They would wish to do it if they had in their minds—in the hypersomatic portion of their personalities—an adequately vivid picture of exactly what it is desired to do.
It would be impossible to put into a book a detailed pattern of marital behaviour on the part of husbands, particularly hyposomatic details. But it is hoped that the book will give as clear an exposition of the hypersomatic lineaments of the marital pattern as will be required to make any man that reads it at least willing to change his own love pattern for one that has in it infinitely more satisfaction and triumph, containing as it does the only means whereby a single demi-human atom may completely unite with another and form an entirely new whole.
§ 32
As far as records are available there is no reason to suppose that the champion shot-putter, prize-fighter, or longshoreman is any more able to evoke in his wife the climax of erotic ecstasy than is the rather flat-chested, spectacled college professor, the department store head, the banker, or any other member of the so-called sedentary professions.
The latter class of people have unduly and illogically overvalued the hyposomatic end of the scale. Woman can be courted and married (and thereafter won!) by men whose strength is hypersomatic just as well as by those whose strength is hyposomatic. But so far as the physical or hyposomatic side of the marital relation is concerned, there may be a difference between the pugilist and the college professor in the amount of egoistic-social development in comparison with the amount of erotic development in his past history.
After reading this chapter many people may feel disappointed and say: “You have not told me how I can insure my erotic self-control (or my husband’s).”
I will anticipate somewhat by saying that the affirmation “I know I can control,” if repeated enough times a day with sufficient conviction would undoubtedly help. If to this were added, “I know I love my wife better than I do myself,” it would also be a step in the right direction.
But for the material of the pattern on which is based the conviction of the truth of man’s ability to control himself, I shall have to refer the reader to the later chapters in the book.
At first all I can hope to do is to convince some of the men who read this book that they belong to the infant class of husbands. If the men whose wives are discontented or whose sweethearts are slow in promising, can read and realize that the whole situation is psychic or mental (hypersomatic) rather than physical or economic (hyposomatic), they will see that from one point of view their victory over themselves, and incidentally over others, is the easiest thing in the world, far easier than to lift a weight or change the colour of a leaf on a tree.
For the control recommended in this book no new muscles or nerves have to be supplied, nor do any actual muscles or ligaments or tendons have to be exercised or otherwise strengthened. It would be hard to go through a daily dozen or (gross) of calisthenic exercises and still harder, indeed impossible, to make hair grow (or not grow) where it did not (or did) before. But the procedure to be recommended in this book is more like opening one’s eyes, and seeing that a vehicle is bearing down upon one (or about to leave without one), than it is like walking in an ethical treadmill and satisfying a sense of duty by monotonous repetition of behaviour enforced from without.