Sex antagonism

Contents

PAGE

I. INTRODUCTORY ..... 1

II. THE PROBLEMS . . . . .20

II

Dr. Frazer’s encyclopaedic work on Toiemism and Exogamy (1911) is a monument of wonderfully patient research, of masterly marshalling of evidence, of transparent fairness of criticism and of acute reasoning. It is impossible for one who is a mere biologist to offer criticism of such a work without recognising the danger of falling into many errors, and of stumbling into pitfalls which only a trained anthropologist can avoid. It is, however, precisely as a biologist, and with full recognition of the dangers ahead, that I venture to present certain aspects of the problems he has set forth which, so far as I know, have not been definitely expressed.

I am prompted by two reasons : in the first

place, as I have already stated, the origin and the subsequent association of these two primitive customs as set forth by Dr. Frazer, appear to me to indicate that they afford evidence of the working of an elemental war of the sexes which, both for biological and for social reasons, is of great interest at this stage of our own history. In the second place, I am impelled to doubt certain of the conclusions Dr. Frazer has drawn. I feel that he has somewhat unduly neglected the biological aspect of the problem ; that in discussing the origin of savage customs which he maintains are of such vast antiquity, he has overlooked the effect of that crude physiological impulse which, in view of the power it exerts to-day upon us, we may reasonably conclude must have exerted much greater influence long ages ago on the actions of those whose descendants are still savages ; while he has demanded too much exertion of that human ‘ intelligence, deliberation and will ’ which is essential for the theory he advances.

If, therefore, my criticisms are just, some doubt must be thrown on Dr. Frazer’s conclusions ; I do not suggest that solutions of the chief problems are here afforded, but I think it is possible some light may incidentally be thrown upon them which will help towards a clearer idea of their essential nature. It is this end which my friend Dr. Frazer has at heart and it is this which every one who knows him must be assured is the sole aim of his great labour, so I am cheered by the knowledge that whatever errors I may fall into will meet with the generous criticism he never fails to accord to all who, with this aim in view, thrust themselves across his track. And indeed I am justified in this hope, for already he has supplied me with frank criticism of certain points advanced in a preliminary draft of a portion of this work which I submitted to him, and has set me at liberty, indeed has requested me to make full use of the notes and letter he has written. This I shall gladly do in the following pages, and, in order to differentiate between quotations from his book and from these papers, shall refer to the latter as MS.

In considering the problem in the aspect from which I propose to present it, it is necessary to bear in mind the biological constitution of the society dealt with ; and this, it seems to me, is very generally neglected.

In the first place, I am struck with the fact that while all societies are compounded of two fundamentally different elements, the power and the effect of only one of these elements is, as a rule, seriously considered by anthropologists. The vast majority of anthropologists are men, and men are notoriously incapable of analysing the Female mind. But societies are compounded of Males and Females, and it seems to me very questionable whether anthropologists are not sometimes, perhaps frequently, entirely mistaken in their interpretation of facts which have their origin in, or bear upon, the habits, customs and beliefs of a society in which the Female element is a powerful factor. Thus, in dealing with any social problem we must not only consider the Male, for we are dealing also with the Female, mind ; and no matter how primitive the society may be, this Female aspect of the subject, these Female feelings, these Female interpretations of cause and effect exist, exert drastic influence, and must not be ignored.

If there is one thing more than another emphasised by the study of reproductive physiology it is the essential differences between the Male and the Female. The reproductive system is one of the two most primitive systems of organs possessed by all living things. The digestive system is necessary for the life of the individual, the reproductive for the life of the species, and all the other systems of organs — excretory, vascular, nervous, muscular, skeletal, sensory — are called forth and built up in accordance with the needs which arise for the more efficient discharge of both these two primitive systems. But, and this is of great moment, one of these two primitive systems, the reproductive, is not only structurally but functionally, fundamentally different in the Male and in the Female ; and since all other organs and systems of organs are affected by this system, it is certain that the Male and Female are essentially different throughout. Some of these differences are glaring and forceful, others infinitely subtle, hidden differences, and the most remarkable are not due to structural differences but to profound divergence of function. The origin of them all is to be traced without doubt to the overwhelming influence, either of the forces which induce the activity of the reproductive system, or to the products of that activity ; it is by such means that all the tissues of the body are bound together and drilled subservient to sex.

