Binet and also Krafft-Ebing[64] have argued in effect that the whole of
sexual selection is a matter of fetichism, that is to say, of erotic
symbolism of object. "Normal love," Binet states, "appears as the result
of a complicated fetichism." Tarde also seems to have regarded love as
normally a kind of fetichism. "We are a long time before we fall in love
with a woman," he remarks; "we must wait to see the detail which strikes
and delights us, and causes us to overlook what displeases us. Only in
normal love the details are many and always changing. Constancy in love is
rarely anything else but a voyage around the beloved person, a voyage of
exploration and ever new discoveries. The most faithful lover does not
love the same woman in the same way for two days in succession."[65]
From that point of view normal sexual love is the sway of a fetich--more
or less arbitrary, more or less (as Binet terms it) polytheistic--and it
can have little objective basis. But, as we saw when considering "Sexual
Selection in Man" in the previous volume, more especially when analyzing
the notion of beauty, we are justified in believing that beauty has to a
large extent an objective basis, and that love by no means depends simply
on the capricious selection of some individual fetich.
Pages:
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235