It is, however, equally certain that with the advance of intelligence, of education, and of political power amongst all members of a community, the great principle of Justice must become the foundation on which all legislation, which is to prove of permanent benefit to a nation, will rest. Expediency, regardless of justice, may sometimes seem to offer an easy solution of difficult practical problems, but it is a delusive seeming. The temporary adoption of such expedients, when contrary to the inexorable requirements of far-seeing or sympathetic justice, will always degrade, and in the end destroy, the society which persists in resting upon expediency instead of principle.
For this reason slavery and polygamy are always found to hinder the progress of any nation that is founded upon them. In our own country the unjust condonation of adultery, by law, in 1857, against the strenuous opposition of far-seeing statesmen, has educated more than one generation in a false and degrading idea of physiology.
In all sanitary legislation, where the authority of the medical profession is recognised by an appeal to any of its members for guidance in respect to practical regulations, the counsel given affects the honour of the whole profession, and it is vital to the authoritative status of the profession that the advice rendered shall be based upon a sound knowledge of the creative laws which govern our complex human nature. Superficial or one-sided statements, made on so momentous an occasion as an appeal by legislation to medicine, degrade the profession; and practical measures founded upon unsound knowledge may debase legislation and intensify the evils they are intended to diminish.
The most serious of all the subjects on which the advice of the medical profession is required concerns the legislative enactments or municipal regulations which affect the relations of the sexes.
The importance of these relations cannot be overrated. They deal with the very source of society. They may affect the soundness of both body and mind. If legislation fosters immoral customs which spread disease and death, then such legislation, corrupting a nation’s life, is treachery to human nature, and the false counsel that has been given is defiance of Divine law.
A great physiological fact which requires now to be faced is that promiscuous intercourse cannot be made physically healthy. The reasons for this have already been stated.[5] But no practical measures are sound which do not steadily repress this dangerous and debasing practice in men and women.
This great problem of sexual evil has never hitherto been studied from the two sides which Nature presents to us. But sound physiology requires that the parallel functions and equal attraction in the two halves of humanity be considered. A Christian nation must recognise that the purchase of the weaker by the stronger is a cruel and debasing trade which must be checked, and that the substitution of promiscuous intercourse for Christian marriage is a physical and moral degradation to each half of the human race.
When the facts are fully grasped—1st, that men are not made dependent upon women for the maintenance of individual health and vigour; 2nd, that women violate a law of nature when they fail to reverence their potential motherhood—the great principle which should guide sex legislation will be established.
In all practical measures required to check sex disorders in our midst, the co-operation of experienced men and women is essential.
Whether it be for the maintenance of good order in the streets, for purification of the slums, for reduction of brothels, for reform of marriage laws, or for the extirpation of venereal disease, no regulations will unite expediency with justice, which do not proceed from the united wisdom of earnest men and women.