The complete mastery of a habit after it has through years been forging its chains about the youth, is in itself no small victory and should go a long way towards extenuating his lapse. The young man who can conquer himself and learn to lead a pure life, free from his early habit and above reproach not only in his acts toward womankind but also in all his thoughts of woman deserves his well-earned reward. He deserves the respect of all pure women and should be able to win the love of one whom he may with clear conscience ask to be his wife, and with whom he may confidently expect to build a typical home.
7. Should a man have intercourse for any purpose other than for procreation?
In the normal course of events, if intercourse is indulged in for procreation only, it would come as often as once, perhaps twice in a month; that is, either just before the menstrual period of the woman or just after, the woman being most easily impregnated at these two periods.
A man who has led a continent life before marriage should have no difficulty in controlling his sexual appetite to that extent. If the sexual intercourse occurs as infrequently as once or twice in a month, the man, by living thus continently, will find it much more easy to maintain his continence during the twelve-month period after his wife becomes pregnant before he can properly have intercourse with her again, than would be the case if he had had sexual relations much more frequently.
That the man desires intercourse much more frequently than as above outlined and that the woman, in the vast majority of cases, does not desire intercourse except for procreation and about as frequently as above indicated is, without any reasonable doubt, due to hereditary tendencies. Under primeval conditions, and in fact, until comparatively recent times, the vast majority of mankind were polygamous, the strong men of the race—those who procreated their kind—having as many wives as they could support and protect, the weak men of the race being crowded aside, sometimes castrated, to become the burden bearers for the strong.
Under conditions of polygamy the woman is rarely subjected to sexual intercourse for other than procreative purposes, and even granting that the man has intercourse for procreation only, if he had twelve wives, he would be having it twelve times as frequently as any one of them. That these experiences on the part of a long line of maternal ancestors should lead the women of today to desire sexual intercourse for procreation only, is easy to understand; that the impulses transmitted along the paternal line of ancestors should lead the men of today to desire intercourse far more frequently than this can, under monogamous conditions be indulged, is also easy to understand.
8. How frequently may sexual intercourse be indulged, in the marriage state?
If one is to overstep the bounds mentioned above, i.e., to indulge in sexual intercourse once or twice in a month for procreation only and not at all during the period of pregnancy and childbed period, the limit is then set, not by strictly normal and anthropological considerations, but by the health of the individuals. The author has seen young married couples who had carried their sexual intercourse to such extremes as seriously to deplete the physical vigor and menace the health of both parties. Just how frequent indulgence will have this effect in any particular case is impossible to say. In some cases twice a week may have this effect; in other cases once in twenty-four hours might be borne for a considerable time. In any case the condition is an unnatural one and is certain to bring a natural retribution in some form—either broken health, or sterility of the wife, and depleted powers of the husband, or weak and sickly children, separated by long intervals.
9. How long is it possible for a young man to waste his vital fluid and yet be able to raise healthy children?
This question cannot be answered in other than most general terms. The author has known one case of a young man who, for several years, practiced masturbation several times a day, so far depleting his powers that he could not walk erect, his muscles were flabby, his testes were very soft and small, his eyes shifty, his hands clammy and his mind incoherent in its working. He seemed to be a candidate for the asylum and would probably have gone there if radical means had not been adopted to break him of the habit. He was broken, however, absolutely, and never performed the act after his nineteenth birthday. Within three years he had completely recovered his virility. He had nearly doubled in weight and in lung capacity and a large part of his increased weight was in great bulk of muscle of high tonicity—muscle which he had gained by heavy physical work upon a ranch. His sexual organs had completely regained their tonicity and without doubt, their virility. He had so far recovered mentally that he finished a course of professional study and entered with great success upon the practice of his chosen profession.