What these forces are is a problem with which I have long concerned myself, but this is not the place, and indeed I am not prepared now, to discuss it. It is enough perhaps to say that, so far as I understand the matter, the origin of the stimulus is the same for both sexes, but its effect is very differently expressed in the Male and in the Female of all animals ; and further, that such difference is wholly due to difference of function in the two sexes. I feel very sure that the effect of this profound divergence of function is greatly underrated as a rule, and that neglect to recognise it frankly must result in disastrous consequences both to savage and to civilised communities alike.

Sometimes the bare fact that the Female mind contributes to primitive beliefs and helps to shape the customs and laws of a people, is clearly admitted. Thus Dr. Frazer writes (vol. iv. p. 64) : ‘ If we ask what in particular may have suggested the theory of conception which appears to be the tap-root of totemism, it seems probable that, as I have already indicated, a preponderant influence is to be ascribed to the sick fancies of pregnant women, and that so far, therefore, totemism may be described as a creation of the feminine rather than of the masculine mind ’ ; and again he remarks (p. 63), certain ‘ maternal fancies appear to be the root of totemism.’ Dr. Frazer is, I believe, the only one who has ever drawn attention to the effect of Female influence in this connection, and in my opinion it is a very important generalisation.

It is perhaps true that the effect of these forceful sex influences is specially marked in the Male during the breeding season, in the Female during pregnancy. ‘ Maternal fancies ’ are undoubtedly strong. But it must be clearly recognised that the difference between the sexes is not confined to these brief periods, it is a constant, inherent difference, and, as we advance in the scale of organisation, will probably be found to be always acting with greater force, as a wedge driven ever deeper by social necessities and laws, and separating the essential nature of the two sexes further and further apart.

To speak of this difference between the sexes is to talk of a fact so self-evident that it will seem to many quite unnecessary to draw attention to it, but I feel very sure that, so far as the woman is concerned, such evidence as is usually deemed sufficient for the purpose is but gleaned from the most superficial layer of an infinitely complicated hidden structure, of the constitution of which we, as men, are profoundly ignorant. Moreover, it seems certain that the actual influence of the woman is in direct proportion to the secrecy with which her characteristic differences are guarded, the less they are recognised the greater is their power. Patent facts are easy to reckon with ; it is the unknown which disturbs all one’s calculations.

Such differences are not confined to civilised peoples, they are represented in the lowest savages. Civilisation has no doubt given rise to more delicate shades of divergence, but the main functions of the one sex are equally opposed to those of the other sex in all animals ; and it is these main functions, these inherent differences, which are responsible for an enormous proportion of the misunderstandings common between men and women ; responsible for the disregard the Male constantly shows for the Female, for the antagonism evinced by the Female towards the Male. Such disregard and antagonism is not necessarily wilful, it is inherent, and I am convinced is, as a rule, but vaguely recognised by the offender.

As an example ; — A girl of fourteen years was asked what she would like best in the world, and she replied in the most natural manner, she would like to marry and have four children, then she would like her husband to die and she would bring up her family. This is a striking instance of the inherent Feminine attitude towards the Male before love is introduced. Once the children are produced, the mother desires freedom to bring them up. The Male is no longer desired by her when once the productive stage of her life is over ; he then occupies only a subordinate place in her life work, and is, in fact, from a sexual point of view, only a nuisance to the woman when that time comes. Such a feeling is constantly to be found in women, though they themselves often do not recognise the force which is driving them ; they only have a feeling which, as a rule, they are ashamed to confess, but it is actually the same feeling which this girl, speaking of her natural instinctive desires, thus plainly expressed.

At the same primitive stage of civilisation the Male will look upon a woman primarily from a sexual point of view, secondarily, no doubt, as a worker for his benefit ; and when, either temporarily or permanently, she fails to attract him sexually, he will look around for another woman to take her place. Such instinctive desires are a quality of the sex. I refer here, of course, to passion as distinct from love. But my view does not demand that savages are devoid of affection ; love for one woman is not destroyed by passion for another ; society may declare that constancy is the sole gauge of love, but love is naturally distinct from passion ; it is only in accordance with social laws that the two are merged together.

Thus it is not only the Feminine mind which is different from the Male mind ; it is the whole Female organisation, her inclinations, feelings, and intuitions which are different. It is the woman’s biological necessities, and all the various forces which conduce to their satisfaction, which, though complementary to those of the man for a period in their joint fives, are quite different from, and eventually become diametrically opposed to, his needs and to the natural forces which drive him.

I venture to think Dr. Frazer has not sufficiently considered this aspect of the problem, and, if I mistake not, it lies at the root of both exogamy and totemism. As a man I cannot hope to define the subtle Female differences which tend to thrust the sexes apart, but as a biologist I think it may be possible to indicate certain directions in which that power is evinced, even, perhaps, certain cumulative results thereof.

