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Title: Womanhood
The facts of life revealed to women
Author: Gloria Goddard
Editor: E. Haldeman-Julius
Release date: April 9, 2026 [eBook #78407]
Language: English
Original publication: Girard: Haldeman-Julius Publications, 1927
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78407
Credits: Tim Miller and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMANHOOD ***
LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. 846
Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius
Womanhood: The Facts of
Life Revealed to Women
Gloria Goddard
HALDEMAN-JULIUS PUBLICATIONS
GIRARD, KANSAS
Copyright, 1927,
Haldeman-Julius Company
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
INDEX
Page
I. The Opening Door of Womanhood 5
Adolescence 5
Essential Education 8
Adolescent Training 11
II. The Origin of Love 16
Natural Love 18
Romantic Love 19
Marital Love 20
The Pyschological View of Love 21
III. Mating 23
Woman’s Equality 23
The Right of Choice 25
The Child Problem 27
Moral Codes 29
Courtship 31
IV. The Proper Mate 33
The Purpose of Marriage 33
Eugenics 35
The Future of Eugenics 38
Birth Control 39
V. Proper Education 41
In School 41
At Home 45
Love Education 47
VI. The Price of Error 49
Youthful Restraint 49
Over-Indulgence 54
Venereal Diseases 55
VII. Idealism 56
Chastity 56
Sexual Morality, Present and Future 57
The Purity Ideal 63
WOMANHOOD: THE FACTS OF LIFE REVEALED TO WOMEN
I. THE OPENING DOOR OF WOMANHOOD.
_Adolescence._—It is the habit of age to call youth the golden era, to
speak of that period as the halcyon days of life, and to look back over
its tempestuous beauty with eyes misted by years and longing. It is one
of man’s most regrettable traits that he is ceaselessly yearning back
toward the past. For the few brief years of childhood, he is content in
the present, and looks, if he looks at all, toward the beckoning doorway
of the future. Once he has reached that threshold, he commences the
endless looking back, until we have a race of Lot’s wives whose souls,
at least, are static from backward glances. This is particularly true of
women, though it applies in general to the whole race. The child with her
dolls is happy, and in her play looks toward the future when she will be
a grown woman. Every girl who mothers her dolls has a yearning toward
motherhood, but let the period for that estate arrive, and she looks
back tearfully on her carefree childhood. Once the girl has stepped,
irrevocably, into the narrow pathway of adolescence that leads to the
opening door of maturity, she commences looking back. The adolescent girl
pins up her hair, or bobs it, today, and gazes regretfully at the curls
of childhood. She packs away her dolls, and passes the closet where they
are sleeping with a sigh. The widespread fad of fancy dolls that has
swept the country during the past few years has a double significance.
Largely, it points toward starved motherhood. It is the irrefutable sign
that there are thousands of women who long for children, but who, for
various reasons, deny that urge. It points to something else, too. It is
the answer to that harking back to childhood, when dolls were the only
children, and all the world was play.
This is regrettable. Looking back to the past is a deadening pastime. No
one period of life should be more delightful than another. The rounded
person lives fully in the present, and looks toward the future happily,
with no yearnings toward the past. The chief reason why people look
back, rather than forward is that, through faulty education, unfortunate
miscomprehension, they spoil the present and see no hope for doing
otherwise with the future. If we study the matter sensibly, we will
see that we do not actually want to go back to the past for its actual
activities; what we want is the happy carefree life we then enjoyed. But,
if people lived rightly and thought correctly, they would not want to go
back from a state of comparative freedom to a period of supervision. No
normal, healthy adult wants to go back to a period wherein all of his
thinking is done for him. It is merely an effort to dodge the cares of
life. But, if our lives are properly regulated, and if we are properly
educated, our cares will not hamper us, and gathering years will increase
rather than decrease our enjoyment of living.
This period of unrest, of wanting something that we have not, commences
between the ages of fourteen and sixteen. In exceptional cases, it may be
hastened or retarded. At first, it is mere unrest, and the mind fastens
on the past, as something that it knows, only because it must have
something to hold to, something to explain its uneasiness. Actually, at
this time, it is the unrest of ignorance, the desire to know the causes
and reasons for everything, especially ourselves. The adolescent girl,
seeing, for the first time, most of the life about her, is puzzled, and
longs to understand. She is restless because she cannot do so. Powers and
faculties that only existed potentially before, now come into being. New
relations are established, and for the first time, the ego recognizes
itself, and takes the center of the stage.
Heredity has done its part toward molding the young life, and slips
quietly into the background. Childhood environment has started the girl’s
development, especially those intricate and usually hidden bonds that
exist between the daughter and the parents. A physical change commences
its course, a change that will slowly guide the girl from childhood to
womanhood. Physically, mentally, morally, the woman is gradually being
born. From the soft clay of girlhood is springing what the woman will
be. The model is being fashioned from within, where the girl’s real
nature and hereditary instincts are doing their work, and from without,
where environment and outside influence are doing their best to guide
the new person. Tradition has said that love is blind. More truly might
it be said that youth is blind. Youth starts toward life with eyes
raised toward idealism whose glow blinds eyes already sightless through
ignorance. The problem is, will those eyes, when they finally open upon
such reality as the world knows, fall dejectedly upon gray ashy ruins,
blackened by the now cold fires of that idealism, or will they gaze
joyfully on a not too perfect world, but one still bright with hope and
beauty? The burden of the choice lies, during these years, with the
people around the girl. Tactful, sympathetic advice, and guidance by
those whose lives touch hers will do much toward making a rounded woman
of her, and will help to open her eyes on a world she will want to live
in. Ignorance and false teachings on the subjects that vitally concern
her may leave her a warped and twisted being, dragging weary feet down
tedious years.
_Essential Education._—Throughout a large portion of the world, education
in sexual matters is the accepted custom. Most of the savage tribes
have it. Oriental civilizations still practice it, and are the better
for it. Our ancestors, until the birth of Christianity, knew it. The
Old Testament lays down frank and open laws upon the subject. But the
rites of sexual education had groped so far toward licentiousness, that
Christianity, banning the latter, smothered the former. The Christian
doctrine, aiming professedly toward cleaner living, taught that the body
was worthless, and pointed toward a future life, when only the spirit
would count. Since the body was worthless, and since catering to its
appetites led to much so-called wrong, it followed that the body, and
all that pertained to it, must be vile; only the soul was sacred. Out of
this there gradually grew a taboo. Discussion of this vital subject was
prohibited. It is this prohibition that has done the greatest harm to the
Christian men and women of today.
Any sensible person can see that this teaching is worse than false. It,
not the body, is vile. Slowly, after nineteen hundred years of a lie, out
of the blood of the World War, the truth is springing, phoenix-like. The
lie has been the more insidious since men have never practiced it. The
pale Galilean light of chastity has wavered like an _ignis fatuus_ over a
distant horizon; men, gazing toward it, have stumbled into pitfalls that
had otherwise been mountain heights. The joy of the body lived and grew
in spite of taboos, but, like a flower doomed to bloom in a cellar, it
flourished wanly, and raised its anemic tendrils in the foul blackness of
subterfuge.
Only within the last decade has man come to see the foulness of this
course. Slowly the race is lifting itself out of this slough of deceit.
It rests with each parent to see that the rising continues, until the day
dawns when every girl and boy will know all of the facts of life, and
know them correctly, in all their shining beauty. Then, and then only,
will that _ignis fatuus_ fade in the new dawn of a brighter light.
It is the silence of the parents that does the most toward making life
seem sordid, and brutal. If the parent maintains an obdurate and
sanctified silence, as the majority do, will the girl grow into a second
Mary? Unfortunately, yes. But science has so far enlightened the race,
that we no longer are willing to accept stories of virgin births, and are
too apt to see, with cynical eyes, the Angel Gabriel in any of the young
men about town. Mothers expect girls to wait for this necessary knowledge
until they are married, and then to learn it from the young husband. But
all too frequently, the husband is as sadly ignorant as his bride. What
then? Will some miracle point the way to happiness? Sadly enough miracles
are infrequent. Both young people blunder on, usually into misery.
But even the most assiduous silence on the part of the parent rarely
prevents the girl from learning some part of the truth. As soon as the
little girl commences going to school, she is exposed to the danger of
learning these vital facts, and learning them in a sordid way. Even the
most careful of parents cannot keep from arousing a child’s curiosity
concerning its body. Chance remarks are overheard; when the child reaches
the school age, words seen in books, heard in conversation, send the
curious one to the dictionary; worst of all, information is freely
scattered by their less restrained and more evil-minded companions. These
facts, seen through the fouling haze of secrecy and miscomprehension,
tantalize the youthfully curious mind. The young girl, hating to appear
less knowing than her acquaintances, adopts the secrecy of her elders,
and prowls through books and dictionaries; her mind, like a mole, chases
the truth through the dark of ignorance, until what truth she finally
gleans is smudged with the filth of the streets, and dulled by an aura
of shame. They learn bad habits, alone or by falling into unhealthy
relationships with other girls, if they do not know the facts.
