'First to thine own self be true,And then it follows, as the night the day,That thou canst ne'er be false to any man.'
'First to thine own self be true,And then it follows, as the night the day,That thou canst ne'er be false to any man.'
They are hurtful, and they are unnecessary. Is love so vagrant that it must be tied by such a chain? Better let it go. True love asks no oath; it casteth out fear, and believes without a promise.
There are other reasons, sound physiological reasons, which we could adduce, if need were, to show that the close personal relations which arise between persons who are engaged should not be continued too long a time. They lead to excitement and debility, sometimes to danger and disease. Especially is this true of nervous, excitable, sympathetic dispositions.
If we are asked to be definite, and give figures, we should say that a period not longer than a year, nor shorter than three months, should intervene between the engagement and the marriage.
Woman, when she marries, enters upon a new life, and a trying one. Every advantage should be in her favour. The season is one of those advantages. Extreme heat and extreme cold both wear severely on the human frame. Mid-winter and mid-summer are, therefore, alike objectionable, especially the latter.
Spring and fall are usually chosen, as statistics show, and the preference is just. On the whole, the spring is rather to be recommended than the autumn. In case of a birth within the year, the child will have attained sufficient age to weather its period of teething more easily ere the next summer.
We mean the woman's own month, that which spans the time between her periodical sicknesses, be it two or five weeks. Let her choose a day about equidistant from two periods. The reasons for this we shall specify hereafter.
Custom prescribes a journey immediately after marriage, of a week or a month or two. It is an unwise provision. The event itself is disturbance enough for the system; and to be hurried hitherand thither, stowed in narrow berths and inconvenient carriages, troubled with baggage, and annoyed by the importunities of cabmen, waiters, and hangers-on of every description, is enough, in ordinary times, to test the temper of a saint.
The foundation of many an unhappy future is laid on the wedding tour. Not only is the young wife tried beyond all her experience, and her nervous system harassed, but the husband, too, partakes of her weakness. Many men, who really love the women they marry, are subject to a slight revulsion of feeling for a few days after marriage. 'When the veil falls, and the girdle is loosened,' says the German poet Schiller, 'the fair illusion vanishes.' A half regret crosses their minds for the jolly bachelorhood they have renounced. The mysterious charms which gave their loved one the air of something more than human, disappear in the prosaic sunlight of familiarity.
Let neither be alarmed, nor lose their self-control. Each requires indulgence, and management, from the other; both should demand from themselves patience and self-command. A few weeks, and this danger is over; but a mistake now is the mistake of a lifetime. More than one woman has confessed to us that her unhappiness commenced from her wedding tour; and when we inquired more minutely, we have found that it arose from an ignorance and disregard of just such little precautions as we have been referring to.
Yet it is every way advisable that the young pair should escape the prying eyes of friends and relatives at such a moment. Let them choose somequiet resort, not too long a journey from home, where they can pass a few weeks in acquiring that more intimate knowledge of each other's character as essential to their future happiness.
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We now enter upon the consideration of the second great period in the life of Woman. The maiden becomes a Wife. She is born into a new world. She assumes new relationships,—the sweetest, and, at the same time, the most natural of which she is capable.
The great object of the conjugal union is the transmission of life,—a duty necessary in order to repair the constant ravages of death, and thus perpetuate the race. In the fulfilment of this sublime obligation, woman plays the more prominent part, as she is the source and depositary of the future being. It is of moment, therefore, that she should not be altogether ignorant of the nature and responsibilities of her position. Ignorance here means suffering, disease, and sometimes death. Let us then interrogate science in regard to these matters, among the most interesting of all human concerns.
The initiation into marriage, like its full fruition, maternity, is attended with more or less suffering. Much, however, may be done to avert and to lessen the pain which waits upon the first step in this new life. For this purpose, regard must be had to theselection of the day. We have said that a time about midway between the monthly recurring periods is best fitted for the consummation of marriage. As this is a season of sterility, it recommends itself on this account, in the interest of both the mother and offspring. The first nuptial relations should be fruitless, in order that the indispositions possibly arising from them shall have time to subside before the appearance of the disturbances incident to pregnancy. One profound change should not too quickly succeed the other. About the tenth day after menstruation should therefore be chosen for the marriage ceremony.
It sometimes happens that marriage is consummated with difficulty. To overcome this, care, management, and forbearance should always be employed, and anything like precipitation and violence avoided. Only the consequences of unrestrained impetuosity are to be feared. In those rare cases in which greater resistance is experienced than can be overcome by gentle means, the existence of a condition contrary to nature may be suspected. Violence can then only be productive of injury, and is not without danger. Medical art should be appealed to, as it alone can afford assistance in such an emergency.
Although the first conjugal approaches are ordinarily accompanied by slight flooding, a loss of blood does not always occur. Its absence proves nothing. The appearance of blood was formerly regarded as a test of virginity. The Israelites, Arabs, and others carefully preserved and triumphantly exhibited the evidence of it as an infalliblesign of the virtue of the bride. They were in error. Its presence is as destitute of signification as its absence; for it is now well known that widows, and wives long separated from their husbands, often have a like experience. The temperament is not without its influence. In those of lymphatic temperament, pale blondes, who often suffer from local discharge and weakness, the parts being relaxed, there is less pain and little or no hæmorrhage. In brunettes, who have never had any such troubles, the case is reversed. The use of baths, unguents, etc., by the young wife, however serviceable they might prove, is obviously impracticable. This great change sometimes also produces swelling and inflammation of the glands of the neck.
Marital relations ordinarily continue during the first few weeks to be more or less painful. General constitutional disturbance and disorders of the nervous system often result. These troubles are all increased by the stupid custom of hurrying the bride from place to place, at a time when the bodily quiet and the mental calmness and serenity so desirable to her should be the only objects in view. Too frequent indulgence at this period is a fruitful source of various inflammatory diseases, and often occasions temporary sterility and ill-health. The old custom requiring a three days' separation after the first nuptial approach was a wise one, securing to the young wife the soothing and restoring influence of rest. Nothing was lost by it, and much gained.
