An Outline of Sexual Morality

An Outline of
Sexual Morality

Kenneth Ingram

The Introduction by F. W. W. Griffin, M.A.,
M.D., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.

Jonathan Cape
Eleven Gower Street, London

First published 1922
All Rights reserved

Author’s Note

Introduction

Any honest inquiry into the Primal Instincts of humanity will necessarily lead to a clearer understanding of their nature, their functions, and their potentialities, and so will help to pave the way for the appearance of a healthier and happier race of men. The dictum “Learn to know yourself,” inscribed on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, has never been of more vital importance, both individually and nationally, than it is to-day, and the various schools of modern psychological thought, which are steadily opening up those hitherto scarcely explored regions whence flow the springs of human actions, are gradually clearing away the ignorance which has been the real cause of so much disease and distress. The following chapters are to be welcomed particularly as an effort at the constructional reform of our treatment of one of our deepest and most powerful instincts. Even those who do not necessarily give assent to all the details in the line of argument therein pursued must surely approve the insistence upon the vital necessity of there being love in all sex relationships.

The word “sexual,” though indispensable perhaps in such a book as this, invariably induces some measure of opposition by reason of the associations which it calls up, and so is often replaced by the cognate adjective “racial,” which emphasizes the wider aims of Race Preservation rather than the narrower matter of the reproduction of individuals. It is not a matter of curing individual immorality, not even of explaining it only, it is the greater matter of laying a sound foundation for a practicable social morality that is the object of consideration here. It is important that any such opposition should be neither hypocritical nor hyper-critical, for great national issues are at stake. Without the healthy mind there can be no healthy body, at any rate from the point of view of the community, and thus such a scientific inquiry as is set forth in these pages is definitely leading towards the production of a healthier nation.

The necessity of there being established a balance between an unlimited self-expression and a rigid self-repression is clearly indicated also, and the importance of self-control is not ignored here as it has been elsewhere, unfortunately, both as regards the individual’s physical health and the weal of the community at large; for self-control is a vital essential in the health of a man just as it is a vital necessity for the continuance of a nation. The following pages contain information and suggestions which should tend to the formation of a wiser and more hopeful outlook over the problems of sexual morality, and should therefore receive the careful consideration of all who have the interests of humanity at heart.

F. W. W. Griffin
M.A., M.D., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.

March 1922

Contents

An Outline of Sexual Morality

Chapter 1: Apologia

I have been impelled to attempt this definition of sexual morality for at least three reasons. The first is that, at this moment particularly, science is emphasizing the large responsibility which sex assumes in our lives. We may think that Freud has overestimated this influence; nevertheless, all psycho-analysis tends to show that the sex-force cannot be wholly repressed and that even with the most passionless individuals sex is the unconscious motive in a large percentage of their activities. It is well therefore that we should have as clear a conception as possible as to the moral rights of this enormous factor in our lives.

Secondly, a handbook of this kind is perhaps the most convenient medium for defining my personal attitude towards this problem. My own views are, of course, unimportant, but it so happens that I have often been asked, in private conversations, to define them. Now to summarize them to the extent which a casual conversation must almost necessarily entail, is difficult; and often, I suspect, I may have given a wholly wrong impression. I am anxious to set that right.

But my chief reason is the chaos of public opinion on this question. One is continually having this fact forced on one. Largely this is the result of transition and reaction. In England, the country to which I shall almost entirely confine myself, we have been enormously affected by that presentation of religion which has been called Puritanism. We have been steeped in the theology of Milton. All forms of religion—Catholic as well as Protestant—have been comparatively infected. When we speak of the “religious attitude” towards any question, we find ourselves irresistibly considering the Puritan attitude.

It is not, I think, unfair to define the influence of Puritanism as a tendency to regard all amusement with disfavour. The original Puritans were notoriously dour in their manner and their dress. It has been said that they attacked the sport of bear-baiting, because it gave pleasure to the onlookers, and not because it was painful to the bears. Sunday, on which the outward observance of religion was necessarily concentrated, became a day of complete abstention from worldly recreation. Puritanism might supply spiritual compensation, but anything which gave pleasure to the senses was essentially evil. Thus art and beauty were banished from religious services and sacred buildings. Not only was the stage an entrance to hell, but a consistent Puritan like Bunyan prayed God to forgive him the sin of having played a game of hockey.

Puritanism had reached its zenith, not of intensity but of universality, by the latter half of the last century. Those of us who are old enough to have been Victorians were brought up on comparative doses of the Puritan medicine. Especially among the middle-classes the history of every English family from the eighties till the War is extraordinarily similar; it consists of a series of emancipations. Our grandparents were almost entirely Puritan in their manner of living, our parents had compromised and extricated themselves to some degree, and our children have become almost wholly free. How many of us realize that up to the seventies it was quite improper for a lady to ride on the top of an omnibus?

In no instance was the effect of Puritanism stronger than on sex. For sex is pre-eminently inspired by a desire for pleasure, whether it be spiritual, emotional, or carnal. On this score alone it would have been marked out as a deadly evil. But there was a further indictment in the Puritan creed. According to the Miltonian interpretation Paradise had been lost on account of the sex impulse; “original sin” was nothing more or less than the sense of sex—the loss of sexual ignorance. Accordingly the whole sex-nature was regarded as evil, and sex generally became a taboo, a closed subject to which no reference could be made. Victorian Puritanism often, indeed, suggests the ostrich burying his head in the sand—the attempt to remedy evil by pretending that it does not exist.

