THE LAWS OF SOCIAL ATTRACTION 355 



and yet some of his characters are female. If every man was a pure 

 man and every woman a pure woman any man would be attracted by 

 and suitable for any woman. There would be no basis for individual 

 preference, because the qualities and impulses demanded would be 

 found in any individual of the opposite sex. There would thus be no 

 law of individual attraction. But with the intermediate forms — those 

 partly male and partly female — each person likes in his mate the quali- 

 ties he has not. Where he is male he demands female qualities in his 

 mate, and where he is female he is attracted by a woman who in these 

 respects has male qualities. A womanly man prefers a masculine 

 woman and she in turn would be attracted by him because each finds 

 qualities in the other that they do not possess. If the positive sign 

 (-(-) he made to represent masculine characters and the negative ( — ) 

 the womanly qualities then each fitting couple would have in the one 

 a plus quality where the other had a minus quantity. Weininger states 

 his law as follows : " For any true sexual union it is necessary that 

 there come together a complete male (M.) and a complete female (F.) 

 even although in different cases the M. and F. are distributed in dif- 

 ferent proportions." The truly male part of a man and the truly 

 male part of his affinity will thus make an ideal man, while the truly 

 female parts of the two make an ideal woman. Each wife should 

 possess that amount of maleness that her husband lacks and he should 

 be female to the degree and at those points where she is male. Where 

 two people are male and female in the same qualities there will be 

 sexual aversion with no inclination to mate. 



The interest in this doctrine is increased by the application its 

 author makes of it to the problem of woman's emancipation. The 

 pure woman, he contends, does not want independence and equality 

 with men. She is dominantly sexual and cares little for what is really 

 foreign to her nature as a woman. It is the sexually intermediate 

 forms that desire emancipation. To the degree that a woman has in- 

 herited qualities that are male she will have a deep-seated craving t<? 

 acquire man's character and to have his freedom and ability. All sue 

 cessful women show the dominance of male characters. George Eliot, 

 he tells us, had a broad massive forehead : her movements, like her ex- 

 pression, were quick and decided and lacked all womanly grace. It is 

 this male element in women that longs for equality. The womanly 

 woman never pays any special attention to art or to science, or if she 

 does it is only as a means of attracting a person of the opposite sex. 

 Women really interested in intellectual matters are sexually inter- 

 mediate forms. The whole woman's movement is thus unnatural and 

 artificial. It creates an undue amount of excitement that ends in 

 hysteria. Any attempt to emancipate all women is sure to defeat 

 itself by the artificiality and misery it creates. 



This book is a contribution to the problems discussed, and yet I feel 



