If girls were more reasonably trained with regard to matters of sex, there would be far fewer miserable wives in the world, and fewer husbands would be driven to seek happiness outside their home circle. If, when girls reach years of discretion, they were systematically taught some rudimentary outline of the fundamental principles of existence, instead of being left in utter ignorance as at present, the extraordinarily false notions of sex which they now pick up would cease to obtain, and a great deal of harm would thus be avoided. As it is, maidens are now given tacitly to understand that the subject of sex is a repulsive one, wholly unfit for their consideration, and the functions of sex are loathsome, though necessary. I write tacitly with intention, for little if anything is ever said to a girl on this subject; indeed, it is extraordinary how the ideas are conveyed to her without words, but inculcated somehow they certainly are, and it is difficult to understand how mothers manage to reconcile this teaching with their evident wish that their girls should marry. The ideal held up to girls nowadays is apparently the sexless sort of Diana one—not merely chastity, but sterility.
Most girls are aware from a very early age of the social advantages and importance of marriage, and grow up with a keen desire to accomplish it in due course, although secretly dreading it, because of their absurd perverted ideas of its physical side. Why cannot girls—and boys too, for that matter—be taught the plain truth (in suitable language of course) that sex is the pivot on which the world turns, that the instincts and emotions of sex are common to humanity, and in themselves not base or degrading, nor is there any cause for shame in possessing them, although it is necessary that they should be strenuously controlled. Why cannot girls be taught that all love, even the romantic love which occupies so large a portion of their dreams, springs from the instinct of sex?[4] This may be thought a dangerous lesson, but the present policy of silence on this subject is far more dangerous, inducing as it does a tendency to brood over the forbidden theme.
I remember when in my early teens a schoolfellow of about fifteen confided in me that ‘a man’—he was a harmless boy of about twenty—had kissed her hand when passing her a tennis racquet. She drew her hand indignantly away, and said: ‘How dare you insult me!’ then left the tennis court and refused to play any more. I do not think many girls are so silly as this, but the incident illustrates the general tone inculcated at that school. And it shows what an emphasis on sex matters the girl’s mind had received, when she saw an insult in a perfectly innocent and courteous act of admiring homage. What a harmful preparation for life such training must be! This is the kind of teaching that results in those wretched honeymoons which one occasionally hears of in secret, and which produces unwilling wives whose disdainful coldness is their husbands’ despair. This lack of feeling and lack of comprehension of the needs of stronger, warmer natures is one of the deepest and most incurable causes of married misery.
Let us teach our girls to regard sex as a natural and ordinary fact, and the infinite evils which spring from regarding it as extraordinary and repulsive will thus be avoided. Let us bring them up to think that loving wifehood, passionate motherhood are the proper expression of a woman’s nature and the best possible life for her.
In a very interesting book called Woman in Transition, recently published, this view of woman’s destiny is repeatedly scoffed at. The writer, Annette B. Meakin, is a fellow of the Anthropological Institute, and evidently widely read and travelled. I will give a few quotations: ‘In the happy future when higher womanly ideals have spread around us we shall all realise, no matter to which sex we belong, that to hold unqualified motherhood before every girl’s eyes as her highest ideal is to play the traitor to our race and to humanity.’ . . . ‘English Head Mistresses—though often unmarried themselves—still consider it their pious duty to tell their pupils that motherhood is woman’s highest destiny, and the pupils . . . make marriage their first aim, and other success in life has consequently to take a second place.’ . . . ‘Some very good women in England are still telling our young girls that motherhood is, for every woman, the worthiest goal, without suspecting that the doctrine they preach is dangerously conducive to that legal prostitution euphemistically known as loveless marriage, if not to greater evils.’ . . . ‘How can any girl who has been taught that maternity is woman’s only destiny dare to run the risk of losing it?’
In answer to these objections: of course no sane person would hold unqualified motherhood up to girls as their noblest ideal. Nor does any thoughtful individual believe that maternity is woman’s only destiny. But as to highest (i.e. most noble) destiny—if worthy motherhood (and by the word worthy I wish to imply all the fine qualities of body and mind that go to produce healthy, intelligent, and well-trained children) does not fulfil it, I should like to know what does? In answer to this question that naturally springs to the mind of every reader, Miss Meakin contents herself with the statement: ‘In Finland and Australia, as in America and Norway, the young girl is taught that woman’s highest destiny is within the reach of every woman; that her highest destiny and her highest ideals depend, not on some man who may or may not come her way, but on herself; and that the highest ideal of womanhood is to be a true woman.’ This is well enough, but it is far too vague to be held up as woman’s standard. We want a more definite ideal than this to aim at. What, for instance, is a ‘true woman’ specifically? I should have thought the most essential part of such a one’s outfit was her potentialities for wifehood and motherhood.
Miss Meakin blames teachers for inculcating the importance of motherhood into their pupils’ minds with the result that ‘other success in life has to take a second place.’ What then does this writer consider ought to take the first place? Does she seriously think the success of women in business or politics, as municipal councillors, as writers, artists, thinkers, is of more importance than the success of women as mothers? Is it possible? . . . I recall a poem of W. E. Henley’s on the woman question, one line of which runs ‘God in the garden laughed outright.’ Surely there must often be uproarious laughter in heaven nowadays when the woman question is being discussed on earth!
So much for abstract ideals, but when we come to facts I must admit the lady’s argument is sound. ‘In a country where there are a million and a half more women than men,’ she pertinently states, ‘it is worse than foolish to teach young girls that motherhood is their highest destiny. Such teaching, if persisted in, will lead to greater evils than we care to contemplate even at a distance.’ But what greater evil could there possibly be than the existence of 30,000 prostitutes in London alone, as is the case to-day? If every one of these unfortunate women had been made to believe firmly, as an article of faith, that worthy motherhood was her highest destiny, there might be a good many less noughts to this number.
Miss Meakin continues: ‘Besides the sacred duties of motherhood, there are the equally sacred duties of fatherhood, yet man does not allow these latter to interfere with his mental growth.’ Nor is there any need that woman should do so; the idea that a woman, to be a good wife and mother, must necessarily stunt her mental growth and forego all culture has long since been discarded.
To my mind the whole trouble arises from the practice of teaching one set of catchwords to girls and another to boys, as Stevenson says. Since women cannot be mothers by themselves, it is useless to teach girls that motherhood is their highest destiny when we do not also teach boys that fatherhood is theirs, but—quite the contrary—give them to understand that marriage is something to be avoided, in early manhood at least.