In a little while, however, all irritation should subside, and no suffering or distress of any kind,whether general or local, should attend upon the performance of this important function. The presence of suffering now becomes indicative of disease. Of this we will speak hereafter.
One-third of life is passed in sleep. This period of unconsciousness and rest is necessary for the renewal of vital strength, and upon its proper management depends much of the health not merely of the husband and wife, but of their offspring. A great deal has been written upon the effect on health and happiness of occupying separate apartments, separate beds in the same apartment, or the same bed. This vexed question it is impossible to settle by absolute rules, suitable to all cases. In general, it may be asserted that there are no valid physiological reasons for desiring to change the custom which now prevails in this and most other countries. When both parties are in good health, and of nearly the same age, one bed-chamber, if sufficiently roomy, may be used without any disadvantage to either. Such an arrangement is also to be commended, because it secures closer companionship, and thus developes and sustains mutual affection.
It is said that in Zurich, in the olden time, when a quarrelsome couple applied for a divorce, the magistrate refused to listen to them at first. He ordered that they should be shut up together in one room for three days, with one bed, one table, one plate, and one cup. Their food was passed inby attendants, who neither saw nor spoke to them. On the expiration of the three days, it was usual to find that neither of them wanted a separation.
As before stated, there are conditions under which sleeping together is prejudicial to the health. A certain amount of fresh air during the night is required by every one. Re-breathed air is poisonous. During sleep constant exhalations take place from the lungs and from the skin, which are injurious if absorbed. A room twelve feet square is too small for two persons, unless it is so thoroughly ventilated that there is a constant change of air. In fact, a sleeping apartment for two persons should contain an air-space of at least twenty-four hundred cubic feet, and the facilities for ventilation should be such that the whole amount will be changed in an hour,—that is, at the rate of forty cubic feet per minute; for it has been ascertained that twenty cubic feet of fresh air a minute are required for every healthy adult.
Very young and very old people should never occupy the same bed. When the married couple hold the relation to each other, in regard to age, of grandfather and granddaughter, separate apartments should be insisted upon.
Certain diseases can be produced by sleeping together. The bed of a consumptive, it is well known, is a powerful source of contagion. In Italy it is the custom, after death, to destroy the bed-clothes of consumptive patients. Tubercular disease has, within the past few years, been transferred from men to animals by inoculation. Authentic cases are upon record of young robust girlsof healthy parentage, marrying men affected with consumption, acquiring the disease in a short time, and dying, in some instances, before their husbands. In these significant cases, the sickly emanations have apparently been communicated during sleep. When, therefore, either husband or wife is known to have consumption, it would be highly imprudent for them to pass the long hours of the night either in the same bed or in the same room.
Feather-beds are not conducive to the health of either sex. Mattresses made of wool, or of wool and horsehair, are much better. The bed should be opened, and its contents exposed to the air and sunlight, once every year. Beds long saturated with the night exhalations of their occupants are not wholesome. A number of ancient writers have alleged—and it has been reasserted by modern authorities—that sleeping on sponge is of service to those who desire to increase their families. The mattresses of compressed sponge recently introduced, therefore, commend themselves to married people thus situated. Hemlock boughs make a bed which has a well-established reputation for similar virtues.
The odor of cone-bearing trees has a well-known influence upon the fruitfulness of wedlock. Those who live in pine forests have ordinarily large families of children.
Excessive clothing at night is highly injurious. So also is a fire in the bed-room, except in case of sickness. If the body be too much heated duringsleep, perspiration occurs, or the action of the heart is increased, and the whole economy becomes excited. Either condition prevents sound sleep and reinvigoration of the body. Wives in feeble health, and those liable to attacks of flooding, should therefore have a particular regard to the quantity of clothing on their beds.
A distinguished medical writer has divided women into three classes in regard to the intensity of the sexual instinct. He asserts that a larger number than is generally supposed have little or no sexual feeling. A second class of women, more numerous than these, but still small as compared with the whole of their sex, are more or less subject to strong passion. Those of the first class can no more form an idea of the strength of the impulse in other women, than the blind can of colors. They therefore often err in their judgments. The third class comprises the vast majority of women, in whom the sexual appetite is as moderate as all other appetites.
It is a false notion, and contrary to nature, that this passion in a woman is a derogation to her sex. The science of physiology indicates most clearly its propriety and dignity. There are wives who plume themselves on their repugnance or their distaste for their conjugal obligations. They speak of their coldness and of the calmness of their senses, as if these were not defects. Excepting those afflicted with vices of conformation, or with disorders of sensibility,—which amount to the same thing,—all wives are called upon to receive and pay the imposts of love; and those who can withdraw themselves from the operation of this mysterious law without suffering and with satisfaction, show themselves by that fact to be incomplete in their organization, and deficient in the special function of their being. There should be no passion for one which is not shared by both. Generation is a duty. The feeling which excites to the preservation of the species is as proper as that which induces the preservation of the individual. Passionate, exclusive, and durable love for a particular individual of the opposite sex, it has been well said, is characteristic of the human race, and is a mark of distinction from other animals. The instinct of reproduction in mankind is thus joined to an affectionate sentiment, which adds to its sweetness and prolongs infinitely its duration.
Many physiologists have assigned to the feelings an importantrôlein conception, the possibility of which has even been doubted if there be no passion on the side of the woman. Although this extreme view is not tenable in the light of modern research, yet all recent authorities agree that conception is more assured when the two individuals who co-operate in it participate at the same time in the transports of which it is the fruit. It is also without doubt true that the disposition of the woman at that time has much power in the formation of the fœtus, both in modifying its physical constitution and in determining the character and temperament of its mind. The influence, long agoattributed by Shakspeare to 'a dull, stale, tired bed' in creating a 'tribe of fops,' is not a mere poet's fancy.
In this manner also may be explained the results of prolonged continence upon the offspring, for desires are usually vivid in proportion to the previous period of rest. The father of Montaigne, returning after an absence of thirty-two years, during which he was engaged in the wars of Italy, begot his son, so justly celebrated in French literature. The father of J. J. Rousseau, after a considerable absence in Constantinople, brought to his wife the reward of a long fidelity.
