THE FIRST NECESSITY
At this stage in our discussion it is necessary to consider a subject which ought rightly to come foremost in the provident study of the facts that precede marriage—a subject which craven fear and ignorance combine to keep out of sight, yet which must now see the light of day. For the writer would be false to his task, and guilty of a mere amateur trifling with the subject, who should spend page after page in discussing the choice of marriage, the best age for marriage, and so forth, without declaring that as an absolutely essential preliminary it is necessary that the girl who mates shall at least, whatever else be or be not possible, mate with a man who is free from gross and foul disease.
The two forms of disease to which we must refer are appalling in their consequences, both for the individual and the future. In technical language they are called contagious; meaning that the infection is conveyed not through the air as, say, in the case of measles or small-pox, but by means of contact with some infected surface—it may be a lip in the act of kissing, a cup in drinking, a towel in washing, and so forth. Of both these terrible diseases this is true. They therefore rank, like leprosy, as amongst the most eminently preventable diseases. Leprosy has in consequence been completely exterminated in England, but though venereal disease—the name of the two contagions considered together—diminishes, it is still abundant everywhere and in all classes of society. Here regarding it only from the point of view of the girl who is about to mate, I declare with all the force of which I am capable that, many and daily as are the abominations for which posterity will hold us up to execration, there is none more abominable in its immediate and remote consequences, none less capable of apology than the daily destruction of healthy and happy womanhood, whether in marriage or outside it, by means of these diseases. At all times this is horrible, and it is more especially horrible when the helpless victim is destroyed with the blessing of the Church and the State, parents and friends; everyone of whom should ever after go in sackcloth and ashes for being privy to such a deed.
The present writer, for one, being a private individual, the servant of the public, and responsible to no body smaller than the public, has long declined and will continue to decline to join the hateful conspiracy of silence, in virtue of which these daily horrors lie at the door of the most honoured and respected individuals and professions in the community. More especially at the doors of the Church and the medical profession there lies the burden of shame that, as great organized bodies having vast power, they should concern themselves, as they daily do, with their own interests and honour, without realizing that where things like these are permitted by their silence, their honour is smirched beyond repair in whatever Eyes there be that regard.
I propose therefore to say in this chapter that which at the least cannot but have the effect of saving at any rate a few girls somewhere throughout the English-speaking world from one or other or both of these diseases, and their consequences. Let those only who have ever saved a single human being from either syphilis or gonorrhœa dare to utter a word against the plain speaking which may save one woman now.
The task may be much lightened by referring the reader to a play by the bravest and wisest of modern dramatists, M. Brieux, more especially because the reader of "Les Avariés" will be enabled to see the sequence of causation in its entirety. When first our attention is called to these evils, we are apt to blame the individuals concerned. The parents of youths, finding their sons infected, will blame neither their guilty selves nor their sons, but those who tempted them. It is constantly forgotten that the unfortunate woman who infected the boy was herself first infected by a man. Either she was betrayed by an individual blackguard, or our appalling carelessness regarding girlhood, and the economic conditions which, for the glory of God and man, simultaneously maintain Park Lane and prostitution, forced her into the circumstances which brought infection. But she was once as harmless and innocent as the girl child of any reader of this book; and it was man who first destroyed her and made her the instrument of further destruction.
Ask how this came to be so, and the answer is that he in his turn was infected by some woman.
It is time, then, that we ceased to blame youth of either sex, and laid the onus where it lies—upon the shoulders of older people, and more especially upon those who by education and profession, or by the functions they have undertaken, such as parenthood, ought to know the facts and ought to act upon their knowledge. It is necessary to proceed, therefore: though perfectly aware that in many ways this chapter will have to be paid for by the writer: that he has yet to meet the eye of his publisher; that there will be abundance of abuse from those "whose sails were never to the tempest given": but aware also that in time to come those few who dared speak and take their chance in this matter, whether remembered or not, will have been the pioneers in reforming an abuse which daily makes daylight hideous. He who does betray the future for fear of the present should tread timidly upon his Mother Earth lest he awake her to gape and bury her treacherous son.
