If it is shown to the young man, at a time when his heart and mind are still in the thrall of the early and eternal poetry of the race, that it is as important to humanity that he should be chaste as it is for the woman to be pure, then he will refrain from illicit indulgence.
The following case is very instructive in this respect. A student of philosophy at one of the greatest German universities who led a promiscuous life like any other student, gave up such life immediately after reading Tolstoy’s Kreutzer-Sonate. For the first time, as he expressed it, he saw the reason why he should be as chaste as he expects his bride to be.
This shows what a moral lesson may do even for him who grew up to manhood without any sex-instruction. The young man who has the desire not to be dominated or controlled by sensual passions and propensities, requires settled principles, a firm purpose, and a strong will. But if the training of his will-power has begun from early childhood, thus effecting the needed self-discipline, and if disgust against everything vulgar, as the company of lax women, has been implanted in his heart, he will find the means to get out of the way of vice and to avoid the contamination by venal sensuality. The best means of vast importance as occupying and consuming the sexual powers in a substitute form are bodily and mental labors. These labors, as a rule, are lulling to sleep sensuality.
If the control of the sex-reflexes is not cultivated, if the training of the will is ignored, meretricious venery will surely take hold of him and infect him, it being only a matter of time when it happens. The young man will exercise continence if he has been taught from early childhood that his sensual yearnings must be restrained like his propensity to overeat, to overdrink or to overexercise. Because a young man wants a thing it is not necessarily good for him to have it. Man has little right to satisfy his desire by unchastity, says Ellen Key, as he has to satisfy hunger by theft.[ER]
If the young man has learned in time the responsibility and duty of the man towards the woman, if he has been made aware of the fact that one false step ruins the girl irremediably for her entire life, if his attention has been called upon the serious consequences for the woman, such as pregnancy, motherhood and social ostracism, he will not so easily ever try to seduce an innocent girl. He will treat every woman he meets with in life as he wishes his own sister or future wife to be treated by others.
The young man has further to learn that every union of bodies without the harmony of the souls is humiliating and immoral. That does not mean that the idea should be imparted to our youth that the sexual impulse is something low and bestial, as some moralists would like us to believe. On the contrary, we must teach our youth that a healthy and natural exercise of the human organism is a precious blessing that must not be squandered and recklessly defiled. We must teach the young man that for the future offspring’s sake the monogamic marriage is the only one which the ideal man will resort to. Until his mate is found he will have to control his sensual desires. The control of sensuality develops the deeper feelings of love. Bought love kills the finest instruments of mental activity. Promiscuity destroys the relations of the young companionship. Free love leaves all the best human qualities undeveloped. To form the healthy germ of society, marriage must be unitary and permanent. The individual love assists the elevation of the race. Monogamy was victorious from the experience of its advantages. It exists for the sake of the race.
The race-enhancing form of union is a permanent monogamy. From the physiological standpoint monogamic marriage is a natural and healthful institution. It affords a free outlet to sensuality without generally exhausting it by the unceasing excitement in the presence of new objects. Novelty is the chief stimulus to the sexual feeling and is the main cause of overindulgence and its sequels. In centralizing affection upon one person, marriage furnishes the greatest scope of its development and expansion. Marriage favors the development of a great number of faculties which otherwise would be in danger of being abused. Marriage contributes to the general morality of mankind by the regularity which it brings to all the actions of life, by the calmness which it spreads over human existence, and by the harmony which it introduces into the functional exercise of all our necessities. It creates in man a greater attachment to life in helping to overcome a great number of difficulties. Marriage, therefore, contributes to the progress of humanity, and man is by duty bound that the selection of a mate should contribute to the enhancement of the human race. Every individual acquires duties towards the race. The man or the woman who transgresses the path of strict monogamy has done a disservice to humanity. From the point of view of evolutionary ethics, men and women must make absolute chastity the rule of their lives.