The psychology of marriage

Front matter

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Preface

TERE can be no understanding of the deepest problems of human life, no right evaluation of sex love, and true appreciation of the sanctity of marriage, and no sound foundation for private and social sexual morality until a greater number of men and women apprehend the immense sway of the instinct of love in the destiny of mankind. The most massive of all the emotions has been analyzed by philosophers and metaphysicians in every age. Art and poetry have revealed the sublimity, the beauty, the ecstasy, and the torment and tragedy of love. Science is teaching us that this passion is more complex, profound, and significant than the greatest poets and thinkers of the past ever divined. For this supreme energy is not solely the stimulus to love between the sexes and to the continuance of the race. It is the source of socialized living, the origin of most moral codes, the basis of altruism, the motor-force of the highest human activities, and the spring of exalted conduct.

_ The psychology of sex is beginning to be recognized as a supremely vital study. Primitive man weaved endless fantasies around the erotic and V v1 PREFACE reproductive mysteries, and most of the thinking in our day is colored, impeded, and prejudiced by the survivals of barbaric superstition. Fantasy constantly thrusts its ancient symbolism, taboos, and fear into even the more rational and dispassionate minds. We still know infinitely little of the marvels of mind. Our buried, unconscious thought comes startlingly into conflict with our fully conscious perceptions and judgments. The ancient dreads make us doubtful and timid in the contemplation of a stupendous power. A disposition to evade the deeply perplexing and disturbing questions of sex is still pronounced in certain intellectual types of men and women.

Thus, we encounter constantly the phenomenon of the darkest ignorance of the sexual life, and the singular loss of instinct, which Sir James Paget and other medical and scientific observers have noted in modern civilized people. I shall refer in these pages to the very curious anomaly of the — arrest of intelligent thought upon a subject that So intimately concerns every human being, and attempt to provide the explanation. It is certain that the inevitable preoccupation with personal and normal manifestations of the sexual impulse is, in most cases, accompanied by a conspicuous ignorance of physiological and psychological facts. There is, indeed, no sphere of human thought in which will be found such deep misunderstanding

as in that of sex. This paradoxical ignorance pro-

PREFACE vii vides a highly instructive theme for investigators in the problems of human behavior.

The way of safety, sanity, and well-being is in a knowledge of the order of Nature. Efforts of complete suppression of the life-foree, and reckless gratification of desires are both opposed to the natural scheme and a sane social morality. The direction and proper use of the erotic craving is one of the duties and disciplines of life. Sex is a potentiality that cannot be underrated and trifled with, and still less ignored. There scarcely exists a man or woman who can assert complete immunity from emotional unrest, mental difficulties, ethical dilemmas, or physical signs related to the sex life. Whether we realize it or not, and even though we may resent it, the vital urge, as expressed in the pairing instinct, is always more or less active within us. According to temperamental conditions, inclination, power of control, and circumstance, this kinetic will impel us to wooing, marriage, and the founding of a family, or to dissolute sex relations, to perversities of instinct, to dishonor, to zeal in social reform, to philanthropy, or to refuge in monastic life. We are impelled by an irresistible power, sometimes tyrannous and alarming, to appease the universal prompting, either by the purely natural means, or by the method of sublimation and transference.

Unquestionably, the right course for the vaster number of men and women, endowed with normal

Vill PREFACE emotions and powers, is to obey the yearning for mating. In our complicated civilization the pathway to marriage is often beset with obstacles, and the journey slow and arduous. For ten or fifteen years, or much longer, after the first definite arousing of the sex instinct by the bodily and psychie changes of puberty, we are required to practise restraint upon our strongest longings. When we overcome the social and economic hindrances to conjugality, nine out of ten of us enter that state of life at least somewhat bewildered and unprepared. Certainly, the majority of young women are liable to extreme perplexity, and frequently exposed to mental and emotional danger and injury to health through the neglect of necessary knowledge. Nor can it be said that the average man is often sufficiently instructed in marital hygiene, and imbued with an adequate understanding of the nature of woman.

