In another somewhat similar case which came to our knowledge, a young wife was delivered from the lecherous assaults of her husband—for they were no better—by the common sense of her neighbor friends, who gathered in force and insisted upon their discontinuance. It is only now and then that cases of this sort come to the surface. The majority of them are hidden deep down in the heart of the poor, heart-broken wife, and too often they are hidden along with the victim in an early grave.
[PREVENTION OF CONCEPTION:]
ITS EVILS AND DANGERS.
The evil considered in the preceding section is by far the greatest cause of those which will be dwelt upon in this. Excesses are habitually practiced through ignorance or carelessness of their direct results, and then to prevent the legitimate result of the reproductive act, innumerable devices are employed to render it fruitless. To even mention all of these would be too great a breach of propriety, even in this plain-spoken work; but accurate description is unnecessary, since those who need this warning are perfectly familiar with all the foul accessories of evil thus employed. We cannot do better than to quote from the writings of several of the most eminent authors upon this subject. The following paragraphs are from the distinguished Mayer, who has already been frequently quoted:—
"The numerous stratagems invented by debauch to annihilate the natural consequences of coition, have all the same end in view."
[Conjugal Onanism.]—"The soiling of the conjugal bed by the shameful maneuvers to which we have made allusion, is mentioned for the first time in Gen. 38:6, and following verses: 'And it came to pass, when he [Onan] went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the Lord; wherefore he slew him.'
"Hence the name of conjugal onanism.
"One cannot tell to what great extent this vice is practiced, except by observing its consequences, even among people who fear to commit the slightest sin, to such a degree is the public conscience perverted upon this point. Still, many husbands know that nature often succeeds in rendering nugatory the most subtle calculations, and reconquers the rights which they have striven to frustrate. No matter; they persevere, none the less, and by the force of habit they poison the most blissful moments of life, with no surety of averting the result that they fear. So, who knows if the infants, too often feeble and weazen, are not the fruit of these in themselves incomplete procreations, and disturbed by preoccupations foreign to the generic act? Is it not reasonable to suppose that the creative power, not meeting in its disturbed functions the conditions necessary for the elaboration of a normal product, the conception might be from its origin imperfect, and the being which proceeded therefrom, one of those monsters which are described in treatises on teratology?"
"Let us see, now, what are the consequences to those given to this practice of conjugal onanism.