E-text prepared by Sankar Viswanathan, Sally Pursell, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 31790-h.htm or 31790-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/31790/pg31790-images.html) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/31790/31790-h.zip) FAMILY LIMITATION by MARGARET H. SANGER Revised Sixth Edition 1917 INTRODUCTION. There is no need for any one to explain to the working men and women in America what this pamphlet is written for or why it is necessary that they should have this information. They know better than I could tell them, so I shall not try. I have tried to give the knowledge of the best French and Dutch physicians translated into the simplest English, that all may easily understand. There are various and numerous mechanical means of prevention which I have not mentioned here, mainly because I have not come into personal contact with those who have used them or could recommend them as entirely satisfactory. I feel there is sufficient information given here, which, if followed, will prevent a woman from becoming pregnant unless she desires to do so. If a woman is too indolent to wash and cleanse herself, and the man too selfish to consider the consequences of the act, then it will be difficult to find a preventive to keep the woman from becoming pregnant. Of course, it is troublesome to get up to douche, it is also a nuisance to have to trouble about the date of the menstrual period. It seems inartistic and sordid to insert a pessary or a suppository in anticipation of the sexual act. But it is far more sordid to find yourself several years later burdened down with half a dozen unwanted children, helpless, starved, shoddily clothed, dragging at your skirt, yourself a dragged out shadow of the woman you once were. Don't be over sentimental in this important phase of hygiene. The inevitable fact is that unless you prevent the male sperm from entering the womb, you are going to become pregnant. Women of the working class, especially wage workers, should not have more than two children at most. The average working man can support no more and the average working woman can take care of no more in decent fashion. It has been my experience that more children are not really wanted, but that the women are compelled to have them either from lack of foresight or through ignorance of the hygiene of preventing conception. It is only the workers who are ignorant of the knowledge of how to prevent bringing children in the world to fill jails and hospitals, factories and mills, insane asylums and premature graves. The working women can use direct action by refusing to supply the market with children to be exploited, by refusing to populate the earth with slaves.