Marriage a Lifelong 
Honeymoon 
LIFE'S GREATEST PLEASURES 
SECURED BY OBSERVING THE HIGH- 
EST HUMAN INSTINCTS 
By BERNARR MACFADDEN 
Copyrighted, 1903, by Bernarr Macfaddbn 
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England 
(All rights reserved) 
PUBLISHED BY 
PHYSICAL CULTURE PUBLISHING CO. 
Townsend Building, 25TH Street and Broadway 
New York City 
AND 
12 and 13 Red Lion Court, Fleet St., London, England It's we two, it's we two for aye, 
All the world and we two, and Heaven be our stay! 
Like a laverock in the lift, sing, O bonny bride! 
All the world was Adam once, with Eve by his side. 
What's the world, my lass, my love-what can it do ? 
J am thine, and thou art mine; life is sweet and new. 
If the world have missed the mark, let it stand by, 
For we two have gotten leave, and once more will try. 
Like a laverock in the lift, sing, O bonny bride! 
It's we two, it's we two, happy side by side. 
Take a kiss from me, thy man; now the song begins; 
All is made afresh for us, and the brave heart wins. 
When the darker days come, and no sun will shine, 
Thou wilt dry my tears, my lass, and I'll dry thine. 
It's we two, it's we two, while the world's away, 
Sitting on our golden sheaves, on our wedding day. 
-Jean Ingelow. INTRODUCTION. 
Civilization is supposed to add to human hap- 
piness. But a careful and unprejudiced con- 
sideration of the existing conditions in this so- 
called enlightened age compels the conclusion 
that human happiness, satisfying and complete, 
is reached and maintained for a considerable 
period by but comparatively few members of 
the human race. 
The mission of this book is to lay bare the 
cause of this pitiable condition. Happiness is 
easily within the reach of every intelligent 
human being. It is often attained, and then 
left behind as carelessly as if it were a worn-out 
coat. 
Regardless of the ambitions of life, the at- IV 
INTRODUCTION. 
tainment of happiness demands first of all a 
home. The establishment of a happy home 
depends upon contented wedlock. With the 
marital relations so closely veiled in disgusting 
and vulgar secrecy, how can wedlock long re- 
main in happy content? Mistakes are always 
made. Nerve-blighting, physically-deteriorat- 
ing errors cannot be avoided. Marriage of to- 
day is often an outrageous debauchery of the 
highest human instincts; and the results of this 
frightful perversion are clearly shown in the 
tortured minds and weakened bodies seen 
everywhere. 
Here is a reform that reaches to the very 
heart of the monstrous evil that is blighting the 
lives of millions of human beings. Just as the 
heart pumps the blood throughout the entire 
body, so this great evil reaches out and infects 
human life in every sphere. Compared with 
this every other reform is insignificant, for if 
the home-the foundation of all that leads to 
a satisfactory human existence-is infected, but 
little can be accomplished. INTRODUCTION. 
V 
I realize that everywhere you will find oppo- 
sition to the dissemination of knowledge of this 
character. The prudes have stood in the way 
of progress; they have barred the human race 
from reaching a true and ennobling civilization 
from time immemorial. Their debased concep- 
tions of the human body have put the seal of in- 
decency and vulgarity on all knowledge of this 
character. The filth of their own minds has 
been given the widest possible publicity, and as 
a result, parents and teachers have ignored sub- 
jects that in their smallest details should be 
familiar to every male and female as either 
nears adult life. No matter how conscientious 
these prudes may be, they are exerting an in- 
fluence upon home life that is more murderous 
in its character than are the other combined 
evils from which humanity suffers at the present 
time. 
These prudes have made errors possible. 
They have hidden the truth. They are to blame 
for the indecent and demoralizing habits that 
are practiced by boys and girls. They are to VI 
INTRODUCTION. 
blame for the frightful immoralities that occur 
in "civilized" marriages. 
It is the vile conception of the human body by 
these prudes that prevents the knowledge con- 
tained in this book from being a universal pos- 
session. The observance of the highest human 
instincts is subverted and made impossible by a 
depraved conception of the highest and holiest 
relations of man and woman. A marriage that 
is started and continued under the direct dicta- 
tion of the highest human instincts cannot be 
unhappy. It must be productive of a happiness 
that brings the complete realization of the high- 
est anticipations of both partners. There are no 
errors of human life that are as murderous in 
character as those that are made usually in the 
beginning of marital relations. 
Let the truth contained in this book be spread 
broadcast. Evidence as to the need for this 
knowledge is to be noted everywhere. It en- 
ters into the inner life of every normal human 
being, for it gives one as a guide the proper 
interpretation of the highest human instincts; INTRODUCTION. 
VII 
and it is only under such circumstances that one 
may reach and retain the highest degree of 
human happiness. AUTHORITIES CONSULTED AND 
BOOKS QUOTED. 
The subject of this volume covers so vast a 
field of human knowledge that it would be im- 
possible to give full credit to the authorities 
which have been consulted and from whom the 
writer has quoted. Moreover, a mere list of 
names of all the public writers and private cor- 
respondents whose professional and experimen- 
tal results have been impressed into service, 
would tend only to confuse the readers for 
whose benefit this book has been written. 
The preparation of the many chapters has 
led to a great deal of special research. Where 
scientific knowledge of peculiar value and im- 
portance could be traced to its original source, 
due credit has been given. Even this, how- 
ever, is not easily accomplished, as the authors 
consulted seem to have been generally indebted 
to one another. The following brief list of BOOKS QUOTED., 
IX 
some of the books that have been examined is 
given, therefore, not only as a recognition of 
special indebtedness, but for the benefit of stu- 
dents who may desire to make a more extended 
investigation of the subject: 
Balzac: "Physiology of Marriage"; Caird : 
"The Morality of Marriage"; Carpenter: 
"Love's Coming of Age"; Child: "Biographies 
of Good Wives"; Cowan: "Science of a New 
Life"; Crawley: "The Mystic Rose"; Debay: 
"Philosophy of Marriage"; Des Roncieres: 
"Why Harmony Does Not Exist in Mar- 
riage" ; Dressier: "Feminology"; Ellis: "Man 
and Woman"; Ellis: "Wives of England"; 
Fields: "Freedom in Marriage"; Fowler: 
"Creative and Sexual Science"; Gardner: 
"Marriage and Maternity"; Geddes and Thom- 
son: "The Evolution of Sex"; Greer: "The 
Sanctity of Marriage"; Greer: "Talks on 
Nature"; Grindon: "The Sexuality of Na- 
ture"; Hardy: "How to be Happy Though 
Married"; Letourneau: "The Conditions of 
Woman in Different Races and Civilization"; X 
BOOKS QUOTED. 
Letourneau: "The Evolution of Marriage"; 
Lindsay: "Mind in the Lower Animals"; Mc- 
Gee : "The Beginning of Marriage"; Michelet: 
"Love" ("L'Amour") ; Moore: "Fornication 
Condemned"; Morgan: "Regeneration"; Mor- 
ton: "Marriage in Epigram"; Napheys: 
"Physical Life of Woman"; Napheys: "Trans- 
mission of Life"; Nisbet: "Marriage and He- 
redity"; Pendleton: "Husband and Wife"; 
Pomery: "Ethics of Marriage"; Renaud: "The 
Failure of Marriage"; Ryan: "Philosophy of 
Marriage"; Schooling: "A Woman's Chance 
of Marriage"; Stall: "What a Young Man 
Ought to Know"; Swedenborg: "Conjugal 
Love"; Terry: "Controlling Sex in Genera- 
tion" ; Tillier: "Marriage, its Genesis and Evo- 
lution"; Walker: "A Woman's Thoughts 
About Love and Marriage"; Westermarck: 
"The History of Human Marriage"; West- 
land: "Tokology for Mothers"; Wilcox: 
"Ethical Marriage"; Wood-Allen: "Manual of 
the White Shield Society"; Wood-Allen: 
"What a Young Girl Ought to Know." CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER I. 
Life a Continuous Struggle for Happiness 23 
Definition of happiness. No happiness with- 
out a home. The deification of the home the 
highest and principal object of this book. 
CHAPTER II. 
How is Happiness to be Found ? 35 
The doctrine of human happiness. Happiness 
depends upon strict obedience to the highest hu- 
man instincts. Emotions that give us pleasure 
and pain. Happiness consists in the multiplica- 
tion of agreeable consciousness. Continuous 
satiety of any appetite destructive. 
CHAPTER HI. 
Fascination of Courtship 46 
Love's wondrous power. Love's first awaken- 
ing. The strongest of all human emotions. How 
it allures and inspires. How we go heedlessly 
on to our fate. The intense yearning for hap- 
piness in life. 
CHAPTER IV. 
The Honeymoon Should Begin a Lifelong Court- 
ship 52 
Happiness depends first of all upon the proper 
adjustment of the relations of husband and wife. XII 
CONTENTS. 
A true honeymoon should never be otherwise 
than completely satisfying; should make us real- 
ize that, heretofore, previous to this experience, 
life has been simply an existence. Remarks in 
reference to the nuptial bed. Let the husband 
continue to play the role of the ardent lover. 
CHAPTER V. 
Existing Conditions in this Degenerate Age 59 
The abject misery that now exists in a great 
many so-called homes. The perversion of nor- 
mal instincts and the soul-torturing tragedies 
that result from it. Happy marriages the ex- 
ception instead of the rule, as they should be. It 
is not divorce, but the causes that lead up to it, 
that may be termed evils. 
CHAPTER VI. 
The Causes of all these Abnormalities 78 
The frightful ignorance of nearly every human 
being in reference to Nature's plain laws of sex. 
All the monstrous evils bringing so much misery, 
strife and crime, caused by failure to ascertain 
truths that are easily learned. 
CHAPTER VII. 
Thu Curse of Prudis h nes s 82 
The most frightful evil against which civili- 
zation contends. Forces children to grow up in 
absolute ignorance of their most important emo- 
tions and instincts. Compels them to look upon 
life's most divine emotions and relations as 
vulgar and indecent. Gives them the perverted 
idea of life's most beautiful emotions. CONTENTS. 
XIII 
CHAPTER VIII. 
Sex Immorality the World's Most Stupendous 
Curse 88 
Sex immorality made possible by a vulgar con- 
ception of the sex instinct. Causes more weak- 
ness, sickness and crime than the combined 
evils of the world. Not one out of a hundred 
understands the meaning of sex morality. Al- 
most every one sins simply because of the ignor- 
ance made possible by prurient prudes. 
CHAPTER IX. 
False Idea of Marital Duties 97 
Brides imbued with erroneous ideas as to 
their duty. A woman should never be a slave. 
She should own herself absolutely. She should 
never allow privileges which her finer instincts 
do not strongly desire. 
CHAPTER X. 
The Unsexing and Physically Debilitating 
Effects of Corsets 106 
Girls made sexless nonentities by the con- 
striction of the waist. The pressure of the cor- 
set on important organs stunts their development 
by interfering with their natural functional ac- 
tivities. 
CHAPTER XI. 
The Dread of Motherhood in 
No normal, healthy woman should ever dread 
motherhood unless imbued with the erroneous 
conclusions as to its dangers. The unnatural 
and nerve-blighting methods that are used to XIV 
CONTENTS. 
avoid motherhood. The crime of abortion and 
its physically debilitating effects. Are unwel- 
come children to be desired ? 
CHAPTER XII. 
The Prevention of Conception 122 
Is the prevention of conception desirable? A 
detailed discussion of this important subject. 
CHAPTER XIII. 
Foeticide Prevalent Everywhere 132 
Evidence easily secured that this habit of 
child murder is almost universal in civilized 
communities. The dangers of this practice to 
the wife. Many diseases that are often induced. 
Sterility, and even death, not an infrequent re- 
sult. 
CHAPTER XIV. 
Lack of Protective Instinct in Women 140 
The weakness of the average woman. Her 
physical deficiencies in many cases have almost 
annulled her natural instincts of sex. The 
sex instinct necessary to complete womanhood. 
More neuters among the female than among the 
male sex. Why? A poorly sexed woman should 
not marry until the sex instinct has been devel- 
oped by physical culture. 
CHAPTER XV. 
Excesses that Lessen Vitality of Both Sexes . 144 
Frightfully debilitating effects of marital ex- 
cesses. Weakens the nervous system of every CONTENTS. 
XV 
part of the body. The principal cause of con- 
sumption and all wasting and debilitating dis- 
eases. 
CHAPTER XVI. 
Is Sex Relationship Necessary to Health? 149 
This question discussed in all its various 
phases. Nothing has ever been gained through 
immoralities. Though marital relations, under 
right conditions, are undoubtedly productive of 
actual physical and mental benefit, promiscuity 
is unquestionably an evil and productive of in- 
jury. 
CHAPTER XVII. 
Nerve-Blighting Influences of Tobacco 162 
All the extreme delicacy of the nervous sys- 
tem is dulled and deadened by the tobacco poi- 
son. Wives should exert themselves to their 
utmost with a view to inducing their husbands 
to avoid this nerve-deadening habit. 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
Paralyzing Effect of Alcohol Upon the Ner- 
vous System 168 
Alcoholic liquors stimulate and ultimately 
deaden the highest human faculties and emo- 
tions. Subvert the delicate adjustment of the 
nervous system. Destroy its sensitiveness. 
CHAPTER XIX. 
Nerve-Benumbing Results of Overfeeding 181 
A rich diet in which condiments play an im- 
portant part induces perpetual overeating and 
keeps the entire functional system in an over- XVI 
CONTENTS. 
worked, half-paralyzed condition. Under such 
circumstances diseases are easily induced and 
one becomes as dopey as when using alcoholic 
liquors. 
CHAPTER XX. 
The Drug Habit and its Torpifying, Paralyzing 
Effect 187 
The habitual use of drugs very similar in 
effect to alcohol. One habit about as bad as the 
other. The system finally depends upon this 
stimulation and loses all the finer delicacy of 
one's highest instincts. 
CHAPTER XXL 
Monogamy in its Perfect State ... 195 
The life beautiful can be lived only under per- 
fect monogamous conditions. A plain discus- 
sion of this important subject. The instinct 
that formerly guided us correctly can be de- 
pended upon no longer. A comparison of the 
morals of savagery and civilization inclines one 
to the belief that so-called civilization increases 
immoralities. The lives of many savages far 
superior to those of civilized men in morals. 
CHAPTER XXII. 
Are Children Necessary to a Happy Home? 211 
Mother's love cannot be satisfied without chil- 
dren. A childless home can never be perma- 
nently happy. Marriage should never be con- 
tracted unless husband and wife are willing to 
bear this responsibility. The only excuse for 
refusing to accept motherhood is inability to 
bear healthy children. CONTENTS. 
XVII 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
The Selection of a Husband 217 
First of all the woman should select a manly 
man. Importance of health and strength. Life's 
most important step. Marriage fundamentally a 
physical union. The more superior the physi- 
cal powers the better will be the opportunities 
for permanent happiness. 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
The Selection of a Wife 223 
Requirements in a wife do not differ greatly 
from those of a husband. A woman should re- 
member that the duties of motherhood will be 
imposed upon her. Her strength and health will 
be transmitted to her child. She will be a hap- 
pier mother and wife if she possesses superior 
health and the delicately adjusted instincts that 
accompany it. 
CHAPTER XXV. 
Marriage the Most Divine of all Human Rela- 
tions 231 
We all dream of ideal marriages. Though we 
may have evidence of mistakes all around, we 
always think that our step into the unknown 
will be different. Marriage can and should be 
the means of developing all that is highest and 
noblest in the human character. 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
Honeymoons Frequently Marred by Lustful Ex- 
cesses 238 
The lack of sex instinct in women and the 
perverted conclusions as to marital duties often XVIII 
CONTENTS. 
make the honeymoon a harrowing experience. 
Man's ignorance and inhumanity under these 
circumstances caused by prurient prudes. 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
A Wrong Beginning the Greatest Evil of Mar- 
riage 243 
In love brides hold a wonderful power. With 
a full understanding of themselves and what 
should be their duty toward their husbands, 
they should rule absolutely in marital relations. 
They should be the dominating and directing 
power at all times under circumstances of this 
nature. 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
Plain Instructions to Those About to be Mar- 
ried 247 
Some pertinent advice to bride and bride- 
groom. Man must know his place and his priv- 
ileges and not exceed them one iota. Love to be 
retained and increased must be made to submit 
to feminine instincts. 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
How Sex May be Controlled 252 
Discussion of the very interesting problem of 
the determination of sex. The old Jewish 
method of having a boy or girl at will. Other 
methods described. 
CHAPTER XXX. 
The Age at which to Marry 262 
< Proper age to marry differs in varying cli- 
mates. Complete maturity essential under all CONTENTS. 
XIX 
circumstances. Youthful marriages never ad- 
vised. Complete development of all physical 
powers essential to the propagation of vigorous 
offspring. 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
Marriage of Blood Relatives 267 
Is the marriage of cousins allowable? Views 
of various authorities on this subject. The 
progeny of consanguineous marriages are often 
weak and defective. 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
Pre-natal Influences 279 
Discussion of this extremely interesting prob- 
lem. How the child may be invested at will 
with talents and powers. Mental and physical 
influence of the mother under these circum- 
stances. 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
Must Continence be Observed During Pregnancy ? 295 
As incontinence during this period is almost 
universal in monagamous countries, the sub- 
ject is discussed as nearly as is possible from an 
unprejudiced viewpoint. Throughout the entire 
lower animal world extreme continence at this 
period is required. Does man, from a physical 
viewpoint, differ from the lower animals? 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 
Happiness Depends Upon the Control of the Pas- 
sions 300 
To give free rein to animal passion means 
physical and mental deterioriation. Love and XX 
CONTENTS. 
passion so closely interwoven that one depends 
largely upon the other. Annihilate either, and 
both will disappear. Continuous satiety of the 
passions nearly always means the death of love. 
The necessity for a man to master himself. 
CHAPTER XXXV. 
Tremendous Power to be Obtained by Diverting 
the Nervous Energies of Sex to Other Chan- 
nels 306 
Man a dynamo of nervous force. He pos- 
sesses so much stored energy. He can increase 
it or spend it wastefully, and in the control of 
the sex passion man holds a tremendous force 
that can be used for his advancement in other 
directions. 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 
The Thrill of a Tender Caress 310 
Love's first and strongest manifestation comes 
from a tender caress. It may be the clasp of a 
hand, a glance from love-lit eyes, or the touch 
of warm red lips, but from such a caress there 
is often almost as much real pleasure as there is 
from the tenderest intimacies that follow. All 
these delicately sensitive pleasures of life's high- 
est and holiest powers can be subverted and de- 
stroyed absolutely by animal excesses. 
CHAPTER XXXVII. 
Who is to Blame when Hands Grow Clammy 
- and Lips Cold? 
Animalism the death of love, Excesses de- CONTENTS. 
XXI 
stroy love's highest and holiest manifestations. 
Under its influence love grows commonplace. 
CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
The Plain Remedy for Those Who Have Made a 
Wrong Beginning 322 
A brief absence is first required. Then the 
marital relations must be begun over again, and 
under right conditions. 
CHAPTER XXXIX. 
Can a Dead Love be Revived? 326 
The statement is often made that the ashes of 
a dead love never can be resurrected, but this 
is not always t le. With proper physical and 
mental environm its, and the bringing about of 
conditions simila to those that existed when 
the love first spra. » into life, an old love often 
may be revived. . all depends upon the ex- 
perimenters. 
CHAPTER XL. 
A Cold, Detailed Analysis of Love's Emotions . 329 
What is love? The practical purpose it serves. 
The world would be a cold, dreary place with- 
out it. 
CHAPTER XLI. 
Too Ethereal; Not Practical or Possible 334 
A few words to those who consider the the- 
ories advocated herein as being not within the 
bounds of human power. The method whereby 
every one interested may experiment easily and XXII 
CONTENTS. 
find out for himself or herself the accuracy of 
the conclusions. 
CHAPTER XL1I. 
Summary in Brief 337 
Knowledge is power. All are advised to know 
themselves. The recent conversion of the 
W. C. T. U. Purity League. A brief summary 
of the principles taught in the book. CHAPTER I. 
LIFE A CONTINUOUS STRUGGLE FOR HAPPINESS. 
Life, from birth to death, represents one al- 
most continuous struggle for happiness. When 
the new-born babe first becomes conscious of 
his surroundings, appropriate food and warmth 
are about all that are essential to happiness at 
this particular period of his life. But as the lit- 
tle mite of humanity increases in size his neces- 
sities multiply vastly. Happiness begins to 
mean something more than the satisfying of the 
appetite and the maintenance of warmth. The 
little one craves association with other children 
and longs for parental affection. 
But the moment school is brought into the 
child's life, the really serious pursuit of happi- 
ness begins. The educational methods of school 
life are supposed to prepare one to cope with the 
world. They are supposed to develop the intel- 
23 24 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
ligence that is essential to life's greatest happi- 
ness. 
I admit that this is largely a supposition, and 
that the educational methods of to-day are 
grossly inadequate. Nevertheless this entire 
preparatory process is practically for the one 
purpose of adding happiness to adult life. It is 
supposed to be a preparation for life's duties and 
pleasures. 
When school is left behind, the selecting of a 
profession or of some other occupation is the 
next serious step in life. Many make very 
grievous mistakes in the choice. The majority 
^of newly-fledged adults consider life to be 
very commonplace, and the occupation one 
finally selects is often one that is not congenial 
or even interesting. It insures the chooser 
nothing more than a comfortable living. There 
is surety of enough to eat and wear and of a 
place to sleep; and, therefore, in as far as the 
beginners of adult life know, they have made 
within their limited knowledge the best possible 
selection, and every effort in all this is ex- LIFE A STRUGGLE FOR HAPPINESS. 
25 
pended with a view of adding to future happi- 
ness. 
At every step along life's pathway, the single 
object of every human being is to add to his own 
happiness and to that of others. It matters 
not what may be one's position or business, he 
is struggling for happiness. You desire to be 
as comfortable as you can while still accom- 
plishing your object; yet even your object itself, 
if clearly defined in every case, will be found to 
be that which you believe will add to the happi- 
ness of yourself or of those you love. 
There are, of course, a few unselfish persons 
who are willing to sacrifice, and who do sacri- 
fice, their happiness for others, but they are in- 
terested in thus sacrificing their own comfort in 
order that others may be made more happy. 
So, after all, even these unselfish persons are 
struggling for happiness-not, it may be, for 
their own, but for that of others. 
Happiness is a will-o'-the-wisp. It is largely 
an imaginary thing. Indeed it depends in a 
great measure upon the condition of one's diges- 26 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
tion. A defective digestion, and happiness, can 
never exist at the same time in the same person. 
To define all the conditions essential to happi- 
ness would be very difficult. What would mean 
happiness to one person might mean almost the 
opposite to another. Happiness, therefore, may 
mean something peculiar to each individual. 
Generally speaking, it probably means the 
bringing about of the conditions that enable us 
to satisfy all our normal desires. The satisfy- 
ing of an abnormal desire may bring us so- 
called happiness for a short time. But happi- 
ness that is satisfying, complete and lasting can- 
not be secured through any abnormal influences 
or conditions. 
It cannot be denied that health plays an im- 
portant part. No invalid was ever wholly 
happy. Disease and unhappiness are sworn 
enemies; they are like oil and water. They 
won't mix. Regardless of what may be your 
desires in life, there will be but little true happi- 
ness for you unless you have realized the im- 
portance of vigorous health. Health gives you LIFE A STRUGGLE FOR HAPPINESS. 
27 
the strength and nervous energy essential to 
the accomplishing of your desires. Whatever 
these may be, in addition health gives you en- 
thusiasm, and this is always required when 
your efforts are to be exerted in any important 
work. A commonplace, phlegmatic individual 
can do next to nothing. He cannot feel, he can- 
not enjoy, he cannot suffer; he simply exists. 
To be really and grandly happy, you must have 
a fine, delicately sensitive nervous organism. 
You must be able to feel acutely and to suffer 
intensely in case conditions call for such mani- 
festations of your manly or womanly instincts. 
If, therefore, happiness consists in tempora- 
rily satisfying all our normal desires, it must 
be found largely in obeying all the great laws 
of our nature; that is, in following our normal 
instinct; which, however, I admit are but rarely 
possessed in this perverted age. All boys and 
girls, as they grow to maturity, should develop 
well-defined desires. The young imitate those 
whom they meet and admire; and, to a certain 
extent, they shape their own ambitions and their 28 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
own individualities after these older patterns. 
As they approach maturity the younger people 
begin to develop individualities of their own; 
but even then they are largely duplicates. 
Younger adults originate and add here and 
there, but, as a rule, there is not much change. 
Then later, as they advance to real adult life, 
all normal human beings have dreams of a 
future in which they imagine themselves placed 
in certain fixed circumstances. And still these 
ideal circumstances have the conservative ele- 
ment of a common humanity; especially in this, 
that whatever may be the dreams of these 
young men and women, there is always con- 
nected with them views of a happy home. For 
without a home there can be no true happiness 
for a man or a woman. 
No matter how completely one's ambitions 
may have been satisfied, he is still an outcast, 
a vagrant, until he has a home of his own. He 
cannot know or feel the real, exalted, satisfying 
happiness that is supposed to come to a human 
being at some time of his life until independent LIFE A STRUGGLE FOR HAPPINESS. 
29 
home conditions are brought into existence. 
All boys and girls, as they approach maturity, 
yearn first of all for happy homes of their own. 
They may change after maturity; abnormal 
environments may pervert their true nature, but 
if left to the dictates of their inner selves they 
will grow up yearning more and more for this 
first essential element of life's happiness. 
The home is the foundation of all that is 
good, true and exalted. It is the foundation of 
civilization; if it falls and disappears from so- 
ciety, with it must go all that is best in human 
life. Within the home you will find the cul- 
mination of all your social, physical and spirit- 
ual yearnings. The home it is that brings out 
all that is best and true and noble in human 
character. 
True happiness, therefore, cannot be found 
outside the realm of home life. It encircles the 
true home like a halo; it cannot be found any- 
where else. 
I admit that home and happiness rarely go 
together in the present perverted state of civil- 30 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
ization. But this is not the fault of the home. 
It is the fault of those who try ineffectually to 
make the home. There is within every human 
being a yearning for companionship, for affec- 
tion, for some one to love; and though there 
may be fleeting moments when this yearning is 
satisfied outside the home, such satisfaction is 
only temporary. It leaves one in a barren waste 
of loneliness, and he yearns often in vain for a 
continuance of conditions so enticing and so 
deceiving. 
In many instances the greed for money, no 
doubt, has considerable to do with the unhappi- 
ness of home life. The struggle for riches, for 
pecuniary independence, is at times so absorb- 
ing that the home of a man becomes merely the 
refuge of a weary, over-worked mind and body. 
The following case very clearly indicates that 
wealth does not always insure happiness, and 
that the feverish race for its rewards often 
makes life an unsatisfactory existence and does 
much to destroy the best influences of home life. 
"He has made one fortune, but did not con- LIFE A STRUGGLE FOR HAPPINESS. 
31 
sider it large enough, and is now busy in mak- 
ing another. He is off to the city at eight a.m., 
never returning until eight p.m., and then so 
worn out and jaded that he cares for nothing 
beyond his dinner and sleep. His beautiful 
house, his conservatories and pleasure grounds 
delight not him; he never enjoys, he only pays 
for them. He has a charming wife and a beau- 
tiful family, but he sees little of either; the 
latter, indeed, he never sees at all except on 
Sundays. He comes home so tired that the 
children would only worry him. To them 
'Papa' is almost a stranger. They know him 
only as a periodical encumbrance on the house- 
hold life that generally makes it much less 
pleasant; and, when they grow up, it is to such 
a totally different existence from his that they 
usually quietly ignore him. 'Oh, Papa cares 
nothing about this; no, no, we never think of 
telling Papa anything'-until some day Papa 
will die and leave them a quarter of a million. 
How much better to leave them what money 
can never buy: the remembrance of a Father! 32 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
A real Father whose guardianship made home 
safe; whose tenderness filled it with happiness; 
who was companion and friend, as well as 
ruler and guide; whose influence interpene- 
trated every day of their lives, every feeling of 
their hearts; who was not merely the author of 
their beings, but the originator and educator of 
everything good in them; the visible Father on 
earth, who made them understand dimly 'our 
Father which is in Heaven.' 
"The feverish pursuit of wealth is to be de- 
precated and avoided by all men whose desire 
it is to 'live while they live.' Money, I grant 
you, is a requirement in life's travels, but in get- 
ting it make haste slowly-very slowly. Do not 
start in life with the intention of accumulating 
a fortune, and then retiring to enjoy it. This 
retiring on the getting of a fortune is one of the 
great mistakes of life; for no man or woman 
should think of retiring from life's work until 
they retire to their graves. The man who lives 
a true and pure life, who works until he is 
forty, sixty, or ninety years of age, every day LIFE A STRUGGLE FOR HAPPINESS. 
33 
of his life, until the day comes when, tired of 
life's work, he desires and longs to leave this 
world, lies down to sleep, and to sleep without 
fear or pain-his soul escapes to higher 
realms." 
In the conception of the true home, where 
greed enters not, and vain ambition has no 
place, but where love rules forever, Nathaniel 
Cotton struck the key-note of actual human 
need when, in the eighteenth century, he wrote: 
If solid happiness we prize, 
Within our breast this jewel lies. 
And they are fools who roam. 
The world has nothing to bestow; 
From our own selves our joys must flow, 
And that dear hut, our home. 
Let us exalt the home to the highest possible 
degree. It is a pedestal upon which we should 
all be glad to be placed. It is exultation where 
you find happiness within yourself, so satisfy- 
ing and complete. When the anticipations that 
stir the soul of every normal human being fail 
to be fully realized, and the home is found to 
offer only a commonplace existence, then, in- 34 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
deed, does life yield its most bitter disappoint- 
ments. 
One of the principal objects of this book is to 
glorify the home, to exalt it to its highest, its 
noblest altitude. The home can be made easily 
all that our dreams may desire. It can be com- 
pletely, thoroughly satisfying to the hungriest 
soul. All that is necessary is a proper under- 
standing of the relations that should exist be- 
tween the home-makers. The man and woman 
who enter into a compact to create a home 
should have a full and complete knowledge of 
the seriousness and possibilities of the task. 
The so-called innocence that is supposed to be 
necessary in girl brides has opened the way to 
more agony of mind, to more excruciating 
misery than even the fires of hell are supposed 
to be able to induce. CHAPTER II. 
HOW IS HAPPINESS TO BE FOUND? 
It is quite clear that happiness is the one great 
object of all our endeavors. Life is a continued 
struggle for the possession of this great treas- 
ure, and really one of our most important duties 
is to consider carefully the definition of happi- 
ness and the various means that may be essen- 
tial in acquiring and in maintaining it through- 
out life. 
As the object of this book is to promote the 
welfare, not only of the reader, but of his dear- 
est life companion, it will be readily admitted, 
therefore, that these questions are fundamental. 
There can be no worthy consideration of human 
happiness that does not begin with human mar- 
riage ; and, as we progress in the study of this 
important subject, it will become more and 
more evident that the possession of happiness 
is dependent upon a strict obedience to the 
35 36 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
highest instincts of our nature. And though 
this may be true, in general, it is more espe- 
cially true in married life. 
Observation shows us that everything, so far 
as human relations are concerned, has been cre- 
ated double. There is a world all around us, 
and there is a world within us. There is light 
without and there is the eye within; beauty 
without and taste, or the faculty of discerning 
beauty, within. Moral qualities exist in human 
actions, and we have an inner conscience en- 
abling us to weigh them; and so on almost in- 
definitely. It is by this correspondence that 
our communication with the external world 
exists. It is by the presence of these external 
objects that our internal powers are called into 
action. The presence of light, for example, 
excites our organ of vision; odors excite our 
sense of smell; beauty and deformity call into 
exercise our faculty of taste. Then by the ex- 
ercise of these faculties we become conscious of 
the existence of the objects about us and of 
their qualities. HOW IS HAPPINESS FOUND? 
37 
For instance, by the exercise of the faculty 
of sight we are macle conscious of the existence 
of visible objects and of their colors and forms. 
Through the sense of hearing we become con- 
scious of the existence of audible objects and 
of their sounds. Now, this knowledge that we 
thus receive of the existence and qualities of 
objects in the outer world is attended generally 
with pleasure or with pain, with admiration or 
with aversion. The mere perception itself may 
be immediately pleasing, or it may be a sign of 
some other quality that has power to please. 
We see, therefore, that we stand in such relation 
to the outside world about us that some objects 
give us pleasure, while others give us pain. 
That is, we are capable of receiving and being 
pleased with, or of being pained by, the objects 
of the world about us. 
This capacity for pleasure or for pain we may 
call sensitiveness. The power of receiving hap- 
piness or its opposite from the objects we per- 
ceive in the external world is connected closely 
with the exercise of our different faculties. We 38 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
can enjoy the pleasure of vision only by the 
exercise of the faculty of sight; we can have the 
pleasure of knowledge only by the exercise of 
the intellectual powers; the pleasure of appetite 
by the exercise of the faculty of taste; and so, 
in general, it is only by the exercise of the pow- 
ers necessary to our existence and welfare that 
we derive pleasure. It will be noted, therefore, 
that happiness is conveyed to us through the 
sensitiveness of our nervous or mental organ- 
isms; that happiness is the gratification of de- 
sire, the enjoyment of what we love, or that, in 
the words of Samuel Johnson, "happiness con- 
sists in the multiplication of agreeable con- 
sciousness." 
Seeing, then, that we are created with these 
capacities for happiness, and that the objects 
around us are exactly fitted for satisfying the 
demands of happiness, we lay it down as the law 
of nature that one is intended to act upon the 
other; that this is the way in which we are to be 
made happy. 
The truth of this becomes more and more HOW IS HAPPINESS FOUND? 
39 
evident when we consider that the faculties upon 
which our happiness depends are the very same 
faculties that are necessary to our existence and 
prosperity. If we pursue the course of conduct 
that makes for life, health and prosperity, we 
are securing at the same time our happiness. 
Happiness, therefore, it will be seen, is the 
reward of right living. It is a part of right liv- 
ing. One is closely interwoven with the other. 
Each is necessary to the other. Thus we have, 
as a general principle or law of our being, that 
our desire for certain objects, and the exist- 
ence of that which is exactly adapted to satisfy- 
ing this desire, definitely indicate that we 
should have the enjoyment of that particular 
object; while, on the other hand, our aversion 
to anything is a reason for avoiding it. 
We say this desire or aversion for anything 
should indicate our attitude towards it; that if 
we desire it, we would be improved by satisfy- 
ing this desire; that if we are averse to it, we 
would be harmed by failing to follow the action 
suggested by this aversion. Therefore, it will 40 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
be seen clearly that a simple desire or dislike 
should control our conduct to a certain extent. 
When we look more closely into the subject, we 
find that our happiness depends upon other con- 
ditions than the mere gratification of desire. 
Let us consider some of these limiting condi- 
tions of true happiness. 
Experience will teach us that we may gratify 
an appetite or desire so as to destroy tempora- 
rily, and often permanently, its power to pro- 
duce pleasurable sensations. Suppose, for in- 
stance, that you find pleasure in eating a certain 
kind of food. This, naturally, you would con- 
sider a sufficient reason for eating it. But if 
you eat it to excess you will produce at least a 
temporary loathing and you may annihilate per- 
manently the capacity for enjoying this partic- 
ular article of diet. Thus, while you may find 
pleasure in partaking of this food, you will dis- 
cover also that it is not productive of happiness 
if you partake of it to excess. Or, by this same 
excess, you may produce so much pain and dis- 
tress that the resulting unhappiness overbal- HOW IS HAPPINESS FOUND? 
41 
ances the momentary happiness of gratifica- 
tion. 
Therefore, the same reasoning which indi- 
cates that you should eat a certain article of 
food because it is desired, shows you also that 
you should not eat it to excess. Experience has 
shown further that we may so gratify one 
form of desire as to destroy the power that 
other forms of desire have of imparting happi- 
ness. On the other hand, we may so gratify it as 
to leave others uninjured. 
It is quite evident, then, that we should sat- 
isfy our desires temperately; that we should 
avoid excess in every way. We should never 
gratify one form of desire so intemperately as 
to impair other forms of desire that are calcu- 
lated to promote our happiness. We are so 
formed that food is a pleasure to us under cer- 
tain circumstances, and that is the reason why 
we should eat. We are formed, also, with the 
desire for knowledge, and that is the reason why 
we should study. Both of these sources of 
gratification are intended to promote our happi- 42 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
ness. But, if we eat so much that we cannot 
study, or if we study so much that we cannot 
eat, we are destroying one source of happiness, 
and thus we defeat the designs of dur nature. 
Experience shows, still further, that if we in- 
dulge in any one form of gratification suffi- 
ciently to destroy the power of any other form 
of gratification, we finally diminish or destroy 
the power to derive happiness even from both 
forms of gratification. For example, if you eat 
so excessively as to impair your capacity for 
intellectual gratification, you also injure your 
digestive organs, induce disease, and thus 
diminish the pleasure of eating. Or, if you 
study so much as to destroy your appetite, you 
finally destroy also your capacity for studying. 