This accurate knowledge, properly given, is the more valuable, if to it
is added a restrained example on the part of the parents. If the mother’s
actions are admirable, this example is a louder preachment to the young
daughter than any amount of words. Nor need a mother shrink from telling
her daughter the simple facts of life. These mysteries can be pointed out
in a beautiful way through the life-stories of animals and plants. The
simple tale of how young birds and kittens arrive in the world can be
made into a lovely symbol of the girl’s own origin, and will point out to
her the role that she, in the normal course of nature, will fulfil.
_Adolescent Training._—The essential thing to guard in the adolescent
girl is her bodily health. If the body is properly cared for, the sexual
nature will take care of itself. Barring some physical deformity, sexual
life grows strongly and healthily of its own accord. A normal woman is
capable of bearing at least thirty children. This is neither desirable
nor economically possible, today. The task is to rein sexual energy, not
to stimulate it. Exercise drains off this energy, which, in the girl,
is chiefly an undefined longing. Enjoyable occupations keep the girl’s
mind occupied and prevent that restlessness that is so taxing to the
adolescent person. All young girls should be encouraged in participating
in sports. They develop a healthy body, increase grace, and occupy a
nervous mind.
Occupying the mind does not mean keeping it ignorant. The most curious
mind is usually the most empty one, provided the emptiness is not due
to sheer laziness. Young minds are very empty, and the only sure way
to fill them properly is to give them complete and adequate knowledge.
If the adolescent girl knows the true clean facts of sex, she will not
spend surreptitious hours poring over filthy books. This ignorance not
only pollutes the young mind, but helps to ruin the young eyes. Girls
seek eagerly for trashy books, then read them in bed, at night, and hide
them during the day, for fear of being caught with them. The moralists
of today who would suppress all of the so-called foul literature would
achieve their purpose if, instead of indicting these books, they
turned their energies to teaching youth the decent facts. This would
immediately decrease the market for such trash, for the educated mind
gets no thrill out of such books. These books pander to the ignorant, the
curious-minded. The young people seize them, and read them avidly, in
the vain hope of learning something of this whispered mystery. They are
invariably disappointed. There would be nothing really wrong with such
books, if they actually told any facts. They don’t—they merely add fuel
to an already hot fire.
The girl’s mind, properly equipped with a knowledge of the realities
of life, should be fed on good books. She should be encouraged in the
studies that she prefers. It is a great mistake of parents to force their
children to learn certain things, whether the children want to or not. If
the girl shows a fondness for languages, let her study them; if she leans
toward astronomy, let her learn what she can about it. True, it may be an
interest of which she will soon tire, but some of it will linger in her
mind, and the mental training will be invaluable. As much as possible,
turn the adolescent mind toward things outside of itself. Interest the
young girl in the world about her, and thus avoid that super-development
of the ego that leads to the lonely introspective person.
The period of adolescence brings with it a complete physical change. It
is now that menstruation begins. If the girl has been kept in ignorance
up to this time, she should be told all the truths of life now. Also,
her health should be guarded more carefully than ever before. This does
not mean coddling; it merely means proper attention to food, exercise,
and rest. Many girls are very much weakened by this condition at first.
Plenty of fresh air and sleep are the best remedies. Of course, if the
girl continues to suffer from this period, she should be put in the hands
of a capable doctor. Even in these broadening days, this remains the one
subject that the most frank-minded persons refuse to discuss. This absurd
secrecy has given rise to the most harmful myths on the subject. There
is no reason why a healthy woman should suffer during this time. It is
a natural physical phenomenon that takes place once every twenty-seven
days. Certain conditions and certain climates sometimes lengthen or
slightly decrease the time between, but no pain should ever result. The
most that should be expected is a certain lassitude during the flow.
If a girl or woman does suffer pain, she should immediately consult a
physician. Many women go on through life suffering at this time rather
than talk to a doctor on the subject. This is a ridiculous reticence.
Under normal conditions the flow will last three or four days.
Due to this strange silence on the subject, many absurd notions and
taboos have grown up concerning this period. Many women still believe
that they must not bathe, walk, or indulge in any form of exercise during
this time. Provided the woman is healthy, this is untrue. During these
periods, the body is more susceptible to colds than at other times;
therefore it is unwise to expose oneself. A warm bath will have no ill
effect, and moderate exercise will do no harm. There is no reason why
one’s daily routine should be altered in any way by this condition.
The main thing to remember is to keep the body clean, and to take such
sanitary precautions as will insure comfort and ease, and will prevent
any unpleasant odors. Such equipment as is necessary is obtainable in
every drug store.
It is highly important for the girl who is experiencing these periods for
the first time to avoid undue excitement, and above all, any emotional
indulgences. The girl who is equipped with the proper knowledge will
realize this, and will know that the proper restraint at this period will
insure her a healthy future. Sexual indulgences during the adolescent
period weaken the nervous system, and generally enervate the body.
Adolescent girls are invariably sentimental and romantically inclined.
The parents should not laugh at this display—rather they should guide
it into right channels. Faulty sex-consciousness is grounded in this
ridicule of the parents. If her sentimental dreams are sneered at, the
girl does not cease having them; on the contrary, they increase in
volume, but she hides it all, and ultimately grows shy and reticent.
She begins to fall in love with matinée idols, with the older men about
her, with some favorite teacher. This is natural, and should not be
suppressed. If she has proper sex-knowledge, and is considerately treated
by her parents, she will soon grow out of this stage into a normal
womanhood..
A girl’s first sweethearts should not be jeered at. If her youthful
friendships are encouraged among nice boys, if her choice of a first
“beau” is accepted as natural, and not made fun of, she will avoid that
sex-consciousness which so frequently leads to secrecy in such affairs,
and to ultimate misery. Do not fear to have your daughter go out with
young boys. See that her friends are honorable boys, and that she knows
what life means, and no harm can come to her. Parents recoil in horror
from the fear of a youthful misstep, and scorn the unfortunate girl who
makes it. They never realize that the fault lies with them. Nine-tenths
of the unfortunate errors made by young girls and boys are made through
ignorance. If a girl has no knowledge of life, she is an easy victim of
any man’s or boy’s pleadings. Her curiosity urges her on, and once the
thing is done, she, not the guilty parents, pays for the social sin.
II. THE ORIGIN OF LOVE.
The thing we call love is known to no species but man. The urge toward
mating is in all plant and animal life, taking place at such times and
places and in such a manner as is most valuable to the species. No one,
even the most prudish, regards the mating of animals as shameful. We do
not speak with bated breath of the arrival of a litter of kittens, nor
do we lock the cat in the closet when she feeds these offspring. Yet,
the very same phenomenon, taking place among men, is spoken of in hushed
tones, and when we see a woman nursing a baby in public, we regard her as
little higher than an animal.
There is no longer much doubt of the fact that man evolved from
lower animals. But, while this is an accepted truth, few realize the
significant facts that follow from it. In animals, the thing we term love
is merely an urge planted there for the continuation of the species.
Selection is made for fitness only. The female does the choosing, and
picks out the mate that seems to her to have the best attributes for
the furtherance of a strong and healthy stock. Animals have no knowledge
of paternity. Only in man, and that very recently, has this knowledge
developed. In zoology, children are taught that certain animals eat their
young, if the mother does not protect them. We are told of the brutality
of the male rabbit, who is supposed to do this. But the rabbit has no
realization of the fact that he had anything to do with the tiny hairless
things that clutter his home. It is not male jealousy, or any such
emotion that prompts this, but the sheer instinct to kill for food. The
idea of paternity has grown up within civilized times.
In most of the lower animals, the female is the acknowledged selector.
Again, only man has built up the myth that he does the choosing. The
selectivity of the female is responsible for the development of brain,
and is therefore responsible for her own downfall. It was the dawning
realization that men were the fathers of children that changed early
civilization from a matriarchate, or mother-rule, to a patriarchate, or
father-rule. Up to this time, the women, as mothers of the race, had
held a high place in the tribe; she had the sole choice of mates; she
ruled and guided the children to maturity. When paternity was finally
acknowledged, and the man was admitted as much kin to the child as the
woman, he claimed a right to part control of it. His high opinion of
women, as the founders of his clan, diminished, and he commenced to
domineer over her as he did over lesser males. With the acknowledgement
of paternity came the first conflict between men and women. No animal
ever fights with, or abuses his female, or any of the females of his
pack. Man, who admits that he is made in the image of some god, was the
first to introduce this lowest form of animalism into the world, and into
a partly cultured world, at that. The male had become stronger than the
female, through her selection of strength, and he soon became lord over,
not only his children, but his wife as well. From that dark day, down to
the present, man has ruled the world, and enslaved the women. He has made
the laws and made them so that women have grown weaker and weaker. Today,
things are changing, and once more woman is standing equal with her mate.
_Natural Love._—Originally, love meant merely selection for purposes of
reproduction. In the ancient days, even religion was founded upon this
basic principle of fertilization. It remained for Christianity to deny
the necessity of this deep fundamental fact.
