Subversive Seduction: Darwin, Sexual Selection, and the Spanish Novel

Introduction

3 Introduction The Indeterminacy of Natural Law Charles Darwin was by no means the first to take up the question of sexual selection. A better candidate, in fact, would be Plato. The reproductive practices between men and women concern him time and again as he reflects on how to maximize the common good. In the Statesman, for example, he has a young Socrates promote the “weaving together, with regular intertwining” of contrary dispositions as a means to ensure advantageous variation in offices of the State and the populace at large; in Theages, the question turns from nature to nurture as Demodocus laments the difficulties of cultivation: “Socrates, all living things tend to follow the same course—particularly man, but also the other animals and the plants that grow in the earth. . . . I found the planting, or procreation—whatever you’re supposed to call it—of this son of mine the easiest thing in the world. But his upbringing has been difficult”; in Laws, the Athenian counsels Clinias on the importance of making smart choices about parenthood well in advance: “The bride and groom should resolve to present the state with the best and finest children they can produce,” which requires due attention to planning at the risk of “deplorable” results; and the most infamous moment, from the Republic, treads the dangerous line of selective breeding: “It follows from our previous agreements, first, that the best men must have sex with the best women as frequently as possible, while the opposite is true of the most inferior men and women, and, second, that if our herd is to be of the highest possible quality, the former’s offspring must be reared but not the latter’s.”1 Of course, this final passage will bring to mind eugenics and all that Introduction 4 makes us suspicious about any theory that might control rather than simply explain mating practices among humans, while like fears persist even about the possibility of such an explanation for the unforeseen consequences it might bring. Now Darwin never advocated for the “sophisticated lotteries” described in Plato, far from it, and neither should eugenics, like so many other ills to come from misguided ideas about evolutionary theory , fall on his shoulders. Still, he brings his fair share of baggage, and the theory of sexual selection as expounded in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) carries with it a cultural legacy colored by patriarchy and women’s oppression. With misgivings aside for the moment though, it becomes evident that what Plato and Darwin share is a concern for the social implications of human reproduction . Hence, Plato provides a useful point of departure because his dialogues prove how difficult it is to locate any “zero degree” before Darwin by which the impact of evolutionary theory might be measured with respect to the historical shifts that have come to define the continuance of our lot in terms of sex and everything that surrounds it. Courtship between men and women along with the conventions, uncertainties, and politics existed long before the nineteenth century, and the representation of this dynamic in literature after Darwin was not determined by him. Rather, it absorbs the past in ways so complex that to claim otherwise would be disingenuous. Consequently, this study is not about the influence Darwin had on a select group of Spanish novelists from the last decades of the nineteenth century. For most of the authors discussed, there is little to no evidence for how much direct knowledge any of them might have had of Darwin’s writings, to say nothing of the theory of sexual selection, which in and of itself remains an enigma for its virtual absence from the debates surrounding his science at the time. One may no doubt discover clues that suggest concrete linkages, but these, while they can perhaps enhance certain readings, are insufficient in their own right for an airtight argument of the sort. Moreover, for the exceptional cases where historical records and other supporting documents confirm a particular writer’s fascination with Darwin, as with Benito Pérez Galdós and Emilia Pardo Bazán, a recapitulation of this information factors very little in the chapters here devoted to their works, and neither do Darwin’s own personal history and letters play a major role. Bert Bender, who offers the only sustained treatment of sexual selection in fiction with his study of American writers from 1871 [3.144.187.103] Project MUSE (2024...