Self Knowledge and Guide to Sex Instruction: Vital Facts of Life for All Ages

by Thomas W. Shannon

It is the maternal and paternal instincts that prompt the lower animals to pair off and mate. Their love for each other and their young is the child of their sex nature. The desexed lower animals are devoid of the instinct that prompts wooing and mating.

It is the promptings of the paternal and maternal natures, which are inseparable from the normal sex nature, that lead to a beautiful and joyful courtship, to a harmonious, happy marriage and to a family of fair daughters and lusty sons.

Causes of wrecked homes.—“Intemperance,” “abuse,” “non-support,” or “desertion,” reply the jury in the court room and the judge on the bench. These are, usually, only indirect causes. The one main cause of wrecked homes, the abuse of marital rights, is rarely mentioned in the court room. If all married people were normal in their sex natures, unselfish love would reign in the homes and divorce courts would be largely a thing of the past.

Through universal ignorance of the true nature and functions of the God-given, God-honored and sacred sanctuary of reproduction, the youth, by mental and mechanical abuse of these functions, becomes more or less sensual. Sexuality is slowly transformed into sensuality and love into lust. Ignorant of the laws of life, the duties and responsibilities of marriage and parentage, men are often prompted more by uncontrolled desire than by unselfish love in their choice of a wife, they are largely governed by physical attractions, or wealth. The present ethics of marriage makes the wife submit to the sensual demands of the husband. This view of marriage converts love into lust, prevents the harmonizing of their differences, the proper blending of their personalities and the two never become one.

Divorce is not the cause of wrecked homes.—Wrecked homes are the cause of divorce. The divorce problem will be solved in the solution of the home problems. The home problems will be largely solved when children and youths receive proper sex instruction, when young people are properly safeguarded in their social relations as friends and lovers, and when they are properly educated in home-building.

Marriage a civil and Divine institution.—The sacred institution of marriage is being trifled with. Easy to get married, and easy to get divorced, are a nation’s shame and will quickly bring a nation’s fall. By a system of sane education and legislation the paramount importance, dignity, responsibility and sacredness of marriage over other institutions would be impressed on the mind of the masses. Marriage is both a civil and religious institution. Civil law should protect the rights of marriage and judiciously determine who shall and who shall not marry. The marriage ceremony should be performed, when possible, in a church and a minister of recognized qualifications should officiate. The church should be decorated not only with flowers and foliage, but also the nation’s flag and colors should have prominent display. Not only should some of the church officers be present, but also, some of the civil officers should be present. The church and state should bear this expense. No marriage fees should be charged or expected from rich or poor. The parties to be married and the community would see that the state and church are substantially interested in home and nation building. In this way marriage would be placed on a high and dignified basis. When a man and woman take the marriage vows, they have assumed duties and responsibilities more vital and far greater than does a governor or president-elect assume, when he takes the oath of office. The primary purpose of marriage is to increase the species. In this function they are to serve the nation by helping to furnish the next generation of citizens. The most illiterate and poverty-stricken couple, who faithfully do their best to raise a family of children, are of far more value to a nation’s strength and perpetuity than a millionaire home consisting of husband, wife and a poodle dog.

New marriage laws.—We should have uniform state laws restricting the marriage of men and women who are in advanced stages of consumption, of the feeble-minded, the confirmed criminal, the degenerate and the venereally diseased. We need uniform state laws requiring a reasonable knowledge of the laws of life, of marital rights, of heredity and prenatal culture and of the duties and responsibilities of marriage and parentage. To make such restrictions and education possible all candidates for marriage should be required to register their proposed marriage with the county clerk at least three months before the license is granted. At the expense of the state, this proposed marriage should be announced through at least one paper during this period. This publicity would prevent all clandestine marriages and would rob the white slave procurer of one of his chief methods of securing his victims. In recent years, in nearly every community, a stranger has won the affections of an unsuspecting girl and the confidence of her family, married her, and in six months time it was whispered that he had another family somewhere that he ought to be supporting. The white slaver uses the love method very effectively. The law suggested would prevent these impositions and crimes against society.

When the proposed marriage is registered, the state should furnish each with a book presenting in simple language the information to which reference was made in a preceding paragraph. At the expiration of three months, let them give satisfactory evidence of a reasonable knowledge of the teaching of the book.

Before the marriage license is finally granted, each should furnish the state with a certificate of good health. This would prevent the marriage of the physically and mentally unfit.

If properly enforced, these new marriage laws would promote domestic harmony, prevent untold misery, stop the crime of feticide, reduce the annual birth of defective children and increase the birth-rate of normal children. The young man should have not less than five hundred dollars in money or property, or he should have a fair education and a position with adequate income to support a wife.