6 files changed, 4176 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/78407-0.txt b/78407-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6875c6a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/78407-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,1593 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78407 ***
+
+
+
+
+                         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.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78407 ***
diff --git a/78407-h/78407-h.htm b/78407-h/78407-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..aa65c37
--- /dev/null
+++ b/78407-h/78407-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,2567 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html>
+<html lang="en">
+<head>
+    <meta charset="UTF-8">
+    <title>
+      Womanhood: The Facts of Life Revealed to Women | Project Gutenberg
+    </title>
+    <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover">
+    <style>
+
+a {
+    text-decoration: none;
+}
+
+body {
+    margin-left: 10%;
+    margin-right: 10%;
+}
+
+h1,h2 {
+    text-align: center;
+    clear: both;
+}
+
+h2.nobreak {
+    page-break-before: avoid;
+}
+
+hr.chap {
+    margin-top: 2em;
+    margin-bottom: 2em;
+    clear: both;
+    width: 65%;
+    margin-left: 17.5%;
+    margin-right: 17.5%;
+}
+
+div.chapter {
+    page-break-before: always;
+}
+
+p {
+    margin-top: 0.5em;
+    text-align: justify;
+    margin-bottom: 0.5em;
+    text-indent: 1em;
+}
+
+table {
+    margin: 1em auto 1em auto;
+    max-width: 40em;
+    border-collapse: collapse;
+}
+
+td {
+    padding-left: 2.25em;
+    padding-right: 0.25em;
+    vertical-align: top;
+    text-indent: -2em;
+    text-align: justify;
+}
+
+.sub {
+    padding-left: 3.75em;
+}
+
+.tdr {
+    text-align: right;
+}
+
+.tdpg {
+    vertical-align: bottom;
+    text-align: right;
+}
+
+blockquote {
+    margin: 1.5em 10%;
+}
+
+.hanging {
+    padding-left: 3em;
+    text-indent: -2em;
+}
+
+.larger {
+    font-size: 150%;
+}
+
+.noindent {
+    text-indent: 0;
+}
+
+.pagenum {
+    position: absolute;
+    right: 4%;
+    font-size: smaller;
+    text-align: right;
+    font-style: normal;
+}
+
+.smaller {
+    font-size: 80%;
+}
+
+.titlepage {
+    text-align: center;
+    margin-top: 3em;
+    text-indent: 0;
+}
+
+.x-ebookmaker blockquote {
+    margin: 1.5em 5%;
+}
+    </style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78407 ***</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage">LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. <span class="larger">846</span><br>
+Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage larger">Womanhood: The Facts of<br>
+Life Revealed to Women</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage">Gloria Goddard</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage">HALDEMAN-JULIUS PUBLICATIONS<br>
+GIRARD, KANSAS</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage">Copyright, 1927,<br>
+Haldeman-Julius Company</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage smaller">PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="INDEX">INDEX</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<table>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+    <td></td>
+    <td class="tdpg">Page</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">I.</td>
+    <td>The Opening Door of Womanhood</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#I_THE_OPENING_DOOR_OF_WOMANHOOD">5</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="sub">Adolescence</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Adolescence">5</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="sub">Essential Education</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Essential_Education">8</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="sub">Adolescent Training</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Adolescent_Training">11</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">II.</td>
+    <td>The Origin of Love</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#II_THE_ORIGIN_OF_LOVE">16</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="sub">Natural Love</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Natural_Love">18</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="sub">Romantic Love</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Romantic_Love">19</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="sub">Marital Love</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Marital_Love">20</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="sub">The Pyschological View of Love</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#The_Psychological_View_of_Love">21</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">III.</td>
+    <td>Mating</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#III_MATING">23</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="sub">Woman’s Equality</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Womans_Equality">23</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="sub">The Right of Choice</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#The_Right_of_Choice">25</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="sub">The Child Problem</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#The_Child_Problem">27</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="sub">Moral Codes</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Moral_Codes">29</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="sub">Courtship</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Courtship">31</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">IV.</td>
+    <td>The Proper Mate</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#IV_THE_PROPER_MATE">33</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="sub">The Purpose of Marriage</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#The_Purpose_of_Marriage">33</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="sub">Eugenics</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Eugenics">35</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="sub">The Future of Eugenics</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#The_Future_of_Eugenics">38</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="sub">Birth Control</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Birth_Control">39</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">V.</td>
+    <td>Proper Education</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#V_PROPER_EDUCATION">41</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="sub">In School</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#In_School">41</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="sub">At Home</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#At_Home">45</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="sub">Love Education</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Love_Education">47</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">VI.</td>
+    <td>The Price of Error</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#VI_THE_PRICE_OF_ERROR">49</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="sub">Youthful Restraint</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Youthful_Restraint">49</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="sub">Over-Indulgence</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Over-Indulgence">54</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="sub">Venereal Diseases</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Venereal_Diseases">55</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">VII.</td>
+    <td>Idealism</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#VII_IDEALISM">56</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="sub">Chastity</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Chastity">56</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="sub">Sexual Morality, Present and Future</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Sexual_Morality">57</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="sub">The Purity Ideal</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#The_Purity_Ideal">63</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4"></a><a id="Page_5"></a>[5]</span></p>
+
+<h1>WOMANHOOD: THE FACTS OF LIFE<br>
+REVEALED TO WOMEN</h1>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="I_THE_OPENING_DOOR_OF_WOMANHOOD">I. THE
+OPENING DOOR OF WOMANHOOD.</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p id="Adolescence"><i>Adolescence.</i>—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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p id="Essential_Education"><i>Essential Education.</i>—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.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>ignis fatuus</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>ignis
+fatuus</i> fade in the new dawn of a brighter light.</p>
+
+<p>It is the silence of the parents that does the
+most toward making life seem sordid, and brutal.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p id="Adolescent_Training"><i>Adolescent Training.</i>—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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>It is highly important for the girl who is
+experiencing these periods for the first time to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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..</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span>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.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="II_THE_ORIGIN_OF_LOVE">II. THE ORIGIN OF LOVE.</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p id="Natural_Love"><i>Natural Love.</i>—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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p id="Romantic_Love"><i>Romantic Love.</i>—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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p id="Marital_Love"><i>Marital Love.</i>—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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span>to yield one’s body to a man whom one does
+not love.</p>
+
+<p id="The_Psychological_View_of_Love"><i>The Psychological
+View of Love.</i>—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:</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">1. Auto-eroticism, or self-love.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">2. Homosexuality, or love of the same sex.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">3. Heterosexuality, or love of the opposite
+sex.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>From these two stages, the normal girl or
+boy passes to the third when she or he reaches
+adolescence.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span>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.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="III_MATING">III. MATING.</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p id="Womans_Equality"><i>Woman’s Equality.</i>—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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p id="The_Right_of_Choice"><i>The Right of Choice.</i>—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.</p>
+
+<p>In point of fact, women have always done the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span>choice tends to bring down the standard of the
+race, woman’s tends to raise it.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p id="The_Child_Problem"><i>The Child Problem.</i>—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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p id="Moral_Codes"><i>Moral Codes.</i>—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,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p id="Courtship"><i>Courtship.</i>—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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="IV_THE_PROPER_MATE">IV. THE PROPER MATE.</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p id="The_Purpose_of_Marriage"><i>The Purpose of Marriage.</i>—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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p id="Eugenics"><i>Eugenics.</i>—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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span>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</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="noindent">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.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p id="The_Future_of_Eugenics"><i>The Future of Eugenics.</i>—Certain scientists
+do not regard eugenics as simply as we have
+done. Bertrand Russell, in <i>Icarus</i>, is sure that
+eugenics will become universal.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>He believes that the result will increase the
+average intelligence, and decrease brilliance.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p id="Birth_Control"><i>Birth Control.</i>—The chief reason why many
+people are against eugenics is that it demands
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="V_PROPER_EDUCATION">V. PROPER EDUCATION.</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p id="In_School"><i>In School.</i>—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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span>baited by the man, but by the girl’s ignorance.
+Since this has been the result of ignorance, is
+there a remedy? Yes, education.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p id="At_Home"><i>At Home.</i>—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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>How much better is the simple truth. Certainly
+no one advocates telling a child all of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p id="Love_Education"><i>Love Education.</i>—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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="VI_THE_PRICE_OF_ERROR">VI. THE PRICE OF ERROR.</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p id="Youthful_Restraint"><i>Youthful Restraint.</i>—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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p id="Over-Indulgence"><i>Over-Indulgence.</i>—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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p id="Venereal_Diseases"><i>Venereal Diseases.</i>—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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="VII_IDEALISM">VII. IDEALISM.</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p id="Chastity"><i>Chastity.</i>—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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span>as to what is unlawful. Charlotte Perkins Gilman
+has accurately defined chastity, “not abstinence,
+but selection.” In this sense, chastity
+is a virtue.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p id="Sexual_Morality"><i>Sexual Morality, Present and Future.</i>—The
+keynote of the new sexual morality is freedom
+on both sides. This means, first, freedom from
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p id="The_Purity_Ideal"><i>The Purity Ideal.</i>—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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78407 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/78407-h/images/cover.jpg b/78407-h/images/cover.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b4e74a5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/78407-h/images/cover.jpg
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6c72794
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..72055f0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #78407
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78407)