Sex and Society by William I. Thomas

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The more motile organisms are constantly, by very reason of their
motility, encountering situations which put a strain upon the
attention. The quest for food leads to encounters with members of
their own and of different species; the resulting fight, pursuit, and
flight are accompanied by the powerful emotions of anger and fear.
The emotion is, as Darwin has pointed out, a part of the effort to
reaccommodate, since it is a physiological preparation for action
appropriate to the type of situation in question.[242] The strain upon
the attention, the affective bodily condition, and the motor activity
appear usually in the same connection, and, from the standpoint
of biological design, the action concluding the series of bodily
activities is of advantage to the organism.

In animal life the situation is simple. Whether the animal decides to
fight for it or to run for it, he has at any rate two plain courses
before him, and the relation between his emotional states and the
type of situation is rather definitely fixed racially, and relatively
constant. Even in the associated life of animals the type of reaction
is not much changed, and is here also instinctively fixed. But in
mankind the instinctive life is overshadowed or rivaled by the freedom
of initiative secured through an extraordinary development of the
power of inhibition and of associative memory, while, at the same
time, this freedom of choice is hindered and checked by the presence
of others. The social life of mankind brings out a thousand situations
unprovided for in the instincts and unanticipated in consciousness.
In the midst, then, of a situation relatively new in race experience,
where advantage is still the all-important consideration, and where
this can no longer be secured either by fighting or running, but by
the good opinion of one's fellows as well, we may look for some new
strains upon the attention and some emotions not common to animal
life.

I do not think we can entirely understand the nature of these
emotional expressions in the race unless we realize that man is, in
his savage as well as his civilized state, enormously sensitive to the
opinion of others.[243] The longing of the Creek youth to "bring in
hair" and be counted a man; the passion of the Dyak of Borneo for
heads, and the recklessness of the modern soldier, "seeking the bubble
reputation at the cannon's mouth;" the alleged action of the young
women of Kansas in taking a vow to marry no man who had not been to
the Philippine war, and of the ladies of Havana, during the rebellion
against Spain, in sending a chemise to a young man who stayed at home,
with the suggestion that he wear it until he went to the field--all
indicate that the opinion of one's fellows is at least as powerful a
stimulus as any found in nature. To the student of ethnology no point
in the character of primitive man is more interesting and surprising
than his vanity. This unique susceptibility to social influence is,
indeed, essential to the complex institutional and associational
life of mankind. The transmission of language, tradition, morality,
knowledge, and all race experience from the older to the younger,
and from one generation to another, is accomplished through mental
suggestibility, and the activity of the individual in associational
life is mediated largely through it.

Now, taking them as we find them, we know that such emotions as
modesty and shame are associated with actions which injure and shock
others, and show us off in a bad light. They are violations of modes
of behavior which have become habitual in one way and another. In an
earlier paper[244] have indicated some of the steps by which approvals
and disapprovals were set up in the group. When once a habit is fixed,
interference with its smooth running causes an emotion. The nature of
the habit broken is of no importance. If it were habitual for _grandes
dames_ to go barefoot on our boulevards or to wear sleeveless dresses
at high noon, the contrary would be embarrassing. Psychologically the
important point is that, when the habit is set up, the attention is
in equilibrium. When inadvertently or under a sufficiently powerful
stimulus we break through a habit, the attention and associative
memory are brought into play. We are conscious of a break, of what
others will think; we anticipate a damaged or diminished personality;
we are, in a word, upset. We may consequently expect to find that
whatever brings the individual into conflict with the ordinary
standards of life of the society in which he is living is the
occasion of a strain on the attention and of an accompanying bodily
change.[245]

A minimum expression of modesty, and one having an organic rather than
a social basis, is seen in the coyness of the female among animals.
In many species of animals the female does not submit at once to the
solicitations of the male, but only after the most arduous wooing.

The female cuckoo answers the call of her mate with an
alluring laugh that excites him to the utmost, but it is long
before she gives herself up to him. A mad chase through tree
tops ensues, during which she constantly incites him with that
mocking call, till the poor fellow is fairly driven crazy. The
female kingfisher often torments her devoted lover for half
a day, coming and calling him, and then taking to flight. But
she never lets him out of her sight the while, looking back as
she flies, and measuring her speed, and wheeling back when he
suddenly gives up the pursuit.[246]

There is here a rapid shifting of attention between organic impulse
to pair and organic dread of pairing, until an equilibrium is reached,
which is not essentially different from the case, in human society,
of that woman who, "whispering, 'I will ne'er consent,' consented." In
either case, the minimum that it is necessary to assume is an organic
hesitancy, though in the case of woman social hesitancy may play even
the greater role. Pairing is in its nature a seizure, and the coquetry
of the female goes back, perhaps, to an instinctive aversion to being
seized.

