Girlsmarry, in the final analysis, because love for the male is an innate natural principle of the female nature. At its best this love is pure and chaste. The good woman realizes that its first purpose is not mere carnal pleasure. It is a special avowal of the wife's relations to her husband, and its natural as well as moral end is the establishment of the family on the basis of a healthy progeny.
The wife-to-be, like her prospective husband, will be well advised to ask for a medical health certificate. No man, no matter how good his reputation may be, should marry (on his own account as well as that of the girl) without thorough examination by a physician. The consequences of venereal infection administered to unborn children by their parents are too horrible to allow of any risk being taken. Another bit of advice, which cannot be too highly commended, is that the prospective husband and wife, before they marry, have a plain talk with each other regarding individual sexual peculiarities and needs. A heart-to-heart talk of this kind wouldbe apt to prevent great disappointments and incompatibilities which otherwise may become permanent.
The natural instinct of a man is to seek his mate. On her he depends for an orderly and lawful indulgence of his sex demands. The greatest longevity and best health are to be found among happily married fathers and mothers. No young woman should marry without a full knowledge of her sex duties to her husband. And she should never consummate the marriage vow grudgingly.
Childbirth is the natural consequence of marriage. Its processes have already been explained in Chapter II of this book. There are, however, some hygienic facts in connection with it which should be noted. Once pregnancy is established, as soon as the fact is suspected, the mother-to-be should look on the little embryo as already a member of the family. Every act of each parent should now be performed (at least to some degree) with reference to the forthcoming infant. The mother's thoughts should be directed to it as much as possible. Mentally she should read literature of a lofty and ennobling character. The theory is that this serves a good purpose in producing a more perfect, healthy and intelligent child. Physically, she should take plenty of active exercise during gestation. Active exercise does not, of course, mean violent exercise. And she should use a “Health Lift.” During thistime she should subsist as far as possible on a farinaceous diet, fruits and vegetables. The foods should be plainly cooked, without spices. If all else is as it should be, the birth of the child at the end of the customary nine months will be attended by comparatively little pain and danger.
It is most important that the childbearing wife and mother have a long period of rest between births. At least one year should separate a birth and the conception following it. This means that about two years should elapse between two births. If this rule be followed, the wife will retain her health, and her children will also be healthy. It is far better to give birth to seven children, who will live and be healthy, than to bear fourteen, of whom seven are likely to die, while the numerous successive births wear out and age the unfortunate mother.
The above paragraph deals with one detail of what might be called “matrimonial adjustment.” This adjustment or compromise is a feature of all successful marriages. The individual cravings of husband and wife must be reconciled by mutual good will and forbearance if they are to be happy. Attention should be paid in particular to not allowing habit, “the worst foe of married happiness,” to become too well established in the home, and to cultivate that love and affection which survives the decline of the sexual faculties.
The ideal marriage is the one in which affection combines to bring happiness to both partners in a sane union of sex and soul. As one commentator has rather unhappily expressed it: “When married thebattlefor one united and harmonious life really begins!” It is, indeed, but too often abattle! Forbearance, consideration and respect must be the foundation on which the ideal married state is built. The husband should realize that his wife's love for him induces her to allow privileges of a personal nature which her innate chastity and timidity might otherwise refuse. In return, he should accept these privileges with consideration. He should, in particular, on his wedding night, take care not to shock his young bride's sensibilities. He may easily give her a shock from which she will not recover for years, and lead her to form an antipathy against the very act which is “the bond and seal of a truly happy married life.”
Material changes have taken place in the birth-rate of a number of countries during the past fifteen or twenty years which cannot be attributed to purely economic causes. They do not seem to depend on such things as trade, employment and prices; but on the spread of an idea or influence whose tendency must be deplored, that of “birth control,” a phrase much heard in these days.
The fact that a decline in human fertility and afalling birth rate are most noticeable in the relatively prosperous countries is a proof that it does not proceed from economic causes; but is due rather to the spread of the doctrine that it is permissible to restrict or control birth. In such countries as the United States, England and Australasia, where the standards of human comfort and living are notoriously high, the decline in the birth rate has been most noticeable. On the other hand, we find perhaps the greatest decline in the birth rate in France, a country where the general well-being probably reaches a lower depth in the community than in any other part of Europe. A comparison of the birth rates of France and of Ireland, for example, offer a valuable illustration of the point under consideration. In France, more than half the women who have reached the age of nubility are married; in Ireland, generally speaking, less than a third. In both countries the crude birth rate is far below that in other European lands. Yet the fertility of the Irish wife exceeded that of her French compeer by 44 per cent in 1880, and by no less than 84 per cent in 1900. And since that time the prolificity of the Irish mother has so increased that she is now, approximately speaking, inferior only to the Dutch or Finnish mother in this respect.
