Searchlights on Health: The Science of EugenicsJefferis, B. G. (Benjamin Grant)
Philosophy
Searchlights on Health: The Science of Eugenics
Jefferis, B. G. (Benjamin Grant)
Eugenics; Hygiene; Marriage; Medicine, Popular; Sexual ethics
8. WOMAN IS EVER PROUD, and justly so, of the manly passion of her
husband, when she knows it is controlled by a love for her, whose
manifestations have regard only to her elevation and happiness. The
power which, when bent only on selfish indulgence, becomes a source
of more shame, degradation, disease and wretchedness, to women and to
children than all other things put together, does but ennoble her, add
grace and glory to her being, and concentrate and vitalize the love
that encircles her as a wife when it is controlled by wisdom and
consecrated to her highest growth and happiness, and that of her
children. It lends enchantment to her person, and gives a fascination
to her smiles, her words and her caresses, which ever breathe of
purity and of heaven, and make her all lovely as a wife and mother
to her husband and the father of her child. _Manly passion is to the
conjugal love of the wife like the sun to the rose-bud, that opens its
petals, and causes them to give out their sweetest fragrance and to
display their most delicate tints; or like the frost, which chills and
kills it ere it blossoms in its richness and beauty._
9. A DIADEM OF BEAUTY.--Maternity, when it exists at the call of the
wife, and is gratefully received, but binds her heart more tenderly
and devotedly to her husband. As the father of her child, he stands
before her invested with new beauty and dignity. In receiving from him
the germ of a new life, she receives that which she feels is to add
new beauty and glory to her as a woman--a new grace and attraction to
her as a wife. She loves and honors him, because he has crowned
her with the glory of a mother. Maternity, to her, instead of being
repulsive, is a diadem of beauty, a crown of rejoicing; and deep,
tender, and self-forgetting are her love and reverence for him who
has placed it on her brow. How noble, how august, how beautiful is
maternity when thus bestowed and received!
10. CONCLUSION.--Would you, then, secure the love and trust of
your wife, and become an object of her ever-growing tenderness and
reverence? Assure her, by all your manifestations, and your perfect
respect for the functions of her nature, that your passion shall be
in subjection of her wishes. It is not enough that you have secured
in her heart respect for your spiritual and intellectual manhood. To
maintain your self-respect in your relations with her, to perfect
your growth and happiness as a husband, you must cause your _physical_
nature to be tenderly cherished and reverenced by her in all the
sacred intimacies of home. No matter how much she reverences your
intellectual or your social power, if by reason of your uncalled-for
passional manifestations you have made your physical manhood
disagreeable, how can you, in her presence, preserve a sense of manly
pride and dignity as a husband?
[Illustration]
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HEALTH AND DISEASE.
Heredity and the Transmission of Diseases.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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