So far we have considered the individual 
human being in his search after happiness. But 
what is true of the individual is true of man- 
kind in the aggregate. Suppose the human race 
should suddenly determine upon the universal 
and unlimited gratification of any one appetite, 
passion or desire? Would there not be in a few HOW IS HAPPINESS FOUND? 
43 
years an end to the race ? Imagine, if you can, 
the unchaining of all the passions, appetites and 
desires of all mankind, and you will readily 
see that a limit to the gratification of our de- 
sires is necessary to our very existence as well 
as to our happiness. 
The gratification of our desires within tem- 
perate limits is therefore necessary to happiness. 
That individual is the happiest whose desires are 
regulated most perfectly in accordance with 
the laws of creation, which are the laws of 
virtue. A life conformed to the laws of virtue 
is the happiest life attainable on earth. 
Virtue and the proper appreciation of the 
home are inseparable. Twelve centuries before 
the dawn of the Christian era we find Greece 
stirred up over the abduction of Helen from her 
husband, Menelaus, by the Trojan prince, 
Paris. Troy was besieged by Grecian troops, 
and after a siege lasting many years the city fell 
and was destroyed. Thus Greece avenged a 
violation of the sanctity and purity of the home. 
In still later centuries the Greeks developed the 44 
marriage a lifelong honeymoon. 
most perfect mental and physical specimens of 
womanhood that history records-and, neces- 
sarily, of manhood, too. This ideal state of life 
came through true reverence for woman and 
for home; a reverence that had to be reached 
through the evolution of a pure ideal. In the 
end Greece fell through the gradual decay of 
sex and home ideals. 
The Romans, descended from the Trojan 
fugitives, began badly. Soon after the City of 
Seven Hills was founded the Romans found it 
necessary, in their way of thinking, to secure 
wives by violence from among the Sabines. 
Yet in time the Romans discovered that all 
greatness came from the sacredness of family 
life. The purity of the Roman home, and es- 
pecially the virtue of the Roman matron, be- 
came maxims, and Rome conquered the known 
world. So strong was the reverence for home, 
that the Romans possessed, in every household, 
idols that were known as the "lares and 
penates." To the deities which these idols typi- 
fied was intrusted the preservation of the home. HOW IS HAPPINESS FOUND? 
45 
In times of nature's violence, of plague or of 
war, when the home was threatened, the Ro- 
mans were careful to carry the household "lares 
and penates" with them in their flight. 
There came an evil time when the "lares and 
penates" were ignored, when the fidelity of 
woman became a jest, when the fidelity of her 
husband was treated as a matter of incredulity; 
and then the hitherto all-powerful civiliza- 
tion and prowess of the now degenerate Rome 
fell before the arms of the barbarian. The latter 
possessed at least a home and family instincts. 
By the same token, the barbarian, too, fell in his 
turn as soon as his natural instincts became per- 
verted by contact with a "higher civilization." CHAPTER HI. 
FASCINATION OF COURTSHIP. 
What a wondrous power is love! How mys- 
tically fascinating it becomes when first we 
awaken to its influence! To the young it is so 
mysterious. Its very mystery seems to give it 
added charm. Without love, the world would 
be indeed a cold and barren waste. Without 
this divine emotion that binds the souls of two 
human beings so closely together, and which 
often makes life so bright, cheerful and promis- 
ing, there would be but little in life to make it 
worth the living. 
True, there are many disappointments and 
much misery consequent upon the developments 
of love. At present, perhaps, there may be more 
of misery attached to it than there is of happi- 
ness. Still, how we delight to dream of love; 
to see visions of ourselves with the one es- 
46 FASCINATION OF COURTSHIP. 
47 
pecially desired companion who completely sat- 
isfies the wild longings of the innermost soul! 
Though the serious and permanent attractions 
of life may hold us more steadily and firmly 
as we reach mature age, yet, unquestionably, the 
most fascinating period of our whole career is 
that found in courtship. The greatest pleasure 
of hunting is found in the search for game. 
Carrying it home, after it has been secured, has 
but little fascination. The contest, the certainty 
is over. You have won or lost, as the case may 
be, and you must do your best to be satisfied 
with the results-with that which fate has 
chosen to give you. Converse with any sedate 
married couple; inquire carefully of them as to 
the happiest period of their lives, and in nearly 
every instance they will inform you that it was 
the time of courtship preceding marriage. 
Love's first message! What a charm it 
holds for us! How it awakens and exhilarates 
the emotional nature! A man or woman meets 
one who, in some mysterious way, awakens the 
emotions, the possession of which may not have 48 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
been realized thoroughly. Sometimes this 
awakening is of slow growth. There are many 
cases where acquaintance has existed for a long 
while, when, suddenly, there came this real- 
ization and awakening of the apparently dor- 
mant love emotion. 
It means so much! It often changes the trend 
of one's entire life. Its outcome may be suc- 
cess or failure, happiness or misery. No one 
can make accurate predictions. It is a great 
gambling game. Marriage is said to be a lot- 
tery, and, under existing conditions, it certainly 
is a step into the great unknown. Whether or 
not you have drawn a prize or a blank cannot 
be definitely determined. You must go on in 
the usual reckless, unreasoning manner, and 
time alone can tell what the future may have in 
store for you. 
How heedlessly we go on to our fate! We 
will persist in seeing nothing but brightness in 
the future; and, indeed, with a full understand- 
ing of nature's imperative laws governing the 
relations of man and woman, there should be FASCINATION OF COURTSHIP. 
49 
nothing but brightness. But on the rocks of 
ignorance, which sometimes is designated as 
innocence, many poor souls are wrecked beyond 
recall. 
"All the world loves a lover.'' And why 
cannot all the world be made up of lovers? 
Why cannot courtship and the exquisite pleas- 
ures that accompany it continue throughout 
life? Why should they be so brief, so efferves- 
cent? Why should they not endure as long as 
does life itself? Love, in the love-making time, 
is so bewitching, so beautiful, so enthralling! 
Why should love-making time ever cease to 
exist ? Why can it not continue on to the end of 
life ? Why can it not settle into at least peace- 
ful, calm satisfaction to make of life all that we 
can possibly desire? 
How intensely we all yearn for happiness! 
How we struggle and strive for it! Yet in 
many instances we manifest just about as much 
intelligence in directing our efforts as does a 
hopper-toad whose recreation hours are spent 
on a railroad track. 50 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, 
And men below and saints above; 
For love is heaven, and heaven is love. 
****** 
True love's the gift which God has given 
To man alone beneath the heaven: 
It is not fantasy's hot fire, 
Whose wishes soon as granted fly; 
It liveth not in fierce desire, 
With dead desire it doth not die; 
It is the secret sympathy, 
The silver link, the silken tie, 
Which heart to heart and mind to mind 
In body and in soul can bind. 
Sir Walter Scott. 
The Scotch bard struck the note truly. There 
can be no love that is founded on impure 
thought. There can be no true love where there 
is not reverence in the man's heart for his be- 
loved, nor where the woman does not feel at 
least vast respect for the man. It is preposter- 
ous to think that a man can feel reverence to- 
ward a woman who is not pure. Womanly 
innocence should be distinguished sternly from 
prudery. By the time that a young woman 
reaches marriageable age, unless her parents 
have sinned in her training, she will know all FASCINATION OF COURTSHIP. 
51 
that is needful about herself. This knowledge 
becomes her strongest protection. Let her real- 
ize that she is not ignorant of her place in life. 
Let her realize, in addition, that her suitor 
knows she has received teachings of which 
prudes do not approve. Then, if his conduct 
proves reverence for her truly-developed inno- 
cence, is she likely to fail in the great respect 
for him that is bound to ripen into abiding love? CHAPTER IV. 
THE HONEYMOON SHOULD BEGIN A LIFELONG 
COURTSHIP. 
It is not the purpose of this chapter to tell 
what honeymoons at present are. A chapter 
will be devoted to this subject further along in 
the book. The present purpose is to indicate ap- 
proximately what they should be and what they 
can be. They are often a most melancholy, and 
sometimes a tragical disappointment. They 
prove most emphatically the statement often 
made that the anticipated happiness is never 
wholly satisfying. 
The real honeymoon should be never other- 
wise than most completely satisfying. It should 
be the thorough realization of all that our wild- 
est dreams have anticipated. It should be the 
meeting of two human beings, whose affection 
for each other, though it may have been pre- 
52 A LIFELONG COURTSHIP. 
53 
viously very strong, should increase, under 
circumstances of this nature, in manifold in- 
tensity and measure. In fact, it should be 
really the beginning of life for both the man 
and the woman. Each should realize thor- 
oughly that heretofore they have been simply 
existing. 
A complete, soul-satisfying honeymoon un- 
der normal conditions can never be accurately 
described, and the writer does not intend to 
make the attempt; but he does desire to empha- 
size, with the greatest possible force, the fact 
that the true honeymoon is merely a continua- 
tion of courtship. There should be but little 
change. 
There should be no nuptial bed. There 
should be separate apartments, or at least sepa- 
rate beds; and the beginning of the intimate re- 
lationships of husband and wife should be be- 
gun with a full understanding of the laws of 
nature as applied to the marital relations. The 
wife should own herself as absolutely as she did 
before marriage. Under no circumstances 54 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
should she allow herself to be dictated to in the 
marital relations, nor in this regard should she 
vary one iota from her normal instincts. 
Let the husband continue to play the role of 
the ardent lover, just as he did previous to mar- 
riage. Let him continue to seek as zealously the 
favors he desires. Not for a moment should 
he be allowed to believe that he is to cease play- 
ing the hunter-that, having secured the game, 
no further efforts on his part are necessary. 
He must be made to continue all the alluring at- 
tentions that were so pleasing during courtship. 
A right beginning, it must be remembered, 
means not only a continuation of the regard that 
existed previous to marriage; it means also a 
constant increase of respect, admiration and de- 
sire. The longer both continue under condi- 
tions of this kind, the more closely will the ties 
of love be cemented. The change brought on 
by marriage should make but little change in 
the relations; and it is only by means of realiza- 
tion of these facts that the real honeymoon can 
equal its anticipation. A LIFELONG COURTSHIP. 
55 
Though marital miseries are everywhere at 
the present time, there are many examples to 
which we could point to prove that it is possible 
for these relations to be all that can possibly be 
desired. 
Models of chastity and conjugal affection 
abound in ancient history. Lucretia was a noble 
example of chastity. The letters of Pliny and 
of Cicero to their wives were filled with amiable 
and tender sentiments. The latter, addressing 
his wife, Terentia, during his banishment from 
which he was afterward brought back through 
her interest and solicitation, writes: 
"You have done everything for me with the 
utmost fortitude and affection. Nor is it more 
than I expected of you ; though it aggravates 
my ill fortune that the afflictions I suffer can be 
relieved only by those which you undergo for 
my sake. For honest Valerius has written me 
a letter which I cannot read without weeping 
very bitterly; giving me an account of the pub- 
lic procession you made for me at Rome. Alas! 
my dearest life; and must Terentia, the darling 56 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
of my soul, whose favor and recommendations 
have been so often sought by others, must my 
Terentia droop under a weight of sorrow, ap- 
pear in the habit of a mourner, pour out floods 
of tears; and all this for my sake ? For the sake 
of me who have undone my family by seeking 
the welfare of others? Thou art before mine 
eyes both day and night. I see thee laboring 
amid untold difficulties. 1 fear lest thou sink 
under them; but I find in thee all the qualifica- 
tions necessary to support thee. Be sure, there- 
fore, to cherish thy health. Farewell, my Ter- 
entia, my heart's desire, farewell!" 
George Washington always wore the minia- 
ture of his wife, Martha, over his heart; and so 
happy was their married life that, as a recent 
writer has remarked, "they have been always 
accepted as models." 
James Nasmyth, the inventor of the steam 
hammer, said of himself and of his wife: 
"Forty-two years of married life finds us the 
same devoted 'cronies' that we were at the be- 
ginning." A LIFELONG COURTSHIP. 
57 
Andrew Johnson owed his education to his 
wife. He learned his A B C's and the rudi- 
ments of grammar in his workshop; but in all 
beyond this she was his teacher, and as has 
been well said, "her mental acquirements were 
the incentive to her husband's ambition." 
William Cullen Bryant lived in the most com- 
plete harmony with his Fanny for forty-five 
years, and, upon her death, poured out his soul 
in that pathetic poem "Alone without Thee." 
He dedicated to her the famous poem "The 
Future Life," in which he speaks of her as 
"Lovelier in heaven's sweet climate, yet the same." 
Ibsen, notwithstanding his keen satires of 
almost all existing institutions and of all con- 
nected with them, says of his own wife: 
"Her cares were the shadows that darkened my road, 
Her joys were the angels my pathway that showed; 
She it was that enkindled my soul to a glow; 
And all that I owe her, none other may know." 
"The obstinacy of Andrew Jackson," says a 
writer in the Catholic Review, "has become 58 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
proverbial; but in the heart of Old Hickory 
there was always a soft spot that yielded to any 
wish of his beloved Rachel." 
Hawthorne was so completely wrapped up in 
his witty and optimistic Sophia that, on one oc- 
casion, when she was away from the old manse 
for but a few days, he resolved not to open his 
lips to a single human being until after her 
return. 
The married life of Robert and Elizabeth 
Barrett Browning is one sweet continued story 
of wedded happiness. "He thinks aloud with 
me," she says, "and can't help himself; nobody 
exactly understands him except me, who am on 
the inside of him and hear him breathe." CHAPTER V. 
EXISTING CONDITIONS IN THIS DEGENERATE 
AGE. 
Happiness is a rare flower that grows in but 
few places; and when it does spring into life, it 
usually fades very quickly. There are but few 
exceptions to this rule. Go into the homes of 
the rich, the poor or the middle classes, and you 
will find rarely more than even a moderate de- 
gree of satisfaction with life. 
The poor are yearning continually for more 
money, for more luxuries; and in some cases 
they yearn even for the means of existence. In 
many instances they struggle against unjust 
conditions, and often their principal difficulty 
is the obtaining of food and clothing essential 
to comfort in life. In the middle classes are 
found the ambitious, struggling men and wo- 
men who have an aim in life, who have some 
59 60 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
definite purpose in view. Though they strive 
with all their might, they are rarely happy; 
rarely are they passably satisfied. In the so- 
'called upper classes, where pecuniary inde- 
pendence has been assured, you will find less 
satisfying happiness than you do among the 
middle and lower classes. They have all the 
money they desire; they can satisfy all the 
wants that can be satisfied with money; still, 
complete happiness is rarely in their possession. 
We read much of home and of the beauties 
of home life; but if these are viewed from the 
standpoint of the descriptions so often given us, 
there are but few satisfactory homes. 
"As well talk of the slave being happy in his 
chains as to say that the mass of mankind are 
happy in their marriage bonds. Ignorance may 
be a solace for what would otherwise cause the 
deepest anguish; but our clubs, our big bar- 
rooms, our 'smokers,' our country stores filled 
with loafers, our business men seeking excite- 
ment in money getting and money hoarding, in 
whose every pocketed thousand lies buried a THIS DEGENERATE AGE. 
61 
human being, tell us that the charm is not at 
home, but is sought in vain dissipation. The 
modern family, says a lady, is one great lodge 
in which the members are sworn to secrecy by 
solemn oaths, the penalty for the violation of 
which is worse than a thousand deaths. Yet, 
for all this secrecy, the skeleton is not hid. 
Murder will out. For who does not know of 
difficulties and troubles existing between a 
large proportion of the husbands and wives 
with whom one may be on intimate terms ? 
"A country school-teacher in Puritan New 
England, in the good old days of boarding 
around, said that in one whole district in which 
she had taught, there was not a pair who were 
happy in their domestic relations; though in a 
day's visit to each a casual observer might not 
have discovered any trouble. A writer in the 
State of Maine says, that with a friend who was 
sceptical on this point, he made a canvass of 
one district noted for its respectability, and the 
result was that out of ten pairs taken promiscu- 
ously there were only three that the sceptic was 62 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
not ready to admit were 'bad matches.' Two 
had separated; two had fought with each 
other like tigers, sometimes requiring neighbors 
to interfere to protect them; one or two were 
believed generally to have caused the death of a 
former partner. The others had minor diffi- 
culties. One pair out of the unadmitted three 
went to different churches, not being willing to 
sit together in the Sunday services; and when 
the analysis was ended, the sceptic said, T give 
it up; you are better posted on the marriage 
question than I.' How often is it said, 'If I 
were not married, I never would be.' The 
Rhymer must have had our modern conditions 
in his mind when he sang: 
'The happiest life that is ever led, 
Is always to court, and never to wed.' 
\ 
"If there is an unpardonable sin, it would 
seem to lie in the propagation of our species in 
the modern discordant relations in which men 
and their children live together like a brood of 
hyenas in their den. 63 
THIS DEGENERATE AGE. 
"Why married people who are so ill-mated as 
to agree only to differ can be said to live a cat- 
and-dog life, is not very clear, since those house- 
hold pets, being intelligent, affectionate, cheer- 
ful and sociable creatures, very frequently 
contrive to live harmoniously enough together." 
So reads an American book of fifty years 
ago; and an old English paper, descanting on 
the relations of connubial bliss, says that in the 
city of London the runaway wives for one year 
were 1,132; runaway husbands, 2,348; married 
persons legally divorced, 4,175; living in open 
warfare, 17,345; living in private misunder- 
standing, 13,275; mutually indifferent, 55,340; 
recorded as happy, 3,175; nearly happy, 127; 
perfectly happy, 13. 
It would be indeed interesting if one could 
learn the proportion of happy marriages under 
present conditions. It is astounding that the 
statements in reference to the marital conditions 
of the inhabitants of London at that period 
could be true. 
Speaking of the perverse conditions existing 64 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
in many so-called homes, and of the injustice 
that often results within the marital relations 
from which there are apparently no laws that 
can be looked to for a remedy, the following 
letter will be interesting: 
"I am just thinking of another little stranger 
about to come into our home. My heart is all 
love and faith toward it; but, humanely speak- 
ing, the conditions are so unfit, so premature, so 
disappointing that, even though I strive for 
calmness and peace of mind for God's goodness 
to help me, and though I intend to live along 
Physical Culture lines as you may direct, I can- 
not avoid feeling that an 'accidental' concep- 
tion defrauds a good mother, a good woman, 
willing to have a large family, of her right to 
arrange matters favorably. My seventh child 
must be, as all the others were, physical proofs 
of the harm possible through ignorance of all 
sexual and moral laws that bind a man and 
woman. 
"But I have awakened now, and especially to 
the great pre-natal influences upon a child. I THIS DEGENERATE AGE. 
65 
know pre-natal efforts count. I wish to master 
myself and my conditions because of this. 
"I have wished for another child. My wish 
has been answered, but as I said before, the con- 
ditions are unfit and I am not wholly well from 
a nervous trouble I have had. 
"This is the first month. Some say-alas! I 
know so little except what others say-that the 
emotional and health state of the parent affects 
the child in the first few months more than it 
does at a later period. Is this true, or does no 
one know? Is there no safe scientific way to 
work for the child's good ? 
"I am a delicate-looking woman of thirty- 
three years. I was married at seventeen, but 
even at that age I was already exhausted by a 
sad, sad life. My mother died of grief when I 
was but a weanling, because of a fearful mar- 
riage. I have her steadfast nature and a wild 
intensity beside. I love-too much, perhaps. 
"Candidly, for many years I feared that there 
was little to hope for in our married life save 
passion. My husband's tobacco excesses, his 66 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
terrible temper, jealousy, club life, and his dis- 
regard for me broke me down. I experienced 
all forms of misery, neglect, poverty and abuse. 
Children came unasked; three in three years. 
"Two died, the second a half hour after it 
was born. I left home when the third came and 
changed climate, seeking rest. The child 
seemed a victory, but grippe seized him at the 
age of three months. I returned home, but in 
place of the consumption that had troubled me 
before, I now grew melancholy. I could not 
meet my husband's marital wishes, although of 
an ardent nature myself. At last I made one 
supreme effort. I voluntarily chose to have a 
child-in love. 
"Oh, that child! beauty of form, face and 
soul! Love impersonated was she! Little as 
she was, I leaned on her; feeling, with a wo- 
man's intuition, that she should be God's instru- 
ment in answering prayers. 
"In eighteen months there came a boy. Then 
arose my inner self! I had to earn clothes for 
him or beg them of the cruel husband. I earned THIS DEGENERATE AGE. 
67 
abundance, but grew harder in nature. Resent- 
ment over some scandal led me almost to leave 
him. And on a fearful insult when this baby 
was sixteen months old I did do so, but he had 
my children, and I was now weak, hysterical, 
hopeless. 
"I returned, but my friends scorned me. An 
accidental death came to her I loved, and I 
never recovered from the shock. It came when 
I was five months advanced toward my last 
pregnancy. The doctor knew that if a boy 
should be born I would go mad. I was feverish. 
My thought was that God hated me, and that if 
He would forgive me I should receive a little 
girl! 
"Then she came, my baby girl. I must live. 
I refused to go to the sanitarium or to the 
mountains alone with the baby, leaving a sickly 
family behind. I took them all and travelled the 
weary hundreds of miles with my nursling and 
my family. I nursed her. She showed no 
signs of her fatal pre-natal life, except for fre- 
quent convulsions; for, as I could not cry, I had 68 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
had these before her birth. But she has done 
well. I fear the doctor's prophecy of St. Vitus's 
Dance, however, later on. 
"I fear it was a mistake to nurse her, but I 
loved her so, and the doctor ordered it for my 
sake. I always nursed my babes. But now I 
must give up! My breasts have some mysteri- 
ous poison in them, I think. The nipples can- 
not be toughened. A shield is no help. It may 
be local eczema, perhaps. Whatever it is, it 
makes my life agony to endeavor to nurse when 
the nipple is nearly cracked in two. I ceased 
weaning the child when she was nine months 
old, for boils appeared-abscesses, I might say. 
Thirteen appeared on my breast and three in 
one ear. For three months I suffered, and as I 
was an invalid and living in a hard condition 
with sick children and no help, I grew frantic. 
My husband remained cold to me. But soon a 
change came about in him. He had failed in his 
business and the blow seemed to soften his 
nature. He began to share the common misery 
with me. THIS DEGENERATE AGE. 
69 
"I was originally handsome; and to him I 
was again so. It was well. A light came into 
my own eyes. I handled the money now, as 
he had to travel for our sustenance, and I 
proved to him that I was trustworthy. He 
grew generous. 
"This transformation has come about within 
two years. I feel now that I must be tactful 
with him ancl yet retain a woman's purity. I 
must raise the banner and win him, with love, 
to a right interpretation of passion. I believe it 
is God's gift under right conditions, but-so 
few understand, so few will learn! Too freely 
used, it will brutalize. But I am ignorant, so 
ignorant. I would use my new power of Physi- 
cal Culture tactfully to win health for my hus- 
band and win him away from tobacco. I would 
also influence myself and my unborn with the 
best I have learned. I fear for the child to come 
because conceived of a mother still weak with 
many cares and of a father who, though a mus- 
cular athlete, is unrestrained in his nature! 
But, praise God, he does not drink! 70 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
"I have learned a little of Physical Culture, 
but I fear too late. Tell me, if a mother rigor- 
ously adopts its rules at once, may she hope to 
bless her child; dare she hope for any painless 
birth? I once followed 'Tokology' and had a 
wonderfully quick birth. The child always had 
gastric troubles. One doctor said the excessive 
change of diet caused it. I have left off corsets, 
as has my daughter. What fasts, diet and baths 
are good for me ? I need advice. Should I sub- 
mit to any intimate marital relations now? If 
not on account of pain, still the emotion, I 
fancy, affects the child. I am asking you these 
questions because I believe there is more in pre- 
natal influence than we dream of. If I could 
know how to practice this influence I would 
Will my child, under God, Perfect. And I am 
enough of a new woman to believe God is 
Love, and does not will early deaths, deform- 
ities, sorrows, etc., but instead He wills Health, 
Joy and Love. 
"I am greedy for knowledge in detail. I 
know the way to treat a new-born child, but the THIS DEGENERATE AGE. 
71 
best way may be very different. If I may win 
such health that my pregnancy shall mean no 
offensive or crippled state I shall long to tell 
the world what Physical Culture has done for 
me. I will be hopeful, though a home is yet to 
be earned and finances are low. Debts are to 
be paid, and there are many other things that 
are depressing my spirits, but I believe God 
wrought this miracle of awakening me, through 
your books, to a higher, healthier motherhood. 
And I will persevere." 
You will find strife, bickering, quarreling 
among the highest and the lowest; and all this 
perversion, all this misery, that must torture the 
very soul of a human being almost beyond en- 
durance, is made possible in nearly every case 
by simple and avoidable causes. 
You may be startled when I say the causes 
are all largely physical. It is all brought on, 
not by any abnormal physical conditions, not 
by a difference in temperaments, but by the 
abnormal states that result from the physical 
weaknesses following deviations from the posi- 72 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
tive, natural laws that should govern the life 
of every human being. 
Whether you search for information in the 
families of the rich or of the poor, the high or 
the low, in the city, in the village, or in the town 
or country, you will find but slight deviations 
from the conditions here described. The wife 
and mother usually appears worn, haggard and 
physically unattractive after a few years of 
married life. She "settles down" to a common- 
place, humdrum existence. She is resigned to 
the cares, anxieties and sufferings of her so- 
called home life. She feels that they are part of 
her duty. Her spirit has been chastened. She 
looks back often to the time when life had so 
many charms, when home seemed so happy. 
She often yearns for the return of those happy 
days, upon which she looks as dead and gone 
forever. They have become simply a part of 
her happy past. She naturally concludes that 
they were not supposed to last, for her opinions 
of married life modify very materially as a re- 
sult of her experience. THIS DEGENERATE AGE. 
73 
The husband may have some advantages over 
the wife. He has forms of entertainment out- 
side of the home. He grows broader from con- 
tact with the world. But he, too, suffers and is 
weakened by the abnormal conditions existing 
in his home. His capacity for business, or 
whatever the line of his occupation may be, has 
deteriorated. His moral and physical manhood 
have suffered, and frequently he becomes, with 
increasing age, a cross, crabbed, sour father and 
husband, whom the average healthy and normal 
individual will go usually a long way to avoid. 
So many marriages are merely endurable. The 
husband does not love the wife, nor does she 
care for him. Many women marry, hoping that 
love will come after marriage. 
Would it not be prostitution when a worthy 
woman is obliged to submit to the lusts of an 
'Unworthy husband, whom she cannot truly 
love? Had not such conduct become "honor- 
able," it would rank in public estimation next to 
the crime of murder. Suppose the husband 
takes up the dram-selling business ? If the wife MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
74 
cannot sink her moral principle to the level of 
his, their case will be not only fatal to their tran- 
quillity, but to the woman, too often the weaker 
nature, it may mean literal physical death. For, 
if she cannot sip his wine, inhale with pleasure 
his perfumes of whiskey and tobacco, enjoy his 
vulgar jokes, put her soul with his in the money 
drawer, enjoy with him a swine's life, be con- 
tent to inherit with him a swine's portion, and 
pray and bless God with him in the midst of all 
this filth, the only alternative for such a woman, 
tied to such a man, is to die. 
And this devilish floating along together of 
an apple with something that isn't an apple, say- 
ing, "See how we apples swim," does not al- 
ways occur. The husband goes out into the 
world to accumulate goods for his ease in future 
days; and, as he fills his coffers, placing his 
heart and affections there, he starves out his 
little wife's pure love, while he himself is sur- 
feiting to suffocation in the follies of the world. 
He adds acre to acre, house to house, bond to 
bond, mortgage to mortgage, scrip to scrip, THIS DEGENERATE AGE. 
75 
slave to slave-for he reduces all about him to 
slavery, himself, however, a slave to all-and 
buries himself and his soul beneath the rub- 
bish, while the wife, no less industrious and 
attentive to the real wants of life, toils on at 
home with her little ones, not having cultivated 
covetousness by the swindling, grinding system 
of the husband outside, and is not allowed even 
to relieve the wants of kindred sufferers, be- 
cause "The money is his-he earns it." 
All honor to the memory of the women who, 
because real life was denied them, have died 
thus! 
Separated in affection, in life, in aims; un- 
loved by each other because they are so utterly 
unlike each other, yet held in a bondage as de- 
structive of happiness as was chattel slavery, 
frorh which there was no respite but in death, 
and this often courted as a welcome visitor, 
though it came not, perhaps, before entailing on 
a houseful of children a disposition as unloving 
and unlovely as that of their begetter, with a 
constitution proportionately diseased and dis- 76 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
cordant-these, and far worse, to the end of the 
chapter, constitute what, according to popular 
doctrine, "God hath joined together" in these 
present days when slavery is regarded com- 
monly as being but a ghost of the past I 
Is it any wonder, then, with such excruciat- 
ing misery as is found in many homes, that 
divorce has become popular ? Is it any wonder 
that poor, suffering human beings seek to rem- 
edy their troubles? How often do we read 
articles written from a superficial standpoint on 
the divorce evil! How little attention the 
writers seem to give to the causes that lead up to 
divorce. It is the causes that make the desire 
for divorce possible that are the real evils to be 
attacked. It is immorality, not marriage, that 
causes all this suffering. 
Divorce is nothing more than a sewer of un- 
happy marriages. If you were to forbid di- 
vorce, the crime and immorality that would 
result from this action would be pitiable to con- 
template. It would be just about as sensible to 
stop up the sewers of a great city. It would THIS DEGENERATE AGE. 
77 
work, perhaps, almost as much injury to hu- 
manity. 
I would like to inquire of every prudish, 
prejudiced reasoner who talks didactically of 
the divorced individual, what remedy can be 
suggested ? If he believes in forcing the man or 
woman who loathes the other to live in "wed- 
lock," he advocates the lowest kind of prostitu- 
tion. If he recommends that the unhappy 
couple separate, without the privilege of re- 
marrying, he is encouraging strongly the rela- 
tionships that doubtless they themselves con- 
sider immoral. Men and women were not made 
to live alone. All the world's greatest religions 
teach otherwise-and, make laws as you choose, 
men and women will not live alone. CHAPTER VI. 
CAUSES OF ALL THESE ABNORMALITIES. 
Throughout the entire civilized world there 
exists at the present time a most frightful igno- 
rance with reference to Nature's plain laws of 
sex. If we study the animal world, we find that 
all the various actions there are governed by 
what is termed "instinct." A dog or a cat can 
distinguish readily desirable food by the tuition 
of scent. The instinct of a wild animal guides 
him accurately in every instance, and that which 
he likes to do is always the best thing for him to 
do. In some degree we have replaced instinct 
by our intelligence; but no matter how great our 
knowledge may be, it never can be made equal 
to the task of replacing perfectly this possession 
of the "brute." When we realize how deficient 
is our knowledge on a subject of this nature, 
then we can understand thoroughly the cause of 
78 CAUSES OF ABNORMALITIES. 
79 
the errors that are being made everywhere in 
civilized life. We eat many foods that the very 
sense of smell of a dog would readily distin- 
guish as valueless if not positively harmful. 
The perversion of natural instinct, and the 
lack of that knowledge and mental determina- 
tion which is essential to replace instinct, is 
therefore the cause of nearly all abnormalities. 
With men and women in possession of average 
intelligence and a perfectly normal instinct, 
there could be no excesses, there could be no 
mistakes. They would live together harmoni- 
ously and happily, and home life would be 
perfect in every respect. But, with the gross 
ignorance of this important subject that ex- 
ists everywhere at the present time, how can re- 
sults other than those that have so far appeared 
be expected? We make serious mistakes, we 
break Nature's plain laws, and we must and 
do pay the penalty. Weakness, sickness, dis- 
ease and unhappiness, all have plain causes 
that in nearly every instance may be avoided 
with ease and certainty. 80 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
In our journey through life there are evils of 
all kinds against which we must contend. 
When they appear before us we must be able to 
decide intelligently as to our best action in ref- 
erence to them. We must accept them or turn 
aside from them. If they come to us in the 
guise of a friend, if we are unfamiliar with 
their evil aspect, we naturally accept them, and 
it is only from their physically deteriorating re- 
sults that we are able finally to identify them. 
The greatest need of the present day is knowl- 
edge of life in all its most naked, practical as- 
pects. There is too much theory abroad. 
There are too many soaring conclusions that the 
ordinary human being can understand no more 
than he is able to read and translate the mean- 
ing of an unfamiliar foreign language. Knowl- 
edge, to-day, promises so much to man and to 
woman; yet it gives so little! The author of 
an old book on the "Beauties of Nature" com- 
pares matrimony to "a pot of aloes covered 
with honey, which just serves the pretty fond 
babes to dabble in during the honey-month; but CAUSES OF ABNORMALITIES. 
81 
when the sweet covering is gone, the remainder 
is an inexhaustible source of bitters which ends 
but with life." 
It would be exceedingly difficult to enumerate 
in detail all the causes of human weakness and 
misery; but in as far as the causes are appro- 
priate to this book, I have devoted a chapter 
each to those that seem to me to be of especial 
importance. CHAPTER VIL 
THE CURSE OF PRUDISHNESS. 
At the head of the list of life's most terrible 
evils I place the curse of prudishness. It be- 
gins its frightfully demoralizing influence al- 
most in babyhood. One of the first words 
.that a child becomes familiar with is that 
reprimand, "shame!" As soon as the power 
of intelligence is conveyed to his little brain, 
he begins to be ashamed of certain parts of 
his body. He is taught to consider them im- 
pure, vulgar and filthy. As he grows older, he 
finds that speech about these parts is a subject 
tabooed by every so-called respectable person. 
Naturally childish curiosity is aroused. He be- 
comes exceedingly anxious to learn more of 
this mystery. As a result, he picks up his 
knowledge from the gutter and from vulgar 
companions. And here is the beginning of 
82 83 
THE CURSE OF PRUDISHNESS. 
human perversion, which, in many cases, goes 
on all through earthly existence. 
Life's highest and most beautiful emotions 
are vulgarized and degraded in the child's eyes. 
Filthy stories are told and repeated. His mind 
becomes soaked in filth. The nobility of the 
body, the sublimity of all those fine emotions 
which at times thrill a pure-minded soul, are 
never realized by such perverts. 
And all these evils which paint life in so 
vicious a light have been made possible by all 
the misguided zealots whom I would designate 
as prudes. Insane men and women, who are 
cursing civilization with their filthy concep- 
tions of life and health and truth may flatter 
themselves with the impression that their work 
is of some value. They believe, no doubt, that 
in hiding and branding as vulgar certain parts 
of the body they are benefiting future men and 
women. A more murderous error was never 
committed by human beings! 
"Sexual instinct is not impure, unless per- 
verted from the natural work assigned to it in 84 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
the plan of life. But it becomes bestially low, 
when it does fall, because it is then at so great a 
distance from its lofty purpose. That which 
falls the farthest falls heaviest and deepest. 
The same law holds in the physical as in the 
material world. There is nothing purer or 
grander than the passion of love, and its total 
dethronement to give place to lust is a degra- 
dation so great as never to be overcome." 
''Reader, stay, and read not the advices fol- 
lowing, unless thou hast a chaste spirit, or de- 
sirest to be chaste, or at least art apt to consider 
whether thou ought or no. For there are 
some spirits so atheistical, and some so wholly 
possessed with a spirit of uncleanness, that 
they turn the most prudent and chaste dis- 
course into dirty and filthy apprehensions; like 
choleric stomachs, changing their very cordials 
and medicines into bitterness, and, in a literal 
sense, turning the grace of God into wanton- 
ness. They study cases of conscience in the 
matter of carnal sins, not to avoid, but to learn 
ways how to offend God and to pollute their THE CURSE OF PRUDISHNESS. 
85 
own spirits; and search their houses with a 
sunbeam that they may be instructed in all 
the corners of nastiness." 
"Our appetites and passions were given us 
to promote the designs of Providence in our 
creation, and, when properly regulated, tend 
admirably to that end. They were intended to 
instigate us to action, and, under the govern- 
ment of reason, are productive of every good 
quality and virtue. And whoever will argue 
that we ought to extinguish any passion be- 
cause an irregular indulging of it is vicious 
should starve sooner than eat, because hunger 
is a human appetite and gluttony a vice." 
No doubt Thomas Moore was disgusted with 
moral shams, and with the evils that follow in 
their trail, when he wrote: 
Like the stain'd web that whitens in the sun, 
Grow pure by being purely shone upon. 
Can there be any more bitter sense of guilt 
than that which must come to parents who 
realize, after their children have reached adult 86 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
age, that these offspring were not taught in 
time things the knowledge of which would 
make their after lives worth the living? Just 
as soon as children reach the age when it is 
natural for them to "ask questions," some ele- 
mentary truths should come from the lips of 
father and of mother. No patience can be had 
with the moral cowards who hold that such 
truths are unfitted for the receptivity of the 
young. All ideal life is based on fullest knowl- 
edge of truth. Considerably in advance of 
puberty the fullest instruction should be given 
the daughter by her mother, and to the son by 
his father. If, from a false and criminal sense 
of propriety, either parent holds back, it is the 
divinely-imposed duty of the other parent to 
give the fullest instruction to either son or 
daughter; instruction that will minimize the 
disease, disgrace and crime that spring from 
ignorance of the highest ideals of body and 
mind. 