Our understanding of the nature of modesty is here further assisted
by the consideration that the same stimulus does not produce the same
reaction under all circumstances, but, on the contrary, may result in
totally contrary effects. A show of fight may produce either anger or
fear; social attention may gratify us from one person and irritate us
from another; or the attentions of the same person may annoy us today
and please us tomorrow. Mere movement is, to take another instance,
one of the most powerful stimuli in animal life; and, if we examine
its meaning among animals, we find that the same movement may have
different meanings in terms of sex. If the female runs, the movement
attracts the notice of the male, and the movement is a sexual
stimulus. Or the movement may be a movement of avoidance--a
running-away; and in this way the female may secure contrary
desires by the same general type of activity. Or, on the other hand,
not-running is a condition of pairing, and is also a means of avoiding
the attention of the male. Similarly modesty has a twofold meaning in
sexual life. In appearance it is an avoidance of sexual attention, and
at many moments it is an avoidance in fact. But we have seen in the
case of the birds that the avoidance is, at the pairing season, only
a part of the process of working up the organism to the nervous pitch
necessary for pairing.

But without going farther into the question of the psychology of
wooing, it is evident that very delicate attention to behavior is
necessary to be always attractive and never disgusting to the opposite
sex, and even the most serious attention to this problem is not always
successful.[247] Sexual association is a treacherous ground, because
our likes and dislikes turn upon temperamental traits rather than
on the judgment, or, at any rate, upon modes of judgment not clearly
analyzable in consciousness. An openness of manner in the relations
of the sexes is very charming, but a little more, and it is boldness,
or, if it relates to bodily habits, indecency. A modest behavior is
charming, but too much modesty is prudery. Under these circumstances,
when the suggestive effect of bodily habits is realized, but the
effect of a given bit of behavior cannot be clearly reckoned, and
when, at the same time, the effect produced by the action is felt to
be very important to happiness, it is to be expected that there should
often be a conflict between the tendency to follow a stimulus and
the tendency to inhibit it, a hovering between advance and retreat,
assent and negation--a disturbed state of attention, and an organic
hesitancy, resulting in the emotional overflow of blushing when the
act is realized or thought as improper.

But, however thin and movable the partitions between attraction and
disgust, every person is aware of certain standards of behavior,
derived either from the strain of personal relationship or by
imitation of current modes of behavior. The girl of the unclothed
races who takes in sitting a modest attitude is acting on the result
of experience. She may have been often annoyed by the attentions of
men at periods when their attention was not welcome, and in this case
the action is one of shrinking and avoidance. She doubtless has in
mind also that all females are not at all times attractive to all
males, that female boldness sometimes excites disgust, and that the
concealment of the person may be more attractive than its exposure.

This more or less instinctive recognition of the suggestive power
of her person and her corresponding attitude of modesty have been
assisted also by her observation of the experiences of other women,
and by the talk of the older women. I may add the following instances
to make it plain that the sexual relation is the object of much
attention from both sexes in primitive society, and furnishes occasion
for the interruption of the smooth flow of the attention and the
bodily activities. Describing the use of magic by the male Australians
in obtaining wives, Spencer and Gillen add:

In the case of charming, however, the initiative may be taken
by the woman, who can, of course, imagine that she has been
charmed, and then find a willing aider and abettor in the man,
whose vanity is flattered by the response to the magic
power which he can soon persuade himself that he did really
exercise.[248]

If this attempt at suggestion failed, we should have a case of lively
embarrassment in the woman, and her discomfiture would be heightened
if the other women and men of the community were aware of her attempt.
Similarly on Jervis Island in Torres Straits, if an unmarried woman
was interested in a man, she accosted him, but the man did not address
the woman "for, if she refused him, he would feel ashamed, and maybe
he would brain her with a stone club, and so 'he would kill her for
nothing.'"[249]

A wholesale unsettling of habit is seen when a lower culture is
impinged upon by a higher. The consciousness of other standards of
behavior causes new forms of modesty in the lower race. Haddon reports
of the natives of Torres Straits:

The men were formerly nude, and the women wore only a leaf
petticoat, but I gather that they were a decent people; now
both sexes are prudish. A man would never go nude before
me--only once or twice has it happened to me, and then only
when they were diving.... Amongst themselves they are, of
course, much less particular, but I believe they are becoming
more so.... I have not noticed any reticence in their
speaking about sexual matters before the young, but missionary
influence has modified this a great deal; formerly, I imagine,
there was no restraint in speech, now there is a great deal
of prudery;... and I had the greatest possible difficulty
in getting the little information I did about the former
relationships between the sexes. All this, I suspect, is not
really due to a sense of decency _per se_, but rather to a
desire on their part not to appear barbaric to strangers; in
other words, the hesitancy is between them and the white man,
not as between themselves.[250]

Bonwick says also:

