Motherhood and the Relationships of the SexesHartley, C. Gasquoine (Catherine Gasquoine)
Philosophy
Motherhood and the Relationships of the Sexes
Hartley, C. Gasquoine (Catherine Gasquoine)
Mothers; Sex; Women -- Social and moral questions
It is, however, very necessary to break down the idea that for the
impulses of sex, with their immense complications and differences,
there is one general rule either for men or for women. In every case
the element of personal idiosyncrasy must be taken into account, and,
for this reason, the difficulties of these questions are enormously
complex. Nor is it possible, I am sure, to make any arbitrary judgments.
To me the man or woman who is able to live a celibate life is not
necessarily better than the man or woman who is not. I may prefer one
type, I may dislike the other, but this also is a matter of my personal
idiosyncrasy. We cannot safely class those who differ from ourselves as
wrong, and set them down as fit only for suppression and restraint. We
have to put aside those shrieks of blame that are possible only to the
ignorant.
It is all very well to preach the ideal of complete sexual abstinence
until marriage, but there are the clear, hard conditions of contemporary
circumstances for all but the really rich, who can marry when they
want to do so without other consideration, and the very poor who marry
young because they have nothing at all to consider. We have to face the
presence amongst us to-day of an amount of suffering through enforced
celibacy which is acting in many directions in degrading our sexual
lives. Any number of these sufferers, both the unmarried and the married
who are ill-mated, are everywhere amongst us. I need not say more to
prove this: the facts face us all, unless, indeed, we are too ignorant
and too prejudiced to know what is happening.
Many new lessons will have to be learnt. I would suggest as a first step
towards honesty and health, that we ought to claim an open declaration of
the existence of any form of sexual relationship between a woman and a
man. We shall, I believe, do this, if not now, then later, because we are
finding out the evils that must ensue, both to the individuals concerned
and to the society of which they are members, by forcing men and women
into the dark, immoral way of concealments.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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