Note 166 — Chapter IV · —SEXUAL INVERSION IN WOMEN. (continued 2)

An interesting ancient example of a woman with an irresistible impulse to adopt men's clothing and lead a man's life, but who did not, so far as is known, possess any sexual impulses, is that of Mary Frith, commonly called Moll Cutpurse, who lived in London at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The Life and Death of Mrs. Mary Frith appeared in 1662; Middleton and Rowley also made her the heroine of their delightful comedy, The Roaring Girl (Mermaid Series, Middleton's Plays, volume ii), somewhat idealizing her, however. She seems to have belonged to a neurotic and eccentric stock; "each of the family," her biographer says, "had his peculiar freak." As a child she only cared for boys' games, and could never adapt herself to any woman's avocations. "She had a natural abhorrence to the tending of children." Her disposition was altogether masculine; "she was not for mincing obscenity, but would talk freely, whatever came uppermost." She never had any children, and was not taxed with debauchery: "No man can say or affirm that ever she had a sweetheart or any such fond thing to dally with her;" a mastiff was the only living thing she cared for. Her life was not altogether honest, but not so much from any organic tendency to crime, it seems, as because her abnormal nature and restlessness made her an outcast. She was too fond of drink, and is said to have been the first woman who smoked tobacco. Nothing is said or suggested of any homosexual practices, but we see clearly here what may be termed the homosexual diathesis.