The effect of Puritanism on the Victorian was precisely this conformity of outward behaviour. It assumed that all men and women were innocent, and that, except in marriage, sex played no part in life. It pretended they were innocent, and it made them only respectable. Parents would often refrain, on the plea that innocence must not be disturbed, from teaching their children anything about sex. So impure and evil a subject must not be referred to. Such unpleasant problems as venereal disease must be hidden out of sight, although prostitution and venereal disease continue to flourish. The Victorian, in fact, carried out the Puritan doctrine that all sex is evil, by outwardly pretending that, unless married, he possessed no sexual instinct. Actually he was no more inclined to abstention than any other human generation has been.

Indeed, we do not find any evidence that Puritanism succeeds in carrying its anti-sex theories into practice. In South Wales, for example, where Puritanism has established a particular stronghold, sexual laxity is peculiarly marked.

The reaction from Puritanism, especially in regard to sex, has been precipitated and exaggerated by the Great War. We have therefore in modern society two opposing policies. Among those who have thrown over all “religious” observance and have freed themselves entirely from Puritanism, there seems to be a complete absence of any moral sex-standard. We can appreciate that impasse if we consider the inability of the sex-novel or play to suggest any form of conduct which is immoral. Those who still adhere to organized religion continue to look at sex largely through Puritan spectacles. The “fallen woman” or the convicted clergyman is genuinely regarded as being guilty of the most damning of all offences. The sexual laxity of the neo-Georgian is used as a convincing argument that once the Puritan view is abandoned, complete anarchy is the only alternative. Religious teachers continue to preach what many of them would deny to be Puritan doctrine, but what I hope to prove belongs peculiarly to that aspect of Christianity. And meanwhile the “non-religious world” pronounces the opposite extreme.

It is because I believe both these attitudes to contain error, that I am anxious to contribute the foundation for some principle in the current deadlock.

Chapter 2: Official Attitudes towards Sex

It will now be convenient to define the chief collective or official attitudes towards sex. In a mere outline such as this handbook professes to be, we may divide these attitudes into three, and label them the popular attitude, the legal or State attitude, and the religious attitude.

With the popular attitude we have already largely dealt. It is still in a transitory, confused state, merging at one end into the old Puritan extreme, and at the other to mere negativism, mere opposition to Puritan asceticism, and without even an attempt to reconstruct a moral standard. This perhaps is an inevitable stage in any transition; but it is none the less unsatisfactory. Man cannot succeed without a standard; and moreover we know intuitively that all things are not morally permissible. If there is purity and beauty and divinity in life, there must be impurity and sin. Will it be considered an exaggeration if I say that it is almost better to have a Puritan standard than none at all? The Roundhead at least was more than a match for the Cavalier because he had a positive inspiration.

But there is one common feature in this chaos of evolving popular opinion. The vulgar mind tends to measure morality by what is usual. The sins which most men commit are regarded as hardly evil; the acts which may not be evil, are regarded as sins if they are peculiar. Thus an occasional lapse from continency on the part of a young man is popularly regarded as not very reprehensible, whereas the perpetrator of some weird act of bestiality would be hounded to prison. The flaw in this estimate is not only that the normal standard varies in race and age, but that there is no single human sex nature; there are infinite varieties. To condemn variety per se is, as we shall presently observe, a contradiction of the laws of nature.

The gradual emancipation of society from the taboo on sex in conversation is an undoubted gain. We owe such men as Bernard Shaw a debt of gratitude for the way in which they have forced sex reference into the play, and therefore on public notice. But if this is to result in eliminating sex modesty it is creating evils greater than those which it seeks to remove. I will not here embark upon a consideration of such a theory as that which has been interestingly propounded by Mr. Westermarck, namely that there is a relationship between sexual modesty and the feeling against incest.[1] I will only insist that modesty is natural in all qualities which we regard as sacred.

If we are modest about sex in our conversation to the extent of placing a taboo on sex, and allowing sexual problems to remain unsolved, or in letting our children confuse innocence with ignorance, we are on indefensible ground; indefensible, I think, because our modesty is based on the Puritan doctrine that sex is at heart an unclean thing. I wish especially to defend modesty because sex is so clean. We do not want to vulgarize by public reference our most spiritual experiences, our sense of love, our feeling of exaltation in the presence of what is beautiful and divine. We speak of these things only at more sacred moments, if at all. We must be careful, too, lest in a reaction from taboo we allow science to rob sex of its romantic and divine character. We have carefully to preserve the centre of gravitation between two extremes. We should look askance at a man who collected in a glass bottle, and analysed, his mother’s tears.

In this connexion it may be well to call attention to the inconsistency of the male in making the sex-act a subject for humour. Whatever our religious belief, we know that the sex-act is the means of procreation, and is, for this reason alone, a sacred function. It seems inconsistent, therefore, that we should so persistently treat it as a mark for ridicule.

