This fact of the staying qualities of the power of sex functioning, even to old age, is the supreme proof of the fact that sex, in the human family, serves a purpose other than reproduction!
For, see! A woman loses the power to conceive when she reaches the "turn of life," when her menses cease, that is, when she is between forty and fifty years of age. And if pleasure in coition serves only to induce her to engage in the act for the purpose of increasing the probability of her becoming pregnant, if this is the sole purpose of desire for sex intercourse, such desire, such pleasure, ought to cease at that period of feminine life. But this is by no means the case! If a wife is a normal woman, sexually, and has neither abused her sex nature or had it abused, or neglected, and is a well woman, she will enjoy coitus as much after she has passed her three score and ten date in her life as she did before! She may not care to engage in the act as frequently as in her younger days; but if she is well courted by her old lover, all the joys of the former days are still hers, to as great a degree as ever. And what is true of her is true of her husband, if he is well preserved, as she is, has never abused himself or been abused.
This is a reward of virtue, for old lovers, that pays a big premium on righteous sex-action in earlier years! More than all, it is a proof, beyond all question, that the purpose of sex in humanity is something more than procreation, that there is such a thing as the Art of Love, and that it ought to be taught and well learned by every husband and wife, in their early married life.
X
CLEANLINESS
It would hardly seem necessary to be said, and yet many experiences of husbands and wives prove that it needs to be said, that both parties should take great pains to keep their bodies, all parts of them, always sweet and clean. Strange as it may seem, many wives are exceedingly careless in this respect! It is a matter of common report among men, that harlots take more pains to make and keep their bodies, and especially their genitals, clean and attractive, than many wives do! Surely, this ought not to be so, and yet it often is.
And that it is, is only one more unfortunate result that springs from the feeling of "Oh, we are married now." The wife or the husband feels that there is no longer any need of wooing each other. All of which leads to woe, woe, woe! The wife should keep her whole body so sweet and clean that her husband can kiss her from top to toe, if he wants to—and the chances are that he will want to, if she so keeps herself! In the one case, such a caress is a bit of heaven to a husband, in the other it is a bit of hell! It will disgust where it ought to delight. And when a wife disgusts her husband, the end of a happy married life has come!
The wife should always wash her vulva with soap and warm water before retiring, and if reservatus is to be engaged in in the morning, after urination, she should thoroughly cleanse the parts before union takes place. Let her be ever mindful to keep her "love cup" worthy to meet its lover.