Sheer animal passion, or natural love, is no less noble than the
highly sophisticated esthetic sentiment that we favor today. Nor can
love necessarily be limited to one individual. Monogamy is a stricture
laid down to bind us by religion and social morals. The lower animals
are not usually monogamous. Women have done most to advance this law,
although they, too, in the dawn of life were not more monogamous than
men. They were more selective, that is all. Modern monogamy is a product
of property rights, and was merely intended to insure the legitimacy of
the sons so that they might inherit the father’s property. But this
monogamy never applied to the men. Man’s nature is against it, while his
mouth speaks words in its favor. With the appearance of monogamy, came
prostitution. Men demanded that their wives be virtuous, and then went
out and sought other women for their pleasure. This gave rise to the
double standard, of which more will be said later.
Some persons believe that the coming of Christianity raised woman’s
status. This is far from true. Christianity, bringing its preachment
against the flesh, made woman appear as an evil influence. Men were
told to scorn the body. By this time, men were ruling the world, so
they immediately laid all of the blame of sex upon the women. Many of
the early promoters of the church preached violently against marriage,
calling it sinful and wicked. Men came to assume the attitude that they
could be pure and godly, were it not for the alluring seductiveness of
women. The urge of man toward women was denounced as a thing of the
devil. Today, our growing intelligence recognizes the folly of this, and
the purity and loveliness of natural love is conceded.
_Romantic Love._—Romantic love is a hot-house growth feasting upon the
dank soil of denial of natural impulses. It grew up in the days of roving
knighthood, when for long months, and perhaps years, the lovers were
separated. Men and women swore fidelity to each other, and the women at
least were obliged to keep their vows. It became more noble to refuse
than to accept love. All that the couple required was to be together.
They contented themselves with sighs and madrigals. Natural love demands
the possession of the person of the beloved; romantic love contents
itself with the mere presence, or often the mere thought, of the beloved.
Such love, in general, was regarded as illicit. Young knights knew this
passion for great ladies, who were unattainable through marriage, or high
station. Thus sprang up the belief that it was wrong. In fact, it is
harmful only to those who yield to it, in that it festers in the soul,
and knows no outlet.
_Marital Love._—This form of love, the affection between husband and
wife, is also of comparatively late growth. In general, it requires
monogamy. Frequently it is at war with romantic love. In early centuries,
there was no thought of love when a union between two persons was
arranged. The mating was planned for political or monetary reasons. Then,
when romantic love sprang up, certain young people rebelled against this
cold-blooded way of disposing of their lives, and chose to marry for
love. Often this is no more satisfactory than the commercial method. In
many European countries, the two are still divorced. In France, the wife
and the mistress are both socially acknowledged facts, but are rarely
embodied in the same person. In America there is a growing tendency to
make wife and mistress always one and the same person. This is the ideal
situation, though it is by far the more difficult of consummation. It is
a sin to yield one’s body to a man whom one does not love.
_The Psychological View of Love._—Freud, who blames most of man’s
unhappiness on improper sex-knowledge and development, divides the growth
of love in the human being into three stages:
1. Auto-eroticism, or self-love.
2. Homosexuality, or love of the same sex.
3. Heterosexuality, or love of the opposite sex.
The infant is always auto-erotic. It gains its first pleasure from
suckling the mother’s breasts, or the bottle. Soon it discovers the
pleasure of this apart from the mere joy of eating. Then it sucks
anything handy. It will suck an empty bottle, a toy, its thumb. This
practice naturally should be discouraged, chiefly because it is deforming
to the mouth. Soon the child discovers its own body. It finds real joy
in handling its own body. The normal child grows out of this stage as
it grows out of safety pins and bibs. There are cases where the child
does not grow out of this phase of life. Something goes wrong, and the
child’s development is arrested, and throughout life he or she remains
a victim of self-love. The next thing that the normal child realizes is
the existence of other persons in the world. This realization naturally
centers on children. The grown-ups are very remote. Children come to
have reality for the small child. She recognizes something akin to
herself, and, since she has no way of knowing differently, she assumes
that all children are physically equipped like herself. Boys and girls
are alike to her; she does not know that there is any difference, other
than clothes, between them. Her affections are drawn away from herself to
others, and usually center upon some older girl. This is the period of
homosexuality. Its most common manifestation is the schoolgirl “crush” on
an older girl, or a favorite woman teacher. This is the most dangerous
period for the girl’s future happiness. If she chances to place her
affection in a girl or a woman who is emotionally biased, she may ruin
her life or, at least, seriously damage it. Homosexuality, put into
physical practice, definitely retards the mental growth of the person.
The right sort of friendship, at this stage, can lead the girl through
the period without any danger. Mothers, in general, should not encourage
their daughters in friendships for older girls. It is better to drain off
this urge in friendships for girls of an equal age.
A great number of children actually practice onanism, or self-love, and
homosexuality. In general, parents are horrified by the thought of such
things. The danger arises if the child does not normally grow out of
these practices. They are the lowest forms of love merely because they
are obviously sterile forms.
From these two stages, the normal girl or boy passes to the third when
she or he reaches adolescence.
This third stage, heterosexuality, is the ultimate love development, in
that it signifies love for the opposite sex. The young body has at last
matured and grown into harmony with natural laws. This is the highest
form of bodily contact with human beings. This is the ultimate threshold
of womanhood. The girl who reaches this point and goes on into life
with the proper regard for the opposite sex, is a woman; those whose
development is retarded and whose inclinations linger in one of the
earlier stages never fully achieve true womanhood.
III. MATING.
_Woman’s Equality._—As we have shown before in this Little Blue Book,
woman, in the dawn of man’s history, was acknowledged as superior. It
was woman who mothered the race, therefore she was allowed to rule the
clan. With the coming of paternal knowledge, woman sank, until in the
days when civilization had reached its highest point in Greece and Rome,
woman was merely a chattel. This was not wholly true, even then. In the
Old Testament, lineage was always traced through the mother, showing that
the matriarchal idea still lingered. In Greece, Rome and Egypt women were
politically men’s equal, at least in the matter of property rights. With
the coming of Christianity woman reached her lowest point in the social
scale. She became hardly more than a breeder. Men ruled the world and
their homes with equal rigor. But slowly, during the past hundred years,
woman has been winning back her rightful position. The very nature of
woman’s duty, her motherhood, may keep her from ever fully sharing all
of man’s activities, but she can and will be equal in importance and in
power. The first thing for her to realize is that she must concentrate
on shining in those lines of endeavor where she has supremacy, and leave
to men the other fields of endeavor. Man has built up a civilization
of dollars and things. It remains for women to reconstruct this to a
civilization of persons. Millions of dollars are spent yearly to produce
better cattle, and almost nothing is spent for better babies. It remains
for the women to see that this condition is altered.
Already, they have done a great deal. One hundred years ago, women had
no voice in the government; today, they have gained seats in state
legislatures, in federal legislatures, in state and federal courts and
two have gained seats in State capitols. A century ago, a woman entering
upon industrial life found it impossible to receive the same wages or
consideration paid to men; the higher institutions of learning were
closed to her. Now, she can engage in any occupation, and granted the
same ability, can earn as much as a man; she can attend a good college
or university. Worst of all, one hundred years ago, she was completely
dependent upon a man for her very livelihood. Her choice was limited. She
must choose between being the wife, mistress, or spinster daughter of a
man. Now she has won in the economic field, and can accept or decline any
or many men, at will.
This last is of the utmost importance and has done more than anything
else to change woman’s status, and to give her love-life a chance to
blossom normally. A woman of a century ago had neither the opportunity
nor the ability to choose the man she wished for husband or lover. She
was dependent upon a father, who sold her to the highest bidder. Her
wishes were rarely consulted. The father had reared her and he decided
who would undertake her future support. A woman, unable to support
herself, could not afford to refuse a man when he offered to marry her.
Now, any woman can support herself. She is limited only by her education,
which she can make as little or as great as she chooses, and by her
abilities. But there is some path of economic independence opened to
every woman. She need no longer wait for a man to marry her so as to
insure her future safety. She can pick a mate, or decline one at will.
This more than anything else will help to put love relationships upon a
footing of decency and equality. When a man marries a woman, not because
the woman needs support, but because she loves him, there will be less
chance or need for illicit and clandestine loves.
_The Right of Choice._—Those who oppose woman’s entry into industry,
when defeated on every point, fall back upon the absurd notion that it
will tend to make woman bold, incline her to do the choosing of a mate.
Naturally, men resent this. It will take from them their lordship. They
will no longer be able to feel themselves masters in their own homes.
Nothing better for civilization could happen. There should be no master
in any home. Men and women should rule equally.
In point of fact, women have always done the choosing, from the
matriarchate down to the present. To be sure, daughters have been
married off according to parental arrangement, but where this custom has
prevailed, the sons have been similarly treated. Marriages were arranged
by the families, with little regard for the young persons. In America,
the large majority of young people are allowed to decide for themselves
in the matter of marriage. And the women do the choosing. Oh, they don’t
actually propose. Their tactics are far more subtle. Tantalizing frocks,
alluring rouges, provocative perfumes, all do their part toward luring
the man on. From among several young men, it is the girl who makes the
choice, and does it so cleverly, and perhaps so unconsciously, that the
young man thinks all credit is due to him. When the daughters are inept,
the mothers are usually on hand to help.
This is right. Only, it should be frankly admitted, rather than cloaked
under a veil of hypocrisy. For the good of the race, women are the better
choosers. Man, whose only instinct is the biological urge to fertilize,
pursues all women, and takes those whom he can get. From among a group of
women, he is sure to take the least clever, the one who is slow-witted
in eluding him, the one whom he can get. To be sure, he may try to pick
the most beautiful, but usually her beauty covers an empty head, and
he doesn’t care. Needless to say, these women are not the best fitted
to mother the race. When a woman chooses from among a number of men,
she picks the tallest, the strongest, the most clever. So, while man’s
choice tends to bring down the standard of the race, woman’s tends to
raise it.
Prudish minds may some day come to realize that there is no immodesty in
a woman’s letting a man know that she is willing to marry him. The best
of all methods would be where the proposal was a mutual thing.
_The Child Problem._—The natural purpose of mating is to beget children.
The original scheme of nature is built around this fact. But nature had
no hand in planning civilization, large cities, and our present economic
standards. It is all very well to say that people are going contrary to
the plans of nature in refusing to have children, and that this is a sin.
Poverty is a sin, the struggle for existence is a sin. And since these
are part and parcel of our living today, it is often better to add the
so-called sin of refusing to have children to the list than to commit
a more heinous offense by bringing small lives into the world without
having the adequate means to provide for them. No human being has an
ethical right to bring children into the world unless he can provide
healthy surroundings and all of the normal advantages.
Those who rant against socialism and the insubordination of the working
classes, and who spend large sums of money in a vain endeavor to keep
these less fortunate individuals from rising against wealth, would do
better if they spent that money in preaching against too many children
and in teaching men and women how to limit their families to their means.
If the poor were not largely sex-ignorant, and were not over-ridden by
religious superstition, they would not have such families, and would
stand some chance of improving their condition. A working man with a
dozen children stands very little chance of raising himself out of the
squalor in which he was born. Give the same man one or two children,
and his energies could be spent in learning more, in rising, instead
of in the everlasting enervating struggle for enough bread to feed
the too-profuse mouths. The children would have a greater chance. Two
children put through high school are infinitely more valuable to the
state and the family than a dozen who are forced into sweat shops before
they are old enough to leave off playing dolls.
Here is where the women of today may help. Those who give an intelligent
interest to politics can, if they will, help the passage of bills that
will allow for sex education, and that will teach families not to have
more children than they can decently support. The general idea that all
women want children is an absurd fallacy. Most women have them because
they do not know how to prevent it. Certainly, the average man, given his
choice, would not elect to have a number of children, so that he could
have the privilege of slaving away his days to feed them.
Nor need the pessimists fear that this will lead to race suicide. The
average couple is glad enough to have two or three children, provided
they can support them adequately. If some of the economic load of the
present were lifted by a wise state legislation, most married persons
would be glad to raise a small family. It is the strain of too many
children that wears out the parents, and that reduces each child’s chance
for a happy, useful life.
_Moral Codes._—The double code of morality is one of the most insidious
weeds of our man-made civilization. By this code man is forgiven all of
the social sins; woman, none. This code has been rigidly enforced down
to the last twenty years, and is still largely favored in many places.
This amazing code allowed—rather expected—every young man to sow his wild
oats before his marriage. His escapades, provided they were carried on so
as not to appear too brazen, were condoned, and frequently encouraged.
But when he came to marry, regardless of how many unsavory affairs he
had indulged in, he demanded, and society backed him in this demand, a
pure, unsophisticated girl. Women, on the other hand, were required to
be absolutely pure and innocent, else their value as wives was gone. It
was insisted that the young girl sit by the fire and sew a fine seam
until some man came with the offer to transfer her to his fireside, to
continue the seam. If, as too frequently occurred, no man came, she must
decline into a sour spinsterhood, and give her energies to care of the
sick, or church suppers, with a sweet smile, while her vitals were gnawed
by the malignant cancer of ingrowing love-longing. Any girl, who by the
slightest gesture, stepped a fraction of an inch from this allotted
way, was immediately damned, and was thenceforth not a fit mate for any
“nice” man, but the prey of all men. If a girl yielded to unmarried
love, the river or prostitution were the delightful alternatives offered
her, and men and women united in maligning her. Surreptitiously, the men
changed their maledictions with the waning light of day. Needless to
say, since the human animal is removed by degree rather than kind from
his four-footed ancestors, there was a great demand for prostitutes. Men
could not satisfy their urge toward variety among the women of their
class, so they devised a system whereby they could keep their women
virtuous, and still enjoy the fruits of passion. The prostitute was
allowed to carry on her tragic trade, but was thrust into the lowest
depths of degradation.
With woman’s rising importance in the economic world, this double
standard will cease. Already it is showing signs of age. Woman has traded
the fragility of the hot-house rose for the sturdier wind-blown beauty of
the wild rose, and she has not suffered for it. The old legend that men
admired only the shy retiring girl has been shattered. The business girl
is not left to sit at home in the evening while her more simple sister is
wooed. Far from it—men are anxious to win the favor of these new women.
Nor do they ask for ignorance in them, nor decline to marry them when
they discover their knowledge of life. The modern girl, who accepts a
friendship if she wishes one, has no difficulty in finding a permanent
mate when she desires to. The time will come when the double code is
but an unpleasant memory of an incomplete civilization. Woman has the
choice. It is more probable, and will be infinitely more beneficial to
the race, that she will choose a single standard, whereby men and women
may be monogamous, if they desire, but may elect any other course that
is mutually agreeable. Under such a system, prostitution will wither,
or will be carried on only by those who select it voluntarily, and the
exploitation of young and innocent girls will end.
_Courtship._—The average person believes that courtship ends when the
minister brushes the bride’s cheek with his ecclesiastical lips. And this
belief is the rock on which marriage founders. The girl, once married,
is convinced that her life-work has been accomplished, so she ceases to
consider her new husband. How many young girls are there who would come
down to entertain her beau for the evening with frowsy hair, and in an
untidy house dress? Not one. When a young man is coming to call, the
girl primps and dresses in her most becoming frocks. She fixes her hair
smartly, powders, and looks as alluring as possible when she opens the
door for him. One year after they are married, the man comes in after a
weary day’s work and finds a dowdy woman, with wisps of hair streaking an
unpowdered face, through which a shiny nose gleams like a beaconlight.
When the beau comes wooing, the young girl sees that the living room is
neat and dusted. When the young husband returns in the evening, papers
may be lying about everywhere, the furniture undusted, and a general air
of unkemptness may prevail. We do not say this is universally true.
Fortunately it is not. But it has a wide enough prevalence to be worthy
of discussion. These same women complain bitterly that their husbands
come home and bury themselves in the paper, or do not come home at all,
or pay more heed to their business than to their wives. True, and can you
blame them? Far better to fasten their eyes upon neat black print than
upon a frowsy woman. It is this sort of carelessness that sends men to
billiard parlors, to poker games and to other women.
Of course there arises the cry of the old justification. Before marriage,
the woman had no house nor children to keep her busy all day. Cannot a
woman keep her house and herself clean and attractive at the same time?
A large number of women do do it, so all could. It is hard to understand
the psychology that is deep-rooted in many women and that allows them
to be slovenly. No one expects a woman, if she must do her own work, to
be attired in a party frock when her husband comes home in the evening.
But she can wear a simple pretty house dress, with a gay cretonne apron
over it, she can have her hair nicely arranged, and her face powdered.
If a woman must do her own work, she should live in a home small enough
for her to take care of, and still allow her time for herself. She
should not have so many small babies that every minute is occupied with
them. She should learn all of the simple labor-saving devices that make
housework easier. The home is the last place to be standardized. It is
no wonder that men become impatient with women, and conclude that they
are shiftless and brainless. If the same tactics were applied to business
universal bankruptcy would result. Housework can be standardized, and
should be. Once that women realize this, their labors will be cut in half.
The only way to make marriage a continual happiness is to continue the
courtship through life. Each party must make the effort to keep the
desire of the other alive and eager. Husband and wife must regard each
other as they did before marriage. This will not be hard if there was
true love to start with, and it will be infinitely worth while. Marriage
is not a thing to be lightly entered into and lightly cast aside. It
requires constant care on the part of each.
To be sure, if after these attempts to preserve the love of the
pre-marriage days, that love dies, it is better for the temper, health,
and morality of both parties to separate. But all other methods should be
adequately tried first.
IV. THE PROPER MATE.
_The Purpose of Marriage._—The essential thing to found a happy marriage
upon is the choice of a proper mate. Marriage, even from the most modern
standpoint, is something more than the satisfaction of the love desire.
It is an institution upon which all of our social life is founded. More
than that, it is the one undisputed method of gaining immortality. Men
and women live on in their children, their grandchildren, forever.
The perpetuity that they hand down must be the finest that they are
capable of. If two incompatible people marry and live together, they
give that incompatibility of temperament to all posterity. They bequeath
dissatisfaction, unrest, misery to the world, for it is an undisputed
fact that the children of unhappy couples are rarely rounded persons. So
it is no light matter to choose a fitting mate.