Something is known by the general public of the individual consequences of syphilis. It is known by many, also, that there is such a thing as hereditary syphilis—babies being born alive but rotted through for life. Further, it is not at all generally known, though the fact is established, that of the comparatively few survivors to adult life from amongst such babies, some may transmit the disease even to the third generation. There is a school of so-called moralists who regard all this as the legitimate and providential punishment for vice, even though ten innocent be destroyed for one guilty. Such moralists, more loathsome than syphilis itself, may be left in the gathering gloom to the company of their ghastly creed. Love and man and woman are going forward to the dawn, and if they inherit from the past no God that is fit to be their companion, they and the Divine within them will not lose heart.
The public knowledge of syphilis, though far short of the truth, is not merely so inadequate as that of gonorrhœa.
"No worse than a bad cold" is the kind of lie with which youth is fooled. The disease may sometimes be little worse than a bad cold in men, though very often it is far more serious; it may kill, may cause lasting damage to the coverings of the heart and to the joints, and often may prevent all possibility of future fatherhood.
These evils sink almost into insignificance when compared with the far graver consequences of gonorrhœa in woman. Our knowledge of this subject is comparatively recent, being necessarily based upon the discovery of the microbe that causes the disease. Now that it can be identified, we learn that a vast proportion of the illnesses and disorders peculiar to women have this cause, and it constantly leads to the operations, now daily carried out in all parts of the world, which involve opening the body, and all that that may entail. Curable in its early stages in men, gonorrhœa is scarcely curable in women except by means of a grave abdominal operation, involving much risk to life and only to be undertaken after much suffering has failed to be met by less drastic means. The various consequences of gonorrhœa in other parts of the body may and do occur in women as in men. Perhaps the most characteristic consequence of the disease in both sexes is sterility; this being much more conspicuously the case in women, and being the more cruel in their case.
Of course large numbers of women are infected with these diseases before marriage and apart from it, but one or both of them constitute the most important of the bridegroom's wedding presents, in countless cases every year, all over the world. The unfortunate bride falls ill after marriage; she may be speedily cured; very often she is ill for life, though major surgery may relieve her; and in a large number of cases she goes forever without children. One need scarcely refer to the remoter consequences of syphilis to the nervous system, including such diseases as locomotor ataxia, and general paralysis of the insane; the latter of which is known to be increasing amongst women. Even in these few words, which convey to the layman no idea whatever of the pains and horrors, the shocking erosion of beauty, the deformities, the insanities, incurable blindness of infants, and so forth, that follow these diseases, enough will yet have been said to indicate the importance of what is to follow. Medical works abound in every civilized language which, especially as illustrated either by large masses of figures or by photographs of cases, will far more than justify to the reader everything that has been said.
And now for the whole point of this chapter. We are not here concerned to deal with prostitution or its possible control. We are dealing with girlhood before marriage and in relation to marriage, and the plea is Goethe's—for more light. There is no need to horrify or scandalize or disgust young womanhood, but it is perfectly possible in the right way and at the right time to give instruction as to certain facts, and whilst quite admitting that there are hosts of other things which we must desire to teach, I maintain that this also must we do and not leave the others undone. It is untrue that it is necessary to excite morbid curiosity, that there is the slightest occasion to give nauseous or suggestive details, or that the most scrupulous reticence in handling the matter is incompatible with complete efficiency. Such assertions will certainly be made by those who have done nothing, never will do anything, and desire that nothing shall be done; they are nothing, let them be treated as nothing.
It is supposed by some that instruction in these matters must be useless because, in point of fact, imperious instincts will have their way. It is nonsense. Here, as in so many other cases, the words of Burke are true—Fear is the mother of safety. It is always the tempter's business to suggest to his victim that there is no danger. Often and often, if convinced there is danger, and danger of another kind than any he refers to, she will be saved. This may be less true of young men. In them the racial instinct is stronger, and perhaps a smaller number will be protected by fear, but no one can seriously doubt that the fear born of knowledge would certainly protect many young women.
There is also the possible criticism, made by a school of moralists for whom I have nothing but contempt so entire that I will not attempt to disguise it, who maintain that these are unworthy motives to which to appeal, and that the good act or the refraining from an evil one, effected by means of fear, is of no value to God. In the same breath, however, these moralists will preach the doctrine of hell. We reply that we merely substitute for their doctrine of hell—which used to be somewhere under the earth, but is now who knows where—the doctrine of a hell upon the earth, which we wish youth of both sexes to fear; and that if the life of this world, both present and to come, be thereby served, we bow the knee to no deity whom that service does not please.