Sexual passion exerts, therefore, a marked influence upon the future being before conception, by the impression made upon the elements which come together to form it. The question now occurs; What effect does its presence and gratification produce upon the parents? We answer; It is a natural and healthful impulse. Its influence is salutary. A marked improvement in the physical condition of delicate women often follows a happy marriage. This sometimes occurs even in those cases where, from the nature of the disorder, the reverse might be expected. The utility of the passions, well directed, has become a maxim in medicine as in morality. And what passion is more important and fervent than that of which we write? The fathers in medicine, and their modern followers, agree in ascribing to the pleasures of love, indulged in with moderation, activity and lightness of the body, vigor and vivacity of the mind.
Music, apart from its immense influence on the nervous system in general, seems sometimes to exercise a special action on the sexual instinct. Science possesses at the present day some facts beyond dispute, which prove the great power of music in this respect.
The act of generation is a voluntary one. But nature has so placed it under the empire of pleasure, that the voice of discretion is no longer heard, and the will is often led captive. Hence it is well, for hygienic reasons, to consider its laws.
The too frequent repetition of the reproductive act is known to be followed by consequences injurious to the general health. Too rigid continence is not unattended, in many constitutions, with danger, for the victory over passion may be dearly bought. Science recommends the adoption of a wise mean between two extremes equally destructive. By following her counsel, women may escape from the hysterical and other disorders which often wait as well upon excess as upon too great denial of that passion, which claims satisfaction as a natural right.
As men have made laws upon all subjects, we need not be surprised to learn that they have legislated upon this. History informs us that the legislators of ancient times have not failed to occupy themselves with this grave question of conjugal economy. The ordinances of Solon required that the married should acquit themselves of their duties at least three times a month; those of Zoroasterprescribed once a week. Mohammed ordered that any wife neglected by her husband longer than a week could demand and obtain a divorce. It is not, however, in these, and other enactments which might be quoted, that guidance is to be sought. The principles derived from nature and experience are more valuable than human laws, however venerable; for these too often serve only to reflect the profound ignorance of their makers.
Moderation should here prevail. Health is thus preserved and strengthened, and the gratification doubled. The art of seasoning pleasures in general, consists in being avaricious with them. To abstain from enjoyment, is the philosophy of the sage, the epicurism of reason.
Proper self-denial in the gratification of the wants of physical love is a source of good, not only to the individual practising it, but to the community, as we shall show hereafter. It may be observed for one's own profit only, or for the benefit of another. The latter is in the end more conducive to self-interest than the former. A double advantage is derived therefrom,—gratitude and sympathy returned, and increase of appetite and of power for future enjoyment. Excess of indulgence results in the pain of surfeit and the extinction of affection. Earnest love, satisfying itself with small gratifications, is a more copious source of happiness than that frequently quenched by full gratification.
What, then, is this moderation which both Hygeia and Venus command? Here, again, invariable rules are not possible. Science rarely lays down laws so inflexible as those of the Medes and Persians. Shedesignates limits. The passage between Scylla and Charybdis is often a wide one. The folly of the ancient statutes which have been referred to, consists mainly in their failure to recognise the diverse influence of age, temperament, seasons, etc.
It almost appears as if there were but oneseasonfor generation, that in which the sun re-warms and vivifies the earth, trees dress in verdure, and animals respire the soft breath of spring. Then every living thing reanimates itself. The impulse of reproduction is excited. Now, also, its gratification is most beneficial to the individual and to the species. Children conceived in the spring time have greater vitality, are less apt to die during infancy, than those conceived at any other time of the year. The statistics of many thousand cases, recently carefully collated in England, prove this beyond peradventure. It is well known that a late calf, or one born at the end of the summer, is not likely to become a well-developed and healthy animal. This has been attributed to the chilling influence of approaching winter; but it is capable of another and, perhaps, a truer explanation. Nature's impulses, therefore, in the spring of the year are for the good of the race, and may then be more frequently indulged without prejudice to the individual. Summer is the season which agrees the least with the exercise of the generative functions. The autumn months are the most unfruitful. Then, also, derangements of the economy are readily excited by marital intemperance.
Thetemperamentsexert over reproduction, as over all the other functions of the body, a powerful influence. Love is said to be the ruling passion in the sanguine temperament, as ambition is in the bilious. There is also in some cases a peculiar condition of the nervous system which impels to, or diverts from, sexual indulgence. In some women, even in moderation, it acts as a poison, being followed by headache and prostration, lasting for days.
With advancing years, the fading of sexual desire calls attention to the general law, that animals and plants, when they become old, are dead to reproduction. What in early life is followed by temporary languor, in matured years is succeeded by a train of symptoms much graver and more durable.
Those who are in feeble health, and particularly those who have delicate chests, ought to be sober in the gratification of love. Sexual intercourse has proved mortal after severe hæmorrhages.
All organized beings are powerfully affected by propagation. Animals become depressed and dejected after it. The flower which shines so brilliantly at the moment of its amours, after the consummation of that act, withers and falls. It is wise, therefore, in imparting life, to have a care not to shorten one's own existence. Nothing is more certain than that animals and plants lessen the duration of their lives by multiplied sexual enjoyments. The abuse of these pleasures produces lassitude and weakness. Beauty of feature and grace of movement are sacrificed. When the excess is long continued, it occasions spasmodic and convulsive affections, enfeeblement of the senses, particularly that of sight, deprivation of the mental functions, loss of memory,pulmonary consumption and death. One of the most eminent of living physiologists has asserted that 'development of the individual and the reproduction of the species stand in a reverse ratio to each other,' and that 'the highest degree of bodily rigor is inconsistent with more than a very modest indulgence in sexual intercourse.'
The general principles we have just enunciated are of great importance in the regulation of the health. They are more suggestive and useful than the precise rules which have from time to time been laid down on this subject.