I have repeatedly been amused at observing the Australian
natives prepare for their approach to the abode of
civilization by wrapping their blankets more decently around
them and putting on their ragged trousers or petticoats.[251]

There are numerous cases found among the lower races where the wearing
of clothing and ornament are not associated with feelings of modesty.
Von den Steinen reports that the women of Brazil wore a small,
delicately made and ornamented covering or _uluri_, which evidently
had an attractive as well as protective value; but the women showed no
embarrassment, but rather astonishment, when he asked them to remove
them and give them to him. When they understood that he really wanted
them, they removed them and gave them to him with a laugh.[252] This
is a case, in fact, of the beginning of clothing without a beginning
of modesty. But while we find cases of modesty without clothing and of
clothing without modesty the two are usually found together, because
clothing and ornament are the most effective means of drawing the
attention to the person, sometimes by concealing it and sometimes by
emphasizing it.

The original covering of the body was in the nature of ornament rather
than clothing. The waist, the neck, the wrists, and the ankles are
smaller than the portion of the body immediately below them, and are
from this anatomical accident a suitable place to tie ornaments, and
the ornamentation of the body results incidently in giving some degree
of covering to the body. The most suggestive use of clothing is the
use of just a sufficient amount to call attention to the person,
without completely concealing it. I need not refer to the fact that
in modern society this is accomplished by, or perhaps we should better
say transpires in connection with, diaphanous fabrics and decollete
dresses; and the same effect was doubtless accomplished by a typical
early form of female dress, of which I will give one instance in
Australia and one in America:

Among the Arunta and Luricha the women normally wear nothing,
but amongst tribes farther north, especially the Kaitish and
Warramunga, a small apron is made and worn, and this sometimes
finds its way south into the Arunta. Close-set strands of
fur-string hang vertically from a string waist-girdle. Each
strand is about eight or ten inches in length, and the breadth
of the apron may reach the same size, though it is often not
more than six inches wide.[253]

Mr. Powers says:

A fashionable young Wittun woman wears a girdle of deer skin,
the lower edge of which is slit into a long fringe, with the
polished pine-nut at the end of each strand, while the upper
border and other portions are studded with brilliant bits of
shell.[254]

If we recall the psychological standpoint that the emotions are an
organic disturbance of equilibrium occurring when factors difficult
of reconciliation are brought to the attention, and if we have in
mind that the association of the sexes has furnished so powerful an
emotional disturbance as jealousy, it seems a simple matter to explain
the comparatively mild by-play of sexual modesty as a function
of wooing, without bringing either clothing or ornament into the
question.

We saw a minimum expression of modesty in the courtship of animals,
where the modesty of the female was a form of fear on the organic
side, but the accompanying movements of avoidance were, at the same
time, a powerful attraction to the male. And we have in this, as
in all expressions of fear--shame, guilt, timidity, bashfulness--an
affective bodily state growing out of the strain thrown upon the
attention in the effort of the organism to accommodate itself to its
environment. The essential nature of the reaction is already fixed
in types of animal life where the operation of disgust is out of the
question, and in relations which imply no attention to the conduct of
others. If any separation between the bodily self and the environment
is to be made at all, it is putting the cart before the horse to make
out that modesty is derived from our repugnance at the conduct of
others, more immediately than through attention to the meaning of our
own activities. The fallacy of the disgust theory lies, in fact, in
the attempt to separate the copies for imitation derived from our own
activities from those derived from our observation of the activities
of others.

When habits are set up and are running smoothly, the attention is
withdrawn; and nakedness was a habit in the unclothed societies, just
as it may become a habit now in the artist's model. But when, for any
of the reasons I have outlined, women or men began to cover the body,
then putting off the covering became peculiarly suggestive, because
the breaking-up of a habit brings an act clearly into attention. And
when dress becomes habitual in a society whose sense of modesty has
also developed to a high degree, the suggestive effect is so great
that the bare thought of unclothing the person becomes painful, and we
have the possibility of such a phenomenon as mock modesty. But, so far
as sexual modesty is concerned, the clothing has only reinforced the
already great suggestive power of the sexual characters.

In animal society the coyness of the female is the analogue of
modesty. The male is always aggressive, and in both animal and human
society used ornament as a means of interesting and influencing the
female. In the course of time, however, man's activities became his
main dependence, and woman's person and personal behavior became
more significant, especially in a state of society where she became
dependent on man's activities, and both ornament and modesty were
largely transferred to her.

In speaking of the relation of sex to morality,[255] I have already
shown that the morality of man is peculiarly a morality of prowess and
contract, while woman's morality is to a greater degree a morality of
bodily habits, both because child-bearing, which is a large factor
in determining sexual morality, is more closely connected with her
person, and in consequence also of male jealousy. Physiologically and
socially reproduction is more identified with the person of woman than
of man, and it has come about that her sexual behavior has been more
closely looked after, not only by men, but by women--for it would not
be difficult to show that women have been always, as they are still,
peculiarly watchful of one another in this respect.