The perpetuation of the race is one of the deep fundamental principles of
marriage. It remains for each couple to see that their offering to this
end is the best that they can possibly make. From the standpoint of the
race, it is essential that only those who are fit should mate and give
children to the future.
The majority of matings are haphazard. A young woman chooses a husband
from among the men with whom she is thrown in contact. She cannot wait
until she has seen and known all the available men. Too often she takes
to the first one who pleases her. The economic independence of women
will alleviate this slightly. A young woman no longer needs to marry
in her earliest twenties. She can afford to wait. This gives her a
better chance of selection. But even with necessity for marrying early
removed, she knows little or nothing about the man she chooses. He is
attentive, dances well, is amusing, so she marries him. She does not stop
to consider his physical fitness to be the father of her children. Mere
passion too often determines the matter. This is a thing that comes very
easily, and on the crest of its urge, people marry. As easily it goes,
when there is no fundamental compatibility behind it. Then marriage is
wrecked. A young woman should not marry hastily, nor choose as a basis
of this estate the momentary thrill of a kiss, nor the charm of a man’s
dancing ability. We are not suggesting long tedious engagements, but as
deep a knowledge of the man as is possible before the girl enters into
matrimony with him.
_Eugenics._—The girl is confronted with the problem, What is the fitting
mate? Her own inclinations should be the first guide, but when they have
singled out a possible choice, she should bring common sense to their
aid. In general, all persons turn to their opposites. This is right.
Opposites in appearance and temperament are usually the most congenial.
This does not mean violent contrasts. A man who cares nothing for the
theater, dancing, social life should not pick a girl whose whole life is
bound up in these. If a woman feels immense or insistent love for a man
whom she knows is not a fit father for her children, she should either
forget the desired mating or the children. Eugenics, or the choice of
proper mates, is being more carefully studied from a scientific point of
view, and will ultimately be invaluable, at least as far as procreation
goes.
Eugenics is the science of improving the stock; of making the offspring
as nearly perfect as possible. It has been practiced in the breeding
of animals for a long time. Every farmer knows the value of having the
best cattle he can obtain, and having them, of mating his cows with
thoroughbred bulls. Yet people still shudder at the thought of applying
its principles to the human race. Its formulator, Francis Galton, defined
it as “the science which deals with all influences that improve the
inborn qualities of a race.” He further explained this idea and expanded
it, saying that the aim of eugenics is
to check the birthrate of the Unfit instead of allowing them
to come into being, though doomed in large numbers to perish
prematurely. The second object is the improvement of the race
by furthering productivity of the Fit, by early marriages and
healthful rearing of their children.
There is much to be said for and gainst the wholesale acceptance of this
theory. In essence, it imperils the personal selection for marriage; and
comes very close to being an officious attempt to interfere with human
freedom. Yet, it is gaining ground in the world’s legislation. To the
individual, it may seem to impose unnecessary hardships and restrictions;
but that is not its aim.
Extreme advocates of eugenics say flatly that “we should rather bring
the propagation of the race to the level of the stud-farm, than that it
should go on in the old haphazard way which surely leads to catastrophe.”
While we do not want science for domestic animals and chance for men,
the average thinking person will reject this stringent proposal. But
some middle course lies open. Legislation prohibiting certain matings
would be obnoxious, but certain laws making health attractive would
meet with approval. There are extreme cases when laws should act, not
to prohibit mating, but child-bearing. If the state should believe that
certain persons were absolutely unfit for parenting children, it is
possible, by a simple operation, to insure them against this, without
detriment to the health of either sex. There are times when this is
highly desirable. Switzerland, in ten years, largely abolished a certain
type of feeble-mindedness by this method. If science believes that such
traits as feeble-mindedness, insanity, epilepsy, dipsomania and syphilis
are inheritable in such proportions that prohibition of offspring should
be required, such a law should be resorted to.
But, since such laws are not at present prevalent, it remains for
each man and woman to choose wisely and healthily. If a young woman
is certain that she cannot be happy without mating with a man who is
consumptive, paralytic or inflicted with some other inheritable disease,
she should enter upon the marriage with a firm will against giving
birth to any children. This may seem a very harsh stricture, but if the
young woman will stop to realize that having children by such an unfit
father may carry on the disease in a worse form through her children or
grandchildren, she will grant the wisdom of the plan. No woman wants
deformed or unhealthy children. If she marries a man in such a condition,
she does it open-eyed, but to go through the trials of child-birth for
the sake of a life that will be marred by illness, is another matter. It
is not only unfair to the parents, but brutally unfair to the child. If
people would get over the idea that children owe all to their parents,
and come to realize how much parents owe to their children, they would
see the sense of such reasoning. After all, it is a great responsibility
to bring a life into the world. Remember that the person for whose life
you are responsible had no choice in the matter. You bring them here. It
is up to you to see that they arrive in a not too happy world, equipped
with every possible weapon to gain happiness. The children of unhealthy
parents are unfairly handicapped from the start.
_The Future of Eugenics._—Certain scientists do not regard eugenics as
simply as we have done. Bertrand Russell, in _Icarus_, is sure that
eugenics will become universal.
This power will be used, at first to diminish imbecility, a
most desirable object. But probably, in time, opposition to the
government will be taken to prove imbecility, so that rebels
of all kinds will be sterilized. Epileptics, consumptives,
dipsomaniacs and so on will gradually be included; in the end,
there will be a tendency to include all who fail to pass the
usual school examinations.
He believes that the result will increase the average intelligence, and
decrease brilliance.
Viscount Haldane, considered by some as a greater scientist, and a more
brilliant critic, indicates that eugenics may come in by a pleasanter
though more startling route. By 1950, he anticipates the production of
the first ectogenetic child, or child born from a womb withdrawn from the
mother’s body for all of the embryonic period. By a simple operation, he
prophesies that science will be able to remove an ovary from a woman,
and keep it growing in a suitable fluid for as long as twenty years,
producing a fresh ovum each month, of which 90 percent can be fertilized,
the embryos grown successfully, for nine months, and then brought out
into the air. Many nations will hail this movement because of the falling
birthrate that they are at present suffering from. He believes that
such an absolute separation of reproduction from love will make a deep
and profound effect upon morality. It will be possible then for each
generation to choose only the perfect parents to produce the coming
generation. There is much to be said in favor of this amazing idea, and
of course, a great deal to be said against it. But the ever-increasing
growth of intelligence will ultimately wipe out the majority of the
objections.
The foremost thinkers of today regard eugenics as a matter worthy of
their discussion and serious consideration. We offer what science may
suggest as possible solutions of the race problem. How the state and
country may regard these discoveries is another and quite unpredictable
matter. It is very probable that things will not advance as briskly as
these two quoted scientists anticipate. Nor need we be too much concerned
with the fate of 1950. It remains for each individual to give his and her
consent to adequate eugenic protection. Greater happiness will result
from a certainty that the parties to any marriage are fit for parenthood.
_Birth Control._—The chief reason why many people are against eugenics is
that it demands birth control. Many religions denounce this practice,
and in general the state is against it. No doctor is allowed to give
advice on this subject.
The very persons who shudder and brand any passion as animal, regard
promiscuous breeding as human. There is nothing more animal-like than
being merely a vehicle for breeding purposes. Yet that, according to the
laws of state and religion, is all that marriage is for.
This theory is expected to apply to the poor; it does not concern the
rich. Artificial methods of preventing conception are widely known among
those who could well afford to have children. In many localities it is
a crime to furnish this information. A doctor, though he knows that the
parents are unfit for parenthood, may not do anything to prevent the
birth of a child. The poor, therefore, who have the greatest need for the
information, cannot acquire it, in general.
Of course, any form of abortion, or killing the embryo after it has been
conceived in the womb, can be said to resemble murder. But the prevention
of conception is another matter. No actual life is being terminated; then
one is merely being prevented for the good of all concerned. One cannot
expect human beings to remain continually continent. This is unnatural
and wrong, to say nothing of being harmful to the parties concerned.
Ultimately, the stringent laws on this subject will be altered for the
general good of present generations and those yet unborn.
V. PROPER EDUCATION.
_In School._—The most outstanding error, the one most fraught with dire
consequences, is the taboo on sex, and the consequent silence upon
any matter pertaining to it. All life is dependent upon sex, and all
civilization is combined in an effort to make it appear non-existent by
ignoring it.
With silly sham codes and an absurd veil of surface morality, civilized
society blinds its eyes to sex, and tries to believe that in so doing it
is eradicating man’s most fundamental yearning. Naturally, it does no
such thing. But what does it do? If it were only a negative result that
it achieved, it would be hardly worthy of notice, and could be passed
over with a light laugh as a fond parent ignores the amusing make-believe
of a child. Such is not the case. The conventions and moral codes are
more deadly than a mere sop thrown out to soothe Rotarian consciences.
