The anti-monopolist. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1874-1878, 1875-11-18


nent of women over the other sex is a sex .
lal one-a capacity to love and to be loved.
It is q very significant fact in comparing !
The degree and quality of love % we find it
existing in men and women, that the two
periods in woman's life in which suicidal
deaths exceed those in the male are at the
time Of structural completion and greatest
functional activity. This demonstrates the
Of capacity 10 love in wo-
mans physical nature, and its greatest pow
er to impress itself profoundly upon the de-
liberate acts Of her life over that Of man.
Madam de Stael truly said that Glove is the
history Of woman's life; it is an episode in
mans"
Love defeated in the attainment Of its OBJ
iect becomes in man an incident to be for
gotten or to be remembered with Impotence.
4 defeat of love with woman is too often q
defeat Of her intellectual life An emo.
ton. the misdirection Or disappointment of
which is capable of inducing large per
centum Of insane in one sex over the other,
must surely differ in degree and kind. Ger
tainly we must credit this excess on the |
part of women with an important physical
factor, aside from that pr sex proper-be-
ing of less hardy development than man-
but these physical peculiarities permit sex |
to assert the most potent physical effect to
the degree Of shaping the actions or destiny |
Of woman. 1t viii suffice, to illustrate the
fact referred to. to lake the figures from the
report Of two asylums for the insane-the
PENNSYLVANIA Hospital for the Insane, and
the Michigan Asylum. OF al insane men
and women received into these institutions,
whose supposed cause Of insanity could be
traced to disappointed affections, u were
women, and 81 were men. These figures
are taken from an excess of 454 male over
female inmates. Now, the figures, as we
gather them from asylum reports, show that
women are no more prone to insanity than
men. It is natural to conclude that speci-
&c cause leading to insanity in ne sex over
the other exists with greater force in one
than "a the other, and not that one sex is
| less able to bear the operation of the speci-
| &c cause.
There are many well-known facts in
physiology, some Of them brought out with
remarkable force during the employment of
anaesthetics, other facts obtained from
state of organic disease, and others from
functional arrangements which tend to
prove the sexual origin Of love, but which
would be out of place in paper of this
character. But there is really no doubt
expressed BY modern writers on physiolo-
nv or Psychology that this emotion is due to
| a sexual origin. Proof, such as l have ad
vanced, becomes necessary from the popu-
lar scope Of this paper. and that l have
grouped series of mental acts, and ap-
piled to them the name Of sexual cerebra-
ton.
offer, in conclusion, some general facts
l l~E- E.,~l al
| in the mental operations of MEN and women.
NJ. Quetelet has shown that the propensity
| to crime existing in q mass Of people bears
a mathematical ratio, both as to its degree
and the sex OF the perpetrators, to the total
of population year by year. The certainty
| of this ratio is the result Of law, which has
its origin in the forces phich cement togeth-
er mass Of men under the name Of society
Now, the fixed ratio existing between men
and women Of the same community, as to
tie nature and extent Of the commission OF
crime, must be the product Of the mental
and ph, steal peculiarities Of sex. Thus,
the author shows that the propensity to
crime 10 aboat four times s. great - In wo.
men, in France. Now, while this holds
a to crime in particular. In poison
|
while in murder the difference falls to il
100. II we define the propensity to crime
by the enormity Of the o6ense, We fnd tn,
ratio Of NJ. Quetelet reduced just one half
as the crime Of parricide gives the ratio o
so to 100 Contrasting with this last or
fence the wounding Of parents, the ratio
falls to %. As the fact 81 wound involves
; the necessity Of personal encounter, ",
perceive that women instiactively-if ma,
use the word-shrink from this; therefore
in estimating the means By which the par
ricides, 80 greatly exceeding the ratio o
other murders, were accomplished, it II ev
iient that some method peculiar to wome1
entered largely into the crime. Next, tax
: ing into consideration Two crimes, which
!. may, inferrential.y, be attributed largely
!, to the motive Of revenge in both sexes, v,
End for that Of incendiarism ratio Of 81
: and for that Of assassination ratio o. blu
: " in 100 From this it il evident that III
propensity to crime and the degree to whicl
. women recoil from publicity in its execution
are widely different matters, and are trait
which distinguish women from men in tn
perpetration Of crime. So marked is thi
!, trait that the author. in anything crime i
! general with reference to sex, says tba
a
cording to the necessity Of the creates
!, publicity before the crime can be perpetra'
ed" There are other facts to be reache
: ia this direction showing the extent I
:. which women's criminal acts are affected b
: sexual peculiarities- In the two great d
visions Of crime, that against persons an
: that against property, We find that the &c,
!, e are engaged in almost constant rati
i This il fixed for series Of years for Ii
! FIRST class Of crimes - DIG, and for the Sc
! ond at O.26. In connection with this is
: fact, which reiterates itself with the fort
= Of law. It il found that the proportion
|. Of the sexes engaged in the crimes again
A persons and property represent very nearl
I. the same ratio as that Of the strength Of Il
!, two sexes, 16 to %. The law which col
trols the commission Of crime by the sex
ne evidently cannot Be reduced TO the formu
h Of difference in the propensity to Grin
Il dependent upon the relative morality
- men and women, but il governed By ment
= and physical sexual peculisrities. All the
!. figures relate to four years previous to 1S1