I am very sceptical when it comes to drawing a clear line of cleavage between what is typically masculine and what is typically feminine in behavior, and I believe that many of the so-called fundamental differences between the sexes are artificial and temporary ones due to the economic and social pressure which woman has to bear. Even in the valuation of virginity, it is difficult to say that there is a masculine attitude and a feminine attitude. Broadly speaking, we might state however that women, the world over, are more indifferent to the prematrimonial past of their future husbands than men are to the purity of their brides.
Men Experienced in Matters of Love wield a definite attraction over all women, whether the latter are willing to admit it or not.
This is not due to any especially feminine trait but rather to the difficulties which women encounter when they endeavor to secure positive information[Pg 113] on tabooed sexual topics. They expect, therefore, their initiators to be conversant with the subject which is kept carefully shrouded in morbid mystery.
The majority of men, on the other hand, when marrying a woman who is neither a widow nor a divorcée, expect her to be absolutely pure, that is, not to have had any sexual relations with any other man.
Ethical Prostitution. In certain parts of the world, on the other hand, males appear rather indifferent to the female's past. In some parts of Japan and among certain Arab tribes, comely girls may go to larger centers of the population and devote themselves for a period of years to prostitution. After which, they return to their native place sometimes with a dowry they have accumulated thriftily, find a husband and settle down as wives and mothers, in no way disqualified by their promiscuous past. In certain parts of Central Europe, "window courting," as it is sometimes called, leads to unofficial trial marriages which do not arouse the jealousy of the final winner of a girl's favours.
Among the Western nations, it is rather the very young, the stupidly conservative, the unsophisti[Pg 114]cated and the senile, who consider virginity as a great attraction and in some cases as a powerful sexual stimulant.
The reasons for that are to be sought in the egotistical component of the masculine attitude. The strong and powerful male who has frequently proved his virility is not obsessed by the fear of defeat in love's intimacies.
The innocent young man, on the other hand, who is full of misgivings and of diffidence, the elderly man whose sexual powers are on the wane and who is no longer sure of himself, prefer a woman who is totally ignorant of physical love. Their embarrassment or their shortcomings may escape a virgin but would not escape a woman of the world, a widow or a divorcée.
There is, therefore, in the search for virginity, a slightly neurotic factor, the fear of defeat, the line of least effort, the search for ego safety.
It must be noticed that it was during the great neurotic ages, the Middle Ages, which witnessed the bursting forth of so many hysterical epidemics, that both the cult of the Virgin and the belief in witches spread over Europe.
The Fear of Woman. Man has always tried to protect himself against woman. In his fear of sex[Pg 115] equality he has either made her an angel or a beast. The witch, perverse and filthy, was lowered to the level of hell. The virgin, on the other hand, unsexed and raised to heaven, was removed far enough from the world for perfect safety.
The Will-to-Be-the-First. In the overemphasis placed by certain men upon virginity in the woman, and in the anxiety shown by certain husbands at the thought that their wife may have had sexual relations with another man previous to her marriage, we see the operation of the neurotic trait which Adler has called "the will-to-be-the-first" and which manifests itself, not only in the love life, but in all of life's situations.
The neurotic of that type, obsessed with a feeling of inferiority is tortured by the thought that he may not have been the first to caress his wife. Analysis proves that in early childhood, he had a tendency (observable in certain breeds of dogs) to try to outrun every waggon, horse, train, etc.; that in later life he always tries to walk ahead when in company and hastens his steps whenever anyone threatens to pass him on the street. That type is given to hero worship, as he likes to identify himself with his favorite hero, C?sar, Napoleon, etc. States of[Pg 116] anxiety develop whenever his preeminence in society or business is threatened.
Telegony. In the search for virginity there may also be in the male an unconscious "intuition" of some scientific facts. The phenomenon of telegony, explained by Dr. Jules Goldschmidt, of Paris, in the Medical Review of Reviews for April 1921, would, if confirmed by careful observations, throw a new light on the meaning of virginity.
The first male, Goldsmith states, leaves an indelible impress on the female he possesses. Goldsmith believes that sperm plays a twofold part in the female organism that receives it. It not only fecundates the egg but modifies the blood of the female. He cannot believe that Nature would waste millions of spermatozoa in order that one of them should reach the egg. The millions of spermatozoa which are not needed for purposes of fecundation are absorbed, he thinks, by the mucous tissues of the woman's genitals and make her gradually more and more like her ma............