There are times at which marital relations are eminently improper. We are told,ICor. vii. 3, 4, that neither husband nor wife has the power to refuse the conjugal obligation when the debt is demanded. But there are certain legitimate causes for denial by the wife.
A condition of intoxication in the husband is a proper ground for refusal. Fecundation taking place while either parent has been in this state has produced idiots and epileptics. This has happened again and again. The cases on record are so numerous and well-authenticated, as to admit of no doubt in regard to the fatal effect upon the mind of the offspring of conception under such circumstances.
Physical degeneracy is also often a consequence of procreation during the alcoholic intoxication of one or both parents. A peculiar arrest of growthand development of body and mind takes place, and, in some instances, the unfortunate children, although living to years of manhood, remain permanent infants, just able to stand by the side of a chair, to utter a few simple sounds, and to be amused with childish toys.
During convalescence from a severe sickness, or when there is any local or constitutional disease which would be aggravated by sexual intercourse, it should be abstained from. There is reason for believing that a being procreated at a period of ill-humour, bodily indisposition, or nervous debility, may carry with it, during its whole existence, some small particles of these evils. When there exists any contagious disease, refusals are of course valid, and often a duty to the unborn. Poverty, or the wish to have no more children, can only be exceptionally allowed as a reason for the denial of all conjugal privileges.
The opinion that sexual relations practised during the time of the menses engender children liable to scrofulous disease, is a mere popular prejudice. But there are other and better-founded reasons for continence during these periods.
The question of intercourse during pregnancy and suckling will come up for consideration when speaking of these conditions hereafter.
Nature has not designed that a function of great moment to the human race—one involving its very existence—should be attended with pain. Thepresence of pleasure is indicative of health, its absence of disease. But to a woman who has systematically displaced her womb by years of imprudence in conduct or dress, this act, which should be a physiological one, and free from any hurtful tendencies becomes a source of distress and even of illness. The diseases of the womb which sometimes follow matrimony are not to be traced to excessive indulgence in many cases, but to indulgenceto any extentby those who have altered the natural relation of the parts before marriage. A prominent physician, Prof. T. Gaillard Thomas, of New York, has said that 'upon a woman who has enfeebled her system by habits of indulgence and luxury, pressed her uterus entirely out of its normal place, and who perhaps comes to the nuptial bed with some marked uterine disorder, the result of imprudence at menstrual epochs, sexual intercourse has apoisonousinfluence. The taking of food into the stomach exerts no hurtful influence on the digestive system; but the taking of food by a dyspeptic, who has abused and injured that organ, does so.'
When excessive pain exists, and every attempt occasions nervous trepidation and apprehension, it is absolutely certain that there is some diseased condition present, for which proper advice should be secured at once. Delay in doing so will not remove the necessity for medical interference in the end, while it will assuredly aggravate the trouble. Prompt intelligent aid, on the contrary, is usually followed by the happiest results in such cases.
Wives who never become mothers are said to be sterile or barren. This condition is frequently a cause of much unhappiness. Fortune may favor the married couple in every other respect, yet if she refuse to accord the boon of even a single heir to heart and home, her smiles will bear the aspect of frowns. It is then of some interest to inquire into the causes of this condition, and how to prevent or remedy their operation.
Dr. Duncan, of Edinburgh, has shown, by elaborate research, that in those wives who are destined to have children, there intervenes, on the average, about seventeen months between the marriage ceremony and the birth of the first child, and that the question whether a woman will be sterile is decided in the first three years of married life. If she have no children in that time, the chances are thirteen to one against her ever having any. In those cases, therefore, in which the first three years of married life are fruitless, it is highly desirable for those wishing a family to ascertain whether or not the barrenness is dependent upon any defective condition capable of relief.
The age of a wife at the time of marriage has much to do with the expectation of children. As the age increases over twenty-five years, the interval between the marriage and the birth of the first child is lengthened. For it has been ascertained that not only are women most fecund from twenty to twenty-four, but that they begin their career ofchild-bearing sooner after marriage than their younger or elder sisters. Early marriages (those before the age of twenty) are sometimes more fruitful than late ones (those after twenty-four). The interesting result has further been arrived at in England, that about one in fourteen of all marriages of women between fifteen and nineteen are without offspring; that wives married at ages from twenty to twenty-four inclusive, are almost all fertile; and that after that age the chances of having no children gradually increases with the greater age at the time of marriage.
There are two kinds of sterility which are physiological, natural to all women,—that of young girls before puberty, and that of women who are past the epoch of the cessation of the menses. In some very rare cases, conception takes place after cessation. In one published case, it occurred nine months afterwards, and in another eighteen months. In some very rare cases, also, conception has taken place before the first menstruation.
The older a woman is at the time of her marriage, the longer deferred is the age at which she naturally becomes sterile. She bears children later in life, in order to compensate, as it were, for her late commencement. But although she continues to have children until a more advanced age than the earlier married, yet her actual child-bearing period is shorter. Nature does not entirely make up at the end of life for the time lost from the duties of maternity in early womanhood; for the younger married have really a longer era of fertility than the older, though it terminates at an earlier age.
A wife who, having had children, has ceased for three years to conceive, will probably bear no more, and the probability increases as time elapses. After the first, births take place with an average interval, in those who continue to be fertile, of about twenty months.
Nursing women are generally sterile, above all, during the first months which follow accouchement, because the vital forces are then concentrated on the secretion of the milk. In a majority of instances, when suckling is prolonged to even nineteen or twenty months, pregnancy does not take place at all until after weaning.
Climate has also an influence upon the fertility of marriages. In southern regions more children are born, fewer in northern. The number of children is in inverse proportion to the amount of food in a country and in a season. In Belgium, the higher the price of bread the greater the number of children, and the greater the number of infant deaths.
The seasons exert a power over the increase of population. The spring of the year, as has already been stated, is the most favourable to fecundity. It is not known whether day and night have any effect upon conception.
The worldly condition seems to have much to do with the size of a family. Rich and fashionable women have fewer children than their poor and hard-worked neighbours. Wealth and pleasure seem to be often gladly exchanged for the title of mother.
