The Nature of Man: Studies in Optimistic Philosophy

* It would be interesting to find out whether or no Hindoo or Chinese virgins suffer from chloran^mia ; at present we have no information on this matter. the hypothesis it may be mentioned that amongst certain Ihing races sexual union begins at a very early age. In Ceylon, marriage takes place when the boys are from seven to ten years old and when the girls are from four to six years, according to Roer, or about eight years according to Beierlein. After the actual wedding ceremony the bride returns to the house of her parents, and it is only a few years later, when she is adult, that she goes to her husband. Roer states that he has seen cases where a father and son were attending school together.

Among the Vedas, a low caste of tropical India, boys marry at the age of from fifteen to sixteen years, certainly before the sexual organs have attained their full dimensions. The missionary Etern was stiu:k with the agitation of the natives of Keradif (in Abyssinia) when they were ordered within fourteen days to marry all their boys more than fourteen years old to girls more than nine.* In Mada- gascar, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, it was the custom for boys to marry at an age of from ten to twelve years. The natives of German New Guinea many their boys at the age of fourteen to fifteen. Even in England a law still exists permitting marriage to boys fourteen years old. The law is now a dead letter, but is evidence of the ancient practice.

It is known that even at the present time the hymen is not always ruptured in sexual congress. Budin has recorded its existence in seventeen per cent, of primiparous women. Among seventy-five cases of women in their first confinements he found the hymen intact in thirteen cases. Since pro- vision for children has fallen on fathers these have taken to deferring marriage to a later age than when children were left to the mother. That is the probable reason why * Ploss-Bartels, he. cit. p. 622.

there are now fewer married boys. Thus, formerly, the proportion of women who at the first childbirth still pos- sessed unruptured hymens, was much greater, and it is not difficult to suppose that in still earlier times such a condition was normal. It is plain that there is here an instance of a very recently acquired disharmony. The homology between certain portions of the male and female reproductive apparatus is well known. The male homologue of the female hymen is a little fold that hinders the mingling of urine with the seminal fluid during emis- sion, and that is known to anatomists as the caput gallina- ginis or cotticulus seminalis. It is very much smaller than the hymen, so that we cannot regard the latter as a rudi- mentary homologue of a useful organ. However, the pre- puce of the male is a clear instance of the presence in the male organs of useless parts. It is removed by circumcision among very many races, such as the Hebrews and Arabs, and other Mahomedans, and amongst Persians, negroes, Hindus, Tartars, and its absence seems to bring about no inconvenience.

Evolution and significance of the menstrual flow in women. — Precocious marriage among primitive and uncivilised races. — Disharmony between age of puberty and age of nubility. — Age of marriage. — Examples of disharmony in the development of the reproductive function. Notwithstanding their imperfections, the human organs of reproduction are able to fulfil their functions. A close scrutiny, however, shows that there are many sides on which they are disharmonious or badly adapted.

Bleeding from the nose or of the lungs or intestines or kidneys is an indication of disease more or less serious. Discharge of blood from the female reproductive organs may also be an indication of disease, as for instance when due to tumours of the uterus. The only exception to the rule is the periodic flow in the case of women, by which they lose hundreds of grammes of blood (100 to 600 gr.). There is something paradoxical in such a physiological occurrence, and it deserves minute consideration.

These periodic losses, unlike the possession of a hymen, are not a peculiarity of the human female. " Heat " in lower animals is analogous, although in that case the chief indications are swellings of the mucous membrane with a slight discharge of fluid, hardly tinged with blood. The state indicates the awakening of the sexual instinct and readiness for coition.* Among monkeys there has been observed a flow much more closely resembling that of woman. In the case of macaques and cercopitheci, it has been observed even that the flow is monthly. Heape,t while in British India, took advantage of a valuable opportunity for making observations on this subject.

