love, will always excite interest, where business, politics, science, or philosophy will fall upon deaf ears. All that concerns the mental aspect of sex, the special attraction which draws one sex towards the other, is exhibited in greater proportionate force by women, is more steady and enduring, and occupies a larger amount of their thought and interest.
The frivolity and ephemeral character of the seducer’s impulses, as compared with the earnestness of the seduced, illustrates the profounder character of sexual passion in woman.
Wide-spread unhappiness, social disturbance, and degradation continually arise from the vital force of human sex in woman, unguarded, unguided, and unemployed.
Passion and appetite are not identical. The term ‘passion,’ it should always be remembered, necessarily implies a mental element. For this reason it is employed exclusively in relation to the powers of the human being, not to those of the brute. Passion rises into a higher rank than instinct or physical impulse, because it involves the soul of man. In sexual passion this mental, moral, or emotional principle is as emphatically sex as any physical instinct, and it grows with the proportional development of the nervous system.
This mental element of human sex exists in major proportion in the vital force of women, and justifies the statement that the compound faculty of sex is as strong in woman as in man. Those who deny sexual feeling to women, or consider it so light a thing as hardly to be taken into account in social arrangements, confound appetite and passion; they quite lose sight of this immense spiritual force of attraction, which is distinctly human sexual power, and which exists in so very large a proportion in the womanly nature. The impulse towards maternity is an inexorable but beneficent law of woman’s nature, and it is a law of sex.
The different form which physical sensation necessarily takes in the two sexes, and its intimate connection with and development through the mind (love) in women’s nature, serve often to blind even thoughtful and painstaking persons as to the immense power of sexual attraction felt by women. Such one-sided views show a misconception of the meaning of human sex in its entirety.
The affectionate husbands of refined women often remark that their wives do not regard the distinctively sexual act with the same intoxicating physical enjoyment that they themselves feel, and they draw the conclusion that the wife possesses no sexual passion. A delicate wife will often confide to her medical adviser (who may be treating her for some special suffering) that at the very time when marriage love seems to unite them most closely, when her husband’s welcome kisses and caresses seem to bring them into profound union, comes an act which mentally separates them, and which may be either indifferent or repugnant to her. But it must be understood that it is not the special act necessary for parentage which is the measure of the compound moral and physical power of sexual passion; it is the profound attraction of one nature to the other which marks passion, and delight in kiss and caress—the love-touch—is physical sexual expression as much as the special act of the male.