Is it I? A book for every man.

by Horatio Robinson Storer

II.—Marriage as a Sanitary Measure.

Having now shown that while it is natural for young men to be impelled towards women by an instinctive yearning, this is not unfrequently prematurely excited, I proceed briefly to call attention to its evil effects, in many instances, both upon the individual and upon society. I cannot do better, in commencing my remarks upon this subject, than to quote a few words from Dr. Ware. “Unhappily for the young, a just and elevated view of the relation of man to woman is forestalled by impressions of a totally different sort, early made and deeply rooted. Among the first lessons which boys learn of their fellows are impurities of language, and these are soon followed by impurities of thought. Foul words are in use among them before they can actually comprehend their origin, or attach to them any definite meaning.

“Most men who, when young, have been in the habit of unreserved communication with others of their own sex, will recognize the truth of this statement. Happy is he who can look back upon no such recollections; happy is he, the surface of whose mind does not bear upon it, through life, stains which were impressed thereon by the corrupt associations and the corrupt habits of youth; happy indeed is he if the evil have not eaten into the soul itself, and left behind it such marks of its corrosion as neither time nor even repentance can ever obliterate. When this is the training of boyhood, it is not strange that the predominating ideas among young men, in relation to the other sex, are too often those of impurity and sensuality. Nor is this evil confined to large cities, though it there manifests itself more distinctly in open and undisguised licentiousness, and in the illicit commerce of the sexes. It equally exists in the most secluded villages in the corruption of the thoughts and language, and in modes of indulgence, which, if less obvious and remarked, are not, therefore, the less dangerous to moral purity.

“We cannot be surprised, then, that the history of most young men is, that they yield to temptation in a greater or less degree and in different ways. With many, no doubt, the indulgence is transient, accidental, and does not become habitual. It does not get to be regarded as venial. It is never yielded to without remorse. The wish and the purpose is to resist, but the animal nature bears down the moral; still transgression is always followed by grief and repentance. With too many, however, it is to be feared, it is not so. The mind has become debauched by the dwelling of the imagination on licentious images, and by indulgence in licentious conversation. There is no wish to resist. They are not overtaken by temptation, for they seek it. With them the transgression becomes habitual, and the stain on the character is deep and lasting. The prevailing sentiment of the mind, the prevailing tendency of the will, is to sensual vices; and there are no vices which so deeply contaminate the soul of man, so degrade, so brutalize it, as these. The degree of debasement has in some men, even in some communities, reached so low as to suggest modes of indulging this appetite from which the common sensualist shrinks with horror, and which cannot be even named without loathing.”[13]

These statements must be acknowledged by every honest man to be true, and it is therefore needless to adduce probatory evidence. Viewing the matter, as I do, from a professional standpoint, it becomes necessary for me to discuss methods of preventing habits as shameful as they are injurious to physical and mental and moral health, and sorrows that are but too often irremediable. Foremost among these methods,—I shall speak of it more particularly as a sanitary measure,—will be found Marriage.

In thus summarily, perhaps even roughly, referring to the most important of all human relations, I shall, I doubt not, again shock certain sensitive minds. In these delicate matters, however, it is best to be frank and plain. At one time of his life or another, every man, selfish or generous-hearted as he may be, delicate or brutal his nature, looks forward to marriage: not as a spiritual blending of two souls in one merely, not as a self-sacrificing means of making some woman supremely happy, nor in fulfilment of a supposed duty to leave children behind him, the latter being very generally considered too old-fashioned doctrine for these days, but as the means of gratifying certain instinctive, and therefore natural, although so often condemned as carnal, bodily desires, and thereby, as many will not hesitate to acknowledge, was their own purpose in marrying, of keeping himself in the better physical health. I would not be thought to believe that such selfish motives, low ones they may very properly be called, actuate the majority of mankind. Many are governed by sordid considerations, others by platonic, and still others by very romance. Through almost every marriage, however, there runs this thread of instinct, more or less strongly marked, more or less distinctly recognized, at times indeed deliberately woven in, and according as one or the other of these conditions obtains, so is it generally that the after and relative life of the parties is decided.

Let us grant, to save time, what I have already assumed, that it is natural for man to long for woman, and thus yearning, to seek her; and that, constituted as they both are, the one reciprocally for the other, not for the world’s purposes of population alone, but for imparting to and receiving from each other the most exquisite of physical sensations, it was intended by the Creator that, like every other function, those pertaining to this most intimate acquaintance should also occasionally be allowed gratification. The question now confronts us, How is this possible? How can men lead manly lives, fulfilling all the purposes for which they were constructed and for which they were born, and yet avoid infringing upon the rights or the happiness of others?