Any man or woman who dares to reason 
on this subject, who is willing to consider with THE CURSE OF PRUDISHNESS. 
87 
a free, open mind, must come to the inevitable 
conclusion that there can be no purity where 
the conception of the human body has become 
filthy. The time cannot be far distant when 
these poor, misguided human beings who are 
attempting to impress the entire race with their 
vulgar and indecent conceptions of the most 
beautiful piece of Nature's handiwork, the 
human body, will be incarcerated in some insti- 
tution where they will be as harmless as those 
other lunatics who are now confined in the 
various asylums for the insane throughout the 
country. CHAPTER VIII. 
SEX IMMORALITY THE WORLD S MOST MONU- 
MENTAL CURSE. 
It is upon the prudes mentioned in the pre- 
vious chapter that the blame must be placed for 
the present frightful sex immorality that ex- 
ists everywhere in civilized life. 
With the sex instinct of women almost to- 
tally destroyed, and with the false ideas as to 
the "duties" of a wife to her husband, how 
on earth can there be sex morality? If knowl- 
edge of this most important and vital of life's 
subjects be withheld, how can we expect human 
beings to choose the right course? 
All the higher animals, human beings ex- 
cepted, are guided by instinct. We are gov- 
erned by an intelligence that is supposed to be 
superior to instinct. Yet no matter how far 
we progress, no matter how much we learn, 
88 SEX IMMORALITY WORLD'S CURSE. 
89 
there never will come a time in the history 
of the human race when our intelligence will 
guide us more accurately than did instinct in 
the very beginning. 
With the decline of necessity for active mus- 
cular work in order to earn a livelihood, the 
evils that affect physical health have multiplied 
largely. A president of a prominent college 
stated some time ago that athletic exercises 
promote morals. Should football, baseball 
and field athletics cease, the normal tone of the 
students would be lowered. There never was a 
more truthful assertion. The physical weak- 
ness that conies from idleness, from muscular 
inactivity, brings on degeneracy and immoral- 
ity. They are all of the same breed. When 
a nation begins to decline physically, when its 
people lose the steady vigor that belongs to 
fine manhood and womanhood, the moral tone 
of the country is lowered gradually. Sex im- 
morality is unquestionably the greatest curse 
against which human beings have to contend 
to-day. It causes more weakness, more dis- 90 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
ease, and undoubtedly more crime than does 
any other one evil. 
The terrible ignorance that exists every- 
where upon this important subject is respon- 
sible beyond doubt for all this. All subjects 
relating to sex must be discussed only in pri- 
vate, and in low, mysterious whispers. It is 
a tabooed topic among all so-called "respectable 
people." The result of all this secrecy stares 
you in the face at every turn. Pick out any ten 
men you meet in the street, and on an average 
at least nine will be found to be suffering from 
present or past sex immoralities. They are 
not really at fault. They have done the best 
that they could do under existing circumstances. 
They were not taught anything different. How 
could they know better? 
Sex immorality is the most damnable sin 
that has cursed the human race in all time, past 
or present. It is the Gorgon terror that must 
be met by nearly every human being. Every 
male child inheriting the usual normal desires 
must face, during all his growth to manhood, SEX IMMORALITY WORLD'S CURSE. 
91 
and usually during all his life, this terrible 
evil, and-mind you-he faces it absolutely 
without preparation. Even with knowledge, it 
would be difficult in some cases for him to keep 
to the straight and narrow path. With every 
influence in addition pointing in the wrong 
direction, can it be wondered at that but few 
pass through life unscathed by this monstrous 
evil? 
Because of the ban that prudes have pro- 
nounced against the subject of sex, I make the 
emphatic assertion that, even to-day, in this 
supposedly enlightened age, on an average not 
one man in a hundred knows anything about 
sex morality. The average man will tell you 
that sex morality consists only in being true 
to one's present or prospective marriage vows. 
Sex morality is founded on absolute obedi- 
ence to your own highest instincts. It has 
nothing to do with the marriage vows. It is 
based on the observance of the highest in- 
stincts that men and women are granted by 
the Creator. 92 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
Poor, unreasoning fools that we are, we boast 
of our morals! We like to think that life in 
this enlightened age is on a high moral plane- 
and we love to talk about it! Yet where do 
we find morality? We hear so much about im- 
morality outside of marriage, but there is ten- 
fold more immorality inside than there is out- 
side of the nuptial relations. 
This may seem an astounding statement. 
The reader may even challenge its truth. Sup- 
pose you view with an unprejudiced, open mind 
the conditions as they are, and you will be 
compelled to admit that sex is largely physi- 
cal, and that if you desire to find perfect ex- 
amples of normal physical life you must turn 
to the finer specimens of the lower animal 
creation; those that are uncontaminated by civ- 
ilization. Among these monogamous animals 
you will find as much love and fidelity between 
the sexes as you can in the human world. The 
sex relationship among these animals is con- 
trolled entirely by instinct, and the normal 
instinct will not allow intimacies except dur- SEX IMMORALITY WORLD S CURSE. 
93 
ing the period when Nature is prepared for and 
expects procreation. 
This is the sex morality taught within the 
pages of this book. We are a long way from it 
in the human world to-day, but it represents the 
desired condition. The intemperate indul- 
gences in alcoholic liquor is a great evil. It is 
condemned everywhere; and as its injurious 
character becomes better understood there will 
be fewer victims of the drink plague. But 
this evil is comparatively of insignificant im- 
portance in comparison with the monstrously 
demoralizing effects of sex immorality. Upon 
the faces and bodies of the majority of the men 
and women of to-day you see the marks of 
this great evil. Narrow chests; ungainly legs; 
lusterless eyes; sparse, scraggly hair; thin or 
obese bodies-in many cases these are brought 
about by this nerve and body blighting excess. 
It is a peculiar fact, of which civilized communi- 
ties should be well ashamed, that the percentage 
of immorality increases with so-called enlight- 
enment. 94 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
"Contact with a 'higher culture' has proved 
pernicious to the morality of savage peoples; 
and we have some reason to believe that irreg- 
ular connections between the sexes have ex- 
hibited, on the whole, an increase along with 
the progress of civilization."-History of Hu- 
man Marriage. 
A libertine who boasts of his conquests finds 
soon that the so-called pleasures which he has 
been seeking lead to nothing but hopeless deso- 
lation. There is no happiness in life for him. 
The satisfaction that comes from momen- 
tary, fleeting pleasures emphasizes only more 
strongly his loneliness at other times. 
Seneca says: "The more a man becomes 
addicted to sensual pleasure, the more com- 
pletely is he a slave. People may call him 
happy, but he pays his liberty for his delights, 
and sells himself for what he buys." 
"The temporary pleasure gained from the 
association of men with public women does 
not compensate in any way for the loss in- 
volved. One indulgence calls for another, SEX IMMORALITY WORLD S CURSE. 
95 
until the finer sensibilities are blunted, and 
physical ruin is inevitable when passion is 
given unbridled sway. . . . The libertine 
sells himself for what he buys. He may enjoy 
a kind of pleasure, but not happiness. Happi- 
ness comes from within, in the consciousness 
of doing right. Pleasure comes from without, 
in the gratification of self. In addition to the 
hollowness of the enjoyment in the lives of 
prostitute and libertine is always the danger 
of loathsome disease which tortures body and 
brain, lowering their victims in their own 
minds. It is about the only ill in the category 
that does not deserve sympathy." 
"Licentious men, both of ancient and mod- 
ern times," said the late President Dwight of 
Yale, "have carried on a course of open and 
incessant hostility against the institutions of 
marriage, as they have, indeed, against all the 
real interests of mankind. In the progress of 
this warfare they have arraigned the wisdom 
and denied the benefits of it; have charged up- 
on it evils that it does not produce, and have 96 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
enhanced those which are incident to the mar- 
riage state. But having lived in many families, 
I am convinced that the great body of married 
persons are as happy as their own characters 
and circumstances could permit us to expect." CHAPTER IX. 
FALSE IDEAS OF MARITAL DUTIES. 
Everywhere we find this monstrous perver- 
sion as to the meaning of sex morality. In 
Wedlock and out of it, the young and the old 
all have erroneous notions as to the proper 
method of conducting life's holiest and most 
divine relations. Man grows up in the belief 
that a mere marriage ceremony gives him every 
unbi idled privilege he may desire. Growing 
girls are so imbued with the idea of "duty" to 
the husband that when they become brides they 
are willing victims of marital mistakes. 
Marriage is largely a physical union. Con- 
ception, pregnancy, and the functional pro- 
cesses that lead on to motherhood are purely 
and simply physical. They are governed by 
physical laws as accurately fixed as are any 
of the other of Nature's plain tenets. You 
97 98 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
cannot disobey these laws without suffering* 
If you sin against Nature, the penalty must be 
paid just as certainly as daylight follows 
darkness. 
The wife should be absolutely in control of 
all sexual relations. The man should have no 
rights in marriage beyond those that are given 
to him freely, willingly and-above all-de- 
sirously. The man who claims more is steer- 
ing his marital craft to the rocks of destruction 
with murderous impulse. A woman should 
own herself just as much in marriage as she 
does out of it. If she extends any privileges 
with the notion that this is simply her duty, 
she is outraging all her truest instincts and is 
annihilating her husband's strongest and high- 
est affections. 
Men and women who are desirous of living 
the highest and most perfect life, who wish to 
attain to all the happiness that may be within 
their grasp, should study and thoroughly fa- 
miliarize themselves with Nature's manifest 
requirements. The instinct of the wife should FALSE IDEAS OF MARITAL DUTIES. 
99 
guide always all the relations of the sexes. 
If a woman possesses no sex instinct, if she 
enters into marital relations without this for a 
pilot in her voyage through life, she is to be 
pitied indeed. There can be no satiety of hap- 
piness for her. She is bound to suffer; and 
the extent of her suffering will be measured by 
her own lack of true instinct, by her own de- 
fects. Such a woman cannot hold a husband's 
highest, truest and noblest love. She is suffer- 
ing from deficiencies that are really far worse 
than those of character, and if she were com- 
pelled to go through life minus the sense of 
taste, of smell, sight or hearing, she would be 
better off for such substitution of misfortune. 
The instinct of sex is absolutely necessary as 
a. guide in married life. It is the instinct of the 
woman, not of the man, that must be obeyed. 
And if she possesses such an instinct it accu- 
rately indicates to her when marital privileges 
should be granted. Her own desires should be 
followed most accurately; and, when marital 
life is conducted otherwise, in time it usually 100 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
becomes unsatisfactory, commonplace, and 
sometimes is made even unbearable. 
"It is a common belief that a man and wo- 
man, because they are legally united in mar- 
riage, are privileged to the unbridled exercise 
of amativeness. Nature, in the exercise of her 
just laws, recognizes no human enactments, 
and is as prompt to punish any infringement of 
her laws among those who are legally married 
as in those out of the bonds. Excessive in- 
dulgence between the married produces as 
great and lasting evil effects as in the single 
man or woman, and is nothing more or less 
than legalized prostitution. 
"A man with great vital force is united to 
a woman of evenly balanced organization. 
The husband, in the exercise of what he is 
pleased to term his 'marital rights,' places his 
wife, in a very short time, on the nervous, 
delicate, sickly list. In the blindness and igno- 
rance of his animal nature he requires prompt 
obedience to his desires, and, ignorant of the 
law of right, in this direction, thinking that it FALSE IDEAS OF MARITAL DUTIES. 
101 
is her duty to accede to his wishes, though per- 
haps fulfilling them with a sore and troubled 
heart, she allows him passively, never lovingly, 
to exercise daily and weekly, month in and 
month out, the low and beastly side of his 
nature, and eventually, slowly but surely, to 
kill her. And this man, who has as surely 
committed murder as has the convicted assassin, 
lures to his net and takes unto him another wife, 
to repeat the same program of legalized prosti- 
tution on his part, and sickness and premature 
death on her part." 
The exercise of abnormal amativeness is 
known in all its positive intensity by those 
newly married. The honeymoon is one nightly 
repetition of legalized prostitution, sinking the 
pure, high and holy into the low, debasing and 
animal. Think you, O new-made husband and 
wife, that in this you do right? That in this 
you elevate your better natures? That in this 
you find peace, strength and happiness? That 
in this you grow into that pure and holy pas- 
sion akin to God in its exercise-the passion of 102 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
love ? Do not, I pray you, deceive yourselves; 
for in this exercise of the sexual part of your 
nature you lower your standards of body and 
of soul. And, as for love, no man or woman 
can possibly love or be loved who lives other 
than a life of strict continence. This subject 
of the excesses of the newly married is to be 
thought out seriously and carefully guarded 
against, for it is fraught with immense danger 
to the future peace, happiness, strength and 
love of the wedded pair. There cannot be a 
growth of love in such a union, for no man or 
woman ever practiced repeatedly the breaking 
of this Law of Continence without a mutual 
disgust was born of it; a disgust that in time 
becomes chronic, and the source of all mated 
misery thereafter. It should be understood by 
all married men and women that the result of 
marital excess is as disastrous to the body, 
mind and soul of the individual as is unlegal- 
ized prostitution. It is necessary to a perfect 
sexual commerce that the wife have a natural 
desire for such, which natural desire occurs FALSE IDEAS OF MARITAL DUTIES. 
103 
only immediately after her "monthly period." 
At this time every healthy married woman has 
such a desire; and if she earnestly expresses a 
wish for relations, and the husband accedes, a 
perfect union results. But if the husband de- 
mands his "rights" from the wife, who accedes 
only through dread of consequences, the effect 
on the man's brain and nervous system is very 
little different from that produced by self-abuse. 
There is little need of calling attention to 
the fact that but few marriages are ever con- 
ducted with proper principles for guides. Sex 
immorality is the perversion of the sexual pas- 
sion and that which is right and natural; and 
more weakness, sickness and general physical 
deterioration are brought about through sexual 
perversion and excesses in marriage than they 
are outside of it. Their effects are seen in 
both sexes; in the fading charms of the wife; 
in the less vigorous husbands. We all see and 
should understand the indications of sex im- 
morality. Diseases of all kinds, having myste- 
rious and often unpronounceable names, show 104 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
in numerous instances that they are due to sex- 
ual excesses within the marriage relations. 
"The world is full of the anguish of women 
who suffer physically and mentally from con- 
jugal outrages, and this can be overcome only 
by a renouncing of any claim heretofore recog- 
nized as superior to her own right to her own 
person. What is known as the 'marriage debt' 
or 'conjugal rights' does not exist. The con- 
jugal embrace should never occur except as 
the highest form of the blended love of lovers, 
and can never be a duty, since duty implies a 
mechanical obligation, which may or may not 
be rendered gladly. A woman abuses herself 
by yielding her body to a lustful husband 
through months or years of married life as 
certainly as if she were prostituted outside of 
marriage."-J. H. Greer, M.D. 
"No reason can be assigned why the intel- 
lectual, moral and social happiness of the one 
sex is not as valuable as that of the other. 
Much less can any reason be assigned why the 
one sex should be to the other merely a source FALSE IDEAS OF MARITAL DUTIES. 
105 
of sensual gratification. But, just as we de- 
part from the law of chastity, woman ceases to 
be the equal and companion of man, and be- 
comes either his timid and much abused slave, 
or else the mere instrument of gratification of 
his lust. No one can pretend to believe that 
the Creator ever intended that one human being 
should stand in such a relation as this to any 
other human being." CHAPTER X. 
THE UNSEXING AND PHYSICALLY DEBILITATING 
EFFECTS OF THE CORSET. 
In. another book I have treated at large of 
the frightful effects of tight lacing, and I need 
not go into all the details here. But there is no 
question of the truth of the statement that 
thousands upon thousands of women have 
grown up as sexless nonentities because of this 
constriotion of the waist. The organs of sex 
in a woman are located at the particular point 
where there is strong pressure when one is 
in the habit of tightly binding the waist. 
The development of a woman's sexual organs 
naturally is stunted by this process, and thou- 
sands of girls grow to the age of womanhood 
and are compelled to join the ranks of the 
neuter gender. They are neither women nor 
106 EFFECTS OF THE CORSET. 
107 
men. They may have some of the attributes of 
the female sex. And such "women" frequently 
marry. Yet this fact is due to the gross igno- 
rance of most men as to the requirements of 
wifehood and motherhood that make such wo- 
men attractive to them. 
No cor set-wearing woman can ever make a 
perfectly satisfactory wife and mother. The 
compression of the waist line is bound to inter- 
fere with important functional processes. In 
some cases it all but paralyzes the great, impor- 
tant muscles that lie around this vital part of 
the body. The weakness of these parts nat- 
urally influences all adjacent organs and func- 
tional processes. 
"An outward indication of an abnormal, un- 
healthy and unphysiological life is a small 
waist, whether abnormally natural, or caused 
by the wearing of corsets. Avoid them as you 
would the plagues of Egypt, for they encompass 
sickness, premature decay and death. Such 
women are not capable of pure love or right 
judgment, or what is so essentially important. 108 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
giving birth to healthy, vigorous offspring. 
Their very souls are malformed in harmony 
with their bodies. Some men admire small 
waists, but they are men who possess but a 
modicum of brains-or, if otherwise, they may 
admire, but they carefully guard against ever 
marrying them. If it is your desire to secure 
a wife that will be free from eternal nervous- 
ness, headache, pains, ill-temper, and especially 
if you aim to have children that will not be 
sickly and short lived, I pray you avoid marry- 
ing a woman with a small waist. I consider 
this matter of large waists such a necessity in a 
woman who aspires to be a wife and mother, 
that, to impress it more positively upon the 
minds of all men in search of wives, I will 
again repeat, in large letters, SHUN SMALL 
WAISTS, and act on the rule of NATURAL 
WAISTS, or no wives." 
And to every man who is in search of a wife, 
and to every woman who is desirous of becom- 
ing a wife some day, let me say that I would 
like you to consider carefully and religiously EFFECTS OF THE CORSET. 
109 
the arraignment of the corset which is set 
forth in the following lines: 
(i) It lessens and sometimes ruins the 
digestive power. 
(2) It restricts development of the lungs 
to almost half normal size. 
(3) Destroys absolutely the normal power 
of breathing. 
(4) Ultimately injures and makes shape- 
less, flaccid and nerveless the flesh at the waist 
line. 
(5) Destroys the beauty linee of the body, 
of the limbs, arms and bust by restricting nour- 
ishment, interfering with normal circulation 
and thus lessening vital power, and by the con- 
tinuous and unnatural support of the bust in 
an abnormal position. 
(6) It is absolutely, in most cases, the di- 
rect cause of weaknesses peculiar to women, 
and from which every corset wearer suffers at 
some time in her life. 
(7) Greatly weakens, sometimes destroys, 
or makes abnormal, the instinct of sex. 110 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
(8) Produces tumors and the inflamed con- 
dition from which women so frequently turn 
to expensive and dangerous operations. 
(9) Causes serious displacement. 
(10) Prevents the return of the venous blood 
from parts below the waist line. 
(11) Weakens and sometimes kills unborn 
babies. 
(12) Is one of the principal causes of marital 
miseries and divorces. CHAPTER XI. 
THE DREAD OF MOTHERHOOD. 
Nearly everywhere in civilized life you will 
find a dread of motherhood. So many cases 
have occurred where the results of this natural 
lot of woman have been fatal to life that the 
growing girl is nearly always inclined to fear 
the suffering and the dangers incident to this 
function of woman. 
Suffering at childbirth is unnatural and un- 
necessary. It is the result of woman's igno- 
rance and folly. When a girl sacrifices through 
the insane desire for a small waist all the vital, 
muscular and functional powers that are essen- 
tial to perfect motherhood she certainly de- 
serves to suffer. Nature's penalties are subject 
to no appeal. When you sin against her laws, 
you must pay the fines. No naturally strong, 
healthy girl has any reason to fear mother- 
111 112 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
hood. It should have no terrors for her. It 
should hold out nothing to her imagination but 
that which is weighted with the greatest pos- 
sible happiness. The sufferings at childbirth, 
to a vigorous and normal woman, are of but 
little consequence. Among the Indians, and all 
women who live an active life, childbirth has 
no terrors. It is usually over with in an hour 
or two-often in a few minutes. 
When a band of Indians is on the march, and 
one of the squaws realizes that the moment of 
maternity is near, she hastens to the nearest 
body of water. If she is a mother of experience 
she goes alone, provided with a knife with 
which to cut the navel cord from the infant. If 
she be a wife approaching motherhood for the 
first time, one of the older women of the band 
goes with her to the water and assists in the 
delivery of the child. The newly-born infant 
is wrapped in whatever kind of carrying band- 
age is used in the tribe that it has just joined, 
and the mother trudges on after the tribal band 
that has not halted to await the result. THE DREAD OF MOTHERHOOD. 
113 
Before night the squaw and her newly-born 
babe are sure to be with the husband and father. 
The next day the squaw keeps on as usual in 
the march. There is among the Indians no 
fallacy to the effect that a woman should rest 
quietly in bed for nine days before she may 
dare to set foot upon the floor or the ground. 
Nor is the ("civilized") dread present that 
fever may set in disastrously on the fourth or 
the fifth day after delivery. 
It cannot be repeated too often that the wo- 
man who will go to the trouble of being healthy 
has nothing to dread in the arrival of mother- 
hood. Conception, pregnancy and childbirth 
are as natural as sunshine, and should inspire 
no greater dread. All the dangers that result 
from motherhood are due to the previously un- 
healthful lives of the mothers themselves-and 
of the fathers! 
There is not a girl that grows to the age of 
reasoning who does not desire to develop into a 
superb woman. And a superb woman must 
look forward to motherhood. This is a part of 114 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
the world's great plan. It is not alone a duty. 
Nature has intended it to be eagerly and in- 
tensely desired by every woman at some time in 
her life, provided she be a superb specimen of 
her sex. It really is not a matter of education, 
of refinement, of reasoning powers; it is a mat- 
ter of instinct. Notwithstanding these plain 
facts, admitted by every reasoning human be- 
ing, there exist nevertheless most amazing en- 
vironments for growing girls. 
Throughout a girl's entire life, throughout 
the whole process of education, throughout the 
time she is gradually maturing into a woman, 
motherhood is never mentioned. From the ex- 
treme care with which the subject is avoided 
one would think that it must be the height of 
vulgarism. Prudes and the vicious products 
of prudishness have much to answer for in this 
age. 
Though these crimes are fearful in character, 
though graveyards are being filled by their 
victims from one end of the country to the 
other, though thousands, even millions, of poor. THE DREAD OF MOTHERHOOD. 
115 
frail victims cry out in agony of mind, soul and 
body, as they suffer the full and usually de- 
served penalties of their sins, made possible by 
the ignorance continually forced upon them by 
their prudes, there is a still greater crime that 
must be laid to the door of these murderers of 
human life, health and happiness, The prudes 
have branded as vulgar and immoral all knowl- 
edge that should be given to growing girls as 
to the holy secrets of motherhood. Vile con- 
ceptions of this divine state have put under the 
ban of disapproval all literature that attempts 
to teach the simple, physiological truths of girl- 
hood and womanhood. 
Deprived of the strong, protecting instincts 
of the savage, and denied the necessary knowl- 
edge with which to replace it, our growing girls, 
as they take up the duties of wifehood and of 
womanhood, -become the victims of that igno- 
rance that prudes delight to call innocence. 
How often do you hear of the strong pro- 
tecting power of innocence? But have you 
ever felt its influence? If one needed protec- 116 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
tion only from others, there might be some 
element of truth in the protecting power of 
innocence, but when unknown evils, in attrac- 
tive disguises, stare us in the face at every turn 
-when protection is actually needed against 
self and the ignorance of self-how is inno- 
cence to exert its protecting power ? 
One might just as well claim that the lack 
of knowledge when travelling through the wild 
mountains of a strange country would be of 
advantage on a dark night. Such a country, 
under such conditions, supplies our apt com- 
parison with life as it is to-day to the average 
young woman. What is really needed is a 
school for training mothers. If every girl were 
compelled to attend such a school, it would raise 
the standard of human life in character, in 
physique, in power and beauty, beyond our 
most exaggerated expectations. 
The schools of to-day pretend to educate 
girls, yet our girls remain absolutely ignorant 
of self. This cannot be called education. Real 
education means, above all, first the training THE DREAD OF MOTHERHOOD. 
117 
for the duties of life, and when the most im- 
portant of all duties are ignored, and are 
branded as vulgar by the mysterious secrecy 
constantly maintained, it is a vile slander to call 
such training education. 
On all sides is found a concurrence of opinion 
as to the sufferings and dangers that are sup- 
posed necessarily to accompany and to follow 
the crisis of motherhood. One of the most 
terrible outrages that prudes commit-one of 
the most monstrous lies that they assist in dis- 
seminating by their policy of veiling this sacred 
subject in mysterious secrecy-is the belief that 
the terrible suffering, everywhere endured at 
the crisis of motherhood, is unavoidable. 
It is a sin and a crime to allow such errors 
to exist and continue to exist. It is one of the 
murderous fruits of prudery and the most in- 
explicable kind of superstition. Motherhood 
is one of the natural functional processes of a 
woman's life. No natural process is weaken- 
ing, or unbearably painful. The nerve-racking 
torture that accompanies the maternal crisis is 118 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
caused merely by the lack of functional prepa- 
ration, made possible by physical weakness. 
Every functional process is performed in a large 
degree by muscles, and this process is perfect or 
imperfect, painful or painless, according to the 
strength of the muscular system. The muscles 
of the average woman in the regions of the 
waist line and the hips are in a terribly weak- 
ened condition. Not only are they weakened 
from the need of regular exercise, but the cor- 
set continually pressing upon these parts and 
downward upon the organs of sex, makes the 
possession of the necessary strength of these 
important parts of the body almost impossible. 
When the existence of this muscular weakness 
is considered, and when it is known, further, 
that the crisis of motherhood is functional, and 
therefore largely a muscular process that de- 
pends upon strong muscles adjacent to the waist 
line, it is not difficult to understand why so 
much suffering is endured by mothers. 
It is not a matter for wonder that mothers 
have to submit to the use of instruments. It THE DREAD OF MOTHERHOOD. 
119 
is not surprising that they are tortured for 
hours and hours. Poor, frail, weak, delicate 
creatures, trying to perform the natural pro- 
cesses of motherhood while breaking every law 
upon which depends the health and strength of 
the body! It is not right or normal. It is not 
natural or just. Every natural, functional pro- 
cess adds to, and does not take away from, 
strength and health. From a physical stand- 
point, a woman if properly trained would be 
nearly as strong physically as a man. There 
should be no more difference in the strength 
of man or woman than there is between the male 
and female of lower animals. 
Every normal, healthy woman will be 
stronger, healthier, and more beautiful, more 
natural, more magnetic, and will secure more 
happiness from life if she follows out the nat- 
ural bent of her motherly instincts. She will 
have little or no sickness, weakness or pain 
during or following the crisis of motherhood. 
Perfect examples to prove the truth of this 
conclusion are found seldom except in savage 120 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
life or among the lower animals. Such ex- 
amples do exist, however, and I have had the 
pleasure of meeting middle-aged mothers who 
have borne several children and still main- 
tained the firm and finely developed muscles of 
youth without the slightest indication of the 
usual prolapsus of the bust. 
Why this difference? The secret lay in the 
fact that their lives had been guided by intelli- 
gence, or else they had inherited great physical 
vigor. Their bodies were strong and beautiful 
to begin with. They were familiar with ^he 
laws of health, and they obeyed their higher 
instincts, thereby avoiding the frightful mis- 
takes made by prejudiced prudes. Knowing 
as they did that childbirth was entirely a func- 
tional and muscular process, they trained for 
the event as an athlete would train for a race. 
These women exercised daily, ate natural foods, 
lived much out-of-doors and conformed their 
lives to Nature's plain laws. As a result, the 
crisis of maternity was in all cases as painless 
as with those children of Nature whom we are THE DREAD OF MOTHERHOOD. 
121 
pleased to call savages, and these mothers of 
our race were stronger and healthier for having 
performed the natural duties that fall to the lot 
of every natural woman. CHAPTER XII. 
PREVENTION OF CONCEPTION. 
There is upon the statute books of the United 
States at the present time a law that forbids 
the publication of detailed information of any 
method that will prevent conception. The 
value and utility of such a law are to be ques- 
tioned. This world is full of mental and physi- 
cal nonentities;- weak, inane, ambitionless in- 
dividuals who accomplish nothing during life 
for themselves or for others. It really is to be 
questioned whether this world is the gainer or 
the loser by such specimens of human life. 
Would it not be far better if every child that 
conies into the world should come as a wel- 
come guest; come when it is strongly desired ? 
No one can question the results of pre-natal 
influence. When a child is strongly desired, 
when mother's love is ready and waiting for 
its appearance, when loving and strengthening 
122 PREVENTION OF CONCEPTION, 
123 
thoughts assist in its pre-natal growth and 
development, that child is invested unquestion- 
ably with superior talents and powers to those 
it will have when coming as an unbidden and 
unwelcome guest. Every wife should know of 
methods that will prevent conception. She 
should not have children forced upon her. An 
undesired child comes into the world already 
cursed. He is robbed of his just birthright, 
and under circumstances of this nature it is far 
better that conception be thwarted. 
"The law of continence is the one truly ele- 
vating and spiritual law by which to govern 
procreation. As a compromise between con- 
tinent lives and abortion, prevention of con- 
ception takes rank. It does not appeal to the 
finer senses as does the law of continence, but 
does not shock and injure and degrade woman- 
hood as do abortions. There should be a gen- 
eral knowledge of preventives, if for no other 
reason than to overcome the suicide of mothers 
through the production of abortions."-J. H. 
Greer, M.D. 124 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
Almost any physician will furnish informa- 
tion of various methods that will prevent con- 
ception ; though no method is absolutely certain 
in every case. 
It is my firm belief that no man or woman 
should marry who is not equal to all the grave 
responsibilities of parentage. Yet, when the 
start is made rightly along these lines, is it not 
conceivable that one mate or the other may 
break down in after years? Let us suppose 
that the man, imbued with every loving and 
dutiful instinct, devotes so much time, work 
and worry to his business that he becomes a 
nervous wreck. Is he fit to be the father of a 
child? Yet he has erred only through intense 
devotion to the interests of his present or pros- 
pective family. 
If a man is sane when he marries he will 
select a girl robust in health and intellectual in 
temperament. The very accidents that are 
coupled often with wifehood in this "civilized" 
age render the unprepared woman a physical or 
nervous wreck within two or three years after PREVENTION OF CONCEPTION. 
125 
the clergyman has given his sanction to the 
union. Is a broken-down woman fitted to be 
the mother of either a future president or of a 
future artisan? 
Where healthy conditions exist in both hus- 
band and wife the imperativeness of mother- 
hood cannot be insisted upon too strongly. 
When marital relations result in the birth of a 
child that must suffer throughout a short or a 
long life, let me ask the moralists: Can there be 
any greater crime than that of conception? If 
the mother be weakly, delivery of a child may 
wreck her life, or take it altogether. The hus- 
band suffers the mental agonies of the damned. 
But the crime inflicted upon the child is a 
thousandfold more wicked than the sin through 
which either parent suffers. Can there be any 
doubt that, under some circumstances, preven- 
tion of conception becomes more of a duty than 
a privilege? 
There are other views of this matter that may 
be suggested. It is possible that the nervous 
malady of one mate or of the other may result 126 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
in mild yet evident insanity. This mental dis- 
ease, insanity, may seem to be of so innocuous a 
nature that one mate realizes no necessity for 
leaving the other. Under these conditions 
should children be brought into the world? 
Skillful alienists declare that mild insanity in 
one generation is likely to be more acutely rep- 
resented in the next. A drunken husband is 
sometimes a kind and indulgent one. Has his 
wife the slightest moral right to bring into the 
world offspring who are likely to inherit his 
taste for liquor, and also likely to inherit the 
violent temper that belonged to some male 
ancestor farther back ? Chapters might be 
written on this most vital subject, but enough 
has been said to indicate the lines of thought 
that should guide every husband and wife. The 
author has put forth his best endeavor to ap- 
proach this subject with all the delicacy and 
reverence that it deserves. He desires to point 
Wt that, while inadvisable marital relations 
may injure husband or wife, the crime com- 
mitted is vastly more monstrous against the PREVENTION OF CONCEPTION. 
127 
child that comes into the world unasked-and 
often not welcomed! 
Of the various methods of avoiding concep- 
tion, Dr. John Cowan has made the following 
statements: 
"One method of avoiding conception, said to 
have been practiced by the Oneida Community, 
consists in the enjoyment of marital relations 
carried just short of the point of emission. It 
is claimed that this manner of contact results 
in more pleasure and happiness than could be 
secured from complete fulfillment. To this 
method there are two objections. It is only 
through the development of the highest senti- 
ments that happiness can result. In the second 
place, the faculty of sexual sensitiveness is 
located at the base of the brain. In the practice 
of the reputed Oneida system the pleasure re- 
sulting can be nothing more than low and ani- 
mal. Pure and spiritual happiness cannot 
result. In addition, it must be argued that the 
zoosperms are developed in the sperm-cells of 
the vas deferens, and are carried to the ves- 128 
MARRIAGE X LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
iculae seminales, and owing to the full condi- 
tion of that receptacle they must be passed in a 
night or morning relief. For this reason, 
although the act ceases before fruition, the re- 
sult is no better than one obtained from the act 
of self-indulgence. Moreover, it is to be doubt- 
ed if one man in a thousand possesses the will 
power to cease just before the crisis. 
"There are coverings for the male organ, 
made either of rubber or of gold-beater's skin. 
These are generally effective, but absolute reli- 
ance cannot be placed in them. Certainly 
spiritual and animal pleasure are dulled by the 
employment of such devices. They irritate the 
sensitive, mucous membranes of the vagina, 
and inflame and weaken that part, at the same 
time producing ulceration of the womb. For 
women there are sponges, rubber pads and other 
devices that are placed against the mouth of the 
womb in order to prevent the entrance of the 
sperm. They are much advertised, by quacks, 
throughout the country. The tendency of all 
these devices is to prevent the pleasure of the PREVENTION OF CONCEPTION. 
129 
licentious. It is the coming together of the 
highly sensitive glands and nerves of the organs 
of male and female which produce the high 
type of pleasure that should be the expression 
of perfect and abiding love. There is always 
the danger that any mechanical device may be 
displaced, and therefore rendered useless. 
"There is another mode of prevention that is 
frequently advised by the physiologists of to- 
day. During the menstrual period an ovum, or 
egg, ripens and is carried to the uterus. In 
from eight to fourteen days this ovum passes 
from the body. The supposition is that there 
are then about two weeks in which marital re- 
lations are possible without the danger of con- 
ception. But there is much to be said against 
the idea. If the woman feels desire this con- 
dition is likely to cause the premature develop- 
ment of a germ-cell, and the meeting of this 
with the sperm-cell all but insures conception. 
It has been contended frequently that, when 
the ovum has passed, and the woman is nothing 
more than passive, submissive, conception can- 130 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
not result. This fallacy has been exploded by 
the experiences of countless women who cared 
nothing for their husbands, but who submitted 
through a sense of 'duty' or from the dictates 
of prudence. For a man such a union as this 
possesses not a particle more of benefit than 
would be the practice* of secret vice. 
"There is a superstition that, while the moth- 
er is nursing her child, marital relations may be 
carried on with impunity. Many women, im- 
bued with this notion, have discovered their 
error. Excitement affects the ovaries, an ovum 
ripens, is thrown off, and impregnation results. 
Expenditure of nerve force in the mammary 
glands prevents the ordinary indications of 
menstruation, and so there is no indication that 
an ovum has ripened. 
"In this country the most popular method of 
preventing conception is found in the use of 
the syringe. Cold water is applied immedi- 
ately after the cessation of contact. But no 
reliability can be accorded to this method. In 
addition, the injection of cold water into a PREVENTION OF CONCEPTION. 
131 
cavity of such high temperature as that of the 
vagina may produce inflammation without any 
compensating result. 
"There are many powders and tablets that 
are used for solution in the water of the douche. 
None of these afford absolute protection against 
conception. Moreover, these chemically pre- 
pared douches are certain to work slow but 
cumulative injury to the woman. Water, or 
water mixed with drugs, affects the semen only 
in the vagina; when a single zoosperm enters 
the uterus a barrel of water and a pound of any 
drug are worthless." 
In the discussion of this matter it has been 
difficult to refer to all aspects of the subject 
without danger of causing offense to some over- 
sensitive readers. But all that has been written 
in this chapter has been offered in the utmost 
good faith; and the exercise of common sense 
requires that a writer on so important a topic 
should not call a spade "an agricultural im- 
plement." CHAPTER XIII. 
FOETICIDE PREVALENT EVERYWHERE. 
Pre-natal child murder is practiced to an 
alarming extent in every civilized country. 
