I know that on the government of my passional relations with my wife depends her health and life of body and soul, the health of our children, and the beauty and happiness of our home. I know, if she ever is made to fear my passion, and to shrink from the personal intimacies of her husband, home, from that hour, becomes desolate and repulsive, no matter what may be the natural or artistic elegance of our material surroundings. I know that in proportion as she cherishes a loving and trusting respect for all that constitutes me a man, will she lovingly and calmly rest in the bosom of her husband; and that the most sacred sanctuary of our home, instead of being an altar of cruel and merciless sacrifice of her health and life, will be a fountain of eternal life and peace to us both,—a temple consecrated to all true manifestations of an unselfish conjugal and parental love.
I feel the responsibility that rests upon me. I would have my wife associate my manhood with her own purity, and not with my selfish gratification. I would have her assured that my nature, as a man, is under the control of conscience and reason, and held in subjection to her perfect development, and that of our children. I would be an unselfish, noble husband, and a true and happy father; a husband and father who can stand in the pride and dignity of conscious nobility before his wife and children. I would be a Man; one whose soul, vitalized and ennobled by the presence and power of conjugal and paternal love, shall never cower before its own consciousness, nor in the presence of its God.
If you can give me your thoughts and feelings in regard to parentage, and the relation that leads to it, you will confer a favor on one whose love and respect for you will never end.
Yours,
A HUSBAND.
THE
CRIME OF AN UNDESIRED MATERNITY
Letters to a Husband.
LETTER I.
THE MOTHER’S POWER OVER HER CHILD.
My Friend: