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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?
Mr. Carpenter proceeds to assert that "in the alienation of the sexes from each other, of which complaint is so often made today, it must be admitted that Urnings do much to fill the gap," and he goes on to plead that "the love with which we are specially dealing is a very important factor in society, and that it's big lex, or it were fresh and, or its vulgar misapprehension may be matters of considerable danger or damage to the commonweal".
That is a passage calculated to disturb the normal mind. But Mr Carpenter has many shocks and surprises in store for simple folk, for instance:
True Democracy rests more firmly than anywhere else on a sentiment which easily passes the bounds of class and caste, and unites in the closest affection the most estranged ranks of society. It is noticeable how often Uranians of good position and breeding are drawn to rougher types, as of manual labourers, and frequently very permanent alliances grow up in this way, which, although not publicly acknowledged, have a decided influence on social institutions, customs, and political tendencies, and which would have a good deal more influence could they be given a little more scope and recognition. There are cases that I have known (although the ordinary commercial world might hardly believe it) of employers who have managed to attach their work men, or many of them, very personally to themselves, and whose object in running their businesses was at least as much to provide their employees with a living as themselves; while the latter, feeling this, have responded with their best output. It is possible that something like the guilds and fraternities of the Middle Ages might thus be reconstructed, but on a more intimate and personal basis than in those days; and, indeed, there are not wanting signs that such a reconstruction is actually taking place.
Really, all this is very unsettling, especially when we read that:
Successful love exercises a helpful influence on the Urning. His mental and bodily condition improves, and capacity for work increases.
The passion is, I suppose, so powerful, just because one looks for everything in the loved man - Love, Friendship, Ideal and Sense-satisfaction.
To magistrates and judges we submit the appeal of Mr Carpenter;
The present state of the law, both in Germany and Britain - arising as it does partly out of misapprehension and partly out of the sheer unwillingness of legislators to discuss the question - is really impracticable and unjustifiable. While the law rightly seeks to prevent acts of violence or public scandal, it is going beyond its province when it attempts to regulate the private and voluntary relations of adult persons to each other. We have said that the Homogenic affection is a valuable social force, and, in cases, an indispensable factor of noble human character - yet the act of 1885 [The Criminal Law Amendment Act] makes almost any familiarity in such cases the possible basis of a criminal charge. Whatever substantial ground the Law may have had for previous statutes on this subject - dealing with a specific act - it is surely mistaken in passing so wide sweeping a condemnation on all relations between male persons (though inconsistently enough making no mention of females). It has undertaken a censorship over private morals (entirely apart from social results) which is beyond its province, and which - even if it were its province- it could not possibly fulfil. It has opened wider than ever before the door to a real, most serious, social evil and crime - that of blackmailing; and it has thrown a shadow over the simplest and most natural expression of an attachment which may, as we have seen, be of the greatest value in national life.
Mr Carpenter, however, does not deny "that the homosexual feeling may lead to public abuses of liberty and decency; that it is often improperly indulged; and that much teaching and instruction on the subject is needed".
Mr Carpenter and his set may, if they please, cherish their grievance against the attitude of the law as to the practices they so warmly advocate; and we would remind them that since England and Germany agree in their condemnation of the cult of Uranus, there are other countries where their society might be welcomed. For instance, how about Tahiti as a health resort? We read:
in the annals of this island are examples of extravagant friendship unsurpassed by the story of Damon and Pythias - in truth much more wonderful - for notwithstanding the devotion to which they led they were frequently entertained at first sight for some stranger from another island.
Surely, however, it would be better for the Urnings to inhabit - we were about to write colonise, but we remember that the chief sadness of their lives is the emphatically non-childbearing essential of their love - some land where their presence might be welcome, and thus serious people in England might be spared the waste of time consumed in reading a low-priced book of no scientific or literary merit advocating the cult of unnatural and criminal practices, which, while having a pernicious tendency, remains chiefly but not wholly ridiculous. An authority frequently quoted in this book when discussing the criminal side of Uranianism complains "that if similarities between those of the same sex are made illegal, as immoral, self-abuse ought much more to be so made!"
But we must decline further quotation. The author has definitely unbuttoned himself to anyone who likes to pay 3s. 6d. For this book.