Woman and Womanhood: A Search for Principles

by C. W. Saleeby

Ask how this came to be so, and the answer is that he in his turn was infected by some woman.

It is time, then, that we ceased to blame youth of either sex, and laid the onus where it lies—upon the shoulders of older people, and more especially upon those who by education and profession, or by the functions they have undertaken, such as parenthood, ought to know the facts and ought to act upon their knowledge. It is necessary to proceed, therefore: though perfectly aware that in many ways this chapter will have to be paid for by the writer: that he has yet to meet the eye of his publisher; that there will be abundance of abuse from those "whose sails were never to the tempest given": but aware also that in time to come those few who dared speak and take their chance in this matter, whether remembered or not, will have been the pioneers in reforming an abuse which daily makes daylight hideous. He who does betray the future for fear of the present should tread timidly upon his Mother Earth lest he awake her to gape and bury her treacherous son.

Something is known by the general public of the individual consequences of syphilis. It is known by many, also, that there is such a thing as hereditary syphilis—babies being born alive but rotted through for life. Further, it is not at all generally known, though the fact is established, that of the comparatively few survivors to adult life from amongst such babies, some may transmit the disease even to the third generation. There is a school of so-called moralists who regard all this as the legitimate and providential punishment for vice, even though ten innocent be destroyed for one guilty. Such moralists, more loathsome than syphilis itself, may be left in the gathering gloom to the company of their ghastly creed. Love and man and woman are going forward to the dawn, and if they inherit from the past no God that is fit to be their companion, they and the Divine within them will not lose heart.

The public knowledge of syphilis, though far short of the truth, is not merely so inadequate as that of gonorrhœa.

"No worse than a bad cold" is the kind of lie with which youth is fooled. The disease may sometimes be little worse than a bad cold in men, though very often it is far more serious; it may kill, may cause lasting damage to the coverings of the heart and to the joints, and often may prevent all possibility of future fatherhood.

These evils sink almost into insignificance when compared with the far graver consequences of gonorrhœa in woman. Our knowledge of this subject is comparatively recent, being necessarily based upon the discovery of the microbe that causes the disease. Now that it can be identified, we learn that a vast proportion of the illnesses and disorders peculiar to women have this cause, and it constantly leads to the operations, now daily carried out in all parts of the world, which involve opening the body, and all that that may entail. Curable in its early stages in men, gonorrhœa is scarcely curable in women except by means of a grave abdominal operation, involving much risk to life and only to be undertaken after much suffering has failed to be met by less drastic means. The various consequences of gonorrhœa in other parts of the body may and do occur in women as in men. Perhaps the most characteristic consequence of the disease in both sexes is sterility; this being much more conspicuously the case in women, and being the more cruel in their case.

Of course large numbers of women are infected with these diseases before marriage and apart from it, but one or both of them constitute the most important of the bridegroom's wedding presents, in countless cases every year, all over the world. The unfortunate bride falls ill after marriage; she may be speedily cured; very often she is ill for life, though major surgery may relieve her; and in a large number of cases she goes forever without children. One need scarcely refer to the remoter consequences of syphilis to the nervous system, including such diseases as locomotor ataxia, and general paralysis of the insane; the latter of which is known to be increasing amongst women. Even in these few words, which convey to the layman no idea whatever of the pains and horrors, the shocking erosion of beauty, the deformities, the insanities, incurable blindness of infants, and so forth, that follow these diseases, enough will yet have been said to indicate the importance of what is to follow. Medical works abound in every civilized language which, especially as illustrated either by large masses of figures or by photographs of cases, will far more than justify to the reader everything that has been said.

And now for the whole point of this chapter. We are not here concerned to deal with prostitution or its possible control. We are dealing with girlhood before marriage and in relation to marriage, and the plea is Goethe's—for more light. There is no need to horrify or scandalize or disgust young womanhood, but it is perfectly possible in the right way and at the right time to give instruction as to certain facts, and whilst quite admitting that there are hosts of other things which we must desire to teach, I maintain that this also must we do and not leave the others undone. It is untrue that it is necessary to excite morbid curiosity, that there is the slightest occasion to give nauseous or suggestive details, or that the most scrupulous reticence in handling the matter is incompatible with complete efficiency. Such assertions will certainly be made by those who have done nothing, never will do anything, and desire that nothing shall be done; they are nothing, let them be treated as nothing.

It is supposed by some that instruction in these matters must be useless because, in point of fact, imperious instincts will have their way. It is nonsense. Here, as in so many other cases, the words of Burke are true—Fear is the mother of safety. It is always the tempter's business to suggest to his victim that there is no danger. Often and often, if convinced there is danger, and danger of another kind than any he refers to, she will be saved. This may be less true of young men. In them the racial instinct is stronger, and perhaps a smaller number will be protected by fear, but no one can seriously doubt that the fear born of knowledge would certainly protect many young women.

There is also the possible criticism, made by a school of moralists for whom I have nothing but contempt so entire that I will not attempt to disguise it, who maintain that these are unworthy motives to which to appeal, and that the good act or the refraining from an evil one, effected by means of fear, is of no value to God. In the same breath, however, these moralists will preach the doctrine of hell. We reply that we merely substitute for their doctrine of hell—which used to be somewhere under the earth, but is now who knows where—the doctrine of a hell upon the earth, which we wish youth of both sexes to fear; and that if the life of this world, both present and to come, be thereby served, we bow the knee to no deity whom that service does not please.