“Why, no; it can’t be possible?”
“Yes, possible and probable. Your daughter can never have children because you did not tell her all about her sex organs, and when her little brother had a swelling and pain in the glands of throat and jaws, you did not know enough to send her away or keep her away from him, telling her plainly why you did so.
“But you were never allowed to mention these things when you were a young woman—you never knew these important things? Exactly so, and this is the punishment thousands of mothers and daughters are receiving for this prudery.”
[CHAPTER III]
THE DISORDERS OF MENSTRUATION AND GENERAL HEALTH
Civilization has brought many unnatural effects upon the monthly period of women, and ignorance of how to care for the body has made matters worse. It is with these unnatural disturbances that you are mostly concerned. The inability to understand certain symptoms of your menstrual flow, the consequent neglect of these symptoms or ignorantly taking drugs and medicines for the troubles, are the causes for so many girls and women being miserable and invalids struggling on under most distressing conditions.
There is always a good cause for any irregularity or stoppage of the monthly period; some reason why the flow is scanty or too profuse. These causes can readily be discovered when the girl knows herself and all that pertains to that self.
In the healthy girl the flow should come and go without any marked pains or distress. Of course during four or five days there will be a feeling of weakness, lassitude, a “please-let-me-alone” attitude, and in many girls, a desire for pure love and caresses. These various feelings are natural and only go to show that you are a full-blown woman.
There is nothing to be ashamed of in this feeling for love and caresses, this peculiar desire to want protection and a something that you cannot exactly explain to yourself. It is really an awakening of all your womanly desires, and these are your greatest powers over man, children and the best of everything in the world. These feelings should not be suppressed, but kept under control. They should be carefully saved, for they are the feelings which bring future happiness, and you want to give them as little attention as possible except that attention which keeps them pure and holy.