The innocent young man, on the other hand, who is full of misgivings and of diffidence, the elderly man whose sexual powers are on the wane and who is no longer sure of himself, prefer a woman who is totally ignorant of physical love. Their embarrassment or their shortcomings may escape a virgin but would not escape a woman of the world, a widow or a divorcée.
There is, therefore, in the search for virginity, a slightly neurotic factor, the fear of defeat, the line of least effort, the search for ego safety.
It must be noticed that it was during the great neurotic ages, the Middle Ages, which witnessed the bursting forth of so many hysterical epidemics, that both the cult of the Virgin and the belief in witches spread over Europe.
=The Fear of Woman.= Man has always tried to protect himself against woman. In his fear of sex equality he has either made her an angel or a beast. The witch, perverse and filthy, was lowered to the level of hell. The virgin, on the other hand, unsexed and raised to heaven, was removed far enough from the world for perfect safety.
=The Will-to-Be-the-First.= In the overemphasis placed by certain men upon virginity in the woman, and in the anxiety shown by certain husbands at the thought that their wife may have had sexual relations with another man previous to her marriage, we see the operation of the neurotic trait which Adler has called "the will-to-be-the-first" and which manifests itself, not only in the love life, but in all of life's situations.
The neurotic of that type, obsessed with a feeling of inferiority is tortured by the thought that he may not have been the first to caress his wife. Analysis proves that in early childhood, he had a tendency (observable in certain breeds of dogs) to try to outrun every waggon, horse, train, etc.; that in later life he always tries to walk ahead when in company and hastens his steps whenever anyone threatens to pass him on the street. That type is given to hero worship, as he likes to identify himself with his favorite hero, Cæsar, Napoleon, etc. States of anxiety develop whenever his preeminence in society or business is threatened.
=Telegony.= In the search for virginity there may also be in the male an unconscious "intuition" of some scientific facts. The phenomenon of telegony, explained by Dr. Jules Goldschmidt, of Paris, in the Medical Review of Reviews for April 1921, would, if confirmed by careful observations, throw a new light on the meaning of virginity.