But it is our more particular object now to inquire into thecauses of absolute sterilityin individual cases, rather than to discuss the operation of general laws upon the fertility of the community at large, however inviting such a discussion may be. When marriages are fruitless, the wife is almost always blamed. It is not to be supposed that she is always in fault. Many husbands are absolutely sterile; for it is a mistake to consider that every man must be prolific who is vigorous and enjoys good health. Neither does it follow, because a woman has never given birth to a living child, that she has not conceived. About one marriage in eight is unproductive of living children, and therefore fails to add to the population. The seeds of life have, however, been more extensively sown among women than these figures would seem to indicate. If the life of an infant for a long time after birth is a frail one, before birth its existence is precarious in the extreme. It often perishes soon after conception. A sickness, unusually long and profuse, occurring in a young married woman a few days beyond the regular time, is often the only evidence she will ever have that a life she has communicated has been ended almost as soon as begun. A tendency to miscarriage may therefore be all that stands in the way of a family. This is generally remediable.
It is a well-known fact that frigidity is a frequent cause of barrenness, as well as a barrier to matrimonial happiness. Its removal, so desirable, is in many cases possible by detecting and doing away with the cause. The causes are so various, that their enumeration here would be tedious andunprofitable, for most of them can only be discovered and remedied by a practical physician who has studied the particular case under consideration. So also in regard to the various displacements and diseases of the womb preventing conception. Proper medical treatment is usually followed by the best results.
While the fact that pleasure is found in the marital relation is a favourable augury for impregnation, it has been long noticed that Messalinas are sterile. It was observed in Paris, that out of one thousand only six bore children in the course of a year, whereas the ordinary proportion in that city for that time is three and a half births for every one hundred of the population.
In some women, nothing seems amiss but too intense passion. Such cases are much more rare than instances of the opposite extreme producing the same effect.
A condition of debility, or the presence of certain special poisons in the blood, may prevent conception, or, what is to all intents the same thing, cause miscarriage. Many apparently feeble women have large families. But in numerous instances a tonic and sometimes an alternative constitutional treatment is required before pregnancy will take place. On the contrary, there are well-authenticated cases of women who were stout and barren in opulence becoming thin and prolific in poverty.
The stimulus of novelty to matrimonial intercourse imparted by a short separation of husband and wife, is often salutary in its influence upon fertility.
To show upon what slight constitutional differences infertility often depends, it is merely necessary to allude to the fact, known to every one, that women who have not had children with one husband often have them with another. This condition of physiological incompatibility is evidently not altogether one of the emotional nature, for it is observed in animals, among whom it is by no means rare to find certain males and females who will not breed together, although both are known to be perfectly fruitful with other females and males. The ancients, believing that sterility was more common with couples of the same temperament and condition, advised, with Hippocrates, that blonde women should unite with dark men, thin women with stout men, andvice versâ.
Barren women should not despair. They sometimes become fecund after a long lapse of years. In other words, they are sterile only during a certain period of their lives, and then, a change occurring in their temperament with age, they become fruitful. History affords a striking example of this eccentricity of generation, in the birth of Louisxiv., whom Anne of Austria, Queen of France brought into the world after a sterility of twenty-two years. Catherine de Medicis, wife of Henryii., became the mother of ten children after a sterility of ten years. Dr. Tilt, of London, mentions the case of a woman who was married at eighteen, but although both herself and her husband enjoyed habitual good health, conception did not take place until she was forty-eight, when she bore a child. Another case is reported where a well-formed femalemarried at nineteen, and did not bear a child until she had reached her fiftieth year.
Families often suffer from the effects of sterility. Civilised nations never do. Recent researches have been carefully instituted in several countries to determine the exact power of the human race to preserve its numbers against the ravages of death. It has been ascertained that during periods of peace the population can be maintained to the same point by the additions made to it through the procreating capacity of only one-half of the women in the community. Nature, therefore, has made ample provision for preventing a decrease of population through failure of reproduction.
She has also instituted laws to prevent its undue increase. It would seem as if the extension of material mental and social comfort and culture has a tendency to render marriage less prolific, and population stationary or nearly so. So evident is this tendency, that it has been laid down as a maxim in sociology by Sismondi, that 'where the number of marriages is proportionally the greatest, where the greatest number of persons participate in the duties and the virtues and the happiness of marriage, the smaller number of children does each marriage produce.' Thus, to a certain extent, does nature endorse the opinions of those political economists who assert that increase of population beyond certain limits is an evil happily averted by wars, famines, and pestilences, which hence become national blessings in disguise. She, however, points to the extension of mental and moral education and refinement as gentler and surer means of reducing plethoric population than those suggested by Malthus and Mill.
Many causes of sterility, it will therefore be seen, are beyond the power of man to control. They operate on a large scale for the good of the whole. With these we have little concern. But there are others which may be influenced by intelligent endeavor. Some have been already alluded to, and the remedy suggested; but we will proceed to give more specific
It has long been known that menstruation presents a group of phenomena closely allied to fecundity. The first eruption of the menses is an unequivocal sign of the awakening of the faculty of reproduction. The cessation of the menstrual epochs is a sign equally certain of the loss of the faculty of reproduction. When conception has taken place, the periodical flow is interrupted. Labor occurs at about the time in which the menses would have appeared. In short, it is a fact, now completely established, that the time immediately before, and particularly that after the monthly sickness, is the period the most favorable to fecundation. It is said that, by following the counsel to this effect given him by the celebrated Fernel, Henryii., the King of France, secured to himself offspring after the long sterility of his wife before referred to. Professor Bedford, of New York, says that he can point to more than one instance in which, by this advice, he has succeeded in addingto the happiness of parties who for years had been vainly hoping for the accomplishment of their wishes.
Repose of the woman, and, above all, sojourn on the bed after the act of generation, also facilitates conception. Hippocrates, the great father of medicine, was aware of this, and laid stress upon it in his advice to sterile wives.
