Major W., a distinguished officer, a man of honour in every respect, had in youth married a chambermaid, naturally, as one can imagine, from pure inclination. But the marriage remained barren, because the wife suffered from organic troubles; and soon her sexual powers were completely extinguished. Whilst the husband still remained virile, the wife was already an old woman, suffering from spasmodic and other affections, surrounded always by medicine-bottles and medical appliances, always ill-humoured and nagging, a true torment for the good-natured and amiable husband. The latter bears with Christian patience and inexhaustible love the ill-humour of his wife; but Nature is less pliable than his kind heart: his conjugal tenderness diminishes, and his ardent temperament seeks other outlets for the gratification of his natural sexual desires. The sick wife notices this coolness, and revenges herself by a refined cruelty. She knows that sulkiness on her part makes him ill and miserable; she therefore afflicts him with coldness of manner, and by jealousy and ill-temper she makes his life a hell. There occur horrible scenes of domestic brawling, which more than once have led the husband to attempt to end his troubles by suicide. He suffers in a threefold fashion: by the continued irritation of his healthy natural impulse, by the illnesses he contracts in gratifying that impulse, and by the sorrows of his really loved wife. He imposes upon himself a voluntary celibacy in order that he may not make her ill; but this sacrifice does not suffice, it does not make his wife gentler towards him. She demands from him, tacitly, all the ardency of the bridegroom; there is no rescue possible from this inferno. The husband surrenders himself to a quiet despair. He is faithful in his vocation; he lives only for the wife, who torments him continually. The neighbours see a very unedifying example of an extremely unhappy marriage, originally contracted as a pure love match, and none the less entailing martyrdom alike on husband and wife.
Note.—That in Vienna the conjugal conditions so graphically described in the above extracts are still much the same as formerly, and that marriage needs and marriage lies are there exceptionally painful is shown by the foundation in Vienna of a “Society for Marriage Reform,” which sent to the Assembly of German Jurists, meeting at Kiel in the beginning of September, 1906, the telegraphic request that they would undertake a revision of Austrian marriage law, since hitherto no cure had been found for unhappy marriage in Austria, no divorce was possible, and those who had obtained a judicial separation could, according to Canon Law, sue one another on account of adultery (cf. Neue Freie Presse, No. 15108, September 13, 1906). It is hardly credible, but, according to a report in the Berlin Aerzte-Correspondenz, 1907, No. 8, it is true, that the Medical Court of Honour for the town of Berlin and the province of Brandenburg, in the year of our Lord 1906, punished physicians on the ground of adultery!
[155] P. Näcke, one of the most trustworthy authorities on sexual anthropology, writes as follows: “That in ancient times, before monogamy, there was polygamy, or even a state resembling promiscuity, is very probable (Westermarck notwithstanding), and can, in fact, be assumed a priori” (“Einiges zur Frauenfrage und zur sexuellen Abstinenz”—“A Contribution to the Woman’s Question and to the Problem of Sexual Abstinence”), published in the Archiv f. Kriminalanthropologie, vol. xiv., p. 52 (Hans Gross, 1903). Cf. also Lohsing’s “Zustimmung zur Annahme einer ursprünglichen Promiscuität,” ibid., vol. xvi., p. 332.
The question of sexual promiscuity has recently been further considered by P. Näcke (“Earliest Beginnings of Human Society,” in Die Umschau of August 17, 1907). He believes that the state of pure promiscuity lasted a short time only, and gave place to certain nuclei of family structure, a kind of semi-promiscuity, which, prior to the complete development of the family union, lasted much longer than the state of pure promiscuity. Still, these earliest families were merely temporary, and only later became fixed and permanent. This assumption, however, does not affect the fact of a primordial pure promiscuity. Näcke himself also recognizes promiscuity as the natural state of primitive man.
[156] H. Schurtz, “Altersklassen und Männerbünde: eine Darstellung der Grundformen der Gesellschaft”—“Age Classes and Associations of Men: a Demonstration of the Fundamental Forms of Society,” p. 176 (Berlin, 1902).
[157] N. Melnikow, “The Buryats of the District of Irkutsk,” published in the Transactions of the Berlin Society of Anthropology, Ethnology, and Primeval History, p. 440 (1899).
[158] Marco Polo, translated by Yule, 2nd edition, vol. ii., pp. 38, 39 (London, 1875).
[159] Cf. my “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. i., pp. 165-169.
[160] Cf., regarding group-marriage, the writings of Joseph Kehler, more particularly “Zur Urgeschichte der Ehe”—“The Primitive History of Marriage” (Stuttgart, 1897); “Rechtsphilosophie und Naturrecht”—“The Philosophy of Law and Natural Right,” published in Holtzendorff-Kohler’s “Encyklopädie der Rechtswissenschaft,” pp. 27-36 (Leipzig, 1902); “Die Gruppenehe”—“Group-Marriage,” in “Aus Kultur und Leben,” pp. 22-29 (Berlin, 1904); finally the chapter on “Group-Marriage” by Schurtz (op. cit.). [A quite modern instance of group-marriage was the Oneida community, “a league of two hundred persons to regard their children as ‘common.’” For an account of the Oneida experiment see Noyes, “A History of American Socialisms.”—Translator.]