In the early Christian Church many rules of sexual abstinence still prevailed, similar to those usual among savages, though not for such prolonged periods. In Egbert's Penitential, belonging to the ninth century, it is stated that a woman must abstain from intercourse with her husband three months after conception and for forty days after birth. There were a number of other occasions, including Lent, when a husband must not know his wife.[223] "Some canonists say," remarks Jeremy Taylor, "that the Church forbids a mutual congression of married pairs upon festival days.... The Council of Eliberis commanded abstinence from conjugal rights for three or four or seven days before the communion. Pope Liberius commanded the same during the whole time of Lent, supposing the fast is polluted by such congressions."[224] FOOTNOTES: [196] A. Sutherland, _Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct_, vol. i, pp. 8, 187. As has been shown by, for instance, Dr. Iwan Bloch (_Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Erster Theil, 1902), every perverse sexual practice may be found, somewhere or other, among savages or barbarians; but, as the same writer acutely points out (p. 58), these devices bear witness to the need of overcoming frigidity rather than to the strength of the sexual impulse. [197] Ploss and Bartels have brought together in _Das Weib_ a large number of facts in the same sense, more especially under the headings of _Abstinenz-Vorschriften_ and _Die Fernhaltung der Schwangeren_. I have not drawn upon their collection. [198] _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, May, 1896, p. 369. [199] Hyades and Deniker, _Mission Scientifique du Cap Horn_, vol. vii, p. 188. [200] F. Cook, _New York Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics_, 1894. [201] A. d'Orbigny, _L'Homme Américain_, 1839, vol. i, p. 47. [202] A.B. Holder, "Gynecic Notes Among the American Indians," _American Journal of Obstetrics_, 1892, vol. xxvi, No. 1. [203] _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1905, p. 139. [204] Foley, _Bulletin de la Société d' Anthropologie_, Paris, November 6, 1879. [205] J.S. Gardiner, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, February, 1898, p. 409. [206] As regards the modern Maoris, a medical correspondent in New Zealand writes: "It is nothing for members of both sexes to live in the same room, and for promiscuous intercourse to take place between father and daughter or brother and sister. Maori women, who will display a great deal of modesty when in the presence of male Maoris, will openly ask strange Europeans to have sexual intercourse with them, and without any desire for reward. The men, however, seem to prefer their own women, and even when staying in towns, where they can obtain prostitutes, they will remain continent until they return home again, a period of perhaps a month."