Knowing from my own experience of life, from — the confidences of many persons of both sexes, and from forty years of research and inquiry, that most persons meet with problems in marriage, and that almost all suffer some doubt, if not distress, in the conflict between the passion of sex-love and the numerous necessary inhibitions of society, I have written this book in the sincere hope that my words may be helpful.

CHAPTER I Tue SUPREME IMPULSE .. . 1

Present-day Attention to Questions of the Sex Life—Race Regeneration and the Protection of Mothers—Social Reform Organizations—The Potency and Importance of Sex— The Love Impulse—Primitive Man and Sex Love—Symbolism and Taboos—Civilized Man and Amative Emotion— Suppression, Repression, and Sublimation of the Instinct— The Elan Vital—The Combat for Chastity—Sexual Ignorance—Need for Adequate Knowledge—Reticence of Parents.

The Child Mind—Curiosity concerning Reproductive Processes—Dangers of Evasiveness and Deception—The Precocious Arousing of Sex—The Great Need for Sound Education — Auto-erotic Manifestations — Scientific Opinions — Automatic Habits—Perils of Alarmist Teaching—Effects of Masturbation—Prevention—Modesty in Children—Training of Children and Adolescents—The Right Instructors— The Method of Teaching—Ignorance in Manhood—Causes— The Internal Secreting Glands—The Conservation of Chastity—Dangers of Pornography—Girls and the Sex Instinct— The Phenomenon of Menstruation—Its Meaning and Im-

rtance—Hygiene for Women—Continence—The Uplifting of Ideals of Love—The Struggle for Chastity—Counsels.

CHAPTER III boc taitog Worckt Wea Peo ithe Ay ay os aan EME Sea NCAT UN ae TAN aN 1) Difficulties of Purely Natural Choice in Artificial States of Society—Differences in the Motives of Selection—The Bodily Appeal—Feminine Choice—Appreciation for Strength rather than Beauty—Selection in Youth—Aberrations of Sex Instinct—Race Culture and Choice—Hereditary Diseases—Courtship—The Psychic State in Wooing—Disadvantages of Long Betrothal—Differences during Courtship. | ix bs CONTENTS

CHAPTER IV PAGE PROBLEMS OF CONJUGAL LIFE ae ae dead teat, oe

Ignorance of Civilized Men and Women—Impairment of Instinctive Guidance—Results of Civilizational Influences— Psychic Love—Conjugal Intercourse Periodicity in Desire— Mental Attitude to Sexual Processes—The Bride—Duties of the Husband—Women not wholly Passive in Love—Anzsthesia, or Sexual Frigidity—Causes—Abstinence and Health of .Women—Neurosis—Psychic Indifference—Perversion as a Disability for Marriage—The Hygiene of Conjugal Life— True Conjugality—The Importance of the Tactile Sense— Knowledge for Husbands—Preparation for Marriage—Marital Disharmony.

CHAPTER V Tre EOsBAND 8 04 e eG SS ee et ae

Opposition to Sex Education—Need for Understanding— The Husband as Initiator—Differences in Sexual Temperament—Pre-Conjugal Continence—Celibacy—Chastity in Adolescence—Early Marriage—Benefits of the Conjugal Life. —Uses of the Erotic Energy—Age of Marriage in Man and Woman—Impregnation—Psychic Effects of Marital Relations—Affectability of Women—Organization of Woman Differentiating her from Man—Menstruation and its Manifestations—Moderation and Excess in Marriage—Pregnancy and Lactation—Need for Husband’s Tact and Sympathy— Ethics of Conjugation—Woman’s Yearning for Love—Season for Fecundation—Influence of Bodily and Mental States —Mistakes and Disabilities of Husbands—Impotence—Alcohol and Reproduction—Healthy Parentage.