The second general attitude is that of the State, or legislature. Here we find ourselves in the presence of a consistent motive. The State is concerned only with the preservation of the birth-rate; any sex behaviour which defeats this object it regards as immoral and punishable. The State cannot interfere so far with individual privacy as to punish masturbation or artificial means of restraint; but it does go to the extent of punishing “unnatural” acts between husband and wife,[2] and in America, the State has even penalized the activities of the neo-Malthusian propaganda. All sex abnormalities are rigidly punished, whereas the procreation of children outside wedlock is not a legal offence.[3]

This is a consistent attitude, but it suggests one serious flaw. Whatever may have been the case in early days when an increase of population was essential, there can be little doubt that to-day that necessity has diminished. Indeed, without entering into the Malthusian controversy, it is almost impossible to deny that at the moment we are suffering largely from over-population. Consequently, whatever opportunist policy may dictate, we cannot poise our estimate of morality on so shifting a basis as the needs of population. Instinctively we cannot associate morality in anything with the legal attitude. There are many acts even outside the sex sphere which most of us would consider immoral, but which are unpunished by law, and others which are illegal but are not immoral; it is immoral to lie, but unless we lie on oath there is no State offence; it is punishable to ride a bicycle without lights after dark, but we are conscious of no moral delinquency in so doing.

The third attitude is that of religion. We have already discussed the Puritan attitude and the manner in which it has permeated our unconscious religious thought. In the Anglican marriage-service there appears at first sight to be some endorsement of the theory that the sex-act is unclean and is only permitted in marriage as a concession to human weakness.[4] This doctrine owes its derivation to St. Paul, although it is important to notice that St. Paul specially emphasizes that he is not speaking ex-cathedra: “I say therefore to the unmarried and widows it is good for them to remain even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn.”[5]

These words will probably be used as an argument against the statement that it is a specifically Puritan doctrine to regard the sex-act as unclean. It will be urged that the early Christian Church, as shown by the writings of the Fathers, discouraged marriage and upheld celibacy as the ideal. I hope, in a moment, to differentiate between the Catholic and the Puritan doctrine. But more immediately we will consider what I have broadly defined as the Puritan attitude.

The flaw in the argument that the sex-act is by nature unclean and must be suppressed, even though in marriage it may be legitimized, is that it is the ordained means of procreation. Further than this, we have the inevitable fact to face that the sex-instinct in normal persons is so strong that it can only with great difficulty be suppressed, and then results in an outflow of sex activity in what we usually know as non-sexual channels. Often this suppression will find its vent in mental dislocation and general nervous irritability. But without analysing these complex symptoms, it is sufficient to ask those who admit the control of God, why God created the sex impulse in order that it should be obliterated.

Directly we move away from this strict doctrine to the modified popular expression of it, we find that the position is becoming more intelligible but less logical. It is consistent to regard all sex as evil. But when the average Christian, while denouncing adultery as a sin, insists on copulation in marriage as its consummation, a difficulty arises which must not be ignored. Here, in adultery, is a sin which is so serious in the eyes of Christian men, that it can never be redeemed; the stigma of impurity remains for ever on the offender. Yet this same act, if only committed under the regulation of marriage becomes not merely something permissible, but the essential act of consummation, the divine method of procreation. One can understand how an act, good in itself, can become a sin because it is performed under impermissible circumstances. But it is difficult to conceive of an act changing its integral nature, so that at one moment it is a necessary virtue, and at another the basest vice. It is, for instance, legal for a soldier to kill an enemy in battle, while it is a crime for one civilian to kill another; but the act of killing is per se an evil thing, even in the case of a soldier. It never becomes so exalted as is the sex-act in marriage.

The Catholic doctrine, however, while at first sight it appears to be identical with the Puritan, is actually quite distinct.

For one thing there is a difference of attitude towards sin. Puritanism seems to suggest that those who have been “converted” are actually perfect. It insists that they shall keep up this outward appearance, and consequently ensures that their sins must be committed secretly. They are then sufficiently perfect to ascend, after death, direct to Heaven. Catholicism, however, is continually recognizing that man is normally a sinner; the confessional is a public recognition of this fact. Catholicism therefore approaches the question of sex with the expectation that man will sin, that the probability of his fall is so great as to make it unnecessary and undesirable to hide all traces of his sin from public view. The Puritan attitude towards sex is really that of the prude. The Catholic Church is so ready to talk about sex in a decent manner that she provides the confessional as a permanent institution.

When we turn to the Catholic attitude towards sex we are faced indeed with two significant dogmas which make up a position fundamentally distinct from that of Puritanism. The first of these is the doctrine that marriage is a sacrament, and the second that the esse of the marriage is the consent of the parties.

The significance of the first is that marriage is not merely a licence whereby an unclean act is permitted as a sop to human weakness. The sex function, as the integral part of marriage, is acknowledged to be an actual objective of divine grace.

