バートランド・ラッセル「性と幸福」(1931年８月５日) (松下彰良・訳) |
Sex and happiness、by Bertrand Russell* Reprinted in: Mortals and Others, v.1, 1975. |
ラッセルの結婚観は realistic(現実主義的) ,恋愛観は idealistic(理想主義的) であると言ったらよいでしょうか？ 恋愛と結婚についての考え方は人様々ですが,結婚「制度」の法的意味合いを軽視している人が多いように思われます。法律は犯罪防止や弱者保護の側面を持っていますが,「離婚」によって不利益を受ける人間（妻,夫,子供,ケースによっていろいろ）を保護するという側面が重要だと思われます。（2000.11.25: 松下）
このようなことは全て大変悲しい事実である。しかし,これらの不幸は全て,性は幸福の源泉であるはずだという誤った観念のせいである,と言えるかもしれない。歯医者にかかっている時間が余り楽しくないからといって,かかる医者を変える人はいない。もしも性関係から不幸が生じることを事前に予期していたら,不幸を味わってもあまり失望しなくて済むだろう。 このような見方は尊敬すべき（ギリシア,ローマの）古代からのものであり,実際それは多くの伝統的徳目と結びついている。しかしそれは本当に最善の見方であるだろうか？ 私はそうは思わない。もう少し深い現実認識と嫉妬や欲求不満に対する自己抑制があれば,大きな違いがもたらされるだろう,と私は信じている。現代のトラブルの多くは,詩的で無政府的衝動であるロマンチックな恋愛を,一つの社会制度である結婚（制度）と混同することに由来している。フランス人はこの種のまちがいをしてこなかった。そのため,概して,彼らはこの点で英語を話す国民よりもかなり幸福である。 けれどもそうであったとしても,現代における（性や結婚についての）認識や慣行のどこかにまちがいがあることは明らかである。現代の結婚は夫婦に幸福をもたらすことにしばしば失敗しているだけでなく,制度としての結婚の目的である,子供を立派に育てるということにおいても失敗している。現代の結婚から生まれた子供は,少数で,神経質で,疲れ果て,のびのびと成長することが不可能な不安な環境におかれ,母親から無視されるかあるいは過保護に育てられるかいずれかになりやすい。なんらかの点で,旧来の制度は,円滑に機能しなくなったようである。（といって,）男性も女性も（昔の）素朴な時代の行動様式に立ち戻れと説教することは,彼らがそれに従うはずがないゆえ,無益である。(性)倫理は必要だが,それは新しい倫理でなければならず,とりわけ今日存在している諸事実を考慮に入れた,現実主義的な倫理でなければならない。 |
We are told that sex was inflicted upon Adam and Eve after the Fall as a punishment. From What I have seen of its working in the present day I am inclined to agree with this view. Almost all the young men and young women that I know suffer acutely in one way or another through its workings. Can you, reader, lay your hand on your heart and say that you have derived more pleasure than pain from sex and its consequences? In the old days of masculine domination the matter was simple. Men took what they wanted, and women submitted. In this way half the human race was happy and half unhappy. But with the modern demand for justice as between men and women, this arrangement became impossible. The reformers may have intended that women should become as happy as men, but what in fact they secured was that men became as unhappy as women. All would be well if only people would pair off as they did in Victorian novels and live happily ever after. But simple and satisfactory as this prescription is, people resolutely refuse to follow it. Either the wife gets tired of the husband or the husband gets tired of the wife. If the wife is sufficiently dutiful, she may conceal the disgust inspired by her husband's habitual gestures and habitual anecdotes and habitual pronouncements on questions of public moment. In the case, she will take out her dissatisfaction on her children. Or she may seek distraction elsewhere, in which case she must either become an adept in deception or drive her husband to distraction with jealousy. If it is the husband that gets tired first, he may, if he is a man of high morality and iron self-control, take refuge in politeness and hard work, but sooner or later the strain will become intolerable, and he will either break down or break out. Sometimes the solution is sought in divorce, but the same reasons which led to the first divorce are likely to lead to a second and third. I have frequently been embarrassed in talking to American ladies to find that whaterver man I happened to mention had been their husband at some time or other. All this is very sad. It all springs, we may be told, from the mistaken notion that sex should be a source of happiness. No one changes his dentist because the hours spent in his company are not wholly pleasurable. If people expected misery from sex they would be less disappointed when they got it. This point of view is one of respectable antiquity and is indeed bound up with much traditional morality. But is it really the best that can be done? I do not believe so: I believe that a little more realism and a little more self-control in the matter of jealousy and ill-temper would make all the difference. A great deal of our modern trouble has come from mixing up romantic love, which is a poetic and anarchic impulse, with marriage, which is a social institution. The French have not made this mistake, and on the whole they are considerably happier in these respects than English-speaking nations. However that may be, it is clear that percept and practice in our day are in some way at fault. Modern marriage too often fails not only to give happiness to the husband and wife but also to produce satisfactory children, which is its purpose considered as an institution. The children of modern marriages are apt to be few, nervous, and over-wrought, surrounded by an atmosphere of anxiety in which it is impossible for them to thrive, either neglected by their mothers or watched with too meticulous a solicitude. Somehow or other, the old institutions seem to be out of gear. It is useless to preach that men and women ought to return to the modes of behaviour of a simple age, for they will not do it. An ethic is called for, but it must be a new ethic, and above all it must be realistic in taking account of the facts as they exist in our day. |
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