216 PAUL POPENOE 



the family harmony, can be removed. Of course, there are plenty of other 

 cases in which the father is mainly responsible for keeping the children in 

 line, and has to work against the inefficiency of an untrained and irrespon- 

 sible mother. 



(5) SEXUAL DIFFICULTIES 



The sexual difficulties which, in general experience, underlie every family 

 maladjustment, go back largely to two sources which themselves are inter- 

 related. Either they are due to distorted emotional attitudes toward sex, 

 carried over from before marriage, or to mere ignorance of the differences 

 between the sexes, physiologically and psychologically, which any boy or 

 girl of fourteen should have learned in high school. 



The treatment of the emotional attitudes has been worked out pretty 

 fully during the last twenty years by mental hygienists; but unfortunately 

 this does not mean that it is successful in one hundred per cent of the cases. 

 Until more sound education for marriage and parenthood is given to all 

 young people, there will continue to be wrecks from this cause. 



An understanding of the physiology of reproduction and the psychology 

 of the two sexes can be given without much difficulty. It should be learned 

 before marriage. In case the schools have failed in their duty in this respect, 

 the time of marriage is an excellent time to make up the deficiency. A more 

 general insistence on the necessity of proper education before marriage, to- 

 gether with routine adoption of a physical examination, would remove a 

 large part of the difficulty in later married life. Unfortunately, the trend of 

 education during the last generation has been unfavorable because the domi- 

 nance of a doctrinary feminist point of view has led to a depreciation of the 

 difference between the sexes and frequently to ignoring them or denying 

 them altogether. 



There are now available sufficient good books and pamphlets to make edu- 

 cation of adults in this field fairly easy. The only limitation on it is that 

 its lack may have continued for so many years that the damage is irrepa- 

 rable. 



Several studies on presumably normal groups agree in suggesting that, at 

 least in the educated part of the population, a serious sexual maladjustment 

 exists in 25 per cent or more of all marriages at any one time. Some of these 

 are solved by the persons affected; some are unsolved but simply tolerated 

 indefinitely; others lead sooner or later to antagonisms and conflicts which, 

 involving many other aspects of the common life, break up the home. 

 Obviously success in preventing such an outcome depends markedly on the 



