A Preliminary Study of the Emotion of Love between the SexesBell, Sanford
Science
A Preliminary Study of the Emotion of Love between the Sexes
Bell, Sanford
Child psychology; Love
and, everything put together, poor Piggy was no nearer a declaration
at the end of the winter than he had been at the beginning of autumn.
So only one heart beat with but a single thought, and the other took
motto candy and valentines and red apples and picture cards and other
tokens of esteem from other boys, and beat on with any number of
thoughts, entirely immaterial to the uses of this narrative.” This
“showing-off” in the boy lover is the forerunner of the skillful,
purposive and elaborate means of self-exhibition in the adult male
and the charming coquetry in the adult female, in their love
relations.
Another kind of indirection that is very interesting is that of a boy
who ostensibly is talking to one, but everything which he is saying
is intended for another. This is sometimes extended into a sort of
pleasant teasing and scuffling in which the very one whom he wants to
touch is very carefully avoided. A further phase of the same thing is
shown by the embrace or caress that is given to one while the
emotional discharge goes out to some one else; as for example, a boy
under the influence of a meeting with the girl whom he had begun to
love but to whom he had made no confession, went home and walked up
to his sister, put his arms about her neck and kissed her. The action
was so unusual as both to surprise the sister and to arouse her
intelligent suspicions. Goethe makes much use of this type of
emotional discharge in his “Elective Affinities,” and Tennyson
alludes to it in the lines,
Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others.
Such manifestations are not far removed from those that are shown to
pet animals and to persons of the same sex, reference to which has
previously been made.
Previous to the age of about nine the girl is more aggressive than
the boy in love affairs. At this age her modesty, coyness and native
love for being wooed, come to the surface and thereafter characterize
her attitude toward the opposite sex.
TYPICAL CASES.
Case 1. A boy of eight confessed through a girl's friends his
love for the girl. Then on the playground he did little favors
for her as though they were matters of course. If attention was
in any way called to his acts of kindness he would lightly
dismiss the affair with “Oh, that's nothin',” always showing
embarrassment at the fact that his favoritism had been observed.
In writing about it the girl says: “I liked him very much and
enjoyed being near him on the playground, but was very much
embarrassed when he spoke to me; so about all the pleasure that I
got out of this little romance was in watching him as he would
try to gain my attention and good-will while we were all at
play.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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