CHAPTER. VI © Dep Wire oP Ie EN No ee The Status of Woman—Neglect of Education—Want of Physiologic and Hygienic Knowledge—Distorted Views of Sex Function—Secondary Sexual Characters—The Reproductive System—Periodicity—Not a “‘Humiliation’””—Idealism in Love—Anabolic Characters—Woman’s Part in Wooing —Capacity for Love—Sex Impulse in Woman—Marital Relations—Morbid Recoils—Sex Antagonism—Feminine Attractions—Over-Dressing and Exposure—The Lure of Clothing—Indifference Shown by Wives—Matrimonial Mistakes—The Unpreparedness of Brides—Maternal Feeling— The Hormones—Importance of a Healthy Sexual Life— Natural Handicaps on Women—Abortion—Premature Birth —Sterility—Emotional State in Pregnancy—Change of Life —Psychic and Physical Signs—Hygiene at. the Menopause— Need for Woman’s Knowledge of Man—The Tactile Appeal.

CONTENTS xi

CHAPTER VII wien

AN ANCIENT SoctaAL PROBLEM .... vert QiG

Prostitution and Marriage—Modern Investigations—The Origin and Growth of Prostitution—The System of Regulation—Venereal Affections—Their Effects on the Race— Proposed Methods of Combating the Evil—The Education of the Public Advised—Opinions of Physicians—Positive Causes of Prostitution—The Economic Factor—Wealth and Prostitution—Remedies Suggested—Encouragement of Earlier Marriages—Parasitism.

Reproduction Not Duly Considered—Eugenics—Objections of the Reactionary—Common Misconception of Scientific Human Propagation—The Feeble-minded—F actors of Mental Deficiency—Selection and Hygiene in Wedlock—Purposive Abortion—The Birth-rate—A High Birth-rate accompanied by a High Death-rate—Modern Restriction of the Family—Neo-Malthusianism—Medical and Clerical Views— Occupation and Maternity—Overstrain of Mothers—The Need for Rest in Pregnancy—Suckling—Its Importance to Children—Aneesthesia in Childbirth—Twilight Sleep—Risk of Child-bearmg—Improved Physique of Upper Class Women—Degeneracy through Poverty—Women Workers and Motherhood—Pensions for Mothers—Puericulture in France —The Underfed Parent—Under-nourished Children a Danger to the State—Determination of Sex—Various Theories— The Question of Maternal Impressions during Gestation— Care of Infants—Rational Education of Children.

CHAPTER IX

SANT THE MCOMMONTRY Ce Rg he eke ED Life’s Beginning—Conjugation—Marriage the Basis of Society—Origin of Culture—Primitive Marriage—Promiscuity and the Matriarchate—Monogamy as the Most Widely Practised Form of Sex Relationship—Stages of Marriage in Human History—Marriage among Existing Primitive Races— Savage Continence—Conflict between the Love Ideal and Economic Considerations—Love and Labor—Conventional Matrimony—The Freeing of Women and the Re-birth of Love—Early Marriage—Schemes of Facilitation—Anomalies of the Sexual Life of our Times—Women the Chief Sufferers—Sex and Society—The Right Direction and Use of the Erotic Impulse—Conclusion.

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CHAPTER I THE SUPREME IMPULSE

THe western world is perplexed by an old problem rendered more difficult by war. Never at any period preceding the vast convulsion of Europe has such a momentous attention to questions related to sex and marriage been witnessed in England. The declining birth-rate, preventable child mortality, and the care of mothers are prominent topics of discussion. Deferment of the age of marriage is recognized as menacing to the social stability and health of nations, and there are European schemes and suggestions for the facilitation of earlier marriages and more marriages. We have been compelled at length to inquire into the hindrances to wedlock, and the anomaly of | involuntary celibacy for an immense number of

women and a host of men. Prostitution and its | resulting racial poisoning have been discussed in government commissions, in the newspapers, and on public platforms, with unprecedented candor.

and earnestness. 1

There is awakened zeal for the improvement of the race. We are beginning to shed some of the misconceptions and prejudices which opposed the earlier eugenical doctrine. Intelligent men and women are learning that race-culture does not imply monstrous, drastic, and unjust interference with the romance of love and with free choice in wooing, but the arousing of a sense of responsibility to oneself, the family, the community, the nation, and posterity in sex selection and reproduction. In the important social fields of infant hygiene, and the diminution of the high death-rate among young children, the lessening of still-births and premature births, and the proper treatment and training of mentally deficient children, we are now showing more solicitude and scientific understanding than at any previous stage in our national development.

The protection of motherhood has become a vital question for the whole community. At no time have so many potential and actual mothers been employed in industries hitherto restricted to men. If a large mass of women continue to labor in the future, it will be necessary to investigate the effect of hard toil and muscular strain upon mothers and their children, and to devise means whereby working women may be protected against the serious risks of over-exertion.

The social and hygienic reforms of the reconstruction period, after the cessation of the present inevitable disruptive and disintegrating process, will be very directly, as well as indirectly, concerned with the sex-relationship, marriage laws, and domestic life. Many of our traditions, customs, and enactments will be reconsidered in the immediate future. We shall strive for a saner, less stressful, happier life. The love of the sexes, —the basis of the family, the group, the ordered community, and the state,—will not only be the supreme theme of the poet, the dramatist, and the novelist, but the study of sociologists, psychologists, ethical philosophers, and scientific inquirers. And that this association of the artistic and poetieal with the spirit of inquiry and the passion for truth will greatly exalt and refine the social attitude to love and marriage, is already being demonstrated.

This is shown by such signs as the inception of several important research and propaganda movements, e.g, the National Council of Public Morals, with supporters and vice-presidents representing the Church through several bishops, and medical authority by the names of eminent physicians; also by the formation of the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene, which, like the first organization, issues numerous useful pamphlets; and by | the present agitation for the diminution of child mortality, the hygienic care of the working mother, and the healthy nurture of children. Besides these indications of increasing solicitude for questions of marriage, race-preservation, and infant protection, there is a spreading appeal in the western world for the inculeation of sane knowledge of that stupendous psychical energy which is manifested universally in the emotion of sex-love. The movement for sexual education is gaining the greatest importance in all the cultured nations. This reform is one of the most hopeful auguries for the future of humanity. It can scarcely be over-estimated.

Professor M. A. Bigelow, of Columbia ikea sity, forecasts a finer human life as the result of this teaching, which is designed to ‘‘help young people prepare to meet the problems of life in relation to sex.’? He writes (‘‘Sex Education,’’ 1917): ‘‘As adjustment of manhood and womanhood through the larger sex-education becomes more and more abundant and more and more perfected, the sum total of human happiness will increase.’’ |

Sex-love is beginning to assume its rightful and massive proportion in recent psychological and sociological research. The potency of sex for developing the highest as well as the lowest instincts and passions of human beings is manifest in the noblest altruistic conduct, and in the most debased and anti-social vices. It is the duty of the moralist to understand sex, and to direct it, in accord with Nature, towards the high? aspirations and virtues.

Two supreme impulses sway organic beings. _ Life is primarily a struggle to satisfy the nutritive need, the greater part of the remaining energy being impelled by the second fundamental instinct of love. It is the custom of some minds to compare these two imperious desires, and to place them on the same plane. Both cravings are dominating; but the range of the passion that attracts and unites man and woman is far more complex and diffused than hunger. In the higher states of society, the problem of hunger is rendered less acute by the endless devices of mankind for the cultivation of the soil, the preservation of all sources of food supply, and the distribution of the fruits of the earth. The pastoral and industrial communities are relieved from the uncertainty, the dangers and the hardships that surrounded the struggle for existence in the hunting age. They have, therefore, a surplus of energy and an increase of interests.

Civilization has intensified the love-impulse and heightened its psychic complexity and relation to society in an amazing degree. The present social organization in the advanced nations provides by mechanical means for the first primary necessity . of nourishment, and leaves an immense residuum of force, which is directed towards other outlets. Wealth in a nation yields leisure for a large class, and division of employment relieves many from the ruder labors of every-day existence. Social

6 MTHE PSYCHOLOGY OF MARRIAGE evolution has complicated the sex instinct until few of its manifestations in the stages of barbaric development remain in their crude primal form. The development of the civilized brain has transformed the animal impulse of periodic mating into a subtle, intricate, and pervasive emotion linked with religious idealism, morality and art. It is almost impossible to define the boundaries of this vital force. The sexual energy of life is intimately connected with our ancient traditions, beliefs, emotions and conduct. It is this profound psychic complexity that contrasts love in mankind with the sex hunger of the animals.

Primitive man groping for knowledge while the brain was undeveloped, recognized the Sun as the source of all life, and hailed the life-giver as a deity. Later, the minds of men were awed and bewildered by the overwhelming power of the impulse that urges to mating and reproduction. This force, which Cicero used in the sense of a supreme longing, or ‘‘to wish’’ (lbido), is most powerfully exercised in the instinct of sex-love. The eternal élan vital, the vital thrust, impulsion, or profound yearning is not simply erotic desire. It is a variable wish, a transferable energy, with great mobility and potentiality of sublimation.

Very early in primitive culture man was allured and appalled by this massive force, this source of life and motor of action. He recognized it as the sum of energy, and sometimes as the cause of

THE SUPREME IMPULSE at f propagation, and partly feared it as a perplexing mystery of life. His attitude was chiefly one of — fear. The sun worshipers realized that the fire in the heavens, which made the earth bring forth the grains and fruit, was not always beneficent, for the sun’s rays could strike a man down, scorch the soil to barrenness, and wither the corn which gave him sustenance. There could be no life without fire, but this element was also dangerous and fearful.

The awe surrounding sex was of the same character as the reverent fear of the sun. Sun worship and sex worship were inter-related. Both the sun and sex were the givers of life. A great and very solemn faith and ritual grew from the reverence for the sexual energy. To this day its traditions unconsciously influence every one of us. The Phallic cult was not, as some uninformed minds have surmised, a mere manifestation of a perverse human craving for obscenity. Phallicism was a sacred religion, with an incalculable influence upon humankind in the early age of primitive development. It survived for ages, and much of its ritual and symbolism was incorporated with later religions. Not many generations have passed since the cultured Greeks practiced rites and observances which seem to us astounding and often repellent.

From the remotest age there appears always a tendency to dread the erotic impulse, and to sym-

8 MHE PSYCHOLOGY OF MARRIAGH bolize all its expression. It is not necessary now to strive for explanations, and to refer to the manifold mysteries of the sub-conscious or unconscious self. The origin of the awe is not entirely mysterious, if we merely reflect upon the stupendous power of the libido, and the sorrow, suffering, and disaster that often result from it. We are surrounded with instances in daily life. The force has been likened to a demon, to a wizard, and to the tooth of a fierce beast. Asceticism, which demonstrates the recoil and distrust, abounds with evidences of dread. Hence, it is plain that man has always dreaded, but always furtively invited, the passion that is essential for the continuance of his species. The more we study symbolism throughout the ages, the more evident this fact appears. | Civilized man has an imposing heritage of traditional influence in the sphere of sex. He is more prone to amorous emotion than his ancestors. Refinement has accentuated his desires, and spiritualized his fundamental animal yearnings. From one standpoint sex-love is to be judged as physiological. But to view it from that standpoint alone would be quite futile and scarcely possible. There is a profound difference between the obsessional periodic pairing of the sexes among savage races and the elaborately psychic love-making of the modern man and woman. It may be said that the chief object of cultured morality has been to repress or sublimate the physical impulsion, and to attempt to minimize its meaning and potency.

With the increase of emotional, esthetic, and material stimuli to love in the advanced nations, the tendency to sublimation has increased at fairly equal pace. We realize that the libido is not necessarily and arbitrarily fixed in all cases.

The complexity of the impulse and its heightened intensity demand the sublimating process. Our ancient fathers of the race were unskilled in direct and rational thinking upon the great problems of humanity. They were unable to recognize that the life-force need not be wholly centered upon sexuality, that a part of it at least is transferable into other channels. The personal and social peril of uncontrolled indulgence of sexual desire has impelled civilized mankind to attempt repression, suppression, and sublimation. Religion, custom, and laws inhibit irresponsible _ gratification. A conflict with natural inclination is aroused, and the repressions demanded are frequently severe.

Complete suppression of the surging force is an ordeal beyond the power of the great mass of humanity. Suppression results in displacement. and substitution; but the original energy cannot be said to be annihilated. The most rigorous of the ascetics were constantly on their guard against the dreaded wish and the erotic fantasy. The thrusting down of deep emotions into the underconsciousness, and the attempt to ignore and forget them, does not expel them. The desires are submerged and apparently vanquished, but their influence upon the mind, character, and conduct is still active. Apparently, the conflict may be at an end. Actually, it is working invisibly. Few of us escape this struggle of the ineradicable wish and the strangely vehement propensity. We are compelled to sublimate the force, and our success depends upon our mental and moral capacity, strength of will, early training, environment, and aptitude for discovering substitutes. One man diverts part of the energy into work or business activity; another absorbs a part in sport, and another in study or art. To many religion is an aid towards sublimation. The great saints have not often been men and women of lethargic emotions and feeble desires, but, on the contrary, natures liberally endowed with the élan vital. ‘‘The man who is not passion’s slave’’ is the conqueror in many violent spiritual combats.

These diffusions and transferences become more imperative when the yearnings are perplexingly complicated by the social attitude, education, and moral bias. The artificial state of society among the highly civilized has deepened and expanded the erotic energy, and at the same time placed numerous restrictions upon actual satisfaction. Celibacy, for example, is unknown amongst primitive tribes. Among the civilized, many social factors combine to cheat men and women of love and marriage until long after the onset of the | nubile age, and frequently for the whole of life. This anomaly engenders social evils, vices, diseases, and widespread mental disquietude and suffering.

Kneompassed by powerful stimulations, temptations, and excitants, the civilized man is counseled by religion and ethics to preserve complete chastity before and after marriage. The woman craving love and maternity is often doomed to utter frustration of her natural hopes and longing. Our sex morality is rigorous in theory; but in practice it is full of laxities, inequalities, and often cruelty, especially towards women. Seduction, illegitimate births, infanticide, purposive abortion, prostitution and racial poisoning, sex vices and abnormalities, all flourish under our chaotic code. Can it be said that our attitude to the supremely important questions related to and revolving around the sex-relationship is sane, practical, and humane? The evils and the suffering are not necessary, inevitable, or irremediable. Some of them could be banished, and others greatly lessened, if not entirely removed, by sensible. social hygiene, and the upraising of finer ideals of love, marriage, and parentage.

The positive teaching of sexual ethics, the hygiene of conjugality, and humaniculture, must supersede the present negative morality, the lack of instruction in supreme duties, and the reckless reproduction of. physically and mentally defective offspring. Men and women must not merely be enjoined to strict chastity before and after wedlock. They should learn why they should be chaste, and how to avoid unchastity. When experienced physicians tell us that the sex-life of the mothers of the race is ‘‘terribly neglected”’; that searcely one man in twelve knows anything ‘of the psychology and physiology of woman before marriage, and very few learn what should be ‘known after marriage; that ignorance in sex matters is ‘‘appalling,’’ especially among women; that this ignorance leads in women, and also in men, to such mental disturbance as psychasthenia, hysteria, and depression; that thousands of feeble and ailing children are born through the errors of parents, and that fifty per cent. of infantile deaths are preventable—we may ask whether our eivillzation is real or spurious.

Besides this primitive ignorance of the hygiene of marriage, with its fatal results, there is the moral problem of sex, which can only be approached by the sure road of knowledge. No doctor prescribes a method of cure without in- © quiry into the cause, the symptoms, and import of the ailment. In the field of sex morality we have a ready-made prescription for the healing of the whole community, based upon centuries of neglect of the subject, traditional prejudice, amaz- Ing delusion, and primitive conjecture.