It is such reflections which impel me to think the biological aspect of various anthropological problems is often insufficiently considered. Dr. Frazer appears to hold a different view. He remarks on ‘ a weakness which has of late years vitiated other speculations as to the growth of human institutions. It attempts to explain that growth too exclusively from physical and biological causes without taking into account the factors of intelligence, deliberation, and will.’ Inquirers, he says, ‘ forget the part that human thought and will have played in moulding human destiny.’ And again : ‘ In particular, the

science which deals with human society will not, if it is truly scientific, omit to reckon with the qualities which distinguish man from the beasts ’ (vol. iv. p. 98). Now these remarks are surely applicable to the interpretation of the development of laws and customs which have proceeded in accordance with that intelligence, deliberation and will which is peculiar to man. But his strictures are directed specially in this place against one who has attempted to assign a biological reason for the origin of a custom, and that is a very different matter from its development. The custom in question is that of exogamy, and Dr. Frazer finds that certain tribes inhabiting Central and Northern Australia, the most primitive human beings living to day, ‘ practise exogamy in its most rigid form ’ and yet are ‘ still ignorant of the fact of physical paternity ’ (vol. iv. p. 99).

Now it is surely a very remarkable fact that such primitive people, people who, Dr. Frazer believes, are so void of intelligence that they are ignorant of the result of sexual intercourse, should have stringent regulations against endogamy, elaborate rules regarding exogamous mating, unless this habit of exogamy had grown through vast ages, very slowly, bit by bit, until it has come to be ‘ exogamy in its most rigid form.’ And if that is so, the custom must have arisen many ages ago, when these people were possessed of appreciably less power of ‘ intelligence, deliberation and will ’ than they now have, at a time, in fact, when they were governed by instinct in such matters, even as we are to-day in the same and in some others ! ‘ The abhorrence of

incest, which is the essence of exogamy,’ he says, has grown through a long series of ages ; ‘ there is no evidence or probability that the aversion is a thing of recent growth, a product of advanced civilisation,’ while it is fair to suppose it has £ everywhere originated in the same primitive modes of thought and feeling ’ (vol. iv. p. 153).

But a people who, at the present time, have no domestic animals, who are ignorant that a seed if planted will grow, and live altogether on the products of their hunting skill, must, some thousands of years ago, have stood at the very dawn of human existence ; and a custom so elaborate as the exogamy practised by these primitive savages must indeed have been of growth so slow that it is easier to believe it had its origin in instinct, that is, feeling, or an instinctive method of satisfying feeling, rather than in any other quality more nearly approaching reason or thought.

If there is any probability in the truth of this suggestion of the origin of the custom, one cannot fail to look with great suspicion on the statement that the abhorrence of incest is the essence of exogamy. Such horror may quite possibly have subsequently come to be a factor which helped to consolidate the law, but, if the custom arose in accordance with instinct — and I believe I can advance evidence which makes that view highly probable — horror is not the essence of the matter, rather is it founded on a definite sexual instinct, inclination, or feeling.

Dr. Frazer’s elaborate and ingenious arguments, advanced to show that it is possible that the ‘ intercourse of near kin was thought to render the women of the tribe sterile and to endanger the common food supply by preventing edible animals from multiplying and edible plants from growing ; in short, that the effect of incest was supposed to be sterility of women, animals and plants ’, may, as he says, be ‘ an effect rather than the cause of its prohibition ’ (p. 157). But if so, on what grounds does he found his belief that abhorrence of incest is the essence of exogamy ? Dr. Frazer is so imbued with the importance of the effect of human intelligence on the customs of a people that, in spite of the admitted antiquity of this habit, he wholly disregards the bearing of any other influence upon it. It seems clear to me that such belief in the evil resulting from incest, where it exists, must be the effect of experience, since it can only have been learnt from experience, and such experience must be denied to those savages in Central Australia who practise exogamy while they do not recognise the consequence of sexual relationship.

Dr. Frazer, however, is apparently not prepared to accept such a view. He writes me (MS.) that he denies experience has anything to do with the matter, since the belief seems to be that the intercourse of near kin among human beings ipso facto sterilises animals and plants ; and this, he says, is far from being a fact of experience, it is an absurdity, a mere superstition.

