Those of the first type demand quite the same morality for the man as
for the woman. They assert that celibacy for either sex brings with it
serious difficulties. They maintain that the social feeling of duty, not
mutual love, must be the ground of conjugal fidelity. They call "pure
love" love untouched by all that which they call "sensuality."
These same moral dogmas in recent years have manifested themselves in
the effort to quench all fire, whiten all burning red coals, and drape
all nudity in literature and art. The supporters of this dogma
certainly understand--since, to begin at the beginning they have surely
glanced into the Bible and Homer--that the undertaking would be too vast
were it to extend to classic literature. But all the more ardently they
have directed their zeal against modern literature and art. And if they
do not encounter energetic opposition the fig leaf will soon among us
also attest the fall of taste and of the soul.
"Free love" has also its fanatics who are guilty of quite as crass
excess. They have no conception of soulful and true devotion, which they
consider an absurdity or a conventionality under which human nature
cannot bow without hypocrisy. For since experience shows that lifelong
love is frequently an illusion, so, they say, one must not begin by
expecting it! The so-called Bohemians have shown as great monomania in
their rotation around this one point, the right of the senses, as have
the zealots of traditional morality in their rotation around their
point, the suppression of the senses. The extreme result of both would
be retrogression to a lower degree of culture; in one case to the
asceticism of the Middle Ages, in the other to the promiscuity of the
savage. Both forget the reality of life. On the one side they ignore
this reality in their absolute demands without consideration of
temperament or circumstances; in their assertion of the unqualified
moral superiority of woman and in depreciation of the significance of
love for the full harmony of man and woman. On the other side they
ignore this reality when they try to make woman as unrestrained morally
as man has hitherto been; when they forget all the suffering of the new
generation born and reared in such an unrestrained existence; when they
learn nothing of the nature of woman from the many younger and older
women who live solitary and yet sound and useful lives in the deep
conviction that, since they have not found the great, mutual love, which
decides existence, any union with a man would be degrading and unhappy.
Development has, because of multifarious influences made entirety and
continuity in love a greater life necessity for the woman of culture in
general than for the man of the same intellectual level. A man,
therefore, ordinarily dissolves an erotic relation without bitterness
when he has ceased to love, while a woman, even after her love has
ceased, often suffers because the relationship has not endured a
lifetime.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account