http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/768465900

Sex and the social order

"During the past generation extraordinary interest has centered around relations between the sexes. Students have tackled the problem from a great many angles, which has resulted in a bewildering array of fact and fancy. Even if we confine ourselves to facts--facts gathered by the strict application of scientific method--we shall still be faced with a vast, unorganized literature. The biologist, experimenting with animals in laboratory and field, is primarily concerned with problems of internal mechanics. The social scientist, on the contrary, sees sex so largely as a cultural product that he often seems to neglect the physiological basis. The psychologist, whose task it is to explain the behavior of individuals throughout the evolutionary scale, must hold the balance between biological and social scientist. Working in this longitudinal dimension, he is impressed by the trend toward increasing control of individual by group with a corresponding decline in the relative influence of internal directives. At the human level, sex takes on a variety of meanings. Different values are given reproductive activities in different groups, and the social roles assigned men and women depend on the structure of the culture as a whole. The present volume represents a phylogenetic approach to problems of sex in the life of the group. Since material that does not measure up to the criteria of scientific method has been for the most part excluded, the reader will look in vain for many familiar landmarks. In treating the sexual behavior of lower animals the author has confined herself to carefully controlled observations and for this reason has had to leave out much interesting natural history. Owing to the paucity of scientific material, she has had to be content with rodents to represent lower mammals and primates to represent those higher on the scale. At the human level psychoanalytic and other theories are discussed only insofar as they have led directly to scientific studies of sexual behavior. Practical information concerning erotic techniques is also omitted except where it has been the subject of scientific investigation. By the same token, the more medical aspects of sexual pathology and crime have been excluded, although certain clinical case histories have been brought in from time to time to throw light on the relative importance of physiological and social influences. The scientific facts concerning sex in the social order having been presented, there remains the question of their implication for human happiness. We are in the process of building a new world, and we cannot escape the challenge of showing how factors related to sex may be mobilized in that reconstruction. In the light of the literature on sex differences, there has been suggested a reformulation of sex roles which should improve the relationship between men and women and their social usefulness as individuals. It is hoped that this may be a minor contribution to the tremendous task of postwar planning"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved).

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