Many hygienic reasons and the most elemental laws of humanity demand that the wife who is fertile above the average should have a rest of at least 18 months between each succeeding pregnancy. But this cannot be achieved in the natural course of events except in very rare cases without wrecking the marriage. If we crystallize this sexual social question we arrive at the following conclusions: There are a great many cases, especially of a pathological character, but none the less, also, in normal and sound individuals, in which procreation within wedlock or without either definitely or temporarily either for the mother or the child, or for both, and for that reason should be interdicted. Very few men and a very small proportion of women—no matter how firmly they may be resolved—are capable of suppressing their sexual needs. Even if they succeed the consequences are generally of a disastrous nature, loss of marital love, secret illicit relations with others, and subsequent infidelity, nervous disorders, impotence, etc. In all these cases we are confronted with the following dilemma: 1—In the unmarried person: onanism or prostitution, or both. Is that morality? Such people must either forever forego love, marriage, and normal lawful sexual intercourse, or face sterility in wedded life. 2—Within marriage: onanism, prostitution and infidelity, or the adoption of rational preventive measures. I leave it to the reader, and to the law maker to pick out the correct alternative and to arrive at the one possible decent and ethical solution of these conflicting questions.
It seems almost incredible that in some countries medical men who are not ashamed to throw young men into the arms of prostitution, blush when mention is made of anti-conceptional measures. P. 427b.
A year, at least, should elapse between parturition and the next conception; this gives approximately two years between the confinements. In this way the wife keeps in good health and can bear healthy children at pleasure. It is certainly better to procreate seven children, than to procreate 14, of which seven die, to say nothing of the mother, who rapidly becomes exhausted by uninterrupted confinements. P. 430.
It is quite certain that the sexual life of man can never raise above its present state without being freed from the bonds of mysticism and religious dogma, and based on a loyal and unequivocal human morality which will recognize the normal wants of humanity, always having as its principle object the welfare of posterity. P. 459.
The true task of a political economy which has the true happiness of man at heart should be to encourage the procreation of happy, useful, healthy and hard-working individuals. To build an ever increasing number of hospitals, asylums for lunatics, idiots and incurables, reformatories, etc., to provide them with every comfort and manage them scientifically, is undoubtedly a very fine thing, and speaks well of the progress and development of human sympathy. But what is forgotten is that by concerning ourselves almost exclusively with human ruins, the results of our social abuses, we gradually weaken the force of the healthy portion of the population. By attacking the roots of the evil and limiting the procreation of the unfit we shall be performing a work which is much more humanitarian, if less striking in effect. Formerly, our economists and politicians hardly have considered this question, and even now very few are interested in it because it brings no honors, nor money, as we do not ourselves see the fruits of such efforts. In short, we amuse ourselves with repairing the ruins, but are afraid to attack what makes these ruins. P. 465–6.
The anti-conceptional measures recommended have been often condemned, sometimes as immoral, sometimes as contrary to aesthetics. To interfere in this way with the action of nature is said to injure the poetry of love and the moral feeling, and at the same time to disturb natural selection. There are several replies to these objections. In the first place, it is wrong to maintain that man cannot encroach on the life of nature. If this were the case, the earth would now be a virgin forest, and a great many plants and animals would not have been adapted to the use of man. We have proved without deference, often with a brutal hand, to the misfortune of art and poetry, that we are capable of successfully meddling with the machinery of nature, even in what concerns our own persons.
The aesthetic argument appears, at first sight, more valid. It is unnecessary, however, to discuss matters of taste. From all points of view, the details of coitus leave much to be desired from the aesthetic point of view, and such a slight addition as a protective does not appear to make any serious difference. P. 497–8.
She, (woman) ought to develop herself strongly and healthily by working along with man in body and mind by procreating numerous children when she is strong, robust and intelligent. But this does not nullify the advantage that may accrue from limiting the number of conceptions when the bodily and mental qualities are wanting in the procreators. P. 332.
One of the most difficult and important future tasks of social science toward humanity is to set free sexual relations from the tyranny of religious dogmas by placing them in harmony with the true and purely human laws of natural science. P. 357.
In no animal do we find the abuses which man is permitted to practice toward his wife and children. P. 368.