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You devote a chapter to Freud and Lewis on sex. Who was better adjusted sexually?

Though we think of Freud as the father of the new sexuality, he lived a rather restricted sexual life. His letters and his biographers indicate he lived the traditional sexual code of sex within marriage with complete fidelity or abstinence. Because of his long medical training he could not afford to marry until about 30 years old. During a long, four-year engagement, most biographers agree, he did not have sexual relations with his fiancée. Freud's official biographer noted that Freud remained faithful throughout his marriage. His sexual life during marriage appeared to be quite restricted—he wrote to a friend when 37 years old that "we are now living in abstinence." Scholars give various reasons for this abstinence.

Lewis gives us few details of his sexual life before his conversion. When in the army, he avoided visiting prostitutes—perhaps out of fear of disease. He describes a robust sexual desire that he became aware of in his early teens. Before his conversion, he speaks of trying to live a moral life but finding that he continually failed in the areas of "lust and anger." And when he began to look at his life seriously, he wrote that he was "appalled" by the "zoo of lusts" within him. When he finally married in his 50s, he had a very fulfilling sexual life. He wrote later that he and his wife "feasted on love; every mode of it . …No cranny of heart or body remained unsatisfied." His wife wrote: "You'd think we were a honeymoon couple in our early 20s."

Freud famously asked, "What do women want?" Lewis, on the other hand, carried on a tremendous correspondence with women. Did either man ever come to understand the opposite sex?

Freud acknowledged that he had difficulty understanding women. He referred to the sexuality of women as a "Dark Continent." Many of his theories have outraged feminists, and he is often accused of being prejudiced against women. Yet he had many women followers, and many of the first psychoanalysts were women with whom he had a good working relationship.

Lewis also had many women friends whom he admired and with whom he corresponded. He appeared to have an unusual understanding of women, perhaps not only from the great literature, but also from living with his surrogate mother, Mrs. Moore, and her daughter. His scholarly work The Allegory of Love focused on the love between a man and a woman, and his popular writings on modern marriage and the family contain a great deal of clinical insight and understanding.

Freud is known for saying that the well-adjusted adult needs the ability to love and to work. How would you compare Freud's and Lewis's understanding of work?

Both worked hard at their professions, both wrote prolifically. Freud and Lewis, before his conversion, were driven by a strong desire to be famous. When Freud was 17 years old he advised a friend to save his [Freud's] letters because someday he would be famous. During his self-analysis, he related his desire to be famous to a story told him as a child that an old peasant woman prophesied that his mother had given birth to a great man. When in his 50s, he said that "in view of the inevitable ingratitude of humanity … I certainly do not work because of the expectation of any reward or fame." Yet his diary and his letters indicate the desire remained.

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April 22 2002, Vol. 46, No. 5