In the course of history woman developed an excessive and scrupulous
concern for the propriety of her behavior, especially in connection
with her bodily habits; and this in turn became fixed and
particularized by fashion, with the result that not only her physical
life became circumscribed, but her attention and mental interests
became limited largely to safeguarding and enhancing her person.

The effect of this and of other similar restrictions of behavior on
her character and mind is indicated in following chapters.

THE ADVENTITIOUS CHARACTER OF WOMAN

There is more than one bit of evidence that nature changed her
plan with reference to some organism at the very last moment, and
introduced a feature which was not contemplated at the outset. This
change of plan is carried out through the specialization of some
organ, sense, or habit, to such a degree as to make practically a new
type of the organism. In the human species, for example, the atrophied
organs distributed through the body are evidence that the physical
make-up of the species was well-nigh definitely fixed before the
advantage of free hands led to an erect posture, thereby throwing
certain sets of muscles out of use; and the specialization of the
voice as a means of communicating thought was, similarly, a device
for relieving the hands of the burden of communication, and was not
introduced systematically until a gesture language had been so
well established that even now we fall back into it unconsciously,
especially in moments of excitement, and attempt to talk with our
hands and bodies.

But perhaps the most interesting modification or reversal of plan to
be noted in mankind is connected with the relation of the two sexes.
As will presently be indicated, life itself was in the beginning
female, so far as sex could be postulated of it at all, and the
life-process was primarily a female process, assisted by the male. In
humankind as well, nature obviously started out on the plan of having
woman the dominant force, with man as an aid; but after a certain
time there was a reversal of plan, and man became dominant, and woman
dropped back into a somewhat unstable and adventitious relation to
the social process. Up to a certain point, in fact, in his physical
and social evolution man shows an interesting structural and mental
adaptation to woman, or to the reproductive process which she
represents; while the later stages of history show, on the other
hand, that the mental attitude of woman, and consequently her forms
of behavior, have been profoundly modified, and even her physical life
deeply affected, by her effort to adjust to man.

The only attitude which nature can be said to show toward life is the
design that the individual shall sustain its own life, and at death
leave others of its kind--that it shall get food, avoid destruction,
and reproduce. In pursuance of this policy it naturally turns out that
those types showing greater morphological and functional complexity,
along with freer movement and more mental ingenuity, come into the
more perfect control and use of their environment, and consequently
have greater likelihood of survival. Failing of this greater
complexity, their chance of life lies in occupying so obscure a
position, so to speak, that they do not come into collision with more
dominant forms, or in reproducing at such a rate as to survive in
spite of this. The number of devices in the way of modification of
form and habit to secure advantage is practically infinite, but all
progressive species have utilized the principle of sex as an accessory
of success. By this principle greater variability is secured, and
among the larger number of variations there is always a chance of the
appearance of one of superior fitness. The male in many of the lower
forms is very insignificant in size, economically useless (as among
the bees), often a parasite on the female, and, as many biologists
hold, merely a secondary device or afterthought of nature, designed
to secure greater variation than can be had by the asexual mode of
reproduction. In other words, he is of use to the species by assisting
the female to reproduce progressively fitter forms.

When, in the course of time, sexual reproduction eventuated in a
mammalian type, with greater intimacy between mother and offspring and
a longer period of dependence of offspring on the mother, the
function of the male in assisting the female became social as well as
biological; and this was pre-eminently so in the case of man,
because of the pre-eminent helplessness of the human child.[256]
The characteristic helplessness of the child, which at first
thought appears to be a disadvantage, is in fact the source of human
superiority, since the design of nature in providing this condition of
helplessness is to afford a lapse of time sufficient for the growth
of the very complex mechanism, the human brain, which, along with free
hands, is the medium through which man begins that reaction on his
environment--inventing, exterminating, cultivating, domesticating,
organizing--which ends in his supremacy.

It is plain, therefore, that species in which growth is slow are at an
advantage, if to the care and nourishment of the female are added the
providence and protection of the male; and this is especially true in
mankind, where growth is not completed for a long period of years.
In this connection we have an explanation of the alleged greater
variability of the male. Instead of an insignificant addendum to the
reproductive process, he becomes larger than the female, masterful,
jealous, a fighting specialization--still an attache of the female,
but now a defender and provider. This is the general condition among
mammals; and among mankind the longer dependence of children results
in a correspondingly lengthened and intimate association of the
parents, which we denominate marriage. For Westermarck is quite right
in his view that children are not the result of marriage, but marriage
is the result of children. From this point of view marriage is a union
favored by the scheme of nature because it is favorable to the rearing
and training of children, and the groups practicing marriage, or its
animal analogue, have the best chance of survival.

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