A CHAPTER FOR MARRIED PEOPLE 549 



this is SO, may in part be accounted for by the following 

 consideration: Among the animal kind it is the female 

 which decides when the approaches of the male are 

 allowable. When these are untimely, her instinctive 

 prompting leads her to resist and protect herself with 

 ferocious zeal. No one at all acquainted with the re- 

 markable wisdom nature invariably displays in all her 

 operations, will doubt that the prohibition of all sexual 

 intercourse among animals during the period of preg- 

 nancy must be for a wise and good purpose. And if 

 it serves a wise and good purpose with them, why 

 should an opposite course not serve an unwise and bad 

 purpose with us I Our bodies are very much like theirs 

 in structure and in function ; and in the mode and laws 

 that govern reproduction there is absolutely no differ- 

 ence. The mere fact that we possess the power to act 

 otherwise than they do during that period, does not 

 make it right. 



''Human beings having no instinctive prompting 

 as to what is right and what is wrong, cohabitation, 

 like many other points of the behavior, is left for rea- 

 son or the will to determine; or, rather, as things now 

 are, to unreason; for reason is neither consulted nor 

 enlightened as to what is proper and allowable in the 

 matter. Nature's rule, by instinct, makes it devolve 

 upon the female to determine when the approaches of 

 the male are allowable. 



''But some may say that she is helpless in the mat- 

 ter. No one dare to approach her without consent 

 before marriage ; and why should man not be educated 

 up to the point of doing the same after marriage? 

 She is neither his slave nor his property ; nor does the 

 tie of marriage bind her to carry out any unnatural 

 requirement. ' ' 



