<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></SPAN>CHAPTER VIII<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></SPAN></span></h2>
<h3>SEX IN THE MARRIAGE RELATION<br/> <small>THE WIFE</small></h3>
<p class="newchapter"><span class="firstword"><span class="dropcap">G</span>irls</span> marry, 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.</p>
<h5>BEFORE MARRIAGE</h5>
<p>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 would<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></SPAN></span>
be apt to prevent great disappointments and incompatibilities
which otherwise may become permanent.</p>
<h5>THE WIFE AND HER POSITION</h5>
<p>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.</p>
<h5>CHILDBIRTH HYGIENE</h5>
<p>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 this<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></SPAN></span>
time 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.</p>
<h5>HOW OFTEN SHOULD CHILDBIRTH TAKE PLACE?</h5>
<p>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.</p>
<h5>MATRIMONIAL ADJUSTMENT</h5>
<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></SPAN></span></p>
<h5>THE IDEAL MARRIAGE</h5>
<p>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
the <i>battle</i> for one united and harmonious life really
begins!” It is, indeed, but too often a <i>battle</i>! 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.”</p>
<h5>BIRTH CONTROL</h5>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The fact that a decline in human fertility and a<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></SPAN></span>
falling 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.</p>
<p>In general, in any country where we find a
diminished prolificity a falling off of childbirth <i>unaccompanied</i>
by a decrease in the number of marriages
occurring at the reproductive ages, we may
attribute this decrease to <i>voluntary restriction of
childbearing</i> on the part of the married, or in other<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></SPAN></span>
words, 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.</p>
<p>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 time<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></SPAN></span>
it 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 influenced<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></SPAN></span>
by 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.”</p>
<p>“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.</p>
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