In the Neo-Malthusian propaganda there is yet another fact which—should be seized by every married woman, because it is a clear indication of a tendency to reduce women to degrading subjection. No recommendations of limited intercourse or of self-restraint according to the dictates of reason or of affection are to be found in the writings of birth controllers. Unrestrained indulgence, without the risk of consequences, is their motto. To this end they advocate certain contraceptive methods, and the reader should note that these methods require precautions to be taken solely by the woman. If she fails to take these precautions, or if the precautions themselves fail, all responsibility for the occurrence of conception rests on her alone; because her Malthusian masters have decided that she alone is to be, made responsible for preventing the natural or possible consequences of intercourse. Why? That is a very interesting question, and one to which a leading Neo-Malthusian has given the answer.
In 1854 there was published, Physical, Sexual and Natural Religion: by a Graduate of Medicine. In the third edition the title was altered to The Elements of Social Science, and the author's pseudonym to A Doctor of Medicine. This book, which contains over 600 pages of small type, may be truthfully described as the Bible of Neo-Malthusians, and includes, under the curious heading Sexual Religion, a popular account of all venereal and other diseases of sex. In the Preface to the first edition, [74] the anonymous author states: "Had it not been the fear of causing pain to a relation, I should have felt it my duty to put my name to this work; in order that any censure passed upon it should fall upon myself alone." The relation appears to have had a long life, because anonymity was preserved for fifty years, presumably out of respect for his, or her, feelings: and he, or she, must have lived as long as the author, who died in 1904 at the age of seventy-eight; because the author's name was not revealed until a posthumous edition, the thirty-fifth, appeared in 1905, from which we learn that the book was written by the late Dr. George Drysdale, brother of the first President of the Malthusian League, and uncle of the present incumbent. The last edition, in recompense for its smudgy type, contains a most welcome announcement by the publisher:
"PUBLISHER'S NOTE.—… It is due alike to the reader and the publisher to explain why the present edition is printed (in the main) from stereotypes that have seen fifty years' service. The cost of resetting the work would be prohibitive on the basis of present (and probable future) sales. To some extent the plates have been repaired; but such an expedient can do no more than remove the worse causes of offence."
But the fact with which I am at present concerned is that in every edition all contraceptive methods that apply to the male are condemned for the following reasons:
"The first of these modes [coitus interruptus] is physically injurious, and is apt to produce nervous disorder and sexual enfeeblement and congestion, from the sudden interruption it gives to the venereal act, whose pleasure moreover it interferes with. The second, namely the sheath, dulls the enjoyment, and frequently produces impotence in the man and disgust in both parties; so that it also is injurious" (p. 349)…. "Any preventive means, to be satisfactory, must be used by the woman, as it spoils the passion and the impulsiveness of the venereal act if the man have to think of them" (p. 350).
The italics are mine, but the following comments are by a woman, who was moreover the first woman to qualify in medicine—the late Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell.
"Here, in this chief teacher of the Neo-Malthusians, the cloven foot is fully revealed. This popular author, who in many parts of his book denounces marriage as the enslavement of men and women, who sneers at continence, and rages at Christianity as a vanishing superstition—all under a special pretence of benevolence and desire for the advancement of the human race, here clearly, shows what he is aiming at, and what his doctrines lead to. Male sexual pleasure must not be interfered with, male lust may be indulged in to any extent that pleasure demands, but woman must take the entire responsibility, that male indulgence be not disturbed by any inconvenient claims from paternity. Whatever consequences ensue the woman is to blame, and must bear the whole responsibility.
"A doctrine more diabolical in its theory and more destructive in its practical consequences has never been invented. This is the doctrine of Neo-Malthusianism." [75]
Section 6. SPECIALLY HURTFUL TO THE POOR
(a) Affecting the Young