This crime against self and against the unborn 
is committed by the high and the low, the rich 
and poor, and in city and country. Its effects 
are but little understood. A woman does not 
think for a moment of the after-effects. She 
does not realize that in thus outraging Nature's 
laws and the normal action of her body, she is 
committing a sin the results of which, in some 
cases, will cling to her throughout her whole 
life. The entire functional and vital systems 
suffer from a shock of this character. It some- 
times takes years for a woman to recuperate 
and become again her normal self. In not a 
few instances, barrenness is one of the results 
132 FOETICIDE EVERYWHERE. 
133 
of this species of self-abuse. It ages a woman 
prematurely. It brings on old age, lines and 
wrinkles of care, many years before they ought 
in the natural course of things to appear. 
There are many convincing excuses for the 
prevention of conception, but there are no satis- 
factory reasons for foeticide. It murders the 
child, and it also murders all that is best and 
noblest in the mother. No mother can long 
retain the instincts, the affections and sympa- 
thies of a true woman, if she submits to such 
unnatural processes. 
Said the late Reverend Dr. Eddy in the 
Christian Advocate: 
"We could prove that in one little village of 
one thousand inhabitants, prominent women 
have been guilty of what we will presently show 
to be MURDER. And sadder still, half of 
these are members of Christ's Church. Yet 
here, and elsewhere, where fifteen per cent, of 
wives have the criminal hardihood to practice 
this black art, there is a still larger and addi- 
tional per cent, of those who endorse and de- 134 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
fend it. One of the worst features of the case 
is the fact that, if a young, pure and inexperi- 
enced wife is shocked by revelations made by 
hardened abortionists, she is straightway ridi- 
culed into silence or argued into acquiescence. 
"The very worst feature, however, is, that 
young girls, too young to marry, are initiated 
into these mysteries of massacre, thoroughly 
imbued with a dislike of children, especially 
their future own, and are thus prepared to per- 
petrate this horrid villainy when their more 
aged instructors are gone up before their God. 
We protest that it is pitiful. To fortify these 
statements we have Dr. Stewart's testimony: 
'But few of either sex enter the marital rela- 
tions without full information as to the ways 
and means of destroying the legitimate results 
of matrimony. Among married persons so ex- 
tensive has this practice become that people of 
high repute not only commit this crime, but do 
not even shun to speak boastingly among their 
intimates of the deed and the means of accom- 
plishing it.' " FOETICIDE EVERYWHERE. 
135 
Dr. John Cowan very plainly describes the 
evils that result from foeticide: 
"It is a mistake to suppose that death must be 
immediate in abortion. The rapidity of death, 
even when directly the consequence, greatly 
varies; though generally taking place almost at 
once if there be hemorrhages, it may be de- 
layed even for hours where there has been great 
laceration of the uterus, its surrounding tissues, 
and even of the intestines. If metro-peritonitis 
ensue, the patient may survive from one to four 
months-even, indeed, to seven and ten; but 
there are other fatal cases where on autopsy 
there is revealed no appreciable lesion; death, 
the penalty of unwarrantable interfering with 
Nature, being occasioned by syncope, by ex- 
cess of pain, or by moral shock from the 
thought of the crime. A score of natural births 
at the full period, under right conditions, would 
not entail on the mother a shadow of as much 
pain and danger as would one forced abortion. 
"Allowing the woman has been so fortunate 
as to escape death, there follows in the wake of 136 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
the crime done such an array of evil results as 
might well deter any woman from the com- 
mission of this great crime. Diseases of the 
pelvis-such as vesical and uterine fistula, ad- 
hesions of the os or vagina, etc., all of which 
are often incurable; uterine displacements and 
all their attendant miseries follow. Sterility 
sooner or later results, so that when the woman 
really desires offspring, her desires and prayers 
bring no echoing response. Should the woman 
succeed in bearing children, they will likely be 
puny, unhealthy, deformed and short-lived." 
If there is one thing more than another 
that will destroy beauty, it is criminal abortion. 
Tight dressing, corsets, licentiousness, and, 
above all, abortion, will in whole or in part very 
effectually and very quickly destroy the most 
beautiful face and form a lovely woman ever 
was endowed with, and hurry her with rapid 
strides to premature age, with its attendant 
faded skin, wrinkled face and bent form. The 
woman who produces abortion destroys the 
bloom of her ripe womanhood, hardens and FOETICIDE EVERYWHERE. 
137 
deepens the face lines, angularizes the hitherto 
rounded contours; the outward loving expres- 
sion of the soul's interior presence is darkened, 
the rich maternal love nature is lost, and prema- 
ture old age conies on at a gallop. 
Though foeticide should always be con- 
demned, there are sometimes extenuating cir- 
cumstances. The following letter very emphat- 
ically describes marital environments against 
which many women are compelled to contend: 
"When my first-born was three months old 
I had a desperate struggle for my personal 
liberty. My husband insisted on his right to 
subject my person to his passion before my 
babe was two months old. I pleaded, with tears 
and anguish, for my own and my child's sake to 
be spared, and had it not been for my helpless 
child I should have ended the struggle by bolt- 
ing my legal bonds. For its sake I submitted 
to that outrage, and to my own degradation. 
For its sake I concluded to take my chance in 
the world with other wives and mothers, who, 
as they assured me, were, all around me, sub- 138 
marriage a lifelong honeymoon. 
jected to like outrages, and driven to the de- 
grading practice of abortion. 
"But even then, I saw and argued the justice 
of my personal rights in regard to maternity, 
and the relation that leads to it, as strongly as 
you do now. ... I insisted that it was for 
me to say when and how often I should subject 
myself to a liability of becoming a mother. 
But my husband became angry with me; 
claimed ownership over me; insisted that I, as 
his wife, was to submit to my husband 'in all 
things;' threatened to leave me, and declared 
I was not fit to be a wife. Fearing some fatal 
consequence to my child or to myself-being 
alone, destitute, and far from helpful friends, 
in the far West, and dreading lest my little one 
should be left to want-I stifled all expressions 
of my aversion and the painful struggles in 
my own bosom. 
"In every respect, so far as passional relations 
between myself and husband are concerned, I 
have felt myself to be a miserable and abject 
woman, and now see and feel it most deeply FOETICIDE EVERYWHERE. 
139 
and painfully. If I was with a child in my 
arms I was in constant dread of all personal 
contact with my husband, lest I should have a 
new maternity thrust upon me. ... It was 
not a want of kindly feeling that induced this 
state of mind, for I could and did endure every 
privation and want without an unkindly feeling 
or word, and even cheerfully, for my husband's 
sake. But every feeling of my soul within does 
now, and ever must, protest against the cruel 
and loathsome injustice of husbands towards 
their wives that is manifested in imposing on 
them a maternity uncalled for by their own 
nature and most repulsive to it, and whose suf- 
ferings and responsibilities they are unprepared 
for and unwilling to meet." CHAPTER XIV. 
LACK OF PROTECTIVE INSTINCT IN WOMEN. 
In the foregoing chapters I have tried to em- 
phasize the value of what might be termed 
woman's protective instinct. The term "pro- 
tective" is used because this instinct is de- 
pended upon for protection. It is developed to 
its highest degree among the lower animals. 
No female of the animal species will allow inti- 
macies except at particular times. It is the sex 
instinct that accurately indicates these periods. 
It would be otherwise exceedingly difficult ac- 
curately to indicate the periods when a woman 
should be capable of responding to the desires 
and passions of the opposite sex. It is the sex 
instinct that marks the dividing line so dis- 
tinctly between the sexes. The more strongly 
a woman is sexed, the more womanly she be- 
140 PROTECTIVE INSTINCT IN WOMEN. 
141 
comes, the more delicately sensitive are her 
instincts of sex. 
The muscular and nervous weakness that has 
resulted from civilized environments play terri- 
ble havoc with sex instinct. There are many 
men who can lay but little claim to true, strong 
manhood. They are weak and unmasculine. 
Their discordant voices indicate their internal 
vital and sexual conditions. But there are far 
more neuters among the female than among the 
male sex. The corset, the want of exercise, and 
numerous other evils have filled civilized com- 
munities with sexless creatures who are a curse 
to themselves and to all those with whom they 
come in contact. They are devoid of the emo- 
tions, the instincts and the sympathies that 
mark true womanhood. They are the last 
remnants that come with degeneracy and ob- 
livion. Poor, deluded, sexless creatures, they 
are only to be pitied! They are reaping the 
harvest from seed that in many cases was sown 
several generations before their birth. 
The instinct of sex must be in every woman 142 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
well and clearly defined. A poorly sexed wo- 
man has no right to marry. She is just as in- 
capable of properly fulfilling the duties of a 
wife and mother as a man would be who had 
lost his virility. Marriage is for men and wo- 
men. not for the weak, inane and sexless. How 
often do we hear women speak of their ina- 
bility to fall in love! They boast of it, be- 
cause they imagine that in some way it indi- 
cates a superior and more refined nature if they 
cannot be influenced like ordinary women. But 
where this particular characteristic continues 
through the period of a woman's life when it is 
time for her to think of assuming the duties of 
a wife and mother, you may depend upon it 
that it is not her superior refinement, but her 
want of womanhood. The sex instinct has 
never been developed, or it has been devitalized. 
It must be admitted that physical culture can 
work wonders in cases of this kind. The in- 
stinct of sex, after all, is nothing more than a 
part of the nervous system. The nervous sys- 
tem may be strengthened and made more perfect PROTECTIVE INSTINCT IN WOMEN. 
143 
in all its delicate workings through muscular 
exercise; and in physical culture those women 
who lack the protective instinct of sex will 
find a most valuable means of adding to and of 
perfecting their powers in this direction. A 
womanly woman must be well-sexed. A wo- 
man cannot be superbly sexed unless she is 
strong and well-made in every part. Keep this 
fact well in view. Those women who are de- 
sirous of securing the highest degree of attain- 
able happiness in marriage, should heed the 
warning and make themselves as perfect phys- 
ically as possible. And those men who are 
desirous of securing wives that will be capable 
of most perfectly fulfilling the duties of wife 
and mother, must select a woman possessing 
the physical characteristics essential to wife- 
hood and motherhood. CHAPTER XV. 
EXCESSES THAT LESSEN THE VITALITY OF BOTH 
SEXES. 
It would be a difficult matter accurately to 
describe the frightfully debilitating effects of 
marital excesses or immoralities-for they cer- 
tainly should be termed "immoralities." Any 
excess that is calculated to pervert, to weaken, 
to destroy the best and noblest part of human 
life, is immoral. Everywhere may be seen the 
effects of this particular excess. It is noted 
nearly always in newly married couples. They 
frequently recuperate after a time, and their 
relations become more normal. But, in many 
cases, they continue on the wrong road month 
after month, year after year, and ultimately 
weaken the entire functional, muscular and 
nervous system. Under such circumstances the 
body is easily attacked by almost any disease. 
144 VITALITY OF BOTH SEXES. 
145 
It becomes a ready victim to all kinds of serious 
disorders. This excess is one of the principal 
causes of consumption and of all wasting and 
debilitating diseases. 
It is the nervous system that keeps the inter- 
nal functional organs in order. Upon the 
strength of the nervous system depend their per- 
fect working. When the nerves are weakened 
because of this excessive drain, it is an easy mat- 
ter to see how every organ of the body suffers in 
consequence. The digestion becomes weaker; 
the powers of assimilation decrease; the lungs 
and heart are incapable of performing their 
best work; and, as a result, every organ in the 
body is injured. Under such circumstances 
marriage becomes a most gross deception. The 
divinest relations of men and women become 
degraded-vulgarized!-and both become the 
victims of excesses that destroy all that is best 
in human character. 
We hear so much about men and women 
sinking to the level of beasts; but find me, if 
you can, any beast that will thus outrage Na- 146 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
ture's divine laws. Such lustful excesses can 
find no parallel anywhere in the animal world 
not contaminated by human influences and en- 
vironments. 
Saint Jerome, in one of his epistles, addressed 
to a widow named Ageruchia, tells of the mar- 
riage at Rome of a widow to her twenty- 
second husband, who himself had buried twenty 
wives. The eyes of all Rome were fixed on 
this wonderful pair, as on a couple of gladi- 
ators; until, we are told, the woman, after all 
her funeral triumphs, fell vanquished in the 
conflict. "The husband triumphed," says Je- 
rome, "and walked before the bier of his oft- 
rnarried wife, amid a great concourse of people 
from all quarters, with garland and palm- 
branch, scattering spelt as he went along among 
an approving crowd." Jerome was disgusted, 
and told it as a close approach to prostitution. 
He said the pair were "of the very dregs of the 
people." 
"Springing out of the disobeying of the laws 
that govern the sexual system are diseases in- VITALITY OF BOTH SEXES. 
147 
numerable; but, primarily, the nervous system 
is so influenced and disorganized as to lay the 
sub-structure for all the positively nervous, and 
nearly all the inflammatory and chronic diseases 
that afflict mankind, and especially womankind. 
If there were one proof more than another re- 
quired to show the prevailing ignorance on 
sexual subjects, the one of universal nervous- 
ness (which implies want of nerves, or absence 
of nerve power) abroad among all man and 
woman kind, would of itself suffice." 
"Noticeably in many ways do sexual ex- 
cesses affect the brain. The faculty of memory 
is weakened and impaired, the person gradually 
lacking his usual power to remember men and 
things. The eyes are also affected, disordered 
vision is almost always a prompt indication of 
abused amativeness. The eyes are easily af- 
fected by night lights, and any ordinary effort 
strains and hurts them. The hearing is also 
in many cases impaired. Paralysis of the lower 
extremities occasionally results. Neuralgia, af- 
fecting any part of the system, is among the 148 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
frequent consequences. More than half the 
cases of epilepsy are unmistakably owing either 
to sexual or self-abuse. Falling of the womb, 
barrenness, abortion, and cancer of the womb 
or breast are directly or indirectly caused by 
excessive indulgence in married life. Fickle- 
ness of temper, irresolution, and premature old 
age, are penalties that attach themselves indis- 
criminately to all who violate the laws of their 
organization. 
"This list of diseases, the result of sexual 
abuse, is but a partial one; for in the abnormal 
exercise of amativeness, the great drain of the 
nervous fluid, and the loss of semen-one drop 
of which is equal to forty drops of blood in 
any other part of the body-so lower the life 
force as to form the foundation for, and lay 
open the system to, all manner of contagious, 
acute and chronic diseases; and in this way, 
though sexual excesses may not be the immedi- 
ate cause of sickness and premature death, they 
in thousands of cases are the remote cause." CHAPTER XVI. 
SEX RELATIONSHIP NECESSARY TO HEALTH? 
The problem presented by this question is 
considered to be a very grave one. Men of 
equal authority contend on both sides of the 
question. A mass of evidence can be secured 
to prove the truth of either conclusion. Many 
medical men are in the habit of seriously ad- 
vising men to lead immoral lives. 
No man has ever gained anything through 
immoralities. Thousands have lost their health, 
their virility and all their manliness by follow- 
ing the advice of medical practitioners who be- 
lieve that prostitution is necessary to the enjoy- 
ment of the highest degree of physical health. 
The embraces of a prostitute never benefited 
any man. They have degraded and demoral- 
ized millions. They have infected thousands 
with vile diseases that lead to physical ruin and 
149 150 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
often to miserable death. The hospitals are 
burdened with men who have turned to prosti- 
tution upon the advice of so-called physicians. 
The jails and penitentiaries hold many thou- 
sands who have followed this course because of 
their own inclinations. Prostitutes and wine 
make a combination that no man has ever been 
able to patronize regularly and yet maintain 
his health, manliness and self-respect. They 
lead to certain ruin and oblivion. 
But now let us view in a sensible and un- 
prejudiced manner the theories of those who 
maintain that the sex relationship is necessary 
to the enjoyment of the highest degree of health 
and strength. These theorists maintain that 
the seminal fluid is an excretion that should be 
voided at certain and regular intervals, and that 
if this fluid is allowed to remain inactive for a 
long period the body is actually injured by it. 
It is claimed that prolonged continence will 
destroy sexual power in time; that if this power 
is not exercised occasionally, it will in time 
absolutely disappear. The claim is made that SEX RELATIONSHIP TO HEALTH. 
151 
sexual indulgence is a tonic to the entire phys- 
ical organism; that a desire of this kind should 
be satisfied just as are the desires for food. 
To those who are studying this problem, I 
would say, first of all, there is more in the power 
of mind over body than many people imagine. 
It is a great force that can be used for good or 
evil. I firmly believe that a man is stronger, 
better and nobler if he leads a continent life, 
and as long as I thus believe, I shall be better by 
leading such a life. If I held an opposite opin- 
ion, and was continent because of moral or 
conscientious scruples, it would probably bene- 
fit me but little. 
"A chaste life is inspired by a true knowl- 
edge of the purpose and uses of sex, and the 
inward desire so to live as to bring forth the 
best results for society in general, and for one's 
self in the end. Thousands are wrecked yearly 
on the rocks of ignorance, or of slothful dis- 
regard of results. Others indulge the mere 
animal of their natures until they come to know 
no pleasure outside of it. They burn up the 152 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
goodness and purity and strength of both soul 
and body, in the white heat of sensuality, and 
are left, at last, with the ashes of their dead 
best selves, wondering wherein is the good of 
life." 
"The law of continence is the true rule of 
life; its practice will redeem the race from 
the reign of lust. But a mere repression can- 
not be called continence. It must be a cheerful 
and intelligent continence, practiced because it 
is right. Otherwise there is a weakening from 
the reaction of repression that produces 'ner- 
vous debility,' and seminal emissions that are 
disastrous to health. This is the fine point upon 
which 'physical necessity' advocates take issue 
with supporters of the law of continence. Mere 
abstinence from sexual intercourse, without the 
support of reason, is mistaken for continence, 
while, at the same time, prurient thoughts are 
entertained." 
Of this mental nastiness Dr. Dio Lewis said: 
"Where one person is injured by sexual com- 
merce, many are made feverish by harboring SEX RELATIONSHIP TO HEALTH. 
153 
lewd thoughts. Rioting in visions of nude 
■women may exhaust one as much as an excess 
in actual intercourse. This species of indul- 
gence is well-nigh universal; as it is the source 
of all other forms, the fountain from which the 
external vices spring, the nursery of mastur- 
bation and excessive coitus, I am surprised to 
find how little has been said about it. . . . 
The fever and excitement of voluptuous rev- 
erie wear out the system, emasculate manhood, 
and shut out all the noblest visions in this and 
the upper world." 
Locke, Newton and Pitt, men of extraordi- 
nary power of will, and of great breadth of 
intellect, never married, and, it is well known, 
never in any way gratified the sexual desire. 
Another objection occasionally advanced is that, 
through want of exercise, the male organ will 
decrease in size! When any such decrease in 
size does occur, it will be found to be caused by 
exactly the reverse; namely, excessive exercise 
by self-abuse. Another objection that might be 
advanced is that, through a period of continence 154 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
for two or three years, the ability to reproduce 
will be lost; lost, as in the above objection, 
through want of exercise. This is fallacious, 
never has occurred, and never can occur in a 
healthy man. 
Dr. John Cowan claims that "the individ- 
ual who leads a licentious life weakens his 
nervous system, and through that the digestive 
system is disorganized, his stomach, liver, kid- 
neys, etc., are diseased, and dyspepsia, rheuma- 
tism, apoplexy, paralysis and a score of other 
diseases, assert their sway; weakens his lungs 
and consumption appears; disables his special 
senses-his sight, hearing and taste are af- 
fected ; disorganizes his brain tissue-memory 
is weakened, perceptive and reflective power is 
weakened, as seen in imbecility of plan and 
purpose, and indecision of thought and action; 
the moral sentiments are debased, the soul 
blighted, and love, religion and God cannot 
dwell within him; arrests his growth and 
brings on premature old age; destroys his man- 
hood, and the offspring propagated by him are SEX RELATIONSHIP TO HEALTH. 
155 
sickly, scrofulous, deformed, and die prema- 
turely. 
"Note well the difference in the individual 
who leads a life of chastity-a strictly continent 
life. The nervous system is invigorated and 
strengthened. The special senses-the sight, 
hearing, etc.-are strong, delicate and acute. 
The digestive system is kept normal, and the 
man knows not what a sick day is. 
"The growth of body is filled up and round- 
ed out, and a full measure of years may 
come, but old age never; for the last days, in 
the pleasurable enjoyment of good health and a 
sound mind, are as were the days of his child- 
hood. 
"The brain is enlarged and perfected, mem- 
ory grows strong, the perceptive and reflective 
faculties increase in power, as is shown in 
the ability to originate and execute, the calm, 
self-possessed strength to endure, and gentle- 
ness, courage, generosity and nobleness of 
character. The moral sentiments are elevated, 
love grows and ripens, and the soul, in its exer- 156 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
cise, reaches up and commingles with the 
spirit of God. The reproductive element is pre- 
served, in all its life-renewing and life-giving 
power, until full ripeness of years. 
"The morning is an important period in the 
life of the incontinent individual, and the plan 
all such should adopt is to leap out of bed as 
soon as they awake in the morning. The close 
observance of this rule will enable the man to 
avoid many evil results. Thousands of men 
awake in the morning, having the rectum dis- 
tended with hardening faeces, and pressing on 
the seminal receptacles behind, with the dis- 
tended bladder pressing in front, and they think 
that the sexual part of their system is urgent 
for intercourse, when it is only their bowels and 
bladders that want evacuating. This should be 
well understood, for the habit of early morn- 
ing licentiousness is wide-spread, and in many 
instances is caused in this way, and it can be 
avoided always by leaving the bed immediately 
on waking in the morning. If it is six, five, or 
even four o'clock, rise, bathe, dress, and go out SEX RELATIONSHIP TO HEALTH. 
157 
for a good sharp walk before breakfast, and see 
how much better you will feel than if you had 
expended your vitality in sexual intercourse. 
Try it, practice it, live up to it, for it will in- 
sure much toward a continent life. 
"A striking example of what resolution can 
do was related to me lately by a patient. 'You 
may be somewhat surprised,' said he, 'by the 
statement I am about to make to you-that be- 
fore my marriage I lived a perfectly continent 
life. During my university career my passions 
were very strong, sometimes almost uncon- 
trollable, but I have the satisfaction of thinking 
that I mastered them. It was, however, by 
gieat effort. I obliged myself to take violent 
physical exercise; I was the best oar of my year, 
and when I felt particularly strong sexual de- 
sires I sallied out to take more exercise. I was 
victorious always, and I never committed for- 
nication. You see in what robust health I am; 
it was exercise alone that saved me.' I may 
mention that this gentleman took the most ex- 
cellent degree and has reached the highest point 158 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
of his profession. Here is an instance of what 
energy of character, indomitable perseverance 
and good health will effect." 
There are no more consistent examples of 
sexual abstinence than are to be found in India, 
the cradle of our Aryan race. The followers of 
the Brahmin belief are divided into castes. At 
the head of these is the priestly caste. Not all 
the members are required to lead celibate lives; 
indeed, some of the members of the caste must 
marry, for the caste is absolutely exclusive in its 
membership, and recruits must come through 
the results of marriage. 
But the young men who are to become Brah- 
min priests-they are selected in the years of 
boyhood-MUST lead celibate lives. There is 
no evasion possible. So sternly taught are the 
tenets of Brahminism that no young candidate 
for the priesthood dares or desires to violate his 
obligations of celibacy. The young priest 
would feel himself disgraced, and defiled for- 
ever, if he were to be guilty of one infraction of 
his vows. SEX RELATIONSHIP TO HEALTH. 
159 
Are these celibate members of the Brahmin 
caste unhealthy ? It is not uncommon for these 
men, living without physical or sexual excesses 
of any kind, and on a diet as meagre as that sup- 
plied by the consumption of a handful of rice 
once in every twenty-four hours, to reach the 
age of one hundred years. Nor is wonder ex- 
cited when a Brahmin priest adds thirty, forty 
or even fifty years to the foregoing figure. 
There can be no cavilling suggestion that 
the Brahmin priests are celibates only in name. 
All who have made a study of these remarkable 
men believe unreservedly in their absolute 
aloofness from marital pleasures. 
The Brahmin priest takes what we might 
term his first orders at the age of twenty; if 
worthy he is advanced at the age of forty, and 
again at the age of sixty. In each Brahmin 
section of India there is a head of the priest- 
hood who is accorded the same amount of 
authority and granted the same reverence that 
devout Roman Catholics invest in the Pope. 
This leader of the Brahmins is known as the 160 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
Brahmatma. He must have taken successively 
all the steps of promotion, and must be of the 
age of at least eighty years. The priest who is 
elevated to this high office is permitted now to 
abjure his vows of celibacy. 
Has his life of absolute celibacy impaired his 
procreative powers? It is a fact well authen- 
ticated that many of the Brahmatma, taking 
unto themselves as many wives as they pleased 
after having reached the nineties, have left be- 
hind them hundreds of children. The religious 
idea is that the man who has led a holy life to 
the age of at least eighty, and who has be- 
come the head of his order in his own section 
of the country, should be allowed and be ex- 
pected to leave behind him as many worthy 
offspring as he is able to add to the exclusive 
priestly caste. From a physiological view- 
point the interesting fact is that a Brahmin 
is able to lead a wholly celibate life until he 
has passed the fourscore mark, and then is 
able to leave behind him scores, or even hun- 
dreds of living proofs of his virility. SEX RELATIONSHIP TO HEALTH. 
161 
It should be remembered, however, that diet 
has a very great influence upon the passions. 
One accustomed to a stimulating meat diet 
will be easily aroused. The passions of one 
who lives on a temperate diet and takes reg- 
ular exercise would be more difficult to awaken, 
but they would be also more normal and more 
capable of being continued to a satisfactory 
climax than those of one who lives on a stimu- 
lating diet. CHAPTER XVII. 
NERVE-BLIGHTING INFLUENCE OF TOBACCO. 
How beautiful it is to feel that you are in 
thorough possession of yourself, that you have 
your nervous system under full control, that, 
in other words, you have mastered yourself! 
The tobacco poison will make it impossible 
fully to accomplish all this. There can be no 
delicate sensitiveness of the nervous powers 
of the body if the tobacco dope is regularly 
used. It is a poison that harms and benumbs, 
and that ultimately must paralyze the feelings, 
sympathies and affections of a human being. 
Its effect upon the general nervous system is 
seen most plainly in extremely old people who 
have been addicted to the habit during their 
entire lives. Their sympathies and feelings 
have been dried up to such an extent that their 
only pleasure in life is found in chewing a 
162 INFLUENCE OF TOBACCO. 
163 
cud of tobacco, or in drawing at a pipe full of 
their favorite dope. They will sit in a corner, 
and be supremely satisfied under circumstances 
of this nature. 
"A man using tobacco or alcoholic liquors, 
and living on gross food, is no more capable 
of growing into perfect love and its enjoyments 
than he is capable of appreciating what consti- 
tutes perfect health. Perfect love is of and 
from God-pure in its exercise, holy in its 
aspirations, and how can such a man possess- 
ing, as he does, a body and soul foul with the 
disgusting emanations of tobacco, whiskey and 
wine, find a pure thought within for its lodg- 
ment. The conception is not only absurd-it 
is sacrilegious. 
''Closely allied to ill health-it may be the 
underlying cause of it-are habits essentially 
bad, foul and filthy-namely, the use of tobacco 
and alcoholic liquors; and the victims of these 
two habits, O woman, trusting and pure. I 
warn you to shun! I warn you, as you hope 
for a clean, healthy and enjoyable married ex- 164 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
istence, to avoid marrying a man who comes 
to you exuding from his breath, his clothes, his 
body, his very soul, the dirty effluvia of to- 
bacco, the excreted essence of his selfish, 
unnatural, perverted desires-with the inten- 
tion of marriage, with a hope of uniting his 
foul body to your pure existence. Reject, 
promptly and positively, his acquaintance, as 
promptly and positively as you would a chew 
of his fine-cut tobacco or a puff from his cigar." 
Men and women who use or tolerate tobacco 
are practically dead to the world. They are 
of but little or no benefit to themselves or to 
others. Their nerves have become so para- 
lyzed, so benumbed, that they are incapable of 
enjoying or of suffering. Not only have their 
nerves become "dried up," but in many cases 
their bodies actually assume the same appear- 
ance. Young men in the heyday of youth 
will laugh at ideas of this kind. They will 
puff at a cigar, a cigarette or a pipe, nearly all 
day long, and think that it is doing them no 
harm; but every year that such a habit is con- INFLUENCE OF TOBACCO. 
165 
tinned, leaves its mark upon the physical and 
nervous organs. Wives who value the affec- 
tion of their husbands, who wish to know 
that they are supreme in the regard of their 
life companions, and who wish to maintain that 
position all their lives, should make a struggle 
to influence them against the tobacco habit. 
It should be remembered that the delicate 
sensitiveness of the nervous system controls the 
affections and sympathies of the life element 
in human character. If this nervous system is 
benumbed, made dopey and phlegmatic, the life 
of a man will degenerate to a corresponding 
extent. A wife desires love, affection and ap- 
preciation. She wishes her husband to love 
her, this year and next year, and on to the end 
of life; but the tobacco dope of this nerve- 
benumbing habit in time will compel a man 
almost absolutely to ignore his wife. 
The wife will cease to have any influence 
over her husband for the reason that his affec- 
tion for her will have disappeared. He will 
become unfeeling, phlegmatic-or else utterly 166 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
irritable-and will be incapable of enjoying or 
of suffering-or else of transmitting his suf- 
fering three-fold. His life thereafter will be 
simply a matter of existing. He will eat, 
drink and sleep-the latter if he can-but life 
will hold nothing more of value to him. He 
will live almost like a man asleep; there will be 
no affection, no sympathies, no joys. The 
world is full of such live corpses. Their own- 
ers imagine that they are alive. They can 
perform, day after day, only the ordinary duties 
of life. In heart, soul, and mind, they really 
are dead. 
Tobacco has much to do with this. It has 
plunged many a fine man into oblivion and 
death of this kind. If you wish to live and to 
make the best of life, if you wish to taste its 
joys in all their sublime delight, you must let 
the tobacco dope alone. It will poison your 
mind, your body, and your nerves. It will 
lessen and destroy your appreciation of the 
opposite sex, and, in time, may sever you abso- 
lutely from the feelings that are a part of virile INFLUENCE OF TOBACCO. 
167 
manhood. You cannot be a real, strong-, 
7 o 
superb man, continuing to enjoy all the privi- 
leges that come to manhood in their keenest 
sense, if you paralyze and benumb your nerves 
with this poison, nicotine! CHAPTER XVIII. 
PARALYZING EFFECT OF ALCOHOL UPON THE 
NERVOUS SYSTEM. 
Alcoholic liquors of all kinds are poisons. 
If indulged in, moderately or otherwise, they 
are so much dead matter, arousing to greater 
activity every organ of the body with which 
they come in contact. Every organ recognizes 
it as a poison. It struggles with might and 
main to rid itself of the baneful influence of the 
interloper. 
I know the average individual who acquires 
the alcohol habit feels that, as long as he in- 
dulges moderately, no harm will be done-that, 
in fact, he will be benefited by the indulgence. 
What is the object of using a stimulant of this 
character? Is it because it is pleasing, like a 
palatable food to a hungry man, or is it merely 
for the exhilaration that follows ? Almost 
168 169 
PARALYZING EFFECT OF ALCOHOL. 
every one will admit that it is because of the 
stimulating after effects. The world seems 
brighter for a time; the drink drives away the 
blues; "it cheers up the inner man," they 
say. True, it often accomplishes all this. 
There is no question as to the truth of the 
assertion; but does this transient exhilaration 
compensate for the depression that always fol- 
lows, and for the insidious physically depleting 
results that gradually ensue, if the alcohol habit 
is indefinitely continued? 
It is this effect upon the general nervous 
system, this depressing, paralyzing, benumbing 
influence of alcohol, that works the most harm. 
The nervous system of a chronic alcohol tippler, 
even if he indulges very moderately, becomes in 
time so benumbed that he never has a happy 
moment in his life; he never feels the joy, the 
brightness of life, unless he is spurred by his 
usual stimulant. Regardless of what condition 
may exist, in order to win a feeling of happi- 
ness his jaded nervous system cannot feel the 
exhilaration that should result until he has 170 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
imbibed his usual quantity of poison. This 
feeling of sprightliness, airiness and lightness, 
which at times seems to charge one with en- 
ergy, vivacity and joy, is not at all unusual with 
a human being who enjoys perfectly normal 
health. 
Did you ever see the evidence of the intoxi- 
cating effects of superb physical life in the 
prancing of the horse, in the gambols of the cat, 
in the bright ecstatic pleasure of a pet dog, 
when his chain is unfastened? No alcoholic 
stimulant ever did or ever will produce the in- 
toxicating influence resulting from perfect 
health. Every muscle, every nerve tingles with 
the joy of life and power, and all the delicacy 
of the nervous system remains clear and un- 
clouded. When this habit of alcoholic stimula- 
tion is once formed, when it fastens its fangs 
into your vitality, you may bid farewell forever 
to the joy of this sublime natural intoxication. 
The only exhilaration that remains for you is 
that produced by liquor. The only intoxication 
that you can enjoy is the turbid befuddlement PARALYZING EFFECT OF ALCOHOL. 
171 
of the ecstatic condition that follows a few 
strong drinks. 
In years gone by I met acquaintances often 
who wondered why I did not use intoxicants. 
"How can you get any pleasure out of life?" 
they would ask. Many a time I would reply: 
"Why, I feel an exhilaration-you might say 
an intoxication-nearly all the time." I am 
intoxicated with the beauty and power of 
superb health; and no one can ever enjoy this 
exquisite phase of life and health, in its truest 
and most sublime sense, as long as alcoholic 
liquors are used. The blurred eyes, the dull 
and deadened feelings of the alcohol tippler, 
all tend to indicate how incapable he is of be- 
ing influenced by the true buoyancy of life. 
On many occasions the real pleasure seems to 
be stolen away by insensibility. Even death, 
reasoned from a similar standpoint, would rep- 
resent heaven to these worse than dead people. 
To ask a perfectly Healthy human being to share 
the exhilaration produced by alcohol upon the 
faculties and feelings would be like asking one 172 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
living in a world of beauty and charm to step 
down into the enjoyment of a dull and dopey 
existence. 
I know some maintain that alcohol is a food 
that actually nourishes the body under certain 
circumstances; but I desire to say.that if any 
one is sufficiently impressed with this theory to 
be willing to give it a trial, I am willing to fast 
absolutely and prove to such an experimenter 
that while fasting, my strength will decrease in 
a less degree comparatively than will his while 
attempting to live on alcoholic stimulants. Al- 
cohol in any form is a stimulant, and a poison 
pure and simple. Nearly all poisons are stim- 
ulants. Most of them, when introduced into the 
body, accelerate every part of the functional 
system, which at times is strained to its utmost 
to eliminate this foreign element. How per- 
manent strength or nourishment can be secured 
from such material is beyond the comprehen- 
sion of the writer. 
One of the wildest dreams of scientists has 
been to furnish man with food in little capsules PARALYZING EFFECT OF ALCOHOL. 
173 
which supply sufficient nourishment for a meal; 
so concentrated that it will take up no more 
space than a five-grain pill. This might be ac- 
complished some day, if it were not for the 
fact that no inorganic substance can be used as 
a nourishment by the body. A loaf of bread 
contains certain elements, and a scientist can 
analyze this bread, and can mix at his labora- 
tory in exact proportion every element; but his 
mixture would be valueless as a food. Food for 
man or beast must be taken from the vegetable 
or animal kingdom. The processes of ferment- 
ation change all vegetable and animal matter 
back to its original elements. Fermented meat 
is unfit for food, and all will admit that decayed 
vegetables are void of nourishment. If these 
statements are unquestionably true, then how 
can any reasoning human being convince him- 
self that alcohol can be a food when it is noth- 
ing more than a combination of the inorganic 
elements of grain after the latter has passed 
through the process of fermentation? 
It is a well known fact that no athlete ever 174 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
was able to continue his successes after he be- 
gan to use alcoholic beverages regularly. 
Even the most ignorant among this class know 
enough to avoid these poisons when training 
for a contest. Leaving all other information 
aside, we have in this fact alone ample evidence 
that the use of alcoholic beverages interferes 
with the attainment of the highest degree of 
physical health. I have never found an occa- 
sion in my life when alcoholic liquors of any 
kind were useful; I do not expect ever to find 
them necessary. 
If you wish your body to be well poised, 
strong in every organ and muscle, if you wish 
to be clear-headed and clear-brained, and have 
your nervous system so delicately adjusted that 
it is as sensitive as a photographer's negative, 
you must let alcoholic liquors of all kinds alone. 
Joy and brightness, the exhilaration of perfect 
health, the beauty of life in all its most sublime 
phases, never come to the alcohol tippler. 
I am aware that much has been said, and 
plausibly said, in direct contradiction of my PARALYZING EFFECT OF ALCOHOL. 
175 
views on the subject of alcohol. Aside from 
the results of years of study of my own in the 
matter, I can bring tons of volumes written by 
eminent specialists to the support of my theory 
that alcohol is a deadly poison that cannot be 
masqueraded as a food, or as a remedy for any 
condition of fatigue or disease. 
