V. Are these Rights Absolute, or Reciprocal, with Duties?
In the first place, let us see under what circumstances the rights I have now described were assumed, and whether it was by the power of the strong over the weak, or from a belief that woman was in reality inferior to man, as well as physically not as fully developed, or whether it was from a belief that such assumption was intended by the Creator, and inculcated both by natural and revealed religion, and in the latter instance by both the old and the newer Scripture.
Probably all these arguments have weighed, but stronger than these even has been possession, that nine points of the law. Custom, handed down from father to son, from time immemorial, has sanctioned what so often results in tyranny. Appeals are made to Genesis, to the Proverbs, and to the Acts of the Apostles, and it is asserted that the inferiority of woman is thus proved to a demonstration, just as the Bible has been made to evidence the divinity of the institution of slavery, and to disprove—for some still assert this—the truths of geology, astronomy, and all other natural science. If no man should put asunder those whom God has joined, we must confess, in all conjugal matters at least, their full equality; and in relinquishing the title of lord and master, we must also waive the point of unreasoning and blind obedience, and so shall we gain the more complete obedience where such is really to be desired.
It is very probable—for such are the teachings of the most philosophical anatomists of our time—that, so far as the mere structure of her body is concerned, woman has not attained so advanced a stage of development as man. It is even alleged, by thoughtful embryologists, that every man during the earliest period of his existence was once a woman; that is to say, that in the fœtal condition his was at one time identical with the female type, and that this was subsequently outgrown. There is no doubt that many facts support this opinion, as the persistence, for instance, in every man, of a minute and undeveloped womb,[37] useless, save as furnishing one of those homologies so abounding in the plan of creation. Suppose, however, that we grant all this, and that in purely intellectual matters woman varies normally from man, as she does in physical strength; we must yet allow that in moral vigor, in religious aspiration, and faith, and in all purely emotional attributes, she far excels him. It is not from accident that the chaste and good of all ages have selected the female rather than the male as their ideal of angels and saints in heaven; but it is in tacit yet universal recognition of her superiority in certain matters over us. We men are of the earth, earthy, but they the gift of God; and such, in the tradition, did Adam see in the beautiful mother of mankind. Well for us all that she gave to him of the tree of knowledge, else, if that tradition be true, we ourselves had never been.
It is in accordance with those differences in feeling, dependent upon differences of conformation, growing with their growth and increasing with the years, and not in consequence of custom alone, that, just as obtains with the lower mammals, the advances towards the union of the sexes are made almost entirely by the man. He is impelled by that strong and almost irresistible instinct by which the future peopling of the earth is determined, while in the woman it is, to a great extent, the subsequently awakened emotion of maternal love, which, far stronger in her than that for simple congress, leads her in very truth to lay down her life for her children; for this in every household, where husband and wife live in accordance with the laws of their being, is the practical result. The mother may live to a good old age, but still the best energies of her life are expended on her offspring, in rearing and caring for them till able to shift for themselves; and in this lies, or should lie, her highest happiness.
I shall be told that many marriages are unfruitful. Granted. That many must necessarily be such. Also granted, but with a limitation. Every man of the present day knows that, of these unfruitful marriages, by far the majority are such from intention. We seldom now see families of any size; and yet women conceive as easily and men are as potent as in the olden time. Every physician who has considered the subject will aver that my statement is true, and will acknowledge, moreover, that of the unfruitful marriages where children are yet desired, the barrenness of the woman is often owing to a brace of causes that are frequently easily removed by treatment; in the one instance there being some form of organic displacement or physical obstruction on the wife’s part, in the other temporary or persistent impotence on that of the husband, generally owing to previous careless or unphysiological ways of life. It is folly to think, as so many do, that early years of intentional childlessness can be atoned for by subsequent years of intentional plenty. Those who begin by thwarting the laws of nature very constantly find that in later life, when mere sensations pall, and physical weariness supplants the freshness and ardor of youth, these laws, disobeyed, will in turn disappoint them. This subject is of such importance, and is so little understood, that I must here quote again from one of my own previous writings upon the subject; indeed so few physicians have dared to write or apparently to think of these matters, that there are hardly others to whom I can refer.
In a paper read before the Massachusetts Medical Society in May of last year, and published in one of the New York professional periodicals,[38] I have laid down the following series of propositions, which are startling, but undoubtedly true.
“1. That while, owing to the advance of our knowledge in the treatment of childbed, more children are born living than formerly, and more mothers saved, and owing to our wiser treatment of the diseases of children, and their exposure to better sanitary conditions, a much larger percentage of them reach maturity, yet among the better class of inhabitants fewer infants are born; that is to say, that the average number of births to each Protestant family is less than it was half a century ago.
“2. That of the pregnancies in reality occurring in this class, fewer reach completion.
“3. That of the instances of conjugal intercourse taking place, fewer result in impregnation.
“4. That of these incompleted pregnancies and apparent instances of sterility, a large proportion are intentional.
“5. That such wilful interference with the laws of nature is productive, as might have been expected, of a vast amount of disease—disease whose causation has been unexplained, and whose character is made evident alike by the confessions of the patient, and by the results of a more natural course of life.
