伝統的な子供に関する行動方針(course with children)は,両親と教師ができるだけ子供を無知にしておくことであった。子供たちは,両親の裸をまったく見たことがなかった。また,幼児期を過ぎると(自宅に部屋の余裕が十分にあるかぎり),異性の兄弟姉妹の裸も見なかった。子供たちは,自分の性器に絶対にさわってはいけないし,性器について話をしてもいけないと言われた。(そうして)性に関する質問をすると,その反応はいつも,ショックを受けているような語調で「しっ,しっ」という言葉であった。赤ん坊は,コウノトリが運んでくるとか,グーズベリーのやぶの下から掘り出すのだとか,教えられた。遅かれ早かれ,子供たちは,こっそりと語る他の子供から,通例,多少ともねじ曲げた形で,(性の)事実を学び(学ぶことになり),両親の教え(話題にしてはいけないもの)の結果として,子供たちは,性の事実を「不潔なもの」と見なした。子供たちは,両親は互いに不潔な行いをしており,両親は自らそのことを恥ずかしく思っていると推測した。両親がそのことを隠そうと大変苦労しているからである。
子供たちは,指導と教育を求めてきた人たちに組織的に騙されてきたことも知った。両親や結婚や異性に対する子供たちの態度は,このようにして,取り返しのつかないほど(irrevocably)毒されてしまった。因習的な躾を受けた男女で,性や結婚についてちゃんとした感情を抱ける者はほとんどいない。彼らは騙すことや嘘をつくことは両親や教師が美徳と考えていること,性的な関係は結婚内での場合でさえ多少とも嫌なものであること,また,(人間という)種を繁殖する際には,男性は自らの獣性に屈しており,他方女性は苦痛に満ちた義務に従っていること,を教育から学んできた。こうした態度は,結婚を男女の双方にとって不満足なものにし,本能的な満足の欠如は,道徳の仮面をかぶった残忍さに変わっていった(のである)。
Chapter VIII: The Taboo on sex knowledge, n.3
The traditional course with children was to keep them in as great a degree of ignorance as parents and teachers could achieve. They never saw their parents naked, and after a very early age (provided housing accommodation was sufficient) they did not see their brothers or sisters of the opposite sex naked. They were told never to touch their sexual organs or to speak about them ; all questions concerning sex were met by the word “Hush, hush” in a shocked tone. They were informed that children were brought by the stork or dug up under a gooseberry-bush. Sooner or later they learnt the facts, usually in a more or less garbled form, from other children, who related them secretly, and, as a result of parental teaching, regarded them as “dirty”. The children inferred that their father and mother behaved to each other in a way which was nasty and of which they ‘themselves were ashamed, since they took so much trouble to conceal it. They learnt also that they had been systematically deceived by those to whom they had looked for guidance and instruction. Their attitude towards their parents, towards marriage, and towards the opposite sex was thus irrevocably poisoned. Very few men or women who have had a conventional upbringing have learnt to feel decently about sex and marriage. Their education has taught them that deceitfulness and lying are considered virtues by parents and teachers: that sexual relations, even within marriage, are more or less disgusting, and that in propagating the species men are yielding to their animal nature while women are submitting to a painful duty. This attitude has made marriage unsatisfying both to men and to women, and the lack of instinctive satisfaction has turned to cruelty masquerading as morality.
出典: Marriage and Morals, 1929.
詳細情報:http://russell-j.com/beginner/MM08-030.HTM
<寸言>
本書は1929年に出版されたもの。戦前は英米でさえこんなもの。