Dr. R. Murray-Leslie delivered a lecture yesterday at the Institute of Hygiene on the subject of the disproportion of the sexes. He said that there could be no real social rest without feminine contentment, and, in our own country, where women formed the bulk of the population, the effect of their sex preponderance seemed to be almost wholly injurious and to have little compensating advantage.
The female excess was greater in Great Britain than elsewhere, and the war had aggravated this disturbing factor, because the men who had fallen all belonged to the age-group which represented either potential or actual husbands and fathers. There were now over 1,000,000 excess females of reproductive age.
The social effects of sex disproportion were demonstrated in the crumbling of the old ethical standards. The freedom of the modern independent girl from the supervision of her parents; the tendency to rebel against discipline and conventional trammels; the cry of pleasure for pleasure's sake - all these tended to the encouragement of a lowered standard of morality.
It was in regard to marriage and family life that female preponderance was playing the most important part. Never had there been so many unhappy marriages. Many married women were demanding divorce by mutual consent, as it was contended that the present rigid law condemned many to the society of an utterly uncongenial companion; while married men often sought happier relations among the numerous unattached women. Speaking from his own medical experience, he had no hesitation in saying that much of the existing unhappiness was traceable to clandestine relations between young women and married men.
An extraordinary diversity of type had emerged as a direct outcome of sex disproportion. The domestic type still formed the bulk in the industrial classes, but was becoming rarer in the so-called middle and upper classes. The social butterfly type had probably never been so prevalent as at present. It comprised the frivolous, scantily-clad, jazzing flapper, irresponsible and undisciplined, to whom a dance, a new hat, or a man with a car, were of more importance than the fate of nations. The type contained a large proportion of physically attractive girls with strong reproductive instincts, and they were ever vying and competing with each other for the scarce and elusive male. In many cases they strove by means of dress, or the lack of it, to appeal to man's lower nature instead of exercising the power to elevate his ideals. Young men had dance invitations four and five deep, and our boys and young men were being spoilt before our eyes.
The intellectual type, represented by the professional workers, married in very small proportion, but to them was due the driving force that secured amelioration of the conditions of employment of their sex, and it was they who influence legislation designed to safeguard maternity and to promote child-welfare. Racially it was the intelligent type that was most important and best fitted to undertake the present complex responsibilities of marriage. There was a great difference between intellectuality and intelligence. The purely intellectual woman was, usually, not sexually attractive, but the intelligent woman was well read and in touch with new movements, while she equally appreciated the charms of dress refinement, and other social amenities.