The significance of the second doctrine is that wherever two people eligible to give consent, give it, there is the essence of marriage. Few non-Catholics realize that though the Church normally requires the ecclesiastical and civil regulations to be observed, she does not profess to marry the two persons; she merely pronounces a blessing on their marriage. She may make conditions before she will give her blessing or even her witness to the validity of the marriage; but she recognizes that a marriage may be just as valid on a desert island as in a cathedral.[6] And hence she really regards adultery, not as does the Puritan, but as an act which should be sacramental but has been prostituted by the absence of the love-motive, or by becoming promiscuous rather than constant. Sexual union may even itself be of the nature of a marriage, and it is significant that the Church has always insisted on the right of parents subsequently to legitimize children born out of wedlock; it is the English law which has forbidden that privilege.

This is the official Catholic doctrine, however much it has been assimilated to the Puritan conception by the personnel of the Church.

Yet the Church has consistently upheld the celibate life as the higher vocation. She has represented a celibate priesthood as a greater ideal than a married priesthood. She has exalted Our Lady as a Virgin. She has insisted on the Virgin Birth. But she has done this, not because sex is evil, but because celibacy is better. And, as we shall see, religious celibacy is entirely distinct from a condition in which the sex impulse is merely repressed.

Chapter 3: The General Principles of Purity

In attempting to define these principles I have no desire to enter into a controversy of relatives and absolutes. It is sufficient to meet those who deny that there can be any abstract standard of purity by pointing out that we know the direction in which to look for what is good and pure. Just as we know that certain acts are less worthy than others, so we are aware of the general direction of the nobler activities.

The first principle to be observed is that relatively purity is comparative. This is a commonplace of all personal estimates. However much we may adhere to the conception of a moral standard, which is abstract and unvarying, we realize that there are also personal standards which vary very much. We do not, for instance, consider a cat to be guilty of murder when she kills a bird; we do not execute her as we execute men who have taken human life. We do not even condemn lions or tigers as homicidal criminals, though we may kill them in self-defence, thus showing that it is not the distinction between taking animal and human life which constitutes the crime; it is the difference between the killers. Nor is it true that we draw a distinction merely between animal and human responsibility, for even in the human kingdom we apply a comparative moral standard; we do not consider a savage who steals or kills as being guilty to the extent which a civilized European would be who performed a similar act. We are in fact constantly applying a comparative standard to the comparative intelligences of individuals, and quite rightly, for all intelligence and moral sense is graded from brute-beast to savage-man and upwards.

We must be careful not to avoid this standard of comparative values in approaching sex morality. So long as we admit that at least there are acts and principles which, taken in the abstract, approach purity more nearly than others, we must not judge all individuals by the same standard. We must not consider a very ordinary, unintelligent, animal-blooded young man as being excessively sinful for having a vivid sex experience; perhaps he is living right up to the level of his imperfect standard. We must not expect people to be more moral than they can be, though it is the duty of Church and religion to educate them to see that there are better standards.

The second principle is simple, but of the deepest importance.

It consists of the proposition that variety and not uniformity is the fundamental rule of nature, or, as Christians would hold, the intention of God.

I cannot recall any distinctive attribute to which this rule does not apply. There are an infinite species of creatures, and infinite tastes and tendencies. Even if we narrow down our field of investigation to one nation or even a single family, we find that each individual is approaching life by different byways, with different prejudices and different temperaments and different conceptions. But throughout history the majority of the normal type has been inclined to flout this divine principle. The Puritans, for example, were a particular type who did not like the gayer life of the world, and preferred a stern evangelical atmosphere. Consequently they regarded those amusements for which they happened to possess no partiality, as evil, and whenever they had the opportunity they suppressed them; they eliminated Christmas and the mince-pie. Equally we can see that if the normal mechanical Teutonic type had said that it was unnatural for men to be artistic and had suppressed the arts, it would have been a disaster for the world. There is not one vocation, but there are many vocations; all types are the design of intention, and are there, not to be suppressed, but to carry out their particular mission.

This again, is equally true of sex, and we must apply the same conclusions towards the many types which we shall presently meet, abnormal as well as normal. The Protestant, for example, really acknowledges a uniform sex-nature only. You will continually hear a Protestant declaring that it is unnatural for a man to be a celibate: this is, of course, pure nonsense. It might be unnatural for a normal sex-nature to remain celibate, just as it would be unnatural for a natural celibate to marry. The Catholic Church has been far wiser. She can offer the Religious Life to the celibate and the Sacrament of Marriage to the non-celibate. There are few types of individual more unintelligent than that which, while it cannot so interfere with personal liberty as to compel marriage, persists in uttering the convention that “every man ought to do his duty to the State.” The truism is true; what is wrong is the failure to conceive that there is no uniform duty for every man.

But the third principle is more complex in character, or, rather, in the considerations which it involves.

It consists, really, of a re-affirmation as to the Catholic condemnation of the heresy of Manichæism.

The Puritan and the type he has evolved do radically regard the physical as evil. Protestantism, until it became adulterated by the Catholic movement, eliminated as far as possible, the physical medium in religious worship. Not only doctrinally, but liturgically, in the abandonment of ritual and artistic atmosphere, it attempted to limit religion as far as possible to the spiritual level, and it regarded sacramentalism as evil because sacramentalism involves an outward physical sign. In the same way the average Englishman, who has been inculcated, far more than he realizes, with Calvinist dogma, regards sex as immoral only when it is physical. A man may indulge in sexual emotion and thought, but so long as he suppresses any physical act he is not guilty; if this can be regarded as an exaggeration it is certainly true that popular Protestant theology regards a man as more immoral if he commits the physical sex-act than if he thinks of it. It is strange to note how far this theory has departed from the teaching of Christ, Who declared that “he that lusteth against a woman hath committed adultery against her in his heart.”

