"The awkwardness, incapacity and ignorance of a young wife, when she starts housekeeping and has a baby, are astonishing. She often pays dearly for it, in spite of the instinct which is so much talked about. It is not the same as with animals, whose instincts are sufficient for the care of the young.
"A lady doctor of Zurich, Madame Hilfiker, has lately developed a scheme of much greater importance, which will require a great effort on the part of women and the intervention of legislation, if it is to be realized. Men, she says, maintain their muscular strength by military service. Every young woman, who is not prevented by her occupation, should perform the equivalent of military service, from the age of eighteen, in obligatory service for a year, in hospitals, asylums, maternities, crèches (public nurseries) or public kitchens. Such training would be extremely useful for future wives, and would at the same time provide the institutions in question with useful workers. Why should men be the only ones to perform obligatory social service? I expect," says Madame Schmid, "many adverse criticisms on this proposal, one of which I will refute at once. The ladies of the middle classes will strongly object because their daughters will see and hear so many things which ought to be hidden till they marry! But why should they be hidden? In order to prepare our daughters for marriage, is it not logical to begin by telling them what it is, what it involves and what it exacts?" ("L'Education sociale de nos filles," 1904.)
In neglecting this duty our parents and teachers commit a veritable crime. Does a normal man ever marry without knowing what he is doing? Yet our young girls are kept by their mothers in insensate and often dangerous ignorance of their whole future. Whoever invented this absurd and mischievous idea that a young girl should remain ignorant of her natural functions till the moment when she has bound herself for life to fulfill them? The law punishes persons who cause others to enter into contracts, while intentionally concealing the true conditions. This might almost equally well apply to parents who allow their daughters to marry in ignorance. Some women reply to this that marriage would be too sad and would have little attraction if it were not preceded by any illusion. Certain illusions which are natural to youth may be healthy, but the fantastic dreams which are in evident contradiction with reality, and nearly always followed by disillusion, are bad. A young woman who has always lived in a state of transcendental idealism till her marriage, infallibly courts disappointment, deception and heart-break. A wiser education would often succeed in sparing young women from this sudden and cruel disillusion. The moral level of men would also be raised if their future wives were better instructed in sexual matters, and exacted that the past life of their future husbands should give a better guarantee for the future.
It must, moreover, be understood that blind and obstinate resistance to new ideas serves no purpose. Our manners and customs change in spite of us; our girls will no longer allow themselves to be led blindly, but will seek more and more freedom. Would it not be wiser to take things in time and warn them of the dangers ahead? With incredible carelessness parents send their daughters into service abroad, without considering that they may be at the mercy of the first Don Juan who comes across them, or even fall into the meshes of "white slavery," if they are left to go in ignorance of sexual affairs, as is often the case (vide Chapter X). Moreover, by no longer taking a false and artificial view of life, girls will be more capable of understanding and sympathizing with the misery which surrounds them—the troubles of unfortunate marriages, seduced and abandoned girls, etc. What they lose in illusion they will gain in more useful knowledge.
How are we to begin? We should certainly not wait till the eve of marriage, but begin in childhood. In theory, it is wrong to lie to children, if they are to maintain unshaken confidence in their parents, and remain truthful themselves. No doubt we cannot explain everything to a child at the age when it begins to ask its mother certain embarrassing questions, but we should endeavor as far as possible to tell it the truth in a manner suitable to its age. When this is impossible, every child who knows that no reasonable explanation is ever refused it will be satisfied with the answer: "You are too young now to understand that; I will tell you when you are older." Every child who speaks openly to its mother asks sooner or later how children come into the world. It is easier to reply to this when the child has had the opportunity of observing the same thing in animals. Why should the mother conceal the fact that it is nearly the same in man as in animals? The child never thinks of blushing or laughing at natural phenomena.
The initiation of children into the mechanism of reproduction is best obtained by the study of botany and zoölogy. If no mystery is made of these things in the case of plants and animals, why should not instruction be given in human reproduction? On this point Madame Schmid remarks as follows:
"The father or the master should instruct the boys in this subject, and the mother or mistress the girls. Parents will then be able more easily to abandon their old and absurd prejudices, which they preserve, not so much because they attach any great importance to them, but because they shrink from the difficulty of explaining themselves to their children. We often see mothers, who would never have touched on the question with a child still ignorant of sexual matters, abandon the reserve hitherto observed in their language in the presence of the child, as soon as they perceive that it has become more or less acquainted with sexual phenomena. This is quite characteristic, and what is more so is that these mothers, and often also the fathers, frequently make equivocal jokes on the subject with their children instead of seriously discussing it.
"It is regrettable that so few pedagogues take up these questions, and that the instruction of children on the sexual question is left to the most impure sources—domestic servants, depraved companions, pornographic books, etc. This results in a deplorable estrangement between the children and their parents or masters, which destroys mutual confidence.
"If we wish to contend with sexual perversions acquired at an early age, or the precocious development of an unhealthy sexual appetite, this is not to be effected by prudery or vague moral preaching, but by affection and frankness. In this case, evasive replies, combined with so-called strict morals, only lead to estrangement, dissimulation and hypocrisy, and the result is often irreparable."
Madame Schmid also insists on the necessity of making young girls work and learn some business, so as to render them capable of surviving in the struggle for existence without being obliged to throw themselves at the head of the first man who presents himself, or becoming the prey of prostitution. She also emphasizes the necessity of remunerating the wife for her work as mother and housekeeper, as the husband is remunerated for his work.