Their attitude is well expressed in the following episodes:
Two men met on the street. “Hello, Bob. What’s the matter with you? Why do you look so down in the mouth?” Bob confessed he had just met the girl he had always been looking for: the perfect woman. He raved about her beauty, charm, intelligence, good-nature and understanding, her modesty. And she was wealthy, too. Finally the friend interrupted. “What’s the matter, then?” “Nothing’s wrong but my bad luck. She’s looking for the perfect man!”
Do “perfect” men and women exist? A lecturer once explained that perfection cannot be found, and to demonstrate his statement, he asked his audience whether anyone had ever heard of a perfect woman. No one had. Or of a perfect man? And here a small, thin voice arose. “Yes, sir, I heard of one.” In a comer stood a little fellow, meek and subdued. “So you heard of a perfect man?” the speaker said. “Who was it?” And the voice came back, “My wife’s first husband.”
Perfection never exists in reality but only in our dreams and, if we are foolish enough to think so, in the past. But the notion of perfection is very real and has tremendous power in disparaging whatever is actually at hand.
Desires versus Real Intentions
A very strong desire to marry does not indicate a sincere intention. It is actions that count.
A young girl had, from earliest childhood, daydreamed of her future role as a happy wife and mother. Daydreams usually indicate a situation which is considered unattainable. Confidence leads to action, not to dreams. Why did the girl distrust her matrimonial future? She was deeply discouraged by the unhappy marriage of her parents and had, since childhood, been convinced of woman’s humiliating role in marriage. Her actual opinion, belying her dreams and intentions, was expressed when she warned her best friend against ever marrying. Although she thought her reasons for this advice excellent, she herself definitely intended to marry as soon as possible. Against the counsel of her friends and relatives, she became involved with a young man whom she expected to marry her.
Years passed-the young man showed less and less inclination to marry, and finally left her when she considered herself beyond marriageable age. She never really knew why, among all those who had courted her, she should have stuck to this particular man. Can it be doubted that she, who concealed a tremendous fear of marriage behind vaunted eagerness, had discovered quite early a similar deep-seated aversion to marriage in the young man? One instance finally proved her unconscious tendency to avoid marriage. She could never account for her submission to a sexual relationship with the man just before they parted. She denied any intention of attempting to hold his affection by gratifying his sexual desire. She knew the affair was over. Why then did she relax her moral inhibitions just at the time when nothing could be hoped for any more? It was her “moral suicide.” Now she assumed that she had forfeited her right to marry any decent and suitable man. She had established a new and lasting alibi by her “downfall.” After successful therapy she changed her personal attitudes toward men and marriage and later was happily married.
Opposing Marriage
In addition to those who profess a desire to marry without ever moving in the right direction, there are a great number who openly admit their intention to avoid marriage. Some of them make a virtue of their failure; they decry the whole institution of marriage and regard free love and promiscuity as an expression of a heroic life. Thereby, they turn cowardice into heroism. Some men denounce femininity as the cause of every evil or as something negligible or contemptible. Times when men must strive very hard to maintain their masculine superiority are characterized by a general increase of homosexual tendencies (as in ancient
Greece, when growing democracy demanded feminine equality). Women who want to manifest their superiority as women are also ready for homosexual experiences, comforting each other by describing man as a brutal, insensitive, and boorish animal. Sexual perversions express a desire to avoid “normal” sexual relationships; that is, they indicate flight from the opposite sex.’ In cases where the 4 Perversions, especially homosexuality, are, at present, subjects of controversial scientific discussion. Some attribute them to biological abnormalities; others to a disturbance of sexual energy. Our experience with homosexual patients has proved that, although they are the most recalcitrant to therapy, their perversion is curable if we succeed in changing the patient’s fundamental conception of the masculine and feminine roles. The reluctance of the patient derives from a strong feeling of justification for his retreat is not complete, impotence and frigidity may develop. These do not hinder interest, affection, and even sexual attraction, but make complete union, at least in its physical sense, impossible. 