For my part, I do not recognise the relevance of such objection. If there is a belief that incest amongst human beings causes sterility in animals and plants it must be a superstition of secondary growth, it can have nothing to do with the main problem and it is, I think, an error to allow such adventitious matter to divert attention from the main question.

Incidentally one may remark that ‘ a mere superstition 5 is not perhaps so far removed from experience as Dr. Frazer seems inclined here to believe. A vast proportion of superstitions have their origin in an attempt to account for, to explain phenomena which are not understood ; and no doubt the habits, customs, necessities, and experiences of a people influence the trend of thought which determines the character of a superstition. This very superstition which Dr. Frazer calls an absurdity may indeed be so accounted for. At first sight it is not easy to imagine any cause for imagining connection between the fertility of the human members of a tribe and that of the wild animals which surround them ; but, as a matter of fact there is such cause for connecting the two phenomena, for those natural conditions which influence the fertility of a savage tribe affect also the breeding powers of the animals in their neighbourhood. This fact cannot have escaped the notice of the wise men of the tribe; tradition will hand it down for it is of vital importance to them, it concerns the food supply. They do not understand the forces which so act on people, animals and plants alike, but they see clearly there is connection between them all, and they assume that the common result is due to some act of their own. There is, I imagine, no more common origin of superstitious belief than the conception that man is himself responsible for the results of natural law. Amongst peoples much more highly civilised than these savages the spirits of thunder, storm, and fever are supposed to work evil on a people because it is believed that their behaviour has in some way offended the spirits. Thus in the case quoted by Dr. Frazer, while the savage explanation of the fact is absurd the fact itself they have rightly learnt from experience, and so, if they believe that intercourse of near kin induces sterility amongst themselves, they may be considered logically entitled to believe it also affects the fertility of the animals and plants living around them.

To return to the main point, Dr. Frazer concludes (vol. iv. p. 160) regarding exogamy : ‘ Considering everything as carefully as I can I incline, though with great hesitancy and reserve, to think that exogamy may have sprung from a belief in the injurious and especially the sterilising effects of incest, not upon the persons who engage in it, at least not upon the man, nor upon the offspring, but upon women generally and particularly upon edible animals and plants.’ In view of what is said before, this appears to me to be a very astonishing conclusion ; but, Dr. Frazer adds, ‘ If that is not the origin of exogamy I must confess to being completely baffled, for I have no other conjecture to offer on the subject.’

In the following pages I will venture to suggest another explanation, not one which primarily concerns intelligence, deliberation and will, but one which has its origin in those natural biological laws which influence habits and customs long before connected thought is efficiently exercised. I cannot doubt it is to such an age, to such a primitive state of society, to such an elementary condition of human faculty we must revert in order to conceive of the forces which are responsible for the origin of such a custom.

Regarding totemism and Dr. Frazer’s derivation of it from a primitive theory of conception which presupposes ignorance of the part played by the father in procreation ; although I shall suggest another theory of the origin of the custom, my main

c endeavour will be to show that ignorance of the result of sexual intercourse is not a primitive condition but is acquired by superstition, originating in the Female mind and accepted by the Male.

This custom appears to me to be the first evidence we have of the assertion of woman in society. It arose with her and results in part in raising her status in society ; she becomes through its agency of much greater importance to the community, and the power she thereby acquires she never again wholly loses. At the same time it appears that any permanent influence she subsequently gains may be traced to the same source — which is essentially, reverence for the mysteries of maternity ; and, so far as I am aware, on no matter wholly divorced from maternity and the rearing of the child has the woman ever succeeded in establishing herself permanently as of essential, of irreplaceable, value to society.

The treatment by the Male of this purely Female scheme is a circumstance of much interest. It demonstrates in a remarkable manner the fundamental difference in the natural characteristics of the Male and the Female ; it shows how that difference results in the ready absorption of Female ideas by the Male ; and it shows how his placid acceptance of the woman’s claims is followed by his eventual assumption of control by means of laws which he formulates and administers.

There is one other matter to which I shall devote some attention, and that is the belief in the transmission to the unborn child of maternal impressions.

Dr. Frazer is disposed to attach some importance to this belief in connection with totemism, and the evidence I have to offer on the subject may be regarded as not unfavourable to such views. At the same time, as Dr. Frazer fully recognises, the fundamental question of the possible influence of a mother on her unborn child has not been definitely answered by biology, and I do not claim here to answer it.