In general, in any country where we find a diminished prolificity a falling off of childbirthunaccompaniedby a decrease in the number of marriages occurring at the reproductive ages, we may attribute this decrease tovoluntary restriction of childbearingon the part of the married, or in otherwords, to the prevalance of “birth control.” This incidentally, is not a theoretical statement, but one supported by the almost unanimous medical opinion in all countries. Everywhere and especially here in our own United States, we find evidence of the extensive employ of “birth control” measures to prevent that normal development of family life which underlies the vigor and racial power of every nation. These preventive measures which arbitrarily control human birth had long been in use in France with results which, especially since the war, have been frequently and publicly deplored in the press, and have led the French Government to offer substantial rewards to encourage the propagation of large families. From France the preventive practises of “birth control” had spread, after 1870, over nearly all the countries of western Europe, to England and to the United States; though they are not as much apparent in those countries where the Roman Church has a strong hold on the people.
As a general thing, the practice of thus unnaturally limiting families—“unnaturally” since the custom of “birth control” derives from no natural, physical law—prevails, in the first instance, among the well-to-do, who should rather be the first to set the example of protest against it by having the families they are so much better able to support and educate than those less favored with the world's goods. If the evil of voluntary control of human birth were restricted to a privileged class, say one of wealth, the harm done would, perhaps, not be so great. But, unfortunately, in the course of timeit filters down as a “gospel of comfort”—erroneous term!—to those whose resources are less. They accept and practice this invidious system of prevention and gradually the entire community is more or less affected.
The whole system of “birth control” is opposed to natural, human and religious law. Nature, in none of her manifestations, introduces anything which may tend to prevent her great reason for being—the propagation of the species. Birth as the natural sequence of mating is her solemn and invariable law. It is in birth and rebirth that nature renews herself and all the life of the animal and vegetable world, and her primal aim is to encourage it. Human law recognizes this underlying law of nature by forbidding man to tamper in a preventive way with her hallowed and mysterious processes for perpetuating the human race. Religious law, based on the divine dispensation of the Scriptures, indorses the law of nature and that of the state.
We may take it, then, that “birth control” represents a deliberate and reprehensible attempt to nullify those innate laws of reproduction sanctioned by religion, tradition and man's own ingrained instinct. To say that the human instinct for the perpetuation of his race and family has become atrophied during the flight of time, and that he is therefore justified in denying it, is merely begging the question. The instinct may be denied, just as other higher and nobler instincts are disregarded; but its validity cannot be questioned. Whether those who practice “birth control” are influencedby economic, selfishly personal or other reasons, they are offending in a threefold manner: against the inborn wish and desire which is a priceless possession of even the least of God's creatures, that of living anew in its offspring; against the law of the state, which after all, stands for the crystallization of the best feeling of the community; and against the divine injunction handed down to us in Holy Writ, to “increase and multiply.”
“Birth control” is the foe to the direct end and aim of marriage, which, in the last analysis, is childbirth. As an enemy to the procreation of children it is an enemy of the family and the family group. As an enemy of the family, it is an enemy of the state, the community, a foe to the whole social system. Mankind has been able to attain its comparatively recent state of moral and physical advancement without having recourse to the dangerous principle which “birth control” represents. Surely that wise provision of our existing legal code which makes the printing or dessimation of information regarding the physical facts of “birth control” illegal and punishable as an offense, can only be approved by those who respect the Omnipotent will, and the time-hallowed traditions which date back to the very inception of the race.
Thesex diseases are the same in both sexes, whether developed by direct or accidental infection. They are the greatest practical argument in favor of continence, morality and marriage in the sex relation.
Gonorrhea is a pus-discharging inflammation of the canal known as theurethra, which passing through the entire length of the organ, carries both the urine and the seminal fluid. It is caused by a venereal bacillus, thegonococcus. Under favorable conditions and with right treatment, gonorrhea may be cured, though violently painful, in fourteen days. Often the inflammation extends, becomes chronic and attacks other organs. This chronic gonorrhea often causes permanent contraction of the urethra, which leads to the painful retention of urine, catarrh of the bladder, and stone. Chronic gonorrhea, too, often ends in death, especially if the kidneys are attacked. A cured case of gonorrhea does not mean immunity from further attacks. New infections are all the more easily acquired. Gonorrhea has even more dangerous consequences in women than in men. Thegonococcusbacilli infect all the inner female genital organs. They causefrequent inflammations and lead to growths in the belly. Women thus attacked usually are apt to be sterile; they suffer agonies, and often become chronic invalids. The child born of a gonorrheal mother, while passing through the infected genital organs, comes to life with infected eyelids. This isBlennorrhea, which may result in total blindness. Gonorrhea also causes inflammation of the joints, gonorrheal rheumatism, testicular inflammations which may lead to sterility. Some authorities claim that fully half the sterility in women is caused by gonorrheal infection of the Fallopian tubes. Gonorrheal infection of the eyes at birth is now prevented by first washing them in a saturated solution of boric acid, then treating them with a drop of weak silver solution.
