Page:Fielding - Sex and the Love Life.pdf/89

 Those instances, not infrequently noted, where women are said to "pursue the man," often in high social circles, are not so much natural examples of the biological impulse in action as they are examples of the economic motive or social ambition-i. e., seeking to marry for position, money or domestic security.

Woman's Emotional Nature. It has not been sufficiently emphasized that in woman the involuntary (sympathetic) nervous system which controls the organism is more extensive and intricate than in man. This is a physiological necessity, as woman has additional organs—the breasts, womb, ovaries, etc.—with their functional capacity of ovulation, menstruation and gestation.

As woman has more organs concealed in the pelvis, with a greater complexity of function, her sympathetic nervous system is necessarily more complicated.

It is mainly due to this elaborate sympathetic system that the emotional side of life is more evidenced and expressive in women. They are more subject to fear, shock and fright, and more easily aroused to joy or sorrow. Their affections, if not deeper, are more demonstrative.

The sympathetic nervous system which controls the sexual life of woman, as well as the visceral functions generally, also regulates the tears that are shed in grief, the salivary and gastric secretions that are checked in fright, as well as the milk-flow that is stopped, or increased, respectively, under the influence of terror, or maternal well-being as the case may be.

The ancients attributed hysteria—a functional neurosis of abnormal sensations, emotions or paroxysms—to causes within the womb. There is unquestionably a connection; not that the disorder is actually seated in the pelvic regions, but these organs form part of a reflex arc to the brain centers