To this question a variety of answers have been given. Of late years, many have advocated the so-called doctrine of Free-love, in accordance with which, by some alleged process of elective affinity, every positive would seek its negative, every male its female, and this whether or no each of the parties were already legally the property of some other person. Subversive as such views, if allowed, would prove of all domestic unions, and therefore of the peace of society, their interested advocates have found many proselytes. Many more still carry into constant practice what they would be ashamed, or would not dare openly to acknowledge.

The views now referred to are as repulsive to the best sense of mankind as are those by which Mormonism is supported. In the one instance, a man professes to satisfy himself with one mistress, though he may possibly be conducting amours, at the same time, secretly, with a dozen; in the other, he openly surrounds himself with concubines, much as in the Eastern seraglio, save that with the Latter Day Saints, the comparatively better education and intelligence of the women, however deficient these may practically be, render it advisable to invest the sealing with a semblance of religious authority, at once to prevent rapine by other men and quarrels among the women, however impossible this last may be to accomplish. In both cases, the Mormon and the amative socialist take to themselves a lion’s share; like some of the carnivora, who seem to kill for the mere pleasure of destruction, or who slake their thirst by a mere draught of their victim’s blood and then discard the disfigured carcass, so useless to them, these men play with their toys for a while and then throw them aside, heart-broken, dishonored. So nearly are the sexes balanced in number, nominally, that were it not for disturbances of the equipoise by emigration, the prevention of pregnancy, its criminal subversion and the like, by the time men and women have reached a suitable age they would stand very nearly one woman to one man. At birth, in almost every country, the males very slightly predominate, being usually some five or six in excess to each hundred children born living. There are greater dangers to the infant in male than in female births, the boy averaging a little the larger, and therefore its body, and more particularly its brain, being subjected to a greater and more prolonged pressure. Thus it is that more boys than girls are born dead, and that more boys than girls die during infancy and early childhood, their nervous system not having entirely recovered from the comparatively greater shock to which it had been exposed. If then but one woman actually belongs to each man in a properly balanced community, what right has he to a second or more?

To this argument will be opposed the statements, that like other male mammalia, every man is physically competent to conjugally care for an almost indefinite number of women, and that the normal proportion of the sexes is already disturbed by the large number of both who voluntarily remain single, and of both who, released from an earlier bond by divorce or death, marry for a second, a third, or even a fourth time, and by the comparatively earlier death or decrepitude, on the large scale, of females. Upon the other hand, a man’s possible uxorious ability is and should be, no gauge of what it is advisable for him to undertake or to perform. Even in wedlock it is too often the case that men liken themselves in practice to the most bestial of the lower animals, and to their wives are the most exacting and cruel of tyrants. The plea of merely yielding to the impulses of a pure affection is used but too often to sanction the vilest debauchery, for a man, if he choose, may make a brothel of his own nuptial bed. As to plural marriages, confining that term to instances where the unions are successive and legally solemnized, there is a doubt whether as many, if not more, women are not married a second time than men; and as to the comparative mortality of the sexes, it is gradually becoming the way of physicians to study invalid women more closely and more accurately than was formerly the custom, and as a very natural consequence, much oftener to cure them, so that the comparative death rates are gradually assuming a relation more favorable to women than to men, especially if we allow for the greater liability of the latter to accident and other exposure. It will be noticed that the death rate, comparative or positive, of a country is a very different thing from its birth rate, and this again from the fecundity of its population,—that is to say, the rate of its annual increase,—subjects all of them of great interest, both to professional and to non-professional men; the latter of them particularly so to us in our present inquiry, as will hereafter be seen. I may mention, in this connection, that results of two elaborate series of observations in our own country, made from different points of view, but very coincident in their conclusions, have been published by two of the members of the American Medical Association, namely, Dr. Nathan Allen, of Lowell,[14] and myself.[15] Not satisfied with bringing the subject before my own profession, I have endeavored to fix the attention of the scientific world upon the statistics that have been presented, more especially by an article upon the subject in the March number of the leading scientific journal of this country.[16]

To return. Other answers than those yet indicated have been made to the main question that I have propounded. Prostitution, even to the extent of a public and legal license, just as obtains in many of the large cities of Europe, has even in our own country its avowed and honest advocates, and by this I mean far other advocates than lewd and licentious men. An engineer may study and direct systems of sewerage, and yet neither desire, nor allow himself to attend to the details of their management. I do not mean, however, to open the very interesting and important problem here involved, although it is one to which I have given much personal attention, both abroad and at home. Suffice it merely to say, that as a safety valve to the latent brutality and vice always heaving and raging beneath the surface in great crowds of men, and to prevent, by frequent and authoritative inspection of the unfortunates, led by circumstances far oftener than by inclination to pander to the unbridled instincts of man’s lower nature, the so frequent importation of the lecher’s contagion into his household, setting its mark upon his innocent partner, if not also upon her offspring, there is much to be said in favor of the restricted license referred to.[17] Upon the other hand, what more horrid thought to man’s pure companion, or to him with reference to all others than himself! I do not here say that any restricted license like that alluded to has my own approval, although I am not sure but that of two evils it may prove the least. My question was, How can natural instincts reasonably be gratified without infringing upon the rights and happiness of others? By prostitution, even taking so plausible an exception as that of the French grisette, the woman’s happiness, certainly her highest happiness, is endangered, if not assuredly wrecked; and I here take into account, that in France, so peculiar are certain phases of society there, the public woman, after years of shameless sale of herself, often retires upon a competency, to marry and to lead a blameless life, and that in England, the common drabs from the gutter, transported to distant colonies, and sent into the bush, find themselves at a premium, marry, and have fanned into a flame the spark of virtue that may still have lurked in their bosoms. The same is true, to a more limited extent, of some of our own outlying territories and states.

That I have referred to such a topic as the above, was requisite in order that I might approach properly certain matters we have still to discuss together. When sanctioned, as it has been by the study and outspoken convictions of no less a person than Florence Nightingale, who, stainless herself, is yet said to acknowledge certain necessities in the conduct of armies and the care of camps, no further apology upon my part is required.

And such I take it is the case also with the last of the answers to which I shall at present refer, the still more terrible and destructive custom of self-indulgence, that solitary sin that has hurried so many men to the madhouse and to the grave. To this I need but allude, for hardly the person exists who does not know, from experience or from observation, its blighting effects. With the prudery which prevents the parent from cautioning his son, or the physician his patient, from this violation of every natural instinct and every physiological law, I have not the slightest patience. Enfeebling to the body, enfeebling to the mind, the incarnation of selfishness, it effaces from its victim his fondness for the other sex, unfits him for true love, and likens him in very fact to that embodied concentration of all man’s frailties, devoid of all the apparent virtues of animals still lower in the scale, the ape. And yet, it must be acknowledged, that this baleful habit, like the kindred self-indulgence, inebriety,[18] is in many instances the result not of vice, but of disease. The congestion of hæmorrhoids, the presence of ascarides in the rectum, the existence of constipation, are all of them agencies, which, by their reflex irritation, determining an abnormal excess of blood to the parts, and inducing a state of hyperæsthesia, or undue nervous excitability, may give rise to procedures which, in the same individual, at other and more healthful seasons, would cause for him but the most revolting disgust.

Such being the case, and I may consider it as frankly acknowledged by my readers to be true, we are prepared to look more calmly at Marriage as a sanitary measure, and to see whether or no it is for this reason to be resorted to or advised.

Every man knows that when the sexual passion has once been aroused and gratified, it can never afterwards be put entirely at rest, even by the hermit in his cell. It is asserted by certain writers, rather, however, upon theoretical than practical grounds, that such passion may always, with comparative ease, be conquered, by sheer force of will. To insure a peaceful life, it should undoubtedly be vanquished; but few feel at first this necessity, and fewer still have the required mental or moral strength. The confessions that are made to every physician prove this. “The incontinent man,” says Acton, “is indulging a servant, who, if he becomes a master, will be what Cicero called him, a furious taskmaster. The slave of his passions has no easy life. Nay, life itself may be in danger. Often the patient falls a victim to sexual misery. The sexual feeling has caused many a suicide; it has made many a misanthrope; many are the cells now peopled by single men, who, unable to control their feelings, have sought the monastery as an alleviation of their sufferings, and there found it in fasting, penance, and prayer.”[19]

