More talk and less thought is expended on the subject of sex today than on almost anything else.
It is a hopeful sign for the future that society in general is awakening to the far-reaching importance of the relations between the sexes, and—feeling that these relations at present leave much to be desired—is offering many suggestions for the solution of this vexed problem, even though the suggestions themselves are not always calculated to obtain the desired results. The fact that throughout much of the civilized world, women outnumber men, combined with the attitude of certain women whose lives have been passed without personal experience of sexual relations has led to the suggestion that the sex problem may be simplified in the future by the development of a neuter sex which these people think they see approaching. But this seems hardly a likely solution, for asexuality must of necessity be self-destructive, and need not, therefore, occupy us long, though just now the type does seem rather self-concious. A less fanciful, though not more satisfying, solution is that of the feminist, who, in hunting for a cure, demands for men and women alike no restraint on sexual relations beyond the immediate desires of the two people most intimately concerned, while her milder sister, the suffragette, believes that women by voting can bring about in both sexes the control of human passion.
That the sexual relation interests the world is not so new a condition as we sometimes think; indeed, half unconsciously, sex has always been of paramount interest from the cradle to the grave, from the time when the child alone first nurses tenderly its doll, or in groups plays house, and at being father and mother and children. It is only the realization and open discussion of the interest which is new. Sex is the most vital thing in the world, for on it all but the lowest forms of life depend; hence the instinct of reproduction is equalled in its force by no other except, perhaps, that of self-preservation. We must think about it. Only let us think straight.
The reproductive instinct is normally stronger in men than in women; because in matters of sex, whatever he may be in other things, man is certainly the giver and woman the receiver of the gift. This fact has led to the assumption that man is, therefore, responsible for all the sins of sex, and this would undoubtedly be true were instinct and passion matters quite beyond our personal control, but they are not. The instinct of self-preservation is the most fundamental feeling that we have, and yet in the sinking of the "Titanic" and the horror of the "Lusitania," we saw this instinct controlled—how gloriously—by the highest manhood of men, not only of those from whom we should have expected the utmost consideration, but also of those who, we might have thought, had forfeited their manhood by lives of uncontrolled and sodden self-indulgence, lives full of injury to women, and to children born through them. Their manhood was not lacking when the call to protect the women and the children came in terms which they could understand. Why were they not taught to control the other fundamental instinct of life at a time when such a thing was possible? Are men responsible for the evil of their upbringing? Is it not their mothers rather, who should bear the heaviest burden of blame?
Every man is born of woman and almost every man is cared for by a woman throughout his earliest years. The Jesuits, in their wisdom, founded on much experience, have said: "Give me a child until he is seven and after that you may do what you like with him!" It is these early years that count most in a man's future. What have the mothers done in these years? Have they taught their children the laws of the transmission of life in their sacredness and their beauty, or, while willingly telling them of all the other facts of life, have they let this one, by far the most important, go untold, fear tying their tongues, and given to themselves the excuse of ignorance unequal to its task—an ignorance which in a mother is culpable—I had almost said criminal? Moreover, the responsibility of women for the moral standards of men does not end with their boyhood, for each sex is ultimately what the other demands of it to be. Men have demanded purity of their women, but women have not demanded it of men. Have not good women been in the habit of receiving into their society men whose past they know to have been bad—yes, and even of encouraging their daughters to marry such men for the sake of money or of social position? Women's responsibility for the social evil is greater than that of men, and those who are most responsible are the good women of the community. The arraignment is severe, but is it not deserved?
It is in childhood that the teaching of the sex relation must be given,—with the children that the training of self-control must begin. If men and women are started right in childhood, the later time will take care of itself. I would not belittle the father's influence, nor his teaching of his children; but of the two the mother is the more important, for the man who has talked of all things with his mother, to whom the sacredness of motherhood is indissolubly bound up with the great instinct of reproduction, will find it very hard to go far wrong. The girl, too, who understands the laws of her own nature and that of the young men whom she meets, will be in a position not only to choose her mate more wisely, but in the things that come up every day among young people of opposite sexes she will not excite in him, by word and gesture, through mere careless ignorance, as is so often done, a passion, which, though she go free and ignorant of harm, may bring to him much needless suffering, and may sometimes end in ruin both for him and for some other.
Women, through their training of their sons and daughters, hold the future of the world in their keeping. This training cannot be given by the enactment of laws; we cannot legislate the control of human passion. The law-maker bears no relation to the character builder.
"They're no more like than hornet's nests and hives
Or printed sarmons be to holy lives."
Law can only prevent wrongdoing, it is negative at best, for its appeal in the end must be to fear, and a people ruled by fear becomes a race of slaves. In a free country it is impossible to enforce a law unless the will of the people is behind it; and the moulding of this will, its training and development, must come in early childhood and must be done by its women. There is no greater sophistry than that women need the vote to protect themselves and one another from evil men. Were most men libertines today, no law could be enforced against them. Were all men self-controlled and pure in heart, no law would be required. The failure of the women—the good women of the community—to bring up their sons to be such men cannot be corrected by any short and easy road, nor can their responsibility for the present evil be obliterated by talk. Women have failed to do their duty, and the only way to prevent further evil is to do that duty now.