This smoke screen, released to blind the enemy, has deadened the eyes of
the defense, and left them open to the most insidious advances of their
declared foe. All that conventional morality has succeeded in doing is
promulgating an ignorance that is more devastating than anything the
most licentious knowledge could possibly foster. Young persons, reaching
maturity, blunder onto sex, blinded by ignorance. Small wonder that they
make so many grave mistakes. It is hard on both sexes, but harder on
girls. In spite of our broadening attitude, girls still pay the price of
ignorance in most communities. What chance has a young girl, brought up
to believe that she was dropped through the window by a stork, or that
her mother found her under a rose bush, when she goes out into a man-made
world? She has been taught to keep her boy friends at a proper distance,
but when she is alone, and lonely, she finds it not too hard to give the
first kiss. Once given, she can see no harm in it. Somehow it doesn’t
seem nearly as evil as her parents had told her it was. She does not
know that the kiss is a mere preliminary, and when she finally yields,
she does not realize the full import of her action. She has only blind
ignorance with which to defend herself from the world, only ignorance to
protect her from disease, or illegitimate motherhood.
Has this ignorance kept girls any purer? No. An appalling number of
babies are born to ignorant girls every year. The crime is not only
against the girl, but the baby, who comes into the world branded by the
stigma of illegitimacy. And society blames the girl for not knowing how
to take care of herself when all of the social energies have been united
to maintain her ignorance.
Perhaps the worst result of this sex-ignorance is prostitution. We wonder
how many people know where the recruits to this profession are gathered.
To be sure, there are some who enter it voluntarily, but they are few.
The great majority of them are innocent girls, usually from small towns
or country homes, who fall into the trap of some wily man, a trap not
baited by the man, but by the girl’s ignorance. Since this has been the
result of ignorance, is there a remedy? Yes, education.
Almost everything is taught in our schools today, from how to add two
and two to the theory of the fourth dimension. What is taught about sex?
In general, nothing. In most of the grade schools there is a course in
hygiene, but this assiduously avoids all mention of the most important
hygiene of all—sex-hygiene. There are courses which teach the structure
of the human body. They give long Latin names to each bone, from the
skull to the great toe. But, when they reach the central sections of
man’s anatomy, they hurriedly locate the stomach and intestines, and
rush on to the thigh bone, leaving a great void between. The reasons
for this are absurd. First there is the puritanical teaching that the
body is vile, and that any conversation about it is evil. But they do
not consider that head, shoulders, chest, thighs, feet are vile. Those
portions of the body are acceptable, even to puritan thinking. Only the
generative organs are banned. The second reason given for not teaching
sex in the schools is that the imparting of scientific information on the
subject will stimulate undesirable conduct on the part of the pupils.
The so-called undesirable conduct is participated in anyhow, and it is
rendered the more harmful through ignorance. The majority of intelligent
persons today realize the error of these taboos, but, when asked to
advocate sex-knowledge, they decline to support such a reform.
In the last few years there has been some advance made, through the
study of biology. The study of plant and animal life is an excellent
introduction to that of human life. This is particularly true of the
latter, of which human life is merely a more advanced stage. But it is to
be feared, that if the smug teachers of these subjects realized this they
would immediately expunge it from school curriculums. However, botany
and zoology are taught, and it behooves the student to give them careful
attention, as it is his only chance of learning anything about sex under
the present standards. There is no shame attached to conversation about
flowers, their seeding and blooming. We speak of pollen, stamen and
pistil without any maiden blushes. We learn of the promiscuity in nature
without raising horrified hands. The development of the young from the
fertilized ovum to the production of the seed and the plant gives a
symbolic picture to the mind of what she is to expect in the human world.
In zoology we come to the next step in this surreptitious learning. Here
certain things are regarded shameful by some persons. To the farmer,
there is nothing wrong in what a city person may think is not nice.
But the farmer would not regard with the same latitude similar human
functions. We do not blush when we speak of a chicken laying eggs,
nor of the pet cat’s litter of kittens. Even in the most fastidious
society anyone may with propriety call attention to a tom cat’s nightly
song of wooing. A clear knowledge of zoology will give any student
fair comprehension of her own sex-life. In the higher animals, the sex
functions almost parallel our own. Learned through these channels,
instead of through filthy gutter talk, sex unfolds itself to the youthful
mind as an interesting and natural phenomenon, divested of all shame and
guilt.
The third step in teaching sex in schools is in the study of human
physiology. At present this is a much-neglected subject. But, the time
will come when it is included in every school course. It can be taught to
segregated classes. No emphasis need be placed on the generative organs,
provided they are mentioned in their proper place. The tendency of the
pupils to giggle will disappear if the teacher is sufficiently cool and
detached. The teaching, to be valuable, must be comprehensive both as to
the organs, and their use and abuse.
_At Home._—The best place for a child to learn the proper facts of sex is
in the home. The right education at home is more than ever essential at
present, since there is no attempt to teach such matters in the schools.
But even when the schools have broadened to include this subject, it
should be fully and adequately discussed at home. This education should
begin as soon as the child manifests any curiosity on the subject. In
general, a child is still very young when she asks, “Where did I come
from?” The taboo-inhibited parent need not think that the child fully
accepts the threadbare stork or rosebush story. The child may ask for
fuller information, but more often, she merely remains silent. For
several years, she may learn nothing to contradict this story. But,
one day, through her reading or her companions, truth or near-truth
will come to her. It will have two deep effects upon her young mind.
First, it will start that hideous belief that there is something wrong
with sex, something evil about it, that prompted her parents to hide
it under a foolish legend. All right, that is what we want, the parent
may answer. But the second effect is such that no parent can desire. It
gives the child her first glimpse of deception, and breaks her faith in
her parents. Remember, that all of the child’s early training has been
to convince her that she must always tell the truth. She is punished for
lies and deceptions. Then, she suddenly discovers that these parents, who
taught her to speak the truth, have lied to her. She does not stop to
reason why, she only sees the fact. And a very disillusioning fact it is.
Very few parents realize that the art of lying is taught by themselves
while they are trying to instil truth as a virtue into the young mind.
Example is more powerful than words, or even punishment. The child learns
that the parents teach truth, then lie themselves. If the parents are
strict, and, by punishment, prevent the child from deception during its
childhood, the lesson she learns is only that force has the right of
deception. She comes to the conclusion that the elders can do as they
wish, and need not be honorable, and the lesson lingers.
How much better is the simple truth. Certainly no one advocates telling
a child all of the scientific facts that govern sex. But when the child
asks, tell her simply the truth, in a plain sweet manner. Tell her that
she was carried close under her mother’s heart, until she was big enough
to come out into the world. From this simple beginning, the story can be
filled in as the child’s mind grows old enough to understand.
This requires, first, proper knowledge on the part of the parent. It is
the duty of every woman who is a mother or who expects to become one,
to learn all of the facts about sex. This knowledge will have a twofold
value. It will assist in her own life, and will equip her properly to
answer her daughter’s questions.
When a girl enters adolescence, it is imperative that her mother tell
her frankly and without shame all of the details and practices of sexual
life. Knowledge is the best protection that any girl can have. The duty
of the wise parents is to enlighten their children fully about the
possible ways before them, and what good or ill will be won by following
each. The girl who has a thorough comprehension of these facts may be
depended upon in the majority of cases to decide far more wisely and
constructively problems connected with the sexual urge, than the girl who
is reared in blindness and receives such information as she gathers from
doubtful sources, thick with the slime of evil minds.
_Love Education._—The adolescent and the young woman will find this
information too elementary to be satisfactory. Love is more than a matter
of human psychology and its functioning. It is a very subtle art. There
must be, ultimately, education in the art of love. The savage races all
believed in this. The ceremonies of initiation that were held at the time
of puberty of the young men and women, were merely the culmination of an
education in love-making that was given frankly and openly in all the
tribe. These practices still prevail among such tribes as have evaded the
missionaries.
The average man or woman, barring such stray and frequently fouled hints
as he receives from friends and companions equally ignorant, enters upon
marriage with no understanding of what he is called upon to do. When the
daughter of a nice respectable family marries, she is, presumably at
least, a virgin. The young man may or may not be; the assumption being
that he is not. His sexual knowledge has been gained through prostitutes
and “common girls.” More often he has no idea what to do. The girl, we
repeat, is virginal. She is not supposed to have any but the most vague
ideas on the subject. If the girl really has no knowledge of men, she is
shy. Naturally, the largest part of the burden falls upon the man. But
the girl should know in advance what sex means. If she does know, it will
do a great deal to dissipate her unnecessary shyness.
We repeat, love is an art. The girl must realize that she may suffer a
tremendous shock which will render her frigid for life. Medical records
are black with the countless cases where the experiences of the nuptial
night have wrecked the whole subsequent content of the woman, and
in extreme cases, her reason. Young wives who commit suicide on the
honeymoon are frequently so impelled by the man’s initial and usually
quite unconscious brutality. Love is an art, calling for infinite tact on
the part of both the man and the woman.
It will require an immense change in modern conceptions before any
wholesale education in the art of love can be given in this country.
