Chapter II: The Origin of Love

The thing we call love is known to no species but man. The urge toward mating is in all plant and animal life, taking place at such times and places and in such a manner as is most valuable to the species. No one, even the most prudish, regards the mating of animals as shameful. We do not speak with bated breath of the arrival of a litter of kittens, nor do we lock the cat in the closet when she feeds these offspring. Yet, the very same phenomenon, taking place among men, is spoken of in hushed tones, and when we see a woman nursing a baby in public, we regard her as little higher than an animal.

There is no longer much doubt of the fact that man evolved from lower animals. But, while this is an accepted truth, few realize the significant facts that follow from it. In animals, the thing we term love is merely an urge planted there for the continuation of the species. Selection is made for fitness only. The female does the choosing, and picks out the mate that seems to her to have the best attributes for the furtherance of a strong and healthy stock. Animals have no knowledge of paternity. Only in man, and that very recently, has this knowledge developed. In zoology, children are taught that certain animals eat their young, if the mother does not protect them. We are told of the brutality of the male rabbit, who is supposed to do this. But the rabbit has no realization of the fact that he had anything to do with the tiny hairless things that clutter his home. It is not male jealousy, or any such emotion that prompts this, but the sheer instinct to kill for food. The idea of paternity has grown up within civilized times.

In most of the lower animals, the female is the acknowledged selector. Again, only man has built up the myth that he does the choosing. The selectivity of the female is responsible for the development of brain, and is therefore responsible for her own downfall. It was the dawning realization that men were the fathers of children that changed early civilization from a matriarchate, or mother-rule, to a patriarchate, or father-rule. Up to this time, the women, as mothers of the race, had held a high place in the tribe; she had the sole choice of mates; she ruled and guided the children to maturity. When paternity was finally acknowledged, and the man was admitted as much kin to the child as the woman, he claimed a right to part control of it. His high opinion of women, as the founders of his clan, diminished, and he commenced to domineer over her as he did over lesser males. With the acknowledgement of paternity came the first conflict between men and women. No animal ever fights with, or abuses his female, or any of the females of his pack. Man, who admits that he is made in the image of some god, was the first to introduce this lowest form of animalism into the world, and into a partly cultured world, at that. The male had become stronger than the female, through her selection of strength, and he soon became lord over, not only his children, but his wife as well. From that dark day, down to the present, man has ruled the world, and enslaved the women. He has made the laws and made them so that women have grown weaker and weaker. Today, things are changing, and once more woman is standing equal with her mate.

_Natural Love._—Originally, love meant merely selection for purposes of reproduction. In the ancient days, even religion was founded upon this basic principle of fertilization. It remained for Christianity to deny the necessity of this deep fundamental fact.

Sheer animal passion, or natural love, is no less noble than the highly sophisticated esthetic sentiment that we favor today. Nor can love necessarily be limited to one individual. Monogamy is a stricture laid down to bind us by religion and social morals. The lower animals are not usually monogamous. Women have done most to advance this law, although they, too, in the dawn of life were not more monogamous than men. They were more selective, that is all. Modern monogamy is a product of property rights, and was merely intended to insure the legitimacy of the sons so that they might inherit the father’s property. But this monogamy never applied to the men. Man’s nature is against it, while his mouth speaks words in its favor. With the appearance of monogamy, came prostitution. Men demanded that their wives be virtuous, and then went out and sought other women for their pleasure. This gave rise to the double standard, of which more will be said later.

Some persons believe that the coming of Christianity raised woman’s status. This is far from true. Christianity, bringing its preachment against the flesh, made woman appear as an evil influence. Men were told to scorn the body. By this time, men were ruling the world, so they immediately laid all of the blame of sex upon the women. Many of the early promoters of the church preached violently against marriage, calling it sinful and wicked. Men came to assume the attitude that they could be pure and godly, were it not for the alluring seductiveness of women. The urge of man toward women was denounced as a thing of the devil. Today, our growing intelligence recognizes the folly of this, and the purity and loveliness of natural love is conceded.

