Morally. Firstly. It induces early marriages by removing the principal obstacle thereto, viz.: the fear of having offspring before the parents are in a pecuniary condition to support, rear, and educate them. And,
Secondly, By inducing early marriages, seductions would become less frequent, and consequently prostitution, comparatively, become extinct.
Socially. Firstly. Young men, instead of seeking excitement and amusement in the intoxicating cup, gaming, night carousals, brothels, &c., acquiring habits of dissipation deadening alike to the keen, fresh susceptibilities belonging to youth—habits too, which often cling to them in after life, habits which, perhaps for ever destroy their health,—as tainting their constitution with some foul and incurable disease,—would, with a view to early marriage, cultivate the social and domestic ties, while yet pure and uncontaminated by contact with the dissolute and vicious. And
Secondly, Young persons, even though with very limited means, would nevertheless marry, and by not becoming parents, be enabled, unitedly, to husband their resources, with the view to the bettering their condition pecuniarily; in the meantime, and in the days of their youth, enjoying all those social endearments which each sex finds in the society of the other, where reciprocity of views, interests, and feelings exists. So too, those in middling circumstances would marry early, merely deferring an increase of family until they will have established themselves in some business, ere the constant accumulating expenses of an increasing family encroach upon, or eat up their small capital, the immediate incurrence of which thus early would, perhaps, for ever destroy the means for the comfortable provision of themselves, as also the future welfare of their children.
Physiologically. By inducing early marriages, the dire evils arising from promiscuous sexual intercourse with the tainted or diseased, will gradually disappear, and in a generation or two we would find springing up, in the place of the present sickly, puny race, a healthy, robust, and pure generation.
In regard to the morality of preventing conception it is contended that everything which tends to the amelioration of mankind, to improve their condition physically, morally, and socially, or equalize their condition pecuniarily, cannot be immoral. That the instinct of reproduction should be, like our other appetites and passions, subject to the control of reason,—that when the gratification of this instinct results in evil effects either to ourselves or to our offspring, or even to society—if such evil can be prevented, it is the obligation of morality that it should be.
It is contended, then, that the use of a preventive to conception will make men and women rational, reflecting, thinking beings, regardful alike of their own welfare and the welfare of their offspring. That it will banish poverty, vice and profligacy, by enabling the poor to improve their pecuniary condition and thus engendering habits of frugality, reflection and economy, which the prospect of future competency is so calculated to inspire. Vice so often springing from despair and hopeless poverty will disappear, because the children, by reason of the competence and moral structure of the parents, will not in infancy be thrust upon the world to mingle with the depraved and the licentious. Sexual profligacy and licentiousness will be checked, as early marriages become more prevalent and universal, as there then will exist no reasons as now, why two persons, attached to each other, should not marry, refraining merely from becoming parents. Dishonorable advances therefore would be spurned, seductions thus have no existence, and prostitution, the offspring of seduction, would be unknown, and even the ravages of that disease, engendered by promiscuous sexual intercourse, now carrying off its tens of thousands, transmitting its pestiferous poison to thousands yet unborn, would entirely disappear.
The able author thus concludes his views:
“And now let my readers pause. Let them review the various arguments I have placed before them. Let them reflect how intimately the instinct of which I treat is connected with the social welfare of society. Let them bear in mind, that just in proportion to its social influence, is it important that we should know how to control and govern it; that when we obtain such control, we may save ourselves—and, what we ought to prize much more highly, may save our companions and our offspring, from suffering or misery; that, by such knowledge, the young may form virtuous connexions, instead of becoming profligates or ascetics; that, by it, early marriage is deprived of its heaviest consequences, and seduction of its sharpest sting; that, by it, man may be saved from moral ruin, and woman from desolating dishonor; that by it the first pure affections may be soothed and satisfied, instead of being thwarted or destroyed—let them call to mind all this, and let them say, whether the possession of such control be not a blessing to man.
“As to the cry which prejudice may raise against it as being unnatural, it is just as unnatural (and no more so) as to refrain, in a sultry summer’s day, from drinking, perhaps, more than a pint of water at a draught, which prudence tells us is enough, while inclination would bid us drink a quart. All thwarting of any human wish or impulse may, in one sense, be called unnatural; it is not, however, ofttimes the less prudent and proper on that account.”