Plain Facts for Old and Young

by John Harvey Kellogg

While it is true as a fact affirmed by constant observation that men have stronger passions than women, in general, and that many men demand of their wives a degree of sexual indulgence which is the cause of serious injury to them, and even impossible for them to grant without doing themselves the greatest wrong, it is by no means proven either that these demands are imperative, that they are natural, or that they are not injurious to the man as well as the woman, much less beneficial to either. On the contrary, there is as great a weight of evidence as could be required that restraint, self-control, and moderation in the exercise of the sexual instinct is in the highest degree beneficial to man, as well as to woman, and necessary for his highest development.

3. While it is true that there are a few more adult women than men, the difference is not sufficiently great to require the introduction of polygamy as a remedy for enforced celibacy. At any rate this would be unnecessary until all bachelors had been provided with wives, when there would be found no necessity for further provision, since there are large numbers of women who are utterly unfit to marry, who would be injured by so doing, and would only serve to degenerate the race, besides making themselves more wretched than they already are.

Again, it is a well-known fact that more males than females are born, the preponderance of adult females being caused by a greater mortality among male children, together with the losses from accidents and war. By a correct observance of the laws of health, together with the abolition of wars, the disparity in relative numbers of the sexes would disappear. Indeed, it might happen that men would be in the preponderance.

Still again, it is only in a few very populous and long-settled communities that there are more women than men, as in the States of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and a few others of the Eastern States, and a few countries of Europe. In all newly settled countries the reverse is true. The inquiry naturally arises, What shall be done under these circumstances? Shall a woman be allowed more than one husband, as is actually the case in some countries? "Oh! no;" our polygamist replies, "A woman is not capable of loving more than one man, and is not even able to satisfy the sexual demands of a single husband; so, of course, a plurality of husbands is out of the question. A man is capable of loving any number of women, being differently constituted from a woman; and so the same rule does not apply."

The writer evidently confounds love with lust. He will grant unstinted reign to the lusts of man, but requires woman to be restrained, offering as an apology for such a manifest unfair and unphilosophical discrimination that "man is differently constituted from a woman, sexually, requiring more active exercise of the sexual functions," a conclusion which could be warranted only by the selection, as a typical specimen of the male part of humanity, of a man with an abnormal development of the animal propensities.

A correct understanding and application of the laws of sexual hygiene would effectually sweep away every vestige of argument based on this foundation.

4. In proof of the propriety of polygamy, as well as of its necessity, the author referred to cites the well-known fact that Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, Alexander, Cæsar, Napoleon, Burns, Byron, Augustus, Webster, and numerous others of the noted men of all ages have been incontinent men. The fact that these men were guilty of crime does not in the least degree detract from the enormity of the sin. It is equally true that many great men have been addicted to intemperance and other crimes. Alexander was a Sodomite as well as a lecherous rake. Does this fact afford any proof that those crimes are virtues instead of vices? Such argument is hardly worthy of serious refutal, since it stultifies itself.

5. The fact that monogamy was practiced among the ancient Greeks and Romans is in no way derogatory of it as an institution. Even if it could be shown that it originated with those nations, still this would in no way detract from its value or respectability. Do not we owe much to those grand old pagans who laid the foundation for nearly all the modern sciences, and established better systems of political economy, and better schools for uniform culture of the whole individual, than any the world has seen since? But monogamy did not originate with the Greeks, neither was it invented by the Romans, nor by any other nation. It originated with the great Originator of the human race. It is an institution which has come down to us, not from Greece or Rome, but from Paradise.

If it was so important that man should have more than one woman to supply his sexual demands, why was the Creator so short-sighted as to make but one Eve? It would have been as easy to remove two or three or half a dozen ribs from Adam's side as one; and as the whole world had yet to be populated, a plurality of wives would certainly have accelerated the process. Surely, if polygamy was ever required or excusable, it ought to have been allowed at the start.

Again, when Noah went into the ark, taking with him an assortment of all species of animals, he took some kinds by pairs and some by sevens, from which we might suspect, at least, that he observed the laws of nature respecting polygamous and monogamous animals. But he took only one wife for himself, and only one for each of his sons. Why not two or half a dozen instead? Polygamy would certainly have accelerated the repopulation of the earth most wonderfully; but Noah was monogamous. To say, in view of such facts, that monogamy originated with the paganism of ancient Greece and Rome, is blasphemy.