None the less, it is indispensable to right living and happy loving. It
remains for the wise individual to educate herself, by extensive reading
of literature upon the subject, and by a personal contact with those in
a position to know. It is an idealistic dream to hope for such education
now. But, we can be optimistic, for the history of any radical idea is
that it has been proposed, hooted at, persecuted, and finally adopted.
VI. THE PRICE OF ERROR.
_Youthful Restraint._—While full sex-knowledge is advised at an early
age, sexual practices are by no means so desirable. The adolescent girl
should save her strength until she has acquired full bodily maturity.
This is best, not only for herself, but for her children. The children
of immature women are, in nine cases out of ten, weaklings. The girl is
not bodily prepared for this great strain. She has not enough strength
of body or mind to give to the proper development of the child she is
carrying. Since the girl herself is not fully grown, since her mind
is young and still largely unformed, and her body just stepping out
of childhood and groping toward womanhood, how can she expect to give
birth to a child fully equipped with all the potentialities of ripe
maturity? The offspring of girls are necessarily more than immature,
since, obviously, the child cannot possess more than its parents give it.
Therefore, self-restraint, during the body-forming period of adolescence,
is the only way of securing a rounded flowering into womanhood, and the
surety of healthy children.
Sexual restraint during adult life is an entirely different matter.
There is a certain misguided medical backing available to support
the theory that men and women can abstain for life without damage to
them. There are occasional high bloodless ascetics who can change the
suppressed desire into a mysticism soothing to themselves and to others
of the race. But for the average man and woman, a life of abstinence is
a physiological crime. Such people are warped and twisted out of any
chance of normal happiness. Such living runs diametrically opposite to
the true physiological needs implanted in every human being. On a large
scale, it is suicidal to the race; individually, it is destructive of
a rounded normal development. The woman who remains denied for life
acquires all the caricatured attributes of the “old maid.” She acquires
a sour disposition, and is the bitterest gossip concerning even the
normal sexual practices of other women. She is the waspish snappy school
teacher to whom the guiding of the youthful mind is assigned, with
ultimate harm to it. In both men and women, a life of abstinence is worse
than a mistake: it is, in its truest sense, a perversion.
While abstinence for life is unnatural, there is still another reason,
beyond the purely physical inadvisability, for abstinence during
adolescence. This reason has to do with the mental side of love, as well
as the physical. Young people, stepping into the dawn of love-life, are
naturally prone to fasten their affections on the first person they see.
Or, at least, to fall in love easily, and lightly. The normal girl yields
to a series of tentative love illusions before she meets with a man who
is fitted to become a husband for whom her love will be more or less
permanent. The adolescent girl falls madly in love with a man because
he is a “divine dancer,” because his hair curls in a provocative way,
because of a thousand transient reasons, none of which is a good basis
for future marital happiness. Even if the cause of her love is founded
on a firmer reason, even if the young man she loves is in every way
compatible to her eighteen-year-old psychology, it is unwise to marry
so early. He may be everything desirable in the eyes of the young girl,
they may like the same things, have the same tastes in literature, etc.,
but, still, waiting is wiser. For, the man who completely satisfies the
eighteen-year-old girl may fall far below the standards of the same girl,
when she views him from the pinnacle of twenty-five. The adolescent
girl is unformed mentally as well as physically. Her standards are
necessarily much lower than they will be five or more years later. She
cannot be expected, nor is she able, to look ahead toward the time when
her judgments will be matured, and to choose accordingly. We repeat that
self-restraint is to be greatly desired during the adolescent years.
In general, no girl of today should marry before she is twenty-five. She
can safely wait until she is thirty. By the time she is twenty-five,
she has reached a maturity of judgment that will allow her to choose
a permanent mate with whatever wisdom she can bring to bear upon the
subject. By that time, she is able to find men several years older than
herself more companionable, and this is as it should be. The young girl,
while she may have occasional “crushes” on older men, seeks her friends
and companions from among the boys who are of her own age. Her regard for
older men is more hero-worship than real affection. This would lead her,
if she chose a mate during these formative years, to pick one from among
the boys of her own age. And this is wrong. Men age much less rapidly
than women. Women are older by intuition and psychology than men. Theirs
is the burden of the future of the race, which may account for their
more adult attitude. So that, if a couple marry when they are nineteen
or twenty, and are the same age, ten years later the woman will be much
more mature in her outlook on life than the man of the same age. Here is
where the first seeds of discord are sown. Whereas, if the girl waits
until she is twenty-five, she has had time to realize this fact, and has
already altered her ideas concerning men, and chooses for her friends
men who are three, four, or even ten years older than herself. A girl
of twenty-five marrying a man of thirty stands a much better chance of
achieving permanent happiness than a girl of the same age marrying a man
of equal years.
Self-control during adolescence can be acquired without any unpleasant
effects, and without seeming a burden upon the young people. A
whole-hearted indulgence in all types of athletic exercise goes a long
way toward draining off the erotic energy crying elsewhere for direct
liberation. A devotion to any branch of learning, a hobby of any kind,
acquaintance with the world of nature, all these keep the mind in safer
channels. On the other hand, the way to stimulate these undesirable
emotions is attendance at suggestive shows, reading licentious books, and
indulging in giggled conversations with other girls upon the subject of
sex. The current tendency for young girls toward drinking is also bad,
since it stimulates the erotic energy. The wise young girl will avoid
all this, not prudishly, but calmly and intelligently, until she has
stored her body with the wealth of physical strength and her mind with
the wealth of counter-irritating knowledge. The average young girl does
most of these things because she fears the ridicule of her companions if
she refuses. Her answer can be simple. If she calmly points out that she
knows all of the decent facts about sex, and therefore does not need the
insinuated half-knowledge that pornographic plays and books give, she
will gain the respect, not the mockery, of her friends.
_Over-Indulgence._—Over-indulgence, in anything, is the gravest and
almost the only sin, from the standpoint of the individual. If the young
girl eats too much of her favorite sweet, she is almost sure to pay for
it by stomach ache, or indigestion. This stands equally true for all
ages. We have mentioned onanism. To be sure, most adults deny this fact,
and lyingly state that such was not the habit when they were young. How
much better, then, to admit it as a part of all youthful experience, and
combat it wisely and intelligently, and not to raise horrified hands,
and make the young person feel that she has committed a heinous crime,
the more dreadful because she is the first offender? The wisest and best
course is to avoid onanism altogether. If that is not possible, at first,
go in vigorously for physical and mental distractions, and rigorously
control it, until such a time as you can entirely end it.
Over-indulgence in intercourse is just as costly. This may either be
socially illicit intercourse, or intercourse in the marital state. At
times a married couple contains one or both members with a tendency
toward nymphomania, or excessive desire for men, in the woman, or toward
satyriasis, or excessive desire for women in the man. If the tendency
is too powerful, society is saved, because the parties so weaken
themselves that reproduction is impossible, and death or complete mental
or physical incapacity results. If it is merely a tendency, it should
and must be controlled. Every man and every woman must determine for
himself and herself the frequency of intercourse. Women, in general, are
less harmed by excess than men are. But this does not mean that women
cannot carry it to excess. There is less chance for her doing it, if she
confines her life to one man than if she chooses many men. The general
result of a woman’s over-indulgence is weakened nervous conditions, which
may even terminate in a complete mental breakdown, or in insanity.
_Venereal Diseases._—The two chief venereal diseases are gonorrhea and
syphilis. So far, we have voiced a loud outcry against popular lies
concerning sex. Now we will consider another of these lies, as harmful
as any of the previous ones: namely, that gonorrhea is “no worse than a
cold.” This is commonly accepted among most men and many women, and many
a good-hearted old family doctor will reassure the troubled young man
or woman with the same poisonous mental soothing syrup. Gonorrhea, once
contracted, is extremely difficult to eradicate. Many a man, acquiring it
from a prostitute or promiscuous woman, has infected his innocent wife;
many a man has infected an otherwise clean woman. Worse, many an innocent
girl, thinking because her friend is a gentleman and nice in every way,
has only to be repaid by this disease.
There is a greater penalty than this attached to the disease. The germs
of the disease often attack the eyes of children of parents one or both
of whom are afflicted with the disease. Twenty-five percent of all cases
of blindness are attributed to gonorrhea. This blindness of children is
one of the by-products of a disease casually dismissed as “no worse than
a cold.”
Syphilis, the other chief venereal disease, has been called by eugenists
one of the racial poisons. Any competent medical treatise will go into
details concerning its three stages, its powerful hold, once contracted,
and the details of symptoms and the long, painful and expensive method
of cure. We will only point out that it causes general debility, affects
every tissue and organ, causes skin and bone diseases, as well as
arterial diseases. In its later stages it produces paralysis, blindness,
deafness, disorders of speech, mental enfeeblement, and locomotor ataxia
(a wasting disease of the spinal cord). And this does not exhaust the
list. The penalty of careless pleasure is costly.
Fortunately, the governments of the world are now taking a hand in
eradicating this worst of all diseases. In its first stages, a cure is
comparatively sure; in the later stages, the case is often hopeless.
