A history of English sexual morals / by Ivan Bloch ; translated by William H. Forstern.

  • Iwan Bloch
Date:
1936
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A history of English sexual morals / by Ivan Bloch ; translated by William H. Forstern. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    45/700 (page 15)
    and delicate in this field, and nowhere did brutal egoism and cold-heartedness appear in a more horrifying light. A third manifestation of English brutality in the sphere of sex was the flagellation-mania—another heritage from the Anglo-Saxons. There is no more interesting chapter in the history of English sex-life than that which deals with the fascination the whip has exercised on the minds of men of every class and every age. From the standpoint of race- psychology the study of flagellation in England is un- doubtedly most productive: such deep-rooted tendencies should receive closer attention than has hitherto been the case, for then many sexual perversions appear in quite a new light. Anyhow, brutality, eccentricity and hypocrisy found expression in the Englishman's flagellation-mania in nice proportion. And now I come to the last sexual expression of those three qualities I have just named: that is, the frequency and scandalous treatment of divorce and so-called crim.-con. cases1. They illustrate English nature; their number since the time of Henry VIII is enormous, and they are reported in the columns of the newspapers at length and in intimate detail in the most shameless and brutal manner2. Whoever has studied even a small part of the vast English crim.- con. literature will be astonished how this people, with such an excessive feeling for propriety, could at the same 1 Crim.-Con. is an abbreviation of the words ' Criminal Conversation '. Up to the Matrimonial Causes Act (1857), a husband could bring an action for damages against his wife's paramour (action for criminal conversation). It was a common law suit, and the damages were estimated according to the loss he was supposed to have suffered by the seduction and loss of his wife. This procedure was abolished by the 1857 Act and made part of the new divorce procedure, by way of a separate claim for damages against the co-respondent in a petition for dissolution of a marriage.—Ed. 2 Recent legislation on this point has, of course, forbidden the pub- lication of any details in a divorce case apart from the names and the facts given in the judge's summing-up.—Ed. [15]