Condition--The Pervading
Effects of Pregnancy on the Organism--Pigmentation--The Blood and
Circulation--The Thyroid--Changes in the Nervous System--The Vomiting of
Pregnancy--The Longings of Pregnant Women--Maternal Impressions--Evidence
for and Against Their Validity--The Question Still Open--Imperfection of
Our Knowledge--The Significance of Pregnancy.

In analyzing the sexual impulse I have so far deliberately kept out of
view the maternal instinct. This is necessary, for the maternal instinct
is specific and distinct; it is directed to an aim which, however
intimately associated it may be with that of the sexual impulse proper,
can by no means be confounded with it. Yet the emotion of love, as it has
finally developed in the world, is not purely of sexual origin; it is
partly sexual, but it is also partly parental.[169]

In so far as it is parental it is certainly mainly maternal. There is a
drawing by Bronzino in the Louvre of a woman's head gazing tenderly down
at some invisible object; is it her child or her lover? Doubtless her
child, yet the expression is equally adequate to the emotion evoked by a
lover. If we were here specifically dealing with the emotion of love as a
complex whole, and not with the psychology of the sexual impulse, it would
certainly be necessary to discuss the maternal instinct and its associated
emotions. In any case it seems desirable to touch on the psychic state of
pregnancy, for we are here concerned not only with emotions very closely
connected with the sexual emotions in the narrower sense, but we here at
last approach that state which it is the object of the whole sexual
process to achieve.

In civilized life a period of weeks, months, even years, may elapse
between the establishment of sexual relations and the occurrence of
conception. Under primitive conditions the loss of the virginal condition
practically involves the pregnant condition, so that under primitive
conditions very little allowance is made for the state, so common among
civilized peoples, of the woman who is no longer a virgin, yet not about
to become a mother.

There is some interest in noting the signs of loss of virginity
chiefly relied upon by ancient authors. In doing this it is
convenient to follow mainly the full summary of authorities given
by Schurig in his _Barthenologia_ early in the eighteenth
century. The ancient custom, known in classic times, of measuring
the neck the da