Among two hundred and thirty females of Macacus rhesus of which the greater number were adult or nearly so, seven- teen displayed signs of menstruation, consisting of a swelling of the genitalia accompanied by the discharge of a pale and viscid fluid. Usually the flow assumed a pale rose tint, due to the presence in it of blood corpuscles, but cases where it was highly coloured were rare. flows of women, these occurrences in monkeys are distin- guished by the predominance of the swelling of the genitalia, the viscid character of the discharge, and the relative absence of blood. They present a condition intermediate between the " heat " of lower animals and the human phenomena.

In anthropoid apes a similar menstruation has been observed. Bolau, Ehlers, and Hermes, record it in the case of the chimpanzee. " At this period," wrote Hartmann,* " swelling and reddening of the genitalia occurred. The labile majores, which are usually inconspicuous, enlarged greatly, and a similar increase took place in the labiae minores and the clitoris." In the case of women swelling of the genitalia is very slightly marked, and the chief occurrence is the flow of blood. It is plain, then, that something new has been acquired in the menstruation of women.

The condition of the flow at the present time is probably the result of modifications acquired recently in the history of the race. Among primitive peoples sexual union occurred at a very early age, and pregnancy occurred before menstrua- tion. The latter did not appear during pregnancy nor in the time of suckling, and probably the latter was hardly over before a new pregnancy had occurred. In that way there was no opportunity for the onset of menstruation.

The human capacity for procreation throughout the year made the race extremely prolific. Probably this prolificness is the reason why man has spread over the surface of the earth, and has multiplied so enormously, in spite of the barriers to his progress and the high rate of mortality to which he is subjected. * " Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft fur Anthropologie," p. 88, 1876. Instances are known from recent observation of preg- nancies occurring before the onset of menstruation. Accord- ing to Rhode, among the Guatos, Indians inhabiting the mouth of the Rio Sao Lourenzo in Paraguay, married women not more than five to eight years of age are to be met with, and these must have married before menstruation. Among the Vedas of tropical India, girls marry before they are nine years of age, and have relations with their husbands before sexual maturity. In Chiras in Persia, girls marry be .ore puberty, and while their chests are still flat. In Syria, according to Robson, girls marry at the age of ten, and so before puberty. Du Chaillu related that the Achira of West Africa did not defer marriage until after the appear- ance of puberty. Abbadie, while on his voyage in Nubia, found that men bought young girls and had sexual relations with them before the time of menstruation. Among the Atj eh of Sumatra, girls marry at an age certainly before that of puberty, as they have hardly lost their first set of teeth. Although the husbands are a few years older, they are still unfitted for sexual union. The couples sleep together, and attempt sexual union before they are fitted for it. Among the islanders of Viti, again, marriage takes place before puberty.

The ancient Hindoos married at a very early age. Bot- lingk quotes from the Sanscrit poems in which hell was awarded to the fathers of girls who had not been married when puberty came on. In other verses it was written that not only the father but also the mother and the elder brother were to be carried down into hell if the daughter began to menstruate before she had been married ; the girl herself was to descend to the lowest degree of (Judra, an(j was never to be taken as a wife.

contracted at these early ages. Polak * gives examples taken from Persia. It is not necessary for impregnation that it should have been preceded by a menstrual flow. Facts making this clear have occurred not only in warm climates but in our own latitude. Rakhmanoff,"}" in Russia, attended in childbirth a woman not more than fourteen years of age, of poor constitution, and badly nourished, and with features still infantine. Menstruation had not yet taken place ; the confinement was normal.

It is reasonable to suppose that in former times these early marriages of girls under the age of puberty were more common, if indeed they were not customary. In such cir- cumstances menstruation would have been a rare pheno- menon. It must be remembered that the examples of menstruation observed in the case of monkeys were taken from creatures living in abnormal conditions, isolated in zoological gardens and passing their lives in captivity. It is highly probable that the periods as they exist to-day, with copious sanguineous discharge, are a recent acquisition of the human race.

