stated as if the objection to force and domination in love constituted some quite new and revolutionary demand of the “modern woman.”  That is, it need scarcely be said, the result of ignorance.  The art of love, being an art that Nature makes, is the same now as in essentials it has always been,[407] and it was well established before woman came into existence.  That it has not always been very skilfully played is another matter.  And, so far as the man is concerned, it is this very tradition of masculine predominance which has contributed to the difficulty of playing it skilfully.  The woman admires the male’s force; she even wishes herself to be forced to the things that she altogether desires; and yet she revolts from any exertion of force outside that narrow circle, either before the boundary of it is reached or after the boundary is passed.  Thus the man’s position is really more difficult than the women who complain of his awkwardness in love are always ready to admit.  He must cultivate force, not only in the world but even for display in the erotic field; he must be able to divine the moments when, in love, force is no longer force because his own will is his partner’s will; he must, at the same time, hold himself in complete restraint lest he should fall into the fatal error of yielding to his own impulse of domination; and all this at the very moment when his emotions are least under control.  We need scarcely be surprised that of the myriads who embark on the sea of love, so few women, so very few men, come safely into port.

It may still seem to some that in dwelling on the laws that guide the erotic life, if that life is to be healthy and complete, we have wandered away from the consideration of the sexual instinct in its relationship to society.  It may therefore be desirable to return to first principles and to point out that we are still clinging to the fundamental facts of the personal and social life.  Marriage, as we have seen reason to believe, is a great social institution; procreation, which is, on the public side, its supreme function, is a great social end.  But marriage and procreation are both based on the erotic life.  If the erotic life is not sound, then marriage is broken up, practically if not always formally, and the process of procreation is carried out under unfavorable conditions or not at all.

This social and personal importance of the erotic life, though, under the influence of a false morality and an equally false modesty, it has sometimes been allowed to fall into the background in stages of artificial civilization, has always been clearly realized by those peoples who have vitally grasped the relationships of life.  Among most uncivilized races there appear to be few or no “sexually frigid” women.  It is little to the credit of our own “civilization” that it should be possible for physicians to-day to assert, even with the faintest plausibility, that there are some 25 per cent. of women who may thus be described.