A BOOK ON THE SEXUAL QUESTION 



MEN in Europe have often tried to 

 bolster up a claim of superiority 

 for their sex by pointing out 

 that the perpetuation of the 

 nation depended on its army and that 

 they, by their compulsory military 

 service, recognized and fulfilled the 

 supreme obligation. 



' ' But, ' ' the women have answered, ' ' it 

 is we who bear these men that thus 

 defend the fatherland. ' ' Therefore they 

 have claimed at least the equality of 

 their sex. 



Dr. Edward Toulouse, in his system 

 of eugenics, proposes to take them at 

 their word. 



Every able-bodied woman, at the age 

 of thirty, will be conscripted "to work, 

 near her own home, for a certain 

 number of hours daily, in a workshop, 

 office or military hospital, in order to 

 make available for actual military 

 service all the soldiers who are com- 

 monly drawn off for non-combatant 

 operations. 



"The mother with three children will 

 be exempt from this obligation ; she who 

 has two will do only six months of 

 service; the mother of one child will 

 serve for a year, and the childless 

 woman two years." 



"In this way woman will be pushed 

 toward maternity by a force with a 

 different compulsion than that of taxa- 

 tion. Obliged to perform a service that 

 is noble, beautiful, equitable, but in 

 practice disagreeable, or to bear children 

 she will be naturally led to seek mater- 

 nity. And in doing this she will not 

 fear putting herself into a position of 

 inferiority, for from the social as from 

 the military point of view, procreation 

 is more useful than an auxiliary service 

 in the army. Similarly the husbands 

 will rather make their wives mothers 

 than send them into military service 



for two years. This method of pre- 

 venting depopulation will be efficacious ; 

 and it will be only justice to make it 

 serve the military interests of the state, 

 which are particularly endangered by 

 race-suicide." 



A thorough-going proposal, is it not? 

 French men of science are famous for 

 the relentless clarity with which they 

 push their arguments to logical conclu- 

 sions, and Dr. Toulouse, in his book on 

 social hygiene,^ does not balk at any 

 intermediate obstacles. 



To enable this increase in maternity, 

 financial means of caring for the children 

 must be provided; but as children are 

 in the last analysis the sole wealth of 

 the state. Dr. Toulouse sees no reason 

 why the state should hesitate to invest 

 its funds in such good interest-bearing 

 securities. He would have the expense 

 of the early care and education of all 

 children borne by the state if the 

 parents required it; making no distinc- 

 tion between those of legitimate and 

 illegitimate parentage. 



But quality as well as quantity is 

 necessary in a population, as the author 

 does not fail to recognize ; and he devotes 

 a good deal of thought to finding the 

 optimum compromise between these 

 two contradictory demands. He would 

 have the marriage, or at least the 

 parenthood, of two persons with the 

 same inheritable defect prevented. In 

 case only one of the parents is tainted, it 

 would suffice that the other be warned of 

 the fact, so that at least he or she would 

 marry with open eyes. To aid in this 

 work of restrictive eugenics, he would 

 have a "eugenics registry" maintained 

 by the state, where all families would 

 be described. 



In this connection occur the principal 

 errors of fact in a remarkable book. 

 The author's views on "racial poisons" 



* La Question Sexuelle et La Femme, par Docteur Toulouse. Pp. 288, prix f. 3.50. Paris: 

 Bibliotheque-Charpentier, 11, Rue de Grenelle, 1918. Dr. Toulouse is medical director of the 

 Villejuif Insane Asylum and one of the best known of French psychiatrists. 



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