Private Sex Advice to Women: For Young Wives and those who Expect to be Married

by Robert B. Armitage

The Eugenists also believe in educating the father, or prospective father. They hold that every man should be made acquainted with the duties and responsibilities of fatherhood, and should so conduct and order his life that the production and rearing of a family should result as a consummation of a long cherished ideal. The man should be taught to prepare himself, physically, mentally, and morally, for his coming responsibility to the race. He should also be taught to respect and regard motherhood, and to make it his business to secure and preserve the best possible conditions for the mother of his own children, and the mothers of other men's children, not as an act of mere sentiment, but as a public duty, a patriotic service, a racial obligation.

The Eugenists believe in teaching young men and young women on the subject of sexual physiology and psychology. They hold that the race is now criminally negligent in such matters, and that young men and women, by the thousands, enter into the state of marriage and parenthood with no knowledge regarding the sacred functions which they are to bring into activity. They believe that the first requisite of scientific parenthood is and must be a sane knowledge of the physiology of sex, and the psychology of sex. There must be sane education concerning the sexual organism, its laws, its functions, its normal and healthy condition, its anatomy, physiology and hygiene.

The average physician of several years' experience can tell tales of almost incredible ignorance on the part of persons who have recently entered into the relationship of marriage. In some cases the ignorance is more than a mere absence of knowledge, for it consists of an array of false-knowledge, untruthful ideas, of often serious importance. It is sad enough to think how the ignorance and false-knowledge may work results hurtful to the young couple themselves, but it is even sadder to realize that these same ignorant or wrongly-informed young persons must gain their real knowledge through sad experience which is to be paid for not only by themselves but also by their children. It is a hard saying, but true that "the knowledge of the majority of young parents is gained by experience paid for by their unborn children."

The Eugenists look forward to the coming of the day when it will be regarded as reprehensible to allow young persons to enter into the relationship of marriage without a sane, practical knowledge of their own reproductive organism and functions, and of their physiological duties to themselves, their companions in marriage, and to their children born or to be born. We may, in due time, see a practical realization of the ideal set forth by Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis, who said: "The State that makes a man study two years before a license as druggist is given; that makes a young lawyer or doctor study three years before being permitted to practice, ought to ask the young man or young woman to pass an equally rigid examination before license is given to found an American home, and set up an American family."

This idea of the scientific preparation for parenthood is a new one for many, but the coming generations will recognize its importance to the individual and to the race. Many who recognize the influence of pre-natal culture in so far as is concerned the physical, mental, and moral condition of the mother during pregnancy, have failed to perceive that an equally important influence is exerted by the physical, mental and moral condition of both parents before the conception of the child. These conditions are reflected, often very markedly, in the child, and an avoidance of consideration in this respect is often almost criminal negligence.

Eugenists deplore the haphazard way in which children are so often conceived. More care is often bestowed upon the conditions precedent to the conception of the domestic animals than is given by their owners to the conditions preceding the conception of their own offspring. Too often, while in the case of the domestic animals the utmost care is exercised regarding the arrangement for the breeding of valuable stock, the human offspring are mere "accidents," conceived without intention, forethought, or preparation; and too often is such conception undesired, regretted and unwelcome.

This state of affairs is utterly unworthy of civilized man with the knowledge of science at his command, and the intellect and will with which to carry out the plain dictates of reason and duty. Nature does her part unhindered in the case of the lower animals, and man should use her principles as a foundation upon which to build a structure which reason and intelligence should supply the materials. Instead of this, man too often discards Nature's plain rules entirely, and also refuses to use his reason, and, instead, allows himself to be ruled by selfish inclinations and desires, and ignoble motives.

To those who may ask: "But why should we give all this time, care and trouble to the young of the race—what is their claim upon us that demands so much of us in return for so little on their part?" the answer is plain. We should do this not alone because of the natural feeling of love for our own offspring which is innate in all normal human beings, but we should also do this because we owe a duty to the race in and which we are units—a duty which demands that we supply to the race the best material, and only the best, for its preservation, continuance, and betterment.

The spirit of the age is pointing out the direction indicated by Eugenics and scientific Birth Control. And it is a spirit in which the best mental and spiritual powers of man are called into action. A new consciousness—the "race consciousness"—is awakening within the best of the race, and accompanying it is a new conscience—a "race conscience"—is manifesting within us, and is giving the individual a sense of right and wrong toward future generations, just as his earlier-awakened social conscience has opened his eyes to his duties toward his neighbors.

Man is beginning to feel that all men are his brothers, and that the future generations of men are in a sense his children. The new ideal of "Let us build posterity worthily" has begun to supplant the old narrow idea humorously expressed in the famous bull of Sir Boyce Roche, who said, "Why should we do anything for posterity—what has posterity ever done for us?"