This is just possible under certain peculiar circumstances of diseased conditions, or after long separation of husband and wife. However, it seldom happens, and married people in normal health, temperate in the sexual relation, desirous of controlling the size of their family, can usually depend upon this law.
15. Moderation.—Continence, self-control, a willingness to deny himself—that is what is required from the husband. But a thousand voices reach us from suffering women in all parts of the land that this will not suffice; that men refuse thus to restrain themselves; that it leads to a loss of domestic happiness and to illegal amour, or it is injurious physically and morally; that, in short, such advice is useless because impracticable.
16. Nature's Method.—To such we reply that Nature herself has provided, to some extent, against over-production, and that it is well to avail ourselves of her provision. It is well known that women, when nursing, rarely become pregnant, and for this reason, if for no other, women should nurse their own children, and continue the period until the child is at least nine months or a year old. However, the nursing, if continued too long, weakens both the mother and the child, and, moreover, ceases to accomplish the end for which we now recommend it.
17. Another Provision of Nature.—For a certain period between her monthly illness, every woman is sterile. Conception may be avoided by refraining from coition except for this particular number of days, and there will be no evasion of natural intercourse, no resort to disgusting practices, and nothing degrading. The following facts have been established, without a doubt: The Graafian Vesicle, containing the egg in the ovary, enlarges during menstruation and bursts open to let the egg escape usually on the first day after the flow ceases, and seldom, if ever, later than the fourth day. It then takes from two to six days for the egg to pass down through the Fallopian tube into the womb, where it remains from two to six days, when, if not impregnated, it passes down through the vagina from the body. After the egg has passed from the body, conception is not possible until after the next menstrual flow.
The period, therefore, from after the sixteenth to within three days of the following menstrual discharge is one of almost absolute safety. We say within three days of the next menstruation, because the male seminal fluid may be retained there till the egg leaves the ovary, and in that way impregnation might follow. Impregnation would, however, rarely occur if the period was extended to from the twelfth day after menstruation close up to one day before it began again.
The above is the only physiological method (and it is no secret to a great many people) by which conception can be limited, without the employment of such means as involve danger and serious evils.
18. Warning.—Let women be warned in the most emphatic manner against the employment of the secret methods constantly advertised by quacks. Such means are the almost certain cause of painful uterine diseases and of shortened life. They are productive of more misery by far than over-production itself.
