These two simple physical assistances, combined with a definite will to maintain himself purely for his wife, and the definite concentration of his nervous energy to her support with the desire to contribute everything possible, mental and bodily, to the well-being of his child, should suffice to keep the body of a normal man in that condition which his best instincts will approve. Others more acutely handicapped by incorrigible physical requirements, may have a hard time; if it is insupportable, the explanation of that may be the existence of some slight physical abnormality for which they should and can get medical treatment. After the restraint of the time of betrothal, followed by the usage of the honeymoon, the strain of almost total deprivation again, due to the wife’s pregnancy, is greater on the husband than it need be; and this is another argument in favour of deferring conception for at least some months or a year after the wedding. (_Cf._ _Married Love_, Chapter IX). Even when, as is indicated later, there may come times when the impulse of the potential family is to unite, the physical condition of the mother may offer a hindrance to the customary form of union, but this with tact and intelligence may be surmounted. CHAPTER XII The Union of Three “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.” In the early days of our modern civilization, that is to say within the last couple of hundred years, the treatment of women in Western Europe sank to a terribly low ebb. Although the last few years have done much to restore woman to some of her ancient rights and privileges, there are still among us a distressing proportion of ignorant, coarse and consequently ruthless men who are not debarred from becoming husbands. Such men have been in the past in the habit of “using their wives” regardless of the desires or even the actual health requirements of the unfortunate women who are tied to them, and such men have made a practice of continuing to indulge in sex union even through the later stages of pregnancy. I have heard from midwives, to my amazed horror, that some such depraved men (not bestial, for no beast behaves in such a way) have even used their wives while they are still in bed after child birth. With such I have in this volume no concern beyond the mention that they are loathsome.