<< Significance of Sexual Element in Marriage >>

Our data indicate that the average female marries to establish a home, to establish a long-time affectional relationship with a single spouse, and to have children whose welfare may become the prime business of her life. Most males would admit that all of these are desirable aspects of a marriage, but it is probable that few males would marry if they did not anticipate that they would have an opportunity to have coitus regularly with their wives. This is the one aspect of marriage which few males would forego, although they might be willing to accept a marriage that did not include some of the goals which the average female considers paramount.

Conversely, when a marriage fails to satisfy his sexual need, the male is more inclined to consider that it is unsatisfactory, and he is more ready than the female to dissolve the relationship. We have no statistical tabulation to substantiate these generalizations, but we have discussed the reasons for their marriages, and the reasons for maintaining their marriages, with some thousands of the females and males who have contributed to the present study.

It is too simple to dismiss these differences in female and male attitudes toward marriage as the product of innate moral differences between the sexes. Neither does it suffice to consider that these differences are a product of the female’s greater importance in childbearing and in the preservation of the species. Whatever truth there may be in either of these assertions, it seems certain that these differences between female and male approaches to marriage depend primarily upon the fact that the average male is so conditionable that he has a greater need than most females have for a regular and frequent sexual outlet.

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