What a Young Husband Ought to Know

by Sylvanus Stall

Parenthood is also essential to the rounding out of the moral nature. That which is noblest and best in woman's nature is awakened and quickened when for the first time is folded to her breast a new life which is a part of herself. The child will teach her to be unselfish, to live for the happiness and well-being of another. Its government and discipline will awaken in her mind the principles which she desires to instil into the mind of her child, and as she gathers her little ones about her, tells them of God and heaven, and teaches them to lisp their infant prayer, her religious nature will attain unto a perfection and beauty which would not be possible under any other earthly influence.

The thoughtful and judicious wife also recognizes the fact that the presence of children in the home will exert an influence over the father which will refine, benefit and bless as no other influence on earth can. The little ones that reach out their hands in dependence toward him will inspire him to energy and effort in a higher, holier and nobler way than could ever be done by any commercial consideration. The noblest and most considerate manifestations of the father nature can in no other way be called into so full and beautiful an exercise as by the presence of children in the home. If the love for his children and the desire for their well-being and blessing do not teach him larger lessons of self-denial than he has ever known before, he will demonstrate that he is incapable of feeling the influence of the most potent incentive which God has permitted to come into human lives.

But the children will have an effect not only upon the parents individually, but they will bless both by drawing the husband and wife into a closer bond of sympathy and affection than would be possible under any other conditions. It has aptly been said that children are golden links that bind the husband and wife in a bond of closest endearment. They also serve as a buffer to break the jars of family life. These little ones awaken the best qualities in the natures of both parents. They enlarge and round out those qualities which would otherwise remain dwarfed and prematurely die. They afford a purpose in life for the father and mother, such as can be found in no other object upon earth.

In the study of their own children parents have an opportunity to learn human nature as they can learn it nowhere else. When their children are old enough they will criticise, suggest, and often help the parents to correct faults which would otherwise go unnoted and which could be properly criticised by no one else. It is the absence of this help which children bring into the home which oftentimes renders childless married people more faulty than others who have the advantage of such help. In times of trouble and trial the children will be prepared to comfort and sustain their parents. In times of sickness they will come with their sympathy and assistance, and when advancing years and the infirmities of age come they will be prepared to comfort and sustain their parents, and in their declining years afford them a refuge and a home, and when death comes they will shed the tear of sympathy and over their graves will plant the flowers that shall bloom in beauty and fragrance.

That the mother-instinct exists in the hearts of infants is early seen in the desire upon the part of little girls to mother their dolls, whether they have been purchased at great cost or are made of a few old clothes rolled up into the shape of a rag-baby. Where a stranger is uncertain about the sex of a child it can usually be pretty certainly determined by asking whether they prefer a doll or a horse.

It would be wrong, however, to suppose, because the little boy manifests the preference for a horse, that therefore he will never be interested in children. The pleasures and satisfactions of parenthood are as great to the father as to the mother, and while there is a difference between the mother-nature and the father-nature, yet, because of the terribly perverting influences of modern society, the desire for children is often stronger in the husband than in the wife. Where the natures of both are as God intended, sterility and barrenness would be alike a great disappointment for either. The desire for children is natural both to men and women, and in the home, as in universal nature, unfruitfulness and barrenness are a great misfortune.

About one marriage in eight or ten is usually barren of children. In the animal kingdom, and among insects especially, an abundance of food is indispensable to a rapid increase of numbers by reproduction. In the human family the question of food as it stands related to the question of reproduction is an important one. If the food is insufficient, either in quantity or quality, to maintain good physical conditions, or if it is too abundant or too rich, a tendency to sterility and barrenness is alike the result. Illustrations are not wanting of persons who, possessing large wealth and allowing themselves great indulgence in eating, became fat and corpulent and remained childless, but when financial reverses came their corpulence departed with their wealth, and they became the parents of children.

While the question of food is very important, it is not the only cause of barrenness. Sterility may be due to excessive sexuality in the marriage relation, or it may be due to such ante-nuptial indulgence of the husband as has resulted in a depleted condition of the reproductive organs. Sometimes it is due to apathy on the part of the wife, and at other times, although less frequent, it may be the result upon her part of too intense pleasure during coition.

It may also be due to abnormal conditions produced by tampering with the reproductive function. In some instances there is a lack of such physiological compatibility as is necessary to result in conception. Instances are not wanting where barrenness has existed and the subsequent remarriage of both parties have demonstrated that neither were personally sterile, but that unitedly they were physiologically incompatible.

Barrenness is oftentimes the result of displacement of the womb or other unfavorable conditions in the female. It would be wrong, however, to suppose that the difficulty may not rest wholly with the husband. Even where a man seems in good bodily vigor and enjoys excellent health, the sperm may be devoid of those characteristics which are essential to the production of life. This condition can only be determined by a competent physician with the aid of the microscope and other means. It is also asserted by reliable medical authority that miscarriage may take place so early after conception that the wife may never suspect the real condition, but imagine herself sterile.