The sexual act is to be looked upon both as a pleasure and a duty. A legitimate and exquisite pleasure if properly performed; whenever it becomes anything else, errors or disease are to be suspected. Considered as a duty toward one’s husband, it cannot be properly fulfilled except when it is a pleasure to both parties. Clothing of any kind is an obstacle to proper sexual intercourse, at the act is never what it should be unless it is an expression of perfect confidence and mutual affection, as well as an accompaniment of endearing caresses otherwise expressed. Evidence is sadly, shamefully abundant in the practice of every physician, that a wife cannot count on her husband’s faithfulness unless she is both able and willing to satisfy the craving which with him is vastly the most important incentive to marry. This is exactly one of the facts concerning which the ignorance of young women is so general and so lamentable. Having been so persistently and industriously taught that everything connected with the sexual act, or even the sexual organs, is a shame and a disgrace, they learn after marriage rather slowly and reluctantly what the true estimation, importance, and relations of these organs and acts really are. Anything bordering upon animalism or sensuality, in either man or woman, is, of course, shameful and disgraceful, and too much care can hardly be expended in guarding against it. But that is a poor cure which degrades natural instincts till it can be thought that the Creator has made a mistake or dishonored his creatures by so endowing them. Give them their proper place–the lowest among the gifts and endowments of the body, perhaps–never cultivate them, but rather cultivate body, mind, and spirit at their expense and with the object of keeping them within bounds; but recognize them as a legitimate and necessary element in life, a source of real pressure if exercised in accordance with the laws of their Maker, and, at least in the man, as imperiously demanding gratification, because upon their fulfilling their function the life of the race depends.
Sexual health in the marriage relation requires moderation and consideration in undertaking its duties. The wretched fashion of taking a bridal journey immediately after the ceremony should be condemned from every point of view. The bride is usually exhausted with her preparations for the event and the excitement of anticipation, and is in no condition for either her new physical experience or her journey. To put both on her at once is a serious mistake, and one that results in much harm to health. The first approach should be accomplished at a time of as much physical and mental quiet as possible. Three or four days should elapse before a repetition of the act, to allow the parts of the woman’s body to recover from the changes and injuries which the first connection usually involves.
Persons who have passed the prime of life should indulge sexual desires with less and less frequency as they find power and inclination to do so dying out; and as it is important that these matters should be mutual in all respects, it is well worth while to consider, in contracting a marriage, that sexual life ceases in woman at an earlier age than in man, and that, therefore, a man should select a life partner some years younger than himself.
Just when sexual powers will begin to decrease in any individual is, of course, a matter that cannot be accurately fore-told. It will depend on many considerations of general health and physical activity, and especially upon the moderation of indulgence in early life. Therefore it is impossible to say just how many years should separate the ages of husband and wife. Life is not very accurately measured in years at any rate; but probably from three to fifteen years would be the limits within which the differences in ages should range, the man, of course, being the elder. With regard to the proper age at marriage of each contracting party, it may be said that physical maturity should have been attained in order that a sound and well developed body may be handed down to offspring; but, that secured, the younger the marriage takes place the better will the couple succeed in blending their two lives into one, by mutual concessions to the ruts and habits of each other. For the man the best years are from twenty-four to thirty-six, for a woman, from twenty to thirty.
A more significant consideration than age, for those contemplating marriage, is temperament, and it is, perhaps, at once the most neglected and, in a medical sense, the most important item bearing upon this institution. The objections to the marriage of cousins are not due to the mere fact of blood-relationship between the parties, but to the almost certain consequences of that consanguinity, namely, similar temperament and a tendency toward similar diseases, which are almost certain to show themselves with fatal effect in the offspring of such marriages. But persons who appreciate the sin of marrying cousins, and who would on no account risk parenthood if they knew themselves to be afflicted with diseases which would probably occasion the early death of their children, will yet ally themselves with those of identical temperament, in ignorance of the fact that in so doing they are forming a union more objectionable than the marriage of cousins, objectionable for precisely the reasons that should keep blood relatives apart, and more likely to result in short-lived offspring than is the existence of transmissible disease in a parent.
Identical temperaments are childless. Persons whose temperaments are nearly alike, if married, are likely to beget children who, if born alive, will die young, or manifest physical or mental weakness through life. Consumption, meningitis, rickets, scrofula, and the like, are carrying off every year thousands and thousands of young persons, and making thousands more weakly and burdensome to themselves, their friends, and the world; and for the cause of this state of things we must look to the ill-considered and unwise, if not criminal marriages. Yet the world goes on refusing to allow young people to learn the true significance of marriage, and acquiescing in the foolish idea that because a young man and maiden love each other, or fancy that they do there is reason enough for their union.
As a rule, cousins and second cousins should not marry. Persons of similar temperament should never marry, and the more pronounced the lymphatic temperament is in any young person, the more careful he or she should be to choose as a life partner one in whom no trace of its predominance can be found. A person in whom the mental or nervous temperament is marked should be careful to choose predominantly vital characteristics in a conjugal companion, and, of course, every effort should be made in cases where any diseased tendency is suspected, to be sure that nothing at all similar exists in the person or the family of the one he or she intends to wed.
The bed chamber should be a large, airy, and sunny room, well-ventilated and containing about twelve hundred cubic feet of space for each individual. The custom in America is for a married couple to occupy the same bed, but on many accounts the European custom of separate beds is better, especially for young persons, who can but find difficulty in keeping the gratification of desire within due bounds of moderation if opportunity for indulgence be so convenient, and in those cases where either husband or wife is seriously ill or liable to be disturbed during the night. Separate rooms are not necessary, but a single bed for each individual has much to recommend it.
With regard to the avoidance and limitation of offspring there is but one sure, safe, and proper plan for the healthy, and that is to remain single, or, being married, to live as if single. Any interference with the course of Nature is a fraud that she will be sure to punish, and any attempt to rid the healthy body of the fruits of conception otherwise than by natural labor, is certainly a cowardly crime, if it be not actual murder. No such attempts can be made without risking the life or health of the woman, and nothing can ever excuse them except the moral certainty than without them her life will be sacrificed.
Much has been written about the predetermination of the sex of the offspring, but no theory is as yet generally accepted. The difficulty of getting at a sufficient number of undoubted facts regarding conception in the human family effectually prevents the formulation of any law by which parents may infallibly decide in advance whether they will produce boys and girls. The probabilities, however, are, that intercourse soon after menstruation or just before it, if fruitful, will result in female offspring; while the conceptions occasioned in the latter part of the interval between the menses will result in male children. The relative age, health, development, and, perhaps, desires of the parents may influence the matter, however, and some women seem incapable of conception at all during a variable time in each interval between their periods, and just before the return of the flow.
Member New York State and County Homoeopathic Medical Societies ;
Formerly Staff-Physician to the College and Wilson Mission
Dispensaries ; Fellow of the N. Y. Academy of Anthropology ; Member American Historical Association,