As he emerged from the primitive condition man had to restrain his prolificness. The history of savages and of civilisations shows that progress and culture have been accompanied by a rise in the age for marriage. In this way the menstrual periods could develop without check, and attain the present condition. In these circumstances it is not wonderful that menstruation should appear so abnormal and even pathological. A copious discharge of blood, pre- ceded and accompanied by pain and by nervous and mental distress as so frequently happens, has no apparent kinship with the processes of normal life.

It is now easy to see why among so many races there are special rules made for women during this period. Most of the races of the earth, says Ploss, regard menstruating women as impure. The occurrence is so widespread that it is unnecessary to adduce particular cases, but a few with some point of special interest may be noticed. Thus, among the Hindoos a high-caste woman is regarded as a pariah in the first day of the period, and as one of the murderers of Buddha on the second day. Among many races a woman in this condition is forbidden to come near men, or to touch a number of objects, as she is regarded as capable of setting up many diseases and of doing serious damage. The Germans of the eighteenth century believed that the hair of a men- struating woman buried in manure would engender snakes.

It is not surprising that the origin of menstruation has been attributed frequently to evil spirits. The Iranians held that it appeared first in Dchahi, the goddess of immorality.* Such opinions implied vaguely that there was something abnormal in the process. The history of the evolution of menstruation explains well the origin of such a notion. Another bizarre and apparently abnormal feature of the reproductive processes receives explanation in the history of its evolution. The feature in question is the painfulness of childbirth. It is truly astonishing and singular to f.nd a phenomenon essentially normal from the point of view of physiology accompanied by pain of so marked a cha- racter. No doubt other animals suffer during labour, but among the mammalia woman undergoes the severest pain.

opinion that of two cases of a first childbirth at the ages respectively of fifteen and of forty years, he would prefer the earlier age. The daughters of the colonists in the Antilles were accustomed to marry at very early ages. In 1667 Du Tertre related that a young woman of that region had informed him that the birth of her first child took place when she was twelve years and a half of age, and that the process lasted no more than a quarter of an hour and had been painless. The missionary Beierlein practised for long in Madras, where marriages were very early, and found that parturition was much more easy than in Europe. *

On the other hand, certain facts show that too young mothers are subject to a very heavy rate of mortality during childbirth, and soon after it. The most salient fact in this connection is furnished by Hassenstein, who has stated that the mortality of labour cases in Abyssinia is 30 per cent., and who has attributed this death-rate to the circumstance that marriage takes place before the body of the woman is sufficiently developed. f In British India the disadvan- tages of precocious marriage have been repeatedly urged ; and in a petition relating to this subject, Dr. Mansell referred to the case of a woman of twelve years of age in whom parturition was interfered with by the undeveloped con- dition of the pelvis, so that the head of the child had to be destroyed.

Matthews Duncan, the well-known English obstetrician, paid much attention to the mortality of labour cases, with the object of deciding the best age for marriage. He came to the conclusion that women from twenty to twenty-four years of age were best fitted for labour, that is to say, showed the lowest rate of mortality during labour or as a result of labour. He also showed that such women were most fertile, and that the development of the pelvic bones was completed at that period of life. Women who were of a lower or higher age showed a greater mortality rate in connection with childbirth.

The facts of which I have just given a summary lead directly to a most striking instance of disharmony exhibited in the order of the development of the human reproductive apparatus. Puberty declares itself in a woman by the beginning of menstruation at a time when girls still possess infantile characters and when the bones of the pelvic basin are not yet fully developed. Obviously there is a dishar- mony between puberty and the general maturity of the body, that is to say, the nubile condition.

This disharmony becomes still more evident upon a closer examination of the phases of development of the different reproductive functions. In the human race, reproduction is brought about by the union of the sexes suggested by sympathy or mutual love. The sexual union makes it possible for the male elements or spermatozoa to reach the eggs and fertilise them by passing into them. It might have been expected that the different steps in the process would have been attuned so as to act in harmony. As a matter of fact there is no such relation. The different factors of the sexual function develop independently and unharmoniously.

