SEXUAL COMPLEXITY
Introduction:
All thought begins with conceptions to a certain extent generalised, and
thence is developed in two directions.
On the one hand, generalisations become wider and wider, binding together by
common properties a larger and larger number of phenomena, and so embracing a
wider field of the world of facts.
On the other hand, thought approaches more closely the meeting- point of all
conceptions, the individual, the concrete complex unit towards which we
approach only by thinking in an ever- narrowing circle, and by continually
being able to add new specific and differentiating attributes to the general
idea, "thing," or "something."
It was known that fishes formed a class of the animal kingdom distinct from
mammals, birds, or invertebrates, long before it was recognised on the one hand
that fishes might be bony or cartilaginous, or on the other that fishes, birds and
mammals composed a group differing from the invertebrates by many common
characters.
The self-assertion of the mind over the world of facts in all its complexity
of innumerable resemblances and differences has been compared with the rule of
the struggle for existence among living beings.
Our conceptions stand between us and reality. It is only step by step that we can
control them.
As in the case of a madman, we may first have to throw a net over the whole body
so that some limit may be set to his struggles; and only after the whole has been thus
secured, is it possible to attend to the proper restraint of each limb.
Two general conceptions have come down to us from primitive mankind, and from
the earliest times have held our mental processes in their leash.
Many a time these conceptions have undergone trivial corrections; they have been
sent to the workshop and patched in head and limbs; they have been lopped and
added to, expanded here, contracted there, as when new needs pierce through and
through an old law of suffrage, bursting bond after bond.
None the less, in spite of all amendment and alteration, we have still to reckon with
the primitive conceptions, male and female.
It is true that among those we call women are some who are meagre,
narrow-hipped, angular, muscular, energetic, highly mentalised; there are
"women" with short hair and deep voices, just as there are "men" who are
beardless and gossiping.
We know, in fact, that there are unwomanly women, man-like women, and unmanly,
womanish, woman-like men.
We assign sex to human beings from their birth on one character only, and so come
to add contradictory ideas to our conceptions.
Such a course is illogical.In private conversation or in society, in scientific or general
meetings, we have all taken part in frothy discussions on "Man and Woman," or on
the "Emancipation of Women."
There is a pitiful monotony in the fashion according to which, on such occasions,
"men" and "women" have been treated as if, like red and white balls, they were alike
in all respects save colour. In no case has the discussion been confined to an
individual case, and as every one had different individuals in their mind, a real
agreement was impossible.
As people meant differing things by the same words, there was a complete
disharmony between language and ideas. Is it really the case that all women
and men are marked off sharply from each other, the women, on the one hand,
alike in all points, the men on the other?
It is certainly the case that all previous treatment of the sexual differences, perhaps
unconsciously, has implied this view. And yet nowhere else in nature is there such a
yawning discontinuity.
There are transitional forms between the metals and non-metals, between chemical
combinations and mixtures, between animals and plants, between phanerogams
and cryptogams, and between reptiles and birds.
It is only in obedience to the most general, practical demand for a superficial view
that we classify, make sharp divisions, pick out a single tune from the continuous
melody of nature.
But the old conceptions of the mind, like the customs of primitive commerce,
become foolish in a new age.
From the analogies I have given, the improbability may henceforward be taken for
granted of finding in nature a sharp cleavage between all that is masculine on the
one side and all that is feminine on the other; or that a living being is so simple in this
respect that it can be put wholly on one side or the other of the line.
Matters are not so clear.
In the controversy as to the woman question, appeal has been made to the
arbitration of anatomy, in the hope that by that aid a line could be drawn
between those characters of males or females that are unalterable because
inborn, and those that are acquired. (It was a strange adventure to attempt to
decide the differences between the natural endowment of men and women on
anatomical results; to suppose that if all other investigation failed to
establish the difference, the matter could be settled by a few more grains of
brain-weight on the one side.)
However, the answer of the anatomists is clear enough; whether it refer to the brain
or to any other portion of the body; absolute sexual distinctions between all men on
the one side and all women on the other do not exist.
Although the skeleton of the hand of most men is different from that of most women,
yet the sex cannot be determined with certainty either from the skeleton or from an
isolated part with its muscles, tendons, skin, blood and nerves. The same is true of
the chest, sacrum or skull.
And what are we to say of the pelvis, that part of the skeleton in which, if anywhere,
striking sexual differences exist? It is almost universally believed that in the one
case the pelvis is adapted for the act of parturition, in the other case is not so
adapted.
And yet the character of the pelvis cannot be taken as an absolute criterion of sex.
There are to be found, and the wayfarer knows this as well as the anatomist, many
women with narrow male-like pelves, and many men with the broad pelves of
women.
Are we then to make nothing of sexual differences? That would imply, almost, that
we could not distinguish between men and women.
From what quarter are we to seek help in our problem?
The old doctrine is insufficient, and yet we cannot make shift without it.
If the received ideas do not suffice, it must be our task to seek out new and better
guides.
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