Taboo and genetics : $b A study of the biological, sociological and psychological foundation of the familyKnight, Melvin M. (Melvin Moses)
Science
Taboo and genetics : $b A study of the biological, sociological and psychological foundation of the family
Knight, Melvin M. (Melvin Moses)
Sex (Biology); Sex (Psychology); Taboo; Women
Statistics available for conditions among the American Expeditionary
Forces must be treated with great caution. Detection of these diseases
at certain stages is extremely difficult. Because of the courtesy
extended to our men by our allies, cases were treated in French and
English hospitals of which no record is available. But it is fairly safe
to say that there was no such prevalence of disease as was shown by the
Exner Report to have existed on the Mexican Border. It may even be
predicted that the education in hygienic measures which the men received
may in time affect favourably the health of the male population and
through them their wives and children. But all who came in contact with
this problem in the army know that it is a long way to the
understanding of the difficulties involved before we approach a
solution. We do know, on the basis of the work, of Neisser, Lesser,
Forel, Flexner and others, that regulation and supervision seem to
increase the incidence of disease. Among the reasons for this are: (1)
difficulties of diagnosis; (2) difficulties attendant on the
apprehension and examination of prostitutes; (3) the infrequency of
examination as compared with the number of clients of these women; and
perhaps as important as any of these reasons is the false sense of
security involved.
The model woman of the past has known very little of the prostitute and
venereal disease. It is often stated that her moral safety has been
maintained at the expense of her fallen and unclean sister. But such
statements are not limited as they should be by the qualification that
her moral safety obtained in such a fashion is often at the expense of
her physical safety. If the assumption has a basis in fact that there is
a relation between prostitution and monogamic marriage, the complexity
of the problem becomes evident. It is further complicated by the
postponement of marriage from economic reasons, hesitation at the
assumption of family responsibilities at a time of life when ambition as
well as passion is strong, when the physiological functions are
stimulated by city life and there is constant opportunity for relief of
repression for a price. It is here that the demarcation between the
man's and the woman's world shows most clearly. It may well be that the
only solution of this problem is through the admission of a new
factor--the "good" woman whom taboo has kept in ignorance of a problem
that is her own. If it be true that the only solution for the double
standard whose evils show most plainly here is a new single standard
which has not yet been found, then it is high time that we find what
that standard is to be, for the sake of the future.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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