“6. That intentional abortions are a greater tax upon a woman’s health, and more surely followed by uterine disease than pregnancies completed, and this even though the patient may seem to rally from them with impunity—the result showing itself, if not immediately, then after a lapse of years, or at the turn of life.
“7. That the systematic prevention of pregnancy, by whatever means, is also followed by prejudicial effects, affecting the nervous and the uterine systems, not unfrequently producing sterility from an organic cause, and laying the foundation of serious or incurable disease.
“8. That when such prevention is occasioned by incompleted intercourse, by whatever means effected, the effect is equally bad for the husband’s health as for that of the wife—there resulting dyspepsia, functional or organic nervous disease, and at times impotence, temporary or persistent.”
It will be seen by the above, not merely that in many instances of unfruitful marriage the barrenness is intentional, but that thus to trifle with the full gratification of our natural instincts, whenever the rein is given to them, is fraught with the most detrimental consequences to both parties concerned,—to us men, as well as to our associates,—and this in either event: for if we permit or counsel them to destroy their unborn offspring, their health is very likely to be thereby undermined, and our conjugal intercourse with them very materially interfered with, or permanently ended; and if, on the other hand, we allow ourselves to use them merely as mistresses, we not only are liable to seriously injure their health, but are almost sure to ruin our own. So that in both instances we are the losers.
It will thus be seen that certain of the conjugal rights that are assumed by men, are, whether absolute or not, of a very questionable character; harmful to our moral natures, destructive to our physical constitutions, and much more wisely honored in the breach than in the observance.
How is it with others? Some may allege that while they would neither approve the wilful interference with or prevention of impregnation, no harm can surely attach to very frequent indulgence in what they call living a perfectly natural life, that is to say, giving themselves up, fully and constantly, to unbridled sexual license.
To this I reply that some men are brutes. Even among husbands, pledged truly to love and cherish those who generally give far more real affection than they receive, there exist the veriest satyrs, eroto-maniacs, madmen. Knowing that they are endangering their wife’s life, that they are causing her health seriously to suffer, or to be ruined, they still persist in their demands for what at the best is but a momentary gratification, and when begrudged, becomes the most selfish and the basest of all pleasures; and this they do in the face of remonstrance, entreaties, tears. Many a married man has, as I have said, virtually committed a rape upon his wife: though the crime may be unrecognized as such by the law, it is none the less this in fact, the element of consent having been wholly wanting.
There are others of our number, who, kind at heart and not so selfish, equally err through ignorance of the real nature of the case, or from inconsiderateness. It is only of late that even physicians are awakening to the importance of the manifold special diseases of women, and to the very existence of many of them. It is often asked if these diseases are not a new thing, if they have not indeed wholly sprung up during the present century. This may be true to a certain extent, in consequence of certain variations from the normal standard of living; but there is no doubt, on the other hand, that hosts of women used to die of disease, then undetected or wholly misunderstood, that is now readily cured. Among these diseases, all of which are enshrouded by the veil of a woman’s natural delicacy, but which, involving as they do the very existence of social life, come directly within the physician’s province, and that also of simple common sense,—among them there is a very large class, closely related to the subject of our present inquiry, those occasioned or aggravated by excessive sexual indulgence. I shall, of course, refrain from speaking more explicitly than I have now done, but will merely say that we may all of us be thankful that our development was carried to the positive extreme, and that we are not women. They are subject to an immense variety of disease, of which, from personal experience, we know nothing, and it is often attended by the most exquisite suffering. This they are prone to conceal; far from generally exaggerating it, they endeavor to undervalue it, and suffer, with a fortitude that we could but feebly emulate, in silence. There are exceptions to this statement, it is true, but they are still but exceptions, and so prove the rule. Even where such do exist, there is usually present great nervous excitement or exaltation, which is often much more difficult to endure than direct physical pain. Far from ridiculing or chiding these sufferers, they deserve and should receive our hearty sympathy, which is by no means sure, as it is so commonly supposed to do, of evoking a fresh accession of the malady. Many a heart is broken by the sneer of disbelief at the gentle complaint of bodily anguish; many a divorce takes its origin in the charge of lost affection, because a wife refuses to be accessory to her own slow destruction; in many cases she prefers to this disgrace, and resorts to, suicide. These are facts, instances of all of which have been known to me. There are men, and very many women, who will thank me for so plainly stating them. Men do I say? They are facts that should be made known to every man, that, so warned, he may live a truly manly, generous, and dutiful life.
For these rights, of which I have been speaking, are, in reality, not absolute, but reciprocal with duties. How can we ourselves expect enjoyment, if perchance we are inflicting terrible suffering? How can we look for constant and untiring affection, if, inconsiderate or brutal, we compel what would be withheld perhaps, however reluctantly, by ill health? Is it thus we would cherish? As we sow, even so must we reap. No true conjugal enjoyment can exist, unless it is mutual. We cannot be loved, unless we are respected. We cannot be respected, even by our wives, unless we respect them. The true rule should be to take only what is freely given; were this the case, far more freely would gifts be offered.