AILING WOMEN ARE INEFFICIENT
First of All as Home-makers.—No woman can possibly be expected to successfully conduct a home if she is not enjoying a reasonable degree of good health. A home inefficiently supervised is an instrument for evil. It engenders discord and discontent, and it is lacking in the spirit which is essential to the cultivation of good-fellowship and which encourages harmony.
As Wife.—Most men resent the burden and the discomfort and the expense of an ailing wife, no matter how well-intentioned they may be. It is a failing of the male species to be cursed with the inability to understand any type of nervousness in a wife. Being inexplicable to him he attributes the symptoms to an evil imagination or to a bad disposition. He believes he is being imposed upon and proceeds to resent it. Many homes are rendered permanently miserable and unhappy by a failure to comprehend the real source of the trouble and to apply the remedy. Being inefficient as a home-maker the wife is not able to carry out her part as housekeeper. The home atmosphere is wrecked, the husband seeks comfort and congenial fellowship elsewhere. His efficiency is compromised and his earning capacity interfered with.
As Mother.—Anyone familiar with the exacting obligations and responsibilities of motherhood can well appreciate that normal health is an essential requisite to its successful consummation. The success of motherhood depends upon the proper exercise of many diversified qualities, and those in turn primarily depend upon an adequate degree of physical fitness, otherwise failure is certain to ensue. A woman, therefore, cannot exercise her function of motherhood if she is a neurasthenic.
Inasmuch as it has been proved that the regeneration of the race is dependent upon the maintenance of mentally and physically fit mothers, any condition that interferes with this standard is contrary to the eugenic requirement. Children sent out into the word unfit physically or morally are factors detrimental to the best interests of society and to their own progress and prosperity. A mother rendered incapable through sickness is, therefore, a menace to the home and to the eugenic promise.
Few Ailing Women Become Pregnant.—Nature fortunately seems to apprehend the true condition because few of these women become pregnant. This suggests an inquiry into the cause, or causes, underlying this unfortunate situation.
Are women responsible for these ailments?
Most married women whose health is broken down by some disease peculiar to their sex refer the commencement of their suffering to a confinement or premature birth. The large majority of those women whose health is affected, because of some "female weakness," suffer from a displacement, or malposition of the internal organs, and as this condition is most frequently a product of maternity, there would seem to be some reasonable degree of justification for the assumption that the wrecked health is the result of a legitimate physiological act, and consequently a natural phenomenon. This is not, however, altogether true. A displacement is not, under any circumstances, a natural process. It is the result of causes which are avoidable. Most of them are the penalties imposed by nature because of the infraction of her laws. We will not consider those causes which have their beginning in wrong methods of dress or conduct during the years prior to maternity. Many such cases exist, but they are too few in number to justify consideration at this time. They are frequent enough, however, to suggest to mothers that it is always wise to keep a close watch over the tendencies and conduct of their daughters.
The Chief Cause of Female Diseases.—When a woman has given birth to a child her womb begins to contract and in a very brief space of time will resume its normal position, provided nothing interferes with the process. Nature will do exactly what is right if she is permitted to work in her own way. In another part of this book I have explained why it takes time for the recently pregnant womb to contract to its normal size. There is a 600 per cent. increase in volume to be got rid of by absorption. This takes time and nature can not be hurried without "taking chances." This is just where the "cause" exists which we have been looking for. Women do take chances.