How then should we proceed?
It seems to me that instruction in this matter may well be delayed until the danger is near at hand. This is not really education for parenthood in the more general sense. That, on the principles of this book, can scarcely begin too soon; it is, further, something vastly more than mere instruction, though instruction is one of its instruments. But here what we require is simply definite instruction to a definite end and in relation to a definite danger. At some stage or other, before emerging into danger, youth of both sexes must learn the elements of the physiology of sex, and must be made acquainted with the existence and the possible results of venereal disease. A father or a teacher may very likely find it almost impossible to speak to a boy; even though he has screwed his courage up almost to the sticking place, the boy's bright and innocent eyes disarm him. Unfortunately boys are often less innocent than they look. There exists far more information among youth of both sexes than we suppose; only it is all coloured by pernicious and dangerous elements, the fruit of our cowardice and neglect. Let us confine ourselves to the case of the girl.
Before a girl of the more fortunate classes goes out into society, she must be protected in some way or another. If she be, for instance, convent bred, or if she come from an ideal home, it may very well be and often is that she needs no instruction whatever, because she is in fact already made unapproachable by the tempter. Fortunate indeed is such a girl. But those forming this well-guarded class are few, and parents and guardians may often be deceived and assume more than they are entitled to. At any rate, for the vast majority of girls some positive instruction is necessary. It is the mother who must undertake this responsible and difficult task before she admits the girl to the perils of the world. Further, by some means or other, instruction must be afforded for the ever-increasing army of girls who go out to business. It is to me a never ceasing marvel that loving parents, devoted to their daughters' welfare, should fail in this cardinal and critical point of duty, so constantly as they do.
Many employers of female labour nowadays show a genuine and effective interest in the welfare of their employees. As one might expect, this is notably the case with the Quaker manufacturers of chocolate and cocoa. I have visited the works of one of these firms, and can testify to the splendidly intelligent and scrupulous care which is taken of the girls' general health, their eye-sight, their reading, and many aspects of their moral welfare. Yet there still remains something to be done in regard to protection from venereal disease, and surely the suggestion that conscientious employers should have instruction given in these matters is one which is well worthy of consideration.
It is known by all observers—but it is a very meagre "all"—of the realities of politics that in Great Britain, at any rate, there is an increase of drinking amongst women and girls. This is doubtless in considerable measure due to the increase of work in factories, and the greater liberty enjoyed by adolescence—liberty too often to become enslaved. This bears directly upon our present subject. In a very large number of cases, the first lapse from self-restraint in young people of both sexes occurs under the influence of alcohol, the most pre-eminent character of whose action upon the nervous system is the paralysis of inhibition or control. Not only is alcohol responsible in this way, but also in any given case it renders infection more probable for more reasons than one. This abominable thing—in itself the immediate cause of many evils and, except as a fuel for lifeless machines and for industrial purposes, of no good—is thus the direct ally of the venereal diseases as of consumption and many more. We must return to this important subject later: meanwhile let it be noted that the influence of alcohol upon youth of both sexes greatly favours not only immorality but also venereal disease. The girl, therefore, who would protect herself directly will avoid this thing, and the girl who desires that neither she nor her children shall be destroyed after marriage, will exact from the man she chooses the highest possible standard of conduct in this matter. A friendly critic has told me that my books would be all very well, but that I have alcohol on the brain, and I am inclined to reply, Better on the brain than in the brain. But a subject so serious demands more serious treatment, and the due reply is that there is no human prospect for which I care, no public advantage to be advocated, no good I know, of which alcohol is not the enemy; no abomination, physical, mental or moral, individual or social, of which it is not the friend. Further, words like these will stand on record, and may be remembered when there has been achieved that slow but irresistible education of public opinion, to which some few have devoted themselves, and of which the triumph is as certain as the triumph of all truth was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. To the many charges against alcohol made by the champions of life in the past, let there be added that on which all students of venereal diseases are agreed—that it is the most potent ally of the most loathsome evils that afflict mankind.
