Part 14 (2/2)
”Reason and experience both show that s.e.xual relations at the menstrual period are very dangerous to both man and woman, and perhaps also for the offspring, should there chance to be conception.”[23]
[Footnote 23: Mayer.]
The woman suffers from the congestion and nervous excitement which occur at the most inopportune moment possible. Man may suffer physical injury, though there are no grounds for the a.s.sertions of Pliny that the menstrual blood is so potent for evil that it will, by a mere touch, rust iron, render a tree sterile, make dogs mad, etc., or that of Paracelsus that ”of it the devil makes spiders, fleas, caterpillars, and all the other insects that people the air.”
Effects upon Offspring.--That those guilty of the transgression should suffer, seems only just; but that an innocent being who had no part in the sin--no voice in the time or manner of its advent into the world--that such a one should suffer equally, if not more bitterly, with the transgressors themselves, seems anything but just. But such is nature's inexorable law, that the iniquities of the parents shall be visited upon the children; and this fact should be a most powerful influence to prevent parental transgression, especially in this direction, in which the dire consequences fall so heavily and so immediately upon an innocent being.
Says Acton, ”The ill effects of marital excesses are not confined to offending parties. No doubt can exist that many of the obscure cases of sickly children, born of apparently healthy parents, arise from this cause; and this is borne out by investigations amongst animals.”
Breeders of stock who wish to secure sound progeny will not allow the most robust stallion to a.s.sociate with mares as many times during the whole season as some of these salacious human males perform a similar act within a month. One reason why the offspring suffer is that the seminal fluid deteriorates very rapidly by repeated indulgence. The spermatozoa do not have time to become maturely developed. Progeny resulting from such immature elements will possess the same deficiency.
Hence the hosts of deformed, scrofulous, weazen, and idiotic children which curse the race, and testify to the sensuality of their progenitors.
Another reason is the physical and nervous exhaustion which the parents bring upon themselves, and which totally unfits them to beget sound, healthy offspring.
The effects of this evil may often be traced in a large family of children, nearly all of whom show traces of the excesses of their parents. It commonly happens, too, that such large families are on the hands of poor men who cannot earn enough to give them sufficient food and comfortable clothing, with nothing whatever to provide for their education. The overburdened mother has her strength totally exhausted by the excessive demands upon her system incident to child-bearing, so that she is unable to give her children that culture and training which all children need. More than as likely as not she feels that they were forced upon her, and hence she cannot hold for them all that tender sympathy and affection a mother should feel. The little ones grow up ignorant and often vicious; for want of home care drives them to the street. Thus does one evil create another.
It is certainly a question which deserves some attention, whether it is not a sin for parents to bring into the world more children than they can properly care for. If they can rear and educate three children properly, the same work would be only half done for six; and there are already in the world a sufficiency of half-raised people. From this cla.s.s of society the ranks of thieves, drunkards, beggars, vagabonds, and prost.i.tutes, are recruited. Why should it be considered an improper or immoral thing to limit the number of children according to the circ.u.mstances of the parents? Ought it not to be considered a crime against childhood and against the race to do otherwise? It is seriously maintained by a number of distinguished persons that man ”is in duty bound to limit the number of his children as well as the sheep on his farm; the number of each to be according to the adequacy of his means for their support.”
Indulgence during Pregnancy.--Transgressions of this sort are followed by the worst results of any form of marital excess. The mother suffers doubly, because laden with the burden of supporting two lives instead of one. But the results upon the child are especially disastrous. During the time when it is receiving its stock of vitality, while its plastic form is being molded, and its various organs acquiring that integrity of structure which makes up what is called const.i.tutional vigor,--during this most critical of all periods in the life of the new being, its resources are exhausted and its structure depraved--and thus const.i.tutional tendencies to disease produced--by the unnatural demands made upon the mother.
Effect upon the Character.--Still another terrible consequence results from this practice so contrary to nature. The delicate brain, which is being molded, with the other organs of the body, receives its cast largely from those mental and nervous sensations and actions of the mother which are the most intense. One of the most certain effects of s.e.xual indulgence at this time is to develop abnormally the s.e.xual instinct in the child. Here is the key to the origin of much of the s.e.xual precocity and depravity which curse humanity. Sensuality is born in the souls of a large share of the rising generation. What wonder that prost.i.tution flourishes in spite of Christianity and civil law?
It is scarcely necessary to say that all medical testimony concurs in forbidding indulgence during gestation. The same reasons require its interdiction during the nursing period. The fact that fecundation would be impossible during pregnancy, and that during this period the female, normally, has no s.e.xual desire, are other powerful arguments in favor of perfect continence at this time.
We quote the following from a work on health by Dr. J. R. Black:--
”Coition during pregnancy is one of the ways in which the predisposition is laid for that terrible disease in children, epilepsy. The unnatural excitement of the nervous system in the mother by such a cause cannot operate otherwise than by inflicting injury upon the tender germ in her womb. This germ, it must be remembered, derives every quality it possesses from the parents, as well as every particle of matter of which it is composed. The old notion of anything like spontaneity in the development of the qualities of a new being is at variance with all the latest facts and inductions concerning reproduction. And so is that of a creative fiat. The smallest organic cell, as well as the most complicated organism, in form and quality, is wholly dependent upon the laws of derivation.
”These laws are competent to explain, however subtle the ultimate process may be, the great diversities of human organization and character. Impressions from without, the emotions, conduct, and play of the organic processes within, are never alike from day to day, or from hour to hour; and it is from the aggregate of these in the parents, but especially of those in the mother immediately before and after conception, that the quality of the offspring is determined. Suppose, then, that there is every now and then an unnatural, excited, and exhausted state of the nervous system produced in the mother by excessive cohabitation, is it any wonder that the child's nervous system, which derives its qualities from those of its parents, should take its peculiar stamp from that of the parent in whom it lives, moves, and has its being?
”In the adult, epilepsy is frequently developed by excessive venery; and the child born with such a predisposition will be exceedingly liable to the disease during its early years when the nervous system is notoriously p.r.o.ne to deranged action from very slight disturbing causes.
”The infringement of this law regulating intercourse during pregnancy also reacts injuriously upon the mental capacity of the child, tending to give it a stupid, animalized look; and, there is also good reason to believe, aids in developing the idiotic condition.”
A Selfish Objection.--The married man will raise the plea that indulgence is to him a necessity. He has only to practice the principles laid down for the maintenance of continence to entirely remove any such necessity should there be the slightest semblance of a real demand.
Again, what many mistake for an indication of the necessity for indulgence, to relieve an acc.u.mulation of s.e.m.e.n, is in fact, to state the exact truth, but a call of nature for a movement of the bowels.
How this may occur, has already been explained, as being due to the pressure of the distended r.e.c.t.u.m upon the internal organs of generation situated at the base of the bladder. It is for this reason, chiefly, that a good share of s.e.xual excesses occur in the morning.
But, aside from all other considerations, is it not the most supreme selfishness for a man to consider only himself in his s.e.xual relations, making his wife wholly subservient to his own desires? As a learned professor remarks, in speaking of woman, ”Who has a right to regard her as a therapeutic agent?”
Brutes and Savages More Considerate.--It is only the civilized, Christianized (?) male human being who complains of the restraint imposed upon him by the laws of nature. The untutored barbarian, even some of the lowest of those who wear the human form, together with nearly all of the various cla.s.ses of lower animals, abstain from s.e.xual indulgence during pregnancy. The natives of the Gold Coast and many other African tribes regard it as a shameful offense to cohabit during gestation. In the case of lower animals, even when the male desires indulgence, the female resents any attempt of the sort by the most vigorous resistance.
Are not these wholesome lessons for that portion of the human race which professes to represent the acc.u.mulated wisdom, intelligence, and refinement of the world? Those who need reproof on this point may reflect that by a continuance of the evil practice they are placing themselves on a plane even below the uncouth negro who haunts the jungles of Southern Africa.
We quote the following from the pen of a talented professor in a well-known medical college:--
”I believe we cannot too strenuously insist upon this point--that s.e.xual intercourse should never be undertaken with any other object than procreation, and never then unless the conditions are favorable to the production of a new being who will be likely to have cause to thankfully bless his parents for the gift of life. If this rule were generally observed, we should have no broken-nosed Tristram Shandys complaining of the carelessness of their fathers in begetting them.”[24]
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