EFFECTS OF INCONTINENCE, CELIBACY, AND MARRIAGE.
The past pages relate chiefly to the diseases of the generative system consequent upon contagion, upon accident, and the ordinary wear and tear of human life: the following, to the ills that ensue from the over-indulgence in, and abstinence from, the proper purposes of the reproductive organs, and the benefits derivable from a fulfilment of the intentions of their natural functions.
There may be much good policy and correct feeling in objecting to the too public inquiry into these matters. The private closet and the public eye are two very different tribunals, and what may be approved of in the one is very likely to be condemned in the other. The line of deciding what shall be communicated and what should be suppressed may be drawn too closely; and that knowledge which is acquired by stealth is seldom so practical as that obtained by competition. If, therefore, the topics herein embraced were to be expunged, and their discussion prohibited, the afflicted would have no other resource than to apply to the adventuring and ill-educated empiric, instead of confiding his troubles to the legitimate professional man. A study, to become useful, should be general; and it is to be hoped that the prudish reserve which excludes this kind of investigation from our medical schools will be laid aside, and truth be obtained by allowable investigation.
The most moral and chaste, at the age of puberty, are assailed with feelings and desires, that, though new and unanticipated, yet need little interpretation when present, and so urgent and imperious, that if not legitimately satisfied, nature and instinct are not slow in pointing out a means of gratification.
In the male, imagination commanding a wider range than in the female, and fed by associations with, and the usages of, the world, elicits consequences explanatory of life’s purposes; and the youth having once experienced, perhaps unsolicited, and possibly during sleep, the agony of seminal secretion, can rarely withstand the afterward tempting pleasure of seeking a self-repetition of such solitary indulgence, which the forbidden union of the sexes, at this early period, may urge him to.
Setting aside the selfishness and unmanliness of the vice, it is important that the wearer of the cap and bells should know the consequences of abusing a given function by such a means of gratification. There is no mental passion, or physical exertion, that produces such temporary nervous prostration as the completion of the act of sexual intercourse; and it therefore can be easily conceived how debilitating must be the immoderate indulgence of the practice. Health consists in a due performance of all the functions of the organs of the body, and an undue exercise of them is sure to lead to a disturbance of the economy.
In ordinary sexual commerce, particular phenomena ensue, the circulation is powerfully roused, the heart thumps violently, the blood is driven to the brain, and great mental exaltation is induced, and instances have been known of death suddenly crushing the transport. The too frequent repetition of such excitement can not fail to wear out, and disease the overwrought organs, the heart and brain particularly, upon the healthy condition of which the health of the entire frame rests; and hence the diseases of the libertine are usually consumption, physical weakness, and mental imbecility, all the result of disordered circulation and impaired nervous power. If, therefore, such consequences follow a waste of the allotted privileges of man, how much more severe must they be that arise from nervous exhaustion, that which transpires from an absolute stretch of an already overwrought imagination, from, in fact, ideal pleasures, instead of those springing from the instinctive stimulus imparted by the presence of, and cohabitation with, woman. I have elsewhere treated upon the sad and withering effects of self-indulgence in a hygæan point of view. My object here is to portray the consequences of the like, and the more lawful, intemperance of sexual cohabitation in a domestic light, in how far it is destructive to the health and happiness of others, than the party addressed—the partner of our worldly anxieties, and the offspring that issue from our union. How striking is the change of appearance only, much less the positive bodily condition of married persons of both sexes, within one or two years of their union, especially if the match be a youthful one. Let any one, even with a limited acquaintance, recollect such of his former female associates, whom he knew when single, and mayhap may have indulged with in little modest pleasantries; let him recall the gay-lit countenance, the ruddy and prominent cheek, the sparkling and lively eye, the plump and well filled neck—in fact, let him but compare her then and now, and how disheartening the change; the same being may be recognised, but it is the same being only in mind, and not in person. There are exceptions, as I shall presently show, but this is the too frequent portraiture of those who embark in precocious hymeneal contracts, and restrain not the marital privileges. The countenance assumes, when thoughtful, the careworn aspect; the blanched cheek shows here and there a furrowed imprint; the lustre of the eye is dimmed; and, to drop from the figurative to the literal, the collar-bones, hitherto “overlaid with nature’s plastic moulding,” seem appointed only for union’s sake, lest the fabric of neck and shoulders should drop in pieces. Mark also the decayed health and spirits; hear the bitter grief of headaches, sideaches, nerveaches, and behold, perhaps, the puny offspring “mewling and puling in the nurse’s arms.”
The bridegroom wears a sorrowful and thoughtful look. He may possess all the comforts which few inherit, but like Pharaoh’s lean kine, as chaff thrown before the wind, their purpose is opposed.