This chapter is not yet complete. In many cases it may be read not by the girl who is contemplating marriage, but by one or both of her parents. If the reader be such an one I here charge him or her with the solemn responsibility which is theirs whether they realize it or not. You desire your daughter's welfare; you wish her to be healthy and happy in her married life; perhaps your heart rejoices at the thought of grand-children; you concern yourself with your prospective son-in-law's character, with his income and prospects; you wish him to be steady and sober; you would rather that he came of a family not conspicuous for morbid tendencies. All this is well and as it should be; yet there is that to be considered which, whilst it is only negative, and should not have to be considered at all, yet takes precedence of all these other questions. If the man in question is tainted with either or both of these diseases, he is to be summarily rejected at any rate until responsible and, one may suggest, at least duplicated medical opinion has pronounced him cured. Microscopic examination of the blood or otherwise can now pronounce on this matter with much more definiteness than used to be possible. But even so, there are possibilities of error, for experts are more and more coming to recognize the existence and the importance of latent gonorrhœa, devoid of characteristic symptoms but yet liable to wake in the individual and always dangerous from the point of view of infection. No combination of advantages is worth the dust in the balance when weighed against either of these diseases in a prospective son-in-law: infection is not a matter of chance but of certainty or little short of it. Everything may seem fair and full of promise, yet there may be that in the case which will wreck all in the present; not to mention destroying the chance of motherhood or bringing rotten or permanently blinded children into the world.
It follows, therefore, that parents or guardians are guilty of a grave dereliction of duty if they neglect to satisfy themselves in time on this point. Doubtless, in the great majority of cases no harm will be done. But in the rest irreparable harm is often done, and the innocent, ignorant girl who has been betrayed by father and mother and husband alike, may turn upon you all, perhaps on her death-bed, perhaps with the blasted future in her arms, and say "This is your doing: behold your deed."
"But if ye could and would not, oh, what plea,
Think ye, shall stead you at your trial, when
The thunder-cloud of witnesses shall loom,
With Ravished Childhood on the seat of doom
At the Assizes of Eternity?"
These pages may disgust or offend nine hundred and ninety-nine readers out of a thousand. They may yet save one girl, and will have justified themselves.
One final word may be added on the relation of this subject to Eugenics, to which this pen and voice have been for many years devoted. The subject of venereal disease is one of which we Eugenists, like the rest of the world, fight shy; yet just because the rest of the world does so, we should not. Nevertheless I mean to see to it that this subject becomes part of the Eugenic campaign which will yet dominate and mould the future. For surely the present spectacle has elements in it which would be utterly farcical if they were not so tragic. Here we have life present and life to come being destroyed for lack of knowledge. These horrible diseases, ravaging the guilty and the innocent, equally and indifferently, are at present allowed to do so with scarcely a voice raised against them. Every day husbands infect their wives, who have no kind of protection or remedy, and the wicked, grinning face of the law looks on, and says "She is his wife; all is well." If we had courage instead of cowardice—the capital mark of an age that has no organ voice but many steam whistles—we could accelerate incalculably the gradual decrease of these diseases. The body of eugenic opinion which is being made and multiplied might succeed in allying the Church and Medicine and the Law, with splendid and lasting effect. But we spend thousands of pounds in estimating correlations between hair colour and conscientiousness, fertility and longevity, stature and the number of domestic servants, and so forth, meanwhile protesting against too hasty attempts to guide public opinion on these refined matters; and this tremendous eugenic reform, which awaits the emergence of some courage somewhere, is left altogether out of account. There was no allusion to the existence of venereal disease, far and away the most appalling of what I have called dysgenic forces, in any official eugenic publication until April, 1909, when in the Eugenics Review we dared to make a cautious and half-ashamed beginning; half-ashamed to stand up against syphilis and gonorrhœa. When one thinks of the things that we are not ashamed to do, as individuals or as nations, it is to reflect that perhaps we have "let the tiger die" too utterly, and that just as woman is ceasing to be a mammal, man is perhaps ceasing to be even a vertebrate. Is there no Archbishop or Principal of a University or Chief Justice or popular novelist or preacher or omnipotent editor, boasting a backbone still, who will serve not only his day and generation but all future days and generations, by devoting himself and his powers to this long-delayed campaign wherein, if it be but undertaken, success is certain, and reward so glorious?[14]