The best way to meet an opponent's argu- 
ment is to do it fully and frankly, and with no 
disposition to dodge even if defeated. I will 
admit without the slightest attempt at denial 
that there are in this country not a few centen- 
arians who have used liquor daily throughout 
the whole of their adult lives. Many of these 
tippling centenarians are still in excellent health 
considering their advanced ages, and not a few 
of them display remarkable mental alertness. 
I admit the truth of these claims, and they 
prove much; they prove that some men are so 
blessed with bodily and nervous energies that 
they can live to old age and retain their clear- 
ness of brain in spite of alcoholic excesses. 
Ridicule is a potent weapon against the most 176 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
serious and truthful argument. Hence you will 
find, generally, that your defender of tippling 
is provided with a good assortment of funny 
stories that enable him to gloss over the falla- 
cies of his argument. For instance, there is a 
story that is told of the time when Grant was 
making his slow but invincible advance upon 
Richmond. Grant was an inveterate user of 
tobacco, and he used alcohol, too. One of his 
enemies went to President Lincoln with the 
story that Grant was drinking rum all the time. 
''Do you know what brand of rum he uses?" 
Lincoln inquired, gravely. 
"No," was the eager response of the calumni- 
ator, "but I can find out easily." 
"I wish you would," smiled Lincoln. "Let 
me know, and I will send a barrel of the same 
brand to every general in the Army." 
Time was, not so very many decades ago, 
when American army officers were forbidden 
to sit in court-martial after three p.m., for the 
reason that no officer and gentleman could be 
expected, after that hour, to be sober enough PARALYZING EFFECT OF ALCOHOL. 
177 
to be in a judicial frame of mind. Our army 
officers have been ever men of good physique 
and of clear brains, but is there any proof that 
the use of liquor helped them ? Our army offi- 
cers, to-day, are superior to those who belonged 
to past generations of tipplers. The love of ath- 
letics and of all forms of physical culture that 
are so popular in the army to-day has so re- 
duced the drink evil that there is now a smaller 
average of tippling among army officers, prob- 
ably, than among the members of any other 
professional class in the country. 
I know of the case of a United States senator 
who, a few years ago, made a speech that elec- 
trified the world. He admitted, afterward, that 
before going upon the floor of the Senate to 
make his speech he found it necessary to drink 
himself about half full of whiskey. Neces- 
sary! That tells the whole story. This man 
had been a tippler for years. When it came 
time for him to make a ringing speech of elo- 
quent appeal to all the best sense of the world's 
humanity he found it necessary to prepare him- 178 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
self for his noble task by half-besotting him- 
self! It can be asserted very confidently, on 
the senator's own admission, that after he had 
made his speech, and had moved multitudes to 
tears, the reaction upon his nerves was such 
that he went away in private and moved him- 
self to maudlin tears through the aid of more 
whiskey-and then more! 
It is only of late years that alcohol has been 
treated seriously by some men of scientific at- 
tainment as a food. "Mr. Dooley" cheerfully 
predicts that it will not be long before we shall 
hear of homes being made happy through the 
nourishing value of liquor as food. Men will 
sit at home with their families and pass the 
bottle around; homes will be made happy 
through the nourishing properties of whiskey. 
All the crime in the world will be charged to 
the use of meat and potatoes, of eggs, toast and 
milk-and even of water. Saloons will be 
known no longer as such, but will be called res- 
taurants. If the subject were not such a grave 
one, one might out-Dooley Mr. Dooley himself PARALYZING EFFECT OF ALCOHOL. 
179 
and predict that when the nourishing properties 
of whiskey, as proclaimed by some investi- 
gators, are well enough understood saloons will 
take rank above charitable institutions, and that 
even churches may be found unnecessary. 
Professor Atwater is one of the scientists of 
to-day who is largely responsible for the mis- 
conception of the true place of whiskey. After 
investigations covering a number of years, and 
experiments made on men and on lower ani- 
mals, he announced his conclusions to the 
effect that a healthy adult would find four 
ounces of alcohol a day a food. That means a 
little more than eight ounces a day of average 
whiskey. There can be no doubt of Professor 
Atwater's sincerity as a scientist, but he has 
done much harm. One who reads the detailed 
account of his experiments, and who follows 
them out to their conclusion, is apt to be im- 
pressed only with the idea that a clever advo- 
cate can handle either side of a controversy. 
Any real food will sustain life for a long 
time if no other form of food be employed. If 180 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
whiskey is a food, let Professor Atwater take a 
healthy dog and feed him as long as he can on 
nothing but a "nourishing" quantity of whis- 
key. I will keep pace with his experiment by 
feeding my dog on nothing but milk. Can there 
be any doubt that my dog will be robust enough 
to attend the funeral of the dog that has been 
fed on whiskey ? It may be that Professor At- 
water knows how to make a dog drink whiskey, 
but the average man will find a good deal of 
trouble in forcing a drink of whiskey down the 
throat of a heavily-built, strenuous dog. The 
dog will fight for his life against the outrage. 
Take a large dog and try it for yourself! CHAPTER XIX. 
NERVE-BENUMBING RESULTS OF OVERFEEDING. 
Overfeeding is an evil that entails no few 
or insignificant consequences. It brings weak- 
ness and sickness into the home of its victims 
and to those associated with them. The alco- 
hol curse is supposed to overshadow it as an 
evil, but I firmly believe that overeating is so 
much greater in its ravages than alcohol that, 
in comparison, the latter is of insignificant im- 
portance. 
The overeating evil is universal. It can be 
found in almost every home. There are but few 
who have not sacrificed at some time of their 
lives a certain degree of physical vigor because 
of this terrible habit. You can overeat with- 
out stuffing yourself at every meal. Overeat- 
ing means simply eating beyond the power to 
digest properly. When the stomach is in no 
181 182 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
condition to digest food, and no appetite exists, 
then, no matter how small a quantity you may 
eat at such times, you are overeating. The 
average individual is in the habit of eating 
three meals a day. Such persons argue that 
this has been the custom for centuries; and 
why, they ask, should different habits be de- 
sirable? These people are regardless of the 
dictates of the appetite. Whenever the usual 
hour for eating arrives, one is supposed at least 
to attempt to eat. How often we hear the re- 
mark : "Well, I am not hungry, but I will try to 
eat something, for I may be hungry before the 
next meal." The average individual dreads 
hunger as though it were a terrible evil. Hun- 
ger is desirable at every meal. It is the most 
exquisite of all sauces. Not only is it valuable 
in enabling you thoroughly to enjoy every 
morsel of food, but it indicates that the digest- 
ive organs are ready for food. They are then 
in condition to use nourishment to the best 
possible advantage. 
It is your duty to disregard mealtime abso- RESULTS OF OVERFEEDING. 
183 
lately, unless your appetite plainly indicates 
that a meal can be thoroughly enjoyed. If 
you disregard this plain instruction, and eat 
without an appetite, you are a duty eater. 
Duty eaters never acquire an appetite. They 
never enjoy the feeling of hunger; they never 
really secure any real enjoyment from life. 
Everything remains to them a form of duty 
and hard work. Their every waking hour is 
given up to hard work. They go through life 
with a gloomy-looking expression, and the joy, 
brightness and brilliancy that should come at 
times to every human being are absolutely un- 
known to them. They never allow themselves 
the opportunity to become hungry; they always 
eat in advance of hunger, and, therefore, they 
never know what it is really to enjoy a meal. 
There are many weak, frail individuals who 
owe their physical deficiencies to the sin of 
overeating. Usually they feel languid and 
chronically tired. They go to bed tired; they 
get up tired; in fact, one might think at times 
that they were born tired; and they will com- 184 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
plain to you very frequently, at mealtime: "I 
never have an appetite, but I must eat to keep 
up my strength; I become so weak and faint 
if I don't eat." 
Thus the evil continues. It seems to be im- 
possible for them to realize that it requires 
energy to digest food, just as it does to walk 
or to lift a weight, or to perform any other 
muscular labor. Is it not clear that, if this 
nervous energy is used by the digestive organs 
to eliminate a meal that has been eaten when 
not required, the nervous energy of the body 
is lessened r Let me emphasize to every one 
of my readers this one great truth in the laws 
of hygiene and health, as to the necessity of 
appetite in eating. You cannot enjoy your 
food until an appetite is felt. You need not 
have any fear as to the possibilities of its fail- 
ing to appear. It is only a matter of time and 
the keenness of your hunger. The delicious 
flavor that food assumes under these circum- 
stances not only will increase vastly its enjoy- 
ment, but the organs of digestion and assimila- 185 
RESULTS OF OVERFEEDING. 
lion go to work with a will, and the body 
secures nourishment and strength from the food 
eaten. 
The nervous system is the barometer of the 
body. It is fine, clear and sensitive when every 
organ is working in perfect harmony. It is 
dead, dull and dopey if the organs of the body 
are compelled to struggle daily to their utmost 
in order to perform their duties. A chronic 
victim of overeating becomes in time as phleg- 
matic as an alcohol tippler. If you desire to 
lose all interest in the world, if you desire to 
use up nearly all your nervous strength in 
catering to the appetite for food, fill yourself 
to the brim with three or four meals per day. 
Guzzle all the liquid foods you can; and you 
will either induce serious diseases, or you will 
become as phlegmatic and as self-satisfied as a 
hippopotamus. Your nerves will become be- 
numbed, and you will become equally incapable 
either of suffering or of enjoying life. You 
are really and truly becoming a pig in body and 
in character. No matter how delicately sensi- 186 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
tive may have been your nervous digestion be- 
fore, it will adapt itself gradually to the new 
conditions. 
If you wish to feel the joys of life in the 
highest degree that it is possible for human 
beings to attain, do not bruise your internal 
functional organism by constantly overfeed- 
ing. If you are a very hearty eater, if your 
body seems to require it, at least stop occasion- 
ally and fast a few days. The mental clear- 
ness, the buoyancy of mind and body that will 
result from such abstemiousness, will repay 
you a thousandfold for the occasional pangs 
of hunger that may attack you in attempting an 
experiment of this kind. CHAPTER XX. 
TORPIFYING, PARALYZING EFFECT OF THE DRUG 
HABIT. 
The drug habit is as bad, and perhaps worse, 
than the alcohol or tobacco habit. The civ- 
ilized world is full at present of drug samplers. 
It is this tonic, that tonic, and every new tonic; 
and these users sample every new remedy that 
comes on the market; always trying to find 
something for nothing; always trying to find 
health and strength by taking a few doses of 
medicine. These samplers never did and never 
can enjoy life. If they already possess health 
when they begin this search for a rejuvenator, 
in many cases, before they have long continued 
their mad search they have been reduced to a 
condition not far from permanent invalidism. 
This habit is more common with women than 
it is with men. Women deplore whiskey drink- 
187 188 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
ing and beer swilling; yet in a vast number of 
cases the drug habit that has them in its em- 
brace is as bad, if not worse, as are the habits 
of those upon whom these women are wasting 
their sympathies. 
Drugs of all kinds are poisons; they never 
have been of benefit, and never will help a 
single human being. There is only one tonic 
-the only tonic upon this earth that is of any 
value-and that is a combination of air, water 
and food. No other ingredient is of any value 
in building up and strengthening the human 
body. This mad search for some splendid 
drug that will rejuvenate the body is just about 
as insane as that of Ponce de Leon, who spent 
a good part of his life in searching for a spring 
of water that would bring back his youthful 
strength and appearance. 
Imagine, if you can, the condition of the 
nervous system when it is compelled to assist 
in eliminating all these various poisons that are 
tried from time to time as a means of building 
up strength and health. The body is not made THE DRUG HABIT. 
189 
of steel; it is made of flesh and blood, and can 
stand a vast deal of abuse. We hear often of 
a cat having nine lives; but I am firmly con- 
vinced that the average human being possesses 
ninety-nine. The average human body can 
stand ten times more abuse than can those of 
any of the lower animals. If the poisonous 
drugs that are used by a human being were 
given to a cat, a dog or a horse, they would 
produce almost immediate death; but the power 
of resistance possessed by the human body is 
almost beyond belief. It struggles along, and 
maintains life to the best of its ability, and is 
able in some way to meet emergencies and to 
struggle through them back to a condition of 
safety. 
The questions that may be raised through the 
suggestions that are to follow will puzzle any 
doctor who is quizzed by a patient familiar 
with the laws of chemistry. The patient calls 
in his physician and complains of trouble in the 
stomach. The patient admits that, two hours 
before, he ate a Welsh rarebit. Thereupon the 190 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
doctor decides upon the employment of a pur- 
gative drug and administers sodium phosphate. 
When two chemicals are mixed together 
under likely conditions there is a tendency for 
both chemicals to change their nature by action 
upon each other. In the stomach all the vital 
processes of digestion depend upon these chemi- 
cal changes, and the heat there and the pres- 
ence of the stomach juices aid greatly in the 
production of the chemical changes that result 
in the formation of new chemical compounds. 
Does the doctor know the nature of all the 
chemical elements that exist in the cheese, the 
toast, the butter, the ale and the mustard? If 
he does, has he any notion of what chemical 
changes will take place when his sodium phos- 
phate reaches the stomach? 
It may be also that the patient forgets to tell 
the doctor that he has eaten green corn, rad- 
ishes and cucumbers, and that he has washed 
it all down with claret! Has the doctor the 
slightest notion of the chemical effect of sodium 
phosphate upon all of the chemical compounds THE DRUG HABIT. 
191 
that are already in the stomach before his drug 
goes down there? 
Ask the doctor some of these bewildering 
questions, and he will assure you that, while he 
can't describe all the chemical changes that are 
taking place in your stomach, he is absolutely 
sure of the ''pathological effect" of his medi- 
cine. How can he predict the "pathological 
effect" of a drug when he is obliged frankly to 
confess himself ignorant of the chemical ac- 
tion ? Poor, bothered medical man! When he 
is all but driven to the wall he points out tri- 
umphantly that if the first dose of sodium 
phosphate does not succeed in relieving the 
stomach of its grievous load, the second or the 
third dose is likely to start the purging process. 
Why? Because the stomach, already out- 
raged by indulgence in improper food, resents 
the addition of insult to injury through the 
addition of drugs to the other unwholesome 
contents of the stomach. And this is "path- 
ology !" 
Any competent and honest chemist will ad- 192 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
mit that "pathology" is a myth when it is not 
definitely known just what chemical changes 
are to happen through the addition of a drug 
to the present contents of the stomach. It is 
impossible to know just what are the chemical 
conditions of the stomach. Any professor 
of chemistry will tell you that the average medi- 
cal student is one of his least attentive pupils. 
Yet the doctor, who is unable, very likely, to 
write down for you the simplest chemical sym- 
bols, goes through life administering chemicals 
of whose effect he knows nothing-and all the 
while he hides behind the screen of "path- 
ology !" 
The drug tippler is no better than the alcohol 
tippler or the tobacco fiend. He is injuring 
himself as much, and, in many cases, far more 
than does the partaker of these other poisons. 
He is benumbing and paralyzing his nervous 
system to at least a similar extent. He is grad- 
ually destroying all that is best in his own life. 
His affections, his sympathies, and all that is 
best in his life disappear gradually under the THE DRUG HABIT. 
193 
influence of these noxious poisons; and if this 
habit is continued, he will come to a premature 
death, or at least will find the living death that 
is represented by the deep phlegmatic charac- 
teristics of a dulled and deadened organism. 
So many poor women struggle on in the 
grasp of these poisons, always living in hope 
that there is a "good time coming!" But they 
grow constantly worse. Year after year they 
become more dopey and benumbed, until they 
are a charge upon themselves and upon those 
around them. Practically, they cease to live, 
in the true sense of the word. They merely go 
on existing. There is no real true life within 
their nerve-paralyzed bodies. 
This is the real fate of those addicted to the 
drug habit. By all means cast it aside; live as 
Nature intended you to do. Remember that 
there is nothing that is poisonous to the body 
that will build health. A poison is always a 
poison; never can it change its constituents. 
It is a poison to-day, to-morrow and forever. 
It never cured a disease; it never will cure a dis- MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
194 
ease. It never was beneficial; it never will be 
beneficial. Air, water and food are the essen- 
tial elements that are needed to build up the 
body. Avoid everything else as a poison, and 
in the end you will be rewarded beyond present 
belief. CHAPTER XXI. 
MONOGAMY IN ITS PERFECT STATE. 
Marriage, under perfectly normal conditions, 
cannot be made otherwise than happy. It is 
natural for a man and a woman, when thrown 
together in intimate relations, to grow more 
strongly attached to each other as time passes. 
The love they have for each other may not be 
so fervent and so impulsive; but it should grow 
stronger and steadier and more fixed with 
age. 
There are a few perfectly happy marriages 
to which we can point to prove the truth of 
these assertions. It must be admitted that such 
marriages are not plentiful as we should like 
them to be. 
Marriage is a natural condition of adult life. 
Celibacy is unnatural. Men and women were 
not made to live alone. They were made for 196 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
each other; and life under its most satisfactory 
environments is always considered from a mar- 
ital standpoint. 
Though often there may be excuses for a man 
or woman remaining single for a time in early 
adult life, yet, as years go by, if he or she is in 
normal health, the desire to enter the marital 
relation becomes gradually stronger. "Single 
blessedness" is a farce. There can be no home 
without home-makers. There can be no true, 
lasting happiness without home. There is 
within every normal being a craving for love 
and sympathy. This desire can only be satis- 
fied within the regular marital environments. 
But what are perfect monogamous condi- 
tions? What are the rules by which married 
lovers must be guided in order to retain their 
love for each other in all its original delicacy 
and intensity? 
The explanation of this is simple. There is 
no mystery about it. It requires that the wife 
compel her husband to follow absolutely the 
dictates of her own instinct. It means that MONOGAMY IN ITS PERFECT STATE 
197 
never, under any circumstances, should she 
allow her finer instincts to be outraged. She 
must be complete mistress of the situation. 
The happiness of herself and of her lover de- 
pends absolutely upon this. Her attraction for, 
him lies in the actual physical sensation that 
results from her presence, her touch and her 
caress. If this attraction is to be retained- 
and it must be retained in order to continue to 
add to the love that each holds for the other-■ 
she must compel her lover to be temperate at 
ail times, and to abstain entirely at certain 
times. 
There is but one period in the month when a 
normal woman should desire and allow the most 
intimate marital relations; and that period ex- 
tends for a few days following the cessation of 
the menses. At no other time should she desire 
or allow the marital intimacies. To be sure, 
this is the period when pregnancy is most 
liable to result, and this is the period that Nature 
has ordained as the proper time for such inti- 
macies. Only at this time is the female so pas- 198 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
sionate and so charged with magnetism as to 
make the intimacy of the sexes productive of 
benefit, and of pleasures that become divine in 
character and intensity. At any other time, 
relations often become gross and are simply an 
indulgence of the lowest lustful desires. They 
injure the woman, and lessen the vitality and 
virility of the man. Some physicians have 
maintained that these relations at unnatural 
periods are almost as harmful in their physical 
effects as is that vile habit, masturbation. 
Although in human life you will find un- 
doubtedly many instances of monogamy that 
could be said closely to approximate perfection, 
yet if we are desirous of searching for Nature's 
plain laws in the pairing of sexes, we are com- 
pelled naturally to turn to the birds and the 
lower animals next akin to man that pair off 
and live under monogamous conditions through- 
out life. There is a vast quantity of evidence 
to indicate that among birds and animals there 
is as much intensity of affection as there is in 
the human world. MONOGAMY IN ITS PERFECT STATE 
199 
it is said that the love of animals is incon- 
stant and variable; that variability in pleasure 
is with them a state of nature. Marriage, how- 
ever, is contracted with them just as it is with 
human beings. Michelet's "Love" states that 
"the increasing scarcity of food as the season 
advances often obliges many of the species to 
dissolve their marriage, that the pair must needs 
separate in order to extend the radius of their 
purveying search, and the time finally comes 
when they cannot return to the same nest at 
night. Thus they are divorced by hunger, not 
by mutual consent. But for this they would 
remain together. It is not pleasure alone that 
keeps them so, for the fructifying female com- 
municates none. It is the true instinct of so- 
ciety, of life in common, the delight of feeling 
near you all day one little soul devoted to your- 
self, which leans upon you, calls upomyou, feels 
the want of you, never confounds you, finch or 
nightingale as you may be, with another of the 
same species, listens to your song alone and 
often replies to it with low and plaintive cries, 200 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
ill a whisper, so to speak, that she may be heard 
by but one, from her heart to yours." 
"The moral sentiments growing out of social 
relations are common to man and beast. It is 
evident that germs of moral ideas and percep- 
tions of moral obligations enter into the con- 
jugal unions of beasts, and impart a certain sta- 
bility and sacredness to these ties. Many ani- 
mals are strict monogamists, and thus have re- 
tained what Aryan civilization now generally 
accepts as the highest and purest form of sex- 
ual affection and association. With beasts, too, 
as with men, it is the male which scruples least 
at transgressing the monogamous principle, and 
makes light of this breech of fidelity, treating it 
as a pardonable peccadillo. The mandarin 
duck is proverbial for conjugal faithfulness, 
and the Chinese are accustomed to carry a pair 
of these fowls in bridal processions as an em- 
blem of connubial love and an example for the 
newly-wedded couple. Canaries are also char- 
acterized by the same virtue, and the attempt 
to force them into bigamy by keeping one male MONOGAMY IN ITS PERFECT STATE 
201 
and two females in the same cage is uniformly 
destructive of domestic bliss and frequently 
fatal to the young."-Evolutional Ethics and 
Animal Psychology. 
"The majority of birds are monogamous, 
and even far superior to most men in the matter 
of conjugal fidelity. Nearly all the rapacious 
animals, even the stupid vultures, are monoga- 
mous. The conjugal union of the bald-headed 
eagle appears even to last till the death of one 
of the partners. This is, indeed, monogamy 
and indissoluble marriage, though without legal 
constraint. Golden eagles live in couples and 
remain attached to each other for years without 
even changing their domicile. But these in- 
stances, honorable as they are, have nothing 
exceptional in them; strong conjugal attach- 
ment is a sentiment common to many birds."- 
Letourneau's "Evolution of Marriage." 
"When a bird-catcher takes a nightingale 
from its mate, it rarely survives-dying speed- 
ily of a broken heart; and the same has hap- 
pened with the linnet and many other cage 202 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
birds. Even in the pig, death is recorded from 
broken heart as resulting from the loss of a 
mate or companion. A piping bullfinch that 
only fancied he had lost the love of his mistress, 
a male parrot distressed by the conjugal infi- 
delity of his mate, and a pet bull dog, jealous of 
a rival, all died of heart break. 'Found dead' 
is very common in the lower animals-for in- 
stance, in pet birds, and many cases of sudden 
death-unexpected by man-are no doubt the 
result greatly of emotional causes."-Lindsay's 
"Mind in the Lower Animals" 
The Rev. J. G. Wood, in an interesting book 
of anecdotes of animals, assures us that the 
eagle-which even Franklin characterized as 
cowardly, dishonest, unjust, knavish, and gen- 
erally bad-is an example of "as sincere con- 
jugal love as is to be found among monogamous 
mankind." 
"It is among birds that we first meet with a 
conspicuous advance in the tenderer feelings of 
affection and sympathy. Those relating to the 
sexes and the care of progeny are in this class MONOGAMY IN ITS PERFECT STATE 
203 
proverbial for their intensity, offering, in fact, 
a favorite type for the poet and moralist. The 
pining of the 'love-bird' for its absent mate, 
and the keen distress of a hen on losing her 
chickens, furnish abundant evidence of vivid 
feelings of the kind in question. Even the 
stupid ostrich has heart enough to die for love, 
as was the case with a male in the rotunda of 
the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, who, having 
lost his wife, pined rapidly away. It is remark- 
able that in some species-notedly pigeons- 
conjugal fidelity should be so strongly marked; 
for this shows, not only what may be called a 
refinement of sexual feeling, but also the pres- 
ence of an abiding image in the mind's eye of 
the lover."-"Animal Intelligence," by George 
J. Romanes. 
"Though we find among animals temporary 
unions, we also find, especially among birds, 
numbers of lasting unions for which the word 
marriage is not too exalted. And though po- 
lygamy is frequent with mammals, it is far 
from being the conjugal regime universally 204 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
adapted; monogamy is common, and is some- 
times accompanied by so much devotion that it 
would serve as an example to human monoga- 
mists." 
Letourneau, from whose "Evolution of Mar- 
riage" the foregoing paragraph is quoted, con- 
cludes a study of sexual union among animals 
by saying: "At its base, the love of animals 
does not differ from that of man. Doubtless 
it is never such a quintessence as that of Pe- 
trarch, but it is often more delicate than that of 
inferior races, and of ill-conditioned individ- 
uals, who, though belonging to the human race, 
seek for nothing in love but-to use an ener- 
getic expression of Aymot's Plutarch-to 'get 
drunk.' But among many of the animal spe- 
cies the sexual union induces a durable associa- 
tion, having for its object the rearing of its 
young. In nobility, delicacy, and devotion 
these unions do not yield precedence to many 
human unions." 
"The wanderoo (Macacus silenus) of India 
has only one female, and remains faithful to her MONOGAMY IN ITS PERFECT STATE 
205 
until death."-Houzeau's "Facultes Mentales 
des Animaux." 
Dr. Lindsay, in his "Mind in the Lower 
Animals," contends that many dogs and other 
animals exhibit a manifest superiority to whole 
races or classes of men, both civilized and sav- 
age. He enumerates twenty-seven different 
respects in which they emulate the noblest of 
the human virtues, including the marriage re- 
lationship, and sexual chastity and modesty or 
decency. The same author, in a magazine art- 
icle, says that sexual bashfulness and chastity 
illustrate a sense of decency, modesty, and 
propriety in various social animals. 
"Natural history," says Miss Buckley in her 
"Winners in Life's Race," "teems with exam- 
ples of birds faithful to each other and pining 
even to death for the loss of a mate." 
"The beaver is a social animal, the male living 
with his single female and progeny in a separate 
burrow or'lodge.' Several of these lodges usual- 
ly are built close together, so as to form a beaver 
colony."-Romanes' "Animal Intelligence." 206 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
"That adult fishes are capable of feeling af- 
fection for one another would seem to be well 
established. Thus Jesse relates that he once 
captured a female pike (Esoxlucius) during the 
breeding season, and that nothing could drive 
away the male from the spot at which he had 
perceived his partner slowly disappear, and 
whom he had followed to the edge of the 
water."-Francis Day, F.L.S., on "Instincts 
and Emotions of Fishes." 
It is supposed commonly that more immor- 
ality is found among savage tribes than under 
civilized conditions. A careful study of the 
various books giving accurate information on 
this subject inclines one very much to believe 
that an opposite conclusion is more nearly cor- 
rect. The following quotations, taken from 
"History of Human Marriage," one of the 
highest authorities on the relation of the sexes, 
seem to prove that the immorality of savages 
appears usually with the introduction of so- 
called civilization among them, and that many 
of the savage tribes observe rules of morality MONOGAMY IN ITS PERFECT STATE 
207 
that would put the average civilized man to the 
blush. 
" 'The difference in morality,' says Profes- 
sor Vambery, 'which exists between the Turks 
affected by a foreign civilization and kindred 
tribes inhabiting the steppes, becomes very con- 
spicuous to any one living among the Turko- 
mans and Kara-Kalpaks; for whether in Africa 
or Asia, certain vices are introduced only by the 
so-called bearers of culture.' 
"Among the lowest races on earth, as the 
Veddahs, Fuegians, and Australians, the rela- 
tions of the sexes are of a much more definite 
character. The Veddahs are a truly monoga- 
mous people, and have a saying that 'death 
alone separates husband and wife.' 
"Nowhere are unmarried people of both 
sexes less restrained than among the savage 
nations of India and Indo-China. Yet among 
these savage nations there is no promiscuity. 
Among the Toungtha, for instance, according 
to Captain Lewin, prostitution is uot under- 
stood, and, when explained, it is regarded by 
them with abhorrence. 208 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
"Among the equatorial Africans, mentioned 
by Mr. Winwood Reade, a girl who disgraces 
her family by wantonness is banished from her 
tribe, and in cases of seduction the man is 
severely flogged. In Dahomey, if a man se- 
duces a girl, the law compels marriage, and the 
payment of eighty cowries to the parent or 
master. In Tessaua, according to Dr. Barth, 
a fine of 100,000 kurdi is imposed on the father 
of a bastard child-a sum which indicates how 
seldom such children are born there. Among 
the Beni-Mzab, a man who seduces a young girl 
has to pay two hundred francs, and is banished 
for four years. Among the Beni-Amer, ac- 
cording to Munzinger, the unmarried women 
are very modest, though the married wo- 
men believe that they are allowed everything. 
Among the Arab girls in Upper Egypt, un- 
chastity is made impossible by an operation 
when they are from three to five years old; and 
among the Marea, continence is a scarcely less 
necessary virtue, as a maiden or widow who 
becomes pregnant is killed together with the 
seducer and the child. MONOGAMY IN ITS PERFECT STATE 
209 
"It must be admitted that the number of un- 
civilized people among whom chastity, at least 
as regards women, is held in honor and, as a 
rule, cultivated, is very considerable. There 
being nothing to indicate that the morality of 
those naticns ever was laxer, the inference of 
an earlier stage of promiscuity from the irreg- 
ular sexual relations of unmarried people, could 
not apply to them, even if such an inference, on 
the whole, were right. But this is far from 
being the case: first, because the wantonness of 
savages, in several cases, seems to be due chiefly 
to the influence of civilization; secondly, be- 
cause it is quite different from promiscuity." 
Monogamy in its perfect state compels entire 
continence during pregnant periods. It would 
compel married lovers to look upon the making 
of a home as an exalted privilege. The hap- 
piest homes in all cases can be found where 
these plain laws have been recognized. The 
privilege of creating and developing new human 
lives must be held to be divine and sacred. 
Only under these conditions can love be made 210 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
to grow stronger and steadier, more fascinat- 
ing and satisfying year after year, and so on to 
the end of life. Where your entire married life 
is impregnated thoroughly with the one desire 
of creating strong, beautiful children, and only 
where you make every effort with this end in 
view, can married life be made productive of 
the highest possible degree of happiness. 
Utility is the great law of life. That which 
is not useful, that which does not accomplish 
some useful end, can never lead to permanent 
and satisfying happiness. The love of man 
and woman was created for the specific purpose 
of bringing into life new human beings. Obey 
this mandate of the higher law, and you will be 
treated kindly. Disobey it, and use this divine 
privilege as a mere means of gratifying your 
lustful desires, and you will suffer the penalty 
of your sins with absolute certainty. CHAPTER XXII. 
ARE CHILDREN NECESSARY TO A HAPPY HOME? 
This question, to a certain extent, was dis- 
cussed and answered in a previous chapter; but 
because of its importance it will bear further 
consideration. 
Many marriages are made by those who re- 
gard children as being an unnecessary evil. In 
some way they have become believers in the 
false theory that a home can be made happy 
without the presence of children. The wife 
may not care for children. She may not be 
willing to bear the responsibility that they 
bring. Such marriages, in many cases, may 
bring temporary happiness. For a few 
months, or even for a few years, husband and 
wife may live together with a moderate degree 
of satisfaction. But such a marriage does not, 
and cannot, bring happiness in its truest and 
211 212 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
most divine sense. Childless wedlock perverts 
the true object of married life, and as old age 
begins to settle upon the barren couple they be- 
gin to realize most emphatically the emptiness 
and loneliness of their future life. 
The only excuse for marriage is the desire 
for children and for a home. When a man 
loves a woman, that love can be productive of 
all that is best only when he looks upon her as 
the future mother of his children. When a 
woman loves a man, that love can be of ad- 
vantage only when she looks upon him as the 
future father of her children. The transient 
love that comes and goes with the seasons can 
never bring satisfaction to any human soul. 
The only excuse for refusing to accept moth- 
erhood is the inability to bear healthy 
children. Whether you shall have a large or a 
small family is for the parents to determine. 
Certainly it is better to have three or four 
strong, beautiful children than to have ten or a 
dozen that are weakly and incapable of enjoying 
life. Children that are brought into the world ARE CHILDREN NECESSARY i' 
213 
under right conditions, are happy themselves, 
and naturally impart happiness to others. 
"It is remarkable that, in Switzerland, al- 
though barrenness is no sufficient reason for 
a man to repudiate his wife, two-fifths of the 
total number of divorces take place between 
married people who have no children, while the 
sterile marriages amount only to one-fifth of 
the number of marriages."-History of Human 
Marriage. 
It is a fault greatly to be deplored, this 
aversion on the part of intelligent, educated and 
wealthy people to having large families; for 
they could, if their thoughts and actions were 
rightly directed, do much toward peopling the 
earth with a better and nobler class of beings. 
As it is, what a pitiable sight it is when a hus- 
band and wife, surrounded with all that wealth 
can command, produce one or two pale, sickly 
children, the result, perhaps, of a ten or twenty 
years' union. And this dislike for rearing chil- 
dren is infecting the middle and lower classes, 
and the effects can be distinctly observed in 
many localities on this broad continent. 214 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
What is the cause for this growing antipathy 
to the generating of bright, sweet and beautiful 
children? There are many; but the great, 
prime cause is licentiousness. Abnormal ama- 
tiveness may not-in fact, does not-often 
form a constituent part of the woman's organ- 
ism : but abnormal amativeness in the man and 
husband is the answer that solves this riddle 
of non-desire for children. Next in the list of 
causes is the trouble mothers have to undergo 
in their rearing; and this, coupled with the 
sickness and danger attendant on gestation and 
birth comprise all the available reasons on the 
part of the mother that can be advanced, ex- 
cepting those that spring from a physical or 
constitutional nature. 
There are some women born with very small 
parental love who, therefore, do not care for 
nor wish for children. Such women are to be 
pitied and shunned by all men desiring wives 
and mothers. This unnatural qualify is as 
often-perhaps oftener-found in high life 
as in any other stratum of society. ARE CHILDREN NECESSARY? 
215 
Youth and beauty are both desired by man- 
kind, but especially are they desired by wo- 
mankind ; and married women need but under- 
stand this fact to appreciate it-that, in bearing 
children under right conditions, beauty is re- 
tained, if not acquired, and old age is put off a 
very great way. 
A married life without children is an unlov- 
able and unsatisfactory life. It is incomplete. 
It lacks the band that makes perfect the love- 
union between man and wife-the new birth 
that makes the twain as one in flesh and in 
spirit. But this incompleteness continues, is 
widened and confirmed, when the new birth is 
undesired by either parent. 
Men and women do not reach their true 
status in this world, do not fulfil their mission 
to populate, do not attain to the full loyalty of 
their natures, until they originate and rear a 
child, and in proportion to the number of chil- 
dren they rear, is the royalty of their souls per- 
fected. 
Children! Ah, yes; it is a glorious and in- 216 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
comparable privilege--the privilege of rearing, 
under loving conditions, a family of strong, 
able, bright, intelligent boys, and healthy, 
beautiful and lovable girls. Think of the 
pride and the pleasure of Abdon, the Judge of 
Israel, whose forty sons and thirty grandchil- 
dren filed off before him mounted on threescore 
and ten ass-colts. How the old man's heart 
must have bounded with honest exultation when 
he beheld such a cavalcade of his own origin! CHAPTER XXIII. 
THE SELECTION OF A HUSBAND. 
First of all, to be in a condition to marry, the 
prospective husband must be a man-A 
MANLY MAN! Marriage is no state for 
weaklings. A husband must be in possession 
of all his normal physical and mental powers. 
The average man looks upon marriage as a 
sort of haven of rest, comfort and pleasure. 
For some unaccountable reason, when contract- 
ing such a union, he does not seem to realize 
that he becomes responsible to others for his 
own physical and mental conditions. Not only 
is he responsible to his wife, but to his pros- 
pective children. Why should not man realize, 
when the very thought of marriage first comes 
to him, that this change in his life means the 
establishment of a home, the bringing into life 
of new human beings? 
217 218 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
As a father and husband, you, Mr. Husband, 
are responsible for the physical condition of 
these children. If you are weak and ailing, 
marriage is not for you; you have no business 
to contract such a union. It is your impera- 
tive duty to build up strength and health before 
consummating whatever desires you may have 
with this end in view. Marriage should be the 
most important event in a man's life. It is 
viewed usually in this light. It means so much 
to life. It means usually a few steps upward 
or a few steps downward. It makes a very 
radical change in a man's life. And whether 
the union is to be good or bad in its influence, 
will depend upon the man himself and upon the 
woman selected. 
How many men realize that for an event of 
this kind they should train as carefully, as ab- 
stemiously and as thoroughly as does an athlete 
preparing for a race? The intending husband 
should be in the height of physical condition- 
the very acme of possible strength! Does he 
not intend that marriage shall mean the bring- SELECTION OF A HUSBAND. 
219 
ing into the world of new lives ? And is it not 
his duty to invest these new human beings with 
all possible strength, health, endurance, vim, 
mentality ? 