It is obvious the moment we examine this conception that it is utterly indefensible. If the sex-act is evil[7] because it is physical, then it is equally evil to eat or drink. And if an attempt is made to avoid this difficulty by saying that it is evil to debase love by expressing it in a physical act, or that it is better to love spiritually and non-physically, then it is equally evil to debase artistic inspiration by expressing it with paints on a physical canvas, or better to allow melodies to float in one’s mind than to reduce them to the level of a physical composition.

Without entering into a highly involved philosophy and therefore at the risk of apparent dogmatism, I wish now to emphasize that there are certain ascending levels, with which man is concerned. We may confine ourselves to the physical, the emotional, the mental, and the spiritual levels. The physical level is the lowest, in so far as man functions there in common with the animal. He is more active emotionally than the animal. But what distinguishes him chiefly from the animal, and makes him master over all brute-creation, is his activity on the mental level. Physically he is less powerful than the elephant; but because he can function mentally and the elephant can do so hardly at all, he can employ the elephant as a beast of labour. Here then we have a distinct gradation, a gradation which continues to apply within the human kingdom and makes us able to distinguish a civilised man from a savage.

We should therefore apply this principle to sex. Sex activity is more pure or impure according to the level on which it chiefly functions. A man who traffics with prostitutes is not immoral because he is functioning physically, but because he is functioning almost entirely on the physical level. Purity is really sex emphasis on the highest levels. Ideally the physically sex-act should therefore be a mere expression of spiritual, mental, emotional love; it should just happen. The moment one begins to lay the emphasis on the lower levels, the more one becomes correspondingly less pure. Lust, in fact, is the desire only for physical sex experience—the wrong proportion and balance. A man’s stage of moral development is to be discovered by the particular level on which he is most active.

We must not avoid the consequence of this principle. We must be prepared to admit as relatively moral, behaviour which popular philosophy might regard as immoral. We must also be prepared to regard as immoral many marriages in which the physical is the chief incentive. The lowest stage of impurity would seem to be reached in cases, whether between man and harlot, or husband and wife, where the physical function is so emphasized that artificial physical aids are invoked in order to excite the physical passions and make them the cause instead of the result of sex emotion and thought.

Chapter 4: Celibacy

If once the third principle named in the preceding chapter is fully appreciated, we have already laid the foundation of our moral standard. We shall have seen that physical expression is the sacramental form of the invisible and super-physical motive, and that immorality is the shifting of emphasis from higher to lower levels. We shall be in possession of a test by which we may in almost all sex problems determine a comparative virtue or evil of any practice or conduct.

Now this involves the equally fundamental theory that sex is not entirely a physical activity. In the popular conception sex is always confused with physical sex expression. But this conception, I submit, is entirely inaccurate. Even though Freud may be justifiably criticised for straining the word “sex” to include many forces which do not directly tend to incite physical sex activity, he has successfully shown that sex is the motive behind emotions and conduct which would not popularly be termed sexual at all. A musician may, for example, be drawing on his sex-energy in composing or performing musical works; a humanitarian may be sexual in his diffused love of fellow-men and women. We cannot possibly draw a line and say that here sex begins and there it ends. We can only admit that it carries far beyond those particular physical manifestations which we popularly associate with sex.

If we accept the principle of ascending levels of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual functions, we should expect to find that sex makes its appearance in more than one form. We know, that is to say, that there are, not one, but many emotions and thoughts which are directly sexual, and that there would seem to be every reason why sex, which manifests variety in its physical expression, should be equally various in the realm of the mind. Further than this, we are able to advance the principle that when the emphasis is laid further away from the physical level, the functioning power on that level weakens. Man, as we have already agreed, is a more developed animal than the elephant, because he is active in thought. But he pays the price for this by the inferiority of his physical strength. Similarly, the less mentally equipped are frequently more physically powerful. Like all other rules, there are of course exceptions. But there does seem to be a principle, and a principle that we should logically expect, that the more man functions on what we have described as super-physical levels, the less powerful his strength on the physical level becomes.

Again, we have seen that, morally, the physical level is the lowest. The highest human developments are those which the animal cannot reach. The ordinary physical instincts are not evil, they are simply less evolved. Some of them, like the sense of maternity, are good. But we cannot doubt that man’s superiority over the animal lies precisely in his ability to do what the animal cannot do, and that, therefore, the realm of mind is “higher” than the realm of action.

When the Catholic Church therefore presents religious celibacy[8] as being the higher vocation she is enunciating this very principle. She is not suggesting that non-celibacy is an evil state. We do not pretend that the profession of crossing-sweeper is evil because the profession of prime minister is a higher ambition; indeed, it would be probably disastrous to persuade a man who had a natural ability to be a crossing-sweeper to qualify as a prime minister. Relatively, a man performs his moral duty in fulfilling his vocation, for whatever grade it may be designed. The true religious celibate is the extreme exception; no one should attempt such perfection who has not the actual call. The means by which we realize our true vocation is too individual a question to enter upon here.

