What a Young Husband Ought to Know

by Sylvanus Stall

But this relation of interdependence is not only for the well-being of the offspring, but for the highest physical, intellectual and moral development and well-being of both parents. Parenthood comes not only to the mother, molding, fashioning and perfecting her in every department of her being, but when intelligently and reverently assumed, when discharged with fidelity and self-denial, it has its priceless endowments for the father as well. In view of the Creator's full and sacred purpose, who shall dare invade, or even lightly assume, the far-reaching responsibilities which God has united to parenthood? "What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."

What intelligent man or woman shall dare trample under their feet all the sacred relations of life, and call into being an immortal spirit whose temporal and eternal destinies are to be affected by its advent into a world that is waiting to brand it because begotten of an illicit union? What husband or wife can regard with dishonor, or dare debase, the God-given powers of reproduction?

But to return to the subject of the changes which take place within the body of the mother during this period of wondrous interest. When the spermatozoa have been liberated in the upper portion of the vagina at the cervix, or small opening which forms what is called the neck of the womb, although such minute microscopic objects that when laid end to end it would require five hundred of them to make an inch in length, yet, with that wonderful activity of which we have written in a previous chapter, they immediately seek the doorway into the womb, that mysterious chamber where the ovum may naturally be expected to await their coming. We correctly think of persons, and not of things, as possessed of intelligence and acting in accordance with reason, but this mysterious natal chamber within the mother's body appears instinct with intelligence. It seems almost as though across its portals were written, in a language which every object and every spermatozoön might read, the prohibition: "None save those who bear the gift of life may enter or tarry within these portals." The ovum may remain for a period, and the spermatozoa that seek the ovum may enter, but neither may tarry unless each yields itself to the other in that mysterious union which results in life. Apart or alone, after a brief period, they must alike be cast out; no idler may tarry there; but that semblance to innate intelligence which rejects or casts out any incomplete part as a foreign substance accords a hearty welcome to the ovum that has been quickened into a new life by the entrance of a spermatozoön. No mother ever embraced her newborn child more lovingly, or regarded it with greater tenderness, than the womb receives the quickened ovum. When the ovum is quickened, every fibre of being thrills with a new purpose. A royal place is speedily prepared for the safety, nurture and development of the ovum. The entire nature of the mother now centres upon the accomplishment of a special work—that of developing and bringing forth the new life begotten within. Great changes are to be wrought not only in the ovum, but the enlarging life and new necessities are to be met by corresponding changes in the womb itself. Not only is the minute speck of life which is laid within this human cradle to develop into a fully-organized human being, but the cradle is to enlarge with the growth of its occupant, and respond to the varying needs of the unfolding and developing body within.

It will require the aid of a microscope to discover and observe the object of our search and study. The egg of the bird bears some proportion to the size of its producer, for in them is stored up the nourishment which is to maintain the unfolding life that can be fed in no other way until it has reached an advanced stage of maturity, and has broken its shell and emerged into the outer world. The human egg is so small that it would require two hundred and forty of them laid side by side to make one inch in length. They contain the nourishment which is to foster this minute beginning of human life for a brief period, after which it is to derive all its nourishment from the mother. Her food is to furnish the material for its upbuilding. Its blood is to flow from her heart. The egg of the bird is encased in a porous covering through which pure air, with its transforming power, is to find its way to the developing life within; but this human egg and the life which it is designed to unfold must owe all to its mother. Her lungs must impart the oxygen it needs, and her body must minister to every function of the body of the child, until after a period of months, when it shall have reached that stage of development when it is prepared to enter upon its own independent life in the outer world.

This minute germ of human life, this egg so small that a thousand could be laid upon a ten-cent piece, this atom, which under the microscope shows a speck of oil and albumin, which in the course of a few brief months is to constitute a complex human organism, with all the perfected parts and wonderful adjustment of a human body, already contains the elements of a new human soul. Embodied in this undeveloped human germ is the future man or woman. Here are all the elements which are to make the successful mechanic, the farmer, the orator, or the statesman. Ingrained in these forming tissues may be scrofula, consumption or insanity. Here, already, are the inheritances which are to determine whether this being shall be temperate or intemperate, chaste or licentious. The moral nature has already received that bent which will incline it to reach out after God and heaven and holy things, or which will incline it downward to all that is base, destructive, and that tends to death. The history of this immortal being is already measurably outlined in the past life of the father and the mother. What they have been in their thought, in their character, in their being, that their child is largely to become. This outline is now subjected to modifications by the thought and life of the mother during the few months while the body of her child is being unfolded, fashioned and developed beneath and so close to her own heart. During these months, her life is to tell both upon the body and the soul of her child.

During the brief period while the germ within the fertilized egg is being nourished by the vitellus or yolk of the egg, great changes are taking place in the soft and delicate linings which surround it within the womb. While, of course, the greatest changes which take place during the period of gestation are chiefly within the ovum or egg, yet those which take place in the body of the mother herself are more manifest, and scarcely less marvelous. The mucous membrane within the walls of this enclosure begins to thicken; the small vessels which compose the structure of the inner surface begin to multiply, enlarge, and lengthen, until they are manifest to the unaided eye. This soft, velvety lining becomes thick and rich, but loses none of its softness and delicacy.

Every preparation is speedily made, and the fertilized egg finds lodgment in the thin, delicate folds of the membrane in the upper central portion or dome of the womb. The folds begin to grow about the egg, partially enclosing it, and shutting it off from the general cavity of the womb. At last the borders of this growing envelope meet, and form a complete and distinct enclosure. This thin, transparent tissue, which constitutes a living envelope or sac, shuts off the egg or growing embryo from the rest of the cavity of the womb, which its increasing proportions are soon completely to fill.

The original membranous lining which covers the entire interior of the womb, and which has now become thickened or tumefied, as medical men say, is technically called the decidua vera, while that portion of the membrane which forms the sac that surrounds and encloses the egg is called the decidua reflex. These are known as "decidua," which means "not permanent"—a word applied to those things in nature which after a period drop away, as leaves, teeth and horns, which are shed or fall off. So the decidua reflex is to pass away with the birth, and the decidua vera is to change back again into its normal condition.

The egg, which during this period has considerably enlarged, begins to throw out upon all sides threadlike tissues, by which this germ of life becomes attached to and grows into the mother-life upon which it is engrafted.

It is through these filaments that the fluids which are to nourish and develop this unfolding life are imparted from the mother and received by the embryo.