Syphilis is a still more terrible venereal disease. It usually appears first in small, hard sores, hard chancres, on the sexual parts or the mouth. Then the syphilitic poison spreads throughout the whole body by means of the blood. After a few weeks it breaks out on the face or body. Its final cure is always questionable. Syphilis may lie dormant for years, and then suddenly become active again. It breaks out in sores on all parts of the body, often eats up the bone, destroys internal organs, such as the liver, causes hardening of the lungs, diseases of the blood vessels and eye diseases. Ulcers of the brain and nerve paralysis often result from it. One of its most terrible consequences is consumption ofthe spinal marrow and paralysis of the brain, or paresis. The first slowly hardens and destroys the spinal marrow, the second the brain. These diseases are only developed by previous syphilitics. As a rule they occur from 5 to 20 years after infection, usually 10 or 15 years after it. And they usually happen to persons who believed themselves completely cured. Consumption of the spinal marrow leads to death in the course of a few years of continual torture. Paralysis of the brain turns the sufferer into a human ruin, gradually extinguishing all mental and nervous functions, sentience, movement, speech and intellect.
One danger of syphilis is the fact that its true nature may be overlooked during the first period, because of the lack of pronounced symptoms. Its early sores may easily be mistaken for some skin affection. Mercury and other means are successful in doing away with at least the more noticeable signs of syphilis during the first and secondary stages. The modern medical treatment using mercury and Salvarsan (606) in alternation, has been very successful. It is claimed that by following it, syphilis may be totally cured if taken in hand during the first stage. The sores developed during the first two or three years of the disease are very infectious. In the case of a chronic syphilis of three or four years' standing, the sores as a rule are no longer infectious. It is possible, however, for a syphilitic of this description to bring forth syphilitic children,without infecting his wife. Such children either die at birth, or later, of this congenital syphilis. Theymay also die of spinal consumption or paresis between the ages of 10 and 20. The mortality of all syphilitic children is very great. In most cases, however, healthy children are born of the wedlock ofrelatively curedsyphilitics, though they are often sterile. Young men who have had recourse to prostitutes, often inoculate their wives with gonorrhea or syphilis, and thus the plague is spread.
The soft chancre is the third form of venereal disease (the hard chancre being the first stage of syphilis). It is the least dangerous of the venereal diseases, but unfortunately, relatively the one which occurs most seldom. When not complicated with syphilis, it appears locally. It is a larger or smaller sore feeding and growing on the genital organs.
The most tragic consequence of all venereal disease is the part it plays in the infection of innocent children, and innocent wives and mothers. Often a pure and chaste woman is thus deprived in the most cruel and brutal manner of the fruit of all her hopes and dreams of happiness. Similarly, a young man may find himself hopelessly condemned to a short life of pain and misery. He may also suffer from the knowledge that he has ruined the lives of those dearest to him. Venereal disease, syphilis in particular, emphasizes thepracticalvalue of continence—quite aside from its moral one—in a manner which cannot be ignored!
Whenwe take under consideration the higher, truer love of one sex for the other, that is, an affection which is not simply a friendship, but has a sex basis, we realize that it may be a very noble emotion. There is no manner of doubt but that the normal human being feels a great need for love. Sex in love and its manifestation in the life of the soul is one of the first conditions of human happiness, and a main aim of human existence.
All know the tale of Cupid's arrow. A man falls in love with a face, a pair of eyes, the sound of a voice, and his affection is developed from this trifling beginning until it takes complete possession of him. This love is usually made up of two components: a sex instinct, and feelings of sympathy and interest which hark back to primal times. And this love, in its true sense, should stand for an affection purified from egoism.
When, among the lower animal forms we find individuals without a determined sex, egoism develops free from all restraint. Each individual creature devours as much as it can and feeding, together with propagation by division, “budding” or conjunction, makes up the total of its vital activities. It need do no more to accomplish thepurpose of its existence. Even when propagation commences to take place by means of individual male and female parents, the same principle of egoism largely obtains. The spiders are typical instances of this: in their case the carrying out of the natural functions of the male spider is attended with much danger for him, owing to the fact that if he does not exercise the greatest care, he is apt to be devoured immediately afterward by his female partner, in order that no useful food matter may be lost. Yet even in the case of the spiders, the female spider already gives proof of a certain capacity for sacrifice where her young are concerned, at any rate for a short time after they have crept from the egg.
