548 PLAIN FACTS FOE OLD AND YOUNG 



when the end is impossible, harm or injury should 

 ensue. ' ' 



"Perhaps the number is not small of those who 

 think there is nothing wrong in an unlimited indul- 

 gence of the sexual propensity during married life. 

 The marriage vow seems to be taken as equivalent to 

 the freest license, about which there need be no re- 

 straint. Yet, if there be any truth in the law in refer- 

 ence to the enjoyment of the means only when the end 

 is possible, the necessity of the limitation of this indul- 

 gence during married life is clearly as great as for 

 that of any other sensual pleasure. 



"A great majority of those constituting the most 

 highly civilized communities, act upon the belief that 

 anything not forbidden by sacred or civil law is neither 

 sinful nor wrong. They have not found cohabitation 

 during pregnancy forbidden; nor have they ever had 

 their attention drawn to the injury to health and 

 organic development which such a practice inflicts. 

 Hence, a habitual yielding to inclination in this mat- 

 ter has determined their lifelong behavior. 



' ' The infringement of this law in the married state 

 does not produce in the husband any very serious dis- 

 order. Debility, aches, cramps, and a tendency to 

 epileptic seizures are sometimes seen as the effects of 

 great excess. An evil of no small account is the steady 

 growth of the sexual passion by habitual unrestraint. 

 It is in this way that what is known as libidinous 

 blood is nursed as well among those who are strictly 

 virtuous, in the ordinary meaning of the term, as 

 among those who are promiscuous in their inter- 

 course. 



" The wife and the offspring are the chief sutferers 

 by the violation of this law among the married. Why 