The womb and the breasts are bound together by very strong sympathies: that which excites the one will stimulate the other. Dr. Charles Loudon mentions that four out of seven patients, by acting on this hint, became mothers. A similar idea occurred to the illustrious Marshall Hall, who advised the application of a strong infant to the breast. Fomentations of warm milk to the breasts and the corresponding portion of the spinal column, and the use of the breast-pump two or three times a day, just before the menstrual period, have also been recommended by good medical authorities. Horseback exercise, carried to fatigue, seems occasionally to have conduced to pregnancy.
The greatest hope of success against sterility is to change the dominant state of the constitution. But this can only be effected under suitable medical advice. The treatment of sterility—thanks to the recent researches of Dr. Marion Sims—is much more certain than formerly; and the intelligent physician is now able to ascertain the cause, and point out the remedy, where before all was conjecture and experiment. The sterile wife should, herefore, be slow in abandoning all hope of ever becoming a mother.
No part of our subject is more delicate than this. Very few people are willing to listen to a dispassionate discussion of the propriety or impropriety of limiting within certain bounds the number of children in a family. On the one side are many worthy physicians and pious clergymen, who, without listening to any arguments, condemn every effort to avoid large families; on the other, are numberless wives and husbands, who turn a deaf ear to the warnings of doctors and the thunders of divines, and, eager to escape a responsibility they have assumed, hesitate not to resort to the most dangerous and immoral means to accomplish this end.
We ask both parties to lay aside prejudice and prepossession, and examine with us this most important social question in all its bearings.
Let us first inquire whether there is such a thing asover-production—havingtoo manychildren. Unquestionably there is. Its disastrous effects on both mother and children are known to every intelligent physician. Two-thirds of all cases of womb disease, says Dr. Tilt, are traceable to child-bearing in feeble women. Hardly a day passes that a physician in large practice does not see instances of debility and disease resulting from over-much child-bearing. Even the lower animals illustrate this. Every farmer is aware of the necessity of limiting the offspring of his mares and cows. How much more severe are the injuries inflicted on the delicate organization of woman! A very great mortality,says Dr. Duncan of Edinburgh, attends upon confinements when they become too frequent.
The evils of a too rapid succession of pregnancies are likewise conspicuous in the children. There is no more frequent cause, says Dr. Hillier,—whose authority in such matters none will dispute,—of rickets than this. Puny, sickly, short-lived offspring follows over-production. Worse than this, the carefully compiled statistics of Scotland show that such children are peculiarly liable to idiocy. Adding to an already excessive number, they come to over-burden a mother already overwhelmed with progeny. They cannot receive at her hands the attention they require. Weakly herself, she brings forth weakly infants. 'Thus,' concludes Dr. Duncan, 'are the accumulated evils of an excessive family manifest.'
Apart from these considerations, there are certain social relations which have been thought by some to advise small families. When either parent suffers from a disease which is transmissible, and wishes to avoid inflicting misery on an unborn generation, it has been urged that they should avoid children. Such diseases not unfrequently manifest themselves after marriage, which is answer enough to the objection that if they did not wish children they should not marry. There are also women to whom pregnancy is a nine months' torture, and others to whom it is nearly certain to prove fatal. Such a condition cannot be discovered before marriage, and therefore cannot be provided against by a single life. Can such women be asked to immolate themselves?
It is strange, says that distinguished writer, JohnStuart Mill, that intemperance in drink, or in any other appetite, should be condemned so readily, but that incontinence in this respect should always meet not only with indulgence but praise. 'Little improvement' he adds, 'can be expected in morality until the producing too large families is regarded with the same feeling as drunkenness, or any other physical excess.' A well-known medical writer, Dr. Drysdale, in commenting on these words, adds: 'In this error, if error it be, I also humbly share.'
'When dangerous prejudices,' says Sismondi, the learned historian of southern Europe, 'have not become accredited, when our true duties towards those to whom we give life are not obscured in the name of a sacred authority, no married man will have more children than he can bring up properly.'
Such is the language of physicians and statesmen; but a stronger appeal has been made for the sake of morality itself. The detestable crime ofabortionis appallingly rife in our day; it is abroad in our land to an extent which would have shocked the dissolute women of pagan Rome. Testimony from all quarters, especially from New England, has accumulated within the past few years to sap our faith in the morality and religion of American women. This wholesale, fashionable murder, how are we to stop it? Hundreds of vile men and women in our large cities subsist by this slaughter of the innocents, and flaunt their ill-gotten gains—the price of blood—in our public thoroughfares. Their advertisements are seen in the newspapers; their soul and body destroying means are hawked in every town. With such temptation strewn in her path, what willthe woman threatened with an excessive family do? Will she not yield to evil, and sear her conscience with the repetition of her wickedness? Alas! daily experience in the heart of a great city discloses to us only too frequently the fatal ease of such a course.
In view of the injuries of excessive child-bearing on the one hand, and of this prevalent crime on the other, a man of genius and sympathy, Dr. Raciborski of Paris, took the position that the avoidance of offspring to a certain extent is not only legitimate, but should be recommended as a measure of public good. 'We know how bitterly we shall be attacked,' he says, 'for promulgating this doctrine; but if our ideas only render to society the services we expect of them, we shall have effaced from the list of crimes the one most atrocious without exception, that of child-murder, before or after birth, and we shall have poured a little happiness into the bosoms of despairing families, where poverty is allied to the knowledge that offspring can be born only to prostitution or mendicity. The realization of such hopes will console us under the attacks upon our doctrines.'
It has been eagerly repeated by some, that the wish to limit offspring arises most frequently from an inordinate desire of indulgence. We reply to such, that they do not know the human heart, and that they do it discredit. More frequently the wish springs from a love of children. The parents seek to avoid having more than they can properly nourish and educate. They do not wish to leave their sons and daughters in want. 'This,' says a writer inThe Nation(of New York), in an article on this interesting subject,—'this is not the noblest motive of action, of course, but there is something finely human about it.'
'Very much indeed is it to be wished,' says Dr. Edward Reich, after reviewing the multitudinous evils which result to individuals and society from a too rapid increase in families, 'that the function of reproduction be placed under the dominion of the will.'
