CHAPTER IX 



SEX AND SOCIAL RELATIONS 



IN the social relations between the two sexes there 

 is much to be criticized from a philosophical stand- 

 point, and much room for improvement in the 

 direction of greater considerateness, sincerity, and 

 naturalness. In primitive communities the relations 

 between male and female are apt to be free, and this 

 freedom too often degenerates into license and the 

 evils attendant on sexual immorality. These evils 

 have so impressed some of the hardier and more 

 self-controlled races as to lead them to make and 

 enforce severe laws against illicit sexual relations, as 

 in the case of the ancient Teutons. In all times 

 women have been prized in large degree as a means of 

 gratifying sexual impulses in men, and among many 

 races they have been scorned as companions, and 

 allowed little opportunity for personal development. 

 Under such conditions there has always been a 

 tendency to guard women jealously. This tendency 

 is well marked to-day among Mohammedans and 

 among the Spanish, but it exists, in some degree, 

 among all European nations. Whenever girls and 

 women are jealously watched and shut off from free 

 communication with men, the precautions are trace- 



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