Femina, A Work for Every Woman

by John A. Miller

A man who has become the husband of a woman should never cease to be a gentleman on that account, nor should he become lost to a consideration of those delicacies of refinement, which smooth the common relations in the exercise of daily duties.

Continence is the complete restraint from sexual indulgence, which in its fullest sense does not apply to the married state, but it comes within the scope of every married life to cultivate and practice it as one of its virtues. Every married couple should be continent for days and weeks at a time, and when one or the other is not feeling well, abstinence should be practiced, as the rule, not only to avoid a nervous shock, which may have serious results, but because conception in an abnormal physical condition, will perpetuate itself in the child, which is quite likely to inherit a nervous or sickly constitution. When pregnancy supervenes, undue sexual excitement of the mother often has the most serious consequences to the fetus, and may result in its death, or induce abortion.

Diet is to be regulated, to assist a firm determination to lead a chaste and purer life. Stimulating and highly-seasoned food, and alcoholic beverages, are not to be used, because they increase the circulation of the blood and stimulate the nerves to inflammatory activity. Meat should be eaten only once a day, and the supper should be bland and light.

Nature has set a time during which continence should be practiced for the purpose of preserving the health and controlling the reproductive function, that is, the menstrual period. Menstruation in women corresponds to the ripening and discharge of the human ovule. The aptitude for impregnation is a day or two before and six to eight days after the courses cease. This is a rule which applies to the great majority of women, and if the sexual relations are suspended from a few days before the onset of the menses until six or eight days after the flow has ceased, the chances for pregnancy are reduced to the minimum. This physiological relation of the organic function of conception to the sexual act is to be recommended as the most wholesome check to reproduction in early married life, although I believe that there is no time better calculated to raise a family than while you are young and hopeful.

Children are common objects of love and hope for both parents. Life and health are ever changing the relations of our surroundings, and when newly-married people put off to the dim future the hopes of rearing a family, they are often doomed to everlasting disappointment. Nature is capricious and jealous of her prerogatives, and those who trifle with her functions must expect to be frustrated in the end, and have no one but themselves to blame if she fails to respond to their capricious wishes. Children make trouble of course, so were we as troublesome in our time, but there is also a great deal of pleasure in watching them grow from day to day in bodily strength and mental perception, which no amount of selfish enjoyment can compensate.

The diseases that are brought upon women by the different practices and mechanical devices to prevent conception are too numerous to mention in a work of this character. Some of the methods are absolutely loathesome to all sense of decency and reduce sexual intercourse much below the instinctive indulgence of the brute; these debauches of the conjugal bed not only sap the vitality of the participants, but must lower or destroy all mutual respect, and ultimate in dissension and strife, which the divorce court will finally assuage.

Referring to the practice of conjugal onanism or interrupted or incomplete coitus, Dr. Franklin Devay says: “However, it is not difficult to conceive the degree of perturbation that a like practice should exert upon the genital system of woman by provoking desires which are not gratified; a profound stimulation is felt through the entire apparatus; the uterus, Fallopian tubes and ovaries enter into a state of orgasm, a storm which is not appeased by the natural crisis; a nervous super-excitation persists. There occurs, then, what would take place if, presenting food to a famished man, one should snatch it from his mouth after having thus violently excited his appetite. The sensibilities of the womb and the entire reproductive system are teased for no purpose. It is to this cause, too often repeated, that we should attribute the multiple neuroses, those strange affections which originate in the genital system of women. Our conviction respecting them is based upon a great number of observations. Furthermore, the normal relations existing between the married couple undergo unfortunate changes; this affection, formed upon reciprocal esteem, is little by little effaced by the repetition of an act which pollutes the marriage bed; from thence proceed certain hard feelings, certain deep impressions, which, gradually growing, eventuate in the scandalous ruptures of which the community rarely know the real motive.” This is in every respect as hurtful as the vicious practice of solitary vice, although that is comparatively less common among young virgins than among those of the opposite sex. Nevertheless, this is a frequent cause of hysterical symptoms and uterine disease. Stop it at once; there is no burden that a large family of children can impose upon you, be it even poverty and want, as great as the inevitable results of these unnatural habits.

The use of caps or tissue coverings, made of thin rubber or gold-beater’s skin, are not only suggestive of the licentiousness of the brothel but their employment causes physical lesions from their irritating friction to the walls of the vagina. I have had under my treatment obstinate ulcerations of the vagina which were due to their use, and in one instance it degenerated into cancer. The use of the “womb veil,” which originated in France, has been denounced as a fruitful source of ulceration of the womb, by modern French writers, who are more familiar with their indiscriminate employment than Americans. There has been also a plug or stem pessary employed for the purpose “of sealing up the womb,” which is partly introduced into the mouth and cervical canal of the organ; this obviously adds insult to injury, by also irritating the cavity of the womb and exciting inflammation of its lining membrane. There are other devices for a similar purpose, that have the same tendency of irritating and wounding the genitals of the female.

There is nothing that could be said, to intimidate some women, by forewarning them of the danger of their preventive measures; they will continue to make business for the specialists, and drain the purses of their husbands, but there is a great majority of good, noble, matronly women who are pure in heart and mind, that appreciate the value of the information that I impart. What I desire to further suggest, is a preventive measure that is entirely harmless and consistent with chastity and cleanliness, for I believe that within certain bounds, a woman has a moral right to limit or control the conception of her womb. But right here the option ceases. If she pushes her measures beyond the portals of the womb, if she employs medicines or mechanical devices to bring around her courses, when she suspects pregnancy or conception, she becomes a murderess in the eyes of the Creator. The bowl of tanzy tea, or any of the many quack nostrums, advertised in the public prints, are as much an instrument of murder as the probe of the abortionist. It would be the height of sophistry to make a distinction between the embryo of an hour or a day old, and that of any future period. The potentiality of a human being is established at the moment of conception, and the destruction of this, at any period, is homicide. No one can deny less importance to the cause, which is conception, than to the effect, which is the human embryo, for without the one, the other is impossible.

Hence, not to bear a child implies not to conceive a child, for if once conceived, it must be born.