occur, the individual has to
have recourse to implicit motor attitudes. The best example in everyday
life is probably seen in the case of anger, which can seldom be
permitted to find an outlet in the natural act of striking, etc. It is
apparent, however, in the facial expression and in a certain muscular
posture which can best be described as a "defiant" attitude. Another
good example is the submissive attitude which often accompanies the
emotion of fear. It is manifest in shrinking, avoiding movements,
sometimes of the whole body, but more often of the eyes or some other
special organ.

"In the sphere of love," Watson remarks, "there are numerous attitudes
as shown by the popular expressions lovelorn, lovesick, tenderness,
sympathy. More fundamental and prominent attitudes are those of shyness,
shame, embarrassment, jealousy, envy, hate, pride, suspicion,
resentment, anguish, and anxiety."[4]

The significant fact is that these attitudes function by limiting the
range of stimuli to which the person is sensitive. The attitude of shame
concerning their sexual functions, which has been impressed upon women
as a result of ages of thinking in harmony with taboo standards, thus is
able to prevent the normal biological response to a situation which
should call out the emotions of love. In women who have an unstable
nervous system this shameful feeling often results in a definite
physiological shrinking from the physical manifestations of sexuality
and renders the individual insensitive to all erotic stimulation.

This attitude of shame in connection with the love life came into
existence as a socially conditioned emotional reaction set up under the
influence of the traditional ideal of the "model woman" who was pictured
as a being of unearthly purity and immaculacy. It has been passed on
from generation to generation through an unconscious conditioning of the
daughter's attitude by suggestion and imitation to resemble that of the
mother. Thus it happens that although an increasing amount of liberty,
both social and economic, and a more rational and scientific
understanding of the womanly nature, have quite revoked this ideal in
theory, in actual practice it still continues to exert its inhibitory
and restrictive influence.

Because the standardized family relationship involves so much more
radical a readjustment in the life of woman than of man, it has almost
always been the feminine partner who has taken refuge in neurot