The opinion finds wide acceptance among physicians and physiologists that even a defectively equipped marriage is better than celibacy. Experience agrees therewith. In Bavaria there were, in 1858, not less than 4,899 lunatics, 2,576 (53 per cent.) of them men, 2,323 (47 per cent.) women. The men were, accordingly, more strongly represented than the women. Of the whole number, however, the unmarried of both sexes ran up to 81 per cent., the married only to 17 per cent., while of 2 per cent. the conjugal status was unknown. As a mitigation of the shocking disproportion between the unmarried and the married, the circumstance may be taken into consideration that a not small number of the unmarried were insane from early childhood. In Hanover, in the year 1856, there was one lunatic to every 457 unmarried, 564 widowed, 1,316 married people. Most strikingly is the effect of unsatisfied sexual relations shown in the number of suicides among men and women. In general, the number of suicides is in all countries considerably higher among men than among women. To every 1,000 female suicides there were in:[62]
| England from 1872-76 | 2,861 men |
| Sweden " 1870-74 | 3,310 " |
| France " 1871-76 | 3,695 " |
| Italy " 1872-77 | 4,000 " |
| Prussia " 1871-78 | 4,239 " |
| Austria " 1873-78 | 4,586 " |
But between the ages of 21 and 30, the figures for female suicides is in all European countries higher than for males, due, as Oettingen assumes, to sexual causes. In Prussia the percentages of suicides between the ages of 21 to 30 were on an average:
| Years. | Males. | Females. |
| 1869-72 | 15.8 | 21.4 |
| 1873-78 | 15.7 | 21.5 |
In Saxony there were to every 1,000 suicides between the ages of 21 to 30 these averages:
| Years. | Males. | Females. |
| 1854 | 14.95 | 18.64 |
| 1868 | 14.71 | 18.79 |
For widowed and divorced people also the percentage of suicides is larger than the average. In Saxony there are seven times as many suicides among divorced males, and three times as many among divorced females, as the average of suicides for males and females respectively. Again, suicide is more frequent among divorced and widowed men and women when they are childless. Of 491 widowed suicides in Prussia (119 males and 372 females) 353 were childless.
Taking into further consideration that, among the unmarried women, who are driven to suicide between the ages of 21 and 30, many a one is to be found, who takes her life by reason of being betrayed, or because she can not bear the consequences of a "slip," the fact remains that sexual reasons play a decided role in suicide at this age. Among female suicides, the figure is large also for those between the ages of 16 to 20, and the fact is probably likewise traceable to unsatisfied sexual instinct, disappointment in love, secret pregnancy, or betrayal. On the subject of the women of our days as sexual beings, Professor V. Krafft-Ebing expresses himself: "A not-to-be-underrated source of insanity with woman lies in her social position. Woman, by nature more prone than man to sexual needs, at least in the ideal sense of the term, knows no honorable means of gratifying the need other than marriage. At the same time marriage offers her the only support. Through unnumbered generations her character has been built in this direction. Already the little girl plays mother with her doll. Modern life, with its demands upon culture, offers ever slighter prospects of gratification through marriage. This holds especially with the upper classes, among whom marriage is contracted later and more rarely. While man—as the stronger, and thanks to his greater intellectual and physical powers, together with his social position—supplies himself easily with sexual gratification, or, taken up with some occupation, that engages all his energies, easily finds an equivalent, these paths are closed to single women. This leads, in the first place, consciously or unconsciously, to dissatisfaction with herself and the world, to morbid brooding. For a while, perhaps, relief is sought in religion; but in vain. Out of religious enthusiasm, there spring with or without masturbation, a host of nervous diseases, among which hysteria and insanity are not rare. Only thus is the fact explainable that insanity among single women occurs with greatest frequency between the ages of 25 and 35, that is to say, the time when the bloom of youth, and, along therewith, hope vanishes; while with men, insanity occurs generally between the ages of 35 and 50, the season of the strongest efforts in the struggle for existence.
"It certainly is no accident that, hand in hand with increasing celibacy, the question of the emancipation of woman has come ever more on the order of the day. I would have the question looked upon as a danger signal, set up by the social position of woman in modern society—a position that grows ever more unbearable, due to increasing celibacy; I would have it looked upon as the danger signal of a justified demand, made upon modern society, to furnish woman some equivalent for that to which she is assigned by Nature, and which modern social conditions partly deny her."[63]