The psychology of marriage / by Walter M. Gallichan.

  • Walter M. Gallichan
Date:
[1917]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The psychology of marriage / by Walter M. Gallichan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    9/202 page 5
    PREFACE There can be no understanding of the deepest problems of human life, no right evaluation of sex love, and true appreciation of the sanctity of marriage, and no sound foundation for private and social sexual morality until a greater number of men and women apprehend the immense sway of the instinct of love in the destiny of mankind. The most massive of all the emotions has been analysed by philosophers and metaphysicians in every age. Art and poetry have revealed the sublimity, the beauty, the ecstasy, and the torment and tragedy of love. Science is teaching us that this passion is more complex, profound, and significant than the greatest poets and thinkers of the past ever divined. For this supreme energy is not solely the stimulus to love between the sexes and to the continuance of the race. It is the source of socialised living, the origin of most moral codes, the basis of altruism, the motor-force of the highest human activities, and the spring of exalted conduct. The psychology of sex is beginning to be recognised as a supremely vital study. Primitive man weaved endless fantasies around the erotic and reproductive mysteries, and most of the dunking in our day is coloured, impeded, and prejudiced by the survivals of barbaric superstition. Fantasy constantly thrusts its ancient symbolism, taboos, and fear into even the more rational and dispassionate minds. We still know infinitely little of the marvels of mind. Our buried, unconscious thought comes startlingly into conflict with our fully conscious perceptions and judgments. The ancient dreads make us doubtful and timid in the contemplation of a stupendous power. A disposition to evade the deeply-perplexing and disturbing questions of sex is still pronounced in certain intellectual types of men and women.
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