In animals somewhat higher in the creative scale, more or less powerful feelings of affection may develop out of their sex association. There is affection on the part of the male for his mate, and on the part of the female for her young. Often these feelings develop into a strong, lasting affection between the sexes, and years of what might be called faithful matrimonial union have been observed in the case of birds. This in itself is sufficient to establish the intimate relationship between love in a sex sense and love in a general sense. And even in the animal creation we find the same analogy existing between these feelings of sympathy and their opposites which occur in the case of human beings. Every feeling of attachment or sympathy existing between two individuals has a counterpart in an opposite feeling of discontent when the object ofthe love or attachment in question dies, falls sick, or runs away. This feeling of discontent may assume the form of a sorrow ending in lasting melancholy. In the case of apes and of certain parrots, it has been noticed that the death of a mate has frequently led the survivor to refuse nourishment, and die in turn from increasing grief and depression. If, on the other hand, an animal discovers the cause of the grief or loss which threatens it; if some enemy creature tries to rob it of its mate or little ones, the mixed reactive feeling of rage or anger is born in it, anger against the originator of its discontent. Jealousy is only a definite special form of this anger reaction.
A further development of the feeling of sympathy is that of duty. Every feeling of love or sympathy urges those who feel it to do certain things which will benefit the object of that love. A mother will feed her young, bed them down comfortably, caress them; a father will bring nourishment to the mother and her brood, and protect them against foes. All these actions, not performed to benefit the creature itself, but to help its beloved mate, represent exertion, trouble, the overcoming of danger, and lead to a struggle between egoism and the feeling of sympathy. Out of this struggle is born a third feeling, that of responsibility and conscience. Thus the elements of the human social feelings are already quite pronounced in the case of many animals, including those of love as well as sex.
In the human animal, speaking in general, these feelings of sympathy (love) and duty are stronglydeveloped in the family connection; that is, they are developed with special strength in those who are most intimately united in sex life, in husband and wife and in children. Consequently the feelings of sympathy or love which extend to larger communal groups, such as more distant family connections, the tribe, the community, those speaking the same tongue, the nation, are relatively far weaker. Weakest of all, in all probability, is that general human feeling which sees a brother in every other human being and is conscious of the social duties owed him.
As regards man and wife, the relation of the actual sex instinct to love is often a very complicated one. In the case of man the sex feeling may, and frequently does exist independent of love in the higher sense; in the case of woman it is quite certain that love occurs far less seldom unaccompanied by the sex inclination. It is also quite possible for love to develop before the development of the sex feeling, and this often, in married life, leads to the happiest relationships.
The mutual adoration of two individuals, husband and wife, often degenerates into a species of egoistic enmity toward the remainder of the world. And this, in turn, in many cases reacts unfavorably upon the love the two feel for each other. Human solidarity, especially in this day, is already too great not to revenge itself upon the egotistical character of so exclusive a love. The real ideal of sex in love might be expressed as follows: A man and a woman should be induced to unite in marriagethrough genuine sex attraction and harmony of character and disposition. In this union they should mutually encourage each other to labor socially for the common good of mankind, in such wise thatthey further their own mutual education and that of their children, the beings nearest and dearest to them,as the natural point of departure for helping general human betterment.
If love in its relation to sex be conceived in this manner, it will purify it by doing away with its pettinesses and it is just into these pettinesses that the most honest and upright of matrimonial loves too often degenerate. The constructive work done in common by two human beings who, while they care lovingly for each other, at the same time encourage each other to strive and endure in carrying out the principles of right living and high thinking, will last. Love and marriage looked at from this point of view, are relatively immune from the small jealousies and other evil little developments of a one-sided, purely physical affection. It will work for an ever more ideal realization of love in its higher and nobler dispensations.
Real and true love is lasting. The suddenly awakened storm of sex affection for a hitherto totally unknown person can never be accepted as a true measure for love. This sudden surge of the sex feeling warps the judgment, makes it possible to overlook the grossest defects, colors all and everything with heavenly hues. It makes a man who is “in love,” or two beings who are in love, mutually blind, and causes each to carefully conceal his or herreal inward self from the other. This may be the case even when the feelings of both are absolutely honest, especially if the sex feeling is not paired with cool egoistic calculation. Not until the first storm of the sex feeling has subsided, when honeymoon weeks are over, is a more normal point of view regained. And then love, indifference, or hatred, as the case may be develops. It is for this reason that love at first sight is always dangerous, and that only a longer and more intimate acquaintance with the object of one's affection is calculated to give a lasting union a relatively good chance of turning out happily. One thing is worth bearing in mind. Woman invariably represents the conservative element in the family. Her emotional qualities, combined with wonderful endurance, always control her intellect more powerfully than is the case with man; and the feelings and emotions form the conservative element in the human soul.