Married Love: A New Contribution to the Solution of Sex DifficultiesStopes, Marie Carmichael
Science
Married Love: A New Contribution to the Solution of Sex Difficulties
Stopes, Marie Carmichael
Man-woman relationships; Marriage; Sex (Psychology); Sex differences; Sex in marriage
Here and there an exceptional woman has gone through the months of
pregnancy with no handicap, with not even morning sickness. Instead
of looking upon her as an enviable exception, as all do now, look
upon her as the normal standard which all should attain! One of the
aids to attaining this standard for every prospective mother would
be the knowledge by all adult women that, directly they know they
are bearing a child, they should instantly discard not only all
corsets, but all clothes of every kind which are heavy and close
or which have any definite bands or tight fastenings. Specialists
are content to say no harm accrues if a woman wears "comfortable"
corsets until the third or fourth month. I denounce this as
misleading folly. The sensitiveness to pressure, often unconscious,
at such a time is extraordinary, and the penalty of even the
lightest pressure is the morning sickness. The standard of clothing
should be so light, so loose, that a butterfly could walk upon the
bare skin beneath the clothes without breaking its wings. This may
seem exaggerated to nearly everyone, but it is a very profound truth.
Another aid to buoyant health during this time is to add to the diet
the largest possible amount of uncooked fruit, particularly oranges,
plums, and apples.
Various books have been written on the health in pregnancy, though
few of these are enlightened. Although one must deplore the many
mistakes in elementary chemistry which are made therein, by far
the best of the books on this subject known to me is Dr. Alice
Stockham's "Tokology." In this book it is only such comparative
trifles as the calling of carbonaceous material _carbonates_ which,
though sufficient to prejudice the scientific mind against the rest
of her work, does not really affect the profound truth of the gist
of her message--a message which was first given to the public by a
wise old Englishman long ago.
_Addition_ 4 (_to page_ 85)
Owing partly to the incredible ignorance of our bodily structure
in which it is possible for a grown man or woman not only to enter
marriage but to be married for years, sometimes apparently childless
unions are not in any sense due to the incapacity of either partner
for parenthood, but are due sometimes to trifling impediments which
can easily be removed, or to trifling peculiarities of construction
which can very simply be overcome.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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