In my study of this question, I have collected, from over fifty educated normal men and women, a number of singular fallacies concerning the physiology and psychology of sex. Some of these errors are extraordinary. Many years ago it was made plain to me that erudition, academic distinction, and a reputation for intellect may exist with the deepest ignorance of sex. There are gray-haired grandfathers with a perfectly childish ignorance of matters that concern the physical and mental well-being of the individual, the family, and the community. There are mothers of several children, who, after years of married life, are unable to guide their sons and daughters in questions of healthy marriage and the nurture of offspring. Our educational conventions evade the great main issues of life. Many learn the dead languages, but little of the thought and ways of men-in the past and the present. The central problem of life is the love instinct, the very source and motor of existence.

Our archaic dread of the animal instincts has had its purpose in the evolution of morals. The. need for combating fierce and unruly passions has proved disciplinary, strengthening, and refining. But the danger of thrusting aside the desire for inquiry and understanding is acute. Any stifling of the truth of human emotions and longings tends to immorality and neurosis. We cannot act well if we do not know rightly. When scientific investigation is neglected, under-valued or impeded, natural curiosity and interest become vitiated, and instead of reverent research and a wholesome attitude of the mind, there is a substitution of furtive indecency. It is a lamentable fact that our neglect of sane instruction fosters both the false modesty that refuses to reflect and learn, and the prurient habit of thought which debases and vulgarizes the holiest human emotions and desires. From this profound moral error all kinds of fatal misunderstanding arise in the minds of the young, and often become fixed for life. The reticence of parents and teachers exposes youth to the grave evil of contamination by the thoughtless, the ignorant, the morbid, and the uncleanminded. Evasion and silence defeat morality, and threaten the health of mind and body.

Few can escape the problems that beset the control and direction of the eternal life-energy. We should be equipped from childhood with efficient knowledge, carefully graduated and kindly imparted. Men and women are made or marred by their passions. We have within us a force that may blast or bless our lives. The potentialities and possibilities must be understood, or we stand . in constant peril. .

With the highest conceivable moral intent men and women may still fail to find the pathwee of security amid the briars and pitfalls of the amative life. We cannot over-rate the value of sound © moral counsels; but they must be founded in truth, not in fancy, and supported by physiological and hygienic instruction.

Chapter II Before Marriage

To trace the development of the mind of the child is a deeply important and fascinating study. We may liken the child-brain to a soft wax, which readily receives impressions that cut deep and remain indelible. Comparatively few parents realize the extent to which the infantile mind takes notice and remembers. The psychology of childhood reveals a far deeper intelligence, curiosity, and capacity for forming views and weaving fancies than is ordinarily attributed to the young. It is now known that the life-energy assumes another form besides the nutritive instinct in the early days of childhood. The main object of the infant is to obtain nourishment, but unconsciously the second great human impulse is at work, mysteriously and powerfully.

The investigations of psychologists demonstrate very forcibly that a strong curiosity concerning the origin of their existence preoccupies the minds of very many young children. In the case of a normal intelligent child it would be strange | were it otherwise. One of the first efforts of

Juvenile reflection must naturally find stimulation 16 in the mystery of the beginning of human life. While some children inquire frankly for an ex- . planation, others secretly meditate upon the problem, and give no hint of their curiosity to the parents.

Analysis of childish speculation on this enigma shows that in a number of cases the child works out a theory of his own. When the child is keenly inquisitive, the repression of his curiosity results in two ways. The spirit of inquiry is immensely quickened by the parent’s evasion of the question, and he seeks knowledge from acquaintances, and even from strangers; or he formulates secret theories of his own. The replies of children to the questions of Principal Stanley Hall and other educationists reveal the fact that puerile imagination is extremely alert in this speculation. This curiosity is not definitely sexual at the outset. The child may not associate its origin with the parents, but with Santa Claus, the legendary stork, the fairies, or the physician. Sooner or later, the question of the part enacted by the parents comes into conscious reflection.