Men, Women, and God / A Discussion of Sex Questions from the Christian Point of View

by A. Herbert Gray

SOME OF THE PHYSIOLOGICAL FACTS

Of all the vital forces with which living things are endowed, the two most potent are the instinct for self-preservation and the instinct for race-preservation. This latter gives rise to the reproductive urge. So deep-seated is this instinctive force, that in many instances in the vegetable world, the threat of individual death results in a special effort of reproduction and the individual dies to live in the next generation. A force which is thus so insistent in the whole animal and vegetable world is naturally not absent in the human being, and it is well we should definitely recognize the fundamental power of this, in every normal man and woman. Not seldom the reproductive instinct is spoken of as a thing which can be put on one side and ignored. All experience and history prove that this is impossible, and that the attempt to do so ends in failure and disaster. But in civilized communities it is equally impossible to allow such a force to range unrestrained, hence the laws and customs of modern peoples. But mere assent to external authority can never achieve more than partial success. What is needed is whole-hearted agreement with an ideal which can only be attained by education of every individual in a real understanding of themselves and their responsibilities in sex matters. It is due to the fault of parents and teachers, rather than their own, that many men and women are to-day paying the penalty of having misused or abused this divinely implanted instinct.

The Law of Bi-sexual Reproduction

It is one of Nature's plans that in the genesis of a new individual two individuals should take a share. This holds good throughout the whole range of living things except the lower forms of plant and animal life, such as fungi and animalcule. But, with one or two individual exceptions, as plants and animals evolve, the union of two elements, male and female, is needed to start the amazingly complex process of building a new individual. Thus in flowers the stamens, the pollen bearers, provide the male element which, through the intermediary of the pistils, fertilizes the egg in the vesicle. In the higher animals the egg or ovum is produced by the female, and is fertilized by the sperm-cell produced by the male. The necessary union between these two essential elements is attained in various ways. Thus the female salmon deposits her eggs on a convenient spot in the bed of a stream and the attendant male salmon then projects over them the spermatozoa. In the higher animals there is a further development, and special organs are evolved to ensure the conjunction of the two elements. I have not space to describe in detail the effect of this union of the two cells, generally spoken of as fertilization. It may be found fully recorded step by step in any biological manual. Very briefly, the sperm-cells, which are active, freely moving units, swarm round the egg-cell and one of them eventually enters it. The essential part of the cells, namely the nuclei, coalesce into one nucleus, and an active process of cell division and multiplication is at once started. The single cell divides into two daughter cells, then again into four, and so on. Very early in development, the cells, which at first appear similar, become differentiated into different types, but the whole ordered sequence of the development of an embryo is achieved by this cell division and multiplication. Each original cell contains a substance which, on account of its being easily colorable with artificial stains, is called chromatin, and this chromatin is believed to be the bearer of the hereditary qualities. The cell division is so arranged that each new cell receives an equal share of the male and female chromatin, and this process is continued in every case of cell division, so that eventually, in every part of our bodies, the dual inheritance remains complete.

But though both parents have thus an equal share in the cellular elements of the new life, it is the female whose reproductive organs provide for its nourishment and protection until birth takes place.

The Human Sex Organs

In the female these consist of the womb or uterus, the ovaries, and a canal called the vagina which leads from the lower end of the uterus to an external opening, the vulva. The ovaries, two in number, are situated one on each side of the uterus. The uterus, which is pear-shaped, with the apex downwards, has three openings, one at the apex and one at each side at the upper part. These two upper openings are provided with a tubule extension, the Fallopian tubes, whose outer ends are fringed and lie in close relation to the ovaries. The ova or egg-cells are developed in the ovaries, and through a complex and elaborate process a single cell comes to maturity from time to time. It is then discharged into the open end of the Fallopian tube, reaches thereby the uterus, and if not fertilized is discharged through the lower opening of the uterus into the vagina. It is not known exactly when this discharge of ova takes place, but it is believed to coincide more or less with the monthly period. If, however, fertilization of the ovum takes place, it is not discharged, but remains in the uterus. The lining membrane of the uterus grows round and envelops it, and the wonderful process of cell division and multiplication proceeds which results in the growth and development of a child.

These various organs are situated in the lower part of the abdomen, within the protection of the bony pelvis or basin. This pelvis is, compared with the male pelvis, broad and shallow, to provide for the passage of the fully developed child at birth. The vagina is the passage by which, during the birth process, the child reaches the outer world, and it is also the sex organ by which, in the female, the union of the male and female elements, of which we have spoken, takes place in the sex act.

The male sex organs consist of the testicles, in which the sperm-cells or spermatozoa are evolved, of a coiled duct leading there from, and of the distinctive male sex organ, the penis. This last serves the double purpose of providing an exit for the contents of the bladder and for that emission of the spermatozoa which occurs in the sex act. There are also certain glands situated in close relation to this duct which provide a fluid which is emitted at the same time as the spermatozoa, the whole being termed the seminal fluid. It is thus clear that in both sexes there are essential reproductive organs, the ovaries in the one case, the testicles in the other, providing respectively ova and sperm-cells, and there are also organs for the purpose of securing the union of these two elements, namely the vagina in the female and the penis in the male. These two sets of organs form the primary sex characteristics or actual sex organs.

The Sex Act