VII. IDEALISM.
_Chastity._—The average mind defines chastity as abstinence; in this
sense, lifelong chastity is, in most cases, a perversion. The dictionary
defines it as “pure from all unlawful sexual intercourse.” This gives
rise to the question as to what is unlawful. Charlotte Perkins Gilman
has accurately defined chastity, “not abstinence, but selection.” In this
sense, chastity is a virtue.
Most intelligent persons are willing to recognize that our moral
standards are changing. They are changing now at a greater rate than they
have for the last thousand years. Woman is responsible. It has taken that
long and longer for her to acquire enough inner power to set on foot the
forces that could liberate her from her world-wide subjection to man and
his laws. Now the forces have been liberated, and the woman of the future
will be a freer, finer and better rounded human being than the woman of
the dark past was. She has acquired education, a share in the knowledge
of the universe in which she lives. She has acquired a sounder body, more
fit to bear strong children. She has acquired a strong, well-functioning
mind, thereby giving a better heritage of mental aptitude to her
offspring, and thereby making herself more fit as a mother to help them
in their formative years. She has acquired at least a partial control
over the essential purse-strings. She can no longer be bought and sold as
a horse.
She has at last managed to toss aside the old double standard of
morality. Now she can demand of her mate either complete monogamy for
both, or her right to share in whatever laxity he demands.
_Sexual Morality, Present and Future._—The keynote of the new sexual
morality is freedom on both sides. This means, first, freedom from
financial considerations. Love is a deep-rooted instinct, whose fruition
means years or a lifetime of happiness or unhappiness for the individuals
concerned, and the creation, of the men and women of the future. None
of these are purchasable commodities. A man cannot buy a woman’s love,
nor a child of his own breeding to do him honor; neither can either sex
sell these delights. But, in point of fact, this is just what is done in
many cases today, and is what was the common procedure of fifty years
ago. Under the dying regime, a woman had to marry for the best home and
support she could get. There was no other way open to her to obtain these
things. A man knew he could have the best of women for his wife, if he
could pay the price of her support. If a man was poor, he must accept
accordingly. Men bought women to live with and to mother their children;
women traded their loveliness for comfort and ease. Neither could buy
love, and neither ever found it, unless the man found it in his mistress.
But even then, under this ancient order, a man’s mistress looked with
fonder eyes upon his checkbook than upon his face. Why men chose this
beastly course is more than inexplicable, but they did, and it was
entirely of their own making.
Women have a different idea on the subject. They have felt the horror
of the man-made way, and have struggled to end it. They have seen that
the first step toward any equality was to gain economic equality, and
they have wisely fought for that first. Now, they have just achieved it.
Woman, as a class, has achieved financial equality with man. This leaves
them free to set love, and love alone, as a standard of choice for a
mate. The result cannot fail to be wholesomely uplifting to the entire
race. Love is gradually coming to be experienced for love only, and not
for money.
The next revolutionary step is the realization that marriages are not
sponsored by a group of bodiless cherubs, sitting on some remote cloud
in heaven, but are of the earth, earthy, and are consequently human
relationships, of a contractural nature, which may be terminated like
any other human relationship. Our whole method of mating is haphazard
in the extreme; there is no provision for adequate knowledge of the
proposed partner; there is no certainty that this woman or man, thrown in
contact with that man or woman through proximity or unplanned causes, is
a human organism so sensitive physically, mentally, and spiritually that
it can co-operate helpfully with its mate. Men and women are doomed to
make mistakes. We are all willing to admit these mistakes in any field
other than the love field, and would hold a man a fool if he remained
under business contract with a partner absolutely unfitted to associate
with him in that particular enterprise. Yet, we expect persons who make
mistakes in the matrimonial field to stick it out, regardless of the
unfitness of either member of the agreement.
It remains for the new morality to propose a dignified way of terminating
such errors. At the present time, the divorce laws hold in practice
that the man and woman who realize their unfitness for each other, and
determine to secure a divorce, are criminals, guilty of collusion; this
at least is the law in many states and nations. Certain states hold that
the “guilty party” in a divorce action may not remarry. One party to
the action must be considered, legally at least, a social pariah before
any termination of the marital vows will be allowed. This is more than
absurd, it is brutal. Divorce laws in harmony with the new morality will
permit a man and woman, who have erred in their love choice, to part as
friends, rather than as enemies, and will leave no stigma of shame upon
either of them, nor any restrictions as to their future actions.
The third, and most radical plan of the new morality, at least from the
purist point of view, will allow for companionate matings. If a man
or woman, having carefully considered what may be lost or gained by a
wider type of love relationships, determines to risk the experiments
without taking advantage of other women or men, this is an individual
choice; and the new morality, in all matters, is giving the individual
as much intelligent choice as it can, consonant with social safety. Such
adventures are like laboratory experiments in eugenics for the good of
the race; they may result in unhappiness, but the very discovery that
unhappiness has resulted is a social fact which may aid future decisions.
There will be no blame attached to the experiment if it fails, no insult
visited upon the participators. If the reverse is true, and happiness
results, this is also a social fact which may aid future decisions. In
any event, it will be regarded as a legitimate experiment, attaching
praise rather than blame on those who, in the full possession of their
faculties, and after mature consideration, enter upon it.
The first question to arise, in connection with this idea, is that of
the home and the children. Neither of these, in their present condition,
are matters of unusual human glory. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s extended
studies of each are recommended for reading. They offer a new and
intelligent slant upon our homes and our child-rearing. Motherhood is
unquestionably a great benefit to society. It is of greater value to
society than to the individual. Motherhood pensions and similar remedies
are steps toward a social repayment of this benefit. These matters are
all experimental. It is not suggested that any young couple start to
put them into immediate practice. The important thing is to realize
their imminence, and to regard them with something of a scientific
detachment, rather than with a bitter bias and prejudice. All of these
absurd prejudices are alien to human instincts, and are based upon Moses’
translation of thundering over a mountain top. We are tending toward
efficiency in all human concerns upon the industrial field; let us tend
also upon the extension of efficiency to matters concerning the home.
Woman’s work in the home will not always remain the low domestic thing
that it is. Scientific information and the aid of experts are invaluable
in home management and child-rearing, no less than in the rotation of
crops and the development of fatter hogs and slimmer dahlia stems.
Child rearing will some day be included in matters where efficiency and
modern methods will prevail. This may very well involve some form of
institutional raising. If such is the case, it will be wise to understand
in advance that this will date from a period when our culture is
determined by human beings more than by money; and that the institutions
of the future will be administered by those who today make a success of
their individual establishments, rather than by those who today make a
failure of the institutions entrusted to their care. Against this theory,
most persons advance the objection that the majority of present day
institutions are failures. This does not necessarily imply that those of
the future, once wisely conceived, and adequately run, will be failures.
There was a time when any man could start a small furnace and manufacture
steel, if he wished to. Each small manufacturer competed with another
equally small. Some produced good material, others poor. Would anyone
suggest that the U. S. Steel Company be returned to that condition? So
will people of the future, when enlightenment has come to them, realize
the advantages accruing from specialized rearing of children by competent
persons, over the present haphazard system.
There are comparatively few women who are fitted for maternity. It
requires more than love. It requires tact, patience, infinite interest in
the small minds. Not one woman in one hundred is so equipped. Nor, would
fifty percent of the women of today choose maternity, if they thought
they could reject it honorably. Women become mothers, in at least fifty
percent of the cases, first because they do not know how to avoid it,
second because they believed it a social obligation. Many mothers never
learn to love their children, consequently, their care of them is a
drudgery that is ruinous to parent and child alike.
In this one matter of the home, woman is remaining backward. She has
accepted all other advances, but she will not learn to systematize her
home. She hoots at all scientific advice. There have been institutions
working for years to lighten woman’s labor in the home, and not one
woman in a thousand has accepted their findings. Most women sacrifice
their lives to household drudgery, toiling daily over scrub board, mop,
and stove, despite the fact that even now, all of this work can be cut
in half by a small amount of systematizing, and the use of scientific
appliances. The day will come, however, when woman will be converted to
these things, and then her life will be freer for other enjoyment.
_The Purity Ideal._—Nine out of ten of the women who accept the ideal of
virginity as that of purity have no idea where this delusion originated.
The theory of woman’s innocence and purity was launched during the days
of chivalry. Even modern women have a soft spot in their hearts for
chivalry. What was it? Was it the high and noble Galahad belief that
women were superior spiritual beings, far above the touch of mere man?
If so, man’s actions have never proved it. It was not. In a few words,
men put women on a so-called pedestal, not to worship her, but to keep
her from seeing what they were doing. They told her the world was a low
place, and they would shield her from it, and women, blinded by flattery,
fell for the hoax. Men have never really reverenced women. A few have
reverenced one woman, mother, wife or sister. But the fundamental
reason for their so doing was not to do honor to her, but to keep her
ignorant of what they were doing. Men realized, either consciously or
unconsciously, that they could rule the world only so long as women were
ignorant of its customs and habits. An ignorant foe is no foe. Therefore,
so long as women were kept in ignorance, they could not threaten man’s
supremacy.
Face this fact, all women. Stop yielding to the silly, hypocritical sham
of chivalry, and your progress in man’s world will be made in rapid,
shining strides.
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