And again. “If a man wished to undergo the acutest sexual suffering, he could adopt no more certain method than to be incontinent with the intention of becoming continent again ‘when he had sown his wild oats.’ The agony of breaking off a habit which so rapidly entwines itself with every fibre of the human frame, is such that it would not be too much to say to any young man commencing a career of vice, ‘You are going a road on which you will never turn back. You had better stop now.’”[20]

The Catholic Church has always recognized the tortures so often accompanying a single life, when, exposed to temptation, as every man occasionally is, he endeavors to preserve himself therefrom. “Our strength is like the strength of tow thrown into the fire; it is instantly burned and consumed. Would it not be a miracle if tow cast into the fire did not burn? It would also be a miracle if we exposed ourselves to the occasion and did not fall.” According to St. Bernardine of Sienna, “It is a greater miracle not to fall in the occasion of sin than to raise a dead man to life.” And thus quaintly and forcibly concludes the learned translator of Bishop Liguori, “Do not allow your daughters to be taught letters by a man, though he be a St. Paul or St. Francis of Assissium. The saints are in heaven.”[21] Moreover, it is a rule of that church that applicants for the priesthood should be fully formed and virile; for although priests are required to observe a moral eunuchism, still they must have the merit of resistance to the thorn in the flesh to obtain the palm of recompense.[22]

I do not, of course, imply, nor do I believe, that the great majority of unmarried men are habitually addicted to immoral practices, but that a very great proportion of them, in curbing their desires and keeping themselves under due subjection, undergo a frequent and severe, however unsuspected, martyrdom, is a fact that cannot be gainsaid.

In speaking, as I have done, of certain alternatives that are extensively adopted instead of marriage, namely, the resorting to houses of ill-fame and self-abuse, I have merely mentioned the fact. I have not dwelt upon the risks, and frightful risks they are, accompanying both these measures. The lurid halo surrounding the strange woman, attracting men, as it were, by its very dangers, like moths fluttering about the candle that is to prove their destruction, has been commented upon through the centuries by writers sacred and profane. It has remained, however, for modern science to prove, what had long been suspected, that the venereal lues resulting from unclean intercourse, is, in one of its forms at least, a disease at times wholly ineradicable from the system, and transmissible in all its virulence to children’s children.[23] Were physicians to reveal to the unsuspecting victims of man’s treachery or early backslidings, whom they are called upon to treat in the upper walks of life, the actual character and history of many of their diseases, there would indeed be weepings and wailings and gnashing of teeth. In the absence of supervision, medical inspection, and the license of public women, the chances are greatly in favor of the existence in those poor fallen ones of contagious disease, which, remaining latent in man’s system, or directly transplanted to his home, may wreck all his hopes of future happiness. “Nothing tends more certainly to wither the energies of youth and blast the hopes of manhood. It is not merely that the mind is polluted; the body is enervated. A thousand forms of disease may hang round the victim, embitter his existence, or destroy his hopes in life, which he never imagines to have had such an origin. But even farther than this: Providence seems to have stamped this vice with more than its ordinary token of displeasure, by rendering its votaries liable to that terrible disease from which so few of them ultimately escape. The effects of this disease, as is well known, are not always to be eradicated. They are not confined to present suffering. They may set a mark upon a man as indelible as that of Cain. They may cling to him through life, may destroy his health, undermine his constitution, hasten his death,—may even terminate in disfigurement and mutilation. Nay, they may even so taint his blood as to descend to his very offspring, and inflict upon another generation the fearful consequences of his transgression.”[24]

The dangers environing those accustomed to consort with harlots exist to almost the same degree where a single private mistress is employed. To say nothing of the expense of supporting such, usually much greater than that of honestly building a family, there must always exist the fact that the woman who permits one man to unlawfully use her will be very likely to grant similar favors to his friend or any one else who may please her fancy or offer her her price; and then comes the chance of her receiving and imparting disease.

Many men think that all such risk is avoided in the case of deliberate seduction. Such, however, is by no means always the case. The popular spread of physiological knowledge has been productive of many unforeseen results. Many women, as well as many men, imagine that by the observance of certain precautions they can do as they please with a friend without possible chance of discovery; the result of all which is, that, in many instances of intercourse with supposed virgins, the biter is sorely bitten, and repents him at his leisure. Where true seduction is effected, not only is the offender oppressed by a life-long sense of the wrong he has done, but he must also feel that the prize thus unfairly gained is liable at any moment to slip from his grasp, or to prove to him the veriest apple of Sodom.

