The young woman entering upon marriage should receive instruction from her mother regarding all the sexual processes of copulation, instruction at once earnest and complete. By such enlightenment, the young bride will be spared much suffering, and a sudden disillusionment which might seriously affect the whole of her future life will be avoided; complete ignorance, on the other hand may lead, not merely to needless mental and physical suffering, but to the most tragic consequences on the bridal night. In one case known to me, the young wife, who before marriage was utterly ignorant of the nature of physical love, was so completely overwhelmed in her ideals by the somewhat energetic procedure of the bridegroom as soon as he found himself alone with his wife, that she fled from her new home then and there in the night, and by no persuasions could be induced to return.
In that decisive moment in which the maiden loses her virginity, she must find in her husband, not the brutal man who forcibly takes possession of her body, but the chosen man of all, to whom her love can refuse nothing.
“Delicate foresight and restraint,” writes Ribbing, “are needful above all at the commencement of married life. The young wife, coming to the bridal bed a pure virgin, is not, like her husband, fully prepared for what is to take place. In all cases she is somewhat fearful of the new experience. The first act of intercourse involves for her a certain amount of pain, and this pain is not solely physical. * * * Moreover, we must remember that the entire change in her mode of life makes a deep impression upon a woman’s mind; time and quiet are needed before she can find herself at home in the novel surroundings, before she can adapt to the changed circumstances her moral and religious convictions, and before she can ‘think true love acted simple modesty’ (Romeo and Juliet, III, 2.16). Impatient husbands, through want of knowledge and lack of consideration during the honeymoon, have often ruined the happiness of subsequent married life.”
It happens often, unfortunately, that the wife has reason to complain of the reckless manner in which her husband has used, or misused, his sexual powers. Frequently enough, on the bridal night, the man proceeds with such violence in his assault on the virgin reproductive organs of his newly-wedded wife, that we must actually speak of him as ravishing an ignorant and timid girl. Later, when the stimulus of novelty has passed away, the husband often performs intercourse in a manner more calculated to awaken his wife’s sexual desires, but in seeking his own lordly gratification and obtaining it he is still apt to leave out of the reckoning the need for effecting coitus in such a way as will give complete satisfaction also to his wife.
The wedding journey likewise deserves consideration from the hygienic standpoint. Much is to be said in favor of such a journey, inasmuch as it endows the necessarily somewhat brutal first act of intercourse with an aspect of romance. The removal to a foreign country, to a strange environment, will spare the chaste maiden much shame and vexation. On the journey, moreover, the young couple are much in each other’s company, and the process of mutual adaptation is agreeably favored. And yet this modern custom of making a wedding journey entails certain serious disadvantages. The young woman leaves her home and her nearest relatives, and is in a moment involved in the excitement of travel, an excitement liable to increase to the degree of morbid anxiety. The fatigues of railway-travel, of wandering about strange towns, of visits to museums and picture-galleries, are apt to cause general loss of nervous tone, and also local hyperæmia of the genital organs. In addition, false modesty and the prescribed arrangements for the journey may lead the onset of menstruation to be ignored and the customary rest at this period to be dispensed with. Still more, the possibility of the occurrence of conception and of the commencement of pregnancy is usually left altogether out of the account. Many an attack of menorrhagia, of perimetritis, and of endometritis, many a miscarriage, and many instances of protracted sterility, are dependent upon the hygienic mistakes of the wedding journey, and less, indeed, upon the abuses arising out of the intoxication of passion, than upon the fatigues of excessive travel both by day and by night. The bride who on her wedding-day was young, healthy, and full of vitality, not infrequently returns from the wedding journey a sickly and debilitated woman.
With regard to wedding journeys in relation to the causation of chronic metritis, Scanzoni has expressed an authoritative opinion. “After many weeks of unsatisfied sexual desire, the young married pair, now freed from all restraint, give themselves up to the joys of love; the intense sexual excitement causes great stimulation and hyperæmia of the female sexual organs; in addition, the noxious influences of travel make themselves felt, and also hygienic indiscretions are perpetrated, dependent upon the young wife’s modesty; it is, therefore, by no means to be wondered at that, having left home a perfectly healthy woman, she returns from her wedding journey with the germs of an illness from which she never fully recovers, and which is the source of unending suffering, and more particularly of a sterile marriage.”
Sexual hygiene demands a certain moderation in the enjoyment of physical love, and also a certain constancy, such as may be expected in a happy marriage.
It is not possible to lay down a general rule with regard to the frequency of sexual intercourse, notwithstanding the earnestness with which religious zealots, physicians, and moral teachers have in all ages endeavored to determine how often it was proper for a man to cohabit with his wife. The rules that have been prescribed by the various authorities had in view, for the most part, the protection of the wife from excessive demands on the part of her husband; sometimes, however, by the establishment of a minimum period, a certain amount of sexual gratification was secured to the wife; finally, also, the generation of a healthy posterity had to be taken into consideration. Ribbing, however, justly observes: “Sexual intercourse results from a natural impulse, and he whose senses are unimpaired, and who has learned, at the same time, amid the tumult of his sensations, to preserve proper consideration for his wife—such a man runs little danger of making any mistake. In opposition to the opinion of many, I regard it as entirely right and reasonable that husband and wife should have intercourse whenever physically and mentally impelled to that act. Nor do I see any reason why, during the first period in which they are able to enjoy without intermission the pleasures of sexual intercourse, they should, in accordance with any theory whatever, impose on themselves further restraints than those demanded by care for their physical and mental health. The touchstone of marital hygiene is this, that on the day following intercourse both husband and wife should feel perfectly fresh, vigorous, and lively, alike in body and mind—even more so, perhaps, than on other days. In the absence of such feelings, we may feel assured of the occurrence of sexual excesses.” The same author quotes a saying of Pomeroy’s: “We may quaff the nectar as freely as we will—nature herself mixes the draught and holds the goblet to our lips; if, however, we drink too much, she first dilutes the draught with water, later adds gall, and ultimately perhaps deadly poison.”
The occupation, trade, or profession, and the nutritive condition and physical constitution of the married pair, have an important bearing on the frequency with which, without detriment to health, cohabitation is permissible. The rules of the Hebrew Talmud already take these circumstances into account, ordering as they do that young and powerful men not engaged in any regular occupation shall have intercourse with their wives daily; manual labourers, on the other hand, once a week only; whilst brain-workers, finally, or those whose work is extremely arduous, should allow an interval of one or more months to elapse between the acts of intercourse. Acton also prescribes that in the case of brain-workers and of those manual workers whose labours are exhausting, intercourse must not occur more frequently than once every week or ten days.
The married couple should understand how to impose on themselves a certain restraint in the matter of marital intercourse, without, however, going so far as on altogether trifling grounds to refuse the husband access to his wife. In this respect also, the opinions that have recently come to prevail concerning the rights of women have had an influence. W. Acton relates a case that came under his observation in which the wife refused to allow her husband any voice in determining when and how often intercourse should take place; the wife, she maintained without hesitation, since she had to bear the consequences of intercourse, was fully justified, whenever she thought fit, in refusing her husband’s embraces.