Private Sex Advice to Women Part 12

As we approach the higher forms of life, reproduction gradually dies down. The animals nearest to man produce few offspring, but they surround them with parental care, until they are able to lead independent lives with a fair chance of surviving. The whole process may be regarded as a mechanism for slowly subordinating quant.i.ty to quality, and to promoting the evolution of life to even higher stages.

This process, which is plain to see on the largest scale throughout living nature, may be more minutely studied, as it acts within a narrower range, in the human species. Here we statistically formulate it in the terms of birth-rate and death-rate; by the mutual relationship of the two courses of the birth-rate and death-rate we are able to estimate the evolutionary rank of a nation, and the degree in which it has succeeded in subordinating the primitive standard of quant.i.ty to the higher and later standard of quality.

Especially in Europe we can investigate this relationship by the help of statistics which in some cases extend back for nearly a century. We can trace the various phases through which each nation pa.s.ses, the effects of prosperity, the influence of education and sanitary improvement, the general complex development of civilization, in each case moving forward, though not regularly and steadily, to higher stages by means of a falling birth-rate, which is to some extent compensated by a falling death-rate, the two rates nearly always running parallel, so that a temporary rise in the birth-rate is usually accompanied by a rise in the death-rate, by a return, that is to say, towards the conditions which we find at the beginning of animal life, and a steady fall in the birth-rate is always accompanied by a fall in the death-rate.

It is thus clear that the birth-rate combined with the death-rate const.i.tutes a delicate instrument for the measurement of civilization, and that the record of their combined curves registers the upward or downward course of every nation. The curves, as we know, tend to be parallel, and when they are not parallel we are in the presence of a rare and abnormal state of things which is usually temporary or transitional.

A study of the statistics of European countries furnishes us with evidence of the facts above stated. It is instructive to perceive how closely the birth-rate and the death-rate of the several European countries agree. It is perceived that THE EIGHT COUNTRIES OF EUROPE WHICH REGISTER THE HIGHEST BIRTH-RATE ARE THE IDENTICAL COUNTRIES REGISTERING THE HIGHEST DEATH-RATE. This is as might be expected, for a very high birth-rate seems fatally to involve a very high death-rate.

The study of the following table may prove interesting--it certainly is instructive. In the following table the European countries having the highest birth-rate are stated in the order of rank according to size of such rate; and the countries having the heaviest death-rate are stated in the order of their rank in size of such rate:

Highest European Birth-Rate. Highest European Death-Rate.

Russia. Russia.

Roumania. Roumania.

Bulgaria. Hungary.

Serbia. Bulgaria.

Hungary. Spain.

Italy. Serbia.

Austria. Austria.

Spain. Italy.

Moreover, j.a.pan, with a rather high birth-rate, has the same death-rate as Spain; and Chile, with a still higher birth-rate, has a higher death rate than Russia. So, we see, that among human peoples we find the same laws prevailing as among animals, and the higher nations of the world differ from those which are less highly evolved precisely as the elephant differs from the herring, though within a narrower range, that is to say, BY PRODUCING FEWER OFFSPRING AND TAKING BETTER CARE OF THEM.

So, when we get to the root of the matter, the whole question of "Does Birth Control tend toward Race Suicide?" becomes clear, and we are able to answer, positively, "It certainly does not; on the contrary it tends toward Race Progress and Race Betterment." We see that there is really no standing ground in any country for the panic-monger who bemoans the fall of the birth-rate, and storms against small families. The falling birth-rate is a world-wide phenomenon in all countries that are striving toward a higher civilization along lines which Nature laid down from the beginning. We cannot stop it if we would, and if we could we should be merely impeding civilization. It is a movement which rights itself and tends to reach a just balance.

Instead of trying to raise the birth-rate by offering a bonus on babies as has been proposed in some quarters, it would be saner and better calculated for the betterment of the race to offer a bonus upon young men and women who attained maturity with a definite high standard of physical and mental development. As a writer on the subject has well said: "But we need not therefore fold our hands and do nothing. There is much still to be effected for the protection of motherhood and the better care of children. We cannot, and should not, attempt to increase the number of children born; there is still far more misery in having too many babies than in having too few; a bonus on babies would be a misfortune, alike for the parents and the State. BUT WE MAY WELL WORK FOR THE BETTER QUALITY OF BABIES. There we should be on very safe ground. More knowledge is necessary so that all would-be parents may know how they may best become parents, and how they may, if necessary, best avoid it. Procreation by the unfit should be, if not prohibited by law, at all events so discouraged by public opinion that to attempt it would be considered disgraceful. Much greater public provision is necessary for the care of mothers during the months before, as well as in the period after, the child's birth. Along such lines as these we may hope to increase the happiness of the people and the strength of the State. We need not worry about the falling birth-rate."

The more that one intelligently examines the argument against Birth Control based upon fear of Race Suicide, the more one becomes convinced that not only is there "nothing to it," but that every fact brought to light in the inquiry reveals itself in the nature of proof of the desirability of Birth Control as a factor of Race Evolution, rather than evidence to the contrary. Therefore, the more inquiry and investigation that such argument brings forth, the stronger is the case disclosed for Birth Control, and the greater the amount of public opinion created in its favor.

In all considerations of the general question of Race Suicide, one must take note of the general question of Eugenics or Human Breeding. This because the sound breeding of the race operates in a direction diametrically opposed to Race Suicide, while unsound breeding operates directly in favor thereof.

When we consider the general subject of Eugenics we touch upon the highest ground, and are concerned with our best hopes for the future of the world. There can be no doubt that Birth Control, considered as a phase of Eugenics, is not only a precious but also an indispensable instrument in moulding the coming man to the measure of our developing ideals. Without Birth Control we are powerless in the face of the awful evils which flow from random and reckless reproduction. With it we possess a power so great that some persons have professed to see in it a menace to the propagation of the race, amusing themselves with the idea that if people possess the means to prevent the conception of children they will never have children at all. It is not necessary to discuss such a grotesque notion seriously.

The desire for children is far too deeply implanted in mankind and womankind alike ever to be rooted out. If there are today many parents whose lives are rendered wretched by large families and the miseries of excessive child-bearing, there are an equal number whose lives are wretched because they have no children at all, and who s.n.a.t.c.h eagerly at any straw which offers the smallest promise of relief to the craving.

Certainly there are people who desire marriage, but--some for very sound and estimable reasons and other for reasons which may less well bear examination--do not desire children at all.

For the cla.s.s of married people who do not desire children at all, contraceptive methods, far from being a social evil, are a social blessing. For nothing is as certain as that it is an unmixed evil for a community to possess unwilling, undesirable parents. Birth Control would be an unmixed blessing if it merely enabled us to exclude such persons from the ranks of parenthood. We desire no parents who are not competent and willing parents. Only such parents are fit to father and to mother a future race worthy to rule the world.

It is sometimes said that the control of conception, since it is frequently carried out immediately upon marriage, will tend to delay parenthood until an unduly late age. Birth Control has, however, no necessary result of this kind, and might even act in the reverse direction. A chief cause of delay in marriage is the prospect of the burden and expense of an unrestricted flow of children into the family; and it is said that in Great Britain, since 1911, with the extension of the use of contraceptives, there has been a slight but regular increase not only in the general marriage rate but also in the proposition of early marriage. The ability to control the number of children not only enables marriage to take place at an early age, but also makes it possible for the couple to have at least one child soon after marriage.

The total number of children are thus s.p.a.ced out, instead of following in rapid succession.

It is only of late years that the eugenic importance of a considerable interval between births has been fully recognized, as regards not only the mother--this has long been recognized--but also the children. The very high mortality of large families has long been known, and their a.s.sociation with degenerate conditions and with criminality. However, of recent years, evidence has been obtained that families in which the children are separated from each other by intervals of more than two years are both mentally and physically superior to those in which the interval is shorter. Investigators have found that children born at only a short interval after the birth of a previous child are notably defective, even at the age of six, in a large percentage of cases; and when compared with children born at a longer interval, or with first children, they are, on the average, three inches shorter and three pounds lighter. These are facts of the most vital significance.

Thus when we calmly survey, in however summary a manner, the great field of life affected by the establishment of voluntary human control over the production of the race, we can not see a cause for anything but hope. It is satisfactory that it should be so, for there can be no doubt that we are here facing a great and permanent fact in civilized life.

With every rise in civilization, indeed with all evolutionary progress whatever, there is what seems to be an automatic fall in the birth-rate.

That fall is always normally accompanied by a fall in the death-rate, so that a low birth-rate frequently means a high rate of natural increase, since most of the children born survive.

Thus in the civilized world of today, notwithstanding the low birth-rate which prevails as compared with earlier times, the rate of increase in the population is still appalling--nearly half a million a year in Great Britain, over a million in Austro-Hungary, and three-quarters of a million in Germany. When we examine this excess of births in detail we find among them a large proportion of undesired and undesirable children. There are two alternative methods working to diminish this proportion: the method of regulating conception under the methods of scientific Birth Control, or the bungling subst.i.tutes for the same, on the one hand, and the method of preventing live births after conception by means of the abominable practice of abortion.

There can be no doubt about the enormous extension of the practice of abortion in all civilized countries, even although some of the extravagant estimates of its frequency in countries, the United States for example, be discarded as unwarranted. The burden of bearing excessive children on the overworked and underfed mothers of the working cla.s.ses becomes at last so intolerable that almost anything seems better than another child. As a woman in Yorkshire once said to an English investigator of this evil: "I'd rather swallow the druggist's shop and the man in it, than have another kid."

A community which takes upon itself the responsibility of encouraging abortion lays itself open to severe criticism. And it must be admitted that just as all those who work for Birth Control are really diminishing the frequency of abortion, so every attempt to discourage Birth Control promotes abortion. We have to approach this problem calmly, in the light of Nature and reason. We have each of us to decide on which side to range ourselves. For it is a vital problem concerning which we cannot afford to be indifferent.

There is no desire here to exaggerate the importance of Birth Control.

It is not a royal road to the millennium of the race; and like all other measures which the course of progress forces us to adopt, it has its disadvantages. But fairness and honest thought should admit freely that so far as is concerned the question of its being a factor toward Race Suicide, we must p.r.o.nounce a verdict of "Not Guilty" upon Birth Control.

On the contrary, the contrary course of teaching and practice, if carried to their full logical conclusion, would inevitably bring the race to such a stage of degeneracy, and retrogression to primitive type, that a fate far worse than suicide would befall the human race. For the race, as well as the individual, may commit "suicide" and an end to its career, not only by a will-not-to-live but also by a will-to-degenerate.

The face of Birth Control is set toward the rising sun of Race Betterment, not toward the setting sun of Racial Decline. Its ideas are those of Race Life, not of Race Death. It bids the race not to perish, but rather to live on in greater strength, happiness, and efficiency.

Birth Control is in full accord with the Racial Will-to-Live, and not opposed to it. All humanity, all civilization, all human progress, call upon us to take our stand upon this vital question of Birth Control.

And, as a writer has well said, in doing so we shall each of us be contributing, however humbly, to that "one far-off event, to which the whole creation moves."

LESSON XV

BIRTH CONTROL METHODS

The general subject of Birth Control necessarily includes the special subject of Birth Control Methods, viz., of the methods of a.s.sociation between husband and wife under which offspring is conceived only at such times as desired, and consequently only in the number desired.

These methods may be grouped into three general cla.s.ses, as follows:

I. METHODS OF CONTINENCE (TOTAL OR TEMPORARY). In the practice of the methods under this cla.s.s, there is an avoidance of s.e.xual relations between husband and wife, either continuously or for certain periods during which the liability to conception is great.

II. METHODS OF SEMI-CONTINENCE. In the practice of the methods under this cla.s.s, there is a partial manifestation of the s.e.xual relation accompanied by an absence of the manifestation of the procreative functions.

III. METHODS OF CONTRACEPTION. In the practice of the methods under this cla.s.s, the usual manifestations of the s.e.xual relation are observed, accompanied by an avoidance of the union of the male and female elements of reproduction which result in conception.

The student of the subject of Birth Control, of course, familiarizes himself or herself with each of the several cla.s.ses of methods above noted, for the purpose of understanding the characteristic distinctions between them, and the respective advantages and disadvantages of each cla.s.s. In the following pages each cla.s.s will be briefly considered, that the student may acquire a general understanding thereof, and may be enabled to reason intelligently concerning them. In this presentation there will be sought a fair statement of each cla.s.s, without any desire to influence the student for or against either of them.

Continence.

Continence (which in this special sense means the avoidance of s.e.xual relations between husband and wife), in the strict sense, is based upon the idea that the s.e.xual relation should not be exercised except for the purpose and intent of procreation. In the restricted usage of the term, it refers to the abstinence from s.e.xual intercourse during stated periods in which the liability to conception is greatest.

Rev. Sylva.n.u.s Stall, the author of several widely-read works on the subject of s.e.x, says of strict continence: "One theory is that the reproductive function is not to be exercised except for the purpose of procreation. * * * There are some married people, more numerous than some suppose, who have adopted the idea of uniform continence, and who call the reproductive nature into exercise for the purpose of procreation only, and who a.s.sert that the maintenance of continence secures not only the greater strength and better health, but greater happiness also. * * * While the results of our investigations do not enable us to a.s.sert that it is the true theory, we are yet prepared to say that it is worthy of thoughtful consideration. If it is possible for married people to maintain absolute continence for a period of six months or a year, it must be conceded that it would be possible to extend that time to a longer period. The maintenance of this theory would require such a degree of self-control as is far beyond the possession of the great ma.s.s of humanity. We fear, also, that there are but few, even if they entered upon a life union with such thought and intention, who would be willing to maintain their principles for any considerable period. * * * The other theory, and that which many men and women who are eminent for their learning and religious life hold to be the correct theory, is that while no one has a right to enter upon the marriage relation with the fixed purpose of evading the duty of parenthood, yet that procreation is not the only high and holy purpose which G.o.d has had in view in establishing the marriage relation, but that the act of s.e.xual congress may be indulged in between husband and wife for the purpose of expressing their personal endearments, and for quickening those affections and tender feelings which are calculated to render home the place of blessing and good which G.o.d intended. * * * It is held by those who advocate this theory, that while it would be possible to restrict the exercise of the reproductive functions to the single purpose of procreation, yet in the great majority of instances the effort to live by that theory would generally result in marital unhappiness. * * * Due regard is not only to be paid to the perpetuity of the race, but to the well-being and perpetuity of the individual."

The advocates of continence, except for the purpose of procreation, advance many arguments and evidence to justify their contention that this is the only course justified by Nature and Morality. We need not present this argument here, for it is outside the particular question now under consideration. However, in all fairness and justice, there should be presented here the general outline of their argument that there is no rational basis for the widely accepted idea that abstinence from s.e.xual relations is in any way harmful or detrimental to the health and physical well-being of the human race.

The advocates of continence cite the cases of many continent men who have been noted for their vigor and activity; and claim that such cases also justify their claim that continence makes for the sound mind in the sound body of mankind. The following quotations from authorities will give the general spirit of this contention.

Dr. Kellogg says: "It has been claimed by many, even physicians, and though with but a slight show of reason, that absolute continence, after a full development of the organs of reproduction, could not be maintained without a great detriment to health. It is needless to enumerate all the different arguments employed to support this position, since they are, with a few exceptions, too frivolous to mention." Dr.

Mayer says: "This position is held by men of the world, and many physicians share it. This belief appears to us erroneous, without foundation, and easily refuted. No peculiar disease nor any abridgement of the duration of life can be ascribed to such continence. * * * Health does not absolutely require that there should ever be an emission of s.e.m.e.n, from p.u.b.erty to death, though the individual live a hundred years." Dr. Kellogg also says: "This has been amply confirmed by experiments upon animals, as well as by the experience of some of the most distinguished men who have ever lived, among whom may be mentioned Sir Isaac Newton, Kant, Paschal, Fontenaille, and Michael Angelo. These men never married, and lived continent lives. Some of them lived to be a very great age, retaining to the last their wonderful abilities. In view of this fact, there is certainly no danger."

Another writer has said: "The Greek athletes training for the great Olympic Games were compelled to observe strict continence, the experience being that by this course they were able to conserve their vigor and strength much better. The prize-fighters of today are compelled by their trainers to observe strict continence during the period of training. Many of the former champions who went to pieces suddenly, owe their downfall to a violation of this rule." Another has said: "Chast.i.ty, even continence, is the prime necessity of the successful athlete." Dr. Kellogg forcefully says: "Breeders of stock who wish to secure sound progeny will not allow the most robust stallion to a.s.sociate with mares as many times during the whole season as some of these salacious human males perform a similar act within a month."

Dr. Warba.s.se has said: "Testicular fluid in the seminal vesicles, under unexciting conditions, does not require to be discharged at intervals. I have not been able to find in the studies of the physiologists that its retention is abnormal or unhygienic. * * * I do not conceive of a man suffering from the ills of continence who has been cast away on a desert island, with no immediate prospect of relief, and whose mind and hands are occupied with raising grain, catching fish for subsistence, and constructing a boat for escape. All that has been said of men may be said of women."