Sex and Society | Page 6

proved of life-saving
advantage have in the course of time become typical, while the
individuals in which unfavorable variations, or defects, have occurred
have not survived in the struggle for existence. Morphologically men
are the more unstable element of society, and this instability expresses

itself in the two extremes of genius and idiocy. Genius in general is
correlated with an excessive development in brain-growth, stopping
dangerously near the line of hypertrophy and insanity; while
microcephaly is a variation in the opposite direction, in which idiocy
results from arrested development of the brain, usually through
premature closing of the sutures; and both these variations occur more
frequently in men than in women. There is also evidence that defects in
general are more frequent in men than in women.
A committee reported to the British Association for the Advancement
of Science, in 1894,[45] that of some 50,000 children (26,287 boys, and
23,713 girls) seen personally by Dr. Francis Warner (1892-94) 8,941
were found defective in some respect. Of these, 19 per cent. (5,112)
were boys, and 16 per cent. (3,829) were girls.
An examination of 1,345 idiots and imbeciles in Scotland by Mitchell
showed the following distribution of the sexes:
Male Female Male Female Idiots 430 284 or 100 to 66.0 Imbeciles 321
310 or 100 to 96.5
showing that "the excess of males is much greater among idiots than
among imbeciles; in other words, that the excess of males is most
marked in the graver forms of the disease."[46]
A census of the insane in Prussia in 1880 showed that 9,809 males and
7,827 females were born idiots. Koch's statistics of insanity show that
in idiots there is almost always a majority of males, in the insane, a
majority of females. But the majority of male idiots is so much greater
than the majority of female insane that when idiots and insane are
classed together there remains a majority of males.[47] Insanity is,
however, more frequently induced by external conditions, and less
dependent on imperfect or arrested cerebral development. Mayr has
shown from statistics of Bavaria that insanity is infrequent before the
sixteenth year; and even before the twentieth year the number of insane
is not considerable.[48] In insanity the chances of recovery of the
female are greater than those of the male, and mortality is higher
among insane men than among insane women. There is practical
agreement among pathologists on this point.[49] Campbell points out in
detail[50] that the male sex is more liable than the female to gross
lesions of the nervous system--a fact which he attributes to the greater
variability of the male.

An excess of all other anatomical anomalies, except cleft palate, is
reported among males. Manley reports that of 33 cases of harelip
treated by him only 6 were females.[51] It appears also that
supernumerary digits are more frequent in males. Wilder[52] has
recorded 152 cases of individuals with supernumerary digits, of whom
86 were males, 39 females, and 27 of unknown sex. A similar relation,
according to Bruce, exists in regard to supernumerary nipples.[53]
Muscular abnormalities, monstrosities, deaf-mutism, clubfoot, and
transposition of viscera are also reported as of commoner occurrence in
men than in women.[54] Lombroso states that congenital criminals are
more frequently male than female.[55] Cunningham noted an eighth
(true) rib in 14 of 70 subjects examined. It occurred 7 times in males
and 7 times in females, but the number of females examined was twice
as large as the number of males.[56] The reports of the registrar-general
show that for the years 1884-88, inclusive, the deaths from congenital
defects (spina bifida, imperforate anus, cleft palate, harelip, etc.) were,
taking the average of the five years, 49.6 per million of the persons
living in England for the male sex, and 44.2 for the female.[57]
It has already been noted as a general rule throughout nature that the
male seeks the female and physicians generally believe that men are
sexually more active than women,[58] though woman's need of
reproduction is greater,[59] and celibacy unquestionably impresses the
character of women more deeply than that of man. Additional evidence
of the greater sexual activity of man is furnished by the
overwhelmingly large proportion of the various forms of sexual
perversion reported by psychiatrists in the male sex.
Pathological variations do not become fixed in the species, because of
their disadvantageous nature, but their excess in the male is, as we have
seen in the case of variations which have become fixed, an expression
of the more energetic somatic habit of the male.
A very noticeable expression of the anabolism of woman is her
tendency to put on fat. "Women, as a class, show a greater tendency to
put on fat than men, and the tendency is particularly well marked at
puberty, when some girls become phenomenally stout."[60] The
distinctive