Men are very ready to find an excuse for self-indulgence; and if they cannot get one anywhere else, they seek it in religion. They tell the woman it is her duty to bear all the children she can. They refer her to the sturdy, strong-limbed women of early times, to the peasant women of northern Europe, who emigrate to America, and ask and expect their wives to rival them in fecundity. Such do not reflect that they have been brought up to light indoor employment, that their organization is more nervous and frail, that they absolutely have not the stamina required for many confinements.
Moreover, they presume too much in asking her to bear them. 'If a woman has a right to decide on any question,' said a genial physician in the Massachusetts Medical Society a few years since, 'it certainly is as to how many children she shall bear.' 'Certainly,' say the editors of a prominent medical journal, 'wives have a right to demand of their husbands at least the same consideration which a breeder extends to his stock.' 'Whenever it becomes unwise that the family should be increased,' says Sismondi again, 'justiceandhumanityrequirethat the husband should impose on himself the same restraint which is submitted to by the unmarried.'
An eminent writer on medical statistics, Dr. Henry MacCormac, says: 'The brute yields to the generative impulse when it is experienced. He is troubled by no compunction about the matter. Now, a man ought not to act like a brute. He has reason to guide and control his appetites. Too many, however, forget, and act like brutes instead of as men. It would, in effect, prove very greatly conducive to man's interests were the generative impulses placed absolutely under the sway of right reason, chastity, forecast, and justice.'
There is no lack of authorities, medical and non-medical, on this point. Few who weigh them well will deny that there is such a thing as too large a family; that there does come a time when a mother can rightfully demand rest from her labours, in the interest of herself, her children, and society. When is this time? Here again the impossibility meets us of stating a definite number of children, and saying, 'This many and no more.' As in every other department of medicine, averages are of no avail in guiding individuals. There are women who require no limitation whatever. They can bear healthy children with rapidity, and suffer no ill results. There are others—and they are the majority—who should use temperance in this as in every other function; and there are a few who should bear no children at all. It is absurd for physicians or theologians to insist that it is either the physical or moral duty of the female to haveas many children as she possibly can have. It is time that such an injurious prejudice was discarded, and the truth recognised, that while marriage looks to offspring as its natural sequence, there should be inculcated such a thing as marital continence, and that excess here as elsewhere is repugnant to morality, and is visited by the laws of physiology with certain and severe punishment on parent and child.
Continence, self-control, a willingness to deny himself,—that is what is required from the husband. But a thousand voices reach us from suffering women in all parts of our land that this will not suffice; that men refuse thus to restrain themselves; that it leads to a loss of domestic happiness and to illegal amours, or that it is injurious physically and mentally,—that, in short, such advice is useless, because impracticable.
To such sufferers we reply that Nature herself has provided to some extent against over-production, and that it is well to avail ourselves of her provisions. It is well known that women when nursing rarely become pregnant, and for this reason, if for no other, women should nurse their own children, and continue the period until the child is at least a year old. Be it remembered, however, that nursing, continued too long, weakens both mother and child, and, moreover, ceases to accomplish the end for which we now recommend it.
Another provision of nature is, that for a certain period between her monthly illnesses every woman is sterile. The vesicle which matures in her ovaries, and is discharged from them by menstruation, remains some days in the womb before it is passed forth and lost. How long its stay is we do not definitely know, and probably it differs in individuals. From ten to twelve days at most are supposed to elapse after thecessationof the flow before the final ejection of the vesicle. For some days after this the female is incapable of reproduction. But for some daysbeforeher monthly illness she is liable to conception, as for that length of time the male element can survive. This period, therefore, becomes a variable and an undetermined one, and even when known, its observation demands a large amount of self-control.
There is one method widely in use in this country for the limitation of offspring which deserves only the most unqualified condemnation, which is certain to bring upon the perpetrators swift and terrible retribution, and which is opposed to every sentiment of nature and morality. We mean
From the moment of conceptiona new life commences; a new individual exists; another child is added to the family. The mother who deliberately sets about to destroy this life, either by want of care, or by taking drugs, or using instruments, commits as great a crime, is just as guilty, as if she strangled her new-born infant, or as if she snatched from her own breast her six-months' darling and dashed out its brains against the wall. Its blood is upon her head, and as sure as there is a God and a judgment, that blood will be required of her. The crime she commits ismurder,child-murder,—theslaughter of a speechless, helpless being, whom it is her duty, beyond all things else, to cherish and preserve.
This crime is common; it is fearfully prevalent. Hundreds of persons are devoted to its perpetration. It is their trade. In nearly every village its ministers stretch out their bloody hands to lead the weak woman to suffering, remorse, and death. Those who submit to their treatment are not generally unmarried women who have lost their virtue, but the mothers of families, respectableChristianmatrons, members of churches, and walking in the better classes of society.
We appeal to all such with earnest and with threatening words. If they have no feeling for the fruit of their womb, if maternal sentiment is so callous in their breasts, let them know that such produced abortions are the constant cause of violent and dangerous womb diseases, and frequently of early death; that they bring on mental weakness, and often insanity; that they are the most certain means to destroy domestic happiness which can be adopted. Better, far better, to bear a child every year for twenty years than to resort to such a wicked and injurious step; better to die, if needs be, in the pangs of childbirth, than to live with such a weight of sin on the conscience.
There is no need of either. By the moderation we have mentioned, it is in the power of any woman to avoid the evils of an excessive family, without injury and without criminality.
We feel obliged to speak in plain language of this hidden sin, because so many are ignorant thatit is a sin. Only within a few years have those who take in charge the public morals spoken of it in such terms that this excuse of ignorance is no longer admissible.
Bishop Coxe, of New York, in a pastoral letter, the late Archbishop Spaulding, Catholic Primate of the United States, in an address at the close of a recent Provincial Council at Baltimore, the Old and New School Presbyterian Churches, at a meeting in Philadelphia, have all pronounced the severest judgments against those guilty of antenatal infanticide. Appeals through the press have been made by physicians of high standing, and by eminent divines, which should be in the hands of every one.
