After the act of intercourse, a woman should rest; and indeed sleep for some hours is especially to be recommended. A vaginal douche should not be administered until several hours have elapsed, otherwise there will be a risk of preventing fertilization of the ovum. The water employed for vaginal irrigation should never be quite cold; a temperature of 79°–82° F. (26°–28° C.) is best.
All measures for the purpose of artificially increasing sexual desire, such as alcoholic beverages (especially champagne), and certain drugs (especially cantharides), are even more harmful to women than they are to men. The woman who conceives while in a state of intoxication commits a great sin against the coming generation.[[44]] Just as harmful, however, are the anaphrodisiacs sometimes employed to diminish the intensity of sexual desire when this cannot be gratified. When affected with intense sexual excitement, a woman is much more unfavorably situated than a man, since man claims the right to indulge in sexual intercourse whenever he feels disposed, and has, moreover, ample opportunity for sexual gratification. A woman, however, properly endowed with self-respect, will understand how to bridle her senses. Bodily exercise, moderate, unstimulating diet, intellectual occupation with serious matters, the avoidance of equivocal literature and of sensual dramatic representations, cold bathing, and the use of a hard mattress and light bed-clothing—these means will coöperate powerfully toward the prevention of excessive sexual desire. Horace already remarked: “Otia si tolles, periere Cupidinis arcus.”
The wife should know how to bridle, not her own desires only, but also those of her husband. She must not demand too much during the intoxication of youthful vigor; she must prevent the complete combustion of the flames of masculine passion, and must keep sparks glowing in the ashes. Economy during the sexual prime preserves sexual power, enables a man to continue intercourse to a ripe age, and avoids premature exhaustion and satiety. When the husband is drawing near the end of his sixth decade, the wife must accustom herself to see in him rather the father of her children than her own husband, and must reduce her sexual demands to that measure which will not be injurious to his health. Demosthenes, writing of the sexual life of the Athenians of his time, said: “In order to obtain legitimate offspring and to provide a faithful guardian of our household, we marry a wife; for our service and for the performance of daily household duties, we keep concubines; for the joys of love, we seek the hetairai.” The task is extremely difficult, but a clever and virtuous modern wife must endeavor to combine in her single personality the sensual attractiveness of an Aspasia, the chastity of a Lucrece, and the intellectual greatness of a Cornelia; she must bear in mind the epigram of Bacon, “A wife must be a young man’s mistress, a middle-aged man’s companion, an old man’s nurse.”
In the act of intercourse the woman must always play the more passive part; she must be desired, rather than desire. Woman’s modesty increases man’s desire. By this coquetry, permissible because natural, the woman can bind the man to herself, and can give the lie to the assertion that marriage is the grave of love. Partial concealment of her desire on the part of the woman is more stimulating to the man than an open manifestation of the sexual impulse; and a certain amount of modest reluctance is more alluring to him than a plain invitation. Plenty of room must be left for the play of fancy and imagination. Schiller makes Fiesco say to the Countess Julia, as he covers up her bosom, “The senses must be blind letter-carriers only, and must not be aware of that which nature and the imagination communicate each to the other. The best of news is stale as soon as it has become the talk of the town.”
For this reason, also, it is more suitable that intercourse should take place, not by day, consequent on the brutal prompting of vision, but by night only, beneath the protecting veil of darkness. A night’s rest, moreover, will serve to restore the exhausted nerves, and to replace the expended secretions. Less advisable is coitus in the morning, on awaking from sleep, since the labors of the day must immediately thereafter be undertaken. Partially impotent men only, who wake up with an erected penis, endeavour to avail themselves without delay of this favorable opportunity, bearing in mind the French proverb, “On aime quand on peut, et non pas quand on veut.”
The French custom, in accordance with which the married pair sleep together in a double-bed is undesirable on several hygienic grounds, and, in the first place, for the reason that this continuous nocturnal proximity is likely to give rise to the habit of indulging in excessively frequent acts of intercourse. The best and most affectionate of men has neither disposition nor capacity to play the part of Romeo every night, and thus the value and enjoyment of marital duties becomes lessened. The fulfilment of his desires should not be rendered quite so easy to the husband; he should always appear the lover, one who seeks a woman’s favours because he longs for her; he should not be the master, exacting an unquestioned right. For this reason, separate beds are advisable for the married pair, and, when possible, even separate bedrooms.
Among the ancients, Lycurgus, the Spartan law-giver, regarded maternity as woman’s principal attribute, and considered the sexual impulse to be the means merely by which healthy citizens were provided for the state. In accordance with this view, the sanctity of marriage was violated, and every powerful, handsome, and valiant Spartan had the right to request the privilege of intercourse with the wife of another, in order to enrich that other’s family with his seed. Elderly, impotent men conducted well-formed young men into the arms of their own wives. The girls, like the young men, went through a course of gymnastic exercises, in order to harden their bodies, and to fit them for the bearing of strong and healthy children. No man might marry before attaining the age of thirty, no woman before attaining the age of twenty. Girls ripe for marriage were assembled in a dark place, and there the young men chose their brides, as chance might direct. The young men were allowed to visit their wives by night only, and secretly, in order that the vigor of the sexual impulse might be increased and maintained.
Among the Spartans, it happened quite frequently, that a man whose wife had remained childless, and who believed himself to be at fault in the matter, would beg one of his fellow-countrymen, or even a foreigner, to come to his assistance. It was enacted by one of Solon’s laws, to prevent a man from neglecting his marital duties, that he should have intercourse with his wife not less than three times monthly. According to another of Solon’s laws, an Athenian heiress might call upon her nearest relative for the gratification of her sexual desires.
The bluntest contrast to this Spartan simplicity is furnished by the unbridled lasciviousness that prevailed in Rome under the Cæsars, when women’s sole desire was sexual enjoyment, while maternity was a state to be avoided. To such an extreme was this carried, that the Roman ladies of that day preferred to marry eunuchs, and further, as Pliny reports, hermaphrodites were in great request. Juvenal writes: “There are women who prize the infertile embraces of base eunuchs; thus they are able to dispense with the use of abortifacients.”
The hygiene of the nuptial night deserves from the physician more attention than it has hitherto generally received. He should warn and enlighten the young husband, in order that the brutality with which the act of defloration is apt to be performed may be lessened, and further in order that mistakes in this connection, resulting from ignorance and likely to have serious consequences, may be avoided. It is well known that lacerations of the hymen and its environment, and even serious injuries of the genital organs, may result from maladroit attempts at penetration. The physician will admonish the husband in the words of Michelet: “Bear in mind in this hour that thou art an enemy, a tender, considerate, and gentle enemy!”