Is it I? A book for every man.

by Horatio Robinson Storer

FOOTNOTES:

[39] The reader will find this subject fully discussed in a late publication upon Marriage in the United States by Mons. A. Carlier, of Paris, and Dr. B. J. Jeffries, of Boston.

VIII.—A Plea for Woman.

In bringing this essay, which I hope has not wholly been a tedious one to my readers, to a close, I cannot do better than recapitulate my reasons for writing it, the main argument that I have advanced, and the end or effect I have labored to accomplish, the latter being to cure, as a physician, the great and festering sore on our body politic, corrupting its life-blood and threatening its very existence.

I have endeavored to discuss the relations of the sexes to each other in their social bearings and from a professional standpoint, and have been moved so to do from a belief, resting upon my own careful investigations into the subject as a medical man, and upon the confessions of many men and the allegations of many women, that these relations are very frequently unlike what they should be in the better, the more respectable walks of life. Lest I be said to judge of others by myself, I will frankly state that I make no pretence to be, naturally, more effeminate or more apathetic than the average of men, and I hold that to most of us refinement, purification, godliness, come less by grace than by fire. Assailed by temptations from without and within, all of which are so freely acknowledged by Dr. Ware, and other candid writers upon the subject, the boy runs a gantlet which is not ended with manhood. We dig pitfalls for women; they, deceived, if surviving their disappointment, in turn lay snares for us. Happy those of either sex who have never suffered themselves, nor caused others to suffer!

Starting with the premises that for much the greater part of the domestic woes in this world our own sex is to blame, and for much of the wrong and wickedness committed by women we ourselves are accountable, I proceeded to show that by natural instinct, divinely implanted for the furtherance of the Infinite Plan, we are forced from our earliest childhood to perceive that it is not good to be alone, and that both sexes are impelled, the male by far the more strongly, towards bodily union.

Conscious or unconscious of the desires awakened within him, the man instinctively seeks their gratification. Sometimes, and very often it is, in the middle aged as in the young, he endeavors to find pleasure or relief in an unnatural and wholly selfish abasement of himself; sometimes, and very often this is also, he consorts with abandoned women, and thus degrades himself to their level; sometimes, though this is comparatively seldom, until by impure thought or improper deed he has bestained himself (for if a man lusteth after a woman hath he not already committed adultery?) he seeks legitimate happiness in honorable marriage, blending the physical with the spiritual union, the earthly with that which we hope may survive all time.

By remarks such as these, it will be probably said by those whose professions have been of a higher character than their lives, I but lower the standard, and nature, and objects of marriage. I would not intentionally or willingly do so. But that it may be seen that I have reasoned only in accordance with the fact, I shall draw once more from that unchallenged authority, who was to myself, while a student, the same teacher I would fain make him to be for my fellow-men. His voice now comes to us from the grave; it is none the less earnest or impressive for this. “It is easier,” says Dr. Ware, “to show that a remedy is needed than to discover and apply it. In this case, indeed, we encounter the most difficult question presented to us in the moral education of our race. At the early age at which the evil begins to exist, when it is gradually creeping into the thoughts and habits of the child, how are we to detect and counteract it? In the present state of the relations between the old and the young, between parents and children, this is a task of extreme delicacy. It can only be done by the judicious observation and management of the associations, the conversation, the intercourse, the amusements, and the habits of children from their earliest days, both in families and in schools. But alas! how few parents, how few instructors, have the knowledge, the discretion, the tact, the judgment, to qualify them for such an office! How often must those who are fully aware of their duty shrink from its performance, from the apprehension that they may suggest, instead of preventing, the evil they fear!

“At a later period of life, the attempt to counteract the tendency to sensual indulgence is also encompassed with great difficulties, though there is less embarrassment as to the exact means which are to be put in force to accomplish the object. At this age, we are to depend not so much upon the watchful care of others as upon the establishment in the mind of the young man himself of a principle of resistance founded upon reason and conscience. We can often succeed in doing this, and although, where the mind and body have both been debauched by early training, the mind filled with impure images, and the body stimulated by unnatural gratification, the struggle is painful and often protracted, yet it is frequently effectual.

“The young man who becomes sensible of the dangers to which he is exposed, should fortify himself by every motive that can aid him in his endeavor to escape them. A regard to reputation, the fear of disease, may do much to restrain, and these are considerations not unworthy of regard; but the surest safeguard is to be found in the cultivation of an internal principle of resistance to evil because it is evil. Much may be done by those who sincerely aim to save themselves from these early temptations by a sedulous discipline of the thoughts, and a corresponding carefulness of words. Thoughts lead to words, and words lead to thoughts; both are liable to be consummated in actions. Purity of language in the intercourse of society should be regarded as an essential quality of the gentleman, and the want of it exclude him from good company as much as any other vulgar habit.