The chiefest difficulty hitherto has been, that while women were warned against the evils of abortion, they were offered no escape from the exhaustion and dangers of excessive child-bearing. This difficulty we have fully recognised and fairly met, and, we believe, in such a manner that neither the accuracy of our statements nor the purity of our motives can be doubted. Should our position be attacked, however, the medical man must know that in opposing our views, he opposes those of the most distinguished physicians in Europe and in America; and the theologian should be warned that, when a neglect of physical laws leads to moral evil, the only way to correct this evil is to remedy the neglect. In this case the neglect is over-production; the evil is abortion.
The theories which have been advanced to explain the manner in which the human species is continued and reproduced are very numerous. Including the hypotheses of the ancient philosophers, some two hundred and fifty have been promulgated by the greatest thinkers of all times. The older ones do not deserve mention, as they are replete with absurdities. Such, for instance, is that of Pythagoras, which supposed that a vapor descended from the brain and formed the embryo. The Scythians therefore took blood from the veins behind the ears to produce impotence and sterility. Modern science has shown the total error of this and many other views formerly entertained on this subject. Has galvanism or electricity any share in the mysterious function? Some among the modern physiologists have supposed that there is an electrical or magnetic influence which effects generation. Even within a few months, Dr. Harvey L. Byrd, Professor of Obstetrics in the Medical Department of Washington University of Baltimore, has asserted that he has 'every reason for believing that fecundation or impregnation is always an electrical phenomenon;... it results from the completion of anelectric circle,—the union of positive and negative electricities.' This, however, is not accepted by all as the dictum of modern science. Physiology has clearly established that the new being is the result of contact between the male element, an independent, living animal, on the one part, and the female element, a matured egg, on the other, involving theunion of the contents of two peculiar cells. Without such contact, fecundation cannot take place.
The only matter of practical moment in connection with this most interesting function which we have to announce, is the influence of the mind on the offspring at the time of generation. This influence has long been remarked in regard to animals as well as men. Jacob was aware of it when he made his shrewd bargain with Laban for 'all the speckled and spotted cattle' as his hire. For we are told that then 'Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chestnut tree, and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods. And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering-troughs, when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink. And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted. And Jacob did separate the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks towards the ringstraked and all the brown in the flock of Laban; and he put his own flocks by themselves, and put them not unto Laban's cattle. And it came to pass, whenever the stronger cattle did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the cattle in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods. But when the cattle were feeble, he put them not in: so the feebler were Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's.'
The impressions conveyed to the brain through the sense of sight are here asserted by the writer of Genesis to have influenced the system of the ewes sothat they brought forth young marked in the same manner as the rods placed before their eyes. It is not said that there was any miraculous interposition; but the whole account is given as if it were an everyday, natural, and well-known occurrence.
The Greeks, a people renowned for their physical beauty, seemed to be aware of the value of mental impressions; for in their apartments they were lavish of statues and paintings representing the gods and goddesses, delineated in accordance with the best models of art.
Dionysus, tyrant of Syracuse, caused the portrait of the beautiful Jason to be suspended before the nuptial bed, in order to obtain a handsome child.
The following is related of the celebrated Galen:—A Roman magistrate, little, ugly, and hunch-backed, had by his wife a child exactly resembling the statue of Æsop. Frightened at the sight of this little monster, and fearful of becoming the father of a posterity so deformed, he went to consult Galen, the most distinguished physician of his time, who counseled him to place three statues of love around the conjugal bed, one at the foot, the others, one on each side, in order that the eyes of his young spouse might be constantly feasted on these charming figures. The magistrate followed strictly the advice of the physician, and it is recorded that his wife bore him a child surpassing in beauty all his hopes.
The fact that the attributes of the child are determined to an important extent by the bodily and mental condition of the parents at the time of conception, explains the marked difference almost constantly observed between children born to the same parents, however strong the family likeness may be among them. The changes constantly going on in the physical, intellectual, and emotional states of the parents, produce a corresponding alteration in offspring conceived at successive intervals. Twins generally resemble each other very closely in every respect.
Inasmuch, therefore, as the moment of generation is of much more importance than is commonly believed in its effect upon the moral and physical life of the future being, it is to be wished that parents would pay some attention to this subject. It is the moment of creation,—that in which the first vital power is communicated to the new creature. Not without reason has nature associated with it the highest sensual exaltation of our existence. Dr. Hufeland, the author ofThe Art of Prolonging Life, has said, 'In my opinion it is of the utmost importance that this moment should be confined to a period when the sensation of collected powers, ardent passion, and a mind cheerful and free from care, invite to it on both sides.'
There are some women in whom the act of conception is attended with certain sympathetic affections, such as faintness, vertigo, etc., by which they know that it has taken place.
Swelling of the neck was regarded in ancient times as a sign of conception. Its truthfulness has been reaffirmed by modern authorities.
It has also been asserted that impregnation generally excites a universal tremor in all parts of the body, and that it is associated with more than an ordinary degree of pleasure.
It must not be supposed, however, that enjoyment and impregnation bear necessarily to each other the relation of cause and effect, although this is the popular opinion. From too implicit a reliance upon this current belief, wives are often incredulous as to their true condition.
It is a fact that in some cases sickness at the stomach manifests itself almost simultaneously with the act of fecundation. Authentic instances are on record of wives reckoning their confinement nine months from the first feeling of nausea, without ever making a mistake.
In conclusion, it may be said that peculiar sensations are often experienced, frequently of a character difficult to explain; and many modern authors attach to them a marked value. In this manner it is possible for a woman to be satisfied at the moment as to the change which has taken place; yet the evidence is often deceptive, and sometimes nothing peculiar is noticed.
From the period of conception the mother has no direct knowledge of the process that is going on within, excepting by the effects of the increasing pressure upon other parts, until 'quickening' takes place, which belongs to another part of our subject.
The signs and symptoms of pregnancy will be explained in full when we come to treat of the pregnant condition in a future chapter.