But the average man seldom gives such mat- 
ters a moment's consideration. Nevertheless, 
they are of momentous importance. A man's 
physical condition at the time of procreation 
influences vastly the condition of the child he 
begets. Marriage is fundamentally a physical 
union! Let this fact stand squarely before 
you. The physical processes that lead to con- 
ception, that control the growth of foetal life 
on up to childbirth, are almost entirely physical; 
and every man should ask himself whether he 
has done his duty as a possible father. 
Man's first preparation for marriage, there- 
fore, is physical. He must feel within himself 
the highest degree of nervous, muscular and 
functional strength. He should be a strong, 
manly man, a "brute" in strength, a woman in 
tenderness, a giant in mentality and an example 
of unyielding morality. The more perfect he 220 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
is in all these requirements, the greater will be 
the possibilities for happiness in marital rela- 
tions. 
After giving clue consideration to these re- 
quirements, it is well for a man to understand 
that his married life must conform as closely as 
possible to what have been defined in this book 
as constituting, from the highest philosophical 
viewpoint, perfect monogamous conditions. 
He must not expect of his wife any privileges 
that she does not give freely and with desire. 
You must not use your wife as a mere conveni- 
ence to satisfy lustful passion. You must 
realize, if you are desirous of being happy 
throughout your entire married life, that she 
has an individuality of her own, and that her 
instinct must guide absolutely in all marital 
relations. T e word "obey," which now ap- 
pears in ah marriage ceremonies, should be 
reversed as far as marital relations are con- 
cerned. A man must be made to realize this 
one vastly important fact. If he disregards it, 
there is nothing in marriage but disappoint- SELECTION OF A HUSBAND. 
221 
ment, misery, desolation, and often ultimate 
physical and mental ruin. 
"Maidens! a word to you. Never enter into 
the physical relations of marriage with a man 
until you have conversed with him freely and 
fully on maternity, and the relation that leads 
to it. Learn distinctly his views and feelings, 
and his expectations, in regard to that purest 
and most ennobling of all the functions of 
your nature, and the most sacred of all 
the intimacies of conjugal life. Your re- 
spect, your beauty, your glory, your heaven 
as a wife, will be more directly involved 
in his feelings and views and practices, in re- 
gard to that relation, than in all other things. 
As you would not become a weak, a miserable, 
imbecile, unlovable and degraded wife and 
mother, in the very prime of your life, come to 
a perfect understanding with your chosen one, 
ere you commit your person to his keeping in 
the sacred intimacies of home. Beware of that 
man who, under pretense of delicacy, modesty 
and propriety, shuns conversation with you on 222 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
this relation, and on the hallowed function of 
maternity. Concealment and mystery, in him, 
toward you, on all other subjects pertaining 
to conjugal union, might be overlooked; but if 
he conceals his views here, rest assured it bodes 
no good to your purity and happiness as a wife 
and mother. You can have no more certain 
assurance that you are to be victimized, your 
soul and body offered up, slain, on the altar of 
his sensualism, than his unwillingness to con- 
verse with you on subjects so vital to your hap- 
piness. In the relation he seeks with you will 
he, practically, hold his manhood in abeyance to 
the calls of your nature and to your conditions, 
and consecrate its passions and its powers to 
the elevation and happiness of his wife and 
children! If not, your maiden soul had better 
return to God unadorned with the diadem of 
conjugal and maternal love, than that you 
should become the wife of such a man, and the 
mother of his children." CHAPTER XXIV. 
THE SELECTION OF A WIFE. 
Viewed from a physical standpoint, woman's 
requirements for marriage do not differ widely 
from those of man. She should recognize, 
first of all, the necessity for the highest 
attainable degree of physical health. She 
should comprehend that marriage is funda- 
mentally a physical union; that the attraction 
between the sexes is largely physical; that her 
physical appearance and general physical whole- 
someness not only influence vastly the love that 
her husband may have for her, but also gives 
her the power to retain and to add to this affec- 
tion. It must be remembered that personal 
magnetism is very largely physical. The 
223 224 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
bright, expressive eyes, the warm, red lips, and 
the rich color possessed by many women are 
evidences merely of general physical whole- 
someness and of the possession of a high de- 
gree of health and strength. 
It is the imperative duty of every woman, 
in preparing for marriage, to develop these 
attractions to their highest attainable degree. 
Too many young women look upon marriage 
as being only one round of pleasure. It means 
freedom for those who have been held down by 
parental restraint; and the serious side of the 
duties and responsibilities that they assume is, 
in many instances, not accorded a moment's 
thought. The seriousness of marriage, and its 
possibilities for happiness or misery, should be 
realized. 
Though, of course, it is of vast importance 
for a man to be in possession of the highest de- 
gree of physical health when he assumes those 
divine relations that mean the making of a 
home and the bringing into life of new human 
beings, the stern fact must be understood that SELECTION OF A WIFE. 
225 
the health and strength of the mother is of far 
more importance. It is the mother who nur- 
tures the child from conception to birth. It is 
her strength and her blood that form its physi- 
cal and mental characteristics. 
Why cannot mothers realize their marvelous 
power in this regard? Weak, ailing, sickly 
women enter into matrimonial relations with- 
out a thought as to the serious responsibilities 
that they are assuming. A woman's physical 
condition of weakness or of health is transmit- 
ted to her child. It is, therefore, her imperative 
duty to be as strong as she can. Of course 
there are some instances where strong, vigorous 
children are born of weak women; but in nearly 
every case these children have had very strong 
men for fathers; and if the mother had also been 
vigorous and well made, such children, unques- 
tionably, would have been far superior in physi- 
cal characteristics. 
But the gravest mistake made by women is 
in attempting marriage, and the maternal duties 
that necessarily follow a normal marriage, 226 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
without the slightest physical preparation. As 
has been mentioned previously, the functional 
preparation and processes that lead up to moth- 
erhood are almost entirely physical. They act- 
ually depend upon the muscular strength of the 
internal organs affected and upon the walls of 
the abdomen. No wonder childbirth is such a 
terrible ordeal, when a woman once begins to 
realize that during her entire career she has 
been making attempts to secure a figure that is 
in no way compatible with zvifehood and moth- 
erhood! 
A prospective mother must 1:>e furnished with 
strong muscles at the waist line. She must be 
possessed of strong internal organs. A child, if 
he is to be perfectly developed, depends upon the 
strength of these organs in his mother, and, 
when the final climax comes, the more perfect 
and the stronger the organs involved, the more 
perfect will have been the functional prepara- 
tion for the ordeal of childbirth. Strong ab- 
dominal muscles are absolutely essential in a 
crisis of this kind. When we realize the miser- SELECTION OF A WIFE. 
227 
ably weakened and almost paralyzed condition, 
in many women, of the muscles of this part of 
the body, we can then understand very readily 
the cause of the terrible suffering that often 
accompanies childbirth. 
Let marriageable women who wish to under- 
stand how to prepare for marriage, realize first 
of all the absolute necessity of health and 
strength. If corsets have crushed to a state of 
almost paralysis the organs of the abdominal 
region and the muscles about the waist, it is 
essential, first of all, that these weakened 
muscles be strengthened and developed. 
There is also the sex instinct to be consid- 
ered. It must be admitted that many women 
are almost devoid of this precious instinct. 
The development of this sexual trait in all its 
most acute sensitiveness is absolutely essential 
to the happiest marital life. As has been men- 
tioned in a foregoing chapter, this is really the 
pilot that should guide in the marital relations. 
The woman, under no circumstances, should 
ever allow herself to be used by her husband 228 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
solely for his convenience. Her instinct, as 
interpreted by her e-motions, should indicate 
accurately the periods when privileges may be 
allowed. If a woman has not been gifted with 
proper sex instinct, or if she is apparently un- 
able to arouse it into life, then she must be 
guided by the recurrence of the menses, con- 
fining all intimate relations to the first few days 
following the cessation of this period. 
"And how does he choose a wife ? He looks 
about among the girls in his own sphere, and 
selects the one best suited to his interests. In 
his best attire he goes wooing the fair maiden. 
Like persons in a masquerade, they flirt and say 
soft and sentimental things without knowing 
anything about the brain behind the mask. 
After a few flirtations, the wife-seeker pro- 
poses himself in marriage, and the woman, 
often by virtue of necessity, accepts the offer. 
The two go to a minister or magistrate, when 
the man promises support and the woman 
obedience." 
The results of such marriages are every day SELECTION OF A WIFE. 
229 
demonstrable. Before the honeymoon has 
reached well its full, indications, at first slight, 
commence to crop out that life has in it some 
gall, and as the cloyed sweetness of the animal 
pleasures w'ears off, and life in its practical, 
every-day aspect appears, the gall and worm- 
wood are tasted in all their positive bitterness; 
and, matched but not mated, as these two peo- 
ple are, life is but a series of petty troubles, dis- 
appointments, doubts, despairs and miseries, 
splendid in the gilt and glitter of its setting, or 
hideous in all the wretchedness of its rags. 
Reason, observation, and judgment should 
and must alone be employed; for if you sink 
your judgment and allow your feelings and 
impulses to run rampant, instead of choosing 
and marrying a woman suited to your charac- 
teristics, probably you will choose and marry a 
ringlet, a dimple, a set of white teeth, a silken 
eye-lash, a peach-blossom cheek, a lithe and 
willowy waist, a glimpse of a pretty ankle, a 
chance touch of tender, taper fingers, the ling- 
ering echo of a winsome laugh-any of these, 230 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
or any number of beautiful things, none of 
which are. in themselves, necessarily required 
in the all-important choice. 
What has been already said, therefore, in 
the case of the man, is as applicable to that of 
the woman: to be in a condition to marry, the 
prospective wife must be a woman-A 
WOMANLY WOMAN! CHAPTER XXV. 
MARRIAGE THE MOST DIVINE OF ALL HUMAN 
RELATIONS. 
We all have day dreams of future happiness. 
The youth and the maid, as they approach ma- 
turity, and as their thoughts of the future begin 
to assume tangible form, have dreams of an 
ideal home with the perfect happiness that is 
supposed to belong to the lives of marital 
lovers. They may see evidences of mistakes all 
about them; they may see the misery that has 
resulted from ill-mated pairs at every turn. 
Yet they think always that their step into the 
unknown will be different. Marriage to them 
seems something higher and nobler. They will 
not make such mistakes. Their selection will 
be different from those of others. Their lives 
231 MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
232 
will be moulded by other influences. But nearly 
every one of these dreamers goes on to a similar 
fate. The real life of these dreamers is usually 
but little different from that of other poor vic- 
tims. They enter the marital relations with 
their hopes soaring high. They anticipate all 
sorts of happiness; then slowly, but surely, they 
settle down, almost unknowingly, into one of 
the same commonplace, mediocre existences that 
they have once so strongly condemned. 
Marriage was not meant to be a nothingness, 
a commonplace, humdrum existence. It was 
meant to be an inspiration to both the man and 
to the woman. Its influences should be all that 
are high and noble and good. It should inspire, 
it should elevate, it should make one stronger 
and more capable, in whatever sphere his life 
may be placed. It should make a woman more 
womanly, and a man more manly. It should 
ennoble and inspire. And in the beginning it 
actually does all this. A newly-married man 
and woman are usually so happy that they will 
tell you that they are walking on air. They feel MARRIAGE THE DIVINE RELATION. 
233 
as if they had been furnished with a pair of 
wings. 
And why cannot we learn a lesson from this 
very fact ? If marriage is so satisfactory in the 
beginning, why cannot it remain satisfactory? 
Why cannot the honeymoon continue all 
through life? Why must it stop in a week or in 
a month? These are questions that are worth 
serious consideration. 
Certain conditions influence happiness favor- 
ably in the beginning of married life. Similar 
conditions can effect a continuance of this hap- 
piness. Marriage is begun with physical health 
at high tide. Slowly, but surely, this powerful 
attraction is exhausted; and in the same propor- 
tion does the affection of man and wife for each 
other lessen in intensity. 
The true object of marriage, and the only 
one that should be entertained, is the perfection 
of existence that comes of a physiological 
union, and the propagation of offspring that go 
to make such a union complete, and it is the 
combining of all that perfects love, intensifies 
happiness, and makes life worth living. 234 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
"That marriage is a natural condition of 
adult life, and a requisite to every man and 
woman's perfect happiness and success in the 
world, requires no argument, and needs none 
of the many divine and human authorities to 
attest the fact; and no man who fails to enter 
this condition at the proper period can be con- 
sidered as compassing all the relations for 
which his Creator designed him-in other 
words, he is not a complete man. This applies 
also to woman."-John Cowan, M.D. 
"The sexual passion is one of the most potent 
appetites; and when united with other feelings 
of a higher order, such as the aesthetic apprecia- 
tion of beauty, the desire for congenial com- 
panionship, the appreciation of home, the 
tenderness of personal affection, and the moral 
sentiment that arise from the sacred relation 
of marriage, it becomes the bond of society and 
the potent factor of civilization. It is the one 
appetite which demands another human being 
for its satisfaction, and hence has a peculiar 
moral and social character."-"Elements of MARRIAGE THE DIVINE RELATION. 
235 
Psychology," by President Hill, of Rochester 
University, p. 244. 
Among the Lacedemonians, no man might 
live single beyond the time limited by the laws 
of Lycurgus. Among the punishments inflict- 
ed upon those who transgressed the limit were: 
first, that they must run round the public forum 
every winter quite naked during the singing of 
a song that denounced their crime and exposed 
them to ridicule; and, second, exclusion from 
those exercises in which, according to Spartan 
custom, young virgins contended naked. 
"There should be enthusiasm and even ro- 
mance in the happy months that precede mar- 
riage; and something of the enthusiasm and 
romance should remain to the very end of life, 
or else the home is wanting in its perfect happi- 
ness and grace."-Dale of Birmingham. 
"There are a few remarkable instances of 
peoples among whom separation is said to be 
entirely unknown. In the Andaman Islands, 
according to Mr. Man, 'no incompatibility of 
temper or other cause is allowed to dissolve 236 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
the union.' The same is said of certain Pap- 
uans of New Guinea, and of several tribes of 
the Indian Archipelago that have remained in 
their native state, and that continue to follow 
ancient custom. The Veddahs of Ceylon have 
a proverb that 'death alone separates husband 
and wife,' and Mr. Bailey assures us that they 
faithfully act on this principle."-History of 
Human Marriage. 
"Never marry," says William Penn, "but for 
love; but see that thou lovest what is lovely. 
He that minds a body, and not a soul, has not 
the better part of that relation, and consequently 
will want the noblest comfort of a married 
life." 
"Another requisite in the acquirement of 
happiness is health. The single state, being an 
abnormal and unnatural condition, is, as a rule, 
unfavorable to health and longevity. That this 
is true of length of life is demonstrated by the 
fact that, in the list of individuals who have 
lived to a great age, there are few unmarried 
persons. Matrimony gives the opportunity and MARRIAGE THE DIVINE RELATION. 
237 
occasion to improve all the domestic, social and 
higher faculties of the mind, and of guiding the 
man and woman to a higher and holier stand- 
ard of life." CHAPTER XXVI. 
HONEYMOONS FREQUENTLY MARRED BY LUST- 
FUL EXCESSES. 
Evil-minded prudes have developed a most 
pitiable condition from which married lovers 
suffer more than words can ever depict. They 
have barred all sexual subjects from discus- 
sion. They have barred those books that give 
men and women proper information on im- 
portant subjects of this nature. Bride and 
bridegroom usually follow the perverted ideas 
that they have acquired from the prudes as to 
what is right under these circumstances. As a 
result the honeymoon is frequently a most har- 
rowing experience for the wife. Imagine, if 
you can, the suffering a virtuous bride must 
endure when compelled to satisfy and often to 
satiate the passions of a husband who fails to 
respect her feelings and inclinations. And why 
238 HONEYMOONS MARRED BY EXCESSES. 
239 
should he, if he be imbued with the usual ideas 
as to the rights given him by marriage ? 
Here are two human beings thrown together 
under circumstances that might be made pro- 
ductive of the highest and most divine happi- 
ness that human beings are capable of enjoying. 
Yet in many cases, because of gross ignorance, 
it is unsatisfactory to the man and excruci- 
atingly painful-not to say humiliating-to 
the woman. Is it any wonder that the bride's 
anticipations, under circumstances of this na- 
ture, are rarely realized ? Is it any wonder that 
these pure young women almost loathe their 
husbands for a time after the experiences of 
the so-called honeymoon? 
"The young wife who is rudely approached 
on her wedding night will always carry in her 
memory a nightmare of repulsion. 
"And, young woman, consider, now, some of 
your rights. There was a fine attraction that 
drew you to the young man about to be your 
husband, aside from a kinship of ideas and 
similarity of tastes; an attraction so exquisite as 240 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
to be a delight to you. Do not feel it to be your 
duty to give yourself over to your companion 
on the wedding night, unless there is a perfect 
spontaneity on the part of yourself. Do not 
pretend to enjoy the sexual embrace because 
you love and are fearful of being misunderstood 
if you do not. Prostitutes imitate desire, either 
out of wedlock or in it. Women have always 
been weakest on this point when their love has 
been strongest, and have yielded their bodies 
when their souls rebelled. 
"Another point that must be looked to by 
newly-married lovers is, the frequency with 
which they come together in the new relation. 
Avoid temptation now as you did before mar- 
riage, remembering 'satiety blunts passion and 
clips the wings of love.' Every natural appetite 
is for a good purpose, but excessive gratifica- 
tion is surely depraving. Hunger for food 
shows the system needs fuel; but eating be- 
cause the food tastes well brings on dyspepsia 
and kindred ailments. The habit of indulging 
any appetite too frequently rivets upon the sin- HONEYMOONS MARRED BY EXCESSES. 
241 
ner chains too strong to be broken, and brings 
in its train disaster."-J. H. Greer, M.D. 
A well-known woman writer on this subject, 
who is brilliant in her denunciation of igno- 
rance, asks these pertinent questions: "Is there 
one man in ten who does not insist on the pay- 
ment of a conjugal debt on the first night of 
marriage, be his wife's reluctance and terrors 
what they may ? Is there one man in a hundred 
who will give his new-made bride a week to 
become acquainted and reconciled to the idea 
of a new relation to which she is pledged? Is 
there one in a thousand who is willing to wait 
with the same patience and to use the same art 
that the libertine, in his superior wisdom, knows 
so well how to employ-arts perfectly com- 
mendable and proper in lawful wedlock-even 
though it may take months before his purpose 
is gained, so that his wife shall be a willing 
partner to the consummation of marriage?" 
The Buddhistic doctrine teaches that lust 
and ignorance are the two great causes of the 
misery of life, and that we should therefore MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
242 
suppress lust and remove ignorance. We 
read in the "Dhammika-Sutta" that "a wise 
man should avoid married life as if it were a 
burning pit of live coals." Sensuality is alto- 
gether incompatible with wisdom and holiness. 
-History of Human Marriage. CHAPTER XXVII. 
A WRONG BEGINNING THE GREATEST EVIL OF 
MARRIAGE. 
If brides would only realize what a wonder- 
ful power love is, they would then be complete 
mistresses of the situation. With a full un- 
derstanding of themselves and of their duty 
to their husbands, they could, as they should, 
rule absolutely in all marital relations. A mar- 
riage, if it is to be happy, must be dominated 
and directed by the wife in all the circumstan- 
ces of this nature. How many marriages are 
wrecked on the shores of excess and perversion 
because of a woman's erroneous idea as to her 
duty to her husband! 
In the very beginning, the woman should in- 
sist most absolutely that the marriage ceremony 
does not give the husband a single privilege 
beyond what she herself may strongly desire. 
243 244 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
Let him understand that this is for his happi- 
ness, as well as yours; that you desire simply to 
have and to hold his love, and that in order to 
do this your normal womanly instincts must 
be followed without deviation. 
When marriage is begun with mistakes it 
must be admitted that it is sometimes difficult 
to right them. 
"One idea further for this early period of 
married courtship. A young man must make 
up his mind to try to preserve the depth, sweet- 
ness and delicacy of the attraction that brought 
them first together by treating his wife with the 
same consideration that he gave to his sweet- 
heart. Many a young husband supposes that 
the nuptial ceremony gives him the fullest 
power over the person of his wife. Nothing 
more disastrous to his future happiness from 
every possible point of view can be imagined. 
The most innocent and affectionate young 
wife will feel that she has lieen abused through 
the holiest impulses of her nature if she yields 
to excessive sexual demands from her spouse. THE GREATEST EVIL OF MARRIAGE. 
245 
This is not an intentional wrong on the part 
of husbands-only the lack of correct informa- 
tion ; and that is the reason for bringing up the 
subject for consideration during courtship. 
Knowledge as to the way to live a pure married 
life is better worth possessing before mistakes 
are made. 'An ounce of prevention is worth a 
pound of cure.' 
"Persons who would not be persuaded to 
enter a business career without a preparatory 
course, enter the matrimonial career blind- 
folded, having no guide but passion. The ship- 
wrecks of so many barks of health and 
happiness can testify to the prevalence of the 
mistaken idea that ignorance is purity. 
"Let no married lovers think of habitually 
occupying one bed. It can do no good, and it 
is undoubtedly one source of inharmony and 
lack of physical hardiness. What one may 
gain in vitality the other loses. The magnetic 
attraction is neutralized, if not destroyed. 
Aside and above all other reasons, is the one 
that separate beds will in a great measure help 246 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
overcome sexual excess. Close bodily contact 
under the same bedclothes is a constant provo- 
cation to amorous ideas and sensations. 
"It is the purely sensual that needs to be put 
one side that the spiritual may have a chance 
for growth. This idea of separate beds cannot 
be combatted on any other than the ground of 
the sensualist. Children will be less liable to 
come unless wished for by both their parents. 
The mere gratification of sex desire is a very 
poor excuse for calling a soul into being, and a 
very poor heritage to bestow upon the little 
life that should be occasion for purest thought 
before as well as after it is called into being." 
-J. H. Greer, M.D. CHAPTER XXVIII. 
PLAIN INSTRUCTIONS TO THOSE ABOUT TO BE 
MARRIED. 
First of all, there should be no mock or 
mawkish modesty between the bride and the 
groom. All important subjects should be dis- 
cussed, and each should understand the position 
of the other. Both should understand that 
marriage cannot be made a sexual revelry ex- 
cept at the expense of happiness. It must be 
understood that marriage, if it is to be pro- 
ductive of the highest degree of happiness, 
must be begun with a view of making a home 
and of accepting the care of the children that 
must come naturally, as life's greatest blessing. 
Determine, first of all, that your children 
shall not be accidents; that you will prepare 
for them; and definitely fix the period of con- 
ception. Make up your mind that your married 
247 248 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
life shall be at least conducted on a level with 
the animal for which we have such scant respect. 
If you find that you cannot rigorously adhere 
to such abstemious rules, then approximate 
them as nearly as possible. If you try, and fail 
once, try again; and continue to try again; for, 
in the end, if you are serious in your intentions, 
you will succeed. 
Remember that love, to be retained and in- 
creased, must be made to submit to the normal 
feminine instinct. Man must know his place 
and his privileges, and must not exceed them 
one iota. It is probably better and safer for 
man and wife to occupy separate apartments. 
Whether this is necessary or not, will depend 
largely upon personal characteristics. Each 
married couple should settle this for themselves. 
"A child whose conception is an accidental 
result of its parents' conjugal relation, either 
through love or lust, and is tolerated by its 
mother because she cannot help it, will not 
furnish a strong factor for good. Much worse 
will be the child whose father has used the ADVICE TO THOSE ABOUT TO MARRY. 
249 
mother's body with the sole object of gratifying 
the lowest of sensuality. 
"It is the offspring of sound, healthy parents, 
born of their united love, and a specific desire 
for its being, that the new civilization demands. 
Mankind is grossly ignorant in regard to the 
purity of creative love, and woman's greatest 
duty to herself and children that are to be is 
to make him realize it. He must come to know 
that it is not a wife's duty to submit; that he 
has no right to what she does not give out of 
the purest love in her heart. Do not submit; 
slaves submit; and slave mothers do not rear 
free people. 
"The conception of a love-child should be 
prepared for as much as any other important 
event. Cultivate the spiritual in the time of 
preparation for this life which will be the 
golden link between mother and father; also 
have in mind the qualities desired in the child. 
Wise and clean and highly moral authorities 
have decided noon time on a clear sunshiny day 
to be the proper time for conception to take 250 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
place. The season is also to be considered, so 
as to avoid bringing the birth-time in the fall or 
winter, that the little one will not necessarily be 
confined indoors. The sunshine and outdoor 
air of spring and summer will fortify him 
against the severity of his first winter."-J. H. 
Greer, M.D. 
William Penn said of marriage: 
"Never marry but for love; but see thou love 
what is lovely. If love be not thy chiefest mo- 
tive, thou wilt soon grow weary of the married 
state, and stray from thy promise to search out 
thy pleasure in forbidden places. 
"Let not enjoyment lessen, but rather aug- 
ment affection, it being the basest of passion to 
slight what we sighed to possess. 
"It is the difference betwixt love and lust 
that love is fixed, that volatile love grows, but 
lust wastes by enjoyment. And the reason is 
this: That one springs from a union of souls, 
and the other from a mere union of sense. They 
have diverse originals, and so are of different 
families. One is inward and deep, the other ADVICE TO THOSE ABOUT TO MARRY. 
251 
superficial; one is permanent, the other tran- 
sient. 
4'They that marry for money cannot have 
the true satisfaction of marriage, the more es- 
sential requisite being wanting. With such, 
money makes the crooked straight, sets squint 
eyes right, cures madness, covers folly, changes 
ill conditions, mends the skin, gives a sweet 
breath, repairs honor, makes young, and works 
wonders. Thus sordid is man grown; man, 
the noblest creature in the world, and the image 
of him that made it, thus to mistake earth for 
heaven, and worship gold for God!" 
Benjamin Franklin, writing August 9, 1768, 
to John Alleyne, newly-married, says: "Treat 
your wife always with respect ; it will procure 
respect to you, not from her only, but from all 
that observe it. Never use a slighting expres- 
sion to her, even in jest; for slights in jest, after 
frequent bandyings, are apt to end in angry 
earnest." CHAPTER XXIX. 
THE DETERMINATION OF SEX. 
It has been said that one reason why the prob- 
lem of the origin of sex has been so much 
shirked by modern science, why naturalists have 
beaten so much about the bush in seeking to 
solve it, is that modesty has defeated itself in 
pruriency; that good taste has run to the ex- 
treme of putting a premium upon ignorance, 
and that this false modesty has reflected itself in 
biology. "Reproduction and sex," says a re- 
cent writer, "have been fenced off as facts by 
themselves; they have been dissociated from 
general physiology; hence the origin of sex has 
been involved in special mystery and difficulty." 
Notwithstanding this "modesty," however, 
the number of theories that have arisen in one 
way and another concerning the origin of sex, 
and how to determine whether a child shall be 
252 THE DETERMINATION OF SEX. 
253 
a boy or a girl, is to be counted by hundreds. 
One writer says that when science at last began 
to take hold of the question, there were already 
more than five hundred such theories afloat, 
and that the number has gone on still increasing. 
As to the nature of sex itself, a distinguished 
writer who pondered over the matter more than 
a hundred years ago enumerated two hundred 
and sixty-two hypotheses that he termed 
"groundless." Shortly afterwards another 
author stated that this previous writer had only 
formed the two hundred and sixty-third 
groundless hypothesis. And so on down to the 
present time, each subsequent investigator has 
claimed that all theories except his own were 
erroneous. 
We cannot, therefore, in this work, attempt 
a discussion of all the suggested rules for the 
determination of sex; and a mere list of the 
names with which the vast number of theories 
have been labelled would lie as dry as it is use- 
less, especially for honeymoon reading. Suffice 
it to say that all these theories can be summed 254 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
up under the general heads of theology, meta- 
physics, statistics, biology and general scientific 
experiment, and that the important question of 
how to produce a boy or girl at will has occu- 
pied the attention of at least honest if not pro- 
found thinkers in all ages. We shall give, in 
this chapter, a view of certain methods that are 
recommended by their general popularity and 
modern medical backing; and we shall close 
with an account of the rabbinical doctrine 
which, though it has the authority of the high- 
est antiquity for its acceptance, is so little 
known, outside the best-informed Jewish cir- 
cles, as almost to entitle it to be called a secret. 
By some it is claimed that strong desire on 
the part of a mother for a son or daughter will 
produce the wished-for sex. But this rule will 
not apply when both sons and daughters are 
born of mothers who do not even wish for the 
child and who would banish the thought of 
sex or child when it entered her mind. The 
ovum is neither male nor female; nor are the 
spermatozoa; hence there must be a cause out- 
side of impregnation. THE DETERMINATION OF SEX. 
255 
Another theory is, that the more favorable 
the vital conditions of the mother during the 
period in which the sex of the unborn is being 
determined, the more surely will a female be 
the result; the less favorable vital conditions 
being likely to produce a male. The female, 
being the superior organism, capable of repro- 
ducing its kind, with only the fertilizing ele- 
ment from the male, needs the best food and the 
most favorable conditions. 
Then there is the idea, also advanced, that 
the parent whose mental vigor previous to, and 
at the time of conception, is the strongest and 
most forceful, controls the sex of the child. 
The theory of the late Dr. Schenck, of Vien- 
na, and of many sciemtists, is, that favorable 
conditions of nourishment, temperature, and the 
like are likely to result in the birth of females; 
while unfavorable conditions tend to form 
males. "That good nourishment," says an Eng- 
lish writer, "appears to produce a distinct pre- 
ponderance of females is perhaps the single re- 
sult that can be regarded at present as clearly 256 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
proven and generally accepted. The agency of 
temperature also is of considerable importance/' 
Experiment, it is said, shows this to be true 
both of plant and of animal life. Starved cater- 
pillars, for example, produce male butterflies, 
while those that are highly nourished before 
entering the chrysalis state produce females. 
The human species appears to be less dependent 
upon these differences; though prosperity and 
high living are said to favor somewhat the birth 
of girls, and poverty and hunger that of boys; 
while a larger proportion of males is born dur- 
ing the cold months than during the warm. 
Still another teaching is that, for the pro- 
duction of a boy, conception must not take 
place earlier than from one to two weeks after 
the cessation of menstruation, while, for a girl, 
it should happen immediately at the close of the 
menstrual period. This rule, it is said, holds 
good where the man and the woman are of 
about equal ages; but if the husband be much 
older, or much more vigorous than the wife, he 
must temporarily lessen his vigor by means of THE DETERMINATION OF SEX. 
257 
a spare diet and fatiguing exercise, and so with 
the wife if she be the older or stronger, in order 
that their vitalities may be equalized. 
We come now to the doctrine that seems to 
have been known to the Chaldaeans, at least as 
far back as the time of Abraham; a doctrine 
fully elaborated in the Talmud and to the ob- 
servance of which is due, it is claimed, much of 
the acknowledged virility of the Jewish race. 
Meyerbeer, the German composer, relates 
that, being one day at dinner with Louis-Phil- 
ippe, the French king asked him whether he had 
any children. "Yes, sire," answered the mu- 
sician, "but I regret to say that I have only 
daughters." "What!" cried the king. "You a 
Jew, and yet ignorant of the art of begetting 
boys! During my exile in Switzerland I made 
the acquaintance of a rabbi who gave me lessons 
in German; but the thing of most value that he 
taught me was how to contract a timely mar- 
riage and to have sons and daughters at will." 
And forthwith the king communicated to his 
Jewish friend the rabbinical secret, as found in 258 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
the Talmud, of determining at will whether a 
child should be a male or a female. "And I 
assure you," added his majesty, "that my ex- 
perience has fully justified the theory; for I 
have been able to announce in advance, to my 
relations and acquaintances, the coming of my 
son or of my daughter." 
During the act of love, according to this an- 
cient doctrine-as expounded by a German 
rabbinical scholar-the man secretes a seminal 
fluid that is whitish, flaky and albuminous. 
The woman, on her part, secretes, but in lesser 
quantity, a seminal fluid that is reddish, and 
more oleaginous than the blood of menstruation. 
She is absolutely unable to conceive unless these 
two fluids are mutually attracted, inter- 
absorbed, assimilated, united-"married." The 
law of Nature demands that the masculine semi- 
nal fluid be shot out as an arrow; in this lies 
the vigor of the man and the health of the child. 
The feminine fluid is thus penetrated by the 
masculine, and, according to the predomi- 
nance of the one or the other, the child will be THE DETERMINATION OF SEX. 
259 
a male or a female. Nature has ordained that 
the male contain within himself the germ of the 
female, and that the female contain within her- 
self the germ of the male. This is why the vitSl 
fluid of the man is white and milky, while that 
of the woman is dark and of reddish tinge. 
Now, if the man is first in the crisis of love, he 
begets a female; if the woman is first, she will 
bring forth a man-child. 
This, continue the rabbis, is the mystery of 
generation; but not so mysterious that man, at 
a certain age, may not direct it. The Talmud 
indicates, formally, the means of having, at will, 
sometimes a boy, sometimes a girl. In order to 
have a son, says the Talmud, it is necessary to 
wait until the wife ardently desires her husband, 
as Leah desired Jacob. Immediately after the 
period of separation required by the menses, is 
the favorable time; then, not suddenly, but at 
the last moment of exaltation he must yield 
once only, leaving her still hungry with desire. 
This is the secret of having a son. To have a 
daughter, it is necessary, on the contrary, that 260 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
the man, having a violent desire for his wife, 
surprise her-so to say-with an improvised 
and prolonged feast of love. 
* A French advocate of this doctrine, who says 
that several physicians to whom it has been 
mentioned have treated it as a whimsical notion, 
cites in favor of the idea a report of the Acad- 
emy of Medicine on the art of producing males 
and females among cattle and horses. This 
report, he says, corroborates in toto the teach- 
ing of the Talmud. Out of sixty experiments 
made with horses, fifty-five cases went to estab- 
lish the fact that, if the female were left in heat 
for three days, the foal would be a colt, where- 
as, on the contrary, if the union were hastened 
on the first day of heat, the product would be 
nearly always a filly. The species of glair 
which, during these days, announces the desire 
of the female, was noted also as a proof of the 
rabbinical doctrine that both sexes contain the 
germs of life, and that the dominant masculine 
germ engenders females, while the predominant 
feminine germ produces males. THE DETERMINATION OF SEX. 
261 
"To treat these means as fables, or as Tal- 
mudic and Cabalistic fancies," wrote the late 
Dr. Goldschmid, of the Jewish Hospital at 
Frankfort-on-the-Main, "is entirely to miscon- 
ceive or to ignore the vast scientific knowledge 
possessed by the rabbis concerning woman and 
generation. No physician has ever yet pub- 
lished so profound, so extended, so clear an 
exposition of these matters as is contained in 
the Talmud." CHAPTER XXX. 
THE AGE AT WHICH TO MARRY. 
The precocious longing for marriage notice- 
able in too many girls is evidence in itself of a 
want of fitness for the healthy performance of 
its functions. It shows that the body is not yet 
full grown; that the mind is not duly expanded; 
that there exists a perverted condition both of 
body and mind. The young woman herself is 
not so much to blame for this feverish desire 
as is-often, at least-the mother who has in- 
spired her with the absurd notion that marriage 
is the chief end of feminine existence, and that 
by any and every hook and crook this end must 
be attained. And of the unfortunate results of 
this false teaching it has been well said that the 
highways and byways of life are crowded with 
the heart-sore devotees of early marriages, 
whose unhappiness, if not suffering and misery, 
262 THE AGE AT WHICH TO MARRY. 
263 
should determine all rightly educated girls and 
women to wait patiently and to choose know- 
ingly. 
No man or woman should undertake mar- 
riage until the body has acquired all the devel- 
opment necessary to its full growth. Nature 
tends always to perfection in all her operations, 
and assuredly a feeble being, and one imperfect- 
ly grown, cannot be the source of a sound and 
vigorous generation. At the same time the 
premature exercise of certain functions, essen- 
tially debilitating even to individuals fully de- 
veloped, cannot but retard disastrously the 
growth and vigor of persons under the adult 
age. 
All unions between persons of disproportion- 
ate ages, whether made on account of pecuniary 
or worldly relations, should be avoided, for they 
are usually followed by much misery. The 
power of fecundity ceasing is the cause of great 
immorality, leading the husband to debauchery 
and the wife to all the excesses of jealousy. 
Offspring, the result of such ill-sorted mar- 264 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
riages, are always delicate, and are worthless 
physically and mentally. 
This applies especially to old or elderly men; 
for such unions, being contrary to all physio- 
logical laws, entail naught but suffering on the 
perpetrators. Yet, if there be such men who 
are tired of health and life, there is no more 
certain method than by this of acquiring disease 
and reaching a rapid end. 
Says Parise: "There are great risks run; for, 
in the extreme disparity of age-and, ofttimes, 
condition-as when the man is rich and the girl 
is young-Nature avenges herself by spreading 
scandals, doubts about paternity, and domestic 
trouble. Everything is at variance-age, dispo- 
sition, character, tastes and amusements. 
'What shall I do with him? What will he do 
with me?' said a clever young girl of eighteen 
whose parents wished her to marry an old man. 
With regard to health and vital force it is easy 
to foresee what will become of them in these 
unequal marriages, where a young and fresh 
girl is 'flesh of the flesh' of a man used up from THE AGE AT WHICH TO MARRY. 