The whole fault of the puritanic conception of sex is to assume that complete repression should be attempted by all men, and that marriage is solely a concession to failure.[9]

Almost the exact reverse is the truth. The celibate is a rare product. And moreover he is not one in whom sex is repressed; he is essentially a human being in whom the sex-force is sublimated into non-physical channels. This may take the form of extreme religious devotion, in wide humanitarianism, in a love of children or animals, in artistic creation or scientific research. It becomes true celibacy only when the individual instinct is so far diverted towards these energies that desire for physical sex functions becomes eliminated. Nor is it true that such a man is barren; he is procreating, as really as the father, a mental or spiritual progeny.

We cannot emphasize this distinction too strongly. For the vast majority of men the celibate life is not intended, and to some extent, though, as we shall see, not entirely, other rules apply. What indeed we have so carefully to distinguish is the transference of sex from the repression of sex. To transfer the sex-force is a healthy and natural energy, whereas to repress sex is an evil which must always tend to produce unfortunate results.

Chapter 5: Non-Celibacy

We have now arrived at a point where we can emphasize a further distinction. We must, in fact, differentiate between those emotions and thoughts which are sexual in the sense that they naturally incite physical sex functions, and those which manifest themselves in non-sexual activities. It may be true that the energy which is exercised in the latter way is itself sexual; that does not matter for our immediate purpose. It is sufficient that the force is at work in a non-sexual channel.

Here then we have two entirely different processes. The first is the shifting of the emphasis of the sex-force from body to mind, so that the sex-force ceases to be concentrated in physical sex-acts and begins to be concerned rather with love emotion and sex-thought; the second is the transmutation of the sex-force to non-sexual channels. Both of these processes are necessary in the life of the non-celibate.

The latter process is what happens naturally in the case of the true religious celibate. His development and temperament are such that his sex-nature finds a complete expression, as we have already seen, in such directions as a general love of humanity, an intense spiritual devotion, the worship of art or nature. There is no repression, but a full exercise of the sex activities in a “non-sexual” direction.

The vast majority of men, however, are not so developed, and are not intended to carry out such a life. Yet, for them, too, this process must be to some extent adopted. It is largely a matter of common-sense. The animal exercises no restraint; whenever the sex-impulse arises, it is satisfied—so far, of course, as the opportunity is provided. But as we trace the conduct of the more developed species from savage to civilized man we are conscious of a new element of will-power. The influences which cause this power to come into operation may vary. Religious obligations, considerations of business, social, or intellectual responsibilities, help to intervene. An intelligent man simply cannot afford to give vent to sex proclivities every time they arise; he has other interests which must of necessity at many times of the day have the first claim. Imagine a man who sacrificed a business engagement for some sex gratification! Often in the recent war a man, however strong his sexual emotions, would be forced to cast away all ideas of sex in order to dodge a shell; his mind for continuous periods would be so driven with anxieties and the stress of responsibility that sex would sink into insignificance. This is an extreme instance, but to a lesser degree it is what is happening to everyone who leads a normal life. The more developed the man, the wider his intellectual interests; and it is precisely in this capacity to exercise his will-power that he proves his superiority over the animal.

This process of transmutation is the remedy which must be applied in cases where men find themselves the victims of sexual emotion out of all true proportion, whether in married or unmarried life. Mere repression is useless; it is actually harmful. But the mind must be switched off to dig a thought-passage in other directions, in non-sexual interests. Where there is undue sex obsession there is disease. And this mental transference is the chief cure. Really, this transmutation is a diffusing of the sex-force into a wide general area. The man is no longer concentrating all his sex-energy in love for one particular person; he is beginning sexually to love all humanity. He is finding sexual expression in the “non-sexual” forms of art or nature. He is still in love—but in love with love, rather than with one separate personal fragment of the whole.

But with the ordinary man, there must remain a balance of sexual inclination which cannot entirely be transmuted. Here we encounter the first process, and our problem, particularly in non-married life, becomes acute. Is it possible, and is it healthy, to deny the sex-instincts all satisfaction? Different answers are given by religious advisers and by men of the world, while even in the ranks of the medical profession there is no consensus of opinion.

I suggest that there is only one general principle which can be our guide.

The natural tendency of all sexual thought and emotion is to find its outlet in physical expression of some kind. If a man indulges in sexual thought, it is almost impossible for him to avoid a physical result. He may have recourse to prostitution or he may commit solitary practices. The tendency of Puritan morality is, as we have seen, to regard the physical act as the sin and to avoid the conclusion that the thought is evil; consequently the patient is urged at all cost to refrain from action. Let it be stated, quite frankly, that this attitude is scientifically and morally indefensible. It is the thought rather than the act on which the responsibility should be weighed. I have no hesitation whatever in asserting that it is worse, medically and morally, for the individual to indulge in sexual thought and repress the consequent action, than to commit it. The mere absence of physical conduct is harmful and deplorable if the mind is a seething mass of sexual energy which is being denied all outlet.