Thus disappointed, or thus fearing, many, even of adult age, resort to what is physiologically a worse crime against nature—self-excitation. This yielded to in boyhood sometimes makes of the young man a woman pursuer, but probably more often a woman hater; while, on the other hand, it is often the last and final resort of the old and broken-down debauchee. In either event the effect upon the constitution is detrimental in the extreme. It is customary, but still a grave error, to preserve silence upon this subject. “But,” to apply to it the brave words of my friend Dr. Shrady, of New York, when discussing prostitution, “notwithstanding our prejudices of education, agitation will here, as in the kindred question of pre-natal infanticide, finally culminate in reform.”[25] If the subject is decided, as I believe will be the case, to be of the importance that is claimed by every philosophical physician who has looked into the matter, a voice will go out into every corner of the land, caught up and re-echoed by all the medical men thereof, that will cause those who care either for their souls or their bodies, to pause and tremble.

I would not exaggerate this matter—I would not indorse that empiricism in medicine which seeks to obtain gain through awakening ungrounded fears, or imply that I believe that those who have occasionally gone astray are necessarily incurably diseased, or their souls irretrievably lost. On the contrary, it is my opinion, already stated, that just as there is more joy in heaven over the repentant sinner than over those who wandered not, so those who have learned by bitter experience often make, here below, the better men. I have more than once in this essay drawn from the language of Dr. Ware, an old man, of widely-extended experience, close habits of observation, a thoughtful mind, and of abounding charity for those who had erred. There is no one among the wide circle of medical men who were on terms of personal acquaintance with this distinguished member of our profession who will not acknowledge that the following sketch is far from being overdrawn:—

“There is another form of sensuality, far more common among the young, it is to be feared, than that of which we have been speaking, and equally demanding notice—solitary indulgence. This is resorted to from different motives. With many there is no opportunity for the natural gratification of their appetites; some are deterred from such gratification by the fear of discovery, regard for character, or a dread of disease; others there are whose consciences revolt at the idea of licentious intercourse, who yet addict themselves to this practice with the idea that there is in it less of criminality. It is to be apprehended, however, that its commencement can usually be traced to a period of life when no such causes can have been in operation. It is begun from imitation, and taught by example, long before the thoughts are likely to have been exercised, with regard either to its dangers or its criminality.

“The prevalence of this vice among boys, there is great reason to believe, has very much to do with the great amount of illicit indulgence which exists among young men. The one bears the same relation to the other, in a certain sense, that moderate drinking does to intemperance. It prepares the way, it excites the appetite, it debauches the imagination. There is little doubt that it is often, if not commonly, begun at a period of life when the natural appetite does not, and should not, exist. It is solicited, prematurely developed; it is almost created. On every account, then, this practice in the young demands especial notice. It is the great corrupter of the morals of our youth, as well as a frequent destroyer of their health and constitution. Could it be arrested, the task of preventing the more open form of licentiousness would be comparatively easy; for it creates and establishes, at a very early age, a strong physical propensity, an animal want, of the most imperious nature, which, like the longing of the intemperate man, it is almost beyond human power to overcome. The brute impulse becomes a habit of nearly irresistible force before the reason is instructed as to its injurious influence on the health, or the conscience awakened as to its true character as a sin.

“The deleterious, the sometimes appalling consequences of this vice upon the health, the constitution, the mind itself, are some of the common matters of medical observation. The victims of it should know what these consequences are; for to be acquainted with the tremendous evils it entails may assist them in the work of resistance. These consequences are various in degree and in permanency according to the extent to which the indulgence is carried, and also according to the constitution of different individuals. But there is probably no extent which is not in some degree injurious.

“Among the effects of this habit, in ordinary cases, we notice an impaired nutrition of the body; a diminution of the rotundity which belongs to childhood and youth; a general lassitude and languor, with weakness of the limbs and back; indisposition and incapacity for study or labor; dulness of apprehension; a deficient power of attention; dizziness; headaches; pains in the sides, back, and limbs; affections of the eyes. In cases of extreme indulgence, these symptoms become more strongly marked, and are followed by others. The emaciation becomes excessive; the bodily powers become more completely prostrated; the memory and the whole mind partake in the ruin; and idiocy or insanity, in their most intractable forms, close the train of evils. It not unfrequently happens that, from the consequences of this vice, when carried to an extreme, not even repentance and reformation liberate the unhappy victim.