265 
age, and perhaps from excesses. Evidently she 
commits a suicidal act, more or less certain or 
rapid. On the other hand, experience shows 
that the elderly man, who thus risks his repose 
and existence, speedily finds his health griev- 
ously affected." 
The time required for the full growth of the 
body, owing to climate, temperament, and other 
influences, differs in almost all individuals- 
the difference not amounting to any great de- 
gree, yet sufficient to fix an age for marrying 
that would be applicable equally to all. Never- 
theless, it is safe to say that no man, having a 
just desire for the acquiring and retaining of 
health and happiness, should marry under 
twenty-five years of age, and it would be better 
that he wait until the thirtieth year before mar- 
rying. 
Woman, with greater risks and more arduous 
duties to undergo, and who, for these reasons, 
requires the full amount of health and strength 
that comes of perfect growth, should marry un- 
der no condition before twenty-one years of age. 266 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
It would be much toward her after-welfare if 
she did not marry until she arrived at the age 
of twenty-four. 
The wife, owing to her unphysiological mode 
of life, to child-bearing, and to the licentious- 
ness that belongs to the majority of husbands, 
takes on premature age much sooner than does 
the husband, and, for these and other reasons, 
a husband, in all cases, should be from three to 
six years older than his wife. 
A man, having arrived at thirty years, full- 
grown, perfectly developed, and desirous of 
marrying, should choose a woman who is' not 
less than twenty-four years of age; and a wo- 
man at twenty-four, perfectly developed, ripe 
and lovable, should choose-or, perhaps, I 
should say, accept-for a helpmate a man who 
is not less than thirty. 
The union of a man and woman at these re- 
spective ages, and under right conditions, pro- 
vides the first step towards a perfect marriage. CHAPTER XXXI. 
MARRIAGE OF BLOOD RELATIVES. 
The question whether marriage ought to take 
place between near blood relations, as, for in- 
stance, between cousins, is constantly arising, 
and demands careful consideration. Figures 
would seem at first sight to indicate a negative 
answer. Carpenter, in his "Principles of Hu- 
man Physiology," says-c "Out of three hundred 
and fifty-nine idiots, the conditions of whose 
progenitors could be ascertained, seventeen were 
known to have been children of parents nearly 
related by blood; and this relationship was sus- 
pected to have existed in several other cases, in 
which positive information could not be ob- 
tained. On examining into the history of the 
seventeen families to which these individuals 
belonged, it was found that they had consisted 
267 268 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
in all of seventy-five children; that of these no 
fewer than forty-four were idiotic, twelve 
others were scrofulous and puny, one was deaf, 
and one was a dwarf. In some of these famil- 
ies, all the children were either idiotic, or very 
scrofulous and puny; in one family of eight 
children, five were idiotic." Now, while such 
figures evidently point to the avoidance of con- 
sanguineous marriages, we must remember that 
they take no account of the physical condition 
of the wedded pairs or of their hereditary ante- 
cedents, and that therefore they are shorn of 
nearly all their scientific value. The feeble- 
mindedness may have resulted, not from inter- 
marriage, but from a bad condition of health, 
from abuse of the sexual powers, from a de- 
praved manner of life, from inequality of age, 
or from low organic brain quality. All these 
tend to perpetuate a feeble-minded race of be- 
ings; whereas, on the other hand, as we shall 
endeavor to show, the union of two equally 
strong, healthy and beautiful cousins or other 
near relations, is apt to result in strong, healthy 269 
MARRIAGE OF BLOOD RELATIVES. 
and beautiful offspring. When the matter is 
closely and impartially examined, it is found 
that unfavorable results of the intermarriage 
of blood relations are due to some of the other 
causes above mentioned. 
"To elucidate the truth of the general thesis 
that consanguineous marriages produce dis- 
ease and idiocy in the offspring, M. Voisin, of 
France, has made some very minute researches 
in the commune of Batz, a little place at the 
mouth of the Loire, which contains a population 
of three thousand three hundred people, exclu- 
sively occupied in the cultivation of salt 
marshes. Hardly any outsiders are ever drawn 
to this place, and the marriages take place, by 
special dispensation, even within the degrees of 
consanguinity forbidden by the Church. M. 
Voisin minutely investigated the circumstances 
of forty families resulting from such marriages, 
and has prepared tables to show that neither 
vices of conformation, insanity, idiocy, cretin- 
ism, deaf-muteness, epilepsy or albinism ex- 
isted among any of these families, but that, on 270 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
the contrary, the stock had remained very hand- 
some and very pure." 
The intermarriage of relatives is not advised. 
If there were a scarcity of women to choose 
from, the marrying of cousins might be al- 
lowed ; but facts show the reverse-there being 
two, and, in many places, three marriageable 
women for each marriageable man. Again, al- 
though it may appear, in exceptional cases, that 
such consanguineous unions are free from other 
than perfect results, it does not follow that the 
conditions exist for its practical, every-day 
demonstration. Far from it. Men and women 
will have to live a more correct, pure, abstem- 
ious and holy life before they can attain to a 
standard of health and strength that will enable 
them to marry cousins with impunity. As long 
as mankind continue in this wrong course of 
life, and marry and intermarry under these 
false conditions, so long shall we have among 
us the blind, the deaf, the dumb, the lame, the 
deformed, the feeble-minded, the idiotic, the 
lunatics, and the like. MARRIAGE OF BLOOD RELATIVES. 
271 
Darwin's investigations tend decidedly to in- 
validate the exaggerated conclusions of many 
previous writers, but he thinks that "there are, 
nevertheless, grounds for asserting that various 
maladies take an easy hold of the offspring of 
consanguineous marriages." He did not find 
evidence that the marriage of first cousins had 
any effect in the production of infertility, deaf- 
muteism, insanity, or idiocy; but he observed a 
slightly lowered vitality among the offspring of 
first cousins, and a somewhat higher death-rate 
than he did among the families of non-consan- 
guineous marriages. Moreover, the number of 
boating men belonging to the twenty boats at 
Oxford and thirty at Cambridge, in the first 
and second division, and those of selected ath- 
letes from some schools in England, justified, to 
some extent, the belief "that offspring of first 
cousins are deficient physically, whilst at the 
same time they negative the views of the alarm- 
ist writers on the subject." It is curious that, 
in spite of such unambiguous statements, Mr. 
Darwin's paper has been quoted generally as an 272 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
evidence of the perfect harmlessness of first 
cousin marriages. 
M. Stieda has found that, in the departments 
of France, the number of bodily or mentally in- 
firm people increases almost constantly in pro- 
portion to the number of consanguineous mar- 
riages, as will be seen, from the following table : 
Group. 
Number of 
departments. 
Number of 
consanguineous 
marriages in 
each thousand 
marriages. 
Number of in- 
firm people in 
each thousand 
inhabitants. 
I. 
IO 
5-4 
2-3 
II. 
10 
8-3 
2.8 
III. 
14 
9-95 
3 
IV. 
10 
II.2 
2-4 
V. 
13 
12.5 
2.8 
VI. 
8 
13-8 
3 
VII. 
14 
15-8 
3-5 
VIII. 
IO 
19.2 
3-25 
I.-IV. 
44 
9.2 
2.65 
V.-VIII. 
45 
14.8 
3-i 
The Danish physician, Dr. Mygge, published 
in 1879 a book on "Marriage Between Blood 
Relations," which unfortunately has received 
much less attention than it deserves. Thanks 
to the trustworthiness of the method, the num- 
ber of cases considered, and the author's impar- MARRIAGE OF BLOOD RELATIVES. 
273 
tiality, it is probably the most important 
statistical contribution hitherto issued on this 
subject. Dr. Mygge found, from the informa- 
tion he received from various parts of Denmark, 
that in that country, or at least in the parishes 
of it which came under his observation, there 
are found among the children of related per- 
sons, comparatively more idiots, lunatics, epi- 
leptics, and deaf-mutes than among others. He 
considers it probable, too, though not proved, 
that such children die in a higher ratio, and are 
more liable to certain diseases. But, on the 
other hand, he did not notice any perceptible 
difference in fertility between consanguineous 
and crossed marriages. 
In the pursuit of these inquiries, Dr. Mygge 
followed the method applied twenty years ear- 
lier, by the Norwegian physician, Ludvig Dahl. 
Through careful investigation of 246 mar- 
riages, 85 of which were between first cousins 
and four between still nearer relations, this in- 
quirer was led to the conclusion that consan- 
guineous marriages are somewhat less fertile 274 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
than crossed marriages; that they produce com- 
paratively many more still-born and sickly chil- 
dren; and that insanity, idiocy, deaf-muteness 
and epilepsy happen about eleven times as often 
among the offspring of relatives as among the 
offspring of parents unrelated before marriage. 
But he admitted that the numbers compared 
were too small to make his conclusions de- 
cisive.-History of Human Marriage. 
The question of blood relationship in mar- 
riage is of interest only as it affects heredity. 
Whether some ancient or modern cult has put 
the ban upon the wedded union of kindred of 
the fourth, or fourteenth, degree; or whether by 
tribal custom a couple of the same "totem" may 
or may not come together in wedlock, and all 
other such interesting aspects of the subject are 
out of place unless they give a reason that may 
appeal to science or common sense. 
Legal prohibition must stand, of course, as 
an exception to this rule of reason; right or 
wrong, a man in some highly civilized commu- 
nities cannot wed the sister of his former wife; MARRIAGE OF BLOOD RELATIVES. 
275 
though in this case there is no blood relationship 
at stake. A consistent Roman Catholic, unless 
he get a special dispensation, cannot take to wife 
a cousin, or a second cousin, or a third cousin. 
The Jews, though they marry cousins, and that 
to an extent estimated as three times greater 
than do other peoples, select a number of rela- 
tionships in which they prohibit marriage. This 
miscellaneous selection of theirs is responsible 
for the existing condition of English and Amer- 
ican law upon the subject. Yet the Jews owe 
their existence as a people to the consanguineous 
marriages of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, which, 
in fourteen generations, enabled them to muster 
more than a half million of soldiers alone. 
Our American prohibitions are practically those 
of Moses-extended in some States to forbid- 
ding the union of cousins. 
The quest of accurate information as to the 
effect of the marriage of blood relations upon 
the physical, intellectual and moral well-being 
of their children, has met, so far, with almost in- 
surmountable difficulties. First, parents have 276 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
not cared to answer questions concerning the 
defects of their offspring. Then, those who 
have recorded facts within their own knowledge 
have been too likely to make more of the glar- 
ing cases of evil than of the unobtrusive in- 
stances in which there is nothing in the children 
to remind one of the blood relationship of the 
parents. Again, even in the cases of unfavor- 
able result, other elements than consanguinity 
are almost certain to be overlooked. Among 
the Ptolemies of Egypt, for instance, degen- 
eracy was due as much to the debilitating 
effects of their unlimited power as to their close 
intermarriages. Intemperance, and the fact 
that much of our information is gathered by 
public institutions among the morally degener- 
ate, account for much that has been set down 
to consanguinity. Furthermore, if two married 
relatives have the same disease, the inheritance 
of the disease by the children is not due to the 
relationship; for the result would be the same if 
the diseased parents were not related by mar- 
riage. MARRIAGE OF BLOOD RELATIVES. 
277 
Comparing the results of intermarriage of 
blood relatives among men and women with the 
success of in-and-in breeding of cattle and other 
animals, the general conclusions of those who 
have adopted a favorable view of consanguin- 
eous unions may be summed up as follows : The 
assumption that non-renewal of the blood, due 
to consanguinity, tends to degeneration in the 
children, is not borne out by the facts. Con- 
sanguinity may tend to improvement in the 
children, or to deterioration, according as the 
parents related before marriage are or are not 
mentally and physically sound. Seeing that 
good and bad tendencies in both a father and 
mother are aggravated in the children, and that 
many of us have inherited defects, a man and 
woman, whether formerly related or not, should 
look upon any such defect that they may have in 
common as an argument against their becoming 
husband and wife. There is no physiological 
ground for opposing the marriage of two 
healthy members of a healthy family-at least 
where they are cousins, or one more remotely 278 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
related, providing, always, that they live ac- 
cording to the interpretation of the highest hu- 
man instincts. CHAPTER XXXII. 
PRE-NATAL INFLUENCES. 
During the period of gestative influence, a 
correct diet is as important to the expectant 
mother as are good habits of thought and 
action. Her food, it must be remembered, is 
the blood producer for the child, as well as for 
herself. Her nervous system imparts its vitality 
to the blood, and the blood, in turn, vitalizes the 
nervous and muscular system of the child, and 
thus influences its character. The secretions of 
the nutritive system are affected and impressed 
by the habitual thoughts and actions of both 
man and woman, and the character of both thus 
undergoes a constant change upward or down- 
ward. This is why it is so often said that a 
drop of blood represents in its elements the 
character of him or her who manufactures it. 
An erroneous though very common opinion 
279 280 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
is, that during this period of gestative influence, 
from twice to three times as much food is 
needed as at other times. This error is respon- 
sible for a large part of the suffering endured 
during pregnancy. Not more than the usual 
quantity is needed in the case of a normal wo- 
man ; and the unnatural craving experienced by 
others is wholly due to abnormal conditions 
which may be rectified by the simple adoption 
of a right course of life. 
"Next in importance to proper food are pure 
air and light. The mother at all seasons should 
have an abundance of pure air, and especially 
during her sleeping hours. Open fireplaces are 
at all times the most desirable; but, where tight 
fitting stoves are used, ample arrangements 
should be made for thorough ventilation. In 
the room in which the mother lives, the light of 
the sun never should be obstructed by blind or 
curtain. Many people, thinking much more of 
their carpets and furniture than of their own 
health, keep their houses, by the aid of blinds, 
curtains or trees, in a state of Egyptian dark- PRE-NATAL INFLUENCES. 
281 
ness. No more fatal error ever was macle. 
Under the influence of the sun's heat, and of 
air and moisture, a new cedar plant will germi- 
nate, grow, and develop gradually into health 
and beauty of leaf and flower; whereas, if kept 
in darkness, it may grow to a certain extent, but 
its leaves and stem are of a sickly, yellowish 
hue, and the plant, in its appearance, is an unde- 
sirable thing. 
"This is applicable, with much greater force, 
to human organism. A child of light is a child 
of joy, or purity, of health; while a child whose 
mother has lived in a dark, unventilated room 
during this period will be a child of many 
troubles-with deformities, rickets, bad teeth, 
crooked spine, pale and sickly looking skin, soft 
and flabby muscles, and feeble digestive organs 
-altogether a most undesirable list of results. 
Not only pregnant women, but all mankind, 
should live in the light of the life-giving sun, 
and should court darkness only during the hours 
of sleep." 
During the period of gestative influence, the 282 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
mother should take daily physical exercise. A 
thorough system of deep breathing with move- 
ments for strengthening the abdominal regions 
is especially advised. One of the best general 
exercises she can have is walking, alone or with 
her husband, or with some other companion. 
She should, at a convenient time-about ten 
o'clock in the forenoon preferred-go on a walk 
of from one to six miles, regulated according to 
strength. It is important that during this walk 
the mother should feel no sense of being tired 
and that full deep breaths should be frequently 
inhaled. By pleasant talk, if with a companion, 
or if alone, by pleasant thoughts of her plans 
and purposes in the growth and life of the new 
being, the time spent in walking will pass unno- 
ticed. Otherwise there may be present a feeling 
of lassitude that may do her ultimately more 
harm than good. Having a free, loose, com- 
fortable dress, with well-fitting, heavy shoes 
and no veil, she should give full swing to her 
arms and legs, and every muscle, nerve and 
artery in her body will feel the electric effects of PRE-NATAL INFLUENCES. 
283 
motion and rapid, renewed life. This walk, 
rain or shine, should be taken every day during 
this gestative influence up to within a few days 
of parturition. If faithfully observed, the walk 
has a wonderfully happy effect upon the whole 
process of gestation and parturition. 
A striking instance of the effects of pre-natal 
influence is found in the genius of Napoleon I. 
His mother, for some months previous to his 
birth, shared the fortunes of war with her hus- 
band. On horseback most of the time, she 
acquired active and health-inspiring habits. 
During this time she was in constant peril and 
danger, and not only surrounded with, but in- 
tensely engaged in, all the pomp and circum- 
stance of war, and in this way she became not 
only familiar with the horrors and anguish of 
war, but became also reconciled to them; and, 
in a measure, she enjoyed the life. This being 
so, it could not be otherwise than that in her son 
was implanjted that indomitable spirit, that un- 
bounded ambition and passion for warlike pur- 
suits, which in their exercise could not stop 
short of a desire to subjugate a world. 284 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
Corset-wearing, and general constriction of 
dress, during this period, result not only in 
homeliness of feature in the offspring, but in de- 
formity of soul as well as of body. In no way 
does the fashionable mother so influence the 
appearance of the child, during and immediate- 
ly preceding gestation, as by constricting the 
body by corsets, by tight dresses or by bands. 
Through this unnatural habit, the circulation 
of the blood in the abdomen is impeded, the 
regular nourishment of the foetus is checked, 
and the child is born not only with high shoul- 
ders, awkward figure, pinched-up and painful 
expression, but with a weak and sickly organ- 
ization as well. The Romans were so well 
aware of the mischief caused by compression of 
the waist during gestation that they enacted a 
positive law against it; and, like Lycurgus, with 
the same end in view, ordained a law compel- 
ling pregnant women to wear very wide and 
loose clothing. 
"All the educational institutions in the 
world," says a distinguished writer, "all the PRE-NATAL INFLUENCES. 
285 
benevolent, industrial and reform societies, all 
the anti-tobacco advocates, all the prohibition 
societies and all the divines in the world com- 
bined and working harmoniously together, can- 
not do as much in a lifetime of effort for the 
elevation of mankind as can a mother in nine 
months of pre-natal effort." This is an im- 
portant assertion, and yet it is one that has law, 
right and God on its side-for the right mother 
builds the true foundation. 
In the conception of a new soul, the mass of 
mankind observes no law, unless it be the law 
of chance. Out of the licentious or inconsist- 
ent actions of a husband's nature, conception is 
discovered after a time to have taken place. 
There is no preparation of body, of mind, or of 
soul by either parent; all is due simply to the ac- 
cidental infusion of the man's hugely abnormal 
existence into the unimpregnated germ of the 
mother. All undesired by the father, as inter- 
fering with his incontinent nature, and dreaded 
and hated by the mother, a new soul is born into 
the world-a soul having for its inheritance all 286 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
the qualities necessary for the birth of a puny, 
brief, and unsuccessful existence. 
The fundamental principles of genius in re- 
production are that, through the rightly di- 
rected efforts of the will of the mother and that 
of the father, preceding and during ante-natal 
life, the child's form of body, character of 
mind, and purity of soul, are formed and es- 
tablished; that in this plastic state, during 
ante-natal life, like clay in the hands of the 
potter, the child can be moulded absolutely into 
any form of body and soul the parents may 
knowingly desire. 
In the generation of healthy, intelligent and 
lovable children it is required, primarily, that 
the woman have perfect health. Now some wo- 
men are not healthy, and while there is the 
remotest indication of any mental or physical 
disease-nervous, inflammatory or chronic- 
they should not bear children until they regain 
the normal standard of life. Women who pre- 
vent the normal workings of their life's internal 
economy through corsets, or by strictures of 287 
PRE-NATAL INFLUENCES. 
any kind, should not bear children, for other- 
wise it is not possible that they rear healthy or 
desirable offspring. It is useless for this class 
'of women to say that their corsets and bands 
are worn loosely, for they must, if they desire 
ithe pleasures rather than the pains of maternity, 
discard them at once and for all time. If such 
women assert that their smallness of waists are 
not made by corsets or by tight dresses, but as 
Nature made them, it is much more palpable 
that they bear no children until, through proper 
exercise and living, they aid Nature in giving 
them proper forms. 
Let the parents get one picture, it may be of 
an ideal face, or the face of a beautiful person; 
and let them get the picture of a perfect human 
form. The pictures may be lithographs, 
chromos, or photographs handsomely colored. 
Let the wife and husband impress the beautiful 
face of the one and the beautiful form of the 
other on their minds. Let them constantly 
admire them, and, in especial, earnestly desire a 
child having in face and form resemblance, and 288 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
these parents, without fail, will have embodied 
in their child's organization beauty of form and 
face. 
"A gentleman had hanging in his room a 
beautiful portrait of which a friend, as he once 
entered the room, when this gentleman's child 
was sitting in it, exclaimed: 'Why, what a fine 
likeness that is of your child!' 'No,' replied the 
gentleman, 'the child is the likeness of the pic- 
ture.' 'How so?' inquired his friend. It 
proved that the mother of this child had kept 
so intensely the image of this picture in her 
mind, and had looked at it so much and so 
admiringly during her pregnancy that the pic- 
ture had reflected its beauties upon the young 
child's face. It had daguerreotyped them there 
both in color and in features!" 
Next in importance to genius, holiness and 
beauty in the offspring, is a sunny, cheerful, 
laughing disposition. One great cause of 
trouble in the rearing of a family-next to 
wrong habits of life-is the constantly fretful, 
irritable, peevish, cross, crying dispositions of 289 
PRE-NATAL INFLUENCES. 
the children, entailing on the parents a world of 
trouble in their care and management. Now, 
it is just as easy for a mother to have a baby 
that will be of a cheerful, sunny nature, that 
shall be to her, in truth and in deed, "the sun- 
shine of life," as it is to give birth to a child of 
a fretful and unhappy disposition-one that 
must be to her a source of life-long trouble. To 
this end, during the period of transmitted in- 
fluence, the parents should not allow the shadow 
of a trouble to cross their paths. They should 
determine to make the best of everything. If 
the house burns down, or they fail in business, 
or serious accidents occur, let them go uncom- 
plainingly, joyously, even laughingly, and re- 
pair their losses. As to the minor cares and 
troubles that infest life's pathway, let them 
determine persistently to laugh these details out 
of countenance. In all the greater troubles of 
life let the parents hopefully, lovingly and joy- 
ously look for and see only the bright side-the 
silver lining to the dark cloud. If this cannot 
be done at all times, it should be done at least 
during the season of transmitted influence. 290 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
There are hundreds of instances in everyday 
life to prove that the question of prenatal in- 
fluence is not a mere dream. A mother's en- 
ergy, industry, cheerfulness or virtue takes 
hold of her unborn child; and just as surely, 
on the other hand, will selfishness, irritability 
or weakness leave their impress. 
A sudden mental shock, afterwards preying 
on the mother's mind, affects the child, as was 
the case in the following instance: A woman 
living in a small town, and whose husband was 
a medical student, was pregnant. Her husband, 
on his return from lectures in the city, brought 
with him a "cadaver" from which he wanted 
the skeleton. It was buried temporarily until he 
could prepare the skeleton. The wife went 
into the garden one day, and saw that an arm 
had been unearthed and the hand gnawed away 
by dogs. The shock was so great that, when 
the child was born, one arm was without a hand. 
-J. H. Greer, M.D. 
From an article by M. Louise Mason is taken 
the following extract: PRE-JJATAL INFLUENCERS. 
291 
'At that time I had never known of pre-natal 
influence; ... I had been warned only by 
an elder sister, my mother dying when I was 
very young, that I must be very careful not to 
'mark' the unborn child by an unpleasant sight 
-that I must always think of my condition and 
never put my hands to my face in fright or 
grief. This was to me a revelation; and I 
thought that if a child be 'marked' for evil, 
why not for good ? 
"I would often sit alone in my room, over- 
looking scenes that were pleasant, and, in a 
peaceful attitude of mind, perfectly passive, 
would desire that my child should be a girl; that 
she should have a slight figure; chestnut hair 
and beautiful eyes; that she should be a musi- 
cian, a singer, and that she should be proficient 
in everything she undertook; that she should be 
superior to all those I had ever known. Here 
is the result: A beautiful woman in mind and 
body, with chestnut hair, slight physique, a phe- 
nomenal voice-contralto; she is a philosopher, 
a student in Delsarte, astronomy, astrology, and 292 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
masters every study; is eloquent, and has one 
of the most amiable of dispositions. 
" . . . My love for the unborn was so 
intense that it has created invisible lines that 
have grown with the years. . . . She has 
returned that love a thousand-fold. She is all 
I desired and more; and I am confident that, 
with mothers educated in the law of pre-natal 
influence and properly surrounded, we could 
have gods upon the earth in the form of men, 
created by the highest and purest thought. It 
should not be an intense longing on the part of 
the mother, but a quiet, passive thought, given, 
that her child should become whatever her heart 
yearns for; then she should rest in the belief 
until the thought is forced upon her again. Be 
in the open air as much as is possible. Do not 
eat meat. Live upon fruits and grains." 
Helen H. Gardner says: "The powers of en- 
vironment, the conditions under which we de- 
velop or restrict our inherited tendencies, will 
determine in large part whether heredity shall 
be our slave-driver or our companion in the PRE-NATAL INFLUENCES. 
293 
race for life, liberty and the pursuit of happi- 
ness." 
In the same article, further on, Miss Gardner 
states her belief that men are largely responsible 
for evil tendencies transmitted to offspring; but 
she does not, as do some writers, throw the 
stigma upon them entirely. She says: "I be- 
lieve, with all my heart, that the mothers have 
to answer for their full share of the vice, sor- 
row and suffering of humanity. Woman has 
not, perhaps, been such an active agent, and 
much of the wrong she has done to her children 
has been compassed through what has been re- 
garded as her very virtues-her sweetest quali- 
ties-submission, compliance, self-abnegation. 
In so far as the mothers of the race have been 
weakly subservient, in that far have they a 
terrible score against them in the transmission 
of the qualities that have made the race too 
weak to do the best that it knew-too cowardly 
to be honest even with its own soul." 
In the language of Lois Waisbrooker, "Oh, 
mothers-prospective mothers-wake up to the 294 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
power you possess, and claim your heritage, 
the conditions for perfect motherhood!" The 
estate of future generations will then be such as 
to make life useful and happy. CHAPTER XXXIII. 
MUST CONTINENCE BE OBSERVED DURING 
PREGNANCY? 
If we turn to the wild animals, we find that 
after pregnancy has taken place, sexual rela- 
tions absolutely cease. We should be at least 
as clean, as wholesome and as natural as are 
these representatives of the lower animal world. 
The pregnant wife should not be used as a 
convenience. Motherhood should be considered 
too sacred, too divine; and indulgences of this 
character are bound to mar the highest pre- 
natal development of the child. 
If a child is desired that shall be the embodi- 
ment of licentiousness, it is necessary only that 
during these periods of preparation and influ- 
ence-besides the eating of rich foods and using 
hot drinks, alcoholic liquors or tobacco-parents 
exercise the abnormallv amative sides of their 
295 296 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
natures; that they lead together incontinent 
lives; that they put to shame the beasts of the 
field in their unnatural lust. By doing all these 
things they will not fail to have children whose 
unnatural desires will crop out very long be- 
fore they have reached manhood or womanhood 
-long before their bodies are so grown and 
perfected as to be prepared to take on the holy 
duties and responsibilities of a loving and pure 
married existence. Think you I harp too much 
on this theme of the abnormal exercise of ama- 
tiveness, and especially at these seasons of the 
birth and growth of a new life? You cannot 
so think, if you are of an observing and re- 
flecting nature. Ask any discreet, watchful and 
observing male or female teacher of any one of 
the primary schools in town or country, and you 
will be told that the practice of self-abuse is 
next to universal in children; that it is practiced 
by girls as well as by boys; that children, before 
they reach the age of five years, practice it- 
practice it in company and alone; that these 
children, as they grow up, become pallid, weak CONTINENCE DURING PREGNANCY. 
297 
and sickly. This condition is caused, as the 
fond parents suppose, by hard study. Eventu- 
ally many of these young people become insane, 
while others die of some undesired disease- 
consumption or general debility. Yet the cause 
of death was the body-disintegrating, soul- 
destroying habit of self-abuse. And one of the 
great underlying causes of the practice of self- 
abuse in the child was the fact that this secret 
crime was transmitted by the parents during 
some one or another of the seasons of pre-natal 
influence. 
"Do you know why there is so much licen- 
tiousness in the world? Do you know why a 
son, while yet a boy, practices self-abuse? Do 
you know why a son, even before he has reached 
manhood, seeks through prostitution and seduc- 
tion to foul, blot and weaken his soul and body ? 
Do you know why a daughter allows her purity 
to be defiled, and takes so naturally, as many 
of them do, to a life of prostitution? Would 
you, O parents, solve these questions? You 
have but to ask yourselves: 'Did we obey this 298 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
divine law of continence? Did we, during the 
season of transmitted influence, refrain from 
all sexual sin?' For, if you have not done these 
things, and have exercised, at any or all times, 
the licentiousness that is within you, you have 
transmitted the qualities that went to make your 
boy an onanist or a sensualist, and your daugh- 
ter a prostitute-and you stand guilty before 
God for this great wrong done your children!'' 
During the full period of gestative influence, 
as well as during the period of nursing, sexual 
relations should not exist between husband and 
wife. This is the law of Nature, the law of 
God, and, outside of Christendom, it is never 
violated. Animals will not permit it, savages 
will not permit it; throughout three-quarters of 
the world it is looked upon as infamous by our 
own species. A man acting out the licentious 
part of his nature with his wife during gesta- 
tion is worse than a brute. In fact, there is no 
species of the animal world to which he can be 
compared, unless it be the tobacco-flavored, 
whiskey-steeped hanger-on of a rum shop, CONTINENCE DURING PREGNANCY. 
299 
whose life is an epitome of tobacco, whiskey and 
licentiousness. Do not, I pray you, O parents, 
do this unclean thing! Do not taint your clean 
bodies, do not foul your pure souls with the 
lustful in your natures, while a new body is 
being developed, a new soul being organized; 
but by sweet words, loving caresses, endearing 
actions and warm kisses, cultivate within you 
the love element that, in its pure exercise, joins 
together two souls and brings in its path such 
a measure of peace and happiness as must be 
realized ere it can be appreciated. CHAPTER XXXIV. 
HAPPINESS DEPENDS UPON THE CONTROL OF 
THE PASSIONS. 
Man must be made to realize that, unless he 
can secure resolute control of his passions, there 
is little chance of a satisfying happiness for 
him in the future. Of course, many go on, 
year after year, and secure apparently a mod- 
erate amount of satisfaction in life. At times 
they may imagine that they are happy; but, as 
a rule, moments of this character are short- 
lived. To give free rein to the passions will 
mean in every case physical and mental deterio- 
ration, and often serious weakness and disease. 
No matter how bright may be your prospects 
for happiness, no matter how intense your love 
may be for the one you have selected for better 
or for worse, a continuous indulgence will mean 
the death of love. 
300 HAPPINESS DEPENDS UPON CONTROL. 
301 
It must be remembered that love is really the 
outgrowth of passion. It is a partner of pas- 
sion, but only a partner. Love is a desire to 
possess another of the opposite sex. Annihi- 
late this desire, and there is little left that can 
be called love. Control this desire. Never, 
under any circumstances, allow it to be indulged 
to satiety. Then love continues, grows strong- 
er, steadier, and more firmly fixed. 
A man who wishes to accomplish anything in 
life, before he attempts to control and direct 
others, must learn first to control and direct 
himself. This is sometimes a very difficult task. 
Often it may require years of training before 
he can claim really to be absolute master of 
himself. It takes a really strong man to learn 
how to master himself. Yet when he has mas- 
tered himself he has learned lessons that will 
be of immense value to him throughout his life, 
for this victory over self is life's gravest task. 
Dio Lewis' plan for those troubled with im- 
pure thoughts was: "Fix it in your mind that a 
sensual idea is dangerous and harmful; then 302 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
the instant one comes it will startle you. By 
an effort you can change the subject immedi- 
ately. You can, if you are in earnest, set such 
an alarm in your mind that, if the lascivious 
thought occurs to you when asleep, it will 
awaken you. If, when awake the enemy en- 
ters your mind, you will be aroused, and will 
expel it at once, and without a very serious 
effort. If there is a moment's doubt, spring up 
and engage in some active exercise of the 
body." 
"In the marriage relation, there is a double 
need of continence. In the celibate state the 
health and happiness of only one person is at 
stake. In marriage there are two to be con- 
sidered ; and, when a child is conceived, one 
more. The practice of continence by wives will 
wholly overcome the fear of enforced mater- 
nity, bringing with it a lightness of heart and a 
buoyancy of spirit never seen in the face of 
her who lives in anxiety from one month to 
another lest she be pregnant. 
"Many who have lived continent lives up to HAPPINESS DEPENDS UPON CONTROL. 
303 
the time of marriage, at that time cast aside all 
restraint of their passions. A short time, a few 
years at the most, will find that the beautiful 
love which brought them together has been con- 
sumed in sensuality."-J. H. Greer, M.D. 
"A proper distinction ought to be made be- 
tween that love which is, most of it, the effect 
of passion, and that which is more calm, sedate, 
and rational. The more passionate our love is, 
the shorter will be its continuance. If a man 
loves a woman for the sake of her beauty, and 
has little regard or esteem for any other ac- 
complishment, it is no wonder that his passion 
cannot be kept up to its first height; for beauty 
excites too violent a passion to last long, which, 
having too great a resemblance to a material 
fire, the more it burns, the sooner it is extin- 
guished. Where a man loves a woman for 
other perfections; for prudence, virtue, good 
sense, and good temper, his flame here is of 
another kind; it is more pure and elevated, and 
does not so soon consume itself. 
"That happiness which is most even, regular, 304 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
constant, is the best happiness; much more to 
he esteemed than that which is violent, often 
interrupted, and soon extinguished. Happiness 
itself may be too extreme and intemperate; 
and when it exceeds its due bounds, it not only 
wastes itself, but is making quick advances to 
the confines of uneasiness and pain. 
"If we would consider the difference between 
a man who is intoxicated with liquor, and what 
he is in his sober and temperate hours, it may 
help us to some idea of the preferableness of an 
even, regular conjugal affection, to one that is 
more passionate, transported, and violent."- 
Gentleman's Magazine, November, 1738 , p. 
5&4- 
"The sexual appetite being a part of our con- 
stitution, and a limit to the indulgence of it 
being fixed by the Creator, the business of 
moral philosophy is to ascertain this limit."- 
Wayland's "Moral Science," p. 297. 
Among several peoples, such as the Brazil- 
ian aborigines, the Papuans of New Guinea, 
certain tribes in Australia, the Khyoungtha of HAPPINESS DEPENDS UPON CONTROL. 
305 
the Chittagong Hills, and the Khevsurs of the 
Caucasus, continence is required from newly 
married people for some time after marriage. 
The same is true of several peoples of Aryan 
origin; and Dr. V. Schroeder believes even that 
this custom can be traced back to the primitive 
times of the Indo-European race. In ancient 
Mexico, the Mazetek bridegroom kept apart 
from the bride during the first fifteen days of 
his wedded life, both spending the time in fast- 
ing and penance. In Greenland, according to 
Egede, if married couples had children before a 
year was past, or if they had large families, 
they were blamed, and compared to dogs.- 
History of Human Marriage. CHAPTER XXXV. 
TREMENDOUS POWER TO BE OBTAINED BY 
DIVERTING THE NERVOUS ENERGY OF 
SEX TO OTHER CHANNELS. 
A man really is a dynamo of nervous force. 
He possesses a certain amount of stored energy. 
This he may increase by proper methods of life, 
or he may spend it wastefLilly. If he can secure 
absolute control of the sex passion he holds a 
tremendous power that may be used for his own 
advancement. 
It would be difficult to compute how much 
energy is wasted in sex-indulgence, and many 
men refuse to accept the conclusion that they 
can be stronger and more capable while follow- 
ing an extremely abstemious sexual life than 
they can while following the usual habits. 
Many men will tell you that they feel dull 
and logy and phlegmatic when they try to be 
306 DIVERTION OF ENERGY. 
307 
continent. They claim that they need the tonic, 
the exhilaration, that is the result of sexual inti- 
macies; but rarely has any one of them been 
placed in a position to judge accurately as to 
the effects of a continent life. Where one has 
been accustomed to indulge as is usual in this 
way, continence may seem for a time otherwise 
than beneficial. The sudden arrest of the flow 
of the semen naturally would change very ma- 
terially the requirements of the functional sys- 
tem. Not nearly so much food would be need- 
ed ; there would be less call for nervous energy; 
and naturally it would take the organism some 
little time to readjust itself to changed condi- 
tions. 
It would be well also to remember the neces- 
sity for mentally satisfying yourself as to the 
value of continence before attempting it. To 
follow any particular regimen, and not to have 
faith in it, will result usually in but slight bene- 
fit; but if you can once convince yourself that 
you will be benefited, made stronger, healthier 
and more capable by re-absorbing into the sys- 308 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
tem all this marvellously rich fluid that you 
have heretofore wasted, there is not the slight- 
est doubt of your ultimately securing vast ad- 
vantages through the change. 
It is an unquestionable fact that, during the 
first two, or even four months after making a 
change of this character, you may be inclined 
to feel that it has been of little profit to you. 
In fact, there are some conditions wherein it 
would take as much as six months for your 
organism to readjust itself to the changed con- 
ditions, and to prove absolutely to you, that 
you have been benefited by the change. There- 
fore, do not be discouraged if continence does 
not seem to show results of immediate benefit. 
