A whole chapter could be written upon this theme, and indeed it should be written. In the union during pregnancy, a woman is by nature debarred from the complete and intense muscular orgasm and for her, indeed, the union must essentially consist almost solely of the close contact of skin with skin and of the absorption of molecular particles as well as the resolution of nervous tension as the result of so close and prolonged a contact. Among the children known to me personally, several of the most beautiful were the children of mothers and fathers who had unions during the months of their development. The following quotation from a young husband may be of interest in this connection:-- The day before the birth of our baby, we went for a six-mile walk over country ground, and I slept with my wife the very night before he was born.... We had unions, but not in the ordinary position; she would be on her side with her back to me, and after union would quietly go off to sleep in my arms, and in the morning would wake with a joyful and passionate kiss. Now our baby is one of the finest of babies from all points of view. As I have seen photographs of the child, I can endorse the parent’s opinions. Tolstoy’s condemnation of any sex contact while the wife was pregnant or nursing may have influenced some serious men, but, as in many other respects, Tolstoy’s teaching is so widely contradictory, and depends so much upon his own age and state at the time, one cannot but regret the unbalanced influence his literary power has given him. While this chapter may be taken as an indication that sex union is, in my opinion, not only allowable but advisable for certain types during the time they are carrying a child, nevertheless I do not wish it to be misinterpreted in such a way that a single act of union which is repugnant to the prospective mother should be urged upon her “for her good.” There is undoubtedly a large body of most excellent women who are as individuals distinctly rather undersexed, but who are on the whole good mothers, profoundly well meaning and right minded and virtuous women to whom the time of prospective motherhood is an intensely individual period, during which they feel an active repugnance to any sex union. Women of this type are not able to give the _completest_ dower to their children, but are immensely superior to the average and baser type which forms the majority. If such women do not spontaneously desire unions they should be left unharried by any suggestion that they would benefit by them, and the husbands of such women should, in their own interests, curb any natural impulses which may conflict with the intense feeling of the wife. Husbands, however, should also be aware that such women generally feel as they do because they have never been _wooed_ with sufficient grace and tenderness.