“Let no one say that we overstate the extent of this evil, or exaggerate its importance to the health and morals of the young. It is in vain that we attempt to stay the licentiousness of youth, when we leave, unchecked in their growth, those seeds of the vice which are sown in the bosom of the child. If there is impurity in the fountain, there will be impurity in the stream which flows from it. To what purpose is it that we make and execute laws against open licentiousness; that we arm ourselves with policemen and spies; that we prosecute the keepers of brothels; that we hunt the wretched prostitute from the dram shop to the cellar, from the cellar to the jail, from the jail to her grave? This does not purify society: it stops merely one external development of a corruption which still lurks, and cankers, and festers within. The licentiousness of the brothel is clear and open in its character; nobody defends it; every one is aware of its seductions and its dangers; the young man who enters the house of shame knows that he does it at the peril of reputation, and under the dread of disease. But the other form of licentiousness is secret from its very nature. It may be practised without suspicion; there is little fear of discovery or of shame. It lurks in the school, the academy, the college, the workshop, ay, even in the nursery. No age and no profession are without examples of the dreadful ruin it can accomplish. Begun in childhood, and sometimes even in infancy, it is indulged without a thought of its nature or its effects. Gradually it winds around its unhappy victim a chain which he finds it impossible to break. Continued for years, he may wake at last to a sense of his degradation, but perhaps too late; for it has often happened that neither the pressure of disease, the stings of conscience, a strong sense of religious obligation, nor even the fear of death, have been sufficient to enable the unhappy sufferer to break from the habit which inthralls him.

“None but those who go behind the scenes of life, and are permitted to enter the prison-house of the human heart, can know how many are the terrible secrets which lie hid beneath the fair and even face of society, as we see it in the common intercourse of the world. With how many are their early days a struggle for life and death between principle and passion, the spirit and the flesh! With how many are those days spent in yielding and repenting, in reluctant indulgences, followed by agonies of remorse and shame! With how many does the conscience become callous, and vice a second nature! How often has it happened that natures, really fair and pure, have gradually become tarnished and dim, and the highest hopes of youth been defeated! How often has it happened that young men of rare promise, of whose success great expectations have been entertained, have suddenly failed by the way; have seemed prematurely worn down by study, and been forced to relinquish the career on which they were entering with the brightest prospects! Little is it suspected by anxious friends, or a sympathizing public, in such cases, that it is not too exclusive devotion to study; that it is not midnight toil; that it is not errors of diet, or want of air or exercise, that have withered their energies and unnerved their frame. There may be a nearer and a more inevitable destroyer than these.

“This is a subject most painful to dwell upon; one upon which it is hard to think, to speak, or to write, without seeming to partake in some measure of its pollution. Still, attention to it is vital to any successful effort to arrest the vices of impurity. The evils which are directly inflicted upon the health, the physical development, the constitution, by these secret practices, are enough in themselves to command our interest. It sometimes happens that the habit is acquired by accident, or persons of a peculiar temperament are led to it by a spontaneous impulse. More frequently, however, it is taught by one generation to that which follows; and so general is this education of evil, that it is rare to find those who have been fortunate enough to escape wholly from its contamination. Unhappily the physical pollution is not all; for, as a matter almost of course, there are associated with it loose conversations, licentious imaginings, and low ideas of the relations of the sexes. It leads to the reading of obscene, or at least voluptuous books, gazing upon pictures of the same description, and to general licentiousness of thought and of language. It is not strange, when the mind is thus filled with such images, and taught to dwell upon and brood over them in the immature period of youth, that this part of our nature should be prematurely and unnaturally developed, and that the opportunities of more advanced years should lead to that state of morals among young men which is so notorious, and so much to be deplored.

“Is it not obvious then, where the remedy is to be applied, if indeed a remedy be possible? Is it not obvious that our success must be small indeed if we confine ourselves to means intended to check the overt indulgences of maturity in licentiousness in one generation, whilst those who are to constitute the next are left to the same fearful development of their animal passions, which must lead them on, by steps as certain as the grave, in the same career of indulgence?”[26]

Such being the case, and seeking what is for the good of men alone, without regard as yet for the interests of women, we are compelled to indorse marriage as a most important sanitary measure, alike for enabling a reasonable gratification of the sexual instinct, for the avoidance of disease, and for restraining men from alternatives alike disastrous to themselves, their descendants, and to society.

I proceed now to discuss the time in a young man’s life at which marriage becomes advisable.