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EDWARD CARPENTER, GEORGE MERRILL, and THE POLICE INVESTIGATION for INDECENCY |
| The Edward Carpenter Archive by Simon Dawson |
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EDWARD CARPENTER, GEORGE MERRILL, and THE POLICE INVESTIGATION for INDECENCY |
| The Edward Carpenter Archive by Simon Dawson |
The Urning and the Carpenter
Were sitting hand-in-hand;
They wept because Homogeny
Is generally banned;
"If prejudice were swept away,"
They said, "it would be grand!"
"If to abnormal practices
We publicly adhere,
Do you suppose," the Urning sighed,
"The law might interfere?"
"I dread it," cried the Carpenter,
and shed a sterile tear.
MR. EDWARD CARPENTER is responsible for a slim gilt-edged volume, published at 3s. 6d. net, with all rights reserved, entitled The Intermediate Sex; A Study of Some Transitional Types of Men and Women. It is a collection of 5 articles of his own, plus an appendix, "which the author hopes will prove helpful, though he does not necessarily endorse all the opinions presented." These articles reiterate ad nauseam praise and laudation for creatures and customs which are generally regarded as odious. We have been subjected to so many publications of this character since Psychpathica Sexualis, Sexual Inversion, and kindred works fell into the hands of curious people, that we recognise the form at a glance.
We look for a prefatory apology for each volume by way of explaining that this particular work, at any rate, is published solely in the interests of science. Mr Carpenter does not disappoint in us in this respect; we find on page 9:
The literature of the question . . . has already grown to be very extensive, especially on the Continent, and includes a great quantity of scientific works, medical treatises, literary essays, romances, historical novels, poetry, etc. and it is now generally admitted that some knowledge and enlightened understanding of the subject is greatly needed for the use of certain classes, as, for instance, medical men, teachers, parents, magistrates, judges, and the like.
Whilst admitting the unpopularity of the five classes of people Mr. Carpenter has selected as a student of his creed and work, we have sufficient pity for them to attempt to mitigate their punishment by extracting from this book some passages which may suffice to guide each pupil, whether a medical man or magistrate, parent or teacher, to an enlightened understanding of the Urnings and Uranianism.
First, then, the derivation of this word "Urning"? Thirty years ago, to be precise, an Austrian writer drew attention to this class of people, amongst whom "the (apparently) masculine person instead of forming a love-union with a female tended to contract romantic friendships with one of his own sex." So Dr. Ulrichs called the creatures "Urnings" and the custom "Uranianism". This term of endearment amongst foreigners, "Urning," is, we are told, derived quaintly enough from the word "Uranus"; the explanation given is that Uranos signifies heaven, the idea being that, according to those who know, "the Uranian love is of a higher order than the ordinary attachment". To avoid any confusion we may here remind our readers that the word "urinal" comes from a different root.
on a page 158 of the Appendix we find a classification of these eccentrics. (1) Mannlings, who tend to love softer and younger specimens of their own sex.(2)Weiblings, who love rougher and older men. (3)Zwischen Urnings, who love young men, the Urano-diorning who is born with a capacity for loving both women and men, and the Uranaster a normal man who has contracted the urning habit.
Krafft- Ebing is cited as insisting upon -
The generally strong sexual equipment of this class of persons, but he hastens to say that their emotional love is also enthusiastic and exalted, and that while bodily congress is desired the special act with which they are vulgarly credited is in most cases repugnant to them.
The Urning loves, deifies his male beloved one. For him he is capable of the greatest sacrifice, experiences of the torments of unhappy, often unrequited, love, of faithlessness on his beloved's part, of jealousy, and so forth. His attention is enchained only by the male form . . . The sight of feminine charms is indifferent to him if not repugnant.
Now we have put before "medical men, teachers, parents, magistrates, judges, and the like," the description Mr. Carpenter gives of these Urnings whose cause he so warmly champions. Most of our readers will prefer to leave them at this point, but since Mr. Carpenter appeals to magistrates and judges, we will cite a few more of his arguments for the defence of those who "form beneath the surface of Society a large class", for "they suffer severely from the way they are regarded, and in the manifesto of a considerable community of such people in Germany, occur at the words, 'we are responsive and deeply grateful for the least movement, for every single voice that speaks in our favour in the forum of mankind."
We can see Mr Carpenter holding a pocket-handkerchief before his streaming eyes as he urges us to pity the sorrows of a poor Urning:
To many of them it is a painful thing that in consequence of their peculiar temperament they are, though fond of children, not in the position to found a family.
This appeal ad misericordum may suggest to our magisterial students the plea of the parricide that the court should "pity a poor orphan!" Mr. Carpenter, however, sees a prospect of growing popularity for Urnings from a strictly economic point of view.
Popular opinion has probably been largely influenced by the arbitrary notion that the function of love is limited to child-breeding; and that any love not concerned in the propagation of the race must necessarily be of dubious character. And in enforcing this view no doubt the Hebraic and Christian tradition has exercised a powerful influence, dating from far-back times, when the multiplication of the tribe was one of the first duties of its members and one of the first necessities of corporate life. But nowadays when the need has swung around all the other way, it is not unreasonable to suppose that a similar revlution will take place in people's views of the place and purpose of non-childbearing love.
Those will surely be great days, according to a Swiss writer who is quoted:
Happy indeed is that man who has won a real Urning for his friend; he walks on roses without ever having to fear the thorns.
And then he adds a beautiful touch:
Can there ever ever be a more perfect sick-nurse than an Urning?