The art of sound pictures (1930)

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS 159 man’s is designed to submit to woman throughout the love experience.^ Passion must be thought of as preponderantly a male emotion. Its controlling ingredient is the wish to submit completely to the lover’s control. The longing of passion is a longing to be subjected, to have the lover accept the homage and service of a love slave. It springs from the predominant emotion of submission, which overrides and controls inducement in the passion mixture. So far as the writers know, the emotional nature of passion has never been clearly shown in literature. Both character studies and plots depicting passion have nearly always confused it badly with the active phase of erotic emotion — captivation. The heroine has been shown at one time leading her man on, teasing him with every love device known to the daughters of Eve, and altogether bewildering him with the power of her love charms. Again, she may be shown as yielding herself completely to the dictates of her noble lord and master, throwing herself literally or figuratively at his feet, and accepting his superior love leadership in the consummation of their love union. This confusion has spoiled many a good story. Women have laughed up their sleeves at the love hokum wished on the world by male authors who make the male lover superior in affairs of the heart. During the Victorian age, especially, love stories depicted the heroine as a clinging vine, a yielding violet, and a sweet, obedient housewife carrying out her lord’s commands. Of course, women who followed this formula in real life iW. M. Marston, Emotions of Normal People (Harcourt, Brace), 1928.