A “special” tax for singles deemed “unproductive” and “the cause of moral depravation,” physical enjoyment considered a “desecration” and a “physical obstacle to procreation,” or advice for men to avoid showing up in a “cotton nightcap on their wedding night” and for women to insert a clove of garlic into their “womb” to determine pregnancy—it’s hard to believe that some of these medical recommendations were given to young couples less than a century ago. Reading the study on “bedroom secrets” by historian Laure Adler, we grasp the psychological burdens that weigh down French society with various conservatisms as soon as, to put it boldly, the body is involved. The obsessive attachment to appearances, especially those of etiquette, often a source of jokes among our European friends, may not have completely vanished in France. Just travel to London, Berlin, or Madrid to see, by contrast, its different manifestations.
This “history of the couple from 1830 to 1930” begins with the issue of virginity and leads to the equally controversial issue of acceptable reasons for divorce, long after its official reinstatement in 1884. Poor Léon Blum, vilified in 1907 for proposing a period of cohabitation before marriage! Drawn from testimonials and anecdotes ranging from tragic to comic, the book enlightens us on the long journey women have made in their fight for dignity. The wedding night, often likened to a “legal rape,” has fueled the reflection of thinkers and inflamed the pens of writers. Laure Adler cites Maupassant, who she contrasts with Michelet: the former considers the institution of marriage “aberrant,” the latter sees it as the consecration of love which “must precede it.” This contradiction only appears so when one recalls the historian’s unkind reflections on the church in his book “The Witch”: “The authority said: ‘Get married.’ But it made doing so very difficult, both because of extreme poverty and the absurd rigor of canonical impediments.” Balzac and George Sand, mentioned by Adler, contribute to the slow realization. A text from 1938 also reflects this, its irony almost amusing if not for the inherent pain: “My husband,” explains this wife on her wedding night, “acted impeccably, like a dentist who stops his drill when the nerve reacts and says: ‘rinse your mouth’ when a pause is required!” Marriage is only the beginning. Marital hygiene, a discreet term for the frequency and manners of “making love,” the issue of multiple childbearing discussed by Freud in his time, amplify the echoes of these “bedroom secrets.” Young couples hesitate before the daring array of contraceptives. Some spouses choose the husband’s continence which fanciful theories, though taken seriously by Tantrism, lead them to believe that the retention of semen “re-enters the circulation of the blood, strengthening it.”
As early as 1826, the church condemned the “English overcoat”: its use “thwarts the decrees of providence” which intended “to punish creatures by where they have sinned.” Furthermore, Laure Adler mentions early 20th-century dietary advice meant to promote – even then – the selection of the baby’s sex. The journalist also denounces the “human stud farm” theory, a regeneration of the species supported in 1917 by medical dignitaries at the Chamber of Deputies. Yet all these “precautions” by no means prevent the catastrophe of adultery and the subsequent demand for divorce. Again, Adler’s text is rich with details from law or, even better, from 19th-century psychological literature. The violence of the wedding night, which Balzac wonders why it does not provoke more hatred, “develops the sense of pleasure more than it satisfies it.” The author thus lets us know that the first national survey on female sexuality took place in 1980. We better understand the historical episodes that marked the recognition of divorce in France since its first establishment in 1792. Laure Adler wonders if things have really changed at the end of the century. One can easily echo her doubts: supposedly designed to prevent the uncertainties of a lifetime commitment, the new “minute divorce” recipe has not, after all, increased the trend toward “legitimate unions.” Over the last 30 years, the marriage rate has dropped by 40%. More than two out of three marriages end in divorce. Despite its promises, reality TV has thus revealed nothing about the sexual encounters in bedrooms, whose real secrets, as we know, remain forever sealed in an ineffable elsewhere.
Laure Adler, Bedroom Secrets, History of the Couple from 1830 to 1930, Coll. Pluriel, Hachette Literatures, 2006, 240p., 7.60 Euros;
Jean-Luc Vannier
Psychoanalyst
jlvannier@free.fr
Tel: 06 16 52 55 20
