In these times, when it is the fashion to dissect everyone and everything, we are prone to argue from the ordinary to the extraordinary, from the peculiar to the general; sexual frigidity in woman, at first an anomaly, ends in being a trait; the exception becomes, does not prove, the rule.
Needless to say, a great psychologist like Havelock Ellis has a wealth of information to offer on the subject, and we commend our readers to his masterly handling of it. He has something to say on every aspect of the question, from the case of the woman who is cold almost to the point of sexlessness to that of the erotic wife who ‘becomes frenzied with excitement during intercourse and insensible to everything but the pleasure of it.’ In conclusion, he adjusts the scales with exquisite and scientific precision, holding that ‘the distribution of the sexual impulse between the two sexes is fairly balanced.’
Earlier on, however, he makes a point which we shall do well to bear in mind. ‘ ... Sexual impulse is by no means so weak in women as many would lead us to think. It would appear that, whereas in earlier ages there was generally a tendency to credit women with an unduly large share of the sexual impulse, there is now a tendency unduly to minimise the sexual impulse in women.’
We shall have frequent occasion in subsequent volumes of Anthologica Rarissima to return to this subject, for, as the student of folk-lore, psychology and human life will readily agree, sexual impulse is perhaps the most powerful basic motive of our many daily acts and tasks.[74]
THE FOOL.[75]
A peasant and his wife had a half-witted son, who pictured himself married and sleeping with his wife. He spoke of this matter to his father.
“Marry me, little father,” he said.
Said the little father: