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Chapter Six
Permissiveness With Affection
THIS IS THE THIRD AND LAST OF THE PERMISSIVE standards in America. It is a much more popular standard than permissiveness without affection, but less popular than the double standard. It is a single standard since it accepts coitus as right for both men and women when a stable affectionate relationship is involved. Strong evidence of this standard can be found in other parts of Western society. In particular, one can point to Sweden as the modern country which has most strongly accepted permissiveness with affection as its standard. Young people are frequently taught that when they are in love, premarital coitus is acceptable.1 The studies in Sweden indicate that a large percentage of premarital sexual intercourse takes place between people engaged or going steady. In short, Swedish behavior seems to closely approximate a person-centered standard like permissiveness with affection. Sweden has a long history of a kind of "bundling" custom among the peasants, that was more liberal than our bundling in that it allowed coitus. When and if the girl became pregnant, the couple would marry. Such a custom has been reported for other European peasants. This custom lasted until the nineteenth century and was the basis for the liberal customs which developed during the urban-industrial revolution in Sweden. Thus, there are special circumstances in Sweden which have encouraged the growth of permissiveness with affection.2 Nevertheless, the evidence from Sweden does indicate that men have more sexual ex-perience than women. Thus, at least some of the person-centered affairs are probably instances of a transitional double standard, which allows men more freedom than women. A few years back I asked a male Swedish student of mine about the sexual standards in his country as compared to our own. This student told me what many Swedish people have said—the American female is much freer with her sexual favors in all respects except intercourse. The Swedish female will not usually indulge in "heavy petting" unless she is seriously affectionately involved and therefore intends to have intercourse; otherwise, she feels, such behavior is far too intimate. The American female pets with much more freedom, and yet she stops short of actual coitus. To this Swedish student, sex in America is too much of a "tease"—too much apart from the rest of life. To the Swede sexual behavior is accepted as a natural part of life, but it is more restricted for people who are seriously involved with one another. In this sense, one might say that although American women are more virginal than the Swedish women, they are still more promiscuous sexually!
FREE LOVE AND TRIAL MARRIAGE
At the outset, this standard should be distinguished from that called "free love." Free love is a doctrine which holds that if two people are in love, they should be allowed to indulge in sexual intercourse. Up to this point, free love is similar to permissiveness with affection, but free love adds something more. Free-love adherents further believe there is no need for the marriage institution; people in love will live with each other, and if they fall out of love or become incompatible, they can leave each other. In the early years of communism, Russia tried free love and later abandoned it. Also, some of the more radical feminists favored free love.3 This is not a part of the permissiveness-with-affection standard. This standard states that two people who have built up a stable affectionate relationship may engage in full sexual relations. Marriage is to continue as is, and no such changes are part of this standard. It is hoped this explanation will prevent the confusion between free love and permissiveness with affection. Almost all believers in permissiveness with affection, to whom I spoke, accept our traditional marriage institution and reject free love.4
Another misconception that should be dispelled immediately is that which connects permissiveness with affection and trial marriage. There is no necessary connection between the two. Trial marriage dictates that two people should live together for a few months before marriage, so as to discern if they are compatible. After the trial period, both people are given an opportunity to refuse to marry. Such a custom is common among some non-literate cultures. However, it should be clear that this is not the same as permissiveness with affection.5 People who accept permissiveness with affection do not usually intend their behavior to be a trial marriage—in many cases, the people concerned are not definitely interested in marriage. Sexual intercourse is viewed as an expression of their feelings for each other and not usually as a test of compatibility.6
THE PLACE OF AFFECTION
Permissiveness with affection is perhaps most clearly distinguished from permissiveness without affection and the double standard by its incorporation of affection as a pre-requisite for sexual intercourse. This standard emphasizes affection. It states that without affection — and not only some affection but strong affection or love—sexual intercourse is incomplete and usually unacceptable. The intimacy of sexual activity varies according to the amount of affection involved, and is not determined solely by one's desire for a particular sexual act.
a) Relation to Permissiveness without Affection. As between any two related standards, there is an area that is difficult to identify. Does one reject all sexual intercourse, other than that which includes strong affection, in order to be classified as an adherent of permissiveness with affection? The answer depends upon which subgroup one belongs to. Some adherents accept intercourse, at times, without affection being present. These people feel that body-centered coitus should be viewed as acceptable but of very small value in comparison with person-centered coitus. They believe in the acceptance of body-centered sexual behavior but only rarely and under special circumstances. To practice such sexual behavior frequently would leave one less time to devote to developing stable, affectionate relations; it would mean sacrificing a greater good for a lesser one.
This group of adherents feels that to rule out body-centered behavior altogether might encourage the very thing opposed, by making it forbidden fruit. Such a stand might well lead to exaggerated importance being placed on body-centered coitus, which in turn might lead to many kinds of psychological guilt and compulsions. Thus, these people prefer to accept such coitus, but stress its relatively small value in comparison with person-centered coitus. Under special conditions, it is believed, there may be very strong reasons for body-centered behavior, e.g., my respondents often mentioned the instance of an unmarried person whose occupation requires constant travel. Such a person is hardly in any town long enough to establish a stable affectionate relationship, and his or her choice is between accepting body-centered coitus or remaining chaste for as long as the job lasts. Body-centered coitus would be acceptable to this subgroup under conditions such as this.7
It should be noted here that a great many of the adherents of permissiveness with affection will not accept body-centered coitus regardless of the relative frequency of such behavior. It is felt that sexual intercourse is too valuable an act to ever, under almost any circumstance, be had in such a casual manner. Both subtypes agree, however, that sexual behavior involving affection is most valuable; therefore, one should focus his sexual relations accordingly. Thus, even the most liberal adherent of permissiveness with affection can be distinguished from the adherent of permissiveness without affection. The adherent of permissiveness without affection minimizes any significant difference, or prefers body-centered coitus and will not focus on person-centered coitus. A few borderline cases may be difficult to discern, but most others will be fairly easy to classify.
b) Other Related Characteristics of This Standard. Other factors besides affection are of importance in this standard. As in permissiveness without affection, cautions against pregnancy and venereal disease are supposed to be taken, and each is supposed to have concern for the reputation and psychological state of the other. Affection alone is not considered justification for a relationship between a man and a woman, if, for example, the woman would have strong guilt feelings or the male refused to use contraception. Unless the couple feel that the total balance of consequences is favorable, the action would not be considered acceptable, regardless of affection. Affection only helps to insure the occurrence of many "favorable" consequences. Although a necessary prerequisite, in and of itself, it is not considered sufficient.
American culture has always been somewhat tolerant of this standard. At least, for people in love, Americans regard coitus with much less disapproval than in other cases. This seems particularly true of the middle and upper classes. Everything else equal, condemnation varies with the amount of affection present. There is evidence to indicate that, in the eighteenth century, premarital intercourse among engaged couples in America was not too uncommon, and the general censor even in those puritanical days was not too harsh.8 Many Americans feel that affection gives a relationship a better chance of yielding desirable consequences.9 Furthermore, such a love relationship does not fully overthrow our older attitudes which held that all sex is bad—it only modifies this belief to read, "most sexual behavior is bad, but some is good."
It should be noted that most of the research evidence for permissiveness with affection comes from the college-educated segments of our culture. The college-educated group also is noted for its small number of permissiveness-without-affec-tion adherents. Thus, it seems that permissiveness with affection is likely stronger at the middle- and/or upper-class levels, while permissiveness without affection is stronger in other parts of our society. Such education levels, at least among males, seem much more strongly predictive of sexual behavior and attitudes than other factors such as religion.10
Person-centered intercourse is entered into because it adds meaning to an existant relationship, and the affectionate bonds between the couple seem to demand such a sexual union. Such people are concerned with each other in a personal-individual sense that is usually not part of the other permissive standards. Of course, they also feel strong physical attraction to one another which forms the initial motivation for sexual intercourse. The physical factor, however, is not overly dominant; if it were, there would be no reason to restrict coitus to stable affectionate relations.11
Some adherents require that an affair be at least aimed at marriage, while others only require it to be a stable, affectionate relationship. In many cases, regardless of intent, the kind of love or the strength of feelings may not be sufficient for a marriage. In other cases, the two people, for financial, age, occupational, esthetic, religious, or other reasons may prefer to remain single. Frequently, it is felt to be better that a particular affair does not end in marriage. It is believed, however, by almost all adherents, that these affectionate relations are good preparation for stable affectionate living in marriage.12
TWO SUBTYPES: LOVE AND STRONG AFFECTION
This standard may be divided into two main subtypes: (1) love—adhered to by those who require love and/or engagement as the affectionate prerequisite for intercourse; (2) strong affection—adhered to by those who accept strong affection as the prerequisite. In terms of subjective feelings, these two types may be very close and may, in some cases, even overlap. In most all cases, however, love will be a more intense feeling than strong affection. A category for medium or weak affection is not included since such degrees of affection characterize relations that are closer to the permissive-ness-without-affection standard.
I will very shortly define in detail what is meant by the terms "love" and "strong affection." For now I am using these terms to refer to stable and well-founded emotional feelings. Persons who, because of youth or lack of emotional maturity, cannot experience these feelings should not, according to this standard, indulge in sexual intercourse. Feelings, such as it was "love at first sight" and "we just met but I know he's wonderful," are not generally accepted bases for a sexual affair under the permissiveness-with-affection standard.
The adherent of the strong-affection subtype is most likely to accept occasional acts of body-centered coitus and place less stress on the need for premarital affairs to be marriage oriented. The adherent of the love subtype is most often opposed to all body-centered coitus and desires person-centered coitus to be aimed at marriage. In my interviews, most of the love subtype adherents were females, and most of the strong-affection adherents were males.
These findings fit in with our cultural background. We expect women to be more strict in their prerequisites for coitus, since they are brought up to be more abstinent than men.12a Furthermore, body-centered coitus is in direct opposition to our older Christian and Puritan views of sex, and it lacks any saving grace such as the presence of love; it is to be expected that such coitus will be most strongly condemned. Thus the permissiveness-with-affection standard, to the extent that it rules out body-centered coitus, is descendent from our past culture and is not really as radical as one might at first think.
Many strong-affection adherents argue that, according to their definition, strong affection is very close to love — labeling one state of feeling "love" implies a sizable difference. They believe that, even though it may be good to require love so as to further demonstrate the value of the sexual relationship, such a requirement may encounter difficulty. First, they contend that people rarely fall in love in a fully mature way. This means that, for example, in the ten years one is dating, he or she will fall in love perhaps two or three times. Such love affairs might last on the average of a year each. This still leaves over seven of the ten years of courtship during which one will not be in love, and, therefore, no sexual intercourse can take place.
These adherents believe such abstinence would be difficult for many people. Men in our culture, because of their upbringing, would find restricting their sexual behavior to love quite difficult. Such a strict situation might encourage many people to deceive themselves about the intensity and maturity of their feelings, so as to justify coitus. Needless to say, the love subtype rejects this reasoning and states that premarital coitus is too important to be had without love, regardless of these reasons.
THE WHEEL THEORY OF LOVE
I do not want to remove any of the awe and respect and great value we hold for love—I do want to remove some of the aura of mystery about this concept. Since love is of such intimate relation to sexual behavior in our culture and is particularly relevant to permissiveness with affection, it is most important that an objective description be given.13
There are a multitude of forms of love—there is love for one's parents, for one's God, for one's country, for one's brothers and sisters, for one's friends, and for one's marriage partner. All of these cases are instances of love, but the love object differs sharply. Every culture defines fairly clearly how, and if, one should love these different love objects. In some cultures, the love of a child for a parent must be non-demonstrative and filled with respect; in our own culture, such love is often supposed to be expressed in a demonstrative fashion and mixed with companionship. Love of God is shown in some cultures by prostrating one's body on the ground, in other cultures by looking up towards the sky. In some cultures, all these kinds of love are encouraged; in others, they are discouraged. Love seems to be a universal fact—an essential part of man's existence, but the exact nature of expressing it seems to vary considerably. I will focus on one type of love in our culture—heterosexual love—and try to reveal the processes involved in its development.
In our own society, two people usually meet at a party, a dance in school, or in any other informal fashion and are ready to try to communicate freely with each other. They may talk to each other about inconsequentials and feel ill at ease, or they may feel very much at ease and somehow be able to discuss fairly personal topics quite soon. The key to the development of love lies in this communication process. With some people, we feel at ease and desirous of communicating; with others, we watch the clock until the evening ends. What are the characteristics which enable some people to put others at ease?
The process that goes on when two people communicate freely has variously been termed "role-taking," Verstehen, empathy, mutual understanding, or rapport.14 Let us call it rapport. People vary greatly in the ability for rapport that they possess. When we talk to each other, we constantly try to put ourselves in the other person's shoes so as to understand him. We consciously or unconsciously ask ourselves what the other person is thinking and feeling and then react to this thought with pride, shame, joy, sadness, anger, or indifference, depending on what we believe the other person's feelings and thoughts to be. In short, we try to gain rapport, to understand the people we meet. Of course, when we act in anger or on impulse, we do not seek nor achieve such rapport.
Now, two people whose emotional make-up is such that they can understand each other's thoughts and feelings more easily than usual will often be at ease and relaxed with each other. Part of this reaction may be simply a matter of similar cultural backgrounds which help produce similar emotional needs and thus mutual understanding. But often the cultural backgrounds can be quite different, if they have produced two individuals who, although different, have complementary emotional make-ups.15 Some of the initial attraction may be purely physical, but beyond this, there must be other bases for rapport if the relation is to last.
This occurrence of rapport often puts us at ease and leads to an even more vital event in the development of love, i.e., soul-baring or revelation. "Soul-baring" means sharing with a person one's wishes, fears, hopes, plans, problems, and so forth. Such confidences are most likely to develop with two people who are able to achieve that feeling of ease and naturalness which accompanies increasing rapport. Here too, culture enters in to define how much and what types of revelations are proper.
This sort of self-revelation is vital to the love process, for it is through it that mutual dependencies develop. As two people continue to confide in one another and engage in shared activity such as dancing, conversation, and sexual behavior, they develop what may be called an interdependent habit system, i.e., one person's habits become dependent upon another person's habits for completion. This accounts for that feeling of loneliness and frustration when habitual expectations are not fulfilled. It explains why one feels strange when he enters a favorite dating spot with someone new. The old interdependent habits or dependencies are the explanation.
A fourth process accompanies this growth of mutual dependencies. It is the fulfillment of personality needs via this development of dependencies, revelations, and rapport. All of us have personality needs such as affection, reassurance, and companionship. Such deep relationships help fulfill these needs.16
This brings us full circle to the emotional compatibility which led in the first place to the initial rapport. It is because of our various personality needs that certain people who can fulfill these needs blend with us emotionally and put us at ease. These needs are related, closely to our cultural background, for it is out of our social experience that our personality and its particular needs develop.17 The circular processes of rapport-revelation-dependence-need fulfillment are continuous.
So far all that has been said is pretty much universal. It takes place in every culture in the world. It is the description of a close primary relation, and is a typical sequence of events for the Fiji Islander or the New Yorker. This sequence of events seems an inevitable result of the universal make-up of human beings and human societies. Man seems to require nourishment from such primary relations in order to feel secure and to be socialized. The conditions under which societies encourage or discourage such close relationships vary tremendously. Our own society stresses these close relationships between a single boy and girl, when a certain culturally defined pitch or intensity is reached. Thus, love in our culture may be defined as the intense emotional feeling, which develops via the above processes, involved in close heterosexual primary relations.
The Wheel Process
In the Development of Intimate Relations
Personality'Need'Fulfillment
Self Revelation
Figure I.
This conception of the development of love I will call the "Wheel Theory" because all the aspects are interdependent like the spokes of a wheel. All the processes must keep occurring if the "wheel" is to keep turning. In a real sense, all of these processes are going on at the same time, and they all reinforce one another. Should anger or a new attraction remove one's desire to feel rapport, then the "wheel" ceases to rotate and may start to "unwind" in the opposite direction.
A visual representation of this theory concerning the development of love is presented in Figure 1.
There are fashions and fads in the field of love which tell how intense the "wheel processes" must become before they can be labeled love. As time and experience pass, our definitions are altered accordingly, but basically our standards are shared with other Americans. Some people set standards so high that they never experience a relationship which fits their definition of love. Others set their standards so low that they are always falling in and out of love. The vast majority fall in between these extremes.
The sexual element plays an important role in the love process. It is often the initial stimulus which creates the interest. In our frustrated and inhibited culture, it is a key area of need-fulfillment and revelation.18 Sexual compatibility can be a strong and significant part of self-revelation, adding to the sharing and closeness of the couple, but it cannot, for long, support a relationship by itself. If other compatible factors are not present, the relationship will most often not last.19
Basically, our present-day love notions are derived from ancient conceptions of romantic love. It was ten centuries ago that western Europe learned to define a particular type of heterosexual relationship as love. As previously pointed out, many young Americans, especially college students, refuse to dress their love relationships only in romantic cloth. Love to these people today is a more rational and realistic thing. They reject the Hollywood version of love as something which makes one walk into doors, stop eating, etc.—something which "hits" one immediately.20 There is a more "rational" definition which is popular among the permissiveness-with-affection adherents. There is more understanding as to how love feelings are generated. Many know that rapport, self-revelation, mutual dependencies, and personality needs are crucial to the growth and continued life of such a relationship, and they feel that such love relationships are of utmost importance. Despite their rationality, these people still recognize that love is basically an emotional experience, and they do have emotional attachments to some of the romantic love notions.21
When the word "love" is used as a subdivision of permissiveness with affection, it will be used as most adherents would use it—to refer to a "rational" love which may be defined as a love feeling developed through full use of the wheel processes of rapport, revelation, dependency, and fulfillment.22
This kind of love should go through this developmental process of rather constant interaction for at least a month or more, and it should involve considerable understanding and sharing of many different experiences, sexual attraction being only one of them.23 The important aspect of this love is not whether it will lead to marriage but whether it is a sound basis for a relatively stable and affectionate relationship. Some rational loves are strong enough for marriage; some are not. Other, nonrational, types of love, such as romantic love or love in which the sexual aspect is emphasized, can also be fit to the Wheel Theory. I am not ruling them out; rather, I am stating that rational love is the only type acceptable to the permissive-ness-with-affection adherents. These other kinds of love do not involve as full a usage of all the wheel processes, i.e., romantic love often occurs quickly with but a few "turns" of the wheel; sexual love involves mainly a sexual level of rapport, rather than the many levels involved in rational love. Strong affection is also developed through the wheel processes, but it does not become intense enough to meet the cultural and individual definition of love. In every other way this feeling would resemble what has been called here rational love, since it also requires many weeks of becoming acquainted under many different conditions, before the feeling can be verified. Thus, these two terms refer to feelings that are neither identical nor too far apart. It is hoped that the Wheel Theory has made it easier to more specifically define these subtypes. Affectionate states which are not developed over many weeks and which do not involve numerous levels of rapport are not "strong affection," as this term is used by permissiveness-with-affection adherents.
Once the spokes of the wheel are known, one has something to check. By reflection, it can be seen just how much rapport, revelation, dependency, and need-fulfillment has taken place. A predominantly sexual relationship, even if the people feel they are in love, cannot, by this definition, be rational love. Such mistakes or deliberate misrepresentations cannot be made if the definition of rational love is abided by. Without a restricting definition such as this, many difficulties could arise over just what love or strong affection means. Some persons fear that men could easily take advantage of women by professing love. This is not true of the type of love defined by permissiveness-with-affection adherents.23a With this objective definition of rational love, many confusions about the concept of love can be avoided and the subtypes of this standard more clearly understood.
GENERAL INTEGRATION OF
PERMISSIVENESS WITH AFFECTION
Permissiveness with affection is an equalitarian standard, allowing premarital coitus for both men and women. It is not in conflict with our notion of justice, nor does it lead to any virginity paradoxes. It avoids creating associations with people not respected. In all of these ways, it is a less conflicting and more consistent standard than the double standard. It also has more cultural acceptance than permissiveness without affection, because it does retain affection as a dominant value. In other respects, however, it has similar conflicts, e. g., it conflicts with the notion of female subordination since it offers equal sexual rights.
Another major area of American culture with which this standard conflicts is that of orthodox religion. Formally, orthodox religion supports a single standard of abstinence. In practice, religion tolerates the double standard, but it seems less willing to tolerate a single permissive standard. Related to religion is our traditional value of female virginity —this, too, is strongly opposed to permissiveness with affection.
Thus, this single standard also comes into conflict with parts of our culture. Nevertheless, this is one of the standards which has grown greatly in the last century. This is so mainly because the parts of our society in conflict with this standard are largely old and themselves changing. One should not, however, underestimate the power of some of these conflicting elements. Permissiveness with affection has been able to grow against such opposition only because the events of the last one hundred years were favorable to this development.24 Furthermore, permissiveness with affection is still a "conservative" standard in its almost complete ruling-out of body-centered coitus. Such "conservatism" may well have aided in its growth among the middle and upper classes.
1. One of the very few good popular accounts of this aspect of Swedish culture may be found in Lester David, "The Controversy Over Swedish Morals," Coronet, December, 1956, pp. 126-32. For more detailed information, see Anna-Lisa Kalvesten, The Social Structure of Sweden (Sweden: University of Stockholm, 1953); see especially pp. 30-31 and 67-68. See also Nelson N. Foote, "Sex as Play," Social Problems, I (April, 1954), 159-63.
2. For insight into the eighteenth-century bundling custom in the New England and Middle Atlantic States, see Samuel Peters, General History of Connecticut (London: J. Bew, 1781). This is the only book published on bundling during its popular time. See also Dana Doten, The Art of Bundling (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1938). Doten does a fine job of showing how bundling was well integrated with our eighteenth-century society and how it disappeared when that society changed and became urbanized. The courting scene then shifted to the parlor and finally to the automobile. More sexual liberties seem to be taken in the twentieth-century automobile than were taken in the eighteenth-century bundling bed.
3. See Ditzion, op. cit., for a detailed account of the nineteenth-century
debates on free love.
4. It should be added that this is true for the believers of the other standards also. These are premarital standards and are not intended to displace the marriage institution. On all of these standards (since, as was mentioned, other researches have not focused on standards as well as behavior), I must rely heavily on my own interviews to elaborate the standards' specific meanings.
5. See Judge Ben B. Lindsey and W. Evans, The Companionate Mar-
riage (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1927). Judge Lindsey's book is
often referred to as a manuscript on trial marriage. It really is a treatise
pleading for divorce by mutual consent, an end to alimony, a waiting
period before having children, and the use of birth control. It is, thus, an
attempt to reform the marriage institution, not to alter it by instituting
trial marriage. Ellen Key, Love and Marriage (New York: E. P. Putnam
and Sons, 1911) is a more radical dissertation, stating that the ideal union
of people is a completely free union of a man and a woman who are in
love. The distinction between these views and those presented in this chap-
ter should be clear.
6. Burgess and Wallin, op. cit., pp. 381-82. Only one couple in this study said they were engaging in intercourse to test their sexual compatibility.
7. For a defense of such "exceptions," see Ellis, Sex Without Guilt, chap. v.
8. The eighteenth-century engaged couple was different from the en-
gaged couple today, because they were much more likely to marry. Our
engagement breakage rate is high—of the 1,000 couples in the Burgess and
Wallin study, 15 per cent broke their engagements and many of these 1,000
couples had broken previous engagements. Also, the permissiveness-with-
affection standard often allows coitus for people in stable affectionate rela-
tions even if they are not engaged. Also: Queen and Adams, op.cit., p. 253.
It may be of interest here to note that some of the evidence for eighteenth-century premarital intercourse among engaged couples comes from Groton Church in Groton, Massachusetts, where 66 of 200 couples confessed to their minister that they committed fornication. Up until recently, some people were quite proud of their ancestors for having two distinctive initials, C. F., following their names in the Church records. This changed when people discovered that C.F. stood for Confessed Fornication! For a description of Puritan behavior based on church records see: Emil Oberholzer, Jr., Delinquent Saints (New York: Columbia University Press, 1956), chap. vii in particular.
9. See chaps. vii and viii for the evidence on this point.
10. Kinsey, Human Male, chap. x. College males had much less coitus
with prostitutes and proportionately more with companions. Education and
occupation levels in this study were the best predictors of sexual behavior.
