disbelief at the gentle complaint of bodily anguish; many a divorce takes its origin in the charge of lost affection, because a wife refuses to be accessory to her own slow destruction; in many cases she prefers to this disgrace, and resorts to, suicide. These are facts, instances of all of which have been known to me. There are men, and very many women, who will thank me for so plainly stating them. Men do I say? They are facts that should be made known to every man, that, so warned, he may live a truly manly, generous, and dutiful life. For these rights, of which I have been speaking, are, in reality, not absolute, but reciprocal with duties. How can we ourselves expect enjoyment, if perchance we are inflicting terrible suffering? How can we look for constant and untiring affection, if, inconsiderate or brutal, we compel what would be withheld perhaps, however reluctantly, by ill health? Is it thus we would cherish? As we sow, even so must we reap. No true conjugal enjoyment can exist, unless it is mutual. We cannot be loved, unless we are respected. We cannot be respected, even by our wives, unless we respect them. The true rule should be to take only what is freely given; were this the case, far more freely would gifts be offered. FOOTNOTES: [37] Simpson. Obstetric Works, vol. ii. p. 294. [38] New York Medical Journal, Sept., 1866, p. 423. VI. SHOULD MERE INSTINCT, OR REASON, BE THE RULE? I have said that while some men are brutal in their conjugal relations, others are simply inconsiderate; and I have referred somewhat plainly to very important matters that “prurient prudes” would keep concealed. I have expressed my condemnation of the vile practices by which the size of families is kept in these latter days at the minimum. In ancient commonwealths, the most fruitful mother was considered to have deserved well of her nation, and a statue was erected in her honor. Now, on the contrary, such a wife is considered as almost the greatest misfortune that can occur to a man, and women have learned to consider the carrying into effect the noblest purposes of their being as alike a disaster and a disgrace.