_Romantic Love._—Romantic love is a hot-house growth feasting upon the dank soil of denial of natural impulses. It grew up in the days of roving knighthood, when for long months, and perhaps years, the lovers were separated. Men and women swore fidelity to each other, and the women at least were obliged to keep their vows. It became more noble to refuse than to accept love. All that the couple required was to be together. They contented themselves with sighs and madrigals. Natural love demands the possession of the person of the beloved; romantic love contents itself with the mere presence, or often the mere thought, of the beloved. Such love, in general, was regarded as illicit. Young knights knew this passion for great ladies, who were unattainable through marriage, or high station. Thus sprang up the belief that it was wrong. In fact, it is harmful only to those who yield to it, in that it festers in the soul, and knows no outlet.

_Marital Love._—This form of love, the affection between husband and wife, is also of comparatively late growth. In general, it requires monogamy. Frequently it is at war with romantic love. In early centuries, there was no thought of love when a union between two persons was arranged. The mating was planned for political or monetary reasons. Then, when romantic love sprang up, certain young people rebelled against this cold-blooded way of disposing of their lives, and chose to marry for love. Often this is no more satisfactory than the commercial method. In many European countries, the two are still divorced. In France, the wife and the mistress are both socially acknowledged facts, but are rarely embodied in the same person. In America there is a growing tendency to make wife and mistress always one and the same person. This is the ideal situation, though it is by far the more difficult of consummation. It is a sin to yield one’s body to a man whom one does not love.

_The Psychological View of Love._—Freud, who blames most of man’s unhappiness on improper sex-knowledge and development, divides the growth of love in the human being into three stages:

1. Auto-eroticism, or self-love.

2. Homosexuality, or love of the same sex.

3. Heterosexuality, or love of the opposite sex.

The infant is always auto-erotic. It gains its first pleasure from suckling the mother’s breasts, or the bottle. Soon it discovers the pleasure of this apart from the mere joy of eating. Then it sucks anything handy. It will suck an empty bottle, a toy, its thumb. This practice naturally should be discouraged, chiefly because it is deforming to the mouth. Soon the child discovers its own body. It finds real joy in handling its own body. The normal child grows out of this stage as it grows out of safety pins and bibs. There are cases where the child does not grow out of this phase of life. Something goes wrong, and the child’s development is arrested, and throughout life he or she remains a victim of self-love. The next thing that the normal child realizes is the existence of other persons in the world. This realization naturally centers on children. The grown-ups are very remote. Children come to have reality for the small child. She recognizes something akin to herself, and, since she has no way of knowing differently, she assumes that all children are physically equipped like herself. Boys and girls are alike to her; she does not know that there is any difference, other than clothes, between them. Her affections are drawn away from herself to others, and usually center upon some older girl. This is the period of homosexuality. Its most common manifestation is the schoolgirl “crush” on an older girl, or a favorite woman teacher. This is the most dangerous period for the girl’s future happiness. If she chances to place her affection in a girl or a woman who is emotionally biased, she may ruin her life or, at least, seriously damage it. Homosexuality, put into physical practice, definitely retards the mental growth of the person. The right sort of friendship, at this stage, can lead the girl through the period without any danger. Mothers, in general, should not encourage their daughters in friendships for older girls. It is better to drain off this urge in friendships for girls of an equal age.

A great number of children actually practice onanism, or self-love, and homosexuality. In general, parents are horrified by the thought of such things. The danger arises if the child does not normally grow out of these practices. They are the lowest forms of love merely because they are obviously sterile forms.

From these two stages, the normal girl or boy passes to the third when she or he reaches adolescence.

This third stage, heterosexuality, is the ultimate love development, in that it signifies love for the opposite sex. The young body has at last matured and grown into harmony with natural laws. This is the highest form of bodily contact with human beings. This is the ultimate threshold of womanhood. The girl who reaches this point and goes on into life with the proper regard for the opposite sex, is a woman; those whose development is retarded and whose inclinations linger in one of the earlier stages never fully achieve true womanhood.