A college-educated Catholic, Protestant, or Jew would be quite different
from a grade-school-educated Catholic, Protestant, or Jew. It is an impor-
tant task of future researchers to spell out what cultural factors go along
with educational and occupational levels and make them so important as
predictors of behavior. It should be clear that in females Kinsey found
religion was a better predictor than class. The upper class may be more
conservative because of the greater possible economic loss and gain in-
volved in marriage. This, however, may be modified by other factors such
as better contraceptive knowledge.
11. Burgess and Wallin, op. cit., chaps. xi and xii. These chapters con-
tain the views of the engaged couples having coitus.
12. A book which expresses the type of sexual relation often involved in this standard is Walter Benton, This Is My Beloved (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1945). The over-all "tone" of some of these relations can be obtained from this book.
12a. Ehrmann, Premarital Dating Behavior, p. 269 and chap. v. One of Ehrmann's major findings is the very high association between love and sexual behavior in the female and less so in the male.
13. The following view of love can be found in somewhat more elaborate and documented form in Ira L. Reiss, "Toward a Sociology of the Heterosexual Love Relationship," Marriage and Family Living, XXII (May, 1960), 139-45.
14. For a more technical description of role-taking and other phases
of human interaction, see Mead, Mind, Self and Society.
15. The entire question of whether homogamy (similar background) or complementary needs leads to love will not be dealt with here. The most recent defense of the complementary need position is Robert Winch, Mate Selection (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1958). The evidence of some degree of homogamy is universally accepted, as is the evidence for some amount of complementariness. The dispute revolves about which of these two factors is more important in mate choice. For an explanation of homogamy, see Burgess and Wallin, op. cit., and Ernest Burgess and Harvey Locke, The Family (New York: American Book Company, 1953). For a comment on this dispute see: Reiss, "Toward a Sociology of the Heterosexual Love Relationship."
16. This approach to interpersonal relations is in line with recent de-
velopments. See William J. Goode, "The Theoretical Importance of Love,"
American Sociological Review, XXIV (February, 1959), 38-47; see also
Anselm Strauss, "Personality Needs and Marital Choice," Social Forces,
XXV (March, 1947), 332-35.
17. The relation of personality needs to cultural background was
clearly seen in the study on college students which I mentioned in chap.
iv, e.g., the girls' need for "someone to look up to" seems to be easily
derived from our culture's definition of what the proper male-female roles
are. More careful analysis can distinguish various sub-cultures by the type
of personality needs they create.
18. It is proper to call our culture "sexually frustrated" even though there is a great deal of sexual behavior occurring. By making premarital coitus forbidden, via our formal norm of abstinence, and sending men to seek this pleasurable forbidden fruit, it is very difficult for people to be sexually satisfied. If one is seeking forbidden pleasures, the accent on both the forbidden and pleasurable aspects makes it difficult to ever be more than temporarily satiated. Frustration is relative to the distance between what one desires and what one has. Therefore, even if a great deal of sexual pleasure is gained, if the forbidden and pleasure-seeking aspects make full satisfaction unlikely, frustration can still take place. It is believed this type of "well-fed" frustration is typical of many Americans.
19. Americans have for generations stressed the all-important nature
of sexual behavior. Recent evidence suggests that perhaps our "tease" type
culture has exaggerated the importance of sexual relations. See Burgess and
Wallin, op. cit., chap. xx. This evidence will be discussed in detail in the
next few chapters.
20. For a study of the romantic-love notions in America today, see
Ellis, The American Sexual Tragedy, chap. v.
21. Burgess and Wallin, op. cit., p. 170 and chap. v passim.
22. Burgess and Wallin's conception of the development of love, although stated differently, is quite compatible with my Wheel Theory. See chap. vi where personality-need fulfillment is listed as the most crucial factor in love.
23. Further research is needed badly in this area. This definition of rational love seems to be about the same as most textbook's definition of "real" love. However, I am merely using the term to refer to one type of love relationship, whereas many textbooks ignore other love-types.
23a. There is evidence that lovers know each other for many weeks or months before coitus occurs. Bromley and Britten, op. cit., p. 93; Burgess and Wallin, p. 161.
24. See chaps. ii and x for evidence here. For additional evidence on the popularity of this standard see Ehrmann, Premarital Dating Behavior, p. 179 and chap. v.
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