We may now return to the interpretation of decadent sex worship. When we understand the setting in which sex worship was practiced in the middle ages we are better able to appreciate its significance. As stated above, it was the attempt by certain elements of the race to return to more primitive motives, and to derive satisfaction from beliefs which had long been outgrown by advancing civilization. This clinging to an early type of reaction, or the return to more primitive feelings, must be regarded as an unhealthy tendency. Moreover, at this time, the motive itself was no longer expressed in the natural and healthy way of primitive times. Sex worship during the middle ages became depraved; excesses and perversions appeared and the entire development, as it existed at that time, was biologically undesirable.
It also appeared that at certain times in the mental evolution of the race a degree of development is reached from which no further progress is made. At least, we are aware of such an instance in the case of a very primitive community in Southern Italy. A writer, Norman Douglas,[39] in 1914 found the existence of a phallic cult in Calabria. The women sanctified a crack of one of the walls of the temple, their attitude toward it corresponding to the yoni worship of India. Near by was an ancient stone pillar held in great veneration, which was the representative of the phallus.
It is observed that in this small community some remnants of phallic belief of a very primitive type have been retained for centuries. The religious development, an index of mental development, has become “set” as it were and no further progress is possible. It is not entirely for want of opportunity that this locality has not taken up higher religious beliefs. The Catholic Church has introduced its teachings, but the people have represented the images of the Saints, of the Virgin Mary, and of Christ somewhat after the fashion of toy dolls. These are used as fetishes to ward off disease and no higher conceptions are grasped. Ideas regarding after life and immortality are disregarded in favor of the immediate need of protection against supposed evil influences. With these people, therefore, motives are utilized which satisfy only the most fundamental and immediate desires.
We have now followed a definite motive in mental development through its rise, its elaboration and its decadence. We therefore have its life history in the race before us; we have been enabled by analogies of other motives and by utilizing the conclusions of various writers, to understand its meaning and to give its interpretation. It remains to be seen what general conclusions regarding either racial or individual development in this sphere may be drawn.
It appears that when an important motive of this sort develops in the race, it embodies the expression of fundamental desires. Since it carries with it a strong and ever present desire in this way, it is strikingly dynamic in nature. It dominates all social organization, and with primitive people it dominates much of the conduct of the individual. When such a motive is seriously entertained it is pragmatic, i. e., it serves a useful end, or at least the conceptions which it embodies are entertained because they are thought to be of the highest value to the race.
As mental development continues, these more fundamental and primitive motives cease to be all absorbing. Eventually, the subject of the food supply becomes less pressing. Races continue to increase and multiply with or without the performance of sacred rites and man begins to question the utility of his imitative magic. Higher desires force themselves into consciousness, and earlier motives are no longer outwardly expressed; the form of the early motives is retained however: usages, symbols and practices which have long ceased to be dynamic and whose meaning is entirely forgotten are still observed; so we see evidences of primitive racial motives cropping up in all sorts of ways in later civilization.
But to say that the earlier motives are no longer outwardly expressed is not to infer that they do not exist. Fundamental as they are in our mental development, they enter into our general personality and become a part of our makeup. How is the motive expressed in sex worship a part of our motives and feelings of today? Superficially it does not appear to be present, but a little reflexion shows that it is there. It has become so much a part of us that we scarcely recognize its presence, the instinct to reproduce being common to everyone. Every woman feels this to be her duty,—her religious duty if the dictum of the Church is to be followed:
“Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord; and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that has his quiver full of them; they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.” Psalm 127.
During earlier times barrenness was regarded as a curse, and many charms were in use to counteract this calamity. A sentence from a letter of Julia Ward Howe to her young sister about to be married, affords an apt reference to this sense of duty: “Marriage, like death, is a debt we owe to nature, and though it costs us something to pay it, yet we are more content and better established in peace when we have paid it.” The feeling associated with the command “to increase and multiply” is so much a part of our innermost thoughts and feelings that further references to it are unnecessary.