Femina, A Work for Every Woman

by John A. Miller

Moral restraint means the restraint of the animal man by his spiritual or higher self; the will must possess its due predominance to exercise its determining power in curbing the passions of the one, and directing the course of the thought in the other.

The cold, calculating materialist, whose ideal is circumscribed by the laws that have been deduced from the phenomena of the material world, can scarcely appreciate the higher sentiments that are involved in this investigation, unless he becomes changed in thought and feeling to the things that are about him. To accomplish this result is hardly within the scope of this work. With the average man as we find him, my observation has taught me that it makes, after all, little difference, whether he believes in a spiritual nature or is avowedly materialistic. The great majority of men and women live, so to say, in the turbulent waters of their own passions, wafted hither and thither by the impulses of emotional excitement and instinctive desires. There is little or no hope for reform, if they have not sufficient force of character to cry halt, and stop to think a little upon questions which are to them of the greatest importance.

Marital excesses are the mainspring of so much disease, that ordinarily is attributed to quite different causes, that this chapter would be very deficient were I to omit to call the attention of my readers to this fact. The men on the whole are oftener the victims of the ill effects of unbridled lust than the women, which shows itself by violent and uncontrollable temper, in the one case, and stupid docility in the other: by a lean, hungry, nervous appearance, or a brutish, sanguineous obesity; extremes of the different temperaments and habits are but the natural outgrowth of the constitution inherent in each individual case.

Women, as a rule, are more passive, less amorous and more chaste in thought and feeling than men, and if we define emotion as an idea associated with pleasurable or painful feelings, women are, as far as appertains to their sexual nature, contrary to the generally-accepted opinion, much less emotional than men. Continence, among the unmarried women, is the rule, while among the men it is the rare exception; this is because her will is by nature stronger, while her reason is weaker, she intuitively arrives at conclusions that are her guide and saviour.

It is a prevalent idea among men that the marriage ceremony removes all restraint from the exercise of the sexual function; this not only neutralizes and destroys all sentiment of true love, which seeks for the happiness of the object it loves, but breeds hatred and contempt. To be permanently happy and mutually respectful, there must be love beyond the pleasure of gratifying the mere sexual instinct, there must be love in the realm of thought and a spiritual communion above the instincts of the flesh.

“Any warning against sexual dangers,” says Dr. Acton, “would be very incomplete if it did not extend to the excesses so often committed by married persons in ignorance of their ill effects. Too frequent emissions of the seminal fluid, and too frequent excitement of the nervous system, are in themselves most destructive. The result is the same within the marriage bond as without it. The married man and woman who think that because they are married, they can commit no excesses, however often the act of sexual congress is repeated, will suffer as certainly and as seriously as the unmarried debauchee, who acts on the same principle in his indulgences—perhaps more certainly, from their very ignorance, and from their not taking those precautions and following those rules which a career of vice is apt to teach the sensualist. Many a man has, until his marriage, lived a most continent life; so has his wife. As soon as they are wedded, intercourse is indulged in night after night, neither party having an idea that these repeated sexual acts are excesses which the system of neither can bear, and which to the man, at least, is absolute ruin and to the woman a source of disease. The practice is continued till health is impaired, sometimes permanently, and when a patient is at last obliged to seek medical advice, he is thunderstruck at learning that his sufferings arise from excesses unwittingly committed. Married people appear to think that connection may be repeated as regularly and almost as often as their meals. Till they are told of their danger, the idea never enters their heads that they are guilty of great and almost criminal excess; nor is this to be wondered at, since the possibility of such a cause of disease is seldom hinted at by the medical man they consult. Some go so far as to believe that indulgence may increase these powers, just as gymnastic exercises augment the force of the muscles. This is a popular error, and requires correction. Such patients should be told that the shock to the system, each time connection is indulged in, is very powerful, and that the expenditure of seminal fluid must be particularly injurious to organs previously debilitated. It is by this and similar excesses that premature old age and complaints of the generative organs are brought on.”

Wives of men of great vital force are not long before they become delicate, sickly and nervous, and, entirely ignorant of the real cause Of their feebleness, seek relief by taking “a good iron tonic,” which does them about as much good as if they had left it alone, the tonic effect of iron being entirely overestimated, but the delusion is created by associating the word iron with the idea strength. After the different tonics have been tried, the patient consults a physician, who, on general principles and after a hasty examination, informs her that she has “womb disease.” These two words for the time being settle the question; she now begins “to doctor,” and from the general or family doctor she finds her way to the female specialists, who, as a rule, belong to the recognized magnifiers and humbugs of the day. Here she becomes one of the regular habitues of the specialist’s waiting room, disappointed and not a little discouraged. She makes the rounds of the most prominent of them, until she has been doctored out of her dear patience and her still dearer money. Hope is often a forlorn consolation, and if by chance she now takes a trip to the country or undertakes a long visit at some distance, to her folks, which gives the poor woman respite from the “marital rights” of her Lord and Master, she recovers her former health, strength and buoyancy. Of course everybody congratulates her upon the wonderful effect of the climate, when the climate had no more to do with her recovery than the moon. The remarkable change was owing to having been let alone by husband and doctor.

That the attempt to call attention to these flagrant abuses of the dishonesty and ignorance of the one and the blind animal instinct of the other will be decried and stigmatized as “cranky,” I know beforehand, but I know also, that those who criticise these sentiments are fully convinced of the truth of the statement. The diseases that belong to this class are, like most uterine diseases, of an inflammatory nature, and for that reason rest is one of the most essential features in the treatment. But as this class belongs to the avoidable causes, prevention is much better than cure. I therefore advise, as of first importance, to abandon the American custom of man and wife occupying the same bed, which is only customary among the poorer classes of Europe, who cannot afford to have separate beds or chambers. The advantage of the European custom in segregating one’s self on retirement, to avoid the sexual instincts being unduly excited, can be borne out by remembering the physiology of the instinct, which we were told is excited by sight and feeling. Besides these, there is the possible undue familiarity, which the joint occupancy of the chamber or bed of man and wife may engender, and that, too, is likely to lead to excessive relations.

All efforts to exercise voluntary control, by prolonging the sexual act or extending the venereal orgasm, are fraught with the most pernicious results to the nerves, terminating in a partial or complete paralysis of the different organs of the body, or a low grade of inflammation is excited, which offers a fruitful soil for the development of various diseases.