Money, hygiene, reason, and the most elementary laws of humanity demand that the wife, who is fertile above the average, should have a rest of at least 18 months between each succeeding pregnancy. But this cannot be achieved in the natural course of events, except in very rare cases, without wrecking the marriage.
If we crystallize this sexual, social question, we arrive at the following conclusions:
There are a great many cases, especially of a pathological character, but none the less also in normal and sound individuals, in which procreation, within wedlock or without, is dangerous either definitely or temporarily, either for the mother or the child, or for both, and for that reason should be interdicted. Very few men and a very small proportion of women—no matter how firmly they may be resolved—are capable of effectually suppressing their sexual needs. And even if they succeed, the consequences are generally of a disastrous nature, loss of marital love, secret illicit relations with others and subsequent infidelity, nervous disorders, impotence, etc.
In all these cases we are confronted with the following dilemma:
(1) In the unmarried person: onanism or prostitution, or both. Is that morality? Such people must either forever forego love, marriage, and normal, lawful sexual intercourse, or face sterility in wedded life. (I do not recognize prostitution—see chapter X—as normal intercourse.)
(2) Within marriage: onanism, prostitution, and infidelity, or the adoption of rational preventive measures.
I leave it to the reader and to the lawmakers to pick out the correct alternative and to arrive at the one possible, decent, and ethical solution of these conflicting questions.
I do not admit that constitutionally frigid natures or those who find it easy to control their sexual appetite, have any right whatsoever to pose as normal samples of the human race and to simply ignore the existence of temperaments, characters, and constitutions so widely differing from their own. This world's history teaches us that nothing good has ever come from such vain assumptions, unless it be empty phrases and dead letters. These righteous, frigid, and strong natures ought, indeed, to be grateful to their ancestors for having handed down to them that happy disposition, and to prove their gratitude by making particular efforts to help those that are yet to come, in obtaining and sharing the same benign blessing.
It seems almost incredible that in some countries medical men who are not ashamed to throw young men into the arms of prostitution, blush when mention is made of anticonceptional methods. This false modesty, created by custom and prejudice, waxes indignant at innocent things, whilst it encourages the greatest infamies.
Hygiene of Marriage.—When marriage is consummated on the basis of free reciprocal consent, when both parties know exactly to what they have pledged themselves, when the corrupting influence of money is eliminated, when all unnatural regulation is suppressed, when the superfluous blending of religion and legislation have been abolished from the bonds of matrimony, when woman has finally obtained equal rights with man—then love and mutual respect, combined with the sexual appetite, will constitute the intimate and personal ties of marriage. At the same time, instinctive sentiments and legal duties toward the offspring will furnish it with a complementary and lasting cement. Among men whose nature is true, the instructive sentiment of altruism or conscience urges them to the performance of social duties without the necessity of any legal obligation.