Magnetic Repulsion.
The human body is magnetic in its action. Its every phenomenon is governed by the laws of electricity and magnetism. The human body is a divine instrument upon which the mind plays, is a wonderful magnet, exhibiting all the phenomena of attraction and repulsion. Between certain constitutions there are positive and negative conditions, resulting in a natural attraction, conducive to the highest matrimonial felicity. Between other constitutions there is a natural antagonism, as relentless as the force of gravitation itself, and when companionship is attempted, in violation of this law, nature drives them apart by the most fearful visitation of her penalties in domestic misery, depraved and deformed offspring, pauperism, insanity and crime.
If any of you doubt the existence of this force, I will cite you to an experiment, which most of you have tried. Put your arm around your sister, and you will not be able to notice any very remarkable sensations. But just get your arm around some other fellow’s sister, and you will feel like you were struck by lightening in half a minute. That is Sexual Magnetism.
This force exists in different degrees of intensity, according to the constitutions of the parties affected. It may be highly attractive, it may be weakly so; it may be neutralized, it may be weakly antagonistic; it may be violently repulsive in its effects.
The great difficulty with most people is that they are insensible to the effects of this force. The senses may be educated to a keen perception of it, or they may be deadened by disease and sexual depravity.
I am frequently asked if the natural instincts of men and women will not guide aright in the selection of a consort, and my answer is yes, if the instincts of men and women were natural. But when we reflect that the sexual instincts of the present generation are blunted, warped and paralyzed by the sexual sins of a long line of ignorant and depraved ancestors, they cannot be trusted. But they can be educated, and every man of refined sensibilities can, by learning to recognize his true affinity, so educate his sexual instincts that they will be as true as the needle to the pole, and he will learn to so distinguish the conditions of magnetic attraction and repulsion that he will be attracted by that which is favorable to his own constitution, and repelled by that which is unfavorable, as sensitively as these magnets. And every woman of refined sensibilities may reach the same exalted plane of true sexual intelligence.
And when this degree of sexual intelligence is attained, vice is an impossibility. The education of this refined, sensitive sexual instinct renders adultery abhorrent. The true sexual consort once found, the chief joy of existence consists in the perpetuation of mutual attraction. The consort satisfies; the union is complete; harmony is established, and existence itself becomes a grand, sweet symphony of mutual love, respect and adoration.
I respectfully submit the principles here, for the first time expounded, as the foundation of a proper marriage relation, and a solution of the social problem.
I now discuss the important question of age. There are great possibilities of good and evil involved in this branch of the subject, and nature’s laws are violated in this as in every other department.
The proper age for the consummation of marriage is maturity. This varies much in different constitutions and in different climates, but is not hard to determine. A general average for the temperate zone would place the proper age at from 22 to 27 in the male, and from 18 to 23 in the female.