The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1914-05-31
Ky MARY AUSTIN.
many people have got into a
way of thinking that to speak
- Of sex experience Is to mean

why l shouldnt--that / have always
found 1t 50; and wish more than any
thing else to show you how 1t derives
It's Importance In our lives from this
quality of It's preciousness, and not from
the effect Of disturbing any other set
Of behaviors we may have agreed
upon as moral.
II seems worth while, then. to draw
away from the ruck OF dlsassocia ted
behaviors and define the features Of our
common life which take their rise in
the sex propensity and are yet not
commonly attributable to II, and to un-
dertake to organize classification, II
no more than Best and Not Best,
and to establish "A criterion OF knowing
when we are getting II.
1t is important TO remember In this
connection that II isn't necessary in
order to be contributory for a sex en-
counter to be dramatic. 1t Is not so
much It's range as the content and
continuity with other frames OF be-
havior that constitute It's value. There
Is probably not much difference between
the temperament of the courtesan and
any woman Of wide sympathies.
We have to begin, then, with love as
n matter OF IdCt anu not dItOBttHtE VI
opinion. as a force immensely and vari-
ously operative in the individual, but
tracing definite pattern on the field
Of human history. What love has been
we can reasonably know; the guessing
begins when we try to figure out where
II means to land us. Where II hasn't Is
on the once entertained proposition that
love life exists solely for and by its re-
productive values. 1t Is in fact a mod
ern notion, as modern as Christianity.
that sex is bailed out of the limbo OF
indecency by being computed in terms
OF children.
1t is no doubt the vigor Of the recoil
from the hy-product of our burgeonlng
love life which leads us to seek a figure
Of RIGHTEOUSNESS in the brute. since there
Is no other ground for II. over and
above the evidence of a mating season
among primitive people-and the limits
OF q permissible primitlveness from
which we may draw are to be defined
later-conspicuously among the tribes
in a healthy state Of growth Is polyg-
amy infrequent, adultery rare and
prostitution practically unknown, ex-
cept-
1t Is the exception that establishes
the use OF sex over and above the
preservation of the species on a plane
with our highest human activities. SO
far as surviving conditions serve to
show 1t the initial sex excess was social,
public and periodic, indissolubly ASSOC
ciated with those enterprises which
human society seeks most to preserve.
Not the scientists. not even Mr.. Darwin,
though he tried by deriving one from
the other. can discover the threeplicd
root Of sex and art and religion.
And If you make a point Of what I
admit, that there are no primltives
known, there is still primitiveness, and
the evidence surviving in things as in
considerable as the shape of a papal hat
and the most cherished of our symbols
to point the attention back to the time
when the earliest extra use of sex wax
worshipful.
| know Of no way to deal with mate
love except as a fact, a force by itself,
which perhaps demands mind for its
displaying ground: which seizes on
mind as the electric fluid seizes on its
machine. 1t produces in us such re-
suits as our mechanism admits Of AZ
such force II may be studied. its direc-
tons noted. its reactions collated. its
values measured. l doubt indeed II it
be truth to say we love at all. Loving
goes on in us.
1t needs be said, however and EN-.
phasized, that the psychic reactions of
mate love are by no means substitutes
for physical passion, but the very root
and stock Of IT,. There Is "A great deal
passing about faith and chivalry AMI
service as though they We're a super
normal sort Of wares and the poets had
Invented them. one needs only to hav,
seen the wild stallion trumpet up his
mares out Of the wet gullles, or the She
wolf leave the prey, trotting nose to
flank of her captious lord, to realize
that they are exactly as supernormal
as the branch Is to the trunk.
The effort Of early Christianity to
eradicate passion by denying its per-
Thence to life has got us into much
difficulty on this point, but not so much
as comes OF the disassoclation Of root
and branch through the natural clrcum-
stance of the remoteness Of the physical
reaction in women and its immedlacy
in man.
The tradition of love as n more spirit
ualized product of feminnity arises
largely In the fact of the woman first
becoming aware of 1t through the psy-
chic reactions It sets up. unconnectcd
with any physical intimation which she
has been taught to recognize know
Of no misunderstanding so mlschlevous
as this disassoclation OF source and re-
action which induces women to deny
the existence Of passion when they have
only deferred its crisis. 1t leads to the
neglect of a most important element In
the choosing of a mate, and an affected
disinclination to the act by which the
divine inundat ton may come.