The first duty in such cases is, as we have seen, to apply the process of transmuting this sexual thought to non-sexual interests, so far as this can be done. The extent to which this is possible must vary in each individual nature. The comparative balance then remains. And here we must bring into play the moral principle to which I have already referred—namely that the morality of sex is determined by the extent to which love is the motive. Sex inspired by love is moral; sex inspired by any other motive is not. The part which the physical sex-force should alone play is the sacramental expression of pure love; so employed it is a perfect and divine activity. When the love-motive is absent, or is not the dominant incentive, the sex-force becomes comparatively immoral and abused.

This is a general principle which can be rigidly employed. And I do not want to escape from the consequences of this doctrine. It appears to me the one natural, fundamental principle upon which a moral standard can be based. Therefore I am ready to accept the conclusion that there are many marriages which are highly immoral because the sex-act is not an expression of love, but either a mere mechanical duty or the result of a physical and emotional excitement, as distinct from love. On the other hand there are many sex adventures, inspired by love, which do not occur within the matrimonial state. This principle alone must guide us in any moral estimate we draw.

Let us apply this doctrine by taking the simple case of a man and woman who are accused of having committed adultery. We inquire first, whether mutual love was the true motive, whether in fact the act of adultery was an unpremeditated incident which occurred as naturally as the kiss which a child gives to its mother. We draw a clear moral line between the sort of assignation which has for its one object the gratification of physical sensations, or the even lower motive, so far as the prostitute is concerned, of substituting for love the earning of a few shillings. But suppose we are satisfied that the physical act was not the object but the result, and that there was love. We go on to ask how deep was the love, and if a deep love is alleged, we ask why the parties are not married. For it is doubtful whether normal love can be wholly spasmodic. It seems contrary to the very nature of love that a man should love one woman for an hour and then throw her over for someone else. The essence of love tends to completeness and permanence.

But we will imagine that even these conditions are satisfied, and that financial difficulties or parental objections alone prevent the formal marriage. We have also discovered that the two people have loved each other for some time, and that there is not therefore simply a sudden fascination, but a love based on knowledge and matured by experience. We are then left with a technical and not a moral offence. In effect a marriage has taken place; there has been the consent which is the essence of the union. It is only when the Catholic conception of the sacrament of matrimony is abandoned that we find ourselves regarding the ceremony in Church or registry-office as the union, and that therefore a moral offence is committed in the sex-act where no such ceremony has taken place. It is true that the parties would be in honour bound to receive the blessing of the Church. The union is irregular; but it is a true union.

Incidentally, I suggest that this theory may be the basis of the scriptural exception in St. Matthew’s gospel made as regards divorce where there has been “fornication,” or a pre-marital sex-act—namely that by this act a natural marriage has been consummated, and that the subsequent marriage is therefore invalid.

One might almost draw up a schedule of the tests which should be applied whenever we may happen to be forced to adjudicate as to the morality of any sex-behaviour. For already there have emerged certain definite test-principles. There is the consideration of the standard of the relative degree of intelligence to which the particular individual has developed, and of the fact that there are many types of sex-temperament. On the other hand we see that the direction of absolute morality to which our faces should be set, is the raising of the sex-force to super-physical levels, so that the physical side becomes a mere incident, or is even eliminated altogether. Then we apply the rule that there must be an exercise of restraint and will-power, so that sex obsession is entirely avoided. The extent to which the mind can be diverted from sexual channels must depend on the stage of development which the individual has reached. Lastly, we apply the test of how far love, so deep and pure that it is permanent rather than spasmodic, a monopoly rather than promiscuous, is the motive.

Modern society has gone, I contend, as much astray in drifting to the extreme of considering all things permissible, as has Puritanism in regarding the sex-act outside marriage as in all circumstances a deadly evil. And I can only marvel that this latter attitude is taken up so often in the name of the Christian religion, when its Founder, while declaring that at the last day it would be “more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for the Scribes and Pharisees,” also said to the woman taken in adultery, “Neither do I condemn thee; go thy way, from henceforth sin no more.”

Chapter 6: Divorce

In leaving the moorland of general principles for the fields of particular problems it will be convenient to group sex natures under three heads: (1) the normal or hetero-sexual, (2) the invert or homo-sexual, and (3) the neuter or sexless. It is necessary only to add that it will not be possible to deal in more than the merest outline with any of these important questions.

The most prominent of the problems concerned with the normal group is that of divorce. The problem arises because on the one hand there is a sense that marriage ought to be a permanent state, while on the other, there are many human exigences which go to break up particular marriages. Separation, without permission to re-marry, is of course an admitted remedy. But the question then arises whether parties so separated will continue to live as celibates; and as it appears certain that the vast majority will not, we have to ask whether it is better to legalise the fresh unions which are formed, or to permit adultery.

