What a Young Husband Ought to Know

by Sylvanus Stall

Where you do not obtain from a reputable, intelligent Christian physician the information you desire, or the relief you seek, do not make the fatal mistake of resorting to some quack or impostor who advertises only to beguile, deceive and rob you, and subsequently to leave you humiliated, with purse depleted and health ruined. Reputable physicians do not advertise, and the very fact that a man advertises may be accepted as sufficient evidence that he is not an accredited and reliable physician, and that you will most assuredly be subjected to deception and imposture.

Persons who recognize the propriety of limiting the number of offspring are seriously exposed to the danger of deferring and procrastinating to such an extent as to err greatly in the direction of too few rather than too many children. With most women the time for childbearing is quite like the time and location of a boil—any other time than the present, and any other place than where it is. A purposed parenthood is in danger of becoming a purpose to evade parenthood.

There is, however, a proper and all-important preparation for parenthood. After a careful examination of the subject no person can help but be deeply impressed with the fact that if the parents of this generation would realize their wonderful power to mold and fashion the succeeding generation, the children of the next decade would rise to the level of an entirely new plane. Some people seem to think that the matter of begetting a child, like the matter of selecting a wife or a husband, should be left wholly to blind chance. Neither of these two important events can be too much safeguarded by wise and thoughtful consideration. If conception is permitted to take place when either one or both of the parents are in ill health; if the wife is an unwilling mother, and the embryo is developed by her while her entire nature rebels against the admission into the family of a child who is not wanted, the children begotten and born under such circumstances can never be other than sickly, nervous and fretful during their entire childhood, and cross and uncompanionable throughout their entire lives.

In connection with childbearing there are three very important things: First, the preparation for parenthood; second, the mental state at the period of conjunction, and third, the mental state and physical condition of the mother during the months while the body and character of the child are being fashioned within her body.

The period and the character of the preparation for parenthood must always vary according to the physical condition of the intending parents. In some instances this preparation needs to extend over weeks, and in other instances even over years. No man or woman should consent to become a parent except at such times when physically and intellectually they are at their very best—indeed, the very best that is possible for them to attain by a course of careful preparation. Much of what might be said here will be learned under a subsequent chapter upon prenatal influences.

Medical authorities universally attach great importance to the mental condition at the moment of conjunction and conception. It is quite universally believed that this is a moment of unparalleled importance to the welfare of the future being. Dr. Hufeland, an eminent German writer, says: "In my opinion, it is of the utmost importance that this moment should be confined to a period when the sensation of collected powers, ardent passion, and a mind cheerful and free from care, invite to it on both sides." It is an awful crime to beget life carelessly, and when in improper and unworthy physical and mental states.

The ancients understood the importance of this moment, and frequently surrounded the nuptial couch with statues which should charm the mother by their beautiful outlines and physical proportions. It was claimed by them that a man who was himself deformed might in this manner become the father of children that were possessed of fine physical proportions. While this statement might carry with it too much presumption, yet it was not without a considerable element of truth.

Nearly eighteen centuries before Christ, the patriarch Jacob recognized this principle when he arranged with Laban to accept from among the flocks and herds "the speckled and the spotted" as the reward of his labor in attending the flocks of the herds of his father-in-law. There was nothing unnatural or miraculous in the result which Jacob secured. He sought to produce such mental impressions upon the minds of the flock at the time of conception as would secure the production of young marked after the manner most in accord with his personal interests. We are told that "Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chestnut-tree, and pilled white streaks in them and made the white appear which was in the rods. And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering-troughs, when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink. And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ring-streaked, speckled and spotted. And Jacob did separate the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward the ring-streaked, and all the brown in the flock of Laban: and he put his own flocks by themselves, and put them not unto Laban's cattle. And it came to pass, whensoever the stronger cattle did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the cattle in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods. But when the cattle were feeble he put them not in: so the feebler were Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's. And the man increased exceedingly, and had much cattle, and maid-servants and men-servants, and camels and asses."

Much of the differences which exist between children of the same parents may be easily attributed to the different bodily and mental conditions of the parents at the period of conjunction, the changed physical, intellectual and emotional states of the parents at the different periods of conception producing the corresponding differences in their offspring.

The results of purposed and prepared parenthood are so great and so desirable that a husband and wife should consider these matters carefully, make due preparations, and approach the period when they would beget offspring and bring immortal beings into the world with the greatest thoughtfulness, consideration, and also with prayer.