The sexual life of woman in its physiological, pathological and hygienic aspects

by E. Heinrich Kisch

Among the Greeks, a woman who had remained barren during the early years of marriage would visit the temple of Juno, in order to receive from a priest of Pan the gift of fertility. She stripped naked, and, while thus exposed to the flagellant priests, she received all over the back of her body numerous blows inflicted with thongs of a he-goat’s hide—this process being supposed to induce fertility. The object of this form of flagellation would appear to be to induce an increase of sexual desire.

Sexual neurasthenia is defined by Eulenburg as a neuropsychosis of chronic course, manifesting itself chiefly in the form of excessive irritability of the sensory and psychosensory neuron-systems, in association with excessive tendency to exhaustion of the motor and psychomotor neuron-systems. This exhaustion occurs especially in relation to the genital system, in which we see exhibited the phenomena of irritable weakness, of increased excitability combined with increased tendency to fatigue of the genital nerve apparatus—such chronic morbid disturbances are, according to this author, comparatively rare in women, that is to say, the developed typical picture of the disease does not occur in women, or occurs very rarely. Among 168 patients suffering from sexual neurasthenia, only six were women. Two of these latter were addicted to masturbation, and in the anatomical sense both were still virgins; the rest were married women, not receiving sufficient sexual gratification in their married life, two of these were probably also addicted to masturbation, two indulged in homosexual practices.

Onanism, according to Eulenburg, is the cause of sexual neurasthenia in women as well as in men. If, however, among the relatively very large number of women addicted to masturbation, there appears to be such a very small proportion of instances of sexual neurasthenia, this depends on the fact that from the nature of onanism in women the physical and also as a rule the psychical consequences are as a whole apt to be much less severe than those arising from similar practices in men; but it depends also on the circumstances that neuromental abnormalities of other kinds and denoted by other names, such as dyspareunia, vaginismus, sexual hysteria, nymphomania, feminine sadism, and tribadism, are apt to arise in consequence of onanism. As regards onanism, so also may it be in regard to sexual excesses and aberrations in general; they may be on the one hand causes, but on the other symptoms and sequelæ, of sexual neurasthenia. Early-acquired or inherited homosexual tendencies and habits may, as Eulenburg further points out, lead to sexual neurasthenia only, but then very easily, when such individuals have allowed themselves, against their nature but in obedience to conventional points of view and to the advice of the relatives, to be persuaded into marriage. That sexual abstinence alone is competent to induce sexual neurasthenia must be dismissed as a fable.

II. THE SEXUAL EPOCH OF THE MENACME.

By the term menacme I designate the culmination of the sexual development of woman, during which the processes of reproduction, copulation, conception, pregnancy, parturition, and lactation occur.

The processes of puberty in woman are fully completed at the age of from eighteen to twenty years, so that from this time forward she is fully equipped for the performance of her sexual duties. The first act in the fulfilment of these duties is copulation, which in civilized countries is in the great majority of women first undertaken at the commencement of married life. The average age at marriage in the women of this part of the world is 22; but marriages at an earlier age are very common, and in many circles of society the average age is as low as 20. The fullest maturity of sexual activity in women occurs, however, in the thirty-second year of life, this being the year in which on the average the maximum fertility is attained.

At the menacme, the beauty and energy of women attain their fullest evolution, her sexual characteristics their strongest development. It is this period of life, however, that entails the greatest dangers to beauty and health in connection with the functions of the genital organs. Copulation, the first act of sexual intercourse with the male, often produces in the female injuries from which she never completely recovers. Gonorrhœal infection has been a source of unspeakable miseries to women. Motherhood itself entails the risk of a great number and variety of illnesses, which, as puerperal sequelæ, affect this phase of woman’s life. The struggle for existence, in which woman at her prime is also involved, and the fulfilment of duties to husband and children, further lead to the production of a series of changes, both physical and mental, in the feminine organism, which influence all the functions.

The great characteristic of this epoch is maternity. In maternity the fully developed woman lives and has her being, but to maternity also she often succumbs as a sacrifice to the fulfilment of her natural functions. Inasmuch as in this sexual phase the functions of the genital organs are of greater importance, to the same degree is enhanced the importance of the mutual relations between these organs and the other organs of the female body.

Another influence of fundamental importance in the sexually mature woman is that of the sexual impulse, the force of which is at times overwhelming, so that its gratification is sometimes sought without regard for the consequences to married and family life.

The physiology and pathology of the menacme coincides with the normal processes and pathological changes respectively of the female genital organs consequent on their functional activity as organs of sexual sensation and of reproduction. Woman as wife and mother stands at the climax of her existence.