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In: Psychiatry/Psychology·Gender & Sexuality Studies·Sociology
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #15015.
The book is a compiled collection of scholarly articles by William Isaac Thomas that examine how biological differences between the sexes shape social structures. The editor’s note explains that each essay originally appeared in academic journals such as the American Journal of Sociology and the Psychological Review, and that they have been revised and sometimes expanded for this volume. The introductory essay, “Organic Differences in the Sexes,” sets the tone by arguing that men’s greater “katabolic” energy and women’s more “anabolic” disposition influence everything from marriage patterns to moral attitudes. Throughout the opening pages Thomas marshals data on nutrition, birth‑rate statistics, and comparative animal studies to support a thesis that bodily habit, rather than culture alone, underlies many gendered social phenomena.
Written in the formal, citation‑heavy prose of early‑20th‑century social science, the work reflects the period’s confidence in biological determinism and a penchant for exhaustive empirical illustration. Readers who enjoy dense, interdisciplinary scholarship, particularly those interested in the history of sociology, anthropology, and gender studies, will find Thomas’s methodical argumentation and extensive reference to contemporary journals engaging. The text appeals to scholars tracing the evolution of ideas about sex and society, as well to curious readers who appreciate a rigorous, historically situated analysis of how physiology was once thought to shape culture.
The opening · free to read
These studies have been published in various journals at different times. They are reprinted together because there is some demand for them, and they are not easily accessible. In preparing them for publication in the present form, some of them have been expanded and all of them have been revised.
While each study is complete in itself, the general thesis running through all of them is the same--that the differences in bodily habit between men and women, particularly the greater strength, restlessness, and motor aptitude of man, and the more stationary condition of woman, have had an important influence on social forms and activities, and on the character and mind of the two sexes.
"Organic Differences in the Sexes" appeared in the American Journal of Sociology, III, 31ff., with the title, "On a Difference in the Metabolism of the Sexes;" "Sex and Primitive Social Control," ibid., III, 754ff.; "Sex and Primitive Industry," ibid., IV, 474ff.; "Sex and Primitive Morality," ibid., IV, 774ff.; "The Psychology of Modesty and Clothing," ibid., V, 246ff.; "The Adventitious Character of Woman," ibid., XII, 32ff.; "The Mind of Woman and the Lower Races," ibid., XII, 435ff.; "The Psychology of Exogamy," in the Zeitschrift fuer Socialwissenschaft, V, 1ff., with the title, "Der Ursprung der Exogamie;" "Sex and Social Feeling," in the Psychological Review, XI, 61ff., with the title, "The Sexual Element in Sensibility." Portions of a paper printed in the Forum, XXXVI, 305ff., with the title, "Is the Human Brain Stationary?" are incorporated in the paper on "The Mind of Woman and the Lower Races," and portions of a paper printed in the American Journal of Sociology, IX, 593ff., with the title, "The Psychology of Race-Prejudice," are incorporated in the paper on "Sex and Social Feeling." I acknowledge the courtesy of the editors of these journals for permission to reprint.
W.I.T.
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