The Ladies Book of Useful Information Part 13

"The waist should be narrower than the upper part of the trunk and its muscles, because the reverse indicates the expansion of the stomach, liver, and great intestine, resulting from their excessive use.

"The back of woman should be more hollow than that of man; for otherwise the pelvis is not of sufficient depth for parturition.

"Women should have more extended loins than men, at the expense of the superior and inferior parts, for this conformation is essential to gestation.

"The abdomen should be larger in woman than in man, for the same reason.

"Over all these parts the cellular tissue, and the plumpness connected with it, should obliterate all distinct projection of muscles.

"The surface of the whole female form should be characterized by its softness, elasticity, smoothness, delicacy, and polish, and by the gradual and easy transition between the parts.

"The moderate plumpness already described should bestow on the organs of woman great suppleness. Plumpness is essential to beauty, especially in mothers, because in them the abdomen necessarily expands, and would afterwards collapse and become wrinkled.

"An excess of plumpness, however, is to be guarded against. Young women who are very fat are cold and p.r.o.ne to barrenness.

"In no case should plumpness be so predominant as to destroy the distinctness of parts."

A male and female formed on the above models would be well matched and have fine children.

CHAPTER VI.

s.e.xUAL INTERCOURSE-ITS LAWS AND CONDITIONS-ITS USE AND ABUSE.

There is an increasing and alarming prevalence of nervous ailments and complicated disorders that could be traced to have their sole origin from this source. Hypochondria, in its various phases, results from the premature and unnatural waste of the seminal fluid. Then speedily ensues a lack of natural heat, a deficiency of vital power, and consequently indigestion, melancholy, languor, and dejection ensue; the victim becomes enervated and spiritless, loses the very attributes of man, and premature old age soon follows.

IT IS A PREVALENT ERROR

that it is necessary for the s.e.m.e.n to be ejected at certain times from the body; that its retention is incompatible with sound health and vigor of body and mind. This is a very fallacious idea. The seminal fluid is too precious-nature bestows too much care in its elaboration for it to be wasted in this unproductive manner. It is intended, when not used for the purpose of procreation, to be reabsorbed again into the system, giving vigor of body, elasticity and strength to the mind, making the individual strong, active, and self-reliant. When kept as nature intended, it is a perpetual fountain of life and energy-a vital force which acts in every direction, a motive power which infuses manhood into every organ of the brain and every fiber of the body.

THE LAW OF s.e.xUAL MORALITY

for childhood is one of utter negation of s.e.x. Every child should be kept pure and free from amative excitement and the least amative indulgence, which is unnatural and doubly hurtful. No language is strong enough to express the evils of amative excitement and unnatural indulgence before the age of p.u.b.erty; and the dangers are so great that I see no way so safe as

THOROUGH INSTRUCTION

regarding them at the earliest age. A child may be taught, simply as a matter of science, as one learns botany, all that is needful to know, and such knowledge may protect it from the most terrible evils.

The law for childhood is perfect purity, which cannot be too carefully guarded and protected by parents, teachers, and all caretakers. The law for youth is perfect continence-a pure vestalate alike in both s.e.xes. No indulgence is required by one more than the other-for both nature has made the same provision. The natures of both are alike, and any-the least-exercise of the amative function is an injury to one as to the other.

MEN EXPECT

that women shall come to them in marriage chaste and pure from the least defilement. Women have a right to expect the same of their husbands. Here the s.e.xes are upon a perfect equality.

On this subject, Dr. Carpenter (physiological works) has written like a man of true science, and, therefore, of true morality. He lays it down as an axiom that _the development of the individual and the reproduction of the species stand in an inverse ratio to each other_.

He says: "The augmented development of the generative organs at p.u.b.erty can only be rightly regarded as _preparatory_ to the exercise of the organs. The development of the _individual_ must be completed before the procreative power can properly be exercised for the continuance of the race." And in the following extract from his "Principles of Human Physiology," he confirms my statement respecting the unscientific and libertine advice of too many physicians: "The author would say to those of his younger readers who urge the wants of nature as an excuse for the illicit gratification of the s.e.xual pa.s.sions, 'try the effects of _close mental application_ to some of those enn.o.bling pursuits to which your profession introduces you, in combination with _vigorous bodily exercise_, before you a.s.sert that appet.i.te is unrestrainable and act upon that a.s.sertion.' Nothing tends so much to increase the desire as the continual direction of the mind toward the objects of its gratification, whilst nothing so effectually represses it as a determined exercise of the mental faculties upon other objects and the expenditure of nervous energy in other channels.

Some works which have issued from the medical press contain much that is calculated to excite, rather than to repress, the propensity; and the advice sometimes given by pract.i.tioners to their patients is immoral as well as unscientific."

EVERY MAN AND EVERY WOMAN,

living simply, purely, and temperately-respecting the laws of health in regard to air, food, dress, exercise, and habits of life-not only can live in the continence of a pure virgin life when single, and in the chast.i.ty which should be observed by all married partners, but be stronger, happier, and in every way better by so living.