Love and the sexual sense in the human race appear before the other factors in the process. Ramdohr,* in the eighteenth century, stated that little boys frequently exhibit amorousness towards women. They are capable of being strongly affected by jealousy and by desire of exclusive possession of the coveted woman. This fact is well known, and has been related of famous personages. Thus Dante, * " Venus Urania," Leipzig, 1798. at the age of nine, fell in love with Beatrice ; Canova was in love when he was little more than six years of age, and Lord Byron was in love with Mary Duff at the age of seven.*

Sexual excitability appears at an age when there is no question but that the sexual elements are undeveloped. In infants still in the crad e, observers have noticed movements and attitudes showing the presence of sexual excitability. Curschmann and Fiirbringer,f both competent clinicians, have noticed these feelings in children under the age of five. Later on in life, the development of the sensibility is more common, and is practically universal among boys before the time at which the spermatozoa are ripe.

This disharmony is the cause of onanism, which is common everywhere among boys. Before ordinary sexual congress is possible for them, boys experience the characteristic pleasure of the sexual sensations, and by a kind of natural instinct learn self-gratification. Onanism is sometimes defined as a " gratification of the sexual desire by unnatural means." J But it is man's constitution itself that permits the development of the sensation precociously, before the development of sexual maturity. Letourneau is right when he says that such sexual aberrations are abnormal, but not unnatural, as they occur among animals.

In the case of young boys the habit is so common that, according to Christian, § " very few are able to say that they have avoided it completely." The same writer asks the question : " If it be remembered that onanism among certain peoples, at certain times, has been recognised as an ordinary event, it is difficult to avoid asking if there be not a latent vice, hidden in the depths of human nature, and ready to be provoked into activity by very small causes ? " The answer is sufficiently plain. The cause of onanism, this " vice " or " crime," as Tissot and other authors have called it, undoubtedly is the result of a natural disharmony in the human constitution, of a premature development of sexual sensation. Among the most civilised races and the lowest savages the mode of satisfying the premature demand is equally common.

It is to be noticed that onanism is more common and earlier developed in the male sex. The development of sexual irritability in the female occurs very irregularly. In some races onanism is so much a custom among little girls that no attempt is made to conceal the practice. This occurs, for instance, among certain Hottentot tribes, and is referred to openly in talk and legends.* Similar instances occur elsewhere, but in most races the practice is thought wrong, and is concealed as much as possible.

Among girls,t onanism is less frequent than in the case of boys, a circumstance in relation with the fact that sexual sensation usually appears much later in the female sex. It is almost a general rule that girls who have arrived at sexual maturity have not acquired sexual irritability, while to many it comes only gradually after marriage. Sometimes it does not occur until after the first child has been born. On the other hand, love begins very early in young girls, although it long retains a platonic character and is not associated with sexual sensation until much later.

f Information that I have obtained from the Zoological Gardens at Anvers would seem to show the existence of similar differences between the sexes in the case of monkeys. The maturity of the spermatozoa in the male comes long after the development of sexual irritability and of love. None the less, it comes before the organism of the male is actually ready. It happens, in consequence, especially among the highly civilised peoples, that marriage and regular unions are impossible at the right time. The youth has his education to finish, his profession to choose, and he must be ready to support children before he is able to marry. As civilisation advances, the age of marriage becomes later and later. In the case of Europeans, sexual maturity occurs in the male at the age of twelve to fourteen years, while the average age at the first marriage is shown in the following table :—

These figures show clearly what a gap there is between the coming of sexual maturity and the age at which marriage can be undertaken. The decay of the reproductive functions shows a series of disharmonies similar to those that occur during develop- ment. Spermatozoa continue to be formed throughout the greater part of the life of a man, and may still be found even in very old men. Pawloff, for instance, discovered that they were present in abundance in the case of a man at the age of ninety-four, and this observation is not unique. f