What a Young Husband Ought to Know

by Sylvanus Stall

What we have written in allegory takes place in fact. Every intelligent observer has noted the depth of color, passionate beauty, and sweet fragrance of the flower as the hour approaches when the stigma awaits the pollen which is to fertilize the ovules that lie hidden away in the ovary or pod. When that union has been effected the flower fades, its petals fall off; the calyx, which as a vase held the corolla erect in its splendor, but which remains to shield and protect the ovules or little seeds which are being formed and perfected, now droops, turning toward the earth. Is this a sign of sadness, or that there is no longer any joy in life? No, no, not at all. It is the evidence of its fidelity to the sacred trust that has been committed to it. It has found a new joy, a more abiding happiness. Then it held up the corolla that the sun and the angels might look in upon the happy and holy beginnings of life, while now, in the protection of its sacred trust, it turns down, that it may shed the rain and everything that might intrude or hurt the tender plant that is so mysteriously encased in that pod that enlarges with the growing life that is within it.

What is true in the reproductive life of plants is also true in the reproductive life of man. The changes that take place at the moment of conception and during the period of gestation are full of marvelous beauty and profound mystery. The bright eyes, the ruby lips, the ruddy glow on the cheeks, the comely attire, the attractive manner, the persuasive sweetness, the subtle but indescribable attractiveness, are manifestations in human life of what may be seen and studied with such impressiveness in the reproductive life of the flower. The changes which follow may not be as immediate; and while, to the unknowing and unobservant, they may not at first be totally unobserved, yet to the devout student they are quite as manifest and pronounced as in the flowers; and the study of these changes which attend the beginning, the growth and the completion of reproduction is one of great interest to every intelligent person, although its clear presentation to those who have no knowledge whatever of the subject is attended with some difficulty.

As the birds at the mating season put on their most gorgeous plumage, sing their sweetest songs, and in the building of their nests work in sweetest accord, so it is also in human life. When the nest is completed, the eggs laid, and the incubation or hatching begins, the plumage soon loses some of its lustre, the songs become less frequent, and the parent birds prepare for the feeding and care of the bird-life that is soon to fill the nest.

But all this quickening of life and growth that takes place in the egg within the nest under the warm body of the mother-bird, in the human mother takes place within the nest or cradle which God has prepared within her body. Her young is of a higher order. The protection and preservation of the unfolding human life is more important, and hence the greater care displayed in guarding and nourishing it.

The future mother, whose nature only recently craved her husband's caresses and embraces, now, perhaps all unconsciously to herself, changes, to fit her for the better completion of the sacred and holy work which God has assigned her. The eye loses somewhat of its lustre, the cheek its ruddy glow, and her entire being something of that pervasive sweetness which but recently made her peculiarly attractive. But to the intelligent husband and true father she is none the less, but rather the more, an object of love and adoration; and if she is intelligent, and understands the high and holy nature of that which is being wrought within her own body, and the exalted honor which God has bestowed upon her in making her a co-creator with himself, she will not manifest the belligerent and uncompanionable spirit which too often characterizes the bearing of some women during this period of unfolding life.

While it is true that the changes which accompany this period are more marked in woman than in man, yet when we remember that a close study of the reproductive nature of man in married life discloses a responsiveness to her condition and desires, it will readily be understood that during the period of his wife's gestation his nature is measurably moderated by her condition, for in health the reproductive nature of man is responsive to the promptings of his wife. The poet wisely says:

"As unto the bow the cord is,
So unto the man is woman.
Though she bends him, she obeys him;
Though she draws him, yet she follows—
Useless each without the other."

Where existing facts in any particular case are discordant with this poetic figure the causes can usually be found in an abnormal passion in the man, or a measurable absence of sexual inclination in the woman, frequently caused by ruinous modes of life and dress. While human beings are generally very different in this respect from the lower animals, yet something of what these changes are may be suggested by noting the changes which take place in bird life. As the wave of life rises to its crest in the male nature, every department of his being is aroused to greatest activity and perfection. His plumage becomes lustrous, he sings with sweetest note. In some of the animals the intensity of his vitality bursts out in a growth of great antlers; but when the mating season is passed the plumage fades; the antlers drop off as the receding tide of life sets in. These marked changes among the animals are by no means paralleled in man; yet there are semblances or faint shadows of them in the modifying of the male nature.

While such external and manifest changes as we have indicated are taking place, marvelous things are being wrought within the mother's body. The ovum or egg (for that is what it truly is), after it has left the place where it matured in the ovary, is impregnated by the spermatozoön, which, in its restless search for the ovum, presses forward from the place where it was liberated in the vagina, up through the womb, and out through the Fallopian tube toward the ovary; or the ovum may pass through the Fallopian tube and into the womb, to await for a brief period or a few days the coming of the sperm or spermatozoön, without which it must remain incomplete and perish.

God might just as easily have ordained that the ovum should be complete in itself, and that, without any intervention or co-operation, at appointed intervals the mother should bring forth her offspring. But there were reasons why this should not be. The begetting and bringing forth of human life involves issues too vast to be committed to a single individual. Without a defender or protector during this period when the mother is rendered measurably helpless by her condition, would imperil the safety and even the life of both parent and child. Two must share the risks and the responsibilities. The father, during this period and that which follows, is to bear the burdens of life largely alone. He is to provide food and shelter. He is to be the guardian and the defender of his more dependent companion. Should exposure or peril result in the death of the mother, the child must not be left without a natural guardian and caretaker. This young life is too precious to be exposed to possible peril. Its care, its nurture, its education is too important even to be risked with a single parent. The mother might "forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb," and it was important that the child should then have another, who is bound by natural and moral obligations, and by bonds of personal interest and tenderest affection, to care for it. This double parentage gives the child four grandparents instead of two, and eight great-grandparents instead of four. In this wise way the child is knit to many in an obligation to nurture and care for it, should necessity arise. If physical, mental and moral infirmity should exist in the mother, the force of such infirmity must be reasonably broken by a new stream of influences which tend to liberate the child from any inheritance of incapacity. If the father is wicked or worthless, the child is to find its defender and caretaker in its mother; or, should the mother possess these bad qualities, the child may find in its father its defense and help. The life and well-being of the child is so important that it must have two chances to be well-born and well-reared.