SO THE HUMAN BODY. 



trying to escape a duty voluntarily undertaken, and owed to 

 her husband, her country, and her race; but she whose 

 strength is undermined and whose life is made one long 

 discomfort for the sexual gratification of her husband de- 

 serves all aid, and it is wrong to keep silent on the subject. 

 The professor of gynaecology in a leading medical school, 

 gives it as his deliberate opinion that the majority of 

 American women must at some periods of their lives choose 

 between freedom from pregnancy or early death. He 

 further says that he does not believe that healthy men are 

 so organized that this matter can be regulated by them; 

 but that the question depends on the tact and prudence of 

 the wife. Men, however, as a rule, are not utterly selfish; 

 they commonly err through ignorance or thoughtlessness, 

 not knowing or realizing what a strain frequent pregnancy 

 is on the strength of a delicate woman. A social custom so 

 deep-rooted and ancient as the usual American and English 

 one of married couples constantly occupying the same bed is 

 not easily changed, yet it probably leads to much harm, and 

 especially in this country. Whatever the reason be, there is 

 no doubt that the physical stamina of the average English 

 woman is considerably greater than that of her American 

 cousin, and she bears and brings up large families with 

 greater safety. For a husband, who has reason to believe 

 that child-bearing will injure his wife's health, to always 

 share her couch is a deliberate walking into temptation. 



Apart from pregnancy, moreover, a woman's health is 

 often injured by frequent sexual intercourse. A physician 

 who has unusual opportunities of knowing states that he 

 has reason to believe that not only is the act of sexual con- 

 gress at best, from a physical point of view, a mere nuisance 

 to the majority of women belonging to the more luxurious 

 classes of society after they attain the age of twenty-two 

 or twenty-three, but that a very considerable proportion suf- 

 fer acute pain from it such as, if frequent, breaks down the 

 general health. A loving woman, finding her highest happi- 

 ness in suffering for those dear to her, is very unlikely to let 

 her husband know this, so long as she can bear it; but if 

 the possibility is known it will not, perhaps, need much 