Every modern State has wrestled with this problem, and for the most part ineffectually. Where there is no divorce, as in England before 1857,[10] or among the poorer classes who cannot afford divorce, irregular unions and prostitution undoubtedly flourish. Where a compromise is introduced, the permanence of marriage, and therefore of the home, becomes correspondingly impaired, while there are left a number of unhappy cases for which divorce is not allowed.[11] The English civil law is particularly unhappy in its compromise. It is based on the Protestant interpretation of the passage in St. Matthew already mentioned, namely that divorce is permissible where adultery has occurred, and it goes on to make it easier for the husband to sue for divorce when the wife has committed adultery than for the wife to do so in the reverse circumstances. Hence it places a premium on adultery, and exaggerates its importance as regards other sins. It deliberately incites an unhappy wife to commit adultery in order to obtain relief—she can usually evade the vigilance of the King’s Proctor—and it singles out adultery as a worse sin than, let us say, cruelty or habitual drunkenness, for which divorce is not at present obtainable. In fact it is difficult to find any logical or moral defence for the English law as it stands.

Let us first see how far the popular critics of the Catholic doctrine of indissoluble marriage are wrong. They regard marriage as simply a contract, from which it follows that divorce should be obtained by mutual consent, or even on the application of one of the parties. But this ignores, among other things, one vital natural law. Marriage begets parenthood, and between the parents of the same child there is a definite and permanent relationship. No Act of Parliament can make men and women cease to be the parents of their own children. Nor, even in childless marriages, is the sense of permanence an artificial convention which can be abolished by the decree of a court. The deeper the love, the more permanent must its nature tend to be. Love is not a contract; it is a spiritual bond.

It is impossible, I contend, to think of a normally healthy marriage without realizing that both the man and woman naturally enter into it with the assumption that it will be a permanent relationship. The possibility of a family, the break-up of the maiden life—even the furnishing of a home, is evidence of a strong probability in the minds of the parties that the step which is being taken is something more than a temporary contract. Indeed, the marriage is only temporary if unhappiness arises. Men and women marry because they want to enter into as permanent a relationship as possible; they enter into it because, as they say, they wish to “settle down.” The natural desire of man is that marriage should be permanent.

A reversion to free love would be more than the undoing of the evolution from animal to man. It would completely change the basis of human society. And in proportion as any divorce law encourages the conception of a temporary contract this dangerous instability of home-life is threatened. Americans sometimes describe their own laws as approaching the “ideal.” “The question will soon be,” wrote a journalist describing the American “smart set,” “who is to be your husband next year?”—or, “Has your last season’s wife re-married yet?” This is of course an exaggeration; but it is a warning as to logical developments.

In fact, divorce tends to create itself. Divorce is only applied for where the marriage is unhappy. A fair proportion of unhappy marriages arise because they have been hastily entered into; with due inquiry many of them could have been prevented. But the easier divorce is to obtain, the more incentive will be given to enter into these hasty marriages—the type of union which so often gives rise to divorce.

On the other hand, whatever their cause, there are marriages in which all trace of love has disappeared, and it may fairly be argued that the union is dead. Thus a husband may, in later years, become incurably insane or habitually drunk. There are many unions in which the one party has married in blind infatuation only to discover that the partner is so contemptible a creature as to destroy all vestige of love. Such unions remain marriages in formality only; their pretended existence is a sacrilege, particularly if there are no children and the husband and wife are not therefore co-related as parents.

For all such cases the Catholic Church permits divorce (a mensa et thoro)—or separation, as it is known in civil law, without permission to re-marry. The issue, therefore, becomes simply a question as to whether it is right to expect the parties so separated to remain celibate.

In an outline such as this, I suppose that one can only attempt a summary reply to these questions. If, for a moment, we are to exclude the complications of a subsequent love-affair there appears to me to be no reason whatever why any man or woman should not remain celibate during the lifetime of the divorced partner. The journalese theory that it is unnatural and unhealthy for people so to remain is simply untrue, so long as the celibacy takes the form of sublimation or transmutation and not repression. The complication of an intense love-romance however, is a serious proposition. Ought two people in love to remain sexually apart simply because one of them is still married to, let us say, an incurable lunatic? In principle there seems to be every reason why they should; no actual physical or mental harm is done to them, provided they have a sufficiently developed will-power to transfer their sex-desire into other channels of activity. The sacrifice will be immense, but it is no more than any man has to make who refrains from marrying his beloved because he is too poor or is suffering from some disease which may affect his children. In this case the sacrifice is offered for the supremely important principle that only God, by the act of death, can undo the vinculum of the original marriage.

But I am equally sure that most people under these or less intense circumstances will not remain celibate.

Therefore, to descend from theory to practice, I see no alternative but to draw a rigid line between civil and religious marriages. The State must make its own arrangements and go its own way. But there should always be a higher type of marriage where the Catholic Church has been invoked for her blessing. And for those who choose to ask for this sacrament, the union should be irrevocable, save by death. The parties will receive that sacrament knowing what a heavy responsibility they are assuming. And it is only right that the Church should be far more particular in refusing to prostitute her sacramental grace on unions which ought not to be consummated. She ought, I conceive, rigidly to inquire into the desirability of the union, and not to give her blessing unless she is satisfied that both parties are giving their consent with as full a knowledge of the facts as is humanly possible. Equally she should refuse her ministrations where she is unconvinced that love is the motive of the marriage. I see no reason why some form of sponsorship should not be demanded.

And I think it may be argued that a consent without a knowledge of the facts is not a valid consent, and that such a union is null. I should welcome a careful extension of the decree of nullity, for that reason.