This man, accustomed all his life to gratify his sexual passions promisculously, marries a virtuous young girl.  In her menstrual periods she has had to do only with the secondary phenomena; with the expulsion of the ova not at all.  She has had no instruction in the corresponding physiologic life of the man, and is astonished at the male sexual indications, and is led to believe in their physiologic necessities.  The result is that she not only suffers physically, but feels outraged and disgraced.  She is liable to the chance of maternity at any time; and such offspring will probably be sickly.

Passion is presented to the young wife in so hideous a guise that it will take the utmost consideration of her husband afterward to enable her to completely overcome her repugnance.  If she be worn and weary of excesses in the early days of her married life, the husband will have only himself to blame if he is bound all his life to an apathetic and irresponsive wife.  Husbands place great strains upon the affections of their wives, and lower themselves almost past reinstatement in their respect and esteem.

Lastly, on what scientific basis does this “physilogic necessity” for sexual gratification on the part of the male rest?  Analogy with the lower animals does not bear it out.  Among animals, except in rare instances under domestication, the female admits the male in sexual embrace only for procreation.  Among many savage tribes this same rule has but few exceptions.  The analogies between the male and the female sexual organs; between seminal emissions and menstruation; between the sexual life of the male and of the female, only go to accentuate the fact that this so-called physiologic necessity on the part of the male has arisen chiefly through the difference of education; so that it has come to be that the woman is chaste and the man is degraded; that the woman is too sentimental and the man too passionate.  From a purely medical standpoint, the most eminent physicians and physiologists of the day all unite in advocating a chaste and continent life, simply for the sake of the man’s own health, independently of all other considerations.

Times when Marital Relations Should be Suspended.—­ The marital relations should always be suspended during the menstrual period.  During pregnancy intercourse should never, or at least very rarely, be indulged in.  At this time the mother needs to conserve all her strength and energies for herself and child; and any sexual relations during this time increase the sufferings of the mother and impair the vitality of the child.  It has been even suggested that much of the pain during parturition would be avoided by entire continence during pregnancy.  Intercourse during the early months of pregnancy is a frequent cause of abortion.  Women who have supposed that they have never been pregnant have in reality been having abortions every second or third month.

A woman should never be subjected to coitus until three months after delivery.  During lactation intercourse should never, or at least very rarely, be indulged in; as the function of lactation makes a heavy drain on the strength of the mother, and anything which would further weaken her would tend to impoverish the quality of the milk and thus the child would suffer.