Yet, if you adhere to your resolution, if you 
really desire to lead the highest and purest life, 
and wish to secure all that is best in your 
career, there cannot be a doubt as to the ulti- 
mate advantage of a continent life. 
Especially are the advantages of a life of this 
kind to be noted in the working powers of your 
mentality. Under the influence of continence DIVERTION OF ENERGY. 
309 
your mind is clearer, stronger, and more capa- 
ble. It is not as wavering as formerly it was. 
Your mental conclusions are more easily and 
quickly reached, and intellectual work of this 
kind, if a continent life is adhered to, will be 
carried on with far greater facility and ease. 
"The principle of sexual desire is a part of 
the constitution of man. That it was intended 
to be gratified is evident from the fact that with- 
out such gratification the race would immedi- 
ately cease to exist. Again, if it were not 
placed under restrictions, that is, were promis- 
cuous intercourse permitted, the race would 
perish from neglect of offspring, and universal 
sterility. Thus, universal celibacy and unlim- 
ited indulgence would both equally defeat the 
end of the Creator. It is therefore as evident 
that our Creator has imposed a limit to this 
desire as that he has implanted within us the 
desire itself. It is the object of the law of 
chastity to explain and enforce this limit."- 
Wayland's "Moral Science/' p. 295. CHAPTER XXXVI. 
THE THRILL OF A TENDER CARESS. 
Love's first and most fascinating manifesta- 
tion comes with a tender caress. It may be 
the touch of the hand, the glance from the love- 
lit eyes, or the touch of the warm, red lips, but 
from such a caress there is as much really sat- 
isfying emotional pleasure as there is from the 
tenderest intimacies that follow. 
Where the nervous system is so delicately 
adjusted, where one is so extremely sensitive as 
to be able to be so affected by love's minor mani- 
festations, the possession of a superior nature 
of extreme intensity usually is indicated. Life 
probably holds no greater pleasure than that 
which can be communicated from one to another 
by a man and a woman thoroughly enamored 
of each other. To be in each other's company, 
to inhale the aroma of the presence each of the 
310 THE THRILL OF A TENDER CARESS. 
311 
other, to be able to touch the hand, or to look 
into the eyes of the one who is capable of 
arousing all the ardent intensity of an intense 
nature-all these are pleasures that cannot be 
described in words. 
There are few men, and few women, who, 
being in possession of their normal powers and 
faculties, have not experienced at some time in 
their lives pleasures of this character. How 
they look back to them, and long for them to 
reappear, even though they frequently look 
upon such emotions as dead and gone forever! 
How often we hear the statement made that 
marriage is the graveyard of love! How often 
does the statement prove to be too sadly true. 
All these delicately sensitive pleasures that life 
holds, and which come from the association 
of men and women thoroughly enamored of 
each other, may lose their attraction forever 
through the influence of animal excesses. Up- 
on a view of the dire evils resulting from 
uncontrolled passion in love, the best men and 
deepest thinkers of all times, from Plato down 312 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
to Tolstoi, have set themselves to calm, to edu- 
cate, to ennoble that reciprocal affection which, 
if rightly directed, results only in happiness to 
the individual and to the world. 
One might suppose that the last man on earth 
to write on so warm a subject would be so cold 
a thinker as Herbert Spencer. Yet of the 
complex mystery that unites in one the lovers 
who together have felt its irresistible attrac- 
tion, he says: "Love is the most compound, and 
therefore the most powerful of all the feelings. 
Added to the purely physical elements of it, 
are first to be noticed those highly complex im- 
pressions produced by personal beauty; around 
which are aggregated a variety of pleasurable 
ideas, not themselves amatory, but which have 
an organized relation to the amatory feeling. 
With this there is united the complex sentiment 
which we term affection-a sentiment which, 
as it can exist between those of the same sex, 
must be regarded as an independent sentiment, 
but one which is here greatly exalted. Then 
there is the sentirpent of admiration, respect, THE THRILL OF A TENDER CARESS. 
313 
of reverence; in itself one of considerable 
power, and which in this relation becomes in a 
high degree active. There comes next the feel- 
ing called love of approbation. To be preferred 
above all the world, and that by one admired 
beyond all others, is to have the love of approba- 
tion gratified in a degree passing every previ- 
ous experience; especially as there is added that 
indirect gratification of it which results from 
the preference being witnessed by others. Fur- 
ther, the allied emotion of self-esteem comes 
into play. To have succeeded in gaining such 
attachment from and sway over another is a 
proof of power which cannot fail to excite 
agreeably the amour propre. Yet, again, the 
proprietary feeling has its share in the general 
activity. There is the pleasure of possession- 
the two belonging to each other. Once more, 
the relation allows of an extended liberty of 
action. Towards each other a restrained be- 
havior is requisite. Around each there is a suit- 
able boundary that may not be crossed-an in- 
dividuality on which none may trespass. But 314 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
in this case the barriers are thrown down, and 
the love of unrestrained activity is gratified. 
Finally, there is an exaltation of the sympathies. 
Egotistic pleasures of all kinds are doubled by 
another's sympathetic participation, and the 
pleasures of another are added to the egotistic 
pleasures. Thus, around the physical feeling 
forming the nucleus of the whole, are gathered 
the feelings produced by personal beauty that 
constitute simple attachments, those of rever- 
ence, of love of approbation, of self-esteem, of 
property, of love of freedom, of sympathy. 
These, all greatly exalted and severally tend- 
ing to reflect their excitements on one another, 
unite to form the mental state we call love. 
And as each of them is in itself comprehensive 
of multitudinous states of consciousness, we 
may say that this passion fuses into immense 
aggregate most of the elementary excitations of 
which we are capable; and that hence results 
its irresistible power." 
Drawn by this "irresistible power" of love 
Don Juan and his Haidee, wandering by the THE THRILL OF A TENDER CARESS. 
315 
moonlit sea, and listening to the lapping of the 
waves and the whispering of the breeze, feel 
impelled to gaze upon each other; when sud- 
denly, as Byron says, they 
Saw each other's dark eyes darting light 
Into each other-and beholding this, 
Their lips drew near, and clung into a kiss. 
They had not spoken, but they felt allured, 
As if their souls and lips each other beckoned, 
Which, being joined, like swarming bees, they clung- 
Their hearts the flowers from whence the honey sprung. CHAPTER XXXVII. 
WHO IS TO BLAME WHEN HANDS GROW 
CLAMMY AND LIPS COLD? 
"Pray, how comes Love? 
It comes unsought, unsent. 
Pray, how goes Love? 
That was not love that went" 
Is it the man or the woman that is to blame 
when each loses attraction for the other ? 
When there is no longer a thrill from the touch 
of the hand, a bright gleam in the partner's eye 
causes no pleasurable emotion, what influence 
is it that has brought about the change? Let 
us dissect this problem in sections. 
There can be no effect without a cause. If 
two persons of opposite sex are enamored of 
each other to-day, why not to-morrow, and why 
not next year? If a marriage has become a 
"graveyard of love," does it not indicate that 
there has been something wrong with the mar- 
316 WHO IS TO BLAME f 
317 
riage? The true explanation is that excesses 
dig the grave of love. It is not marriage; it is 
a misinterpretation of the duties and the privi- 
leges of marriage. This it is that has made 
love's funeral possible. Therefore it is animal- 
ism, and the excesses which accompany it, that 
really make the hands grow clammy and the 
lips cold and unattractive. 
Excess destroys love's highest and holiest 
manifestation. It subverts and benumbs the 
sensitiveness of the nervous organism. Ca- 
resses lose their attraction under its influence. 
In its presence love grows commonplace and 
unattractive. Perhaps in many instances it is 
the man who is at fault. Sometimes it may be 
the woman. But both should remember that if 
a woman possesses the normal instinct, and that 
if she forces her husband to follow its sensitive 
dictates, animalism or excesses could never 
under any circumstances occur. 
There is another view to be presented-the 
sentimental one. Ofttimes a man sees a 
woman and determines that he must win her. 318 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
She appears to him to be wholesome, and under 
such circumstances the average man does not 
subject his feelings to qualitative and quanti- 
tative critical analysis. He does not realize that 
the woman's appearance of wholesomeness 
comes from her possession of the most abun- 
dant health, of exceeding vitality. 
Such a man enters the arena of love and sex- 
ual conquest with no debased ideas. He is not 
attracted to the woman by any conscious real- 
ization of her physical charms. Her seeming 
possession of wholesomeness and of sweetness 
of temper has caused the man to feel that he 
has discovered the one woman in the world with 
whom his life can be spent happily. 
So much for the attraction that the woman 
offers the man. On the other hand, she may 
discover, or think she discovers, that he is a 
man of such excellent, all-around good prin- 
ciple that she cannot help feeling vast respect 
for him. He loves her, and is not conscious of 
the fact that there is anything sensual in the 
love. He does not scrutinize the lines of her WHO IS TO BLAME? 
319 
figure, nor does he wait for a glimpse of one 
of her ankles. The man who falls in love in the 
truest way that a man may do affords himself 
no speculation as to what the woman's physical 
charms may be. The physical charm may ex- 
ist, but he does not understand it-nor does he 
even try to understand it. The underlying 
principle of the great attraction that the woman 
possesses for him is in her physical perfection, 
her sweetness of temper, and loyalty of dis- 
position. 
It has been suggested already that woman's 
somewhat unconscious love for a man is based 
on a feeling of vast respect. To some extent 
she is influenced by amativeness, but this is 
wholly a sub-conscious condition. During 
courtship she! does not realize amativeness. 
If she has made a wise choice in the man she 
will not realize the full meaning of the sex in- 
stinct until marriage has given her the right. 
When a woman, at first happily wedded, 
ceases to love her husband, what is the cause? 
She has discovered that he is not as strong. 320 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
brave, moral and generous as she had believed 
him to be. The spell of ardent courtship was 
upon her, and the man deceived her into be- 
lieving him something that he was not. 
When a man of true principle finds that he 
no longer loves his wife, what is the probable 
cause? It is ill-health, due to excesses, or else 
it is the discovery that she does not really pos- 
sess the mental and moral qualities that she 
appeared to display during courtship. 
It may be laid down as an axiom that, when 
love grows cold on either side from other causes 
than excesses, it is because either the man or 
the woman has failed to exhibit in married life 
the qualities that were seemingly promised dur- 
ing the blissful days of courtship. Love that 
has grown cold is due, on one side or the other, 
to the discovery of a case of false pretenses. 
When a man and woman continue through- 
out fife to show that they are just what they 
had pretended to be during courtship divorce 
courts will have to be abolished. Can there be 
any sweeter, purer sight than that of a couple WHO IS TO BLAME? 
321 
of married lovers who are celebrating their 
golden wedding? Their love is based on 
dearly-bought experience-but they love! 
Either is willing to die for the other, but each 
prefers to live for the other! 
If you can, chat with either member of a 
matrimonial firm like this. You will discover 
that neither has been addicted to excesses, that 
both have lived the right life. You will find 
that both husband and wife have lived up to all 
the promises implied during their courtship. CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
THE PLAIN REMEDY FOR THOSE WHO HAVE 
MADE A WRONG BEGINNING. 
Many who are already married, and who are 
dragging out a commonplace, humdrum exist- 
ence, may ask if there is a remedy in their case. 
Would it be possible, they ask, for them again to 
live through the joys they experienced in their 
courtship and honeymoon ? 
If both husband and wife are seriously de- 
sirous of bringing about a change of this kind, 
and if they will determine to "begin all over 
again," there can be no doubt of their ability to 
effect a radical reform in their marital relations. 
In order to accomplish this object most effec- 
tively it would be best undoubtedly for husband 
and wife to be apart for a period of from one 
to six months. This would be the pleasantest, 
and perhaps the easiest, method of bringing 
322 REMEDY FOR WRONG BEGINNING. 
323 
about this change in their relations. This, how- 
ever, is not by any means indispensable; for, if 
both will strongly determine to follow out the 
rules of life that are laid down in the chapter 
on "Monogamy in its Perfect State," they will 
find gradually that their attraction for each 
other is on the increase. Of course it will be 
more difficult to resist the usual indulgences 
under the circumstances; but if you are desir- 
ous of entering into this new and nobler life, 
you must remember the need of mental deter- 
mination. It is not an easy change that is 
proposed in this book, but its rewards will 
compensate, a thousand times over, the efforts 
required. 
If you are in the habit of occupying the same 
apartment, the very first step in this change 
should be at least a separation in beds, and pref- 
erably a separation in apartments. Both should 
see that they are interestingly occupied. Have 
some work or pleasure that takes up all of your 
waking hours. Remove your mind absolutely 
from matters of a sexual nature. 324 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
We cannot too often repeat that nothing more 
surely tends to the establishment and healthy 
progress of a permanent love in wedlock than 
the observance of temperance in sexual indul- 
gence. Over-indulgence, in this more than in 
anything else, defeats its own end; while tem- 
perance, instead of producing disgust and be- 
littling the lovers in each other's eyes, enhances 
their mutual satisfaction and lifts their delight 
in each other out of the low and carnal into the 
pure and spiritual. Mere sexual indulgence is 
vulgar; and when a married couple have become 
thoroughly awake to the fact that they are 
merely two vulgar animals, that they have to- 
gether sensualized their highest human in- 
stincts and prostituted them to the lowest ends, 
it is impossible that they should longer truly 
love or even respect each other. The only way 
to retain the charm of mutual love, is for both, 
as a foundation principle, to avoid everything 
unworthy of respect. Mutual respect is at the 
basis of mutual love; without it. the whole 
superstructure of marriage is a house upon the REMEDY FOR WRONG BEGINNING. 
325 
sand. Give free rein to your lust, and with it 
will go your self-respect, and the esteem and 
affection of a wife or a husband, leaving in 
your possession only a "skeleton in the closet." 
But if, remembering that you are a man or a 
woman, and not a brute, you persistently sub- 
ordinate the mere sexual to the intellectual and 
moral, you will reap the reward of a love that 
shall never lose its bloom; a love that shall grow 
stronger, fresher, more youthful with increas- 
ing years. CHAPTER XXXIX. 
CAN A DEAD LOVE BE REVIVED? 
"He who stems a stream with sand, 
And fetters flame with flaxen band, 
Has yet a harder task to prove, 
By firm resolve to conquer love." 
-S' cott. 
The statement is often made that a dead love 
can never be revived; that a love once reduced 
to ashes can never be resurrected. This is not 
by any means true in every case. Bring back 
the identical conditions under which love first 
sprang into life, and in nearly every instance 
the old love will be revived. 
To those who may be desirous of reviving a 
love that long has ceased to exist, let me say: 
First of all, give attention to physical improve- 
ment. Physical wholesomeness is the first es- 
sential to the existence of love. As long as a 
man and a woman are in possession of physical 
326 CAN A DEAD LOVE BE REVIVED? 
327 
health, they are capable of loving and of arous- 
ing each other's love. Build up a superior 
physique, so that your eyes may be bright, that 
your cheeks may be ruddy, that your body may 
be of pleasing contour, and your muscles elastic 
and supple. In other words, make yourself 
youthful in appearance and in action. Make 
yourself actually feel the energy and the emo- 
tion of youth. If those who are interested in 
reviving a dead love will follow this advice, if 
they will develop a physical strength and whole- 
someness that will make them lovable and capa- 
ble of loving; there should then be no doubt of 
their ability to resurrect an old love into its 
pristine activity. 
Physical Culture is of essential value in 
bringing about such a result. It can accomplish 
the actual physical changes that are first of all 
essential. There must be attraction before there 
can be love. There must be health and strength 
before there can be any attraction that amounts 
to anything; and those who have allowed them- 
selves to decay physically, or who have become 328 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
prematurely old, wrinkled and careworn, can 
find in Physical Culture a method that will 
bring back all the joys and exhilaration of 
youthful strength and elasticity. Love, a cynL 
cal writer has said, consists of 
"A little sighing, 
A little crying, 
A little dying, 
And-a deal of lying." 
He who cannot believe in purer ideals is well- 
off out of wedlock. CHAPTER XL. 
A COLD, DETAILED ANALYSIS OF LOVERS 
EMOTIONS. 
Poets and novelists have painted love in all 
its most attractive hues. They have veiled it in 
mystery and have added thereby to its seduc- 
tiveness. But, in reality, there is little that is 
mysterious about love. Its effects may seem 
mysterious; the strange and pleasurable emo- 
tions that it excites may appear to be beyond 
human comprehension; but, after all, love 
serves simply a useful purpose. Certainly it 
adds much to the delight of living. The world 
would be a cold, dreary place without love. 
The human race would be exterminated soon if 
love ceased suddenly to exert its beneficial in- 
fluence. 
Love is the most powerful of all human emo- 
tions. It serves, perhaps, the most useful pur- 
329 330 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
pose of all our emotions. Through its attrac- 
tions the sexes are drawn together, and, as a 
resu't, we have the beauties of home life, of 
children and of all those environments that 
tend to make life more than ordinarily happy. 
It is pleasing to note that health and strength 
of body constitute one of the principal require- 
ments of the continued existence of love. 
When long-continued weakness has existed the 
flame of love gradually burns less brightly. 
Love serves a useful purpose in creating new 
human lives. It keeps up the continued stream 
of humanity from birth to the grave. But love 
-or passion, whichever you may choose to call 
it-if coldly analyzed, depends largely upon 
sexual health. A man or woman is capable of 
loving only to the extent that he or she may be 
gifted with the nervous strength of sex. If a 
man is well sexed, he is capable of loving in- 
tensely ; and the same may be said of a woman. 
It is true, therefore, that your ability to love 
is influenced largely by your sex nature. Love 
is a matter of sex, of instinct, and of health. It ANALYSIS OF LOVERS EMOTIONS. 
331 
is right that it should be so if love is to serve 
the practical purpose of supplying the human 
race with new material. 
"In the growth to perfect love there are 
other things to be considered besides the simi- 
larity of minds. It is needed that the united 
man and woman have all the physical functions 
in vigorous and normal exercise; good health, 
with positive freedom from pain and disease; 
for it is only through sound and vigorous 
health that the mind is enlarged and love grows. 
Illness and its attendant miseries are in contra- 
vention of Nature's laws, and in opposition to 
the harmony and unison necessary to love." 
Given this desirable condition of perfect 
health, which no man or woman who possesses 
it would willingly renounce for all the sickly 
sentimentality of popular poetical and romantic 
love-sickness in the world, and the conception 
of love takes on a character worthy of human 
aspiration. Instead of being the dead-and- 
alive thing that "creeps into houses and leads 
captive silly women"-and men-it is seen to 332 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
be an honest agent of human welfare, promis- 
ing gratification, companionship, and a happy- 
home, in return for good, old-fashioned faith- 
fulness to oneself, to one's companion, and 
to mankind. 
Divested of mystery, healthy love offers a 
perfect union of body and soul. On this sub- 
ject, the reformer Tolstoi says : "The difference 
of organization between the man and the wo- 
man is not only physiological, but consists even 
more in the moral qualities which in the man 
we call virility; in the woman, femininity. 
The attraction of sex is based not merely upon 
the desire of physical union, but also upon the 
reciprocal affinity of these contradictory quali- 
ties of the sexes; femininity attracting the man; 
virility, the woman. One sex seeks to complete 
itself in the other; therefore the attraction of 
sex everywhere produces aspirations for spirit- 
ual love as well as for physical union. The 
longing for physical union, and the longing 
for moral union, are two manifestations born of 
this same source of attraction; and they are so ANALYSIS OF LOVERS EMOTIONS. 
333 
dependent upon each other that the satisfaction 
of the one always enfeebles the other. The 
more the aspiration toward moral union is sat- 
isfied, the feebler, even to the point of destruc- 
tion, will become the aspiration toward physi- 
cal union; and inversely, the satisfaction of 
physical attraction enfeebles or destroys the 
moral attraction. Thus, sex attraction is not 
only the physical aspiration that results in 
the birth of children; it may take the form 
of the very highest spiritual union, that of 
thought, or of the very lowest beastly union, or 
of a union higher or lower anywhere between 
these two extremes." He then shows that it 
rests with the husband and wife to choose, ac- 
cording to their make-up, the degree of this 
scale upon which they will live; but that 
wherever they begin, they should always aspire 
toward moral improvement. CHAPTER XLI. 
too ethereal; not practical or possible. 
Many of the readers of this book will con- 
sider no doubt that the theories advanced herein 
are beyond the reach of the ordinary human be- 
ing. Such theories may seem unpractical and 
ethereal. A little careful thought will prove 
to the most prejudiced that the suggestions 
herein contained express nothing but Nature's 
plain laws. They have been taken as nearly as 
possible from Nature. We have gone back 
to a consideration of the highest specimens of 
the animal kingdom, and in their lives we learn 
valuable lessons as to the meaning of Nature's 
higher laws. I realize that the average human 
being considers himself vastly superior to these 
animals; and, from an intellectual standpoint, 
he may be so; but, from a physical standpoint 
he is vastly their inferior. 
334 NOT PRACTICAL OR POSSIBLE. 
335 
The truth of this assertion no reasonable per- 
son will question. The animal world, there- 
fore, is closer to Nature than are we. Animals 
follow more accurately than we the laws of 
Nature as outlined to them through their in- 
stincts. All that has been written in this book, 
therefore, has been done only in an endeavor to 
interpret Nature's laws as they refer to human 
beings. We have lost our instincts. We are 
supposed to have improved upon instinct by 
cur superior intelligence; but intelligence, how- 
ever superior it may be, will never be capable of 
directing us as accurately as would the abso- 
lutely normal instinct. Do not put aside, as 
impracticable, the theories outlined in this vol- 
ume. Give them careful consideration; and by 
all means try to adapt them to your own life; 
and then note closely the consequences. It can 
do you no harm to experiment a little; and if 
you are doubtful, yet are willing to be con- 
vinced, try the experiment by adopting the sug- 
gestions for a few weeks or a few months. 
Even this short trial will benefit you; and it 336 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
is to be hoped that the vast improvement that 
such temporary reform will make in your life 
and in your powers will so impress you with 
the value of the conclusions advanced that not 
only will you permanently follow the true ideas 
yourself, but that you will help to spread the 
truth among your friends and acquaintances. CHAPTER XLII. 
SUMMARY IN BRIEF. 
In beginning this last chapter I must ac- 
knowledge that lack of time has forced me to 
make too free use of quotations and I will ad- 
mit, frankly, that there are many reiterations. 
But all of these repetitions have been due to my 
ardent wish to hammer home truths that, to the 
careful thinker, are so apparent that they should 
be accepted at once as truths. Facts cannot be 
crushed. It is equally true that they cannot be 
presented too often to the mind of the thinker, 
to the seeker after truth. 
The time has come for us to dismiss prudes 
from all serious consideration. Their day is 
past. The sun of knowledge is rising and its 
rays illuminate the truth for us all. I do not 
ask you to believe all that I have told you in this 
volume. There can be no doubt that I have 
337 338 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
been misunderstood. Many of my readers may 
have thought that I claim to be in possession of 
universal knowledge. Any such notion is very 
far removed from the truth. I may claim to be, 
without fear of controversy, a student of all 
the laws of physical, mental and moral health 
and of the climax-happiness! It may be that 
I err. I do not claim to be infallible, but I do 
make the claim that I have devoted the adult 
years of my life to the subject of married life 
as it is presented in this volume. No matter 
how much any one of my readers may differ 
with me, I ask each one to become an earnest, 
pure-minded student of the sex problem on 
which every possibility of life rests. If there 
can be any harm in one with the purest of minds 
striving after truth, then truth itself is harmful, 
unwholesome-dangerous! 
Many members of the reading public regard 
me as a self-elected leader in a new movement. 
I cheerfully accept the charge-and all the stig- 
ma that may go with it! Yet I do not claim 
to be a leader. My only claim is that I am a SUMMARY IN BRIEF. 
339 
student, and my earnest wish is that every 
reader of this volume may find enough therein 
to make him resolve that he, too, will become a 
student. "Know thyself!" Know all about 
thyself! Don't take my word for any state- 
ment contained in this book. Read, reflect, ob- 
serve. Then form your own conclusions. 
Many will undoubtedly inquire if I "practice 
what I preach" in this book. If they refer 
to the past, I would answer "no." I have 
learned many of the facts contained in these 
pages by experience that scorches soul and 
body. I have been literally forced to accept 
them as truth and fact; and speaking of the 
present, I will answer that I am, and will con- 
tinue to be, "true" all through life to the ex- 
alted conception of human morality which is 
taught herein; for it is my firm belief that life- 
long human happiness, complete and satisfying, 
can be secured in no other way. 
At one time many of my bitterest enemies 
were to be found among the members of the 
W. C. T. U. Yet the Purity League of this 340 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
organization is making, now, every effort to 
have all the essential principles of sex morality 
taught in the public schools. These new allies 
are to be welcomed. 
Is it possible that there can be any immorality 
in a full and frank discussion of the sex ques- 
tion? Does not the thorough study of the 
subject work not only for the purity of woman 
but for the purity of man as well ? 
Here is a suggestion that I wish to offer to 
married readers of both sexes : Let the husband 
ever strive to retain the most reverent respect 
for the true glory of womanhood, and to con- 
sider his wife as the noblest exemplar of her 
sex. Let the woman reverence, throughout 
earthly life, the superb qualities of true man- 
hood. Husband must reverence wife; wife 
must reverence husband. Both must strive to 
give every cause for this reverence. Then shall 
men and women live together the life beautiful, 
perfect-holy! 
None can question that all this is possible of 
achievement if every rule in the following brief SUMMARY IN BRIEF. 
341 
summary of the laws governing married life 
be observed: 
(i.) That the natural law and the natural 
human instinct call all through life for the con- 
tinuous love of one man and one woman for 
each other. 
(2.) That being true to each other is not a 
matter of refinement, morals or of superior in- 
telligence. It is merely a matter of instinct, 
and that a similar instinct is possessed in com- 
mon with the human race by all so-called lower 
monogamous animals. 
(3.) That the sex activity of love, to insure 
life-long marital happiness, must be guided by 
an unperverted human instinct. 
(4.) That pregnancy interdicts sex intima- 
cies if the parents desire the progeny to be the 
best possible specimens of human life. 
(5.) That the physical intimacies of mar- 
riage, therefore, must be confined to a few days 
following the menses, and must be allowed at 
no other period. 
(6.) That sexual intimacies at the proper 342 
MARRIAGE A LIFELONG HONEYMOON. 
period have an exhilarating and strengthening 
effect upon the entire physical organism, and 
that at all other periods they debilitate and ex- 
haust the vital forces, and thereby lessen gradu- 
ally the general physical stamina. 
(7.) That, with our present perverted phys- 
ical instincts, it is almost impossible to expect 
human beings to live absolutely up to this ex- 
alted standard, but that men and women must 
recognize the foregoing as a standard-one 
that they should approximate as nearly as pos- 
sible. Occasional diversions will not work 
serious harm, but it should be remembered that 
the more nearly this perfect regime is ap- 
proached the higher will be your general health 
-and the more happiness will life yield. 
THE END. POWER AND BEAUTY OF SUPERB WOMANHOOD 
By BEKNAKK MA^FADDEN 
Handsomely Bound in Cloth and Gold, $1.00. 
You cannot afford to be without this new book. It is worth its weight 
in gold to any woman with brains enough to read, think and act. It will 
enable her to make something of herself. It will enable her to develop 
her highest attainable degree of beauty and power of body. It will save 
many thousands of dollars in doctor's bills. Every book is sold with a 
guarantee to return the money to every dissatisfied purchaser. 
CONTENTS 
SUPERB WOMANHOOD. Its great value. Marvelous, all-in- 
spiring power of beauty. Beauty can be retained to advanced age. 
PRESENT PHYSICAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. Woman can 
be almost equal in strength to man. 
CAUSES OF WRECKED WOMANHOOD. Abnormal and weak- 
ening Influences begin in babyhood. Overfeeding, excessive cloth- 
ing, bad air, fear of sunlight. 
FEARFUL RESULTS OF PRUDISHNESS. The kindergarten of 
all evils which follow. Filthy minds produce filthy bodies. Plain 
duty of mothers and fathers. Must daughters secure their knowl- 
edge from vulgar associates, or from pure sources? 
MARITAL EXCESSES. Marriage a physical union, founded on 
physical attraction. Instinct the only right guide in "falling in 
love." Influences before marriage prevent the development of 
this Instinct. Depraved idea of modern marriage. 
CRUSHING THE PLAY SPIRIT. This natural instinct created 
in every growing girl. A crime to crush it. 
CORSETS. Origin of the use of this device. False standard of 
beauty perpetuates it. Delicacy no longer a sign of beauty. 
CORSETS WEAKEN DIGESTION. Cramped lungs and stomach 
cannot make rich blood. Vigor of early youth able to resist its 
baneful influence. 
CORSETS INCREASE NATURAL SIZE OF WAIST. 
CORSETS AGE WOMEN PREMATURELY. 
CORSETS DESTROY WOMANHOOD. They take away or pre- 
vent the complete development of womanly instinct. The deadly 
downward pressure of corsets misplaces, weakens and destroys the 
organs of sex. 
THE EVILS OF TIGHT SKIRTS. SHOES, ETC. 
OPERATIONS THAT ARE CRIMES. 
CAN WRECKED WOMANHOOD BE RECLAIMED? All can be 
vastly Improved. 
DIET. The great Importance of proper foods. 
FASTING CURES. How to fast to produce results. 
HOW EXERCISE BEAUTIFIES THE BODY. Sparta's beautiful 
woman. 
PHOTOGRAPHS OF DEFECTIVE FIGURES. 
EXERCISES FOR DEVELOPING SUPPLENESS AND SYM- 
METRY. A special system of exercises illustrated by photographs. 
EXERCISES FOR BUST DEVELOPMENT. 
EXERCISES FOR REMEDYING PHYSICAL DEFECTS. 
EXERCISES FOR REMEDYING FEMALE WEAKNESSES. 
NATURAL TREATMENT OF FEMALE WEAKNESSES. 
CHILDBIRTH MADE PAINLESS BY EXERCISE. 
WALKING AND OUTDOOR EXERCISES. 
AIR BATHS. PURE AIR. 
BATHING AND WATER TREATMENT. 
INFALLIBLE REMEDY FOR CONSTIPATION. 
MASSAGE AS A BEAUTIFIER. 
FRICTION BATHS. Great value of this means in giving the 
skin velvety softness and beauty of texture. 
PROPER CARRIAGE OF THE BODY. 
PHYSICAL CULTURE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
Townsend Building, 85th St. & Broadway, N. Y. City OUR NEW 
PHYSICAL CULTURE 
COOK BOOK 
Preface and first chapters by BERNARR MAC- 
FADDEN. The remaining chapters compiled under 
Mr. Macfadden's direction. Bill of fare for one week 
of foods. 
No one cun afford to be without this book. Anyone 
who tries some of our special recipes will discover 
that proper preparation increases the palatability 
of food. Learn how and whatto cook in order to build 
and retain the highest degree of normal health by 
following the recipes of our cook book. 
PARTIAL LIST OF CONTENTS 
Containing clear instructions for making or cooking 
every article mentioned. 
BEVERAGES.-Apple Punch ; Grape Juice ; Lemonade. 
BREAD, ROLLS AND BISCUIT.-Aerated Bread ; Barley Meal Scones; 
Brown Bread; Corn Muffins; Graham Gems: Johnny Cake; Hot Cross Buns; 
Pop Over; Rye Bread; Sally Lunn; Wallies: Whole Wheat Bread; Gems. 
CAKES.-Angel; Centennial; Cocoanut; Cookies: Emit; Drop; Farm- 
er's Fruit; Gingerbread; Hickory Nut; Jelly; Lemon Custard Jelly; 
Marble; Nut Layer; Orange; Pineapple; Pound; Raisin; Sponge. 
CANNING, PRESERVING. PICKLING AND JAMS.-Apples; Berries; 
Cherries; Crabapples; Grapes; Pears; Peaches; Pineapple Marmalade; 
Plums; Quinces; Tomatoes; Strawberries. 
CEREALS.-Fig and Hominy; Indian Meal Mush; Rolled Oats; Whole 
Wheat; Steamed Apples with Oatmeal. 
CHEESE.-Baked Cheese Omelet; Cheese Omelet; Cheese Muff; Cheese 
Ramekin; W elsh Rarebit. 
CONVALESCENTS' DISHES.-Apple Water; Beef Tea: Broth with 
Egg; Chicken; Tea; Currant Juice; Egg Water: Graham Bread for Invalids; 
Junket; Mutton Broth; Oatmeal Gruel; Potato Soup; Rice; Toast and Water. 
EGGS.-Baked: Boiled; Poached: Omelet. 
FISH AND SHELLFISH.-Baked Fish; Boiled Fish; Clam Chowder; 
Clams; Oysters a la Providence; Oysters Broiled: Creamed; Roasted in 
Shell: Scalloped. 
FRUIT.-Apples, Baked; Bananas, Baked; Berries; Cherry Salad; Dates, 
Stuffed; Dates, with Cream; Peaches or Apricots; Figs and Rhubarb; 
Fruit Salad; Oranges, Pineapples; Prunes, Stewed, Stuffed. 
ICES, ICE CREAMS AND FROZEN PUDDING.-Chocolate IceCream: 
Frozen Custard; Frozen Peaches; Grape Sherbet; Orange Ice; Tutti-Frutti 
Pudding: Vanilla Ice Cream. 
MEATS.-Beef; Pot Roast; Roast,Stew; Lamb and Macaroni, Mutton; 
Sweetbreads, Boiled and Creamed. 
NUTS.-Boiled Chestnuts; Creamed Walnuts; Lyonnaise Chestnuts; 
Roasted Almonds, Vegetable Turkey. 
PIES.-Apple; Berry; Blackberry; Cherry; Lemon; Pie Crust; Cream 
and Potato; Puff Paste; Pumpkin. 
POULTRY AND GAME.-Chicken, Baked Omelet; Broiled, Fricasseed; 
Pie, Roast; Patridge Roast; Turkey, Boiled; Venison Roast. 
AND MANY OTHER VALUABLE RECIPES. • 
Bound in Cloth, postpaid, $1.00 
PHYSICAL CULTURE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
Townsend Building 25th Street and Broadway, NEW YORK CITY HOW HEALTH AND STRENGTH ARE GAINED 
The Three Great Remedies of Mature 
FASTING, HYDROPATHY 
AND EXERCISE 
By BERNARR MACFADDEN and FELIX OSWALD, A. M., M. D. 
PART I-FASTING. 
Learn to interpret your instincts. Every organism a 
self- regulating apparatus. Nature's protest against health- 
destroying habits. Starve a man and you will also starve 
his diseases. 
One or more meals daily. Brain work interferes with 
digestion. 
Protracted Fasts. Instances of remarkable cures. 
Fasting cure. 
Seven-day fast of one of the authors. Its effect on 
mind and body. 
HYDROPATHY. 
Cold, Nature's specific for cure of germ diseases. 
Hydropathy a true remedy. The cold water cure. 
Air baths ; their remedial effect equals that of cold water. 
Cold air remedies digestive disorders. Consumptives 
cured in outdoor winter camps. 
EXERCISE. 
Gymnastics substituted for drugs 2,000 years ago. How 
a consumptive miner was cured. 
Indoor exercise. Gymnasiums. Quick benefits from 
movement cures. Bag punching, rowing machines, etc. 
Free movements of sanitarium exercises illustrated. 
PART IV. 
Detailed advice for treatment of Asthma, Fevers, Bil- 
iousness, Blood Diseases, Boils, Bright's disease, Bron- 
chitis, Catarrh, Colds, Constipation, Consumption, Coughs, 
Croup, Diabetes, Diarrhoea, Diphtheria, Dropsy, Dyspep- 
sia, Eczema, Epilepsy, Erysipelas, General Debility, Gout, 
Grippe, Headache, Indigestion, and other diseases. 
^Bound in Cloth, postpaid, $1.00. 
PHYSICAL CULTURE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
Townsend Building 25th St. and Broadway, New York City STRENGTH FROM 
EATING 
By BERNARR MACFADDEN 
How and What to Eat and Drink to Develop Supple 
ness, Strength and Beauty of Body 
BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS 
Value of Normal Appetite. Digestion Begins in 
Mouth. Importance of Mastification. Process of 
Digestion. Air, Water and Solids as Foods. One, 
Two and Three Meals a Day Plan Discussed. Meat 
and Mixed Diet. Vegetarian Diet. Cooking. Raw 
Foods. Health Foods. Importance of Proper 
Foods. Influence of Occupation. Temperament on 
Appetite. Influence of Temperature on Demand for 
Food. Overeating and Its Evils. Effect of Liquors. 
Drinking at Meals. Coffee and Tea Evils. White 
Bread Evil. Elements of Common Foods. What to 
Select in the Way of Food to Produce Fat, Muscular 
Tissue, Mental Activity. Complete list of the chief 
food products, with their chemical analyses. 
Bound in Cloth, sent post-paid for $1.00 
Physical Culture Publishing Company 
Townsend Building 
25th STREET AND BROADWAY NEW YORK CITY