III

The essence of Dr. Frazer’s argument regarding the ‘ origin of exogamy ’ is set forth in the first few pages of that section of the fourth volume which deals with the subject (p. 71). He quotes Donald McLennan, who remarks, writing of his brother J. F. McLemian’s work, that it appears to him of primary importance to exhibit totemism ‘ in connection with kinship and with exogamy ’ (p. 73). Totemism, he was convinced, must have been established prior to the origin of exogamy, and is referable ‘ to a state of man in which no idea of incest existed ’ (p. 74).

W. Robertson Smith also believed that totemism was older than exogamy, and declared, ‘ it is easy to see that exogamy necessarily presupposes the existence of a system of kinship which took no account of degrees but only of participation in a common stock.’ ‘ Such an idea as this ’, he adds, ‘ must have been thought mider a concrete and tangible form, and that form seems to have been always supplied by totemism.’

Dr. Frazer remarks (p. 75) : ‘ The course of subsequent research, which has immensely enlarged the evidence for the practice of totemism and exogamy, has strongly confirmed the conclusion reached by these eminent scholars and thinkers as to the priority of totemism to exogamy. Any theory based on the assumption that the two things have from the first existed together as different sides of the same institution, or that totemism is derived from exogamy, is founded on misapprehension and can only end in confusion and error.’ He adds : ‘ Exogamy was an innovation imposed on communities which were already divided into totemic clans ’ ; and again : £ totemism existed in all its essential features before exogamy was thought of.’

Now, is Dr. Frazer really here treating of the origin of exogamy, the cause from which the habit arose, or of its social development ? It appears to me he has confused the two.

He discusses the theories by means of which various investigators have attempted to explain the origin of exogamy : J. T. McLennan’ s views regarding the scarcity of women (p. 75), either on account of female infanticide (p. 77), or on account of the natural disproportion of the sexes (p. 83) ; of the mutual hostility of primitive groups of peoples and their readiness to carry off each other’s women, that is, of a systematic capture of women (p. 87) ; Durkheim’s ideas based on religious sentiment with regard to menstruous blood (p. 100) ; Westermarck’s theory of the instinctive aversion to sexual intercourse between persons who have lived closely together from early youth, which he claims is a result of natural selection (p. 93). And after careful consideration he dismisses them all as untenable.

On the other hand, Morgan’s view that it is ‘ only explainable in its origin, as a reformatory movement to break up the intermarriage of blood relatives,’ he says, furnishes ‘ the true key to the whole system of exogamy.’ The essential part of Morgan’s theory, he claims, has been greatly strengthened by knowledge since acquired of the social organisation of those very primitive savages the Australian aborigines ; and asserts that it is to the customs of these tribes in ‘ Australia that we must look for a solution of the enigma ’ (pp. 104-5). On this matter he accepts without reserve, so far as I can see, Spencer and Gillen’s account of their brilliant researches, and to a very large extent bases his conclusions thereon.

But in the wilds of Central Australia, what do we there find ? — tribes of so savage, so ignorant a people that, we are told, they do not recognise the physical relation of fatherhood ; a people who, in point of fact, still only recognise the value of cohabitation as a means for gratifying sexual passion. How then can the exogamy they practise, ‘ exogamy in its most rigid form’, have its origin in a desire to break up the intermarriage of blood relatives ? Apart from the relation of children to their mother, and of children of the same mother to one another, what do they know of blood relationship ? What reason can they have for the strong aversion to consanguineous unions which the theory requires ?

They do not even know the consequence of any union. A Casanova is not required to find excuse for incest between father and daughter among them.

However advantageous the habit of exogamy may have become for the prevention of incest, we must,

I think, seek for another explanation of its origin.

It would appear that W. Robertson Smith certainly associated exogamy with totemism, since exogamy necessarily presupposes the existence of a system of kinship, a tangible form of thought which seems to have been always required by totemism.

Dr. Frazer bases his whole arguments on the fact that exogamy and totemism ‘ are fundamentally distinct in origin and nature 5 (vol. i. p. xii.). He ‘ proclaimed it loudly as a truth which has been generally overlooked ’ (MS.). In vol. iv. pp. 42-3 he remarks, ‘ we shall do well to bear in mind that both totemism and exogamy may possibly have originated in very different ways among different people,’ though ‘ the presumption is certainly in favour of the view that each of them has everywhere originated in substantially the same way, and that therefore a theory which satisfactorily explains the origin of these institutions in any one race will probably explain its origin in all races ’ ; while on p. 75 he records his belief in the priority of totemism, and his opinion that exogamy was imposed on communities which were already divided into totemic clans. Moreover (vol. i. p. 250), he speaks of ‘ the exogamous totemic marriages of the Warramunga.’