They misunderstand, however, the biological foundations of the marital state if they consider woman’s position of receiver and not giver as in any way implying inferiority. They confuse erotic control, which is demonstrably a one-way control, with egoistic-social control, which is quite as normally exercised by women as by men, by women over men, as by men over women. They fail to see also that the secure establishment of the one-way masculine erotic control will so satisfy men that no dispute can arise as to the rights of women in the egoistic-social sphere. They fail to see also that the solid foundation of truly erotic control over them by their husbands will release for egoistic-social activities an enormous fund of energy which is now irrationally locked up in the erotic sphere. In other words if they are fortunate enough to be married to a man who is in perfect control erotically they will not need to worry about his approval of whatever they may find interesting to do in egoistic-social spheres of action. § 143 The excellent women who may on theoretical grounds, object to their husbands’ supreme erotic control, are merely echoing the sentiments of traditional convention, which are man-made sentiments, made by men centuries ago, dictating what was right and proper for women to do centuries ago. Today there is nothing, even in the ordinary every-day service a man receives from his wife that he would not rather have servants do for him—cooking, house-tending, clothes-mending or the supervision of these. If he were rich enough he would. But the personality reaction in the most intimate psychical as well as physical relations of married life he can secure from no other than a true wife, and in no other sphere than the exclusively erotic and in no other way than as she, like the vibrating string of a musical instrument, responds to his technique. § 144 The main thesis of this book is that in the instincts and emotions of love the self-control of the husband and, through this, his control of the exclusively erotic emotions of his wife are essential to a successful marriage. A continuous interplay of control on the egoistic-social level between husband and wife tends to exist in all marriages. There is an impulse in women to control the actions of men at this level quite as much as men attempt to control women. But the control of the egoistic-social impulses of each by the other has nothing to do with real marriage, and the impulses and emotions peculiar to it, which are erotic only and, at that, subject to a one-way control. In the sphere of the erotic emotions man should be supreme. Neither husband nor wife is ever really happy unless he has this control, and is indifferent to the other control on the egoistic-social level.