The Spinster and Her Enemies - Feminish

THE INVENTION OF THE FRIGID WOMAN
republished consistently until well into the second ‘sexual
revolution’ of the twentieth century. The 37th impression was
published in 1961. Ideal Marriage was translated by the socialist
feminist Stella Browne. Thomas Van de Velde explained in his
introduction why he considered marriage to be so important.
This was because it was sacred to the believing Christian,
indispensable to the social order, absolutely necessary in the
interests of the children, it offered to woman security in which
she could love and provided for men ‘the best background for
useful and efficient work’. 7 He asserted that there were four
cornerstones to marriage of which by far the most important
was ‘a vigorous and harmonious sex life’. He wrote that this
had to be:
solidly and skilfully built, for it has bear a main portion of
the weight of the whole structure. But in many cases it is
badly balanced and of poor materials; so can we wonder
that the whole edifice collapses, soon? Sex is the foundation
of marriage. Yet most married people do not know the ABC
of sex. 8
This picture of marriage is very different from that of the ideal
Victorian marriage. Sexual intercourse was now to play a vastly
inflated role. This reflects changes that had been taking place
in the relations between the sexes. Some of those pressures which
had forced women into marriage and ensured their complete
dependence upon men had been alleviated. The most punishing
legal disabilities of marriage for women had been relieved by
the 1920s. The Married Women’s Property Acts made women
less dependent. The 1923 Divorce Act equalised the grounds
for divorce so that women could get a divorce on the grounds
of their husbands’ adultery without having to prove other bad
behaviour like incest or bestiality as well These changes fought
for by feminists, caused great anxiety to many of the male sex
reformers, even those of apparently progressive outlook. One
of the latter was the socialist and self-professed pro-feminist
Alec Craig. In his book Sex and Revolution (1934) he applauded
the changes in sexual morality and declared that he was a
‘modernist’ following the programme of Bertrand Russell for
sex reform. The modernists were apparently for birth control,
the emancipation of women and sex education and they thought
that sexual intercourse should be justified simply on the basis
of mutual attraction. Craig bemoaned the changes in divorce
law in particular because he saw them as anti-men: ‘The English
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