Chast.i.ty is the conservation of life, and the consecration of its forces to the highest use. Sensuality is the waste of life, and the degradation of its forces to pleasure divorced from use. Chast.i.ty is life; sensuality is death.

FROM THE AGE OF p.u.b.eRTY TO MARRIAGE

the law, is the same for both s.e.xes-full employment of mind and body, temperance, purity, and perfect chast.i.ty in thought, word, and deed.

The law is one of perfect equality. There is no license for the male which is not equally the right of the female. There is no physiological ground for any indulgence in one case more than in the other. No man has any more right to require or expect purity in the woman who is to be his wife than the woman has to require and expect purity in her husband. It is a simple matter of justice and right. No man can enter upon an amative relation with a woman, except in marriage, without manifest injustice to his future wife, unless he allow her the same liberty; and also without a great wrong to the woman, and to her possible husband.

It is contended that the sins of men against chast.i.ty are more venial than those of women, because of the liability of women to have children. But men are also liable to be the fathers of children, who are deeply wronged by the absence of paternal care. The child has its rights, and every child has the right to be born in honest, respectable wedlock, of parents able to give it a sound const.i.tution and the nurture and education it requires. The child who lacks these conditions is grievously wronged by both father and mother.

THE LAW OF MARRIAGE

is, that a mature man and woman, with sound health, pure lives, and a reasonable prospect of comfortably educating a family, when drawn to each other by the attraction of mutual love, should chastely and temperately unite for offspring. The s.e.xual relation has this chief and controlling purpose. The law of nature is intercourse for reproduction. Under the Christian law, marriage is the symbol of the union of Christ with the Church; husband and wife are one in the Lord; they are to live in marriage chast.i.ty, not in l.u.s.t and uncleanness; and there cannot be a more hideous violation of Christian morals than for a husband to vent his sensuality upon a feeble wife; against her wishes and when she has no desire for offspring and no power to give them the healthy const.i.tutions and maternal care which is their right.

The law of Christian morality is very clear. It is the s.e.xual union first and chiefly for its princ.i.p.al object. It is for the husband to refrain from it whenever it is not desired; whenever it would be hurtful to either; whenever it would be a waste of life; whenever it would injure mother or child, as during pregnancy and lactation.

A MAN WHO TRULY LOVES A WOMAN

must respect and reverence her, and cannot make her the victim of his inordinate and unbridled, selfish and sensual nature. He will be ever, from the first moment of joyful possession to the last of his life, tender, delicate, considerate, deferent, yielding to her slightest wishes in the domain of love, and never encroaching, never trespa.s.sing upon, never victimizing the wife of his bosom and the mother of his babes. We have romance before marriage, we want more chivalry in marriage.

This is not the world's morality, yet it seems to one the world must respect it. This, high and pure Christian morality is not always enforced by Christian ministers, some of whom yield too much to human sensuality and depravity, instead of maintaining the higher law of Christian purity, which is but nature restored or freed from its stains of sin. The world requires that unmarried women should be chaste, while it gives almost unbridled license to men. A girl detected in amours is disgraced and often made an outcast. In young men such irregularities are freely tolerated. They are "a little wild"; they "sow their wild oats"; but open profligacy, the seduction of innocence, the ruin of poor girls, adultery, harlotry and its diseases do not hinder men from marrying, nor from requiring that those they marry should have spotless reputations. It is not for a moment permitted that women in these matters should behave like men, and a pure girl is given to the arms of a wasted debauchee, and her babes are perhaps born dead, or suffer through life with syphilitic diseases, while she endures a long martyrdom from disordered, diseased, and unrestrained sensuality. For the unmarried, young men, soldiers, sailors, and all who do not choose to bear the burdens of a family, society has its armies of prost.i.tutes-women like others, and more than others, or in less reputable fas.h.i.+on, the victims of the unbridled l.u.s.t of men. They are everywhere tolerated as

"NECESSARY EVILS,"

and, in some places, protected or regulated; and, from economical or philanthropic considerations, or both, combined efforts are made to free them from the contagious diseases which for some centuries have been a curse attending this form of the violation of the laws of nature-one of the consequences of l.u.s.t which is the divorce of the s.e.xual instinct from its natural use and purpose.

The Christian

LAW OF MARRIAGE,

as set down in the Holy Scriptures, and defined by the best writers on moral theology, is in harmony with nature, in consonance with the higher nature of man. "G.o.d hath set the earth in families." Adultery is a sin, because it disorders that divine arrangement. Fornication is a sin, because it prevents pure marriages. Prost.i.tution is a sin, because it is a sacrifice of women, who might be wives and mothers, to the selfish l.u.s.ts of men. All useless indulgence is a waste of life, and a kind of suicide. In a pure marriage union, men and women unite themselves with G.o.d in acts of creative power. The progress of humanity depends upon individual development and the conditions at generation and gestation. With culture and a harmonized development, we acquire a higher and more integral life. When two parents are in their highest condition and in

A TRUE UNION